Conversations with "Church of Christ" EXILES | w/ Cameron Vogelsang@tennessee_electrician

Well, hello again. Welcome back to the Apologetic Dog, where it's my heart's desire to guard the gospel of grace.

And apologetics is not only defensive, but it is offensive. And so at the

Apologetic Dog, First Timothy 6 .20 is kind of the verse that I want everybody to be aware of, where we're to guard the gospel, deposit it and trust it to us as Christians, and we guard it.

We guard it by avoiding irreverent babble, pagan philosophy that tries to war against God's truth.

And so we avoid those worldviews that profess to have knowledge, but contain contradictions.

And so a part of my ministry, I've been able to do many debates. And so I just want people to be aware of June 24th, where I'll be debating

A .K. Richardson. I've followed his YouTube channel, listened to him, very sharp individual.

I have a lot of respect for him. And so I got to meet him a number of months ago when he came to 12 .5

Church, where I serve as pastor and elder here, to listen to Dr. James Watt talk about justification by faith alone.

And I remember walking up to A .K. saying, man, when are we gonna square off one of these days and do a debate? And he was just like, hey, let's make it happen.

And so the more we talked about it, we thought one of the fundamental differences that we have is what type of will humanity has and what free will looks like.

And so that will be June 24th on a Saturday at 6 p .m. live and in person here at 12 .5

Church. So please reach out to me. You can send me a message on Facebook. You can email me.

You can go to 12 .5 website and send an email to the church just asking if you can reserve a seat.

And we'd love to do that. But we have limited seats. We only have up to 130. We will have a little bit of standing room.

But if Jonesboro, Arkansas, which is northeast Arkansas, is too far of a drive, we will also be streaming the debate on the

Apologetic Dog YouTube channel and show your support. I now can have super chats.

I have over 1 ,000 subscribers, woo, which I'm really excited about that. And we'll be taking audience questions online in our live debate.

We'll put it on a screen so A .K. and I can interact with. So mark that down on your calendar for June 24th,

Saturday at 6 p .m. at 12 .5. Me and A .K. Richardson will be doing a debate on free will.

And so something else the Apologetic Dog is in the process of doing is having interviews with those people that have come out of the

Church of Christ Restorationist movement. A number of weeks ago, I was able to interview

Brandon Fugate with my awesome friend, Trey Fisher. He's not always going to be able to join me as I do interviews.

But that's what we're gonna do today is there's a Church of Christ exile that I really am excited for you to meet.

And his name is Cameron Vogelsang. Is that right? Did I say it right, Cameron? You pronounced it correctly.

Well, I just wanna say every time that I call you and ask Siri to call Cameron Vogelsang, she'll say

Vogelsang. So isn't that German? What does that mean? That is

German. It means bird song in English. I love it, bird song.

I'm just gonna change your name to Cameron Birdsong if that's okay. I've considered it, but it was just too much hassle.

Well, Cameron, thank you for coming on the Apologetic Dog. You and I have been friends now for a number of years by God's grace.

And you have such an interesting testimony and journey out of the Church of Christ world. And before we dive into that,

I'd love for you to tell people a little bit about who you are, the kind of content that you put out there, what kind of work you do.

Yeah, so I live in Fayette County, Tennessee. I'm about an hour east of downtown

Memphis. I'm happily married to my wife, Ashlyn. We have two daughters.

One is three and a half. One is about to turn two here in a couple months. So it's been wild, but it's been fun.

I am an electrician, residential work mostly. I used to be a youth pastor for several years in the

Church of Christ. We'll get into that, but yeah, the restoration movement was in that for a few years as a youth pastor.

So out here now in Fayette County and a member at a local church in Olive Branch and life is great.

Dude, well, by the way, I love your backyard there. You've got an awesome scenery going on. Now that's relatively new.

Yeah, so we just moved out here, I think it was a week ago, and we ordered a home from Hilltop Structures out of Nashville and just got delivered.

It's a modular cabin. We're living on eight acres, so it's really nice. Dude, it's beautiful.

I can't wait to come out there one of these days and check it out. Now, you said you served as a youth pastor in, kind of, we'll get into this more in a second, but a

Church of Christ. And so this is kind of deeply rooted with you. And I just wanna remind our audience, something that Trey Fisher and I have started is a

Facebook group called Church of Christ Exiles. And so what we're wanting to do is interview many of the exiles and ask about their testimony, their journey of how

God has saved them out of this legalistic movement by his grace. And so you and I go back, goodness, maybe three years now or so, and a part of your journey crossed paths with me.

And so I want you to kind of speak to that. So you were a youth pastor at what kind of church, did you say? I was a youth pastor at a independent

Christian church. And so a minute ago, when I was talking about the Church of Christ, I was thinking through that there.

And it is part of the restoration movement, but they split off, I think, for more than one reason.

But the main difference that you would see today in a worship setting is that the independent Christian church uses instruments in their worship service.

Unlike the traditional Church of Christ, they don't. So really, that's the main difference that I've seen. So practically, that's a big difference, is instrumental music, because the

Church of Christ are kind of known for being acapella only. And they double down and say, and it's sinful if you use instruments, because that's a man -made tradition.

And Cameron, I don't know if you've been a part of these conversations, but I've talked to members of Church of Christ that are constantly going back and forth if clapping is making an instrument with your hands.

And I just think that's so absurd. And I'm aware of the arguments from Colossians 3 and Ephesians chapter 5 talking about making a melody in your heart.

And what I try to tell people is it's a heart issue. You can sing vain worship to God whether you're using an instrument or not.

You could glorify acapella singing to the point of not giving

God glory. So yeah, so that's interesting. So apart from instrumental music, what is a lot of crossover between the

Christian church and the Church of Christ? Yeah, so a few things.

One, there's a lot of nuance within the independent Christian church because they're independent. So they're not all technically connected to each other.

They can essentially do whatever they want. And so you're gonna find some slight differences here and there. But what does overlap is water baptism.

And what I mean by that is you must be water baptized in order to be saved. Now, you have some

Christian churches that are very conservative and more dogmatic about it like a traditional Church of Christ.

You also have Christian churches that believe that, but they're not as dogmatic about it.

They're more friendly and invite you in and say that it's something we can disagree on, but we believe this and teach this.

Then there's others that would say that as long as you wanna get baptized, if you don't, like if you got in a car wreck or something, even though you wanted to, then you could still be saved.

Which I'm just like, you might as well just be a Baptist now because that's how we think. So there's a mixed bag of stuff, but that's the main crossovers are water baptism and their ecclesiology, stuff like that.

But yeah, the main thing is the water baptism. So what kind of led you into ministry in the first place years ago?

I remember we've talked about, you went to a particular Bible college. Is that right? And so you felt the call to ministry in some way, right?

And you found yourself at this church in particular. Yeah, so I was in college at Texas A &M,

Corpus Christi. And at the time I had a friend who was also in the Christian church who persuaded me that I ought to go to Bible college.

And in the midst of all that, I felt some sort of call, you can call it a calling, or I was overzealous to go to Bible college.

So I dropped everything and went to a Bible college in Memphis, a college that is supported by Church of Christ, independent

Christian churches. I went there for four years and I ended up being a youth pastor after I graduated from there.

I didn't know what I was gonna end up doing. I knew I wanted to be working at a church or in ministry.

And I ended up getting a call from a church in Jonesboro for a youth pastor position.

J -town, baby. Okay, so you're at this Christian church, which is kind of a branch of the

Restoration Movement, a lot of crossover with the Church of Christ. And so you served there for a number of years, three or four years around there?

Yeah, about three years. About three years. And so what started to make you think, okay, maybe a lot of this doctrine, especially lack of doctrine, is maybe not adding up.

If you could kind of take us through that process a little bit. Sure, so I think there was a time early on, it may have been in Bible college, where my view on water baptism,

I think that you needed to be, but I made exceptions to the rule, like what I mentioned earlier.

So I was never that hardcore about it. All right, I get to the church in Jonesboro and I still kind of feel that way, but over time

I think it's a secondary issue. It's not really that important. And that's just kind of how I thought through things.

Well, what started to happen is my wife started playing this podcast by Dale Partridge.

He runs a ministry called ReLearn HQ or ReLearn Church or something, and started listening to his podcasts.

And it wasn't anything to do with that in particular. It was just get solid biblical teaching and I enjoyed listening to podcasts.

That's all it was. Well, because of him, I got introduced to other people on YouTube, such as Jeff Durbin, Paul Washer, James White, all the popular reformed guys on the internet who had big

YouTube channels. I started getting exposed to them and I remember listening to Jeff Durbin's videos at the abortion mills, his abortion ministry.

And again, it's nothing directly related to what I'm talking about right now, even though it's all intertwined at the end.

But I started listening to that and I'm like, wow, this guy's really good. I really like what he's doing. Started listening to his sermons and then found out quickly he was

Calvinist reformed. And at first I didn't like that, but I started listening more and more. And when you don't get solid biblical teaching on the regular, when you start hearing this stuff, it's just amazing and your soul's being fed like it shouldn't be.

And so it was then when I really started considering, okay, what does the scripture really say about these things that I'm dealing with?

And I've gone to G3 and heard a couple of sermons on the sovereignty of God and it just all made sense after that.

And so that was towards the end of my three years when all that started taking place and that's when

I left the Christian tradition. Yeah, I wanna talk a little bit more about that because towards the end of it, that's where the crossover with me and you happened.

We had a mutual friend that introduced us because on my side, our mutual friend said, hey, I have this youth pastor that's in the

Christian church and I was asking more about that. And I was pretty much like, oh, so he's church Christ. And he's like, exactly. I'd love for you to talk with him.

And at the time I was just like, by all means, I would love to have a gracious conversation with somebody that has questions, especially about the scripture.

And something you said to me that really resonates with my story. I grew up in a church where teaching wasn't really valued.

You're gonna kinda have a couple Bible verses, three stories, we're gonna try to beat the

Methodist out to lunch and so no sweat. And so when you start to really ask theological questions or when you look at verses in context,

I just remember going up at a place to where that wasn't given to me. So I would have to go elsewhere to supplement those things.

And it sounds like that was your exact experience too is you started listening to these men on YouTube online that were expositing the text because you and I went to that G3 conference together.

And I remember you were having a lot of questions about the sovereignty of God and things like that. I'll never forget it.

We got to listen to Steve Lawson pretty much preach on the sovereignty of God in Romans.

And it was kind of like a grand sweep from Romans 1 building up to Romans 11, 36, you know what

I mean? And I just remember just sitting there going, oh man, this is so good, like it's all hitting me. And I remember you were right there with your baby girl.

And it was just incredible because then right after him was Paul Washer. And I didn't think what

Steve Lawson could be topped, but it happened. And so you and I got back to back just wonderful expositional preaching.

And would you say that that's been a big distinction with where you've grown up or where you served in youth ministry was expositional preaching.

And when we say that to people, we're saying in order to get God's truth from the scripture, you just have to look at context and you have to walk through it verse by verse.

Yeah, a lot of topical sermon series, which topical sermons aren't bad, but it was just one after another.

And then if we did a series that was advertised as verse by verse, we're just flying through stuff.

I remember, I think we did two sermon series during my time there on Romans.

We did a series on Romans on two different occasions. And I think only the sermon series only lasted four weeks each time.

I'm just like, how are you supposed to go through Romans in four weeks? But just because you go verse by verse or offer lip service to that doesn't mean you're giving expository preaching.

So yeah, that was a big difference. That was a huge difference in my journey too is coming out, and I love the

SBC churches. I love like evangelical. We, 12 Five, we partner with Southern Baptist churches, but just the one that I grew up in, not examining the text of scripture.

And when you don't go verse by verse, you're not able to have the context and then you're not able to have a robust, systematic theology to handle deep theological questions.

And so I was kind of forced to be like, okay, I have all these questions. My church isn't supplying these answers to me.

I'm going to go elsewhere. And so going to Grace to You Ministries with John MacArthur was a good starting point for just finally hearing expository preaching and giving answers to hard questions.

And so it sounds like that was a huge part of your journey. I don't know if you remember this, but you would come by my office and you would have verses and just like,

Jeremiah, help me understand this verse. And we would spend hours talking through these things. And you were so gracious to me because I remember you'd ask me hard questions that I was just like,

Cameron, I'm not 100 % sure how to handle this, but this is where I'm at in the moment. Do you remember any of those conversations?

Yeah, I remember our first one. We talked about 1 Timothy 2, 4 and Acts 22, 16.

I was excited to talk about those things. And if I meant to put you on the spot,

I didn't mean to, but whenever I go to my pastor at the time, he would just blow it off and just give like a one or two answer response to all my questions and then change subject to something completely different.

And then bad mouth Baptist and bad mouth Calvinist. So once I started to believe these truths,

I knew I couldn't go to him because I'd probably get kicked out. Yeah, so I remember now the conversation that we had in 1

Timothy chapter two, because really it's how do we understand this?

God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

And usually we just say timeout right there. Isn't it a given assumption that God's just trying to save every single person?

He's already done all he can do. And now the ball is in your court, right? I've had it said a number of different times, like I've heard

Dr. White put it like this, God's voting for you, Satan is voting against you, and then you make the final decision who you're going to follow ultimately.

And so this is one of those proof texts. And at the time, I was just, I think

I do remember this conversation. And what I do with people that watch

The Apologetic Dog, this isn't news, but it's, hey, let's look at the broader context. Here in the immediate context and whatever conclusions we're deriving from here, we have to ask the question, and how does this fit with the rest of the canonical context, all of Scripture?

And so tell me, I gotta freshen up on this. Tell me if this reflected much of our conversation back in the day.

So if we start back in verse one, Paul says, first of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings, and for all those who are in the high places, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

And so the reason why I think at least reading through verse six, as you see the word all mentioned more there, and so what we see back in verses one and two is we see all kinds of people.

We see kings, all different types of people in high authority places.

We're to pray for all those kinds of people. Whoever God brings into our life, we pray for them. And I tell people, it's impossible for us to pray for every in particular person, right?

Very practically pray for those kinds of people that God brings into our life, all kinds of people.

And so we're really trying to understand verse four, God who desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

I believe it's the next two verses that tell us exactly what he's getting at. For there's one

God, one mediator, the Jesus Christ, the God man, who gave himself a ransom for all.

And so ransom is a very intense word. It means literally to buy back.

And for those of us that understand the core of the gospel, Jesus dies in our stead. He takes on our sins.

And so there's a problem if the theologies that say that Jesus literally ransomed everyone's sin, there's those theologies out there, but most people we talk about, well, no, it's for those that put their faith in Christ.

Their sin literally gets put on the cross, their past, present, future sins, and is totally done for because they are ransomed by the blood of Jesus.

And so there's a particularity with those who God mediates for.

Jesus doesn't mediate on the behalf of everyone, but he specifically ransoms all kinds of people,

Jews and Gentiles alike, all of those that put their faith in Jesus. So Cameron, stop me from preaching a sermon.

Did that reflect anything that you remember back from one of our past conversations? Yeah, because I never considered verse six as driving home the point that he's making because if in verse four,

I believe, yeah, verse four, desires all to be saved. Well, if that's every human being that's ever been here and any future person that's gonna be born, if it desires all to be saved, well, all means all, right?

Every single person, okay, let's go to verse six. Don't mean that because if that's the case, you're universalist now.

Yeah, that's good. I remember this verse rocked me too, trying to understand

God's absolute sovereignty because I was left thinking, okay, does this mean God's just trying to save?

Right, it says he desires. Is that desire gonna come into fruition? And I know commentaries that say, well,

God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked in Ezekiel 18, I think it is. And that's true.

God does not get jollies from the wicked dying in their sin and receiving everlasting punishment.

Now, it's necessary for the plan of redemption that God has set out to accomplish, but God's heart does not delight in that.

And so, but I think here, Paul is talking about the specific plan of salvation that God is accomplishing, the end all the way from the beginning.

And so God's desire here is that Jews and Gentiles, all types of people would be ransomed and mediated for perfectly on behalf of Jesus.

So I'm with you. I remember reading Dr. White's book, The Potter's Freedom, and he spends a chapter talking about the big three, the three big proof texts to kind of prove not a universal salvation, but that man has this superpower called free will and in the balls in your court.

Sorry, I'm debating this topic in a couple of months. So I've been kind of thinking about it.

But here I just say, God's going to accomplish what he desires when it comes to salvation.

He's gonna be the perfect savior. Now, is it fair to say though, that kind of that particular understanding here in first Timothy two, totally goes against the church of Christ or Christian churches altogether.

Like there's no room for that particular understanding. Yeah, because of the whole libertarian free will thing.

You gotta have your free will, how I just defined it or just use that word.

You gotta have your free will. And then of course, God is really hoping that you'll repent somehow on your own desires.

You're gonna change your own desires. So yeah, that goes against it. And they believe you can lose your salvation too, which that's a whole nother problem in and of itself.

But yeah, that verse is just one of many that goes against what the church of Christ at large teaches.

Yeah, now help me out with this concept a little bit. Libertarian free will is huge in this conversation, but about losing your salvation.

So you lived in that world. You have to be obedient, Cameron, you gotta obey, you gotta obey, you gotta obey.

What did that do to you when you were a youth pastor with having this understanding of who

God is and who you are with your obedience is key for everything. So it did two things and both are kind of on one extreme and then one is the other extreme.

So one is I became very prideful of my obedience, even though I wasn't obedient all the time, no one is, no one loves

God as they ought to every second of the day. So I became prideful in my understanding of obedience and thought

I was doing really good. On the other end, the other ditch, a lot of times

I felt like I was walking on eggshells, like I could lose it at any moment. If I sinned and then

I died like five minutes later, if I didn't repent of that sin outwardly and inwardly,

I would go to hell. So there's really no resting, right? I mean, which is what Jesus taught.

Come to me, all you who labor or are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

And I think, I love what you said, but I think when you are walking on eggshells, there's no rest for the wicked.

There's no rest because literally you're walking on this, this such fine line that one wrong step basically will damn you.

And me growing up in Southern Baptist world, one thing I knew really well was once saved, always saved, baby.

And I had that drilled into me, drilled into me over and over and over again. And so as I began to grow up,

I started asking questions like, well, if I choose to follow Christ by this kind of libertarian free will, and I do wanna pause and say, being reformed, we don't say free will doesn't exist, but we're just asking the question, what kind of free will do we have?

Is it a type of free will that can kind of bend the hand of God if we pray a certain way or if I choose to do this or that,

God is just totally on the sidelines watching or just something else altogether. I can't,

Cameron, I can't get into the depths because I'll be debating it soon, which by the way, everyone's gonna love the debate with me and AK on this, because I'm very passionate about what kind of free will do we possess.

But all that say is, this topic, it really hits home to me because I realized, well, if it's up to me to choose to follow

Christ, then I should be able to choose to not follow Christ if I don't want to anymore.

I'm just saying that's a consistent paradigm. And so I didn't like the once saved, always saved model if it meant that that is contingent on my decision.

And so Cameron, we can get into this later, but there's other passages that let me know, oh man, the reason why

I'm in Christ did not originate with me, it originates with someone else before the foundation of the world.

So I didn't know if you wanna speak to that. Yeah, I never heard different types of free will until I heard like a five minute video by R .C.

Sproul. That's all it took is five minutes. He made a distinction between libertarian free will and free will as we would describe it, we can, you can do whatever you want, whatever your heart desires to do.

So I never, no one ever explained that to me. I never heard of that. And then it just made sense like, oh yeah.

And so when you hold to that position of libertarian free will, whether you wanna admit it or not, at least this is how

I thought, I think it follows that, okay, why do certain people believe and then how come others don't?

They hear the same message, they hear the same gospel. You have some who believe and some don't. Well, the only thing that makes sense is that the people who did believe are more intellectual, they're smarter, they're more moral, you know, the list goes on.

I think that necessarily follows from that position, whether someone would admit it or not. And you mentioned pride earlier.

We all agree this is an extreme, but it really feeds into pride thinking, man, I figured it out, right?

And I talk to people who say, well, the gospel came first, the spirit was at work. Yes, but there was something in you that processed all that and received it.

And so I think that feeds a pride of, well, what separates me from the guy that rejected? Oh, well,

I figured it out. And so I don't think we're building a caricature. I think a lot of people's testimony, especially where I come from, it's like, oh, those were the things that were starting to be pieced together.

And you know what radically changed in my mindset, Cameron? My own personal testimony. Like, I grew up in a church, and one day

I walked an aisle, one day I prayed a prayer, that day I got baptized, and I just thought, man,

I have such a mundane testimony because it looks like everyone else. I wasn't saved out of drugs.

I wasn't saved off the battlefield with this amazing testimony.

But when I started understanding the role of the Holy Spirit, and that was truly dead in my sins and trespasses,

I look back and I'm thinking, wait, wait, wait, I've been looking at this all wrong. I had a changed heart that was loving

Christ. That's something from outside of this world. And so literally, my testimony is one of the gospel of how

God changed me by His grace. And you know what? My testimony is the most fantastic thing now that I cannot wait to share with people because it wasn't me.

I was passive in it. In fact, I wasn't seeking God. I was going the exact opposite direction, even though I was within the church walls and the church buildings.

I was just going through the motions, right? I was spiritually dead. So that's the kind of payout with having a right understanding of who

God is and who we are in light of His universe. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it comes down to having a proper understanding of God, having the right understanding of what the sovereignty of God is.

And during that journey, I realized that and realized how sinful

I am. I was a lot more sinful than I thought I was. And someone can be saved and you're gonna live the rest of your life becoming more humble and you're gonna realize how much of a wretch you are in your natural state, in your sin.

And so that is part of sanctification. But for me, I just didn't realize at all how great my sin was.

Yeah, that's so good. I mean, when you really grasp the depths of your sin and it breaks you, well, then all you can look to is

Christ. And then the joy can begin to set in in its proper place. The gospel is not really good news unless you understand how bad of a wretched sinner you are before a holy, holy, holy

God. So, man, I remember us having a lot of those conversations and I wanted to just briefly talk about, if you're okay, that other verse that I remember you were asking about Acts 22, 16, and you were not impressed with my answer at the time.

And you gotta think, I wasn't quite the apologetic dog. I was probably more of a puppy. And so, you know.

How's that for you? Yeah, the apologetic pup is J .J.

Nortier, who turned six months old yesterday. So, Allie put his little birthday hat that had a fraction of one half on it.

And I was like, of course. But I do wanna talk about this verse a little bit, just because it's kind of important in your journey out of the

Church of Christ restorationist movement, even though you were more in the Christian church. But Acts 22, 16, this is a very important verse to the

Church of Christ community. And I will be the first to admit, of course it's important because it's God's word.

But we have to understand the context. We have to understand etymologies and definitions of certain words.

And the genre of Acts, Cameron, I feel like it's very important because Acts is a narrative book.

It's telling us a story of what is descriptive of the early church.

And that's really important when we start looking to Paul's didactic letters giving us theology. We're supposed to be reading the book of Acts with Paul in mind, with his didactic teachings, realizing, okay, well, this principle applies to us over here.

This is prescriptive. And oh, this is something descriptive for the early church.

You know what I mean? And so here in Acts 22, Paul is retelling his conversion experience that we first read about in Acts chapter nine.

And then we read about Ananias. Ananias is huge in Paul's conversion. And I try to also tell people conversion, you just got to explain what you mean by that because your conversion could be kind of the story of how you came out of darkness to light.

And that looks like a process. You know what I mean? And so Acts 22, 16, Ananias says to Paul, who is

Saul of Tarsus at the time, and now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.

Now, the conversations that I have with Church Christ are basically, we don't need any explanation.

It's so clear. Don't try to explain it away. Now, you and I have talked about, okay, if people want to play that game, well, let's quote

Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount where he's talking about salvation, right? Well, just pluck out your eye, right?

It's better for you to go into heaven maimed rather than hell with your whole body, right?

But do you think they would let us quote that verse and just say, well, it says what it says and it means what it means? No, they would say, oh, see, you can't stay to the text.

Let's just stay right here. But I mean, I don't even know. I'm not even sure if they know what the word hermeneutic means, but I don't care.

Hermen who? You mean there's a right and wrong way to study the Scripture? Just read it.

It's that simple. Yeah, now, we're adding a little snark in there, but we believe in the perspicuity of Scripture, meaning that God's word is clear enough to be understood.

But something else we encourage people to think about is what's called the grammatical historical method of interpretation.

Words have meaning in the context in which they were intended for. And so the

New Testament especially was written in the first century. And so you have to have these first century lenses on with certain words and phrases and what that would have meant.

And you do that with the Old Testament as well. And so what we're getting at is you can't have a 21st century understanding of something and impose it onto the text.

And so all that's important. And so when we go back to the Scripture, I just,

I wanna point out that this is a narrative. This is giving us the details about the life of Paul and Ananias and the flow of Acts.

And so what you have is an already established, Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and he received the gospel.

And to receive the gospel is always by faith. So the apostle Paul is already changed.

Now earlier in Acts 22, we can see more of this details. Saul of Tarsus confessed

Jesus as Lord. And he knew that Jesus was the risen Lord. And he says, what shall

I do? Meaning, how do you want me to live my life because I bend the knee and submit to you.

It's wonderful. I just tell church Christ, I tell people just go read earlier in the text. Now, I remember with you, all

I could really articulate at the time when you were coming to my office asking about this is I remember saying something like this, is

Ananias is being faithful to the gospel proclamation here and the great commission. And I remember

I got that look like, what do you mean Jeremiah? And I said, well, rise and be baptized and wash away, rise and be baptized definitely sounds like Matthew 28, definitely sounds like Mark 16, 16, but a commissioning of when you go and make disciples, you baptize them.

And so this is exactly what Ananias is wanting to do with Saul of Tarsus, which he probably would have been very hesitant to even do this unless the

Lord appeared to him or gave him a vision saying, it's all happening according to the plan. Paul is a chosen vessel of mine.

And so we see the great commission here of saying, Paul, we need to get you baptized man. And then the second part is a reminder of that gospel proclamation, washing away your sins, calling on his name.

So calling on his name here, this has Old Testament roots of whoever calls upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved. The first mention of that is in the very last part of Genesis chapter four.

And so calling on the name of the Lord stems from a heart of worship, a heart of faith, a repentant faith that's going to manifest in things of what you say and how you live your life.

And so I remember talking with you. I just said, yeah, Ananias is proclaiming the gospel and being faithful to the great commission.

And I think you're just like, gonna have to think on that one. That's okay.

Yeah, I actually don't remember every part of that conversation, but I do remember we did hit on some other verses, which we probably don't have time on this episode to go in depth, but Acts 2 38 is their baby.

That's their number one go -to. And then John 3 16 is another one. Yeah, no, it would be me that more remembers that particular conversation.

But it was so good because for me it was, man, here's an opportunity. God has brought someone to me, ask me about very particular verses.

And I don't want to be guilty of those men in my life when I had questions that really kind of gave me the stiff arm.

And so you were patient in it. It was sharpening to me and God was gracious overall.

And you and I began to form a friendship, which just I'm indebted to you for.

I just, I really appreciate us being able to talk on the job, which I do want to get into here in a moment about where you're at today.

But as much as you want to, I know that it was a huge cost for you as you started to think through these truths, because we believe in what we would call the gospel of grace, meaning that we are saved through faith and not of works that we accomplish and do.

And I try to explain to people, Jesus did all the works necessary for redemption. He said, it is finished, to tell us time.

Jesus was perfectly obedient to the law. He did everything he should have done and he didn't do what he shouldn't do, right?

And so I'm just saying all men fall short in that standard. And so Jesus accomplished redemption perfectly.

And then we are called to look to him in faith alone, not a mere said faith, which is a dead faith, but a true living faith that trust in Jesus for salvation and you don't trust in yourself or anything in this world.

And so I remember us having those very gospel -saturated conversations, but you had to count the cost, right?

Because you knew you were at a church that was not preaching that and did not want to engage in questions like that at all.

And so tell us what happened next in your life. Yeah, so I don't know if I said this earlier or not, but when

I left, it actually worked out because our first daughter was just born and it ended up being good timing because we wanted to move back here to Tennessee anyway.

But the fact, being in that church helped me, it wasn't a problem making that decision.

And so because we wanted to move back anyway, I didn't even bring that up at the end, honestly, because it didn't matter.

I just viewed it as, if you're at a Catholic church and you went up to the priest and tried to preach justification by faith alone, he would just be like, nope.

And so it's really not gonna do you any good. And so that's the reason we left is to move.

But the second reason that was never really brought up was all of this that I'm discussing.

But yeah, so we moved back and I ended up getting a job as an electrician and that's what

I'm doing now. And I run an Instagram page dedicated to construction work, electrical work, stuff like that.

Yeah, now before, cause I do want you to tell us more about the common means of grace, how

God is using you for the kingdom, but in these different atmospheres. I am proud to say that you're plugged into a healthy church.

So will you kind of tell us a little bit more about that, maybe who your elders are and the big differences of where you're at now versus the church that you were at beforehand?

Yep, so I'm a member at Mercy Hill Church in Olive Branch, great church.

My elders are Lawson Harlow, Blake McCullough, and Don Terrell. Plurality of elders, big difference from the

Church of Christ now. We did have elders there, but it was just a title that a few guys held.

It didn't really operate that way. There was a senior pastor who was also an elder, but he pretty much made most of the decisions around there.

And a lot of the elders we had, in my opinion, weren't qualified elders, and they didn't act like elders.

Not like in a, I don't mean to be too harsh, but they just didn't function as elders. That's how

I should say it. So that's the big difference, plurality of elders. Just how we have a worship service and how we do church.

We're not trying to get people in the doors at all costs. That's what we did in Jonesboro, is to use whatever means, for the most part, to get people to come.

Had a great child care program, kids church, all that stuff. We don't do any of that at Mercy Hill.

We have a nursery up to three years old, I think. Wait, wait, wait, y 'all do a family worship service? Yeah, I know it's unheard of for some reason.

All right, that's what we do at 12 Five, baby. Family integrated worship. It's so awesome seeing little boys and girls looking up to Mommy and Daddy, singing to King Jesus.

Yeah, yeah, so we didn't have any of that. Well, we don't have any of that stuff at Mercy Hill. We have expository preaching every single

Sunday. Didn't really get that at my other church, ever. Those are just some of the main differences off the top of my head.

But yeah, justification by faith alone, that's not preached in the independent Christian church.

And if they are preaching that, they might as well just call themselves Baptists. I don't understand what that would do. You're gonna have some

Presbyterians say, hey, wait a second. Yeah, well, what they do, they're redefining faith.

Right, well, that's an important word to define, pistis in the Greek, which really means firm trust.

This is a transformed heart that's not looking to yourself and the things that we do, but is looking to the one who does it perfect.

And I get it, Cameron, I guess I'm bringing it on myself, but I get into so many debates where people say, well, faith's a work that you do.

And I'm like, no, faith is a gift from God, right? It's a work of God.

What? You have to accept it, though. You gotta accept it. He did 99%, and I'm like, look,

Jesus is not knocking. That 1 % sounds like a lot more than 1%.

And I try to explain to people, Jesus is not knocking at the door of my heart. When King Jesus sets out to accomplish something, he's going to kick in the door of your heart, and he is king, and he reigns as he sees fit.

But I wanted to talk about something else, too, if you don't mind. Now, you were baptized in the

Church of Christ, the Christian church, and tell us a little bit about what happened after you left the

Church of Christ church, in relation to your baptism. Yeah, so I was sprinkled as an infant in the

Methodist church. Oh, nice. Don't count that. Yeah. And then I was baptized by immersion,

I think when I was 16 or 17, in high school, in the Christian church convent. Did your hand make it all the way in?

I believe so, I have pictures. I think I was fully submerged. In a hot tub. Got baptized, and it felt pretty good.

Just for the audience's sake, the reason why we emphasize that your hand make it in, because I've had that ongoing conversation with, more so of the hardline

Church of Christ, not some of the liberal kind, or the Christian church, but their view of the gospel, their view of obeying the gospel by immersion baptism, is if you don't get fully submerged, then you disobeyed the gospel.

And that's legalism, of saying, oh man, if my works don't line up to the brim 100%, then you're not gonna make it.

And the idea is, the law crushes us. Actually, the law of God demands perfection.

And the Pharisees in the gospels, they were trying to live up to that perfection. You know that they were carrying that yoke of bondage, and they were just faking it on the outside, right?

Literally, they would wear masks, or figuratively, they would wear a mask, put on this facade, right?

And so, that's what the word hypocrite means. And so anyway, my point is, modern -day legalists,

Pharisees, especially within the Church of Christ, say, even if your finger didn't make it all the way in, then you disobeyed the gospel.

Yeah, think about a hair strand that didn't make it all the way in. It's a mouth. Yeah, like you just mentioned, you can get all kinds of different answers on that, but at the end of the day, you have to do it.

You have to get water baptized. And like I said, I do wanna make this point, because I didn't make it when we started the video.

There's a lot of good people at the church I served at. I don't know,

I can't see the hearts of men, so I don't know who's saved, and just doesn't know any better, and who isn't.

There's a lot of good people at the Bible college I went to that I still have great respect for, who don't hold to the position of being baptized.

You must be baptized in order to be justified before God. There's some professors who don't hold that position.

They just think you should. But there's great people at the church

I was at, and the Bible college. And so, I don't mean to bring down anybody, or try to represent all people within the restoration movement, but at large, that's what's going on.

Yeah, and I just wanna echo that too. We don't see the Reformed Baptist Church as being the one true church.

And so a lot of church Christ do not understand what we mean, is God is sovereign.

He's bigger to work in different denominations. And I'm gonna say the C word. He's even able to work within cults.

People that have a perverted gospel that does not save. But what we mean is, there could be some people within a sect, a denomination, or whatever, and be trusting in Jesus and Him alone.

But they've been taught such bad theology, they're not able to articulate what their heart truly has undergone.

Now we pray that as they begin to mature in the faith, and as the Spirit leads them, hopefully they will leave that group, whatever it may be.

So, when we talk about the church Christ, the Christian church, or whatever, we wanna say these things with love and grace, and realize that we trust

God. God is going to give the increase, and we're not saying literally everyone that attends one of these churches is lost.

We're saying that God's people even are within there, and they need to hear good, sound teaching.

Realize, man, there can be healthy congregation where we can flourish in the faith. Yeah, I would recommend if there's anyone out there that attends a

Christian church, independent Christian church, or a church of Christ, maybe they're, quote unquote, liberal church of Christ, look at their statement of faith and see if they address baptism.

Because a lot of times, if they do, they're gonna reference Acts 238, and they're not gonna really explain it.

They're just gonna put the verse in there and just read it. Go ask your pastor and or your elders about that, and see if you can get an explanation, because you may need to leave that church tomorrow, depending on their interpretation of that.

Some independent Christian churches, some churches of Christ who are more liberal, they leave that out sometimes, because they don't want people to not show up because the traditional churches of Christ have kinda ruined it for a lot of people.

You know what I mean? A lot of people, they don't wanna be, like I said earlier in this episode, they don't wanna be as dogmatic, so they won't address it in their statement of faith.

You'd have to go ask them in person. But that's what I'd recommend for anyone who may be in those types of churches right now.

Yeah, so you were sprinkled in a Methodist church, right? You were fully submerged, all your fingers made it in the water.

We got off topic. No, it's okay. It's necessary, because we wanna encourage the people. We're not saying that you have to be a

Reformed Baptist in order to be a part of the one true church. The universal church are those people whose hearts have been changed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh that trusts in Christ by faith alone.

And so those people exist in other contexts, and we're saying we trust God and his sovereignty to build his church, his universal church, as he sees fit.

So, but what we're transitioning to is, you've been baptized since then, haven't you? Yeah, yeah, so I was baptized when

I was 16 or 17 in the Christian church. Fast forward to,

I think it was, yeah, it was early last year I'd been a member of Mercy Hill for like a year, a year and a half, and talking to you, talking to my elders, in my conscience,

I felt like I needed to be baptized again. I've been back and forth on it for so long.

If I was saved when I was 16, 17, just didn't know, you know, or had a big misunderstanding of salvation.

I'm not sure. I think I was just overzealous and prideful, and again, lining more up with the Pharisees, how

I had a lot going for me on the outside, but my heart wasn't changed and stuff. But, you know, that's something

I thought through many times, I still do. But the fact that I was baptized in the Christian church,

I just wanted to get that behind me, and if someone is considering getting baptized again, believing that their previous baptism was an invalid baptism, you probably need to talk to your pastor and your elders.

Such good insight, man. I mean, that is a conversation to have with your pastors, and to just be on your face before the

Lord's seeking that out. Because at 12 .5, this is what I tell people, to be a member of the universal church is by faith, and then our stance at 12 .5

is to be a member of the local church is by baptism. And we accept people's baptisms if they were baptized in an evangelical church, believing the right

Jesus as the second person of the Trinity, and they received him by faith, alone, apart from works.

And so, and every time I have these conversations with people saying, well, I was saved. But I know

I was saved, I was trusting in Jesus, even though I was being baptized in a church of Christ setting. And I just say, well, everywhere we see in the gospel, or in the

New Testament, especially in the book of Acts, baptisms require two people. Baptizer, baptizee, and the baptizer is very integral in that, because they believe the right gospel and are proclaiming the right gospel.

And a lot of times, it's in the church context. And so, from a baptizee perspective, baptism is an act of faith.

It's a sanctifying work that God has graciously allowed us to participate in, to declare to the world that we love

King Jesus. He is Lord of all, and we want to follow him in all that we do.

And so, if somebody was baptized in a Mormon context, which is by immersion, by the way, but it's a false

God, it's a false gospel. And so, we would just say at 12 .5, well, we want you to be baptized biblically the right way so we can all rejoice with you.

It's not a legalistic mindset, but it's funny, because we use the obey word. We want to be obedient to all of what

Christ has commanded us. And so, I just want to encourage somebody that if you are getting plugged into a healthy church and God has called you out of the church of Christ, man, rejoice with the saints.

I wish I could get baptized again. I would do it more and more. Thank God that we do the

Lord's Supper every week. I mean, I look forward to that sacrament, that common means of grace, of getting to partake in communion with God and his people in that way.

So, I just wanted you to encourage people, and maybe some faithful elders see that a little bit differently.

Trust their leadership. Trust them, search these things out. But I just wanted for somebody to hear what you had to say.

You're saying, look, God saved me out of all that. They teach a false gospel.

Even though you may have been saved and all that, you just wanted to be baptized the right way, biblically, right, with someone who actually is believing in the gospel of grace being the one baptizing you.

Yes, I agree with all that. So, now, you're an electrician, is that right?

Yeah, who would have thought? Everything I've done in my life, I never thought I'd be doing it.

So, I'm pleased to tell everybody, Cameron, he's not just a regular electrician.

He lets everybody else kind of get a little taste of what he does on the job. He's the Tennessee electrician.

And so, you put out a lot of content on Instagram. Is that right? I do,

I'm pretty active on there, and I created the page last year, and this is kind of what it's come to.

Well, when I looked on there, I noticed you had a video that went viral, and it has how many views?

It's the one where you were shaking some wood and saying, would you just look at it? Would you just look at, look at this, look at that, and had that funny sound bite.

Yeah, it's a little over six million views right now. That's the video that put me on the map,

I guess you could say. And then, I've just been doing my normal thing at work and posting electrical things.

I just want people to know that every day, Cameron and I, we talk on the phone, and we'll be talking about theology or something like that, and immediately, he has to switch to telling somebody what to do or not, and we have the best conversations.

So, you help my day go by when I'm driving on the road and things like that.

Getting them points. Getting them points, that's right. Now, you got over 40 ,000 followers.

That is incredible with the kind of influence that you have. Yeah, like I said,

I wasn't ever trying to do that necessarily. I was just trying to have fun posting my stuff, and people like it, and I try to help other tradesmen out to care about their careers.

You can be a blue -collar worker, and it's not a shameful thing. It's actually a very much -needed thing, and I'm just like, yeah, all the white -collar workers like Jeremiah, when their plumbing goes out or their

HVAC goes out, we need to call them. That's right. They're real blue -collar workers. We need

Christian plumbers, we need Christian electricians up in there. That's so cool.

I just wanna encourage people, go check out Tennessee Electrician on Instagram. Cameron, that's a world

I've not tapped into yet. The apologetic dog really needs to make his way over there one of these days.

Yeah, like I said, I'm most active on Instagram. My wife kind of runs my TikTok. She just takes my videos from Instagram and posts them on TikTok, and I do have a

YouTube channel. Haven't posted on there in months. I'd like to get more involved on YouTube, but I don't have time for all three platforms.

But if anybody wants to message me or reach out, don't try it on YouTube, because I'm not gonna see it probably.

Just message me on my Instagram. Well, you know this by being on Instagram and having a lot of people interact with your stuff.

There's a lot of hate from time to time, isn't there? Yeah, I'm not a real electrician.

I'm just an internet electrician. I don't know what the ontological difference is between a internet one and a real one.

You're an electrician. You're not supposed to know what ontology means. You mean you can be blue collar and you can love theology and love study and just rest in the common means of God's grace in your life?

Yeah, I can identify whatever I want. You can in this day and time. Well, as we wind down,

I wanted people to see this as well, because you're also the founder of Bearded Brothers.

And so this particular scent I have is St. Nick. I just want everybody to know, this stuff is fantastic.

The Apologetic Dog uses nothing but Bearded Brothers in my beard, and my wife really likes the

St. Nick stuff. I'm probably gonna have to hit you up soon to get another stock of that. Yeah, that's

Lawson's favorite too. And that, Lawson Harlow, one of my elders. Yeah, so the

St. Nick was supposed to be seasonal, but then so many people liked it, I kinda just make it whenever people want it.

But yeah, Bearded Brothers, I started making beard oils right when COVID started, so about three years ago.

And I just make them on the side. It's ran through our family business called Faith Farms. So it's just kinda under that umbrella.

I'll put a link in the description for everybody to go check that out. Yeah, so I just kinda make those on the side and you can find them at faithfarmsgms .com.

Awesome, well, thank you for letting us know about that. As we wind down, I wanted to maybe talk about one last scripture that you've told me that was really important, just in your spiritual growth.

A lot of people understand this as the golden chain of redemption. And the couple verses right before verse 30 that just talk about God and his majesty and his sovereignty, he who begins a good work in you, he is the one that's gonna see it to the day of Jesus Christ.

And so earlier, when I was talking about the church that I grew up at, I just couldn't understand how of my own free will can

I choose to follow Christ but then choose not to follow Christ? Well, it was studying for me in Romans, realizing that, oh,

God did a work in me first. Oh, Ephesians one tells me that this is before the foundation of the world, that God is working all things together in a very particular way after the counsel of his will.

And Paul is writing to Christians here saying, rest in that, rest in that, verse 28.

And we know that those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Verse 29 goes on to say, Cameron, for those whom he foreknew, not those he foresaw and learned, but those whom he had a loving relationship that he knew beforehand, he also, here's the word, predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that in order, so we might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And so verse 30, I wanna give you a chance to kind of speak to what it's meant to you in your life. Yeah, do you want me to read it?

Yeah, you read it and you tell us kind of how that's impacted you. Yeah, so verse 30, and those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.

I remember reading that verse several times after G3 on my couch at home. And I just had to come to terms with, this is what

God has said in his word. You can try and jump through all kinds of hoops and talk about, yeah, this is

God foreseeing down the tunnels of the future, but you can read that into this text and you can try and make it work, but that's just not what it teaches.

That's not what scripture at large teaches. You have to read in that libertarian free will, which

I'm really looking forward to your debate on that. But yeah, it gave me assurance and rest like I've never experienced before.

You would think like, why would you not wanna believe this truth? Why would you not?

Because it's not easy believism, but why would you not wanna hold to assurance of your salvation and God being in control of it all?

It's pride. I mean, even the Catholic church admits that, and the Seven Deadly Sins, that pride is like the number one thing.

So that's what it comes down to. And I think there's just such a, I don't know what other word to use, but just such a hatred towards Calvinism that people, they know what everything entails.

And so for me, when I was wrestling through scriptures like this one, I knew either what

I held to at the time was correct as far as justification by faith and kind of works, or it's the doctrines of grace.

I never thought that, even though the Southern Baptist church, the traditional Southern Baptist church, they preach a right gospel, they're our brothers and sisters.

I thought their view of salvation was very inconsistent. I was like, it's either mine or it's the doctrines of grace.

I could never understand how you can choose your way into salvation freely, this libertarian free will, but then you can't choose your way out of it according to a lot of Southern Baptist doctrines.

So it was the greatest thing that's one of the greatest things that ever happened to me is believing in this truth.

And I feel like maybe God saved me in that moment. I'm not sure. And then you wrote a song about it.

I did write a song, it's been a minute. You gotta record that, man.

Did you call it the diamond thread? It's called the golden chain. I believe my pastor calls it the diamond thread.

I think the diamond thread sounds a lot better. I like it. But yeah, so all those verses have been instrumental in where I'm at today.

Dude, well, praise God. Your friendship with me just means the world.

And hearing your testimony also reminds me that our work that is done for the

Lord is never in vain. And so I may not see some of the fruit of spending time doing debates and contending for the gospel of grace or guarding the deposit that's been entrusted to us, but I trust

God with all that. He gives the increase and you're a blessing just to be able to hear your testimony. And so that's what this segment is all about is interviewing

Church of Christ exiles. And so Cameron, I can't wait to have more to come.

And I know many people would probably love to reach out to you and learn more about your story and just continue to get your wisdom and insight.

Yeah, like I said, y 'all know where to find me. You might find a lot of hate on there, just ignore it. I'll tell you,

I know the feeling. When you put yourself out to be scrutinized by the public, the public's like, oh yeah, we've just been waiting.

Yeah, yeah, so that's pretty much it. And yeah, if you're in the area, come visit

Mercy Hill Church, we'd love to have you. Thanks so much, Cameron. Love you, brother.

Love you too. Thank you for, you know, you've been through it all with me in the past few years.

So I really appreciate you and Nathan and everybody else. Absolutely, well, hang on and I'll talk to you here in just a moment.

Well, thank you all for tuning in to the Apologetic Dog as we continue our series on interviewing

Church of Christ exiles. Hope you hear our heart in this. This isn't to make fun or belittle.

We may put our finger on some things that are absolutely absurd, but legalism is absurd.

Legalism fights itself. And so anyway, I'm just, I'm so excited for more interviews to come like this.

Thank you so much for tuning in and God bless. So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the

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

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

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

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