Think — John Piper

Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. And it's really an honor to talk to God's servants. I would rather talk to pastors than anybody, except one group, my home church. I love preaching to Bethlehem.

And look forward to being there in January. Well, let's review. And then launch into the balancing side of such an emphasis on the affections or emotions or feelings. The main point this morning was that.

Our emotional life or our affectional life, which I believe is a spiritual, not a mainly physical thing, even though our physical bodies are involved, is indispensable in glorifying God because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

I reminded pastors that this implies they should tell their people, you should tell your people that they should make the pursuit of this joy in God, the vocation of their lives, even if it costs them their life or they have to cut off their hand or pluck out their eye to get it and keep it.

There isn't anything more costly in the world than to pursue joy in God. Nothing requires more self-denial than to pursue joy in God that feel contradictory. It isn't. The only reason Jesus would ever commend self-denial is that you're eating something suicidal.

Stop eating that I don't care how good it tastes, I love you, but he didn't tell us to deny ourselves so that we could go to hell. Or be miserable. He told us to deny ourselves so that we'd have life.

So I hope it doesn't feel contradictory when I say nothing requires more self-denial than the pursuit of joy in God. And then I said that pastors should realize that their own pursuit of joy is essential to love their people because of Hebrews 13, 17.

If you minister in joy and. Not if you if you minister, not with joy, but with groaning, you will be of no advantage to your people. So we have to fight for joy daily, every morning. George Mueller said his main battle every day was to be happy in Jesus because he had these orphanages to run and 60 decisions to make every hour and he had nothing to give to anybody if he wasn't rooted in Christ and happy in Jesus.

That was his main goal when he knelt over his Bible in the morning. So we pastors have our our work cut out for us, our lives and our people's lives depend on our staying alive to joy in God. And then I said that we should, in our preaching, according to Second Corinthians, one twenty four.

Work with them for their joy, we don't lord it over them. We come alongside and work with them for their joy. I have in my mind that whatever sermon I preach to my people, I don't care how hard it is or how controversial it is or how demanding it may be.

The goal of it is their joy forever in God. Psalm 16, 11, you have shown me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. That's all I want for my people. Fullness forever, fullness forever.

So if they're which they are out in the world getting addicted to everything but the presence of God, I'm after them with all my might to cut that off. The world offers you ninety five percent proof joy and I don't give a rip about ninety five percent proof joy, one hundred percent or I'm not interested.

And the world may offer it for 80 years and I say not interested, not interested. So all the youth ministers tell your young people that. Eighty years goes by just like that, then you live forever, forever.

Now, what do you want? Come on, be smart, you'll be stupid. Do you want 80 years of what the world can give you, which is pretty good, or do you want 10 billion billion ever increasing ages of joy you never dreamed?

Thinking Serves Joy in God

So get them to be rational, get them to think, which is what we're going to talk about here now. So what I want to argue is this right thinking about God exists for the sake of right feelings about God, or I'll give you six more ways to say it.

I like to think up rhyming ways and alliterative ways. And so here goes a whole list. Logic exists for the sake of love. Reasoning exists for the sake of rejoicing. Reflection about God exists for the sake of affection for God.

The head is meant to serve the heart. Knowing the truth is the basis for admiring the truth, so both thinking and feeling are indispensable. Absolutely indispensable, but they're not both ultimate. Affections are ultimate, thinking is penultimate, both essential.

I'll give you one little argument for that statement. The devil is a good thinker. And all of his feelings are wrong, all of them are wrong. He knows more doctrine than you do. That's true. He does. He knows more about God that's true than you do.

He hates it all. He hates it. So you want to be like the devil, make thinking your aim. The devil can't feel anything right. Isn't that just horrible to think about? And that's where you're going if you don't follow Jesus, you won't ever be able to feel anything right.

All of them are wrong. You'll hate what you shouldn't hate. You'll love what is suicidal and destructive and everything will go haywire if you don't have God as the sun at the center of your solar system and make him the blazing center of your life.

So that's where I'm going, I want to argue now for this first column of logic and reasoning and reflection thinking, because I know there's one group of you who love the feelings and another group of you love the thinking and the doctrine.

And I'm just pleading with all my heart that you not be an either or kind of person, but a both and kind of person. You'll obviously be different than some of you are born to be thinkers and some born to be feelers.

And and I just want the feelers to think a little more and the thinkers to feel a little more and and everybody to respect those who are called in one emphasis or the other. Let me give you a reason before I'm going to give you 10 Bible arguments for why thinking is so important.

Truthful Knowledge and Genuine Affection

But before I do that, maybe a little story or a made up illustration for why right thinking about God is essential to being satisfied with him in such a way that he gets honor from it. There are feelings for God that don't honor God because their feelings rooted in falsehood.

Bad theology can produce feelings and those feelings for a God represented falsely are feelings that don't honor him because they don't correspond to who he really is. I love that phrase from Conrad when he said, if you dim down the light of truth, you don't know who you're holding hands with.

I mean, you get goosebumps, but you might turn it on and find it's a. Monster.

Yeah, I.

So here's the story, you're walking down the street and you have. A bag with ten thousand dollars in it, so compute. And a man comes up to you and you say to him, would you deposit this for me in my account in the bank?

You don't know this guy at all, not at all. And he says, what's in it? Ten thousand dollars cash. And I would like you to deposit for me. And there's the bank. It's Wells Fargo. Here's my account number.

And just here's the deposit slip. Please go go deposit for me. And he looks at you and says, I don't know you. You're going to give me ten thousand dollars and go down there. What if I just walk away with it?

Why are you trusting me? And he says, no reason. I just feel trust for you. Let's feel it. Now, here's my question. Is the man that you have just asked to deposit this honored by that trust? He's not.

If he is, he's stupid. The reason he's not honored is because you're crazy. You have no reason to trust him. You don't know his character. But your feeling is I can trust him. That is no honor to him at all.

You're just out of the blue picking a person off the street and saying, I trust you. If he feels honored by that, he's just clueless. He he doesn't understand reality. Now, switch the story. You're walking down the street bag with ten thousand dollars.

You stop a man. He doesn't recognize you. And you say, would you deposit this? Joe. And what's in it, ten thousand dollars, how do you know me, why do you why are you trusting me? He says, well, you don't know me, but we work in the same building and I've been there about a year and you've been there longer and I watch you every day.

I watch your attitudes, I watch your work ethic, I watch the way you talk about your wife and your kids. I've watched you and I could give you five character traits in you that I admire very much and make me totally confident you will not steal my money.

So would you please deposit that? Here's my account number. I trust you with it. Now, the question is, would that man feel honored by your trust? And of course he would. Why? Because the trust is rooted in knowledge.

That's real simple, isn't it? If you know him. And trust him because of what you know about him, he'll be honored. But if you just leap into the dark and base it on Lucy Goosey feelings, he gets no honor from that.

So that's why this matters a lot to me. The glory of God matters to me. And God gets no glory from irrational trust or feelings that don't root themselves in truth. So here's where we're going. I'm going to give you in the time we have.

I'll try to squeeze him in 10 evidences from the Bible for the indispensable role of thinking and knowing for right affections, right worship and right living. So I'm arguing that this morning the affections are the ultimate way that God gets glory, but he doesn't get glory from affections.

They're not rooted in right thinking about him. And therefore, this afternoon's message is essential to achieve this morning's goal. OK, you with me and what I'm after anyway? And I don't really care what my opinion is or your opinion is.

I care much about the Bible's opinion. You should only care about the Bible's opinion, not mine. And so you should be testing Berean like everything I say by the word of God. So here we go. Romans chapter 10, verse two is number one.

Zeal According to Knowledge

We'll zip through these. We got 10 of them. We'll see. We'll see if we can get it done. So Romans chapter 10, first several verses. Is shocking, frightening, clear brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.

He's somebody's kinsman, his Jewish brothers and sisters. I bear them witness. They have a zeal. OK, that that's the biblical word for passion. I just use the word passion a lot. The Bible's word is zeal.

They have a zeal for God. But. It is not according to knowledge. Now, did you notice what he said about them in verse one? They are not saved. This is terrifying. You can have a zeal for God and not be saved.

Their theology is wrong. They have a zeal that does not accord with knowledge. So argument number one from the Bible, Paul says there is a passion and Piper is all about passion and he may be sending some of you to hell.

Divine Illumination Through Thinking

If you don't get this second point, namely that passion that doesn't accord with knowledge may leave you unsaved, not just dishonoring to the Lord, that's number one. Number two, Second Timothy, chapter two, verse seven, Second Timothy to verse seven, one of the most important verses in my life for understanding the life of the mind.

In relationship to the sovereign work of the spirit in illumination. Second Timothy to verse seven, Paul says, Timothy, think over what I say. So think about my letter to you, so that's what you should do.

Think over what I say, because the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Now, there are so many people who love the second half of that verse. And therefore, take it or something like it, close their mind and their book and go out and say, do that, give me understanding, go ahead, do it.

You said you would do it. Give me understanding. That's really dangerous. Go out in the woods alone. Open yourself up, you said you would do it, the Lord gives understanding, give it. And then there are other people who love the first half of the verse.

Think over what I say, man, am I a student of this book and they think they don't need divine help, divine illumination, the sovereign in breaking of the Holy Spirit on this fallen brain and this heart to open it to what's here so that they don't get it wrong or twisted or get it all imbalanced.

And so they're not over here depending on the Lord's giving their over here, self-sufficiently thinking. I just don't make that choice, don't make that choice. Notice the little connecting word. For the ground of our confidence that our thinking could get anywhere is that in and through thinking, the Lord gives understanding when you read verses to rip them apart, put them together, think over what I say for the Lord is the giver.

But he has ordained to give understanding through thinking. Isn't that the clear implication of both halves of the verse? So, yes, we need divine illumination. We can't do anything without the Holy Spirit.

We will make such a mess of this book if we don't have divine help and illumination. And if we try to get this book right on our own, we'll hurt a lot of people. But if you try to depend on the Holy Spirit without thinking about the book, don't count on it.

Paul's Reasoning from Scripture

That's number two. Number three, let's go to Acts chapter 17, Acts 17, first several verses there, especially two and three. Before I read those verses, just. The way the Apostle Paul writes, say, Romans spent eight years preaching through Romans, Romans is an amazingly thought demanding book.

It is densely argued, densely thought through. It is so compact. You open a piece and it's everything relates to everything. And reading chapter 16 in the light of one to one in the light of 16 to 12 in the light of six, it just everything relates to everything.

It just breaks your brain when you try to think about it. And and we should try to think about it. That's the way Paul's mind worked. Now, John's not quite like that. The Gospel of John, the epistle of John are very different.

John's like a bee buzzing around a light bulb. And you say, you got anything to say besides trust God and love people? And he says, no, but I can say it so many ways. And so he's he's just going like this.

And Paul, he's going like that. I'm a Paul guy. I'm preaching through John right now. I've been in John for two years. This is hard work for me. John, just a little more. So in Acts 17, look at look at Paul, what he does in the synagogues every Sabbath.

Verse three, explaining and proving that it was necessary. No, no. I left out verse two. Go back. Verse two. Paul went in as his custom and on on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ.

I think he uses that. I wrote it down here. How many? Can't find my number. A whole bunch of times he uses that word reasoning lots of times in the book of Acts, Luke does. And so there you have a model for how the apostle Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, under divine inspiration, opened the gospel in the synagogues.

Jesus Assumes Logical Thinking

He reasoned with them. And if Paul wrote Romans the way he did and he reasoned with people the way he did, woe to us if we say I don't need to engage in that to follow him. Number four, Jesus assumes that we will use logic in natural and spiritual matters.

Let's go to Luke 12. The gospel of Luke, chapter 12, and we'll read verses 54 to 57, he said to the crowds. When you see a cloud rising in the West, you say at once showers coming. And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say there's going to be a scorching heat and it happens.

You hypocrites. You hypocrites. You know, you know, you're making really good use of your brain. You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky. You're so great with natural revelation and reading the stock market and reading the weather.

You got good brains. I gave them to you. But why do you not know how to interpret this present time? Now, the reason I say logic is this, I remember in seminary reading a book and it was kind of in the air back in the 60s, that there was Hebraic, Oriental kinds of thinking.

And then there was Greek, Western kind of thinking and their intention with each other. And what you find in Jesus and the Bible and the Jewish milieu was Hebraic thinking. And I used to listen and say.

But what?

Because, I mean, thinking to me is is this. All men are mortal, Plato is a man, therefore, Plato is mortal. That's thinking that's Aristotelian logic. I think it's God's logic. Because that's what they were using that Jesus commended in this Hebraic.

Situation. Every time the south wind blows, there's a scorching heat, premise number one, premise number two, there's a south wind blowing. Conclusion, it's going to be hot tomorrow. And Jesus says right on, you've got good Aristotelian logic built in by God.

That's the way you use your brain every day of your life. All you are thinkers. You just either do it consciously or not and you do it well or not. And Jesus got really bent out of shape that they could use it so well for natural things, not spiritual things.

They should have formed premises about him and drawn conclusions from him and said, my Lord and my God, they couldn't do it. They couldn't get premises right. They couldn't get the reasoning right. So Jesus assumes in this story right here that we use our brains that God has given us and the logical structures that are built in by reality and the image of God, not only in the natural realm, but also in the spiritual.

Jesus Rejects Duplicity and Demands Truth

That's number four. Number five, let's go over to Matthew 21. This has had a big effect on me for the last 30 years or so, because in America anyway, and I assume this is pretty global anyway in Western influence countries, not just that, you know, the word spin, spin politically, you put a spin on an event.

Or spin on a comment that came out of a politician's mouth. And it and spin means you you say it in a way that it has an emotional effect that's negative, that wouldn't have to be negative if you didn't say it that way and shouldn't be negative because they didn't mean it that way.

And it's so ugly. I watch it happen in politics and watch it happen in churches. It happened to me on the phone the other day talking to somebody where I gave them an admonition and they shot back to me a repeat of what I said, which was not what I said.

And I could tell the defensiveness was so big at the other end of this telephone, there was no point in me pointing that out. And I didn't I just shut up and said, OK, this is not the time. This is not going to work.

It's not going to work here to be logical with this person because their repeat of what I just said, put two things together that I had separated and the opposite. And so what I'm making a point here is that Jesus doesn't like this.

So let's read read this chapter twenty one, verse twenty three, little story there and you'll see it right away when they entered the temple. The chief priest, this is Matthew twenty one, twenty three.

The chief priest and the elders of the people came up to Jesus who's teaching and said, by what authority do you do these things? Who gave you this authority? And Jesus answered them. Now, this is a test to see what he's dealing with, OK, because there's a certain kind of people he's not going to throw his pearls before Jesus says, I'll ask you a question.

And if you tell me the answer to my question, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, John the Baptist, baptism of John, where did it come from? From heaven or from man.

Now, watch these guys. Watch what they do. And all like people like this, and I feel I'm justified because I don't think Jesus did either. They discussed it among themselves. I'm in the middle of verse twenty five.

They discussed it among themselves, saying, if we say from heaven, then he will say to us, why then didn't you believe on him? But if we say from man, then we're afraid of the crowds because they hold John to be a prophet.

So if we give one answer, we're going to get hurt. And if we give another answer, we get trapped by Jesus because we should have believed if that's what we believe. What were you saying? So they answered, we don't know.

I think Jesus is steaming. I really do. He said to them, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. That's my paraphrase. It says, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these. Now, that's Jesus doesn't do that very often.

So here you are, the people ask you a genuine question and you say at the end, I'm not going to tell you why you can't stand that kind of duplicity. Just behind the doors, just weaseling and being expedient and trying to figure out what pieces of truth we can say and what we can conceal to save our skin.

Well, Jesus loves the open statement of the truth. Come what may, let the chips fall where they will. Let's be a people of truth. Use your brain not to weasel. Oh, there's so many smart people today. People with PhDs who teach in big universities, who use their brains to to destroy themselves, to get things all out of whack and hide and conceal.

Let me read you from Second Corinthians a sentence and see if it sounds like that. We have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God's word by an open statement of the truth.

We would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. I said that the air that's blowing in the breeze that's blowing through that verse is another atmosphere than than these guys. That's Second Corinthians four to Second Corinthians chapter four.

First to be like that, not like these elders who said, if we say this, he's going to say, why didn't you believe? And if we say this, the crowd might beat us up. And so let's say we don't know which is out and out false.

Of course, they didn't know, but they thought they knew. And so to say they didn't know was a lie. Jesus doesn't like it. He wants us to use our brains. In the open, dealing with the truth so that if you're in front of a crowd and somebody asks you a question that manifests, you've just contradicted yourself, you don't change the subject.

How many politicians you ask him, sir, what's your opinion about Afghanistan? Yesterday in Washington, we were a little bit of a little bit of a little bit. Did you hear the question? Of course, he heard the question and he's protecting himself.

So Christians in politics and in churches and in companies, in committee meetings, we are the people of truth, right? We're going to say it like it is. Our our people should be able to say, you know what?

Mary never needs to swear by God, I'm telling the truth, because her yes is yes and her no is no. You can trust her word. It's her bond and her law. That's one thing we know about Mary. So love the truth like that.

Knowledge Governs Holy Living

Number six. Thirteen times Paul asked the question, do you not know? Remember that little phrase, do you not know most of them are in first Corinthians, do you not know now when he asked that question, do you not know it's always in the context of, well, if this and this and this are true of you, then do you not know this would also be true of you?

You know, aren't you drawing inferences and conclusions for your sexual life that are reasonable from what you know about your position? Let me just read you several of them. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Do you not know that we will one day judge angels? Do you not know that to lie with a prostitute is to be one with her? Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Do you not know that unrighteousness will not inherit the kingdom of heaven?

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? What what's the point of talking like that? Knowing things govern your life, if you know rightly, you're going to judge angels, then you won't tell your brother, let's go to a secular court and get this figured out.

No, no, you're going to go to a brother somewhere and say, would you listen to these two sides and help us come to terms and reconcile with each other, because we are so at odds with what we're doing, we can't even reconcile.

We're going to go to you because we know you're going to judge angels someday. And therefore, surely you could judge between us. But revolutionize life, if you knew, if you knew, so helping our people know, think rightly affects their sex life, this prostitute issue here, this temple of the Holy Spirit.

You know, there are three places in Paul where sexual misconduct is directly related to bad knowing. Now, that may sound superficial and inadequate to you because of how non knowledge oriented lusts are.

Well, I'm 64 years old and I'm male and I can testify that over time to have your mind keep clear certain horrors like hell into which you'll be thrown if you don't cut off your hand and gouge out your eye and certain glories like heaven.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God that knowing these things affects my battle with pornography big time. And gives me great victories, so don't belittle this if it feels like it's not part of your arsenal, it wouldn't work.

You just haven't seen it yet because the Bible says that's why knowledge is there. The brain should have an effect on your groin and it does. And if it isn't, you got brain work to do. Not just wear a chastity belt or something.

Pastors and Teachers Feed the Church

Number seven, the Bible tells us that Christ has given pastor teachers to the church. Hebrews 411, he gave to the church some apostles, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints to do the work of the ministry.

And what are these pastors and teachers supposed to do? Well, in the list of qualifications in First Timothy, he must be apt to teach. Why? Because God has ordained that sheep get help in understanding from shepherds.

I mean. This is so obvious and yet. It doesn't have its full impact on us. God is not totally democratic or what you say, totally egalitarian. He says most people are sheep, a few are shepherds. The sheep need to be taught by the shepherds.

That's why there are elders. Which means that some of us are called, like Paul says, to labor in logo. Kyd did the Scalia word and teaching usually translated preaching and teaching, and that's some of the elders, you know, elders are worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in word and teaching, which means they're the ones who stay up late and get up early and bang their brains against this book so that they can get the meaning that's right out of it and then stand before their people and make it simple enough for children and middle aged and adults to understand so that the church has knowledge and is fed well.

You love me, Peter. Lord, I love you feed my sheep. You love me, Peter. Yes, Lord, I love you feed my lambs. Do you love me, Peter? Lord, you know that I love you feed my sheep. What? What's that all about?

God has ordained he loves his bride, he loves his sheep. Oh, how he loves his church. You better love her well. And that means teach her well, feed her well. And that means use your brain to understand this book through prayer and reliance upon the Holy Spirit so that week in and week out, these people are growing in knowledge.

Second, Peter 318 grow in the knowledge and the grace of God. Don't just pump them up. Don't just emotionally whip them up. Give them food, give them solid arguments. People love to have their brains challenged if you do it with real life.

Declaring the Whole Counsel of God

They want problems solved, they want to know how this work, this verse works. That's number number seven, that the Bible ordains that there be teachers and pastors who feed the flock. Number eight, the Bible tells us in Acts 20, 27, to declare the whole counsel of God.

That phrase, I did not shrink back, Paul says. He's talking to the elders now on the beach in Miletus, the Ephesian elders. He's talking to them and telling them what they need to be and do. And he's using himself as a model.

And he said, I didn't shrink back from any of you, but I taught the whole counsel of God, and therefore your blood is not on my hands. If you make shipwreck of your faith and you wreck this church, it isn't because I didn't teach you the whole counsel of God, which which shows that the whole counsel of God is what deposit is called the deposit in other places, the deposit that Paul left, the good deposit, the faithful deposit.

He left it and now he's done and he can go now. They are responsible for taking that whole counsel of God and opening it. Now, if you think about the phrase whole counsel of God, whole plan of God, the word is bullet in the Greek, a plan or purpose or counsel, and it's got a wholeness to it.

What does that imply? I think it implies that. This book is coherent, there's a certain wholeness to it, you can't say everything in your whole life about this book, you just can't. So what should you try to do?

You should try to work your way toward what's the whole what's it what's the center, what are the what's the gospel, then what are the truths around the gospel that if they go wrong, the gospel will go wrong.

And then there's there's these less important things out here. There's a certain ranking of truths and the wholeness is this this circle. I mean, one of the reasons I'm a Calvinist is that I believe these these truths called the doctrines of grace and just the sheer massiveness of the sovereignty of God in its totality guards the precious center of the cross.

I'll just give you one little example. When I say to people, God is sovereign over the sin in your lives, and it wouldn't happen if he didn't ordain it. And what you've just turned God into a sinner. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I haven't, because I'm operating with part of the part of the council here, which is that God is not sinning when he ordains that sin happen and they shake their heads that that is double talk, Piper, that's double talk, that's spin.

You said spin was bad. That's spin. You're just avoiding the problem. God is really a sinner if he ordains the fall or if he ordains sin. Now, that kind of response to that argument from the sovereignty of God, you know what it's doing?

It's endangering the substitutionary atonement. Can you put the dots together? The early church prayed in Acts, chapter four, verses 27 and 28, you, oh, God. Predestined by your hand and plan that in this city, your holy servant Jesus would be handed over to Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the Jews and be delivered up.

God ordained the cross. He ordained the ugliness of Pilate's expediency, he ordained the horrors of Herod's cloaking and mocking, he ordained the Gentile soldiers hammering the nails and he ordained the Jews crucify him, crucify him and every bit of that is sin.

And we have no savior. If he didn't ordain the sinful crucifixion of his son. And when I say that to people, they say, whoa. Jim saying, I'm saying there are truths around the gospel substitution, he died for me, he provides righteousness for me, my sin goes on him, his perfection goes on me.

That glorious central truth is protected, guarded. If you deny the sovereignty of God over sin, you implicitly deny that God ordained the death of his son. There wasn't a greater sin in all the universe than the killing of Jesus.

You see how it works. So now I'm no expert on where to draw the line around the whole council. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just working at it all the time, trying to believe and understand and help others understand this wholeness of the Bible.

I don't want to push into the center things out here. The reason we can be here is because some of you baptize babies and some of you don't. And some of you believe in a certain kind of baptism in the Holy Spirit and others don't.

And there's all kind of stylistic differences among you. But boy, are we loving the center. And as we move out from there a little farther, maybe there's lots of reformed people in there loving this, these protective doctrines that surround.

And then a little further out, we can start arguing with each other, get mad at each other out here. And those don't need to be pushed into the center to wreck this event. For example, this event can happen and ought to happen without without punching each other about baptism or or maybe eschatology would be another one, whether you're premeal or postmeal or all meal.

I got friends all over the map on this eschatology thing. So I'm saying here is when Paul talks about the whole counsel of God, he implies there is mental work to be done with the Bible to find that. To discern what that is, that's number eight, number nine.