Travel Review, Lou Rugg then Phones

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around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. This is a live program and we invite your participation.
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If you'd like to talk with Dr. White or toll -free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. It is
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April 1st. We are getting a little late start today, simply because, well, because we're a small ministry and had to get some things done, basically.
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That's all there is to it. It is 1 .30 in Arizona and, oh, starting next week, isn't it?
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Yep, yep, starting next Tuesday. Y 'all are gonna, y 'all play with your clocks again on the 6th,
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I think. Isn't that the date when y 'all do it? Yep, I think so. And so, you know, we're not gonna play with ours.
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Y 'all do your thing and figure out when we're on and we're just gonna be on at the same time each week, unless we're not.
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And we let you know, like we did today, let folks know when we were going to be on, when the delay was going to be over with.
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We have 33 participants in channel, which would include two programs, so I guess that's 31 folks in there at the moment.
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So, welcome to The Dividing Line. We're not here Thursday evening. Was off in the
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Bloomington Normal area, Calvary Baptist Church, which is right on the edge of the campus of Illinois State University, and had a wonderful time there with Jerry McCorkle and Pastor Wingate and the folks at Crossroads.
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Flew out there, spoke with some pastors first in the afternoon on Thursday, and it's funny,
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I was talking about open theism and ended up actually talking a little bit more in the question and answers about gods and generals than I did open theism.
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It actually did fit in when you think about it, because there's this one line in the film that just simply wouldn't fit in an open theistic universe, and specifically it was after a man asked him how he could remain so serene with bullets and shells whistling past his head.
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Jackson replies, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death.
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I don't concern myself with that, but to be always ready whenever it should overtake me. That is how all men should live.
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Then all men would be equally brave. And that, of course, doesn't exactly fit within the context of an open theistic perspective.
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In fact, it's interesting to note that Jerry McCorkle had played a section of the debate with John Sanders in the
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Sunday evening service at Calvary Baptist the week before I came, and had played the section where, in cross -examination,
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Dr. Sanders specifically made the statement that God does not know the hour of our death.
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He has not fixed that, and in fact I would assume it would be a surprise to him, especially in the context of deaths that are not foreseen coming due to disease or something like that, tragic accidents and things like that.
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God is just as surprised by these events, and I guess when, especially when you go into battle, it could hardly be much of a much of a solace or support for Christians in in Iraq today, in the armed forces, to believe that God doesn't know what's going to happen today.
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You're walking into the unknown, and he's there, and he'll be just as shocked as you are whatever happens.
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That's sad. Yes, as someone on the channel said, the open theist Jackson, well,
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I just do my best. I ask God to look out for me, but he's probably busy dodging bullets too, which is probably quite the case.
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But anyways, we talked about that, and then I had the opportunity of going on campus at ISU on Thursday evening, and basically just did a lot of it.
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It was very interesting. There was a number of times when I just had the opportunity of answering questions, and these are college -age kids, young people, young adults, kids, you know, shows how old
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I am. Well, when I'm starting to realize I have to be really careful when speaking to younger audiences what illustrations
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I use, because you know what? Some of the stuff
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I raise from my youth, they no longer have the foggiest idea what in the world
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I'm talking about. It's a reminder that with each passing moment, you get older and older.
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Thankfully, we're all doing that at the same rate, but anyways. And so there was lots of questions and answers, and it was very, very interesting.
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In every single opportunity, it was either raised publicly or it was raised afterwards, the question was asked, what about the unevangelized?
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Specifically, the question of, you know, what about the pygmy in Africa type situation?
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And it was very, very interesting to me that that was just absolutely a constant question.
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I must have exegeted Romans 1 seven, eight times during the course of this particular trip.
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So it was very, very interesting. Obviously, that's something very much in the heart and minds of people. There were a number of questions about Islam.
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We met in one of those lecture rooms on the campus, and where the professor is sort of down in the pit, shall we say, and then there's,
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I think there's about seven, eight rows of seats, theater style seating, overheads and things you could use to do lecturing and things like that.
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It was very, very comfortable. And questions about Islam, questions, it was funny, we were talking about Saddam Hussein and Islam, and then the very next question was, well, could you explain limited atonement?
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And so it was, you've got to be ready to go any direction when you just basically say, you know, throw out your questions there.
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And of course, before each one, I would say, you know, there are certain subjects that I will immediately pass on, such as eschatology, don't even bother.
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And that gets some interesting reactions from folks. But anyway, so Thursday night was great.
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Friday night on the subject of inclusivism, and then had questions afterwards.
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Saturday, man, I spoke a lot, didn't I? Saturday morning and Saturday evening. Saturday evening,
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I believe, is when I addressed baptism regeneration, had some Church of Christ folks there, that was interesting.
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And then yesterday morning, spoke on peace with God, justification by faith, things like that.
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Wonderful groups. It's been interesting, this is the fourth time I've been to Calvary Baptist Church, and that means, by far, they are the, pretty much, most churches don't have me back very often, other than the
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Church of God in Massapequa, no, Hicksville, it's on Hicksville Road, but it's in Massapequa.
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They have me back, have had me back probably five or six times. Folks in normal have had me in four times.
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But most other folks, just once, and then that's more than enough. Thank you for visiting, goodbye.
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And so, it's neat to watch the Lord work in these places, because I've seen,
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I've gotten to know people, I've developed real good friendships, Jerry McCorkle, and Chris Jenkins was the one who first brought me in there.
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Some of you know who Chris Jenkins is. And I've gotten to know some folks, Rob Hogus, this big, huge dude.
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This dude is, he's not overly tall, but he's just so incredibly strong.
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He can do 225 on the bench 40 times, 40 repetitions at 225.
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I am not at all worried when Rob Hogus is in the audience, because I figure he's gonna, he's gonna take good care of me.
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And, but, you know, when I first met these folks, they were much younger, now they're getting married, they're having kids.
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Rob's become a deacon there. You see the change over time. It's really neat to come in, like, every year, year and a half, and see all this stuff developing over time.
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It's really, really neat. So, anyways, that was a real good opportunity.
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And since we weren't on, the last two times now that we've been on, or we weren't on Thursday, because I was there, and yeah,
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Theo said he could do that. Somebody check for a gas leak at Theo's house.
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He's, he's lost his mind. Anyways, strange stuff.
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We weren't on Thursday night, so the last time we were on was a week ago with Peter from the the
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UK, and I want to again thank Martin Davids for making
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Peter available to us, and having that, that kind of very encouraging program.
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It was very encouraging to me to hear how that New Testament in the language of the people was used by the
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Lord to bring spiritual life. I think that is just absolutely a wonderful testimony to the power of the
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Word of God, the fact that God can save, God miraculously put that Scripture there, and what an incredible thing.
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Just think how widely dispersed the Scriptures are now in so many different languages, and how the
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Lord can use that. It's a tremendous thing, the power of the Word of God to do that, and again, we want to continue to pray for Peter, pray for his safety.
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There were a number of things that Peter didn't say that are still going on, and we need to pray for him, and for his ministry, and for all people like him.
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There are obviously many others out there that we do not know about, and then though, the program before that, which we've not had any opportunity of commenting on, was our debate on, well, what was it on?
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It was supposed to be on the exegesis of John chapter 6, verses 35 through 45, and initially
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I had challenged a non -reformed individual in PALtalk, by the nick that he uses, is
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Jade Miner, and he had accepted, but then he said, well, you know, the timing's not good for me.
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Would you allow someone to take my place, a fellow by the name of Lou Rug, which is
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Louis Ruggiero, who I said, well, you know, fine. My assumption, of course, is that if you're going to get someone else take your place, you've already checked to see if their position is the same as yours.
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As far as I can tell, that's not what happened. As far as I can tell, Mr. Ruggiero's position is different than the individual
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I know as Jade Miner. So, that seems a little strange to me, but the point was, my desire has always been to have a meaningful interaction based upon the text of John chapter 6.
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Let's follow the teaching of Christ. Let's follow the order in which he spoke.
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Let's follow the solid rules of hermeneutics. Let's interpret the scripture, lay our traditions out there to be examined, etc.,
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etc., etc. Well, most of you know that though we have sought that kind of interaction in many venues, it does not seem to be forthcoming.
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I can't help but to think of an individual who has written to the ministry through our website.
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Some of you who know, there's a contact page on the website, and you can choose a subject, and basically those are then sorted sort of automatically and sent to particular volunteers.
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If you think that I just sit around all day long answering emails, just waiting with my, you know, wringing my hands, waiting for somebody to send me an email, that's really not how it works.
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And this individual has been writing to the ministry over and over again, always writing to me.
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And the email then goes directly to one of our volunteers, because he always uses the same topic line, so it's just automatically sent to him.
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And the volunteer keeps saying, well, I'll tell you what. What he's saying is, you keep saying you've never heard a decent exegesis of John chapter 6.
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Well, I would like to present you with one. And so the volunteer said, okay, send it in.
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We'll take a look at it. Well, I'm not going to talk to you. I am only going to dialogue with James White.
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And, well, actually, if your exegesis makes any sense, and this particular individual,
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Mike Porter, is certainly well trained enough to determine whether the exegesis has any merit or value to it all, you would not believe the kinds of things that are sent to us that have no value and no merit at all.
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But certainly, Mr. Porter is in a position of being able to determine such things. He said to him, look, send it to me.
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I will then pass it on to James White, and we can go from there.
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He just simply would not do so. Just keep sending emails, speaking as if I'm the one reading this stuff, just ignoring all the responses he got.
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And eventually, Mr. Porter just said, look, we've told you to send it in. I'll take a look at it.
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If you won't do it, just stop writing. You know, that kind of thing. You know, very, very common type of a situation we encounter.
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Well, those of you who heard the debate know that it was not a debate.
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You cannot even begin to engage a debate when you never even bother to offer a meaningful exegesis or even a semi...
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even make an attempt to deal with John 6, 37 -49.
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Instead, we heard basically what Mr. Ruggiero decided to debate was his view of Christian anthropology from a
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Pelagian perspective. And he took great offense that I identify his position as Pelagian.
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Well, I'm a Calvinist. Should I take offense at that? A number of these folks in PalTalk start channels in PalTalk like Calvinism, Christian psychosis, you know.
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And identifying his position as Pelagian, which it is, is somehow supposed to be offensive.
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Could not figure that one out either. But anyways, I'm sorry. Some of you are really upset with me with that.
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Anyway, it is just a way of speaking that I have. Anyway, there was no discussion whatsoever of the text.
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Instead, there was this, well, let's hammer Proverbs 1... Proverbs 129 shows that there's a choice in godliness.
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And, you know, if we want to debate the issue, you know, the temptation was there to just forget about John 6 and go ahead and try after having basically being precluded from having an opening statement.
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Because, you know, there's a tremendous amount of disrespect you show for everyone, your opponent and your audience, when you decide you're going to debate a different topic than what you were invited to debate.
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Because you're showing disrespect to your opponent because if he sticks to the subject, no debate is going to take place.
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And you're showing disrespect to the audience because it's very confusing to hear two completely different debates that are not related to one another.
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And so when I had presented an exegesis of John chapter 6 and then my opponent goes off into NaNa land and starts talking about, you know, choice and all the rest of this stuff as if somehow, well, because of 2
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Timothy 3 16 through 17, I can do this. In other words, I can ignore the exegesis of John 6 not offer you any exegesis of that, assume that my exegesis of every other passage
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I cite is correct, and string together whatever verses I want to do eisegetically to create my position.
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Well, that's what all the cults and isms do. That's not exegesis. That's the whole point.
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I mean, that's basically an open admission. I can't do exegesis. I'm incapable of doing exegesis.
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I have my tradition. I can string my verses together. Don't ask me to do anything beyond that. That, in essence, is what we were told openly on the program.
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So we had Proverbs 129 thrown out there and this means they chose.
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Yeah, it says they did not choose to fear God. That's a historical statement. Someone wrote to me, and it was a good point.
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Someone wrote to me and said, after they listened to the program, I wonder what Mr. Ruggiero would do with the words of the prophet at Jeremiah chapter 32 beginning at verse 38 which says, they shall be my people and I will be their
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God and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me always.
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Remember, the fear of the Lord is a choice. We heard that. In fact, someone counted 74 times in the course of the debate.
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I saw someone doing this when it was replayed in Paltalk. 74 times Mr. Ruggiero said the word choice.
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It's a choice. Listen to what God says about this covenant that he is going to make with his people.
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It says that they may fear me always. I'm going to give them one heart that they may fear me always.
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God has to give us a heart to fear him for their own good and for the good of their children after them.
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I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me.
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Well, now wait just one minute. I thought we heard over and over and over again.
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You have a choice. You, and then we heard, you are worthy. There's the plagianism coming straight out.
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You are worthy. Your choice. Well, yeah, it is your choice. The problem is the enslaved heart will always choose to rebel against God until God takes out the heart of stone, puts in the heart of flesh, which is what we have here in Jeremiah chapter 32.
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When God puts the fear of him into the heart then they will not turn away from him.
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I haven't had a chance to ask Mr. Ruggiero about that, but given the answers that I got, I think the answer would go somewhere along the lines of, yeah, but Proverbs 1 .29
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says it's a matter of choice, and that's about as far as we would get. I just, it was very, very disappointing, and I did mean it very sincerely when
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I apologized to anyone who tuned in who were actually thinking that there was going to be something of benefit as far as an actual exchange.
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You know, there wasn't quite obviously. It was obviously not Mr. Ruggiero's perspective to do so.
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However, the next day when I went into PALtalk, Mr. Ruggiero did private message me and inform me that he had embarrassed me, that he had destroyed me in the debate.
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He even said, James, I was embarrassed for you at how poorly
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I did. So Mr. Ruggiero seems to think that he was just overwhelming in that debate.
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Most folks I've talked with were wondering why we had bothered, and I was too, but I guess we again have illustrated, sadly, that there is no meaningful exegesis of John chapter 6 verses 35 to 45 that actually follows meaningful hermeneutical canons and rules, and that does not then result in the perspective of the reformed position.
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But we will continue to look for some some individuals who might be able to maybe take a little better shot.
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I don't know, but we will continue to try. Maybe you have some comments about those things. 1 -877, well, sometimes you don't need the
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So 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341.
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In fact, I got a call today while I was waiting on getting something done at the house.
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Someone had some questions on the King James issue, if you would like to call in.
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We have about 38 minutes, 36 minutes or so actually left in the program today, so feel free to call in on those subjects as well.
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Pretty much open lines, if you would like to ask some questions. I'm fairly warmed up, shall we say, on answering questions after this past weekend, because I couldn't, you know, it was coming from every direction.
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Look at that, 90 degrees. It's only 153 in the afternoon, and it's already 90 degrees here in Phoenix.
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Something tells me the summer is headed our direction, and that's just how it goes,
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I guess. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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Do not delay. If you would like to be a part of the program today, if you put it off, well, you know, we won't probably be able to get to you.
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By the way, if you're a praying person, if you support our ministry with your prayers, or in any other way, do not forget about this coming weekend.
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Major, major doings, shall we say, on Friday night, the debate against Dr.
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R. Dennis Potter, and the subject, did Christ's death save anyone?
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The issue of substitutionary atonement. Interestingly enough, Dr. Potter says that his favorite ancient heretic is
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Pelagius, and so, I, well,
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I can tell you what the, I can tell you right now, in fact, I guess I'll go ahead and tell you right now what the debate's going to be about.
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I'm going to present a presentation on the biblical basis of substitution, and especially the
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Greek preposition huper, 2nd Corinthians 521, passages like that, that clearly present the concept of substitution, and then
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I will, having established that biblical basis, address Dr.
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Potter's insistence on the innocence principle, which he develops in an article on his website, that basically questions the, the propriety of an innocent person suffering for a guilty person, and in essence,
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I will basically say that when our philosophical constructs run up against the
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God -breathed scriptures, we need to abandon our philosophical constructs and construct something that is consistent with God's revelation, and that is the direction
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I'm going to be going, and I don't know if there's going to be much in the way of meaningful interaction at that point, we'll find out, but that's
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Friday evening, in fact, I just yesterday, now that I think about it, there was a, yeah, the
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Salt Lake Tribune, Saturday, March 29, 2003, had a brief little article about the debates, and it was fairly fair, it was more of an announcement type thing.
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If you're up in the Salt Lake area, would like to get some more information, you can call 801 -532 -5066, that's 801 -532 -5066, these are going to be at 7pm in the
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Orson Spencer Hall, Orson Spencer Hall, boy, is that a Mormon name, Orson Spencer Hall, on the
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University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah, that'll be 7 o 'clock on Friday, and then 7 o 'clock on Saturday evening, which is during the
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General Conference, same location, I will be debating Roberts and Jennis on the subject of the
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Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice. So those are the debates coming up this coming weekend, and would appreciate your prayers for safe travel, and health, and all those things that you need when you travel up there, of course, the recording of the debates, make sure that things go well, because we don't just want the people that are there to be able to benefit from these particular debates, but also all the rest of you that cannot necessarily just drop everything and head off to the
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University of Utah for the weekend, we want you to be able to listen in as well through the
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MP3 page, video, audio tapes, whatever other formats there are out there, and we want the recording to go well, because these are of course important issues, and the hope is that we might be able to continue this kind of series type thing in October, with a two -night debate series, one on the subject of Roman Catholicism, maybe other issues as well, but at least for now, one on Roman Catholicism, one on Mormonism, it is very, very unusual to have this kind of thing going on,
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I'm very thankful to Christ Presbyterian Church, Pastor Jason Wallace, Mike up there who helps him do a lot of stuff as well, organizing these things, putting these things together, it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of,
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I'm not sure how to describe it, it's hard to get folks to do this kind of thing, I mean it's very unusual for this kind of thing to take place anywhere in Utah, especially with Mormonism, it just simply isn't, you know, that's just DVDs, no we don't do
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DVDs, sorry, we'll catch up with that technology someday, but not yet, that's for sure.
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It's pretty unusual to have these types of debates with Mormons, and so to have this taking place,
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Pastor Wallace has demonstrated himself to be exceptionally capable of getting past objections and things like that, so we're very thankful that he's doing that, and so anyways, 877 -753 -3341, we have one caller online, we'll go to Randy in just a moment after we take our break, but you can get in while the break is on at 877 -753 -3341, we'll be right back.
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Is the Mormon my brother?
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Bethany House Publishers presents James White's book, Is the Mormon my brother? In television campaigns, para -church events, and clergy fellowships all across the
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United States, Mormons are presenting themselves as mainstream Christians. Is it unloving or backward to say they aren't real
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Christians? In contrast to Christian monotheism, the belief in one God, Mormonism teaches that God was once a man who lived on another planet and was exalted to the status of God, and that Mormon men can also become gods upon death and resurrection.
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In his book, Is the Mormon my brother?, James White demonstrates how this fact alone means Mormons and Christians are irreconcilably at odds at faith's most basic level.
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Is the Mormon my brother? is now available from Alpha and Omega Ministries Book Ministry. You can order
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Is the Mormon my brother? from our website at www .aomin
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.org. Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God, James White, in his book,
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The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
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.org. In his book,
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The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
31:39
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin
31:45
.org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
33:02
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
33:14
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
33:23
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
33:55
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
34:01
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
34:12
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
34:32
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free.
34:43
You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin
34:50
.org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
34:56
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
35:13
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
35:33
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
36:03
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
36:17
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
36:24
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org.
36:53
The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
37:00
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
37:12
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free.
37:34
You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
37:46
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
38:02
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
38:17
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
38:35
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
38:44
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
39:02
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
39:23
Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org.
39:29
The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
39:35
Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
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Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
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Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the
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Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin .org. Are you familiar with the work of Gerald McDermott? Gerald McDermott?
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He's got his most recent one, actually I don't know if it's most recent.
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He's got one with Jonathan Edwards, Confronts the Gods. He's a Jonathan Edwards scholar.
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He's not the only one that's shooting around the idea, but the fact that truth can be found among other religions, such as God has revealed himself to these other religions.
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Actually, Gerald McDermott would say that Jonathan Edwards believed that. Jonathan Edwards looked at the Indians and was real close to Christianity, but they were actually so far away from Christianity at the same time.
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I'm working on a paper and I'm trying to shoot these ideas around in my own mind. I've got my own opinion according to Romans 1.
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When you say revealed himself to or through other religions?
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I guess through other religions would be more accurate. Well, I can't see how
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Jonathan Edwards would have agreed with that statement. Jonathan Edwards, I would assume, and I haven't read anything on his
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Doctrine of General Revelation outside of what has come up in my general reading of Jonathan Edwards. My response would be that revelation is, of course, of two sorts.
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You have general or universal revelation, which is, as you mentioned, defined for us in Romans 1, the concept that God has clearly revealed himself through what has been made so that men are unapologetic.
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They are without an excuse, but what he has revealed in the general creation is his divine power and eternal attributes, and what is demanded of man as a result is that they honor him as God and give thanks.
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In light of that, that's certainly not the issue of the
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Trinity or the cross or salvation. It's a general revelation of God's existence that men then suppress, according to Romans 1 .18.
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They hold it down in unrighteousness. Now, there are truths in almost every religion.
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I guess you could say there are some religions that have no truths at all, but the vast majority of men's religions, when man engages in idolatry, he does not do so in such a way that he twists every single thing that can possibly be twisted.
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In the sense that, look at Mormonism. Mormonism is a polytheistic religion.
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It is certainly far removed from biblical Christianity, yet Mormons will speak of the necessity of morality, the necessity of being chaste in sexual relationships, and the importance of the family.
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All sorts of issues like that, you certainly can't deny that there are truths in regards to many religions will say you shall not murder, you are to protect life, all the rest of these kinds of things.
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So, if a person were to say, can you find truths like that in man's religions?
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Well, of course you can. But is that because there has been a special revelation from God that has become a part of that religion that's separate from His common grace,
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His revelation in general revelation, or even a borrowing from Christianity?
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You look at Islam, and obviously Christianity had impact upon the formation of the Quran, and the
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Hadith, and Islamic morality, and things like that. Let me just read this real quick sentence to you, and then ask you a question.
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He says in his introduction, he says, those who have been schooled in the stereotypical Edwards will find it even more remarkable that he believed that some non -Christians worshipped, perhaps without knowing it, the true
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God. Now, that's what his whole book's based on, and this is new material regarding Edwards, because nothing along these lines has been written regarding Edwards.
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I guess a comment on that, but the other question would be, in regards to Romans 1, I take that to mean that in relation to other religions, my friend has,
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I don't know if he's coined the term, but he would say they're masks of atheism, that these other religions, that is the way people are suppressing the truth of God.
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I would agree with that. Yeah, I would agree that man's religion is part of the means by which he suppresses the truth about God, so as to engage in idolatry.
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It's the twisting of the creature -creation distinction. And without a quote from Jonathan Edwards, I can't really comment on it outside of the fact that he certainly would have agreed that Romans 1 is teaching that very thing, and how an
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Indian who is worshipping a hideous idol is in some way, shape, or form, in reality, worshipping the true
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God, I can't begin to imagine what the source of that would be.
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He is giving evidence, however, of his being created in the image and likeness of God, because he worships.
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He cannot help but worship. But it is a twisting of that image, and a desecration of that image, that is seen in the
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Native American religions, as unpopular as it is to say that today. In reality, the level of Native American religion is no higher than that of Central Africa or Aboriginal people at all, despite Hollywood's desiring to turn it into something it really never was.
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But anyways, without a quotation from Edwards, I really can't comment on it. And remember, a lot of these books grew out of some sort of a doctoral dissertation somewhere, and remember the standard argument in regards to a doctoral dissertation is it needs to add to the knowledge base.
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In other words, it needs to be unique, and hence you're always looking for some new way of looking at things.
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And sometimes the new way of looking at things will get you published, but it may not, in reality, accurately represent what you're talking about at all.
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There's another Edwards scholar who actually runs the Edwards Society at ETS.
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He's a good friend of mine, teaches at Lancaster Bible College. He's a good friend of John McDermott, but certainly disagrees with his conclusions that Edwards would say something like that, or would believe that, actually.
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Yeah, no toys about it. Well, I certainly would be interested in seeing what is being discussed.
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I mean, I don't have any capital invested in the infallibility of Jonathan Edwards more than anyone else.
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In fact, I think that Edwards missed the boat on, for example, trying to figure out the relationship of Adam's will to God's will, and ended up contradicting himself, and even
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Jonathan Gerstner, who certainly loved Jonathan Edwards, admitted that here we see the great intellect spinning in circles.
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Because I think sometimes Edwards should have listened a little more closely to Calvin's statement that where God makes an end of speaking, so shall we.
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And you can speculate beyond that, but sometimes that speculation can become rather dangerous, and you end up in a mass of contradictions.
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So, I don't have any capital invested in Edwards going off the deep end on something.
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I've just never heard that before, and hence would want to see what they're talking about. Alright, I do appreciate it.
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And I certainly enjoy the broadcast of your Sunday School program, so keep them up.
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Alright, thanks a lot. I'll let Mr. Broyles know, who does all the work in putting them together, that his work is appreciated.
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Thanks so much. Thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. Alright, 877 -753 -3341.
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I guess there's still probably a little bit of time. You could sneak in. I believe the phone lines are open.
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I don't see anything on my screen that says otherwise. And so if you still want to sneak in, we probably have about five minutes.
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We could talk with you if you had a question today on the program, maybe in regards to a specific textual variant.
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I ran into one. In fact, I'll go ahead and share that with you if nobody calls in. I've shared this with the channel, but hopefully the other listeners who don't spend a lot of time on the channel will catch something of benefit from this too.
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I run BibleWorks right up there on my screen. It runs all the time. I mean, I have a powerful enough computer that we're past the stage now of having to worry about how many programs generally you have running.
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And so I keep BibleWorks up there all the time. And when I need to look something up, I just pop it up on the screen, because generally
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I'm answering an email, writing an article. So you can cut and paste, and you can look at the
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Greek text, look at the Hebrew text. I have the current edition of the
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Bauer Lexicon on there, and Lo and Nida, and Holiday, and all that stuff is right there in front of me.
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So it's real easy, very convenient to use. But there's one thing that BibleWorks doesn't have.
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And BibleWorks doesn't yet have, and I have told the folks at BibleWorks, oh please, give this to us.
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I would love to have it. Though there aren't a whole lot of people who would really care about one way or the other. BibleWorks does not have the textual variations listed on the
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Greek text. And so I got blindsided by something today, not today, last week.
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And I found it absolutely fascinating. And it was in, let's see if I'm just doing this off the top of my head, it's in Luke chapter 23, and it is one of the quote unquote seven sayings from the cross.
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It's Luke 23, 34. And a Presbyterian pastor friend of mine from back in Florida wrote to me and pointed out that the first section of Luke 23, 34 is a fairly major textual variant.
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And in fact, we just posted it in the channel. If you look at Luke 23, 34, the words, but Jesus was saying,
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Father forgive them if they do not know what they are doing. That section is a major textual variant.
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The last part of the verse, and they cast lots dividing up his garments among themselves, is not. But the first part of the verse is a major textual variant.
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It is bracketed in the UBS text, and it is absent from a wide variety of ancient witnesses.
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Now, the majority of texts have it, but when you go back into the ancient testimony, P75 does not have it.
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The first corrector of Sinaiticus, and this is important when you're looking at text as a whole, not just words or phrases, but a whole block of text like this is.
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Early translations into other languages likewise do not have that section.
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And I had never seen it. I'm sure there are lots of textual variants
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I've never sat down and examined. But even when I wrote the Potter's Freedom, I responded to Norman Geisler's comments on this.
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But I had not looked at the textual variant itself, and part of the reason for that is because I've become dependent on the computer text.
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When I'm reading, obviously whenever I open the text itself, whether it's the
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UBS text or the S .C. Allen text, I'm going to look at the textual variant marks. I'm going to look down at the bottom of the page.
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I'm going to evaluate the various positions, so on and so forth. But if it's not there, what happened?
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Well, how many of us have heard this text over and over and over again? I think back to the
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Easter musicals that we would do years and years ago when
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I was at a very large Southern Baptist church. You would spend months preparing these major musicals with hundreds of musicians and all the rest of the stuff.
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And it's part of the seven sayings from the cross, and we've just heard over and over again. And I had never heard myself any sermon on this passage that even raised the issue, that even noted, now by the way, the most ancient texts of this particular passage do not contain these words.
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And, very interestingly, I pulled up the parallel. This is something that's very important when studying synoptic texts like this.
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and BibleWorks can do this for me, thankfully. I pulled up the parallel so you can examine this passage in its parallel in Mark and Luke.
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And while the, and they cast lots dividing up his garments among themselves, is parallel, as I recall, just off the top of my head in Matthew.
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The first part of the verse has no parallel. And I, again,
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I'm just admitting, I was completely, had never heard any discussion of it, completely caught unaware.
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And even though I had written a response to Dr. Geisser's use of it, obviously when
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I had looked at the text, I did so within the context of a computer version, which did not have the variance at the bottom of the page.
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So what does that prove? That proves that even when, like myself, you love examining things, like textual variations, and manuscript evidence, and enjoy having that opportunity, and have studied those things, and taught those things, and all the rest of that stuff, still you have your traditions.
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You are influenced by how you've heard texts used, or how you have not heard them used, shall we say.
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And so here we have a situation where I just had not looked down at the bottom of the page, or mainly had looked at it on a screen where that information wasn't to be found anyways.
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And as a result, just was not even aware of it. And would have to, really, if I was going to do another edition of The Potter's Freedom, I'd need to note that in the discussion that's found there as well.
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So there's just a little lesson. Don't become dependent upon that computer thing unless it gives you all the information you need.
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And that certainly is an experience I've had. Well, thanks for being patient with us today. We got started a little bit late, but that's
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God's providence and God's blessing in some ways. Next dividing line is when? Thursday evening, 5 p .m.
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Mountain Standard Time. We'll see you then. God bless. Web at AOMIN .org,
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that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.