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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.
If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five three Three three four one and now with today's topic.
Here is James White.
And good afternoon. Welcome to the dividing line from I think in. What was it? It's not Eagle River. Chugiak, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pyromaniac, sir. Chugiak, Alaska. Where we have taken over I guess they call this the Sun room if this is the Sun room, where is the Sun?
This is this is a rather cloudy day up here in Alaska. I am up here for a conference that actually I'll be speaking at in just a number of hours. I hope I can wake up between now and then and in fact, I hope you'll help me out.
Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. I'm not sure that we can do. The dividing line. Dividing dot line at Skype because we're using me for Skype. So I don't think we can do Skype calls if I recall correctly.
Sure, rich will let me know one way or another but please feel free to get on the phone and join with us today and I might at some point in time Convince one of the folks that's lurking in the background taking pictures of me right now a Certain Phil Johnson to join with me.
He's up here with me and We are there various. See come on now. Aren't you glad you talked me into a Mac at some point in time? I am. You you told me a long time ago any of those things and of course you recognize this over here.
This is the chat channel, which is the means by which rich is communicating with me right now. Yeah, I'm on on my Mac, but I'm actually In Windows running a virtual machine and I still use MIRC. So, I don't know how to make sense of that and that is that's Merc as well but that's running under wine or crossover, so it's it is a Windows program that we're both running on colloquy is nice, but it's not it's not Merc.
So anyways, so most of you know Phil Johnson Executive director, I believe that's right of grace to you. But most of you don't know is that if you hear me talking about the channel all the time in When I'm on the dividing line, that is our IRC channel, and I didn't know what IRC was until 1996 and I came over to Southern, California.
And I think I was just as I recall is just speaking in your Bible study class wasn't I I think that's right. Yeah and you had you had learned of me because. Well, you get a lot of correspondence that grace to you, right?
Right, and I'd gotten some email from a or maybe it was even white mail in those days from an angry Roman Catholic. Do we still talk I'm not sure. Can you talk about white mails? That's what we used to call mail that came on white paper right now, right and this angry Roman Catholic was furious about something we broadcast on grace to you and he sent me some tapes from Scott Hahn and.
So I was in the process of responding to this and and somehow doing research. I came across Your debates with Jerry Maddox, oh goodness, and I listened to those and I thought who is this guy and Why have I never heard of him before?
So I wrote you and said, who are you? Where did you come from? And how is it? I've never heard of you and we began to correspond and I and now at that time our good friend I would say he would consider himself a good friend of both of ours Doug McMaster's.
That's right. Was what was Doug doing for grace? He was he worked at grace to you and. Was he answered a lot of our listener mail? He did a lot of the correspondence. Yeah, it's the things like that. Yeah, he was as that was his Backup job while he was going to seminary at the master seminary.
So he was the masters at the time. Yeah and he is now for those of you who are wondering who Doug masters is you've probably heard me because I've done the dividing line from London and specifically the last two debates that I've done there have been a Trinity Road Chapel in I like to say Wandsworth because it sounds so much better than upper tooting.
Yeah, or lower tooting is even worse. Your wife is shaking. New years gonna say that. But yes in and he's Doug's gonna hear this too and we're both gonna get an email about it. But yeah, he's right down the road from Wimbledon.
He says yes says he can see Wimbledon from his house. I I've been to his house and I've never noticed Wimbledon, but I've just never looked that far down the street. You have to have a good clear day.
And if you're staying at the front porch, you'll look right and it's sort of the hill down there. The way he describes it to me is is on a good day. You can hear them cheering during during the during the tournament, but so Doug was over there and I came over and I Man, I remember that first time in your class and I don't remember What it was you had me speaking ahead of in some kind of Roman Catholic.
I'm sure it was. Yeah, it had something to do with apologetics and Roman. Yeah. Yeah, and that started it and I came at while I was over there I don't know. I guess you fired it up on your computer in your office or something.
You said hey, this is this is called IRC and at a time it was a Chorus was the channel that we that's right. That's right. And so I went back and I Installed Merc and I started coming in and I were you an op-in in cars at the time I may have been that you know, that was 1996 years ago, and I it's been probably 13 years since I was active on on.
Oh, yeah, you you dragged me in I don't addicted me and then left. And so it's been so long that I've forgotten all the commands on on Merc. I I think I Accidentally deopt John Mark a few minutes ago.
I Just forgotten how it works. Oh it is. Honestly, it's the same protocol they use in the 1980s. It really has not changed at all. Yeah, I just forgotten. Yeah. Yeah, so it's it but a lot of these folks I've gotten to know real well.
It's it is a family but this channel started as a side channel to chorus initially and then it sort of took on its own life and the chorus does I don't even that. What was? Undernet was an underneath at times.
Yeah, so now we have our we actually believe or not. This is our own network. Yeah, in fact, this is my first time on your network. I had to while you were napping in the other room I've had look I've had a pretty busy time since I got here.
I'm gonna tell you I'm not gonna go into all the details, but I I guess you've outed me already. So I did. I did in fact, I would have posted the picture had I had it. But I have to say I am deeply impressed with Dr. O's machismo.
I You know what? I did yesterday was eat some moose roadkill. What you did was kill a bear. I did. I did. I'm gonna tell you something when you come up to Alaska. You know, what do you do when you go to Alaska?
I mean you can do the Road trip type thing and every every corner you turn around you stop and take pictures and stuff like that but two years ago, I had come up and had tried to go bear hunting, but Biff who is the fellow who's?
Sort of running things for our conference this weekend Biff and I went out but it wasn't really organized. We really didn't we were just wandering through the Woods hoping for the chance encounter. When when I happen to have my gun ready but this time Ben from Faith Bible Fellowship out in Big Lake this guy.
He's he's taken a I think he said he's taken or seen taken around 35 or 40 bear. And he's only 30. So he started when he was 8. Yeah. In fact, he seems like he's bored with it. Now. He takes other people bear hunting.
Yes, and doesn't shoot them himself. He's just looking for that, but he skinned your bear. He certainly did and I was very thankful for that because it was 1040 last night. We're up in a tree stand and for people who don't know me.
I Have massive acrophobia. I if I can fall off of it. I don't like it now planes don't bother me a bit. But like if you if we're in a what do you do call this the Sun room or something? There's a deck over here.
And what would you say? It's about I don't know 10 15 20 feet off the ground. It's like that if you were to go over there and like lean over the deck. Or lean over the railing that would that would make my knees wobble.
I mean because not only if I fall off with something if somebody else falls off something so for example when I went to when I was a kid, my parents took me up the Washington Monument and My back was plastered against the inside wall and I would not move the whole time I was up there.
I could not even go over to the window to look out. That's that's what I'm talking about. So over the past couple weeks I have done two things that absolutely I've done a number of things that have absolutely amazed me.
But the one was climbing Loveland Pass. Playing with the very large trucks and then the other was Ben takes me out to one of his two bait stations and I look up this tree and there are these spikes driven into both sides of the tree and 30 feet up is a platform made out of plywood.
Stretched between two trees and that's where we're supposed to go. I'm supposed to climb this thing with a rifle on my back and sit up there and wait for a bear. Let me tell you something I did get up there now you you were telling me this story earlier and what your listeners need to know is That while you were up there two massive grizzly bears came by.
And and I asked if they were frightened by that if that was a Terrifying experience you said actually the height frightened you more than much more much more. Because I knew. My concern was if they started coming up the tree I didn't know if I could move enough to shoot down the tree to take him out.
So yeah, that was. Yeah, see my dad was a roofing contractor and I worked roofs in the summer all through junior high and high school. I love Heights. I absolutely love it. But there that is not my thing.
Let me tell you something. So so good old Ben he He realized after that experience and what it looked like after I got down out of that tree That he needed to do something other to go to the he had two bait sites.
He had set up I mean he was asked to do this. He's been sort of preparing this for me. It's really really nice for somebody to do that. And for those of you who don't know Alaska has a real predator problem.
The moose population is dwindling because there are too many bears there are some areas. There's just I don't know which direction it was but within a few miles of where we were hunting. Basically, there is no limit you can you can go out every day and shoot a bear if you want in that those areas because there is just there's not A how many people live in Alaska?
It's like a population like a million or something that even yeah. Yeah, just slightly less than yeah, it's tiny and they just they can't control the the predator population and so Ben goes. All right.
I've got a friend. He's got a It's literally a kit. It was a metal kit that he and I put together at his uncle's house yesterday afternoon and stuck it on one of these six wheel ATVs and I had never even driven an ATV before in my life and I'm out there in the woods going through rivers and Streams and all the rest of this stuff and we put this thing up on this tree and I've never seen anybody do this.
Can you imagine this is a metal thing with two people can sit in he took that and and just push it Up against that tree. I mean just it must be nice to be 30. Yeah, I remember that. It's been a while but it must be nice to be 30 he gets it up there.
We strap it to the tree and then we sit up there. Now. What do you what do you think? We were talking about now, of course you couldn't use our voice. So once we're up there got the gun. My good friend Brian back east gave me a beautiful Ruger 338 Winchester Magnum, which is a cannon.
Which I had fired exactly five times sighting it in out there and What do you think we sit up on a bench me and me and a guy who's a who's a youth pastor. Out there in Big Lake, Alaska. What do you talk about when you're sitting for hours?
Ergon Kanner. Yeah, I had narrated the whole Ergon Kanner stuff and I was going through the origins of the Potter's Freedom various books and stuff like that and and I told my favorite story about about Norm.
Have I ever told you the story about Norm Geisler and Marty Minto, I don't think so. Marty Minto was the afternoon drive guy on KPXQ in Phoenix and I think I have told the story in the dividing line at least once but After the Potter's Freedom came out Publishers want to get you on talk programs and So Bethany house would arrange These these meetings these you'd go on to somebody's program.
And yes, rich. I am seeing your your PMS. I'm gonna have to scroll back to find all of them. In fact, I'm gonna have to open up a window here if you would send me Everything you've already sent me before for our callers.
So I know who who's on and who wants to get on and what the topic is. I apologize, but if you can send those to me again that I've got a window open now, it won't scroll by. Thank you very much. We've got Ian Ron and Thaddeus.
We'll get you all in just a second, but Bethany house would would contact stations and would say You know, here's an author and we'll make them available to you and arrange stuff. I'm not I know John probably doesn't have time to do that kind of thing.
But if he did he'd probably be able to do it all day long, you know constantly. Occasionally does do that like all day long. He tries to pile them all together in one day and I've seen him do it for eight hours.
Yes, it's amazing and it's free advertising so I heard that Marty Minto was gonna have Norman Geisler on to talk about chosen but free. All right. Look you could you can fully understand this. I wasn't even gonna call the program.
Because when you're the caller the other guy has the control. I mean you might be able to get one question in but then he's gonna get all the response. He's gonna control the horizontal and the vertical.
It's just I was just gonna listen, you know. Listen to what he has to say. So I tuned in that day. I'll never forget this. I was in my office I tuned in and I can immediately tell because I had filled in for Marty I had done his program for him when he was on vacation and stuff.
I grew up doing radio. I know what stretching is. Okay, and I know he's You know coming up with stuff he hasn't thought of in 25 years to try to fill the time because Norm Geisler isn't on the phone line yet and So he had the old AOL messenger thing he'd throw out there this is I mean he was cutting-edge back then, you know and Text me at AOL, you know the AOL messenger thing, you know.
So I got on with him and he said we can't find him. He's not answering the phone. And so finally after about 10 -15 minutes if I just gave up he had to announce, you know. We tried we were gonna have dr. Geisler on day.
We couldn't hold him. Well, I thought that was interesting. I didn't give a whole lot of thought. I think the next week I went up to Golden Gate to teach a summer class up in Mill Valley urban on the campus at Golden Gate, you know that no.
Beautiful beautiful campus, I mean right across the bay you can see the. I mean if it wasn't Northern, California It'd be great. You know, it's just awesome. But. And on a Saturday, I recall it was rich called me on my cell phone.
This is back when cell phones were these. Yeah, you remember that their life in 2000, you know. They were not like what you like your iPhone was in there or my droid over there for that matter but He said Marty Minto needs to talk to you.
And so he gave him the number and I I called him up and he said, um, I had a conversation with Norman Geisler. And I think you need to know about it. Okay, he says, you know, I called Bethany house and I said, where do you go?
You know, we've got a they would they would do an email thing where you confirm the time the date the Hawaiian ours. We were here. He wasn't what happened. About 20 minutes later Marty's phone rings and it's Norman Geisler.
Now. Remember this is for free advertising for a book. Dr Geisler great to hear from you. First words out of his mouth. Why do you want me on your show? Why do you want me on your show? To talk about your book Chosen but free, you know James White.
Well, yeah, he's been on my program. He said James the next 20 minutes. He didn't stop. You're a snot-nosed Apologist, you're a young buck. You're out of control. All the rest of stuff and I don't know if you remember the Potter's Freedom when it well we did a new edition of it, but there were like 27 endorsements on it and Somebody was really stinging from the indoor.
I think it's the endorsements I believe to this day Norman Geisler has never read the Potter's Freedom. I don't believe he did it. That would show me too much respect actually read it because he doesn't believe anyone as young as I am could ever Interact with him, but one of the comments that he made that I found fascinating and you would have some insight into this I think.
He said this is between me and RC Sproul now, can you imagine writing a book on the nature of the gospel and Thinking that the whole discussion of Reformed Theology or Moderate Calvinism versus radical Calvinism or whatever is between you and anybody it just I can't even begin to comprehend that kind of that kind of thinking and it just it blew me away so he could tell that he was getting ready that he was winding down and He said well, dr. Geisler, are you gonna come on the program?
So here's you know, you know, what's Norman known as storm and Norman Geisler the apologists, you know. The great defender of the Christian faith. So he says well if you want me on your program here are my conditions.
Now he's not getting paid to do this. This is this is for free advertisement. Here are my conditions. You will have James White on first. You'll record the program and send me the tapes. This was back in the days of tapes CDs had come out but it was still the standard thing to send somebody cassette tape or something and You will you will send me I will not be on any closer than two weeks to when he's on.
You will you will never use the names James White or the Potter's Freedom during the interview. You will use a delay on your callers. So that you can make sure no one else uses the names James White or the Potter's Freedom in their phone calls if anyone does I will hang up immediately if you will meet these conditions, I will be on your program and He never had him on the program never had on the program.
So that was. Yeah, that's what we were talking about. Very, you know whispering to one another very very quietly up there in this tree stand on the side of a tree somewhere out in the middle of nowhere that you have to get to on ATVs just to get close to it and then hike in from there and At one point we heard a pack of wolves nearby and Ben says to me if you see a wolf Shoot it on site.
Immediately and I was like Ben's this really nice guy, but it was sort of like I said with venom. That's that strikes me as an irony right there that you would have to tell James White if you see a wolf shoot it.
I generally don't use a Ruger mark for a 338 Winchester Magnum to do it. I know a few might have benefited. Yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right, but I guess around here wolves are a just just ultra nastiness.
They're a plague and Sorry, Tucson moms, it's shoot the wolf her son's name is well, sorry about that, but they're they're not liked up here Tucson mama, sorry about that. So anyway at one point though both of us just stopped and it's amazing how hypersensitive you become when you're out there in the woods and you you literally hear a twig break and.
It's amazing how these large animals can be so silent. When we first the first day out and we saw the two grizzlies, which I couldn't shoot because I'm not from Alaska I mean he could have if he had wanted to but we looked at him and and they were at this time of year.
They they're trying to get rid of their old fur to grow new fur before hibernating for the winter. And so they're called that they rub they rub up against stuff and they end up remember scar in that Disney film that.
That's exactly what these guys look like they're their faces looked pretty cool. But as far as the rest it was like, hey, dude, you're you forgot to dress this morning. Yeah, you know and and They're big huge animals, but they're just as when they came into the bait.
It's just you look down and it's like they beamed in from the Enterprise or something. It's just. It's just amazing. By the way, what do they use for bear bait? Oh, this is fun almost anything smelly fish parts.
The primary thing was dog food. Literally dog. It just has to be smelly. They happen to they happen to love doughnuts. So so I actually literally like it some of the bakeries Ben was telling me today that some of the bakeries when they make food.
And it's past their that's a sell-by date, you know, but but still edible. That's great bear bait. To put out because they they have a massive Sweet tooth. Wow and in fact he said he sat in a blind once and watched a bear come in and There was a bunch of doughnuts the bear picked through and ate only the chocolate doughnuts.
He left everything else sitting there and wandered off and another bear came in and just scarfed everything up. So I guess there are picky eater bears as they're Right Connoisseurs, so we're sitting there and and we hear we hear something.
But they move so slowly that we could tell it was a distance off. And then all of a sudden right in the middle of my story about teaching Hebrew for a Golden Gate once we saw movement and we see a black bear and that's what I need to go for is a black bear and as I sat there Phil honestly The thought crossed my mind.
He's going to hear my heart because it is pounding so loudly in my chest and I'm just sitting there going. How in the world am I going to? Slowly and quietly. I mean you can even hear your jacket rustling and they can too so you have to be very very careful, how am I going to get a gun up to my eyes and cite this thing in and They they didn't just come running they weren't like the grizzlies grizzlies are the king of the forest they really don't fear much of anything and The black bears get eaten by grizzly bears.
So they're much more cautious than than the grizzlies were and so they're circling. They're sort of going back and forth circling in toward the bait which is a pile of dog food some fish parts and some other sweet thing or something and We can see them behind the trees we can see one of them behind the trees all of a sudden I look up and In the open is another one.
So there's now two So we know they're coming in and it's about 1020 in the evening which in most places it's getting dark not up here it got dark around one o 'clock and Started getting undark around two o 'clock.
Yeah, that's it's it's pretty weird this time of this time of year and So I'm just sitting there and and we're trying to sort of listen to them. They're in some trees down to our left and actually we saw one just lay down for a while.
And they're they're just checking stuff out before they go into the food. They're being very very careful and We're wondering are we too low? Is is my deodorant gonna get smelled I mean because they can smell like anything.
I mean look at those noses are just incredible and So finally I see one moving over to my left and I I get the gun ready and all of a sudden just almost out of Nothingness appears this incredibly gorgeous black bear and it looks like it's looking right at me.
I'm up I'm 20 feet up a tree. But it it's actually probably just sniffing. It's it puts its nose up and sometimes you can hear them. There's just this big big, you know and I put the the crosshairs right between the right between the eyes.
I go. I don't want to I don't want to go there. So I'm sitting there going through my bear anatomy in my mind and everything else in the world Disappeared. I mean the the the aches and pains from riding the ATVs are sitting in it.
You've been sitting and you can only move so far in a tree stand, you know, so stuff's hurting and all of that just Disappears, you don't hear anything else. All you see is what's in that that sight and I picked a really good spot and Ben had been I've been telling you about some of the people he had taken out who had had great shots and missed and The last thing in the world I wanted to do was either miss or hit this bear someplace where I only wound it that I don't want to make this thing suffer and you don't want to have to chase it and don't want to chase it either.
Especially as it's getting darker and darker and darker so I picked a good spot and and If you rush the shot you if you pull the trigger you can you can move the gun. There's there's all sorts of things.
I've done a lot of shooting in my life not recently but when I was younger, I had a lot of guns and All I can say is when I squeeze that shot off I held so solid to the target that I could see the muzzle blast in my in my scope and I could act I actually saw that saw the bear go down.
It was one shot. It simply collapsed like a balloon just to the ground never moved. It's a perfect metaphor for some of your debates. Only during cross-examination. Only during cross-examination. Yeah, that's it.
That's exactly right. So I was so glad to have been with me because he gets down there he gets down there first and And Because I don't go up tree stands quickly and I don't come down tree stands quickly, okay let's just say it's a it's a very careful process, but he says you're not gonna believe this because When someone had asked that the guys up here initially, would you take James White out to do some bear hunting?
The response from everybody up here is when end of June. Do you know what bears look like at the end of June? They've been rubbing up against trees. They look they look like the old worn carpet in the hallway, you know, it is a terrible well What actually happened was this bear had no rub marks at all long deep black hair just incredible and so some some time before next summer.
Now my wife did inform me two years ago when I came up that if I got a bear. And I I saved the pelt and made a bear rug. That it was going to be staying at my office. This does not fit with her Decorative decor ideas.
Unless the bear had very pretty shoes on then it Might make it but not gonna be happening. So it's already at the taxidermist stuffed and make it into a giant teddy bear for that might work. But it was a full-size adult so that would be a little bit larger than what you'd really what you'd really expect but I'm listening to some of the I'm seeing some of the comments in the in the channel here is sort of funny.
But yes, I did. And then driving out in the dark on these. I mean these are trails that are just For any wheeled vehicle. I mean, I've done some stuff recently that honestly is If my mom had lived to see it She would have just laughed because she couldn't believe that I would be able to pull that kind of stuff off.
So so when are you going out dear hun? Phil next time I'm here probably not this trip I'm still recovering from my back surgery. Well, I'll tell you it physically. It was very very demanding TV. It's the Vehicle that you know, oh, yeah, there's me off from well, I remember I I was the one piloting it.
Big Ben was on a different one. He was on one of the three rulers. I actually had to drive this thing myself and I had never done that before. So that was quite the experience as well. So There are other ways of doing it.
There's no making blinds and shooting distance and stuff and there's lots of ways to do it. But stick with the road kill move. Road kill moose you really actually ate road kill moves. Yeah. Well, there's you you eat everything.
Yeah, yeah, but I have to say road kill moose was actually pretty tasty. My great tacos. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. That's yeah. All right. I actually had bear sausage. Yet a morning before last yes, I had some reindeer sausage yesterday you get all that kind of stuff.
Oh, you do all these people. It's just it's just life up here. That's I've heard people say it's been years since we cooked any beef. They Who cares about a cow. They've they they have meat sources walking through their backyards.
It is a different different world up here and I said last time when I was up I had my 50 caliber Magnum strapped across my chest and I walked into a grocery store and People either ignored me completely or said cool.
Hey, can you imagine California if you walked into a grocery store that you'd be on your face in the floor? Oh man in a in a pico second, it would be it would be it would be amazing. So Before we take our phone calls Talk to us a little bit about the pyromaniacs blog.
I mean You started it. I did and then you decided that it had gotten too big for one person and The big question that I get all across the world literally When people find out that I know Phil Johnson.
Why did you pick Frank Turk? Hey, that's the question I get to why Frank Turk, you know, I love Frank. He's The fact is Frank was I had only met him once when I asked him to start really for Pyromaniacs, but I read if you had asked me I could have warned you off.
Well, I had read enough of Frank's blog too. I just admired his his wit and his cartoons. Well, not the cartoons. It's although that's that's clever and cute. It's part of his persona. Oh, it is I just thought you know when he when he tackles of An issue, you know a serious issue even he can do it with.
With grace and good humor in a way and say things that I could never get by with, you know. But you have to be a little you have to be the straight man. You don't use sometimes. Yeah. You get yeah, come on you got to be careful he can get away with some things that he that you.
Yeah, your position. He doesn't always get away with them. He you know, I just he cracked me up and and he made me think and he often he often has Perspectives on things that I've never even considered.
It's just his mind is Creative and impressive in many ways. Same thing with Dan Phillips whom I had never met. Prior to asking him to write for the blog, but I had read his blog. He used to it's funny.
He he sent me an email one day and said you never linked it. This was before I had invited him to come in, right? He said you never linked to anything on my blog. Do you not read it? Do you not like it?
What's the deal and I wrote him back said on the contrary. I read it all the time and I think it's great. How would you like to write for? Blog and so It was pretty much the next day. We started the group blog.
I remember when you did that because I think You and I had talked about. At some point I was over there and you were thinking about starting a blog. Yeah, it was during that first year where it you know sort of exploded and lots of people were blogging and I've been more or less pilloried by Michael Spencer the I monk.
Oh, yeah. An article or actually it was a lecture I delivered in London on NT right and a new perspective and he wrote a little piece about it where he basically said, you know who is this guy to criticize a scholar like NT right and and so I I Wrote what I thought was a pretty well-reasoned it wasn't it wasn't a nasty comment or an emotional comment or whatever, but I answered his blog post with a comment and He deleted it he deleted my reply and he delete any then he closed the comments on this on his group blog and They don't allow comments to this day.
And I thought that's that's just not very fair I and so that's what prompted me to begin thinking about blogging more or less in self-defense. Right people can attack you online and then not even let you give an answer.
I thought I want to do some blogging myself. Well your thoughts I mean 1996 an IRC channel was social media. Yeah now. You know, I don't have tweet deck open right now because I don't have enough space on the I'm gonna have it up.
But I don't have it open on the screen. Twitter Facebook blogs. Has it changed. For example how grace to you advertises gets oh, yeah word out. I mean, yeah, is it a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion both?
It's both there are there are definitely advantages and disadvantages. It's good in the sense that it definitely is a more efficient and effective way to get the word out when we were doing tapes. Cassette tapes the year I came to grace to you the year prior to my coming was the first year.
They actually Produced and distributed a million cassette tapes in one year and and that was unheard of and remarkable and huge you know set a set a benchmark that We often looked at a million tapes a year a million sermons a year just blew everybody's mind well as Media has changed and the availability of quick and easy media is is different last year two years ago I guess we we offered all of John MacArthur sermons.
Perpetually now for free downloads, you know doesn't cost anybody anything. Just get on the internet and download them for free. And now we typically deliver a million and a half tapes per month. Wow.
They're not tapes anymore, but we still say tapes, you know, isn't that amazing? We can't get away from I know recorded sermons. What do you call them sound bites tracks? Whatever but they're the full sermons downloaded a million and a half every month.
And so it just is remarkable to me to see how it's sort of opened the field for you still do tapes. No, we don't we will do very few for special orders, but we don't advertise it. We don't encourage it, you know.
We don't encourage Tape duplication machines. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you must have had huge ones. We did we had those big they were called King loaders and they were a size for refrigerator and they would load.
They would take pre-recorded tape the size of cassette tape and and load it into a cassette in 11 seconds. And so every 11 seconds, oh my goodness, so you could do very high-speed duplicating that way.
That was impressive to watch. Well, I bet it was our first our first tape duplicator was a ghetto blaster. It had to put in you just do one-to-one. I mean that's and literally and and file folder label.
We didn't have labels. We had a file folder way. That's how we started. That's that's how the first James White tape bug. I got was like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah file fully. That's that with a dot matrix printer.
Yeah, I think I still have it actually you might want to keep it. Can't even get to it anymore. Yeah, it is amazing how fast stuff happens. For example, you undoubtedly observed the Rob Bell Honey, well, you know what you would call the Truffle, you know, I was actually thinking about that.
I was trying to vote. I was trying to avoid using that but since you use it. It's okay. Yeah, well all the argument over his book how fast it happened and Yet also how fast it passes. It's almost like this the the media and the the the computerized age.
Intensifies the reaction. But shortens the attention span and that's the bad side because something of that magnitude can happen and three weeks later it's old news and people have forgotten about it and Not just willfully set it aside because that's what we talked about three months ago or three weeks ago.
They literally forget about it. Yeah, and all of the all the great work that was done to refute that and everything I think it's forgotten and now Evangelicals are sort of engaging in a kind of hand-wringing about did we say too much?
Did we have react to harshly? I saw your article on that. Yeah, I just honestly I don't get that. I mean, we're we're In a war here over the truth. Why why do all this? You know internals and and non-stop sort of self criticism about whether we handled it rightly or not.
Let's just defend the truth and And acknowledge we don't always do everything rightly, but we have to do the best we can under the circumstances. But we also have to keep doing it. You can't You can't be more concerned about what people think about you.
Then you are about what people think about the truth. Oh, yeah, believe me. I I go through that all the time and thinking about how we've handled stuff and It just seems like you know For example, what would have been the the chances of my having a mini debate dialogue with Brian McLaren?
Before The advent of Internet and the Internet, you know the capacities. I mean that thing I did on them unbelievable I had like five days notice. But I was able to do it because I was able to download his books on Kindle.
Yeah, listen to them immediately and be on the program via our Office our studio in our offices across the world probably by satellite. Yeah, I mean that Changes fundamentally the theological dynamic of Heresy false teaching how the church responds to things.
It used to be that somebody come out with something and it might be who knows how much longer. Before someone would write a full response to it, but it might it could be a year. It could be longer than that before there would be a response.
Now if you don't have a response, you know within a week or even less you're you're behind the. You're behind the curve and people are saying. Oh, you must not have any way to respond because you haven't responded yet.
This is a yeah. That seems so cheap in things a little and I know you see it I think the same way I do that because of because of the way things are changing that way the speed with which communication takes place the speed with which heresy can easily disseminate become popular faddish and all of that the stakes are higher than ever and Therefore the the battle is more serious than ever and yet people because things move by so quickly.
People actually have begun to treat the most serious issues as if they were triviality. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the downside of it. Yeah, it seems like we talked about really important stuff via it's almost like if you discuss it via Twitter.
Then since everything is discussed via Twitter including shoe color. Yeah, it just it makes it all yeah. And I I get you have to talk about it on Twitter. You can't say well because people misuse Twitter and and because Twitter is destroying the way we think and it is.
Then we shouldn't use it. You have to use it. You have to be in there and be a voice for the truth and It's I don't know what's the what the future holds it's gonna be it's gonna be very very interesting.
We've got some folks on on call on on the phone here. And I'm not sure if you know if you can just sit there Phil and if you have something to add in that'd be great but let's Let's go ahead and see if we can take some of our phone calls and let's talk to Ian in Utah.
Hi, Ian, can can you hear me? And can I hear you? I.
Can I can hear you just fine? Okay, so I'll ask my question then I'll Help me with. In Isaiah chapter 40 verse 22 God is described prominent apologist that I wanted that one day. Just kind of look things up because you're bored.
I Could either vault and I'm wondering you know, am I missing something or well?
The the the term itself who simply means circle and it would have been a common to Understand in that time period. You know, there's there's all sorts of arguments as to how the biblical writers understood the nature of the earth and the firmament And so on and so forth but one thing was pretty has been pretty obvious for a long time and and that is You get far enough away from the largest mountain.
You can't see it anymore. There might be a reason for that and people are not necessarily stupid and There's obviously some mention of the circle of the earth. I'm confused as to what it is that the question is focused upon is it simply the meaning of the term or What it would what it would be referring to because this is obviously poetic because it says its inhabitants are like grasshoppers who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and Spreads them like a tent to dwell in and so the the emphasis is upon the transcendence of God and The fact that the creation is subject to him and is in comparison to him and his power Infinitesimal so is there a particular application of this that you're looking at?
Okay, I guess I guess Ian didn't guess we still have Ian on the on the line. But I wasn't sure what the what the application. Okay, he's disconnected. Okay. Well, hopefully that's helpful to you. The term means circle, but I think especially in Hebrew poetry you look at the rest of You look at the rest of the verse and it talks about Spreading out the heavens like a curtain like a twin attempt to dwell in and so I think that's the context in which circle has To be taken at that particular at that particular time.
Okay, let's talk to Ron in Phoenix. Hello, how are you? Well when you say praying to them you have to differentiate between the concept of Praying to them and asking for their intercession and merits and things like that.
Which is a later development and the concept of the fact that these individuals are still alive and hence in the church Martyrs were considered especially to be particularly holy individuals to be remembered not in the sense of Seeking some kind of sacramental Meritorious Intercession before God on our part or something like that.
When you're talking about when even when you start talking about altars now, you're talking about third fourth century because building of churches especially during periods of Roman persecution. You know that that's a completely different context and Most of the early churches were in homes and things like that.
So you wouldn't know what the primitive church was doing along those lines. So yeah, and you have to be really careful sometimes you'll encounter claims About primitive churches that actually it's in reference to to changes that were made to those churches in later centuries.
You got to be really careful the archaeological Data as it is presented by people and things like that be very very careful along those lines. But obviously fundamentally we assert that the issue has to do With what the Bible says concerning the nature of departed saints in our relationship to them and then a recognition that During periods of persecution and things like that People did things that were not necessarily biblically, correct.
And you don't necessarily have to follow their their example in that but at the same time You can learn from that you don't have to necessarily throw them out of the kingdom of God for that. But there needs to be a balance what happened Unfortunately is in the early church once a particularly holy person of the past or at least as viewed by people in the past Did something all of a sudden that becomes the standard and we somehow are called to emulate that well, that's that's where you run into the problem is Making that kind of a Expansion and so you have to be careful along those lines.
Well, I direct you for a fuller.
Response to that to the two debates I've done on the subject one with Peter Stravinsky's From 2001 which is sort of a classic debate that we did and then Robertson Janice and I Did a debate on on purgatory only last year in Oregon so both of those would be I go into more detail on that in my presentation as to the historical development but the concept of purgatory as as It is believed in Roman Catholicism today Did not come into the form that it has today until at least the Council of Florence.
So you're talking at well over a thousand years after the Apostles. There were great strides made some of the comments of Augustine taken by later centuries. Especially in Gregory the Great the great Pope at the beginning of the 6th century.
Very very important for his Adding to the concept but even then he didn't have what Rome has today as to a full-fledged doctrine of purgatory. And so purgatory is an excellent example of a theology that developed and It's based upon foundational ideas.
That had to take literally centuries to come together to build the next level and then the next level and then the next level. That's why you never you don't want to trust those lists of times and dates you see.
Where where someone says ah, you know 1414 purgatory or something like that because The the foundations of purgatory go way earlier than that. But at the same time the Roman Catholic needs to be kept honest to admit.
Yeah, but the dogmatic form that it has today. You can't really find until much much much later. So if the Apostles taught it then why is it that the dogma itself cannot be found? Until a much later time and the Roman Catholics say oh.
But this part can be found fairly earlier this part can be found fairly. But if the dogma that you must believe day feed a Cannot be found back then. Why can't you recognize the evolutionary nature of this and then as a result admit?
Well, okay the Apostles didn't teach any of this but but maybe the Apostles taught a part of it over here and a part of it over there and Therefore the church becomes the mechanism that takes all that and puts it puts it together.
That's really what Rome is saying and that is fundamentally a a claim to a form of latter-day revelation. That they just don't want to have to make very openly. Okay, thank you, sir. Let's go now to Daniel in Denton, Texas.
Maybe we can get fill-in on this one because this is an interesting one. Daniel. Hi there, how's it going? It's going well.
My situation is I'm a member at a good standing Orthodox Church in Denton, Texas. And our church has or we minister to senior citizens in the area will go to nurses. And the past couple weeks Months, actually, I've been preaching at a good Samaritan society every Friday morning.
You know, I mean normally okay mod. The people I'm preaching to Might not even remember, you know a section on tithing aren't really going to be relevant to as many advice for me.
Well this does does grace do anything with Like senior citizens and stuff like that. Not really. It's it's a It's a very challenging thing. First of all Hopefully a very rewarding thing for you. Because yeah, well you can't You know, it's not a matter of how much data These older folks are remembering from what you what you've been saying it's the fact that you're they still want to hear the Word of God and they have a hunger for the Word of God and and you get to Help meet that that obviously is is the greatest reward.
I guess I don't have a lot of experience there I I don't want to disappoint you but I would say That that might be a really good place where thematic preaching and especially centered upon the cross upon the The rewards that that God gives to faithful servants.
Maybe lives of saints who had long service to Christ and you know You look at their situation many of them are very lonely many might feel abandoned and things like that Focusing on those those things might just be more important than You know making sure you you you get to every single possible topic.
Because a very specific situation at that point in time, you know, it's sort of like if you're talking to kids you you You try to cover the things that the kids need to need to know and there are certain certain things that aren't necessarily Going to be the first thing up in your priority list when you're talking to kids, so, you know, yeah, I think there's there's every thing appropriate in Tailoring your messages so that you're you're having maximum impact upon that particular audience.
Especially one that you may be some of the only Serious human contact they get during the week. Gotcha. Yeah. Appreciate it. Okay. Thank you very much. Get one more phone call in here real quick. Let's talk to Thaddeus.
Hi Thaddeus. Hello, dr. White. Yes, sir. Thank you for taking my phone call.
My question is about how we should go about Interpreting the Old Testament law and how it applies to us today.
Last week we'll get into this agreements on Facebook. I've never heard that happening before. Yeah.
I'm convinced no one ever wins a. Debates on Facebook nonetheless. I had posted a comment after New York had legalized gay marriage denouncing a friend of mine commented on my post and He called me out for being inconsistent With my interpretation of Scripture and he brought up Leviticus chapter 18 and how it denounces homosexuality.
But if he also brought up different laws throughout the Old Testament sudden I know sowing your field with two different kinds of seeds, etc. And we had a conversation that went on for a little bit, but I guess my question is how would how would you?
Respond to that.
Okay, we're really close to the end of the program. But let me just mention that. About a month ago. I Had on the program Dr. Michael Brown who just put out a new book Titled a queer thing happened to America and it's 700 pages long.
It's a it blew my mind when I read it or listened to it in this case and it's available on Kindle now and There's extensive discussions of of these these issues and he and I discussed some of these things.
Also, please note that I did two debates. And right the Michael Brown book is available at amazon .aomin .org and I've done two debates one with Bishop John Shelby Spong. The other was Barry Lynn and we went over these things but it is very important I think for us to think about the nature of the Mosaic law and especially the Holiness Code in Leviticus 18 through 20 and To recognize that we we do need to understand the applications at that time.
We do need to understand the backgrounds because it is very common for people to use the argument. Well, you mix you mix Different types of threads together and you're not supposed to do that and we need to understand what the principles were in each of the laws and to be able to Seriously interact with what they meant at the time and what we then can make application to today because while there were some That were specifically for the people of Israel even when they marked the people of Israel out in a special way there was a reason for it and That reason can remain important for us today.
But some were simply based upon God's creative mandate in regards to his right to define human sexuality Etc. Etc. And those remain utterly unquestioned in In the rest of the Old Testament and in the New Testament as well.
And so this is an area that unfortunately because many people just have the idea. Oh, we're not in the law anymore they just ignore all of that not even seemingly recognizing that Jesus quoted more from Leviticus than he did from from any place else and Especially in regards to the command to love the Lord your God and so we tend to ignore those books we give surface level answers in regards to the issue of the law and What we can learn from the law and the moral applications, you know.
For example the the Israelites were to put borders on their roofs. Well, we don't get up on our roofs very much. I certainly do not want to even if I had the opportunity to do so. But the reason that it did so was in regards to safety it was it was a matter of honoring human life and the the morals regarding sexuality and especially the condemnation of homosexuality likewise our issues of life and all we have to do is look at what Homosexuality brings into a person's life to see that those things remain valid to this day.
So I'm trying to remember Where it was. I did a discussion of this on the dividing line, I'd have to look at the descriptions to see where it was, but I went through some of these laws and Expanded upon some of this stuff.
So you might want you might look up Leviticus on my blog to see if maybe or Levitical. Just to catch that but a number of resources there that might be available for you. Okay? Okay that thank you very much.
All right. Well, hey Phil, thank you much for sitting there and bringing your MacBook Pro over to you have a dent in your MacBook Pro. Do you realize that? I'm terrible at how I eat them up. Oh boy. Well, thank you for bringing it over and it just it I don't know.
It almost feels like a family when we have our Mac sitting next to it. And thanks for being on the program today and just chatting with us. Coming up next we will this is a new thing. But we are now 24 -7 with the dividing line the way back machine will be on.
If you haven't caught that you might want to start listening to that anytime. You want to listen to the dividing line just click on that link and we're on 24 -7. So Rich has been doing that. I appreciate that.
We'll be back with you next week at our regular time. Thanks for listening to the dividing line today. God bless.
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