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And around the world, from the 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 on this Thursday evening.
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It is still 5 o 'clock, whatever time it is where you are. We did have, I guess
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I can turn that timer off now, huh? Timer's off, there we go. We did have one person, about 4 .03
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or so, hey, where's the Dividing Line? And we're like, ah, there he is. And that man, the prize of the day, for not remembering that we here in Arizona don't do that kind of thing.
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Yeah, I had a phone, I wondered if that phone call wasn't the same thing. I'll tell you. It's amazing.
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And it's also 87 degrees outside. It hit 92 here today in Phoenix. And the record today,
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I looked it up, no, the record yesterday I think was like 105 or something like that.
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I mean, that's 1989. I remember that. It was like, oh, it's going to be a horrible summer if in April it's this hot.
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I remember riding a bike race first weekend of April once. It hit 104 that day, and it was not a whole lot of fun.
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But anyways, we're now, unfortunately, our time is the same as California now.
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And I don't like that. Just, I, sorry if you're in California.
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I know there are great, good, godly Christians in California. But that entire state is just weird.
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Okay? You've got just so many weird people there that I vote, we put up a big old wall.
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Right along the Colorado River and just say, you all stay over there. Just do that.
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Anyways, before we get started today, well, I guess we have gotten started, haven't we? But you know what
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I mean. Before we have serious theological dialogue and inquiry at 877 -753 -3341, 877, that is a toll -free number in case you do not recognize it, 877 -753 -3341.
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Before we do our deep theological discussion, we have something else very important to discuss.
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And that is why on the special bat line that we have had installed here in the
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Alpha and Omega Ministries offices complex with our massive staff and places for pet dogs and things like that, we have on the line with us all the way from sunny, humid
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Florida, where many years ago
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I will always remember as one of my fondest memories of Christian ministry and service.
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I just killed a bug. Of Christian ministry and service. I met this man in a car that I will not describe to you, but all
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I can tell you is as we drove to places to minister together, I had to stick my arm out the window and let the breeze blow through my shirt so that I could not look like I swam there.
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It was just such a binding experience, it truly was.
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So anyways, now that I have completely made everyone wonder what in the world is he talking about, we have on the phone from the great state of Florida, Michael Fallon.
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Hi Mike. How are you doing? I am doing pretty good. I can barely hear you for some reason. I am not sure if everybody else can hear you well or not.
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We will let Rich take care of that. Sorry about that introduction. No, it was fun mistreating you like that.
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It is not sunny Florida today. We had a high of about 59, drizzly rain, windy, wind of about 30 miles an hour.
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It is great to play tennis and teach tennis. Oh really? Really? Wow. No complaining about your temperature.
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The high pressure that we have will head your direction eventually and it will be back to the same old, same old.
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So anyways, see I did it again. I am trying. Anyway, see someone,
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I do not know who it is, is very upset with me about saying anyways because it is not anyways, it is anyway.
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And so I am just supposed to do something about that. But you will need to, you sound pretty muffled so you are going to have to speak up a good bit.
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We must have a bad connection from you or something. Is that better? That is much better, yes. All right.
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You were not on a speaker phone, were you? No, I was on a headset actually. I was all over the computer and so forth trying to get things done for you.
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Yeah, well, you know, the headset made you sound like you were on Mars, however. So we are not taking a cruise to Mars, we are taking a cruise to the
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Eastern Caribbean, right? That is correct. And the first weekend in December on, well, you tell us.
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We have some big news or do we have big news tonight? Yeah, absolutely. Big news and I had to go to the
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Gestapo to get it done. But basically, let me tell you this, folks. There are a lot of people out there that do not trust our sovereign
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God and creator. And a lot of those people usually live in fear day to day. They change all of their plans, all of their vacation plans, their plans with their families, plans with their ministries and everything else depending upon what is happening in the world about them.
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Those type of people when they are afraid to travel and you have ships, hotels and things like that that are empty, it usually helps the folks like us who trust our sovereign creator and know that our days are numbered by him and not by anything else.
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It gives us the ability then to have wonderful opportunities for rates. Yes. And if you listen to the dividing line, you will know that every time that there has been something that has happened with rates and so forth, we have been right on top of it.
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Dr. White is not the kind of person and this is not the kind of ministry that just takes advantage of people, sets rates and just lets you live or die by them so they can make more money.
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Dr. White has been very concerned when he has been aware of the rates to make sure that we give you folks the best opportunity to get on board.
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And I hope this is not new for anyone else. If you are listening right now and you have already booked with us and that would be the
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Shaffers, the Shooklers, the Smiths and also for Rich Pierce, your rates will be brought down to this level.
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Just automatically you have been taking care of that. Let me tell you what is going on folks. If you take a look at our website right now and you click on to the 2003
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Apologetics Group, you will see that the CATS M through G, which is the large inside balcony, that the price there, and it is a low price, we got this price for a group rate, which is usually above $1 ,000 if you book it on a general rate, but the group rate we got for a low $8 .99
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a person. Well, because of the fear mongering that is going on out there from all the
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Democrats that are afraid to say, I'm sorry, I'm sure there are a few out there.
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But anyway, we have a rate right now that is this.
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Let me tell you. You might want to write this down. It is $306 for a
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CATS M. Now wait a minute. Let me back this up here. The rate we had before, which was a group rate and was a great rate, was $8 .99.
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Yes, sir. And you are telling me it is now $306? $306 plus your port taxes.
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Plus your port taxes. $139. That is for an inside cabin.
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And if you know anything about Holland America Line, and especially about the Zondam, which is a new ship, this is a first -class five -star cruise line.
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You know that you cannot touch these rates ever. And these rates, folks, these might go tomorrow.
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And I'm not saying this just to try to juice you up, to try to get you to call me and to book into this, but we want to be able to make sure that if you can go with us, call us, make sure that you take these rates, take advantage of them.
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An outside cabin, which you see on the website, a CATS FF through C, starts at $1 ,106 .91
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for an outside cabin. That is with a window and so forth, and you've got the bathtub. It is the
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King James type of suite, which he usually gets on a cruise.
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Oh, yeah. Well, actually, no. We usually have a cabin right next to the boiler room, which usually he shares with his dining room steward.
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But this cruise, we hope to change that. Hey, I think now that you've said that, I think it needs to be said,
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I've never had a window. You've never had a window. I've never had a window. We have had other, let's say, other
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Christian apologists that maybe have not quite been able to go with us who have requested that they have a suite if they were to go with us.
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That's true. Because of the value of their ministry. But anyway, let me tell you this.
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The CATS C outside, which as you see is $1 ,106 .91 on the website, please call me if you are sitting on the fence.
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The rate now is $380 .44. That's incredible.
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Now, you figure that out. You even add the port taxes in. We're talking about $65 a day.
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Yeah, with all your meals included. You could not eat the type of food that you would have on this boat for $65 a day anywhere.
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And once again, you don't eat that kind of food on the boat anyway. But the rest of us do. Would you quit telling everybody about the fact that I go grab the cheeseburgers on the
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Lido deck? Come on. I go to dinner. You know that. I do eat some of the fancy stuff, but oh, man.
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But anyway, these rates, I have never as a travel agent, and this will be our fourth cruise,
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James, that we've done together. We've never, ever seen rates like this. When we were on a carnival ship, which was not all that glamorous or not all that luxurious or anything, we had rates that were $300 above this.
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This is usually what your deposit is just to get things started. And this is the final payment.
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This is the total payment. Incredible. So, folks, if you have the opportunity, if it's not going to stretch you too much on your budget, do take this opportunity to book one of these cabins.
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You're not going to get this opportunity too often. As we see this democracy spreading through Iraq, that things are not blowing up around us, these prices are going to go up.
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And these folks, believe me, they fought me tooth and nail for me to be able to get these rates for our group.
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I just called Dr. White and said, I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it on the show because I'm still fighting with All in America.
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Yes. But we got the rates. Please call me. My number is 727 -452 -6453.
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As soon as you can, if you want to book these, once again, folks, if you've already booked, we are grandfathering you into these rates.
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Okay. Repeat that number again. I want to put it in our chat channel. 727 -452 -6453.
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727 -452 -6453? Yes. 452 -MIKE. Ah, okay.
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All right. And after three weeks of this show has been archived, please erase that number. Yes. Oh, Gail Ripley here?
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I know. I'm sorry. I'll have to tell you. The Democratic National Committee will be calling.
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But also, folks, let me tell you this. We are setting up a debate right now that's going to occur right before the cruise.
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We're going to have a conference. We're going to have a debate and so forth. So if you do book into this, you get a chance to see Dr. White debate live.
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We might have to drag somebody off the street to debate him. But we will be having some sort of debate in Tampa the night before the cruise.
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This is going to be an incredible time. You don't want to miss it. Dr. White will be ministering the entire time.
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You can ask him any old question you want. Anything you want. You bet. I'm glad to answer it for you on the bus ride over.
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That's right. I can't ask him anything. No, on the ship, my students take over at that point.
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Colin Smith will be handling all questions while I'm sunning myself, yes. Well, now that we've taken up a good amount of time here on the show,
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I think it's probably time for me to click off and listen to your words of wisdom. Okay, man. Well, thank you very much for letting us know about that.
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Obviously, there are other kinds of cabins. People can ask you about it. Someone just asked on the channel, what about children?
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They can give you a call and you can walk them through that stuff so they can find out what it would be, right?
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Absolutely. Have them call me immediately. And if you're listening in chat channel, please call that number and we will chat right now, okay?
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All righty. Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. All right. Well, I really do appreciate
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Mike taking the time. He's been working hard on this. I was a little concerned.
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We had gotten a good rate, and, folks, the rates that we have on the website right now are really good rates.
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For the ship we're going on, they're the best rates we've ever had. But because of the national situation, the war situation, the
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SARS stuff, people, even though there's nothing relating to that, I mean, what, are we afraid of an
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Iraqi submarine or something? Hey, it's
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Saddam on a sub. There you go. But people aren't traveling. And so the prices have just fallen through the floor.
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And I was concerned, and I hadn't really thought about it, but I was concerned, man, someone could look at this and see what we're charging and figuring we're ripping you off or something.
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Well, we actually had to fight and fight and fight and fight to get the rate that we got. But that's what we've gotten.
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I can see someone who's going on the cruise right now and channel celebrating, even as we speak.
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It's a conspiracy from the John Birch Society. It's not the
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Bilderbergers. It's the John Birchers that have done this. Well, maybe they'll be going on the cruise too.
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I don't know. But anyways, it's a tremendous opportunity, and we always have an enjoyable time.
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We have Bible studies on the cruise and get a chance to know folks. And I'm going to do everything in my power on this, my fourth cruise, to not be writing a book.
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I have been writing. I've always had just massive projects sitting on my head.
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Every time I've had to bring my computer along, I've had to set it up. I've had to do work while everybody else is getting off the boat and going and doing stuff.
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I'm sitting on the Lido deck with my laptop writing, I'm going to do everything I can. And I've said this before, but I'm going to do everything
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I can not to be doing that, to avoid doing that.
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So, anyways, please do not put this off because, as he said, we simply cannot guarantee these prices.
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They could be gone tomorrow. They could start going up tomorrow. We just don't know.
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But right now we have the rates, 727 -452 -6453. 727, that's the area code, 452 -MIKE -452 -6453.
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Give them a call and talk to them about it. Let some of you who simply have not jumped on this, now is the time to do it.
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It's a great opportunity, and it's going to be a very enjoyable time. Some of you are going, phew, cruising.
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I did the same thing, I confess. I heard about people doing it, and I'm sort of like, phew, please.
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You know, come on, cruising, what's so big about that? But I'll tell you, the first cruise we took, as Mike said, it wasn't on the fanciest ship in comparison.
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It certainly seemed that way to me, though. It wasn't very long. It was only a four -day, three -night thing.
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But, man, I'm going to tell you, I almost felt embarrassed how well
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I was treated, you know, treated like royalty. And let me tell you something, the wives like to go on cruises.
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My wife told me when I first got the call from Mike years ago, I didn't even know who Mike was. I told her,
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I said, well, we've been invited. You know, if I'll come and speak, that we can go on this cruise.
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And her response to me was, well, we're going on that cruise, whether I have to speak or not.
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So we went and just had a wonderful time. And so I hope you will, if you've been on the fence, if this doesn't knock you over, then you might as well just get off the other side and mosey on someplace else,
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I guess. So anyhow, it's going to be a very enjoyable time.
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Good Christian fellowship. So give Mike a call at that phone number. I'll repeat it one more time, and then we will move on from there.
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727 -452 -6453 is the phone number, and you can talk with Mike.
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If it's busy, obviously, maybe there are other people calling. I mean, that's just incredible, trying to get folks on these ships, get them filled up in a difficult time for the travel industry.
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Well, 877 -753 -3341 is just at a
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Catholic and channel. I'm offering ten indulgences for one cruise ticket. Well, we should probably discuss indulgences in light of that statement.
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But anyways, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number to join with the dividing line today.
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Possibly there were some issues that were brought up before, and either that or issues that have come up since the last program.
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I hear Mr. Pierce talking with someone. I'm not sure if someone has called. I can't tell anymore because we have this new fancy -dancy phone system, which didn't help us a whole lot there with Mike because Mike, I think the alligator in Mike's lake has been gnawing on his phone cord.
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Because even on the regular phone, we couldn't get a real good connection on that one. But anyways, with this fancy -dancy phone system,
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I can't look over at my own office phone like I used to. I'm leaning back here. I don't know if you can tell. And I'm looking at the phone system, and I can't see the lights anymore.
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So I don't know when someone has called in and when someone hasn't called in or anything else.
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And, of course, I sit here staring at the little box that I have where Rich is supposed to talk to me.
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And if he was listening to me, he'd go, no, we don't have anyone. Or, ah, see, there you go.
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I knew it was coming. But, you see, Rich will admit I type about 14 times faster than he does.
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So that's why we're just waiting. We started waiting. Yeah, let's get
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Balthazar to go. Because then if we could get Balthazar to go on the cruise, the average
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IQ of the entire boat would go up by 22 .73 points. And if there was any ñ and we could have, like, if Balthazar went, we could, like, meet out on the front of the ship, you know, and we could look up in the skies.
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And he could tell us about everything that's up there because Balthazar is an astronomer who is famous for discovering gamma ray bursts.
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And so someone explain to old Tom in the room here that he's barking up the wrong tree.
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There you go. Bye, Tom. See you later. Hasta la vista. Anyways, so we need to get
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Balthazar to go because Balthazar is cool. And, like I said, he's sort of like ñ when
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Balthazar and I are together, it's sort of like Pinky and the Brain. He's the brain. Narf.
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Okay, let's go ahead and line up our callers here. Everyone's calling in. These are sympathy calls.
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They're tired of my talking, and they want to get on to something worthwhile. So let's go ñ we're going to have to start applying rules here in the future because the next time it's going to have to be
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Steve -in, and then we're going to have to try S -T -E -P -H -E -N because eventually people are going to figure out there's this one guy in New Jersey.
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So we need to use different names, I think, as we go along. Maybe a middle name, something like that.
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That will help. And possibly a little bit of an accent change, something like that. Maybe a
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British accent or something would help. But let's go ahead and talk with Steve in New Jersey. Hello, Steve.
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How are you, Dr. White? I'm doing all right. I could use my children's name because we've adopted them, and they're from China, and they do have
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Chinese names. Oh, well. It's really confusing. All righty.
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What's your question today? A couple of things. First of all, I've been listening to your
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Harmony of the Gospels. I'm sorry. And I have the
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Logos series on the computer. Okay. No, I'm sorry,
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Steve. I need to stop you for a second. Sure. When I start my
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Greek classes, the first thing I explain to my students when they come in is the one thing that will cause them to fail first -year
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Greek is if they pronounce Logos as Logos.
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Logos. Okay, Logos. So I just, you know, it's sort of like the Psalms thing, you know.
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It's Logos. Now, some people I know, I've heard R .C. Sproul say Logos.
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But the worst thing is when you hear someone say Logos. That is the worst.
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That's worse. So we just need to stop there and just correct that. So you have the Logos, actually probably now the
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Libronics system, right? I bought it a few years ago. It was the Scholar version.
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Right. Now, you know they've upgraded that. I'm sure they have. I haven't kept up with it. Well, it would be a free upgrade for you.
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Libronics is the new library system, and it would, I think it would be a free upgrade for you, and it works a lot nicer.
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Well, that's good. I will get on their website and take a look into that. And is there a harmony of the scriptures that you would recommend and one that works with Logos?
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Good question. I have a really large Logos library on my laptop.
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But since the Auland Harmony appears in BibleWorks, I have not even looked in my library in Logos for something like it.
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I would actually be surprised if there is not. I really, my expectation would be, see the nice thing with Libronics, if you do the upgrade because it's free, is you can then shop online with them looking, you can look at all their titles right from your computer.
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Sure. And you can then, you can buy it just directly that way and download it and it will give you the key and boom, it's there.
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Fair. And it's fairly, you know, I mean it's not cheap in the sense of, you know, ridiculously cheap, but it's good pricing on most of the stuff.
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And so you probably could find a couple of the harmonies that have been published.
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There's, you know, four or five of them I would imagine. And I don't know, maybe someone in the channel does know, and if anybody does,
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I'll let you know, whether anyone has seen that in their Libronics setup. I can't recollect it off the top of my head, but that does not mean anything because I haven't done a lot with the
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Greek and Logos because I have Bible works. So I just haven't really dug into it, but I would imagine it's probably available.
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And you're listening to your lessons on that. You've taken the position that they were written completely independent of each other and not based on one of the other
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Gospels, is that correct? Right. Because they wouldn't have known it or they might not have referred to it, but it's not based on it as normally presented.
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Yeah, I don't believe that Matthew and Luke were sitting there with a copy of Mark and a
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Q source, something along those lines. I do see them as independent productions, and the parallels come from the fact that the source that they're using is consistent with itself.
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I realize it's extremely popular to assume
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Mark in priority and some level of interdependence. However, as far as I know, everyone who has promoted that initially, those who first suggested those things, also had a very late date for the writing of almost all the
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Gospels anyways. And it seems a little bit strange to me that conservatives, as I would view myself, in my view of scripture and in my view of inerrancy and inspiration, will buy into the end result of a process of thinking they'd never accept themselves.
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In other words, we wouldn't, you know, you go back into the 1800s and you examine the origin and source of these concepts.
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Part and parcel of it was the idea that these Gospels were late first century, early second century productions.
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And that then allowed for interdependence, because you weren't talking about something that Mark had actually written.
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Those are just traditional names. That was part and parcel of the argument as well. And so you could have all this time.
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Well, the problem is that doesn't, that really doesn't fit in with a conservative view of the dating of those
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Gospels. And so it's strange that the conclusion would then be borrowed. I mean, does
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Mark write this and then immediately it's copied and he sends it off to Matthew and Luke, wherever they might be, so they can use it or something?
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I mean, it just, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So, you know, I obviously, as we're teaching through it,
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I will attempt to mention those places where people focus in upon that.
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But, no, that's not my starting presupposition. All righty? Uh -oh, you seem to have disappeared on me here.
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I'm here. Okay. Well, I think we're having some problems on the other side of the wall here, actually. So go ahead.
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Okay. Nothing to do with what I just, the harmony of the Gospels, but can you, well, you do an
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English accent every once in a while. Oh, I try to once in a while, yeah. You do the Cockney English. Oh, yeah,
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I know. I watch, actually, I also do Colin's, Colin's accents.
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Hopkins? Hopkins, the Cockneys. Remember the lady, the woman in My Fair Lady? Yeah. How she spoke?
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Yeah, I do. Okay, because when you can do a good Cockney, I'll give you a very good Cockney English ecclesiastical joke.
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Oh, well, all right. Well, what will happen is when we get on the boat with Colin, I'll ask
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Colin to help me. He can train me, and that way then maybe I can find out how to do that, and then we'll have a joke together.
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They drop their H's. Oh, okay. The whole channel just exploded.
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No, no, stop it! Stop it now, I say! I've got one that, a joke that I heard.
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You know, you've spoken about how in the past, how people tend to believe what they want to believe in spite of the evidence.
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Yes, I do. Yeah, well, there was a story that we heard here that the, if I can indulge a moment, then
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I'll end the call. Yeah, we're good. We've taken our break right after this. Okay. That the Pope wanted to stop the war, so he made an unannounced trip to see the
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President, and they met on a yacht, whereupon at the end, when they invited the press on, after the meeting the
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Pope's hat blew off into the Potomac, and Bush eschews the Secret Service, climbs down the side of the boat, walks across the water, picks up the hat, walks back across the water, up onto the boat and returns the hat.
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Since the press was there, there was full coverage with an accurate account and pictures of this under the headline, the President Can't Swim. Yeah.
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Uh -huh. There's more truth to that than we might know. That's right. Thanks a lot, Steve. You take care.
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All right, God bless. Bye -bye. All right, 877, boy, I've got a bunch of crackling and stuff going on.
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I'm not sure what's going on. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. We're going to take our break.
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talk to Tim and the rest of you who call in today on The Dividing Line right after we take our break and there it is
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I can hear it now we'll be right back. Is the
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Mormon my brother? Bethany House Publishers presents James White's book, Is the Mormon my brother?
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In television campaigns, para -church events, and clergy fellowships all across the United States, Mormons are presenting themselves as mainstream
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Christians. Is it unloving or backward to say they aren't real Christians? In contrast, the
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Christian monotheist Mormonism, the belief in one God, Mormonism teaches that God was once a man who lived on another planet and was exalted to the status of God, and that Mormon men can also become gods upon death and resurrection.
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In his book, Is the Mormon my brother? James White demonstrates how this fact alone means Mormons and Christians are irreconcilably at odds at faith's most basic level.
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Is the Mormon my brother? is now available from Alpha and Omega Ministries Book Ministry. You can order Is the
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Mormon my brother? from our website at www .aomin .org.
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Answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the word of God, James White in his book,
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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. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.
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The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning
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Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30
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p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805
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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.
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If you are 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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More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder -to -shoulder against social evils.
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They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements. And many Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the
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Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many Evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided
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Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,
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The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the
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Papacy, the Mass, Purgatory and Indulgences, and Marian Doctrine. James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the
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Christian life and the heart of the Gospel itself that cannot be ignored. Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomin .org.
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Thank you, Brother Steve. You do such a wonderful job each week. It's amazing how he hits the exact same notes every week.
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No difference whatsoever. It's a cool thing. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.
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Someone's asking us to update the calendar page. We haven't updated the calendar page in years. It is a tradition that the calendar page is actually a history page.
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This is what we were doing two years ago. It appears out of date.
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Now, there's an understatement. Yes, it is definitely out of date.
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Let's go ahead and talk with Tim in, I'm assuming this means South Carolina, on the subject of the
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Atonement. Tim, you there? Yes, sir. How are you, sir? Can you hear me? Yes, sir, I can. I'm good.
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I'm the guy who called in an hour early. Sorry about that. You called in an hour early?
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Yes. Don't you know that you all play with your clocks and we do not?
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That's correct. I didn't realize that. I really didn't. I love your accent. You sound like my friend
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Sky Man. Sky Man lives in Georgia. He lives in Georgia.
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He lives in Georgia and he's a wonderful man. He may be listening right now and if you ever get down to Forsyth, you need to visit with Sky Man because he's a wonderful Christian brother and he's a great preacher too, so you need to go visit him.
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Well, that's great. But I love the way you all talk. I don't remember if you remember, maybe about two years ago after I finished reading the book
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The Potter's Freedom, I didn't realize that you had a ministry, as you did, and I just happened to get a hold of your number at home and I called you one night and you were kind of surprised.
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I was asking if it was the same one who wrote, and I don't know if you remember that. Well, no, I don't.
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Like, are you fixing to beat me up or something? Well, I don't get a whole lot of phone calls at home.
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I got one about two weeks ago, so yeah. You call me at home, especially in the middle of a workout or something, and generally
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I'll go, yeah, okay. The purpose you're calling me at home is because I don't like the people who call you and try to sell you things.
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I don't handle them real well, so those conversations normally don't start off well. Right, right.
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No, I wasn't trying to do that. That book has been a really great use of God in my life.
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Well, hey, you know what? I'm going to give you a real privilege here. Since you brought it up,
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Tim in South Carolina is the person who has brought up the issue that will allow me to announce to the entire listening world that this morning around 10 a .m.
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I sent the very last file of the debate book between myself and Dave Hunt to Multnomah.
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It is done. It is finished. It is completed. And everything that I have to write for it was turned in this morning.
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I had forgotten to mention that because everyone's always calling the program, when's that book going to come out?
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I don't know when the book's going to come out, but it is done. And it was Tim from South Carolina that reminded me to make that announcement to the entire world.
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So, Tim, congratulations. You have caused me to remember that joyous event of finishing the last section of that debate.
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I don't know that it's going to be – we lost him? We lost
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Tim? Oh, no. Now you know what's going to happen. I'm going to have to talk like this until he calls back.
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And people in the channel are going to really become very unhappy because I'm talking like this.
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Have we got him back now? Tim, are you there? No? Tim's not there?
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I heard a phone ringing. Hello? There's Tim. Hi there.
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You came back. You got bumped. It's those phone lines coming out of South Carolina.
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It must be. We're still hanging them in the air. That's right. So, anyway, did you hear what
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I said about the book? Yeah. Okay, great. I'm looking forward much more to an open debate,
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I hope. Well, it's funny. In my closing statement, I specifically made mention of that.
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So I'm hoping that that's going to cause there to be an interaction at least over the course of – what
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I would like to do personally would be a Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday evening debate.
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That's what I'd like to see happen. But that's not why you called. So go ahead, sir. Well, the question
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I have is – and I'm not very familiar, but I figured maybe you would be. A friend of mine made mention of a particular view of the
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Atonement in which – I'm wanting to say that she said either
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Isaac Watts or John Newton held. And that was taking the scripture from Revelation where it says that Christ's land slain before the foundation of the world.
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And it's something to do with, well, he had to somehow shed his blood or something of that effect before there was creation.
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And if you're familiar with some kind of view like that, I know that I've seen some stuff on the Internet where you can put in the land slain before the foundation of the world and come up with some stuff.
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But I don't understand – I don't understand what the whole thing is if Hebrews says that he suffered once.
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And that was in time. I don't understand unless – and they take it and spiritualize his actual
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Atonement, his blood beforehand. They spiritualize the blood, which I don't think is biblical at all.
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And I'm wondering if you're familiar at all with any – Well, it's ringing a very faint bell actually.
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I don't know what the specific name for it is. And if someone in channel happens to have run across something along those lines,
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I'll let you know. But it's not real specific, but I mean certainly that phrase does appear in the book of Revelation depending on how you translate the passage.
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I've made reference to it as well, but if you look at it, it could also be, as I recall, their names are written in the book of the lamb slain – of the lamb who was slain instead of slain from the foundation.
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That phrase, from the foundation of the earth, can grammatically be connected either to a description of the lamb or to how long the names were written in the book of life as I recall.
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I'm not looking at it right now. It could be either one. So while I've raised that issue, raised that description in various contexts, you can't really base – you could use it as an illustration – you can't really base much on it.
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I don't know if these individuals were talking about some sort of – there's a number of theories, like there's the eternal justification theory that the elect have always been justified, even though the
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Bible says justification is a declaration of God the Father based upon the exercise of saving faith.
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It takes place in time. There are those who are always trying to find these sort of interesting ways of doing things, but that specific view of the idea that somehow – are they saying that the atonement did not actually take place on the cross?
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What does it mean in Romans 3 when Paul says, passing over sins previously committed?
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If the atonement had already been made before then, he wouldn't be passing anything over in light of the certainty of the future atonement.
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So I'm not really sure. Right. I have not got a chance to really talk with her in depth about it.
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She had brought it up, and I was real concerned. She says that I read too much of Owen, which
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I haven't read one book of Owen, and it wasn't on the atonement as of yet.
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I'm just trying to get some information here of what she's saying, and I'm like, well,
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I don't see that in Scripture, how you pull one verse out, and then you're making this whole jump back here.
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So that's what I wanted to make sure of. I'd go to Hebrews. I would go to Hebrews 7 -10 and the once for all sacrifice and the fact that that was accomplished on Calvary.
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But it's really difficult for me to comment because I don't know what they're trying to say. If there is any way in which they are attempting to expand the atonement beyond the historical reality of it,
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I think that introduces a large number of problems, and I don't recall anyone who's reformed doing that.
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I could be missing something or just haven't read something. I don't know. But if you run into some more specific about it, feel free to give us a call back when maybe you get some literature or something like that, and maybe
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I can do a little bit more for you. Okay. Well, if not, if you just have a moment and you want to check it out, you can probably type in that little phrase there,
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Lamb slain for the foundation of the world, like in the search engine. It's like one of the first five or six that come up.
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You can go in, and they have some information. Well, we'll see. I mean, I did finish that book today. However, I have 120 days in which to write another one.
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Right. Do you happen to know, I asked the guy that answered earlier, the
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Piper Hunt debate, is that on the Internet? It was. Unfortunately, the fellow who would be able to give me the specifics on that is not in channel right now.
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It was, and then it sort of disappeared for a while. We were actually given permission to make it available, and maybe we should do so because I have the
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MP3 files somewhere. Well, I might. I lost a hard drive since then, so I may not. But what you want to do is contact
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Greenville Presbyterian Seminary, GPS, Greenville Presbyterian Seminary, and ask them about it, and they'd be able to give you details.
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Okay? Okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, man. God bless. Bye -bye. Okay, bye -bye. All right, now everybody calls in with 12 minutes to go.
46:38
That's how it always works. I think it's because they don't want me doing accents anymore.
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So let's talk to Brett in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hello, Brett. Hey, how are you doing?
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Doing good. First of all, thank you for your ministry. The Lord's doing some awesome stuff through you and your ministry, and you actually helped me about,
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I came to Christ about two years ago, and about four or five months after I came to Christ, I had a friend of mine who was actually in a weird cult, which is like a breakdown from the
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Way International several years ago. And so I had to give him a biblical presentation of the
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Trinity and the deity of Christ, and I went to your website, got some awesome information, and spent several months on my own dealing with this issue on my own.
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And I shared with him for several months as well. I shared with his cult leader, with some people in his cult, and just prayed for those people and was devoted to that.
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And he actually got out of it, and the Lord raised him to spiritual life and just showed him the truth of Christ.
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That's great. Well, thank you. You were able to help with that. I appreciate it. Well, thank you for your doing the study and being patient,
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Brett. What can we do for you today? Well, I'm a religious studies major at NC State, and I'm in a philosophy class, philosophy of religion.
47:56
I thought you said apostasy class. Lord willing, that won't happen. Well, we've got a big –
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I'm a Reformed Christian. Again, I'm not – I've been about two years being a
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Christian, so I'm getting there. I've got your book, Potter's Freedom, about halfway through. And the question we have to write on is divine foreknowledge incompatible with freedom of the will.
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And we don't have all that much from our class on the issue, and I was hoping that you could point me in some direction for some literature that I could read that would give a philosophical argument for the biblical presentation of the sovereignty of God and man's will.
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The Shriner and Ware volume, Still Sovereign. Let me see here.
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I guess I can stand up with this thing. Yes, I can. It's published by – that's Baker. I'm reaching across here.
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Do you hear anything crashing? Yes, it's a Baker book, Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace.
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It's called Still Sovereign, edited by Thomas Shriner and Bruce Ware. Bruce teaches down at Southern Seminary.
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Unfortunately, this microphone only turns one direction, and so my entire section of my library where I have all my neat, cool stuff on this particular subject is currently simply impossible for me to see.
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It sounds to me like the assignment – oops.
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I wonder what I just knocked over. I just knocked a picture off my wall. Isn't that great? It sounds to me like the assignment is basically asking you to take the position that open theism takes in asserting that very thing, that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with – what was the phrase?
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Well, we have to write, is it incompatible or is it not incompatible? Oh, okay. You've given us the compatibilist free will perspective and the libertarian free will perspective.
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From my short dealings with Reformed theology and my biblical belief that man cannot make a spiritually good choice in an unregenerate state,
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I have to reject the libertarian free will, but my teacher being Roman Catholic, he didn't bring that into class, but I could tell that that was his presupposition.
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He was kind of pushing that. Gave a very good overview of the libertarian free will perspective, but really
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I don't want to write a paper that is against the biblical presentation.
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Well, the Schreiner -Wehr book will give you a good bibliography. There is a – and I'm looking for it here because I want to be able to give you specific names and without playing a song for you while I'm looking.
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In fact, that's actually what I'm going to do here really quickly. Mr. Soundperson, turn up my computer here for a moment if you would, please.
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And hold on just a moment. And I'm back.
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Hey, how was that? That was fun. I've got to tell you, I liked Rebecca, but they had the mustache.
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I'm sorry? The show wasn't as good once he shaved his mustache. Okay, here's what
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I was looking for. Paul Helm, I just couldn't remember his name. Eternal God, A Study of God Without Time from Oxford University Press.
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Paul Helm, H -E -L -M. Again, if you're looking for a number of sources, and you're probably going to be graded on using a number of sources, both those books would give you really good bibliographies.
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And then if you want to include in your bibliography probably one of the more popular libertarian perspectives,
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God, Time, and Knowledge by William Hasker, H -A -S -K -E -R. That's a Cornell University Press book.
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Between those three, I think you'd definitely get the bibliographical information that you want, as well as the
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Shriner where one volume is actually a compilation of a two volume. The two volume would be the better one to get, because there were a couple of articles that were not included when they shrunk it down, unfortunately, including one on Middle Knowledge.
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It's really, really good. And I'm not sure if you're going to have room to even address the concept of Mullinism and Middle Knowledge and stuff like that.
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In his presentation in class, he didn't even define free will. So it was a bad presentation in class to begin with.
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I hope he doesn't listen to the program. I hope he does. I really do.
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I talked with him in his office just briefly about my belief on free will in the biblical presentation, because we do have something in common in that he does believe that the
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Bible is God's word. But being Roman Catholic, it was tough for me to be able to get on the same level with him.
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So I would like this paper to not only help me with the class, but to be somewhat of a witness to him and just, you know, whatever
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I could do. Great. Excellent. Well, hopefully those sources will get you going in the direction you want to go. James, I really appreciate it.
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All right. Thanks a lot. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. God bless. Let's run up to Peter in Colorado Springs. Hello, Peter. Hey, how are you,
53:28
Dr. White? I'm doing good. Actually, first, I was wondering when you're going to be writing the Augustine Logos Psalms controversy.
53:38
Anyway, my question was... Did you say Psalms? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. My question was if you know much about Gordon Clark and his statement that God is logic.
53:50
Yeah, yeah. Well, I am not a Clarkian, and I admit to the fact there's probably a lot of folks who would have a whole lot more knowledge of the specifics of his battles with Cornelius Van Til and issues like that.
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But one thing I can tell you is that when you get to the point of looking at John 1 .1
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and seeing the Logos as logic, you have left the realm of revealed
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Christian religion and entered into the realm of unrevealed human philosophy and with a religious coding on it,
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I would say. It's interesting, and this is just an observation.
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It is not an argument. But it has been my observation that a lot of Clarkians tend to be exceptionally irascible in basically saying, well, if you haven't read
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Gordon Clark, then you're clueless. You shouldn't be involved in apologetics and so on and so forth. I'm certain that Gordon Clark said many, many true and wonderful things.
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But when you get to the point of elevating logic to that level,
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I think you've missed the boat. Now, by the way, I would criticize Van Til.
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I think Van Til's view on the Trinity, for example, was questionable. So I'm not in the sense of a
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Mormon view of the Trinity or something, but his discussion of the relationship of the persons I would question.
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So I'm not some slavish follower of Cornelius Van Til or Greg Bonson for that matter.
55:27
But still, that statement just doesn't have any exegetical validity to it at all.
55:35
Okay, that's actually what I was wondering is if it was in the Greek or not, or where they were getting that from. Well, no, and I don't think he would argue that.
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I think he would simply argue that the logos as the rational ordering principle within Greek philosophy could be stretched that far.
55:50
The problem is the logos is Jesus Christ. The logos becomes flesh. It wasn't logic that became flesh.
55:55
It was the second person of the Divine Trinity that became flesh. So, yeah, that's stretching it just a little bit.
56:03
Okay, thanks, Peter. All right, let's get Jeff in here real quick because we're just about out of time. Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
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I grew up six years in Harrisburg, so I sort of know the area. How are you doing, Jeff? I'm doing very well.
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How are you? Doing good. I have a very quick question for you, I guess.
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How much time do I have? Not much. Not much. Okay. Do you want to hold it for Tuesday or just want to throw it out there real quick and maybe we can follow it up on a
56:33
Tuesday? Okay. I've been going through all your church history real audio from the
56:40
Phoenix Baptist. Yeah, and I'm sorry about that. What's that? And I'm sorry about that. Oh, yeah, you always complain about how you're so verbose, but like mine,
56:49
I guess I'm okay with that. My question was, you mentioned about stuff you did with the
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Talmud and you mentioned some other issues, and I've been involved with the Masonic Jewish community and Jewish apologetics for a long time.
57:03
I was kind of curious what resources were available for, like, Septuagint, Masoretic corruption, specifically dealing with, like,
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Masonic prophecies, because Jewish groups would say
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Septuagint, which was being used, would be wacky in part.
57:26
I have a friend who grew up Orthodox Jewish and can read the Masoretic like English, and he was just telling me about scribal errors and other stuff, and I was just wondering if you could point me to any good resources.
57:42
I'm not fluent in Hebrew or Greek, so I was just wondering what you could suggest.
57:48
Yeah, that's hard without a knowledge of at least a somewhat fundamental knowledge, at least the ability to recognize words and forms.
57:57
It's difficult to do textual studies comparing the Masoretic tradition with the Septuagint. It is interesting that the
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Jewish people utilized the Septuagint. Philo utilized it, for example, in Alexandria, and it was around 135 or so that the
58:12
Jewish people as a group made the decision to abandon the Septuagint and to utilize
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Aquila's translation because of the fact that it was being used by Christians, because it is the
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Septuagint that is cited in the New Testament. So this is a real live area.
58:31
As far as resources go, generally, I'm using the original text to check any issue that is raised, and off the top of my head, outside of the standard textual works on the
58:43
Hebrew Old Testament, like Wirthwein, W -U -R -T -H -W -E -I -N,
58:50
I would have to do more looking to be able to help you out with that. But there would be a bibliography in Wirthwein's book, though he's not obviously as conservative as I am.
58:59
So that's a really good question, and maybe if you had some specific passages we could look at those sometime. But as you can tell by the music, we're out of time today.
59:08
So thanks for calling, Jeff. Thank you very much. Thank you. I wait to be archived and listen to myself many times in the future.
59:14
Thanks, Jeff. God bless. Hey, thanks for listening today, folks. Don't forget, give Mike a call about the cruise.
59:22
Give him a ring. The time simply is going to be short on this. So give
59:27
Mike a call. Roll this thing back and listen to the number. I forgot to write it down. It's a 727 -something
59:33
Mike. But roll it back there and get that, and make sure to give him a call, folks.
59:38
Thanks a lot for listening. God bless. Phoenix, Arizona, 85069.
01:00:13
You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot
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O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks. Join us again next