Have You Not Read S2E23 - Creeds & Confessions

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

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Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

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Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, David Casson, and David has a question for us about creeds and confession.

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Okay, so our podcast is called Have You Not Read. The implication is have you not read the

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Scriptures? That was the question that Jesus asked, and when answering questions that were supposed to be not just not softballs, but they were trick questions, he said, have you not read?

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And stopped him in their tracks. So we have a high view of Scripture and we echo the

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Reformers when we talk about sola scriptura. No, we say sola fide, sola gratia.

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We say sola scriptura. What are the role that creeds and confessions should play in the modern

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Church? They're not Scripture. We hear no creed but Christ. You know, he says, well, we have the ancient

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Church. Well, sometimes the ancient Church got things wrong. We have the Bible. Well, you know, we have my local pastor.

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Well, if your local pastor is wrong, you go to the Bible. Over and over, we hold the Bible up in the highest of regards, but we have these ancient texts, creeds, and confessions that have helped guide us.

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What role should they play for somebody who holds Scripture in the first place?

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That's a good question. I think that historically there has been a very helpful expression that Scripture is the norm that cannot be normed by any other norm.

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In other words, Scripture is the ruler by which all other rulers are measured.

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So I saw a really funny meme the other day. There were three guys on a construction site, and they're all showing their measuring tapes, and they all have different gaps between the lines.

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So they all have all the same numbers, but their measuring tapes are all saying different things. And who was right?

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Which one of those three measuring tapes was correct? We could imagine that one measuring tape would be

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Church tradition. One measuring tape would be the Scriptures. Another measuring tape might be

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Christian experience. Well, which one of those measuring tapes is the one to go with?

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And various Christian traditions and movements are all based upon the answer to that question.

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So some people would say Christian tradition is the only way by which we could understand what the

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Bible means and rightly orients our experience. Other people would say that our experience is primary, and we relate and we understand our experience to be primary, and then we can affirm that by experiences people had in the

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Bible and experiences people had in Church tradition. Well, again, how do we even know who

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God is? How do we know who Christ is? How do we know who we are? How do we know anything about Christianity in the first place?

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Well, it all goes back to the Word of God. It all goes back to the Word of God as primary. And when the

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Apostle Paul was communicating with his dearly beloved son in the faith,

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Timothy, what did he have to say to him? Now in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 14, he says,

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But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.

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So there is a sense in which Timothy is operating with a set of beliefs. And Paul says,

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I want you to continue with those beliefs, knowing from whom you got them. So there's a reliable source that Timothy's working with here.

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Someone might even be able to call this an infant tradition. You know, even as a teacher speaks to his student, a rabbi speaks to his disciple, and gives the many sayings that they are to remember, you have this tradition handed down.

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But Paul continues on. He says, And that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

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So Paul is saying that the holy scriptures, and at this point he's just pointing to the ones that Timothy had in childhood, which was the

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Torah, the Nevi 'im, and the Ketuvim, the Tanakh, the Old Testament. These are able to make Timothy wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

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And then Paul backs out even more. He says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

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It is breathed out by God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, and that's interesting, complete, thoroughly equipped, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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So Paul says, I want you to stay on track Timothy. I want you to remember the things that I've taught you, and to continue on, recognize that you've been given a lot that is reliable, and you know who you got it from.

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Okay, but even though we can see that tradition and that received learning is important, what does

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Paul say then about the scriptures? He doesn't say about the received learning that Timothy has gotten from Paul at this, he doesn't treat that as the same level as Holy Scripture.

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He doesn't say, continue in the things that you have learned, knowing from whom you have learned them. He doesn't say that that is given by inspiration of God.

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He doesn't say that the received learning and the tradition, that makes you complete and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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He says that about the scriptures. So when we look at the scriptures, we see that it's profitable, it is effective, it is comprehensive.

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We have the words complete, thoroughly, and every in verse 17 of 2nd Timothy 3.

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And this, along with a lot of other scriptures, a lot of other claims that the Bible makes, this has led Christians to say things about the clarity of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, the infallibility of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture.

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Jesus had a lot to say about how there's no flaws, no faults in the Bible at all, and what God has said.

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So when we think about all of that, this has led people of the the Protestant faith to say what?

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Sola Scriptura, right? So Scripture alone, how do we know what's true?

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How do we know where we're wrong? How do we know how to get right? How do we know how to live

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God's way? Well, Scripture is sufficient for all of that, for all of our faith and practice. How do we know when a teacher is leading us astray?

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How do we know when you got some, you know, this church leader or this person or this cult?

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We have the scriptures as our guide. Exactly. So that would be, out of the three measuring tapes, the one to which the other two are going to be compared to see whether or not these things are so.

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And this is the claim that the Bible makes for itself. Is the Bible, is the Scripture aware? Are the authors being carried along by the

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Holy Spirit, are they aware that there's such a thing as tradition? Yes. Yes, they are. Are they aware of really important, meaningful, spiritual experiences?

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Oh, you bet it. You bet they are. They are aware of all of that, but they don't speak of experiences and tradition the way they speak of the

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Scripture itself. So when we go back to that source, then we can see which one of these three ought to be the standard.

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I would say that given that, in trying to explain this, I have already been using terms and expressions about how the

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Bible is primary, but I have been using terms and expressions that have been handed down to me by tradition.

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When I say Scylla Scriptura, that was something handed down to me from tradition. When I say all those terms about the clarity of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture and so on, that was given to me.

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I know who I learned that from. I consider it to be solid, but when I say all those things, you know, that is an example of tradition, example of things that have been written creeds, example of things that have been written confessions, even as I'm talking about the

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Scripture. So I think that even in this early phase of us talking about it, I think we can already see the role that creeds and confessions, in other words the church tradition, plays in regards to the

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Scripture. We're just trying to say what the Scripture says in an efficient and faithful way.

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It gives us common terms, language, something that we can, you know, easily agree upon.

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We have a starting point, you know, upon which we can, you know, continue to study, worship, and fellowship.

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So then there's a danger of not respecting creeds.

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There's a danger then of having no confession. There's a danger then of the view that says, we have no creed but Christ.

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We just read the Bible. Because as a sola scriptura advocate, you know,

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I was like, well, I mean, technically you could get rid of the Westminster Confession, technically you could get rid of the

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Baptist faith and message, and Christ would still be King. The Scriptures would still be true.

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So the Scriptures are not dependent on our sacred tradition, unlike the

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Roman Catholic Church. We have the sacred tradition, which is the interpreter of Scripture, end up becoming its, you know, superior to Scripture.

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That's what ends up happening. You have the Babylonian Talmud and the Mishnah and their commentaries on Old Testament, on the

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Pentateuch and the prophets, which end up being authoritative over them, as opposed to, you know, Christ talked about this.

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You have violated the Word of God for the sake of human tradition. He said that there's definitely a danger of taking that too far.

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But you just said, if we don't have any of those at all, we have difficulty communicating with each other.

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Yes, and so we need to recognize that Jesus is the Shepherd of the Church. He's the Good Shepherd, and that he said he's going to build his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, meaning this this thing is not going to die out, okay?

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Not only that, but that since the nations have been given to him, he has told his people to go make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded, all he has commanded to us.

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Now given this, it is important for us to recognize that there have been many generations and many people from other nations and other languages and other times, other places, who have been following, who have followed

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Christ, who are part of the Church, part of the great cloud of witnesses, and they had the

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Scriptures and they thought about the Scriptures and they talked about the Scriptures, and they faced a lot of controversies in their day, a lot of problems in their day, and they tried to answer as best they knew how.

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Now when I had an opportunity to spend time with my grandpa, okay,

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I often would face difficulties in my life, problems in my life, snarls and challenges such as how to roll up a hose, right?

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I don't know how to roll up a garden hose without, you know, kinking it and putting it in the wrong place and ensuring that the life of this garden hose is going to be cut in half by my mistreatment of it.

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But grandpa was there and he told me, here's how you roll the hose, right?

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Here's how you roll the hose. Now how did he know? Well someone probably taught him, but at some point someone had one of those little pieces of paper with a diagram, figure one, figure two, with little bits of writing underneath it and said, this is how you roll up a garden hose.

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This is the way that the manufacturer made it to be stored in this way. And that was taught to somebody and that was taught to my grandpa, and my grandpa told me, and the first time he taught me how to do it,

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I did a horrible job, right? So it's important to recognize that we have the basis.

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We have the Word of God who made us, who gave us our King and our

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Savior. He's given us His Word. Now if we say we have no creed but Christ, well which

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Christ is that? Is it the Christ of the Arians? Is it the Christ of the Donatists?

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Is it the Christ of Athanasius? Which Christ is this?

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Well there are huge controversies in church history where they fought about this, and Grandpa Athanasius, right?

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Grandpa Athanasius said, here's how you roll a hose. You know, this is how it's done.

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Look at the instruction manual. This is who Christ is. Pay attention.

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It all comes down to what the Bible has to say about Christ. Well we don't have to listen to Athanasius.

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We don't have to glean anything from our grandpas in the faith.

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We could, you know, we could just muster up and say, I'll do it myself, right? Okay. Okay.

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But when we do that, we're going to lose a lot. We're gonna lose a lot. I fully trust the

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Holy Spirit can help us come to the right conclusions about these things, but we may spend all of our time doing the work our way and in a very difficult and slow way when we could have just listened to Grandpa and gotten some help.

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Now Grandpa wasn't always right about everything, by the way, right? He wasn't always right about everything. He may have let me watch a movie or two that he shouldn't have, right?

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He may have believed a thing or two that really doesn't jive well with the truth of God, and how do

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I know that those things are wrong? Scripture. Scripture. That's right. That's right. So I don't listen to everything

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Grandpa said and said, that's gospel truth. But boy, was it helpful. He always said, you get what you pay for.

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He said the right tool for the right job. All these things have stuck with me, and boy, are they helpful, you know?

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But Grandpa's still subject to the same standards that I am. Truth of God. So when we're,

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I liked what you said, David, about don't violate the scriptures with man's tradition. The way we need to probably be looking at it is the opposite of that.

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We need to be violating human tradition with the scriptures as much as possible to refine them. Would one of the good litmus tests for an individual say,

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I enjoy the creeds, I enjoy the confessions, I enjoy the guardrails, if you will, that they have up,

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I appreciate the purpose they were meant to fulfill, and should a good practice for us who love creeds and confessions be to try to find where we disagree because of the scriptures, where we disagree with each creed and confession, even if, say, we wrote a creed or confession ourselves, trying to find places of disagreement all the time because of what we know about the scriptures.

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Well, who would put it in its proper place? Because you say that the scriptures are normative, and that puts the creed or the confession in that secondary role.

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These are the words of men, but these are the words of good men. These are the words of Christian men. No, God gave us teachers.

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He gave us pastors. He gave us people in the faith, and to have these things written down.

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Some of these controversies that we have today, this is actually well -worn ground, and we can go back into church history and look at some of these things.

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And so we should have great respect for these documents, but to go through it the way you're talking about, says, you know, with a fine -tooth comb,

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I mean, yes, and holding them up to the scriptures to see if these things are so, I say amen to that 100%.

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That's being a Berean, and that's putting the scriptures first, and putting in these words of men, good men, where they belong, which is human tradition.

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That is, if you're going to go against thousands of years of tradition, where God is guiding his bride, and you're coming up with something that's completely new, and they said, but you have it from the, you pulled it out of the scriptures here.

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Not saying you're wrong, but you're probably wrong. Right, don't go looking to tarnish part of the bridal gown.

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Yeah. That's already been cleansed. Yeah, not saying that it's possible, or that you haven't been wrong for 2 ,000 years.

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That is possible in the creeds, but if you're going to depart from it, apart of that much tradition, that should give you great pause.

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Yeah, I think that's good. When we read the scriptures, we're confronted with such things as there's false teachers, there are people who make false claims about Christ, and false claims about God, and false claims about the work of Jesus.

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This is all in the scriptures. Almost every single one of the epistles in the New Testament is dealing with some sort of error, some sort of false teaching, some sort of problem, some sort of wrong presupposition, and we are counseled to test the spirits, not believe every one, and we are told to keep ourselves from idolatry, and we are, there's all sorts of admonition in the scripture to hold to the truth, and there is something as the faith that has been given to us, and we are to stand for the faith, and so forth.

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And part of that is to give proper expression to the gospel of the kingdom.

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Who is Jesus Christ? What did he come to do? What does it all mean? And this is what our grandfathers in the faith have attempted to do, and so when we see their work, and we see their labor, there should be an honoring, there should be a treasuring, even as, at the same time, we know that grandpa wasn't right about everything.

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And so it's good to remember that Jesus Christ is progressively in the process of washing his bride with the water of his word.

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So there may have been something that, at some point, the church believed and confessed that isn't exactly on target.

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Well, how would we know that? We would know that from robust testimony from the scriptures.

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If we were able, like for instance, if we were to go to the Word of God and say, well the creeds were wrong, Jesus isn't

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God, and start hashing around, we're gonna have a hard time, we're not gonna have the scriptures intact, the creeds were right, then that's been proven generation after generation after generation.

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So we need to recognize that they have a role, even though we are to submit the facets of the creeds and confessions to the

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Word of God for analysis. And the more we know about why these things were said in the times and places that they were said, it will help.

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It will help us understand. Like, for instance, there are some old sayings that grandpa may have said that don't make any sense anymore, right?

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Why did he say that? You know? Sure. Don't take any wooden nickels. Exactly.

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Not a problem. Yeah, yeah, I have, you know, what are you talking about? And so you go back and you find out the context of it all, like, oh, that isn't really it.

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Maybe there's a principle there that we can apply, but it's not. So we have to do some due diligence about that.

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I think it's important that we continue to make creeds and confessions. I think it's important to continue saying, this is what we affirm, and this is what we deny, in accordance with the scriptures, and in agreement with our forefathers.

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There's a constant need for a fresh defense of the faith. We're not supposed to stop, we're not supposed to, like, point, like, well, this was written 500 years ago,

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I'm fine with that. I think that's just lazy. It's against tradition. Isn't it?

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Isn't it? Yes. The irony. Yeah. Semper Reformanda, that's a tradition, right?

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To be continually refining, continually reforming, and if we stop dead at 1689 and say here and no further, that's against tradition.

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Because you can go into really good Bible -believing Baptist churches, says we hold to the 1689, great, and they treat it almost as a second scripture.

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It's like, whoa, okay, you know, there are some updates. How about you look at the Philadelphia, you know, which is basically the 1689 in America, just updated, you know.

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Right, yeah. A few years back, Ligonier came out with a statement on Christology, and it was really weird to see what people did with that.

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It is an excellent statement on Christology. It is devotional, it is rich, makes you want to worship.

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I really like it. But there was a lot of people like, why do we even need this? And they were, like, complaining about it, being like, what's the point of all this?

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And they didn't understand, like, this is Christology. The Incarnation is at the center of everything we believe.

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Everything depends on the Incarnation. And for Ligonier to come out and say, here is a fresh statement on Christology, that's exactly what we're supposed to be doing.

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That is wonderful. I have been blessed by lots of these efforts. I remember there was a statement, this was back in 2003.

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In 2003, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals released a statement on the five solas, and what they affirmed and what they denied about the five solas.

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That bowled me over. I was, I was in love with that. I'm like, yes, I am all about this.

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The five solas are pretty old. Why do we have to keep on talking about them? Well, this is what we mean. It's like, why do we need new

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Bible translations? Why isn't the Coverdale Bible good enough for everybody? You know, why aren't we just reading translations that are 500 plus years old?

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Because we need the newer translations to be able to understand what the Scriptures say. And as we continually reform, as we go back over these, you know, this well -worn path, you have, say, in one particular denomination day, you have the

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Baptist faith and message, and people are trying to, you know, people want to change that in order to accommodate unbiblical principles.

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So they want to insert their new tradition. So there's a danger of saying, hey, we just need to continually update this stuff, you know, that was old, that was, you know, for a different time.

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This is the new world. This is the modern world, and we need to update our statements on homosexuality, you know.

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So when we say separate referenda, when we say update our creeds and confessions, you're constantly comparing our creeds and confessions to the

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Scriptures to make them more scriptural. You're not trying to make them more modern so they're more palatable so you get more behinds and pews.

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You know, what is your motivation? It is to make sure that your statements of faith are in line with what the

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Scriptures say, and that should be continually reviewed. Yeah, no creed but culture.

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Yeah. For some people. Yeah. And some people get annoyed at talking about how the creeds need to be submitted to the

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Scriptures. You're making an idol of the Scriptures. Actually, the Scriptures are the scepter of Christ's lordship.

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Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father. He's King of Kings. He's Lord of Lords. He gets to say what's what.

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We live in His world. I was accused of, it sounds to me like you're just worshipping the Bible. I worship Jesus. And my response to them was, how do you even know

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Him? God's breath. Breathe out. That metaphor there, it's laced with that meaning.

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It's a part of who, it's His character. Breathe out. It says, the Holy Spirit bore men along.

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They would write the words that God superintended with His own truth in a clear and powerful way.

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But who is the Spirit? This is the Spirit of Christ. He is the only mediator between God and man.

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He is the light of the world. He's the one who has given us, He is the

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Word of God in the flesh. And so He's the one who has given us, that the Word incarnate is the one who gave us the

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Word of Scripture. And so when we say all the creeds and confessions need to be not oriented towards the culture but oriented towards the

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Scripture, what we're saying is, we need to create creeds and confessions and update creeds and confessions in such a way that the

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King would be pleased to hear it. Yes, yes. Yeah, when somebody says that to you about you making an idol out of the

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Bible. Yeah, and that really happened. The Bible itself, it renders that inert. It renders that nonsense because of the presuppositions built into it.

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Like it just, you can't make sense of, the Bible can't be an idol for you if it's

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God's breath. If you're really following the Lamb wherever He goes by His Word. Like it just, it does not make any sense.

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True, the authority of Scripture is derivative, it's derived from the author. Yes. That's true.

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But the creeds and confessions derive their authority from Scripture, who the author is,

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Christ Himself. So I think we've established that there's one for just personal enrichment, you know, connecting with the great saints of the past.

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They have things to say about our culture today that helps us wade through some of these battles.

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They've already been fought. So we find them useful and we need them for personal enrichment.

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So how would you use a creed today?

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I mean, you have a creed, hey, this can be updated, this is not inspired, but this is a tool, a useful tool.

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You said this is good. How would you use it? Well, I would use it in the first place for orientation on map.

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Proverbs says, do not forsake the friends of your father. Also the Proverbs says, do not remove the ancient landmark which your father set up.

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So there's our ancient landmarks. Are these perfect stones? No, but they were set there for a reason.

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And these are, these creeds and confessions were put together by friends of my father's.

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So would I forsake my friends, my father's friends? I shouldn't. I should listen to them.

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I should be aware of what they have to say and appreciate that. I should show respect and honor in a world where showing disrespect is seen to be the most honorable thing to do.

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I think that we should show honor and respect and we're not to revere and to worship and to say, well, whatever they said, that's what

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I believe. Because that would not be earnestly contending for the faith. I personally must earnestly contend for the faith.

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These things are solid. They're there and they help orient my discussions. So they become really helpful jumping off places.

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So let's say somebody, they were forged because of controversies. So they are meant for controversial times.

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So what is the current controversy? Okay, let's say the current controversy has something to do with the

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Trinity, let's say, the nature of God. Let's say that's the current controversy. Well, obviously, the standard is

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God's Word. Okay, but I am going to use the friends of my father's and I'm going to use the landmarks that have been set up to help me in getting involved in that controversy, getting involved in that conversation.

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I'm not going to start from scratch and pretend like I already know everything there is to know about what the

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Bible has to say about the nature of God and the Trinity I'm not going to pretend like I've already thought about all the various relationships between God and these claims that have been made.

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I'm not going to pretend like this is a new controversy that hasn't ever been dealt with before. I am going to rely on these things that are gifts from God and His providence to help orient my thinking even as I evaluate it by the scriptures.

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So that's how I'm going to be using it. They were forged in controversial times. They are meant for controversial times.

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So I'm going to use them as the tools they are, but they are certainly not the standard itself.

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So without them, to disregard them, what's the danger? The danger would be, in the same sense, if you're in a battle and you are not, since it's a controversial time, if you're in a battle and you're not abiding by the principles of warfare, you're not operating within a unit, you're not cooperating as a part of a larger group, and you're just going to be all on your own.

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I'm going to do a one -man charge into this controversy, into this fray. You know,

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I don't need creeds. I don't need confessions. It's me and my Bible. I'm going to charge all by myself.

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Now I've seen a few war movies and the dude that kind of goes half insane all of a moment and picks up his gun or his sword and says,

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I'm gonna go get him. You know, he doesn't last long. You know, he's a goner.

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You know, the overzealous guy always gets cut down. He forgot to say once more into the breach, dear friends.

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He just said once more. Me, yeah, me to the breach. Yeah, me to the breach.

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And you don't have to do that. Remember that when Christ says he's going to build his church, he was talking about more than one person.

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He didn't say upon this rock I will build this disciple, you know, or this

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Jesus follower. I'm gonna build my church, right? There is a group, and it's not simply the current generation, and it's not simply us four and no more, or me and my buddy who think we've figured out the the key to everything.

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We're part of a great cloud of witnesses. There have been many generations that have gone before us, and not that everybody has been right about everything, but to go out on our own without listening and thinking about what has already been done is just foolish.

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The man who isolates himself quarrels against all sound reason, Proverbs says, and rejecting creeds and confessions is isolating yourself.

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Now, there's one thing that the Anglicans have on us. They got the 39 articles, and they push that.

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Most people are at least familiar with it. The Presbyterians, they got us on using the Westminster. Most, you know,

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PCA usually are familiar with the Westminster. I talked to a lot of Baptists who are not even aware that there were historical confessions who had known nothing about the the

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Charleston or the Philadelphia or the second London. Well, there's a second

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London? What was about the first one? Well, there was also a first one. So, the Baptists are confession -making people.

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That's in our Baptist DNA. If you've never cracked these open and you're Baptist, do it.

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Open the 44. Open the 89. Open some of these things. You can look at how Southern Seminary was formed.

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You have the abstract principles. You have the Baptist faith and message, and that is also good. When was the last time you read it?

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There's Baptist Faith Methodist 2000. Well, there's also a 1925 one as well. These things do get updated, but look back historically.

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Writing these things down, having a confession says, this is what we agree upon.

32:33

Those are good. You have catechisms to help teach children. Have you ever read the shorter catechism?

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That was for children. Right. To memorize. To memorize. Right. Yeah, that's hard. Then you get the larger catechism.

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Heaven sakes, the people are just smarter. So, I think these are very useful tools, and I think that we should respect those who have come before us and the battles that they were fighting.

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Because in many cases, they were fighting for their lives, and the things that they put down as a tradition, yes, but as a heritage for us, they went to the stake for.

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They have gone across the world and died for this. Yes, the scripture is our authority, and that authority comes from Christ, but Christ himself gave us these teachers.

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I read confessions and books from authors that I don't always agree with on everything.

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These are Christian men. So, it's the same situation as if you would sit down across the table like we're doing right now, and you have a brother in Christ, and he's explaining what he believes, and he's thought about it a lot.

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He's put hours into this, and he's easily able to point to this scripture or that scripture as the reasons why he's summing up his beliefs in this way or that way.

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But as I engage with him, what is the whole point that he's hoping for me? That I get into the

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Word, right? That I be as well -versed in these truths from the scriptures as he is.

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So, that's the same thing with these creeds and confessions. In this sense, I'm sitting down across the table of time with my brothers in Christ, and they have thought really long and hard about these things from the scriptures and summarize them.

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But what's the point? They would desire for me to be as confident in the scriptures as they are about these things, and so that's what

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I'm supposed to do. A creed and confession should not keep me from the Word, should not be a substitute for the

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Word, but should lead me to the Word to see if these things are so, right?

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Paul came teaching a summary of the things about Christ and making several statements that were probably large and sweeping, perhaps using generalizations here or there, and the

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Bereans went to go search the scriptures to see if these things are so. Finding them to be so, they rejoice.

35:00

Well, I think that wraps up the creeds and confessions talk, but before we move on to content, do you guys have a favorite confession or creed?

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And if so, when's the last time you read it, Michael? I don't know if I have a favorite.

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I do like the first one, the Baptist Confession, and I think that that is the most Baptist of confessions for a variety of reasons.

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It's just so Baptist -y. I really like it, but as I said,

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I like the Ligonier Statement on Christology, and I've read through the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy.

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I think there's a lot there that's very helpful, and I do like the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals Statement on the

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Five Solas. So all of those things have been very helpful to me. What about you,

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David? Believe it or not, one of my favorite ones to go over is actually the

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Third Antion Articles of the Anglican Communion, because I grew up Episcopalian, and I grew up not knowing any of that.

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Now, as Baptists, we're gonna agree with probably about 35 of them.

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They're actually pretty good, pretty Calvinistic, actually, but just understand that they are different than what we believe.

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But going back over them, I feel connected with what the church that I grew up in could have been, and remembering what some of these great men in history, you know, modern people like John Stott, J .C.

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Ryle, you know, great men of God, great Anglican men, you know,

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Graham Goldsworthy. There you go. How about that guy? So I appreciate it. I do read things from people

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I disagree with, and you know, it's challenging, and I love that tradition. I still, to this day, feel connected, even though I'm not a member of that Anglican Communion.

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There is much to commend, and when I see horrible things come out of it, I am personally affected.

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It pains me. I'm not connected in that way to the Methodist Church, or when I see the Southern Baptist Convention having issues,

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I mean, I'm like, yeah, I'm Baptist, but I didn't grow up like that. I grew up as an Anglican, and there's much to commend there, and when

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I see things that are, they're violating their own 39 Articles, it makes me sick.

37:29

I like that take. All right, Michael, you have content that you'd like to recommend this week? Yeah, I've been reading the

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Majority Text of the Greek New Testament by Giuseppe Guarino. I really enjoy it.

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It's fun, because there's pictures. Yeah, you get to see some of these scans of ancient manuscripts, where you can see some of the

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Scriptures written from long ago, and I had fun showing my children, oh, here is a picture of a manuscript that is 1 ,700 years old, and look, it's the

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Gospel of John, and I start translating for them, you know, and they're just like, whoa! But I really like the book.

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It's not long, and it just goes through some basic arguments for the Majority Text, just basically saying,

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God did a great job of preserving His Word for the Church in every generation, and we should have confidence in that, and approach this wealth of Greek manuscripts that we have for the

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New Testament with an attitude of faith and a presupposition of belief. So I really like that.

38:37

David? Yeah, very cool. That's really neat. I enjoy a couple of productions out of Apologia Studios, and one of them is not always for young viewers, so I will caveat this, but Cultish is a great podcast.

38:57

Yes, it is. And I really do, really do enjoy them, so after you're done listening to ours, then you may go over to Cultish, but I like the way they engage with a lot of their guests.

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Some of the things they have discussed have been so bizarre and far out there that I probably wouldn't recommend some of those to, you know, like,

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I wouldn't want my daughter listening to some of them, but some of them I do, especially when they have people on that they don't really agree with.

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I've listened to them share the gospel with people. And then those same guys that do

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Cultish do Apologia Radio, and they have outright pagans on there sometimes who are willing to talk with them, and they do such a great job of sharing the gospel, but they're at least willing to dialogue.

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And where Cultish really shines is when they have people who have come out of those, who have come to faith in Christ, who can help explain why some of these cults, even though they're incredibly bizarre, why they can still gather followers.

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So it's a great way for you to protect yourself, protect your family, just learning how some of those people engage with them and be able to recognize it.

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Not so you can learn everything about cults so you can defeat them, but so that you can see how Christ is superior to all of them.

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That's really, I think, where Cultish really shines. Yeah, because one of the principles that they talk about is knowing the true article to point out the counterfeit.

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They talk about that all the time, and they do a very, very good job at pointing out who Christ is, who he says he is, and the counterfeits become very clear as you go through those episodes, and I really appreciate that as well.

40:45

That's a great recommendation. Well, my recommendation is to go back to the

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Proverbs before each son that you have. Heather and I have been doing this. We started this before Killian, and about a couple months out before we have the child, we go through, as a family, the

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Proverbs. One of the reasons for that in Proverbs 1 .8, the text reads,

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My son, hear the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother. And we want to be garnering and knowing wisdom and instruction and perceiving the words of understanding.

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That way we can give that to our sons, to our children. So each time before we have another one, not that that's the only time we go through the

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Proverbs, right? But we'd have made it a human tradition of ours to go back to the

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Scriptures in the Proverbs just before we have a new son. So I would suggest going through that with your children and each time before you have a child.

41:41

It's been a great family tradition. Well, we can move on to what are we thankful for,

41:47

Michael? I'm thankful for the Proverbs, actually. When I was 16 years old, there was a project and I was memorized.

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I had to do it in the King James because of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist School that I went to. But I memorized each chapter of Proverbs and then quoted it in chapel when

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I was 16 years old, one at a time. I didn't memorize them all, quote them all at the same time, but one chapter at a time.

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And so certain phrases are locked into my head because of that. And I've just found I've just always enjoyed the

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Proverbs. It's my favorite cartoon strip. David? I am thankful for my firstborn and my only born.

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She has just impressed me continually. I am very thankful for her and for the young lady that she is becoming.

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She is a teenager and to reach a point to where she will exit my home and either enter another or she will be on her own for a bit.

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So she's learning. She understands the importance of that. She is learning skills that are required for adulthood.

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And she's taking it so seriously. So I am thankful for the adult that she is becoming.

42:56

Amen. Well, I'm thankful for brothers and sisters here at Sunnyside who, whenever I present one of my weird personality quirks, they treat me as a brother.

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And whenever I get off on my tangents that I usually do, they listen and don't treat me oddly.

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This is the family that the Lord has given me, the church family that the Lord has given me. And I'm so very thankful that they have brought me and my family in lovingly and accepted us to be as a family would be to me, pointing out things to me that need to be pointed out and corrected and repented of.

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But also, whenever I celebrate, they celebrate with me. So I'm very thankful for everybody here at Sunnyside and their continued love and affection that they pour out to my family.

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And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Having Not Read.