Eastern Orthodoxy on the State of Non-Orthodox

Okay, welcome to the dividing line we are coming to you from our big studio. I haven't been in here for a while. That means there's a lot of stuff that could go wrong and already has gone wrong lost the internet for a while.

That was fun Makes it a little bit slow to get things queued up, but hopefully it's working now. There's one video that I want to look at a section on. I cannot find the time index anywhere. I was able to find the other one the one that I had promised to look at during the program Today but lots of stuff to get to.

Tucker Carlson, Christian Nationalism, and the Real Problem of Secularism

Let's start off with The stuff that hit last night and I Don't know what's happened to Tucker Carlson. I don't keep track of that kind of stuff. I I Think I've seen maybe two programs since he left Fox, you know, and and during during kovat.

He was pretty helpful. You know, there weren't too many people out there that were willing to Say things that you know, we now know to be completely true. I mean, oh my goodness if we just Repeated the things we know to be true now and stuff about Fauci and everything else if we had even whispered about that in 2022, you know, you'd be removed from every social media platform.

You'd be and I mean the Assault on free speech that took place only a few years ago is Gonna happen again because nothing happened the first time around. No one's been held accountable. No one's been held responsible for doing those types of things and many of them are still in power and just waiting to have the majority power back and So the freedoms we have now.

How much longer? Don't know but we've been taking them for granted and Instead of actually making progress We have the wacko aid Christian nationalists dividing everybody up and turning us into racists real racists I mean real honest kind of racists and doing everything else in process, it's Pretty planned Mechanism for dividing and conquering there's no two ways about it.

Anyway, so I saw the same picture everybody else saw Joel Webben and JD Hall being with Tucker Carlson's arm around them. I saw a few minutes of the exchange and I only made one comment and everybody misunderstood it because The vast majority of people on the internet Thankfully for them and I'm thankful for them to Do not have the experiences that I have with JD Hall.

For what I forget what year was it 2014 was when I first met him went up there. I forget when we had that debate with the Author of Torn. But that was when things started and then I made the comment From farmer to theologian, okay, and no one understood it and they're all the farmers can be theologian I I get all that I know that What I was talking about was There was a period of time after JD's implosion.

And he did implode and evidently if you mentioned that according to Eric Kahn you're unforgiving and mean and nasty and need to repent. We get conned every day. It's just it just needs to become a term for that guy but I Simply mentioned the public record the reality that many of us before JD Hall's implosion had been the subject of his attacks and and JD has no limits.

He has no boundaries. He The things that he did the things he said the the depths to which he would go To try to dig dirt on people. Never met anybody more zealous Than pulpit and pen was and JD Hall was but he self-destructed just you know tried to destroy the church that he was in.

You know was kicked out of their legal problems lawsuits drug addiction you know everything just blew up and For most of us it was like I hope he finds a peaceful place, and he just recovers and stays there and So you know there was this interview where they were talking with him.

And you know he's on a farm, and he's focused on his family and for most of us. It was like good just We have peace now just stay there don't. But there are people who don't care about things like that and so they've encouraged him to go right back to the very stuff that destroyed him in the first place and They're using him in that way, and you know who you are you know exactly who you are and so he's back and He's writing and he's He hasn't written about how he doesn't think the moon landings happened yet.

But that might have kept him off Tucker Carlson if they had known that but anyway He's back and writing about fake religious stuff like Judeo-Christianity and Pretending to know all sorts of stuff about the Greek Septuagint and Hebrew texts and stuff like that.

And now he ends up talking about Israel and dispensationalism and Christian Zionism and all the same stuff. And did you notice Dale Partridge had a massive explosion of Utter foolishness today. It's it's sort of like I didn't get to go on Tucker, so I'm gonna say some really crazy things is It These guys it's a small group of people you know I just seen a study Recently it said like 69 of all violent crimes is committed by less than 1 of The people and they're people that are known and things like that well You know 89 of the Christian nationalist wackoism is done by a very small group of people very tiny Very loud group of people unfortunately anyway so All of a sudden you know we're back to the Jews the Jews the Jews Christian Zionism.

And most of stuff isn't all that tough. I mean honestly Is there wackoism out there? Amongst dispensationalists with regards to Israel of course I mean the books that have come out and You know if you dare say as I've said forever.

You know I don't I don't think that there's any kind. I do not believe the modern nation of Israel Has any more role in biblical prophecy than the modern nation of Zimbabwe does Zambia or or anything.

You know God has determined the borders of nations and whether they're gonna exist or whether they're gonna fall things like that. But I don't believe for a second that the modern state of Israel is Fulfillment of prophecy fig tree 1948 all that stuff.

I don't see any reason to believe any of it. The modern state of Israel is a secular state. It's an LGBTQ affirming state. It's not our friend in that way. It's a semi Democracy it's Netanyahu doesn't look like much of a democratically elected leader right now be perfectly honest with you.

What they're doing in Lebanon is I think completely criminal. I have Christian friends who send me stuff from on the ground from churches Christian churches in Lebanon. That are being destroyed by the Israeli forces.

And so are they innocent and all that no they're not. They're unregenerate men and son regenerate men do evil things and unregenerate men do things to serve their own Purposes and all the rest that kind of fun stuff.

So no, I'm you know when I see Christian pastors going over to Israel and doing these tours all the rest of stuff and just being used as shills. For for Israel. Yeah, it's it's like totally unwise, but that was a given years ago it may be at a fever pitch right now because of What's gone on since the supposed attack?

Across the border which I still sit there and go. How did that ever happen? There's just there's too many weird Too many weird things. About what happened a few years ago that started all this stuff. Just you know I have serious issues has nothing to do with The Jews are behind this and the Jews are behind it.

You know. It has nothing to do with Talmudic Judaism versus secular Judaism versus that that and the other thing and the Insane idea that all Jews have the ability to communicate with each other mentally.

They can all accomplish their devious purposes even if they're religious or non-religious all this kind of insanity Just leaves you sitting here going what in the world is going on in the world today, so you can you can hold historic views Of biblical prophecy and the nature of the New Covenant.

And you can even in the Reformed community there are differing views as to Romans chapter 11 what all Israel means. Is there going to be a future restoration Jews there were lots of people who believe there's gonna be a future restoration of the the line of Abraham genetically Ethnic Jews in in the future there are people who believe that people who don't.

I don't I'm not convinced of that biblically. But that doesn't make you an anti-semite that doesn't make you Anything it just it just you don't have to get into all this the Jews are behind everything and Start posting memes of me with Jewish clothing on looking like a rabbi.

That that that meme is still floating around by the way if you want to get blocked go ahead post it I'll be happy to you know take the moment to block you and and Make you go away, and never see your utter foolishness again.

That's pretty fine, but anyway so it is amazing that The one thing that we need to be focused upon the one thing that we need to be dealing with Preparing our people for and Evangelizing about is the acidic impact of secularism on The human mind and soul and on human government that's what's behind everything that's going on and Everybody wants to you know it's like everybody.

The idea is we we have to come up with new names for these things we need to come up with ways of getting people Excited again, and we can't just keep beating the same drum even though. It's the same enemy.

So now we have to come up with other ways, and so it's it's the Jews. And it's the longhouse and it's feminism. And what's the root of all this stuff and it nobody cares about the root of all this stuff is and hence They're not actually dealing with the issue.

The the root of all of it has not changed. And I know you got to come up with new terms you're not up to speed James. You're you're you're a boomer you're old and the enemy hasn't chained. You know I mean, I've told you the story before it was it was after a program on KTKK radio in this little shack of a studio Up around North Temple in Salt Lake City.

Rich, and I were up there. I was just on with Van Hale. This was a long time ago. This was Early 90s at the latest maybe may have been late 80s. I'm not sure somewhere somewhere around that area. And The program is over.

We're getting ready to leave. It's late at night tired. I don't know it's like two hour long program so like that and Van said something to us that has. He's still around. I checked. He hasn't hasn't kicked the bucket.

Um. He said you know. You guys Keep focused on the same issues. You don't go chasing off after all. Whatever the big popular thing is now you know so that was right around the same time as the white salamander letter stuff came out and We Didn't jump on that now why because we were so wise no because Gerald and Sandra Tanner's smelled a rat and I had such still have such respect for them.

That I'm like whoa. I'm. We're gonna stay out of this one, and that was a good thing we didn't jump on that bandwagon and and chase that one around for a while and He said you guys stick to who God is what salvation is.

From the first time I met you and now you just keep going after the same thing and I don't know if he meant that as a criticism, but rich, and I took it as a major compliment and I'm gonna you know if if we end up you know with 12 followers.

And a and a hand-printed newsletter again, which we've had in the past believe me. That's fine. But I'm not going to change the focus upon what actually matters to start chasing after all this other stuff and So the reality is what this nation needs to understand is who mankind is who God is and The fact that secularism and all its children all its naturalistic materialism and everything else will destroy this nation and will destroy the human soul and The Lordship of Christ is the answer.

In all areas of human inquiry and endeavor that's just all there is to it and So we're not chasing after all that stuff. And we're not going after the Jews the Jews the Jews and and all the rest that silliness.

It's not going to not going to happen. Okay, I do have a video here from the United Methodist guy. I don't know if I'm going to get to that or not. Or if I'll be able to pull it up, but we'll we will see here now.

There were a couple things that I wanted to play and I'll just have to get to them later. Just don't have just like the one of them I was searching desperately toward the end to try to find the time index and it didn't didn't work for me.

And I did not have the time to learn how to use this thing. So we're going to use it. But evidently I can go over there and I can could actually start and stop it with the pen now I guess or something, but I don't really know how to do it yet.

And I can write on things and I could you know put mustaches on people and things like that I suppose if I want to. But I don't want to do that. But I specifically let Alex Sorin who is in the upper right hand corner there know that I was going to comment and while I was trying to find then I eventually found the Message from someone that gave me the time index, but while I was trying to find it I ran across something else that went.

Eastern Orthodox Claims About Apostolic Succession and Baptism

That's a strange element of conversation because I've had a chance to listen to this with Samuel Farag. I have. I don't know how many hours worth of stuff that I need to be listening to and trying to catch up on.

The reality is the the net produces. I mean Brother Ayala Eli Ayala did what was it five and a half hours with people on Eastern Orthodoxy this past weekend? Who knows what I'm gonna get a chance to catch up with that.

I mean I Don't know if I have enough driving to do this summer to catch up with everything like that. I could but I ran across something else and I went maybe we can sneak that in to this as well. It would be educational and interesting, but so I've seen I don't know much about Alex Sorin I've seen.

Since I'm following various Orthodox folks, and of course I'm In the midst of debate preparation in fact there was some guy. Some guy left some cryptic message and of course he hasn't answered which by means is bought anyways.

But some guy was like you need to need to quit running from debate challenges like I'd like care to document that and No response. Um, I have a feeling he's probably go. Yeah, you won't debate Jay Dyer.

It's like yeah, well, you don't know what you're talking about as obvious. Oh, by the way, I mentioned earlier, you know, Jay Dyer retired from doing apologetics and then unretired. To challenge David Wood to debate icon veneration.

Well, you know, I'm debating icon veneration October 17th with Craig Trillia it's gonna be I think a very different type of Context since we're specifically looking at Nicaea 2 and its context its history things like that.

But I'm I'm sure David will do a fine job. I just really wonder how that's gonna end up working out. Jay Dyer does have the ability to for a temporary period of time Sort of mute his inner child. Which is his primary? default mode.

So maybe he'll do that, but something tells me David is Cantankerous enough to cross swords with him and at that point Things could go really crazy as they do almost always whenever Jay Dyer Starts being Jay Dyer, which is his normal default mode anyway.

He's he's back and that's going to be interesting. I'm not sure when they're gonna do that type of day. I would imagine that would not be the formal type of debate that Craig Trillia and I are going to be doing.

Or the debate next year in Jonesboro on the atonement with Stephen DeYoung so I Don't know a lot about the Alex Soren fellow. I've seen him on a lot of online things. Just I've seen Stephen DeYoung on a lot of online things, too.

And Craig Trillia, I suppose so they they all do a lot of online stuff. Everybody does online stuff. I think there's a difference between doing online debating and In-person debating. I really Know when you when you spend months preparing for a debate.

It's a whole lot different than when you spend days preparing for a debate. I think the long-term value Is impacted by things like that. So anyway. Maybe Alex Soren is part of the the ortho bros. I've heard a lot about the ortho bros online.

I've run into only a few so far. Well, it could be that I've run into them more slowly and therefore have banned most of them. So I don't run hit them as a big group all the time. They do not have a good reputation online at all.

Of from anybody. In fact, I have an orthodox PowerPoint that was given a couple years ago and one of the complaints was the behavior of online orthodox young men and I've seen discussion from More solid mature orthodox leaders.

Really concerned about the behavior of the ortho bros online. And I have seen foul language. Of course, I've seen foul language from Roman Catholics. I've seen foul language from supposed Protestants not nearly as much as I see from Roman Catholics.

I mean Roman Catholicism and Profanity is a fascinating subject. I've always found many Roman Catholics more than willing to drop the. Drop the f-bombs and everything else. In the middle of a theological conversation, which I've always just gone.

Where'd that come from and normally is the end of the conversation to as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, so I don't know if he's one of the ortho bros. I'm sorry. Just this was sent to me and it's like, okay.

And you say well, why are you talking about because he talked about me? He that's why it was sent to me. Did you hear this? You might find this interesting. So let's hopefully I Am at the right place here.

Yeah, I think I am this will get they'll give this will give us enough context to know what was said beforehand and get a taste of it and. So here's some this is from modern-day debate. Samuel frog Versus Alex Sorin.

I mean this thing is like very long. Unfortunately, the font is too small to see. Oh, there you go five and a half hours. Does that say five hours and third s is five hours and 33 minutes. Let me just tell you right now I'm not doing any debates.

That are five hours and 33 minutes long. First of all, I'm almost 64 years of age and therefore it's impossible. It's physically impossible to sit for five hours and 33 minutes without taking numerous breaks in between.

But no, it no maybe over the course of a couple days. Like that, but no, no not gonna happen. So anyways, here's here's the section. Let's let's see what happened here.

So the Christ Church the one that he established has to fulfill all these criteria. One of the more interesting ones I see in Daniel 2 is that it will crush Those kings the empires that came before it who took over the Roman Empire who were the Christians at the time Christianity became the official religion of the Empire.

You see st. Gregory of Nazianzus st. Basil the great the Cappadocian fathers and their progenitor st. Cyril of Alexandria. You see these Christians all of them believed in apostolic succession. All of them believed that the Eucharist was a propitiatory sacrifice all of them believed that the Eucharist was had real spiritual effects that it was life-giving the antidote to death and the medicine for eternal life.

None of the early Christians understood the scriptures the way that a Baptist would and moreover Pastor Sam did not rise to my challenge to show even One person from the year 100 to the year 1100 that understood the scriptures in the way that he does.

There is nobody that understood the scriptures that we know about. You might say that there's a remnant but that is not the church that I read about in Daniel the one that I the Christ promised to us that will prevail over all the heresies.

He's talking about a church that lost to heresies. This is a ragtag band of rebels somewhere. That's not the church that conquered the Roman Empire that will last forever and never fall away. The Church of Christ is still here it's in the Orthodox Church and as one of my favorite Eastern Orthodox apologists one of the greatest Eastern Orthodox apologists of all time James White said it seems like the Eastern Orthodox Church is frozen in the year 800 exactly when Christianity took over the Byzantine Empire in fulfillment of the prophecies that you see in Daniel.

There is no Baptist Christian that did that.

Okay, so so there's the there's the comment I'm the his favorite Eastern Orthodox apologist now funny thing is we haven't done our first Eastern Orthodox debate yet, and I suppose if In October things went really well for the other side then there might be some kind of logical rational reason to To Make such a statement, but I have not written on the subject.

We haven't done Any of the two currently scheduled debates with leading? Orthodox apologists as yet, so When I heard this I'm just like See it would just never cross my mind to use this kind of rhetoric.

I don't understand the motivation. Evidently, it's this is what young men online want. They don't want truthfulness they don't want accuracy I don't want consistency they they want this kind of Mocking rhetoric.

That doesn't actually make you think because a thinking person would go well wait a minute. How how can that be I mean? What what's what's the what's the scholarly or factual backing for such a statement?

Well there isn't any and They might say well. It's not supposed to be it was meant to be funny. Well. It's not meant. It's not funny. If you think that's funny you have a very odd warped sense of humor.

But it's just insulting and it's insult. It's not only insulting me. It's insulting to the audience. Now What did I say? Yes, I believe as I look at church history as I look at the development of doctrine and theology over time what you have in the traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy is Byzantine state religion in the year 800 so 787 Empress Irene.

You have the the end of the iconoclastic controversy in essence. I mean there's actually a little Period after that you've got the Frankfurt and things like that, but leaving that aside in the West. Fundamentally you have The foundations of Eastern Orthodoxy today.

In The year 800 has have there has there been developments that well, you know I was watching I've been watching some Gavin Ortlund Dialogues he's had with a couple different people one of those is what I wanted to have queued up I wanted to play a segment of that and I could be able to get to it because I couldn't find the time index anyway and It's fascinating to hear the conversation About whether Protestants can be viewed as Christian.

Because you have the synod Jerusalem of 1672 in response to the Cyril the chorus stuff and and You have the confession of the CTS and clear statement about the heresies and I'll hold this off until I can play the section, but there's a conversation that Gavin had with a gentleman, and I'll wait to play it but just the absolute detestation of Reformed theology just he just makes this plain statement anybody who believes That kind of theology that that God is as Determined who's gonna be saved and who's not gonna be saved and it's all to his glory.

Cannot possibly be a Christian has never heard the voice of Christ. Just utterly impossible. Okay. That's You know that that kind of strident Language is What you have in? Official documents of that time today.

You have different perspective today. You have People who have a wider perspective for different reasons. But have a wider perspective within orthodoxy and it does seem to me that Orthodoxy has the same problem everybody else had.

Who gets to define it? Even today in Roman Catholicism who gets to define well the Pope does well, which one? You know one from a hundred years ago one from last year. Which which one gets to do that?

Is it to Joe Fernandez's? Interpretation is it the Conservative bishop over here. Yeah, I mean all sorts of different perspectives all sorts of different ways of understanding things and You have the same thing in Eastern Orthodoxy and it seems to me that I have heard a number of people pretty much all the people on in Eastern Orthodoxy who Speak with great confidence seem to feel that they pretty much are the best expert on what Eastern Orthodoxy really is.

And So you keep getting different answers To the same question, but there's only one Eastern Orthodoxy you see and it's give me a little frustrating When you're on the other side, especially when you're trying to be Accurate you don't want to misrepresent.

But the allegation is you are misrepresenting even though what you're actually doing is just Representing the fact that there's a lot of different answers from the other side and there isn't just one Position there are multiple position so it just struck me as Misleading Unkind uncharitable and certainly childish To make this kind of a statement.

So again, I don't know the fellow and and I don't know if he's serious enough to consider down the road after. There's I've sort of got a list of one or two more names after the two that we have scheduled right now.

That would I think provide a Real fair representation from the Eastern Orthodox side published authors Experienced Proven themselves able to engage in meaningful dialogue. You know If this was just sort of an aberration Then yeah, maybe there would be a possibility of something down the road.

But if this is the normal kind of stuff, then I you know, I just have to ask why would why do this? I don't understand the motivation. It wouldn't cross my mind To ever call somebody an apologist for my side.

I Mean there are some guys. I mean there are some people I've debated that were so bad That their own people were walking out of the debate, okay neither Ahmed. Oh my goodness. For the Muslims, I mean Every time I see him at a at an event as the Muslim representative.

I'm just like wow you guys Should have retired this guy a long time ago, but he has a long long long long long history of just face-plantingly bad argumentation. I Mean when I debated him I'd made him twice and then I was like, that's no we let's get serious now.

And one of those debates the the Muslims Were yelling at him from the audience. Okay, they were so unhappy. So, okay, I could I could see a humorous statement like, you know, you're one of our best apologists.

Um, but someone I don't even know never met Someone who's actually serious. Yeah, I didn't that didn't make any sense to me and so I would just I would just ask why. Something like that happened. Why don't you take that down a second?

Um, so I can change the stuff here. Oh Is that gonna okay. There you go. And I need to find the time stamp to the other section which I found very odd. Okay 10448. Let's see if we can oh that font, you know, I'm gonna have to look over here the fonts much larger over here.

So yeah, here we go. That's about as close as I can get. With this kind of a setup. So, let's um Let's listen to a section here the father.

In the name of God the Father Lord of all and of our Savior Jesus Christ and of the Holy Ghost. They receive the washing with water. Is that your view of baptism or is that closer to the Orthodox view of baptism?

No, I don't believe. Scripture teaches that one is regenerated by water baptism, which is okay. The scriptural view is what I would say. Okay, so st. Justin's view again is closer to the Orthodox view than the Baptist view, isn't it?

Yeah, that's that that's fine, okay. St. Ignatius says that there's no church without the bishop shouldn't that I won't look at. So.

Ignatius Is is often called upon Anachronistically and That Is what you do is you look you look back on his language and you fill his language with later development. So, you know like like I've had Roman Catholics say well there are the three offices are The Bishop and priest.

Are there in Ignatius and He never refers to a priest in in any way shape or form. What they're doing is they're looking at Presbyter and They're looking at how Presbyter developed 100 years later and then reading that back into Ignatius.

It's Roman Catholicism. Does it all the time evidently? Eastern Orthodoxy does too. And here's a here's a good a good example coming from Alex Orin.

Uh, you guys don't have any bishops. Do you in in Baptist theology. What? Okay, look I.

Guess I can understand that I Guess I can you know, I mean if you've taken no time whatsoever to know what your opponent believes Then I can understand why someone would say well, I've never heard anybody talk about a bishop this a bishop that Um, the reality is I wouldn't have any problem Debating the New Testament Doctrine of ecclesiology I've written on it the five views of church government book from Wow back in the early 2000s, I did the plurality of elders and so though I've got a whole section on The fact that Presbyteros Episcopos same office used interchangeably by the Apostle The diaconate you have the qualifications laid out in Timothy and Titus.

It's very plain the Apostles went church to church ordaining the elders in Acts chapter 20 when Paul's on his way to Jerusalem, he calls for the Presbyteroi from Ephesus and the elders come it's this it's used interchangeably by Luke by Paul.

You you simply cannot come up with a distinction. You cannot come up with the idea that Presbyteros means priest Eros here on that. No, so there's perfectly good words for priest and They are not used of an office.

There are no qualifications ever given. The the New Testament view of offices is not difficult to Understand not not difficult at all and so Yes, we have bishops because we have Episcopoi. But see once you accept Okay Byzantine state religion from the year 800 as being Apostolic then you can read everything it came before in light of the definitions develop after and That's the problem here.

That's that's what you're seeing here is you have someone who's ignorant of Baptist ecclesiology. Probably doesn't think it's advanced enough to even bother to read it anyways. And I'll be honest with you vast majority of Baptists.

Don't I think about their own ecclesiology either? So it's How can you necessarily pick on on the poor Eastern Orthodox guy when most Baptists I Mean I was literally in seminary. I Was literally in seminary.

I Remember the night in class When I'm sitting here Looking at the reality in Acts that the Apostles ordained Elders in The churches not deacons, you know the old Baptist polity is the the deacons run the church they hire and fire the pastor and What a mess that is.

Nowhere to be found in Scripture, but man that is that's where most Baptist churches are Reform Baptist churches. No, we have a we have a confession. Look the Southern Baptist Convention just had to pass the molar amendment.

And they're gonna have to pass it again next year to make it stick. That that only says something as basic as the office of pastor elder is. For men only they're the only ones there are given qualifications in the New Testament.

They just had to do that. I wonder how many people walked in there going never heard of any of this stuff before, you know so You know, I can't can't fault him. For being as ignorant as most Baptists are of their own ecclesiology, I'm much more faulting Baptists for that.

But to Alex no, we we do have. We do have bishops. That's one office in the New Testament and we actually Define it on the apostolic basis not on the Supra apostolic it's where you you develop things later that don't have anything to do with the Apostles and Then read it back into and say ah, this is apostolic.

That's one of the major issues That separate us is the fact that I'll be directly honest with you I don't think you guys can do church history and neither can Rome. I'll tell you why I say this as a professor of church history.

Um Roman Catholics have written a lot of good churches church history books but they weren't being good Roman Catholics if they did it and Here's why? Rome tells Roman Catholics What is apostolic and what has been taught from the beginning even when it hasn't been taught from the beginning?

And you agree with me on this. If you read status cognitum From the Roman Catholic side and what they say about the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. They say that's what's been believed from the beginning and you and I agree.

That's not true. And so hopefully for a second anyways, you can see because we agree about that That you can't just accept the ultimate authority of your system and then read that back into history because that's the Roman Catholic does and you Agree in that instance, it's wrong.

But here's the question. Here's the issue. Do you do the same thing is? Your commitment to the idea that this is the one Orthodox Church. It has never changed. Does that cause you to engage in massive anachronistic reading of Earlier sources reading back into their simple language the complexities of later traditional development.

I know you don't like the term development. But it's there you got to deal with it. And I say to you that I as a Reformed Baptist and let the early church fathers be the early church father. I Don't have to turn them into Reformed Baptist because my claim is not that they were Reformed Baptist your claim is that they were Orthodox and So you have to do with them what you have to do with them To keep them Orthodox just like the Roman Catholic has to keep their Roman Catholic.

Except they don't have to do it quite as much because they've got Newman and you don't have a Newman Yet But you might get one. I don't know what that would look like but There you go. So, um, I can let the early church fathers be the early church father.

That's a It takes a lot of pressure off you really does.

So if we look at how Paul and Peter used the term overseer, which is the term bishop. It's an elder and I'm an elder. So therefore I'm also a bishop. It's the same rule bit elder. Overseer overseer Shepherd has been interchangeably used by Peter and Paul.

So we do handlers. They are the ones who are in who are and sometimes there's a plurality at a church. So yes, the Baptist churches are led by bishops. Okay, so is. Is every elder also an apostle because st. Peter says he's a fellow apostle.

Huh?

Uh. As soon as I heard that I stopped and I think I think The look on Sam's face is the same thing that I would say. Apostles are a unique one-time office. They were witnesses the resurrection. There are only 12 foundations in the in the wall of Jerusalem.

There are only 12 apostles. So What what. And then I then what you hear here what we'll hear here you'll hear here will help you to understand the Orthodox way of Anachronistically listening to not only history but to the New Testament as well.

And this is this is why it was worth doing this. Because for there to be meaningful dialogue and discussion we have to overcome language barrier and There are some major language barriers there there are language barriers between ourselves.