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

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in Roman Catholicism says, well, Scripture isn't the sole infallible, it is ultimate, it is infallible or inerrant.

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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

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

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

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Pope speaking from the chair. And then you got tradition. Hello and welcome to the

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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.

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And today I have a very special guest, a really good friend, Trey Fisher. Trey, what's going on, man?

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What's up, buddy? How you doing, Jeremiah? Always good seeing you. I am blessed. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

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We've already done some stuff together, but we may have some new people viewing. So who are you and what do you do?

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

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The Parish Reformed. And we just have a passion. Same thing for you, man, defending the truth, defending

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

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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.

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And so I just want people to fall in love with it like you. Well, would you say that this Bible is more than just ink on a page?

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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.

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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?

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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.

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But, you know, you got to find time to do what you got to do, you know? And so, you know, it was a pretty deep debate.

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So, I mean, you're debating some of the top two Roman Catholic theologians, right? Yes. And I want to brag on my friend

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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.

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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?

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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.

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And so, tell me this. Just, I want to break it down so people can have a better understanding of some of the things that were said.

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So, and I have some questions written down here. But first and foremost, what is

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Sola Scriptura, and why would that be important? Great question. This actually finds itself going all the way back 500 years ago to the

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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

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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.

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God gets the final say -so. And, Trey, that seems to be like a no -brainer. Most people just acknowledge that.

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And Roman Catholicism says, well, scripture isn't the sole infallible. It is ultimate.

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

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We'll get into that. But sure, the Word of God is the ultimate authority, but it's not the sole ultimate authority.

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

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Pope speaking from the chair. And then you've got tradition. So, in all the articles that I've read, a good picture of Rome is a tri -part structure, almost like a three -legged stool.

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In Protestantism, we'd say everything has to go back ultimately to the Word of God, right?

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

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Word of God and seeing if it's true. So, 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.

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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.

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And in their minds, there's no more questioning about it. And 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

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Word of God to see if it actually bears itself out. So, that's what Psalm Scriptura is.

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It says the inscripturation of God's Word. God's Word, the canon is closed.

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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

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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

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Roman Catholic who has a three -legged stool. But it's good for those who would say to you,

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

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You just believe what he says. Or Martin Luther. And that's the thing.

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

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I never heard sola. What's a sola? And just people don't know.

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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.

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I'm still trying to learn and learn and grow. Like Peter says, grow in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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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.

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It's really wide. It's big, but it's about that deep, like a cookie sheet, like a half an inch.

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And that's what we're wanting to do is get people to understand that, man, this book, the

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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.

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So, in the Protestant Reformation, there's kind of historically five solas, which means alone.

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Protestants, we say scripture alone is the final court of appeal. It's the final say -so.

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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,

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Romans 6 30, Romans 11 36 says, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be the glory forever.

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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

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

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So, that has a history. Christ has been building his church for the past 2 ,000 years.

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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

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Reformed, you know. So, it's an ongoing. I just want to add to this as Protestant, you know, a lot of people think they're

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

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But the Protestant name came from, you know, these protesters who were protesting the teachings of the

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Catholic church, and they were called Protestants. So, that's where we get Protestants, you know. And so, go ahead.

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And so, to that, we are still protesting against Rome today, right?

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Because even though we would be Reformed Baptists, we're modified, right? Reformed in one sense is we're modified distinctly from the

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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.

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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.

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I want to share a scripture real fast before we dive straight in. A lot of this comes from what

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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.

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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.

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Now, Trey, there's a few things that's said in this passage that's so important to understand why sola scriptura is

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God being the ultimate authority. Scripture is God breathed.

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And you notice what Paul says here in this text, that that which is

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God breathed, scripture, is able to equip us for doctrine, for reproof, right?

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To fully furnish us, to make us whole. And it's actually able to grow us into sanctification.

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

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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.

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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?

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

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Did you want to chime in to any of that? No, I mean, I just, yeah, I mean, I love that, that text. I love it just goes back to my mind, man.

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I just think of how I was and how I was taught my understanding of things. And I tell people all the time, like,

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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.

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They just didn't understand it. You know, they just like, man, how do I understand this? How to make sense of this Old Testament, New Testament.

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And I really do believe, and this is why, you know, I left my career, not job, but a career.

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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.

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And, you know, years later, we planted a church because I was just like, man, why didn't anybody,

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I never knew any of this. And it's just right there, you know, but I just didn't know.

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I mean, it was just all shallow stuff. Just feel good. You can do it.

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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.

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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 really, you know, we call that it's actually the six

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Sola, Sola bootstrapped us. Pull yourself up by your bootstrap. Yeah.

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And that's what, I mean, I think that's the only Sola that I knew. I mean, and, and here's the thing is everybody says the right things.

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

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And I tell people all the time, it's like these, you see these kids in like Africa and Somalia that you're, you're, you're donating for food, you know, and they show the pictures of them on the camera, on the

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TV and commercials. And, you know, they got white stuff in the corner of their mouths, flies all over them.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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

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And I want people to, I want us to bring it down a little bit and talk about it.

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So the transcendental argument for sola scriptura, what in the world are you talking about?

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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?

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And why is that important? Or why did you use that argument with them? So if anybody is familiar with the terminology, all

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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.

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A transcendental argument says, what must be true in order for something else to be true?

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And so when you really go deep, I'm saying that sola scriptura and 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.

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And so transcendental arguments typically start talking about worldview versus worldview.

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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So what do you think about that, Trey? So say that last part again, that view, that transcendental view is necessary to reality.

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Yes. Transcendentals are asking or making the claim that you have to have certain preconditions in order for something else to be true.

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What is the foundation of something else? And so we're saying the

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God of scripture, the sovereign triune God is a necessary foundation for this entire universe to exist.

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And so I'm saying sola scriptura is looking at the nature of God. He has to be sovereign.

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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

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God clearly when he speaks to us. Yes. So here's what I would say too, is that not only is it, is he transcendental, right?

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This is where agnostics are, right? Agnostics are that God is so transcendent, like who could ever know him?

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I mean, so far above, he's so far, who could know him really? But here's the thing with the

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Christian is yes, that's true. But he's also condescended himself and revealed himself in his word.

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And so this is how we know, and we cannot know him fully and holy as he knows himself, but we can know what he's revealed to us, you know?

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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.

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And so we go to his word and what he's revealed so we can see how much above he really is of us.

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

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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.

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We're saying, look, the conversation is when we look to scripture, we're asking the question, what is it?

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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.

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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

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Pope is infallible, when he speaks from the chair, I'm saying, actually, you're looking at, well, even if I were to grant those things, which

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I wouldn't, it wouldn't be true that the Pope is infallible, right? We would say it's infallible

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God using fallible man as an instrument to give us his infallible word.

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That's the Protestant paradigm. We're not looking to the secondary authorities and saying, well, they're really ultimate.

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We're saying, nope, it's always solely going back to the source of God himself.

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And that's why us in the Protestant faith, the true Protestant, the true

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Protestants, at the end of the day, I don't care what

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John Calvin or Martin Luther said, at the end of the day, let's go to the word of God.

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Let's go to the book. And because you look at St. Augustine, I mean, that dude, genius, right?

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

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We even stand up to those guys. So this is why we're reformed and always reforming, right?

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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.

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You know, the funny thing is most of the times, most of the times, huh? It's really the other way around.

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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.

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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 worldview of scripture, right?

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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.

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Or you can project that anger towards you for pointing it out to me. Now I'm mad at you,

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Jeremiah, because you, you made me think about things I've never thought about before. Okay.

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Do 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 worldview.

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And so let's be honest, Roman Catholics and Protestants, we have two different worldviews, how we approach the text of scripture, how we appeal to ultimate authorities, how we look at tradition.

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And I always want to encourage Protestants, we should be informed of history.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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Lord himself. He said in his famous high priestly prayer in John 17, he said,

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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.

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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

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Apologetic Dog, 1 Timothy 620 tells us to avoid contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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And so you notice God's truth is able to sanctify us. And then

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Jesus goes on in this verse, and he says, your word is truth. That is incredible.

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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 $5 word, precipium, the ultimate fount of truth itself, that's found in God, in him alone.

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And he reveals that to us in his word. So this verse, and like I said, I can go to the

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Old Testament that shows us the clarity of God's word, the perspicuity of God's word, making wise the simple.

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What's that word mean used in the debate? Which word? Precipium? No. Which one?

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The other P. The clarity. Does that mean clarity? Yeah. Oh, the perspicuity.

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Yeah. That just means that God's word is formally sufficient enough to clearly tell us what to do in faith and practice.

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That's another dividing line with us and Roman Catholics. Now, oddly enough, I was Roman Catholics.

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I was just about to say that I was 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.

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I'm really excited about trying, but 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.

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You need us. Is that not peculiar? Yeah. Well, I'll just add, because at the end of the day, look, and this is what

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I tell people all the time. They get upset or whatever. Not that when we're studying, when

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I'm studying with somebody typically, unless they're just some hard line, just argumentative person.

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

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I have to remind myself because I'm of the flesh too. 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?

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Because look, we're all in the flesh and we'd love to smoke somebody. So we're just having fun talking about that. But I mean, look,

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I'm in the flesh as well, man. And I've got emotions and feelings and thoughts as well that we deal with.

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But when I see someone just getting so angry when you're sharing the word, I mean, they're at war.

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It's just evident. Look, don't take this personal tray. That's the spirit of God working. This dude is seeing something that he doesn't like.

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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.

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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.

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Okay? Outside, you get on this tractor, you get on this big old bulldozer. You better understand you're sitting on a lion.

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And this thing is dangerous. So you better 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.

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This is why not everybody should be able to teach, right, James? So you better, this thing judges the thoughts and the hearts of a man.

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This will divide, this will slay people. This is a double -edged sword from the heavenly courts.

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Like, so you better wield it wisely. You better know how to use it. Because if not, you're going to hurt people.

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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.

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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.

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

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I mean, because this is not just any book, this is a holy book. This is separate, nothing like it. Like in my bookshelf,

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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.

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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

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Bible. There's, it's unique and separate. And so be careful with it. Trey, I love that, man. Kind of going back for just a moment.

29:06

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.

29:14

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

29:23

God breathed by going to these scriptures. We're going to go to Hebrews 4 .12, hearing a little bit about the

29:29

Word of God is living and active. Second Peter 3 .16, that all scripture is

29:34

God breathed, right? We see that God cannot swear by a greater authority than himself.

29:40

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.

29:50

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.

30:00

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

30:06

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.

30:17

Well, how do you know anything at this point? Well, it's going to have to be based on some creature instead of the creator, correct?

30:24

100%. 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.

30:32

And human reasoning doesn't give you any certainty, right? It's inductive at best.

30:38

It can give you high probability. Ooh, now you're getting into something now. I dropped another $5 word, didn't

30:45

I? Well, I mean, you know, there's other religions that I talk to a lot, you know, 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

31:00

Bible reading. And it all, you know, like the philosopher that really like, look, if you really look, like you said earlier, we need to know history, right?

31:07

Let me tell you what I didn't know, history. And history are stubborn things, right? Kind of like when, you know,

31:14

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,

31:22

Hey, that building right there is where it started. So I mean, you can tell people whatever you want. Yeah. But eventually, you got to deal with some hard things.

31:30

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

31:41

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

31:49

And it's all based on human reason, and in inductive reasoning. So anyway,

31:55

I got a little side trail. No, no, no, keep going. That's okay. Because what we're saying is human reason is actually wonderful.

32:01

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 have to have a absolute firm foundation that sustains them.

32:13

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

32:20

And he must be able to reveal himself with clarity to the Imago Dei, the image bearer of God.

32:27

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.

32:34

I want to hear it on think about it. So they can see it what you just said, if you build your system on inductive reasoning, right, and inductive

32:46

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.

33:02

That's because that's what you're building on, right? So if it's, you know,

33:08

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 one because everything's built, really, that's your foundation.

33:19

If it's, say, UPC Pentecostalism, what do you think they talk about the most was the one thing they focus on?

33:27

Holy Spirit, 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 that you hear more about baptism, you do

33:36

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

33:44

Christ's word, Colossians two, three, right? Colossians two, three, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

33:52

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,

33:58

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.

34:08

See, Jesus comes to cause problems with you. 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

34:18

I go? Do I follow Christ? But if I do, I'm going to lose all these people possibly.

34:24

And here's the question, is that worth it to you or not? Now you got a choice to make, right?

34:30

Yeah. Let me read. Go ahead. Let me read that passage that we've been talking about. I mean, you get me fired up.

34:36

I praise God for that. What's something you told me the other day?

34:42

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.

34:56

This is what we need to pray for. Men that believe what Jesus summed up the Sermon on the

35:01

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.

35:11

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.

35:20

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand where the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house and it fell and great was its fall.

35:36

What I love about that, Trey, is Christ is telling us everything in our life needs to be built on what he said.

35:43

Now, he said the Sermon on the Mount is the immediate context, but that principle extends to all of God's word, right?

35:51

And so that's really what... Go ahead. Go ahead. I just got to add something to that whenever you get done.

35:58

Well, I love how the word of God just confirms itself. Scripture interprets scripture because even the

36:03

Old Testament tells us that the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge.

36:09

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

36:19

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

36:28

Positively, looking at God's revelation that teaches that, and implicitly and negatively by saying, okay, adopt a different worldview that doesn't have that as a starting point, and it'll end in sinking sand.

36:40

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.

36:46

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.

36:56

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

37:08

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

37:15

Because you read that right there. Can you bring that up again? Tell us where that's found. So Matthew chapter seven, this is towards the tail end of the

37:25

Sermon on the Mount. You caught me switching to a different passage here. So that's okay. So Matthew chapter seven, starting in verse 21, and I'll pull that back up on the screen if you'd like to talk about it.

37:38

24. Matthew chapter seven, starting in verse 24,

37:44

Jesus is summing up the whole Sermon on the Mount. Right. So think of this

37:51

Sermon on the Mount like a sandwich. Okay. It's a big old hamburger. And so starting in chapter five begins, right?

38:00

And you keep reading, like you said, it ends up there towards seven, but right there in the middle of these two pieces of bread is the meat.

38:09

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,

38:17

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.

38:26

I can do this. And this is where we think we can do it in our own efforts and all this other stuff, but you just miss the whole meat of the

38:35

Sermon right there in the middle of chapter five, verse 48. You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly

38:44

Father is perfect. What? Like don't forget the meat.

38:51

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.

38:58

You therefore be perfect, not try to be perfect, not do your best to be perfect. No, you better be perfect as your heavenly

39:06

Father is perfect. So what is this telling us? So you can't do any of this.

39:11

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

39:20

I can't do it. Like Jesus says, apart from me, Jesus says, apart from me, Jesus, you can do nothing.

39:27

And you know what that means in Greek? In Greek, that means apart from Christ, you can do nothing. That's what it means.

39:33

And so this is what he's, you know, he's telling me to do this, do this, do this, and all of a sudden be perfect.

39:40

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,

39:52

Jeremiah, that there's people going to watch this that don't really like us much, right? They don't agree with us.

39:58

So I just want to point that out. When you see this and when you're reading this, do this, do this. Go ahead. 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

40:13

Church world, they will focus in on do this.

40:18

So you have to do the will of the Father. And I want to say, absolutely. That means from the heart, right?

40:26

That's where it all begins from. And they will look to these verses, and this equally applies to Roman Catholicism too.

40:33

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 and law.

40:42

That's the standard. Like, you know, the guy, well, I mean, he tells people,

40:49

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.

40:55

I'm like, what? If he doesn't expect you to be perfect, what's the point of sinning

41:01

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

41:07

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

41:13

Well, 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.

41:20

And when we cling and we focus on Christ, guess what happens? It happens just like the Bible says it happens.

41:25

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.

41:34

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

41:40

I do these things. Right. Let me before we go back to kind of the debate.

41:45

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.

41:58

And Jesus's whole point is the Pharisees understanding of the law totally fell short. They were looking at the commandments saying,

42:05

OK, as long as I do this externally, right, I can earn favor with God. He's like, no, this is a heart matter.

42:11

And so right before he concludes in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, not everyone who says to me gives lip service,

42:18

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.

42:26

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.

42:34

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

42:40

Trey, and do many mighty works in your name. That's how powerful the name is.

42:48

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

43:00

T, I'm going to let you in because you such you did such a great job. He's going to actually say,

43:05

I know he's going to declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

43:12

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.

43:25

That's what saves a person is knowing him in saving faith. It's not your works.

43:31

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.

43:39

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

43:45

It makes sense, Jeremiah, because you no longer live, but now Christ lives in you. Right. It sounds like a verse somewhere.

43:52

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.

44:02

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 6 of 1994.

44:13

You left me. No, no, I never knew you. Now either Jesus is lying or he means when he says,

44:20

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,

44:26

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, solo scriptura says the inscripturated word of God is that, that it is

44:41

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

44:47

And he's able to communicate in ways that we as human beings made in his image can actually understand him in clarity to guide us in holiness and sanctification and faith and practice.

44:59

And I'm saying that's a foundational bedrock foundation of a worldview. We can see it in scripture positively.

45:06

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

45:12

So that's kind of the transcendental argument in a nutshell, Trey. And so here's another question for you.

45:18

Ready? Okay. So when this guy, Peter Williams, right.

45:25

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

45:31

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.

45:37

He's a, he is one of the leading law, like a Roman Catholic apologist that's been around for a long time.

45:44

He debated Dr. White about 15 years ago on solo scripture. And I would encourage anyone to go look that up.

45:52

You can find on, on YouTube, Peter D Williams and try once again, it was an honor just to be able to have a very kind, respectful debate with him.

46:02

Hmm. That's a big deal. So here's what he says. He says this now,

46:10

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

46:15

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

46:21

Don't play games. Just come out and say what you believe because so many people, especially in the

46:26

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.

46:34

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.

46:40

Um, he said, scripture is not infallible. Yeah. So when he said it on the debate, um,

46:51

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.

47:01

And so is the church. And you've got this tripartite structure. So when he said it initially, I was like, you know, what in the world?

47:09

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

47:15

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

47:21

He actually explained what he meant. And I thought, okay, I at least understand better where he's coming from.

47:27

He said, infallibility only belongs to agent, personal agents, people that have a will.

47:35

He said, scripture is not a personal agent. It's in, he said, the scripture is inerrant.

47:41

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

47:49

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 the error, that's what we mean.

48:02

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

48:08

So, um, 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.

48:15

What is scripture? If it's a God breathed, well, then it's the very words of God.

48:21

Now you and I talked about this the other day, um, 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.

48:39

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, we know some people who would take what he said right there.

48:53

Like scripture is not infallible. Right. And they would cut everything out below the front, 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.

49:12

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.

49:22

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 and I listened again.

49:29

You know, I see where he's coming from. I disagree, but I understand. That's the difference between some people and others.

49:35

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.

49:49

Right. We think he's wrong. It's a very serious error, but we want to be fair with other people.

49:55

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.

50:05

Then we can talk about it. But to just attack things out of just pure ignorance is just not

50:11

Christian. You know, Jesus didn't attack the Pharisees, not knowing anything about the Pharisees. Right. Like he knew exactly what they believed and why they believed it.

50:18

Right. So yeah, 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?

50:31

Because you're dishonest. You're purposely misrepresenting what they're saying in the greater context in which they said that.

50:41

And number two, it's for our benefit, Trey, to correctly understand somebody, steel man their argument rather than straw man it.

50:49

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.

50:57

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.

51:05

That's going to be iron sharpening iron. And then we're going to be able to clearly see that dividing line, like the

51:11

Roman Catholic was saying, yeah, we really disagree there. And we're pointing at that line saying, yeah, that's the dividing line there. Right.

51:16

It's a lot harder to do that, though, isn't it, Jeremy? I mean, how many hours did you put into actually studying this man's stuff, his writings,

51:22

Roman Catholicism history? You know, it's a lot easier just to take a clip out and lie and make a straw man argument, you know, and like laugh at it and say how stupid they are.

51:32

You know, right. It's easier. But it takes a lot of time to really educate yourself. And but it actually shows your seriousness and and whoever else, like if I have to do that, like it'll show my series and yours or whoever.

51:43

It shows the seriousness you take this this matter because you put the time in to actually understand and study it, not just.

51:50

I mean, come on. But, you know, we see it all the time and it's sad and I hate it for them, too, because,

51:55

I mean, I want people to look. I'm not scared of the arguments. Right. So study them up and let's let's have a discussion like y 'all had.

52:04

So, Joe Heissmeier. I call him Wichita sauce.

52:10

Joe Wichita sauce. So who is he? So thank you for asking.

52:17

So it's a two on two debate. Like I said, me and the young phenom, the young prodigy,

52:22

Merrick Kaiser, as the Protestants against Peter D. Williams and Joe Heissmeier.

52:28

Now, this this gentleman, he was awesome. Very kind. And when

52:33

I talked to him before the debate just on Marlon's thing, he'd listen to a lot of my content that's out there.

52:39

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

52:46

Marian dogmas and things. And so very kind person. He has a blog.

52:51

He has a website called Shameless Potpourri. That was a clever name. Don't get potpourri like Kirkland's.

52:58

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.

53:07

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

53:14

That's actually a really big website that has tons of articles. It's a big deal. These two men.

53:21

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.

53:30

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.

53:45

So anyway, so here's what here's what he said. He said something that kind of confused me a little bit.

53:51

I thought when he's talking about Hebrews 412. Right. I would argue that the written word, the word, the word of God is not only the written word, but it is

54:02

Christ himself because the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Right. Yeah. And he was he arguing that Hebrews 412 is talking about the written word or was he arguing that because he was he was saying it's not both.

54:16

Was he saying it was Hebrews 412 talking about Jesus or is he saying that Hebrews 12 is the written word because we would say both.

54:24

Right. He made an argument. I want to touch on a few things here. He says that it's Jesus, not the written word.

54:32

And I went back. I was making notes in his opening statement. Very interesting. He in in our cross examination, by the way, the cross examination is everybody's favorite part of a debate.

54:43

And he I could tell he did not like a lot of my answers when he asked. It was so 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

55:06

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.

55:18

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

55:24

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

55:33

Timothy three. Right. Because he's speaking prophetically. That's still

55:38

God speaking. And so he didn't like it. That would be that would be your letter to the babysitter.

55:44

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.

55:58

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

56:10

God breathed. Right. Just like we're talking about. And so he he said the

56:17

Bible is not a living, breathing word, essentially. That's like a person. And we're saying and then

56:24

I appealed to not only second Timothy three sixteen to say all scripture is

56:29

God breathed, but also Hebrews four twelve. And so I think it would be good,

56:35

Trey, for me to pull that up and us to kind of talk about why you can't divorce when

56:43

Jesus speaks, when he walked on the earth and he spoke differently than the the inscription of God's word, which read it.

56:51

Absolutely. Go for 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 discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

57:05

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.

57:12

So I would say his argument is it's talking about him. It says no creature is hidden from his sight.

57:19

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

57:25

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.

57:35

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, hold the brakes.

57:42

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

57:48

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

57:55

That's what we mean by. It creates, doesn't it? It creates. It creates life, right?

58:01

It's created by the word of God. He spoke the world into existence, you know, by his word. That would say you're conflating the rhema, oral word of God with the written word.

58:11

We're saying that's the same source being God breathed, right? That's where the young phenom

58:17

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

58:27

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?

58:36

Obviously, this is preserved. God in his infinite wisdom and providence has preserved his word for the saints to come right after the completion of the canon.

58:48

So what we're saying is the word of God creates, when someone reads scripture, it's speaking truth into your life.

59:00

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

59:05

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.

59:17

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

59:26

Roman Catholics need to think about engaging with Protestants, and how Protestants need to also be ready to engage with Roman Catholics.

59:33

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

59:40

Jesus only, not the written word of God. So what's wrong with that by just making a blanket statement?

59:47

Well, all the early church fathers believed that, Trey. How can you disagree with all of them? Well, it's a fallacious argument for one.

59:54

It's also, just to put it in a simple term, it's like throwing a blanket over somebody where they can't see anything.

01:00:01

You know what I'm saying? Like, well, the church father's at it, as if that's the stamp of approval. Like, I don't care.

01:00:07

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?

01:00:15

We have to go back to the word of God. And number two, I would add, I would ask a

01:00:21

Roman Catholic, in what was their argument contextually, that the word of God in Hebrews 4 .12

01:00:28

being Jesus only, because the word there is and we know in John 1 .1, in the beginning was the

01:00:35

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.

01:00:46

And then later tells us that it's Jesus Christ, grace upon grace. So Lagos has a semantic domain.

01:00:53

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,

01:01:00

Trey, even if this verse did mean Jesus only, it still would not touch the main argument of Sola Scriptura.

01:01:07

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

01:01:13

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.

01:01:26

Look, I'm going to add to that. Yes, is it talking about the written word? Yes. So what else is it talking about?

01:01:34

Is it talking about Jesus? You betcha. What else is it talking about? Well, I'm going to read you this about Jesus.

01:01:42

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, rulers, authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

01:01:57

Stop. Pause. Go back. So the Lagos, is it talking about the written word?

01:02:03

Is it talking about Jesus? Both. And I'll add to that, even the oral word, because see,

01:02:09

God the Father spoke it, right? He says he spoke creation. He said, let there be, and there was.

01:02:15

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

01:02:21

Son, what? And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

01:02:26

So it encompasses all of it. And I think that's what I would say, like, yeah. So, Trey, what you did,

01:02:35

I really like, because you kind of appealed to a broader context of what kind of all of scripture speaks to, right?

01:02:41

Of how it's both and. That's why, yeah, go ahead. So, and that's powerful.

01:02:46

And this is a Protestant principle of scripture interpreting scripture. Why would we say such a thing?

01:02:53

Because God alone infallibly knows truth. So the best teacher of scripture would be scripture itself.

01:03:00

That's when we see harder to understand scriptures. Remember, even Peter acknowledged that some of Paul's writings are hard to understand.

01:03:08

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

01:03:15

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

01:03:29

God, the triune God speaking this world into existence. And then we also see, and I think actually

01:03:36

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.

01:03:46

Now, why do I say that? Look earlier in the context, Troy, with me, look at Hebrews 4 verse 3.

01:03:57

And before I read this, what I want to tell everybody is the writer of Hebrews is building a case from the

01:04:07

Old Testament scripture in Hebrews chapter 3. Back in verse 11, he quoted from Psalm 95 .11,

01:04:14

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.

01:04:25

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.

01:04:38

So he is quoting from the written word in Psalm 95. So look down with me in verse 7.

01:04:45

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.

01:04:59

And so I'm saying contextually, he is appealing to the written word as we're building up to verse 12.

01:05:07

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.

01:05:18

And like you were saying that cut straight between soul, the soul and spirit of joints in marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

01:05:28

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

01:05:38

Trinity who came and dwelt among us and also spoke. Now I want to get your thoughts on this real fast too.

01:05:46

Does this sound like another verse of the apostle Paul? And I don't know, we're talking about the body armor of God.

01:05:54

The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. What do you think,

01:05:59

Trey? Does that sound like another verse? Yeah, it does. It's also sounds like it's a weapon.

01:06:05

I was like, Oh, okay. Like that. Because when we look to Ephesians chapter six, um,

01:06:13

Paul telling the Christian to put on the whole body armor of God, he says, um, and the sword of the spirit.

01:06:21

Now, what is that? He says, which is the word of God. Okay. Now some people would say that you do not want the spirit of God does not dwell in you.

01:06:34

It's actually the Bible. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Um, and we'll, we'll definitely have to do another, um, podcast video, um,

01:06:43

YouTube video talking about that. Um, how the Holy spirit is active today.

01:06:48

Um, is it, and 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.

01:06:58

So Trey, what do you think, man? Um, I felt 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

01:07:14

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.

01:07:25

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.

01:07:33

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

01:07:38

Right. But here's the deal, man. At the end of the day, all of our sin goes back to the garden of Eden.

01:07:44

That's why you're even guilty of it. Cause you'd have done it. Right. Um, and we still struggle with that. We want to be God. We do not want to submit to his word.

01:07:53

He said, don't do it. Right. They did it. We don't want to submit to his word.

01:07:59

Um, his word tells us that Jesus Christ became flesh and dwelt among us.

01:08:05

It was by Jesus Christ, by the oral, by God speaking that the word of God, Christ is became flesh.

01:08:12

He dwelt among us. He is the tri he's the second person of the Trinity. I mean, it just, man, this thing just punches holes in everybody's theology.

01:08:20

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

01:08:33

It's not Jeremiah. It is the word like he is preeminent. I mean, what, what more can we say?

01:08:41

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

01:08:46

Uno, no, there's, 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?

01:08:58

I'm out dog. Yep. I'm out. Christ is preeminent. That's a strong word for first, you know?

01:09:05

And so, you know, he's the basis, he's the foundation, he's everything. Um, and so, you know, if you want to be, you know, this is what we want.

01:09:12

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?

01:09:17

We want to say that 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,

01:09:24

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

01:09:30

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, it's just bad theology hurts people, man.

01:09:37

And it leads me. Trey couldn't have said it better myself, man. You've, you've taught me everything I know.

01:09:42

So thank you. You taught me 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, uh,

01:09:52

I do love you. I love talking to you, man. You're a, you're a walking systematic theology book. I learn from you all the time.

01:09:57

Wow. Trey, I love you. This is fun. Hopefully people see the significance of, of soul scriptural. Yeah. Yeah.

01:10:04

And we'll, we'll pick it up again soon. Um, thank you so much, Trey, for coming on the apologetic dog and us sharpening one another.

01:10:12

Um, but that will do it for this episode. Um, I hope that you were encouraged.

01:10:18

Uh, maybe these are some new concepts that you've never thought about soul scriptural. What is the dividing line with Roman Catholics and Protestants?

01:10:25

So hopefully these are some things that will just help give you some new ideas to chew on and, uh, we will wrap it up for today.