Is the Bible Eternal – What We Believe, Part 1

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Do you know how old your water heater is? If it's 10 to 15 years old, it may be time to switch to the savings, comfort, and reliability of a new high -efficiency model.

00:10

Nobody wants to experience a breakdown, so if your equipment is getting near the end of its lifespan, now is a great time to make the switch.

00:18

Take advantage of National Grid's incentives and save up to $550 on select natural gas water heaters.

00:25

Learn more at ngrid .com slash ma -waterheating. One, two, three!

00:32

Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

00:38

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.

00:48

Well, welcome to The Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, joined by my trusty sidekick,

00:56

Bud the Wiser. Bud, how are you? I am great, sir. How are you? I am doing better than I deserve.

01:02

So, it's nice to see you went to get your hat on, and it's nice to see your hat matches your shirt.

01:08

No comments on your T -shirt, just a regular blue T -shirt. That's good. You're color -coordinated.

01:13

Your wife dresses you in the morning? No, no. I just have an innate sense of style, you can tell.

01:22

Hey, listen, we got an email, and folks, if you want to write a review for us, you could.

01:27

We always like the reviews because we do these podcasts, and we don't hear from you unless you reach out to us.

01:34

And so, we appreciate when you do, and we've got no new reviews this week, but if you want to send us a review, we would appreciate it.

01:45

There is a link in the show notes to give us a review, and so if you wanted to do that, that would be wonderful.

01:56

But we did get an email, and so we should let folks know how they could email us as well.

02:03

First, let me let folks know how to give us a review. Just go to lovethepodcast .com.

02:20

If you're listening and you're not following the podcast, just go to followthepodcast .com.

02:28

And you will make sure that, that way, you get all of the episodes. So that's followthepodcast .com

02:34

slash rap report and again rap report is with two P's But you can email us at info at striving for eternity dot o

02:42

RG info at striving for eternity dot o RG gets us a a

02:49

Review or an inner email and we check those out and we're gonna have two of them We're gonna talk about because we got one from bud

02:57

But I got this in the mail bud from our church the episode we did on the local church with Steve Hamm So this was really touching.

03:06

I sent this to Steve and I asked him I said are you as touched and encouraged by this as I am? He said yes,

03:11

I am so We got this from Michelle Says Andrew I met you at cruciform 2020 and loved your presentation on Leviticus.

03:22

Okay, let me just stop Yes, I went to a conference and preached from Leviticus Like the entire book of Leviticus and before you think that is nuts

03:34

Everybody enjoyed it. It was actually the most commented of of the different talks

03:40

Um, that was the one that people remembered because they probably because no one actually reads Leviticus Doesn't have a good handle on Leviticus.

03:47

The topic of that year's conference was on holiness So everyone was mentioning holiness from like the new testament referring back to Leviticus, but no one dealt with Leviticus Well, I dealt with Leviticus went through the entire book of Leviticus in one hour.

04:00

It was fun I I do that in some churches in a sunday school time and and every time i've done that talk people have loved it because What Leviticus does when you look at it in a in a broad spectrum?

04:12

You do an overview and you start looking for key words that are repeated throughout the book

04:17

You see the gospel presented very very clearly I will argue that the gospel is presented most clear in the book of Leviticus Than any other old testament book because it's a bold statement.

04:30

That's a bold statement I know but when you look at the gospel and then you look at that book and look at the It's all about purity keeping pure Uh the idea that we can't save ourselves.

04:41

We we can't atone for ourselves, but god has to do that for us It's all laid out and he does it because he's god he's holy

04:49

So that's that's throughout the book. That's a real high level. Maybe maybe one episode. We'll do that I think I might have dropped that as an episode here

04:55

But so she says I met you at chris form 2020 and loved your presentation in leviticus I will never read it the same again exclamation point and that has been the comment

05:06

Most people have said with that I admit I didn't start listening to your podcast right away my loss exclamation point

05:13

And so folks if if you enjoyed this podcast share it with others so that they don't miss out either

05:18

Let them know if you've gained a lot, but here's here's the key of what she's saying. Check this out This morning.

05:23

I was listening to your interview with steve Ham about the local church and feeling very convicted of the needs to thank my pastor for his labor of love

05:33

For our church body when I stopped at my favorite local coffee shop and grabbed

05:40

Uh to grab my pickup order there was my pastor I went inside and thanked him for his love to our of our local church

05:50

And then proceeded to cry the rest of the way to work. I hate crying

05:56

I'm, I like that. She put that in there I'm, I am so blessed By a bible teaching pastor a group of elders who support him

06:05

And love the body right next to him and their wives who are always encouraging the women of the church in godliness

06:12

Thank you for reminding me that while I have radio personalities and preachers.

06:18

I like to listen to Jeremy is the one who cries with my family and celebrates with us and prays for us

06:26

And thinks of us when preparing his sermons that I'm almost teared up again.

06:31

Just reading that that was probably one of the more touching emails that we've gotten in a in a while, um

06:40

That's wonderful. So It emphasizes the importance of your local church.

06:46

There's all kinds of things that can Supplement but nothing can replace that and and she's speaking exactly to the things that we understand

06:55

Christ has built his church and is building his church for yeah I mean You know, we do this show folks for you guys and we really don't know the impact.

07:05

We don't know We unless we hear from you. We don't know and we get messages like I actually have a folder in my email that I keep um just for things like that and um, just When when i'm at points where i'm like, oh, this is there's so much work.

07:22

I don't feel like doing it I don't think it's impacting anybody I mean I can look at the number of downloads But I don't know if it's actually impacting people and then

07:28

I get something like that and those are the things when i'm kind of sad or whatnot I I go back to and I look at that and I just you know,

07:36

I read through those and it's so encouraging and uh, I'm, just so glad for this pastor. Jeremy that he has someone in his congregation who

07:44

Values the the labor of love that he does Uh, so if you haven't listened to that episode with with steve ham on the local church

07:51

I encourage you to do that. It was it was really good to talk with him So you you got an email because you have a podcast as well that just dropped your first three episodes dropped of the bud zone

08:02

And and you're even getting email I I was shocked this morning. I got an email and and it was like not

08:12

Argumentative or anything it was uh, very nice. It said, uh from from don

08:18

Says bud, would you like to cover the topic of bible translation in your podcast? Uh, yeah 7 000 languages are spoken and less than 700 have a complete bible today

08:29

The bible translation efforts are through partnership with local churches in africa and asia countries that are almost closed to christianity

08:38

Let me know if you'd like one of our team to talk about it don with wickliffe associates. Yeah I've replied to don that that'll be interesting

08:46

I would love to have a conversation about the work and ministry that they're doing to get the word of god a topic which

08:52

I think We're discussing today Yeah you know wickliffe, um

08:57

It actually if I remember correctly, I think that that it started at america's keswick, which is a addiction counseling place

09:04

I used to counsel it and they also have a conference retreat center and it actually started when

09:10

Someone a couple of people were just up all night praying because they were so discouraged that there weren't uh,

09:15

Languages or the bible and languages of different people around the world and they stayed and prayed and then in the morning

09:21

Uh, they canceled the conference that they were supposed to have and just prayed about that and that's how I believe that started

09:27

But let's let's get to the in the news section of our podcast before we get started on on the main topic I I got something in the news

09:33

That I think you know, no, no, no, you're going you're going to enjoy this. Uh, oh, this is really good

09:39

So the the the title is government must pay $800 ,000 in legal fees to church

09:47

For covid 19 overreach, this is from the epoch news I'll put this in the show notes

09:53

If you don't subscribe to epoch news, you you could you should if you want to get some good conservative news

10:00

Uh, by the way, this isn't american news. This was started in uh, I believe hong kong um with their fighting of china's

10:08

Communism and so you'll see that in the epic new epoch news, uh, very hard line against china

10:16

Uh, they always refer to it as the the ccp virus, uh, but it's it is really interesting here

10:22

So here's here's the details. I mean one of the things that they focused in on is when a state or county or Even federal government sue you or or you know

10:34

Do like in this case the restrictions And you you sue them

10:39

As grace community church did typically the result is The courts will say you've overreached and that's the end of it

10:48

You still have to pay your eight hundred thousand dollars in legal fees Now, I I don't know if the eight hundred thousand.

10:55

It's it says it's in legal fees I don't know if there were damages. I don't know if grace community church said there were any damages

11:02

I mean, they just they really just continued as moving on one thing I would argue would be a damages

11:08

Uh for folks that don't know grace community church where john mcarthur is the pastor refused to close down once they realized that uh, the

11:17

Protests were allowed that they were writing laws to close churches, but open bars and restaurants and strip clubs and uh protesting, uh, black lives matter was allowed in mass without masks and No social distancing, but they would try and they were trying everything to work with the government.

11:34

They were trying to have church outside They were but under the same rules as were allowed for the protesters

11:41

But they were kept getting shut down and it was a thing. Uh, I do know people over there So it's an interesting thing every

11:47

Every monday they would send out an email to their church saying this is what we're going to try to do And then by like thursday or friday the government would shut it down And and pass a bill or do something.

11:57

So it was clear that they were being targeted And so at that point they just said that's it. We're you know, this is discrimination

12:03

This is against our first freedom of speech They did this different than many others are fighting the case And in in doing so what they ended up doing was fighting on on the issue of of freedom of speech now granted

12:15

They do have uh, at least two judges that I know personally in the church. They have several lawyers

12:21

I think they have uh, at least one judge that is on the board of elders, but they have a you know within the church they have a legal team that I think consists of uh, two judges and and Four lawyers so they got some legal minds within their own church

12:37

Not every church has that but but they handled it very well uh so well that the the epoch news is focusing on something that happened with this is the fact that the

12:47

State and the county each had to pay four hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. That's not typical

12:54

Now that is typical bud for people that may not know some of the law in in business law if you and I made a contract

13:01

Oh, obviously in this scenario, we'd be unbelievers that we're going to go to court but uh, so so two unbelievers two people

13:09

Have a contract of agreement If once if one breaches the contract in other words, you have an agreement one breaks it the person who

13:18

Did not break the contract can can then sue for the breach of contract But part of breach of contract because the person who breached it an agreement they breached it

13:28

Then they're allowed to go not only after the person but after the person for legal fees

13:33

Now the the only way that's really allowed in the law is when you have an agreement and someone breaks it

13:40

Okay, other than that you usually pay your own legal fees now the the article points out that places like the united kingdom and canada allow for The the if if someone is unsuccessful in a lawsuit, then you can go

13:52

Uh, you get the legal fees covered Now that is biblical and that's where that comes from And I I actually believe that should be the law of the land in the united states as well

14:02

Because you have so much frivolous lawsuits if someone was to sue somebody then what ends up happening is it's frivolous

14:09

If if they fail then they're gonna have to pay the legal fees I think that would stop these cases where the woman got paid what three and a half

14:17

Three or three million three and a half million dollars because she put a coffee cup of mcdonald's in her lap at the at the drive -through and then

14:25

Stopped short and because she stopped short her her legs pushed together and it it poured on and it was hot

14:31

And she won from mcdonald's because they got money um Was it eight hundred thousand dollars to a woman who was driving a winnebago?

14:39

And she put it in well, we would call this You know cruise control.

14:45

She thought it was autopilot. So she went in the back to make a sandwich and went off the road

14:50

And the jury actually said they awarded her just because You know winnebago had the money

14:57

Well, I don't think those two women would have sued had they had there been the fear that if it was if they lost

15:04

They would have to pay the legal fees of these companies. I actually think that's a good policy it it you know it now the reason we don't do it is there's some you know people who

15:14

Don't have the money to pay the legal fees go up against a big You know company with a big lawyer They may lose and then you know, they get victimized twice and that's so it there is a balance there

15:25

But in this case they got paid the legal fees, which was which is why epoch news saw it as is interesting

15:32

Because it's it's unusual, but here's the key And this is why I want to bring this up in our in the news section so many churches so many big evangelicals

15:42

Were critical of john mcarthur when he would not close when he opened up and he made a case

15:48

For others to do the same to say look this is against the the we do live in america

15:53

We do have freedom of speech. We do have a freedom to assemble That's in the constitution

16:00

And being in the constitution we have the right to do this And so that was the basis of their argument now

16:07

This is different than the way. A lot of churches were arguing over covet restrictions And that's why many churches were losing court cases

16:14

The way grace community church did it was over the first amendment they made it a constitutional issue

16:20

And one of the things that's interesting that came out of this lawsuit that occurred

16:25

Is not only from from looking at this did they have to pay back eight hundred thousand which by the way

16:31

The they grace community church was being fined a thousand dollars a week So when this started they had to put a thousand dollars a week in escrow

16:41

So they kind of just now get you know where the church has been paying out all the this legal fees They now get eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars that suddenly comes in in the same

16:51

I mean, it's not just free money. It's money that Is paying the fees now? I don't know one of the things that the reason

16:58

That they ended up having the state and the county had to pay Was because they was proven that this was

17:05

You know that they were targeting them. This was retaliation And I didn't see anything in the article referring to the parking lot situation

17:13

I do want to ask some folks out there if they got the parking lot back because they They had leased the parking lot for like 30 years and over this issue suddenly when they were their parking lot was taken away when they as soon as they

17:24

They said that they were going to open as soon as they challenged the county the county just Decided, you know, the county actually tried to get them the police to arrest them

17:33

And and the church has such a good working relationship with the local police that the sheriff said You could pass the bill, but we're not enforcing it.

17:40

Like no one's going to grace community church and arresting pastor John mcarthur. So it was like the county and the governor tried passing laws against them and that didn't work so well um, but the thing that's interesting with this is

17:53

Not only did they have to pay the the sum of money But also in this is is an injunction that the state and the county

18:01

Sorry state and the federal can never do this again. They cannot shut down churches Again are actually houses of worship.

18:08

Not just not just churches. So so this was and that's actually one of the reasons um when you you look at uh, what happened with the um, the the

18:21

The parking lot being taken away It was really interesting because when that was taken away.

18:26

There's a there's a um, uh Right by them is a synagogue and they that's that they tried to work with in the past But it didn't work out.

18:37

Well, the interesting thing with this is That once john mcarthur's church grace community church stood up and and took a stand

18:46

That and they lost their parking lot. The synagogue contacted the church and said hey, would you want to use our?

18:52

Now granted they went from 250 parking spaces to 75 But the synagogue said hey, do you want to use our building on sunday even so so now they have extra classroom space

19:02

Which they had they were actually praying about it. They needed more classroom space. So it really has been a good working relationship there

19:09

But this what happened actually helps that synagogue as well because now they can't have these kind of targeted

19:17

Uh responses where they shut down houses of worship anymore because of this case. So this case had a broader uh thing

19:25

On the entire state of california and the federal government that doesn't mean individual states can't but it what it does mean is

19:32

That uh, they can't do this again to some other church at least in california or the federal government

19:38

So this this is a big win, uh for for more than just grace community church um, you know, and so this is something we should be rejoicing in uh, for for you know, those who are christians

19:52

Um, so so that's that's our in the news section. I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that I don't know if you've read the article

19:58

No, I think it's just very Providential the way the lord orchestrated all this with the faithful folks out there like john mccarthur and the elders at grace because You know,

20:11

I don't know of a more liberal place in america. Maybe your former state but california is just Extreme extremely liberal socially politically liberal, but what was interesting and I and I don't have a link

20:26

Right now that I can provide to you. I read an article about this that um Was surprising to me that the california state constitution has actually a more robust Protection for speech and religion than even the u .s.

20:44

Constitution so That's kind of a an unknown thing. So this comes out with with all the mccarthur and those guys did um in a place that has really strong support for uh

20:59

Churches worship houses of worship, like you said and the freedom of speech uh kind of uh ironic that uh, it happened there, but Certainly a wonderful precedent and that was great and I was going to say about the parking lot thing and I think it was phil

21:14

Johnson, I saw a comment from somewhere that they did get the parking lot back to oh did they okay?

21:21

So that was good. I guess Rescinded it along with all the other fees that were in escrow and nonsense.

21:28

So praise the lord for that. That was great news Yeah Now this is a little bit longer of an in in the news section that segment that we usually do but I thought that that took some it

21:37

I think this is an important enough of a thing because You know, one of the things is is that this permanent injunction barring government officials from ever again imposing discriminatory restrictions on houses of worship.

21:50

This is something if if your Local church is is being discriminated against by your state or county

21:59

You need to go get a hold of the you know folks here

22:05

The thomas moore society is is I guess who is the special counsel? and so the

22:12

You know get a hold of these people get the the how they how grace community church fought this and do the same

22:19

Uh, because now there's precedent and that's the thing with courts they do it based on precedent now there's precedent so uh, hopefully states and counties

22:28

Uh and federal government will be less likely Although with our current president, I mean he admits he doesn't have legal authority and then just goes ahead and does it anyway

22:37

Uh, so well You stand I you know, he's the current resident

22:44

Well, no, he is he is technically president. Okay, because in our in our system the the electors have

22:54

Selected him now. Here's here's the thing. There's a lot of people who want to say that biden's not president We know he didn't win the election that we know right

23:02

I mean that there's mathematically it's impossible that it just It if this was flipped the news would be all over it

23:09

How do you stop all the voting in the middle of the night and suddenly 138 ballots 100 for biden?

23:14

It's just you know, and you're seeing it in the Arizona has shown fraud.

23:21

Um, so but here's the thing There were people who were arguing that the electors should ignore the vote

23:28

Because of the fact that there was fraud and vote for trump now had they done that would you hear anyone saying that?

23:35

on the conservative side that trump is Taking the you know, just taking that position, you know

23:41

No, they would say he's president why because the electors voted and the democrats would be the ones saying he's not legitimate

23:47

Yeah, so he is legitimately the the president. It's just we disagree on How on the on the reason that the electors chose?

23:57

Oh, I don't doubt I don't deny that he is the office holder This question who's actually in charge the question is legitimacy

24:07

I understand. So what we want to do, uh, not just today and I i'm gonna admit but I have

24:17

No grandiose ideas that we're going to get through the first and smallest section of this today

24:22

But we want to start a series and so we're going to go through this series what we're going to do I'll put a link to um this in the show notes, but we're going to go through a systematic theology

24:33

Just an overview what we're going to do Is go through the doctrinal statement of striving for eternity

24:40

And so if you go to striving for eternity under the about section, it says what we believe that's what we're going through We're going to go section by section

24:50

Explaining these things and we're going to start today with holy scriptures. That's the first section.

24:56

It's actually the shortest section Now these sections that we have there i've tried to be as concise as possible

25:02

It is kind of funny bud when when I was in seminary I took my theology classes and I decided to Now is the best time for me to write a doctrinal statement because you're going to need one eventually in ministry

25:17

Let me try to be as as concise But give enough detail as I possibly can and so my wife was you know

25:26

I was working trying to make sure I have I have a detailed doctrinal statement that I was working on that I wanted as detailed as possible

25:32

And my wife was was asking me so this was when I was in my class on soteriology

25:38

Which is the doctrine of salvation? So I still the doctrine of the church and doctrine of end times or eschatology to go

25:44

And I was working on it and it was really funny because my wife Said how many pages is your doctrinal statement right now?

25:50

I'm like, oh about 75 to 90 And she's like she goes that's your statement.

25:56

I said, yeah, she goes you try to write a statement and it's a book She goes you try to write a book it it's going to be

26:02

You know a series So she's like you try to write a series it'll be the you know, the encyclopedia

26:11

Yeah, well you did write that book by the way I did and it turned out that I did write that book.

26:16

What do we believe is it really actually? What do we believe for the most part? Is my doctrinal statement for the most part?

26:23

You know, there's actually some things I didn't include in the book because my detailed doctrinal statement I get into The doctrine of man and reasons against abortion and and things like that of how some of the the the really detailed views affect

26:36

Uh, you know was you know, and really when you think about when man is created We'll get to that when we talk about the doctrine of man

26:43

It affects You know the the view you're going to have for abortion. I have I have more in in in like just in notes

26:49

But yeah, you're right. It did become a book which is about 200 pages So, let me

26:56

I have a question have you had to pull like a has this been litanized like an ed litan

27:02

Yeah, because you had it wrong or no not because I had it wrong. Hey, you wrote it.

27:08

It's not copy and pasted No, there are there are there are some sections, uh, especially under eschatology

27:13

Which is probably my weakest area this the area I study the least in in uh systematic theology

27:20

That I I grabbed a lot of it from grace to you because I am very much in line with them

27:25

And there's some things I couldn't write better for my own church doctrinal statement, um we actually uh use

27:33

The the I think we use pretty much grace community church's doctrinal statement except for one edition that I put in which

27:42

I need to add to striving fraternities is a section on uh marriage divorce um

27:49

You know dealing with homosexual marriage same -sex marriage I should say Uh transgenderism things like that, you know

27:56

I I need to beef up the section of man to explain some of that because now that's an issue nowadays we have to do

28:03

Uh, so there are sections. There's a couple sections, um under soteriology uh, if i'm error correctly that I I just I could not get it as concise as they did at grace community church and so The the goal was not to be like, oh, this is me.

28:21

Um But there's there are some points where I could not get it more concise and that was the goal of it.

28:28

I mean as is you print this out It's I think 10 to 12 pages. Yeah, I think 12 I printed this morning

28:33

Yeah, so it's it's kind of funny when I used to Candidate at churches and they'd ask for a doctrinal statement and they'd be like, uh, yeah

28:39

You gave us a doctrinal statement like the one one person said, you know, we usually get one page maybe two

28:45

Yeah And it's like well, I wanted to point out I I don't know where you're going with all this and I don't want to interrupt your your theme here your your logic but I think believers need to understand the importance of researching this kind of thing

29:02

If they're looking at another church if they are looking to support a ministry It is imperative that you understand what their doctrinal statement is and whether it not only aligns with scripture, but whether you can support it and there may be secondary tertiary issues that you may have some disagreement on but Fundamentals need to be precise and and I think that's what you've done here.

29:26

But yeah I think far too I mean you've got the president of the southern baptist convention that I joked about earlier

29:32

Who had no clue that he had heresy on his church's doctrinal statement? Hello It's not important to you doctrine is that unimportant?

29:42

Uh terrible it's very important And so these things are useful tools and they're useful sources to ask questions and inquire and also learn from so don't disregard doctrinal statements from churches or Ministries that you may support or rely on Well, and and this is the thing

30:04

That I find is you go to most church websites And they give you a

30:10

I mean some it's just one paragraph Doctrinal statement we believe in in the bible.

30:15

We believe in god, you know No description there. No definition. No, you're not dealing with.

30:20

Okay, what differentiates? Your church from other churches. How do I know what you when

30:25

I come there what you actually believe? And this was the thing I didn't want to do was striving for eternity.

30:31

I wanted it to be detailed I wanted it to be something that we could that people can go and say I know what that even if you disagree

30:37

With us. This is what they hold to what they believe. Yeah, but you're right I've seen some of these doctors like the way you're talking about we believe the bible

30:45

I mean some of these things are so broad that satan could drive a semi through it. Um Come on, you need to be precise.

30:52

There's there's more to it. And that's what you've done here Even though it's 12 pages. Well, and i've tried to be concise

30:59

I mean, that's the thing but you need to be detailed enough to explain these differences So folks if if you're going to a church, you're going to go visit a church

31:06

The first thing you should do Is look at their doctrinal statement and this is the first thing when people ask me about a church

31:12

Oh, hey, you know i'm thinking of going to this church You know, what do you think about it? First thing I do look at their doctrinal state if they don't have a doctrinal statement on their website.

31:21

That's a concern Now i'll give a caution with this though you have

31:27

Churches that have a perfectly fine doctrinal statement, but that's not what they believe or practice um

31:36

One of the arguments We'll we'll deal with this on on uh, apologex live.

31:42

Justin peters and I are going to address sam storms who Is critical of people like justin who say you shouldn't be listening or playing uh, bethel music hillsong music jesus culture in your church

31:54

One of the arguments is but bethel's doctrinal statement is fine Well, it's so generic that it doesn't really give the details of the errors

32:01

So it goes so what people do is go. Well, look they believe in the trinity. So that must be fine Okay, they also believe jesus was born again in hell

32:09

Do you you know like so that what they do is they put a statement that everyone can believe Why because some people want to deceive so they don't want to define what they mean.

32:19

You'll see this with cultic groups You know, the mormons will say they believe in the trinity totally different definition of the trinity than we would have as believers

32:30

Totally different but they would say we believe in the trinity Yes, they just believe that the god the father was a separate being who was physical had flesh became god so You know, it's so it's so off So you have to realize that you need to be precise.

32:48

You need to dig in deep You need to get definitions and that's why we have such a detailed doctrinal statement and Why we want to spend the time to go through this because one we want to educate you guys on What should we be looking at theologically now i'm going to say at the outcast this start of the series

33:05

Some of you may disagree with the positions that we at striving for eternity take Okay, some of these are going to be there there's going to be some

33:13

As you'll see when we get toward the end where bud and I have differences Okay, some of those differences are just this is where we take a stand.

33:22

That doesn't mean This is what all christianity takes a stance. So what am I saying there? There are some areas that are non -negotiable you deny them.

33:31

You are not converted to christ You're not a christian, right? Those are primary issues issues.

33:36

We should be willing to die for But then there's secondary issues that we can that we convictions we feel very very strongly about them not going to die over them

33:46

But they're they're going to be things that we could differ but still have fellowship. We don't need to split over But we may not go to the same church

33:55

I mean there's going to be people who go to presbyterian churches versus me going to a baptist church I I wouldn't have a hard time being a member of a presbyterian church because of our differences

34:05

But they're still brothers in christ and i'm still going to be able to work alongside them in in a lot of different ministries

34:10

Okay, and so those are secondary issues. Then we have church area issues third level issues

34:16

I call you know preferences and these you shouldn't even fight over. Okay So first one you die for those are your beliefs your convictions

34:27

You fight over but you don't separate the the quarter ones. You're going to separate these you're not going to separate and then your preference

34:34

Is let's not even fight over. Okay so Translation if you're not using the nasb

34:39

You're probably in trouble You say that now, but I bet that once Once the legacy standard comes out you're going to change my friend.

34:47

I'm actually i've switched to that from my new testament Because you're not using the nasb 2020 i'm sure so um, so but but you see these are the things where Some of these things some people make take it stronger than others and and and that becomes a thing that I just want to encourage you to think about because you know

35:09

When when we do this we have these discussions Especially online folks you you go online man

35:16

There are people who are fighting over stuff That just they shouldn't be and and So much fighting that's going on that really it's

35:29

It's over secondary or tertiary issues Not primary issues and I just wish that people would would stop fighting so much stop

35:38

Trying to prove they're right and and try to understand what someone else's position is.

35:43

What what do they believe? Understand what they believe in context understand what they would their position is without Misrepresenting and so I I'll recommend to you guys to if you go to Look up do theology.

35:57

It's part of the christian podcast community If you go to christian podcast community go to shows you'll see do theology their entire podcast

36:07

Is based off this idea of what we're talking about? They have a chart that they that they refer to a theological chart that they have in in their episodes

36:15

And what they're doing is working through that chart What is a primary secondary tertiary issue?

36:20

Okay, and that's what they're doing and so This is this is something you need to know.

36:27

Okay, where do we where do we look with that? How do we how do we examine these things? but the reason

36:32

I wanted to do this is is so that if you do uh Start to look for a church or maybe you're at your church

36:40

A lot of times I get questions. We get a lot of emails at striving fraternity with people who are struggling with the church they're in Uh, something's going on something's happening.

36:50

They just you know, i've had just this past week someone calling Because they're like I I'm trying to understand if this is actually biblical.

36:58

I have this is the situation going on in our church Is the is this something to leave the church over now in that particular case?

37:06

It probably is, uh that church From their side of the story now notice how

37:12

I said that there's always two sides of the story from their side of the story It sounds like the church is becoming very controlling in a bad way.

37:19

Very patriarchal where Wives can't even speak You know women can't speak in the church supposedly at all, uh, not even to sing and and so no no women speaking

37:29

Okay. Well, that's that's bad news But even in the home, uh women are not allowed to speak

37:35

And so they're not allowed to teach children in church or teach other women in church um, and there are

37:42

There that is happening more and more. I dealt with another that that's getting a church similar in that way

37:48

Not to that extreme yet. And so things like that become where you're you're now denying the women the

37:56

Ability to use their gifts in the church as commanded by god, and that's the difference

38:02

Now the church leadership is violating the commands of god for the sake of their Patriarchal system now that if that becomes the case then yeah, if if you're being denied your

38:13

What god commands then? Yes. I mean this is the same thing with the government, you know

38:18

I'm going to be dealing with this and uh for those that follow striving fraternity Uh, you know that uh at my church grace and truth bible church

38:26

Um in bucks county we we have a wednesday night bible study that right now

38:31

I still make available at striving fraternity on the youtube channel and facebook and We you know, i'm going to be dealing with the government this week

38:40

And our submission to government that's going to be a tough one Uh for some folks and and so but the issue there is if the government tells you to do something that is against the word

38:51

Of god that's commanded in the word of god. You disobey the government It's a it's when it's not specifically against the word of god that we have the issues that we need to to look at and so uh, but Where where are we going to know that?

39:05

What are what's going to be our our standard? Well, we need to have some understanding of theology.

39:11

Okay, the first course that I usually teach uh folks Is hermeneutics how to interpret the bible why so we know how to rightly handle the bible?

39:20

But once we do the next course that I end up teaching is systematic theology Why because once you know how to handle interpretation?

39:26

You need to take the whole bible and look at it as a whole and start categorizing it in these different categories

39:32

So there's seven main categories we have on the website at striving fraternity so the that we have that we're going to look at and there's going to be a series of Podcasts that we're going to do we may break it up with some special ones here and there as need be

39:48

And we're not going to deal with one whole section a week because there's just too much But holy scriptures is one god angels man

39:59

Soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation the church and eschatology, which is doctrine of last things

40:05

Now each of them, of course have have more Bigger names we could use bibliology

40:12

For holy scriptures theology proper for all of god. We could break the break it down to theology proper

40:20

Christology which is the study of christ. Pneumonology, which is the study of the spirit angelology anthropology soteriology eschatology

40:31

Ecclesiology each of these different ones. I reversed the last two. Sorry about that, but uh

40:38

The each of these have it's a study of something. Okay, and what we want to do is look at bibliology

40:44

Now there's an order to these by the way If you see that the first one is scripture, why do we start there?

40:51

now i'm starting here with a doctrinal statement because this is where we're going to base the rest of Everything on what how do we know about the study of god angels man salvation church and times?

41:04

It comes from the word of god. So we start with the word of god Now if you take our class at the striving fraternity academy on systematic theology, you'll notice

41:12

I start with With theology proper the study of god, why do I do that?

41:18

Well in that class I explain why Uh, we're we wanted to start there because all of our theology is going to be based on the attributes of god

41:25

That's where a starting point. So where we did there was we put bibliology

41:31

Down after soteriology or you know after we get through some of those things why?

41:37

Because there what we're trying to do was focus in on getting people to in that class

41:42

We didn't want to overwhelm them with getting deep into some some details of the of the word of god that You know, we're we're starting really an entry level

41:53

And so we wanted to start with the attributes of god because that would greatly impact people

41:59

Uh in in the way that we want to lay that course out And so there's a difference there if you take that course why we did it different in our doctrinal statement

42:07

So in just that's that's a an overview intro For this series, but I don't know if there's anything you would like to add

42:13

No, I would just say that in your in your series of teaching That doesn't contradict what you've done here because everything that you're teaching prior to the time that you get to bibliology

42:25

Is based on scripture so it's drawn from that um, and and I particularly liked how you started this this, uh, first portion of the statement about the bible being god's special revelation because In very broad categories, we only have two we have natural revelation and we have special revelation and the details come in particularly for our uh understanding of salvation the details come in that special revelation, which is scripture and and this is gonna be a thing we're like Even this there's this is like I said, we're very concise in this but what

43:00

I want to take these podcast episodes is to explain Some of the unpack this statement for you so but would you mind doing us a favor and reading the all three paragraphs

43:12

Read this section on holy scriptures, even though we will we won't make it through too far of all of them

43:17

But read that first paragraph three sentences. Yeah, I think we'll get the first the first paragraph

43:23

Okay, so Maybe which which within itself is is uh, what three sentences so that you're right

43:30

We we may just get to the comments before we even get to the first comma in the first sentence

43:37

I'll uh, i'll read this Uh, the holy scriptures the bible is god's special revelation, which is limited in space and time

43:46

And are directed to various designated individuals second peter 121

43:52

The accepted writings that make up the bible are the 39 old testament books and 27 new testament books

43:59

Without any of the additional writings commonly known as the apocrypha The bible provides the only inerrant and absolutely authoritative

44:09

Propositional knowledge of god that exists. The bible is inspired by god Inspiration is that supernatural work of the holy spirit in which he superintended controlled and directed the reception to the writers and Communication to the hearers and the readers of the divine message to mankind

44:30

Such that the product the original writing Is verbally every word and plenary completely both inerrant without error and authoritative from 2nd timothy 316

44:44

God spoke in his written word by a process of dual authorship The holy spirit so superintended the human authors that through their individual personalities and different styles of writing

44:56

They composed and recorded god's word to man 2nd. Peter 1 verses 20 and 21

45:03

They did this without error in the whole or in the part according to matthew 5 18 and 2nd.

45:09

Timothy 316 Thus making the scriptures completely and totally sufficient for life and godliness

45:16

The only means of interpreting scripture is a literal grammatical and historical interpretation

45:21

Which affirms the belief that the opening chapters of genesis? present creation in six literal days genesis 1 31 exodus 31 17

45:32

And seeing a distinction between israel and the church the bible constitutes the only infallible rule of faith and practice

45:39

And you have numerous verses there that folks need to go check whereas there may be many Applications of any given passage of scripture.

45:46

There is but one true interpretation according to god The meaning of scripture is to be found as one diligently applies the literal grammatical historical method of interpretation

45:57

Under the illuminating of the holy spirit. It is the responsibility of believers to ascertain carefully the true intent and meaning of scripture

46:05

Recognizing that proper application is binding on all generations Yet the truth of scripture stands in judgment of men never do men stand in judgment of it

46:17

Okay, so so we're and we're not you can get through this whole thing. I understand Okay, I have no delusions in that.

46:26

Um, but I do want us to to to look at this sentence by sentence and and break this down because There's there is a lot here in this that i'm being very specific now

46:38

Why am I saying this because some of these things and what we're going to deal with today We're going to eat every word of this is targeted to do one of two things

46:48

Be very specific in what we believe or answer some heresy that someone else believes.

46:54

Okay I am trying to make distinction here. So let's start with the really like you said before to the first comma

47:00

The bible is god's special self revelation So let's stop there and look at this what we're saying there is that this is this is something that is

47:12

The only way we can know god is if he reveals himself to us Now there is a difference between and you already mentioned this and alluded to this is the difference between general revelation and special revelation

47:25

Okay General revelation we can look at the stars. We can look at creation just had jason lyall on apologetics live

47:32

He's talking i mean just things that blow your mind with astronomy and You look at this and go wow

47:39

And we can know something about our creator god. We know we know something about his attributes This is romans chapter one.

47:45

We can see that he exists creation reveals that we can see that He is a god of great design.

47:53

We could see something about his attributes But we can't know about salvation that's specific to the scriptures.

47:59

So this is special This is something we would have no other way. This is not natural

48:05

So the difference we make is between natural and special or natural and supernatural But I prefer natural and special.

48:12

Yeah, because I would argue that what we call nature is supernatural in a sense God created it.

48:18

Yeah. Yeah Uh miraculous, I I would just point people to psalm 19 where you've got a concise summary from david

48:26

Of both those categories of revelation And I actually I think that's actually what paul is alluding to in romans 1 is back to psalm 19

48:35

Psalm 19 is is it is something he's very concise. I think that psalm 119 is just taking psalm 19 and exploding it out

48:43

Yeah, and so The point here though is that the bible is it comes from god and we're going to deal with this much more next episode but Because we're going to get into a thing called superintending very very important doctrine to understand it answers a lot of issues when it comes to Sanctification we'll talk about that and and the calvinism arminianism debate

49:05

When we talk about next week will is what helps most people resolve the debate on calvinism arminianism

49:12

And so we'll talk about that next week. But as we look this week This is god revealing himself to us therefore

49:19

Can this be trusted in explaining who god is? You see when man writes about god and this is when people think that the bible is just man's word man writing down their

49:30

Their impression of god what ends up happening there is you have a man -made god

49:35

Now you look at the greeks and the the romans and their all their deities You end up seeing that their their deities are very much like man

49:44

The thing though is that that is man's interpretation of god So what we're saying is the bible is different.

49:51

It is not man's interpretation of who god is it is god revealing to man Who god is?

49:57

And there's a difference there But you said you had some comments up to that section. So i'll throw it over to you.

50:03

I've heard them. You've already done Okay, we've covered them. Okay Well, well, then if that's the case, let's move on This is very specific now

50:11

I say the bible is god's special self -revelation Which is limited In space and time and are directed by very

50:22

Directed to various individuals. Okay now i said that's very important. Oh, yeah

50:28

This is this is important because what we end up seeing here Is what am

50:34

I trying to address? One of the things i'm trying to address here Is some of the other false religions that will teach

50:42

That the bible is eternal you'll see this in rabbinic judaism

50:48

You will see this in uh Islam, okay as well as some others That they will say that the god's word the bible the scriptures

50:58

Came down from heaven. In other words, they were written in heaven now Why does this become important that part of it?

51:07

Is important to understand because this is where like for example islam or judaism have themselves a problem

51:14

What what happens is that they end up saying that god's word is eternal therefore there can't be variances

51:21

There can't be when they would make copies there can't be a copyist error or it's not the the scriptures anymore

51:28

So the argument they make is well you have all these You know variances in the christian bible so you don't have god's word well, we don't have old enough copies of You know that go back of the old testament

51:42

But we do know there's some variances Um that we have in there. We just can't get old enough copies to see which one was right or or that uh, so for example in kings and chronicles one refers to Solomon having

51:55

I forget the number but x number of you know chariots and x number and y number of of Hort of men and in the other it says y number of chariots and x number of men

52:06

The numbers are reversed which one's right? Does it affect anything? No But that happens in the quran's case

52:12

There are different variances. They deny it in arabic. They'll deny it But there are different translations even today in the different areas.

52:21

They're they're variances Well that becomes a problem. We don't have a problem in christianity because god never said that his word as written is eternal his word is eternal because You know it is him

52:35

It's it's you know, he speaks it But the bible the scriptures were never promised that they would never that they themselves

52:43

Would never have a variant in them that they were somehow eternal. So they are they are limited

52:50

To space and time that's what that means there and you go you you may have read this and read over that and they've been

52:55

Okay, it's limited to space and time well, it's it's more it's it's it's all of this fact that it's not eternal that this is

53:00

This is a special book written For us will we need it in in heaven?

53:06

Maybe not but it it the the idea of space and time means it's for us now, right? and this is also leading to something that get that we could end up discussing is the progression of scripture meaning

53:20

When you look at if if the word of god is eternal as they say then why didn't god give us the whole thing at once?

53:26

right In this case what we end up seeing is that he gives us the scriptures progressively

53:32

And deals with things in a progressive manner. So there's some scripture that would

53:38

That would be for a time and and and again, this is going to be where this specific thing

53:43

There's going to see some differences even with bud and I i'm going to say there's certain scriptures That are for specific people at specific times

53:52

So i'm going to see more of a distinction with israel in the church more than bud would Does that mean does that mean bud doesn't agree with this?

53:59

No bud's going to agree with the fact that There are specific scriptures written for specific people.

54:04

In other words Jeremiah 29 11 is not for you unless as we read in verse 10

54:11

You're part of the the babylonian captivity if you're part of that 70 year babylonian captivity then verse 11 is for you

54:19

If not, then that was directed toward them Does that mean that the scripture of jeremiah 29 11 has no meaning to us?

54:26

No What was the direct meaning the direct meaning was to those who live through the 70 year captivity.

54:32

It was direct to them However, what do we learn from it? The principle we can learn from it is god was faithful to them

54:41

Over those 70 years faithful to them coming out of those 70 years in such a way that he will be faithful to us

54:48

In our life the things he promised to them he fulfilled and the things he promised us he will fulfill

54:54

Is there application we can glean from that? Yes. Are there principles we can learn from that?

55:00

Yes Is it directed directly to us? No And for those of you that are cringing at that and saying but this is my life first Then just go down to verses like 17 and 18

55:11

Read that and make that your life verse that god knows the plans he has for you plans of destruction of famine of sword of sickness

55:18

We choose these things because we want them to we like them and right but those were specifically

55:25

Directed to certain individuals at certain times Not all of the scripture is that way but some of it is no generally though what you've said

55:33

I agree with because the particulars always represent principles in some fashion.

55:39

We may not understand them all but The one you cited. Yeah, that's a particular situation for a for a moment in time for a specific purpose and specific people

55:50

But like you said it reveals a principle of how god consistently acts on behalf of his people

55:57

And so I quote there second peter 1 21 Which which states for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men

56:09

Moved by the holy spirit spoke from god That's what's caught up.

56:15

There's the fact that there's there's no prophecy Okay, that this prophecy is not made by man.

56:23

They didn't come up with this The way that it says here is that the moved by the holy spirit they spoke from god

56:30

Okay, so this is god doing it now. This is directed to designated individuals

56:35

Why is that important? Because it doesn't mean that all of us have the gift of prophet We should go to church and go to a church where they have a school of Pro of of supernatural gifts and prophecy.

56:46

That's bethel They teach you how to have prophecy That's not what peter said peter said this is the holy spirit who does it on designated individuals for a particular

56:56

Time yes, right and and directed by the holy spirit. You can't conjure this up So you have all the new apostolic reformation.

57:04

They're trying to conjure all this stuff up This is why I say doctrinal statements are so important if you're seeing a church that says that they teach prophecy

57:13

That's not what scripture says second peter 121 You look at that and and this is why

57:19

I understand doctrinal statements like this are important This is why I would say why am I against the new apostolic reformation?

57:24

Because this is why when it comes to holy scriptures They believe every they believe people can be taught to have prophecy that they can conjure it up and yet this is directed by the holy spirit to to distinct designated individuals that the holy spirit chose to do this to give this and by the way

57:45

If that's prophecy if they really are doing prophecy that is equal in authority of scripture.

57:51

You can't be wrong These guys admit that they're wrong You know that they're they're they're right 70 to 80 percent of the time.

57:57

That's not so with scripture scripture is 100 accurate No error. And so when you have someone that says that they're they have prophecy

58:04

It's got to be held to the same standard as prophecy scripture Okay, so when all of these guys every single one of these word of faith

58:13

New apostolic reformation guys that were making prophecies in 2020 or for 2020 all predicted a great year a year of vision and more importantly every one of them predicted donald trump would win the election and And and be in office not just win the election, but be in archivist consecutive two consecutive terms

58:32

So now we know they were wrong. So every single one of them that made those prophecies Should be rejected technically from if you're going to look at the old testament.

58:41

They should be stoned Now, what did I just do? Going back to how we're i'm applying this limited to space and time as directed by to various Designated individuals.

58:52

Why don't we stone these people? I would say because we're not under the old testament laws We're not the nation of israel.

58:58

And so we don't stone them, but you should be avoiding them, please Mark and avoid

59:05

Pauline language It's kind of biblical All right, any any questions that you have there?

59:10

Should we move on to the next sentence? I'm good with that. I would point out though that it is to man.

59:16

He didn't give scripture to angels Uh, he gave it to man Uh very important and not from man, but to man as you as you pointed out

59:26

Yeah When we when we get to the study of angels and i'm going to do this throughout this series is mentioned things

59:31

We'll talk about later because the repetition is good in stuff like this but when we talk about angels

59:38

First peter talks about the fact that when it comes to our salvation, I think also with the idea of scripture This is things that angels look and long long for they long for this

59:47

They can't they they've not experienced something like this. They don't know what it's like to receive

59:53

Scripture, okay. They don't know that they don't know what it's like to be converted to to god

59:58

They they don't understand they don't they they long after those things. So that's a neat thing So so we're now we're in only into the first sentence.

01:00:05

We're good to go uh I think we're going to get through two more sentences we'll go a little bit long because we did do a little bit longer news section and uh, and and we wanted to do an intro to the to the whole series, but the the next sentence the accepted writings

01:00:20

That make up the bible are the 39 old testament books and the 27 new testament books without any additional

01:00:28

Writings commonly known as the apocrypha Okay, now I hope you're seeing already just one sentence how much we can unpack with this

01:00:36

Okay, there's so much here that we're trying to be concise Now the second sentence is really addressing what happened in the 1500s

01:00:43

When the reformation occurred the roman catholic church's response was to try to argue

01:00:49

That what they were teaching was biblical Uh, the reformers were arguing it wasn't so what did the catholic church do they ended up at that time in the 1500s?

01:01:01

Canonizing additional books that we call the apocrypha or hidden and they're the mysterious books that were

01:01:07

They were considered part of the bible, but not the bible and then in 1500s. They're the bible now

01:01:13

I would argue politically what this is is They were making a lot of their arguments from books that were outside of the canon of scripture that was accepted at the time

01:01:22

That was being pointed out And so they canonized they basically said we we declare these books scripture as well

01:01:28

And now our arguments are biblical. Okay These books are mostly old testament books.

01:01:33

But one of the things to look at with the apocrypha is the fact that first off The jewish people never accepted these books as canon

01:01:43

One of the things of canon canon basically means a measurement when we study the bibliology we talk of canon

01:01:50

It's the measure Of of what is scripture and what isn't okay? So there's a standard for that One of the those standards is that it had to be accepted at the time as as beings from god from scripture

01:02:01

And so this was not accepted as the word of god for over 1500 years over 2000 years technically

01:02:08

Okay, because you had their old testament books some of them going back

01:02:14

There's additions to the book of daniel. They go back that far some are in the intertestimonial period

01:02:20

That those 400 years of silence you have the maccabees and so these are books that jewish people saw as Valuable the same way you might see the works of josephus as valuable or your concordance is valuable or things like that They're valuable.

01:02:35

You may even have a section of your bible for a concordance or archaeology things like that That doesn't mean it's scripture.

01:02:42

It's included because it's valuable. It's helpful and that's what you would see With the apocrypha they were seen as valuable for jewish culture understanding jewish culture and history

01:02:53

They were not seen as scripture by the rabbis Nor by the early church. It was it was when they would put the bible into books

01:03:00

Yes, we see those books included sometimes because they're valuable works, but they're not inspired works.

01:03:06

There was a difference And so it wasn't until the 1500s that people started looking at those works as inspired.

01:03:13

So we want to be really specific That the 39 old testament books and 27 new testament books are the books we're saying are holy scripture

01:03:22

This what does this exclude excludes the apocrypha? What else does it exclude the book of mormon pearl of great price doctrine and covenants?

01:03:30

Those are all the mormon books. It excludes the quran It excludes anything outside of these 39 old testament books 27 new testament books

01:03:38

What does it also do it also addresses issues of people like martin luther who had trouble with the book of mormon?

01:03:44

people rectifying because he was came from a catholic background that used james as a

01:03:50

Proof of salvation by works so much so that he couldn't reconcile it with paul's writings on salvation by grace

01:03:57

And so he thought james was not inspired. So what you end up having there is he would exclude that book

01:04:03

Well the reality in that and we'll see that when we get to soteriology a bit Uh is the fact that james is dealing with Well, let me start with paul is dealing with regeneration that the first step in the process

01:04:15

After that becomes the process of sanctification. We're being more right in the more like christ

01:04:21

That process has works. That's what james is talking about. They're talking about two different doctrines This is the thing you're going to see as we go throughout this folks the precision that we have here is helpful because What this does is help us to understand when people come to us when?

01:04:36

Different religions come to us where they get things wrong is they're usually not precise in their language and they have a broader aspect to the what they say so they'll say salvation and they're reading sanctification

01:04:50

And then using it for regeneration and you got to be precise with this stuff so what else does this exclude?

01:04:56

Well, this excludes the roman catholic church's view of the Uh magisterium the church being equal in authority with scripture it excludes the traditions as equal in authority of scripture because what that does is that then puts that as the level of scripture making it

01:05:14

Well scripture because it's it's something written down That would then be from god it also excludes in in judaism, it will exclude uh, the

01:05:24

The mishnah midrash the talmud, what are those? Well, you you end up seeing in in in judaism you have

01:05:33

Uh, the the they have a written law oral law and then commentaries on those two The only thing we would end up seeing okay is the old testament is god's word, but not the commentary on the old testament

01:05:45

Not the oral law not the commentary on the oral law. We wouldn't see those three

01:05:50

So that that's what this one sentence is what it's defining and distinguishing but Scripture is over the church.

01:05:58

The church is not over scripture Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I'm sure you play you latinized that from someone else

01:06:05

I probably did The other thing just because I I had at one point audited, uh, uh seminary class and this question came up from another student and uh

01:06:19

I was kind of surprised but what this also means is that when you read in scripture and you do this and you see this in the old testament where The author the inspired author will reference some other work that's not in scripture

01:06:33

You know the book of the wars of whomever or when you get to the new testament even like enoch

01:06:38

Is quoted and the question that I heard in this uh audit class I was taking

01:06:43

Was so if we had the book of enoch because jude references the prophecy of enoch in his epistle

01:06:51

If we had the book Would it be considered inspired? No, the citation of an inspired writer to an extra biblical source is itself inspired

01:07:02

But it does not lend credence to the inspiration of a book that we don't have So when you see those references in scriptures to extra biblical texts

01:07:11

Um, whatever may be cited from them You can count as inspired but you cannot count the entire extra biblical book in which case we don't have them as inspired and and missing so let's deal with why people make that argument people make that argument because what they're trying to do is say that we're

01:07:28

Missing something of the bible. We have lost books of the bible Now if you hear people talk about missing books or lost books of the bible what they're that phraseology is

01:07:39

Purposeful it it is a it is a logical fallacy because it's leading the the question. Okay It's what it's trying to do

01:07:46

Is get you to think there's something missing just by the phraseology. Yeah, right And so what we see is that there's nothing missing in the bible.

01:07:56

That's the point of this statement We have the bible now. No one makes that argument paul will write about the accretion poet

01:08:04

He writes this to titus No one thinks that scripture but yet he cites accretion poet. Yeah, is that scripture?

01:08:11

No, he's citing them No different than citing a book of enoch that may have existed at a time when they there were a knowledge of it so That's okay.

01:08:20

There's plenty of quotations or references citations to in Kings and chronicles, you know, and the rest of the writings are written in the chronicles of the kings, you know, and yet You you go through chronicles and kings and you don't see more there and you go where is that book we don't have it

01:08:36

Uh paul refers to a letter. He wrote in first corinthians to the corinthians

01:08:41

So first corinthians isn't the first letter to the corinthians. It's the second and in fact We even think there might be a a third between the two and that What we call second corinthians is actually his fourth letter to them

01:08:53

But what we have about the corinthians indicates that they were so messed up. It probably took at least four letters And But notice that he wrote at least three

01:09:03

Possibly four letters to the corinthian church and only two of them Were scripture.

01:09:08

Yeah, that's the thing that this is trying to to address so so what this does and we'll get into this more detail next week, but It's not the writer of scripture that makes it inspired it's not the uh

01:09:21

It's not god Directing through a pen so that the writer had nothing to do with it It they wrote and yet god inspired that writing

01:09:30

But not everything they wrote and so and the fact that they make citations doesn't make that scripture

01:09:35

So the argument people make with the book of enoch or others is trust to to get people to doubt the bible

01:09:40

That's the goal of it. You don't know the meaning of the bible You don't even know if you have the bible and people believe those arguments and well, yeah, and you make the point later in Paragraph two that we're not going to make it to but we have everything in scripture

01:09:55

We need for life and godliness. It's there. There's nothing missing. God has given us everything we need.

01:10:01

That's right And why well, let's deal with this this last sentence that we'll deal with today the bible provides the only inerrant an absolutely

01:10:11

Authoritative propositional knowledge of god that exists Okay, there's a lot in here.

01:10:17

So let's break this down. What does inerrant mean? It means it is without error now in the original writings and i'm being very precise here in the original writings of scripture

01:10:27

It was without error and without flaw. There was not a single error now

01:10:33

Can we say that about the manuscripts we have today? Well, there are errors And this is what we've talked about and and we've dealt with this in previous shows

01:10:41

About can we you know, is the bible reliable? Can we trust the bible? We have a whole show on that so go back to past episodes and find that maybe i'll try to link it in the show notes but the issue that we address there is that is

01:10:54

You know as people made copies they had spelling errors. That's an error The original didn't have that and people go.

01:11:01

Well, we don't have the original. No, we don't we we don't But scripture says that it was it would have been inerrant.

01:11:08

It would have been without error. Why would we believe that? Now, this is where I say it goes back to the nature of god everything we're going to do

01:11:15

You can hear this a lot goes back to the attributes the perfections of god Okay God is without error if he's perfect and he wrote it.

01:11:24

It's without error, right? So in the original writing it had no errors in it

01:11:29

And it is absolutely authoritative. Why again because who's the source of it?

01:11:35

God god wrote it that makes him the absolute authority. Why? Because he created everything

01:11:43

By virtue of being the creator of all things he has the Authority that comes with being the creator of everything that's being god

01:11:52

He has that authority and it's an absolute authority because of where it comes from the source.

01:11:57

Okay And it's propositional knowledge. Okay, so this isn't this isn't to be some far -fetched thing.

01:12:03

Okay This is this is specifically at directing us on the knowledge

01:12:10

That god exists, okay now what am I trying to say with that? This is differentiating what we said earlier between natural revelation and special revelation

01:12:19

Natural revelation creation can tell us some things about god. It tells us that he exists

01:12:24

Yes, but it doesn't tell us why it doesn't tell us what he's doing. No that propositional knowledge comes from scripture

01:12:31

The knowledge that god came to earth to die on a cross as a payment of our sin

01:12:36

That we can have salvation that we are sinners that we break god's law that this is what he did for the forgiveness

01:12:42

That comes through revelation Book of leviticus i'll just say

01:12:48

And it does because that's what it says in leviticus. You can't save yourself. That's in leviticus that we're

01:12:54

Unclean leviticus. We're unclean. We can't save ourselves god has to do that. That's in leviticus

01:13:00

How do we know that because we get it from the word of god now? I'm gonna say something before but I get throw this over to you but for guys like andy stanley

01:13:07

And his ilk who want to say that we have to detach the old testament from the new

01:13:13

Or that we shouldn't say this is true because the bible says so it's all about the resurrection

01:13:18

Well, andy stanley, how do you know about the resurrection? It's in the bible. That's what informs you about your the resurrection

01:13:25

Oh, yes, you can go to josephus and philo and others But why do they address it because it's a historical fact but are you going to get your information and say the resurrection happened because of these these

01:13:38

Unsaved historians that aren't trying to say this is what god says. They're just trying to say this is history

01:13:43

Rather than the word of god. No, it's the word of god That's why we we trust it and that's how we know about the resurrection.

01:13:51

You don't know about the resurrection in a propositional knowledge without scripture

01:13:57

So when you try to get yourself away from scripture You have really rejected the very thing that informs us on everything that we that god needs us to know bud your your take no,

01:14:07

I I this is so Important to understand and it is so controversial right now in the world that we live in This notion that there is authoritative propositional truth or knowledge

01:14:21

Because we live in a world in which everything is subjective and emotional Scripture is not that way scripture is propositional.

01:14:28

It's objective truth. It's nature from god Makes it authoritative, but it is truth and it is propositional and that means it's subjective

01:14:39

We have to think through it. We have to Have to meditate on it and understand it.

01:14:45

It is not something that we're to get You know warm fuzzies from and think that we've accomplished something

01:14:51

We're to master it to study it to learn it to know it because god is a god of truth and it's propositional

01:14:58

Uh, that's that's extremely important, but it is extremely controversial because we do not live in a world right now

01:15:04

That has any value on objective truth. Everything is Subjective wait, are you saying that scripture is not for anyone to just interpret any way they want?

01:15:16

I I think you can't do that In fact, that's actually the verse before the one we looked at Second peter 1 20 says but know this first of all

01:15:27

That no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation

01:15:32

And that's what's built up in that that whole propositional knowledge is that This is an objective standard.

01:15:40

This is not something subjective. This is not something where I can interpret any way I want No, there's an objective way to interpret we all have the same book so we all are looking at the same book and this is the thing when people use their experience as As you know authoritative.

01:15:56

Well, I had this experience. Well, I can't exegete your experience. I'm, sorry You had that experience, but I can't engage with it to know what actually happened, right?

01:16:06

I could see okay. These are the events that happened, but you're saying that's from god I I don't know one of the things

01:16:12

I always find interesting is, you know, mormons catholics drove witnesses They all have the same experiences.

01:16:17

So how could the experience prove god when others have the same type of experience? Oops you know, um

01:16:24

So what we have to do is look at what the scripture says, you know So when someone comes and says well, you know,

01:16:30

I was healed therefore healing is for day today We should have we should have faith healers or I speak in tongues because I speak in tongues.

01:16:37

I know it's true What does scripture say you see we can go to scripture and look at what the scripture says

01:16:43

That's an objective thing that now we can disagree on how we're interpreting it. That's a different issue, but we have a standard

01:16:50

That's objective. We all come to it. Now. We we end up having to say, okay, what are the rules of interpretation?

01:16:57

That's a different issue, but it's not well i'm right because god came to me in a dream

01:17:02

Maybe you were doing mushrooms. Maybe it was just a hallucinatory drug that you accidentally took and didn't know better And you thought you saw god coming to you same people think that you know

01:17:13

Pink elephants are coming to him I remember in college a guy that thought he was being attacked by a pink elephant that was coming from the wall

01:17:19

And he was really screaming at me to help him and looking at the wall looking at him being like dude.

01:17:25

What were you on? And then you took off your dumbo mask, right

01:17:33

Look I know I got a big nose, but it really isn't that big So so folks we're going to continue this next week and next week is going to be a really important one when we deal with Inspiration superintending superintending is a super important doctrine

01:17:49

It's it's it is one that we'll spend a little bit of time on because so few people Understand that one and it answers so many of the conflicts and things in scripture

01:17:57

So I really want to encourage you to to go and maybe this week go to strivingforturning .org

01:18:03

go to the about section Look up what we believe and i'll link it in the show notes But if you go there go and read through the entire statement

01:18:11

And and what we tried to do is make it where it's kind of a quick reference So we collapse them all down each of the seven sections so you can click the plus sign and expand it out

01:18:20

The scriptures are right there for you to to hover over and you will be able to to get the links

01:18:25

To the scriptures even and so I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to to check that out

01:18:32

Because that's something that really will help you in in your study of scripture, you know,

01:18:41

I believe it'll help you as you're going to try to Look, uh for you know, if you happen to have um

01:18:48

You know, you're looking for a church. I think this will be helpful to you. I think that this is something that uh, hopefully as you as you study the scriptures you will you will see this as Uh something that will help you in looking for churches in Evaluating and also when you come upon people who argue

01:19:10

For different belief systems. I hope that this will be something you can go back and reference

01:19:16

That's what we wanted and that's why we're spending time to unpack this a bit Any closing things you you have bud?

01:19:22

No, I would just point out that there is a link on the website If you want to print a printer friendly version of it, which is what

01:19:29

I did So, uh, if you if you want to print it out study it read it. I mean, it's it's a great resource

01:19:34

Yeah, see I forgot that we could do that. But yeah, that's what I did. Yeah, it's right right up top I should actually yeah, I forgot that we had the print print only version.

01:19:42

So there uh, but uh It and i'm just did to see so yeah, it is 12 pages.

01:19:48

There we go. So Folks, I hope this is helpful to you. We're going to continue a series next week. We're going to continue for a while Um, because we we think it's important for us to discuss what the scriptures believe

01:19:59

So I hope that's helpful. I hope that you enjoy And bud's gonna accuse me of of missing something

01:20:05

I was thinking yeah, you're thinking but you know I'm not going to forget our sponsors

01:20:11

Even though we had some important things here Just there wasn't a good you know, we just I knew that I was going to save it for the end

01:20:18

So that's what i'm going to do folks That's a wrap This podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministry for more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church

01:20:27

Go to sign for eternity .org Are you tired of pillows that go flat or every couple of years you they smell bad?

01:20:35

And what are you going to do with them? You can't wash them because that ruins the pillow They don't stay in that same shape.

01:20:41

Well, my pillow is the answer Get a my pillow. These are premium pillows that never go flat

01:20:49

You can wash them as many times as you want and best of all they're made right here in the usa

01:20:55

Go to mypillow .com click on the radio listeners and use promo code sfe that stands for striving for eternity

01:21:03

Or you can call one eight hundred eight seven three zero one seven six

01:21:10

That's eight hundred eight seven three zero one seven six and use promo code sfe

01:21:19

Hey bud the music in that commercial was pretty good It's it almost sounded it almost sounded like the intro to uh music.

01:21:26

I heard from the bud zone I think that's the outro. But yes. Yeah, there we go. I got that from you.

01:21:32

Thank you, bud Amazon delivery service partners are hiring full -time delivery drivers to meet growing customer demand

01:21:41

Receive competitive compensation of at least twenty dollars per hour at select stations plus benefits

01:21:48

No delivery experience required must be 21 years or older terms apply

01:21:54

Apply today at amazon .com forward slash driver That's amazon .com