Pre-Debate Road Trip Dividing Line from Houston

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're coming to you live from Houston, Texas.

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Very, very Cloudy. I guess it's going to get...

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I was gonna start over here. Do forgive me. Yeah, I sort of feel for this camera.

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It just hangs up there, and it gets turned on, and it has to do all this stuff, but never gets used.

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So I thought, well, I thought we'd start there. But didn't. Anyway, very, very cloudy, and guess what?

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It's humid in Houston. Who would have thought that? And in fact, I was just running the

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AC on this side of the RV, and the other AC didn't switch.

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Didn't switch what? What didn't

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I switch, Rich? Didn't switch. Pre -feed stream, didn't switch. Switch what?

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I don't know what Rich is trying to tell me from far, far away.

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Still main camera. Oh, there we go.

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Press the button. Don't know why I didn't do it. Anyways, we are in Houston, Texas.

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It's humid. The AC was running. The AC may kick on. Not this AC, because you couldn't hear me if that kicked on, but the other.

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So going from sub -freezing, hurricane winds level stuff at the start of the trip to now upper 70s and humid.

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Yeah, well, there you go. You're in Texas. It is supposed to start raining tomorrow. Not going to have really good weather for the debates.

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Hopefully that won't dampen things. I know I'm not trying to be funny there, but the debates are sold out.

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In case we haven't made that clear, you had to get tickets, and it wasn't because someone's trying to make a bunch of money or something like that.

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There's only so many seats in the auditorium, and I imagine it's going to be pretty filled up for all these debates.

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So that's just the way it is. It is supposed to be live streamed, and I don't know if Trent Horn's going to be using digital stuff.

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I'm not going to be for these debates. The pastor of the church has expressed his preference for, how shall we call it, old -style debate.

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Make your case not with your graphics, but with your arguments, and I get that.

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The only exception will be the Dale Tuggy debate, because he required that materials be exchanged ahead of time.

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I don't use a manuscript. I don't just sit there and read a manuscript.

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The only thing I could produce was a keynote presentation and provided that.

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So that'll be the only exception. They're supposed to be live streamed, and I think, if I recall correctly,

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I already posted the YouTube links for both of them. Pretty sure

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I did. So there you go. And we are live, of course, and that means they are installing new

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Wi -Fi in this park. It's a really nice park. One of the nicest parks

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I've been in, to be honest with you. My unit's on the low end of the units in here.

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There's some real nice... I'm parked next to a full -sized unit that was, you know, probably half a million bucks or something like that.

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Anyway, they're putting new Wi -Fi in, so you may hear some trucks going by and some beep beep beep as people are backing up and doing things like that.

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But it's a live program, and that's just how it works. So real quickly, just a...

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I haven't talked about this. I'll be brief. It was...

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well, okay. First, got word about 90 minutes ago or so that an absolute giant in the fight to protect unborn children has passed away.

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John Barros. I didn't know the man very well. I think I met him once, but my fellow elders at Apologia were very, very close to him, and so this is a really tough day for them.

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He got the diagnosis, I don't know, I don't even think it's been a year, and it was stage four, stage five.

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It was fatal, and you know, you always...

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I'm glad that we're not God and that we don't have to even try to pretend that we are.

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Why does the Lord take some people and leave others? I mean, you think of some of the evil, evil men who have lived long, long lives.

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There's a psalm about this, by the way, you might want to look it up. It's pretty good, but part of that, honestly, might just be judgment.

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I mean, you know, if the Lord's wrath is laid heavy upon someone, maybe he just lets them pile it up in many instances, but here's someone who...

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if you've seen any of the material that EAN has produced, you know, and then the movies that King Ginger put out,

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Babies Are Murdered Here, Babies Are Still Murdered Here, there is coverage of the sidewalk outside this abortion clinic where John Barros has ministered for years and years and years.

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He's literally worn the sidewalk down. You can see where he has worn the pavement down, and just a tremendous testimony.

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And the further testimony is that when he got this diagnosis, he did not hide it.

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He let everybody know about it, and the pro -abortion people just rejoiced.

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They thought it was so wonderful. I mean, they really, really, really gave testimony to what fills their hearts, the hatred, the love of death that these people are just surrounded in.

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It's hard to imagine the level of depravity that death scorts and the the people that are involved medically in the murder of unborn children, the people that watch the ultrasounds and see the baby being torn apart.

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I don't know how your humanity lasts more than a week in a situation like that. And this is happening over and over and over again.

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And someday, I don't know if any of you've seen that video of the man from World War II who helped to save a number of Jewish children and get them out of Nazi Germany and to safety in England and other places like that, and how years and years later they surprised him.

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And this whole audience was made up of the people that he had saved, and they all stand up.

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And it's, you know, you can't help but weep when you see it. Well, in heaven someday there is going to be something far greater for John when he sees all those children.

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But there already have been. There's just all sorts of young people, babies, children that are alive today because of him.

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And so he has gone to his reward with the Savior. And so we pray for his family, for those left doing the work there, and for those who knew and loved him well.

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We pray that they will have the consolation and comfort of the

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Lord at this time. One thing I didn't comment on last week was the, an excellent video posted, appeared on Twitter of what the

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He Gets Us multi -million dollar TV ad could have been like, what it could have communicated.

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I didn't see it. I've seen it later, and I honestly don't understand most of it other than in the worst reading of it, it was a shot at everybody who seeks to rescue babies, things like that.

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It's just a, it is truly a commentary on everyone who's involved with it, the fact that they have such an unbiblical view of the gospel and Christ, and it's truly a shame.

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But you may have seen the video that someone put together what it could have been, former this, former that, which included

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Jeff Durbin, former drug addict, and it's got a picture of him holding one of his babies, and just a lot of good stuff in it, what it could have said.

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And it is, I think, again, just an element of the demonstration of the judgment that is coming upon Western civilization as a whole, and upon this nation as a whole, that even people who call themselves

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Christians will invest millions of dollars in empty gestures, not understanding what the

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Bible teaches about the rebellion of man. If you want a really good, real reason why we should not be embracing the

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Pelagianism of provisionism and stuff like that, it's right here, because if you have a biblical understanding of man as the enemy of God, as a rebel sinner, as one suppressing the knowledge of God, as one in love with death, you're going to recognize, you know, there's a lot better uses for this money than to try to communicate to lost people that Jesus would like to be their buddy, because that's not what

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Jesus wants to be. Jesus doesn't want to be anybody's boyfriend or girlfriend. There is really, there is really, in all the synergistic systems,

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I don't think you can have a meaningful doctrine of the

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Lordship of Christ in a synergistic system. There will always be that minimalization of the authority of Christ, because, hey, you're the one that got yourself into this situation.

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God was trying, you cooperated with Him, but it's really going to be up to you.

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I don't understand how any of these people believe in any form of perseverance of the saints or anything like that at all.

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I know a number of them do. It's just, it's just incoherent. If you, if you were the one who got yourself into this situation, then you can get yourself out at any time.

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That's just, that just seems really obvious. Maybe they have the idea that, you know, once you sign on the dotted line, now you're stuck.

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I don't know, but there really isn't a strong emphasis upon the

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Lordship of Christ, and therefore, the proclamation of Acts 17, 39 just doesn't fit when you're trying to get people to have warm feelings about Jesus, because a rebel sinner is never going to have warm feelings about Jesus until their rebellion is dealt with, until they recognize that He is going to be judged, and He is going to be a just judge, and a righteous judge, and going to judge every thought and intention of the heart.

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But most evangelicals in the West, to be honest with you, they just don't, the whole concept of judgment is no longer a part of their way of thinking, and so they don't see where that connection is.

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So, it's sad to see millions of dollars being invested in an utter waste of time.

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Lost people are going to remain lost. Might you have some people who, instead of being lost pagans, become lost heretics?

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Well, I suppose. But I remember,

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I forget what the topic he'd remember, Michael Fallon would remember, but I'm pretty certain, yeah, it was the conference we did in Tampa when

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I debated John Shelby Spong, and see, Fallon remembers all this stuff.

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He remembers the date. He remembers topics, names. It's sort of weird. And David King was there, and I remember him preaching on the sufficiency of Scripture.

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I think it was on the sufficiency of Scripture, but the emphasis was on man -made mechanisms of evangelism, and attracting people to church, and things like that.

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All of these things demonstrate that we don't really trust that the

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Word of God is still sufficient, and the Spirit of God can still work. When we are replacing biblical proclamation, the conviction of the

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Holy Spirit, the reality of a day of judgment, when we are replacing all of that with squishy

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Jesus, he's just going to hug the hell out of you.

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A Catholic once described purgatory as when

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God's going to hug the hell out of you, instead of a place of satis pastio, and cleansing fire, and all the rest of that stuff that was obviously what

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Rome defined in the 14 -1500s. But anyway, they've gotten a little queasy about being honest about that these days.

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Anyway, I'll never forget that he was emphasizing the fact we don't trust the

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Spirit of God to do what the Spirit of God has promised to do in Scripture.

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We just don't, so we replace it with something else, and that's definitely what's going on.

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So there you go with that. Let me give you a quick rundown on what happened on Tuesday.

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Remember that tomorrow night and Saturday night, the two debates with Trent Horn of Catholic Answers, tomorrow night's

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Sola Scriptura. Look, we've done Sola Scriptura a bunch of times before, so my presentation is going to be geared for people who've already heard the preceding debates that have been done.

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So let's take the next step. Okay, here's the basics of what

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Sola Scriptura is, this is why it's true, and this is why the arguments against it are fallacious and false.

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And they require the use of double standards, and the arguments that Rome uses against Sola Scriptura are just as effective against Sola Ecclesia.

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And in fact, in the days of Francis and Tucho Fernandez, are more effective against the

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Ecclesiastical, Ecclesial, Sola Ecclesia claims of Rome.

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And so if my opponent uses these arguments, then you have to dismiss them, because they would refute his own position as well.

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So somewhat of, there'd be an element of the impossibility of the contrary in some of the argumentation, which is perfectly valid, because we're talking about ultimate authorities here, and we're not talking about just ultimate ecclesiastical authorities, we're talking about ultimate epistemological authorities.

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God speaking as the creator, his speech has to have ultimate epistemological authority.

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This was one of the primary problems with Thomas and his theistic proofs, is because Thomas did not have a biblical anthropology, then he did not have a biblical understanding of the absolute supremacy of the final spoken word of God in Scripture.

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He had a very high view of Scripture, higher than, certainly higher than Fernandez and Francis and everybody on the papal biblical commission today.

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Give Thomas, Thomas is due. Rome has degenerated from the days of Thomas Aquinas in its view of Scripture, no question about it.

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Much lower view of Scripture than Thomas had. But still, because of the accretion of tradition, and the fact that sovereign grace is utterly outside of the unregenerate man's capacity to embrace outside the work of the

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Holy Spirit of God, he didn't have that full -orbed bibliology and epistemology that comes from that.

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And if you want a further discussion of that, check out Van Til and Bonson and others who address a lot of that kind of stuff.

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Um, so, um, tomorrow night, Psalms Quotura, we'll be talking about that.

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Purgatory the next night, not exactly sure how that's going to go, even though, let's be honest, the

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Purgatory debate, even, even Trent described, uh, the

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Purgatory debate as absolutely classic. I'm not sure what he meant by that. We'll find out on Saturday night.

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I can guarantee you he's listened to it, and hence knows exactly what I'm going to say about 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and should know what

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I'm going to say about 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Um, and so we'll, we'll see how that, how that goes.

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Just a quick reminder, um, I mentioned this to the pastor of the church just a few minutes ago before the show started, um, but, uh,

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I will not be able to do the meet and greet that I normally do after all my debates.

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I normally stand around for 90 minutes, two hours, meet and greet, sign books, take pictures, listen to stories.

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I love doing it, but most of you know, um, this is just the beginning of my trip.

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I have a conference and debate next weekend, uh, and I'm preaching

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Sunday morning here in Houston, uh, Grace Family Bible Church, um, and, um, then the weekend after that,

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I'm teaching in Conway, and then speaking in the next week in Lindale, uh, uh,

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Tyler, Texas, and then, um, back here to Houston for the last two debates with, uh,

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Leighton Flowers and Dale Tuggy. I will do it after that. I figure even it's a

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Thursday and a Saturday, so there's a day in between, but if I get something in the meet and greet after with Leighton Flowers, it probably won't be fully kicked in until, uh, after the, the

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Tuggy debate. So, uh, obviously that could, you know, if I'm barely able to stand and barely able to function at that point in time, then we'll have to change our tune on that, but just, just a reminder to folks.

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So, um, Tuesday morning in Dallas at the Blaze TV studios, quite a, quite a setup there, um,

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Trent Horn and I were on the Allie Beth Stuckey show, and, um, fundamentally, uh, you know, she just had a number of, of things that she's always questioned about Roman Catholicism.

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She's an evangelical. She wanted to talk about those various issues. We started off with sola scriptura. We started off with issues of authority, um, but then she has specific questions about Mary.

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Uh, we talked about justification. Uh, we, we, we, we went for two hours and 15 minutes.

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Now, I'm not sure how much of that will air. Um, I think, I think the majority of it will, um, and I'm not sure when it'll air or in what format we'll, we'll, we'll air, you know, 10 minutes at a time here or, or a whole program of half an hour.

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I don't know. I, I have no earthly idea. So we will see. Um, but as I, as I've, I've done some other programs on other outlets since then.

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And so, as I've said in those contexts, um, given that I was on Ali Bastaki's side as the evangelical,

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Reformed evangelical, uh, Trent was given more time than I was given because Ali would actually go back and forth with him.

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And so she obviously tried as best she could to, um, be fair with time, but the division was between her and I and him.

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And so as far as, you know, solo, he, he certainly got more time than, than I did.

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Um, and there was, uh, there was, there was good, interesting stuff, but again, most of these kinds of things have to stay fairly surface level.

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One of the things that was interesting, Trent likes to do the gotcha thing. Uh, he did that with, um,

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Gavin Ortland, uh, a couple of years ago with this book, um,

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The Invention of the Inspired Text, John Poirier. Um, and we'll grab something that, you know,

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I still haven't seen almost anybody other than Trent, uh, saying much about this particular book, but, uh, he'll grab something and he'll, he'll throw it out there, um, and, and make a big point with it, or at least try to make a big point with it.

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He did that in regards to the Protevangelium of James. This is really fascinating. And that's why I want to spend a little time on it today.

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Um, he said, have you ever read the commentary, um, uh, by, uh,

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Lily, um, Vuong, Lily Vuong, and I had not.

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And he, he sort of tried to say, oh, you're saying you should never have to, what I was saying, you never have to read commentary or something.

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So no, what I was saying is, um, the text itself, if you understand the many gospels that were written in the second and into the early third century, uh, fits within that genre and it has the same concerns, and some of those concerns are dualistic and gnostic.

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And he tried to make a big point of, well, I've not read Vuong. Well, got it now. In fact, I'm going to read her translation when we look at the story.

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Um, but it's the type of thing that, that he does. And, you know, uh, I could take my

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Greek New Testament and toss it across the table at him and say, well, you tell me what that says.

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And he's not gonna be able to read it. He doesn't read Greek. Um, it'd be easy to do stuff like that.

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Um, the, the real issue is if Roman Catholic apologists are truly recognizing that they have to defend the protevangelium of James, then they are admitting this is one of the key early sources of what the

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Roman Catholic church has dogmatized centuries and centuries and centuries later.

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In one instance, uh, if you would say the immaculate conception is relevant to that and they do tie together, you know, 1800 years later, but certainly, uh, hundreds of years later, the dogmatization of the perpetual virginity of Mary, and certainly in the form of the dogma of Rome, because remember

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Thomas rejected the current Thomas Aquinas rejected the current form of immaculate conception.

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Um, and of course there were Popes and all sorts, early church fathers believed in Mary's sin and all the rest of that stuff.

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Um, that that's just a given that's, that's admitted by all sides, but, um, to have to defend this as a valid, reliable container of tradition,

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I think it says a lot because as we'll see in the

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Solus Quaterna debate, fundamentally, what Rome is saying is we have the deposit of faith and it's made up of written and unwritten tradition.

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And we can't tell you what the unwritten tradition is until we define it. And we can define stuff in the future on it, but we can't tell you what it is.

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And nobody in church history can, and we can't do it either. In fact, we can't even give you an infallible list of infallible statements.

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We can't give you a list of infallible interpretations of the Bible. Uh, we disagree as to whether any verse of the

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Bible has ever been infallibly interpreted. There's one list that floats around, there's six verses on it, but even then they're very, very, very careful to say, um, that basically what you're doing here is you, you have to believe that these verses mean this, but you don't have to believe that that's all they mean.

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I, I remember it was, um, it was before the debate in Fullerton with Tim Staples, I was driving around Southern California, um, which has never been an enjoyable thing to do, but, um, something

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I don't do at all now. Um, and I was listening to Tim Staples on Catholic Answers Live and he was talking about the infallible interpretation of Matthew chapter 16, verse 18.

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And then he said, and while that has been infallibly interpreted, that's not the only meaning that you can assign to the text.

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There can be other meanings that you can assign to the text that have not been infallibly defined. So this, this broad claim that, well, you know, you all have all this disagreement because you don't have a

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Pope and stuff like that. Would you really want to go, because you'd have to go through Teuto Fernandes, would you really want to go to get an infallible interpretation of scripture from Francis, the

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Marxist, liberation, theologian, socialist, um, universalist guy?

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That's where you're going to go? Really? Um, wow. Amazing stuff.

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Anyway, um, so back to the

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Protevangelium of James. We've read this on the program before, in a story time with Uncle Jimmy.

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And, um, so I just want to read the section about the birth of Jesus.

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There's stuff that comes before it that helps you to get the idea. And I would, I would recommend to you, look it up,

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Protevangelium of James. I think it's on gnosis .org and a number of other places. Might even be in on CCEL.

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I don't, I don't remember. Um, but take the time to look it up and read it for yourself.

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That's what I said on the program, was I don't need to read some commentary on this to know the genre of it, especially when you've read the gospel of Thomas and the gospel of Philip and the gospel of Peter and all this other stuff that was being written at that particular period of time.

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Uh, it's, you, you recognize what you recognize. Okay. And so I would encourage everybody else to do the same thing.

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So I'm going to go ahead and read, um, uh, from Vuong's, uh, translation of the

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Protevangelium of James on the birth of Jesus. And I want, and so this is what, um, this is one of the earliest sources used to substantiate the concept of the perpetual virginity of Mary.

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Now, earlier in the book, if you have listened to the debates I did with Jerry Matatix on Marian doctrines, we did, was it perpetual?

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Yeah, we did perpetual virginity at the University of Utah. And any

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Marian debate you're going to have with Roman Catholics, they're going to, start talking about how Mary had made a vow of virginity and she had been, you know, put up in the temple and all the rest of it.

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Where does that come from? It doesn't come from scripture. It comes from places like the Protevangelium of James. Um, and so, uh, that came before this, you know, there's lots of miracles going on and things like that.

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And, and this is what, one of the earliest sources that says that, um, Joseph was an older man.

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He already had children. Um, and so, uh, you know, keep that in mind, stuff like that.

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So this is, uh, section 18 of the

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Protevangelium of James. He found a cave there and took her inside it.

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So this is Joseph and Mary are traveling, the donkey and, and so on and so forth.

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Um, he found a cave and took her inside it. Now that's not true.

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They're in Nazareth. There aren't any caves in Nazareth, um, in that sense. Um, and as I pointed out at Christmastime, uh, given that Joseph's family had relations there, that's where he was, his family's from.

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Um, in all probability, the whole idea of the manger and stuff like that means that they were brought into a family home, but family homes back then had the animals inside.

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And so they'd be using, like, the feed trough as a place to lay the child.

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So all the stuff about out in the wilderness someplace, all the rest of that stuff, not true, but this assumes that.

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He found a cave there and took her inside it, and he positioned his sons to guard her and went out to search for a

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Hebrew midwife in the area around Bethlehem. Did I say Nazareth earlier?

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Yeah, I did. That's where they're from, but Bethlehem, sorry. Uh, and I, Joseph, was walking, now listen to this, and yet I was not walking, and I looked up the vault of heaven and saw it standing still, and to the air and saw it seized in amazement, and the birds of the sky were at rest.

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I looked down to the earth and I saw a bowl laid there and workers reclining around it with their hands in the bowl, but the ones chewing were not chewing, and the ones lifting up something to eat were not lifting it up, and the ones putting food in their mouths were not putting food in their mouths, but all their faces were looking upward, and I saw sheep being driven along, but the sheep stood still, and the shepherd raised his hand to strike them with a rod, but his hand was still raised.

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It's sort of like freeze frame. It's, um, um, there's actually a scene very much like this in one of the

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Star Trek movies. Remember Picard and the lady who's actually hundreds of years old? Yeah, okay, anyway, um, and I looked down upon the flowing river, and I saw some young goats, their mouths over the water, but they were not drinking.

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Then all at once everything returned to its course. Okay, so he's going out to find a midwife, and everything's frozen, and then it goes back to moving again, and I saw a woman coming down from the hill country, and she said to me, man, where are you going?

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I replied, I'm searching for a Hebrew midwife, and she asked me, are you from Israel? And I said to her, yes, and she asked, then who is the one who was given birth in a cave?

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And I replied, my betrothed, and she said to me, is she not your wife? And I replied to her, she is married, the one who was brought up in the temple of the

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Lord, and I received her by lot as my wife. There's a whole story about how that allegedly happened, but she is not my wife.

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However, she has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and the midwife said, is this true? And Joseph said to her, come and see, and the midwife went with him, and they stood in front of the cave, and a dark cloud overshadowed the cave, and the midwife said, my soul has been magnified today, because my eyes have seen an incredible sign, for salvation has been born to Israel, and immediately the cloud contracted from the cave, and a great light appeared within the cave, so that their eyes could not bear it.

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A little time afterwards, that light began to contract until an infant could be seen, and he came and took the breast of his mother,

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Mary. I don't get that either.

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He moved, he walked, he crawled, and the midwife cried out and said, how great is this day for me, for I have seen this sight.

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So there's no pain, there's no crying out, there's no blood, there's no afterbirth, just a bright light.

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I'm doing the, there's no in any of the manuscripts, but we can sort of,

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I think, read that in, and here's Jesus. He's beamed out of Mary without pain, without anything, because pain and childbirth do the sin.

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If she's not a sinner, then no original sin, then why would there be pain, right? And the midwife went out of the cave and met

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Salome, and said to her, Salome, Salome, I have a wondrous sight to tell you about. A virgin has given birth, something that is contrary to her physical nature.

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Now, it's interesting, for some reason, Trent decided to try to argue, briefly anyways, that what this obviously means, it doesn't mean.

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And even Vuong's book makes it rather clear that, yeah, it is what it means. But anyway, and Salome said, as the

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Lord my God lives, unless I insert my finger and examine her physical condition, I will not believe that the virgin has given birth.

38:11

We won't get any more graphic than that, but if you know anything about female anatomy, you know what we're talking about here.

38:18

And you know that it is physically impossible for a woman who is a physical virgin to give birth and remain a physical virgin.

38:29

The baby couldn't get out. But the baby has gotten out, but the baby beamed out. That's the whole point of all of this.

38:38

The midwife entered and said, Mary, ready yourself. There is no small contention concerning you. And when

38:44

Mary heard this, she made herself ready. And Salome inserted her finger into her to test her physical condition.

38:51

And Salome cried out and said, woe for my lawlessness and for my disbelief, for I have tested the living

38:56

God. And behold, my hand is on fire and falling away from me. And she knelt before the master saying,

39:04

O God of my fathers, remember me, because I am an offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not make me an example to the children of Israel, but place me among the poor.

39:12

For you know, master, I have completed services in your name and have received my payments from you. Behold, an angel of the

39:17

Lord appeared saying to her, Salome, Salome, the master of all has heard your prayer. Bring your hand to the child and pick him up and you will have salvation and joy.

39:26

And Salome came to the child and lifted him up saying, I will worship him for he has been born a great king to Israel.

39:32

And Salome was immediately healed and went forth from the cave justified. And behold, a voice said,

39:41

Salome, Salome, do not report the incredible things you have seen until the child goes to Jerusalem.

39:48

So that's just sections 18 through 20. So just a brief little section.

39:56

It continues on from there. How many sections are there?

40:03

It looks like the last section is 25. So that's all there is to it.

40:11

It ends with, and I, James, the one who wrote this account in Jerusalem, when there was an uproar at the time of Herod's death, hid myself away in the wilderness until the uproar in Jerusalem stopped.

40:20

Therefore, I praise the master who gave me the wisdom to write this account. So I would hope that Rome's apologists would not try to assert that James actually wrote this, but that's what it claims.

40:43

And if it's a false claim, then this is one of the many second, third century pseudepigraphal forgeries that claim the names of disciples and early followers of Jesus to try to make assertions.

41:04

So the real question that we have to ask in this situation is why?

41:10

Let me turn the fan on here because it is getting warm. Let's see. Okay.

41:20

Why are you doing that? Oh, there we go. There we go.

41:30

Wow. Haven't heard that in a while, but it's Houston. What do you want? Oh, and it hasn't worked for a while since stuff's blowing out of the vents.

41:41

Well, they probably turned it on when they redid the roof, but I'll bet you redoing the roof probably knocked a whole bunch of stuff.

41:48

So if you see stuff falling on my head, don't worry about it. It's the RV life, baby. I'm just thankful to have air moving.

41:58

That's sort of important when you're in one of these things. Okay. So why the emphasis upon the unnatural birth?

42:16

This is not what you expect from Isaiah. A child will be born to us. That's standard word for child, standard word for birth.

42:27

Yes, Mary was a virgin when she conceived, but Jesus was born as a human being, not out of a dark cloud that then became so bright no one could look.

42:43

And then when the light fades, I mean, you've seen it over and over. It would be really easy to imagine what this was supposed to be looking like from so many movies and everything else.

42:56

Where is this coming from? Well, the sad reality is that pretty much all of the second century literature is horribly sub -biblical in its worldview.

43:14

For example, the Shepherd of Hermes, the

43:19

Epistle of Barnabas. This is a time period where you don't have the completed canon as yet.

43:25

Oh, the canon is completed. All the books exist. But it's not like today where you have instant communication of written data around the world.

43:37

It takes time for copies to be made and for things to be communicated.

43:44

So, for example, it's well known Justin Martyr did not have a full New Testament canon available to him.

43:51

And hence, much of his dependence upon Greek philosophy for forms of his arguments was due to the fact that he didn't have everything else that he could have drawn from.

44:05

And I've asked many a person, what would your theology look like if you didn't have Philippians and Ephesians?

44:16

I'd be tempted to say to somebody, what would your theology look like if you didn't have Hebrews? But it would look like most evangelicalism, to be perfectly honest with you, because most people don't have

44:27

Hebrews. But anyway, this is the time period we're looking at. And when we use the term

44:39

Gnostic, remember 2020? Remember Ken Wilson?

44:47

Remember our deep dive into what we might call early

44:55

Gnosticism? And then when Gnosticism encounters

45:00

Christianity, its attempt to make a place for an eon to be assigned to Jesus as Jesus.

45:12

And then in the middle of the second century, you have the rise of Valentinian Gnosticism. And Valentinian Gnosticism is a purposeful, satanic imitation of Christianity.

45:30

So someone came along, Valentinus, I would assume, and recognized that the standard forms of Gnosticism were too complicated and were too offensive to Christians.

45:49

Because remember, Gnosticism identified Yahweh as a demi -urge. Yaldabaoth. Remember?

45:56

If you weren't with us in 2020, don't worry about it. You can go back. And listen, we were doing like four or five dividing lines each week, because it was during the lockdown.

46:06

The very beginning of the lockdown, nobody knew what was going on. And it just so happened that Ken Wilson's popular book was starting to circulate, and people were asking us about it.

46:18

And so I started getting into it, and Chris Wisson started getting into it, and he started writing stuff about it, and we started doing dividing lines.

46:24

And I got a bunch of books on Manicheanism and Manny and how he drew from Gnosticism, but then came up with some really interesting variations.

46:43

You know, pooping out light that becomes the Milky Way and going back to the realm of light.

46:50

Oh man, I tell you. Yeah, so we did a lot of work on that.

46:56

A lot, a lot of work on that. If you heard that or if you didn't,

47:02

Historic Gnosticism is dualistic. So for example, one of the early heresies the church had to deal with was

47:11

Gnosticism. The Gnosticist term dachine means it seems, and so it only seemed that Jesus had a physical body, and so they taught, you know, the old story about Jesus and the disciple.

47:27

They're walking along the seashore in the sand, and the disciple turns around and sees only one set of tracks. And it's not because of the dumb motivational thing you got at the

47:35

Christian bookstore that said Jesus picked you up and carried you. That's not, you know, forget about that. It's because Jesus doesn't leave footprints in sand because he only seemed to have a physical body.

47:46

Why? Because they're dualists. And there are a tremendous number of Gospels being written at this time, one of which, for example, and by the way, we also, no one reads this book anymore, and there's no reason for them to do so, but I wrote a book about the

48:08

Talpiot tomb theory. Remember when James Cameron and other people showed up on Good Morning America and saying they'd basically found

48:17

Jesus's tomb or Jesus's bone box and stuff like that?

48:25

That was all based upon the acceptance of Gnostic Gospels, some of which were not even the second century, their third, fourth, even fifth century works, but they used that as a key part of their argumentation.

48:40

And of course, nobody in the audience knew that, but anyway, so this kind of Gnosticism, one of those

48:50

Gospels has Jesus standing on a hill overlooking Calvary.

48:57

While Jesus's body is dying on Calvary's tree, Jesus the

49:03

Messiah is watching and laughing, thinking that people have crucified him, but you can't crucify him because he's just a spirit.

49:13

And this again goes back to the dualism of Gnosticism. Now, the

49:22

Protevangelium of James is not a full -on

49:27

Gnostic document. It's not, it would fit in a

49:33

Valentinian, within Valentinian terminology, excuse me, but not within the

49:46

Apocalypse of John, not the Book of Revelation, but the Gnostic work on the

49:53

Revelation of John. It wouldn't fit within that, but there were forms of Valentinianism that would get pretty close to this, because again, the

50:05

Valentinians were specifically trying to use Scripture. Remember the

50:12

Gnostics who thought that Yahweh, like Martian, is an evil demi -urge, they wouldn't be quoting from the

50:18

Jewish Scriptures, stuff like that. Obviously, this book's seeking to do that. But the key issue is this, why the unbiblical view of the birth of Jesus that specifically seeks to bring his birth out of the natural realm into some type of,

50:46

I don't even know how to describe it, you know, type of a situation.

50:51

Why? I think the most obvious answer to that, given everything else being written at the same time period, is dualism and a form of Gnosticism.

51:04

Now, the amazing thing is the Roman Catholics are now forced to try to say that this clearly fictional.

51:13

I mean, no, well, okay, I'll take it back. I think people like Dave Armstrong would. There probably are some

51:20

Roman Catholics, oh yeah, yeah, okay, I can think of, all right, never mind. There are Roman Catholics who would try to say that the pretty

51:27

Evangelical James is perfectly accurate. I could see that happening.

51:33

I don't know of anyone in Roman Catholic scholarship that would do that.

51:39

But I could certainly think of some of the more unhinged

51:44

Roman Catholic apologists out there that would do that. But again,

51:51

Roman Catholic scholarship would never do that. So I just highly recommend to folks, take the time, look it up, pretty

51:58

Evangelical James, read it yourself. It can't take more than half an hour, maybe, or in total, and see for yourself where Rome is stuck now, given her own, you know, once you make the church infallible, what are you supposed to do?

52:17

Admit you made infallible mistakes in the past? I guess the one thing that could help you there would be that you can't provide an infallible listing of infallible statements, which makes your argument against the canon of scripture, by the way, extremely empty.

52:46

Because when you argue that Protestants need to have an infallible canon, and you didn't even come up with one until April of 1546, so evidently you don't need one, because even

53:02

Rome got along without one. But if you argue you need an infallible canon, then you need to provide an infallible listing of the infallible statements that have already been made.

53:14

We would like you to provide an exhaustive accounting of the oral tradition that you say makes up the deposit of faith that was delivered by the apostles and has been passed down orally through the episcopate until today.

53:29

That would be just jolly, but you're not going to do that, and you know you're not going to do that because you can't do that, because there isn't any such thing.

53:37

It's fiction. You know it's fiction. We know it's fiction, but we live in this world where people live on the basis of fiction. But you cannot meaningfully argue that we need to have an infallible canon for the scriptures when you don't have an infallible canon of infallible statements of the church.

53:54

You're just being inconsistent. You're contradicting your own standards at that point. Okay, the invention of the inspired text.

54:05

Think about the name of this. I didn't really realize at first, because I opened this book up when

54:11

I got it, and I'm looking at its interaction with Warfield, because I've read

54:17

Warfield's stuff on this, and I'm not really looking.

54:23

I look toward the back, and that's when I find out that poor

54:29

Yate, about whom I know next to nothing. I can't find anything about this guy. I mean, he's really sort of mysterious.

54:37

I don't know what his church affiliation is. Nothing. But anyway, that's when

54:45

I find that he agrees with Bart Ehrman in having a limited

54:51

Pauline canon. I don't know if he limits it as much as Ehrman. Ehrman only has seven Pauline epistles, so he rejects

54:57

Ephesians, Colossians, and all the pastorals. I don't know whether Poirier accepts Ephesians, Colossians as Pauline or not, but he rejects the pastoral epistles as Pauline.

55:08

Again, just warning. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I keep trying to tell you guys ahead of time before you run off to the

55:14

Christian bookstore and stuff like that. Most New Testament scholars today do take that view, because if you believe that the scriptures as a whole are the inspired

55:30

Word of God, and that they are meant to function as a gift to the church, you're in the minority today.

55:36

Sorry. I know that shocks a lot of people, but that's the way it is.

55:43

So just be aware of it, and that may make you want to go, oh, I guess I should really try to figure out why we believe that, and get a good solid grip there.

55:52

But anyways, I get to the end, and I'm realizing I'm gonna have to...

55:58

Oh, there we go. I have to lighten the background there to be able to see, to be able to read.

56:04

Huge bibliography. Very useful, by the way. Bibliographies are gold mines. They really, really are. Sixty -page bibliography.

56:11

Good stuff. But the last chapter is called, In Lieu of a

56:17

Conclusion. Inspirationism's waning as a blessing in disguise.

56:26

The truth of the gospel versus the truth of scripture and evangelical and post -conservative hermeneutics.

56:32

Now, you might go, that's all that. Inspirationism is what we believe, and it's why he's writing his book to argue against it.

56:44

We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is God speaking. He doesn't believe that.

56:52

So he says, Inspirationism's waning as a blessing in disguise.

56:59

The truth of the gospel versus the truth of scripture. Now, I'm gonna have to go a couple minutes long.

57:08

I hope that's all right. And if Rich says the stream's doing just fine, then we're good.

57:17

Where else have you heard this before? Where else have you heard what I'm saying, what I'm reading from Poirier?

57:23

This decline of inspirationism versus the truth of the gospel.

57:33

I love this watch. It's a Garmin. It's a really good one. It's great when

57:39

I'm driving. So easy to read. And I can see all of Rich's messages to me right here.

57:45

It's like Dick Tracy. None of you know who Dick Tracy was anymore. Man, I feel ancient at times, but Dick Tracy would talk to people.

57:52

And I can answer my phone on my watch, and it actually sounds really good. In fact, my wife says

57:58

I sound too loud on it. So that's really cool. Anyways, but Rich says we're good. I've got a thumbs up on my beautiful Garmin watch.

58:07

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, Andy Stanley. Andy Stanley.

58:16

That's what he's saying. He's saying we don't believe this stuff because the

58:21

Bible tells us so. We believe this stuff because of the eyewitnesses' testimony.

58:29

See? That's what he's saying. That's the argument that is going to be found here.

58:37

And it's not a long section. Where does all of this take us?

58:43

Christians can be persuaded. The scripture nowhere claims to be inspired.

58:50

What impact might that have on their understanding of Christian theology in general? For many, such an admission would precipitate a crisis, perhaps even a crisis of faith.

58:58

And then he goes on talking about, he basically says origin is the one who gave us this understanding of scripture.

59:05

Anyway, we won't get into that right now. Oh, by the way, before I forget, TurretinFan, I'm not sure when he did it, but I think it was fairly recently, did about an hour and 45 minutes on this book.

59:19

I hadn't seen it. I hadn't seen it announced or anything like that. So look up TurretinFan on YouTube and check out his very long discussion because he ended up saying the same thing

59:31

I've said from the start as to my criticism of this. But I'll get to that in a second.

59:38

So he goes on and on here. He says, evangelicals and post -conservatives on the presumed truth of scripture.

59:45

And he talked about the fact that, yeah, post -conservatives have abandoned a meaningful definition of truth because they've lost confidence in scripture.

59:57

And then it has escaping the Augustinian and originist rat races, which is what he's suggesting that he can do for us.

01:00:08

And so here's the last section here.

01:00:17

The New Testament authority does not derive from any sort of inspiration or other guarantee of infallibility.

01:00:25

Rather, it comes from the faith -embraced fact that the apostles told the truth about what they had witnessed.

01:00:32

Have you other people saying this other than Andy Stanley? You have. You have.

01:00:37

Frank Turk says something very similar to this. This is the minimalist facts approach.

01:00:43

I'm not saying those people agree with Poirier, but there is a connection here. Since eyewitnesses plainly can tell the truth without being inspired to do so, a doctrine of inspiration is an unnecessary complication.

01:01:00

And it does not really answer the main type of guarantee that the New Testament gives about the truth of the Kerygma, which is simply the word of eyewitnesses.

01:01:08

Except it's the word of eyewitnesses based upon what?

01:01:15

The word of the eyewitnesses is said to be fulfilling the prophecies of old in the scriptures.

01:01:25

I don't know how you disconnect these things. I really don't, but it's just, it's so obvious to me and to most other folks.

01:01:32

Anyway, when Mark Knoll writes the most important conviction of evangelical scholars is the

01:01:37

Bible is true, we can add in the vein of a history of ideas remark that the most important conviction of the apostles was that the gospel is true.

01:01:46

False, simplistic, absurd dichotomy. They're the same people who said the

01:01:56

Holy Spirit wrote by David. Jesus says the scriptures cannot be broken.

01:02:03

Have you not read what God spoke to you? The choice before us is whether to throw in with the church or with the apostles.

01:02:11

Really? Well, there's a fascinating, certainly gives us some idea of where Poirier is.

01:02:19

It's not like he's a Roman Catholic, but then again, there are Roman Catholics that hold this view too. So in this light, we should welcome the sort of bibliology suggested by Richard Longnecker in 2004.

01:02:29

What we have in the New Testament are one declarations of the gospel and the ethical principles that derive from the gospel is principally contained in the early

01:02:36

Christian confessions and two descriptions, whether in the form of gospels, letters, accounts of representative exploits, sermons, tractates, or an apocalypse of how the gospel proclamation and its inherent principles were contextualized in diverse cultural context, circumstances, situations during the apostolic period.

01:02:55

That's a nice description, but that's not anywhere near close enough to actually describe the authority assigned by the apostles to their own letters.

01:03:06

You've read Galatians recently? Wow. So finishes up with this.

01:03:13

Others might offer equally deserving assizes of the New Testament. The important thing is that we allow it to be what it appears to be.

01:03:21

It is time to submit post -biblical dogma, which would include the idea of the inspiration of scripture, to the rule of exegesis and common sense.

01:03:32

And it is time for those who have always known that it is the gospel rather than scripture that gives

01:03:37

Christian theology its epistemic ground to come in from the cold. Sounds like he's got a purpose in writing all this?

01:03:44

Yeah, big time. The New Testament Christian is not a Bible believer, but a gospel believer.

01:03:52

That's the last, the last words of this book are, the

01:03:57

New Testament Christian is not a Bible believer, but a gospel believer. To which we all sit here and go, and how do you know the gospel again?

01:04:13

It's astonishing. It really is astonishing. But that's where Poirier is coming from.

01:04:23

And so when Trenhorn throws this out, because the whole point here is that Poirier is saying that Theanostos, 2

01:04:32

Timothy 3 .16, does not mean God breathed. It means life -giving. Now, by the way, how could it be life -giving if it's not coming from God?

01:04:40

God's the source of life. Therefore, if it gives life, it's being given life by God's breath. So it's not like it's some massively huge thing.

01:04:49

And he admits that there are numerous early sources, even using his own standards, that would be understood in an inspirationist,

01:04:59

God -breathed context. But here's the problem, and I mentioned this on Twitter earlier. This is not a new way around things.

01:05:11

What's the 1946 movie about? The 1946 movie is about using later sources, sometimes 50 years, 100 years, 150 years, 250 years, after the time of Paul, to say, well, arsenikoitai appears in this list and it has this kind of meaning here.

01:05:39

And my argument, and it's been accepted by many Roman Catholic scholars, not that I made it, I'm just simply saying the one that I've used over and over again, is that that's not how you define

01:05:49

Pauline usage. You don't define Paul what someone says 250 years later. You define

01:05:56

Paul first and foremost on the basis of the Greek Septuagint, because that's what he's using.

01:06:03

That's what he's quoting. He's writing in Greek, so he's using the Greek Septuagint as his source. So arsenikoitai comes from Leviticus 18 and 20.

01:06:13

The terms are right there. He's put them together. It's what men do with men in bed. And what someone 250 years after that, outside of Israel, used the term for really doesn't matter.

01:06:26

You start, if you want to be honest with Paul, you start with the sources that would have influenced and determined Paul's usage.

01:06:34

When you look at the Logos in John 1, people want to run off to Philo, and they want to run off to this

01:06:40

Greek thing and that Greek thing, and they don't want to go back to Memra and Dvar in the

01:06:46

Old Testament and how they're translated into the Greek Septuagint. But you should. That has to be the primary source in light of the fact that both

01:06:54

Paul and John are saying, hey, we are continuing the teachings of the

01:07:01

Tanakh, the Old Testament. We are in perfect lockstep. We're talking about the same God, the same message.

01:07:10

So when you get to Theanoustos, which is a hapoxlegomena, it's only used once in the canon of scripture.

01:07:19

Where are you going to go? Where are you going to go to the Old Testament? And you're going to go to Jewish sources.

01:07:26

You can even go to intertestamental Jewish sources. And you're going to find a ton of understanding that scripture is inspired, the inspirationist view.

01:07:41

But Poirier can't go there, because he doesn't know who wrote the word. It's a forgery.

01:07:49

Paul didn't write it. So you can't even go there. That's why this can't have any relevance to a meaningful, believing theology of inspiration.

01:08:05

You can't go there. Trenhorn did. And seemingly, and I just point out, you know, you're the first person in Catholic has ever done this.

01:08:16

How come nobody else has ever done this? Well, you know, we're always learning new things. Wow, on something as fundamental as this?

01:08:23

Ooh, didn't have that in the apostolic tradition somewhere? Well, there is no apostolic tradition, so you can't access it anyway.

01:08:29

So there you go. But the invention of the inspired text, the whole title is saying, this is an invented thing.

01:08:39

And clearly, here's somebody who's got a chip on his shoulder. This is his contribution to breaking down biblicalism, scripturalism, supposedly so as to give room for the gospel.

01:08:54

I would be really, really, that's why I wish I knew more about this. I'd like, what else has he written? Can't find anything.

01:09:02

Where has he defined the gospel? How does he define the gospel? Does he even feel the gospel can be defined?

01:09:09

I don't know. I don't know. No, I don't. So there you go. So next week,

01:09:19

I'm going to be traveling to Tullahoma.

01:09:26

We'll do our best to get some programs in. But I know even the evening that I am coming into Tullahoma, there's going to be a conference on hyperpreterism.

01:09:40

I'd really like to make it there in time for it. It's going to be a long day, but I'll do my best. I may not look very good by the time

01:09:47

I get there. So that's going to pretty much preclude doing any kind of program at that point.

01:09:55

So we'll just have to let you know, as we've explained before, hey, at least the places that I've stopped on this trip so far, we have had incredible internet connectivity.

01:10:11

As far as I can tell, this stream has been super duper good.

01:10:17

I can't guarantee that I'm going to Tumsuba, Mississippi. I don't expect to get 5G ultrawide in Tumsuba.

01:10:28

But who knows? You never know. We'll do our best.

01:10:35

But I'll obviously be recording a bunch of things there at the conference.

01:10:40

I'll be speaking on the beauty of particular redemption in policyology.

01:10:46

Oh my goodness, I don't have enough time to even almost read the texts, let alone explicate them.

01:10:51

The debate with Jason Breda will be there on the last night of the conference.

01:10:59

And so all of that to say, I don't know what next week's going to look like as far as our ability to do much in the way of the dividing line.

01:11:09

But we'll do our best. And when I pull in, hook up, turn on the modem, hit speed test, if it just goes...

01:11:25

Then I've got to know if I'm in a place where I can set up the satellite. I know, for example, in Tumsuba, I will not be able to do that.

01:11:33

Well, okay, I take that back. Maybe if they put me in an open spot. But most of the spots when

01:11:39

I was there before, total coverage from trees. So you can't predict it.

01:11:45

You just got to go with it and run with it. And by the way, I'm not sure... I really do, by the way, feeling much better today.

01:11:52

I really appreciate the prayers. A bunch of you are contacting me and saying you're praying.

01:11:59

I've mentioned my physical issues. Best I've felt for about four days today. And I hope that continues.

01:12:07

One of the things bothering me may have resolved. I really not gonna be able to tell for a few more days before I can start super relaxing about that.

01:12:19

But maybe some of you have been praying for the RV. Real quickly, we have a circuit, one set of plugs.

01:12:30

There's a GFI in the kitchen, ground fault interrupter. And it's the third

01:12:39

GFI we've put in there from the trip to St. Charles.

01:12:47

And when I pull in, if it's still on, it's gonna stay on. It's gonna work just fine.

01:12:55

But it's clearly... If it pops, then there's no reason to even try resetting it because it's gonna keep popping until I move the unit.

01:13:05

And then it's fine. So it's clearly a loose connection or something laying on a wire, who knows, and getting bounced around all over the place.

01:13:18

Either puts it in a good spot or a bad spot. Same thing. We've got a leak near the hot water heater.

01:13:25

And on the last trip, one morning, there's icicles. It was in Holbrook, I think.

01:13:32

Icicles hanging off the side of the unit where this thing had dripped. We had a guy come out and look at it in St.

01:13:39

Charles. It had stopped dripping. You can't fix a drip you can't see. It leaked the first night out.

01:13:48

Hasn't leaked since. Why? Who knows? That's the problem.

01:13:53

When you bounce something around, it's... And maybe some of you have been praying that the unit would be healed.

01:14:02

Well, maybe it has been. I don't know. But it's fun.

01:14:08

And hopefully you can see that I have fun doing this. And I'm very, very thankful for all of you who make it available.

01:14:15

Remember the travel fund, please, because that's how we get to do what we are doing.

01:14:23

And we want to continue doing what we're doing. So thank you so much for that. And thank you for listening to The Dividing Line today.

01:14:31

Like I said, I don't know what will be on next, but we'll see you then when we have the opportunity.