Frank Beckwith

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning, welcome to a special Dividing Line on a Wednesday morning.
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Yes, it is my prerogative to change the time of The Dividing Line as I see fit. Yesterday morning at this time, yours truly, was climbing
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Humphreys Peak. You know it's not called Mount Humphreys, that's a different mountain. It's Humphreys Peak.
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But it's, I thought they were the San Francisco Peaks. Well why is, so the whole range is the
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San Francisco, okay, whatever. It's the highest point in the state of Arizona and I was on a bike climbing up to the top, did it twice actually, and so it wouldn't have worked very well because it was very windy at the top.
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So even if I had tried to do a Dividing Line from up there, I would have not only frozen to death, but you wouldn't have been able to hear me anyways, just would have heard whoosh, whoosh, whoosh all the time, that would have been sort of silly.
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So anyways, we moved it to today, and the first thing I see this morning as I am going through my
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RSS feeds and the like, a real uprising in persecution against Christians in Muslim countries, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Many Christians losing their lives, many others being tried and threatened with execution for apostasy, in other words for embracing
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Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and the treatment that they receive at the hands of these allegedly faithful Muslims is truly disgusting.
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I would call upon all those Muslims who say, oh, we all know that's wrong, to much more vociferously and loudly condemn these types of actions and call upon Afghanistan and Pakistan to stop these types of things.
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But when it comes to apostasy, folks, look, Muhammad said it, the person who changes the religion from that of the one true religion should die.
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And that's happening in these places, and unfortunately, these are very often governments propped up by our tax dollars.
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Meanwhile, in the United States, while we have to now stand in front of scanners and basically have our clothes electronically removed, hearing the possibilities that Muslim women may be given a pass on that, brilliant, folks, brilliant!
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Scan the Scotsman, give the lady in the burqa a pass. All right! Wow, we are—TSA is really on the ball on that one.
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Oh my goodness. Sanity has taken a vacation, and I do not know if it is ever intended to come back at any time in the future.
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All right, next wild and crazy thing. Now I'm not—I am not surprised by this at all, but a couple days ago, two days ago,
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Frank Beckwith announced that St. Joseph Communications—remember St.
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Joseph Communications, Rich? Was that the last time you were hung up on by someone? Probably not.
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You're normally the hanger, not the hangee. Oh, I know, that's my point, is
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I remember well when you were attempting to speak with the folks at St.
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Joseph Communications after my debate with Tim Staples in 2000, where we had an explicit, written agreement that if any videos were taken of that debate, that they would be shared with both sides.
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And a video camera was sitting there running from St. Joseph's. Did we ever see it? No, we did not see it.
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In fact, I don't think St. Joseph's ever made that debate available. I think it just was, let's—it's just like, well, the last two debates
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I've done with Tim Staples. What's that? Do you think they did? Because I never saw it.
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Because they said they were going to add some— If you'll remember, they were all gung -ho at the event.
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Oh yes, they were. And they had tape duplicators, a bunch of them sitting on the table. Right, right, right, but I mean on their website.
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So that night they distributed it, but I think that was pretty much it. I think that was it. Yeah, I don't think that was ever produced and put into a nice little cover or anything like that.
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Yeah, they did have it that night. In fact, if it wasn't for tape duplication on that night, I don't think we would have ever had it either.
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So yeah, you bet. We have stories.
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We definitely have stories. But anyway, we never saw that video. And when
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Rich was trying to say, excuse me, but we have, you know, here's this thing, and it's written out, and your representative said this, well, we're not going to do it.
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And they hung up on Rich. They just, boop. And it was the head of St. Joseph's, wasn't it? Barber.
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Terry Barber. Terry Barber. Yeah, just hung up on him, and that was it. So anyway, the last two debates
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I've done with Tim Staples, from the Catholic perspective, have simply gone, whoosh, gone with the wind.
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Never, what, debate on purgatory? No, we never did a debate on purgatory on the dividing line. What's that all about? Anyway, Frank Beckwith, November 15th, on his blog,
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St. Joseph's Communications has just released the CD, Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic. It is an interview of me, conducted by Terry Barber and Joshua Betancourt.
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Joshua is the co-, boy, are they milking this one. Joshua is the co -author with Norman L. Geisler of Is Rome the
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True Church?, a book in which he and Geisler critique a variety of Catholic beliefs about ecclesiology and papal authority. Several months after the release of the book,
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Joshua announced his intention to seek full communion with the Catholic Church. Shouldn't be overly surprising, folks, because Norman Geisler is compromised on the issue of Rome.
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There's a reason why, for decades, I've heard people, and I've never said it publicly, but I'm just repeating what other people say, refer to him as Roman Geisler, because on a basic fundamental level, on the issue of the nature of grace and free will, he does not disagree with Rome.
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He's fundamentally compromised. His PhD is from a Jesuit school, folks. Think about it. Hello? Anyway, you can't obtain the
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CD via St. Joseph's Communications. Here, the following is a description of the CD. Why did the president of the
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Evangelical Theological Society leave his post and return to the Catholic Church? Now, you know, I stop right there.
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That's not fair, because he had no intention of leaving his post. He announced his intention to return to the
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Catholic Church, and then some of us, like yours truly, said, um, that means you're not an evangelical.
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Hello? You should resign your position. It was not his intention to leave that position at all.
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Anyways, find out as Terry Barber and convert Joshua M. Betancourt. How many times are former
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Catholics automatically called converts? Have you noticed that when you convert to Rome, you're converting to a church?
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When you leave Roman Catholicism, what do we say you've done? You've converted to Christ. It's interesting how it changes.
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Anyhow, convert Joshua M. Betancourt interviewed one of the most prolific former evangelicals to embrace the
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Catholic faith since Scott Hahn, Francis J. Beckwith. Beckwith's answers were, revitalize and strengthen your
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Catholic faith, or cause your non -Catholic friends and family to contemplate why they should embrace the faith. Listen to Frank persuasively yet genuinely explain what it means to be an evangelical
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Catholic, how the works of St. Augustine impacted his life, what it was like to grow up in a post -Vatican II American church, how the writings of G .K.
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Chesterton, William Buckley Jr., and blessed Cardinal Henry Newman, now you have to say blessed now, thanks for what the
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Pope did, affected his theological insights, how the early church fathers changed his views on the doctrine of justification, how there is more to it than mere imputed righteousness, how books by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, affected his views on the
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Catholic Church, how St. Thomas Aquinas shaped him philosophically, why evangelicals should embrace the fullness of faith in the Catholic Church, and much, much more.
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So this is a straightforward Catholic apologetics, Catholic proselytizing CD. Nothing overly surprising by that, is there?
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No, except that on the next day, on the same blog, we have this, back at the
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Evangelical Theological Society, 17 -19 November, so that's starting today. I'm preparing to fly out to Atlanta, Georgia to participate in the 62nd
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Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. You can find the program for the meeting here.
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I'll be delivering two papers at the conference. I'll also be participating in a lay conference sponsored by the
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Evangelical Philosophical Society on November 18 -20. Here's a little something about the two papers I'll be delivering at ETS.
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One of them is Recent Challenges to Fetal Personhood, a Critical Analysis, but then at the
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Evangelical, that's the one at ETS, so that's how he gets past that. But my other paper will be delivered at the
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Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, a group whose complete docket is part of the
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ETS meeting. My paper is entitled, Doting Thomas, Evangelicals, Thomas Aquinas, and Justification.
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Now in case you're wondering, the topic at ETS this year is justification. Simple question, folks.
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Why is an apostate, who is clearly attempting to bring evangelicals into the
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Catholic faith, into the Roman Catholic faith, into Romanism itself, why is he speaking at the
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Evangelical Theological Society? Can someone explain this to me? There might be a reason why some of us don't even bother going to this thing anymore.
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If they couldn't get rid of the open theists, and now you've got the papists front and center, maybe the
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E part of ETS needs to be removed, and make it the, we don't know what in the world we are, theological society.
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I think that would be fair. Now I know there's plenty of nice folks there. I'm sure there's plenty of true believers there, and all the rest of that stuff.
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But folks, it's lost its way. And if you can't see that here, I, I, I don't know.
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I have no way of, no way of knowing. Just absolutely amazing.
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It just, it just struck me that these two blog articles, back -to -back, one, coming to Rome, next day, going to ETS, going to talk about justification.
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Do you think he's not going to talk about how he thinks that the, the, the evangelical doctrine of justification is inappropriate and unbiblical?
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Of course he is. Yes, the Ecumenical Theological Society, that, that's, that's how we do it.
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The Ecumenical Theological Society, that's the name it needs to be changed to. Yeah.
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I really want to get to this, so we'll get to our calls. We have, we have two Skype calls. I just have to hold on. One from Guatemala, which will be interesting to get to, but I need to get to this, and we will, we will do so.
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A fellow who claims to be from London, but actually lives in Milwaukee, sent me a
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Twitter note with this link to Jackie Alnor's website.
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Rapture Ready Radio, which is very alliterative, but has some other interesting applications to it.
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But Rapture Ready Radio, the November 12th show, debating Catholicism. And as soon as I read it,
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I knew I was going to have to download this program and listen to it. Debating Roman Catholic doctrines using the
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Church Father's ecumenical counsels and various creeds is a mental exercise between puffed -up know -it -alls on both sides of the issues.
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Notice the very first line is an attack on both non -Catholic and Catholic debaters who would engage such issues and dare to make reference to such things as, well, history.
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Ecumenical counsels, various creeds, actually debating the history of the Church. All that is, they're just mental exercises between puffed -up know -it -alls on both sides of the issues.
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Now, having listened to the program, I happen to know the two primary puffed -up know -it -alls that Jackie Alnor makes reference to are myself and two
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Turretin fans. Yes, our dear, soft -spoken Turretin fam. Even though he didn't get quoted directly, we'll play the section that,
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I'll play the section here in a moment. I think you'll find it to be somewhat humorous. There are never any winners since both sides in the cockfight claim victory.
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I played a clip on today's show of a Protestant and a Catholic apologist arguing over sola scriptura. The clip, by the way, was
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Jerry Matitix's cross -examination of me in our 1996 debate on sola scriptura in New York.
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There's a YouTube of that. It's funny. They don't play my cross -ex or the conclusions or anything else.
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They have to limit it because everybody knows that Jerry's position didn't survive that very well.
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But that's how it goes. In the beginning of that YouTube video, the Catholic boasted that he won the debate hands -down.
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Actually, that wasn't Jerry that posted it. Jerry, it would never, ever be organized enough to put something like that together.
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It was somebody else. He admitted that the highlights he gathered on YouTube were the slam dunks he was able to land, and that, no doubt, his opponent would choose a different set of clips for his own highlights video.
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You could hear the cheers of the Catholic side of the battle of words at the end. Well, so immediately, what you have is an admittedly biased section.
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It's not the whole debate. It's not conclusions based upon looking at the whole debate. It's not conclusions based upon looking at the scriptures that were presented or any of the argumentation, beginning, opening statements, anything else.
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It is an admittedly biased section, but that proves that all debates are worthless, at least in the mind of Jackie Alenor.
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What many Protestants don't understand, if they have never been a Catholic... Now, remember, Jackie Alenor is a former Catholic, so this gives her expertise.
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But listen to this thinking. What many Protestants don't understand, if they have never been a Catholic, is that the everyday
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Catholic sitting in the pew simply never heard of the doctrines their own church teaches. Rome has dummied down the people.
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Catholics have turned over those higher things for their hierarchy to handle. All they need to do is be faithful and attend
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Mass and do the day -to -day requirements. Debates with Catholics don't seem to reach the real life of a Catholic who consists of mysterious rituals, spooky atmosphere of incense candles, statues in the tabernacle, monstrance, and the host.
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Now, clearly and obviously, there are
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Catholics exactly like that. There are Catholics who do not listen to debates.
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They do not care about the teachings of their church. They don't really even care whether what they've been told is true or false.
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There's no question about that. But to say that this is all Catholics is not only grossly disrespectful, it's just head -in -the -sand ignorance of the reality of what we have going on around us.
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It ignores the existence of Envoy magazine and Catholic Answers and St.
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Joseph Communications and EWTN and all the rest of this stuff. Now, even your average
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Catholic who's listening to that remains incredibly ignorant of the other side.
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We've documented this over and over again. All I have to do is go to the Catholic Answers forums. And the Catholics there are willing to believe anything, no matter how absurd, no matter how dishonest, no matter how obviously false.
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They would rather believe that than that there is any critic out there who actually has anything meaningful to say about Roman Catholicism.
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There's no question about that either. But folks, I know many a former
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Roman Catholic who believed that what they've been taught was true until they heard a full -bore, honest, in -depth demonstration that Roman Catholicism is untrue and that its arguments did not hold water.
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And we've seen many of these people. We've not only seen people kept out of Roman Catholicism, but people to come out of Roman Catholicism because of the apologetic work that has been done by many people, not just myself, but many others,
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William Webster and David King and our own Turretin fan and the work that they continue to do.
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We know that we are having an impact in that way. So to say that just all
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Catholics are just, you know, in this way, they just don't know anything about justification is just a head -in -the -sand attitude that just ignores the reality of what's out there.
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I continue on reading. A Catholic lives a life of fear, never knowing whether they will be good enough to enter into heaven.
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They were taught growing up that if you commit a mortal sin, you will go to hell unless you get to a confessional first and do the prescribed penance. Then you're good to go until you commit another one.
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Then you better hope that you don't die before you can get back to that little box of absolution. Venial sins just get you in purgatory.
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If a Catholic, even a Pope, claims to be saved with the assurance of heaven according to their church, they are guilty of the sin of presumption. Well, mainly,
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I mean, but honestly, anyone who has listened to my debates, for example, the debates in purgatory, not only knows all that, but knows much more than that, much more accurately than that.
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Why do venial sins get you into purgatory? Well, it's not actually venial sins that get you into purgatory. It's the temporal punishments of those sins and the temporal punishments left over from the mortal sins.
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Those are what create the impurities that must be purged via satis pastio in purgatory.
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So, you know, okay, that's partially true, just not 100 % true.
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I would love to see Protestant scholars direct their efforts to rescue Catholics from their bondage instead of academic exercises of prowess that sheds more heat than light.
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Now, folks, one of the things I am consistently criticized for by some people, and then by a smaller group thanked for, is that in the vast majority of my debates, in the vast majority of my debates, there is a clear and compelling presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Even in debates on subjects such as the Roman Catholic priesthood, there is still a presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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I continue on. One winner I point to in this radio program, listen to this, one winner
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I point to in this radio program, is Jack Chick, the cartoonist so many
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Orthodox Christian scholars love to belittle. His little cartoon booklets don't beat around the bush or speak with $3 words.
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You can Google the cartoon booklets I mention and see for yourself what a punch they pack. The first one
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I mentioned is the death cookie that shows how the worship of the host as if it were God, Eucharistic adoration, is idolatry.
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It is used by church authority to blackmail the faithful because the church teaches it as the method of receiving
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Jesus into your life by way of the belly and out the usual course. If you defy the church and can't get to the host, you have been cut off from Jesus himself.
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They hold Jesus hostage. And then she goes on to talk about more of Jack Chick's stuff.
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Now, of course, we have debated the mass and we have identified Eucharistic adoration as idolatry.
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The problem is we just do it by demonstrating that we've listened carefully to what the Roman Catholics say and we accurately represent their position.
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That's the difference. Jack Chick is right to identify Roman Catholicism as idolatrous.
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Jack Chick is wrong to say that someone like myself is going to hell for using a new American Standard Bible. And Jack Chick is wrong for ignoring the responses of Roman Catholics and making his own arguments honest.
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Now, can God use a Jack Chick track? Well, he used a Jack Chick track to get me to read the
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Bible through the first time when I was a teenager. And I have said many times that God can draw a very straight line with a crooked stick.
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But the reason that I and others call
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Jack Chick to be honest is because Christians should be truthful.
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Should be pretty straightforward, but unfortunately, there's a lot of pragmatists out there that don't get that part.
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Christians should be truthful. They should be people who speak the truth in love.
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That means you accurately represent what your opponent says. And evidently, the idea here for Jackie Alnor and others is, who cares about accurately representing false religions?
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They're false religions, after all. If they're false religions, we don't have to worry about accurately representing them.
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I don't understand that mindset. I never will understand that mindset. People who understand that mindset will never think much of Alpha Omega Ministries, because we'll never buy into the sensationalistic stuff.
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We're not going to buy into the, well, this argument works, even if you sort of later have to come back to people who are converted because your arguments say, well, you know,
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I wasn't being completely honest with you. I don't understand it. But the fact of the matter is,
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Jack Chick uses sensationalism and half -truths, and it's the combination of the true things he says with the half -truths that brings such disrepute upon the truth.
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And when you use that kind of argumentation, shallow argumentation that shows not the slightest interest in accurately representing the other side, you are creating, quote unquote, converts that are the single best people prepared to be reverts ending up on EWTN.
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That's what you're doing. Those are the very people that Carl Keating and Tim Staples love to run into because they can tear you to shreds.
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Any decent Catholic apologist would tear Jackie Alenor to shreds. That's why she won't do debates, and that's why she puts down others who do, because if she were ever to put herself in that position, she'd be crushed because the argumentation has to be consistent.
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And for some reason, she doesn't feel that's overly important. In fact, I'm going to play a clip where she criticizes me for emphasizing the solas of the
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Reformation. That doesn't really matter. Amazing. You think
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I'm making it up? Let me actually plug the computer in so you can hear it.
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Hey, we've got a radio station there for a second. I wonder which. It's probably the one right next door here. Anyway, let's listen to a couple of clips from Jackie Alenor's program here to give you an idea.
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This was from Friday's program, so this was just a few days ago. Here's Jackie Alenor.
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I think they, in fact, it was Walter's own saying, he used to say that some things create more heat than light.
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And I don't even think they did any heat or light, to tell you the truth. You know, debating such things as, you know, imputation, justification, papal infallibility.
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So, as a former Roman Catholic, those ideas, that didn't fit in with my everyday responsibility to be at Mass every week, because if I failed to,
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I would go to hell. I never thought about that as a Catholic. What Catholics could be reached by talking about those subjects?
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You know, it's like, you know, as these debates went on,
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I don't think they swayed anybody on either side, to tell you the truth. Because a
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Catholic... By the way, that's just obviously not true. I mean, we know, we know of people going both directions, which
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I have mentioned many times is exactly what I expect. We know of people who have been brought out of Roman Catholicism, have received a glorious salvation, and are firm in their faith as they understand why the solas are important.
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They understand why sola scriptura, and sola fide, and sola gratia are important. They have a firm foundation, and they've remained faithful for years on end.
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But I know of people who've gone into Roman Catholicism because of debates, and that should not surprise you. The lost person is attracted to false religion.
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And the hypocrite, who pretends to be an evangelical, but isn't, will be attracted by Romanism.
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Should not surprise anybody. Are there people on both sides who do not listen to anything that's being said in the debate, other than to cheer for their side?
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Of course! I've said that a million times. Those aren't the people I debate for anyways. Look to their clergy to be the ones to understand and to know all these things.
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The Catholic person just goes about their business, and they're the laity, and the doctrine of the
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Nicolaitans, the power over the people that the Catholic hierarchy imposes, the regular people...
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And then she goes into a thing where she goes after Mitch Pacwa, and says Mitch Pacwa was arrogant when he talked to her, and stuff like that, and I was not ever a part of her conversation with Mitch Pacwa.
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Mitch has never been that way with me, but be that as it may, goes into that. Let's continue on a little later on in the program.
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Right. In verse 12, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
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Because truly, when you watch these debates, like the ones between Pacwa and Martin, or James is another one that does a lot of these debates, you just see a lot of puffed -up, prideful people.
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I mean, knowledge puffs up! And I'm not saying these men aren't knowledgeable in their own angle on things, because they are.
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It's like an academic scholastic certificate into these debates. But I'd love to see more discussions with the things that the
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Catholics go through, day -to -day, being Catholics. Those things... By the way, the cutting in and out was in the recording.
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That was the way it was recorded, there's nothing I can do about it. But there I'm puffed up, and these are just academic exercises.
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Anyone who has actually listened to the about 40 debates that I've done with Roman Catholics and recognizes how many times
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I have brought forward the gospel of peace and directed people to faith in Jesus Christ, knows that either
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Jackie Eleanor hasn't listened to them or just isn't being fair. One of the two. But given, again, that she's going to be promoting
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Jack Chick, you sort of get the idea. I understand, anyone who promotes Jack Chick is not going to find an honest approach that actually accurately represents the other side to be, on any subject, to be one that's going to be commendable.
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Things that never get touched when people like James White will go to, they want all the solas.
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Oh, sola scriptura, sola fide, and all of these other ones, you know, that they want to debate.
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And no one is even... They use big words, these big $2 words that people don't understand.
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They're really not communicating. Yeah, really not communicating. I'm often told that no one has any idea what in the world
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I'm saying. No, just the opposite is true. But beyond that, the solas of the
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Reformation are $2 words or $3 words? Really? Justification by faith?
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Grace alone? Scripture alone? This is some highfalutin concept? It's the very foundation of the
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Gospel. What are you delivering to Roman Catholics if you're not delivering that? You know what it sounds like to me is, it sounds like she's reading the titles.
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She's simply looking at the titles of the debates and making judgments based on that. I don't know. Maybe, but I...
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It still amazes me that anyone who calls himself a Protestant would think that the promotion of the solas is somehow just a scholarly thing.
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It's a puffed up thing. But Jesus showed how the greatest among you would be the servant.
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The lack of being puffed up. And he said, But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that maybe she's actually applying this to me.
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I mean, I know she's applying it to the Roman Catholics, but it would be sad to think that this was actually being applied by anyone on this side of the
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Tiber River. But, it's a possibility. Woe to you, scribes,
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Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses and... Anyway, let's move.
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This one blew me away. Finally she got around to giving some examples.
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And here's the first example. Listen to this and see if the term fair or accurate or meaningful comes into your thinking on this one.
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I just wanted to play this clip that really shows just listening to how some of these debates sound.
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I want to just play this little one -minute clip of setting up a debate. And I just want you to listen and see, does this sound like the kind of thing that is tugging on people's hearts, that's going to reach out to people, to bring them to repentance, to bring them to the throne of God?
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It just sounds like so much scholastic, academic, mind -bending sort of thing of spiritual muscles to me.
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Now, before she's about to play it, we're right there. But notice the standard. It needs to tug at the heart.
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Tug at the heart. See, folks, theology matters. And you're not listening to a person who has reformed their theology in any way, shape, or form.
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So theology matters. And you can present the Gospel in all of its fullness and trust the
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Holy Spirit to witness the truth, the Word of God, but you need, that's not enough, you need to tug at the heart.
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And now here's the first example that Jackie Alonor gives of puffed -up debating.
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Let me just play you this one. Welcome to the papal infallibility debate. The debate will attempt to answer the following.
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Was Vatican I correct regarding papal infallibility? Articles are William Albrecht taking the affirmative position and Tuerkenfan taking the negative position.
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William Albrecht is a Roman Catholic apologist who runs youtube .com slash gnrhead and catholiclegate .blogspot .com.
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He's also a member of the Catholic Legate Apologetics Organization, catholic -legate .com.
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Tuerkenfan is a Reformed apologist who runs tuerkenfan .blogspot .com, youtube .com
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slash tuerkenfan and voxpatristica .blogspot .com. He's also a contributor at Alpha and Omega Ministries, amin .org.
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My name is Matthew Lankford, the moderator for the debate. The debate will last about 120 minutes in length and will have the following format.
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Affirmative constructive 20 minutes, negative constructive 20 minutes, negative cross -examination of affirmative 20 minutes, affirmative cross -examination of negative 20 minutes, negative re -cross -examination of affirmative 10 minutes, affirmative re -cross -examination of negative 10 minutes, negative conclusion 10 minutes, and affirmative conclusion 10 minutes.
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Now... Outrageous! That's a little outrageous.
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I mean, this is so typical of these debates that I have seen so many of that I really think they, you know, maybe they might bring some, you know, highbrow intellectual into thinking through some of these topics, but it really doesn't get down to the everyday place where the people are, especially when it comes to Roman Catholicism.
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Now, may I just ask a simple question? What did that have to do with the debate?
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That was the introduction! It was the moderator providing an overview of what the format of the debate was going to be.
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It wasn't even... I mean, the rest of the debate could have been the most simple down -to -earth discussion on the planet, and it wouldn't matter, because it was just the introduction of the debaters and the format of the debate.
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When I heard that, I was just like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. And it just went on from there.
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Like I said, played the section from the mathematics debate, and then went on to talk about how wonderful Jack Chick is, and how people shouldn't be so mean to Jack Chick, and all the rest of that stuff.
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And, you know, the funny thing is, it's Jackie Alnor's husband who has criticized me for going to Columbia Evangelical Seminary and doing my doctoral work there.
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So, which is it? I'm not scholarly enough, or I'm too scholarly? Which one is it? They can't figure that part out!
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I was like, oh my goodness. But the humor of all of that aside, the important thing that needs to be emphasized here is, folks, when you do not do apologetics in a biblical way, when
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I say biblical way, I mean holding to biblical standards of truthfulness, accurately representing the truth, when you know what the truth of the other side is, and you purposefully seek to misrepresent the other side, you are not acting in a
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Christian way. Now, that separates apologists right and left right there.
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There are a lot of things that divide apologists. I mean, what you believe will determine your method of apologetics.
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But, even beyond that, when you come to your representation of the other side, if you're going to be a
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Christian apologist, then you must represent what the other side actually believes. And when you know that there is a division on the other side, or that there are nuances of meaning on the other side, or that there's a stronger argument on the other side, and you specifically, purposefully dumb that down, you refuse to accurately represent what the other side has to say, you are not acting as a
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Christian in that way. That's not how Christian apologetics is done. And that's the problem with Jack Chick.
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His information is just simply bogus. And when you link bogus information with the truth, you damage the truth.
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Remember Ergen Kanner, folks? I realize this name has disappeared from most people's thinking, and all is well again, and no one cares that he's still bopping around the country with Norm Geisler and the leadership of Calvary Chapel doing his thing.
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But, what was the big problem with Ergen Kanner? It wasn't the things he was saying about Islam, as far as what they believed about Jesus or something, were necessarily always wrong.
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It was that they were inaccurate at times. It was the lies that he was associating with the true statements.
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It was, well, I debated Shabir Ali, and I debated Abdul Salib, and they both said this about the Atonement of Christ, and that's wrong.
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Well, it's a lie that he ever debated Shabir Ali. It's a lie that he ever debated Abdul Salib. And therefore, what they said doesn't exist, and even if it does represent what
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Muslims believe, you have now associated a lie with the truth of the Gospel, and you bring tremendous disrespect upon the
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Gospel when you do this. And that's Jack Chick's problem, is that he uses sensationalistic argumentation that the
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Catholics have torn apart, demonstrated to be untruthful, and when you present that to someone as if it's representative of the
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Gospel, you are saying them up not only to remain within Roman Catholicism, but if you're giving it to Protestants, you're saying them up to become
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Roman Catholics. That's the problem. And so, there is a fundamental difference in how we approach doing apologetics, and obviously how
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Jackie Allinore does, and Jack Chick does. And there is a reason why
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Catholic Answers, and people like Carl Keating, focus upon those folks, and avoid us like the plague.
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Because it's easy to respond to them. It's easy to point out the inconsistencies. It's easy to say, Hey, if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff.
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That's simple. It's a little more difficult when someone has actually accurately represented your position.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, and we're going to go to our calls now, and the first caller in was
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Chris in Bellevue. Hi, Chris. Hi, Dr. White. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. What's up? I have a question about the word draws in John 644.
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I think it's halkuo in the Greek. I've, for a long time now, found this to be arguably the most powerful evidence in favor of the
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Reformed doctrine. And I've often centered on that word, and how it's used elsewhere in the
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New Testament, and even outside of the Bible. So, you know, I'll tell people that this Greek word has a very distinct meaning, and I've used that in arguments.
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But what I've recently discovered is that, or not discovered, but something that has caused me to question now the certainty of the meaning of that word is the way that it's used in a few places in the
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Septuagint. And I wanted to know if I could ask you a question about a couple of those. Sure, go ahead. Okay, so when
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I started doing some looking around, and then I saw some places online where this is pointed to as well, one of the examples is
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Nehemiah 930. You know, I can't read Greek, so I'm not going to be able to read that for you, but like the
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NASB translation of the Hebrew is, in Nehemiah 930, however you bore with them for many years.
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And that word bore is in the Septuagint, that word draws, halkuo, in John 6, 44.
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Another example would be like Job 20, 28, where it says the increase of his house will depart. That word increases, draws.
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And I'll give you just one more. Ecclesiastes 2, 3, I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely.
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That word stimulated there, again, appears to be in the Septuagint, rendered with halkuo. So my question is, well, first of all, has my rhetoric been too strong about the use of that Greek word and how strong it supports
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Calvinism? Well, I don't know what you've presented. The meaning of any word is determined by its usage in context.
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And I was just looking at the Hebrew, and Tim Schoch at Nehemiah 930 specifically means to pull.
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And yet the problem is that when you're looking at the Greek Septuagint, you're not 100 % certain what the translators necessarily were reading the
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Hebrew as. And the translation many years, you bore them and warned them by your spirit through your prophets.
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What does that mean? It's not a direct parallel to anything that's used in John anyways.
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Any word that is used in the New Testament needs to be first seen in how it was used then, unless it is specifically in a context where the
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Septuagint has been cited, and therefore the meaning of the Septuagint would become extremely important. So first you'd have to establish that the
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Septuagint, that there is an identifiable Septuagintal meaning to the word, to helco, and that that is what's being used in John 6, which is impossible to do,
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I think, but I suppose Olson or someone might try to make that type of an argument at some point.
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But the meaning of any word in the New Testament, its first and foremost application has to be in the context it's used.
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And as you saw, as you mentioned, in the New Testament, that particular term is used a number of times,
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John 644, John 1232, John 1810, and especially when you can find in one particular writer a consistent utilization of a particular word and a particular meaning, that's rather important.
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So, draw all men to myself, John 1232, Peter draws his sword, he did not woo his sword, the casting of the net we all know, the dragging of the fish, etc.,
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etc., in John 21. So, every usage, every Johannine usage, is consistent.
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And so, unless there is some overriding reason to see it in some other way, given that in John 644, the rest of the verse says that the one who is drawn is raised up, and then the process of drawing is described in John 644 as being universal, and it says, everyone who hears from the
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Father comes to me. There's no reason in the context to read anything other than an effective drawing of the
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Father, and that's the immediate context. So, the strongest presentation regarding Helcuso in John 644, the future form
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I will draw, the strongest argument is to start there and demonstrate that in that context, that's its meaning.
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Then, you demonstrate that that is consistent with the rest of John, and then if you want to go outside of John to demonstrate a
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New Testament pattern, that's great. And then, even beyond that... You can even see it in the Iliad.
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I'm sorry? You can even see that in the Iliad. I mean, I was just going to point out that from other Greek texts from that era, besides the
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New Testament, that the word is used in that way. Well, yeah, I mean, there's no question that to draw in an effective, powerful manner is a part of the semantic domain of Helco.
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There's no question about that. The question always is, is that the element of the semantic domain that the writer in the
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New Testament is specifically utilizing? And there really isn't any question of that in John 6, in John as a whole.
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And even that text, it's interesting that you cite, and I just happened to pull it up in Nehemiah.
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Timshoch there is translated simply as to pull. So, it's a word of power as well, even though it's translated as bore, it's in the concept of warning in Nehemiah 9.
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So, you could demonstrate a consistency there, too. Yeah, and I agree, but I guess my concern with particularly that Nehemiah passage is just that, you're right, it does seem to indicate a pulling, but then look what he goes on to say.
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He says that you admonish them by your spirit through your prophets, yet they would not give ear. So, it almost seems like the argument could be made that the word can refer to a drawing that isn't effective.
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But there's nothing in this text about drawing to yourself. The parallel, the two verbs that are used is to bear and to warn.
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So, it would be much more in the context of bearing them as in bearing with them, as in pulling them along even in their rebellion.
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It's not, I don't, see, unless you're reading something in there as in drawing, trying to draw them to himself in the salvific mission.
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The other term that is used there is to warn them. And that's, no,
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I don't see that that would be the, look at the next term, ta 'ad, that is used there.
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Martureo is the term that is used there. So those are the parallel, that's the parallel meaning you have to look for in the Hebrew there, which comes across in the
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Septuagint. So, yeah. Okay, well, so I understand. And I guess the question I would have for you then before you let me go is just, what is the best
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Armenianist response to John 6, 44 out there? Because I've heard a few and they're all ridiculous.
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But I want to know if there's... The first thing I do when I get a book, let me look over,
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I've got a bunch of my, here it is. Trying to get it out of the shelf here. It's right next to the other side of Calvinism, which is a really hard book.
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When I pick up a book by someone, like, here's
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Olson's book. And I want to find out, don't have a whole lot of time to read hundreds, 500 page books and stuff like that if I don't really feel like there's a reason to do so.
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I look up how they deal with key texts. Now, if it's a liberal book on the deity of Christ, something like that,
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I look up how they deal with John 8 and how they deal with John 18 and the soldiers falling back upon the ground.
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Because there's just some verses that you have to go into such a mindset of eisegesis to get around that it'll tell me straight up front.
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When I talk to read Arminian works, first place I go is John 6. How do they deal with John 637?
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How do they deal with John 644? I have heard every possible answer and I can't give you one that actually deals honestly with the text in the sense of following the flow.
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Generally, the tougher ones to deal with are these sort of hyper -dispensationalist ones which basically say, this has nothing to do with today.
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That takes you into a whole different area rather than what you're used to dealing with. Where someone says, well, that was before the cross or that was just for a specific group of Jewish people.
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Those can be a little bit more difficult to deal with. We've dealt with some of those on the blog in the past. But those people who don't go that direction,
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I honestly have not heard anyone come up with a meaningful exegetical argument that the two autans in John 644 refer to different people because that, as you know, is what you have to prove if you're going to find a way to shoehorn free will into this text.
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You have to say that the one who's drawn is different than the one who's raised up in the last day unless you're a universalist.
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And we're not talking about universalists here. I've just not found anybody who does it. Generally, what they'll do is they'll make the assertion, they'll run off to other free will passages or whatever and then come back.
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But as far as exegesis goes, I wish I could tell you, but they just don't deal with it. It's just not something that they want to deal with.
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They will always abandon John 6 and go to another context, establish some kind of overarching concept, and then read it back into it.
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That's just all you'll find. Yeah, that's been my experience as well. Yeah. Alrighty. So, okay. Alright, thanks very much.
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I appreciate it. Okay, thanks, Chris. God bless. Alright, bye -bye. Alright, 877 -753 -3341.
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I guess we have a call coming in from Guatemala. Let's talk with Rodrigo.
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Hello, Rodrigo. What? Not fast? Too fast there for you? Oh, okay.
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Skype taking a little time here. Do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do.
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And I'm waiting to get a high sign from the man behind the wall there that we are ready to go.
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It's really taking its time. Are we sure we still have Rodrigo? Rodrigo, are you there?
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Hey, I'm here, Dr. White. Yes, sir. Hey, thanks for getting my call.
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Yes, sir. What can we do for you? Well, I just wanted to congratulate you for your show. Uh -huh.
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Because it's like the only reformed teaching I get here, pretty much. There's no reformed churches in Guatemala, apparently.
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Oh, my. Well, I will have to, maybe now that you've mentioned that, maybe somebody will get in touch with us and let us know where there might be one down there.
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I don't know. It's happened before. I've been looking for one, but I don't know. I'm surrounded by Roman Catholics.
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I'm surrounded by prosperity gospel teaching. Oh, that's what I, when I was in Lima, they said they had a lot of prosperity stuff down there, too, which is sort of amazing.
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Yeah, I find a decent church, and it's like the non -denominational denomination, you know.
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And it's okay, you know. We read the Bible, and we'll get to discuss it. Good. They say they're tolerant of all kinds of viewpoints in the
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Christian denominations, you know. But they don't like that I hold to a communist view now.
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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's not nice. Well, we'll keep doing the dividing line for you anyways, and pray the Lord will raise up a church there in your area.
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You had a question on Matthew 16. Exactly, yeah. I've been, you know,
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Catholics bring this a lot when Jesus says to Peter, upon this rock I will build my church.
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And then my question was regarding more about the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you lose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
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What does that mean, really? Because, you know, I've been a Christian for like two years now, and I got into reading the
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Bible last year. And, well, I don't know.
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But what does this text, Special Repairs 19, mean? Right, all right. Well, a couple things. There are some excellent works on these subjects.
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I'm not sure how many of them are available in Spanish. It sounds like you probably read some
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English, though. Yeah, I read in English. Good, good. There's a lot of good stuff available.
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William Webster's work on Matthew 16 would give you a lot of information.
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But just a few things to make sure that you've got down here. First of all, when Jesus says, and I tell you, you are
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Peter, that is singular. He's addressing Peter directly. But then he says, upon this rock.
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Now, that's not direct address. He's talking to Peter about this rock. So whatever they do with that, they have to turn that into,
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I say to you, you are Peter, and on you, rock. But he doesn't use that. It says, epitaute te
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Petra, upon this rock. So if I was talking to you, and I'm talking about you, why would
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I all of a sudden switch to referring to you like the third person? It doesn't make any sense there whatsoever. Yeah, I heard the whole
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Petra, Petra's explanation. Yeah, well, be careful of that. Petra's Petra may have some validity to it.
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But the reality is that that's not really the direction to go. Okay. Trying to make a distinction there.
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Now, Roman Catholics will say, well, this was originally in Aramaic, and in Aramaic it would be such and so.
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They don't know that. We have never seen an original Aramaic of Matthew. There are multiple words for rock in Aramaic.
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It might have been something other than Petras, or Petra, or Kepha, or anything else that they might want to come up with.
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So there's a whole discussion of that, and you can hear the debate I did with Jerry Matitix on that subject, which we have available in MP3 format.
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But I believe, and many in the early Church Fathers, in fact, the majority of the early
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Church Fathers did not understand Matthew 16, 18 the way Roman Catholicism does today. They believed that it was
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Peter's profession of faith, that Jesus is the Christ, that is the foundation of the Christian Church. And I would say that's the foundation that all
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Christians in the world stand upon is the confession of who Jesus is. And that the gates of Hades, literally, will not prevail against it is not that they will not overcome the
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Church, but that the Church will overcome even the gates of death itself. And that's part of the clue as to what verse 19 is about.
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Because when it says, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, what that means is the
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Church's message, the Church's proclamation that Jesus is the Christ, the
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Son of the living God, will overcome even the gates of death itself.
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And when we proclaim the Gospel, that's exactly what is happening. When someone is saved, when someone bows to Jesus Christ, death is defeated in that person's life because of what
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Jesus Christ has done. And so that gives us a little bit of a hint as to what we're looking at in verse 19.
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Because it says, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Now notice it says,
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I will give. The Greek word there is future tense. Jesus is not in this text giving
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Peter anything. Because even though the pronoun here is singular, I will give you, the question
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I always ask my Roman Catholic friends is, when did Peter receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven?
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And there's only two possible answers to that. Either Peter received these keys in Matthew 18, 18, where all of the apostles together were given the power of binding and loosing.
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Of course, binding and loosing is just simply locking something up or loosing something. That's what the keys are all about.
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Today they've made a distinction to where the keys are different than the power of binding and loosing. That's not a biblical distinction.
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The early Church did not understand that way either. So that's a modern innovation. But the point is, either
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Peter received this authority together with all the other apostles, which is not what Rome teaches today because Peter has a special authority that the apostles don't have.
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Or you have to say, nobody in the New Testament bothered to record when Peter received these things.
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Which would be extremely odd that you would have a promise with no fulfillment recorded by Matthew himself.
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So, many times you will hear Catholics saying, see, here Peter is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
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That's not true. This is future tense, and they have to tell us when this happened. If it's Matthew 18, then he received it right along with all the other apostles.
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Otherwise it's not recorded anywhere for us in Scripture. So, finally, the main question you have is, well, what does it mean?
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Whatever binders shall have been bound in heaven? The later theology developed the idea that this places, in Peter specifically, or in the
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Magisterium of the Church or something else, some kind of judicial authority to either bind teachings or to say this is binding upon people and therefore they have to believe it, etc.,
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etc. What does binding and loosing have to do? When Jesus, for example, appears to the disciples, he breathes on them and says, receive the
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Holy Spirit, and then he repeats the same promise. Whatever you bind there shall be bound in heaven, and so on and so forth.
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Nothing about keys there. Nothing specifically about Peter. What is this concept of binding and loosing?
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Well, I think when you look at the early church beginning to do what the
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Lord has authorized it to do, the answer becomes very, very clear.
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Because when Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost and he begins to preach, what is he doing?
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What is what you would expect? Okay, here we go. Here's Peter. Here's his first sermon.
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Here's this power of binding and loosing. What's it going to look like? What's it going to accomplish? Well, what did it do?
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What is being bound and what is being loosed? Well, it's very simple. When you proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are proclaiming the forgiveness of sins.
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If a person believes the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, then we can proclaim to them the forgiveness of sins.
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They are set free. They are released from the penalty of their sins through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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But if they remain in unbelief, if they reject the lordship of Christ, if they reject the message of Jesus Christ, then what are we saying?
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They are bound to their sins. They are bound to the penalty of their sins.
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And no person who rejects the message that Peter stood and preached on that first Pentecost Sunday that said, repent and believe in the
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Lord Jesus Christ and you will be forgiven, anyone who rejects that message remains bound in sin and death and remains bound under the wrath of God.
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So it is the gospel itself that is the key to the kingdom of heaven.
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What opens the door to the kingdom of heaven? Wow, back to what it says now. Yeah, what opens the door to peace with God?
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It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And our great, and it's authority, don't get me wrong, there is authority here.
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Our great authority is that when we proclaim the gospel as Jesus Christ told us to proclaim it, what is true in heaven is true on earth as well.
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What we do represents the heavenly reality itself. And that is a great authority, the authority of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Awesome. All right, Rodrigo. Hey, we'll pray for you down there in Guatemala. And if anybody gets in touch with us, we'll let you know if they know of a good church down there, okay?
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All right, thank you, Rodrigo. And thanks for listening to Dividing Line today. We'll be back tomorrow at our regular time in the afternoon here on the
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Dividing Line. See you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at PO Box 37106,
59:44
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59:49
that's A -O -M -I -N .org, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.