So, You Got into an Online Argument...

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00:02

So, if you got the tension.

00:24

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:26

My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist and I'm welcoming tonight again, the regulars, the CWAC crew, Jake Korn, the Inquisitor, I was going to say interrogator, the Inquisitor and Matthew Henson, the tachromancer, also known as the not yet Calvinist, not yet Calvinist.

00:49

Good evening, gentlemen.

00:50

It's good to see you.

00:51

I just want to say, in God's eternal perspective, Matthew is in fact Calvinist.

01:00

God's Kairos perspective, Matthew's already made it.

01:03

It's just, I haven't experienced that yet.

01:04

Right.

01:05

Is that how that works? Yeah.

01:06

All right.

01:07

And the wonderful thing is we are able to, in our friendship, joke about such things, but we do know that there are people online who do not know how to take a joke.

01:17

There are people online who get very worked up over things, particularly those things which surround Calvinism and all Calvinistic related thoughts.

01:27

And so, what we're doing tonight is we're making this podcast as sort of a preemptive response to some of the things that we are familiar with in dealing with folks online.

01:40

And I'll give you an idea of sort of what I have been experiencing as the channel is starting to grow, as we're having audiences on various platforms and conversations with the Calvinist does have audiences on Facebook, on YouTube, and mainly a lot of people don't realize this.

01:58

We have a very large TikTok audience.

01:59

Just yesterday, we crossed the 1 million views mark on our videos.

02:04

We have upwards of 6,000 followers who watch our videos.

02:09

And so, I'm thankful for that.

02:11

I'm thankful for the people who respond.

02:12

Last night, I did a 40-minute Q&A on TikTok and had an opportunity to interact with direct questions from people.

02:19

And what I find is I get the same questions all the time.

02:22

I get the same objections to Calvinism, the same concerns.

02:26

People don't understand certain things.

02:28

So, Jake had a really great idea for this week's podcast.

02:33

And so, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to kick it over to Jake, and I'm going to let him explain what exactly we're hoping to accomplish through tonight's podcast.

02:42

Yeah, thanks.

02:43

So, as I was just explaining to these guys before we started, you know, this is going to be the video equivalent of one of my Facebook tag groups.

02:53

You know, this is the Captain America me with him sitting down and saying, so, you found yourself angry in the comment section again, and you're not getting the response that you wanted.

03:04

Because, I mean, really, like, I don't want us to take too specific of a tack tonight.

03:11

I want us to stay pretty broad, because I want this video just to apply to everybody who's angry, because there's a lot of people who get angry on the internet all the time.

03:21

And I don't know about you guys, but I don't have time for it.

03:25

I really don't.

03:26

So, what I kind of wanted us to do was to kind of give a very broad perspective of where we're coming from as human beings, as friends, as theologians, so that when somebody comes at us, and they want to pick and nitpick at this little thing, or that little thing, or you use this word, or use that word, we could just kind of give a, hey, man, check this out.

03:51

First, we're going to give kind of a list of resources of, I think, what we would consider maybe a bare minimum of things that maybe you should read first, and then we'll circle around and engage.

04:05

Because, like, if we spent the time answering everybody's little angry thing, we would neglect our families, we would neglect our jobs, our ministry, our own hobbies, and we don't really want to do that.

04:20

So, we're going to do this instead.

04:22

Yeah.

04:22

And I think it's great.

04:24

And one of the things that wasn't the cause of this video, but it was a recent thing that happened was we did a video in response to Dr.

04:34

James White's debate with Dr.

04:37

Peter Van Kleek, where we talked about the subject of textual criticism.

04:42

And another YouTuber listened to our video.

04:45

I don't know if he listened to the whole thing or not, but he listened to at least enough of it to identify the three of us as being basically ignorant fanboys.

04:56

And that was the way that he described us.

04:58

He, you know, these guys really don't know anything.

05:00

He called us brainwashed.

05:01

We're brainwashed.

05:02

We're James White fanboys.

05:04

We don't really have a pedigree.

05:06

And that is something that tonight is going to help at least establish where we're coming from.

05:13

And again, we're not doing this to say, you know, look at our degrees or anything like that, but we are saying this is where, this is who we are.

05:21

And if, you know, at least have an idea.

05:24

And Matthew, you're the not Calvinist.

05:31

So you get to have some fun tonight because not everything that, there are things where Jake and I would probably be in lockstep where you might be in, have a break step with us.

05:40

And so you get to share, I know what's been on the mind of so many of my listeners and that's where do you land on a few things? And that's okay.

05:48

Cause cause I love you.

05:50

And I think you're a wonderful brother in Christ.

05:52

Thank you.

05:52

You are not a heretic and I would not burn you in Geneva.

05:56

I mean, I wouldn't burn you in Jacksonville.

05:59

Well, you know? Yeah.

05:59

So I need to run to Geneva is what you're saying.

06:01

So we can have this conversation.

06:03

Yeah.

06:03

So, um, no, I get it.

06:05

And I think, so part of it that we're going to talk about is primary and secondary issues tonight.

06:09

Right? Like we're going to talk about, you know, the two other guys on the, on the podcast are going to tell you about their journey to, or realization of reform theology and maybe a couple of basic resources that pointed them in that direction.

06:23

But then at the end of the call or actually even during the call, we're all going to say, yeah, but this doesn't divide our brotherhood.

06:28

This does not harm our fellowship.

06:30

We preach Christ and him crucified the same, you know, the same Christ.

06:35

And that's a good thing.

06:36

And um, so when some was the word that came to mind, like, you know, kindly, um, we want this podcast not to be, uh, we want this episode to be something that people can listen to get an idea on, on just, just who we are.

06:51

Um, so that when you're Dorothy and you're walking out of the destroyed house and you're like, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

06:57

Where, what are we? What are we doing here? You can get just a basic idea.

07:02

Hey, here's where we are.

07:03

Here's where we're coming from so that we can get past the stuff like the authority of scripture, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, things like that.

07:11

We want to go ahead and get those on the table and then we can, we can talk about some more, some more stuff other than that.

07:17

And also just a little bit about our own philosophy about how we came to believe some stuff because neither me nor either of these two gentlemen here on, on this podcast came to what we believe because someone dropped an angry Facebook comment.

07:33

None of us has ever adopted any belief that just because someone got mad in Facebook comments.

07:40

Now there have been times someone said, watch this video where they said this person is to be avoided.

07:45

And I was like, no, they're not.

07:46

And then I watched the video.

07:47

I was like, Oh shoot.

07:47

Maybe, you know, okay, we need to start.

07:50

So this is intended to be a resource.

07:52

It is intended to be a, a kindly and hopefully respectful rebuttal to comment anger.

08:00

And that's, that's what we're hoping for.

08:02

Yeah, exactly.

08:02

Right.

08:03

When, when I saw a snippet of the video that Keith was talking about, I mean, this dude was just so snarky and dismissive.

08:12

And I was like, bro, first of all, I have no idea who you are.

08:16

And the last thing in the world I'm interested in is a internet flame war with a stranger.

08:22

So like, while I don't really carry any emotional weight that some stranger doesn't like me, what I do want to do is affirm what it is that we're doing here.

08:35

And Keith, this is your show.

08:36

But for me, the reason I come on this show is because I love Jesus and you're my friends.

08:42

Yeah.

08:43

I'm not really in it to establish an audience.

08:47

I'm not in it to change a bunch of people's minds.

08:49

If people have found this to be a resource, cool, but I'm hanging out with some bros who love Jesus and his word.

08:56

And so like, I do have some of what of a pedigree I am fairly well read on this topic.

09:02

So what I want us to do is come out of this with just some human dimension to us and then a bit of a journey.

09:09

And then just basically saying, if you want to argue with us, I'd love to have intellectual debate, but it's kind of got to meet this minimum of humanity and decency before I'm going to engage with you.

09:23

To paraphrase something you said, you said one time, Keith, it was like, I think the comment was someone said something that was just mean and spiteful.

09:34

And it was like, we'll prove this or this or this in a Facebook comment.

09:37

And I don't know if you said it to them, but you said it to me.

09:40

And it was, look, dude, I've only known you for 10 minutes and none of them have been pleasant.

09:45

I'm not accepting homework assignments right now.

09:48

Yeah, I'm not typing out an entire book in the comments.

09:51

I have a tag group that says I already graduated seminary.

09:54

I'm not taking any homework assignments.

09:57

Yeah, absolutely.

09:58

Because people start to act like you owe them your time.

10:02

You know what I mean? They're like, well, you made this positive claim and I don't like it.

10:06

So you must then convince me.

10:08

I'm like, no, I don't need to convince you.

10:12

I don't owe you my time.

10:13

I don't know you.

10:14

I have a family.

10:15

I have a job.

10:16

I have hobbies.

10:17

I have friends.

10:18

I have service to the Lord.

10:20

I can simply say, I don't think that you're representing Calvinism correctly.

10:25

And then I don't have to give you a 7000 word treatise on proving to you that that's true.

10:31

I don't have to.

10:32

It's not I don't owe you anything.

10:33

We're not under contract.

10:35

I don't owe you any money.

10:38

So let's do this instead.

10:40

Yeah.

10:41

And just adding a thought to that, you mentioned about not getting an audience.

10:46

And part of the reason for this podcast is I do see this as I pastor a church and I do have a teaching ministry.

10:56

My goal is to make educational material that's accessible to people.

11:00

And I do love the idea that we're here just to talk about Jesus because we love Jesus.

11:02

I don't disagree with that at all.

11:04

I think that's what makes it fun.

11:07

But I do hope that this is a resource to people.

11:09

Even the little dumb one minute videos I do, even those videos, there are things in them that are intended to be somewhat educational.

11:17

Now, you may argue about the denomination videos because those are hilarious.

11:21

But the conversations with the two Calvinists or the two people that are arguing against Calvinism, it's always addressing a real issue.

11:29

Now, people have told me, well, you're not getting to the deepest issues.

11:32

I'm like, well, no, I can't.

11:33

It's a one minute video.

11:36

But it is addressing the most common objections that I hear.

11:40

And I'm hoping at some point that's helpful to somebody.

11:43

And I have found at least on TikTok last night, like I said, I went for 40 minutes.

11:47

I must have answered 30 questions because people just kept asking questions and asking questions.

11:52

I was grateful to be able to do that.

11:54

And I do think that this forum is an awesome opportunity because you both are learned men.

11:59

You're both well spoken and well read.

12:02

And so I look forward to hearing tonight about what got you to where you are.

12:08

So Jake, you're the guy with the idea.

12:11

So you're the guy who gets to go first and set the stage for us.

12:13

Tell us what it is.

12:15

You're hoping everybody knows about you.

12:17

Yeah.

12:18

So what I want to do is kind of tell the story of how we got here.

12:21

What is a snapshot of us as people and as theologians today, right? So I grew up in a marginally Christian home.

12:31

We went to church off and on.

12:33

I had a generally good understanding of the Bible, but it was more of a hell insurance type situation.

12:39

Theologically, I would say the kinds of churches I was going to was non-denominational, baptocostal, kind of soul feels, but we don't baptize babies kind of situation.

12:51

I grew up in that world and had a experiential faith, I would say, that kind of grew to a phase where there were some people close to my life who were really getting into and heavily into prosperity theology.

13:08

So I started looking at that and thinking, okay, this isn't sitting right with me, but people I respect are starting to believe that.

13:17

I had begun my, I guess, apprenticeship in ministry in college, doing worship ministry, sitting under a pastor who I respect, who was teaching me to how to exegete scripture, and it's kind of under his wing.

13:34

It was during that time that I think through some discernment that I thought that I was being called to military ministry specifically.

13:44

It was in college.

13:47

So my first two deployments to Iraq, I enlisted as an enlisted man so I could pay for seminary.

13:54

And I mean, that's a crazy time.

13:56

And there might be more time for that part of my life, but theology was just kind of catch-as-catch-can for me at that time, because it was a survival period.

14:05

I deployed to Iraq twice within three years.

14:08

It was a very difficult time, almost lost my road entirely during that time.

14:13

But I had some good pastors in Savannah, Georgia, kind of get a hold of me and remind me, hey, you joined the army to go to seminary.

14:19

So I started seminary simply because that was the next step to becoming a chaplain.

14:24

So to be an army chaplain, you have to have a master's divinity degree, and you have to be a pastor for two years starting after you finish your MDiv.

14:35

And that was the best thing that ever could have happened to me, going to seminary.

14:38

So I went to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Jacksonville.

14:42

Gordon-Conwell's approach is as a seminary that was founded by Billy Graham.

14:48

It's a multi-denominational school, so it's not teaching any confession.

14:53

It is open to anyone who's basically a Trinitarian Christian.

14:57

So in classes, there were Lutherans, Anglicans, Messianic Jews, but most of the teachers were Reformed.

15:05

And so as you would find in any seminary, there's just a lot of back and forth about the doctrines of grace.

15:11

I was anti-Calvinist.

15:13

I was very anti-Calvinist.

15:15

I fought it tooth and nail.

15:16

But what we did do was study the scripture, learn the languages.

15:22

I had five semesters of Greek, five semesters of Hebrew.

15:28

We studied all of the greats, you know, the Dan Wallace Intermediate Greek and Metzger's How We Got the Text of the New Testament.

15:36

I mean, anything that anybody references as like the baseline of what you should read, these are the things that we studied.

15:43

Gordon Conwell, as I said, doesn't teach a confession.

15:46

It teaches you how to exegete.

15:48

Exegesis, exegesis, exegesis.

15:50

I mean, the historical grammatical method of interpreting scripture is King, and that's what we did.

15:56

And what you draw from that is your own, right? You take that with you to back to wherever your denomination is.

16:05

So I left seminary still fairly anti-Calvinist, but I mean, in my mind, the doctrines of grace were blossoming in my head.

16:16

You know, there was a point where I was a 3.5 pointer, you know, like everybody makes that progression.

16:22

So I finished seminary really just alive with the ability to now read scripture.

16:29

I did my first, you know, I did Greek first of five semesters, and then we did Hebrew five semesters.

16:35

And while I was in Hebrew, I was also tutoring and a teaching assistant for Greek.

16:41

So my Greek was still fresh, was still rolling.

16:46

Right before I started the next phase of my army training, which was to go to chaplain basic officer leader course to, you know, turn the switch from being a candidate to a chaplain.

16:59

I watched, I was just getting into James White's debates.

17:03

I found James White through his conversation with Stephen Anderson about the King James.

17:09

I had a phase where, because I was looking at the prosperity gospel, I entered a King James only phase because I listened to, this is so embarrassing, I listened to all the Kent Hovind lectures, you know, if you're familiar with his apologetic work, which is like 1% really awesome apologetic and then 99% massive wackadoo.

17:33

And the fastest talking apologist in the world.

17:37

I know he is.

17:38

You know, but before seminary, I was a young baby Christian.

17:43

I was like, wow, this guy's super smart.

17:45

So because of that, I was really interested in coming out of the King James only ism stuff.

17:50

So I found the Stephen Anderson King James or James White video that led me down, you know, him dealing with Roman Catholicism.

17:58

And then finally, I just stayed away from his Calvinism stuff.

18:01

Cause like, I don't want any of that.

18:03

I finally watched the Romans nine latent flowers debate.

18:07

Watch that debate was just totally blown away by it.

18:10

I said, okay, listen, I got to take this seriously.

18:13

So what I did was I pulled out all my resources and I hand translated Romans eight, Romans nine, Ephesians six or Ephesians one, John six.

18:23

I mean all the relevant and not just the verses, right.

18:25

But big chapters sometimes even two, three chapters, cause I had the tools and I was fresh in my Greek to do that.

18:33

And so I think I started Ephesians one, John six.

18:38

Then I did Romans eight and Romans nine.

18:39

I remember when I finished and I sat down my pencil with Romans nine.

18:42

I'm like, dang, I think I'm a Calvinist.

18:47

And then people are like, well, you got to finish all the way to 11.

18:50

I finished all the way to 11.

18:51

Okay.

18:52

I've read Romans 11.

18:53

Like I, like people are like surprised when Calvinists know that there's a 10th and 11th chapter of Romans.

18:59

We know.

18:59

So, so what happened was immediately after that, I went to this chaplain school where it's, you know, there's 150 young baby chaplains and from all different denominations, all different denominations.

19:10

Okay.

19:11

Super liberal Methodists, Missouri synod Lutherans.

19:15

I mean, you know, and so in that setting where I'm surrounded by all these denominations and we're talking and hearing ideas bounce back and forth, it was in that setting as I'm describing what it is, I believe, which is not an echo chamber.

19:30

Calvinists get, you know, uh, uh, accused of being an echo chambers all the time.

19:35

It was in that setting of, of iron sharpening iron that I'm like, oh, wow.

19:39

Not only my Calvinist, like I'm, I'm very Calvinist, you know? So I entered my cage stage was in it till probably 2018.

19:47

I spent a ton of time arguing on this, a ton of time on Facebook, arguing to the detriment of my family, the detriment of people around me.

19:58

And then one day I finally just said, I'm done.

20:00

I'm good.

20:01

So I invented the tag groups just as a way of saying, Hey man, I'm not, I'm not going to argue with you, not doing it.

20:09

And today I love the doctrines of grace for what they bring.

20:13

I'm starting to really dip my toe into learning more about post-millennialism and theonomy.

20:19

And I'm, and you know, I'm, I don't really need to argue about election anymore or whatever.

20:23

Um, but I love watching people start to learn about the doctrines of grace.

20:28

So, um, you know, that's just kind of a big picture of, of who I am as a, as a person theologian.

20:36

Awesome.

20:37

Well, Matthew, I'm going to kick it over to you now.

20:39

And this is your turn.

20:40

I, as the host, I always get the benefit of going last.

20:43

Yeah.

20:44

Yeah.

20:45

Um, so I, for the listener, Jake and I have a bit of an overlap towards the end of what I'm going to say, because he came to the church, uh, that I was at in 2014, I believe, Jake.

21:00

So, um, I was born in, in 94.

21:02

So by then I was 20, I was in college at the time, but we'll go back a little bit more.

21:07

Um, Hey, I started karate in 24 or in 94.

21:11

Yeah.

21:11

I just, I don't know that it's not relevant, but I, I just got done teaching a karate class.

21:15

I've been doing karate as long as you've been alive.

21:18

There it is.

21:19

28 years.

21:19

That's, that's a good year.

21:21

Oh, it's 28 now.

21:23

Oh, wow.

21:24

I remember when I hit the 20 year mark, cause karate 20 years in karate is a big deal.

21:28

Yeah.

21:29

Like, like you doing karate for 20 years.

21:30

That means you've, you've been doing it a while, but I'm, oh man, I'm close to 30 years.

21:34

I'm so old.

21:35

That means you can kill a man with your glare.

21:37

Is that right? Can you do that now? Well, yeah, maybe, maybe.

21:44

Yeah.

21:45

Um, so I grew up in a, in a Christian home myself.

21:47

Um, my mom and dad were both, uh, very traditional Southern Baptist raised, uh, pretty much, I mean, IFB, KJV only type stuff.

21:58

My dad told me a story of, he went to a private Christian school because his family was poor.

22:04

And when I say, because his family was poor, what I mean was this was the night, early 1960s in Gadsden County, Florida.

22:11

There were kids graduating the eighth grade who could not write their name in public schools.

22:15

Um, that did, that did not have basic literacy down to writing their name.

22:20

And so he grew up as a dirt floor, poor tobacco farming kid in, on the Georgia, Florida line, North of Tallahassee.

22:29

And so his parents believed that, you know, at the time in education was everything.

22:33

And nowadays you get a college degree.

22:35

It's not the case that you're guaranteed a job.

22:37

But back then it kind of was, it kind of was that way.

22:40

So he went to a private Christian school and he told me this story one time of where they had this big assembly and they had this, this speaker come in.

22:48

This would have been probably 1970, right around there.

22:52

And he was, you know, a hellfire and brimstone slapped the Bible on the podium and you need to repent and dah, dah, dah, dah.

22:58

And at the end he has this altar call and it's like, raise your hand if you've accepted Jesus today.

23:02

And, and, you know, all the hands go up and everything like that, like 90% of the hands go up and then they dismiss those kids.

23:08

And then they leave the remaining kids in the room.

23:11

And they're like, all right, well, why haven't you accepted Jesus? You know, and they start wearing them out one at a time until they raise their hand.

23:16

And my dad is the last person in the room.

23:18

And he's like, because I'm already a Christian.

23:20

Well, you need to accept Christ young man.

23:22

I already have, you need to accept Christ young man.

23:25

And just wouldn't like, they wanted him to raise his hand and he just wouldn't do it.

23:28

He's like, I am already a Christian.

23:30

Like, I don't know what to tell you.

23:31

I am already there.

23:32

They wanted that a hundred percent success rate or whatever.

23:35

But anyway, so that's the atmosphere he grew up in.

23:38

And my mom's, my mom's was fairly similar.

23:41

And so those two coming together, they actually ended up at a pretty good, at a pretty good church for us because it was not to that extreme.

23:50

It certainly had that bent to it.

23:51

This was in about 2001.

23:53

We started attending Switzerland community church.

23:55

The pastor who had married my mom and dad was the pastor there.

23:58

They had left, mom and dad had left a different church because of some stuff going on.

24:01

They called old Wes up and said, you're still pastoring down there.

24:05

He said, yeah, we'd love to have you.

24:06

They came and, and, and I've been there since I was six.

24:10

Got baptized in that church at seven.

24:12

And I could articulate the gospel for a seven-year-old.

24:15

It wasn't, sometimes I know we have some sort of skepticism on a six-year-old, seven-year-old getting baptized.

24:21

And I'm not going to say I could explain the Trinity or substitutionary atonement or anything like that.

24:25

But I had an age appropriate understanding of the gospel at six or seven.

24:29

And I was baptized.

24:30

And I, you know, I think that that counted, so to speak.

24:35

So anyway, as, as time goes on, I'm in a, a Baptist light.

24:41

It's sort of IFB leaning, but not as extreme.

24:44

I would say you've definitely got your pre-mill eschatology going on.

24:48

You've got your King James only was actually written into the church charter.

24:51

And then people started smuggling in IVs in.

24:53

And Jake remembers there was this, it came to a head.

24:56

It took until like 2017 or something before it finally came to a head.

25:00

And it was, it was the same meeting that they were installing me and the other guy as, as pastors, where they were also voting to remove that from the charter.

25:09

Yeah.

25:10

So kind of a stressful day.

25:12

Kind of a stressful day.

25:13

Yeah.

25:14

But I grew up under great teachers.

25:16

I grew up under men and women that loved God.

25:18

And the thing that was absolutely entrenched in me from the very outset was scriptural inerrancy.

25:24

Is that, is that the Bible above all things.

25:28

And people didn't always read the Bible perfectly or even well.

25:32

People would have a pet doctrine that they would isolate right into a passage sometimes or whatever.

25:37

But there was always an understanding that, that this is what you go back to, to justify your position.

25:42

If you can't substantiate it from here, then we're not going to, you know, so it wasn't called sola scriptura.

25:48

No one knew what that Latin word even meant.

25:51

Probably.

25:51

I mean, if you probably did, I don't want to short sell them too much, but, but that was it.

25:56

That was, that was what the church was.

25:57

Essentially.

25:59

That was what I remembered.

26:00

And because the Bible says so was enough.

26:04

I mean, granted, we want to do more than that, but that was enough.

26:07

And so what happened was I graduated high school in well, anyway, when I was 15, 16, the youth pastor at the time, who later served with Jake as lead pastor sort of took me under his wing.

26:22

My mom and dad saw that I was the guy playing video games eight hours a day and not socializing with anybody at all.

26:28

And it was an unhealthy thing and it wasn't great.

26:30

And they voluntold me, you're going to spend some time with this guy and learn how to install sound equipment and stuff in our new youth building.

26:38

And it was during those nights that, that 8 PM to 2 AM is when we were, we were there slinging wires and crawling addicts and stuff.

26:44

They just started asking questions like Jesus died for my sins.

26:48

Great.

26:48

What does that mean? Like, what does it actually, how does that actually work? What does it mean that this, what does it mean that, that what's this parable mean? And just firing 20 questions at them.

26:57

And that was where I really got Christianity.

27:00

Like I really understood what was going on.

27:02

And I actually, at the time, I doubt he remembers this, but I said, do I need to get like rebaptized? Because I feel like I get it now in a way that I didn't before.

27:09

And he said, no, you don't, don't do that.

27:11

And then, and I didn't.

27:13

So then I go off to college and I did one of the most enriching things ever.

27:18

I went to an out-of-state college six hours away and I went to a church that was theologically opposite in many, many ways.

27:25

It was a reformed church.

27:28

It was a five point of Calvinist affirming church.

27:30

They were opposite in many ways, not on the scriptural inerrancy part.

27:33

They were, they were down for that, that kind of thing.

27:36

But I got to see new ecclesiology, a complete group of elders that, that were, that were all bivocational had never, I mean, the pastor was the guy and my growing up, I never had an idea of a bivocational elder.

27:48

That was just weird, but there's like six or seven of them running the church.

27:52

And I got exposed to, you know, family integrated worship where the kids are screaming and the moms are doing whatever.

27:59

And there's a place to nurse for privacy.

28:01

But aside from that, like, we're here, guys, we are all in the room, you know? And, and they preach sermons on Ephesians one and John six and Romans eight and nine.

28:09

And I had to go back to my dorm room and sit there and go, huh, I wonder, you know, and so then I started asking the elders there.

28:17

I'm curious about this.

28:18

This is nothing like I've ever heard before.

28:20

Can you recommend some materials? And so they did.

28:22

And so I got some, some stuff they had written.

28:25

They had written some position papers.

28:26

You know, when people had opposition to say, you know, the doctrine of election or something, they would, they would write a 10 page.

28:32

And so I would read that because I thought that was the respectful thing to do.

28:35

And it was all right.

28:36

We would debate about it and we were respectful.

28:39

Long time, I, along about the time I left, they became very obnoxiously Calvinist.

28:45

And there was a couple of sermons in a row preached like you must believe this or you're not, you don't really believe your Bible.

28:51

And that's too far.

28:52

That was, that was a bridge too far.

28:55

I didn't appreciate that.

28:57

And I happened to be coming back to Jacksonville anyway, but I don't know how much longer I would have lasted at the church since they were taking that heart of a line on it.

29:04

So I came back to Jacksonville, sort of rejoined my old church and have been there since.

29:09

Jake and I met in 2014 when I came home for a holiday and we were at church at that church together until a couple of years ago.

29:16

And man, we saw it all.

29:17

We saw all kinds of stuff.

29:19

People throwing all kinds of sticks, the backbiting, the backstabbing, all that sort of thing.

29:26

Ministry, ministry seasons you, that's for sure.

29:29

And while I was not pastoral staff or anything, I was sort of the right-hand guy in youth ministry.

29:35

Funny story, Jake had to go for a summer to do army stuff.

29:39

And I was the interim associate pastor for three months in which I did construction work, but I had the title.

29:46

So anyway, as far as Calvinism goes itself, there was that bit there in college.

29:54

And then again, this James White character came up and I started listening to some of his stuff.

30:00

And I don't think I ever shied away from the Calvinist stuff.

30:04

I just said, well, I don't particularly agree with that, but I don't think you're misusing your Bible.

30:09

I think that that's a faithful handling of scripture.

30:12

I come down differently here, but I don't think you're a monster or anything like that.

30:17

And it was the fact that he was well-rounded in different areas, apologetics with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and you're Bart Ehrmans and you're this and you're this and you're this.

30:25

He was more than a one string banjo and that spoke to me.

30:28

So I watched a lot of his stuff and I watched the other side too.

30:32

I listened to his debate with Michael Brown.

30:33

I listened to his debate with Leighton Flowers.

30:36

Let me tell you, there was a qualitative difference between those two debates.

30:40

I wanted to seek out the best and I wanted to accurately represent whoever I was discussing.

30:46

I was not wanting to caricature anybody.

30:48

In fact, I love dunking on the theological beliefs of heretics, but I'm going to represent those heretics accurately.

30:54

I'm not going to say Pelagius believed something he didn't believe.

30:57

I'm not going to say Rome teaches something that they don't teach.

31:00

I have to be accurate.

31:02

And so the reason why me and these guys are such good friends and why I hang out on a lot of the reform groups is because there is no theological system that I see on the internet more misrepresented than reform theology.

31:14

It is unbelievable just how much people misrepresent it.

31:17

And I say that as someone who doesn't actually hold to it, but I can recognize someone that's making cheap shots and attacks.

31:23

It comes from a love of debate.

31:25

I absolutely love moderated debates.

31:26

And when I see people, I want to pull my penalty flag out and throw it.

31:30

I'm not allowed to do that, but if I could, I would.

31:34

And so with this conversation that we're having now, even though it's been a monologue for me, I apologize for that.

31:40

With this conversation we're having now, if listener, you have come to this video, while I may not disagree with your, like maybe you and I are on the same side of a particular issue against Calvinism, let's say, if you're doing dumb logical fallacy stuff, if you're misrepresenting, I am here with these guys to throw the flag at you.

32:00

Even if I agree with your point, your point can be passionately presented and it could still be a correct point.

32:07

And you could also be not Christ-like in how you present it and not consistent and not thinking God's thoughts after him, which is the basis of logic.

32:17

So that's what I'm here for.

32:19

That is a kind of a history and a bit of a mess on where my beliefs came from, but that's where we're at.

32:28

All right.

32:29

And I think you had something you said there at the end that was making me think of another tag group who were thinking of, as you were saying, oh, goodness, it just went out of my mind, but you were talking about how people would say things, oh, throw a flag.

32:46

We should have a throw a flag tag group.

32:48

Yeah, yeah, penalty flag, yeah.

32:50

Yeah, you should just say penalty flag.

32:51

That was a logical fallacy.

32:53

There's a logical fallacy referee meme where it's just a screenshot of an NFL ref like doing this or like doing this or whatever.

32:59

And the caption says, begging the question, assumed facts not presented or something like that.

33:04

It's pretty funny.

33:05

Yeah.

33:06

Well, guys, I've shared my testimony on here many times.

33:09

So I'm gonna make mine as streamlined as possible to sort of follow in.

33:16

It's interesting that we have Jake who has an MDiv degree from Gordon Conwell.

33:22

And so his degree is actually in the Bible and that.

33:28

The one thing I didn't get from you, Matthew, is you do have a college degree, but it's not in the Bible, right? What is your official scholastic background? On the wall above the camera here, I have a Bachelor of Science in Economics and German.

33:45

Now, the German was a Bachelor of Arts.

33:46

So I was a double major at a BA and a BS.

33:50

German is pretty darn useful for theology.

33:54

And also it has cases and things that original Greek does.

33:58

And so sometimes when doing Bible study, I'll swap over to German because German can preserve the genitive case, for instance.

34:03

And that is extremely useful when reading the New Testament.

34:07

Awesome.

34:08

I will also say that Matthew has had either the benefit or the handicap of sitting under hours of me ranting.

34:16

So you know what they say, if you can't get a seminary degree, just argue with the Calvinist and you'll get the equivalent.

34:22

Yeah, it's the truth.

34:25

And again, Jake and I don't agree on a lot of stuff.

34:28

If you want to call me a fanboy or something like that, like I would not be on the right.

34:33

I would not be on the side of James White in every debate.

34:38

That's OK.

34:39

And, you know, I want to accurately represent people and I want to be faithful to the scriptures.

34:46

That's where I'm at.

34:47

It's funny.

34:48

You know, most people know I'm very, very fond of James White.

34:52

My wife and I were talking the other night and she asked, she says, well, do you think that he's ever lost a debate that you've listened to? And I said, well, I will say this.

35:01

I usually am on his side of debates, but I have heard him make arguments that I think were weaker than I would have made.

35:09

And I'm not saying I'm a better debater than him, but I think that there are better arguments.

35:13

And I have heard him make arguments that I wouldn't have made.

35:16

So, you know, to say just because you like somebody means you always agree with them.

35:21

I think that's fair.

35:23

And before you get to yours, just to make a quick point on that, you know, in that debate commentary we did, which I love, we did talk about, oh, he lost it here or he did a bad job there.

35:35

But really, as they'll say, the point of a debate, there's no winner declared.

35:39

I mean, maybe in college where you're keeping tallies, right? But even if I engage on the internet in comment sections or whatever, I'm not trying to convince you and I'm not trying to win.

35:51

What I'm trying to do is expose your side to the fullness of its logical conclusion so that other people can see it plainly for what it is.

36:02

Because sometimes ideas sound good if they're couched in some subtlety, but if you really push them to their extreme and you look at them from the bald angle, you go, oh no, that actually doesn't sound very good, right? And so, I mean, to our point of what we're doing here, that really matters.

36:19

We're not trying to win anything.

36:22

And in fact, as good Calvinists, we're not even trying to win souls or whatever.

36:27

So we convert someone.

36:28

Yeah, we're either going to describe the gospel as we see it in the Bible or expose another side, another point, plainly for what it is.

36:39

I will tell you, I saw just driving back into town today, I saw a church that had way up on the side of their building.

36:47

It said, it was a quotation from I think Matthew 19 or so.

36:52

Anyway, it said, it was in King James, but it said basically, what must I do to be saved or inherit eternal life? It was a quotation, the rich young ruler.

37:00

And then it says, you must keep the commandments.

37:03

And that's where they stopped it.

37:05

That's where they stopped the quotation.

37:08

That was all they, on the side of this church, it was whatever Bible church of whatever.

37:12

What must I do to inherit eternal life? You must keep the commandments.

37:15

Okay.

37:16

Oh boy.

37:17

If your red alert out of context, not full passage alarm does not immediately go up, it should.

37:26

And that is the kind of misrepresentation that I absolutely cannot stand.

37:31

And when someone does something like that, even if I agree, say that is bad argumentation.

37:36

You use a verse from Isaiah against a Mormon and you don't couch it in its context.

37:41

It doesn't matter if you were correct.

37:42

You've made a bad argument that can then be thwarted.

37:46

And there's nothing that converts better than seeing an argument that you like presented badly and then just get destroyed.

37:51

Yep.

37:52

You're right.

37:54

Well, again, getting back to my very quick and very brief overview.

38:00

So I grew up in a church that was theologically liberal, but socially conservative.

38:07

So they would not have considered themselves liberal, but when it came to their theology, I mean, we had a pastor in the eighties who didn't believe in the virgin birth.

38:14

I mean, so that was how the disciples of Christ was the denomination.

38:19

And what's interesting is by God's grace, I am now the pastor of that church because God never let me leave.

38:29

And so what happened was I grew up in the church.

38:32

I didn't get saved until I was 19 and I didn't get saved because of the church.

38:36

I actually got saved outside of the church, but it was the church I grew up in.

38:39

So my wife and I were newly married and I asked her to go to church with me and we started going to church together and she got saved before I did.

38:46

So I guess that's the other way around.

38:48

We decided to go to church together and within a couple of years of being in church, but being legitimately saved, we recognized that a lot of what was being said, a lot of what was being preached was not really gospel focused and wasn't really theologically accurate.

39:08

It was just such a, it was very, very vapid, very shallow and preached my first sermon on the Sunday after 9-11 because our pastor had been in a car wreck.

39:22

I was, the elders came to me on that Wednesday night, September 11th happened on a Tuesday.

39:28

Wednesday night, everybody in the world went to church and that Wednesday night, the elder came to me and said, hey, will you preach the sermon this Sunday? We don't, you know, the pastor can't preach.

39:38

He was in a car wreck.

39:39

So I ended up preaching on Romans 13.

39:42

The government does not bear the sword in vain.

39:44

I preached that our government is about to go to war and we need to pray for the men and women who are going to be fighting this war.

39:50

That was my first sermon.

39:51

And that was the first, I mean, it was probably a horrible exegesis, but it was a very topical and timely focus message call to prayer, basically.

40:04

And that was when I believe God affirmed in my heart that I was supposed to preach because there was nothing else in the world that I wanted to do more than that, than to preach.

40:17

But I also felt very ill-equipped because I wasn't raised in a context where I was trained in the Bible and I was only at that point, 22 years old.

40:28

So I hadn't even been to college.

40:30

There was a local seminary that had an undergraduate program.

40:36

It was, I jokingly say my seminary experience was like pastoral trade school.

40:40

I know what it was.

40:42

I'm not, I don't ever try to fake it and pretend like I went to some prestigious school.

40:47

I did not.

40:48

It was a group of men who started the school as they were all, they had all gotten doctorates from different places.

40:55

One, some were Luther Rice graduates.

40:58

So I don't know if you guys are familiar with Luther Rice Seminary, but some of them were graduates from there.

41:02

And they started the seminary.

41:03

And most of the men that I was in seminary with were already pastors.

41:06

These guys were, a lot of them were, had been pastors for 10, 15, 20 years.

41:10

And they were just going back to school to get a degree because they never had it.

41:14

These were lay pastors who wanted to learn more about the Bible and become better pastors.

41:20

And so that, I count that as a blessing in a sense, being in a room with a lot of guys who'd been through it and who'd been through it in a difficult situation.

41:31

But my seminary experience, it lasted for seven years because I did my undergrad and my postgraduate work there.

41:40

But at the same time, because it was not accredited, it was, that was an issue for me because I wanted to make sure that I was able to support my family if the church could not ever support my family.

41:53

So I also, at the same time, did a degree through a university.

42:00

I did a degree in social science with a focus on education.

42:06

So I basically have an education degree to go along with my seminary degree.

42:11

And I went all the way to doctoral work at the seminary, even though I would say the doctoral program they had was nothing compared to what's at Southern or something like that.

42:19

I normally don't put doctor on things because I'm not super, I don't feel like it's at the same level as like a doctorate from other colleges or things like that.

42:31

But at the same time, so I know who I am.

42:34

When it comes to the education that I received, I know where it was.

42:38

And so I don't make any apologies for it, but I also don't try to make it something that it's not.

42:46

At the same time, I became a pastor at 26, same year I adopted two children.

42:51

So I became a dad and a pastor in the same month.

42:56

And at that time, I was still in seminary.

42:59

The pastor was before me retired.

43:01

Within the first two years, I became a Calvinist.

43:04

And that was tough because the church tried to fire me for being a Calvinist.

43:09

So a lot of these things that I hear people arguing about online, a lot of these Facebook comments and a lot of this stuff, I just wanna say this.

43:19

I mean, no disrespect, but most of you guys have not sat across the table from a pastor and had to deal with these things.

43:29

Most of you guys have not sat across the table from people who are yelling at you and telling you they're gonna leave the church.

43:35

Most of you, I mean, I've done this in real life is what I'm saying.

43:39

And I don't mean to diminish anyone, but I'll give you the quick rundown.

43:46

There was a man in the church who was trying to have me fired for being a Calvinist.

43:49

One of the largest Southern Baptist pastors in our area told him he should try to get me removed because I was a Calvinist.

43:57

And I'm not gonna name names, but it's interesting that Dr.

44:00

James White did review a sermon by that pastor.

44:05

So it's just interesting that this guy is known for being anti-Calvinist.

44:09

I went into a restaurant one time and this guy was sitting in the restaurant and he saw me and he goes, that guy's a Calvinist.

44:15

He didn't even know my name.

44:17

But he said that he's, in fact, he's the reason for the name of this show.

44:21

Because after that, I was like, I guess I'm the Calvinist.

44:23

I guess I'm the neighborhood Calvinist because even a pastor, the largest church in the area doesn't know my name, but he knows I'm a Calvinist.

44:32

So again, this was real.

44:33

This was real.

44:34

And this was before Facebook was really a thing.

44:37

You know, 2007, 2008, this was right when social media was really becoming a thing.

44:43

So anyway, I hope I'm not sounding like I'm being a little persnickety, but this was my life.

44:49

People were literally trying to have me fired.

44:52

And one man in particular really tried to have me removed for being a Calvinist.

44:58

So one morning, one Sunday morning, I stood up in the, let me back up very quick.

45:07

I took a Sunday off because I said, you know what? I need to pray with my family and decide what's gonna happen here.

45:14

And if I need to leave, because I don't wanna split this church because I'm a Calvinist, well, that man, the Sunday I was gone, he decided to stand up and call people liars.

45:24

He decided to do all this crazy stuff, called me a liar, called other people liars, and he left the church.

45:30

So I get a phone call and they said, hey, the guy caused the problem and he left.

45:35

I said, well, I'm coming in.

45:36

I came in as the associate pastor at the time is finishing up the sermon because again, I wasn't there.

45:42

I walk up onto the chancel as he's walking down and I hear people whispering, why is he here? He wasn't even supposed to come in today.

45:49

He was, he's supposed to be out.

45:51

And I stood up there and I said, look, here's the deal.

45:54

I said, I've been accused of preaching some things that are not true.

45:57

I've been accused of saying that when babies die, they go to hell.

46:00

I don't believe that that's true.

46:01

And to say that about me as a falsehood, I said, but there are some things that are true.

46:06

I do believe that God chooses who will be saved.

46:10

And it's ultimately God's will that he is sovereign over salvation.

46:14

And, and I went through the basics of what I believe.

46:17

And I said to the church, I said, listen, at this point you have a choice.

46:22

You can fire me.

46:23

You hired me at a hundred percent vote.

46:25

I said, you can call a business meeting anytime and fire me.

46:28

I said, but until that day, this is the direction that we're going.

46:33

Because you call me to be a pastor and a pastor's a leader, and I'm going to lead in the way that I feel God's directed us.

46:39

And this is the way we're going to go.

46:41

And if, if, and when you decide it's time for me to leave, you can decide that.

46:45

But until then, this is the direction we're going to go.

46:48

Now, I'm not, I'm not exaggerating this point.

46:51

I'm not trying to make myself again, look bigger than I am.

46:53

I'm already pretty big.

46:55

My wife will, my wife attested this being the, my Martin Luther moment where I stood up and said that, you know, here I stand and I can do no other.

47:06

I said, if I stay, this is where we're going.

47:10

Within a year, we had a new constitution in the church.

47:13

The constitution was with a new statement of faith that outlined what we believed about reformed theology.

47:18

Within three years, we changed the name to sovereign grace family church.

47:22

So God did all of that by his grace.

47:25

I don't, I don't, I'm again, I'm not painting myself as a superhero, but my point is I have fought these battles in real life with real people who were sitting apart from me that I could feel the spittle coming out of their mouth and hitting me on the forehead because they were angry.

47:38

And so, um, that's, that's my story and a little bit of my pedigree.

47:45

So, uh, get you kind of to where, where we're at.

47:48

Awesome.

47:49

Yeah.

47:49

So again, as Matthew said before, if you're watching this video, because it was copied and pasted directly to you in the thread somewhere, right.

47:59

It's because we just felt like, because we value you, we don't really want to argue with you.

48:06

We feel like we're not necessarily aligned in your intensity in this conversation and our engagement in this conversation.

48:14

So one thing that I like to do when people really want to argue and argue and argue with me is, is I will just copy and paste some links from Amazon and say, Hey man, here's some helpful resources, right? And why do I do that? Well, because, so I run the Facebook group.

48:30

We've talked about it a bunch of times, just so you don't understand reform theology, move along.

48:33

I'll post that when I see somebody just saying something crazy, something way off from what reform theology do, they're just misrepresenting the position.

48:41

And I will get a lot of times people go, well, I bet you've never met anybody who you think understands reform theology and just doesn't agree.

48:49

I'm like, not on Facebook.

48:51

No, in real life.

48:53

Yeah, I have, but generally, you know, these Facebook bros or whatever, like probably not.

48:59

And the reason isn't because I think you're dumb.

49:02

I don't think you're ignorant.

49:03

I don't think, I just think you probably have a normal job.

49:06

You probably just aren't reading the same things I'm reading.

49:09

I was a professional pastor and theologian, and I'm a professional minister today.

49:13

I just spend more time in these circles.

49:16

And, and so like you're animated, but generally you're probably not bringing up a point that hasn't been dealt with before.

49:23

And what I'm just not fitting to do with my time is retype on my little Samsung swipe keyboard, a book that R.C.

49:33

Sproul wrote better.

49:35

And people go, oh, so you just, you're just going to offset your beliefs to somebody else.

49:39

I'm like, no, the dude, we just agree.

49:41

And he wrote it better because he got paid to do it.

49:44

And so when I do that, people never take it well.

49:47

They never, they take it as if like, I owe them my time and I owe them my argument.

49:51

But really, I think it's more respectful to both of us if I just say, hey, let's just establish like a baseline.

49:57

And then from there, after you've read these things and consider these things, then we'll go.

50:02

So I just kind of want to maybe throw around like a baseline of a couple of books that on reform theology and maybe Bible in general that we think people should probably read.

50:15

And then if you still want to go a couple of rounds, let's build off of that foundation.

50:20

Does that make sense? So like for me, the one I really like to go to is Potter's Freedom by James White.

50:30

I think it just handles the specificity of the doctrine of election and doctrine of election.

50:38

And more specifically, I think like the concept of sovereignty in a very concise, but direct and scripturally based way.

50:47

And if we're arguing about those things, you'll hear me quote a lot of the stuff that he's saying.

50:53

Why is it? Because as that one dude said, I'm brainwashed by James White.

50:56

No, man, I told you.

50:58

Translated Romans nine myself, but he just was articulate on this issue.

51:03

So for me, that's one that I like to share a lot when it comes to reform theology.

51:08

When we go around the horn and we'll each give a couple.

51:12

Okay, Matthew, go ahead.

51:14

Yeah, I would say also, if you find yourself here, all of us, I'm a deacon at a church, Keith pastors a church, Jake's a chaplain, which is different, but similar to pastoring a church.

51:31

I was a pastor elder.

51:32

Sorry? And I was a pastor elder.

51:34

Absolutely.

51:35

I'm saying just present day.

51:38

All of us, and I hope you too, listener would find spending 15 minutes in prayer for our flock more valuable than retyping a book.

51:50

And so if you see a short, what you might consider dismissive reply, consider the fact that no, I am not saying every time we do that, we then dropped our knees and pray for our congregations for 15 minutes.

52:04

But perhaps you should, and perhaps we should more, we are all trying to grow in our grace and the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

52:12

And so maybe that would be a better idea.

52:16

And if you want to learn some more stuff, maybe you should check out some resources rather than Facebook.

52:19

Facebook is an intensely or Twitter, whatever YouTube comments, those people to an intensely inefficient way for you to exchange ideas.

52:30

The Bible has no concept of it, except in the sense that Paul wrote letters.

52:34

I mean, that's about the closest analog we have face-to-face interaction is better.

52:39

And honestly, if someone in my congregation, and again, I'm a deacon, I'm not an elder, so I'm not called upon to defend doctrine, but the Bible does say I need to hold fast to the mystery of the faith.

52:48

Um, if someone comes and has some errant kind of doctrine on Facebook or at my church, you can bet your bananas that a hundred percent of my effort is going into the one at my church.

53:00

That's just, that's just a priorities thing.

53:02

So really anything you get online, this will come across as arrogant, but actually I think it's biblical.

53:08

And I think I'm loving the flock God's given me rather than some guy I have no spiritual interaction or authority with at all on the internet.

53:15

I mean, you should not take what Keith or Jake or I say as authoritative, you should ask your elders.

53:20

I mean, like all, I mean, investigate for yourself, but then if you need a check, ask your elders, don't ask us to retype an RC scroll book, you know? Um, so formative for me, um, he gets dunked on a lot, but I don't care.

53:33

Uh, formative for me was CS Lewis.

53:35

I mean, mere Christianity.

53:36

That's a good starting point.

53:38

I, we would not agree with everything CS Lewis says or how he presents it.

53:41

That's fine.

53:42

That's okay.

53:43

You need to read things you disagree with.

53:45

Yeah.

53:46

You need to read things that you disagree with.

53:49

As long as you're mature enough to go back to scripture, such as the Bereans and say, search the scriptures to see if these things are.

53:54

So that's what you need to do.

53:57

Um, GI Packers, knowing God was fantastic because it gets me out of the formal theological and into the, I don't want to say experiential, but something beyond head knowledge of who God is.

54:08

Um, that was massively important.

54:11

And he writes surprised by hope, um, and recognize that he's writing to people that are not you.

54:17

Okay.

54:17

He is conservative in his circles.

54:19

All right.

54:20

And when he comes over here or when you hear ideas from him and you don't like them, you know, and then when I wanted to know about Calvinism, reform dogmatics, I mean like that, go get the Bible of Calvin.

54:31

It's not, I'm sorry.

54:32

That's a terrible analogy.

54:34

Um, go get the Bible of, uh, of, of reform dogmatics.

54:38

I'm afraid that that's going to become a sound bite on some anti-Calvinistic site.

54:43

You just said the Bible is the reform dogmatics.

54:47

They, I'm a low, I'm a low voltage electrician.

54:51

And so we refer to the code book as the Bible of whatever, you know, and it's an expression.

54:55

I don't actually mean that, but go read the, go read the best.

54:59

Okay.

54:59

Don't go find cage stage, 21 year old at seminary and his screeds on Facebook that you have to click.

55:06

See more three times to get through, go read the best, go read reform dogmatics, go read some James white stuff, like do it.

55:13

And read different ones.

55:15

Um, it's good for you.

55:16

Yeah.

55:17

Yeah.

55:17

To your point.

55:18

Um, you know, I've read chosen, but free by Geisler, right.

55:22

I've read why I'm not a Calvinist.

55:24

I read all that stuff and, and I still will continue to read things opposed to my, at least current stated worldview.

55:30

Like my worldview is every idea that I have in my head needs to get thrown in the blender where the blades are the Bible.

55:37

And if it gets chopped up and destroyed good.

55:40

And if it survives being thrown up against the Bible, good.

55:44

And so I'm not going to stop doing that.

55:46

So that's a great point, Matthew.

55:49

All right.

55:50

So I guess I'll take a turn, uh, on the, on this and, and it really is tough to, to narrow down when somebody says, well, what, what do I think is the baseline? Because there, there are a few things that I think we have to consider.

56:03

Um, and I know that I know someone's going to say it.

56:06

So I'm going to go ahead and somebody in the comments or somebody who watches this will say, well, they didn't say we should read the Bible.

56:13

So I, I know I did that.

56:16

Yeah.

56:17

This is before, before your head explodes, uh, Jake, I see it.

56:22

I see it.

56:23

It's about the, yeah, the, the, um, you know, it really was scripture that convinced me to be a Calvinist.

56:32

I, and I've told the story before sitting on my couch, yelling at my wife in the kitchen, not yelling at her, but yelling to her, yelling to her.

56:39

She's, we used to have a shotgun house where, where the front and back door face each other.

56:43

So you can, you can literally walk and fire a shotgun straight through the house.

56:48

Um, and so the living room was in the front kitchen was in the back and I would be sitting there reading the scriptures and I would yell to her, baby, doesn't this sound like what we don't believe? You know, it doesn't sound like, cause we weren't Calvinist.

57:02

Um, but we'd been exposed to exposed to that teaching and, and, and we were fighting against it.

57:09

And I remember, and, and, and, and to my wife's, you know, looking back, she's a, she's a wonderful reformed person.

57:17

Now, uh, did we lose Matt? No, no, I'm good.

57:19

I'm actually, I'm going to go check my bookshelf to make sure I didn't forget anything.

57:22

So I'm going off video for just a second.

57:24

Gotcha.

57:25

Well, my, um, you know, my wife was very concerned about reformed theology early on because this was going to be our life.

57:35

We were going to be ministers or I was going to be a minister.

57:37

She was going to be a pastor's wife.

57:38

This was our life.

57:40

And, and, you know, uh, Calvinists are hated by so many people and it was fearful to consider, Hey, you know, if you preach this truth, people are not going to want to listen to it.

57:50

And so that's tough to think about.

57:52

Okay.

57:53

So I don't mean to get back into my story, uh, popular level writing, uh, absolutely everyone.

58:01

If you are, if you are going to have a conversation with me and you've never read the holiness of God, then, then you stop drop and roll while reading this book because you, you, you are not where you need to be.

58:14

If you have not read past the scriptures, if you have not read the holiness of God, then you probably have not been exposed to what even that concept means and the idea of holiness.

58:27

So I would say the holiness of God, we actually, I bought this book by the case so that I can give it to people like attract.

58:34

So I, I believe in this book.

58:36

I hold it in high regard.

58:39

And this is the popular level book that I think everyone should read.

58:44

Uh, I didn't bring that one up is cause I knew you were going to, yeah, absolutely.

58:47

Absolutely.

58:48

And, and the sister book to this is chosen by God, which is you mentioned Geisler's chosen, but free is the response to that.

58:55

But, um, so if you want to get more into the Calvinistic side, but I, but this is just a primer on God.

59:00

Yeah.

59:00

This is about God.

59:02

And then the S the next one is this one, a W pink, the sovereignty of the novel.

59:07

So if you can go from the holiness of God to the sovereignty of God and not walk away, at least, at least sympathetic to the Calvinist position, which I would say, that's where Matthew is.

59:16

Even if he's not yet a Calvinist, he at least sympathizes because he's, he's read things like this and he understands where we're coming from.

59:25

You'll, you'll, you will lay a foundation for monergism.

59:29

And maybe you don't know how all that works out, which I think is how you build those building blocks.

59:33

Right.

59:33

I think you start with, okay, God is overall sovereign.

59:38

Okay.

59:38

He is monergistic over salvation.

59:40

And then you get into your.

59:42

Ordo salutis.

59:43

Well, when did that happen? How did that happen? And so on and so forth.

59:47

Yeah.

59:47

So those are my two basic, you know, if people have never read either of these, and then, and then of course you mentioned reform dogmatics, I would ask if somebody has read Calvin's institutes.

59:57

Yeah.

59:57

I was going to say the same thing.

59:59

Yeah.

59:59

Most Calvinists haven't read institutes, right? Because it's beefy.

01:00:03

It's hard.

01:00:04

It's also in conversation with just things.

01:00:06

We're not in conversation with it.

01:00:07

So he's talking to Rome a lot, but, but again, if you're serious about this study, if you're serious to be as intense as you are online, like what's important is read these people in their context.

01:00:21

Don't watch a YouTube video about someone who hates him talking about him, read the thing in his context.

01:00:27

I would also, I would add, you can get it free on Kindle to read the canons of the Senate of Dork.

01:00:33

Like that's very formative for where we are today, talking about Tulip, right.

01:00:38

And as, as it has crystallized into a systematic to read Dork and what came out of it directly.

01:00:47

That would be the other one I would want to talk about specifically about Calvin.

01:00:51

Yeah.

01:00:51

And just, just real quick, because you mentioned not many people have read the institutes, but they'll quote small sections like the thing about the doom from the womb passage.

01:01:03

It's often, you know, cited Calvin's, uh, you know, Oh, he believes babies go to hell because he believes doom from the womb.

01:01:09

Right.

01:01:09

So that's a, that, that, that, that's a, that's a misapplication of what that phrase is being used for.

01:01:16

So, yeah, absolutely.

01:01:17

So a couple of things I would also say is the most healthy thing I think you can read overall, not with Calvinism specifically or anything like that is some good church history.

01:01:26

And what that will do is it will, it will church history sets a flat ground for you to where you realize that the thing that you think is super duper important.

01:01:38

And you think, well, they've never heard this one before.

01:01:40

You probably have.

01:01:41

Yeah, probably.

01:01:43

And you'll undo the idea that church, the church fathers were monolithic in any way, because they just weren't exactly.

01:01:50

2000 years of Christ's power by Nick Needham is my favorite church history.

01:01:55

I got it in a four volume hardback set and have loaned out various parts of it to people.

01:01:59

It is, it is a blend of like tract and like Shaw for something, which is basically like eating wallpaper paste.

01:02:08

I'm sorry.

01:02:09

He's just so boring, but it's a, it's a good in-depth, but like he's describing things.

01:02:15

And I'm like, oh, they were struggling with this issue in the third century.

01:02:18

Yep.

01:02:18

Sure.

01:02:18

We're yeah, they were.

01:02:21

And the more you do that, the more you get a lot more light than you do heat.

01:02:25

In these kinds of discussions, reading Calvin's institutes, I have not read all of them.

01:02:29

I have been through quite a few of them, but when people say, when people give you a no true Scotsman, I'm like, well, it's not really Calvinism.

01:02:36

I'm like, okay, what does Calvin get to define Calvinism? Does he? And if he does, here's what he says on the matter.

01:02:42

Okay.

01:02:42

So it is.

01:02:43

And lastly, Keith, I was digging through my drawer and I just had to, just because it was right here.

01:02:49

So that's Keith's book, a biblically functioning church.

01:02:52

It has.

01:02:52

Okay.

01:02:53

Show them the back, show them how sad it is.

01:02:54

There you go.

01:02:56

Send me one of those.

01:02:57

I'll read it.

01:02:57

My picture.

01:02:59

This, no, I brought it out because Keith, this is, correct me if I'm wrong.

01:03:03

This was a response to all the pain of the ecclesiological gobbledy garbage that you dealt with.

01:03:09

And you said, all right, well, in a sense, it's a microcosm of what we're doing.

01:03:13

If someone's going to come at me on how we should order a church, I'm going to write this and be like, read this and then we'll talk.

01:03:18

That's right.

01:03:19

Read this and then we'll talk.

01:03:20

Okay.

01:03:20

Which is kind of what this podcast is supposed to be in larger.

01:03:23

Yeah, that was a year's worth of sermons on how the church is supposed to function.

01:03:29

And it became a biblically functioning church, the book.

01:03:32

And now we give it to new members.

01:03:34

This is how we function.

01:03:35

This is how we do church.

01:03:37

So another topic that we might get into is not necessarily with Calvinists, but kind of the Bible in general, when we're dealing with maybe Roman Catholics, or we're dealing with atheists.

01:03:48

One thing that I find myself copy and pasting a lot is Michael J.

01:03:53

Kruger, Canon Revisited.

01:03:56

Oh, yeah.

01:03:56

Questions of the Canon.

01:03:57

I think it's the other one.

01:03:59

You know, just kind of undoing some of the myths of where we got our Bible.

01:04:04

You know, I have a lot of people at the Council of Nicaea.

01:04:07

Well, you're right.

01:04:08

Well, you know, more though, if you're semi-educated, you'll talk about the Council of Carthage, for example, as if somehow the Council of Carthage was authoritative.

01:04:17

And it just wasn't.

01:04:18

There's a lot of mythology about that.

01:04:20

I really suggest Michael J.

01:04:22

Kruger.

01:04:23

If you're kind of ready for the next step, germane to our conversation on the last show I did.

01:04:30

I do think if you're kind of ready to put on some big boy pants, take a crack at Metzger.

01:04:35

Read Text of the New Testament.

01:04:37

It's transmission, corruption, restoration.

01:04:39

It's thick.

01:04:40

It's tough.

01:04:41

But what it should do is take a nail bat to your knees and humble you a little bit for how you think the Bible is put together.

01:04:51

Like you probably, if you're ready for this, you probably don't really know how your Bible was assembled.

01:04:57

And that one will get you there in a hard way.

01:05:01

So, again, I don't want to answer anybody directly, but to that dude who said we were brainwashed, like, bro, I read Metzger years before I ever learned who James White was.

01:05:11

Like, have an idea of where your Bible came from.

01:05:14

Like, if you want to come at me and go at me with some real theology, like we need to have a real talk about the true history of how we got our Bible and what it's what it is made out of.

01:05:24

You know what I mean? Yeah.

01:05:26

I mean, one of the one of my favorite questions is simply what resources from the other side have you exposed yourself to? Yeah, for sure.

01:05:32

And I ask that question.

01:05:35

I'll just copy paste that question.

01:05:37

Maybe it should be a tag group, but I copy paste that question over and over and over again when someone's getting more and more heat and less and less light.

01:05:44

And I say, all right, well, have you read the other side on this? And it's just like, well, you can't address this and you're scared.

01:05:51

Like, nah, not interested.

01:05:53

Moving on.

01:05:54

And I watched YouTube videos from guys who don't like them, but in their context, have you read that? Yeah.

01:06:01

And you mentioned Kruger, also the heresy of orthodoxy.

01:06:04

Yes.

01:06:06

You know, because I hear all the time people say there's a young man on TikTok.

01:06:10

He's supposed to be a preacher, but he's a homosexual guy.

01:06:12

And he says Jesus was a sinner and Jesus was, you know, it's all this crazy nonsense.

01:06:17

And he goes and people from the earliest church, they believed all kinds of things.

01:06:22

There was not one Christianity.

01:06:23

There was no orthodoxy.

01:06:25

And I was like, Michael Kruger literally wrote a book proving you wrong.

01:06:28

And you've probably never read it.

01:06:31

Yep.

01:06:33

Not that I want to go back to Calvinism, but you made me think of something.

01:06:36

Sure.

01:06:36

When I was in seminary in the seminary I went to was opposed to Calvinism.

01:06:41

They made us read this.

01:06:42

I don't know if you can see it debating debating Calvinism, which is James White and Dave Hunt.

01:06:47

This was my introduction to James White.

01:06:50

This is how I learned about him because the seminary made us read this because they said, oh yeah, Dave Hunt is that, you know, he's going to destroy Calvinism.

01:06:58

He does not.

01:07:01

He does not at all.

01:07:03

But this is no, you know, little book.

01:07:05

They go back and forth for quite a while.

01:07:07

I also recommend N.T.

01:07:09

Wright's Scripture and the Authority of God.

01:07:12

It's slightly left of me, but it's really it's not as leftist as seem to think, but it's a really good take at understanding meta-narrative and how to apply scripture.

01:07:24

Well, it's a it's a really good book.

01:07:25

I don't I don't recommend all of N.T.

01:07:27

Wright, but that's a really good one.

01:07:30

I mean, we could probably do this forever.

01:07:31

But for me, those are the ones that I find myself copy and pasting a lot.

01:07:36

If I could just add one.

01:07:38

I know we're going to do it forever.

01:07:39

I do want to add one last thing.

01:07:43

Matthew already said Matthew or Jake, or maybe both affirmed we should read people we disagree with.

01:07:48

I also want to affirm the idea that that it is it is also important that you take the opportunity to read people who are no longer alive.

01:07:57

Oh, yeah, for sure.

01:07:58

When I was dealing with with the issue of the will, the human will, the two greatest books that I know of on this subject are Luther's response to Erasmus, which is the bondage of the will, and Jonathan Edwards on the freedom of the will or the freedom of the will.

01:08:16

So both of those together, it's funny because one's called the bondage of will that is called freedom of the will.

01:08:19

And I do think Edwards's approach to understanding man making legitimate choices, consequential choices is very helpful.

01:08:29

Last night on TikTok, one of the questions was, do you believe everything is determined? Men's choices don't matter.

01:08:35

And the answer is, no, I don't believe men's choices don't matter.

01:08:37

I do believe that our choices are legitimate choices and that they have consequences.

01:08:42

And so but how do you fit that into a deterministic framework? Well, I think I think Edwards does that and does it very well.

01:08:50

So so that's just something to consider as well.

01:08:54

So ultimately, the purpose of this and if you've made it to the end of this video, I commend you.

01:09:00

It says a lot about you.

01:09:03

If you weren't able to make it here, then that's kind of more reason why I'm not arguing with you on the internet, frankly.

01:09:11

But like if you're coming at us because you're going to own us and you've got that one point that no galvanists have ever dealt with, like I love you as a brother in Christ.

01:09:21

I hope I see you in heaven.

01:09:23

I say brother in Christ because it's rarely ever sisters.

01:09:25

I'm not saying it never is, but it rarely is.

01:09:28

But I just don't owe you my time, man.

01:09:30

And I'd rather talk to you as humans and get to know you.

01:09:33

And in fact, one thing I do is folks who I've gone a couple of rounds with, I will usually friend them on Facebook because if we share pictures of our family and scripture that's enlightening us that has nothing to do with Calvinism and we start to see each other as humans, it becomes a lot easier to see that conversation.

01:09:50

And so I really hope that that's what we've got today is that you saw us more as human beings that God has developed with the theological framework.

01:09:59

Many of my beliefs have changed over the years.

01:10:02

I am now right in the middle of making my shift from email to postmail.

01:10:07

I don't expect my thoughts on the doctrine of grace to ever change, but my point is, we're not static.

01:10:14

Yeah, like, well, thank you.

01:10:17

I have that tattooed right there.

01:10:21

We're not static and we're not robots.

01:10:24

We are human beings that Christ has given his spirit to as well.

01:10:28

And so we want you to see us as human beings.

01:10:31

So if you've got copy and paste of this, it's not because we're dismissing you.

01:10:34

It's because we love you.

01:10:36

And we just don't want to do that ugly thing with you.

01:10:39

By the way, your code word for this podcast is come quad.

01:10:43

So yeah, that's how we know.

01:10:45

If we paste the link and you say, yeah, I watched that.

01:10:48

I'm going to ask what was the code word.

01:10:49

And if you don't come back in two minutes with that, then we'll know someone's not telling the truth or you bailed out before we got to this point.

01:10:56

So now, you know.

01:10:58

I love you both.

01:11:00

That was that was awesome.

01:11:03

Thank you guys for contributing to tonight and continuing to contribute to the podcast.

01:11:08

I appreciate even even though we do have differences on things.

01:11:13

It's good to have brothers in Christ that we can talk to and about these things with.

01:11:17

So thank you both for being here.

01:11:19

Absolutely.

01:11:19

Thanks for having us.

01:11:20

And listener, I want to thank you again for being here again.

01:11:24

The special word is come quad or the keyword.

01:11:26

What was it? The code word code word is come quad.

01:11:29

If you if you don't know come quad, that means you didn't watch all the way to the end.

01:11:33

And again, thank you for watching.

01:11:35

Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:11:36

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01:11:42

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01:11:46

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01:11:50

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01:11:51

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01:11:56

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01:12:00

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01:12:07

Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:12:09

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

01:12:12

May God bless you.