Dead Men Walking Podcast Live from Fight Laugh Feast Rally with Dr. Rev. Joe Boot

Another episode of Dead Men Walking.

I'm Greg, and to my right is Mr. Jason Hamlin. Hello, everybody. How are you, sir? We're still live at Fight, Laugh, Feast in Rapid City, South Dakota. Having a good time. And we're having a great time, man.

We've had so many guests on, as you've been listening to, but we got a special one here for you. He's a Christian thinker, a cultural apologist, philosopher, founder of the Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity, and founding pastor of the Westminster Chapel in Toronto.

The Lordship of Christ Versus Caesar

Reverend Joe Boot, how are you, sir? I'm doing well. Audience for you. They are in love with you, sir. Welcome. So you just got off the stage at the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference. Can you give us a little overview of what you spoke on?

I don't want to step on your toes because it was just absolutely amazing, especially the parallelism to Caesar and some of the quotes that you had. Give us a little snippet of what that was for the listeners.

Sure.

So I was talking about, from the very beginning of the life of the church, there was a standoff, a confrontation between the Lordship of Christ and that of Caesar. And if you look there in the beginning of Acts 17, you see that they were proclaiming another king, Jesus.

And they were told they were acting against the decrees of Caesar. The charge was true. So the lecture was really about the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the implications of the Lordship of Jesus Christ as fully man and fully God, as the one mediator between man and God, and how that very idea shattered the pagan worldview and birthed freedom and the first truly free institution in the history of the world, the Church of Jesus Christ as independent of, not existing by permission of, but independent of the state, the absolute state, the totalitarian state, and that Christ as our king gives us liberty.

And as we, the Western tradition has been the place of freedom because of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we are, as we decline, as the gospel declines, freedom declines. So if we are to maintain liberty and freedom, we have to maintain the Lordship, the confession of the Lordship and kingship of Jesus Christ.

Yeah, and there was a quote that you had in there too, the, by no other name are we saved, that really gave a good parallel of, they were fighting against a Caesar, a government, right? Because we have a lot of Christians now that are Romans 13, nope, just do what the government says, don't push back.

And you really made a good parallel of, here you have the apostles preaching against that government. Can you kind of relay that quote? And then, because you said, doesn't this sound familiar?

So Augustus Caesar's government issued a proclamation, which basically said that there is no salvation outside of Caesar Augustus, but by which you can be saved. And on the coins of the era, the denarius, for example, the inscription basically claims that Caesar is high priest.

He's Pontifex Maximus, he's high priest. He's worshipful son of God. And that was the claim. And of course, Peter in Acts chapter four, verse 12, if we understand the background of the claims of Augustus.

And I think that's key for modern Christians to understand the background. And you see Peter get up and say,.

For there is salvation in no one else. There's no other name under heaven given to men by which you can be saved than the name of Jesus. You see that that wasn't just a statement about personal salvation.

It wasn't just a statement about this personal salvation of my soul. It was also a proclamation about the position, the lordship of Jesus Christ and a resistance to a particular view of the state. Wow.

And so sometimes we see the gospel in these very narrow terms about my personal life, Jesus is Lord in my heart. But this proclamation was not just that, it was also a resistance to a particular view of government of state as Lord.

Yeah.

So very rebellious against the state and against the culture, it seems like to me. Like when you said, when you take away just that narrow view of the individual, right, of what the, and here you have him saying, oh no, there is a Lord and King and it is not Caesar.

It is not this government. It is Christ and his Lord over all.

And what we're seeing right now in the church, unfortunately, in some ways, the government is their new God. You know, they're really going after whatever the government's saying, that's what we gotta do.

You know, we have to wear the mask. We have to not attend church. We can't sing psalms. We can't sing songs together, you know? And that's just an unfortunate situation, yeah.

Biblical Government and the Limits of the State

Well, even if you think about how we use the term government today, how modern Christians use the term government, we talk about the government. Yeah. Whereas actually, biblically, there are many forms of government.

First of all, there's the self-government of the Christian person. Then there is the government of the family. Then there is the government within the church. The church is a form of government. Then we are governed by our vocations, by the professional bodies we work for.

Then there is civil government. Yeah. Which is the element of the state. But modern, in the way we tend to use language now, it reflects the shift in our philosophy, how Westerners have become statist.

We've returned to a pagan view of the state. Wow, that's good. Because we see the government. Like the sovereign. We name the state. Wow, that is good. Rather than Christ is the governor of governors, he's king of kings, lord of lords.

He gives a delegated, limited authority to the state, but he also gives delegated and limited authority to the family and to the church and so on. So even this whole idea that the government, no, Christ is the government.

Yeah. The government is upon his shoulders. Amen. Okay. And of the increase of his government and of his peace, there shall be no end. These are all limited offices of civil government, church and so on, that are meant to be under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

That was the contribution from a political standpoint that shattered the pagan view of the totalitarian state. And as we shift back to a pagan view, we're seeing that totalitarian idea where the state is involved in and governs and regulates and rules over every area of life reemerge.

Yeah, and you gave a really good example of that through some illustrations, too, of kind of the medieval view of the church kind of being over some of these things. And then the next slide was, boom, the crown, Christ is king, lord of all, which is just amazing.

But you bring up such a good point. Why are we losing at the word indefinite? You just said it, the way our words kind of reflect our philosophy, right? And kind of leftists and progressives and statists are so great at renaming and redefining, and we just kind of let it happen.

Oh, it's not global warming or global cooling, it's climate change, it's not abortion, it's reproductive healthcare, it's not illegal alien, it's undocumented workers, and we just go, sure, redefine it, rename it, soften it.

And I feel like even within the Christian church here in America, you can speak to Canada, but we've just allowed it, and we just say, okay, yep, you define the term, define the words, and then after you use those words, our philosophy reflects that, just like you said.

I mean, you just got me excited about the thing that the government, I'm an elected official, I'm a county commissioner in my county, and I say the government all the time. And now I'm not going to say that anymore, because it's reflective of your absolutely different governments, and there's only one governor in that clip that you showed at the end, and it's the governor of governors, Christ our Lord.

Words, Worldview, and the Meaning of Government

Well, words have power.

The word of God called all things into being. And we're image bearers of God, so although we cannot create in the original way that God does, we can use words to shape cultural life, and which is why our words both reflect and then go on to shape or reinforce a particular view, which is why we have to be so careful with our words.

Take, for example, when people talk today about we live in a democratic society. I would say, no, we don't. What we mean is, in a constitutional democracy like a republic like the United States, the way we install a civil government is democratic, but that doesn't make society democratic.

My family's not a democracy, right? My church isn't a democracy. My local Christian school isn't a democracy. But that whole idea of radical democracy now has permeated our culture, because we talk about, well, I live in a democratic society.

As though every aspect of society has to be democratic. And therefore, you have this egalitarian, equalitarian order, because that is democracy. Democracy means people power. It means demos kratos, people power.

Well, we don't believe that. We believe in God's power. So we install our government by a process of election, because we believe in the participation, the consent of the people to be governed. So we install our civil government in a democratic process, but that doesn't make society democratic.

So there is a very good illustration there as well of how we tend to misuse the language and actually why our words are so important, how we have to reclaim the language of government, the language of authority, the language of sovereignty and lordship in terms of a distinctly Christian view.

Man, I feel some of the churches, some attendees in Western Christian church think that serving Christ is a democracy and it's not.

Well, where does God ever say. In Psalm 2 or Psalm 110, let's take a vote on whether Jesus is king or not.

The Ezra Institute and Recovering the Christian Mind

Yeah, so as we wrap up here, can you tell us about the Ezra Institute and what that's doing and throw out some places people can go if they're interested in checking you guys out. Yeah, thank you very much, guys.

Well, so the Ezra Institute, Ezra, the biblical Ezra, he was a scholar who called people back to the word of God so that when Nehemiah came along and said, who's up for rebuilding, there were volunteers.

So we see it as our mandate to provide biblical worldview, cultural apologetics, Christian philosophy tools for emerging and cultural leaders so that as we call people back to the word, there will be volunteers for rebuilding culture in the days ahead.

So that's our mandate is to think Christianly, help people think Christianly and recover the Christian mind. And what we do, so we're a worldview think tank and Christian worldview cultural apologetics training organization.

So we produce some tri-annual communique. We have a publishing house, Ezra Press, publish various books on worldview culture, gospel and culture. My work, major work, The Mission of God, Gospel Culture, Gospel Witness, and so on where we're trying to give people these intellectual tools of the Christian mind.

Absolutely. And then we offer short-term residential training at our study center on the Niagara. In Canada. So we run summer and fall programs and people come for a week, two weeks to get intensive training in biblical worldview, cultural apologetics, and a Christian philosophy of culture basically based on a distinctly scriptural world and life view.

So they come and live for a week or two at the center, have the teaching, lots of fun, fellowship. Yeah. And Is Dr. Sandlin a part of that? Yes, Dr. Andrew Sandlin is one of our fellows. I love him.

He comes and teaches at several of our programs during the summer. Awesome. He's a very good friend of mine. Awesome. And where can people find that? So ezrainstitute .ca and learn all about And we'll link it up for the episode too.

And listen to our, maybe people can catch our podcast. Absolutely. Cultural Reformation. Worldview Wednesday every week. Okay. Love it.

Dr. Joe Boot, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on, giving us a few minutes of your time. Like we said, we really, really loved your hour up on stage. And we'll be following you and make sure we're praying for you and everything that's going on in Canada as well.

We know some things happening in Canada and even here in America. And this is when the church presses in. We support our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for coming on and God bless.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at deadmenwalkingpodcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at deadmenwalkingpodcast at gmail .com. Nice.