July 17, 2003

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Desert Metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the
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Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is James White.
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It is a Thursday evening and, you know, you've heard the joke before about how, you know, it feels so good when someone stops hitting you, you know, what's the only good thing about getting a beating is when they stop.
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Well, that's sort of like what it's like in Phoenix today. It is only, according to my computer right now, 104 degrees.
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And you might say, that sounds pretty warm. It's not, because it's hit 117 the last three days, so that's a 13 degree drop, and I'm almost feeling a chill in the air at 104 degrees.
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It has been absolutely ridiculous of late. It truly has. It just, oh, it's enough to melt you, melt your brain and everything else along with it.
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So I am rejoicing in that, and right after the program today, I am jetting right out of my office and heading across town to Tempe Baptist Church, where I hope
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I will be able to get in and hear Derek Webb sing this evening.
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And I didn't even know he was going to be in town, and a kind pastor across the valley called up and said, did you know this?
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And I didn't know, so I'm heading that direction right after the program today. So I'm not going to be sticking around.
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Those of you in the chat channel, I'm going to be history as soon as that last bit of Steve Camp music begins playing.
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I'm on my way across the valley to hear Derek Webb sing. I've not had that opportunity.
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Derek and I have talked many times on the phone and communicated by other means, but I've not had the opportunity of sitting down and chatting with him.
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Don't know that I will tonight, to be perfectly honest with you, but I'd like to take the opportunity of getting over there.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you would like to join us on the program today.
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I'm looking at some stuff here. There's all sorts of neat stuff that I've been dealing with today.
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I'm not actually, now that I think about it, it's really overly neat, but some of it has been somewhat unpleasant as in every day that takes place.
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Just considering things, not sure exactly who's going to be calling in. If anyone will, if you'd like to sort of drive the topic today, you might want to give a call early because otherwise
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I'm lining some stuff here up on my system that will probably take most of our time.
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I thought I had a window open to you over there. In fact, I'm pretty... Oh, I crashed. That's right. I forgot.
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Eudora does not like having system resources maxed out and if you try to resize a window in it, it freezes and the whole thing dies all over the place.
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So if you'd like to sort of drive the topic tonight, sort of like Ashraf did on Tuesday, and I'm not promising anyone 50 minutes on the dividing line like we did, but it was an interesting phone call and you can call at 877 -753 -3341 is the toll -free phone number.
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Keep that in mind if that should cause you to not desire to be a part of the program. It is a toll -free number, 877 -753 -3341.
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Let me mention, I forgot to ask, do we have any of the extra drawn by the fathers left?
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None. None. That probably means no or none. There you go. They didn't quite teach typing up there where you went to school when you were younger, huh, there,
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Mr. AOMN person. Yeah, they're gone. So the special that we had there,
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I hope all of you who got it enjoy it. Don't hog that second edition, give it out to somebody and put some of those in your car, give them away, do whatever you want with them.
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But the new editions are still available, of course, on the website of both now the
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Sovereign Grace of God, used to be God's Sovereign Grace, and of course, drawn by the father.
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Hey, Balthazar just came in the channel. And those of you who don't know, Balthazar is a Dr. Price.
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He's a Paris, he's an astronomer. And he looks up in the sky and he sees things like gamma ray bursts and things like that.
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So Balthazar is our channel genius. And I think he's actually in Hawaii right now, someplace like that.
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And so nice to the Blinken DL is on. Yes, Balthazar, the
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Blinken DL is on. Of course, he's an Aussie. So they talk very differently, as you've noticed, if you've ever gone to Outback Steakhouse.
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But anyway, let's go ahead and make sure that my computer is fired up, Monsieur Pierce, if you're able to do that for me.
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And we did not finish at all listening to some of the materials that I put together just a few weeks ago.
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I'm honestly fighting very hard not to address particular subjects today.
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I've spent my day, well, not spent all of it, but spent a portion of it dealing with with certain issues, certain topics.
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And that's always a whole lot easier for me to address than anything else to sort of shift gears.
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Obviously, it's easier to to take the, you know, what's on your mind and talk about it.
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But I just I don't know. It's somewhat of a almost depressing subject to address anyways.
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And so I'm just not certain that I want to do that. So if we can fire up the the see.
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Ah. Oh, I see. Now, right before I was about to do that, there there comes the little thing on the screen that says someone has called in and it's a completely different.
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Well, yeah, it's completely different subject. And so we'll go ahead and do that. We'll take we'll take the call and then we'll see we'll see what what comes after that.
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Go ahead and talk to Howard in western Kansas, which is over toward where the mountains are.
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And Kansas is a over. Well, in western Kansas, you might start getting some hills.
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But else other than that, it's just it's just like really, really flat. And you can go really, really fast in your car, too.
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Yeah, about 90. Yeah, I remember that every every summer my family would drive out to Kinsley, Kansas.
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Do you know where Kinsley, Kansas is east of here? Well, that's well, if you're in western
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Kansas, that was that was you could be a psychic and make money doing that. It's far east. Of course, everything is far east from here.
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That's the point. So, yeah. So anyway, how are you doing, Howard? I'm doing well. I still think you should put doctor on your book.
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No, no, not going to do it. Not going to do it. I did want to ask you, I started to talk to you a few weeks ago at the end of a program about John 118, and we ran out of time.
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OK. On that King James only thing. I was talking to one person. He was talking about about how the
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Gnostics had influenced the I guess the word God. And then
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I become from the Alexandrian. Well, actually, all of the earliest texts of the of that particular passage have the term
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God there. It is monogamous. They ask P66 P75.
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Both have that that particular reading. And it is very easy for people to simply dismiss a reading because, well, that's in the
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Alexandrian text. Well, which are the Alexandrian text? Which ones are most of those folks who bring those things up? I've never even taken the time to actually look and and to deal with what those those documents actually are.
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The assertion and if I had it here now that I wouldn't there would be no way
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I could find it without interrupting the program to do it. But what you might want to do is I think on straightgate .com.
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And by the way, if I could make an announcement here, straightgate .com has a totally new look.
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It is absolutely gorgeous. The archives are much easier to use now and looking up the topics that have been covered on past dividing line programs.
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Straightgate. We do not run straightgate .com. Stephen Luker does. So take a look at it.
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Drop him a line. Thank him for all the work that he does. If you like to listen to the archives, you don't listen to it live or things like that.
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Let Stephen know you appreciate all the work he does. And if you will, I think on straightgate, maybe somebody in the channel can look and let me know.
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We have the radio debate that took place in 1994. Good grief. That was nine years ago now between myself and D .A.
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Waite. Now, D .A. Waite is a fairly well -known King James only advocate out of Collingswood, New Jersey.
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He has written numerous books. This is the only time we've done a radio debate.
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And I have contacted him many times since then. This is before my book came out to do debates.
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And he simply won't even return my emails any longer, though he loves talking about me and how bad
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I am and stuff like that. But anyway, we did a discussion of this and John 118 was raised and he made the very same assertion that you are now relaying to us.
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And I challenged him on that very subject. I said, OK, document this.
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Show us which ones you're talking about. What are the which which particular manuscripts are you referring to demonstrate that they have some relationship to heretics, et cetera, et cetera.
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He simply couldn't do it. He just simply said, well, the the, you know,
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Egypt was filled with heretics. Well, that's that's real nice. That doesn't exactly prove anything.
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There were heretics everywhere. And in fact, as Daniel Wallace has pointed out, the first manuscript we can really point to that specifically had connection to a heretic was from around the area of Antioch, one of the favorite areas of King James only advocates as far as manuscripts are concerned.
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And that was connected to an Aryan. So the idea that that the reading monogamous, they are the unique God is
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Gnostic in origin. It's interesting, a man who supports Dr. Robinson, who supports the majority text.
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He does not support the eclectic text. We support the majority text. But he is very rabidly against rabidly is a bad word that normally has bad bad connotation to it.
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He's very strongly, very firmly against the King James only position. He pointed out that when he went through the
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Nag Hammadi Library, which, of course, is a a collection of Gnostic works contemporaneous with that period of time that he did not find.
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Thank you very much. Someone in the channel just let me know that that debate is on the 1994 debate is on straightgate .com.
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So you can listen to it there. Dr. Robinson did not ever find the
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Gnostics using the phrase monogamous. They are unique God. They only used monogamous, which is a reading of the
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King James, which means only begotten son. And so if you're going to make that kind of an argument, you would at least think you would find support for it within the actual
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Gnostic documents. But it's not there. Is there a reason why there is a variant between son and God?
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Sure. Sure. Yeah. The use of the term theos there is unusual. I mean,
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John normally uses hwios after the term monogamous. And most of the time when a scribe would be writing the word monogamous, he would expect the next word to be hwios.
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And so it is very easy to explain how a later scribe would put hwios rather than theos.
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They both are in the nominative form. They're both masculine. They both end with omicron sigma. And so they would look very familiar.
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They look very much like one another as far as the spelling goes. They're both short words. Sometimes one of them was a nominous sacra.
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Very, very easy how by simple sight, without any type of theological ramifications, by simple sight, you could go from the original reading of theos to hwios.
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We do that all the time. Typing the chat channel, you type certain words and you expect another word to follow right after that.
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And you type it even if that's not what you want to do. We have an op, for example, by the name of wild boar.
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And I cannot type wild boar. Every time I type it, I type bored because my mind just, that's just, that's how my, that's how it works.
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Because you're bored? No, B -O -A -R -D. So, you know, that's just, that's just how it works.
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But, and here's one of the main reasons why the vast majority of scholarship is, is very, very firm on this reading.
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There is no reason... The word God would be the probable reading then? Yes, the word God. The reason that the vast majority of scholarship is, is very firm and understanding that to be the original reading is because there's no reason why it would have gone the other direction.
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In other words, since that phrase, monogamous theos, is unusual, since it would be the only place it's used in the
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Gospel of John, while it's easy to understand why, why someone would go to only begotten Son, there isn't any reason to explain why they would have gotten, gone to only begotten
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God. That doesn't make any sense. Most of the objections that D .A.
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Waite and J. Green and others throw at John 118 is they think that monogamous means created or generated.
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And that's just simply a misunderstanding of the term monogamous. It means unique, one of a kind. And I've addressed this both in the
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King James Only controversy as well as the Forgotten Trinity because, obviously, the various Arian groups like to accuse
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Jesus of being created on the basis of the term monogamous, and that's used a number of times in the
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Gospel of John. That's not what the term means. It means unique or one of a kind. So there's no reason why a scribe would have gone the other direction, but there's plenty of reason to understand why, if the original was monogamous theos, that a later scribe would have accidentally amended that to hwios.
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That's very easy to understand. So that's why scholars are very firm in their reading on that. Well, thank you.
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That was a very good answer. And I did have one other question for you. I had to take a class for my denomination.
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It was an introduction to the Old Testament, and they gave me a textbook.
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It's called Introducing the Old Testament by a guy by the name of Dr. John Drain. And he makes the claim in here that the
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Pentateuch was not actually, or at least the majority of it, was not written by Moses.
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And I was kind of wondering your thoughts. He gives five major overall reasons, and it just,
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I mean, sometimes he says it's possible it might have been after the Babylonian period that they were looking to gather their history and write it down, but didn't even
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King David say that he talked about the law and they meditated upon it?
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So wouldn't it have to have been around at least in David's time? Well, you know, the thing to keep in mind is unfortunately the vast majority, in my experience anyways, of Old Testament materials today that you will find in your bookstore are either simplistic to the point of being useless or they come from a very liberal perspective.
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Outside of a handful of scholars like Gleason Archer, you're not going to encounter a whole lot of real good conservative
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Old Testament materials because in essence, I've put it this way before, we gave that field up to the liberals in the 1800s.
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There is an article on our website written by someone that doesn't get to be in channel much anymore, but you may have encountered him.
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We call him Silly Britt. C .D .S. is his name, and Colin Smith.
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He's a student of mine and in many ways a scholar in his own right, and he has written an article on our website on what's called the
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Graf Wellhausen Theory, and this is the theory that underlies and is really primarily responsible along with the rise of destructive biblical criticism, primarily responsible for the creation of the context that you are encountering in reading that introduction.
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And it is in essence based upon the idea, you frequently see it put to J .E
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.P .D., the Yahwist source, the Eloist source, the Priestly source, the Deuteronomic source, sometimes even more sources or fewer sources, it all depends, but it's based upon the idea that the
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Pentateuch especially is the result of an extensive process of compilation over time with various different sources, frequently self -contradictory sources being brought together and patched together by later redactors.
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And I would say that in, and I am not in any way, shape, or form exaggerating here,
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I would say that in 90 to 95 percent minimally of all theological seminaries,
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Roman Catholic and Protestant, Evangelical, you name it, that is what is taught in the
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Old Testament classes. There are a very small minority of seminaries today wherein you would be taught anything else, including the idea of the actual
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Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch itself. Now, that's just the state of affairs today.
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I recognize I am in the minority to believe in Mosaic authorship, and obviously someone may ask, well, wait a minute, didn't
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Jesus say that Moses did this? I mean, he quotes it as if it was Moses, and people say, well, you know,
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Jesus was a product of his time, he didn't want to, you know, either they'll say, yeah, Jesus believed that, but it doesn't mean anything, which tells you a lot about where they're coming from theologically.
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Or he just was accommodating himself to the myths of the day and communicating to us in our language in such a way as to not bother us, and we would come to understand eventually the true nature of the
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Scriptures and the process of redaction, criticism, and all the rest of that stuff that went into it, and creating that, and so on and so forth.
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So that is, in essence, what is asserted in the vast majority of theological training today.
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Are there authors out there, conservative authors, that have answered these objections?
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Yes, there are, but they are not the type of books that are going to get the widest distribution, and like I mentioned,
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Gleason Archer's work, his introduction to the Old Testament, would have a lot of stuff on that.
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That's why I mentioned Colin Smith's work on that, because I believe, if I'm recalling correctly, there's a bibliography there, and so those would give you some good starts as to where to look to things.
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But don't feel like you've landed back in, you're out of Kansas now, you're
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Dorothy and all the rest of that stuff. I bet you that has special meaning for you, living in Kansas, but don't think that you've lost
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Toto or whatever it is. That's very, very, very standard, very common to encounter that.
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Unfortunately, a lot of conservatives, when they start looking for that kind of material, and reading scholarly material, just are not prepared for it.
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They've never had that discussed in Bible study, things like that. We do at my church, but we're pretty weird, so it can throw people for a loop.
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Well, I appreciate you taking my call. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. All right, thanks for calling. 877 -753 -3341.
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I thought I saw something about another call, but it was put into the main channel, and it went right on by me instead of being put into the message area, which, ah, why are you doing it over there?
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Why not over here, where it's supposed to? I feel just completely lost now, because it's like you don't like me or something.
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Anyways, we have a call all the way back from the People's Republic of Massachusetts, that wonderful place that is seemingly patterned after the great
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Soviet Socialist Republics of old. So let's talk with Pat in East Brookfield, Massachusetts.
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Are you in Massachusetts? Boy, you stole my thunder. You got it so right, dude.
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But we're coping with it. I don't know. You folks are causing people all across the land tremendous angst these days, because we're hearing that your
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Supreme Court, which hopefully is a little bit better than Florida's Supreme Court was, is thinking about this same -sex marriage stuff, and because of full faith and credit and all the rest of that stuff, you all may by one fell swoop export the complete redefinition of society by one state doing that.
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So what's up back there? Well, we had the Boston Tea Party. I don't know what you throw in the ocean for this one.
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I just don't know. I don't know either, but I'm telling you, it's...
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Oh, man. Well, we have a Mormon governor. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
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I think certainly we agree on some of the moral character questions and issues of the day, so...
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Yeah, you'd hope so. Certainly. Actually, I guess I'm calling you to discuss where we part company with the
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Mormons. Yes. But, you know, I want to mention first, I got to know... I left a church that I was in locally here.
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By the way, I saw you in West Boylston last year. Oh, okay, yeah. Had the pleasure of you meeting there before you went out to Steve's Pizza for a sub and some weightlifting.
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And... Wow, you've got a better memory than I do. Well, I only went to one.
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You go to a lot of them. That's right. The King James, the only controversial book he wrote, it was just instrumental in helping me at a former church that I was in.
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And unfortunately, I had to leave it. But when I left it, and things were kind of ugly, and I didn't know where I was going to turn,
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I was fortunately ministered to by Mike Renahan. Oh, great. Out of Worcester. And I got to know him a little bit.
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He gave me a couple of books at the time, The Sovereignty of God by A .W. Pink, and a little book by Jeremiah Burroughs called
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Christian Happiness or... Contentment. Did it have the word contentment? I thought it had contentment in it.
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But yeah, I know which one you're talking about. Yeah, excellent little books. And that's when I was introduced to the doctrines of grace.
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And by way of the Baptist Confession of 1689, is it?
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Yes, that's right. And those things just came to a real good understanding of Scripture the way
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God wants us to know it. Excellent. Wonderful. I praise God for that. And your ministry has been most helpful. And I'm using your book now,
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The Forgotten Trinity, as I prepare a discipleship booklet for our class at church. Wow. Which is passed by a man who went to seminary with Jim Renahan.
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That's right. And I was out at Westminster in Escondido last year to speak for them and got a chance to spend some time with Jim Renahan.
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And so the Renahan brothers have done much for Reformed Baptists here in the United States, that's for sure.
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Well, they have. And I'll tell you, we've got a strong Reform work going on in a little town called
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Holland, Massachusetts. Really? And I happened to cross that church through some friends that I met.
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And it's actually called Holland Congregational Church. It is not UCC. It's just we keep the name there to trick people in.
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And it's amazing. The pastor took over there 10 years ago with 25 members.
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A female pastor baptizing infants. Wow. And it's grown to about 400 strong now with four services on Sundays.
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And he's beginning to preach on Ephesians 1 in a couple of weeks. He thinks that'll probably put a cap on the growth.
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Yeah, that's about the fastest way to join the church shrinkage movement, is start preaching on Ephesians 1.
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Anyway, I came home from work the other night. I pulled in the driveway. I look up the street and I see a couple of young -looking fellas walking away the other way with white shirts on.
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I quickly ran home. My wife said, we've got plenty of dinner. So we had them in for dinner. And after we had dinner, we sat down and talked with them for about an hour.
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And one of them particularly was talking a lot about apostolic succession, the prophets and the apostles.
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And I had made a case for the fact that it can't be apostles like there were back in the days after Jesus was risen and ascended.
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Because an apostle was someone based on Acts 1 or 2 that had to be with Jesus from the day he was baptized into Jordan to his resurrection and ascension.
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And he said, well, what about Paul? Right, right. And so that's a good point. Yeah. But we continued to talk.
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And my wife had made the excellent point about the fact that I made a case for the priesthood of believers.
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And my wife had mentioned the fact that 2 Timothy 2 teaches about the things which you've seen in me and the presence of many witnesses commit to faithful men who also be able to the teaching ministry of the church.
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And of course, they had said that the church essentially was gone on the earth for a while. Right. Well, I don't know how that comports with the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
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But anyway, he gave me a wonderfully free gift, the Book of Mormon, which I was more than happy to take.
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And they had to be sweating it out a little bit because when they sat down to dinner, it's right next to my personal library where I've got kingdoms of the cults and the
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King James only controversy and the forgotten Trinity and all these other great books, Spurgeon's volume. So I think they knew they could at least have a good discussion.
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But if you would, please, what what might I do? I want to meet with them again, maybe in a month. Where might
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I go in the Book of Mormon just to make a case for, you know, contradicting scripture?
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And is that where I should go first? Sir? Ah, good question. Let's have them over again, right?
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Let's let's pick those up on the other side of the break. We'll talk a little about Mormonism and approaching those missionaries and also talk to Robin in Minneapolis and your calls at 877 -753 -3341.
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We'll be right back. Answering those who claim that only the
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King James version is the word of God. James White, in his book, the King James only controversy examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith in a readable and responsible style. Author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, the King James only controversy by going to our website at www .aomin
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.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen but Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but the Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very
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Gospel itself. In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the Gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Pottish Freedom, A Defense of the
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Reformation and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin
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.org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the Gospel of the Grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.
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The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day.
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The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.
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Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7.
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The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix.
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You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE. If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org
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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.
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Millions of petitioners from around the world are imploring Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.
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In his book, Mary Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.
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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived bodily assumed queen of heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the
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Roman Catholic Church. Mary Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the
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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary Another Redeemer at aomin .org.
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Welcome back to the Dividing Line. My name is James White. We're taking your phone calls today. In fact, we have a pretty full board actually going on here, which is very nice.
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That does seem to happen more on Thursday night than Tuesday morning, and that's understandable. But we're talking to Pat back in the
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People's Republic of Massachusetts concerning the Mormons, and Pat would like to have the Mormons back to talk to them.
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And so a couple things regarding some of the comments you made before. There is on our website under the apologetics section, the section mormonism .html,
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there is a thread. It is a lengthy discussion on a web board, as I recall, maybe even
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BBS. This is how old it is, called the Gates of Hell, and it's a
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BBS discussion of a Hugh Nibley article from 1948. It's pretty long, but it goes into the issue of that particular text and a lot of stuff on the apostasy and things like that.
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Of course, I addressed that issue as well within the confines of my book,
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Letters to a Mormon Elder, which is something that you would probably want to get hold of.
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In fact, I don't think we have any of the original edition. Do we have any of the original edition of Letters to a
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Mormon Elder left? I have seen Mormons fight over taking the original edition of Letters to a
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Mormon Elder, and the reason I've seen them fight over it is because the front cover has a picture on it that is very meaningful to Mormon missionaries.
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It shows a lot of the stuff that is a part of their life on the front cover. We have 15 of them left of the original, so you might want to get hold of one of the original ones, a couple of them to give to them too, because I have had them take them and read them and talk to them years and years later.
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Do they take literature typically? Some will, some will not. It depends on the missionaries.
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You may not even get the exact same pair. You may get one of the same two that comes back to your house.
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It really depends on how quickly they are cycling people through that particular area that you are in.
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You actually mentioned that. Yeah, so you never know. It depends on the individual.
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Honestly, I will never forget, I met with some missionaries over at Rich Pierce's home years and years and years ago.
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We are sitting there talking. We are having this intense conversation. I am sort of leaning forward and one of the two missionaries is sort of leaning forward.
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We are going back and forth and all of a sudden we hear this little type sound. We look over and the other missionary at the end of the couch has fallen asleep.
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He is just completely bored with what we are doing and could care less.
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He didn't fall out of the third story window dead, did he? No. We are only on the bottom floor at that point. It really does depend upon the individuals that you talk to, how long they are going to want to talk to you, whether they are going to take a book, whether they are going to burn the book after they leave your home.
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I have had that happen too. I literally talk to them about that and ask, now I am going to give this to you, but I am going to give this to you and say that you are going to read it, not that you are going to burn it or something like that.
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It really depends on the two young men that you end up talking to, but many of them really do believe that what they are saying is true and they have never heard a challenge.
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If it is offered to them in such a way that it is meaningful to them, then they are going to listen. Now, obviously, remember these young men are immersed in Mormonism 24 hours a day.
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They never get a break from it. They are always around another Mormon. They always have to be strong in their testimony.
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Even if you communicate things to them that they have no earthly idea of how to answer, don't expect to see lights come on and stuff like that.
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They are basically trained to avoid that. Most of the stuff that you share with them that is going to have meaning to them is going to sort of come bubbling back to the surface after they become what is called an
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RM, a return missionary. They go home. The pressure cooker is released and all that stuff that they were thinking about but didn't have time to think about comes bubbling back to the surface.
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So, you are really planting seeds when you are talking to those particular young men. Now, as far as where you start with them, we always emphasize the necessity to talk about who
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God is, who Christ is, and what the gospel is. Now, all sorts of other issues can come up that are, in essence, the way we view them.
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They are roadblocks. They are things that try to get in the way that you may have to take an exit off and deal with it, but you are always looking to get back onto the main purpose that you have with them.
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If you don't have a specific goal in mind when you sit down with them, you will never reach it because you didn't have one to begin with.
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So, what you want to try to do is weigh in your mind various aspects, maybe the conversation that you had, the probabilities or possibilities of getting to talk with them again, how much time you are going to have, and in essence, what you are considering is, well, you want to be able to proclaim the gospel to them, but at the same time, since they have such a radically different view of God, their
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God is insufficient to support the biblical truth of grace. Their God just simply cannot be the
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God of scripture, and so you are sort of torn in your decision, do I talk to them about who God is, do
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I talk to them about the gospel, is the one before the other, and in many instances, if they were raised within the church, and if they have a very firm belief in the
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LDS concept of God, you have to deal with that first because it doesn't matter what you say to them about the gospel, they will completely redefine that within the context of their own thinking.
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Now, if I'm recalling correctly, I think at some point on this program, we went through the
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LDS law of eternal progression, and I'm also thinking that maybe, and I'm sort of looking here, and I don't see it, yeah,
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I don't see it here. I know that I have a PowerPoint presentation on the subject of Mormonism on that website, on the page in there, yeah, oh, that's right, maybe
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Rich did that. In any case, there is a 100 -verse memorization system that you can download that would be very useful to you because it contains a lot of advice on not only what verses to use but the context in which to use them.
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Letters to a Mormon Elder does the same thing. Those both would be very, very useful to you in preparing for that encounter and making the most out of it.
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Lots and lots of stuff here on this website that would help you with that. There's also, oh man,
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I was just looking at it, maybe somebody will post it and channel for me. The material, is it icr .org?
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Let me look here real quick and see if that comes up, icr .org. It is some material that I was looking at.
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They've published books, for example, on, nope, wrong one. Oh, anyways, look for, oh, irr .org,
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okay, www .irr .org. Yep, that's it. irr .org, lots of good stuff there.
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There's stuff, especially on the Lost Book of Abraham, things like that. It's just really, really good.
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Entire books available online, including a book called By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus. I was sharing with a
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Mormon in our channel just two evenings ago and gave him that reference as I was talking to him as well.
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The suggestion that I would have would be, if you're going to invest the time in learning to speak to the
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LDS people, the primary issues are to know who God is, who Christ is, and what the Gospel is.
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If you start with the Book of Mormon, you may never get out of it. The Book of Mormon does not contain the vast majority of the unique doctrines of the modern
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LDS church. When Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, 1829 -1830, he had not come to believe in the plurality of gods and issues like that, that he came to believe in later.
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The Book of Mormon, in comparison to the teachings of Joseph Smith in 1844, 14 years later, is downright tame.
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In fact, it's obvious he's attempting to be a Trinitarian in the Book of Mormon. He just didn't know how to do it right. He ended up falling into modalism in Mosiah chapter 15.
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It does not contain all the temple works and the priesthood concepts and the plurality of gods and men becoming gods.
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All the rest of that stuff is not a part of the text of the Book of Mormon. So, while I would recommend, if you think that it's totally up to you as far as you knowing your background, your time, whether you're going to be talking to them more than once, obviously there is an advantage to having read the
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Book of Mormon. I don't suggest it for everybody, but if you're going to be talking to Mormons, there is an advantage to being able to say, yes,
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I read the Book of Mormon. Now, Mark Twain described it as chloroform in print, and there is a reason why he did.
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And for most people, you read it and just go, oh my goodness, people actually believe this stuff?
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I mean, this is just, oh my goodness, it's so clearly plagiarizing from the
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King James Version of the Bible. And it just strikes a person as utterly ridiculous.
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But if that's all you were ever raised with, then you wouldn't have that same perspective.
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And so, that can be useful in helping in establishing some credibility and saying, you know, in fact, what you can do, and I suggest this to folks, and this is what
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I did. Before I had time to read the whole thing, when I was talking to the very first pair of missionaries,
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I read 3rd Nephi. 3rd Nephi contains the story of Jesus coming to establish his church on this hemisphere after his resurrection in Jerusalem.
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And so, you've got the Sermon on the Mount from the 1769 Blaney Revision of the King James Version of the
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Bible, and you have the establishment of 12 apostles and all the rest of this stuff here on this continent amongst the ancient inhabitants of this hemisphere.
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And what I did is I read that, and then the next time I met with the missionaries, they said, well, what did you think?
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I said, well, you know, it's strange that here in 3rd Nephi, it says that Jesus came here to the
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Americas, but right before the Savior comes, having been resurrected in Jerusalem, God destroys all the wicked people.
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Isn't that who he's supposed to be ministering to? And they were like, um, you know, and I opened it up, and I looked at some passages, and that way you can at least have read a section of it, and it gets you onto the important topic of talking about who
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Christ is, what Christ did, what his purposes were. Because in Moroni 10, verse 32, the
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Book of Mormon says that you are to rid yourself of all ungodliness, and love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, then is the grace of Christ sufficient for you.
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Now think about that one. Talk about Mission Impossible's salvation plan. Get yourself cleaned up, rid yourself of all ungodliness, love
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God perfectly, then the grace of Christ will be sufficient for you. Wow. So I'm always looking for a way to get back into the main purpose of why
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I'm trying to talk to these individuals. And that's a good way to be able to do so. I'm sorry?
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Okay, good. So what you want to do is, and I can hear Mr. Pierce talking in the background, is you want to, maybe if you can get hold of the letters to a
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Mormon Elder, like I said, that would be something that they could take with them, and if they're willing to do that, great.
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If not, you can keep it around for the next pair that comes around. But I wrote it in such a way that it would be really something useful to you, because as I'm talking to this fictional
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Mormon missionary, I'm showing you what verses to use, and in the context to place them to make it the most effective.
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And it's been so effective that I not only know of a number of LDS people who have left the LDS Church as a result of it, but FARMS, the
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Foundation for Ancient Research in Mormon Studies, the chief apologetics organization, they have written two responses to it, one shortly after it came out, and then it remains so effective over time that about three or four years ago they put out, well, it was almost ten years after the book originally came out, they put out a 200 -plus page response to the book.
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And so it obviously, it communicates pretty well. So I don't want to overwhelm you with stuff like that, but that will certainly give you a real foundation to get started as far as how to respond to them.
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I hope to see you in Massachusetts again sometime. Okay, thank you very much, sir. God bless you. God bless.
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Bye -bye. All right, let's go ahead and go to Robin in Minneapolis, Minnesota, my native town.
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Your native town? I was born in Robbinsdale, North Memorial Hospital. Wow. Yes, sir.
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That's pretty cool. In December, I won't tell you what year, but it was very cold.
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Not that I remember, but that's what I'm told, yes. It's pretty cold around here anyway. Yes, sir. Well, my question is regarding the
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Messianic implications of Psalm 22. I got into an argument with a friend at work who is
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Jewish over a few verses, actually. I guess the
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Jewish community has, I don't know,
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I don't want to say twisted the verse, but they do go out of their way to sort of rid them of their
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Messianic value. Oh, yes. Psalm 22, the biggest thing that he was talking about,
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Psalm 22, 16, "...dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men have encircled me, and they have pierced my hands and feet."
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I guess the original Hebrew means, like a lion, my hands and feet.
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I don't know if you've heard of that. I've actually researched it. A few Christian sources I've talked to, they say that there's some translations, they say some translations say that.
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And I've talked to a few Messianic Jews, and they say that it's the translation error. And I was just wondering what the truth is behind it, if you've ever heard of it.
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Yes, I have. First of all, there's a number of things here.
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I don't have, there's a new book that I haven't had a chance to review yet, but it was sitting here on my desk.
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I can see it back behind me, but I'm unable to get to it. Well, let's see how far the microphone goes here.
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There it is. And he reaches, oh, and he pulls it out. There it is. Behold Your King, Prophetic Proofs that Jesus is the
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Messiah by William Webster. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with Bill Webster. He co -wrote the set on Sola Scriptura with David King.
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This is a 400 -plus page work on the subject.
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And he's really gone into a lot of depth in providing you with Jewish interpretation of Messianic prophecies.
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And, I mean, it is, I don't know, let me see. Appendix C, which is the
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Jewish Interpretation of Messianic Prophecy, begins on page 153 and ends on 314.
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Okay, so you're talking, that's a book unto itself. And there is a discussion of all of this material.
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Let me turn here. How many pages is just alone on Psalm 22?
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Let's see here. I'm getting there as quickly as I can. Psalm 89, Psalm 45,
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Psalm 36. We're getting there. Notice the numbers. Psalm 22, Substitutionary Suffering. And that starts on page 179.
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And there's just quote, and quote, and quote, and things like that. So you can look at that.
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And then looking at, let's see.
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Just to give you an idea. Just popping it open here. I mean, like I said, I have not had an opportunity to read this yet.
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I'm just popping it over knowing Bill's work. Additionally, the ancient Jewish writing, the Al -Quds, gives this translation of Psalm 22.
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16 isn't that providential. For dogs have surrounded me, are Haman's sons.
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Rabbi Yehuda says they cast spells on me or bound my feet before Ahasueros.
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And Rabbi Nehemiah says my feet were pierced before Ahasueros. So he gives you the idea of piercing through and stabbing.
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This starts on page 78. Messiah will be crucified, et cetera, et cetera. So there's one resource for you immediately is
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Behold Your King, Prophetic Proofs of Jesus the Messiah. We'll probably be having this available on our website in a short period of time and making it available.
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Secondly, the other thing to keep in mind is about 150 years, 200 years after the time of Christ, the
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Jewish community as a whole abandoned the use of the
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Greek Septuagint. And the Greek Septuagint, of course, became, in essence, the property of the
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Christian church because it was the Greek Septuagint that was the Bible of the early church. I mean, the vast majority of citations from the
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Old Testament were taken from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, not from the Hebrew, because the fact that many of the people to whom the letters were written, so on and so forth, were not able to read
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Hebrew, and they were able to read Greek, and so you used the translation that was familiar to them in the language in which you were writing, which was in the
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Greek language. And there is no question of its translation of this particular passage.
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Eventually, the Jews developed their own Aquila's version, Greek translation of the
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Old Testament, because they rejected the Greek Septuagint. And they objected to it because of its use by Christians.
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And so, if you look at the Greek Septuagint, which was translated about 250 years before Christ, it's very clear in talking about, it uses the term, oruso, which means to dig a hole in it, to pierce my hands and feet.
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So it's very, very clear in what it's saying. The problem is, with Hebrew, is that there are times when
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Hebrew verbs can be understood in a number of different ways.
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So the verb that's translated in 2216 actually is, ari is used for digging, digging a calamity, things like that.
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And it has yada, the hands, and the regal, the feet.
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So it's fairly clear at that point what it's talking about.
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I'd have to hear the specific assertions that are being made as far as to what they're trying to say, that the terms are being referred to, or things like that.
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But I have heard exactly what you're talking about. And my recollection, and maybe we're just looking at the wrong verse, but my recollection off the top of my head was that that was in Zephaniah or Zechariah, the thing about the lions.
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Oh, the lions? That was my recollection, but I'm just going off the top of my head here. Oh, I got it from Psalm 2216.
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Okay, well, I don't see anything in the text here that's giving me that, but I do not,
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I'm looking at it only on my screen. I would have to open up the Hebrew text and look.
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It doesn't mention, I mean, obviously, no version of the Bible I've found, besides the Messianic Jewish Bible, which
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I have quite a few Messianic friends, no version of the Bible, the Christian Bible, or the
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NIV, or the King James, have stated like a lion. Well, what
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I'm saying is I would have to look at the textual variants in a paper edition, which it's a whole lot easier to pop it up on the screen, but unfortunately that does not give me variants.
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You frequently have to look at that, and I don't have that accessible to me right now. But I've heard of what you're talking about, good theological resources, good commentaries would have a discussion of the background of that.
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But the Septuagint definitely reads that way. The main Hebrew text reads that way as far as piercing my hands and my feet.
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And there's a reason why someone might want to get away from that reading, obviously.
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And it's not us that would have that reason to try to get away from it. Here's someone,
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Ashman just put something up on the screen.
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The traditional Hebrew reading may reflect the copyist error, for it reads literally like a lion. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation, the
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Old Testament suggests the correct reading is pierced. I'm looking directly at the Hebrew text.
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I don't see anything about lions here. But again,
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I don't have the text in front of me that would allow me to look at the possible textual variants.
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And so I can only go with the text as it is provided to me on the screen. So that would possibly explain that.
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Okay. Okay? All right. All right. Thanks for giving us a call. All right.
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We're just about out of time. Let's go ahead and see if we can squeeze one last call in here. Steve in New Jersey.
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How are you, Dr. White? Doing pretty good. I only have about two minutes. I'll give you real quick. I'm looking at your book,
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The Forgotten Trinity, The Chapter on Grief, Not the Holy Spirit. I'm going to quote from it and ask a question. But since it is the spiritual to direct the hearts of men to Christ and to conform them to his image, he does not seek to push himself into the forefront and gain attention to himself.
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How would you go about demonstrating that to those who push the
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Holy Spirit all the time? Well, if you're referring to the charismatic movements,
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I would do that simply on the basis of the New Testament itself in the sense that one of the chief issues you deal with in defending the personality and deity of the
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Holy Spirit is the fact that there is significantly less discussion of him and of his ministry in the
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New Testament than you have of discussion of Christ and the Father and their ministry and their work and so on and so forth.
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I mean just simply on a basic, if you look at the New Testament and say, well, does the New Testament define for us what our practice should be, then it would be very clear that while the
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Holy Spirit is plainly revealed to be a divine person and so on and so forth, his ministry, even in Jesus' own words in John 14 and 16, is to testify of Christ and to bring conviction of sin.
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And it is the name of Christ that he causes us to lift up and to glorify.
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And it really is a matter of allowing the New Testament to provide the paradigm and to provide the balance that we ourselves are supposed to have.
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And it's pretty difficult, I would admit, to seek to explain to someone who may be in a context where that kind of looking to the standard or the practice of the
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New Testament is not exactly the norm, where you're getting constant revelations and God told me this today and God did this for me and God showed me this today, which is the common language of many charismatic churches.
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It may be very unusual for them to hear you saying, well, let's let the practice of the
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New Testament and the predominant usage of the New Testament be our guide at this point.
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It may be difficult for them to understand why you would even want to do that or why that would be relevant or important or things like that.
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But the key passage is what Jesus himself said, he will testify of me.
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That is the very definition of his ministry. Thanks a lot for that call, Steve. We appreciate all of our callers today.
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You all managed to fill up the entire time. That frequently happens on a Thursday night and I am very appreciative of that.
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Excellent phone calls and excellent topics were raised. I hope that you were blessed by that, Lord willing.
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We'll be back again next Tuesday morning, 11 a .m. Mountain Standard Time, Pacific Daylight Time, 2 p .m.