Have You Not Read - S1:E5

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. I'm Dylan, and with me, Michael Durham, David Kassem, and Andrew Hudson.

Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask for you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you. And today, starting out,

I'd like to begin with book recommendations. We all like to read a lot, and I'd like to know, going around the horn, starting with Michael, what we're reading right now and what we would recommend.

Well, I just finished up Plot Activity by Douglas Wilson. I had, I don't know if I was given a copy or I owned a copy, and I had it sitting in my office on this little easel, you know, to remind me, hey, read that.

And we had a bad storm, ice storm, snow, and it was a really weird leak, and all the water dumped right on Plot Activity and, like, destroyed this little book.

So I didn't get to read it. It was just too badly damaged.

So later on, I ended up getting the Canon app, and I listened to it read, which was, like,

I don't know, maybe two hours and 40 minutes long. So I just put that on, and as I was working and getting things done,

I was listening to that, which it felt, like, natural. Like, hey, I'm gonna listen to this book about Plot Activity, and I'm gonna be, try to be productive.

But you didn't plod through it. It was one sitting. No, man, I went fast through it, with the intention to go back and listen to it again, because there was, there were some sections in that book that are worth going back over again, because they were not low -hanging fruit.

They were things that you have to dig deep, because Wilson was trying to build a very careful foundation for how we understand tools, and how we understand time, and what this has to do with wealth, and to avoid the pitfalls in modernism concerning productivity.

And so it was a great discussion. I felt convicted by, you know, all the wealth that I possess, and to try to be a better steward of it.

It was very encouraging. So that's my recommendation. I actually got the chance to plug Plot Activity yesterday on Twitter, and somebody mentioned

Tim Keller's book on work that he had done, I don't know how long ago, and so I just kind of slipped Wilson in there afterward.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. What did Tim Keller recommend? Did he recommend that... Well, it wasn't

Tim Keller. It was somebody recommending Tim Keller about how to view work from a Christian perspective. I can't remember which book it was that Keller wrote, but I kind of...

Das Kapital? No, he has many of those topical style books. Yeah, and that's kind of like what it was.

It was one of those, and I just I slipped Wilson in there afterward to some unsuspecting

Kellerites, and I don't think they had any idea. I don't think they had any idea what had happened to him.

It was to some other people that didn't really have a concept of the Christian idea, or the

Christian concept of work and time. Gotcha. All right, David. Good one.

You guys know I spent a lot of time on the road, driving back and forth, so audiobooks are good, and I just finished rereading or re -listening to Tolkien's Two Towers.

I finished that last week. Obviously can't recommend that highly enough, but the book that I'm reading, you know,

I'm really actually going through and underlining and really trying to, you know, plod through, if I can reuse that word, is

Progressive Covenantalism, Stephen Wellham and Brent Parker.

The interplay and the discussion between classical covenant theology and classical and even more reformed, and reformed lowercase r, dispensationalism that they have now,

I'm enjoying watching the interplay between the two, because that is actually my background.

I was raised on MacArthur, and he's still a personal hero.

I mean, I just like listening to a lot of things. In fact, I even use, I have that MacArthur Study Bible actually in my house, and you know, again,

I can recommend those things, but books like this have helped me go back over some of the things that I have taken as, well, this is, well, there's, it may not actually be in the

Bible, but it is biblical, which is a ridiculous statement. So it's challenged a lot of my traditions.

I'm not all the way through it. I'm about 90 % through it for the first time. I'm gonna go back over and go through some of my highlights.

That's Progressive Covenantalism. I'm enjoying that one. Was Wellham the one who did the New Covenant theology book as well, or was that somebody else?

Yeah, that was another sad story about books. It was God's Kingdom Through Covenant, and it's a slimmer volume, a kind of digest of the larger book by Wellham, which was a magisterial work.

Yeah, it's a good, like, you know, and I believe that one is actually Kingdom Through Covenant, and then there's the smaller one.

So what happened was I was reading through this book and really enjoying it. I mean, I was just clicking along, and this is awesome.

And I got to page, I think it was like page 96, and then I turned the page, and all of a sudden

I was back at page 59. And it was like, what just happened? And so they reprinted a whole section in the book, and it was, like, reduplicated, and I was missing a massive chunk of the book.

It made me really sad. And then for whatever reason, I was gonna, you know, get another copy.

I'm like, but what if this copy is the same way? But anyway, I moved on. If you want it,

I have that book in my car right now. Awesome. Waiting to be read. So after you read it, if I could borrow it from you.

Well, I'm just gonna go up to page 96 and stop. There you go.

And to plug the Two Tower, or Tolkien in general, I just went through the audiobooks of the entire trilogy as well two weeks ago.

So yeah, great stuff. Yeah, I was surprised that Two Towers, the book, was so far more enjoyable than the movie by the same title.

And of course, it doesn't fit with the movie plot lines and timing and the books and so on.

But yeah, I was very impressed. Yeah, leaving out Tom Bombadil, and leaving out the

Scouring of the Shire, and when everybody comes back, and they're able to take on the Chief.

I mean, that type of, leaving out that type of stuff is just, it should be crime. The guy who read the

Two Towers did the voice of Smeagol in the movies. So it was nice to hear, it was like, oh, that was kind of cool.

So he's actually using the voice. Yeah. What about you, Andrew? So I'm actually listening to a book called

The Hundred Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury, and it's in reference to China's long game on global domination.

Quite the departure from what you're talking about. Nice. Expand. Well, I've only listened to the first 45 minutes of content, but it's been recommended by my co -workers to understand a little bit of mentality associated with things like intellectual property theft as being something that's looked highly upon, because you're a greater warrior, because you're taking from the enemy and using it for your own advantages.

So intellectual property law is not something to be respected in war, it's something to be exploited.

That's interesting. But on another note, a book that I would recommend is by John Reisinger, Abraham's Four Seeds, and it's a

New Covenant theology type of book that compares, from the viewpoint of Abraham's seed, the differences between covenant theology and dispensationalism.

It's a good way to get a survey of the differences between the two if you've never really been introduced to what those theological systems hold, but it's also a way to critically look at each of them and find maybe some faults in what they don't have to offer that the other one might, or rather that there might be something else that's missing from looking at the

Bible from just a strict, systematic reading, keeping your mind only focusing on what matches covenant theology or the paradigm of dispensationalism.

Well, I myself am on the road as well, and I've been listening to a lot of things, but what

I've been actually reading physically, I say physically, it's still a digital copy on my

Kindle, is I See Satan Fall Like Lightning by Rene Girard. Girard has been kicked around in some of the podcast circles that I listen to, and him having such a tight hold on story, biblical story, and also other classical mythos and stories like that has been rather eye -opening to understand mimesis or mimetic theory, and I'm only like 40 % of the way through the book, but to watch him lay it out as he has mimetic theory, meaning you're going to mimic your

God, basically, you're gonna mimic what you worship, is pretty mind -blowing, and it gives you great clarity in the moment that we're in to watch everyone begin to mimic exactly their gods in the moment, and how it can work on a crowd level, and it's kind of a looking at the problem of the one in the many with how it plays out with like a sin contagion, is kind of how you would put it, or a mimetic contagion, and how we go through these cycles over and over again in history, and you can you can watch them play out, but Rene Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lightning is something that I've been working through, and I'm planning on going through his entire canon, but slowly.

It's not gonna be something that's gonna be easy, because it's simple language, and easy to read, but as far as, you're entering into a new language.

His language, first language was French, and his second language was academia, so you're having to go through two different layers, and he's got his own paradigm, his own language to decipher, and enter into, so it's meaty, but it's fun if you're into that sort of thing.

Now that we have gone through our recommendations, I'd like to get through the questions here. Well, if I had them pulled up, right?

This is just gonna be dead time, I guess. Take care of it in post, right?

Yeah, yeah, we can fix it in post. That classic line, oh man, I hope

I never rewatch that clip. Alright, we talked about beforehand that we would go through some baptismal questions, but the first question that I like to do, because I think we can kind of play off of it, and enter into the baptism discussion, is again, thanks to David, always asking very pertinent and numerous questions that we can enjoy and dig into.

It's question 18 on our list. It's, I love listening to Christian podcasts and radio. I really love debates. Will you ever debate someone on your podcast?

Is there a danger to having even friendly debates within the church family that we should be aware of? And would you ever do,

I'm adding this, would you ever do a baptism debate on the podcast? Well, as long as I have you three guys in my corner, we could find some poor

Pado -Baptist person to pick on, I guess. No, you want a Pado -Baptist friend.

Yeah, Pado -Baptist friend. Pado -Baptist friend, somebody you know and trust, to whether, you know, you can get heated, but everybody knows the two people that love each other.

Yeah, I think if it's, I think it has to be done, and of course in right spirit.

I think, is it helpful? Is it something that should be done? Is it something that would be good?

Sure. There's a great need for argument without quarreling that is lacking at every level, and a question, a debate about baptism is going to end up being a debate about New Covenant, Old Covenant, it's going to be a debate about sufficiency of Christ, it's going to be a debate about hermeneutics and pastoral theology, and all these things are very worthy topics to be explored.

So sure, that's a, in general, that's a good idea that that should occur.

You know, I don't know how much of a debater I am. I know that I began to appreciate like classic long form debate, you know, within the last few years.

Just the amount of effort that goes into one of those, where people are taking their turn in their time limit to speak, and then being forced to answer the objections or questions being cast before them, or deciding to ignore the very warranted questions from the other side to simply run kinds of distracting machinations, and then it's kind of clear, you know, oh, you don't have an answer,

I guess. So those kinds of things, that classic long form debate really exposes, sometimes it exposes the debater, maybe they just weren't up to the task, but sometimes it actually exposes the position, and so that can be, it's a very educational academic process, and I have developed an appreciation for it, but I don't know if I would be a skillful debater or not.

But, you know, some people are maybe better at that than I am, though I'd be willing to toss my hat in the ring if I needed to.

As if there's a gifting for debating, maybe? Well, I think that there's a certain kind of mind that perhaps is better organized for those structured types of engagements, whereas maybe some others are better at the conversational back -and -forth, a bit more stream of consciousness and things like that.

So not all of us are as equally up to that task. Have you ever heard of chess by mail?

Yes. I would liken Debating Calvinism by Dave Hunt and James White as a chess by mail debate style, and if you haven't checked it out, it's a great way to see a debate in written format where the position of Calvinism and the five points are being debated.

So that would be another book that I could recommend, but it's also very appropriate for this situation. It could be something as simple as we respond to someone else in a stylized manner back -and -forth via podcast style, or it could just be a submission back -and -forth through email exchange.

That's really interesting. I wouldn't have ever thought about that, but I know that it was a little bit like that in some of those books, the four views or three views on those different things, and they all have to respond to each other.

Or I know in the Revelation four views, it was basically just your exegesis. So he took out the best exegesis from each reading and he just juxtaposed them just boom boom boom boom boom boom on each page.

On that comment, yeah, the commentary. Yeah, it was extremely helpful in that way. I have one of those books on Canaanite genocide where they have those kinds of different views, and you can imagine,

I mean, that's a serious, you know, it's not exactly family -friendly dinner conversation, but it's one of those questions that repeatedly comes up.

What's your position? Then people respond to those. So those kinds of written forms, and they're all—it's friendly.

You know, as they engage with each other's positions, there's no shouting down or any of those kinds of things.

So if I'm catching you right, there are ways to discuss, there are ways to interact, there are ways to, you know, go after these hard topics.

What are the dangers of doing this? Well, Scripture says that knowledge puffeth up.

The King James says that knowledge puffeth up. And I think that there could be a danger in, you know, if somebody is a more skillful debater than somebody else, let's say they have a better mastery of data and facts, that they can organize it quicker, and that they can bring it to bear in a more skillful fashion, because their neurons are firing at a rate far better than somebody else.

That doesn't mean that their position is correct, right? That's something that we, in a sense of, you know, we know that might doesn't make—just because somebody is the strongest in the room doesn't mean that they are the most moral, or that their sense of morality is the correct one.

In the same sense, if somebody has a really big brain and they can manage the debate way better than somebody else can, it doesn't mean that they have the correct position.

So there's a danger there that sometimes when you listen to debates, someone can win a debate and still be wrong, which is something that we need to remember.

So we can't—we gotta be careful that we don't equate, you know, being a great debater with having a corner on the truth.

And that's not to discount the value of debate. Right, I think the value may be in batching.

Watching a lot of debates on baptism. Getting the best from each side. Getting the best debater from from any side or view of baptism is—and that's how

I think you should come at any kind of debate, whether you're debating as—especially like when we're talking about methodology.

Watching different debates in different methodological schools, I think getting the best idea of what is the most coherent and consistent position or consistent way to argue, you're gonna need to do it in batches rather than just saying,

I watched one William Lane Craig video and so this is the way I'm gonna argue from now on.

And I think that, you know, you could think about in the scriptures where you have different false prophets that were very well spoken and they manifested their position in ways that were memorable and that people were captivated and drawn to, but that didn't mean that they were correct.

Or that even someone like Paulos, who didn't have it all together and was confused about some things, he was a very skillful speaker, but he needed to be educated.

It didn't seem like he did, but he did, you know, and Aquila and Priscilla needed to take him to the dinner table and sit there and say, you know, here man,

Aquila and Priscilla aren't gonna get up there and win the day in a debate. Apollos could, he had that skill, but what he needed along with that was actual understanding.

And so that's something that we need to remember about in a form like debate where, you know, it is true, you know, the way that you come at it, the intellectual capacity that you have, the quickness that you have, the wit that you bring to it, it all plays in.

Yeah, it kind of exposes the personality rather than the actual positions.

Maybe sometimes, you know, you get somebody who may be really knowledgeable, but then get flustered in debate, and you see character more often than you see the position.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, as long as the, it sounds like the end goal is not a good chess match.

I mean, debating can be a sport. You know, you're watching two people play tennis, or you know, it's like, oh, this, what a great match.

In, we're debating these important topics, we are outlining positions, helping people, especially the audience.

The debate is really more for the audience. It's for the church body. It's for the brother, your brothers and sisters.

Think through these things. This is important, and this is something that two

God -fearing men disagree on passionately. But they love

Christ, they love each other, and that's why they're here, because they're sharpening each other, and they're helping you to think through these things as well.

Right, yeah. And as long as they're, you know, matches my position, they're probably right. Yeah, I think the, what, the two differences you're talking about with competition is debate between Christians ought to be, the central goal is truth and God's glory, whereas, you know,

Christians who play basketball together is God's glory, but also I'm gonna beat you.

So there is, there is a, well of course, yeah, there is a great difference, and when we, when we kind of fluff those lines a little bit, we get into some trouble.

There's also, there's also good that comes even if somebody doesn't have, perhaps, an accurate reading of the

Scripture. Let's say they win the debate against somebody who just didn't, wasn't ready for it.

That, that, that brother will, you know, if he takes that rightly, it will strengthen him and sharpen him, and he will grow in that, and he will be able to do better next time.

So I'm not saying there's a total loss if, you know, if it didn't go the right way or whatever.

Amen. Got anything to add, Andrew? Not that hasn't already been discussed.

I'm just over here nodding my head. Yes. We hear your nod. Well, on to baptism.

This next question that David has for us is, my father is a Presbyterian minister and a godly man.

I was baptized as an infant, but actually came to faith in college. I want to get baptized again, but he got really serious and warned me not to.

He says that my baptism placed me in the covenant household, and now that I am actually regenerate, I am also circumcised in heart.

He rejoices with me, and my family is happy, as am I, but he said that to get re -baptized is against Scripture and actually offense to the covenant.

At the bare minimum, it is unnecessary. What should I do? Does this mean I have to become a

Baptist? Well, interesting story.

My dad was baptized into the Methodist Church, the United Methodist Church, when he was a baby.

My grandparents, my... I called them my Mamaw, my Papaw, Grandma and Grandpa Durham.

They were not very religious, okay, but nonetheless, there was a time when my grandmother,

Barbara Durham, wanted to go to church, and she wanted to take her kids to church. And her background, her family culture background, was

Methodist, and so she took my father and his older sister and younger brother to church, and they were baptized into the

Methodist Church. I didn't know this until like I was in my 30s. And it was kind of an interesting tidbit at the time, but if, speaking of debates and baptism, if you were to watch the debate between James White and Doug Wilson, Doug Wilson would have then said that that act, that act, because my father was sprinkled in the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, made my father a Christian. It didn't mean he was regenerate.

Right, non -regenerate. Didn't mean he was regenerate, but he was... that makes him a part of the New Covenant, and he uses the term

Christian to basically identify members of the New Covenant, whether they're born again or not. Which, you know, everybody has clay feet, you know, and that's one of those areas where Doug Wilson is just flat -out wrong.

And I mean, it's nonsensical and ludicrous when you read the plain meaning of the text.

You've got to import so much in there. I think it's like the issue with, you know, Jared Longshore going over the river, is that you just have...

you read so much other material that you build a hermeneutical lens that no longer is exactly in contact with the ground.

I mean, you've got this big old kite, and the winds are blowing, and all of a sudden your feet aren't actually running on the ground anymore.

You've lifted off from the text, and you're not actually grounded in the text. So, my father was not a

Christian. He was not born again. He was not a member of the New Covenant. He didn't have the

Holy Spirit. His heart was not circumcised. The New Covenant promises were not real in his life at that time, even though he was baptized.

So, what is the real value or the meaning of it, is the question.

Of it as in his baptism? Right, of his baptism. So, if...

whatever has to be true... like, so again, you have to... so the Presbyterian minister question is this.

If, in this case, you grow up in a family that is... like, the parents are

Christians, or at least one of them is a Christian, and they really do believe it's not a cultural appropriation like it was for my grandmother, and they're not part of the

United Methodist Church, which, you know, is liberal and so on and so forth, but, you know, they're a part...

maybe they're part of the OPC, you know, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, you know, of J. Gresham Machen fame, and they're, you know, very stalwart, conservative,

Bible -believing, they love Jesus, and they believe it is of necessity that they, to be good parents, and to follow through in covenant life, they need to baptize their infants.

And that they understand that this brings them into the covenant, because it is the sign, they see it as the sign of the covenant.

And so they bring their children into the covenant through this sign, and now they are non...

they are unregenerate members of the new covenant. Okay, this is what this means.

Well, based upon those assumptions, then, if later on this son comes to know

Christ in a real and saving way, okay, because the parents knew that this baptism would not redeem their child, it brought them into the new covenant, but it didn't save them, it brought them into the new covenant, but at some point, if this son had utterly rejected

Christ, and went his own way, and fled from the gospel, and blasphemed the

Holy Spirit, and so on, and so on, and so on, this son would be excommunicated from the Church, he would be found, cast outside of the new covenant in the end, and he would experience judgment and damnation in eternity in Hell.

They refer to that kind of person as a covenant breaker. Right, a covenant breaker, exactly.

So in that case, you know, they're not saying that the baptism saves the child, but they are saying that the baptism brings that infant into the new covenant.

And the expression here of covenant household, my question is, was my dad baptized into a covenant household?

Because my grandmother was baptized, sprinkled when she was a baby in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, was that a covenant household that my dad grew up in?

It was definitely not a Christian household in any regard. They're basically pagans.

I mean, just pagans. So my question is, is that a covenant household?

Because whatever, or is the issue that with the child being baptized into a household considered a covenant household, or is it simply that the child is baptized in the name of the

Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit? I mean, which is it? Why would it be one way versus another way?

And I think we're off into the high weeds. I think we're off into the high weeds because the

Bible is not asking those questions, nor answering them. Now, I think they are, because I think they love

Jesus and they sincerely want to follow him, and this is what they've been handed, and this is how they're being discipled, but I don't think that the

Bible is interested in those things. And one of the reasons why is, like, so I had a situation where I was invited to do a debate by a young Church of Christ pastor who had been secretly lying to one of my families and wooing romantically one of the young women in my church because he wanted to get married again after his first wife divorced him, and he was telling the family all sorts of things that were not true, like, oh yeah, we believe basically the same thing, while meanwhile coming to my office saying, hey, let's have a debate about all the things we disagree about.

And I said, no, we're not going to do a debate, but I will...I didn't know this

Chess by Mail reference, but that's a great way to explain...I said, I will write a paper on a passage concerning this, and you write a paper, and we'll swap.

So we ended up doing that on Acts 2 .38, and he took a long time getting around to it, so I just kept writing and writing and writing, and I determined that the context for Acts 2 .38

was all of Luke and Acts. So everywhere in the Gospel of Luke and everywhere in the book of Acts where it says, repent and or believe,

I did a survey of all of that, and then what is the Gospel response called for, and so on.

And what struck me was that in Acts chapter 10, when Cornelius sins for Peter, Peter comes and preaches to him the

Gospel, and there's like this Pentecost experience among these

Gentiles, that they, as confirmed by Acts 11 and Acts 15,

Cornelius and his household there, they were repentant believers filled with the

Holy Spirit, and then Peter basically says, who am I to stand in God's way?

Well, how is Peter gonna stand in God's way? He didn't refuse to go like Jonah.

He left Joppa and went to the right place instead of sailing out to sea.

He went and he did preach the Gospel to Cornelius, so he didn't stand in the way there.

He couldn't stand in the way of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit blows like the wind, you can't control that.

The only way that Peter could stand in the way of God, or try to, is to refuse their baptism, to refuse them to be brought in, recognized as part of the

Church. So when he was confronted about this by Jewish believers, like, what are you doing?

He said, look, they're saved in the same way that we were saved, and they received the

Holy Spirit just like we received the Holy Spirit, so who am I to stand in God's way? And there's this passage at the end of chapter 10 of Acts, and Peter answered, let's see, verse 47,

Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the

Holy Spirit just as we have? So his point is, the reason why we should baptize these

Gentiles is because they have received the Holy Spirit. They have received the

Holy Spirit. Now, this is an example, and there's many others, that show there has to be a true, actual, genuine, experiential conversion.

You must be born again, Jesus says to Nicodemus. Nicodemus says, you know, what's going on?

Jesus says, you can't even see the kingdom of God unless you're born again.

Nicodemus, precisely what I'm not talking about is being born. I'm precisely not talking about being born.

I'm not talking about you coming out of your mother's womb. Just because you come out of your mother's womb and you're part of an old covenant family doesn't mean that you're in the kingdom, right?

He is a Jew who is one inwardly. Yes, so the point is exactly, precisely not being born the first time.

Jesus says you have to be born again, and when Nicodemus, you know, either he's being facetious or he's trying to catch on to what

Jesus is saying or whatever, he's like, how am I gonna get in my mother's womb a second time? Then Jesus immediately begins talking about the birth brought about by the

Holy Spirit, specifically. Now, this means that there has to be the second birth in order for you to see the kingdom of God.

That's the plain reading of the text. You have to be born again if you're gonna even see the kingdom of God. You have to be born again if you're going to be in the

New Covenant. This is the language in Jeremiah. What's the difference between the Old Covenant and the

New Covenant as expressed in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah and elsewhere?

What's the difference? Well, in the Old Covenant, there was a remnant of people who had their hearts circumcised.

There was a remnant of people who were born again. There was a remnant of people who were truly the children of Abraham, who were of faith.

But there was a lot of members of the Old Covenant who were not. The main difference in the New Covenant, which is celebrated in the

Scriptures, not hidden, but celebrated, is that every member of the New Covenant has the heart of stone removed and the heart of flesh put in, the law of God written upon their hearts.

They are all filled with the Holy Spirit. They are all born again. And so, in Baptist life, we do baptize infants.

We baptize spiritual infants. We baptize those who just got born again. And we do baptize them, because they believe upon the

Lord Jesus Christ, and they are saved. And how could we forbid water? Now notice

Peter says, can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized who have received the

Holy Spirit just as we have? This is not talking about infants being born into a family that is

Christian, and praise be to God for that blessing, that infants are born into a families that are

Christian. That's amazing, that glory to God. But baptism is for those who are born again, those who have the

Holy Spirit. And there's many of the passages we could look to, but to me, that the the

Presbyterian minister question, you know, he's being consistent with his beliefs, with those beginning principles and assumptions or principles.

If those things are true, then yes, of course the son should not get re -baptized. But I don't think those things are true.

I think those things come about through a flattening out of the Covenants, wherein the basic hermeneutic is, there's not that big of a difference between the

New Covenant and the Old Covenant. And the Church has always been there, the Holy Spirit's always been there, and there's just really not that big of a deal difference between the two.

And I think the Bible makes a big difference between the two. Anyway, that's where I am on that. So in this question, this example then, you know, the family is right to rejoice that this person is now regenerate and circumcised in heart.

They're right to rejoice. But this father, in your opinion, is standing in the way.

That is, even within context there, he is standing in the way of this young man who wants to be baptized and should be baptized because he is now regenerate.

Yeah, I think that the son should go ahead and get baptized, and I think he should have a scriptural warrant for it.

I think that he should proceed in faith on it. I think he should have really good reasons for it, and even if his father disagrees and says, well, you have to look at it from a different perspective,

I think, you know, yeah, but based on my reading of the text, I can't go there.

And I think at that point, the love of Christ wins out, right?

And even if the father disagrees with what his son is doing, I think that there still can be accepting one another in Christ going on there.

I don't know if—I don't think it could continue within the same church, local church, where there is the need to worship in like faith and practice, but we're all part of Christ's Church, for sure.

So he'll need to—he'll need to do that in a respectful way, honoring his father, especially with this, you know, this godly heritage.

Sure. But he may not be able to stay at the same church. Yeah, I think so.

Would you say your position is that we are to baptize disciples? Yes, yeah.

And somebody who is—somebody who is—somebody who is born again manifesting the most obvious signs of that, you know, we don't—we do not want to raise the bar on salvation.

Well, salvation is by grace alone as long as you can exhibit enough evidences of grace to satisfy me, which is a pretty big slippery slope that some of the

Puritans fell down and even began to promote false Gospels, because they were so emphatic about some of those things where they forgot that Jesus came to save sinners.

You know, and we have to be aware of that. So—but at the same time, the baptism—and

I think this is a fairly good expression I picked up from Nine Marks back in the day when they were more helpful—was that baptism is the front door of the

Church, and that's how you enter into the membership and the life of the local

Church, is through baptism. And I think that there is a need, though I don't think it should be unnecessarily protracted, there is a need to help people understand what does baptism mean.

Otherwise, why are you doing it? Catechumens are,

I guess, a term that could be used for aspirants for baptism, taught ones.

Yeah, and that—and of course to dedicate one of the first discipleship manuals of the

Church, maybe the first discipleship manual of the Church outside of the Scriptures themselves, showed us both kind of a direction for the

Church, and also I think provided a little bit of warning for the Church, because the Didache was helpful in some ways, saying, hey look, you know, you need to understand what it means to follow

Christ and what it means to be a member of the Church, and you know, you need to get some things together here. But it could also be used where it's protracting their baptism for a couple of years or longer before they were allowed to be baptized, and that's not what you see in the

Scriptures. I mean, the eunuch says to Philip, what prevents me from being baptized?

Here's water, you know, if you believe in Lord Jesus Christ, you may.

Do you think the eunuch believed at that precise moment, or did he believe beforehand?

Philip thought so. Right. Well, what I'm saying is, could he have had faith beforehand, and it be a lot longer than just that moment that we've seen?

Well, I think in the story, he's reading the Scriptures, and he's trying to say, is he saying this of himself or somebody else?

And he's asking for help to understand the Scriptures, and Philip preaches Christ to him from the

Old Testament. And I believe at that point, this imperishable seed planted in the life of this eunuch comes forth in life by the grace of God, and then he believes.

And you're not given the full gospel witness that Philip gives this man, but I think they were on the side of the road for a little while.

You know how those conversations go, and then because all of a sudden he knows by the end of it, hey,

I should be baptized. So Philip's been talking him up a lot more than what we have on in the text.

This is a synopsis of what he said. Right, so we're at least given enough to know that he has been taught, one of these taught ones, a disciple, and that can give us a base layer definition of what that is, rather than kind of playing around with the timeline of, well, taught one is actually two years from now.

Right, yeah, and so I think that we, again, we tend to swing the pendulum as...because

we don't like what happens in the tradition of the

Wesleyan holiness, we don't like the tradition that happens in revivalism, we don't like the tradition we see that's come out of Charles Finney, and all these other things where the preaching of the gospel and the growth of the

Church is reduced to mechanisms and manipulations. And so I think in our zeal to correct that, we swing the pendulum back the other direction, and we start adding qualifications and begin fencing the law, shall we say, in ways that are not appropriate.

It's more reactionary, then, in an effort to look less like our rivals, we somehow end up looking more like them.

Yeah, going outside of the realms of Scripture itself, we do the same thing as them, just in the opposite direction.

Right. Which is a little bit a part of mimetic theory, and just throwing that out there. Okay, I think we have time for one last question here, and it actually goes into what we just talked about a little bit, but it's more towards the age of a believer.

It's question 20 from David. My son wants to get baptized, but I am hesitant. He's 15 and was never really interested in church before, but now he and his friends are super involved.

I think he might just be doing it because his friends are. I don't know if he's really born again. Should I delay his baptism until I'm sure?

What fruit should I be looking for to know for certain? I'm just kind of curious, actually, what ages were you all baptized at?

12. Let's see, three months, and then, yeah, no joke,

I think three months, and then I was 20. On my birthday when

I was 7 years old, and then when I was 26, so I didn't have the the

Presbyterian version of paedo -baptism. I had the Baptist version of paedo -baptism. Yeah, I was baptized when

I was 5. Yeah, when I was 5. I never got re -baptized either, so.

You have or have not? No, I didn't. I guess I'm not an Anabaptist. No, but see, so this is an interesting thing, because some of this comes...sometimes

this question is answered from pastoral experience. Sometimes it's answered from a perspective of, well, here's some stories that have occurred, and here are some experiences that people have had, and here's how

I've tended to try to handle it, and so on and so forth. So, you know, what we see in the

Scriptures, I mean, we were given a basic survey of what it looks like when somebody is born again.

They're not perfect, okay, they're not perfect. There are desires that are changed. There is an understanding of the gospel, a profession of faith, and there is some evidence.

But if somebody knows who Jesus is, what

He did for them, and they believe that, right? Not that they just have the information, but they believe that, and you can tell that they're grateful for that, and they have latched hold of it, okay?

And, you know, I'm ready to baptize them. Maybe, I don't know if they're ready to be baptized.

Maybe they need to learn a little bit more about baptism. Maybe they need a little bit more about what it means to be a member of a church. Maybe they need to be grounded a little bit more.

I'm not saying a year, or, you know, they must go through our six -month class, or anything like that, but I'm ready to baptize them.

Why? Because if they are born again, and we can't see their heart, but if they know that Jesus of Nazareth is the

Christ, the Son of the Living God, and He died on the cross for me, and He rose from the dead the third day, if they know who

Jesus is and what He did for them, and they, and they're, oh, I believe that, or I'm grateful for that.

Yeah, you know, this is my, I'm so thankful for this. I don't know what else the

Bible requires of me. I don't know what else the Bible requires of me.

All I knew was that I needed Jesus, that I was a sinner, Jesus died for me. That's all

I knew when I was five years old. My son Toby is five years old, the exact same age that I was when

I became a Christian and got baptized, and we have our little thing at the end of, you know, family devotions, you know, what are you thankful for?

We do that every single time, and just out of the blue one night, he said, you know, he was, you know,

I'm thankful that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, right?

So did he hear that somewhere? Well, of course he did. We're discipling him. Did he hear somebody else say that?

Sure he did, but I've noticed that, you know, that things that they really are thankful for, that really mean a lot to them, that they persist in, they persist in.

So I'm ready to baptize, because I'm not, because I'm not omniscient, I'm not sovereign, I don't have to get it as right as God gets it, so I'm perfectly fine baptizing somebody who professes

Christ and has some basic evidence that, you know, hey, yeah, I really believe this. That's totally irresponsible, by the way, in certain areas.

So I think this question is interesting, because it brings in here about interested in church.

I don't know really what that means. If I were to gauge baptism off of interest in church, there are lots of reasons to be interested in church, but the reason to be baptized is your devotion to Christ.

That's how I would put it. It has nothing to do with church proper, capital C. Yeah, I had a kind of a strange example, but I have several cousins, only one on my mother's side, and I just never really knew where she was in her faith.

But I remember one time she was over with my wife and I, and we were just talking about things, and she just out of the blue made some statement about how grateful she was for Christ and the forgiveness that we have in Him because of His death upon the cross, you know?

And to me that was like, hallelujah, you know? And the fact that she would take herself to church...she

didn't go to her parents' church, because even though she was in her late 20s, early 30s, and she didn't go to the same church as her parents did, but she did go to a church and made it her home church, and she would go there even though there weren't people there of her same age, and she would go and try to find ways of being involved and so on.

And she's grateful for what Christ did for her on the cross, you know? Is she some like amazingly articulate, thought -filled

Christian? No. But she's thankful for Jesus and she goes to church and she, you know, she values the reading of the

Bible and so on. I mean, yeah, but I am absolutely convinced that if she were to attend certain churches that I would find very valuable and great, solid churches, it might be that she would, if she attended one of those churches, they wouldn't be ready to baptize her because she didn't have enough evidence.

She wasn't as qualified. She's not qualified enough yet. You see what I'm saying? So I want to guard against that.

All right. Well, I think that was thoroughly answered, and we can move on to our latter sections, or segments, because we have fulfilled our time obligations for the day.

But we're gonna start off with this week in witchcraft. The elements have been conquered with the intense heat, and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan.

Can you spot it out in the wild? Yeah, so I want to pick on a different kind of cousin. So a lot of witchcraft went down over Thanksgiving weekend,

I'm sure, as people spent time together at, you know, these meals. But one of my wife's cousins comes down, we all were gathered together at her grandparents' house, which is my wife's aunt and uncle's house.

But anyway, so when this girl drives up on her car, on the bumper stickers, one of the bumper stickers, among many, because she's loud and proud, one of the bumper stickers on the car says,

Protect trans children. Protect trans children.

So, you know, two out of the three words there are basically steeped in witchcraft.

The word protect and the word trans. And you throw children in there, and this is where, you know, it's all sorts of evil.

So you read the bumper sticker, just three words long, and what does she mean by that?

You know, what does she mean by that? Well, undoubtedly, she means that it, she believes it's child abuse to keep trans children from pursuing their transitions, right?

They should have, they should not be impeded in any way from their gender -fluid rapid ride through whatever river they want to identify as, right?

They should be helped in every way possible, not impeded, given only affirming counsel, and so on.

So what do you have to protect them from? You have to protect them from teachers who would tell them there's only two genders, you can't change your gender, you should protect them from news sources and churches that would deny them their trans identities.

You should protect them, and you should protect them from, if you have a mother who's helping her daughter transition to be a boy or a boy to transition to be a girl, that you should protect that mother's, that mother's work with her child and her child from the father who says,

I don't agree with this, right? There should be protection there as well. Or maybe a protection of a trans child from both their parents, because their parents are keeping them from doing it.

So that's what she means by that, okay? That's not protecting the trans child.

The child, first of all, is not trans, okay? The child is either a boy or a girl made in the image of God, and in many cases there are all kinds of mental and sexual abuses going on against this child that have created gender dysphoria or whatever you want to call it, but basically a brokenness caused by sin, and things are being forced upon this child, and the child is being abused by those who are saying, don't abuse my child.

That kind of projection is witchcraft, saying we're going to protect them, you're actually the ones who are harming them, you are, you know, it's like you're saying that house wants to burn to the ground, and so nobody get close to it.

That person wants to drink poison, therefore everybody encourage them to do it, or you know, there's not really protection.

The same person, and she's a funny individual, and she loves animals, and she likes to be with her family, and she rejoices in community, and she's a very real, genuine person, and she's often very confused, and she had no idea what inflation was, and that was an interesting conversation that we had, but she kept on saying like, you know,

I want to be a vegan, but I just love meat. How does she get past it?

She literally said, I just think, I just call it a different type of vegetable.

I look at it, and I think of it as a vegetable. That's witchcraft. Yeah, she already practices it. Yes, so like she's practicing witchcraft in her life, and so she's looking at meat that she loves the taste of, but she, in order to get past this, you know, this gut -wrenching thought of an animal having to die to please her palate, she is identifying the meat as a vegetable.

So it's a, it's, it's trans -meat. It's trans -vegetable -ism, right?

And it's like, okay. So there was my example of witchcraft. One of you, it's interesting, because if you notice that most of the time the type of person that wants these things, community, they want the fellowship at the table with friends.

They want joy. They want mirth at a table. Oh, absolutely. They're wanting the exact things that we have in Christ as a church body, with brothers and sisters at the table that we come to, and that we will enjoy in glory.

And they want after these things so much, but they want, they want it insulated by lies. They want a lie of a table.

They want it insulated by lies, that way truth can never get in, and that's why we have to protect, insulate these children from the truth, so we can keep the lie going.

Right. Since it was mentioned about Thanksgiving and witchcraft, I'm gonna read from Romans 1, starting in verse 20.

For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew

God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

During this time frame, there's a lot of discussion about what are you thankful for, not so much about who are you thankful to, and hinting at this point, they're thankful for these things that they share, but they're borrowing.

They're not thankful to the one who's given it. Amen to that. That's an important distinction.

I think that can piggyback us right into our last segment of the day, which is what are we thankful for, because we know exactly who we're thankful to.

You first, Michael. Well, I am thankful for, and I want to say this every time, but I am thankful for my family, thankful for my wife and six children.

One's not yet born, but he's sure kicking his way forward in that regard.

So, just thankful for a large, happy, busy, warm family.

Thankful for the challenges of, like, hey, I've got a 14 year old in my house.

Hmm. Yeah, this is uncharted territory for my wife and I, and then we're getting ready to have our sixth, and we're gonna have to, like, remember how to work with an infant, and you know, it's a humbling experience, but it's one that just, you know, when you rely upon the

Lord and you just take one day at a time, it's a real blessing, and I'm just,

I'm really thankful. I mean, I don't deserve a family. I don't deserve a wife and children, and I just don't deserve a household at all, but the

Lord is gracious. Well, I am thankful to God for my father -in -law.

My wife and daughter have spent the last week in Virginia, and I had to work, and we just decided that it was a good opportunity for my wife and my daughter to be with Grandma and Grandpa.

My wife's sister and her kids' brother and his wife and kids were all going to be in the same house, and since our daughter is an only child, we always wanted more.

That didn't happen for us, so they always wanted larger families, and when they go there, she has it.

Yeah. And it's in this godly house that John and Betsy have created, and it doesn't matter, well, of course it matters, but if one of the kids is straying a little bit and they come back, or if they're a little bit more estranged, or if one of the grandkids are a little bit more estranged, everybody knows

Grandma and Grandpa's godly home is safe, and that John is a great shot, former

Marine, so it's also safe for that reason. Actual protection. Actual protection. But, so,

I'm not able to get to Virginia to drive back with them, because I have to go back to work, so John is getting in the car, and he is coming back with Amy and Elizabeth, and he is going to be there the entire time.

He's going to be ministering and discipling, and just being Dad, and being Grandpa, and protecting them as they're coming all the way across, and that is the example that this man has set for his kids, and for his grandkids, and for those of us who've married into the family.

He's the patriarch. You know, he's the patriarch of the family. You know, patriarch is good for something, so, and that's what it's good for, and setting that great example.

So, I am truly thankful for him. Amen. I am thankful to God for those good works that have been prepared for us in advance, for us to walk in them, knowing that our labor, our faithful labor, is not in vain.

Amen. Sure, and very sweet. Well, I'm thankful to God for a kind of amalgamation of all y 'all's thankfulness, or the things you're thankful for.

We got to spend a lot of time with family two weeks in a row. Julie and Atlanta came up, actually two weeks before, but they came up and talk about big family, right?

You know, and we only had like half of their kids there, but everybody has spouses now, and it's just a full house, and we, any way we can, we try not to let anybody get left out.

Everybody gets a piece of something, a piece of the conversation, and you run with it. So, and we, one of the things

I'm thankful for in my family that we got to do this past weekend is enjoy the second weekend of rifle season, and dad always wanted to, he always dreamt of having a place for the whole family to come to during Thanksgiving.

You go out, you practice your red meat nationalism, and you come back in, you skin and quarter, and then you eat and watch the football game.

I left in the first quarter, but I got to do everything else. So, I'm very thankful for those types of things.

I hope and pray that my children grow up with that, that they grow up with my dad as grandpa and grandma, getting to teach them some of those, a little more of those practical things in order to become young men, and who knows?

We might have some young women in the family, but growing up with that is a wonderful blessing.

I enjoyed it when I had it, and I hope they have it as well. Well, that's all the time we have today for Have You Not Read.

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