F4F | Pirate Gang Conversation About Bad Discernment

Fighting for the Faith and the Call to Biblical Discernment

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough, I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

Now we have a special program set up today. I've invited my friends, the Pirate Gang, Stephen Kozar and Amy Spreeman, and we're gonna be talking about bad discernment. When we talk about the concept of discernment, it's important to note that Scripture requires us, in fact admonishes us, to be discerning, and there's a right way and a wrong way to do discernment, and unfortunately there are some people who are doing discernment, and they're doing it in such a way that they are behaving as smear merchants.

We'll talk about that and, you know, kind of bad discernment here in a moment, but let me switch up how we're viewing things here, and get my computer screen up, and turn on the microphones for Amy and Steve.

Hi Amy! Hi Steve! Hey Chris! Hey Chris, good morning! Good morning! So Amy Spreeman, you know, real quick, you've kind of put your Berean blog on the back burner for a while, you've got a fine vocation now working out in the in the nonprofit world, and Stephen Kozar, aside from being a painter who brushes with a single hair brush, you know, I don't know how you do that, you run the Messed Up Church blog.

Yeah, if you want to call it running the blog, it's more like scrambling for my life. I'm juggling so many things. I'm failing at all of them at one point or another, but yeah, the blog started as a tiny little blog you took me on, and so I kept growing it for about three, four years, and then I decided to make it its own website, so it had more categories, and it was easy to access information, and then I'm doing some stuff on my YouTube channel, making these little videos, which I really love, but now that I figured out just the bare essentials of making videos, I'm really hooked.

So yeah, I've been really busy. All right,.

Well very good. I will note that on Wednesday, we played one of your interviews, and I call it a messed up interview. I just saw that. Yeah, I got.

Joy in that. You know what's really funny? I know that my real official name is Stephen. That's what it says on the screen, but you called me Stephen in the intro to my interview with Rob Bowman. When we start our interview, by him asking me, should I call you Steve or Stephen, and I said, oh, nobody calls me Stephen, just my mother-in-law, and we had a laugh.

Well, I do. Yeah, so call me, just.

Call me Kosar. I just call you Kosar. How about if I call you late for dinner?

Well, but I got my drum right over there. I should have brought that in here. I.

Know you do. I've been in your basement. So now, Amy, real quick, you're not doing the Berean Examiner, but you are doing some discernment work online, and you've got a person that's doing the crime with you.

Tell me a little about your latest endeavor. Well, Michelle Leslie and I,.

Many of you know her. She's a fine discernment blogger. She leads Women's Bible Studies. She and I teamed up a couple months ago to launch a podcast just because we thought, you know, there are people who need to hear some things, and she's got a unique audience, and I do too.

So we started this, not really a blog, it's a podcast, and it's called A Word Fitly Spoken, and we're having a lot of fun with it. Yeah, yeah, we, once a week, we're on all the different channels, so if you want to tune in and let us know what you think.

But yeah, we're talking about how to, we actually had a show called How to Do Discernment, but one of many. Yeah, unfortunately it's needed. Yeah, and it has.

Always been, ever since I've entered into the discernment space. Now, I started off as a counter-cult apologist, and when I found that there were, like, megachurch pastors twisting the Bible as badly as the Mormons and the JWs, I was compelled to jump in, if you would, and start doing discernment work and saying, wait a second, as Christians, you know, pastors are supposed to rightly handle the Word of God, and it's really dangerous when they don't.

And that's when I made the switch. Now, a little bit of a note here, and that is that I'm actually formally trained as a Christian apologist, you know, so this goes back to my undergraduate work and other studies that I've done, formerly trained by Dr. Rod Rosenblatt, John Warwick Montgomery, I actually have a certificate from the International Apologetics Academy, and then I had a lot of training.

Yeah, it's true, I have that, Steve, I actually wrote a paper. You went to the same thing I did? I got to do it here in the States, I haven't actually been to Strasburg, but yeah. How did I not know that?

Yeah, I don't know, I don't talk about it.

That much. That's just, that's really interesting. Okay, sorry to interrupt.

Yep, so, and then, of course, then, you know, I have a seminary degree and other things, but, and also, you know, I was trained formally in, like, certain apologetic strategies and tactics from the late Bob and Gretchen Pazentino, who were, like, a lot of people don't know that Gretchen Pazentino was the ghost writer for Walter Martin.

And so, you know, so as somebody who's been doing apologetic and discernment work, you know, as, you know, really formally trained it and doing it for almost three decades now, man, I cannot believe the numbers are getting up that high.

But I would note, then, that my mentors always made it very clear that when it comes to discernment, when it comes to doing apologetic work, that you have to rightly make a distinction between error and heresy, and there was a lot of emphasis in my apologetic training in not engaging in what are called logical fallacies.

And what I find is, is that there are some, not all, but there are some people who are not formally trained, and even though they're not formally trained, they don't seem to be making any effort to rightly engage in discernment at all.

If you're not formally trained, if you apply yourself to this, the information is out there. But what ends up happening is, is that they kind of take on everybody, they make no distinction between error and heresy, and then all the good guys, you know, who are actually doing real discernment work get thrown under the bus, and it's all by guilt, by association, and bad logical fallacies.

And so we're gonna put them into the category of dirty smear merchants. These are, this is not discernment, and it doesn't serve the body of Christ. At the end of the day, discernment is a gift given by the Holy Spirit for the body for the purpose of identifying false teachers so that you can mark and avoid them, and this is a service done in love to neighbor and to the church.

When you are engaging in smear merchant and, you know, kind of yellow journalism kind of stuff, oftentimes the emphasis is not going to be on the truth, or what the Bible says, or even loving neighbor.

The emphasis is going to be on the person doing the discernment work, and their rhetoric, and things like that. Now Amy, before we get to the article, which we'll work our way through, because I have it up on the screen, we'll put a link down below in the description.

It's Discernment Tips, Clear Thinking Discernment by Stephen Cozart. I think it's a fine article, worth passing along. But, you know, talking about guilt by association, you recently, you know, like within the past year, you were invited to speak at a conference put on by Answers in Genesis, and there was somebody who was also invited who you had no idea about, this was a Jackie Hill Perry, who, you know, I would put her in the avoid like the plague category, and she's actually kind of proven that all on her own several times over now.

But, you know, she was also invited, but what ended up happening is that when the poster came out, I would say that there was a whole group of people doing discernment who engaged in this guilt by association thing, and threw you under the bus.

You're a hypocrite. You have no discernment, Amy. How dare you speak at a conference where Jackie Hill Perry is speaking? And walk us through what happened, because I think this is just a great case in point of how not to.

Do discernment. Right. Well, it took me by surprise. Actually, it was longer than a year ago. I would say it was almost two years ago now that Answers in Genesis invited me back. I had been there before for a conference in 2017 called the Discern Conference.

Fabulous. It was really a great experience, and I talked about the NAR, and so they invited me back to talk about, you know, this one's called the Truth Conference, and they asked if I would talk about some of the other different kinds of traps that we can get into theologically.

You know, so what are the top ten false teachings? That kind of thing. So I'm going to be doing that again. The conference isn't until this spring. So I put it aside. I knew what I was talking about. I sent my outline in, and I went on with my job, and my family, and my life.

And lo and behold, the roster came up, didn't even know, and one of the new invitees was Jackie Hill Perry. And of course, I knew that she was in the Avoid Like the Plague area, but I didn't realize that she was going to be at this thing until, I want to say, end of summer, early September.

I was sent a screenshot of not only the roster, but a whole bunch of comments from people saying what a traitor that I was to Christ for going to a Jackie Hill Perry event, which I don't know how that became a Jackie Hill Perry event.

But so I got actually some of the words that were used here. It's kind of funny now. Let's see here. Let's see. And I'm speaking with Phil Johnson, and Costigan was going to come, but he is having a, his wife is having a baby.

I think it's their fourth. So anyway, at the time, it was it was Phil and I and a few other people, Aaron Benziger. And it's like, Amy Freeman speaking at a conference with Jackie Hill Perry. I won't even say the name that this person called her, but it was just obscene.

Shame on you guys. Discernment without holiness is treason. So now I'm treasonous. You all have no excuse and you know better. You're not leading the discernment community. You're betraying it. And so that was the start.

That was one comment by one discerner.

Were you were you contacted by this person to, did they ask you to, you know, if you knew that Jackie Hill Perry was going to be speaking at the event, they made no effort to contact you at all.

Of course not. No, they just, you know, kind of, they kind of blindsided me. So I get this news that Jackie Hill Perry speaking one, that's a problem. Okay. But all of a sudden all of these people are pinging me and flooding my inbox and I'm hearing, you know, what, what's going on?

Why in the world? Don't you have any discernment? I trusted you. One woman said, I've listened to you for years and I'm just so disappointed in you.

Did you, did you betray Jesus with a kiss, Amy? That's what I want to know.

There was no kissing involved in this one, unfortunately. So go ahead, Steve.

I was just going to say to kind of give clarity to the issue, Jackie Hill Perry was not seen as somebody to avoid like the plague just a couple of years ago.

Right. Or even, you know, even earlier this year. So yes, she has, you know, not really been exposed a lot. And up to that point, a lot of people didn't really understand. So so I, you know, called up the conference organizers and they were wonderful.

I voiced my concerns in a very polite way and said, look, you know, here's the concern that that I have with her. Here's what she teaches. Here's, of course, what the Bible says. And they said, thank you.

You know, let us, you know, this it's not as easy as, you know, pushing a button and pulling a plug. We need some time to go through what this conference, you know, how to do this. And so it's like, great.

I put it in their hands. They discussed it. And in the meantime, as they were discussing it, Jackie Hill Perry kind of imploded. She appeared with some other false teachers, Christine Cain and a few others.

She has said some really wild even more. I mean, she she really kind of showed her hand in during this time. And sure enough, I got an email saying, yes, we've disinvited her. Thanks for voicing your concerns.

We checked it out for ourselves. You're right. Like a Berean would do. Right. So but they said, you know, please, you know, we're getting our replacement here. We're just give us a few days and then, you know, we'll make please let us make the announcement.

You know, we don't want it to be coming from anybody else but us. Understood. Of course. And so I just laid low. And in the meantime, of course, I'm getting all these emails saying, you know, what a traitor I am.

So so, yeah, 10, 10, 15 years of discernment work down the tubes because of because of this. So anyway, yeah, finally, as she was being disinvited and the news got out and people were sharing answers in Genesis's news statement, of course, nobody came back to me and said, wow, we're really sorry.

No, of course. That's OK. I don't need that, though. You know. Yeah. I mean, I was very satisfied with how they handled it. And I'm satisfied with the.

Outcome. All right. So, I mean, as soon as you found out, OK, wait a second, there's somebody who probably shouldn't be, you know, at this conference. You immediately contacted the conference coordinator and said, listen, I got a problem with this person.

Right. Right. Nobody at all, you know, contacted you ahead of time and said, hey, Amy, I don't know if you know, but Jackie Hill Perry, she's kind of bad news. You know, nobody you nobody. So everybody just assumed, oh, my goodness, Amy Spreeman is sold out.

She's she's she's in it for herself. She cares nothing. She is just a discernment facade. She's a total hypocrite. And and all this kind of it's all about the money. Right. Money and.

Fame. Don't trust me, folks. When you want money, for instance, speak, you cover your plane fare or whatever it is, you have to get there. And that's what.

It's for. Right. You get a small honorarium. Yeah. And I mean, but and.

That's and that's a wonderful gift. That's a wonderful thing. But you don't do it for for that, you know. So and during this whole time, I didn't want this to play out in the tab light tabloids. And, you know, that would have just been a mess.

And so, yeah, I just you know, everything was handled behind.

The scenes perfectly. So, yeah. But the people who who tarred and feathered you, they actually broke one of the real commandments. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. They slandered you.

And then they took.

Screenshots of my, you know, everything that I did. They took screenshots and threw it out there. And, you know, not that I mean, yeah. Yeah. This this is.

Not discernment. That that's just that's that's just lazy guilt by association nonsense. Now, a little bit of a note here. I always make a distinction between alter and pulpit fellowship and true worship within a congregation as being a sign of real unity.

And then my my policy is, is that if I'm invited to a conference and, you know, and there's going to be somebody there who is sketchy, I always kind of work work with the idea conference doesn't equal worship.

And my appearance at a particular conference or me inviting somebody to a particular conference is not an endorsement of anyone, anyone's theology, period. So, for instance, a couple, in fact, not in twenty nineteen, but in twenty eighteen at the Pirate Christian Radio Conference, I invited Phil Johnson, you know, and everybody knows Phil Johnson works for John MacArthur and Phil Johnson is a reformed Baptist.

I'm a confessional Lutheran. And so one of the things I always find like kind of really ridiculous is that the guilt by association thing breaks down because, you know, it's like, all right, so are you saying that because Phil Johnson spoke at the Pirate Christian Radio Conference that he's now a confessional Lutheran or that I'm a reformed Baptist, you know?

And then, you know, and then I think about Todd Wilkin and Jeff Schwarz. I mean, every year they do the issues, etc., making the case conference. And there's certain speakers that they invite who are not confessional Lutherans, but they're experts in their particular field in which they work.

And so you get one guy who's a media guy and he's an Eastern Orthodox guy, okay? And then you got guys who are who are really astute as far as what's going on with like the political realm and the problems within the culture, and they're Roman Catholics.

And so, you know, what ends up happening is that the smear merchants sit there and go, oh my goodness, issues, etc. can't be trusted. They're endorsing Rome now. No, they're not. Just because you've invited a guy who's Roman Catholic to speak on a political topic doesn't mean that you're endorsing Rome.

This is, you know, I always want to ask the question, did your mama drop you on your head? I mean, this is just not even good logic, okay? And so the idea here is that guilt by association is a logical fallacy.

And in fact, there's one particular smear merchant who a while ago called me out for being a hypocrite because I didn't criticize John MacArthur for endorsing Beth Moore. And it's like, what? What do you mean John MacArthur endorsing Beth Moore?

And the way he argued it is, well, John MacArthur is good friends with John Piper, right? And John Piper spoke at an event, you know, at the Passion Conference where Beth Moore was. And so because John Piper didn't rebuke Beth Moore, and then, sorry, because John Piper didn't rebuke Beth Moore, this is really convoluted.

We need a flowchart. Yeah, you do, you do. I call this the poop stink theory of discernment. But anyway, because John Piper didn't, you know, censor Beth Moore, and then John MacArthur invited John Piper to speak at a conference after the fact, that meant that John MacArthur was tacitly endorsing Beth Moore, and that I was a hypocrite for not calling him out for it.

And you just sit there and go, what are you talking about? This is nuts. I mean, not only does this show this person has like no theological training, none, no apologetics training, his main shtick is just putting forward guilt by association arguments, and this is like sizzle without any bacon, and people are attracted to the sizzle, you know?

But again, this isn't serving the body of Christ at all. And so I would note then, and kind of in this regard, that being trained by Dr. Rod Rosenblatt, as one of my major mentors, Rod Rosenblatt for decades was one of the regular people who was part of the radio program, The White Horse Inn.

I don't know if you're familiar with The White Horse Inn, but I mean, it's a fun program. So I mean, they've got a guy who's an Orthodox Presbyterian, you got a Reformed Baptist, you got a Confessional Lutheran, and they're not shooting at each other, and granted, there are serious differences theologically between all those camps, but rather than shoot at each other, they treat each other as Christian brothers, because they make a distinction between what is considered to be secondary and tertiary issues as opposed to primary issues.

And so, you know, and so I mean, Amy, I invited you to one of my conferences, and you did a whiz-bang job talking about the NAR, and from what I understand, you don't attend a Confessional Lutheran Church, so I must endorse wherever you go to church, right?

I see how this works now. Yeah, yeah, this is just a pee-and-shell game. Again, this isn't discernment, and this doesn't serve the body of Christ. Now, when somebody flat-out teaches the same thing as a false teacher, or endorses a false teacher, now that's a horse of a different color.

Why Discernment Requires Distinguishing Error From Heresy

So Steve, we're gonna scroll down through your article here, and you've written about some bad discernment categories, okay? Yeah. And I always like how you go with the negative, it's always fun. And so one of the things that is kind of a major problem, and I see this in the charismatic movement, is you describe this as, discernment is a mystical process where you feel what is true.

And so I always find it fascinating when you have Jennifer LeClaire, you know, talk about the need for discernment, and it's like, my head goes, you know, it's just silly. So tell me, what is this mystical process that you're writing about here?

Well, you know, I think it is centralized in the charismatic movement for sure, but this mystical understanding of spirituality in general has really permeated all of evangelicalism. We think the Bible is important, we think that the Bible is God's Word, yes, but God really works in the most important way, in our hearts, in an internal way, which Martin Luther called enthusiasm, which is a confusing term for people today, but it basically means that outside of God's Word, we get God's Word.

And it's an emotionally-based, feelings-based version of God's Word, and it's an individual message that we think we're getting from God that has to be somehow confirmed by God's Word, which raises the question, okay, if you have some internal feeling-based idea that you think is God's Word, but it has to be confirmed by testing it with God's Word, why don't you just stick with the Bible?

Cut out the middle process, would you? You'd save some time. But it turns into this really, honestly, it's like Christian fortune-telling, it really is. I feel like God is saying blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and if you want to look at every major train wreck in recent Christian history, really in almost all of Christian history, it comes back to somebody saying, I feel like God is saying this, and I think, I feel like God is doing that, or even, I don't say this very often, but I heard the audible voice of God telling me to blah blah blah, and it's usually something that.

Goes against God's Word. Right, exactly, and of course I think Kosti Hinn does a great job of pointing out that the person who hears directly from God, now they become the glow-in-the-dark holy person that, you know, and of course, I always, you know, think back to when I was in the charismatic movement and evangelicalism, and you know, somebody would say they were hearing the voice of God, I'd sit there and go, I never hear the voice of God, how come God doesn't talk to me, you know?

And so discernment isn't based upon feelings, discernment, okay, people who do real biblical discernment, you're not a Jedi, okay? In fact, I would argue that even if God has given you a gift for discernment, that gift is honed through application, applying yourself to the written Word of God, and really studying it properly, you know, and so this will require you to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, watch this, mind and strength, or as Jesus said, those who worship me will worship me in spirit and in, get this, truth, you know, and God's Word is truth.

So put the Jedi discernment stuff away, it's this, it don't work like that, you know, in fact, the people who are feeling discernment, yeah, you're doing it wrong,.

So, all right. Well, there's the understanding that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, again, outside of God's Word. The Holy Spirit does speak to us through God's Word, it's all one in the same, and it's really important, when I was in the charismatic movement, and I would bring up, this is a year or so before I left, I would say, we got to get back to the Bible, we got to get back to the Bible, and the response usually was, yeah, but we need the Spirit too, we need the Word and the Spirit.

There was always this false dichotomy that if you had too much Bible, you would somehow be leaving the, the Holy Spirit was always going, hey guys, what about me, quit reading your Bible, don't forget me.

Yeah, you have to do it.

With the right voice, though. I know, you can do the voice better. Hi, this is the Holy Spirit, and I'm really sad because you're like, reading your Bible, and you've like, totally left me in the dust.

You've forgotten all about me. I'm sorry, but the way they describe the Holy Spirit in these groups, I mean, he sounds so utterly powerless. I mean, he wants to do stuff, can't accomplish it, you know, and the thing is, is that Scripture is so clear on this, that all Scripture is theanoustos, it's God-breathed.

The book of Hebrews says it's living and active. Peter writes about the fact that the Word of God, you know, no prophecy came as a result of a man's opinion, but as people were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And so the idea here is that, and this is an important bit, is that because we all have the same revelation, the same voice of God, we have an anchor point where we can all say, definitively, that's God's voice.

God is speaking to us presently, not passively, but presently, he is speaking actively to us through his Word, and we all have this Word together, but when somebody says, I'm receiving direct revelation from God, what they end up doing is creating a theological sect that, you know, and where you've got people sitting there going, well, I don't think that's really God's voice, and you have other people going, oh yeah, that's God's voice altogether.

And this is what led to Mormonism, this is what led to, you know, a lot of the different sects that are out there. And no, God is speaking to all of us through his Word, and I always point back to what Jesus says in the Great Commission, that all authority has been given to him, and that we are to make disciples of all nations, disciples or learners, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then listen to the curriculum, teaching all that I have commanded, all right?

So Christ has given us a limited body of work that we are to work from in discipling the nations, and that's all that he has commanded. Now the question is, where can I go to find the things that Christ has commanded?

Well, I can only know of, I only know of like one source, and that's the Bible in its totality, but you think about the fact that Jesus put a stamp of approval, yeah, thanks for the visual on that, Stephen, that Christ has given his approval to the Old Testament, has made it clear that God has spoken in the Old Testament, and he's the one who sends his disciples who become the Apostles, and he says to them, the one who hears you hears me, all right?

So you know, it's pretty straightforward, anything written after the death of the Apostles, or spoken after the death of the Apostles, I'm not so sure that's the voice of God. In fact, I should be highly skeptical of it, and in fact, I have yet to hear a compelling reason why I should believe anybody claiming to hear directly from God today, or even in the last 2 ,000 years since the death of the Apostles was truly.

Hearing from God. Well Chris, I can speak on the female side, I hear a lot of women Bible study teachers, and I put those in bunny quotes and air quotes because they're not really teaching the Bible, they're teaching their own thoughts and feelings, and I've written a book and it's all about my experiences, but one of the common themes that I hear from these women is, yes ladies, God does speak today, he does speak, and he never disagrees, his voice that you hear never disagrees with Scripture.

And so you get these women going, oh yeah, that sounds like discernment, so if we know that it's not disagreeing with Scripture, that voice has to be God, right? And so I just, you know, and it happens all the time, I've heard it so many, they must all have the.

Same playbook, because they say it exactly the same way. Yeah, so Amy, you're saying that God has never spoken to you audibly, telling you to brush somebody's hair in an airport. I unfortunately don't get those kind of.

Downloads, there must be something wrong with me, so... You're just not holy.

Yeah, you're just not holy. Alright, next one, Steve. I do have the spirit of sarcasm, though, so anyway. Oh, me too, yeah, in spades. It was on my gifts summary.

Alright, you know what was on my gift test? I'm sorry, I keep... No, no, no, go ahead. Discernment. Which is hilarious, because the Bill Hybels-esque church that I took these spiritual gift tests, actually disagreed with what my test said.

It's.

Like, what's this right here? Interesting. Alright, so Steven, moving along, discernment starts with abandoning all previous theological systems and avoiding all previous teachings from church history.

Well, I think that point.

One, that discernment is mystical, and it's just me and my Bible, and I'm gonna figure it out for myself, that's a real common direction that people go. And it's good that they only want the Bible to be influencing what they believe, that's great, we all agree with that.

But when you say, I can't learn anything from anybody who's ever lived, who's ever studied the Bible in all of church history, you know, because theology is bad, then you're saying, I'm basically gonna hear from God myself and get my own version with my own theology.

And I wrote in this little article, it might sound exciting, and I think that's a big part of it. Oh, I'm gonna figure this out for myself, and it's like a Da Vinci Code sort of thing. I'm gonna find out the real secret stuff, because everybody else has gotten it wrong up till now.

What's the real chalice of Christ? Yeah, yeah, but so I wrote, God has given us His Word, and we've had almost 2 ,000 years of teachers to help us understand it, so why would you want to throw that all away and start from scratch?

That's the really big point I like to make to people. You don't know anything about the theologians who have come before you, because nobody teaches this stuff anymore, and you don't know what you don't know.

So why don't you at least dip your toes into this idea that maybe there's something you can learn from the past. Maybe there's something you can learn from church history about the true Protestant Reformation, for instance, which is where I'm always directing people to the White Horse Inn, because even though I'm a confessional Lutheran, I want people to hear the White Horse Inn to hear these men who are from different denominational backgrounds who all agree about the core aspects of the Gospel message, and they also agree about the core aspects of pop evangelicalism that have gone astray.

And it's from that starting point that I think you can then say, oh, I see a Reformed Baptist sees things this way, whereas a Presbyterian sees things a little bit different over here. Oh, and I now a confessional Lutheran sees things in this way, and I see where they agree and disagree.

It's really useful to understand all those viewpoints before you just jump on to something from one guy or one church and think that you've kind of got it all now, and I don't need any more of that history, I.

Don't need any more of that theology. Right. Yeah, and in this regard, too, I there was a Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown's sister was writing a essay on church history, and I forget what her name was.

Sally. Sally, Sally, Sally. She's writing, and it says, you know, church history essay at the top of the paper. My pastor was born October 7, 1932. You know, so church history, that's the thing about evangelicalism.

Church history does not go beyond, like, the present day, you know, at all, and so this is bad. And what ends up happening, too, then, is that people think that today's modern manifestation and theology of the Roman Catholic Church is somehow the thing that was taught in the ancient Church, and it's not.

And what ends up happening is that when somebody comes out of the Roman Catholic Church, they rightly want to, you know, disregard and, you know, eschew all of the false teachings of Rome, but what ends up happening is that then they get into the bad case of, like, Romaphobia, and so, like, everything that Rome teaches is false, and so Rome teaches the doctrine of the Trinity, so the Trinity is bad, you know.

Rome teaches that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, therefore Jesus can't be God in human flesh, and so everything hinges on, well, Rome teaches it, therefore it's wrong. It's like, this is not how church history is done, you know.

This is just not how this works. And then I remember years ago, you know, I'm a confessional Lutheran. If you want to know what I believe regarding baptism, on the Fighting for the Faith website, just type in Lutheran Doctrine of Baptism.

I actually put together a PDF, you know, and put this account out there that, you have a heretical view of baptism. So I wrote him back, I said, listen, I believe exactly what the Bible says about baptism, and I sent him the verses.

And so he immediately wrote me back, and he goes, well, you know, none of those verses have anything to do with baptism. It's like, are you serious? So what I did is I actually spent some time, it actually took me a little bit of time to pull this together, I put together, you know, all of the verses that I sent him, and then quotes from the ancient church fathers up to like the fourth century.

So be like from first century all the way up to like Augustine or something, right? And how they understood these texts. And I sent this off to this guy, and no joke, he said, every one of the people you quoted, they're heretics.

And it's like, are you nuts? How could they be heretics? Every single one of them, if you take a course in church history, they are the defenders of Christian orthodoxy, you know? We're talking about Irenaeus, we're talking about Polycarp, we're talking about Augustine, we're talking about the Council of Nicaea here, you know?

And so when I said that, he actually wrote me back and says, well, your problem is you Lutherans take the Bible too seriously and too literally. You know, it's like, this isn't discernment, you know? So the idea here is that, listen, I completely agree Rome's apostate.

That being the case, the doctrine of the Trinity is a core fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, and to deny it puts you outside of the Christian faith, you know, regardless of the fact that Rome believes it, okay?

So, you know, and this is where you have to make a distinction between real heresy, which touches on core doctrines, and errors, which don't put you outside of the Christian faith, but, you know, just mean that you're wrong in that regard.

And the Bible actually clearly explains all of that. All right, moving along, discernment means latching on to the teacher who's the most extreme smear merchant. And boy, there are some people who are really good at that.

What do you.

Mean by that, Steve? Well, I mean, I think if you start with point one and then point two, it's not uncommon to come to point three, because you think that I'm hearing from God personally, I'm getting, you know, individual messages just for me, and I've rejected all the other teachers in church history.