Can Christians Eat Bacon?

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00:00

Are Christians hypocrites because they don't obey all of the laws of the Old Testament? That's what we're going to talk about today on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now.

00:28

And welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:30

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist, and I am welcoming tonight the CWAC regulars, the one and only Jake Corn, the Inquisitor, the Tag King is here with us, and of course, the TechRomancer, also known as the not-yet-Calvinist Matthew Henson is here.

00:51

Gentlemen, welcome to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:55

Honored to be here.

00:56

Thanks for having me.

00:58

Yes, sir.

00:59

Absolutely.

01:00

And I've been missing you guys.

01:00

Assuming we haven't all frozen solid.

01:02

Yeah.

01:03

It's been several weeks since we've been together, and on our last program that we did, at least I think it was the last one that we did, we talked about misconceptions about the Bible, and we called it Misconceptions About the Bible Part One, but we never did quite get around to doing a Part Two.

01:20

So tonight, we're calling the show More Misconceptions About the Bible.

01:24

We're going to continue to answer questions that were given to us on Facebook.

01:28

Jake has the tag groups that he is the king of, and he has been putting together some questions for us.

01:36

One of the most important questions tonight we're going to be dealing with is the question that came up most, and that's the question of how do we understand the application of Old Testament law within the New Testament context.

01:49

So that's what we're going to be focusing on when we get to that point, but we do have some other things that we're going to be addressing tonight.

01:56

And first things first, we are going to be doing our giveaway.

02:00

If you watched last week's show, I had Uncle Rich on the program with me, and Uncle Rich and I made the promise that if you went to Conversations with a Calvinist YouTube page, and you left a comment, and in that comment, you put your favorite Christmas movie, then we would take your name, put it in a randomizer, and we would draw a name.

02:24

Well, tonight, my friend and the tech romancer Matthew Henson has produced a list and has placed them in a randomizer, and just so everyone sees what we have here, this is a brand new MacArthur Study Bible in the New American Standard Bible version.

02:42

I looked at it.

02:43

I didn't even realize it had a price tag still on it, $84.99, and we're going to ship it to you absolutely free.

02:52

This was donated to us by the Artizzoni family at Sovereign Grace Family Church, so shout out to Adam and Sharon for making this donation, and I'm sure that the person who receives it will be very grateful.

03:05

So tonight, we are going to make the announcement as I allow Matthew to take over as the lottery.

03:14

We've watched the lottery.

03:15

Usually, there's a young lady who goes and lets the balls fall, and she does it, so tonight, you're the young lady.

03:22

Yeah, I get to be Vanna, I guess.

03:24

Like, here is our number for tonight, and you know.

03:27

All right, so here's how we're going to decide.

03:29

We've assigned every name a number, and the numbers are going to be on this particular random generator, and as soon as I tell Matthew to hit the randomizer, he's going to randomize it, and the number that comes up will be assigned with a name, and we'll know who the winner is.

03:43

All right, Matthew, are you ready? I am.

03:45

I will stop clicking the button repeatedly, and the next one that is drawn will be the winner.

03:49

All right, you're going to be Vanna White for us right now.

03:52

You're going to be pulling the winner.

03:53

Yeah, I want to be clear to the listeners.

03:56

I am not wearing a dress at this time.

03:57

All right.

03:58

All right, so here we go.

04:00

Our winner is three, two, one, number 15.

04:05

Number 15.

04:06

Let me go to my handy-dandy Excel sheet.

04:08

15 is user-rd, a bunch of random characters, but they did comment.

04:21

And that's okay.

04:22

Every year, I must watch Elf.

04:24

That's my number one.

04:25

Great answer.

04:27

Every year, I must watch Elf.

04:28

Well, the person who must watch Elf is the winner of the John MacArthur New American Standard Bible.

04:33

As I said earlier, this Bible has a price tag of $84.99.

04:38

You're going to receive it absolutely free.

04:41

Shipping will be free.

04:42

I just need you to send me your home address so that I can send it to you, and I ask that you please send me back a picture of you with the Bible once you receive it.

04:52

So user-rd, whatever the numbers are, I'll figure it out after the show.

04:57

I will send you a message through YouTube.

04:59

You will know that you're the winner.

05:01

You will receive this brand new John MacArthur Study Bible.

05:04

So thank you, Matthew, for putting that together for us.

05:06

And we are now going to move on to another section, a new section of the program.

05:13

And this section is called Craziest Things This Week.

05:20

Craziest Things This Week is a new segment on the program.

05:24

Every week I'm going to start pulling in something that I have seen because I see crazy things every week and I always feel like I want to share them.

05:30

Well, now I'm going to have the opportunity to share them with the world.

05:34

And since I have the illustrious CWAC crew with me tonight of Jake Korn and Matthew Henson, I'm going to have you guys respond to this video.

05:45

Now, you have no idea what it is, right? I don't.

05:49

I have suspicions, but I don't know.

05:50

Have suspicions.

05:52

OK.

05:52

All right.

05:52

I'm not going to I'm not I'm not even going to ask because I don't want you to guess it.

05:56

I'm going to play this clip.

05:58

This clip is one minute and twenty five seconds long.

06:01

You guys are going to get to watch this clip.

06:04

And then I want you both to give me your responses.

06:08

All right.

06:08

Are we ready? Yes, sir.

06:11

And here we go.

06:13

So when you understand that you'll understand the book of Isaiah chapter nine.

06:19

I want to read verse six for unto us.

06:23

Isaiah nine, verse six, for unto us a child is born unto us, a son is given.

06:31

And the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.

06:42

Yet the book of Ephesians chapter five, verse one says, Be you therefore imitators of God as dear children.

06:50

So when I look at Isaiah nine, six, where is the government now? It's on us.

06:59

The government of the world is on mankind.

07:02

And because we're made in God's image and in God's likeness, you can call us wonderful counselor, mighty God, Christ in us, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.

07:19

That's what it means to be the gift that Jesus gave to you.

07:24

So when you are a gift of God, it gives you the ability to act like God.

07:30

People get irritated when we act like God, but if we don't, then we're acting like somebody else.

07:38

All right, guys.

07:40

What's great about this is I can see your faces.

07:44

The people in the audience can't, they can just see the video, but I can see behind the scenes and I can see Jake's face.

07:51

Jake just, my face does not have an inside voice at all.

07:57

I was just trying to restrain myself.

07:59

All right.

08:00

So let me ask this.

08:01

Had you guys seen this video? Yeah, man, I'm an internet denizen.

08:06

Of course I seen that nonsense.

08:08

Oh, I had not.

08:09

I had not.

08:10

I had seen a still image of Jesse Duplantis wearing a bow that should be in a Lexus commercial on his shoulder.

08:19

I was going to say he was a championship horse, but your joke was better.

08:23

Thank you for that.

08:24

I need a mid-30s suburban white couple to be running out onto their front porch in the snow with no shoes on to receive their free Lexus or something.

08:35

I saw that still and all I saw were comments on it about what a terrible, anyway, but I had not seen the clip.

08:42

No, this is precisely what we should come to expect from Jesse Duplantis.

08:46

Right.

08:46

So, so it's not a surprise that he would espouse this rank heresy, this, this little God theology nonsense.

08:55

That's not the surprise.

08:57

What's the surprise is just like good people are sharing this.

09:01

That's the surprise.

09:02

Yeah.

09:04

I have a one of my tag groups that doesn't get a lot of action and I'm fine with that is you know, you'll have to answer for this on judgment day, right? I tell you, man, like seriously, this is the magic shell game of wordplay that amateurs do to create whatever they want.

09:23

And, and Jesse Duplantis is a professional charlatan, but he is an amateur theologian you know, no skill whatsoever in exegesis.

09:32

And so to create the most tentative thin string from, from thought to thought in the Bible and then make whatever you want out of it is something that's just so common in the charismatic world because you just speak with authority and you say, well, this equals that.

09:54

And your whole audience will go, well, that man has authority.

09:56

And he says, this equals that.

09:58

And it doesn't matter how much you spend time saying, well, if you consider, right, we have to do Tota Scriptura as well as Sola Scriptura.

10:06

When you consider all of these other aspects, there are some limiting factors to that phrase.

10:14

Imitate God, surely.

10:16

But are there some limiting factors? Let's start with the big one.

10:19

Create ex nihilo.

10:20

Start there.

10:22

Oh no, you can't? Well, then there must be some limitations somewhere, right? Someday when you get your own universe, you get to set the rules.

10:31

But right now, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, right? If, if angels will refuse worship, we should probably consider that.

10:40

But, but, but that doesn't matter, right? Because what I've noticed in the charismatic world, and I grew up in the charismatic world, right? I still have families, family members who are members of, you know, big famous, mostly heretical charismatic churches.

10:56

Like, what they do is they put this lens of, of positivity over their eyes when they see all the possibilities of what the scripture must mean.

11:06

And, and what they don't allow is any of the limiting factors, the negativity to pierce that, oh, well, this could mean that, and this could mean that.

11:13

And that's how you get stuff like, oh, by his stripes we are healed.

11:16

That must mean I never have to be sick.

11:18

And so when you come in as the, as the, you know, reasonable exegete to say, you know, by his stripes we are healed.

11:26

If you look at that and you look at its context, you look at what it means, you're now a naysayer, right? And, and, and I'm sorry, I'm going on a rabbit hole, but it's because of this that folks in that camp will say, oh, seminary, you should call it cemetery.

11:40

Cause that's where faith goes to die.

11:42

Because you're just saying all these negative things based off of your knowledge.

11:46

And it's like, yeah, yeah, bro.

11:49

Words mean things.

11:49

And that's being an imitator of God is, does not mean that clearly.

11:54

Yeah.

11:55

But he knows, Jesse DePlantis knows.

11:57

Oh yeah.

11:57

He's a scam artist.

11:59

He absolutely.

12:00

And there's something it's interesting that you said, we can't, we can't create ex nihilo.

12:06

I don't have you, have you heard recently one of the arguments that's coming out of the camp.

12:12

And this is a Calvinist thing, but the, the, the new provisionist argument that I heard recently was that we actually do produce thought ex nihilo that our thoughts that, that we, we don't have a predisposition to evil thoughts or anything like that, but our thoughts come out of nothing essentially.

12:31

And there is, it's, it's almost a denial of the sin nature.

12:38

And it I'd have to dig a little more to explain exactly what the argument they're making is, but they are tying the human will to the idea of ex nihilo.

12:50

And it's it's, it's when, when, when you're willing to go as far as you can to deny something.

12:56

And I love what Matthew said a couple of weeks ago, when you said Leighton Flowers has never heard an argument against Calvinism that Right.

13:05

And that's, yeah.

13:06

The sign of a, I'm sorry, Matthew, go ahead.

13:09

Well, I was going to say this, the sign of someone who is sober minded and mature and fair and effective is that they reject bad arguments that help them.

13:18

Absolutely right.

13:19

If you see a bad argument that is in favor of a position that you like, and you don't reject that bad argument, then, then it is corrosive to the, your ability to continue to be consistent.

13:33

And in the future to make good arguments yourself, that people are going to accept.

13:36

Absolutely right.

13:37

A great example of that is the Kama Yohaniam, right? I would love the Kama Yohaniam to be in my Bible.

13:42

I would love that, right? It's so beautiful, but sorry, it's just not.

13:47

The provision to just kind of put a bow on the provisionist thing.

13:49

It's because they're so allergic to this concept of, oh, well, Calvinism means that God is the author of sin.

13:57

They're so allergic to that, that they'll go anywhere to just show, we won't say that.

14:03

And it's like, well, one, the author of sin is not a biblical category.

14:07

Like I don't know what that category is.

14:09

That's not a biblical phrase that means anything to me.

14:11

I do know this.

14:12

John says, all things came into being through him and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being, period.

14:21

So whatever that means, either through secondary causation or God absolutely decreeing your sin nature, which that's fine.

14:31

Reasonable people can have disagreement about that.

14:34

Nonetheless, all things were created through him.

14:38

Sorry.

14:41

Charismatic, man.

14:43

They anger me more than Arminians.

14:45

They anger me more than dispensationalists.

14:49

The charismatic, I know it's like a personal trigger for me, dog, but it's funny because it often is, if you're speaking to a charismatic, you're often speaking to a Arminian and often a dispensationalist.

15:05

So, and not always, I mean, there are charismatic people who recall themselves reformed and that, but I'm just saying, it's funny when you get one, you tend to get.

15:16

I was at the gym today and I was just, the specific elliptical I wanted was in front of a TV displaying the 700 club and for an hour, man, I'm just staring up, just seething.

15:31

That's that Keanu Reeves meme where he's like buried up to his neck and the phone's like right in front of him and he's like, ah, I have to watch whatever it is.

15:39

And so it was like, it was like question and answer time.

15:41

And one of the questions someone wrote in and asked, is the Bible the main way that we hear from God? And the dude, I don't remember who it was, answered, well, it's one of the ways.

15:53

And the Bible helps us to confirm what the spirit is telling us.

15:56

It's like, bro, we're not even in the same religion, man.

16:00

Dude, that's, that is straight up.

16:01

So I had a intro level, 100 Gen Ed religion class in college that I didn't really understand the category of liberal theology when I was 18 years old.

16:11

Like I just hadn't really been exposed to that.

16:14

And I still remember, and this person was way off to the left that was teaching this class.

16:19

And again, it's intro to Christian theology, but there, we were reading like, you know, Irmin and Tillich and a couple of like your German liberals and, um, uh, Boltman and stuff like that, that I, I didn't realize, okay, these guys are not great.

16:34

But anyway, so I was reading that and like one of the intro lines in there says, without a doubt, the Bible holds a special place in the heart of Christians.

16:43

And some, just that phrase right there, just something.

16:46

And since we're talking about misconceptions about the Bible, that right there struck me because I was like, this is missing the necessary scaffolding around it to, to, yes, that is true.

16:58

But, but it is more than a special place in the heart of Christians.

17:02

It talks about it like it's, you know, our favorite book among several.

17:05

And I just, even that phrase right there, just, I never, I never felt right with it.

17:11

Absolutely.

17:12

And, and man, this is a doorway straight into being a Latter-day Saint, right? Like for them, that is the open door that they're looking for, which is to say, well, yeah, I mean, of course God is still revealing stuff to us.

17:23

And in fact, check out what else he revealed.

17:26

Don't worry about archeology and don't worry about your Bible.

17:28

None of those matter.

17:29

What matters is this living prophet.

17:31

Jesus came to America, baby.

17:33

He met.

17:33

Did y'all hear the Dallas, the, the, the, the thing, what's the guy's name from? Dallas Jenkins.

17:40

Yeah.

17:40

The Dallas Jenkins things where he, he posted on Facebook, something about Jesus winking at Joseph Smith from the cross.

17:48

Did y'all see that? I saw that.

17:50

And I saw that while I was busy.

17:52

So I was like, I want to, I want to Google this kind of Snopes this because that seems too far.

17:59

Just on the nose.

18:00

Yeah.

18:00

That seems too on the nose.

18:02

I think he was joking.

18:03

I honestly, I think he was just, I think he's, I think he's trying to steer into the, into the, uh, you know, everybody's saying this about me.

18:13

So I'm going to, I'm going to make this joke, but man, now people are just piling on.

18:18

People have, have cut and pasted that, that whether it was a tweet or Facebook posts, I forget, but they have cut and pasted it all over.

18:27

This isn't, this isn't the content of this show, but I will say on the chosen, like, you know, whether or not we should have that show or whether or not we should watch that show, I have an opinion, but what I will say is I don't feel bad for Dallas Jenkins for all the stuff he gets at this point.

18:41

I don't either.

18:41

You decided to join on this venture with your Jesus fanfic and I mean, okay, good for you.

18:49

You get what's coming to you with, with, with both the trolls on the internet and also the reasonable Christian scrutiny saying, is this wise? Should we do that? You, you open the door for all that bro.

19:01

And you get it because whether you like it or not, right, I'm sorry, I'm on another soapbox.

19:05

He's not an entertainer.

19:07

He is a teacher now.

19:08

He is a teacher.

19:09

He is saying, I am a teacher.

19:11

You can say it's fictional, all you want, but you are teaching people about Christ.

19:16

So good luck.

19:16

Yeah.

19:17

I will face judgment for, for what I teach.

19:19

And so will you, my mans.

19:21

Absolutely.

19:22

And Hey, you know what? This is a, this show is all about being on the soapbox.

19:26

So enjoy.

19:27

That's why, that's why I had so many thoughts in my head and it's been too many weeks now.

19:30

So now they're all just kind of coming out and just like my beard hair.

19:34

Yeah.

19:34

Hey, I'm so proud of you.

19:36

Like I said, and I do want to mention real quick for those who, uh, who, who might have the opportunity.

19:41

Uh, I was on a, another podcast this, this week, I was invited onto Claude Ramsey show.

19:48

He is the happy Calvinist, uh, the here I stand theology podcast.

19:52

And he mentioned, yes, the happy cow.

19:56

Yes.

19:57

I'm, I'm your Calvinist.

19:59

He's the Calvinist.

20:00

And he is such a lovey Claude.

20:02

I just had to throw that one in there.

20:04

He is such a sweet brother.

20:05

He is such a kind hearted soul.

20:07

He's so encouraging.

20:09

I mean, he just has that gift of encouragement, but he, he talked about you guys.

20:13

And, uh, we talked about your, you know, being on the show and he was asking me questions about you guys.

20:18

And we talked about arm wrestling, which you'll hear about if you do listen to the show, but, uh, just, just, it's, it's, people are interested to hear what you guys have to say.

20:28

I just want you to know that people have, you know, people that, you know, you know, mentioned things about you and, and, and, and, and also uncle rich.

20:35

And one day we'll have uncle, we'll have all four of us one day on the show.

20:38

Unfortunately, his internet is not really good.

20:41

He moved.

20:42

I live in the sticks.

20:43

He moved further into the sticks.

20:45

And so his, his internet is really not good enough to, uh, to join us like this, but maybe one day he can come sit with me in studio and the four of us can, can have a, have a powwow, uh, together.

20:56

Claude is now a member of just say, yeah, there you go.

20:59

He's joined us over there.

21:00

So I will say Claude, you know, if you want to hear what I have to say, you can invite me on your podcast too.

21:05

I'm just, yeah, that's the thing you can do.

21:08

You know, I'm available to say, yeah, absolutely.

21:13

And, uh, and since I did mention uncle rich, I am going to throw this out there just to, if nobody's ever heard this, this is uncle rich doing his impression of Phoebe from friends.

21:20

All right.

21:22

He's going to be very happy that I threw that.

21:24

I love that.

21:24

That's on a hot button.

21:26

That's going to be, yeah, that's going to be a new thing that anytime something crazy happens, it's just going to be speaking of charismatic.

21:33

Yeah, that's it right there.

21:35

That wasn't speaking in tongues.

21:37

I promise that, that is a, that's Phoebe from friends.

21:41

All right.

21:42

That's angels tongues.

21:43

Is that what it is? It's a, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, that's what it is.

21:47

All right.

21:51

Well, gentlemen, we would do want to move into the meat part of the program, which is talking about the subject of misconceptions about the Bible.

22:00

And as I said, in the opening, one of the biggest misconceptions is when people will accuse Christians of being inconsistent because they will hold to certain biblical standards.

22:13

And they will say that certain texts do not apply to Christian specifically texts in the old Testament scriptures.

22:20

So, uh, I want to show a video.

22:23

I know that my, uh, illustrious crew has already seen this video, but I, some of you in the audience have not.

22:29

I've talked about this video on previous programs, but I don't know that I've ever showed it on the program.

22:33

So I'm going to show it in its entirety.

22:35

It's three minutes long.

22:36

So take a minute or take three minutes, watch this.

22:39

This is from the show, The West Wing, and this will introduce our next segment of the program, which is misconceptions about the Bible.

22:47

Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.

22:57

Thank you very much.

22:59

Thanks a lot.

23:00

I wish I could spend more than a few minutes with you, but the polls don't close in the East for another hour.

23:05

And there are plenty of election results still left to falsify.

23:09

You know, with so many people participating in the political and social debate through call-in shows, it's a good idea to be reminded every once in a while.

23:21

It's a good idea to be reminded of the awesome impact, the awesome impact.

23:29

I'm sorry.

23:30

Uh, you're Dr.

23:32

Jenna Jacobs, right? Yes, sir.

23:35

It's good to have you here.

23:36

Thank you.

23:37

The awesome impact of the airwaves and how that translates into the furthering of our national discussions, but obviously also how it can, how it can...

23:52

Forgive me, Dr.

23:53

Jacobs.

23:54

Are you an MD? A PhD.

23:56

A PhD.

23:57

Yes, sir.

23:58

In psychology? No, sir.

24:00

Theology? No.

24:02

Social work? I have a PhD in English literature.

24:04

I'm asking because on your show people call in for advice and you go by the name Dr.

24:09

Jacobs on your show, and I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology, or health care.

24:18

I don't believe they are confused.

24:20

No, sir.

24:21

Good.

24:21

I like your show.

24:24

I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.

24:28

I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr.

24:31

President.

24:32

The Bible does.

24:33

Yes, it does.

24:33

Leviticus.

24:34

1822.

24:35

Chapter and verse.

24:36

I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here.

24:39

I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21.7.

24:44

She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn.

24:48

What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath.

24:59

Exodus 35.2 clearly says he should be put to death.

25:04

Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town.

25:12

Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean.

25:15

Leviticus 11.7.

25:17

If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing.

25:40

While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the ignorant club in this building where the president stands, nobody sits.

26:00

And that is the clip that was heard around the world when it went out.

26:06

It has become known popularly as the West Wing question, and it deals with the subject that we're going to deal with tonight, and that is, is it inconsistent or hypocritical? Because that's the argument that's being made in the video, that you're a hypocrite if you hold to one moral application of biblical truth and yet ignore others.

26:29

And so right away, I can't help but just mention that my friend Matthew has a gift for us that he wants to share.

26:38

He said this is how he feels when he watches that video.

26:42

Dies from cringe.

26:43

It's just so bad.

26:48

It's Washington elitism.

26:51

It's Marmy appeals to authority.

26:54

It's bad logical fallacies.

26:56

It's just a cornucopia of rhetorical poo.

27:00

Even though the West Wing doesn't have any zombies or dragons, it's a fantasy show.

27:05

It is a liberal, pardon this phrase, wet dream.

27:09

That's all it is, right? It's just like, oh, if we could own the conservatives, this is how we would do it.

27:16

Slam dunk.

27:17

And it's like, yawn.

27:19

Biggest of big yawns.

27:21

Again, it is the arrogance of amateurs.

27:25

And what really makes me mad about this, frankly, like obviously I could go on forever about his perspective, right? But the fact is, is that lazy Christians earned us this cringe.

27:41

Lazy Christians, Christians with agendas, and I am talking about the pro-slavery arguments, right? The church collectively has earned this because so many lazy Christians have made those bad arguments and gone to Leviticus 18.22 without understanding how you could follow that into Matthew 19 or whatever, and then here we are.

28:11

Because they're making those arguments poorly rather than the correct way.

28:16

And I created tag groups specifically because I just am so tired of recreating arguments that have been well-trod in literature for hundreds of years.

28:30

You know what I mean? Like, hey, West Wing, which was, I don't know, was this 2004 or five? I don't know, whatever it was.

28:37

It's been around for a while.

28:38

Yeah.

28:39

You don't think maybe the answer to your genius clobber, someone might've taken a stab at it and they didn't, right? They just didn't.

28:50

It'd be like, if I went, if I went like, you know, I think I could probably cure cancer.

28:56

Like if we just like injected bleach into our veins, that'd probably do it.

29:03

Someone probably came along and said, you know, I know a better way.

29:08

You know what I mean? Like they would never, they would never bother to check with an expert on this topic and be like, what is like the real argument against this? And you can apply that to any theological strata.

29:21

The Armenians don't, don't really do that.

29:24

Not the bros on the internet, they don't actually read some good argumentation.

29:29

They just pull up a YouTube and see what a YouTube dude says about it.

29:32

Like, we just got out of Christmas, right? And how much on the internet do you deal with on Christmas time? Oh, well, that's actually the birth of Mithra and the birth of Saturnalia, blah, blah, blah, blah.

29:43

It's like, bro, if you like read a book.

29:46

Like any books, just a book.

29:49

Like go to the library and pick up a book with a bibliography on it.

29:54

Like you might see that that ain't it, bro.

29:57

I just love it when I give you a few weeks off because you come back lit.

30:03

You just want to scream this.

30:09

No, I don't want to be too hard on Christians because some good Christians, right? Like might not know the answer to that.

30:14

And so I hope we get into it.

30:16

Yeah.

30:16

Like, hey, Christian with a good heart who might not know that answer.

30:19

Like, I'd love to walk you through that.

30:21

But if you are that Christian with a good heart, probably don't go out and enter that fray if you're not ready.

30:28

Yeah.

30:28

Know what I mean? Yeah.

30:29

Yeah.

30:31

And if the response is, well, that's just what God's word says.

30:34

Okay.

30:35

Adequate as far as it goes, but, or sorry, not adequate.

30:38

True as far as it goes, but not adequate.

30:40

We need to have a better answer than that.

30:41

For sure.

30:42

For sure.

30:42

Because anybody can pick up any verse and, you know, oh, look, Job's wife said, curse God and die.

30:48

I guess that's, that's prescriptive.

30:51

That's what we should do.

30:53

And I'll, I'll pick, I'll pick on the, the 95% Calvinist reformed audience on the show.

30:59

This also really irritates me when you're into a deep part of like really, you know, hard emotional types of theology.

31:06

I think we covered like the hot button on a show.

31:09

The three of us did, you know, what happens to babies that die in the womb or miscarriage or whatever.

31:14

And your, your internet bro Calvinist that just says, well, God's sovereign, you can do what he wants.

31:19

Yeah.

31:20

Yeah.

31:21

Yeah, bro.

31:21

Cool.

31:21

Yeah.

31:22

Agreed.

31:22

Sure.

31:23

Say some more because that's not enough.

31:25

You haven't answered the question.

31:27

You've just said a true thing that no one was really disputing.

31:30

So it, not you guys, I'm not picking on you guys because we did discuss that very issue, but I'm saying the people who take the lazy trap door on this one of, well, it's in the Bible, so it must be true.

31:41

Yes.

31:42

Yes.

31:42

But we need, we need more than that.

31:45

It's just like an answer.

31:46

Why did Jesus have to die for our sins? Well, because God said so again, true, but we need more than that.

31:53

So that.

31:53

Yeah.

31:54

It's, it's funny.

31:54

That reminds me of years and years ago, I did a, I did a series on answering questions about reform theology.

32:01

And I, I did a sermon entitled, if God is sovereign, why do we evangelize? And because that's a very common question.

32:10

If God is sovereign and he's already chosen who he's going to save, what's the point of evangelism? And somebody was like, you know, well, if he says any more than because God commands it, then he said more than he needs to say.

32:23

And, and, and I was like, I was like, okay, I get that.

32:27

Yes.

32:27

We evangelize because God commands it, but God does not command us to do things that are meaningless or purposeless or anything like that.

32:35

And so asking what the purpose is of something is not blasphemous.

32:41

Neither is it.

32:41

I mean, I mean, don't we see this in scripture where there are, you know, the questions, you know you know, how long, oh Lord, you know, questions about why things are happening the way that they are.

32:52

It's, and I just, but that's, that's the exact thing that you're talking about.

32:56

Matthew is just that, you know, well, if he says anything more than because God commands it, then he said too much.

33:01

It's like, and it's totally looking at it from, from the wrong angle, because when people ask me that, and I get that a lot now, I've, I've changed my tone.

33:09

I now say I evangelize because I get to, because my Christ is supreme and I want to tell people about him.

33:18

Now, yes, he told me to, I'm commanded to do it.

33:21

Sure.

33:22

But more than that, Christ is beautiful and good and faithful, and I get to evangelize, which is a totally different way of looking at it.

33:33

So to bring us back to Leviticus 18, right? Like, let's take it off of you, because whoever is, whoever is giving this verse is giving it about someone who's homosexual or about the concept of, let's get it off of you and your relationship, and let's put that focus of that verse back on God and his intention, his design, his purpose for male-female marriage relationships, and how it glorifies Christ, or as Paul will say, is a mystery about Christ ultimately.

34:03

Yeah.

34:04

Yeah.

34:04

I think, I think that just back to the clip for a minute, the, I mean, you can tell that left and leftist script writers can't think any other way than appeals to credentialism.

34:18

Well, cause I wrote this down, I was taking notes during the clip.

34:20

What was the first thing he said? He goes, I'm sorry, are you a doctor? Yeah.

34:25

A PhD.

34:26

Oh, uh, in psychology? No.

34:30

In theology? No.

34:31

In sociology? No.

34:33

In healthcare? No.

34:35

So immediately the premise is, you must have a sheepskin from a credentialing agency to speak with any level of authority on this.

34:45

So now I'm just going to pepper you with out of context Bible quotes, and because you don't have any of those things, you won't be able to answer.

34:52

So he's already grounded the level of credibility in what degree do you have? Which is also a lie.

34:58

I'm sorry? It's a lie because it's, that's also a lie because if a PhD in theology were to have that discussion.

35:05

Yeah.

35:05

They wouldn't, they wouldn't consider that PhD any, of any value.

35:08

No, of course not.

35:09

You know what I mean? Yeah.

35:10

Do you think if, do you think if, if Michael Brown were sitting in the room and Michael Brown were to give you an, an excellent, uh, you know, concise explanation of how the Torah functions today, do you think they'd be like, Oh, I'm okay.

35:24

Well, I mean, we do have a PhD in theology, so I guess he's right on this.

35:27

Yeah.

35:28

Of course.

35:28

Yeah.

35:28

Because in fact, he's, he's out there on this specific issue as a Hebrew expert.

35:35

All the time.

35:36

And while I'm, I, I opposed Dr.

35:38

Brown's views on a lot of things on this one.

35:39

This is, this is an easy place where I could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

35:42

Yeah.

35:43

He is about as expert as you can get as far as the Jewish understanding of the Christian theology behind sexuality.

35:51

They don't care.

35:52

It means nothing to them.

35:53

Nope.

35:54

Yeah.

35:54

Uh, and, and just a quick book, shout out his book, A Queer Thing Happened to America.

35:58

Still a great book.

36:00

If people haven't read it on this particular subject, if you're looking to dive into the subject, there's an excellent James White and Dr.

36:07

Brown debate on the subject, which just happened to be moderated by a not yet Calvinist friend of mine who is to the panel to my immediate left.

36:21

I still, I still say that getting that debate to happen at that church is so far my greatest professional achievement.

36:28

That was a high watermark, man.

36:29

That was pretty fun.

36:31

A ton of work, man.

36:32

A ton of work.

36:34

Well, you want to get to meat and potatoes? Yeah.

36:36

Yeah.

36:37

Well, what I'd like to do is I would like to address the, um, the various ways that this particular subject has been handled.

36:46

And then I'm going to let you guys opine with, with where you stand on this and, and feel free to, you know, we can disagree with, with charity on some of this, but I at least want to, I want to nail out a little bit of the, of the, of, of how this question comes up, because this question comes up a lot.

37:05

Well, you know, is a Christian, uh, required to hold to all of the laws of the old Testament? And of course those laws do include things like the, um, the planting of crops in the fields that are mixed, uh, includes mixing fibers when they are, uh, creating shirts and things like that.

37:29

Like I'm wearing a 50, 50 shirt right now.

37:31

Is that, is that a, is that a, am I breaking God's law? And there were certainly dietary restrictions.

37:37

They were not allowed to eat shellfish.

37:38

We're not allowed to eat pork.

37:40

And, um, these questions come up.

37:43

Okay.

37:44

I see Christians in Sonny's barbecue.

37:46

I see them chowing down on pork sandwiches.

37:49

Are they violating God's law and are they living hypocrisy or living in the, are they living in hypocrisy by doing so? And so there are various ways that the, the, the Christian community has sought to help people understand what we do believe.

38:06

And we do believe that the old Testament is scripture, that the Bible, the whole Bible is from God, but we do not believe that all of the old Testament scripture applies to the new Testament believer because we believe in something called covenant.

38:25

And there is an old covenant and there is a new covenant.

38:29

And within the new covenant, there is a different paradigm as to what constitutes, uh, that, which is that, what, what must be obeyed.

38:38

There are things within the old covenant that do not carry over into the new covenant.

38:45

Most specifically are things like sacrifices.

38:48

We no longer have to perform sacrifices.

38:51

Those things were held by law in the old covenant, but we no longer have to do those things because they were fulfilled through Christ.

39:00

Hebrews tells us very clearly that Christ is the once for all sacrifice.

39:06

In fact, it even goes on to say that the blood of bulls and goats ultimately does not take away sin.

39:11

Why? Because the blood of bulls and goats pointed forward to a great and perfect and final sacrifice, which was the sacrifice of Christ.

39:20

And so we know that if nothing else, there are laws that regard the, the sacrificial system that no longer apply to Christians because those laws were certainly pointing to the once for all sacrifice of Christ.

39:34

But we would take a step back and we would say there's more than just the sacrificial system that has been, and here's a big word, has been abrogated in the new covenant because we see abrogations in the new covenant of laws that were held within the old covenant.

39:53

For instance, there is no more temple.

39:55

There is no more priesthood that has to be maintained.

39:58

Again, this goes back.

39:59

Most of what I'm talking about falls under what would be called, in reformed circles, would be called ceremonial law.

40:07

And when you hear that term, that's part of what's called a tripartite distinction in the law where the law is distinguished between the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial.

40:20

And the ceremonial would be those things like sacrifices and priesthood and temple practice and those things.

40:27

That is one of the ways that it has been described.

40:30

It's been described as a threefold division or a tripartite division of the law.

40:37

And the argument that for people who hold that would be that there's moral law that is eternal and always existing.

40:45

Most people who are reformed would say that's the 10 commandments.

40:49

And then there are civil laws, such as if your ox crushes someone else's crops, then the crops have to be paid back a certain fold.

40:58

And those civil laws, there are those who argue that they should be maintained.

41:03

There are those who argue that they shouldn't.

41:04

And that gets into something called theonomy, which is a debate within Christian circles.

41:09

But then the ceremonial laws, which typically involve things like priesthood, sacrifices, and even things like what you eat and what you wear, those are ceremonial in nature and therefore would fall under the ceremonial law.

41:21

Now, I don't hold to a tripartite distinction of the law.

41:25

I hold a different view.

41:27

But I think that I've been fair to describe it correctly.

41:31

Jake, would you say that I've described it fairly correctly? Would you want to add anything to that? No, no, that's the standard kind of reform.

41:39

It's not even just reform, but that is the standard understanding of how we kind of model our way through looking at the law and its applications.

41:49

And I agree with you.

41:50

I actually don't hold to the tripartite categories.

41:53

I think it's a useful framework to begin, to begin your exploration.

41:59

It's easy to explain to people.

42:00

But there are no internal markers for these categories.

42:05

I'm not going to say they're arbitrary, because that's not charitable.

42:09

But I don't think that they are even readily apparent from within the text.

42:15

I believe that the Levitical covenant is whole.

42:21

It is a whole piece that, just to jump ahead to my view, has some through lines that carry to the New Covenant, but those are not the same covenants.

42:34

Yep, absolutely.

42:35

And the way I describe my position is actually—and I didn't come up with this.

42:41

I adopted this from Tom Schreiner, who has a book called Forty Questions About Biblical Law.

42:47

And he says there's a transcendent law that transcends covenants.

42:51

That's the through line that you were talking about.

42:53

And that would be where the reformed community would probably say that's the moral law.

42:58

But I prefer the term transcendent, those laws that transcend covenant.

43:02

It's always wrong to murder.

43:03

It was wrong when Cain killed Abel, even though there was no law against it.

43:08

It was wrong because the law is transcendent.

43:12

And so there are laws that transcend Mosaic law.

43:15

There are laws that transcend New Covenant.

43:17

It's all God's standard.

43:20

And then there are laws that are covenantal.

43:22

So you have transcendental law, and then you have covenantal law.

43:27

And the laws that fit, like you just said, within the Levitical covenant are laws like what you wear and what you eat and things like that.

43:33

And when we get to the New Covenant, we get to passages like the passage in Mark that I'm going to be preaching in a few weeks where it says Jesus made all foods clean.

43:41

That's a wild verse because that even comes before the cross.

43:48

That comes before what you might say the institution of the New Covenant, which came through the blood of Christ.

43:54

But yet it says he made all foods clean.

43:56

Now, if you talk to somebody from your Seventh-day Adventist or something like that, they lose their minds because that's not what Jesus meant.

44:01

He didn't make all foods clean.

44:03

You still can't eat pork.

44:04

You still can't eat shellfish.

44:05

You still can't eat these things.

44:07

And I've been accused of being an absolute rank heretic for eating pork sandwiches because of that.

44:17

But yeah, I think you and I would agree, Jake, that there's a transcendent law.

44:22

Then there's a covenant law.

44:24

And that's why when I make my argument about homosexuality, I tend to not focus so much on the Levitical passage.

44:32

Not that it's not relevant, because I do think it's part of the transcendent, but I wouldn't go there first.

44:38

I would go first to 1 Corinthians 6 or Romans 1 or Matthew 19.

44:43

Absolutely.

44:43

Well, Leviticus 18 is useful because when Paul constructs his argument, he's going to use language that you can trace through the Septuagint back to Leviticus 18.

44:55

So you want to see that parallel as Paul is explaining that this is in fact what you would call a transcendental law.

45:03

But to do what you're saying, I go to Matthew 19 to say, look at God's eternal purpose.

45:10

Where does Jesus go in this conversation? To the beginning, to God's original intention.

45:15

So another place I go to talk about transcendental law, I've always called it eternal law, but I like yours better, is I look at right after the flood.

45:27

And the first thing God does is he brings all of humanity together, all eight of them, and he gives the entire world one law, the law of blood.

45:41

Why? Because you are made in the likeness of God.

45:44

Because of that reason, if blood is taken from you, blood will be demanded for you.

45:49

And that is an eternal law that then traces its way through all of the rest of the covenants.

45:56

Now, a big deal in this conversation, you want to talk about getting in trouble on the internet.

46:03

This is one that gets me in trouble all the time.

46:06

Without shading it with nuance, I tell people the Ten Commandments have no application for the new covenant Gentile.

46:15

They don't.

46:16

Are there some eternal truths that we maintain? Absolutely.

46:22

What's the preamble to the Ten Commandments? I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

46:30

Well, he never did that for me.

46:34

Though I was grafted into that tree, I'm actually not part of that family.

46:38

The New Testament is very clear that Jews and Gentiles, while we are one, there are still different applications of the law.

46:45

Jews, if you want to still continue to celebrate this certain way, by all means, go and do.

46:49

I was never brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

46:53

In fact, I am more akin to the Egyptians as a Gentile than those Israelite slaves.

47:01

That law was never given to me.

47:03

And when the old covenant was broken and the divorce decree was given from God to his people, there was never a remarriage.

47:13

And when the new covenant is promised, it's not, and I will bring about the old covenant again.

47:18

It's, I will deliver a new covenant.

47:20

And the law for this new covenant is fundamentally different.

47:23

It is no longer external, but the new law will be written on our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

47:30

So what does that mean? I'll end here because I know Matthew hasn't talked for a minute.

47:34

What does that mean? We wish we had a book of Leviticus for how to live life as a Christian, but we don't.

47:41

We have the Holy Spirit and we have the whole scripture and we have the wisdom of our eldership and church structure.

47:47

We don't have, we don't have a list and a list and a list of this and that and that.

47:51

We don't have it.

47:53

We don't.

47:53

We can look and covet a list and be like, oh wow, that's easier.

47:59

Right? We have to live in a much murkier concept.

48:04

And the problem is when Christians, as we love our Dan Wallace, will choose their certainty over truth.

48:11

They will run to certainty to the black and white of the old law rather than live in the truth of the new law, which says, hey, I'm going to write this whole book of Galatians that says, what are you doing? Don't you dare circumcise.

48:25

Hey, Timothy, I'm going to need you to go get circumcised real quick.

48:30

Yeah.

48:30

Explain that to me.

48:31

Explain that to me.

48:32

Other than to say the new covenant is murkier.

48:37

Sorry.

48:37

If you want to be honest, it is murkier and it's intended to be because we're supposed to rely on the word and on the church and on each other rather than the external law and the spirit.

48:49

Sorry, Matthew, go ahead.

48:50

Well, wait, before Matthew speaks, I have to just throw this in there because I laughed when you said that about the Ten Commandments.

48:56

For those who don't know, a few years ago, I did a debate on the Sabbath and Matthew Henson also was the debate moderator.

49:07

So you were just fancy.

49:09

That was fun.

49:09

Yeah, that one was a lot less testy than the other one.

49:12

Well, the brother that was there was such a sweet brother.

49:15

Rob Hamm and I debated.

49:16

He took the Sunday Sabbath position and I took Christ as the Sabbath position.

49:20

And it's simplified my position, very simplified.

49:24

But ultimately, I made the argument that you just made and I took a lot of heat for it.

49:29

I still do that.

49:31

The Ten Commandments don't represent the eternal moral law of God, but rather are the covenant given to Israel.

49:38

Now, do they include moral categories? Yes.

49:41

Murder, stealing, lying are all moral categories.

49:45

But the covenant, it is called the covenant.

49:47

In fact, if you're familiar with Willem and Gentry, who wrote Kingdom through Covenant, this is similar to the position that they take.

49:53

And from what I understand, I've never taken class with either one of them, but from what I understand from those who take classes with Dr.

49:59

Gentry, that he doesn't even call them the Ten Commandments.

50:01

He calls them the Ten Words.

50:03

And so because of that, because trying to make that distinction that this is the covenant, the words given to Israel.

50:11

And that's what they are called throughout the Old Testament.

50:13

This is the covenant given to you.

50:15

It's these ten words or these ten commandments.

50:18

So, yeah, it's interesting.

50:20

I imagine I'll hear some friendly debate, perhaps from some of my friends on this, but this is the position that, in fact, our church holds a position that used to be called New Covenant Theology.

50:36

A lot of people are getting away from that now.

50:38

Progressive covenantalism tends to be the more acceptable term.

50:43

There's a debate within the community about covenant of works.

50:52

That's the big issue right now is the issue of, is there a creation covenant? Because New Covenant theologians would say no.

50:58

Well, some would say no and progressive covenantalists would say yes.

51:02

And again, I know that's not the topic of today's show, but what I'm saying is a lot of people don't even know what the inner arguments are.

51:10

And thankfully, I've had the opportunity to speak to some of the guys who are writing on the subject and teaching the subject.

51:14

There's actually a guy at First Baptist downtown who is very integral in the writing on the subject, and he wrote a chapter on the creation covenant.

51:22

So it's interesting just to know that the subject is still being discussed, being debated, and I think it should continue because I think it's worthwhile.

51:31

And honestly, and I want to say one last thing, I'm sorry.

51:34

When this comes to like, because there's 1689 federalism, there's the more traditional covenant theology, classic covenant theology, we need to focus on our things that bring us together.

51:46

We all believe in a lot of the same things.

51:48

There are some minor distinctions that separate us.

51:51

At the debate, when I debated the Sabbath with my brother, I did say at the end, I said at the end, we both observe the Lord's day as something that is unique and particular to Christ.

52:01

We just don't necessarily agree on what we are to do on that day, but we both observe it as being unique and precious.

52:09

So we need to focus on the areas where we agree and not spend so much time beating each other up over the areas that we disagree.

52:16

So the reform community is small enough.

52:18

We don't need to subdivide it over these things.

52:21

That's a podcast.

52:24

Yeah, absolutely.

52:25

So brother Matthew, I have left you out and I feel bad.

52:28

You sent me over a graphic.

52:30

Do you want me to show it? Well, so yes, in just a sec.

52:34

So the first question I would have when fake Hollywood president comes on and says, whatever.

52:42

First of all, the first question I say is, have you read the book of Leviticus? Have you read the book? Not the Bible, not the Old Testament, though I think you ought before commenting on these sorts of things.

52:55

Have you just read the book of Leviticus in the last year, five years, maybe? To me, this isn't even have you read a book about this particular subject when someone comes at Jake about, well, Calvinists have never heard this one.

53:13

He just sends them the Amazon link.

53:15

Like I'm not doing, just go.

53:19

This is the source that is being debated, right? This is like saying Calvin believed this and you've never read institutes.

53:25

I mean, so that's the first question I ask.

53:29

And the second question I ask is, okay, what is the point of the book of Leviticus? What is it doing? Why is it in the Bible? What does it exist for? If you can't answer those two questions, I have read it and I know what it's for, then it's very much, and everyone hates car analogies, but I'm going to do it anyway.

53:49

If you're an alien from another planet, you've never seen a vehicle before, you've never driven one, you've never seen one in operation, but you're going to tell me you're going to go under the hood, reach all the way in there and find out what you hit you do dong and tell me exactly what this is for and what it means and then make application on my life based upon this thing.

54:06

When you're an alien from another planet, who's never even seen this, forgive my skepticism on your critique.

54:12

I, you know, I, I'm not going to hold that very well.

54:15

I love your analogy.

54:16

I love your analogy.

54:17

Just let me interject real quick.

54:18

I, I use that analogy all the time with Christians.

54:23

When I say, listen, man, again, this is not, this is not credentialism, right? But I drive my car every day.

54:30

I know my car.

54:32

I've driven it for hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of miles.

54:35

Open that hood.

54:36

I could not tell you a single thing about what is going on under there.

54:40

So as much as you love your Bible, God gave us teachers who have a separate job, who look at the Bible with a different set of tools.

54:51

So I just want to take your analogy further because I think it's very apt.

54:54

Sure, sure.

54:55

And I sent you a private chat, which he hitched, he do done is now going to be that.

55:01

That's going to be a new name.

55:02

That makes as much sense to me as a carburetor.

55:05

I don't know.

55:05

Yeah.

55:05

I mean, yeah, it's the flux capacitor, the continuum transfunctional.

55:09

Yeah.

55:10

You bring up a great point.

55:11

I'm sorry.

55:12

I just, I just love your point.

55:13

So I just want to say you bring up a great, keep going.

55:15

No, you keep going.

55:16

Yeah.

55:17

So, so then if random person is coming at me with telling me precisely, right.

55:23

What this particular small piece, because Leviticus 1822 is 0.001% of the text of Leviticus and it's 0.0001% of the text of the old Testament.

55:34

And they're going to tell me precisely how this functions, how it applies 2000 years later.

55:39

Uh, what has Christ done with this commandment in his fulfillment of it? What, how has it, what have the church father said about it? What did medieval theologians think about it? And, and hasn't looked at anything to do with that, but it's a hundred percent convinced that they know exactly what this is.

55:58

Again, forgive my skepticism, forgive it.

56:01

And Oh, by the way, they watched a minute and 22nd tick talk about a couple of what the Hebrew words supposedly do or do not exactly.

56:10

Yeah.

56:10

And now they're experts more than I am or, or yeah.

56:13

Arson, a coy taste doesn't mean that or whatever.

56:15

Yeah.

56:16

So anyway, Leviticus, uh, what is Leviticus all about? The book of Leviticus is all about God's holiness.

56:23

That's what the book of Leviticus is about.

56:25

It's the fact that God has, excuse me, had to go off my third to cough for a second.

56:32

It's about the fact that God has a sinful people that he cannot live in his in pre in the presence of him because his holiness will obliterate them.

56:40

That is what the book of Leviticus is about.

56:41

And it's how do we solve that problem? The start of the book of Leviticus begins.

56:45

God spoke to Moses from the temple.

56:48

The start of the book of numbers says God spoke to Moses in the temple.

56:53

Okay.

56:54

So Moses was not able to go into the tent because God's holiness would have obliterated him.

56:58

So, and now Keith, you can show the gift that I have queued up there.

57:03

Leviticus is divided into right.

57:06

A number of different sections.

57:07

And I straight up ripped this from a Bible project video, and I'm not at all ashamed to say so.

57:12

Leviticus centers around chapter 16, 17, the day of atonement, and it has ritual laws.

57:17

It has laws concerning the priesthood, and then it has purity laws.

57:20

Okay.

57:21

And if you don't even know those three sort of categorizations, that's a different, there's overlap between them.

57:27

But if you don't know those and you start willy-nilly plugging and playing, and you don't even know the difference between a battery and a tire on the car, then again, forgive my skepticism in your argument.

57:39

The Levitical law was designed to give people who lived in the Shekinah glory presence of Yahweh God, the ability to do so with maybe not confidence, but at least safety of not being obliterated by the holiness of a righteous God.

57:55

Now, we don't have that same level of fear in a physical sense, right? Because we live on the other side of the cross.

58:04

But to the people of this day, they would have been very grateful that God gave them clarity on exactly how it is that they are supposed to live with them.

58:12

And so yeah, that's, I'm not going to reiterate the things you guys said about the new covenantalism or progressive covenantalism, because I fundamentally agree with that.

58:22

All I'm saying is I'm taking a dig at the people that want to use Leviticus like a hammer when they haven't even done the base, they haven't read the book.

58:30

And frankly, that's on both sides.

58:33

Yeah, of course.

58:34

I think that's for the immature Christian as well, who does their Bible reading plan and then they quit when they get to Leviticus because they don't understand its overall purpose, right? Yeah.

58:44

Exactly what you're saying, what is the law doing? The old covenant law, it had an intent, which was to allow the people to live near God, so that they could bring their sins to him to be forgiven, so that he would travel with them, so he could establish a house, so that when they establish a kingdom around that house, they could live in that kingdom and his kingdom would flourish.

59:08

But that is an earthly kingdom, and a fundamental change, multiple fundamental changes happened in the New Testament.

59:17

The veil was ripped.

59:19

Yep.

59:19

The kingdom will be given from you and be given to those who bear fruit.

59:23

As you said, the law was abrogated when God said, when Jesus said, you can now eat this or that.

59:28

There are several fundamental changes that happen.

59:32

That's why we're Christian.

59:35

And so the way that Old Testament law is encapsulated.

59:39

So where do people go with this? Well, they go, well, well, Jesus said that the law will not pass away until it is fulfilled.

59:46

Correct.

59:46

And guess what Jesus is doing right now? Yeah.

59:50

He's fulfilling the law actively as a living God man.

59:55

He is still in a living human body, glorified body, as God, as man, the hypostatic community did not end after the resurrection.

01:00:04

He is alive and he is keeping the law.

01:00:06

He is as our King of the new kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.

01:00:11

He is fulfilling the law perpetually on our behalf in perfection, which is why the glory, which lived inside the tabernacle and temple, when, when God got sick, the people, he picked that glory up and he moved it on elsewhere.

01:00:26

We don't have to fear that because it is not based on our behavior that the glory resides within us, but our King who keeps it on our behalf.

01:00:35

So the category of what we do as Christians is a different category.

01:00:41

Do we still have a law? Yeah, of course.

01:00:44

Do we still have commandments to follow? Of course we do, but they have a fundamental change.

01:00:49

So people will go, well, you know, you've heard this a lot.

01:00:52

Well, Jesus said, you know, uh, all you have to do is, is love God and love people.

01:00:57

He is reiterating the old covenant on these, the entire law hangs.

01:01:02

I believe he says, yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

01:01:04

In a sense, in a sense he certainly is.

01:01:07

But what that doesn't mean is, so then we must take the law of viticus and reapply it to ourselves.

01:01:12

And you hear people go, well, when he said that love God, love people, if you look at the 10 commandments, the first four about loving God and the next six are about loving people.

01:01:21

Okay.

01:01:21

Yes, that's true.

01:01:23

But make that linkage actually in the text, make that linkage that one right there for me, show me, where is it? Where is the linkage that when he said those two things, what he means are the 10 commandments where show me.

01:01:36

Yep.

01:01:37

Now you have a repetition of a lot of the, you have nine of the 10 commandments.

01:01:41

You have a repetition in the new Testament, but you do not have it at the Sabbath, not to Gentiles, not to the church.

01:01:48

He talks about the Sabbath.

01:01:49

He kind of supports the Sabbath when he's talking to Jews in the, in the new Testament, in the gospels.

01:01:55

But the, the, the Sabbath is not reiterated except where, where you were talking about Keith in, in Hebrews four.

01:02:02

He is our Sabbath rest.

01:02:05

We don't have a priesthood because we have a new holy priest.

01:02:08

We don't have feast days because we have an eternal feast to look forward to.

01:02:13

We're not maintaining an earthly kingdom.

01:02:15

It's why we don't baptize babies as Baptists because we have a heavenly kingdom.

01:02:21

But this is where nuances in language matter.

01:02:24

This is where consistency of understanding how, how all the books connect matters.

01:02:29

And theology cannot be done like a pantry.

01:02:31

You cannot poke your head in the Bible and look around, but it will have a little of that and a little of that and a little of that.

01:02:36

It is a pool that you jump into and immerse yourself in its singular entirety.

01:02:42

Now you can't master it all in one go, but it is not a pantry.

01:02:46

Yeah.

01:02:47

I think if I were to give like a, I guess sort of a quick and dirty way to look at it.

01:02:53

One, one thing you can do that helps is just a tool.

01:02:56

Doesn't, it's not a foolproof thing, is did the prophets of the old Testament hold the nations to the standards in the law? Okay.

01:03:06

Some of them they did, right? God pronounced judgment on some of the nations because they were, you know, idolaters and they went after other, you know, they're worshiping other gods and they were doing all kinds of wretched things to orphans and widows and whatever.

01:03:20

And God said, wipe them out, right? That was his righteous judgment upon them.

01:03:25

As far as I'm aware, God never got mad at any other nation for not practicing the day of atonement or having proper priest rituals or anything like that.

01:03:33

That was never, now again, that's not, you won't find a citation of every single law in that divide, but it's a good, it's a good checkpoint just to say, would God have held the nations in the old Testament? Did the prophets who were primarily to Israel, but they did pronounce judgment upon other nations sometimes.

01:03:52

Did they look at the Philistines or the Amalekites or whoever and say they have mixed cloth fabrics, therefore they must be annihilated.

01:04:02

No, it was always something else that was universally applicable that, that, that God held them to account for.

01:04:10

Yeah.

01:04:10

Yeah.

01:04:11

Let, let's, let's say those three categories you've mentioned earlier, Keith, exist.

01:04:15

Let's say they are real.

01:04:16

So there's civil law, there's ceremonial law, and there's moral law.

01:04:20

Okay.

01:04:20

So civil law, we just kind of apply in it, in what I would say is the general equity sense.

01:04:30

So when it says, hey, don't move your brother, your neighbor's boundary stone, right? Essentially that's just saying don't steal from your neighbor.

01:04:39

Don't take what's his.

01:04:40

When it says you have to put a boundary around your balcony, it's so you keep your neighbor safe.

01:04:46

So he doesn't fall when he comes to your house off your roof.

01:04:48

So in a general sense, we kind of apply the civil law across.

01:04:52

The ceremonial law, okay, we just do away with those, no more sacrifices, no more priests, no more priestly garments, no more tabernacle.

01:05:00

Okay, great.

01:05:01

The moral law, love those moral laws.

01:05:03

They're great.

01:05:04

The problem is when you, when you do that and you try to apply that then to the feasts, why would we not keep the feasts? They don't point, because, because they say, well, sacrifices point forward to Christ.

01:05:18

True, they do.

01:05:20

Feasts point backwards.

01:05:21

All the feasts point backwards, right? Keep this in perpetuity forever to remember what God did when.

01:05:29

So why aren't we keeping the feasts? I don't actually have any problem with someone who wants to.

01:05:33

No, I don't either.

01:05:34

But, but, but.

01:05:36

That's not the point, Matthew.

01:05:38

Romans 14 deals with that, right? If your brother wants to celebrate this day or that day, let him go.

01:05:44

Enjoy it.

01:05:45

Make sacrifice to idols.

01:05:46

Celebrate the day.

01:05:47

Do what you got to do in your day.

01:05:49

I'm just giving you a hard time, my not yet Calvinist friend.

01:05:52

That's all right.

01:05:53

In applying the law in those categories, why are we not keeping the feasts? I don't think we should, we have to keep the feasts.

01:05:59

I think they're cool.

01:06:01

Like if you want to, if you want a Hebrew cosplay and eat gross food, bro, do it.

01:06:06

Love it.

01:06:06

You want to go camping with some branches in your, in your backyard and talk about how much you love God? Love it.

01:06:12

But why, why is it not law for the Christian? Yeah.

01:06:18

For years, our church held a Seder every year.

01:06:21

We haven't done it in a few years just because we we've, we've sort of moved away from it.

01:06:25

But I mean, for as long as I remember, we held a Passover meal, did this, did the whole Jewish Seder and then went in and did Lord's Supper afterwards.

01:06:33

And we did that on.

01:06:33

If you demand the Sabbath as law, you must demand the feasts because it's by what standard is those are the same standard.

01:06:44

I got to have some, I got to have preparation.

01:06:46

Let me try that.

01:06:49

It's the first time.

01:06:50

So we'll get better.

01:06:51

Right.

01:06:52

But by what standard do you apply the Sabbath, but you don't apply the feasts.

01:06:56

The feasts were never, God never said, Hey, y'all stopped doing the feasts.

01:06:59

In fact, he says the exact opposite.

01:07:01

He said, do this forever.

01:07:02

He said, you will do this forever.

01:07:05

He doesn't, he doesn't say you will not eat pork forever.

01:07:08

He just says, this is the law.

01:07:10

Don't eat pork.

01:07:10

But for the feasts, he specifically says you and your people never stopped doing this.

01:07:16

We don't, we don't even consider it like Christians really don't really consider it.

01:07:21

One argument I have heard for that is that the feasts represent a sort of anniversary of, of the things that God did, you know, in, in analogous to a marriage, uh, some people make a big deal with their anniversary and some don't, but we all agree that that some kind of, you know, remembrance or some kind of celebration or acknowledgement of your anniversary would be important.

01:07:45

But after you get a divorce, like, yeah, you ain't celebrating no anniversaries after that.

01:07:51

And so if Jeremiah is true and God is comes in and in divorce is Israel, then the celebration of which all the feasts were celebration of great things.

01:08:02

God had done his faithfulness and whatever.

01:08:04

If we're going to extend the marriage metaphor.

01:08:06

And again, this is a metaphor listener.

01:08:08

Don't run too far with this, but if we're going to, we're going to read that in a little bit, then you get divorced from someone.

01:08:14

You're not exactly going to celebrate the anniversary of when you brought the puppy home or had the first kid or whatever, because the public son, listen, listen, take that one step further.

01:08:24

Okay.

01:08:25

Take that one step further because God did divorce Israel, right? The old covenant was broken.

01:08:30

He sent them into exile.

01:08:31

Okay.

01:08:33

When did he, he reestablished the old covenant? They did.

01:08:38

They came back and did all the things and then they had the ceremony.

01:08:44

They did all the things.

01:08:46

Did God come back in his Shekinah glory into that temple? Nope.

01:08:51

He did not.

01:08:53

He did not reestablish the old covenant.

01:08:55

It did not happen.

01:08:57

The glory of the Lord did not enter that temple again until Jesus Christ walked all up in there.

01:09:02

And at that point he was saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

01:09:08

And in Matthew 21, he says, the kingdom will be taken from you and given to those who bear fruit.

01:09:14

Now, some of y'all Jews want to be in that by all means, come on, right? Peter's going to preach to them and they're going to a good chunk of them are going to come.

01:09:22

But those are two different kingdoms.

01:09:24

There is the earthly theocracy of Israel, which got us to a point that divorce happened.

01:09:31

And then the wife's still living in the house, acting like she's married, but the husband does not come back.

01:09:37

Nope.

01:09:37

The old covenant is never reestablished.

01:09:39

You know, and I don't, I don't know if this is the case or not, because I'd have to, I'd have to actually do the research on this.

01:09:44

I heard, and maybe one of you guys can back me up on this, or maybe not wish to look into it.

01:09:49

Ezekiel has the scene of the glory of Yahweh lifting off from the temple and exiting the city and going, I think like up a hill and then just disappearing.

01:09:57

Right.

01:09:57

And it's Ezekiel 10.

01:09:59

It's probably one of the saddest chapters in the entire Bible is, is God leaving his people.

01:10:04

I have heard that when Jesus Palm Sunday reenters Jerusalem, right.

01:10:10

Comes and depending on which gospel you're reading, because they all order things differently.

01:10:13

And I don't remember which one it is.

01:10:14

He comes in through the same gate that the glory left the town, left the city from, and what does he do? He goes in and cleanses the temple.

01:10:24

Yeah.

01:10:24

So it is the precise, you know, geographic reversal of that.

01:10:29

It's God's glory returning.

01:10:30

Well, and when Jesus cleanses the temple, I think it's in the Matthew account.

01:10:34

He's quoting Jeremiah, which is quoting, which is quoting when God's presence left the tabernacle.

01:10:42

Yeah.

01:10:43

Jesus is directly connecting the cleansing of the temple with the time that God's glory left you, abandoned you.

01:10:50

Yep.

01:10:51

And is now back.

01:10:52

And, and the whole time he's talking about establishing the kingdom of heaven, which is separate and apart from the other kingdom and a fundamental change happens.

01:11:01

The feasts, which I don't mind if people keep the feasts.

01:11:03

I think that's awesome.

01:11:04

But fundamentally are all now wrapped up in Easter.

01:11:10

Which we celebrate as the Lord's day because the Lord's day is not the Sabbath.

01:11:15

It's why, even though I'm wearing my 1689 t-shirt, 1689.com, because of my conversation with Keith, I don't really consider myself a 1689-er anymore because their argument for the Lord's day is the new Sabbath is poorly argued.

01:11:33

They don't make the case because the case isn't there.

01:11:37

The case that we say, Oh, well, the Sabbath has been changed to the Lord's day.

01:11:42

Find that in the Bible, find those words in the Bible.

01:11:45

You won't find them.

01:11:46

You'll find John by himself doing a thing on the Lord's day.

01:11:50

You will find them in Acts 20 saying, Hey, on the first day of the week, when we were gathered, Paul gave us a talk that day, we were gathered to break bread could mean communion could mean that that's the day that went to Carrabba's together.

01:12:04

I mean, frankly, and then you have Paul saying on the first day of the week, gather your money together.

01:12:10

That's it.

01:12:11

That's the case.

01:12:12

There's no other case.

01:12:13

It isn't there.

01:12:15

It's we want it to be there because we want it to be cut and dry because we want to be able to tell our teenage kids.

01:12:20

God's law says we have to go to church on Sunday.

01:12:24

It's not there.

01:12:25

Let's be honest brokers.

01:12:27

Let's be honest because if we're not honest with the text, if we're not truly sola scriptura, we start.

01:12:35

Injecting our own traditions.

01:12:36

I've been having this argument with a good friend of mine on the internet for days now because of this whole Christmas on a Sunday thing could be going back and forth on it and days.

01:12:44

And I finally got him to the point to say, okay, it's not there, but I'm getting angry and I'm moving.

01:12:50

My scriptural case is not there, but it's the tradition that we've received from the apostles.

01:12:56

Oof.

01:12:58

Oof.

01:12:58

Paging Rome online.

01:12:59

One.

01:13:00

Listen, I love traditions.

01:13:02

Traditions are good.

01:13:03

They are.

01:13:04

They're healthy, but don't conflate those things because that's exactly what the Pharisees did is they said, well, the law is the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

01:13:14

Law is here, but we should be here because we don't want to get too close to breaking the law.

01:13:20

The tradition says do this instead, keeping burdens upon the people.

01:13:26

And so when we misapply the law as Christians, well-meaning Christians, right? There's two kinds of Christians, right? There's the one whose heart tends toward licentiousness and then the one whose heart tends towards legalism.

01:13:37

When most of us Calvinists, frankly, most of us tend to lean towards legalism.

01:13:43

We keep burdens that Christ died to obliterate.

01:13:50

We as a culture do that.

01:13:52

And there aren't enough Calvinists reminding other Calvinists, hey, remember that God actually desires mercy and not sacrifice.

01:14:02

That he said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

01:14:06

I didn't say those things.

01:14:07

Jesus said those things.

01:14:08

Oof.

01:14:09

Can't be coming on this podcast quoting Jesus like that.

01:14:12

Well, we're talking about how do we apply the law in our lives, right? And it's with scripture and mercy.

01:14:20

That's how we do it.

01:14:21

With scripture and mercy and forgiveness and forgiving our brother 100, 200, 490 times.

01:14:30

But we get in these conversations and what we want is the black and white, if you do this, then I throw rocks at you.

01:14:37

Or at least if you don't do this, I can at least know that I am better than you because I do do this.

01:14:43

Which is this whole Christmas on Sunday conversation.

01:14:48

All I saw on the internet constantly was people saying, well, thank God, I'm not like those sinners.

01:14:55

I'm going to church on Christmas.

01:14:57

Okay, good.

01:14:58

You should go to church on Christmas.

01:15:00

But your heart is telling me you're more excited to tell us that you are going to church on Sunday.

01:15:06

I'm not one of those people.

01:15:08

Thank God I'm not like the sinner.

01:15:09

Yeah, exactly.

01:15:11

I remember a while back, someone was talking about the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.

01:15:20

And he said, all of us become the Pharisee when we look at the Pharisee and we say, how bad is he? Because he's looking at the publican and saying, I'm glad I'm not like him.

01:15:32

And we're saying, I'm glad I'm not like him.

01:15:34

And therefore it just becomes one step removed because we become the new Pharisee who says, I'm glad I'm not like him.

01:15:42

Yep.

01:15:43

100%.

01:15:44

Interesting.

01:15:46

And I want to maybe put a bow around this because I think we've gone fairly deep on this subject.

01:15:55

And I'm pretty sure we've made at least a pretty large swath of folks maybe a little upset because of the positions that we've taken.

01:16:05

And that's fine.

01:16:05

But I want to put a bow on this with something that I think should be considered.

01:16:13

If in fact what we are saying, if we can agree, and I think all of Christianity has to agree, at least in some respect, that there is a distinction between the old covenant and the new covenant, whether you make that distinction with the tripartite distinction or whether you do it as Jake and I described with the transcendental law and the covenantal law.

01:16:36

And there's one other way, and I didn't mention it earlier, but Sam Waldron talks about the distinction between natural law and positive law, natural law, again, being that transcendent law and positive being those things that were added, the positive being a plus sign, things that were added to the law, such as ceremonies and feasts and things like that.

01:16:54

And those things are covenantal, not eternal.

01:16:57

And so however you look at it, if you come to the biblical understanding that the new covenant is distinguishable from the old, then that solves a lot of the issues that a lot of people have.

01:17:10

Like I'll throw another moral quandary out there.

01:17:13

People always want to argue about tattoos.

01:17:15

I mean, I can see you lift your hands, Jake.

01:17:17

I can see your ink.

01:17:20

And everybody wants to run to Leviticus and say, hey, you know, the Bible says not to tattoo and yet you're tattooed.

01:17:27

And there are churches that would say that you have consigned yourself to hell.

01:17:31

I say churches, there are preachers that I have heard say you've consigned yourself to hell by marking your body.

01:17:39

And again, I say it like this, and maybe this is an oversimplification, but sometimes we do have to make things dirt road simple.

01:17:51

And here's the dirt road simple.

01:17:54

Christ is my captain and he gives me my marching orders.

01:17:59

And my primary marching orders come from the new covenant scriptures, which I can readily see my commands toward loving my neighbor, living a moral life, doing the things that God has called me to do.

01:18:14

And therefore, I don't have to argue about the ink thing.

01:18:20

I don't have to argue about the tattoo thing.

01:18:22

That may have fit.

01:18:23

My dad didn't like tattoos.

01:18:25

My dad grew up in a different era and he doesn't like beards either.

01:18:29

My dad didn't like tattoos or beards because he associated both of them with bikers.

01:18:33

And so he would see me and Jake and he would see my beard and see Jake's, well, Jake has a beard now, but to see Jake's tattoos and that's the way he associated those things.

01:18:43

And I do think that's the way a lot of people already had preconceived ideas and they just found the scriptures that agreed with them.

01:18:50

I don't like tattoos, so the Bible says tattoos are wrong.

01:18:53

Well, it's words that you can fit a Mary Poppins bag worth of stuff into.

01:19:00

So my least favorite word in all of theology is reverence.

01:19:05

Enter the Lord's sanctuary with reverence.

01:19:08

Well, it means you don't wear a hat.

01:19:12

Exactly.

01:19:13

Exactly.

01:19:14

I know a lot of people, I just came from a church where what that meant was you got to be wearing a suit and tie.

01:19:20

Well, that is certainly a foreign, foreign concept to the old, to the new Testament.

01:19:26

They didn't have no daggone suits and ties.

01:19:28

Right.

01:19:28

And you know, they say, so they would say to me stuff like, well, you know, if you wear jeans and a t-shirt, you're just doing that to appease men.

01:19:36

Like, well, no, I wear jeans and a t-shirt normally.

01:19:38

If I put on a suit and tie, I'm doing that to appease you.

01:19:42

You're a man.

01:19:44

That's a good point.

01:19:45

What does that have to do with the posture of my heart? You know what I mean? And so, so like they're right there, there are these areas of murkiness that's difficult, which is why I love the way God designed the system as we see it as, as Baptists, local elders with wisdom apply the scriptures.

01:20:05

The scripture is the base, the bottom line, the immovable, you know, the, the, the absolute firm foundation.

01:20:13

And then the culture rests on top of that, but not every culture is going to be the same.

01:20:18

So while the scripture doesn't move, man, that culture can and should move, which is why, again, I say again, Paul wrote a book saying, look at with what big letters I'm telling you guys, stop circumcising.

01:20:30

And then you can go, Hey Timothy, go get circumcised.

01:20:33

And Timothy's like, bro, I'd rather have that thing.

01:20:36

Can I go with that? Right? Because I would like to opt out of this experience, please.

01:20:42

How can Paul do both? How can Paul do both? Is circumcision unclear in the old covenant? No, it is unbelievably clear in the old covenant.

01:20:50

Is circumcision unclear for the new covenant? Yep.

01:20:53

Sure is.

01:20:54

Here's one.

01:20:55

It's easy in the old covenant to say only Levite men are priests.

01:21:02

Okay.

01:21:02

Now we're in the new covenant who can be a pastor.

01:21:06

Now there's a, I think a slam dunk case for why only men can be pastors.

01:21:12

I think it's in the language.

01:21:13

It's in the text.

01:21:14

It's super clear.

01:21:16

But if it was that clear, would we still be arguing about it today? Yeah, I think it's clear, but Leviticus is way more clear, right? Right.

01:21:24

God could have given us the Leviticus.

01:21:27

He's not dumb.

01:21:28

God didn't get lazy in establishing the new covenant and be like, Oh man, I don't know.

01:21:33

Let's figure it out.

01:21:35

Right.

01:21:35

If he wanted to give us that he could have, he didn't.

01:21:38

Why? Because we're supposed to rely on the spirit, applying the scripture among the brothers, not the external law.

01:21:50

Yep.

01:21:51

That's the intention.

01:21:52

That is the intention because the law became an idol.

01:21:55

The law became a thing that they worshiped.

01:21:58

And so they missed the law giver for the law.

01:22:01

And so God on purpose did not give us that law.

01:22:05

Now, does it come with some different challenges for us? Yeah.

01:22:09

We also still have challenges that they didn't have.

01:22:13

They had clarity.

01:22:14

We have some, some unclarity and people are like, Oh, what are you talking about? It's clear.

01:22:18

Okay.

01:22:19

Okay.

01:22:20

All right.

01:22:21

If that was true, right.

01:22:23

There would be one application across all of Christendom, but there isn't.

01:22:29

Yeah.

01:22:29

So let's just be honest.

01:22:30

I think, I think probably what even gets, what even gets more to the heart of it is the person who the Christian, who is saying the Bible says we need to wear the three-piece suit or the, whatever it is, they're doing the same thing that the, that the atheist with the, well, what about my mixed fabrics is doing the same problem.

01:22:50

Um, and it comes from the same heart, which is, I have an outcome I'm trying to get to, and I'm going to go in and, and meat market some scriptures until I find the good cut of meat that I'm going to use the choice meat choice meat.

01:23:06

That's it beat me by two seconds.

01:23:08

Yeah.

01:23:09

I need to find the right, uh, the, the, you know, the right cut of meat in order to do this.

01:23:16

And what you're actually, what you're actually doing is you're reversing the flow of most of the new Testament.

01:23:22

Right.

01:23:23

I mean, absolutely.

01:23:24

Right.

01:23:24

What is Paul's primary? Well, okay.

01:23:28

His primary objective is to reveal Christ, but, but the, the primary, let's say brick and mortar issue that he is dealing with is Jews and Gentiles, right? It's that we believe the law should apply in this way.

01:23:41

And the, and the Gentiles have to keep it.

01:23:43

And Paul is like, no, no, no, no, no.

01:23:45

It takes him six sentence versus not even six sentences into Galatians before he's already ripping into them about this.

01:23:52

It is the thing that he was so concerned about in the early church.

01:23:56

And look, if we're nowadays going to bring old to, and I'm going to keep coming back to our misconceptions about the Bible, because we're talking about applying old covenant, old Testament things into the new, this touches on so many different issues.

01:24:10

Let me hit a really, really hot one because Jake jumped on a landmine earlier.

01:24:14

Let me just go ahead and step on one to tithing.

01:24:17

Great.

01:24:17

Yeah, absolutely.

01:24:18

Let's talk about tithing for just a minute.

01:24:20

Absolutely.

01:24:21

Before we dive too deep, I do have to start, we got to start drawing to a close pretty quick, pretty soon.

01:24:27

So yeah, just getting, getting, getting a little long on the show.

01:24:31

So let's say what we want to say about tithing.

01:24:33

We'll make this our last topic.

01:24:34

Okay.

01:24:35

You let Jake go pine for 20 minutes.

01:24:37

I want my 20 minutes.

01:24:38

Oh no, you get your time.

01:24:39

I'm not going to take your time.

01:24:42

I'm glad to be here.

01:24:43

So, so tithing, let's talk about that for a minute.

01:24:47

What is a new Testament Christian supposed to believe about giving to their church? Let me, let me speak very, very early to the practicalities of this.

01:24:59

The old Testament, like Jake said, clear, black and white, 10%.

01:25:03

Like that was, it was a 10th.

01:25:05

It was a, the best, your first fruits kind of an idea.

01:25:08

It was, it was a way to, to not only support the temple, right? Cause this is a theocracy and we're paying taxes to the temple.

01:25:17

That's what was going on.

01:25:18

And you had 12 tribes of Israel.

01:25:21

And so 11 of them are paying a tithe of 10% so that the Levites don't have to go and do that.

01:25:27

And they can do temple things and be priests and all that.

01:25:29

That was the point of it.

01:25:32

Find it in the new Testament, find the 10% tithe or the theocratic taxation principle in the new Testament.

01:25:40

You know what the closest you get is, is the passages where Jesus says, pay your taxes.

01:25:45

That's the closest you get to the tithe right there is pay your taxes.

01:25:49

And so when we're talking about that and I listen, I have sat in budget meetings on churches.

01:25:55

You two gentlemen have seen spreadsheets before and you're thinking to your, and if we're, if we're honest, we've done this, we pull out our notepad and we're like, all right, well, if the average income in this area is this much and everyone would only give 10%, my gosh, our budget would look like this.

01:26:11

I mean, we've all, we've, we've done that, but is that what scripture tells us? No, no, it is not.

01:26:17

And in fact, here's the thing, and this is really challenging.

01:26:21

The person who is cheerfully giving 2% is more faithful, more consistent, and in a greater heart state than the person who is giving 20, 30, 50% either out of obligation or because they are the public and they're like, I'm so glad I'm not like the Jones family over there.

01:26:41

I never see them put anything in the plate.

01:26:43

I give 20%, you know, absolutely.

01:26:46

The person who doesn't give at all, except for monetarily, but approaches with a, a contract heart, the two pennies in Jesus's, you know, widow that, that can't, that's all she has.

01:27:00

And he says, she gave the greater gift is Jesus doing percentage math? Well, he's omniscient.

01:27:05

So he knows what she did.

01:27:07

That's not the point though.

01:27:08

The point is, that's what he's giving out of, but man, you want to talk about an old Testament tradition that is perhaps more embedded in new new Testament Protestantism than the 10% tithe.

01:27:18

You see bumper stickers.

01:27:19

If 10% is good enough for God, it's good for good enough for the IRS fact check.

01:27:24

True, but also not the point of the tithe.

01:27:28

New Testament says, give as a cheerful giver.

01:27:31

And, and I listen, a pastor who preaches the 10% tithe, I'm not saying that you're conniving and you're trying to make budget this quarter.

01:27:39

Listen, I understand finance church financial struggles.

01:27:42

I'm not impugning your character or anything like that.

01:27:45

What I will say is if you are fearful that unless you do that, your church won't live.

01:27:50

You're giving the sheep poisoned food, man.

01:27:53

You are feeding them something that is not true to sustain them, but it's going to kill them.

01:27:59

So give them the word of God from the new Testament, which says, God loves a cheerful giver.

01:28:05

Paul expects it.

01:28:06

The, the, the acts of the apostles record numerous times where they're taking up collections and supporting the church and absolutely first Timothy, the elders who rule well, worthy of double honor.

01:28:16

Don't muzzle the ox while it threshes the grain of workers do as wages.

01:28:20

Absolutely.

01:28:20

All of those things, make sure your pastors are taken care of.

01:28:23

Your building is ready for people to attend on the Lord's day, but do not pull an old Testament tithe to do it.

01:28:30

Just don't, it's not there.

01:28:33

Absolutely.

01:28:33

Right.

01:28:33

So box over.

01:28:36

Yeah.

01:28:36

And I mean, we actually have preached that from our pulpit.

01:28:39

The same thing that you just said, Matthew, our church, you know, believes that.

01:28:45

And, and, and, and I would condemn the, those who would go running to Malachi and say, you know, how have you robbed the Lord? You've robbed the Lord in tithes and offerings and apply that to the church.

01:28:56

And I have heard, I have heard pastors say you're a God robber if you're not giving at least 10%.

01:29:03

And I think that that's a, that's a dangerous thing to say.

01:29:06

Cause you know what those people in Malachi, they were because the functioning of the temple, right? The functioning of the Levitical priests, the functioning of making the sacrifice and the sin offerings and all of those things and the charity work that those priests were supposed to go out and do into the community, the work of God required in that system, them to pay their 10% tithe, their, their first fruits, it required it.

01:29:31

And in the same concept, the function of the New Testament church, if it's going to, if the deacons are going to be caring for the body, they need resources to do that.

01:29:40

Absolutely.

01:29:41

That's the case.

01:29:42

But, but, but, but, but, but that is not how the New Testament teaches us to do this.

01:29:47

And if anybody goes back into the mind of prophets or into the Torah or into anywhere else in the Old Testament, and they see instances where God did this and they're trying to carry those forward and say, this applies, no, terrible exegesis, terrible application of biblical theology.

01:30:04

Absolutely.

01:30:06

I probably need to go too.

01:30:08

So I just have a final thought if we're ready to wrap up.

01:30:11

Yeah.

01:30:11

I got to draw to a close.

01:30:13

I got to get up in the morning and go teach at set free.

01:30:16

So I got to get, I got to get some rest.

01:30:18

So yeah.

01:30:18

So here's my final thought for the brother and sister that's asking, how then do I apply the Bible to my life? Because that's really what this is after.

01:30:26

How do I do that? One, from a Christ-centric lens, through the lens of Christ, what did Christ come to accomplish? What did he accomplish? It is for freedom that he set us free.

01:30:39

And it is so that we might do the good works, which he prepared for us in advance to do.

01:30:44

We are living our lives today to do those things.

01:30:48

So whatever rules you follow, if they're falling under those things, those rules, as long as they're coming from an appropriate eldership that's functioning off of the qualifications of elders who are using scripture as their guide, whatever your church decides under that umbrella, how they live, that's all good.

01:31:11

But don't forget why Christ came.

01:31:14

Don't create law that Christ died to undo, and just understand that the Bible, it is a document that moves through time.

01:31:23

So you can't pick from the script from Act 1 when we're sitting in Act 5 and not see that a fundamental change happened in Act 3 when Christ died and rose again.

01:31:34

Amen.

01:31:35

Amen.

01:31:36

My closing thought would be just be so careful.

01:31:41

You cross a much different bridge when you apply scripture to someone else.

01:31:46

It's just as a much higher standard.

01:31:49

We talked about feast.

01:31:50

If you want to go and like Jake said, eat some bad food and have yourself a party in the woods and think about Jesus.

01:31:57

Look, man, go for it.

01:31:58

That's fine.

01:31:59

That's okay.

01:32:01

But when you go and tell me you must do this or you are out of line with the Bible, now you've gone into a different world.

01:32:12

Amen.

01:32:13

You're assuming the role of spiritual authority at that point.

01:32:17

Whether or not you want to claim it, you are thus saith the Lord in me.

01:32:20

And you better be right.

01:32:21

You better be careful about that.

01:32:24

Do that to yourself.

01:32:26

Do that within your sphere of influence, your family.

01:32:28

If you're a pastor, do it with fear and trembling with your flock.

01:32:32

But be very careful when you extend to that extra level of that extra extension of authority and commandment.

01:32:40

Amen.

01:32:42

Well, brothers, I want to thank you both for being on the program with me.

01:32:45

As always, I have enjoyed it and I have missed our banter.

01:32:49

It has been good.

01:32:50

It's good to see you both.

01:32:52

I hope you both had a Merry Christmas and look forward to this weekend.

01:32:58

Hope you both have a very happy New Year celebration.

01:33:01

So may God bless you both.

01:33:02

Thank you.

01:33:04

Thank you, Keith.

01:33:04

Thank you, Jake.

01:33:05

Thanks, man.

01:33:06

And again, I want to thank you, listener, for being with us on today's program.

01:33:10

I hope that this has been a blessing to you.

01:33:13

Hopefully it has been able to help you understand more about what it means to apply the whole of Scripture to our lives in the sense of understanding covenant law, understanding the distinctions between the old and new covenant, and what it means to live as Christ as the captain of our lives.

01:33:32

And if we are Christians, He, in fact, is our captain.

01:33:34

So as I begin to sign off, I want to give you a few reminders, things that are important.

01:33:39

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01:33:43

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01:33:57

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01:34:00

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01:34:03

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01:34:08

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01:34:11

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01:34:28

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01:34:31

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01:34:42

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01:34:48

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01:34:56

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01:34:59

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