Collision w/ Jeff Durbin: Responding to Dennis Prager

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What's up, everybody? I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin. This is Collision. Today, we're dealing with a popular clip, controversial clip with Dennis Prager on Pints with Aquinas, talking about lust, the heart, pornography and sexual immorality.

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So let's do this. All right.

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So this is Pints with Aquinas, their episode they did with Dennis Prager, who is

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Jewish. And so he's talking about the distinction between the Christian belief about lust and sexual immorality, pornography, those sorts of things related to the

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Jewish perspective. And so let's get right into it. I don't even remember how the issue arose, but I mentioned that there that there is a

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Jewish Christian difference with regard to Jesus's statement that a man who lusts after another woman has committed adultery with his heart.

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That a that phrase does not appear, obviously, in the Hebrew Bible, but be that the general

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Jewish view. And I say general because I can't speak for all Jews, even though I try to be normative, is that you can only commit adultery with and I said this in the video and I and I purposely said

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I'm not trying at all to be cute in any way. You can only commit adultery with one organ and it is not the heart.

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Judaism is very behavior based. Christianity is more not it's not that it's not behavior based, but it is equally, if not more thought, inner self, heart based.

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So, for example, there's a phrase in Hebrew that I learned very early in my yeshiva education. I'll say it in Hebrew for so that people will know

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I didn't make it up. It is not the thought that counts that no, not that counts.

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That is the essence, but the deed. Right. Judaism is very behaviorist and I am very behaviorist.

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So, for example, and I mentioned this to the to a Franciscan. I've said on the radio very often,

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I don't care if you like Jews. I don't care if you dislike Jews. I prefer you like Jews, but there are a lot of Jews I don't like.

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I mean, it's just a little silly to say I like a whole group. There's no whole group I like. There's no whole group I dislike.

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But in any event, I don't care if you dislike Jews. I care how you treat Jews. And that that is a it goes to the to the essence of what my belief is.

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I want to know how you act. So it's such a fascinating conversation because essentially what

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Prager is arguing for here is hypocrisy as a good thing.

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So he is concerned with the outer look, the outward appearance and not the inward appearance.

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And of course, that conversation takes place in the New Testament itself. Jesus, who is

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Jewish, descended from Abraham and David, all the rest. He has the pedigree. Jesus confronted the

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Jews of his day for the very thing that Dennis Prager is actually promoting today. So actually, he actually has it right that this form of Judaism or Jewishness believes that it's the outward appearance that counts.

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It's the deed, the actual accomplishing the deed that counts. But it's not the inward life that really matters.

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And yes, I want to just grant you're absolutely right. That is precisely what Jesus was coming against in his ministry.

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And yes, that's what Christians believe, that God is not impressed with our hypocrisy. And so he mentions here, and I'll start from the from the rear and move my way backwards.

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He mentions here that I don't care how you feel inwardly about Jewish people.

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I care how you treat Jewish people. So what he's saying is, I mean, if we take it to its logical conclusion, that his belief system is ethical belief system, because that's what we're talking about here.

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What's ethical, what's moral before God, his ethical belief system is you can have malice in your heart towards somebody.

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You could fantasize about their death. You can fantasize about gruesome ways to take them out.

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But just so long as outside, it looks like you're being kind. So to that degree, look, let's just have a real conversation.

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What's that say about, you know, the murderous heart of Nazis towards Jews when they feed them a sandwich or they give them clothes to wear or they give them a job in a concentration camp?

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Like their outward deeds could be described as good. They're giving them employment. They're giving them work.

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They're giving them food. They're giving them shelter all at no cost to themselves. And so the outward deed looks pretty good.

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But I think we all recognize the malice that's in the hearts of those who are tyrannizing the

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Jewish people. It's horrible. And it's interesting because when he tries to make the distinction, there's ways that I would actually agree with him.

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I'd say, Mr. Prager, you're absolutely right. That is a form of Judaism that has existed for a very long time and existed during the days of Jesus.

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And Jesus referred to Jews who lived like that and taught like that. He referred to them as whitewashed tombs.

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Outwardly, you have the appearance of godliness. Outwardly, you have the appearance of obedience.

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But inwardly, you are full of dead men's bones. And that's precisely the

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Judaism that Jesus is coming against. And what's important here for us to note is that Jesus is

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Jewish. He's the Jewish Messiah. Now, I know, of course, at this point, Dennis Prager doesn't accept that. But Jesus is the

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Jewish Messiah from the Christian perspective. And there's not a disjointed perspective in historic

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Christian orthodoxy between the New Testament and the Old Testament. It's one Bible put all together.

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It's one revelation from God. And so this is very, very important. When we talk about the Christian perspective or Jesus's perspective on the law, ethics, and morality, what we are arguing for is, no, we're talking about the

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Torah's perspective. We're talking about the Tanakh's perspective. We're talking about the Old Testament perspective.

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What we're saying is, no, Mr. Prager, that's not Jewishness. That's not Torah. That's not the instruction.

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That's not the law of God. Your perspective is actually not orthodox Jewishness. It's not orthodox true

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Jewishness. Because Jesus, when he chastises people in his day who were

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Jewish, his fellow Jews, when he chastises them for their religious hypocrisy, he's doing so on the basis of the revelation of God.

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He's not giving them a novel ethical perspective that they had just never heard of before in the

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Torah. He's actually coming to correct their misapplication of the

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Torah itself, where they were, and clearly Dennis Prager is, focused on the outside life with no real regard for the inward life, the mind and the heart.

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And so, yeah, as a matter of fact, when we talk about this in terms of Torah, what's the

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Shema? I'm fully confident with all my heart. I know that Dennis Prager knows the

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Shema. He knows the Shema, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad.

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Hero Yisrael, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. And in that famous prayer that the

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Jews are doing as part of the morning and evening prayers, they're reciting this, there's only one

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God, and you are to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and soul and mind.

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Isn't it interesting? The very thing that's a part of just basic Jewish life, the Shema actually has at the heart of it, the understanding, we are to love this one

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God with heart, soul, mind. And so the heart, of course, in scripture is like the seat of your passions, your emotions, your inner life, your will to some degrees involved there.

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And so the heart is not just the organ that's pumping in your chest. It's the seat of your passions, your emotions, your inner life.

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And so loving God with your heart is loving him with the inner life, your passions, your inward self, and of course with our minds.

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And so we're actually not arguing in historic Christian orthodoxy, and Jesus wasn't arguing that this is a brand new ethical system, something that, you know, we just want to ramp it up a bit and just change things from what they once were, where we're fine with the externals.

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No, Jesus is actually correcting their view of the law and their understanding of what

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God really calls us to and requires of us. The inner life truly counts. And think about the devastating effects of something like this, an ethical system that teaches people that hypocrisy, pretending is fine.

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The inner life is irrelevant. Would you say that's a pedophiles? Would you say it's a pedophiles?

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That we're perfectly okay with you being a pedophile in your minds? You're fine to fantasize all day long about sexually immoral things with children, just so long as you don't act it out.

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Do we really think that that's a good ethical system or what God actually requires of man?

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I mean, Jews and Christians believe that we're made in the imago Dei, in the image of God. And is it really the image of God to have an inner life that is completely perverse, that is filled with malice and hatred and evil?

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And yet just, you know, let's be okay with that as long as we don't act it out. No, actually it's the

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Torah's perspective, the Tanakh's perspective, the Old Testament Jewish Scriptures perspective, that it's the inner life that truly counts.

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Just as an example, this could go for days. I mean, it truly could. And you probably are all aware of this.

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I'm not teaching you anything new here. But in Proverbs 4, verse 23, it says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

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It's that inner life, the inner, that core inner self, the emotions, the will, the thought life, all of that, from that flow the issues of life.

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So actually, it's the Old Testament that teaches that all behavior, all action, it actually has a connection point.

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And that's the inner life, the mind and the heart. It all begins there. It's not New Testament novelty.

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It's Old Testament teaching and foundation in terms of what's ethical.

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So that's Proverbs 4, verse 23. Another one, Proverbs 27, 19 says, as in water face reflect, sorry, as in water face reflects face.

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So the heart of man reflects the man. It says, of course, in Jeremiah 17, nine through 10 famous one, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

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Who can know it? Who can understand it? I, the Lord search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

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He tests the heart and the mind. That's the source according to true

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Jewishness, a historic Orthodox Judaism. That's the real teaching on where this conversation about ethics has to go.

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And of course you have the famous passages. There's so many, where do we even stop and start with this?

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Psalm 51, 10 created me a clean heart, Oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.

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And Proverbs is filled over and over and over with the texts about the human heart and the minds and the joyfulness of the heart, the inner self.

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Um, and you know, Proverbs 3, 12, 3, one through two says, my son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments for length of days and years of life and peace.

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They will add to you. Let your heart keep my commandments, not just your fingers, not just your sexual organs, not just your toes, not just simply the eyes, not the, not the physical self, but let your heart keep my commandments.

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And, um, and so, you know, the wise of heart will receive commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.

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So again, I don't want to belabor this too long, but what Prager is arguing for is the kind of Judaism that Jesus most certainly was coming against.

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It's the kind of Judaism that, um, is satisfied with hypocrisy.

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Hypocrisy that Jesus was condemning in his day was the pretending. Hubakrite meant it was an actor, a stage play.

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You're, you're putting on a mask, you're putting on a costume. You want to look outside a certain way, but inside you're something totally different.

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And yeah, that's what Jesus was accusing. The Jews who were leading in that day and were the covenantally unfaithful

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Jews who were teaching falsely. That's what he called them. He called them Hubakrites, pretenders, actors, you're wearing a mask.

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And I don't think there's any way out of this for Mr. Prager. That's precisely what Mr. Prager is arguing for is a mask, a shell, a veneer of righteousness.

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It only looks like I'm behaving righteously. My inner life can be totally off the, as long as the deeds look righteous and obedient.

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I can hate Jews with my heart. I can lust and, and have sexually immoral thoughts. I can think perverse things.

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I can, um, I can think with pure malice and just evil against a person.

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I can plot somebody's death in my mind. And Prager's perspective is God's perfectly fine with that.

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Uh, that's, that's, that's not ethically wrong. Just as long as the behavior is right externally.

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And so Jesus had it right when he called them Hubakrites, hypocrites, because he said your outward life looks right, but your inward life is full of sin and darkness.

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That's what the teaching of Jesus illustrates. And Jesus actually illustrates it in a powerful way that I don't think

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Prager has an argument with in terms of, you see these hypocrites here who stand on street corners, they pray.

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So everyone sees them praying. They fast. So everybody sees them fasting. That's why they're doing it. They're doing it so that everyone sees their deeds.

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And he said, but inside they're not doing it for God. Do you think God really buys it? So Jesus says, when you pray, don't be like the pretenders who like to be seen for their deeds to look righteous outwardly.

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He said, when you pray, go in your closet, pray to your father. He'll hear you in secret.

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He'll hear you. And Jesus talks about when you fast, you do it in a way that doesn't advertise it.

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You do it in a way that doesn't boast in it because you're fasting for God, not for others to see. And Jesus talks about giving.

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When you give, don't let your right hand know what your left hand's doing. Why? Because if you're truly giving to worship God, then no one needs to see the deed.

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And so what Jesus is addressing there is what true Jewishness really is. He's the Torah keeping

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Jew. He's the true Torah keeping Jew. He doesn't come with a novel Christian doctrine.

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He comes with true Torah obedience. That's the message of Jesus. Hey, what's up guys?

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This is Pastor Jeff Durbin. Thank you for watching Collision. We wanted to provide a solid resource to help you to respond to anything coming into collision with the

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Christian worldview. There's more as a response to this video and others at apologiasallaccessatapologiestudios .com.

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