Responding to the Open Letter to Justin Peters

Apologetics Live

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Welcome to Apologetics Live. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the

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Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro, and Pastor Justin Pearce.

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We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your challenging questions that you have.

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Anything about God and the Bible, we can answer them here. We can answer any question that you have about God and the

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Bible, because I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity. I'm glad to have you with us. There may be a little echo here.

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I'm still up in Boston with my grandson, and so he's now,

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I guess, four weeks old, and so we're still up here. And the only place that actually was conducive, if you remember last week, was here in the sanctuary.

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So I'm actually at the pulpit of the sanctuary, because that's where the Wi -Fi was the best. So if it's a little echoey,

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I'm sorry. I'll just give that as a apology up front. So I will say that, just I'll say this again at the end, next week

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Dr. Silvestro was going to have a guest talking creation. We're then going to have probably about five weeks of reruns.

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I'm working on those now, but the last few we're going to be important, because when I get back

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March 23rd, I have a debate. But it's going to be a fun debate.

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Maybe not. The topic of debate is, does the Bible teach the

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Trinity? And it will not be that just me versus one person.

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It's going to be me versus four people. Not just me versus four people, but four black

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Hebrew Israelites. So we will see how that goes. And so I will try to put up some of the older messages where we dealt with black

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Hebrew Israelites or Torahism. And so that you'll be able to be ready for that.

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But that will be on March 23rd. And so the gentleman told me that I was set up with to have the discussion.

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He said it was it'll be a debate. And he's bringing two or three friends. I said, he said, and he suggests

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I bring friends too. I said, that's okay. I have a Bible. That's really all

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I needed. So me and a Bible versus three or four black

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Hebrew Israelites. I'm sure that's going to be fun. Now I will say that my computer right now,

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I plugged in and went, took my bride out to eat and thought that the computer was plugged in and the outlet wasn't on.

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So my battery, it was completely drained when I got in. And so there is the chance that I may be struggling and have to shut things down, but we're going to hope that everything goes well.

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So with that, let me bring Drew in. Drew is going to act as a co -host with me.

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Now you've been actually co -hosting with me because you and I just recorded like four episodes of the rap report.

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That'll be out later this month. Well, while I'm in Israel and in, um, uh,

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I'll be in Israel and then I'll be at Shepard's conference. And you decided to trigger me with some, uh,

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Andy Stanley. And I know everybody's talking Andy Stanley, but what we dealt with was from 10 years ago.

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That's right. Which reveals that this, the stuff we're going to talk about in that episode, it's not something new with him.

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This has been a long -term thing. Yeah. Yeah. This has been going on for a while. So when people start talking about Andy Stanley, as though this is a new thing, it's like, well, where have you been for the last 10 years?

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Especially here in Georgia, we've been hearing it for a while. Yeah. So, um, so what we wanted to do was, uh, just check in for the, in the news section before we get to the main thing.

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And I, and I should say that, uh, I know Justin Peters was trying to, to get in, but Justin, uh, for those that remember

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Justin and I were both doing a trip to Israel, we're going to do it together. And then there was this thing called COVID that occurred.

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Uh, well, our trip got postponed, postponed and eventually canceled. And then when we redid it, uh, we ended up doing it differently where he's going with Jim Osmond, which is his old church.

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And I'm going with Matt slick. And so he's going, he's leaves this, uh, this upcoming week and there'll be gone for two weeks.

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And then as soon as they come back, we leave. And so, uh, just in the midst of trying to get everything packed up and whatnot.

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Um, I doubt he's going to make it. He might come in later. We'll see. Uh, so in the new section, um, you know, there's an interesting thing that's been happening.

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And so I want to ask you, Drew, to, to just look around your office there. I want to know, do you, do you have any, uh, classified documents laying around?

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Um, not in here. Should I go check by my car? Yeah. Maybe you should check in your Corvette or, you know, this is for, for a lot of folks.

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Um, this issue with these classified documents is, is super concerning.

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Now, the reason that I bring it up is there's major issues with classified documents.

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Now, if you're a United States, president Trump, president Obama, Bush, you know, you go back, the president can declassify a document.

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So documents typically, uh, the way that they work is once they're classified, they're classified for a specific number of years, usually 25, 30 years.

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And then they're either reclassified after that time, uh, or, you know, certain documents will have a longer period of time.

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Uh, if not the basically until they become declassified either by time or by the president order or something like that, uh, what ends up happening is that those documents remain, uh, classified.

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And so the thing is, is that we had this whole raid on, on Trump's house.

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Uh, you know, I, I have dealt with classified documents in a previous life.

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Um, there's, you, you don't just have them laying around folks. This is not the sort of thing that you go to the office and you get your documents and then you, you leave.

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Yeah. You just spread them out all over the floor. Yeah. No. Dot. When you deal with classified documents, they are there to be in what's called a skiff.

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It's a area where is locked up. You, you can't bring a cell phone in there. You can't bring any electronics in there.

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You go in, you hand, you have to check out documents. You then have to read them, check them back in.

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So there's a check and balance or at least supposed to be so that you can see documents. So this is, this is the sort of thing that they don't just get late laying around.

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Someone has to account for those missing documents. And in fact, every six months to a year, usually someone's job, it is to go through all the documents to make sure everything checked out is checked in.

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Right. Yeah. That's, that's a, a distinct position in the national archives.

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Yeah. Yeah. And so it is concerning to me that there'd be so many supposedly, supposedly classified documents floating around.

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Now, why do I say supposedly? Because here's the thing, folks. There's a lot of discussion over these documents.

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And one thing I just want to say is you can have a document that's been declassified, but still has classified markings, right?

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Okay. President Barack Obama made an, an, an order, basically that anything that he took out of a classified area was automatically declassified.

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So if he brought classified documents home, they're declassified. Well, if that's the case, then guess what?

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When Trump brings those documents home, they're automatically declassified. Right. I don't think that's a,

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I personally don't think that's a good thing to do. I'm against that model, but Joe Biden, when he was vice president or Mike Pence, both of them had classified documents.

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And, and, and, and this is the thing like almost every president has because they they're dealing with many documents and they don't handle them as, as carefully.

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The reality they're usually not threatened. They don't get threatened with jail time if they, if they break the rules.

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But, but, you know, others of us who, who we will. So the, the thing though, is when you hear about all these documents, just be aware, even though some of them, and concerning that, that Joe Biden had some as a

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Senator, these could be documents that were declassified, but the markings weren't removed.

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Now they're supposed to be removed and they might not be. So it is concerning how many and all the places and the most concerning thing.

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And this is the one thing that I want to bring up for the, in the news section is the fact that we deal with classified documents and we deal with Hunter Biden's laptop and his negotiations with Ukraine, which

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Joe Biden was over and dealing with. And if these documents, this is the one thing that does become a major issue is if these documents were, they were in supposedly the house that his son lived in and his son did negotiations with Ukraine and China and, and Russia.

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And so the issue becomes, did he have access to these classified documents?

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And if he got them from his father, even from his father, leaving them around, the issue is that either

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Joe Biden or Hunter Biden could be acting as foreign agents without registering as such.

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That is considered treason in the country. And that would be greatly concerning.

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And, and that's something that we need to, I think, need to be able to address. I think that I, I mean, that's something that DOJ must get to the bottom of.

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Will they? I doubt it very high. Probably not. Yeah. I mean, if they haven't by now, and especially with the whole dilemma with Hunter Biden's laptop.

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And I mean, that's a no brainer, right? They know what's on it and they don't pursue it. Yeah. They're not going to pursue any, anything with Joe Biden.

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All right. So now let's get to the main thing. And what I want to do is welcome for the first time, Zach, how are you, sir?

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I'm doing well. Thank you very much. So I appreciate you coming in. It's something that, you know, one of the things that, you know,

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I do on this show and regulars, you, you know, this, that I want to give people opportunity to, to voice with their own views as well.

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I don't shut people down. I maybe get criticized for that when we have debates on different topics and have black

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Hebrew Israelites and things like that. And people say I give them too much time, but it's my show the following week.

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I could spend three hours rebutting them. And so I always liked

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Ben Shapiro got all kinds of heat for having John MacArthur on his program.

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And basically it was like, I think an hour long program of John MacArthur, just sharing the gospel with Ben Shapiro.

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And Ben Shapiro got some heat because he didn't, he didn't what they felt like correct

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John MacArthur. And I thought Ben had a very interesting take. He said, look, it's my show.

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I invited him on as a guest. I'm going to let him speak. And I can always rebut everything, rebut everything he said on my next show.

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So, you know and that's been a thing. Look, we had the Canadian atheist in here. We used to have, he used to come in regularly and we do shows responding to him.

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So, so we're going to deal with today. What I want to deal with is

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Zach, you put out an open letter to Justin Peters. We plan to go through this, this letter, and I want to,

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I want to address this. My plan, you know, is to address this from a logical perspective.

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Drew, I know you, you ended up doing a, on your podcast. I'll let you plug your podcast, but you, you had addressed the, the letter a little differently than, than I planned to, but you know, let you plug your podcast real quick.

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Yeah. So Zach, I don't know if you heard it. Probably not. No, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that you had a podcast.

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It's okay. He's got two, he's got two, but I only know Matter of Theology because that's the only one on, on the

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Christian podcast community. Yeah. That's usually, Matter of Theology is the only one Andrew will let me speak about on here.

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Not true. My other one is called For Life and Godliness, and it's a little shorter format, but I did kind of go through the letter.

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And if you listen to it, Hey, I hope you think that I, that I did so respectfully and graciously, you know,

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I didn't want it to be an attack or anything like that, but I did kind of go through kind of line by line your parts of the letter.

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And that's what we plan to do here. There's a guy, Matthew backstage. If you get your camera working, we can, if you have questions, just put those in the private chat, which folks, just if you want to join us anytime that we're, we're live.

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And I got to say that because now that we're actually going to plan to do some reruns, there are times we won't be live, but you'll know it because I found a way right up top there.

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It'll say not live so that, you know, it'll say it's prerecorded. So the, the thing is everyone's asking for, for Hefe if he's, if he's here, so we're going to have to bring him in.

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He's very active in the comments. I see. Yeah. Yeah. And I may not have all the time to to be looking through all the comments, but I do see the, the doctrine matters podcast.

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Stephen do one of the other podcasters at Christian podcast community. He's, he's responding to him.

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So, so we're with him in backstage there, we are on the comments. We know it's in good hands. So, so what

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I want to do though, is remind folks that you can come in, ask any questions on any topic throughout the show.

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We're going to try, we're going to try to do is spend the first hour of the, of these shows going forward.

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The first hour is going to be on the topic, and then we're going to go to people's questions. And the way to get the questions in is to please come in through, go to apologize, live .com

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as both drew and, and Zach did, and then click on a little duck icon, which is stream yard.

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And you'll be able to, to, to join us there. And I may or may not be able to respond to all the comments tonight.

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So with that said, let me, I want to bring up, I'm going to share the open letter

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Zach that you had done to Justin. And I just, what

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I did to make it a little bit easier is I just put it into a text thing so that we're not just, it's harder to read with all the, with all the

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Facebook stuff. So, so this is, and I'm going to read each, each part of this and, and kind of what

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I'd like to do actually is just so we have context, I'm going to,

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I'm going to read the whole thing. Or in fact, Zach, would you, would you want to read it?

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Sure. It's your word. So maybe since you're here, it's better having you read it.

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And I'll just, and I'll scroll. Yeah. Don't, don't take the words out of his mouth, you know, let him read it. I just realized

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I misspelled hashtag. And had I known that I would have fixed that already. That's going to bother me for a while.

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Where, oh, hold on, hold on. I don't see it misspelled. Oh, it's, it's down. No, no, no.

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I just corrected it. Thank you. No, I, I miss, I actually misspelled it on my post because I printed it out so I can.

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Oh, I know that's where I copied it from, but I just. That was my fault. Sorry. But yeah,

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I'll be happy to read it. So I'm responding to this publicly because you posted it publicly. Here's your statement as made evident by the screenshot below as cessationists.

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And I'm quoting Justin here as cessationists, you and I should see no ground to this charismatic in our view of the

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Holy spirit. It is not we who have a low view of Holy spirit. It is they who have a low view of the Holy spirit of God.

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And then this is my comment here. I want to begin by stating that you are my brother in Christ and I love you. That being said, this is one of the most divisive statements

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I've ever seen a minister in your position. Make what an egregious statement that reeks of pump, uh, pumpensity.

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You're better than this brother. The statement does not bring any glory to Christ because it isolates hundreds of millions of faithful Christians as having a low view of the

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Holy spirit. It's not an out of context statement. As you quoted from your sermon, there was a qualifying statement to this.

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You left it out of your quote. If there's more context, you fail to include it. And it's certainly appearing like you like this was meant to be a punchline, which is further evidenced by your quote, truth bomb hashtag.

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What was the point to slander your charismatic brothers and sisters to bear false witness against us by accusing us of having a low view of the

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Holy spirit. There are many valid criticisms against charismatics. And frankly, I'd agree with you on some of them, but this statement is absurd.

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With this statement, Justin, you sow division amongst the brethren and slandered brothers and sisters in Christ. Two things,

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God abominates Proverbs six, your statement is categorically false. Moreover, you recently concluded a speaking engagement, comparing the best of your movement to the worst of charismatics, which is just disingenuous.

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Here's your quote. And I'm quoting Justin here. Charismatics have John Alexander Dowie as cessationist.

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We've got John Calvin. Charismatics have John G Lake cessationists have Jonathan Edwards. Charismatics have

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Charles Fox Parham cessationists have Charles Haddon Spurgeon. More modern day charismatics have

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Kenneth Copeland. We've got Phil Johnson. Charismatics have Creflo Dollar. We've got Boney Bauckham.

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Charismatics have Joel Osteen. We've got John MacArthur, end quote. I can't help but wonder why you chose not to include charismatic scholars like Jack Deere, Dr.

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Jack Deere, Dr. Sam Storms, Dr. Wayne Grudem, Dr. John Piper, Dr. Craig Keener, Leonard Ravenhill, Dr. Michael Brown, Dr.

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D .A. Carson, or Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones. I could go on and on. And if you want to go into the early church, we can go there too.

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Augustine, Tertullian origin, Cyrus of Jerusalem, Justin Martyr. The material is all over the internet to read.

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You probably won't even see this, which is funny, but I don't care. This is so divisive that it grieves

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Christ just as much as the excesses of the charismatic movement. You're better than this. Stop making statements like this. It's so division. You're not bringing any glory to the

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Holy Spirit by accusatory statements like this. Okay. All right. So let's,

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I'm going to go back up and I want to walk, walk through this and Zach, I'm glad that you're here so we could walk through this together.

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So, okay. So you're, you're responding to this publicly because he posted it publicly and obviously we're responding to this publicly because you posted it publicly.

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Here we are. Yeah. And so, so I don't, and I, I'm not against dealing with things in public unless there is a means of doing things privately.

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I mean, that's, that's one thing that, um, you know, we, we often see that there's, there's people who, um, yeah,

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I've been in cases where, uh, I remember someone who I was dealing with privately and some other guys, they wanted to make it public.

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And when they did so, uh, that shut down all of the private communications that we were able to have with, with this brother and, and to, to, you know, really to, unfortunately to his detriment.

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Um, and so, uh, I think there's a time where if people, if, if there's ways of doing things privately where we can now, you know, if, if we don't have access to someone, uh,

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Drew, you and I just responded to something publicly that Andy Stanley said, although it's, I said, we just did it, but it's not going to air for,

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I guess, another week or two, uh, on the, on my rap report podcast. We criticized the public statement that was made.

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Right. Uh, now I think there's nothing wrong when it's in, in the public domain. So first off that I want to do, and some of this,

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Zach, I had prepared to say whether you were here or not. So if it sounds like I'm speaking in general terms, it's cause, uh,

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I am. Um, so I don't think there's anything wrong. You know, a lot of people will make the argument that when a public letter goes out, we, we saw this with Beth Moore, when there was a public letter that went out to her about homosexuality, asking her to take a stand, um, on the issue that was somewhere.

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Many people criticized the women that did that saying that, you know, they needed to deal with this privately.

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Well, not when someone's a public figure. In fact, uh, if you go back on my rap report podcast, uh,

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I did two episodes on Al Mueller, one of them dealing with Beth Moore, because Al Mueller was critical of a

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Catholic Canadian politician for not answering that question.

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But he doesn't ask that question of a, you know, a Southern Baptist, you know, preacher in America, you know, because he's

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Southern Baptist, he, he didn't want to address that. And so, and my issue was if, if a politician has to answer it, how much more

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Beth Moore. And so I, I'm not against doing things in public, but I do think there's times where if we can deal with things in private, we do.

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And so, so I don't have any problem with, uh, you know, public letter the way it was put out.

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Okay. So that was a, just a sound I wanted to address first with this. Uh, so Zach, I'll, I'll just leave it for you or Drew, if either of you have comments on that.

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I doubt it, but no, I agree. I figured everyone would be in agreement at least there.

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Okay. So here's the thing. The statement that Justin made is in the screenshot that's there. It says as cessationist, you and I should seed no ground to the charismatics in our view of the

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Holy Spirit. It is not we who have a low view of the Holy Spirit. Uh, it, it is they who have a low view of the spirit of God.

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And so, uh, Zach, you had said, I want to begin by stating you're my brother in Christ and I love you.

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So this is something that, um, you know, when we see this, there there's, there's two things you'll often see folks and Zach, I'm speaking more as well to the audiences, you know, it's to you as well, but cause this is,

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I mean, Apologetics Live is, is about doing apologetics, but teaching apologetics. That's what we try to do. Um, so the idea of, uh, you know, when we recognize that we're dealing with someone who is a brother in Christ, when, uh, we're going to say something negative, there's two things you end up seeing.

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There are those who do that because they want to, um, say from, uh, from, from the fodder, that, you know, if someone is going on the attack, you will see people that will be like,

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Oh, they're a brother in Christ. Now let me tear them down. Um, you see that with people and where you'll see it and where you'd have a statement like this and have a concern folks is when you see someone saying,

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Hey, I love you. You're a brother in Christ. And then everything they say afterwards says you're not saved, right?

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If you see that, that's when you realize, you know, when they say you're a brother in Christ, they really don't mean it.

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Right. It's kind of like saying with all due respect. And then what follows is not quite respectful.

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Correct? Exactly. And, and so the one thing that I, I, I was going to point out is that, you know,

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I don't see in this and Zach, these are things, like I said, I was, I, I don't, I don't care if you're here or not.

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I'm going to, I'll say things that, you know, later that, you know, are going to be a little bit harder, but I don't say thing.

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I'm not trying to, to, uh, flatter you in any way or anything. I'm, I planned on saying what

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I'm saying. Anyway, you're not, uh, what I didn't see in this was, uh, you know, here's this statement.

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And then later on it's let's, let's tear the person apart, question their salvation, say that, you know, they're the devil and things like that.

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I've seen those types of letters. Um, and so I, I, I want to take this and, and, you know, for folks, this is the very first time that Zach and I have ever spoken, uh, or seen each other we've never met.

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Um, and so, you know, this is, this is me having to read this and take it for, for what

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I see. So, so now let's, let's address or any, any statements there.

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Yeah. Well, I would just first like to say that I genuinely do believe that Justin is a brother in Christ and I don't want anybody to think that anything

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I said was in a reflection of a position that I don't have, that he's not a brother in Christ. And I obviously would consider you both brothers in Christ as well.

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Um, definitely more gracious on things, um, than I used to be, but not saying that I never thought you guys were brothers, but I just want to make it clear that I love

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Justin. I've learned a lot from him over the years. I first saw him probably 10, 12 years ago when

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I first was introduced to him, but I love Justin and do consider him a brother. So I just want to make that clear. Well, I'm not sure that Drew is a brother.

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He's always saying that because I'm post -meal. Okay. I'm the post -meal whipping boy.

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Oh, wait, wait. I wasn't even going to bring that up with your post mill. I didn't know that. All right.

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So, so let's deal with this. So the, the, the first paragraph we have that of, of content here to deal with, it says that being said, this is one of the most divisive statements

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I have ever heard. I've ever seen as a minister in your position. So, uh,

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Zach, I I'm glad that you're here. Cause now I can actually ask you the questions I would have asked without anyone to answer the statement, um, that, that, uh, we have a low view of the

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Holy spirit, that statement. Do you know where that comes from? Which one? The low view of the

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Holy spirit towards who that's not toward anyone, but where, where it originates this, the statement that Justin is referring to.

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Well, there's a context to it. Yeah. I understand. Yeah. There's a context to it. And I understand that it's from people that have accused him of having a low view of the

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Holy spirit and my whole point behind that. And of course we watch the sermon is had he mentioned that it would have been, my response probably would have been different, but he didn't mention that in his presentation, which is why

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I took issue with it. So, so the, the context of the, of the statement is that it's not him.

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It is every cessationist. And this has been made by many charismatics, but especially the leaders of the charismatic movement to claim that anyone that doesn't believe that the gifts can, that all the gifts continue to today.

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The argument is that if, if you believe they ceased, you are somehow limiting the

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Holy spirit to have a low view of the Holy spirit. So the question

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I have for you is if this is a divisive statement for Justin to make, is it a divisive statement for Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Bill Johnson, and every other charismatic that ever made it?

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Well, as far as that's concerned, statement for one statements like this that are divisive, if anybody says it on either side, then yes, it can be divisive.

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But my whole point in what he was saying is that he didn't preface it with that. Had he prefaced it with that,

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I would have had an issue with it because somebody even commented on my post that was saying something similar to that.

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And I just said, look, had he clarified his statement or given some context to it, he's allowed to defend himself and he's allowed to respond to that.

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So I don't have a problem with, with that if he does that, but generally statements that draw a line in the sand between,

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Hey, you, me, we're going to, even though being brothers and sisters in Christ, and again, I'm not saying certain people are brothers and sisters in Christ.

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I don't know enough about their, about their heart. I'm not going to go into that. But my whole point is that there are statements that are divisive that can be from either side of the coin.

28:51

Okay. Do you, do you believe that at a conference, a cessationist conference, that's where this was at.

28:59

And I, I was there, I was one of the speakers. So I was there when Justin was, was preaching.

29:05

Do you really think that to the audience there, that they did not know the context of it?

29:11

Well, he posted it on Instagram. So even if that's the context of it, he posted it on Instagram for people that didn't know the context of it, like me.

29:19

So you're saying you don't know that you don't know the context of that, that statement. No, I know the context of it.

29:25

I watched it, but what I'm saying is that you quote it out. I'll say it this way. You quote it by itself to put on Instagram.

29:31

So if that's his audience, that's fine. You give it to your audience. That's fine. That's the context of it. But when you remove that and post it in it, just of itself right there and have it posted on your social media, you're removing it just from,

29:44

Hey, this is at a cessationist conference. And now you're posting it here publicly for people to read that didn't know that this was at a cessationist conference and just see the statement by itself.

29:54

Have, have you written an open letter to Bill Johnson? What does that have? What does that have any relevance to?

30:00

I just want to see if there's consistency. I mean, since, since it's guys like Bill Johnson and Kruffler down, all these others who make the statement, when, when you say that this is the most divisive statement you've ever seen of a minister and Justin's not a pastor, he's an evangelist, but there are men who are pastors.

30:21

That's the, that's the role of a minister. So if you haven't written an open statement to them, then you're, you're being divisive yourself.

30:33

In fact, you're, you're being inconsistent and divisive. So to that,

30:38

I would say one, I am not, I, how am I supposed to know what every other pastor or teacher has said?

30:44

That's not for me to know. And it's not my job to either do research on that and say, Oh, well, let me go see what something Kruffler said.

30:50

Let me go see what Bill Johnson said. Let me go see what this person said. And let's see how all this is that this is all that I saw from Justin Peters specifically.

30:58

So it's not necessarily a matter of consistency with me because again, I mean, if we wanted to take that to its logical conclusion, we could, but I don't have to respond to every single thing that every single pastor has ever said that it's a divisive statement.

31:13

Yeah. But you did, you did say, you know, the history and the origin of this, the comment of people having a low view of the

31:21

Holy Spirit comes from the charismatics. It doesn't come from the cessationist. It's the cessationist using that same line in response, right?

31:30

I would ask, have you heard Justin before say the context talk?

31:38

Have you heard Justin in the past talk about how it's the charismatics who have said of the cessationists that the cessationists are the ones with the low view of the

31:45

Holy Spirit? To my knowledge? No. The only time that I've, I mean, the last thing that I've seen from Justin was obviously this, this particular presentation.

31:53

I don't know the last time that I actually watched something from Justin. It's been some time since I've seen something from Justin in full.

32:00

But again, if there's context to the statement, he left it out in the post and he didn't necessarily bring it up inside the sermon or the presentation.

32:09

I would say I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as a sermon, which is by no means a shot at Justin. But he left that out.

32:15

And I think that was my biggest issue. And I think I would like to clarify with him too. Okay. But how do you define charismatic?

32:22

That was, that was a question I have. Cause if there's a different definition you have, it's certainly helpful. Um, then what just the standard definition would be.

32:31

Um, so that, that would be something. Yeah, I can, I can actually answer that. Cause we got into a discussion about this the other night because, uh, we were talking about Drew's podcast where we had, where Justin and I had had some differing views with it.

32:44

So Justin's view is charismatic would be anyone who believes that the charismatic gifts continue to today.

32:52

That would basically, um, Drew, you made a distinction between continuationist and charismatic.

32:59

So I'll let you give that distinction and then I'll let you know where I landed. Yeah. So the distinction

33:05

I make between charismatic and continuationist is the continuationist is someone, um, who is cautious about the gifts.

33:16

They, they believe that the gifts can still be used, but they're more on the cautious spectrum.

33:23

Um, they're not going out and trying to, uh, grow people's legs. They're not trying to, uh, raise people from the dead.

33:30

They're not trying to, uh, prophesy over any and everybody. Um, that would be more in the actual charismatic side, the, the

33:39

Todd whites and the Todd Bentley's and, um, you know, the Kenneth Copeland's who think they can, uh, charismatically, uh, blow

33:48

COVID away. Uh, so I make the distinction, uh, between charismatic and continuationist, uh, in that, in that sense.

33:56

And you know, we're, we're, and I thought, I said to Justin, I thought that was a good distinction because I think there does need to be a distinction made.

34:05

Uh, and so you're Justin, Justin, you know, by what he was saying was that if you believe the gifts continue, that makes you a charismatic.

34:14

I made a distinction and I think he, he, he kind of agreed with it, but I don't think fully.

34:21

Uh, but my, my distinction off of what you had said, cause I understood Justin's view of saying, you know, it does water down the depth, what it, what a charismatic is.

34:31

Um, and so I, I kind of distinguished it between practicing charismatics and open charismatics.

34:39

In other words, uh, those who are open and cautious. Yeah. The open and cautious would be there.

34:45

They're, they're, they're charismatics. They're open to it. They just don't do it themselves. Right. Right. But they still believe the gifts continue today.

34:52

And that's really the issue is do the gifts continue to today? Um, now

34:57

Zach, let me ask you, so you're, you're saying the biggest issue you had was that Justin didn't provide context to the

35:08

Instagram post, correct? Okay. And, and yet you, you do concede that he has made that context clear in other places, correct?

35:18

Well, my whole point is, okay. So if I define, if I say, Hey, this is what I mean here. And I have a sermon, let's just use a hypothetical example of a year ago.

35:26

If you're going to clarify what you mean and use a term like that, you need to clarify what you mean by that every time you use it.

35:32

And if you just blanketly quote something like that without any full context, Hey, by charismatic, this is what

35:38

I'm referring to, or by this, this is what I'm referring to then have your statement.

35:43

So, cause again, if he's clarified that before he may have, but I'm not aware that he's,

35:49

I'm not aware of exactly where he's done it or what he's done it before. And that's pretty much my whole point.

35:55

Okay. And I'm asking some questions because I just want to make sure I understand, you know, so you're saying you, so you're saying that you believe that everyone who's a minister of the gospel has to provide full context to everything they say, if you're going to use terms that are widely used.

36:15

And if you're going to make a statement, like what he said, it is very fair to the other side and to your audience to clarify.

36:21

This is what I mean by this, instead of just making a blanket statement, because anybody that hears it can take it one direction that maybe he didn't intend for it to go.

36:30

And if he didn't intend for, you know, the way that I took it for it to be that way, like I mentioned, you didn't provide context and didn't give any clarity to what you meant by that.

36:38

So I hear a blanket statement and I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do with just this, you know, hypothetically.

36:44

So that's all I'm saying. You don't have to, I mean, like one of the most important things for me that I believe we should all do on a more consistent basis is just define our terms.

36:53

This is what I mean by this, so that it's abundantly clear from any sermon presentation, et cetera, of what we say and do that is clear by what we mean by it.

37:03

Otherwise, if we don't define our terms, other people will define them for us. So looking at this statement by Justin, it's clear that he is distinguishing his audience because he begins by saying, as cessationists, you and I.

37:20

So he's specifically addressing his audience. So now, would his audience understand the context of what he's saying?

37:30

And does that matter? Or does, if he's even addressing just his audience, does he have to also address the larger audience that could possibly be watching?

37:41

If he posts publicly after the fact, then yes, he posted that statement by itself. Let me just say this.

37:47

Hey, I had a link to my presentation here. Go check it out. Feel free. Sure. There's really no problem with that.

37:54

But when you have your one little section of that quote from your presentation, and just put that right there, and then hashtag truth bomb, there's a lot of implications that come with that statement quoted by itself, even if it's at a cessationist conference, which

38:10

I have no problem with. But again, it's just the whole point is that if you're going to post something publicly like that on Instagram, divorced from where you actually originally said it, it would be helpful to everybody else that wasn't at the cessationist conference to hear what you're saying.

38:25

Okay. But you're not saying it would be helpful. You're saying it's required. If you don't do it, people will take a different position.

38:33

People will see that as a blanket statement. Just like, what do you mean by this? So Zach, and again,

38:41

I'm taking advantage of the fact that you came in and I appreciate that. So I want to ask a lot of questions because I really want to make sure

38:46

I understand before I criticize. And I do have some criticism. Don't feel bad.

38:53

He criticizes me all the time. And I receive criticism all the time as well.

38:59

So with that, so you're saying, first let me reiterate to make sure

39:10

I'm understanding what you're saying correctly. You're saying that if someone puts something on social media, they're required to give the context of what they mean by what they say.

39:22

So two things. One, and the first one, I don't know, I'm not an Instagram user, and maybe you guys are.

39:30

So does Instagram limit the amount of characters you could do the way Twitter does? That's first question.

39:35

Do either of you know? I think it does, but I think it's not as small as Twitter.

39:42

I think you have a larger character. Okay. So I had thought that, but I'm not an

39:48

Instagram user. So right there that we have one issue of your limited space.

39:56

Is it possible to say everything that needs to be said on issues? The second thing, if we're going to take a passage of scripture and we're going to interpret scripture, do we do it by opening our

40:14

Bible, reading it and saying, what does this mean to me?

40:20

Or do we go and do the research and figure out what did Paul or Peter or James mean by what they said?

40:30

Is that a question to me? I think it can be both. First, you need to go to the context. I learned when I was in high school, the most important thing that you can learn when reading the

40:37

Bible is context, context, context. But two, depending on the passage, I think you can look at it and say, okay, how can

40:42

I make this apply to my life? Okay. And since I kind of inadvertently, not inadvertently,

40:50

I plugged a book without mentioning the book, but Pastor Josiah Nichols has a great little book called

40:57

What Does It Mean to Me available at trackplanet .com. You can pick up a copy.

41:02

I think Drew just grabbed his copy. There you go. Nice little book. We sell them on,

41:08

I think they're on strivingforeturning .org for two or three dollars. I forget.

41:13

I can tell this was a seminary paper. If you want the longer version of it, available at strivingforeturning .org

41:22

is his other book called When My Ox Gourds My Neighbor. If you read the book, you'll understand the title, but dealing with hermeneutics.

41:32

So the issue becomes, the reason I bring that up is because the way of interpretation, the rule of interpretation is authorial intent, understanding what the author means by what he says.

41:42

So if I read a passage of scripture and I say it means one thing, and Zach, you say it means another, if you are looking at what the author meant, and I'm just saying, well,

41:57

I don't care what the author means, this is what I think. I mean, a lot of people look at the passages that deal with either homosexuality or women preachers or whatever.

42:07

We see this often being used where people just go, well, culturally, this is how we interpret it now.

42:13

The person who's ignoring the authorial intent is the one to blame for the misinterpretation.

42:20

Would you agree with that? Scripturally, yes. Okay. The reason I'm asking that is there is a context here.

42:30

Your open letter failed to post that. You're not limited by the characters as it is on Instagram.

42:37

You didn't provide the context that this statement is a statement that charismatics make against cessationists.

42:45

You lacked that comment that you require of Justin in a platform that allowed you to put far more characters.

42:55

If you failed to understand what Justin meant by it and misinterpreted it, then that failure is on you, not him.

43:05

Therefore, your statement here saying that he's divisive by all counts is the one that's divisive because you're saying he must do something you don't yourself do.

43:17

If I quote a passage of scripture out of context, let's use one that is somewhat used out of context for the most part,

43:22

Philippians 4 .13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I just blatantly quote that by itself with no context and just leave it at that.

43:34

You can make that apply to a lot of different things that it may not exactly apply to. My whole point is that Justin quoted himself from his own presentation and left it at that.

43:42

It's not my job to provide the context. It's his job to provide the context. Just like provided the context in Philippians 4, when he led up to that statement, he provided the context of what he meant.

43:54

Justin didn't provide the context of charismatics. For example, Sam Storms on his own website, he calls himself a charismatic.

43:59

Is Justin going to say Sam Storms has a low view of the Holy Spirit? What about some of the other guys that I mentioned? If that's

44:05

Justin's definition, and I'm Justin Peters, if that's his definition, and correct me if I've misunderstood you, that charismatics, anybody that believes the gifts have continued to today, is that how he would define it?

44:17

The issue is, well, I haven't heard Sam Storms make the claim that cessationists have a low view of the

44:23

Holy Spirit, but you didn't answer the point. You're the one that set the requirement, but you're not the one following it.

44:33

My point is that Justin put Sam Storms in his charismatic comment, even though Sam Storms has never made that statement, if you're going to say charismatics, and Sam Storms would call himself a charismatic, it's on his website.

44:48

If we're going to say that, then you're looking at somebody like me, and I'm like, Sam Storms? Who do you mean by this statement?

44:55

What do you mean by this statement? It's his job to provide the context. By charismatic, this is what

45:01

I mean. It's not my job to go back to his original context, which again, didn't clarify what he means by charismatic, and say, well, this is what

45:08

Justin means by charismatic. He left the statement by itself, and that was my intention. I'll read the statement again.

45:14

Maybe I missed it. Maybe it's in here somewhere. I don't see where Sam Storms is mentioned. Quote, as cessationists, you and I should cede no ground to the charismatics in our view of the

45:25

Holy Spirit. It is not we who have a low view of the Holy Spirit. It is they who have a whole low view of the

45:32

Holy Spirit, unquote. I don't see Sam Storms mentioned anywhere. You're missing what I'm saying.

45:38

It's not about Sam Storms not mentioned. My whole point is that Sam Storms calls himself a charismatic, and he's going to make a statement that says, charismatics, that includes men like Sam Storms.

45:49

There's no clarification to that statement. Yeah, there is. I just read it to you, and I wonder if you purposely don't want to see it.

45:58

You're bringing Sam Storms in, and that's a straw man argument, because Sam Storms isn't mentioned.

46:05

What is mentioned very clearly is charismatics who, quote, say that we have a low view of the

46:13

Holy Spirit. Why? He says we should cede no ground to the charismatics in our view of the

46:20

Holy Spirit. To the charismatics. That's called painting with a broad brush. Not to the charismatics that say we have a low view of the

46:26

Holy Spirit. To the charismatics. So even though he provides the exact context of the charismatics he's speaking of, you put it as a broad brush and then assume it to him.

46:38

He didn't provide the clarification to who he meant by charismatics.

46:43

But in this statement right here, it is not we who have a low view of the

46:50

Holy Spirit. Okay, so why would Justin say it's not we who have a low view of the

46:56

Holy Spirit? What is he referring to in that section? Again, it is not we who have a low view of the

47:04

Holy Spirit. It is they. Who's they? The charismatics. Right. But what would move

47:09

Justin to say it's not we who have a low view? Well, you know, had I just looked at the statement on Instagram and not seen anything else,

47:17

I wouldn't know. Well, I mean, based on the fact that he says it's not we, meaning the cessationists, who have a low view of the

47:26

Holy Spirit, would indicate that only the other group, the charismatics, assume we have a low view of the

47:33

Holy Spirit. So you're talking about he didn't provide the context, but the context is actually wrapped up in the statement right there, just in that one line.

47:42

Again, I think we're missing each other on this. My whole point is that if you're going to say de -charismatics, you're saying that side over there.

47:50

They have the low view of the Holy Spirit. It's not us. OK, well, what do you mean by charismatic, Justin?

47:55

As Andrew has said, that he defines charismatic as anybody that believes that the gifts of the Spirit have continued.

48:02

Well, I mean, I think if anyone who's followed Justin for any point of time, I think when Justin says charismatics or de -charismatics, it's pretty clear we can run down the list of who he's talking to.

48:12

He's talking about Bill Johnson, Chris Vallotton, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagan. He's talking about all these who are

48:19

Todd White. He's talking about all these who are the the face of the charismatic movement and the most popular charismatics in the culture today.

48:29

But if that's who are the most popular, he's still, Andrew admitted that his definition is anybody who has a continuous view of the gifts of the

48:35

Holy Spirit. And like Michael Brown, Craig Cantor, Sam Storms, I could list several more scholars.

48:41

But Zach, one of the things, like I said, I'm going to address this, the logical fallacies in here.

48:46

So the logical fallacy is to ignore the immediate context of what he said, to ignore the authorial intent, and then make the issue over something that you know, you've admitted earlier in the show that you know is not what he's speaking about.

49:03

To me, I'm just going to tell you, to me, it looks like you're trying to create something that you know is not there.

49:11

You know, we've already addressed, you know the context that he's addressing, why he's using the phrase that it's not we who have a low view of the

49:18

Holy Spirit. He's saying that it's the charismatics that claim that right in the context.

49:24

That's the, when he says the charismatics, he's saying we see no ground to the charismatics in our view of the

49:29

Holy Spirit. It's not we who have the low view. Well, who's then he's talking about?

49:35

The charismatics who say that we have a low view of the Holy Spirit. It's right there in the context to anybody who does what they should do in interpretation and look at authorial intent.

49:46

Now, if you didn't do your homework, then the problem is not with Justin. The problem is with you for not doing your homework.

49:53

And so before you put out a statement like this, if you have, you've now made it public.

50:00

So I'm just holding you to your own standard. You didn't provide context. You know that there is the context.

50:07

You've said that you didn't, you're saying you don't need to go and research what he means by what he says.

50:15

Right. But you would, I'm sure if I came in here with, you know, you're here and I start to just assign motive and assign words to you.

50:26

And you say, Hey, that's not what I mean. And I say too bad. You made it public. You put a public statement out.

50:31

You would want me to quote you in context, correct? Of course, I would want you to quote me in context.

50:38

Would it be my responsibility to make sure I'm in context before I make something public about you?

50:44

Okay. First thing I didn't quote the post. Justin quoted himself from his own sermon divorce from any context.

50:50

And even in the sermon or presentation, there was no context. And by your own admission, Justin defines charismatic as anybody who believes the gift of the

50:57

Holy spirit. So when you quote that statement by itself, put it on Instagram, you, if anything, you quote yourself out of the alleged context you had in broad brush, every charismatic, it's not just the ones that said we have a low view of the

51:10

Holy spirit. You're saying the charismatics, because this is what the statement says. You and I should see no grounds to the charismatic and our view of the

51:17

Holy spirit, not the charismatics who say we have a low view of the Holy spirit. What's the next sentence. Why do you stop there?

51:22

Read the next sentence. That's the context. Because the whole point of this is that he does not clarify it.

51:29

He does not say neither have you Zach. Well, what I'm saying is that he's time. He didn't say, Oh, there are certain charismatics that say we have a view, a low view of the

51:37

Holy spirit because he's throwing every charismatic under the bus with this statement.

51:43

Okay. But Zach, you didn't do that. Do what? You didn't provide the context in your post.

51:50

It's not my job to provide the context. He quoted himself. So, so it's his job to provide context, but not yours.

51:56

It's his job to provide context for his own statement. It's your job to provide context to your own statement.

52:03

What kind of context that you conceded here, that charismatics do make the statement of cessationists that we have a low view of the

52:13

Holy spirit. You'd provided that nowhere in here. Because the point was not that there are people on the continuationist or charismatic side that have said that my point is that if anybody reads that one statement by itself, leaving it completely as he intended it on his

52:30

Instagram post. And what I'm trying to tell you, Zach is you did the same thing.

52:36

You did not provide the context to your comments about Justin. So what you require for Justin, you don't require for yourself or others.

52:46

You didn't require this of others. Charismatics. You don't, you don't go out and make public statements against Bill Johnson or you know, any of the others that, that use this supposedly most divisive line.

52:58

So what I see in this, and I'm going to tell you frankly, cause I care about you and I don't want you to go down a bad path, but this is hypocritical on your part.

53:09

Okay. And you knowing the context and putting this out anyway, knowing that your words are being used in such a way to, to, because without the context, you're making it sound that Justin is just putting all charismatics in this view.

53:29

And that's not true. You realize that that's called slander. No, that's not slander.

53:35

And that's, that's, that's, that's not what I, that's not what I said, Andrew, again, the charismatic, hold on.

53:41

You said it's not slander. So let's deal with it. Is, is, did you provide all the context so that no one would misrepresent what

53:49

Justin means by this? So it's my job to provide context for Justin's statement that he didn't provide context.

53:55

No, no, no. It's your job to provide context for what you wrote. I'm addressing what you wrote. Okay. Yeah. And I'm addressing what

54:01

Justin wrote. So Justin's allowed to not provide context for who he means by charismatics and that's okay.

54:07

But if I don't define it for him and define, Hey, there are people on the other side that have said this about cessation.

54:12

But Zach, here's the difference is because I don't believe either one of you need to provide the context because it's the job of the interpreter to go back and get authorial intent.

54:23

You believe it is required. Therefore your standard, you must do that.

54:30

So you require for Justin what you don't do yourself. That's the point. And, and the fact that you know that he had a context, but you don't provide that here.

54:40

And you, you lay out an open statement that gives an opposing view to what he had, what he believes that misrepresents him and hurts his reputation.

54:49

So the definition of slander is to say something knowingly false to damage one's reputation.

54:56

You have admitted here that you know that he had a context, but you don't feel it's your responsibility to check it out.

55:02

Again, you're, you're, you're missing. What I'm saying is that if they're not missing it, you're not listening.

55:08

He did not provide the context. And that was my point. And I said that if there's no, if there's context, you didn't provide it.

55:15

Zach, Zach, listen to yourself. Just listen to yourself. I'm not the one saying provide the context.

55:21

You are correct. If you're going to quote yourself from your own presentation, if you're going to make a statement like that, you need to clearly define what you mean.

55:30

Justin didn't do that. He let that statement rise. It's not my job to provide his clarification.

55:35

It's not his job to provide the clarification either. Hold on. Let's, let's, let's get back to a, let's get back to a part of this letter here, because there is a part where, um, where Zach is quoting directly from Justin's sermon.

55:51

Well, yeah, I want to, I was going to get down there later. Oh, well there there's, there's context missing in, in the part that, that Zach quoted that if that, when he watched the sermon, he would have picked up.

56:02

So where it says, moreover, moreover, you recently concluded a speaking engagement comparing the best of your movement to the worst of charismatics, which is disingenuous.

56:13

Now in, in here, he goes through Justin lists all these people, right. Just as, just as you have it right here.

56:20

But what, if what Justin continues to say is the people that he's listing here are the people who are considered the generals or, and really the fathers and foundation of the modern charismatic movement.

56:34

That was the sermon. The sermon was on the founders of the movement and he compared the founders of one movement with the founders of the other.

56:43

And then he deals with the modern day people. Right. So, so there, so it's, so what, even in your own letters,

56:50

Zach, you have left out some of Justin's context from his sermon that he actually gave.

56:56

And to that, I would say Justin's own admission is that actually he and I have the same definition of charismatic.

57:02

And again, that part right there further proves my point is that I will bring up guys like Alexander, John Alexander Dowie, John G Lake, et cetera.

57:12

And then even in the more modern, I'll compare Kenneth Copeland with Phil Johnson, Crippler Dollar with Cody Baucom, Joel Olsen with John MacArthur.

57:18

Okay. Well, why not Sam Swarms? Why not? Because for a very simple reason, when we look at your list of who you say should be in there, none of them are writing as the speakers in the movement.

57:30

Does it matter? They're still charismatics. They're still charismatics. Now, according to Justin's definition, they're still charismatic.

57:38

So that's fine. But they're not the, they're not the, with the exception of Michael Brown. Okay. There's no one in that list that would be someone that the charismatics look to, to say they're charismatic.

57:51

There are a bunch of people who, who have other disciplines and also believe in the continuing gifts, but they don't write on that.

57:59

They're not known for that. So what he's doing is comparing people on one side for what they're, they're known against, or they're known as cessationists and they write on it.

58:08

They speak on it regularly. And those that are known and speak on, on the continuationism.

58:13

So it's, it's the people that are the, the prevalence in the movement. So you want him to do an apples to oranges when, as Drew said, you didn't provide the context that, that Justin provided in the sermon.

58:26

Jack Deere has written on continuationism. Sam Storms has a book on understanding the gifts of the spirit. A book.

58:32

Is, is he, is most of his ministry devoted to that? He's written about it and he's spoken about it.

58:38

And I want you to notice, because folks, this is an apologetics, notice what he did. Asked a direct question.

58:44

He did a red herring. That's, that's to avoid. Andrew, that's disingenuous brother. It is not.

58:49

It's actually, it's not disingenuous. Let me finish. Let me finish. I know exactly what a red herring is.

58:55

You're going to sit there and say, Hey, we're going to talk about the generals of the charismatic movement. And by definition, he's referring to charismatics as those who believe that the gifts have continued.

59:04

So we're going to focus on these guys here because they're the quote generals from one guy who wrote a book. And we're not going to talk about guys like Wayne Grudem.

59:12

We're not going to talk about guys like Dr. Michael Brown, who wrote Authentic Fire. And he's written other material about this.

59:18

Sam Storms, Craig Keener. We're not going to talk about these guys because these guys are actual scholars who know what they're talking about as well.

59:25

So we're going to go with the guys that are Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen. And I'm not going to actually bring in some actual scholarship on this side.

59:33

And I'm going to show you, Hey, we've got Phil Johnson. We've got Bodie Falkham. We've got John McCarthy. Here are some scholars on our end.

59:39

Those guys really? I agree it's apples to oranges. It's not apples to apples.

59:45

Let's talk about Craig Keener. Let's examine that. So you want scholars, other than Michael Brown, none of the scholars that you mentioned, you even said

59:53

Stanislaus wrote one book. That I'm aware of. And he also wrote one book against the charismatics.

59:59

Are you familiar with that? Yeah. Michael Brown has written many books against the charismatics. So with the exception of Michael Brown, now it's interesting because you're saying scholars, so they have to be scholars, correct?

01:00:11

I'm not saying they have to be scholars. I'm saying if you want to sit there and say charismatics have Joel Osteen, I'm like, okay, well, why

01:00:17

Joel Osteen? Why don't you talk about Sam Storms? I would consider him a scholar.

01:00:23

Yes. You'd consider him. He doesn't have his PhD, which is kind of required for a scholar.

01:00:28

But he's not known as a scholar. He's got a PhD. They're known as pastors. Yeah, but they both have doctors and they both -

01:00:35

Michael Brown refers to the generals and he calls them generals. I mean, many of the people you're referring to would refer to these generals and say they're the,

01:00:44

Michael Brown refers to them as the generals. So when the people in the movement do that, because here's the things that, as Drew pointed out, you didn't provide the context to this, but you require that of Justin.

01:00:58

Okay. If I make a statement responding to somebody not giving context to their statement,

01:01:04

I'm the one that's responsible for providing the context, even though he didn't. So he gets to have a pass for not providing the context, but hey, you responded to it.

01:01:12

You got to provide the context. Hold on Drew. Hold on. Hold on one second. Why, why you said I give a pass.

01:01:18

Why am I giving him a pass and not you? Because he's, I mean, frankly, because he's a cessationist.

01:01:24

I don't know. At the end of the day, I don't know what the deal is. Here's the thing. I've said it before. I'm going to say it. I want you to, what

01:01:30

I want you to do is listen. Okay. The reason I'm not requiring

01:01:36

Justin to have to give context for everything he ever says is quite frankly, because none of us could ever do that sufficiently in everything, especially in an

01:01:48

Instagram post where you're limited or a tweet where you're limited. Everything would require a book.

01:01:54

Now, why do I require it of you? Because you do it. Okay. You are the one that's requiring it.

01:01:59

So all I'm doing, Zach, is holding you to your standard and you don't hold yourself to it. So it's okay for Justin to say,

01:02:06

I define charismatics as anybody who believes the gifts of the Holy Spirit have continued and charismatics are the ones that have the low view of the

01:02:12

Holy Spirit. And it's my job to provide context on that when he does it. No, listen again, who is it that's requiring that all the context has to be provided mere you, if you're going to use the term charismatics and define it as Justin has admitted, it is his job to provide the context of what he means and who he's referring to.

01:02:30

And he's already admitted that he's referred to as anybody that believes that the gifts of the spirit have continued by definition.

01:02:36

If that's your definition, when you refer and use the term charismatic in your own presentation and in your own context, you're lumping in everybody else that I mentioned because they believe the gifts of the spirit have continued.

01:02:46

So I want everyone to listen to what just happened. One, I asked the question, instead of answering it, we had a red herring answered something else.

01:02:52

You then saw where he's trying to take a straw man argument of saying, well, Justin can only refer to every charismatic all the time when he says charismatics, not the charismatics he mentions in the context where he says, it's not we who have a low view of the

01:03:07

Holy Spirit. The context was provided. Zach is ignoring the context, but Zach doesn't hold himself to his own standard.

01:03:15

Could I have one minute to read something? I'll quote, I'll quote this. Riddle me this, Batman. This is

01:03:20

Justin. Why is it that the movement that claims to have the most intimate relationship with God, the movement that claims dreams and visions from God and signs and wonders, the movement that claims to have the highest view of the

01:03:30

Holy Spirit, why is it this movement, the charismatic movement that is welcome home to the most brazen heretics, the most prolific false prophets and most obvious charlatans and to ever disgrace the name of Christ?

01:03:41

Why is it that those people find it welcoming home in the charismatic movement, the very movement that claims to have the highest view of, excuse me, the highest charismatic movement that claims to have the highest view of an intimate relationship with God and the

01:03:54

Holy Spirit. As a cessationist, I see no ground to the charismatics in my new ontology and my doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

01:04:00

As cessationists, you and I see no ground to the charismatics in our view of the Holy Spirit. It is not we who have a low view of the

01:04:05

Holy Spirit. It is not we who have a low view of the Holy Spirit. It is they who have a low view of the

01:04:10

Holy Spirit. As a cessationist, I do not believe that someone can be indwelt by the third person of the triune God and teach the things they teach, utter the heresies they utter, exploit the poor, sick and desperate, and the widows for personal financial gain, offer thousands of false prophecies, put words in God's mouth that he never said, and to be indwelt by the

01:04:26

Holy Spirit. So when he says that and he's referring to charismatics, is anybody that believes the gifts have continued? He's also lumping in without giving any clarification, the men that I listed, how is that fair?

01:04:36

Because he didn't list who he's talking about. I would like you to show me somewhere where Sam Storms, did any of the things you listed there, you show me where Sam Storms...

01:04:48

That's my point, Andrew. That is my point. He's never done any of those things. And if you define the charismatics as anybody that believes the gifts of the

01:04:57

Spirit have continued, by definition, you are including men like Sam Storms. You don't give any clarification to who you're referring to when you mean charismatics.

01:05:07

Okay, so Zach, you refer to Justin here. You said the statement is most divisive.

01:05:16

This is ingenuous statement that reeks of pompicity. And you don't see that you're projecting?

01:05:25

Because you just read a quote where Justin provided the context of who he's speaking of.

01:05:33

And then you were saying, he doesn't provide the context. Yet you having that quote shows, you know the context and you're purposely ignoring it.

01:05:41

Yeah. Okay. So he can say that in context and then also say it out of the same mouth, by charismatics,

01:05:48

I mean, anybody that believes the gifts have continued. So that's fair. You do realize that words have meanings, right?

01:05:57

Absolutely. And they can have meanings in a different context where some, you can use it in a more specific way.

01:06:04

Yeah. And funny, he didn't provide that context. Sure he did. You just read it. In fact, you even quoted it, not just now, but in your original thing.

01:06:13

So his definition, he can say by charismatic, he would refer to people that he believes that the gifts of the

01:06:19

Spirit have continued and then change the context and not give clarification. And another thing,

01:06:25

I'm not saying all charismatics are like this or anything like that. It's a general point of view. Did Justin say all charismatics? The charismatics.

01:06:33

The. So who are the the then? Okay. If I said the cessationists, I'm referring to all cessationists, the charismatics, the cessationists, not the charismatics.

01:06:43

No. No one would interpret that way. A lot of people actually do. You never interpret that way. When it's the, with a definite article, it's a specific group.

01:06:51

Yeah. The charismatics. The whole point is that when we look at this, and what I'm trying to help you understand is,

01:06:58

A, you're not following your own standard. You require some of Justin. You don't provide yourself. That makes you a hypocrite.

01:07:05

Okay. The fact that you, we have here the context and you continuously ignore it.

01:07:12

You keep quoting it and ignore it. And then you want to broad brush it. You're the one doing the broad brushing.

01:07:18

So I, look, I gotta be clear with you. You're the one making this divisive. You made this an issue with your statement.

01:07:26

You're claiming that he's divisive by a statement that you don't hold charismatics to when they make the statement, you've admitted to that.

01:07:34

You don't hold yourself to the same statement. I didn't say that. I said, I wasn't, if there are statements like that, feel free to share them with me.

01:07:43

I would have a problem with blanket statements like that. So if we provide those statements, you will be writing an open letter to Bill Johnson and others?

01:07:52

Again, like I said, I don't have to address every single thing that every single pastor. Why did you have to address this one?

01:07:58

Because I saw it. And so if we send it to you and you see it, then you have to address it, right?

01:08:04

Okay. So if I said, if I made a statement that said all cessationists are blasphemers of the Holy Spirit or the cessationists are blasphemers of the

01:08:11

Holy Spirit, which I don't believe, I'm just making a very broad brush statement like that. That has a lot of implications.

01:08:16

And a lot of, if I just said it just like that, the cessationists that believe that, if I just said it like that, that would be a really broad brushing statement.

01:08:24

In fact, that would be very disingenuous and very unfair for me to say something like that in just a broad brushing way.

01:08:30

When you're referring to the charismatics and there are people in the comments, so there are different types of charismatics.

01:08:35

Really? I would like to know the context of that because Justin's own definition says anybody that believes that the he didn't say all charismatics, did he?

01:08:44

So, okay. So wait, no answer the question. It's a yes or no. Did he say all charismatics?

01:08:50

If you say all charismatics or the charismatics, did he say all charismatics?

01:08:56

You're making it, you're the one saying it's all charismatics, not him. He's never made that statement.

01:09:02

Never made what statement? That all charismatics say that we have a low view of the Holy Spirit. You said that you're the one doing that.

01:09:09

That's being disingenuous. You're putting words in his mouth that he never said because he's being specific here and you're the one broad brushing it and then accusing him of broad brushing.

01:09:19

So if I said, these cessationists, the cessationists referring to that camp are blasphemers of the

01:09:27

Holy Spirit. If I just said it just like that, how would you take it? I would understand that there are a group of cessationists who are biblical and then a group of cessationists who take things way too far.

01:09:41

Zach, do you? What is a definitive article? The is a definitive article.

01:09:48

I know what a definitive article is. What's the purpose of it? To point out something. What? Are you like to specify?

01:09:57

It's a specific thing, right? It's not the very fact that there's a definitive article is what makes it a specific group.

01:10:06

So when you, and the reason I'm asking the question is because you're showing that you do understand these things.

01:10:11

So it's not that you don't understand. You do understand. And therefore you're misrepresenting the position and then ruining his reputation in the process.

01:10:22

That is the definition of slander. I will say it's amazing to me at how we can, we can have a, essentially, so we can sit here and play with the word the, oh, and by the, he's not meaning all charismatics, even though he doesn't specify who he's referring to.

01:10:46

Because again, there are, there is charismatic excess. And again, there's a lot that Justin does that I absolutely agree with.

01:10:51

And I love what he does. Somebody has to do it. And I'm glad that he does. I wish there was more people that would do what he does on the charismatic side.

01:10:57

So we can correct that. I really do. But when I, if Justin's own definition by your admission is anybody that has a view of the

01:11:05

Holy spirit, that the gifts of the spirit are continuing, if that is his definition. Okay. And that's a fallacy of equivocation that you just did there.

01:11:13

Okay. The word charismatic, you're using two different ways in two different contexts. He is saying that you, you, by your own admission, you've said that his definition of charismatic right or wrong is the issue is the fact that, and you're not answering my question.

01:11:32

So here's, here's your red herring. Do you see how that works? No, it's I'm not. I am answering the question. You're just not waiting for an answer.

01:11:38

Now. I mean, if you can't wait, it exposes that you can't handle it. It was a yes or no question.

01:11:44

So you've accused me of doing the exact same thing, brother. Okay. So charismatic, the definition of charismatic would be someone who believes that the gifts, the charismatic gifts continue for today.

01:11:55

When you use the charismatics and say, it is not we who have a low view of the Holy spirit.

01:12:01

You are specifying a group of charismatics. That is what a definitive article does as you admitted.

01:12:09

And yet you're the one, not Justin, you're the one saying it applies to all charismatics. Justin didn't say that you said that, and then you blasted them for that.

01:12:19

So you you're blasting him for something you made up, not something he said all because you say it's not your responsibility.

01:12:28

Again, again, again, let's go back to the definition of terms here, because that's, that's not exactly what happened.

01:12:35

He quoted that statement in and of itself by itself with no preceding context, no following context, none whatsoever.

01:12:41

Anybody that sees that statement by itself as he quoted himself, but you have the requirement that he has to give that context.

01:12:48

Zach is the context of your letter. The fact that he just used the phrase, the charismatics, he broad brushed the entire charismatic group, but he didn't.

01:12:57

Okay. But is that the context of your letter? What were you asking when you're writing your letter?

01:13:05

Is the context that you're upset that he just used a general phrase, the charismatics?

01:13:12

Because by his own definition, the charismatics, I'm asking, hold on, hold on. Zach, Zach, when he says the charismatics, he has never said that's all charismatics.

01:13:26

You have said that. So you have to stop saying, hold on. You have to stop saying that by his definition, this means that when he hasn't said that you're using a fallacy of equivocation.

01:13:38

And I'm going to just tell you, if your argument, as we've already seen, is filled with logical, invalid, logical arguments, your statement is invalid and you're using it to slander a brother.

01:13:51

So, so I'm allowed to say and make a statement that says, Hey, the charismatics, or let's go back to the original statement and just post this by itself on Instagram as cessationist.

01:14:03

You and I see no ground to the charismatics. Like there's a line continuation. Which charismatics is he referring to when he says the charismatics?

01:14:11

Oh, I don't know. Maybe his own definition of charismatics by anybody that believes that the gifts of the spirit. No, no, no, no. Which charismatics when he said the charismatics, which ones is he referring to?

01:14:21

It's that's a specific group when he says the charismatics, it's not all charismatics. So if he wanted all, he would have said all you're saying, you're making it about a word.

01:14:31

And that's why I'm focused on the word. Okay. You also didn't give the context that you were just upset that he said the charismatics.

01:14:38

Okay. So you didn't provide context. So, so I can make a statement that says, essentially what he said as cessationist, you and I see no ground to the charismatics in our view of the

01:14:49

Holy Spirit, the charismatics. It is not we who have a low view of the Holy Spirit. It is they who have a low view of the

01:14:54

Holy Spirit. I can post that by itself in and of itself, truth bomb hashtag. And that's perfectly fine because, oh, when

01:15:02

I say the, the cares or the charismatics, I'm not referring to every charismatic, even though my own definition of charismatic is anybody that believes that the gifts of the spirit have continued.

01:15:10

I'm allowed to change that definition a little bit to fit guys like Joe, losing a couple of dollar

01:15:16

Kenneth Copeland. Okay. So, so where, where's this hashtag truth bomb? I don't see this.

01:15:21

I'm looking at it. It's not there. Yeah. Hold on. Let me, let me pull it up on.

01:15:27

So, so the, the thing is you didn't provide the context, but you require

01:15:32

Justin to provide context. You don't feel it's your responsibility to verify what you say.

01:15:38

So I haven't, I don't know if it's going to be seen on my phone, but I have the post. It's maybe if I can get it toward the end of his posts.

01:15:47

I don't know. I doubt he's changing. I'm not going to say that he has hashtag truth bomb right there at the end.

01:15:54

Okay. All right. So that's by itself a statement that's designed to be that little punch.

01:16:01

And my whole point is that if we're going to say, if we're going to use that, just, I'm going to post that and say,

01:16:08

Oh, well, you need to go listen to the sermon to figure out who I mean by charismatic. No, no, no. You don't have to. I keep telling you, the context is right there.

01:16:16

It's you've, you've, you quoted it because it says the very next sentence, the one you didn't want me to read that when, when

01:16:23

I said to keep reading, it is not, we who have a low view of the Holy spirit, who says we have a low view of the

01:16:29

Holy spirit. Who is that? Certain charismatics have, I've already said that now we know who the charismatics refer to.

01:16:37

So where does Justin say this refers to all charismatics that you claim? That's interesting. So, so again, his definition of charismatic is anybody that believes to get to the spheres have continued.

01:16:52

Okay. I I'm not disputing that, but you're, but you keep going back to the same logical fallacy of equivocation because it's not his definition that makes this the, to refer to all when he's being specific, you are the one applying it to all your definition.

01:17:09

It's his definition and it's everybody else's general definition of what a charismatic is. And that's my whole point is that anybody that sees his

01:17:16

Instagram posts by itself, as it was intended to be seen would look at this and be like, well, I'm charismatic.

01:17:22

And I'm like, what are you talking about? No, only you seem to think that, no, I'm not the only one that seems to think the thing is he's when we interpret language, we interpret language a specific way, you know, and you've admitted that a definitive article separates the group of all into specific people.

01:17:41

It's a specific group. He provides the context of the group in the very next sentence. So if you have this statement all by itself, the group is provided.

01:17:50

It is those who say that we have a low view of the Holy spirit. The context is there. You are the one that is saying this applies to all.

01:17:59

That's a misrepresentation. Now you want to claim that the statement by itself is divisive and yet you don't seem to think it's divisive when charismatics make it, or you just don't want to look at it.

01:18:10

And yet you're the one requiring people to provide context when that is an impossible standard and you don't do it yourself.

01:18:19

Again, you're telling me that I need to provide context for Justin's own. No, I'm saying you have to provide context for what you say.

01:18:27

That was Justin's definition of charismatic before Andrew told you. Yes. That's what

01:18:32

I assumed it was. You assumed it was, but you didn't know for sure that it was. What does that have any relevance to you?

01:18:39

You just assumed that it was. My whole point is that I assumed he had the same definition that everybody else said, and that's why

01:18:48

I said, if there's no context, don't move off that topic. You said, what does it have to do with anything?

01:18:54

You are the one that requires context to be given and you didn't do it.

01:19:00

Again, I, again, how is it, how is it any standard that I have to give context to his statement that he provided required that we required you to give context to your state?

01:19:11

Let me ask you, this letter, is it yours? Did you write it? Of course I did. You wrote this?

01:19:16

Of course. These are your words? Mine. Then why didn't you provide context to your words?

01:19:22

That's the question. What context are you referring to that I didn't provide? Well, we've already gone through several of them, but we can go through it again.

01:19:28

First off, you are insinuating and saying that Justin refers to all charismatics when he says the charismatics that say this.

01:19:37

There's nowhere where the word all is. That's an incredible standard that I'm required to provide the context of, hey, but this is what

01:19:44

Justin means by this. Even though Justin didn't say that, I have to do that. Is your statement all about the fact that you're the one saying that there's hundreds of millions of faithful Christians that he's referring to?

01:19:57

Are those your words? Of course they're my words. I wrote them. Okay. And yet they're not included in this, in the all, because there is no all there.

01:20:05

You added that context. So where did you come up with that? You didn't provide the context of why he picked up the people because in the sermon, he provided the context.

01:20:17

So you got the quote from the sermon, but you didn't provide the context that Justin provided when he referred to the generals.

01:20:25

Okay. Why is it that the movement, the charismatic movement, and by definition of charismatic,

01:20:31

I mean, anybody that has the view of the spirit or the view that the gifts of the spirit are No, no, no, no.

01:20:37

What was the word you said after charismatic? I'm referring, I'm going back to his original context.

01:20:42

I, I, you, you just say the word. I want you to say it again. So when you read what I would love for Zach to read that, that entire quote that he read earlier, because Justin gives the context to the movement, what he means by the charismatic movement.

01:20:58

He tells you what he means. And by definition, his charismatic view is that anybody that believes against the spirit.

01:21:04

He tells you, okay. Okay. Stop. Drew, hold on. Why did you do that?

01:21:10

We've, we've covered this now four or five times. Because what you brothers are doing. And I mean, this was all sincerity is you're saying, yeah, this is

01:21:17

Justin's admitted definition of charismatic, but he's allowed to change from this definition here and apply it to this specific group.

01:21:23

Let me ask you a question. Are we, are we Americans here? Of course. I, well,

01:21:29

I assume this right here in this group, this is all of America, right? Yeah.

01:21:36

These are three individuals who live in the United States of America. How do you define an American? Somebody who was born in the

01:21:41

United States. Okay. So therefore by your definition, we Americans have to refer to all

01:21:47

Americans. No. Well, the, the Americans that are here have to refer to all, because your definition of American is anyone born in the

01:21:56

United States. Yeah. And just like Justin's definition of charismatic is anybody that believes against continued. And therefore, when he says the charismatics, the way we just said the

01:22:07

Americans, we must be referring to all correct. So if somebody said something referring to answer the question, is that can say,

01:22:16

I'm just, what I'm trying to do for you, Zach is I'm trying to help you to see what you don't want to see. Well, and I'm trying to help you guys see what y 'all aren't seeing.

01:22:23

And y 'all are holding me to a standard. You're holding me to your standard. How am I required to hold

01:22:28

Jeff or how am I required to be the one that provides the context of your words? Not to Justin's words, to your words.

01:22:35

That's what we're asking for. Again. So Justin can use the term, the charismatics and have the view of the charismatics and the definition of the charismatic.

01:22:42

That's not the definition you're giving is not what he means by it. This is the thing, Zach, when we say the

01:22:48

Americans that are here in this, in this thing, we're not referring to all Americans, are we? It's not what he means by it.

01:22:53

He literally said, you literally said that his view of the Holy, or excuse me, his view of the definition of charismatic is anybody who believes that the gifts of the spirit.

01:23:03

Okay. Charismatics. So which group is that? Because you already admitted that the definitive article limits it, but you're, you're, you're the one, see, this is the reason

01:23:16

Zach, what you're doing is you're the one you're twisting. What Justin is saying to fit your purpose, man.

01:23:23

You know, it's very convenient to be able to use a broad burst term, like the charismatics and didn't come out and say, well,

01:23:28

I don't mean all charismatics. That's what the charismatics referred to, especially when he clarifies it right afterwards.

01:23:35

Yeah. No, even in the quote you read from the sermon, he clarified it and you wanted to broad brush it.

01:23:41

Well, I think that's what we need to get back to, because we were talking about this letter, which comes out of Justin sermon where Justin clearly gives the context in the sermon, but Zach, you keep taking it back to a definition that you only learned at the beginning of the show that Justin for certain held where before you just assumed that he held it.

01:24:03

So what we need to do is we need to get back to the sermon, which you have, and you watched, and you've quoted from that gives the context.

01:24:10

So now let's talk about the context of what, of the sermon that you keep bringing up. Okay, go ahead.

01:24:16

Okay. So when we're, when Justin is giving his, his sermon in his message, and he talks about the charismatic movement, he continues on to say who he means and who he's talking about.

01:24:30

He describes those who take advantage of people, those who, those who seek wealth and gain by worldly means.

01:24:37

And then he, he describes the people exactly that he's talking about. This is, this is what's called linear thinking or linear preaching.

01:24:46

He's starting with a statement and then he, he gets more and more specific about who he's talking to.

01:24:52

So the context is in everything that you have just read. So, so we have to deal with that.

01:25:01

Okay. So we can say something like the movement, the charismatic movement, and again, his definition of charismatic, which you just learned that he held to at the beginning of the show.

01:25:12

Let's take that out of it and let's talk about the context. Yeah, but there's, Drew, there's also a thing here. The definition for charismatic and the definition of charismatic movement are not the same.

01:25:23

That too is, is a fallacy of equivocation. It's, it's no different than the people who say, do you believe in God's law, theonomy?

01:25:32

And people say, yes. Oh, you must be a theonomist. No, because theonomy, God's law is different than a theological system known as theonomy.

01:25:42

The word is the same, theonomy. Yeah, because we wouldn't look at John Piper and we wouldn't say

01:25:47

John Piper is in the charismatic movement. So we wouldn't add him even as a charismatic.

01:25:54

I don't even think John Piper would define himself as a charismatic because that's not his thing.

01:25:59

Well, it's, it's not about himself as open, but cautious. My, my, my point is that again, and we keep moving on from this for whatever reason, and I'm not entirely sure because it actually is very important.

01:26:12

Justin's definition, sorry, my dog's coming down to drink some water if you hear that. Justin's definition of charismatic is anybody that believes that the gifts of the spirit have continued.

01:26:21

Anybody that believes the gifts of the spirit have continued. The whole point of my post, and I think this may have been lost in there and even this might be my fault.

01:26:28

My point is that he said in his own little quote, as you and I see no ground that we already, we've already read it multiple times in that statement.

01:26:39

If you just look at his Instagram posts and see the Instagram posts by itself and know nothing else, you see this and are looking at it like, what are you talking about?

01:26:48

What do you mean that I, like, how can you say something about the, I like this about charismatics?

01:26:55

I would read it and I would say it is not we who have a low view of the Holy spirit. So I would say, okay, so there's the charismatics.

01:27:05

There are those in the charismatic movement that say we have a low view of the Holy spirit. So the context is there.

01:27:11

You're ignoring it. I'm not ignoring it. It's because it's not there. I don't see it.

01:27:18

Okay. So the purpose of a definitive article is what?

01:27:25

You're talking about to specify? Yeah. So what is it specifying here? Charismatics.

01:27:33

Okay. So if, if I, it's specifying charismatics and then it's like, but what charismatics?

01:27:39

Okay. So, so when I say the Americans, is that all Americans? If I say all,

01:27:45

I, if I say the Americans have a low view of the Holy spirit, am I referring to all Americans?

01:27:52

It would, well, for one, I would, it, you would have to give me about what Justin gave me to go off of to make a, to make a, to make a statement like that.

01:28:01

Cause if I just said, I want to make sure I understand. So you're saying you can make a conclusion with what

01:28:08

Justin means by it, but you can't make a conclusion with the same words and only one word changed

01:28:13

American versus charismatic. No, no, my, my, my point is that, okay. So if we're going to say the

01:28:19

Americans have a low view of the Holy spirit, if, if I say, if I come out and just say the

01:28:24

Americans have a low view of the Holy spirit and just leave it like that without no preceding context whatsoever, that would by definition conclude that the

01:28:31

Americans as a result, or the Americans, like those who live in the United States of America, all of those

01:28:37

Americans have a low view of the Holy spirit because they're Americans, the Americans, you're not giving any preceding qualification on who you mean by Americans.

01:28:45

If you come out and say by the Americans, what I'm meaning is that those who, let's say like Kenneth Copeland, who has said some of the most blasphemous things that I've ever heard in my life.

01:28:53

And I, that's me saying that. And if I'm just, if I'm going to qualify it like that and say, these are the men that I'm referring to,

01:28:59

I'm not referring to brothers and sisters who biblically practice the gifts or the brothers and sisters who condemn these things.

01:29:06

So, so let me, let me put this phrase to you and see the Americans that are, we, we should not concede any ground to the

01:29:17

Americans who believe who say we have to view, uh,

01:29:24

I'm trying to think of how to best phrase it to keep it in the context here. Uh, we should concede no ground to the

01:29:30

Americans who view that we don't have a choice with our own bodies.

01:29:38

Well, let's just say that all Americans support abortion. Say your statement again.

01:29:46

We should concede no ground to the Americans that say that we should not have a choice of what to do with our body.

01:29:55

Does that mean that all Americans, that's not what Justin said. That's not what Justin said. He said, as a station is, you and I see no ground to the charismatics in our view of the

01:30:03

Holy Spirit. It is not we who have a low view of the

01:30:08

Holy Spirit. Why do you keep stopping and not reading the context? Because I'm, I'm keeping, I would, you interrupted me.

01:30:14

Okay. Okay. So the view of the Holy Spirit, it is not we who have a low view of the Holy Spirit. It is they, the charismatics, the charismatics, they, the charismatics that have a low view of the

01:30:26

Holy Spirit. Charismatics who do what with regard to the we?

01:30:31

Oh, if only that was, that was stated in the original Instagram post by itself. But it's, it's there.

01:30:38

I can read it and go, okay. We, so someone's saying we have a low view of the

01:30:44

Holy Spirit. Yeah. But I sent this to some, I sent this to multiple charismatic friends, just to quote by itself. And I'm like, what do you think of this?

01:30:50

And they, they all took it the same way I did. So you can say it that way. Cause you know, the context of it, they didn't know the context of it.

01:30:57

Just like, I didn't know the context of where this came from, what it meant. I just see this here. And then I wouldn't go watch the presentation, sermon, whatever you want to call it.

01:31:04

Um, I don't, I'm not saying presentation to, you know, demean what Justin was doing. Um, but if, if you just saw that statement by itself, as Justin posted it by itself, you would jump to some conclusions and say, well, what in the world are you meaning by this?

01:31:20

Okay. So you saw the statement, then you went to go see the sermon now was did

01:31:26

Justin reference the sermon in his post? I believe he may have, I'm not entirely sure off the top of my head.

01:31:33

Okay. Um, so if he referenced the sermon in his posts, he's, he's taking an excerpt from his sermon and then he's giving you the place to go watch, to gain the context.

01:31:45

So he did give the context. He's saying here, you want more go, you see what I'm talking about? Even if he didn't drew my point is even if he didn't,

01:31:53

I do not expect anybody, especially on social media, especially in, in a social media like Twitter or Instagram or anything that limits you to a certain number of characters to provide context for every word you say, we could use the word

01:32:11

Calvinist and it could have 15 different definitions. The reason I don't use the word

01:32:16

Calvinist, a label is only good if everyone agrees to the definition of a label. And those who are regular here, you know,

01:32:23

I've said that countless times. So the, the fact is, is that there are certain labels that we should, we, you know, my opinion avoid in certain contexts because label does no good.

01:32:36

Calvinist in certain circles is a meaningless label. If I'm in, uh, latent flowers is group, his soterio one -on -one.

01:32:43

I'm not going to use the word Calvinist. Why? Because we don't have the same definition of the label.

01:32:49

So it's, it becomes a useless discussion. Now, what do we have to do is we have to define terms.

01:32:54

And instead of using a label, I'll, I'll define things. And that's what I, that's what I said at the beginning, what would have been helpful.

01:33:03

Do you still have an Instagram post pulled up? I can probably get it.

01:33:09

Oh, let me see. If you could just real, real quick. Oh, actually, hold on, hold on.

01:33:14

The link can be found to the cessation. It's going to be found in the bio. Okay. So yeah, just to confirm, he said the link can be found in the bio.

01:33:21

Okay. So he is providing you, he's providing you the resource to go see what he's talking about.

01:33:28

And again, his own definition of charismatic is what we've said about 50 times since he's providing a logical fallacy when you do that, because you have a fallacy of equivocation because he's defining which charismatics and you, you are ignoring that,

01:33:47

I think on purpose. No. Okay. So again, let's go back to a certain point to this here.

01:33:54

Okay. Let's go back to a little bit before the quote, we're going to wrap this up in about five minutes to give some, that's fine.

01:34:01

Um, the movement that claims dreams and visions from God, the movement that claims signs and wonders, the movement that claims to have the highest view of the

01:34:09

Holy spirit. So what I'm referring to is like Michael Brown has shared testimony of seeing signs and wonders.

01:34:15

Um, Craig Keener's got a two volume work on miracles, which is a phenomenal work. Um, so when we say stuff like that, you're also, whether you,

01:34:23

I mean, again, when you use the term charismatic, you're also including people who affirm dreams and visions, signs and wonders, see these things happening, have witnessed these things have been a part of these things.

01:34:34

And then, but I'm referring to, you know, guys like Kenneth Copeland or whoever else you want to refer to in that.

01:34:41

And again, my whole point in all of this is that if you look at the Instagram post by itself and see it by itself and just read what he said, you come to that conclusion of the phrase of the charismatics by his own definition of what he's admitted to believing.

01:34:56

It was just, again, what I assumed he meant by everything else. And I assumed it because, well, does he have another definition that he didn't provide?

01:35:03

Because that would have been helpful if he had another definition that he didn't provide, but Zach, I, I hear,

01:35:09

I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying a hundred percent. The problem with what you're saying is that in this

01:35:17

Instagram post, he says an excerpt from my sermon, the modern charismatic resurgence at Kootenai church cessationist conference back in November, the link to the sermon and more info on the cessationist movie, yada, yada.

01:35:34

So what he did, he took an excerpt and then he tied it back to his sermon for people to go watch.

01:35:42

And now we're talking about the sermon. So now this in the sermon, he gives you the context of what he means when he says those words, he's saying the, the modern charismatic movement.

01:35:56

That's what it's called the modern charismatic resurgence. And then he talks about the charismatic movement.

01:36:02

He explains who he's talking about. And then he lists people that he's talking about. That's why you don't see names like Jack Deere, Sam Storms, Wayne Grudem, DA Carson.

01:36:12

That's why you don't see those names in there because the context is already given in the

01:36:19

Instagram post for you to go see. Again, one more thing.

01:36:24

So I think there's one thing that I just thought of that would have been helpful.

01:36:30

And like, cause back to the, just real quick, the American saying, um, the, you think it would have been helpful for him to have said something like the majority of charismatics instead of just the charismatics.

01:36:42

Because if you say something like the majority of or some, then you're clarifying and by your own statement, you're saying, well,

01:36:49

Hey, there's, there are some that believe this, but you're also saying there are some that don't affirm this. There are some that don't ascribe to this, but when you're saying the charismatics, this is a definitive article, like you said, that is referring to a group of people by Justin's definition, charismatic means anybody that believes the gifts of the spirit have continued.

01:37:06

False. I don't, I don't, no, no, no. Okay. So the answer to that is you keep doing this over and over again because you must.

01:37:16

No, you keep, well, if you're saying that I must, you keep wanting to deviate from it.

01:37:22

No, no, no. I'm saying, so the answer to your question is, and I've said this multiple times, he gives us the context.

01:37:28

I'm going to, I'm going to highlight this for you so that you could see this. It's right here, right there.

01:37:35

The charismatics. He gives the context. It is not we who have a low view of the Holy spirit. He is not referring to all charismatics.

01:37:43

And when you cut, try to force that definition that you didn't know he held to, you assumed it before you wrote an open letter criticizing him, you should have done your homework and check to this.

01:37:55

The fact that he provided a link to the sermon that provides the context means you didn't do your homework and you should have before putting out a public statement.

01:38:04

So, so let's, let's deal with some things. What does scripture make clear? Matthew, Matthew 18, is that, does that apply?

01:38:13

Well, yes and no. Um, but the principles apply that we try to keep things as private as possible.

01:38:21

Okay. If it can be now, did you need to go public with this?

01:38:27

I have no problem. I said with you doing this publicly, I do have a problem with you take going public without doing your homework, without looking at any context here, that the fact that you have a requirement you put on Justin, that Justin must provide context for his words, but you don't provide context to your words.

01:38:48

That's a double standard. The fact that you have continuously used throughout your statement and here, many logical fallacies should concern you that you can't make a valid argument.

01:39:02

Okay. So I want to point out something again, that is in the full context of it.

01:39:07

The movement that claims to have the most intimate relationship with God, the movement that claims dreams and visions, uh, from God signs and wonders, that movement is referring to those who believe that the gifts of the spirit have continued the charismatics.

01:39:17

That's his definition. That's his own context. That's what he's referring to in terms of the movement that believe in dreams and visions that believe these things.

01:39:24

Okay. But you quoted, you quoted continue. Yeah. You, you know, about people who pray on the poor.

01:39:31

Is that, is that all charismatic? Do they do that? I don't know. I wouldn't know that from looking at the quote.

01:39:36

My whole point is that you would look at it from looking at the quote, because that's what you quoted to us earlier from the sermon provided the link to again, which clarifies exactly the point.

01:39:46

Again, again, the full context of his statement is talking about all charismatics.

01:39:51

No, it is not. He's talking about, he specified it in that he specified it in the sermon that you read.

01:39:59

Okay. You read it to us. Charismatics believe that signs and wonders continue. Do, okay.

01:40:06

Are you asking if all charismatics believe that? Okay. Well, justice definition is that anybody that believes that, okay.

01:40:12

All right. But yet when we change the word to American, you, you seem to use that properly.

01:40:17

So that shows an inconsistency again, and you just, you avoided the, you avoided the question and then you brought up the answer because, because you're,

01:40:26

I'm putting out the logical fallacy you have, but fine. The definition of a charismatic is that they believe that the charismatic gifts continue for today.

01:40:36

Does that mean that in his statement where he says the charismatics and refers to which ones, and then it's not all charismatics, the fact that he used a definitive article limits it.

01:40:48

That's what it does. That's the very purpose of a definitive article. And he provided the next sentence that gave you the context.

01:40:56

And then he gave you a link to the sermon that you read a that gave the context of which charismatics, and it's clearly referring to the, those word of faith folks who sit there and pray on the floor.

01:41:08

Because the charismatics that I refer to also believe in dreams and vision signs and wonders. Do they, do they stretch legs?

01:41:15

What? That's not relevant. It was in the quote. That's the context. So the context is only relevant when it fits.

01:41:23

No, so I can, I can have a definition of charismatic that says that all those that believe that the gifts of the spirit are continued are charismatic.

01:41:32

And then the movement that claims, you know, signs and wonders, the movement that believes dreams and visions still happening today.

01:41:38

I can still use the term charismatic and then also bring in the fact of the, you know, lengthening legs, which

01:41:45

I don't support. I can. So when Justin, when

01:41:50

Justin refers to those people though, that's clearly not referring to all charismatics, is it? If you, if your definition of charismatic is that I believe the charismatics have, when he speaks of a group of charismatics that do certain things, he's not speaking of all of them are, is he, if he's saying be charismatics, if you look at his statement again, by itself, just as the

01:42:12

Instagram post was notice what you can do. He's wrong for not providing the context.

01:42:17

Then you want to ignore the context, not only the immediate context, but the broader context. My point is that he didn't provide any context in his

01:42:25

Instagram post. That's true. He did. He did. He told you to go. He told you to go. I highlighted it for you.

01:42:32

I highlighted it for you. And he gives you the longer explanation that you said he needed to do.

01:42:39

So he needed to provide it. He did. Again, if you read the statement by itself and just leave it at that, and your definition of the charismatics.

01:42:50

And if you ignore what he said, you're wrong because he's not referring to all. Well, again,

01:42:55

I, I, I, again, we can, we can agree to disagree on this. Um, because I mean.

01:43:02

Zach, Zach, why in, in the Instagram post, why are you ignoring what he says after the statement?

01:43:10

What? The truth bomb? No. The, the fact that he says where the statement is from and to that he's linked the sermon in his bio.

01:43:22

Why are you ignoring that section? Because the whole point of it is I'm going again, again,

01:43:28

I'm going to quote this one part of my sermon and I'm going to hashtag truth bomb. Okay. And leave it as a statement by itself.

01:43:35

Here, here's my sermon in the link below. If you read that statement by itself and then you like, and then let's assume you see the statement and then, you know what?

01:43:45

I'm gonna go watch this sermon. And then it's about God's generals, which is on one book. And most of these are actually some people that I'd never even heard of until watching that.

01:43:53

Um, and then say, it is not us who have a low view of the care of the Holy spirit.

01:43:58

It is not us that have a low view of the spirit. It is they, they are referring to.

01:44:05

So he provided a, a, a, a statement and then he provided the source.

01:44:12

And then you go watch the source where he explains exactly what he means. And then you come back and focus on just the charismatics after watching the sermon, when he's already said what he means.

01:44:25

So I have, I have one, one last comment for you, Zach. So is your issue that you had with this

01:44:32

Instagram post that Justin did not provide the context to what he, who he was referring to when he refers to the charismatics?

01:44:40

That was a very big issue I had with it. Okay. And yet what we've seen here tonight is he provided that context in the very next sentence and in the link.

01:44:51

So if that's your concern and we've shown that he's provided that you even quoted it, don't you think you should repent?

01:45:00

I don't think there's anything to repent of because you haven't shown me anything to repent of. Again, my whole point is that we have the term, the charismatics, and this is my definition of the charismatics and my definition being

01:45:12

Justin. You can't import that definition into a specific statement where he's limiting that to.

01:45:18

That's convenient. It's, it's called context. It's called the rules of language. You, I let you define it.

01:45:24

I asked you what a definitive article is. I didn't tell you. Yeah. It's just, you understand what it is referring to the charismatics.

01:45:31

And by, if I, if I said, if I said to a specific group, that's what it does. Yeah. The specific group calling the charismatics.

01:45:38

When you, when you quoted what Justin said about modern day charismatics,

01:45:45

Kenneth Copeland and, and Creflo Dollar and the comparisons that he made, did you leave off context from what

01:45:51

Justin said in that sermon? What context? What are you referring to?

01:45:56

What about the generals? Yes. Did you leave off context from that? You mentioned those people.

01:46:02

Okay. Okay. So he mentioned charismatics have, and again, charismatics, my definition is that anybody that believes the gifts of the spirit have continued.

01:46:10

So I'm going to mention these guys and I'm not going to mention time out because in the sermon that you keep referring to, he tells you what charismatics he means, and then he lists them.

01:46:23

So in this list that you provided quoting Justin, did you leave off context as to why he listed them?

01:46:32

Did you not include the context? I, again, there, there was no context to it.

01:46:38

If his definition of charismatics is exactly what I thought it was. No, no, no, no, no. He provided a definition of who he's referring to and you, you're leaving it out.

01:46:48

And it seems purposely. I'm sorry that you feel that it seems purposefully because what you guys are saying,

01:46:55

I'm not seeing. I tell you what we can do. We can pull up the sermon and we can pull up this part and we can continue listening to where Justin tells you why he listed them.

01:47:04

Well, yeah, because charismatics were, because some charismatics review that or revere them or because the people he listed, he listed for a purpose and he listed them for the purpose that he stated before he listed them.

01:47:19

And then he tells you who they are after he listed them. How do you provide that context that you did not provide for his own words again?

01:47:27

So I can compare the best of my movement to the worst of yours. So why do you say they're the worst?

01:47:32

And why do you say these are the best? Why do you say they're the worst? When, when Charles Fox, Fox Parham is actually the father of modern

01:47:40

Pentecostalism. Why do you call him the worst? Okay. So because if, because Justin's making a contrast, let's see who he made a contrast with Charles Fox, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

01:47:50

So you're making a contrast. These are, these who are the charismatics have, this is who we have.

01:47:56

Yeah. Why is Parham viewed as the worst when he's viewed as the father of Pentecostalism?

01:48:02

Being the father of Pentecostalism has no relevance to it. And it's more of a statement of the overall context of it.

01:48:08

Again, it has a lot of use that you ignored again.

01:48:15

So, okay. So, so we're going to, we're going to, because we do want to wrap up the show. I do have a,

01:48:20

I've got a question for, for Zach. Okay. What do you believe the purpose of the

01:48:27

Holy spirit is? The belief of the purpose of the Holy spirit is? Yeah. What's the purpose and function of the

01:48:32

Holy spirit? To convict people of sin, to bring about the finished work of Jesus Christ, to regenerate people's souls, to do the work that he has been sent to do by the

01:48:40

Lord Jesus Christ. And then at his will, as he determines in his sovereign plan to bestow upon the gifts of his people, the

01:48:47

Holy spirit and the furtherance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Okay. How does the modern day charismatic view the

01:48:57

Holy spirit? We'll say the, now I'm going to distinguish for you, uh, to provide the context we're going,

01:49:04

I'm going to say, how does the bill Johnsons, the Chris Valitons, the Kenneth Copelands, the

01:49:10

Todd whites, how do they view the purpose of the Holy spirit? Would you say it's the same as your definition or no?

01:49:17

I don't know. Ask them. I mean, we've, we can listen to them and, and so, but I'm asking you, well,

01:49:28

I'm asking your opinion because you have pretty strong opinions about what Justin said. So what are, what, what is your view about how they would view the

01:49:38

Holy spirit? Again, it's assuming that I know what their view of the Holy spirit is, or what a particular example is.

01:49:45

Do you know anyone? You felt it okay to go public with Justin's view without knowing it?

01:49:52

Because Justin made it quite clear in his post and made a statement like that. And you guys are also thinking that I need to go listen to every other charismatic.

01:50:01

No, no, no, no, no. You read the context. He provided the link. You obviously went to that link because you got that, but you ignore the context of why he referred to the people that he referred to.

01:50:13

So you demand him to give context, but then you ignore the context. And yet you don't follow your own standard by using context for what your own words are.

01:50:22

Well, if you were responsible to provide the context for your words. Again, what do

01:50:27

I, I'm still confused on what you mean by context for my own. You wrote this statement.

01:50:32

You left out words. You left out the context of why Justin said the very things you quoted him as saying.

01:50:40

Because the people he's talking about in this statement, he says, those who believe in science and wonders, those who believe that, um, dreams and visions, et cetera.

01:50:47

And then he lists, don't stop with et cetera. Keep going. No, no, no. I'm saying, and then he lists the other people, those who do prey on people, but he also, whether he knows it or not, he's lumping in those who believe science and wonders and those who believe, whether Justin knows it or not, he's lumping in people by his own words.

01:51:10

Zach is the authority on what Justin means, not

01:51:16

Justin. That's not what I said. Zach doesn't know what the original intent of the author is.

01:51:22

So he's going to assign it and then say that author is wrong because he's lumping them in, even though he doesn't know he's doing it.

01:51:30

Zach, that is what I said of you to do. How many, how many, uh, charismatics have you read or listened to?

01:51:41

Let's say, have you, have you, obviously you've read Sam storms, right? You've read Sam storms,

01:51:47

Michael Brown, Jack gear, listen to a lot of things from them on YouTube. A lot of things from there. Okay. Have you listened to anything from, uh,

01:51:56

Bill Johnson and Todd White? Not specifically on the Holy spirit? No. Okay.

01:52:02

Um, well, they get or, or, or the gifts for that matter. I've listened to certain things from them to gain clarification on other topics that aren't related to the

01:52:12

Holy spirit, just so I can hear them and just hear, hear their, hear their statements. Um, just to come to a conclusion myself.

01:52:19

Um, so I haven't, I'm sure you don't live in a bubble, so I'm sure you've seen tons of videos of, of Todd White talking about the

01:52:27

Holy spirit and, and things like that and, and how he tries to implement the Holy spirit. Right. I'm sure you're not oblivious to that, right?

01:52:34

Not entirely oblivious, but not enough to be comfortable enough to under to comment on what he may mean by it.

01:52:41

Cause I do know that Todd is also not, and I don't mean this in any disrespect to Todd, but I wouldn't consider

01:52:47

Todd as educated as I would Justin. And I know Todd has been very sloppy with his language at times.

01:52:53

So I have to kind of sloppy. He's been heretical in his language a lot of times again, again.

01:53:00

So he said some things that are very concerning and have been very sloppy at times. And he's been very confusing to in certain instances.

01:53:07

But again, um, I haven't, I haven't listened enough to what they view about the gifts of the spirit specifically or charismatics, for example.

01:53:18

I would just say, go look at their view of how they teach the

01:53:23

Holy spirit and the purpose and function of the Holy spirit compared to some of these other guys you're talking about, these scholars you're talking about and see if they actually arrive at the same conclusion as to who the

01:53:35

Holy spirit is and, and different view. And I would agree they would have a different view, but unfortunately for Justin, he labels them all as charismatic.

01:53:43

He did not do that. He, he limited it and you keep ignoring that. And that's, and James is dishonest.

01:53:50

But now, you know, now would be a good time for me to talk about our sponsor that someone was asking for about an hour ago, uh, my pillow.

01:53:59

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01:54:13

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01:54:22

So go to mypillow .com and use promo code S F E. So I have my pillow and I love them for the record.

01:54:29

All right. Yes. Well, that was going to be the next question I was going to ask you, but now we have the answer.

01:54:35

So, um, so I, we have a lot of things come. I didn't, I obviously folks,

01:54:40

I said, I was, I didn't see a lot of the comments. We'll try to address some of the comments and questions, uh, at the end.

01:54:47

Um, I want to wrap up. So there was a question I saw that people said, why are we addressing this?

01:54:52

What, what's the concern? Um, you know, there's going to be some things that, you know,

01:54:57

Zach, you and I just met. I'm going to say some things that I'm not saying to offend you.

01:55:02

You won't offend me. I might. Um, but I'm going to,

01:55:08

I'm going to say, and I'm not, I'm just going to give some facts and then let folks decide where they want to, what they think.

01:55:19

Um, my concern, why I thought this needs to be addressed is

01:55:26

I see, uh, I see a troubling sign of what

01:55:32

I've seen. Um, and so with that, I said, I'm going to, I'm going to share some things publicly that I have not shared before.

01:55:40

Uh, so several years ago, as many may know, um,

01:55:46

Zach's wife, Lindsay, who came out of Bethel when she came out of Bethel, uh, there was a lot of talk.

01:55:55

I had many people who contacted me saying, you got to get this girl on your podcast. She's got a great testimony.

01:56:01

She came out of Bethel. Um, and I know she's, she's watching, so she can confirm it.

01:56:08

Um, I was on the phone with her. Turned out that I happened to, uh, call her when

01:56:14

I had Justin Peters in the, in the car with me. So we were, we were both talking with her.

01:56:20

Um, and at that time she had, and I think she had just recorded with Koltish.

01:56:28

I can't remember if she just recorded or was just working on it. And so, um, what we saw is that she had, uh, she had some, some interviews.

01:56:39

Hey, Pastor Larry, how are you? This was the only spot with good wifi. So we grabbed this for, but I'll shut all the lights when

01:56:47

I go, when we leave. This is Pastor Larry, who's pastor of the church that we're at.

01:56:54

All set. Yep. Yeah. I'm going to go get my wife though. Yep.

01:57:01

Got it all covered. Thank you. Thanks for the use of the parsonage. We're staying in, in, in his home, uh, that he has here.

01:57:09

He's kind enough to let us stay here for a few weeks. So, uh, so, so I was on the phone with, with Lindsay and I, and I told her in, in no uncertain terms that, uh, many people asked me to have her on the program and I would not do that for at least a year.

01:57:27

Uh, my counsel to her back then, and I had that counsel a couple times after was that she needs by her admission, she was a new believer.

01:57:37

Um, and my, my counsel to her was to not do any more interviews, but to get discipled.

01:57:45

I told her that she, she, as a new believer should not be a spokesman, should not be building a platform, but to be discipled by godly women.

01:57:56

Uh, I think, uh, Zach, you met her if I'm not mistaken at Amelia at the church where Amelia was pastor. No, I met her on Facebook.

01:58:04

Oh, you met her on Facebook. A sister at the church connected us on Facebook. Ah, okay. Okay. And so, um, you know, and I, I, you know,

01:58:12

I remember reaching out to, to Emilio and encouraging to, uh, get some ladies to disciple her.

01:58:19

Um, as she had, I think after you guys got married, um, she, she had left and gone to Ohio.

01:58:28

And again, I reached out, uh, I actually set up a person that I knew that was not far for her to be meet with and for discipleship.

01:58:38

I told her at the time I first spoke to her on the phone to not do any more interviews. Um, and she continued to do interviews.

01:58:46

Uh, but after we were married, that was before you were married. Okay. Before you met.

01:58:52

Okay. This would have been before you met. Okay. Um, and so the thing is, is that the point

01:58:58

I'm saying is where a lot of people would jump at an opportunity to get an interview with somebody that is a rising star.

01:59:09

Um, that happens all the time with folks. Um, I, my position was, and, and, you know, that I was more concerned with Lindsay and her spiritual growth than I was my own platform.

01:59:24

It was to me, I don't care if I don't have someone on, if I can get a great interview, uh, it could have been a great interview, but my position is she needed to, to be discipled.

01:59:37

And that was more important and not do platform building. And I told her, you know, in a year

01:59:43

I'll see if, you know, if here's, if it looks like you're building platforms, I won't have you on.

01:59:49

Um, and so she's saying, uh, I just saw a sign.

01:59:55

I declined every interview asked of me after my third interview, Andrew, I did take your advice except you didn't cause there were still several interviews planned, but the platform building still occurred.

02:00:10

The discipleship, as far as I saw, did not. Um, and the reason

02:00:16

I have great concern with this Zach, um, it does go back to the tie with your your wife has now made public that she has, you know,

02:00:27

I don't know if she actually did go back to Bethel. At least the post I saw said she was going to go back to Bethel to apologize to Bethel for, for things that were said.

02:00:36

Now, if there's things said wrong, okay. But, uh, what

02:00:41

I see and what my concern and, you know, and no one can accuse me of not saying that I won't say things that I'm going to say things behind people's back.

02:00:51

I won't say to them because, you know, you're, you're right here. All right. Uh, and she could come on.

02:00:57

I, it's not going to change what I would say. Uh, my concern is to me, this looks like nothing more than platform building, trying to build reputation to build, you know, now that, you know, she, she was a rising star in a sense in the movement, in reform circles, and now returning to charismatic and NAR circles and trying to, to, to go between them, um, without being discipled, without, um, with as far as I can see from an outsider.

02:01:33

Now I'm open to the fact that I don't, you know, Zach, you live with her. I don't, right.

02:01:38

Um, maybe there are people that are discipling her. It's just not evident online.

02:01:45

Um, the staying away from the public eye and being discipled clearly didn't happen.

02:01:52

Um, because she, she's been very public. One point of clarification

02:01:58

I want to point out is that for about two years, two and a half years or so, um,

02:02:04

Lindsay didn't do really much of anything. And neither did I, frankly, in terms of, as you say, platform building, which

02:02:11

I want to just let you know, you know, between us and everybody watching, we have absolutely zero desire to build a platform for ourselves.

02:02:20

We want to make that abundantly clear. That is not in any way a motive of ours. Um, just want to make that clear.

02:02:26

If that's your perception, you're allowed to have a perception. Um, but that's not what we want to do. That's not what we believe.

02:02:31

We don't, we do not desire to have a platform. Um, but that being said, there was a period of two and a half years where she and I both studied the scriptures continually to come to a different position and did research for two and a half years to two and a half years before making any statement about Bill Johnson, Bethel church, or any beliefs of ours that have changed.

02:02:54

So I just want to clarify that. Were, uh, were you being disciple that during that two and a half years, were you being discipled past having pastoral discipleship or were it, was it just the two of you coming together, studying the scriptures on your own?

02:03:11

Mainly the two of us coming together, starting scriptures on our own. There's more context to that than I'm not comfortable with going in here.

02:03:19

Um, but the, it was mainly she and I, and then also when we had a handful of things that were available on YouTube.

02:03:27

And again, this was right during the thick of COVID as well. And we had also moved from Dallas to, uh, where we're at now in Youngstown during that time as well.

02:03:36

So, um, yeah, there's a lot of nuance to that, that I just respectfully don't feel comfortable going in on here, but, um, yeah, it's not just, it's not as easy as just a blanket yesterday.

02:03:46

Yeah. And, and, and look, there's things that this is a public forum, not a private forum, totally different.

02:03:52

Right. So, but the concern there is, you know, this is the concern that I had all along is the discipleship issue.

02:04:00

Okay. Um, now I saw some, hold on one second, I saw something that Lindsay put up. I want to make sure. So she said, uh, this is from earlier.

02:04:08

Yes. I said, I erred in some of the things that I said about Bethel and I apologize for them, uh, for it privately and publicly.

02:04:15

And, and I would say that that is what we are supposed to do. Um, she said, so I stepped away from my platform and didn't take any interviews for almost three years to grow my platform.

02:04:27

The thing though, with that, Lindsay, just there was, I know the conference got canceled, but there was a conference in during that time where you were, you were going to speak or at least give your testimony.

02:04:39

So remember that became a question of whether you were, she was speaking or, and it became clarified,

02:04:45

I guess that she was giving her testimony, which at a conference giving a testimony, I still not sure

02:04:51

I'm comfortable with, with Tony, uh, Tony Erickson Tata has done it.

02:04:57

Uh, when she did it, I wasn't comfortable personally, uh, because she was doing more preaching than just giving her testimony.

02:05:04

But if she just gave her testimony, which is what I think Lindsay was expected to do, but, but there were times like that, that, uh, there, there were other interviews,

02:05:12

I think that I had seen the, the issue is this, is that what I, the major thing that, that I would say for you guys is discipleship.

02:05:22

You know, that, that was lacking. I think, you know, you're saying that, you know, for two years you studied on your own.

02:05:28

I mean, look, when I became a believer, Zach, I, I studied for two years on my own, literally on my own, because I didn't know any other

02:05:36

Christians. Right. And I was like, you know, I, I, I believed anything because I didn't know how to study.

02:05:45

I didn't know how to, how to, I didn't know any theology. I didn't even know that there was a trinity. I knew

02:05:51

Jesus was God. That was, you know, um, folks who don't understand that, because I should give the context there.

02:05:58

Some folks, I'm from a Jewish background, so I didn't grow up understanding a trinity. Um, I didn't know that.

02:06:04

Wow. Yeah. And so I say that because there's some people that say, if you don't believe in the trinity, you can't be saved.

02:06:09

I'm like, well, I wasn't against the trinity when I learned the doctrine. Um, I'll be defending it in a couple on this show in a few weeks.

02:06:19

Um, but I didn't know. And so ignorance doesn't, is not, you know, is not the thing.

02:06:25

So what we end up seeing though, is that without discipleship, I mean,

02:06:31

I, I floundered even when I went to college and found some Christians, I still was floundering until I got discipled.

02:06:37

That is the thing that, you know, I don't know your testimony, how long you've been saved, but I know for Lindsay, it's, it's, it was been a few years and to make radical shifts, to go, you know, to say, okay,

02:06:53

I'm reformed, I'm against gifts to make these major things and then shift back. So, so back one way, back the other way.

02:07:01

Um, I'm going to tell you that, you know, the appearance of platform building is there.

02:07:09

You're saying that's not your goal. Well, you know, I'll say this, your, your own thing is to, to provide the context.

02:07:17

You, it's, it's you guys that have to make that clear that you're not platform building, right?

02:07:23

That, that becomes something that you guys, if, if that's the, the perception out there by your definition, right?

02:07:31

Your, your standard, then you need to work on that. Um, you know, Chris Hough is saying optics matter and, and, and to, to an extent, you know, your issue that you have with Justin really is the optics where I want you to see the difference with how, at this point, what

02:07:50

I'm addressing, you know, with you, with you and kind of with your wife here. Um, there's things that Lindsay said here that I put up things you said, what am

02:08:01

I doing? I'm taking your word, right? Right.

02:08:07

So I'm not assigning what you mean from what I perceive it to be. And that's, that's what

02:08:13

I think is missing with what you did with Justin in this. Um, the reason I, I think this is an issue is

02:08:20

I do have a great concern, uh, for where the direction you and your wife are, are headed.

02:08:28

Okay. And, and look, I'll, I'll, I'll make this public so that I can't walk away from it.

02:08:33

But if you guys want, I'll be happy to, to sit on a phone or a zoom call with you guys every week and, and work through scriptures with you and disciple you.

02:08:42

Okay. Discipleship is important. Um, I, I, I have a concern that you makes the statement of Justin.

02:08:52

Look, is Justin a friend of mine? Yes. I think that's known clearly. Okay. He's one of my dearest friends, probably the humblest man

02:09:01

I know. Um, do I, do I, how do

02:09:08

I reword this? Can I be defensive for him? Yes. I readily admit that.

02:09:15

Why? Because Justin doesn't really defend himself. Okay. And when

02:09:21

I see mischaracterizations of him, because I know him well, I like to see that corrected.

02:09:30

Um, do I do it all the time? No, there's, there's several YouTube channels that I started downloading and wanted to respond to the people that I haven't gotten to.

02:09:40

Um, because it was hours of work where your open letter took, you know, a total of 10 minutes to read.

02:09:47

So easier context. Um, but I don't let my friendship, um, blind me to people's weaknesses.

02:09:58

Uh, you know, I have a lot of friends. If I think people who are regulars to Apologetics Live know this, that I disagree with theologically.

02:10:08

Um, I have one of my dearest friends who came to me. Everyone was encouraging him.

02:10:14

He wanted to get back into the pastorate. Everyone was encouraging him. And I told him, you're not qualified.

02:10:21

He may be my dearest friend, but I can't withhold the truth from him. And so I know that, you know, look, you, you listen to what

02:10:31

I've said about the letter. I think that Justin provided the context. I think that you understand that.

02:10:39

And for some reason are not wanting to either admit it to yourself or, or to, to say that you could be wrong here.

02:10:48

The thing is, is that I look at that and go, well, that's more platform building. That's, that's my perception.

02:10:53

You're, you're telling me it's not okay. So I, I, you know, love believes all things.

02:11:00

And so I, right. I'm going to take you at your word, but that's, that's my perception. But I want you to take a look at your, your letter and, and the things you've said, when we're clearly saying the context was provided, ignoring that context, when you read it over and over, when it was linked in the sermon, when the, you know, when you're saying the biggest thing is that he didn't provide the context when you didn't provide context to your own words, but you required it of him.

02:11:32

The, the fact that you had to use several logical fallacies, I want you to, to, to just take a step back because I'm, I'm not trying to be, look, this is not a,

02:11:45

Hey, we want to debate type of thing, Zach. I don't say it that way either. Yeah.

02:11:51

Good. Because this is something I take these things serious. Look, the greatest thing

02:11:57

I'd love to see is with any believers, especially when they make sound public is reconciliation. You know, the thing is, is that when we make something public and folks who follow me regularly, you, they could attest to this.

02:12:13

When I say something or do something wrong, that's public. That's where I apologize.

02:12:19

It's happened, unfortunately, more times than I want to admit. But it's, it's happened a lot because I say things that are wrong or I do something that's, that's wrong.

02:12:31

And, you know, if I do it in public, I apologize in public and I ask forgiveness and make it public.

02:12:38

And what I, what I think you did was wrong. I, I, I tried to make clear.

02:12:43

I, I, I heard you out and I tried to listen to you. I don't feel that you did that with Justin.

02:12:51

Now, obviously Justin didn't come in, so we couldn't, you know, in that sense, but I don't think he even did that with what he,

02:13:00

I mean, he provided the answers to your, your questions with, within the, the

02:13:05

Instagram post and within the sermon. And so I, I believe that your open letter was unfair.

02:13:11

Now I believe it was for platform building. You say it wasn't. So, okay, we, we take that.

02:13:19

But I think that, you know, if you can't hold yourself to your own standard, you shouldn't do an open letter like that.

02:13:30

I mean, both Drew and I pointed out things that you didn't give context to. So with that, what

02:13:36

I want to do is I want to give you, you know, last word. We have, I have, do have some questions, so you may end up responding to them as well.

02:13:45

So I want to give you a chance to respond. Sure. Well, no, first I want to thank you for bringing me on and allowing me the opportunity to defend what

02:13:53

I said. Obviously we have come to different conclusions. I love you brothers. I thank you for taking the time out of your nights and away from your families to address this with me.

02:14:03

I don't, I don't see this as this some sort of debate. We'd go back and forth on who won.

02:14:08

And I also want to say, I know I was getting heated at times and I do want to apologize for that. I didn't think you were getting heated.

02:14:14

Okay. Well, I felt that I was, and I didn't, I didn't like that. And so I want to apologize for that.

02:14:21

I just felt that, you know, again, you're, you're saying that I'm not holding myself to my own standard.

02:14:28

And again, I'm seeing the same thing on the opposite side, but we don't have to get into that anymore. But again,

02:14:34

I just want to say thank you for that. Again, I want to reiterate too, there's a couple of things. One, we're not platform building.

02:14:41

We have really no desire in any way, shape or form to have a platform or to build a platform off of anything.

02:14:48

Lindsay's platform came from defecting from Bethel. I mean, in fact, quite a few people have unfollowed her ever since she apologized to Bill Johnson on Facebook and started posting more about the gifts.

02:14:58

So her platform is actually decreasing if you want to get into that nitty gritty. But also I want to, again, say to Justin, I love

02:15:07

Justin. I've learned a lot from him over the years. I was, I can't remember how old

02:15:12

I was when I first learned about Justin, but he's been very helpful to me over the years. And I, I do love

02:15:21

Justin. I want to make that clear. Justin Peters is a brother in Christ. I think that he does a lot of good in correcting charismatic excess and some of the things that we have seen that have been absolutely deplorable in the name of the

02:15:31

Lord Jesus Christ. It's not being done on the charismatic side and somebody needs to do it. I wholeheartedly agree with it.

02:15:37

Well, with the exception of Dr. Brown, he's the only one that I've known that has actually done that. Then the guys at Remnant Radio will do it sometimes too.

02:15:44

But it's not, it's not nearly enough as it should be. And I want to say, I commend Justin for actually doing that.

02:15:50

And again, thank you guys for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And I mean,

02:15:55

I think that, you know, you have to understand growing up Jewish, by the way, right? Arguing is not a negative thing.

02:16:03

It becomes a thing in negative, negative in our culture. So one of the things that it is, this is my theory of why so many

02:16:09

Jewish people become lawyers, by the way. One of the things we would do around a table, you know, like we would, we would have debate without emotion.

02:16:19

I mean, you can, you can get, you know, you can kind of get like where you're, you're excited and anxious without having the,

02:16:26

I must win type of thing. And that's what, that's actually what I remember my dad, you know, instilling in us, you know, we'd have to debate over, over dinner.

02:16:34

You know, we debate topics, even if we disagreed with a position, but it's to hone skills of, of learning to think better, to make better arguments.

02:16:44

And I think that's why so many Jewish people become lawyers because that's, that's, that's, that's, I guess,

02:16:49

I guess Jewish dinner table routine. So there's, so I didn't, I did not in any way interpret you being heated.

02:16:56

I hope you didn't interpret me that way. No, I know someone at one point said chill. And I didn't know who that was referred to.

02:17:03

I see a bunch of guys. And again, forgive me folks for not having referred to all the comments there.

02:17:08

There were a couple I'm going to bring up earlier rather than later, even though they're earlier, just cause it fits with.

02:17:15

So your wife had said, Andrew, you're ascribing evil motives to a person who simply publicly responded to a public post.

02:17:24

The issue with that, Lindsay is I believe Zach, you attributed evil motives to Justin.

02:17:30

So again, it's, it's the same thing. So the difference is I'm listening to what you're saying,

02:17:37

Zach, and saying, okay, I will accept what you're saying you mean by your words. And that's the thing

02:17:43

I'm saying. I don't see you doing that with Justin. Justin is really clear. Drew and I tried to make it clear what his, what he means, who he's referring to from the context.

02:17:54

And you, you're ignoring it. So someone had asked, I didn't have the comment, but someone asked why, why we did, why we're doing this show.

02:18:03

And, you know, Drew, you're the, you're the fault of it. It's your fault.

02:18:09

We did this. You sent it to me and said, we, we should do this. And Anthony said, yes, we must.

02:18:15

And, and look at where Anthony is. Thank you. Okay. You, you beat me to that punch. Yes. Who's missing was what

02:18:21

I was going to ask. Okay. I wish Anthony was here. Cause there was something I did want to say to him. I'm kind of disappointed he didn't join. Yeah, I, I don't,

02:18:28

I know he was, he just I think he just flew back to Florida. So last night,

02:18:35

I think. So I, I'm not sure he was supposed to be here. So I don't know why he isn't.

02:18:43

All right. So very early on, I'm going to go in order now. Maybe there was a ones I missed, but Jay and these are just ones

02:18:51

I had grabbed. Zach should ask him before he wrote the letter. I think we addressed this

02:18:58

James early on is that if a letter, you know, if a statement is public you know,

02:19:05

I, I don't think Zach nor Lindsay have a way to get in touch.

02:19:11

I mean, you can get in touch to Justin through his, his website through the email on the website, but I can tell you that's pretty much useless.

02:19:21

Justin gets, I mean, look, I, I get thousands of, I get like hundreds to a thousand emails a day.

02:19:29

Justin gets way more than me. Okay. It's just not possible to get through them all.

02:19:35

So I don't, I would not personally hold it against Zach, you know, for not contacting

02:19:44

Justin because chances are he would have sent an email and Justin wouldn't see it. Now some can make a argument.

02:19:50

He should have done that first. Okay. That, that, that may or may not be valid.

02:19:56

But I, I personally have no issue James with a letter being in the, in public.

02:20:03

Okay. I do have the issue with the content. I don't,

02:20:08

Zach, I don't think, I don't know if you need to respond to that or. No, I, I, I agree. And like, again, if you wanted to respond to me without inviting me on, you would have been more than welcome to do it.

02:20:16

I wouldn't have had a problem with it. Yeah, but I would much prefer. And that's why I reached out to your wife. Cause I, I, I don't know you, but I, I, you know, do you have your wife's phone number?

02:20:25

And, and that's why I said, Hey, we're going to be responding to the letter. And you know John says question is, is this the first time

02:20:35

Zach not wrote an open letter? Has Zach ever called out any false teachers?

02:20:42

Can he name one charismatic false prophet by name? So there's three questions in there for you.

02:20:48

So if I ever written an open letter, I, there was a time when

02:20:54

I was very I'll just call it what I was. And this is no disrespect to any anybody else when

02:21:02

I was very heresy hunting, if you will. And it was, it was really a uneducated zeal.

02:21:12

And I would say a lot of inflammatory things publicly on Facebook. I mean, these have been long time ago and I did actually apologize for that.

02:21:21

Maybe a month or a month or so ago, simply because I said that I would probably stand by a lot of the criticism, but my heart behind it was absolutely horrible.

02:21:28

And I didn't actually have any desire at the time to see them genuinely repent of whatever that was said and actually come to faith in Christ.

02:21:37

And my response was just absolutely horrible. Have I ever called out false teachers by name?

02:21:44

If I see something that is blatantly false, then yes. But I, again,

02:21:50

I haven't since, I haven't done that in a lot of years. It's just been a long time since I've done that.

02:21:59

And name one charismatic false prophet by name. Well, we probably would define false, depend on what you mean by false prophet.

02:22:08

I have probably a different definition than you may, John. I don't know what your definition of it is. I have a little nuance to that, but it's just.

02:22:15

Okay. So what would be your definition? Well, false prophet is somebody that would prophesy something correctly and lead somebody to a different God.

02:22:25

I personally distinguish somebody that prophesies falsely from false prophet.

02:22:30

Okay. I don't, I I'm just, cause I'm not understanding that distinction. So, so, uh, give me what you, cause the general, the general idea of a false prophet is someone that prophesies something that turns out false.

02:22:47

Right. And then, but by definition, it also puts them outside the faith. And all I'm saying is that at my, where I'm at now is, well,

02:22:56

I mean, if you, if you look at it biblically, it's just my whole position now is that I'm choosing to be more charitable and like, for example, the

02:23:01

Trump 2020 prophecies. Um, when I call every single person, just a false prophet, based on what

02:23:08

I'm saying, a false prophet is a false prophet puts him outside the faith. I'm not comfortable saying false prophet, but what

02:23:14

I say, did you prophesy falsely? Yes. Should you repent of it publicly? Absolutely. Well, that would,

02:23:19

I mean, like, so I would, I'd see a definition like in Deuteronomy 18, right.

02:23:24

Where it defines it, right. Someone who, who says they speak of the Lord and say something that's false, um, doesn't come to pass.

02:23:34

Yeah. Now, now that makes someone a false prophet, but that that's a separate issue of whether they're a believer.

02:23:41

Do, do I believe that there's some people that can be believers and deceived?

02:23:48

Uh, I mean, I know some in college who made prophecies that were false, but I think they were believers, but they were so in the, in the, you know, charismatic word of faith movement, uh, they got caught up with that stuff and made, made what they thought was prophecies.

02:24:05

Um, now I think that's, so I, I think that you're, you, what you want to do is, is be more precise in your terminology, uh, because you just, we don't want to equivocate and say, well, just because they prophesize on falsely.

02:24:21

Now the, the, the folks like in Justin's video that he did with the 2020 prophecies with Trump, I, I would, would put them out of the camp because they're,

02:24:31

I think they're knowingly false prophets there. I mean, they do it over and over and over again.

02:24:37

Um, well, there are people that say they, that always say that they're speaking for the Lord. Yeah. Um, when clearly they're not, they're not.

02:24:46

And, and I think that's separate from, because you have the passage Paul says, there's the deceived and deceivers.

02:24:53

And I think that the deceivers are clearly outside the camp because they know what they're doing.

02:24:59

But I think you have those that are deceived, you know, and you have people that are both deceived and deceivers.

02:25:05

But I think when it comes to deceived, we, we, that's where we say, okay, we got to find out.

02:25:13

Uh, and so, you know, I think there there's in that sense, maybe is what you're looking at is your definition.

02:25:22

Yeah. And overall, it's just me trying to be more charitable. It's not, you know, avoiding error when there is error.

02:25:27

It's just trying to be more charitable because I come from a background when I was not, um, and was deeply convicted by it.

02:25:34

So it's just a matter of me trying to be more charitable, but willing to call out error when it is and call a spade when it's necessary.

02:25:40

And, and I guess the thing with that, Zach, and I want to rehash it all, but I would say

02:25:46

I found your letter to be not charitable, especially after this conversation, knowing that you, you do know, uh, the, the, the way to interpret language and, and you're not applying it.

02:25:58

So I, I, I kind of find your letter even more uncharitable now than I did unfortunately.

02:26:04

But, uh, Chris Han holds a regular here from voice of reason radio. One of the other podcasters on the

02:26:10

Christian podcast community says, well, I got to plug them, you know, that's, you know, part of the community, right?

02:26:17

Zach. I mean, it might be a thing that drew eventually get his other podcast on there, but, you know, but, uh, so Chris says,

02:26:26

Zach, are you, are you, you are better than this. You are smarter than this. You want to hang it on an

02:26:34

Instagram post without taking any responsibility to find out what the quote comes from.

02:26:40

So I'll give you a chance to respond to that. Well, I mean, we, we pretty much addressed that all throughout the, um, this, um, um, discussion.

02:26:48

I didn't know what to call it an interview. Uh, but we pretty much address that without, with, um, throughout this discussion and we don't necessarily need to rehash that.

02:26:56

Um, but I appreciate your thoughts. Um, and, and we had a,

02:27:01

I know we had a lot, I mean, we got, I got 51 comments already still that I haven't even read.

02:27:07

So, um, Chris says I deal with, I would deal with statements, context, double speak, et cetera, all day long.

02:27:15

Zach is making me want to tear apart the inconsistencies in literally everything he said.

02:27:20

Uh, so just so folks know, uh, Chris is, uh, we're not going to give details of it, but Chris is in law enforcement and deals with criminals all day long.

02:27:29

Wonderful. Who are constantly, uh, if you deal with anything with criminals, uh, deal with anything in law enforcement, uh, as, as my background has some, um, you, you, you tend to spot lie there.

02:27:43

There's actually ways of, of seeing, and I'm trained to be able to, to as a profiler, to spot lies and things like that.

02:27:50

When people are lying, you can't tell why they're lying, but you can tell that they are lying. It's a, it's kind of actually neat, uh, in some ways, but can get you, gets you in trouble because you, you know, you end up realizing everyone's lying to you.

02:28:05

Yeah. Well, you, you know, I, I have a, I have a friend of mine who's a, uh, I can't get it.

02:28:12

I won't get into what specifically does, but he, he has criminals that have to come see him regularly. And, uh, he can spot when they're lying and he, he doesn't know why.

02:28:22

And he knows that it's like, Hmm, I better investigate this because someone may have to go back to jail because people could be getting hurt.

02:28:29

So, okay. So, uh, John had said, I love this show. I learned so much from Andrew. I hope so.

02:28:35

I hope that, you know, we're doing like one of the things that we're doing with this folks is not just to, this isn't a,

02:28:42

Hey, let's, let's get Zach on and beat them up. It wasn't a gang up on him either. It was, it might've been more if there, if there was three, four, you know, if, if Anthony and Justin showed up here, but, uh, you know, one of the things is that we, we, we gave

02:28:55

Zach opportunity to express his views, what he, what he meant by his words.

02:29:01

We tried to read that, you know, read it in light of what he means and pointing out things.

02:29:07

But also I'm here to teach you guys how to, how to deal with making arguments and things like that.

02:29:14

So it's, it's, we don't want to just do apologetics without trying to explain it. So, and kudos to Zach for coming on.

02:29:21

Cause most people don't when they have the invitation. That's true. I prayed about it.

02:29:27

And I mean, I just wanted to, you know, I, I respected you guys for, and I didn't know you were a part of this, um, either brother, but, um,

02:29:35

I respected the opportunity to come. Yeah. I mean, it's, it is a thing.

02:29:40

Look, um, March 23rd, we're going to have, uh, what he, what that guy, what

02:29:45

Sam wants to call a debate. I just said, have a discussion on the Trinity. He wants to debate me on the Trinity. Okay.

02:29:51

He wants to bring in two or three friends that are, and they're all black Hebrew Israelites. Okay. Uh, all

02:29:57

I could say is I, for years I had black Hebrew Israelites challenging me to debate me.

02:30:02

And then they would never show up on the show and folks who are regular, you may remember the debate of debates.

02:30:09

When I, when we had three guys that were going to debate me another one of these three against one, and, uh, they, they blocked myself and the moderator so we can never give them the link to the show.

02:30:22

So, uh, I told the moderator, we're doing the debate anyway. He's like, who are you going to debate? I said, just introduce me.

02:30:27

I'll start it. Then we can let them introduce themselves. And those that remember, I debated an empty chair.

02:30:37

That's right. It was a great debate. I clearly, I won that debate. You've got all the help you need.

02:30:43

I won. What'd you say, Zach? Well, you don't need anybody. You can be 401, 501.

02:30:48

You have the scriptures that have been Trinity. So, I mean, what more are you going to go off of? That's what I told him. I said, I said, he's like, he wanted me to have others.

02:30:55

I said, I got a Bible, you know, that's all I need. Uh, but, you know, so, so we do, we do appreciate that you came in.

02:31:02

So, um, and I know there are a ton more comments. I just had grabbed some, uh, but this is from Lindsay, your wife.

02:31:09

She said, I love how everyone's supposed to have a secret knowledge of when these men apparently mean something different than, uh, uh, they make no qualifying statement in the full context of the statement.

02:31:23

And the issue I have with that, Lindsay is we have tried to make it clear that the context was there.

02:31:29

It was in the very next sentence, the link to the video provides that context.

02:31:34

And that's why I think it's disingenuous to, to take, just take it out of context and say that somehow

02:31:41

Justin's wrong. Can I respond to that real quick? Um, just because I also see her comments, um, in the, in the live chat and Zach, I know that's your wife.

02:31:52

And I mean, to you, no disrespect to your wife, anything like that, just addressing the comment. But, uh, the, the fact is, is we have addressed what, um,

02:32:04

Justin meant by what Justin said through the sermon that Justin linked to the statement.

02:32:12

So we've already walked through all of that. So, um, we know what he means.

02:32:18

We know what he's saying. We know who he's talking about. We know the exact context because of what he said in the sermon.

02:32:25

The sermon is very clear and it's very clarifying. And that's what I actually walked through earlier.

02:32:31

Um, when we were discussing these things, I took everything from the statement in the Instagram post show that the context, the resource was in the

02:32:40

Instagram post. And then you take that, you listen to the sermon, which I know you, you both did.

02:32:46

And then the context is in there and it follows a clear, linear line of thinking from talking about the movement to who is what they do in the movement to who he's specifically talking about.

02:33:02

Yeah. And, and I think, you know, I saw a comment. I didn't grab it. Uh, Lindsay had posted some of it's the charismatics and both

02:33:09

Zach and Lindsay are making it all about the word the, and I think we've addressed that the is a specific group of charismatics and the context defines that group.

02:33:20

Uh, when we talked about the Americans, it's clearly not all Americans. Even if you want to say it's the majority of Americans, which is what

02:33:27

Lindsay had posted in comments. And then Zach made that point. Even if it's the majority, then it's not all.

02:33:35

And so even when Lindsay said the Americans equals majority, fine.

02:33:40

If you've just conceded that it's not all, which is what the whole open letter is about.

02:33:47

And that's the issue that I have. Um, Chris said, this is where I think

02:33:52

I would have probably cut the interview. Andrew has much more patience than I do.

02:33:58

You know, every time we have someone I disagree with on the show, I see either

02:34:03

Chris is banging his head. He tells me the next day I'll get a text message that he's got a headache and he says that I have more patients than he does.

02:34:13

That makes me nervous because he carries a gun, carries a taser.

02:34:20

And for those that know the joke, I always joke with them that I, I, you know, the, the hate tase me bro.

02:34:25

And I, I keep asking him to tase me. Um, but he, he refuses. I don't know why

02:34:30

I think he would enjoy that too much. But, uh, I actually, you know, with this, with Zach being on here,

02:34:36

I actually had, and I guess displayed a lot more patients than when we had Hefe on, uh,

02:34:42

I could not control my facial expressions. Uh, when he was on, it was absolutely giving me a headache.

02:34:50

Yeah. Hefe Hefe was, um, yeah. Oh, we're going to probably end up having to have

02:34:57

Hefe on again to, you know, that that's where he, he, it's a frustrating Hefe.

02:35:02

This is what we mean. Oh, so what you're saying is this? No, that's not what I just said.

02:35:09

Oh yeah. All right. Uh, let's see. And Chris had this in all caps, no less.

02:35:15

Stop importing a definition that you only learned tonight. So that was to use Zach with the definition of, of just, um, and, and I did try to get,

02:35:26

I mean, I'm trying to get, grab different comments, but I didn't, I didn't know if I'm trying to make sure that there's some from representing both sides, which is what

02:35:35

I try to do. And, uh, but being that I I'm alone tonight without co -host to check things.

02:35:40

So Linda said, Zach went from Calvinist to charismatic. Uh, he has opened a dangerous door and there is no limit to the deception now, unless he repents.

02:35:54

I've, uh, I've seen his post. Um, I mean, I, I, I, I kind of said a similar thing, you know, to you, uh,

02:36:03

I, the trajectory I think you're on is, is a bad one. And I know you did the study on, on your own, but, uh,

02:36:11

I, I would encourage you, I mean, um, you know, to get some, you know, good, godly older men and women to pour into you guys.

02:36:21

Um, I would just, I would just say to Linda that there are Calvinists that would identify as charismatic and same storms as one of them.

02:36:28

Yeah, that's true. There's, there's several that definitions matter. Yeah, there are, but I would also point them to Dr.

02:36:35

Steve Lawson's sermon from strange fire, the charismatic Calvinists. Um, because those two terms actually, if you understand reform theology, those two terms don't actually go together.

02:36:47

Yeah, which is the thing. Most people don't, when they say reformed theology, they're, they're only talking soteriology, the doctrine of salvation and reformed theology is much broader than that.

02:36:58

Uh, which is why when people ask me if I'm reformed, I have to say, what do you mean by that? Okay. Because depending on your definition,

02:37:07

I might be, uh, okay. That's also why Mark Driscoll could call himself a charismatic and a

02:37:14

Calvinist because at one point he only held to the Calvinist soteriology and because he wasn't actually reformed, you saw his downfall.

02:37:27

Yeah. So, uh, Chris, in all caps again, says, I don't know what you said, Zach, that he, that he said, yes, it does.

02:37:33

But he said it, it all has relevance because it was the whole point of the sermon. And that's,

02:37:40

I guess you were saying that at some point you said that the sermon didn't have relevance. I guess that's what he was referring to.

02:37:47

It might've been something that I pointed out in the sermon that Justin said, um, that Zach said something like,

02:37:56

I don't think that that's not relevant or that's not the point or something like that. So, uh,

02:38:03

KT, another regular was responding to someone. I didn't grab what the response was, but she said, apparently the letter was made public and people can try to destroy a person's reputation online.

02:38:13

I don't choose, uh, I don't choose who they speak to on here, but I guess

02:38:19

Andrew felt it was worth addressing. Well, uh, actually before answering that,

02:38:25

I want to put this one up because this kind of gets it. And this is, I think someone that was more on your side, uh, just based on Rima church, uh, because that's usually a sign of someone that's charismatic.

02:38:37

But he says, when I started speaking at the end there, it says, this is what the, the last, uh, this was all about the last few minutes.

02:38:44

It had nothing to do with the letter. It was all about saying, Lindsay and Zach are trying to build a platform.

02:38:50

Well, to answer the previous one with that one, um, you know, the, the issue that I'm saying is, yeah,

02:38:58

I, I am addressing it because I have a concern with a platform building. That is why I thought the letter had to be addressed.

02:39:05

And that's why I'm glad Zach came in here, right? I'm look, folks, I'm not sitting here saying things behind Zach's back that I'm not willing to say to his face.

02:39:14

I know his, his wife is watching. So I'm not willing to say things behind her back either. Okay. Uh, I will say that if all of a sudden we see responses to me about me that don't come to me first, since they know how to get ahold of me, um, that would be concerning.

02:39:30

Right. But the thing is, is that, uh, you know, I, I'm not, you know,

02:39:36

I'm not bringing Zach in here, asking him to come in so we can bad mouth him. Uh, I have concerns and I made those concerns clear.

02:39:46

Uh, I made the disagreements I have clear, uh, you know, do, do

02:39:52

I think KT that this letter's purpose is to, um, and I forgot how she worded it and I got rid of it.

02:40:00

Uh, you know, yeah. Damages his reputation. I think it has that effect.

02:40:08

Okay. Uh, do I think it was Zach's purpose? I don't think

02:40:15

I didn't think it before, uh, that that was his purpose. It is, it is an effect of it, which is why

02:40:22

I said it becomes slander is because it does damage the reputation, whether the in with slander, it doesn't matter whether your intent is to do it or not.

02:40:31

Uh, if you say something that's false, that does damage someone's reputation, that is what slander is.

02:40:38

Um, now granted, I, I'll say, I mean, I understand that in the world we have a difference between slander and libel.

02:40:43

I get that. Uh, but we're talking Bible doesn't make that distinction. Uh, our legal system does, whether it's written or whether it's verbal.

02:40:52

So I'm not making that distinction just to be clear. Um, um, wait,

02:40:59

Chris is saying something about his all caps again. I own the all caps thing. I was getting,

02:41:05

I was getting excited slash passionate. I apologize and say that, uh, that I likely should not have done that.

02:41:13

Okay. So no offense taken and you didn't offend me, I appreciate your, your, um, your passion though.

02:41:21

But, but you know, I, I'll hold it against you, even if Zach doesn't Chris, cause you know,

02:41:26

Captain America shouldn't act that way. Yeah. He's Captain America. You know, for folks who don't know, and Chris knows this, if you listen to voice reason radio, you hear them refer to the fact that I actually keep a whole track on my soundboard of bloopers and different things that they say wrong in the show, you know, and it's like, that keeps them from making the bloopers.

02:41:49

They, they, they, Chris makes sure that things get edited out, I think. Um, and so if Jim and don't mind though.

02:41:59

Yeah. I mean, my, my, my family here. Yeah. I was just going to point that out. I just was, Zach's family is here visiting.

02:42:06

We'd really like to have some time with him before we go to bed. So, um, did not know that.

02:42:13

So it's okay. It wasn't that big. It was not that big of a deal. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for, for giving clarity to your words.

02:42:20

I do want to, my last thing to you and I'll, I'll give you a parting words there. But my, my thing to you is

02:42:25

I really ask you to, uh, you know, well, to repent and to recant the open letter.

02:42:31

I think that it was, I don't think that you are holding yourself to the same standard you're holding

02:42:36

Justin. And I think that the things you accused Justin of, I would say apply to you in your letter.

02:42:43

Um, and we don't have to rehash it, but again, I appreciate you guys having me on a really, really do a lot of places and you know, um, channels wouldn't do that.

02:42:55

But again, I appreciate you. Thank you. And again, I know I was getting hated. It convicted me. I apologize for my getting hated, but I'm grateful.

02:43:01

We're able to exchange, um, as brothers in the Lord. I appreciate you, uh, again for your comments and for what you said.

02:43:09

Um, and I wish nothing but the best for you guys and your ministries and pray the Lord blesses you in every aspect of your lives.

02:43:14

Truly. All right. And, and Zach, if you want to, if you want to call me, your wife has my number, call me, let's, let's do some discipleship.

02:43:22

I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. All right. So with that folks, uh, you know,

02:43:28

I just, uh, you know, one of the things we do here is we're not gonna, you know, we could be like some other channels where we just sit there and you know, go on the attack.

02:43:37

That's not how we do things. We could disagree. We could disagree vehemently. We could disagree with love and charity.

02:43:43

Uh, we can try to make sure that people define terms and we can see things.

02:43:49

I clearly, I don't hold back, uh, from what I believe. I, I say it as I see it and Zach says it as he sees it.

02:43:58

Clearly we disagree. Um, you know, and, and that's a thing where, you know, you know, should we do public letters like that?

02:44:08

Well, we should, but I think in this case where the context was, you know, this is, this is like, uh,

02:44:13

Layton flowers who says that, you know, he defines Calvinism and every Calvinist that he debates tells him that he's got a wrong definition and he sticks to his definition, right?

02:44:23

That becomes a problem. Um, it, it shows that someone, you know, he, he, he has that straw man that he keeps up there.

02:44:31

Um, and I think that's, I think that's what we have here. We have a straw man and I think that Zach is, uh, has what he's done is, uh, you know, look folks, nobody in the public in public can, can provide context to everything they say.

02:44:51

Uh, but having the rest of, you know, because in that snippet that he showed and drew your, your, your,

02:44:58

I guess on Instagram and knew that the rest of the context provided the link that, that provided all the context he was, he was requesting.

02:45:05

And so that makes it seem like it was very disingenuous. And I, and I said that to him.

02:45:12

Um, and so I hope this was helpful. Um, drew any, any last comments you want to make before we close out and let folks know what's coming in the next couple of weeks.

02:45:20

You know, I was just, I was, uh, first I was shocked and surprised, uh, to see that he was here, you know, cause

02:45:27

I wasn't expecting that at all, but, uh, I I'm thankful that he showed up. Um, and he gave, uh, his own commentary to his own letter.

02:45:36

Uh, the part where I was a little bit more disappointed was when we continued to point out where the context was in the letter, where it was in the

02:45:47

Instagram or in the, in the post where the, where the context was in the post.

02:45:53

And then when we kept going to the sermon itself, which displayed the full context, which he even read, um, it was, it was just completely ignored.

02:46:06

Um, and then taken back to a definition that he had only learned, uh, tonight that Justin held before that he just assumed it.

02:46:14

He didn't, he didn't know for sure. So, uh, I mean, he was, he was basing the whole letter itself off an assumption anyway, before he even, he even knew for sure.

02:46:24

So I was a little bit disappointed in that, but then when pointed out that in his own letter, he didn't provide context that Justin gave in a quote that he pulled from Justin's sermon.

02:46:37

Uh, well, he did, he ended up doing the same thing, right? You pointed that out, the, the hypocrisy in that, the fact that you're claiming someone's not doing something, but then you do it to the same person.

02:46:48

Oh, okay. Not well, our argument over, you know, show over. He wanted, he, he kept asking why

02:46:56

I'm holding him to that standard. And I said, it's cause it's his standard. Right. Um, if, if it's the same thing

02:47:02

I do on the street, someone tells me you shouldn't judge. I don't, I don't believe that I shouldn't judge you do, then you shouldn't judge me.

02:47:10

So stop judging me. Right. Right. Um, you know, when someone has a standard, you hold them to their standard.

02:47:17

And that's why folks, what you do, and I hope you saw us, what did I do in the beginning?

02:47:22

Go back and rewatch or listen. I asked a lot of clarifying questions before I said anything or what

02:47:30

I thought. And because some of the things changed from what I have in my notes to say why, because the way he answered helped me that I didn't need to guess at things and, and change the way that I would understand some things.

02:47:44

And so what do I do? I ask questions, I clarify and make sure I understand what he means, make sure he knows.

02:47:51

Okay. So you understand what a definitive article is. You understand its usage, and then you're, you're not, you're not applying that.

02:47:58

Well, that's the rules of language. Even, even his wife ended up commenting. And then he made the point that, well, if we say the

02:48:06

Americans, it's major, it equals majority, then it doesn't mean all, which is the whole basis.

02:48:13

So why did we focus on that? Because that he had said was the basis for the open letter was context.

02:48:21

Right. But even that context wasn't, wasn't addressed in the open letter itself. Right. Which is why

02:48:26

I asked him, I said, so is your whole point is your whole contention? The fact that he just said the charismatics.

02:48:35

Yeah. Well, and see here, here's the thing that his wife is saying, uh, Zach used Justin's definition, brother.

02:48:41

No, he, she didn't. He didn't. He, he, he created, he used a definition for one word.

02:48:48

And, and that's why I said it's a logical fallacy of equivocation. So equivocation is where we take the word, we take the word and she let me read her in context.

02:48:58

She said, it's sad to see how the entire conversation has been shifting the goalpost. Listen to Justin's full sermon, read

02:49:04

Zach's post, and then judge. Well, I was there for the sermon. And that's what we're saying with this is that when you read his, his post, and when you read, listen to the sermon, he defined which charismatics he's referring to.

02:49:20

He's all Americans equals majority. So it doesn't mean all that's the whole point.

02:49:26

So it's not a moving the goalpost. It's defining things. So the issue is that a fallacy of equivocation is when you take the same word that has two different meanings and use it the same way.

02:49:39

So in this case, charismatic, the charismatics are people who believe the gifts continue, but the charismatics who say that we have a low view of the

02:49:50

Holy spirit are not all charismatics. It's those that make that statement. That's the very next sentence.

02:49:57

And it's further defined in the sermon. And it's the things that just enlisted the take advantage of the poor and the widows.

02:50:06

So it's not the shifting of the goalpost shifting a goalpost is what that is, is when you make an argument that arguments answered, and then you change the argument.

02:50:16

You didn't see me changing the argument. You saw me sticking to one point. And this is what I do.

02:50:21

And it went whenever like in a, have a debate or discussion like this, I stick to the main point.

02:50:27

What's the main point when he explained that his main point was context wasn't given, then that was everything.

02:50:33

Right. And what I focused on was providing context. Let's look at if the context was, was given.

02:50:39

And that's, that was why so much of the conversation became focused on that.

02:50:45

Okay. So that, that is what I, so I didn't move the goalpost.

02:50:51

In fact, Zach even complained because I kept going back to it.

02:50:57

Right. So I'm not the one that was moving the goalpost. Right. So I see

02:51:03

Stephanie just came in. If she puts her camera on, I could bring her in. But so next couple of weeks, what do we got? We have next week is an open

02:51:10

Q and A on biblical creation with professor Andy McIntosh. That will be next week.

02:51:15

Dr. Silvestro is going to lead that. I will be away. I will be let's see, let me pull up my agenda.

02:51:24

So I see. So I will be at the open air theology conference with James White, Brandon Scoff, others that will be.

02:51:35

Brandon's actually not going to be there. He, he pulled out, it's on his Facebook because he just, they just planted in Tulsa.

02:51:45

And so he's actually taking that and focusing on his local church that he's pastoring.

02:51:51

So, well, that's good. And so that is going to be in Winchester.

02:51:59

Well, the place I'm staying is in Winchester, Tennessee. So it's somewhere in that area. Just search for open air theology conferences.

02:52:06

Only one. Then after I get back from there, I will be in Israel for two weeks, leading a trip with Matt Slick from karm .org.

02:52:14

Right after that, I turn around. I literally have one day between these trips. I've, I've only been,

02:52:21

I've slept in my bed one day this entire year. Okay.

02:52:27

One day. By the time I get back from Shepard's conference, I think I'm going to be in my bed for a whole week for that, by the year.

02:52:35

But you carry everything, my pillow anyways, right? So taking it.

02:52:41

I don't know if I'm going to be taking it to Israel as much as I want to. I want to badly, but we'll see.

02:52:49

And so, so yeah, so Stephanie, you hang on until, until the show's over.

02:52:57

I saw your comment. So the, but we will have during that time,

02:53:03

I have a couple of shows lined up. So to give you some ideas of what you'll get, we do have,

02:53:12

I have a rewind episode. Can women preach?

02:53:18

And the word of faith. That's when Justin Peters came in and we had a discussion. We'll also on February 23rd, have a rewind episode with, is

02:53:26

Calvinism a cult? That was with Matt Slick was on and someone made that. I will have another one on the

02:53:33

March 2nd. We put up a rewind of why Black Lives Matter is satanic.

02:53:40

That was a popular one. Sorry, grabbed that. We'll have another on Torahism. That is going to help for the people to get ready for the debate.

02:53:50

We'll also have another one on Black Hebrew Israelites with vocab

02:53:57

Malone. That'll be on the 16th of March. And then the debate with the Black Hebrew Israelites will be

02:54:03

March 23rd. So that is what we're going to be doing for the show. I will say, let you guys know,

02:54:09

I will be in Montoon, I think it's

02:54:14

Montoon, Illinois, March 16th to 20th for a family conference.

02:54:22

I'll be speaking several times at that. April 15th,

02:54:28

I don't, this may not be open to the public, but I'll be at the Vietnamese Alliance Church in Philadelphia, teaching on whether we could trust the

02:54:39

Bible and whether Christianity is true. And then April 28th to the 30th is the

02:54:46

Reforming Families Conference. And that is going to be in, I forget the location, hold on.

02:54:55

That's in Indiana, but I forget the exact location of it. But we'll just search for Reforming Families Conference.

02:55:04

And then we got May 4th to 7th is Cruciform Conference coming up. So that will be in Oklahoma this year.

02:55:12

So those are some of the events we got coming forward. I hope you guys check those all out.

02:55:19

Yeah, that last one's one I'm really looking forward to. Because you're reaching at it. That's right. So with that, folks, we appreciate you guys coming in.

02:55:27

Appreciate you guys watching. I know that, I hope this was helpful for many on different fronts, how to handle conversations like this and things like that.

02:55:40

So we got, hard to read with the text there, but someone is saying

02:55:49

I live in New Zealand. Will any of these conferences be online? I think many of them will actually.

02:55:56

If you do a search on them, maybe we could find out. We could try to maybe email info at strivingforeternity .com,

02:56:06

info at strivingforeternity .com. And we could try to find out which ones are going to be live streamed.

02:56:13

And I could try to get that to you. So that's what's happening.

02:56:19

And I'm trying to think if there's anything else, Drew, to mention. I don't think so.

02:56:25

So just... Yeah, I think that's it. So go to strivingforeternity .org to check out all the events.

02:56:31

If you want to have me come to your church, do one of our weekend seminars, go there and fill out contact a speaker page and we'll be happy to come out.

02:56:40

You know, I will say bond servant for Jesus said, is Justin Pierce coming back?

02:56:45

And I just want to assure you, I am the new Justin Pierce. Oh, you're trying to take his job, huh?

02:56:54

He's going through school. Yeah. He just started his new semester. So he will be out for a while until semester is over.

02:57:02

Yeah. That's that classwork is super, super busy. So, and he's, he's regularly teaching,

02:57:09

I guess, the way of the master at his church too. So, so he's got a full plate, you know, we don't want to take away from a school work and serving at a local church.

02:57:17

Yeah. So, and I just saw Stephanie dropped out, but we could have answered her question and she didn't want to have public.

02:57:24

So if she stays in, we'll, we can maybe talk to her. So with that folks, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.