A Conversation with J. J. Ricci

TRUEOLOGY

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Welcome to Trueology, where we study Christian theology, philosophy, and apologetics.

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We do critiques on scholars, politics. We look into events in both classical and modern -day issues.

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We do interviews, debates, and much more. Our goal is providing a Christian resource to edify the saints and to engage the community.

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But most of all, we want to glorify the Lord through our hearts, minds, souls, and strength.

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So, stay with us as we open up the Word of God and look into everything pertaining to life and godliness.

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My name is Belushi Prevalon, coming to you from the Boston area. And right now, you are listening to Trueology, the study of the truth, as it is in Jesus.

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Alright, welcome to Trueology, folks. My name is Belushi Prevalon. And on this episode,

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I have invited on Jay Ritchie to have a conversation with me about various topics revolving around fundamentalism, the

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IFB, Christian liberty, evangelism, and a few other topics that hopefully we might get to this evening.

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I will have Jay introduce himself in just a moment. But first, I want to tell you exactly why we're having this conversation.

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It's a must -have topic tonight. And this is really because we might all really be thinking about the same thing sometimes, but we have not actually had the courage to openly have a discussion about them.

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And tonight, I hope we can address various problems and bring them to light and what we should do about them in light of what they have been in our

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Christian circles. Both Jay and I are actually experiential fundamentalists.

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And by that, I mean that both of us, even though we don't always agree, we have experienced personally pros and cons of fundamentalism.

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And though it is not wrong to be a fundamentalist in terms of fundamental beliefs about the faith, over the last half century, though, maybe even before that, fundamentalism has taken a different turn, one that is more sociological in nature rather than biblical.

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This has brought some contentions and church splits and a host of other problems that hopefully tonight we'll be able to address for your benefit.

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I'd like to also preface our conversation tonight by saying that the views that are represented here do not reflect exactly the views that my church or the school that I go to have.

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And I'm sure that Jay would agree that even the views that he'll be expressing tonight are pretty nuanced to what his church actually holds and his congregation subscribes to.

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So even though he's an established teacher and leader there, I'm pretty sure there are things that, you know, varies in his personal beliefs and standing against what his church actually teaches right now.

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Also, I want to just mention as we go into this, we are by no means trying to be unreasonably contentious, but rather to point out some things that we need to address and have dealt with in our

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Christian circles in a biblical manner. If any of us are going to press forward and mature for Christ as a body,

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I think these things do need to be addressed. This is not specifically targeting any individuals. There is no animosity in this conversation.

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We hope that you will be, you know, this will be well received in the same kind of conduct that I hope you are perceiving that is being expressed, which is in grace, truth, and patience.

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So with that being said, I'd like to invite Jay Ritchie to introduce himself really quickly.

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And some of the, Jay, when you come on, if you could briefly introduce yourself, but also let the audience know about some of your focus areas of study.

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And, you know, you've written a book. So if you could say a few things just about that book and what it's about, and hopefully at the end, also,

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I'll help you plug that back in. But right now, go ahead and have Jay Ritchie come on and join us.

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Here he is, Jay. Go ahead and introduce yourself, brother, and focus areas and your book.

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Yes, thank you. So my name is Jay Ritchie. Some people call me JJ. Just don't call me late for dinner.

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And I'm just a child of the king. Nobody famous.

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Nobody infamous either. I don't want to be that either. But I'm just happy to be here.

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And, yeah, brother is right. I wrote a book. It's called Evangelism's Flipside, A Journey of Leaping the

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Unexpected. And this is a very small book. It's like a booklet. And basically the book is a bunch of stories.

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That's really what it is. It's not another how -to book and how to do evangelism, how to do apologetics.

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Really, it's just, it's like you're a little ladybug on my shoulder, and you're looking at your firsthand view of all the conversations

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I've had. And so basically for like a two - or three -year span of time,

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I just jotted down in this notebook, this journal, all the divine appointments that God has given me over that period of time.

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And I had some great conversations in some different places.

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I had conversations with people about the gospel at train stations, at the airport, on the plane, just on the street, in a store, in a restaurant.

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So my book really is to help the body of Christ to understand that if you're a

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Christian and you're filled with God's Holy Spirit and you belong to Jesus, then it's not an option to do evangelism, but I don't want you to look at it like, oh, it's something

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I have to do. My book is written to let you know how much fun it is.

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If you just step out of faith and you trust the Lord, you're going to have so much fun as He takes you on an adventure.

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Because that's what evangelism is. It's really an adventure. And so my book is really like my adventure to all the different people that God has brought me to talk to.

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And yeah, there are some questions from different worldviews. I witness to Catholics.

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I witness to Jehovah's Witnesses. I witness to Muslims, atheists.

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So you are going to get some apologetics in the book because it's naturally how

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I have a conversation with people and how I answer the questions. But it's not written in an academic sense.

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You will not be bored reading this book. And you could read it in one sitting. One brother told me that he had like a two or three -hour flight.

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He took my book on a trip with him. He read it while he was in the air. By the time the plane landed, he was done because it's a very easy read.

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It's like 94 pages. And it's going to hopefully encourage you that if you haven't been busy sharing your faith, don't get overwhelmed.

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Because remember, evangelism is a conversation. It's not a three -point sermon in a poem at the end.

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It's a conversation. Jesus had a conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. In John 4,

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Jesus had a conversation with the woman at the well. A conversation. That's all evangelism is.

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A conversation where you give the truth of the gospel, but you allow them to, you know, interact with you.

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Give you questions. Give you a little pushback. And it's okay if you don't know the answers to everybody's questions.

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I didn't. But you just allow yourself to be used by God. And you will enjoy it.

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I guarantee it. So basically that's why I wrote it. Just to encourage the body of Christ. Because I feel like we're not doing evangelism.

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We lost the zeal. We're living in, especially in the west, we're living in times where people are afraid to offend others.

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And, you know, there's been, you know, a lot of people from other countries coming into immigration.

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And they're bringing their religion and they're bringing their worldview. And a lot of people will get overwhelmed.

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But they don't have to be. And so my book is just another tool out there to encourage people to go trust the

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Lord and go out there. And remember that missions is not just geography.

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Missions is not going, not necessarily just going to another country, a foreign country. Missions is people and people are everywhere.

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Your next door neighbor, someone at the coffee shop, the TSA agent or the ticket person at the airport, everybody who's grieving needs

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Jesus. So I want you to get excited about sharing the best news that a, that a

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Christian has to give to the world. And that is what God has done for them by grace through Jesus Christ.

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It's the best news that anyone could ever give or receive. And we have that responsibility.

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Yes. But we also have that privilege. It's a privilege. And I said, it's your adventure waiting to happen.

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If you're willing to step up and go. Amen. So that's basically it.

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And I'm looking forward to being here tonight and having a conversation about some things that are not necessarily easy to talk about, but they must be talked about because we must not shut down and stop talking to each other just because we have disagreements.

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We must continue to be cordial, be respectful, but have those conversations that need to be had, because how is

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I'm going to shop an iron? If you always talk to everybody who agrees, you know, if you're living in an echo chamber, how are you ever going to be challenged?

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How are you ever going to be corrected? So these are, these are things we have to explore. So I'm looking forward to having brother

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Belushi and I talk. And I hope that you'll enjoy the conversation along the way.

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Excellent, brother Richie. Thank you so much for that. So something you said there that kind of caught my attention, you said, you know, why, why would you think evangelism seems so burdensome and what has caused the zeal of evangelism to wane away necessarily?

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Is it something that is happening in the church circle itself? Is it something external? Is it something that's individually personal?

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If you could briefly, before we jump into our primary topic tonight, which will be fundamentalism overall, can you just make, can you just expound on the burden, the scare that is in Christians today in terms of evangelism and what has caused the zeal to go away?

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Yeah. And, you know, I would say it's twofold. And, you know, you're going to notice that sometimes when

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I answer these questions, I'm going to sound like I'm preaching, but I'm just passionate. So, you know, if, if you, if that's how

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I come off, I'm not trying to come off like, you know, I'm getting in your face, but I am passionate and I'm very opinionated.

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It doesn't mean I know all the answers. It doesn't mean I'm perfect, but I am very opinionated and I call it the way

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I see it. So I think there's two reasons. First of all, I think that the lack of evangelism zeal is due to the fact that many believers don't know who they are in Christ.

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They don't know who they are in Christ. That lack of confidence, that lack of assurance of their identity in Christ.

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And that could be because maybe they're looking for contentment, fulfillment, identity elsewhere.

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You know, maybe they're not walking with the Lord. Maybe they're not full of the Holy Spirit the way they should be.

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Because if you're confident in who you are, if you're confident in the fact that you know who you are and you know whose you are, then that confidence will overflow, right?

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It's going to overflow naturally. So I think that's missing. I think people are just not in the word.

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They're not walking with the Lord. They're not full of God's Holy Spirit. They're defeated in their life.

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They're so bogged down in busyness, you know, like busyness buried under Satan's yoke, right?

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Busy. And I think the more technology comes on the scene and, you know, just the economies and families and things like that, just all these responsibilities, and maybe people are taking on way too much responsibilities.

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And they're just burdened down and they're defeated and they're not energized. And they're really lost the eternality of it, you know, because if we come back to the basics of the fact that we are eternal beings, right?

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We're not physical beings having a spiritual experience.

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We're spiritual beings having a temporarily physical experience. And people are going to not live in their bodies forever.

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They're going to die and they're going to go to an eternity somewhere. And I think that we've gotten away from looking at people as souls.

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We look at them as flesh and bone. We have to start remembering that their soul and their spirit and they will live forever somewhere.

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And, you know, if we're full of God's Holy Spirit and we're walking with the Lord in victory the way we should, then our senses are going to be heightened to the fact that, like,

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I must be intentional about this because people are not going to just sense the need for Jesus.

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It's not going to just happen automatically. We must be intentional. And another reason is the churches.

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Yes, the churches are, by and large, suffering from leadership because there was a movie

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I once watched. It was a football movie. In one of the scenes in the film, the football team was struggling with motivation and direction.

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And the quarterback said, the attitude of our team reflects leadership.

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Attitude reflects leadership. And I think that, you know, either the pulpits are not passionate about evangelism in their more of a lifestyle.

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You know, they're not leading from example. The preachers in the pulpit are not leading by example.

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They're not being soul winners. They're not evangelizing. They're not sharing stories of people they witness to.

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They're not making it, you know, something exciting, which it is.

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So that's lost, and thus they can't, you know, reflect that passion onto the pews if they don't have it themselves in the pulpit, right?

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But also, the other extreme is that the pulpits, the preachers in the pulpits are like tyrants.

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And they browbeat people about evangelism. And they make people think that evangelism is about getting trophies and putting, you know, getting someone saved, praying the sinner's prayer, one, two, three, pray with me.

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And then you go back, you know, when the night's finished, you go back to the church, and you all tally how many people you won to Jesus that night.

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And it becomes a contest. It becomes people are not people. They're just spiritual trophies that we earn every time we go.

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And that's fake. That's, like, superficial. So I think that these are the things that are happening today more so than maybe in the past.

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And I think evangelism suffering and the fact that it's suffering is just a symptom.

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So we need revival. We really need revival. We need to reject extremisms on both ends.

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We need to stop having tyrants in the pulpit. But we also have to stop having people in the pulpit that are afraid to share their faith.

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We've got to have people who are examples. The Bible says in the book of Acts, be examples to the flock.

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Don't be overlords, but be an example. How it should be should be first led from the pulpit.

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So that's my two -fold answer. I hope that makes sense. I wouldn't disagree with much of that at all.

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I think one of the fundamental reasons why people are typically scared or burdened out of evangelism is due to the fact that there is no robust theology coming from the pulpit.

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It is seen as this high intellectual thing to actually be preaching about systematic theology from the pulpit, having a high view of God and a dense view of the nature and person of Jesus Christ.

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And ultimately, I would define revival as really a devotion to the education of God's laws.

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I mean, if you look at Psalm 119, it's devoted to the word of God and his precepts, his testimonies, his law, his commandments.

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You know, typically today when Christians imagine what Psalm 119 is talking about, they think, oh, that's talking about the gospel of John.

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No, the writer is talking about the laws of Moses. You know, that's a devotion to that is where revival comes from.

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And yeah, I would agree with some of the things that you said there in regards to, you know, the example being demonstrated and all of that.

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But so, Jay, I want to move on now. Our topic for tonight, which is let me restate it again.

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We're talking about, you know, fundamentalism, some of the things regarding the IFB, Christian liberty, evangelism.

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So I want to start with fundamentalism. If you could, I want to give you a definition of fundamentalism.

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And then I want you to express your your views and what your experience, what you've experienced in regards to fundamentalism and how it's changed and the circle that you have come out of.

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OK, so fundamentalism, you know, by definition, the word fundamental, fundamental and describe any religious impulse that adheres to the basic tenets of Christianity.

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Fundamentalism for the purpose of this article is a movement within the Christian church that holds to the essentials of the

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Christian faith. This is according to GotQuestions .org. So fundamentalism in the early 20th century, late 19th century was described as, you know, those who held to the fundamentals of the faith, the essentials of the faith, things like the inerrancy of the

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Bible, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth.

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You know, Jesus is the only way to salvation. The only modality that could save man from eternal conscious hell is the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel, the good news that he is the substitutionary atonement for their sins.

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Those are Christian fundamentals. No Christian, if they are Christian by definition, can compromise on the fundamentals or else they, by definition, are not

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Christians. There's other fundamentals I didn't mention there, but those are examples of some that you cannot waver in at all.

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Those those things tend to be more if we were to describe this Christian theology as like a web, you know, the things that are in the middle of the web are the fundamentals of the faith and the things that are further out into the web are secondary issues that aren't necessarily fundamental.

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It won't change the nature of your salvation, but will change, you know, maybe your expression of your salvation and the people you hang around with and the things that you do and the things that you embrace or reject.

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All right. So could you briefly just assess fundamentalism and the way you've experienced it, as opposed to what

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I just said there as the essentials of the faith? Yes, and I would say that I don't necessarily

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I don't I don't necessarily think that the word fundamental is a bad word.

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I mean, it gets it gets some bad news coverage, you know, if you got some crazy out there, you know, doing violence or something in the name of religion.

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But, you know, like if you are if you're on a plane, you want a fundamentalist plot.

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You want a fundamentalist pilot because you want a pilot who knows where he's going. Right.

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You want a pilot who obeys the rules of sound airline control, you know, sound airplane flight.

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So, you know, in the same way, I would want a fundamentalist, you know, accountant, you know, if I'm if I'm doing business and I need to make all make sure all my paperwork is in order and all numbers match are, you know, tallied correctly.

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I want a fundamentalist accountant because I want someone to be sound in the fundamentals of accounting, you know, not skipping rules or breaking rules, but to do it to the letter so that an accurate result can be can be had.

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So, you know, being a fundamentalist is not the problem. It's when you add the ism.

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That's the problem. When you add an ism to anything, that's when it becomes an idol.

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It's really it's like an idol, you know, but as far as the fundamentals of the

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Christian faith. Yes. You know, you mentioned them. I would, I would agree with that and any anybody who calls themselves a

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Christian has to adhere to the fundamentals of the faith inerrancy of scripture.

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The Bible is the Word of God, and it's without error. The virgin birth of Christ substitutionary atonement.

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He died on the cross as our substitute, because without that, we wouldn't have any way to have our sins forgiven bodily resurrection.

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He didn't just die. He rose on the third day. And then authenticity of miracles, you know, that the miracles that happened in the

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Bible really happens. They weren't illusions. They really happened.

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They, you know, were contradicting the temporary or they broke the temporary temporarily broke the rules of of gravity in nature.

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But by definition, that's what a miracle is. You know, it's a breaking or bending of the natural order.

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Jesus did miracles. So part of the belief in his deity would would be that we recognize that Jesus did miracles.

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He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind. He raised the dead and so forth, raised himself from the dead.

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So I think that what had happened was there was a movement away from the

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Bible and away from sound theology in Christian truth. And this was like maybe the early 19th century.

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And so a lot of churches started seeing their denominations go, you know, away from God, away from the

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Bible, away from truth. They started compromising. So people that didn't want that, it didn't want to be part of that.

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They pulled out of those denominations and became independent churches, which they adopted the label independent instead of being associated with that denomination.

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It was going, you know, away from God and away from God's word.

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They became independent. And a lot of these churches that were going south, going like, you know, down spiritually and compromising a lot of these churches were

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Baptist churches. For example, the American Baptist Convention is one example of a denomination really become an apostate, you know, so compromised.

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So these independent Baptist churches were pulling out of the denomination and they wanted to remain true to the fundamentals of the faith that they saw that denominations were rejecting and moving away from.

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And then over time, obviously, most of those, I would say most of the churches use the

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King James Bible. And as the new aversion started coming on the market and being disseminated, and as they saw these, you know, liberal or ungodly denominations also adopting these newer versions, they had like a knee jerk reaction.

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And they said, well, we're staying with the King James Bible. We believe this is the pure word of God in English.

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We don't want anything to do with compromise. And a lot of these versions that are coming out are not even literal word for word translations.

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They're what people call dynamic equivalence or thought for thought. They're more like commentaries instead of literal word for word translation.

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So they started to be known as independent fundamental

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Baptist churches. And they're the fundamentals that they would stick to were not only the five fundamentals that we just discussed, but also that they would hold to the

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King James Bible as the only version they would use. They would also not associate with any other churches that were not

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Baptist like them. They had to be like minded, like faith, and like name churches or they wouldn't fellowship with them.

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So it's not very independent because they were looking to to fellowship with other independent churches.

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But so that's kind of how the independent fundamental

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Baptist church came into existence. It was really a it was a good reaction in the beginning of heresy compromise that they saw happening in the major denominations.

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And they wanted to be independent in a local church, local autonomous church.

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But then I think they started majoring on the minors.

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And he started this. There was a lot of like. I think

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Levin come, come, you know, Farisaical Levin come into the churches, the spirit of of Farisaicalism, you know, and that turned fundamentalism into something that is unhealthy, something that is actually, you know, not biblical.

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So I think that that's that's the issue. And a lot of this stuff is is a result of really the church.

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Is. Like the independent, like, for example, in a regular ordinary independent fundamental

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Baptist church. I would say they are adopting the interest in the preferences of their pastor or pastors more than what they're getting from Scripture.

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You know, so their philosophy or their viewpoint on dress standards, on music standards and things like that.

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Really are. Coming more from the pastor's.

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You know, preferences rather than thus saith the Lord. That makes sense.

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And this is, you know, and they would justify it, but say, well, you know, the

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Bible says that we have to, you know, submit to the to the pastor.

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That's what Hebrew says, you know, submit to those that have the rule over you.

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Right. And because they have to give an account for your souls on a day of judgment.

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So, yeah, that's true. You do have to submit to your pastor or leadership. But only in so much as they are following the book.

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But if their preferences are at odds with the clear teaching of God's word, then you don't continue to blindly follow them in their preferences as if their preferences have the same weight as the gospel does.

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That's that's that's where I'd all to come to. You know, and that's why I think when you add an ism to any movement, it becomes idolatry.

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And unhealthy. So I don't know if that is the type of answer you're looking for, but that's my honest assessment of, you know, the you know, the the appearance of all these independent fundamental

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Baptist churches. Hey, folks, thank you so much for tuning in to Trueology. My name is Belushi Prevalon, and if this has been a help to you in any way, please like, share and subscribe.

32:58

And if you haven't already done so right now on Spotify, you can vote for the next episode. Now, I already have a bunch of things lined up, but I want to give you the audience the opportunity to participate on what

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Trueology will be covering next. So go to Spotify, type in Trueology, vote for the next episode, and I will see you next time as we study the truth.

33:17

Thank you. So in the 19th century, in the early 20th century, conservative

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Christians were ultimately concerned that moral values were being eroded by modernism.

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And modernism is the belief that human beings, rather than God, create, improve and reshape their environment with the aid of science, scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation.

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In addition to fighting the influence of modernism, the church was struggling with German higher criticism and sought to, which ultimately sought to, you know, undermine the trust in the

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Bible. So some of what you said there was, you know, fundamentalists, the fundamentalists started out as, you know, people who believe the essentials of the faith.

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And then somewhere along there, we kind of lost that motif.

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And we started going, you know, I guess spiritual pastoral leaders took the mantle and they started becoming more independent, segregating themselves from what they deemed was a danger to the church.

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So in an effort to, I guess, preserve the fundamentals, they also created something else that had ultimate ramifications, such as, you know, single pastor leadership that ultimately had the congregations of the church look to the pastor for their convictions.

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Does that sound just about right? Yeah, I mean, I would,

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I would, I would, you know, really say that it's authoritarianism.

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You know, it's, it's this strong arm, like, you know, let's say the pastor, the pastor's leader, you know, he is going to dictate the mood of the church.

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And basically, if you don't go along with that, then, you know, maybe you're going into the world or maybe you're compromising, you know, it's, it's always the fault.

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I mean, sometimes it is, but most of the time it's, it's argued that, well, the pastor's clean and clear.

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And if people are questioning something he's doing or his, you know, scriptural preferences or the way he teaches, it must be because, well, you're just trying to tear down the pastor or you're attacking him or you're, you know, wanting to compromise, you know, and you become a threat, you know.

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So I think it's really authoritarianism. It's, you know, there's not much room to have a discussion.

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I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, painting a broad brush because I'd like to hope that there are some outliers, right?

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Some acceptance to this rule that, you know, they wouldn't be authoritarianism.

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They wouldn't be authoritarians in the hope that they would, you know, say, Hey, this is what I believe. This is what

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I'm the Bible. This is what the Bible says. I'm preaching what I believe the Bible says.

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But if I'm wrong somewhere, you know, I ain't shopping Zion and I'm humble enough to, to have a conversation with you with an open

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Bible. And let's see if, if I'm going wrong somewhere, you know, but that's usually not encouraged, you know, especially if there's only one pastor, right?

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And the deacons, if they have a deep, if they have deacons, deacons normally would be backing the pastor instead of being like a, like a neutral party, you know?

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So there's a lot of authoritarianism in, in these types of churches, unfortunately.

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And this is how they, it's like a knee jerk reaction. It's a defense mechanism. They protect themselves.

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They protect their purity, quote unquote, with this defense mechanism of closing in, in, in, you know, having like a heavy hand over the people.

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And if you like go, if you go astray from the party line, right.

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And you start questioning some, you know, pet doctrines that they have, because there's a lot of pet doctrines, like, you know, their, their legalistic view of dress standards, their, their, their legalistic view of music standards, their, you know, their views on eschatology.

38:13

You know, it's like, oh, you, you disagree with, with our, our teaching on Israel?

38:20

Well, you're, you know, you could be right on all the other fundamentals. You could be right on salvation.

38:26

Belief in the Bible was inerrant and perfect. You can believe in Jesus' death and resurrection and miracles and all that stuff.

38:33

But oh, you, you disagree with our music standards, dress standards, or our pre -trib eschatology or our position on Israel, then you're out of the, you're out of the camp.

38:46

You're, you know, you're anathema. And I think that that's authoritarian, you know.

38:52

Again, they major on the minus. Because your view on eschatology, your view on who

38:59

Israel is, your view on dress standards, your view on music standards, does not affect the gospel.

39:08

Does not affect the deed of Jesus, does not affect, you know, what you need to know to be born again, you know, and go to heaven.

39:18

But their head doctrines on such a level that questioning them on their positions is like questioning the gospel in their mind.

39:31

And they, you know, they are not interested in that conversation.

39:37

And they will band together. They will band together if they feel that a pastor.

39:43

Yeah. What I was going to say is, what would you say then, in light of what you just said, what would you say to the person that says, hey,

39:50

Jay, I hear what you're saying. And we don't want to seem legalistic. But, you know, these are just preferences. And what we know from experience is that birds of a feather flock together.

40:00

So if you do listen to music that is not necessarily holy, but is in the category of rock music, then you will continue to adopt that lifestyle.

40:11

How would you respond to someone that says that? If you start dressing a little less conservatively, then ultimately you'll also compromise on other issues.

40:22

Yeah. And I'm not and I'm not necessarily talking about listening to like the world's music, you know, but contemporary music doesn't.

40:30

I'm not referring to the world's music like non -Christian music, like music that clearly glorifies the devil or, you know.

40:41

Lust or greed or things like that, things of the flesh. I'm talking about, you know, having a preference for music that is not the same as the pastor.

40:56

You see, that's I think that's the atmosphere that these independent Baptist churches adopt.

41:02

They become mirror images of their pastor. And in some ways it's not bad if the pastor is solid, then, you know, most likely the church will reflect that.

41:15

But if the pastor is unbalanced, the church is going to reflect that in many cases. And as far as like, you know, claiming that you, you know, if you disagree with only having a piano in church, then that must mean that you love the world's music.

41:38

That's that's such a big leap in logic that I can't fathom.

41:43

I mean, because if you go back enough centuries in church history.

41:51

Well, you know, especially before and after the Protestant Reformation, there was church fellowships that, you know, sang acapella.

42:03

They didn't have any instruments. They didn't even have a piano or nothing. So if they were alive today, they would if they came into an independent fundamental

42:12

Baptist church. Then they would consider that church, you know, contemporary because that church is using a piano.

42:23

And many Christian churches in the past did not use any instruments.

42:31

So this this idea that that, you know, music standards are fixed and they can't be negotiated.

42:39

No, it's not fixed, actually. It's it's pretty ambiguous.

42:46

And also, you know, how do you I mean, what do you do with Psalms?

42:52

Right. This the book of Psalms is the biggest book in the Bible. And that book is all about music.

43:00

It's all about music. You know, the word Psalm means Psalm. So and also, what do you do with many places in the

43:12

Psalms? It gives us a command to worship the Lord with instruments.

43:18

Right. Worship the Lord with instruments. For example, I think of Psalm 150. Worship the

43:25

Lord with loud sounding cymbals. That doesn't sound like just using a piano in church.

43:32

And if God doesn't change and God is the same yesterday, today and forever, then how

43:38

God wants to be worshipped, then is how God wants to be worshipped now.

43:45

And so I'm not against a church that has a piano. That's fine if that's what you as a congregation, you know, accept or want or prefer all the power to you.

43:59

But you have no right to dictate to another local church or condemn them or make them feel guilty for something they're not doing wrong.

44:08

Don't talk down to another church that has a different standard of music than you do.

44:16

Because the Bible gives us liberty in how we use instruments or not use instruments to worship the

44:25

Lord. If it's done unto the Lord, that's the most important thing. You know, I would consider judging whether, you know, music, you know, or worship team is godly or not in a church.

44:41

Judge the lifestyle of the choir members, the worship team members.

44:47

Judge the lyrics of the song. Right. A song is not godly or ungodly just because it was written 2 ,000 years ago or written in this year.

44:59

That's not the criteria. The criteria is does it glorify the Lord? Does it teach

45:06

Bible truth? And also how,

45:12

I mean, when you're at a church that uses different instruments, right, do the instruments drown out the singing?

45:24

Or do the instruments complement the singing? See, these are the criteria you should go by.

45:31

Not just saying, well, unless you use a piano, then your church is worldly.

45:36

That's just too simplistic. And it's really judgmental. It's a pharisaical spirit.

45:42

And I don't think that's what the Bible teaches us to do. And I don't think that's the spirit that Jesus wants us to have towards each other, towards Christians that have a different preference on this.

45:55

So I think that, you know, when churches get to the point where they're majoring on the minors and they become legalistic, egotistical or elitist, they are doing more harm to the cause of Christ than are helping.

46:16

They're separating from other believers in other churches unnecessarily, you know, due to their high standards, you know, so that's that's unfortunate because when we get to heaven, the people that we're going to see are not only going to be independent.

46:36

You know, they're going to be Christians from churches of all different stripes and preferences.

46:46

So I think that's I think that we are getting away from wanting to honor the prayer that Jesus prayed.

46:54

But he said, you know, in the in the in the so -called Lord's Prayer, he says, thy kingdom come, talking to his father.

47:02

Right. And he was giving the disciples an example of how they should pray to their father when they go to him in prayer.

47:09

And he was saying, you know, pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

47:16

So the church and churches should reflect what heaven is going to be like.

47:23

The churches should reflect the variety we're going to see in heaven. It's not all cookie cutter

47:29

Christians up there in heaven. It's not all cookie cutter churches up there.

47:34

So we're going to have to start tolerating the differences we have that are minor preferences instead of judging each other and being mean spirited about it and thinking as if we're the only holy church on the block because we use a piano.

47:49

We don't use a guitar or saxophone in worship or whatever. It's really immature.

47:57

That's it's really immature. People think that they're holier than the next church.

48:03

Really, what's going on is they're more immature than the next church. The Bible says when you could try to compare yourself with other people, you're unwise.

48:14

You're being unwise. You're thinking of yourself more highly than you are. And that's a spirit we need to repent of.

48:21

We need to repent of that spirit because it's not of Christ. It's not of Christ.

48:26

And I don't know, what was the other one you asked about? You asked something about,

48:32

I think you asked two questions. One was about music and something else. Well, just the definition of fundamentalism and what it has become today.

48:42

But I actually wanted to segue into something else in light of what you did just say.

48:47

It seems like fundamentalism today is kind of labeling. Like if someone doesn't dress, talk, and walk like you do, it's almost that you're labeled as someone who is possibly compromising.

49:00

And being labeled a compromiser is, unwittingly, is actually the liberal view.

49:08

Because if you want to disfellowship with someone because of how they dress and how maybe immature they are at the moment, it ultimately makes you the

49:18

Pharisee and hold the liberal view of Christian unity. Because I think yesterday when we were talking on the phone, you were talking about the difference between of uniformity and unity.

49:29

Not everyone needs to be cookie cutter. When we get to heaven, we're not going to all have to keep quiet because the

49:35

Baptists are worshiping. There's going to be a lot more Christians there. So I'd like to ask you, in light of what you did just explain.

49:44

So what ultimately led you to leave the IFB circles? Was it really just like the

49:49

Phariseeicalism? Was it the church culture, like the preaching exactly? Was it just the evangelistic method that I think me and you would both disagree with?

50:01

We do not hold to the, I guess, the tenets of easy believism or the sinner's prayer method.

50:07

I'm not against things like the Roman's road. But I think, you know, an overuse of the

50:12

Roman's road has discipled the church to a simplistic and gospel approach that has made it, that has caused us to lose the story of the gospel and the impact of it.

50:24

We're actually trying to lead people down the six verses that could help them to get to heaven. When really we should be proclaiming the good news of Christ's resurrection and establishment in heaven even now.

50:35

And which is all part of the glory of the gospel. You know, Christ didn't just rise from the dead, but he's established in heaven.

50:41

And that actually means something for people. But yeah, I'd like to know what is, what ultimately led you out of the

50:47

IFB? And is it just those things or is it also something else that is intertwined with it?

50:55

Yeah, so I mean, I'll tell you exactly what happened. I'll give you my story in an abbreviated sense as much as possible.

51:05

So, sure. And blame my name, I guess. My name, the name

51:12

Jay means person that has much to say. So blame my name.

51:18

But, so basically. So in other words, you're a

51:23

Baptist preacher. You've got a few things to say, even though we're going to be here for another two hours.

51:29

All right. Go ahead. Go ahead. Just give me the abbreviated version of your story. All right.

51:34

Go ahead. So basically what happened was I started desiring to hear more than topical sermons.

51:45

Because that's big in that movement, the

51:51

Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement. And now I would say some of them are trying to move away from the fundamental label.

51:58

And they just want to call themselves Independent Baptist Churches. But there's still a fundamentalism streak there, which they may be trying to hide from.

52:08

But in any event, that movement is very shallow when it comes to Bible.

52:14

And I'm speaking in a broad sense. I know there's some exceptions. There's some local

52:20

Independent Fundamental Baptist Churches that are the exception. But for the most part, those in that movement are very shallow.

52:29

The pulpits are very shallow in teaching through the Bible. Book by book, line by line.

52:35

Precept upon precept. They teach topical messages, topical sermons.

52:42

And I think they do that because part of them wants to control the messaging that's coming from the pulpit.

52:50

They want to control what the Bible says. And they can do that when they teach only topical sermons.

52:57

But I thought that it was supposed to be the Bible controls us and not we control the

53:05

Bible. I thought God's word was supposed to control the preacher and not the preacher trying to control

53:13

God's word. But so I, you know, for a lot of years, because of my upbringing and I was raised in a broken home,

53:24

I didn't have a father. So when I was growing in my faith,

53:30

I got saved when I was eight years old and I lost my dad. The next year when

53:37

I was nine, so I didn't I didn't grow up without a father. And I began to grow in my

53:43

Christian faith. You know, the Holy Spirit in me was giving me a desire to want to follow

53:49

Jesus. And and, you know, as a teenager, I struggled because I didn't have, you know, a father,

53:57

Rome, a good role model in my life. But I started to latch on to the preachers at my church and the

54:04

Independent Fundamental Baptist Church that I was going to. And I started to see that, hey, this guy is a strong man and I need a strong man as a role model in my life because I don't have my father in my life.

54:17

So I latched on to that. And for a lot of years, I took for granted.

54:23

What he said and what he taught, the main the main preacher, and I didn't realize that he wasn't really teaching us the whole

54:33

Bible. Like Paul, Paul says, I have not shunned to declare the whole counsel of God.

54:40

Right. So he was sharing all of God's word that that he had with the

54:46

Ephesian elders. He was trying to disciple before he left them. And you can read that in the book of Acts.

54:53

So. I didn't realize that year after year after year. We were not getting the whole counsel of God.

55:02

We were getting maybe a four or five or six different topics rotated. You know, so we hear them over and over again, you know, and we weren't getting fed, you know.

55:14

But I didn't realize that because, again, I was just latched on to the strong leadership because I felt like, hey, they have what

55:23

I'm lacking. So I'm just going to, you know, take for granted that he's he's giving us

55:28

God's truth. He's giving us the whole truth. But. When after I had some, you know, some things that came up after a brief period of rebellion,

55:42

God restored me and then started really like digging into God's word, studying it, like just reading through it, you know, chapter by chapter, line by line.

55:54

And the more I did that, the more I realized, hey, they're not doing that. So why am

56:00

I reading the whole Bible line by line, book by book, chapter by chapter on my own?

56:07

But I'm not seeing that. In the pulpit, I'm not seeing that example in the pulpit.

56:13

Why are they giving me shallow, repetitive, topical messages, but I'm reading the entire book on my own.

56:23

Something's not. Consistent here. Something's not adding up. But I was afraid to to kind of raise these questions because I had such respect for this, for this man of God, because he was, you know, he became a good friend over time and became like a like someone

56:43

I would look up to as a father. So I was very hesitant to ask him, hey, you know. Why aren't you teaching through the

56:50

Bible? And I would I would start listening to the radio. Dr. J. Bernard McGee.

56:56

He was a preacher who lived and preached out in California and he died,

57:02

I think, in the early 80s. But he he still has a radio program and it's still it's still accessible today.

57:10

It's called through the Bible. So he teaches through the Bible line by line, book by book.

57:16

And so I I wanted that I wanted that that that method of learning

57:23

God's word. So I did get the courage to go up to the preacher.

57:29

I don't know why I'm pointing over there. It's just the way I talk. I'm Italian. So no one's over there.

57:35

That's how I speak. So I went up to the preacher and I and I said, you know, would you ever consider teaching through the books of the

57:47

Bible? And God's my witness. This is what he told me. He said, I don't believe the church.

57:54

Would be interested in that. So that's why I don't do it. And I couldn't believe my the answer, because I'm like, wait a minute.

58:03

You don't get your marching orders from the people in the pew. You get your marching orders from God, from the

58:10

God of heaven. It doesn't matter if the church doesn't want you to teach through the

58:16

Bible. It doesn't matter if the church doesn't want you to teach the Bible line by line, book by book, chapter by chapter, through the entire word of God.

58:25

That's your calling. That's your job as a pastor to do that, to give us the whole counsel of God, as Paul said.

58:33

And what he and then what he did next was he gave me, you know, some cassettes, because back then that's what he had in this recital.

58:45

Maybe more than 15 years ago now. But he he was like, yeah, here's some.

58:51

Here comes here some cassettes. And also you can listen to Dr.

58:57

McGee on the radio. If you want to have the Bible taught to you line by line, book by book, then you can let these other pastors and teachers teach you.

59:08

And I was thinking to myself, well, they're not my pastor. You know, part of my tithe and offering don't go to pay their salary.

59:17

It goes to pay your salary. You're my pastor. They're not my pastor. So why am

59:23

I going to them to get the Bible taught to me line by line, book by book, chapter by chapter?

59:29

Why can't you do it? I was thinking all these things and started to, you know, those thoughts started to, you know, dwell in my in my mind over the years.

59:38

And then as I was studying through the

59:44

Bible line by line, book by book, I started seeing that some of the doctrines that we were believing as a church and we were having the pastor teach us did not come from studying the

59:59

Bible line by line, chapter by chapter. It came from picking verses here and there like he would do during a topical sermon.

01:00:10

So I realized that we don't have Bible weight behind our.

01:00:17

You know, philosophy on dress, our philosophy or our teaching on music.

01:00:24

We don't have Bible weight behind our, you know, our like legalistic spirit.

01:00:34

Well, I was shunning other Christians or kind of talking down to them.

01:00:41

You know, we don't have that. It's not there. And I eventually got the courage to request a meeting with the pastor, and I met several times with him.

01:00:51

I tried to stay. I did not want to leave because it's not easy leaving a church.

01:00:57

So I wanted to stay. Plus, I, you know, I did love them and I did feel like they were family.

01:01:04

But, you know, I felt like, hey, you know, this is the word of God. So ultimately,

01:01:10

I am accountable to the word of God. I'm not ultimately accountable to a man of God or a preacher.

01:01:19

And it was like Martin Luther, you know, when he, you know, was standing up against the

01:01:27

Catholic Church. And he was saying, look, I'm not trying to be a troublemaker here, but my conscience is captive to the word of God.

01:01:37

You know, here I stand. I can do no other. And that was my that was my feeling.

01:01:43

That was that was basically my my mindset. And so they they met with I met with the deacons, met with other neutral parties, tried to work it out.

01:01:55

But basically, I was told this is the way I was told by the preacher.

01:02:02

This is the way I've done it for 40 years. I'm not changing. Basically, that's what he said. And he basically and he wrote me a letter, too.

01:02:10

And I still have it. I still have the letter. And he said, my ideas are dangerous. My ideas are dangerous because.

01:02:17

I'm getting correct theology in correct Bible. Opinions and correct

01:02:25

Bible preferences from. Rightly dividing the word of truth, taking the

01:02:31

Bible line by line. Chapter by chapter. Then.

01:02:38

So be it. They labeled Mount Luther, Mount Luther dangerous and more. So I was in good company.

01:02:45

And as much as I didn't want to leave, I had to because they weren't going to change.

01:02:54

They were going to continue teaching topical topical messages. They weren't going to study the issues.

01:03:02

You know, with extra Jesus, which means reading the Bible and getting truth from it.

01:03:09

They wanted to read their own truth into the Bible. And I couldn't tolerate that anymore.

01:03:17

So I did believe in some of the other things that they stood for. I believe the King James Bible is the is the most faithful and best translation in English.

01:03:28

It's God's preserved word in English. And I do you know,

01:03:33

I did appreciate the passion that they had for soul winning, even though I started to see that, you know, this method that they're using is not biblical.

01:03:47

I mean, I know the passion is there. Right. But just because you have zeal doesn't mean you have knowledge.

01:03:53

Right. We see that in Romans 10 with the people of Israel. They had zeal for God, not according to knowledge.

01:04:00

So a Christian could have zeal and passion, but not have knowledge to actually direct that passion to do it biblically.

01:04:08

And so this is what I was seeing that this, you know, some people call it easy believism where they basically.

01:04:16

And I wouldn't call it easy believism, because I think once God, you know.

01:04:24

You know, once God convinced convinces someone that they are a sinner and they respond to that, that it's easy to believe, it's easy to get saved.

01:04:35

But so I wouldn't call it easy believism, although I know what people mean by that. But I would call it quick prayerism, quick prayerism with a pressure.

01:04:46

The person that they've just given the Romans road to these verses in Romans road that they used for witnessing.

01:04:53

They pressure that person to pray a quick prayer of salvation that they call the sinner's prayer.

01:04:59

They pressure that person to repeat a phrase by phrase scripted prayer, not a heartfelt prayer, not something that the

01:05:09

Holy Spirit is in. But it's more like a fleshly carnal script to read or recite.

01:05:18

And then they started to pronounce people saved.

01:05:24

Oh, you just prayed that sinner's prayer with me? That means you're saved. I started realizing that's not in the

01:05:30

Bible. I'm sorry, that's not in the Bible. And all these things were adding up in my in my conscience.

01:05:36

And I realized I can't stay here because they're not interested in hearing me trying to show them in scripture where this where we're not.

01:05:46

We're not biblically based. And so I felt for my own spiritual health.

01:05:53

And also for the for the cause of Christ, I need to leave because I believe that the cause of Christ is bigger than me.

01:06:00

It's bigger than any one person. And I didn't want to stay in stay in contention.

01:06:08

You know, I don't want to stay there and cause a church split, have people leave or pick my side or whatever.

01:06:13

No, I I really didn't tell anybody else about why I left. I the pastor and the deacons knew, but I didn't go around and spread, you know, discord and tell other people.

01:06:26

I just, you know, basically wrote a letter and I said, if you want to read this to the church, you can read it.

01:06:36

Here's my reasons why I'm not backing down from what I believe is true. And I will not embrace any doctrine or any method or practice.

01:06:46

That does not come from sound. Eschatology sound exegesis, sound exegesis.

01:06:56

I will not embrace any teaching or preference or method that you cannot find in the

01:07:04

Bible. By rightly dividing. So I had to leave.

01:07:10

And, you know, and, you know, I was I was called dangerous.

01:07:15

And my ideas, you know, going to lead to compromise and the next generation, all that stuff.

01:07:22

And it's really sad because, you know, for example, in the in the in the in the in the discussion about dress.

01:07:31

They gave me two verses that mainly these churches in this movement hinge their whole doctrine on on dress on like Deuteronomy 25.

01:07:44

It says a man should not wear what pertains to a woman and a woman should not wear what pertains to a man.

01:07:52

But and so they say that see that verse right there in Deuteronomy. That's talking about pants.

01:07:58

A woman can't wear pants and a man can't wear dress. Well, that's not what that verse is talking about.

01:08:05

The word pants was not even invented back in the day that Deuteronomy was written.

01:08:11

Moses, who wrote that book in the Torah, had no idea about pants. So the context is talking about garments of warfare because it was a sin and it was compromised for God's people to allow a woman to go to war.

01:08:30

Right. And put on the arm of warfare. That was not supposed to happen.

01:08:36

You know, and also a man was not supposed to be a coward in trying to stay home and, you know, be like a housewife.

01:08:49

No, that's not his role. His role, you know, in times of war or in times when he had to protect his family.

01:08:55

He needs to be out there being a protector and a leader, not in the home doing what a woman is supposed to do.

01:09:01

And a woman is not supposed to be on the front lines, wearing the weapons of war, going to fight and trying to trying to be a tough guy and protect her family like a man is supposed to.

01:09:13

So that's the context. That's a historical context. And see, when you don't study the Bible line by line, verse by verse, and you and you, you know,

01:09:23

I mean, it's like people, people in these pulpits today. Unfortunately, they don't treat the Bible like they treat any other book.

01:09:30

If you read any other book and you watch, or if you watch a movie, you always have to know the scenery.

01:09:36

You have to know what's going on. Who's the audience, right? When you read a book, you have to know what's the scenery.

01:09:43

What's the what's the time period? Who's the audience? Well, all of a sudden, when we come to the

01:09:49

Bible, we don't have to know who the audience is. We don't have to know the historical context. We don't have to know the grammatical context.

01:09:56

We just have to, you know, read our 21st century ideas into a book that was not written in the 21st century.

01:10:04

I mean, it's just not logical. You know, and so that's what's happening with false teachings, because they're not reading the

01:10:11

Bible with understanding. And therefore, they come up with all these false. And also the other the other the other verse they give me is, oh, well, doesn't the

01:10:22

New Testament say that a woman should be arrayed in modest apparel? Yes, I agree with that.

01:10:29

But read the context. What's the context? Is that talking about she can't wear pants? She can only wear a dress everywhere she goes, especially in church.

01:10:37

That's not the context, because in the context, they were talking about women and men, by the way, not showing up in a church gathering wearing your wealth on your on your sleeve.

01:10:49

So don't come to a church fellowship where there's going to be other poor people there and where your gold earrings and your makeup and your your best, you know, looking like a million dollars or whatever.

01:11:00

That is not what they wanted in that in that time period, because they didn't want the poor

01:11:07

Christians to feel like they were not welcome because everybody else is wearing wealthy clothes and wearing their wealth on their sleeves.

01:11:15

So, you know, that passage there, I think it was in Timothy was it was telling the people, look, when you come together.

01:11:27

You have to be arrayed, you have to be dressed in financially modest apparel.

01:11:34

It's not talking about sexuality or sensuality, because that was understood, you know, obviously don't don't come to church naked or don't come to church sexually revealing.

01:11:45

But the context primarily was dealing with financial matters and in dressing financially modest.

01:11:54

And that should be true today as well. Right. Jesus, the Gospels tell us that the common man, listen to Jesus, the common man.

01:12:03

Right. So that included the poor. That included the workers, the workers.

01:12:09

It didn't include the wealthy or the religious elite. Those people didn't listen. And even to this day, the common person are the working people and the poor.

01:12:19

So when you have church, you shouldn't have the mature believers wearing all their wealth to church, wearing looking like they're a mobster or looking like they're, you know, a million, a millionaire or whatever.

01:12:34

That's not that's not the environment we should be promoting. We should be promoting equality and not putting the focus on what

01:12:41

I'm wearing, what she's wearing. But the focus should be on holiness unto the Lord. And some people object and say, yeah, well, brother

01:12:48

Dave, we don't have people wearing suits in church. That means that we're not serious about Jesus because look at the presidents.

01:12:56

They wear suits. Look at it. Yeah. Well, so doesn't the mafia. So does that mean that because the president wears a suit, they're close to God?

01:13:03

Does that mean that the mafia who wear suits are close to God? The argument is is nonsensical.

01:13:10

Just because you wear a suit does not mean you're closer to God than someone who doesn't wear a suit to church. But that's the elite attitude in the legalistic attitude.

01:13:20

And some of these churches, I would say many of these churches, if you don't wear a suit, that means you're a carnal Christian, you're a worldly Christian, you're a second class

01:13:28

Christian. And that means you're not serious about the Lord. That is that that couldn't be further from the truth.

01:13:36

Man is obsessed with what you wear. Right. But God says,

01:13:42

I don't look on outward appearance. I look in the heart. God does not care so much about what you wear to church as the heart inside.

01:13:57

You know, he wants he cares more about the soul inside the person wearing the suit than he does outside.

01:14:04

But we are majoring on them on the minors. We are exalting the superficial, the outward, the external.

01:14:12

And I think they're missing the point. Now, I'm not saying everybody should come to church wearing tank tops and shorts.

01:14:17

I mean, you should dress within reason. Right. Who are you coming to church to exalt yourself or Christ?

01:14:24

You then dress within reason. But to add rules and legalism and start judging each other is a mistake.

01:14:33

And it's it's hurting the cause of Christ. It's hurting our unity that we already have in the spirit.

01:14:38

That Bible does not call us to uniformity. It calls us to keep the unity.

01:14:44

We already have the unity in the spirit. It tells us to keep it in Ephesians. It tells us to keep it, not make it, not make some false unity, but to keep the unity of the

01:14:55

Holy Spirit that we already have as a family and body of Christ. But nowhere does the

01:15:02

Bible say that churches must be promoting uniformity. No.

01:15:09

And I would say if you want to require me to wear it because it was really it really required it when

01:15:15

I was there. You want to require me to wear a suit? Why don't you pay the bill for me to get it dry cleaned every week?

01:15:23

You see, no one. Yeah, they were awfully silent on that aspect. Right. They want me to wear a suit every week, but they don't want to help me pay the bill to get it dry clean.

01:15:33

They expect you to tithe and give an offering. But they don't consider that it costs money to get your suit dry clean and you wear it every week.

01:15:43

So I think that's a little inconsistent. And this is what this is, the shallowness of these manmade rules that they disguise or they couch in spiritual terminology and they make someone feel guilty or less of a

01:16:00

Christian because they're not conforming to the external legalism that they want to push on.

01:16:06

I think that's a problem. I think that's that's a problem. And I think that's killing the movement.

01:16:12

And that's why the movement is bleeding people like me who I want.

01:16:17

I wanted to stay. I there was a lot that I that I really liked, but the legalism and the superficiality and the judgmentalism and the lack of unity is making that movement bleed.

01:16:33

And maybe it should be because maybe this movement, which began, you know, since there it began as a as a movement to try to reclaim conservative principles and get back to the to the scripture and cling to the fundamentals of the faith that they saw, you know, churches compromising back in the day.

01:16:55

Right. But I think the spirit of the Pharisees has come into that movement and it's and it's it's causing it to to become something that the

01:17:11

Bible doesn't recognize as a whole. There's a lot of good people in that movement, but they need to reevaluate the spirit in that movement.

01:17:24

Hey, folks, thank you so much for tuning in to Trueology. My name is Belushi Prevalon. And if this has been a help to you in any way, please like, share and subscribe.

01:17:32

And if you haven't already done so right now on Spotify, you can vote for the next episode. Now, I already have a bunch of things lined up, but I want to give you the audience the opportunity to participate on what

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01:17:51

Thank you. When I asked you, you know, what caused you to leave, it seems like you really narrowed it down to preaching and the

01:17:58

Bible, the preaching of the Bible, exegesis and hermeneutics. This is interesting because right now

01:18:04

I'm actually going through my first series, which is called The Most Abused and Misused Verses of the

01:18:10

Bible. And what I'm trying to tackle is basically the need for exegesis and hermeneutics and looking at, you know, the false interpretations that have been produced out of these famous verses of the

01:18:22

Bible. You said it was basically sermon types, you know, from topical.

01:18:30

It was topical rather than, you know, line by line, verse by verse. No expository preaching, just copy.

01:18:39

Yeah, no expository. I would even argue, you know, like topical sermons should be expository in nature because, you know, there are no verses or paragraphs.

01:18:50

There's no chapters and verses in the Bible. It's, you know, that's something that is a modern development.

01:18:55

And when we take a verse in isolation like that and we make it, you know, about us for the sake of practicality, what we're doing is we're actually being very unfaithful to the context and the meaning that the author intended.

01:19:09

It's interesting because, you know, one of the reasons that provoked me to do my first series on The Most Abused and Misused Verses of the

01:19:16

Bible was the fact that, you know, I think it was like maybe two and a half or three years into my Christian walk that I have ever, that I first heard of the word exegesis.

01:19:24

And when I first heard it, it was, I guess I was watching some, someone on YouTube, some

01:19:29

Bible preacher on YouTube, and he said exegesis and hermeneutics. And immediately I was like, what's that?

01:19:35

You know, I'm like, did he just say exegesis in Jesus? What's that got to do with Bible interpretation? You know,

01:19:40

I really had that reaction because, you know, three years into my Christian walk and I'm just finding out about what, how to interpret the

01:19:48

Bible and what it really means out of the text rather than lead into the text, which is exegesis rather than exegesis.

01:19:55

And, you know, ultimately I think the reason why, you know, topical sermons have become so popular among fundamentalists is because, as you said, it allows the congregation to rely on the centrality of the preacher and most will not admit that.

01:20:13

And I believe well -meaning pastors do not believe that themselves, but it does functionally create that.

01:20:20

Like in a functional sense, it does create that. I know you don't intend it to be like that, but people do see it that way and it is received that way and you can tell because of the results.

01:20:30

And, you know, it, and that has also created like this culture of Sunday morning services, you know,

01:20:37

Sunday morning services have now become, you know, evangelism time and gospel time, then education time and edification time and discipleship time.

01:20:47

You know, topical sermons, as you said, I'm surprised you actually said what you said there when you asked the preacher that you're talking about, why doesn't he preach like this?

01:20:55

He said, I don't think the congregation would be interested in it. I think one of the reasons why is because, you know, of that church culture that has developed come into Sunday morning service and that's basically their

01:21:06

Christianity once a week. And they don't expect to have a sermon that is densely going through the

01:21:12

Bible for them to understand it and develop a proper robust theology, but rather they expect for a message that is practical in nature, simple to digest so that they can make it basically make it until the

01:21:24

Wednesday night service. And in the midweek, you know, that's not historically how the church has looked at sermons and in the church body as a whole, it has always been the shepherds under the chief shepherd,

01:21:38

Jesus Christ feeding the sheep. And, you know, some people will say, well, you can't preach verse by verse through the

01:21:44

Bible, go through books of the Bible. That's like, you know, what if the spirit leads me to do this and that, you know, you can't put God in the box.

01:21:49

But it's interesting because God has already set the schedule, read his word and go through it.

01:21:55

You don't put God in the box when you're going through it meticulously. As a matter of fact, it's a higher form of devotion to do that because you're saying this is what matters.

01:22:04

This is what we're going to focus on. Everything else is secondary. We must digest every piece of this to show the

01:22:10

God that we worship, that we really do love his word. We want it in us and we want to express out of us for his glory sake.

01:22:17

You know, I this also, you know, leads into, you know, gospel presentations, why they become so trite in nature.

01:22:25

And and, you know, decisionism, theology and sinner sinners, prayerism or whatever.

01:22:31

What you mentioned earlier, you know, it's it's just praying the prayer and having the person essentially become a trophy and said, we got one more.

01:22:38

You know, and then kind of leaving them off to themselves to, you know, you know, it doesn't happen for everyone.

01:22:45

But like what happened to you, you know, you kind of were led into looking at the Bible critically enough to be able to say, wow, there's a lot more in here than just those six sermons in cycle every year.

01:22:56

You know, it's it's sad that it has to be like that. But I believe this this actually is in reference to what

01:23:04

I've called the shallow bucket theory, which is the theory that addresses why people are afraid to evangelize and why people have such shallow theology in the first place.

01:23:13

Christians is because the gospel you receive is the gospel you live out. You know, if I tell you to come join the work and it's very simple to just be a member of the of the work.

01:23:23

Well, when you when you join, you're not expecting to do anything major. You have all you need.

01:23:29

You're being told that, well, you just need to know God loves you. Jesus is the way and you just need to come to church on Sundays to stay right with God.

01:23:36

You know, those three things. I mean, people check those off really quickly and there's really nothing else. There's no desire to dive into the

01:23:44

Bible and read the scriptures and to develop that that the whole counsel of God into a proper theology.

01:23:50

Not just, you know, your heart, but your mind, your whole soul, it transforms you and allows you to be effective for the

01:23:57

Lord's sake. I'm really sad to see it like that. And I know there are many people that share your story.

01:24:04

I'll be honest. I'm kind of in the midst of that myself because, you know, you already know where I'm at. And it's like, you know,

01:24:10

I've you know, I've talked to the pastor many times on these issues and saying, man, I just wish there was something more.

01:24:16

And I do it in the spirit of humility. And I try to approach it very respectfully because I didn't get to where I'm at here overnight.

01:24:23

And neither is it. Do I would I expect someone to come over on my side overnight?

01:24:28

It's got to take some patience and saying, hey, what about this? Hey, can we you know, I'd like to see this.

01:24:33

What do you think about that? You know, it's you know, and it's not you know, when people approach their pastors with that kind of sentiment,

01:24:40

I hope that pastors in fundamentalism would not simply wave their hand and say, no, no, no, we don't do that.

01:24:47

You know that that's not how we're going to do it here. You know, I hope they don't respond that way because then it does demonstrate immaturity.

01:24:55

You know, as much as they would say the opposite of that, it does demonstrate someone who is not willing to actually see what, you know, is is is the depths of the scriptures and what

01:25:08

Christ is actually about, because we can't our Christian life around just these these non -essential things like dress standards and music standards and, you know, preserving our purity.

01:25:20

When really there's so much more in the scriptures. That's why, you know, I'm not ashamed to admit it.

01:25:26

I'm a professing post -millennial, and I believe that, you know, the scriptures teach that the gospel does in the

01:25:32

Lordship of Jesus Christ does does effectuate into the reality that we as Christians must affect culture in general.

01:25:40

But, you know, I live in a circumstance right now in my church culture where that's not really the focus.

01:25:45

Talking about politics is to be seen as something that's so secular and outside of what we need to do in the church in our church right now, which is basically to come to church on Sundays and Wednesdays and just have the practical sermon and be stewards of the little ministries that we have.

01:26:02

It's like, no, you know, I believe God wants people to be doctors. I believe God wants people to be lawyers.

01:26:07

I believe he wants them to engage the mayor of every city. And, you know, and if they're legislating wrong, we need to be the prophetic voice to say, hey, thou shalt not because God said so.

01:26:18

You know, we're not supposed to just kind of, you know, cut ourselves away from all those aspects of, you know, the civility and reality and just say, no, that's a second class kind of thing.

01:26:30

That's the secular thing. We are just here to be pious in our little box because that's not really the message of the gospel.

01:26:36

From my perspective, it is a gospel that not that does not just regenerate and reinvigorate the soul of an individual, but also pours out of them and affects many other things.

01:26:49

But what do you think is you know, I want to wrap it up here because we're just about, you know, an hour and a half into this.

01:26:56

I want to I want to ask you, how do you think this can be fixed? You know, what are the key things, if you could, you know,

01:27:04

I know you're a Baptist preacher, but be brief real quick. What do you think are the key things that we can introduce to this discussion that would help us help everyone that's listening up into this point?

01:27:18

See how to fix this issue if they're in what we're talking about now. How would they fix this?

01:27:24

How could they go about addressing this? How could they take this right now and consider it and see whether it be true in their in their own circles to reach a conclusion and resolution?

01:27:36

Well, I it's not an easy it's not an easy solution. It's not an easy fix, but I would say we've got to stop the name calling.

01:27:44

We've got to stop the name calling. You know, when someone had like, for example, I know a preacher who was kicked out of a

01:27:54

Baptist fellowship of other independent like minded Baptist churches because he had because they believe he had the wrong view on eschatology, specifically concerning Israel.

01:28:07

And instead of wanting a conversation with them and, you know, opening the scripture and eyeing sharpens eyeing and trying to understand each each other's perspective from the scripture from an open book.

01:28:22

They call them names and they kicked them out. That is not how we should treat each other as as members of the family of God.

01:28:32

We're one body. We're one body. We're one family of Christ.

01:28:40

And your view on eschatology, politics, end times, your view on music, your view on dress, all these, you know, your view on, you know, how many times you go to church during the week.

01:28:57

Do you go once a week? Do you go midweek? Do you have a prayer service as well?

01:29:03

How long and all this stuff. I think the again, we have to go back to the fundamentals.

01:29:11

We have to acknowledge and recognize what is mere

01:29:18

Christianity, right? What is basic Christian, like mere Christian, like the book that CS Lewis wrote mere

01:29:26

Christianity, basic Christian. What is the fundamentals of the faith?

01:29:31

What is the what is what is a major doctrine and what is a minor issue? If we confuse the two, if we start elevating minor issues to be major doctrinal issues, it's not going to help the conversation.

01:29:48

I mean, you have two Christians in one room and you're going to have three different opinions.

01:29:54

And that's just the way it works. We are all opinionated. We all have views.

01:29:59

We all are trying. Hopefully we're all trying to be true to Scripture, not just true to our preferences or true to our traditions.

01:30:10

But true to the Scripture. I was just I wanted to I wanted to give you this this this passage because this is from Isaiah 28, 9 and 10.

01:30:24

And this the context here is God trying to help his people understand, like, how are they going to approach the revelation that he gives him, the truth that he gives him.

01:30:39

And this is this is what he says in this context. He says, whom shall he teach knowledge and whom shall he make to understand doctrine?

01:30:50

Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

01:31:03

So from what I get out of this section of Scripture, he's saying.

01:31:10

Who is going to understand knowledge, who's going to understand doctrine? It's going to be it's going to be understood when it's revealed precept upon precept, line upon line.

01:31:25

And I think that is the formula for how we approach the finished word of God, because now we have the whole

01:31:33

Bible. We have all 66 books back then. They didn't have the entire canon closed, but now we do.

01:31:42

So how do we get teaching? How do we get doctrine? How do we understand it?

01:31:48

Line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept. You approach the study and the preaching of God's word line upon line, not topic by topic.

01:31:58

It doesn't say topic by topic. It says line upon line. And if you follow that to the logical conclusion, that means you're going to go line upon line, chapter by chapter, book by book through the entire

01:32:14

Bible. That is right there. That is the way that Scripture is telling us we should approach

01:32:21

Scripture. So if we will get back to that and we will stop being so judgmental and harsh against each other when we have different views.

01:32:34

But we're willing to sit down, break open the Scripture, read it line upon line, book by book, have solid exegesis, and let's see, let's be humble.

01:32:50

That's also what we need. We need humility. Maybe we're wrong.

01:32:56

Maybe you're wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. We need to be approachable and humble, be willing to accept the whole counsel of God, be willing to teach and preach the whole counsel of God.

01:33:10

And let's just have respect for one another. Let's just have fellowship, community, love.

01:33:20

You know, the world's going to know that we are Jesus's disciples by the love we have towards one another.

01:33:27

That's how the world knows we're Christians, by how much we love. All these petty disagreements, all these petty separations are not helping our witness in the world.

01:33:42

Yes, we're going to have disagreements. But the world is witnessing the harsh comments back and forth.

01:33:49

And now with social media, with the Internet, you can pull up someone's video. You got one pastor ripping the face off another pastor in his pulpit and being harsh and judgmental.

01:34:02

And, you know, that's got to stop. You know, we got to return to civility.

01:34:08

Civility. We need civility. We need humility. And there's no easy solution.

01:34:16

But if we will remember civility, remember humility, and remember the way that the

01:34:23

Bible tells us how to approach the Bible. Then I think we can start to, you know, start to come through this fog of unsound teaching, this fog of harshness in the spirit of criticism, unjust criticism.

01:34:45

The spirit of elitism and holier than thou in this these these isms that we've attached ourselves to.

01:34:55

And I think that's where we should begin. And I think God's waiting for us.

01:35:00

And the question for all of us is, how long are we going to make God wait?

01:35:07

How long are we going to make God wait? Yeah, excellent. Thank you for that.

01:35:13

I would add, you know, you know, to what you said, you know, we can't separate over the secondary issues.

01:35:20

You know, you know, I'm not advocating this, but Pastor Richie, it sounds like you're saying it's okay to believe in paedo -baptism and wear a

01:35:28

Gucci belt to church tomorrow. Is that, you know, is that going to affect my salvation? You know, I'm not, you know,

01:35:34

I'm just trying to be comical. But, you know, seriously, you know, secondary issues should not change our fundamental unity in the fact that we believe in the same

01:35:44

Lord and Savior. You know, one of the reasons why I think, you know, so many people from the

01:35:50

IFB and fundamentalism have bled out of that circle and into schools like that that are teaching reform theology is because in the reform camp, it almost seems like they care more about the

01:36:03

Bible because they're expositing it and they're taking it seriously and they're allowing their lineage and history to attest to the fact that this is how

01:36:13

Christians have always believed the Bible for generations. And, you know, we don't have just ourselves and our biblicism to be able to attest to what the, we can't just point with our skinny little finger to say, this is what it says.

01:36:24

But rather we can say, look, we're not the only ones who have said this. You know, there's so much more reference and weight brought upon the attestation that's brought forth in these camps.

01:36:35

And, you know, I'm not saying if you don't want to be reformed, that's fine. You don't have to be reformed. You don't have to be any other.

01:36:43

You don't have to hold any other systematic viewpoint. You don't have to identify yourself as such. But what's fundamental and essential to all of us is that we need the

01:36:52

Bible to survive by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. And the way that's going to happen is not through, you know,

01:36:58

I'm against, you know, consistent topical sermons. But, you know, it's going to happen through we're going to develop and grow and just the word of God being fed to us.

01:37:09

And some people might object and say, but I do feed my sheep and our people have been growing.

01:37:15

We've seen people transform and change from this and that thing. I mean, yeah, you know, you know,

01:37:21

I don't want to say compare yourself to, you know, other churches that are different in nature or.

01:37:28

But at the same time, it's like, you know, where are your roots actually? You know, you know what? What are you like boxed in?

01:37:35

Or is there more to be doing rather than just allowing people to come through the three services a week?

01:37:41

Furthermore, you know, a faulty approach to Bible preaching may change some people's lives and praise

01:37:48

God. We will we will say praise God for that. Right. But that's I think that's that's because we have a

01:37:53

God of grace. It's despite the bad theology coming from the pulpit to the bad method of teaching and preaching.

01:38:03

We have a God of grace. But that doesn't mean God approves. Of that method.

01:38:12

You know what I'm saying? So it's not it's not the cause of their change. They're changing because God's a

01:38:18

God of grace. Yeah, correct. Yeah, it's it's you know,

01:38:23

I think Paul Washer once said it, you know. Oh, if you were saved by the sinner's prayer, you weren't saved because of the sinner's prayer.

01:38:29

You were saved despite of it, you know. And, you know, I remember I remember hearing that sermon. I'm like. Amen, brother, you know, but now is not perfect.

01:38:41

You know, I don't agree with with the Bible version and they lean towards reform theology, but they don't press.

01:38:52

They don't push it on people. They don't push it on people. And they they say, hey, we're teaching the

01:38:58

Bible line by line. If you come to that conclusion yourself, we will rejoice, but we're not going to push it on you.

01:39:04

That's that's the key. Let the spirit of God through the word of God properly taught by the man of God.

01:39:11

Do the do the changing of theology in the mind of the Christian, but don't be forcing it on people.

01:39:18

That is not how they're going to grow. We are. We have no right to play the Holy Spirit. Let the word properly preached change people's minds about an issue.

01:39:29

Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, one thing one last thing I want to say before I conclude here is, you know,

01:39:36

I think one of the things that you also said was, you know, we don't need to label people that disagree with us as compromisers, you know, because that that initially shuts the door for reaching a unifying point that that can still allow us to differ on some aspects of the

01:39:55

Christian life. But yet hold hands and praise God together because we we hold to the fundamentals that glue us together in the one body.

01:40:05

And, you know, we don't need to just point the finger and say that person's compromising. Let's mark them and cut them off because it does lead to that functionally.

01:40:14

You know, a while back, I saw a Facebook post of this, you know, independent fundamentalist

01:40:20

Baptist girl or woman. She she was posting about her dress standards, and it was a long post.

01:40:27

And I remember one of the things that she said was that, you know, I'm not pushing this on anybody. It's a matter of preference.

01:40:34

I'm into that. I'm glad you realize it's a matter of preference. Now, you know, functionally live that way, because once you say it's a matter of preference, but then you make it essential,

01:40:45

I think the lines get blurry. And, you know, when you functionally if it becomes essential, then, you know, you do you have a right to be called pharisaical.

01:40:55

You know, you have a right to be called legalistic because then people can't work in the ministry if they don't do this or that.

01:41:01

And it's like. What, like I thought this was essential, like I'm a

01:41:06

Christian, you know, anyways, but, you know. And I don't know when this is going to air, you know, you're the boss of this production.

01:41:14

But and who knows, maybe in five years someone's watching this conversation. Maybe I'll be in a different church.

01:41:21

All I know is this, that I believe I'm where God wants me to be. And I will

01:41:27

I will say, hey, at least my preacher now, the preacher that I'm under today, he may not use the version that I like, but he wants to preach the whole book.

01:41:42

He's not just topical, bouncing here and there. He has enough respect for the word of God to preach through it.

01:41:48

And my challenge for independent fundamental Baptist preachers is you say that you love

01:41:53

God's word and you believe it and it's preserved and perfect. Stop bouncing around with topic topics and just preach through the book.

01:42:03

Preach through it. Yeah, you believe it. Preach the whole thing. Yeah, you know, one of the things about expository preaching is that it forces you to be familiar with things that you haven't yet tread upon.

01:42:18

You know, it forces you it it really causes your theology to run and hide, you know, you know, today that, you know, broadly, not just in fundamentalist circles, but broadly in evangelical circles.

01:42:32

You know, people are you know, their theology is the warm, cuddly Jesus. But which means that they've never spent any time reading the

01:42:41

Old Testament. You know, they avoid it like the plague, because the Old Testament will warp your theology if you have that point of view in a good way, because it shows you the full nature and character of a

01:42:54

God. You know, Jesus didn't just plop into the scene in Matthew verse in chapter one.

01:43:01

You know, he's been here since Genesis one one. You know, it's it's you know, the whole the full expression and nature and character of God is revealed throughout the whole

01:43:10

Bible. And preaching expository is an important feat to helping the church body as a whole.

01:43:17

Individuals learn what the Bible actually says. So so that we don't hung up on these secondary issues.

01:43:24

It's good to fight for secondary issues. There are hills you need to die on, but there are also hills you don't you can you don't need to die on.

01:43:32

You could you could have a bigger tent. It's fine to have a small door in a big tent. You know, it's fine to have that.

01:43:38

You know, we don't need to, you know, name call and call people compromisers and we don't need to misrepresent people.

01:43:45

And and, you know, it's not compromising rather to to represent someone correctly that we disagree with.

01:43:52

You know, I mean, you know, my my favorite theologian, my my top five favorite theologians are all

01:43:57

Presbyterians. I don't I don't believe everything they believe, you know, like and I would call myself a

01:44:05

Baptist. You know, it's like but my five my top five favorite theologians are Presbyterians, you know, because of the secondary issues don't divide me from them, you know, because we

01:44:15

I can unite with them in history and through what the scripture says on all the fundamentals of the faith.

01:44:22

So with that, if you have any last words and the things that we covered, and if you could just plug your book one more time and where people can get it,

01:44:33

I will close this out once you do that. Yeah. So basically, thanks, brother.

01:44:39

I really appreciate the conversation. It was such an honor and a blessing. I like what you're doing with this program.

01:44:46

I think it's, you know, honoring to Christ. So I pray that God will take it to new heights.

01:44:52

And maybe one day when you're famous, I could say, hey, well, I was on your show one day.

01:45:01

But basically, I want to close out again, want to remind people. I wrote a book.

01:45:09

It's called Evangelism's Flipside, A Journey of Reaping the Unexpected. John J.

01:45:14

Ritchie, my full name, and you can get it on Amazon. Yes. You know, make

01:45:20

Jeff Bezos wealthy. You can also get him wealthier.

01:45:26

You can also get it on bondsandnoble .com or any bookstore you can find it. It's it's been, you know, available on different Web sites.

01:45:35

I didn't even imagine. But it's a book that will encourage you to step out and be used by God.

01:45:45

Right. Wherever God wants to use you. I don't know if you're in another country listening to this. If you're in the

01:45:50

U .S., if you're in a jungle, if you're, you know, in a dry part of the world, if you're living in a city or a town, wherever you are,

01:46:03

God wants to use you. But God wants you also to not just obey because you know it's the right thing to do.

01:46:11

He wants you to obey because you want to obey, because you you enjoy honoring and glorifying him.

01:46:19

And my book was written to just tell you stories after stories after story on who

01:46:26

I witnessed to, you know, how I used a little bit of evangelism in different spots, how

01:46:34

I use a little bit of apologetics. I think that's important. I guess one of the questions we didn't get to briefly address here is

01:46:43

I do think that evangelism and apologetics are two sides of the same coin. Because everybody has a different worldview, and you're going to be talking to people, you're going to be sharing the gospel with them in a conversational manner, right?

01:46:57

Evangelism is a conversation. But some people are going to have sincere questions, and it is helpful to do a little bit of homework on what people believe.

01:47:08

So if you have a Muslim friend, if you have a Jewish friend, if you have a Catholic friend, if you have a

01:47:14

Mormon friend or an atheist friend, try to read up a little bit about what they believe and why they believe it.

01:47:22

And, you know, and then show them from their worldview how their worldview breaks apart, which is the don't answer a fool according to his folly, or you'll be like him, right?

01:47:36

So don't accept that line of thinking. Don't accept their worldview or their line of thinking as true, because it's not.

01:47:43

But then the next verse, and this is from Proverbs 26, 4 and 5, the next verse says, but answer the fool according to his folly, so that he's not wise in his own conceit.

01:47:56

So, in other words, throw the logic back in their face, lovingly, of course, and respectfully, but throw that line of thinking back in their face and show them how it breaks down.

01:48:06

And only the truth of the gospel makes sense, because it's truth.

01:48:12

It doesn't just make sense in their heart, but in their life, you know, change them, you know, change their life, inside and outside.

01:48:23

So I thank you for listening to me. Yes, I am a Baptist preacher at heart.

01:48:28

I'm not a Baptist today as far as label. My church is non -denominational, but I do have some

01:48:38

Baptist roots and I'm not ashamed of it. So I'm proud that the Lord has brought me this far.

01:48:45

And I'm thankful again to be on this program. You know, if you want to reach out to me, if you have any questions, you can go to my blog.

01:48:56

It's JJR ministry. So it's just the initials of my name, right? JJR, JJR ministry .wordpress

01:49:06

.com. JJR ministry .wordpress .com. You can check out some of the

01:49:13

Bible studies I've done there. Some interviews I've done with other radio programs.

01:49:20

And you can send me a message. You know, if you want to connect, that's the best way to do it.

01:49:26

Thanks. You can also text me the link to your outlet there.

01:49:33

I'll put it in the show notes. With that being said, I hope this has been a fruitful conversation for you in regards to what we've really brought as some of the issues there.

01:49:42

And, of course, there's so much that could be said. And I know I can hear the people now who might disagree with me.

01:49:49

But I hope this has been taken with a grain of salt, remembering that, you know, we and by we, I mean me and Jay, we don't intend to accuse, threaten or maliciously demean anyone's character.

01:49:58

If you're in one of these circles that we've talked about, if you feel some type of way about it, we recognize that, you know, many people have varying convictions and that, you know, you know, not everyone holds the dispositions that we've expounded today.

01:50:12

But we hope that you would hear us in light of, you know, trying to address things that typically aren't talked about so that we can genuinely find unity.

01:50:22

And even though we differ on things. And I'd like to say, hey, for joining me.

01:50:29

It's been cool. This is actually the second interview that I've done. If you are a listener to Truology, you can listen to the first interview

01:50:40

I did with Eli Ayala as well. It's there in my archives anywhere you listen to Truology. So I hope that with all that's been said today that you would just be able to find some truth that you can hang on to, study, learn more.

01:50:55

If you want to like, comment or share, you can go ahead and do that. If you have disagreed with anything that's been discussed here, feel free to contact me through my

01:51:05

Facebook or anywhere you can find Truology and one of my outlets. I am not afraid of the spotlight or being put on the spot for questions.

01:51:13

You can contact me. If you Facebook message me, I'll give you my number. We'll talk on the phone.

01:51:19

Because I want to learn for Christ's sake. I would admit that I could be wrong.

01:51:25

Jay has admitted he could be wrong. But we need to approach this knowing that there's things to discuss here and they're crucial to our development in Christ.

01:51:35

So with that being said, anywhere you listen to Truology, you can like, comment, share. If you want to contact me, you can do so.

01:51:41

And until next time, folks, my name is Belushi Prevalon, and I hope that you will continue to study the truth.

01:51:47

Have a good night. Jay, thank you so much, man. God bless you. Truology is a podcast that seeks to equip, effect and engage the world through Christ and his wonderful gospel of the kingdom, against which he has promised that the gates of hell shall never prevail, but increased by his government, his law and grace, till it be presented a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.

01:52:10

If there's any fear, threat or worry, remember that the one that has called you according to his purpose and grace has also promised that all enemies will soon be placed under his feet.

01:52:22

Now, I want you to believe that not because I said it or because it sounds really nice and spiritual, but primarily and wholeheartedly and only and biblically, because it's the truth.