Osama bin Laden, and Calls

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. And welcome to the Dividing Line on the 3rd of May. How did that happen?

Another year passing by even faster than the year before, that's normally. How it works, a big day in world news, slowing down a little bit, but lots and lots of stuff still coming out.

Got home from church Sunday night and ironically first heard about these things in my chat channel and on Twitter.

In fact, it was interesting, I was seeing things posted in our chat channel before Fox News was reporting them. It's fascinating how media has changed over the past couple of decades and especially over the past decade.

I mean, somebody was live twittering the attack and didn't even know what he was live twittering there in Pakistan.

There was a guy started twittering about helicopters and he actually moved out of Islamabad to get to a quiet place.

He was watching the whole thing, didn't know what it was, didn't know bin Laden was in there and he was twittering the whole thing and people only found out about it later.

Fascinating stuff, but it doesn't necessarily change the fact that we don't get a lot of the information that we need to be getting.

Just because we get a lot of information doesn't mean that we're getting the best information or the most needful information, unfortunately.

One of the things that has struck me in listening to the coverage of the end of Osama bin

Laden is once again the attitudes that are being communicated.

And of course for me, considering the whole issue relating to the

Islamic faith and Osama bin Laden as a Muslim and as a man who was called

Sheikh by many Muslims and who argued a particular theological position, it's fascinating.

I read this morning Sheikh Yasir Qadhi's comments on the death of Osama bin

Laden. He obviously opposed bin Laden, but he is of two minds, as obviously he would be in his situation, having opposed bin

Laden and bin Laden's theology, but at the same time recognizing that there are a lot of people rejoicing and how is that viewed by people around the world?

Certainly, I know how we felt when we saw people in Pakistan and Afghanistan and places like that rejoicing on 9 -11.

There is at the same time a recognition in Yasir Qadhi's article that far more

Muslims, many more Muslims were killed as a result of the activities of Osama bin

Laden than Westerners, by a long shot. And that explains a lot of things, there's a lot of people in Saudi Arabia.

The reason that the Middle East is such a powder keg is that there's such a mixture and only very stringent military control can keep those mixtures from becoming explosive.

And you see that happening in Syria, I think you would see that happening in Saudi Arabia, very frequently it's a small minority that's ruling over a large majority.

And in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden was detested because he was calling for the overthrow of the monarchy there because they basically had submitted to the

West. That the Arabian Peninsula was the place from which attacks against Iraq were launched and so on and so forth.

And so you have a lot of things going on but what generally has not been discussed, because I don't think most people understand it or want to understand it or you want to go there, it's sort of like when someone calls into a radio talk show host, a radio talk show today and starts quoting the

Bible, you've got about three seconds before the guy's going to shut you down. Almost anywhere. And so they don't want to talk about the religious nature of Osama bin

Laden's worldview. I've heard almost nothing about it. I've heard about how terrible and nasty a guy is and you see the same video of him firing an

AK -47 over and over and over again and walking through the desert and blah, blah, blah.

But the reality is this man was motivated to do what he did by religious principles that few people seem today to want to understand.

Oh, he just hijacked a peaceful religion. Really? I mean, that's not even, you know, just from a simple debate perspective, if you want to in some meaningful way defeat this man's philosophy and worldview, don't you think you need to get a little something more than that?

Maybe a little more in -depth than that? I would hope so. I want to read you a few things.

I wonder sometimes if I'm on a watch list someplace because of the books that I buy. But years ago, when

I first got my Kindle One, one of the first books I bought was

The Al -Qaeda Reader. And it is a source book of materials written by Osama bin

Laden and by his lieutenants. You would think it would be stuff that would be read and understood by everybody because you want to understand what motivates people, but it doesn't work that way.

Let me read to you Al -Qaeda's declaration of war against Americans. And you tell me if this is a religious motivation or a non -religious motivation.

Praise be to Allah who revealed the book, the Quran, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in his book, then when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, seize them, besiege them, and be ready to ambush them.

Quran, Surah 9, Ayah 5. And prayers and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad bin

Abdullah who said, I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped.

Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my commandments.

Never since Allah made the Arabian Peninsula flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas, has it been stormed by any force like the crusader hordes that have spread in it like locusts, consuming its wealth and polluting its fertility.

All this is happening at a time when nations, in which nations are attacking

Muslims in unison, as if fighting over a plate of food. In face of this critical situation and lack of support, we are all obliged to discuss current events, as well as reach an agreement on how best to settle the matter.

No one argues today about three well -established facts known to everyone. We enumerate them as a reminder so that the one remembering may remember.

Number one, for over seven years, America has been occupying the lands of Islam in its holiest of places, the

Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead with which it fights the neighboring

Muslim peoples. Now, realize that from Osama bin Laden's perspective, the U .S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, which of course is there at the invitation and acceptance of the

Saudi kingdom, is a crusader horde plundering the

Saudi Arabian kingdom, just so you understand. While some people may have argued in the past over the realities of the occupation, all the people of the peninsula now acknowledge it.

There is no clear evidence that America's ceaseless aggression against the Iraqi people, all launched right from the peninsula, though its leaders collectively refuse having their land used for this end, but they have been subdued.

And that's very important to understand. They believe that these nations, the Islamic nations, have been subdued by the crusader hordes.

Number two, despite the awful devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people, the hands of the crusader Jewish alliance, and despite the astronomical number of deaths, which has exceeded one million, despite all this, the

Americans attempt once again to repeat the horrific massacres as if the protracted sanctions imposed after the brutal war or the fragmentation and devastation was not enough for them.

So now here they come again to annihilate what is left of this people and humiliate their Muslim neighbors. Number three, now if the

Americans' purposes behind these wars are religious and economic, put the two together.

We are not accustomed to thinking in this way, and that's why people don't understand

Al -Qaeda and the lengths to which they'll go and the places they'll be willing to live and the sacrifices they'll be willing to make.

But if you're calling American forces crusaders, you're hearkening back to images of allegedly zealots with crosses upon their chests.

And they were religiously motivated, indulgencers or whatever else it might have been.

But now if the Americans' purposes behind these wars are religious and economic, and so you must understand as foolish, irrational, and insane as it is, there are many people who believe that this is a crusader nation, a

Christian nation, seeking to spread Christianity. That's why we're there.

Never mind the fact that it's a minority of the soldiers in the field that are

Christians, and a small minority of the Christian population, I'm sorry, the American population, that would even in any way, shape, or form seriously live a

Christian life, even try to live a Christian life. I didn't say self -identify as Christians in a

Pew Research poll or something like that. That's irrelevant. If you want to identify

Christians, you ask a question, does it impact their daily life? If it doesn't, then the numbers become irrelevant.

But they believe that there are religious and economic reasons. So too are they also to serve the

Jews' petty state Israel, diverting attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and the murder of Muslims there.

There is no better evidence of this than their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region, such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan, into mini -paper states whose disunion and weakness will guarantee

Israel's survival in the continuation of the brutal crusader occupation of the peninsula. Remember, where was

Osama bin Laden born? In Saudi Arabia. So much of his rhetoric is focused upon that.

Did you know he was the, I saw the number yesterday, 17th of 54 children? Something like that.

That tells you something. Anyways, all these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and the

Muslims. Now that's vitally important. You need to understand. That the quote -unquote moderate

Muslim says there cannot be jihad without a caliph.

The caliph is the universal leader of Muslims. There is no caliphate today, and hence there is no caliph, despite Ergen Kaner saying that his father, as he passed away, was surrounded by caliphs.

There is not one, let alone many. A caliph is a very special, very recognizable office and position, and there isn't one today.

And so, the moderate Muslim says there can be no jihad because once the caliph declares jihad, then the kafir's life and property becomes default and can be taken by any

Muslim. But without that declaration of jihad, that can't happen. Without a caliph, that can't happen.

Therefore, this stuff is invalid. But if one arose, and we all agreed he was a caliph, then it would be cool, and we could kill you.

That's why we're not overly made to feel warm and fuzzy by the existence of moderate

Islam at that particular point in time when people take that particular position. Anyway, it's vitally important for the al -Qaeda position to be that there has been a declaration that a state of war does exist, and therefore we do not need a caliph to tell us what's going on.

Jihad is appropriate because anybody with two eyes can see that the

Muslims are under attack, they've been fragmented, and if we simply wait around until they can all get together and elect a caliph, and then the caliph declares jihad, then we're all going to be destroyed.

That's the argumentation that Adwar al -Awlaki is using, and al -Qaeda continues to use to radicalize even

Americans to their position. Radicalize. Convert. Convert them to that position.

Ulema, which is a plural for those who have been confused by Irving Cantor's books, Ulema throughout

Islamic history are unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty whenever the enemy terrors in the lands of the

Muslims. This was relayed by Imam bin Qudamah in al -Mulkuni, Imam al -Qisai in al -Badai, al -Qutubi in his commentary, and the sheikh of Islam, Ibn Tamiyya, in his chronicles, where he states, as for defensive warfare, this is the greatest way to defend sanctity and religion.

This is an obligation consensually agreed to by the Ulema. After faith, there is nothing more sacred than repulsing the enemy who attacks religion and life.

It's important to recognize Ibn Tamiyya, especially, Ibn Tamiyya has been interpreted by various people, but one of the most important interpreters of Ibn Tamiyya and communicators of his perspective is

Wahhab, and hence you get the Wahhabi sect there in Egypt. This is a Salafi perspective.

It's a very stringent, very fundamentalist interpretation of things, and many intelligent people hold to it from the

Islamic perspective. Anyway, on that basis and in compliance with Allah's order, we hereby issue the following decree to all

Muslims. The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, civilians and military, is an individual obligation incumbent upon every

Muslim who can do it and in any country. This until the Aqsa Mosque, which is the one in Jerusalem, and you see a picture of Jerusalem, the cityscape is dominated by the

Aqsa Mosque, and the Holy Mosque in Mecca are liberated from their grip, and until their armies withdraw from all the lands of Islam, defeated, shattered, and unable to threaten any

Muslim. Now think about for a moment, folks, what that means. In essence, what this is saying is,

Americans have to be killed all around the world until the Saudi regime falls and the

State of Israel, because I can't even go to the

Holy Mosque in Mecca. I can't even go visit the Kaaba, because I'm not a Muslim. I'm not even allowed there.

And yet, Al -Qaeda is saying, well, yeah, but you all control it because you all control the government that controls it.

So there's the statement. This is in accordance with the word of the Most High. Fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,

Surah 936. And the word of the Most High, fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression and all religion belongs to Allah, Surah 839.

Now think about that for just a moment. Fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression and all religion belongs to Allah.

I think oppression there, or one of those two is fitna, as I recall, which is why that one movie was called fitna.

Until all religion belongs to Allah. That's not exactly a good ground for what we might call ecumenical dialogue.

But that's how it's being cited. Now, again, you have to ask, well, how do the non -Al -Qaeda

Muslims interpret these verses? Well, generally they would say, well, these are all defensive wars.

Well, that's what Al -Qaeda is saying. Al -Qaeda is saying this is a defensive war. You've invaded our lands, and our leaders have been subdued by you, and therefore these are defensive wars.

But they would say, no, because if you look in the law, Muslims made pacts and agreements about living without attacking certain lands in which they lived, and therefore they're violating these things.

It's a little bit harder for them to make their arguments. It honestly is a little bit,

I'm going to offend a few people here, but it's a little bit like trying to deal with King James only -ists.

And one of our calls is on this. It's easy to preach

King James only -ism. It's real easy. I could be a great King James only preacher.

All you've got to do is you pick your text. It's not difficult to do. You find 1 Timothy 3 .16,

and you put together a list of things, and, man, you can preach them. And godless liberals, it's easy to detest godless liberals.

It's easier and faster and simpler to throw out

King James only -arguments without thinking about the history of the text and the history of the

King James and the history of the Greek manuscripts. And, you know, for a lot of folks, once you start talking about all that stuff, it's like, well,

I don't know, that sounds pretty complicated, and I don't know that it would necessarily be complicated.

I'd like it nice and simple. And there's a mindset of people that function in that way, and they are impressed by that kind of thinking, impressed by that kind of reasoning.

And so it's similar, I think, in that it's a whole lot easier to preach jihad.

It's a whole lot easier to tap into frustrated, angry, young Muslim men who, for some reason, aren't taught to better themselves and contribute to their society, and so on and so forth.

It's easy to inculcate victim mentality amongst people who don't have much.

It's real easy. It takes a lot more work to go, well, you need to understand what happened in the early centuries, and there was this, you know, when

Muslims were living in non -Muslim lands, and these were the types of treaties that they wrote up, and that sounds a little too complicated, doesn't really have the kind of bite to it.

And so, anyway, we will be taking phone calls, by the way, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, or dividing .line

via Skype. Let me finish this off. And the Most High said, And why should you not fight in the cause of Allah, and on behalf of those oppressed men, women, and children who cry out,

Lord, rescue us from this town and its oppressors. Give us from your presence some protecting friend.

Give us from your presence some defender. Surah 475. By Allah's leave, we call upon every

Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans wherever and whenever they find them.

We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on the devil's army, the

Americans, and whoever allies with them from the supporters of Satan, and to rout those behind them so that they may learn a lesson.

Allah Most High said, O you who have believed, respond to Allah and the Messenger whenever he calls to you to that which gives you life, and know that Allah comes between a man and his heart, and that it is he to whom you shall all be gathered.

Surah 824. Allah Most High said, O you who have believed, what is the matter with you?

When you are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, you cling so heavily to the earth. Do you prefer the life of this world or the hereafter?

But little is the comfort of this life in comparison to the hereafter. Unless you go forth and fight, he will punish you with a grievous torment and put others in your place, but he you cannot harm in the least, for Allah has power over all things.

Surah 9. 38 -39. Allah Most High said, So do not lose heart nor fall into despair.

Have faith and you shall triumph. Surah 3. 139. Signed by Sheikh Osama bin

Mohammed bin Laden, as well as Ayman al -Zawahiri, commander of the

Jihad group in Egypt. He's still around. And others. So there was the 1998.

Was that 1998? I'm looking at the date here. The World Islamic Front's declaration to wage

Jihad against Jews was issued February 29, 1998 in the Arabic newspaper. Okay. Then after that,

I'm not going to go into it. I was going to read this, but I spent more time on that than I need to. But it's an interesting book.

And you would find interesting the article, Moderate Islam is a prostration to the

West, because it really lays out the most conservative understanding of why this form of Islam finds anything less than itself to be non -Islamic.

And that's the type of argumentation. So it's called the Al -Qaeda Raider. I'm a little. No, I'm not.

I'm not surprised. I'm disappointed that I have not heard more of these citations in the discussion that has taken place since Osama bin

Laden's death. But look, the vast majority of folks just view him as public enemy number one, why he did what he did, and why he has convinced other people to join with him, why he has convinced people to give their own lives to do what they did.

You know, we think of 9 -11, and there were 19 people who did what they did, knowing they were going to die in the process.

If we don't come to understand what motivates that, then we will never be able to fight it.

And how do you fight it? Well, there is a military aspect. I mean, we protect our borders, we protect our wives, our children, we protect ourselves against evil men.

But what's the greatest weapon in this kind of warfare? It's a demonstration that all those verses they're quoting are wrong, simply wrong.

And we're not allowed to say that. That's the one thing the West says you can't do. The West says you can't say those verses are wrong.

You have to honor those verses, even to the point of giving Osama bin Laden an

Islamic funeral at sea, because we don't want to offend anybody. Well, it's too late.

You have to deal with the rotten foundation. The rotten foundation is believing that Muhammad was a prophet, but the one thing the

West cannot tell you you can't believe. The one thing the West says you cannot do is say

Muhammad was not a prophet. Now, they can blaspheme Christ all they want, evidently, but the one thing you cannot do is say

Muhammad was a false prophet. Saying so would, in their minds, drag a political motivation into a, quote -unquote, religious war.

Which they don't seem to understand. They are terrified to admit this. From the Muslim perspective, there is no distinction between a political and religious situation.

That's the whole point. There is no distinction. None. And as long as we continue pretending to be secularists, in this sense, we will never understand these people, and we will never be able to deal with it.

I mean, look at the utter collapse of the Scandinavian countries, northern European countries, along these lines.

Putting people on trial for saying Muhammad was a false prophet. Why not put all the Muslims on trial for saying that the

Bible is giving false prophecy? Because that's what the Qur 'an says. The Qur 'an says

Jesus wasn't crucified. The Bible says it was. Therefore, the Qur 'an is saying the Bible is wrong. Right? They can say all they want.

The backwardness of it is just absurd. Refusing to recognize that Osama bin

Laden was the product of a way of thought that goes back to Sayyid Qutb and the Islamic Brotherhood, and it goes back to Ibn Tamiya, and it's a certain kind of Islam.

It is a kind of Islam. That's all there is to it. It's just reality.

Get used to it. Or don't get used to it, because maybe you won't even have a chance to say much more about it.

877 -753 -3341. Let's take our phone calls. And I've got a couple of things queued up.

I need to get back to that Bible thumpers stuff. I need to get some of that done before the end of the program today, but we'll see. Let's start by talking with Gary in Virginia.

Hi, Gary. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Hey, thanks for your ministry. I really appreciate it. Yes, sir. I wanted to ask you a quick question.

I was watching your debate with Pastor Mormon the other day, and he kept talking about his insuperable...

Mount Impassable. Mount Impassable or something, yes. Right, exactly. Sounds a lot like Richard Dawkins.

But anyway, so I was wondering, I've been studying textual criticism recently with some of the resources you've provided, and I'm wondering, are there any early witnesses to the

Byzantine text type? I see there's one late papyrus, I believe, P73. I'm wondering if there's anything else, whether Latin or whatever.

Well, that's a big subject. There is nothing before the fourth century, and that's when it starts to show itself and then becomes predominant because the area in which it is found, specifically around Byzantium, becomes the only area that is producing

Greek manuscripts, especially after the Islamic expansion, where North Africa has taken over and Latin becomes the language of the

West. So as far as a specific pre -fourth century testimony to not a

Byzantine reading, but to the Byzantine text type, and there's a difference between a text type and a reading, there are times you can find a reading, maybe even uniquely

Byzantine, but if in the next line it has a uniquely non -Byzantine reading, then you're not looking at a

Byzantine text type. That's something that people are sometimes confused about because they'll say, oh, well, but there's this one reading over here, and et cetera, et cetera.

You know, it's really bad when you have a super annoying ringtone and then it goes out over the air like that.

Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, I guess I was wondering,

I'm just finishing up Metzger's book, Text of the New Testament, and wondering is there some place

I could, you would recommend that I go next? I'm trying to study criticism on my own.

Yeah, well, the problem is there are lots and lots of books. They tend to be very expensive.

Frequently they are collections of scholarly articles. For example, I have both

Brill compilations of all of Ehrman's works and J. Eldon Epps' works, and I don't know,

I think they're like $169 a pop or something like that. They're just ridiculous. I mean, obviously you can get them from a library, hopefully.

But the problem today is that while there are still some folks out there doing what they need to be doing, there has been a real shift in New Testament textual criticism

The money and the chairs of New Testament studies that are relevant to these things have been hijacked by the current generation of New Testament textual critics who have pretty much given up on looking for the original text, and what they're doing now is exegeting the variations and playing mind games, in my opinion, in trying to discern what we can learn via the textual variations about what the early scribes believed about this, that, or the other thing.

And while there may be some interest in a few things like that, it's not actually, historically anyways, the purpose of textual criticism to exegete textual variants and the scribes who produced them.

And Bart Ehrman is one of the primary forces and leaders in this, along with some people over in Europe as well.

So the problem is that a lot of the stuff that's being produced today isn't all that worthwhile.

I mean, you can cull some information from it, especially as new papyri are discovered and collated and things like that.

You can get information like that. But the primary focus is not so much upon the original text anymore as upon these other issues, and that's a bit of a problem.

Now, I've been looking a little bit at, I believe, the book you mentioned by the Ollins. Yes. And the other one is,

I think it's Mester, was talking about the decisions that were made in the

UBS -4. Oh, the textual commentary, yeah. I mean, if you're just looking for information like that, then the main things you want to get would be the textual commentary by Metzger, Philip Comfort's massive volume, which we have in our store, a textual commentary on the

New Testament. That's a real goldmine. The diglot that we have, which includes the

NET textual notes and the appendices together with the NA -27 text, and the rest of Philip Comfort's stuff, encountering the papyri,

I think it's encountering the manuscripts now that I think about it. All of those will give you a lot more information, too, yeah.

Okay, cool. All right. All right, well, thanks very much. Thanks, Gary. I'll have a ringtone. I just think it's funny, the ringtone some people have.

It gets your attention. Yes, it does, indeed. All right, thanks, Gary. All right, thank you.

Bye. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Let's talk to Jeff in Philadelphia.

Hi, Jeff. Hi, Dr. White. Good to talk to you again. Yes, sir. I wanted to talk to you about Rob Bell for just a little bit, but I wanted to call and thank you.

I did get to ask Bart Ehrman a question about a month ago, and it went pretty well, and the audio was recorded.

I sent you the email like you requested. Yes, right. And it was interesting.

He was kind of weird. He didn't seem dour. He was very engaging, and I got to recommend

Jesus and the eyewitnesses to somebody who asked a question in the audience afterwards. Well, that's good.

But the whole talk was kind of he's weird.

I know you've been exposed to more of his material than I have, and I've listened to you over the years, but I wanted to thank you for your help.

Well, good. Excellent. And he basically said, you know, because we were going to do kind of a presuppositional technique, and he said, oh, the real

Bart Ehrman contradicts himself. Oh, really? Yes. So if you do get a chance to listen to the email,

I know you're backed up, but you'll probably find it interesting. I guess the real reason for calling is

I think I was about a month and a half ago kind of wondering why everybody was spending so much time with Rob Bell, and I think

I really understand now. I've been interacting with a lot of emergent types via Facebook and other mediums, and I think you had it pretty well nailed.

And the really interesting thing is that kind of what you've been saying over the years about being consistent with your

Reformed theology and your apologetic is completely on base. And I think even a lot of folks in the emergent,

I've seen comments where they kind of understand that even. You know, they've picked that up on their own, where I think it's really only people with kind of coming from a

Reformed perspective can kind of challenge some of their assumptions. But anyway, so.

Well, yeah, that's true. I mean, I still do not consider myself an expert on the emergent movement, but having seen the issues that Rob Bell is raising and then having been thrown headlong into a dialogue with Brian McLaren, and hence having to finally read his material and listen to his material and discover just how very similar it is to what

Rob Bell said in Love Wins, except much better written. I mean, McLaren is an

English major, and it was actually nice to read a book that was written in complete sentences and paragraphs and things like that.

But having had to do all of that, again, it just emphasizes my recognition that the

Lord put me through the education he put me through. I didn't enjoy having to deal with all the challenges that were involved in going to Fuller Seminary, but now it has given me the vocabulary to hear what these folks are saying, because it's just all it is.

It's just Protestant liberalism. And when I have jokingly said it's

Protestant liberalism and skinny jeans with Britney Spears microphones done by Twitter, what I'm saying is the

Protestant liberals weren't big on attracting the culture by being cool and hip, but that's what the emergent folks are doing.

But the underlying substance is still the same thing. Take a Protestant liberal and stick him in skinny jeans with a

Britney Spears microphone and let him communicate by Twitter, and you've got an emergent guy, and that's just the way it is.

One thing I commented on to a few emergent folks, I actually had a little interaction with them, because we were talking about somebody wrote an article about wiping out the

Canaanites and that sort of thing, and it got them meshed in with a lot of the Rob Bell stuff.

And I kind of mentioned to them that, you know, you're constantly saying

God is mysterious and God is bigger than we can imagine, but that kind of all goes out the window once God starts executing judgment.

Then he's not very mysterious. And he ain't that big. He's bigger than that,

I guess, or something. And then he perfectly fits your conception. And I think

I kind of realized a little bit of that from the Martin Bashir interview, where you're giving him what the culture wants.

And I think they constantly think in terms of maybe sort of leftist -type politics, and I don't want to think in political terms in this debate.

Well, you can't avoid it reading Brian McLaren. He's open about it. He's very clear about it.

They want to think in terms of God is bigger than you can imagine, but just in terms of leftist politics, not in terms of, wow, he's very strange by executing just judgment.

You know, how can that happen? That can't be so, but everything else is mysterious and we'll just hand -wave.

Yeah, well, we can't avoid the dialogue. As a movement,

I think it'll fracture all over itself. I don't know what kind of long -term impact it's going to have, but I was interested to note that on Wednesday night of last week, my fellow elder read an email from someone who had been over,

I believe in Africa, teaching over there, and that the brethren in a Reformed Baptist context in Africa were asking about Rob Bell and Love Wins.

What are the odds of that? Well, the Internet has changed the world. I mean, again, if there's a guy sitting in that town in Pakistan where Osama bin

Laden had been living for five or six years and he's twittering the attack on the compound, that has changed the world.

I mean, it is instantaneous communication, and that can be a good thing.

That means that good words from John Piper, R .C. Sproul, or John MacArthur, Mark Dever, whoever, those good words go out quickly around the world, but so does everything that Richard Dawkins says or Rob Bell says or whatever else.

So what we need to start doing is cultivating an ability to, you know, we talked about discernment, and we've certainly seen that the large majority of discernment ministries have no discernment in how they have participated in the

Ergin -Kanner cover -up, but that was always a discernment of one type of teaching versus another type of teaching.

Now what we need to develop is discernment within the cloud, cloud discernment.

The cloud's become a term that is used now. I mean, I have an Amazon cloud drive now, which basically just means that it's stored on the web for you someplace rather than on a hard drive you're carrying around with you.

And we are in a data cloud. We have stuff coming at us from every which direction, and the next generation, even our own generation, has to learn to have discernment in how much data you let through and where it comes from and how you interpret it.

That's also why consistency will be a main driver, I think. Oh, yeah, very much so.

Yeah, very much so. Hey, Jeff, thanks. Hey, Jeff, thanks for your call. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.

Let's talk with Jonathan. Hi, Jonathan. Hello, sir. How are you doing? Doing good.

Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to make a comment about Rob Bell real quick and then ask my question. I actually got to watch his discussion or debate on Unbelievable, and I must say

I also got to listen to something you had talked about with, I believe it might have been a woman some years ago where you guys were arguing about whether or not hell, eternal hell, is a just and kind thing.

And you pointed out that the unregenerate sinner, even after living, is still not going to make a decision for Christ unless God gives him that grace.

And that's something I wish so badly would have been said to Rob Bell because he kept saying, if a 17 -year -old dies, he's going to spend 17 million years in hell?

Yeah, that was the one thing that, and again, I can say

I've been in Adrian Warnock's shoes because, well, actually I didn't sit in the seat that he sat in, but I always sit in the seat that Rob Bell was in in the studio.

But be that as it may, it was a little weird to watch that. I wish there had been time.

Sometimes you can't tell. Sometimes Justin is giving you the cut sign, he's going to a break or whatever, and when you come back,

Justin asks you a different question, you've got to go a different direction. I don't know, but I do wish that the one thing that had been said was his 17 -year -old -for -eternity thing assumes something that is simply non -assumable.

And unfortunately, listening to the comments, listening to other people who talked about it, people just don't think that way.

They figure, well, once you're dead, that's it. There's no more, your heart's been changed, all of a sudden you've become a saint, and that is something that we need to challenge very strongly and point out to people is not the case.

Well, I was thankful for the talk that you gave before that because it really kind of opened my eyes that eternal punishment really only makes sense in the

Reformed perspective where men will eternally be depraved without God changing their hearts.

I just mentioned to folks, because folks may not know what you're talking about, but what you're referring to there,

I assume, is the unbelievable program I did with Mr.

Foster and his wife. I believe so. Back in, I think it was like August of 2009 or something like that.

We actually did two programs. We did one on Calvinism and one on eternal punishment, and I did it by ISDN line from KPXQ here in Phoenix, and those are still available in the

Unbelievable Archives, and I had linked to them beforehand so that people could listen to that.

So yeah, that was an interesting exchange. Not overly enjoyable to do.

It's not an enjoyable topic to address, but it is necessary. So glad you found it helpful. It certainly helped me out.

On to my question, I guess. I had some Church of Christ people come to my house a couple weeks ago, and we were talking about the perseverance of the saints, the salvation of the believer, and I took them to John 6, 39, which is a passage that I've used many times in the past with fellow

Christians that shows that Christ will lose nothing of which the Father has given Him, and I've always used that as a salvific message.

And then the other evening, my wife and I were studying through John 18, and when Christ was approached in the garden,

He basically said, I'm the guy, let these guys go, and it was said that that was the fulfillment, that He would lose nothing.

And so I wasn't sure if John 6 was salvific, referring to their salvation, or to their physical breath, their life on this earth.

Well, again, it's simply a matter of following the context. John 6, 38,

For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise

Him up on the last day. So verse 40 gives you, this is the will of my

Father, in order that everyone looking upon the Son. So we either have to limit all of John 6 to a fulfillment only in the days of Christ, and hence none of this is, all the

John 3, John 6, John 8, it's all irrelevant to anybody after that time period, which is actually a view that I have seen taken by at least one hyper -dispensationalist who tries to get around this text on that basis.

But for those who recognize that's not the case, then Jesus' statement about this will is that it extends to everyone who looks on the

Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and everyone who will be raised up by Jesus on the last day is someone who has looked upon the

Son and believed in Him, which has a whole lot to do with inclusivism and people who say, ah, you don't necessarily have to believe in Jesus.

So there was the immediate fulfillment in John 17 where Jesus talks about,

He starts off talking about the disciples that have been given to Him, but He also identifies Judas as the son of perdition.

So I have lost none of those that you've given to me except for the son of perdition, so the

Scriptures might be fulfilled. And so the point is that the son of perdition had been given to Him not to be kept by Him, but for the fulfillment of the

Scriptures and His betrayal in the hands of the sons of men so that He might be crucified. So you have that fulfillment in John 18 in the sense that they are kept, but that's not the only fulfillment, because when you go back to John 38, 39, and 40, it goes way beyond that to anybody who will ever be raised up by the

Son of God and has believed in Him and looked upon Him. That's the fulfillment of the

Father's will. So there is the immediate fulfillment in regards to the very special relationship that existed between Jesus and the

Apostles. But in John 17, in the high priestly prayer, you have that very special relationship recognized, but then what does

Jesus go on? I do not pray for these alone. I also pray for those whom you will give me because of their word, because of their testimony.

And he goes on from there to talk about all of those down through the ages who will believe in Him. So there's no question that in the context of John 6, 39, that will is salvific, because it's not, but they will escape the sword in the garden.

It is, but raise it up on the last day. Not only that, one other thing, 6, 39 uses a neuter.

It says, So it is in order that all, and that's neuter, not masculine, all that you have given me,

I will lose none of all too. It's, since the preceding is neuter, that would be it.

It's a group. But raise it up on the last day. And then when you go to verse 40, it goes back to the personal, singular and personal.

And so the elect are being viewed as a whole in verse 39. So while there is a physical fulfillment as far as the disciples are concerned in their relationship with Jesus, John 6, 39 itself points way beyond just that immediate fulfillment to a much broader context.

Well, that's what I kind of thought, because in the exegetical reading of John 6 and 17 shows, I think, that there's a salvific intent there, not only to the disciples, but all who would believe their word.

It just seemed weird that John 18, Christ is basically getting the disciples who are with him off the hook by stepping out and identifying himself and then going with the mob.

And then it says that that's the fulfillment of that he would lose none. But I guess, is that like a fulfillment on a different level?

Like there's a salvific fulfillment that Christ will raise the believers up on the last day, but there's also this garden fulfillment where the disciples who are with him would be released when he's taken, as opposed to being taken with him?

That's not really addressed in John 6. I mean, the text here is in John 18, 8.

This is after the soldiers have fallen down upon the ground when Jesus says,

Ego ai me, I am. And it says, Whom do you seek? They said, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus answered, I told you that I am he. So if you seek me, let these men go. This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken of those whom you gave me.

I lost not one, which one of those places that is where that statement is made is

John 6, 39. But you also have the statement in John 17, 12 as well, where Jesus says,

While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

So the more natural direct connection would be to John 17, 12, because that was uttered only a matter of, well, we don't know how long, but in the same context of the same night.

And the closer connection would be that you have specifically the discussion of the one of them, which is the son of destruction, the son of perdition, which has been cast away, and that is

Judas himself. And so that would probably be the direct fulfillment is of John 17, 12, not

John chapter 6, because you have the Judas. Judas is staying there. He's a part of those who have betrayed.

So I think the closer connection is actually John 17, 12. Well, that was the cross -reference that I saw, but I guess it's just that word lost.

It seems kind of equivocal in John 18, because he says, I'm the guy, let these guys go, and that was the fulfillment of those words, that none of them would be lost.

And so I didn't know, it seems like he's letting the disciples get away from the mob, and that's the fulfillment.

Well, no, it's not so much letting them get away from the mob as it is to be their

Savior and be the one who experiences, he and he alone is going to have to go through this, and the scriptural, the prophetic word was that he would do so alone, that he would be abandoned.

And that is a role that only he can take. And so I don't have anything else to add to that.

I mean, John saw the fulfillment of the high priestly prayer, and the point is, here in the garden,

Jesus is not being abandoned by the Father. He's only being abandoned by the disciples, but his prayer, which he has prayed, is being fulfilled, and that Jesus is, unlike Peter, is willing to put himself on the line for these men.

Well, I think you helped me out. I think I can see that Jesus does identify himself as the

Messiah, or, you know, the ego, I mean, and going with him is part of that process of not losing any of whom the

Father has given him by going to the crossroads. Okay, thanks, Jonathan. Yes, sir, take care.

Bye -bye. All right, real quick, let's talk to Brandy up in Colorado. Hi, Brandy.

Hi, Dr. White, how are you? Doing good. Good. I'm a new listener, and I had to laugh last week when you were talking about all the former

Calvary Chapel Calvinists, because I am one of those as well. I'm sorry, but I've read something from George Bryson that says you don't exist, so I— Oh, I know.

Well, tell that to 15 % of my church body, seriously. There are a lot of us, because, like you said, they encourage you to read the

Word, and eventually you just kind of come to the conclusion that God is sovereign. That's right.

Anyway, so I just got a big kick out of that. That applies to me. I do have a question, and forgive me if you've answered this a hundred times before, because, again,

I'm a new listener. Oh, no worries. But I have a friend who acknowledges that the message is a poor

Bible translation, but she just loves Eugene Peterson's other writings, and I don't know about him, and I'm having a hard time finding any good commentary on the other books he's written, and I wonder if you know anything.

No, I'll have to admit, I have spent very, very little time on Eugene Peterson. I know very little of his theology, but I do know that the first thing we need to distinguish is the fact that the paraphrase he has produced is not a

Bible translation. In fact, he doesn't claim it's a Bible translation. And the problem that has been created by the pop culture, economy, sales juggernaut is that paraphrases, such as Eugene Peterson's work, are put forward as if they should be used in doing serious

Bible study, and they should not. In fact, they're great for devotional reading. Well, what you have in a paraphrase is

Eugene Peterson sitting on his back porch looking at the cows out in the field and going, you know what?

That's sort of like what Psalm 23 is about. No, seriously. He's even admitted that.

He's even said that's where some of it came from. What you have is not even to the level of the minister in the pulpit seeking to paraphrase or explain.

I mean, how many times have we heard somebody say, so in other words, it's this. Well, that's what a paraphrase is.

In other words, it's this. A paraphrase, such as the message or something along those lines, the old living

Bible, now you have the new living translation, which I cringe to call a translation.

When I first saw Eugene Peterson's book, it came out when I was at the Christian Booksellers Association in 1995, my book in the

King James, the only kind of receipt that's come out. And I took it back to the Bethany House booth, and I'm sitting there. I had the

Greek text with me, and I'm in Romans. I'm trying to figure out from the Greek text where this paraphrase was.

I couldn't even figure it out. It was so free. It was so paraphrastic. I couldn't even figure out where it was. And so what you've got there is one person's feelings, thoughts, explanations, expansions.

At the best, what you can say a paraphrase is is listening to one preacher giving you all his, in other words, in one long line.

That's what a paraphrase is. Unfortunately, they end up getting treated like translations. I see people carrying around as if they're a

Bible. And that's really dangerous because they generally depart very quickly from the level of the text.

And that's why a lot of people like them is because some people just get tired of reading about propitiation or something like that.

Well, there's a reason the Holy Spirit used that language. And we should be called to a higher level to be able to understand it, not going, eh, well, that's a little bit too much for me.

So, I can't tell you much about his theology, though that would be important in evaluating the paraphrase.

I just simply say to everybody, look, we have good English translations and if you want a paraphrase, listen to a good pastor who's exegeting the word.

But to buy a book of that, it sort of feeds into the, oh,

I want a Bible translation that is on the third grade level. It wasn't written on the third grade level.

That's the problem. And once you quote -unquote translate or render it on the third grade level, all the information between the third level and the level it was written at gets lost.

And that's a problem. But I'm sorry, I can't tell you much about the guy. Personally, I'm sure he's a wonderful nice guy.

It'd be great to have a hot dog with him or something. But as far as the use of that goes,

I'm just like, eh, there's so much better stuff out there. Yeah, well, and my friend acknowledges that the message is not good, but she insists that the rest of the books he's written are wonderful, and I can't imagine that.

Yeah, well, I don't know. I honestly don't know. I mean, just because someone gives you their sort of free paraphrase doesn't mean the rest of what they have to say is bad.

I just do not know anything about his theology. So I'm afraid I can't help you too much with that, Brandy. Hey, thank you much for your call.

Thanks for listening to The Dividing Line. And to everyone else, thank you for listening today. Lord Willen will be back on Thursday.

And remember, a week from Thursday, Michael Brown will be joining me. We'll be talking about his new book,

A Queer Thing Happened to America. That'll be next Thursday on The Dividing Line. See you Thursday. I believe we're standing at the crossroads

Let this moment of sin flow away We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for We need a new

Reformation day It's the sign of the times

The truth is being trampled in A new age paradigm Won't you lift up your voice

Are you tired of plain religion It's time to make some noise Poundin' on Wittenberg's door

Poundin' on Wittenberg's door Poundin' on Wittenberg's door Stand up for the truth

And won't you live for the Lord Cause we're poundin' on Poundin' on Wittenberg's door

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