WWUTT 720 Q&A Question Marks, Order of Service, and Catechism?

Why are there question marks in the titles of these podcast episodes? What does a typical service look like at our church?

And is there a correlation between a low Bible IQ and a lack of catechism? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of God. For all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

Visit our website at www .wutt .com. Now here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. So we answer questions on the Friday edition of the broadcast. When We Understand the

Text at gmail .com is the email address you can send them to. Yes, please. Welcome back, by the way.

Thank you. Missed you last week. Yes, most definitely. So if you follow us on Twitter, either one of us,

Becky or myself. Yep. Then you probably saw on Father's Day a picture of me holding a big map.

Right. And the kids standing around me very enthused that dad had opened his

Father's Day gift and he's holding a big map. Framed. A framed map. Yes. All of the countries on it were gold and it was set against a white background.

The reason why my children and my wife, since it was, of course, her idea, it was her brain child, but the reason why they got this map for me.

Brain child. Well, yeah, I mean, it wasn't the kids. The kids don't come up with this stuff. You never know.

Well, I know we have some very resourceful children, but in this particular case, I knew this was all you.

Okay. So the reason why this map was obtained for me and gifted to me for Father's Day is because every time we receive an email from somebody who lets us know where they're listening from, we're going to scratch away the country on that map and it changes from gold to another color.

Watercolor. A watercolor. So this is watercolors underneath the gold.

What's watercolor? I'm a guy. You need to use guy terms. We have seven colors in our color wheel and that's pretty much it.

Well, you kind of blend the colors then. Okay. It's just like tie dyeing. All of those seven colors.

Okay. Got it. I think. I suppose as I scratch away the... You'll understand.

If you start to see the color, it'll become more apparent to me. And you'll probably have a better guy term. I can't describe it in guy terms.

I just know the artistic. So if you send us an email. Watercolor. And what else can

I call it? You're still trying to come up with a word. I am. Sorry. So when you send us an email and you let us know, hey, you listen to the show or you watch videos.

I mean, you can send an email for any reason. If we get an email from you, let us know where you're listening from.

That'd be awesome. If it's in the United States, let us know at least what state you're in. Ask a question. If you'd like, we'll ask it on the

Friday edition, perhaps. But let us know where you're from, because when we get those emails,

I'm going to scratch away the country that we got emails from. And so that way we can kind of keep track of where we are.

Ministering to. Yeah, there you go. I couldn't come up with it. That's right. Yeah. So where we're ministering to, who we're reaching out to, where in the world the videos and the podcast have gotten to.

Yeah. And so we'd like to hear from you. Let us know where you listen from. Gives us a visual. That's right. And periodically,

I planned on taking a picture of it and posting it. Posting it on Twitter. Yeah. So I think it'd be really cool.

Follow Becky on Twitter, B -E -K -I -Hughes, twitter .com slash

B -E -K -I -Hughes. That's how you spell Becky. Hughes is H -U -G -H -E -S.

And then I'm pastor underscore Gabe. Am I just that bland? Just Becky Hughes? Nothing special?

Just Becky Hughes. No, it's very unique the way that you spell

Becky. And that one out of every 10 emails that we get also spells it correctly. I am. I am just Becky Hughes.

There's no one or 10 or 369 ,000.

I wish I could go that simple. I wish I did not have. I wish I didn't have the underscore in my name.

Well, that was the whole goal. My mom told me that in eighth grade, because I kept getting every Becky in our small little town, we had like four

Beckys surrounding my class. We had a lot of Jennifers. We had a class of like 35 and there were four

Jennifers. Well, Jennifer was common about that time. You know, but Becky.

So for us, it was Jennifer. For you guys, it was like Rebecca, Rebecca, Becky. And so anyway, I was getting everybody's papers back.

I'm like, I just want a quick way to spell it. So I don't have to spell out Rebecca and do this, that and the other to make it all fancy schmancy because I'm still getting everybody else's.

So mom suggested that I change the spelling of Becky. I was like, what's the shortest spelling of Becky?

Everybody else spells it with five letters and you spell it with four. That's right. That's how efficient my wife is.

I land the plane. That's right. She doesn't circle the airfield. She likes to land the plane.

Just give it to me straight. To the point. So anyway, back to our map. Yeah. Sorry. So I let

Zeige scratch off. Well, I'm not going to tell you what I let him scratch off today because it happens to be the location where we received the first email that I'm going to be reading today.

So Neil writes in and says, Hey there, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Hello. A while back on the podcast, you were discussing the different countries that were listed in the

Podbean metrics and you noted that no one was listening from South Korea. I'm a bit behind in the podcast, but today you have a listener in South Korea.

That's awesome. I'm currently in Incheon, South Korea. I hope I'm pronouncing that right.

I have no idea. Listening to episode 691. You may get another hit from Taiwan and then

Shanghai as I hop around Asia for work. Oh, that's awesome. I'll be back in the States in a week.

But for now, I thought I'd give you a listener in a few other countries. Thank you so much for the podcast and your ministry.

So I let. That is so cool. I let my son take a penny and scratch away South Korea. Oh, is that why he needed the penny?

That's why he needed the penny earlier. Oh, that's so fun. So now we have. Oh yeah, I see it.

South Korea is in watercolor. Yes, it is. It's in watercolor. And we had

Singapore a few weeks ago. So I also scratched off Singapore and we had

Canada and Mexico last week. I haven't done those yet, but because I wanted to scratch

Canada in the location. I think it was Edmonton. I can't remember where exactly in Canada it was that I got the email from.

I read last week, but I wanted to scratch away the area in Canada where we got the. Because if we do like somebody from the

United States, we get that a lot. Scratch the whole United States off. I already know. Yeah. I already know

I can scratch off the United States. Right there. It would be in watercolor already. Right.

Then maybe you would understand what I'm talking about. If I had a larger landmass and I could see the variation of color there,

I'd go. Oh, OK. Watercolor. So when you send us an email, be sure you tell us where you are mailing from.

And if you write a question, but you want that to be kept anonymous, we can do that. There's not a reason.

Yeah. Not a reason why we have to say your name or where you're from. And generally, if you've written to me from a small town, because I do look up where these towns are, like, you know, so somebody from Paris, Texas or something, then

I'll look up Paris, Texas on a map. So if I look you up on a map and I realize you're from a small town, I'll just leave the town off.

I'll just say you're from, you know, Alabama, the state at large. You go from Paris, Texas to Alabama.

Because the SBC was in Texas this year and next year it's going to be in Alabama. So that was my train of thought.

Right. We'll go with that. We'll say that that's how

I went from that state to the other. So that was it anyway. But thank you,

Neil. Yes, thank you. Because I don't know if you remember, we were talking about how, according to the listener map that Podbean gives me, it shows me where listeners are tuning in from all over the world.

We had listeners from North Korea, but none from South Korea. Yeah, that was just strange. That was really cool that he emailed in, though.

Yeah, thank you so much, Neil. So instead of matching the map that you got me with the map on Podbean, I'm going to go ahead and limit it to where we get emails from.

And that's how I'm going to scratch the countries into color on that map. Into watercolor.

From gold to color. Because gold isn't actually a color. You'll understand. And eventually.

I'm sure. Eventually you'll see it. And anyway, it's fun. And I'll figure out how it fits into my guy color wheel.

Yeah. Okay, next question comes from Anthony. Hey, Pastor Gabe and Becky, thank you for your podcast.

I have a critical question of dire importance. Okay, not really. Why do you end the titles of all your podcast episodes with a question mark, even if the title of the episode isn't asking a question?

A recent title was Who is to Judge the Living and the Dead? I can understand the question mark there, but other episodes have titles like Equipped for Every Good Work and All Scripture is

God Breathed. Not that I think it's confusing. All right. I guess it is confusing. And that's why

I'm asking. All right. Well, the reason why there's question marks at the ends of the titles goes all the way back to the very first What Videos We Started Doing.

Right. And I was kind of puzzled as to how I was going to title those videos. So we started making the videos at first, but we didn't have titles for those videos.

And then when I actually put them on YouTube and I have to title it, I was kind of puzzled as to how

I should title the video. So if the video was addressing a topic like, say, for example, it was addressing the common.

Where two or more are gathered. Yeah, where two or more are gathered, something like that. And so what position on that subject am

I taking? Well, I want you to watch the video to find out the explanation of that verse.

So how do I give it a title for you to watch the video knowing that it's about that subject, but it may not necessarily be siding with the title of the video.

So where two or more are gathered would be where two or more are gathered, especially since the title of the ministry is what?

WWUTT. So that kind of automatically implies a question mark. So then you might have another video that would be something to the effect of preach the gospel always, if necessary, use words.

I don't agree with that saying, nor did it actually come from the person it's commonly attributed to, which is

St. Francis of Assisi. So to get you to watch the video, knowing that it's about that subject, but not necessarily siding with that subject, it's preach the gospel always, if necessary, use words with the question mark at the end.

So since the object of the ministry is understanding the Bible in context, then the titles of the videos would present the subject.

And then as though it was a question that was being answered or explained according to what the

Bible says. So then that idea with the videos just transferred over to the podcast.

So all the podcast episodes, I just started titling with question marks, just like I was doing it with all of the

YouTube videos. Right. So all the YouTube videos have question marks. All the podcast episodes have question marks. It's except anything that I do on the weekend.

So if you get a Saturday or a Sunday episode of when we understand the text, the Sunday episode is more often than not the sermon that I preach the week before.

Right. But there's no question mark there. So it's just the title of the sermon and then the reference that I'm preaching from.

So anyway, that's why. That's why the titles have question marks at the end. It's just kind of a when we understand the text trademark.

Right. What? With a question mark. I can't do it. And I hope that make fun.

I hope that it's no longer that confusing to you, Anthony. This next question comes from Matt.

He says, Hey, Pastor Gabe and Mrs. Hughes. Hello. I have a couple of lighthearted questions that I always find interesting.

What does a typical service look like at your church? So a question we got a couple of weeks ago is how state of the art is our church.

What does our building look like? Yes. So this question is about what does our service look like?

What does a typical service look like at your church? Tim Challies oftentimes will post about a recent service and what they did that particular day.

And I like to see how other churches conduct their services. Also, how do you prepare your sermons on a weekly basis?

Just a curiosity. I'm sure there are many different ways pastors do this. So here's our order of service.

Here's how we do our service. We begin with an opening psalm. So right after 1030,

I usually wait until after the 1030 mark, about five minutes or so as people are still kind of trickling in. They're getting out of Bible study because in the morning we start with Bible study at 930.

The service is at 1030. So as people are going from Bible study class to into the sanctuary or people are still making their way from the parking lot into the church,

I'm waiting for everybody to kind of gather in, get their seats. And then I begin with an opening psalm. I tell everybody, hey, open your hymnals up to this hymn number or if we're using slides that day, the lyrics are going to be up on the overhead.

And then as everybody is pulling out their hymnal and opening up to the opening hymn, opening up to the opening hymn.

Yes, sure. I didn't think that through before I started saying it. I open up my

Bible and I read from the psalms. So we're welcomed in with the scriptures and with an opening hymn.

And then after the hymn, there is a time of greeting. So turn around and greet your neighbor. Right.

To be quite honest with you, I don't really like that part of the service and I would like to not do it anymore.

But it's so regular because we've been doing it the whole eight years that I've been at the church.

Right. That is just one of those things I haven't knocked out yet. But we do such a great job of greeting and talking with one another before church and after church.

There's really not a need for that in the middle. That's true. And I like the idea of getting into service and into worship.

And then that's where our mindset is. And that's what we're doing. And without pause or without stop.

Right. And so sometime in the future, I'd like to phase out that turn around and greet your neighbor thing, especially when the introverts are not so crazy about it.

Yeah. You don't even have to tell me that introverts. I know you're not really all that crazy about the turn around and greet your neighbor.

So then right after that, to kind of get people back together, sometimes we play a what video there.

Yeah. And the what video starts playing and people just kind of quiet down and they get back to their seats. But not always. It's only about once every six weeks or so.

But Dave, who does our announcements for us, Elder Dave, he'll get up and kind of welcome people back to their seats.

Then he'll give announcements, things going on in the church. Then right after that, we've got kids connection.

Unless. Unless we're doing the Lord's Supper. Right. In which case the communion table is out there.

And so we don't welcome the kids up around the communion table. Right. Because it takes up too much space. Yeah, it does.

So then sometimes it's me or it's Chris or Miss Julie. We'll sit with the kids and do the little devotional with them.

Then right after that, we do a congregational psalm. So there you have a call and response. I'll read a portion of the psalm.

The congregation reads the next portion of the psalm. And we kind of do that back and forth. Then we go into hymns.

And there's usually about two or three hymns there. And then we have a time of prayer offering.

And there might be another hymn during the offertory. Right. Then I go straight into the sermon. And the sermon begins with the scripture reading.

That's how we start. So we're opening up our Bibles. We're reading the scriptures. Then I pray. And then

I might have an opening story. Or I give a summary of what the message was about the week before.

So then coming into this message to keep it all in context. And then at the end of the sermon, then there's the closing prayer and the benediction.

And we are dismissed. And all that's about an hour and a half. So we go from 1030 to noon.

Occasionally, we'll sing like a verse or two. A closing psalm. Yeah, we do do that. Yeah. So we—

Not every time. Not every time. But it is most of the time. It is. So we get to the end. And I'll say, hey, open up your hymnal again.

Depends on how wordy you've been. That could be. Whether or not I've even chosen a song to go with what it is,

I've concluded. So there is a closing song at the end of that. And that is most of the time. And there's a young couple in our church that even recently came up to me and said, that song almost always goes with what you're saying.

And if there are some pretty deep doctrinal truths you've been sharing in the sermon, the song usually sums it up for me pretty well.

And so they really loved how the song ties in so well with what's been preached and kind of gives a good summary of the doctrine that we've been studying in that passage.

That's how you know it's a sound song. That's right. That's right. When it goes with what the scripture is saying. Yes. That's how you know it's sound.

So anyway, that's... And then after the sermon, once a month, we do the

Lord's Supper at the end. Right. At the conclusion of the sermon. And then we sing Amazing Grace.

And we close with Amazing Grace every time. And we all join hands and do that. And it's all the way around the sanctuary.

Everybody's holding hands. It's beautiful. I love it. It is. And we sing the opening verse of Amazing Grace.

And then the closing verse when we've been there 10 ,000 years. Bright shining as the sun. So that's the way we do our services.

And they're pretty much always like that all the time. With little, if any, deviation from that particular order.

And that's kind of the way it's always been. For the eight years I've been there, it's kind of followed that same pattern.

I had brought in the Congregational Psalm. That's one thing that I did different than the previous pastor did.

There was no call and response with the previous pastor. And that's something that I wanted to do in our congregation.

So that we had a time where all of us together in one voice are reading from the scriptures.

And it's also in using that psalm or the hymns that we're singing that we as a congregation are making a confession to the

Lord, asking for the forgiveness of sins. Right. And so we as a church doing that together.

That's one of the reasons why we do the Congregational Psalm. The other part of Matt's question was how

I prepare my sermons on a weekly basis. That's complicated. And I would actually rather not share how

I prep my sermons because the, I don't know. Lots and lots of study.

There is a lot of study. Lots of study. I listen to a lot of sermons over the course of the week. And the sermons that I'm listening to probably don't have anything to do with, well, not saying they don't have anything to do, but the sermons that I'm listening to are not from the same passage that I'm preaching on Sunday.

Sometimes they are, but not always. And yet from whatever I'm listening to, whether it's

Sproul or MacArthur or Alistair Begg or Vodie Bauckham or somebody like that, whatever they're preaching on,

I'm able to hear something in their message that goes right with whatever I'm preaching on Sunday.

And so I'm able to use a quote from them or sometimes, especially if I'm listening to Sproul because he quotes from so many different theologians in the history of the church.

He'll quote from somebody like Augustine or Luther, and then I'm able to grab that quote and go, well, that goes perfect with what

I'm preaching on Sunday. So a lot of my study, there is some reading involved.

Most of the reading in the study that I'm doing for the sermon that Sunday has just been done over the course of my ministry.

It's not necessarily reading I'm doing in that week in preparation for the sermon coming up on Sunday. So there is some reading involved, but not heavily.

But from the sermons that I'm listening to over the course of the week, I'm able to take some pieces of that and use that on Sunday.

If I'm using any quotes, I have that on a piece of paper. Usually it's typed out and I print that paper off before service.

But other than that, I don't have any notes and I don't follow a flow or an outline unless there's something in that particular passage that as I've been reading it over the course of the week sticks out to me as I can summarize this in three points, and that will help the listener understand it better.

But for the most part, it's just expository preaching. So you know where I'm going when we open up the scriptures and read from it.

You know where I was last week. You know where I will be next week. And you know what I'm preaching on that day.

We're covering these five verses or whatever. And then I break it down with understanding it in context, using scripture to interpret scripture, and also calling upon other modern day teachers and teachers of the past to help us understand this passage a little bit better.

That's as far as I'm going to share with you, though. I was going to say, that sounds like plenty to me, but I mean,

I'm not the one asking. Yeah, but it's not like, well, you know, so many hours a week I sit down and I do this and I lay down this structure.

As far as any technique is concerned or something like that. Yeah, but it's just lots of study and lots of reading and listening and reading the

Bible over and over and over. Yeah. Just diving in. Right now, if you've been listening to the sermons on Sunday morning, we're going through 2nd

Corinthians right now. I would say that of all of the books that I've preached through so far, this one's my favorite.

Really? I am loving 2nd Corinthians. And I had, I was,

I don't want to say hesitant, but I was, I was, I guess I was. Anxious? No, confused when

I was going into 2nd Corinthians as to how exactly I was going to do this. Oh, okay. It seems like it would be very straightforward.

If you're an expository preacher, you just preach on the next passage of the book that you're preaching on.

What could be so complicated about that? Right. But there were so many clear themes in all the other books that I preached on that it was easy to come back to a general theme of this particular book.

But with 2nd Corinthians, the theme wasn't as clear because it's very autobiographical. It's mostly

Paul talking about himself and validating his ministry for the gospel in the face of these super apostles that the

Corinthians have been listening to, thinking that they're better apostles than Paul. Right. And so Paul has found it necessary contending for the hearts of the

Corinthians to know that he is a true apostle of Christ and these other guys are false. And so for that reason, the letter is largely autobiographical and it's a lot more difficult to kind of pin down the theme of the letter as opposed to all the rest of the letters.

So it wasn't until we were in chapter four, I think it was. And you and I and the kids were on vacation while we were in Florida and I was reading 2nd

Corinthians yet again. This was one night after you guys had gone to bed already and I was sitting out on that front porch area and I'm reading through 2nd

Corinthians again. And it dawned on me the references that Paul makes to the God of all comfort in chapter one, because that word comfort comes up like five or six times in a span of like four or five verses.

And so it was that the Corinthians would know the God of all comfort, the father of mercies and God of all comfort.

And that it just kind of popped out at me. It's like, this is the point that they would be comforted.

Paul's effort in writing this letter is that they would be comforted with the truth of the gospel, which Paul has proclaimed and dedicated his life to in ministry.

And so once that popped out at me, suddenly the study of 2nd

Corinthians kind of took on a new life for me. And it's been truly convicting in my own heart of even asking myself, am

I comforted with this? What about the gospel is comforting to me?

Even though I'm a middle -class American, I live a pretty good life compared to the way most of the world lives.

And yet, what about the gospel is comforting to my soul? Am I caught up in all kind of the hubbub and the daily grind and the whole hummus of just an everyday common life?

Or is there something about the gospel that actually comforts me in the midst of all of these things that I'm doing?

And so that's the way that 2nd Corinthians has been ministering to me as we've been going through that study together.

So I've been loving that book. So when you listen to that on Sunday morning, that's the sermon series that I'm going through.

And again, it doesn't have a question mark after the title. Correct. That's how you can pinpoint it. It says

Sunday sermon on it. So you know that that's what it is. But I've enjoyed this study immensely.

I read 2nd Corinthians every single day over the course of this study, and it will be doing it for the rest of the year.

And then I'll probably be doing Galatians and Ephesians in 2019 heading into 2020.

And at the conclusion of Ephesians, I will have preached through all of Paul's epistles. That is so cool.

Right. I'm looking forward to that. But at the same time, not trying to rush it because, like I said, it's a lot of stuff.

It has been been enjoying the study in 2nd Corinthians. I don't know how I got on that.

I don't know how I ended up jumping into why 2nd Corinthians was so meaningful.

Because that wasn't really part of Matt's question. But just sharing with you.

I think you were giving the example. Okay. Of doing the study in 2nd Corinthians.

Yeah. Maybe so. Because we were talking about listening to R .C.

Sproul quote the St. Augustine and people like that. And then moving on.

Yeah. Moving on. Moving on. So that speaking of this next question comes from miles.

And he says, hello, after he just says, hello, after being right. No, no. Hey, Pastor gave a

Miss Becky. Right. That's okay. No worries. That's why I got tripped up introducing the letter, because I was expecting that to be there.

And it wasn't there. Anyway, after being raised in the Southern Baptist Church for much of my life and being a

Christian for a little over 30 years, I was only recently exposed to the Baptist Catechism of 1693.

This led to the study of other catechisms, talking with people from other denominations, such as Lutherans and Methodists.

What I found was that much of the people, even the elders in these churches, not always, but typically had very weak theology in some areas, actually bordering on heresy in regard to the

Bible. At the very least, they had a very poor understanding of what they claim to believe.

As I am typically in study, I began looking into any correlation between the time catechism faded, began being phased out and the strength of the people, including leadership within the church.

We are no doubt a much less biblically educated people than in the past. Have you studied any such parallel?

Do you know anyone who has? I would love to dig into this deeper, but I'm not really sure where to start.

Well, I've never seen any kind of study that has revealed a lack of catechism and correlated that with a general decline in Bible IQ.

Right. But I do know several ministers that have addressed things like this. Ligonier Ministries did a huge survey a couple of years ago with Lifeway, and it was a very thorough study of Americans in general and their understanding of just basic doctrines.

And when you break down all the numbers, it basically whittles down to this, that less than 8 % of Americans would actually have a

Christian faith that you would call orthodox, that you would not say in their belief they are somehow heretics.

Wow. Less than 8 % are actually orthodox in their Christian faith. Now, I have not seen then a correlating study that goes with that that shows the decline in catechism and being catechized and catechizing children using catechism in the church and things like that.

But I have heard people who have made that correlation. Like I said, R .C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries have made that correlation.

And so does Votie Bauckham, because Votie Bauckham is a reformed Baptist. London Baptist Confession 1689 is the confession that his church in Houston used and also his church in Zambia uses.

Here is a sermon from Votie Bauckham, a clip from a sermon. This was three years ago.

This was in 2015. And he's preaching from First Corinthians chapter 15, where Paul gives an apologetic defense of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And Votie Bauckham makes a mention here of our low IQ when it comes to a basic doctrine, even concerning like the incarnation of Christ and his impeccability and the resurrection from the dead.

And he relates that low understanding or that immature understanding of those doctrines with a failure to be catechized.

This is why the virgin birth matters. So those who say, you know, the virgin birth, we can take it, we can leave it. It doesn't matter.

All we need is Christ as our example. No, if Christ is merely our example and there was no virgin birth, then he stands condemned because Adam is his federal head, as are all of those who come by natural generation.

However, because of the virgin birth, he is not under that federal headship. This is why his impeccability matters.

This is why it matters that Jesus did not sin. A recent worldview survey found that some 45 % of professing

Christian teenagers believe that Jesus sinned during his earthly ministry. I know two things.

Number one, they don't understand the Gospel. And number two, they're not being catechized.

The most basic catechisms deal with this. What kind of life did

Christ live on earth? A life of perfect obedience to the law of God.

Little bitty kids are asked these questions. But you see, we've come to believe that theology doesn't matter.

Paul doesn't believe that. He believes that the doctrine of the resurrection matters on a very practical level.

Because if you don't get this doctrine of the resurrection right, then you don't understand that you are under Christ's federal headship.

And you don't understand the significance of his active and his passive obedience. That in his active obedience, he kept the entirety of the law and was actually righteous.

Thereby, he's able to impute actual righteousness to you. And in his passive obedience, he accepts in himself the death that you owed to God, but could not pay.

Therefore, we can impute to him our sinfulness. And because of this double imputation, we stand before God under the federal headship of Jesus Christ, not only forgiven, but righteous.

And we can actually anticipate the resurrection of our bodies. So you just go to something like Keech's Catechism, and question number 26 is, how did

Christ, being the Son of God, become man? And the answer, Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the

Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.

So catechism is that process of asking questions and providing answers to give an apologetic understanding of what the scriptures teach.

So you have, you know, the Bible in 750 ,000 words, give or take a few.

Right. And how do you summarize those words, the doctrines that are taught, down into understandable points?

And that's where catechism comes in. Right. So Votie Bauckham saying there that if they don't understand

Christ's sinless nature, then they don't understand the gospel, and they haven't been catechized.

Right. Because they haven't come to an understanding of those basic doctrines concerning Christ. That his impeccability matters, because he was virgin born.

He was not born of the seed of Adam, therefore Adam was not his federal head. And Christ was able to be born sinless, unlike the rest of us who are born into the sin of Adam, because we have been begotten by an earthly father and mother.

Right. But Christ, who did not have an earthly father, he was conceived of the Holy Spirit, was therefore conceived without sin, and lived without sin, did not even commit sin in his earthly life in obedience to the law of God.

And in this way, in his life, he becomes our representative for he keeps the law perfectly, whereas we could not keep the law.

And in his death becomes our substitute in that he is perfect, the perfect spotless sacrifice of God.

Whereas if we tried to die to atone for our own sins, it wouldn't work because we're not a perfect sacrifice.

But Christ was able to do that for us. And then you have the double imputation that Voti was talking about, which we're about to get to in our study of 2

Corinthians, by the way, currently in 2 Corinthians 5. And so I'm about to come into that passage where it says in verse 21, that for our sake, he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

So our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross, and his righteousness was imputed to us, so that the wrath of God was appeased.

And when God the Father looks at us, he sees not our sinful selves, but the righteousness of his son.

And we are imputed his actual righteousness, as Voti said. So it's not just a matter of believing something, it is believing something to the point of conviction that you obey the thing that you believe in.

So you have the definition of faith in Hebrews 11 .1, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

We know what we believe in, we don't follow it by blind faith. And furthermore, we're convicted to obey the thing that we believe in, which is

Jesus Christ. We obey him because we know the truth, and in him is the truth.

In him there is no sin, in him is all goodness and life. And so anyway, these are basic understandings that you come to just through catechism.

And people haven't gotten the catechism. No, we don't do the catechism part, right.

So I've been doing that with the kids. But for the most part, catechism is just kind of a lost thing.

It's one of those things that we relegate to the Catholics. The Catholics do catechism, but we're

Protestant. That's old school, nobody does that anymore. Nobody does that anymore. But you understand how -

You just can Google it. Yeah, right. Google your questions. Just Google it. Because Google is nothing but right teaching when you ask.

So heckly. There's nothing in, if it's on the internet, it must be true.

That's exactly right. Hey, we're on the internet, so.

We are on the internet. Thanks for listening to us. Yes, thanks. Check us out.

Test all things. Make sure that we're true. That's right. Test us with the scriptures. Yes. We test ourselves with the scriptures.

We do. So we should be coming to the same answer here. So anyway, thank you for your question, Miles. And it would be interesting to find a study that would show a correlation between the reduction in our general

Bible IQ when it comes to essential doctrines and whether or not those persons are being catechized. But Voti seems to recognize the immediate correlation.

If you don't understand these basic doctrines, you don't understand the gospel, and you're not being catechized. Right. And I believe that's going to wrap things up for us today.

All right. So I've got a couple of other questions here, but we're hitting about the 40 minute mark. So I'm going to hold on to these until next week.

Okay. So submit your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. And if you come from an exotic land, we will scratch it off on our map.

Like Kansas. Like Kansas. It's been a while since I've had a

Kansas question. This is true. That's true. Generally, I'll get a question from somebody who say, hey, from your home state of Kansas.

Right. Here's the question that I have for you. My home state anyway. That is your home state. Becky, born and raised in Kansas.

I was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and I'm still a Gamecocks fan. Yeah, I have a pretty boring story of, hey,

I was born and raised Kansas. I don't find it boring. It's pretty. It's a one liner.

I was born and raised in Kansas. That's it. But there's so many different towns in Kansas that you lived in.

True. And each one of those communities. But nobody understands it unless you're from Kansas. That's true. Each one of those communities has as rich a history and it is anywhere else.

Oh, I know. One thing that I've learned in traveling all over the United States is I encounter kids in major cities that go,

I'm so bored. Yeah. There's nothing to do around here. That's very true. Doesn't matter whether you're from a small town or a big city.

I'll find people who say there's just nothing to do around here. It's crazy.

Let's pray and then we'll wrap this up. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the continued mercy and grace that you show us each and every day, how undeserving we are of the grace of God.

And yet every morning we can wake up and say with the prophet and lamentations, your mercies are new every morning and great is your faithfulness.

And so I thank you for the continued kindness that you show us each and every day. And may we recognize that kindness.

May we know you are a God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions.

As Paul opened up his letter to the Corinthians, second Corinthians chapter one. And I pray that as we are comforted with the truth of the gospel, the knowledge that by faith in Christ, we have the forgiveness of sins, that we would take this message of comfort, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and share it with others.

So they likewise will know that there is a purpose to this life. There is something after death.

There is a final judgment and they can know that they will be prepared for that day when they have turned from their sins and come to worship the

Lord, Jesus Christ, who saves all those who call upon his name by his mercy and grace.

And let our knowledge and understanding of this mercy and grace that is spoken to us, spoken about to us through your word, the

Bible. May this continue to grow us in holiness. May it fill us with hope and an anticipation of the day of glory.

May we not be satisfied with any of the things of this world because we know that all of this is going to perish and pass away, but let us long all the more for heaven and the glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus.

Give us the patience to get through the things in our day that will drive us crazy sometimes and help us to know how to take even the circumstances and give glory to God in all things.

It's in the name of Christ Jesus that we pray. Amen. ...or was awake still and was angry that she left.

Okay. Either or. Anyway, she was screaming. And then, um, then

Aria took forever to go to the bathroom. Forever. And never called me.

You mean Aria was stalling from going back to bed?

Never. So when we got back... Oh, no, no. I sent her on her way and she just stood there.

I was like, fine, what do you need? Can you take me back up to my room?

Okay. So we get to her room and I'm pushing her in and she's just kind of stopping, looking back at me.

I'm like, fine, I'll help you in your bed. So I helped her in her bed after we like tripped through her room.

Yep. Over all the stuff. All the stuff. Oh my goodness. The table that's in the middle of the room.

Why is that table there? I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, so I got her back to her bed.

She climbed in her bed and then she's like whining for me. And I'm like, what? What? What do you want? And she goes, can you get the sand out of my bed?

What? Yep. There is a ton of sand in her bed. Was. Was a ton.

Now there's just a few. A ton of sand. Yeah. So she had a sandbox in her bed. She had something. I don't even know what it was from, but yes, she had a ton of sand in her bed.

And then, um, and then I finally got the sand out. I got her in her bed and I'm like,

I'm not tucking you in, please. Oh, it's too hot.

No, please. Fine. And because she's being so sweet, I'm like, okay, I'm going to reward her.

Because she's just absolutely adorable when she's doing all of this, right? Yes. So I'm like, okay, fine. Such a pushover when she's actually being really sweet about it.

Yep. And then, um, and then I'm leaving again and I'm out the door in the hallway and I'm just starting to close her door and I hear this whimper like, fine,

I'll leave the door open. Like I've already given her hugs. I already gave her kisses, already said goodnight.

I tucked her in. I got the sand out of her bed. I helped her to her bed. I helped her to the bathroom. Anyway. That's exactly it.

She wanted the door open. No. No, she didn't want the door open. I started leaving again. I hear her whimper like, what on earth?

She wanted another kiss and another hug. And I'm like, okay. I don't mind the kisses and hugs, but now's not the time.

It's after 10 o 'clock. We got a podcast to record. Well that, but it's after 10 o 'clock.