September 25, 2003

Webcast around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Paul commanded Christians to always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within them, yet to give that answer with gentleness and respect.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 in the Metro Phoenix dialing area and around across the nation, the United States.

It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, here is James White.

I almost made it through the whole thing and actually fooled everybody into thinking that we had that computer fixed. I was on a roll, wasn't I? You were on a roll. That wasn't too bad.

It's a good thing. I'm not the one that talks around here for a living.

Well, I'm not going to say a word about it. You're the one that's sitting in there in the midst of piles of computer parts. So, I'll let you continue tinkering and sticking stuff into boxes and trying to make things work.

It's a long leap from Windows 98 to XP at times.

Especially when the hardware turns out to be five years old that you're working with.

Nothing matches up. Hey, we've been making things work for a lot longer than most folks.

Making work. That's for sure. Yeah, well, I don't think XP likes bailing wire in.

It probably has a little higher standard, as far as especially memory is concerned. Yeah, I think that's true. Well, anyway, welcome to the dividing line, folks. I hope you have that number, 877 -753 -3341.

I just saw this incredible question go through the channel. As if somehow, while doing a program, you can go and do all this research and compare Hebrew and Greek and do all this stuff and then, boom, off the top of your head, answer that question.

Sometimes, I'm telling you, folks, I have laughed. I have laughingly said, I'm going to open a tire shop in Alaska. But, you know, the evidence is piling up from every direction that I'm ordering tire balancing and wheel alignment for dummies from Amazon right now.

I'm telling you. Oh, my goodness, 877 -753 -3341, just about to hit the big rush between now and I have a mental breakdown scheduled. I need to check the calendar here for the exact date when I'm going to do that.

Let's see. The calendar says that is scheduled for, oh, my birthday, middle of December. I'm going to go completely wacky because there is far too much that I'm allegedly going to be doing between now and that day to possibly ever accomplish it in any meaningful fashion.

The big stuff starts, really sort of started last week in Austin and now heading out to globe this weekend. Then, of course, the next big thing on the list is the debate at the University of Utah with Jerry Matitix on the subject of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

I am really looking forward to this. I'm looking forward to it because Mr. Matitix goes around the nation and he challenges pastors who've got no concept whatsoever of the subject to do debates and throws all this stuff around that, you know, if you just had time to think about it and sit down with your Bible and do a little research, it really is incredibly weak argumentation.

But, you know, when it's thrown out there with confidence, it sounds good. I'm really looking forward to this debate. It's going to be 7 o 'clock. Is it the Orson Spencer something? I know that one of our faithful Salt Lake City friends is in channel.

I'm not sure if he's listening or not. Well, I think it's Orson Spencer Hall if I recall correctly. That's 7 o 'clock. As far as directions go, you can get a hold of Christ Presbyterian Church up there because I hope we remember how to get there.

We had some fun getting there last time. We got to visit pretty much the entire University of Utah campus. That was fun, but we always get there so early it's not funny anyways. Orson Spencer Hall, there it is.

I remember it in the auditorium. Same place we were last time, I'm assuming. I don't know that, but I'm assuming it's the same place. If it is, it's the place where even if you're really tall, you disappear behind this massive podium.

I think the thing is bulletproof, which is probably a good thing. You could almost dive into it if you open the doors and hide in there. It would probably protect you or something. Anyway, 7 o 'clock is supposed to run for 2 hours and 25 minutes.

Obviously, it never gets started right on time, and it never finishes right on time. We'll probably get out of there around 10 o 'clock. Didn't we get out of there? Yeah, we got out of there about 10, 10, 10 .15 last time.

I know there's some folks flying in from California, and it's definitely going to be an interesting evening. Then immediately from there off to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then to Minnesota, Minneapolis. We actually have updated the calendar for those of you who just gave up years ago even looking.

We updated the calendar, and some of this material is on there. I really don't feel comfortable right now mentioning something coming up in December, but I'll just let you know that something that folks for a long time have wanted to happen may hopefully be happening in the middle of December.

That's about as far as I can go with it right now. Don't want to go past that right now until we've got it really confirmed and locked in, but something that a lot of folks said, boy, I wish you'd have the opportunity to do this may be taking place in December.

We hope that it takes place in December. You can pray toward that end. It should be very, very interesting. 877 -753 -334, and I keep pausing because for I don't know how long now, I've had this ugly little piece of paper that I wrote that number on eons ago.

I just sort of stuck it up next to my monitor, and I decided to get fancy and print it out on a mailing label and stuck it on my monitor. Now I can't find it. It's right in front of me. It's just not where it's supposed to be.

Tradition, you start looking in one particular place. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you have had questions you want to ask, and I mean reasonable questions. When you listen to most national radio programs, and this is not a radio program, but it's like a radio program, national webcasts, the questions are on issues of general theology and apologetics, not could you parse and syntax each Hebrew term in comparison with the Greek Septuagint and such and such facets.

Besides that, that makes for really lousy listening for everybody else. So questions that are a little bit more in that particular area, and of course our one ban is on the subject of eschatology. It's funny when people ask, so you don't discuss eschatology?

No, I don't discuss it. But why? Well, because I'm not completely convinced of any one particular perspective. I've got one perspective I think seems to be more likely than the others, but there's too many books to read on the subject, and it's just not something I find overly exciting.

And people will go, but could you tell us the one? And I'm like, what part of no I don't discuss that do you not understand? It's just like, we have to know. And it's like, no, you don't have to know at all.

You can just be left guessing. It's sort of like saving Private Ryan when they had that pool going as to what the captain did, Captain Miller did. And that's sort of what we should start a pool about.

The eschatology pool, the problem is that it will only be decided in the eschaton at which point any of the funds placed in it would be completely and totally irrelevant anyways. So we don't do eschatology.

But anything else is available at 877, and I don't even see my faithful call screener across the other way here. I've opened a little window there. Hello, anyone there? Not seeing anything. I guess no one wants to talk to us today at 8.

Nada, nada. Do you want to do a voice or something like that and call in and ask a question? Any other opportunity, folks? See the problem is what I've been working on so far today, the two things I'm working on, and for some reason, I'm not sure why it's really hard for me right now.

I guess my mental energy level is really low to like, shift gears and move out of my mind is sort of on one road. And there are some days I can just bounce from road to road to road, and it's real easy to do.

And then there are other days when you're writing and when you're preparing, when you're getting into the quote-unquote zone for a debate, you're working on a book, you're working on a chapter, an article, whatever, right now it's just only two areas.

And the problem is, the one area that I'd love to talk about is the perpetual virginity of Mary stuff, because I'm finding myself going through all the arguments, going through all the presentations that Roman Catholic apologists make, and you know, for example, there's a Roman Catholic in the channel right now, and you know, obviously making statements about, you know, supportive of the perpetual virginity of Mary, and you know, made the statement, wow, that firstborn stuff that Eric Svensson mentioned to Gerry Maddox, that's really weak.

The fact that the scriptures, Luke specifically, refers to Christ as the firstborn. Well, I addressed that in my opening statements, and I point out again, the vast difference between doing exegesis and eisegesis.

Exegesis takes the meaning from the text, and on this subject, the Roman Catholic apologist can not do exegesis. Can't. The Roman Catholic is absolutely positively forbidden by dogmatic decree to do exegesis.

You go, why? Well, because the conclusion has already been arrived at. The church has already said, this is what you must believe. So when you look at the text, you're not trying to drive your belief from the text.

When you look at the text, you cannot believe that prototokos, firstborn, when used in a birth narrative, and it's a birth narrative where you have a, you have a mother, and you have, you have a birth, and you have other children, and you have all the rest of that kind of stuff, you are precluded from taking that term to mean its natural meaning in that particular context.

The same thing, obviously, with brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters, within a particular context, Rome says, now, and this is where, you know, I'm going to emphasize this, but I can't go too deeply into it.

I don't want to read my opening statement in this particular context. We're going to do that in a couple, you know, what is it, about nine days? Eight days? That's actually, yeah, it's eight days because it's Friday, so it'll be a week from tomorrow.

So it's only eight days. What, you know, when we, when Roman Catholic apologists addressed this issue, in fact, I was listening to an old, old tape today. I think it was from about 1989, 1990. Jerry Matitix was still with Catholic Answers, that's how long ago this was, but he was on with a Presbyterian minister, and, you know, bless that Presbyterian minister's heart, he doesn't know how to deal with Catholic apologists, and they get away with murder when they're dealing with people like that.

I don't know why they take any joy out of dealing with people. I have no idea what their, what their position really is. Beating up on somebody like that's rather easily done, but, you know, Jerry Matitix got away with murder because the person he's, quote-unquote, debating with doesn't know the issue well enough to hold him to a consistent standard, and one of the things to get away with is, remember, the perpetual virginity of Mary is a dogma.

It's a defined dogma. It's de fide. Well, how do you substantiate a dogma? Do you substantiate a dogma by saying, well, you know, while brother can mean brother, it's possible. It's possible that it might mean this, and this passage over here, it's possible it could mean this.

Are mere possibilities that maybe it might mean this, and that one over there might mean that. Is that the foundation of a dogmatic decree? A thing that you could say, this is a part of the gospel? That's the real issue that you're facing at that particular point in time, is you cannot substantiate an absolutely dogmatic positive assertion on the basis of mere possibilities, especially when those possibilities are not even the most likely possibilities in each and every situation, and yet that is the foundation of the argumentation from a biblical perspective in regards to perpetual virginity of Mary.

You can't take prototocos in its natural usage. You have to take it as if it's synonymous with monogamies, even though the author who uses prototocos also uses monogamies in that way, but doesn't use it here.

You just throw all that out, because you see, fundamentally, your ultimate authority is Rome anyways. And so this debate is going to demonstrate sola ecclesia to a T, and I'm also arguing with myself right now as to whether I should keep my opening statement the way it is right now.

And I go first. I'm defending the thesis, Mary had other children after the birth of Jesus. I'm debating with myself right now whether to keep it in the form it's in right now, or take one section out, knowing Jerry Manatek's presentation, knowing where he's going to go, and knowing what he's going to say.

I could take one section out, let him do his thing, make his claim, and then in the rebuttal section, use that section to absolutely close the door. Just leave it completely and totally refuted. I'm not sure whether to do that, or to go ahead and keep it in the opening statement, so that, in essence, almost all of his major lines of argumentation have already been closed down.

Not sure which one to do. I can see advantages to both, and after the debate's over, maybe in one of the dividing lines, there aren't going to be any of the week afterwards, because I'm going to be out of country, but in one of the dividing lines later on, maybe we would have the opportunity of discussing which side I came down on that, and the reasons why, and even playing sections of it on the debate, or here on the dividing line, have people comment on it, you know, that would be a possibility.

But you see, I just can't get into too much detail right now, because I know, you know, it'd sort of be like just sending my opening statement and all my notes over to Mr. Matitix and saying, here, here's my presentation, and that gives him more time to come up with ways of, in essence, twisting the truth around, and getting out of dealing with those particular issues.

So it's not really something that I'm going to be doing right now. And then the other issue is the section of the book that I'm working on is still very closely related to the material from the last dividing line, specifically in regards to allegations of the corruption of Scripture, and I'm trying to sort of take all the stuff we talked about in the last dividing line and distill that down to a couple paragraphs, which, if you think about that, is not the easiest thing that you've ever attempted to do, but it is something that you sort of have to do to try to keep your audience when you're writing a particular book.

When you write a book, you sort of visualize what your audience is, who it is, and then, you know, function from that particular perspective. And I'm not sure that going into all the detail that we went into on the last dividing line in regards to manuscripts, it's going to fit.

It's sort of a, it's related, but it's not central, and you have to be very careful as to how far off the track you end up wandering and keep people focused upon what you're really trying to talk about and not feeling like they're getting lost and things like that.

So those are two major areas that I'm looking at right now. That, and I've just started working on a section on Matthew chapter 22, and, of course, the relevance to Sola Scriptura, and the teaching concerning the nature of the Scriptures as found in Matthew chapter 22, Jesus's discussion about, have you not read what was spoken to you saying?

That element of it. And so, it's hard to convert a whole lot of that into an interesting dividing line topic, unless you have somebody on to discuss that with you, or you're debating that with someone, or something along those particular lines.

So that's why I invite you at 877 -753 -3341. It does seem, since we moved the move the program up one hour on Thursdays, that it's like the phone lines have just died a thousand deaths. Thursday night was normally a busy time, but for some reason, that one hour difference has seemingly cut off everybody on the east coast.

Everybody back there, I guess, eats dinner at a particular point in time, and we're up against TV dinners, and, I don't know, back when I was a kid, it was TV dinners and Gilligan's Island on a very blurry, but it was a color screen, and that was, well, I'll tell you, that was exciting.

I remember the first, you know what? It wasn't. It was black and white, now that I'm thinking about it. You know how your memories are in black and white. That was black and white. Our first color TV was a throw away from a TV station when my dad was an engineer.

So, then I found out that Gilligan wore a red shirt. Can you imagine what it was like to go all those years on that program and just wear that one shirt? Well, I know he didn't just wear one shirt. Obviously, they had more than one, but I met him once, you know.

I have a picture with me and Gilligan. Eighth, you can tell he's wondering when he starts talking about his photos of his youth when he met Bob Denver. Not John Denver. It's Bob Denver, and has a picture in front of a palm tree, which I thought was rather actually appropriate, that you'd have a picture of Gilligan in front of a palm tree.

It's better than a, you know, an oak tree or something like that because, you know, it's islanded. Some of you are going, who are you talking about? That's the scary part because we talk about things like that, and people in channels are going, what are you talking about?

And then you feel really old. I'm not going to repeat the number again because you all have it. You've already heard me say 777 -533 -3441, and hey, thank you. You know, right now you can get almost anything out of me.

You could, you know, send you a tape. No, I'm not going to put the, I can't, I don't remember where the picture is on my family. I was like 16 years old. I was as skinny as he was. So anyway, let's take our, let's hopefully are not our last, but at least our first phone call today from Brett in North Carolina.

Didn't get blown away by the storm, huh? No, we're still here. You're still there. Yep. What can we do for you, Brett?

Well, I got a question though in Ephesians chapter 1. Okay. Ephesians chapter 1, I've been reading this forever. In verse 15, oh no, I'm sorry, in verse 17, for the Ephesians, and from what I gather, these are, he recognizes that these are believers, and he prays God give them a spirit.

Okay. Now, I'm stuck on in that, in that passage, he's not referring to the Holy Spirit, but maybe a disposition towards something, but if that's, if that's the case, I'm not really sure what he means by it.

Seems like everywhere I go, I get a different interpretation of that passage, and I was just.

Yeah, you probably, you probably would. Interesting the New American Standard does not, does not capitalize that. That obviously is an editorial call. Evidently, they would be taking a spirit of wisdom and revelation as a singular phrase, and hence the term revelation would have the same connotation as far as relationship with the believer that wisdom would, and hence it's not the concept of the technical theological term of revelation in the sense of God speaking, but instead wisdom, wisdom is normally, when it's in regards to spiritual wisdom, is of course, as you know, Sophia in Greek, and that's the term that is used here, that is in the, both revelation and Sophia, wisdom, are here in the genitive, and so the question, the fundamental grammatical question is, how are they functioning in this particular passage?

And you also then need to take into consideration the final phrase, in true knowledge, epinosis of him. Right. So these prayers of Paul really touch upon the highest gifting, the greatest fulfillment of sanctification, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of believers.

This is where Paul defines really where we, what we should be striving for, or hoping for, or he defines for us what real evidences of God's work in our life are going to be, and interestingly enough, they are almost, well, they are never the same types of things that generally we look at.

They're not external, they generally have to do with an understanding of what God's will is, understanding of what God has done in Christ, and I think that's what we have here too, both wisdom and revelation, I think, would relate to how we understand what God has done in Christ, and that that's related to the dative phrase at the end, or if you learned Greek in the the eight case system, locative, instrumental, and dative, here probably more the sphere of a true knowledge of him, a locative-type concept, and so I think Sophia and revelation would be related together in that way, and hence that it would be more of a constant growth in understanding of the mystery of God in Christ, the role of Christ, the centrality of Christ, those types of things, not so much a revelation as in, we use that term technically, but a constantly increasing understanding of who Christ is, the mystery of God in Christ, how Jesus Christ is the glory of the Father, which is the preceding phrase, all the related concepts that come along with that, and I think that's the same thing that you see in the next phrase, the lightening of the eyes, and that you will know what is the hope of his calling, whether rich is the glory of his inheritance to the saints, this is all not requiring some new revelation, but it is a growth in understanding of the revelation that we have already been given.

That's how I'd understand the phrase.

Yeah, because in verse 15, and he says, for the team, he says, you know, they've listened to the message of truth, they have believed, and they are sealed with the Holy Spirit, for a deepening of their knowledge of Christ, of God.

Well, isn't that what the scripture says, that God's purpose is a growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? So, you know, the content of his prayers is that they are going to be a people who are going to be marked by this constant growth and understanding of the mystery of God in Christ, that they are going to be people who are wise in understanding this, that the eyes of their hearts are going to be enlightened, and I'm not sure if one of the things that's causing you a problem is, well, but every Christian's eyes has been enlightened.

Well, in the sense of regeneration, yes, but in the sense of growth in always gaining new insights into the scriptures. That's something that I think a lot of folks, I think is somewhat missing in a lot of modern evangelicalism, is this growth in grace, this idea of reaching ever greater understandings of how God's truth relates to itself and the centrality of Christ.

No one can ever really begin to scratch the surface there, and I don't think it's generally presented the way that it should be, that that is something we should always be looking for, always be striving toward.

And so, this whole sentence is filling that out.

Yeah, I definitely think that's what he's trying to get across. I guess the sticking point for me is why he chose to say it in that way, why he chose to say it's a spirit of wisdom and a revelation, because in Colossians 1, he says something very, very similar.

He says, for this reason, chapter 1, verse 9, he says, for this reason also, since today we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and ask that you be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

I mean, what does Paul have in mind here? Why does he talk about the same thing in this way? Why does he talk about wisdom and revelation as opposed to wisdom and understanding?

Well, I've never done a study of apocalypsis in Paul. There is a use in 2 Thessalonians 1, 7, but that has to do with the apocalypsis of Christ that is coming. In Ephesians 3, 3, it is about an actual revelation from God to Paul in regards to the gospel.

Galatians 2, 2, it's the same thing. Galatians 1, 12, 2 Corinthians 12, 7, I'm just going through here. Revelations and visions, 12, 1, and so that's the normative use is either in regards to that kind of revelation or the apocalypsis of Christ, the revelation of our Lord Jesus.

Christ.

1 Corinthians 1, 7, and Romans 16, 25, the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, that could refer to either the incarnation or the revelation of scripture, or that's a little bit more related to this in regards to the possibility of the usage that I mentioned before.

So, a large portion of these usages go along with that line. I didn't actually, I don't have, in fact, I don't even have one near me now that I'm looking. I took it on my last trip and didn't get it out of my bag down there, but I haven't even looked to see if there is a variant at all in the text.

I'm not sure if you have or not, but I don't have a Nestial and text within reach here for some strange reason. I normally do, but I took my little 26th edition with me someplace. Oh, wait a minute. There we go.

I knew I could find one someplace within reach. See, I'd normally have a piece of paper here to shake, so it's not like Rush Limbaugh, but I didn't. Nope, nothing noted there whatsoever. So, the only answer I could give you off the top of my head is that it's used in concert with Sophia, and that that's what gives it the semantic range here.

Outside of that, haven't foggiest. Well, again, there's nothing in the context about an external, this is not talking about an external revelation. I think the only way to take it consistently in the context, especially with the use of fotidzo in the very next phrase, because those participles in the next section, in verse 18, especially the perfect passive participle, it is used in 118, that's going to be describing the means by which the desire of 17 is fulfilled.

And so, enlightening the eyes is allowing you to see something that's already there. If you enlighten someone's eyes, you are allowing them to see what is already in front of them. So, that would then sort of fill in some of the meaning of apocalypsis in verse 17, is that it's not bringing something new in front of you, it is the revelation of that true knowledge of Him.

So, I think it fits with what I was saying earlier, that that's something very important to keep in mind, is that when He explains how that is to be filled out, it is not something that refers to some extra-scriptural revelation coming to you.

And for the believer today, I guess it would be the same for the believers in Ephesus, but our means of God's revelation to us is complete in the canon. But I was under the impression that we know Christ better, we know Him more intimately through His revelation of Himself in the Word.

Well, certainly, in the sense of, we would have the same relationship to Christ that the Ephesians did. I mean, Christ has been resurrected, He is the right hand of the Father, His Spirit is given to each and every individual, the Spirit testifies to the things of Christ.

And so, we would have the very same basis of relationship. And what you might be referring to is, well, but they didn't have the completed canon of the New Testament. Yes, but they did have Paul's apostolic teaching, especially there in Ephesus.

And so, the point would be that the Spirit of God would still utilize the same God-breathed scriptures to provide the basis of that knowledge. And then, as He makes our spirits alive, and as He draws out our hearts after Christ, the basis that we would have of the knowledge might be wider now with the completion of the canon, but the work is the same, and the purpose is the same, the Spirit is the same.

Believers have had that precious ministry all along. I mean, Christ does call the Spirit the other comforter, using a term that would refer to other of the same kind, of the same type. And so, certainly, we are not lesser than they, but I don't know that we could even say that we are greater than they in light of the fact that we have the completed canon, because the Ephesians had the ministry of Paul.

Yeah, I wasn't really saying that the revelation that He's provided for us today is any better than what He provided for the Ephesians at that point in time. I think what I was trying to say was that this is an active work of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, whereby He uses the revelation that He's given us to give us, I guess, the ability to see it more clearly, so that we would know Him better.

Well, I think not only see it more clearly, certainly, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, but it's the eyes of your heart, and that does include the mind, but I think it goes beyond just the mind, to that rich appreciation of what these truths mean, and how they are central to our every, not, and I hate the phrase, our everyday life, but to how we, well, the term that Paul used is our walking, and he uses that to refer to our everyday existence, and so when it talks about, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, the terms hope, His calling, riches, glory, inheritance, and the saints, these are all extremely rich concepts that we can never truly say that we've grasped all of it, because there are many times that as we live the Christian life, and we interact with the people, we come to appreciate elements of this that we just simply had not experienced before.

So, there is the knowledge aspect, and then there is that application, and then there is having passion for these truths. There are people who have, you know, there's many people who know that the doctrine of the Trinity is true, but they're not passionate about it, because they haven't seen yet, in their growth and grace, the importance and centrality of that truth to the rest of the Christian life, and so I think that's probably what the Enlightenment would be referring to here.

Yeah, just an example of what I learned this summer, I was studying the Atonement of Christ, and for whom it is applied, and what did it accomplish, and I'm very much persuaded by the fact that it actually did accomplish that for which it was set out to do, but the passage in Matthew, that my God, my God, why art thou forsaken me, and I've read that so many times, but just this one point, I was just reading it, and I wasn't really looking for, you know, any sort of guidance to tears at that time, and just to hear that, and just to, you know, just brought on a new meaning, I just felt like a deepening.

Right, yeah, and I think that is the work of the Spirit. Not so much the, you know, I think the deep feeling and the passion has to come from a true understanding of what's being said. There are people who will latch onto a passage, and they will just insist that the Spirit told them X, Y, and Z about this, and when you actually look at the passage, what they think it says is completely contradicted by the very grammar that the Spirit Himself gave us in defining the words, and so there has to be, I think there's a proper godly order between what is, you know, revealed to us and what is, you know, what is in Scripture and what we've come to be passionate about, but once we have done the work to honestly say I have totally sought to allow the Scriptures to speak to me, in the sense of I have done the work, I've done the study, and now that I have allowed God to speak in this passage, my goodness, the revelation that is here absolutely has changed my life, and it's something that's precious to me.

I want to explain it to others. I want to share it with others, so on and so forth. So, yeah, I think that's a part of the process, and it's a very precious part of the process as well. I hope some of that's of some assistance.

Yeah, well, I do appreciate it, and I'll be praying for the debate with Jerry that it goes great, and hopefully some people will have some change hearts from that.

Well, certainly, we're going to be videotaping, and we're going to be audiotaping and making those things available. I'm really looking forward to it.

Okay, well, take care, James, and I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

God bless.

The Nature of Spiritual Wisdom and Revelation in Ephesians 1

Let's talk with Scott real quick in Kirkland, Washington. Hi, Scott.

Hey, James.

How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good.

I have a question for you, and hopefully you can kind of get where I'm coming from on this. I'm not sure how clear I can be, but I'm just kind of wondering, like, biblically, what are kind of the extent and kind of the limits of primaried?

And it seems almost like sometimes there can be an almost totalitarian, you know, I just want to know.

Well, certainly, if a person is held accountable and responsible in the sense of before God for what takes place within their family, there needs to be a commensurate amount of authority. And there certainly isn't any question, as you examine the role of fathers in the Old Testament, that they have that very large amount of authority.

Now, part of that, in its expression, not in the sense of the absoluteness of children obey their parents and the Lord for this is right, that kind of thing. But some of the level of that expression is cultural in the sense that in the Old Testament, those cultures, you know, women wouldn't walk in a certain way close to a man or forms of dress and arranged marriages and things like that.

Obviously, you know, there are some who would actually say, well, that's the way you should do it. They'll go so far as to say you should. And certainly, I think a parent has a duty to share and to communicate wisdom concerning a prospective spouse and all sorts of things like that.