Keith Answers Questions about Ministry, Calvinism, and Apologetics

Do you smell that?

It's the smell of victory.

Your Calvinist podcast begins right now.

Sometimes I feel all down on me.

Swiss soccer.

Mixer man.

Shoe polish.

And I hate the YouTube league.

Don't say hate, that sounds violent.

And I feel my troubles on.

Podcasts with.

Your Calvinist podcast is filmed before a live studio audience.

Welcome back to your Calvinist podcast.

My name is Keith Foskey.

And as always, I am your Calvinist.

And today is another mailbag episode.

We're going to be going through your emails that you sent in, answering the questions that you have sent in.

And we're going to be talking about those in just a minute.

But before I do, I want to go back and discuss a little bit about this little beauty right here.

This is a cigar from 1689 cigars.

And just this last week, I did win the cigar contest that was put on by the Dead Men

Walking podcast.

And was sponsored by 1689 cigars.

And I want to thank Chance over there for putting that together and sponsoring it.

And for Greg at Dead Men Walking for putting the contest together.

But most of all, I want to thank all of you who voted for me.

I did not think I would make it past round two where I was up against the formidable Doug Wilson.

But I did.

And as the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson, I said if I beat him, he was going to have to become the Harbor Freight Keith Foskey.

So I am working on getting a shirt made and going to send it to him, which I assume he'll never wear.

I'm pretty sure he didn't even know there was a contest going on.

Had he even tweeted a little bit to try to win, he probably would have beaten me handedly with no

problem.

But he didn't.

So I won.

And I took it all the way to the end because you guys are awesome.

And you stood with me.

And I love you.

And I appreciate you.

So not only now am I the Harbor Freight Doug Wilson, the king of the Amillennialists, but I am

also the cigar toting champion pastor podcaster of Twitter

ex Dead Men Walking podcast.

That one's a little long to say.

How about we just say the cigar champion of 2024?

And if they do it again in 2025, I'm coming back strong and I'm going to win it again.

So thank you guys again for voting for me.

Again, I couldn't believe I made it past Doug Wilson.

And, you know, Dusty Devers was awesome.

And I was able to have a little interaction with him.

That was fun.

Matthew Everhard, who I had on the program last week to talk about it, he was awesome.

And then, of course, T .R. Wiley.

And Marcus Pittman was the first one I went up against.

He bowed out of the contest because he wasn't on Twitter.

I think that's everybody.

I'm trying to think if there was anybody else I went up against.

Oh, Toby Sumter was the second or the third one and

was thankful for every again, thankful for everybody who voted.

It was a fun contest and really was encouraging to me, especially when I was away on my anniversary.

My wife really got into the fun.

She was watching.

It's like, are you winning or how's the voting going?

So, like, she was with me the whole time.

And I'm thankful to have a wife who steers into my crazy the way that she does.

And I'm really thankful for her for many reasons, but not the least of which is that she just

she's as crazy as I am.

And I love her for that.

And I want to remind you also, 1689 Cigars, the ones who sponsored the program, also

give a coupon for this show.

So if you are interested in cigars and you want to get one and you're watching the show, you can

use my first name, Keith, and get a percentage off over at 1689 Cigars.

If you want to get you a high quality, good cigar or many high quality, good

cigars.

Also want to mention we're in the middle of a tropical storm here in Florida, which for us is pretty common.

We get them several times a year.

But if I lose power, I'll just have to start over recording.

Hopefully I won't lose the recording.

But just a reminder that there is bad weather out.

So if you hear a little background noise today, it's raining sideways all around me.

And of course, I'm in the Theo shed.

This is not the best of buildings, a little metal building in my backyard.

So that's where I broadcast from in an undisclosed location in around

Jacksonville, Florida.

Don't actually live in Jacksonville proper.

One other thing I wanted to also mention is I posted yesterday.

I said, hey, I'm doing the podcast this week.

And I asked, what would you guys like me to talk about?

And several of you gave some really great answers.

And I want you to know I'm not ignoring what you wrote.

I'm actually thinking about putting together some shows based upon those recommendations.

And I want to say, if you have questions that you want me to address, if you have questions you want me to get into in a future

episode, please send me a email.

And you can do that by going to KeithFoskey .com.

And you can send me an email directly from the website.

There's a contact form there.

It goes directly to my inbox.

I read it.

I try to respond pretty quickly.

Sometimes it takes a few days, but I do try to respond as quickly as I can.

And if the question is something that I think will benefit a large group of people, like the ones I'm looking at today,

I do a mailbag episode.

Now, getting to that, let's talk about what we're going to be doing on the show today.

Because there are several questions, and I hope that I get to them all.

I don't want to make this an hour -long program.

I'm hoping that this will be kept under an hour.

And this first one, this first question that I received is actually three questions in a row.

I think this was actually intended for my interaction with Matthew Everhard, because these are short, pithy questions.

And if you didn't get to see it, I had Matthew Everhard on last Saturday

or Friday.

I don't remember what day it was.

I think it was Friday.

I think it was the day of the contest, the last day of the contest, and he and I were talking.

And we were answering questions, online questions.

And this was probably from that, but it came through an e -mail.

So I'm going to start off today's mailbag with this one.

Three quick questions.

Number one, would you invite John McArthur, Votie Bauckham, Ken Ham, or Trump on the podcast?

Now, I'm assuming this question is, which one would I rather have?

Like, who would I like to have the most?

Because, obviously, I would invite any of these guys on the podcast.

But who would I like to have the most?

Well, John McArthur is certainly a man who has had a tremendous impact in my life, and to have the

blessing of getting to talk to him would be awesome.

Votie Bauckham, I am actually going to try to work on getting him on the program.

So if anybody knows him and knows a way I can get in touch with him, that would be great.

Ken Ham, I'm working on him as well.

All these guys are super busy, and so I understand if they can't take time out for a podcast.

So I understand.

But if I had to choose between these four guys, who would you want to interview and ask questions to?

I would love to ask questions of Donald Trump.

And if I had the opportunity to talk to Trump, I would want to share the gospel with him and simply make sure that he

understands what it means when we say that Jesus Christ died on the cross for

sinners.

And if you trust in him and put your faith in him and trust in his finished work, not in what you have done, not in what you

have accomplished, but if you trust in his finished work, you can have eternal life based upon what

he did, not upon what you do.

And I would love to share that message with Donald Trump.

I know Donald Trump has a lot of religious people around him, and I sometimes wonder about what he's

hearing.

And if I had the opportunity, that's what I'd like to do.

So the second question is, can King Charles III remove the King James Version

from public domain?

This is an interesting question.

My answer is, I don't really understand copyright law.

So as far as what's in the public domain and what's not when it comes to Bibles, I know certain Bibles

have copyrights like the NIV and the ESV and the New American Standard are owned.

They're copyrighted.

And so I've heard people say that the King James Version is not copyrighted.

I've heard other people say it's held under the King's copyright.

What I'm going to do, though, for this question is I have a friend named Dwayne Green.

He has a channel that's all about the text of the Bible, and he did a video on the

copyright of the King James and asking the question, is the King James copyrighted?

So if you want to watch and learn more about that, I'm going to tag Dwayne's video in

the comments of this or in the description of this video.

And I want to say this also about Dwayne.

I want to give him a shout out.

One, I know he watches the show, so thank you, Dwayne, for being out there and being a friend and being a supporter.

I also want to say this.

Many of you have commented about my joke.

When I say at the end of the video, I say, if you like this video, hit the thumbs -up button.

If you don't like this video, hit the thumbs -down button twice.

Dwayne is the first person I ever heard say that.

I thought it was so funny, so I started saying it, and then people started commenting on the fact that I was saying it.

So I want to say this.

If you ever hear Dwayne say that, he said it first.

I don't know who he got it from.

I don't know if he invented that, but I thought it was funny.

I started saying it.

You guys started picking up on it, thought it was funny.

So that's Dwayne's joke.

I want to give him props for that and probably should have done it before now.

But, yeah, go watch Dwayne's videos.

He's great.

He's a great brother in Christ.

And, again, I've been on his show before.

He invited me on one time, and I went on, and it was fun.

Third question from this, and then we'll move to the next.

Do you believe that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is the actual place Jesus was buried?

My answer is, I don't know.

And I know that's probably not a very satisfying answer, but I don't know.

I don't know if the location that they have marked off and said this was the burial site of Jesus Christ is

legitimate.

I have reason to question its legitimacy.

Only in that I know that there is a lot of attempts to try to nail down

certain things simply for tourist attractions and things

like that.

And I know historically there are questions about where the burial site of Jesus was and all

those things.

So I don't know.

The best thing I can say is this.

During the time of Luther,

it was believed that the steps that Jesus walked up when he went to go see

Pontius Pilate on the day of the crucifixion, that those steps had been taken apart by

the crusaders and taken back to Rome, and those steps are now in Rome.

And during the life of Luther, he went to Rome and went up those steps on his knees, praying each

time he went up the steps.

And that kind of stuff, those artifacts and

things like that, I have a lot of questions about that as far as how we can know for

certain whether or not this is or is not the place, or those are or are

not the steps Jesus walked up, or things like that.

And I'm not an expert in that area.

So to answer your question, my answer is I don't know.

And honestly, I'm not sure we can know with absolute certainty a question like

that for sure.

So before I go to the next question, I just want to mention one other thing.

This is an important part of the show, and that is our supporters.

I am thankful for everybody who supports the show, and if you want to support the show, you can do so by

going to buymeacoffee .com slash your Calvinist, and you can become a member.

You can also become a member of our Superior Theology Club here on YouTube.

If you just want to click join, you can join.

And there are different tiers, and different tiers receive different benefits, perks for being members.

And also, if you want to support us, one of the best ways you can is just go buy a tiny Bible.

Tinybibles .com is an actual sponsor of our show.

This is the smallest Bible you can get on the market, and I would encourage you to go to tinybibles .com.

They're also working on a tiny Gospel of John, which is going to be available as well.

So if you're interested and you want to do that, you can also, again, use my name, Keith, in the coupon code,

and you'll get a good percentage off if you go and buy yourself a Bible.

Also remember that this show is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church, so if you're in the Jacksonville, Florida

area, and you would like to visit us, you can learn more about us at sgfcjacks

.org.

All right, moving on to several questions.

Different emails came in, but these are all questions that relate to ministry.

So I put them in—I bulked them all together as ministry -related questions.

Later we're going to have a Calvinism -related question, and then we're going to finish off with an apologetics question.

So we'll start out with the ministry -related questions, and we'll

start with—again, I don't give the names, but this is what it says.

It says, Hello, Mr. Calvinist.

My name is—I won't say his name—and I first want to send you my appreciation and

blessings to you, your ministry, and your content.

My question is related to church conduct, and as a pastor, how do you deal with members in your church who do

not assemble with you regularly?

I have many excuses for that.

How should a minister go about addressing this problem?

Does he always have to nag the people to come to church in phone calls, or—and then he put question mark—your answer

is greatly appreciated.

And I think this is a great question, and it's a question I'm happy to try to answer, because

it is a difficult thing when you have people who are church members who begin to

miss church on a regular basis and then eventually drop off completely.

Like, what can be done?

And that's the question, you know, how do you deal with members in your church who don't assemble regularly?

Well, first of all, I want to say this.

When we receive a new member, we take them through a new

member orientation or a new member class where we talk about expectations of

membership, and we tell them that it is expected of people who covenant with this church,

become members of the church, that they're going to participate in the weekly Lord's Day service.

Now, we don't require participation in, like, Sunday evening activities or Wednesday

evening activities, but we do believe the Sunday morning activity of the church is something that all members should

covenant to be a part of unless they are restrained by possibly work or maybe being out of

town or something like that or sickness.

But we do encourage them and say, as a member of this church, you're expected to be here regularly, and

we have in our Constitution the ability to remove members if they cease to

participate on a regular basis.

And what is regularity?

Well, that is determined by the elders, and we have sort of an unwritten

rule.

There was a written rule at one time, but we ended up taking it out.

Used to, our Constitution says if a person had not participated in Lord's Day worship for

a period of 120 days, which is four months, we said that person

would be removed from the membership role.

And they knew that coming in.

If you do not participate in Lord's Day worship for a period of four months or more, then

you'll be removed.

And now we sort of hold that as like an unwritten rule.

It's no longer in the Constitution that that's a de facto rule.

But we do look at that as saying if a person hasn't been in worship for 90 to 120

days, that's a big issue.

But we also make this point.

That would never happen without some type of conversation.

And we have deacons who have phone lists whose job it is to, on a monthly to bimonthly basis,

reach out to church members and try to let them know that they're cared for, that they're loved, find out any issues they have,

pass along any prayer requests to the elders.

So there's a lot that goes into ministry that's not just, hey, you're not here, you're getting checked off the list.

No, we're reaching out to these people.

But after a certain point of reaching out to them, talking to them, if it's obvious they're no longer wanting to

participate in the ministry of the Church, then at a certain point we would remove them from the membership role.

And I know a lot of churches that wouldn't dare purge the roles, but we think it's an important and vital

part of ensuring that we know who it is we are ministering to.

And so we do that fairly regularly, going through and making sure that the people who are members of the

Church are people who are actually participating in the life of the Church.

So that's a great question, and that's how we would handle that.

Moving to the next question, it says, With many churches no longer having a Sunday night

service, especially coming out of the COVID era, do you suggest a

return to Sunday night service, or do you think only having Sunday morning and Wednesday night allows for more rest and better

preparation?

If you have in favor of Sunday night service, what is your preferred structure for these services, especially if it

pertains to children and youth?

If your preferred structure differs from what has been most effective in your experience, what structure is most effective?

Obviously everyone doesn't learn the same way, and some prefer small groups to large

group lecture style, just like people have preferences in music.

Okay, so this is...I was just trying to read the email and word it a little differently here.

But ultimately the question is, should there be a Sunday night service?

And if you have a Sunday and Wednesday night service, how should those be structured?

And honestly, this is a question that is so individual, in the

sense that different churches are going to do their Sunday evening and Wednesday evening differently.

Many churches have gone away from doing Wednesday evening services and have just totally given up on any type of midweek meeting,

and now try to encourage people to meet in their homes.

They're called home group studies, or life groups, or stuff like that.

Our church has never done that.

Our church has stuck with the Sunday morning, Wednesday evening model.

But our Sunday evenings, which is how the question began, our Sunday evenings

we have what's known as Sovereign Grace Academy.

Sovereign Grace Academy is a two -year ministry training program where we go through a

series of eight core classes, and they include everything from survey of Old Testament, New Testament,

Bible doctrine, church history.

There is classes in ethics, classes in apologetics,

classes in, I think I mentioned doctrine.

There's eight core classes, including church life and ministry, which is based on my book, A Biblically Functioning Church.

And so those classes are on Sunday night.

They go for eight weeks at a time, and there's about a month in between classes, which gives people an opportunity to do all the

homework that's required.

There's usually a final exam, which includes an essay, and we give the people a few weeks

to do that before we start a new class.

So we don't always have a Sunday evening activity, but that's what our Sunday evening activity is right now.

I love Sunday evening church.

It has never been something that got a lot of

people to participate in our particular body, and part of the reason for that is our church

has members who live all over Jacksonville.

And if you know anything about Jacksonville, Florida, one thing about Jacksonville, Florida is Jacksonville, Florida is huge.

It takes an hour to get from one side to the other.

It's just a big city.

And we have people that come from the beach.

We have people that come from almost St. Augustine.

So having people come back on Sunday night is a little difficult.

So once a month we have a fellowship meal after church on Sunday.

I'd love to do that more, but that's our routine for now.

And so we try to fellowship and minister and things while we're there.

And we do have a Sunday evening activity, but I'd probably say it's only a handful of people who actually come to the Academy, so it's not a big

draw.

Wednesday evening we have Bible study prayer, and our youth are just about to start a new catechism class.

And my wife and one of our other elders and another lady in the church are all going to be leading that.

One of the elders is going to be teaching the catechism questions and teaching the meaning behind them, and then the ladies of the church,

my wife and another lady, are going to be taking them through activities to memorize the catechism questions and things like

that.

So it's really neat.

But again, I'm not saying that's a model or anything.

That's just what we do, the SGFC Catechism Club.

And so I hope that was helpful.

The question of should there be a Sunday evening service, I think it depends on your context.

I don't think it's required.

The Lord's Day meeting in the morning, I think, is the most important thing that we do.

An evening service is great.

I think it can be very encouraging.

People who grew up with it tend to have a very soft spot in their heart for it, because it

was a great opportunity to just be with the saints at the beginning and the ending of the day, sort of bookending the Lord's Day.

But I don't think a church is in sin if it doesn't have a Sunday evening service.

I just think it's a good thing to have.

We have our academy.

So it just depends on the context of the church.

All right, moving on.

This was a very personal question, and I thought I was very thankful for the person who sent it.

He said,

Right away, great question.

And I get it, because there's a dynamic in any relationship,

but particularly in the relationship between a pastor and a church member, there's always that

dynamic of being in a position of shepherding.

And now you feel like that dynamic is somewhat inverted, because there are times where your pastor's leaning on

you for mentoring because you're an older man.

And first of all, I just have to say that's great from a pastoral perspective.

As a pastor, I have always been grateful for the men who are older than me, men who I can lean on in

certain areas of my life where I know I still have some maturing and growing to do.

So I think the relationship you're in is great.

I think there are areas that you have to consider.

Your pastor does have a certain authority in your life in regard to the preaching of the Word and shepherding your

soul.

And so I would encourage you to be careful not to

dismiss where he does have wisdom, not to dismiss where he does have that

ability to speak into your life.

And primarily, his speaking into your life is from the Word of God.

He speaks from the Word, from the pulpit.

He preaches the Word of God.

And that's the only authority the pastor has is what the Word of God says.

We repeat it.

We speak it.

We stand on it.

And that's the authority.

And so I would encourage you to continue to be a blessing to your pastor, to continue to

love him, to continue to support him.

And I want to tell you, I'm thankful for the men in my life who are older than me, who speak into my life, sometimes even

correctively speak into my life things that I need to hear, things that are sometimes hard to hear

at the time because nobody likes to be corrected, especially when you're doing wrong.

Nobody wants to hear that, not even pastors.

But it's nice to have those people in your life who can do that.

And so if you can be that to your pastor and yet still respect the place that God has placed him

in your life and let it be a mutual relationship of upbuilding and not where one feels like they're in a

position of necessarily any type of superiority over the other one, I think that would

be very helpful.

All right, so moving on.

This is, again, a lot of ministry questions came in in the last couple weeks.

I'm an elder in a small church and I think a big city, 400 ,000 people.

That's pretty good.

There are three churches in this city that are split -offs.

We have the same theology but had historical falling -outs over matters of dispute between the board and

the pastor.

This was before I arrived.

I don't know many specifics.

Do you think we should seek institutional reunification?

It seems a reproach to us that we are so divided, but maybe letting people be separated

is good.

Thankful for your thoughts.

If you use this in a video, don't use my name.

Well, I'm not going to because I don't use anyone's name, but thank you for that reminder.

I try to always make sure I don't do that.

All right, so to the person who emailed this, I did respond to you because I wanted to respond

via email, but I also said I was going to put this in video because I think this is a good sort of case study

and what do we do where we are.

Because in the situation you're in, you're saying there are three churches that at one time were together.

They split off from one another, and now you have three specific churches.

And does unity require reunification?

Does the biblical standard require that you guys come back together?

And my answer to you in the email and giving it now in the video is that I don't think that

where you are now would require coming back under the same banner.

And my reasoning for this is because where you are now, however long ago this was, I have no idea how many years ago this was, but

wherever you are now, you're in a place where most likely you now have

an individual structure for each church, probably with a pastor and elders in those churches.

And so you have three leaderships, three structural

positional authorities in those churches, and no matter how they got there as far as the

churches dividing and all those things, that's where you are now.

Trying to bring all of those back together would be a tremendous feat, and I don't even know that it

would be necessary.

I think it might be possible that if there was sin involved that caused the

division, and there almost always is, that perhaps it might be good to have those sins

recognized, repented of, maybe even publicly there be some type of

church, like the three churches recognize one another as sister churches,

but not necessarily have to close and all come back to the same place or something like that.

I don't think that's absolutely necessary.

And let me give you an example.

It's not a one -to -one example, but here's an example from my own

experience at Sovereign Grace.

There is another church in town that is also called Sovereign Grace.

It's Sovereign Grace Baptist Church.

It's pastored by Shane Waters, and we get their mail, sometimes they get our mail, sometimes Sovereign

Grace Family Church, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, very close.

They're on a different side of town than us, so there is some geographical distinction, but we have the same name,

pretty much the same theology.

We have little distinctions here and there, but ultimately we're very similar.

And we consider ourselves sister churches in the sense that

even though we are not under the same banners, we're not under the same name, we're not under the same authority, we pray for

one another, we encourage one another.

There's even been times in the past where we have helped one another when we were in need.

We can love one another without having to be the same church.

And I know it's a different situation with this email because the question of, well, they were once the same and they split.

But sometimes coming back together is not

necessarily going to be the answer.

Sometimes the answer is simply recognizing there were failures in the past, recognizing where you are now, and saying,

okay, now we're going to move forward where we are.

We have three churches, let's recognize each other as churches.

If there have been sins of the past, let's repent of those, let's reconcile whatever needs to be reconciled, and let's move

forward as three churches and encourage one another as churches, consider each other sister churches, uphold

one another in prayer, and support one another in whatever ways are necessary.

That would be my thought.

I don't think reunification under the same banner, under the same church, is absolutely

necessary.

So, let me see, I think those were all the ministry questions.

Wow, we got through them all.

Okay, so we got the...

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

Let's go now to a Calvinism -related question.

Been waiting for this one, I'm sure.

Everybody wants to hear me talk about Calvinism.

But hey, that's my name.

You're Calvinist.

It's the name of the program.

So, here's the question.

Hi, Keith.

I believe the five points of Calvinism, but when I'm asked why, and I try to explain why, I believe

this way, not all people, but some, will get offended that they are the one who chooses.

How do you delicately explain the doctrine of total depravity?

I feel like I'm doing it wrong and want to be a good steward of the understanding that God has so graciously given to me.

If this is something you would like to answer in the mailbox video, I would like that.

Thank you and God bless.

Well, I'm doing that.

But I do want to mention, I did respond to this email and sent a link,

and I'm going to add this link into the description of this video as well.

And the link is to a series I did on the five points of Calvinism.

It's five sermons on total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance

of the saints.

It's a playlist not on my channel, but it's on our church's channel, so if you're interested and you want

to go and watch those videos, it will help you understand what scriptures that I would use if

I were explaining these things.

It would help you understand the logic and the reason behind how I understand these things,

and it's basically a primer to understanding Calvinism.

And I can't do all of that in this video, but I will try to give a simple answer in this video

to the question, and that is people are going

to be generally offended by Calvinism

primarily because it flies in the face of what most people think

is the natural order, and the natural order that most people think is

that I am the one who's in charge of my destiny.

I am the one who is going to either choose or not choose my own destiny.

And when you begin to explain to someone that the Bible says that our chooser

is broken, that our ability to choose faith in Christ

is actually outside of our ability because we are bound in sin until

such time as God releases us, when you begin to tell someone that, by nature they

tend to recoil from that, because it doesn't seem like that.

It goes along with most of what they've probably heard.

Most of what people have heard is, you know, choose.

Make a choice.

It's your free will choice.

I mean, Billy Graham's magazine was called Decision Magazine, you know,

and so it's an affront to the

way that most people have been taught, and most people have thought about these things.

And I remember when I first heard about Calvinism, when someone first asked me the question, what do I

think about Calvinism?

What do I think about predestination?

And of course my answer was, well, God knows what I'm going to choose, and therefore that's how

I'm predestined, is God knows I'm going to choose thus and so.

And again, that was way before I ever even thought about studying Calvinism.

I just, that was my answer, and that's the answer most people are going to give.

And because it seems logical, it seems right, until we begin to step back and say, but wait a minute,

what is it about this, what is it, what's the problem?

The problem is, my sin has me bound before God is

gracious in His grace to release me from that binding and to give me the ability to

believe.

I believe that faith is a gift from God, not just the faith as a gift, but faith

itself is something that comes from God's Spirit giving me the ability to

do that.

And like I said, not everybody argues against it, but the people who do, that's generally the

reason why.

And I'm not typically in the business of trying to convince people,

and that may sound funny, coming from a Calvinist, I'm not out trying to convince people.

There was a time, I think most Calvinists go through their cage stage, where they're just trying to convince everybody of

Calvinism, but I kind of left that a long time ago.

I'm really, if somebody disagrees with me on this, I'm fine with that, we can have a conversation as to why and

how I reach the conclusions that I reach, but I'm certainly not trying to

argue with people.

I have conversations, and sometimes those conversations are very fruitful, and sometimes those conversations are less fruitful.

But ultimately, my goal is to point people to the Scriptures, point

people to Christ, point people to what I believe is the truth about the Scriptures.

And so, when you ask the question, how do you delicately explain the doctrine of total

depravity, I try to help people

understand that when we talk about

our inability, and that's where total depravity, even of itself, is not a great use of language.

I think just the idea of moral inability, the fact that we lack something that God has to

give us the ability to do, I think that helps people understand we have a lack, we

have a need, and the only one who can help us, the only one who can give us that ability, the only one who

can overcome that, that lack, is God.

And I know one of the things, and there's a lot of arguments about this online, so I'm

sure someone in the comments will come in and write a dissertation as to why this is a bad argument, but I do

like this as a consideration.

When I think about why I believed, and why someone else who heard the same gospel, and

was in the Church, and heard the same message, and maybe for even longer than I did, and they didn't believe.

I believed, and they didn't believe.

I have to ask the question, is the difference in me?

Is the difference that I was more spiritually sensitive, that I was smarter, or somehow, in some way, more

righteous?

Because I was willing to listen and hear God's Word, and receive it, and they weren't?

The answer is no.

The answer is, it's 100 % God.

And it was God who, by His sovereign decree, chose to open my heart, and

I trust in that.

And I'm thankful that God chose to open my eyes, and open my heart.

And so maybe explaining it like that might be more helpful, but again, it

isn't something that I would make a cornerstone of my argument with people.

Just have conversations, and try to do so in a way that lovingly understands that some

of what you're saying, much of what you're saying, will be going against what they maybe have heard before.

And that's okay, because a lot of what's taught in evangelicalism today is just straight -up unbiblical anyway.

So just because someone's never heard what you're saying doesn't make it untrue.

It just means that they're probably not going to receive it very well.

All right, last but not least, and this one is actually...

This is a pretty difficult apologetics question, and it comes

from a specific Bible verse.

From the book of Isaiah, chapter 55, it says, Keith, I'm reading Isaiah 55, and I

come against something that I can't explain.

In verse 10, God is talking about how the rain and the snow fall from heaven, and do not return.

And I'm struggling to reconcile this with the well -established water cycle.

The water cycle is where water is in a cloud, then it rains and falls to the earth, then it flows to the ocean, where it evaporates

and forms a cloud, and the cycle repeats.

I understand that verse 10 is a metaphor to enhance our understanding of verse 11, and they may play into an explanation,

but I'm not getting it.

So I have two questions about this.

Number one, what is heaven in this passage, the atmosphere, space, or God's throne?

That is a great question, because there are three ways the word heaven is used.

What we call the atmospheric heavens, the stellar heavens, and then the abode of God.

So he's recognizing that, which is great.

And I do think that the heavens here is referring to atmospheric heavens, where the clouds and the birds and everything exists.

So I think that's what's in view here.

And the second question is, if heaven is the atmosphere, how do we reconcile this passage with science?

And then he goes on to say that he was...

He said, feel free to use his name.

So I said, don't use names unless people ask me to.

So this is David Rose, and he said MS, which I think is Master of Science.

That's good.

Okay.

So you're a scientifically -minded person, and you're reading the Scripture that seems

to go against the scientific method, or at least what we understand about science and the water table.

And I understand the question.

I said it was a difficult apologetics question, and it's difficult only in the sense that it does address something that

seems to be scientific and go against what we now know scientifically.

And yet there are other places in the Bible that seem to indicate an understanding of things like the water

cycle and things like that, and the formation of clouds and water coming from the clouds, and evaporation and things like that.

But what we do need to understand is there is something in the Bible that is very, very common,

especially in prophetic literature, and that's what's known as phenomenological

language.

Phenomenological language is the language of appearance.

That means this is what something appears to us to be.

And we use this all the time.

And you've probably heard this before, but maybe if you haven't, when a

weatherman says that the sun is going to rise at 7 a .m.,

well, that's not correct, because the sun actually doesn't rise.

In the universe, the Earth is turning around the sun, and the Earth is turning on an

axis as it turns around the sun.

And because of that, we see the sun rise, and we see the sun fall.

It rises in the east, and it sets in the west.

And yet we know, scientifically, when he says the sun rises at 7 o 'clock, that's

actually not what's happening.

That's simply what we see.

That is phenomenological language, the language of appearance.

And so when Isaiah in Isaiah 55 is talking about this passage, there's a good

chance that he's simply using the language of appearance, that the water falls, and it

doesn't go back up.

Because we don't see that.

We don't see flowing into the rivers, as you said, going out and evaporating and becoming clouds.

That's not something that's visible to us.

And so the point that's being made in the passage is not trying to make a scientific point.

It's not trying to argue for a scientific position.

It's simply saying, this is what is seen.

This is what is visible to us.

Now, I did take an opportunity to look around, and there are a lot of websites

and different apologetics ministries that have tried to deal with this

particular passage, and some have come up with some creative ways of trying to understand it.

I think phenomenological language is the simplest way.

It might not be the only way that it could be understood, but that's the way.

If someone in my church were to ask me this question, if you were in my church, this would probably be the way that I would

seek to help you understand it.

And again, this is one of those times where we have to understand the Bible is not attempting to be a

scientific textbook.

You know, when the Bible talks about the moon turning to blood, well, we don't believe the moon's going to have

hemoglobin, right?

We believe that that's a visible representation of the moon

turning red.

You know, it's turning to blood.

But, you know, and then you get John Hagee talking about the blood moons.

Don't want to get into that.

But the point is, the Bible uses phenomenological language.

It's not uncommon.

I think that's probably what is in view here.

But you did mention in the email that you're going to also talk to your elders about it.

I'd be curious as to their answer and how they respond to you, because this is a good question.

Anytime someone has a scientific question, I think it's important to try to give the best answer that we can,

because as we learn more about the earth around us, it does make us ask questions about certain things.

But ultimately, I come down on the position that the Bible is, of course, the Word of God.

It speaks with authority, and sometimes it speaks in a way that's simply meant to convey something that is

seen, not trying to convey an entire scientific process in the language being used.

So I hope that's helpful.

I hope that gives you a better understanding of what is trying to be conveyed here.

And again, if you do talk to your elders and they come to a different answer, send me a message.

I would like to hear from you again.

Thanks, David, for sending me that email.

All right, that brings me to a close on today's Mailbag episode, and I hope that this encourages you to send me

your own email.

I would love to get an email from you.

If you have a question that you'd like for me to address on the show.

Also, I haven't mentioned it yet, I don't think, but I am wearing a special tie today.

This is my happy face tie with a Tasmanian devil at the bottom.

It's really cool.

I've had this tie since high school, but I never ever get to wear it because I always felt like it wasn't quite appropriate for church, especially with the

Tasmanian devil on it.

But I got to wear it today, so that's fun.

And I've had a few ladies at church have been going to thrift stores and finding ties and sending them to me.

And even a few of you guys out there in Facebook and YouTube and Twitter land have sent me ties.

So I just want you to know that's why I'm wearing ties on the show now.

I'm trying to be thankful for the people who have been giving me gifts and also show off some of my older ties that I haven't worn in a long time.

So if you happen to have a tie you want to send me, feel free.

And if you do want to know how to get a hold of me, just go to KeithFoskey .com and you can

send me an email and we can correspond that way.

Again, I want to thank you for listening to Your Calvinist Podcast.

If you liked this episode, please hit the thumbs -up button.

If you didn't like it, make sure to, as Dwayne always says, hit the thumbs -down button twice.

Thank you for listening to Your Calvinist Podcast.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you.

In debates he stands, so he conquers.