Pulpit & Pen, Sam Shamoun, TR Onlyism, Oh My!

Opening Remarks and the Bee Sting on the Bike

Greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. Might as well get this out of the way first. Yes, I look like a mess today and not overly unusual, but very briefly, that's what happens when you attempt to occupy the same physical space as a bee while going between 30 and 32 miles per hour down a hill on your bike out in the desert.

I think it was, what, about two, three years ago, I got a real bad sting, my whole face. And when you're going that fast, as soon as it hits and you can feel it stinging you, you still have to stop first.

And so even with good disc brakes, it's a long time before you get stopped because you're just feeling that thing digging in there. And even as it was, I stopped at a fire station about 10 minutes later and a kind fireman was looking and it seems they had a Benadryl.

I found some, I actually had some in my pack, but he's looking, he goes, hold on a second, and reaches up there and pulls the stinger out. It was still there and sort of hard to do for yourself. So anyways, it looks worse than it feels, but I'm going to look sort of messed up for a while.

But that's neither here nor there. Hope it doesn't distract you too much. If it does, just minimize the window and listen. I don't think I'm going to be playing anything today anyway, so it doesn't really matter much one way or the other.

Cultural Marxism, Fundamentalism, and the Limits of Heart-Judging

I'm going to have to address a lot of stuff that I don't want to necessarily have to address to be able to explain some other things. Lots of talk going on right now. Let's start. I had a fellow on Twitter yesterday saying you need to respond to this.

And this was the, I don't know if that was the polemics report or just what it was from, let's see today's Thursday, so what, Tuesday? Yeah, record the same day as we did the Paul Edwards show in Detroit.

And so thankfully, when I clicked on the link, there is a button that allows you to listen at 1 .5x so you could get through a whole lot faster. And so I listened and there was all sorts of stuff that if we wanted to start a full scale war, it would be very easy to take that kind of material, break it down, give you all the, I described it to someone on Twitter as an 11 year old with ADD who's gotten angry about something.

Because there are simply times where that's exactly what it was, where you're using all sorts of imitations and voices and about stuff you shouldn't be doing that about. I mean, we have fun on the program too, but this is while you are attacking all sorts of people for all sorts of things.

Make a long story short, one of the clear problems, and I brought this up on the Paul Edwards show, so let me expand upon it just a little bit here. One of the clear problems, one of the examples that was brought up, and it's just one of those many things that would be very enjoyable if I had an entire staff of researchers and things like that to engage, but I don't know, it was about what, a month ago, a month and a half ago, all of us who are connected to the fight against cultural Marxism, intersectionality, whatever you want to call the current movement as it's coming into the church, and in society as a whole.

I mean, wow. I was just listening to, I was grabbing a real light bite, and I had Fox News on, and they were, was it Fox News? Or was it somebody else? Maybe it wasn't that. Anyways, they were talking about Justin Trudeau, and this guy can't get through two sentences without using one of the big buzzwords you're supposed to use to prove your wokeness.

I mean, he is just the wokest woke that's ever woked, and this kind of stuff is just, as in Canada, debilitating to government, society, everything else. It's everywhere. It is pure poison, but one of the issues that has to be understood is you can be influenced by both truth and error, and that level of influence can be lesser or greater.

Fundamentalists of whatever stripe, there are religious fundamentalists, there are societal fundamentalists. What I'm referring to here is not the historic meaning of fundamentalism. That's pretty much not even relevant anymore.

Nobody knows what the modernist background, nobody cares about that. The fundamentalist mindset that attempts to enforce an absolute black and white world on the rest of us and on reality, that fundamentalist mindset cannot accept the idea that someone can be in a greater way or a lesser way influenced by good or bad.

It's either snow-driven purity or you're going to hell and you're actually Satan acting like somebody who isn't. So when we talk about social justice issues, when we talk about critical theory, like I said a month and a half or so ago, these class notes from Jarvis Williams' class, one of Jarvis Williams' classes at Southern Seminary, were sent around to all of us.

We all probably got the exact same day, I got the exact same stuff that JD Hall got at the same time that JD Hall got it. I think it might have actually been when I was in South Africa now that I think about it.

Sounds about right. Anyway, I looked at it and I'm like, wow, this would be something that would be an enjoyable deep dive. This would be fascinating to delve into. Never did get around to it, but there is no question in my mind that Jarvis Williams has been influenced by critical theory, critical race theory, and the worldview associated with it.

No question about that. What was interesting is I was much more concerned by the fact that I detected an influence of a new perspective on Paul idea in much of what was being said. Nobody cares about that anymore.

That's irrelevant now. We've got to fight social justice. Well, I think it's quite relevant. But anyway, do I believe that Jarvis Williams has been influenced by critical theory? Yes. Does that turn him into a cultural Marxist?

And here's where the fundamentalism comes in. Let's say Jarvis Williams really does desire, which I cannot prove, but let's say he really does desire to inculcate in a nefarious way critical theory in the thinking of his students, to basically crank them out as fellow cultural Marxists.

The fundamentalist idea is, and therefore anyone associated with him is also a cultural Marxist. There can't be the idea that here you have a scholar who has been influenced by this to a certain degree and has been influenced by opposing concepts to a certain degree so that there is a level of, we might say, inconsistency.

There's no room for gray areas, there's no room for inconsistency, there's no room for anything like that in the fundamentalist mindset. Either you attack Jarvis Williams and anyone who would dare eat at the same table with Jarvis Williams, or you're a lying cultural Marxist.

That's the fundamentalist mindset. That's the way of thinking that's not going to get us anywhere in the long run. It can only create division and it only shuts down any meaningful communication across lines because it doesn't want communication across lines.

It's already come to its own conclusion. This is bad you are influenced by it, I don't care how much, therefore you are bad and you need to be fired or we need to put your picture on the internet or whatever.

This is what I was trying to say to Paul Edwards is that kind of thinking is what's behind the cannibalization of anyone who is fully cognizant of the fact that critical theory is an anti-christian concept.

It truly is. Okay, what do you do with someone who says my faith is in Jesus Christ and they have been influenced by it? Maybe influenced second or third hand, maybe influenced by people that meant a lot to them in their lives, maybe they read certain books at a point in their life that had a huge impact upon them and that is what opened the door to certain influences.

What do you do with the person who has a 30 negative influence, 70 positive influence in that area? So you've got critical theory doing 30%, but then you've got biblical truth pushing back 70%. What do you do there?

There is no room for that. There is no room for that complexity in the fundamentalist mindset. And so, as a result, you have in Mr. Hall's comments, you know, not only, you never did find the kind things he said about you?

I never did. But you're a lackey and you just do, you know, just totally dismissed as having any understanding of anything. I don't know if a lackey is better than a toady. I'm not sure. I've not looked up Miriam's Unabridged or the Oxford on how those rate.

I'm not sure which is, you can look that up though. So, but anyways, what were we talking about? Moses was in the bullrushes. And anyway, and of course, then there was the one crack about people who would disagree with him or be naive.

See, the fundamentalist says that I'm being naive because I don't realize that cultural Marxists could be deceptive. Actually, I do. But what I don't believe is that I have the ability to read men's hearts.

And I don't believe I've been called to do that. And I do believe I can trust that to God. And so I look to his revealed will as to how I am to interact with those who make a credible profession of faith, an orthodox profession of faith.

Um, that's not relevant to, to the fundamentalist mindset, which it doesn't matter what they say. They're all liars. And so if they, if they've, if they've eaten in the same restaurant with that guy, they're clearly don't care.

How can you not see this? That's the fundamentalist mindset. And so people like me were described as having, um, the brains of a fruit fly, the brains of a fruit fly. Now, I, I particularly appreciated that.

Um, because as I've said in this program many times, uh, my senior year in a college, uh, I raised, um, between 25 and 35 ,000, I think it was 35 ,000 Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies. Uh, I can still see their little beady eyes today.

They're not beady. I mean, flies have those multifaceted eyes, but the different eye colors, white and red, and it was, it was fascinating anyways. So, uh, I had to, I had to count them under a microscope microscope.

So they are very small, which means they have very, very limited mental capacity. So, uh, certain people think that, you know, if you don't agree with them, you have, have the brains of a, of a fruit fly.

Uh, what? But Satan. Yes. But Satan. Yes. I know. I know. I know. I know. It's, it's hard to, it's hard to reason, um, with this, uh, this particular perspective, but to then have that being used to say, and that means this person is a cultural Marxist, even though they speak against all the time.

This person is a cultural Marxist and they are a bold faced liar. Well, there you go. Uh, all based upon this idea, um, that as long as I'm, uh, as long as I'm around, I can judge everyone's hearts and I can do it from a long ways away.

Um, that was, uh, that was yesterday. Um, and, uh, I just didn't, I just did not, um, not have any reason to play any of that, uh, that material. But what's fascinating is the confluence of various people, because think about this.

Um, J .D. Hall sat right there at one point, and we did, did a program back at the Theonomy, uh, debate, uh, time a couple of years ago. Um, and I'm not sure who detests me more, um, uh, him or his opponent in that debate.

Now that I think about it. Um, yeah, that's interesting. And then I don't know how many times we've had, uh, Sam Shamoon on the program. Um, and what's weird is they're all connected together now. It, the, the, the internet creates such a weird world.

It really, really does. Um, Steven Anderson's probably in there someplace. Oh, he is. He is, he is in there because, um, the, the, uh, article that was posted on Pulpit and Pen, uh, by Dane Johanson, they're the guys that we were talking about with, um, with Steven Anderson and Sam Shamoon has positively quoted and posted the stuff with Steven Anderson.

Um, and so now I bring people together. Thank you, Rich. You're always looking for the sunny, the sunny side of things. It's true. I just, they, they all come together in their hatred of me. That's I, I, I help people out.

It's great. Anyway. Um, so you've, you've got all these different, you've got critical theory topics, and you've got King James issue topics and anti-reform topics. It's, it's really strange that these are all coming together all at the same time in a jumbled mess, really, because this morning I start getting, uh, messages about, uh, an article posted on Pulpit and Pen, five good reasons reform and confessional Christians should use the KJV from Dane Johanson.

Now it's interesting because the, um, yeah, here, this, this has been tacked on at the end. Oh yeah. Josh, uh, Josh Nyemi says yesterday, I challenged Sam's straw man, Leviticus 16 national atonement.

Today I am blocked. Brother, not only do I appreciate your book on that subject, um, but get used to it. Um, get used to it. I actually unblocked Sam, uh, because he was griping and complaining about it.

I was like, okay, fine. Rail away. Uh, I said, the only reason I blocked you is because I had tried and tried and tried to reconcile with you, to be supportive of you. And you just wanted it. You want, you don't have it.

And so I just got tired of seeing the attacks, the unfair attacks on me. So I blocked you. So I've unblocked him. Um, but, uh, who knows? I, I, he can't really block me right now. Cause that's the main way that we will be able to set up, uh, the debates, uh, for March, April, that, that timeframe, uh, next year, I'll tell you all about that in a, in a moment.

But, um, should have brought your book in and, and, uh, uh, show to the folks again. Anyways, uh, at the end of the article on pulpit and pen, uh, now, no, what's funny is when I mentioned the other article from the Agos Church guys, um, Sam Shamoon referenced that, except Sam's become rapidly anti-reformed.

In fact, I don't know where Sam is anymore. I don't know. I, some people have said he seems to be moving toward, uh, a Syrian orthodoxy. He's been for, for a couple of years, he's been posting stuff about prayers to the saints and Mary.

And, and I, every time everyone would contact me, uh, I'd, I'd say, yeah, Sam just likes to, to stir the pot. He likes to get people talking that that's all it is. And now I realize it wasn't all it is.

And so I don't know where he is. And I, I would like to find out, I don't think it would be appropriate to do a debate without a very clearly stated position from both sides. Uh, because a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing Sam saying sounds like either universalism or some kind of sacramental system.

Um, I don't know because I'm not the one that's changed. He is. So he needs to define where he's gone, how he got there, whatever. Um, everybody knows where I am and got plenty of books that we'll be able to document where, where I'm standing and, and stuff like that.

But anyways, back to the article. Um, this article does not necessarily reflect the view of pulpit and pen, which typically uses the ESV in our citations. It is an issue of growing concern among reformed Christians, however, and many are taking a second look at the argument presented for using the Texas Receptus.

Opposing scholarly viewpoints are encouraged and may be sent to PNP to be considered for publication at talkbackatpulpitandpen .org. I'm tempted, but I don't have time to, um, that would be interesting.

Um, so we don't necessarily agree with this cause cause we use ESV. So, but, but you know, you know, this is this, so are they just stirring the waters doing the same thing that, you know, Sam allegedly was, um, or, or what?

Uh, I don't know. So it just struck me as amazing that you would have this article right now appearing at pulpit and pen at the same time that Sam Shamoon's going after me again. And I've said, you want, you want to debate?

Let me just go ahead and before I do that, let me just go ahead and say what happened. Um, you can, you can go to Shamoon's Facebook page and there's all sorts of stuff there. Uh, and it's, you know, um, but basically he was promoting David Allen's stuff and saying, ah, Allen's just blown all this ice of Jesus.

Just, just read through the past two weeks worth of stuff and, and Mark, how many shots just straight shots? I mean, unnecessary, uh, stir up the waters chum to, to the, to the people who want to, you know, um, follow you and get all angry and stuff like that.

Uh, just, just nasty stuff that unfortunately, uh, Sam knows better. I know that he knows better. He has said that he knows better, but he can't stop it. He just, he just can't stop it. Um, and so I said, you know, he was, he was saying, uh, he'll never debate me.

He would never, I would destroy him. So I'm like, uh, since that was specifically about Romans eight, all right, let's debate Romans eight 31 to 34. See what he's doing. He's so deceptive. He's so dishonest.

He's so predictable. Hey, I never said anything about that. We're supposed to debate limited atonement. Okay. So we can broaden the subject out. We can do limited atonement. Um, well, that means we're going to have to look at my passages as it's like, no, well, we'll do limited atonement.

If you want to bring up Colossians one, bring up Colossians one, I'm going to bring up Romans eight. It's one of the clearest statements on the, on the text. Um, and we'll, we'll, we'll debate that. And how about let's, let's also debate your, your textual critical position that you, um, I don't, I don't know that Sam really understands that position, but here's the problem.

He can't hold the position that he's quoting because he's now become rabidly anti-reformed and it's a reformed position. You, you've, if you're sitting on a tree limb, you just cut the limb off because the guys that you are using to support this perspective are all reformed and they're being reformed is central to their reasoning.

So if you say that, for example, the reformed understanding of Romans nine is pure eisegesis and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm foolish and you'll just destroy me. Sam loves to destroy everybody. Um, you'll just destroy me.

Um, that's the argument of the people you've been promoting. So are you going to come up with some, some other argument? Um, I don't know. We're going to need to have some very firm ground rules and positions laid out, uh, to be able to, uh, to make this work.

But I think it's an important topic and I'm willing to endure what I'm going to have to and I know what I'm going to have to endure, uh, to, to make this happen. Um, but one of the reasons I wanted to do this is, um, on September 13th, so six days ago, Sam posted this.

I'm looking at his, his Facebook page right now. And here's, here's the real issue. It's one thing for him to, um, just attack me for, you know, on everything. I don't, I don't know why I thought that was dealt with.

I guess I was wrong. Um, but it's, it's this kind of stuff that I think needs, needs to be called out and it needs to be dealt with, uh, by everybody, by everybody. And so on September 13th, Sam posted an article.

I'm just going to read you, um, what it says here. It's a link to his blog where he's written an article. Um, and the article starts off cause it's, you can see part of it in the link. This series initially was intended to, to be a reply to another Muslim neophyte in order to expose his blatant inconsistencies and selective use of sources.

That's how it starts. But here's this description. Finally, after all these years, I've published the first part in a series of refutation to an article posted on the site of Mohammedan polemicist and a member of the sewage of Islam, Bassam Zawadi, who tried to argue that Luke did not hold the vicarious sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus.

Then he gives the link. Lord willing, once my series is done, he will have wished that he never posted his sham piece, but rather have spent that time smothering the black stone as his pagan prophet P-R-O-F-I-T used to do.

So here, this is how you introduce an article you've written specifically to defend, quote, the vicarious sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus, end quote. The danger of apologetics, especially when it is disconnected from ministry in the church, and for the vast majority of apologists, it is.

And as far as I know with Sam, it always has been. I do not believe he has any type of consistent, in-depth teaching ministry within a sound local church. And I've asked about that many times and I've always gotten very vague responses.

But there is no balance there. And the great danger to anyone apologetics is that this kind of attitude can be fostered and not challenged and not corrected. Let's say that Sam does a wonderful job in marshalling arguments and facts and resources to refute Bassam Zawadi on the subject of Luke, the gospel of Luke, and the issue of atonement, basically.

Let's say that it's masterfully argued and that it's in-depth and that it responds to every argument that Bassam put forward. When you introduce your defense of the gospel by throwing battery acid in the face of the person to whom you are offering it, what does that say about your actual motivations?

What does that say? Um, so a Mohammedan polemicist and a member of the sewage of Islam. So we ask ourselves an honest question. Why has this article been written? What's the motivation that has been revealed by the words that reveal the heart?

And then that second paragraph, Lord willing, Lord willing, Lord willing. I wouldn't want to be responsible for that one. Once my series is done, he will have wished that he never posted his sham piece, but rather have spent that time smothering the black stone as pagan prophet used to do.

Lord willing? Um, it is transparent. It is unquestionable that the motivations revealed by the words, the words reveal the heart. The words reveal the heart. Now, the subject that Bassam Zawadi has brought up is an important subject, and I am thankful that by God's grace, not because of any good in me, that there's more than one Muslim who would be willing to dialogue with me on this subject because there's a major difference.

They understand that I actually seek to be consistent in my profession of faith and care for them. It's sort of a necessary thing. If you destroy the essence of what you're trying to say to someone, if you reveal that you have no concern for them, you have nothing but disrespect for them, you detest them as individuals, you don't care if they ever repent.

You're just going to blast away and he's going to wish that he never posted his sham piece, but rather spent that time smothering the black stone of his pagan prophet. Yeah, that's how to really, you know, add to the impact of your presentation.

No, what it does is it tells Bassam and every other Muslim, here, believe in Jesus. He loves you. I don't, but he does. There you go. It just shouldn't be. It just shouldn't be. And making the excuse that, well, it's just his background or whatever else it is, doesn't work.

Shouldn't have ever done it, but there it is. Now, if you'd like to see how that kind of debate can take place, Bassam and I did a debate a number of years ago in London and have talked to one another about the possibility of doing it again.

And that would be an excellent subject, atonement in Islam and Christianity. And how many Muslims do you think might be tempted to listen to that While not tempted at all to read what Sam says here. All because of a simple matter of restraint, consistency, controlling of one's anger.

Yeah, well, there you go. There was, like I said, there was a lot more as I scrolled up, but just as an example, a fellow by the name of Christopher Ottewell responded to Sam posting stuff from David Allen.

And here's what Christopher said. Personally, I am persuaded by the doctrine of limited, definite atonement. However, I respect and value both you, your ministry, and also that of James White. I have learned a tremendous amount from you, and in doing so, my faith has been strengthened greatly.

I would love to see a debate come to fruition. God bless you. That's good. That's nice. Then someone asked him a question and Christopher responded. Whole world does not mean every single person, but people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

For indeed, he is the savior of the whole world, Jews and Gentiles alike. The elect are persons from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That is the consistent way of understanding New Testament usage. We can demonstrate this from passage after passage, but it was presented succinctly, kindly.

Sam responded. So here's how Sam responds to a kind, fair, non-emotional, just statement of what the Reformed believe. You obviously don't read. Whole world in 1 John refers to the world in opposition to God under the influence of Satan, who are distinguished from believers.

So stop twisting the text to make it fit with your tradition. Moreover, using your eisegesis, whole world does mean every single individual. Hence, the use of the word whole. Whole, by necessity, includes everything that makes up the world.

This is why your man-made tradition of limited atonement is pathetic, since it is always explaining away the Bible. I .e., not only does world not mean everyone, but even the use of whole before the term world doesn't mean that either.

You guys are truly pathetic. I didn't write it. I didn't write it. You just turn the light on it and go, wow. Now, you might be sitting there saying, well, if you're going to debate him, aren't you expecting to get exactly that?

Yeah. Well, I mean, things could change every now and then. That'd be nice. But the fact is that kind of rhetoric doesn't do well in debates, at least not with the people that I'm interested in influencing, and that's people who want to be serious about their theology and about their beliefs.

Because when you say whole world and you are talking about, again, the term kosmos, people have identified between 10 and 17 different uses of kosmos in John alone. And in 1 John, as we've talked about many times, there are numerous uses of the term kosmos, especially as love not the things of the world.

Well, if kosmos means every single person, then don't love anybody. Well, obviously that's not what it's talking about. Every word in serious Christian scholarship, in serious scholarship from anyone's perspective, any word is defined by its contextual use, its semantic domain in the context in which it is used.

And so saying whole world does not change if you're saying that what's being discussed here are kinds rather than individuals, Jews and Gentiles. Saying whole world does not change that. It just emphasizes that, maybe emphasizing that outside just the realm of the limited experience within the Roman Empire to the whole world, people everywhere.

It doesn't change the reality that you're talking about Jews and Gentiles. So just throwing the term eisegesis out there, without being able to demonstrate what the eisegesis is, doesn't accomplish anything.

Again, you can get folks all excited about that kind of thing. If the type of followers you want to have are those kind of followers, you can get people excited just by throwing stuff out there. But if you want to actually be consistent, use the exact same method of interpretation in defending the Trinity and the resurrection that you do and everything else, that's where the problem is definitely going to come in.

So we are looking to, you know, I mentioned, Paul Everett talked about coming up to Detroit, we're looking at going to Detroit. I'm going to get a hold of Paul and say, got a weekend somewhere in March, April, we'll get ourselves there and maybe we can do something.

And then we're going to need to find a, you know, proper venue and proper recording facilities. And those videotapes will have to be, those video recordings will have to be provided in toto that night.

I think just for safety's sake. Um, uh, but two debates on the issue of the atonement and on the textual critical issues. Um, of course I need to know what the other side is because right now I honestly don't know.

I honestly don't know. It can't be the TR only position of the people he's been quoting because he's become rapidly anti-reformed. So what the Westminster confession of faith says is irrelevant, so it can't be that.

So what is it? What's, what's the position? What is the, what is the supremacy of the Byzantine manuscripts? It's got to take a position. Um, is it, is it the TR? Is it, you know, you know, what is it?

And I'll, I'll defend the ECM, which is what's underlies the that's the island 28th and who knows by then it might be 29th. Um, UBS 5 text platforms and, um, we'll see how that goes. Uh, okay. Um, so I didn't mean to drop that down there.

The Pulpit and Pen KJV Article and the Confessional Text Debate

The article that was published in Pulp and Pen, five good reasons reformed confessional Christians should use KJV. Let's just try to get through this as quick as I can have addressed all these things many, many times before, but I think it's good to do so since it was provided.

And I've got one other thing to look at after that. Theological reason, my first reason for holding to the confessional text position, which is a new, it's, that's what they're, they're using now, which, which Sam could not hold to because the confessions that are being referred to here are reformed.

So, uh, Rich, before you run, uh, since I'm reading over here, it'd be better to fix things before you, he was, he was leaving anyways. He's, he's bored. Um, so my first reason for holding the confessional text position, um, which I would just, in other words, promoting the concept of the Texas Receptives, uh, going back, let's, let's go back, uh, to the 16th century.

Everything that's happened since then, uh, all the advancements, all the manuscripts, throw it out. Let's go back to the 16th century. My first reason for holding the confessional text position is because it is founded on theological grounds.

Rather than starting with man and his ability to correctly interpret the manuscript evidence, which is what every single editor that produced the TR was doing by their own words, the confessional text position begins with faith in God's promise to preserve and deliver his word to his people, and not simply to inspire it and leave it to man to assemble the surviving pieces together.

Lord Jesus Christ gave his promise in Matthew 5, 18, for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law to all be fulfilled. Um, that actually is only by extension to be applied to any concept of preservation.

Um, this is actually the abiding validity of the law, but anyway. Matthew 24, 35, heaven and earth shall pass away. My word shall not pass away. That's because of who he is. It's not really about a particular text platform.

Further, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy, and then we have a citation of, a miscitation, because it says 1 Timothy, it's 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17, all scripture given by inspiration of God, which is actually not the best translation of that term at all, but if you're just going to use the King James, you're sort of stuck with it.

The confessional text position begins with faith as its starting point, believing that because Jesus promised that none of his words shall pass away, therefore God will certainly keep his promise and give his word unto his church, not in part, but in full.

The Puritan John Owen, a chief framer of the Savoy Declaration of Faith and attendant to the Westminster Assembly states, the scriptures of the old and new Testament, which were immediately and entirely given out by God himself are by his good and merciful providential dispensation preserved unto us entire in the original languages.

By the way, all believing people believe that today. This is not a confessional text position. They have to limit that to what was only known at that particular point in time. Neither John Owen nor anyone else back then knew anything about the papyri, the great unseals, well, might have known about Vaticanus.

So again, one of the primary problems with this entire position is how horrifically anachronistic it is. It reads things into and out of history because it's not a textual critical position. Again, let me emphasize this.

This position, TR-onlyism, the traditional text, call it whatever you want, is not a textual critical position. It is a theological assertion, but it's not a textual critical position because you could not use this methodology to derive the textus receptus.

You start with the TR, and then you do with the facts what you need to do to keep the TR. That's not textual criticism. I'm not sure what it is. Circular argumentation is what it is, but that's what it is.

Michael J. Kruger makes a fantastic argument from faith for the canon of scripture, which books the long Bible, when he says, by the way, Michael Kruger does not accept or promote the application of his canon argument to this area.

Just so you all know, he doesn't. They keep using it. He doesn't. So there's a misuse here. We've pointed this out. They won't stop. They just keep doing it. The books received by the Church inform our understanding of which books are canonical, not because the Church is infallible or because it created or constituted the canon, but because the Church's reception of these books is a natural and inevitable outworking of the self-authenticating nature of scripture.

Now, see, here's the problem. I agree with Michael Kruger, so much so that Michael Kruger and I have a video out where we talk about these things, and there were none of these guys talking about these things at that at that meeting of the G3 two years ago.

So, the Book of Romans can be dealt with as the Book of Romans, as the self-authenticating nature of scripture in light of the Church's acceptance of the Book of Romans. That does not answer the question of whether we need to have an omega or an omicron between the chi and echelon.

I'm going to lose everybody there. Whether it reads the subjunctive or indicative in Romans 5 .1. Those are two different issues. Those are two different issues. And the Church, however you want to define that, has never spoken as the Church to whether you need to have an omicron or an omega there.

Hasn't done it. So, I could have pulled that up on the screen or something, but taking too much time anyways. So, there is a fundamental difference between utilization of Kruger's argument, and this is one of the primary errors of this movement.

Jeff Riddle, come on down. Almost all the references that were given were Jeff Riddle stuff. But it is an inappropriate, and they're doing this conference in October in Atlanta. Remember, I said, hey, I'd be glad to come debate.

Nope, not interested. Some other time, somewhere else. But they're going to be doing this thing, and what you're going to hear over and over again is Kruger's argument misapplied to something that Kruger never applies it to.

And they're missing the distinction between the proper area of textual critical analysis, which every single person that put together the TR would have agreed with and practiced, and the issue of the book as a whole being accepted by the Church as a whole as canon scripture over against something else.

Those are two different areas. Are they related? Well, in the sense that we're talking about aspects of scripture, of course, but the determination of that Omicron or that Omega has not been determined by the quote-unquote Church.

And especially that one, by the way, I pulled that one out of the air, but I can show you Byzantine manuscripts. The manuscript tradition is split there. In fact, the manuscript tradition has the external evidence is in favor of the subjunctive.

So I'm looking forward to what CBGM is going to do with that. I really, really am. It can't be too many more years till that's going to come out. But anyways, Kruger argues for a theological method for determining the canon of scripture.

This means that we are to argue theologically for which books belong in the Bible rather than from evidence alone. But the confessional text position takes this theological method a step further than he does.

And of course, knowing that he does not do this and therefore does not see it as a valid application of his system. Applying this faith-based starting point, not just the titles of the books, but also their contents.