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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is

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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. And to the strains of Steve Camp's run to the battle, which there's a bunch of people on the channel saying the same thing.

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I can't hear run to the battle anymore without expecting to hear Rich's voice. I'm not sure what

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Steve would think about that, but hey, he played that for us and I thought that was great on the cruise before last.

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And speaking of such things, well, first of all, I have a warning for all lamers.

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That's L -A -M -E -R -S. That's an I -R -C description of people who are lame.

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Not that they can't walk or something like that, but that they're sort of a waste of bandwidth.

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I have a button now, not one of these buttons. I can sort of just turn myself like that.

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See, that's a cough button. I've had that for a while and that's necessary at certain times of the year. But I now have.

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Oh, wow. Now there's all sorts of blinking lights. I now have the button of power.

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In fact, multiple buttons of power right here at my fingertips. I no longer have to take the time to type out a note to someone on the other side of the wall that says, dump this guy or something like that.

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I can now bring people on the air all by myself with much power and ability.

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So now those of you who've been saying that I cut everybody off on the radio or on the dividing line, the webcast, now

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I can actually do it. I figure if you're going to accuse me of it, why not? You know, that's sort of fair.

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So we have the button of power that is available to me. And with that button of power, I am now going to blow up the entire system that Rich has put together by bringing

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Mike O 'Fallon on the line with me. Oh, the green light turns to red. That's cool. Hi, Mike.

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How are you, sir? I've got a new gadget, so I'm very happy. I'm very easy to please when it comes to gadgets.

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It's sort of a sad thing, really, when you think of it. It has lights and different colors. I'm OK. I'm the life of a techie.

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The life of a techie. Well, that's something, brother. I don't think you have to worry too much.

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Unfortunately, no. I'm the caveman in those Geico commercials, you know? Oh, man, I get that. No, I thought that was the ugly house -buying dude or something.

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Geico has the little dude, the little gecko. Oh, OK. So anyway,

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I've got to find out. He doesn't get out much, Mike. You have to. So, Mike, you know,

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I put on the blog this morning that we were going to announce who was going to be on, and then someone pointed out this.

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If you just looked over to the right of the page, it had the names right there. A big announcement, ladies and gentlemen.

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I'm really good at this stuff. Pay no attention to the right -hand side. Well, you know, the sad thing is,

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I bet you there are people tuning in, I wonder who it's going to be, because they didn't notice it. They didn't look. Yes, and to those of you that are actually on right now, please don't

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PM either one of us while we're talking. Well, I can handle it, because, you know,

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I can multitask. I'm a Windows system. You're DOS 3 .1, man, all the way.

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I don't know if I even know what that means. But anyway. Oh, wow. That's going to leave a mark.

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Anyway, I guess I've gotten you into a nice, fine mess here. Oh, why's that? This coming

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August. It looks like it. Yeah, that's, I guess, the reason why we're on.

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But at least I'm on. But we have something really incredible to announce to folks this afternoon.

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And if you are someone who has considered going to the conference or to the cruise, kind of sitting on the fence,

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I think we have a real good reason why you should be with us. This really is a historic event,

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I think, in a lot of ways. But, James, I don't know enough about Dr.

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James Renahan. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about him. Well, you know, as you know, and I'll make this very clear here.

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The first person that I thought of when we began asking ourselves the question, all right, who would we like to?

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Well, first, it was just who would we like to speak at the conference in Seattle? And the first thought across my mind is

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I would really want to get Jim Renahan involved. The reason being, of course,

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I had the opportunity a couple years ago of going over to Westminster Seminary in Escondido, where Dr.

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Renahan is a professor. He is the head of the Institute Reform Baptist Studies.

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And probably certainly one of the preeminent

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Reform Baptist scholars today, obviously being entrusted with the

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Institute Reform Baptist Studies and those precious young men who are studying there, very high calling.

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And yet I've also had the opportunity of being in Dr. Renahan's home and meeting his family.

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And last year, we had the opportunity to have

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Jim Renahan preach in our church. It was during the ARBCA conference here in the valley.

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It's very rare I ever hear anyone preach at the Phoenix Reform Baptist Church other than Don Fry, because if Don Fry is not preaching,

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I'm preaching. So it's very, very rare that we have anyone other than the elders of our own congregation preaching.

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And if there is someone else preaching, that means neither myself nor Don Fry is there that day.

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Either he's ill or it's one of his very, very, very rare vacations. And so Dr. Renahan came and spoke for us on a

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Sunday morning on Revelation 4 and 5. And I have recommended that folks listen to this.

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I had linked to it. I hope it's still on PRBC's website. I should have checked before I mentioned this.

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He spoke from Revelation chapters 4 and 5. And it was just wonderful.

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I was so blessed. It was so clear. It was so compelling. Just wonderfully, wonderfully done.

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I really, truly enjoyed it. And so once I heard that, and of course, I had heard him speak on historical subjects at Westminster itself when

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I was speaking there. And so I wanted to have him there. Then when this opportunity came up, I really thought, you know, there would be such a wonderful opportunity here to have

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Dr. Renahan with us. And of course, he's currently on sabbatical in England, where I'll be going next month, but not to do what he's doing.

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And so he's been very gracious to agree to be with us. And so I think it's going to be a wonderful opportunity to hear this discussion.

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And the discussion, of course, we're talking about here, specifically on the ship in regards to the resurrection of Christ.

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Just a wonderful addition. And I've been talking to folks and people are really starting to get the idea.

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You know what? This is something I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to go to Alaska. I've always wanted this.

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This cruise sounds like it is the best cruise you can do in Alaska if you really want to see glaciers and things like that.

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And I want to go with Christians. I want to have the opportunity of Christian fellowship.

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I want to hear Steve Camp sing. I want to have presentations on the ship with Christian people that I'm in harmony with.

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And to throw, just throw the frosting on the top of the debate in Seattle and then that discussion on board has gotten a lot of folks excited.

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I mean, there's just there's just no two ways about it. And so I'm really looking forward to having

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Dr. Renahan on the ship with us. He's a wonderful man of God, a very personable fellow, much nicer than I am.

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And so after this year, I will no longer be invited to my own cruises and other people will take over at that point.

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Well, we really, I think, need to help folks understand it. You recall the debate between William Lane Craig and Dr.

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Preston a few years ago, which I believe was a written debate, if I'm not. Actually, there are actually that is available.

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I should just go ahead and tell everybody that is available in recorded form at Equip .org.

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CRI makes that available. And it's also in written form from Baker Academic Books.

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It's sitting on my shelf here. Well, I think one of the issues that came up out of that was that there was some talk and so forth that that the issue of the resurrection was not really addressed by the side of those who are part of the

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Westar Institute Jesus Seminar. And Dr. Borg, I think, did engage in the in the back of that book, if I recall correctly, in a discussion about the resurrection to some extent, but did not answer all the questions that I believe were given to him.

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So this is an opportunity to really have a one -two punch. Number one, to discuss whether the historical

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Jesus School, and I use that term only in the sense in which they mean it, where they are approaching and saying, well, there's certainly some reason to doubt the scriptural account of Jesus of Nazareth, etc.,

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if we even need to call him Jesus of Nazareth, and also that, of course, denying or taking a different look at or a different approach to the resurrection account as presented in the scriptures.

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There's both of these issues that have been, I think, the foundational issues in regard to the

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Jesus Seminar and their approach to the scriptures, and I think that we have the opportunity on this particular conference and cruise to deal with these two main foundational issues.

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And that's never been done before. There's never been a discussion of this sort, of this kind, between scholars of this level that has occurred, if I can plainly say, in the past 10 -15 years that the

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Jesus Seminar has been around. Not that I can recall. James, did you want to follow up on that? I was just going to mention on page 122 of Will the

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Real Jesus Please Stand Up? a debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, you have

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Marcus Borg's section, actually, it begins on page 117, and you have the statement, it says,

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It will come as no surprise to learn that my own position is quite similar to Crossan's. Put simply, it seems to me that whether something happened to the corpse of Jesus is irrelevant to the truth of Easter.

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And then he gives three reasons for why he says that that's the case. And so, obviously, a very foundational difference in approach from every angle.

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I mean, not only from the historical foundation of the Gospels themselves, but from a theological perspective in regards, of course, to, well, every aspect of Christian faith.

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Union, Christ's resurrection is the promise of my resurrection. So you can't have the promise of the

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Christian view of resurrection if you do not have the resurrection of Christ. And so on and so forth. There's just so many things there that come into it.

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And so you had mentioned that it's actually toward the middle of that particular little book. And I think people are going to be, certainly,

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I would encourage people, those who have already made the decision, they're going to attend, and they're going to be there at the conference, they're going to be on the cruise, or just the conference, if that's all they can do.

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Certainly, we have a number of people who are going to do that as well, of course, that they read ahead.

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I think someone who would take the time, and in fact, what I'll end up doing is I'll end up putting a reading list out, probably a few months before the cruise, for people who want to read ahead.

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People who read ahead will get much more out of the encounter because of their self -preparation, as anyone would.

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I mean, even if you take the time to read the sermon passage prior to showing up to church on Sunday morning, if you happen to know where you're going to be, you're going to be a step ahead of somebody who hasn't.

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And so I'm hoping that folks will show up that will do that little bit of extra work and will be excited as a result in going back into their communities, maybe going back in their colleges, especially.

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I really hope to see some young college folks. I can't tell you how often I have young college people telling me about their constant battles with people who promote the

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Jesus Seminar type materials within their classes. In fact, we just had a college -age young man leave channel to go to class, and one of the things that's going to happen in the class,

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I believe it was today, it might be tomorrow, is a discussion about his openly stating in class he was a

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Christian. Now everybody's going to be coming down upon him like a ton of bricks. There's so many of our brothers and sisters in the

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Lord who are young, who are in that type of situation. My hope and prayer, of course, is this will help to equip them as well.

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Well, and I think one thing that we need to bring up about this is those of you that are really looking forward to hearing the debate between Dr.

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White, Dr. Renahan, and then Dr. Son and Dr. Borg on the resurrection. If those of you are thinking, well, you know,

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I'll wait for the DVD or for the MP3 to come out on audio. Rich, are you on?

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Do you have any news about that? Well, first of all, we're going to get that DVD out on the debate itself as quickly as possible, but folks need...

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The debate itself is in Seattle. Right, in Seattle. Back up, I'm sitting here pushing buttons and stuff like that.

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Refresh me. Did I understand you correctly? You were talking about Seattle? Well, I was talking about the debate on the ship.

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Okay, all right. Yeah, I was going to get there. Sorry. Take a deep breath.

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But as far as the CDs and the DVDs for the debate in Seattle, we're going to get those out as quickly as we possibly can, but folks need to understand something, and that is that the debate or the discussion that occurs on board ship is not going to be recorded.

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And so if you want to witness a historic interaction between four scholars from two totally different paradigms, you need to be on board that ship.

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And so not only is this an excellent opportunity to go see Alaska, this is also going to be an awesome apologetic opportunity that those who will be on board that ship will have the unique opportunity to be able to see and hear for themselves, because it's not going to be distributed.

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Right. And also there's the possibility, because we might be actually having this debate, we will be having it on board, is that if it's held in one of the lounges there, that the non -reform side could get really interesting by the end of it.

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But no, we do have the opportunity to have all— Is there some way of editing that out,

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Rich? I'm going to have to do that, yeah. Is there a dump button somewhere on this thing? Where's the delay? Where's the delay?

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Dr. Weiss is going to continue buying drinks. Could you guys link another one there before we get on to the next subject?

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Okay, well, it just all got canceled, folks. Never mind. It's over with.

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We're going to be pulling away from the dock waving at Mike as he stands on the dock. Bye, Mike! Have a nice day! No, anyway.

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So in Seattle, though, folks, we do need to tell you, we are in the preparations now of starting our advertising in the

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Seattle area for the debate between Dr. White and Dr. Casson. And we have about, what, $12 to advertise?

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Is that the budget? A little more than that. We will. I think that we are both anticipating, and we have already been, at the time that Dr.

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White had put on his blog about the debate occurring and the conference occurring, we were flooded with emails.

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Yeah, this came together so fast. Yes, that debate we anticipate selling out.

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And we anticipated selling out quickly. Yeah. And by the way, the order page, the shopping cart, has just been put online from the main page at amn .org.

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You did that just before we went on the air, so people know about that. Right.

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In other words, you can get tickets now. Is that what you're saying? You can get tickets. Okay. We also have the offers.

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And for those of you that are students or that don't have a tremendous amount of resources and funds to be able to do things like this with other ministries, we are giving you the opportunity to really get in on some great deals.

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Before May 31st, if you reserve a room at the

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Seattle Marriott, you can get in for free. Do you mean March 31st? Excuse me, March 31st, pardon me.

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Correction. We'll have to edit that as well. But March 31st, if you sign up in the room before that date, you will be able to get in for free.

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So that's something that we're trying to say, we'll do everything we can to make this affordable to you.

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It's not just a question of Alpha Omega is not trying to use us as a profit -generating deal.

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All we're trying to do is make sure that we're able to cover our costs. But we're going to do everything possible to be able to extend those deals to you, especially if you're someone who's faithful in supporting

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Alpha Omega Ministries or you're in the chat channel. So just be aware of that. We want to make sure that we give everyone the opportunity to be a part of this historic event and a part of this conference, which the conference is going to be fantastic as well.

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So you have Dr. Renahan, you have Dr. White, you have Steve Camp who's going to be talking in the conference with possibly another person to be added in in the near future.

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Just something that you really want to make sure you're a part of. If you're planning on going to any

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Reformed conference this year and you're paying oodles and oodles of money just to get into the door, consider ours because we're not going to do that to you.

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And not only that, but this is going to have a substantial amount of edification going on for the

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Reformed believer as well as for those that are really battling with some of the issues with historical criticism and so forth in the

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Bible. This is really going to give you an opportunity to be under some incredible teaching, to get some things clear, and to be able to prepare yourself apologetically.

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It's almost like a year's worth of seminaries in a week and a half. It is a tremendous opportunity and it's tremendously exciting to see this all coming together.

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But basically, Mike, what you're saying is don't be one of those folks that puts it off to the last second because you might discover at the last second that that's not going to work for you.

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Well, I think both Rich and I would both agree that if you put this, getting your ticket or your hotel room off for very long, you might find yourself just not being able to go.

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Yeah, absolutely. And I want to emphasize the fact that as quickly as this came around, we didn't have the shopping cart ready.

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We didn't have a lot of the behind -the -scenes particulars. And both Mike and I have been getting absolutely hammered with people saying, how do

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I get my tickets? I want my tickets now. How do I get on board? And so, folks,

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I'm really emphasizing here, don't delay. If you want to get in on this and the time to do it is now.

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If you wait, I can guarantee it's going to be a sold -out room and you're not going to be able to participate in it.

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We have cheap sound effects here. We're just trying to say this so we don't disappoint anybody.

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We really want to make sure that everybody that really wants to be there, especially those that are

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Reformed Christians are going to be there. Because I'm telling you, I don't think that this, especially a debate, is going to be solely a

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Reformed Christian crowd. I think that Dr. Croissant is going to have a tremendous amount of supporters there as well.

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So you think about Seattle and the Northwest, that's not a real Reformed Christian, Evangelical Christian -friendly area.

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Could be a very one -sided audience and it could be the other side. Right. I mean, some people are going to be taking the night off from embracing trees and coming down to live at a base.

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Or bring your tree. Buy a ticket for your tree. Well, we sold how many tickets to the

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Doug Wilson debate yesterday? Not right now. Yeah, we did.

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I mean, you think about how many people that we had at the Wilson debate, and I think we would have to meet that crowd at about 700 or so.

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And if you consider that the room that we have at the Marriott, the capacity is 600.

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Yeah, you better get to it now. Yeah, absolutely. No two ways about it. Make sure you get your tickets. All right. We'll let

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Centurion go ahead and ask his questions and we'll depart for now. And we look forward to seeing you guys in August.

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All right. Thanks a lot, man. Take care. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. All right. That was Michael Fallon, who arranges all this stuff and is the go -getter.

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And so if you've enjoyed the cruises and you've enjoyed the debates in the past, going all the way back, the first debate was the

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St. Genes debate on papal infallibility in Tampa. Actually, Clearwater. But that's how far back that goes.

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So if you've enjoyed that, then he's the man to say thank you very much for all of that hard work, because it is a tremendous amount of hard work.

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It's funny. I was looking at an email list that normally is just dead quiet.

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Woke up because Chris Arnzen posted an announcement about the upcoming debate between myself and Bill Rutland on Long Island on June 9th.

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And lo and behold, we have a hyper on the list, a true hyper -Calvinist. I mean, the real type of hyper -Calvinist.

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I'm not even a Christian to him. If you think any Arminian whatsoever could ever be saved, then you're not a

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Christian either. We are talking the classic kind of Internet hyper -Calvinist who has absolutely not the first semblance of grace whatsoever.

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I mean, the circle this person draws around himself, there's only room for one, and he has to stand on one foot to stay in the circle of the elect.

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There's only one person left, and it's him. And one of the things that he was pointing out that proves that I'm not a

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Christian is the fact that we have to charge for the tickets to the debate on Long Island.

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This man obviously will never be invited to do a debate on Long Island, so he has no concept of the fact that when you rent a room on Long Island at a place large enough to do it, it's extremely expensive.

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They want thousands and thousands of dollars to do this, and it's the only way you can do it.

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I mean, unless you're just filthy rich and you've got Daddy Warbucks just throwing millions at you, which

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I guess some people do. I've not found those folks. And they say, well, you should have it in a church.

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Well, a lot of times, what church? There are a lot of churches that don't want a Roman Catholic speaking in there. There's a lot of Roman Catholic churches that don't want me speaking in there.

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And so it's the nature of things. So it proves that I am not a

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Christian, because we actually have to pay to have a room. Hyper -Calvinists, there's so little similarity between myself and a

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Hyper -Calvinist. It's one of the things that bothers me when I hear critics of Calvinism slipping back and forth between hyper and myself so easily.

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They have no idea how much Hyper -Calvinists detest me. I'm the guy that talks about Calvinism out in the marketplace.

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I'm on the radio with Chuck Krismeier trying to disabuse this man of the fact that he doesn't understand what

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Calvinism is. And I don't do it by calling him names. Oh, that's terrible. How dare you do that?

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How many people sitting on our channel right now were once opposed to Reformed Theology, and what they needed was someone to come along and explain to them what

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Reformed Theology actually is. They just didn't know. They were ignorant.

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Aren't we glad that we recognize that these Hyper -Calvinists just simply don't have any clue as to what's really going on.

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They are not Reformed. They are not Calvinists in any way, shape, or form. So we continue on.

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Let's see if we can sneak at least one call in before the break, and let's talk with Kev.

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Hi, Kev, how you doing? Hey, how you doing, Dr. White? Doing all right. Calling you from the land of fruits and nuts. Yeah, well, we realize that Calvinism is proven true by the fact that there are still

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Christians in California. And besides that, California and Calvinism start with the same four letters, except for people who think that Calvin is spelled

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C -A -L -V -A -N, and those are the folks who come into channels saying that Calvinism is wrong, and we all sit around saying we agree, and they get very confused.

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Isn't this James White's chat channel? Yeah, it is, but I thought he was a

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Calvinist. Oh, he's not a Calvinist. No, he's a Calvinist, but he's not a Calvinist. They're Armenians, right? Yeah, that's right.

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We don't want to do anything with those Armenians. That's right. You know, I think Frank did that the first time he came in.

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I think Frank was talking about Armenians and Calvinism, don't you think? I think so.

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Frank is better educated. We'll say it was him, and now watch the Explosion channel here in about 22 seconds.

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Anyways, yes, sir, what's up? Well, being from California, I have to do the California thing, and apparently I have to give a shout -out, is what we do here, apparently.

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So I'll give a shout -out to the doctrinal ogres in Ridgecrest. You sound like a

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Reformed Baptist. Come on, get on with it. I'm actually calling. It's not my question. I'm calling for a friend of mine who is at work.

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Oh, sure. Yeah, we've all heard that one before. This isn't really my question.

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This is someone else's question. I've got this friend. He's got this

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Sunday school to teach on Bible translations and whatnot, and of course I directed him, at first, to your book,

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The King James Only Controversy, which is, as far as I know, the best primer on those kind of things out there. So he read through that, and he's pretty much ready to go, but he just had a question that he wanted me to ask you, and he said, just ask him in channel.

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And I thought about that, and I said, yeah, that's what Dr. Wyatt wants. He wants people to just tap the channel and just ask questions, because he's always ready to answer them.

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Oh, yes, always. And so, of course, I thought better of him. I thought, why not set an example and call in the dividing line?

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Indeed. All those in channel right now would do well to note this. You probably want the question before the break.

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That would help. He wants to know what texts were used to translate the Vulgate, and would the

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Vulgate more closely resemble, say, a majority text or a critical text approach? Well, that's an interesting question, because of the fact that one of the key issues that got

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Erasmus in trouble when he produced his own fresh Latin translation along with the

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Greek, it wasn't just that he had a Greek text, but he had a fresh Latin translation, was Erasmus had recognized, through the work of an earlier man by the name of Lorenzo Valla, Valla had recognized by just thinking about it that, you know what?

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Handwriting produces errors. It produces problems. And so the Latin Vulgate is now, if we put it around the year 400 approximately, is now over 1100 years old.

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And therefore, there's probably been some changes due to transcriptional errors over time.

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Now, Valla would not put his conclusions about this in print, because he would have been burned as a heretic.

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That's the way things were at the time. But what Valla did is he reasoned, you know what? Jerome's commentaries that he writes after translating the

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Vulgate would obviously use the Vulgate. He'd be using his own translation.

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So if I find differences between his commentaries, which are not going to be transcribed nearly as often as the text itself is, then that's evidence that there has been a change.

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And of course, he went and did that study. And lo and behold, there were differences. And most of the differences were errors that had crept into the transmission of the

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Vulgate over time. So the Vulgate that Rome finally, I mean, you're probably familiar with the fact that Pope Sixtus tried to come up with an infallible version of the

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Vulgate, and that was a major whoops. And so Rome has recognized they've had to engage in textual critical study of the

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Latin Vulgate just as much as anyone else. Now, as far as its background goes, it is a mixture because Jerome is working in the

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Palestinian area, basically, and it doesn't follow any one particular text type.

31:34

And different books of the New Testament will be influenced more or less depending on what kind of manuscripts

31:42

Jerome had available to him for that. So it's not just one kind. It's not a slavish reproduction of the

31:47

Byzantine or something like that. It's, you know, there's Caesarean readings in it, and there's

31:53

Alexandrian readings in it. But it's mainly part of what's called the Western text that lies behind the

32:01

Latin Vulgate as far as what we would identify the Greek text that end up predominantly appearing in Jerome's work.

32:08

Okay. All right. That sounds good enough to me. Okay, man. Make sure to tell your friend about that.

32:15

I'll tell him to listen when he can. Ah, okay. I think he's going to have to catch the archive. There you go. Oh, you can't repeat all that to him?

32:22

Oh, you know, I was going to try, but... I'm sure you can. ...wonders of modern technology. All right, man.

32:28

Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. I have all sorts of flashing lights on my new toy thing over here, and we're going to get to all of you after we take our break.

32:43

At least I think we're taking a break today. I mean, I... Oh, there's Keith singing. Keith knew what was going... Keith! There's Steve singing.

32:49

Steve knew what was going on before I did. We're going to take our break. We'll be right back right after this. ...world's righteousness, you know.

32:57

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33:20

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36:16

Punch up Frank on four while Steve was singing, and that way we could find out if maybe

36:23

Frank was singing along with Steve, and then we get to hear him and broadcast that. Which I can hear him laughing in the background, but I didn't do that.

36:32

But that is something I may be doing in the future. So if you're on hold waiting to make a comment or something, you might want to be careful about singing along with the theme music, because that really would be funny to do.

36:46

Would it have worked today, Frank? It would not. I cannot compare to Steve Camp singing.

36:51

I would not dare. None of us who sing along with Steve can compare to Steve Camp singing. But that doesn't stop us from singing with Steve Camp, does it?

36:58

It doesn't stop me from singing. I offend myself when I sing. Oh, man. Okay.

37:03

All right. Well, you know, we shouldn't have had to have aired that to everybody. But anyway, it's nice to have you on the program.

37:12

Frank, you have a question? Yes, Doctor. My question really relates to us second -string apologists.

37:20

We're out here. I appreciate that. I'm sorry? I appreciate that. We're out here, and we deal with all kinds of various and sundry people who object to the

37:30

Christian faith. And my question really relates to this. Somebody like yourself or Eric Svetson, you guys have some kind of accountability.

37:40

You know, yourself, you're an elder in the church. And obviously, you know, Pastor Frye and you have some sort of accountability relationship.

37:48

But somebody like me who's out here, you know, and I belong to a Southern Baptist Church, which is not necessarily a

37:53

Founders Church, you know, and I read a lot. And I hope that I'm staying, you know, between the ditches.

38:00

What kind of accountability should we seek out as we, you know, kind of participate in an amateur way in apologetics?

38:09

Yeah. Well, you know, when you say amateur way, I sort of cringe at that simply because of the fact that I just, yesterday morning,

38:18

I did something yesterday morning that was one of the toughest things I've ever done. Some of you have seen, in fact, I left a copy for Rich over there.

38:24

I hope you saw it. The Amazing Grace DVD on Calvinism. And the same folks who put that together did an interview with me at the hotel

38:34

I was staying at in North Carolina, because they're close by there, for an upcoming production on apologetics.

38:41

And we did about 90 minutes, and I did not know what the questions were going to be. This was like doing a 90 -minute

38:49

Bible Answer Man broadcast type thing. You have absolutely no idea what's heading your direction.

38:54

It's all off the top of your head, and no preparation whatsoever. And so it was a real challenge to, you're hit with a question, and you've got that camera staring you in the face.

39:07

And so you can't roll your eyes. You can't do anything like that. You know, you've got to look like, well, you just realize people are going to be staring at you, which for me is a really bad thing.

39:17

So anyways, as I was doing that, one of the things that I pointed out rather repeatedly was the fact that the command, while the command to refute those who contradict is specifically listed of the elders, that is something that every elder is to have the ability to do.

39:32

That's part of the qualifications of the office. Passages such as Jude 3 and 4, and Peter's words to sanctify

39:40

Christ's Lord in your hearts and all his glory, to make a defense for the hope that's within you, those are not addressed specifically and only to the eldership of the church.

39:50

Those are commands that are for all Christians. And as we live in an ever more non -Christian and even anti -Christian society, then there's really no such thing as an amateur apologist.

40:03

There may be those who, because of rather odd circumstances in their lives, do this type of thing on a more regular basis and have certain training in their background and abilities that allow them to do it more regularly.

40:18

But really, it's something that all of us are called to do, and it's a responsibility that we all share.

40:24

So the accountability issue really should be the same accountability issue that should — so far two uses of the term should there, we're using a lot of the subjunctive in this particular statement — that should exist for any theological activity within the church.

40:45

That is, there should be theological accountability in Bible studies.

40:50

There should be accountability within the family, the leader of the family teaching the rest of the family the truths of God, so on and so forth.

41:02

That should be within the church. That should be a part of the regular worship and instruction of the word within the church.

41:10

I really believe apologetics is simply the extension of our passion for theology, and our theology must determine our apologetics as well.

41:22

That is another one of my big screaming points, in essence, is that that has to be the way that it is, and it very rarely is, unfortunately.

41:31

And so the accountability should be where,

41:37

I can tell by the way you put it, it really isn't or can't be because the fact that it sounds like what you're indicating sort of by reading between the lines is that the church you're a part of does not see as a part of its responsibility and function providing guidance in that area.

42:00

In fact, very frequently, someone doing what you're doing probably knows more about those areas than the people who are leading the church do because they've been, in essence, taught that their function is to create programs and to do outreaches, and they're

42:20

CEOs, in essence, and that's one of the major problems that we face at that particular juncture.

42:31

So that's where it should be, and since that's where it should be, that's the only answer

42:37

I can give you. If it's not there, then that's why we have so many apologists who just sort of ramble on and end up presenting a real problem within local churches.

42:53

You know, I agree with all of that, Dr. White, and I guess the reason I carry a burden for it is because I don't want, you know,

42:59

I mean, I probably am already one of those, but I don't want to be one of those. I would like to be a person who represents my church, not just my local church, but the

43:08

Church of Christ and Jesus Christ himself well. And, you know, given the underdevelopment of discipleship in evangelical and specifically

43:21

Southern Baptist churches, you know, I guess I'm looking for advice for guys and women who are like me in the position of having really nobody there to catch us when we fall.

43:35

Yeah, well, that's exactly why it should be the extension of the teaching of sound theology within the context of local assembly.

43:47

It should be done under the guidance of elders for whom the ability to refute those who contradict is a part of their own requirements for office.

44:03

And so, you know, if it's not there, then the question is, you know, is the church doing what the church is supposed to do at that point?

44:12

And what do you do if the church isn't doing what it needs to do? Well, then you have to really look to yourself and to be careful not to get into those areas where, in point of fact, you end up having all sorts of problems because you develop an imbalanced theology.

44:28

You're only dealing with one group, and so your exegesis is always constantly opposed to this one group. You become imbalanced.

44:34

Happens all the time. Happens all the time. Well, I appreciate that. That's, you know, I really can't ask it to say any more about that.

44:41

By the way, I would never, ever howl and channel. Howl and channel.

44:47

You know, you insult me on the phone. I didn't say anything. You didn't say anything at all, but we had fun at your expense anyways, and that's just part of your ministry to the brethren.

44:58

Well, I am glad to be a minister. I will be a fool for Christ. There you go. Thanks for calling.

45:03

Thank you. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. All right, 877 -753 -3341.

45:11

Let's go down to, oh, that's, okay, line three. Let's talk with Jane.

45:17

Hi, Jane. Hi, Dr. White. How are you? Fine, thank you. This is such an honor to speak to you.

45:23

Well, thanks for calling. Let me give you a little bit of background. I grew up in the

45:28

Pentecostal Church. So I come from a very Arminian background, but when my sister converted to Catholicism, I began to do a lot of research that led me to apologetics, and I came to believe that I am

45:42

Reformed, actually, and your book, The Sovereign Grace of God, was really instrumental in that. Oh, great.

45:48

It's wonderful. I am a Reformed believer now, and I'm attending a Lutheran Brethren church, which

45:53

I had a problem with the baptism issue, and I found you, and I never knew there were Reformed Baptists.

45:59

So that's what I am. Well, we're few and far between, but we're doing our best.

46:06

Oh, I'm trying to find a church around here, because I— Now, you said you're on Staten Island? Oh, on Staten Island, yep.

46:11

Oh, I have spoken at— You've spoken in Huntington, I know. And I've spoken at a church on Staten Island.

46:19

You have? Yes, I have. I will ask Chris Arnzen, the keeper of all archives and records, to let me know where that was.

46:27

Oh, wonderful. I'd love to know. Yeah, if you want to just drop us a note at aomin .org,

46:33

and I'll have Rich send it over to me, and I can get you in touch with Chris, because Chris Arnzen knows everyone in that area, so he would be your best resource there.

46:44

Great. Okay, now my question. Yes, ma 'am. I've been involved in the pro -life movement for many years.

46:50

Right now, I'm an assistant director at our local crisis pregnancy center. Right. And my question concerns election and those abortions that take place.

47:00

Right, right. I've read Lorraine Botner. I've even, you know, an article on infant salvation.

47:07

And I'm still confused because— It's a tough area. —all those aborted fetuses, are there elect among them and non -elect among them, or they all go to heaven, or what happens to them?

47:18

Very, very good question. A very common question. I would direct you to somebody help me out here on the channel.

47:27

I believe it's audience1 .org, or it may just be aom1 .org. Someone give me the right

47:33

URL here, and I'll repeat a little bit later. Steve Camp wrote an article on this particular subject last year, a1m .org.

47:43

Okay, thank you, a1m .org. Do use the search feature to look back into his articles.

47:50

He wrote a fairly lengthy article on the subject that we're talking about right here.

47:55

And basically what he was trying to counsel us all to do is it's very, very easy to grab the easy answers on this one, and that is to go one of two extremes.

48:11

The most common answer that is offered, and it's offered by a lot of wonderful men, and therefore it needs to be considered, is every infant who dies in infancy, every child who is murdered in the womb, and that's what it is.

48:26

We sugarcoat it, and we say anything else. Those are elect babies, and they go to heaven.

48:34

Ulrich Zwingli, one of the earliest reformers, said that, and he said, I can't prove it from the

48:40

Bible, and you can't disprove it from the Bible. That is my belief. We move on from there. What about original sin, though?

48:47

Exactly, and they come up with answers for that in regards to the idea that, well, we're still saying that they are elect, and that since God knew that this was going to happen, then he chooses to have each one of those children to be elect.

49:04

Now, the problem, of course, is you've got the extreme other side that says, look, that's totally unlike how

49:11

God has done anything else. I mean, there are some tough passages in the

49:18

Old Testament where God brings judgment upon nations that have been engaging in the most heinous forms of debauchery for generations, and they're to be wiped out, man, woman, and child.

49:33

Now, are you actually saying that the children of these pagan idolaters who are actually sacrificing their children in the fire, that they're elect?

49:44

Is that what you're actually saying? But they would then say, no, the only way of salvation is by faith, and therefore, this is simply due to original sin.

49:55

This is due to the fact that we live in a fallen world that shows the seriousness of sin, and so there's people on the other side who will say, no, there's only one way of salvation, and that's a tragedy, but is it any more of a tragedy when a child dies than a person who dies at 96 who has racked up an entire life of hatred to God that they're now going to be accountable for?

50:15

Now, Steve was basically saying, look, there are points to be made on both sides, and unfortunately, what most people do is they try to avoid thinking about this because when's about the only time we end up really talking about it is except when we are in a situation where someone has had a miscarriage.

50:33

If they've lost a child, there's been an abortion or something like that, and there's a tremendous amount of emotion, and so you just want to get to a fast answer that's going to keep the emotion to the minimal point, and of course, that's not how you do sound theology, however.

50:44

It's not how you honor God. Well, I confront it every day. You know, we're telling the women,

50:51

I mean, you know, the staff is telling them that their children are in heaven, and I don't know. I'm having a little problem with that.

50:56

Well, exactly, and here's where I come down on this. I recognize that we do not have a discussion of what happens to a child that is murdered in the womb the same way that we have a discussion of, for example, the intercessory work of Christ.

51:16

We have clear teaching on that. This is something where we are applying principles from the rest of the

51:22

Word of God to come to hopefully have a heart of wisdom and maturity, and so I take the viewpoint that, look, what we need to do is we need to hear both sides.

51:33

We need to hear what both sides say, the passages that they refer to, the arguments they present, and then

51:38

I say, look, if we trust God with freedom in the extension of His grace with adults, then we need to trust

51:47

God with extension of His grace in regards to those that we do not know how they would have lived their lives.

51:55

We do not know what they would have done. We do not know what God's purposes in that situation are, but I would rather leave it in the judge of all the earth's hands to do what is right than to grab either one of these two extremes and, in essence, handcuff him and say, look, if you say every child goes to heaven, you're turning abortion into the greatest heaven -filling device ever devised by man.

52:17

Right, and what's so bad about it? And at the same time, if you handcuff God's hands and say that He can't save any of those children, you are denying the very freedom that He shows in saving unregenerate,

52:29

God -hating people in the first place. And so I believe that the best thing to emphasize is the freedom of God to recognize what you've already thought about, and that is the fact that when a person is cut off at a young age who would have lived to an elderly age just simply storing up wrath for himself, that actually is merciful to that person in that sense.

52:55

Keeping that in mind, I believe that we leave that whole issue, and this is where we, believe me,

53:02

I was a hospital chaplain, so I know where you're coming from here, and this is one of the biggest things

53:08

I struggled with was all the books that I read on hospital chaplaincy in essence told me to distance

53:15

God from any type of tragedy that took place in someone's life. And I couldn't do that.

53:21

How can I look at someone and say, God had nothing to do with this, but God does have a wonderful plan for your life.

53:27

You can't say those two things with a straight face, and yet that's what those books were telling me to do. And so take a look at Steve's article.

53:34

He basically is coming into the middle of this and saying, look, we need to look at both sides. And I take the perspective,

53:40

I leave that decision in the hands of the judge of all the earth to do what is right.

53:46

I'm not going to say, I'm not going to look at someone and say, I have a biblical basis for saying that every single child, boom,

53:53

I can simply look at you and say the same thing I would say if we were talking about your 95 -year -old great -grandfather, and that is

54:00

God will be just in what he does with that baby as well as with that great -grandfather.

54:07

The trust has to be in God's justice, not in our being able to figure out and come up with a final answer that just simply makes everybody feel good, but really does so at the expense of truth.

54:17

Yeah. Okay, great. So did you get that a1m .org? Yes. Take a look at that. If you can't find it, drop us a note, like I said, and when you do drop us a note, and I'll get you in touch with Chris, I'll make sure to track down the

54:29

URL, okay? All right, great. Thank you so much. Thanks for calling. All right, God bless. Wow, the phone line, it seems everyone, you know,

54:36

Rich, I hope you're not taking this personally, because I can hear him laughing, because the phone lines have gone nuts today as soon as I announced that I'm in control of the phone.

54:48

Yeah, I kind of noticed that. Yeah, no. And I just... I'm not taking it. You're not taking it that way? No. I'm, you know,

54:55

I'm really glad that you're not. I wouldn't, no. And besides that, we're not going to get to all of our calls anyways, but let's try to at least get to Mark in Atlanta.

55:02

Hi, Mark. Hey, how you doing? You're going to have to talk, like, really fast when you're on Rush Limbaugh's program. Okay, sounds good.

55:08

Laugh faster, too. The microphones. Okay. Just want a quick question about the whole block logic thing versus the

55:15

Hebrew versus the Western thought. You call that a quick question? What are you babbling about? A quick question about Hebrew block logic?

55:23

Quick answer is, it's really easy to come up with...

55:29

There's no question that Hebrew expresses itself in a different way than English.

55:34

That's not so much a function of the language as it is the mindset of the people who wrote it. There are all sorts of things in the

55:41

Hebrew language and poetic language. You have to know whether you're talking about poetry, whether you're talking about narrative. There's all sorts of things that come into this.

55:48

But the idea that Hebrew block logic, in essence, makes exegesis of entire passages impossible.

55:56

Or if we apply normal uses of exegesis where we're attempting to follow context, we're not going to be able to do that in the

56:04

Hebrew language. It is just as bad as coming up with the idea that because someone uses a negation idiom someplace, as if that somehow is a valid category for every place negation is used in Hebrew, that Hebrew can't ever say no.

56:19

I mean, this doesn't make any sense. The first thing is to look at any particular passage and determine if there is an overriding or overarching necessity to embrace that kind of an interpretive device.

56:32

And the fact of the matter is, as I'll be getting into this week and responding to claims about Hebraisms and how they impact

56:41

Romans chapter 9, there is no reason whatsoever. The apostle does not see these things.

56:47

If really what we're going to discover is these claims make Paul's own interpretation of the text invalid.

56:53

And if you're arguing against the apostle, you've missed the point and you've missed it pretty badly. And for those who don't know what we're talking about, there's a series of articles running on the blog that just started in regards to Romans chapter 9 and J .P.

57:10

Holdings comments on unconditional election, where he utilizes various Hebraisms to come up with a completely different way of understanding the text than we've ever really had before.

57:21

So I'm responding to that. I'm going to do it over time. Some people want me to do it faster than that.

57:26

Well, you know what? You just do it when you do it. That's how it works. And there's also a quick thing he threw in there about John 6.

57:32

And what he does is take one verse, take one of the verbs in the verse, and he disregards the whole context of which it's being spoken.

57:39

So it's just going to be very interesting. Well, you know, John 6 has been ravaged by many, but, you know.

57:46

Definitely. Okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. All right. God bless. 877 -753 -3341 looks like the feed that just crashed.

57:55

But those who are listening by archive don't know that. And that's perfectly fine.

58:01

Dan and Steve, sorry we didn't get to you. I tried to go as quick as I could while giving meaningful answers.

58:09

And we'll be back again Thursday afternoon, 4 p .m. Mountain Standard Time, 3 p .m.

58:16

Pacific Standard Time, 6 p .m. Eastern Standard Time. And those of you in the Central Time Zone, I do love you, but you're used to figuring this out anyway, so I don't even bother to do that part.

58:27

But we'll be back then, and the phone lines will be open. I had Paige Patterson all queued up ready to go, so we'll get into that eventually as well.

58:35

Thanks for listening. God bless. That's AOMIN .org,

59:50

where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks. Join us again this Thursday afternoon at 4 p .m.