Q&A part 2

All right, and we are live. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Open Air Theology. My name is Jeff Rice. I am one of the co-hosts for this podcast. I am the pastor of Covenant Reform Baptist Church. We meet in Tallahoma, Tennessee, and I'm here with my good brothers.

I'll pass it over to Brayden first. Yeah, thank you,.

Jeff. Yeah, Pastor Brayden from Valley Baptist Church in Hagerman, Idaho. It's a privilege to be able to meet with these men on a weekly basis, as well as talk to each other on a daily basis, just about God, theology, scripture, and so on and so forth.

And if you live in Southern... Funny memes. Yes, funny memes. Lots of funny memes. That's the best. I'm telling you, we're going to get a lot more Will Smith smacking some people around with memes here soon.

Oh my goodness. And yeah, no, so if you live in the Southern Idaho area, please come check out our church. We'd love to have you.

Yeah, I'll pass it on to Haps. Brother Haps. Hi, I'm Pastor Haps Addison of All Branch Ministries, and I'm out of Southern California in the Lower Desert.

Boom. Boom. You gotta pass it. Oh, I pass it. Pass it to Hannes. Yeah, so I'm Hannes. I'm a member of All Branch Ministries. I'm also a member of Faith Community Church in Hammett. I've known my pastor, Pastor Happy, for about four years.

And so, yeah, I'm a servant here unto Christ and through my pastor, and so forth and so on.

Ecclesiology, Church Authority, and the Life of a New Convert

All right, well, as y 'all see, so Hannes was on the podcast last week, and he asked us some questions, and so he said he'd be up to do it again this week. So we got him back on, and he's going to ask us questions.

We don't know the depth of what he's going to ask. I know it might be a little bit of eschatology here, might be a little bit of justification, sanctification, or pastoral ministry. I got a whole bunch of readings from him, so we don't quite know yet, all right?

I'm not no prophet or son of a prophet, but I am from the trailer park, so trailer park people are nosy. So here we go.

Well, you are talking to a schizophrenic here, so you don't know for a good reason. And I, honest to God, don't know what I'm doing.

Yeah, well, I sometimes whisper in my own ear, so it's all good.

So I guess the heading of my first question would be, and I'm so privileged and blessed to have been invited back onto y 'all's forum and with Open Air Theology, and I truly am grateful for that. One of a question that I feel the Lord may have impressed upon my heart has to do with ecclesiology and something that I think it's a theological truth as having been called out of darkness into light in Christ, and more pointedly speaking, into his church as one of his sheep.

I think my question has to do with the benefits or church ecclesiology, church authority, why, how, what does that look like for a sheep? And furthermore, my second question would be, why is it important and how is a sheep or a new convert supposed to act?

What are we supposed to do? We all know what the pastors are supposed to do, and we're blessed with our pastors, but what do we do as, what's our goal, what's our job, how do we be good sheep? And so that would be my first question.

I love it.

Who do you want to ask that to? Just everybody, just open dialogue on that? Say Jeff, say Jeff.

Yes, Brayden.

I'll do my best to answer it. I was just preaching through John Chapter 21 verses, I was in 12 through 17. Yeah, 12 through 17. And in there, it's often known as the restoration of Peter, the calling him back to his apostolic pastoral calling that he was meant to do after denying Christ three times.

He's told to tend, feed, and tend the sheep three different times by Jesus. And so the first thing that just that comes to mind, the reason that God has set up church authority in the way that he has is because he loves us.

He says, Peter, do you love me? Tend my sheep. And so one way that God has blessed sheep is that he's set up under shepherds to care and tend for them. And so that is one reason that I would say that there's this church authority in the way that it has through pastors, teachers, and deacons and other ecclesiology setups like we would see in different denominations and so on and so forth, is that they're set up to love, tend, and feed the sheep.

And this is because we love God. And maybe I'll then pass it on to someone else. But maybe that I think that would be my first just go to because it was something I just preached on on Sunday. And so maybe I saw Jeff pointing to Haps.

So Haps, what else would you say on that?

Well, you know, I believe that we all have a role in the church. I believe that the elders, you know, when they're engaged with their congregations and it's not just the pastors or the elders just showing up on Sunday, but when we're engaged in fellowship, not only on the Lord's Day, but throughout the week in Bible studies or whatnot.

And we're building our relationships and a lot of times trust and everything. I believe a lot of our gifts, the gifts start coming out and we know, you know, like one wants to serve, you know, awesome.

You know, could you greet at the door? You know, you know, can. And so I think that as we're being built up in the body of the, in the church, as the older men are training the younger men, as the older women are training the younger women, we start to find our place.

And I think it's really, it'll develop over time.

Okay. Yeah, so I would, if I can jump in here after picking on my brothers, my dear brothers whom I love and respect each and every one of you. So I would say like to, to work backwards, I would say that, you know, for the, the new convert to, to be, you know, brought into the, you know, Christ has done a work in his life.

He has heard the gospel. He has believed his faith is in Christ. He has received Christ by faith. He is a new creation. The old is gone. Behold, all things are new. I would say that this is someone who is now a sin and saint.

He is both saints and sinner, right? What he needs to do is be connected, right? He needs to be at church. He needs to be under the word of God, the authority of the word of God. He needs to be around other sheep that are more advanced in their walk than he is.

The fellowship, the communion of the saints. He needs to be partaking in the Lord's supper. He needs to be partaking in these prayers. He needs to have people praying for him. He needs to hear prayer requests and pray for others.

These are things that I think as a body that we're supposed to do. But most importantly, if he, you know, a new convert needs to be baptized, he needs to be under the word of God. He needs to be partaking in the Lord's supper.

He needs to be fellowship, and he needs to be involved with praying and being prayed for. He needs to be singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So he needs to be in that church life, that everything that takes place in that walk.

All right. Sheep need to be fed. Yes. Right. So he needs to be fed. All right. Well, he also needs good shepherds to feed him. That has someone, whoever God's man, whom God has given the authority to do these things, needs to be someone.

The church needs to be a biblical church, a church that is practicing these things that he needs. So he needs a pastor, a shepherd who does biblical exposition, who teaches, who explains the teachings of the apostles, who has the Lord's supper, who baptizes believers, who, you know, praise for his people and one to whom that the people know that he can trust.

You know, when you look at Galatians, it talks about like it starts naming off these sins that people committed. And it says that that these people will not inherit the kingdom of God. But it says in such and so was some of you, such was some of you.

Right. And so, you know, I believe that the church is the spiritual kingdom of God. The it's a physical people. But the church is a spiritual kingdom that's filled with physical people. Right. And whenever and the idea is, is that you no longer identify yourself with these common sins of men.

Right. Like, you know, me growing up at 14, I entered a gang. I got beaten to a gang and I was a gangbanger. All right. When I became a Christian, I no longer identified myself as a gangbanger. I no longer identified myself as all these negative things in my life that I had in my life.

Right. I now identified myself with Christ. I am a Christian. Right. Well, identity is important for both the believer and for the shepherd. I mean, if you look at the the parables of the of the of the young man who who ran away from his father, you know, he got his father's inheritance and he ran away.

And then there's the parable right after is the parable of the the sheep and one sheep goes astray. And the shepherd goes after that sheep. And then you have the parable of the woman who had 10 who had 10 coins and she lost one.

Well, the idea here is, is that that time this was speaking of identity. Right. And so this woman who lost the 10 coins. Well, at that time in Jewish history, women always had like their identity was in their head covering.

You know, so there's a head covering for prostitutes. There was a head covering for widows. There was a head covering for for women who were taking on different kind of head coverings. Well, at this time, when a young lady was young, whenever she would start receiving coins, whenever she got 10 coins, she would wove them together into a hairpiece.

And that this 10 coin hairpiece would let the gentleman know that she was eligible for marriage. This was her identity that she lost. If she couldn't find this 10th coin, she was never going to be able to wove it together to make a hairpiece to show that she is eligible for marriage.

Right. And so and then you have the shepherd that loses one of his sheep and he goes and he finds his sheep. And the idea, the idea here, and I still believe this is practice. When the shepherd finds the sheep, he breaks the sheep's leg.

All right. So the sheep no longer can walk. And so the shepherd would put the sheep on his shoulder and carry the sheep back to the flock. And so the whole time the sheep is dependent upon the shepherd who's carrying the sheep.

All right. And the whole time, all I can do is feel this heartbeat of the shepherd. And it said that once that shepherd puts the sheep down after its foothills, that sheep does not run off much. I mean, it doesn't leave his side much less run off because the sheep longs to hear the heartbeat of the shepherd.

Right. And then you have the the one where the boy who squandered his inheritance. All right. This is not talking about someone who was actually not a part of the family. This boy was a part of the family.

Yeah. Yeah. He was the son of the father, the son of the father left. All right. But when the father saw him coming back to his identity, his family, the father welcomed him in open arms. Then you have the one to where the sheep left.

But the shepherd, an image of that father going to receiving his son. And then the woman who knew the only way that my wife can progress anymore is I got to find that coin. So a lot of this has to do with identity when we see in Scripture.

And so the pastor's identity is to be the pastor of the church. If someone leaves, we need to go after him. All right. Yeah. Let's say they push us away. If they start coming back, bring the fattest calf.

Amen. Amen. All right. All right.

And if and if there's something that he's struggling with, with his identity, we help them find that. We help them find that coin. We have to be here for one another. I tell you this all the time. If I'm walking, if I wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, which I do this quite often.

And if you know me, I got real bad vertigo. I've never met a door frame. I haven't ran into. I got callous, callous shoulders. Right. Well, here's the thing. If I was to hit my pinky toe on something, my whole body, even my other pinky toe is worried about the pinky toe.

My hands grab my foot. I'm jumping up in the air. My whole body is focusing on the toe. Listen, that's how we have to be. Rejoice with those who are rejoicing and mourn with those who are mourning. Yeah.

This is the church. Let's stop playing. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I love that. You know, I think that, you know, when it comes to newcomers and bringing them in and bringing them into the fold, you know, like, you know, and it's it's just such a new experience.

I think back to when I first, you know, was adopted into the family of God and there was no grace or mercy. It was very legalistic. And if you messed up, then everybody knew about it and nobody's coming after you.

No one's looking, you know, you know, and it was just like I didn't see that in Scripture. But yeah, I believe that, you know, and plus, you know, all three of those parables in Luke are some of my favorite parables right there, because whenever I teach through that, that I go through a series with those, the parable of the lost coin, the parable of the lost sheep and the prodigal son, they were all his to begin with.

You know, they were all his to begin with. It was something that belonged to them that they were looking for or that came back to them.

Mormon Doctrine and Covenants and the Nature of Covenants

Yep. Bring it, Hannes. Let's hear another question. I love that.

Yeah, no, no, no. You know, I just watched a debate with Dr. White. This is funny as Dr. White was the moderator and that was interesting. And the debate I watched part of the debate was with two Mormons.

Oh yeah, that was good. Part of me, two Mormons and two seminary students that were deacons over at Apologia. And, but before the, you know how Dr. White's a veteran debater and stuff like that. And just seeing him as the moderator, he goes, you know what?

Look, you guys have half the time to write these questions, but when you bring them up here, don't write the question from the position of you all are fools and I should be the one debating, you know?

So right when I heard that, I was like, it humbled me. It gave me perspective on the blessing, the privilege that it is to have, be surrounded by such a great cloud of faithful men that have been being built up in Christ and serving the body for quite some time faithfully as obedient and so forth.

And so I don't have to answer your question, Pastor Rice. A question to try to knock you guys off your theological, you know, confuse you guys. But I do want to know some things, you know, I do want to know, you know, about maybe working and stuff like that.

Okay, so now in Christ, I know I belong to Him, so forth. I belong to Jesus. He's showing me my depravity, having abandoned my family in the past, having chosen the idol over the truth for six years. Now I'm here, I'm in the fold, I'm walking in obedience to my shepherd.

I'm getting the images, I'm getting the symbols, you know, Christ is now teaching me. And so now I have these desires, you know, I want to go after my son. I would like him to, I would like to maybe make up for the past, you know, is that am I trying to atone for my own sins?

What about work? I owe the IRS hundreds or thousands of dollars, school debt, child support, this type of stuff that, you know, it's things. Do I go and try to fix that stuff now? Do I look at that now as a proverbial broken leg like Jacob had his hip, you know, when he wrestled with God, it touched and he had to walk with a limp the rest of his life.

Do I just be content, you know, or do I try to go out and now that I know that the Creator loves me because Christ, do I go out and try to fix those things? Or is that just stuff that I'm going to have to walk with you for the rest of my life?

Kind of like, okay, too bad, so sad you messed up. You've been a terrible sinner and now you're new. That would be some more or less counseling that I would ask from you guys respectfully.

Christian Responsibility, Debt, and Love for One Another

Yeah, I would just say that as long as you're not trying to do these things to earn some favor with God, justification or sanctification wise, that these are good things that, you know, to pursue. It's a good thing to pursue relationship with your kids.

It's a good thing to try to pay back society. Like there's nothing wrong with these things. You see what I'm saying? As long as you're not trying to like, I don't think if I don't do these things, I'm not a Christian or don't think if I do these things, I'll be a better Christian.

Okay. You know, because your Christianity, you being in Christ is the work of Christ. Yeah. All right, Him living the life you could not live and Him dying in your place as a perfect substitute to atone for your sins.

Thank you. You know, I think that Pastor Haps would be the best one to answer you on this type of stuff, saying that he is your pastor, right? And so I don't know all the in and outs of the situations that you're talking about.

But I think one of the reasons that that comes from your heart of wanting to establish those relationships and recover what was previously lost is because you see what you now have in Christ. You've been adopted.

You've been forgiven. You've been reconciled. You've been made whole. And now you want to express that same thing that you have received unto the rest of the world. And I would say that that's a fruit of being a believer in God, is that immediately you will want those kind of things in your life.

You'll want to seek that kind of stuff. And I always have to remind people that when we talk about fruit, because I've seen people pour their heart out in doing X, Y, and Z, whether it's a ministry thing, a personal thing, and it did not turn out the way that they wanted to.

I have to remind people that giving God glory and doing these things is fruit in and of itself. If somebody doesn't believe after you've taught a Bible study to them for seven weeks or however long the example is, God wasn't drawing them or whatever the example is.

But the fruit was that you were putting time forward to share God's gospel with a person that does not believe or whatever the example is. And so you go to your son and your son still rejects whatever is going on there, whatever the example is.

The fact that you took a step outside of your front door is a fruit to God. It praises Him, it glorifies Him in doing those things. As long as what you're doing is like what Jeff said, you're not doing that for the merit of salvation.

You're not doing that to merit good things from God. You're not doing that for those things. You're doing it because once again, you love others because God has loved you.

Okay. Yeah, right on. Thank you, Pastor.

You know, I think when it really comes down to it is we bear much fruit with patience. And so it's really being patient and waiting upon the Lord and praying and getting counsel from your pastors, the elders of the church and seeking direction.

And whatever we do, it's outward indeed. We do it to glorify God and He's all about reconciliation. You know, He's all about reconciliation. But we always try to do these things in our time and our ways aren't His ways.

Our thoughts aren't His thoughts. And when we really lean on His understanding and His ways, He'll direct our paths. You know, and He'll make it available. You know, like what am I going to do for work?

What am I, you know, how am I going to get my kid? And you know, what does it say? You know, don't worry about what you eat, what you drink, what you wear. First seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Then all these things will be added to you. Yes, sir. Amen. Thank you so much. Thank you. You know, I got a question.

I got a question. Look, this ain't your question, Tyler. It's mine. It's your question. I want to hear it now. This is my time to question you guys.

All right. Well, what's your question, young man? I got a question.

Okay. Look at this. Me and Hannes, we both got a question for Brayden. All right. Oh, yes. Oh, no, no. We got it. You know, we're just like, you know, here, you know, we're all just stiff neck coming, you know, and everything.

I'm starting to lag right now. Sorry. No, no.

We were wondering, you know, in the Mormon church, in the Mormon church. All right. They have, they have the, don't they have a book of covenants? So they have the doctrine and covenants. Yeah. What is their doctrine?

Because him and I, we've been talking about this today. Get your quad.

You already know. You already know. So the doctrine covenants is essentially what they would say is. So the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price to them is historical documents, right? Things that took place far in the past, previous to Christ, and also during Christ's ministry in the Americas.

Right. They believe that Jesus Christ came to the United States. Nonsense. But the doctrine and covenants would be to them like acts and the ministry of the apostles were in the first generation. And so doctrine covenants has to deal with what Joseph Smith said that he received as personal doctrine that was meant for the church.

It has some experience of him, experiences of him during jail time, as well as towards the later part of the book, some stuff from Brigham Young himself. And so it's comprised of 100 and I want to say 36 chapters.

Let me open this guy up real fast. Yes. 137 chapters. Excuse me. Oh, no. 38. Oh, 138 chapters. I want to say that one point there was 139. I can't remember off the top of my head, but their view of covenants is not even close to they only.

It was really interesting. I started looking at covenants on LDS .org the other day and just reading what they had to say was covenants. It was after I think I was getting asked a question about something with Mormon covenantal stuff.

I think it was you and Hannes, I think, asked me that over the phone chat. And so I was like, I want to go and look at look at LDS .org and see what their definition of covenant stuff is. And they just focus on nothing but covenants of works.

There was not a single mention made of a covenant of grace, something that Christ has done on our behalf. It was all through covenants of works that were given. And so that's essentially what they would view as covenants.

This is a works-based salvation.

You know, that amazes me. Most cults always say that they're one of the lost tribes of Israel. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. And it's all works, works, works, works, works. Totally. Oh, man. Yeah. We were just talking about it.

I love it.

Great question. Do the Mormons say that Jesus in America made a new covenant with Joseph Smith? Like, is there a section of an actual covenant being made?

So I'm trying to think about it. So which a lot of this stuff has slipped my mind, and I praise God for it because that's taken a little while. So their belief is in John chapter 10, where he says, Other sheep I have, and I also must gather, which is speaking of Gentiles, is they would say is speaking of Native Americans in the United States.

And even some more liberal LDS people would say that he appeared to people in Asia, people in New Zealand, people all across the world, that he kept on reappearing over and over and over again in different people groups.

But just what's recorded in the Book of Mormon is that they appear to people in not the United States, in the Americas. And that is where they got to see Jesus. Jesus was able to reveal himself to them and tell about what he had done in Jerusalem, that kind of stuff.

And so I'm trying to have I don't I don't know off the top of my head if there is any mention of covenant per se, but that that's their general belief is that Jesus Christ left the apostles, came to the Americas and set up his stuff over there and then departed.

Eschatology: Dispensational, Historic Premillennial, Amillennial, and Postmillennial Views

Well, I got another question for you guys if you guys want to ask. We got plenty of time. Yes. So I actually really want to know because I'm I'm trying to develop my own position. I'm reading I've started reading this four views book book on eschatology.

So it just seems like everybody I know. OK, so like when who's that one guy that Jesus opened his eyes and he saw trees everywhere?

Yes. Jesus healed the blind man. Oh, yeah. Healed the blind man.

I feel like with this eschatology thing, like everybody's trees and they have so much knowledge on, on, on, you know, all the predispensation of the historic and the dispensational pre-millennia and all that.

And post-millennialism and non-millennialism. So I really want to know and be taught so I can have a framework, you know, of my own. I know it takes time and stuff, but it seems like you guys at least have a particular position.

And if not, you know.

Whichever way you go, just don't go all mill.

I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. I'm just playing.

So if someone else wants to tackle this, I'll interrupt in a minute or if you want me to go on, it's fine.

Yeah. You know, the way that I would say that, Annis, is that, yeah, it will take you a hot minute to figure out what your specific view is. And that specific view might change over time. And I think that there does need to be a certain amount of grace that's extended to each one of the views.

A certain amount of grace. There are some areas that each one of these people would say that is crossing certain lines in their own theology. And so that's important to recognize those areas as well. But to remember that eschatology, as long as we're not denying that Jesus Christ is not going to come again unto his bride and collect his bride and judge the wicked.

That's the essential area of eschatology. And so where I would say somebody is wrong and maybe even sinning and violating scripture, I would not necessarily put them outside of the camp of Christianity because they're not denying any other essential with what they're saying.

It's not like they're denying the virgin birth, nor are they denying the death, burial and resurrection, nor are they denying faith in Christ for salvation. All those kind of things that are essential to Christianity and being orthodox.

Eschatology is truly a secondary issue that has some tertiary problems and also does affect the way that we do view some primaries as well. Absolutely. And so, you know, I don't know how much more I need to get in, how much more you want from me, because I can give you a brief summary of all four of the eschatology views if you'd like.

Yeah, please, please. So so I would start out with saying what the most common one is today is dispensational premillennialism. And that came about in the eighteen hundreds, specifically dispensationalism.

And that's truly the belief that after Revelation chapter four, that everything on that point is future for us. So that some would say that we're maybe in this chapter right now with where we're seeing things.

But that stuff is future for us, that there's these future things that are happening in a very literal way. And they read the book of Revelation literally until they're forced to read it symbolically.

Right. And so that can change from person to person. But some of the biggest nuances with dispensational premillennialism is that they see a future hope for ethnic Israel being redeemed at the second coming of Christ.

That they would also see that there's going to be a physical thousand year millennial kingdom, as well as that they do see a distinction, a clear distinction between the church and Israel. So they would not say they would say that the church started in Acts chapter two, that there is no church prior to that.

The church started in Acts chapter two, whereas every other eschatology view would say that true Israel, spiritual Israel is the church. A group of believing people was found even back in the garden. And that's how we get it that we just don't have the word church yet.

Right. And so then so then going on to what they what would be meant, I would say, is their brother is historical premillennialism. And that's one of the earliest recorded eschatology views that we have with Justin the martyr.

And so in that view, they view that Israel and the church is truly the same thing, that that true Israel is made up of believers. The church is made up of believers and that they would also say that depending on the historical premillennialist that you're talking to, they can hold to different interpretive principles to the book of Revelation.

But many of them are historicists, so they see certain events taking place in the book of Revelation as being past, current and yet future. And so they could say, OK, well, back in the Reformation, this was that day.

That was this day. And then and Hitler came that fulfilled this prophecy in this major event filled this one. And now we're in Revelation 17. Right. Something along those lines. But they still see it a lot of times as a linear reading of the text.

And then when you come to all millennialists, they once again see true Israel and the church being the same thing. And all millennialists read the book of Revelation as being most all millennialists. You can find some historical all millennialists.

You can find some partial preterist all millennialists. But for the most part, you'll find idealist all millennialists, which view the book of Revelation as being theologically metaphorically symbolic.

And I know that that's a lot of wording right there. But I say it for a reason. Right. Because they there there's a sense of being too liberal in the text when we read it that way. And there is danger in those things.

Right. If we read a text too liberally, we can end up becoming a Jehovah witness and say that Jesus Christ never really physically rose from the grave that he only spiritually did. Right. Now we've crossed outside of the grounds of Orthodox.

Right. But they would look at stuff like. Yeah. So they would just see see a lot of that stuff having theological implications that are being used with literal visuals that John's seeing that have a spiritual symbolic meaning to it.

And they would also see usually an idealist would see that there's many recalculations of the same event that's taking place over and over and over and over again from different angles in the book of Revelation.

But all millennialists that term is a really bad term because all millennialists do believe in a literal millennial reign. But they don't believe in a literal thousand year physical reign that Christ is reigning right now and that the devil was bound curtailed crushed all these kind of things restrained at the life death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And then he's still currently in that state never being able to see the elect. But at the second coming of Christ there will be a time where the professing Christian church there will be many that fall away and Christ come coming will come and there will be a singular resurrection of both the wicked and the just.

And there will be a separation of the sheep and the goats. There will be a judging of the good and the wicked. Right. And then when we come to the post millennialist post millennialists share a lot of commonality with with all millennialists depending most most post millennialists would be what's called partial predators or predators.

And they would see that the majority of the book of Revelation has been fulfilled in past fulfillment. Right. And it took place and most people would place that at the 70 AD period. Right. And so post millennialists where I would say that a lot of the disagreement takes place between all millennialists and post millennialists is the world at which Christ will come back to.

And so a lot of post millennialists would say that the majority of the world will be. I'll use the word Christianized. They'll be evangelized. The world will be different than what it is today. Right.

So that could be that could be hundreds of hundreds of years from now. But through the great commission Christ is subduing the enemy. He's putting them under his feet. And over time that will then mean that Christ will come back to a world that is different than what it is currently.

Whereas an all millennialists would say, well, no, we think that when Christ comes again, it's to a wicked world that's rejecting the Christian. The post millennialists would say, no, it's a world that would be singing the praise of Christ as he's coming here.