Tim Keller Is Trying to Scam You

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Every time I talk about Tim Keller, I get a mixed reaction, and it's expected, it's totally fine,

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I understand, because Tim Keller has been very helpful to a lot of people over the years, there's just no question about it, and I'm one of those people.

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You might not know this about me, but I got saved by reading Tim Keller's book,

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The Prodigal God, where he explains the gospel using the parable of the prodigal son, and that was the reason why

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I decided to believe that gospel, you know what I mean? The Holy Spirit worked on me as I was reading and understanding the parable of the prodigal son, pretty much for the first time ever, and when

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I first became a Christian, I happened to live in New York City, and I attended Tim Keller's church for a short time when

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I first started, you know, taking my faith seriously and all that kind of thing, so I'm with you. If you heard my video yesterday, you've seen some of my content about Tim Keller, and you just can't believe that I'm saying these things about him regarding his views on justice.

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I get it. I understand. It's a little discombobulating. I totally understand. One thing that does happen, though, when

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I talk about Tim Keller as opposed to other people is people get really indignant that I would dare contradict him.

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How dare you, sir? You're so arrogant. What are you, some kind of a thunder puppy? Somebody called me a thunder puppy the other day.

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I don't really understand what that means, but I think what it has to do with me being too young to contradict someone that's so old and so faithful in all of these things, and the reality is that Tim Keller on justice is a complete disaster.

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He's a complete disaster, and I know exactly why he's a complete disaster, but his view on justice is a mess.

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It's an absolute mess. There's nothing clear about it, and all it serves to do is to soothe your conscience to be a liberal, to be a progressive, and that is a fact.

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That's what he's trying to do. He's trying to help you in this upcoming election vote against Donald Trump.

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Now, I don't care if you vote for Donald Trump. I don't care about that at all. People were saying, well, you're just saying conservative is good, and that's not what

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I'm saying. In fact, I don't even consider myself a conservative the way that normal people use that word these days.

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So let me just read to you why I think Tim Keller is a disaster on justice, and how

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I'm gonna do it is I'm gonna get to the conclusion of his article, and I'm gonna just read a couple of sentences from it, and then

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I'm gonna go back to the beginning to show you kind of what I mean and why I think that he's very confusing, and I think intentionally so.

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Because the reality is when somebody is so clear and so helpful in some areas, and his writing is clear, and you can understand where he's coming from, and you know what he's saying in some areas, and then in other areas you just walk away clueless, it could be your problem.

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You could not be reading correctly, or he could be intentionally trying to obfuscate, which I think is the case here.

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He's intentionally trying to obfuscate really where he's coming from when it comes to justice. Tim Keller is a progressive when it comes to justice and politics.

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He's a member of the AND campaign. The AND campaign's whole reason for existence is to get

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Christians to vote Democrat. That's the whole purpose for the AND campaign's existence, and he's a member of that group.

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So anyway, let's just read here. So here's how he concludes his article.

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He says, first, only biblical justice addresses all the concerns of justice found across the fragmented alternate views.

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Each secular theory of justice addresses one or some of the five facets of biblical justice mentioned above, but none addresses them all.

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And so the idea here is that liberals and postmoderns and all of the secular views of justice that he mentioned, libertarians, he says that they get some things right.

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They have legitimate criticisms. They have legitimate points, but none of them completely addresses everything.

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And that might sound good for a lot of you middle -of -the -road kind of milquetoast, I'm a committed centrist type people, but the reality is it's not true.

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It's not true. Like the postmodern critique. Here's what he says about postmodernism. Let me read this to you so you understand where he's coming from.

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He says, the postmodern view rightly critiques the liberal and other secular views as being blind to the operations of power and oppression at work in human life and society.

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So his point is that postmoderns, they get some of this stuff right. They get it right better than libertarians, better than liberals, better than all this stuff.

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And the reality is that this sounds really good to someone who's trying to find that middle ground, trying to please everybody.

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That sounds really good, but it's just not true. And so regardless of how good something sounds to you, if it's not true, you shouldn't believe it.

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Postmoderns don't get that right. They're not the only ones who understand that. If you talk to any libertarian, any libertarian, and ask them about does power corrupt?

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Is there oppression at work in human life and society and stuff like that? Every libertarian down to the man will tell you yes.

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And that's why they support libertarianism. And the reality is that this whole game where it's like, well, we'll take a little bit of this, we'll take a little bit of that, we'll take a little bit of this, and then you figure out who to vote for.

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It's a disaster. That's not how we should do it. But Tim Keller has to do it. And I'll explain why in a minute.

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But let's look at this for a second, because this is where, you know, in yesterday's video, I mentioned only one of the five things that he uses to outline biblical justice.

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I mentioned community, the fact that the idea that other people have a claim on your wealth, so you must voluntarily give.

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That's insane. Poor people don't have a claim on your wealth, because that would destroy private property, right?

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And so the Bible assumes that we have property rights, so often that it's almost embarrassing to even bring it up.

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Because it's like, I know Tim Keller knows this. He has to know this. He can't be this, this naive to think that the

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Bible doesn't assume private property. I mean, people were people were were teeing off on Tim Keller on this yesterday, because thou shalt not steal would mean nothing if poor people actually had a claim on your wealth, right?

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Like there would be no way to adjudicate stealing if someone had a claim to what was yours, right?

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And likewise, covetousness, what would what what what does even covetousness mean if they actually have a claim on what you own?

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Like, there would be no like, why would God say thou shalt not covet if actually wanting something that you have?

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Poor people actually have a right to that they've got a claim on your wealth. That's insane. That doesn't make any sense.

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And so here's why this is all confusing. Let me read his his outline of biblical justice. So he mentioned, others have a claim on your wealth.

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That's not true. But let's just go with it. He says, everyone must be treated equally and with dignity.

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Okay, that's fine. equity. Let's same law for the native and the sojourner. Okay, great. Fine. Corporate responsibility.

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I am sometimes responsible for and involved in other people's sins. Let's just go with it.

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Okay, let's just let's just go with it. Right? Because that's how we're going to read this. We're going to read this. And by the way,

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I'm not going to read the paragraphs associated with this. If you want to read them, go to the article and read them yourself. There's, there's insanity in every one of these.

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Like this is the way he describes this stuff makes it so abundantly clear to anyone who's got a reasonable head on their shoulders that he doesn't know what he's talking about here.

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This is this is a this is a mess. And maybe I'll go through these in another video, but that's not what this video is about.

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Anyway, corporate responsibility, I'm sometimes responsible for and involved in other people's sins. Okay, let's just buy it.

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Individual responsibility. I am finally responsible for all of my sins, but not all of my outcomes. Okay, let's just go with it.

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And then advocacy, we must have special concern for the poor and the marginalized. Okay, this is what he says biblical justice is.

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So again, let's just accept all five of those premises. Let's just accept all five, we don't have to read the paragraphs.

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Let's just believe him, right? Let's just say this is what biblical justice is. Some people have claim on your wealth.

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So you have to give you have to treat everyone with equity, you have to have corporate responsibility, you have to have individual responsibility, you have to have advocacy.

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Here's why this is a disaster. Here's why it's a mess. Because each one of these things is not adjudicated in the same way.

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Tim Keller is ignoring the idea here of sphere sovereignty, because here's the reality like, let's take equity, ever, everyone must be treated equally, and with dignity.

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So in biblical justice, any system of justice or government, we should have a law that is blind to your skin color, your age, it's it, that's why

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Lady Justice is blind, because everyone should be treated fairly, everyone should be treated with equity.

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So it doesn't matter if you're native born, or if you're a sojourner, or if you're a foreigner, an alien, whatever it is, if you murder someone, it's the same law for you as for a native born, right?

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So we everyone agrees with that. And that's true in the civil realm, it should be blind justice is blind in the civil realm.

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But then when it comes to corporate responsibility, I am sometimes responsible for and involved in other people's sins.

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That's not true in the civil realm. That's not true in the civil realm, because in the civil realm, if so -and -so over here, he's a

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Latino, he commits a crime, I'm actually not responsible for that in the same way before the civil realm.

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However, God can judge a nation for a national sin, and that's fine in God's system, because God knows everything,

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God can do that perfectly, God is always good. But on the civil realm, where in the areas where God gives the civil magistrate power, we can't do the same thing that God does in that regard.

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So let's say God is judging the United States right now. I think he is. God is judging our sin right now as a nation.

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God can do that, and that's fine. There's corporate responsibility according to God's system before God.

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But in the civil realm, it's not the same. And so to treat it like, well, this is just, you know, we need to find a system that equally believes point two and point three, that's actually not true.

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That's actually not true, because the state cannot do what God does. It's the same thing with advocacy. It's the same thing with advocacy.

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He says, we must have special concern for the poor and the marginalized. Yes, that's right, but we have to take what the

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Bible says in toto. And so the special concern for the poor and the marginalized, that has to do with your individual responsibility to be charitable, to be merciful, to be friends with the poor, to identify with the poor, to talk to them, to take care of them, and stuff like that.

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You can't take this advocacy thing and apply it to the civil government, because the civil government is not an instrument of mercy.

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The church is an instrument of mercy. The church and the individual are instruments of mercy.

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The civil government is an instrument of wrath. And so you can read this article by Tim Keller and come to the conclusion, because it's such a mess, because it's such, because it's intentionally designed to obfuscate, you can say this, hmm, well, you know, on the one hand,

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Republicans really understand sort of the equity before the law. That's something that the Republicans get really good.

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But then the liberals and the postmoderns get this advocacy thing about the poor and the marginalized, because they want to have welfare programs and things like that.

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And so, hmm, how do I decide? Do I want equity before the law, or do I want poor for the marginalized?

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Hmm, and then you kind of weigh it out. And this is what people do. They say, well, you just decide. You decide.

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That's what, that's what I was talking to Phil Vischer about. You know, you, you make the decision whether or not welfare is something that you want to, you care about more than, than equity before the law, or stuff like that.

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Like, it's like, no, no, that's not it. That's not how you do this, because these are different. Advocacy for the poor is completely different.

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It's for a different realm. It's for the church to do that. It's for the individual to do that. And, and, and, and, and the state, the civil magistrate, shouldn't get involved in charity.

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It shouldn't get involved in mercy, because the Bible says that the civil magistrate is an instrument of wrath.

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Punishing the wrongdoer is what the Bible says. It doesn't say the, the civil magistrate is forgiving to the poor.

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No, that's for the church. That's for the church of God. It's a different sphere. We need to recognize that there's different spheres of authority that God has.

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Individual responsibility. This is, again, this is likewise different from equity, different from community.

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Others have a claim on my wealth, so I must give voluntarily. Great, that's right, but what you can't do is vote for welfare, because that would be an illegitimate use of the civil government.

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That would be not treating everyone with equity. Do you, do you say, if you read this, you could come away with the wrong conclusion that because I must give voluntarily, then

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I'll just voluntarily vote for welfare. Great, and then that solves everything, right? But it's like, no, because if you do that, then you're trying to follow step one here of biblical justice, outlined by Tim Keller, by breaking step two, equity before the law.

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Because if you're voting for welfare, then that means you're trying to treat some people by taking their money and giving it to other people in order to accomplish mercy, in order to accomplish advocacy for the poor, step five.

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And so this is the thing about biblical justice. None of, let's just, again, I'm just saying we agree with everything

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Tim Keller is saying here, which I definitely do not. These five points are a disaster of logic.

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They're a disaster. But biblical law, God is not ridiculous, right? God is not ridiculous.

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And so he doesn't ever give you a law that you have to keep by breaking another law. God is not ridiculous.

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And so if this is going to be our view of biblical justice, none of these, we cannot follow any of these by breaking any of the other ones.

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That's how it works. We just can't do it that way, because God is not ridiculous. He set up a system that is possible to do.

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You can't break one law in order to keep another. That's not how it works. That's why

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I'm against this social justice stuff. And so you might say, well, Tim Keller doesn't believe that.

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He doesn't believe in welfare and stuff like that. Well, I just don't believe you. You would walk away from this article saying, well, let me just weigh it out.

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Like, what do I care about more, equity before the law, or do I care about advocacy for the poor? And it's like, that's not how we do this.

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But Tim Keller has to do this, because Tim Keller's view of justice is thoroughly secular.

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It is thoroughly pagan. Because here's the reality. This is how we have to do this, right? And this is how many reformed people do it.

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We ought to have a civil governing authority that respects the law and the boundaries that are provided in the

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Scripture, right? I'm not saying you have to become a theonomist, but you have to treat the civil government, and you have to assume that the civil government is there for what

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God says it's there for, right? That's a basic thing. Every Christian should believe that.

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And so God says that the civil governing authority is there to punish wrongdoers and to promote what is good, right?

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Promote what is good and punish wrongdoers. And if you look at the Old Testament law, it kind of shows you a little bit about how that's done, right?

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It shows you a little bit about how that's done. Because here's the reality. Tim Keller will use the Old Testament law when it suits him, when it suits him.

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But when it doesn't suit him, he doesn't use it, because he's against theonomy, right? And I'm not saying you need to be against theonomy, but what you do have to do, at a bare minimum, at a bare minimum, is agree with God that the government is there for what

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God says it's there for. It's the sword. That's the image that he uses. The government bears the sword, and it does not bear it in vain.

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It's there to punish wrongdoers. When it comes to mercy, we need to look at God's system.

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Again, you don't have to become a theonomist, but what you do have to do is recognize that the church has its own sphere of influence.

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Mercy and charity, giving to the poor, dispensing the means of grace, that's what the church is there for, right?

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That's not what the government's there for, but that's how we often treat the government. It should be the instrument of mercy. We vote for welfare.

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We vote for, you know, all kinds of poverty programs and things like that. We shouldn't be doing that. That's sinful to do.

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That's sinful to do. So if you vote Democrat because you think they care for the poor more, that's a sin, because that's the church's job.

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That's your job. That's not the government's job. And so again, you don't have to become a theonomist, but what you do have to do is respect what the

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Bible says each one of those groups are there for. The civil government is there because it bears the sword.

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The church is there because it's an instrument of mercy. It has the keys of the kingdom. If you look at the examples of charity in the

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Bible, the way you give to the poor, the people who have mercy, it's down to the individual. Individuals should be taking care of each other.

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That's why God's law, when it comes to the poor, it's not, if you don't give to the poor, the government comes and takes your stuff.

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No, it's you give to the poor because you love the Lord. God has given you everything. You're stewards of that.

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He expects a return on what he's given you. That's how it is. It's down to the individual. And so it's not that, you know, people that are capitalists are saying, well,

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I'm a capitalist because, you know, that's just the best way. It's just pragmatic. No, it's because we're capitalists because we believe in private property rights, because that's what the

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Bible believes in. The Bible commands that we respect private property rights. And so, therefore, any system that does not respect private property rights is off the table at the outset.

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Any system that tries to combine mercy and justice with the civil governing authority is off the table.

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The only systems that we can go for are systems that understand the government is there to bear the sword, and that's it.

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The government is there to bear the sword, and the church is there to dispense mercy, and the individual is responsible for taking care of the poor amongst them.

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That's any system that denies that is off the table completely. And so Tim Keller would like you to believe, well, libertarianism, they get some things right, but, you know, and so does postmodernism, and so does liberalism, and so does whatever.

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You know what I mean? Like, that's what Tim Keller would like you to believe. And so it's almost like he's making this false equivalency. So, you know, decide for yourself and vote accordingly.

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It's like, no, that's not how we do it. We have to vote for the systems that respect what God has set out the role of the government to be.

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And this is, again, this is a brief response. Some people were complaining that I wasn't reading the whole article, but why would

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I read the whole article? If you want to read it, just read it yourself, right? I'm trying to respond to the article as a whole, right?

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This is a piece of propaganda designed to soothe your conscience if you're gonna go vote

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Democrat, because after all, they do care for the poor better. No, they don't. Democrats do not do care for the poor better.

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They do care for the poor in a sinful, wicked, evil, demonic way.

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You understand what I'm saying? The postmoderns don't understand power dynamics better than libertarians. They understand it in an evil, wicked, satanic, demonic way.

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And so to present this to people who trust you about the gospel, this is what makes me so upset about this, because these people trust you,

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Tim Keller. You're using a platform of trust that you built for a while on the gospel and then pretending, like, well, you know, they get some of the stuff right.

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No, they don't. If they don't even understand what the government is there for, they can't possibly get this right.

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And if they don't understand what the government is there for, you're gonna get involved in all kinds of sin, trying to keep some laws by breaking others.

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You can't keep the law to care for the poor by breaking the law of equity, by breaking the laws of private property rights, by breaking the laws of you shall not steal.

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It's not possible. The postmoderns don't get that right. And so this is just a propaganda piece.

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It's a mess. I don't understand how anyone would find it helpful. It's a complete disaster.

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And so that's why I'm against it. And if you have any further questions, feel free to email me.

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I try to respond to all of them. I can't always. I'm sorry about that. But if you hear a little emotion in my voice, it's because I'm like you, man.

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I gained so much from Tim Keller's work in the past. And so to see him confuse people, and it has to be intentional, it has to be intentional, because I know what he's about politically.

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You know what I mean? It's like, I'm not this is not just in a vacuum. I'm saying this article, this is an intentional confusion.

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And the goal of this kind of an article is to make sure that one thing and one thing only does not happen in November.

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I think you all know what that is. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. Don't fall for the shenanigans.

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Don't fall for the weasel words. Don't fall for the subversion that is going on in articles like this.