Road Trip DL: Ministry Report, Dr. Young and a Debate, Response to Various Topics

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

Greetings and welcome to another Road Trip Dividing Line. In fact, it just started raining. I love that.

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Of course, it may make me fall asleep, but the glorious sound of rain on the roof of the

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RV. And I'll tell you something right now. I'm at a KOA. I've never been to this one before.

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It is out in the middle of nowhere. In every way you can be out in the middle of nowhere. And what's gonna be really weird is there's no freeway nearby.

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I don't believe that there's a train track nearby. And there is certainly not an airport nearby.

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So it's gonna be quiet tonight. In fact, I can already hear the crickets and the sounds of the forest.

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What am I gonna do? How am I gonna sleep? I've gotten so used to when

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I was in Lafayette. I mean, I could have thrown a rock. If I had stood right outside that door, I could have thrown a rock and hit a truck on I -10.

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That's how close I was to it. So you just get that roar going all night long.

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And now there's gonna be no roar at all. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to sleep real well. Actually, I'll sleep wonderfully.

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Especially if it rains. If it rains tonight, it'll be awesome. Anyways, so here we are.

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I'm at a midpoint tomorrow. I will get to Pellahoma, Tennessee.

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And the conference, in fact, if any of you guys with the conference are listening, I don't get in till the afternoon.

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We made our travel plans before I knew that you were doing stuff on Thursday. So I'm gonna miss some of the stuff in the day on Thursday.

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Sorry about that. But I'll be getting in the afternoon, Lord willing, depending on weather and stuff like that.

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But should be getting in the afternoon and getting to meet and greet folks or however it works.

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I don't think I'm speaking. I hope I'm not speaking till Friday. And then the debate on Saturday as well, which

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I'm really looking forward to. I've got a lot of keynote work to do before, between now and then.

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But really looking forward to that. And looking forward to seeing everybody there. Brother, there's gonna be a bunch of folks there

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I'm looking forward to seeing and haven't seen for a long, long time. And it's gonna be a lot of fun. So anyway, lots of stuff to get to.

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But let me just start off. It's hard for me to communicate this to those of you who watch this program, but I hope you'll hear my heart here.

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Last night, I was at Fillmore Baptist Church in Houghton, Louisiana. It's a small, older building, next to one of those backwoods freeways, you've got highways, you've got in the woods, sort of.

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Number of miles outside of Shreveport. And you walk in, everyone is so kind and hospitable.

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Everybody in Louisiana is. Louisiana, the state with the nicest people and the worst roads.

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That's interesting combination. And we have some sandwiches and some ladies have made some, oh, it's too far away to grab it.

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These lemon, they're this big, lemon cake cookies type. So, oh, they sent me home with half a dozen of them.

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I'm not even sure I'm gonna be able to walk by the time I get done eating all those things. People are coming from East Texas, from Arkansas, for a one night thing.

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We're at a little Baptist church and I've been asked to talk about the

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Trinity because there are a lot of oneness people in this area. They wanna be able to reach out to families, family, friends, coworkers.

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They wanna be prepared. And I was just so impressed with the pastor and his guys.

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We had dinner the night before and they're theologically sharp, but they're theologically sharp in a practical way, not in the obtuse academic way.

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They know what's important and that also means they know what isn't. And I got to speak on the

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Trinity last night and specifically focus in on the concept of oneness, the

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UPCI doctrine, David Bernard's view. I would just, in passing, say

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I don't have any confidence that almost any of the guys I know that are running around spouting in separable operations today have probably ever read

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David Bernard or would ever be able to engage David Bernard. But that's where a practical knowledge of the

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Trinity comes in because he's their best guy. Here's a new guy coming up. Bernard's getting older, just like me.

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And I was able to, well, first of all, by the time the service started, place was packed out.

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It's Valentine's Day. It's a Tuesday night and it's

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Valentine's Day and the place is packed out with people who've driven sometimes from different states.

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It was amazing. And they were attentive and there was a wonderful spirit.

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There were a number of oneness people there and they listened. And afterwards

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I got to talk with people. And it was just so encouraging for me.

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And then when I was talking to people before the service and after the service, there was a medical doctor there and Alpha Omega had been a lifeline for him right after his conversion.

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There were three pastors from Texas there and they're in a denomination that is not really reformed and yet they've sort of grown up on and not grown,

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I say grown up on, but been so deeply influenced by the dividing line. And that's impacting how they do ministry.

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And I got an email from a pastor and at least this one Rich got to read.

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But once again, just how much this program, how much

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God has blessed this program over the years. It truly, maybe that's why the

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Lord never allowed us to like spend advertising dollars or anything on the dividing line.

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He just decided he's just gonna do it supernaturally because the places this program gets to without advertising, word of mouth, and just,

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Google may think that they control what's on the side in YouTube. I think we're gonna get to heaven someday and find out that God's in control of all algorithms.

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Because I even asked somebody last night, I said, how did you stumble on us? Because it wasn't looking for anything that would necessarily link to us and yet there it was.

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So both stops that we've done so far in Louisiana have just been incredibly encouraging.

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And so many people you get to talk to that have been so blessed by, a lot of them say, oh,

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I've been listening to y 'all for a long, long time, like since 2017. When you're

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Rich and I's age, 2017, that was yesterday. We're thinking back to,

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I think back once in a while to, oh man, I forget the call letters now. What was that?

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Was it, was that KHEP? Where we had to drive way out toward, wasn't like surprise or someplace we would, for a while, oh, it was a

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KXEG. Okay, KXEG, that's right. That's right, thank you. And they had this rickety, smelly studio out there that we would do the program on.

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And it was, once a week, it was a Saturday. And I did radio.

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I knew nobody was listening to radio on a Saturday. Oh yes, the train would go by.

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It was right next to, well, that was just preparing me for the KOA. Oh, that was so much fun, yeah.

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But that's where we started. And trying to be faithful in little things. And then we could never, ever, ever, ever have even imagined, 35 years later, 40 years later, you're hearing about how the dividing line has, and now generationally doing things.

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In Lafayette, there was a young lady, and her parents were talking to me.

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But she was probably, I don't know, 15, 16, 17, somewhere in there. And she was just smiling and said,

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I've grown up with your voice. I've just grown up with it. It's just, you're part of the family.

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So, it's like, wow, well, thank you for inviting me in.

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And we are serious about that. Thank you for inviting us in. It's been awesome. And we hope for many more years to come, depending on whether we'll be able to webcast from the

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Gulag or not. So, I'm looking forward to getting back. I know that, for example, we had, one church has talked about helping out with the travel project.

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And sort of said, so maybe you could come by and do this subject.

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And it's a subject I love doing anyways. But yeah, yeah, we'll try to work these things out. That trip to G3, everyone's going, well, you are going to G3, right?

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And I'm like, yeah, but there's only so many days before and after. And some of you may have seen with the

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G3 thing that Grace Bible Theological Seminary is doing a pre -conference get together.

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Where we're going to be discussing some really interesting stuff like post -millennialism and theonomy.

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And I'm the only post -mill guy at GBTS.

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So if something tells me I'm going to have a target on my back, but that's fine. We'll have collegial discussion in the process.

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So to everybody last night and in down Lafayette, I'm so thankful the ministry has been encouragement to you, but I hope you know that you all were very much an encouragement to me.

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And all of you who helped to make this happen and are helping to get the new unit so we can continue doing this.

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Just a tremendous encouragement. Now, having said all that, I was at a

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Love's Travel Stop filling up. And I noticed,

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I saw something on my phone. And it was one of those situations where I looked at it and I shook my head and I was like, what?

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And then I think I tried to expand it or something. And you know how Twitter is. It will refresh or something like that.

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And now it's gone. And I couldn't find it. And I'd read just enough of it to know what it was saying, but not to have read all of it.

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And so I asked the guys in our chat channel to track it down for me and send it to me. And they did, which is very, very helpful while I'm traveling to have that kind of stuff.

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Some of you have been watching the back and forth that I've had with Dr. Kevin M. Young. Now, I mentioned before the debate with Keith Giles last week, that I've never seen the two of them in the same room at the same time.

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As far as I can tell, they're peas in a pod. They are both deconstructed progressivist guys, with very, very similar theologies or lack thereof,

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I guess, in that case with progressivism. And so Dr.

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Kevin M. Young sort of started popping up a couple months ago on Twitter. I'm not exactly sure how that all worked out.

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And a lot of folks were just firing back at him because a lot of people just haven't encountered leftist progressivist type stuff.

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And it just seems so out there. It was like, what are you talking about? And I can tell a lot of people interacting with him just have never encountered this kind of stuff.

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So he seemed like a space alien. And he loves it.

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He loves trolling folks and stirring up things and taking shots at the other side.

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He's an aggressive guy. And so I think it was about three, four weeks ago, he tweeted a thread on LGBTQ stuff.

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And on the dividing line, I went through it and refuted each point, point by point. I did it on Twitter as well.

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And I linked to the six hours in response to Matthew Vines and the five hours in response to Gushy and put a bunch of stuff out there so that people would have those resources available to them.

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Well, just a couple of days ago, Dr. Young tweeted that the

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LGBTQ plus movement is life. It is alive. It is what

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Christians should be supporting. And everybody who doesn't is basically sinning against God.

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And I responded to him and lots of other people did too. And in another thread, someone else responded to him and basically gave options.

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The only way you could come to this guy's conclusions if you do this and this, I think he listed like four options if I recall.

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And then Young responded by giving another option and that was his option.

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And he said, or you can become an expert in Greek and Hebrew and early church history and know what in the world you're talking about.

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So he was claiming, Dr. Young was claiming to be an expert in Greek, Hebrew and early church history.

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And when he made that claim, I'm like, okay.

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Really? All right, let's debate that. Let's have a full on moderated public debate.

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And so I wrote him a tweet and said,

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I would like to challenge you to do a full moderated public debate on LGBTQ issues.

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He wrote a fairly lengthy response back. And I was like, this might actually be able to turn into something.

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And then either in that response or in the thing followed right after, he basically said, well,

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I saw your debate with Keith Giles. Interesting, okay. And he says, what it was missing was an acceptance of each other as beloved brothers.

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So we'd need to get together and we'd need to have coffee and we need to get to know each other. And the final thing was there would need to be a recognition of the

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Christ that is in, the Christ spirit that is in each one of us.

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And so I'm like, no, wait a minute. I've done many debates on this subject. Bishop John Selby Spong didn't ask for that.

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Barry Lynn certainly didn't ask for that. The homosexual pastors that Michael Brown and I debated certainly didn't ask for that.

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And so I responded and I'd like to read my response because I spent some time putting this together.

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I said, I do not have the capacity, ability or desire to judge another standing before God. When I debate,

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I wish the folks to be upon the issues at hand for the benefit of the audience who will listen. I have debated many who would make no profession to being my brother in Christ and did so with respect, respect for them, for the audience and most of the importance of the topic at hand.

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You have made a claim to be an expert in Greek, Hebrew and early church history. I have taught Greek, Hebrew and church history since the early nineties.

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I'm currently professor of church history and apologetics at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. I am published in the field, the same sex controversy and have done numerous major debates with leading proponents of the side for over two decades,

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Barry Lynn, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Graham Codrington and last week, Keith Giles. What is more,

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I've demonstrated the ability to engage in such debates in proper scholarly fashion over the course of 180 moderated debates on tremendously wide variety of topics and contexts.

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All of that should be enough to provide a basis for engaging your claims in social media regarding your support of the

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LGBTQ plus agenda. But it seems you are saying that I must begin by granting to your position, which is what

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I would be debating, the very status I say it cannot possibly have, that of being faithful to biblical

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Christianity. A quote, good faith, that was his terminology. A good faith

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Christian debate is one where rules are followed for the benefit of those who wish to understand the positions being presented.

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That does not require me to say that affirming LGBTQ plus viewpoints is within the pale of orthodoxy or is in any way a valid expression of biblical beliefs.

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It is not. I have often sought to get together with my Muslim opponents prior to debates and have found this very helpful indeed.

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I wish in my younger years I had done this with other debate opponents in fact. However, this topic is one wherein

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I as a Christian pastor am seeking to protect the sheep from destructive and false perversions of the biblical message.

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It would be wonderful if you were brought to a position of ceasing your false teachings by such a debate, but I confess my goal would be focused upon those watching or listening to such an encounter.

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And surely you must admit, you have made just as strong condemnations of the errors you think I am promulgating by upholding the historic

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Christian position on sexual ethics. But I believe it to be inappropriate to make as a demand for the debate to take place that I begin by confessing the presence of Christ within one who is teaching falsehoods that directly impact the very essence and definition of the gospel.

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I hope you'll reconsider this demand while at the same time recognizing that if in fact your position were claimed by yourself as an expert in Greek, Hebrew and early church history is so strong and defensible, defending it successfully against someone such as myself would do your position great good.

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So I hope the possibility will remain open for a clear uncompromising debate on the issues.

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I link to three such debates that I've engaged in as clear evidence this topic can be handled properly with scholarly respect without any pretense of having to grant to the other side some kind of spiritual authenticity.

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And I then linked to the two debates with Graham Codrington from South Africa and the debate that Michael Brown and I did against the two homosexual pastors in Florida in 2018,

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I think is when that was, somewhere around there. So that's what I wrote. And I had not gotten a response to that until this morning.

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Oh, and by the way, by the way, here is the tweet that started all this.

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Christians, this is from Dr. Kevin M. Young. Christians, the LGBTQ plus agenda is to live.

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There can be no true life without the opportunity to fully enjoy love, have equal rights and exist in peace. It is time we give peace rather than pain, hope not hate.

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The Bible does not condemn this, it condemns us, Romans 12 .8. And I had responded, the LGBTQ plus agenda is death.

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It does not produce life, it does not produce families. It involves normalizing sin and rebellion to the destruction of those practicing it.

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A person holding a Bible who will not warn those thusly deceived will answer fully in that day.

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And he said, so this is your warning, James, do better. To which I said, I think a full length moderated public debate is in order,

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Dr. Young. There are a few on your side willing to do so, maybe one on homosexuality and one on transgenderism to which he then responded with the assertion that, well, if you are willing to work together to build those through better and more civil online engagement, offline conversations to build friendship and maybe a few good meals

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I like to eat, then I am willing to coordinate a debate when there is mutual respect with the person, position and presence of Christ within.

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There was the assertion, you need to grant to my position equality within the

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Christian realm. You need to recognize the presence of Christ within. There needs to be mutual respect for the person, person and position.

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Well, I can respect him as an individual by following the rules of the debate without respecting him for what he's doing in the church, which is sowing discord and division and teaching falsely.

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And so that is what I responded to. And so finally, after all of that, let me see if I, I hope

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I don't lose it. That was when the tweet came out.

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Let's hope I don't, there it is. There it is, all right. I regret that James declined the debate, yet I understand.

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This is the danger of elevating disputed secondary theologies to gospel primacy. Our respect is acknowledging he would not grant

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Christ's presence within me. We can share the table, but not a debate. First things first. Okay.

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No one who allows language to be language would say

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I declined the debate because I didn't. In fact, I very clearly continued my challenge and invitation to do the debate.

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I just simply recognized what he had done. He changed the topic of the debate. Instead of is the

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LGBTQ plus position consistent with biblical Christianity or something along those lines, he turned the debate to, can you present

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LGBTQ plus positions in the church and be a true Christian and specifically demanding that I acknowledge him.

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In that way. That's a completely different topic. I never raised the issue. I didn't say let's have a debate about whether you're a

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Christian or not. I didn't, and in fact, as I said, I'm not called to make that kind of decision and that wouldn't be overly beneficial for almost anybody to engage in something along those lines.

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So I regret that James declined the debate. That's just not true. It's not even close to true. And my own words said the exact opposite and he knows that.

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He knows that. So this is a condescending unkind way of saying, nope, you either acknowledge me and my position in contradiction to your own as the starting point.

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So in other words, concede the debate before we start, you either do that or there'll be no debate.

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Well, if that's the way you're thinking, then you shouldn't have even contemplated in the first place and wasted all of our time talking about it.

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This is not disputed secondary theologies. This has everything to do with gospel primacy.

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You can't even, evidently you can't even define what sin is or what God's law says about sin or God's punishment or any of those things.

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I'm not sure that he would even believe in any of that type of stuff. Balance with you. If we cannot have the clear statements of scripture that tell us that something is to eva to God, and now we're saying it's actually a gift of God.

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But the reality is this, let's just be straightforward here. This is how the left operates.

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This is this kind of bait and switch, pretend you're answering a question, but you're actually doing something completely different.

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This is what happens in the White House during every press meeting. This is what they do all the time.

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Well, I regret that James declined the debate. Didn't decline the debate. Didn't even get close to declining the debate.

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I declined to admit that I've lost the debate before we start. That's pretty obvious.

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But let's just think about this for a second. Dr. Young is the one who claims expertise in Greek, Hebrew, and early church history.

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And using that as his weapon of choice was rebuking those who hold to the traditional sexual ethic as being in error.

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And I have challenged him to defend that in public debate. And I think

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I'm in a very good position to challenge him on this level.

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I am unaware of anywhere where Dr. Young has taught

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Greek, Greek exegesis, Hebrew, Hebrew exegesis, or church history. I'm unaware of where he's done that or how long he's done that.

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I started teaching church history professionally at Grand Canyon University in 1990.

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That was the first class I taught after I graduated from seminary. And I have taught Greek, Greek exegesis,

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Hebrew, Hebrew exegesis, for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and for other schools. And I'm published on the subject of homosexuality, same -sex controversy, 2001.

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And only a few people that I can think of, maybe Michael Brown, has done more debates on this subject than I have.

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Not only in the United States, but overseas as well. Teach church history, early church history, just taught early church history, in fact, just a matter of weeks ago.

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So it would seem that this would be a natural fit.

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A man who claims expertise in these areas and used it as the grounds of promoting the

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LGBTQ plus movement against an individual who seemingly has significantly longer experience in those same areas, is published in those areas, who says, no, you're wrong.

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So it would seem to me that the entire body would be very much helped and assisted by an encounter of that kind.

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Because I can refute his arguments. We've done it on this program. They are not good arguments. And so to change the subject and say, well, if I'm gonna debate you, then we have to get together and we have to have a dinner together and you need to confess the presence of Christ within me and so on and so forth, is to change the subject.

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We have demonstrated without question our ability to engage this subject in a scholarly, fair manner.

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That's not even questionable. If anyone would have questions about that, it would be us.

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Because I have nothing I can look at that would tell me that Dr. Young would be the one able to do that.

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And so my challenge stands. And if Dr. Young uses this as his excuse,

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I think a lot of folks, and I've already seen folks online, folks who say, I don't agree with White about anything, but this is obviously a dodge on your part.

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You're the one making the claims and he called you out on it and that's perfectly fair.

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So don't pretend that it's something other than that. So yeah, I was pretty amazed when

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I said, I regret that James declined the debate, yet I understand. Well, Dr. Young, I declined nothing and you know that.

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You know that. Don't twist my words. I think everyone's gonna understand exactly what the issues are.

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And so once again, I would say to you, you really, really, really need to consider if you're going to make that kind of assertion and claim those kinds of levels of expertise, you might wanna back that up with doing the debate.

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So speaking of all of those types of things, I have so much on this little screen here right now that it's hard to keep it all in perspective.

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Oh my, here's a name you haven't heard me mention in a long time. Every once in a while, somebody posts something from Kyle James Howard.

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And if you don't know who Kyle James Howard is, you don't really need to know who Kyle James Howard is. But for those of you who do, you may remember it's been a number of years,

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I think it was 2018 when I was first blocked by Kyle James Howard on Twitter because he said that he was afraid to be alone in the same room with me.

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I'm really scary. And he has, you could see then what the trajectory was and the trajectory has been fast and swift.

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It really, really has been. But someone posted a tweet from Kyle James Howard today.

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And here's what it said. Any revival among capitalized white people that doesn't bring with it a deep love for black people, zeal to divest from white power and a passion for social justice is not a revival, it's merely a faith -based euphoric experience.

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Spoiler, the Great Awakening wasn't great or an awakening, black people still had change.

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Now, anybody knows anything about the Great Awakening knows that there was a move of the spirit amongst the black community as well.

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But here you have, this man is one of the most virulent racists. And I mean racist in the biblical term that I am aware of.

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And we have to keep saying that because racism is now used as a term. If someone goes too slowly in front of you on the freeway and you go zooming by, people yell racist at somebody.

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It's just the universal epithet now. It has no meaning at all.

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And so if you're going to actually refer to someone who has a clear bias and prejudice and animus based upon skin color, then as Christians we have to go, well, a biblically based definition of a racist because anyone can have that.

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White, black, yellow, green, blue, purple, doesn't matter. That kind of sinful hatred toward a image bearer of Christ based upon supposed race, skin color, ethnicity.

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We won't get into all the discussions and terminology of that right now. That's sinful.

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And of course, Kyle James Howard is a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and claims to be a

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Christian. So that would be relevant. This is a sin, a very public open sin on his part that he is guilty of on a regular basis, but no one can call him to account for it.

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He won't accept anyone calling him to account for it. So now added to the gospel, you have, okay, that was a signal thing.

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So I was just checking because sometimes Rich contacts me that way. Adding, added to the gospel now, you have, you need to have a deep love for a particular ethnic group.

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And a zeal to divest from white power, whatever on earth that is.

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And a passion for Marxism, social justice. These are now things added to the gospel and they're being added to the gospel.

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And that places this kind of racist perversion of the gospel under the anathema of Galatians chapter one.

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That's how serious it is. And you could have seen this in 2018, if you had looked, because that was the trajectory.

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And he has just gone far, far out there. I don't think there's anyone that has his ear that can say anything to him at all.

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Looking at a few more of the things here I wanted to get to.

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Like I said, it's a small screen when I'm traveling. And so sometimes stuff gets buried.

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Craig Carter, another individual who's blocked me. Craig Carter posted a tweet today.

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And it says, for me, and I think that's an important element is the for me part.

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For me, and I remember Craig Carter, Dr. Craig Carter, author of interpreting scripture with the great tradition.

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The whole discussion we've done of great tradition exegesis, stuff like that. Craig Carter.

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For me, the term biblicism does not just mean holding a high view of scripture.

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Biblicism is the view that no non -biblical words can be required for orthodoxy.

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No creed but the Bible. It was taught by Aryans, fourth century, Sassanians, sixth century, and a fair number of modern evangelicals.

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These individuals clearly do not believe they're under any responsibility to actually interact with what their critics are saying.

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And in fact, it seems they have the idea that if they actually were to do that, that would somehow lessen them in some fashion.

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My little article on reformed biblicism, drawing from Calvin's response to Saddletto, has been up for months.

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I have seen no meaningful, no response at all to it. I know of certain professors who have simply mocked it, but not interacted with it, not given any counter -argumentation, not said, well, this is where he missed what

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Calvin said to Saddletto, or this isn't the context of what Calvin said to Saddletto. Nothing like that. They can't because they know they can't.

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They know they can't do that. They're afraid to do it. If they try, hey, I've still got

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Saddletto's letter. I can go back to that source and respond. And they don't want to do that because that's not really what they're doing at all.

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They're turf protecting. They're not actually interacting. And so, biblicism is a view that no biblical words can be acquired for orthodoxy.

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No non -biblical words can be acquired for orthodoxy. That's just simply not true. It's fascinating that Namor on Twitter, Chris published a quote from Athanasius where he specifically said that what the council wanted, the council wanted to utilize biblical language.

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I guess they were some naive biblicists back there at Nicaea. It is not at all the view that no non -biblical words can be acquired for orthodoxy.

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Biblicism is simply saying, that the source and origin of what defines orthodoxy has to come from the teaching of scripture.

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Now, you can express that in other languages. You can express that in ways that would help people to understand.

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I did that last night. Last night, I walked through Philippians 2, John 17, one through five, and John 1, one, and a number of other passages, but primarily those in regards to oneness theology.

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I never quoted Thomas, didn't have to. I didn't quote Aristotle or Plato, didn't have to, but I did make application of biblical teaching to heresies that did not exist in the days of the

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Bible. And I did so consistently with Christian orthodoxy, but my belief was drawn from the text of scripture.

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The text of scripture wasn't just being used to serve the purposes of a greater traditional perspective that is in control of your final theological expressions.

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That's the difference. And so reformed biblicism was not taught by the

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Aryans or the Sassanians, and I am so sick and tired of the, anybody, anybody,

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I have no respect, none, for anyone who would respond to Jeffrey Johnson or myself or Dr.

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Walgren or any of the other people that are saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, to do some mystic resurgence.

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I have no respect for anyone that would ever use the term Sassanianism of what we're saying, because it's just a lie.

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There is no honesty in the statement. It's just a lie. It is meant to be abusive.

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It is divisive. It's false. Stop it. Just stop it. It's a lie, and you know it's a lie.

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We are not Sassanians. We believe in the deity of Christ. We believe in his preexistence, and that's definitional

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Sassanianism, so just stop it. Okay, just stop. It's absurd. But it was in the people responding to Carter that we got another humdinger of a statement from Josh Sommer.

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Biblicism may be a therapeutic retreat from the more difficult work of biblical and dogmatic theology.

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Oh, wow. Did the arrogance meter explode when you typed that,

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Josh? And did you even notice that you didn't escape the term biblical when you typed it?

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The difficult work of biblical theology. Oh, there is something called biblical theology. Okay, yeah.

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Biblicism may be a therapeutic retreat from the more difficult work. You all are just a bunch of lazy, slow -moving folks.

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It's just like, wow, when I saw that one, I was like, oh, someone just does not reflect very clearly on what they're saying.

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It's sad. Anyway, then there was a serious one.

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There was a serious discussion. I saw a lot of stuff that wasn't overly useful, but there was some good stuff.

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In response to what I said, I posted a statement.

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I was sent a tweet from yet another of the

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Thomistic revivalists, the Neo -Thomas Baptists, whatever terms we wanna use for them.

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I was sent a tweet from Dr. Barrett at Midwestern about a student,

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I think it was a student, who drew him a picture of Thomas Aquinas.

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And he was talking about, for his birthday, how he was gonna put it up in his office. And I think any honest individual who would review

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Matthew Barrett's tweet timeline, as well as the stuff he's published in other areas, over the past year, would have to recognize that there is a massive imbalance.

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Publishing projects introducing Thomas Aquinas to Protestants, and organizations, and lectures, and look at what this guy's gonna do for his

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PhD project is Thomas with this, and this guy's doing Thomas with that, and this guy's doing Thomas with this thing. It's just Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas.

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I mean, I would not be stunned to see him show up in a picture with a tonsil cut.

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I mean, there is clearly, this is a Baptist seminary. And no one seems to be going, yeah, that is getting a little weird, it's a little strange.

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And I just simply said, I don't know if there's anyone that can speak into his life to go, you know, it's so obvious, when he wrote his book on solo scriptura in 2016, you can tell he had not yet fallen for Thomas.

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And I just simply say to anybody, do you really think he would write that book today the way he wrote it in 2016? It's self evident that he would not.

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There has been a major, major, major, major, major, major, major transformation. And there's a lack of balance.

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It's very clear, it's very obvious. So I made a comment about it. And someone by the name of Christopher Green tweeted to me.

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And I thought that was useful. So I wanted to make sure that I got to it.

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Just letting a friend know that the dividing line is live right now. Because he's obviously missing it.

45:56

Dr. White, I once heard you, this is Christopher Green. I once heard you on the dividing line hold up an epistle to Cyprian.

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I believe it was his letter to the Christians in the mines. I have done that a dozen times, not just on the dividing line, but just last summer in Pennsylvania.

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I read the epistle to the Christians in the mines at a church way out.

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Well, everything in Pennsylvania is out in the cornfields somewhere. But I've done that many, many times.

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One of my favorite early church documents. As a great example of classic

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Christian literature. Well, in a sense, it's a great example of a bishop who was himself under persecution.

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And at that time in exile. And who would give his life in a very short period of time thereafter as a martyr.

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Dealing with the issue of suffering for the name of Christ. And as such, it's unparalleled given the context out of which it came.

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So anyways, however, as I'm sure you're aware, Cyprian was a critical figure in developing a sacerdotal understanding of the clergy, the primacy of their own bishop and the sacrificial understanding of the mass.

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Why do you get to separate Cyprian praiseworthy contributions from his Romish heirs, but Dr. Barrett isn't afforded the same privilege as Thomas?

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Well, first of all, I had the opportunity in 2017, 2018.

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I went to Inverness and I got to team teach a class with my dear friend,

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Nick Needham on Cyprian. And that's just, that's a highlight for me, honestly.

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To have had that opportunity. Nick is a special friend and I pray for him regularly.

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And I hope you know that Nick, cause Nick listens to the dividing line. And it was,

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I think we both really, really enjoyed that. And to say that I would disagree with that summary of Cyprian is a given.

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I would direct folks, if you want someone else's perspectives to Dr. Needham's material on Cyprian in the first volume of his church history.

48:32

But let me just look at a few of these things. First of all, none of these are Romish. They're not

48:38

Romish heirs. He was not a Roman Catholic. He led the

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North African bishops in basically telling the Bishop of Rome to keep his nose out of their business.

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So the idea that he developed the primacy of the

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Roman bishops is just the exact opposite. And I can give you quote after quote on that. You've just, I'm sorry, you misread something.

49:08

I don't know. Now, some have argued that he initially on the unity of the church said things in support of Stephen that he then changed later on because there are different versions of it.

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But when you just simply allow the Council of Carthage that he presided over to speak,

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I didn't pull it up. I could, I have it. I've used the citation numerous times in my debates with Roman Catholics on the issue of papacy.

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But Cyprian is actually an excellent source to use against the primacy of the

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Roman bishop. Cyprian was referred to as Papa, as Pope by the deacons at Rome.

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And as I said, in his specific writings on this subject, he said that every bishop sits upon the

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Cathedra Petri, the seat of Peter, every bishop in the empire, not just the

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Bishop of Rome. So I don't know where you got that, but you're wrong. That's just, maybe you got it from some

50:16

Roman Catholic literate, because Roman Catholics try to claim him, but it's just not possible to do.

50:24

A sacerdotal understanding of the clergy. There's no question that Cyprian advances the development that has been taking place.

50:40

Cyprian, for those of you who are not familiar with him, was the Martyr Bishop of Carthage. And he was martyred in 258.

50:54

So you're talking the middle of the third century. A lot of people get the first, second, third, which centuries, which, all confused.

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He was only bishop from 249 to 258, so less than a decade.

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And he was converted probably only about four years before that.

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He was a wealthy, high -placed Roman, purple clothing, which back then was a symbol of riches because it was very rare to have.

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And he continued to use his wealth once he was converted for the church and for the poor and things like that.

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But the fact is he was not a Christian for a very, very long period of time. Sort of reminds me in a way of Keith Green, some of these people who are

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Christians for rather short periods of time. And as such, only had the opportunity of interacting on particular subjects.

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And one of the subjects that he did have to interact on had to do with the lapsed.

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That was one of the big, big, big, big, big, big, big issues of the day. The biggest, how the church responded to persecution was one of the most difficult and damaging issues in the early church.

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And that was certainly the case with the Novation Schism. And that was what was going on in regards to the

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North Africans versus Rome in regards to acceptance of people who had been excommunicated by somebody else.

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And in fact, Cyprian's development of a sacramentology that was an ex opera operante understanding of the sacraments had to be overcome by Augustine who developed the ex opera, well, who put the finishing touches on ex opera operato sacramentalism.

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And so there were numerous things going on there where new developments were taking place.

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And in fact, Cyprian's views would be repudiated by Rome, eventually in regards to sacramentology on that issue that is ex opera operato versus ex opera operante.

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And that's understandable. It's not like he had the opportunity of interacting with other people and traveling about and the leisure of study.

53:51

He becomes Bishop right as the final major persecution begins against the church because really 249 to 313.

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Now, 303 to 313 is the most concentrated period of time but 249 marks the beginning of empire wide persecution.

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And so, yeah, he's still a relatively young believer at that time.

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And so his views on the priesthood really are reflective of the struggles he himself was having at that time in controlling the church and the schisms that were taking place within it.

54:38

And so, and then to say sacrificial understanding of the mass, what do you mean by that?

54:47

There was no concept of accident as a substance in Cyprian's understanding, which is he didn't have those

55:00

Aristotelian categories. So I wanna know what you mean by sacrificial understanding of the mass because there is a modern

55:08

Roman understanding of that. And then there is a primitive understanding. They're not the same thing, even though the language is very much the same, but they're not the same thing.

55:17

So with all of that, there was clearly, and by Christopher Green, there was clearly, why do you get to separate

55:27

Cyprian's praiseworthy contributions? So a letter he wrote under persecution from his

55:33

Roma sheriffs, they weren't Roma sheriffs. That's just a complete canard. That is historically anachronistic, big time.

55:42

But Dr. Barrett isn't afforded the same privilege as Thomas. That's not what Dr. Barrett's doing. That's the problem, Christopher. I'm not putting pictures of Cyprian up in my office.

55:52

You look at my timeline and I'm discussing all sorts of things, not every tweet about Cyprian.

55:59

I'm not doing a series of books on Cyprian, introducing Cyprian to Protestants, having people drawing pictures of Cyprian and putting them up in my office.

56:08

Can't you see the vast, massive difference? I can appreciate all sorts of things that Cyprian did.

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And I put him in the context he was in, in the early third century. There were things he didn't have access to and things he didn't know.

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And so, yes, I am significantly more generous in overlooking errors that I would think

56:33

Cyprian had in his theology, given the fact that he's converted later in life. He's not a

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Christian for very long and he's only a Christian long enough to get his head chopped off. So yeah, there's a huge difference between that and Thomas Aquinas, massive.

56:46

I can't believe anyone couldn't see it, but that's not even the issue. What I said in my tweet was,

56:53

I see imbalance here. I don't see any balance. Do you see Matthew Barrett dealing with other things in any balanced fashion?

57:02

I don't, I don't. And that's what I was talking about. That's the issue.

57:10

So, and I don't see Dr. Barrett even seeking to make those distinctions.

57:17

Because one of the things that I pointed out in the tweet that you were responding to was that the, just one second.

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I just stuck my tongue out at someone and I'll let you guess who in the world it was. I don't, that's the whole point.

57:46

What I said in my tweet was that the key issue that we have to focus in on in dealing with Roman Catholicism today, from my perspective, as far as how you have peace with God, is the nature of the finished sacrifice of Christ and the why that can bring us true peace with God, how we can know we can have peace with God.

58:09

And because of the application of Aristotelian categories and metaphysics to the concept of the death of Christ, Rome has developed this idea of the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice that does not perfect anyone.

58:27

And where did that come from? Who gave

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Rome that framework? And everyone will admit, it's Thomas Aquinas. It's Thomas Aquinas.

58:40

So I don't see these guys. What I would like to see, what we need to see, what we need to see would be these guys coming out and repudiating, repudiating the application of Aristotelian metaphysics via Thomas Aquinas to the subject and the issue of the sacrifice of Christ.

59:06

Wouldn't you like to see that? I'd like to see that. I'd like to see that from all of these guys that are now seeing the praises of Thomas Aquinas.

59:16

You want us to feel like there's actually, you want us to take seriously that you're saying, oh, we're only talking about his theology proper.

59:23

Okay, from his perspective, his theology proper led to that on the mass. So let's see the papers on that.

59:32

That's what I'd like to see. I think that would be useful. I think that'd be helpful, really do. Okay, wow, we got through the hour and doesn't look like it crashed or anything because Rich and I had had a crash earlier where everything had frozen, but it looks like it held together.

59:48

And if I told you where I am, you'd go, really, they have internet there? It's true.

59:55

By the way, I'm wearing my, whoops, it's backwards, Dygar Altan Basel -Uwein shirt.

01:00:02

It is necessary for him to reign from 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And I'm more convinced of that than ever.

01:00:10

Still got my P52 back there. The guys who gave that to me, you should be pretty happy. I managed to stick that up there.

01:00:17

I'm gonna have to take it back down when we trade this baby in, but I have hit some big bumps.

01:00:25

I would not be surprised. Now, I take this down. That doesn't, no, that would break. I take that down.

01:00:31

But this has stayed on that wall all the way through Louisiana. And there are other things that haven't stayed on the wall all the way through Louisiana.

01:00:40

So it did well. We're gonna make sure to, when I have to empty all this stuff out,

01:00:45

I'm gonna ask other people, would you please look? I don't want to leave anything behind and go from there.

01:00:53

So this is, I'm just sitting at the kitchen table, but we're gonna, Lord willing, we're gonna have that studio and be able to do all sorts of stuff while we're on the road.

01:01:03

So if you haven't seen my little video I did explaining that project, please make sure to go to aomin .org

01:01:11

and take a look at it. And again, so thankful for all the brothers and sisters that have already helped us with that project.

01:01:18

We've got a lot farther to go, but we've also got a lot to do this year on the road and exciting, exciting opportunities.

01:01:30

I'm studying for the debate on April 1st with the two agnostic atheists, whatever you want to put it.

01:01:39

I don't know how the two of them are gonna work together, to be perfectly honest with you. Sort of like the last time, when you think about it, the two atheists we debated last time at University of Utah were not exactly on the same page.

01:01:49

And I'm not sure these two guys would be on the same page either, other than yes, you can do morals and ethics without God.

01:01:55

That's about the only thing I think is gonna stick them together. But so many things going on and this is how

01:02:01

I get around to do it now. And it's a blessing and you all are a blessing. Thank you very much for watching the program today.

01:02:07

I'm gonna be at the conference starting tomorrow. So I don't know what that's gonna mean as far as any further programs are concerned, we'll see.

01:02:20

But I'm not sure how much of that is going to be, if any of it.

01:02:26

I've heard rumors that the debate on Saturday with Thomas Ross will be live streamed.

01:02:32

I hope so. That would be really cool. I hope it is. We'll see. But then

01:02:39

I'm gonna be heading back after that. And sadly right now, and I know we've gone a little bit over, but sadly right now, looking at the weather,

01:02:49

I was gonna try to get to Salt Lake City. I'd like to be there for my son -in -law's debate on who's in the new covenant.

01:02:58

But the weather right now is looking like days of snow. Three days before, including the day of, and I'll make the call on Monday when we get a little bit closer because Utah weather can be really, really weird.

01:03:15

But if that stays consistent, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to get up there, which means

01:03:20

I may be contacting some of you churches on the more Southern return route to see if we can do some stuff on the way back.

01:03:28

We'll see. That's the one thing about this. That's the one thing about traveling like this. It's like, oh, major snowstorm?

01:03:34

Okay, let's go South. And if your church has sent in an email to roadtrip at aoman .org,

01:03:42

then I can look on the map and go, well, maybe we can work something out.

01:03:48

We can do something on the way back. Can't do that when you're standing in a three -hour line at the

01:03:53

American Airlines counter, having slept the night at Dallas Airporters because it's happening a lot.

01:04:01

So one last time, please go to donate at aoman .org,

01:04:08

hit that pull -down thing you'll see at the bottom there, AOMobile Studio, and help us to press forward.

01:04:16

Thanks to everybody who's already done that. And so we can keep doing stuff that's exciting.

01:04:24

All right, thanks for watching the program this evening. We'll see you next time. God bless. Held up all the way, huh?