E-mails, Ergun Caner, and Calls

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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. Good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line on January, well we didn't change the thing up there, look at that,

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January 10th, 2012, in fact I don't even have a, I might have a calendar around here someplace to replace that with.

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Oh well, here we are and it's already in 2012, very glad that I made it back on time, had a very unusual experience, we had a nice cruise, the first day both my wife and I were down, not sure what that was,

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I've never gotten seasick before, but this was, we were moving fast and I had been told anyways, this ship was so big we wouldn't feel it moving, hahahaha.

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It was, it was, you know I can handle the side to side type thing, it's the corkscrew thing that gets me and it got me and Jerry Johnson had to do the first two presentations because I was not really functional at that point in time, but once we got into port and stuff and then the rest of the trip was fine, but the really unusual experience was we woke up Sunday morning and I looked out and you could not see anything, in fact it was really freaky at one point, there was like this ghost ship off to one side, it really looked neat because you could just barely, it was sort of like that scene in Master and Commander if you ever saw that movie where they, you know the fog banks and stuff, wow did we have fog and you're hearing all these ships, you know coming across the ocean, and I thought we were already in port because I had heard the, felt the shuddering of the ozzy pods coming out, but they were just stopping us.

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The port of Galveston was closed, the port was closed, we were two miles off, thankfully we had cell service, but we were two miles off and that's where we sat.

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We were due in, I don't know, somewhere around five o 'clock in the morning, we got in about eight and a half hours later and oh there were many unhappy people because lots of folks missed their flights and just, oh getting off of the, getting off of the ship was quite an interesting experience, but you know what, there's nothing anybody can do about that,

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I mean let's face it, fog is a little bit beyond the cruise line's capacity to do anything about it.

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It was thick, it was really bad, and I really would, given the size of these ships,

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I would really rather not play chicken with that other ship that was next to us, it was a

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Carnival Magic I think it was called, which was almost as big as ours, so man, getting the two of them together in one of those fog banks would have been a bad thing, so they didn't do that.

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So we got in anyhow, we had to hoof it, but we made it, and I had a six o 'clock flight and I can imagine the folks that had two o 'clock flights, three o 'clock flights, only got home yesterday and started teaching last evening for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

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According to the reasoning of some, I guess this is the only week that I'm allowed to say that I teach for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Starting at 10 .01pm on Friday, I can't say it anymore, even though I have been teaching for Golden Gate since 1995, but according to the reasoning of some, this is the only week

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I can actually say, and I really have to wonder if maybe since I'm at my office right now, and it's not five o 'clock this afternoon, maybe

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I can't say it now, because I am not at this moment teaching for Golden Gate. Now I will tonight from five to 10pm, but maybe at 10 .01

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I can't say it anymore. That's how some people actually think and reason, and it's a sad and scary thing.

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But anyway, we are doing Islam and the New Atheism in a class for Golden Gate, an intensive

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January class, five hours a night. I'm going to tell you something, those of you who are ministers, you know five hours of teaching, it's tiring.

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It's tiring. I slept like a baby last night, really did. Well, okay, I slept better than a baby last night. Why do we even use that phrase?

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Babies don't sleep well. They wake up for any particular reason. So slept like a log, whatever, but logs don't sleep.

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I slept well, let's just put it that way. And so here we are. Are we having connection problems or something?

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I'm seeing a lot of people in the channel going, oh. But anyway, looking forward to the rest of the class and some interesting interactions we're going to have.

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I did want to get around to reading this. We get some, and we'll go ahead and have the phone lines open, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, or do we have the

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Skype up or not? We do. Dividing .Line via Skype, if you would like to join in today.

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I did want to get to a couple emails. And then, of course, Ergon Kanner's back.

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This is one of the most enjoyable emails

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I've gotten in a while. Sometimes they are very, very interesting.

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A fellow by the name of Joseph Hedrick, Joseph Hedrick, and it looks like a real name because I haven't written to the

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Gmail address, and I probably won't remember to write to the Gmail address here to let him know that I commented on his email, but I'll try to remember to.

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But I've got so much going on, and I'm moving at warp speed right now, and yet I'm so far behind I can't see straight.

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Anyway, here's the email. This is great, from Joseph Hedrick, and this is a couple weeks ago, but I was trying to get through my emails today and got it down to about four or five more that I need to get to.

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But anyhow, I've been listening and watching to some of your, quote, debates, end quote, with James Aiken and also

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Robert Syngenis. Let me just stop right there. You can't do that because I don't think the radio debate with Jimmy Aiken is available anyplace, and we haven't done any of the debates, so that won't work.

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But they're a little confused. What? The radio debate?

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We have the radio debate with Jimmy Aiken? I haven't heard that in 147 years.

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I didn't even think it existed. You're talking about the one you did in Texas, in Austin. I don't know. It was on a radio station somewhere.

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Yeah, we've had it for a long time. You serious? Yeah. I sort of doubt that.

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You have to prove that. If I recall correctly, it's number 468. I will check and see. Someone will have to check that, because I've never ...

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Anyway, I'm told you claim victory in all of your so -called debates. I'm told.

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I just love these folks. I'm told you claim victory in all of your so -called debates.

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This is like Randall Cobb claiming he beat up Larry Holmes. A match you probably wouldn't remember since you born -again types,

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I'm sure, don't watch such barbarism. You're too busy being the elect.

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I'm sorry. I guess I must have been sick the day that you were anointed as the high grand marshal of the

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Bible police, an all -knowing arbitrator of scriptural truth. Don't you ever get sick and tired of your miserable life of constant debate and bilious

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Bible banter? It's the first time I've ever run across bilious

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Bible banter. That sort of sounds like Peter Ruckman to me, but this is a Roman Catholic, so ...

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Ah, someone says ID 143. This one on perseverance?

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Oh, maybe? I don't know. I'd have to click on that to find out, but maybe it is.

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Anyhow, I don't have a feeling he's actually purchased anything from us. What a sad little existence.

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What a stagnant swamp of self -exalting delusion you exist in. Remember, he's just told this.

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I haven't told you. Yet you hang in there, slugging away as you get continually dismantled by true scholars.

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You can't even get on the same page with fellow protesters. I can assure you that there are revolting protester churches all over the country who hold you in equally high regard as myself.

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But please don't quit. Watching you promote your glorious career as the world's most biblically correct human in your defense of Protestant deformed theology is really quite entertaining in a sick, morbid kind of way.

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And your majestic arrogance rivals even His Royal Highness Skip Heitzig, who thinks he's going to blast off into outer space at any moment now.

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One can only hope that it is soon, and you will accompany him on his trip. Then I got a second email from Brother Hedrick.

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Oh yeah, I forgot to ask my question, sorry. Would you please direct me to the verse in the

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Bible which says, quote, a man is justified by faith alone, end quote. Or even better, would you please direct me to the verse in the

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Bible which states which books belong in the Bible? As the world's utmost authority on scripture,

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I'm sure this won't be difficult for you. If you cannot, then run along now. You're dismissed. Ah, you just got to love the maturity and grace and everything else that Romanism has produced in Mr.

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Hedrick's life here. So you got a guy who says he's watching these debates, now, you know,

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I think about the debates with Bob St. Genes, and we've debated justification. So that would have been addressed.

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I'm sure I've addressed the issue of the canon of scripture in some contexts, even though we haven't, I don't think

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Bob and I have done sola scriptura, which is sort of odd. But you know, these are all things that any serious -minded person knows

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I've addressed many, many times. And so it's really hard to take it seriously.

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But we do get these types of emails once in a while. And I had never, ever been associated with Skip Heitzig, and evidently some sort of concept of pre -tribulational rapture theory.

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So Mr. Hedrick, I would, you know, if you should happen to hear this, which

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I really doubt that you would, even if I write to you, I doubt you're going to listen to this. But if you were actually serious,

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I would be happy to direct you to the resources that would answer all of your questions, especially in regards to justification.

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But I, you know, in fact, I'd even offer to send you the book on justification called

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The God Who Justifies. But I just get the feeling, in light of the slightly less than gracious tone in your email, that you really wouldn't.

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Let's just say it would be a little bit like when I sent those Mormon missionaries many, many years ago, at great personal cost, copies of Mormonism's Shadow Reality.

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Big, big books, which they then informed me later on they had burned in the backyard.

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So you don't want to necessarily sacrifice things to Moloch unnecessarily in that way.

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But Mr. Hedrick, if you'd like to write, and maybe do so with, I don't know, just a tad bit of adult maturity and grace, then maybe we'll do that.

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Okay, so you, number 465. So 465 is the debate from Austin, Texas, on the radio, and then number 468 is the

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Bible Answer Man exchange. Yes, discussion. Discussion, yes, and we specifically put that word in there at your request.

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Yeah, I'm sure that we did. So yeah, I don't think that Jimmy Akin even remembers that much anymore, because he has already identified the argumentation used in it as silly.

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So that's heavy. Then we got another email. This one's a serious one. My question is really intended for Dr.

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White himself, if he has time to read it. I grew up in an Arminian household, began listening to The Dividing Line, recently became

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Reformed, and now I'm quite curious as to the resources that he would recommend I engage in to undo a lot of the theological misconceptions inherited during my upbringing.

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I'm really, after a concise list of resources, it hits the important points of our faith, because I'm currently a double major at the

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University of Oregon, with a very limited amount of free time. So I'm really curious as to the resources that he would recommend that I engage in to Well, yeah, okay,

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I'm not sure what has resulted in the movement to Reformed theology.

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So obviously, the Potter's Freedom would be one that I would suggest to people, drawn by the

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Father. But in particular, if you're looking at resources that we have, I really have always suggested to folks that the excellent work of R .C.

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Sproul called The Holiness of God be a part of your reading. Yes.

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Okay, we do have it in the bookstore or in the Amazon one? In the bookstore. Okay. So The Holiness of God is available from us, and so I would highly recommend that you obtain that as well.

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It's hard to answer this question, because I don't know the shape or form of what the upbringing was other than Arminianism.

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There's all sorts of different forms of Arminianism. I mean, you've got your standard Baptist forms of Arminianism.

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You've got Nazarene types, really, instead of using the term Arminianism, synergism.

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And so are we talking about that kind of stuff, or what?

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It's hard to actually say. There are just so many tremendous books. You don't want to necessarily throw someone into deep water and say, well, just read

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The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. Well, it would certainly be well worth reading, but the double major at the

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University of Oregon might have some trouble getting through that, unless, like some people of that age, you don't have to sleep.

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But that would be a good direction to go. But it doesn't mention what the misconceptions are, unless we're just talking about misconceptions concerning synergism versus monergism, and I would think that Potter's Freedom and Chosen by God and The Holiness of God would pretty much take care of stuff like that.

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But there are all sorts of other books on those subjects, you know, All of Grace by Spurgeon and Arthur W.

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Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and all sorts of things like that, if you're just looking for good Reformed reading.

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All sorts of deep works by the Puritans and things like that that are available.

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So it's hard to answer the question, because I'm not sure exactly which theological misconceptions we're talking about.

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I would say that one of the primary areas to look at is the fact that five points is not enough.

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In other words, just because you embrace the five points, they are related to other aspects of theology.

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And I'm not sure if my talk from back in 2001 at Colin Smith's church is still online, where I spoke on five points is not enough.

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I'm not sure if he has it on his website or just what. But that would sort of address some of those issues as well.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you would like to get involved with the program.

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We have been reviewing a few folks. There are certain folks we're certainly waiting for Ignatius from the

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Catholic Answers web forums to call in and to substantiate his libelous claims that we have edited any of the debates with Mitch Pacwa.

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And so if Ignatius would like to jump to the front of the line, then please feel free to do that, and we will talk about that.

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Anyway, while I was away, I started seeing some comments on the subject of Ergin Kanner being back, and he spoke on New Year's Day.

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And I'm looking at a picture of him right now, and he's dressed as Ergin Kanner likes to dress.

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And I don't think that's how they dress on campus at Arlington Baptist Bible College.

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You know, the big, huge shirt and all the rest of that stuff. But I listened to most of the 41 minutes of this.

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I didn't listen to all of it. I actually downloaded it on the ship, which I was thankfully doing other things, and I guess

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I was the only person on the Internet. That's why we get it. So I actually took the time to get this by satellite, if you can believe that. But what is interesting about Ergin Kanner's presentations these days is what he's not saying.

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What he's not saying. And right at the beginning, let's listen to some of the introduction from Ergin Kanner and point some of these things out.

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My full name is Ergin Mehmet Janer. I wonder where Giovanni went.

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That used to be in there. And I wonder why his legal documents actually say

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Michael rather than Mehmet. Oh, well, Turkish immigrant.

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Yankee immigrant from where, Dr. Kanner immigrant from where it's Sweden, actually not from from Turkey, but came to America, settled in Columbus, Ohio at two years of age.

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Sunni Muslim, sort of, and raised a Sunni Muslim and lived as a

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Sunni Muslim until I got saved in 1982 and God through through amazing circumstance,

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God reached into my life and saved me. And I started going into education and then

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I felt like I'm supposed to go into ministry. Well, now he goes on and as normal, it's it's it's very entertaining.

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A lot of the same jokes. Once you've heard a lot of these, you start hearing the same jokes over and over and over again and delivered well.

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He has good comedic timing. Of course, it's supposed to be a sermon, but be that as it may.

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But what's not being said is, you know, we could take this and we could compare it to something delivered, say, at the end of 2009.

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And what's missing? What is he not saying now that he was saying then?

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Well, all the very things that we ourselves pointed out and were attacked vociferously for pointing out.

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And yet now he's the one not saying those things. And here's the question for all those

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Christians who have decided that, well, you know, Aaron Cantor doesn't say those things anymore.

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So it must be OK. It must be OK. Yeah, Squirrel did say that the best joke in his talk, he did say his joke, he says,

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I'm not mechanical. If you ever see me under a car, I've been run over. That was that was good. That was that was a very good joke.

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He he does come up with some. He's very comedic. Now, as far as sermon's concerned, it's worthless, but but very, very comedic.

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Um, people are saying, well, you know, if he's not saying those things, then all is well. Where's the repentance?

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Where's the admission? If if he has repented of having said those things in the past, why does he identify the people who actually forced him to stop lying?

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Why does he identify them as godless pagans and haters? Do you identify if if David had stopped his relationship with Bathsheba, but had

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Nathan killed? Would you accept that? Oh, but he he stopped he stopped his bad relationship with Bathsheba.

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Yeah, but he killed Nathan. Why did he kill Nathan? Because Nathan brought the message of repentance to him and conviction to him.

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And so there it is sad to realize that there are evangelicals out there who go, yeah, well, you know, at least he's not lying anymore.

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Well, what does that mean? Where where where do you get the idea that you can avoid that that really bad thing called repentance?

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And yet that's enough. Well, he's repented to God. Well, if his sin was personal between him and God.

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Fine, that's great, but we're talking about standing in front of audiences, not just church audiences, not just behind the pulpit, but staying in front of military audiences and pretending to be something you never were, pretending that you were raised in Turkey, pretending you were trained in Jihad, not that you moved to Columbus, Ohio at the age of two.

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And your native tongue was Swedish. It just doesn't communicate the same thing.

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And yet he's still out there doing his thing and all these audiences are like, oh, that's great, that's wonderful.

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And and it just goes on and on and on. And what it tells us is, and have you noticed, have you noticed that the people who used to be so vociferously loud in their defense of Ergenkanner, they've they've moved on.

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They're out attacking other folks now, and, you know, they were they were going after us big time.

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But, you know, now they've got other fish to fry. And they don't seem to be nearly as as willing to go to the mat now for Ergenkanner because, well, you know, it doesn't really accomplish for them what it what it did originally,

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I guess. I don't know. So actually, Chris Roseborough reviewed this sermon,

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I noticed, saw some links on Twitter this morning and reviewed this sermon and correctly identified as a very man -centered thing.

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It was. It was it was a sermon where you take a moralistic story from the

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Old Testament and then you make you just completely take out of context and apply it to some modern situation.

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And that's just all there was to it. And but it's what he's no longer saying. He still does the possum kill thing and the towelhead thing and and all the rest of that stuff.

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But I haven't heard him talking about his father and his father's multiple wives.

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And I haven't heard him talking about being trained in madrasas and Beirut and Cairo and Istanbul.

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All that stuff's gone. Why? If it was true, as so many people were defending him as having said initially, why is he no longer saying it?

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And if it was false, then why hasn't he admitted it and repented? The fact that he's not saying it anymore is his clear admission that he has been caught lying, purposefully lying.

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But he will not admit it. And why? Because he can get away with it. He has he has limited his association to those people who either don't care or won't say anything about it or like Norman Geisler, know better, but are purposely involved in covering it up for whatever reasons.

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Norman Geisler has for that. I think a book that came out about 12 years ago explains

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Norman Geisler's involvement in the great cover up. But it's still a great cover up. It is still a blight upon apologetics and upon discernment ministries.

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And we'll see as time goes by. We're coming up on, well, next month, next month will be two years from when this thing blew up because I was in London in February of 2010 and it'll be two full years.

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And are they just going to keep silent about it? I think so. And I think they're probably counting on the fact that people have very short memories, which is exactly what politicians are counting on in the election cycle and all the rest of that stuff.

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And and it just doesn't matter anymore. Just doesn't matter anymore. Someone was mentioning, by the way, that did you see the the clear indication of divine providence in the specifics of the

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Broncos win over the Steelers? How many yards did Tim Tebow have? 316.

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Now, I have you on tape somewhere where you were not interested in numerology. Did you notice as well that the average play or something like that was 31 .6?

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So 316, 31 .6, 316. There it is. But people pointed something out. Ergen -Kanner proves that that's not actually a divine message.

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Because how do we know that was John 316? It could have been Matthew 316.

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It could have been Hadith 316. It could have been Zephaniah 316. Because as we all discovered, there is no way of really knowing that.

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All you need is the 316. And you don't need to mention John or Matthew or Luke or anything like that.

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Because to this very day on Norman Geisler's website, you can go there and see that kind of argumentation.

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That's the Norman Geisler excuse for Ergen -Kanner. But it also destroys all of our wonderful proof that Tim Tebow's victory over the

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Broncos, the victory of the Steelers was divine intervention. Anyhow, 877 -753 -3341.

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There is a 1 John 316. That's right. And there's Proverbs 31 .6.

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Is there a Proverbs 316? I bet you there's all sorts of 316s in the Bible. And you're not meant to know which one it is.

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And we've been told that by Norman Geisler to this very day. Just go on his website and you'll find it there.

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Isn't that great? I think that's truly exciting. And we need to go that direction.

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I've never seen that happen. I have two keyboards in front of me. And I keep putting the wrong one.

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It's really funny how your mind works. See? I'm trying to type on this one.

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And it's this one over here. Your mind just does interesting things.

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We're going to take some phone calls. And then we will... I'm sorry.

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I'm looking at something up here. There we go. We will...

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I've got some stuff queued up. We might get to it. We'll see. It's hard to say.

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But we're sort of free today. We're not doing a jumbo. Sorry. But there is a reason for that.

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And that is I get to teach another five hours tonight. And five hours tomorrow night. And Thursday night. And Friday night. So I will be talking more than enough.

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And probably by the end of the week, I'm going to be sounding a little bit like Barry White. Even on the Thursday...

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Oh, by the way. Thursday dividing line. Please recognize it will be at this time slot.

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Has to be. Because I cannot beam myself from here to Scottsdale. What's that?

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We don't have... Even if we did, that would get done at 5 o 'clock. And that's when I'm supposed to be there.

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So that wouldn't work out too well. So with that said, let's go to our phone calls and talk with Ian.

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Hi, Ian. Hey, Dr. White. How are you doing? Doing all right. Hey, I have a couple of textual criticism questions for you, if you don't mind.

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Okay. I'm wondering what your opinion is on P64, sometimes called the

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Magdalene Papyri. Some people date it early, some people date it late. I was wondering what's your opinion on it.

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Well, I am not a papyrologist, so my opinion would be irrelevant.

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You would have to look at the opinions and arguments that are presented by those who are papyrologists and weigh them, since there are a variety of opinions on the subject.

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But my opinion would be absolutely no more relevant than anybody else who reads those books.

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Personally, I think someone like a T .C. Skeet or an E .G. Turner are good at that and hence should be given a little bit more weight, and they would give very early dates for it.

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But the reality is that since there is a wide variety of opinions, then you have to weigh that information.

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And I don't have – again, I'm not a papyrologist, so I don't have any weight in the discussion.

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Okay, I appreciate that. I also wanted to ask you about – some people claim that there are some

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New Testament fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and some people do not. And I was wondering, again, maybe this is outside your area.

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I was wondering what your opinion was on that. Yeah, 7q5 is what you're referring to, and it is a – the problem is it is such a small fragment that you have to reconstruct a possible layout of a line of text.

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And the guy's name is escaping me at the moment. I have the book in my library that was put out, arguing that 7q5 is a fragment from the

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Gospel of Mark. I don't think there's anything necessarily improbable or impossible about a fragment of Mark having been found there, especially if it was as early as I think

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Mark was written. There could have been – this was before the final and fundamental split between synagogue and church.

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And so even though that started early, John records it for us, at least in Judea, that would not necessarily have been the case everywhere else, and certainly in Paul's missionary journeys, the first places he goes are to the synagogue.

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So might there have been interest in Mark in a Qumran -style community that would have meant that it was there right at the end of that Qumran community during that very tumultuous time in the 7th and 8th decades of the 1st century?

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It's possible. I don't think there's – you can necessarily say, ah, those people would never have allowed

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Mark there. But the problem is it's just too small to provide a compelling case, and that is why even conservative scholars have –

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I think the best thing to do is to leave it undecided and say, well, unless more information can come to light, it's a possibility that this is from Mark, but you just can't prove it because it's such a small fragment that requires you to go, okay, at this point in Mark, if the page had been this wide and if the letters were normally written this way, then this could fit this particular portion of Mark.

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Right, okay. And it's like, well, okay, maybe something else will come up that will be able to add some light to that, but if not, then it sort of has to be left in the intriguing possibility might be there, but it just hasn't been compelling enough to convince a large majority or even a large portion of New Testament scholars who have examined it that that's necessarily the case.

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Okay. All right. I appreciate you taking my call. Oh, hey, no problem. Let me just say, when

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I say you have to look at those sources, we make available the material from Philip Comfort and, like I said,

35:27

Skeet and Turner are good individuals, and generally as far as the

35:32

Magdalen, as far as P64, P4, P67, which are probably all part of the same thing, I think that definitely a pre -200 date is pretty well established for that, but, again, you just have to weigh those things and allow for the fact that there are going to be some levels of disagreement, especially something like that when you have fragmentary evidence like that, and sometimes that can very much—

36:05

One of the arguments for it was that it's a codex, and codex stopped being used fairly early on.

36:12

Well, yeah, some people have even theorized that Christians developed the codex form, so that is an argument for it as far as its early date, but—

36:24

Is it the arguments that are against it? Is it from liberal scholars that just don't particularly care to give early dates to New Testament writings?

36:33

Are you talking about P64 at that point? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, you have to look at that, but the only way to really analyze someone's argumentation when it comes to papyrology is to look at the parallels normally from Oxyrhynchus that they say, that they provide.

36:56

So, in other words, they say, well, look, the aleph here is formed the exact same way as this papyrus from Oxyrhynchus, which we've been able to date to such and so.

37:05

So, normally what most of us end up reading is just simply the crib notes version of what their analysis is.

37:13

It's much better to read the fuller stuff, which generally isn't easily available to people.

37:19

So, yeah, I would definitely go with— That's not the kind of thing you're going to find in a Google search.

37:25

Unfortunately, it isn't, but it is the type of thing that you'll find in the footnotes of the

37:31

Comfort Barrett work, and unfortunately then in the footnotes of some Brill publications that normally cost $169 and are hard to track down.

37:41

Okay. All right. Thanks. Okay, thank you. God bless. Bye. All right, 877—oops,

37:48

I didn't get to drop fast enough. That's the problem when you have both things on the same screen. Let's go up to a place that I, Lord willing, will be at in both

38:01

June and July of next year. I got my confirmation email yesterday. I sort of did a little happy dance when

38:10

I got this, but I got my confirmation email. I made it through the lottery, and hopefully anyone won't be angry with me for being in a lottery, but there is a ride up in Colorado that ends in Avon, Colorado next

38:25

July called the Triple Bypass, and that is what I have been training toward and thinking toward, but you only have a few days to apply for it because not everybody gets to ride it.

38:36

And I got the email saying registration's open while I was on the ship, and unfortunately the ship is going into dry dock in a couple months.

38:50

Rich will appreciate this. Here's this huge ship, 3 ,600 passengers, 188

38:57

IPs, grand total, in the wireless system on board, 188. So you can imagine,

39:04

I had just gotten a connection. They're going to dry dock, and when they come out, they'll have 8 ,000 IPs. But when

39:11

I got my connection, unfortunately I was on my iPad, and I'm like,

39:18

I've got to do this right now because you only have a window of opportunity. So here

39:23

I am, and I can't even run back to my cabin to get my reading glasses, so I have to fill out the registration form on the iPad.

39:33

You know how big that is? Yeah, at my age, yeah, my arms were not long enough, but somehow

39:40

I managed to get through it. And so you send in your registration, and then you have to wait for the 10th.

39:47

Is today the 10th? 9th, for the 9th of January to find out whether you got selected to get to ride in the triple bypass.

39:53

Well, I got my email yesterday, and I'm riding. So a little 120 -mile jaunt in one day with 10 ,500 feet of climbing, the highest point, the highest part of the pass, 11 ,990 feet above sea level,

40:07

Loveland Pass. Yes, indeed, I am looking forward to it. So anyhow, I'm heading up to Colorado, and that's where,

40:14

I've got to get the right mouse here, that's where Anthony is. Hi, Anthony. Hey, Doc.

40:20

How are you? I'm doing pretty well. How are you? I'm good. This is Kanye from the channel.

40:25

Yes, I know who it is. Are you going to help me in the triple bypass?

40:32

Maybe. I'll be on the sideline for you. You'll be what? On the sideline. On the sideline?

40:38

Well, okay, it's a 120 -mile -long sideline, so you've got to at least come somewhere along the route and yell for me or something like that.

40:46

Go, go, go. You look like an old man, but you can make it, and that kind of thing. I'll just make a huge flyer for you.

40:53

There you go. I will count on that. I'm calling about church membership.

41:01

I'm in the process of joining church right now, but the problem is that I'm split between a reformed

41:09

Presbyterian or a reformed Baptist, whatever. And my only concern is, why is identifying yourself with a specific church so necessary?

41:19

Well, first, let me mention, when you say you're split between those two churches,

41:28

I would think that the issues that separate those two traditions would be something you'd want to try to work through first.

41:41

And certainly we have resources that you can get to hear both sides on that, and, of course, in channel you'll hear both sides on that as well.

41:48

It's a contentious issue, but one that's important to work through. But aside from that, what's the importance of church membership?

41:55

Well, I used to have a sermon available on that somewhere. I'm not sure where it is. I've preached on it about two or three times.

42:02

But I preached on it back in New York, and I'm not sure where it's available right now. But what's important about it?

42:08

Well, when you think about what the church is, it is something that Christ organized via the apostles in a particular way so that the worship that is given him in the church is what is pleasing before him.

42:25

That's not something we think of a whole lot. Mankind tends to think that God is just lucky to have our worship one way or the other, and he'll just put up with whatever we offer because he's the big grandfather in the sky, and he sits up there and he smiles at us.

42:41

And we don't seem to read those texts in the Old Testament where God spends all that time laying out what is and what is not acceptable worship.

42:48

And we don't like to think about Nadab and Abihu who offered strange fire before the Lord even though they were just newbie priests, and God struck them down for doing that.

42:58

And we don't like the stories about Uzzah reaching out and touching the ark and God striking him down too because that's not how you're supposed to carry the ark.

43:05

But what those things really communicate to us is that worship actually represents and reflects the real attitude of our heart toward God.

43:15

In other words, when we worship in such a way just to make ourselves happy, then that shows a deep and fundamental disrespect toward God as to who he is.

43:27

And it basically is us saying, I'm going to only worship the kind of God that makes me feel warm and fuzzy rather than worshiping

43:33

God as he is. And when we break that down, we realize how disrespectful that would be in a marriage situation, in a courtship situation.

43:42

If you're courting a young lady, you're not going to tell her, well, you're not going to know that she detests a certain kind of food, but you happen to love that certain kind of food, so you drag her there anyways.

43:58

Not if you want to be dating her for very long anyways. And in essence, that's what we do to God when we do not show proper concern for his worship and the fact that he has told us what is pleasing to him and what is not.

44:14

So if that's the case, then we look at what the apostles did, and they organized local churches, and they appointed elders, and they appointed deacons, and they established that local church.

44:27

And then you have the ordinances of the church given by Christ to his people.

44:33

You have baptism in the Lord's Supper, and man, the very night of his betrayal, Jesus takes time with the disciples to explain to them what the

44:43

Lord's Supper is about. And I mean, when you do something and you know you're just about to leave this world, then what you're doing is very, very important at that point.

44:56

In essence, explaining to someone, this is really important. So he gave us the ordinances, those were given to the church.

45:03

He gave us an organization for the church, and then he said that you are a part of the church.

45:08

You are to be, you know, to obey Hebrews 13, 17 says, be in subjection to those who have the rulership over you.

45:16

Well, you have to know who those people are. And you've seen times when people have come in the channel, and we start asking about their church.

45:24

Well, I don't really go to any particular church. I just sort of do my own thing. And we immediately go to the scriptures and say, hey, how are you fulfilling these commands?

45:34

Well, Jesus is my elder. Well, that's nice, but that's not what the writer of the Hebrews had in mind either. And so part of it's just mere obedience to Christ's command, but it should be something we understand.

45:46

We understand that we've been called to serve Christ and to serve his church and to love one another. And that's really easy.

45:52

It's really easy to sit around and say, I love the brethren, as long as you never have to meet with them.

45:58

I mean, that's simple. I love all of mankind, but I'm a curmudgeon that likes to stay in my own house, and I never have interaction with anybody.

46:05

Do you really love all mankind, if that's what's going on? And so the need to, for your own sake, to be a part, a member of a church, you need to have people you can go to, that you can inquire as to their spiritual advice.

46:23

You need to have the regular exposure to the word of God, because the world certainly gets to have regular exposure to your mind, and the world regularly gets to trash your

46:33

Christian worldview and everything else. And so you need to have that.

46:40

And that's part and parcel of the wisdom of God in making us members of the church, and I think it's an important thing.

46:50

Right. I don't disagree with that at all, but that's a really in -depth explanation.

46:56

I was just trying to figure out, because issues like baptism or church leadership, when it comes to issues like that, what about guys like me that don't really, you know, don't really take a stance on baptism or church leadership or church government, you know?

47:16

Well, I think that, you know, if you're going to, if you recognize the need to be in a healthy, well -balanced church, then, and if you recognize that those churches, the two that you mentioned, have differences there, you might say, eh, you know, it doesn't really matter to me now.

47:43

Get married and have kids and it will, you know? I mean, that's not that far down the road, one way or the other.

47:52

And so it is something worthwhile looking into, and certainly you're in a situation where you can actually take the time to at least familiarize yourself.

48:06

You don't have to become an expert in the subject, but you're in a situation, you know plenty of folks in Channel that can not only give you direct information there, but you know that I did a debate just a few years ago with Pastor Bill Shishko, and I really think that if someone listens to that debate, they've heard both sides pretty well.

48:29

And, you know, I would take the time to think those things through, and it's not like you have to make a decision as, well, that's it,

48:37

I can never do anything else. If you happen to come to a convicting decision the other direction five years from now, well, then you have to deal with it at that time.

48:47

But still, when you join a church, I know when someone joins our church, we ask a question of them, and we ask them if they've read the

48:58

Confession of Faith, if they have any problems with it, if there are any issues that they take exception to.

49:04

And it's good to start your relationship with a church with a level of unity that will allow you to wholeheartedly recommend the church and engage with the church.

49:16

So you don't necessarily have to become an expert, but I would familiarize myself.

49:22

It doesn't take all that long to listen to a couple of those encounters and read a few articles, and go from there.

49:31

It's better than going, yeah, I don't really care, because it is something to care about. Just because we have good relationships with folks and channel that have a different view doesn't mean that any of us think it's unimportant.

49:44

We recognize it has certain ramifications as to the form of the church and the worship of the church and things like that.

49:54

But it's not something that we necessarily divide over in the sense of taking up arms against one another.

50:00

But it is an ecclesiastical division. I mean, I could not and should not be an elder in a

50:06

Paedo -Baptist church, because I'm not a Paedo -Baptist. And a Paedo -Baptist couldn't be an elder or a leader in our church either.

50:12

So there is a division there, and it's something we try to take to the

50:17

Word of God. But at the same time, like I said, you especially are in a better position than most, because it's pretty easy for you to take a couple of hours, think through the issue and go, hmm, okay, and make a decision from there.

50:34

Like I said, it's not necessarily a lifetime thing that you will never, ever be able to take back, though.

50:41

For sure, for sure. And, you know, last question. I'm sorry for taking so much time, but I have a few friends that call themselves

50:50

Christians, but then I'll say, hey, I'll go to church with you sometime, and they'll be like, yeah,

50:55

I'm sleeping on that day, I'm going to catch the Broncos game. Is there anything I can do about that? Well, catching the

51:01

Broncos game, of course, because of the 316 yards, now it has become part of the regulative principle of worship.

51:08

But no, I mean, what can you do about that? Well, that goes back to asking a question that each one of us has to ask ourselves.

51:17

And if you could call yourself a Christian, then a simple question is, well, if Jesus is who

51:23

He claimed to be, if He truly is the incarnate Lord, then does that fact impact my life at all on Monday or Thursday or Saturday night?

51:36

And if it doesn't, do I really, really believe that? I mean, look, there's a lot of folks who make the claim, and, you know, maybe they were raised in that way, but you're going to find out, unfortunately, that there's a lot of folks that use the name but have no concept of the reality of what it means to, as Jesus said, take up the cross and follow

51:57

Him. And you can ask them what they think about texts like that, and if they just sort of like, ah, well, you know, that was for then, this is now, whatever.

52:09

If there's just pure apathy, then probably what you're going to see, especially over the next couple of years, knowing about what your age is, is you're going to see those folks just sort of wander off and not even make that claim anymore.

52:23

Either that or reality will set in, and they're going to face some difficulties in life and have to get serious about what it is they're actually talking about.

52:32

But look, there's a lot of cultural Christians, a lot of people that find it easy to call themselves something when it doesn't really have a reality in their own lives.

52:41

Okay, man. Well, thank you. All right, hey, I'm planning on, I'm going to try to get up there for the

52:47

Sunrise Century in June and then the big one in July. Is it this

52:54

June or next June? The one, June and July, coming up. Okay. So hopefully we'll run into you sometime, just not while I'm writing.

53:03

Well, for sure, man. All right, man, we'll see you. All right. Okay, bye. All right, let's get one more call in real quick, and another

53:09

Anthony. Hi, Anthony. Hello, can you hear me okay? I can hear you just fine.

53:15

All right, my question is related to a discussion I listened to a sermon from Tim Keller on church planting, and it really gave me a new perspective on it and the advantage of church planting and things like that.

53:33

But some of my friends, we had a disagreement on, because he will assist churches be implanted with, he'll go in and help teach and go in and help with funding and things like that, even if they are not

53:48

Presbyterian or Calvinistic in their persuasion, as long as they obviously have the gospel.

53:54

And some of my friends thought that that was like, you shouldn't do that. And I was saying that it's okay because they have the gospel.

54:01

And I wanted to know what your perspective was on, biblically or theologically, on whether a person, whether it's sin to assist a church that is not necessarily of the same persuasion.

54:14

Well, it would depend on what the range of persuasion was.

54:20

I mean, you said, well, even if they're not Presbyterian. I would have a hard time personally seeing one church expending funds to plant another church.

54:33

If you're a monergistic church, planting a church that's a synergistic church just doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me.

54:40

I mean, there are plenty of like -minded men that if the funding was available, you could get a work started that's at least going to have consistency on presenting the sovereignty of God and salvation.

55:00

I mean, I can see other areas of difference.

55:06

It doesn't have to necessarily be an absolute clone. But at the same time, I don't know why, if you've got the money and the people, why you wouldn't plant other churches that are going to be presenting the same message that you do.

55:19

So I guess I would wonder where the line is drawn and if there is a set of parameters there.

55:28

It almost sounds like what you're saying is, well, we'll support people who come to us who are trying to plant a church, but they come from a different tradition in regards to key issues.

55:41

Rather than my understanding of church planting, which is more along the lines of sending people out from established churches, you know who they are, you know what their faith and their message is.

55:55

If someone's coming to me from the outside, that's a little bit scary to me because obviously I don't know them.

56:03

And so I don't really know where they're coming from. But if they came out of my church or at least out of sister churches, then at least

56:14

I have a little more confidence that what we're going to be doing and the expenditure of our treasures is going to be consistent with why the people gave those in the first place.

56:27

So I guess it would all depend on just how synergistic we're talking here and things like that.

56:35

So I think I would have a problem with just a blank check saying, hey, as long as they have the gospel.

56:41

What do you mean by that? What are we talking about? Are we talking about a

56:47

Calvary Chapel type presentation? No, I would not think that it would be appropriate for a reformed church to give money to start a

56:55

Calvary Chapel type church. I don't see how that would be consistent with why the people gave those funds in the first place.

57:06

Because, you know, while we will very gladly admit that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick,

57:13

I'm not going to go into the business of manufacturing crooked sticks. I would much rather that God get to draw a straight line with a straight stick, because I think that's more to his glory.

57:26

So that would be of concern to me. Okay, Anthony?

57:34

Really quickly, the music's coming up. Oh, is it? Okay. Just basically, I'm not saying that it's either or, necessarily.

57:45

Me, personally, I would plant a church that is Presbyterian if I was going to do it.

57:51

But I don't know if I could say that someone else is doing sin if they give money to a non -Presbyterian church.

57:57

Yeah, see, I don't think it's so much Presbyterian or Baptist. I think when we come down to the gospel, though, and whether we're talking about a man -centered gospel or God -centered gospel, that is a big difference to me, and I think that's where I would draw the line most definitely.

58:12

Hey, thanks for your call, Anthony, and thanks for listening to The Vying Line today. Everybody, we'll be back Thursday morning at the morning time.

58:19

We'll see you then. Are you tired of playing religion?

58:44

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58:50

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58:56

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59:04

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59:11

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59:17

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