February 20, 2024 Show with Blake White AND Zach Maxcey on “The Covenant vs. New Covenant Theology Divide”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

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It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens

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have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener,

with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity

living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this

20th day of February 2024.

I'm asking for continued prayers from my listeners, you folks,

hundreds of you responded to my prayer request a couple of weeks ago about my

bout with Bell's palsy.

Well, it seems as just when the Bell's palsy

vanished from my system, I now am battling what

appears to be COVID, and the reason why I say that with a certain

amount of certainty is I got ill the next

day after having a business meeting with one of my advertising clients who

was diagnosed with COVID, and I stupidly used his

pen to sign the contract.

So, in fact, on my way home after getting that contract signed,

it hit me, uh -oh, I used his pen, and sure enough, the next day I got sick,

so I'm assuming it is also COVID.

I don't know that for a fact, but I am using my friend

pharmacist Banu Gadi's protocol of mega doses of vitamin

D3, and it appears to be working because I am steadily getting better, but I appreciate your

prayers.

Today we are having a program featuring two

folks who are involved in the John Bunyan conference that is coming up

just around the corner in Franklin, Tennessee.

I have many fond memories permanently etched upon my heart

connected with the John Bunyan conference, because when I was a young Christian, I

began to regularly attend the John Bunyan conference, first in

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and then in New Ringle, Pennsylvania, when they were being

led by John Riesinger and Fred Zaspel, and it was always

a joy to attend those events.

I met many new friends that are still my friends today, and I was

always treated with an overwhelming measure of love

and grace and an Irenic spirit, even though I have always been a member,

ever since my salvation, of a church, a Reformed Baptist church that

is a 1689 confessional covenantal Reformed Baptist church,

and that is really what we're talking about today, the divide between covenant theology and new

covenant theology amongst sovereign grace -believing Baptists.

And to discuss this today are Blake White, who is lead pastor

of Southside Baptist Church of Abilene, Texas.

He's an author and a conference speaker.

Welcome, for the very first time, to Iron Shepherd and Zion Radio, Blake White.

Hey, glad to be here.

Thanks for having me.

And we're also joined by Zach Maxey, who is really

running the conference that I just mentioned coming up.

He is an elder at Grace Covenant Church of Portsmouth, Rhode Island,

and president of Providence Theological Institute of New Covenant Theology.

Welcome back to the program, Zach.

Hey, Chris.

Great to be back, and great to be with both of you.

By the way, I know, being a native New Yorker, I'm mispronouncing the name of your city.

How do you pronounce that?

Oh, it's Portsmouth, but that's fine.

Okay.

Well, let's start with you, Pastor Blake, because we have a tradition here in

Iron Shepherd and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their

salvation testimony, including any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised,

and what kind of providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself

and saved them.

And since you are our only first -time guest today, I'd love to hear your story.

Yeah, you bet.

God's been very kind to me, like he's been kind to all of us in Texas, and especially West Texas.

Everyone, I mean, almost everyone says they're a Christian.

It's a lot of Protestant influence and, you know, just a lot of nominal Christianity, and that would have been

me.

Most of my life, I'd go to church a few times a year, usually for the activities or the girls, and

thought I was a Christian, didn't know any better.

And my freshman year of college, so I moved away and went there to play

basketball.

Another city in Texas, Temple, Texas, and basically was in a rough spot,

a rough relationship, was really just pursuing the world, and it wasn't satisfying.

And I knew enough being a West Texas boy, OK, I need to clean up my act.

Part of cleaning up my act, I mean, I need to go to church more.

And so I ended up attending church more and really started to understand the gospel slowly

but surely and realized, oh, it's not that I needed to clean up my act.

I needed to be born again.

I didn't know the Lord, and so I thought I did, and I began to understand what it means to be a Christian, to be born again,

understanding the concepts of sin and faith and repentance.

And so at 19, I became a Christian, and I'm very thankful.

There's many people that I was running with, you know, there, but for the grace of God, it's just a clear testimony of

God's sovereign kindness in my life to open my eyes and show me the air of my way and ultimately show me I was a false convert.

And how did you come to discover the doctrines of sovereign grace?

So that was the next year.

The next year I transferred and was done with basketball, which was in many ways my idol at the time, and transferred to a school in

San Angelo, Texas.

And there was a group of Calvinists at that school, and to be honest, they were a

little bit worldly.

And in fact, I remember one time playing pickup basketball.

They got in a fight with this group of friends, got in a fight with the other team, a fist fight,

a bunch of unbelievers.

You mean like what happens every time we have a business meeting at my church?

That's right.

And so I didn't like these guys, and I didn't know much about Calvinism, but I decided I wanted to prove them

wrong because in my mind, they were giving Christ a bad rep, and I didn't like their theology.

I was zealous for evangelism, and in my simple mind at the time, if God predestined people, what's the point of evangelism?

And so I just kind of went on a journey on my own studying.

And in those days, you know, this was before the days of Google.

This was probably 2000, 2002, 2003.

And I jumped on what probably was AskJeeves .com and just started looking for resources to

try to prove this stuff wrong.

And I just remember DesiringGod .org, didn't know anything about it, didn't know anything about John Piper.

But man, at the time, it had a lot of resources.

And one of the early articles recommended a book by J .I. Packer.

Again, that name meant nothing to me, but it was called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

And so that was my issue was evangelism.

And so I'm looking at both sides and basically one side, the Armenian side would say,

yeah, this verse sounds like it's teaching this, but here's really what's going on.

And then the more Calvinistic side would say, yeah, this verse says this and that's actually what it means.

And then when I grabbed Packer, the fog just cleared for me and I understood a compatibilistic

view of God's sovereignty and human freedom.

So basically, I wanted to prove it wrong, and I lost that battle.

That happened with me as well.

When I got saved out of Roman Catholicism, I was horrified by learning

about the Calvinistic theology of the church where I was attending and where I was

going to be baptized.

And not that I knew anything about Calvinism or even knew who Calvin was, but when I started to

hear about their stance on predestination and unconditional election, I had never

heard about those concepts before.

Even at evangelical churches where I visited while still a lapsed

Catholic, and I even told my elders when they were

preparing to baptize me, I don't know if I'm ever going to believe in this Calvinism stuff.

And sure enough, a member of the church gave me the booklet, George Whitfield's Letter to John Wesley on

Election, and I didn't know who either of those men from history were, but it was

the biblical proof that Whitfield presented to Wesley that convinced me.

And my first reaction was, oh no, this is true, but I still hate it.

But then within maybe two months at the most, I fell in love with those teachings.

So how did you know that you had to call upon your life to become a pastor?

Well, it was actually tied to that discovery.

So I was very zealous for the Lord and zealous for evangelism, zealous for false converts.

Since that had been me, I was very zealous to help people understand true and false conversion.

And it really was through understanding the character of God, the nature of grace,

really understanding grace, that really just opened my eyes, knocked me back on my back,

humbled me.

And obviously, God became God, and the Godness of God was restored, and God became a lot bigger in my life.

And I just became really consumed with understanding Him through

His word and wanting to help others understand and know Him through His word.

And so that discovery, that was Easter of 2003, I believe, and just got

so passionate about it, I didn't want to do anything else.

My plan at the time was to go coach basketball, hopefully at the college level.

But I just became convinced that I wasn't going to find what I was looking for going that route, and I wasn't going to be happy

doing anything other than helping people understand God through teaching the Bible.

And that just began a process, though.

That was an internal calling, I felt, and thankfully had an external calling through some friends and through the local church and ultimately

went to seminary and then got equipped and have been in it ever since.

Really, it was understanding sovereign grace that propelled me into the ministry.

Well, praise God for that, brother.

And we are discussing something today that

both you two men and I disagree over.

I perhaps disagree over it far less radically

than many who are in the so -called covenant theology camp,

the 1689 London Baptist confession camp.

And I've always, ever since my earliest days of Christianity, maintained close

friendships with men of God from both of those camps.

I never found the differences to be of

the great magnitude that advocates of either position

find them to be.

And I have always felt at home visiting churches

outside of whatever 1689 confessional church I happened to be a member of at

the time.

And I think that one of my goals today is to educate people on the

differences of these two camps.

But also, I am praying that there is more unity

and more of an Irenic attitude that develops between these two camps of sovereign

grace believing Christians, because I believe that what we have in common far outweighs

the differences we have.

And so, and I have, I have witnessed in the last,

let's see, how many years has it been?

43 years or so, I was, I was saved

in my 20s.

And I have witnessed over these decades, since the 1980s,

a far greater unity than existed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Between these, between these two camps, in fact, you would hardly ever see interaction

between these two camps, at least cordial interaction.

But I have, but I have to hand it to the late John Riesinger, because he did on

occasion invite Covenantal Reform Baptists to speak at the John Bunyan

conferences.

And one of them is a brother now in heaven, whose

name escapes me because either because I'm 62 years old or because I am battling the sickness.

But a brother from England originally, and hopefully that will come to me later.

But I remember being very blessed by that brother who spoke at the John Bunyan conference.

But if you could, and by the way, folks, just to let you know why you're not going to be hearing Zach Maxey too often,

unless he has a question for Blake White, is that he is serving really as a co -host during the

first 90 minutes, and he will be my guest alone during the last half hour.

But if you could, lay out the primary differences between these

two camps within sovereign grace -believing Baptists.

Yeah.

So within the Baptist fold, it's a different discussion than within Presbyterian covenant theology.

And as you said, there's so much common ground.

Some of my best friends are 1689 men, even here in town, one of the churches that we

basically consider an informal sister church is 1689 church.

So, yeah, I want to preface that.

It's obviously an in -house debate, even within, you know, dispensationalism or Presbyterian covenant theology.

All of us are within the evangelical camp with a high view of scripture and majoring on the major is so much in common, which is

increasingly important in our completely secular age.

But within the differences within the Baptist realm, you could easily summarize it

by saying the substructure is a little different.

So 1689 is the second London, which is built off the Westminster confession.

In so many ways, it's the same thing with just a few eyes dotted differently and T's crossed

differently when it comes to making it a Baptist confession.

But the substructure is still covenant theology based on those three covenants, redemption, grace and works.

There's now also diversity within 1689, whether we're talking about reformed Baptist or 1689

federalism.

So there's lots of nuances.

So it's hard to generalize without being unfair to somebody.

But the substructure would be different because new covenant theology or progressive covenantalism would not be

structured around those three theological covenants.

But where the rubber really meets the road is when it comes to moral law.

In 1689, we'll call moral law the Decalogue and new covenant theology would say the Decalogue is part of the law

covenant that Christians are not under.

Now, nine of the 10 are repeated very clearly in the New Testament.

So where the rubber meets the road is the Sabbath commandment.

Yeah, that is where the rubber meets the road, because most

1689 confessional reformed Baptists, if they were to visit

a new covenant theology Baptist church, they might not even know it unless this issue of the

Sabbath comes up and or unless the specific differences on

the Decalogue come up during that worship service.

That is one of the reasons why I have been comfortable having a fellowship

with brethren in both camps.

And by the way, I wanted to let you know that I did finally remember who that

confessional 1689 reformed Baptist was that preached at the John Bunyan conference, William

Payne.

He is now with the Lord.

But now, so

when you became a believer in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace, Blake, were you

at first a 1689 man and later

became New Covenant?

Because that seems to be the story with a lot of folks, although I do know

of men where the reverse was true.

They started out as New Covenant and became 1689 men.

But tell us about that specifically.

Yeah, so again, I was brand new to everything, had no Christian upbringing, and realized that I was

wrong about how God saved sinners.

So I was very, at that time, very, you know, epistemically humble.

OK, I was way off.

So let me let me just learn for a little while.

And then the men that were most helpful to me during that time were really, you know, reformed Presbyterians.

I mentioned Packer, good Anglican, but also as I began to read and trying to learn, R .C.

Sproul was hugely helpful.

I mentioned Piper was helpful, but it was mostly men who baptized babies.

And I did not really at the time, you know, I didn't know being in West Texas, there's a lot of Baptist

churches.

So if I would go to a church, it tended to be a Baptist church.

But at the time, I thought, well, I'm learning the Bible.

Maybe I should become Presbyterian.

I see elders in the Bible.

Presbyterians have elders leading.

So maybe I should become Presbyterian.

So that my next journey was on the whole issue of what do I believe about baptism?

And as I began to study the issue, you know, you study infant

baptism.

And with all due respect to somebody that I've learned from, there's not New Testament evidence for infant baptism.

So when you're looking into the argument, what do you find?

You find covenant theology.

And for me, that was all brand new.

Obviously, these covenants that they were talking about, you can't find them directly in the Bible.

So for a new believer, I was very confused.

I'm just trying to understand what covenant theology was as a new believer.

On the other end, dispensationalism was also honestly just kind of strange to me as I tried to understand what was going

on.

And providentially, as I'm trying to figure out what the Bible taught on this, trying to read,

trying to understand the systems, trying to master the New Testament.

I had taken a semester off in college where I was traveling to various universities in Texas in order to share the

gospel and try to train people to share the gospel through the Baptist student ministry.

And I landed in Houston for about six weeks.

So I was visiting.

I was just looking up various Reform churches to visit while I was there since it was just temporary.

And I landed in a church called Mills Road Baptist Church in northwest Houston.

And it was a Sovereign Grace Baptist Church.

And I meet the pastor who's now retired, but his name is Larry Newcomer.

He used to come to Bunyan.

In fact, we would come together at times.

And Larry, I'm talking with Larry.

I met him.

I introduced myself and I'm telling him where I'm at, trying to figure out what I believe about baptism.

And he says, hey, you ought to buy this book.

And he points me over to his book table.

And it was a book, a little red book called Abraham's Four Seeds, subtitle, A Critical

Examination of the Presuppositions of Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism.

And I thought, well, there you go.

That's exactly what I need.

And I read John Riesinger's book.

It was just really helpful.

I had just dabbled enough to understand the systems a little bit.

And in that book, John's really not doing positive construction, but critical deconstruction.

And he just was very helpful to see the problems with both systems.

And even how they share the same hermeneutic, they just apply it to different things.

So they fail to consistently apply a Christ -centered hermeneutic to two

different areas.

So covenant theology fails to apply a Christ -centered hermeneutic to the issue of offspring.

And they take over into the new covenant and say, well, just like Abraham was to circumcise his

offspring, so a believer is to baptize his offspring.

And they miss that Christ is the mediator, not the believer.

So it's Christ and his offspring.

How do you become an offspring of Christ?

Through faith.

So it entails a believer's church, in other words.

And then on the other hand, dispensationalism fails to bring the land promise through Christ and see that every

promise is yes in him.

And Christ also transforms who the people of God are.

It doesn't matter anymore, circumcision or uncircumcision, it's all unity in Christ.

So that book really cleared the air for me.

And again, he's not really advocating for new covenant theology in that book so much, but that set me on a trajectory, helped me

understand the New Testament.

And then the next year, I go to Southern Seminary.

In my first semester, I take hermeneutics with a guy that I'd never heard of named Stephen Wellam.

Really, it just worked out with my schedule to take his class.

And then the first few weeks, Stephen Wellam starts laying out hermeneutically Abraham's four seeds.

So I'll go up to Dr. Wellam after class and ask, hey, have you ever heard of John Riesinger?

This all sounds very familiar.

And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, John discipled me.

John married my wife and I.

And I took everything that Dr. Wellam taught after that.

And really now, after a decade of consecutive exposition, my convictions about New Covenant

Theology have only strengthened over the years.

Now, Brother Wellam was actually one of the speakers at the last John Bunyan conference

where I was in attendance, where I actually had the privilege of moderating the Q &A session.

And he is not squarely in the New Covenant Theology camp, however.

Am I correct on that?

Well, this is where you get into a matter of definitions.

Your listeners may be interested.

I actually did an interview with Dr. Wellam, actually just published about six weeks ago, on the

relationship between Progressive Covenantalism and New Covenant Theology.

And so when it comes to mainstream published New Covenant Theology, you really

can't find a difference between it and Progressive Covenantalism.

That's interesting.

By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with that name, Stephen Wellam is the principal

of Toronto Baptist Seminary.

And you reminded me that I've got to get him back on the program.

And his brother—actually, did I say Stephen?

I meant to say Kirk, I believe.

I'm getting the two—.

Yeah, Kirk's in Toronto.

That's right.

Stephen's in Louisville.

Right.

And which one were you attributing to your growth in the understanding?

Kirk or Stephen?

Stephen.

They're in Southern Seminary.

Okay.

Sorry for mixing those up.

But I have to get them both back on, whatever the case may be.

By the way, when we come back from our break, Zach, just let me know if you have a question of your own that you'd like to

ask as well.

But if anybody in the audience would like to ask a question, submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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We're now back with our guests, Blake White and Zach Maxey, who are

discussing the divide that exists between Sovereign Grace Believing Baptists

over the issue of Covenant Theology versus New Covenant Theology.

And if you have a question, send it to chrisarnson at gmail .com, give us first name at least, city and state and country of

residence.

And before I go to any of our listener questions, I'd like Zach Maxey to give

our listeners all the details that they need regarding the upcoming John.

Bunyan conference.

Yeah, certainly, Chris.

So the 2024 John Bunyan conference is going to be held at

Grace Church in Franklin.

So actually, we we heard an advertisement by Bill Sasser from Grace.

Church in Franklin.

Very generous supporter of this show, and I thank God for the benevolence and

generosity of Pastor Bill, and I love him and his wife Lynn dearly,

and I cannot ever thank them enough for loving this show so much that they share the money that

God has blessed them with.

With us.

Yeah, they're a wonderful brother and sister in Christ, and the conference will be

held Sunday, April 14th through Wednesday, April 17th.

And so for the actual conference schedule, so I'll just go through some of the names who

will be speaking.

So we'll have Dr. Ted Bear from movie guide dot com.

And so he's been on the show, too, in the past.

Oh, I was unaware of that.

He'll be speaking on the Christian and the TV film industry.

And so how do we as Christians navigate that particular avenue of

entertainment in a secular world?

The theme of the conference I forgot to mention is the glorious hope of Christ in the new covenant.

And so with everything going on in the world and the crazy times and the interesting times in which we live,

the board at PTI NCT, we came together and we wanted to offer a

theme of hope to encourage the body of Christ with.

And Pastor Greg Van Court will be speaking on the the nature of true hope.

So we'll have Dr. Richard Lucas, which we've already been talking about this, this growing

conversation or dialogue between 1689 Baptists and

new covenant theologians and progressive covenantalists.

And so, Dr. Richard Lucas will be speaking on the hope for theological rapprochement

among Calvinistic Baptists.

And so that's where his hope really lies is discussing how to how to build bridges

between those two groups.

Pastor Gary George will be speaking on the near death experience, a false hope or another

gospel question mark.

Dr. Brent Parker will be speaking on the hope of the new exodus.

And so implications for covenant and dispensational theologies will have Renee phrase speaking on

Isaiah 16, 19.

So the incarnate God is our glory and eschatological hope.

I'll be speaking on Titus to 13, the blessed hope.

Pastor Blake White will be speaking on Romans eight, the hope of the new creation.

We'll have a question answer panel and Pastor Bill Sasser of Grace Church will be speaking on Genesis

315.

So and for for information as it comes

available, folks who want to either watch the conference online, can watch

it via Grace Church's video feed if they're unable to physically attend.

And as information becomes available, it's on the pci

nct .org website.

So great.

And I have a couple of your speakers lined up for interviews.

My friend, Pastor Gary George, who I've known since the early

1990s when I began attending the John Bunyan conference.

He's going to be speaking on my show on this very same topic that he's addressing at your conference on

near death experiences.

And Greg Van Court is also scheduled on the show.

By the way, Gary is on Monday, March 4th.

Greg Van Court is on Tuesday, March 5th.

And I'm not sure.

Did you say Ken Powers was one of your speakers?

I guess not.

I did not see.

I didn't see Ken Powers, but Renee Frey from Quebec,.

Canada.

The only reason I say that is Ken Powers is on my show Wednesday.

And right now, can't remember the topic that we're addressing.

But anyway, mark your calendars for March 4th and 5th for two of the speakers

for the John Bunyan conference will be on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

But do you have any questions for Blake White before I go to a listener question?

No, it's actually been really good just listening.

So I have nothing to add really.

To what Pastor Blake has said.

Okay, we have, let's see, Francine

in Nolensville, Tennessee.

And Francine asks, from what I understand from people who I have met

in the New Covenant Theology camp, there is a divide between

confessional, referring to the first London Baptist confession, and

non -confessional or even anti -confessional Baptists.

I was wondering where you men stood.

On that issue.

Yeah, I would be very worried about a non -confessional mindset individually or

corporately.

So it's just a matter of which one, obviously.

So, you know, with New Covenant, we would disagree with the Covenant Theology substructure of 1689.

But there are many that are great.

Obviously, there was a first one.

Didn't often have to remind people of that.

There was a first one.

But I think for healthy preservation of truth, confessions are

necessary.

Yeah, in fact, John, once again, John Riesinger, the late John Riesinger, in his

graciousness, had a confessional Reformed Baptist give a

wonderful presentation on the need of confessions at one

of those John Bunyan conferences I attended in the

early 1990s.

And I was very blessed by that.

And his is another name that completely escapes me right now, either because of my age or my sickness.

Even though I've known this dear brother for years and have had him on my program, his name escapes me right now.

He is the author of actually my favorite biography, A

Pastor in New York, The Life and Times of Spencer Cone.

And I wonder if that dear brother is still with us.

I haven't spoken to him in many years, and he was elderly the last time

I spoke with him.

But a dear brother indeed.

And I hope that if he is still with us on this earth, and by the way, his name is John Thornberry.

John Thornberry, I hope if he is still with us that I can have another time of fellowship and perhaps even an interview.

If anybody listening knows the current contact information for John Thornberry, please let me know,

because I'd like to contact him the last time I was aware of his place of residence.

It was in Kentucky.

One question of my own is that even though, as you've already

mentioned, there is definitely a divide, in fact, I should say there are

divides or divisions amongst 1689 Covenantal Reformed

Baptists.

They seem to be increasing, actually.

We have divides over the how to interpret God's impassibility.

We now have differences over Thomistic theology.

And who knows where these are going to wind up in the future, how many divisions we'll have.

But when I was attending the John Bunyan conferences, there were divisions that

actually seemed a lot more amicable than the divisions amongst Covenantal guys, because you even had

dispensationalists in attendance claiming to be New Covenant.

If you could explain that, Blake.

Well, which part, the amicability or

dispensationalism?

The acceptance, it seems.

I mean, well, let me put it this way.

I got to back up a little bit.

John Riesinger was very, very crystal clear that he was strongly opposed to

dispensationalism.

But at the same time, there were always a reasonable

number of attendees to the John Bunyan conferences from dispensational camps, although they claimed to have

a lot in common with New Covenant theology, and even claimed in some measure to be New

Covenant.

Theologians.

But if you could address that.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it all depends, right?

We start talking, and John actually didn't talk a lot about Israel, but New Covenant guys, and I think across the

board, there's unity within New Covenant theology about Israel.

And our dispensational friends obviously don't agree and can get feisty about it, but what we do agree on is the

newness of the New Covenant, both when it comes to changing the nature and structure of the Covenant community, but also

on this new, fresh, unprecedented work of the Spirit.

The Church started at Pentecost, basically, so there's a lot of agreement there.

And there's been some good work coming out of DTS, obviously.

This is dated, but Lewis, what's his name?

Zach, maybe you can help me.

Lewis Johnson?

Yeah, Lewis Johnson.

Oh, I had the privilege of sitting next to him at the lunch table at one of the John Bunyan conferences

years ago.

Oh, yeah, yeah, there you go, obviously.

But he appreciated, he had some good biblical theology.

All Things New is another one.

So some of it is progressive dispensationalism that would be more sympathetic, but some of it also is just trying to major on the majors.

I mean, I had friends that would come that were dispensational, and they would kind of understand where they are, and we would

kind of just have good, fun jabs.

No one took themselves too seriously.

We knew the differences mattered, but we also could come together and agree in an agreeable way, if that

makes sense.

Some of that's John's, not only his personality, but his character, to be able to

love one another through disagreement.

Seems like we forgot how to do that lately.

Well, one of the things that's somewhat ironic is that you and your

testimony were discussing how your first

introduction to Sovereign Grace Theology, aka Reformed Theology, was through Pato

Baptists, and then you later came to be a Baptist and a New

Covenant Theology advocate.

I remember John—excuse me, I have to mute myself to call

occasionally—I remember John Reisinger always warning about,

if you become a Covenant Theology advocate, it's only a matter of time before

you become a Presbyterian.

So he saw too much in common with the 1689

and Covenant Theology in general amongst Baptists, too much in

common with Presbyterians, and he just thought that the divide was too fragile

between the two groups.

But I have never felt any inclination on becoming a Pato Baptist.

But anyhow, even though I have dear friends who financially support the show that are.

But tell us about how, in your opinion, the New

Covenant Theology camp has a stronger argument against Pato Baptism.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, first, I'd love to comment on John.

I think he was kind of ahead of his time.

I'd be curious.

It doesn't sound like maybe not in your context, Chris, or I'd be curious about Zach's, but it does seem

like there are a lot of Baptists becoming Presbyterian.

Just kind of in a general way, it seems like there's a lot of that happening, and I do think Covenant

Theology is the route.

So John might have been, again, ahead of his time when it comes to that.

Rather than do the second London, go ahead and be consistent with the origin, which would be

Westminster.

But anyway, that is interesting.

I think he was right in some ways, certainly in my circles.

I've had a lot of Baptist friends become Presbyterian, but it really goes.

I think the heart of it is, is the New Covenant new or is it renewed?

So we put a lot of weight on Jeremiah 31 that

the New Covenant will not be like the old one.

And he tells us in that passage on how.

Well, in this case, all will know the Lord.

You won't say to one another within the community, know the Lord.

All will know the Lord.

All will have full and final forgiveness of sins.

All will have the law written on the heart.

And again, this new work of the Spirit.

So you have many prophecies in the Old Testament.

Joel 2, Isaiah 32, 15, Isaiah 44, 3, Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel

39, 29, Ezekiel 11, 19.

Many, many, many promises that speak of a coming outpouring of the Spirit.

In Numbers 11, 29, Moses is lamenting, I wish that all of you had the Spirit.

In the Old Covenant, the Spirit only operated on certain key leaders or prophets or priests or kings.

But the promise of the New Covenant is twofold, full and final forgiveness of sins.

Praise God, all evangelical systems agree to that and major on that and are founded on that.

But the second aspect of the New Covenant is a new, a changed community so that it's no longer a

mixed community of some that are faithful, some that are unfaithful, some believers, some unbelievers.

But in the New Covenant community, all will know the Lord.

In other words, they are the offspring of Jesus.

And how do you become an offspring of Jesus, the covenant mediator?

Through faith.

So we want to major on the newness of the New Covenant that changes the community.

And therefore, you only.

Apply the sign to that community.

Well, yeah, and as a member of a covenant theology Reformed Baptist Church,

I agree with every word of that.

I disagree.

In fact, I just recently had a friendly disagreement with a Pato Baptist

brother or brethren, plural, over that issue.

I have never met a covenantal Reformed Baptist that does not believe only the

elect are in the covenant.

And we obviously as Baptists only baptize believers.

Now, some of these believers may prove to be false converts, obviously, and you believe that as well.

And we have to we have to appropriately discipline them and possibly excommunicate them if they don't repent.

But I'm trying to find the area of disagreement in what you

just said amongst Covenant Baptists.

In fact, we'll have to do that after the midway break.

Please try to respond to as many advertisers as you can, because they are the reason that we

exist.

We are positively, absolutely dependent on the financial support of our advertisers to keep this

program on the air.

And also, send in your questions to chrisarnsen at gmail dot com for our guest today.

Don't go away.

We'll.

Be right back.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

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If you recall, Blake, before we went to the break, you were

defining the New Covenant theology understanding of the

covenant and who is in the covenant, and I couldn't disagree with anything.

So I don't know if that's because I don't know my own theology, I didn't hear you correctly, or I'm missing

something.

No, no, yeah, well, you had asked the difference between Pado -Baptist,.

And so that's where I was.

I didn't even know that I asked that, because I thought that I thought that I asked you about the difference

between New Covenant and Covenant theology on.

That issue.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, so between Baptist covenant theology and New Covenant theology, again, it's going to come down to the Sabbath.

One thing that is always helpful when we talk about Sabbath, sometimes New Covenant guys can get

accused of antinomianism or of not taking the assembly seriously, and that is not at all the case.

We define the Sabbath in terms of what Exodus 20 defines it.

So sometimes people just think obey the Sabbath just means go to church on Sunday.

Well, that's not what the Bible says.

It says work six days and rest on Saturday.

So we would not see any transfer theology from a Saturday to a Sunday.

We would see freedom to be able to work, in other words, not to have to work six days.

We would still value, though, Sunday as the Lord's Day in terms of the resurrection, and I can speak at least from my church.

I mean, if you're a member, we would ultimately discipline someone for not attending.

So it's not a matter of not taking corporate worship seriously.

That's just.

Not what the Bible's talking about with the Sabbath commandment.

Amen, and it is a tragedy, I'm sure both of you would agree, that ever since the

hysteria created by COVID warnings

and mandates by our government, that to this day there are

people who discovered, wow, I can still remain on my comfy couch on Sunday morning and watch

the live streaming of the worship service at either my church or my favorite

author or TV or radio speaker, and they feel completely

safe with God, and they can feel completely free from a fear of

any kind of discipline.

And I know people, personally, who have never returned to activity

physically in the presence of their local congregation ever since then.

This is quite a tragedy, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Well, you mentioned something before I go to another listener question.

You said, and I agree with you, I've always agreed with you, that

the accusation against New Covenant theologians of being antinomian is

false.

In fact, I remember those early years especially of developing

friendships with many New Covenant theology folks in addition to the ones,

the Covenant theology folks from my own congregation where I was a member and the

circles we traveled in, that there were

stereotypes and slanderous remarks made by both sides of this

divide.

And before I forget to say this, the church where I was saved and continued to be a

member before I moved to Pennsylvania,

it started out as Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, but after a merger

became Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island.

My pastors at those churches were always ecumenically

minded enough, and I don't mean folks ecumenical in regard to joining

in worship with apostate and false churches.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about biblical ecumenism.

But they were always humble enough, gracious enough, and ecumenically minded enough to have

New Covenant theology guys in our pulpit.

We have had Tom Smith, I don't know if you guys are familiar with, I believe the late Tom Smith

in our pulpits, and Tony Costa has been in our

pulpits, and other men of God from the New Covenant theology camp.

So I just wanted to throw that out there.

But we have to be very careful, do we not?

And I'm sure, because this is a New Covenant concept as

well, I'm sure you agree with that bearing false witness against your neighbor is still a

sin.

And I think members of both camps have been guilty about this.

We have to be very careful when we make accusations against those who disagree with us, don't we?

I can remember Covenant theology Reformed

Baptists saying, those guys in the New Covenant camp believe you can live any way that you want to

live, and never repent, and you'll still go to heaven.

And I knew that was false, and I told them so.

And New Covenant theology guys saying, you know that those Covenant theology Reformed Baptists say that

you've got to repeat the Ten Commandments every time you evangelize someone,

and that there was also charges of

Judaizing, or bordering on Judaizing, that were made against Reformed

Baptists.

But anyway, if you could respond to this care that we need to

have when we are interacting.

Yeah, that's, I mean, and I just see it considered basic, on the one hand, it's basic scholarship,

good scholarship, but it's also love of neighbor, whoever we're talking about, we want to represent the view

fairly.

And I think all Christians, all pastors, all writers ought to strive really hard to do that.

It is hard even in this short conversation, and this actually is not a short conversation, but even here in a longer

form interview to do justice to all the various nuances, both within Presbyterian Covenant theology, which we haven't even talked about those

nuances, but also within our Baptist Covenant theology friends, but then also

diversity and nuance within New Covenant theology.

So that it's hard to paint with a broad brush without, you know, being unfair to somebody.

But at the end of the day, we have to do generalizations.

At some point, we just want to do our best to make sure they're fair, fair and faithful.

Yeah, and going back to the charge of antinomianism, I know that every New

Covenant theology advocate I know believes that we are

obliged to obey, not for salvation, of course, but the law of

Christ.

And in actuality, you believe that nine of the Ten Commandments have been

reintroduced into the New Covenant by Christ.

Am I.

Misstating anything there?

No, that's right.

We just, we wouldn't see, you know, every system wanting to be exegetically derived, right?

We're all after that.

New Covenant theology would not see any exegetical basis for a tripartite division of the law into those three

categories of moral, ceremonial and civil.

But if you were to do that and say, well, moral laws, Ten Commandments, of course, nine of them are clearly repeated.

We would say that the Sabbath command needs to be run through that grid of Christ.

And when we do that, we see that it's fulfilled in him.

And so now in the New Covenant, to obey the Sabbath is to rest in Christ.

But in terms of moral imperatives, they are all over the place.

In fact, you know, there's 613 commands in the Old Covenant, but there are over 2 ,000 imperatives

in the New Testament.

And so we are very much for.

Obeying everything Jesus commanded, Matthew 28.

Well, if you could, you mentioned something that you haven't really given us a

lot of detail about.

Presbyterian New Covenant theology, this is something that is foreign to me.

So if you could tell us about that.

Oh, sorry, I may have misspoke.

I'm trying to distinguish our Presbyterian Covenant.

Theologian.

Friends from our Baptist Covenant theologian friends.

Oh, OK.

I'm sorry that you are introducing to me a whole new category of people.

No, no, no, no.

Well, let me go to another listener question.

We have Gracie in Seaford, Long Island, New York.

And Gracie says there seems to be a difference between those in the New

Covenant theology camp where some still call themselves Reformed Baptists and

others think that is a huge mistake.

If you.

Could explain.

Yeah, it's it's you know, the labels have gotten so murky.

Of course, I mentioned I love John Piper, but I kind of blame John Piper because John, John, you know, he

uses reform so loosely.

Back in the 80s and 90s, even within our circles, within Baptist circles, it was a pretty clear difference between

Reformed Baptists who held to the Second London and then Sovereign Grace Baptists, which I've noticed you've been using that

language.

So Sovereign Grace Baptists would be someone who held to a different confession.

And basically, it was a way of distinguishing Covenant theology Baptists from New Covenant theology Baptists.

But now everyone just throws around the label Reformed, regardless of where you stand confessionally.

But I'm sympathetic to the brothers who want to keep the label tight and say you're not Reformed unless you hold to

Second London, although we've got some Presbyterian friends who say you're not Reformed unless you hold to Westminster.

So I try to avoid that label myself to try to be nuanced to say I'm

not I'm not one of those.

I do not hold to one of those two confessions.

But the question is correct.

Technically, Reformed Baptists would be those who adhere to the 1689 confession.

And a lot of the issue from what I have seen is that you have churches that have

retained their original name Reformed Baptists because they

began as 1689 London Baptist confession churches and then they later became New

Covenant theology.

And they just never changed the name of the church.

I've seen that in certain circumstances anyway.

Yeah.

And, you know, we mentioned speaking of the John Bunyan conference for years and years and years, it was held at Reformed Baptist Church,

Lewisburg.

Yes.

And for the longest time, I actually have lost contact with that church now.

But, you know, they for my knowledge, they've never been Reformed Baptists.

They've always been New Covenant.

And in fact, the newsletter that the

John Bunyan conference had originally, I can't I can't remember the exact

title of the newsletter, but the subtitle of the newsletter was a

periodical of New Covenant Reformed Baptists.

I remember that clearly that John named it that originally that was in the early 90s.

But but to comment on what you said about Sovereign Grace Baptists being a confessional Reformed

Baptist.

And by the way, I don't think I squarely fit in that camp fully either.

But I have heard that term embraced by Covenantal Reformed Baptists

ever since I was saved, Sovereign Grace.

So that is why I actually used it in the description of today's show, because of the

commonality that we both believe in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

So I don't know if you want to comment on that at all.

Yeah, well, it's so that that was in the 80s and 90s a way for guys like Al Martin would be Reformed Baptist and a guy

like John Zinja, John Reisinger would be a Sovereign Grace Baptist.

But now there's since then we've had the development of the network of churches and music called Sovereign Grace

that I believe was started by C .J. Mahaney, if not.

So all the labels now, they're all just so murky and muddled now.

Like my former one of my former pastors, Mark Remoldi, he is a confessional

Reformed Baptist, 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

And he's now pastoring a church in Greenbrier, Tennessee, Sovereign Grace Church.

So there you go.

You just have to have a longer conversation.

Well, I know that you have to leave in six minutes, Pastor Blake.

So if you could summarize what you most want, Ashton, the hearts and minds of our listeners about this

subject today before.

You leave.

Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, what we want to do is derive our theology.

And this is in some ways a lifelong journey.

We're always reforming, right?

Scripture is the norming norm.

We always want to derive our theology from exegesis.

We value tradition, but we're Protestants.

And so tradition, whether it's, you know, Nicene or whether it's 1689,

you know, we're always in where we go to scripture first, not scripture, not new to scripture, but

scripture, soul of scripture.

It's a norming norm.

And so when it comes to these conversations, that's kind of the question is what is most exegetically faithful.

So always going to the Bible to derive our theology and going to churches where the Bible is

systematically taught, expositional preaching is vital.

But also, we want to keep Christ central.

And the best of all these circles do just that.

Historically, I think it's been a little bit different, but with now

sort of a gospel centrality, which that label also has baggage nowadays, but keeping Christ central in all

his fullness so that at the end of the day, our churches are focused on Christ, not covenants,.

Not law, not Israel, but Christ.

By the way, Alexander in Orlando, Florida, you asked a question that was already answered.

He asked, would both guests believe that only believers are in the new covenant?

And yes, they've already stated that.

So if you have another question, Alexander, fire it away at chrisarnson at gmail .com and we'll have

Zach Maxey, our final guest of the day, try to answer that question.

Well, I want to remind our listeners, even though we are going to be

addressing this again about the next John Bunyan conference, and perhaps we could have

Zach this time repeat that information as far as the website and the

dates of that conference.

Yeah, absolutely, Chris.

So the John Bunyan 2024 conference will be held Sunday, April 14th

to Wednesday, April 17th at Grace Covenant Church in Franklin, Tennessee.

And for the conference schedule for description of the speakers, you can go to pti

nct .org.

Again, it's just pti, no spaces, no underscores, no dashes, pti nct .org.

Great.

Well, please stick around, folks, because even though Pastor Blake White has

to depart our program today, we still have about a half hour left with Zach Maxey.

And thanks a lot for joining us and squeezing us into your schedule, Pastor Blake.

Yes, Chris, thank you for ministry, man.

Appreciate all you do.

And Zach, I'll see you soon, brother.

All righty, folks.

Well, please, if you have a question for Zach Maxey, our final guest today,

submit it to chrisorensen at gmail .com right away, because we're running out of time.

Chrisorensen at gmail .com.

We'll be right back after these messages.

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We're now back with my guest today, Zach Maxey, and Zach,

I'd like you to really lay out what you believe are the most

important things that should draw people into embracing New

Covenant theology.

Are you still there?

Is it okay?

Yes, Chris.

So I want to echo some things that Blake said.

So most systems, of course, well, all Christian systems are

motivated by a desire to correctly parse and understand and interpret the scriptures.

I would say in my own personal journey, because, what, four years ago when I was

on, before the COVID happened, I doubt your listeners

remember, but I'll just refresh.

So when I was saved, I was saved in a Presbyterian church, which was a really,

it was kind of an amalgam, and

the youth minister there who, one of them was a dispensationalist, so it was in the

context of a very liberal Presbyterian church, but nevertheless,

God uses many people to preach His word, and His servants

come in all places.

And so the word was preached to me, and I was in a very, because I was hearing both dispensational ideas, and then

Presbyterian ideas, and then even some Reformed Baptist ideas, I don't want to say

it was like, I was in a very confused state, but if you spoke

with me back then, I probably wouldn't even recognize it.

And then, so I started my own journey trying to, you

know, sift and interpret the scriptures as I felt the guidance of the Holy

Spirit.

And so, in a very similar way, when I first heard Calvinism and the

doctrines of grace, there was a very strong distaste, and I opposed them.

And then in trying to investigate them deeper and deeper, I probably came to a form of

Amoraldeanism, is probably the best way to describe it.

And then once I heard—.

And that would be accurately summarized by the phrase, and I know that people disagree with this, but

isn't that accurately, at least to a degree, summarized as four -point Calvinism, an agreement with

four of the points and a denial of definite atonement?

Yes, yes, and that was the point of the

five that I had the most issue with.

And it was trying to kind of explain to a way the very simple yet

profound biblical logic that you see manifested in the scriptures.

And then once I graduated from West Point, my wife and I both graduated from the military academy, I was stationed

down at Fort Hood, Texas, and I came under the preaching of Dr. Joe Kelly.

And that was the first, as God would have it providentially, when I arrived,

they were starting a series on the five solas, and then he immediately went into a series

on the five points of Calvinism, and that was the first time I had ever heard them preached.

And God just flipped a light switch.

And then from that moment, for lack of a better term, I

have held to the doctrines of grace.

And then that's where I came into contact with Dr. Gary Long, who's in now South

Dakota.

He used to be the president of Providence Theological Seminary,.

Where I graduated from.

Yeah, I've met Dr. Long at your conference, the John Bunyan conference,

a couple of years ago, and I have given away dozens and dozens of copies of his book,.

Definite Atonement.

Yeah, yeah, and he's got plenty.

He's got context, context, context, where he's interacting with dispensationalists.

He's got a new and accurate way, which is a really good, I

wouldn't say it's on the level of being influential as John Reisinger's writings, or even probably

Blake White's writings, but it's up there as a very good,

concise summary of New Covenant theology.

And then that's really when I got to Killeen Bible Church and I heard the preaching of Joe Kelly.

And then one of the elders who then became the pastor, Brian Tom, who has since

departed to be with the Lord.

And then in Dr. Long, that's where I really got exposed to New Covenant

theology.

And it gripped me in the way that not only did it try

to acknowledge what it viewed to be the strengths of

dispensationalism and covenant theology, but where it was willing to

question both of those systems, where did they get this right?

And we think they did.

And then is there an area where we could refine it?

And so New Covenant theology has been called a via media or a middle way

by some.

And to that, I would agree with that in a large estimate,

generally speaking.

And so there are many aspects where NCT agrees with dispensational

theology and many where it agrees with covenant theology, but then there are some like, for example, what Blake

said in terms of moral law, then, of course, you know,

what is Romans nine to eleven speaking about with regards to a future for Israel?

Is that a premillennial kingdom where Christ is going to come down and literally reign from the

throne of David?

And then there's going to be a rebuilt temple as dispensationalists would teach, where both Israel and the church are saved

by grace through faith in Christ alone.

But there are two separate eschatological destinies.

And there were just elements of both that I think.

That NCT answers more.

Biblically, so so, for example, that this briefly came up with regards to Israel and we're talking

about dispensationalism, but and I know some dispensationalists would take very

much issue with this.

And and I've been accused of teaching that God breaks

his promises, God forbid.

God forbid.

It's not a question about theology proper because God is true.

God never breaks his word.

The real question is hermeneutics.

How are we supposed to understand those promises and the fulfillment of those promises?

And so and so we need to take it out of in this this whole idea of being

careful not to make false accusations.

It comes down to that.

Well, are in my in my appealing to theology proper in

some ways to potentially manipulate or to accuse or to set up a theological straw man?

Or am I rightly noticing that this is a question of hermeneutics?

And so one of the big things that I teach my students, I teach

a secondary school teacher at Samuel Fuller School in Middleborough, Massachusetts, and I

teach the high school Bible classes.

And so I teach biblical theology, systematics, then apologetics and then historical theology, not

all in the same year.

But one of the big things that I come back to is a phrase that I came across in seminary that was

very pivotal for me in learning to major in the majors, you know,

and being able to disagree in the minors.

And that's it's by Rupertus Mildenius.

Sometimes it's attributed to Augustine, but it's in the essentials, unity and nonessentials,

liberty and all things charity.

And I probably in my classes, Chris, I probably see it ad nauseum.

So my students and I'm trying to teach them.

It's OK.

It's OK if we disagree over the mode of baptism.

It's OK if we disagree with on on eschatological matters.

But do we agree on the essentials of the faith, the hypostatic union, the Trinity, the inspiration of Scripture,

justification by faith alone?

Those things are the most important things.

And then once we agree on those things, we can we can agree to disagree.

And then let's have a as Blake referred to earlier, let's have an in -house discussion and let's see.

Let's be constantly reforming our hermeneutics and at least into to kind of

circle back around to to your question.

I find NCT answers some of those.

Areas a little better than both dispensationalism and covenant theology, whereas I

think so, for example, and I'll close with this just as an example.

But with regards to the people of God and the plan of God, we would agree with covenant

theology, both the Presbyterian form and the 1689 form that there is one people of God.

It's the elect of God from all ages.

Now, we would also agree with dispensationalism that there is that there are

some elements of discontinuity.

So although you have that continuity of one people of God throughout all time, God's elect.

There are elements of discontinuity that come along the way in the form of the covenants.

In fact, 1689 years would agree with that also that we might not know what

we may not explain it all exactly as you would.

But we believe in that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And in fact, my my fellow elder and the pastor of my church, he's he's a 1689

and we'd get along just fine.

So so we actually had a long conversation probably two years ago on the law of God.

And so I was explaining the N .C .T. position where he was he was holding a position

where that Jesus is is essentially giving the the true interpretation of the law

of Moses that has always been he's not adding anything new as a new lawgiver.

He's just he's telling the true interpretation, whereas N .C .T. folks would understand, well,

he's he's picking up where Moses left off, but he's a new lawgiver with authority.

So so there there is a change in the law.

And we would argue that it's it's it's taking the law to a higher.

Level that's unattainable apart from the spirit of God indwelling and empowering a believer.

That which was the.

Motivation of John Riesinger, John Riesinger's book.

And but I say unto you.

Yeah.

And so in.

That conversation, Pastor Steve, Pastor Steve Bailey said, well,

we're arriving at the same place in ethics.

I'm like, yeah.

And so he's like, well, what's the difference?

I'm like, well, I mean, again, it's a hermeneutical issue.

And so at the end of the day, and that's probably I'm probably generalizing to a certain extent.

But but but we we essentially arrive at the same spot.

We would explain it differently with regards to that.

I mean, the Sabbath, the Sabbath is its own issue with how we understand that and interpret it.

But in terms of the other nine that Blake spoke of that appear again in the New Testament, and one could argue that

they're elevated in some sense.

So whether Jesus is giving the true understanding of Moses or he's elevating it as the new lawgiver, it's

still arriving at that same position.

So it's no longer you don't commit adultery.

It's you do not lust in your heart after someone else.

I have to ask.

So I have to ask you quickly, though, because we're running out of time.

What is your position on Israel?

Because when I attended the Bunyan conferences, there were differences among the speakers.

You had historical pre mill guys who believed in a future

fulfillment of Israel as being a part of biblical prophecy, and you had those.

Who denied that.

So tell us.

Yeah.

So there's a difference among the PTI NCT board.

I would say my personal position, and it's changed over the years, but I would say the NCT

position and most NCT folks hold this.

I mean, there might be variations with our understanding of Revelation 20.

I tend to more of a non premillennial or if you want to call it an amillennial perspective.

But I would hold that Israel has no future apart from the church.

And so when you look at passages like Ephesians two, Christ came to make the two one and to tear down the wall

of hostility and make a new man out of Jew and Gentile.

So it's elect Jew and elect Gentile.

But at the same time, I would say Romans 11 is talking about a future in gathering.

So there are some folks in the reformed community that would hold that it's all of the Jews saved throughout all time,

or it's that or it's this final end time in gathering, which dispensationalists tend to

hold.

But those who come out of like I also consider myself coming out of dispensational circles to a certain degree.

But I would also hold that there's an end time in gathering of Jews, but it's going to be into the church, the body of

Christ.

Yes.

And I would agree with.

That.

So, by the way, we're out of time.

Please give not only the website for your church, but also once again, where our

listeners can find the details for the John Bunyan conference.

Yes.

So the details of the John Bunyan conference can be found at PTI

NCT .org.

Again, that's PTI NCT .org.

There's there's bios about the speakers.

There's the conference schedule.

There's also a T -shirt that we're promoting for fundraising and so forth.

There's no official charge for the conference.

But as the Lord leads to donate, we certainly welcome that.

And also Grace Covenant Church.

So that website is gracecovenantchurchri .com.

And for those of you who want the information on the church where Dr. Blake White is the pastor,

go to ssbaptist .org.

That's for South Side Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas.

Ssbaptist .org.

And you can also go to Dr. Blake White's personal website.

And that is and I had it right in front of me and it's gone.

Is that ablakewhite .org?

Do you know?

I believe that's right.

But what is the dot?

Dot org com?

I think it's.

I think it's dot org.

Ablakewhite .org.

I hope that's right.

And by the way, folks, I made a faux pas.

I should never talk about somebody passing away unless I know if it's certain.

I confused two different New Covenant theology guys that both preached at the church where I was a member years ago.

Tom Smith is still alive.

He's now an Anglican, however, a Calvinistic Anglican.

But Tom Wells is the brother that I was thinking of that I believe passed away.

I'm not 100 certain, but he was the pastor of the King's Chapel in Westchester,

Ohio, for many years.

But I want to thank everybody for listening today.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater savior than you

are a sinner.