Sola Scriptura Debate Debrief w/Trey Fisher from the Parish Reformed

In Roman Catholicism says, well, Scripture isn't the sole infallible, it is ultimate,

it is infallible or inerrant.

So we're going to talk about how they would actually say that it's not infallible, we'll get into that.

But sure, the Word of God is the ultimate authority, but it's not the sole

ultimate authority.

They say there's other ultimate authorities like the church, which would include the magisterium and the Pope speaking

from the chair,.

And then you got tradition.

Hello, and welcome to The Apologetic Dog, where it is our heart's.

Desire to guard the truthfulness of the gospel and to avoid pagan philosophy while we're contending for

truth and knowledge.

And today I have a very special guest, a really good friend, Trey Fisher.

Trey, what's going on, man?

What's up, buddy?

How you doing, Jeremiah?

Always good seeing you.

I am blessed.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

We've already done some stuff together, but we may have some new people viewing.

So who are you and what do you do?

So I'm a pastor at a church in Louisiana called the Parish of the Redeemer, and we have a podcast called

The Parish Reformed, and we just have a passion, same thing for you, man, defending the truth,

defending God's Word, and I just want people to love God's Word and know this is not a boring book,

and I think in the American gospel, if we're going to be honest, it is pretty boring, but when we really

understand it, man, it's an amazing thing,.

And so I just want people to fall in love with it.

Well, would you say that this Bible is more than just ink on a page?

Would you say it's like, I don't know, living and active or something?

Living and active, kind of like a double -edged sword.

Well, that actually transitions over to what we want to be talking about today.

We want to talk about the topic, Sola Scriptura, and I recently did a debate.

Now, Trey,.

Were you able to watch that debate at all?

I watched it.

I told you, I watched it at 3 a .m.

I probably was the only person that watched it at 3 a .m., but you got to find time to do what you got to do, and

so it was a pretty deep debate, so you're debating some of

the top two.

Roman.

Catholic theologians, right?

Yes, and I want to brag on my friend Merrick Kaiser.

He's 17 years old.

I told him that if he went to my church, he'd be in my youth group, and I would love it, and I'd constantly be looking at him like, did I say that

correctly?

And he'd be like,.

Nope.

He is a prodigy, isn't he?

He is the young prodigy.

He is a prodigy, so it was a pretty deep deal.

I mean, we all got in some deep stuff, and so tell me this.

I want to break it down so people can have a better understanding of some of the things that were said, and I have some

questions written down here, but first and foremost, what is sola scriptura,

and why would that be important?

Great question.

This actually finds itself going.

All the way back 500 years ago to the Protestant Reformation with Martin Luther and the Roman Catholic Church.

Sola scriptura has historically been defined as a scripture is the sole infallible rule and

faith in the life and practice of a Christian.

Now, what that means when you just break it down, it means that God's word is the ultimate authority when it comes to any matters

of truth.

God gets the final say -so, and Trey, that seems to be like a no -brainer.

Most people just acknowledge that, and Roman Catholicism says, well, scripture isn't the sole infallible.

It is ultimate.

It is infallible or inerrant, and we're going to talk about how they would actually say that it's not infallible.

We'll get into that, but sure, the word of God is the ultimate authority, but it's

not the sole ultimate authority.

They say there's other ultimate authorities like the church, which would include the magisterium and the pope speaking

from the chair, and then you've got tradition.

In all the articles that I've read, a good picture of Rome is a tri -part structure, almost like a three -legged

stool.

In Protestantism, we'd say everything has to go back ultimately to the word of God.

You've got to be able to demonstrate your case like a noble Berean, testing all things back to the word of God and seeing

if it's true.

With Roman Catholics, when you have any dispute, they're quick to go to the early church fathers and just say, well,

this is what they said it was, and then that's kind of the final say -so, or the pope has infallibly defined this,

or you had an ecumenical council make a dogma this way, and in their minds, there's no more

questioning about it.

With Protestants, we're saying, hey, we want to hear all different kinds of teachings, but we're going to test all things to that which

is the word of God to see if it actually bears itself out.

That's what sole scriptura is.

It says the inscripturation of God's word.

The canon is closed.

God's word is the ultimate authority, and that is the final say -so.

I could be wrong in my interpretation on any given number of topics, but the word of God is

still ultimate infallible.

I'll tell you another reason it's good to.

Understand that is not just for a debate like with a Roman Catholic who has a

three -legged stool, right, but it's good for those who would say to you, like you,

Jeremiah, you're just trying to defend John Calvin.

You just believe what he says, right, or Martin Luther, and that's the thing.

Even the term sole scriptura, in my background where I come from, man, you never heard that term.

I never heard sola.

What's a sola?

Just people don't know.

We're not fed much depth.

I think that a lot of us out there, and I was one of them, and I still am.

I'm still trying to learn and learn and grow, like Peter says, grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, so we're continually

doing that, but I think for the majority, if you just threw a blanket out there over most people, we

have a cookie sheet knowledge, right?

It's really wide.

It's big, but it's about that deep, like a cookie sheet, like a half an inch, and that's what we're wanting to do

is get people to understand that, man, this book, the word of God, it

is shallow enough for a kid to wade in, and it's deep enough for the

greatest theologians to drown in, you know, just keep digging in there, so why would you say what

was important, and why would you say that it was a good idea to debate

sola scriptura with these guys?

Yeah, well, like I said, this is.

A historical debate with Roman Catholics, and I loved what you said, how what would that even mean to like the

lay person?

What is a sola, right?

And so to kind of unpack this a little bit more, really help us while we would even bother debating this, so in the Protestant

Reformation, there's kind of historically five solas, which means alone.

Protestants, we say scripture alone is the final court of appeal.

It's the final say -so.

Scripture alone is God's ultimate authority, God's word, and so the other five solas is you

got scripture alone, you got grace alone, you got faith alone, Christ alone, and all to

the glory of God alone.

So we're saying God's word alone is the ultimate authority, and God's word alone tells us that we are

saved by grace alone.

God's grace is sufficient, not just necessary, but we are saved by grace alone.

It's sufficient through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone as the sole

mediator between God and man.

I don't know, Paul said that in 1 Timothy, right?

Chapter 2, and we do this, or we understand this, that it's all to the praise and

glory of God alone.

Romans 6, Romans 11, 36 says, for of him and through him and to him are

all things to whom be the glory forever, and Paul tells us that whether you eat, whether you drink, whatever you do,

do all to the glory of God, and so that's why this is so important is understanding

the history of why, like, because Trey, you and I are Baptists, right?

We have a Baptist theology, but a Reformed Baptist, right?

So that has a history.

Christ has been building his church for the past 2 ,000 years, and so I would just encourage people in the church

that these solas are Latin, but this comes from a rich history, especially from the

Reformed, you know?

So it's ongoing.

I just want to add to this is Protestant, you know, a lot of people think they're Protestant because they're not Catholic.

People think they're evangelical because they evangelize, but that's not the definition, but the Protestant

name came from, you know, these protesters who were protesting the teachings of the Catholic church, and they were called

Protestants, so that's where we get Protestants, you know, and so go ahead.

And so to that, we are.

Still protesting against Rome today, right?

Because even though we would be Reformed Baptists, we're modified, right?

Reformed in one sense is we're modified distinctly from the Roman Catholics, but we're Protestants.

We're protesting.

We're saying, you do not preach the gospel of grace that's been entrusted to the saints of old,

and we say that with love, and so that's another reason why I would say we ought to debate these things is contending

for truth and standing firm on the gospel.

I want to share scripture real fast before we dive straight in.

A lot of this comes from what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy

3 16, so I'm going to actually try to pull this up on the screen on my side.

So Paul tells Timothy, all scripture is breathed out by God, and it's profitable

for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God

may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Now, Trey, there's a few things that's said in this passage.

It's so important to understand what why sola scriptura is God being the ultimate

authority.

Scripture is God breathed.

That's why earlier, you know, we make the joke like this is not just ink on a page.

This is theanustos.

This is literally breathed out from God, and when people say, man, I wish I could hear the voice of

God, it's like read your Bible and read it out loud.

That's how you're going to hear the voice of God, and you know, a lot of people don't think that's going to give them this

experience that they want with God, and I'm saying you've not delved into God's word.

That'll change your life.

In the Old Testament, King David said that the law of God converts the soul,

that it makes wise the simple, so it's able to speak to us truth.

Like you said, it's able to grow us in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and you notice

what Paul says here in this text, that that which is God breathed, scripture, is able to equip

us for doctrine, for reproof, right, to fully furnish us, to make us whole,

and it's actually able to grow us into sanctification.

So that's another verse we'll get into later, what Jesus said in John 17, 17.

He said, Father, your word is truth, and he said, Father, sanctify them in the truth.

So all this goes back to the word of God is more than just ink on a page.

This is a living, breathing word, and we'll talk more about that, but you notice in this text, Trey, that it's

able to make the man and woman of God complete, right, which means that

everything that we need for holiness and sanctification is found in the pages of God's word.

Did you want to chime in to any of that?

No, I mean, I just, yeah, I mean, I love that text.

I love, it just goes back to my mind, man.

I just think of how I was and how I was taught, my understanding of things, and I tell

people all the time, like, I might be weird, but I'm not so weird that nobody else is like me.

I think there are a lot of people out there like me that just found the book boring, man.

They just didn't understand it.

You know, they're just like, man, how do I understand this?

How to make sense of this?

Old Testament, New Testament, and I really do believe, and this is why, you know, I

left my career, not job, but a career.

What were you doing?

I was in spinal implants, a spine consultant, went to surgeries and stuff, did that

for 17 years, but then went to seminary, and you know, years later,

we planted a church because I was just like, man, why didn't anybody, I never knew any of this, and it's just

right there, you know, but I just didn't know.

I mean, it was just all shallow stuff.

Just feel good.

You can do it, and we'll see you Wednesday.

We'll see you Sunday, and you try so hard to do it, and you just keep failing and messing up, and you just look at everybody

else, and you know, I respect those people who just say, you know what?

Heck with this.

I'm out.

I can't do it.

The ones who are just really awesome.

You know what we call that?

It's actually the sick Sola.

Sola bootstrapped us.

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Yeah, and that's what, I mean, I think that's the only Sola that I knew.

I mean, and here's the thing is, everybody says the right things.

Everybody, you know, speaks the Christian language in America, but it's just such

a starvation.

You know, I tell people all the time, it's like these, you see these kids in like Africa and Somalia that you're

donating for food, you know, and they show the pictures of them on the camera, on the TV, and commercials, and you know, they got

white stuff in the corner of their mouths, flies all over them.

Their bellies are popped out.

They're so hungry that they don't even realize it anymore, and I think that's how so many people in America are

in Christianity, is they're so starving for some depth of God's word to understand it,

but they're so hungry, they don't even realize it, but when they get a piece of meat, man, when they get that bite of meat, they're like, oh,

give me some more, and that's why I just, I just want to give people a little taste of how good God's word truly is, and how

deep it is, and so they're like, man, they crave more of it, because the people of God will want to know the word of God, you know,

so you mentioned something in your debate I want to talk about, okay, a lot of time on it, big word,

and I want people to, I want us to bring it down a little bit,

and talk about it, so the transcendental argument for Sola Scriptura,

what in the world are you talking about?

Your brains are coming out, your ears are so big, so like, how would you tell us that the transcendental

argument for Sola Scriptura, how would you break that down for us, why is that important, or why did you use that argument with them?

So if anybody is familiar with the terminology, all I'm getting at is I'm asking a question, in order for humans to

exist, and for us to have relationship the way that we do, in order for us to talk with one another the way that we

do, like Trey, we're trying to have a reasonable conversation, a transcendental argument says, what

must be true in order for something else to be true, and so when

you really go deep, I'm saying that Sola Scriptura, and I, in its many levels

of God's word being ultimate, and him being able to clearly communicate to image

bearers, must be true in order for us to have this type of conversation,

and so transcendental arguments typically start talking about worldview versus worldview,

and for anybody that's tuning in, and maybe you know hearing these things for the first time, everybody has a worldview, you

have these ultimate presuppositions in your mind about when you look at a tree, when you look at other people, how you

think you ought to treat other people, this all stems to how you view the world, and how you think you ought to

live, and Sola Scriptura basically says, in order to get truth, you have

to go to the God of truth, who has clearly revealed that to man, and I'm saying

those major principles of Sola Scriptura are a necessary view of reality.

So what do you think about that, Trey?

So say that last part again, that view, that transcendental view is necessary to reality.

Yes.

Transcendentals are asking, or making the claim that you have to have certain

preconditions in order for something else to be true.

What is the foundation of something else.

And so we're saying the God of scripture, the sovereign triune God, is a necessary

foundation for this entire universe to exist, and so I'm saying Sola Scriptura is

looking at the nature of God.

He has to be sovereign, and when he speaks, he speaks authoritatively, and Sola Scriptura also looks to man

as an image bearer of God, being able to understand this God clearly when he speaks to.

Us.

Yes.

So here's what I would say, too, is that not only is he transcendental,

this is where agnostics are.

Agnostics are that God is so transcendent, like who could ever know him?

He's so far above.

He's so far.

Who could know him, really?

But here's the thing with the Christian is yes, that's true, but he's also condescended himself and

revealed himself in his word, and so this is how we know, you know, and we cannot know him fully and wholly as he knows

himself, but we can know what he's revealed to us, you know, and this is why we go to the word, right, because he has

condescended himself and he's come down.

He's revealed himself to us, and so we go to his word and what he's revealed so we can see.

How much above he really is of us.

Yeah, and this is important to the whole conversation of why scripture, that which is God -breathed, is ultimate,

and when we look to Roman Catholics, they're going to say, well, you know, how do you even know what the canon is?

The scripture doesn't give you a golden index, and we're saying, look, the conversation is when we look to scripture, we're asking

the question, what is it, and we're saying it is God -breathed, and we're saying any other authorities you

point to, tradition, the church, human reasoning, these are all secondary authorities.

They're good, but they're not infallible, and so that's why their three -legged stool is really a house of cards, in my

opinion, because when you start saying the pope is infallible when he speaks from the chair, I'm saying, actually, you're

looking at, even if I were to grant those things, which I wouldn't, it wouldn't be true that the pope is

infallible, right?

We would say it's infallible God using fallible man as an instrument to give us his

infallible word.

That's the Protestant paradigm.

We're not looking to these secondary authorities and saying, well, they're really ultimate.

We're just saying, nope, it's always solely going back.

To the source of God himself, and that's why us in the Protestant faith, the true

Protestant, right, the true Protestants, at the end of the day,

I don't care what John Calvin or Martin Luther said.

At the end of the day, let's go to the word of God.

Let's go to the book, you know, and because you look at, you know, St. Augustine, I mean, that dude,

genius, right?

I mean, he did so much good in defending the faith and arguing for the faith and teaching so much,

but yet, you know, you look at the culture and the context of where he lived, there's some things that even his cultural context

had him some views that we'd like, no, that's actually not scripture.

You know, we can stand up to those guys, you know, so this is why we're reformed and always

reforming, right?

We're always going back to scripture alone, scripture alone, and as much as somebody wants to use, oh, you follow this guy, you

follow that guy, you know, the funny thing is most of the times, most of the times, huh, it's

really the other way around.

It's really them dudes are following some tradition of man, you know, and this is why when they read the text of scripture, they're

contradicting themselves everywhere, and they find themselves in a corner, and then either you got two possibilities.

Once you find yourself painted in a corner where scripture is contradicting itself all over the place because of your

world view of scripture, right, you have two options.

You can deal with it.

You can deal with it with God's word.

That's going to be hard because man, you know, we don't like that, yeah, or you can project that anger towards you

for pointing it out to me.

Yeah, now I'm mad at you, Jeremiah, because you made me think about things I've never thought about before.

Yeah, so, okay, yeah, so you have anything you want to add there because I have.

A question about one of these dudes who said something.

Yeah, so transcendental arguments really tries to get to the whole world view, and so let's be

honest, Roman Catholics and Protestants, we have two different world views, how we approach the text of scripture, how we

appeal to ultimate authorities, how we look at tradition, and I always want to encourage Protestants,

we should be informed of history.

We should not be afraid of the word tradition, but just recognize it in its proper context.

Those are secondary authorities, so even what we read of John Chrysostom, if we look

to any of the early church fathers, those are great commentaries, but those should always be measured

against what scripture says, going back to kind of what you said earlier, and so if there's any Roman Catholics listening,

I would tell them, I think it's wonderful that a lot of Roman Catholic, especially apologists,

they really know a lot of what the early church father said, but what I want to encourage a Roman Catholic is, if you're talking

to a Protestant, it's okay to quote an early church father, but also be ready to quote their argument

from scripture, because a Protestant, that's what we're listening for.

We want to listen to an argument of exegesis, not just merely quoting an early church father and say, well, if he's

early, and it seems like a lot of them held this view, that doesn't necessarily mean that they still have the right

view, and so I just want to get Protestants studying more church history, and I want to encourage Roman Catholics to do

more than just quote an early church father.

Be able to quote their argument that they give from scripture, so with that, transcendental

arguments typically are world view versus world view, and so a transcendental argument can be demonstrated

positively, and it can also be demonstrated negatively.

So how I would demonstrate sola scriptura in a positive sense, we've already been doing this a little bit,

but you would actually want to appeal to God's revealed word.

Okay, sola scriptura is God's the sole infallible rule, and God has revealed himself with clarity,

meaning that God's word actually speaks to what faith and practice looks like, and so

the only verse I feel like I need, and I could go Old Testament, I could go New Testament, but why not go to

the words of our Lord himself?

He said in his famous high priestly prayer in John 17, he said, Father,

sanctify them in the truth, and I want to pause, Trey, because when we talk about truth,

truth is a full -orbed worldview claim.

Now, worldview is made up of ontology, the study of what exists.

A worldview is made up of epistemology, knowledge, and really here at the Apologetic Dog, 1 Timothy 6 20

tells us to avoid contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

So I'm telling you, Trey, in order to understand truth, you have to understand knowledge, epistemology, how this all

relates, and finally, in a worldview, you have a value theory or ethics or morality,

and ontology, epistemology, and ethics, that is a worldview, and they all are leaning on

one another.

You can never divorce these concepts from each other, and what I tell my students is, listen, at the end of the

day, the God of truth that sees all things, has a purpose in all things, we let him reveal to us

what is truth at the end of the day, and so you notice God's truth is able to

sanctify us, and then Jesus goes on in this verse, and he says, your word is truth.

That is incredible.

God is able to inform us of what the truth is.

Now, Trey, me and you may be able to talk about things that are true.

We may be able to talk about things that are false, but nothing that we say is the, here's another five dollar

word, precipium, the ultimate fount of truth itself.

That's found in God, in him alone, and he reveals that to us in his word.

So this verse, and like I said, I can go to the Old Testament that shows us the clarity of

God's word, the perspicuity of God's word, making wise the.

Simple.

What's that word mean?

Used in the debate.

Which word?

Precipium?

Nope.

Which one?

The other.

P.

The clarity?

Does that mean clarity?

Yeah, oh, the perspicuity?

Yeah, that just means that God's word is formally sufficient enough to clearly

tell us what to do in faith and practice.

That's another dividing line with us and Roman Catholics.

Now, oddly enough.

And not just Roman Catholics.

I was just about to say that.

I was just about to say this is the dividing line with basically all the other faiths that we would label

within the realm of cult, which by the way, we'll be doing some more things with cultish soon in the near future.

I'm really excited about, Shrain.

Yes, but it's going to be fine.

I want you to speak to this.

Why is it that all these other groups say, well, you can't actually understand the word of

God.

You need us.

Is that not peculiar?

Yeah, the P word.

Well, I'll just add because at the end of the day, look, and this is what I tell people all the time, you know, they

get upset or whatever.

Not that when we're studying, when I'm studying with somebody typically, unless they're just some hard line, just argumentative

person, right?

But what's going through my mind when I see this reaction in people is I have to remind myself

because I'm of the flesh too, you know, like I got a podcast coming out with Luke the bear Monday.

And we talked about if in Christianity, you could hit three people a year, who would your three people be?

Because look, we're all in the flesh and we'd love to smoke somebody.

Right.

So we're just having fun talking about that.

But I mean, look, I'm in the flesh as well, man.

And I've got emotions and feelings and thoughts as well, you know, that we, we

deal with.

And so, but when I see someone just getting just so angry, when you're sharing the word, I mean, they're like, just, just,

I mean, they're at war.

I mean, they, it's just evident, like, look, don't take this personal tray.

That's the spirit of God work.

And this dude is seeing something that he doesn't like.

And it's not me.

Don't take it personal, right?

This is a spiritual thing.

It's the word of God that is just cutting bone and marrow, judging the thoughts in the heart of a man.

And that's what we hate.

And so what's what we have to remind ourselves, man, like I tell people, look, if you get like, I tell my kids, if you got

on a bulldozer, nothing could tear the house down.

Okay.

Outside you get on this tractor, you get on this big old bulldozer.

Did you, you better understand you're sitting on a lion and this thing is dangerous, right?

So you got to be very careful.

Well, if that's how you treat a bulldozer or a tractor or a four -wheeler, whatever it is, you better treat

this right here.

Even more carefully.

This is why not everybody should be able to teach, right?

James.

So you better, this thing judges the thoughts in the hearts of a man.

This will divide, this will slay people.

This is a double edged sword from the heavenly courts.

Like, so you better wield it wisely.

You better know how to use it.

Because if not, you're going to hurt people.

And this is why we say bad theology hurts people.

Because when you have a bad understanding of these things, you're going to hurt people.

And this is why people in all these other things, these denominations or whatever they are, that do not hold to

the five solas and don't understand them.

They probably say, yeah, we hold to those.

But when you don't understand them, you don't know them, you better tread lightly because you can hurt somebody with this book.

I mean, because this is not just any book, this is a holy book.

This is separate, nothing like it.

Like in my bookshelf, I have a library at the house.

On my bookshelf, like we have a shelf for Bibles.

Like no other book goes on that shelf.

Because there's no other book like this one.

Like all the other ones go around it, whatever.

But this shelf is for the Holy Bible.

It's unique and separate.

And so be careful with it.

Trey, I love that, man.

Kind of going back for just a moment.

So I loved what you said about the Word of God.

This is a holy book.

This is set apart from all other books that exist.

And so when we go back to, you know, kind of this transcendental argument for God's Word,

easily prove that it's clear, that it's God -breathed by going to these scriptures.

We're going to go to Hebrews 4 .12, hearing a little bit about the Word of God is living and active.

2 Peter 3 .16, that all scripture is God -breathed, right?

We see that God cannot swear by a greater authority than himself.

It's the highest court of appeal.

And so we go to these awesome, wonderful passages all over Old and New Testament to show that it claims

to have that ultimate authority.

And so a negative way to prove sola scriptura, or an implicit way, is by

saying, okay, deny that as a foundation for our worldview.

Take away the perspicuity, the clarity of scripture, being able to sanctify us and to grow us.

Take that away.

What are you left with?

And so what I say is, okay, now we've adopted a different worldview, a worldview that denies the clarity of

God's Word.

Well, how do you know anything at this.

Point without just being real?

Well, it's going to have to be based on some creature instead of.

The creator, correct?

A hundred percent.

And you know what it is at the very bottom, once you keep digging all the way to their ultimate foundation, it's going to be human

reasoning.

And human reasoning doesn't give you any certainty, right?

It's inductive at best.

It can give you high probability.

Now you're getting into something now.

I dropped another $5 word, didn't I?

Well,.

I mean, there's other religions that I talk to a lot,

that I have a heart for and you do as well, that it's based on human reasoning and inductive

reasoning.

And they have inductive Bible reading and it all, like the philosopher that really like, look, if you really look, like

you said earlier, we need to know history, right?

Let me tell you what I didn't know, history and history are stubborn things, right?

Kind of like when, you know, Pentecostals say they started in Acts chapter two.

Well, in actuality, it started in 1901 in Los Angeles, California on Azusa street.

There's a little plaque there that says, Hey, that building right there is where it started.

So, I mean, you can tell people whatever you want, but eventually you got to deal with some hard things.

And so, you know, the people who I love to share with,

because I was once one of them, they are influenced by a philosopher named Francis Bacon.

So it's, they have a Baconian philosophy that really influenced their leaders.

And it's all based on human reason and inductive reasoning.

So anyway, I got a little side trail there.

That's okay.

Because what we're saying is human reason is actually wonderful.

It's a gift of God, but that's not a sure foundation.

You have to, in order for induction and high probability to work, you actually have to have a absolute

firm foundation that sustains them.

And I'm saying that has to be the triune God who is sovereign, who does have purpose in all

things.

And he must be able to reveal himself with clarity to the imago Dei, the image bearer

of God.

And so I'm.

Saying, I want to stop you.

I want to stop you.

I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I want, I want people to hear this, to see this.

I want them to hear it.

I want to think about it so they can see it.

What you just said, if you build your system on

inductive reasoning, right.

Inductive Bible study, things like that, and not build it on the rock,

Jesus Christ, whatever your foundation is on whatever your faith is, guess

what you're going to talk about more than anything, whatever your foundation is.

That's because that's what you're building on, right?

So if it's, you know, Roman Catholicism, you're going to talk about

the church and the Pope and those things and the traditions.

That's going to be the main thing you're going to really talk about the most.

Why?

Because everything's built, really, that's your foundation.

If it's say a UPC Pentecostalism, what do you think they talk about the most?

What is the one thing they focus on?

Holy Spirit.

Yes.

Holy Spirit speaking in tongues, the gifts of the spirit speaking in tongues.

If you say like the church of Christ, what is it that they, what you listen to someone preach, that's you hear more about baptism than you do

Christ, because it's all like, this is the real foundation.

But you hear someone in the Protestant faith, what do they talk about most?

Christ, Colossians 2, 3, right?

Colossians 2, 3, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Therefore, if we don't build on that and then go, it's going to all crumble because you said you have to have a firm

foundation, Christ, the rock, anything else is sinking sand.

And this is why when we understand these things, man, it's just, it blows your mind.

And then you got problems.

See, Jesus comes to cause problems with you.

Yeah.

He didn't come for peace, but for division.

And so once you've been raising this and all of a sudden you see it, you're like, okay, which way do I go?

Do I follow Christ?

But if I do, I'm going to lose all these people, possibly.

And here's the question.

Is it, is that worth it to you or not?

Now you got a choice to make, right?

Yeah.

Let me read.

Go ahead.

Let me read that passage that we've been talking about.

I mean, you get me fired up.

I, that's, I praise God for that.

Um, what's something you told me the other day?

What's,.

What's a species that's going extinct these days?

The most endangered species in America, at least probably not the world, but the most endangered species in

America is a man of God who will not.

Budge off of God's word.

This is what we need to pray for men that believe what Jesus summed up the sermon on the Mount here.

Jesus said, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like

a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds

blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had not been founded on a rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do that will be like a foolish man

who built his house on the sand where the rain fell and the floods came and winds blew and beat on that

house and it fell and great was its fall.

What I love about that, Trey, is Christ is telling us everything in our life needs to be

built on what he said.

Now he said the word, the sermon on the Mount is the immediate context, but that principle extends to all of

God's word.

Right.

And so that's really what, go ahead, go ahead.

I just got to add something to that whenever you get done.

Well, I love how the word of God just confirmed itself.

Scripture interprets scripture because even the Old Testament tells us that the fear of Yahweh is the

beginning of knowledge.

And so that is how we know ourselves.

We know ourselves as we know our creator and how he's revealed himself to us.

And so when we talk about the transcendental argument for Sola Scriptura, I'm saying it's a

necessary view for the human experience, positively looking at God's revelation that

teaches that and implicitly and negatively by saying, OK, adopt a different worldview that doesn't have

that as a starting point.

And it'll end in sinking sand.

You actually won't be able to justify knowledge.

And you'll say, well, at the end of the day, I can't know anything for certain.

And that is a self -contradiction.

And that is the fruit of any epistemology, any knowledge, any worldview that looks to.

Human reason as its ultimate foundation.

Yeah.

I was going to say in this, when you're reading that, I think that, again, the problem with

inductive, just simply building on that, you read the Bible

poorly because you don't understand how to read it, right?

Because you read that right there.

Can you bring that up again?

Tell us where that's found.

And so Matthew chapter seven, this is towards the tail end

of the Sermon on the Mount.

You caught me switching to a different passage here.

So I'm OK.

So Matthew chapter seven, starting in verse twenty one.

And I'll pull that back up on the screen if you'd like to talk about it.

Twenty four.

Matthew chapter seven, starting verse twenty four.

Jesus is summing up.

The whole Sermon on the Mount.

Right.

So think of this Sermon on the Mount like a sandwich.

OK, it's a big old hamburger.

And so starting in verse chapter five begins, right?

And you keep reading, you know, like you said, it ends up there towards seven.

But right there in the middle of these two pieces of bread is the meat.

And we miss the meat so many times because we read this.

It says, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them.

Oh, I can do it.

I can do it.

I can do this.

See, I mean, Jesus, he would never tell us to do something that we can't do.

I can do this.

And this is where we we think we can do it in our own efforts and all this other stuff.

But you just miss the whole meat of the sermon right there in the middle of chapter five,

verse forty eight.

You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

What?

I don't forget the meat.

You can't have a sandwich without the meat, right?

You can't have a burger without the meat.

And that's a big old fat, thick piece of juicy meat right there.

You therefore be perfect, not try to be perfect, not do your best to be perfect.

No, you better be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

So what is this telling us?

So you can't do any of this.

Look to Christ.

He did it all for you, right?

We look to Christ in faith and we cling to his righteousness, not our own righteousness, because we realize I

can't do it.

Like Jesus says, apart from me, Jesus says, apart from me, Jesus, you can do nothing.

And you know what that means in Greek?

In Greek, that means apart from Christ, you can do nothing.

That's what it means.

And so this is what he's, you know, he's going to do this, do this, do this.

And all of a sudden, be perfect.

What?

I can't.

And so we look to Christ.

Anyway, I just want to point that out, because when people are listening to this and they're reading that and they're, you

know, because I'm assuming, Jeremiah, that there's people going to watch this that don't

really like us much, right?

Don't agree with us.

And so I just want to point that out.

When you see this and when you're reading this, do this, do this.

Go ahead.

Trey, let me speak to something else, because some of our acquaintances that particularly don't

seem to like us, and I'll just say in the Church of Christ world, they are so, they will focus

in on do this.

So you have to do the will of the Father.

And it's, and I want to say, absolutely.

That means from the heart, right?

That's where it all begins from.

And they will look to these verses, and this equally applies to Roman Catholicism too.

And it's not that Protestants, we're not saying you don't do anything.

We're just saying you can't do anything perfectly.

And that's the standard of God's holiness.

That's the standard.

That's the standard.

But like, you know, like, you know, the guy, well, I mean, he tells

people, I mean, I've watched a few of his things.

And he's like, look, he doesn't expect you to be perfect.

Just try your best.

I'm like, what?

If he doesn't expect you to be perfect, what's the point of sending Jesus?

No, his qualifications in order to spend eternity with him and his presence is be perfect.

And this is why you should say, I can't do it.

And you say, you know what?

Here's the good news.

He sent his son who did it for you.

And you look to him and you cling to his righteousness, not your own righteousness.

And when we cling and we focus on Christ, guess what happens?

It happens just like the Bible says it happens.

Now, Christ lives in me, his spirit in me.

He starts conforming me more and more into the image of Christ.

And so the more I keep my eyes on Christ, the more he makes me look like Christ, act like Christ.

And I start doing these things, but I'm not doing them so I can be with Christ.

I'm with Christ.

Therefore, I do these things,.

Right?

Let me, before we go back to kind of the debate, I loved how you're just saying, look, there's this bigger

context in the Sermon on the Mount, right?

And you went to like the death knell, the dagger in Matthew 5, 48 of saying, we got to be perfect

just as our father in heaven is perfect.

And Jesus's whole point is the Pharisees understanding of the law totally fell short.

They were looking at the commandments saying, okay, as long as I do this externally, right, I can earn favor

with God.

And he's like, no, this is a heart matter.

And so right before he concludes in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, not everyone who says

gives lip service, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But the one who does the will of my, or the will of the father who is in heaven.

So a lot of people say, see, you got to do something.

I'm like, yes, but, but he goes on to explain what he's talking about on that day.

Many will say, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name and check this

out, Trey, and do many mighty works in your name.

That's how powerful the name is.

Right.

And, and guess what?

It's not your mighty works that you do.

That's going to on judgment day, Jesus is going to look at you and say, oh man, everything that you did to the

letter and to the T I'm going to let you in because you such, you did such a great job.

He's going to actually say, I know he's going to declare to them.

I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

And that word never knew, right?

We can also say the word, no, knowing Christ from the heart, trusting in him, engaging with his word,

right?

Letting him speak back to us through his word and us speaking to him in prayer.

That's what saves a person is knowing him in saving faith.

That's not your works.

Now, like you've always pointed out when the heart is changed, when you look to him in faith, oh man, our whole

lives now live to give him glory.

And that means everything that we do externally, all of our works are meant to make

sense.

It makes sense,.

Jeremiah, because you no longer live, but now Christ lives in you.

Right.

It sounds like a verse somewhere.

It sounds like a verse.

And like, you know, this, I never knew you.

Like you said, it's not, it's kind of like the verse in Amos.

You know, we, we know that he didn't know they existed.

Of course he knew they existed.

He never knew them in that personal relationship way, you know, and he doesn't say depart from me because remember you left

me on August 6th of 1994.

You left me.

No, no, I never knew you.

Now either Jesus is lying or he means when he says I never knew you, he meant I never knew you,

you know?

And I would tell people, you know what that means in Greek?

When he says I never knew you, it means I never knew you.

I love it.

Awesome.

Well, hey,.

That's kind of the transcendental framework is just saying, look, sola scriptura says

the inscripturated word of God is that, that it is God breathed.

So we're talking, it's talking about the nature of scripture is directly from God as the highest authority.

And he's able to communicate in ways that we as human beings may in his image can actually

understand him in clarity to guide us in holiness and sanctification and faith and practice.

And I'm saying that's a foundational bedrock foundation of a worldview.

We can see it in scripture positively.

And if you deny that foundation, it's going to lead to absurdity for whatever worldview you want to adopt to.

So that's kind of the transcendental argument in a nutshell, Trey.

So here's another question for you.

Ready?

Okay.

So when this guy, Peter Williams, right.

First of all, tell us who Peter Williams is real quick.

Tell us who he is.

And then I got.

The question.

I'm glad you asked that because this was an honor to get to talk to Peter D. Williams.

He's a, he is one of the leading law, like a Roman Catholic apologist that's

been around for a long time.

He debated Dr. White about 15 years ago on solo scripture.

And I would encourage anyone to go look that up.

You can find on YouTube, Peter D. Williams.

And Trey, once again, it was an honor just to be able to have a very kind, respectful debate with

him.

That's a big deal.

So here's what he says.

He says this.

Now, I want you to talk about like, why you think he said this, what I'm going to tell you.

So he, and this is like, so here's what I I do respect people who, whatever they believe, man, just believe it.

Don't play games.

Just come out and say what you believe.

Because so many people, especially in the Protestant world, they just, they're sneaky, man.

They're not even going to tell you what they really believe, right?

So I really respect people who are just blunt.

I don't care how bad it is.

Just bring it and let's deal with it and talk about it.

And this is a pretty blunt statement.

Um, he said, scripture is not infallible.

Yeah.

So when he said it on the debate, I just remember being just struck, like

all of my research, that's usually a foregone conclusion that scriptures are infallible, but

so is tradition.

And so is the church.

And you've got this tri -part structure.

So when he said it initially, I was like, you know, what in the world?

And when I talked to people afterwards, they also were like that, you know, struck them as odd.

And to be fair, I went back to my notes from his opening statement and went back and re -listened to it.

He actually explained what he meant.

And I thought, okay, I at least understand better where he's coming from.

He said, infallibility only belongs to agent, personal agents, people that

have a will.

He said, scripture is not a personal agent.

He said, the scripture is inerrant.

It's not, it doesn't contain any error, but it can't be infallible because it's not,

you know, personable.

And I thought, okay, in some ways that's a distinction without a difference in my mind, because if you're

saying it doesn't contain error and it's not able to contain error, that's what we mean.

It's infallible in that sense, in that qualified sense.

But I don't think it works at the end of the day, because we're really, it goes right back to the foundational question,

what is scripture?

If it's a God breathed, well, then it's the very words of God.

Now, you and I talked about this the other day, Trey, if I were to tell a babysitter

what to do, or left the babysitter a note on the fridge with instructions, that's still coming from the

same source and still carries the same authority, whether I'm saying it verbally right now or on a

page.

Was that the illustration you gave?

Yeah.

And so look, check this out.

I do want to point this out for what you just said, because I think there's,

we know some people who would take what he said right there, like scripture is not infallible, right?

And they would cut everything out below, befront, behind it, above it, take that and pull

that piece of script, that little segment, and they would play it for 30 minutes over and

over and over and over again, and say, see here, see here, see here, see here, right?

Look, look, look, look, look.

But I hope when people view things like that, and they view this, they see what you did there.

Like you're, okay, let me give you an honest assessment.

Like this is a shocking thing for somebody to say that, but you know what I did?

I went back, I listened again.

I see where he's coming from.

I disagree, but I understand.

That's the difference between some people and others.

Some people could care less to try to understand where somebody is coming from.

And so I just want to thank you for being honest and in your

assessment of this guy, because at the end of the day, we love this guy, right?

We think he's wrong.

It's a very serious error, but we want to be fair with other people.

And if we're going to articulate some side that we might not agree with, I think it's good and fair

to do justice for them and to say, okay, let me really understand where you're coming from.

Then we can talk about it.

But to just attack things out of just pure ignorance is just not Christian.

You know, Jesus didn't attack the Pharisees not knowing anything about the Pharisees.

Like he knew exactly what they believed and why they believed it, right?

So I want to say.

Thank you for that.

Well, you're welcome.

And the reason why it's so important for one, to misrepresent somebody, what they said, and just to

isolate a clip for one, that's sinful, right?

Because you're dishonest.

You're purposely misrepresenting what they're saying in the greater context in which they said

that.

And number two, it's for our benefit, Trey, to correctly understand somebody, steel man their

argument rather than straw man it, right?

And for anybody that doesn't know what that means to make a straw man is to misrepresent somebody to make a scarecrow

of what their argument really is and set it on fire.

Well, that's easy.

Anybody can do that.

But to truly steel man, to actually understand their position and then show why you disagree, that's going to benefit

both sides.

That's going to be iron sharpening iron.

And then we're going to be able to clearly see that dividing line.

Like the Roman Catholic can be saying, yeah, we really disagree there.

And we're pointing at that line saying, yeah, that's the dividing line there.

It's a lot harder to do that though, isn't it Jeremiah?

I mean, how many hours did you put into actually studying this man's stuff, his writings, Roman Catholicism, history?

You know, it's a lot easier just to take a clip out and make a straw man argument, you know, and like laugh at it

and say how stupid they are.

You know, right.

It's easy.

But it takes a lot of time to really educate yourself.

And, but it actually shows your seriousness and whoever else, like if I have to do that, like

it'll show my series and your series, whoever it shows the seriousness that you take this, this matter, because you put the time in

to actually understand it and study it, not just, I mean, come on, but you know, we see it all the time and it's,

it's, it's sad.

And I hate it for them too.

Cause I mean, I want people to look, I'm not scared of the arguments, you know, so study them up and let's, let's have a

discussion like y 'all had.

So Joe Heissmeier?

I call him Worcestershire sauce.

Joe Worcestershire sauce.

So who is he?

So thank you for asking that.

So it's a two on two debate.

Like I said, me and the young phenom, the young prodigy Merrick Kaiser as the Protestants against Peter D

Williams and Joe Heissmeier.

Now this, this gentleman, he was awesome.

Very kind.

And when I talked to him before the debate, just on Marlon's thing, he'd listened to a lot of my content

that's out there.

I don't have near the content Joan Peter have, but he listened to my previous debate with the Roman Catholic on

some of the Marian dogmas and things.

And so very kind person.

He has a blog.

He has a website called shameless potpourri.

No, that was a clever name.

Don't get potpourri like Kirkland's.

Yes.

Well, we made a, Peter actually made a joke about that on the debate or afterwards about potpourri, you

know, and all that could mean.

But Joe also writes, he's an apologist, Roman Catholic apologist for Catholic answers and

trade.

That's actually a really big website that has tons of.

Articles.

It's a big deal.

The, these two men, that's getting stamped by Rome to put on there.

Right?

Yes.

Oh, that's a, that's a really big deal.

Like I said, it was an honor to be able to engage with these two gentlemen and I had a blast and I hope it

just helps people see the dividing line between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but to be able to have dialogue

about the gospel, the nature of scripture in a way that's, that can at least help people become more interested.

In these topics.

So anyway.

So here's what, here's what he said.

He said something that kind of confused me a little bit.

I thought when he was talking about Hebrews 4 .12, right?

I would argue that the written word, the word, the word of God is not only the written word, but it is Christ himself because the

word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Right?

Yeah.

And was he arguing that Hebrews 4 .12 is talking about the written word or

was he arguing that, cause he was, he was saying it's not both.

Was he saying it was Hebrews 4 .12 was talking about Jesus or is he saying that Hebrews 12 is the

written word?

Because we would say both.

Right.

He made an argument.

I want to, I want to touch on a few things here.

He says that it's Jesus, not the written word.

And I went back, I was making notes in his opening statement.

Very interesting.

He, in our cross examination, by the way, the cross examination is everybody's favorite part of a debate.

And he, I could tell he did not like a lot of my answers.

When he asked, it was solo scriptural practice by the apostles.

Read most of his articles at Catholic answers and on shameless potpourri, because he says that I'm

purposefully conflating categories of the written word with the prophetic teaching of the

apostles and with when God speaks from heaven or when Jesus spoke on earth.

And I'm saying time out, we have different worldviews and every single one of those things you listed

is the ultimate authority of God speaking.

So it's not that I'm conflating the inscription of God's word with him

speaking verbally.

I'm saying that's the same authority.

When Jesus spoke and gave the sermon on the mount, that's the same authority that we get with Paul's teaching in

second Timothy three, right?

Because he's speaking prophetically, that's still God speaking.

And so he didn't like it.

That would be your letter to the babysitter,.

Right?

Yes.

Tell the kids to go bed at X amount of time.

Right.

And just to kind of reemphasize.

That point, whether I'm telling the babysitter in person, a list of things to do or leave a note that

carries the same authority in the same information.

And so for him, they want to make those hard line distinctions.

And we're saying, well, for one, sola scriptura appeals to the nature of the

inscription of God's word being God breathed, right?

Just like we're talking about.

And so he, he said, the Bible is not a living, breathing

word, essentially, that's like a person.

And we're saying, and then I appealed to not only second Timothy three 16 to

say all scripture is God breathed, but also Hebrews four 12.

And so I think it would be good, Trey, for me to pull that up and us to kind of talk about why

you can't divorce when Jesus speaks, when he walked on the earth and he spoke, um,

differently than the, the inscription of God's word, which read it.

Verse 12 through 13, you read 12 and 13.

Absolutely.

For the word of God is living and active sharper than any two -edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit

of joints and marrow and asserting the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must

give an account.

So I would say his argument is, is talking about him.

It says no creature is hidden from his sight.

So are you saying that the Bible has eyes and is looking everywhere and knows everything?

Is that what.

He's saying?

Right.

And to add to that, he just said, well, the word of God can't be really living

and breathing because it doesn't have lungs.

It doesn't have eyes.

It's not able to kind of have a conversation back to back with you.

And I want to say, well, we'll hold the brakes.

That's not what we mean either that it has lungs, that it's living and breathing and, and, you know, like humans,

but God's word is the ultimate authority and it's able to speak truth into our

life.

That's what we mean by...

It creates, doesn't it?

It creates, it creates life, right?

Created that.

By the word of God, he spoke the world into existence, you know, by his word.

I would say.

You're conflating the rhema, oral word of God, with the written word.

We're saying that's the same source being God breathed, right?

That's where the young phenom Merrick Kaiser, he did a good job of saying, just for definition's sake,

we're saying materially, it's the same substance, whether in scripture or when, when God spoke

on Mount Sinai audibly, or when Jesus spoke on the Sermon on the Mount, it's the same material, same

substance, but it comes in different forms, right?

Obviously this is preserved God and his infinite wisdom and providence has preserved his

word for the saints to come, right?

After the completion of the canon.

So what we're saying is the word of God creates,

when someone reads scripture, it's speaking truth into your life.

When someone hears the gospel, that's able to transform their heart and their soul.

And we obviously understand the Holy Spirit is still at work today, you know, illuminating the eyes and

convincing us of the truth bearing value, the truthfulness of scripture itself.

So I want to talk a little bit about the context of this, Trey, because what Joe Heschmeier said

was, now this is exactly my point of how Roman Catholics need to think about engaging with Protestants

and how Protestants need to also be ready to engage with Roman Catholics.

What Joe said was all the early church fathers, they all agreed that this is talking about Jesus,

and his point is Jesus only, not the written word of God.

So what's wrong with that by just making a blanket statement, well, all the early church fathers believed that,.

Trey?

How can you disagree with all them?

Well, it's a fallacious argument for one.

It's also, just to put it in a simple term, it's like throwing a blanket over somebody and

where they can't see anything, you know what I'm saying?

Like, well, the church father's at it, like as if that's the stamp of approval.

Like, I don't care.

What if all the church fathers said God doesn't exist?

What if they all walked away, right?

And so, you know, that can't be the standard, right?

We have to go back to the.

Word of God.

And number two, I would add, I would ask the Roman Catholic in what was their argument

contextually that the word of God in Hebrews 4 .12 being Jesus only, because the word there is lagos,

and we know in John 1 .1 in the beginning was the lagos.

Lagos was with God and the lagos was God.

But it's because in the context of John 1, that lagos became

flesh and dwelt among us.

And then later it tells us that it's Jesus Christ, grace upon grace.

So lagos has a semantic domain.

So you got to always appeal to the context to show if lagos is only the person of Jesus.

And I'll be honest with you, Trey, even if this verse did mean Jesus only, it still would not

touch the main argument of Sola Scriptura.

I'm just throwing that out there.

But when I heard this in the debate, I was like, I can't wait to talk with Trey later, because I actually think the lagos here is

talking about the written word, and the written word does in some way find its

context back to Jesus Christ himself.

When you look at the whole argument of Hebrews.

Look, I'm going to add to that.

Yes.

Is it talking about the written word?

Yes.

But what else is it talking about?

Is it talking about Jesus?

You betcha.

What else is it talking about?

Well, I'm going to read you this about Jesus.

He is the image of the invisible God.

Okay, this is Colossians 1 .15.

The firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and

invisible, whether thrones, dominions, authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

Stop.

Pause.

Go back.

So the lagos, is it talking about the written word?

Is it talking about Jesus?

Both.

And I'll add to that, even the oral word, because see, God the Father spoke it, right?

He says he spoke creation, and he said, let there be, and there was.

But then through progressive revelation, we say, oh my goodness, God the Son,

what?

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

So it encompasses all of it.

And I think that's what I would say, like, yeah.

So, Trey, what you did, I really like, because you kind of appealed to a broader context of what

kind of all the scripture speaks to, right?

Of how it's both and.

Yeah, go ahead.

So, and that's powerful.

And this is a Protestant principle of scripture interpreting scripture.

Why would we say such a thing?

Because God alone infallibly knows truth.

So the best teacher of scripture would be scripture itself.

That's when we see harder to understand scriptures.

Remember, even Peter acknowledged that some of Paul's writings are hard to understand.

So we would let clearer passages of scripture help us interpret the less clear passages of

scripture.

And so what you did is you kind of appealed to a broader scope of scripture of how, look, the word

comes in so many different forms, but it always goes back to God, whether it's the person of Jesus that took on

flesh and dwelt among us, whether it be God, the triune God speaking this world

into existence.

And then we also see, and I think actually Hebrews 4 .12 in the immediate context, and this is where I want to

piggyback off you, we are actually given clues that this primarily is talking about the written

word.

Now, why do I say that?

Look earlier in the context, Trey, with me.

Look at Hebrews 4 verse 3.

And before I read this, what I want to tell everybody is

the writer of Hebrews is building a case from the Old Testament scripture in Hebrews chapter 3.

Back in verse 11, he quoted from Psalm 95 .11, and then he quotes Psalm 95 .11

again here in Hebrews verse 4.

And then we're going to see he also quotes a different portion of Psalm 95 verses 7 and 8, just a few

verses later.

And I'll just read it, but it's just quotation from the Old Testament.

He says, for we who believe will enter in that rest that he has said, as I swore

in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

So he is quoting from the written word in Psalm 95.

So look down with me in verse 7.

So in verse 7, again, he appoints a certain day today saying,

through David, so long afterward in the words already quoted today, if you hear his

voice, do not harden your hearts.

And so I'm saying contextually, he is appealing to the written word as we're building up to

verse 12.

And so, and then we get to verse 12.

Again, I want everybody to hear it.

For the word, the logos of God is living and active and sharper than

any two -edged sword.

And like you were saying, that cut straight between the soul and spirit of joints and

marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

So we see the immediate context is talking about the written word.

That doesn't negate that the logos is also the second person of the Trinity who came and

dwelt among us and also spoke, right?

Now, I want to get your thoughts on this real fast too.

Does this sound like another verse of the apostle Paul in, I don't know, when we're talking about the body

armor of God, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two -edged sword?

What do you think, Trey?

Does that sound like another verse?

Yeah, it does.

It's also, it sounds like it's a weapon.

I was like, oh, okay.

I like that because.

When we look to Ephesians chapter six, Paul telling the Christian to put on the whole body

armor of God, he says, and the sword of the spirit.

Now, what is that? He says, which is the word of God.

Okay.

Now, you know, some people would say that you do not want that the spirit of God does not dwell in you.

It's actually the Bible.

Yeah, that's unfortunate.

We'll definitely have to do another podcast video, YouTube video, talking about

that, how the Holy Spirit is active today.

Did he inspire this word?

Absolutely.

But he is actually indwelling believers, and we'll have to definitely get more into what that looks like.

So, Trey, what do you think, man?

I feel like we have been given a lot of context for Hebrews 4 .12, that the word of God here

primarily is talking about the written word, but that is congruent

with who Jesus is as the Logos of God as well.

So, it's not necessarily either or, but it's a both and, and primarily in the media context, it

is talking.

About the written word.

Look, here's the deal.

At the end of the day, sometimes you got to tell people the hard truth because you love them, you know, and people don't like to hear that.

They say it's not loving, you know, you know, the 11th commandment is be nice,

right?

But here's the deal, man.

At the end of the day, all of our sin goes back to the Garden of Eden.

That's why you're even guilty of it because you'd have done it, right?

And we still struggle with that.

We want to be God.

We do not want to submit to his word.

He said, don't do it, right?

They did it.

We don't want to submit to his word.

His word tells us that Jesus Christ became flesh and dwelt among us.

It was by Jesus Christ, by the oral, by God speaking, that the word of God, Christ

became flesh and dwelt among us.

He is the second person of the Trinity.

I mean, it just, man, this thing just punches holes in everybody's theology if you don't

abide by the word, you know?

And so, at the end of the day, if you just don't accept it, you know, we can just,

we'll always sit down with you and show you, but look, your problem's not me.

It's not Jeremiah.

It is the word.

Like, he is preeminent.

I mean, what more can we say?

Like, when God says that Christ is preeminent, first, foremost, above everything, number one, uno,

no, there is no second near him, right?

So, just that right there, how can you say that the traditions of man and the reasoning of man is

equal with this?

I'm out, dog.

I'm out.

Christ is preeminent.

That's a strong word for first, you know?

And so, you know, he's the basis.

He's the foundation.

He's everything.

And so, you know, if you want to be, you know, this is what we want.

We want to bring God down to our level, and we want to raise ourselves up, and we still want to close the gap, right?

We want to say he's still God, and I'm still man, but man, if I can just close that gap, the more I can close it, you know,

I think this is what humanity does in our nature, because we want to be God, but we also want the benefits of him.

So, we have to kind of do some of the things he says and make ourselves feel good and look down on others, and it's just bad

theology hurts people,.

Man, and it leads them astray.

Trey, couldn't have said it better myself, man.

You've taught.

Me everything I know, so thank you for that.

Well, you taught me everything.

I taught you everything I know, and you're still dumb, if that's the case, because I'm not a smart man, like Forrest

Gump says, but I do love you.

I love talking to you, man.

You're a walking systematic theology book.

I learn from you all the time.

Well, Trey, I love you.

This is fun.

Hopefully, people see the significance of soul scripture, you know.

Yeah, and we'll pick it up.

Again soon.

Thank you so much, Trey, for coming on, the apologetic dog, and us sharpening one another,

but that will do it for this episode.

I hope that you were encouraged.

Maybe these are some new concepts that you've never thought about.

Soul scripture, what is the dividing line with Roman Catholics and Protestants?

So, hopefully, these are some things that will just help give you some new ideas to chew on, and we will

wrap it up for today.

So, thank you all for tuning in, and God bless.

See you.