China’s Totalitarianism, Union Theological Seminary Invites You to Apostacy, 1 Timothy 6

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00:37

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line on a Wednesday, moving things up one day basically so I can have a little time over this weekend, be that as it may.

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Real quick, I got my copy of Tom Askell's Traditional Theology in the

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SBC in the mail in interaction with and response to the traditionalist statement of God's plan of salvation.

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What? Oh, well, quit playing around with the cameras, and so it looks,

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I don't know what I'm talking about now because the guy over there is messing with me, but whatever, they don't care.

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Not a huge tome, but obviously a very, very welcome addition to the discussion going on there.

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Yes, I do know that Leighton Flowers put out some type of a video about how Calvinism destroys apologetics and all the rest of this stuff.

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I'm sorry, I'll just refer you back to the debate and refer you to the times that Leighton Flowers has actually engaged in apologetics and just have you compare and you just go from there.

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Anyways, but appreciate Tom Askell's work. He's much, much nicer than I am, much, much nicer than I am, and I listened to him on with Summer and Joy, and he just has the grandfather voice down, just spot on, very, very good.

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I can't believe I did this yesterday, but the first thing I was supposed to talk about on the program was

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China, and I just completely spaced it. I guess

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I got other stuff on the screen and it got me going, but I want to start off with the, there is a article at Chinapartnership .org

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updated September 11th, and you want statements?

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Let me tell you about statements that actually really cost you.

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A lot is going on in China, and there are two things to keep in mind.

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China is using Orwell as a how -to book, 1984 is 2018, and yet the point is now that China has technology that Orwell could not have possibly thought of, and as a result, facial recognition software and the ability to track people, those view screens from Orwell, now they're real.

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Now they're just real, and the ability to control people in this way is, it's every dystopian movie maker's dream, except that it's real.

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And so if all those movies were supposed to be warnings, nobody's been listening. They are establishing, and again from a

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Christian worldview this makes perfect sense, there is an absolute cult of the state that is fundamental in China now, and the state is everything, and therefore any other claims to ultimate authority, specifically monotheistic religions primarily, is a threat to the state, and hence is heresy.

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And so China is cracking down on both Christians and Muslims.

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So you have a group I had never heard of before just a few weeks ago called the Uyghurs, Muslims of,

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I don't know anything about them, I don't know if they're Sunni, Shia, something different, I don't know, but they are being horrifically persecuted, imprisoned in the hundreds of thousands, children separated from parents, forced into re -education camps, which is nothing but mind -messing around the mind, brainwashing, specifically told they must abandon their

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Muslim beliefs and they must praise the state, forced to chant prayers to the chairman and give thanks to the state before eating, and this kind of stuff, just amazing stuff going on.

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And we certainly should pray for the Uyghurs. Why? They're not Christians. That's true.

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We want them to become Christians, and so they're not going to become Christians while being enslaved by the

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Chinese communists. So you pray that they will be freed, or that somehow, don't ask me how, but God's big, there would be a

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Christian witness that would come to them, because I sort of doubt they've had much in the way of a revelation of the truth of who

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Christ is or anything along those lines at all. But it's consistent. What they're doing to the

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Uyghurs and to Christians, they're cracking down on house churches that have been in existence for many years, right there in Beijing, were well known.

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And as a result, 116 at the time of this writing,

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September 11th, 116 Chinese pastors signed joint statement on the new religious regulations.

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And you know, when we think about statements, you know, we have the freedom, there have been over 7 ,000 people that have signed the statement on social justice and the gospel.

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Very thankful for that. But we have, and yeah, there is a price to pay for signing it,

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I will admit, but not yet the price of your freedom.

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And so in looking at what they write, it is truly amazing.

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We believe these unjust actions are an abuse of government power and have led to serious conflicts between political and religious parties in Chinese society.

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These actions infringe on the human freedoms of religion and conscience and violate the universal rule of law. We are obligated to announce bad news to the authorities and to all of society.

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God hates all attempts to suppress human souls and all acts of persecution against the

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Christian church and he will condemn and judge them with righteous judgment. I'm not sure that you'd get that into most

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Western statements, to be perfectly honest with you. God, judging? But we are even more obligated to proclaim good news to the authorities and to all of society.

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Jesus, the only begotten son of God, the savior and king of mankind, in order to save us sinners, was killed, was buried and rose from the dead by the power of God, destroying the power of sin and death.

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In his love and compassion, God has prepared forgiveness and salvation for all who are willing to believe in Jesus, including Chinese people.

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At any time, anyone can repent from any sin, turn to Christ, fear God, obtain eternal life and bring great blessing from God upon his family and country.

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For the sake of faith and conscience, for the spiritual benefits of the authorities in China and of society as a whole, and ultimately for the glory, holiness and righteousness of God, we make the following declaration to the

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Chinese government and to all of society. Listen to this. Now, I'm—when we get done with this,

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I'm going to run through the arrogance -dripping article that Union Theological Seminary put out.

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I mean, if you want to hear the—it's just—it is the arrogance of the left.

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I mean, it's just astounding. That's the

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Union Theological Seminary statement, and it's just so condescending.

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Oh, you poor people that believe in the inspiration of the Bible, it's so sad, da -da -da -da -da.

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Compare the unbelieving attitude of Union Theological Seminary and its leftist agenda with the brave Christians of China.

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There is a huge difference. Listen to this. The first point—and by the way, we were criticized for having as our first point the authority of Scripture—well, Christian churches in China believe unconditionally the

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Bible is the word and revelation of God, it is the source and final authority of all righteousness, ethics, and salvation.

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If the will of any political party, the laws of any government, or the commands of any man directly violate the teachings of the

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Bible, harming men's souls, and opposing the gospel proclaimed by the Church, we are obligated to obey God rather than man, and we are obligated to teach all members of the

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Church to do the same. Yeah. Which side would

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Union be on in this situation? The commies, yeah, you bet, exactly. Number two,

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Christian churches in China are eager and determined to walk the path of the cross of Christ and are more than willing to imitate the older generation of saints who suffered and were martyred for their faith.

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We are willing and obligated under any circumstance to face all government persecution, misunderstanding, and violence with peace, patience, and compassion.

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For when churches refuse to obey evil laws, it does not stem from any political agenda, it does not stem from resentment or hostility, it stems only from the demands of the gospel and from a love for Chinese society.

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Christian churches in China are willing to obey authorities in China whom God has appointed and respect the government's authority to govern society and human conduct.

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We believe and are obligated to teach all believers in the Church that the authority of the government is from God, and that as long as the government does not overstep the boundaries of secular power laid out in the

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Bible, and does not interfere with or violate anything related to faith or the soul, Christians are obligated to respect the authorities, to pray fervently for their benefit, and to pray earnestly for Chinese society.

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For the sake of the gospel, we are willing to suffer all external losses brought about by unfair law enforcement, out of a love for our fellow citizens, we are willing to give up all our earthly rights.

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For this reason, we believe and are obligated to teach all believers that all true churches in China that belong to Christ must hold the principle of the separation of church and state and must proclaim

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Christ as the sole head of the Church. We declare that in matters of external conduct, churches are willing to accept lawful oversight by civil administration or other government departments, as other social organizations do, but under no circumstances will we lead our churches to join a religious organization controlled by the government, to register with the religious administration department, or accept any kind of affiliation.

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We also will not accept any ban or fine imposed on our churches due to our faith. For the sake of the gospel, we are prepared to bear all losses, even the loss of our freedom and our lives."

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116 signatories, names listed right there. How long do we have to do something like that?

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I'll be honest with you folks, it could be a matter of a certain number of elections.

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You think that there is some huge bulwark keeping the same thing from happening here that's happening in China?

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What is it? Well, we've got the Constitution. The Constitution is a piece of paper. It's got words written on it.

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And once you adopt the idea that words have no meanings and words can be changed, hey, if you're a guy, you can be a girl tomorrow, right?

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If your very gender has no meaning, if what you are has no meaning, then you can interpret words any way you want to.

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And all you got to do now to completely subvert the governmental system in the United States of America is to fill that Supreme Court with people who believe that.

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There's already four people on it that already believe it. Put them on there.

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Well, at least three, three and a half, whatever. And voila, you got it.

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It's done. It's done. There is a thin, thin, thin veneer of civilization that is sustained by God and we never give him thanks for it.

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And all you got to do is look across the ocean at this huge population, many times the size of the

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United States. And yet they're controlled, absolutely totalitarian control.

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And what you have is you have the state becoming God. The state becomes the religion.

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Have we done this before? Yeah. Did we already forget about how bad it was? Yeah. You know, pray for these folks.

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Pray for the church in China. Pray for the

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Uyghurs, that there would be a testimony made to them. They are being persecuted by the very same system that is persecuting the

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Christians for the same reason. They have an ultimate authority, other than that, of the state.

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See, the polytheistic religions, they're not seen as much of a threat by the totalitarians, because in polytheism, basically, you've got one

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God over a certain area. And so even back in Rome, as long as your God was just a

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God over a certain area, then you could acknowledge the existence of other gods and, hey, we can all get along that way. They recognize it's monotheistic religions, specifically, that are such a challenge to the totalitarianism of Chinese communism.

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And it's, I don't know, seems just a little bit scary to me that the

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Russians are currently having joint military maneuvers with the Chinese. You put those two powers together, and that's a major portion of the world's landmass and a major portion of the world's military, right then and there.

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So there you go, there you go. And then there was another article in Christianity Today about major new rule recommendations in China to completely control online access, completely control online access.

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So, information involving religion, including that relating to religious doctrines, religious knowledge, religious culture, religious activities that is transmitted as text, images, audio, or video through means of internet websites, applications, forums, blogs, microblogs, public accounts, instant messaging, or online live streaming.

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All of that would have to be controlled by and approved by the state.

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There you go. Totalitarians will be totalitarians, and that is what

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China is all about. And so when you see, essentially, communists running for office in the

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United States, keep that in mind, keep that in mind. That's what we're looking at. Now, so I didn't get to that yesterday, and I apologize.

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I'm trying to be quick here, but there's a lot of stuff here. Union Theological Seminary, shortly after our article, our statement came out, put up an article on their website, and they also, they posted on the website, and then they broke it into a tweet thread of about 14 tweets,

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I think. And I responded to that fairly quickly after it came out, and, you know, the very first thing that they affirmed was biblical errancy, and, you know,

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I just walked through it as just an incredible example of the empty nature, the ahistorical nature, the corrupted nature of liberalism, which isn't, it's really leftism anymore, it's not really liberalism, but of Christian religion that loses its foundation and ends up, when the

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Christian faith created the structure, the shell, and then the insides are sucked out by apostasy, and you try to fill it back up with worldly philosophy, the result is a stinking corpse, and that's what you have in the mainline denominations that are just swinging off into the ozone on the left and affirming everything that could possibly be seen to be opposed to biblical law and morality and ethics and everything else.

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And so we responded to it, and I'm sure other people responded to it as well, but they decided that they wanted to continue that thread,

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I guess, and especially respond to the pushback they got in their denial of inerrancy.

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Now you just need to understand, I've talked about this many times before, when you go to a conservative seminary, in a conservative seminary, you learn what the liberals believe.

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You read their books, you understand their perspective. When you go to a liberal seminary, you do not learn what conservatives believe, because that is considered to be a waste of time.

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Conservatives are Neanderthals, they never think, they're just stupid fundamentalists, they repeat the same things over and over again, have the

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IQ of a wet shoelace. That literally is what you're taught in a liberal seminary.

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You do not study the conservatives. You want proof? Look at my debates with liberals.

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Do they ever do homework? Do they ever read our books? When I debated John Shelby Spong, had he taken the time to read anything that I'd written on homosexuality?

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Of course not. What did I do? I listened to his lectures,

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I read his books. I was ready. Doesn't matter who they are, they just don't believe that we have anything worthwhile to say.

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It is an extremely arrogant, condescending worldview, but that's the essence of what it is.

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That's just what you deal with. And so they really, really may think they're speaking the truth.

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They have not taken the time to read serious scholarship from our side because they don't believe it exists.

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I mean, if you say, have you read any serious scholarship in defense of inerrancy? I'd be like, that would honestly be like saying, have you read any serious scholarship in defense of flat -earthism or unicorns?

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That's how they would hear that. Well, there isn't any, so how could I have read it? That's really what they think.

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And that oozes through every word of this statement. So number one, a word about biblical infallibility.

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This weekend, we received much damnation from fundamentalists over our denial of scriptural inerrancy.

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Now, of course, I would probably interpret that as more along the lines of, we got pushback, and so we'll interpret that as fundamentalist damnation.

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It's understandable, now listen to this, let me, let me, I almost wish I had a musical background.

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I have some pictures of flowers. It's understandable because once you relinquish conviction that the

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Bible is literally God's word, faith becomes a messier affair. It's easier to simply believe that the

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Bible is a plain record of the divine, that it clearly and concisely states what

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Christians should believe. In a world that feels so chaotic, biblical infallibility can provide distinct comfort, but comfort and truth aren't synonymous.

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So from their perspective, everybody, now, are there people like that?

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Are there people who believe in biblical inerrancy and authority who never expose themselves to any other perspective?

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You know, just, yeah, yeah, there are, there are. Is that everybody? No. My shelves in my library are lined with books written by excellent scholars who know everything that these, know everything about every objection these people would make to our belief, and yet still believe it and have good answers for it, but they don't read those books.

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They would consider that to be a compromise, be given in, even waste of time.

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But notice how it's, the Bible is literally God's word, believe that the

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Bible is a plain record of the divine, that it clearly and concisely states what

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Christians should believe. Well, certainly does clearly, but anybody who's read the first chapter of the

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Westminster Confession of Faith or the Lundenbaps Confession of Faith, it says same thing, slight differences, but same thing.

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We recognize, we understand the need for meaningfully critical scholarship, not hypercritical scholarship, learning the original languages, recognizing there are difficult passages, all these things.

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They don't know that we actually know that and actually practice that.

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The truth is, it goes on to say, that the biblical books were written by humans.

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Really? You mean like men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, like Peter said?

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Well, Peter didn't write that. Well, see, I went to Fuller. The truth is the biblical books were written by humans.

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They represent the fruits of people grappling with God. Did you hear that from Brian Zahn too?

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The emergent church folks, they represent the fruits of people grappling with God and what it means to be human for centuries.

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In all the complexity, those questions necessarily entail. Well, that's partially true.

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I mean, Job was definitely grappling with God, but why do you say that's all it is?

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Especially if you continue, I'm not sure if you do, claim to be a Christian, because I would think you'd want to like, you know, what did

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Jesus say about this? What was Jesus' perspective on this particular thing? And obviously, he went well beyond that in his views of what the scriptures were.

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Moreover, and now this is where you needed to be listening carefully.

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Last January, when Dr. Michael Kruger and I walked out on stage and spent about an hour talking about the canon of scripture.

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Why is that important? Well, we tried to tell you, here's a wonderful illustration, wonderful illustration.

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Number four, moreover, even the decision about which books would be included in the Bible was a human choice.

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One that didn't solidify until centuries after Jesus died. They by no means represent all early

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Christian texts. Then it's interesting. They put a little advert in. Dr.

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Hal Taussig's A New New Testament collects many others. Well, I saw that and I went,

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I can guess what's in there. And then I thought, I think I have that. And lo and behold,

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I do. A New New Testament. I talked about this. I don't remember when

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I talked about it, it was sometime over the past couple of years. And yeah, that's a big book.

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And totally unsurprisingly, all it is, is New Testament books bound together with Gnostic Gospels.

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So you got the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary. And some of these, we have just a bunch of Nag Hammadi stuff and the secret revelation of John's right after the revelation of John.

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So you take stuff from a completely different worldview with demiurges and all that kind of stuff.

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And you stick it all together and it makes for a nice mishmash of utter confusion. But again, most of the people at Union don't realize that every time we've had story time with Uncle Jimmy, I've been reading you these very books and we do study them and we recognize they come from a completely different worldview.

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And normally centuries later, after the time of the New Testament. And we have entire books on the subject of the canon that actually go far more in depth than your guys's stuff does.

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Because we read your stuff, you don't even bother with us. So ours is just a little bit better off than yours is. But you don't know that.

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So yeah, there's the book they suggest. There is no consistent message here.

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That's the whole point. If you accept this, which they evidently think that the canon of scripture needs to be expanded, then you cannot address any theological issue.

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There's no reason to believe in the deity of Christ, there's a reason to believe in the resurrection, the atoning death of Christ.

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There's no reason to have any Christian theology at all. Because you have no basis left for it.

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It's just, there you go. That's all there is to it.

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Number five, furthermore, the languages in which most Americans read the Bible reveal yet another layer of human interpretation, decisions made by translators who labored diligently over the original

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Hebrew and Greek texts. Well, you know, most of those translators tend to be fairly conservative folks.

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They're not normally of your ilk. But yeah, you know, that's true.

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We've talked many times, any Bible translation does introduce another layer of interpretation.

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That's quite true, which is why we emphasize so strongly the reading of the original texts in the original languages.

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There is so much humanity in the Bible. And humans are, by nature, fallible and often blinded by our own cultural prejudices and blind spots.

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That was every bit as true for the early church as it is for the modern church. Well, again, liberals are really good at stating the obvious and then not stating what they're really meaning by that.

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So, none of us will deny, for example, that men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. What that means is there's two elements there. And the unstated presupposition of the liberal that is seen so clearly here is that the overriding element of the writing of Scripture is the sinful—well, not even sinful, they would say fallible—humanity.

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There's nothing here about the supernatural, superintendence, providential protection, anything else about the

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Holy Spirit of God or spiritual nature of these things. It's all just, well, there's just so much humanity in the

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Bible and humans are fallible and got blind spots. What they're trying to say is, so the Bible does too.

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So the Bible does too. And we get to determine what they are. So whatever flavor of current scholarship that you happen to be imbibing, that's going to be your ultimate authority.

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And the Bible can no longer function from generation to generation and give us any meaningful direction.

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That's the result of this perspective. But they don't seem to see that.

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Number seven, but by no means should an admission of fallibility be read as an admission that the

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Bible's worthless or a denial that God speaks through Scripture. Instead, it simply opens the door to a far deeper, nuanced, and complex faith.

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Again, I'm sure they actually believe this. And you'll see the false dichotomy.

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I mean, okay. So you're not saying it's worthless, but you are saying it's not the final authority.

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You are saying that there are other books that need to be added to it. I suppose you probably will likewise say that we need to listen to the

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Quran and to the Bhagavad Gita and the Talmud and a bunch of other stuff along the way.

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And the result is going to be this massive soup bowl of contradiction that you get to sort of mix and match and do whatever you want with.

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It means being a critical reader of the Bible, interpreting more difficult passages in light of clearer ones.

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That's called the analogy of faith. We do it all the time. Reading biblical scholarship, see, from their perspective, we don't do that.

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We don't have any of it. There are no biblical scholars other than their group. They really, really, really believe that.

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They really do. It is the massive theological echo chamber.

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The left is. It just is. Reading biblical scholarship to better understand the cultural context in which texts are written and how that informs them.

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We never do that. I mean, certainly there's nothing in any, you know, when

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I read Murray's commentary on Romans or Morris on John or any of these, there's nothing about, nothing about original languages or social contexts or hopefully you understand

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I'm being exceptionally facetious when I say that. But on a deeper level, it means opening up faith to doubt.

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It means acknowledging that when it comes to God, there are no easy answers. There's no cheat sheet that you can simply refer to, to read

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God's voice clear as day. Letting go of that can be painful.

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I told you this just drips with the arrogance of the left.

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It's just, yeah, all we want are easy answers. Cheat sheets.

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Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the historic view of the church. Yeah. When I read Calvin or Augustine or anybody else in history, that's just all they had.

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Yeah. Right. Just stunningly offensive. But once you embark on this new religious adventure, see, they're inviting you, please come apostatize with us.

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Come to Union Theological Seminary, apostates are us. Once you embark on this new religious adventure, you'd be shocked at how it can deepen your faith because we know you conservatives, your faith is just.

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A lot of people seem worried about relinquishing biblical inerrancy because it would render Christianity meaningless.

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This could not be further from the truth. No, it wouldn't render Christianity meaningless. It would render

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Christianity groundless, foundationless. It becomes a, a building on shifting sand that eventually falls down into the mess that you see at Union Theological Seminary, where instead of Christian theology, now all you've got is social justice.

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All denominations that abandoned the word of God eventually become nothing more than social justice movements.

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And eventually they tire out and you're end up with the Episcopalians or something like that.

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Uh, 11, the Bible still speaks divine truth. Those who study it still benefit from the centuries of spiritual contemplation and reflection it contains.

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Because remember, all it is, is man's thoughts about God. That's how you can get rid of all the uncomfortable stuff in the

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Old Testament about judgment and nations and stuff like that. This is just what people back then were thinking about God, see?

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And so the main thing we can take from that is we don't want to think about God that way. And so the

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Psalms are no less beautiful, though, of course, Jesus quotes the

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Psalms as being the very words of God through the Holy Spirit that are prophetic announcements of what he's doing.

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Proverbs, no less profound, Job remains an unparalleled distillation of grappling with theodicy.

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What's theodicy? Well, you know, um, the difference being, uh, that for a believing

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Christian, that grappling with theodicy has authoritative impact upon us.

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And we can then use it as a guide rather than just sit around and talk about it and then go, well, that's what they thought back then, but I'm not sure what's going on now.

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And of course, back then they didn't know all the stuff we know. That's one of the main things is, you know, back then they had a lot of wrong ideas.

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They thought men were men and women were women. They thought they were created by God and we know better now, we know better now.

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And so we don't really need to listen to what they had to say. Only two sections left, uh, in case you're starting to feel ill.

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13. Moreover, now if you, you know, up until now, you know, there, you know, there was a thing here and you could agree with a sentence there, but now you see what, now we're going to find out what this is really all about.

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Moreover, relinquishing infallibility is the only means. Listen to this folks.

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This is, this is union theological center. This is, this is a place that would be viewed by the world as a place of great scholarship.

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Um, moreover, relinquishing infallibility is the only means by which you can fully square scripture with a loving, just God.

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You want a loving, just God guy, get rid of scripture. That's union theological seminary folks.

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That's union theological seminary. Um, then when it says loving, just God, it's capitalized

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G, a God, small G that would condemn LGBTQ people for their love or consigned women to subservience is not a small

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G God worth worshiping. There's union. There you go.

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There, there's the real motivation. These are rebels. They hate

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God's law. They hate the very foundation of the cross, but they still want to be religious.

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And the resultant mutation is what you have in modern day liberalism.

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Um, yeah, I saw that same tweet. Who's, who's that guy? I wonder. Uh, I have no idea.

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Yeah. Why should he care? Every time atheists like that start doing it, they're there.

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They don't realize they're demonstrating that they know God exists and they hate him, but they're doing it anyways.

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It's, it's sort of humorous to watch it. But yeah, some guy named David Anthony, uh, the

39:21

James white comedy hour is an absolute doozy tonight. His bunker set has never seemed more apt.

39:30

Oh, bunker. Oh, I see. Does this look like a bunker? Doesn't look like a bunker to me.

39:37

Most bunkers have, you know, food cans in them, not books. Yes, we could.

39:44

Ammo cans, survival gear, stuff like that.

39:52

Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Wait, well, we could, we could take after certain people and sell that stuff.

40:02

We won't mention any names though. So I should, I should, cause

40:08

I don't think I ever read what he said about the statement.

40:15

So maybe I should anyway. Um, so back to this point here, sorry, you got sidetracked, uh, notice all the sidetracking has been because of disturbances outside of the four walls of this room, because unfortunately it's not fully soundproof, uh, which it needs to be.

40:39

So I can just close that door. And if I don't have that in, then it's just moving of gums, you know?

40:46

Yeah. Uh huh. Back to number 13, moreover, relinquishing infallibility is the only means by which you can fully square scripture with a loving, just God, a

40:58

God that we condemn LGBTQ people for their love, which of course is not what the

41:03

Bible does by any stretch of the imagination or consign women to subservience, whatever in the world that is, is not a

41:11

God worth worshiping. So in other words, these folks really detest Orthodox Christianity.

41:17

And so you have this weird situation where what God has revealed, the church has believed down through the centuries, uh, is now the evil, terrible, horrible thing.

41:28

But you still got people who want to call themselves Christians, but detest what God actually said in his word.

41:36

And the result is this distorted, mutated mess called liberal theology. Number 14, fortunately that God, small

41:44

G, was never God, capital G, simply an idol worshiped by people who valued print and ink over divine justice.

41:55

Letting go of that idolatry, idolatry is the first step towards truly knowing

42:02

God, the developing faith that honors both humanity and the divine, not God, but the divine, which is this vague thing.

42:09

So from this religion's perspective, being a Christian who believes what

42:15

Jesus said about scripture is idolatry. Uh, that's why Jay Gresham Machen said

42:22

Christianity and liberalism, two different religions. And they are, and they are, um, amazing, amazing stuff.

42:32

But remember, and this came out as a result, this was prompted because the statement, the statement on social justice in the gospel, which began by confessing inerrancy.

42:50

And so there you go. Um, I think there has, aside from all the other good stuff that has happened, um,

43:01

I think there, it, it's been very, very valuable that you've got that, uh, progressive

43:08

Asian Americans, uh, statement, which I didn't go over, uh,

43:14

I'm not, I'm not going to just look, just look it up. I tweeted it and I think there's like 12 signatories on it, but, um, or maybe, yeah,

43:23

I'm not sure how many that one has, but, um, it's just, again, it gets into homosexuality and you know, all the rest of this kind of stuff and, uh, just like, just like union does, uh, way off to the left, but it has really turned a light on and, and shown us what is very often just as they know very little, but they all the way to the top,

43:50

I mean, all the way to, um, the professors and things like that know next to nothing about what we believe.

43:57

Most of our people don't know anything about what they believe and assume wrongly if they call themselves

44:02

Christians, well, they must at least believe that the Bible is the word of God. They must at least believe Jesus really rose from the dead.

44:08

No, no, um, you know, I'll, I'll never forget about halfway through the debate,

44:16

Dr. Renahan and I versus John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, the late Marcus Borg, when it very clearly dawned on the other side and halfway through the debate, they're like, are you saying that you think that the grave was literally empty as in the body left?

44:43

And we're like, yeah, yeah, no, all right, we're, uh, yeah, that's, that's what you're dealing with, with, with people on the, on the left, um, uh,

45:02

Lucas, um, in Twitter, you need to, you need to go watch my, um, uh, discussion with, um, uh,

45:15

Dr. Michael Kruger from the G3 conference, January of this year, and you'll get all the information you need or at least get started on all the information that you need at that point in regards to the issue of the canon of scripture, who wrote scripture and things, uh, along, along those lines.

45:34

So there you go. There is the, uh, union statement, uh, against, uh, the

45:39

Bible. Now I had just saved, at least I thought I had just saved, uh, hmm,

45:50

I wonder, oh, I wonder where it went. Um, I did listen to, uh, oh, there it is.

46:04

I did listen to, um, the podcast this morning that, uh,

46:14

Dr. Moore did on social justice, but just like the drop the mic program, it's cut into two parts.

46:24

And so while there were a few things, um,

46:31

I think any type of full response, if I choose to do one would need to, um, probably wait for the second part.

46:40

There is one thing I do want to comment on, on Dr. Moore's podcast.

46:47

And that was the assertion that in his view, um, and he was clearly talking about Dr.

46:58

MacArthur and primarily aiming his comments toward him, but all of us who were involved in the writing and editing and promulgation of the, of the statement, um, he makes the accusation, you know, cause, cause when he, when he represents our side, he says, there are people who are saying, uh, you know, uh, we can talk about abortion in the church, but we can't talk about racism in the church.

47:27

And no one obviously has said anything like that. Dr. Moore is very well aware of the fact that, and he even raises the issue of communism.

47:40

This is, this is one of the arguments that, that that side is using that is, that doesn't interact with what we're actually saying.

47:47

And that is, um, that, well, there were people who made the argument, the

47:56

Jim Crow laws represented influx of communism. And therefore, if you today point out the origin and source of neo -Marxist concepts in intersectionality, um, power structures, oppression systems, uh, all the rest of that kind of stuff, then you're just supporting

48:16

Jim Crow laws. Now it's never going to be put that way because that's so patently illogical and irrational, uh, that they wouldn't get away with it.

48:27

Um, but what you do is you only, you only, uh, state half the argument.

48:33

There were people who did this and then you leave unstated. So if anyone points to neo -Marxist concepts behind what we're saying, then they're doing the same thing.

48:46

And so they leave it to a, an audience that unfortunately these days, you cannot assume, um, has ever taken a class in logic to make the unwarranted leap.

49:00

So they don't have to do it. See, if they, if they just laid it out, then we would go, you just blow it up and go, see, this is a common error of reasoning.

49:09

And here's the documentation, so on and so forth. So you leave yourself when I was at, well, I never said that, but you're hoping that your audience will make that leap for you.

49:23

And evidently it is very, um, effective in the way that you, uh, you do that.

49:32

Um, so, uh, there wasn't an accurate definition of what we defined as social justice in the denials.

49:41

I don't think Dr. Moore wants to allow himself to be put in a position of actually having to defend the concepts of intersectionality and the stuff that can just simply be traced directly to the primary voices, uh, of neo -Marxism and the development of critical race theory.

50:04

He wants to be able to utilize the fruits of those things, put them into a

50:10

Christian context, and then by saying Jim Crow, slave owners, stuff like that, then we don't have to, we don't have to deal with that.

50:20

Um, uh, we, we can, we can just throw that stuff out there. No one wants to talk about that and therefore

50:27

I won't have to defend where the source of this stuff really is coming from. Um, and it's neo -Marxism.

50:34

Two more things really quickly. Uh, I may go a little bit past the hour. Um, shortly,

50:42

I guess about a week ago, um, I'll go ahead and say it.

50:48

Brandon House had Andy Woods on. I didn't listen to the program, but, but I, I've got the, uh,

50:56

I've got the description here and well, let me just, if you want to see how there are certain people who just can, they're, they're just imbalanced.

51:13

They, they cannot make category distinctions. They cannot say this thing is not like the other.

51:19

It's, it's all, everything's all just one huge conspiracy thing happening.

51:27

Um, Brandon just read a new statement just released today that is opposing social justice. Um, uh, obviously, and the funny thing is

51:36

Brand House talks about the Frankfurt school and stuff like that. He, he knows what Fabian socialism is. He, he should recognize what we were talking about.

51:45

Signed by James White, ready? Who senses a kindred spirit with a Jew, hating

51:50

Holocaust, denying Hitler, defending Jihadi, preaching Imam. And I mean, every three words is an out of context lie and it's been documented to him, but Hey, as long as it sells your, your ammo cans of food and your survival products for Brennan House, it doesn't matter.

52:13

We'll lie about everything as long as it results in sales. It's amazing. Another signer thinks

52:20

Islam is not a spiritual threat to the church. He's talking about Justin Peters, uh, which isn't what he said either.

52:27

Another thing is Jesus was involved in interfaith dialogue and says what James White did was not unbiblical.

52:34

I'm not sure exactly what twisted thing that is. Um, do they not know social justice is a tenant of Islam?

52:41

All of them appear to be useful idiots. Another signer is John MacArthur.

52:46

Does MacArthur think putting out a statement against social justice causes us to not notice his constant promotion of social justice warriors?

52:52

Moeller, Duncan, Dever of the cultural Marxist gospel coalition, or is speaking with Tim Keller next week.

52:58

And it goes on and on and on. Does MacArthur think people are fools? James, uh, not to mention

53:04

MacArthur at James White, his church and seminary speaking for a week in June of 2018 after White's Yasser Qadhi stunned, et cetera, said, now this is what

53:10

I want you. I read all of that just so you get a sense of the vitriol and just the standard

53:18

Brandon house, um, shooting guns every which direction, throwing, throwing bombs, you know, personal nasty.

53:27

I mean, this is what, this is Brandon houses label. Now that's who he is. But then after saying

53:33

MacArthur's talking out of both sides of his mouth here, uh, remember, remember we are not, remember we are an independent broadcast network.

53:47

We are not part of the good old boys club and we just report facts and stick to the issues without ever seeking to go personal.

54:07

Well, there you go, folks. Um, wow. Uh, somebody, um, yeah, what, um, uh, good brother down in Jacksonville, one of the pastors down there gave me a shirt, uh, while I was down there and on the front it says, what color is the sky in your world?

54:29

And, uh, so, um, that is a very appropriate for, for Brandon house.

54:36

What color is the sky in your world? We do not know. Uh, because, uh, yeah.

54:45

All right. Last thing I'll try to be as brief as possible though. I'm getting into the text and that may be the one point where I'll go, would you please not be brief at that point, but I've got a lot to do.

54:55

I'm actually speaking this evening and I'm obviously not speaking at PRBC wearing what I'm wearing right now. So we have to get home and get changed.

55:01

So on and so forth. Um, there are certain texts in the

55:09

Bible that let's be honest. We, we read them, we sort of filter them.

55:20

And we don't spend much time on them. Obviously. Uh, what has happened recently is there are a number of people and I, uh, uh,

55:33

I think of Dwight McKissick who is, uh, actually tweeting right now. Um, and tweeted something right toward the beginning of the program that I, I didn't get a chance to, uh, to look at, um, that I'll, I'll catch up with later on,

55:47

I guess. Uh, boy, there's been a lot of stuff that has, uh, been tweeted since I, I started.

55:54

Uh, yeah, there it is. Um, yeah, I figured, uh, going after Edwards and Whitfield.

56:03

Um, well, that's interesting. The line of thinking that absolves the guilt of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Charles Furman, and many other evangelical heroes is one of the many reasons

56:11

I reject Calvinism. Well, that's interesting. Um, because what has happened after the writing of the

56:18

New Testament should be absolutely irrelevant, Pastor McKissick, uh, to the truthfulness of the system, which is a system of biblical interpretation.

56:27

Um, this is a backwards way of reading the Bible. Uh, I don't like Calvinist, therefore

56:33

Calvinism cannot be true. Um, that's indefensible. That is not logical or rational thought, but that's what we've got.

56:43

And one of the things that has basically been, been said recently is fundamentally that uh, any person who ever owned a slave who was involved in slavery, which existed long before, well, obviously exists in the

57:08

Old Testament, but in the Greek and Roman forms, and there were many variations within that, the

57:15

Greek and Roman forms pre -exists the New Testament and continues to exist in some pockets in certain lands today.

57:26

Um, but in general has been outlawed amongst mankind.

57:33

Um, one might argue that some economic systems produce slavery.

57:39

I would say that slavery exists in North Korea very clearly today, uh, but it's of a different type, um, but it's there.

57:49

I think it's, it's no less, um, abhorrent in North Korea today than it would have been at any point in time in, in history.

58:02

Uh, Summer says that a new New Testament is not lit. So there you go. I, I appreciate that.

58:09

You're not lit, Hal. Um, I'm sure Hal thinks it's lit, but it, it just needs to be lit.

58:16

That's it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like what you do with this. This needs to be lit.

58:22

And then like that, that's, that would be, what's that? I'm not going there.

58:29

Cause you are trying to get me in trouble. Okay. I'm not going there. You tried to misname the

58:35

YouTube video and now you're trying to get me to go there again. I'm not going there. What was I saying? What am I talking about?

58:40

Oh, uh, slavery there. There are people I've seen them on, um, on Twitter and in social media saying that, uh, just making the clear theological case, no slave owner could ever be a

58:57

Christian period and a discussion. That's just, that's all there is to it. Well, that certainly would be the politically correct position to hold.

59:08

That's what's going to make you make you popular and safe, uh, until your people take your own advice and read the

59:20

Bible. Let's, uh, let's look at first Timothy chapter six.

59:29

And one of the reasons I mentioned this is yesterday, right? At the beginning of the program, there was a guy on Twitter.

59:34

I've lost track. I it's, it's hard to find stuff on both Facebook and Twitter. There's a guy on Twitter that was basically saying this section is toxic.

59:43

He rejected the canonical status of first Timothy chapter six, similar to what you would have from union theological seminary and stuff like that.

59:51

And I can guarantee you union would not view would just view this as one of the many blind spots of scripture.

59:58

For those of us who do not, um, pick and choose our revelatory sources in that way, first Timothy six, one, all who are under Hupa Zugon Duloy under the yoke as slaves.

01:00:16

Now that there is some discussion in the commentaries, uh,

01:00:22

Hupa Zugon is used in, uh, contemporary, contemporary documents.

01:00:30

We really need to get a light thing or something that says I'm going to be going over here now. And then you're going to be going over there and it's just like, cause cause while, while Michael Brown and I can finish each other's sentences after three decades working together,

01:00:46

Rich and I can't figure the cameras out. So there you go. You know, um, in secular resources, secular materials,

01:00:57

Hupa Zugon is used of as a means of describing slavery. But the fact you have

01:01:03

Hupa Zugon Duloy lead some interpreters to understand this to be a particularly repressive level of slavery, because there was in the

01:01:15

Roman system, there were gradations. Everybody who was a slave was on one side and did not have rights before the law.

01:01:24

But, but there were gradations, uh, you know, from the lowest to subhuman to certain, uh, slaves that lived a much better life than your average

01:01:35

Freeman did as far as power and finances and stuff like that. So, um,

01:01:47

I've just always read it honestly, as just a single phrase who are under the yoke as, as slaves. So you are in the, uh, political societal status of a slave, uh, all who are under the yoke as slaves, their own despotas.

01:02:10

Now that is the term despot. There are two terms that Paul uses to refer to masters, to slave owners, those with authority over slaves in his writings.

01:02:26

He uses, uh, despotas and he uses, uh, kurios, lords.

01:02:32

It's a stand, both used without necessary distinction in secular sources.

01:02:42

Your own despotas, passeis temes axios, um, regard as worthy of all honor, regard as worthy of all honor.

01:03:00

At this point, nothing is said about whether this despotas is a

01:03:08

Christian or a non -Christian. But the slave, the, the, the doulos is to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor in order that so that Hinnah, the name of God and our didaskalia, our teaching may not be blasphemed, spoken against.

01:03:42

Now think about what that means. Most of the time when, you know, over the past number of decades, you know, if I've ever heard anyone preaching through this text, something like that, you just automatically do the, um, well, you know, done of slavery today.

01:04:03

So let's make application to your employer.

01:04:10

Okay. I think that's, I think that's okay to do in the sense that it's addressing, uh, the attitudes we're to have toward the people for whom we do physical work.

01:04:22

Um, that's okay, I think, but rarely was there really much of a discussion hadn't really been forced on us, um, until this particular discussion is going on to really ask some of the tough questions.

01:04:38

And, and that is, um, what is the priority here in the apostle's mind?

01:04:44

This Hinnah clause is very important. Um, so that the name of God, and it's literally, uh,

01:04:56

Kaihei didaskalia and the doctrine, which you can see the definite article there and our doctrine, um, would not be spoken against.

01:05:11

So in other words, if as a Christian slave, as if as a slave, you hear the message of freedom in Christ and you go, well,

01:05:21

I'm free. The result is going to be that the name of God and our teaching is going to be spoken against because why?

01:05:32

Because it will be understood as fundamentally requiring the dismantling of the economic system of the

01:05:41

Roman empire at that time. It would become instantly a political movement rather than a spiritual redemptive movement.

01:05:52

In other words, this would do to Christianity what having a political

01:05:59

Messiah in Judea would have done during the days of Jesus, which is why he said, don't tell anybody

01:06:05

I'm the Messiah. The Messiah must suffer these things that there's all these wrong ideas about the Messiah because going that direction would have made the messianic movement, a political movement.

01:06:15

You tell slaves you're free in Christ. Therefore, you are now free from your masters and you can run away or you can mistreat them or whatever else it is that turns

01:06:27

Christianity into a political movement instantly. And Paul says, don't do it. Paul says, don't do it.

01:06:34

Now, if you're getting all upset with me, then you need to get in the text and you need to give me a

01:06:41

Greek based contextual, historically accurate interpretation of these words that demonstrates that what

01:06:51

I'm saying is not true. Otherwise, your anger is misplaced. It's aimed at the wrong people and go, well, that's what the slave owners said.

01:07:01

Please stop it. Now, the inquisitors who burned people and tortured people on the rack were

01:07:10

Trinitarians. That doesn't mean the Trinity is wrong. You can have Orthodox confessions.

01:07:15

You can agree with things without that meaning that you then need to go all the way.

01:07:22

And so if a slave owner ever agreed with you on anything, that means you should become a slave owner. That is just insanity.

01:07:28

No one thinks that way. And if you think that way, you are not thinking logically. Something else is impacting the way you're thinking.

01:07:35

Stop it. Step back. Take a breath. And realize the abuse of biblical truth is not an argument against that truth.

01:07:46

Okay? Every cult group on the planet will take snippets of biblical truth and take them out of their context and apply them wrongly.

01:07:54

That's the essence of how false teachers function. Don't reason like them.

01:08:02

All right? Don't reason like them. Deal with the text.

01:08:09

Deal with what it says. Paul said to the slaves of that day, either to all slaves or to slaves, especially at the lowest rung of the ladder, treat your masters with all honor in order that the name of God and the doctrine will not be blasphemed.

01:08:31

That's what he said. So what was his priority?

01:08:37

What was the purpose here? If you want the gospel to go through all the world and then change that world, then you have to have the long view, not the short view.

01:08:50

Keep that in mind. But then, verse 2, oh my, hoi de pistus ecantes despatas.

01:09:07

What does that mean? Those who have believers as their masters.

01:09:15

Those whose masters are pistus, believers, pisteo, pistis, the whole belief range of words used in the original language.

01:09:30

There you have the apostle saying there were believing masters, period.

01:09:37

End of discussion. Got to deal with it. Got to deal with it. Do not be disrespectful to those believing masters because they are

01:09:52

Adelphoi brothers, not Paul elsewhere in Galatians.

01:10:00

He uses Pseudadelphoi, false brethren. He doesn't say false brethren here.

01:10:06

He says they are brethren. So no matter what you do, all those

01:10:12

I've heard you saying, this could not possibly have been a Christian. Well, we have direct biblical revelation.

01:10:22

It's right there. It's not a matter of textual critical issues or questions about it.

01:10:30

To those who have believers as their masters, do not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers, but rather serve them all the more.

01:10:45

And that's Duulo, that's the Doulos, the servant. Serve them all the more.

01:10:51

Serve them even better because they are pistoi, believers.

01:10:58

Chi, beloved. Not just believers, but beloved.

01:11:07

Yeah. And if you're sitting there doing that, you know, what kind of love is it? Agape toy? That agape thing actually is fallacious.

01:11:16

So don't, don't go there. But some people think that way. Pistoi, agape toy.

01:11:22

And so they are faithful and beloved. The ones who benefit from the work are faithful and beloved.

01:11:35

So work even harder if you have a believing master.

01:11:42

Now, like I said, there's a guy on Twitter yesterday.

01:11:48

Toxic. I reject it. Well, there's, hey, at least give him credit.

01:11:54

He had actually read it and it takes a stand that it's not the Word of God. Now, get to do that for anything.

01:12:01

And, you know, whatever you don't like in the Bible, you need to get rid of. But for those who recognize that that is not an option by any stretch of the imagination, then you've got to deal with what is there.

01:12:13

Especially because right after that, Paul says, These things teach and exhort.

01:12:28

So Timothy, this isn't just on the slide between you and me. Timothy, this is what you need to teach and exhort to other people.

01:12:41

Ah, there's more that we could look at. Ephesians chapter six, verse five,

01:12:51

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, render service as to the

01:13:06

Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he'll receive back from the

01:13:13

Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, masters do the same things to them and give up threatening, knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him.

01:13:29

Masters addressed right along with fathers and wives and children and slaves and masters.

01:13:35

And this is how you are to function in the place where God called you.

01:13:41

Now, yes, um, you, you do have, um, Paul's statement in first Corinthians seven, were you called while a slave?

01:13:50

Don't worry about it. But if you're able also to become free, rather do that. For he was who was called in the

01:13:57

Lord while a slave is the Lord's freed man. Likewise, he was called while free is Christ's slave. It just doesn't seem that the apostle would have been quite on board with this radical perspective that is out there.

01:14:15

That if you are wrong in this area, why, why, why didn't there, there needs to be an understanding here.

01:14:25

Why didn't the apostle command all

01:14:30

Christians who became all people who became Christians who own slaves to immediately free them. They would have been free to do that.

01:14:37

They could have, they chose to do so, but that was not a demand that he made. He lays the foundation for it.

01:14:45

Doesn't he think about it? For he who was called in the Lord while a slave is the

01:14:50

Lord's freedman. Likewise, he who was called while free is Christ's slave. You ponder on that long enough and you're going to see what's being said.

01:15:00

And then you ponder on those words while you're sitting at the Lord's table as a kurios, as a despotis with someone who is in slavery, or let's say in the fellowship of the church, you see a fellow believer, not one of your servants, not one of your slaves, but someone else's.

01:15:21

And you see how they have been horribly mistreated. Minimally, minimally, he says here, don't threaten.

01:15:27

There is a standard of behavior that is indicated. No question about, don't have partiality.

01:15:33

You have a master in heaven. You treat them the way you want to be treated by God, using the same term.

01:15:41

But obviously, if you're sitting at the Lord's table with someone and you see that, is that not going to, over time, break down that entire institution?

01:15:49

Of course it is. But if it was done immediately, you immediately change the gospel into a political movement that is going to be crushed by the

01:15:57

Roman Empire. Crushed by the Roman Empire. The texts are there.

01:16:06

The texts are there. And all I'm hearing from people is, yeah, well, if you say, if you talk about Philemon, that's what the slave owners did.

01:16:16

That is an invalid argument. I don't care what the slave owners did. That has nothing to do with the original exegesis of the text, because the text was written before the slave owners came along.

01:16:26

So on any logical level, if that's where you're going, you have imbibed some external paradigm that is causing you to just not react in a proper fashion.

01:16:41

You got to stop. Stand back. Take a breath. Take another run at it.

01:16:48

But admit the texts are there. Admit the texts are there. All right.

01:16:55

Well, I know, I know. You said you're going to, I forgot the

01:17:01

Chinese stuff. And then this other stuff came along. And we will get to it.

01:17:09

We will do open phones in the near future. I promise we'll get to it. But thanks for watching for as long as you did today.