January 24, 2006

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602. Or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Upcoming UK Broadcasts, Debates, and Conference Plans

Hey, good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Unusual time on a Tuesday, but that's what you got to be able to do to be able to work on getting our move taken care of and so on and so forth. So hey, not only that, but coming up in a couple of weeks, two weeks from tomorrow, I head out to the United Kingdom.

And we're going to try to do two dividing lines while I'm over in the UK. One from London, the all British one, and one from Scotland even. So we're going to work those out and that's going to be fun.

And I'm even going to try to get some of my hosts to join me on the phone. Last time I couldn't get Raja to get on the phone with me, but maybe this time we can. And we can talk about what's going on over there in jolly good England in the United Kingdom.

And also, I can't quite announce this yet as far as, okay, you can make your plans. But it looks like hopefully this week we will be able to announce the date on the Shabbir Ali debate. We are going for right now.

We are going for May 6th. So if you've been just waiting and hoping and so on and so forth, that's what we're shooting for is May 6th. Now we're still working on the possibility of as many as two debates in March, which you're going, March?

That's right around the corner. Yeah, it's going to be the type of thing that's only going to get audio recorded. I can guarantee you that. But the possibility of one on atheism and one on homosexuality at Auburn University.

And we're just really struggling with dates right now. And I'm not the one that's having a struggle with the dates, actually. We're trying to get two different debates in a particular weekend and track down the people to do it.

That's the hard part. So we may have to move it from the weekend. We're looking at doing it and so on and so forth. But we'll try to let you know as soon as we have information on that. I realize it's going to be pretty short notice.

And, of course, we need to start reminding you because I'm just not going to be able to accept from anybody what I've heard so many times over the past number of years. And that is, oh, I wish I had known about the conference and the cruise.

And it's like, how can you not know? It's over there on the right-hand side of the web page there. Early November, go to aomin .org. If you're listening to this, you've already gone to aomin .org. Look over there.

You get to see the pretty picture of the ship and then me and John Shelby Spong. And the topic of the debate, the conference. You know, I've been dealing a lot with various wider apologetic terms on the blog of late.

And especially attacks on the fundamental foundational levels of the faith. We're not talking just differing interpretations of Scripture. We're talking about attacks upon whether there can be Scripture.

Whether the Bible is Scripture. Whether the Bible has been transmitted correctly, et cetera, et cetera. Foundational things that even if your interest is not in, for example, Islam, if you're understanding the issues of the transmission of the text of Scripture and textual criticism and the interpretation of John 2028, for example.

I was just remoted into my laptop working on the next blog article on that while we were getting ready for the program. Those things help you in a much wider range of apologetic encounter today. And we all have to be prepared for those things.

You know, the day was you could sort of go, well, you know, I'm going to really focus upon Mormonism or something like that. Well, okay. But you need to realize that with the advent of the Internet and the information society, all sorts of lies and false teachings are able to be disseminated at an incredible rate of speed.

And if you want to be prepared, then you've got to be prepared. And hopefully most of you have been seeing the interconnectedness of false teaching that people will borrow from the same sources to make up their attacks upon the Christian faith even though their goal is actually very different in what they're trying to accomplish than the person they're quoting from, for example.

Whatever it might be. And that is significant as well. What that means is you want to be at our conference in November. You want to make plans to be there. Obviously, we would love to have as many of you as possible come on the cruise with us.

It's going to be a wonderful time of teaching. We've got great people who are going with us. The subject is pulpit crimes. And certainly I hope, again, I know that this is an apologetically minded group of people listening to this program.

And hopefully you have all come to realize that when evangelicalism closes its mouth about all of the foolishness that goes on in the name of evangelicalism, that it tremendously limits, not so much limits, but damages the ground upon which we seek to stand in providing a response to individuals as well.

We have been at least consistent in providing a response to those who abuse the Bible and engage in poor teaching. But we're pretty much, we're not alone in that. But we certainly aren't in the majority in doing that kind of thing.

And so pulpit crimes, the abuse of the pulpit, the preaching ministry of the church, that means by which God has ordained that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, that ordinary means, as we frequently refer to them, will be the subject of our conference.

And of course the debate on the subject of homosexuality will get to the very foundations of whether God has spoken in the word of God or whether he has not. That will be one of the primary issues that we will be addressing, of course, in the debate.

And so I hope that you are thinking ahead to that. It is not that far away. I know that for a lot of folks the holidays are just over. It's amazing that we're already over halfway through the first month.

We're over 24th way through the year. Time goes quickly. But don't put it off. You need to look into the conference and the cruise. Let folks know that that's something you're thinking about doing. Get the details, etc., etc.

Make sure you do that at aomin .org. Now, I announced on the blog that I was going to present to you a section from Anthony Buzzard. He is a British-born theologian, an anti-Trinitarian. He's written a book called The Trinity, Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound.

And I remember corresponding with him briefly. I looked up the correspondence. I believe it was in May of 2000. And the issue that he is going to address in this segment I'm about to play came up in that correspondence.

And I responded to it then. He even, toward the end of this, invites people to contact him about it. But I really doubt that's going to stop him from presenting this, even though it is, I think, a tremendously fallacious argument.

Here he is going to this is from his discussion, not debate, but discussion with Shabir Ali, both of whom, of course, denied the deity of Christ. So it was just sort of a great heresy fest along those lines.

But here in his presentation, he presents what he considers a very simple, clear, compelling argument that demonstrates conclusively that the Bible does not teach the deity of Christ, that Jesus Christ was not God.

And I play this for you so that you can hear and understand exactly what this kind of presentation sounds like. And my request for you would be, how would you respond to this presentation? If you run into a person who maybe hears this and picks it up, they take some notes, and now you've gotten into conversation, and here comes this presentation.

How would you respond? Now you know that I'm going to respond to it, but I'd like to find out how you would respond at first to this presentation. Anthony buzzered from his opening presentation in his dialogue-slash-debate, more of a dialogue with Shabir Ali, demonstrating why the Bible cannot possibly be teaching the deity of Christ.

Let's listen in.

Psalm 110 and the Adoni Argument Against Christ's Deity

Next point. There's an astonishingly easy way to show to your evangelical friends that you may be in dialogue with, and let's have lots of discussion of these issues because it's very enlightening at a university.

This is a remarkably simple way to show that the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. As you know, we Christians believe the Hebrew Bible points to Jesus. There's a very simple way of showing that he could not be God himself.

It's simply this. I refer to another psalm now. Psalm 110, verse 1. If you were looking up in the Bible, you'd see this. The 110th psalm, verse 1. This verse is quoted in the New Testament more often than any other verse from the Old Testament.

It's kind of a slogan. It's a master text that the apostles keep teaching with, because it sums up the whole picture of salvation so well. I'll just quote that psalm to you. It says, The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Now the Lord there, the first one is Yahweh. There are two Lords in that psalm. Did you hear that? The Lord says to my Lord. David is writing. The Lord, Yahweh, as a prophecy says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

There are two Lords there. The first Lord in the Hebrew language is Yahweh. The one God that we've discussed. Very simply. But who's his second Lord? Many Christians will tell you that because Jesus is called Lord, he must be God.

That's a complete non-sequitur. It doesn't follow at all. It's completely false. The word Lord there in the Hebrew language, that second Lord where we have the Lord said to my Lord, that phrase my Lord, is represented in Hebrew by this word, Adoni.

The Hebrew word for Lord, there may be some parallels in the Cognate language, Arabic, I don't know. Adon is Lord. Adoni, my Lord, is represented by this word. Now there's another word for God, other than Yahweh.

There are several words for God, obviously. You can call God Lord also, and they do, in the Old Testament, 449 times, they refer to God as Lord. But when they refer to God as the Lord, they call him Adonai.

When you hear your Jewish friends praying, you hear Adonai, Adonai, Adonai. This is, I hear the music of the Arabic when I hear your prayers. Listen to a Jewish prayer and you hear Adonai. You may know that the Jews do not like to pronounce the divine name Yahweh.

They avoid that. So you don't push that on them. You sometimes use respect for their prayer language and refer to God as Adonai. This Lord is the Lord God. But this Lord is not the Lord God. He's the Lord Messiah.

And so right in the Hebrew Bible, there is a clear distinction drawn between the Lord God, Adonai, and the Lord who is not God, but a human superior, or very occasionally an angelic superior. You could address Gabriel as Adonai.

Sarah can address her husband as Adonai. My Lord. You could address the king as Adonai. Now this is very easy for me being from Britain, because in the House of Lords, in our governmental system, you do have hereditary peers, lords, who sit in the government of the House of Lords.

Then they would be addressed as My Lord. Will My Lord do so and so? That doesn't mean the person is God, you see. So that distinction between Adonai and Adonai is simply a distinction in vowel points, incidentally.

You may know that Hebrew is written as consonants. That's an aleph, that's a daleth, that's a nun. But the vowels are written underneath to give the vowel sounds. And when the learned Masoretic Jewish people who preserved the text of the Old Testament put the vowels in, they were minute in their care and the precision with which they distinguished between God and man, just as you do.

And they carefully wrote Adonai when it referred to the Lord God, 449 times in the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, when they wrote Adoni, with a dot down here, giving the sounds the hirech in Hebrew, possibly some cognates in the Arabic language, I don't know, the vowel sound i here, carefully distinguishing it from Adonai, only a difference of one vowel notice.

They didn't see that vowel and that vowel, but a critical difference to distinguish between God and man. Now you see then, that this psalm, 110, referring to Messiah as Adoni, and I forgot to mention that 195 times in the Old Testament, lords of different levels are so addressed.

The Lord Husband, the Lord King, the Lord Prophet, and so on. The Lord Angel, addressed here. This is the word that in Psalm 110 refers to the Messiah. So every Jew would recognize immediately that the Messiah is not God.

You see, if this was Yahweh speaking to Adonai, the universe would collapse. You'd have God speaking to God. That's a sheer impossibility. So I want to tell you that here, lying on the surface of the Hebrew Bible is a very simple way to demonstrate to your friends that the Messiah is not God according to the Hebrew Bible, but the Lord Messiah.

And you can run that on your computer software if you're interested in that kind of thing, and check that out. If you find any mistakes, write to me immediately. But I've checked that very carefully, and some scholars are astonished at this very, very simple thing.

It's not very difficult.

Hello. There we go. Someone fell asleep listening to that long, wonderful presentation there. Yes, it is quite simple, but how to answer it? Yes, I put, I guess, the entire audience to sleep, but at least the person on the other side of the wall.

Even though I typed up, you know, warning, here it comes, turn up the microphone. But, you know, you get what you pay for. Anyways, we try to look professional around here, but it doesn't work very often.

Anyhow, yes, it is pretty simple to respond to this, but how would you do so? I've sort of been watching some of the people in channel, and I've seen actually a couple of mistakes made in channel. Psalm 110 .5 is actually not parallel at that point, and so, you know, that's actually Adonai there in 110 .5.

So, how do you respond? I mean, let's face it. Most folks don't know a whole lot about Hebrew. They don't know a whole lot about the difference between Adonai and Adoni, especially since it's just the difference between a Heraklion and a Comet's yod in the way that it appears in the Hebrew text.

So, how do you respond to that? What is your response? Well, I sort of threw that out there to see if anyone did want to respond to that, and irony of ironies, we got a phone call in the middle of my playing this.

Something tells me that this individual is cheating just a little bit because I have a feeling he's heard this debate or discussion before for some odd, strange reason. But we'll go ahead and take a shot at it here because our good friend Sam Shmoon is on the line.

Hi, Sam. How are you doing? Hey, Dr. Weiner. How are you? Now, why in the world would you be listening to a discussion between Anthony Buzzard and Shabbir Ali?

I just was bored. I had nothing better to do. Had nothing better to do that day, huh?

Yeah, exactly. So, you survived this multi-hour Arianism fest.

So, you've heard this before, huh? I actually have his book, Anthony Buzzard's book. I bought it a while back when I was interacting with Joe's Witnesses.

I referenced that book. Yeah, I've got the book as well. He actually contacted me. I don't remember what caused that, but he was the one who actually wrote to me in 2000. Do you happen to know, by the way, just off the top of your head, because I didn't see any information, but when was the Ali-Buzzard discussion?

If I recall correctly, it was 2001. Ah, so it was after...

Well, that's interesting. If that was 2001, I had already explained to him the error in this presentation, so that's quite interesting. Anyways, so...

Well, you're far more qualified to discuss it. You were just throwing out the challenge. Yeah, sure. I had written a piece on Psalm 110. It's on the website. I've actually cheated because... And he accuses the Trinitarians of distorting...

Right. ...in the Hebrew manuscripts. Right. If I'm correct. He did say that. And there's nothing in the...

Right. Yeah, he had tried to make the argument that Trinitarians say, well, since the word Lord here is used of Jesus, then he must be God. I just would like to put my hand up and go, who exactly makes that argument?

Where is that argument made? I've sort of found that a little bit odd, but yes.

So I don't think that holds any water. No. I mean, we rise from what the fullness of the Scriptures say. Right. But moreover, it is not true that the... For example, in Judges... Yeah, I'm looking at that right now.

Judges 6, verse 15. Mm-hmm. Let me correct myself. Verse 13, I apologize. Yeah, I was looking at verse 13 here. I'm sorry, I apologize. Right. So Judges 6, 13, here's the angel of Yahweh, who's identified as Yahweh because he's Yahweh's agent.

He's called Adonai. He is. And then you have in Joshua 5, 14, where the captain of the Lord's army, the commander of the Lord's army, is called Adonai. Right. Which is, again, the angel of Yahweh who appears speaking on behalf of Yahweh as Yahweh.

Right. So I really don't think this argument holds much weight. No.

No, it doesn't on any level. Of course, my response to him initially was to say, all you've proven in this entire segment is that the Masoretic Jewish scribes, a minimum of six centuries to nine centuries after the time of Christ, did not believe in the deity of Christ.

Congratulations. That was never really much of an argument to begin with because you're exactly right. If you look at the consonantal text, Adonai and Adonai are identical to one another, and the vowel pointing here, the difference between a comets and a herrick, that was not in existence when the New Testament writers were quoting from the Old Testament scriptures.

There's no difference, of course, in the Greek septuagint between those forms. And so to accuse them of dissimulation and dishonesty on the basis of something that did not even exist when they were writing makes absolutely no sense at all.

And I point this out to him. I said, all you've proven is that the Jewish scribes, and we know, by the way, without any question, that very early on the Jews were well aware of the use by Christians of Psalm 110, so much so, and so much so was their utilization of the Greek septuagint, that they came up with their own Greek translations so as to stop using the Greek septuagint amongst the Jews.

And so for centuries before the vowel points became standardized in Hebrew text, and hence you'd have a difference between Adonai and Adonai, for centuries before that there was already this conflict between Jews and Christians over this text.

And so to discover that once the vowel pointing is done, the Jews vowel point this to indicate from their perspective at least a created being of some sort, rather than just simply an absolute reference to Jehovah, is about as shocking as discovering that people in Seattle are happy about the Super Bowl.

I mean, come on! This is not exactly, and I know you're from Chicago, and our condolences to you, but anyway... I'm about to cry now. That's okay. But that's all he proved, and his response to me, because I looked up our correspondence, was to be amazed that I would question the inspiration of the Hebrew text.

And I said, I'm not questioning the inspiration of the Hebrew text, I am questioning the assertion that what was added after the writing of the Hebrew text is itself inspired. In fact, that which was written by unbelieving Jews many centuries after Christ is somehow inspired.

And so he didn't really have any response to that. And so when I heard this again, as I was writing this past week, listening to his conversation with Shabir Ali, and that was the same one where Ali was doing the Raymond Brown five levels of John Six stuff, which is just enough to make me go, Ah!

But did you hear the beginning of the program? I think I caught you at the beginning that you're going to debate May 6th. It looks like the date will be May 6th. That's not absolutely... I'm planning on coming up.

You better be. I want him to just look at me and pass out or something. Come on now!

That's what I want to happen. Now, I was actually hoping for a little bodyguard action there.

From the big man. That's right. Well, yeah, we'll be there because you're going to mop the floor with him. I look forward to it.

I'm going to have some popcorn ready. Some popcorn? I'm not sure they're going to allow any food inside the place there. But anyway, I was listening to all of that. And then when this came, Liza, and, you know, here's an excellent example.

It's presented with such ease that sadly, and I'm sure you've read into this, for so many people today, evangelicals included, as long as someone sounds confident when they're saying it, you will invest weight in it, even though it's actually a completely ridiculous argument and presentation.

Yeah, I agree. And it's the same thing with the five layers of John stuff that we were listening to. That's one of the reasons you have to keep pushing the dates farther and farther back on these Gospels is you've got to have all this time for this development and this evolution and all the rest of this stuff.

And the problem is, if John was going through all this evolution, I wonder how Ignatius ended up picking up all this stuff about the deity of Christ within one decade of that period of time. I mean, why do these people have cell phones and they were sending this stuff to each other?

And come on, they didn't have the ability to communicate with the speed we do. So it's just amazing to me. So anyhow, but yes, you're exactly right. And you didn't tell folks what website they could go to see your stuff on.

Yeah, well, it's the Answering Islam website. It's answering-islam .org. Since I got the expert on the line, I don't want to hold you up. I know you may have other readers. And when Jesus applies it, his argument is essentially this.

If it's David, then he wouldn't be his Lord. Christ arguing his case. But at the same time, we know that angels, according to the New Testament, are subject.

Well, at the very least, you can prove, I think rather conclusively, that the reason that they don't even offer a response to the Lord at that point, because it's not that that had not been discussed previously.

And there were various Jewish speculations as to exactly the nature of the Messiah in light of these things. And again, there were all sorts of different perspectives and viewpoints that were being discussed in the intertestamental period.

But the fact of the matter is, their understanding of a military-delivering type Messiah simply wasn't big enough to fit into the obvious answer to the question, and that is, how can he be his Lord? There has to be an ontological superiority, maybe even a temporal superiority, in the sense of a temporal pre-existence.

I mean, there's all sorts of things you can see there that I think you have to wonder if that wasn't something that was discussed on the road to Emmaus, for example, and things along those lines. But yeah, I think that that's there, and it then fits in with Jesus' own statements concerning the Father testifying to him, and the works that he does testifying to him.

And that's something that you yourself brought out in John 5. How can any mere creature say that he can do anything he sees the Father doing? That's just amazing. It is, it is. People always think that's their ace in the hole, but in reality it turns around to bite them when they use it that way.

Hey, brother, thanks for calling in. Well, thank you, Dr. Wright. And Lord bless you richly in your ministry. All right, God bless. Take care. Bye-bye. 877 -753 -3341. We have two callers on hold. We'll get to you right after our break.

And anyone else who wants to jump online, 877 -753 -3341, we'll be right back.

Calvinism, Reformed Theology, and Church Support

Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant. In his book, The Potters' Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Potters' Freedom is much more than just a reply.

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so-called extreme Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture.

The Potters' Freedom, a defense of the Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.

The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m., and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday, and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.

You can call for further information at 602 -26-GRACE. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org, where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Homosexuality, Biblical Authority, and the Same-Sex Controversy

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality. Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

In their book, The Same-Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans.

Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

The Same-Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org.

Acts 2:37-40 and the Meaning of “Save Yourselves”

Now the pilgrim's progress is not an easy way. It's a journey to the sun day by day. Following Jesus is a walk of praise.

And welcome back to The Dividing Line. We continue with our phone calls. Andrew, how are you today? Fine, how are you? Doing good. Great. Hi, I had a question concerning two different translations of Acts 2, 37 -40, the NASB and one from the ESV.

Okay. The NASB said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Peter said to them, Repent, and each of you be baptized. This is for you. ESV, and then it says, and with the ESV, will I be saved from this perversity that you know of?

Well, I'm looking at it here, and the difference is between how you translate a subjunctive, in essence, and the New American Standard is more literal. As many as the Lord our God will call to himself.

Calls to himself is a little more periphrastic. It's a little more dynamic, shall we say, functional rather than formal equivalency. I don't think that there's any difference as to the meaning, because, again, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself is still a specific group to whom this promise is made.

This promise is made to you and your children, that is the Jews, and to all who are far off, that's the Gentiles. And who of the Jews and the Gentiles is this referring to? Well, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself, or as many as the Lord our God will call to himself.

I mean, I suppose someone could look at the New American Standard and say, well, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself, that means that he's still determining who he's going to do that for, and it's not a fixed number, for example.

So, I mean, there's always a way to find some way around reading the text clearly. I really don't see a whole lot of a difference as far as the meaning is concerned. The New American Standard is more literal.

The ESV a little bit more smooth at that point. And then, save yourselves, that's...

That seems more significant to me.

Well, again, there isn't literally a yourselves. It's an aorist imperative, and so it's just literally save from this perverse or crooked generation. Crooked is actually more literal there than a perverse generation.

But it's really, we don't have a... It's trying to say save, and so one translation says be saved, and then the other one is save yourselves. Again, to try to read into that particular term something in regards to the entirety of salvation and the idea that, well, you can somehow bring about self-salvation, you can save yourself, and that kind of thing would be really missing the whole point of the teaching of salvation just based upon how you translate an exhortation, and the exhortation was save yourselves from this wicked generation.

So both of them are appropriate translations. There's nothing that... I'm not going to say the ESV is wrong or the NASV is wrong, but there are underlying issues in just regards to how you would render a imperative, for example, something along those lines.

That's really the only difference between them. I don't think it's reflecting a particular bias on the part of the translations themselves.

Okay, I was just speaking to some of the new languages.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, as far as that goes, yeah, that is something that's sort of important, but I'm just simply saying they're dealing with a particular construction that's understandable in the Greek, but it's not always necessarily easy to render it into English, and both those renderings are acceptable renderings of that.

I don't think that someone was trying to come up with a deep theological reason for why they were differentiating between them.

Okay, and I just want to say you're going to be at our church, Grace Heritage Church. They announced it last week on March 1st through 5th, and I just want to say we're praying for you.

Well, the reason I say maybe is because we're having trouble getting people lined up at the university for debates on that weekend, so they're all saying they're gone that weekend, but the weekend after, all of a sudden, they're available, so we need to be somewhat flexible there, so we may be moving it back a week just simply so we can arrange the debates we want to have.

So, yeah, we'll be there, though. Okay, looking forward to it. Either way, thank you. Okay, thanks a lot. God bless. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. 877 -753 -3341. I'm not sure what in the world I did to BibleWorks here.

What did I do to BibleWorks? I closed, I somehow closed a window that's supposed to be there all the time on BibleWorks, and that's really messing things up. Why is it doing that? I don't know. That's very odd.

Well, we will have to work on that. You know, an entire window that you're used to utilizing and dropping stuff into disappears. That's bothersome. Anyways, let's continue with our phone calls. Let me see here.

Let's try to take them in order here. Let's talk with Tony. Hi, Tony.

Hey, how are you doing, Dr. White? Doing good. Hey, I just wanted to say that God bless you for your ministry. I don't agree with everything you teach, but, man, I'll tell you what, you really are. All righty.

I have a couple of questions for you about, and you'll have to forgive me, I don't have a Bible. Whenever you're talking with one about the usage of, I guess that, how would you get them to see?

Well, in response to the first part of the question, Hebrews 1 .8 is a citation from the Old Testament, and the question is, what is the initial fulfillment of the passage in the Psalms, and then what is the greater fulfillment as cited in the New Testament?

And what I do with that is I follow the context of Hebrews 1 .8. It says, But of the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever. And they say that that should be translated, God is your throne.

I do not argue with them about that at first. Instead, what I do is I simply continue on through the rest of the citation to verse 10 and demonstrate that even the New World Translation says, And, this is still speaking of the Son, you, Lord, laid the foundations of the earth in the beginning, etc., etc.

And then demonstrate that Hebrews 1 .10 -12 is a citation of Psalm 102, 25 -27. That's specifically about Jehovah, and that gets you past all of the argumentation about, well, God, a God, Moses was made to be a God in this situation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.