The Wiccans and the Presbies, then Open Phones with Great Calls

And greetings, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Monday, which means we are doing a Monday, Wednesday, Friday thing. The computer screen isn't working again, but Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We're trying to make up...

Is that penance? I'm not really sure if that's penance or not. We're going to try to make up for last week when I was overseas briefly. It was a quick trip to Frankfurt. Thanks very much to Peter and Tobias there in the Reformed Baptist Church of Frankfurt.

Good guys there. They accepted my extremely short notification I was going to be there, and we put together some meetings that went real well. We talked about, well, we sort of talked about textual reliability, CBGM the first night, and then we did the Trinity the second night.

We were at two different locations and had a few more people show up on Friday night than Thursday night for obvious reasons. I mean, Fridays are a little bit easier for folks to get to. But I had a bunch of young guys from a local seminary that showed up and was very encouraged by them and by their statement that their school is very conservative and orthodox and faithful, especially in its view of Scripture, because, look, Germany doesn't have the greatest reputation on that level.

Certainly we know of others. I mean, I've taught in Berlin a number of times at the TMI school there, and all those guys would. But still, in comparison to the vast majority of folks in Germany, it's good to hear that.

So anyway, and I also had a chance to run up to Las Vegas first and see the grandkids. It's always good to see the grandkids and take them to Barnes Noble and let them buy whatever they want and that kind of thing.

That's what grandparents are for, obviously. And they're homeschooled, so it helps to expand the homeschool library for the kids and go to Olive Garden and do the kind of stuff that we do. And it's very enjoyable.

So anyways, we didn't have any programs last week, and so we're going to sort of make up a little bit because I've got a lot of traveling left to do. I'm going to be down, obviously, for my 17th year in St. Charles, the first weekend in December.

17 years we've been doing that now. That's pretty amazing when you think about it. I sort of feel sorry for them. I think they're just sort of a reflex action now. The pastor gets the first weekend in December off, and the strange guy from Arizona comes out and wears his Coogee sweaters, and we do our thing.

So I will be there as per normal, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And every other time we've done this, I've just flown straight home on Sunday afternoon. This time, I'm going down to record some video on the subject of homosexuality, human sexuality, marriage, etc. in Mississippi, the first few days of the week.

And then I'm popping back over to Pryor, Oklahoma, where Phil Johnson was this past Sunday, yesterday, to the church there in Pryor. Derek Melton is the pastor there. And so we're going to do something on the five solas on the following weekend there in Pryor.

I'm hoping and praying for some clear weather on one of those nights toward the weekend that I'm not speaking, because it's a new moon, and I'm hoping I'm going to take my camera and a stand and stuff, and I'm hoping to get out in the point in the year that getting clear skies in December, probably just going to be dragging my stuff around, not doing anything with it.

But we're going to try. We're going to give it a shot. So I've got that coming up. So we've got a lot of travel, and then I'm teaching in Kentucky, January 3rd through 5th. And then we've got G3, and then I'm going to Russia, hopefully going to Russia.

That's something we need to be working on, ASAP. And Germany. And then we've got to get Justin Brierley to set up that debate. I mean, look, either Wednesday or Friday, depending on how my schedule goes, we're going to be doing a Radio Free Geneva program.

And for the first time, good old Justin, who has always... Justin is a neutral moderator. It's not that you couldn't tell sort of where he came down on stuff. But the fact is that he normally keeps himself out of stuff.

But he put an article out in the premier Christianity magazine that he, I think, is editor of, or at least very much involved with, and basically took the autonomous free will is necessary to Christian theology perspective.

And so, you know, it was a fairly lengthy article, and we're going to go over it on Radio Free Geneva. And then, you know, hey, he's thrown his hat in the ring. Justin's got to know that we do appropriate, proper debates, have for a long, long time.

Let's debate it. Now he's talking about, well, let's get Roger Olson or Gregory Boyd or Lennox, you know, who did that long book, primarily philosophical book, not an ecstatical book. You know, let's get somebody else.

But I'm like, Justin, come on. Your audience and my audience are very similar and cross over a whole lot. I've told people about the Unbelievable Radio Broadcast, helped to get an audience going over here in the United States, and vice versa.

I've been on Unbelievable I don't know how many times, getting toward 20, somewhere between 12 and 20, somewhere in that range. I think it's around 15. But anyway, I think it would be great. I think everybody would be like, yeah, this would be great.

Obviously, they're going to treat each other with respect. It's going to be focused on the issues. But it will be a straightforward type thing. So let's hope something like that can happen sometime next year.

I'm talking with folks about Australia and all over the place. So 2019 is going to be a big year. You've got the microphone up in front of your face. That normally means something. Just a little housekeeping stuff.

Real quick, we are coming up on the end of the year. And the folks that have been repeating donors or just one-time donors, if you haven't received an email from me in response to your donation, then I don't have your email address.

And I'm also finding that some of the email addresses that I do have have suddenly turned up bad. I don't know why. So if you haven't received an email from me in a while, you need to give me a call during the week.

And I need to update your records and make sure that so that at the end of the year, you're going to be able to get your receipts quickly through email because those go out first. So I send them out in PDF form.

And you can get right on that on your taxes. I also want to mention again, as you've discussed in the last few weeks, the Travel Fund still needs some help. Yeah. And other than that, that's it.

Okay. Yeah, the Travel Fund, especially with all the travel we're going to try to do next year all over the world, is going to be a real important thing. So please remember that as we are working toward planning all sorts of things, including, you know, obviously, it would be really nice to do a series in London.

We've got a couple of different possibilities on the Islamic side for different kinds of debates. We want to try to do the same thing in Australia at some point and, you know, just do a series of debates.

That's why, you know, if I'm going to be there, then, you know, Justin and I can at least do a program on the subject. But I'd rather do a serious, you know, actual debate if that would be possible. So we'll see what we can put together about that.

But that's an important thing. There's Cranmer in channel right now. So I actually wish I could say, hey, you, because I had sent him an email about getting down under, shall we say, which is where the Jeff Durbin and the gang from End Abortion Now were down in Australia, reported on having a good time down there.

I'm still stunned that Queensland just legalized abortion. This strikes me as very strange because Australia is an extremely secular country. And so that they would just now be doing that really, really took me aback.

But anyway, that's what's going on there. Don't get me on some of those subjects, especially what Arizona did. Just makes me ill. Can you see this meme that you were laughing about? I have it up on my screen here.

You don't want to show it? What? Okay, well, that's why it's up there. Someone on Twitter sent this to me. I didn't see it go by at first, but thankfully I saw Rich laughing about it later on, and so I was able to find it.

There it is. Who would win an entire legion of false and unbiblical religions, teachings, worldviews, and philosophies, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Iglesia Ni Cristo, Open Theism, Atheism, Queer Theology, Pelagianism, Critical Race Theory, Modalism, Federal Vision, and Unitarianism versus one grumpy Gramps with a Greek New Testament.

Now, the funny thing is, that particular picture of me, I'm not sure if people recognize where that came from, but that's from the Greg Strawbridge debate in Florida. And so I'm actually debating a Presbyterian and have that look on my face at that particular point in time.

What? Yes, I did notice they did not include that on the list. That's probably good. Wouldn't want to throw my Presbyterian brothers under the bus there. Speaking of which, though, I'm not sure if any of you saw this, but there was a report in the Christian Post about studies from Trinity College and the Peer Research Center that had found there are at least 1 .5 million witches in the United States.

That would put them 100 ,000 over the 1 .4 million mainline Presbyterians in the country. And I couldn't help but thinking, who exactly are they counting? And so I did a little looking around, and they're pretty much just talking about the PCUSA.

But the PCUSA would be called one of the mainlines. Where did it even come from? Mainline means dying as fast as possible today, in essence. But when you look up the numbers for the PCUSA, while they have 1 .4 million members, worship or actual attendance is less than 600 ,000.

So it's sort of like the same situation with Southern Baptists. We've got the largest membership of any Protestant domination, but we can only find about a third of our members in any one given Sunday, which is the reality, obviously, in that case.

So I was looking up, do they include the PCA? And the answer was no, that would not include the PCA. And the PCA, I think, had what, 340 ,000, something like that. And then OPC, messing with all the numbers there, at 31 ,000.

And I've often said that Reformed Baptists and OPC are most alike, and that's probably one of the ways that we are most alike. So even if you threw the PCA and OPC in there, it really wouldn't make any difference.

The reality, of course, it's just a number, I realize that. But paganism is making a comeback, because the secular worldview is, always has been, always will be, as long as man has created the image of God, the secular worldview is going to be deeply unsatisfying and stultifying to human flourishing, if we borrow the phrase from a famous person.

And so when you see materialistic worldviews predominating, these types of pagan, mystical type religions are going to benefit from that, because mankind is not going continue. By the way, phones are open at 877 -753 -3341.

I put that on the tweet that I put out. And 877 -753 -3341. So we're going to open the phones. We already have one caller waiting, but we want to invite you to participate in the program today. The point of that article was not just to find out how many Presbyterians are still left.

There aren't a whole lot, in that sense, as far as Orthodox ones. Calvin would not own many of those Presbyterians by any stretch of the imagination. But also, just simply to point out the rapid degradation religiously in the United States, something certainly we have seen happening for a long period of time, but it seems to be accelerating a good bit.

And I know that when I compare that together with looking at some of the people that were elected to public office, and given, I'll be perfectly honest with you, my deep cynicism now regarding even the accuracy of the vote counts that we get.

I'm sorry, I'm skeptical, very skeptical. You put all that together, and you look at some of the people who are now going to be having a direct impact upon our governmental procedures in regards to abortion, and marriage, and sexuality, and things like that.

And when people say, God bless America, we just simply have to once again specifically ask, upon what basis? Upon what basis? What kind of blessing? How can a Christian pray for the material blessing of a nation that is just so adamantly opposed to his ways and his truth?

It's stunning. It really, really is stunning. And so, I can go back, the archives exist, probably still exist on magnetic tape, because that's what we were using back there. And document that on September 12, 2001, we did a program where we talked about God bless America with repentance.

And that has not changed since 2001. The need has only, I think, grown ever deeper. And that's, I think, what we're looking at today as well. So, yeah, more Wiccans than Presbyterians. Edwards and the others back then, I don't think they, well, maybe some of them saw it coming.

They saw the rise of universalism and Unitarianism and things like that. Maybe they saw the danger of it. I don't know. But that's what we face today. 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

And so, we are going to start taking your phone calls. You remember that? Yes. Algo is in channels. So, remember that particular one. Let's talk with Lauren. Hi, Lauren.

Hi there, Dr. White. God bless you and Rich. My husband and I love your ministry and are very, very blessed by it. Well, thank you. Okay, sir. My question is, apologetically, with all the wackiness with marriage these days, I don't have a real good answer, or I don't have an answer at all, frankly, for anybody that would ask me, say, about a man after God's own heart, about Great King David and all of his wives, and that, you know, he was basically living in sin, because we know that one man and one woman with Adam and Eve.

How would I explain to someone, because I really don't have an answer, and I know it's a different covenant, about David living in sin with all of his wives, and maybe bring it over to the new covenant today?

Well, I don't know that I would accuse him of living in sin. God gave him those wives and those concubines. Obviously, we see with Solomon what happened as a result of that, but that doesn't change the fact that they were living in a time period where the intentions that God had given originally were not being observed within the society, and so even within the covenant community.

And so, we can recognize, especially you look at the really dark times of the judges and their coming out of that extremely dark time, it's interesting to note, for example, that the revival that takes place under Josiah, when the law is even discovered, there hasn't even been a regular reading of the law and a knowledge of the law for a great deal of time, and so there's a lot of darkness.

And so, you know, we assume that everyone was running around with their own copy of the scriptures that had been written to that particular time, but that wasn't the case, and it's plainly not the case.

And so, we can recognize the tremendous pain and difficulty that polygamy brought into David's life. You look at what happens with Absalom and all the related things like that, you can definitely see that this is not what was intended, but you can also see that earlier in the judges, you can see that later.

The reality is that what we see in the New Covenant in regards to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 19, that's the clearest revelation that has been given. And so, if someone wants to bring up David, I simply have to say, are you trying to make David the ultimate example?

You know, when people use, you know, man after God's own heart, you gotta remember Uriah and all sorts of things like that. Evidently, being a man after God's own heart means an individual who is able to repent of one's sins, not be a moral paragon of virtue.

And so, if someone were to bring up that type of thing to me, I would just basically say, well, your presuppositions are in error. We don't turn David or any of the, even any of the patriarchs, into some kind of standard for us today.

We recognize that they had a limited revelation in their day, we have a significantly higher revelation available to us today than they had in their day, and therefore, we will be judged by what light we have, they will be judged by the light that they had.

And it is a danger when people read the Bible, and as long as a story is told, they assume that that somehow communicates some, you know, it happens that apologetically, the people say, well, look at this terrible story that happens in Judges, and that must mean that this is teaching us some kind of lesson.

Well, not necessarily. Sometimes it's just simply telling us how dark and difficult times were in the past, and how God continued to work with his people in spite of all that. So, we have to be very, very careful along those lines to not allow certain presuppositions and assumptions to be made.

And so, what you see is you go, well, look at what resulted from this. You've got Uriah, you've got what happens with Solomon, you have what happens with Absalom, all of these things flow out of this living on a lower plane that we can certainly see now in hindsight, we can certainly see in light of Jesus' teaching.

But what does that have to do with us today? I mean, we have a clarity of teaching on this subject. And if you're going to make the argument that, well, Jesus didn't really teach that, then you need to go to Matthew 19, you need to go to Matthew 5, you need to go to those texts that are actually specifically relevant, and point out that there really aren't any counter arguments.

But you can't say that God, I mean, the scriptures specifically say God gave him these things as king, and they were a sign of his royal power, and so on and so forth. But they're also, especially once you get Solomon, a fulfillment of the warning, hey, you want a king?

You want to be like the nations around you? Here's what's going to happen, because this is what happens when you concentrate power in a particular individual, you're going to get those individuals who use that power in a particular way, and that's exactly what did take place.

So that's how I would respond if someone tried to raise that. It's presuppositionally a flawed argument, and once you get those presuppositions exposed, you can go from there.

That is a wonderful answer, and so clear, and you just, like, opened up my, my mind just opened up, and I was like, oh, I should have had a V8. Of course, that makes all the sense in the world.

They still, they still, they still make V8, but I'm afraid that, I'm afraid that particular commercial is dating both of us a good bit. Yeah, you bet. Who was that? Dr. White. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Have a great day. All right, God bless.

Bye-bye. I was talking to, who was I talking to? Where was I? Somewhere, I was, this past week, and I was talking to some young folks, and who was it? Oh, yes, yeah, that's right. I was talking, I was talking to a, I'll just call her Sister C, because I don't want her to get in trouble, or someone to track her down, and say, hey, don't listen to that guy told you, but I, I sat down next to a Mormon missionary at the gate with my delayed flight.

I had a lot of delayed flights. This trip was just one delayed flight after another one, and they'll have to admit, you know, with the apps that you've got on your phones, and stuff like that, it's, it's easier to deal with those things, and, you know, your app warns you, hey, your flight's been delayed, you're not gonna make a connection, you want to rebook, and you can do it all right there, you don't have to sit there on the phone calling people.

It's gotten a little bit better, but anyway. But I sit down, and right as I sit down, I realize that one seat over from me, there's an empty seat between us, is a Mormon missionary, and I'm sitting there going, okay, so there's a Mormon missionary over there, and while I'm formulating a plan, she starts the conversation.

And it was like a 90 minute talk, and it was really good, it was really nice, but at one point, I, I said, yeah, I don't want to have to do the OJ Simpson thing through the airport, and she just looked blankly at me, because she had no earthly idea who OJ Simpson was, or what he did in an airport.

And I was once again reminded of just how very old I actually am, and how some of the best illustrations just don't work anymore. They just, they, they just, they do not work anymore. Um, so yeah, there you go.

Uh, hmm, I lost a call. Um, hmm, I guess they couldn't hang on. Sorry about that. So, let's talk to, um, I guess this is, uh, Jabrail. Hello, Jabrail. Hello.

Yes, sir. Yes, so I was, uh, going through John chapter 5 with a few Jehovah's Witnesses on my college campus, witnessing them, as you have pointed out many times, that it's a text we often look over in terms of the Deity of Christ, but I was looking a little closer at verse 19, and I was wondering, how should we consider Jesus' words, whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does, in light of the distinction between their roles, so as to avoid modalism.

For instance, you know, the Son died on the cross, but the Father didn't. That's one thing that Jesus did that the Father didn't do. So how do we understand His words, these things? I'm not sure exactly what he's referring to.

Yeah. So we're looking at John chapter 5, verse 19, and once again, this is immediately after the note from John. For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He was not only loosing or breaking the Sabbath, but He was also referring to God as His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

And so, what comes afterwards is an explanation of what it is that Jesus means when He refers to God as His own Father in a specific fashion, and that this then results in His being equal with God, not to be identified as the Father, but equal with God.

And so, verse 19 is the beginning of that. Therefore, Jesus answered and was saying to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the Son is not able to do anything off healthu, that is, by Himself, separate from the Father, unless it is something He sees the Father doing for whatever that one, and most translations will put the word Father in there because it gets somewhat confusing in the English language, it's not confusing in the Greek language because the terms have case, gender, and number, for whatever that one is doing, these things also the Son does in like manner, or is doing the same things in the same way.

And so, the question is, does this in some way, how does this impact the relationship of Father and Son, evidently based upon the assumption that for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner means that there has to be some kind of an identity between the actions of the Father and the Son, whereas we recognize it's the Son who's been made flesh, it wasn't the Father who's made flesh, it's the Son who redeems, the Father decrees the redemption and acts as judge on the basis of the finished work of the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit, who then comforts people, so on and so forth.

But I think the error in that assumption is that it's Jesus' intention to, in any way, say the Father has done everything that I have done. He's talking about divine works, and He's also going to say, for example, all the words that I speak, these come from the Father.

Well, does that mean that the Father in heaven speaks to the disciples, hey, Peter, you forgot your rucksack, or something like that? No, of course not. That's not what's being referred to. What's going to be referred to all the way through John 5, especially with the use of that term homoios, is the unity that exists between the Father and the Son in accomplishing the will of God.

And so, the concern that is addressed in and following is, yes, by His language, Jesus is making Himself equal with God the Father, but that does not mean He is some renegade deity seeking worship apart from the Father.

Instead, He has been sent to accomplish what the Father sent Him to do, to say and to do and to teach. And so, the point of the unity is that Jesus is doing exactly what His Father has determined for Him, not that the Father has done everything the Son has done.

There is one divine will, and the Son is accomplishing that divine will in union with the Father, and that's what it's referring to when it says what I've seen the Father doing or what I've heard the Father saying, the words that I speak come from the Father.

There is this perfect unity between the Father and the Son so that all the Son is doing can in no way ever detract from or distract from the one proper worship of God. That does not mean that they're doing the same thing in the same way.

None of the disciples would have even thought of interpreting those words in that way because they recognize it's not the Father who's speaking to them, it's the Son who's speaking to them. And so, the Father isn't incarnate on the planet, it's not the Father who's become flesh.

And remember, John has provided us with the interpretational framework that we're supposed to be using as we read through John in the Gospel of John in the prologue. And so, we've already been told that it's the logos that took on flesh and dwelt among us, not the Father.

He's been distinguished from the Father. In John 118, the end of that interpretive grid that is given to us, no one has seen God, the Father, at any time. The unique God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

And so, no confusion is given, none of the disciples would have even thought of that interpretation, the idea that, well, that means that everything Jesus does or says is something the Father has already done or said in an incarnate state someplace.

No, but there is perfect unity and harmony between the Father and the Son in what the Son is teaching, in what the Son is doing, and this is a plan that was conceived within the Godhead before time itself began.

And so, that's going to be fleshed out more as you go along, because it says, for the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that he himself is doing, and the Father will show him greater works than these that you will marvel.

And so, there is a perfection in the revelation that the Son brings of the Father that no one else could ever give us of the Father. And the Father's love and the Father's heart, that again takes us back to John 1 .18, the closeness that exists, the one who's at the Father's side.

The Father loves the Son. These are the same themes that are being worked out once again. And so, for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he wishes.

So, when you look at the raising of Lazarus, is that Jesus acting in concert with the Father or separately from the Father? No, it's in concert with the Father. And so, that unity is what is.

Being emphasized all the way through. That definitely makes more sense, question about this text. Okay. Some people like to put Jesus' words here, specifically only referring to himself during the Incarnation, or something that could be referring to his pre-incarnate state, or how would you refer to that?

Is this something we could say this is only for Jesus, referring to Jesus himself in his incarnate state, or can we refer to him at all times, even pre-Incarnation?

That's interesting. I would that is relevant to the controversy that erupted a couple of years ago during the summer in the concept of the eternal subordination of the Son, given that this that every bit of the context here in John 5 is either revelational or is salvific, messianic.

It's all relevant to the Son in the incarnate state. It would be, I think, a danger to extract from this context of conflict with the Jews and Jesus' revelation of the Father as his own Father in a unique sense.

Extracting that back before creation, I think, could be problematic and might lead to, well, some of the things that we've seen. There's always a rationalistic bent toward forms of subordinationism. The unique relationship the divine persons hold toward one another is so outside of our human categories and so subject to our importation human categories into it that are foreign to it that I think we need to be very, very, very careful at that point as to what we extrapolate backwards.

Some orthodox teachers in the past, I think, have extrapolated a few things a little bit too far, but especially on something like this, I personally would be rather concerned about trying to take this in light of its context and read it into the eternal state without more.

Basis upon which to do so. Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful.

Okay. All righty. Thank you very much, sir. Okay. God bless. God bless. Bye-bye. All right. 877 -753 -3341. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Let's talk to Jeff, I think. Are you up in New Hampshire, Jeff?

Yes, sir. Is it cold up there yet?

It's a balmy 36 degrees right now. A couple inches of snow and ice on the ground.

Well, there you go. There you go. You might end up with a white Christmas or maybe a white.

Thanksgiving. That's possible too. Actually, I've lived in Arizona for about 18 months and in the part of Sierra Vista, I was in for the first time in like 70 years. Well, there you go. I brought it with me when I was down there, but don't worry, I took it away.

I remember... Is there a granite mountain up there? Oh, it's the Granite State. It's called the Granite State. Yeah. I just remember a trip with my family long, long ago when I was a kid up to Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, uh, drove through Massachusetts.

Oh, you might be thinking of the old man in the mountain that was on Cannon Mountain.

Yeah, that's possible. That's possible. Yeah. Yeah. I just remember this was long before GPS and I just remember that it was on that trip that my mom and my dad got into an argument in the front seat of the car as to where we were supposed to be going.

And it got heated enough that my mom said, we're supposed to be right here. And she popped her finger on the map and it went straight through. And, uh, it took out, you know, the spot we needed to see as to which term we were supposed to take.

And, and, you know, and it's just, just a reminder of, uh, how things have changed, uh, over the past, uh, I'm coming up on my, uh, on turning 56 next, uh, next month. So it's, things have changed a little bit since then, but anyways, I do remember it being a beautiful state cause I think we went up there during, uh, the, the, the changing of the leaves.

And, uh, it was, it was pretty. The best state in the union and everybody's welcome as long as.

They leave their ideas wherever they came from. Yeah, that's the problem. We unfortunately, uh, have, uh, been, uh, sucking in so many of the refugees from California that we've become an insane state ourselves.

So that's not a good thing. What can I do for, do for you? Well,.

I just, I wanted, uh, you're on the listeners to maybe, if they're thinking of a new year's resolution to look up your old, um, your old, uh, uh, write up on your hundred memory verse, uh, challenge, um, well, the way you describe how you ought to learn the verses is really great.

It's, it doesn't involve any apps, you know, so it's still good. And reading the written word and knowing where to find it is critical. And the context that you provide for a lot of the verses was immediately helpful right after I started when I had an encounter with a Jehovah's witness.

Um, we have more of those up here than we do Mormons. So I had substituted some verses in your, uh, your one, two punch of, uh, uh, Psalm 102 verses 25 through 27, uh, related to, uh, Hebrews chapter one, eight and 10, um, was immediately helpful as well as, uh, after 12 referring to Isaiah's vision, uh, and in chapter six, this lady was absolutely floored when she, you know, I didn't steamroller actually watching your interactions with, with, uh, cultists, um, has been so helpful in understanding, um, like what, what it is they believe, uh, trying to demonstrate compassion and not steamroll them or, or, uh, proof text them to death.

Um, but let them, uh, kind of, kind of get into the, into the mix, like they're helping you out. And then, and then when I asked her simple questions, like, can you please show me where Jesus is created?

Um, she, she, she was searching for the verse. She didn't have them memorized, and I did. So I had her verses memorized, and I went, are you looking for Colossians chapter one, verse 15? And then, and then I told her what it was, and then I even pointed out that her translation, the New World Translation, added the word other in there when they're talking about all things created by, uh, by Christ.

So I just wanted to encourage people to go ahead and go back to that, and if you, you know, the, your advice on that is just really helpful, and it's.

Been an excellent way to memorize verses. Yeah, yeah, there's no, no two ways about it. And actually, I think, for me anyways, uh, it is a little bit easier to memorize a text of scripture when, A, you, you know its context, and B, you, you know what it may end up, how you may end up using it.

Um, I just, I just know that in my mind, if, uh, if I know that this is information I may end up needing while on a street corner with, uh, with 10 more missionaries around me or, uh, in someone's home with Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever, um, it just, it sticks better.

It, it just, I don't know why, it just sticks better. Uh, I can still remember all sorts of dead Muslim leaders' names, but like I said, I go to Target, and I can't remember what in the world I'm supposed to get.

So, uh, it's just, it's just, you know, uh, that's how I work, and I think there are some others that, you know, have that as well. What he's referring to, of course, are the 100 verse memory systems, um, that I wrote up.