Calls, Calls, and More Calls

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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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 good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon, glad to have you along.

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I need to continue with what we were working on on the last program, that is the dialogue, getting into James chapter 2 and some other stuff, and Paul with Robert St.

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Genes and Matt Slick. But your phone calls as well at 877 -753 -3341.

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This morning I was on the No Compromise radio program, dragged kicking and screaming unwillingly, completely unwillingly, into the controversy regarding Rick Warren at Desiring God.

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I hadn't even listened. In fact, I didn't listen to any of it. I just had decided, you know,

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I saw all the Twitter stuff happening and, you know, this comment and that comment, and I said, you know what, I'm not going there, not interested, but a certain person who is the host of the program insisted that I listen and comment.

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And so I did over dinner last night, threw it on my iPad and listened while making something here at the office.

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And so I made my comments. I don't know how worthwhile they were, but basically what

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I heard was an hour's worth of about 350 pithy platitudes connected together by quotations from the

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Living Bible and the Message mixed together with psychology and a whole lot of discussion of how uber cool

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Saddleback is. That was pretty much what I got out of that particular discussion.

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It wasn't that there weren't some things that were said that were, you know, I guess okay, you know, but it was just all these pithy little, little things just going all over the place.

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It was weird. But anyways, we talked about that and a few other things on the No Compromise Radio program, which is up on the blog right now.

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I have the link up there if you want to take a look at that. Next week going to be up in Minnesota, looking forward to a little cool weather up there.

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I mean, it's cool down here, but cool down here is upper 80s to 90 as a high.

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That's cool for us. That's their midsummer heat in Minneapolis.

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But returning to the land of my birth, yes,

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I am a native Minnesotan and I was born in Minneapolis. In fact, well, that's a suburb, but that's okay.

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And so I'll be heading back up there and talking with the folks at Bethany House Publishers as well on Friday, so you might want to pray for wisdom and insight for that to get together as to future book projects.

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It's been a long time since I wrote a book and was cranking them out pretty heavily there for a while and haven't been doing that for a bit.

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So we'll see if we can't arrange to maybe be doing some more of that in the future.

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And the week after that, up to Oregon and the debate with Robert St. Janis on Purgatory, which is going to be interesting.

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We had a radio debate on Purgatory. Well, it wasn't a radio debate. We had a radio discussion on Purgatory back right before our debate on justification in New York.

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So this has been what, 2001, somewhere around there. And I've listened to that a number of times.

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It was on the Andy Anderson show. It's sort of odd knowing that Andy's no longer with us. But while I would expect the conversation to be quite similar,

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I'm certainly going to be taking apart 1 Corinthians chapter 3. You all have heard the debate that I did with Tim Staples here on the program.

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Those of you who listen to this program heard it. Nobody who listens to Catholic Answers Live even knows it took place, because they just, they just, you know, that debate and gerrymatitics, two things that they just want to ignore ever happened.

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But then again, a lot of the debates I've done with Tim Staples, they just want to ignore ever happened, such as the papal infallibility debate.

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Yep. Pick up the rug, sweep that thing into there, hope nobody knows. That's right. Hey, no attention to that giant mound in the middle of the floor.

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That's right. That's, that's exactly what happened. But anyways, if you heard the debate, then you know which direction

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I'm going. You know exactly what I'm going to say about 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We're going to be discussing certain terms, and I'm going to be disputing

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Roberts and Genesis' assertion that zamiato is appropriately translated as punishment.

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He's going to go to the Greek septuagint, and I'm going to point out that Paul never uses it the way the Greek septuagint did, and I'm going to point out

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Roman Catholic scholars who agree with me on that, and he's going to say, well, they're probably not really Roman Catholics. But after the bodily assumption of Mary debate, doesn't every debate with Bob's and Genesis come down to the same thing?

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And that is, you don't need scripture or tradition if the

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Pope says it, it's true, period, end of discussion. There's, why are we even arguing about what zamiato means?

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I mean, the Pope hasn't said zamiato means punishment here. But that doesn't matter, because Rome has said purgatory is true, therefore it's true by definition.

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It's just, once you really, really, really establish the way that we did in the bodily assumption of Mary debate, that this is the final authority, everything else is irrelevant, isn't it?

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I mean, why are we arguing about these other things? That's not why he believes these things. So it could be rather interesting, no two ways about it, to engage that particular debate.

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And then home for about a week, yeah, I get home for a week.

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And so it means we'll be doing dividing lines on the 26th and 28th of October.

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Who knows, maybe for the 28th we'll see if we can get Turretinfan on to talk with us about Turretin.

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I mean, he was sort of close to the

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Reformers, and we're coming up on the Reformation Day, October 31st. I will be preaching that day, and we'll probably be preaching on Reformation themes, that makes sense to do.

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But then November 1st, heading down to Lima, Peru, where I will be working with HeartCry Ministries and doing a pastoral training on a number of subjects, including scriptural sufficiency justification issues like that.

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So I'm going to be down there, which means won't be doing any dividing lines that week, but we will be back that weekend,

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Lord willing. And then kicking off the rest of November, and lots and lots of important stuff going on.

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And soon, hope to really start needing to make a push, and I'll go ahead and mention this right now.

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We are arranging a couple of important debates, Lord willing, with Bassam Zawadi in London for February of next year.

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I haven't blogged about this. Time is short, but I would ask you folks who help to make these things happen to be thinking about that.

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It's costly to get to the UK. We are going to be trying to combine with that trip the examination of some very important papyri manuscripts from the

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New Testament, hopefully for some writing projects in the future. And so please pray about your participation.

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We need to get a link up there for, need to get the international travel link re -established if it's not there.

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We need to get that up there because we need to start working toward the London trip and also going to be popping up to Dublin.

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Maybe we can even hopefully arrange at least one or two speaking engagements there in Dublin before we go back to the

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UK, well, to London. I'm not sure if that'll be before or after the debates with Bassam Zawadi.

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I would assume afterwards, but we're trying to arrange all that stuff. And so, but to do that, the most important part is you got to be able to get there.

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So please be praying about your participation and helping us to get across the pond one more time.

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And you may recall that it was last February when I was in London that the

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Ergen -Kenner stuff broke. It seems like a lifetime ago for some of us, but it really wasn't all that long ago at all.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, dividing .line

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via Skype, we hope. We tried that last time, didn't get quite working right, but it worked before the program started.

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Let's put it that way. It worked before the program started. So let's see what the callers do first, then we'll go to the recording stuff.

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But let's go ahead and get to some of the callers, and let's start off with Todd over in Marietta, Georgia.

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Hi, Todd. Hey, James. It's good to talk to you. I think the last time I talked to you was when you were over in England.

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You had me call Brian Broderson regarding the appeal passage. Yes, and you never got a meaningful answer on that phone call, though.

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No. You got a lot of verbiage, but it was, we shall read the text and depart very quickly

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Where exactly they're from is the methodology that I heard used at that particular point in time. Right, right.

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You know, I've been enjoying studying Reformed theology. I think since that time, though, I've kind of gone off into studying, and this makes it a real fun conversation for my wife on the dinner table, so I come.

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Well, you've got to study Islam and try discussing it with your wife. She's like, uh... Oh, you don't know how your wife... I mean, do you sit at the dinner table with your wife at night and start talking to her about the things you like?

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Um, well, that's a long story, but anyway... Yeah, it's probably like my health.

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So I've been studying eschatology now, and just looking at what I call the four views. I think there's five in premillennial and amillennial, postmillennial, and the preterist view.

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And when I listened to you this week, and you were on Greg Koukl's show, and that made me start thinking a little bit, which, by the way,

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I think this is kind of neat how all these things come around, because Greg Koukl, the week before, was manning the mics at Calvary for Brian with Don Stewart, and then you're on his show, and...

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No, no, wait a minute. Back the track up. Greg was doing what? Greg Koukl was manning the mics for K -Wave out here with Don Stewart, just building questions.

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Right, right, right, right. And then in the next week, he's on your show, and... Actually, I was on his show.

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Oh, you were on his show, excuse me. But I don't think Calvary would have you up on their show.

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No, that's a shame. I would love to be on. And like I said, if George Bryson can swing it, let's do that debate that he wants to do right there at Calvary Coast to Mesa.

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I think that'd be great. Wouldn't that be fun? Oh, you know what? Wouldn't it be neat? I would just love it if we could all just kind of not let this stuff divide so much.

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Because, I mean, you don't want to talk about reform stuff dividing. I'm fine with eschatology. People are ready to... Oh, goodness. Yeah, that's why

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I don't even... I don't get into eschatology hardly at all. There's few things that are more emotionally driven than the eschatology conversation.

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And of course, eschatology, unfortunately, we're using it here specifically of end -time scenarios. Eschatology, technically, is much broader than that and involves judgment, resurrection, all the rest of that stuff.

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But all the details of the when, unfortunately, overrides most of that.

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So that I know a lot of folks that can argue pre -millennialism, amillennialism, post -millennialism, pan -millennialism, it'll all pan out in the end.

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All that stuff, they can argue that stuff until the cows come home, but they could not give you a meaningful defense of eternal conscious punishment if their life depended on it.

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So it's not really a balanced view of eschatology.

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But believe me, I'm well aware of the strong emotions that are engendered by the subject.

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Oh, they're very mature. A lot of it comes out of the Dallas Theological Seminary and these guys.

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And I'll be honest with you, for 25 years, I've just bought hook, line, and sinker into Timelheyism, I guess

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I'm going to call it. And that's great, that's all fun, but I got challenged, and so I've been studying it.

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And now as I've been studying all these views, and after listening, and I just ordered two year books, by the way, of the

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King James Only Controversy. Which has nothing to do with eschatology, I wanted everyone to hear that immediately. Yes.

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No, it doesn't, but here's... When you see me writing a book on eschatology, you know that the end has in fact come.

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Well, but here's what I find is important, because when I'm looking at all the different,

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I happen to pull out at least five different Bibles as I study the text. And now

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I'm going, okay, the ones that have made what I think are very interesting views and take the time factors very seriously are like the

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Partial Preders and the Preders guys. And when I'm reading the different Bibles and stuff now, after listening to you talk to Greg, I'm looking at, like, the

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Preders guys, they use a lot of what's called Robert Young's Literal Translation. And I don't know, because the time frame factors in there are a lot of, like, the judgment about to come.

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Yeah, you've got to be real careful. From my perspective, in establishment of theology, and when you hear anyone—this is one of my criticisms of Rick Warren on the program earlier today—when you hear anyone who has a predilection for translations done by individuals over those done by committees, you're normally finding somebody who's trying to insert something into the text.

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That's my experience. Yeah. I'm not saying that every single translation done by an individual is completely horrendous, but a committee -done translation, the existence of multiple minds involved in the translation helps to filter out individual prejudices.

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Yeah, and they turn around and they use—because the Greek word melo is used, they say, and if this is true, if that means something that's near, that's about to happen, then

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I want to know where they're pulling this stuff from, right? And I'll give you a couple—I mean, just real quick examples.

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I was reading this morning in Hebrews 10, like, chapter 34 in my ESV, and it talks about you knew that you're yourself of a better possession and in abiding one.

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But then in King James, the New King James and the Young's Literal, it says this possession is in heaven.

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But in my ESV, that's left out. Or, for example— Since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one,

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New American Standard. New American Standard leaves it out as well, but King James— NET, because you knew that you certainly had a better and lasting possession.

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Let me look real quick here. I was just trying to set this up as we were going on the air to look at the text here.

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Let's see if there is a—yeah, it looks like there is a textual variation here, and I didn't get a chance to set all this up.

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It's probably due to a textual variation. Let me look here real quick. While you're looking at that, also look at verse 37 where, like the

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Young's Literal puts in, yet a very, very little while. Okay, here you go. There is a variant.

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The majority text reads, "...en ore nois," which is in heaven, and that is not found in the modern texts.

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P13, P46, the original Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus do not contain "...en ore nois."

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It's a later edition. So that's why you—whenever you see something like that, generally your

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New King James is going to provide a note somewhere. It's going to tell you any UBS verses, majority text, something like that.

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Did none of the ones you have indicate the variant there? Some of these are study

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Bibles. This one is R .C. Sproul's Bible. I'm not seeing it in my ESV. No.

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That's interesting. That's why it's always good to—we have a text available.

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We make it available through the ministry here, and I'm going to go ahead and push it again because, especially on this issue, it's just so important to know what you're looking at.

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There are two resources, and I pushed these real hard last year. A lot of people picked them up, but we have a lot of new listeners.

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If you're doing in -depth Bible study, even if you don't know Greek, there are two resources that you really want to put on your

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Christmas list or whatever else that we make available. Maybe I'll try to remember to blog them or something like that.

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The first is the Diglot that we make available, the NET NA -27 Diglot.

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That is just so useful to have because not only does it give you all the textual information, the

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NET has 30 ,000 -some -odd textual notes or something like that in it, and then there's an extended discussion of some of the more important variants in the back.

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It's a goldmine of textual information. So the Diglot is really important. Then the other thing you want to pick up is

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Philip Comfort's New Testament Textual Commentary. And whenever you run across something where you have a major difference like that, where you have an entire phrase that just simply isn't there, almost every single variant is listed in Comfort's work, and he will go through what the major translations have, what the differences are, and then he'll give his own presentation as to what he thinks is the best direction to go with the variant.

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But you'll have everything right there in front of you. I think I'll need to do that. What about in that 37 verse, yet a little while, like my

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ESV writes, yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay, where Young's literal says, very, very little while.

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What you've got there is, Miqran is a little for yet Miqran Hassan Hassan.

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So it's for a very little while, and just a little longer is the translation found in the

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NET. So that doesn't look like it is a, that's not a translational,

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I'm sorry, that's not a textual issue, that's a translational thing. Okay. So with Young's literal, what's been your experience with that?

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I honestly don't utilize it. And why would that be? Because it's an individual? Partly, and because, primarily the main reason is

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I don't utilize a lot of English texts. You know, you're looking at the original language, that's a whole lot more literal than you're going to get from an

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English translation, basically. So, you know, if you compare the

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New American Standard, ESV, NIV, you compare those together and you're going to be getting a really good range of stuff.

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I mean, we literally have too many English translations. So if you go with the solid ones, which would be

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NASB, ESV, the Holman isn't bad at all, the New King James, NIV, and I'd even throw the

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NRSV in, just simply to get the left in there. When mentioning all that, I have found with my

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NIV, I always feel like I'm getting some pretty interesting translations at times with that.

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Oh yeah, sure. It's because the NIV is a much more dynamic or functional equivalency translation.

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It's closer to a paraphrase than what you're going to get with the others. Okay. But there are times when that paraphrase knocks it out of the park, too.

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There are other times when they completely miss it. Sinful nature for flesh in Paul is just a bad translation, but there are other times when they nail it right on.

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So recognizing that there's a little bit more interpretation in the NIV, but every translation falls somewhere in that range of interpretation and translation.

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I think this is very important as I'm studying all these different views, and I find that when the predators are making good cases with these timeframe factors, but if they're pulling from sources that aren't, this is where I want to look at the textual criticism.

22:15

Right, right. Well, those two resources I gave to you, and of course, today, most people who are listening, anybody who's listening right now is listening on a computer.

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That means most people listening right now are using computer resources to do this.

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And if you're on a PC, then your two best resources available to you are going to be

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BibleWorks and the Logos system. Now, obviously, there are other, there's

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PC Study Bible, I think is still out there. There's the free stuff that's available out there. But the problem is with the free stuff, you're not going to get any of the modern resources that are going to be available to you because they're all still under copyright.

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And so, unfortunately, some of the older resources and some of the older translations, just sometimes they have used to them, but sometimes they're based on dated material.

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If you're on a Mac, you've got Logos and you've got Accordance. For example, the resource I just mentioned to you,

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Comfort's New Testament Textual Commentary, I have that on my screen along with Metzger's and along with NA27 all in Accordance.

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So I think that's available in Logos too. I don't recall off the top of my head. The point is you can get some incredible resources, and especially if you want to compare translations, see if there are textual variants, the gold standard,

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I'll be perfectly honest with you, is Accordance. It just is incredible. But if you're on PC, BibleWorks has some of the same.

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Yeah, I have that gold concordance, actually. It's pretty good. In fact, you know, I was looking something up today about Heavens. Heavens?

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Yeah, and that gold concordance. You know, just one more quick one in Deuteronomy 32, 43.

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Can you hit that on yours? I'm sorry, what? Deuteronomy 32, 40.

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Well, unfortunately, I have five callers standing in line, one from Ireland.

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All right, that's fine. I just wanted this thing that said, Rejoice, O Heavens, and another translation said, Rejoice, O Gentiles.

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I'm like, well, which one is it, you know? Oh, okay. Yeah, that would... Shemayim and Goyim are two different terms, but it would take a little while to pull up the textual data on Deuteronomy 32.

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Yeah, that's fine. I'm just trying to get that down, the difference between why people are called Heavens sometimes and other times they're called

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Gentiles. You know, this stuff just blows my mind, and when I read the

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Patristics and stuff like that, I'm getting a whole mixed bag of different thoughts. Well, especially, you've got to be real careful looking at Patristics and anything in regards to eschatology.

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Remember, you've got to read them with just as much discernment as you read anybody today. And remember, some of them didn't even have access to the entirety of the

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Bible at times. No, it didn't, and there's stuff all over the board. Yeah, it goes all over the board. But hey, Todd, appreciate your call.

24:57

Right, appreciate it. Thanks, Colin. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. Let me see here.

25:05

Let's go with Tom. Hi, Tom. Hey, how you doing? Doing good.

25:11

Excellent. Well, the main reason I called, I wanted to let you know that the shockwaves from your

25:16

Trinity debate are still reverberating on Dr. Brown's LiarFire website. Yeah, I heard that Anthony Buzzard posted a part of an article that he'd written a few years ago that I had seen in print.

25:30

But unfortunately, web board's way, way, way beyond my capacity to engage.

25:36

But did you see the announcement that the program will be airing between November 1 and 14 on the

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Jewish Voice broadcast? They sent that out to me just today, so I know it's on the blog. Oh, good.

25:49

I'm looking forward to that. And hey, while I've got you, for Anthony Buzzard, I'm actually involved in the discussion over there, and it seems like the

25:57

Psalm 110 argument, to this point actually, has been pretty much untouched.

26:03

Actually, just in the last day or so. But what's really been pushed this round is the

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Matthew 1 -1 and Luke 1 -35 verses, where it speaks about Jesus Christ being born in the flesh, that kind of thing.

26:17

Well, when you say a Psalm 110 argument hasn't been touched, what do you mean? Well, it really hasn't been the point that they've pushed the

26:25

Unitarian opponents on the site. Well, they shouldn't. Yeah.

26:31

I'm afraid that while Sir Anthony has based pretty much the entirety of his presentation on that, it's just a really bad argument, and it's utterly unsustainable.

26:42

And if we ever get to do that debate that I want to do, a full debate, where we could really engage that, there are two examples in this altar where that exact phraseology is used, and his position is just an error.

27:03

That's all there is to it. But as to the other, when he emphasizes the birth of Jesus Christ, he's assuming and understanding of the existence of Christ.

27:13

No one denies that Jesus Christ was born. No one denies that there was a time when his fleshly body began, but it's a presupposition of the

27:20

Unitarian that, well, that means that's when he began, and they ignore this mountain of evidence that we both presented to them over and over again of the preexistence of Christ.

27:31

And it's such a weak position. At least the Jehovah's Witnesses and others will recognize the preexistence of Christ and, as a result, have a little bit more of a leg to stand on.

27:44

But when you assert that the New Testament writers had no concept of the preexistence of Christ, that they believe he came into existence at his birth in Bethlehem solely, there's nothing more to it, then you have to start doing what

27:57

Joseph Goode was doing in the debate, and, well, this is a plan in God's mind, and that's what Anthony Buzzer does, too.

28:04

Well, this is his plan, it's his word, and it becomes extremely, not only complex, but it's just so counterintuitive and so outside of the normal meaning of language that they recognize that's their weak point.

28:19

That makes sense. Yeah, the frustrating thing to me up to this point has been that they don't recognize how well those verses fit into John 1, 14, just like a glove.

28:32

Well, you know, you can't force anybody to see the truth, but what you are seeing is the,

28:41

I think, the advantage of doing what we did on The Jewish Voice, and that is, on a web forum, you can go back and forth forever, and you can ask questions, but you can't really force somebody to answer them.

28:53

When you're in person, in front of a live audience, there's an extra, there's something that's not on a web forum, that really you can tell when someone doesn't have an answer for the question.

29:06

And in my recollection of the debate, I think it's pretty clear that Michael and I were never in a position of struggling to present an answer to what they presented, but there were numerous times when the

29:21

Unitarians were pretty much caught flat -footed and really struggled to come up with a meaningful response to what was being said.

29:28

Michael and I worked very, very well together. I think when you all see it, sometimes, you know, you work well with some people, and sometimes you don't work well with people, but we worked seamlessly.

29:43

And what we sort of, we hadn't even discussed it really beforehand as to how we were going to do this, but I sort of let him lead out at the beginning, because he was much more familiar with the people there at Jewish Voice.

29:53

He's been on the program before, etc., etc. And we'd have two minutes to respond to something. He'd do something.

29:59

I would then do something. And while I was providing my response, he's thinking of something else that he wanted to add that would sort of dovetail with what

30:07

I was saying. If I left any time over at all at my end, then he'd pick up and add something to it.

30:14

We did that a couple times, both different directions. And we always filled up all of our time, and like I said, we really worked well together.

30:23

I hope everyone enjoys getting to see the encounter. Well, I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for it.

30:29

Thanks for taking my call. All righty, Tom. Thanks for calling. Thank you. Take care. All right. God bless.

30:34

Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. We have a Skype. Are we going back to a regular call or a

30:41

Skype call? Okay, let's go with Ron. Hi, Ron.

30:47

Hello, Dr. White, and thank you for your ministry. Yes, sir. Okay. I kind of chuckled when

30:54

I heard you mention to the previous caller concerning having a debate with somebody in person versus somebody online, and I have been sharing with one of the

31:06

Roman Catholics who like to dub themselves very intellectual and very Bible literate, who tries to read all the doctrines back through the

31:15

Old Testament and say that it was taught and anybody... Like, one of his views is that if we understand the

31:22

Eucharist correctly, we'll realize that just as Mekezeldech was the perfect sacrifice at the time and that the bread was the sacrifice, he says basically

31:36

Jesus is the Passover cedar, so that's the reason that Jesus needs to continually keep being offered up in the

31:43

Eucharist. And he said anyone who disagrees with that doesn't know Old Testament theology and understand about the total sacrifice of the bread and wine.

31:52

I see, yes. Well, you know, it's interesting, whenever I... I've been preaching through Hebrews right now, and if there is ever any place for the nature of the sacrifice, the bread and the wine that was mentioned in regards to Mekezeldech in Genesis 18, 19, that whole section there, if there is ever a place where you would expect an expansion upon discussion of those things, it would be in the book of Hebrews.

32:21

It's the one place you don't get it. Melchizedek, the nature of the sacrifice, the elements, not the slightest expansion, discussion, or anything else by the writer of the

32:32

Hebrews. And in studying Hebrews, I noted a number of the commentaries that I was looking at and likewise noted that that was a later development in patristic thought as well, that the early church fathers eventually start picking up on that, but that's not a part of the concept of the writer of the

32:50

Hebrews at all. So it's interesting. I would challenge such an individual who is obviously beginning with the authority of the

32:58

Roman Catholic Church to explain where the Roman Catholic Church has ever infallibly provided that very information that he says is so obvious.

33:07

And you can quote numerous leaders that would dispute that any passage has ever been infallibly interpreted.

33:14

Some people say there's been seven, but the fact of the matter is he's giving his own personal interpretation again that the church itself has not provided.

33:23

And it's a circular argument that they present. But you're right. The internet has created a whole subculture of Catholic apologists who begin with the authority of Rome and then ransack the

33:38

Bible and grab hold of these various things, the fourth cup of the Passover Seder, things like that.

33:46

Very rarely do they approach this in any balanced fashion. Very rarely if you ask them questions like, well, is this actually a patristic interpretation?

33:57

Who is the first person to do this? Et cetera, et cetera. Are you absolutely certain that the modern viewpoints that are presented concerning the nature of the

34:07

Passover at the time of Christ are accurate? There's a tremendous amount of dispute as to the amount of development and what the

34:17

Passover would have exactly looked like at the time of Jesus and things like that.

34:22

People just assume things. The internet's a wonderful thing for the distribution of information, but the one thing it doesn't have is any kind of, shall we say, peer review in the sense of a control mechanism that filters out the bad stuff.

34:43

There isn't anything like that. Go ahead. I was just going to say, while you're on that, because we've been bringing up the early church fathers' views, and when you show opposing early church fathers' views to the actual physical presence, then he comes back with, well, provide one link that shows any early church father that said that those who held to one of the other views, the physical presence, was wrong.

35:09

And my response to him was, well, you know, back in the early church fathers, it doesn't appear they were, aside from holding up, going against the doctrine of Arianism and what have you, there wasn't a whole lot of apologists.

35:22

They taught what they believed, but they didn't necessarily go out and point fingers on things that were kind of up in the air at the time.

35:28

Well, there certainly were apologists, but what they were defending was something completely different.

35:35

I mean, it's such a wonderfully circular thing to say, well, show me where somebody said they were wrong.

35:40

Well, who are we talking about and what statements are you talking about? Are you talking about the misreading of Ignatius and his opposition to the

35:49

Gnostics? Are you talking about Augustine's clear statement that the physical body of Jesus is now in heaven and will not be on earth?

35:58

The church has been deprived of the physical presence of Jesus until the second coming. That was his teaching.

36:06

Now, the reading back into the presence of Christ with his people in the

36:13

Lord's Supper of a later theological development that does not even come into the gross physicality of transubstantiation until a thousand years after Christ, that kind of anachronistic abuse of the early church fathers is rampant amongst

36:29

Roman Catholics. They abuse the early church fathers. They have to because their church forces them to.

36:35

Only one side can allow the early church fathers to be the early church fathers. Only one side can allow them to be what they were.

36:41

I'm not running around saying these people were Reformed Baptists because they weren't. I can allow Augustine to be Augustine.

36:46

I can allow Augustine to contradict himself in regards to the conclusions he came with in the

36:51

Donatist controversy versus the Pelagian controversy. I can allow these men to be these men, but they have been told that there's this unanimous consent of the fathers, and so they have to twist them, distort them, and cram all sorts of ideas into their minds that never would have crossed their minds.

37:08

And that is the very essence of dealing with the modern Roman Catholic. And when you're especially dealing with a modern

37:14

Roman Catholic who is extremely, shall we say, lacking in humility, and especially historical humility, it can be extremely frustrating.

37:23

There's no two ways about it. One of the things I've been trying to do, instead of going through the books, is going through finding a website with the early

37:31

Church Fathers so it's easier to cut and paste in what they say. And one of my brothers who's helping debate with this gentleman, he posts things from Philip Shaster's website, and then he comes back and says, well, that's unbiased.

37:44

Let me show you an unbiased website. He recommended earlychristianwritings .com, the Catholic did, but that's written by Peter Kirby, and he's a

37:54

Roman Catholic. So I don't know if you have one that you would recommend that we can maybe go to online to get some of their quotes and writings so we can interact better online with people?

38:05

Well, no one's going to be unbiased. But again, I would assert that Shaft's bias is going to be significantly less than the believing

38:14

Roman Catholic who's under dogmatic pressure to find in the early Church what he's supposed to find in the early

38:21

Church. How many examples can we provide of the Roman Catholic Church's utilization of fraudulent documents through its history?

38:30

Roman Catholic theologians using fraudulent citations and quotations to establish vital foundations for later

38:37

Roman Catholic dogmatic developments. And even to this day, look at what happened in 1870.

38:44

Compare the historical writings of Hefala and John Henry Cardinal Newman from the 1860s to the 1870s and 1880s.

38:54

They had to revise their own historical works in light of the Pope's self -proclamation of his own infallibility.

39:01

So who has the real problem with being historically fair, and who has to anachronistically cram things into Church history?

39:12

There's a vast difference between the two sides at that point. And then the funny thing is, when you find

39:22

Roman Catholic historians who will be honest about the development of their own dogmas, then they're dismissed by these apologists as being modernists and liberals anyways.

39:32

So does it really matter what you would find? Honestly, that's my experience, is as soon as you find somebody that says, well, actually, this was clearly a development and this clearly wasn't what this religion...

39:44

Well, that guy's obviously not a Roman Catholic anyways. So where really can you go at that point?

39:51

Off the top of your head, what early Church Fathers would be the ones that were against the physical presence the most?

39:57

That wasn't the issue. The whole concept of a quote -unquote physical presence is way down the road.

40:06

The presence of Christ with his people was considered to be real. That's why it's called real presence, because it was spiritual.

40:13

The idea of the physicality... I mean, think about it. I've tried to point this out to Roman Catholics many, many times.

40:21

I'm sort of rushing here, because we've got calls from all over the place, including from Ireland, so I want to try to get to them.

40:26

But I've tried to point this out to Roman Catholics, and sometimes they just don't have ears to hear.

40:33

But the first time you have the development of something like a tabernacle or a suborium, these things for the maintenance of the hosts, if those early

40:43

Church writers, Ignatius and Justin and Tertullian, if what they really meant was that this was a physical presence with all that transubstantiation involves, and the change of substance and not -accidents and all the rest of that stuff, if that's what they really meant, then why is it that it's not till nearly a thousand years after Christ, at the same time that transubstantiation begins to develop, with Aristotelian philosophies coming into the

41:09

West and so on and so forth, why is it that we don't find the development of those things until about the exact same time?

41:17

The early Church did not reserve hosts to be worshipped. If they believed that, can you imagine them just checking these things out?

41:25

Of course not. But they did! They did not reserve these things in the

41:30

Church for worship. These things all came together as a group.

41:36

And the semi -unbiased, fair -minded person that reads Church history goes, yeah, that's obvious, okay, we see this.

41:45

And there are lots of Roman Catholic scholars, they're of course dismissed as modernists and liberals, who see that and go, see, that's why

41:51

Newman had to come up with the development hypothesis, was because what we believe today isn't actually what was believed for 2 ,000 years, but of course the

42:00

Catholic apologist that's running around constantly beating the 2 ,000 -year -old Church drum isn't going to want to make that kind of a statement.

42:08

So that's a much later development. They're not arguing about that. The real presence of Christ was a spiritual presence.

42:15

That was much more real to them than any type of physical presence could have been. The idea that modern

42:20

Catholics have of going to visit Jesus at their local church, that's just not something that the early Church had any concept of whatsoever along those lines.

42:28

Alright, well thank you very much, and God bless you for your ministry. Thanks for calling, Ron. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.

42:37

Let's go with... I'm not sure if this is a... I'm sorry, who do you want?

42:43

Number 4? Am I bringing that up, or is that you? I can't tell if that's a Skype call or not. That's me.

42:49

Okay, so let's talk with Daniel in Reno. Hi, Daniel. Oh, hello,

42:54

Dr. White. How are you doing? Doing good. I had a question. Kind of a broad question.

43:02

The origin of Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons.

43:11

I understand that Jehovah's Witnesses was started by Russell in his Bible studies, but when it comes to, let's say,

43:17

Mormonism and Islam, is it impossible to think that Joseph Smith really saw a quote -unquote angel in Moroni, who was just a demon?

43:28

And that's how Mormonism really got started. And I was just kind of curious on whether you believe in more of a natural evolution of these cults, or whether you actually believe that they're demonically inspired.

43:42

Well, the results... I don't necessarily think that demonic activity doesn't utilize natural causes.

43:51

I mean, when you look at Joseph Smith, you can see that he did dabble in the occult.

44:00

He had the magic talisman, he was involved in money digging, and so on and so forth.

44:05

And so, there certainly is a spiritual element to those things. But he also liked to have people sort of follow him.

44:14

And he liked to spin tall yarns, and tall stories, and things like that.

44:20

And so, there's reasons why he would be willing to do the things that he did.

44:28

And when you talk about even the stories of Islam, and the original encounters that Moroni has with...

44:38

I'm sorry, that Muhammad has with Gabriel. Too many angels there. And his own fear that he had encountered the jinn.

44:46

Those things are all to be taken into account. At the same time, there are reasons why anyone like a

44:57

Joseph Smith or a Muhammad does the things that they do. It's not like they were just out doing their thing, and then some supernatural force comes along and forces them to be different, and to act in a different way.

45:13

There were things about their personalities that were relevant to that particular situation, and relevant to what ended up happening with them.

45:24

So, it's not just one or the other. Clearly, there are spiritual forces involved with anything that results in a religious system that keeps people from embracing the

45:37

Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's kind of hard for me to see how massive, let's say,

45:43

Mormonism is, and for me to just assume that it was just all human effort and human power.

45:50

Well, no, but as John says, there are many Antichrists that have gone out into the world. And so, that spirit of Antichrist can take many, many forms.

45:59

It can be religious forms. But you need to realize that the vast majority of people on the faculty at Harvard are just as Antichrist as anything

46:11

Joseph Smith ever came up with. I mean, anything that causes someone to reject the

46:17

Lordship of Christ and to look elsewhere, to not see their sin, to not hear the message of the

46:23

Gospel, is Antichrist. And so, both secular as well as religious movements are opposed to the

46:30

Lordship of Christ, and as such, partake of spiritual darkness.

46:36

And that can take many, many, many different forms. And so, no, when you say just a natural...

46:44

No, I wouldn't say that any of it is ever just natural. There's spiritual realities to all these things.

46:51

And that's inclusive of the rise of different religious movements as well. I just know that, you know, at the same time,

46:59

I'm pleased with the results. Thanks for answering my question. Okay, thanks a lot. Bye.

47:05

Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341, still have two calls left to go.

47:10

It has been a caller -intense program. But now we get to our first Skype call. Let's go over to Joe in Ireland.

47:17

Hello, Joe. Hello, Joe. Hello, can you hear me?

47:22

Yeah, I can now. Yeah, sorry about that. That's alright. My question is just relating to King James Onlyism.

47:29

I mean, I've called in before with King James Only topic questions, and I've finished a book on that subject.

47:41

And I think I mentioned before in a previous call to your show that I had spoke with David Allen of the

47:48

Trinitarian Bible Society when he came to visit my church to do a talk on the society's work.

47:55

I do recall that, yes. Yeah, the excellency of the King James translation.

48:01

We had him back again there recently here in Dublin the other night, in fact. And so I had a lot of questions that I was taking note of during his talk, and I spoke with him afterwards.

48:14

And I mean, I asked him a question on variance, for example, to try and measure consistency.

48:23

First of all, I asked him, is it your view that the reference to variance in the modern translations, like, for example, in certain verses, many manuscripts do not contain this phrase, et cetera.

48:36

What is your viewpoint on that? Because I seemed to get it from him that he took a dim view on it, so to speak.

48:43

And he confirmed my suspicion and said, yeah, I think it's wrong, because he was basically a bad motive of the translators.

48:54

So for consistency's sake, I now made reference to the point that you make in your book, that what do you do with the fact that the original

49:01

King James translators, and even the TBS themselves, who you work on behalf of, make reference to the original variance noted by the

49:10

King James translators? I mean, do you think that's wrong? And he thought that was OK. And so I found a real lack of consistency in that.

49:20

And my question really is that I don't think was addressed in your book was, or you can correct me if I'm wrong, is there's also an argument

49:28

I've heard from King James -only people of, although you say in your book, for example, when you look at verses like Colossians 1, 14, with the reference to God being, you know, not in the

49:42

Alexandria manuscripts, the argument that David Allen and some people would make is, well, modern...

49:52

OK, you're breaking up right as you get into your question there, so let's see if it clears up.

49:58

Let's see if it clears up again. You were talking about Colossians 1, 14, and then you cut out. Can you hear me?

50:03

I'm sorry, can you hear me now? Yeah, I can hear you now. Yeah, apologies for that. Well, no, just where I was getting to was, some people

50:12

I've heard on the King James -only side make an argument that although, let's say, the

50:18

NIV and the NASB do not omit all the verses of reference to the deity of Christ or, you know, the blood and things like that, but some people try to make an argument on the

50:28

KJV -only side that the modern translators are trying to work it bit by bit.

50:33

They introduce new translations that they want to, like, gradually omit things.

50:41

I was just wondering how you respond to assertions like that. Well, it's just utterly unfounded.

50:47

I mean, if you're looking at an overall liberal translation, if you're looking at some of the rather horrific

50:54

Roman Catholic translations or some of the European translations that are clearly biased, something coming out of Oxford or something like that that's attempting to insert gender neutrality as my...

51:04

OK, fine, that's obvious. But we're talking about translations that have been done by extremely conservative scholars.

51:11

ESV, NASB, NIV were done by extremely conservative scholars. Why would they have any desire to do this?

51:18

There is no... The reason the Colossians 1 .14 reads the way that it does in modern translations is because Diatu Haimatasau II is only found in a small number of manuscripts, and they're very, very late.

51:34

The reason that you create the text you create is based upon the textual evidence.

51:41

It's not some type of proclivities on the part of the individuals who are translating the text.

51:48

They're confusing the text itself with the translation of the text. Biases involved in...

51:56

Bias can be involved in all of that. I mean, there was bias involved in Erasmus's choice of the text that he included in the

52:04

TR. Do they deal with that? Are they going to analyze the biases that were in Erasmus's five editions?

52:12

Have they analyzed the biases in Stephanus's 1550, in Bayes' 1598?

52:18

All those things come together to form the text which they claim is the final authority, and yet the text that they themselves print came from Scrivener, who compared all of those seven

52:31

Greek texts to what the King James translators chose, and created a

52:37

Greek text that no one had ever seen before. There is no manuscript in the world that reads like the

52:44

Textus Receptus, printed by the Trinitarian Bible Society. Not a one, anywhere. It did not exist until Scrivener created it.

52:52

And so why is that the final analysis? Why can't we analyze what they did in the creation of the

52:58

Greek text that resulted in that? That's where we have to have consistency. Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

53:05

I mean, I did ask about the received, or the version of the

53:11

TR that they use. I have it here with me, but I noticed, for example, in my church,

53:17

I'm preaching through First Timothy at the moment, and for consistency's sake, making reference to variants where they come up, and one that I even noticed within the received text tradition was in verse 4 of First Timothy, where you have the phrase,

53:32

Godly edifying, and even the TR, I believe, eclectic text that the

53:38

Trinitarian Bible Society use, has the phrase, rather, stewardship of God. So I asked

53:44

David Allen on that. I said, well, I mean, you know, where's the consistency there when, in the

53:51

English translation, you will only advocate use of the King James, but yet, for example, a phrase like that,

53:59

I know it doesn't bring up a new doctrine, but they, you know what

54:04

I'm saying? They're not being consistent. Well, I've said all along in my presentations on the subject

54:13

King James Onlyism, the only thing King James Onlyists are consistent on is being inconsistent. They cannot be consistent in applying the standards they apply to other people to their own materials.

54:26

And I think the more you push them on this subject, and God bless them for loving the Word of God, but they're just not consistent at this particular point,

54:34

Joe, and I think you're seeing that as you examine those issues. Hey, we're almost out of time. I've got one more call

54:39

I've got to get to. I appreciate your patience, and I hope that was helpful to you. Sure hope.

54:45

Maybe if you're up in the Dublin area, we might be able to run into you. Yeah, I mean, we'd love to have you at our church if you're around.

54:53

We're the only Reformed Baptist church in Dublin, so if you're around, it'd be great to have you. I think you dropped me an email on that, didn't you?

55:00

Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, I'd like to get you in touch with Doug McMasters in London, so we can maybe start talking about how to arrange exactly that, because we are planning on being there.

55:13

So we'll be in touch. God bless. Thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. Bye -bye. All right.

55:19

Let's get our last caller in here. It has been a fast -moving show, and let's talk with Andrew in Forest Lake, up in Minnesota.

55:29

Hello, Dr. White. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you, sir? Doing pretty well. You going to get it nice and cold for me up there next weekend?

55:37

Well, it's actually not too bad yet. I think it was in the 70s today, or 60s. Could we drop it down just a little bit, please?

55:44

Well, you're going to have to postpone your trip for another month or so, if you want that.

55:50

But we've got plenty of cold for you if you want to come up here in January. I bet. It doesn't quite get as warm here as it does there.

55:58

That's true. I understand. But hey, anything, if it drops down into the 40s at night, that'll be good enough for me.

56:04

I'll accept that. Okay. My question, I've been reading books on presuppositional apologetics.

56:14

I read Jason Lyle's book. I don't know if you're familiar with that one. And then a book or two by Greg Bonson.

56:22

Always Ready, or something like that? I read Always Ready, and then I read another one that was more of a compilation of things.

56:27

It was actually put together by Gary DeMar. Yes, uh -huh. I forget what that one's called, but anyways. I was looking for some resources that relate presuppositional apologetics more towards other religious worldviews, because those ones focus more on atheism, that sort of thing.

56:46

And I was wondering if you knew anything. Well, I'll be real clear. I'll have to be brief, but we'll hold the music off so I can at least finish my sentences here, because we're almost out of time.

56:55

But you've been patient. I struggle just a little bit at this point, because while I know

57:02

Greg Bonson insisted that there was a presuppositional methodology for dealing with, for example,

57:09

Islam, he didn't live long enough to really develop that.

57:17

And I see the transcendental argument as being extremely important in the establishment of Christian theism.

57:25

But when you're talking about two monotheistic religions, say what I do with Islam, there are certain things from the presuppositional methodology that I think are extremely important.

57:35

That is, providing the internal critique, the fact that since Islam is unitarian and not

57:42

Trinitarian, it's not going to properly line up with human experience and creation, because we believe the

57:49

Trinity is central to God's revelation of Himself. All those things are very, very true. But I don't see how a transcendental approach is going to be effective in dealing with someone who believes that there is a

58:03

Creator God who has revealed Himself, as you would in that type of a situation.

58:10

So the internal critique, yes, but the concept of a transcendental proof in that context,

58:18

I've run into folks who absolutely insist that you've got to do it that way, but I haven't found them to be normally the people that are actually engaging the

58:28

Muslims and demonstrating exactly how that works. Okay.

58:34

So in other words, what I'm saying is, I can't give you that, because I'm really not certain that there is something that really works along those lines in a really functional way.

58:45

Okay, so you might almost, I know you're almost out of time, you might almost actually lean more towards an evidentialist approach in some ways.

58:53

No, because an evidentialist approach is still emphasizing the autonomy of the individual.

58:59

I'm not doing that, but what I'm saying is that the concept of a transcendental proof, when you're already dealing with a theistic system,

59:08

It doesn't do any good to prove there's a God to a Muslim. He's already started there. Okay.

59:13

So you need to start at a different spot. So, by the way, I'm sorry, I want to make sure

59:19

I understand your point so you can go and have dinner or whatever. Find a way to show the

59:27

Muslim or the Roman Catholic or the Mormon or what have you that their view of God is lacking or inconsistent in some way.

59:35

Well, yeah, and I think I'm consistent at that point. For example, with the Muslim, I'm trying to demonstrate their own texts say that they are to believe what has been revealed in the

59:46

Torah and the Injil and they are being inconsistent in rejecting that. There's an inconsistency in their own revelation.

59:53

Okay. So I am pushing that dichotomy just as you would as a presuppositionalist.

01:00:01

I'm just not using a transcendental argument as far as the existence of God because we're already talking about a creator

01:00:07

God and we're moving on from there. So I'll have to if I want to talk about somebody's religion,

01:00:14

I might actually have to just buckle up and do some homework. I think that is definitely something you have to do.

01:00:21

Okay, I hate homework, but I think I can handle that. Alright, thank you, Andrew. Thank you. Alright, God bless. Wow, I love programs like that.

01:00:30

Hopefully somebody in channel was typing out what all those phone calls were because I'll never remember them.

01:00:38

Too many coming at me too fast there. But I love fast moving programs like that. Excellent. We have the best audience on the planet.

01:00:45

There's just no two ways about it. And I appreciate you being there. We will be back next week,

01:00:52

Lord willing, I think we're going to be good. My flights aren't until later on any

01:00:57

Thursday coming up, so we're going to be good here for a little while, but we'll be definitely here Tuesday, Lord willing. We'll see you then.

01:01:02

God bless. Alpha and Omega Ministries The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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