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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.
If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 9 7 3 4 6 0 2 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 and now with today's topic. Here is James white.
And greetings. Welcome to the dividing line. I have absolutely nothing in my headsets, but that's okay. I don't know what y 'all are doing in there, but you know, there's too many switches and lights and stuff like that.
In there, I guess. Yes, it did because it was so loud it was like rattling the the books in my.
Never supposed to change that. Not ever ever ever. You change the other knob, but never that one.
Okay, so.
Anyway, I.
Will I will adjust whatever I need to adjust to be able to work in my office there, sir. That's just all there is to it. Don't have it blasting. So the windows bouncing around, you know, like like like one of those Lowriders is driving by outside going.
Anyway, eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. We actually have a phone caller online, but we have no idea who it is because certain people haven't gotten around to it. But anyways, I Want to start with something a little lighter today.
I have been preparing for the debate with Robert Price and one of the things I want to do is Read a lot of background material because Robert Price is the Bible geek and He has sort of an encyclopedic memory of all sorts of information about the backgrounds the Bible and things like that.
So one of the I Mentioned this last time I had to play this for you. One of the one of the books I've been listening to is on the Gnostic Gospels. Listening to it as I've mentioned. If I have it really even even if I only have it in my libronics library I can now put that on my my pod as well.
It's not as fast as if it's in Kindle, but anyway, I can listen to books while writing and So I was listening to the Gnostic Gospels and I thought you all would like to hear what it sounds like when.
A.
An Amazon Kindle attempts to speak in tongues.
I.
Just just give you an idea. This will give you about 30 seconds worth of the book itself and It's the I think it's a secret gospel of the Egyptians as I recall or the seer gospel the Great Spirit Seth something like that anyway.
You'll get an idea of the character of the book and then There is ecstatic utterances involved in the In the text and I wasn't expecting this. Okay, so this just sort of caught me off guard. But here's here's one of the things I'm listening to as I'm riding along.
This is from the Gnostic Gospels As read by an Amazon Kindle. Oh, it would help. There we go, all right, here we go, are we have we got me pot it up in here. Got me pot up. Okay. Thank you.
So from the great invisible spirit came three powers 42 three realms of eight that the father conceives from within none in silence with four thought the father the mother and the child. The father. The first realm of eight ten for whose sake the child that is three times male came forth upward incorruptibility life.
Eternal will mind for knowledge the androgynous father the mother. The second power or realm of eight the mother the virgin barbello Men who is over heaven carved 12 adonai 13 the inexplicable power the ineffable mother 14.
She shone and appeared and she took pleasure in the father of the silent silence. The child. The third power or realm of eight the child of the silent silence the crown of the silent silence the glory of the Father the virtue of the 43 mother from within the child produces seven powers of great light.
Which are the seven vowels. 15. And the word complete them. These are the three powers or three realms of eight that the father conceived from within. Through four thought the father conceived them. There the realm of doxomed and omitted doxomed and appeared.
The eternal realm of eternal realms with thrones in it powers Around it and glories and incorruptions. The father of the great light who came forth in silence is the great realm of doxomed. In in which the triple male 16 child rests the throne of its glory was established in it.
And the undisclosed name is inscribed on it on the tablet. The word the father of the light of all who came from silence and rests In silence whose 44 name is in an invisible symbol a hidden invisible mystery came forth.
And so the three powers offer praise to the great invisible unnameable ineffable virgin spirit. You know I put one of our collars on hold right after you started that. And this poor fellow probably really wonders.
Well, you know, I'm not sure that the folks at Amazon had ever really considered How the Kindle would handle speaking in tongues because no no interpretation was provided. So it's not.
Ah.
There you go. That's. I'm not sure which is weirder the tongue-speaking or the stuff that came before and after it those are pretty much equally equally odd, but yes, believe it or not, there was three hours of not of the tongue-speaking that bothered with that but three hours to listen to the just that one book on the Gnostic Gospels and As I've been telling a lot of my friends I read and listen to all this bad stuff so you don't have to that's.
Yes.
The Apollonius of Tyana, I'm looking at my Apollonius stuff here. Let's see an hour and a half three hours 41 sets four hours five five ten plus four another 420. So that was seven half at least. No nine nine and a half hours, yeah, that's that's that's a lot of time to be listening to Apollonius of Tiana, but I did.
All in preparation for the debate coming up in barely over a month now in Tampa, Florida. Very much looking forward to that now. I have some other material to get to but we have a number of phone callers already so let's go ahead and and go with with those and let's start with Roland.
Hi Roland.
Hey, how you doing? I'm good. I've got a question a follow-up question from your debate with dr. Brown.
I got.
Interacted with him on his blog and I asked him a question regarding 1st Corinthians 4 7 who make a theater different from another. And I know you kind of touched on it when you were talking about the 7 ,000 and why were they reserved, right?
And.
Basically, he told me that I don't even speak of salvation. Which I question to you is did you agree that is a valid question. Had any experience with any Armenian answering this question again? I got kind of frustrated because I couldn't get a straight answer.
I didn't feel I wasn't trying to be disrespectful, but I really didn't like the answer. Um, I don't recall if I have.
Ever mentioned it in passing. It is a text. I know that we use a lot of our church. And so it might have been just in in passing that I made some reference to who makes us to differ but if we don't have a view of of God's decree as being behind why I have the gifts that I have or Live where I live when I lived in the situation. I live and an overarching purpose in God's mind for all of these things then You know, you're just not gonna see significance in in many of these things and and I I don't I don't I don't want to Answer for somebody else.
I don't know how an Armenian would answer the question I would assume an Armenian would say something along lines of well, God gives us general gifts and abilities and then we you know use them from there, but even From the perspective that it sounded for a moment like dr. Brown was going with a Molinus perspective That even causes more problems because from the Molinus perspective middle knowledge is based upon What knowing these what these free creatures would do in any given situation and yet that's not determined by God's decree, so The answer for them would be well, no one made them to differ.
I Guess but I don't know how they would answer that question. I can't I can't Answer that question. I can't answer the question how they'd answer the questions. What that way.
I was just wondering if you've ever had anyone actually answer the question because like I said.
Well, and and I I think that this again goes back to what lies behind the entirety of The the narrative of what God is doing in Scripture is that it's not that God is looking around and goes. Ah, here's.
Here's Pharaoh. Here's this guy I can he's dishonorable. I know he's gonna be a sorrow. So I'll make him Pharaoh. So that I can fulfill my purposes in him, but I wouldn't make an honorable guy that way.
See. So so it's it. The idea that God's looking around and he's trying to make things work out. But he only has limited resources to work with he has to find Dishonorable people to put in the position of Pharaoh or something like that.
Which in which in essence is what I heard Michael saying when we talked about that particular text Is just a completely different way of looking at things then to see God's sovereign decree as that which forms a very fabric of time and It really does I think end up impacting how we answer all sorts of questions.
So, yeah, I I would agree with you. I I don't know how they would they would answer that and it's a good question to ask. Okay, thank you Roland. All right. Eight seven seven seven five three three, three, four one.
Dabney. Hello Dabney. Oh, yes, sir. Now it's at Dabney. It sounds like the phone you're on is is is really muffled so you have to enunciate. Rather clearly because it sounds. Sounds that's alright. I just just letting you know so that I don't misunderstand you're saying.
But I did have one quick question for you. Me and my teachers have been talking about this because the more I've Exposed my view on ask you. Exactly how people to believe in or what exactly did they have to do?
In order to be Saved in the Old Testament.
Well, actually as we had discussed at that time I think the discussion in In Romans explains this fairly straight in a fairly straightforward fashion specifically. The the assertion that God had looked over.
This is in verse versus 25 26 of Romans chapter 3. Whom God put for his propitiation by his blood received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present times that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And then it goes on to discuss Abraham as the the very paradigm of this faith in Romans chapter 4 and how is Abraham justified before God.
Well, he is justified before God. By his faith not by his works for if Abraham was justified by works He has something to boast about but not before God Romans 4 2 for what does the scripture say Abram believed God?
And it was kind to him as righteousness. So if Abram becomes the the paradigm That explains how it is that we are saved then that remains the case to this day now. What was the object of his faith? Well, it was not as as full an object as we have in the sense of the amount of revelation but acceptance of the promises of Yahweh.
Is true what required the work of the Holy Spirit to create that true and living faith just as acceptances of the promise of Yahweh that we accept in his Incarnation the second person the Trinity becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ outpouring the Holy Spirit.
We are still believing the promises of Yahweh. Except they're just much more explicit and much fuller in there in our understanding of what they are. But the promises have have remained the same and the God that is That is being believed in by faith has remained the same as well and so there is this this covenant of grace that extends from from beginning through to the end and while there are different ways in which God deals with his people during that period of time and I Avoid the use of the term dispensation at that point.
But while there are different ways in which God deals as people. The means by which people are saved is the same all the way through and that is by faith. In the one covenant God who has revealed himself now then in the intertestamental period in the incarnation of Christ is death by resurrection the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so If if Abraham can be the paradigm then there has to be saving faith there.
And then that becomes the the foundation of saying well. This is always how God's people have been the true Israelites have always been those who've had that circumcised heart. Etc. Etc. It wasn't just the the Genetic relationship to Abraham that that never saved anyone.
It was that faith relationship has always been central.
Well.
Jesus said that Abraham rejoiced to see his day saw it and was glad. I don't know that I think that that has to do with the encounter of Abraham with with Jehovah by the Oaks of Mamre, but There are some who have felt that there have been very explicit Promises of the coming of the Messiah.
I'm a little bit uncomfortable because I can't prove that I have to go with with what the text provides to me and and the Promises that are provided in Genesis 12 and 15. There is a promise that all the nations would be blessed through his seed but whether that is as explicit as what we would have in a Micah or a Psalm 2 or Psalm 22 or Isaiah and things like that.
I think there is a growing Clarity to the revelation of the coming of the Messiah just as there is anything else and so I I mean you can go all the way back to the prote evangelium in Genesis 3 and there is the sea of the woman but You know, if you if that was all you had and you didn't have the rest that revelation how explicit would that would that you know promise be.
I'd be very difficult to put a whole lot of Detail into that just based upon what you have in those particular early early texts.
Following up the last thing wrongly dividing the word of truth by John H. Gerstner. Would you recommend that as a read for me or no? Well.
Yes, but Just realize that if I have if I have the reputation as a Directly speaking individual shall we say John Gerstner has a much greater reputation as what? Cuts it straight shall we say. So be prepared for straightforward language.
Not not in a Sense bad, but just very straightforward. As long as you're as long as you're ready for that then.
The information would be fine. Yeah, I think it will be. You know I'm really have been jumping off ship of the dispensational boat Over the course of the last few months and I'll be going to Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Milwaukee with my wife This Sunday night.
Well, that's great.
Dr. Gerstner will pick you up off the boat and throw you headlong into the water. Alright, thanks, Dabney. And he will. No, no two ways about it. Well some of you saw the Article that I posted last evening Where I responded to a blog post that was tweeted to me.
I had not Actually seen This particular by the way, I wanted to make sure you could get hold of me by by Twitter as well. I forgot to mention that we taking Skype calls today. You're working on it. We are now, okay, it's a 1118 and we're ready for the Skype calls that's good so Doctor and the address would be dividing dot line dividing that line for Skype calls and Twitter at the doctor was 16 and I'm some of you saw the post last evening with Jim Ellis comments on it was interesting and again a Little bit later I might actually Get into a discussion of last week's big thing.
And that is the John Piper Warren situation and one of the things that I will mention is that I don't have much standing upon which to discuss it simply because. You've never heard me invited to any of those big Conferences and you probably never will.
You've never seen me at Desiring God. You've never seen me at Ligonier. You've never seen me at Shepard's conference. I think I scare people. I mean, I'm a you know, C-level speaker anyways. But even when it's on subjects that are directly relevant to what I do and that I might have some fairly unique experience in I you don't see the invitations come in my direction and I think there's some reasons for that.
I speak fairly plainly. Not as plainly as a lot of people like to assert that I do but I speak fairly plainly and Interesting. Well, interestingly the one of the issues that sort of relate the two together Was I I saw Jim Ellis commentary on a a debate that had recently took place taking place at Midwestern and he made reference to a previous debate that Bart Ehrman had done it at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and his honest statement that Ehrman won both debates.
But he didn't want to name any names. Because he wanted the statement his his statements to be a little bit more shall we say Generic and usable in other situations. But what he was talking about and this is where we differ is this is where I come out and say well the debate Was this and it took place such as time.
Here's the here's the discussion of it. The debate was between Craig Evans and Bart Ehrman. It took place last Thursday at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and I managed to get hold of the sound file this morning.
I have not had a chance to listen to all of it. I was immediately taken aback when I saw the size of The file what I mean by that is the entire thing was only an hour and 26 minutes long and The first five minutes or more were all introductions and hi.
How are you doing? And da da da da da so we're taught this isn't I don't even know if you can describe this as a debate and Given that it's in regards to the reliability of the New Testament witness to Jesus 90 minutes 80 minutes.
You you can barely Provide any kind of foundational statement. This is what's making doing in-depth debates in our day a lot harder because In the past you could assume a certain level of knowledge on the part of the individuals.
It would be listening to the debate. You can't assume that anymore and So the shorter the debate gets and is this just because our society has a shorter and shorter and shorter attention span. I mean a lot of folks find attending a three three and a half hour debate just to be too exhausting.
It's just just too hard. I can't I can't listen that long. What have all of our gadgets and I love gadgets, but what have all of our gadgets done to us you know, I was sitting at a stoplight yesterday and I looked over and there's two guys in a truck and Neither one of them's looking up they're both sitting there with their BlackBerrys iPhones, whatever in their hands and they're texting folks and I know that as soon as this light changes I'm gonna take off and he's gonna be sitting there because he's not watching the light.
He's texting. He's just expecting that once he sees other vehicles moving then he can get moving. I think even our traffic moves slower. Thanks to stuff like that now.
But.
The the attention span that people have has just has just absolutely collapsed and. So I did start listening to it just briefly just so I get a sense of I don't know that I've heard Craig Evans speak.
I think I did. I think he was on a program. I listened to back during the Talpiot tomb stuff. He he was interviewed at that particular point in time but I ran across a section of classic ermine and Since.
Well, I just wanted to play it and make some comments on it. That's what we do around here. So let's let's listen to Just a little bit. This is only last Thursday. So this is about as fresh as you can get.
Here's some of Bart Ehrman's comments. In the mill. Virgin, yeah, that's the wrong one there. Let's see and there we want to get proper introductions tonight. No, that's not we wanted to do either. It went back to where it was supposed it wasn't supposed to be.
Let's just sort of guess here.
Archaeologists dig to find material remains from antiquity and their digs are not based on the study of Literary texts such as the New Testament Gospels as any and as any bona fide archaeologist will tell you.
But historians Of course do use the Gospels as sources. Principally as sources for knowing about the life of the historical Jesus. They have to because there are no other sources that are reliable that exist.
Which leaves us with a problem since the only sources that do exist are the Gospels and they're not reliable either. There's no doubt that the historical Jesus is the most important person in the history of Western civilization.
There is no doubt of that at all in my opinion. But the unfortunate thing about Jesus is that we have such scanty documentation about his life.
Now now remember we have more documentation About what Jesus said and did than almost anyone else in antiquity at all.
Political leaders world leaders anything like that. From much closer to the time period of his life than almost anyone else at all. But you see Bart Ehrman these others have adopted this historiography that destroys history this extreme skepticism not only about the the transmission of the text but given the allegedly Huge time period between the actual events and the recording the events.
This is what I'm encountering in an even more virulent form in Robert Price, I mean Robert Price and this is gonna come up in the debate. I assure you it's gonna be my opening statement. Robert Price, I'll play the quote for you maybe over the next couple weeks has Said that if the gospel writers had recorded the Gospels ten minutes after the events happened We still couldn't know What had actually taken place?
So in other words you have and this and and what what's going on is the modern student unaware of how history has been done and unaware of the limitations of history in the sense of What comes down to us over time?
Adopts a post enlightenment. Modernistic concept of what you would need to know. To have any knowledge of the past and in essence, it's well Hopefully CNN was there if it wasn't we can't know if we don't have video or at absolute minimum audio recording.
Then there's just no way of knowing and of course what this means is we can't know anything about history. But here's the problem if you adopt that idea, we don't know. We just don't know. We don't know.
It's a you know. It's amazing how dogmatic people who say we don't know can be when it comes to well, we do know that didn't happen. But just think with me for just one moment about something did the past Happen.
I mean we can tell that there were large cities like Rome and we can tell that there were political entities and Armies and wars and literature and art and all sorts of other things. We know history happened.
So if you adopt a historiography That Forces you to say well, yeah something happened. But we just don't have any clue as to what? How helpful is that? I? Mean, isn't that just simply capitulating to rank skepticism and ignorance?
Something happened there is a true narrative of history. Now, of course if you're a philosophical naturalist You might say well there may be a true narrative of his of history. But since there's no Supernatural realm and Since there's no God who would want us to have true knowledge of history, then there's no way we can know.
I think it happened in history at all, you know, we can talk in very broad outlines. There was clearly a Roman Empire, but really what they did and when they did it, you know, we you know we've got their version, but you know, the victors always change history blah blah blah blah blah blah and What is what is the the overarching purpose in this modern attack upon all of history itself?
But to exalt us to exalt modern man and His abilities and his theories and his philosophies. There's a huge amount of modern hubris. Involved in in these debates and I'm seeing that more and more as I listen to these things.
Most people don't realize this. But Jesus is never mentioned in any Greek or Roman non-christian source until 80 years after his death and that would be true of.
99 point. Nine nine nine nine nine nine nine. Percent of all of humanity who lived. Millions and millions and millions of people. Does that mean they didn't exist? Does it mean we can't know anything about them?
That's like the there's 400 ,000 textual variants. It sounds real good when you announce it with all your scholarly vim and vigor. But what does it mean in context?
There is no record of Jesus having lived in these sources in the entire first Christian century. Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian religion scholar politician philosopher or poet and.
What does that mean. Once again, what's the who does this appeal to. It appeals to the CNN age? It appeals to the people who are thinking only in that context of well. You know if there's no evidence, I mean We can't Google him or anything.
We are living in an information age. We are living in an age where there's Documentation and there's records and there's Google and there's ways of finding out what almost anybody's done. That is very much an extremely modern situation.
Anyone who has done genealogical research knows this the farther back you get the scantier and scantier the records become. So those words could be said again about just about every single human being who ever lived on the planet.
And. What's the whole purpose of saying this? Well, because if Jesus was who he claimed to be then there should have been records. There should have been videotapes. And no why? How. Those are some of the questions.
We're gonna take a break and be right back. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. Listen a little bit more Bart Ehrman and Your calls on Skype as well dividing dotline and via Twitter at dr. Oakley 1689.
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And we'll go back to the divine line. We'll listen to a few comments from Bart Ehrman. I'd actually queued something up, but I'm doing this. I'm doing this for my other computer at the moment actually.
Remotely just opened my thing up and for some reason it lost the point that I queued up.
But this is good stuff. Anyways, we'll see if he gets the same comments at some point. His name never occurs in a single Inscription and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence zero zip references.
Except of course that New Testament stuff. Which which even though he dates much later? There's absolutely no reason to date as late as he does. There's no reason to not believe that the earliest Materials in New Testament.
Oh, wait a minute. Those were letters. It does add at Pauline epistolary stuff. Wait, just put that stuff aside outside of this see but the problem is the New Testament is a bunch of documents written by multiple people from multiple places at multiple times and So it doesn't represent just one group it represents a whole bunch of people spread out across the Roman Empire.
Letters written from Rome. Letters written from Corinth Ephesus. Hmm, that would seem to be about that would seem to indicate an exceptionally wide base of information. I Wonder why it gets dismissed.
Oh. Because it's Christian and in modern-day scholarship the one thing that we can't even suggest would possibly be the case is That what the Christians have always believed about it was actually true.
The first time Jesus is mentioned in a Roman source or a Greek source is by the Roman governor of a province of Asia Minor. A governor named Pliny in the year 112 80 years after Jesus death and even then Pliny doesn't even name him Jesus.
He simply refers to his name Christ in passing. That is the only reference within 80 years of Jesus death.
Which makes him referenced earlier than 99 .99999999 percent of the rest of all of humanity. Which clearly lived at that time and that's even laying aside All of the New Testament documents themselves.
Jesus is mentioned two times very very briefly by the Jewish historian Josephus in the year 93 over 60 years after his death. But he's mentioned in no other Jewish source of the first century at all.
What other Jewish sources are there? See, it's real easy to make these none whatsoever. Why don't you? Explain just how vast these sources are because a lot of people figure all there's this, you know.
Boy, there's a whole whole shelf worth of books from the first century from Jewish sources. There isn't. These are extremely fragmentary materials and. So it's so easy that airman has become the spin Meister.
He makes money from doing this. Look at his last book. His last book is nothing but a collection of anti-christian Argumentation that's as old as the hills but if you're an apostate you get Paid to be an apostate.
I have a question.
It seems to me that there was a little something that happened around 7 8 70 ad. You know when the Roman soldiers come in and they burn your entire town to the ground might have something to do with your litter.
All the records and those yeah, you know would have an impact. Yeah, yeah sort of does. But remember those who were at the debate. When I debated Irma and every time I mentioned persecution in the early church People reported to me immediately even at the break during the debate.
He was rolling his eyes like oh Persecution now, I don't know if he thought that I was trying to connect myself to the persecuted people as if he was a persecutor. Or something which would be silly. But the reality is that persecution not only against the Jews, but especially against the Christians was an extremely relevant issue at that point in time and Especially in regards to the transmission of the text in New Testament as well.
So yeah that all. That all plays in.
If you want to know about Jesus you have to turn to Christian sources. There is no choice. The earliest Christian source is the Apostle Paul. But to the surprise of many Bible readers Paul scarcely mentions Anything about Jesus words and deeds while he's living now.
Catch catch.
The urban isms here because once you start taking him apart you'll discover. He doesn't really have much to say. I'm saying that very seriously, but there's nothing new here. I told the Muslim and channel recently.
He doesn't come up with anything new. He's just retreading old stuff that I've known about for years and years and years and years. Why did you hear that to to the surprise of many Bible readers? Why?
Why would that be to the surprise of many Bible readers. I Understand that I am it doesn't surprise me whatsoever that the Apostle Paul is not writing a gospel. That he's not writing a life or narrative of Jesus why would he do that the very living tradition of the Church the community to which he has been joined is soaked in the stories of Jesus.
What is written in the Gospels was already the common knowledge and possession of Christians. Why would he rewrite these things it is amazing to me? When I hear these scholars, what's amazing and sad when I hear Muslims buying into it.
Repeating the same stuff. Well, it doesn't seem that Paul knew almost anything about the life of Jesus. And why would you expect him to repeat what every person who'd been in the first service? He walked into and nobody ran away from at.
Already knew. Why would you do that? I?
Mean if you were to look at the the books I write do I repeat everything in the New Testament?
No.
So why would you expect Paul to be doing the same thing? It's just amazing. Where where people come up with this kind of stuff?
He says a lot about Jesus death and resurrection, but almost nothing about his words and deeds while alive.
Except when the Apostle in first Corinthians is talking about marriage and he says the Lord and then later he says now I have no command from the Lord, but I Say and how many times have we heard people?
Glom on to that and go. Oh see, you know, here's Paul saying he's not inspired. What was actually going on there is? When he answered the preceding questions. He knew of the tradition the gospel tradition where Jesus had addressed those matters of marriage and guess what?
When we go to Matthew Mark Luke and John we find he did exactly that. But then when other questions come up that are not a part of what we have in the gospel narratives Paul says and this is interesting, isn't it?
He's writing before the Gospels and yet his knowledge of what is there and what isn't there matches what's written. Years later, isn't that interesting? It most certainly is. When he says I not the Lord what he's saying is Jesus didn't address this but I as an apostle who has the Spirit of God say this and Yet, I can't tell you how many times I have heard people glom on to that section as a Paul says he wasn't inspired.
He's just giving his own opinion blah blah blah and they don't even realize what's going on and how it is a testimony to the ubiquitous nature of the gospel materials. Even before the first written gospel is is committed to writing.
Which means if you want to know about the words and deeds of Jesus the earliest sources are the Gospels. But these are filled absolutely filled with discrepancies historical mistakes errors contradictions stories that have been changed and rechanged and changed yet again in the process of Telling and retelling before the gospel writers living 40 50 60 years after Jesus life were able to write them down.
Wow.
He's really starting to sound a little desperate at times. I mean, he's really getting Rather a preachy. I mean, I thought he was preachy in our debate. But I mean he is very forceful there. Of course every time we take the time to go through as I've done this before I did this in st. Louis.
About a month before the debate. Those recordings are available. I've done it in other context. I'll go through his like his list of contradictions and errors in the in the gospel accounts in regards to the When was did Jesus die?
Well, it depends on which gospel you read and we go through all these and if you just go through them examine each one you discover that. Someone's very biased against these accounts and doesn't seem to want to allow them to well, he would say I'm just letting them speak for themselves, which is code for I will not allow for harmonization my Reading which makes them contradictory has to be the right reading because it makes them contradictory.
Because if they're not contradictory then there would be something well weird going on here. Like maybe something supernatural. We know that can't happen. You see the circularity you've got to learn to see this if you can see it yourself.
Then you've got to see it with such clarity that you can explain it to somebody else. Who is influenced by men like Barnerman? You have to be able to do this. You cannot just say well go listen to this guy over here on this webcast.
You have to understand these things. It's your kids the people in your church your neighbors your co-workers that you can become the means by which they can see The circular nature of rebellious thinking and that's what we have here.
We have a man who has abandoned the faith and as such he thinks in a rebellious fashion. It's not morally neutral. It's sinful. I Know that catches people up all the time, but think about it. When those who are created in the image of God think in such a way as to deny his very ability to communicate himself.
That is sinful rebellion. There is no moral neutrality in these issues and you need to be able to recognize this kind of circular thought.
Craig has said well eyewitnesses are still alive. So they'd be able to check the accuracy of the stories being told. I've never understood this argument, even though I've heard it for 40 years. Christianity started out as a small group of Jesus followers in Jerusalem.
40 years I Guess he's saying from the from the time that he I mean that would put put it right at the time of his initial conversion I guess so. Expanding the numbers a little bit. I've been doing this for all the you know scholarship for all these years.
May I remind you that the Bart Ehrman himself said about ten years ago that he's pretty much not involved in textual criticism anymore. And yet when that issue comes up all of a sudden he's you know Still the greatest living expert on the subject even though as he himself puts it.
He's not involved with it anymore. I gotta keep that kind of thing in mind as well right after his death.
Within 30 years there were Christian communities that were established throughout many of the urban areas of the Roman Empire. There were Christian churches in Palestine in Syria in Asia Minor what we think of as Turkey in Greece in Rome possibly in northern Africa almost certainly in Alexandria Egypt.
Hundreds of people were converting. Thousands of people were converting. How did they convert by people telling them stories about Jesus? Who was telling the stories? If I convert you and you convert your wife and your wife converts her next-door neighbor an extra neighbor converts her husband and her husband.
Converts a business associate who goes to another city convert his business associate. Who's telling the stories? Is it eyewitnesses? Are the twelve apostles of Jesus talking to everybody who's telling a story and saying make sure you get that right.
The eyewitnesses are probably in Jerusalem. Where are the eyewitnesses in Ephesus? Where are the eyewitnesses in Tarsus?
Evidently, dr. Ehrman thinks that eyewitnesses are limited To one particular place. I thought they were scattered all over the place.
I'm.
Again, I haven't listened this whole thing. I normally don't do this, but I just picked a spot here and this I thought this was close to where I had Queued up, but it wasn't but it's interesting. Anyways.
Is he gonna interact with Balcom? I'll be interested in find out if he does. I'll let you know Balcom's Jesus and eyewitnesses. It just seems like right now that this is this is argumentum ad authority.
I've been doing this forever and you need to listen to me and This doesn't make any sense to me therefore it shouldn't make any sense to you. That's not really a sound basis upon which to To look at things at at all.
Anyways, eight seven seven seven five three three four one. We're getting close on time here. So we need to make sure to have time to get to another caller here. Since I haven't seen anything on Twitter or haven't gotten any Skype calls.
So we have the plain old phone line is active once again and We're not going across the pond here but sort of only in the sense of background and history. Let's let's talk with with John. Hi, John. I'm doing pretty good.
How are you? You know, I was over in London recently, you know. Yeah, I've been following that as is wonderful. Have you ever have you ever been in Angel Station? Angel Station never no, no, really. No, they have the longest they have the longest escalator in Europe at Angel Station on the tube and There's a video on YouTube.
You'll have to go you have to go to YouTube and look up Angel Station. There's a video on YouTube of a guy like at two o 'clock in the morning. He rides up the escalator and when he gets off he jumps down.
He puts skis on his feet that he's been carrying with him and he skis down the center part of the escalator. They're in Angel Station and It's which is completely illegal. But but he did it and got caught but it doesn't matter because he's famous now.
So you'll have to you'll have to go check that out. It was worth the prison time man. No, he didn't get I'm not sure if his prison. But the worst thing could happen to you if you live in London is to be banned from public transportation.
That would just be that is that's true. That would be it. That would be worse than going to prison.
Yeah, so what's up? Hey, very quick question and forgive me if you've actually dealt with this elsewhere. It's regarding the faith and he dealt with the first John 5 one very very just in conversations I've had people sometimes kill.
That's not news to you. I was just interesting. Interested in how you dealt with that. You're born of God before believing or. In other words, if you see someone believing now, it's evidence for the fact they're born of God.
Excuse me, John 20 does by believing you may have life in his name. A sequence statement.
Yeah, I think it's important to emphasize My my my emphasis has always been in first John 5 one Not so much attempting to establish some type of temporal order as a logical order and and that is that that that John's John's point.
Is that the the exercise of saving faith the person who is who has? Saving faith that present tense hoppest you own is So important in the Ohanian corpus. It's it's there in John 5. It's there in John 6.
And that is his Shorthand for real believers. The one believing in me will have eternal life the one believing me will not hunger and thirst and so on and so forth and so the the point is that that kind of believing is dependent upon Divine action and that divine action is that bring to spiritual life here in John 20 31?
These things have been written in order to might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God the Messiah the Son of God and and so this is this is Continuing this the reason why it's it's been written in order that believing present tense participle.
But since this is where it is here that I would take this as a participle being used as means. In order that by believing what I just said that is Jesus Christ a living God. You you would have life in his name.
So it's it's Not even talking about hoppest you own or or anything like that. It's it's a Hinnok clause with the present active participle being utilized.
In.
Explaining the transition here and the transition is and Having by means of believing you have life in his name now if someone were to say well Having life in his name is the same thing as Gagin a tie being forgotten regeneration but but Zoane So Zoane a ktay that is normally used in the context of having eternal life.
And that is a a present possession of the one who is hoppest you own and John 5 and John 6 and places like that. So it would be significantly less Possible to try to derive some kind of a Order out of a text out of a Hinnok clause.
That is basically saying well I've written these sayings you might believe this fact that is that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and In order that When you believe that in order that when Believing that you would have life in his name.
The the all of this is stating the purposes you have to Hinnok clauses there in the first part of verse 31 Tau-tau day gag rub tie Hinnok in order that you might believe and in order that Believing you might have life in his name.
So both are are just explaining why it is that John has written these these particular these particular words, which interestingly enough then goes on to That sounds like a lot of people say that sounds like the end of the book.
But then you have verse 20 or chapter 21 tacked on and and so they they go on from there. But so It would be very difficult to attempt to create some kind of an order of salutis Out of Hinnok clauses in regards to why a book was written.
But if someone I suppose were to say well having life in his name that the problem is the particular verb that is that is used here is in the subjunctive and once you leave leave the indicative. Doing stuff with subjunctives, especially in Hinnok clauses and establishing time parameters and orders and things like that becomes even more problematic in the process so but again, I really think that the first John 5 one thing really goes back to an illustration of the baggage that we carry into this particular discussion and that is If if we have a non-biblical Anthropology if we have a an anthropology that does not take seriously What is said concerning the inabilities of man, I mean think of John.
How many times does he emphasize the ability of God but then uses ooh? duna tie of man Not able not able not a John chapter 6 John chapter 8 John chapter 10 over and over and over again Let the man be born again.
He cannot he cannot cannot cannot it's it's all over the place. But if you if your mind has been trained to read cannot as can yeah then you might Bach at looking at 1st John 5 1 and saying oh, yeah. You know clearly here the fact that I have any type of ongoing faith is because of the preceding work of God.
It's all comes from whether you're gonna allow all the text to speak or not and It's not so much and I think some people have picked on me for this thinking this is what I'm doing, but it's not. It's not well I can find a way of sneaking something into a text over here or sneaking something into a text over there.
I'm not trying to do that. I think if you simply sit back and say what is John's doctrine of man's capacity and ability. Outside of get getting a tie being regenerated. It's pretty clear. Yeah. But people don't do exegesis that way anymore evidently at least in large portions of evangelicalism.
They just sort of let that stuff slide and so Yeah, John 2031 great great text, but if someone's trying to create an order out of it. The problem is that you have a present participle then with a subjunctive and it's expressing Means purpose result things like that.
It's not it's not functioning the way that In a syntactically parallel way to first John 5 -1. Oh, yeah. Oh, well. Yeah. Yeah very much.
So yeah, thank you. That's the fullest explanation. I've heard that very very satisfying. Thank you. Thanks, John. God bless.
All righty, well, that's gonna do it for the dividing line today. We will be back on our regular time Thursday. This will be the first Thursday. We've Been on the afternoon for a while because we had the debate with Michael Brown, but We'll be back regular time on Thursday Lord willing.
We'll see you then. God bless.
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