Lecture Q&A

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A follow up to the biblical teaching from July 22nd, 2023

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So by the way tomorrow's divine service is going to be a little longer than normal we have
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We legitimately have a lot of things to do So one of the things that we're going to be doing tomorrow is that we have acquired a paschal candle which is kind of a big deal
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And if you're not sure what a paschal candle is think of it as like the granddaddy of all candles, okay?
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Good way to put it But I need to share my screen. Hang on a second here.
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Let me do this I in fact, I need to do it in two different ways. Hold on a second here I'm gonna go screen mirroring and we're going to go to the great room
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All right And y 'all can see that and then let me go to zoom and see if I'm able to share
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I don't know if it'll let me I am I'm a participant. It doesn't allow me to do that All right.
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Hang on a second. We got got it. You got to change my status to host So I am now the host which means
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I can share my screen. All right So as part of the service tomorrow at the very beginning of the service
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There's a there's a little right that normally takes place on the
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Easter vigil But since we're acquiring our paschal candle Outside of the
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Easter vigil and we'll use it until until then and we'll get it We'll acquire a new one.
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Then a paschal candle basically is a large candle In fact, the one that we have looks exactly like what was that?
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It's three feet tall two inches thick and This is the one that we have
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This is the one that we have which is the Cairo Symbol oftentimes will have a cross and then along with it.
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They give you five nails To you know to put in the different parts of the cross itself so since we don't have a cross we'll put it we'll make the sign of the cross with the nails and then the one that one will be in the center than in the in the symbol for the
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Trinity so We will be putting that into into rotation here and so every single
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Sunday then the paschal candle will be lit as long as well as our altar candles and you know kind of a big deal in the idea of visible representation of the
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Physical presence of the the presence of Christ is a good way to think of that So that will be the opening tomorrow.
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Then we're going to also be bringing Hannah Sylvester into membership tomorrow and And then there's there's one other thing planned.
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I don't know if I'm I can talk about it I can't talk about there's one other thing planned. Just make sure everybody's here best way
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I can describe it So tomorrow will be a busy busy Service and plus Emmanuel Lutheran Church, which is the other physical congregation in Minnesota that I that I pastor
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They will be joining us tomorrow. So I won't have to leave in a rush, but you know
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There's a really good chance We're gonna have a very brief if not a non -existent
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Bible study after the divine service departs Depends on how long it takes us to get through everything. So and I might have to prepare three to four
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Communion hymns, you know Just just saying I might have to throw that in and and if you haven't noticed that Nikki in preparing the kids, you know and teaching him that particular him that's our closing him tomorrow
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So, you know, so Nikki is really good at like reading minds and stuff. So How she pulled that out of thin air is just amazing so but Anyway, so I let you know the things that are coming up tomorrow will be a busy day
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I'm still trying to figure out mentally how to get past karaoke tonight. So that I Just decided
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I'm just gonna go for it. So that's all there is. I don't care how off -key I sing It's just gonna be it's gonna be bad.
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All right, so Bible answer man questions came up coming in So you can submit your questions here Jeff Kenny asked.
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Can you explain John 6? verses 61 through 64 in relation to its context of Jesus doubling down about Eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
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Yeah, that's it. That's a good question and You are allowed to ask questions regarding anything but in the
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Gospel of John chapter 6 I always like to refer to this this chapter of the
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Gospel of John as the great church shrinkage Chapter and the reason being is is that at the end of this
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There are a lot of people who no longer walk with Christ And I use this in throughout its history as a as Throughout my history of doing
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Christian apologetics as a proof text against the purpose -driven and secret -driven movements, which are all about numerical growth without any kind of qualitative understanding of the scriptures
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We're gonna get it. We're gonna grow a church to 10 ,000 people and every one of them will have this much knowledge of the scriptures
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They found that you can attract people to come to church If you get rid of the scriptures and you get rid of hymns and you get rid of any kind of meaningful
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Understanding of scripture instead you teach pagans what they want to hear they'll come to church
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But then does it continue to be church? So in the Gospel of John? So let me let me put this in quite in Context because I could see how somebody taking this out of context would somehow make it seem like Christ is not saying
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That he's somehow saying that the flesh doesn't that doesn't avail anything and that this would somehow be an evacuation of what
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Christ says earlier so in the opening portion of John chapter 6 Jesus feeds the 5 ,000 pay attention to that miracle because aside from the resurrection of Christ this is the only miracle that appears in all four
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Gospels and You have to know your Old Testament to understand the significance of it
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But the basic idea here is that you got you got 5 ,000 Jews, these are men plus their wives and their kids
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All present in this wilderness place and they are miraculously fed food this invokes the
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Exodus and invokes the wilderness wanderings of Egypt and in John's account of this miracle what ends up happening is is that they
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Realized who Jesus was and so when the people saw the sign that he had done
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They said this is indeed the Prophet who's coming into the world It's him right and then perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force to make him
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King Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself And when evening came his disciples went down to the sea got into a boat started across the sea to Capernaum It was now dark and Jesus had not yet come to them
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The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing and when they had rode about three or four miles
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They saw Jesus walking on the sea. Have you ever wondered why was Jesus walking on the water?
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It was not because he thought it was really cool Okay, he was not out there surfing going hang ten, dude
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None of that the whole purpose of him walking on the water was to leave no footprints while he skedaddled
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Because he didn't want them to make him King by force. It was to throw them off His trail and of course, there's a whole lot of other things going on here
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And you'll note it's only the Gospel of Matthew that records that Peter Then when they saw
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Jesus asked that, you know, if that's really you then let me come and walk on the water So when when this text comes up in the next few weeks,
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I will not be admonishing you all to become water walkers Okay, just one
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I just want to assure you that that that seems like a crazy thing to do it a twisting of the text and so on the next day, then the crowd catches up with Jesus and You know
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He had crossed the sea and so it says in John 6 25 when they found him on the other side of the sea
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They said to him rabbi. When did you come here? because they can't figure out how he got there because normally that would require a boat and they know they knew that Jesus didn't get into the boat when his disciples got into theirs
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Okay, hang on a second All right. Hang on. So we're getting an echo
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All right. All right fixed Hang on almost there. How's that?
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Is that better? I got it. All right, so moving on then It then says that when they found him, they said rabbi.
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When did you come here? And then Jesus at this point? he is going to Say some things that are really hard Don't make a lick of sense
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Truly truly I say to you you're seeking me because You not because you saw the signs because you ate your fill of loaves do not work for food that perishes
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But for the food that endures to eternal life Which the Son of Man will give to you for on him
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God the Father has set his seal So then they said to him what must we be doing to do the works of God?
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works plural Jesus answered that this is the work singular of God that you believe in him whom whom he has said
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So they said to him. Well, then what sign do you do that? We may see and believe you what work do you perform?
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Our father's ate the manna in the wilderness as it is written Gave them bread from heaven to eat and Jesus said to them truly truly
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I say to you It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven But my father gives you the true bread from heaven
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For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world
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Say what Okay, so the manna of the wilderness that was bread coming down from heaven and It is a type and shadow of Jesus the true bread of God who comes down from heaven
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And everyone's going Okay, well sir, give us this bread always and then
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Jesus said I am the bread of life Whoever comes to me shall not hunger whoever believes in me shall never thirst
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But I said to you that you have all you have seen me and yet you do not believe All that the father gives me will come to me whoever comes to me
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I will never cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will But the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me
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But raise it up on the last day For this is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the Sun and believes in him should have eternal life
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I will raise him up on the last day. You can take that one to the bank All right.
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I Recently did a video Where I took somebody to task for their misreading and their misunderstanding of the parable of the ten virgins right if if oil becomes the thing that is the difference between salvation and Damnation there is only one thing that that oil can represent and That's faith in Christ.
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If you make it anything else, then you're creating a schema whereby you have work salvation by works
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Right and Christ is clear Everyone who looks on the Sun and believes in him should have eternal life and God Christ will raise him up on the last day
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So the Jews grumbled about him because he said I'm the bread that came down from heaven
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What is that what does that mean right so you'll know they were confronted with a biblical concept
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That didn't make a lot of sense on the surface this requires
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Patience and working through and learning so they said is this not Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know
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How does he now say I have come down from heaven? Jesus said to them do not grumble among yourselves
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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day I will in other
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Lessons, I've dug deep into the Greek verb here. How kuo literally means to drag something against its will
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So no one can come to me unless the father drags him against his will into the kingdom That's exactly what happened to all of us as it is written in the prophets and they will be taught by God Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me
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No one not that anyone has seen the father except he was who was from God He has seen the father truly
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I say to you whoever believes has eternal life again Take that to the bank.
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I am the bread of life. Now your father's ate the manna in the wilderness and they died
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This is the bread that comes down from heaven He's pointing to himself so that one may eat of it and not die
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I am the living bread that came down from heaven if anyone eats of this bread He will live forever and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh
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Do all right, so the Jews then disputed among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?
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Now I've said it before I'll continue to say it Jesus doesn't sit there go whoa, whoa, whoa slow down there guys That's crazy talk.
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You know what? I really you know, I'm talking symbolically here Yeah, of course Nobody can eat my flesh.
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That's just gross. Okay Jesus doesn't do that. He doubles down so Jesus said truly truly
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I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and Drink his blood you have no life in you
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Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has Eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day for my flesh is true food
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My blood is true drink whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him
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I have you heard the concept of abiding in Christ. How does one do such a thing? I would note it has a lot to do with the
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Lord's Supper, right as The Living Father sent me and I live because the Father so whoever feeds on me
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He also will live because of me This is the bread that came down from heaven not like the bread the father's aid and died whoever feeds on this bread will live
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Forever that's a good promise. Every time we have the Lord's Supper those promises are there for you All right.
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Now when many of his disciples heard this they said this is a hard saying who can listen to it In other words, we're out of here we're done with this guy
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Jesus knowing himself that his disciples were rumbling about this said to them. Do you take offense at this?
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Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before it is the Spirit who gives life
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The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life
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But there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning Who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him?
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and he said this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the
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Father and After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him So Jesus said to the twelve.
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Do you want to go away as well? They just experienced a complete shrinkage of the disciples, right
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Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life And we believe that you have come and have come to know that you are the
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Holy One of God Jesus answered did I not choose you the twelve and yet one of you is that is a devil
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Spoken of Judas Iscariot. So the question then is in here in the midst of this 61 to 64 where Christ says it is the
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Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all That is not a denial of what
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Christ said previously in the other in the just above this in this chapter What he's talking about is how one understands the words of Christ If God the
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Holy Spirit does not assist you you will never rightly Understand the biblical texts.
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Okay, and that's the point. He's he's saying do you take offense at this? Why have these people taken offense at the truth that Christ spoke?
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That unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have life in you Answer the reason they took offense at that is because the
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Holy Spirit hadn't given them the proper way to understand it They were interpreting it basically using their own their own reasoning and That's the point that Jesus is making and this is one we have to take pay careful attention to in the scriptures
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There are things that seem contrary to reason how many of you heard people say things like this a
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Miracle is a breaking of the laws of nature, but we know that it is impossible to break the laws of nature therefore ergo
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Miracles are not possible As If there's some kind of a you know a traffic cop, you know
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Sitting right outside of Jesus's, you know ministry meeting right and as soon as Jesus performs a miracle
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You know pull over right? I'm citing you for breaking the laws of nature
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Right, okay, but here's the thing You're gonna note the whole framework where a person denies
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The miracles are possible That's them trying to understand things according to human reason and according to the flesh
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You need human reason to apprehend what the scriptures teach for sure but you cannot and must not use your human reason for the purpose of negating what the scriptures says and That's where so many people go wrong and they'll argue this way they'll say things like this
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Well, clearly it's not Possible for Jesus to offer us his body in blood for us to consume in the
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Lord's Supper Because and they'll go like this this in fact this if you've ever read the Marburg Colloquy, it's just it's an absolute scream
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Zwingli and oculum pedias, you know, they show up in order to debate with Luther regarding the
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Lord's Supper And their big argument was we know from experience
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That it's only possible for a human body to be at one place at one time
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Uh -huh therefore it's Impossible because it says in Scripture that Christ bodily ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the father
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Therefore it is impossible For his body and blood to be present in the
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Lord's Supper What's the problem here? They are using philosophical and logical and human reasoning to negate
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Jesus's words What does Jesus say? This is my body. This is my blood right, and Jesus said unless you eat
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My flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you
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But human reason comes in kind of like, you know from a Monty Python, you know Monty Python and the
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Holy Grail He had that kid who's locked up in the tower and he wants to sing and dance and all of a sudden the music starts And his father stops.
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No, no, no Stop, stop, stop, stop that, right? Same thing going on here as soon as the pastor says the words of Christ Everyone goes stop, stop, stop, stop.
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I know Jesus said that but he didn't mean it What do you mean
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I don't know what he meant but he didn't mean that Okay, he clearly meant to say this symbolizes my body this symbolizes my blood
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Therefore that has to be what this is. That's what this means Well, then why did he use a predicate nominative construction in the
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Greek which makes it absolutely impossible for this to mean anything? Other than that what Jesus is offering us is his actual body and blood.
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How do you explain the grammar? I Don't know. It just can't mean that Yeah, because I say so right
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I heard that with my parents many times I asked way too many questions when I was a kid, but that's the thing
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We want to negate these things and as soon as you start heading down this path, all right We're gonna negate the words of Christ here in the
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Lord's Supper. What's next? Well, let's get rid of the global flood Because that seems silly, right?
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This idea that God had Noah build an ark and took him more than a hundred years to construct this thing and that God saved all the animals and human beings and there was
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A global flood that doesn't make any sense. Well, let's we'll get rid of that, too well in while we're at it, let's get rid of the crossing of the
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Red Sea that didn't really happen and While we're at it, let's get rid of Jesus walking on the water
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While we're at it to Jesus didn't really raise anybody from the dead That's not possible. And of course that would also mean that Jesus didn't rise from the dead either so you spend all of your time using your flesh to negate the scriptures and you are left with then stupid stories that are about as Beneficial as Aesop's fables, right?
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Everything has a moral to the story You see the reason why the rabbit lost to the tortoise is because slow and steady wins the race
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Right, and so we need to be slow and steady in our understanding things. So what's the purpose of the resurrection?
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it's to remind us that every year after winter God causes the the ground to produce again and the flowers come back and bloom and So the purpose of the resurrection is to remind us of all the pretty flowers that we have every spring
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To which I'm at this point resisting all of my gag reflex because and I'm not
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Purposely trying to vomit that I want to right so the idea here is is that this text is
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Jesus warning about not Seeking the help of the
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Spirit to understand what he has said So I don't I'll be blunt.
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I have no clue how miracles are possible I have no clue how
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Jesus offers us his body and blood given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins in Each and every time we have the
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Lord's Supper I just know that he does and quite frankly, there's a lot of things.
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I don't understand. I Drive a diesel truck and I couldn't tell you the anything about how glow plugs work
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Okay, and how that engine operates and how the turbo turns on and why it turns on and does the things that it does when it does it does them couldn't tell you
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I Just know that when I get into my truck and I press the button it turns on I put it in drive and I go
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Okay, I don't need to know nothing about anything regarding about how diesels operate not a thing
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Okay I just need to make sure that I take it in for its regular maintenance and that the people who understand all that stuff are
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Able to look at and make sure it's gonna do the thing that it's supposed to do which I purchased it for right? You don't need to know how
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Christ makes this up all possible You just need to be assured that every time you have the
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Lord's Supper It is exactly what Christ says it is and it's for the reason that Christ says it's for and each and every time you have the
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Lord's Supper you are receiving a personal absolution from Christ and All of the promises of John 6 are yours and you receive them in your mouth
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Period and then when you let this spirit instruct you through the word
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Instead of saying yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but but but this is Put the yabbits away
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And be like a child and receive these things Right. That's the whole point
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Okay. So yeah is so the idea is is that had Louie says basically you're left with the
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Thomas Jefferson Bible Yeah, exactly. All right, so that's what Christ is warning that you know, so you get the idea
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All right Yes Yeah Okay, so the scriptures forbid cannibalism and scriptures also forbid the eating of blood
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Which is actually a very important thing because what Christ is doing when you look at the
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Old Testament always when the when you have The prohibitions against the eating of blood and specific it says here's the reason the life is in the blood
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You cannot eat the blood because the life is in the blood You cannot eat the blood because the life is in the blood which then is
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Fascinating because here's the thing the other end of that is that every one of the sacrifices of the
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Old Testament What happened to them? They were consumed. They were eaten.
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What happened to the Passover lamb? Everybody ate it Christ is our Passover lamb. What happened to this the atonement sacrifices?
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They're consumed They're eaten now a portion of it is burned up But a large portion of it is eaten so that you have in the scriptures you have this preparation for what
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Christ is doing So when you get to the that you get to the time of the first Lord's Supper Those words that Christ says take drink.
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This is my blood of the New Covenant. It stands out Where you're and you're gonna know
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Old Covenant forbids certain things So it forbids the eating of pork, which
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I cannot imagine a life without bacon I mean just that is not a life worth living Okay, it doesn't allow the eating of lobster and Shellfish and things like this and all of that had a function for catechizing people into thinking in terms of what is
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Holy versus what is unholy what is clean versus what is unclean?
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That's all preparation We're not under the Mosaic Covenant So the Mosaic Covenant is a prep that then we get to Christ's words take drink.
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This is my blood He's it there and go. Whoa, we can't do that Of course you can we're under the
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New Covenant We're not under the old and the Old Covenant was type and shadow teaching us and preparing us and instructing us
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To where we are now So there's not a new one coming, but I think the the prohibitions of the
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Old Covenant are vital now when it comes to cannibalism Cannibalism requires you to murder a neighbor before you barbecue them
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And so that actually falls under the prohibition of thou shalt not murder And you'll note that Christ truly is a murder victim, but he uses his murder for the purpose of giving us eternal life
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Only he has that power to flip those things like that But you know, I don't care how good you taste on a sand on bread with mustard and stuff like that I ain't eaten yet.
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So, you know, it ain't happening. So it pluses there's paperwork in a crime scene investigation stuff like that So, yeah
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All right, good question All right, any other any other questions? Yes Okay You're gonna hate me
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Okay Where do I recommend going to read about the Church Fathers?
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I am going to give you a traditional work If we go to amazon .com
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There is I know your pastor
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All right, so there's a his there's a there's a work called the history of the Christian Church Written by a fellow by the name of Philip Schaaf.
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It's a multi -volume work This is the best way
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I can put it is is that if you were to just kind of go and read the Church Fathers by Yourself without having some kind of a guide
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Regarding the context of the dip how the different people wrote then you are you are legitimately
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Risking being becoming bored and confused So Philip Schaaf's work and the reason
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I like Schaaf is he's dead Okay Work work with me on this he is not impacted by this goofiness of today
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Okay, many of the the guys who write Patrice on patristics today
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They're super liberal or the Roman Catholic not a good mix
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Schaaf was neither and In he tries very hard to be faithful to the bib the
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Bible primarily but gives us the history So the history of the Christian Church at you know
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And is by Philip Schaaf is a multi by both In fact, it's there's eight volumes in it and you can get it on Kindle for a buck ninety -nine
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The reason being is is it's technically in the in the public domain Okay, so read it and somebody recently told me that they had picked this up and they started reading it and they said
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Do you know how long this is? I said, yeah What are you doing to me you'll thank me later, okay, and then you'll note then
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Kind of compendium to this would be the apostolic in a second here
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Let's see Anti Nicene I Seen fathers.
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Okay Schaaf is also the guy who's given us the anti -nicene fathers and the writings and the actual writings of the church fathers and That's a standard work and you can find those for free by the way on on the internet
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So let me show you if you go to CC EL org the writings of the fathers down to 325
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AD All of these were put together by Schaaf although he hired different people to work on different translations of the stuff and So if you actually want to write the read the extant writings of the church fathers for free
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You can read them online. Okay, because they're all in the public domain I happen to have them all on in my
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Lagos library that I picked them up, you know Decades ago now, but But one of the things that I have made a practice of as part of my devotional reading
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I'm constantly working through different portions of the writings of the church fathers having read
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Schaaf in his eight volumes It's just it's a fantastic work. And then if you want to get
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If you want to get a history of the Christian Church written Before Schaaf then you have to read
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Eusebius Eusebius is ecclesiastical history that that should be like required reading for all
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Christians as a Eusebius is ecclesiastical history and that will give you kind of everything up to the 4th 5th century
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So that's where I would go with this But you know the let me kind of put it this way when you
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Purchase a book like that or you begin to read a project like that. You have to have it in your mind
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It's going to take you a couple of years You have to allow yourself time to think of it as a project
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Not not something that is you know that you're gonna whip up in the microwave. It's gonna be ready and so, you know the and by the time you you work your way through the writings of the church fathers and you get to The sermons of Christostom.
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I mean, you know, those are stellar but there's a lot of kind of there's a few little weeds you have to work your way through at times and Again, I always say that Christ is in the details and some of the works of the church fathers are actually going to give you like, you know ecclesiastical law
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You know that they were depending on in the early part of the church And in fact in one of one of the volumes of the church fathers is an actual transcript of a heresy trial from a guy who was an
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Aryan heretic and What a fascinating, you know, you sit there and go could you imagine if that happened today?
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That you know, it would kind of be a game -changer, but there's no way that's gonna happen today But see there's there's there's such a wide variety of things that are that exist today from the writings of the church fathers
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But the reality also is is that shop will will alert you to works that we know existed, but we don't have anymore
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So, you know, that's that's that's the other a lot of this stuff is lost But that's that's the go that's where I go shop so, okay
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Question came in from John Poletta. Do you consider Jeff Durbin a good example of presuppositional apologetics?
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Yes, I consider Jeff Durbin kind of like a quintessential example of presuppositional apologetics a little bit of a note
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John and that Is is that? historically when you read classic Lutheranism Coming out of the seven years like 17th 18th centuries
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The the dogmaticians of classical Lutheranism were also presuppositional the the
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Calvinist stole that from us and It was John work
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Montgomery and you know and and his disciples that kind of drug confessional
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Lutheranism into a more evidential approach if you don't know the difference between Presuppositional apologetics and evidential apologetics that that is kind of a nuanced
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Argument that's a nuanced study, but I personally was trained as an evidential apologist and I'm presuppositional now but I do not look to the reform to help me in my presuppositional approaches because it is so Ridiculously legalistic in the way they approach it.
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There's no law. There's no gospel They they are wicked at using the law I mean they are they're great at tearing down but because of their view that Christ's atonement is limited
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They are they they will only focus on the law for the purpose of tearing down and they can never preach the gospel to somebody in fact sigh sigh ten
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Bruggen Kate who is a notable Lay lay level Christian apologist who's no longer in ministry, but he put you know, he put out a video
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You know talk, you know, it's called, you know, I don't answer the fool And it was it's a great primer on presuppositional apologetics
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But I I spoke at a conference with him a decade ago and I asked him straight up I said sigh you you're just you're so skilled at using
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God's law to tear down bad arguments Why do you never preach the gospel to the people that you tear their their worldview apart?
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He says well, you know perfectly well why I can't because I don't know who's of the elect and who isn't
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So here's the difference. Okay Evidential apologetics has kind of a presupposition and it's a false one that the reason why people don't believe in Christ is because they haven't present been presented the evidence that substantiates
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Christ's claims But that's false in in Romans chapter 1 it's very clear that the reason why everybody
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Rejects Christ it is number one. They all have a knowledge of God, but they suppress the truth and unrighteousness
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So evidential apologetics generally works with this idea if I sit down and I play chess with an atheist
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Then I show them the evidence the evidence will be so compelling that they'll make a judgment in favor of Christ And so you you a great example of like of an evidential approach would be
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Josh McDowell's books Evidence that demands a verdict. All right, but here's the problem if it's evidence that demands a verdict.
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Are you? Legitimately trying to set an atheist up as the judge They're not
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Christ is the judge and so it's the evidential apologist oftentimes makes a
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A subtle but a fatal error and that is is that you know
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They are told that all they have to do is present this evidence and it will be overwhelming and compelling that but it's not because Atheists if you make them the judge
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They're just going to continue to deny that your evidence is valid On a good day, you can argue with an atheist to a stalemate
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But a really well -trained atheist They are they will never let you win as long as you make them the judge.
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You've done something really wrong Because Christ is the judge not them. And so what
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I do with like hardcore atheists I don't play their game and I don't give them evidence You know, I basically go with what the scripture says scriptures clear
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Everybody knows that God exists everybody. There's no a good way to put it. Is that God doesn't believe in atheists?
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Okay, just flip it. Okay atheist doesn't believe in God. No, no, no, no, no, you don't exist and think of it this way
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Atheists are like obsessed with proving that God doesn't exist Obsessed why on earth would they be so obsessed?
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Right, you have been signed out because your account is signed in from another device. Oh, that's okay.
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That's okay but so the idea then is is that Presuppositional apologists apologetics works from the idea
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Christ is the judge not you Not the atheist and it's not necessary to present evidence.
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Everybody everybody in the world knows God exists So instead you use apologetics for purpose of tearing down The things that they say that they are using to argue against the truth
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But that's all a function of the wall Okay, so every time you counter an argument you're using an argument
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You're basically tearing down their argument and showing that it's false, but you still haven't preached the truth Simply debunking somebody's bad argument does not equal presenting the gospel.
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So we tear down strongholds Okay, hang on a second here, oh, there we go
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So we tear down strongholds Anything that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ, but to the atheist
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I sit there say I'm not gonna play your game I already know that you know, God exists. I don't have to prove it to you
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So instead I'm going to deliver a message. I have a message from God and here's the message.
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He loves you He has sent his son to bleed and die for your sins And he is by Christ's death on the cross you've been reconciled to the father and he's calling you to repent to believe the gospel and He will pardon you and give you eternity with him purely as a gift because of his great love and mercy for you
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That's it. I deliver the message and I don't have to play their game now evidence does play an important role in the life of a
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Christian But I know I'm saying in the life of a Christian because as Christians we are tempted to sit there and go is this really true?
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So we know we don't askew evidence. It's just that we use it differently And so for Christians I will give you all the evidence you want evidence that Christ Existed that he walked the earth that he performed miracles and that the history of the
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Bible can be trusted I will give you oodles and oodles and oodles of evidence because that will show that your faith is founded on fact but to the atheist
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They're just in rebellion against God and they already know God exists. So I don't need to play their game Yeah, God performed so many miracles
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Christ performed so many miracles and the people believe him because of the miracles No Okay Notably if you think about the the parable that it's not really a parable the story that Jesus tells of the rich man
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Lazarus Okay, it's a rich man feasted sumptuously Lazarus, you know was needed to be in a hospital and And so Lazarus dies and he goes to be with you know
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With Abraham and the rich man dies and he ends up in hell Right, and so he shouts across the chasm in Sheol to Abraham he says send
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Lazarus to my brothers so that they don't have to come to this place and and Abraham says they have
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They have the Bible they have they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them
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No, no No If somebody comes back from the dead they'll believe and he said even if somebody comes back from the dead
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They're not going to believe if they won't listen to Moses and the prophets faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
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Word of Christ So you get the idea? So Jeff Durbin is a quintessential example of a
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Calvinist presuppositional Apologist I share presuppositionalism with him in common
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But I take great issue with their refusing to preach the gospel to anybody
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Because you know any any unbeliever because they don't know who's elect, you know, so I you know
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We have and I would note again classical Lutheran Dogmaticians were all presuppositionalists.
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So I think dr John Ward Montgomery has done a fine service to the body of Christ in giving us evidential
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Apologetics, but I think it's misused if you use it on the atheist So and I'm waiting for him and dr
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Rosenblatt to die before I take on take that on and and challenge it because I think It's gonna it's gonna be controversial when that happens.
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So, you know All right. Let's see here Okay. So here's a question
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Do you agree with Daniel Wallace about the problems with the fathers? He said no original manuscripts of the fathers
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We have copies of them generally medieval original source not always given and internal Contradictions now
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Wallace said the value of the patristic witnesses is location of text form in space and time geographical
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Distribution and comments on various readings just like you know your thoughts So yeah, the the the patristic writings always they have to be weighed against the scripture the
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Let me be blunt. My sermons have to be weighed against the scripture, you know, why?
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Because I'm a sinful human being and so the patristics are important because and I am
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I'm constantly in the patristics Because it at least gives me some kind of an evidential witness to how the church is understand the biblical text
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But you get past the 7th century and you got people who are now be you'll be believing in a prototype of Marian you know the
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Marian dogmas and that's a problem So every text that we have from the patristics has to be weighed and here's the other thing.
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There are quite a few documents that we have that claim that they were written by certain church fathers, which the evidence shows that they weren't and so That's that's that's the other challenge of the patristics
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Is that sometimes you might have a document that might have some pretty good theology in it? Claiming to be written by so -and -so, but so -and -so didn't write it.
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It was just somebody used the you know, smuggled there You know put their name on it to to lend credibility to it when they shouldn't have so yeah
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The patristics is a little bit of the Wild West you have to you have to be careful with it But there is but a lot of scholars have
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I already identified the pseudepigraphal writings and stuff like this But here's the other issue in the patristics.
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Is that some patristic writing or time? Documents written during the time of the church fathers are indeed
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Gnostic Okay so There's a document called the pseudo you on Galleon of James okay, and it's a mid second century
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Gnostic forgery and It's the thing that teaches the perpetual virginity of Mary right and her immaculate conception and The church at the time immediately identified it as a
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Gnostic forgery, but here's the thing It was like the the prayer of Jabez.
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It was like the book the juror of the time and so much of its bad theology and its
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Gnosticism got embedded in the church as a result of it and so Yeah, so you you have to everything has to be weighed against the biblical texts, that's the best way to put it and then you'll note that Patristics is used by liberals.
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They they are very selective in their use of patristics and they use they overtly use Gnostic Gospels to try to overthrow
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The authority of the scriptures so that that's also a big problem. So you got to be super careful everything gets
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Everything gets judged by the gold standard of the gold standard is the scripture. So yes
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Yeah, that's right, yeah, that's right you'll see it will misuse Philip Melanchthon's works and some of his later stuff and you can't do that Even Philip Melanchthon gets weighed against the scripture
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Martin Luther gets weighed against the scripture I would remind everybody that back a few decades ago.
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The Missouri Synod actually created a document criticizing Martin Luther's Antisemitism in his book the
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Jews and their lives and it needed to be he needed to be rebuked for that because some of the things he said were were beyond the rhetoric that is
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Acceptable for Christians and unfortunately, there's been a resurgence of neo -nazism and they all quote, you know, they'll quote
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Luther's miss actually misquote Luther's Book the Jews in their lives in order to justify their antisemitism.
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So beware of that stuff. So All right We're I'm gonna pray for lunch.
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Apparently, it's so bad. It needs being prayed for That's a joke
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That's a joke and then it then we will regather at 1 p .m.
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For prophecy bingo Yeah, and you guys you guys online you can have fellowship during this time, but those of you online, it's bring your own lunch
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So I just needed to make that clear We will not be able to figure we haven't figured out how to email a sandwich to you yet So but let's let's pray for everybody's meals, including those who are joining us online
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The eyes of all look to you O Lord you grant them their food at the proper time You open your hands you satisfy the desires of every living thing
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Bless us the Lord in these your gifts, which we're about to receive from your bountiful goodness through Jesus Christ our Lord.