Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden? The Real Issue with TR Onlyism

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a Monday. We're doing programs on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I have a leadership thingamabobby-wobber thing. That's a very technical description of a leadership retreat this week.

So we will be doing Monday and Tuesday, as announced, at the top of the hour. I have some questions for pro-life evangelicals for Biden. I have some questions for you. A statement came out today, and I noticed that it's been signed by a number of people that automatically sort of caught my name or my attention when it was first posted.

Of course, Richard Mao immediately tells me this is way off on the left wing of the left wing. So that didn't really surprise me a whole lot. Richard Foster, okay, yeah, all right. David Black, all right.

But Samuel T. Logan, President Emeritus, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Now, I've been told that he was dismissed for having a leftward leaning even in 2005, but still, it gives you some idea.

Bryant Myers, also from Fuller Seminary. Dennis Hollinger, President Emeritus, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. So here's some of the people, and these are as pro-life evangelicals, pro-life evangelicals for Biden .com.

And I'm seeing this type of a statement more and more, and I think we need to examine it logically and be prepared to challenge it. As pro-life evangelicals, we disagree with Vice President Biden and the Democratic platform on the issue of abortion.

Let me just stop immediately. Abortion is not just an issue. It is a foundational worldview conclusion. And it is not, see, because people are not taught to think holistically, and this is come up in my debate review later on.

People today do not see how what they say in one area is actually based upon conclusions they've come to in another area. And so they allow distinctions to stand that are actually not there, and they don't practice proper recognition of categories.

Abortion is not just an issue over here. We can't take the worldview situation we face today and do the chicken coop type thing, or the, man, it's getting tough to come up with illustrations that span the age range of, because things have changed so much.

But back when I was young, when you got a job someplace normally, you would come in and there would be a mail, you'd have a mail slot. And sometimes it was just a wooden rack with little squares in it, and you'd put stuff in there.

It could be your paycheck. It could be notifications, vacation stuff. Your pink slip. Yeah, whatever. That's, ignore the man behind the glasses, just, you know. And so a lot of people treat theology that way.

That's the normal context in which I've addressed this, where you have your doctrine of God, your doctrine of the Bible, your doctrine of the Church, your doctrine of end times, and they're all just separated from one another.

And you're never supposed to touch the stuff in anybody else's box. And so these doctrines actually never touch each other either. And that's not good for Christians. What you believe about God should be absolutely foundational to what you believe about everything else.

And there should be connections between them, but not connections to where they all become the same thing. That's the other extreme. So on the one side, the people just have a totally fractured theology.

Then on the other side, you get sort of a fundamentalist mindset where every single doctrine is equally important. So your doctrine of God, for many fundamentalists, let's be honest, your doctrine of end times things is more important for many fundamentalists than your doctrine of God.

I know many a fundamentalist that could not define the doctrines of Trinity if you put a gun to their head. But they can run you through 12 different verses on a pre-tribulation rapture, right? Hopefully we all see that's not good.

But that's not having the foundations strong and then building on that foundation and recognizing there are some things that absolutely define the faith, and there are other things that do not absolutely define the faith that there have been disagreements on for a very, very long time.

Well, in a worldview situation, you're looking at the same thing. And when it comes to abortion in the situation that we look at in Western culture today, very plainly, it is the result of a worldview regarding the nature of man that is fundamentally anti-Christian.

Fundamentally anti-Christian. It denies that God is the creator. It denies that God has created man in his image and has revealed with clarity not just the issue of the humanity of the pre-born child, but sexual morality itself that brings about the creation of human life.

So that the entire sexual revolution in its entirety—and that means the questioning of gender, sexuality, marriage, everything that is associated with it—is rebellion against God. And any, quote-unquote, pro-life evangelical—if that word evangelical can have any meaning whatsoever at all any longer, and given many of the people who have signed this, it doesn't.

Because many of these people do not believe that the Bible is a clear, consistent revelation from God. The vast majority of these people do not believe that God has spoken with clarity. They do not believe that God has spoken with clarity.

So this is meant to confuse. But the point is that when you talk about the issue of abortion, you are buying into a narrative that is a fundamental lie and must be challenged from the start. It is not simply an issue.

It is the result of an entire worldview conversation. So, it's real easy to go, we disagree with Vice President Biden and the Democratic platform on the issue of abortion. No, you disagree with the Democratic platform on its entire worldview commitment.

And if you are not bright enough or honest enough to see that Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry owns the Democratic party in toto, then you're just simply not honest with the reality around you.

That's just all there is to it. This isn't, well, we can have a discussion about it. No, that's just the way that it is. You cannot be a pro-life Democrat anymore. Have you not noticed that? It's become very plain.

Continues, but we believe a biblically shaped commitment to the sanctity of human life compels us to a consistent ethic of life that affirms the sanctity of human life from beginning to end. Now, here is where the Marxist leftists, and let's just be honest where this is coming from because this is going to come out in the next paragraphs.

Once you see someone using the terms equality and turning it into a synonym for equity, you're dealing with Marxism. They can jump up and down and say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're just being, you're just being.

No. Once you will not make the worldview decision that recognizes that while all men are created equal before God, not all men are created equal in the sense of possessing the same gifts from their creator.

Everybody knows this is true. It is obvious. People just don't want to discuss it. So we've used sports illustrations in the past, but I'm not watching sports anymore. But there are certain sports that obviously I could never play.

I was not given the gifts of God to be able to do those things, to be able to perform on that level. I am not tall enough or fast enough or strong enough or whatever else it might be. And in the Christian worldview, my genetic makeup comes from the hand of God.

He has a purpose in that. I can actually look at that and go, hey, here's where I can find out what I'm supposed to do in the sight of God. And I don't even have to worry about things like playing basketball.

I've played basketball. It's fun, you know, at the local court years ago when you could still, you know, turn on a dime and stuff like that without straining everything in your hips and your knees and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

That was fun. Oh, it is already turned down. Good. All right. I was just looking at the thermostat to make sure it's cool enough to keep me from frying in here. We get all that. But the reality is there are people that have gifts to be able to do scientific inquiry, medical inquiry.

There are gifted engineers to be able to solve complicated problems, send spaceships to Mars. And, you know, we've got a rover heading for Mars right now. I think that's really exciting. I just love that kind of stuff.

You can go online and actually follow it and watch it where it is and all sorts of neat stuff like that. I don't have that capacity. And equity is saying we should all have the same. But I think someone who has the capacity to do those things should be rewarded for having that kind of capacity.

And we obviously don't have any problem with people who have, you know, I think it is upside down that we only give a certain amount of reward to people who can land a spaceship on Mars safely, but someone who can throw a round inflated ball 23 feet into a hoop consistently gets 500 times, 5 ,000 times what the guy that can land the spaceship on Mars gets.

It says a little something about our society, but that's where we are. The point is equality and equity are not the same thing. And to demand equity is to say God needs to make us all the same. And he doesn't.

Same thing with nations. Yeah, hate to tell you this, but the Bible teaches that God blesses some nations and other nations he doesn't. And history proves that that is true. Oh, but that can be abused.

Anything can be abused. All truth can be abused. Two plus two can be abused. You don't, you know, and it is being abused. You don't, you don't get rid of truths just because they can be abused. Every biblical truth has been abused at some point in the past too.

So don't even go there. So what you're hearing here is a consistent ethic of life that affirms the sanctity of human life from beginning to end. And so this, here's the category error. They will equate not suctioning a baby into pieces in the womb with providing welfare that's, which for example, has destroyed the black family since 1965.

Those are the same things now. Those are the same things now. So now being pro-life and affirming the value of the child in the womb means that you must be for big government bailouts, debts, and socialism.

They're not the same thing. They are not logically the same thing by any stretch of the imagination, but we live in a day where what's logical doesn't really matter to a lot of folks. So the next line, next section, check this out.

Many things that good political decisions could change, destroy persons created in the image of God and violate the sanctity of human life. Now please notice the elevation of political decisions. These are big government socialists that are speaking here.

And religious people can be big government socialists, whether that's consistent with biblical revelations, different issue. Poverty kills millions every year. Well poverty has existed amongst mankind from the beginning and it was a far greater killer of the past.

And in fact, it is capitalism that has fundamentally diminished the role of poverty around the world. Just, just look back over the past 500 years. Any meaningful study of the role of poverty with human mortality will demonstrate that it is capitalism that has raised the living standard of the world far more than anything else.

But this is fundamentally opposed to that, just so you know. Poverty kills millions every year. So does lack of healthcare and smoking. Okay, I detest smoking. I always have. I've always felt that it just stinks to high heaven.

But I can put that in the proper category as well. I mean, I'm old enough that when I first flew on a jet, there was a smoking section and non-smoking section. I flew before the ban on smoking. And it didn't matter where you were in the plane, as long as one person lit up, everybody got off the plane smelling like that person's cigarette.

And I didn't like that. But I can recognize where that is and in the priority list with abortion, not even close. And then of course, so does lack of healthcare. Healthcare has now become the right that everyone's supposed to have because, wow, we can do things now we can never, ever, ever, ever, ever do before.

But again, this is only the second or third generation that could have even begun to think about this. So much have things changed just in the past short period of time. When I was younger, you recognized that there were certain kinds of treatments that, well, that would be great, but that's just, that's ridiculously expensive.

And no one at the time had yet come up with the idea, well, and we should force everybody to pay for my medical treatment. That's now a universal given, now a universal given. And now it's, and then now the next comes, then everybody needs to pay for my sex change operation and, and my abortions and my education and my housing and everything else.

That's, that's, that's how governmental thievery is, is established. Racism kills. Well, I have a feeling I know what this is being, is the context it was being used in. And it's of course a lie. It's a false narrative in the United States.

Oh, racism does kill, but it's primarily black on black racism in Chicago. I didn't see the numbers for this weekend. At least last week or the weekend before, it was 80 shot, five killed. That was, that was actually an improvement because we've had as many as like 20, I think, dead in one weekend over the, over the course of the summer.

It's a war zone. That racism kills because that's, that's real racism, but it's black on black. And of course that's not actually racism anymore because it's been redefined. But the idea is that white cops are hunting black men down in the streets every single night and the facts say that's a lie.

It just isn't true. And everybody knows it isn't true, but it's politically expedient to use it right now to, to disrupt and destroy the constitution of the United States. Racism kills. It does in Africa.

It does big time in Africa. And it does in many other nations like in, in Asia where there is racism between various tribes and things like that. Yes. Racism does kill in those contexts, but that's not the context in which this is being used because now those people are voting for Joe Biden.

Well, they might be, I'll take that back. I, I, I personally believe that, that, that the election in November of this year, which we won't know about until December of this year will be the most corrupt in American history.

I do believe that. Um, I, I, I honestly have accepted that, that narrative. I think there's strong evidence for it. So, but they're not, they're not in, they're not a part of the audience for this statement.

Unless we quickly make major, major changes, devastating climate change will kill tens of millions. That is another fraud, but hey, it sells. And it has been repeated so many times that especially young people just accept it as, as the, as the assured results of science when it is not by any stretch of the imagination, any stretch of the imagination, but it's the narrative in media.

And so you just believe it. So now you're getting an idea of where these quote, unquote, quote, unquote, pro-life evangelicals are coming from. Poverty, lack of accessible healthcare services, smoking, racism, and climate change are all pro-life issues.

There's where these people are really going. This is a dilution of the very strong movement that has been growing for a long time for the abolition of abortion. This is how you dilute it by trying to channel that energy, which has really come about by our increasing knowledge of the humanity of the pre-born and by the sonogram.

The, the, the ability now, almost everybody now gets to have a 3D full color picture of the child in the womb before they're born. I think that's awesome. It's wonderful. But the fact is, if you can look at a 3D picture of the baby's face in the womb, and then the baby's face two days after being born, and it's the same face, the continuity of human life is thereby established.

And that has changed everything. As long as the womb was a dark, mysterious, unknown place, then you could hide these realities. You can't do it anymore. And so now they're trying to channel that power into their Marxist socialism to try to change how society functions.

None of this, of course, is based upon scriptural categories, though I am well aware of the fact that all these people will abuse the scriptures to try to create connections. We have been seeing that for years now, especially since 2018, where the switch was flipped and it's full speed ahead.

And so we're getting it from TGC and ERLC. We get all the really, really, really bad, tangential, horrible, isogetical argumentations from leading names and people to try to connect these things together.

But the idea is to divert the power of the pro-life movement from the central sacrament of the Democratic Party, which is abortion, into promoting the idea of Marxism, socialism, and the utopian socialist state, which is also known as communism.

So there you go. As the National Association of Evangelicals official public policy document for the Health of Nation insists, quote, faithful evangelical civic engagement witness must champion a biblically balanced agenda, end quote.

Therefore, we oppose, quote, one issue, end quote, political thinking because it lacks biblical balance. Well, this politically motivated, deceptive, evil statement—and I hope you got my idea as to exactly where I come down on this—we need to be able to see through this.

This takes the same type of level of discernment that it takes to see through when ecumenical statements are made that attempt to deceive people as to the religious beliefs of various groups. This is how you can recognize when Mormonism is trying to enslave you while claiming to be the one true church and all the rest of this type of stuff.

Therefore, we oppose one issue, political thinking, even though they're the ones that made the mistake of calling abortion the one issue. It is they who are not seeing the connections. It is they who are bringing in the anti-biblical, anti-Christian presuppositions and saying, it's fine for you to go ahead and go this way.

There is a full court press right now on the part of people who used to be regular stalwarts at Reformed biblical preaching conferences to convince you that you can go ahead and bury that voice in your conscience that's saying, but these are the people that are putting puberty-blocking hormones in eight-year-olds.

These are the people that their worldview promotes polyamory and bisexualism and homosexuality and the profaning of marriage and the murder of unborn children. But because they want to balloon the national debt even farther into the stratosphere in the name of equity to give people money, I can go ahead and vote for them and feel like I'm doing what Jesus would have done.

That is a full court press from people that 10 years ago I would have said, no, they would never do that. Oh, but they are. But they are. And it's being highly effective. Let's just be honest, being highly effective.

I am seeing Christians in my feeds that are actually going, well, what really is wrong with socialism? I mean, didn't Jesus say some like socialist things? And you're just like, I mean, it really makes me go, this is a deception that can only be explained by judgment on a nation, especially when you have Christians falling for it going, oh, okay, yeah, all right.

So just the next paragraph real quick. Knowing that the most common reason women give for abortion is the financial difficulty of another child. How about adultery? How about fornication? How about unfettered sexual license?

How about that? It seems like these folks have the idea that, well, that's just going to happen. There's just the way it is. Nothing you can do about it. And so we've just got to do the best we can in light of what's actually going to happen.

Um, we appreciate a number of democratic proposals that would significantly alleviate the financial burden. In other words, steal from you, your children and your grandchildren, and give it to people who engage in illicit sexual behavior.

That's what these evangelicals are saying. Accessible health services for all citizens, abortion, affordable childcare, and a minimum wage that lifts workers out of poverty, as if that can ever work. All of history shows they always run out of money.

I would just simply suggest that everyone who signs this statement, if they're going to be consistent, then sell your property and move to Venezuela where this is already being done. Move to a place that's consistent.

See how it's working. See how it's working. That's the way to do it, right? They won't do it. They won't do it. Just, it is an astonishing day. It is an astonishing day that we live in. There is absolutely no...

Wow. Anyway, a few questions for the alleged pro-life evangelicals. Shift gears completely here. I hope some of you had the opportunity. If you haven't yet, I hope you will take the time. We haven't linked to them yet, have we?

We need to get the debates into our YouTube page. We've got full permission to do with them as we wish, so you can either just link over to theirs or grab them and upload them or whatever you want to do.

Well, make sure to grab a copy though. Make sure we've got an archive copy in something that we hide in an EMP-proof box somewhere. Really hate to lose all that stuff. Oh, but I do. I've got my backups inside those.

I'll give you some of those bags, put in a lead-lined box, and yeah, we may not have a computer to restore it on, but we'll have the data someplace. Anyway, right next to your tinfoil hat, that's perfectly fine.

Over the weekend, Friday night, Saturday morning, we did technically two debates. I'm going to call it one debate because it was one debate. It was even advertised as part one, part two of a critical text versus TR-only position, but we did two debates.

They lasted at around two hours, I think, maybe a little less than two hours each between myself and Dr. Jeffrey Riddle. He had insisted that the longer ending of Mark be included. I disputed that for a simple reason.

It's not a TR-only passage. If we're going to be debating the unique claims of the Texas Receptus-only position, and remember, these folks have said that I am not confessional because if you use anything other than the TR, then you can't really be a Reformed Baptist.

I'd like to point out that the vast majority of Reformed Baptists don't believe that, but that's their position. And so, from my perspective, if you're going to have a debate, and I've explained this before, but it really seems to me, I listened, Dr. Stephen Boyce did a thing with Jonathan Sheffield on the same YouTube channel, reviewing the debates on Saturday evening, and I appreciate it.

I'm going to have Stephen on with me. He and I did a couple hours on the errors in the TR, I don't know, a month or so ago, or something like that. He's younger than my youngest child, and so the next generation that's going to be fighting this battle long after us old folks have already moved on to eternity itself.

But he was on, and I could simply tell by some of the comments that Sam made, the host, and certainly, I'm sorry, but Jonathan has never, ever accurately represented me. Not once, not that I know of. And I just don't think he's capable of doing it.

What's fascinating is he's going to be debating Bart Ehrman on the same YouTube channel. That's one I'm looking forward to listening to because I know what's going to happen. Just as I am constantly misrepresented, so will Ehrman, and Ehrman will not put up with it.

Now, he'll stay there because he's getting paid to do it, but you're just going to be able to hear in Ehrman's voice this, but that's not how you do it. Because his perspective is this Anglican apostolic church thing.

Remember, he's the guy that does all the comic videos with me and Dan Wallace and Bart Ehrman, as if we believe the same thing, because I think he thinks we do. And he was misrepresenting me and saying I just get rid of all the Byzantine manuscripts.

Just it was very, very clear from what he said and some of the things that Sam said that my whole intention and my whole purpose in doing these debates didn't seem to be clearly communicated. And I don't know if it's just I'm just a horrible communicator or if this whole field is just so unusual to people that they struggle with it.

By the way, before I continue the review, I have invited Nathan Beatty. Nathan B-E-A-T-T-Y. Nathan is a Christian, a Reformed Christian on Facebook. I have invited Nathan Beatty to join me on the program today.

Open invitation only to him. Nobody else. Don't bother calling today. We're not taking other calls. The number is 877 -753 -3341 for Nathan Beatty. Why? Because he posted on Facebook, James White argues like an atheist.

And this is in reference to the debates that were done this weekend. So I would like to invite him to explain to my audience how those debates means that I'm arguing like an atheist. Since 99 .5 of Reformed scholars argue as I do, then evidently 99 .5 of Reformed scholarship is arguing like atheists as well.

And certainly the things that I have seen, and I haven't even, I mean, if I had wanted to immerse myself in vitriolic hatred, I could have done so over the past 24 or 36 hours, uh, because the types of comments that were coming, uh, from TR only type folks, just absolutely amazing.

For example, when I posted my invitation to Nathan Beatty. Now remember, I didn't, I don't know who Nathan Beatty is. Okay. To my knowledge, I've never met him. Apple cider vinegar again. That'll clear your sinuses.

What? Nope. Nope. Well, there's, uh, there's club soda and stir stevia flavored, uh, stuff and ice. That's it. That's, that's, that's all there is to it. Anyway, it wakes you up in the morning. Um, I invited Nathan Beatty, who I do not know, onto my own program, to my own audience to explain why he thinks I argue like an atheist.

Now I can tell you, if he doesn't call, I'll tell you exactly what he would have said. I know. I listen to the other side. The other side doesn't listen to me, but I listen to the other side. Oh, I, oh, they'll tune in, but they won't do so with a desire to understand.

And I've been dealing with people who are willing to trade truth for certainty since the 1980s on this subject, since the 1980s. Uh, I started studying King James only ism about 1984. So I'm coming up on 40 years of this now.

Okay. So I get it. I, I do understand it. And I can, I can distinguish between the different groups and different flavors, but I see what is common, what's commonly driving this kind of thing. And so I can tell you what he's going to say, but I give him the opportunity to express it himself.

Okay. So I post that and right afterwards, a guy named George Lacey responds and says, what a sad man to have to stir up controversy to make a living. At this point, I'm not only embarrassed for him, but also for his sycophants.

This is, this is the, this is the TR only mindset. And it seems to be pretty nigh unto universal. It just seems to create this kind of attitude. So you've got a guy who makes an accusation against a minister of the gospel, who has defended the faith against atheists multiple times in public settings.

And he says, I argue like an atheist. That's not divisive because that's in the service of TR only ism. But if I dare say, would you like to call in and explain that? You sad little man making a living off of stirring up controversy.

Hypocrisy is astonishing. It's just, it's like, wow, does that not make you like wobble when you walk? It's just so bad. Anyway. And then Shane Dodson, and I know that I've had conversations with Shane Dodson in the past, but, but he posts a, a meme that says that's bait.

So I'm not sure if Shane's into the TR only stuff or not. Right. Yeah. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. Yeah. Yeah. But, and, and they're all, they're all wondering how I know about this. Cause this is in a Facebook group that I'm not a part of.

Well, and I was like, he must have an alias. No, I do not have time for that. Sorry. But yeah, I do have friends in there. And when I see people behaving like children, they, they let me know that people are behaving like children.

So anyways, Nathan, 877 -753 -3341. And hopefully I'll remember before we wrap up that if you don't call, I'll go ahead and explain to people what you would have said if you had called, because I know what you would say if you're going to call.

And we'll respond to it, respond to it then. As I was saying, it just seems that my intentions were not clearly expressed, though I thought I had clearly expressed them. As I said, Dr. Riddle insisted on dealing with a, on dealing with a text that is not a TR only text.

So there are many different kinds of people who could have many different kinds of textual critical theories who would defend the long writing of Mark. The long writing of Mark is quite defensible. It's ancient.

Of all of the major variants in the New Testament, it's the most defensible. And so I said, well, why, why deal with something like that when that doesn't mark TR onlyism off? Because there are other perspectives that do not have the unique theological claims of the TR only movement that likewise defend the long writing of Mark.

So let's, let's deal with things that would actually define the position. Well, he wouldn't do it. So I'm like, okay, fine. I can talk about what the issues are. We can present the case. You know, I, I mentioned the perspectives on the endings of Mark book that came out a number of years ago.

It would give you a good idea of, you know, two different sides, but even different emphases within those sides and things like that. James Knapp has a book on the subject. You can, you can look at all that stuff.

And as Erasmus said over and over again, make up your own mind, but it would allow me to say, I want to know what the apostles wrote and to point out as I did that the fundamental reason, and I quoted Dr. Riddle, Dr. Riddle specifically stated that Mark 16, nine through 20 is out of pistols.

It is self-authenticating as a pericope, as a 12 verse block of texts. It is as self-authenticating as the eighth chapter of Romans is. Think about that. Think about that because this is where Dr. Riddle starts.

This is the Texas receptus. This is Scrivener's edition. This is a Greek text based upon the choices of an English translation. The King James version of the Bible, which was based upon a number of printed texts, primarily, obviously from Erasmus, Stephanus and Beza, which were based upon a very small number of manuscripts in comparison to the manuscripts that we have today representing only a certain portion of even the Byzantine manuscript tradition.

But this is the autographs. This is what the apostles wrote. Been kept pure in every age. Doesn't mean it can be found in every age from their perspective, but they believe it's been kept pure in every age and this is what the apostles wrote.

And by asking Dr. Riddle to defend Ephesians 3, 9, where this stands alone. It stands alone. In fact, let me, they frequently want to make reference to this. Uh, but let me, let me show you something here.

Uh, do you, do you have this? Uh, oops. Great. Well, when I went full screen, sorry, hold on a second. When I went full screen, uh, everything went bye-bye. There it is. That's the best I'm gonna be able to do because when I go full screen, it messes everything else up and I don't have anything up here to see if you've got it anyways.

So, um, you'll have to let me know once you've got it. Uh, okay. There's the small version of it. And there you go. And right here is, uh, Kai Photisi to bring to light, uh, uh, Pontos. Believe it or not, that's Pontos.

Very different kind of font than we're used to. Tis he oikonomia tu musterio, to bring to light all that of what is the oikonomia, the dispensation, the plan of the mystery. Okay. What is this? This is the Completentian Polyglot.

Now, the Completentian Polyglot was actually printed before Erasmus' first edition, but it didn't come out until afterwards because as we all know, back then you had to get papal approval for everything.

So it was sitting in boxes, in crates, in a storage house. Wonderfully beautiful volumes, uh, you know, a real magnificent amount of work. But what does it say? The oikonomia. Why? Because that's what 99 .998 of all manuscripts of Ephesians 3 and 9 have always said.

Have always said. And so this text allows us to focus in on an error in the TR and see if people will be willing to recognize that this isn't the autograph. This is the result of Erasmus analyzing a small number of manuscripts, of Stephanus adding a few more in, of Beza adding a few more in, and he actually thinking that one that he added in, he didn't realize Stephanus had it.

And so that was an error. But this is the result of a human process. Not for TR-onius, because this is the result of a human process. This is the Tyndale House Greek New Testament. This is my, this is the first Greek New Testament I've ever had leather bound.

I went into hock for this. I was making so little when this was made. This, you know how old this is, Rich? Not only does it have those, my foil thingies in it that I used in high school. But this is so old that the phone number in the front has no area code on it.

Because all of Arizona had one area code. So you didn't need it. Yeah, there was a day, folks, when phone numbers were only seven digits long. That's how old this thing is. UBS third edition, non-corrected.

It hadn't even come out the corrected edition. Whether you have the Nessie Olin down there, whatever it is, they are human derived texts. And that's all we have. And that's where the issue is. They want to say, nope, nope, nope, nope.

That makes you an atheist. No, that makes me a Christian. Because every generation of Christians from the start has had to deal with the issue of the fact that God's word has been transmitted to us in a particular fashion.

And did you notice, if you listen to the debate, Dr. Riddle never touched something I brought up in both parts of the debate. And that is the New Testament authors, quote, textual variants from the Greek Septuagint that vary from the Hebrew Masoretic text in their writings.

Deal with it. They can't. They can't. Because theirs is an anachronistic. It's backwards. It's taking this and looking through it back into history. And so when you look through this, you have a certain set of arguments for the long Graning of Mark.

Because it's in here. So you have to have arguments. And then you turn it over to the Comma Johannium in 1 John 5, 7. Different set of arguments. You'll still use them. You turn it over to the Percopaea Adultery.

It's in here. Different set of arguments. Why? Because the evidence is different for each one. And Ephesians 3, 9. Completely different set of evidence than you have for any of the others. And so once this becomes the lens through which you're looking, there is no way to question this.

There is no way then to defend this because it is your beginning presupposition. And the scary thing was, Dr. Riddle actually went so far as to identify that presupposition of this as the autograph with the presuppositional nature of the existence of the Triune God as the foundation of all human knowledge.

And that is a category error that's fatal to all of apologetics. Fatal. From a presuppositional perspective, if you can't tell a difference between the foundational necessity of the Triune God to make all facts facts and understandable and the specific printed edition of the Greek New Testament, then you're not a presuppositionalist.

And you don't understand presuppositionalism at all. At all. That was what was... I immediately, thankfully, and often in debates you don't get to do this. Sometimes if the person makes a statement and you don't have an opportunity to respond later on, it just hangs there.

But in this instance, I had the opportunity to go, whoa, wait a minute, we just heard Dr. Riddle equivocate between this assertion and the very centrality of the Triune God as the foundation of all human knowledge.

Wow. That's amazing. So, the whole point is, in the first half of the debate, I was more than content to say, hey, this is a very ancient reading, has really good foundational evidence to it, and it's found in some of the earlier translations, and it's found in early patristic sources, and that's exactly right.