Early Church History Class DL from GBTS

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:37

Well greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. Do you like my new background? It's it's really very

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Pretty because I'm not in Arizona as you probably can guess We are on the road and currently we are at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas and behind the camera is a majority anyways of the

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Class that we are having this particular Intensive weekend we did eight to four o 'clock today

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And we'll be doing eight to four tomorrow and eight to four on Saturday And we're doing early church history and we're gonna have to pick up the pace because as I knew

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I would fall behind Trying to get through AD 600 in that period of time is next to impossible but we will do our best and So this is part of the library and this is part of the you can you can if you'd like to sort of Show folks where we are here in in the sort of central aspect of the seminary and we've got our library around us here and It's What is it five o 'clock in the afternoon here in in Arkansas?

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I had to put the camera on autofocus. So I apologize for the Going back and forth.

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That's just the way it is now you went that direction but See, the problem is you folks were smart

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You are standing right where we really can't shoot you Because you have the

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Sun right behind you and not only can the camera not see you but I can't either so Like dr.

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Johnson here could stick his tongue out at me right now. Well, okay. I saw that I wouldn't

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I wouldn't really know about it, but So we have about I'd what did we have like 23 about 23 students?

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Who has who traveled the farthest I want to know who traveled the farthest so so Yeah, go ahead.

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Go ahead. This is so this is a squirrel and I Forgot to I was going to tell everybody at the beginning of class that if you're using an iPad

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Please be very careful around this individual because he is a convicted iPad killer

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It doesn't matter if you're an iPad and you have a tire track on you you're pretty much out of the game

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Okay That's all there is to it squirrel Gene Pliot you know,

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I Can't think of anybody else in Reformed Twitterdom that has managed to take a common animal and Turned into my own name

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Well, that's I understand that I'm just simply saying you you have done something almost no one else has been able to do so I'm not sure that that's really what you want to do in life or a great goal, but you you did manage to do it so Arboreal, okay.

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Yes, so we do have some interesting students in our class so you came all the way from Superior no one's farther away than Oregon There you go

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But is when you come from Oregon, are you a student or a refugee a

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Little bit of both a little bit now, are you in the part of Oregon that is like Completely insane or there a fair amount of sane people around You're just outside the insane, okay.

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All right good because during kovat We had a bunch of people come down to apologia from Oregon, Washington Come from California You're in the insane

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Metro, okay. Well, all right, then you are a political refugee and so I think we should treat you a special honor

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Especially if we're gonna be sending you back to be mistreated amongst the craziness and zaniness there

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So we're anybody from Texas. Oh Goodness all sorts of well,

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I know that I should have known that one New Mexico, no,

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New Mexico, son New Mexico doesn't like me either. So I guess that's okay.

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I Know we have one Arizona at least one Arizona. Yep right there But you're sort of a refugee too because you leave you live near the harmonic convergence

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Yes, yeah For those who can't hear that the the second

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Most beautiful part of Arizona and if you've never been to Arizona, there's everything in that state.

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It's not just the Grand Canyon That's beautiful. I haven't seen the Grand Canyon since 1985 though, because I don't want to fight with all of the tourists

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So if you want to see the Grand Canyon, but from the bottom there's a place called Sedona and that's

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Unfortunately been taken over after the great harmonic convergence of 2000

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Forget what year that was Was late 90s, okay.

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All right The New Agers moved in and there are crystal shops everywhere.

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And oh it is it is amazing What has happened there? It used to be more known for that beautiful Chapel with the cross now it's known for all the

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New Age wackos, so it's sort of a Evangelism area to be sure Challenging but beautiful beautiful beautiful area if you ever get a chance

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Sedona is well worth going visiting. It's a beautiful state so we are here studying early church history and Let me ask

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You guys who are here What do you what do you expect in three days

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Having traveled here in an intensive class. What do you What do you expect at the end of this

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Anyone we're not telling you because you're the professor.

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Okay, so we don't want to say a word What were you? Yes, sir

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No mythology 600 yep

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Was today's class Different than you expected it or pretty much to be what you expect it to be

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Okay, I've got it I've got one about what I expected Oh, no, no, no, no, are you kidding?

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No, no, no, no, no No, we are we are barely into the second century and we we haven't actually even gotten to the apologists

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So we have just scratched the surface. There's there's no two ways about it But I knew that that would be the case because I want to take the time to read some of the specific material from Ignatius and Clemens and and I just realized the first thing we gotta do tomorrow is do

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Diognetus Because that's the best stuff that I know of in that time period and we didn't even get to that today

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Goodness, I will forget stuff because there's there's too much to cover there They're just they're just really is

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But when I started off talking about My background which did not raise me to have any concern about church history

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How many of you felt like you had a similar background to myself? That's that's vast majority.

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It's vast majority. Yeah That's what I want to at the very least.

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I want this class to Help erase that and to build a connection to those people that Well, many of whom gave their lives and many of whom suffered greatly when we when we get to Cyprian I will read you a a letter

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That is it continues to be hard for me to read it After having read it probably 20 times in various Contexts without tearing up it.

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It is that amazing to get that connection and Rich was with me once when

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I Sort of felt that connection as well When we I debated

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Jerry Maddox in 1993 in Denver, Colorado We did seven hours of debate on the papacy over two nights

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While the Pope was in town, he didn't attend unfortunately, but He would have been welcome and would have enjoyed his participation would have been fun but we we visited the papal treasures exhibit and they had a display of the actual manuscript at least one page in the actual manuscript p72

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I Told you about this morning. I'm sure you all remember that and he wrote it down Right.

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Okay But the connection that I felt in looking at that piece of papyrus to someone who lived 1 ,800 years earlier and yet who

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Loved the Word of God enough to make a copy of it for him for himself Was really special and it helps us when we see those things it helps us to Remember that when we we believe that Christ is fulfilling his promises to build his church today we are still a part of that and I've seen that desire for connection to the early church abused and Turned into something that was negative but on the other hand

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When you use it as a recognition of Christ faithfulness after all these years

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It can be a tremendous encouragement and as we face a very

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I don't like to use the term uncertain future because actually, we know the future is certain it's in Christ's hands and he's he's going to accomplish his purposes, but Between now and then whatever your eschatology is

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There could be some very very very trying times and to be Assured of the fact that Christ is building his church and I'm a part of it.

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What does you know? What does that mean? I'm a part of it It's one thing, you know, we talked about this seminary we talked about taking stands for truth and we talked about how we've got all these students coming from all sorts of different places because of a commitment to the centrality of biblical sufficiency

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But we're a part of a much much much larger picture Much much much larger purpose

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And on the one hand that can make you feel so small you don't matter but that's not the case Your your role is absolutely

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Just as central as anyone else's and I've often wondered The guy that copied p72

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Could he have had any idea? When he was copying that manuscript That 1800 years later.

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It would be an encouragement to someone like me He could have had any idea I Think about that so often when

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I look at at people in him We're gonna we're gonna tell Give you a heads up.

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We're gonna tell the story of two subdeacons From the year 303 there are a few dates that you all do need to remember for a certain final examination

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Everybody who's ever listened to my I've done church history classes in the past and everybody knows

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I say it's every church history class and I'm telling you this as an official part of the class There is one day you absolutely have to know

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For the final examination and that is the date of the council and I see it which is 8325

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Tattoo it on your brain Because you need to know it you now we're gonna know more about the council and I see of them just simply the date

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Anybody happen to know the traditional number of bishops at the council nicely? 318 very close.

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We have we have 308. That's that's close enough for a cookie and so But this date is close to that it's 303

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May of 303 to subdeacons

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Are arrested and brought before a Roman official and he wants to know where the

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Scriptures are he wants to know where the manuscripts are. They say we're not the readers only the readers would have those

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We're just subdeacons. We don't know. Well, who are the readers? and they say

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We are not traitors Do with us as you will that's the only historical evidence of their existence and they are executed

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We know their names. That's all we know about it We don't know how old they were where they came from where they're married where they had children

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Nothing for one little brief moment, but you got to realize for 99 .99 % of all

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Christians in history That's more than they ever got We don't know their names But remember the book of Revelation?

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No, I'm talking about The martyrs souls under the altar How long?

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be patient How long? God doesn't forget he knows exactly for that We only know a few names and we can speculate and I like to think about you know, were they married?

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Did they have children How would that impact me if I were in their position

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I think about my grandkids What what if what if you're you're put in a position here in the

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United States where you either stand firm or If you do stand firm you will not see your grandkids grandkids children

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Most of you aren't grandparents almost nobody in here old enough maybe

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Yes, no, maybe not yet hoping for You know, okay, there you go

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But don't look at me and tell me that that would not weigh upon a person's mind That if you stand firm you're you'll never see them again because I I Want to see them grow up.

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I want to see them get married Man, I'd like to actually live long enough to see my great -grandchildren.

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I think that would be pretty awesome Though at about that age, it's like, okay, that's that's enough I'm not sure how

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Methuselah handled it. I mean, can you imagine? Oh great great great great great great great great great grandchildren

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I can't remember any of them anymore. What are you talking about? And I you know, how in the world could you keep up with the birthday presents for a family like that?

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It's like wow but seriously, though, I just think of those two subdeacons to just pop in and pop out and Could they have known that their sacrifice could have an impact 1 ,700 years later

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But never they've never even thought of it Would never even thought of it, but they wouldn't betray their fellow believers there's gonna be lots of Possibilities in the future of our having to think about stuff like that and Church history allows us to do that.

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Church history allows us to have that opportunity of stepping back and It functions as a mirror

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Because if the Spirit of God was in them the Spirit of God is in us it's one of the few times that we can have somewhat of a of a distance to look at ourselves and To think of ourselves in that way and that's why

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I think church history is so Completely Necessary for a well -rounded theological education and of course as I said so much of our language was developed back then

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You're gonna be surprised at some at some of those developments I think as we as we dive into it we think about Nicaea and we think about Trinitarian stuff and stuff like that, but there was more than that though the the form and shape of the church and the function of the church and Ordinances and sacraments and and all those things

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All that development started back then and we can either just simply do what most of us have done say it didn't matter

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They mess it all up anyways or we can Go no, it does matter and I need to look at those things

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So how many of you Sit back here a little bit how many of you are already actively involved as pastors in churches and How many of you are?

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moving that direction Okay, that's that pretty much covers everybody So How much do you know about the history of Your own churches your own

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Well, I suppose we could talk about Reformed Baptist as a whole There's a lot to be

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There's a lot that can be studied. There are a lot of names things like that, but In in this in the cities where you are

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Would you say that your churches are representative of Evangelicalism or are they sort of In the minority

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In being reformed and things like that anyone minority elements both

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Okay When you when you look at Pastors in your in your area, would you would you say?

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Would you say that the majority have a serious Perspective on theology or is it more of a

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See sensitive type of a context a lot of secret pragmatic secret sensitive so that puts you in a

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How many of you'd say you feel like you have at least three close relationships with ministers

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Outside of your own church Okay In your area, right?

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Okay. All right. Well, that's That's good. How many of you wish you had more? Yeah Yeah, of course

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And of course, I would think that that would be an opportunity for us to be a light and to encourage others in maybe reading some books and Getting some resources that would be of assistance to them as well we're going into a

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Well, we are in the middle of a political season How many of you feel?

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Pressured About how you are going to handle dealing with the key

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Sociological theological issues That are very much a part of the the current election cycle how many of you feel pressure that you need to address these issues in a ministerial fashion no one one

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I'll just say personally it's huge. I am a software engineer in Austin, Texas.

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Okay, so it's a liberal Austin Texas. Yes, they allow

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Christians there. I Mean, I mean that that is the biggest blue dot in the state of Texas that there is

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Yeah, I'm going to be certain very large Church and we are

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A rock band megachurch One of my best friends is

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John Cooper, what do you want? Most everybody's going boo Does anybody wait a minute?

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Wait a minute. I'm gonna let you finish but how many of you don't know who John Cooper is? Okay, how many of you are simply not raising your hand because you do not want a camera aimed at you ever

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Okay, there's an honest man in the back. Very good. Very very good Okay, so I'm gonna stop asking questions because so all of you know

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John Cooper Okay skillet are good that you were just all staring at me like I'm not I'm not gonna answer a word this guy's saying

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So so, you know you and you know, John, right? Um, not personally, but you know who yes, okay

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All right, so you're in a rock when you say a rock band megachurch How would people in Austin confuse that with?

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Calvinism So the preaching is reformed

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Oh There's some people that just dismissed you immediately upon the same time but I will not necessarily in here

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I'm just simply saying somewhere Well, Austin, yeah, definitely is just so weird to me

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I Think most of the most of the leftists in Austin sort of feel like they're surrounded and they develop a siege mentality there unlike Portland Seattle, San Francisco where they own everything

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And it sort of works the other direction so so you would feel a pressure with the election because you're on you're in a blue you're in a massively blue spot in the middle of a red state and so You're against You're running against the the flow

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I get that But how about anybody else? Let's put this way are you dealing with?

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Social issues such as transgenderism Definition of marriage

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Genetic manipulation Vaccine mandates.

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Are you dealing with things differently in? 2022 than you did in 2014

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So So what you're saying is

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Even though the media is so plainly biased and even though leftist churches are

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Haven't have absolutely no Compunction whatsoever about about doing that.

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There's still very much the idea that Even though it has theological ramifications you can't talk about it from the pulpit mature

26:43

Yeah, so you can address you can address the issues but you just can't say who's actually representing the issues which

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Yeah, so like well, we all know What that means? Yeah, but yeah,

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I I get it Anybody else? I mean this just seems to be when

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I talk to folks at least And maybe this is a difference when I talk to folks privately this is a big big issue, but This is

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I think Homosexuality and the transgender issue that's going on.

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I think there's been an emboldening Happened in the church this last time Month it happened in june june.

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Well, it was the first time i'd seen many many pastors step up and speak out more boldly

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Yeah, I actually did a post talking about uh, the fallacy of the pride flag and Had over 15 000 likes on instagram and tons of comments and tons of shares

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There's a little bit more aggression. I would see in the christian church than there was in previous years

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I think we realized finally that it wasn't you know in the 70s. It was you know, we just want acceptance and then it was toleration and now it's it's uh, you know, uh, it's celebration and it's like Condemnation that you don't right this trend that I think has happened and I think that pastors are finally realizing

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If we don't stop and push back now It's just going to we're just going to push further and further back.

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And so there's just been a I think an intense An intensity and a magnification of pushback.

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Yeah, uh that has been enlivened. I think that covid purified the church unique way um

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Purified that that's an interesting term Yeah, how would you define that I think that it it brought um clarity of Of where people were at maybe things that were unsaid in previous years were forced to be said it also revealed who had spying to stand up against government mandates, uh and where their loyalties laid but I think that there was some sort of Resistance for the first time in my lifetime to the american evangelical church, which

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I believe actually produced Some emboldening that I haven't seen before right my generation

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Yeah, see I was I was raised in a milieu. Um That would that would basically say, uh, you never make political statements from the from the pulpit

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And we we believe in the myth of neutrality that uh, we could be neutral on these things and Church was never going to be a threat or the government was never going to be a threat to us

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And and stuff like that But everything's changed so much over the past few years that I think a lot of people are still trying to get reoriented to the

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Well, you can't get reoriented to a landscape that's changing constantly And that that for us older folks, that's the top part

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You younger folks You've grown up in a world where you expect it to be different next month than it is this month

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And I most of my life was lived You know Next last year is going to be pretty much the same as this year and next year and everything else

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Um, so you're used to the the ground shaking under your feet. I I don't know that I can ever adjust that it's it's hard um

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But It's i've had to come to realize that you

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You can't just keep your mouth shut and interestingly enough I was

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I was saying in 2000 Um That the homosexual movement was not asking for equal rights.

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It was asking for uber rights. Yeah And I had a lot of people who said, ah, you're you're just overreacting you're you know stuff like that and and now we see

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It's not even uber rights. It's You will capitulate to us and you will celebrate us and you will not open your mouth to criticize us or say anything or you will be

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Fired canceled your bank will will make it impossible for you to get your money out

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Uh, we won't we won't honor credit card charges and donations to your ministry and everything else it's just Astonishing where it's gone, but it really in hindsight we should have gone.

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Well, duh where else could it have gone? There's no stopping point. There's it's not a slippery slope.

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It's a cliff There there's no place to stop at a cliff. It's it's just going all the way

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Some people say they're going to overplay their hand And there's going to be a reaction

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But that assumes that they don't already control the media and the educational system

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And my big concern is when I talk to young people today, and i'd be asked

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If any of you have university ministries When I talk to young people They're statists

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And what I mean by status is they believe The state exists to make them happy And therefore they look to the state for everything

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The state has to has to solve every problem and so they're they're They have no

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Ground to understand what it means to be self -sufficient and to handle things for yourself

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How do you get someone like that to vote To limit the power of the state because their status it's become their ultimate authority

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Uh, that's that's the big concern that I have is Outside of a massive work of the spirit of god we are up against an incredible Incredible barrier any of you do university stuff go on university campuses um

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Uh, I have friends Right Um, but it is it's like you were saying, um earlier

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That I mean, that's all you know, and that's all these families are wanting to drink. You didn't know Right And so when someone comes with I mean

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Yeah, that's true. That's true and it's It's really the whole thing brightest

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Into that so It doesn't make sense everybody understand

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There's chaos but it Everything is supposed to be in the air flying

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Going up. Yeah, that's just how it is. So Like I was presenting the lord the lord's grace is showing time to grace um

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A marriage or friendships where you see oh

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Yeah, self -sacrifice why would someone sacrifice for somebody else why would somebody serve somebody else we can definitely show that uh to this younger generation, but uh

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It is a huge challenge. It is such a huge challenge to be able to explain What's going on the world around us um

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And in the church, I mean, let's let's go ahead and and mention it. Um I've i've never seen the kind of division the ease of division

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That we are experiencing, um in the church today and i've i've sort of explained it by saying

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A unified healthy church is a blessing on a nation Therefore if our nation is under the judgment of god we can expect this kind of division

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And have to learn how to be faithful in the midst of that kind of division But at the same time when you look at the early church

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They found division to be the greatest scandal Even when they were under the greatest pressure from outside So they're being persecuted

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And they still believe that division is a heinous sin before god That is to be avoided

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So sometimes I wonder if we've just gotten so used to being divided So used to I don't like it here i'll go find someplace else

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Don't like you do things. I'll start a new church It really makes me wonder if we've just gotten so used to it

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That we don't even think about The possibility of What it would be like to have a unified testimony to the world

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Because the division look think about it in our own in our own culture Every time um, there's a movie coming out.

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How many of you have heard the 1946 movie? one two Just two

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Nobody else. Okay. Good. I'm glad so that I can warn you You're you will you will hear and be warned now there's a movie coming out called 1946

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The thesis of the film is that homosexuality did not exist in the bible Until it was put in there by the revised standard version committee in 1946

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When they trend they mistranslated the greek term arson equates or arson equate in the plural in first corinthians chapter 6 and in uh

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That's a good idea. Very good in first corinthians chapter 6 and in first timothy 1 10

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And So the whole idea is there is no biblical foundation for a resistance to or a conviction a conviction against Homosexuality and so they're going to be interviewing these scholars and all the rest of stuff

37:16

You've I would imagine you've seen The memes and the videos on tiktok where people have been promoting this idea

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It really has an impact in fact the first time I addressed it on the dividing line was because one of the uh members of skillet

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Contacted me and said how do we respond to this? And so I did a whole segment on the dividing line on it

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And then it just kept blowing up and happening more and more and more and so i've done even longer segments, um demonstrating what

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The new testament actually says on that particular subject but that involves understanding greek lexicography and the development of Lexicons and how we do all that kind of stuff.

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That's how that's why they get away with it That's how they can use that type of complexity To silence christians because that's what they're seeking

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They're seeking to silence christians if we don't know how to defend it then we'll maybe not say it as loudly but there's an example of of a a belief a what we

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I I grew up and we didn't talk about this stuff in church That's not the stuff you talk about in church.

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You don't talk about homosexuality in church That'll offend somebody And so as normal the church ends up behind the eight ball we're always responding we're not we're not ahead of the curve we're always behind the curve and so There's an example of how we can try to say

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God's word says this and the enemy always has somebody who claims to be a christian on the other side to be able to say

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Oh, no, he doesn't Oh, no, he doesn't that division results in Us not having a unified voice to be able to say

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You want to know why judgment's coming upon our nation? Here's why How can that even happen when you have so many people who call themselves christians who

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Will deny that there is any such thing as a grounds for god judging this nation

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Um, so that division is a we've just become used to it we really really have and it is a

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It's not it's I was gonna say it's not a blessing and in that context. It's not but at the same time

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Um, I did preach a sermon once called. Um What was it called the blessing of apostasy

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The blessing of apostasy And what I meant by that was in first when when john says first on tonight

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They went out from us so it might be demonstrated. They're not truly of us It's a horrible thing

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When unbelievers Stay in the church and drag down our witness

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And our witness to the world you would think that the clarity of the proclamation of the gospel would be enough to drive out the the driftwood uh, but sometimes there are those who just want to They they get stuck and they want to stay there.

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I'm not exactly sure why There is a a a blessing to the purification of the church someone said, you know, the church has been purified well

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The dividing lines have been made clearer But I think there are still more to be to be discovered

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Along the way. I really do um So how many of you are excited

40:54

About choosing a paper topic for early church history Okay We're all like i'll put my hand up what am

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I supposed to do? Let me tell you something this may not work for everybody but There are sections of chapters in my book on the trinity that were originally papers in seminary

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And when I chose topics in seminary I already knew what

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I was going to be doing So that's helpful and I Thought to myself what can

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I write for this class that will have the longest utility

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That the most benefit Not for me to get a grade in a class But to provide to others so for example,

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I did a paper called uh The trinity the definition of chalcedon and oneness theology

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I had to go to my professor ask for an extension to do longer to to write longer than than he had given us um, because it was a big topic

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I haven't found too many professors who are unwilling to do that. Actually, uh You you like when you find somebody in your class so excited about your subject

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That they're probably more excited than you are uh on the subject um But that paper has been i've used that for for quite some time

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And it's it's still available on our website part of it's in the forgotten trinity And i've you've seen it in debates that i've done with oneness advocates

42:39

And so when you are thinking about Your paper topic for the class um

42:45

I challenge you to think along those lines Maybe think about where you where you are in in the church right now

42:52

Um, what can you do To make your study something that won't just have a benefit at the end of the class

43:04

But that what you produce maybe not the paper itself, but you could produce something from it

43:10

That could have immediate positive impact in your church Um I would

43:19

I would encourage you like during the next two days um My hope would be that as we're covering something as we're talking about something all of a sudden you go

43:29

That's something that's really really important. That's something that my people need to know or that's something that There's that group in my church and they would really be excited about that Make a note of it and think about how you could

43:41

It takes time to write a good research paper And If you're going to invest that time, why not have it useful 10 years down the road?

43:52

Right. I mean, I just think that's a That's how I did it and I got a lot of enjoyment out of Seminary and it also by the way, and you may feel this way even today having finished class

44:08

You may be feeling man. I wish I had a better professor than we've got. Um And one of the best ways to actually do that because I Almost all of my professors were way to my left

44:24

Way to my left my my systematic theology professor. Oh my goodness Oh my goodness.

44:30

Um his big area of expertise Was process theology.

44:40

Dr. Johnson is looking at me with With a with the look of oh, i'm not sure we want you teaching.

44:49

Um His big thing was process theology whitehead and god going universe going in and out of existence and god absorbing the good and shuffling off the bad and But I will give him this credit he

45:07

He presented the process theology perspective And this is how he did everything he would present

45:14

The one side and then he would present a critique of it and then he'd never tell you what he actually believes Sort of drive me crazy um

45:21

But he presented the process theology thing and he was really good at it. He really did understand it

45:28

And then his first critique of critique critique of it was Now the first obvious problem is process theology is that the god of process theology looks absolutely nothing like the god of the bible now he didn't then say and therefore this is all heresy, but uh, because he really couldn't do that, but uh,

45:46

He made it pretty clear that yeah, the god of process theology is just pure philosophy and the god of the bible's nothing like that and so That's how far to the left a lot of my uh professors were

46:01

But if I was excited about the class anyways I could still learn There are a lot of people left that are really smart

46:11

And sometimes they see things that we don't see And so you can take those insights and they'll get you lots and lots of facts and you can run with it and do good stuff with it and not be limited by um

46:25

The fact that you have disagreements with that individual. So if no, it's not going to happen to you here, obviously but if you do find yourself in a

46:38

Educational situation where you're having to learn from somebody who's not quite Exactly on your wavelength

46:44

That's what I'd suggest you do I got a lot out of seminary Even though everybody was way off to one side of it

46:52

I did have some fun along the way Like the one class in the

46:57

Pentateuch where I've told the story before but that's all right. Um Where we had to write reviews of these commentaries uh, we had to Who is that guy?

47:10

He came out three weeks ago on homosexuality And said that the bible really doesn't have any one particular view um

47:21

Oh drat pretty well -known old testament name and it's just escaping me at the moment um, it's been a long day and Uh, I remember

47:31

I had to read his commentary on genesis But I had to read gerhard von roth's commentary on deuteronomy.

47:38

I still remember what it looks like. It was that mustard green I guess it'd be mustard yellow. Uh, it's mustard green.

47:45

You probably don't shouldn't eat it. Um But the mustard mustard yellow commentary,

47:51

I think on deuteronomy by gerhard von gerhard von roth And you're supposed to write a review and give positive and negative stuff about it

48:02

And so I wrote my review and the positive section said This commentary has a very nice binding

48:13

And then I moved into the negative part, um, now that was a risk Because the professor had held all these up and said

48:21

I feel like this is the best Commentary in english available right now

48:26

But I got a 98 on it Because when I critiqued it I doubt he agreed with my critique

48:34

But what he saw was I had actually read the commentary I had read it fairly And was interacting with it that way.

48:42

So I did have some fun with some of that um Though most it was more like the day in class where one of my favorite professors, but again to my left

48:52

Was explaining how fuller had abandoned the view of inerrancy And so I just had to put my hand up and give the other side basically and say why

49:03

I Sometimes feel like a bit of a freak here And what was interesting was afterwards

49:11

A third of the class is tracking me down saying you said what I've always wanted to say So, um, yeah that was that was an interesting providential, uh experience so um

49:27

Do you guys have any? questions you'd like to ask To the entire audience of the dividing line in front of the entire audience of of the dividing line

49:40

Can the camera guy ask one the camera guy can ask whatever he wants He's holding the camera. You could turn it around and stick in your eyeball if you wanted to that would be pretty weird but What have you found is the best way to begin teaching early?

49:56

Uh, I have done uh I have done that outside of a formal class situation that is teaching early church history to a church the hard part is going to Is is to get in touch with the people who would actually want to do something like that And they may not be they may not know

50:18

That they would benefit from that. That's the point and so, um a a well thought out

50:28

Uh Flyer advertisement With some really cool quotes now you you'd know the character of your church if it's a younger church

50:40

Then you're gonna be looking for a certain kind of quote if it's a more mature church

50:47

You know a little bit more Stodgy like like dr. Johnson. Um When you uh,

50:53

I just woke him up he was falling I I I saw the head go in this direction So I had to wake him up. Um Then you're going to use a different set but you you a way to use some early church quotes or some facts from the early church or Uh, see early church and later church are different Um, so I would

51:18

I would focus upon Uh some really cool quotes from nicaea and stuff like that And say did you know your belief in this that other thing?

51:28

Was deeply impacted by events from 1700 years ago Uh, would you like to meet some really cool neat dead guys?

51:37

um Then you need to come thursday night at such times along those lines And you'll you'll get a few you'll you'll get the p you'll get a larger turnout at the beginning than you'll have at the end

51:49

Um But like I said the later church that boy there's a lot of stuff you can do

51:55

There's a lot of stuff you can one of the sad things about teaching this class is I can't tell you the story of munster

52:05

How many of you heard me tell the story of munster? one two three four Okay, four um

52:15

Was that on was that on sheologians? Yeah. Okay uh If you want to hear the wildest craziest

52:23

Story of church history bar. None There is nothing crazier than this Wilder than this more insane than this.

52:31

Um Go look up my daughter has a webcast called sheologians It's very popular. It's amazing.

52:37

I was a g3 when I would especially when women would come up to me I would go so do you do you know my oh sheologians listen to it all the time.

52:45

It's like, yeah, it's great Uh years ago I was in belfast northern ireland talking to a group of irish people and I I mentioned sheologians and Like two -thirds of the no one one one third one third of the audience said yeah, we listened to sheologians like wow

53:00

Okay in ireland. All right, cool She used to be james white's daughter now. You're summer's dad.

53:05

That's right. That's right I'm summer's dad and and she's yeah, that's that's true uh, and that's Fine with me, uh that that works well, but I in january of 2019.

53:16

I was in munster At the new testament institute there um doing an interview about cbgm and and uh stuff like that and uh, so I Got to I got to take pictures of the cathedrals there and the three cages that are still hanging there

53:35

And so I went on the sheologians when I got back and we did a two -part series where I told the story

53:40

And it takes that long to tell the story of munster If I can encourage you to do this

53:49

If if a major movie studio Simply took the factual

53:57

Outline of what happened They would not have to create any new characters They would not have to embellish anything

54:06

If they just simply told the story as it happened, it would be a blockbuster It'd be a blockbuster.

54:12

No one would believe it actually happened But it would be a blockbuster you it is that unbelievable

54:20

I can just see if you're if you know the story jan mathis and his

54:26

Followers racing out toward 5 000 soldiers on their horses Assured that god was going to give them deliverance and they being absolutely massacred in front of everyone watching from the walls

54:39

What a scene that would be wow, they wouldn't have to cgi anything it would just be Astonishing so church history can provide you some really cool stuff like that So if you were doing like reformation church history

54:53

Wow, you can do a lot with that I mean you could make some really you can get some people really excited about that if you if you wanted to um, but we'll have to do that at another another time, um, maybe when we

55:05

I don't honestly this is shocking to me And I hate to put you under pressure, but maybe somebody else can help because you have some other people from the staff back there, but What are the required history classes?

55:20

This is this is one right early church history Uh -oh

55:27

When you see when you see them all looking at each other, uh, then you realize We're not sure about that.

55:34

Um Is there a medieval reformation? Just reformation we just skip the medieval period we just Come on, that's where thomas is we when do you cover thomas?

55:47

Or are we not covering thomas? I I I can just see your hair messed up a little bit more with a wild eye.

55:55

Look we're not doing thomas Uh, no, you have to do it normally it's it's

56:05

Up to 600 And then 600 through the reformation And then modern church.

56:11

That's normally how it's how it's divided up. So um But reformation stuff, oh man, you can

56:19

I would have so many pictures up on the screen for that because i've been all over germany and stuff like that taking pictures

56:26

It would just be way too much fun Way too much fun. Well, anyway, believe it or not guys.

56:31

It's been well some of you're all going. Yes. We know it's been an hour uh it's been an hour and uh

56:37

Uh, I I know that some of the comments may have been a little bit hard to hear but you can turn the volume up That's that's what the internet's for uh, but uh

56:45

Pray for us, uh for the rest of the class, uh for me for strength and for the class simply to stay awake

56:52

Uh, because they will have a final exam And it will it will test their knowledge of the subject

56:59

And hopefully get to go home and share this with other people And then I get to go home I left my home on september 6th and I believe it's september 29th, so Uh, i'm looking forward to seeing the old homestead and um, i'm not going to recognize my own house because while I was gone solar panels were installed on the roof, so my wife is not happy that I was not there for that, but their

57:29

Problem is once you sign up for that. They don't care what the schedule is and they aren't ain't gonna tell you Uh, we are definitely discovering that right now that it's just sort of like well

57:38

We'll get there when we want to on our schedule. We don't care what your schedule is So that's sort of how that's working out uh, but i'm looking forward to getting getting home and uh,

57:49

It will be probably like 103 degrees when I get there, but uh, it will eventually cool off um, we've had we've had 103 up till October Was it 31st?

58:04

Yeah, I it does not cool off in phoenix until november So Believe me, we enjoy every cool day because there's not very many of them

58:14

Uh, we really do but anyways gentlemen, thank you for sitting around, uh for that conversation having listened to me for about seven hours today anyways, that's pretty astonishing that you do this but uh, and for everybody else, um

58:27

Look up grace bible theological seminary online. See what uh, see what we're all about here. I think you'll find

58:34

Uh The program to be very challenging and very useful to you as well and we didn't this time interview uh

58:42

Dr. Strand, dr. Johnson and stuff like that because we just wanted to give them some time off and besides that um,

58:49

I got dr Johnson out of bed really early this morning because he had to give me a ride and I I'm, just getting the feeling you may not be an early morning type guy

58:58

I'm, just really not sure I I may have ruined his day today. So and and thank you to Dr.

59:04

Messerschmitt Uh for holding he's literally holding the camera. Uh, I I don't have the stand for it.

59:10

So He is being a cameraman Uh today and so we appreciate you doing that.

59:16

So thanks for listening to the dividing line today. We will I have no idea When in the world we will do another program and I know that there are really controversial things happening

59:27

I just didn't think it was appropriate to Address those controversial things

59:33

Sitting here right now with everybody else sitting around even though they're all probably going. Oh Um, but we will we will get to it.

59:40

I know what's going on. I heard yeah, okay we'll give it a few more days before we