Pelagians on Twitter, Man-Centered God at Bethel, Presuppositions in Ehrman, Open Phones

It is a Thursday, a cloudy Thursday here in Phoenix, which bums me out because I finally got my

Orion camera, deep space camera, working on my scope.

And I almost showed my first picture of the

Orion Nebula from a couple nights ago, but I haven't been able to do anything since then because it's been cloudy. If it's going to be cloudy, it needs to rain.

We need the rain and I'll put up with it if it's raining, but it's just been cloudy and hasn't done any raining, so it's just messing everything up.

Anyway, it was supposed to, if it hadn't been so cloudy today, it was supposed to be 92 in Phoenix today.

And I'm watching all these tweets from like Al Mohler showing Southern Seminary buried in snow.

And I'm like, it's supposed to be 89 here today, here in Phoenix. So don't have to worry too much about that.

I have been, what we're going to do on the program today. We are going to do a few minutes of a mini, a real mini radio -free

Geneva type segment, no music, sorry. And do a little more background stuff on Airman Lycona and then go to your, go to your calls.

So we'll, we'll let you know, we'll be heading that, that direction. I started,

I don't know who this guy is on Twitter. Twitter is

C space G, so it's just two letters with a space in between. I didn't know you could have something that short.

It's at think underscore again, underscore seven. Don't know who it is, but started seeing some stuff.

I don't remember if it was last night or this morning. The first tweet to me was just, the term

I used this morning was stultifyingly absurd. It basically said the only people who don't understand reform theology are advocates of reform theology.

Everybody else recognizes that it's absurd and self -contradictory and all the rest of stuff. And I was just like, what?

And when he wrote back this morning, his first citation was from soteriology 101, which gives you a good idea of the balance and accuracy of the sources being used.

But I started looking through what this individual was saying, so I just wanted to respond to some of these things, because they are unfortunately very common, but they're extremely imbalanced.

And balance is not something you find a whole lot in social media as a whole or in a lot of theology today.

So it's unfortunately something we have to deal with all the time. There was a fellow by the name of Dietrich Fasero who had given a quote from RA Torrey.

The quote was, The failure to put faith in Jesus Christ is not a mere misfortune, it is a sin, a grievous sin, an appalling sin, a damning sin.

To which C .G. responded, How unfortunate then for those whom God chooses not to grant the ability to have saving faith.

And I'm seeing repeatedly in this individual's understanding that from their perspective, if saving faith is a gift, then

God must give it to everybody. But if it's given to everybody, then everybody would be saved, which would be universalism, and he's not a universalist.

So not sure how that works, but from his perspective, obviously, everybody, everybody has the capacity to repent and believe.

Evidently, nobody's dead in sin, nobody is slave to sin. All those passages must have some other meaning.

I don't know what meaning they have, but they must have some other meaning. And it caused me to remember, to think about Philippians 1 .29,

that was the other thing I was going to do. Oh, probably not going to be able to do that now, unfortunately.

It's funny how things just sort of pop up in your mind, you go, oh, that's right. It's possible, though.

Let me just look here real, real quick, see if it comes up real quickly. Because I, yeah, there it is.

Okay, might actually be able to do this. We'll see, we'll see.

It sort of depends on, did we plug and unplug? Do you actually have any, can you see anything over there, or do

I have to play with the, we're good? Okay, all right. So we'll see if we can do this. There was a video that Phil Johnson posted that I wanted to look at, because it was just really bad.

But we'll see if we can get to it. Some people might prefer us doing that than some of the calls, but we'll see.

Anyway, it reminded me of Philippians 1 .29,

that to you, because for to you, plural, to the

Philippians, it has been granted, it has been given, the same root term as grace, a free gift.

In behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer in his behalf or in his place, having the same agona, conflict, agony, which you saw in me and now here is in me.

This is Philippians 1 .29 and 30. And we've pointed out over the years the fact that normally when people see

Philippians 1 .29, you see that phrase, to suffer for him, that sort of draws our attention.

And in reality, it is a gift from God to be able to suffer for the name of Christ, and that sort of takes up our thinking.

But what comes before that is not only ta eisautan pisteuan, that is not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

And so if the one is a gift of God, so is the other.

They both go together. They're both the result of that one verb that is used in verse 29, charizomai, which is to give, to grant.

It can also mean to forgive. I mean, again, charis is the grace term, is the root for what you have in Philippians 1 .29.

So it just struck me that it seems that for C .G.

Think Again 7, when it says that to you, it has been granted at the beginning of verse 29.

Now, there are two manuscripts that say to us. All the rest say to you, at least according to the

NA28. I didn't look at UBS 5. You have to get a longer list. But is that everybody?

In context, it's very clear this is specifically addressed to the church. It's not to everybody.

So has it been granted to everyone to believe in Christ? Why would it need to be granted to Christians if everyone has the just innate capacity?

Well, because Paul plainly taught that they didn't, that there is this slavery to sin, this deadness in sin, this inability to do what

God commands due to the fallen nature of man. That's the part that's missing.

It's almost like this fellow is a plagiant of some sort in some of the comments that he makes.

So Dietrich responded to him and said, sad, yes, but completely just and undeserved. By the way,

I have no idea who either of these gentlemen are. Just popped into my feed. I'm like, okay, let's talk about it.

CG said, nope, not even close to being just or deserved. If God is the one withholding the ability for someone to have saving faith.

You hear that mentality there? Granting the ability to have saving faith is grace.

When you're a Pelagian, you turn grace upside down. It's demanded of everybody. Everybody gets to have it.

If God can't give it to one because grace can't be free. Grace can be demanded. That is really when you want to identify the essence of the

Pelagian impulse. That's what it is. If God is the one withholding the ability for someone to have saving faith, then

God is cruel and sadistic to send unbelievers to hell. This makes the unregenerate the victims of an evil

God. That's, again, what I wanted to touch on. When you reject the plain teaching of God's sovereignty,

His holiness, the plain teaching of the Bible of man's willful rebellion, desire to fulfill lusts and gather everything for yourself, not care about others, rebellion against God, from the first elements of our life, from the first times you begin to see this showing itself in your grandchildren or your children, all the way through life.

If you see all that, you can't go this direction. But if you reject biblical anthropology, if you reject biblical theology, theology proper, the doctrine of God's sovereignty, the doctrine of God's immutability, the doctrine of God's decree, then you can come up with this strange amalgam of beliefs.

And from that perspective, refer to the biblical God as cruel and sadistic.

And it really makes me wonder. I wonder what this guy thinks of the Old Testament. Somebody was telling me that a fairly well -known individual is going to be coming to their school teaching on the

God of the Old Testament. I'm like, I can almost guarantee you what that guy is going to be saying. He's going to be saying, remember

Brian Zond? This wasn't the guy, but they're pretty much on the same wavelength. Remember Brian Zond?

Well, this is what people thought about God in the Old Testament. And then Jesus comes along and really shows us

God. It really does have some meaningful substantival parallels to forms of early

Gnosticism in the sense that it identifies the God of the Old Testament as an evil

God. I just wonder where this CG is on stuff like that, because I've seen so many people who get into this mindset of rejecting

Reformed theology as it is plainly presented in the pages of Scripture, going down the road of eventually rejecting penal substitutionary atonement.

And then when you start looking at the God of the Old Testament, God's way too sovereign, way too holy, this destruction of the

Amorites, stuff like that, can't handle that. And so they eventually end up with a really degraded view of the

Old Testament text and things like that. So this makes the unregenerate the victims of an evil

God. They love doing what they were doing. They love their rebellion. They suppress the knowledge of God, but they're the victims of an evil

God. Unless God regenerates them. Unless God undoes their rebellion, not out of mercy and grace, because once it's demanded, you can't call it mercy or grace anymore.

In this person's mind, God cannot be merciful and gracious to this group of people if he's not to this group, because that's not fair.

It's not fair. That's what mercy and grace is about. Mercy and grace transcend simple categories of justice.

And because of Christ, those categories of justice are fulfilled. No one gets injustice.

But certain people get mercy and grace. The rest get justice. That's how it works.

Dietrich responded, You think it would be just and deserving of fallen man to be given salvation at all?

You hold to a works -based method of salvation, which I must say is no salvation at all. To which C .G.

responded, Your devil God is not just. The God of the Bible, however, is just and merciful and compassionate and slow to anger and does not prevent anyone from being saved.

Now, you sit here and go, Where have I ever heard any biblical author even come close to using that kind of language?

I guess the closest you could come would be when

God hardens certain people to make sure of their destruction. I suppose there is a judgment level that you could point to in some instances.

But you see, the biblical anthropology is that there's none that seeks after God, no, not one.

So, you might have people who for, well, you know, it's like in the book of Revelation when people call upon the mountains to fall upon them, to hide them from the wrath of He who sits upon the throne and the wrath of the

Lamb. You know, they're taking actions to try to ameliorate their suffering or the coming of judgment or wherever else it might be.

And if people find moral reformation or something like that to maybe possibly help them in that way, then they'll do so.

But there is no God seeker. That's what Romans chapter 3 says.

There is no God seeker. I'm not sure what

C .G. thinks about that, but there is no God seeker. Your devil

God is not just the God of the Bible, da -da -da. That's why He created every single person with the natural ability to seek

Him and have saving faith. So, you got C .G.,

everyone can seek Him. You've got the Apostle Paul, no one seeks him.

It's just straightforward, direct contradiction. You know, it's just like,

I don't really care what the Bible says. I'm going to come up with my own stuff here. And that's what this

C .G. fellow is about. It's pretty amazing.

You can look him up and see some of the stuff that he's saying here.

But, you know, I tried to deal with him in regards to the issue of primary and secondary causes.

You know, obviously he does not believe in any way, shape, or form that God has a divine decree that He is accomplishing and things like that.

I couldn't find, yeah, you know, Calvinism, monergism is so full of contradictions that the theories proposed don't even make sense.

We just documented him absolutely directly contradicting almost word for word the

Apostle Paul, but it's everybody else. And then, you know, quotation from, yeah, there it is.

Okay, I found it. This is the one. This is 17 hours ago. Okay, yeah, look at this.

He's retweeting Bruxy Cavy. There you go. That tells you right there where this guy is coming from.

But he was replying, Matt Estes had quoted me. And this is what he said.

Based on my experience, there you go, the only people who don't understand

Calvinism are Reformed believers. This theological system is built on so many contradictions that very few seem to be able to agree on anything.

The extreme, extreme view of God's sovereignty slash control is just one example.

That's what I responded to by saying. That may be the silliest thing I've read on Twitter, that the only people who don't understand

Calvinism are Reformed believers. And his initial response is to quote Soteriology 101. There you go there.

So that's, and I noticed that the people are already jumping onto that as a result of this on Twitter.

So I'm sure there'll be more that comes out of that. But yeah, if you're quoting Bruxy Cavy, that'll tell you something right there.

Yeah, let's go ahead and see if we can do this. Let me see if I can find it. Yeah, here it is.

This is from a guy.

Let me see if I can go. All right. Good enough?

All right. This is from a guy who is from Bethel.

And, you know, I mentioned that I picked up some books by Bill Johnson and I've been, there is no question from what

I've heard that Bill Johnson does teach a canonic Christology. It comes up over and over again.

It's not just once, it's in the books, it's in the sermons, it's foundational. Everything Jesus did, he did only as a man dependent upon the

Spirit of God. And the corollary that is then drawn from that, which the

New Testament writers do not make, is that that means as long as we are filled with the

Spirit of God and write with God as Jesus was, then we'll do what Jesus did. That's where everything goes right out the door.

That's where there's serious, serious problems with what's being said there.

And I have not done, I have not sat down with feeds from Bethel Reading to go, you know, okay, look at X amount of sermons and break them down into how many contained exegesis of texts or scriptures like that.

So maybe I've missed them. But what I've seen so far, the

Bible has simply been a phrase book that you fit into an overarching metanarrative.

It's not where you are walking through the text and allowing the text to speak for itself.

And that's not what I'm seeing by any stretch of imagination. So this guy, sorry, I forgot to catch his name there, is part of the

DRT, the Dead Raising Team. I think it's supposed to be connected to evangelism.

I can see Calvinists doing that, because that's what

Calvinists believe actually has to happen for anybody to get saved is they, you know, yeah, okay. But yeah, the

Dead Raising Team. And the video is entitled,

The Sacred Cow Is Man Inherently Evil. So I'll tell you what, let's just watch this together and let's see if you see the same problems that I see in what we're going to hear.

It's 10 minutes long, but yeah, let me get into here.

It's the DRT. So let's, well, let's see what it says.

What's up, you guys? Just wanted to talk with you a little bit about the prophetic today, the way we view the world, the way we view those around us, the way we do evangelism, all that good stuff.

This is going to be fun, so stay tuned. Check this out. In the world, you perform to be accepted, right?

In the kingdom, you just are accepted. It's just how it is. You're just seen as beautiful.

You're just seen as awesome. God sees you for your prophetic destiny, but He loves you for who you are right now.

There's nothing that you could do, good or bad, to change how God feels about you right now. He loves you.

He loves you. He loves you. And He likes you. He doesn't just love you.

He actually likes you. He delights in who you are. Now, check this out. When I played soccer, I played soccer for many years.

It was kind of my thing growing up. I would play on various teams. I had three main teams.

I had my club team, I had my high school team, and then I had a team called ODP. And my dad was my coach of my club team, and I had my friends on there, and we had a blast.

It was amazing. I had a great time. I played really well on that team. My ODP team,

I had a coach that I didn't know, but he believed in me, and I played better than I've ever played in my life on that team.

Almost went to be on the state and then national teams. And then

I had my high school team. My high school coach, great guy, but he just never could...

It was like he never, from the get -go, believed in me. I don't know what it was, but maybe he did believe in me, but I didn't feel like it.

I don't know what it was. But for whatever reason, on that team, I could not do it. It was like there was a blockage, no matter what.

No matter how much affirmation and encouragement I got, I could not play well on that team.

And even at the time I think I was aware of this, I was aware that my coach's inability to believe in me prior to me actually doing well was what somehow stifled me.

I was consciously aware of that, but I could not, no matter what, even if I was like, don't worry about it,

I tried to mentally get over it, whatever, I could not play like I normally play. And then I'd get on my dad's team, and I would just tear it up, or I would get on my

ODP team. And I remember my coach just being like, saying things to me.

I mean, I don't feel like I performed to earn it. He didn't know me from Adam. He didn't know me, who I was at all.

But it was like he was able to see my style of play, and he was able to affirm me. Now, there's a reason why

I'm saying all of this stuff. He, this coach, prior to me doing well, believed that I was good, okay?

Now, the purpose of why I'm saying all of this is because when we go into the world to do evangelism, or even the way we treat our families, everything we do, when we go into it believing that they are wonderful people, believing that God loves them, believing that they're amazing, regardless of what their performance is, the funny thing is, that's a tangible way to prophesy into someone's life, to enable them to become the very thing that you're saying that they are.

You don't even have to verbally say it. It's the way you treat someone. It's the way you talk to them. It's the way you look at them.

It's the way your heart views them. I mean, even in marriage, this is so huge, that if you give the benefit of the doubt, and if you choose to believe the best about your spouse, rather than being on the defensive, things work out.

When you don't, things don't work out. Now, this is also the way that God views us. When God views us, when

He looks at us, He sees us as blameless, right? As perfected, as wonderful, as beautiful.

Even though we're in the midst of making mistakes, God views us for in our prophetic destiny. He says, you're amazing.

Not only because He thinks you're amazing right now, but because you're going to do even more amazing things and become more amazing in the future.

Now, this is true. This has always been true about your life. God's always felt like this about you.

Even prior to you receiving Christ, He felt like this about you. Why? Because even before the foundations of the world,

God, Jesus died. He was slain before the foundations of the world. God has always been for you.

Now, the reason why I'm saying all this is because when we go out and do evangelism and stuff, if we have this inherent belief that people are evil, if we have this inherent belief that people that they're just untrustworthy, trashy people, then we're going to impart that everywhere we go.

But if we're in love with humanity, if we're in love with people and we love people, even though they take advantage of us, even though they make fun of us, whatever it is, even though they drag your name through the mud, whatever it is, if we continue to believe that people are amazing because we're choosing to see them through God's eyes, that is what we'll call them into.

In fact, you'll see people brought into salvation through Christ simply because you see it in them before they've made the decision.

If we treat people the way that my high school coach did, we won't see fruit.

We won't see them perform well. But if we treat them without them ever doing anything right, if we treat them in the terms of their prophetic destiny, if we treat them and we just see them as beautiful and wonderful before they've even earned it or before they've performed in that way, they become that.

This is true of our kids. When we look at our kids, you can see them for all their problems or you can choose to view them the way that God views all of us.

He sees us for the good things, the bad things He's not oblivious to. God's not oblivious to our problems and our mistakes and all the dumb things we do.

He's not oblivious to those things. It's just that God puts on the forefront of His mind the things He delights in about us, which is the same things we should be doing for everyone else.

He puts those things on the forefront of His mind. His thoughts are numerous towards us, more than the sands, all the beaches in the whole world.

All those thoughts He's having about you, I believe, every second. He can have all those thoughts running through His head about you all the time, every second, and they're all positive.

The things that we need to work on, He approaches those things in a kind and thoughtful and encouraging way, not in a condemning way.

There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. This is who God is. This is the way that He treats us.

This is the gospel. This is the way to pull out the gold out of people when we're out in evangelism.

So here's the thing. I grew up with something, and I, quite frankly, even on this last trip to India, we were talking about this on the bus,

I quite frankly don't really know where I land on the matter, but I grew up believing that people were inherently evil.

Now, I get it. I get that if I were to say right now, I don't believe that people are inherently evil,

I get that you'd be like, well, what's the purpose of Jesus then because He died to take away our sin? I understand all that. I get that.

I'm not even going to try to make this theological because I don't have an answer to it at this point, but what I have been realizing in my life is that if we believe that someone that's not a

Christian is inherently evil, then that's what's going to manifest in their life.

That's what's going to be brought out. But if we believe that the person that runs, you know, the 7 -Eleven down the road, the clerk at the front that doesn't know

Jesus, if we believe that He is inherently evil, nothing's going to happen. But if we believe that God loves them and we believe that there's good there, we start to ask

God, what is it that you delight in this person about? And you start to get prophetic words for them. Now, are your prophetic words for these people when you're out on the street or in church or whatever, are they negative?

No. Prophetic words? No. Paul said that the prophetic guidelines are to exhort, to encourage, and to edify, right?

So when you go to the 7 -Eleven, you're releasing these prophetic words, you're seeing the person, their prophetic destiny, you're treating them the way that God treats all of us.

Right? And then what happens, the natural result is that that person begins to manifest the exact thing that you're seeing in them and it comes forth.

So, we can either be people like my high school coach who just wasn't able to genuinely see my value and therefore my performance was completely terrible.

Okay? I mean, I was terrible on that team. Or, we can see people the way that my other coach did.

My ODP coach. Where he, just from the get -go, believed that I was good, believed that I could play well, and therefore

I excelled way past what I ever thought that I could do in soccer. There was times when my body moved on its own.

It was like time would slow down and I could like calculate everything around me and take a shot and curve the ball into the upper

B of the goal. I mean, it was verging on supernatural. And this kind of stuff happens when we start to believe in people and God's love for them and God's destiny for them prior to them ever even receiving it.

So, Lord, just let us, Lord, just let us see people the way you see them.

Lord, let us believe in people and the goodness of people. Let us hear your voice and have you highlight those wonderful things about their life prior to us even leading them to Jesus.

Let us see people the way you see them. Let us see our families the way you see them.

Let us see our spouses the way that you see them. Lord, let us live as people that give others the benefit of the doubt.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, you guys, be blessed. Be blessed.

Have an awesome day. Just receive some joy. Be happy today. You have a happy God that is totally, totally, totally in love with you.

Amen. See you, guys. Okay, then. So many things.

Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah, I would just like to correct the record that this was not a guest host of today's

Dividing Line that you just saw. Not a guest host? Yeah, it was not a guest host. Some in the

YouTube channel got a little confused that this was the new direction that we're going to be taking.

Well, that shows you why we don't need YouTube chat channels.

Anyway, getting back to the serious part, this is what happens when you don't have a biblical balance in ministry.

We are just told to believe in the goodness of people. I would really, really wonder where you're going to drag that out of Scripture.

Drag it kicking and screaming out from underneath a rock, evidently, somewhere. But we are to believe in the goodness of people.

Now, I know at one point I said, I don't have any answers to this. I'm not trying to make this theological. But everything you just said was theological.

It was theologically heretical, but it was theological. How can you not say that's theology?

It's incoherent, it's unbiblical, it's actually anti -biblical, but it's still theology.

And here you have a God who's just... When you don't have

His sovereign purpose as definitional of His character to where it is

His self -glorification, the gospel is about the glorification of the triune

God. We are the gracious beneficiaries of that gospel, but we are not even the central actors of that gospel.

It seems to me that so many... And when he started talking about, well, yeah, you know, Jesus died for our sins and stuff like that.

It was just sort of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we know. There's that stuff over there too. But that's not really the most important thing.

The most important thing is, you know, every thought... I mean, God is just thinking wonderful thoughts about you all the time.

There is such a massive exaggeration of the human and such a massive diminishment of the glory of the divine.

We are called to love God. We are called as creatures to love

God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Okay? The idea that somehow

God is called to reciprocate is completely missing the creator -creation distinction.

You would never derive this stuff from meaningful exegesis. You're not going to...

You know, it wouldn't matter what church it was. I didn't have to know beforehand this was

Bethel Redding. Wherever this guy's been trained, they are not walking through the

Scriptures verse by verse. No, no. You have an overarching paradigm, and the

Bible's getting plugged into it, and you get stories here and stories there. But the idea of a consistent application of wanting to know what

God has said as it is contained in Scripture over against what

God is saying to me today, that's a different thing. That's a different thing, see. And you'll notice the impact that it has.

You cannot help but have an impact here. Your evangelism is going to be determined by your view of God, your view of the gospel, and your view of the one to whom you're speaking.

And we were just said for it to work, for there to be a result, what do you need to do?

You need to believe in the goodness of the person to whom you're speaking.

I believe in the goodness of the God that commands the person to whom I'm speaking to repent. Totally different thing.

And once you... And let's say you get somebody, someone goes, you know, for various reasons because the way they've been raised or the situation going on in their life, whatever it might be.

Let's say they go, you know, I like that. And so they enter into your fellowship. Now you've got a person who's never been seriously challenged about repentance, never been instructed in the holiness of God, and they think this is all about them.

And that's why they can hear a message that says you're like Jesus. You know, as long as you're right with God and you're indwelt by the

Holy Spirit, then you do the things that Jesus did. No?

There's a number of places where Johnson, I think, completely misappropriates

John chapter 5. But I don't think most people would ever catch it. Because so few people walk through John chapter 5 in a seriously contextual and Christological mode.

I mention that not only because he mentions that a lot. I can do nothing of myself.

That's part of his canonic Christology proof text. I'm preaching through John chapter 5.

I just addressed all those things. And I'll be addressing it again as I'll be preaching both services on Sunday on the same topic.

This is what you have when, you know, this is one of the things that I simply have to say to all of my charismatic friends.

If you really, really, really want to be taken seriously, let me suggest something to you.

The Spirit of God is the one who gave us the scriptures. Jesus himself, when quoting from the

Psalter, said David, I think it's from the Psalter, David spoke by the

Holy Spirit. Now, my charismatic friends hear that and say, so that means whenever anybody speaks by the

Holy Spirit today, we should listen to them in the same way. No, the reason that Jesus quoted that was because that had been preserved in the scriptures by the

Spirit of God for the people of God so they could have a sure word from God.

And it was preserved from generation to generation. It's not just the newest thing that Miss Mabel decided the

Holy Spirit told her in the pew next to you. It is a sure word because it's been preserved.

It is theanoustos, it is God -breathed. It has a completely different character than anything else. And if the

Spirit of God was directing the ministry of the Word of God, there would be an emphasis upon exposure to the whole counsel of God.

Not to just a thematic sermon here or throwing a few Bible verses in there in the midst of a tremendous amount of emotional outpouring.

There would be a deep hunger for a meaningful experience of the

Word of God. And the result would not be this kind of confusion, this kind of,

He's a happy God, this kind of projection of human qualities onto God rather than the interpretation of man as the creature of God, made by God, but utterly distinct from God.

God is God, we are not. God is God, we are not. That's important. So you see all the ramifications that that has there.

All right. Okay. Let's open the phones and start taking...

We'll only be going to the bottom of the hour. So we're going to do 90 minutes.

We're about 40 minutes in. So I'm not sure how long this next section is going to take me.

It can be short, it can be long. We'll find out. We'll just take as many as we can to get to that time frame.

877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

I did want to, however, spend a few minutes addressing...

One of our phone calls on the last program was a gentleman who asked about one of the specific sections in the

Ehrman -Lycona dialogue. Ehrman's been doing this for a long time.

These are not new arguments. He really believes his arguments are so good that he doesn't need to even really update them much.

But it had to do with the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke.

And I want to instead...

One of the problems that I see regularly with Christians who want to seek to provide answers to people, they want to encourage people to trust in Christ, they want to have good answers to respond to...

But many of my fellow believers do not think presuppositionally, and they do not first seek to grasp a balanced, broad -based understanding of what the issues are that they are supposed to be dealing with.

So the result is you'll get into a conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses, with Mormons, and you end up literally, in the way my mom used to say, getting run around the gum stump, talking about this thing, then that thing, then that thing, then that thing, and you never go very far into depth on anything.

You always seem to be in defensive mode, and you just don't get anywhere. And a lot of people have had that experience so many times they've just given up.

There's no reason to even try. There's no reason to even try. And what needs to be understood is that when you hear an argument, you have to mentally step back and analyze what is being assumed in the objection that is being made.

So often we look at... The argument in regards to the birth narratives is pretty easy.

They differ from one another. And anybody who reads them sees that.

They're telling different stories, is what we're told. As soon as you hear that, the first thing you should do is you should step back and go, well, you're assuming, because Matthew and Luke will later tell many of the same stories in much of the same way, they'll have many of the same parables, that when it comes to the issue of the early part of Jesus' life, you should have the same thing.

There should be a lot of overlap. And you should get the same story.

So if you've got the flight to Egypt in one gospel, there should be a similar version in the other gospel.

The other gospel is not going to just skip that. And the genealogy should be pretty much the same.

And so they should sort of track with one another, right? At which point

I just go, if we're thinking presuppositionally and carefully, the question you're going to ask is why?

I mean, the first part of Jesus' life is barely touched upon by any of the gospels.

This is what led to the production of so many of the stories in the Gnostic gospels.

People wanted to know what is the sinless

Son of God like as a kid? Because we all want to know what that's like. And the gospel writers have no interest whatsoever in satiating our curiosity about such things.

And so when you think about it, we're talking about no greater amount of information from either

Matthew or Luke. In fact, if you take out the genealogies, which each have different purposes in each gospel, if you take them out, you have less information about Jesus' birth and his early life than you have about Adam at the beginning of Genesis, or at least about equal.

So the writers are not even pretending to give you an exhaustive account of anything.

And so the immediate presupposition, which Ehrman makes a number of times, remember when he says, well,

John has Jesus saying he's God and he's even claiming the name of I Am.

And it's unthinkable that the other gospels would not record this.

And I go, well, I think it. Why don't you think it? Why is it that John, writing at a later time to a different audience with the others already in existence, why couldn't

John give us information? Or let's put it the other way. Would there not be possible reasons why

Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not include that information in their presentations that John does in his?

I mean, why do you assume that because it's in this, it has to be in this because it's the intention of everyone to give you an absolutely exhaustive account.

It's not. It isn't. So why are you assuming that, well, there's no flight to Egypt in one.

So if it doesn't fit in the purpose of the author who is giving you a tremendously short, obviously extremely edited, you don't think that each one of them didn't know other stories they could have included, but giving a tremendously concise, purposefully so, version, they don't get to choose what they're going to say.

Well, no, they would have to include it. Why? You can say that loudly. You can increase the volume of your voice.

You can gesture and gesticulate, but it doesn't actually provide an argument.

Why would either one of the authors have to include any element that the other one includes in focusing upon Wise Man or anything else?

I mean, we're not even going here to even asking the question, is it possible that Luke had access to information, for example, about the

Magi, that Matthew did not have because Luke had access seemingly to Mary?

Because, I mean, he gives us personal recollections. He specifically says,

I interviewed such and such people. I did research. Is it possible that Luke had access to information that Matthew did not?

And vice versa. And vice versa. I mean, if Matthew is one of the 12, he's sitting around, listening to Jesus at the fireside, but maybe didn't ever interview

Mary. Isn't that going to result in some major differences, especially in...

I mean, I really ought to... It'd be pretty easy to do in accordance.

I had to go in and count up the number of words or sentences in Matthew and Luke taking out the genealogies that are prior to the baptism.

Probably a relatively small number. And just sitting back and going, Luke has access to this information.

Matthew has access to this information. Matthew is specifically emphasizing communication to the

Jewish people. That's why he does what he does with the generations breakdown in his genealogy.

He's trying to make a point there. It's a Jewish point that we don't really get, but he's writing to the Jews, so he's going to communicate to them in such a way that they're going to understand that.

Luke isn't doing that, so he goes a completely different direction, and so that's why there's differences between the two. But even allowing for the fact they're writing to different audiences, they're then drawing from different sources of information.

And I just sit back and go, that's probably going to result in something quite different.

And then you might go, oh, but wait, then why are they so similar when they're telling the parables? Because that is the proclamation of the church.

It is done over and over and over and over again.

But it's very clear that it was not the intention of the disciples to cast a bright light upon the infancy of Jesus.

Because I could suggest reasons for that. There are all sorts of reasons that could very logically and fairly be suggested.

But my point is, Ehrman and his ilk don't care about those things. There is a fundamental bias functioning from the start that says, no, no, we just can't allow for those things.

These things need to look the same. And the funny thing is, you can't win for trying. When they look the same, then they're just copying from one another.

And then it's not trustworthy because it's just being copied. So it's the old, darned if you do, darned if you don't, type of a situation that is utilized by so much of modern scholarship.

When you hear an argument, don't go into panic mode.

Sit back, listen to it, and ask the fundamental, vitally important question, and that is, what is being assumed?

And sometimes, look, sometimes because of because of things like the level of argumentation,

Ehrman's got all these degrees after his name, and he's throwing names in there. We get challenged, and we get intimidated.

Sit back, realize the guy you're talking to puts his pants on one leg at a time, and can have all the degrees after his name in the world.

Doesn't mean there aren't biases. Doesn't mean there aren't prejudices. They're there. Gotta deal with them.

Gotta deal with them. Gotta recognize them. And so, keep that in mind as we look at this material.

Just on a fundamental presuppositional basis, the birth narratives are going to be different, and there are perfectly expected reasons why that would be.

Now, I doubt that some poor I doubt that some poor freshman student is going to get to express those types of things in Dr.

Ehrman's class, but we're not in that class, and we just need to be preparing our students before they end up in that class.

I wouldn't suggest they go there anyways. Plus, they're already firmly grounded, and just simply want to be able to say, I even survived Bart Ehrman's class.

I suppose that would be one way of doing it. So, something to keep in mind as we turn to the phones.

877 -753 -3341. And so, we'll have about 35 minutes to work through our phone calls today.

And let's go to Luke in Phoenix. Hi, Luke. Hello. Yes, sir.

Well, so I'm having a very lengthy conversation with someone who always references the Bible versus, say, God wants all to be saved, and Jesus dies for all.

And he demands I only answer with something from the Bible that says, Jesus died for some, or Jesus died for the elect.

Is there a presumption in there that I should be aware of, or is there some way to actually discuss this?

Have you read The Potter's Freedom? I don't think he wants me to actually read it.

Have you read The Potter's Freedom? I have not. Okay. There's an entire chapter in the book titled

The Big Three that deals with Matthew 23, 37, 1 Timothy 2, 4, 2

Peter 3, 9, and goes through each of those texts exegetically so that you can give a specifically biblical response on each one of these texts.

If all he's saying is, well, no, I already know what 1 Timothy 2, 4 says, so I'm not going to even discuss it, then there's no reason continuing the conversation at all.

I mean, you know, people always come to me, this person is being irrational. What do I do about it? And I go, walk away.

That's just, you can't force people to want to handle the word of God rightly.

But when someone reads one of these texts, then they almost always do so without reading what comes before and afterwards.

So in 1 Timothy 2, we read, first of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men who pair pontone on thropone.

Now, I would sit down with an individual, we would open our Bibles together, and I would say, now, when it says, in behalf of all men, would you agree with me that in this context, it defines what is being said when the very next words, and remember, chapter and verse divisions are not in the original manuscripts or in any manuscripts for the first 1 ,500 years of the history of the church.

Well, chapter divisions are in about 1 ,300 years. Hence, right after the phrase, who pair pontone on thropone, in behalf of all men, it says, in behalf of kings and all who were in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

Now, is kings a class of people? Are all people kings?

Or are we to pray for every single king? Are we to pray for every single human being?

Is our prayer meeting supposed to be taken up by taking the ancient equivalent of the white pages and starting with the alphas and praying all the way through the omegas?

Or is Paul saying that when we pray, we are to pray for all kinds of men, even those that mistreat us, that bring us before the judges unjustly, that at this point in time, let's say this was written in the mid -50s, there's going to be another 260 years of persecution of the

Christian Church, where kings and those in authority are going to be literally responsible for putting many believers to death.

So, there is a need to remind the believers that prayers are to be made for all kinds of people, so that they would be individuals who would present the gospel to all kinds of people.

So, that's already there in the context, and it goes on to say, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our

Savior, who desires all men, verse 4, to be saved.

It's PONTAS ANTHROPUS, right up above. We already had that phrase

PONTON ANTHROPON, and the only difference is the function in the sentence. It's the exact same phrase.

And so, if the one in verse 2 was all kinds of men, then why would you jump down to verse 4 and change it from all kinds of men to every single individual who has ever lived, including the millions of people who lived in nations that God never sent anybody to to proclaim any message whatsoever?

Except that's what people say. It says all men to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.

Well, God does desire all kinds of men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

That's why we proclaim the gospel to everyone. We don't make the decision that, well, you know, since the

Roman authorities for hundreds of years, this would be later on, hundreds of years have been killing

Christians. That must be clear evidence that God does not want the gospel to be presented to them.

We are going to take it to other people. We're going to turn away from these people. No, the scriptures won't allow that.

The gospel is to be proclaimed to all kinds of people. That does not mean that what's being said here is that there is a universalistic concept being announced in the sense of, yep, there's no election.

God's going to equally try to save every single human being and it's all up to us. And that is borne out by the rest of the context.

Most people never continue on because the very next verse says, for there is one

God. Now that makes sense in light of what's come before. That is, you're not going to present one

God to one group of people and a different God to another group of people. There's only one God, so there's only one way of salvation.

There's only one way that any person can have peace with God. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men.

So there you have your men concept again. The man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

Sometimes they'll go to this verse, sometimes they won't because it brings up the issue of atonement. The testimony given at its own time or at the proper time.

And then Paul says, for this I was appointed a preacher and apostle and so on and so forth. So when they hear that, many will say, ah, see, there you go.

He gave himself a ransom for all. And again, if we're consistent, we'll say yes for all kinds of men, those in authority, those who are not, slave, free, male, female, every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

That's exactly what's being said. Oh no, this means that substitutionary atonement was made for every single human being. At which point

I say, so what you're saying is Jesus is the mediator between God and every single human being.

So Jesus intercedes in heaven in behalf of all those who perished before he died outside of faith in God.

What's he doing for them? Is he pleading for their salvation? Do you believe that people could be saved?

How about the soldiers of Pharaoh's army? How about Pharaoh himself? Let's talk a little bit about the

Assyrians, the Amorites. I mean, there's all sorts of people we could bring up. Are you saying that they're going to be saved by the intercessory work of Christ though they never ever heard about the true

God or about his way of salvation? Or let's leave that aside because many of them will say, well, that was just before the cross.

This is only after the cross. Okay. So after the cross, Jesus is interceding for every single human being who has been born since the cross.

Is that what you want to say? Because once you say that, I go to Hebrews chapter 7 and I point out that Jesus, because he lives forever as our high priest, is able to save completely because he makes intercession.

And so his intercessory work is the grounds of my salvation. That's why

I have assurance of salvation. So if he is interceding, then he is powerful to save.

So they're left with quite a quandary. You have Jesus interceding for individuals who will never be saved unless they want to adopt universalism where everybody gets saved.

So I can walk through 1 Timothy and establish a consistent hermeneutical pattern that makes sense all the way through and allows

Paul to remain consistent with his own teaching and the teaching of everyone else in regards to the work of Christ, the result of the work of Christ, the intercessory work of Christ.

The vast majority, vast majority of people with whom I have spoken over the years have never even given consideration to the mediatorial work of Christ in regards to a text like this.

They're only concerned that, well, it sounds like all men and so I'm going to accept that and I'm not going to even give consideration to what it would mean if I were to consistently follow that through.

So the only suggestion I can make is that you sit down with each one.

Like I said, there's a lot of discussion of this in the Potter's Freedom and there's an entire chapter on these particular texts, walking through each one verse by verse, demonstrating that you can give a fair, contextual response that is consistent with all the other stuff that's already been presented in the book about God's decree and His sovereignty, which

I don't think the other side can give meaningful, exegetical responses to. And then you leave the rest to God.

You can't horsewhip somebody into accepting the truth. Sometimes there are just incredibly strong traditions in the way you present the truth and leave it to God from there.

Hello? Oh yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for being a voice of reasons. And in light of this, is there a heresy called hyper -literalism?

Hyper -literalism? Just reading particular verses as you want to read them as literally as you possibly can.

Well, I think Rome is guilty of that in looking at John 6, eating my flesh, drinking my blood.

The literal meaning in John 6 has already been introduced by coming and believing as eating and drinking.

So I suppose if you ignore the context, you'd call that a hyper -literal reading. But, you know, again, when your parents, when you were a kid and your parents gave you instructions, you could twist those instructions by ignoring context and common usage and things like that.

God's made us to be able to recognize those things. But again, if the Spirit of God's not working in someone's heart, you present the truth, you do so graciously, you do so patiently.

You may have to present it more than once. But if someone proves themselves absolutely obstinate, you just move on.

You don't have to condemn them. You don't have to get out the Facebook fire -breathing emoticons or anything else and condemn them to hell.

It may be that God will use somebody else at another time in their life to bring the things you've said to their mind.

You don't know. And you've got to leave that up to God. Your own faith cannot be dependent upon what other people do with your proclamation.

I think that's one of the problems, is that some people on Facebook or Twitter or wherever else it might be, if people don't accept what

I'm saying, that means I may be wrong, rather than having a solid, settled commitment to the truth.

So you can just be a gracious conduit of one who explains this truth to others. And then if they don't accept it, you don't have to flame them.

You don't have to send them to hell. That's not your job in the first place. You just say, well, thank you for the conversation and you move on.

Thank you very much. God bless you, sir. Okay, thanks a lot. God bless. Bye -bye. All right, let's talk with Patrick.

Hi, Patrick. Hey, how are you doing? Doing good. Good. Well, I just had a quick question about some

Mormonism stuff. My wife and I just joined a church recently here in Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids?

Wow. I'm sorry? Grand Rapids. That's like the Mecca of evangelicalism.

Is there a special spiritual goal? It is the Roman Catholic and Christian Reformed Mecca. Well, all

I know is most of the big publishers are based there.

So, you know, the real big names. So, I just wonder if there's a special spiritual glow or anything.

Well, I mean, there's a special spiritual glow provision around my wallet, seeing as how most of my bookshelf is made up from what

I've gotten at Baker. That's right, that's right. And they now sell pocket anointing oil packets, so I figured if I crack them open and sprinkle them over my wallet,

I'll be blessed with extra money. That ain't all it's gonna do is make your credit card slippery. But anyway, you were saying? Yeah, probably.

So anyhow, my wife and I joined the church and I was chatting with the pastor, because I have a very missional heart for world religions, and you foster that even more so with your debates that you've done.

And he's willing to give me the stage to do a presentation on world religions and my special emphasis being on Mormonism, because that's the one that I've spent the most time with.

And I know in some of your earlier episodes, 90s and 2000s, you had quite a few that were focused around that, and I don't remember exactly, but I believe you had some keynote slides or other resources that you made available for people that were interested.

So I was curious if you had those still, so I could use them for reference, not to pirate and steal and call them my own, but just to look at.

I assume you're probably referring to what's called the Eternal Law of Progression. And I'm trying to remember,

I think we did post that. There's a—go ahead, Virg.

Okay, so if you're watching the YouTube video on Witnessing to Mormons, there is a

PDF hyperlink in the description there to go and download that graphic. Okay, fantastic.

Yeah, so that's probably what you're referring to. The only other thing in my standard

LDS presentation is I include a fairly brief series of quotations from—yeah,

I used to have it in here, I don't anymore— Achieving a Celestial Marriage. It was a church publication in the late 90s into the early 2000s that is still one of the most revealing discussions, as far as I know, of the

LDS Doctrine of God. And—but I just—I mean, that's actually fairly widely available,

I would think. And it's probably online. I think if you searched for Achieving a

Celestial Marriage Temple Manual, I bet at least that section has been provided by somebody because it's really amazing stuff.

Okay. Yeah. So that presentation was

PowerPoint. That was so long ago that it's— Right. And I actually downloaded it.

I listened to it probably once every couple of months just to refresh what you've been talking about. Yeah. And I spent—before my wife and I met, and she freaked out at the thought of me having

Mormons over and me actually attending their church services, spent two or three months with them just learning and realizing, okay, this is quite interesting.

Yeah, it is. And, of course, they're so much more open about things today. I mean, you can buy things at Deseret Book today that—

I mean, you can literally go into Deseret Book today and buy publications that would show you things that I had to go very nervously.

I mean, I was like 20, maybe 21 years old at most when

I went to the records building, which is part of the corporate headquarters there on North Temple in Salt Lake City.

Went into the archives and requested to see the microfilm of Joseph Smith's diary from such and such a time.

And, man, for years, we—I still got it down here. My huge Mormon missionary notebook that I would use.

We would carry that around and show those photocopies. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Now you can waltz into Deseret Book and purchase that anywhere. It's online. It's everywhere.

As of last year, you can grab the picture of the seer stone, which no one had seen, at least not anyone outside the church had seen for, you know, 130 years or more.

And so things have changed a lot, but the Mormons have changed a lot too. The Mormons have changed a lot because now

I encounter so many of these folks and I say these things to them. They're like, yeah, probably. And their whole idea of what prophethood is has changed.

Like I said, that religion's in trouble and I'm not sure what's going to happen with it.

Yeah, especially in regards to the liberalism that seems to be going on. If I could just tack on one thing really quick, it shouldn't take too long for you to answer, but if there was going to be something that you're presenting to a group of people who may have not ever really thought long and hard or seen any kind of presentation about it, what would you suggest just hitting on as the important things other than the differences about the gospel?

You mean about Mormonism? Yes. Well, there's always been three things that we've focused upon in regards to Mormonism.

Who is God? Who is Jesus? What is the gospel? Because you can't explain the differences in the gospel if they don't understand that from their perspective there is no ontological difference between God and man.

So the very purpose of salvation and everything is, from the Christian perspective, is based upon who

God is, who we are. And so without that, what can you do? So you've got to start there.

Okay? Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. I'm excited to do it. It's nerve -wracking at the same time, having the platform being able to do this.

Well, you'll do just fine. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you very much. All right. God bless. Bye -bye.

Bye -bye. All right. I'm not going to give the number again because I imagine we're probably going to run out of time with these three.

So let's talk to Alex. Hi, Alex. Hey, how are you doing, Dr. White?

Good. Good. Hey, I have two quick questions for you. The first one is,

I even wrote it down here so I won't be stuttering, but it's when and how a

Christian who has come to believe in God's sovereignty should leave a church that does not teach the same?

Ooh. Okay. That's a big one. Whatever answer you end up with, make it your goal that if you do end up leaving a fellowship, that you do so leaking grace everywhere.

Yeah. The last thing that anybody needs are the fire -breathing, you're -going -to -hell type cage -stage

Calvinist people further turning off everybody to any kind of openness to consider what the

Bible really teaches about who God is. Because anybody who's come to understand this knows what

I mean. It is a soul -crushing thing to realize that God is God and I am not.

And he can do with me as he pleases. And yet he has been gracious to me and he set his grace upon me in eternity.

That should so destroy any kind of desire for vengeance or proving myself right or anything else.

Unfortunately, sometimes you do find yourself in the position where you cannot remain.

And obviously, if there are options in your area where there are faithful churches that would be consistent with your belief, what you want to do is you want to sit down with the elders, you want to explain to them where you're coming from, do so very graciously, have a meaningful conversation.

If you can't come to an understanding, a lot of times what you'll hear is someone say, well, you know, I pretty much agree with what you're saying.

We just don't really emphasize that from the pulpit or something like that. And you find interesting things like that. Or it can be situations like, we don't want you around here.

And they usher you out the door. I mean, I've seen every kind of possible mixture of those various attitudes.

But once you come to the conclusion that for your spiritual safety, your spiritual worship, the happiness of your family and being able to go to church, you know, for me,

I was already involved with apologetics. And so there really needed to be a consistency between what was being preached from the pulpit and what

I was saying as I was already starting to speak in churches and things like that. And I didn't just go running out the door.

Because the church I was at, sometimes you'd hear the truth stated well. And the next week, not so much.

And so I don't think we should be people just running out, you know, rabbiting out the doors, throwing copies of Arthur W.

Pink's Sovereignty of God at people's heads as we do so. That's not the way to do it. But once you get to that point, then you need to have a place to be going.

You know, some people are like, I just can't stay here. Well, where are you going to go? I don't know, but I just can't stay here. Well, if God's put you in a position where you can't find that fellowship that's going to have that kind of consistency, you better be careful because you might grow a whole lot more by exercising patience and emphasizing our commonalities and surviving where you are.

You're not going to be growing by becoming a Lone Ranger. That's really dangerous.

So you have to have thought ahead and then, you know, bathe any conversation in prayer.

And then whatever you do, when you go to the new church, don't give yourself street cred by bad mouthing where you were.

I'm not saying you never mentioned anything about it. I'm not saying you don't use it as an example or something like that.

But I've just seen, again, mainly Calvinists. Well, I've actually seen it go both ways.

I've seen people who've left the church and then they just vent their spleen regularly about just how little those people knew.

That's not a good sign for me. That's not a good sign of maturity or anything like that. So patience is what

I would recommend to you. If you find yourself being troubled in going to the church and hearing a regular sub -biblical presentation, you see how it's impacting evangelism or the function of church, things like that, then you need to be seriously praying about where the

Lord would have you to be. And if you choose to do that, then, like I said, you really, really want to make sure that when you look back on it, you can say,

I couldn't have left on a better basis. I really did pray for that church and was thankful for all the things that I had received there.

And I moved on the right way. It's good to be able to say that.

Okay. Yeah, that's good. Could I ask you one more quick question? Real quick.

Okay. So I like to ask this to older men in the faith. I'm not calling you old. I know you're 39.

Yeah, right. But if you were able to go back in time to back when you were in your 20s and you had a desire to be in the ministry, what would be your three biggest pieces of advice to a young man for what he should do to prepare himself in his 20s?

Well, remember, I felt the call to ministry at 18.

So I did those things. And at the time,

I could not necessarily see why the Lord was doing everything the way he was doing it. I could not see why

I had to go to a seminary that was way to the left of where I was. I've certainly seen the reason for that now.

God knew what he was calling me into. I had no idea what apologetics was. At the church

I was at the time, no one even knew what the word meant. But I had been given—well, not so much given, but I had sort of absorbed,

I think, some good things already at that time. And I guess looking back,

I can see things that the Lord graciously did place in my life that have been extremely important.

And that is, you know, people ask me, what classes did you take that would have been the most important to you?

Very clearly, it was Greek and church history. I was already involved in apologetics.

And so many of the classes that a lot of people sleep through quite literally in seminary,

I was focused upon both Bible college and seminary, like Old Testament background,

New Testament background. I mean, literally, people just survived those things. I thrived in those classes because I knew how important those things were.

Scripture memorization was extremely important. But, you know, I would go back, and on a very, very practical level,

I would tell my 20 -year -old self, I know you're not getting enough sleep.

I was married at 19, had kids between 24 and 26. And so, you know—actually, it was a little earlier than that.

But anyway, it was hard work. It was taxing work. But I let my body fall apart.

By the time I was 30, I was overweight. I had pneumonia almost every December.

And I was not a good steward of my body. And we're a body -soul connection.

And I would take better care of myself along those lines, even if I didn't get as good grades in seminary, maybe, would be one thing.

I'm not going to sit here and tell anybody that I managed to balance the family perfectly and kids perfectly or anything else.

But, you know, my kids would say, Yeah, you spent time with us.

You introduced us to not only the faith, but the Christian worldview. And you instilled a lot of things in us that are still very important to us today.

And my wife and I have been married almost 36 years. So we've somehow survived all that. And so, obviously,

God gave me a very patient woman along those lines. But I'll be honest with you. I hesitate a lot to be viewed as the person to give wise counsel.

I know people write entire books about stuff like that. But, you know,

I realize God just took really good care of me. And that's how I got through, to be honest with you.

But I took a long time on that, Alex, because I've got two calls to get to. So we've got to run. But thanks for your call today.

Thank you so much. God bless. Bye -bye. All right, let's talk real quick with John.

Hi, John. Hey, Dr. White. Yeah, God takes good care of all of us. And I want to second your advice to make a transition from a church peaceful and loving.

I'm so glad I did that the last time I left church. Anyway, I wanted to thank you, first of all, for your inspiration.

I'm at the ripe old age of 59, so I'm a couple years older than you are. I'm finally taking Greek and loving every minute of it.

And I'm also enjoying Nick Needham's devotional, Early Church Fathers. I'm going to get the early church history thing going.

That's good. The reason that I wanted to ask you about is, and kind of an apologetic thing, when

I start talking about the Old Testament law and use of the

New Testament church era, one of the things that I've emphasized with people that I'm talking to is that Israel was kind of like the children, and so everything was very physical.

And then when we get to Matthew 5, Jesus is talking about them more philosophically, where He's really going, and He's dealing with them like He would deal with teenagers as opposed to children.

And I hope you think I'm probably on track with that. Well, there's certainly a greater depth of application, and especially spiritual application, in it's the same law, but it's spiritual aspect.

I'm not going to—there were people under the Old Covenant who were redeemed who understood that.

But one of the differences you would have, and I know the question has something to do with the Westminster and London Baptist, is that under the

New Covenant, you have every person. The law is written upon their hearts.

They delight in that. No one says, know the Lord, because they all know me from the greatest least. I've been merciful to their transgressions, so on and so forth.

And so, once you have a group who have all experienced that supernatural extension of grace, then you can have a much more originalist understanding of what

God is intending to do in the law, and what the law points us to in the fulfillment in Christ and things like that, that would be difficult in the mixed company prior to Christ.

Okay, yeah, and the Westminster to London is where I was going with that, because in Westminster 19 .3

it describes God was pleased to give the people of Israel as a church under age, and that as a church under age is not carried over into the

London. And I looked at Sam Walden's book on 1689, and I didn't see why—I didn't see where he addressed why that was removed in the

London version. Well, I can tell you who would have probably at least an article, if not a lecture, someplace on that.

It's not an area that I can help you much with, but I can certainly tell you who could, and that is

Dr. James Renahan, Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies, starting a Reformed Baptist seminary right now in the

Dallas area. And I just don't know anybody that has done more work on the 1689, and especially in its relationship to Savoy and the

Westminster Confession stuff than Jim Renahan has. So I've never done anything on that phrase, the church under age, but I can guarantee you if you contact him, he's probably—I can't guarantee this, but he's probably got something he could either just immediately send to you, a link to a lecture, something like that, that would probably give you what you're looking for.

Okay, and I've seen him in a couple of the Facebook groups, so I will hit him up.

And don't sell yourself short. You've actually given me some good direction there. I just want to thank you for your ministry and what it's meant to me and my wife and everybody

I come in contact with, because they're getting some second -hand view from when they're talking to me.

Well, I appreciate that, John. It's very encouraging. Thank you very much. Stay warm back there. All right.

God bless. Yeah, they have to stay warm back there. It looks like a winter wonderland.

All right, last phone call. Let's talk with Eric. Hi, Eric. Hey, Dr.

White. Thanks for taking my call. I promise to make this quick. So, my question is concerning Matthew chapter 13, when

Jesus is explaining the parable of the weeds, so down in verse 36. And I haven't seen this parable,

I guess, used in support of Reformed theology, but I just wanted your take on it, and I wanted to know, would this be a good parable to use in defense of Reformed theology, maybe in particular to limited atonement and also unconditional election?

Because to me it seems like it is a soteriological parable, but I don't know if there was any weaknesses with the parable itself, or if I'm even reading it exegetically correct.

Well, I don't want to make it sound like I'm diminishing the importance of parables or anything, but I think that as Jesus used parables to illustrate kingdom truths, we can appeal to parables as illustrations, but I would say that the didactic foundational theological basis needs to be derived elsewhere, because parables, by their very nature, are subject to multiple interpretations.

Now, this one, you have Jesus' own interpretation, but even when Jesus interprets it, we've found that people can come up with different ways of interpreting the interpretation.

So, in light of that, it's very true that what you're presented with in this parable is not something that emphasizes such things as the free will of man, or universal redemption concepts and things like that.

There is a strong emphasis upon the sovereignty of God accomplishing

His purpose. There is no question in God's mind who the good seed are, who the terrors are, the sons of the evil one.

But, you know, I would imagine the quote -unquote other side would simply look at this as being descriptive from God's end of things, and not necessarily proving the point one way or the other.

So, you know, I would see it as supportive in being consistent with the perspective, but it's just not been my practice to start there and then to try to prop up the interpretation

I've given of the parable with references from someplace else. I think there are so many direct, clear statements in Scripture, contextually, that we don't have to do that.

And so we can go to the parables later. Okay. Yeah, because I remember when you talked about the flowers, when you guys were debating, he always wants to go to that parable of the lost son or the prodigal son.

And yeah, so I'm trying to be wary of that and not do that. But, okay, great.

Fantastic. All right. Thanks, Eric. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, God bless. You stay warm back there, too.

I will. Yeah, all that snow back there. Okay, well, we only went a few minutes over.

That wasn't bad. Aimed that pretty well, right? Well, thank you,

Patrick. I just saw something on Twitter here. Let me look over here real quick.

Oh, there's a... When Dr. Oakley introduces a video from Bethel about the dead raising team.

Yeah, that probably woke a few people up, I would imagine. And then

Patrick enjoyed our conversation. So, hopefully,

I don't have to, you know, I don't want to be a broken record here, but just a reminder.

We were chatting. I mean, literally had to run in here, do the program from chatting with people in Belfast, in the

United Kingdom, Midlands area. We had just started to tie in our South African folks.

We're working on this trip. It's a lot of trying to schedule things. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I'm willing to do that kind of work, but we need your support to make it happen.

And so, just a reminder, if you want to go to the donation page at aomin .org, there's a travel fund there.

If you can help us to get over to do these types of events, it's always very, very helpful.