Red Letter Christianity is Social Justice

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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See website for details. Red letter Christianity. What is it? Should we be concerned? Is there a danger in believing in the red letters over the black letters?

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We will discuss that today on The Rap Report. Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:37

All right. Well, welcome to Andrew Rapaport's Rap Report. We're glad to have you here with us.

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And as always, we're looking forward to dealing with God's word says on matters of culture.

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And this is one issue that we're going to see where culture and religion are mixing and it creates problems.

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Now before we get to that, I just got to let you know bud. I have gotten a message this week.

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That is phenomenal. Yeah, I want to read this to you. This is this was just great.

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This is a something that I got that was based off of last week's message.

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Now last week The Rap Report. I was well essentially what I was doing was

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I was more in the mode of I just wanted to kind of not do not have nothing.

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I always want for our audience to make sure that we're always providing some new material.

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And so that's what I wanted to do. And in that light I put basically was my testimony.

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I had it from another. I was recording it for another person's podcast and I just put my testimony up and it was more specific to how

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I got saved than it was the previous time. I have one that talks where I was on reboots and it talks more not just how

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I got saved but events after. This was really the events that led to my salvation and someone actually in my testimony.

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I talked about having been in a McDonald's where there was a shooting. I talked about my mother dying at a young age and I got this from a gentleman and this is just a great testimony because it tells you when you and I do these things behind the scenes.

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You write a bunch of the blogs at Striving for Eternity and some great stuff that you do every

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Sunday morning with the come last worship articles that you write and we do these things we usually don't see the impact until people contact us and someone contacted me with this testimony.

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It says, hey Andrew. I just I wanted to let you know that your episode with your testimony really hit hard with my oldest son.

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We live about an hour from church and we're listening on the way Sunday night.

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My son and daughter's sister and mother were murdered in a mass shooting in 2009.

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I could tell that my son really was able to relate and feel your pain when speaking about your mother.

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I didn't let my son go to the funeral because I didn't know how to handle it. I regret that so much.

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I was never he was never been rebellious but has never been vocal about God.

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After your testimony he asked me about God and why did God let his mother and sister die.

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I was able to go through the gospel with him and explain God's sovereignty and all things while at church at the end of service.

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He asked if he could go forward and pray with the pastor. We're Calvinistic Church. We don't do the pray this prayer thing, but I truly believe your testimony softened his heart for the gospel.

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I appreciate your work so much. My son's name is Isaac and he's 15 years old and that was so touching.

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Wow, that is tremendous. I mean to think that the things we do behind this microphone that we often don't think of.

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I can't wait till the day we get to heaven and see the real impact that we ended up making on the kingdom with people that we didn't know were listening or reading and the impact it has on people that we have no way of seeing this side of heaven.

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Exactly, exactly. So I'm so touched by this. It's an amazing testimony to have and you know,

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I just if you know, this family is listening especially for Isaac. I mean, it is hard to deal with, you know, having dealt with losing my mother when

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I was 10. It's hard to deal with life sometimes, but it is reassuring to know God is sovereign.

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He knows what he's doing and there's nothing he's going to allow that is for no purpose.

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There's nothing he's going to allow that doesn't give him glory. We may not understand it this side of heaven, but he knows what he's doing.

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I mean, this is the thing I always have to reassure myself with. He's all knowing, all good, all powerful.

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So he knows everything. He's going to do what's best because there's nothing that surprises him.

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He's capable because he's all powerful to do everything and he's going to do what's good. So it's like when I think of those just those three attributes,

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I realize I may not think things are good, but he knows better than me. So I just trust him. We never view

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God big enough. Yeah, that's a good point. And you know, that's going to come into play very well for what we're going to talk about today, bud, because we're going to talk about this new movement called

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Red Letter Christianity and maybe this is new for some folks.

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They're going to go, okay, what's Red Letter Christianity? We're going to give you what the first thing I want to do is give you from themselves, from people that are starting this movement up so you can hear exactly what they believe their goal is.

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And then I want to show you how it's being used because I think it's a little bit seductive.

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I think what they say and what they do and teach are going to be two different things.

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What they say usually to promote it. This is one of the things you always will see. People will say things and it sounds right and therefore you're going to be more trusting of it.

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And then when you see how it's put into practice, you go, wait a minute, that doesn't exactly fit with what you said your goal was.

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So let me give you, this is from their website, redletterchristian .org, their mission, they're about us, their values and what we do.

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So let me read this to you. Their mission is this, staying true to the foundation of combining

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Jesus and justice. Red letter Christians mobilize individuals into a movement of believers who live out

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Jesus countercultural teaching. So let's start with their mission and look at this. They're not just about Jesus, but it's

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Jesus and justice. So here you're seeing, if you've listened to us talk about the dangers of social justice movement, this is going to be one of the key things you're going to see.

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They are about social justice. And notice they talk about Jesus's countercultural teachings.

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The teachings of Jesus were countercultural only because of the fact that he's counterculture to the world.

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And the problem you're going to see with this movement is they want to be liked by the world. That's the problem. What we teach is countercultural to what they're going to teach.

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Yeah, it can't go without notice that their very mission is to combine

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Jesus and justice. And the subtlety of that is missed by the fact that, okay, we serve a righteous, just God.

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These two things go together and they go together in the scripture, but these guys don't get it accurately according to the fullness of the

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Word of God. So they have the about us. Let me read what they say they are about. The goal of red letter

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Christians is simple to take Jesus seriously by endeavoring to live out his radical countercultural teachings as set forth in scripture and especially embracing the lifestyle prescribed in the

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Sermon on the Mount. By calling ourselves red letter Christians. We are we refer to the fact that in many

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Bibles, the words of Jesus are printed in red that we are asserting. Therefore is that we have committed ourselves first and foremost to doing what

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Jesus said. Jesus calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate contemporary

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America. Instead. He calls us to meet the needs of the poor. He also calls us to be merciful which has strong implications of war and capital punishment after all.

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When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he probably means we shouldn't kill them. So that's what they say.

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They're about now. If you look even at this again, their focus is the Sermon on the

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Mount, which I always find interesting because they want to focus on one area.

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We're going to see him the one of the guys behind this talk about the Sermon on the Mount. But what you see is they want to focus on areas that are pleasing and sound good.

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It's the same reason Jeremiah 29 11 is so many people's life verse and no one's life versus 16 17 18.

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They want everything to be good in their life. But what is Jeremiah, you know, 29 17 18 say

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God is going to he knows the your plans. They has for you plans of famine and devastation and sword.

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No one wants that is their life verse. But this is what we see. Everyone wants something good. But what is their mission?

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They say they're about what they're about is trying to deal with feeding the poor that the feel -good ism that you can get in any religion.

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There's nothing unique about Christianity with this. Now, here's what you see so far. You're not seeing you're seeing them say we take what

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Jesus says, but it's not what Jesus says about repentance. It's not what

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Jesus says about sin and Redemption. That is the core. If you're going to skip the core part of his message, then you're not talking about Jesus.

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Then you've missed the mark precisely, right? They are elevating the ethical teaching of Jesus and they're doing that at the very expense of his redemptive work.

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You sacrifice the ladder. Whatever you do with regards to the former is just works that are dead.

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And that's the point that that's the whole thing. I'm going to have an issue with this whole the whole thing they do is because their whole thing misses the mark of what the core message that Jesus came to.

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So let's look at what their values are. This is what they say their values are. The words of Jesus are authoritative and compel us to do nine things here.

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They are one all people are made in the likeness and image of God. Okay, we could agree with that number two.

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Jesus is the lens through which we understand the Bible and through which we understand the world in which we live.

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Okay, agree with that. Do number three doing

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Jesus work leads to or doing Jesus's work leads to personal growth and greater understanding now here.

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I'm going to have an issue because when they say doing Jesus's work, I think we're going to have a different view of what it means to do

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Jesus's work. I'm going to say to do Jesus's work is to share the gospel that people come to repentance get saved and have eternal life.

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I think they're going to say doing Jesus's work is feeding the poor and making people feel good. But let's see number four freedom comes through serving others not power politics or materialism.

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Now, there you go number four. I have a big problem with bud because this is exactly what

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I just said. It's a totally I say freedom comes through the forgiveness of sin, right?

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Okay. So this is where you're going to see this is going into very different directions. We're focused on the eternal we're striving for Eternity.

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That's the idea of the name. We're striving for that which is eternal the things of the kingdom the things that God wants versus striving to make people feel good here on Earth.

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It's it's not a it is about serving others, but we serve others by serving Christ. We serve Christ first and because that we serve others.

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So number five diversity and collaboration make us stronger not weaker.

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And again, I could agree with that but not the way they mean it because diversity Jew Gentile.

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There's a there's diversity there and yet when they collaborated that's what you see in the church and that was a strengthening thing, but I don't think they're talking about diversity within the church.

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They're talking diversity with unbelievers and we can't be those that we're different. You can't have collaboration with the unsaved world and say it's going to make us stronger.

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It's going to make us weaker Paul makes it very clear. What does light have to do with darkness? How can you partner with with the unbelievers and I'm going to argue that's what is going to be an issue with number five number six wherever your power and influence might lie.

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It is to magnify when shared and held by those who are poor oppressed and look and overlooked by society.

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So again notice number six the oppressed. This is this whole social justice intersectionality everyone looking to be oppressed.

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I'm a bigger victim than you are because I have more things that I'm victimized for I'm so oppressed on my voice counts more that that's really what is you have behind this and I'm sorry, but my power and my influence is nothing.

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That's exactly what Paul said when he says that all of his teaching all of his education everything he had before you saved is rubbish.

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No my power and influence comes from Jesus Christ and Christ alone, and we don't turn to what we can have as an impact in this world.

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My focus is what is the impact that Christ can have through me notice the difference.

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It's not about me. It's about Christ. This is where we see a big difference with red letter

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Christianity. They say they put the emphasis on Jesus words, but miss his point completely.

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All right number seven questioning cultural norms is healthy and can lead to wholesomeness.

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Well, that may be true, but I'm going to challenge that they don't question the cultural norms. They're trying to fit into the cultural norms, but let's look at number eight.

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We respect and fight for the well -being of all people as children of God, especially those whom we differ now, is that really a right thing to do?

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Can we really look at that? Because if we look at the John chapter 1 verse 12,

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I'm going to argue that there's a real problem here. They want to fight as for all people as children of God, but but what we see in scripture

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John 1 12 says but to all who receive him.

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Who believe in his name? He gave the right to be a children to be the children of God.

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Not everyone's a child of God, especially the unbelievers, which is who they say in whom we differ.

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Are you speaking only of Christians? Because what they're with their whole message ends up being about the unbelievers and so that it's not

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Christians are calling children of God, but scripture says only those who believe in Christ are

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Christians can be called children of God. We're not all children of God until we repent and believe in Christ.

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So who are those that differ from us that they're referring to because again what we see with all this there they're speaking to people outside the church.

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A lot of the times when they talk about those that are being oppressed and those that are they're trying to do the counter counter counter cultural norms.

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So I think that here you have misunderstanding of scripture number nine.

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We embrace and work alongside people of different faiths erasing the lines of quote us versus them unquote.

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Now this was the Big Bang for them because here what do you have everything they're saying where I you know, because up till now some of you may be saying oh, but they could be saying it's it's you know believers.

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It's the differences and all the diversity that's within the church, but not once you get to number nine their value number nine is again, like I said, it's against scripture

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Paul makes it really clear. We don't have anything to we could do with unbelievers. We can't partner with them.

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We can't work alongside them. It's it is an us versus them. You know why? Because if you are with Christ you are against the world.

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You can't have it both ways. This is what what John tries to communicate. So these are their values this so but and I want this to be really clear.

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This is what they say. We're just going to give you scripture. Look at these and say does it match now?

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Here's how they do they look to do these things. All right, and then we're going to play some of them in their own words. They have their blogs and their newsletters.

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They have radios and podcasts. They have gatherings where they get together. They're trying to make an impact. They're trying to influence now.

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You're going to say I want to I want to play them in their own words. So let me let me play for you that Tony Campolo is

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I would argue a liberal Christian. He's he has some some things he's done in the past, which a lot of people seem to like Tony.

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He's a teacher at Eastern University, but I want you to hear what Tony is actually saying.

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I want you to be able to hear it from his own mouth so that you hear why we're going to say what we're going to say and how this plays out.

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So this is Tony Campolo on Red Letter Christianity. Red Letter Christians are people who take the words of Jesus seriously.

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I can't help but reflect on Shane Claiborne speaking to 15 ,000

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Christian youth workers and saying you're about to hear the greatest sermon ever preached.

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Everybody was kind of aghast at the seeming arrogance of Shane, but he opened the

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Bible and read the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of Matthew, the Sermon on the Mount. And when he finished, he said, we'll all agree, won't we?

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That is the greatest sermon ever preached. And then he paused and said, but none of us are going to take that seriously.

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What a shock. Indeed, that's the good question. Are we going to take the words of Jesus seriously?

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I mean, his requisites for the person who wants to be his follower. I mean,

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I got to tell you, they're severe. Read the 10th chapter of Mark. Read the

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Sermon on the Mount. Calling upon us to love our enemies, which probably means we shouldn't kill them.

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Saying that we should show mercy. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

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That means we'd be opposed to capital punishment. If you take the words of Jesus seriously, you will end up espousing a radical, counter -cultural value system.

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Stop to think of living in a consumeristic society such as we live in, and hearing the words of Jesus, who says, take no thought for what you shall eat and what you shall drink, and wherewithal you shall be clothed.

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Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Seeking the kingdom of God, rather than the kingdom of the consumeristic culture in which we live.

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Rather, Christianity is a call to a more simple lifestyle. A refusal to engage in the violence of our age.

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It's a commitment, most of all, to the poor. There are people who come into this movement from a variety of different theologies.

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But the one thing we all concur on is this. We all concur that Jesus calls us to a lifestyle that is very, very carefully laid out in his words.

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To be a red -letter Christian is to say, I'm going for the rest of my life to press towards that mark of living more and more like Jesus has called us to live in the red letters of the

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Bible. Okay, so, Bud, what do you think about that? I mean, it sounds good, doesn't it?

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You know, it really does sound good, and it is the subtlety that makes it so appealing to people who would not catch the error because of their own ignorance of Scripture.

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These guys are elevating the poor above all other things.

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But really, if you read the Gospels, in my opinion, Jesus talks more about exercising demons, and he talks more about the sickness and healing ministry that he does.

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He talks a lot more about that than he does servicing the poor and caring for them.

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You know, this is elevating ethics at the expense of Christ's redemptive work.

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Tragic, but very popular, and clearly a concept that is undergirding the social justice movement.

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I mean, you see their claims about diversity and collaboration and ecumenical engagement.

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The poor have become, in their mind, not merely the financially poor, but that has fragmented into the victims of social justice fame.

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You know, the LGBT, the women, the person who can claim victimhood on any and every level.

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So that's where this goes, and completely anti -biblical. Yeah, and this is the thing that...

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Actually, I'm going to play Shane Claiborne, so we can hear in this video that they have on Red Letter Christianity.

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This is where they're really trying to promote it, because I think what we're going to end up seeing in this is you end up hearing what they're really, as you mentioned, the seductiveness.

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Because he's a little bit clearer, and if you just look at them, you're going to see...

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Tony's from a generation before. He's going to say that in some of their videos, he says the reason he's attuned to this is because he teaches at university, he deals with young people.

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This is a young person thing. Well, Shane is the young person. Let's hear what he has to say about Red Letter Christianity.

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So a friend of mine was getting interviewed by this radio DJ host down in Nashville, and the guy who seemed like he didn't have a whole lot to do with Christianity, he was talking to my friend, he goes,

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Yeah, I've read the Bible, and there's stuff in there that I absolutely love, and then there's other parts that are kind of confusing.

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He said, but I've always liked the stuff in red. And he was talking about the words of Jesus in the old school

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Bibles are highlighted in red. And he said, I've always liked the red stuff. You guys like the red stuff. You should call yourselves

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Red Letter Christians. And that kind of stuck Red Letter Christians and Red Letter Christianity.

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This is a movement that's about discovering a Christianity that looks like Jesus again.

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It was Gandhi who was asked about Christianity and he said, I love Jesus. I just wish the Christians took him more seriously.

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So often Christians look unlike their Christ. And when we lose the centrality of Jesus, we end up talking a whole lot about things

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Jesus didn't say anything about. And we don't say much about the things Jesus had a whole lot to say about.

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So Red Letter Christians is about a movement that wants a Christianity that looks like Jesus again, and that's known for love again.

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Okay, so let's deal with this. First off, you know, their focus as we mentioned before, it's a lot of it's on the

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Sermon on the Mount, right? And you hear this with these guys a lot.

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But let's look at what he actually says here. He says, this is a movement. It's very clear. He is looking to create a movement.

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But what's this movement? It's a movement that looks like Jesus again. In other words, he like every other cult out there is claims that we've lost our way and we need this group to find our way back to Jesus again.

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Yeah, this is a thing where they're saying we don't have the

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Christianity that Jesus wanted. But they can help us get there. They can help us get there by looking at those red letters.

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And he's going to quote an unbeliever like Gandhi. So just look at the source where he's getting it.

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He's not getting it from Scripture. He's getting his thinking from unsaved people. You're seeing who influences this.

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Maybe what it is is Gandhi might not have liked people like him who don't live out what they say they believe because I'm sorry, but if you're going to say

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I am a red -letter Christian, but I'm going to just look at the red letters and I want to be more like Jesus and I'm going to ignore the main message of what

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Jesus teaches, then you're not a red -letter Christian and you're not a movement that brings us back to what

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Jesus looked like because Jesus's concern was not for the poor and the sick primarily.

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That was a byproduct of what he really was concerned about, forgiveness of sin. And if you miss the mark there, you miss the mark on what

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Christ was about. He's not about the things of this world. He's not focused on people having a better life now.

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If this is your best life now, then you only have hell to look forward to. For the believer, this is your worst life now.

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This is it. It's as bad as it gets. After this, it gets better. So, you know, and he says he wants to get back to what

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Jesus actually said. And I'm just, I sit here and say, okay, they want to do that, but they want to pick and choose.

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You know, one of the things you have to understand, these same liberal scholars of which we're going to throw, you know,

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Tony Campolo in there, these guys used to have, and for some people this may be before their time, but there was a movement, there was a group called the

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Jesus Seminar. Okay, and the Jesus Seminar was a bunch of liberal scholars that got together and they were trying to discover whether or not, like what were the actual words that Jesus said.

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They wanted to investigate and see what he said versus what he didn't say.

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And the end result was they would all get up and they'd explain why they think

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Jesus said something or didn't say something in the red letters. They would go through the red letters of the Bible and they would decide whether Jesus actually said it or not.

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And they put, if they believed Jesus said it, they dropped a red ball into a bag and that was their way of secretly voting.

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If they said Jesus didn't say it, they dropped a black ball into the bag. And if they weren't sure, they dropped a pink ball in.

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The interesting thing is there's only one passage of scripture that all of these liberal scholars could agree on that Jesus actually said.

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And it is the case when the men bring the woman caught in adultery and Jesus says, let you who have not sinned cast the first stone.

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That's it, that's the only passage that can all unify, well, that and the Beatitudes. There was enough consensus, but the only one everyone agreed on was, let him who has not sinned cast the first stone.

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You know what the big problem is? When we look at textual criticism, that passage is probably not in the original

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Bible. It wasn't in the original writings because that passage may have been a true event. We find it moved around in the old manuscripts, so it's something that was probably added in after the original writings of scripture.

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So that's it, the only thing they have that they can all agree on is something that probably was never in the original writing. In the original to begin with, right.

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So that presents a problem for them, right? But the thing they focus a lot on is the Beatitudes, they like that.

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I want to play this to give them more of their words, then we're going to kind of give some definition of really what this red -letter

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Christianity, how it started, where we got the red letters from, and then the dangers of it. This is one of their,

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I guess, promotional things to become a red -letter sustainer.

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So let's listen to their kind of commercial. And this is just great. I am a red -letter

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Christian. I am a red -letter Christian. I am a red -letter Christian. I am a red -letter

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Christian. I am a red -letter Christian. We are red -letter Christians. We're taking back

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Jesus. We are taking back Jesus. You know those red letters in the Bible? The stuff that Jesus actually said.

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What Jesus actually said. About peace, justice, compassion.

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About the poor and the oppressed. The disenfranchised, the marginalized. There are over 2 ,000 verses in the

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Bible. That talk about caring for the poor. And almost nothing about abortion and gay sex. So really, can we talk about something else?

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So, can we talk about something else for a change? Can we talk about the things that matter most to Jesus? Jesus cares about the here and the now.

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Jesus cares about unjust judges. Jesus cares about day laborers and orphans.

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And the stranger, the immigrant, the widow. Jesus cares about systems and structures. That will provide opportunity for all people.

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Jesus cares about and embodies God's dream for creation. On earth as it is in heaven, right?

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Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. We have started a fresh conversation about that Jesus.

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See, we're taking Jesus back. We're taking back Jesus. We are not the Christians you usually see on TV.

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We are Red Letter Christians. We are Red Letter Christians. Red Letter Christians exists through your donation.

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You need to give to Red Letter Christians, because we can't keep this conversation going without you. Please consider donating today.

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Please consider donating today? Andrew, that sounds just like the

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TV Christians. Yeah, they don't sound very much different.

32:22

I don't get it. So let's break this down, because there's so much in here.

32:27

But yeah, they're like, we're not like the Christians you see on TV, but we got our handout donated today.

32:35

We want to be, we're not like those televangelists. But send us money, we can't exist without you.

32:44

And I'm not against giving donations. I mean, I ask for donations here as well. But the difference is,

32:50

I recognize that everyone needs donations. I don't sit there and say, we're not like those televangelists. So let's first start off.

32:59

They talk about taking Jesus back. Really? Where did he go? And what power do we have over Jesus to take him back?

33:07

I mean, as we break down what they actually say, we don't need to take

33:12

Jesus back, because he's, what's that word? God. He doesn't need to be taken back.

33:21

He's in full control. He's sovereign. We need to submit to him. We don't take him back.

33:27

Yeah, but this is such appealing language to people, particularly the millennial crowd that this kind of appeals to, the social justice group.

33:39

This is the appeal of a movement. We want to be involved in something bigger than ourselves. And what is that?

33:46

Taking Jesus back. And that's an important thing to point out, because what you end up seeing in a culture that now is being raised without any knowledge of God, they don't want to really focus on God, what you end up seeing is, because of this, the removal of God removes their purpose for life.

34:06

This is one of the things you end up seeing with the millennial generation. They're searching desperately for purpose, because without God, they don't have a purpose for life.

34:16

They can't explain anything. And you end up seeing this in everything. It's like they want to make this impact on the world.

34:22

And that's what drives them with all this stuff. And I sit there and go, but we look at this and say, yeah, your purpose is to repent.

34:32

Which you can see in the red letter Christianity, their focus is on the poor, the oppressed, over and over again.

34:38

They say they want to get back to what Jesus actually said, but they ignore what he actually said, because his main thing was not the poor and the oppressed.

34:48

If you actually read, he talks about the poor and the oppressed as a proof of whether someone is living out their repentance.

34:57

In other words, we take care of the poor and the oppressed because we've been forgiven of sin. And therefore, because of that, we want to go and care for others.

35:06

But they focus as if everything is on taking care of the press.

35:11

You don't see anything about repentance, forgiveness of sin. You don't hear anything about sin, period.

35:17

And the wrath of God coming. No, it's on what we feel good about.

35:23

Now, Jesus never said anything about abortion and gay sex. Well, he didn't say anything about immigration policy either.

35:32

But there's a whole lot of things that we have today that weren't an issue back in the days that the

35:39

Scripture was written. Exactly. One of the things that they seem to gloss over,

35:47

I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, was that little teaching of Jesus that I think was render unto

35:54

Caesar. You don't see him talking about that anywhere. Yeah. Render unto

35:59

Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Render unto God the things that are God's. Isn't that what it is in red letters? It wasn't mine.

36:05

I had a good look. Most of mine are all black. Yeah. And so this is the thing.

36:12

And when they say about they're making an argument against all the discussion on abortion and gay sex, that's how they worded it, versus taking care of the poor and things like that.

36:24

Well, the simple reality, who is it that takes care of the poor the most? Christians. It's the reason why every

36:30

Christmas, and for those of you who have not been pastors of a church, you may not be aware of this, or maybe your secretary of the church knows this, but what ends up happening every year around this time of year, around the holidays, you get calls from people who don't have money and they go to the government, they're on the government dole, and where does the government send them?

36:50

The government tells them, So they know who's going to take care of them.

36:55

They know who's going to help them out. Everyone knows it's the Christians that go in first and do things to take care of people, but the

37:05

Christians that are doing it, do it because they have a greater concern. It's not that these people get food for today and go to hell tomorrow.

37:12

Our concern is that they get food today so that they live long enough to repent and have eternal life.

37:19

Big difference. So when they say, can we talk about the things Jesus cares about?

37:24

Well, the things Jesus cares about, he cares about where people spend eternity. He cares about where they're going to be, whether heaven or hell.

37:33

He cares about whether or not they're going to have eternal life. He cares about their repentance and forgiveness of sins.

37:40

That's what he cares about because that's what he spoke the most about. Exactly, but their focus is on the effects of the gospel without the gospel.

37:49

And that's not at all what Christ was about. Correct. And the thing is, is that you end up seeing that red letter

37:56

Christianity is more about a social justice and social ethic system than it is about what

38:05

Christ taught. Now, I want to get into some history of where we got the red letters from.

38:14

Were they in the original Bible? Things like that. I want to get into some of the dangers. Let's deal with that right after this commercial.

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39:54

I should also mention, Bud, you and I are going somewhere next March. No, a year from March, I should write just that.

40:01

A year from March, yeah. So we've got plenty of time for us to save up our money. But we're going to... Where's that place?

40:07

Maybe it's a red -letter land now. It's a red -letter land. That's right,

40:13

Israel. It's the place where Jesus actually walked. We're going to red -letter land.

40:22

But we're going to be going to Israel, both Bud and myself, along with the men at Striving for Eternity, the speakers.

40:27

We're also going to have Justin Peters joining us. And we're going to be going to Israel to the places where we actually read in the

40:34

Bible, the places where Jesus actually walked. We're going to get an idea. It really is helpful to your

40:39

Bible reading if you've never been to Israel to be able to see the actual locations. It is a once -in -a -lifetime opportunity to go to Israel.

40:49

I really encourage people to think about going. It's not a cheap thing. I understand that. So that's why it's a once -in -a -lifetime thing.

40:56

But if you want to go with us, you can join us in March of 2021. You have a year and a half to save.

41:02

And actually, if you put your down payment down today, you have till next Thanksgiving.

41:08

That's a year away to be able to cancel. So you have plenty of time to cancel. If you can't make it and what ends up,

41:15

I think it's like $100 that's nonrefundable if you have to cancel. But the reality is this is an opportunity you don't want to miss.

41:23

We are going to be going to some great places. It's going to be 13 days, so it's longer than many trips. And we're going to see a lot of different lands.

41:31

We're going to have a lot of fun. And if you want all the information to see where it is, where we're going, the costs, everything, just go to 2021.

41:40

Those are the numbers, 2021israeltrip .com. 2021israeltrip .com.

41:46

And you can join us in 2021 when we go to Israel on a trip. And so the information's there.

41:53

If you want to meet us, if you don't want to fly out of New York, it's a little bit cheaper. You save like $1 ,000 and you book your own flight to meet us in,

42:00

I believe, Tel Aviv. But all the information's there and you can get a hold of Eric, who is running it all, and he will be happy to talk with you, answer any questions.

42:10

So please join Bud, myself, Dr. Silvestro, Frank Mullis, Justin Peters, and a whole lot of others in Israel for a great, a great trip.

42:20

So go to 2021israeltrip .com. All right. So let's get into this core issue that I have with red letter

42:29

Christianity. Bud, it's the fact that if we were to put the

42:36

Bible in red letters in what Jesus actually said, the whole Bible would be red letters.

42:44

Right. Technically, you and I are red -letter Christians because the whole thing is the word of Christ.

42:51

This is the issue that I have with what they say because where they seem to be lacking is the fact that what we end up seeing, and I know they have an issue with Paul, so maybe that's the whole thing, but the issue we end up seeing with Paul is

43:08

Paul makes it quite clear, okay, in 2 Timothy 3 .16

43:14

and 17, but he ends up saying all Scripture, not some

43:20

Scripture, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

43:30

We do not need culture to inform us on how to be complete and equipped for every good work.

43:38

We need the Bible. We need all of it. It's all Scripture. It's all breathed out by God, not just the red letters.

43:44

Here's the issue I have, and I'll probably bring this up later when we talk about someone that makes this distinction between Paul and Jesus, but when you think about what

43:55

Jesus said, that red lettering, how do we know it's red? How do we know

44:01

Jesus said it? Because you know what? Jesus did not actually write that. Matthew did.

44:07

Mark did. Luke did. John did. God wrote through them.

44:13

So now you have the dilemma. If you're going to say, well, these are the words of men, therefore we don't put it in the same words of Christ.

44:18

Well, we only know those words of Christ because men wrote them. Now, if you're going to say, but wait, that was the Holy Spirit that wrote them.

44:24

Well, the same Holy Spirit that wrote those also wrote 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 1

44:30

Corinthians, all the ones of Paul that they don't like. All, all Scripture. Exactly.

44:36

This is the whole dilemma that they have. They want to pick and choose, and this is what liberals always do.

44:42

And when they pick and choose, they get into trouble because A, they're not saying the message that God actually said.

44:50

They're not going and proclaiming what we end up seeing in Scripture. They end up getting it wrong, and what

44:56

I think you end up seeing is I think you end up seeing that they end up leading people down the wrong path.

45:05

Let me play one more clip of Tony Campolo. There's plenty of clips we could do, but I wanted to do this one because I want you to see where their focus is.

45:14

I keep emphasizing throughout this, our focus as believers is on Christ, is on God.

45:20

Their focus is on themselves and the culture around them. And I think this clip from Tony Campolo makes it clear that they twist the

45:31

Scriptures to fit their narrative. Let's listen. The reason why we use this phrase, red -letter

45:37

Christianity, is a lot of evangelical young people, people who believe in the

45:43

Apostles' Creed and the doctrines stated there, who believe in salvation coming through a personal relationship with Christ, people who believe that the

45:52

Bible is no ordinary book, but that the writers were inspired by the Spirit of God, the

45:57

Holy Spirit guided those writers, so that what they wrote was free of error. They believe all these things.

46:03

They're committed. They're evangelicals, but they're afraid to call themselves evangelicals because evangelicalism has not earned a good reputation among young people these days.

46:15

When you say at a university or a college, I'm an evangelical, they say, oh, you hate gays, you want to put down women, you're pro -war, you are anti -environmentalist.

46:26

We say, no, no, no. We are, in fact, people who love the gay and lesbian community because we are evangelicals.

46:35

We are people who think that Christ lifted up women higher than they have ever been lifted by any religion in the world.

46:43

We are people who preach a Christ that said, blessed are the peacemakers. We believe in the 8th chapter of Romans that we are called to rescue all of creation from the mess that we have made of it.

46:56

And we are part of that creation. When you say we are called to rescue... Okay, so he brings up Romans 8.

47:03

Let me read what Romans 8 actually says because this is where I end up seeing...

47:08

This is their focus. He ends up saying here that, and if you listen, you hear the language they use where it is supposed to sound great.

47:18

The first part of that, many Christians will say, well, I like that. It's good. I want that. But then he says, Christianity is not popular amongst young people.

47:26

No, Christianity is not going to be popular with the world. Christ said that. That's in those red letters. Exactly.

47:34

They forget that. Jesus said the world is not going to like us. The world is going to hate us.

47:39

That's what Jesus said in the red letters. But they're looking to be popular among the young people.

47:45

They want acceptance. And they say, oh, you know, people say we don't love gay. We do love gay people. Well, I'm sorry,

47:51

Tony, but accepting sin is not love. If you loved gay people, which

47:56

I don't refer to them as gay people, but that's his wording. But if you love gay people, you would bring them to repentance.

48:04

You'd share the gospel as they come to knowledge of repentance. You'd bring them to Christ. That's love.

48:10

Accepting their sin, that's not love. Encouraging them to do what God is going to judge them for, that's not love.

48:19

But I brought this passage up because the emphasis you end up seeing, what did he do? He says that their focus is about basically to bring back the culture.

48:34

Let me see if I can play this again so we get this last clip. Evangelicals, we are people who think that Christ lifted up women higher than they have ever been lifted by any religion in the world.

48:45

We are people who preach a Christ that said, blessed are the peacemakers. We believe in the 8th chapter of Romans that we are called to rescue all of creation.

48:56

Okay, so we get his words exact. We are to rescue all of creation.

49:03

Is that our job? Well, if you actually read Romans 8, and start in verse 18, you see that is not our job.

49:11

That's actually God's job. It's God who does that. When you end up seeing here, he ends up saying that all of creation is corrupted.

49:22

Okay, all of it is groaning. You see it in verse 22, but let's read verse 18. For I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us.

49:35

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

49:43

For the creation was subjected to fertility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

50:01

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have been the firstfruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we are saved.

50:24

Now, hope that is seen is not hope.

50:31

For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with patience.

50:40

Likewise. Now, when he says likewise, by the way, that means likewise what? Just like that groaning of the whole creation is looking forward to it, he's using this as an illustration of something.

50:51

Who is it that is bringing back this redemption of creation? It's the same one that he says, likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness.

50:59

This is not our job to do. It is the spirit's job to do. But this is the problem with the red -letter

51:05

Christianity group. They think it is their job to bring this back, to bring this about.

51:12

This is almost an interesting way of thinking about this. Bud and I were talking about this before we went live.

51:19

But what you end up seeing is this is a group of people that this is their end times you.

51:25

It's almost like they are post -millennial, but I think many of them would actually be pre -millennial. And so it's kind of interesting.

51:31

They are really looking forward to bringing about kind of the kingdom, but I don't know that they're actually doing that because I don't think they care about the kingdom.

51:40

They seem to care about the here and now. And that's concerning. I agree with you. They couch the appeal, even in the clip that you played earlier with the different quotes about taking

51:51

Jesus back. They point out the kingdom here, thy will be done here.

51:58

It's all about now, but they couch the appeal in kingdom of God kind of language.

52:05

But here again, you go back to the words of Christ, and in red, what do we see

52:11

Christ testifying? My kingdom is not of this world. I don't know that it's driven by an eschatology as much as it really is.

52:24

I mean, what this red letter of Christianity amounts to is nothing less than progressive blue politics, and that wrapped up in the social justice movement within evangelicalism.

52:38

And this is the thing. It's a struggle that we have because we're trying to be as fair as we can with them, but you end up seeing that they're somewhat deceptive in the way they speak, and it's frustrating.

52:49

So I want to do this at this point. I want to play a clip from Voice of Reason Radio, which, by the way,

52:57

Bud, you ever think about this? They go by the name Voice of Reason Radio, but yet they're not on the radio.

53:03

Radio has to deal with these sound waves that go through the air, and yet they're not doing that, are they?

53:10

They're using a medium that's not really radio. It's digital. Yeah, but you're adopting a red -letter interpretation of this,

53:18

Andrew. That's far too... That's just wrong. But the guys over at Voice of Reason Radio did a great job.

53:27

I think that Chris does a good explanation here and explains how we got the red -lettering in our

53:34

Bible. Was it in the original Greek? Did they have red ink when they wrote the Greek?

53:40

And when did this come about? It is a relatively new thing. Let's see what Chris has to say about that.

53:47

So this is from Voice of Reason Radio on Red Letter Christianity. So what's called rubrication, which is the printing of letters in red.

53:58

It started with a Louis Klopsch, I think, who was born in Prussia in 1852, died in New York in 1910.

54:10

He was a journalist and publisher, and he's best known as the originator of the red -letter editions of the

54:16

Bible. And the quick summary of the history of it here is that the inspiration for rubricating the

54:23

Dominical words comes from Dominical words meaning Jesus' words. Luke 2220,

54:30

This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which I shed for you. On June 19, 1899,

54:36

Louis Klopsch, then the editor of Christian Herald Magazine, conceived the idea while working on an editorial.

54:42

He asked his mentor, Reverend Thomas DeWitt -Talmage, what he thought of a testament with the

54:47

Dominical words rubricated, again made in red, and Dr. Talmage replied, it could do no harm, and it certainly could do much good.

54:56

Klopsch published the first modern red -letter edition in the New Testament later in 1899.

55:02

The first modern fully -rubricated Bible was published in 1901. The rubricated

55:08

Bible instantly became popular. It is sometimes favored by Protestant Christians in the

55:14

United States, especially in the King James versions. This format is useful because quotation marks are absent.

55:22

So, like in the King James, you don't have the quotation marks. Having it in red shows it as a quotation as being directly from Christ.

55:30

So, this was something that was created by a publisher, an editor, who basically looked at it and said, hey, maybe we should put the words of Christ in red.

55:44

And he talks to his mentor, Dr. Talmage says, well, I don't see it would be a bad thing.

55:50

And so they did it. So, it was not anything that we carried over as a translation technique.

55:59

You're not going to find this, per se, in your Greek manuscripts that they went and highlighted what

56:07

Jesus said in red. This was something that was decided by a publisher, an editor, who thought maybe putting this in there would be good.

56:16

And it caught on, especially with translations that did not have direct quotations, because when you're quoting from the

56:24

Greek, they don't have quotation marks. So, if you're writing... Basically, it's a semi -modern concept where it came along, and basically, you know, what was it, 1901, when it was first published?

56:41

Yeah, the first modern translation. He did the first red -letter edition

56:47

New Testament in 1899, and then the first fully -rubricated

56:52

Bible was in 1901. So, that turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s is when you first start seeing red -letter edition

57:01

Bibles coming out. So, there you have from Chris and Richard from Voice of Reason Radio.

57:07

And for the record, folks, those of you who know the back and forth between Voice of Reason Radio and the rap report here, just for those, if you go back and listen to the

57:16

Voice of Reason, you'll recognize I didn't play the full clip. I clipped out the part where Chris stumbled over the words rubric.

57:23

So, he's got to stop saying that I'm always busting on him. I don't always bust on him. I'm playing him in a nice way.

57:32

All right. But it's a really good summation that he gives there of where we got the red -lettering.

57:37

The red -lettering was not in the original. It was actually many years before we see red -lettering.

57:45

And I think that when we look at this, we want to transition now into the dangers we see.

57:53

And I think that Richard's story says it well on that same episode.

57:58

He said this. I see that, although I haven't been frequently... Try that again.

58:06

Oh, I'm sorry. I think I played the wrong clip there. Sorry. I think I meant to play this one.

58:12

And for clarification, I'm going to jump ahead a bit for the punchline of tonight's show.

58:18

When his mentor said, it's not going to hurt and it may do some good, now, over a hundred years later, it has done far more harm than he could have ever imagined because so, so many

58:32

American evangelicals, by those letters being in red, seem to think that that is the only words in the

58:39

Bible from God. They have completely lost the fact that the entire Bible is a word of God.

58:45

And this is where I see the issue, and I think, Bud, you do as well. This is the concern. When they make a division between Paul, and specifically

58:54

Paul, and we're going to get into why I think that is, but Paul and Jesus. Like, Jesus' words count more.

59:02

So, let's address this. First off, if you're going to say that there's a difference between Paul and the

59:11

Scriptures, or the words of Jesus, let's first start with what Peter says. Peter says in 2

59:19

Peter 3, starting in verse 15, and count the patience of our

59:25

Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.

59:36

As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction as they do the other

59:58

Scriptures. So, what does Peter say? Peter makes it really clear that there's two things.

01:00:04

One, what Paul writes is Scripture. It's Scripture.

01:00:10

He's saying this is the same level as all the rest of the Scripture. That's what Peter says. And you end up looking at this, and then compare.

01:00:17

The other thing he ends up saying is that because his words are a little bit harder to understand, what do the ignorant and unstable do?

01:00:23

They twist it to their own destruction. This is the reason we have concern with red -letter Christianity. What I believe they're doing is twisting the words of Scripture to their own destruction.

01:00:35

Now, I'm sorry, but I point it out to them not because I think that I'm better than them or I want to praise myself over them.

01:00:41

I point this out because this is leading people to destruction. We need to warn people when they are headed toward destruction.

01:00:50

That's the most loving thing we can do. That's why we do this. Now, if you say, that's not convincing enough because those are the words of Peter.

01:00:58

Peter doesn't count as Jesus. Fine. You want to make a division between Paul and Jesus?

01:01:05

Can I please give you the words of Jesus? In the red letters. This is

01:01:10

Acts chapter 9 and verse 15. This is Jesus speaking. He says,

01:01:16

But the Lord said to him, and now comes Jesus speaking, right? This is the Lord Jesus said to him, speaking to Paul.

01:01:22

This is what Jesus said, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the

01:01:31

Gentiles and the kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my namesake.

01:01:37

If you don't want to trust the letters of Paul, because they're of Paul, well,

01:01:42

Paul is a chosen instrument of Jesus. He said so. So, if you don't like what

01:01:47

Paul says, then you're putting yourself in opposition to Christ. This is the danger.

01:01:54

There is no one that says, Hey, I'm a false teacher. No. Every false teacher says enough truth to be believable.

01:02:02

And then they lead you to your own destruction. They twist the scriptures to your destruction, to their destruction.

01:02:09

That's what they do. This is what you have here. You have people who are leading to their own destruction.

01:02:16

And now, at this point, I want to give you, I want to name names. I want to expose where we see this and why it's so dangerous.

01:02:23

And, before I do, but I want to play something from Richard's story from that same

01:02:30

Voice of Reason episode on red -letter Christianity. And this is a clip I think I'm going to use a lot.

01:02:36

But, here we go. Well, I've said this before, and I still stick to it now.

01:02:42

Over the last ten years, off and on, when it comes to ministry versus boxing, boxing is far less violent.

01:02:52

And I think I agree with Richard's story on that one. I've done, well,

01:02:57

I haven't done boxing, but I've done mixed martial arts. And I think I can concur with Richard's story on that one.

01:03:04

That's tremendous. So, let's look at some of this. And, you know, it's really funny, bud.

01:03:11

You and I were talking before we started recording. We went through one person's Twitter, and you can almost grab almost anything, and it points this out.

01:03:18

But I want to address, if I mispronounce the name, I'm trying to get the pronunciation, but Jory Mica, did

01:03:27

I pronounce it right? Jory. Jory, okay. Jory Mica put this out. And I want to give this, and then give some of how

01:03:34

I responded to some of this. But Jory Mica said, had tweeted out, where did

01:03:39

Jesus restrict women from preaching, or pastoring, or leading, or teaching officially?

01:03:47

Please don't tell me Paul, because Paul ain't Jesus. Okay? So, there you have it.

01:03:54

I mean, and I ended up responding saying, this is the problem with red -letter Christianity. To accept a sinful culture, that they deny the very word of God.

01:04:04

They think as if there's something different in this wording that Jesus said. Okay?

01:04:11

What the issue she has is, she wants to be seen as a female preacher.

01:04:18

And Paul says, no! He speaks against that, and they don't like that.

01:04:24

Okay? Their whole issue is with 1 Timothy 2, verse 12 and following.

01:04:31

I do not permit a woman to teach, or have exercise authority over a man, rather she is to remain silent.

01:04:36

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and became a transgressor.

01:04:42

They don't like that. They just do not like that, so they say, well Paul is, this is

01:04:47

Paul's problem. That Paul has an issue here. And they don't, they just don't like it.

01:04:55

But what they'll often say is, well see that was just Paul's opinion. Really? It's just Paul's opinion? If it was just Paul's opinion, so they say, well that's

01:05:02

Paul's opinion, not Jesus' opinion. But Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, in verse 33, he says,

01:05:10

For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says.

01:05:26

If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shameful thing to speak in church.

01:05:33

So what do you end up seeing? That's for all the churches. So what do they do? They say, well Paul's just got the issues.

01:05:39

The issue is they want to make a division and say, well that's just Paul, that's not Jesus. Because Paul is saying that this goes back to creation, the way

01:05:47

Adam and Eve were formed. Adam first, then Eve, the sin order. Eve, then Adam. That's not culture, that's creation.

01:05:54

Here in 1 Corinthians 14, he's saying it's for all the churches. They don't like that. So what do they do?

01:05:59

What some have actually tried to do is say that Paul didn't write 1 Timothy. And they try to make a case that he didn't really write it, that way they can get around the whole issue and say, well that's just a forgery.

01:06:11

There's a lack there. But what you end up seeing here is they don't like Paul because Paul says something they don't like.

01:06:19

Yeah. And fundamentally, you go back to the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, and what you see happening here in evangelicalism, particularly with this issue,

01:06:30

Paul versus Christ, as Jory has pointed out, is not new.

01:06:35

Paul addressed this to the Corinthian church, which was in a state of chaos, when he talked about each of them saying,

01:06:43

I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ. This is not new.

01:06:49

This is worldly division that is untenable in the church of God, and Paul speaks to it directly to the

01:06:57

Corinthians, just as he did with what you quoted. Yeah, so I guess the red -letter Christianity would say,

01:07:02

I'm of Jesus, right? I'm not of Paul, I'm of Jesus.

01:07:09

Yeah, effectively. They wouldn't say it that plainly. You really think they'd say, I'm a Christian, I'm not a follower of Paul, I'm a

01:07:18

Christian, a follower of Christ? Would they really say something like that? Well, Jory, one of her tweets says,

01:07:23

I am a Christian, I am not Apollian. That's not because I don't respect Paul's words as inspired.

01:07:29

It's because I do. But I follow Jesus ultimately. Oh, but keep reading.

01:07:34

She quotes Paul there. Yeah, everything else is rubbish in comparison. So the irony is she says she's a

01:07:41

Christian, not Apollian. She quotes Paul, and how does she quote him? Out of context.

01:07:47

Out of context. Right? So here's the thing, Jory, here's the thing.

01:07:53

Would you like me to take you out of context? I'm guessing the answer is no. Paul doesn't like it either, and God doesn't like it either.

01:08:01

Stop doing it. They don't like to be taken out of context any more than you would. And that's what you end up seeing here is they don't like what

01:08:11

Paul said. So they want to find a way to say, well, I'm okay with what I do. I can do what

01:08:17

I want and believe what I want and just find a way to justify it. Now, let me give you one that I didn't give you before in the show notes.

01:08:25

But this is another one from Joya Micah. This goes back to 2017,

01:08:31

May 14th of 2017. She put this on Facebook. And so that you understand how far,

01:08:38

I mean, this is a woman who is completely, completely in the world.

01:08:44

She supports everything that the leftists' anti -Christian agenda would be.

01:08:50

But she does it from within Christianity. That's why she needs to be called out. She is a wolf pretending to be a sheep, looking to devour the sheep, looking to twist the words of Scripture to fit the destruction of her own soul along with others.

01:09:05

What should we do? Should we insult her? Should we make fun of her?

01:09:11

Well, the reality is we need to pray for her. We need to confront her. We need to tell her that she needs to repent.

01:09:18

She doesn't like that very much. I think you found one about that. So maybe you get that one up and I'll read this and then we could maybe look at that.

01:09:27

But the thing we end up seeing with Joya Micah is she says this, quote,

01:09:33

If one is offended by God being called mother, I question their intimacy with God as well as their view of women who are created in God's image.

01:09:45

God is not confined by Scripture. God is bigger than the Bible. We would never fit all aspects of God into one book written in patriarchal times by all men.

01:09:58

But even with the Bible being bathed in patriarchy, we still see

01:10:03

God referred to as mother in metaphors. More importantly, we see in Scripture that women are made in God's image, not in man's image.

01:10:17

This means God equally holds feminine attributes. God does not hold a literal gender, yet he has both male and female attributes.

01:10:29

Calling God mother and father are both metaphors in Scripture. Jesus calls

01:10:34

God father to help us understand that God is a relational being, yet God is not a literal father slash man,

01:10:44

God is love. That's who God is, that's

01:10:52

God's identity, and love can be expressed both father and mother. Now, you know what's lacking in there?

01:10:58

The one thing I see lacking is I don't see, and help me if you saw that and I didn't,

01:11:04

I don't see in there anywhere where she gave some Scripture to support her claims.

01:11:10

Yeah, I didn't catch that. Yeah. Now, the issue I have,

01:11:15

I mean there's so many things I have issues with this, right? But there's an issue that I see here when it comes to looking at this with the way that she ends up viewing this, okay?

01:11:31

She's trying to pit God as having female attributes and being referred to,

01:11:38

I don't know what, do you even understand what verse she may be referring to when she says that God is referred to as a woman or as a mother?

01:11:51

She didn't cite anything. I know that there are attributes of God that are sometimes expressed in that maternal manner, but that is purely metaphorical.

01:12:02

It is not speaking of his essence, but of his love and his care and concern for his people.

01:12:10

He did that for Israel. He does that for believers now. But you see she's really making

01:12:19

God in her own image as much as she is claiming the alternate. You know, and here's one thing

01:12:26

I would say with this post that she has. When you look at this, first off, she says that he does this because he wants to be relational, right?

01:12:36

Who is the more relational figure that most people think of? Father or mother? Yeah. It's mother, right?

01:12:44

Mom. Yeah, if he's doing this to be relational, I think that what he should do is call himself a female.

01:12:54

But he doesn't. He's got a reason for doing what he does. Now, I want to play a clip of Andrew Rapport's Rapport Daily.

01:13:04

Now, for folks who don't know, I have a daily Monday through Friday. It's a two -minute long episode, so this clip will only be two minutes long.

01:13:10

But this is a question of, is it biblical to refer to God as mother? So let's see what

01:13:16

I ended up saying about that in this episode. Daily Edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications.

01:13:32

This is a ministry of striving for eternity. You know, there's many people who are having real issues with what the

01:13:40

Bible says because God is referred to in a masculine sense.

01:13:47

Now, what you see is people want to know, is it biblical to refer to God as God the mother?

01:13:55

Or to refer to God in a female gender? The simple answer is no, it is not biblical.

01:14:04

Now, for many of the people who want to argue that we should be open -minded and allow

01:14:11

God to be referred with a feminine gender. Well, the simple answer that you should give to anyone like that is the fact that God identifies as a male.

01:14:24

You see, most of these people that would argue that God should be referred to as a mother will also argue that people should be able to use whatever pronouns they identify.

01:14:37

Well, God identifies as a male and identifies as father. Therefore, the only biblical way to refer to God is the way that he calls himself.

01:14:48

Not the way some liberal agenda wants to try to rewrite the

01:14:53

Bible. Because they don't like the hierarchy that God created, the ordained roles that God set in place.

01:15:02

And so what do they do? They want to try to say God is mother and therefore women are exactly equal in men and all things.

01:15:10

That's not what the Bible says. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:15:20

So right there, I kind of like what I said there. If Joy or Micah would be asked, I bet she says that people should be identified the way that they want to be identified.

01:15:28

And Jesus and God refers to himself as male. Yeah, that was a good explanation.

01:15:34

And it was only two minutes long. I'm glad I was right because I agree with you. But you end up seeing this is the whole thing.

01:15:42

They want to say that human beings can identify any way they want, but God can't.

01:15:49

God has to identify the way the liberals want them. And that's really what the real issue is. These people are so intolerant of anyone else's view.

01:15:58

They say they're tolerant, but they're so unaccepting of anyone else's point of view. And then if you disagree with them, they say you're intolerant, you're the bad person.

01:16:06

Now, you know what I do find so great about this? This is from 2017, the thing

01:16:11

I read to you from Joy or Micah. And who is it that I see responded two years ago? None other than our own

01:16:18

Pastor Frank Mullis. He had said, why is she using the Bible to make her point at all?

01:16:24

Now, the interesting thing with that is she didn't actually use the Bible. She just says the Bible says it. But then he said, seriously, she is making a concrete statement about God being a mother, but showing

01:16:38

Scripture explicitly says Father, and she uses Scripture to make the points, but calls it patriarchal.

01:16:45

So he's pointing out the fact that she's contradicting herself, because she's saying that God refers to himself as mother, but that the

01:16:53

Bible's patriarchal, that's why it does this. So it's a self -refuting argument. So, I don't know, did you get a chance to look up?

01:17:02

She had done a response. I don't know if you looked it up. Here is what she wrote.

01:17:08

Today, which, again, this was yesterday. Today, I told my conservative, evangelical,

01:17:16

Christian mom that some Christian men keep telling me I need to repent, and that I'm leading others to hell for being a woman preacher.

01:17:25

She laughed and said, that's not even reasonable. I'd tell them to kiss my behind.

01:17:33

Oh, my goodness. Now, that is what we said earlier, exactly as Peter says, right?

01:17:41

They're twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction. They pray off of the ignorant and unstable to twist their own destruction.

01:17:51

Let me point this out again with Joyer. Joyer Micah says, this is November 19th of 2019, she said,

01:17:58

I am a Christian, not a Paulian. This is not because I don't respect Paul's words as inspired.

01:18:04

It's because I do. Now, you read this earlier, and here's the thing I found interesting, and this is my response to her. I guess you're not a

01:18:09

Mathonian, a Markian, a Lukean, or a Johnian, because this is who wrote those red letters that you want to look to.

01:18:19

They're just as inspired as Paul is inspired. So when she wants to make this distinction, she can't do this and argue that, well,

01:18:31

I'm doing this because I'm all for Paul, but I don't think he's as good as Jesus.

01:18:39

That's the argument. But let's look at what she actually tried to say, because she tries to back up. She doesn't want to be a red -letter

01:18:46

Christian if that's going to get a bad name. So she says, I wouldn't call myself a red -letter only

01:18:54

Christian. Now, notice what she said. She says she has red -letter only in quotes. I wouldn't call myself a, quote, red -letter only, unquote,

01:19:01

Christian. So it's not red -letter Christian, but red -letter only. So she's trying to make this.

01:19:06

It's like people say they're not King James only, they're only King James. They don't use any other.

01:19:13

So she's trying to say, well, I don't look at only the words in red. I look at all of it.

01:19:19

The issue is not, I don't think there's anybody that argues that red -letter

01:19:24

Christians only look at the words in red. That's not the argument. The argument that we're making is that red -letter

01:19:32

Christians put the words in red higher than any of the words in black, ignoring the fact that when we look at the inspiration of Scripture, when we look at the inerrancy of Scripture, this is all

01:19:42

God's Word. The same Holy Spirit that wrote those letters in red wrote those letters in black. Well, okay, he didn't use any colors.

01:19:48

But the words that we have in red in the red -letter Bibles, they're all red.

01:19:54

Red and black. The whole Bible would be red because the Holy Spirit wrote it all. Joya Micah says,

01:20:00

I wouldn't call myself a, quote, red -letter only, unquote, Christian. I'm more of a, quote,

01:20:07

I love Paul too, but this obsession has gotten out of hand. Let's get back to Jesus, unquote, sort of Christian.

01:20:14

After all, it's the person, life, and teaching of Christ that we get the closest glimpse of who

01:20:21

God is. So the reality is, I end up saying, if she talks like a red -letter

01:20:28

Christian and teaches like a red -letter Christian, why shouldn't we believe that she's a red -letter Christian? She wants to back away from it, but the reality is she is in the position where she wants to pit the

01:20:41

Word of God against the Word of God. So she ignores, and this is the whole reason. She says it's not that we're somehow obsessed with Paul.

01:20:50

It's not that we're obsessed with Paul, Joya. It's that you don't submit to God's Word in what

01:20:56

Paul said. That's the issue. It's not that we're obsessed with him. It's that this is the one area in your life you need to repent of.

01:21:04

Okay, not the one area because I don't think she's saved. Therefore, she's got to repent of her sin. As someone that says that she's teaching the

01:21:12

Bible and she's going to be a Bible teacher, and yet the Scriptures condemn that, she needs to submit to that if she's going to say she's a

01:21:19

Christian. And as long as she's not submitting to that, that's the reason why people say she needs the gospel.

01:21:24

That's why people criticize her. It's because she's proving by her works that she is not a follower of Christ.

01:21:33

I know that seems hard for people to hear. People are like, how could you say that she professes to be a

01:21:40

Christian? James would say you look at someone's works. You look at the fruit. Her fruit is supporting homosexuality, supporting female pastors, supporting everything against what the

01:21:51

Bible teaches. Okay, maybe not everything, but a whole lot of the core things. She says that it's all about the life and teachings of Christ.

01:21:59

No. See, that's missing the point. This is the problem with red -letter Christianity. It misses the point.

01:22:05

It has just enough Jesus to sound true and biblical to get people to believe them, and yet the reality is it's false.

01:22:14

It has just enough truth to convince people, but it will lead them to destruction because it doesn't have one key thing.

01:22:23

Her focus is not on repentance of sin, forgiveness of sins. No, you don't see that with her.

01:22:30

It's about the life we live here and now. It is not about the afterlife. It is not about getting right with Christ.

01:22:36

See, Christ was about repentance. Christ was about us as human beings getting right with God, our

01:22:43

Creator. That doesn't seem to be her interest. This is the problem. This is why I say it leads to destruction because it's getting people engaged to feel good about Christianity and go to church and fit in with the world and have homosexuals like you, and the reality is these people are all going to hell.

01:23:02

Do you care enough, Joya? Do you care enough about their soul that you drop your cultural

01:23:09

Marxism that you love and believe what the Bible says, regardless of how you feel about it, and forget about what culture says and care about their soul?

01:23:20

Because that's the difference. That's what I don't see with her. I do not see her out there trying to tell people you need to repent and believe in the

01:23:28

Lord Jesus Christ so you can have the forgiveness of sin. I don't see that with her. What I see with her is wanting to be accepted by the world and fighting

01:23:36

Christians, genuine Christians, trying to get them to accept her twisting of Scripture.

01:23:43

Yeah, exactly. This is nothing less than coming to Scripture with your own agenda, and in her case and in the case of Red Letter Christianity, it is the hermeneutic of interpreting

01:24:00

Scripture through the lens of culture, rather than interpreting culture through the lens of Scripture.

01:24:06

That's what she is doing here. Her comment about the obsession over Paul versus Jesus and her emphasis on the personal life and teachings of Christ, this notion of obsession is ludicrous.

01:24:22

I mean, when you go to James, James tells us what's the source of the quarrels and conflicts among you.

01:24:31

Is it not that your pleasures wage war and your members you lust and don't have, so you commit murder?

01:24:38

You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

01:24:43

Well, what is she envious for? Well, it's not equality that she bemoans about this obsession.

01:24:50

What she wants is power, and in this case, it's the power of the pulpit. You know, there is a clip of Beth Moore that I made from November the 19th, which also mentions this obsession.

01:25:10

Beth says, I don't know, call me crazy, but I tend to be reluctant to trust any man who is obsessed with the submission of women.

01:25:19

And that happens to be a tweet that Jory retweeted. Well, my response to Beth Moore on that was,

01:25:26

I'm reluctant to trust any woman that twists and ignores God's word for their cultural thinking.

01:25:31

Exactly, exactly. I mean, we're to love the things God loves, that Christ loves.

01:25:37

We're to hate the things that he hates. We are in no position to question the created order that he sovereignly has established.

01:25:51

We do that to our own peril, not submitting to it. Yeah, and with Beth Moore, I mean, this is the problem with Beth Moore.

01:25:59

She had a tweet on November 14th. She says, listen, y 'all, I've been called out for proof texting a lot of times, and I've taken it seriously.

01:26:09

I consistently ask God to help me grow in my teaching, but I'm going to tell you this.

01:26:14

If you don't think those who call it out don't do it themselves, where it's convenient, you're nuts.

01:26:22

Well, my response to her was, if you took it seriously, you would stop blocking the people that point it out to you.

01:26:31

Right? I mean, just actions speak louder than words, guys. I mean, this is the whole thing

01:26:37

I'm saying with this whole red -letter Christianity. What you end up seeing is what they say and what they do, you end up seeing a difference.

01:26:45

They say it's all about getting back to what Jesus said, getting back to what he actually is concerned about, but what you end up seeing is they don't care about the things

01:26:53

Jesus actually cared about. They care about this culture. This is nothing more than social justice.

01:26:59

This is them trying to get their social justice agenda more mainstream in Christianity.

01:27:07

This is the destruction, attempt of destruction, I should say, of Christianity, and nothing will destroy it because the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

01:27:14

Jesus said that. And yet they sit there and they twist God's word, this scripture, to their own destruction.

01:27:25

They prey on the ignorant and the unstable to try to get more people on their side, and they do not like those of us that actually rightly handle the word of God.

01:27:35

Why? Because what they say doesn't line up. You see, you have like Beth Moore saying, oh, when it's convenient, they're going to do the same proof texting.

01:27:43

No, no, Beth. You show me where I do proof texting. Show me. Show me where I take the word of God out of context because I could point out like almost every time she uses the scripture, it's out of context.

01:27:56

This is the frustrating thing is because everyone counts these people because they're celebrities. They have this platform.

01:28:02

Therefore, they must be right. Well, you want to know something. You look throughout scripture, and you can see plenty of names of people who had a bigger platform than all the prophets, than the apostles, and guess what?

01:28:14

They were wrong, and many of them will be in hell. So the reality is her platform doesn't make her right.

01:28:21

What makes them right is if they're following in line with scripture. And what you see is when you have to take scripture out of its context, you no longer have man's words.

01:28:30

You have God's word. By the way, for the anti -Calvinists, that's a paraphrase from Calvin. But the thing you end up seeing is you end up seeing that this is the core issue that we have against this.

01:28:42

This is dangerous for this simple reason. Red -letter Christianity makes people feel good and feel super righteous and feel super spiritual about doing the things

01:28:52

Christ is concerned about and yet at the same time leading them to destruction because it is taking

01:28:57

God's word out of context. It's not the focus on what Christ focused on.

01:29:02

It is the focus they want to focus on, and they are leading people to destruction because their red -letter

01:29:08

Christianity does not have a gospel that saves. The Bible, the whole

01:29:14

Bible, has a gospel that saves. Their gospel is anemic to the lost and dying person.

01:29:24

They have nothing to offer. What good is it that you took care of the poor and the oppressed and they go to hell?

01:29:31

Hell is far more oppression than what they're going to suffer here. You really care about them?

01:29:37

The oppression that men do is nothing to what the wrath of God is going to do when he rightly judges them for the sin that they've done.

01:29:44

As oppressed as they are here on earth, they are going to be oppressed far more when they are sentenced to eternity in a lake of fire because they have sinned and broken the laws of an almighty, infinitely holy

01:29:55

God. And when they face him on Judgment Day, there isn't going to be any of this, but I followed the red letters.

01:30:02

No, God is going to judge them. And if Joya or Micah or Beth Moore actually cared about these people, or Tony Campolo or Shane, any of these people, if they actually cared, they would learn what the real gospel message is and share that and stop trying to be accepted by the culture.

01:30:20

Culture is not going to accept you unless you're part of the world. If you're the world, then it's going to accept you.

01:30:28

You could look at this as... You want a clear example of this? Look at what happened this week with Chick -fil -A.

01:30:33

Now, there's some dispute. Chick -fil -A said that they changed their policy. It had nothing to do with the

01:30:40

LGTB doing this push to try to get all their sponsors...

01:30:47

People are saying, well, we're not going to do halftime shows if you have

01:30:52

Chick -fil -A there because they support these groups like Salvation Army and others.

01:31:02

So they wanted them to change their funding. Now, Chick -fil -A changed their funding. Now, Chick -fil -A has said that has nothing to do with the arguments that...

01:31:12

the pressure being put on them. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I wasn't in their board meetings. It could be.

01:31:18

Their claim is that the media is using this to say they haven't gone far enough. But that is what they're saying. You saw this from GLAAD saying, hey, you stopped your support for these organizations we wanted you to stop support for, but that's not enough.

01:31:30

You have to come out and speak against any group that would speak against us. Well, that's them kind of forcing their way.

01:31:38

They're against anyone that speaks against them, but that's kind of contradictory because they don't want anyone to speak against them, but they think no one else has a right to their point of view other than them.

01:31:49

And so you're never going to appease them. For Tony Campolo and Joyer Micah, look, the left is never going to be appeased.

01:31:59

The world is never going to appease until you celebrate their sin because they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

01:32:07

And until you give in and cave in completely and give up righteousness and suppress it like they do, they're never going to be acceptable of that.

01:32:16

They're never going to give in. The only thing you could do, the only way to have genuine acceptance by the world is to share the gospel with them so they would repent and believe in the

01:32:27

Lord Jesus Christ. And through repentance, they have the forgiveness of sin. And in the forgiveness of sin, there can be not only redemption for their soul, but reconciliation with us.

01:32:38

You want that diversity that can work together in collaborative effort? It comes through reconciliation in the gospel message.

01:32:45

That's why a Muslim that comes to Christ and me being Jewish that comes to Christ, we can get together.

01:32:52

And if these red -letter Christians really care about what God cares about, they'd be concerned about reconciliation with Christ first, with God first, through Christ, then reconciliation among men.

01:33:03

But they have it reversed. They want to focus on reconciliation with men because they think that somehow will lead to reconciliation with God.

01:33:11

But once you give up the reconciliation with God, you're not going to have genuine reconciliation with men because you see this in this whole intersectionality.

01:33:19

They don't stop. They keep going. It was just about race issues. Now it's about homosexuality issues.

01:33:25

Now it's about gender issues. They won't ever stop. They can't stop because as long as they keep this going, they continue to get their political power, and they continue to feel better about themselves suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.

01:33:40

And that is why we speak the truth to them in love because we care about their soul.

01:33:45

That's far more important. It doesn't matter what they do for 70 years feeling good about themselves, dying and going to hell.

01:33:53

I'm far more concerned about where they spend eternity. I'd rather have 70 years of pain and torment, but have eternal life to have, look forward to, to have eternal life and live forever reconciled with Christ.

01:34:06

That's far better than to have a good life now. I don't want you to have your best life now.

01:34:13

Joel Steen, this is his best life now because he's got hell to look forward to. I want this to be your worst life now because I want you to look forward to eternity with Christ in heaven where all the sin and suffering, starvation, sickness, it's gone.

01:34:29

And we could be with Christ, the one we love. Now they claim they love Christ, but when you are undermining his word, you don't love him.

01:34:37

When you're undermining the main message that someone has, you can't say that you're trying to live for him.

01:34:44

That's why Bud and I think this is so serious and such an issue that has to be addressed.

01:34:50

This is starting to really make moves within Christianity. A lot of people are following this false teaching, and you're seeing that there's people who have huge platforms.

01:34:59

Just look at someone like Joia Micah, and look at her over her history. Look at how she's gone.

01:35:04

She just keeps getting further and further and further away from Scripture. But there's so many people that like her that they follow her.

01:35:11

Beth Moore's on the same trajectory. She was once conservative, and because of that, people believe her and trust her and they follow her.

01:35:17

But they don't realize that she's gone off that path, and she's on a path of destruction.

01:35:25

So my plea is that you would come to repentance if you're believing this. So that's the message we have for today.

01:35:33

On the next rap report, Bud, do you have anything you want to close out with? I was just going to close with this.

01:35:40

It's evident what this red -letter Christianity is all about. We are elevating the words of Christ, which sounds like a noble, wonderful, and Christian -like thing to do, but actually it is, in their mechanism, the way they do it.

01:35:55

This is false teaching. It's driven by an agenda that is completely unbiblical.

01:36:00

But the biggest issue that I think they need to come to terms with is in the

01:36:07

Gospel of Luke, where Christ is with the two travelers to Emmaus on the

01:36:14

Emmaus Road in Luke 24 -27. Here's what

01:36:20

Christ says, then beginning. Now this is not red -letter in the copy I'm looking at, and it's in black.

01:36:27

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he, Jesus, explained to them the things concerning himself in all the

01:36:38

Scriptures. The entire book is about Christ. You cannot, only to your peril, elevate one part of it against the other.

01:36:50

You are pitting Christ against his own words, and you're doing that from a false agenda of worldliness that will only end in destruction.

01:37:01

And so we care about people's souls. That's the difference. We're not caring that they have a full stomach. We want them to have a full stomach, but we want them to know

01:37:09

Christ. That's far more important. Next week I'll be playing a debate that I had on the

01:37:16

Gospel Truth channel. I had a debate with a guy on the topic of, secular humanism is superior to Christianity.

01:37:26

So that one will be a little bit of a longer episode. Kind of like this one's a longer episode. But I think that'll be helpful for you to see.

01:37:33

This is the same thing. The things we're talking about today, this is the same arguments that people are making. They are living for the here and now, and they have no way to justify their arguments.

01:37:42

You're going to hear that on the next Rapp Report. We look forward to seeing you then. This podcast is part of the

01:37:48

Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content, or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org

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Would you consider donating to Striving for Eternity? This ministry is one that tries to reach out to some of those smaller churches that most people, most speakers, want to avoid.

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But by our monthly donors, it allows us to get into smaller churches and provide for them the seminars and conferences that usually only larger churches can do.

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We can do that because we have monthly supporters who on a regular basis support us so we can support others.

01:38:27

Would you consider being one of our monthly supporters today? You can go to strivingforeternity .org

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slash donate and set up for a monthly donation today. Your donation helps us to be able to spread the gospel around the world, to be able to disciple others, and to provide resources for churches and people who are struggling to grow deeper in God's Word.

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Consider donating today at strivingforeternity .org slash donate and we thank you very much for your consideration.

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