January 31, 2018 Show with Andrew Hyatt on “Paul: Apostle of Christ” PLUS Rob Ventura on “A Portrait of Paul: Identifying a True Minister of Christ”

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 31st day of, actually, it's a

Wednesday, on this 31st day of January, the last day of January 2018.

And sorry that I'm a little tongue -tied right now. We were supposed to have Andrew Hyatt on for a half hour today, who is an award -winning director, and I think this may be him now.

Andrew Hyatt is the director of a soon -to -be -released major motion picture titled

Paul, Apostle of Christ that is due to be released this Easter, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Andrew Hyatt.

How are you, sir? I'm doing great, Andrew. I'm glad that you finally joined us. I'm glad, too.

Thanks for having me on. Hey, it's my pleasure. Well, first of all, I want you to let our listeners know something about yourself.

I know that you are an award -winning director of a number of major motion pictures. Tell us something about yourself and how this particular project, a very important project in regard to cinema, especially for a

Christian viewing audience, how did this fall into your hands, or is this something that you aggressively sought after?

But first, tell us something about yourself. Well, let's see. I'm from a small town in Colorado called

Longmont. I grew up there and been, you know, in Catholic schools all my life, and came out to Los Angeles about 15 years ago, and I've been, yeah, pursuing the film dream, of course, but I had a major reconversion.

I went away from the church for about seven years and then just encountered

Christ again, and it kind of flipped everything on its back, and that was really where the pursuit of the

Paul film came from, was just being so inspired by Paul's story and Paul's life and conversion, and just feeling like this is something that the world really needs to hear right now, you know, something so powerful in regards to grace and mercy and God's love, and so it was really something

I pursued and just found wonderful collaborators and a wonderful studio in Sony that really took it under their wing and helped us make a great film.

Yeah, this is a film starring Jim Caviezel, who many of our listeners will remember from his starring role as Jesus Christ in the

Passion of the Christ film. Oliver, or should I say Olivier Martinez?

Exactly, exactly. And James Faulkner, and who is playing the starring role of Paul the

Apostle? It's James Faulkner, who is a wonderful, wonderful British character actor.

He's been around for many years. This is by far his biggest starring role in a major feature, and he is phenomenal, phenomenal in it.

He was so open to this transformation of really opening himself up to the heart of Paul and really finding the man behind Scripture, and it's wonderful.

I'm excited for people to experience it. Well, great. Well, tell us about the approach that is being taken with this film in regard to the

Apostle Paul. There have been many epic films about Biblical characters,

Biblical stories. Some have even traced or attempted to trace the

Bible from Genesis to Revelation or something close to it. So tell us specifically about the approach taken with this very key character in the

New Testament. Obviously, the Apostle Paul wrote more of the

New Testament than any other author of the Holy Scriptures in regard to the New Testament, of course.

So tell us something about the approach that is specifically being taken here, where the movie picks up and the thrust of the major content of the film.

Absolutely. Well, we looked at Paul's life, and as you know, it's an enormous, enormous palette of just, you know, it looks like he lived a hundred lifetimes.

And so we tried to narrow it down to kind of what we felt an audience would find to be the most fascinating just portrait of a man is what we wanted to capture.

And so we looked at 2 Timothy, and there's this just sort of surprising little nugget that starts to unfold as you read 2

Timothy, which is when Paul is in Rome for the second time. He's been convicted and will be executed by Nero in Rome, and he's basically waiting in this cell, awaiting his death, and writing this letter to Timothy.

And there's this fascinating line that kind of pops up in there where he says that Luke is with him. And so we started to backtrack from that.

We said, wow, that's pretty fascinating. Okay, so Luke's here. Paul's in prison. He's writing 2 Timothy to kind of give his final word to the church.

And we thought that that was just such a beautiful moment to capture. So that's really the thrust of the film is Paul at the end of his life, reflecting back on this just enormous, you know, he goes out and basically changes

Western civilization as we know it. And we just tried to capture something of a man that we could bring audiences.

And I happen to be a very conservative evangelical Protestant, even more specifically a

Calvinist. And the audience of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio tend to be people who are very studious in the scriptures.

They're very diligent to test all things according to the scriptures.

They are very protective of the scriptures. When things are being depicted in film or in popular literature, they are very quick to point out inaccuracies and so on.

And time and time again, movies, even if they are spectacular in regard to cinematography, in regard to acting, in regard to the scenery and the wardrobes being authentic, and all these things, they very often will have scenes that are basically involving eisegesis in the scriptures where the audiences are let down.

They're saying, oh, Jesus didn't do that, or Paul didn't say that, or, you know. And obviously, in moviemaking, you have to use a certain level of artistic license.

But I understand one thing that has me optimistic about this film is that there seems to be a specific intention to maintain and preserve biblical authenticity in the creation of this film.

If you could tell us about that. Absolutely, and I couldn't agree with you more on your assessment of Hollywood films in the biblical genre.

But this is very important. Paul's story is very important to all of us that were part of the team.

And in the same way that you're saying, we really, really, really wanted to take it very seriously, very reverential, and really not take anything that we felt was, exactly, creative license in a way that we couldn't look at scripture, and honestly, amongst us, amongst a great number of pastors, and really all say, okay, yes, maybe we don't have this line from Luke in the

Gospels, in Acts, in Paul's letters, but, you know, what we can look at and what we can see in scripture, we know that this to be true.

And we really tried to stick with that. I don't, I feel confident that there's nothing in this film that is going to stick out to to our audience.

And it's my audience. And it's my, it's for me, as well as as your audience.

And so I didn't want to go and make something that I couldn't look at to be truthful and beautiful. So in other words, sentences and so on, scenes that you had to create in order to have a realistically smoothly flowing film, other than just having verbatim quotes from scripture, the only way that you can stay exactly true to the scripture would be not to have any artistic license and to just to have basically a narration of what the scripture says.

But when you're creating a film like this, you have to obviously fill in some of the gaps. So what you're saying is these gaps that are being filled in, you and your team did not believe that the sentences and words being added and the scenes being added changed the meaning of the text at all.

Exactly. And we stayed, I think the audience will be very pleased and excited by the scripture that is woven into the film.

Almost all of what Paul speaks to the community and to Luke is really scripture.

And a lot of it is verbatim, but it's done in a very human and heartful way that it doesn't feel like it's just somebody reading off of a text.

It really comes through and it shines in a way that I'm excited for people to hear for the first time. We've been reading it, many people in your audience,

I'm sure 20, 30, 40 years, but to hear Paul, to hear James Faulkner, you know, as Paul speak these words and for them to come alive in the context that we believe that they were said, it's really powerful and it's really moving.

And so you do have, you mentioned before that there were pastors that I'm assuming were going over the screenplay and the scripts and so on to assist you in making sure that this film was biblically accurate?

Exactly, and you know, my father -in -law is a pastor up in Washington and a teacher at Moody Bible and somebody that's been very helpful to me in my journey and someone that I can consistently bounce ideas off of, and he keeps me on the right track.

Well, you said your father -in -law teaches at Moody? Yeah, his name is

John Repsol. He's a wonderful pastor up in Spokane, Washington, and just very keyed into the biblical nature of things, and he's somebody that I just trust a lot and use a lot.

Oh, I thought that he was on the faculty at Moody. I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. The reason why I was saying that is

I have a very good friend, Eric Redmond, on the faculty of Moody. I was going to tell you to have your father -in -law say hello for me, but he's your father -in -law all the way in Spokane, Washington.

Yeah, there's actually a Moody school out there as well. Oh, okay. It's an adjunct, I guess. Yeah, they ship a lot of the kids out from Chicago out there.

It's the overflow. Okay. Well, one of the things that I don't know if there are images of Christ in this film, and as you may know, the

Protestant world is divided over this. You have some, perhaps even more so from my background, who don't believe that a depiction of Christ should be seen or created in either paintings or sculptures or icons or even in movies, but there are.

I would say probably the majority of evangelicals today do not have a problem with that.

They don't believe it is a violation of the second commandment. Just for the sake of just having more information, is

Christ actually visibly present, obviously a portrayal of him, in this film?

You know what, we really felt the same way that you're saying. We really wanted to have

Christ's presence throughout the film, of course, but not reveal.

We felt that that was something that's so important to people to, in their imaginations and however, whatever your beliefs are, and you know, you picture

Christ in a certain way, and we didn't want to take that or step over that line at all.

We catch a glimpse of Jesus, I'll tell you that much. We catch a glimpse far into the distance in a way that is very mysterious and nondescript,

I will tell you that much. But other than that, we didn't feel like putting Christ on screen, here's what he looks like, here's him.

It just wasn't something that we felt comfortable doing, and we think this was a beautiful way to do it without doing it, if that makes sense.

Yes, I understand. And one of the things that troubled some evangelical

Protestants, particularly perhaps either fundamentalists or reformed Christians from my background, even though they may have viewed

The Passion of the Christ film as a cinematic masterpiece, and some of these scenes even brought me to tears, they were so realistic and moving, but there was obviously a bent that revealed

Roman Catholic piety in this, and I was in The Passion of the Christ, and I was just wondering, is there any kind of theological bent that we should be aware of in regard to this new film,

Paul, Apostle of Christ, that might relieve any apprehensions or anxiety of evangelical

Protestant viewers, so that they can perhaps not need to worry about any kind of theological bent that would conflict with their own scriptural views?

I was trying my best, and with a lot of prayer, to stay as ecumenical as possible and not take a specific denomination or a specific angle.

I really just tried to stay with Scripture, look at Scripture, bring this man to life in a way that has never been done before, and you know, like I said, you know, with my father -in -law being a pastor, and it just, it helped to kind of be able to have that feedback and be able to stay kind of in a very,

I think, just beautiful scriptural place, which I hope is for everyone. I hope that everybody responds with excitement and nobody feels that it's taking an agenda or an angle, because we try very hard not to do that.

We have a listener all the way in Slovenia who has a question, Joe in Slovenia, who says,

Brothers Chris and Andrew, since James Faulkner is cast as Paul the Apostle, will Paul have a

British accent in the film? I think that's required for all biblical films, is that everyone have a

British accent. What does he look like in the film? I've read some commentaries that postulate that Paul very well could have been balding and otherwise done attractive physically, especially after all the beatings and other hardships he faced.

Is he portrayed, how is he portrayed in the film? That is an interesting question, because one

I don't know if, I don't know if Jim Caviezel will be complimented or upset by this, but one of the critiques of Jim Caviezel's starring role as Jesus Christ in The Passion of the

Christ is that he's too stunningly handsome, and the scriptures say that there was nothing physically attractive about Christ that men might be drawn to him.

So there is some validity in what our listener, but this is referring to the Apostle Paul, and I guess he's just speaking about biblical accuracy as much as possible in regard to the portrayal.

It's a great question, it's a great question, and I will put him at ease saying that we really wanted to bring a

Paul to life that is gritty, real to scripture, a man that has been stoned twice, swallowed numerous times, put in prison numerous times, shipwrecked twice, you know, this is a guy that has journeyed for 30 years, thousands of miles by foot.

We really wanted to capture that. So James is gritty, he's been beaten up, and he's just an all -around cool -looking guy, and it'll bring it to life in a very real way.

As far as the British accent goes, all I'm going to say is that James Faulkner's voice, it's

James Faulkner's accent. I can't describe it other than it's so cool, it's so cool and so deep and rough that it doesn't have a time or place other than it's just cool.

Yeah, almost every biblical epic I've ever seen, if not every one, you will have those in leadership, whether they be

Romans in places of authority and others of that ilk, speaking with refined

British accents, and then you have the peasants speaking with the Cockney accents. I don't know where that comes from, but clearly it's a cast system somewhere, right?

Well, this one we have an amazing international cast.

We've got some Italians, we've got some French actors, we do have some English actors, and obviously

Jim, an American actor. One of the things that we tried to do, and I'm sure we'll hear feedback on whether we accomplished or not, is to kind of place everyone with an accent that would have been closer to the accent that they would have had as far as the time and the place that they're in.

So hopefully it doesn't just sound like everybody's got a British accent. Well, what did you do?

What were the challenges involved in bringing ancient Rome to life?

Because that's where primarily the scenes in the movie are taking place, I'm assuming. That's right.

You know, we have an amazing production designer, Dave Aerosmith, out of Scotland, who really just had a fantastic eye for being able to take...

We shot the movie in Malta, which is a small island a little south of Sicily, and Malta has this incredible landscape.

They've got these old, ancient structures that have been there for hundreds and hundreds of years that just give it this very ancient feeling.

And our production designer was able to go in and sort of on top of these places, build around what felt more like a

Roman landscape. And he did an incredible job. And we also utilized a lot of the gladiator shot on Malta years ago, and a lot of their sets were still standing.

And we were able to kind of use some of those as well in collaboration with what Dave was building to really bring

Rome to life. And I'm excited. I think it does it in a very unique, authentic way.

And, you know, it's not something that we had millions and millions of dollars for, so that we could just sort of build an entire

Roman world. But the scenes and the sets that we were able to get are stunning. Now, what, if anything, did you learn that surprised you about the lives of early

Christians during Nero's reign? I think what was so powerful and really moving, and, you know, we had a lot of non -Christians on set, a lot of the crew and and a lot of the cast, and even they were just emotionally moved by playing some of these scenes where they were looking around and they were seeing the persecution of Christians at the time.

You know, we don't shy away from that. You know, it's very historically, scripturally accurate that, you know,

Christians were very persecuted, they were being thrown into Nero's circus, they were being, you know, just so persecuted.

And it was so emotionally moving and surprising to really look at what Paul was saying, look at what these

Christians were doing, and looking at the persecution they were facing for it. And it was hard not to be emotionally moved, even for the cast and crew to look around and say, wow,

Paul really kept saying these things, he kept inspiring people, and the Christian community in Rome was still helping people, and widows and orphans, they were taking them in, all the while being killed and beaten in the street.

I mean, that is so surprising and moving. I didn't expect to be emotionally moved in that way, because I've never really thought about it in such specific context.

Yeah, I don't know how much our listeners know about Nero, I'm sure that there is a wide range of levels of knowledge among my listeners, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with this historical figure, he was one of the most grotesque tyrants of all history.

And in fact, I think some Christians make some convincing eschatological arguments that instead of a future figure that has not yet walked the earth, or has just begun to walk the earth, that there are some who say that Nero is actually who

John, the author of the book of Revelation, was speaking of in regard to the beast of Revelation.

I mean, this man was a monster. Monster, yes, yeah. And, you know, he was the one that, you know, there's a lot of theories that he was the one that burned half of Rome to the ground in AD 64, and really then pinned the blame on the

Christians, because, of course, he upset all of his people by doing that. And so that's what led to just such severe persecution, and eventually

Paul's arrest and trial, and ending up in prison there, where he wrote 2

Timothy. But as you say, he was an absolute monster. But what an encouraging thing for us today to look at what

Paul was saying, and to look at the lives of these early Christians, and that they continue to love people, they continue to praise

God, they continue to live in a Christian way, even facing that persecution.

It's very inspiring to me. Well, how are this film, the life of the

Apostle Paul, and the experiences of the early church relevant today, in your opinion?

Well, I think that we tend to, at least in America, you know, turn a blind eye that these things are happening out in the world.

There are Christians, our brothers and sisters, being persecuted around the world for their faith. You know, we have a very privileged and blessed situation where we can walk, and we can get a

Bible off the shelf, and we can sit, and we can read, and we can go to church on Sunday, and we can go to community groups, and there's a lot of people around the world, even today, literally today, that are on the run, being persecuted for their faith, that don't have access to a

Bible, that don't have these things. I think the relevance of being able to remind ourselves, especially in this country, of the hardships and the trials that our brothers and sisters before us have faced, and that our brothers and sisters are facing even right now, hopefully will just inspire us to pray for them and do what we can.

And just remind ourselves that these things came from real human experiences. The Scripture and Paul and these amazing heroes of the faith, you know, it came out of a real lived journey and a real lived experience.

They weren't just sitting in a room somewhere coming up with great philosophy and great theology. It came out of a real beautiful hardship life where they faced trials and they ran to Christ.

Now, we know that James Faulkner, the actor, is playing the Apostle Paul in the film.

Who is Jim Caviezel portraying in this motion picture? Jim plays

Luke. So, as your audience knows, he's traveling companion of Paul for many years, probably, you know, we can guess from 12 to 15 years, was on the road with him, his trusted physician, the one that probably kept pulling him out of every time he got, you know, stoned, probably the one patching him up and getting him out of his way.

So, Jim plays him and he brings a great humanity to it, and I think people are going to love him in the film.

Yeah, I mean, he is a remarkable actor, and typically everything

I've seen him in, I was very, very pleased to view. Even the television series that he was recently involved in,

Man of Interest, I believe it was titled. That's right, yes. Persons of Interest. Persons of Interest. Yes.

And, well, what do you hope people are talking about in regard to this new film as they drive home from seeing

Paul, Apostle of Christ? Well, my first hope is that I hope the audience that I love, and it's my audience too,

I hope they all leave saying, finally Hollywood did something right. I hope that's the first thing.

I hope they say, finally they did something right and they treated this with such reverence and respect and it's beautiful.

And I just hope people talk about just being inspired by Paul's life. I hope that in the car on the way home, we can, the audience looks at each other and they just say, wow, what a man, what a life, what a faithful, faithful man that, you know,

God reaches out his hand, changes this man's life, and he goes and changes the world. And that's got to be inspiring, and I hope it's inspiring to everybody.

We have time for one more question from a listener. RJ in White Plains, New York asks, is this just the beginning of a series of major motion pictures that you intend to participate in, in regard to biblical characters?

It's a great question. And, you know, right now we just, we're going to put Paul out there and just trust the

Holy Spirit to lead us to the next one. And if God decides this is the mode of storytelling that he wants right now, then we're absolutely open and ready to do it.

Well, any final words that you care to leave our audience with? I know that you could only be with us for a half hour today, so if you'd like to leave our listeners with some final thoughts.

Yeah, I just want to encourage, you know, people to get excited and to not be,

I know that there's a little bit of a, certainly a hesitation when something comes from Hollywood to this audience of being sort of aimed at them, trying to get their money, trying to speak to them, but not really getting it at all.

And I would just encourage that we just took such great strides to, you know, we are the audience, and we just tried so hard to bring this faithfully to life, that I hope people just start getting excited about it.

I hope it's something they start talking about and telling their friends about, and when they see the film, it's something that they leave feeling, wow,

I'm really inspired, I want to go back, I want to bring my non -Christian friend, I want to bring my friend who's struggling,

I want them to see this film. That's what I hope for the audience. Well, I can tell you in all honesty that you have alleviated a lot of my personal apprehensions, and I'm even more excited, and I'm being totally honest,

I'm even more enthusiastic about seeing the film now. And I know that our listeners can find out more about this by going to paulmovie .com,

paulmovie .com. Anything else that you'd like to say in regard to contact information, how to get tickets, etc.?

Exactly, paulmovie .com, and the film comes out nationwide March 28th, Easter weekend, but go to paulmovie .com

for more information, that's perfect. Well, I want to thank you so much, Andrew, and I would love to have you back on again in the future, and let's keep in touch with each other.

It was my honor and privilege to have you on. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me, God bless.

God bless you, too. And don't go away, folks, because we have Rob Ventura joining us, coming up after the station break.

Rob is going to be discussing one of his books, A Portrait of Paul, Identifying a

True Minister of Christ, so don't go away. God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Well now

I am happy to bring back to the program someone who has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and it's been far too long since we've had him on the show.

Rob Ventura, who is pastor of Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence, Rhode Island, is on and we're going to be discussing his book,

A Portrait of Paul, Identifying a True Minister of Christ. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Rob Ventura.

Thanks brother, really appreciate it. If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. And it was kind of funny when I was interviewing

Andrew Hyatt, the director of the new movie on Paul, Apostle of Christ, he actually unconsciously plugged the title of your book because he said we wanted to give a portrait of Paul in the movie.

So it's kind of an interesting providence there. There you have it. What's funny is I was actually preaching through Colossians for three and a half years.

I got to a particular section in Colossians, which is the foundation for the book, Colossians 1, 24 and following.

And I got to the last sermon, I said, now don't we have a wonderful portrait of Paul here? And that title just stuck with me.

And then a few months later, I actually started writing the book. But there you have it, A Portrait of Paul. And before we go into that subject,

I'd like you to tell our listeners something about Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island.

Yes, we are a Reformed Baptist Church. We have been constituted for about 30 years now.

I've been there 10 years of full -time serving with Pastor Jack Buckley, and it's been a delight to be there.

I'm formerly from Englewood Baptist Church, as you know, Chris, Pastor Jim Dumb. Oh yeah. Yep, so I was trained under Jim and graduated from Reformed Baptist Seminary in 06, so 07 was installed there, and then

I came here just later on in 2007. So it's been tremendous. The Lord has done a lot of wonderful things here.

We're rejoicing, just was writing our annual report last night, Pastor Jack and I, and just reflecting on God's goodness.

Just a lot's gone on, just a lot of books and conferences, and we started

Rhode Island School of the Bible, so it's our third year for Rhode Island School of the Bible. I've been teaching Greek and hermeneutics and homiletics, and again, just preaching.

I was in Europe last year and going back to Colombia this year, actually, and again, our conferences,

Southern New England Reformation Conference, those type things, and yeah, just a lot of good things. We're very thankful for all that God has done, and we're just trying to be faithful.

Praise God. Well, if anybody wants to know more about this church that we are speaking about, go to gcbcri .org.

G -C -B -C standing for Grace Community Baptist Church, R -I standing for RhodeIsland .org, and we'll hopefully be announcing that later on toward the end of the program.

Interesting title, A Portrait of Paul Identifying a True Minister of Christ.

Paul is one of the most controversial individuals in the holy scriptures, as you probably know.

The enemies of Christ and his gospel seem to despise the

Paul. Muslims believe that he basically invented the

Christian faith, which in their view, obviously, is a false religion, and they believe that he departed from the teachings of Christ and the other disciples, he being an apostle after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and there are obviously those that say that he wasn't an apostle at all, and then, of course, you have those who are liberals who despise

Paul because of the fact that he identifies specific things as being damnable sins, such as homosexuality and other things that are not very politically correct things to say into the 21st century, but it is ironic that liberals would be the haters of the apostle

Paul, or at least the figment of their imagination that they call

Paul in their minds, because in reality, he most clearly wrote about grace,

I think, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, obviously, than anyone in the

New Testament. Now, we know that he was not in competition or in contradiction to James or anyone else, but if you could just address what

I just said. Yeah, I mean, you could also add Jewish people to that list.

My father is Jewish, and he says, I don't want to hear what Paul has to say. So, you know, it's just, you know, but Dad, you know that Paul was a

Jew, you know, and he knew his Bible. Matter of fact, I tell my dad, look, you know, as a Jew, you should, you know, read your

Bible, the New Testament Bible as well. I said, listen, Dad, everyone who wrote the New Testament was

Jewish, I say, except Luke, but then I say, but listen, Dad, Luke was a doctor, so he was almost

Jewish. So anyway, so, you know, be more

Jewish and believe in Jesus, right? So, but yeah, so I mean, you know, Paul, again, I mean, on either side, like you said,

I mean, there are many sides where people are offended at the apostle Paul, certainly Catholics, right? The true

Paul of the Bible, he clearly taught justification by faith alone, and as you rightly said, not in contradiction to James at all, both addressing different aspects of justification, but, you know, for us who believe our

Bibles, we love Paul, and, you know, what's so amazing about him is that we know that he just didn't, you know, spring up as a follower of Christ, right?

He talks about, you were kind of alluding to it a moment ago, but one being born at a due time, right? First Corinthians 15.

So, you know, here's a guy who was the great antagonist to the

Christian faith, and he's Acts 9, breathing murderous threats against the disciples, he's, you know, putting them in, you know, arrest, and he's bringing them back to Jerusalem and all the stuff, and here's this man just hungry for the blood of these, you know, would -be disciples of this would -be

Messiah, and Jesus gets hold of him and actually, and absolutely rather, transforms his life and makes him the great apostle

Paul, who goes on to write most of the New Testament, and, yeah, I mean, if we're going to believe our

Bibles and believe that he was inspired of God as he was writing the New Testament, we're going to love Paul, and, you know, like John MacArthur says,

I would agree, I mean, for myself, Paul is, you know, my greatest hero. It's Jesus first, Paul, and then, of course,

Spurgeon. So, but, you know, having Paul in the midst of those two bookends is just phenomenal, but you've got to love

Paul just because of who he was. He was the real deal, and he lived faithfully for Christ, and his letters are just so wonderful.

I've just finished preaching through Acts for three and a half years, 90 sermons, actually, in Acts, and that's been a blessing, but I'm starting

Romans today, so we'll be in Romans for the next several years, I hope, but just getting into it and looking at Paul, here he is, the great apostle, but how does he begin the letter?

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, and that was his heart, you know? Interesting, Paul, you know, before he's converted, he's who, who is he?

Saul, right? The first great king of Israel, you know, being his Jewish name, his

Hebrew name, but he uses his Roman name, Paul. You know what Paul means in Greek?

You know Now, again, he certainly used

Paul, I think, to, you know, accompany his Gentile mission, because that would have been just more digestible for the

Gentiles he was preaching to, but it is interesting how he went from Saul, as it were, which would have been a very, you know, proud name for a

Jew, the great first king of Israel, great, I put that in quotes, to then Saul the little one,

Paul, rather, the little one, right? So from no longer being named after Israel's first king, but now

I'm just the little one, and Jesus is the great king. Yes, you mentioned the Catholic Church earlier, and it's interesting how, of all people that they picked from the holy scriptures to appoint in their minds and dogma as the

Pope, if there was such a thing as a Pope, I think the reading of the New Testament would lead you to believe it was

Paul. Yes, yes, yes, yes, the Pope, as one of my members calls, the dope, but I leave that alone.

Anyway, so, yeah, Peter, of course, and we're looking at Rome now, again, I've been studying just the whole book for hours and hours this week, but, you know, looking at the

Church in Rome, and the question is, who founded the Church? We know it wasn't Paul, right? Paul's writing to them, I long to be with you,

I've not seen you face to face, but the Catholics apparently say that it was Peter who founded the

Church, but there's really no historical record to believe that. Really, I think if we look at our

Bibles, we see from Acts chapter 2, you had visitors on the day of Pentecost, both Jews and Gentiles, they get converted, they go back to Rome and establish the

Church, but, yeah, I mean, again, you would think that Paul was, you know, at least in the mind of the

Catholic, who was most prominent, but again, you've got Peter in the Bible, and he's a great servant of God, and yet we know he's married, and, you know, he teaches justification by faith alone, and so, yeah, if you want to be, you know, if you want to make

Peter the first Pope, that's fine, just believe what he taught in the Bible, not in Catholic dogma. And just out of curiosity, you know,

Paul, when he was soul of Tarsus before his conversion on the road to Damascus, he was a pretty brutal individual in rounding up men and women to be executed because of their

Christian faith. Now, if Jesus was not who he claimed to be, and who we know he is, if Jesus was a false messiah, and his followers were duped or charlatans, knowing that they were deceiving people, would

Paul, or should I say the soul of Tarsus, would have he been correct in his actions, in your opinion, in the way that he went about looking for people to round up for persecution?

Yeah, it's funny, you know, because if you look at Galatians, I'm just turning there now, you know, this is really a sad thing for Paul.

I mean, he carried in his heart, you know, this whole issue of, you know, persecuting the church, right?

He says, I persecuted the church, and, you know, I tried to destroy it. I'm looking at Galatians 1, for you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how

I persecuted the church of God beyond measure, and tried to destroy it, and I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the tradition of my father's.

But, here's the good news, when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace to reveal his

Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, etc.

So, you have Paul here, yeah, so he views these, you know, these early

Christians, they're basically being viewed as a sect of Judaism, and it's like, you know, who's this new, you know, cult in town, and who is this, you know, again,

Messiah, Jesus? And Paul just, I mean, yeah, he's infuriated by the whole thing. It's not, you know, matching up with what he thought a

Messiah would be, again, the whole issue of, you know, a Messiah, you know, being crucified. I mean, that would be, you know, an abomination to the

Jews. I mean, Paul talks about the first Corinthians, right, to the Jews, a stumbling block. They just could not get in their minds this idea of, you know, a

Jewish carpenter, you know, being our sin -bearer. Well, you go back to Isaiah 53, and what does

Isaiah say? Who was believed? Our report. So, look at, Isaiah was, you know, portraying and foretelling what you were going to believe or not believe, you know, 600 years later when

Jesus came. So, it's nothing new, and Paul was falling into that same, you know, trap, as it were, that was predicted in the

Old Testament, that they would reject their Messiah. It's just clear, you know, to those whom he came, he came to his own,

John chapter 1, and they did not receive him. But to many as God had called those, you know, of his people, they would receive

Messiah. And as we read the New Testament, again, all the writers, again, barring Luke, are Jewish, and there are thousands of Jews who are converted throughout the book of Acts, again,

Dea Pentecost 3000. So, you know, it's not that God hasn't been saving Jews, even as Paul goes on to say in Romans, it's not as though the

Word of God is not effective for the Jews. But the answer is, not all Israel is Israel, that's the point.

You have a true Israel within the corporate body of Israel, just like you had in the Old Testament.

You had believing Jews, I mean, you had Abraham, you had David, you had all of the prophets, Jeremiah, Micah, Malachi, all of those were true believers in Messiah who was to come, and eventually

God would get hold of Paul and show him the truthfulness of the Messiah, and that he would come, you know, firstly to be our sin -bearing substitute, and then, of course, to, you know, bring in the new heavens, the new earth, and close out this age as we know it.

But for the Jews, that's still a sticking point with them. Like, my father, he says, if Jesus is the

Messiah, like, where is he? Like, why is the world still the way it is? You know, they're looking for, again, of course, in the first century, coming out of Roman oppression, you know, having this conquering

Messiah, but they didn't understand that the first thing that Messiah had to deal with was our sins against God.

And then when he comes back again, he comes back as, you know, reigning and ruling Messiah who will, you know, obviously remove all of his enemies.

But at that time, again, if you haven't been made a friend of Christ, you will be considered one of his enemies.

So now is the time. Today is the day of salvation, not when, you know, Jesus, the Messiah returns.

I'm going to read a question to you. Our friend in Slovenia has contacted us again,

Joe in Slovenia. And I'll have you answer it when we come back from the break, because we have to get to our midway break.

Yes. So Joe in Slovenia says, Thank you so much for the timely and relevant topic and book.

Reading the book description with its focus on presenting the biblical model of a true pastor, faithful ministry, called of God, and serving the church, which are qualities and characteristics of a faithful minister of Christ, caused me to think about so much of what is presented with pop evangelicalism as models for ministry.

The false vision casting leader, multi -campus jet setter, scripture -twisting showman, ecumenical evangelifish, etc.,

etc., are proclaimed long and loud as the models for successful ministry.

How do we as Christians and churches resist these counterfeit models of pastoral ministry in favor of the true scriptural example of Paul?

What is needed in our day to move the churches and pastors back to biblically faithful models of pastoral ministry?

And in terms of the world's understanding of success, those men that he mentioned very comically, those false examples of pastors, they are actually successful in the world's understanding of that.

They are the ones who typically have the largest churches, who are the wealthiest, because they are receiving more contributions than any of the other more faithful pastors.

So perhaps you could just address that when we return from our break. If anybody else would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. This is our extended break because this

Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires a long break between our two one -hour segments.

So God willing, we'll be back in 10 minutes or so with more of our guest Rob Ventura and the discussion on the

Apostle Paul. Please don't go away. One sure way all

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689.

We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how

God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things. That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the

Apostle's priority, it must not be ours either. We believe, by God's grace, that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts, or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.

Go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our

TV program entitled, Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org,

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That's Rob Ventura, pastor of Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence, Rhode Island. We are discussing his book,

A Portrait of Paul, Identifying a True Minister of Christ. And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. Unless you are asking about a personal and private matter, you can remain anonymous if that is the case.

But otherwise, please at least give us first name, city and state, and country of residence. Well, Rob, before the break, as you may recall,

I asked you a question from our listener in Slovenia, Joe, and he was basically saying, how can we instill upon Christians, congregations, and even pastors themselves, how can we instill upon them the notion that they should be viewing biblical figures like the

Apostle Paul as a portrait and model of a true minister, rather than those that may be achieving leaps and bounds of earthly success, whether it be numerical growth with followers or financial success, who may be total frauds when it comes to the actual scriptures in the

Gospel of Jesus Christ? Yeah, I thought it was a great question, and really

I can say to Joe, as I was new in the ministry just a couple years, that's when

I started thinking about and writing A Portrait of Paul, I was asking that very question, what kind of minister am

I going to be? Now, my heart's desire, of course, was to be a true and a faithful minister, so I had no desire to be like the charlatans around town, but I was really asking that question before God with an open

Bible, and I have many, many books in my library and a pretty large section on pastoral theology, and all those pastoralist theologies tell us how to be a good pastor, and they're really, really quite excellent, but I was looking for someone to tell me, follow me, and that's how you become a good pastor.

Now certainly, of course, as we've mentioned right in the first chapter of the book, all of this goes back to Christ, right?

If you want to be a good pastor, right, you follow the Lord Jesus Christ. He is, you know, the pastor par excellence, but from a human level, if we're just looking for an earthly pastor, as it were, one we could relate to, you know, from a non -deity perspective, we say, there's

Paul, and what does Paul say? Well, of course, he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, you know, copy me or imitate me as I imitate

Christ. That's always going to be the best pastor, the one who imitates Christ, the one who imitates

Paul, who sought to imitate the Lord Jesus Christ. So as I was wrestling with that question, what kind of pastor am

I going to be in God's providence, I'm working through the book of Colossians verse by verse, and was really struck as a new pastor, looking at Paul's words, looking at his heart, and saying, this is the kind of man

I want to be, again, not just pastoral theology, like, here's how you become a good pastor, but Paul saying,

I am a good pastor, and I want you to follow my example. So that was really where A Portrait of Paul grew out of, hence, as our friend

Joe mentioned, the subtitle, Identifying a True Minister of Christ. So this is for, that is to say, this book is for young men in the ministry, asking that question, how can

I be a faithful pastor for my people, and also for older pastors to re -evaluate themselves, as Paul Washer talked about in the video he made for the video blurb he made for this book, saying young ministers, older ministers, but also for churches, right, because churches have no idea, by and large, what they're looking for today.

Many of them, again, as our brother was hinting at, they're looking for this CEO, rah -rah -rah, shish -koomba kind of pastor, he's going to drum up the people, he's going to get the numbers in here, but really, that is not the model we're looking for.

And there's an interesting verse there in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, in verse 12, where Paul talks about a man's ministry, and, you know, how it's going to be tested, etc.,

and he says there in verse 13 of 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 13b, he says, "...every

man's ministry will be tried as to what sort it is." Not what size it is, but what sort it is.

And the bottom line is, we want our ministries to be of a godly sort, to be of a biblical sort, to be of a Christ -centered gospel sort.

And if we're going to have those type of ministries, we need good models to follow, and scripturally speaking, of course, outside of the

Lord Jesus Christ, I believe there's no greater model than the Apostle Paul. Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia.

Also, thank you for providing us with an American address where your daughter lives in Georgia, because we are going to be shipping you a free copy of this book by our guest,

Rob Ventura, A Portrait of Paul Identifying a True Minister of Christ, compliments of our friends at Reformation Heritage Books, who are shipping those out to us, and also compliments of CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, who will be shipping that out to your daughter in Georgia, thanks to your question that was an excellent contribution to our program and to our discussion today.

Well, what was the focus of the Apostle Paul's ministry? Yeah, that's actually chapter 2 in the book, and if you look at Colossians chapter 1 and verse 24 and following,

Paul makes this statement there, thinking here specifically in 24b, he says, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, literally concerning you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church of which

I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me, there are the words again, for you to fulfill the word of God.

So the focus of Paul's ministry was the people of God, the people of God. And I remember, as our dear friend

Greg Nichols said to me many years ago, he ordained me to the ministry, you've had Greg on the show a few times recently,

I was sitting with him before he ordained me to the ministry, and I said, brother, what do I need to do?

What do I need to be if I'm going to be a good pastor? He says you need to do two things, you need to love

Jesus and you need to love his people. And that was really a nice summary form of what

I needed to be, the type of minister I needed to be, one who loved Christ supremely and loved his people.

And here's Paul, I do these things for you, it's not about me, they're not called to serve me,

I'm called to serve them. And the pastor needs that in his mind, I exist for them, they don't exist for me.

And it's this sheep focus that a true minister needs to have, and I think every church that's interviewing new pastors for the ministry, they need to ask, so what is ministry all about for you?

And he should turn around and say, it's all about you, your spiritual well -being, your growth in the gospel, your walking well with Christ.

John speaks in his epistles of how my great desire is that my children walk with Christ.

So the pastor needs to have his heart focused on his people, that he will see all of them, not crawling into heaven or limping there with broken legs, but running the race with great joy and vigor to the honor and praise of Jesus.

So the focus of Paul's ministry, the focus of our ministry, should be our precious sheep. Amen. And thank

God that most of us who live here in the United States, at least so far, have not had to endure the hardships that Paul experienced for the sake of the gospel.

But there still, obviously, is a great lesson to be learned from his hardships, and if you could tell us something about that.

Yeah, you know, Paul was a man of endurance, and by God's grace, I mean, he didn't, you know, call it quits.

And whenever a pastor thinks about, you know, resigning, he should re -sign, not resign, but re -sign.

Re -sign on the dotted line and understand that, you know, ministry is tough. And it's so tough that the statistics tell us that every month 1 ,500 ministers in America leave the ministry.

Every month, Chris, 1 ,500. So that's huge. And probably it's because a lot of the seminaries are not teaching, you know, the men that, you know, this isn't going to be easy.

It's a lot of sweat, blood, and tears. It's late nights. It's like Paul, you know, and what's upon me daily is the burdens of the church.

So if that's not the life you're looking for, then the ministry is not for you, because it's very, very difficult.

So, you know, we experience hardships on all different types of levels, but just really sitting front row to the heartaches and the bleedings of the sheep, and carrying that with you all the time, if you're a true shepherd, it's very, very difficult.

But you know what? Christ's grace is sufficient. And, you know, being in the ministry, this is coming on my 11th year,

I can say I'm very joyful in the ministry. I'm very thankful, because as we carry those burdens for our people, we bring them to Christ, who's the great burden bearer, and we see his, you know, his victory, for lack of a better word.

We see his work among God's people, and it really makes serving Christ and his people a joy.

Jesus is in the midst of his church, and he is healing them, saving them, sanctifying them.

I mean, you know how it's like, and what it's like serving Christ, and just seeing, you know, how he does bind up the brokenhearted, how he does establish those who are fainthearted, etc.

Now, although in our country there are martyrs in other parts of the world, people who are going through real excruciating, nightmarish types of persecution, but here in the

United States, as I said so far, we are living in relative ease comparatively, but at the same time, do you think a true minister of Christ can sail through his ministry without any hardship at all, without any kind of opposition?

Yeah, that's right, and I was on the ecclesiastical level of hardships, but certainly from a broader perspective.

You're right, I mean, again, you have, you know, those Christians in all over the world. We pray for them regularly, as the writer of Hebrews says, you know, praying for them as if chained with them.

We know our brethren are suffering all throughout the world and other places, and you know, as far as America's concerned,

I mean, you know, now we're just kind of, you know, mocked, and you know, you know, Christians and born -again, and you get the TV stuff, and you know, the various, you know, whatever, you know, things that are against us in the news and the media, but you know, there are people in America who are suffering for their faith, and I'm sure there are, you know, some, there is violence that happens to believers, but you know, is it going to get worse?

Probably. I mean, you know, the Bible talks about that end times getting worse. Evil men and imposters will, you know, grow worse and worse, so right now,

I mean, you know, things are not so bad in our country, but in other places, it is difficult, but I think if the man's going to be faithful to the ministry,

I mean, he's going to hear it. I just preached two sermons on hell. The terrors of hell, I preached it morning and evening.

I preached the happiness of heaven the week before, and then the terrors of hell morning and evening, but I said, man, you can be sure that people are going to, you know, label me a puritanical

Jonathan Edwards, you know, a Bible thumping fundamentalist, you know, bashing Baptist, and so, you know, that's persecution.

We're going to be mocked, and again, unbelievers, when they find out about our faith, I mean, yeah, they're going to give us trouble.

You know, they find out we homeschool our kids. It's going to be trouble, right? I mean, you know, DCYF, all those people, they, you know, they're going after homeschoolers, and you know, we know, obviously with the news the way it is now with this one family, we know there are people, you know, who in the name of homeschool have done bad things, but man, you take a look at the public schools.

I mean, there's stuff going on, you know, all the time. There's all kinds of stuff going on in public schools, but, you know, if they could make an example of a homeschooler, they'll do it, but we do suffer for our faith.

You know, we do suffer that we serve God. You think about our families, our unbelieving families. They're not happy with us.

You know, Sunday's the Lord's day. We keep it for God. I mean, you know, they mock us, so we have to deal with that kind of stuff, and you know,

Paul says, Acts 14, through many tribulations, we enter the kingdom of God, and again, based on where we are in God's providence, that tribulation, those persecutions will be greater or lesser, and I think they will increase in America, because we live in a godless society, but at the same time, we have to understand that while wickedness is on the rise, also righteousness as well, you know, both are growing, and I don't think it's all pessimistic.

I don't believe it's all optimistic either. I think it's both. So I'm optimistic, you know, I'm a millenarian, you know,

I'm in the middle there. I'm not all negative and not all positive like our post -mill friends, but definitely

I believe that as wickedness continues to abound in our land, also righteousness and truth.

I mean, think about the way the gospel is going out all throughout the world. Think about the doctrines of grace, Chris. I mean,

I remember when I became Calvinistic back in 95, it was like, oh boy, I mean, you were just, you were mocked.

I mean, you talk about evangelical persecution. I mean, I remember my pastor telling me at that time, you bit the apple, that's what he told me, regarding Calvinism, but oh yeah, yeah, so man, oh man, so now,

I mean, you know, 20 years later, you know, Calvinism is celebrated, you know what I mean? And praise the Lord for the men who are preaching, you know, solidly the doctrines of grace,

Paul Washer and Steve Lawson and MacArthur and those guys, you know, these guys are, you know, really doing good stuff.

So again, we're persecuted even within our own, you know, denominations, as it were, our own, you know, evangelicalism.

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, how do you respond to the person who says that they find it difficult to use the

Apostle Paul or anyone from the biblical era, who was actually either walking and talking with Christ or receiving divine revelation directly from God himself, to use them as an example of life is difficult because they knew without question that what they were teaching and believing was certainly from God, whereas today we are hearing about the

Bible and about what it teaches from second -hand sources, so therefore the more realistic example of someone for us would be somebody who is not in a special status like either

Jesus Christ himself or an apostle. Well, if I'm hearing the question correctly,

I mean, I would answer and say we don't need direct revelation, we don't need burning bushes, you know, we don't need those things.

I think the Bible is anticipating that. Look, we need the gospel, right? It's the gospel that's the power of God unto salvation, not miracles, not voices from heaven, you know, not, you know, whatever.

Direct revelation, again, you know, Paul, Paul, you know, flee from the city. We don't need that. You know, it's the gospel that saves, and Paul, again, as he's going around, it's ordinary means that's transforming people.

Just as it was in Paul's day, going to every city preaching Christ, Colossians chapter 1, him we preach, so if the gospel is being preached as it was in the first century, as it's continued on and is in the 21st century, it's the gospel that shows us the reality of the

Bible because these people believe the same gospel we believe and we're transformed by it. Now, the day of miracles and all those things have ceased in that sense.

We're talking about special miracles, of course, I believe the greatest miracle is the new birth, but direct revelation, all those things, those things have ceased, but those things don't pertain to me as far as, you know, needing them.

I don't need a direct word from Christ. I got the whole Bible. Matter of fact, I got more than those who in Corinth were getting direct revelation.

They didn't even have a Bible in their hands. I got their Bible and, you know, 65 other books, plus, you know, the book to the

Corinthians, so what we have in our Bibles is more than enough. The Word of God is sufficient for every generation, and that's all we need.

And if Arnie wants to correct me if I'm misinterpreting him, I think where he was going with this is that those biblical heroes that we have, there was no question in their mind that they were on a mission directly sent from God himself.

Paul saw Christ on the road to Damascus. We believe as cessationists and reformed

Christians that nobody else living today has had an experience like that, so there is an advantage of that kind of certainty, whereas we are today living and driven on a hope that we believe is true, but we don't have the confirmation, if you will, that somebody like the

Apostle Paul or any of the Apostles had. We don't have the certainty of Jesus Christ himself being the

God -man, so I think that's where our listener was coming from, but perhaps

I'm wrong, but if he could respond to that kind of a thing. Yeah, I think that certainly we are included, because you look at Matthew 28, right?

Go into all the world, make disciples. Well, clearly Jesus there is envisioning not just the original band doing that, right, or even the fire and dry witnesses, you know, going into all the world, making disciples through the gospel is something that was, you know, committed to the church, right?

So we are, you know, still involved in that process right out of the pages of Scripture, and the confirmation, you mentioned the word confirmation, what do we have?

Well, it's the Holy Spirit, and he has confirmed us in the faith, and he is the earnest and the guarantee of the transformation in our lives, what happened to us happened to the

Bible, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passing away, behold, all things become new, so you've got, you know, the reality of the confirmation of the new birth in our lives, you've got the great commission, which is given to all believers in all generations connected to the church, of course, and then you've got

Jesus' words, I think of John 17, blessed are those who haven't seen, as it were, you know, they're going to hear, they're going to believe your words, so we are the blessed ones that Christ was foreseeing or speaking of in the future, who would come to hear the word of God, and would be saved, and would go on and promote the gospel, just as the first century believers were doing, so we're in that long line of disciples of Christ, who are following Christ, who are making disciples, preaching the gospel, you know, teaching the word of God, all of those things in the church, pastors, planning churches, so it all continues,

I mean, we're really living out of, you know, the book of Acts, and it is interesting to note that the very last word, you know what the last word in the book of Acts is,

Chris, the very last word, in English, it's four words, no one forbidding him, that's

Paul, but the Greek word is one word, it's the word unhindered, the last word in the book of Acts, unhindered, the point is, this message is going forth, it's going forward, unhindered, it's unstoppable, but there in Acts chapter 28,

Paul is the bound servant of the Lord, he's in chains, but the word of God is not chained, and that word of God is going forth unhindered, even in our day, it's going forth every time

I preach, and people are converted, and disciples are made, and people come to the church, it's going forth in this radio program, through people hearing solid messages, solid interviews, being told about solid books, a portrait of Paul, and the many, many, many, many other books that you promote, so we are part of all that's going on, through the risen

Christ, in the book of Acts, he's the risen Christ, he is mediating his gospel, mediating his power through the church, and his work is going forward, so I read it and see that we're connected to all that's going on, right out of the pages of scripture,

I realize there are some changes, I realize we don't have apostles today in that sense, but Paul and Jesus clearly envisioned that the early apostles would die off, and then pastors would be put in the churches, pastors would be involved with equipping the saints, and they would go forward and do the work of the ministry, so the work continues,

I think, as it began in the first century. And thank you Arnie, and if you give us your full mailing address, cvbbs .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will also ship you a free copy of the book that we are addressing today by Rob Ventura, A Portrait of Paul Identifying a

True Minister of Christ, and we thank Reformation Heritage Books for shipping these copies out to us.

We're going to our final break right now, if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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Don't go away, God willing we'll be right back with Rob Ventura, so don't go away.

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Eastern Time. And now we are back with the final 25 minutes or so of our topic today.

Our guest has been and will continue to be Rob Ventura, Pastor of Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence, Rhode Island, and he's the author of A Portrait of Paul, Identifying a

True Minister of Christ. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we have

CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, as you mentioned in the beginning of the program,

Chris, there are many who reject the gospel in favor of works, righteousness, or the meritorious salvation that can be achieved by men who say that the

Disciple James in his epistle has a different gospel than the

Apostle Paul. Can you please clarify this situation?

Yeah, is that now to me there, Chris? Yes, definitely. Okay, good. I thought you were going to, he directed it to you, and I thought you were going to do some comment.

No, I think that the listener was just mentioning that I happened to bring it up before. Yeah, yeah.

So really, again, when you look at James, I think, 2 .14, that's really the key thing there in that section.

What does it profit, my brother, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

Can such faith save him? So really, in this context, you know, James is coming against a said faith versus a true faith, and I think it's so important, especially in our day.

James is saying, look, if there's no fruit of salvation, then there's no root of salvation.

And that's exactly what Paul taught, of course. So if a person says, again, you know, if a person says, you know,

I've got faith, but their life does not verify that by how they live, i .e., good works and all that stuff, following from a faith which has justified them alone, then they're not true believers.

And again, I think in our day of antinomianism and hyper -gracism, where people don't really look at people's lives and just say, oh,

I'm saved by grace alone, I'm justified by faith alone and free grace, you know, but if you're not living that way, which is exactly what

James is talking about, if your brother is this and you don't do anything for him, if he's hungry, etc. In other words,

James says, if you're not living the life, you're not one who's been truly justified by faith alone, because those who have been justified by faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone go on to live lives that set forth the fact that they have been justified.

The bottom line is justification and sanctification are always connected. And for one to say, I've been justified and does not evidence a life of sanctification, it's because they're not the real deal.

And James couples Paul very nicely, whereas the only grounds of our acceptance before God is the finished work of Christ.

We believe on that work alone for salvation. We are justified, declared not guilty. If that has truly happened to us, then something happens in us.

Namely, we get new hearts and out of those new hearts we live. As James says, not saying we have faith, but we don't live like we have true faith.

No, the true believer now has a transformed life, and they fulfill what James says, living as God would call them to live, is to say, obeying the commands of Christ, obeying the

Bible in every place. So Paul and James, again, are not at odds with one another.

They really are in concert with one another. Yeah, it is mind -boggling that there are even professing

Christians and pastors who are part of a movement that you may be familiar with.

I think it's typically somehow connected with hyper -dispensationalism, who believe that the words of Christ and the gospel contained within the gospels are something of the past, and that only the epistles of Paul are to be guiding

Christians today as to how we are to live and believe, and that goes under the presumption by these false teachers that Paul is teaching something unique and different from the other authors of the

New Testament. And this is absurd, isn't it? That's blasphemy. And, you know,

Paul himself, okay, so let's just listen to Paul. Okay, Paul says all scriptures are given by inspiration of God.

All right, I agree. Let's follow Paul. Each scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God might be thoroughly equipped and furnished unto every good work.

So yeah, let's just read Paul. Oh, and Paul tells us to read everywhere else. So yeah, so no,

I mean, well, like you said, hyper -dispensationalism, in my view, dispensationalism in any perspective is just wrong, although I realize there are much better forms of it, lesser forms, you know, like MacArthur would hold to, etc.

But oh yeah, I mean, and again, someone look at, you know, the book of James, right? James chapter 1, I preached there this past Sunday. It's just a standalone sermon before we get into Romans, but you know.

So James writes to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad. Oh, okay, interesting. So who's that, you know, Benjamin, Simeon, and Levi?

He's writing to Christians. Ah, Christian who? Christian Israel, the church, right? Believers, you know, my brethren, count it all,

Joy. So, you know, who is, you know, who are the people of God, and you know, it's believers, it's the church, you know,

Jews and Gentiles, that's, you know, that's the focus of God, and you know, that's the delight of his heart.

So yeah, I think to chop the Bible up and again say, well, this is for then, you know, that's for now, and it's just, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

You know, we read the whole Bible, we believe all that it says. Now, we do understand that through progressive revelation that obviously things have fallen off, such as ceremonial law and civil laws.

We understand we're not living in a theocracy, and of course, hence the theonomist, you know, that's where they run into trouble, but the commands of Christ, the commands of the apostles,

I mean, you know, the whole book is ours. All 66 books are ours for our reading and our delight.

By the way, CJ, I think I forgot to mention you have also won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today by our guest

Rob Ventura, A Portrait of Paul Identifying a True Minister of Christ.

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Todd and Patty Jennings, the owners of cvbbs .com. We have

B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says,

Chris, recently on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you were contemplating how interesting it is that the

Apostle Paul, when writing to the church in Galatia, seemed even though he was harsh to them with words of rebuke and correction and called them fools and said, who has bewitched you?

He still treated them as brothers in Christ, unlike the Judaizers who were striving to deceive them and give them a false gospel.

What does your guest Rob Ventura have to say about this, that there is a difference between those that may be temporarily duped by a false teacher and the false teachers themselves?

Yes, our listener is correct. I did say that I thought it was interesting how

Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, did identify those members of the congregation there as brothers and sisters, and he seemed to have, even though he was very stern in his rebuke of them, he did not write them off as being lost with the

Judaizers themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah, saying that they should go even castrate themselves. And yeah, he's obviously very harsh with the false teachers, there's no doubt about it.

I mean, they are perpetrating a lie, they are deceivers, they are false workers, you know, in line with the devil.

Paul talks about it in 2 Corinthians chapter 2. And yeah, so I think, you know, clearly there needs to be a strong, you know, word against heretics and errorists, not terrorists, but errorists, as Lenski calls them.

And at the same time, you know, again, Paul, by, you know, speaking to the Galatians, oh, you foolish Galatians, I mean, you think about Jesus, he was his own disciples, have

I been with you so long? You know, there is this kind of like, come on, you know, and as pastors, we need to say the same thing.

You know, Paul talks about, you know, shall I come with you, you know, with the whip? You know what I mean? Do you need me to come strongly?

I'd rather come with the graciousness of Christ in my heart. But you know what, if you've got to be stirred up,

I'll do it. So Paul is talking pastorally to the people of God. And, you know, again, what are we, 1

Thessalonians? You know, you are my crown of rejoicing. I mean, he's always praising

God for the people of God, but, you know, when it comes to the gospel, there's only one gospel, as Paul talks about in Galatians chapter 1.

There's not another, although some perpetrate another, but, you know, all of the false teachers in our lands, and all of these guys, the distorting of the gospel.

It's another gospel. It's not the true gospel. So we have to defend the gospel, the true gospel of the

Bible, the gospel Paul preached, Jesus preached, all the apostles preached. And if someone is preaching another gospel, we need to warn people, and we need to warn them.

Yeah, and I would assume that one example of, or one reason we should view this as an example of a true

Christian minister today is that a minister today, just as a true minister of any era, any century, but we have to be more concerned about how

God views things that we believe and teach. We have to be more concerned about the eternal destiny of those whom we love than we are to be concerned about their feelings.

The apostle Paul didn't pull punches here with the Galatians, and it's interesting how, you know,

I have friends who I disagree with on very serious matters of faith, and, you know, whether they be

Roman Catholic or from other sects and religious groups, who get angry with me because they think that I'm being overly harsh with them.

And I tend not to mock them. I try not to mock them and unnecessarily offend them, but the gospel is an offense.

And I basically have said to them on occasion, you really are challenging me or pushing me to be more kind than the apostle

Paul is, and I don't feel comfortable doing that. Am I right there?

No, that's right. Paul speaks about enemies of the gospel, and so when it comes to, you know, heaven or hell,

I mean, we are to pull no punches either. Like Paul, these are enemies of the gospel, and, you know, we need to clearly know who the enemies of the gospel are and who they are not.

Now, there are, like you were saying, I wouldn't put Catholics, because Catholics are clearly, in my opinion, enemies of the gospel, or at least

Catholic teaching of the people that can vary each one. But then there are other people that we may disagree with on secondary issues that are not gospel issues, and we should love them as brethren.

Think of our dear brother Bill Shisco. You said, oh, you love Bill and all that? All right, I love Bill and the Lord, he's a wonderful brother.

And yet we know that we disagree with him on the subject of baptism and the mode of baptism. But man, you want to talk about a great defender of the true gospel?

Bill Shisco, man. What a wonderful and great preacher, wonderful brother, although to date he hasn't been able to convince us of the subject of baptism.

But anyway, I remember when you were hosting the debate between him and James White, it was masterful.

But again, but he was a guy, again, and even going back to John MacArthur, a wonderful defender of the gospel, the true gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and we love him for that, although we might disagree again with his dispensationalism, you know, leaky or mild, whatever you want to call it.

So man, dispensationalism in its mild forms, you know, subjects of baptism, you know, whatever it might be, you know, the other little things we might disagree with, head coverings, whatever.

I mean, those are secondary issues. But when it comes to the gospel, we're talking heaven and hell, eternal damnation versus eternal bliss, and you know, we can play no games at that point.

Again, Galatians chapter 1 is just so clear there, where Paul is just, you know, literally struck out.

I marvel, you know, that you are turning from the grace of God, the grace of Christ, to a different gospel.

So Paul is quite strong here, because he knows what's at stake.

And I'm assuming that you would agree with me that we have to be very careful about co -belligerence, public activity against social ills when we link arms with those outside of the body of Christ.

And I do believe that there are levels of co -belligerence that we can and perhaps even on occasion should participate in.

And I think that most of the time when we cast a vote for a political candidate, usually we're casting a vote for somebody who's not a

Christian, even if they claim to be. But at the same time, there are many, as you know, even within evangelical

Christianity, who are saying, hey, we need to be a more united front against same -sex marriage and abortion and all these things.

We should not be nitpicking over theology. And yet the Apostle Paul did not take that approach with the

Judaizers. He didn't say, we can overlook the fact that they are requiring circumcision in addition to faith to be justified before God.

We can overlook that because we will have a more united front against the pagans of this world and against the

Jews that are persecuting us. He did not take that approach. No, that's exactly right. And Paul talks there,

Luke, in describing the scenario in Acts chapter 15, he talks about, therefore, when

Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them. In other words, they had a huge problem with the

Judaizers, no small dissension. So yeah, and I think we need to be very, very careful in our day that is so, you know, everything is just, you know, soft, touchy -feely, kind of, well, we can work with them on this, can't we, pastor?

You know, and I'm like, you know what? Maybe we can just do that ourselves, you know what I mean? Why don't we go ahead and address those issues, but as evangelical gospel -believing

Christians. It's not to say, again, you know, like you were saying, that there's anything we could never do, you know, anything with whatever, you know, maybe there's a community thing that goes on, and I mean, again,

I'm not going to, you know, lock, be in lockstep with, you know, the Muslims and the Jews and the

Christians are all, you know, I'm not going to go down to the town and say, we're just one, because we're not all one in the truth, obviously, but if there is something, and in 10 years as being a pastor,

I can't think of something I have actually done to say I've joined in that, but I could say, well, you know what, if the

Catholics there, I think, for example, one of our members, they are part of, you know, this board that fights against local abortion clinics, and on that board, a great brother in our church, there are

Catholics, okay, so as a side ministry, he's part of this, you know, facility where women come in, they keep their babies, they get tutored on, you know, why they should do that, etc.,

and there's some Catholics on that board, so, you know, maybe in that case, that's an okay thing, but when it comes to anything close to the gospel, or again, well, let's just all be part of this, and put our theological differences aside,

I don't have to be very careful, I think the devil can work, and has worked, you see there with Billy Graham, and you see with others, you know, signing these together with the

Catholics documents, I mean, it all kind of touches on areas that pull our heart strings, like, yeah, you know, it's really wrong that people do that, and we all agree, therefore, let's become one,

I think we need to be very, very careful, so, you know, I've always been like that, we haven't, you know, we're just not big on joining stuff like that, not to say that, you know, those people who are doing those things are bad, they might be doing some good things, and that's good, but if it's gonna cause us in any way, shape, or form to deny the gospel, or water it down,

I think we'd rather stay away from it. Yeah, and we should never forget that the, for all we know, the

Judaizers agreed with the Apostle Paul on nearly everything, except justification by faith alone, they were insisting on circumcision, and that in and of itself made

Paul react with other disgust, and horror, and vehement opposition to declare them anathema.

And this is the line of demarcation between us and Catholics, I had a dear guy who

I know sent me some information that he just was doing on a class on justification, and he says we're justified by faith alone, and can you read my dissertation here?

Oh, he said we're justified by faith, he said, and could you read my dissertation? And I said, um, it's not that we're justified by faith, it's we're justified by faith alone.

Because if you go to look at the Catholic website, they'll say, oh yeah, we're justified by faith, and then five hundred other things as well.

I said, so brother, the word alone there is the line of demarcation between marcation of us and the

Catholics, just like with Paul, it was the word, you know, sola, between him, just a little, little word, between him and the

Judaizers, and we take out the word, then we're in trouble. Amen.

And it's heartbreaking when you see some of these even professedly evangelical parachurch groups who, in their statements of faith, have actually removed the word alone, thinking that that was okay.

That totally makes a true gospel a false gospel, just by removing that one word.

That's correct, that's correct. And if you could tell us about the warnings of Paul ministry as we conclude the program.

Yeah, chapter 10, let me just jump back, I wanted to just say one thing as I was thinking about on the break. You asked what the focus of Paul's ministry, based on Colossians, it was his people, but chapter 6 is the subject of Paul's ministry.

I don't want anyone to say, well, what about Christ? Well, chapter 6 is, we deal with the whole thing of Christ being the subject of Paul's ministry, and there in Colossians, I'm just turning there with me, turning in my

Bible, turning there with me, I'm so used to being in the pulpit, would you turn there with me? In Colossians chapter 1, great verse,

Paul says, Him we preach, Him is emphatic in the original text, Christ we preach, and that that was the subject of Paul's ministry.

The focus was the people, the subject was Jesus Christ our Lord, and actually that chapter 6,

Chapel Library took out and made a separate booklet, so if anyone wants to get that booklet, you can call

Chapel Library, they'll send you the booklet for free called, What Does It Mean to Preach Christ? Let me just also add here that I co -wrote this book with Jeremy Walker, an outstanding

Reformed Baptist pastor. Oh yeah, he's been on the program a number of times. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeremy and I, this was our first book we did together that we were ever published on, and I've gone on to write other books, and so has

Jeremy, and he's just a great, great brother. But so the subject of Paul's ministry, Christ, and then again, chapter 10, the warnings of Paul right after 28a, b, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that was what

Paul taught them in all gospel wisdom, with a great goal in view, that we might present every man perfect in Christ, and that goes back to what

I was saying in the beginning of the message, the true pastor, what does he have as a goal, this great eschatological day, this great final day where he's going to present his people like an offering to the

Lord Jesus Christ, and then as Paul thinks about that final day, again, while he's warning people in this world, and he's preaching the gospel, warning again the wicked to flee from the wrath to come, the people of God to avoid false teachers, warning the false teachers themselves,

Paul says regarding this whole thing of presenting believers perfect or complete, mature in Christ on that day, to this end

I also labor, and then Paul tells us how he does it, striving according to his working which works in me mightily.

So going back again to that initial thought, another one in the beginning of the message, pastors, they have a lot to face from inside the church, outside the church, in their own hearts, but Christ is with us, and he helps us just like Paul says of Jesus here, that he works in me mightily, and I can attest to the fact that again, 10 years of ministry, which is not a long time, but a decade of ministry,

God has helped me every single day as I've pled with him to be my portion and my aid.

So ministers, young ministers, men seeking the ministry, seek the ministry. If anyone desires the work of office, he desires a good work, and may your ministry be modeled after Paul, who said, imitate me as I imitate

Christ. And any final warnings, as I said earlier, that you might have from the

Apostle Paul? Yes, I think the main thing is, is false gospels around about us on every level, warning, and if we look there, it's right where we broke the book off on chapter two,

Paul goes on to say in verses four and five, now this

I say, lest anyone should deceive you with what Paul says, persuasive words, and Chris, as you know, there's a lot of persuasive words out and about, for though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your steadfastness, your order in the faith, and then

Paul says here, later on, verse eight, here's the warning, beware, be on guard, constantly be looking, lest anyone cheat you, and how do they do it?

Through philosophy and empty deceit, and this according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not of Christ.

So the warnings, be on guard for false religion and false teachers, they are everywhere, and the way we could be on guard against them is by being rooted in scripture, by being rooted in apostolic doctrine.

Amen. We have time for one quick question from Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York.

He says, I think it will be an excellent idea if we bring friends with us to see the

Paul, the Apostle of Christ movie this Easter, and give them a copy of your book, and if they don't own a especially a copy of the scriptures.

Do you have any other books that you could recommend about the Apostle Paul that might be good aids in evangelism when we invite people to join us to see this movie?

Yeah, I mean, there are books on Paul that are out. There is one that I'm actually looking for here in my library.

I can just go over to my Paul section, but Robert Raymond wrote an outstanding book on Paul, and I just can't find it right now.

I've got just many, many books here, but on the Apostle Paul, I just can't find it now, Chris, and there's just a new one that came out.

I just saw it in a new CBD magazine on Paul, but brother, I'd have to get you a list of stuff just on Paul himself, but yeah.

And of course, people can contact you at the church there, Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence, Rhode Island at gcbcri .org,

gcbcri .org, and of course, don't forget Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service to order the book by Rob Ventura, cvbbs .com,

cvbbs .com. I thank you so much, Rob, for being our guest today, especially since it was a very late notice invitation.

I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who wrote questions, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater