Interview with Trey Fisher about his recent debate on Justification

Regardless of your view of the context, does the Bible say that? Regardless of your view of the context...

Regardless of context. Just remember that. Travis opened up by not really addressing you, but all of your friends, right?

I saw a picture of Jill and a post on her Facebook. I could not believe he started with that.

And then he quickly moved to me and my buddy Cameron Vogelsang. And that's another thing.

I can tell that Travis antagonizes people and says, Call my show. Call my show.

And what we've seen every time is when someone calls in that disagrees, he's going to isolate a small little clip that they say and play it over and over and over.

And he takes them out of context. Like we're about to show how he also takes scripture out of context as well.

Hello and welcome to The Apologetic Dog. This is an apologetics ministry where we want to guard the truthfulness of the gospel.

This comes from 1 Timothy 6 verse 20, where Paul told Timothy, Oh, Timothy, guard the deposit that's been entrusted to you.

This applies equally to us, all of Christ's followers today. We are to guard the truthfulness of the gospel.

And we do this by avoiding pagan philosophy. We do this by avoiding contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

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And if you follow, then it actually helps this ministry able to circulate the gospel to a broader audience as we continue for the truth.

And so with that being said, I want to first introduce my co -host today,

Nathan Hargrave. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. I serve as the preaching elder at 12

Five Church here in Jonesboro, right alongside with Pastor Jeremiah here.

And we get to do ministry together. And so this is just one of those aspects of ministry that we get to be a part of.

I get to come alongside The Apologetic Dog and defend the truth right alongside with you.

So I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, thank you, Nathan, for joining us. And without further ado, we have

Trey Fisher. Now, you've been on The Apologetic Dog before, but why are you here today? We're going to discuss the debate we had with Travis Thomas.

Yes. Hey, I watched the entire debate and I hugged a pillow the entire time.

I was on edge and loved every second of it. I just wish it was. I thought

I thought we had another round, but whatever. Hey, you had a lot of prayer and a lot of support from 12

Five Church. We had a watch party. Nice. So we were together. We were talking about everything that's being said.

And I hope everybody else is seeing the benefit of tuning in to the gospel truth where you get to see conflicting worldviews come together and hash out truth.

And I thought you did a wonderful job of contending for the faith, man, that gospel of grace that truly saves and forgives them because it's by faith alone.

In the only Savior alone, Jesus Christ, what he did was completely fulfilled at Calvary.

And that's why we look to him. And I thought you modeled that very well. I appreciate it. I've taken some heat from some people about it.

And I'm just thinking, I wonder if they watched it or do they just hear about it? Because I was the one saying that there are

Christians in the church of Christ. There's Christians and all these denominations, you know, God's people are there. And he's the one that believes that everybody goes to hell if you're not just not simply in the church of Christ, but in a very conservative church of Christ, like you're out.

And I'm like, OK, but I didn't I didn't think I was mean. Did you think

I was mean to your mom? No. What's funny is I I know I know our personalities tend to get real fiery.

And so when I was watching you, Trey, I was like, man, Trey is really guarding himself, making sure to season his speech with grace and love.

And I thought you did a great job of that because I've been in that situation a number of times on the gospel truth.

And when someone hurls an insult or says something very condescending, it's so easy to fight evil with evil and fire for fire.

And I thought you were just very kind all throughout. Thank you. Or does it hit peace? Does it hit peace on you the day before?

Right. Yeah. Give me a break. Well, I think I think that's his M .O., isn't it?

I mean, everything that I've seen with this guy, Travis, is is hit piece after hit piece.

It's almost like he's trying to pick at you so that you do respond in a negative way.

It's like he's trying to get you to. But you did not. Just like just like Jeremiah said, we were blown away by simply how pastoral.

That's the word that we kept using. Our people kept using that night at the watch party. It was very pastoral how you approached it and how you approached him.

So any any of the negative that you're getting from the other side, honestly, that's coming is either they didn't watch it or man, you talk about some hardened hearts.

Yeah. I have not watched his review of it either. I know some people have.

I had one guy tell me yesterday he why he couldn't even watch it. He says it's so bad. But I hadn't watched it.

Who knows what? I mean, there's no telling what you know. I was in and out, Trey, listening to his follow up.

And he was reviewing a little bit. What we're going to do is review a lot of highlighted clips in the debate. And he said,

Trey just kept talking over me. And I bet Jeremiah told him to eat up his time. Did I do that?

I tell you how to debate and how to eat up his time. That's exactly what you did. You were right here.

You're inside a camera. I mean, you're right here outside the camera. And the people that you were really with, you know, you weren't there.

I mean, those. Well, we were joking because it seemed as though Jeremiah was the third person in the debate because he was brought up so often.

Yeah. Well, Jeremiah is unregenerate. And at least he considers me a Christian. So I it did feel like I was in the debate.

I could not believe Travis opened up by not really addressing you, but all of your friends.

Right. I saw a picture of Jill and a post on her Facebook. I could not believe he started with that.

And then he quickly moved to me and my buddy Cameron Vogel saying. And that's another thing

I can tell that Travis antagonizes people and says, call my show, call my show.

And what we've seen every time is when someone calls in that disagrees, he's going to isolate a small little clip that they say and play it over and over and over.

And he takes them out of context. We're about to show how he also takes scripture out of context as well.

And so that kind of leads into our first highlight before you talk about that. I called in the show once and it was when he was dogging

Phil Robertson for like two weeks, just absolutely dogging him. And the funny thing is,

I was the only person that called his show to defend Phil Robertson. That's crazy, right?

I called because I love Phil. Do I agree with his theology? No, no. But I love

Phil and the way he was just absolutely dogging him saying he's making a deal with the devil and he's a heretic and he's this and he's that because he's not going to tell people they got to be baptized to be saved.

I just called in the show. I said, hey, look, Bob, you're wrong. I texted him before that, but he kept going, kept going.

And I was like, OK, I'm going to call in. And I spoke up for Phil. I said that he would not back down.

He would say what he believed at that church, whatever he was going to over there close to him that Travis was having a fit about.

And I even said on the show, I said, now, listen, when he does do what I'm telling you, he's going to do what you say he's not going to do.

Are you going to come back and apologize? And he was like, hmm. You know, but guess what he didn't do?

He didn't apologize. He just kept on floating down the river. But that's that's what we're dealing with.

So anyway, so you're you said you want to go to your first point. Yeah, because context is king. Right.

When we look to Scripture, we want to understand a verse in this particular passage, in that particular chapter, in that particular book, in light of all of Scripture.

Right. Context is so important. And when we when we see people calling into Travis's show, we see that he takes what they say out of context and he plays it on loop.

And then he just says whatever he wants. Right. But what we're noticing is he does the same thing with Scripture.

So I want to play this short clip and kind of get your thoughts on it, Trey and Nathan as well.

So listen to this. We're talking about context here. So does the Bible say directly that we are justified by words and not by faith only?

Regardless of your view of the context, does the Bible say that? Regardless of context, just remember that.

OK, so I want to play that short clip and we want to encourage people to go listen to the debate, listen to the full conversation, get the whole context.

But Trey, why do you think Travis thinks it's a good point to say, hey, is faith only faith alone?

Those words, is that anywhere in Scripture, regardless of the view of the context? Why do you think that's he thinks that's a good point to make?

OK, because like I've said from the beginning, even with Travis talking to him, you know, and somewhat cordial conversations.

And I tell you where I made a mistake is talking to him for an hour on the phone and telling him how I would answer things as a church of Christ preacher, how

I used to answer things. And regardless, anyway, so here's why they do that. Here's why they do that.

Because if they take the Bible in context, their whole system is gone. Like they cannot you can't read the

Bible in context and come up with what they come up with. You know, I'm saying this is every fundamentalist group.

It's always a battle for the definition of words. I mean, so when you change the definitions of words, then you can get you get a whole nother story.

Right. And so we in order to change the definition of words, we have to change the context of things and we have to make up words to, you know.

So that's why he doesn't want to look at the context, you know. Nathan, do you want to weigh in on that?

What did you first think when you heard Travis say that? Well, I mean,

I was blown away that he would actually come out and say something like that. And I think he he really shot from the hip and didn't plan on saying something.

He's smart enough to know that that was a foolish statement. And he started to try and backtrack it a little bit,

I think. But it really it exposed to me as I was listening to him, it exposed to me the fact that that their approach to hermeneutics, their approach to studying scripture as a whole, just like Trey just said, is flawed.

And I had to pull this up just to try and remember exactly what it is. He's essentially using, they call it

CENI, I believe, the C -E -N -I, a hermeneutic approach. And I'm trying to see what that what that acrostic stands for.

Do you know, Trey, off the top of your head, looking at command, example, necessary inference.

And inference, yeah. Yep. And their approach to scriptures is this very thing.

It's a literal reading of scripture that that when when when held under a microscope or even looked at at a at a basic level of scripture, interpreting scripture doesn't hold up.

But I think I honestly think he probably knew he made a mistake when he said that.

Especially, I got to point out Trey's perspective, Trey. Oh, I got one of my little ones rolling up in here.

Say hi. Joey! But especially when when when your response,

Trey. So I made a little video. Do we have that video, Jeremiah? I have it queued up.

Oh my goodness. That was a good video. I love it. Okay. Yeah, you got to use that on your show there, Trey. But I made a little video with like an explosion.

I wanted to get like an atomic bomb explosion going on in your head because that's kind of what it looked like. You were shocked that he said it.

Did you just say that? You know, it's just like, boom. Like, really? But, you know, and they talk about context because you have to like if you're going to speak the

Christian language, you have to learn Christianese. And so you have to say things like grace, faith. You have to say context matters.

You have to say these things. But at the end of the day, when you dive deep and when you look at it and you're challenged, you'll see that you really are not looking at context.

And I mean, I think that like you said, I think it was just a subconscious thing that he said, like regardless of context, because he doesn't care about the truth.

He wants to win the battle. He wants to win the argument. So let's just take context out so I can prove to you that baptism saves you.

And that's what I was loving. I was I couldn't wait to get to First Peter 321 and just to hold him to his own standard.

But, you know, it says what it says and it means what it means. You know, that type of standard. I would say, well, see, this this is where we differ is we believe in the

Christian faith that Christ saves us, not baptism. And he would have to say, oh, no, no, no. I think

Christ saves us, but it's when we're baptized. And I would just hold him to a standard and say, well, it doesn't say that it says this baptism.

You know, this water symbolizes baptism now saves you. This baptism saves you. And so if you want to add context to it, we can do that.

But if you add context to it, I was going to say, Travis, what you're saying is what you're trying to convince people of.

You're actually admitting that you're twisting it to try to say something that's not saying because it says that baptism saves you.

Right. Because we know Christ saves us. So what's the context? So we're talking a lot about context.

Now, a lot of these dialogues and I believe this was brought up in y 'all's debate, but talking about Paul's conversion.

And I think Acts chapter 19 was relevant in that. Did you want to speak to any of what context is there?

So before we got to Paul's conversion. You know, they they love Acts 19 because these people got rebaptized.

They were baptized in John's baptism. Right. And then Paul comes up to them and then they're baptized again. So they use this one out of context to prove that people who get baptized in a

Baptist church have to get baptized again. Right. Or somebody gets baptized in whatever denomination. You have to get baptized again because you didn't know the importance of baptism.

And that's the other thing is it's not just simply that you have to be baptized. You have to understand it. You have to know that baptism saves you or it's not going to save you.

Right. That's how they're thinking. But what I would want to point out a couple of things, I would say, well,

Apollos in the paragraph right above Acts 19, verse one, Apollos wasn't rebaptized. It doesn't mention anything about that because it said he taught things accurately, the things concerning Christ.

But then we get to the next paragraph in Acts 19. I just want to make the point of this right here just to get them to think.

Why did Paul ask? It's the dumbest question in the Bible. If you are a church of Christ person, if you believe that baptism is what saves you, and that's when you receive the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Let me show you this right here. It says this right here. And he said to them, did you receive the

Holy Spirit when you believed? Now, here's my question. I was going to ask

Travis. Travis, have you ever walked up to somebody and asked them if they received the Holy Spirit when they believed? Like, why would

Paul say such a crazy thing? Paul, you know, you don't receive the Holy Spirit when you believe.

You receive it when you're baptized. Right. And so, you know, then we get into the whole, well, then what baptism did you receive?

Because they never heard of the Holy Spirit. Well, they never heard of the Holy Spirit. So the next obvious question is, then what baptism did you receive?

Because, see, we baptize under the authority of Christ. And when we baptize, we baptize the people in the name of the Father, the

Son, and the Holy Spirit. So you should have heard it at your baptism. But see, they never heard of it. Right. And so, but this is why.

So here's the question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? That's the question. And I'll tell you why

Paul asked the question, because this is when you do receive it. He says, let me ask you only this. It's in Galatians 3.

This is Paul again. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, by doing something God said to do, right, or by hearing with faith?

Now, you can put anything in that blank as far as did you receive the Holy Spirit by X, Y, Z.

Put anything, because his point is by hearing with faith. That's how you received it. You're going down to verse 13.

It says this right here. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it's written, curse is everyone who's hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the

Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. But Acts 2, right?

Well, it goes back again. I don't think you understand the context of Acts 2 and what's going on in Acts 2.

Like, did you notice when he said, you know, when you give a gospel presentation and you share with somebody, do you give them the same one, the first one ever given in Acts?

I'm like, no, I give them the second one. Yeah, I remember that. Because it says, repent for the forgiveness of your sins, you know?

And he was like, what? Do you remember at the watch party, Trey, you had a bunch of one -liners, man.

We were like, man, we should put these on a t -shirt, and that was one of them. Let's look to the second sermon of Peter and see.

Yeah, does it contradict, you know? And as far as Paul's conversion, right, they love Acts 19, where Ananias says, what are you waiting for?

I mean, Acts 22, get up and wash your sins away, right, be baptized and wash your sins away. And so their point is that's when his sins were washed away.

I would totally disagree. I think this is where it comes down to just simple biblical theology, not a systematic theology, but just a biblical theology, understanding what

God is telling us throughout all the Bible. And so I would say, well, there's four conversion accounts of Paul in the

Bible, and only two of these conversion accounts mention his baptism. Now, if we're just going to be honest, let's just be honest with ourselves, and let's just think to ourselves.

If baptism is the hinge on which it swings, right, wouldn't he be talking about baptism in all four of his conversion accounts?

Like, I would think, I would think, I would say, Travis, or whoever, whoever, when you talk about being converted, do you mention your baptism?

I bet you do, right? But why did Paul not? You know, so when we get to Acts chapter 9, let me see if this is it right here.

Yeah. This is what Jesus calls down to Ananias and says this right here.

So in verse 10 it says, Now there was a disciple, Damascus, named Ananias. The Lord said to him, in a vision,

Ananias. He said, Here I am. And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to Strait, to the street called

Strait, and to the house of Judas. Look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. For behold, he's praying, and he's seen in a vision a man named

Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. So that being the case,

Ananias was not sent to Paul to show him how to get his sins washed away. Ananias was sent to give him his sight back.

And Jesus is saying, Listen, I have heard his prayers. He's praying to me. I'm hearing his prayers. And not only am I hearing his prayers,

I have given him a vision that a guy named Ananias, you are going to come and give him his sight back. And I would like to say,

Well, what's the significance about that? And I think they would be like, I don't know. I don't know. Well, I would say the significance is right here.

We know in John 9 it says that we know that God does not listen to sinners. But if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will,

God listens to him. So does the Bible contradict? That's the next question.

Because Paul is praying to Jesus, and Jesus is listening to his prayers and answering his prayers.

Now, either the Bible contradicts or it's not, right? Proverbs 15 says this right here. The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous.

Is it coincidental that Paul is the one that goes on to say that the righteous live by faith? This is all before he's baptized, before his sins are washed away.

Psalm 66 says this right here. Come in here, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.

I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the

Lord would not have listened. So how is God, Jesus Christ, listening to his prayers?

Because he is considered righteous in the eyes of God by his faith alone in him. Trey, more to the context with Ananias.

I love what you're doing because so much has already happened in the life of Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus, right?

What we see in Acts 9, and we see the account in Acts 22, and later in Acts 26, is Ananias, he's being obedient to the

Great Commission, right? Because the Lord has revealed to him, hey, you're going to go seek out Saul of Tarsus, and he's very hesitant to do these things.

And so in Acts 22, 16, what you see is Ananias being obedient to Mark 1, 15, proclaiming the gospel, and then the

Great Commission, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And rarely do

I hear a church of Christ quote Acts 22, 16 properly, right? Because when you go on to read, right, we read that washing away your sins is by calling on his name.

Okay, now Paul has a whole theology of what it means to call upon the name of the Lord. When you do that, you are in the present tense saved.

And we see that being expanded in Romans chapter 10. And so what we're kind of getting into is context matters.

Systematic biblical theology matters. But what we're starting to notice, especially with the church of Christ, is they have rescuing devices, right?

When something doesn't fit their theology, it's real easy to try to appeal to something, right?

Appeal to something to kind of rescue their inconsistencies. So this kind of brings me to another clip that I was wanting to get your thoughts on.

Let's see here. So Trey, do you know what a synecdoche is? It's a card they hold up when they don't like it.

When they don't like it. It's their get out of jail free card, they feel like.

As far as Travis, anyway. Let me play this clip. And I want to first hear from Nathan what your immediate thoughts about this are.

So think about the term synecdoche. Baptism. So I just want to make sure you understood what a synecdoche is.

It's a convenient word game. What law was Adam under?

That's right. Okay, no, Nathan, you go ahead first. Well, I really don't have a lot to say here.

I think it's just a word play with him, honestly. I think that he threw that word out there hoping to trip him up.

And so that he can mold anything he wants to mold into it. I mean, essentially what you guys were just saying with context.

It all applies. This kind of flows out of it. I think it's really important for people to have this ability for them to weasel their way out of what they know is inconsistent with the entirety of scripture.

And when they come in contact with someone that has an answer that puts it within context, then this really flows back to their way of interpreting scripture that I said a moment ago, that necessary inference.

They have to have something like this. Let me read this for our listeners. The definition here is a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole.

And there's an example such as a 50 sail for 50 ships, the whole for a part such as a society for high society, that you can just make a phrase and that it applies across the board with whatever you want it to apply to.

That makes sense. And so that, that is, that's essential for them to be able to come to the, the doctrinal conclusion that they come to in some of these cases, for example, with baptism.

So Nathan, have you ever read the word synecdoche in your Bible before? Well, I searched,

I thought for sure that it's got to be in the King James, right? It's gotta be in there somewhere because they don't use anything.

That's not from scripture, right? So I went and looked and unfortunately I didn't find it.

So they must have some kind of a special, special revelation Bible, right?

Cause it's gotta be in there. If he's going to use it, it's gotta be in there, right? Well, so Trey, this is where I want to throw it over to you.

Now, something you've taught me and I've loved this because you constantly are exposing double standards, right?

You've said, Jeremiah, you got to fight legalism with legalism. So explain to me why in the world

Travis would say, right, their creed, which they don't want to have creed, but they can't because by definition you have a, a doctrine of standard that you hold to.

Why in the world would he say we speak where the Bible speaks and we're silent where the Bible is silent. And yet we see him appealing to this term synecdoche.

What's going on there? Yeah, a lot. And I think I mentioned

Francis Bacon, Baconianism in the debate. I don't know if I did or not, but this is, this is the issue of this tradition that started in May of 1811 is it was influenced by a philosopher

Francis Bacon. That's who influenced this, the leaders, the Campbells in this group that, that says that you can come to something with a clean slate with no preconceived ideas whatsoever.

And this is why they say things only want the Bible. I don't care about man's tradition. I don't want to hear this explanation.

That's just a man's opinion. And it just contradicts everything they say, because everybody comes to this with a bent.

Right. And so they say the right things like, Oh, well, it sounds good. We speak where the Bible speaks and we're silent where it's silent, but you're not like the worst synecdoche is nowhere in the

Bible, you know? And you speak a lot where the Bible is silent and you don't speak when it does speak.

You refuse to acknowledge it. And so, you know, like Nathan saying, you have to come up with something to get around about,

I don't know, 500 plus verses in the Bible that talks about faith and believing. Right. Because it can't be that good because he here in America, because think about this, this is

Americanized religion. It started in America. Okay. Along with the other restoration movements.

And so it's Americanized. And guess what? In America, we have this little saying that says if something sounds too good to be true, it probably what it probably what probably is.

Right. But see, here's the deal. God's not an American. That's the problem. And this sounds too good to be true because it is too good.

It's so much better than you ever dreamed. It is believing grace that we were saved, but, but in America, we got, we got, there's something

I got to do. And this is what I tell people all the time in my church. Like we just had a potluck and I know y 'all do it every Sunday. We do it once a month.

And I tell people, especially for our visitors, don't let this workspace salvation get in your way of coming to our potluck because here's how typical people think.

And it's just, it's the same thing with religion. You know, you're starving. You have not eaten. You did not eat breakfast.

And you're like, you know what? We forgot the green bean casserole. And so then when everybody says, Hey, are you going to stay?

You're like, no, we're good. We're good. No, you're not. You're lying. The reason you don't want to come to the potluck and eat the free food is because you forgot to bring your green bean casserole.

You think you got to bring something to the table. And if you bring your green beans and you can eat anything else, like that's

Americanized. You know what I'm saying? So there's no way I can come to Christ for nothing just by believing. No, there's something

I got to do. And so. I thought it would be worthwhile real quick to kind of present a true synecdoche.

I remember a while back I got to preach out of Psalm chapter 19. And we really do see a part of creation that's representative of the whole.

So King David in Psalm chapter 19 says the heavens declared the glory of God in the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

So when we read about the heavens, the skies, this is representative of all of God's creation, right?

It's highly poetic, right? Because we understand that God doesn't have hands, right?

But it's telling us that all of creation testifies to the creator. And I wanted to speak to one other thing that you said,

Trey, that was really good. Like what I've noticed with Church of Christ is Acts 238,

Acts 238, Acts 238 and Acts 237 says, you know, the Jews say, what must we do, right?

So when they hear us say, you can't do anything, they hear a direct contradiction to what the

Jews asked. And I almost want to call time out and say, wait a second. That is a Jewish context.

They are in Judaism and they're asking the broad question, how we live our life.

If Judaism is wrong, if the fulfillment is found in Christ. And so when he says repent, that would also entail faith, right?

That's what we'd say, looking to Jesus Christ, the one whom you crucified, the son of glory, look to him.

They would have understood everything that he accomplished at Calvary, which is redemption of sin.

That is how you would have received forgiveness of sin, right? And then he's calling them to demonstrate their faith to the entire world, to go public with that declaration of identifying in the name of Jesus, right?

Now, Trey, this is where I've thought ever since my debate a few months ago, is, you know, they want to speak where the

Bible speaks and don't give us your interpretation. The Bible, you know, says what it says and it means what it means.

Well, what I've noticed is if we held them to their own standard, Acts 2 .38 says repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus.

Now, I don't know any church of Christ that would baptize in the name of Jesus. They would appeal back to the

Great Commission in Matthew 28, 19 and 20 there, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And what would they do? Well, they would break their own standard of Acts 2 .38

says what it says, and they would have to go and explain how in the name of Jesus means under his power and authority.

Now, that sounds like they're trying to do exegesis and Bible hermeneutics and interpret Scripture. That's a good thing.

Give them credit, right? That is true. That is good. Good job, church of Christ. But, and this is what we're talking about,

Jeremiah, like when we get to James 2, we get to all these other verses that they twist to try to make their point, is like what you're saying with Acts 2.

Don't just give half the verse context. Give the whole verse context. You know what

I'm saying? Because you're doing really good by not doing it in the name of Jesus. You're doing it by the authority of, and that's great hermeneutics.

That's great Bible study. That's great context. That's good. But don't stop there. Do the whole thing, right?

Right. And that's the thing, but that hurts the narrative. So we're just going to apply it to half of it.

So, Trey, I want to transition. You asked Travis, I thought, a really good question. You asked him about the word faith.

So as I'm queuing this up, tell us why this is a good question in the dialogue with the church of Christ, or really anybody that's outside orthodoxy.

Why does it understand to get a proper definition of the word faith? Because definitions matter.

Again, once you change the definitions of words in the Bible, like man, who knows where you're going to end up.

You're not going to end up in the right spot, I guarantee you that. And so by changing the definition of this, and I wouldn't even say change, they add to it, right?

They add to it because it's just not enough, because that right there, this definition, if that were true, if that is the

Greek word, which it is, that destroys the whole argument. The whole thing is gone.

So we have to add in there and take out of context another verse, right?

Add that context to that definition to get around everything else in the Bible. I think that's great.

So you ask him this question, and I want the audience to hear how he comes back. He tries to jump ship and go somewhere else.

So you all listen to this portion. Let's do this. What does the definition of faith?

Would you agree that this is faith? To be honest, the screen is so blurry I can't read it.

Is that what you vote to trust? Is that what you vote to trust? To trust the state of being someone in whom confidence can be placed, fidelity, commitment, a solemn promise to be faithful and loyal.

That is the Greek definition of pistos. The Greek word. That's BDAG.

Which one do you want to go? I'll give you anything you want. You want Thayer's? Thayer's is strong, but I don't really have an objection to much, but if you pull up Thayer's, it does define also, or Strong's defines also a system of faith, like in Jude 3.

That's what you want to use, Jude 3. So a system? It's a system, yeah. Well, here's any definition.

It's faith. It's complete trust and confidence. Okay? That's what faith is. You want to change it to something else.

I understand why. Believe. Before you go to pistos and talk about believe, why do you think he wanted to jump ship and go to Jude verse 3?

Well, because when he says, well, Thayer's defines it as, I mean, Strong's.

Well, Strong's does say that when he's talking about Jude 3, but not just blanket that that's what faith means.

In Jude 3, in that context, right? So Jude 3 says that we are to contend for the faith, right?

So in that context, that definition is the faith, not contend for faith, the word what faith means, don't contend for faith, but contend for the faith, right?

And so this is the word game. This is such a dirty trick. So in that context of the faith, what are we contending for and fighting for?

To protect what? The faith, not faith, the faith. And what is the faith? Well, here is

Strong's in the general Christian usage, and I know you have the definition as well, but I'm going to give you the background here in Strong's.

Under the general Christian usage, it's the continuation of Old Testament Jewish tradition as to obey and to trust, to hope, faithfulness.

Specifically, Christian usage is this right here, acceptance of the kerygma, the content of faith, faith as a personal relation to Christ and the believing, the relation of Christian faith to that of the

Old Testament, the Pauline concept of faith in contrast to Judaism.

I mean, it just goes on. It's talking about we're to contend and fight for the faith. And so what he has to do to get around faith, right, the definition for the word, you have to take the explanation of the faith in Jude 3, what it's talking about now because it says, oh, it says system.

It says the whole thing. Well, then let's go put that back in Romans 5, that we are justified by faith in Christ, right, by faith.

So we're justified by the whole thing, the whole teaching. Does Christ save us or does the doctrines save us?

No, Christ saves us. And it's my faith in him, not faith in anything else.

It's faith in Jesus Christ. And so that's the word game and that's the trickery of that.

And it's just dirty. And he knows it. Well, I was looking at this word earlier, especially in the

Strong's definition. That's what he wanted to hold to. And like Trey Fisher has been teaching me, hold them to their own standard.

And so what we see here is the system of religious, in parentheses, gospel, truth itself.

And so Strong's goes on to explain further what it's getting at. Assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity, right?

So this is the entry point to being in Christ by faith, being justified, right, having a right standing before God almighty.

And then, yes, Jude 3 tells us, hey, and in light of that you have the faith that we contend for.

This is my exact heart for the apologetic dog, is we want to guard the deposit that's been entrusted to us, the gospel.

And then like the second half of the Great Commission that Nathan, a lot of times goes to and says, and we are called to show all that Christ has commanded us.

We're looking to the whole counsel of God. But you can't, like you're saying, take that and say, okay, we have to take works now and baptism in order to be made right with God.

Right, it's just, it's a dirty trick like you're saying. I'm telling you, man, it makes me angry.

It does, it really does, in a righteous way, because it's like you're playing on people's, you're playing with people's eternal soul.

And you know, you know, these people out here don't have Strong's and Thayer's and BDAG and all these things, and they might not take the time to do that.

Ultimately, it's all our fault individually. But this is why we're going to be judged whoever teaches more harshly, because this guy has that.

Obviously, he's reading from Strong's, and he knows that that right there is talking about the faith, not faith itself.

That is not the definition of faith. That is the explanation of what he is talking about, the faith in Jude 3. And when you take that and you put it over here on this right here, you're adding to it.

And this is where, you know, we don't add or take away like, whoa, whoa, whoa, yes, you do. And it's just, you're contradicting yourself everywhere.

And if it, look, here's, at the end of the day, it's this right here. Do we want to be honest about this or not? Because if you're honest, if anybody,

I don't care, you just take a professor who's an atheist in college that takes up this subject, and he talks to me, you, and T .T.

over here about this definition. Every professor in every university would say, who's an

English professor would say, yeah, Travis, you're taking that completely out of its context. That's not what it's talking about.

I'm just being honest. I mean, it's just, it's not some mind -blowing thing. I mean, it's just simple, you know?

One's talking about the faith, and one's talking about faith itself. Another part in the debate, it was interesting to me because Travis really thought this was a defeater.

He went to the Gospel of John, chapter 12, verse 42. And he really thinks that this debunks faith alone.

And so I want to play this. It'll be a little bit under a minute. And I want you to address this because time flies when you're in the cross -examination and things like that.

I know that you thought there was going to be a whole other section later. So I wanted to play this so they kind of get more context.

I want to play it almost for a minute. Then I want you to speak. Please don't just play 30 seconds of what he says and then play the whole thing in context.

Thank you. A lot of people in these fundamentalist groups, they're scared that they're going to lose their identity, their community, their friends, and everything because they know if they leave this group to follow

Jesus, it's going to cost them. But the question is, is he worth the cost? And he is worth the cost. But these

Pharisees in 1242 did not believe him in that sense where they totally trusted him.

They believed he was who he said he was, but not to the extent they're going to leave that synagogue and kick out of the synagogue.

But wait a second. I want to ask you here. First John 5 -1 says everyone who believes that Jesus is the

Christ has been born of God. Everyone who believes. Now, you've got to work with some contradictions because if you don't look at the context of things, you're going to find yourself contradicting yourself everywhere because you're going to have to say, well, that word believes there.

It's a convenient word we made up called synecdoche where we say that it encompasses the whole thing of everything.

Well, isn't that convenient? Isn't that convenient? You're going to talk to me about words that are not in the Bible? You want to book chapter, verse?

See, the standard, I'm going to hold you to your standard. Where is synecdoche and that word in scripture? I love that.

That was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole debate, Trey, because you were holding him to his own standard, and I could tell he did not like that.

So explain to us John 12 -42. I'll perhaps read that here, and then

I want you to say why was it, what's the context going on there? What did Jesus earlier define what true saving faith looks like and how that relates back to 1

John 5 -1. So let me read that. John 12 -42 says,

Nevertheless, many, even the authorities, believed in him, but for fear of the

Pharisees they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. The sad thing is this is true for people in fundamentalist groups.

Whatever fundamentalist group you find yourself in, it's so built around community, and the idol itself is not truth.

You don't worship truth. You're worshiping the community, and you know if you take truth and you take Christ, you're going to lose this community.

You're going to lose all your friends, and this goes all the way back to John 12. This is what's going on here. Yeah, they might see the truth.

They believe the truth. They're like, man, this is true. Oh, I don't know what to say about this. Good night. It's everywhere, right?

There he is. There's Jesus. I see it. I see it. I believe it, but not to the extent I'm going to lose my community over it because I trust.

I love the Attaboys more than I love the glory of God, and that's what it went on to say, right, that they love the praise of men.

They love the Attaboys. You're so good. You're so smart. We look up to you. They would rather have that than the glory of God, right?

Can I read that? Can I read that real quick? That's so good for the context. So the next verse says, For they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

Right, and man's primary purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, and so they don't want to give

God all the glory. They love the glory, and this is why, again, it's so hard for people to leave these type of groups is because they know if they do, they're going to lose their name tag.

They're going to lose the podium they stand behind. They're going to lose their position, their job possibly, and that's not worth it to them.

They'd rather still hold on to a little Jesus and think that, you know, I mean, we're still good. We still love Jesus. That's not how it works.

If you're not willing to risk it all and lose it all for him, you're not his disciple, and this is where they found themselves in.

My point to Travis is, again, when context doesn't matter, like he says, he's going to find himself in a really big pickle, okay, because I'm going to make him give context, but he don't want to give context because he can't.

When you go to 1 John 5 .1, it says, everyone, and everyone means in the

Greek everyone, who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

So here's the dichotomy here. You have these guys over here in 12, John 12. It says they believe

God. Well, then you have the same author, John, writes 1 John, and he says everyone who believes has been born of God.

Now we know these guys in John 12 were not true Christians, right? So what do we do with this 1

John? See, we're going to have to put some context in here because it says they believed, but then over here it says everyone who believes.

So what do we do with that? Then when you go to John 4 .23, look, go to John 4 .23.

Jesus says this right here. Sorry, verse two, you worship what you do not know.

We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the

Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. We went through it really quick, and this is the problem with Bible reading.

People read the Bible too fast. So I tell people to read it again and slow down and then read it a third time, but a little bit slower.

And Jesus says this. Okay, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers...

See, he acknowledges there are some false worshipers. If everybody was just a worshiper blanket, then there's no point in distinguishing between true worshipers.

See, Jesus even realizes there are some people who are false worshipers and true worshipers. And so this is what it was talking about.

But again, if you don't care about context, you care about winning an argument, you just go, well, it says this. It just says this.

Well, let me tell you, that is the worst way to talk to me about the Bible, because I'm going to hold you to that, and you are going to be really bad.

Trey, I love how you went to 1 John 5. Also, because you've got to think, it's the same human writer.

It's the apostle John, so it's relevant to see what else he's explained. It's almost like if you read the gospel, this is written to whosoever, to unbelievers, that they may know who

Jesus Christ is, believe in his name, and have everlasting life. 1 John is written to believers, giving us doctrine, a deeper insight of why you came to receive

Jesus to begin with. And what I love about 1 John 5, verse 1, everyone who believes that Jesus is the

Christ has been born of God. And this is where I encourage people, study the

Greek, understand that this was the original language. You don't have to be a scholar to understand the Bible, but you can understand things with precision, because that was the language in which it was inspired.

And so when we read, has been born of God, this is in the perfect tense. This is an action that's happened in the past that has future ramifications.

And so what is wonderful about that is this has taken place in the life of a Christian in the past, and what's in the present is believing.

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of Him. So you've been born from above, born of God, and that is why, that produces the believing present tense in your life.

And so we see that here in 1 John 5, and it's so easy to see that come more out of what 1

John is getting at earlier in 1 John 2, verse 29. If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.

And this is the same Greek construction. Being born of Him is born of Him is in the perfect, in the past tense, and that's what produces practicing righteousness.

We believe in Christ and that produces righteousness in our life. Works of obedience meant to glorify

God in our sanctification. And so context, developing these things, gives us this full orbed understanding of what

John means when he says what he says. And all this is important when you go into John 12, verse 42, like I think you've been demonstrating.

So I don't know if you want to follow up with anything. I want to add to that. When you jumped back into 1 John, I love to go verse by verse, and actually

I preached verse by verse through 1 John. So, and I love it. Check this out.

You want to talk about commandment, what we're commanded to do, what we're commanded to do, we got to do, we got to do, we got to do. Okay.

We'll go to 1 John 3, right? And start in chapter 3, verse 22. It says, and whatever whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we keep

His commandments and do what pleases Him. And this is His commandment. Repent and be baptized.

Nope. And this is His commandment. What is it? That we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and what?

Be baptized? Nope. Love one another just as He commanded us. That's it. That is the commandment.

And so what is, this is when it gets into law, when He's like, well I'm not preaching the law. Do you think

Paul was preaching the law? But let me tell you something. The law, this is why we look to Christ, and I talked about this a little bit in the debate.

We look to Christ because guess what? The law of God is perfect, holy, righteous, and good. And guess who did it for us?

Jesus Christ. This is why we look to Christ, because what did He do? He fulfilled the law. What is the law if we sum up the whole thing?

Love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. Isn't it crazy that the commandment that He gives Christians, this right here, this is the commandment, that we believe in the name of the

Son, Jesus Christ, so believe in Him, and love one another. Jesus Christ is

God. Love God, love your neighbor. That's it. This really goes back, don't you think, to their interpretation of faith and belief.

I mean, this is why they want to be very slippery with that, because that leaves it open -ended, because I believe their argument to that statement is, well, of course, that's what it says, is to believe, but they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what belief is, because they're going to say, well, this applies to...

Exactly. This applies to what believing entails, which is baptism, which is where they go with it.

So, how would you respond? Let's say you're talking to someone like a Travis, again, and it nails down that specific, that particular approach to their interpretation.

What would be a succinct response? Well, first of all, I think that a good understanding, it depends, you know, you have the capital

L law, you have the lowercase L law, right? The lowercase L law supersedes the capital

L law that was written in the Old Testament as far as the laws of God, because the law was given to give you knowledge of your sin, because sin was in the world before the law came, right?

And the lowercase L law is just the loving God, loving your neighbor. And so then he comes to the Jews, he gives them the written code law to how to live the way that God intends for us to live, to show you exactly what to do.

And so here's the problem, is when they think that you've got to do these things, even that itself is law.

Loving God is law. That's law. Like, so when they say, well, you still have to love God, well, we're justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And even he would say you have to love God, but that's law. Love your neighbor. That's law as well.

Just try your best, man. That's what we're told. Just try your best. Here's a big deal.

In one of his videos, and I can look it up and show you and give you a time stamp on all of it, he says, listen, you've got to basically get baptized and you've got to do your best.

You've got to make yourself righteous or holy. You've got to do that first and then you get baptized, okay?

And I can't wait for him to deny saying this, and I'm going to give him the time stamp in the video of when he said it.

Then he says, then you've got to get baptized and I'm going to look it up when we go to the next point, just so I'm not lying to there.

He said, look, God doesn't demand you to be perfect. He's not expecting you to be perfect. Just try hard, right? That's the problem.

See, you don't know the gospel. Let me tell you what God demands of you. If you want to go spend eternity with him in heaven, perfection.

He demands perfection and you can't do it. This is why he sent his son and we look at Christ and we hang on to his righteousness.

You're lying to people when you say that God does not demand perfection. Then why did he send his son if he doesn't demand perfection?

He demands perfection, and the only way you're going to be perfect is when you are in Christ Jesus, and that's federal headship.

That's not being baptized into Jesus. That's another word game play that they're doing.

That's being in the federal headship of Christ where Christ is covering you because you're in Christ because you're faith in him. That's the only thing that's going to get you to heaven is

Christ alone because he who had no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. They have a fundamental misunderstanding of federal headship.

They have a misunderstanding of original sin. I think this is why they're so frustrated with you and Jeremiah is the reformed tradition, the reformed interpretation of belief and faith is the only one that can actually give an answer for both of those.

That's the only one that can actually give an answer because I think they're used to dealing with somebody that speaks of faith and belief in a pretty benign way.

When they're talking about faith and belief, it's almost a hybrid of what we're saying from Scripture and what they're saying.

It's easy to combat that and now they're being bashed up against the rock of reformed theology that says, no, no, no, let's go back to more of a fundamental understanding.

Let's go back to a biblical understanding of original sin and let's go back to a biblical understanding of federal headship.

Let's really begin to understand what it meant to be in Adam and then what it means to be in the better Adam.

That just blows their mind. When you say they have a bad understanding of federal headship,

I'll just tell you this. I don't think that terminology doesn't even exist. They've never heard of federal headship.

They can't. What are they going to do with it if the terminology is there? There's no way of trying to distort it in an easy and clean way,

I would say. Didn't Travis debate Matt Slick? Didn't they get into that a little bit?

Yeah, that's a great one. That's why I said people need to read that. Here's the quote from Travis. It was on his debate

Did Eve Sin? At the one -minute -and -five -second mark or the hour -and -five -minute mark.

That's the debate, Did Eve Sin? Either one -minute -and -five -seconds or hour -and -five -minutes. Y 'all can check it out.

He says this right here. One must be holy to become a Christian. What?

One must be holy to become a Christian. Sanctification. You must make that decision on repentance that you're going to clean up your life and live for God and like I said, you're not going to be perfect.

What? Talk about an anathema. I mean, it's just completely...

That's his debate on Did Eve Sin? Travis at the one -minute -and -five -second mark, maybe an hour, but go look at it.

Let me read it again. We must be holy to become a Christian. Sanctification.

You must make that decision on repentance that you're going to clean up your life and live for God and like I said, you're not going to be perfect.

Wow. It's crazy. It's sad. It's heartbreaking. But... Well, there was a lot there.

You know, when we read be holy as God is holy, that's showing the standard that we fall short.

We've all fallen short of the glory of God. We can't do it. That's why Jesus in the famous Sermon on the

Mount, you must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Do you think the Pharisees that he just got done rebuking understood that they fall short even from the heart level?

No. God demands perfection. If you look at love God and love neighbor and say, oh,

I try that really hard. Well, how are you doing with that? That's not just a suggestion but that is a law and that's meant to crush us.

Now, the law, like you said, is holy, righteous, and good because it reflects the unchanging character of God, but we can't do that.

Whoever stumbles at one point in the law has broken the whole entire, shattered the entirety of the law.

Jesus Christ did it perfectly. So, something else I got queued up here, Trey, was, it was interesting because what we see is holding to their standards, right?

That's something that, if I can pull it up here, I was wanting to pull up how we love this verse because it gets at the heart of true worshipers that look to Jesus and saving faith and they confess that right from the heart, right?

Now, what I've seen Travis do is say, well, you've got to confess with your mouth.

That means you've got to actually say words of Jesus is Lord in order to be saved.

That's why they have their little five -step formula and that's one of them is confessing. You've got to say the words and we push back and say, is that what

Paul's talking about? If you don't say the exact words then you can't be saved.

Now, that's what they're saying because it says what it says and it means what it means and my good friend Cameron has rightly pointed out, well, look, it's not by saying the right incantation, the right formula in order to be made right with God.

It's getting at the fundamental principle of the heart and so when y 'all are answering questions here,

I noticed that Travis broke his own standard. He makes an exception for somebody who can't speak.

As we're going to see, he's going to make an exception to this and he ridicules my buddy Cameron for this and I'm like, he doesn't even see that he's being inconsistent here, breaking his own standard.

I want you to hear this and maybe get some of y 'all's thoughts. Well, what if people can't hear him and Matthew 10, 32, so now he's trying to make excuses about what if people can't speak?

Well, what if people can't hear? How are they going to hear the gospel? What about if a person has no legs to walk to get baptized?

We can come up with what if but I think the person, if they can't speak and you say, do you believe that Jesus is the son of God, can he shake his head?

Can he give some kind of sign of language? So what bothers me about this is he missed the point of the question.

So that person that nods their head cannot confess with the mouth that Jesus is

Lord but he's going to break that standard. That's not someone who's mentally impaired. That's not talking about the infant. That's somebody who's providentially cannot speak, who is mute.

Right. By God. By God, right? So here they cannot confess Jesus as Lord and yet we're going to hear him break his own standard but he's going to ridicule somebody else that says no, it's not talking about if you do works, if you express the right,

God, I said the magic formula therefore I need to be made right. No. Obedient, being obedient to confessing

Jesus as Lord is worshipping him from the heart. That's going to manifest itself not only with what you say but how you live your entire life.

Loving God and your neighbor. Loving God, loving neighbor, all to the glory of God alone.

And so anyway, did you want to speak to that real quick? Yeah, I mean it just shows the inconsistencies of this literalistic reading of scripture.

Like you want to hold people to the fire on all these things but yet you don't hold yourself to the fire in your own explanations.

It's just a double standard. It's very inconsistent. Now whether they want to admit it or not, but if they know, when they put their head on the pillow at night, if they think about what we're saying right here, they know, okay, that's pretty inconsistent and I'm holding people to a standard

I can't hold to myself. Because either you have to confess with your mouth literally because that's what it's saying or it's saying, there's some context and that's the good thing about the

Greek language. This is what it means in the confess, to commit oneself to do something for someone promised to assure of one mind, to be of one mind, to share a common view or be of common mind about a matter to agree with, right?

And so that's what it's saying to confess. It's not saying literalistically all mute people are out.

And they know they are not going to say that, right? Like he's saying, I can't go that far. Well, if you're going to do this, then hold yourself to that standard and do it consistently through Scripture, but you can't and you won't because you know it shows how bad this whole doctrine really is.

It shows how bad it is. If you stay consistent with this type of thinking and understanding of Scripture, not only is the

Church Christ numbers down right now bad, it would be gone if you were consistent with everybody and honest.

So I want to speak to this too because this verse got brought up in my debate a couple months ago. And we have so many brothers in the

Southern Baptist world we love dearly. We differ on some of these doctrines. And I think the

Church of Christ make a really good point a lot of times in having these dialogues with the

SBC world saying, well, isn't confessing your mouth a work, right? Isn't praying a prayer a work?

And I think that's a valid point because that is something that you were doing. And if you said the right formula, then you are earning your wage, what is due to you.

I completed this task, therefore, I earned it. Now, that's where understanding context, having a systematic theology, and understanding the

Greek, confessing like you're talking about is so much more fundamental than saying the right word.

It's a heart that trusts in Jesus. And that's why Paul in Romans 10 goes on to say, that person that confesses

Jesus as Lord is, in the present tense, justified. It's just like this word right here,

Jeremiah. They use the word obey as far as do something.

You've got to do it. You've got to obey. And they put this word game where, okay, well, it says in 2 Thessalonians 1, 8, 9, he will punish those who do not know

God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They'll be punished with everlasting destruction. And your question is, what's the gospel? 1

Corinthians 15, 1 -4. Brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel which I preached to you. You know what I'm saying? And he goes on to the death, burial, and resurrection.

Well, how do you obey that? Romans 6. Don't you know that all of us were baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection? So they play this word game really fast.

And you're like, whoa! How do you obey that? Well, you do it through baptism. Well, the problem is, that's not what that means.

You said that so fast as though you've said that for many years. I could quote it the whole chapter to you.

But look, in Romans 10, this is where it all kind of falls apart right here. This is what he's talking about in verse 16.

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. Because what does obey mean, right? They have not all obeyed the gospel.

For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

So why would if obey means to do something and get baptized, obeying the gospel, why does he follow up with believing?

Oh, because this is what it means to follow instructions, obey, follow, be subject to, obedient, which one embraces in full surrender, accepts the invitation.

I mean, it's to be in compliance with. It's to accept in your heart. I want to go back through that just a little bit slower for anyone that's listening.

So Romans 10, we've been in Romans 10 for a little bit, and Paul goes on to say, but they have not all obeyed the gospel.

Remember, this is their key word. You've got to obey, which obey necessarily means works in their minds.

That's not what Paul's talking about here in the context. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. What are you talking about,

Paul? Well, he quotes Isaiah. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what has been heard of us?

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing of the word of Christ. So here obeying the gospel, obeying what

Christ has commanded us, is believing from the heart, right? And people say, oh, it doesn't say from the heart. Well, you're not going to believe with your foot, right?

Paul is getting at a point here. You're trusting this with your entire being of what Christ has done for us.

Jeremiah, I want to go, I'm sorry, go ahead. I was going to say obeying is so much broader than the works that we do.

Obeying from the heart is faith. We're saying obedient doesn't entail works every single time.

It can get something much more fundamental, and that's why the scriptures say God sees the heart. That's why

God tests the heart of man. Go ahead. Jeremiah, when you go, and I want to go to Galatians 3 really quick before we shut this down, but just talking about obedient from the heart.

Guess what? Guess where that phrase is? Romans 6 when it's talking about baptism. What is Paul excited about?

What is he so excited, what is he so thankful for that he got dunked in water? No. He says this right here in verse 17.

Thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart.

From the heart. We can go on, but I want to hit Galatians 3 really quick because I know we'll have to go pretty soon.

Do you care if I play the clip where...

Actually, that is the wrong slide, Nathan. Did you think we're about to start a 12 -5 service there for a second?

What's going on? I'm learning from you OBS, so you got to show me that little extra grace.

That's the blind leading the blind right there. I'm glad you brought this up,

Trey, because Travis mentioned Galatians 3 26 and 27, but you got to be consistent with what's being said here.

Faith is being talked about and baptism is being talked about. That hurts the whole synecdoche issue, but we'll talk about that.

Let's hear from your little cousin, Travis. Baptized into Christ. I'll end on this one because this one,

Paul actually tells us about faith. He says, For you are all the children of God by faith.

What kind of faith? How is it? You do not know as many of you have been baptized into Christ.

You put on Christ. Okay, that's a good...

He's quoting Galatians 3 26 and 27. He's telling us what kind of faith is being had here.

Is that what's going on, Trey? Yeah, this is so bad. The book of Galatians has so many...

Faith and belief is mentioned so many crazy amounts of times. Baptism is mentioned once.

It's mentioned there in verse 27. Here's what I would like to get people to think about. For one, the synecdoche thing breaks down right here.

Synecdoche means apart for the whole. He says that you're all sons of God through faith. For all of you who have been baptized, why even distinguish baptism?

Wouldn't that be included in faith? Does that make sense? Wouldn't that be included right there in verse 26? Why now distinguish this baptism thing?

That included the whole thing right there. But let's just go a little bit further. You are all sons of God.

How? Through faith. Bam, right there. Whether you like it or not, you're all sons of God through faith.

Then you've all been clothed with Christ. When you were baptized, you were clothed with Christ. Let me ask you something. Can you clothe something that does not exist first?

Can you clothe a child if you do not have a child? Did Travis clothe his daughters or his sons, whatever he has?

Did he clothe them before they were born or after they were born? Oh. Go make disciples, baptize them.

You're a son of God through faith. And then you've been clothed. How? When you're baptized, put on Christ.

Now there's a huge context there. Go watch this Matt Slick debate. Don't have time to get into that right now. Verse 6 of chapter 4.

What does it say? Check this out. Because you are sons, because you are sons, how are we sons?

Through faith. Chapter 3, verse 26, you're a son through faith. Because you are sons,

God has sent his spirit, the spirit of his son into our hearts. Wow. That kind of makes sense with chapter 3, right?

Did you receive the Holy Spirit by works of the law, by doing something, or by hearing with faith?

Keep on going. Verse 13. We receive the Holy Spirit by hearing with faith. That's how we receive the spirit.

Here again. Again, think about this. Just be honest with yourself. Can you clothe something that does not exist?

Can you clothe a person that doesn't exist? No. You're a son of God by faith, and then you clothe the son.

That's when we were baptized. We were clothed with Christ. It was giving us a visual of maturity in the faith. That is the context here of chapter 3.

I love it, Trey. Because you're already a son or daughter in Christ. That's why you get baptized.

So, you know, Travis and them are saying, what kind of faith? It's an obedient faith, right? See, baptism's right there in the context.

Something that I've brought up with Galatians 3 here is, once again, this is epistle.

This is a doctrinal text. You have been immersed into Christ. He is already talking to believers who were baptized.

Yes, they would have understood the doctrine of being immersed into Christ. They are our son and daughter.

They would have been thinking about their baptism, like you said, putting on those clothes as sons and daughters in Christ.

Trey, thank you so much for all of your knowledge and just taking the time to explain to people, hey,

I've lived in this movement before. I know how they think. It's showing us how they handle certain verses.

They're going to be inconsistent all over the place, all for the sake of being right. It breaks our heart because we're not trying to expose them as meanies.

We actually love them so much that we'd be willing to talk with them in truth. Something I just want to encourage anybody listening, and I've heard you say this,

Trey, but there's an endangered species out there, right? A man of God willing to stand firmly on the truth.

We need more men willing to be firm and trust God and His sovereignty, understanding that as we proclaim the

Word of God, it doesn't return empty. God is going to accomplish that for the very purpose that He has.

I want us to wrap up. I think we could do this all day. I would absolutely love that.

Nathan, what are some of your closing thoughts after watching maybe my debate with Brock a few months ago, and then also seeing

Trey coming on The Gospel Truth with Travis on this debate too? I'm just so appreciative of both of you guys and your pastoral heart in that you are desiring to reach people, not to prove your points, not to be right, not to gain some academic respect, but that I think both of you,

I've seen both of your hearts, I've heard you in both of these debates, both of you were pointing solely to Christ and Christ alone for the desire of His sheep hearing

His voice and coming to Him. Continue that work, guys. I came into today thinking

I may have a natural tendency to overpower and talk over and keep this whole thing going, but I found myself just wanting to sit back and just absorb from you guys.

That was a blessing and I pray that the people listening, everyone involved that watches this video, anybody that may be currently a part of the

Church of Christ to listen in with an open heart. Here, ultimately, you guys know this,

God's the one that's going to have to do the work. The Holy Spirit's going to have to awaken. He's going to have to take that heart of stone and turn it into a heart of flesh for anyone to even begin to understand or comprehend anything being said today.

But we trust in that because God has an elect from every tribe, nation, tongue, right? They're out there.

There are true sheep in the midst of even the Church of Christ, whether that be the

Mormons, the Jehovah's Witness, Muslims, whatever it may be, there are sheep out there and they're going to hear

His voice and they're going to come and we're already seeing the fruit of that. We see it at 12 .5. We're seeing people come out of the

Church of Christ. We see people longing for more information and I know that we're just scratching the surface because Trey, you're seeing a ton of that at y 'all's church.

Praise God. And the kingdom has already won. We feel like we're doing some battling and we are but God's already won the war.

He already has set up the means and part of you guys what y 'all are doing with your ministry is that means.

So I know I'm rambling on. I'm just encouraged as I listen to y 'all, as I watch your ministries and get to just kind of play apart from the sidelines here.

Thank you for letting me be a part of it. Absolutely. Nathan, that sounded a little post -meal. Yeah. Well, I want to add this real quick.

I'll make mine short. This right here is this whole thing is about the Galatian heresy. Faith plus something else equals salvation and this is why you see within the

Church of Christ that so many of these churches are at war with each other. I mean, if you even listen to Travis, you can listen to him and you can watch his videos.

You can look at the things he's sent us that not only do you have to be Church of Christ, not only do you have to be baptized under the understanding of the

Church of Christ and you have to understand the depths of the understanding of baptism. Not only that, you have to be a part of the conservative old school

Church of Christ. You can't be like these liberal ones that where I came from, right? It was what they say. That's what they say.

You have to be in theirs or they're going to hell, right? And like my wife grew up in where that one's over here.

That's good. That one's bad. I mean, it goes back to the Galatian heresy that look, you'll bite and devour one another.

Watch out that you yourselves are not consumed by one another because if you have this understanding of faith plus something else, you're going to end up fighting amongst yourselves, devouring each other and I'll just say this.

Am I now your enemy? This is in chapter 4, verse 16. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? Like I had a preacher when

I came out and we're talking and my heart, my passion for these people because I love them. I love them and they love their, they love what they know, right?

And they're passionate and he said, I think that your mission is going to be like the church of Christ.

I'm like, I don't want that. There's, it's I get a beaten, you know what

I'm saying? I get a beaten. So it's not fun but it's my Nineveh, you know? But I do love,

I love them. I think there's obviously again, I believe there are Christians in the church of Christ.

I think there are Christians everywhere. But I do believe that God, chapter 10 of John is true, that God will get them out and give them good pasture.

But there is a price to pay. There is a heavy, heavy price to pay. But you will not be alone because there is a church waiting on you.

Thank you so much, Trey and Pastor Nathan. So that'll do it for our episode here on the

Apologetic Dog and I hope you heard our heart of love. Travis, we love you, man. And we hope to interact more over time and to get into God's Word together.

And for anybody else that wants to reach out, a gracious gift in the gospel of how Jesus Christ has accomplished everything.

And so, once again, that's our heart's desire here at the Apologetic Dog is we want to guard the gospel deposit that's been entrusted to us.

And we're going to do that by avoiding pagan philosophy and contending for knowledge and for truth.