Church Membership, Adding “P” to LGBT, Matt Chandler & Prophecy, Open Phones

Church Membership, Ecclesiology, and the Meaning of Membership Rolls

Welcome to The Dividing Line, Green, Colorado. It's too warm outside to be outside today. Sorry about that. I enjoyed sort of being in the FBI witness protection program, bright background, shadow thing.

But, I mean, it's nice and breezy, but it's over 90 degrees, and it's a little bit, I was smart enough to close all the windows, keep all the cool air in as much as I could. Anyways, we are live from up here in Colorado.

This should be the last time that I'm going to be on the road for a little while. I'm home, August. We should have some word, hopefully pretty soon, on the final arrangements for the debate in early September in Florida, where Michael Brown and I are going to be teaming up to debate two homosexuals.

We've wanted to do that for a long, long time, and finally it looks like that's going to happen. That'll be in early September. And then in early October, Israel, and hopefully going to try to work something out, maybe for Scotland, but not super, super long.

I mean, this is another three-week trip. I was three weeks out in May, overseas primarily, and not helping me get other things done. So we'll see. Anyways, all that meaning that we should be fairly regular with the program come August.

So, well, really starting next week. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens with that. We'll take phone calls a little bit later on in the program, won't open the phone lines up quite yet. Sometimes, you know, what comes up right as you're starting the program, you go, man, I got to address that.

I was directed to a Facebook article, and from Jason Pettigo, it was posted July 16th, 8 .37 p .m., anyone who was dismissed and those looking for a good church, let me encourage you to visit Rowlett's Baptist Church or any of the others mentioned in comments.

Well, the comments thread is fascinating enough. But it is a picture of a letter from Cave City Baptist Church. And in essence, what it is, is it's informing certain people that there has been, I guess what you would call a purge of the membership roles of the church, of people who basically haven't been showing up.

It specifically makes reference to, members are expected, first of all, to be faithful in all the duties essential to the Christian life, and also to attend habitually the services of this church, to give regular support in its causes, and to share in its organized work.

This letter is informing you that your name has been removed from the membership role of Cave City Baptist Church. It is our sincere hope that you are living a life of faith, and a life of faith is certainly more than having your name on a membership list.

It is about worshiping, studying God's Word, serving the name of Christ, and receiving the nourishment of the Lord's Supper. It is about gathering regularly with other sisters and brothers of the faith.

That is what is important. Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions. Now, what caught me is I started looking at the comments in this, and basically, if you actually believe in church discipline, if you believe—well, anymore, if you even believe that you should have an active membership role in a church—now, I've spoken on this subject before.

I don't know how you can do church discipline, which almost nobody does anymore anyways. How can you do church discipline if you don't have a role? How can you exclude someone from the Supper who is in a state of unrepentant sin if you don't know who the sheep are?

How can you be a shepherd if you don't know who your sheep are? The modern world that has gotten into this church-is-just-whoever-shows-up-on-a-Sunday attitude is far, far, far from the biblical standards by any stretch of the imagination.

And what was obvious—I mean, there was one here—now, before I read some of the comments, if there was no contact made, if this was just simply a, let's look at the roles, and if no one has given or darkened the door of this place in X amount of time, if there was no effort made to find out why people weren't coming, that would be the one reason to object to what has been done.

Now, I don't know if this church has elders, I don't know if they have a truly biblical ecclesiology, I have no—quite probably it might be, you know, pastor-led, deacons-type thing, you know, I consider that to be a sub-biblical ecclesiology.

But if there was an attempt to find out where these individuals were, why they weren't coming, were they going to another church, whatever it might be, then this would be something that would be a necessary and proper thing for a church to do.

You don't carry people on a membership role when you are not at all able to fulfill the requirements that you have to minister the Word of God to them, because they don't show up. They don't do what they said they were going to do.

Now, again, maybe this church doesn't have, you know, when you join the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, where I'm an elder, you have, you need to read the London Baptist Confession of Faith, you need to read the Constitution of the Church, you have a meeting with the elders, and we ask you questions, and do you understand your duties as a member of this church?

And those things are laid out in the Confession of Faith and in the Constitution, and voila. So if you don't do that, and people didn't know that they were supposed to show up, well, okay, that seems a little weird, but let's assume that most intelligent people would recognize the fact that if you're a member of a church, you're probably supposed to show up once in a while, and in fact regularly, and that your support is supposed to support that particular church.

Okay, with all that said, if there wasn't any attempt to contact people, okay, that's problematic. If there was, then this is what we do at PRBC. We have an annual meeting every year, and if someone has stopped coming, first of all, if they stop coming very quickly, they're going to be contacted.

But then before that annual meeting, if they habitually continue to do that and do not give any indication they're coming back, then they will be contacted one last time, and they will be informed. This is what you agreed to, and if you're not going to come to our church, we can't show up with the police and drag you into church.

This isn't a sacral society. And so if you're not going to come to our church, then you're not going to be on the membership rolls. We're not going to take any responsibility for attempting to shepherd you.

Well, oh my goodness. I would imagine that the same media sources that were hyping this, can you imagine if they got hold of just basic church discipline issues? If, you know, such and such a church has excluded someone from the Lord's table, and, you know, they put it in and you'd get the same kind of unbelievable comments that you see.

And it's amazing the number of Christians who—I didn't see anybody in here. Maybe I missed somebody, because, you know, the reply, reply, reply thing that you get replies going off into—you can't find stuff.

But the number of Christians who are saying this thing, well, come over to our church. Oh, so you want people who don't show up ever to just come over to your place. But what kind of thing is that? A bunch of people saying, well, come over to this church or come over to that church.

And then there was one—I mean, this is so—yeah, yeah, here, here. Kynthia Alice Rosgiel. And people wonder why I turned my back on religion and took up witchcraft. Well, also they have much nicer pot.

Yeah, okay. But then there's all this stuff, you know, dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign. Why would anyone want to go to that church? How disrespectful and insulting. I mean, wow. Really gave me a clear example, once again, we've talked about before, of how modern churchianity in America has little connection at all to anything that could be considered biblical as to a, you know, a proper ecclesiology, a proper recognition of the nature of the ordinances in the church.

Oh, goodness, what a mess that was, right then and there. And it's just one example that you could give over and over and over again of how few there are that take seriously the fellowship of faith being called to serve in a local church.

You know, the church hopping mentality, it's all about me, it's nothing about my service to others or giving myself in service to others. There's no Philippians 2 attitude amongst any of these folks. It is truly a troubling thing.

See, what should you expect from Facebook, but there you go. So I had just seen that, and it just struck me, and so I thought I'd mention it. The other thing, I guess we'll go ahead and open the phones.

We'll get to the phone calls in just a moment. 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341. Two other things. One was, you know, you get in trouble amongst certain people if you dare recognize great insight made by someone that they don't like.

And I get that. And this particular individual, I've even debated on the other side of this individual, but there are times when he just knocks it out of the park, and you've got to admit that he knocks it out of the park.

The Logic of “Adding P” to LGBT and the Sexual Revolution

Well, a couple days ago, Douglas Wilson posted an article called This Cavalcade of Concupiscence. Doug does like to use many words that require people to stop and use dictionary .com or go, you know, ask Siri a question or something like that to be able to figure out what he's talking about.

But I wanted to read a portion of this because I think he's smack dab on. Um, I believe that it's past time for us to add the P to our Congo line of kink. The reason we must add the P standing in for pedophile is that we have already in principle added the P.

This already happened with virtually no one noticing when it happened exactly. There is a difference between crossing the Mississippi and Minneapolis compared to Memphis, but you are crossing the same river in both instances.

Pedophilia has already been accepted by our culture. The only thing that remains for us to discover that this is so, and for lots of clueless evangelical cultural observers to smack their foreheads five years after the fact, who knew?

Why weren't we told? Why weren't we warned? My argument is an off for Tiore one, a how much more argument. If it is now legal for a minor to begin the process of transitioning with that process, including the use of hormone blockers to prevent the onset of puberty and to under the knife, which is a monumental and irreversible decision, shouldn't they be allowed to experience sexual activity of whatever kind they want?

If a child is competent to decide to allow a 35 year old surgeon to cut off her breasts, then why is it not? Is she not competent to allow a 35 year old surgeon to fondle them, which is the bigger decision, which was, which has the greater long-term consequences?

We can rest assured that there are, in fact, 35 year olds who do want to fondle them because there always are, and we can be equally assured that there are 35 year old surgeons, because money talks, who will want to cut them off.

Not only is this kind of iniquity legal and approved, but it is also hate to be critical of it. The reason disagreement is deemed hatred is because this kind of hatred of God loves to project, and you shall be hated of all men for my name's sake.

That is a classical example of projection. Progressivism is progressing all right, in tighter and tighter clockwise circles, approaching the sucking nadir of our drain to the sewers, which our demented salons and pubas want to call the apex of our enlightenment.

Now, admittedly, our laws are in a state of flux, and it might be a few years before everything is sorted out. Right now, in many states, if you fondle them, it is off the big house for you, while if you simply cut them off, your chances of a TED talk, a TED talk gig, and a book deal are pretty good.

Think about that. So there are what he calls angularities. We should allow ourselves some leeway for such inconsistencies to get ironed out. But here, but given the current state of our culture, which way that inconsistency is going to be reconciled is kind of obvious, and he is exactly right.

There are inconsistencies right now, but what you're seeing from the left is the push to get rid of those inconsistencies and to put into the form of the entirety of the law this kind of abject human anarchy and autonomy, because that's what the two things are.

So, well, there's more. I wanted to go to something else as well, but I just recommend the article simply because it points out in a very clear fashion the reality that, well, everyone saw the link. I imagine everyone saw the link to the TED talk, and I think it was a TED talk, presenting the idea that pedophilia is an immutable human sexual orientation, just like homosexuality or bisexuality or transgenderism or anything else.

Once you go there, and how could you not go there? How can a Birgefell not go there? Once you go there, there's no going back without a fundamental moral and ethical revolution to say, you know what? We took the wrong turn a long time ago.

We need to go back. We need to change all this. And I don't see any evidence yet that that's going to happen, and I'll be perfectly honest with you. As far as I can tell from church history and from the history of the world, the only time that a nation or a culture makes that kind of radical change is when some kind of major disaster befalls that society or that culture that causes them to rethink and to recognize the existence of God and his right to rule over his creation.

I don't see how a Western society that is blessed with material blessing can escape the malaise and apathy of prosperity so as to make that kind of radical change. And that means that's why judgment comes.

That's why I think we will see judgment upon Western culture, is because we continue down this road with our elites firmly in control of the steering wheel, even if there are a few bumps and a few hesitations along the way.

That's where they want to go, and that's what they want to do. One more thing before we start taking our phone calls. David, hold on just one moment. I was directed to Matt Chandler's recent sermon promoting a continuationist view of the concept of prophecy and encouraging a continuationist practice of prophetic words amongst the people of the Village Church.

Now, it would be worthy of—and I would imagine that there will be those who will do an extended review of—there weren't too many texts that were used, to be perfectly honest with you—but do an extended review of the sermon.

There was one particular portion that I wanted to play for you and make a brief comment on that before we go to our calls. Hopefully, this will be able to be heard. I'm not going to do this screen share thing.

It gets too complicated. But the audio should be fine. I hope it is. Let's find out. Let me, you know, that should be loud enough. If not, I can replay it. I'll let Rich know. So, let's listen to this one section.

So, we receive from the Lord a word that doesn't contradict the Scriptures, doesn't stand in contrast to the sufficiency of the Scriptures, but it personalizes the Scriptures. On the bathroom—. Okay, so he's defining prophecy.

Let me back it up here just a little bit. Let me do this a second time. I'll read it myself. This is—when we're talking about prophecy, this is what we think the Bible's talking about. Prophecy consists of Spirit-prompted, spontaneous, intelligible messages orally delivered to a person or community intended for edification or encouragement.

You with me? You tracking? This is what we mean—this is what we think the Bible means when it talks about prophecy. So, we receive from the Lord a word that doesn't contradict the Scriptures, doesn't stand in contrast to the sufficiency of the Scriptures, but it personalizes the Scriptures.

Were you able to hear that? I didn't see anything that said you were able to hear. Okay, good. Does not contradict the Scriptures. The example he gave of an impression of a pirate ship with guns being chased by a shark.

Well, yeah. How would you even place that into a category to even ask the question, does that contradict Scripture? And does not compromise Scriptural sufficiency. I guess that depends on what you think Scriptural sufficiency means or how you make application of it, but personalizes Scripture.

That was the part that made me go, because the example that he gave of a dream of a pirate ship with guns being chased by a shark. Now, I don't think he was saying that he had had that particular dream, but it was just an example, so I've just got to go with the example that he gave.

How does that personalize Scripture? It might personalize your experience, but I don't see how that personalizes Scripture. I really, really don't. I have, again, I mentioned briefly another time, but I think sometime down the road, because I've been doing a fair amount of reading on this, gotten some books, probably doing too much reading on it, but the story of Munster and the Anabaptists, and especially Jan Matthias and Jan of Leiden, good stuff to keep in mind when you start promoting this kind of why don't you go to a certain person and tell them this.

He had this guy come to him before he had his brain tumor and say that this charismatic told him that God was going to circumcise him, and through that circumcision caused him to become a father to many sons, and that after his operation and during the chemo and stuff, he remembered that and went, oh, that's what that was about, so he's got an experiential thing that's factoring into this interpretation of the text of 1 Corinthians 14.

I can guarantee you that, and I don't know if the text was actually exegeted before or after the sermon I listened to, because there wasn't any exegesis here. This was just story time. There wasn't any real proclamation of the text at all, so maybe the week before it had been dealt with or was going to be dealt with afterwards or I don't know.

But the whole concept of, well, we need something more here. What concerned me is he was actually encouraging the church to be seeking after this, and yet if this is something the Spirit does, you don't need to seek after it.

The Spirit's going to provide that in and of himself, and once you start encouraging people to do that, you're going to have a bunch of people running around saying, you know, this is my word for you type of situation, which you see how that has ended up in most charismatic circles and the abuse that ends up coming from that.

But the real question is how do you define scriptural sufficiency in light of this, and at the same time, how do you not fall into a the Spirit can't do anything but what I already understand of the Bible attitude?

Because I recognize that that's a danger as well. It doesn't seem to be as, well, I was going to say it doesn't seem to be as big of a danger, but I guess if you want to include all of the dead formal denominations in the list that maybe you could make a case, but we certainly have seen the chaos that results when you go the direction of those Anabaptists in Munster or the Charismatics today, because, well, like I said, I'll tell the whole story sometime.

We may just do a dividing line on that because it's pretty fascinating. So, I listened to that, and I just had to ask myself, I wonder what it was like after that service. What was going on? Because he was telling people, if the Lord places somebody upon your mind, then you need to go and you need to share that with that particular individual.

So, it must have been a pretty fascinating fellowship time after that particular service, and I just wonder how many pastoral problems are now going to be being dealt with. Don't get me wrong, like I said, if you've been a Christian for any period of time, there are going to be things that when you look back upon them were very supernatural in their origination and in their character.

But the things that I look back on over decades now of Christian service that strike me as the most supernatural experiences, miraculous experiences, were not things I was ever seeking for. In fact, they were surprising.

And they were almost always in the context of evangelism, upholding and defending Christian truth, most of the stuff that you hear about all the time, and that's not what it's about. And you know, when I look at walking by the Spirit in Scripture, but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh, for the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law, now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are, and you have the long list of things, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk or be under the control of the Spirit.

Let us not become boastful, challenging one another and being one another. You'll notice that what's around all this stuff is very much incredibly practical, godly living, holiness, sanctification. It would seem to me that the greatest supernatural activity of the Spirit of God is to be found in the sanctification of believers, not in our running around saying, well, I had a vision of pirate ships and a shark chasing, and it seems to be a very different thing.

Anyways, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, see, that's the way I can remind myself of it in case I end up forgetting. So let's go ahead and talk to David in New York. Hi, David. Hey, Dr. White. Hello, Dr. White, thanks for taking my.

Call. It's always a pleasure talking to you. Yes, sir. Hey, I have a question about Matthew chapter 27, verses 50 -54. So it says that when Jesus died, pretty much that the veil of the temple was torn in two, and the earth shook, and graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after the resurrection.

So I was having a conversation with some Jehovah's Witnesses again, and they said that everyone who's died since the beginning of the world are all still asleep in the grave. And so I referenced this scripture, I said, well, what about Matthew chapter 27?

They told me that it's not consistent with scripture, and that it only means that the earth shook so much that dead bodies rolled out of the grave and had to be reburied. So I was wondering if there was like a textual variant that I was missing, or did they really actually get up and walk around?

No, there's not a textual variant.

You're missing. Rich, I'm getting meat coming back at me big time this time, so I'm not sure if that's happening on your end or just what, but I'm hearing me much, much stronger than I did last time, so just letting you know that's there.

Hopefully you can still hear me as well. This is a text that evidently you might not be aware is the focus of a tremendous amount of controversy from about six or seven years ago, maybe now, when Dr. Mike Lycona put out a book, a lengthy book on resurrection, and basically identified this as a mythological text with apocalyptic overtones, which is a nice way of saying it didn't really happen, and I'm not really sure what in the world it's about, is what he was saying.

And so he was attacked by Norman Geisler for denying inerrancy, and it became sort of a, I don't know, a text that people argue about a lot. And so I have commented on it a number of times, because I certainly disagreed with Lycona, but I didn't agree with Geisler's approach to the response to Lycona.

And my Muslim friends like to pick this one up, and they call it the zombie apocalypse, and atheists use that. And in fact, in the debate between Lycona and Ehrman about six or eight months ago, maybe a little bit more now, that's what Ehrman called it, and Lycona agreed with the terminology, which I found very distressing.

So I have addressed this a number of times. There's no way that the Jehovah's Witness interpretation has any possibility whatsoever, because you'll notice that it says, the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

And so you have one term coming out of the tombs, and then Aethon, they entered into the city. It's not that they rolled down a hill or something. They entered the city and appeared to many. So there's no way that this is just simply some bodies that were kicked out of graves that people happened to walk by and see.

That's what a lot of people wanted to try to do. First of all, this is a limited number of people. And secondly, they would have had to have been people who had recently passed away. Why? Because otherwise they wouldn't have even been recognized for who they were.

It says they went into the holy city and appeared to many. So somehow they were known. Well, how would they be known? Well, they're wearing grave clothes. Well, I don't think that's what appeared would mean.

The idea would be that this is a symbol of the first fruits of the resurrection. Maybe these were people like Anna or Simeon who had been greatly looking forward to the Messiah. And so they're the ones who are raised up and they get to see the beginning of the proclamation of the gospel.

We're not told. But what isn't said is that all of the dead are raised. This is a small number, and it's localized around what's called specifically the holy city, which has been made holy by the sacrifice of Christ outside of its gates, I might point out.

And since it says they appeared to many, there's no way around the reality that these are not zombies or something. These were recognizable individuals who would have had some connection to people who were still alive at that time to know who in the world they were and therefore what the significance of their having been raised from the dead at the very same time that Jesus dies upon the cross would be.

There is no explanation given by Matthew. It is not mentioned by Mark or Luke or John, and therefore people just automatically dismiss it or do whatever else. But that ignores the fact that even John says if everything Jesus had done was been written down, the world itself couldn't keep all the books that would be written.

So the point is that each one of the authors of the Gospels has the right as an author to determine what he's going to say and what he's not going to say, what he's going to cover, what he's not going to cover.

And this is an instance where something takes place that only Matthew covers. Now, if you want to go naturalistic and go, well, why wouldn't Mark have mentioned this? Or why wouldn't Luke have mentioned this?

Or whatever else? There may be things that Matthew knew that Luke didn't. I mean, Luke says he interviewed people. Maybe he didn't interview someone who had been witness to this. Maybe because Matthew has a particular audience, primarily Jewish people, that they would find this partial resurrection something that was extremely significant.

There's all sorts of possibilities. And only if you take a naturalistic perspective and ignore all of that can you just simply dismiss it out of hand. But no matter what you do with it, you have to let it stand.

There is no question that it is a genuine part of the original writing of Matthew. Anybody who wants to say, well, this has been inserted later, zero evidence. Well, it wasn't in the original Hebrew Matthew, zero evidence of the Hebrew Matthew.

It's all speculation. You're just not wanting to deal with the text as it stands. It's there, and there really isn't any way around it. At the same time, you have to be careful about reading too much into it, try to expand it beyond the very limited few words.

I mean, it's literally maybe about 14 words or something like that, and there's no further explanation of it. So you have to allow for that to be the reality. Was that more than you wanted, or did that help?

No, that helped a lot. That was perfect. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thanks for your call. 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk to Micah. Hi, Micah.

Hi, Dr. White. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah, so you're tweeting in these beautiful Colorado landscapes. It's making me feel very confined in my office, so thank you.

Well, I'm only up here a few more days, so.

I'll get a few more of those pictures, and I'm heading back to the torrential rains and humidity and heat of Phoenix.

There you go. Well, enjoy your time away. I've got a question. I've been trying to formulate the question to you so I can simplify it, but it may be a complex question, but I think you'll know where I'm going as soon as I start.

So whenever you're talking to a Mormon, they always end up going back to this sort of burning of the bosom, this sort of subjectivism of, you know, you can point out to them, look, your version of Christ contradicts the Scriptures.

Your version of God contradicts the Old Testament Scriptures, and this is objectively true, but the response is, but I've got this present revelation, I've got this burning of the bosom, and so it ultimately leads to subjectivism.

When I'm talking to the Atheist, the Atheist will point out all these contradictions in Scriptures, and I will try to take him to context. I'll try to show objectively that these are not contradictions, but I know as a Reformed person that 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the natural man cannot accept the Spirit of God, that regeneration is required, the work of regeneration is required by the Spirit for a man to believe the Scriptures are from God and to believe the Gospel for the power of salvation.

So I guess my question is, how is regeneration different, and how does it not lead to subjectivism? How is it different than the Mormon's burning of the bosom? You see where I'm going with this question?

How is it different?

I suppose, I mean, there's two different categories there. The Mormon is making the claim that they are receiving a form of revelation that is consistent with the teachings of the Apostles of Jesus Christ.

Of course, they redefine the Apostles of Jesus Christ, but they talk about the Holy Spirit, and so they're making an almost revelatory claim, while at the same time, they actually deny the necessity of regeneration.

Regeneration is not a meaningful LDS category, because they have no meaningful doctrine of sin, so man doesn't need to be regenerated. Adam fell upward, according to Mormonism. So it sounds more like you're dealing with an epistemological issue, and what you've got is the contrast between the unhinged subjectivist who is accepting all sorts of contradictory, revelatory sources, such as the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and feelings, their own alleged testimony of the Holy Spirit are gone, over against an individual who likewise is unregenerate, places ultimate authority in their own intellect, or rejects the existence of the supernatural.

So I see a huge, huge category difference between the two. They each present their own real challenges as to how to deal with them. With the Atheist, you're having to deal with that individual presuppositionally, in the sense of placing them within the context of God's world that they have been made in, and demonstrating that they cannot live in the world that they've created, because they're living in God's world, so there's going to be inconsistencies in their thoughts and their actions, and so on and so forth.

Over against the Mormon, where you have claims of supernatural authority, but they're inconsistent and incoherent claims, and that even within Mormonism, one of the biggest problems that Mormonism has had is the balancing between the ideas of personal revelation and priesthood authority.

You may, you know, the Mormon male may have quote-unquote priesthood authority, but the problem with that claim is he can't then use that priesthood authority to contradict the teachings and actions of someone who has a higher priesthood authority.

So there is a necessary objective element within Mormonism. You can't have a system if it's just anarchy and everybody gets to decide what they want to believe, and so that's where Mormonism right now is actually struggling greatly.

And in my 30-plus years of ministry to Mormons, I have certainly seen that stress, that argument being worked out amongst the Mormons and going towards subjectivism. Mormons used to be significantly more confident of there being an objective basis to their religious faith, like the Book of Mormon actually being true, and the prophecies of Joseph Smith actually being verifiable.

They're losing that because the more study you do, the more scholarship is applied, the less those types of beliefs are at all credible, and that's causing a major—that's what's causing—one of the reasons that you're seeing a major, major opening of the back door within Mormonism, and a great widening of the spectrum of belief amongst Mormons as well.

But I do see a major category difference between the two, and so I'm not sure if that addressed your question or not.

Yeah, I think it's getting there. So if, for example, if you were dealing just with a skeptic in general, an atheistic skeptic who's obviously presupposing naturalistic worldview, and he's looking at me and I'm saying, look, I know the Scriptures are the Word of God because of its inherent qualities, so of its wisdom, of its power, of its truthfulness.

All of these are objective truths, and I see these objective truths, and the atheists are saying, I don't see them, why not? And I say, because you're unregenerate, you're a rebel against God, it's your nature.

And he looks at me and says, but that's what the Mormon said.

Well, see, I would not put it the way that you did. I would not say that the Bible is the Word of God because of these things. I would say these things are consistent with the claim that the Bible is the Word of God, but these things are not what prove that or demonstrate that.

They are consistent with the reality of the fact that we live in a creation where we communicate with one another. There is clearly a Creator in light of what we see around us, and that Creator has communicated to us, but we have to be very, very careful.

When you say, these things, this is why I know these things, if Scripture is the Anustos, then as an ultimate authority, there cannot be another authority that it appeals to to prove its truthfulness.

So, when you swear in a court of law, I swear, you know, by the Bible is how we used to do it, that what I'm going to say is true. What we're saying is, here is a higher authority than myself that I am going to appeal to, to guarantee the truthfulness of what I'm saying.

God can't do that. As Scripture itself says, you know, who's God going to swear by? There is nothing for Him to swear by, and thereby, if Scripture is His Word, if it is truly the Anustos, then there will be consistency with lesser authorities, but if you—and Christians do this all the time—but if you say, well, fulfilled prophecy proves that the Bible is the Word of God, now you have fulfilled prophecy as a higher authority to which Scripture is appealing to demonstrate its own inspiration, and that gives you an incoherent doctrine of Scripture.