Jemar Tisby, Woke Ideology, then Jeff Riddle’s “Shocking” Statements

Welcome to The Dividing Line. It is Tuesday, second program in a row where we're going to be doing some responding to the current issues in our culture regarding social justice and the woke church movement and things along those lines.

Let's just dive into that. I do have another topic later on in the program. I want to respond to an article from Dr. Jeffrey Riddle about shocking things that I said in our debate. I'll tell you one thing that is interesting to me just in passing.

I was just bringing the article up on Dr. Riddle's website and one of his articles is providing Steven Anderson's review of some of the material. I mentioned on Facebook last night that I've been informed that Steven Anderson is a part of the Confessional Bibliology Facebook group.

I'm not sure what historic confession might be in reference to there, but evidently, the enemy of my enemy makes my enemy confessional. I just sort of figure if that's where you're going with some of your responses, that only helps me.

That's all there is to that. Anyway, we'll take a look at that. I want to start off. There are entire books coming out. We were sent a book by Scott David Allen, Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice.

There are books coming out, some that I've read, one coming out from a brother in California, I think is where he is. I haven't seen it yet, but I read it a number of months ago. We're slow at getting to these things, but we started responding.

I started responding in 2018. Others were way ahead of that. People are slow to see what's happening and things. I certainly was. We're seeing it now, but one of my concerns, to be honest with you, is that then creates a bandwagon moment.

I am concerned that we could end up with a situation where everyone's jumping on the bandwagon and quote-unquote social justice woke church becomes the new thing that you just blast and say we need to go get these folks without having heard what the arguments are.

Then what happens is if you're in your own echo chamber, and we're all in echo chambers right now because of the election. Let me tell you right now, you will not know who won on November 3rd or 4th or 15th or December 1st.

That's just a given. You know why it's a given? Because a number of states' Supreme Courts have already ruled that the mail-in ballots, which are the mechanism by which this election will be corrupted, in my opinion.

I started saying that in March. Mail-in ballots will be accepted, I think in one instance, at a major swing state for at least six days. One might be 10 days after the postmark. Postmarks can never be faked, of course.

Those states cannot possibly certify their results for nearly a week and a half after the election as it is. The Founding Fathers never ever envisioned anything like this at all. This is something that they never had in mind.

I don't know what the answer to that is, but that's not what we're getting into today. The point being that we're going to be going into an extremely critical and, for those of us who like things not to change, stressful period of time in the future.

There's no question about that. Anyway, the point is we cannot avoid this. You'd have to live in a lead mine. Some people don't even know why people say that. Lead stops radio signals, so you can't watch TV and listen to radio.

That was our old days. Yes, even wireless would not work in a lead mine. We're all in that context. Here's the problem. If you haven't heard out the best of the other side, but you've jumped on the bandwagon that they're bad, and then all of a sudden you get hit either with a person who has and therefore can reproduce their arguments or just get asked, would you just listen to this?

Would you listen to what this person said and respond to this kind of argumentation? And then all of a sudden you discover, you know what? These folks have arguments that I didn't know about and I need to reconsider everything that I've...

In other words, since your arguments against the position were not against the best expressions of that position, then when you see those best expressions, it can really throw you for a loop. And we've talked about this for years.

When we would prepare people to go to Salt Lake City, we would always emphasize the necessity to accurately represent Mormonism, expect the best answers. When you get bad answers, you've got to be prepared for that too.

But if your presentation was aimed at the best, it should be able to handle the lesser arguments. But if your presentation was aimed at the lesser arguments and somebody comes along that's much sharper, now your presentation is taken apart.

My concern is in listening to some, not all, I'm not, this is not a blank. There's no blanket condemnations here, anything. I'm just simply warning against the possibility of getting on the bandwagon and not really knowing what the other side is actually saying.

And to know that especially when we talk about the woke church, when we talk about Christians, and yes, I believe they're Christians, don't... One of the things that's really dangerous is when people decide that this is going to be the issue they're going to use to then judge the eternal state of everybody else, okay?

As it is with so many things, you need to maintain proper theological standards. If someone denies the doctrine of the Trinity, then you're talking about a foundational error that removes one from consideration of truly being in Christ.

You've got the wrong God. There's a vast difference between a direct denial of the doctrine of the Trinity and someone coming along and saying, well, if you believe position X, then that would mean you'd have to believe, and then you start going down a line and the seventh point down means, and that might mean you don't really even believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

You have to be very, very careful at that point because you're assuming that you're thinking through the relationship of these positions is absolutely perfect, and you're assuming that the person is going to be perfectly consistent in their position.

I've never met such a person, and many times we need to be thankful for the blessed contradictions, the blessed inconsistencies in people's positions. This is the problem of the hyper-Calvinist. This is the problem of the hyper-Calvinist who says, if you don't function on an acknowledgement of the specific divine election of individuals by God, that the number of the elect is fixed and known to God, if you don't function on the basis of that, then you don't believe, go down a few arguments, in grace at all, and therefore you fall under Galatians chapter one.

We've dealt with that kind of argumentation before, and we all know people who don't believe in personal election but do believe in grace. Is it inconsistent? Yep, blessedly so, thankfully so. So we need to be functioning the same way here.

Some people say, yeah, well, this is all about politics, and this is all, well, it's not just about politics. There is a very, very intimate connection. There's no question about it. But once it comes within the purview of the church, just this week, a very, very well-known individual in social media and in Southern Baptist life was making strong arguments that people promoting woke ideology should be disciplined in the church.

Okay? That requires serious consideration of exactly what woke ideology is and a serious understanding of how consistent the person is in the presentation of this. I know a lot of people already who have been co-opted into a positive perspective of what this means as to justification and everything related to that.

And so do you just kick them out of the kingdom? I just automatically assume. No. So what we, again, my strong argument, I don't have that, and so I very highly recommend to people that we focus upon the actual teachings.

So with that in mind, I have a brief clip here from Jamar Tisby. Now, Jamar Tisby would claim a Reformed background for a number of years. He was J. Ligon Duncan's personal secretary, personal assistant.

So you're talking about someone from the RTS family who was one of the founding forces in what was called RON, the Reformed African American Network, which is now The Witness, a Black Christian collective.

But you will still hear in the words of those folks, I was listening this morning to Dr. Edmondson, a brilliant Black woman speaking at Dort University, which historically CRC Reformed, and closely associated with Calvin College.

So historically Reformed. But you may be wondering, why is it that our Reformed institutions are now cranking out completely woke people? Well, there's an answer for that. But these are bright, intelligent, well-thought-through people.

And if you don't realize that, your arguments against what they're saying are going to be fallacious. They're not going to have the power they need. They're not going to have staying power. They're not going to have staying power.

This is a conflict that is not going to be over with after the election. This is a definitional style conflict that we're dealing with. And that means we need to be in it for the long haul, which means we need to have the best argumentation if what we're saying is truthful.

That's why I listened. And no, it didn't make me go faster. I've signed up to do, I'm finally going to get that marathon done. I'm not a good runner. I'm a good cyclist. I'm not a good runner. But I've gotten past some issues that kept me from doing more than half marathons in a good way.

And so I've just got to get it done. And so I was doing 12k this morning. And what was I listening to? Could I have gotten it done faster been listening to Skillet? Yep, I would have gotten done faster if I was listening to Skillet.

But I was listening to Dr. Edmondson. And it was a well-crafted presentation that I fully understand that students at a college or university, especially students coming out of American educational systems, would find thoroughly convincing.

Thoroughly convincing. Wasn't convincing to me, because I see where the holes in the argument are and where external sources are coming in. And we'll take a look at that. But thoroughly convincing, well presented.

And therefore, our responses have to be up to the task. And so that's one of the reasons we're taking a look at these. Now, the internet is now filled with woke presentations. I remember a couple years ago, someone went through and put together, what was it?

Three to five, I forget, five videos about social justice and woke ideology in the PCA. And they're fairly long videos. And I would imagine you could triple or quadruple that now, quite easily from these individuals.

But we need to hear what's actually being said and respond to what's actually being said, not just to what we think is actually being said. So here is a short clip from Jamar Tisby that I wanted to examine today.

Earlier, when I was defining the prophetic.

Voice, I mentioned a kind of prophecy called a prophecy of deliverance. I talked about Genesis 315, the offspring of the woman crushing Satan under his heel. And I said, test the spirits. And the way to test a foretelling spirit is to see if it came true.

Well, brothers and sister, that prophecy of deliverance prophesied all the way back in Genesis 315 came true. It came true when Jesus Christ, the son of God, took on flesh and became a person and entered into our experience so that he could identify with us and express solidarity with us.

Jesus Christ announced his public ministry by describing his role as a prophetic forth teller. He said that he was anointed by God the Father to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

That prophecy came true. And because it came true, you now who believe in Jesus enter into that prophetic role of forth telling the truth, even the truth about racism and white supremacy. And on the cross, Jesus Christ tells those who have been bent low because of oppression, you can stand up straight.

And he tells those who have bought into the myth of whiteness and superiority that you too are in need of a savior. If you have repented and believed this morning, then despise not the prophetic voice of the black experience.

Amen and amen.

Now, that is a conclusion of a talk. So, that means that there has been much that has come before this. And by looking at the conclusion, it would be very easy to go, where did all that come from? And that is the reaction of the vast majority of us.

We are familiar with these texts. And we have, of course, looked at that context in Matthew 11. Now, when John, while imprisoned, heard the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, are you the expected one or shall we look for someone else?

Jesus answered and said to them, go and report to John what you see and hear. The blind receive sight and the lame walk. The lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor of the gospel preach to them.

And blessed is he who does not take offense at me. As these men were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, what you got in the wilderness to see, a reed shaken by the wind, et cetera, et cetera.

And so, you have Jesus taking a catena of prophetic passages. And in answer to John's concern, are you the Messiah? Are you the expected one? Jesus goes to the prophetic fulfillment as answer to John.

Now, there's a lot we could, you can get a lot out of John's sending his disciples and the fact he's in prison and all the rest that, I mean, that's a truly fascinating story and certainly one that we can get a lot of encouragement out of.

But the point is, here you have a text that is vitally important in the early church in light of the existence of John's disciples. It is a text about prophetic fulfillment. It is a text about the fact that Jesus's ministry was prophesied of old.

It was a text being fulfilled in first century Israel, hence issues of the poor and those who are, the dead are raised up and lepers are cleansed, the blind receive sight, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

What is this about? This is primarily about Roman oppression. It has nothing to do with race. It is purely political. It is not racial. And of course, there is no biblical, historical, logical connection between anything here and a narrative of a black experience.

And yet, in the conclusion of the sermon, these things all come together and we are all left going, there seems to be an overriding narrative that is driving this. But here's the problem. We hear orthodox statements, but then you'll get these passing words and applications that we go, and when we hear that over and over again, we begin to accept those associations.

If we do not stop and analyze carefully, the problem is many of us, when we listen to something, we take and we categorize it as a whole without analyzing the elements of its argumentation. And in fact, in our day, many people would consider it to be either disrespectful, unkind, stilted, being picky, to stop and start a sermon and actually analyze the utilization of biblical texts.

It's none of those things. It's absolutely necessary. It's absolutely necessary. And so, I want to point out a couple of places. It's only 90 seconds. That's why it's amenable to this type of utilization.

I want to stop and go, did you catch that? Where is this coming from? Is this not something that needs to be challenged and considered and weighed in the overall, because see, you as a believer have a responsibility before God to analyze what is being said in light of its faithfulness to God's truth.

All other issues have to be put aside. It doesn't matter what color this man is. It doesn't matter whether he is a man or a woman. Those are your only two choices, however. It doesn't matter what his intersectionality score is.

The issue is the faithfulness of the message to the truth of God. That's why one of the most destructive elements of the woke church movement is ethnic Gnosticism, standpoint epistemology, the idea that you don't even have the right to question the conclusions of the black experience if you are not black.

So, if a black person says the black experience is this, and then connects the black experience here to biblical prophecy, if you're a white person, you just sit down, shut up, and listen. That's what you're told.

I've been told that. We've all been told that. That is extremely dangerous and must be rejected by any faithful follower of Jesus. You don't do that, but that's what we're facing. So, let's listen to it again.

It's only 90 seconds, but this time I'll stop and start. Earlier, when I was defining the prophetic.

Voice, I mentioned a kind of prophecy called a prophecy of deliverance. I talked about Genesis 315, the offspring of the woman crushing Satan under his heel, and I said, test the spirits, and the way to test a foretelling spirit is to see if it came true.

Well, brothers and sisters, that prophecy of deliverance prophesied all the way back in Genesis 315 came true.

Okay, how many times have we said it is key to any person who claims to be a prophet that there has to be accuracy in what the prophet says? That's exactly what you have in the law in Deuteronomy. If you say it's going to happen, it doesn't happen.

It's a false prophecy. So, that is a true statement, and the protevangelium of Genesis 315, key biblical concept, key biblical fulfillment, very, very important. So, we're sitting there going, yeah,.

Yeah, I'm hearing this. It came true when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on flesh and became a person and entered into our experience so that he could identify with us and express solidarity.

With us. Whoa, stop the bus for a second. Is that why Jesus became flesh? That he could identify with us, express solidarity with us? That's the language of America at the beginning of the 21st century.

That's not the language of historic Christian theology. The reason for the incarnation, I mean, if all that means is that Jesus truly had to be man to give that perfect life in behalf of his elect people, he truly had to enter into, he had to be made like his brethren in all things.

Hebrews chapter 2, Philippians chapter 2, great. But express solidarity is a phrase that has, that is freighted with meaning in the current situation. The woke church is demanding that whites, whatever that means, we don't get to have any distinctions, it's just whites, that whites must express solidarity with the black struggle, whatever the black struggle is.

And so, this idea of expressing solidarity, again, if all that means is Jesus had to be truly human, had to have that perfect human nature, had to be truly the incarnate one, he, sarxageneta became flesh, halagasarxageneta, okay.

But often they will use terminology, and we'll see this in looking at some written material, where the terms have multiple meanings and especially meanings that have been particularly crafted within our current context to carry a particular part of the argument that could not otherwise be carried successfully.

Jesus Christ announced his public ministry.

By describing his role as a prophetic forth teller. He said that he was anointed by God, the Father, to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

That prophecy came true. And because it came true, you now who believe in Jesus enter.

Into that prophetic role of forth telling the truth. Okay. You, by believing, enter into that role, Jesus' role? I wasn't exactly sure. Again, this is a conclusion, maybe more careful exegesis and foundation had been laid for this someplace else.

But just in what we have here, you have this assertion that when you believe in Jesus, that you enter into this prophetic role. Now, I do believe that the bride of Christ in proclaiming the Lordship of Christ, there is a prophetic element of that.

When you say that Jesus, when you do it Paul did on Mars Hill and say, God has set a day where he is going to judge all of mankind by the man whom he raised from the dead. That is a prophetic announcement on the same level as Jonah saying to Nineveh, you are overthrown.

You're going to be destroyed. God's judgment is going to come upon you. That is a prophetic statement. I don't know the same category as what was just mentioned. But so you stop that and you go, okay, exactly what do you mean by this prophetic ministry, so on and so forth.

In the truth about racism and white supremacy. Okay, so there, now that obviously comes from earlier in the sermon. So, some connection had to have been made in regards to what the nature of prophetic teaching is.

And so, you have the insertion of racism and white supremacy. We know that these terms have become so completely overused in our current setting in the United States that you almost don't even hear them anymore.

And one of the main problems is that you have the accusation today that a major portion of the population is guilty of racism and guilty of white supremacy because they breathe. Not because of any words, actions, attitudes, heart issues, nothing.

You exist, therefore, you're a racist. You exist, therefore, you're a white supremacist. And we know that this is the end of any meaningful prophetic preaching. This is not how the prophets preached. They never were themselves racists in that category.

So, they dealt with people groups, but they were political people groups. They were religious people groups in the sense of those who worship a particular god. The Egyptians had all of their different gods.

And so, the Egyptians were dealt with as a group, but there were all sorts of different ethnicities represented by the worship of those gods. So, today, we have a very racist in the old meaningful definition of that word, that is general statements made based upon a person's ethnic origins that has nothing to do with their character, their intentionality, their own personal history, what they have and have not done, how they have and have not acted, their feelings toward others, their actions.

All that stuff is irrelevant. That's just put off to the side. Instead, we have this overarching concept of white supremacy that is just simply utilized as the mayonnaise condiment of current cultural argumentation.

Just slather that over everything and cover up any holes in your argumentation by just simply making accusation of white supremacy. While that was found in a lot of writings and stuff going back years, it really has exploded into our vocabulary only in the past number of years.

I mean, only a couple years ago, if I had heard someone use the term white supremacy, I just automatically would have gone, well, it's KKK having a rally someplace. The weirdos in the pointed hats figured they'd pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird.

But no, now it's everybody, and it's everywhere, and it's constant, and there you go. And so, racism and white supremacy, all of a sudden, appear in the middle of a text that you just go, but that's not what Jesus was talking about.

But like I said, this is the end of a sermon, so maybe it functioned in that way. I don't know. Have we lost Mr. Pierce? Did he? Oh, okay. Well, am I able to continue? Okay,.

All right. And on the cross, Jesus Christ tells those who have been bent low because of oppression,.

You can stand up straight. Oppression of what? Oppression of what? We need to be very, very careful. The primary application of the message of freedom in Christ was freedom from the oppression of Satan and sin and death.

Now, if you want to try to make the argumentation that the primary gospel message of the early church was one of political rebellion, of saying to slaves, rise up and kill your masters, good luck making that argument.

That wasn't what the church did. That's not the apostolic argument. But when people hear someone like Jamar Tisby talking about oppression, it has now been redefined in unbiblical terminology, in completely unbiblical terminology, to where the oppressors are of one color and the oppressed of another color.

The problem is, the actual gospel message is for every person of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. And so, to bring in the categorization of oppressed and oppressors from current political argumentation, rather than the context of the prophets, of the gospel, of the early church, is where you start getting complete redefinition.

That's why you have that Bishop Talbert Swan, is that his name? Who can just simply engage in racism that any grand wizard of the KKK would go, hey, that guy knows how to do it. Yes, that's how we do it.

That's the same level of just rabid black supremacy racism. How does that happen? You allow this kind of redefinition to go to its nth degree. That's what you've got in James Cone. That's what Cone has given to us.

Now, Jamar Tisby is not going to want to, though he's clearly been influenced by Cone, there are many other influences that counterbalance that in certain areas. And so, he doesn't speak that way, at least openly and publicly, yet I've certainly seen a lot of movement, a lot of movement over the past decade, and maybe that's where it'll go.

I don't know. I have to hope that it won't do that. I have to pray that it won't do that. Because, I mean, that guy, that quote-unquote bishop, wow, there you go. But this is where you have to really consider the words, because if you're just going with the flow, if you're letting the emotions go, if you're letting the cadence of the preaching go, then you're going to hear that phrase oppression, and then that phrase, and you accept it here, and then the next time it's going to be tweaked a little bit farther, and a little bit farther, and a little bit farther, until it's taken on a meaning that no biblical writer could have ever even begun to conceive of.

That's why you have to stop and start, and you have to analyze,.

And you have to listen. And he tells those who have bought into the myth of whiteness and superiority that you, too, are in need of a savior.

Now, the myth of whiteness, I don't even know exactly where to go with that, the myth of whiteness. Obviously, in my opinion, this concept of whiteness, white supremacy, is so malleable, so disconnected from any meaningful data, and once you separate it from the actual actions of human beings, it becomes a theoretical chimera, it's a fog, it's a mist.

It is a worthless, empty concept. And so, as Christians, we just go, hmm, let me look that up in my concordance. Whiteness, whiteness. Well, there's something about leprosy. I don't think that's what they're talking about.

There's a lot of good stuff about, you know, white is snow and stuff like that. I don't think that's what they're talking about, at least not yet. Well, they do around Christmas time. There are people that think that Christmas is racist, too.

But there ain't nothing in here that corresponds to some concept of whiteness. You can't define it. Those of us who would be considered, quote-unquote, white, I mean, you've got that one guy. Who's that one guy with BLM or something like that who's actually white, but pretends he's black?

Oh, he's all over the place. But he's actually a white guy. And, you know, many a summer, I'll actually be darker than him, but he's a BLM guy. So the whole thing is stupid. Those of us who would be called white, despite our last names, we make distinctions between ourselves all the time.

I mean, that used to be in the earlier days of the United States, where there was so much true ethnic animosity. I mean, when I was a kid, what kind of jokes were popular when you and I were kids? What was the one group?

Pollocks, right? Pollock jokes. You haven't heard a Pollock joke, and most of you don't even know what one is. All over the place. Now, blonde jokes are still funny, but that's another issue. Oh, Italians?

It depended on where you were and what group you were in. But, oh yeah, every group has experienced that. The Scotch, the Irish, it doesn't matter. But the only people who didn't experience that were the Brits, because they were the first ones there.

Of course, then they lost the war, but that's another issue. So the point is that this whole idea of whiteness, white people make distinctions all the time, but based upon what? Well, sometimes based upon ethnicity.

Not so much anymore. We got past it. That's a good thing. That was a very positive thing. Being undone right now, dragging us back into those days, but that was actually a good thing. I mean, it was Archie Bunker.

He would do Pollock jokes all the time. I mean, can you imagine most modern, super sensitive, politically correct people even bringing up a single episode? They'd just be rocking back and forth going, I can't believe these people once lived on earth.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That was the 70s, man. That was, yeah. So things have changed. Anyway, the point is this whole idea of whiteness just doesn't click with most of us. And it's not because of your ethnic Gnosticism.

And thankfully, there's many a black person, many a Hispanic person, many an Asian person who is well aware of the fact that within their communities, you've got people that are hardworking, trustworthy, and people who are not, and they make the same distinctions.

And we need to make those distinctions based upon character and action, not upon pasts, however far back you want to go. 60 years, 100 years, 160 years, 200 years, 500 years, 1000 years. How far do you want to go?

What's who makes these rules up anyways, as to how you're supposed to define these particular groups? So this whole idea, what is the myth of whiteness? I don't have a clue, and neither does anybody else, because there is no such thing.

It is a myth. That's right. But we're not the ones that bought into a myth of whiteness, or especially white supremacy. The whole concept within the church, you have to go, where are you getting this?

Don't talk to me about some postmodern sociologist someplace who's come up with this stuff. You're in a church. You're standing behind a pulpit. You're talking about the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Get it out of here.

It ain't in there. That's the point. Well, I can cram it in there. That's the point, too. Because if it is not positively rooted in the necessary exegesis of the text, and that's why I did find interesting, even though I, again, was very impressed overall with the presentation I listened to this morning.

At one point, I caught this attack upon, well, we have the right hermeneutics, and they were using that. The primary emphasis of the talk was about George Whitefield and Whitefield's movement over his life into what this woman would define as a very sinful attitude on Whitefield's part.

And via Whitefield, so we're going 250 years into the past here, via Whitefield to a statement to Reformed evangelicalism as a whole. And one of the statements was that these people, these Pharisees, in essence, will defend being on the other side of the where she wants you to be by reference to their hermeneutics and their exegesis and things like that.

So there was a subtle knock at that, which often is then joined with what we're hearing in every, okay, I won't say that. That's always a dangerous word. In almost every seminary in land today. And sadly, I would say, I would be surprised if it's not in every Reformed seminary in the land today.

And that is that you need to give place to other voices. And the presupposition is that there is a special kind of knowledge that can only be obtained experientially that is necessary to the proper interpretation of the written word of scripture.

And we're not talking about the Holy Spirit here. We're not talking about the presence of the Holy Spirit. We are talking about an experience based upon ethnicity. The terminology will be voices. We need to hear the voices of brothers and sisters from all around the world.

And doesn't that sound, who would want to argue against that? Who would want to argue against the idea that you want to hear the voices of brothers and sisters from around the world? That just sounds so warm.

It's like, it's not, it's like not liking M &Ms or Hershey's Kisses. There's something wrong with you if you don't like these things, okay? They're there just to make everybody feel good and fat. But that's the idea.

But the assumption under that is that there is that if I come to this with the Holy Spirit of God and a true desire to understand this and to hear God's word, I can't do it without other voices. Not that you need to do it in the context of the church.

Not that there's much that we can learn from those who live before us. I believe all those things. And I have been so blessed by insights from church history and from other cultures. I have traveled the world.

I may never get to do it again, but I did it for a long time. And I truly was benefited by getting to see the world in other places and to see that America is not the center of all things, okay? That's all a benefit, but that's not what's being said here.

What's being said here is that there are experiences of particular groups that you must access to fill in what is lacking in your ability in dwelt by the Holy Spirit and engaging in rigorous exegetical examination of the text.

You still can't get it unless you have all these voices. May I point out that that means no one in history until the past 50 years could have ever figured all the Bible out at all because no one could have all those voices.

It wouldn't be possible. And there's no one who actually does this. There's no one who actually does this amongst orthodox believers, amongst reformed black men like Jamar Tisby. I really don't think he's putting out much of an effort to make sure to get Tibetan, Chinese, and Vietnamese interpretation every time he's doing exegesis of the text.

I really doubt that. I really don't believe that. So there's an inconsistency here. This standpoint epistemology, this idea that I have access to particular levels and kinds of knowledge that you can't because of your ethnicity, very dangerous.

And yet it's behind what you hear. And it sounds so good. But we've been teaching on this program for decades, decades that you must analyze the foundations of the arguments that are being presented. You cannot allow yourself to be first moved by the emotions.

God made emotions. Emotions are good things. They are proper things. They are important things. We want people to be emotionally committed to the truth, but the truth has to come first. That's why the spoken word comes first.

That's why the preaching comes first. That's the supremacy and primacy of preaching. That's the presentation of the Logos 2 Staru, the word of the cross. You have to have the foundation to know what you're committed to.

And then let the feelings flow, but they must always be subject to and analyzed by that revelation that is found there. Truly important. Truly important. So we're almost done here. Yeah, 13 seconds. That's pretty close to almost done.

If you have repented and believed this morning, then despise not the prophetic voice.

Of the black experience. The prophetic voice of the black experience. Now, the biblical terminology is to not despise the spirit of Jesus, prophecy of Jesus, has nothing to do with the black experience.