The Nature of Scripture with Jeremiah Nortier!!

The Apologetic Dog, Apologetics, and the Calling to Defend the Faith

Everyone and welcome to another edition of Faith Unaltered. I'm your host David Russell and I'm here with my co-host from Real Seekers Ministry, Dale the Man Glover with his glasses. Hey David,.

How's it going? Glasses and baby milk and yeah, how's it going? Thanks. It's good man, it's good brother. How you been? Yeah, pretty good. I spent, so again fans of the Shroud, I just posted up a three and a half hour episode on the Shroud of Turin, the textile evidence, so that's all up and ready for fans of that.

One thing I'll just say for fans of the Shroud because there's a bit of news, the STIRP scientist Larry Schwalbe unfortunately passed away last night, so.

You know, just condolences to the family and that sort of thing. Right on, right on. Well, we will be joined by Tyler Fowler. He got kicked right before the show happened, so he's having some technical difficulties, but we will have Tyler on.

He will be here in a few minutes, but until then, let's introduce our guest. His name is Jeremiah Nortier and he is the apologetic dog. What's up brother? It's good to have you here. Hi, thanks for inviting me on.

I've looked at some of y 'all's stuff recently and I just thought, man, y 'all have wonderful content, so it's an honor to be able to be on y 'all's channel this evening. Well, man, I appreciate it, man.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about the apologetic dog, what you're trying to do. Tell us about your ministry, a little bit about who you are, brother. Well, thank you so much. For a number of years, real similar to y 'all, I have a heart for apologetics, and so I serve as a pastor elder at my church here in Jonesboro, Arkansas, northeast Arkansas, at a church plant called Twelve Five Church, and so we're about two, two and a half years old now.

Love what God is doing here at our church, and so I have a heart for teaching the people and preaching, and so that goes in tandem with apologetics, especially when you show people how to evangelize and share the faith.

There's a defensive nature to it, right? We know that apologetics is both defensive and offensive, and so I've started watching channels on YouTube like The Gospel Truth with Marlon Wilson. We're really good friends, and I remember I sent in a suggestion to him saying, hey, this would be a really good debate idea, I think.

Let me know what you think, and he goes, oh, that's really good. Would you like to debate a Mormon, by the way? I said, sure. I wasn't looking for that, and so people can go look on the archives. I did my first debate about over two, two or three years ago now, and so if you've ever been to debate, you get hooked.

You get that constant itch for that, and so I started dipping into the debate realm, and I loved it. I loved all the other opportunities that I started to have with apologetics and the networking, and so I thought, man, I need to have a place where some people can go, and so the pastor I served with was like, hey, pray about a name, kind of like a ministry that you want to start pushing, and so I remember this, David.

My wife and I, we were talking about it, and we wanted to find something unique, and I'm Reformed, and so I was thinking about the acronym Doctrines of Grace, DOG, and I was like, hey, maybe there's something there, and we had a eureka moment.

We're like the apologetic dog, and I thought, well, I like it, but I don't want it to be solely about Reformed theology. I want it to be broad in its scope, and so I liked the name, the apologetic dog, and so I started thinking about a guard dog mentality, and so I was like, Lord, what verse can I anchor the ministry in, and I was looking at a bunch of different verses.

I didn't want to do the typical 1 Peter 3 15, even though that's wonderful to give a defense for the hope that lies within us, but I landed somewhere, 1 Timothy 6 20, so if anybody looks up my logo, they'll see kind of 1 Timothy 6 20 around this dog with a Reformed beard, and so let me share that verse with you real quick because this is everything my ministry is grounded in.

Paul says, O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, and so at the apologetic dog, we are to guard the gospel of grace.

That is what Paul is telling Timothy here, and we do it by avoiding worldly philosophy, pagan philosophy, anything that rivals the knowledge of God. We war against. We tear it down, and we expose those internal contradictions of these faulty worldviews, and so that's a little bit of how the apologetic dog came to be, and so a pit bull was the dog we landed with.

He looked the best with a beard. Right on, man. Yeah, that's such a unique story, man. You know, for those that don't know, not everybody enters apologetics by 1 Peter 3 15. Mine was 1 Titus 1 9. You must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

You know, so mine was all about that, you know? I mean, it just clicked, and I was like, dude, God wants us out there to, you know, come against the falsity that is out there, you know, the misinformation and everything, you know, and then all, you know, awesome.

C. S. Lewis also had this quote where he was talking about, you know, good floss or good philosophy exists only to counter bad philosophy, you know? So I was like, you know, that's really that's really, you know, why I got into it, and I started up with my first co host and then David Paulman took over from Titus to David Paulman, and then me and Tyler were like, hey, let's debate some tour observers because we're getting sick of it on TikTok, and like, yeah, next thing you know, we're like entrenched in like a two-month study on the deity of Christ, you know, and I'm pulling out old notes because, you know, I'm going for my master's in apologetics and philosophy, so, yeah, so like, yeah, that's kind of how it all began here, man, but, yeah, it's an awesome story, man.

I loved it. I love the logo you made, you know, and I saw you on The Gospel Truth. That's how I got ahold of you. I was like, this dude smiles throughout the entire debate, even when someone's trying to prove him wrong, and that's the type of guy we need on Faith Unaltered to discuss scripture, so.

Thank you. Some people misinterpret that for me being like kind of mean. I'm like, I'm trying to have a good time. That's all that that's meant to be. Yeah, and, you know, you kind of sound like David Crowder, so, I mean, I gotta give you props for that, you know, for being from Arkansas and stuff.

That's true. That's true. Yeah, you'll hear the twang probably. I'm really trying to work on that. I listen to myself sometimes speak. I'm like, why? Don't you dare work on that, sir. Work on it to get better at it, okay?

Yeah, right. One other thing I'd like to just inform the audience is I was recently on the podcast Cultish. I don't know if any of y 'all are familiar with Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew. I was on there with a really good friend of mine, Trey Fisher, to talk about the Church of Christ, and so that aired earlier this week, and I just want to encourage anybody, if they're interested in that realm of apologetics, is evangelizing the Church of Christ.

That's a really big emphasis in my ministry because in Jonesboro, Arkansas, there's a lot of Church of Christ churches, and so they use all the same terminology that we use when we say we're saved by grace, through faith, in Christ alone, but they mean something totally different.

When we start talking about sanctification and justification, they believe you have to be water baptized. That's necessary in order to be made right with God and to be born again, and so that's a big emphasis in my ministry, and I don't want people to get that confused, that zeal with a love for those people.

People can find me at Cultish in their last episode that they did. Nice. That's apologetic, isn't it? Yeah. We know DERBS, and we had Dr. White come speak at 12 .5 Church just a couple months ago, so we're tight with those guys.

Right on. I notice you're close enough to have that pretty easily. Yeah. I'm working on that beard. Actually, my wife really wanted me to trim it back. It was about five inches longer, so you'll see some old stuff and be like, man, what happened to that wizard beard?

Right on, right on. Well, we got Tyler Fowler back. What's going on, brother? Tell us all about yourself. I'm sorry about that, guys. I'm good. I'm good. So as I was telling you, David, off of air, I've been really trying to develop my prayer a lot better.

So I got to a point where I was falling asleep during prayers, and so I have incorporated a new method that's actually really interesting. Don't get me wrong, guys. I love this passage that whenever we don't know what to talk about, whenever Paul talks about Romans, the Holy Spirit groans with the words that you just can't access.

Obviously, I believe there's something to that. If we don't know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit's interceding for us. Jesus is interceding for us. So what I've done is actually I purchased—well, not purchased.

It's free on the Play Store—but a prayer book, common prayer book that I've been reading prayers out of. The first week of it, y 'all, has enhanced my prayer life. I look forward to praying now, and it almost felt like a chore before, and now there's a freshness to it, given that there's different vocabulary that I'm not used to in there, and it's wild.

So I would encourage anybody, if you're struggling with prayer, think about getting a prayer book. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I really think it enhances one's prayer life as you grow closer to God through prayer and through meditation of His Word.

So that's really the new thing that's been popping off of my life. David, as you know, I'm trucking through Greek. I'm about halfway done with it now, so I'll be turning that into Trinity really, really soon.

Hopefully, within the next month, I think I'm going to have it, which is interesting because I'm going to finish the course before I finish my payment plan. So, hopefully, like, he got it done. Like, we'll just cut off that extra couple hundred bucks, but, nah, I doubt it.

But, Braxton, if you're watching, no, I'm just kidding. But, yeah, so that's really what I've been up to, working, going through Greek, and then praying to God. So, three good things, I think. Right on.

The Nature of Scripture as God-Breathed Revelation

Well, guys, if you hadn't seen, you know, we've got Jeremiah here, please subscribe to his channel and also subscribe to Faith Unaltered. If you like the content and you like what we produce, please just hit that like and that share and that subscribe, you know.

So, yeah, we're so close to a thousand, so that's going to, like, really help. Thank you, sir. It's going to launch us into different avenues, you know, so I'm really excited about that, and I think Real Seekers just hit about 800, right?

Dale? Yeah, it's over 800. Like, I don't track it as much as you guys do, but it's, I think, over 800 YouTube, and then I got some on Rumble and Audacity. Yeah, go ahead, Jeremy.

I just hit 700, like, a couple days ago, so we're all in a similar stratosphere. Nice. Right on, man. Right on, so we'll have to network more, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

We'll all hit this thousand mark together. How about that?

I'm actually in a race with a Mormon to see who can get a thousand subscribers first, and we have something, we have a small wager going on where we're going to do something together, and it'll be pretty good, so I'm trying to beat him there.

Well, Faith Unaltered, subscribe. Real Seekers, Faith Unaltered,.

Subscribe to Jeremy's thing. Help him hit that.

Yeah, help us, too. Help Dale. You know, we all got to get, we all want this ministry to, these ministries to go far so we can reach more people and tell them about the truth and the love of Jesus Christ, so with that, guys, we're going to be talking about the nature of Scripture.

Tyler's laughing over there. What's going on there? I'm sorry, that is hilarious. I sent you all the short that he's alluding to. This man has been listening to that. He's probably the one, the reason why I have 400 views on that thing that I made.

I love it. Sorry, David, I didn't mean it. Guys, we're going to be talking about the nature of Scripture, and that's why we got Jeremiah on because he did do, like I said, he did a debate, and he was talking about Sola Scriptura, and you know, that's kind of like, it's so funny how our topics get woven.

We plan for things, and then other things get brought into the mix that we're not even, uh, we don't even realize, and then they just become a series, so we're continuing on this kick for Sola Scriptura, so with that, Jeremiah, what is the nature of the Scripture?

The nature of Scripture is being God-breathed, and so, yeah, that debate that you watched me do on Marlon's channel is almost a year old, so it's funny when you reached out to me, I was like, man, I might have to crack open the notes and see what I said, but yeah, so the nature of Scripture is God, His God-breathed revelation, and so where I've kind of come from is, as I say, that is the ultimate chord of appeal because this is not just ink on a page.

This claims to be living and breathing and sharper than any two-edged sword. In fact, Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken, and so when God speaks, it's always of the highest authority because of its nature, like you're asking.

Right on. I actually got a question speaking about the nature of Scripture, theanoustos, God-breathed, right? Scripture is God-breathed. That's one of the qualities of Scripture, right, is that it's theanoustos.

Another quality that Paul talks about in 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17, right, is that this—another thing that Scripture is, is it's something that helps equip the man of God for every good work, and so my question, Jeremy, is—I didn't have this on the notes.

It kind of just came to mind last second, so apologies—but do you think that theanoustos and able to equip the man of God, are those two synonymous things? Are these maybe two different categories that maybe not everything that helps equip the man of God is theanoustos, or do you think the two go together hand in hand?

So I don't think they're identical. I don't think that was what you were saying, but they definitely go hand in hand, but what's going to inform our experience, right? Because there are many other things that Scripture doesn't explicitly state that help us out, but many of those good principles are found in Scripture, and so I'm trying to think of a good example.

So like in James chapter 1, it talks about how God uses trials to make us complete, to make our faith full, essentially, and so I was thinking about that because I've listened to almost all of Dr. James White's debates with Roman Catholics on these very issues.

They'll bring up James 1 about, well, don't you need to go through trials so your faith may be complete? And I've always thought about that. I'm like, okay, that's a different word than the Greek word complete here.

That's what's being talked about, and Dr. White brings that up. But yes, God is going to sanctify His people, John 17, 17. The Father sanctified them in the truth, and then he goes on and says your word is truth, so God's going to sanctify His people through the word and through actual time and space and history.

And so how do we know we're being sanctified in our sufferings, in our trials, and even through temptation? Because the word of God tells us, and so Sola Scriptura always says that which is God-bred, that is what ought to be informing our experience.

What do you think, Tyler? I mean, I really do because, and I like what you said about the two go hand in hand, whenever you suffer, whenever you go through those trials, right, I've always found that turning to the word of God really helps you, even if you haven't looked at it in a while, it really helps you to cope through those things, right?

And granted, like the Holy Spirit, God, He gets us through those things, right? I believe in our path, those obstacles in our path, in order to build our character, in order to make us more like Christ, and it's so nice to have God's word right there with you during those times to help encourage you and help you move through those things.

David, what do you think? Yeah, you know, this kind of reminds me of the idea of sufficiency, right? So how you guys were talking about differences and stuff like that, I really think that Scripture is that rule, it is that sufficient thing that gets us to where we're going, and you know, like you said, there's other things that help us in our experience, like I was reading Plato's Republic the other day, and there's a lot of good stuff in there, you know what I mean?

There's a lot of good stuff in several of different philosophy books, some that even help you understand the problem of evil. You would probably disagree, but I like Alvin Plantinga on the free will defense, you know, but you know, there's a lot to it, and you know, I'm not just, I don't want to blanket that, but you know, there's a lot there, and you learn a lot, and you know, where the Scripture may be silent on some things, it's still sufficient for me, and I think that's what I was going to ask you next, is what does sola in sola scriptura connote?

It's not new to Scripture, is it? Is Scripture meant to be alone? So these are really good questions that I think this is why we have an ongoing debate with Roman Catholics, is because when we say sola scriptura, we're not saying my Bible and me under a tree, no creed but Christ, right?

Far be it. I mean, Christ has been building his church for 2 ,000 years, so we would glean so much from reading the saints of old, right? I'm more of Vantillian, right, and I love Bonson and the Reform crowd, and so that's why I'm repping to not, you know, this is the boys, but we have a historic faith.

We have a historic faith, and so sola scriptura doesn't mean that it's just me and my Bible only. What sola scriptura says is that the Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the life of a Christian.

The keyword, in my opinion, is infallible, okay, because the five solas of the Reformation are being distinguished from what Roman Catholics teach, and Roman Catholics, specifically, they teach that the Scripture is primary.

You know, I've even heard of the term prima scriptura, but it's first amongst equals to tradition and the magisterium, and so the Reformers came back and said, no, Scripture, that which is God breathed, is ultimate because of its very nature, and so that's what we're getting at with sola scriptura is that's the only infallible rule that we look to.

How Scripture Comes to the Church: Prophets, Apostles, Reception, and Transmission

Right on. Dale? Yeah, I'm sort of curious to.

Follow up and to learn a little bit about the mechanics. Like, how does something actually become Scripture? You know, can you maybe explain the processes of, you know, how it comes through transmission, reception, and then in scripturalization?

Great question. So, in my.

Preparation for the debate last year, my debate partner, Merrick Kaiser, shout out, by the way, I told him I did not want to go about this debate like we've seen it done so many times, where you go to 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17, and they're ready for that.

I said, I want to create a transcendental argument, something that we can say, something within sola scriptura is necessary for our human experience. And so, as I was looking into this, I came across a really good book that I want to do a shameless plug if y 'all are okay with this.

Please. The Canon of Scripture, a Presuppositional Study. And so, so many good chapters by Philip Kaiser. Dr. Kaiser goes into the mechanics of what Scripture is and how it comes about is Scripture always comes about by a prophet.

A prophet is somebody that is called out by God. Now, the people of God don't always know that, so they have to always test what the prophet is saying to see if it comes true. But that's something that Kaiser argues for is that Scripture always comes from a prophet, which when I was reading this, I was like, well, what about the apostles?

What about somebody like Luke or Jude? And he goes into how those people that are closely associated with the prophets or the apostles, the moment that they write and are inspired, the inscripturation is inspired the moment it's being penned.

And the point is not to be later voted upon by ecumenical councils or so forth. And so to go back to what your question is, is a prophet has to give a scripture. Now, the apostles we see in Paul's writing at the end of Romans chapter 16, second Peter chapter one, in the book of Revelation, even the apostles saw their own writings as prophetic.

So they had a prophetic ministry when they wrote Scripture. And so that's number one, though. The key point is Scripture comes to God's people by a prophet. And so you said a few other things. I have those questions.

I'm so glad you, David, you're so gracious to send me these questions beforehand. Thank you. I looked at you and I was like, man, I'm going to have to go look back on some of these things. Well, you know, I took a lot of them off of what you guys said in the debate, too.

So that's good. I know we kind of did this before. So with questions I could send out, but I think it was Dr. Tim Stratton that really got us into the, of actually sending them out to everyone instead of just, well, I'll send them out to these guys and this guy, like it's kind of become a religion for us to send our questions out beforehand now.

And I think it's, you know, thanks to him. So shout out to Dr. Stratton on that one. Now, Dr. Stratton, did he debate Dr. White a few months ago? Maybe? Yeah, about a year ago now. We had him and Chris Dade on.

Okay. Well tell Dr. Stratton that Jeremiah the Apologetic Dog says, hey, and I really appreciate a lot of his work. For sure. Absolutely. But yeah, so Jeremiah, like when you're talking about prophets and stuff, you know, I understand for the Old Testament, right.

I would even like, I would categorize apostles and stuff. You know, I would, I would, I would express a little bit of a distinction and a little difference in the Old Testament versus the old, right. Or the New Testament versus the old.

But like, what do you do with like King David? You know, I mean, he writes the Psalms and, and, you know, his plethora of writers that are writing the Psalms now. My whole goal is, is not just if it's a prophet, even though I know that's where in Deuteronomy, that was their, their standard, you know, and that's who could write scripture.

But as far as, as like King David and, and stuff like that, what would you, what would you say to that? Yeah, because I do want to go back to the question that kind of brought up three points, transmission, reception, and inscripturation.

And so, like I said, I've been challenged by this book. So, I really want to encourage our audience to go check out the, the Canon of Scripture Presuppositional Study by Philip Kaiser, because his big point, and I love it, to me, it's strong to say, look, no matter who we point to, like King David, if we point to the Apostle Paul, when they write scripture, it's a, it's prophetic.

And so, it carries the dynamic that the apostles, or the, the prophets of old carried. And it's important because Paul refers to his own writings that way. Peter refers to, Peter, for one, refers to his own writings, the prophetic word, we have a more sure foundation, and that which is revealed by God.

And he says, not only does Paul have that, but Peter quotes from the Old Testament. So, he, so my understanding would be, the inscripturation comes from someone who has a prophetic ministry. Now, I liked what you said.

I do see a difference between a mere prophet versus someone that has, you know, multiple facets, like King David. And then, I was going to also say, the apostles, to me, yes, they had a prophetic ministry, but they were uniquely sent out by Jesus.

Hence, the word apostle. Right. God. Yeah. Yeah. By God. And so, the, the inscripturation that, that I would kind of hold, hold to, and really, in light of Kaiser's point, is prophet, but that also extends to those who are closely associated with the prophets or apostles.

It's the moment that they were writing, it was inscripturated, that's the moment it's inspired not to be later voted upon. And so, here's another key point in our conversation, reception. Okay. Now, this is interesting, because I'll probably bring up the Roman Catholics as we go, just to kind of compare and contrast, is we, I would take the position that the church fallibly and passively receives that which is God-breathed.

Okay. Now, because the biggest pushback, and we'll get into kind of the differences between ontology and epistemology, and does, does sola scriptura necessitate tota scriptura? All important and good, good points.

But what we're saying is, no, that which is infallible belongs to God and Him alone. But that doesn't negate how we can passively receive scripture by looking at tradition, looking at scholarship, looking at history, and being convinced very reasonably of how that has taken place.

So, the reception of it, God's people do that passively. And then the other point is transmission. I thought of transmission in kind of two ways, because I would say the prophets, and by extension, those close to the apostles and prophets, they are the ones that transcribe.

But then there's also this idea of how God has preserved His manuscripts throughout church history. So, you get into textual manuscripts, right, and the transmission that follows. And, you know, me being Reformed, I'm over here saying that God has very, like, very orderly appointed for the church to be able to receive.

And this wouldn't be unique to just Reformers, but God has purpose with how God's Word has dispersed the way it has over time. Right, old Tyler, you got anything? I want to play devil's advocate for a second.

I do, I do. And so, because I'm hearing, Jeremiah, you upheld church history, which I absolutely love, right? So, I've been delving into studying the Eastern Orthodox lately, namely because a good friend of ours, Josh Sherman, has recently converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Another good friend of ours, co-host, Travis Worth, is a catechumen of an Eastern Orthodox church now. And my good buddy, Joshua Davidson, which is also my co-host of CSG, has really been delving into the study of Eastern Orthodox.

And so, I was like, you know what, guys, if there's something here, like, I want to know, right? And so, I'm really curious, given the fact that we look at church history, and I do have a quote. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Timothy Michael Law.

He wrote the book, When God Spoke Greek. Okay, I've got kind of a lengthy quote here, and I'd like to read it for our listeners, as well as you and Dale, because I don't think, Dale, you've heard it yet either.

But just to preface this quote, I would just want to ask, in a sense, what do we do with the definition of scripture, given that that definition seems to have multiple meanings, depending on who you would ask?

Even now, today, we've got the East that affirms different books as scripture. We've got Rome that affirms different books as scripture, or deuterocanonical, right? And we've got Protestants, the three main branches that affirm different books as scripture, right?

And let me just, allow me to read this quote. Like I said, it's kind of lengthy, but just to give everybody an idea of what I'm talking about, Michael Law, or Timothy Law, writes this. He says, quote, Christian canon lists in the first four centuries were in any case by no means regular or universally definitive, perhaps putting too much confidence in the Jewish evidence, like the mention of the 22 books and Josephus' against Appian.

Some have argued that the Christian Old Testament was established as early as the second century. The list of books was complete. Some were in, and some were out, and there was no further modification to the church's Old Testament.

The very use of canon lists by Christian writers in the first four centuries, however, demonstrates that Christians were still debating the status of the number of books. In other words, if the Old Testament were universally recognized, there would have been no need to continue issuing canon lists.

Law then goes on to describe canon lists beginning with the earliest from Melito of Sardis, circa 190 AD, who quote, leaves out Esther, doesn't specify exactly what was contained in Jeremiah in some Septuagint collections, Baruch, Lamentations, or the letter of Jeremiah was included together.

And probably, and the reason he says probably here is because of the way Eusebius preserves Melito's list. He writes Chi instead of A, anyway, Greek grammar there, but probably includes the wisdom of Solomon.

Origen, who quote, adds the 22 books of the Hebrew canon, first and second Maccabees, includes the epistle of Jeremiah and the prophet Jeremiah, and insists that Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther, Ecclesiasticus, and wisdom of Solomon are of divine origin.

And with the exception of Baruch, cites from non-canonical books, with the introduction, it is written, the signal that he treats the writing as scripture. Athanasius, who argued that there were three sets of books, canonical, ecclesiastical, that could still be read for edification, and the apocryphal writings that were to be avoided.

Baruch and the letter of Jeremiah were included along with the prophet Jeremiah in his main canonical section. And in his second category, he lists wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Esther, Judith, and Tobit.

He does not specify which books were he considered apocryphal. And then, last but not least, Augustine defines first and second Maccabees as being held canonical, though not by the Jews, but by the church in city of God.

Also in city of God, Augustine also refers to Tobit as scripture, and frequently defends wisdom of Solomon. Law also lists several regional canon, or councils, excuse me, that affirmed a broader Septuagint canon, and I'll just list a few of these.

The first one is the Momsen list of 360, and the 60th canon from the Council of Laodicea in Asia Minor, roughly around 364 to 365, and in canon 85 of the Apostolic Canon. So just given, like I said, the various lists, the various differences between the lists, do you see that as a problem if we look back at church history and see these differences in there, or not so much?

I see you're shaking your head no, so how would you go about that? You know, I was listening to that, and those were some really good quotes. This kind of shows me kind of what I was trying to lay the foundation for, is there's only one thing that's infallible, and so I would say as we look to church history, which we should because we have a historic faith, the fact that there's so much disagreement shows us the fallible nature of man in looking at tradition and looking at history, and so even though we hold that with a loose fist as Protestants, because I love my Southern Baptist brothers.

I grew up in a context where I was at a Southern Baptist church that did not look at church history at all, and looking back, you know, and I have the responsibility of shepherding this flock here at 12 Five Church, is I say, man, we have so much to learn from church history.

Not all Southern Baptists are like them, just saying my own experience, and so I try to say, hey, when you read somebody in church history, test their arguments to the Scripture, right? And so when I start talking with Roman Catholics, they just simply quote an early church father's conclusion about a text about baptism or something.

I'm like, can you give me the exegetical argument they gave for that, and they're like, oh, we just know what they believe, and I'm like, what happened to, you know, test all things and hold fast to that, which is good, right?

What happened to being a noble Berean? So anyway, when we talk about different canon lists, is it a problem? On one hand, I want to say no, and this is where I love the providence of God because all of these lists all contain the Protestant canon.

They just have more, and so I'm saying you've got God's truth there. Now, if someone's trying to be a systematician and their epistemology is different because they're trying to harmonize 1 and 2 Maccabees or something like that, and is that going to affect with their doctrine of purgatory?

Oh yeah, you know what I mean? So like it has devastating effects on how you'll interpret like 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and seeing if that's going to lend support to purgatory or something like that. So yeah, I'm aware of that, and that is dangerous.

That's why at the end of the day, we still have to keep studying these things, but when you boil it all down, God's truth is still there, you know what I mean? And so that's kind of my first thought. Number two, I love the Deutocanonical books as a, you know, and I would call it apocrypha, not pejoratively, but just saying I recognize the Maccabean revolt as being historical and really good information for me to know about, right?

But I'm asking the question, what's God-breathed and what's not, right? And so when we say sola scriptura, I think y 'all have interacted with the other Paul on YouTube. I love that guy. I'd love to interview him too, but I loved what he said one time.

He said sola scriptura is more of an epistemology, and I loved it. Now, I would still call it a doctrine. He may not, but it definitely is a type of worldview that's different than the Roman Catholics and the Greek Orthodox and so forth, and here's why I think it's so different, is because as Protestants, I would say the scripture is self-attesting.

When God speaks, it speaks with an authority different than any other revelation, okay? And so when I read in John chapter 10 where Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. Now, people may not like this, and this may not be as objective as they want, and I'm saying we can have those other types of discussions, but this is telling me there's something going on with God's word drawing his people to themselves.

Now, that's a worldview, whether someone likes it or not, and we can do these internal critiques and back and forth, but that's really what the Protestants were pushing for, is scripture is self-attesting as the ultimate precipient for truth, and you can't appeal to a greater authority to confirm that.