Story Time with Uncle Jimmy, The Scythian Test in Response to J. Ligon Duncan

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. I just finished a recording with Doug Wilson.

We just did another sweater vest dialogue, and this on the Advent season,

Christmas, Incarnation, etc., etc., and that should be out next week. I hope you find it to be useful.

We'd had some revelations concerning—Doug struggles with big words, and so Coogee kept throwing him a curve, and he confused it with corgis, which are little dogs.

And we also had a revelation about Chinese food, which I think you'll find fascinating. You'll need to tune in, though, to find out about those things and listen to the sweater vest dialogues.

On October 6th, 1536, just shortly before Rich's birth—he was taking a bite of a sandwich at that point in time.

That could cause problems. I'm not going to go out there and do the Heimlich maneuver, either. October 6th, 1536,

William Tyndale was executed by Roman Catholic authorities for his denial of Roman Catholic teachings concerning the subject of the

Mass and justification, sacraments, etc., etc. Tyndale had been a clear and open advocate of justification by faith and certainly the doctrine of sola scriptura.

But more than that, Tyndale was probably the most important person in bringing the

Bible in the English language to the English -speaking people. Yes, Wycliffe had begun the process, and Wycliffe had begun that English translation, and the

Lollards had been very important, but Tyndale was a true linguist.

He knew multiple languages, learned Hebrew as well toward the end of his life, was working on the

Old Testament when he was betrayed into the hands of those seeking to kill him, and he was burned to the stake.

He was choked first. He was suffocated first, and then his body burned, and England, the

English -speaking world lost one of its greatest scholars when that took place. The list of words in our vocabulary, or at least in the vocabulary of people my age and older, not so much younger people anymore, the number of words that were due to him that are first found in him and in his writings is truly astonishing.

It's difficult for us to realize how pioneering

Wycliffe and Tyndale and Shakespeare were in forming and expanding the

English language, but also in the same way of standardizing it as well, because in Wycliffe's day, it was not standardized.

That's why, as you've probably heard, Wycliffe, Tyndale, they all spelled their last name in multiple different ways.

I've heard that Wycliffe, there's at least 12 different ways of spelling Wycliffe in Wycliffe's own hand.

There was no standardization. Homeschooling kids, that's not an excuse, okay? That's back then, now's now different.

Anyway, you owe a tremendous amount to William Tyndale. The percentages differ from 75 to almost 95 % that I've read, but the vast majority of the

King James Bible is straight out of Tyndale, especially in the New Testament, but also in the Pentateuch of the

Old. They just took it over. I mean, it was just that well done, well phrased.

There wasn't any way of really improving on what Tyndale had published originally in 1526.

They did another edition in 1534. And of course, these Bibles were burned all across England, and this was a period of time when

Henry VIII, Catherine, Anne Boleyn, et cetera, et cetera, the change, the establishment of the

Anglican Church in England and aspects thereof. It is fascinating.

I'm not going to go into it right now, but it is fascinating to see the polemical debate and discourse between William Tyndale and Sir Thomas More, two of the greatest minds of that age.

More had also gone after Luther, and I'm going to tell you something. Remember the controversy we had just a few months ago when

Jeff Durbin described something graphically in a talk? That ain't nothing in comparison to if you read

Thomas More and Martin Luther going back and forth at each other.

I mean, let's just put it this way. Thomas More, you could read Thomas More's works in response to Martin Luther, and it would be like giving you the most technical list of possible

Latin terms for excrement ever put in one place, okay? So we may only have a couple of words to use for that kind of stuff.

Latin had a bunch, and More and Luther were vying with each other as to who could use more of those words against the other one in their written diatribes back and forth with one another.

More was not quite that profane or earthy with Tyndale, because he recognized that Tyndale was a scholar on a different level than Luther was.

Luther was a great scholar, but not on Tyndale's level. Certainly not in translational ability.

He certainly had skills in it, but Tyndale was something else. It was

October 6, 1536, only aged 42, that Tyndale was executed by Roman Catholic authorities.

And I just wanted to read, it's sort of a story time with Uncle Jimmy segment here before we look at some other things.

But I wanted to read you some of Tyndale's words.

I drove back from being in St. Charles. I need to get a link up to,

I understand some people have said there's some issues with the audio. We'll try to address, I keep forgetting to mention that to someone who could address it.

But I thought the conference we just did in St. Charles was pretty important.

And in fact, I will probably bring up in the response I'll be doing a little bit later to J.

Ligon Duncan, something that I did in, I think, the afternoon session on Saturday in St.

Charles, and something I've developed called the Scythian test, the Scythian test, say that fast, the

Scythian test. And hopefully we'll all be able to find that to be a useful thing.

And that's already up if you want to track down the St. Charles stuff, including the sermon that I did.

I did a sermon on the transgender movement in light of Matthew chapter 19. I don't know how long it'll be up there.

Because I have seen significantly less relevant materials deleted by Facebook.

I'm not sure, you know, why that is still up there. I just can't imagine that it'll remain there because I was very straightforward in what

I had to say, needed to be, well, Jesus was, so that's sort of what we have to do.

Anyway, I want to read to you some of what

Tyndale said from a book that I'm definitely going to read now because it, his

Obedience of a Christian Man, which evidently was very important in the conversion of a number of people.

Listen to what Tyndale said. I love thee not a whit less.

And so long art thou as dear unto me as mine own soul. And so long am I ready to do thee good for thine evil.

And so long I pray for thee with all my heart. For Christ desireth it of me and hath deserved it of me.

Thine unkindness compared unto his kindness is nothing at all. Yet it is swallowed up as a little smoke of a mighty wind and is no more seen or thought upon.

Moreover, that evil which thou doest to me, I receive not of thine hand, but of the hand of God and as God's scourge to teach me patience and to nurture me.

And therefore have no cause to be angry with me more than the child hath to be angry with his father's rod or a sick man with a sore or bitter medicine that healeth him or a prisoner with his fetters, or he that is punished lawfully with the officer that punished him.

Thus is Christ all and the whole cause why I love thee and to all cannot be added."

You need to remember that this man was an exile from his own country. He had lived for over a decade knowing that he could be betrayed in the hands of his enemies.

And he never sought the world's goods. The things that he loved the most in this world were his books.

And he only had a few of those, primarily Erasmus' Greek New Testament and then eventually his

Hebrew and some lexicons that he had obtained.

These were his greatest possessions. He had very little in the way of clothing. He had no place to live.

He moved from place to place. He had to be very careful because he knew that the

Pope's emissaries and emissaries of Sir Thomas More and Wellesley and others back in England were following him and trying to find ways of having him arrested and finally were successful in 1536.

And so to be able to say those words, which he could have said to all of those who were persecuting him, is an amazing thing.

It is an amazing thing. There is no self in Tyndale's words.

He sees himself completely as the servant of Christ. He had a friend,

John Frith, who was arrested in England and was eventually executed there.

And Wycliffe knew that was going to happen to him eventually. He could not avoid it forever.

And he wrote two letters to John Frith. It is not known and it is somewhat doubtful that Frith ever saw the second that he had been executed, had been burned before that one arrived.

But these letters really show a fascinating light into the time period.

Because remember, we're talking about the 1530s. This was an incredibly uproarious time in Europe and England.

Right in the middle of this is the Munster Rebellion. The late 1520s is when you have the term

Protestant being coined. Well, it's the first time it's used. It really doesn't start really being used in a wide sense until later.

But tremendous amount of stuff going on in Germany.

And this is in the middle of the work of Calvin. First publication of the

Institute's Christian Religion. But Geneva hasn't been established yet as that lighthouse it will be eventually starting in the late 1540s.

But it's a very uproarious time. Henry VIII and his divorce from Catherine and marrying

Anne Boleyn and all the things going on there. It's a very, very, very unsettled time.

Very, very, very unsettled. And so, I found these letters to be very, very interesting. Here's the first letter.

The grace of our Savior Jesus Christ, his patience, meekness, humbleness, circumspection, and wisdom be with your heart.

Amen. Remember, he's writing to a condemned man who is in prison. And trials went a long time because they wanted to refute the heretics, basically.

But the outcome is pretty well known. So, keep that in mind. It's behind the letter. And I think you can hear in it the fact that Wycliffe knows that he too will face the exact same things.

Dearly beloved brother Jacob, my heart's desire in our Savior Jesus is that you arm yourself with patience and be cold, sober, wise, and circumspect, and that you keep a low by the ground, avoiding high questions that pass the common capacity, but expound the law truly and open the veil of Moses to condemn all flesh and to prove all men sinners and all deeds under the law before mercy have taken away the condemnation thereof to be sin and damnable.

And then, as a faithful minister, set abroach the mercy of our Lord Jesus and let the wounded consciences drink of the water of him.

And then shall your preaching be with power and not as the doctrine of the hypocrites. And the Spirit of God shall work with you and all consciences shall bear record unto you and feel that it is so.

And all doctrine that cast that they missed on those two to shadow and hide them,

I mean the law of God and the mercy of Christ, that resist you with all your power. Sacraments without signification refuse.

If they put signification to them, receive them, if you see it may help, though it be not necessary.

I just stopped for a moment. There was, of course, at this time, and this was one of the condemnations of Tyndale was

Luther only had the two, sacraments, Lord's Supper, and baptism. The Roman Church had seven, and so this was one of the issues that was being raised.

Of the presence, now this is interesting. Keep in mind, if you're not familiar with Reformation Church history, keep in mind what happened in Marburg, the

Marburg Colloquy, Zwingli, Luther. There is some evidence in what

Tyndale says here that he has read Luther and that he is at least aware of sort of the doctrine of the ubiquity of the body of Christ.

That becomes much more fully developed under Melanchthon, years in the future from this.

That may be behind some of this. Of the presence of Christ's body in the sacrament, meddle as little as you can that their division, that there appear no division among us.

I just stopped right there again. I think this is in light of Marburg and the divisions that do exist between the

Reformed and the Lutheran on the continent. And of course, Tyndale's on the continent at this time. My mind is that nothing be put forth till you hear how you shall have sped.

I would have the right use preached and the presence to be an indifferent thing, till the matter might be reasoned in peace, a leisure of both parties.

If you be required, show the phrases of the scripture and let them talk what they will. For as to believe that God is everywhere, hurteth no man that worshipeth him nowhere, but within the heart, in spirit and verity.

Even so to believe the body of Christ is everywhere, though it cannot be proved, hurteth no man that worshipeth him nowhere save in the faith of his gospel.

You perceive my mind, how be it if God show you otherwise, it is free for you to do as he moveth you.

I guessed long ago that God would send a dazing into the head of the spirit of the spirituality to catch themselves in their own subtlety.

And I trust it has come to pass. And now me thinketh I smell a counsel to be taken, little for the prophets in time to come.

But you must understand that it is not of a pure heart and for love of the truth, but to avenge themselves and to eat the whore's flesh and to suck the marrow of her bones.

Wherefore cleave fast to the rock of the help of God and commit the end of all things to him. And if God shall call you that you may then use the wisdom of the worldly, as far as you perceive the glory of God may come thereof, refuse it not.

And ever among thrust in that the scripture may be in the mother tongue and learnings set up in the universities.

And if ought be required contrary to the glory of God and his Christ, then stand fast and commit yourself to God and be not overcome with men's persuasions, which happily shall say, we see no other way to bring in the truth.

Brother Jacob beloved in my heart, there liveth not in whom I have so good hope and trust in whom mine heart rejoiceth and my soul comforted herself as in you, not the thousand parts so much of your learning and what other gifts else you have, as that you will creep a low by the ground and walk in those things that the conscience may feel.

And not in the imaginations of the brain in fear and not in boldness and open necessary things, and not to pronounce or define or of hid things or things that neither help nor hinder, whether they be so or no in unity and not in seditious opinions in so much that if you be sure, you know, yet in things that you may abide leisure, you will defer or say with others or say till other agree with you may think the text requires this sense or understanding.

Yea, and that if you be sure that your part be good and another hold the contrary, yet, if it be a thing that makes no matter, you will laugh and let it pass and refer the thing to other men and stick you stiffly and stubbornly in earnest and necessary things.

And I trust you to be persuaded even so of me. I'll call God to record against the day we shall appear before our

Lord Jesus to give a reckoning of our doings that I never altered one syllable of God's word against my conscience, nor would do this day if all that is in the earth, whether it be honor, pleasure or Richard riches might be given to me.

Moreover, I take God to record. I take God to record to my conscience that I desire of God to myself in this world no more than that without which

I cannot keep his laws. Finally, if there were in me any gift that could help you at hand and aid you if need required,

I promise you I would not be far off and commit the end to God. My soul is not faint, though my body be weary, but God hath made me ill favored in this world and without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and slow -witted.

Your part shall be to supply that lacketh in mind, remembering that as lowliness of heart shall make you high with God, even so meekness of word shall make you sink in the hearts of men.

Nature giveth age authority, but meekness is the glory of youth and giveth them honor.

Abundance of love maketh me exceed, maketh me exceed in babbling. Sir, as concerning purgatory and many other things, if you be demanded, you may say, if you err, the spirituality has so led you and that they have taught you to believe as you do, for they preached you all such things out of God's word and alleged a thousand texts by reason of which text you believed as they taught you.

But now you find them liars, and that the text means no such things, and therefore you can believe them no longer, but are as ye were before they taught you and believe no such thing, albeit you are ready to believe if they have any other way to prove it, for without proof you cannot believe them when you have found them with so many lies, et cetera.

If you perceive wherein we may help, either in being still or doing somewhat, let us have word, and I will do mine uttermost.

My Lord of London hath a servant called John Thiessen with a red beard and a black reddish head, and was once my scholar.

He was seen in Antwerp, but came not among the Englishmen, whether he has gone an ambassador's secret, I what not, what means to know.

The mighty God of Jacob be with you to supplant his enemies and give you the favor of Joseph, and the wisdom and spirit of Stephen be with your heart and with your mouth, and teach your lips what they shall say and how to answer to all things.

He is our God, if we despair in ourselves and trust in him, and his is the glory.

Amen. William Tyndale, I hope our redemption is nigh. It's a reason why he makes reference to Stephen, of course, martyr

Stephen in the early church. Second letter.

I don't believe it's long. The grace and peace of God our Father and of Jesus Christ our Lord be with you. Amen. Dearly beloved, dearly beloved brother

John, I have heard say at the hypocrites, now they have overcome that great business which leaded them, or that now they have at least way brought it at a stay, they return to their old nature again.

The will of God be fulfilled, and that he hath ordained to be ere the world was made, that come and his glory reign over all.

Dearly beloved, howsoever the matter be, commit yourself wholly and only unto your most loving Father and most kind Lord, and fear not men that threaten, nor trust men that speak fair, but trust him that is true of promise and able to make his word good.

Your cause is Christ gospel, a light that must be fed with the blood of faith. The lamp must be dressed and snuffed daily, and that oil poured in every evening and morning that the light go not out.

Though we be sinners, yet is the cause right. If when we be buffeted for well -doing, we suffer patiently and endure, that is thankful with God, for to that end we are called.

For Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps, who did no sin. Hereby have we perceived love that he laid down his life for us, there we ought also to lay down our lives to the brethren.

Rejoice and be glad for greatest reward in heaven, for we suffer with him that we may also be glorified, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself.

Dearly beloved, be of good courage and comfort your soul with the hope of this high reward, and bear the image of Christ in your mortal body, that it may at his coming be made like to his immortal.

And follow the example of all your other dear brethren, which chose to suffer in hope of a better resurrection. Keep your conscience pure and undefiled, and say against that nothing.

Stick at necessary things, and remember the blasphemies of the enemies of Christ. They find none, but that will abjure rather than suffer the extremity.

Moreover, the death of them that come again after they have once denied, though it be accepted with God and all that believe, yet it is not glorious.

For the hypocrites say, He must needs die. Denying helpeth not, but might it have hopened, they would have denied five hundred times.

But seeing it would not help them, therefore of pure pride and mere malice together they speak with their mouths, and their conscience knoweth faults.

If you give yourself, cast yourself, yield yourself, commit yourself wholly and only to your loving

Father, then shall this power be in you and make you strong, and that so strong that you shall feel no pain.

And that shall be to another present death, and his Spirit shall speak in you and teach you what to answer according to his promise.

He shall set out his truth by you wonderfully, and work for you above all that your heart can imagine. Yea, and you are not yet dead, though the hypocrites all, with all they can make, have sworn your death.

The only safety for the conquered is to expect no safety." That was written in Latin, and then he translated it.

To look for no man's help bringeth the help of God to them that seem to be overcome in the eyes of the hypocrites.

Yea, it shall make God to carry you through thick and thin for his truth's sake, in spite of all the enemies of his truth.

There falleth not a hair till his hour become, and when his hour is come, necessity carryeth us hence, though we be not willing.

But if we be willing, then have we a reward and thanks. Fear not threatening therefore, neither be overcome of sweet words, with which twain the hypocrites shall assail you.

Neither let the persuasions of worldly wisdom bear rule in your heart, no, though they be your friends that counsel.

Let Bilney be a warning to you, let not their vigor beguile your eyes, let not your body faint.

Just stop for a second. Bilney, as I recall, yes, Bilney had stood firm and then gave in.

He abjured what we would call Reformation teaching or Lutheranism or the Reformation, whatever.

And then after a period of time, just loathed himself for having done so and denied his abjuration and was then executed.

This happened to many men. There were many men, and Luther seemed to be on the verge of possibly doing it himself at Worms.

But there were many men who faced with the reality of an incredibly agonizing death, chose to live, but actually didn't live as a result.

There were many. And many of them then later regretted this and ended up being executed anyways.

But then there were others that just left the faith. Let Bilney be a warning to you, let not their visor beguile your eyes, let not your body faint.

He that endureth to the end shall be saved. If the pain be above your strength, remember, whatsoever you shall ask in my name,

I will give it to you. And pray to your father in that name, and he will ease your pain or shorten it.

The Lord of peace, of hope, and of faith be with you. Amen. William Tyndale."

I don't know that most of us can imagine what it would be like to write to a dear friend who is going to be led to a public place and tied to a stake and burned alive.

And then you add to it the fact that Tyndale knows that eventually this is going to happen to him as well.

And he lives with this daily. It can't help but have an impact upon how you live your life.

That should actually be a part of the Christian experience. You have died, your life is hidden with Christ and God. It's a daily death to self and selfish desires.

And in that day, there was so much less temptation to things because there were a lot fewer things to have, but still many gave into those things and could not bear to be separated from loved ones or possessions, things like that.

Or just simply the fear of death. But what must it be like to write these letters?

And like I said, we don't know that the second one was received before John Frith was consumed by fire.

But Tyndale, when faced with 500 days in prison, did not abjure, did not ask for time.

He debated, defended his position, knowing what the result was going to end up being.

There was a credible attempt made to have him released, but the guy who betrayed him was key in making sure that that didn't happen.

And we don't know a lot about him. We don't actually know a whole lot about Tyndale either, for that matter, in comparison to what we would like to know or what we know about other people, because he dies at such an early age and is on the run during much of that time.

But the fact is, we talk about how your Bible, and I'll go ahead and grab my new

Schofield here because it's, I mean, I'm holding Tyndale here. I'm holding, you know, in the beginning,

God created the heaven and the earth. That's not what the Bishop's Bible said. That's not what Wycliffe had said. And that comes from Tyndale.

Tyndale did the New Testament first, did a couple of editions of the New Testament, very popular in England.

And then he did the Pentateuch, and he was working on other materials in the Old Testament.

But we talk about, we're told from our youth, if we're in the church, that martyrs gave their lives for the scriptures.

And yet, most of us could never name a particular martyr that gave his or her life specifically for the scriptures.

William Tyndale would probably be the main one. Did you know the

Oxford English Dictionary will give credit for the first appearance in literature of certain

English words? And there is an entire huge list of words to which

Tyndale is given the nod. And there are actually a number of others that the

Oxford English Dictionary attributes to others that in actuality first appear in Tyndale. But one that's especially important is the word dividing.

Dividing, as in dividing line. Dividing, the first recorded utilization of that term in English is

William Tyndale. So much of the phraseology of the key texts of scripture that we all have memorized, we got it from Tyndale.

And he was so, and you know, it's attributed to him by Fox's Book of Martyrs, that before he is strangled, as he's tied to the stake, he says, may

God open the eyes of the British King, the

King of England. And he's speaking of the necessity of having the

Bible in English because it continues to be, it's been illegal since Wycliffe, well, before then. And within a few years,

Henry will give his blessing to an English translation of the Bible, even though 75 years later, well, less than 75 years later, between, you know, 68, something like that, when the

King James translation process is going on, the King was involved even in that.

There were certain, he didn't want certain words translated certain ways. And so, while Tyndale had talked about the assembly, the congregation, the

King James says the church, because that's what the King wanted. The King wanted the church, not assembly or congregation.

He wanted church that he could rule over and control. And so, there you go.

But you owe much to this man. I believe in the Anglican Church, I think it is

October 6th, there is a prayer that is said for Tyndale.

And I'm going to remember because what else is October 6th? Oh, nevermind. There are other reasons.

It's general conference time. That's somewhere around general conference, the Mormon church time.

I'm going to remember October 6th and try to remember to tell you some more stories about William Tyndale, because he really was such a key figure in the

Reformation, dependent upon Erasmus' Greek New Testament. So, we know how

Erasmus' work impacted Luther. It impacts Tyndale. Neither one of which,

Luther or Tyndale, have any time or capacity or interest in doing textual critical studies.

They're just simply grasping hold of what is published and utilizing what is published, leaving that to Erasmus.

And Tyndale dies the year after Erasmus does. So, it was, like I said, an incredible period of history.

I've gone over this before, but the number of people who are alive in 1500 who are going to have such a huge impact on the world is truly an astonishing period of time.

But a period of time in great upheaval, great upheaval. You think we've got upheaval now.

There was tremendous upheaval going on at that particular time as well. So, the point is, be thankful for William Tyndale.

Be thankful for his life and his faithfulness. He did not marry.

He did not have children. He had nothing of this world's possessions, and this is what made him able to do the things that he was able to do, specifically in giving the

English -speaking people a translation that they could read and utilize.

And this was the beginning of the end of the papacy in Britain. Now, of course, you've got

Henry VIII doing his thing, but so important, so vitally, vitally important, and yet very often ignored.

I think most people have heard more about Wycliffe than they have Tyndale. But both had their roles, both had their battles, and Tyndale gave his life for the

English Bible. That was the fundamental reason he was tracked down.

Yes, the quote -unquote heresies were important as well, but it was his love of a vernacular translation, which is what all of us are dependent upon.

It's what we all utilize. Even when we've learned the original languages, you're still going to be doing much more in your own language tongue.

So with that, I'm going to put this over here and see if we can't do this number here.

Ah, it will work. Over the weekend, well, over the middle part of the week,

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what day of the week it is. Day before yesterday,

I drove from Topeka, Kansas to Holbrook, Arizona, and with a slight detour,

I took to visit my grandmother's grave. I had never had the opportunity of visiting my grandmother's grave, and I was successful in my quest to find her old home.

I had used Google Earth and was looking at—I figured Kinsley, Kansas is so small.

I should be able to find this place because it was on an alleyway. How many alleyways can there be in Kinsley, Kansas?

But I was looking on the wrong side of the street for some reason when my dad mentioned to me that it was very close to a

Catholic church. I had seen the Catholic church. That was the clue

I needed. As soon as I saw that in my young mind, because I still remember, in fact,

I was reminded just last night that there was a pool there that we used to go to. I had forgotten about that, but I was reminded of that.

But that was one key I needed. Boom, there it was. There was only one building, and I remembered the shape of that house.

We had spent two weeks in three different summers and one Christmas there. I remember my dad chasing a bat with a guy in the house one night with a pillowcase.

That was truly entertaining when you're probably about seven years old to watch your dad chasing a bat around in the middle of the night, getting very frustrated in the process because bats are fairly swiftly moving creatures.

A pillowcase is not the best way of catching a bat, but he did eventually and got it outside.

A lot of memories in that house. I wasn't able to get into it. It's only used for storage today, so there's really no place to go.

I did get some pictures from the outside. I did find it. I drove straight to it. That was really neat. I got to visit a grave as well.

I think that's a good thing to be able to do that. So anyways, that was a 975 -mile day in car on all sorts of different kinds of roads.

By the way, from basically Kinsley to the I -25 in New Mexico, that whole route there, there's nothing out there.

There's nothing there. I mean, I don't think anybody lives there. I think aliens could land and build a city there, and no one would even know it.

That is the most desolate. It's not desolate. That's where most of our bread, wheat, and corn comes from.

But oh my goodness, there's nothing there. I was worried about my gas tank once, and then finally it came upon a little town that had a gas station in it and someplace to eat.

But wow, you can go for miles and miles and miles and not see another human being.

That's a big part of the country right there. And completely flat.

I mean, pancake flat. Wow. Amazing stuff. Though there are now a billion wind turbines out there.

There hadn't been any of those when we were doing that trip from Pennsylvania out to Kansas.

But now they're everywhere. I mean, there is a wind tunnel farm coming into Amarillo that just goes on forever.

And at night, it's really weird because all the lights on top of the wind turbines flash together.

I mean, I'm sort of wondering if they're signaling aliens, because that's the biggest flashing signaling thingy

I've ever seen. It's amazing. Anyways, I got to listen to a lot of stuff, including a book on Tyndale, which is what caused our reading today.

But I was listening to, studying a lot of stuff on those many, many, many hours, almost 16 hours in the car.

And so it was during, somewhere during that time,

I wouldn't have a whole lot of time in the evenings because I had to, I was exhausted, hit the hay, get up next morning and start driving again.

But it was somewhere in there that a clip from Dr. J. Ligon Duncan was posted.

And having listened to it, I said, well, I think I need to make some comments on this that hopefully will be useful and appropriate in the context of things.

So this is from a podcast called As in Heaven, as in HVN.

I looked at the As in Heaven Twitter page and basically all of the guests on this webcast would be described as woke, sometimes extremely woke.

Hence the irony that just a few days ago was announced that As in Heaven has now been taken onto the

TGC platform, Together for the Gospel, Gospel Coalition, sorry, Gospel Coalition platform is now one of the webcasts from TGC.

I think it says something in and of itself. Anyway, let's go ahead and listen to it and then

I'd like to make some comments. This is Dr. Ligon Duncan, who of course is the head of the RTS system of schools, headquartered in Jackson.

And let's just fire it up here. Can you imagine the Gospel impact if Bible -believing

Protestants, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians had said of their

Bible -believing Christian brothers and sisters in Baptist churches and elsewhere, you're not going to kill our brothers and sisters in Christ.

You're not going to defraud our brothers and sisters in Christ. You're not going to wrongfully imprison our brothers and sisters in Christ.

You're not going to mistreat our brothers and sisters. Can you imagine the Gospel impact of that?

And it's going to take us 100 years to overcome the trust issues that have come out of that.

I tell people my very best Black friends have trouble trusting me for really good reasons, because people like me have been doing awful things to them and to their families for four centuries.

It's going to take a while before the trust issues that exist between otherwise good friends in Christ are going to be addressed.

We've got generational issues here. So for me, being able to work on the flag was just one small symbolic thing, one little thing that we could do together.

And by the way, it was a wonderfully unifying thing. I really brought together people from really, really different backgrounds and political persuasions in the state.

And it was amazing to watch that process. It kind of took everybody to get it done.

And it was one way that as a Christian, I could help say, we want everyone in this state to know that you're our neighbor, and we want to love our neighbors.

And you're in the image of God, and we want you to be treated with dignity. And this state belongs to you as much as it belongs to me.

Can you imagine? Okay, so the context, obviously, is the changing the state flag issue that was, what,

I don't know, four or five months ago now. Well, it was over summer, so maybe a little bit more than that, but I think it was about four or five months.

But the key here is what is said, can you imagine if Christians had said these things, what a gospel impact that would have had.

So the assumption is no Christians were. Now, if Dr. Duncan's experience in the

Deep South is that there were no Christians saying any of these things, that's an incredible indictment.

And if Dr. Duncan is saying, I didn't, I wasn't, our church didn't, again, incredible indictment.

But remember, what has been, what caused Eric Mason and others to call for an ecumenical council to have me declared a heretic?

It wasn't any of this. It was the fact that I said that there is, that the

Lord's table is a Christ space. There is no room there for ethnic insertions of ethnic spaces, minority spaces, majority spaces, or anything else.

It's a Christ space and a Christ space only. And so my great sin has been, no, you don't look at ethnicity and skin color in the church.

You look at the work of the Spirit of God and the fact that we all stand before God on the exact same basis, filled with the exact same

Spirit, dependent upon the exact same imputed righteousness. So that would mean that if there were

Black members or Asian members or Hispanic members in my church, then yes, we're going to stand up for those people against any kind of prejudicial discrimination, persecution, or anything else.

And I think that's where the majority of churches have been for a very, very long time, because the

Christian context is completely different than the cultural context. Well, but not from their world.

Their world, the church culture, pretty much all the same thing. Their world, the woke world.

And once you start talking about white privilege, what you're doing is you are engaging in identity politics, and you're saying all

Black people think the same way, all white people think the same way. That's just a bold -faced lie for anyone to believe that.

I mean, you have to go to some university to have it crammed into your head that all

Black people have to think the same way. Joe Biden thinks that. If you're Black, you support

Joe Biden, right? So there you go. Joe Biden thinks that. The left thinks that.

Everyone who's woke thinks that. But no one who holds this in their hand can possibly think that, because that's not how it works.

There is a fundamentally new reality to a person in Christ. So this was the section, this was the part right here, that because of the context we live in, because Dr.

Duncan had as his assistant for years Jamar Tisby, who is as CRT, woke, intersectional as you can possibly be, that a person will be forgiven for going, this is not clear.

Let's grab it here again. To overcome the trust issues that have come out of that.

And it's going to take us 100 years to overcome the trust issues that have come out of that.

I tell people, my very best Black friends have trouble trusting me for really good reasons.

Okay, and what is the really good reason? I mean, if J. Lincoln Duncan is saying,

I have acted in a racist fashion in my school, in my church,

I have stood with the racists in my life, then he needs to come out and say that. And I mean biblical racism.

I mean prejudicial suppression of Black people, or Hispanic people, or Asian people, because remember, for this to be relevant, it has to be able to be moved around the world.

It has to be real for all the church in all of her places. So there is

Asian against Black prejudice in China.

There is Black against White prejudice in South Africa now. There is

Black against Black based upon tribal orientations in many places in Africa.

You get into Eastern Europe, again, you start dividing all of the ethnicities up.

There's been wars, there have been genocides that have taken place there, Turkey, Armenia, etc.,

etc., and so if you transplant this over there, then White and Black is irrelevant.

That doesn't mean that there are not still, however, key issues of racism, hatred, division in the church in those places.

Almost every nation has its ethnic, local flavors of these things.

You go to South America, you're going to get the same type of thing. You go to Australia, it's a different type of situation, but you've got the aboriginals there, you've got the people who've been transplanted there, and I wouldn't even know where to start in the

Solomon Islands, and the Philippines, and the whole area. I mean, you get to India, and there's all sorts of internal strife, but it's not because people are

White or Black in those places. It's called sin, and the fact that so much of this woke ideology is just a joke outside of our borders shows that it's just a very, very localized thing that misses the boat.

If you have a theology in the church that only makes sense in one country, you've got a bad theology, all right?

You've missed something. You're attaching something to a local context that doesn't have any meaning outside of that.

You need to get broader. You need to get bigger to see what the real sin issues are, okay? So, if what

Dr. Duncan is saying is, I've been involved in actual biblical racism, hatred of Blacks based solely upon their skin color, then that confession needs to be made, and it needs to be made without accusing every other

White person of having done what was done in that locality, because it wasn't based upon ethnicity.

It was based upon a sinful heart, okay? That's how you avoid the woke perversion of biblical repentance, but notice what's said.

Because people like me have been doing awful things to them and to their families for four centuries.

People like me for four centuries?

So, four centuries, 1619. So, people like me has to be

White people, just in general, not racists. So, you can have all sorts of people who were not involved in doing that.

Even the White abolitionists get whitewashed with this. Even the people fighting against slavery get whitewashed with this.

People like me have been doing this to them for 400 years.

How about the Black slave traders in Africa that were doing it longer than that? Does that mean there should be, does that mean

Blacks should have trust issues with Blacks? There is trust issues with Blacks, but it's because most

Blacks only in the United States recognize that they are 28 times more likely to have violence perpetrated upon their bodies by another

Black person than they are a White person. They know that. They recognize that.

That's the factual reality. It doesn't go with the narrative, but it's the factual reality. But how does this work elsewhere?

Should Black people living in China have trust issues with Whites when it's the

Asians that are prejudiced against them? How does any of this work?

I don't know. Once you embrace these categories and start doing identity politics and accept the idea of White privilege, and hence an ethnicity is guilty rather than individuals are guilty, now you've got the idea that you can actually, oh,

I can certainly understand why Black people would have trust issues in the church. So in other words, the whole idea of conversion has been lost here.

What happened to conversion? What happened to the fact that the people in the church are supposed to be converted people?

And that their pasts are their pasts and not supposed to be brought into the church?

It's supposed to have been forgiven by Christ, right? And so are you literally saying that in the church it is okay for divisions to continue because of identity politics and it cannot be overcome by the unity that comes from recognizing common spirit, common justification, imputed righteousness of Christ?

This is what I was referring to when

I talked about the Scythian thing, and again, I'll try when I type up the stuff out the program here,

I will try to remember to link to the appropriate section from St.

Charles. But I presented what I guess we could call the

Scythian test, and woke theology fails the

Scythian test. Woke theology fails the Scythian test. What do

I mean? Well, back to where we started all of this stuff in 2018.

Do not lie to one another, Colossians chapter 3, since you laid aside the old self that's evil practices and put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.

So, here is God in Christ forming the body of Christ.

So, here is the body is being created and the new self is being created by Christ.

It's a renewal according to the image of the one who created him, so being conformed to the image of Christ, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian,

Scythian, slave and free man, but Christ is all and in all. And so,

I presented, as we have on this program before, the

Scythian problem. Barbarian and Scythian are political categories.

The barbarians in verse 11, the barbaros, were the people who did not speak the languages of the empire,

Latin or Greek. So, they had their own dialects and so they were barbarians.

That placed them outside of the Roman hegemony. Scythians came out of the

Russian steppes. They were a warlike people and hence that is an ethnic designation that would have been known specifically to the church at Colossae.

Now, is it possible that there was a Scythian cohort, a

Scythian group that someone from the nascent church of Colossae had gone out to these people?

Maybe they were outcasts. Maybe they were not liked in the community because of the history of their people in that region.

But someone had gone out and proclaimed the gospel to them. They've now embraced Christ and he brings them into the fellowship.

And now, there's a problem. Because 150 years ago, the

Scythians were engaged in warfare and during that time, some of my ancestors were killed.

And so, I don't want Scythians in the church and I don't think you should have gone and proclaimed the gospel to them.

And Paul says, no. The renewal to the image of Christ is for all who have faith in Jesus Christ, Greek, Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian,

Scythian, slave, and free man. But Christ is all and in all.

There is Christian unity. Christ is all and in all by his spirit.

So, the Scythian test is, does your theology of wokeness pass this text of scripture?

If you took what you are teaching now, especially if you embrace ideas of identity politics, the idea that all whites are all whites and all blacks are all blacks and all

Asians are all Asians and all Hispanics are all Hispanics, which is such a ridiculous lie that I don't know how anyone can close their minds off enough to actually think that.

But if you're going to buy that distinction and you apply it to the early church, then what's

Paul doing here? Because Paul is destroying these distinctions.

You are employing these distinctions. So, are you saying that there should have been a

Scythian church separate from the non -Scythian church, a barbarian church and a

Roman church, a Greek, a Jewish church and a Gentile church, that there should have been those divisions?

Because we're doing that today. Are you saying that that's what should have happened if you're woke?

Or do you have to admit that the importation of your theology would have blown up the

Church of Colossae? And if it did, why? And there you'll have your answer to where woke theology violates scriptural command, because Christ is all and in all.

There's no room for your intersectionality and there is no room for your importing the last 400 years of history into the church.

If it came out of sin, it's been forgiven. It's been washed away.

If it was by grace, if it was gifts of grace, beautiful art and culture and things like that that we all can bring together, fine if it's of grace.

But if it was of sin, it's washed away. Otherwise, you have no redemption.

There's no end game here. You will constantly have various groups demanding that other groups in the church be doing penance to them, and it will never be enough because there's no way to forgive it.

You're claiming to be Christians, but you're denying the foundation of what it means to be

Christians in the forgiveness of the past, the sins of the past, and you're dragging it back in.

No end game. It has to keep going and going and going and going and going. It is battery acid in its destructiveness, the unity of the church.

So there's the Scythian test. What do you do with it? When you say, well,

I know why people would have trust issues with me, because people who looked like me were mistreating people who looked like you two centuries ago.

That's a violation of the Scythian test. Direct, clear, unambiguous. And there's no way out of that kind of a situation.

You've locked yourself in, and you can't get out.

So whatever Dr.

Duncan is saying, if he is saying, there has been racism in our experience, in our school, in our churches, then come straight out and say, not intersectional.

I'm not accusing on the basis of skin color, but there has been racism.

Then be specific and have repentance for that.

But don't embrace this intersectional, ethnic -based, divisive, destructive idea that can never possibly allow you to preach through Colossians 3 again without going, wish

Paul hadn't said that. That's the issue.

That's the issue. Because everybody was hearing it in one way or the other. I'm simply saying, look, there's a biblical way to say we've experienced real, sinful racism, not the whites always oppress blacks lie, because that's a lie.

It's not even true in our own history, and it certainly ain't true anywhere else on the planet. That's a localized lie.

Get rid of it, because then you can never deal with real racism when you're playing with a lie.

So get rid of it. And if what you're saying is, this has been where we are, that doesn't make any sense in saying, and that means people properly will have an issue trusting me because of what happened 400 years ago.

What's the basis for any one Christian trusting another Christian? The fact that they're dealing with a sinless person? Of course not.

It's a renewed heart. It's the spirit of God. It's the commonality of both trusting in the one righteousness of Christ.

So nothing has changed since 2018. Here we're going into 2021. We're coming up on three years of this stuff now.

Nothing has changed. This stuff violates the fundamental reality of scripture.

There you go. There you go. And some people are going to be upset.

Some people are going to be upset because what they want me to do is just to beat the drum of conspiracy.

These guys are all doing it. No. From the start, if you're going to call yourself a

Christian, and J. Ligon Duncan calls himself a Christian, here's your standard. And critical race theory, intersectionality, white privilege, and all the rest of the stuff that goes with it violates this and its history and the history of this nation.

That's the issue. That's what you've got to call people to and say, you got to come back to this.

Got to come back to this. So there you go. Strange combination, I do realize, of William Tyndale and woke theology and the divisiveness of the church, but there you go.

That's the dividing line for you. So Lord Willen, we'll be back again next week, and lots going on that I'm sure we'll have need to comment on.

Still has some stuff to pick up from topics we've started in the past, but wanted to get those two things done.

Thanks again to Robert Nansky for sitting in. I didn't hear the second program, but I had a lot of people commenting on the to mask or not mask program.

I did listen to that one while running in 31 degree weather with a windchill that pushed it below that.

That was fun. Don't do that very often in Phoenix, but that was really useful.

Lots of people asking about that, and there's going to be more coming about that because I think after January 21st, you're going to sit back and go, wow, uh -oh.