Ask Me Anything - with Matthew Everhard & Keith Foskey
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Keith and Matthew Everhard will take questions from the audience on Youtube.
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- 00:00
- people hop on as they will. Now, I'm not a normal BCV piper who is already there and said hello.
- 00:12
- So if you guys are here, if you're seeing this come up on the live, welcome. I wanna thank you guys for being a part of what we're doing here.
- 00:20
- And this is definitely not a pro setup. Everything here is sort of last minute having fun. And we're gonna send out a clarion call here to YouTube, try and get some people to come or to Twitter, try and get people know what's going on.
- 00:34
- So let me get that link out there. Oh, ask me anything.
- 00:39
- It shows it right there. Can I share that same link that's at the top? Is that how that works?
- 00:46
- I will send you, hold on just a second. I'm gonna send you the link right now. Okay. And we will see if this works.
- 01:12
- I just posted it. So let me send it to you. Can you see the, there should be a private chat.
- 01:22
- Here it is. Okay. I'll send it to you in a private chat. There we go. Okay, cool. Man, we got questions already coming through.
- 01:51
- So let's see if I can just, here's the link. There we go.
- 01:59
- All right. Tweeted it out. Okay.
- 02:08
- All right. So first of all, how you doing, man? What's up, buddy?
- 02:15
- Hey, congratulations on your big victory. You are not only now the a
- 02:20
- Millennial King, but you are within hours of being the 1689 Cigars, 2024 tournament champion.
- 02:28
- How's that feel? Very surreal because I did not at all expect it.
- 02:34
- I didn't expect to make it past round two. And even round one, I was concerned about because Marcus Pittman is a really nice guy.
- 02:42
- He's got a lot of friends out there in the social media world, but he conceded right away because he didn't have a
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- Twitter account. And so he just dropped out. Yeah. You're never gonna win that way.
- 02:57
- You gotta have at least an ex account, right? Yeah. So he dropped out immediately, which made me win round one.
- 03:03
- And then I was up against Doug and I just figured Doug Wilson would kill me immediately.
- 03:09
- But my folks came through. I was thankful. WatchWell Podcast just said, what's up?
- 03:14
- Hey man, it's good to see you. I'm grateful for those brothers over at WatchWell.
- 03:22
- They do an awesome job. I find I was just talking to him earlier. You ever watched their podcast, what they do?
- 03:28
- I do not. It's really embarrassing. Like I am a content creator, I suppose, but I am rarely a content consumer.
- 03:35
- It's pretty embarrassing actually. I am the same way because I'm always producing stuff and I'm preparing for sermons, which take up a lot of my time.
- 03:46
- So I don't have a lot of time to listen to other podcasts and stuff. That's why I'm not getting better. I'm not learning from others.
- 03:52
- Yeah. And I, like when I'm working in my office, I have to have a dead quiet. I'm not one of those guys that can have any sort of noise or especially talk in the background.
- 04:01
- One of my coworkers, Christian Jones, Christian, if you're out there, what's up buddy? He has to have like talk on all the time.
- 04:07
- So he listens to podcasts all day long and he can type, he can work, he can write, he can think, he can plan, he can prep, all that with podcasts.
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- I'm like, nope, I need dead silence. Even sometimes just like classical music is too much for me. I just have to have dead air to be able to think.
- 04:22
- So the only time I listen to podcasts are when I'm driving. And there's a couple that I listen to every day, like the world and everything in it is just like a
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- Christian updates. It's a wonderful thing done by, what is it world magazines is great. And then a little bit politics and stuff like that.
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- And occasionally I listen to some other theological podcasts but most of the time it's just quiet.
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- Sometimes I drive with nothing on. I just like to think. And sometimes I just turn on my nineties jams, which is what
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- I listen to. What kind of music do you listen to Keith? Eighties, eighties and nineties, that is it. And I will say this to some people's frustration, not eighties and nineties
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- Christian music. I listened to like Bon Jovi. And I mean, that's just, that's what
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- I grew up on. Nineties, that's my jam. I graduated in 1995.
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- So it's kind of like, men in their clothing, like you, whatever you wear men is probably what was cool when you were a senior in high school and then you just level out with those kinds of outfits for the rest of your life.
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- And for me, the same thing with music, I've not kept up on music at all. I don't even know who's cool today, but I'll tell you who was on the top 10 billboards of 1994, baby.
- 05:32
- That's my zone. That's right. I don't even think today is music. It just seems like a bunch of AI nonsense to me.
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- It just seems like auto -tune junk. It's not music, but that's me.
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- Again, 90, what is it? I grew up, okay, I graduated in 98. So I was three years behind you.
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- So when you were a senior, I was a junior or no, I was a freshman. I was a freshman the year you were a senior.
- 05:57
- Well, man, we got a ton of comments coming in. We better start answering some questions. This isn't ask me anything. You and I can just talk for days about being in our forties.
- 06:07
- Back aches. Yeah. Oh, I saw it. I was in the mall today. That's what got me here so late.
- 06:14
- We were at the Florida mall and we got stuck in traffic driving back in Orlando. And there was a shirt that said, instead of bath and body works, it says back and body aches.
- 06:22
- And I was like, that's the greatest shirt. And I wanted it. But of course I was in the mall and everything costs four times as much as it should.
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- So I used to have my own screen printing shop. So I have a really hard time not just wanting to make it myself.
- 06:37
- Yes. I'll make my own one. All right, well, let me go down the list here and find an actual question.
- 06:42
- Cause a lot of guys are just saying hello. Hello everybody. And both of us want to say thank you for all your support.
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- Even if you voted against me and voted for this handsome man, I'm grateful that you were at least playing the game with us.
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- And I'm thankful to have him on the show right now. And all right. So let's see.
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- Okay. Kenneth Gentry, divorce of Israel thoughts. That's, I'm gonna put that one up there.
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- Kenneth Gentry, divorce of Israel thoughts. What are your thoughts on that? Have you read it Matthew?
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- And you have any ideas on that? Is that a book? Yes. Kenneth Gentry is a partial preterist.
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- I'm thankful for a lot of what he does cause I lean towards partial preterism even though I'm on ill.
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- I lean towards partial preterism especially in the Olivet discourse and in some of Revelation. And so I appreciate some of what he's done.
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- But this particular work I have not read but I believe it's his in regard to the new covenant versus the old covenant and the discontinuity versus continuity of the old and the new covenant.
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- So if you haven't read it, I mean. Did he also do a book on post -millennialism just like a basic introduction to post -mill?
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- Am I wrong? I think so. He's done a lot of stuff. So I can't say for sure what I think. Yeah. Okay.
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- So neither one of us have read it. So sorry, Courtney. Yeah, 7930, unfortunately we can't give you an answer like Ken Gentry in general but can't give you an answer for that.
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- All right. So, this is a good one. So what is the difference between Baptist and Presbyterian?
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- Like the amount of water we use primarily kind of a water volume question. Well, I say we're deep water
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- Presbyterians over here. So that's what people ask me what my denomination is. I say, I'm a deep water
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- Presbyterian, so. I mean, I guess it really depends on what kind of a
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- Baptist you are and what kind of a Presbyterian you are. I mean, you and I as reformed people, soteriologically in terms of like our understanding of God's sovereignty and salvation, we're probably pretty close on a lot of things.
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- So church government would be one that comes to mind whereas Presbyterians tend to be more connectional by associating with Presbyteries, which is a region of churches.
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- And then greater than that, like a general assembly which is like a national body. Baptists don't tend to do that as much, although I'm sure there are some exceptions to that.
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- But you would, for instance, have like elders in your local church, right? So you'd have an elder board in your church as we would?
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- Yes, sir, we do. And our elders, we would say they govern the church.
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- We're an elder governed church. A lot of Baptists are congregational and we are congregational in so much as the congregation does have certain areas that they speak to, such as the affirmation and appointment of elders and ordaining elders comes through the congregation choosing them.
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- We use the word affirmation. We don't even like the word vote because we want to move away from the idea of a voting system.
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- We want the church to either affirm or not affirm when we put something before them, but it's still the elders lead and govern at our church.
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- And correct me if I'm wrong, does your church subscribe to a confession? Because that would be something that's unique to Presbyterianism.
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- Usually we would subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, whereas some Baptist churches subscribe to the 1689 or perhaps a different version.
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- How about you guys? Do you have a confession that you subscribe to? We do. We actually can confess the 1646 confession, which was the same -
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- That's the older one. Yeah, the same year as the Westminster. Right. So it gets confusing for people sometimes.
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- Yeah, yeah. 1646. But our reasoning is that there are certain aspects of the 1689 that we cannot affirm.
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- I did a whole show about this as to why we affirm the older one. It's less, it's only 52 articles of faith.
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- And we felt like we could affirm everything without having to take the 1689 and take it apart and put asterisks next to the parts we disagreed on.
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- So we just went with the 1644 slash 46, and there's a story behind that. But that's what we affirm.
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- So we're confessional, we're Calvinistic, and we're covenantal, but not classic covenantal.
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- So we ascribe to the three Cs of Reformed theology, but not in a way that would satisfy
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- R. Scott Clark. So when you think of the covenants, are you thinking of like the covenant of redemption before God made all things, that covenant between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then like the covenant of works in the
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- Garden of Eden, and then the covenant of grace in Christ? Is that what you mean by saying you're covenantal? Well, that's where we would differ.
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- And that's where some of the distinction would lie with us and why we would not be full 1689. We would fall into the category more what is referred to now as progressive covenantalism, which would be described in the book,
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- Kingdom Through Covenant by Steve Wellam and Peter Gentry, which it moves away from the language of the language you're talking about, which is classic covenantalism of covenant of redemption, covenant of works, covenant of grace.
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- It would use words like covenant of creation rather than covenant of works and things like that. So it's a little different language.
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- And there is some, a little distinction there in how we understand continuity versus discontinuity. And we focus more on the named covenants of scripture, if that makes sense.
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- Yeah, Abrahamic, Davidic, et cetera. Yeah, exactly. So covenantal, but not classic covenantal.
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- And that's why I say, I think there's, that distinction is probably wider than would make most people very comfortable.
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- But yeah, that's - And then to go back to Scuba Steven 1000's question, I mean, obviously our major difference would be in our view of the sacraments, particularly the sacrament of baptism.
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- So for us, when we're looking at that juxtaposition between continuity and discontinuity, we would see more continuity with the
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- Old Testament and circumcision, whereas you would see that a little bit more of a discontinuity.
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- So for us, we would, as believers in the visible church, we bring our children to the waters of baptism, seeing that as a continuity with the
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- Old Testament and the mark of circumcision, whereas you guys would obviously not do that.
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- Yeah, yeah, we would say the new covenant is entered into not by birth, but by new birth or regeneration.
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- And so regenerate church membership as a part of baptistic understanding of how someone would be a candidate for receiving the sacrament of baptism.
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- Cool. So that's a big, I think that's a big distinction. And that probably is the biggest distinction. So sacramentology and a little bit of church government and probably the amount and method of how we subscribe to confessions.
- 13:55
- Yep, a great question. All right, this one's just for you and you can probably answer it pretty quick.
- 14:01
- How's that Jonathan Edwards Study Bible going? Thanks for asking. Actually, I'm working really hard on it right now.
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- We thought we had turned in all of the content for like the commentary running along the bottom and we came to a pretty good point of being satisfied with all of that.
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- And we have like a hundred articles and essays that are gonna be interspersed throughout the Jonathan Edwards Bible.
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- And then somebody on the Thomas Nelson end came up with another idea that they posed to me.
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- And I said, yes, because I just wanna put as much stuff into it as I can. So I'm currently working on another aspect of it.
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- There's gonna be like a series of, I don't know, I guess you could call them like devotional quotations that are gonna be interspersed throughout it as well.
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- So they wanted me to come up with like 300 of the most inspiring Edwards quotes, which is kind of hard to do because Edwards has long convoluted sentences.
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- So he's not quite as pithy as like a Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon is just like everything you read is like really interesting quotes.
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- Almost everything you, like pick any paragraph of Spurgeon randomly. And it's got some really cool quote that could be on a t -shirt or a mug, but Edwards is not like that.
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- So I'm having a bit of a hard time trying to whittle down these kinds of devotional thoughts that we're gonna put in there. But it's still, unfortunately, these things take a long time.
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- It's actually kind of a slow project. We had to do a lot of reading of Edwards first and then a lot of excerpting.
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- And then there's a lot of editing processes. And then once it hands over to Thomas Nelson and their fine editorial staff, then they go through stuff and all the layout and the marketing right now and the developments.
- 15:37
- Here's one thing that's cool, Keith, I think you'll appreciate this. So Edwards had like a beer tankard that he drank his beer out of.
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- It's a silver vessel. And on that silver vessel, his family crest was emblazoned and there's like a cool lion kind of heraldry crest on this vessel, right?
- 16:00
- So I wanted to, as part of the marketing for the Jonathan Edwards Study Bible, I wanted to find that crest and kind of use that as like the symbol that's gonna be on maybe on the spine or perhaps on like some of the information pages or even some of the marketing packaging and things like that.
- 16:16
- Just kind of like how Cambridge has their little lion logo and Schuyler has its Jerusalem cross and Crossway has its little symbol.
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- So I was thinking like, okay, what's the symbol for this Jonathan Edwards Study Bible? So to make a long story short,
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- I had a hard time finding this silver tankard. So I put a post online.
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- Does anybody live in New Haven that you can go take a picture of this thing? And finally, I got somebody to send me a high quality photograph of Jonathan Edwards' family crest on his silver beer tankard, which is in the
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- New Haven Historical Society Museum. So we're at least gonna use that for some inspiration for maybe part of the marketing of the product.
- 16:58
- So that's pretty cool. Nice. Yeah, that is really cool. And that's very unique and we'll give it its own special branding.
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- And man branding is very important, like you said, very important and all these other places have it. You'll have that.
- 17:12
- That's great. All right, I do wanna mention real quick, just again, Parker, I think it's you, just say, watch
- 17:19
- World Podcast, go check those guys out. They watch movies and talk about the theology. We've done that. I've done that with them with 1978
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- Superman. So thanks you guys for watching. Here's a theological question.
- 17:31
- And this one, again, I don't know why we're getting so much, there's a lot of revelation questions,
- 17:40
- I guess, because of the Amill King thing. Are you Amill, Matthew? Are you Amill? Yes, I would call myself optimistic amillennial, which essentially means that I'm very optimistic as it regards the gospel going out to the nations, the great commission being fulfilled.
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- I see the nations being largely evangelized successfully so that when the
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- Lord returns, he will find a strong and vibrant church, but I'm a little bit more pessimistic when it comes to the nations kissing the sun in Psalm 2.
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- And like in Psalm 2, it says that it calls for the nations to honor the sun, but then there are also those that are smashed, that they receive the rod of judgment, which is an image that revelation also picks up too.
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- So I'm not quite as bullish when it comes to the nation states being Christianized.
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- I do think that the church could be heavily or severely persecuted, though it would be vibrant, but persecuted by pagan tyrannical nation states, even up until the very end.
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- So optimistic as it regards like the evangelizing to the nations, but I'm not so optimistic when it comes to tyranny, for instance.
- 18:53
- Amen. Well, here is the question regarding Revelation 13. Is Nero the antichrist in Revelation and is he supposed to be the same antichrist that was thrown into the lake of fire alive with the false prophet?
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- That's a great question. Might specifically be referencing my recent debate that I had on the question of amillennialism versus premillennialism.
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- I did that last Saturday with Lucas Curcio. So I'll give my answer first and then you can come in and correct me if you think you see a difference.
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- But the answer, I do believe that because I do take a partial prejudice view of Revelation, I do believe that Nero is the beast of Revelation 13, which would mean
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- I would take an early dating on the writing of Revelation, even earlier than some, because I would say it would have to be before the
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- Jewish Wars, probably around 67, as early as 67. And so if that is the case and it's referring to Nero, then the question then becomes, well, what is the beast and the false prophet and all this represent?
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- I do believe, I believe Nero is what's in view in 13, but that it also creates a motif which follows through history.
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- And I do believe that toward the end of history, there will continue to be this system which rises up against Christ and his church and likely will be a specific leader within that system that will be called at that point, what we might call the antichrist or an antichrist figure.
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- And so in that sense, I would be taking somewhat of an idealist approach as well as a partial prejudice approach and sort of molding the two together.
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- And in that would find myself as saying, I do believe there is a point at the end of time where Revelation 19 is referring to someone who could possibly be thrown alive into the lake of fire.
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- But that may be an approach that is untenable for some because it's somewhat of a blended approach, but that's my understanding.
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- Yeah, I think idealism melds very well with amillennialism.
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- I think part of my understanding of antichrist is that, as John says, the apostle
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- John, there's not just one antichrist, there's many antichrists, many have already come. Just in the same way that Christ, there's only one
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- Christ, right? But there are many types of Christ in the Old Testament, for instance. So like David is a type of Christ.
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- Noah or the Ark is a type of Christ. The temple is a type of Christ. There are things that for figure who
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- Jesus is by pictures, persons, places, even institutions that typify
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- Christ and in some way shed light on who the Messiah is going to be. David being probably the best example of the
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- Davidic type of the Christ King, the Messianic King. I think it's similar with antichrist in that there are certain figures throughout history that are typological of the final boss, the final man of lawlessness.
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- So like a Pharaoh in the Old Testament is clearly typological of the antichrist or the man of lawlessness, so too with Nebuchadnezzar.
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- And I think Nero is a particularly apt type of the final antichrist.
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- In some sense, he is the antichrist that John's audience is concerned with in the first century.
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- No question about that. There's a lot of things in Revelation that I think do specifically point to Nero, but I'm not so full preterist that I would say that he's the final antichrist.
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- I would say that he's typological in sort of a telescoping way. He shows us what the man of lawlessness would be like, but I do think that there is a final boss, man of lawlessness, so to speak, because, well, the reason
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- I would say that is when Paul is discussing the man of lawlessness in the Thessalonian letters, he seems to be indicating a person that is destroyed by or at the return of Christ himself.
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- So I do hold to some sort of historic person who has set himself up as the opposer of Christ, whom
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- Christ then destroys at his return. Sounds like we're pretty close. I mean, maybe we'd worded a few different ways, but man, you just said it better than me, but I think -
- 23:19
- No, you said it good too, for sure. So let's move down the list.
- 23:25
- I think that was a great attention to that question. Ooh, let's see.
- 23:31
- A few of these are funny. Does WWE break out this weekend? Well, if I lose to C .R.
- 23:36
- Wiley, I'm gonna be breaking out some tears. You're not gonna lose.
- 23:42
- First of all, hey, let's talk about this. The bottom half of the bracket, let's throw some shade at the bottom half of the bracket because the top half was where all the action is.
- 23:51
- If you were paying attention to the tournament, just look at the numbers in the voting between the top half of the bracket and the bottom half of the bracket.
- 23:58
- You and I, dude, we went through the meat grinder and you're gonna come out on top. But listen, it's gonna sound like I'm bragging here and maybe
- 24:06
- I am a little bit, but I need a bronze medal on this chest right here because I'm convinced that I took bronze.
- 24:13
- I'm on the podium. I might even be, here's a little shade, I might even actually be the silver medalist because if you add up all the vote count throughout this tournament,
- 24:23
- I might actually be the number two guy. So what do you think about that? What do you think about that, your Calvinist?
- 24:29
- What do you think? Dude, I'm 100%. I think, first of all, my hardest battle totally was with you.
- 24:37
- And I thought it was gonna be with Doug. That one, I was surprised that it was, but Doug wasn't really trying.
- 24:44
- I took his credit. And he wasn't, he didn't know, he didn't try. But Dusty Devers, he went hard and he was sending out tweets and stuff, which
- 24:55
- I thought was cool. But when it came to you, man, all the Presbyterians like came out of their birdbaths and came running toward me.
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- I was joking, I said the Presbyterian baptism was like a birdbath. Oh, I got you, okay, okay.
- 25:09
- Yeah, they come and take another birdbath. Baptismal stay up late because there was this thing where you had the lead on me all day long.
- 25:16
- I was down by eight points consistently. And then around like 11 o 'clock at night, I had it up to like almost tied.
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- And then I went to bed. I'm like, if this is close tomorrow, I'm gonna make a YouTube video. I'm gonna get after Keith.
- 25:29
- I'm gonna tease him. And then I woke up and I'm like, I'm down 12. What happened overnight?
- 25:35
- This was like the Biden jump and the two o 'clock in the morning burst is what you had, buddy.
- 25:42
- A bag of votes is what came in. I don't know. It was bad to stay up late,
- 25:49
- I guess. One guy said it was getting to the other part of the other countries. I'm like, where? There's no countries in the
- 25:54
- Pacific. I mean, but I guess. Well, listen, if I lose anybody, I'm glad I lost to you.
- 26:00
- I really am. I think much of you and everybody loves your stuff. So you deserve to win it.
- 26:06
- Well, I appreciate that. And I'm very thankful to get to have this conversation. And if I would have lost you,
- 26:13
- I would have been like totally, it would have been worth it because you're such a great guy too. All right, so what are the strengths and weaknesses?
- 26:22
- Well, we've talked a lot about partial prototypism, Austin. He was gonna ask about, but we've already answered one of his questions there.
- 26:29
- So let's jump to another. If we have time, we'll go back. Pastor Matt, how do you interpret the meaning in the
- 26:34
- Westminster Confession, talking about the efficacy of baptism, not being tied to the moment of administration?
- 26:40
- I interpret it as saving aspect spiritual. I'm not sure
- 26:47
- I understand that last part. They may have mistyped or run out of room. But this is obviously a question for you.
- 26:54
- Hmm, so we're not Lutherans and we're not
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- Catholics. We don't think that baptism has any sort of regenerative power.
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- But when we talk about baptism as Presbyterians and in our confessions, we'd like to talk about them under the rubric of signs and seals.
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- A sign is indicative of the presence of something that's greater than the sign itself.
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- So hang with me on this for a second. If you're driving along and you see a sign by the road and it says school, the sign is indicative of the presence of something that is greater than itself.
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- So nobody drops their kids off at the sign, hoping for their children to get educated there. It's the building that's beyond it.
- 27:37
- That's where the school is, right? But the sign indicates the presence of something. And in the same way, baptism is a sign of something greater than the water itself.
- 27:48
- And that greater thing is the cleansing power of the blood of Christ. So what the water of baptism does is it signs to us, or it signifies the cleansing power of saving grace through faith in Jesus.
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- And what Jesus does is he washes away our sin. He takes away our sin guilt and he gives us his imputed righteousness, even as he takes our sin upon himself and his death on the cross.
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- So baptism is clearly a sign of that, but it's also a seal. And this too is biblical language.
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- Both of these terms, sign and seal, come from Romans 4. But a seal in the ancient world is an authenticating, like a signature of the author, the one who sends it.
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- So if you sent a letter, you would seal it on the ends with wax, indicating that there's authenticity there.
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- And so the authenticity, as it regards the sacraments, is that they are the Lord's sacraments. He is the one who commands them.
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- He is the one who tells us to come to the Lord's table. And he is the one who tells us to come to the baptismal waters.
- 28:56
- So the sealing aspect is indicative of the authority of Christ. So typically for us, when we think of baptism, yes, we apply it to our children, because again, we think of that continuity with the
- 29:08
- Old Testament of the marking of the family of faith. And this would be a slight nuance between you and I, I'm sure.
- 29:15
- Whereas when we think of baptism for Presbyterians, we think of baptism as the downward promises of God in the gospel.
- 29:21
- It's not so much the individual's upward testifying of their faith in God.
- 29:27
- It's not an upward statement, like when you're baptized, it's not like, God, I declare to you my faithfulness, but rather baptism is
- 29:34
- God's downward declaring of his promises to those who trust and believe. And so, of course, when an infant is baptized, we're not saying that they're being regenerated in that moment, but rather we are anticipating with covenantal expectation that God will save this child, should he or her come to him by repentant faith at a later time.
- 29:58
- So that's where we get the language of not being tied to the moment, but nevertheless, it does have a real sacramental power to it in that way.
- 30:09
- I hope that made sense. Sure. No, I think, and what's interesting is I would affirm 95 % of what you said, and this is where I think it's interesting between Baptists and Presbyterians and why
- 30:21
- I do think, and this may sound funny coming from me, I think this is why so many
- 30:27
- Baptists who become reformed jump the ship to Presbyterianism, because there is a sense in which we both see baptism as a sign and a seal, but not a causal regenerative action, a sacerdotal action or sacramental where it creates this thing of regeneration.
- 30:51
- And that's why it would be harder for a Baptist, I think, to become a Lutheran because the Lutheran would see baptismal regeneration and many
- 30:59
- Baptists would say that's, we reject that wholeheartedly. But when a Presbyterian says, well, it's not the timing that matters, it's the sign itself that matters.
- 31:09
- And whether you apply the sign to the child or apply the sign to an adult, it's still the regeneration and work that's on the inside that's pointing to.
- 31:20
- And so, and I think that's why a Baptist can better affirm that than could affirm baptismal regeneration such as is taught in Lutheranism.
- 31:29
- I think it's still difficult because we have to say, for a Baptist, the hard part is saying timing.
- 31:35
- We would argue at least in a sense timing does matter, not because of, and I understand what you're saying when you say you talk about the faith going up and those things, but the timing matters in regard to who is in the covenant, who has been made part of the covenant.
- 31:54
- And this is gonna be my, I'm debating Darrell, I forget his last name, he's written on the subject of, he's a
- 32:02
- Presbyterian pastor, he's written on the subject of infant baptism and would like, wants us to do a debate on this subject.
- 32:08
- And really my issue is who is a member of the new covenant? Is it a birth or a new birth thing?
- 32:14
- And that's really my argument. I think that's the simplest argument a Baptist can make is who does the new
- 32:20
- Testament qualify as members of the new covenant? And I know we would disagree,
- 32:26
- I'm just saying that's where the line is. It's not really the efficacy of baptism, it's more who is part of this covenant.
- 32:33
- So - Here's another thing, just while we're having fun on this topic, when we think of baptism too, it's hard for us to break our minds out of this kind of individualized understanding of like, you're thinking of the person being baptized, right?
- 32:52
- The person to whom the water is applied or for whom is submerged in the water.
- 32:57
- But I want people to think a little bit more broadly than just the recipient of the baptism in that moment, because there is a community that is observing the baptism as well, which is why we do not do individual or private baptisms, but we do baptism in the public congregation.
- 33:15
- And so there's a sense here that when one person is baptized, let's say it's a child or even an adult who comes to faith in Christ.
- 33:22
- So we can agree on that instance. It's not just that person though, it's not just an individualistic experience between he or she and his or her
- 33:32
- God, but rather it's the covenant community's celebration of baptism.
- 33:38
- And so this is why like when we baptize a child, for instance, there's vows for the parents, but there's also vows for the congregation to say that they're likewise promising to love, disciple, catechize, discipline this person who's come into the visible community of the church.
- 33:54
- So whether you're a Baptist or Presbyterian, I think Keith would probably agree with this, try not to think of it as just an individual experience, but rather the communal corporate church celebration of that sacramental moment.
- 34:08
- That's a better way to think of baptism more broadly. Amen, and we certainly don't practice private baptism either.
- 34:16
- Yeah, right. Yeah, we're definitely not. Right. All right, let's see, we're moving down here.
- 34:24
- Lot of just comments and stuff. Folks have been talking about the forties. We're in our forties.
- 34:29
- People have been talking about eighties music. Appreciate that. Let's see, a lot of references to Waterboy.
- 34:37
- I don't know why that's Vicki - Waterboy? What's going on with that? The movie Waterboy with, I don't know why.
- 34:43
- Somebody said something about, oh, Scuba Steve. Scuba Steve, you mentioned Scuba Steve. That was the name of it, guys.
- 34:49
- Got it. And Scuba Steve's from Big Daddy and Big Daddy goes to Waterboy, Vicki Valentine. See, that's how my mind works.
- 34:55
- Yeah, I'm glad you figured that one out. I was lost there. Okay, here's a great one. Nothing to do with theology.
- 35:01
- What are the top three movies from the nineties? Top three movies from the nineties? I know mine, but I want to hear yours first.
- 35:09
- Ooh, okay. Goodness gracious. Braveheart's nineties, right? Like that's one of the greatest movies of all time.
- 35:15
- I love Braveheart. Braveheart is that movie for me that like, you know how if you're sick and you stay at home and you're just feeling achy and terrible and you've got to turn on something to kind of like just grind through the day.
- 35:28
- Braveheart is that movie for me. I've watched that movie through so many bouts of flu or whatever, that's a great one.
- 35:35
- How about Tombstone is a great 1990s Western. That is awesome. Doc Holliday in that movie is fantastic.
- 35:42
- So that's a dude's movie too. If you're guys, everybody loves Tombstone. That's a great one. Struggling for a third.
- 35:49
- Keith, give me a third nineties movie. I would have said Tombstone. So I think that's number one on my list just as a movie that I just,
- 35:58
- I think everybody should watch. Even if it's a little historically inaccurate, it gets a lot of things right. They did a lot of good studying in that movie.
- 36:05
- In the same way, there's another movie, Young Guns. Oh, yes. Great cast.
- 36:11
- Amelia West does. That was a, for as far as Westerns, they did a lot of studying for that movie as far as the characters and the people that were actually involved in the life ability of the kid and stuff.
- 36:22
- That was, it was much more accurate than people think. But Tombstone, I think is still the winner in that. And then
- 36:27
- Jurassic Park, 93. One of the greatest films of all time. I used to have a poster in my office.
- 36:33
- I took those posters down and switched them out with some other stuff. But Jurassic Park is one of the greatest movies ever made as far as I'm concerned.
- 36:39
- The mixture of practical and digital effects. And I'm just a big movie guy. That was great for me. So I think, and I agree with you with Braveheart.
- 36:47
- So let's do Braveheart, Tombstone and Jurassic Park. I think that would be great. We just watched the first Top Gun the other day because my son is considering going into the
- 36:55
- Air Force. And believe it or not, I mean, how can you, he'd never seen Top Gun. So, but that's at 80, that's 1986.
- 37:03
- That's 80s. That's 80s. That's before our time, but that's a good one. What's your favorite movie of all time?
- 37:09
- And if it is Braveheart, that's cool. But what, is that your favorite movie of all time? You know, this is probably gonna be a little bit lame, but maybe it's not lame.
- 37:19
- Maybe it's profound. I don't know. The Lord of the Rings original trilogy for me is always going to be it.
- 37:25
- I love every single thing about the Lord of the Rings trilogies. The Hobbits are okay -ish, but they took one book and turned it into like a seven part movie or something like that.
- 37:36
- So I'm not super thrilled with that as much, but Lord of the Rings, pretty much up there for me. Pretty top, pretty high quality stuff there.
- 37:43
- How about Napoleon Dynamite though? If you wanna go like high arts, like we're talking about. If we wanna go like really classic filmmaking, then
- 37:55
- Napoleon Dynamite is up there for me too. Every single scene in that movie is precious.
- 38:01
- Precious, every single scene. As a high school nerd who did run and won for band captain,
- 38:10
- I was the captain of the band. So I would say vote for Keith. As that guy, I appreciate that movie so much.
- 38:16
- And as a karate guy, when the guy says, grab my arm, the other arm, my other arm.
- 38:22
- I've taught karate for 25 years, and I must've said that phrase a hundred times. Grab my arm, my other arm.
- 38:31
- It does matter how you grab. Did you do the thing where, remember the scene where Napoleon is in the school bus and he's got this like little
- 38:40
- He -Man action figure on a string and he throws it out the window? Did you ever do that? No. That is classic.
- 38:47
- I can see you and I actually doing that today. We'd be driving around, you'd be throwing an action figure out my window.
- 38:54
- That would be awesome. That would break the internet. If you and I just drove around in the car taking, and I have action figures in my office,
- 39:02
- I could just grab one. I do too. I have a Lego version of Martin Luther that somebody at church bought me.
- 39:09
- It's a Lego version. I have that, I have that. Someone got me that too. It's awesome. Yes.
- 39:15
- That's hilarious. If I ever make it down to Florida, you and I'd be trolling around in Jacksonville throwing He -Man action figures out the window with strings on them.
- 39:22
- That would be funny. All right. So let me, let's see. Let's get down the list here.
- 39:28
- Oh, one person just have to give a shout out. Steven said he joined X just so he could vote for you.
- 39:33
- So I think that's awesome. What a stud. What a stud. I know that guy too. What's up, Steven? How are you, buddy?
- 39:40
- All right. So three best systematic theologies from the
- 39:45
- Baptist perspective and then the Presbyterian perspective. Cool. Love that question. That's great.
- 39:51
- That's a great question. I'm gonna let you go first. I'm gonna have to think about this one for a minute and a half.
- 39:56
- Okay. Well, so I'm gonna have to qualify this just a bit because I just reviewed
- 40:02
- Joel Beakey's new four volume systematic theology with Paul Smalley, I believe is the coauthor there.
- 40:10
- That thing looks to me like it's gonna have standing for decades to come. That is a really, really well done multi -volume systematic theology by Joel Beakey.
- 40:19
- Now, the reason I have to qualify that is because I have not read it through. And so everything
- 40:24
- I've looked at looks fantastic. I love the organization of it. It's very thorough, ton of quotations of Puritans and Reformers, a lot of devotional content in there.
- 40:34
- It's written really, really clean and clear and crisp. The only thing I'm struggling with on that is that the way the four volumes are set up, it's a little bit tricky to look things up.
- 40:45
- So the one thing that they're missing is a major either analytical outline at the beginning or the end of the set.
- 40:52
- So you can find out where you're at or a comprehensive tool so that you can find exactly what you're looking for.
- 41:03
- Other than that, that thing looks like it's gonna be the standard for years to come. So that's probably gonna be up there.
- 41:10
- Turritan is great. Birkhoff would probably be very highly ranked for me.
- 41:17
- That's the book that I commonly, commonly just look up something for a real quick couple of paragraphs just to kind of frame it up where I'm at.
- 41:24
- Of course, I like John Frame because I studied under him, though he has some wrinkles and nuances that I'm not super thrilled about.
- 41:31
- But then, I mean, look, the John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion is one of the first and greatest real
- 41:38
- Protestant and reform systematic theology, still very, very excellent today. So I'd throw that up there.
- 41:45
- There's other good ones too. Charles Hodge, Three Volumes is great. But if I had to do three, let's just pick three. I'm gonna go with Calvin, Birkhoff, and I'll just throw in the new
- 41:54
- Joel Beeky one just for fun. Well, I'm gonna be, I'm not gonna give three just because I'm not able to off the top of my head.
- 42:04
- To try to jog my memory, I was pulling up a list here of just the Baptist ones because I'm getting mixed up like where my
- 42:11
- Baptists are. Because as a reformed Baptist, I read a lot of Presbyterians as well. But if I had to say, this is my favorite
- 42:17
- Baptist systematic theology, it would be the Abstract of Systematic Theology by James Pettigrew Boyce. He was the first president of the
- 42:26
- Southern Baptist Seminary. And his Abstract of Systematic Theology went out of print.
- 42:33
- It was lost for a long time and then it was rediscovered and was reprinted. And I have a copy of it, which I've talked about on my show.
- 42:39
- And I love it. He was a brilliant man. His ability to explain
- 42:44
- Calvinism from a Baptist perspective was just very brilliant. So when people ask me, what systematic theology for a
- 42:51
- Baptist should you own? I point to that one first. So I'm just gonna give that as my answer.
- 42:58
- Nice, I like it. All right. All right, so let's see. Moving on down.
- 43:07
- Let's see. Boy, there's a couple of them are just repeat questions.
- 43:17
- I saw somebody asking again about the efficacy of baptism. Oh, this is a great church question on church government.
- 43:28
- Since we talked about the difference of government from our churches. So speaking of voting and such, what is your guys' thoughts on monarchism and republicanism versus democracy versus a blend of some way?
- 43:40
- And I'm assuming they're talking about governmental versus church. But I wanna ask you a question about church, first of all, because I think you, as a
- 43:48
- Presbyterian, may have a difference here. In a Presbyterian church, since you are governed by your elders, and then you have, of course, the presbytery, which is over the church, do the congregational members vote?
- 44:03
- And if so, what do they vote for? And is that even the language that's used? So I wouldn't say that the presbytery is over the local church necessarily.
- 44:12
- I would say that they have different roles and functions. We call them courts. So we think of the court of the session, the court of the presbytery, and then the court of the general assembly.
- 44:22
- But they're deciding upon different kinds of things. They have different jurisdictions and different powers.
- 44:30
- So I'm talking about each one very, very briefly. So the local church session would be your board of ruling elders that govern and lead the church.
- 44:41
- The elders make most practical decisions for the church, including like hiring staff or firing staff, or whether or not the church should buy property, or what the budget is going to be, or whether or not it should institute this program or that program.
- 44:59
- All the committees would report to the session, et cetera. The congregation does vote on certain important things though.
- 45:06
- And typically the congregation would vote on who the elders are, as well as to call a pastor.
- 45:13
- There are certain other things that they would vote on as well. The pastor's salary, for instance, and things like that.
- 45:19
- But they would not be voting on whether or not the carpet should be blue or red. They would not be voting on if the church should buy a new church van or something like that.
- 45:30
- All of that would be determined by the session. The elders have most of the privileges of leadership in the local congregation.
- 45:38
- Then the presbytery, which is like a region of churches, consists not of the laity, but rather the presbytery consists of the teaching elders, the pastors, as well as representatives of the ruling elders.
- 45:52
- So when we get together regionally, we are deciding other kinds of questions, like for instance, questions related to ordination, who can be ordained as a teaching elder would be a classic thing we would discuss.
- 46:09
- We might talk about planting churches, things like that, that a local congregation might not be able to do by itself.
- 46:16
- There would be committees and things like that, ministries that the presbytery has. And then the general assembly would get together to determine things that are kind of on higher, broader principles, like our book of church order, whether or not it should be amended, things like that.
- 46:33
- Did that answer the question or was that kind of wandering? No, that was very helpful. And I once had, we had a local presbyterian church in our area that closed.
- 46:44
- Most of their members had become older and they just decided that the church, they sold the property and closed.
- 46:49
- And we got three of their families because they were all older families and they all came to our church.
- 46:55
- And one of the first questions that was asked to me, because one of the men who came was an elder in the church.
- 47:02
- He said, well, what happens if, who do we appeal to above the elders in this church if there's an issue?
- 47:09
- And my answer was no one. The elders are the authority in the church in that sense. There's no court above us.
- 47:16
- I said, but there is a sense in which, and this was my answer, maybe you'll think this is funny or not, I don't know. I said, there is still a sense in which all authority is exercised at the consent of the governed.
- 47:26
- The elders know that ultimately they can be voted out. They wouldn't be foolish.
- 47:32
- So the congregation still has an aspect of authority in a elder governed church.
- 47:37
- If there is no body above us, there's still a body below us that does keep us in check. People could just simply stop coming and you're not governing anybody then if there's no church to govern.
- 47:48
- So there is a sense in which there's checks and balances, even in a church that doesn't have a
- 47:54
- Presbyterian authority over it. Now, when it comes to like church discipline, let's say a member gets into some kind of outrageous sin, a member of a local church would be disciplined by their session.
- 48:05
- So the court of first prerogative, of course, would be the session. So let's say a member gets divorced for an unbiblical cause or commits adultery or murder somebody or is caught embezzling funds or something like that, then the local church session would discipline that person.
- 48:23
- And similarly, if a pastor, one of the teaching elders like myself were to sin or commit a heresy or something like that, the local church would not discipline us, but rather the
- 48:33
- Presbytery would discipline us. So if I ever go rogue or taught a heresy or something like that, then
- 48:39
- I would probably be tried by my Presbytery, which would be that regional body of pastors and elders that gathers together occasionally.
- 48:47
- Yeah, that would be a place where it would be a little bit more difficult. And the way that it's worded in our constitution is that in any event where there is a call to question on the integrity of an elder regarding a sin issue or anything else, that the other elders would be responsible for that person's examination.
- 49:07
- And so it wouldn't be an outside body, but the other elders that... So for instance, if there are five elders and four of them are...
- 49:16
- The other four would be responsible for examining that person and then bringing them before the church for discipline.
- 49:23
- So that would be the method, yeah. So this question is kind of interesting though, because I don't think the person is actually talking about church government.
- 49:30
- They're talking about forms of civil or magisterial government. And the question here seems to be like, what is the...
- 49:37
- Does the Bible prescribe a kind of civil government here? Monarchism, meaning some form of kingship that there's some kind of king.
- 49:46
- How that king derives his power could be various ways. It could be some sort of a royal family situation.
- 49:53
- It could even be some kind of an electorate that elects a king. It could be through the power of sheer brute force.
- 49:59
- The toughest man becomes the king. And certainly there are governments that are built on those presuppositions.
- 50:06
- Then republicanism would be some sort of representative government, similar to what we have here in the United States of America.
- 50:11
- And a pure democracy would just be like one vote for every single citizen.
- 50:19
- You know, Calvin, this is about the only intelligent thing I have to say about this, Keith, is that in the very end of the
- 50:27
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, like the last section, he talks about various forms of civil government.
- 50:33
- And essentially here he's arguing that the powers that be are instituted by God.
- 50:41
- And Calvin has a very limited view of rebellion against the powers that be.
- 50:46
- He doesn't see a whole lot of mechanisms for rebellion or the throwing off of leadership.
- 50:53
- But as I recall, Calvin says that there is not a biblical form of civil government that is instituted in scripture because though everything we see is monarchies, it's not necessarily prescribed.
- 51:10
- Though it is prescribed for Israel as the theocratic state of Israel under the kingship there, but that is a different kind of government than the kind of governments that Calvin's talking about.
- 51:27
- So I don't think that there is any particularly biblically instituted form of civil government.
- 51:34
- What do you think on that? Well, I agree with you. I agree with Calvin. I think the heart of the question, and I may be wrong.
- 51:42
- I don't know the, I know the man asking the question. He's one of my friends on Twitter, but I don't know why he's asking it, but I think
- 51:51
- I know. So I want to kind of assume something here. Maybe I'm wrong. I think the assumption of the question is based on what's the conversation that's going on right now, particularly among the theonomists and the
- 52:02
- Christian nationalists about whether or not there should be sort of a Christian prince or a Christian monarchy where that person rules with the iron hand of God's law.
- 52:13
- You know what I'm saying? God's law must be enforced. And would there ever be a way to enforce
- 52:20
- God's law if we were in a democracy? Is there even a way to enforce God's law in a Republic?
- 52:26
- You know, the only real way to enforce it, I think in the minds of some would be with a monarchy, someone who has that authority.
- 52:32
- But then the question, and this is R. Scott Clarke's question, when I talked to him about this, the question was, well, but who is that person gonna be, right?
- 52:44
- If it is the, let's, and this is certainly not in any way to take a poke at you as a Presbyterian, but let's say it is a
- 52:49
- Presbyterian who becomes the Christian prince. Well, what's that gonna mean for Baptists? Is that going to mean that we're forced to have to go against our convictions in certain areas, or is he gonna be benevolent enough to allow for the disagreement on secondary issues, and who gets to decide what the secondary issues are?
- 53:07
- And so there is a lot of questions that go into that, and this is why, like in the
- 53:13
- United States, when we talk about what is the highest authority in the United States, well, idealistically, the highest authority in the
- 53:20
- United States is not a person, but a document. It's the Constitution. And therefore, our authority in this nation is supposed to be that document.
- 53:29
- That's why when we swear men into the military, we swear men into the local jurisdiction of police, we say that you uphold the
- 53:37
- Constitution, right? Against all enemies, both outside and inside, foreign and domestic, right?
- 53:43
- We uphold this document as our authority. And that's where I think the question of like rebellion and stuff like that, the question of Romans 13 and how we're supposed to uphold the authority, is there any way in which it plays into our, like for instance, and I know maybe
- 54:02
- I'm going far afield here, but the question of like, if the government tells me to do something that's against the
- 54:09
- Constitution, am I duty bound as a Christian to obey the person when idealistically the document is what's supposed to be the authority?
- 54:19
- Let's take the Second Amendment, for instance. The Second Amendment of the Constitution gives me the right to have arms.
- 54:25
- The authority above me, the person in authority, the president or whatever may take that right away from me.
- 54:31
- Well, can I rebel against him and still be under Romans 13 by obeying the law of the
- 54:37
- Constitution? And again, I know I've kind of gone way away from the question now, but this is the heart of what a lot of people are asking, where do we fall when we say, who's the authority?
- 54:47
- Who is the person that Romans 13 is talking about when it says to obey the governing authority and do not rebel against them?
- 54:56
- So that's a, again, maybe I've asked more questions than I've answered.
- 55:01
- But that's, how do you see that? I find these questions to be very difficult because I think there's a difference between talking about ideal states and then the actual situations that we live in today.
- 55:16
- So for instance, when it comes to civil government and I read the ideas of the
- 55:22
- Covenanters, I find myself greatly agreeing for the most part with what the
- 55:28
- Covenanters are talking about. The Covenanters being those Scottish Presbyterians in like the 1600s persecuted by the state, heavily, heavily persecuted.
- 55:38
- And yet they're compelled by this idea that Scotland should be a Christian and not just a generically
- 55:45
- Christian, but a distinctly reformed and Presbyterian nation. And so they're willing to die for the principles that are laid down in the
- 55:54
- Solemn League and Covenants and the Scottish National Covenant that came just before it. They have this perfectly idealistic idea that the government should be a
- 56:04
- Christian government, it should be distinctly reformed and Protestant, that it should support the church, that it should repel heresies and sin of various kinds, that the government should aim towards instituting
- 56:19
- God's law, and that the church should be distinct from the state, that the church should have the prerogative of being able to rebuke the state.
- 56:28
- They're not overlapping spheres of authority, but they have their own distinct realms in which each one of them is trying to glorify
- 56:35
- God and obey the law, the scriptures as much as possible. And so when
- 56:40
- I read this stuff, I'm like, yes, yes, this is exactly how it should be. But the problem is there doesn't seem to be anything even close to looking like that.
- 56:52
- And even in Scotland, what they had for just a minute in time was not able to be sustained in reality because then
- 57:01
- Charles II comes back to power and all of a sudden the state is once again wielding its tyrannical persecution against the church.
- 57:09
- It's like the conversation of what is ideal versus what is, those are just two different conversations.
- 57:17
- And I think that's where it gets very frustrating for American Christians, modern evangelicals that love the
- 57:23
- Lord and want to obey Christ. And yet, gosh, man, I mean, the idea of democracy was such a good idea, except that it presumes that the voting public is honorable and actually would make their promises to the constitution and actually seek to uphold the constitution.
- 57:46
- It works in theory, if you have people that love truth and love
- 57:51
- God and love scripture, but the moment that the whole populace becomes anti -Christian and truth and honesty and integrity in the ninth commandment is meaningless, then the whole thing is just like, it's out the door.
- 58:09
- And at that point, it is really hard to know what to do and what's right.
- 58:14
- That's why we're so confused right now because we're frustrated, very frustrated. Yeah, no,
- 58:20
- I agree with that 100%. Somebody, I jumped down on some of the questions just because there's so many and we're not gonna be able to get to all of them, but somebody just wrote something here that I thought was funny.
- 58:33
- Let me see if I can find it again. It was the, I don't remember who said it, but they basically said a
- 58:41
- Baptist and a Presbyterian could take turn being monarchs. And I just thought that was funny. Yeah, that's good. See, I mean, we can work something out,
- 58:47
- Keith. You know, we can work something out, buddy. Yeah, yeah. I'll be the king four days a week.
- 58:53
- You can be three, you know. I feel like a weekend king. I can do that.
- 58:59
- I feel like I can do that. You've got Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and I'll take the rest. Okay.
- 59:06
- Well, you know, we've been at this for an hour. I don't know how long you had set aside for this. I'm willing to go a little longer if you are, but I just -
- 59:13
- Sure, yeah, let's go. Wanna go 15 more minutes? Let's do 15 more minutes. Let's do that. I'm having fun, by the way. This is great. Me too.
- 59:18
- I'm really enjoying it. Maybe we can do this again sometime. All right, so I'm gonna jump over to Twitter real quick because I did ask if anybody had any questions that they couldn't be on for.
- 59:30
- And I'm just gonna ask a couple of these very quickly. Some of these are fun. Like if Twitter didn't exist, or excuse me, if Twitter X existed in the 16th century, would the 95 theses have been posted online?
- 59:45
- And do you think they would have been as effective? I think from a sort of just historical question, it may be sort of tongue in cheek, but the question is legit in this way.
- 59:56
- Is the media of today able to do what was done in the 16th century with Luther?
- 01:00:06
- Or is everything white noise? Luther would be the most outrageous tweeter imaginable.
- 01:00:13
- He would be setting people on fire, scorched earth. If that dude had access to Twitter, he'd be a beast.
- 01:00:20
- Now, I think that Spurgeon and Edwards would be lecturing a little bit more on like guarding your speech and like your demeanor and your temperament.
- 01:00:33
- Edwards is just so reserved in the way he speaks. He never lets go a statement that he regrets.
- 01:00:41
- You know what I'm saying? Like he is so careful in the way he talks. And I can't imagine
- 01:00:47
- Edwards misusing Twitter, but I can see Luther, he has a little too many
- 01:00:53
- German beers and he's up too late firing away. I think Luther would be a bit of a problem.
- 01:01:00
- Yeah, I agree about that. No, well, I think you're a hundred percent right.
- 01:01:06
- I think someone would have to cut off Luther's subscription to Comcast.
- 01:01:15
- I think, you know. Luther would be in Facebook jail. I like this.
- 01:01:21
- Keith should be the, oh, did I get it up there? It says, Keith should be the king during the feasts. The Baptists know their way around a potluck.
- 01:01:28
- So I agree. You can be the king during all the hard stuff, but I'm gonna be king during the feasts. Okay. All right, so I got a buddy named
- 01:01:36
- Scott on Twitter and he asked a question that he's asked me to ask in several of these things.
- 01:01:44
- And I always forget to ask. So I told him if he could remind me the question. It's a Whopper. Oh goodness.
- 01:01:51
- Bring it up, Scott. I can't see it. What was the, if you're listening? Well, I'll go back to him in a second.
- 01:01:57
- I'll go back to him in a second. Okay. Here's a great serious question.
- 01:02:02
- And then we'll go back to Scott's question in just a moment. What's your thoughts? And I know my thoughts. I'm gonna let you go first on this one.
- 01:02:08
- What are your thoughts on reform street preaching? Is it effective? And what would you do differently?
- 01:02:14
- That's a great practical question for a pastor. And I really like your thoughts on this and I'll get back to you.
- 01:02:20
- Cool question. Yes. So I actually teach a class on evangelism at our
- 01:02:26
- PTS, the Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. And I have a section on open air evangelism and street preaching.
- 01:02:37
- And I encourage it to be done. There are a bunch of advantages to it and there are a few disadvantages.
- 01:02:45
- And this is probably true with most of our methods of evangelism. There's gonna be some advantages and there's gonna be some disadvantages.
- 01:02:52
- So for instance, Twitter or YouTube, the advantage there is you can get a lot of people online together.
- 01:03:00
- You can do a YouTube video and hit 5 ,000 people. So there's an advantage there, right? But there's a disadvantage in that it's not personal.
- 01:03:07
- And so you're always kind of weighing out positives versus negatives in any kind of evangelistic mode.
- 01:03:13
- And the same thing is true with street preaching. So the advantage of street preaching is that it's very public and it can sometimes be somewhat confrontational.
- 01:03:23
- You're confronting people with the gospel and you're telling people to repent of their sin and to turn to Jesus. And so you might say that a negative is that it can at times come across as confrontational.
- 01:03:36
- But the advantage is like you also reach a lot of people that would never darken the doors of a
- 01:03:43
- Christian church. And one of the stories that I tell, two stories actually in my evangelism class.
- 01:03:51
- The first is that A .W. Tozer, one of the great spiritual writers, now he's not reformed, but I still love his works.
- 01:03:59
- He was converted in the city of Akron, my hometown, by a street preacher, a man with probably a
- 01:04:06
- Dutch or a German accent, he wasn't sure, but he came out of the rubber factory. He was working at one of the rubber factories in Akron and here's this guy literally standing on a soapbox, preaching, repents and believe.
- 01:04:17
- And that is what converted A .W. Tozer. And A .W. Tozer's ministry was outstanding after that.
- 01:04:25
- And then the other one is Hudson Taylor, one of the greatest missionaries of all time, probably did more good for China than almost any other mortal as far as like preaching fruit and ministry goes.
- 01:04:39
- And Hudson Taylor was converted by a gospel tract, a simple tract that somebody left out and he found it and read it and was converted.
- 01:04:48
- So while it's not going to reach everybody, it is going to reach some people. And that's the beauty of evangelism is that we have to throw out seed everywhere.
- 01:04:58
- It's like the parable of the soils where you just don't want some out here and some out here and some out here. The methodologies can be varied, but the gospel has to be the same.
- 01:05:07
- And so street preaching, yes, I would say definitely do it, but just understand that not everyone is going to, it's not going to appeal to every hearer.
- 01:05:16
- There are certain people that will be reached by it that others will not. Amen, 100 % amen to everything that you said.
- 01:05:24
- The only thing I would add is I've had the benefit and blessing of having, as one of my elders,
- 01:05:33
- Brother Mike Collier, he is an open air preacher. And so I have the benefit of going out with him.
- 01:05:40
- I have preached some, but I generally just let him preach because that's where God has gifted him. And he has a really strong ability to communicate in that.
- 01:05:49
- And I just stand around sort of being with him so he's not all by himself. And I hand out gospel tracts and I offer to have conversations with people as they're walking by.
- 01:05:57
- And I feel like in that part, I'm stepping back and I'm letting him shine with the gifts that God's given him in a way that's unique and within our congregation, very helpful because other people come out and they also hand out tracts and they also have conversations.
- 01:06:12
- And so it's just been a blessing to our church. So if you have somebody in your church who God has gifted in that way, my recommendation to you, if that person is a sound godly man that you can trust to go out and share the gospel, support that person, encourage that person and go with that person.
- 01:06:30
- Mike has told me stories about going out by himself feeling very intimidated where people come up behind him, throw things at him, things like that.
- 01:06:37
- And it's nice to have somebody just be beside you, as Jesus sent him out two by two.
- 01:06:45
- So just as a thought, if you've got a person in your church that has that heart, support them and encourage them is my word to you.
- 01:06:55
- All right, very quickly, I'm gonna ask Scott's question. This one is humorous, but it's a great question.
- 01:07:02
- Is the Whopper Jr. a small Whopper or is it just a regular hamburger with all the fixings?
- 01:07:10
- Is it legitimately a small Whopper or is it just a regular hamburger with all the fixings?
- 01:07:16
- Let's say you. Man, this is not one that I have a real fixed opinion on, you know, like baptism or something like that.
- 01:07:25
- I'm gonna just say it's just a small Whopper, but there is something I do have a strong opinion on Keith. And that is that we often debate in my church about whether or not tacos are sandwiches.
- 01:07:35
- And I am an ardent tacos are sandwiches adherence.
- 01:07:40
- I believe that they're sandwiches. There was a court of law that recently found on our side on this matter.
- 01:07:46
- There was a, it actually came to the court at one point and a sandwich, the definition of it is a meat around which there is an encasing of usually corn or flour for the purposes of gripping and adhesion.
- 01:08:02
- And in that standard, a taco meets every aspect of the definition. So tacos are sandwiches folks.
- 01:08:07
- Amen. I had a debate on whether or not a hamburger was a sandwich with Samuel on my show.
- 01:08:14
- And that to me, that was obvious, but Sam wanted to argue it. So he argued that a hamburger is not a sandwich.
- 01:08:20
- And I said, not only as a hamburger, I said a taco, a hot dog, they're all sandwiches. They're all sandwiches.
- 01:08:26
- Very much with you. With you. We agree. We agree. We're going to go after this.
- 01:08:32
- I promise this is the very last thing, but somebody did ask a great question. I thought maybe you might have something for them.
- 01:08:38
- This guy says that he and his wife are going to watch a movie tonight. What movie should they watch?
- 01:08:45
- What are you going to give them? And this will be our last thing and then we'll be done.
- 01:08:51
- Dude, I don't know, man. This is Maple Syrup Studios says, what movie should
- 01:08:56
- I watch with my wife tonight? I have an answer. I got an answer. I got an answer, but I'm going to have to change the question.
- 01:09:05
- It's not a movie, but you should definitely sit down and watch a Nate Bargatze comedy special on Netflix.
- 01:09:14
- That will be fantastic. It'll be good for your marriage. You'll laugh, you'll cry. It'll move you.
- 01:09:21
- Movies are too long, but Nate Bargatze specials are perfect. So definitely do that. I don't think
- 01:09:27
- I could love you any more than I do right now. I have a Nate Land mug from his podcast.
- 01:09:34
- It sits on my desk. My wife bought it for me for Christmas and I have a Nate Land shirt. I love Nate Bargatze.
- 01:09:40
- His dad is a magician. I was a magician. I know that. That's crazy. So I just love him to death.
- 01:09:46
- So I agree. But if I were going to watch a movie, I would tell you to watch my favorite movie of all time.
- 01:09:52
- And it's not a good movie. It's not in anyone's top 100, but it's my favorite movie of all time.
- 01:09:58
- It's a movie called One Crazy Summer with Demi Moore and John Cusack.
- 01:10:04
- It is a movie about, it's just about the summer. These kids graduate high school and they spend the summer together on Nantucket Island.
- 01:10:13
- And it is the funniest movie. It's my favorite movie. I can watch it anytime. You talked about being sick earlier.
- 01:10:19
- If I'm sick at home, I'm watching One Crazy Summer. I've seen it over a hundred. I've seen it over a hundred. It's a goofy comedy.
- 01:10:29
- There's a romantic subplot with him and Demi Moore, but that's not the focus of the movie. The focus of the movie, it's got a little bit of, it's the kind of humor that would, like a
- 01:10:42
- Monty Python type humor. Like at the very beginning, there's a cat. He's holding his cat and he puts his cat down and his cat runs into the cat house, which is like a little dog house.
- 01:10:51
- And on the outside of the house are all these little stuffed heads of squirrels and mouse.
- 01:10:57
- Like that's the kind of comedies. It's so dumb. It's so funny. You know, like a man would have a deer head on his wall while the cat had little mouse heads on his wall.
- 01:11:06
- And that's the dumb level of humor, but it's the kind of movie that when you watch it, it just makes you laugh.
- 01:11:12
- And I love to laugh. So we both have the same answer. I just, as far as, sit down and laugh with your wife.
- 01:11:17
- It's a good thing. Mary Hart is good like a medicine. I think that we can't, we cannot end this without me asking you the question that everybody really wants to know the answer to.
- 01:11:29
- Are you ready for this? I got a question for you. Okay. I'm nervous. I'm nervous.
- 01:11:34
- Go ahead. You should be slightly nervous. Yes. So you're about to win a lifetime or a year supply of cigars from 1689
- 01:11:45
- Cigars, who is the sponsor of this tournament. Two part question here. Are you actually going to light one of those bad boys?
- 01:11:53
- And secondly, if not, maybe send one, one, the third place guy's way.
- 01:11:59
- You know what I'm saying? Like hook a bronze metal guy up with at least one of those bad boys. Well, I wasn't going to say anything, but I do plan to send some out.
- 01:12:09
- So I'm going to be, I'm going to be reaching out to get some addresses. Cause I certainly, I won't be able to enjoy the amount
- 01:12:15
- I'm getting. Cause I am getting more than I would be able to enjoy. I would say I've smoked only a few cigars in my life.
- 01:12:23
- I have smoked a few and I do enjoy it on occasion, but it's not something that I do regularly.
- 01:12:29
- So with the amount that I'm getting, I'm definitely going to be sharing. But yes, but yes,
- 01:12:34
- I do light. And there is a video, cause somebody accused me of never lighting.
- 01:12:40
- Yeah. I saw a still image, a still image. It was my second video ever. And here's the funny part.
- 01:12:47
- If you go back and watch it, it was not my second video, but it was my second denominational video.
- 01:12:53
- Got it. And the Presbyterian is lighting the cigar saying, let's talk about Romans nine. That was the joke.
- 01:13:01
- But if you watch the video, it's a Swisher sweet cigar, because I didn't even have a real cigar.
- 01:13:08
- I had to go to the store for that video. And the only one they had was a Swisher sweet. So if anybody knows what a
- 01:13:14
- Swisher sweet is, that's what I was smoking in that. Got it. So, yes, I'm going to smoke, but it will be, most of them will be gifted away because I won't be able to use this.
- 01:13:25
- I have a deacon that loves them. So he's going to get a few as well. Always in moderation and never enough for you have to qualify yourself as a smoker for insurance purposes.
- 01:13:34
- That's, I'm always below that line. Whatever that line is, I'm below that line. That's right.
- 01:13:41
- Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, man, thank you for coming on the show. I'm going to send this out via everybody who's, we've had over a hundred people at certain points watching and we'll also share it once we're done on Twitter for people who didn't get to watch live.
- 01:13:57
- Sounds good, buddy. Thank you so much. Congratulations, my man. Love you guys lots down there in Florida.
- 01:14:02
- Keep doing what you're doing and we'll talk to you later. All right, praise God and love you guys too. Bye -bye. See you, bye. All right.