Biologos and Doug Pagitt: an Interesting Comparison

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While the rest of the world was busy playing with its clocks, we were right here, nothing's changed.

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Because this is The Dividing Line. Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is

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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line. Sorry for those of you who are having to listen by podcast because you didn't hear it live because you're going to accuse us of changing the time.

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But as normal, we did not change the time. We are here at the exact same time that we're always here on Tuesday mornings, unless we announce a change, of course.

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But 11 a .m. mountain standard time, not daylight time.

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And since daylight time has ended, then it looks to the rest of you as if we changed the time.

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But in reality, we didn't change anything at all. So we're here at the plain old time.

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And those of us who honor time by not playing with our clocks and those of you who do play with your clocks, as if that actually means something, in case you didn't notice, the sun got up at the same exact time the next day.

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Well, actually, it would have been a little bit later given that it's fall. But you know what I mean. The sun did not come up an hour later, despite the fact that you played with your clocks.

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That's just how that works. Back from Peru. And let me just mention that whenever I've had that opportunity of traveling to places like Lima, Peru, I spoke at the

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FIAL conference in 2003. So that required flying into Sao Paulo, Brazil.

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I am always touched by the sincerity, the passion, the love of the people in South America, their love for the

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Word of God, their hunger for the Word of God. Those of us in English -speaking nations, we have a tremendous availability of the truth of God.

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We have resources. Most of us have far more books than we'd ever be able to read.

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Far more copies of the Bible, translations of the Bible. And we don't realize just how much we have.

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We really, really don't. And so there's such a hunger for in -depth teaching.

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I addressed a lot of subjects. I even snuck one subject in I wasn't supposed to or scheduled to address.

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But so many of the questions had to do with the biblical transmission. We had a whole group of brothers who rode on a bus for 35 hours from Bolivia to Lima, Peru.

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And I can assure you the roads they were driving on were not Interstate 70 that crosses the

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United States. They weren't driving on I -10. And they went 35 hours by bus to Lima, Peru, and were there

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Tuesday through Friday. And one of them spoke

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English. And so I learned more from him. And so 70 hours traveling, round trip.

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And there wasn't going to be a bus heading back to Bolivia until Saturday at nine o 'clock.

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So they're going to have to spend sort of an extra day and wouldn't get home till late Sunday, early

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Monday, something like that. And yet they were attentive, never heard a word of complaint.

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Tuesday and Wednesday when I was down there, I did two hours of questions before we got started.

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And then five hours of speaking, all by translation, which is incredibly difficult if you've never done it before.

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Let me tell you something. It is one of the most mentally exhausting and challenging things that you could ever do.

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It truly is. If you're a speaker and you're used to speaking, you have a certain cadence, your mind works in a certain way.

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And when you have to stop every little bit, half a sentence or a sentence, when you're constantly monitoring what you're saying for idioms, to make sure that you're not using phraseology that would not translate correctly, not using examples that would not translate correctly, even when trying to decide when to stop, you have to make sure.

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Now in the target language that I'm being translated into, if I stop here, is that going to change the meaning? It is incredibly challenging.

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It truly is. And I listen to myself and it just sounds terrible to me because it's not how

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I normally speak. It's not my flow. It's not my tone. You're trying to, in essence, it's almost like writing a

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Twitter message. You have to do your entire sermon as a

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Twitter message, because that's about how long you can go. And you know how challenging it is to make a full statement, a meaningful statement in that time period.

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It's a challenge. No two ways about it. And my translators did the best that they can do, and each translator is different.

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I worked with three different translators this time. In Lima, Peru, of course, they speak Spanish. When I was outside of Sao Paulo, it was

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Portuguese. And I've also spoken in translation in Italy as well.

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So it is a challenging thing to do. There's no two ways about it. But the brethren were very appreciative.

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Just so much need. One of the brothers from Bolivia was talking about the school that he goes to and the challenges that were being thrown at him.

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And it's the same postmodernism we're dealing with here. It's all over the world.

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And yet we have much more material responding to it in English, which just simply isn't available in Spanish. And so it was all video recorded.

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It's going to be made available. But much need there. But I'm always humbled and challenged by the contentedness of the brothers.

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I am always reminded that I think we are tremendously distracted by all the stuff that we have here in the

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West. They seem to be more content with God's providence.

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They seem to be more in love with God than many people in the

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West because they don't have so much stuff distracting them, so many things to pull their hearts away. And so it's always good to get that opportunity.

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It was massive culture shock for me. Since I got back from Lima, Peru, I have been listening.

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Okay, so I drove from Sky Harbor International Airport, which is a big airport, all the way home.

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It's about 20 minutes. And I drove down to church twice. And I've driven around the town a little bit, had some errands to run, took my motorcycle in today.

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And you know what? I have not heard a single horn honked since I got back from Peru.

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Not once. I've driven at least 75 miles in Phoenix, Arizona. And I have not heard a horn honk once since I got back

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Saturday night. Let me tell you something. When I was waiting for the guys to pick me up Saturday morning before 4am,

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I went outside about 3 .45am. I did not go outside the gate of the hostel

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I was staying in because there's people all over the place. And they're interesting people at that time of the morning.

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But the first sound you hear when your eyes open in Lima, Peru, even inside, is the honking of horns.

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And I stood outside at 3 .50am. I mean, it is a constant cacophony of sound.

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The only two required pieces of equipment on a Peruvian car are the accelerator and a horn.

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And I'm not sure which gets pressed more often, the accelerator or the horn. It is amazing.

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Even my driver, we're just driving down the road, there's no one on the road. And he's honking the horn.

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Now I knew it was because we were coming up to an intersection, so I guess it's sort of like a warning, here I come through. But after a while, you don't even hear it anymore.

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I mean, unless you're an American, and then you hear it constantly. But nobody listens to that.

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It was absolutely positively amazing. And I must admit, every time I come back, I remember driving in Brazil.

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And one of the first thoughts across my mind as I was driving in Brazil is, you know what? I sort of like the

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EPA. I mean, generally, that's not something I say a lot, you know, because some of the regulations seem really silly.

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But, you know, this morning, it was 52 degrees here in Phoenix. I had the front door open,

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I had the windows open, fresh, cool air coming in. And I sat there, and I could take deep breaths without choking on the smog.

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And I was listening to birds singing outside. And I thought, there's no place you can go in Lima and do this.

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You would keep the doors closed. And I don't think

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I ever heard a bird when I was there. So it was culture shock.

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That and the thing I Twittered about not knowing, because I don't remember this from Brazil.

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I don't think this happened in Brazil. Maybe no one just ever told me about it. But you're not supposed to flush toilet paper pretty much south of the

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Arizona -Mexico border. And I had no earthly idea on that one.

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And learned that the first day I was there. And I'm like, okay, all right, that's, okay, that's different than where I live.

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So I had a little culture shock. And of course, trying to avoid the water. You know,

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I mean, rinsing your toothbrush off with bottled water. And rinsing your dishes off with bottled water.

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And even when in a shower, trying to make sure that none of the water gets into your mouth.

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Because I don't like intestinal parasites. And I'm really, I don't need to lose any more weight.

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So I didn't eat a lot in Peru. Twice I got to go to Chili's.

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And it tasted just like the Chili's here, and it was great. But that was it. And so I had

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Kellogg's Owl Brand for breakfast and dinner. And for the other lunches,

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I had turkey on, dry turkey, I mean, plain turkey, on wheat bread.

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With water. And that was it. And it worked. The Peruvian diet plan worked.

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I am by far the lightest I have been in, I don't know, 1995, maybe, something like that.

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So it worked well. So we had a great time there.

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I've posted something. I'm going to post a couple more pictures once I get some information back from Brad White and the folks at HeartCry.

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They did a great job, and I really appreciate all they did for me. And pray for the brethren down there.

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They really do love the Lord. It's great. Now, what I want to get to today, and we'll take some calls later on, but 877 -753 -3341 is still the phone number, right?

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Because we have a whole new phone connection system, internet system, that was installed yesterday, and so far it's working.

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And if you're hearing me, that's because it is still working. And so we'll take some calls later on.

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But I wanted to weigh in a little bit on, I'm sitting here playing with, this is my new nervous fidget thing.

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See my new nervous fidget thing? That's my wedding ring. And it's trying to fall off. And I'm sliding it.

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Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's, I know. And I'm sitting here doing this thing because I'm not used to a ring being that loose and sliding around my finger.

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It's weird. But that's a good thing. Anyhow, I got a big race a week from Saturday.

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It's El Toro to Tucson. So me and 10 ,000 of my best friends, who I'm going to just simply be trying to avoid running into, will be riding 109 miles around the perimeter of Tucson.

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And so that'll be a lot of fun. Anyway, I wanted to weigh in on what happened this morning in the posting of an article by Dr.

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Albert Moeller on the BioLogos material and the

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BioLogos website. I've mentioned this briefly in the past. There are others who can take care of this stuff just fine.

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It's not that it's not of interest to me. It is. I have a science background. I have mentioned on this program before,

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I still, when you talk about regrets in your past, I regret that one day in 1985,

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Grand Canyon College called me on the phone and said, OK, you're about to graduate. Do you want your

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BA or your BS? You can get either one. Because I had completed a major in biology and a major in Bible and had passed all my senior exams, including a very difficult science exam, senior science exam.

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I remember that very, very well. I was a department fellow in anatomy and physiology.

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And since I was going to the seminary, I made the wrong choice. I said

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I'd take the BA in Bible because I figured that would be better for going to the seminary. The seminary doesn't care.

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The seminary does not care what degree your bachelor's in. They just don't care. And I wish to this day

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I had taken the BS. I really, really had. I'd finished all the work for it. But I didn't.

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So I have a BA in Bible with a completed major in biology and a minor in Greek. But anyway, now, my science vocabulary would be a 1980s science vocabulary.

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It's not like I have stopped reading science. I haven't. I actually keep up a lot of the intelligent design stuff.

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So new developments in genetics and things, because that was my main area of interest was genetics. And as a senior,

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I raised 35 ,000 Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I did all kinds of stuff. So I have a science background.

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And so the whole issue of origins, intelligent design,

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I remember years ago, I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, speaking at a church there.

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And I was talking with some of the brethren about the issue of origins. They had a lot of interest in it.

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And when I graduated from Grand Canyon College, I had very shortly after that had read

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Richard Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker. And as I read that book,

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I came to the conclusion of intelligent design. But that term was not being used yet.

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So I didn't know what to call it. I just recognized that the problem with Dawkins' thesis was it required a simple one -step -at -a -time process that cannot explain how a complex system comes into existence.

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Now, I came to that conclusion without ever reading anything from a, quote, unquote, creationist that told me that.

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This was before Behe. This was before. That was just my interaction with my science background reading

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Dawkins' material. So this is where it doesn't work. Well, I remember sitting there in Albuquerque and explaining that to my brethren.

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They said, you haven't seen the book Darwin's Black Box, have you? I said, no. And if I recall correctly, they gave me a copy.

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They went out, bought me a copy, gave it to me. I remember sitting in the Albuquerque airport and starting to read it, going, hey, hey, that was my conclusion.

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Yeah, all right. And that's where the whole intelligent design stuff started coming in.

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And so I am very interested in these things, and hence interested in what Biologos has to say.

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And, of course, I see Biologos as the great compromise, the great, we are embarrassed by the lordship of Christ even in the realms of science.

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We are embarrassed by this. That's how I see Biologos. I see them saying, lordship of Christ in spiritual areas, but not in other areas at all.

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And it's interesting. Let me read from Al Mohler's article. On November 8th, an article appeared at the

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Biologos site that was explicitly addressed to me, the author Mark Sprinkel, had courteously informed me by email on November 7th that the article would appear the next day, and so it did.

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In his article, Dr. Sprinkel uses the account of Peter and Cornelius from Acts 10 to argue that, quote, our theology is descriptive, not prescriptive.

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It is our collective and halting attempt to describe in coherent terms what we know of God by what we have seen of his acts and what we have read in his word, and above all else by what we have seen in the acts of the word

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Jesus, end quote. That argument points very clearly in the direction of minimizing theology and doctrine, but it is also false.

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Unless a church forfeits all doctrinal responsibility, at least some theology is always prescriptive.

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But theology, he argues, quote, is to put to the test not just by our logic, but by the witness of what

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God is doing in our lives and in the lives of others around the world. Quote, he then states this, quote, evidence of the

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Spirit at work is the only true measure we have of our theology. All other measures, including whether it fits our carefully reasoned arguments of who is in and who is out, are vanity, end quote.

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And I want you to hear that. I'm going to repeat this, but I want you to hear what was just said.

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First, he uses Peter and Cornelius. And Peter and Cornelius is meant to be a paradigm of how

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Peter represents the stodgy, doctrinal, traditional people. And God has to open

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Peter up to new possibilities. He needs to realize that he doesn't have all of theology figured out in his human traditions.

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That's the use of Peter and Cornelius. Not the first time it's been used that way. And I think you're going to find it interesting, the connection

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I'm about to make. Keep that in mind. Secondly, listen to what he says here. Theology, he argues, is put to the test not just by our logic, but by the witness of what

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God is doing in our lives and the lives of others around the world. Sort of a global hermeneutic.

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Evidence of the Spirit at work is the only true measure we have of our theology.

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All other measures, including whether it fits our carefully reasoned arguments of who is in and who is out, are vanity, end quote.

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So there's no in and out. There's really no true and false. It's the witness of the

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Spirit. Now, some of you listening to me are going, you know, this guy would have a hard time outside the

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Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. Because the witness of the Spirit is exactly what the

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Mormons say all the time, is the evidence of the truthfulness of their theology. So evidently, since you can't deny that the

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Spirit is active amongst the Mormons, then you can believe that God was once a man, lived on another planet.

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That's in now. Because the in and out type of thing, that has to do with revealed truth and things like that, and that's just too narrow.

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Is that where this leads? Well, why would the folks at BioLogos be pushing this kind of thing?

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Well, because fundamentally, their view of God and creation is not a biblical one.

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It's a secular one. And so they want to try to hold together religiosity and a form of Christianity while rejecting the

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Lordship of Christ over other areas that they are embarrassed by. They want the acceptance of the world.

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They want the world not to be stumbled by our old -fashioned belief that God is actually the creator of all things.

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Now, of course, I would argue that if you don't have God as the creator of all things, if you don't have that, if you don't have the

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God of the Bible, the whole redemptive story is, well, a mishmash of self -contradiction and foolishness.

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You can't take the foundation out and still have anything left. Haven't we learned that from liberalism?

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Isn't that sort of obvious? Do we learn nothing from history at all? But that's why they're pushing this, is they have a particular agenda, and the agenda is we need to accept what secularists say about the nature of the natural world, and we need to stop fighting this fight, and we need to embrace in the natural world the naturalistic perspective.

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That's what you need to do. You need to accept this evolutionary theory, and it's all of its dogmas that come with it.

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But we want to create a Christianized version of the secular worldview. And as I've said,

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I think that represents a fundamental embarrassment at the claim that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. That's what it is. Now, why do

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I bring this up? Well, because yesterday you would expect that as soon as I would get back from being gone for a full week, what would be the very first thing that I would want to do?

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Get on my bike. So we did a 50 miler yesterday. We did a climbing ride, 2 ,200 feet, and I needed something to listen to that was sort of outside the beaten path.

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And so I just happened to notice that Doug Padgett, yes,

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Emergent Church Doug Padgett, Solomon's Porch Doug Padgett, posted very quickly the videos of his debate with good old

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Brother Chris from Pirate Christian Radio. Now, my debate took place the day before, and I haven't gotten my videos yet, but anyway, we won't complain too much about that.

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He posted the videos, not only of his presentation, which came after mine.

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It was very interesting to hear what he had to say after I had just done my presentation. I'm looking forward to posting my presentation because I started preaching.

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I just, I'll be honest with you, I started preaching. And so he posted his presentation, he posted his pre -debate interview, which

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I guess he wasn't supposed to do, and then he posted the debate itself. So I downloaded all those, used one of the programs

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I have to squish that all into one presentation, melded it all into one presentation, one

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MP3. And put it on my iPod for my ride yesterday.

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It just happened to fit exactly. And I put it on high speed because I couldn't, it was like over four hours, and there was just no way

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I was going to be able to listen to that. So both Chris and Doug Padgett sounded extremely intelligent because they were talking fast.

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That is one of the effects of putting on high speed, is that people sound, they just make their points so much more quickly, and they're just really quick, and then you actually listen to it at regular speed and then they sound like normal human beings.

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But anyway, I listened to the Doug Padgett, why do I keep saying Padgett, Padgett debate with Brother Chris on the existence of hell, which had taken place while I was flying home a week ago,

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Saturday, I think is when it was. Anyway, and as I, having listened to that, and no,

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I did not ride off the road at any point in time, I did not risk my health or limb or anything else.

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You know, listening to Doug Padgett, I went to Fuller Seminary, folks.

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Heard it all, man. I learned how to listen to liberals and the people who don't have my viewpoints and stuff like that.

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And so I wasn't nearly as surprised by what

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I heard as I had expected that I would be. Same old, same old, you know. Once you abandon the fundamental authority of Scripture, once you do not derive from the

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Scripture, but you insert into Scripture your beliefs, et cetera, nothing new, you know, been there, done that, got the

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T -shirt. But what was fascinating is when I read that Albert Moeller article, because all of a sudden

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I realized the massive connection between what Doug Padgett said and what

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Bayo Lagas was saying. And maybe this will help to illustrate for you.

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What happens when the final authority of Scripture, seeing

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Scripture as God breathed, God speaking, once that's abandoned, then you can still be as religious as you want, but the walls fall down and you can end up believing anything.

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And if you've got a certain, you know, hobby horse you want to ride, then you'll ride it out onto the range, the direction you want to go.

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Nothing to stop you because you no longer have an authoritative word from God from which you derive your beliefs.

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Instead, you derive your beliefs from other things and then you cobble together Scripture passages to make it sound like you're still being

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Christian. Now, Doug Padgett is a heretic. He is a formal heretic.

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He is the very definition of a heretic. Nice guy in the sense that, you know, he tells jokes.

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And, you know, I hope people recognize that heretics are not themselves.

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Normally, you know, they don't run around wearing signs saying, I'm a heretic, etc., etc. And they can be really nice and you can have dinner with them.

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And boy, it seems like a nice guy. From all accounts, Arius was a really nice dude.

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In fact, I bet you anything that if Arius and Athanasius lived in our day,

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Arius would have much higher poll numbers than Athanasius. And if that's how we determine truth, then, well, the heretics have got us beat.

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But I want to play some sections of the cross -examination and the closing statement from Doug Padgett.

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I just want you to listen and remember what I read from Biologos, the use of Peter and Cornelius, evidence of the spirit at work, theology is put to the test not just by our logic, but by the witness of what

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God is doing in our lives, lives of others around the world. Listen to Doug Padgett in the second cross -examination period of the debate.

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That's when the real issues, in my opinion, came out. Here's Doug Padgett.

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You were inconsistent in the very passage at when you were moving between literalism and metaphor.

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But did you not just say a minute ago that you basically use intuition to figure out when to use intuition?

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That's what you described. No, that's not what I described.

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That's what you, that's the label you put on it. I told you how I try to put together my understanding of what the

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Bible says. You said, you said, if it doesn't feel right, that's how you determine it.

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No, I didn't. No, I don't think I did. And I don't think it's what I would have intended to say. If I did, it's not what

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I meant. What I tried to say was, I understand the Bible through a global, local, and historic context as best

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I can. Okay. That's what I do. And then you said, so it's kind of intuition.

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Yeah, but you take the passages literally regarding apparently being purified through fire that we're all going to be recreated.

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No, I don't take that literally. That we're all going to be recreated. Those are metaphors. That we're all going to be righteous.

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Being recreated is trying, this is what I tried to say earlier in my closing bit there. It's using the best borrowed language we can.

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And that's not metaphor, and that's not literalism. I think you heard me on that. You can ignore it as a category and just keep telling me that you want me to use your two categories of literalism and metaphor and literalism and metaphor.

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I don't want to do that. I want to say there's borrowed language we have to use for approximation because we don't have all the language that we need.

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That's all I'm saying. Okay. Based upon your metaphor of electrification...

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I don't know what this has to do with hell right now and the debate that we're on, but I'm sure we're getting there, taking the long route.

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I get to ask the questions. I know. I was answering questions coming later.

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It was just early. He said I can ask any questions. I know. I know. I was just commenting and I shouldn't be.

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I'm not cheating. Although I did cheat earlier, that's why I know. You said that we should understand the biblical language regarding the afterlife much the same way we understand electromagnetism, which is that we don't really understand electrical.

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We can't really quantify it. It's really difficult for us to describe it. And then you then drew the parallel between our difficulty in understanding electromagnetism with the understanding of the afterlife.

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What are you making this assessment based on? I mean... On language and how we use it. So it's similar because we're trying to describe something that we haven't yet experienced that we know is real.

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Now, is Jesus God? Yes, I believe

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Jesus, that the fullness of God dwelled in Christ Jesus. If you say to me, is

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Jesus God, I know us well enough as people who follow Jesus that you're not committing some sort of heresy from your tradition, which that statement would be that what's...

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Yes, yes. Jesus is one with the Father and the Spirit in your tradition, and to say

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Jesus is God is not just shorthand, it's sloppy, my answer would be. So I would say the fullness of God dwells in Christ Jesus.

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Okay, that means... Is that good enough? Is God not capable of using language clearly to communicate to us?

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Yes. God is clearly capable of using any language we have to communicate with us.

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God is not capable to use language... Limitations with God, limitations with language. Let me now finish, that's fair. The limitation is not with God, the limitation is language.

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The limitation is with language. That's what I was going to say, yeah. Yeah, the limitation is with our language.

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God can use any language, any words we have to communicate with us, but if there are notions and concepts of experiences we don't have, we use a proximal language to get close and do the very best we can, and we live in that ambiguity regularly.

34:30

And it's not metaphor. Now let me ask you this question. You're a parent, I'm a... Okay, now let me skip over the parental discussion here and try to get back to the important part.

34:40

...language of punishment that Jesus uses. I've decided just the tip of the iceberg... Okay, yeah, actually,

34:46

I think that's about right. ...because you can't trust your own situation. I get that, that's fine.

34:52

That's not mine. That is making your experience my obligation, and you don't need to do that. So, what

34:58

I'm saying is, I have a way that I have to understand, just as you do, that becomes consistent with the entirety of my story.

35:06

My context... Okay, actually, I just skipped past the main thing I wanted to play for you here.

35:11

...language of punishment that Jesus uses. There we go. I've decided just the tip of the iceberg, and it's more than... No, well, okay, yeah.

35:18

That's a beautiful word. ...punishment and judgment language using his own words to describe a punishment if punishment wasn't the intent.

35:27

It's not, because he wasn't intending to describe punishment. Listen, listen now.

35:39

God told me. What do you mean, how do I know? When someone holds a belief, how many times will you blow around this horn?

35:46

When somebody holds a belief, like I do, you hold it because you've tried to understand it in the local, global, and historic context as very best you can, and you make a determination.

35:57

Wouldn't the logical answer be... There's no logical answer. Wouldn't the logical answer be that Jesus communicated judgment language and punishment language because that's what he was trying to convey, punishment and judgment?

36:11

How can you know a priori that that's not what he intended to do? I don't know a priori that that's not what it is.

36:17

I know by context because it doesn't fit the narrative. Because when you don't hold the view that God punishes people like that, then punishment language doesn't mean that.

36:29

So what I'm using is an internal understanding of what I believe the story to be, not an external.

36:35

So the text is not normative. It's your internal conversation. That's right. The text is not normative. So the text is your internal conversation with the burblings of your heart.

36:43

No, it's not the burblings of my heart. Don't diminish it. Now, did you catch that? The text is not normative.

36:49

He comes up with what he thinks the story is. Now, where does he get that from? This global context, something, metanarrative, blah, blah, blah.

37:00

But the text is not normative. It is not being derived from the text. That's not where he's getting it.

37:10

That's what he's saying. And that's the essence of what every heretic says.

37:16

Because they're not deriving their beliefs from the text. They're deriving their beliefs from some other source.

37:26

Now, closing statements. I found it very interesting where Doug decided to go.

37:35

Hold on a second. Back it up just a little bit here so you can get more of the context.

37:43

I didn't get to use my regular program today. That's why I'm a little bit slow here. Here, let's try it again. We are saying what we believe

37:59

Jesus is saying. And we are falsely accused. No, that does not mean, just because you're accused, that you're not telling the story of Jesus.

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. The Word was God. It was with God in the beginning.

38:19

And through him all things were made. And without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all.

38:26

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. Peter goes into the house of Cornelius the

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Gentile. After Cornelius having a vision and Peter having a vision, two men are brought together by the instructions of the

38:47

Spirit. Peter goes into the house and says, I know that it's the teaching of our law that I'm not supposed to be here.

38:53

This is not before the resurrection of Jesus. This is after it. This is not before the day of Pentecost.

38:58

This is after it. This is not Peter finding his way along the seashore.

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This is after Peter has already preached at Pentecost, has healed the crippled beggar, and is writing the story of the church.

39:11

He goes into Cornelius's house and says, you know that it's against our law for us to be in here, for a

39:20

Jew to associate with a Gentile who isn't him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.

39:29

So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. Cornelius says, four days ago,

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I had this vision, and this is why we invited you to come here. I think that was the story, that Peter began to speak and said,

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I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts all from every nation who fear him to do what is right.

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May we never be those who say that our religious tradition tells us more clearly what God is doing in our day than does the spirit of God that leads.

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We are not people of the text. We are people of God. And all scripture is profitable for correction, for teaching, for rebuking, for training in righteousness.

40:22

But it is not our final guide. There you go. It is not our final guide.

40:32

We are not people of the text. There you go. That is exactly what

40:37

Biolaugas was saying, and that is exactly what Doug Padgett is saying. And fundamentally, that is the dividing line.

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When you do not believe that God has spoken, that he has revealed objective truth, and immediately

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I am hearing, oh, no, no, no, that is not what he is saying. No, it is what he is saying. You can flower it up all you want, but what you are saying is your spiritual experience trumps the objective revelation of God.

41:07

Oh, well, you just do not believe in the Holy Spirit. No, I do. I believe the Holy Spirit can actually speak with enough clarity to reveal the scriptures and then lead those who are obedient to God to those scriptures and then apply those scriptures to their lives.

41:22

I believe there is a perfect harmony between word and spirit. It is the other folks that are making the division, not me.

41:30

You are claiming a spirit without a word. That is what is going on there.

41:36

And the parallels between what was said by Dr.

41:42

Sprinkle in his article on Biolaugas and what Doug Padgett said in the debate that took place just two weeks ago, less than two weeks ago, just amazed me.

41:55

I was like, wow, I think this would be well worth discussing on the program today.

42:03

And so, by the way, that is just a gross abuse of Acts 10 -11.

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The issue was specific and clear. It is so clear that Luke is narrating this for us so that we can see how it is there is only one

42:22

Christian church. There is not a Jewish Christian church and a Gentile Christian church. That the issues in regards to Peter was not about Peter had too narrow a view of scripture or too narrow a view of the purpose of God or anything else.

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This is God dealing with a Jewish person who had traditions. This should overthrow our traditions, not the content of the revelation of scripture.

42:48

And everybody who uses it that way, and heretics love using it that way, you should be open to new things.

42:56

We'll then run right into Galatians chapter 1 and go, well, you know, Paul seems to have been a little bit too narrow, you know, a little bit over the top there.

43:05

That's an abuse of that text and we should not stand for it. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

43:14

877 -753 -3341. Let's go to the phone lines and talk with Aaron.

43:20

Hi, Aaron. Hey, Mr. White. How are you doing? It's a pleasure to speak with you. Good to speak with you.

43:27

I actually had a quick question, and actually I was kind of concerned that I wouldn't tie in with your topic today, but I guess it does.

43:34

I'm happy it does. Basically, I ran into a group of people who call themselves the Church of Christ, not the

43:39

International Church of Christ, just the Church of Christ. And basically, they invited me over to their, you know, they rented out a place on a college campus that I live near for a

43:51

Bible study, so I went over there, and basically I discovered that they were baptismal regenerationists, and among other things that I, you know, disagree with, but I was just curious as to what really scared me about them was that they really went, claimed to go just find the

44:10

Bible. I know that there's other groups like the Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons that go by the

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Scriptures, but also blatantly go by a second rule of thumb or a second source of authority.

44:21

But the Church of Christ claims that they only go by the Scriptures, and there is no other visible source of authority.

44:27

But obviously there has to be if they're going to be that far off their mark. Do you know anything more about them? Oh yeah, sure.

44:33

You know, the Church of Christ has been around for a long time. Their standard emphasis upon baptismal regeneration, the original non -denominational denomination, anti -credal, you know, grew out of the revivals in upstate

44:53

New York in the 1820s and 30s, strongly revivalistic initially, generally.

44:59

Now they've widened out over the past 20 years, but the old -style, fervent

45:07

Church of Christ groups were anti -instrumental music.

45:14

Baptism is the point in time in which you are saved. They love to do debates.

45:20

They love to do multi -day debates on single verses, primarily Acts 2 .38. I don't know how in the world you would do a multi -day debate on Acts 2 .38,

45:29

but they definitely love to beat that one into the ground. And so, you know, very much a works -oriented religion that has—see, the problem with Church of Christ is that, yes, they have their traditions, but because they simply identify them sort of like Dave Hunt does with their own interpretations of the

45:55

Bible, then they can't examine those things in any type of critical way.

46:01

So for a fervent member of the Church of Christ, the interpretation that has been given to him of Acts 2 .38

46:08

is the final authority. I mean, it overrides everything else. And so when you talk with them and try to, for example, raise the issue of man's deadness and sin and total depravity, you just get this blank look because the fundamental authority is the interpretation of Acts 2 .38

46:26

and anything else in the Bible about man's deadness and sin, Romans 8, man's inability to submit himself to the law of God, not even capable of doing so, and you ask the question, so you're telling me that a person who's spiritually dead can have the desire to submit to the law of God in baptism so as to be regenerated, even though Romans 8 says that those who are caught in the flesh cannot do this.

46:51

And the look you get is just, this does not compute. I mean, if you're familiar with Mudd's women on the original

46:59

Star Trek, where they got all the androids to fall apart by asking them difficult questions, that's the look

47:07

I have gotten many, many times. And as Brother Rich is reminding me, item number 488 in the store at aomin .org

47:18

is my debate with a Church of Christ minister, Paul Barber, on the subject of election. And so that sort of brings that issue up, because I mean, how can there be an election if, in point of fact, you are saved by your baptism and that's something that you do by your free will and blah, blah, blah, blah.

47:35

So you can sort of hear how that plays out in the debate with Paul Barber, number 488 on the website.

47:41

I'll have to look at that. They just made it real tough for me, and I thought I'd call and ask for it, because I rather rashly joined the

47:48

Catholic Church. I was raised a Protestant, and it's just one of those things where you get sucked into the, oh, well, the early

47:55

Church Fathers said this, and he talked so much about it in certain debates. And I was sucked into that and basically realized that there was a separate source of tradition with the

48:04

Catholic Church, and also, like I said, visibly noticed it with Jehovah's Witness and Mormons. So I knew that those were all false systems, but the

48:11

Church of Christ, I've got to admit, threw me for a little bit of a loop there. So I'm glad I called and asked for that. Because they didn't have, at least openly, another work of commentary, a prophet, another book of scripture, something like that.

48:25

Yeah, but remember, I've said it many times, I'll say it again, the person who is blind to his own traditions is the person who is enslaved to his own traditions.

48:37

And that is the Church of Christ to a T. Okay, well, hey, I appreciate it. Okay, thanks,

48:42

Aaron. Yeah, have a great day. Thanks, Colin, bye -bye. All right, 877 -753 .3341,

48:50

or dividing dash line, no, okay, dividing dot line on Skype, or 877 -753 .3341

48:58

is the old -fashioned phone number where you can use the old -fashioned phone thing to get into the program today.

49:07

877 -753 .3341. Shout out to Katie and Barry out in the hospital listening today.

49:15

Katie had surgery yesterday, and Barry is the fellow who helps me with my traveling arrangements and things like that, has been part of the ministry for a long, long time.

49:28

And she's recovering from surgery today, and so they're listening to the dividing line, or at least they were.

49:35

I haven't been able to look. They were for a while anyways, and then her laptop froze up. Yep, they're still there.

49:41

So thanks, Doc. So they're still listening. So hopefully the time in the hospital will go quickly, as well as future treatments as well.

49:50

Of course, we're praying for her, and then for JustRosie in -channel, whose father passed away yesterday.

49:57

It was a tough day in our chat channel yesterday. There's just no two ways about it. It was a tough day to have two regulars in difficult situations like that, and so we want to say hello to them.

50:12

And that took just enough time to get Kevin online. Hi, Kevin.

50:18

Hello. How are you, sir? Yes, sir. I've got a question. It's related to Eastern Orthodoxy, but kind of mostly about the history.

50:28

I've got a couple folks from our church and some other folks who have been reformed and are just completely switching over to that, and I'm getting a lot of the history is really persuasive and the unity and kind of a disgust with all the divisions and kind of murky evangelicalism and just trying to get a hold of where to start in these conversations where people bring history, you know, give it such weight.

50:58

Well, a couple things. First of all, there is a article on our website.

51:05

I think it's in the Roman Catholic area, but it's not necessarily specifically only for Roman Catholicism, even though whether you said

51:13

Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholic, the argument that you just raised is very similar with either one.

51:18

And that is, well, you know, your Protestantism is disconnected from history, and if you'll go back in history, you'll be able to see this, that, and the other thing.

51:26

There is an article on sola scriptura. I think it's called Sola Scriptura in Dialogue, if I recall correctly.

51:31

I wrote it for somebody else's publication, but when that publication ceased to exist,

51:37

I felt it was worth posting on our website. And that will go through a lot of the standard argumentation that is brought up by both groups in regards to the insufficiency of scripture and the need for some kind of historical tradition that you're going to need to bow to in that sense.

51:56

The problem with the Eastern Orthodox argumentation there is a couple things.

52:02

First of all, generally when they are talking with someone who's attempting to bring them into their fellowship, they are going to hear all about how unified they are and the unity that they have and everything else.

52:13

Everybody I know that's gone Eastern Orthodox, and generally the reason that people who have been raised in Protestant churches or even

52:22

Reformed churches find these groups attractive is A, they get disillusioned by something that's happened in their church.

52:29

They get disillusioned by the fragmentation of evangelicalism. They look around, they see fringe groups and weirdness out there, and they're looking for something more unified along those lines because they don't see the unity that actually exists amongst those of us who practice sola scriptura and are focused upon the main things of scripture.

52:50

They see people that are running off after all sorts of side issues and having prophecy conferences and stuff like this rather than people that are focused upon the gospel and bringing the gospel to the world and applying a consistent

53:01

Christian worldview and stuff like that. And so they start looking for something, and these groups are always willing to say, you know, we've got the pedigree and we've got the history and we've got the unity.

53:10

Then when they get in, they discover, man, if you're Russian Orthodox, you'll probably get into a fistfight with a Greek Orthodox.

53:17

There are these strong divisions to the level of hatred.

53:23

And the same thing with Rome. They join Rome and discover that, oh my goodness, you've got just as wide a variety of viewpoints being expressed under the umbrella of Roman Catholicism.

53:32

But that's not what they see initially. And then, since they haven't examined the claims of these groups and don't know a lot about church history, then they hear these folks saying, oh, but, you know, this early church father said this.

53:46

Well, look at our last caller. Aaron said he foolishly joined the Roman Catholic Church because they said, well, the early church father said this, and it sounded so good and it looked so good.

53:55

And then you actually, if you go beyond just the surface level reading that the documents there give you actually provide, if you actually start going to the original sources, not just reading a jurgens or not just reading these selected quotes or that selected quotes or looking at just this realm of early church writings, but looking at other people in other places, you discover that they had just as much viewpoints, just as many differing views as we have today.

54:24

It's always been that way. And even looking at a particular early church father, you can watch him going through different developments in his life and things like that.

54:35

But that's generally not what's being presented to them. And generally, these folks go through a honeymoon period where, you know, the group that they're in, the smells and bells are all just really exciting to them.

54:49

By the way, that article is vintage .aomin .org slash capital S capital

54:54

S dot html for Sola Scriptura. That's the article I was referring to. They go through a honeymoon period where the liturgy is extremely attractive to them.

55:04

It's something new, it can be very respectful, and liturgy can be a very, very powerful thing.

55:13

And I don't have anything against powerful liturgy and things like that, as long as it's biblical.

55:18

But eventually, over time, that starts to wear off.

55:23

They start realizing the people in this community are just as human as everybody else always was, that there are divisions, that there, especially amongst

55:31

Eastern Orthodox, there tends to be a fair amount of arrogance in looking at other people and even, you know, certain type of Eastern Orthodox versus another type of Eastern Orthodox.

55:43

And then if they really do start digging past the surface -level presentations that were given to them, that's when they start discovering all these other things, too.

55:52

And where do you start? You have to bring them back to, well, look, what's the only example of Theanustas, God -breathed revelation that we possess?

56:04

And it's the Scriptures. And even though the Roman Catholics then say, well, you need to have this tradition, and here's this body of dogma, the problem you have in dealing with Eastern Orthodox folks is that they don't have a systematic theology you can turn to.

56:18

For them, the liturgy is the fundamental revelation of this external authority outside of Scripture.

56:27

You need to interpret Scripture in light of the traditions that are embodied in the liturgy. And so there's a different mindset, at least in real

56:35

Eastern Orthodoxism. There's, you know, there's westernized versions of it. But in the real Eastern Orthodox way of thought, it's very difficult for us westerners to really dive into it and to interact with it, because it's not nearly as concrete.

56:47

It's certainly not as forensic as anything that we have. And so the emphasis has to be, look, that liturgy grew up over time and has been interpreted over time.

56:59

And we have to go to that which God Himself has spoken. And what He has spoken is what is found in Scripture.

57:06

And so that article I referred you to would be a good place to start there. Great. Great. I really appreciate it.

57:13

Just kind of one quick question. I've got about 30 seconds. Okay, quick. My last research is, is it strange that there's, among evangelicals, a different opinion of how dramatic this change is from where we are?

57:27

I see a lot of downplaying differences. Dramatic? I didn't,

57:32

I'm not following the question. Um, basically, you know, some people kind of yawn, you know, it's not a big deal to go

57:39

Eastern Orthodox. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, well, that's because so many evangelicals have lost sight of the centrality of the

57:47

Gospel and the need to be clear about what the Gospel is about. And there are issues, we know what the issues are with Roman Catholicism, but most people don't realize that Eastern Orthodoxy has some fundamental problems with such things as the nature of sin, the centrality of justification.

58:00

They've got some good emphasis. They have good emphasis on the Trinity. Good emphasis on the Incarnation and things like that.

58:06

But there are some real issues that have crept in, in denying the centrality of the doctrine of justification, original sin, and things like that.

58:14

So, but hey, most evangelicals don't care about those things either. So that's probably why they don't have too much of a problem with it.

58:20

All righty? Thanks. Hey, thanks, Kevin. God bless. All right, great to be back here in the good old

58:26

US of A and back with you on The Dividing Line. Hope that was interesting to you. Lord willing, we'll be back on Thursday afternoon, regular time.

58:34

Remember, Mountain Standard time, not Mountain Daylight time.

58:40

Four o 'clock our time. Go to our website if you're not sure what time that is where you are. We'll see you then.

58:45

God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

59:33

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59:38

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59:44

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.