Short & Sweet: Question Smorgasbord
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Join Michael, Chris, Andrew and Dillon as they work through a handful of questions rapid-fire: What does it mean to be apart of Christ's royal priesthood, under His headship as High Priest? How does that reality affect our daily lives? How does someone know when they're ready to be a pastor? How important is it to attend seminary and acquire a degree? Why does the Bible record the same historical events multiple times?Why did Jesus weep in John 11:35?Why is Hebrews a part of the c...
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- Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the
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- Saints. Before we dig into our topic we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.
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- Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, Chris Giesler, and Andrew Hudson.
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- Today we are going to be answering multiple questions in succession, so buckle up. The first question that we have is from 1
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- Peter 2 .9. In this text God's people are called a royal priesthood. How do we understand this scripture in light of the reality that Jesus is our great high priest?
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- How should we rightly live as priests under the high priest? And this is this is sent in from Joe DeForest.
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- Okay, so great question. As we go to 1 Peter chapter 2, in describing the nature of Christian life, everything is indeed focused upon Christ.
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- So in verse 4 of 1 Peter 2, it says, "...coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious."
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- So describing Christ, rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious. Verse 5, "...you
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- also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
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- So the manner in which we live as a holy priesthood is described for us there in verses 4 and 5, before we get to the repeated description in verse 9.
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- So I'm just going to continue reading down to verse 9. Verse 6, "...therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame.
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- Therefore to you who believe he is precious, but to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
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- They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they are also appointed, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people."
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- King James has peculiar people, it means that people for his own possession set aside for his own purposes, "...that
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- you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy."
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- I would recommend working through verses 4 through 10 and looking at the action verbs of the people.
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- What does it look like to live as priests of God in his kingdom under our
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- Great High King Jesus, who is our Great High Priest? Well first of all we come to him, we're paying attention to him, we're following him, we are being built up into a house, there is a communal gathering together of us, we have to gather together, we are living life together, we are offering up spiritual sacrifices.
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- An example of that is proclaiming the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light, reflecting on the fact of who we were but who we are now.
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- Everything listed in this passage has to do with our focusing on being built up into and talking about Jesus Christ.
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- Great place to start. Definitely. So I was going to go into 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 18.
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- Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
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- That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and it has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
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- Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.
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- So many scenes of Old Testament temple activity was that reconciliation of man to God.
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- Jesus has done this. We are going out, now that it's not a temple that we need to serve in physically in a specific location, as ambassadors.
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- We're priests going abroad with that ministry to implore others, you know, disciples, going to make disciples be reconciled to God.
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- Yeah. Now I'm gonna go to Revelation and this will touch on an unasked question about eschatology.
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- But in Revelation 1, starting in verse 4, John, to the seven churches which are in Asia Greece to you, and peace from him who is and who was and is to come, the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.
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- I like the part there, ruler over the kings of the earth. Kings might be interpreted presidents or magistrates or city councils or whatever.
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- He's king over the kings of the earth. To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to his
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- God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Any priesthood or kingship or authority that we have is a borrowed authority.
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- Derived. Derived. Derived from the king of kings who washed us and forgave us of our sins.
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- That's the ministry that we have because that was the ministry that he had.
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- So our peacemaking is proceeding out of the fact that we are already at peace.
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- Amen. With God. The same reason that I'm telling you to be at peace with God is not because of me as my role of priest, but as his role as priest, as Christ's role.
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- Nothing about vestments? No, no, not vestments. So we're not gathering at a temple somewhere to do our ministry works?
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- Yeah, and this is not, notice this priesthood is, we're proceeding out of a priesthood. We already are priests.
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- It's not that I'm trying to achieve my priesthood. Amen. Alright, we'll move on to the next couple of questions actually because they are very similar.
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- The first question reads, how can we explain to others that Christianity is the true moral foundation? Some want to claim that we cannot say this and that other religions have moral foundations as well.
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- And then another one reads similarly, how would you communicate to someone that the Bible, not any of the world's various religions, is alone the standard for moral values?
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- I often have a hard time getting this point across to skeptics. Yeah, so the approach is going to be one of which we need to, whoever the skeptic is, they're going to have some basis for their authority claims that they're skeptical of the
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- Bible, right? So they obviously don't think that the Bible is true, you shouldn't trust in it, why would anybody?
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- And they're wanting to know the basis of your confidence. And you know, feel free to tell them,
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- I believe in the Bible because it's God's Word, and I know it to be so because God has revealed that to me, and it is consistent with everything else in the world, even if you complain about it.
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- By the way, what is your confidence? What is your standard for critiquing the Bible in the first place?
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- Yeah, by what standard? Yeah, and whatever that standard is, it's going to be something that is inconsistent and unable to get into a position to be a critique.
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- So the skeptic is kind of an angry, bitter Zacchaeus who wants to climb up the sycamore tree and look down on Christ, look down on the
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- Bible, so that he can find the flaws with Christianity. The only problem is he can't find a tree tall enough or sturdy enough from which he may have his vantage point.
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- And he's coming to you saying, hey I went up that sycamore tree and I watched, I looked at Christianity, I looked at the
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- Bible, and I could tell that it wasn't worth coming down and going to that house, inviting it into my house.
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- I get to call his bluff because he never went up the tree. He never got up there. And you have to find that supposed authority that he's citing.
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- What is that? Subject it to analysis, right? Exactly. Subject it to the same analysis he proposes to bring against the
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- Bible or bring it against Christianity and so on and so forth. And before long you're going to be talking about things that he can't discuss anymore.
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- I can discuss epistemology and morality and philosophy all day long, never run out of anything to say, but very quickly he's going to have no reason why he should even be talking with you.
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- Right. Yeah. Well you mentioned him climbing up a tree and looking for things that are wrong with Christianity. All of us
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- I think could could say, oh we look and we found problems with people.
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- Yes, problems. We're all fallen. There have been wicked things done in the name of Christianity, but then on what basis can he say that those things are evil?
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- Because if there's evil done in the name of Christianity, the Bible would certainly have something to say about it.
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- That is evil. And so the Bible would agree with him that it's evil, but what basis does he have to claim such a thing?
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- He doesn't have any basis to claim any type of moral standard at that point.
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- The fool has said in his heart there is no God or that God is nothing and throwing out the objective standard of God and his
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- Word. And so we answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes, but we do not answer the fool in the same folly that he is using, lest we be like him.
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- So I'm not going to engage necessarily in a long -form, well science proves my point, or studies show that Christianity is true, kind of nonsense.
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- Because at some point he's going to be pointing to, oh this data set over here, these people said, oh really?
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- So they know the truth. They're the truth. They know everything there is to know about that subject and they have perfect measurement and perfect knowledge and understanding.
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- Really. Let's go take a look. You know, it doesn't take long to find out that everything is very limited.
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- Man's knowledge is just a speck. Just a speck. And our best measurements and instrumentality is rudimentary.
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- And there is so much that we can't give an account for and yet this man's statements are unbelievably arrogant to claim that certain things are settled or certain, you know, so on and so forth.
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- And it's like, where are you coming from with that? So it's just basically, is it just the force of your personality? Is that why
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- I should believe what you say? Yeah. And they're predisposed. I think in the question it talks about almost like this idea of neutrality.
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- But they're predisposed to not believe. So any evidence you give them is just off the table.
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- That's not enough. So you have to get to the heart of the matter. I'm not going to be able to convince him that the Bible is the standard to believe in.
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- But I do hope that we leave the conversation with him, with him having way less confidence in his own standard.
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- His castle's in the sky. Yes. There's no there there. Yeah. Okay. So I think we about wrapped that one up.
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- We'll go on to two more that are very similar in nature. The first one reads, when am I ready to be a pastor?
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- How much education is enough? How good does my character have to be? The second question reads, should all pastors go to seminary?
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- Michael? So in in 1st Timothy chapter 3 we have this description of overseers, which is a word that is in Acts 20 synonymous with pastors and elders.
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- So 1st Timothy 3 .1 says, this is a faithful saying, if a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good a good work.
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- I'd say the first question is, do you desire it? Do you desire this work? And again remember that we have a bit of unfortunate nomenclature in our
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- American culture where we think, oh there's one guy who's called pastor and he's got this position that nobody else has.
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- When we read about overseers and elders and pastors in the New Testament, there's a group.
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- If you desire that position of service, you're desiring a good thing.
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- What does that look like? Does it look like being full -time, you know, making your living according to the gospel, which is certainly a model that's out there?
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- Or is it being an elder in the church? Well, let's start with the desire. Do you have the desire? Okay, well then what about the giftings?
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- Right, so Ephesians, we read in Ephesians that the Holy Spirit is the one who gives to the church all the different servants that the church needs to be built up and edified in the full work of Jesus Christ to be brought into maturity into Jesus.
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- And do you have those those giftings? As it says in 1st Timothy 3, that he needs to be able to teach.
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- In Titus it says that you need to be able to refute those who are in false doctrine. Being able to...
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- the whole work is about rebuking and shepherding and exhorting and encouraging and guiding the flock.
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- So the question is, do you have a desire for that? And the question is, are you able to do that?
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- Are you doing it? Right? Is that something that you are, you know, currently engaging in?
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- Or are you waiting for the title? Right? Because the church is going to recognize those giftings in somebody who is doing that work and then call them up into that work.
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- I mean, that's something that happened in our own church, right? This church saw those giftings and that service in one of our former pastors' current elder,
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- Ken Smith, and called him up into the work because he was already doing it. Because he had the giftings.
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- Because he had the desire. Called him into it. So is this something that you're actually actively doing in the church?
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- And that people are seeing that and calling you to more? Oh brother, you're blessing us through this way and God's really using you.
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- Please continue. Because you're making yourself available and you're actually doing that. Over in 2nd
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- Timothy chapter 2, about the seminary question, Paul says to Timothy verse 1, 2nd
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- Timothy 2, you therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
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- From Paul to Timothy to faithful men who committed to somebody else. So the model is a four generational mindset of entrusting these things to further men.
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- So seminary can be helpful. It is not essential. The question is, can you be equipped and trained to do the work?
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- And how are you going to go through that? Are you submitting yourself to those opportunities? Are you striving to learn and to grow?
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- Nobody else can do that. It comes back to the desire. Do you have the desire for it or not? Can seminary be hurtful?
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- It can be, especially if it evacuates the warmth and the childlike trust in the
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- Lord and replaces it with some sort of unfortunate fidelity to academia that just questions and is skeptical and so on and so forth, rather than being warm in the things of the
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- Lord, which is, you know, you need to have a hermeneutic of submission to the text and come warm in your love for Christ to be able to shepherd a flock of Christians.
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- And not to mention seminaries that have compromised. I know, personally, I've seen some where it's like,
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- I don't need to be here. As a Christian, this is not where I'm supposed to be. And so I've seen that.
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- And in some cases it's you're fighting an uphill battle. I've heard that from a friend, especially if you've already grounded yourself in teaching that you've had passed down to you from mentors or other pastors or other elders, and you're fighting an uphill battle with some of the things that they're trying to get you to latch on to or to study or to question.
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- And then sometimes, in certain cases, there are opportunities to sharpen against, to refute, like we were talking about earlier.
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- But you don't really want to do that at a seminary level when you are supposed to be in a submitted role as a student to a to a professor who holds kind of the podium at that point.
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- That's kind of a difficult situation to be in. I asked really annoying questions. But no, so my undergraduate was all by contrast.
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- It was like Wesleyan holiness, you know, open theist kind of professors. So when
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- I got to seminary, you know, much more an alignment there, and there were a lot of good helpful things.
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- The seminary is not the cure -all, you know. It's something that could certainly help and adorn, you know, the ministry that you're doing, but you have to understand its role.
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- It's not gonna make a pastor out of you. It can help you with some things. Some of the time is gonna be wasted.
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- Some of the things you're going to have to unlearn what you learned. But it can be helpful, and it, you know, for some people it's even more valuable than others.
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- But I think it's got to come down to, is this desire something that you just can't do without? Is this something where you believe the gospel so much, and you believe the preaching of the
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- Word so much that you just can't, you know, can't be stopped? I'm going to continue to pursue this.
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- Like, for instance, 2 Timothy 4. Paul says, Now, if that lights a fire under you, and you're just gonna, and you can't stop, and you just got to get out there and preach the
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- Word, preach the Word, preach the Word, that's a good My father, one time, we were at a crisis, kind of a crossroads.
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- I was doing some seminary, I hadn't finished yet. Ben had been born, we needed a life change to make sure that we're taking care of our little one.
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- And I had an opportunity to go to a church somewhere and serve on staff, you know, youth, children, education, that kind of thing.
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- Or go pastor a little church out in the middle of nowhere where I'd be the, you know, I'd be the pastor. I'd be there preaching, you know, regularly.
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- And I was talking to my dad about the opportunity, you know, option A, option B, that kind of thing. And he said, well, what do you wanna do?
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- I said, I wanna preach. He said, then go preach. You know, and that's, I just got done going to this expository preaching workshop with Steve Lawson last three days,
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- Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And he talked about how we have way more pulpits than we have preachers.
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- Even if we have men filling the pulpits, it doesn't mean that they're preachers. It's just way too many pulpits and not enough preachers.
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- And he was kind of lamenting that fact and so on. There are places to preach. Now, there wasn't anything on God's green earth that was going to stop me from going and preaching.
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- And whatever it took, I knew that's what God wanted me to do and I had a fire in me, I'm gonna go do this.
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- This is what I've been called to do and nothing's going to stop me. And that's kind of what has to happen because there's gonna be lots to stop you.
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- Just loads, all kinds of things that you could say, well, this is hard, I guess God closed the door.
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- Just because things are hard or difficult doesn't mean that God closed the door. That's just part of the job, part of the process and the role.
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- And doing things poorly because you don't know any better, doing things badly, the school of hard knocks, all of it.
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- You're just never gonna get educated enough to do it right from the start. Just kind of a side note,
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- I noticed in your patriarchal translation you're using, it says if any man aspires. In the nearly inspired version, it says whoever.
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- So does it have to be a man? Yes. Okay, that takes care of another question in there.
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- So we can knock that one out. Yeah, if any woman desires the position of a bishop, she should repent. Amen. All right, let's move on to the next question.
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- It reads, there are several passages in the Bible that record the same historical events. Some examples that come to mind are the gospel accounts in the
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- New Testament and the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament. Why does the Bible record these events multiple times?
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- And this is also sent in from Joe DeForest. Thank you, Joe. It's a good question. I'm struck by the way that Paul and Peter write sometimes and say it's no trouble for me to repeat the same things to you.
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- Yeah, yeah. You know, and this is something where we read the same thing over again.
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- What are we to think? When someone who loves us, who's an authority over us, tells us something, the same thing more than once in perhaps slightly different emphases, what are we to think about that?
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- Bigger picture. Like we're layering on different accounts to get a better picture of what he's trying to communicate to us.
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- That's like anytime a poet comes in and has a subject, they have a collection based on one subject and they look at it from different angles and they get to layer in metaphor after metaphor after metaphor and image after image after image.
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- The Bible does a lot of the same thing with loads of symbolism, loads of language in different languages all the way across its breadth and we're getting a clearer picture that way than we would with just straight, you know, one -to -one didactic things.
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- Also, we're getting told some of the same information from different time periods and different authors and it is affirming when that happens.
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- So, the record of the first and second kings told much closer and often from within the history itself versus chronicles written far after in reflection on the fulfilled promises of God from a little bit of a different angle.
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- We've got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John telling similar stories but from differing perspectives with, you know, these are not security camera footages from four different angles.
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- These are documentaries being written with similar though for distinct purposes and they only enhance one another.
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- I'm very much against these harmonies of the gospel where they take all the passages and then they strip them out of their original context and then they blend them all together.
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- That's not how it was written. There was a point and a purpose for them being written in the way that they were, in the order that they were but you have all these testimonies coming together.
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- The Bible is written by over 40 different authors over a 1500 year time period on three different continents and three different languages.
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- All 66 different books all being written with perfect harmony in the light of Christ.
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- They all are testifying to him and in many ways we're hearing the same thing more than once but we're hearing it in very important reaffirming ways.
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- You know how it is when you hear something that is meaningful and helpful to you in your 30s and then you hear it again later on or you heard something when you're a teenager but you hear it again when you're a little bit older and now with all this life experience plus it hits you even stronger.
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- It just pops, baby. Yes, yeah. Yeah and that leads to the clarity, right?
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- And the more you know, I think what the Lord does too is he reveals more to us about himself and then that added context from coming back to the text each time.
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- Every time we read it, we now have more about Jesus, more about Jesus, more about Jesus every single time and that's an added layer that we get as well.
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- Okay, so we'll move on to the next question. The question reads, why did Jesus weep in John 11 .35?
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- I think it was because he was sad because Lazarus had died and everyone around them, they were sad too.
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- Yeah, why did the other people? Why were they sad? Jesus is fully God and fully man with the full range of human emotions yet without sin and he wept over Lazarus's death and he wept over Jerusalem's coming destruction because these are sad things.
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- Yeah, I mean, I know we're giving very short answers to that but there's a whole lot wrapped in the humanity of Christ there that we could mine the depths of.
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- He just models an appropriate response. Death is something to be grieved over.
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- And the other demons present are mirroring that lament as well as at Lazarus's death. Okay, so we'll wrap up with this next question then.
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- Why is Hebrews part of the canon of scripture? How do we argue for its canonicity when it does not have an author mentioned?
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- So it's perhaps not as well known that not every book of the Bible has an author that is named within the text.
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- That's not actually a test of canonicity. So we could open more than one book of the Bible and we're not going to read somewhere at the beginning.
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- This was written by so -and -so, right? For instance, the Gospel of Matthew. It's not, we don't have his name in there.
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- We just have a bunch of affirmations from church history and old documents that say, hey, Matthew wrote this.
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- But that's not a test of its canonicity. So there are a variety of tests for canonicity but among them are going to be things like, is this in agreement with all the rest of the texts?
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- That's going to be a big one. Is it saying the same thing? Is it affirming it? Can we look back and see this text being used by the early church in a way as scripture versus other ones?
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- So for instance, during the persecution of Diocletian in the 90s, he and other
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- Roman emperors after him were trying to destroy scripture. Later on,
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- Roman emperors would also, if there was persecution abroad, they would try to burn anything related to Christianity, right?
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- So whereas Christians would be okay with giving up the Shepherd of Hermas or the Didache or some other kind of Christian work or the letters of Clement to the church in Corinth, those could get burned.
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- But I'll die before I'll let you burn a copy of Hebrews, as an example, because they recognized this was actual scripture.
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- It was widely circulated. It wasn't just in one little place. It wasn't some like, oh, here's the
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- Gospel of Thomas or something. There's a lot of different factors that go into why is this considered canonical part of the
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- New Testament. But it doesn't have to require there to be a name.
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- Clearly, whoever wrote this knew Timothy. It was written during the time when Timothy was alive and somebody knew
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- Timothy. It's mentioned there at the end of the work. The argumentation is thoroughly
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- Paul. The Greek written was thoroughly Luke. So if you read the
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- Greek style that Luke writes in in the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, same high level expression of Greek is in Hebrews.
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- And we know that Luke was with Paul. Paul preached like this in the synagogues from place to place as he went along, testifying that Jesus of Nazareth is the
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- Messiah, showing how he's the fulfillment of the old covenant. It's very much Paul's thought in Luke's expression.
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- So that's another reason why it's part of the canon. And would we say that the human authorship question is not nearly as important as the spirit authorship question, right?
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- Like so just because we don't have which human author wrote it down does not mean that we do not confirm the spirit's authorship within that text either to have it be canon.
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- Yeah, so there is a, there's never gonna get away from the element of faith. All right, you're just never gonna get away from the element of faith.
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- And it's something that is, it's been received and we recognize the spirit here, whereas we don't have it someplace else.
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- I mean, there's a clear difference. If you've taken the time to read Shepherd of Hermas, if you've read
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- First and Second Maccabees, if you've read some of these works that are ancient contemporaneous with scripture and you've read it, you can't help but tell the difference.
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- It's a massive difference. Clement's letters to Corinth are nothing compared. And he's quoting
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- Paul as scripture and he writes to the Corinthians in the 90s. And he's already quoting
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- Paul's letter to them as scripture, but he himself knows he's not writing scripture.
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- I mean, this is early, early recognition. Okay, well, that about wraps up this episode.
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- But first, before we go, we're going to see what content we would recommend out there to all the listeners. We'll start with you,
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- Michael. Recommend The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs.
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- It's a series of sermons on the verse out of Philippians. I have learned that whatever state
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- I am, therein to be content. And he preaches about that for about, I don't know, two weeks every day.
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- It's a massive series of sermons just on that idea of being content.
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- And I didn't agree with everything he said in there, but there was a lot of recognition of contentment and its godliness and our role in following after Christ of learning to be content.
- 30:20
- It's not something that's instinctive. We had to learn to be content. And that's part of our growing up into Christ.
- 30:26
- So it was very helpful. Amen, Chris. I would highly recommend, it's kind of a documentary, but it's of several debates.
- 30:35
- So the documentary is called Collision between Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens. And it was really good, particularly in that question about the skeptics, answering skeptics.
- 30:47
- He does a great job of not ceding any ground, giving the atheist any material to work with because basically they're borrowing from our worldview to argue against it.
- 30:57
- And he does it in a jovial, happy sort of way. And his argumentation, one of my favorite parts is he's arguing for the existence of God through beauty, like beauty in the world.
- 31:09
- And Christopher starts waxing eloquent about the black hole and all this different stuff, and Doug just answers him.
- 31:17
- And it's really good. I'd recommend that, Collision. Amen, Andrew. I'm gonna recommend this, even though when
- 31:24
- I encountered this podcast, I didn't know what to take or take away from it at first.
- 31:30
- I'm talking about the Haunted Cosmos podcast. It goes into topics like vampires, aliens,
- 31:39
- I guess witchcraft is also included in that. And I don't, so they have conclusions that, or premises that I don't agree with, but not, the reason why
- 31:51
- I'm recommending it is that there are spiritual forces, and I think so much of our quote -unquote modern life tends to suppress the idea of the spirit, the spiritual realm, and actually evil things.
- 32:06
- This podcast was very helpful for me to be reminded that evil forces exist, that they exert influence upon mankind in different ways, and it could look differently in different cultures.
- 32:18
- So if you're up for some ghost stories for a purpose, I would say check it out.
- 32:24
- All right, well, my recommendation this week is going to be C .R. Wiley's The Household and the War for the
- 32:30
- Cosmos. I read this on trips back and forth between here in Ada with my wife.
- 32:35
- I can't remember if it was with our first son or our second son doing checkups on the pregnancy, but either way, it was one of them.
- 32:41
- And we read through that, and we were getting a lot of good things from the Puritans in their worldview in the comparison between Aeneas and the
- 32:51
- Aeneid and what it means, what true piety means, what it might involve in the household, what it might involve within the structure of the family, and how even pagans can recognize it.
- 33:00
- So that's my recommendation for this week. Michael, what are we thankful for? I'm thankful that we've got the podcast going again.
- 33:07
- I've missed spending time with you guys, missed being able to discuss these important questions from the
- 33:13
- Word, missed the affirmation of just opening the Scriptures to answer any question that comes to us.
- 33:19
- It's always a joy, so I'm very thankful. Amen, Chris? I am thankful for my wife.
- 33:26
- That allows me to come record these podcasts, and she's home with our kids and a toddler who has discovered his fists and trying to correct that.
- 33:38
- So I really appreciate everything she does in keeping the house going while I'm away, and then even when
- 33:44
- I'm away a little longer, she's there taking care of it. Andrew? This summer, my wife was motivated to go run a 5K.
- 33:53
- I had, I guess, taken about a year away from any exercise, and that was not right.
- 34:02
- And throughout this process of her preparing for the 5K, it was a great motivator to do something with my wife that was also beneficial for other reasons.
- 34:11
- It has been a joy to reinvigorate the appreciation for exercise and what this small slice of life in time that I have the physical capacity to be active, to run with my wife, and I will never regret the time that we spent together talking about matters of faith, household situations.
- 34:40
- It's just, it was amazing. Now we have our kids running with us in the mornings, so, you know, weird things happen that you wouldn't think would happen, and sometimes it's like, wow.
- 34:54
- I can't explain the series of events that led to this, but it's been a blessing all the way around, so I can thank
- 35:00
- God for, obviously, the work that he was doing through this situation, so praise the Lord for it. Amen.
- 35:06
- I'm thankful to the Lord that he has given me a wife who does pray for me when
- 35:11
- I ask for prayer, and I know that she faithfully does so. I can be struggling with something or thinking about something, more like brooding over something, and she'll ask me what's up.
- 35:21
- I can tell her without feeling guilty or without feeling that I am going to offend her with my stupidity, and she'll hear me.
- 35:32
- She will pray for me. She'll be very kind with me on it and very respectful as well.
- 35:38
- She will not look down upon me for my faults in a way that is detrimental to our relationship at all, but she prays, and she asks the
- 35:46
- Lord to help me, and she has been a wonderful example to me on how we are supposed to pray for one another, and it has bled into how we pray for our children as well, so I'm very thankful for her faithfulness there.
- 35:58
- And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?