August 16, 2017 Show with Michael J. Kruger on “The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity” AND Joseph Jacowicz on “‘Send the Light’ Conference”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth or listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 16th day of August 2017 and we have two guests on the program today, one a returning guest and one for the second hour a new guest.

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We're going to start off the program with Dr. Michael J. Kruger and we're going to talk about his book,

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The Heresy of Orthodoxy, How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity.

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During the second hour we're going to have Joseph Jackowitz on the program. He's the founder of First Love Publications and one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church of Dublin, California.

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We're going to be discussing the Send the Light conference in Versailles, Kentucky that's coming up in just a couple of weeks.

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But first of all let me introduce our first guest, Dr. Michael J. Kruger is President and Samuel C.

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Patterson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Reform Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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He's an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America also known as the PCA, a pastor of teaching at Uptown Church in Charlotte, North Carolina and a blogger at michaeljkruger .com.

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As I said we are going to be addressing his book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy, How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

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Michael J. Kruger. Thanks Chris, great to be back with you again. Yeah it's great to have you back and I'll repeat a little bit of trivia information that Dr.

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Kruger actually was once a pastoral intern in the church where I am currently a member,

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Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. We have that, a long time ago. Yeah and Reid Rusniak sends his greetings.

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He is always delighted to hear when you are on the program. Fantastic, well pass those along back to him.

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I will. And before we even go into the subject at hand of The Heresy of Orthodoxy, we have new listeners it appears, discovering

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio every day and I'm getting contacted either during the show or after the show or before the show by listeners

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I've never heard from before who have discovered Iron Sharpens Iron radio and have fallen in love with it.

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So for the sake of those folks especially who have never heard you on Iron Sharpens Iron radio before, please give us a brief description of Reform Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina and also

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Uptown Church in Charlotte. Yeah happy to do it, thanks for the opportunity. Yeah I've been at Reform Theological Seminary here in Charlotte for the last 16 years.

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I'm in my 17th year here as a professor of New Testament and the last five as president.

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RTS is an institution that was started in 1966 in Jackson, Mississippi and now has more than eight campuses around the country, which gets confusing for people

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I know, but our three main campuses if you can use that language are in Jackson, Charlotte and Orlando and in Charlotte we've been here about 25 years.

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So we have a whole range of degree programs from MDiv to counseling to D -Min and beyond. So it's been a privilege to be here and also

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I'm part of the PCA denomination, Presbyterian Church in America and my home church is Uptown PCA here in the center of the city and I've been at that church for the same amount of time in my 17th year there and just thankful to be serving in the local church and that's a great place to do it.

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Well I would appreciate it if you would send my greetings to the OPC in Charlotte.

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I was very warmly greeted there a number of years ago when I was traveling through Charlotte and they put me up for the night and it was just a wonderful time fellowshipping with them and worshiping with them at the

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OPC there. And Matthew's North Carolina which I believe is right next to Charlotte, correct?

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Absolutely and we've got a good relationship with that church and know many of the folks over there so I'll pass that greeting along.

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I appreciate it. Well we are going to be talking about a very controversial book that you have written,

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The Heresy of Orthodoxy, and that has nothing to do, I just want to let our listeners know, it has nothing to do with Hank Hanegraaff's recent conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy.

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It's not about Eastern Orthodoxy at all but that would be a good title for a book about that subject.

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But this is in regard to Orthodoxy meaning biblically sound and so on, straight as the word means.

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And please explain this seemingly contradicting title or oxymoronic title,

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The Heresy of Orthodoxy. Yeah absolutely. So to understand the title you have to understand the book that we're responding to.

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So back in the early 20th century a German scholar by the name of Walter Bauer wrote a very well -known book.

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Now when he wrote it no one knew much about it but the title of the book is Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.

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And Bauer had a very important argument that we respond to in our book that most people will recognize but they probably don't know it came from Bauer and that argument goes something like this, that when you look in the early centuries of the church and you explore

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Christianity and say the second century and the third century, Bauer argued there was no such thing as Christianity.

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In fact he argued there was only Christianities, plural, a bunch of different groups and factions and segments of the church that all claim to be original and all claim to have the true version of Christianity, all disagreeing with each other on a variety of important topics from the person of Jesus to the way you're saved and whether God's the creator of the world and so on.

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And so Bauer argued that Christianity was so wildly diverse and there was so much disagreement that you can't even really start talking about things like orthodoxy until many many years later when the church had finally picked a theological winner that determined what orthodoxy really was.

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So that is the thesis of the book and our title, The Heresy of Orthodoxy, is just simply saying that sort of the last and only thing that people are willing to call heresy is when you claim to be orthodox.

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Yes. The last stage of that sort of idea. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of D .A.

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Carson's book, The Intolerance of Tolerance. It's a very similar idea, right, which is the kind of paradox of those who follow

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Walter Bauer say, hey, there's absolutely no heresy out there or orthodoxy. Well, of course, except for you people who claim to have orthodoxy, you're heretics, and so that's the title of the book.

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And by the way, I want to let our listeners know our email address if you'd like to join us with a question. It is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Boy, I'm tongue -tied today. chrisarnsen at gmail .com. That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. And you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter, such as if you disagree with your own past or on something or a matter like that that would compel you to remain anonymous.

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We understand and we will grant your wishes. But if it's not about a personal and private matter, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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What's interesting about Bower's theories is that, isn't it true that there has never been a day since the dawn of Christianity where there were not false religions masquerading as Christianity competing with it?

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Even in the days that the New Testament canon was being compiled, the very authors of the

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New Testament were warning about the the uprise of heretics and they were even naming heretics that had existed, especially the

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Apostle Paul did that. Why does this seem to indicate in his mind that there was no real

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Christianity just because there were differences of opinion as there are all the way up to millennium later today?

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You have all different kinds of either orthodox churches and denominations that disagree with each other but are still nonetheless adhering to the same gospel, or you have apostate churches and you have cults and you have all kinds of things for the entirety of the existence of the

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New Testament church. Yeah, I mean what you're tapping into there is actually one of the rebuttals we make in the book, which is an important rebuttal, which is the argument for Bower only works if the existence of diversity is somehow out of accord with the existence of Christianity.

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In other words, the only way diversity is a problem is if we would predict that there wouldn't be diversity, as if it's unexpected, but that's not at all the case.

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As you indicated, there's always been disagreements from the very start in Christianity about who

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Jesus is and what he came to do and what Christian doctrine is, and we have all kinds of examples in the pages of the

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New Testament itself of heretical factions springing up very, very early, but none of that can be taken as evidence that therefore there's no authentic Christianity or therefore there's no way to know which version is true.

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And so one of the points we make in the book, which is really important, is that the mere existence of diversity is not a sufficient argument.

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You've got to do more than that. Just simply pointing out disagreement is not enough to conclude that no one view can be right.

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Now, we point that out. The problem, though, is that many people who read books like Bower's book don't understand that problem.

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They assume that if you have diversity that no one view can be right, and this is really what we mean by the subtitle of the book, is that people don't realize that Bower's argument is basically a postmodern argument of sorts.

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It's basically saying the mere existence of diversity proves there's no truth, which of course is fallacious, but people still buy it anyway because of their cultural influences on them.

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Now, Bower would have been near the tail end of what is known as the fundamentalist modernist controversy, although its ripple effects still continue today in some fashion.

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But what role did he play, if any, in that controversy as far as a notable figure? Very little because no one knew much about him when he wrote the book because he wrote it in German.

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So in 1934, he published his book and no one really paid much attention in America where most of the fundamentalist modernist controversy was playing out, or at least the

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English -speaking world. It wasn't really until 1971 that Bower's book was noticed because it was then that it was translated into English and kind of became much more well known.

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And so that's one of the things about Bower is that most people don't even know that he's behind it all.

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In fact, it's really the popularizers of Bower today that most people are familiar with, namely people like Bart Ehrman or Elaine Peggles and folks like that who basically are still championing

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Bower's ideas. Yeah, Bart Ehrman is quite a tragic figure in that he was once an evangelical

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Christian who was spoken of and thought of very highly by some fairly renowned

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Christian scholars who believed he had a bright and shining future ahead of him as a

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Christian scholar and apologist, and he abandoned ship. And for a man as intelligent for him, it seemed that there were very shallow reasons that he abandoned ship, but he seems to insist that unless all the controversies that are surrounding the

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New Testament and the fact that there are some areas of differences in manuscript evidence and so on, that that just totally destroys the credibility of Christianity altogether.

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And it's amazing that he actually became an apostate over some of these issues. Yeah, I mean,

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Ehrman has what we call a deconversion story that he tells over and over and over again.

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And yeah, I mean, he would attribute his deconversion to a number of these so -called discrepancies in the

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Gospels and beyond, but he also has, you know, part of it is also the problem of evil and other things that he claims, you know, completely caused him to leave the faith and become an agnostic.

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Yeah. So you're saying that it's really Bart Ehrman who has revived Bauer's thinking, and that Bauer is somehow making an impact in the 21st century now?

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Oh, he's making a tremendous impact. I would say that Ehrman is one of his most well -known popularizers, but it's not just Ehrman.

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Many before him and contemporary with him have made the same Bauer -esque kind of argument where basically they're championing the diversity of early

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Christianity as grounds for declaring that all versions of Christianity are equally valid.

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And when you hear that kind of language, you realize, wait a second here, that it's now the study of early Christianity is being sort of postmodernized, if you will.

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So it's one thing to be a postmodern in our cultural conversation, but you think that historical studies is immune from it, but then you realize, wait a second, now historical studies has the same sort of postmodern approach, which is, you know, the existence of diversity means there can be no one right view and that all views are equally valid and so on.

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And so this is the, again, the subtitle of the book is that the influence of Bauer and Ehrman and others have basically changed the way early

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Christian studies is done. We have a listener in Runnels, Iowa, Chris in Runnels, Iowa.

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He says, thanks for having Dr. Kruger on to discuss this topic. I'm wondering if Dr. Kruger could discuss a little the connection between modern pluralism and the move away from precise confessions and statements of faith inside the church.

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Some even claim allegiance to a solid confession, yet seem to deny its truths at every turn.

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Is one driving the other or are these movements independent of one another? Thank you, Dr. Kruger for standing for truth in a relative age.

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Thank you, Chris, for, as always, having a lively interview. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.

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You know, it's not as simple as drawing a one -to -one relationship between the two, but I think anybody who looks at the last century can see that there's at least a correlation between the two.

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The rise of pluralism, as he indicated, which is, again, very much this postmodern idea that all cultures, all ideas, all ethics, all religions are pretty much the same, and therefore the downplaying of a confessional view of the faith.

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Those two clearly go hand in hand, because a confessional view of the faith, the idea that we affirm and uphold and declare certain things to be the case, is in a complete antithesis to pluralism.

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It says there is truth, and it can be known, and that it's not relative, and it's not something you can just change on a whim, that it's something you should submit to and follow, not something that you create for yourself.

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And so the two are diametrically opposed, so one might reason that the more the influence of pluralism affects the church, the more you might see the dropping off of any serious confessional standards or affirmations within the

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Christian worldview, and so I think the two are clearly correlated. Now, would you say one of the most prominent understandings of pluralism in modern -day evangelicalism is when you have people like Billy Graham and other notable figures who will say, you need

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Jesus to be saved, but you don't need to know that to be saved? In other words, Billy Graham, in a famous interview with Robert Shuler, basically said he believes that many are going to heaven from the

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Muslim faith and from the Jewish faith and from all these different religions, because they are worshiping

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Christ without knowing that they're worshiping Christ. Yeah, I mean one of the sticking points in a pluralistic world is the

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Christian claim of exclusivity, right, which is it's through Jesus and Jesus alone that you're saved, and of course the

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Orthodox understanding of that is that you have to actually know Jesus, not just accidentally believe in Jesus, but consciously believe in Jesus.

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And that idea of an exclusive claim to Christianity is probably one of the most offensive things to a pluralistic world, and so people feel sort of cornered and obligated to soften it in some way, and so there's been all kinds of ways that theologians have tried to soften the blow, so to speak, of Christians' exclusive claim.

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One of them is what you just described, which is that, well, people are sort of backdoor accidental Christians and don't know it.

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Others don't even try that. They just say, look, the atoning work of Jesus pays for everybody's sins, even if they never even remotely have any knowledge of Jesus, they can be complete pagans and still be saved, and this is sort of the, you know, love wins type stuff that you see pumped out in different categories.

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It's sort of almost a universalism. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say full -blown, it seems like full -blown universalism.

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Right. And, well, let's see, we have another listener here that has a question.

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Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, Chris in Reynolds, Iowa, you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

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The Heresy of Orthodoxy, by my guest, Dr. Michael J. Kruger, and also co -authored by Andreas Kostenberger, who is no stranger to the

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Iron, Sharp, and Zion audience. Dr. Kostenberger has been a guest on this program several times, and in fact,

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I just recently received a glowing commendation from Dr. Kostenberger, and I thank him for that.

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But we need your full mailing address in Reynolds, Iowa, Chris, so as soon as we get that, we'll hand it off to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

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cv for Cumberland Valley, bbs for BibleBookService .com, who will ship that book out to you, and we also thank, of course,

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Crossway for providing these books for us. And we have another listener, we have

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Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and I have to enlarge

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Gordy's email because it's microscopic, and while I'm doing that, if anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania says,

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Sola Scriptura is the heart of this issue, but what about Tota Scriptura?

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It seems another problem is that people want to cherry -pick verses and consequently develop a heretical theology.

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Yeah, absolutely. I think that observation is true on a general level, is that Christians need to guard against both errors, right?

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The Sola Scriptura doctrine guards against the idea that some other authority is going to trump the Bible and supersede it as our ultimate standard, and of course that's what the

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Reformation was largely about, which is making sure the Scriptures are always our highest standard. And by the way,

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Sola Scriptura doesn't mean that the Scriptures are the only authority in our life, it just means it's the highest authority and the ultimate authority in our life.

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There's other subsidiary, proximate authorities that Christians are obligated to consider and follow. But the

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Tota Scriptura, too, is the same idea, a different error there. That error is basically that Christians, it's not so much that they reject the

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Bible as their highest authority, but rather they just only selectively follow it in a limited way, and so it's just the parts they happen to like, and so forth.

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But what I often tell people is that that error is actually still a version of Sola Scriptura, or violating

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Sola Scriptura, because what people are doing there is they're using themselves as the ultimate standard to determine which parts of the

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Bible they really want to follow. And once they do that, they've already rejected Sola Scriptura, which says the Bible should be the ultimate standard. So if one goes into the

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Bible and pulls the Thomas Jefferson, cutting it up, editing it, picking the parts they like, the

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Bible has ceased to be the ultimate standard, and the person doing the editing is really the ultimate authority. And so that error, the violation of the

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Tota Scriptura problem, that error is an error that's also a version of violating Sola Scriptura.

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It puts humans at the top of the epistemological food chain, if you will. Hey, you better be careful about those comments about Thomas Jefferson.

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He might have a bunch of Christians now running out there tearing down monuments. Yeah, well, let's hope that doesn't happen.

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We have Daniel in San Jose, California, who says,

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I have not read this book yet, but I've heard it is a great work. So would you please ask Dr.

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Kruger what exactly was the leading so -called evidence that Walter Bauer presented that has engulfed so much of today's secular thinking?

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What were some of the key points that you and Dr. Kostenberger felt compelled to address within Bauer's thesis and Bart Ehrman's defense of it?

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Okay, that's a great question. It's also a very big question. But let me just try to quickly summarize.

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So Bauer's argument is actually not itself what people think it is. So Bauer's argument wasn't just the mere existence of diversity.

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He was a little more sophisticated than that. He argued that it's not just that diversity exists, but that diversity existed before any established orthodoxy did.

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In other words, what he argued is that what we now regard as heresy was sometimes the earliest first version of Christianity in many locales.

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And so Bauer's book was very geographically oriented. He went from region to region within the early

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Christian world and showed, or at least tried to show, that in that region, the earliest version of Christianity there was what we now regard as a heretical one.

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So it was really an argument from geography. Now, scholars have rebutted Bauer at so many levels that now the geographical arguments of Bauer have been widely abandoned because they've been proven to be problematic at so many levels.

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People realize now that it wasn't the heretical groups that necessarily were first on the scene. So what people are left with is only just the mere existence of diversity is the only argument that's left.

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And as I've already said, that's not enough. Now, Kossenberger and I, in our book, push back on Bauer in multiple ways, which of course

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I can't recount fully here, but one of the ways we push back is by showing a great deal of unity amongst early

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Christianity as they follow what's called the rule of faith, this core, sort of almost what you could say, creedal affirmations of early

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Christians. Another way we push back is by observing the early formation of the New Testament canon, that Christians did know what books to read, did have a foundational understanding of what books were authoritative, it was not a literary free -for -all.

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Another way we push back against the Bauer thesis is observing how scant the evidence is for any serious intake of these heretical books.

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Supposedly these heretical books were widely popular and were equally popular with the Gospels, but that's not true.

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All the evidence suggests the contrary, which is they were actually fairly rare and not read that often, and the

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Gospels were much more popular. So those are the kinds of arguments we make in the book. And we have another part of Daniel's question.

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He says, what, he used improper grammar here, or a typo, what is history, logic, falsities, or all of the above?

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I'm not really sure what he means by that. What were some of your motivations that persuaded you to address this matter?

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Well, yeah, I can address that last question, I think, fairly directly, which our motivations, both

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Andreas and I, were simply observing the way that the Bauer thesis had dominated modern studies of early

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Christianity. And it was sort of a paradigm, if you will, a framework by which people examine the evidence. And it's a framework we thought was deeply flawed and needed to be challenged.

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And so the point of the book was simply to challenge what we thought was the reigning scholarly paradigm that was problematic, and hopefully show that that's not necessarily the only way to look at the historical evidence.

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Now I understand what this other sentence was. Daniel in San Jose, California was asking if Bart Ehrman's defenses were history, logic, falsities, or all of the above.

25:44

That's what he was basically saying in his question. Okay. And you basically already went over that.

25:52

So thank you, Daniel. And we need your full mailing address as well, Daniel, because you have also won a free copy of The Heresy of Orthodoxy, How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity.

26:06

And that's compliments of Crossway and also compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping that book out to you.

26:15

We have Jeff in Haddon Heights, New Jersey. Now this question is kind of off,

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I think, the topic, but I'll ask it anyway. When did the concept of apostolic succession arise in the church, as understood by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox today?

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And was it in response to Gnostic claims, or did it come earlier? Yeah, this is an interesting question.

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So apostolic succession is not necessarily what people think it is when they hear the phrase.

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Apostolic succession, some think, means that you've got this succession of the office of apostle itself that continues down.

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That's really not what it was designed to be in early Christianity. Apostolic succession has to do with this idea that you can trace a chain of bishops in early

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Christianity that all preserve the apostolic message. And that one bishop passed down the apostolic message to the next bishop, and faithfully to the next bishop.

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And that if you can name all the bishops, you can prove that the teachings you have go all the way back to the apostles.

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That's what it generally meant by that. And we see this at a number of places, even in the second century. Irenaeus seems to have sort of a version of this, probably got it from a variety of other places.

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I won't get into in terms of where he might have gotten it from. And I would say there's some partial truth to it.

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It's clear that in early Christianity that Christians valued their leaders. They could see that leaders had a certain succession, one from the other, and that the church faithfully appointed men to preserve doctrine and so on.

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Whether you could sort of pin it down to singular names, all in a nice, neat, tidy row,

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I think has probably got some issues. But we would argue that there's a general sense in which it's true, that the apostles left a deposit of truth to the church, that faithful men through generations, elders and leaders and pastors have preserved and protected information and passed it down over time, and that we can to some extent trust the doctrines we have because of that.

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That's one of the things that gives us some assurance that this isn't an arbitrary thing we believe, but that there's a generational link behind it.

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So there's some partial truth to Apostolic Succession, but I think also some problems with it. Well, thank you,

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Jeff, in Haddon Heights, New Jersey. You've also won a free copy of the book that we are discussing,

28:39

The Heresy of Orthodoxy, so please make sure we get your full mailing address so Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service can ship that out to you.

28:46

I'm going to read you a question, Dr. Kruger, and in fact I already emailed it to you, or I forwarded it to you, from Joe in Clifton, New Jersey, and then

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I'll have you answer it when we return from the break. This way you have a little bit of time to mull it over while we are going to a commercial break.

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And the question from Joe in New Jersey is, let's see,

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I just had it in front of me, can you please relate how the process of forming the biblical canon would address

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Bauer's arguments? Wouldn't the process and existence of a formalized canon be an argument against a predominant diversity in early

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Christianity? If you could share your deeper thoughts on this, it would be helpful, thank you.

29:39

And that was Joe in Clifton, New Jersey, and I sent that to your email address so you could look that over during our break, which will,

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God willing, be brief. And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

29:54

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, God willing we'll be right back with Dr.

30:00

Michael J. Kruger. One sure way all

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

34:49

This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest for the first hour of Iron Sharpens Iron is

34:56

Dr. Michael J. Kruger, and we are discussing his book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy. Our second guest, starting up at the top of the hour, is going to be

35:05

Joseph Jacobowitz of First Love Publications and Christ Bible Church of Dublin, California, who will be addressing the

35:13

Send the Light conference in Versailles, Kentucky. But if you'd like to ask a question of Dr.

35:19

Kruger now before we run out of time, send an email as soon as you can at ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

35:25

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, with your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

35:32

USA. And we have, as I said earlier,

35:38

Joe in Clifton, New Jersey, who asked you a question, and I had sent it to you as well.

35:45

And Joe in Clifton, New Jersey, asked you, and I'm enlarging the font again because somehow that disappeared before.

35:55

Joe in Clifton, New Jersey says, Could you please relate how the process of forming the biblical canon would address

36:02

Bower's arguments? Wouldn't the process and existence of a formalized canon be an argument against a predominant diversity in early

36:10

Christianity? If you could share your deeper thoughts on this, it would be helpful. Thank you.

36:16

Yeah, great question. In fact, this is really the point of Section 2 in this book,

36:23

The Heresy of Orthodoxy, which is centered all on that point where we make the case there that the canon formed remarkably early and was remarkably unified around a core set of books.

36:35

And the reason that helps refute the Bower argument is because the Bower argument makes it sound like early

36:40

Christians couldn't agree on very much at all. We're reading all kinds of different things and we're wildly different in their textual choices.

36:47

But when you realize there was a core canon in place from a very early time, you realize that that narrative simply doesn't work. It seems like Christians did have a sense of which books to read.

36:56

And the books they were reading, the books that basically formed the core of the New Testament canon, were books that did not fit with these heretical groups.

37:04

Those weren't Gnostic books. They weren't Marcionite books or other types of heretical books.

37:10

They were the books that made it in the New Testament. So it tells you something about the nature of early Christianity, that early

37:15

Christianity was a movement centered on these types of books, and therefore on that type of theology.

37:21

And if so, then you see that the idea that the heretical books and their heretical factions were equally big and equally popular just can't work.

37:29

We don't find the Gospels of Thomas, for example, with the same level of attention as the canonical

37:35

Gospels. In fact, it's not even close. It's embarrassingly different between apocryphal

37:41

Gospels and canonical ones, and that's a point we labor to make in our book. Great.

37:47

And Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, please give us your full mailing address because you've also won a free copy of The Heresy of Orthodoxy, Compliments of Crossway, and Compliments CVBBS .com,

38:00

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. And we have a listener in Simsbury, Connecticut.

38:11

We have John in Simsbury, Connecticut, says, I'm a big fan of Dr. Kruger and thank him for his work.

38:17

I would like to know if Dr. Kruger has any online material written or video classes that would be helpful along with his book.

38:26

That's John. Oh, yeah. Well, a ton of online material. I can't remember if you mentioned it at the beginning of the hour, but my website has tons of material related to New Testament canon, the origins of the

38:39

Bible, and textual criticism, and apocryphal Gospels, and so on. And the name of my website is called

38:44

Canon Fodder, and that's a pun because it's a one -n, D -A -N -O -N,

38:51

Canon Fodder. And the URL is just michaeljkruger .com.

38:56

And on that site, you can read certainly my blog posts. There's hundreds of those that you can search with an index on all the topics that I cover and read up on various blog posts.

39:09

I've also posted a number of the academic articles I've written or at least linked to where you can get them. There's also links to my books, and then there's a number of videos, talks, lectures, and speaking engagements all on there that you can listen to.

39:22

So that's one resource. The other resource I would mention is RTS itself. So a number of my classes are on the

39:28

RTS mobile app. So RTS has a mobile app that's fantastic, actually. It gives you access to a lot of our content completely for free,

39:37

I might add. And you can listen to it in the car or mowing the lawn or what have you or jogging, whatever you like to do.

39:44

And certainly there's my classes on there, but we have a fantastic faculty at RTS, and you can listen to a number of other types of classes and also listen to different types of podcasts, different types of sermons, chapels, special presentations, and so on.

39:59

So I encourage your audience to check out the RTS app. Great. And so thanks a lot,

40:06

John, and you have also won a free copy of Dr. Kruger's book, The Heresy of Orthodoxy, and thanks for already providing your mailing address.

40:15

So we'll have Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service ship that out as soon as possible. And once again, your website,

40:21

Dr. Kruger, is michaeljkruger .com, Michael J, and that's

40:26

K -R -U -G -E -R .com, and that's for the cannon fodder website.

40:32

And we have somebody who's just sent a greeting, not particularly a question.

40:39

She just says, I'm so happy to see you interview Dr. Michael Kruger. I enjoyed his

40:45

Romans study years... I enjoyed his Romans year -long study at RTS, and I'm looking forward to hearing him on the program.

40:56

Keep up the great guests you have on Ironman Sharpens Iron Radio. That's Jenny from Ben Salem, Pennsylvania.

41:03

There's an interesting thing that is involved, I think, in this whole matter of diversity in the early church.

41:11

There is a very important way, I believe, that Protestants will point to the necessity and the truth of sola scriptura because of the fact that even learned men of God in the patristic age, for instance, even though many of the church fathers are referred to by Protestants, in fact, even during the

41:36

Reformation, Martin Luther and the Reformers, when having their debates with Roman Catholics, they would bring up the fathers to prove that the

41:47

Reformers were not casting aside the roots of the true church.

41:52

They were reviving them. But the fact of the matter is that the

41:58

Reformers knew that scripture alone is the only God -breathed document, scripture is the only

42:07

God -breathed document that we have, and our sole, inerrant, and infallible authority, even though we have other authorities, it's the only inerrant and infallible authority, and they will point to the fact, and they have, the

42:19

Reformers and others, even Protestants today, point to the fact that the church fathers are riddled with disagreement.

42:26

Even as long ago as the patristic age, you did not have a consensus, which is where the

42:33

Roman Catholic Church is being very dishonest, especially when you're talking about very learned and educated scholars who keep perpetuating a myth that there was some kind of monolithic thing going on here with the patristics, where there is clearly great disagreement.

42:51

So isn't there a lot of truth in the fact that there is diversity, and that's why we believe in the scripture alone as our sole infallible authority?

43:01

Yeah, so it's interesting that Catholics and Protestants solved the diversity problem in just two radically different ways.

43:09

So, you know, when you look at all the diversity in early Christianity, you know, our answer is we need an authoritative scripture as your anchor here to sort of guide you through that.

43:19

And in fact, early Christians did have a scripture, Old Testament first, and even New Testament books that did guide them through that.

43:26

Now, the Roman Catholics look at the data and reach a completely different solution. So what they do is they say, well, look,

43:34

Christianity is widely diverse. It is all over the place. You can't know what to believe because of how disparate all these different groups were.

43:45

Therefore, what you need is an infallible church to come in and tell you what to believe. You need official declarations from the

43:52

Pope to clarify this and to clean up the mess. And so, ironically, what makes the

43:58

Roman Catholic argument compelling to people is actually first believing it was a big mess, and then you have to have sort of the church kind of swoop in and fix it.

44:07

Now, that might be a compelling argument, I suppose, for some folks, but a couple of things to point out about that argument. One is, you know, if the church is in such disarray, that seems to work against the

44:18

Roman Catholic claims that, you know, there was some sort of poor, clearly identifiable orthodoxy that people could follow.

44:26

But the other thing that's ironic about that argument is it actually ends up making Bart Ehrman's argument for him.

44:32

In other words, I've heard my Catholic counterparts actually make Bart Ehrman's case that Christianity was wildly diverse in order to bolster the idea that you need the church to fix it.

44:42

And so they end up actually sort of partnering with Ehrman in a very paradoxical way in order to make their case for an infallible church.

44:49

They have the same view of the diversity. Ehrman just says, therefore, there's no one Christianity. And then Catholics say, well, therefore, you need an infallible church to fix this.

44:57

And it's just ironic that those two find themselves on the same team. Yeah, right. And whereas the

45:03

Catholics, though, are contradicting their rhetoric because they will say that the church fathers were in complete harmony, at least all,

45:14

I should say, a great number of them, perhaps the majority of them. There are some honest

45:19

Catholic scholars and historians who don't make that claim. But we have

45:25

Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, what conservative figures or denominations or groups today have been seduced by Bauer, if any?

45:44

Never heard that question before. You know, I don't know of any identifiable, nameable conservative groups that I would argue have succumbed to Bauer.

45:54

I would certainly say that if they had succumbed to Bauer, they wouldn't be identifiably conservative anymore. I'm assuming he meant formally conservative, as I'm assuming.

46:04

Ah, well, certainly there's many of those. If the idea is people, you know, denominations, for example, that used to be conservative 50 years ago and are no longer conservative, did they buy into the

46:16

Bauer sort of idea? The answer is absolutely. And so if you look at some of the mainline denominations that have lost their way and have embraced all kinds of things,

46:25

I think Bauer's writings did have an influence on that kind of downgrade, which is very clear, which is this idea that, well, when we look back in Christianity, you know, there was really no core doctrines.

46:37

Everybody believed different things. Therefore, we can believe different things today and still be legitimate, because there's a lot of room.

46:43

This is a big tent. You can be a Christian, but just have completely different views on just about everything. And so yeah, the

46:50

Bauer -like arguments have fed the mainline decline without any doubt.

46:56

So yes, with that tweak to the question, I would say that that's a fairly easily identifiable problem within mainline churches.

47:04

Well, Ronald, you have also won a free copy of The Heresy of Orthodoxy, so please make sure we get your mailing address, your full mailing address, as soon as possible, and we'll have

47:12

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service ship that out to you. Well, I want to make sure that in the time that we have left, you have at least four minutes to uninterrupted summarize what you mainly want our listeners to have etched in their hearts and minds when they leave this program about this topic today.

47:35

Well, yeah, there's so much to say. I mean, certainly I hope that if someone has the time and can do it, that they would read the book.

47:42

I think that's the best way to get a grasp on our argument. I think the main message that we try to get across in the book is that the postmodern ideal of many different Christianities all being equally valid, and that you can sort of pick the

47:55

Jesus of your preference, that whole narrative, although widespread, is deeply flawed.

48:01

We want to make sure that your audience knows that not only is that narrative deeply flawed, but it only works if you stay out of the historical data, if you just stay on a purely sort of philosophical, principled ideal that, well, diversity therefore means no one right view, yeah.

48:17

But if you actually look at the historical data and ask the question about what was early Christianity really like, and what do we see when we look at the evidence about what early

48:26

Christians believed, once you start looking at historical data and asking what books they read and so on, you'll find that all

48:31

Christianities are the same narrative dissolves really fast. It just can't be sustained if you're going to look at historical evidence.

48:37

It only can be sustained if someone wants to stay out of it and pretend that they've solved it all.

48:44

But if you really want to look at historical data, you'll find quickly that not all Christianities were the same, that there are differences between these books, and that the ones with the most historical merit in the versions of Christianity that go back to the very beginning are the ones that we would regard as orthodox today.

48:58

And that, I think, is the main point of our volume. Well, you are going to be one of many speakers, as I was saying earlier, at the upcoming

49:07

G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The G3 conference that has been created a number of years ago by Pastor Josh Bice and the brethren at the

49:22

Praise Mill Baptist Church of Douglasville, Georgia. And the theme in January of 2018 is

49:30

Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. And you are going to be joined by Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcombe, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

49:40

Charles Jr., Tim Chalies, James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace.

49:52

Nearly every one of them have been guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I know that this is very early in the game, but have they assigned to you a topic yet for the conference?

50:03

I know that the umbrella topic is Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship, but do you have a subset or a unique topic under that umbrella?

50:14

Yeah, well, I think the umbrella aside, I think they want me to come in and speak on one of my specialty topics related to the origins of the

50:23

Bible and the authority of the scriptures and the development of the New Testament canon. One might argue that that's not directly under the major theme of the conference, but loosely conceived,

50:32

I suppose. Have a discipleship relationship with God if you don't believe in his word, and so justify the topic that way.

50:42

And from my perspective, I'm just going to let the justification of the topic be something they handle to speak on what they want me to speak on, but I believe that's what it'll be.

50:50

And I think I might also be doing a panel discussion with James White on canon and authority of the

50:57

Bible, which should be fun. Oh, great. Yeah, Dr. White is a dear friend. I've been a close friend of his since 1995 and arranged many debates and speaking engagements with him, and he is certainly a brilliant man, and I will be waiting for that with bated breath, that panel discussion that you have with him.

51:15

And I already see a connection right away, because according to the definition of discipleship, we are to be trained in having an answer for the hope that lies within us, ready at hand when we are responding to the critics of the

51:33

Bible, and therefore what you have to say is going to be largely helpful to defending the integrity and authenticity of the

51:42

Scriptures. Well, I hope so, and I hope it's a blessing to those who come, and if your listeners are going to be in the area,

51:49

I hope they can join us. Great. Well, I also want to make sure that we have all of the contact information for you, for our listeners.

51:57

I know that your personal website is michaeljkruger .com,

52:07

and then we have the Reformed Theological Seminary of Charlotte, rts .edu

52:17

forward slash charlotte, that's rts, for Reformed Theological Seminary, dot edu forward slash charlotte, and of course we want to thank our friends at Crossway, who provided the books today that we were giving away.

52:31

Their website is crossway .org, crossway .org, and always remember, whenever you hear a book being addressed on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, no matter who the publisher or author is, you can always get those books from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, our sponsor,

52:48

CV for Cumberland Valley, bbs for biblebookservice .com. I want to thank you so much,

52:53

Dr. Kruger, for being our guest again. I look forward to having you back, hopefully sometime in the future. You could even do a two -hour interview with us, and I want to thank you for taking the time in your busy schedule to be on with us.

53:07

Thanks, Chris. Had a good time, and look forward to doing it again. Great, and I'll be sending you an mp3 of the program sometime tonight,

53:14

God willing. Fantastic, take care. God bless you, and don't forget, you could also go to the g3conference .com

53:22

website, g3conference .com, for more information on the conference and to register for the conference featuring

53:30

Dr. Michael J. Kruger and a number of other speakers that I had already listed for you just a little while ago.

53:39

Now we are heading into the second half of our program today. Joseph Jakowitz, and I hope

53:47

I'm not mispronouncing that, it might be Jackowitz, I'll find out, but he is the founder of First Love Publications, and he's one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church of Dublin, California.

53:59

He's going to be discussing the Send the Light conference in Versailles, Kentucky, and if anybody would like to join us with a question on the air for Pastor Jakowitz, the subject could even be a general subject on the doctrines of sovereign grace.

54:16

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, unless it's about a personal and private matter.

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Welcome back.

01:03:48

This is Chris Arnzen. In any moment, we're going to be joined by our second guest today, Pastor Joseph Jacowicz, or Jackowicz, we'll find out which, who is the founder of First Love Publications and one of two pastors at Christ Bible Church of Dublin, California.

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We're going to be addressing the theme, the Send the Light Conference in Versailles, Kentucky, and we're also going to be talking about general matters involving the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

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If you would like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Joe, our email address is

01:04:24

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

01:04:31

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:04:37

USA. And you can remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter, but only remain anonymous if it is about a personal and private matter.

01:04:47

Before I introduce to you our second guest, I just have some important announcements to make.

01:04:54

The Gospel of the Reformation, a 500th anniversary, is being held at the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, in cooperation with the

01:05:04

Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship. The speaker, the primary speaker, is Dr. Tony Costa, a dear friend of mine who is professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

01:05:17

He will be joined by Pastor Caleb Bunch, Pastor Bruce Bennett, and Pastor Dave Corson at the

01:05:23

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. If you want more details about this conference, which is being held

01:05:30

Friday, September 29th through Saturday, September 30th, go to wotchurch .com,

01:05:37

wotchurch .com. W -O -T stands for Word of Truth Church .com, wotchurch .com.

01:05:43

You can also call 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614.

01:05:52

And then, the very next day, on Sunday, October 1st, the aforementioned

01:05:57

Dr. Tony Costa will be speaking at the Sunday morning service of Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York at 11 a .m.

01:06:07

And if you would like more information about attending that service, go to hopereformedli .net.

01:06:14

That's hopereformedli .net. That li stands for Long Island. hopereformedli .net.

01:06:21

Or you can call 631 -696 -5711, 631 -696 -5711.

01:06:30

And then, after that, in November, from the 17th through the 18th, the

01:06:36

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology at the

01:06:42

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania, on the theme for Still Our Ancient Foe. And that is obviously a reference to Satan from Martin Luther's classic hymn,

01:06:53

A Mighty Fortress. That's November 17th through the 18th. The speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

01:07:03

If you would like to join me at the Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology, go to alliancenet .org,

01:07:10

alliancenet .org. Click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:07:17

And then, last but not least, we have the G3 Conference, which has returned to Atlanta, Georgia. You heard me announcing that before.

01:07:25

One of the speakers at this conference is the first guest that we had on today,

01:07:31

Dr. Michael J. Kruger. He is going to be joined by Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

01:07:38

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Matheny, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, and Martha Peace, January 18th through the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:07:52

There will be a Spanish edition of the conference on January 17th. If you'd like to register or just find out more information, go to g3conference .com,

01:08:01

g3conference .com. The theme is going to be Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship.

01:08:08

Now, I have to do that task or perform that task that makes me most uncomfortable on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, is that I have to ask you for donations, if you are capable of doing so.

01:08:20

We have reached a critical stage in the history of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, where we are in urgent need of additional benefactors, donations, sponsors, advertisers.

01:08:34

I am making these public appeals primarily by the urging or because of the urging of the advertisers that are currently keeping this program on the air.

01:08:45

Those of you who have listened to this program since 2005, 2006, know that I rarely ever have made public appeals for donations or advertisers, but now the time is critical and we need your donations.

01:09:00

If you are capable of donating to us while still giving to your local church, as you always have been, and providing for your family, we never want you to rob money out of your church giving or from your family's dinner table.

01:09:18

But if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commandments, providing for church and home, then we would love to have any donation that you care to give, that you can afford to give, by going to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:09:32

ironsharpensironradio .com, click on support, and then you will be given an address where you can mail a check for any amount made payable to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:09:44

If you'd like to advertise with us, just send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

01:09:51

and put advertising in the subject line, and we would love to talk to you about advertising your church, your parachurch organization, your special event, your business, your corporation, your professional practice, whatever it is that you want to promote as long as it's compatible with the theology expressed on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:10:09

But now we have been joined by Joseph Jakowicz, and we'll find out if I'm mispronouncing that in a minute, and he has been the pastor of Christ Bible Church in Pleasanton, California for 27 years.

01:10:23

He has a bachelor's degree in pastoral theology, and Joe is also the director of First Love Publications, a

01:10:29

Christian book and publications ministry that distributes free literature worldwide, and he's the director of First Love Missions, a worldwide missions organization reaching out with the gospel and equipping

01:10:41

Christians. Did I say questions? Did I become Elmer Fudd here? Equipping Christians.

01:10:48

I guess it was those two words together that messed me up. Joe and his wife Sherry have been married for 39 years and have five children and six grandchildren, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Joseph Jakowicz.

01:11:05

It's actually Jakowicz. Well, now I know, and I apologize for all the butchering of your name.

01:11:13

That's okay. So it's Joseph Jakowicz, and I apologize, and the several times that I spoke to you,

01:11:19

I always forgot to ask you for a correct pronunciation, and I apologize for that.

01:11:26

But first of all, what I typically do with first -time guests, as you are, before I go into any theme or topic, is

01:11:35

I have first -time guests give our listeners a bit of information about your own personal conversion to Christ, your own religious upbringing, if any, and what providential circumstances arose in your life that the

01:11:49

Lord used to draw you to himself and save you. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised as a conservative

01:11:58

Jew in Coney Island in 1955, and went through the traditions of the fathers, went to Hebrew school for six years, was bar mitzvahed at age 13, joined the

01:12:14

Marine Corps two weeks after graduating high school, was only one of six Jews at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, because Jews don't go into the

01:12:23

Marines, they become doctors and lawyers. I'm sure that was a fun time at boot camp for you.

01:12:30

Yes, yes. And so after three years in the

01:12:35

Marine Corps, the Lord sent a young believer who happened to have

01:12:41

Messianic theology as his favorite subject. So he had about 25 Old Testament prophetic

01:12:48

Messianic texts memorized, and he took me through all of them and witnessed to me.

01:12:56

And after about a week of crying out to God to show me the truth, the

01:13:02

Lord opened my heart to the fact that Jesus Christ is not only the

01:13:08

Jewish Messiah, but the Savior of all sinners, Gentiles as well. And I put my trust in him as my

01:13:17

Lord and Savior, and so that was in June of 1976, 41 years ago.

01:13:25

And so after a couple of weeks afterwards, I began to share with my family.

01:13:33

And of course, to their chagrin and dismay, I had left Judaism because I was in the process of working with the rabbi chaplain at Camp Lejeune to enroll in Yeshiva University to study for the rabbinate.

01:13:49

And my grandmother and mother and others were very proud of that fact, but when they received a phone call from me two weeks after my conversion that I had become a

01:14:00

Christian, they were very shocked, to say the least. And so that was in June of 1976.

01:14:09

And then since that time, I went to Bible college and graduated in 85.

01:14:17

I took the long route because I had a family. And so that is, in a very short nutshell, is my conversion.

01:14:28

And it's interesting how your journey, providentially by God's grace, your journey into the

01:14:35

Christian faith began through the evangelism of a Messianic Jew or somebody who was trained, even if self -trained, in evangelizing the

01:14:46

Jewish people with Messianic material. It's interesting how you wound up providentially as a

01:14:52

Reformed Baptist. Tell us how that came about. Well, after a year in the

01:14:58

Marine Corps, I finished my four -year tour. I wasn't going to make it a career, but then God saved me and laid it on my heart to want to study the

01:15:06

Word. And I sensed a call to the ministry, so I began a long path of studying and preparing.

01:15:13

And in June of 1977, after my discharge, I moved in with my folks in upstate

01:15:19

New York. They had moved there from New Jersey. And so the first church

01:15:25

I went to was the First Baptist Church of Canton, New York, way up by the Canadian border in northern

01:15:31

New York. And the first couple of Sundays I was there, the pastor gave me—he sensed my background that was not

01:15:41

Reformed, and so very judiciously and wisely, he said, I have some tapes I want you to listen to.

01:15:47

Of course, back then sermons were on cassette tape, which were the new technology.

01:15:53

And now I don't think you'll see a cassette tape. It's kind of hard to find one. But he gave me four messages on the doctrine of election by John Riesinger.

01:16:03

And I listened to those, and my eyes were opened to the glorious truth of election.

01:16:11

And then I heard some more messages on the doctrines of grace by the same speaker. And I was firmly embedded in the glorious doctrines of grace.

01:16:21

Amen. Well, I don't know if we ever met, but I think that I attended at least five of the

01:16:28

John Bunyan conferences that John Riesinger led here in Pennsylvania. Over the years in the 90s,

01:16:35

I don't know if you ever found yourself at one of those, but John Riesinger— No, I've heard of them, but they were always on the

01:16:43

East Coast. Actually, I invited John Riesinger to California in 1991.

01:16:50

He stayed at my home and preached at our church when it was still new. And we had some years to catch up.

01:16:58

I had only heard his messages, but we were able to meet face -to -face and get to know one another. And we had him out to California for the first time to preach.

01:17:07

Yes, and our brother John is not doing well health -wise, so I appreciate everybody listening to pray for him.

01:17:16

And his wife went home to be with the Lord already, and so did his brother Ernie. His brother Ernie was actually the founder of the church where I am currently a member,

01:17:25

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle. Hmm. And although Ernie and John had for decades had some strong disagreement on matters involving the

01:17:39

Decalogue and so on, both very valuable contributors to the body of Christ in regard to their being so faithful to the gospel and the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.

01:17:53

Yes, indeed, they are, both of them. Yes, and if anybody wants more information on books by either one of them, you can send me an email, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:18:05

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we'll make sure that you get in touch with those who have published works by John and or Ernie Reisinger.

01:18:16

And our email address, by the way, if anybody would like to join us is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:18:24

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. And well,

01:18:31

I want to hear now that we have your testimony. I'd like to hear some more about the church where you pastor,

01:18:39

Christ Bible Church of Dublin, California. Well, we planted a work in February of 1990 in Northern California, specifically the

01:18:50

San Francisco Bay Area, Oakland, California. It's not a very nice place, but it's known for quite a problem with drugs and violence.

01:19:02

But the East Bay section of the San Francisco Bay Area was lacking a witness.

01:19:09

And the Doctrines of Grace and several families were looking for a church.

01:19:15

And I had been a pastor before for a short time. And we were one of those four families.

01:19:22

So we decided to start a Bible study. And then the Bible study turned into worship services.

01:19:28

And about after about three months, the church extended a call for me to pastor. And that was in February of 1990.

01:19:37

And so we've been here ever since, except for a couple of years in Florida.

01:19:44

We've been here and the church has moved around quite a bit. We subscribe to the 1689

01:19:50

London Baptist Confession of Faith. We have about 75 believers who are members and a number who are visitors.

01:20:00

And we are located about 30 miles east of San Francisco.

01:20:06

And we are meeting at a building in Pleasanton, California.

01:20:13

Our official address is our mailing address is Dublin. That's why you mentioned Dublin. Probably you've seen it on our literature.

01:20:20

But we actually meet in the town of Pleasanton. That's right. I introduced you one way and to change it around.

01:20:28

The latter part of our or more recent part of our conversation here. Well, this ministry that you have,

01:20:35

First Love Publications, is quite a remarkable and generous ministry because of the nature of the books that you publish.

01:20:45

Being made available for free. And I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the quality, the attractiveness, the beauty of the binding is first rate.

01:21:00

This is not some, you know, warehouse where people are stapling things together with a yellow legal paper or something.

01:21:10

This is these are books that rival in their quality. The most renowned of publishers.

01:21:18

And of course, in many ways, would be superior as in regard to the content of many of the publishers out there.

01:21:25

But tell us about First Love Publications. Well, First Love Publications was started officially in 2006 with the publication of our first book, the

01:21:36

New Testament Missionary by Cliff Heller. The ministry actually goes back until 1988, even farther than that, about 1977, when

01:21:46

I first read the biography of George Mueller. You're familiar with him, the one who established the orphanages in Bristol, England, and ran them by faith, basically.

01:21:58

And so I was greatly impressed and profoundly impacted by that biography by Roger Steer about Mueller.

01:22:07

And I nurtured that seed, greatly impressed by his life of faith for a number of years until I came into contact with a ministry called

01:22:17

Chapel Library. Oh, yeah. A ministry of Mount Zion Bible Church located in Pensacola, Florida.

01:22:26

The founder, I got to know the founder and the administrator, L .R. Shelton, Jr.,

01:22:32

and the administrator, Michael Snyder of that ministry. And we, in 1988, we came into contact, and I used their tracts, booklets, and books for many years in my own pastoral ministry because we had a growing need for a literature ministry as we were very aggressive and proactive in reaching out with the gospel.

01:22:54

Unlike many, unfortunately, many Reformed churches in general, even Reformed Baptists in particular, are not as aggressive as we would like to be.

01:23:03

And it's always been a struggle, but we wanted to be energetic in reaching out with the gospel.

01:23:12

So they supplied us, Chapel Library supplied us with all of our materials free of charge.

01:23:17

And I thought to myself, wow, this is the only ministry I know that gives away their publications for free.

01:23:24

So we started this conversation with them, and I was impressed with that.

01:23:31

And so in 2006, a missionary couple,

01:23:37

Cliff and Marty Heller to Papua New Guinea, they've since retired.

01:23:43

They live in Virginia, and they're members of a sister church of ours there, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Dale City, Virginia, pastored by Bob Gifford.

01:23:54

They had a big impact in my life, and he also was doing the work quite well, just by preaching in the villages.

01:24:04

That's where Jim Elliott was martyred, correct? Who? Jim Elliott. Wasn't he martyred there?

01:24:10

No, he was martyred in South America, a country in South America. Papua New Guinea is just above Australia.

01:24:18

And so the Hellers did a great work, and so I asked him to write a book on missions, since I knew of no greater missionary that was still alive at the time.

01:24:31

He just did the work by preaching. He didn't do any candidating for funds. He just trusted

01:24:36

God, and not to say that others who do that are, you know, they're sinning.

01:24:42

I'm not saying that at all. They're doing a great work too, but he wrote a book on missions, which was a very great book.

01:24:52

We carry that book in our ministry at First Love. And so from that time forward, we just added a book here and a book there.

01:25:02

But about two years ago, the Lord began to provide, and we began publishing in a much greater way.

01:25:14

Our efforts accelerated quite a bit to the point where now we've exploded in the last couple years to the point that we have 50 titles, and we have another 10 or 15 that we're preparing as well.

01:25:28

Yeah, my first love publications. And my apologies to the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea.

01:25:36

It was the Alka Indians in Ecuador that assassinated

01:25:42

Jim Elliott. I'm sorry about that. I don't mean to be giggling about that, but my error is what's making me giggle. Well, yeah,

01:25:49

I have a long history of love for Chapel Library as well.

01:25:56

In fact, I have interviewed the current director,

01:26:02

Jeff Pollard of Chapel Library on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, and have enjoyed hearing him preach on occasion, and also had the privilege when

01:26:12

I was at a Bible conference in Jacksonville, Florida. Well, not in Jacksonville, in Pensacola, Florida.

01:26:20

I had the privilege of actually staying in the home of Pastor Shelton.

01:26:26

This was after he had gone home to be with the Lord. They made his home available to me and my former pastor,

01:26:34

Mike Gadosh, while we were in the Pensacola area. So that was quite a privilege. Oh, really?

01:26:40

Oh, okay. I know Jeff. He's a good friend, and we work very closely with Chapel Library. And I actually was there for a couple of years in the mid-'90s, and they asked me to start

01:26:53

Mount Zion Bible Institute, which we did, and I've since returned to California. But they're doing a great work.

01:27:01

Amen. Well, we're going to have you talk about the upcoming conference when we return from a break right now.

01:27:10

And if anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:27:17

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:27:27

USA. And you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:27:34

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

01:27:42

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01:29:09

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01:30:38

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

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Harvey Cedars, where Christ finds people and changes lives. Welcome back.

01:33:27

This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today for the second hour, with about 25 minutes to go, is

01:33:36

Pastor Joseph Jakowicz, founder of First Love Publications, and one of two pastors of Christ Bible Church in Dublin, California.

01:33:45

We are discussing, among other things, the Send the Light Conference in Versailles, Kentucky, and we're going to get to that in a minute.

01:33:52

And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

01:34:02

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. I got it right that time, right, Pastor Joe Jakowicz?

01:34:08

Yes, yes. Okay. Before we go on with the conversation, we have a listener in Greensboro, North Carolina, Pastor Sterling Vanderwerker of Shepherd Fellowship.

01:34:22

He asks, is there any chance that John Riesinger exposed you to New Covenant theology?

01:34:30

Yes, he did, and he was still formulating New Covenant theology when he stayed at my home when he spoke at our church in 1991.

01:34:40

He and Fred Zaspel were writing books together. Yeah, he's a good friend of mine,

01:34:46

Fred. In fact, Fred was also a classmate of my co -host, Buzz Taylor, at Bob Jones University.

01:34:52

Oh, okay. Well, I asked John a question about New Covenant theology. I said, it sounds good,

01:34:58

John, because it was the first time I heard of it in 1991. I said, but what do you do with the conscience?

01:35:05

He says, what are you talking about? I said, well, yes, we're seated with Christ in heavenly places, positionally, we are perfected in Christ, and I agree with that, and everything is by grace, but he was suggesting that when

01:35:24

Christ has dealt with all of the issues related to conscience, and I ran upstairs, and I got a strong concordance because it just didn't sound right to me, and I looked up every place conscience was found in the pastoral epistles, where Paul exhorts

01:35:40

Timothy, endeavor to maintain a pure and clear conscience. And I said, well,

01:35:46

John, what does a Christian do when his conscience is defiled? And he couldn't answer that question.

01:35:53

He gave me a blank stare. So I had a struggle with New Covenant theology from the beginning, and there are a lot of other reasons why, but, you know, again, of course,

01:36:06

I believe that Christ is our all -in -all, and we're in Christ positionally, and all the rest, but the cross of Christ has provided, in a sanctifying way, cleansing through his shed blood of a guilty conscience or a conscience that is offended by unconfessed sin.

01:36:24

Yes, years ago, in the old Iron Sharpens Iron program, I organized a debate between advocates of both

01:36:32

Reformed Covenant theology from a Baptist perspective and New Covenant theology advocates.

01:36:38

Tom Wells was one of the New Covenant theology advocates, and I can't remember if John was on that occasion or not right now, but I'd like to do that again at some point in the future.

01:36:50

I have friends on both sides of that divide, and I happen to be in a church that is more leaning, obviously, toward the

01:36:59

Covenant theology side, Ernie Reisinger, having been the founder of Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, and the brother of John Reisinger, and that was the issue that caused a bit of theological tension between the two of them, to say the least.

01:37:15

But I have friends that I dearly love and who have been used of God greatly in my life on both sides of that issue, and apparently so were you, since John had such a primary role in you coming to the understanding of these things.

01:37:32

Yes, indeed. Well, thank you, Sterling Vanderwerker. And guess what?

01:37:38

You have received a book, compliments of our friends here today.

01:37:45

I have a few books to give away, if you're willing.

01:37:52

Oh yeah, that'd be great. And I believe one of the books that we discussed beforehand was the

01:37:59

Catechism by my friend W .R. Downing, a

01:38:05

Catechism on Bible Doctrine with Commentary by William Downing, who

01:38:13

I've had on this program. In fact, Pastor Downing told me it was the very first time that he had ever been interviewed, so that was quite an honor for me to know that, because he has such a prominent role in the history of Calvinism amongst

01:38:28

Baptists in the United States. Yes, and he's a mentor of mine, and he has a unique role among Calvinistic Baptists in Northern California.

01:38:37

He's looked upon as the elder statesman among us here, and we have an annual conference.

01:38:42

He's been a pillar in that conference, which will be on the beginning of the 29th of September here.

01:38:48

He'll be one of the keynote speakers here in Pleasanton, California. But I would like to offer your listeners free of charge if they would go to our website and order it, or they can email you or me.

01:39:02

Five different books today. The first is Catechism on Bible Doctrine, published by First Love Publications, written by Dr.

01:39:11

Downing. It's a library in itself. It has every major doctrine in the Scripture explained, and the format is very unique.

01:39:18

And then another book on apologetics, written by Dr. Downing's co -pastor,

01:39:23

Dr. Paul Nelson, titled Presuppositionalism. Again, it's on defending the faith or apologetics.

01:39:30

It's a tremendous book. And then the book I mentioned earlier in describing how

01:39:36

First Love Publications got started, our first book, The New Testament Missionary by Cliff Heller.

01:39:41

If you're interested in becoming a missionary or want to learn more about missions, you've got to get this book.

01:39:47

I've got nothing but good comments about it. And then two other books. These are two of our new titles,

01:39:53

Chris, and they're classics. The first one is titled Our High Calling, The Complete Works of E .M.

01:40:02

Bounds on Prayer. Because of the length of it, we had to publish it in two volumes.

01:40:07

So I'm offering these two volumes free of charge to our listeners. If you simply order it online or through email, it's called

01:40:15

Our High Calling. And two volumes, about a thousand pages. If you've struggled in your prayer life, there are so many encouraging thoughts in these two books to get you back to a regular prayer life.

01:40:29

It's the most comprehensive volumes on prayer that you'll ever find. And then another classic.

01:40:34

And by the way, Chris, you remember those old paperbacks, those little paperbacks that they published about prayer by Bounds?

01:40:42

Well, we took all of those paperbacks and we put them together in these two volumes.

01:40:48

Everything Bounds ever wrote on prayer are in these two volumes. And we added a very rare chapter in the back of volume two that you will not find in the

01:40:59

Baker edition of the same book, titled The Devil in the Church. E .M.

01:41:05

Bounds' opinion on how the devil works in the local church. Every pastor will want to read that particular chapter.

01:41:11

And the last one is J .C. Ryle's book on holiness. Completely reformatted.

01:41:19

So many books are, you could hardly read them because the font size is so small and the letters seem to be bold.

01:41:27

But we've completely reformatted this classic. It is the most comprehensive and well -written and simplified book on explaining holiness or sanctification.

01:41:37

We will send you these five books, actually six with the two volumes by Bounds, free and postage paid if you just simply order them.

01:41:47

Wow. And what is the website they go to again? Say that website please for us. First Love Publications.

01:41:55

That's F -I -R -S -T -L -O -V -E as in Revelation 2 where Jesus said, you've lost your first love.

01:42:05

But we make it one word, first love and then publications .org. Firstlovepublications .org.

01:42:13

We have five categories of books, doctrinal, apologetics, evangelistic, pastoral, and devotional.

01:42:24

And you will see right at the top of the home page, click on them. It's very simple.

01:42:29

Follow the prompts on how to order. And there's no strings attached because our mission is to distribute free biblical literature on doctrinal and practical subjects for the deepening of the knowledge of Christ and for the preservation of the church's first love and for the salvation of souls, all for the glory of God.

01:42:52

And let me remind you folks, these are just top quality bindings on these books.

01:42:58

They're gorgeous books. Especially the hardcovers will last a lifetime.

01:43:04

They're absolutely impressive and rival the most dominant or renowned publisher today, whether they're

01:43:14

Christian or not. And some of these books would, if they were being retailed or sold in retail establishments, would go for $20, $30, $40, $50 a piece, some of them, because of the length of some of these books.

01:43:30

But I am very, very impressed with First Love Publications and cannot sing your praises highly enough.

01:43:39

Well, you are having an upcoming, in the very near future, within a couple of weeks, the

01:43:45

Send the Light Conference in Versailles, Kentucky. Tell us about that. Yes, we have a conference on the 26th and 27th of August.

01:43:53

So it's just a couple of weeks from now. Your listeners are invited if they live in the area or want to drive in from outside of Kentucky.

01:44:02

The conference will take place on Saturday and Sunday, the 26th and 27th.

01:44:07

You can get information on the conference on two different websites. The first website is the one

01:44:12

I just gave you, firstlovepublications .org. The second website is our

01:44:18

Missions website. And one of the reasons for the conference is we are launching,

01:44:23

Chris, a brand new worldwide Missions organization called First Love Missions.

01:44:30

That website is missionsfirstlove .org. Missionsfirstlove .org.

01:44:37

And you will find information on the conference, a brochure on there that you can download.

01:44:44

We have eight speakers. The first is Dr. Edward Dalkor. And all of the speakers will be talking about missions, one way or the other, who will be talking about effectual gospelizing, importance and responsibility.

01:44:59

And then Dr. Stan Murrow, who will speak on the conference theme, Send the

01:45:05

Light. Mr. Tom Smith will talk about unity and diversity. And then

01:45:11

Pastor Tony Hatton, who is the host pastor of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church there in Versailles, Kentucky.

01:45:18

The locals pronounce it Versailles, but it's actually written like the city in France, Versailles.

01:45:26

Yeah, just like Notre Dame here in the United States. And Pastor Tony will be talking about confidence in the message preached.

01:45:36

Pastor Larry DeBryan will be talking about darkness and light. I will be bringing two messages.

01:45:42

One is the missionary methods of George Mueller. We talked about George Mueller earlier and how he was a formative influence on me and my own methods for ministry.

01:45:53

And we'll talk about the missionary activities he did. A lot of people don't know, Chris, that George Mueller supported

01:46:00

Hudson Taylor financially, and he did a lot of missions work as well. My second message will be the missionary methods of Hudson Taylor.

01:46:08

So we'll talk about those two. And then Pastor Austin Huggins will talk about Father's Promise.

01:46:15

So we have eight speakers. The conference will begin on Saturday, August 26th at 3 p .m., and then it will continue

01:46:22

Sunday at 9 a .m. throughout the day. There will be eight or nine different messages.

01:46:29

There'll be food there, refreshments, free of charge. There's no conference registration charge.

01:46:36

Everything is free. Now, we will have about 15 ,000 books to give away at the conference.

01:46:43

We will have book tables in the back, and we will have every one of the 50 -plus titles of First Love publications there, books, booklets, tracts.

01:46:54

If you're interested in evangelism, we have about nine or ten different tracts. We just published our newest tract called

01:47:01

Are You Ready? by J .C. Ryle. It's an excellent tract. It's simplified and updated a little bit in modern

01:47:07

English. We have another new book called The Seven Deadly Sins, which is updated and expanded, a great book called

01:47:14

Trinity and Triunity about the law, grace issue, and the importance of the Trinity, and so many others that I can't mention right now.

01:47:23

The best thing I would suggest is that your listeners go to our website, surf the website, look at all of the different titles we have in these categories, doctrinal, devotional, apologetics, evangelistic, and pastoral.

01:47:36

By the way, Chris, the pastoral category of books is expanding. We just printed a new booklet that's coming in Friday.

01:47:44

We don't even have it right now. It's titled Prayerful and Powerful Pulpits by E .M.

01:47:52

Bounds. We took all of E .M. Bounds' writings from our two volumes on his complete works that relate to the pastorate on prayer, that relate to the pastor's devotional life, the pastor's effectiveness as a preacher, as his prayer life is effective, the pastor and ministry, everything regarding the importance of prayer as it relates to the ministry and the pastorate, we put it in a 35 -40 page booklet, and we're going to have it available for the first time at the conference.

01:48:23

I don't even have it yet. It's supposed to arrive on Friday. Well, that's very impressive. I know that E .M.

01:48:28

Bounds is greatly loved by Christians spanning denominational lines.

01:48:35

It's not only theologically Reformed Christians that have a great love for the writings of E .M. Bounds, but even many

01:48:42

Christians outside of the Reformed faith. He is somewhat in some ways like Spurgeon in that he attracts people who value him, just like Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

01:48:58

Charles Haddon Spurgeon has readers from all kinds of Christian backgrounds in and out of Calvinism.

01:49:08

Now, yes, if your listeners are interested in attending, we just ask they fill out the registration form, which again can be found on our website at firstlovepublications .org

01:49:20

or our missions website called missionsfirstlove .org.

01:49:25

Now, this missions organization will officially be launched on Friday, August 25th.

01:49:32

We will have about nine branches of our missions organization. First Love Publications, our printing ministry, has about five different branches throughout the world.

01:49:46

We have a branch in Manila, the Philippines, Lagos, Nigeria, Pokhara, Nepal, and Cochin, India, and we ship books there to these different branches.

01:49:57

We go overseas two or three times a year. We hold pastors conferences. God willing, we'll be going to the

01:50:06

Philippines in February to preach at three very large pastors conferences of a thousand pastors each, and we hope to give away 90 ,000 books to these pastors free of charge.

01:50:17

We did something similar last April in the Philippines. We're going to Nepal in November, God willing, to preach at the largest

01:50:25

Reformed Baptist pastors conference there to date. There'll be about 300 pastors.

01:50:30

We've translated several of our books into the Nepali language. We've got five more, a very ambitious project that we're translating between now and November.

01:50:41

Dr. Downing's Catechism is translated into Nepali, and we're translating other theological books because these

01:50:48

Nepali pastors are starving for truth. They have no libraries. They have very few

01:50:54

Christian books available to them. They're very expensive. The shipping is even more expensive than the book, so we're going into these places around the world through our branches, and we're holding conferences.

01:51:05

At the end of the conference, we have many book tables established with thousands of books set up for these pastors and these believers in these churches to take free of charge, and you can see what we're doing in all of these ways on our website.

01:51:20

Well, praise God for that, and I know that my friend, Dr. Eddie Delcor, is one of the foremost experts on the

01:51:29

Oneness Pentecostal cult, and he has been on this program addressing that cult and has written on that subject, and I'm glad that he is a part of the roster there.

01:51:42

Yes, and we'll have his book on the book you just mentioned available as well. Great. Yeah, he is quite a remarkable brother in Christ, and I look forward to having him return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the near future.

01:51:58

In fact, I would love it for you to set me up with interviews with all of these speakers.

01:52:04

Some of them will obviously, or actually at this point, all of them will have to be interviewed after this conference, but I would love to have them interviewed in October or November for other future events that you might be having.

01:52:20

We would love that. We have another man who I neglected to mention,

01:52:26

Mr. Robert Jones. He's a deacon in a Reformed Baptist church in Kansas.

01:52:31

He's a farmer, but God's given him a gift of writing. He's a very humble man, he hardly ever talks, but we carry about 12 of his books on devotional topics.

01:52:40

He's got a great book on the book of Proverbs, a daily devotional, and again, all of these books can be ordered on our website.

01:52:50

I was just told by our administrator of First Love Publications that people who are interested in attending the

01:52:58

Kentucky Conference, it's in the Lexington, Kentucky area in the town of Versailles, or Versailles as the locals pronounce it.

01:53:06

You can register for the conference by using the contact form on both of our websites.

01:53:14

Can I give the address out again? Oh yeah, you can give as much information as you want. Okay, it's firstlovepublications .org,

01:53:23

firstlovepublications .org, and then the Missions website. We've got the

01:53:28

Missions website pretty much up and going. We're still tweaking it, but it is live and you can go on missionsfirstlove .org,

01:53:36

that's missionsfirstlove .org, and get a lot of information as well.

01:53:42

We're launching the Missions organization this August 25th. We have about eight missionaries.

01:53:48

We're starting with a board of advisors and many key people who will be at that Friday meeting, and we have these missionaries going out and doing a lot of help.

01:54:01

If any of your listeners are pastors and they're interested in having us come to their church, we will come and give a

01:54:09

PowerPoint presentation of our Missions work in distributing free literature. We will also bring many books with us and do the same thing at their church that we do all around the world.

01:54:19

We will have book tables set up in the back of the church, and at the end of the message or the presentation, we will distribute free literature to your church members, no strings attached.

01:54:31

That is quite impressive. And we have a listener from Lindenhurst, Long Island, CJ, who asks,

01:54:40

I know that you are theologically Reformed, but can you explain or describe some of the worst elements of Reformed theology that have risen up in the last few years that you believe are to be warned against rather than supported?

01:54:59

Very good question. I think the worst one is the emergent church, with the focus on entertainment and the diminishing of theology.

01:55:10

So many churches now are moving in the area and direction of the emergent church, where the focus has shifted from teaching and preaching and sound theology to entertainment.

01:55:21

And so many of these kinds of churches now just have good teaching in their confessions and their creeds and statements of faith, but rarely do the pastors and teachers teach on these truths and keep them prominent in the eyes and minds of the people.

01:55:38

And I think that's one of the worst elements that has destroyed the churches and has ruined the

01:55:44

Reformed churches in particular. I think it's not so much the theology that is a problem, as it is bad methods and weak faith.

01:55:56

So many are unbelieving where they resort to worldly methods to try to build

01:56:01

Christ's Church, when only sound teaching, as applied by the power of the

01:56:07

Holy Spirit, can build the Church of Jesus Christ. Well C .J.,

01:56:12

make sure we have your full mailing address, because we're going to get a copy of William Downing's Christian Catechism out to you as soon as possible.

01:56:23

And we have Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, what is your reaction towards some of the

01:56:34

Christian churches going under the name of Reformed that are becoming extremely and dangerously soft on the sin of homosexuality?

01:56:43

Well again, it's compromise, it's unbelief, it's spiritual weakness that doesn't stand up to one's own convictions.

01:56:53

Wanting to be all things to all people, wanting to fill their churches with as many people as they can as the ultimate goal of their ministry, to get numbers, to get bodies in the

01:57:06

Church. And the more you focus on those kinds of things, the more you will have to compromise on the truth to be able to get a greater and wider hearing.

01:57:16

So I think it's terrible what's going on. Our Church Fathers and the

01:57:21

Puritans are rolling in their graves, as it were. And we've never seen a more scandalous, apostate time in the history of the

01:57:33

Church, Chris. It's unthinkable. But there are so many pastors who have forsaken hard study, a disciplined spiritual life, prayer in the

01:57:44

Spirit, which maintains strong convictions, both in their hearts and heads, as well as in the pulpits.

01:57:52

They're resorting to using worldly methods and entertainment and, you know, church growth.

01:58:00

Rick Warren's purpose -driven church methods and all of these devices to fill their churches with warm bodies who are mostly unsafe people, instead of the

01:58:13

Bible's way, the old -time religion, which is the means and the methods the

01:58:19

Scripture has taught us, which is by prayer, faith, strong belief on the truth, and sound teaching.

01:58:27

That is the only way Christ will fill His Church and build His Church with regenerated people.

01:58:33

Well, we are out of time, brother. Time flew by quickly. Hopefully, the next time we can have you on for two hours on the program.

01:58:40

I thank you for filling in for us with very little notice to be on the program today. And I know that your website for First Love Publications is firstlovepublications .org,

01:58:52

firstlovepublications .org, and also the website for the

01:58:58

Christ Bible Church is christbiblechurch .org,

01:59:04

christbiblechurch .org. And you said that it's not in Dublin. What's the city again? We actually meet in Pleasanton, but our mailing address is

01:59:12

Dublin. Pleasanton, California. Right, there's one more website. Can I give it? Yes. That's our missions website.

01:59:18

It's called missionsfirstlove .org. missionsfirstlove .org, missionsfirstlove .org.

01:59:25

Thank you so much. And if you could actually remain on the line, brother, I'd like to schedule you for a future interview.

01:59:31

Sure. I want to thank everybody that listened today, especially those who wrote questions in. And I apologize to those of you, we didn't have time to address your questions today because of the limited time that we had today.

01:59:46

But we want to thank all of you who participated. And I want to thank my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor, for being in the studio.

01:59:53

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.