Have You Not Read S3:E6 - Short & Sweet: Question Smorgasbord

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Dearum, Chris Giesler, and Andrew Hudson.

Today we are going to be answering multiple questions in succession, so buckle up. The first question that we have is from 1

Peter 2 9. In this text, God's people are called a royal priesthood. How do we understand the

Scripture in light of the reality that Jesus is our great high priest? How should we rightly live as priests under the high priest?

And this is sent in from Joe DeForest. Okay, so great question. As we go to 1

Peter chapter 2, in describing the nature of Christian life, everything is indeed focused upon Christ.

So in verse 4 of 1 Peter 2, it says, "...coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious."

So describing Christ rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious. Verse 5, "...you

also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

So the manner in which we live as a holy priesthood is described for us there in verses 4 and 5, before we get to the repeated description in verse 9.

So I'm just going to continue reading down to verse 9. Verse 6, "...therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, behold I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame.

Therefore to you who believe he is precious, but to those who are disobedient the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they are also appointed, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people."

King James says peculiar people. It means people for his own possession, set aside for his own purposes, "...that

you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy."

I would recommend working through verses 4 through 10 and looking at the action verbs of the people.

What does it look like to live as priests of God in his kingdom under our

Great High King Jesus, who is our Great High Priest? Well, first of all, we come to him.

We're paying attention to him. We're following him. We are being built up into a house.

There is a communal gathering together of us. We have to gather together.

We are living life together. We're offering up spiritual sacrifices. An example of that is proclaiming the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light, reflecting on the fact of who we were but who we are now.

Everything listed in this passage has to do with our focusing on being built up into and talking about Jesus Christ.

Great place to start. Definitely. So I was going to go into 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 18.

Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and it has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. So many scenes of Old Testament temple activity was that reconciliation of man to God.

Jesus has done this. We are going out now that it's not a temple that we need to serve in physically in a specific location as ambassadors.

We're priests going abroad with that ministry to implore others, you know, disciples, going to make disciples be reconciled to God.

Yeah. Now I'm gonna go to Revelation and this will touch on an unasked question about eschatology.

But in Revelation 1, starting in verse 4, John, to the seven churches which are an age of grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and is to come the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness the firstborn from the dead and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

I like the part there, ruler over the kings of the earth. Kings might be interpreted presidents or magistrates or city councils or whatever.

He's king over the kings of the earth. To him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and has made us kings and priests to his

God and Father to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Any priesthood or kingship or authority that we have is a borrowed authority.

Derived. Derived. Derived from the king of kings who washed us and forgave us of our sins.

That's the ministry that we have because that was the ministry that he had.

So our peacemaking is proceeding out of the fact that we are already at peace.

Amen. With God. The same reason that I'm telling you to be at peace with God is not because of me as my role of priest but as his role as priest, as Christ's role.

Nothing about vestments? No, no, not vestments. So we're not gathering at a works?

Yeah and this is not and notice this priesthood is we're proceeding out of a priesthood. We already are priests.

It's not that I'm trying to achieve my priesthood. Amen. Alright we'll move on to the next couple of questions actually because they are very similar.

The first question reads how can we explain to others that Christianity is the true moral foundation? Some want to claim that we cannot say this and that other religions have moral foundations as well.

And then another one reads similarly how would you communicate to someone that the Bible, not any of the world's various religions, is alone the standard for moral values?

I often have a hard time getting this point across to skeptics. Yeah so the approach is going to be one of which we need to whoever the skeptic is they're going to have some basis for their authority claims that they're skeptical of the

Bible. Right so they they obviously don't think that the Bible is true. You shouldn't trust in it. Why would anybody?

And they're wanting to know the basis of your confidence and you know feel free to tell them

I believe in the Bible because it's God's Word and I know it to be so because God has revealed that to me and it is consistent with everything else in the world even if you complain about it.

By the way what is your confidence? What is your standard for critiquing the Bible in the first place?

Yeah by what standard? Yeah and whatever that standard is it's going to be something that is inconsistent and unable to get into a position to be a critique.

So the skeptic is kind of an angry bitter Zacchaeus who wants to climb up the sycamore tree and look down on Christ, look down on the

Bible so that he can find the flaws with Christianity. The only problem is he can't find a tree tall enough or sturdy enough from which he may have his vantage point and he's coming to you saying hey

I went up that sycamore tree and I watched Christian I've looked at Christianity I looked at the Bible and I could tell that it wasn't worth coming down and going to that house going inviting it into my house.

I could just tell but you get to call it bluff because he never went up the tree. He never got up there and you have to find that supposed authority that he's citing.

What is that? Subject it to analysis right? Exactly subject to the subject it to the same analysis he proposes to bring against the

Bible or bring it against Christianity and so on and so forth and before long you're going to be talking about things that he can't discuss anymore.

I can discuss epistemology and morality and philosophy all day long never run out of anything to say but very quickly he's going to have no reason why he should even be talking with you.

Right yeah well you mentioned him climbing up a tree and looking for things that are wrong with Christianity all of us

I think could could say oh we look and we found problems with people.

Yes problems. We're all fallen there have been wicked things done in the name of Christianity but then on what basis can he say that those things are evil because if there's evil done in the name of Christianity the

Bible would certainly have something to say about it that is evil and so the Bible would agree with him that it's evil but what basis does he have to claim such a thing he doesn't have any basis to claim any type of moral standard at that point.

The fool has said in his heart there is no God or that God is nothing and throwing out the objective standard of God and his word and so we answer the fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own eyes but we do not answer the fool in the same folly that he is using lest we be like him so I'm not going to engage necessarily in a long -form well science proves my point or studies show that Christianity is true kind of nonsense because at some point he's going to be pointing to oh this date this data set over here these people said oh really so so they know the truth they're the they're the truth they know everything there is to know about that subject and they have perfect measurement and perfect knowledge and understanding really let's go take a look you know it doesn't take long to find out that everything is very limited man's knowledge is just a speck just a speck and our best measurements and instrumentality is is rudimentary and there is so much that we can't give an account for and yet this man's statements are unbelievably arrogant to claim that certain things are settled or certain you know so on and so forth and it's like where are you coming from with that so it's just basically is it just the force of your personality is that why

I should believe what you say yeah and they're predisposed I think in the question it talks about almost like this idea of neutrality but they're predisposed to not believe so evident any evidence you give them is just table it's off the table that's not enough so you have to get to the heart of the matter

I'm not gonna be able to convince him that the Bible or this is the standard to believe in but I do hope that we leave the conversation with him with him having way less confidence in his own standard his castles in the sky yes then there's no they're there yeah okay so I think we about wrapped that one up we'll go on to two more that are very similar in nature the first one reads when am

I ready to be a pastor how much education is enough how good does my character have to be the second question reads should all pastors go to seminary

Michael so in in first Timothy chapter 3 we have this description of overseers which is a word that is in Acts 20 synonymous with pastors and elders so first Timothy 3 1 says this is a faithful saying if a man desires the position of a bishop he desires a good a good work

I say the first question is do you desire it do you desire this work and again remember that we have a bit of unfortunate nomenclature in our

American culture where we think oh there's one guy who's called pastor and he's got this position that nobody else has we read about overseers and elders and pastors in the

New Testament there's a group if you desire that position of service you're desiring a good thing what does that look like does it look like being full -time you know making your living according to the gospel which is certainly a model that's out there or is it being an elder in the church well let's start with the desire do you have the desire okay well then what about the gifting right so Ephesians and we read in Ephesians that the

Holy Spirit is the one who gives to the church all the different servants that the church needs to be built up and edified in the full work of Jesus Christ to be brought into maturity into Jesus and do you have those those giftings as it says it says in first Timothy 3 that he needs to be able to teach in Titus it says that need to be able to refute those who are in false doctrine being able to the whole work is about rebuking and shepherding and exhorting and encouraging and guiding the flock so the question is do you have a desire for that a question is are you able to do that are you doing it right is that something that you are you know currently engaging in or you waiting for the title right because the church is going to recognize those giftings in somebody who is doing that work and then call them up into that work

I mean that's it that's something that happened in our own church right this this church saw those giftings and that service in one of our former pastors current elder

Ken Smith and called him up into the work because he was already doing it because he had the giftings because he had the desire called him into it so is this something that that you're actually actively doing in the church and that people are seeing that and calling you to more

Oh brother you're blessing us through this way and God's really using you please continue because you're making yours because you're making yourself available and you're actually doing that over in 2nd

Timothy chapter 2 about the seminary question Paul says to Timothy verse 1 2nd

Timothy 2 you therefore my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also from Paul to Timothy to faithful men who committed to somebody else so the model is a four generational mindset of of entrusting these things to further men so seminary can be helpful it is not essential the question is can you be equipped and trained to do the work and how are you going to go through that are you submitting yourself to those opportunities are you are you striving to learn and to and to grow you know nobody else can do that it comes back to the desire do you have the desire for it or not can seminary be hurtful it can be especially if it you know it evacuates the the warmth and the childlike trust in the

Lord and and replaces it with some sort of unfortunate fidelity to academia that just questions and is skeptical and so on and so forth rather than being warm in the in the things of the

Lord which is you know you need to have a hermeneutic of submission to the text and come warm in your love for Christ to be able to shepherd a flock of Christians and not to mention seminaries that have compromised

I know personally I've seen somewhere it's like I don't need to be here as a

Christian this is not where I'm supposed to be and so I've seen that and in some cases it's you're fighting an uphill battle

I've heard that from a friend especially if you are you've already grounded yourself in teaching that you've had passed down to you from mentors or other pastors or other elders and you're fighting an uphill battle with some of the things that they're trying to get you to latch on to or to study or to question and then sometimes in certain cases there are opportunities to sharpen against to refute like we're talking about earlier but you don't really want to do that in a seminary level when you are supposed to be in a submitted role as a student to a to a professor who holds kind of the podium at that point that's kind of a difficult situation to be in I asked really annoying questions but no so my undergraduate was all by contrast it was like Wesleyan holiness you know open theist kind of professors so when

I got to seminary you know much more an alignment there and there were a lot of good helpful things the seminary is not the cure -all you know it's something that could certainly help and adorn you know the ministry that you're doing but you have to understand its role it's it's not gonna make a pastor out of you it can help you with some things some of the times gonna be wasted some of the things you're going to have to unlearn what you learned but it can be helpful and it you know for some people it's even more valuable than others but I think it's got to come down to is this desire something that you just can't do without is this something where you believe the the gospel so much and you believe the preaching of the word so much that you just can't you know can't be stopped

I'm going to continue to pursue this like for instance 2nd Timothy 4 Paul says I charge you therefore before God and the

Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom preach the word be ready in season and out of season convince rebuke exhort with all longsuffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables but you be watchful in all things endure inflictions do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry now if that lights a fire under you and you're just gonna and you can't stop and you just got to get out there and preach the word preach the word preach the word that's a good sign my father one time we were at a crisis kind of a crossroads

I was doing some seminary I hadn't finished yet then had been born we needed a life change to make sure that we're taking care of a little one and I had opportunity to go to a church somewhere and serve on staff you know youth children education that kind of thing or go pastor a little church on the middle of nowhere where I'd be that you know

I'd be the pastor I'd be there preaching you know regularly I was talking to my dad about the opportunity you know option a option

B that kind of thing and he said well what do you want to do I said I want to preach he said then go preach you know and that's

I just got done going to this expository preaching workshop with Steve Lawson last three days Monday Tuesday Wednesday and he talked about how we have way more pulpits than we have preachers even if we have men filling the pulpits it doesn't mean that they're preachers it's just way too many pulpits and not enough preachers and he was kind of lamenting that fact and so on there are places to preach now there wasn't anything on God's green earth that was going to stop me from going and and preaching and I whatever it took

I knew that's what God wanted me to do and I had a fire in me I'm gonna go do this this is what I've been called to do and nothing's going to stop me and that's what that's kind of what has to happen because there's gonna be lots to stop you just loads all kinds of things that you could say well this is this is hard I guess

God closed the door just you think just because things are hard or difficult doesn't mean that's God closing the door that's just part of the job part of the process in the role and doing things poorly because you don't know any better doing things badly the school of hard knocks all of it you just never gonna get educated enough to do it right from the start you know there's kind of a side note

I noticed in your patriarchal translation you're using it says if any man aspires in the nearly inspired version it says whoever so does it have to be a man yes okay that takes care of another question in there so we can knock that one out yeah if any woman desires the position of a bishop she should repent amen all right let's move on to the next question it reads there are several passages in the

Bible that record the same historical events some examples that come to mind are the gospel accounts in the New Testament and the books of Kings and Chronicles in the

Old Testament why does the Bible record these events multiple times and this is also sent in from Joe DeForest thank you

Joe it's a good question I'm struck by the way that Paul and Peter write sometimes they say it's no trouble for me to repeat the same things to you yeah yeah you know and this is this is something where we read the same thing over again what are we to think when someone who loves us who's an authority over us tells us something the same thing more than once and perhaps slightly different emphases what are we to think about that bigger picture like we're layering on different accounts to get a better picture of what he's trying to communicate to us that's like any time a poet comes in and has a subject they have a collection based on one subject and they look at it from different angles and they get to layer in metaphor after metaphor after metaphor an image after image after image the

Bible does a lot of the same thing with loads of symbolism loads of language in different languages all the way across its breath and we're getting a clearer picture that way than we would with just straight you know one -to -one didactic things also we're getting told some of the same information from different time periods and different authors and it is affirming when that happens so the the record of the first and second

Kings told much closer and often from within the history itself versus Chronicles written far after in reflection on the fulfilled promises of God from a little bit of a different angle we've got

Matthew Mark Luke and John telling similar stories but from differing perspectives with you know these are these are not security camera footages from four different angles these are documentaries being written with similar though for distinct purposes and they only enhance one another

I'm very much against these harmonies of the gospel where they they they take all the passages and then they strip them out of their original context and then they blend them all together that's not how it was written there was a point and a purpose for them being written in the way that they were in the order that they were but you have all these testimonies coming together the

Bible is written by over 40 different authors over a 1 ,500 year time period on three different continents and three different languages all 66 different books all being written with perfect harmony in the light of Christ they all are testifying to him and in many ways we're hearing the same thing more than once but we're hearing it in very important reaffirming ways you know how it is but when you hear something that is meaningful and helpful to you in your 30s and then you hear it again later on or you heard something when you're a teenager but you hear it again when you're a little bit older and now with all this life experience plus it hits you even stronger pops baby yes yeah yeah yeah and that leads to the clarity right like in them the more you know

I think I think what the Lord does too is he reveals more to us about himself and then that added context coming back to the text each time every time we read it we now have more about Jesus more about Jesus more about Jesus every single time and that's an added layer that we get we get as well okay so we'll move on to the next question the question reads why did

Jesus weep in John 1135 I think it was because he was sad because Lazarus had died and everyone around them were they were sad too and why did the other people why were they sad

Jesus is fully God and fully man with the full range of human emotions yet without sin and he wept over Lazarus's death and he wept over Jerusalem's coming destruction because these are sad things yeah that I mean

I know we're giving very short answers to that but there's a whole lot wrapped in the humanity of Christ there that yes we could we could find the depths of it just models an appropriate response you know right yeah that's death is something to be grieved over and the other humans present are mirroring that lament as well as at Lazarus death okay so we'll wrap up with this next question then why is

Hebrews part of the canon of Scripture how do we argue for its canonicity when it does not have an author mentioned so it's it's perhaps not as well known that not every book of the

Bible has an author that is named within the text that's not actually a test of canonicity so we can open more than one book of the

Bible and we're not going to read somewhere at the beginning this was written by so -and -so right for instance the

Gospel of Matthew it's not we don't have his name in there we just have a bunch of affirmations from church history and old documents that say hey

Matthew wrote this but that is that's not a test of its canonicity so there there are a variety of tests for canonicity but among them are going to be things like is this in agreement with all the rest of the texts that's gonna be a big one is it saying the same thing is it affirming it can we look back and see this text being used by the early church in a way as Scripture versus other ones so for instance during the persecution of Diocletian in the 90s he and other

Roman Emperors after him which were trying to destroy Scripture later on Roman Emperors would also if there was persecution abroad they would try to burn anything related to Christianity right so whereas Christians would be okay with giving up the

Shepherd of Hermas or the Didache or some other kind of you know Christian work or you know the letters of Clement to the church in Corinth those could get burned but I'll die before I'll let you burn a copy of Hebrews as an example you know because they recognized this was actual

Scripture it was widely circulated it wasn't just in one little place it wasn't some like oh here's the you know the

Gospel of Thomas or something there's a lot of different factors that go into you know why is this considered canonical part of the

New Testament but the it doesn't have to require there to be a name clearly whoever wrote this knew

Timothy it was written during the time when Timothy was alive and somebody knew knew

Timothy it's mentioned there at the end of the of the work the argumentation is thoroughly

Paul the Greek written was thoroughly Luke so if you read the

Greek style that Luke writes in in the Gospel of Luke in the in the in the book of Acts same high -level expression of Greek is in Hebrews and we know that Luke was with Paul Paul preached like this in the synagogues from from place to place as he went along testifying that Jesus of Nazareth is the

Messiah showing how he's the fulfillment of the old covenant you know it's is very much Paul's thought in Luke's expression so that's another reason why it's part of the canon and we would we say that the human authorship question is not nearly as important as the spirit authorship question right like so just because we don't have which human author wrote it down does not mean that we don't we do not confirm the spirits authorship within that text either to have it be canon yeah so there there is a there's never gonna get away from the element of faith are you just never gonna get away from the element of faith and it's something that is it's been received and we recognize the spirit here whereas we don't have it someplace else

I mean there's a clear difference if you've taken the time to read Shepherd of Hermas if you've read first and second

Maccabees if you've read some of these works that are ancient contemporaneous with you know scripture and you've read it you can't help but tell the difference it's a massive difference

I mean Clement's letters to Corinth are nothing compared and he's quoting Paul as scripture and he writes to the

Corinthians in the 90s and he's already quoting Paul's letter to them as scripture but he himself knows he's not writing scripture

I mean this is early early recognition okay well that about wraps up this episode but first before we go we're going to see what content we would recommend out there to all the listeners we'll start with you

Michael recommend the rare jewel of Christian contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs it's it's it's a series of sermons on the verse out of Philippians I have learned that whatever state

I am therein to be content and he preaches about that for about I don't know two weeks every day it's a massive series of sermons just on that idea of being content and but didn't agree with everything he said in there but there was a lot of recognition of of contentment and it's godliness and it's in our role in following after Christ of learning to be content it's not something that's that's instinct if we had to learn to be content and that's part of our growing up into into Christ so it was very helpful

I would highly recommend it's kind of a documentary but it's of several debates so the documentaries called collision between Doug Wilson and Christopher Hitchens and it was really good particularly in that question about the skeptics answering skeptics he does a great job of not seeding any ground giving the atheist any material to work with because basically they're borrowing from our worldview to argue against it and he does it in a jovial happy sort of way and his argumentation one of my favorite parts is he's he's arguing for the existence of God through beauty like beauty in the world and they said you know

Christopher starts waxing eloquent about the black hole and all this different stuff and and Doug just you know answers him and it's really good

I'd recommend that collision I mean Andrew I'm gonna recommend this even though I when

I encountered this podcast I don't know I didn't know what to take or take away from it at first and I'm talking about the haunted cosmos it goes into topics like vampires aliens

I guess witchcraft is also included in that and I don't so they have conclusions that or premises that I don't agree with but not the reason why

I'm recommending it is that there are spiritual forces and I think so much of our quote -unquote modern life tends to suppress the idea of the spirit the spiritual realm and actually evil things this podcast was very helpful for me to be reminded that evil forces exist that they exert influence upon mankind and different ways and it could look differently in different cultures so if you're up for some ghost stories for a purpose

I would say check it out all right well my recommendation this week is going to be see our

Wiley's the household and the war for the cosmos I read this on trips back and forth between here and Ada with my wife

I can't remember if it was with our first son or a second son doing checkups on the pregnancy but either way it was one of them and we read through that and we were getting a lot of good things from the

Puritans in their worldview in the comparison between Anais and the Ennead and what it means what true piety means what it might involve in the household what

I might involve within the structure of the family and how even pagans can recognize it so that's that's my recommendation for this week

Michael what are we thankful for I'm thankful that we've got the podcast going again I've missed spending time with you guys miss being able to discuss these important questions from the word miss the affirmation of just opening the scriptures to answer any question that comes to us it's always a joy so I'm very thankful amen

Chris I am thankful for my wife that allows me to come record these podcasts and she's home with you know our kids and a toddler who has discovered his fists

I'm trying to correct that so I really appreciate everything she does in keeping the house going while I'm away and then even when

I'm away a little longer she's you know she's there taking care of it Andrew this summer my wife was motivated to go run a 5k

I had I guess taken about a year away from any exercise and you know that was that was not right and throughout this process of her preparing for the 5k it was a great motivator to do something with my wife that was also beneficial for other reasons it has been a joy to reinvigorate the appreciation for exercise and what you know this small slice of love life in time that I have the physical capacity to be active to run with my wife and I will never regret the time that we spent together talking about matters of faith household situations it's just it was amazing now we have our kids running with us in the mornings so you know weird things happen that you would wouldn't think would happen and sometimes it's like wow

I can't explain this series of events that led to this but it's been a blessing all the way around so I can thank

God for obviously the work that he was doing through this situation so praise the Lord for it amen

I'm thankful to the Lord that he has given me a wife who does pray for me when

I ask for prayer and I know that she faithfully does so I can be struggling with something or thinking about something more like brooding over something and she'll ask me what's up I can tell her with without feeling guilty or without feeling that I am going to offend her with my stupidity and she'll hear me she will pray for me she'll she'll be very kind with me on it and very respectful as well she will not look down upon me for my faults in a way that is detrimental to our relationship at all but she prays and she asked the

Lord to help me and she has been a wonderful example to me on how we are supposed to pray for one another