Why are Categories of Theology Important

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide Biblical interpretation and application.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content, or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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All right, and welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport, joined by the sunny Floridian Bud.

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Greetings. Yeah, we're overcast today. I'm not down there. Overcast when

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I was down there. Yeah, well, it is today. So that's okay. It's still Florida. All right.

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Well, it's Florida, and I like Florida. I'm liking Florida more and more that, you know,

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I don't get harassed about stupid mask policies. That's true. And we're saving you a seat in the very back row at the church.

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Well, I'm Baptist. You got a place. You'll fit right in. Yeah. Well, I will be down there in May, actually.

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Be down in the Orlando area again in May. So we'll be down there doing a

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Snatch Them From the Flames conference. That will be, I'll give you the exact date.

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That will be May 7th to the 9th at Beulah Baptist Church in the

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Orlando area. It's actually Winter, is it Winter Garden? Yeah, it is. Yeah.

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And so by the time that this drops, I'll have already been in Hardinville, Hardinville, Indiana.

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So we're doing a Bible interpretation meet easy there at Hardinville Christian Church.

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In fact, actually, I'll be preaching at that church by the time this drops. So don't come look for the conference then because it'd be too late.

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So we have today, we're going to talk theology. And if we're going to talk theology, bud, we should talk to the guy that has a podcast called

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Do Theology. Jeremy Howard, how are you today? Doing well.

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We're a couple hours behind you guys, so I'm still waking up a little bit, but I'm doing well. So you're in a very religious state, aren't you?

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Yeah, that's, we are usually either first or second in religious involvement.

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We battle with Mississippi, but very different religions that dominate those two areas.

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So you are from Utah, and so the religion of dominance out there is the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. So for folks who are on the rap board who don't know you, just give quickly if you could introduce yourself, what you're doing there in Utah, the church, and also your podcast, which is one of the

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Christian podcast community podcasters. Sure. Yeah. My name is Jeremy Howard. I have a lovely wife and three wonderful children.

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We are in the Payson area of Utah, which is just south of Provo. I'm the pastor, the staff pastor of Orchard Hills Bible Church.

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We just had our 50th birthday. We have been in this community since 1970. And I also co -host a podcast with my friend

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Ken Chipchase called Do Theology. And season three is underway at the point this releases,

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I think. And so we've got some great stuff, great content, really fun interviews. And yeah,

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I'm just doing what the Lord has for me these days, which is keeping pretty busy. So what we want to do today on today's episode is to deal with theology, how we categorize them, different theological points.

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You have, Jeremy, come up and you actually have two podcasts of Do Theology where you covered a chart that you have developed.

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And I'll have the link to the chart and those podcasts in the show notes. And you could find the chart just if you go to dotheology .com.

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There's a link to it at the top. So it's called The Chart. I guess he can only have one, but he can't have two.

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My chart says keeping doctrines in their place. Yeah. But look at the very top. It says

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The Chart. And on their website, it's The Chart. So it's like the only chart.

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The only one you need. Yeah. So when we look at this, and what I want to do is

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I have up as well, Matt Slick from karma .org has done this, a lot of people have done this actually, to try to kind of classify doctrines.

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And I think that there's usually generally three categories most people put things in, right?

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You have a primary, a secondary, a tertiary. You label it, Jeremy, as primary doctrine, secondary doctrine, and doubtful things.

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We'll get to how Matt defines it in a moment. Because he's different than everybody always.

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Matt's just always in his own kind of class. But no, but what you end up seeing is,

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I think the way I look at it, you have, and you kind of dealt with this in the way you do it.

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You call primary doctrines, your secondary doctrines, you refer to as convictions. And then your doubtful things you put as conscious matters.

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And I usually do it as beliefs, convictions, and preferences.

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So I would say that our beliefs, which would be the primary doctrines, are things we're going to die for.

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If someone puts a gun to your head and says, deny the deity of Christ, you say, shoot, right?

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Convictions are things that someone puts that gun to my head. I'm not going to say shoot, but I'm going to be willing to hold strongly to those things.

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Where the tertiary things or the preferences, hey, we can agree to disagree. We can still fellowship together, but don't have to bring it up.

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Like, you know, the fact that Bud is post -mill. I mean, we're just going to ignore that. I mean. But I'm willing to learn.

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And you should make that incumbent too. For folks who didn't watch a recent

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Apologetics Live that we had. This is never going to stop. Yeah. We just,

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I mean, Justin Pierce, who co -hosts that with me, and I have known

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Bud for a very long time. And we both just thought he was in the right camp. And. Turns out he was a double agent the whole time.

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He was a double agent. And it was very funny when he revealed it. But Matt Slick does it just a little differently, as with everything

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Matt does. He has four categories. And almost everyone

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I know puts it into these three categories of primary, secondary, tertiary. Matt has a different way.

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He does primary, secondary, and then he has essential and non -essential.

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And so I want to look through Jeremy's chart today, and we're going to go through these categorizing.

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I also want to look at how Matt has done this. So we can try to figure out when we have discussions.

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And this is the reason we want to do this. We have discussions with people. You have online discussions. Everybody seems to want to make tertiary issues a primary issue, and they want to fight with you over them.

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We have to know. Like eschatology? Well, I think you were saying before we went live that you think that's a primary issue.

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So we'll see whether that's going to change. You're the one that just made it primary moments ago.

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I was just agreeing with you. But if you want to learn.

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Carry on. I'll mute myself. But you see, people do.

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They debate online and will argue over something. Give you one for instance, because I know you have it,

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Jeremy, in your tertiary category is alcohol. I knew someone that actually said that alcohol is a gospel issue, that a

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Christian must drink alcohol to show they have dominion over it, even if they had an alcohol problem in the past.

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I won't name the person, but he works at a very well -known ministry.

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And so the reality is that that's raising something that would be a tertiary thing to a primary role.

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Now, when you get to that point, I argue you have a different gospel when you start saying something like that. Just saying.

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So Matt defines this this way, and I'll just read what he says, because he says, I divide theology into two categories, primary and secondary essentials.

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Primary essentials are doctrines that the scripture explicitly declare are essential.

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So there what he's saying is where you have the scripture says you must believe this to be saved, you know, that you must to be saved.

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You must believe that Jesus rose from the dead. There you go. That's becomes, in his case, an essential.

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He then says, but with secondary essentials, the scriptures do not make such statements.

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The secondary essentials are derived from primary essentials and also properly define orthodoxy.

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So that's how he gets his first and second, you know, categories as far as the primary secondary does scripture say that this is something that you must believe.

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Now, when it comes to his non -essentials, you know, he's he's trying to discern.

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And this is where I think, Jeremy, you and I were talking before we went. It is a little confusing because I always think of primary as essentials.

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Yes. And so we were both kind of going, so what's a primary non -essential? Because if it's primary, how is it non -essential?

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And so I think there is some confusion with it, but I think what he's tried to do with this is good to say,

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OK, this is this is where scripture is explicit. Here's where it's not. But we still find it important. So I want to first go through and say, why is it good to categorize doctrines into these different levels?

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Well, we don't use the word essential. So if you look at our chart, if you listen to the things, our episodes or the things that we teach, we don't use the word essential as in reference to doctrine.

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We believe all doctrine is essential and using the word essential can kind of put the wrong spin on that.

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We like the word importance, different levels of importance, because that's a biblical phrasing.

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In First Corinthians 15, Paul said to this church, I delivered to you what was of first importance, meaning not all doctrine, not all teachings are of equal importance.

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And if we start to believe that all doctrine is of equal importance, though they are all essential, but if we believe that they're all of equal importance, what we'll end up doing is elevating those minor issues, as you were talking about with alcohol, minor in the scope of importance, elevating those up to either a gospel issue or a dogmatic issue or something that is objective in scripture when it's really subjective.

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And we end up blurring lots of lines. People who perhaps come from a very strict fundamentalist background have experienced this.

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If they grew up in a legalistic setting, they're saying, I was told how to dress. I was told where I could and couldn't go.

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I wasn't allowed to go into a movie theater, on and on and on it goes. But I never really understood penal substitutionary atonement.

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And that is the sad reality of what happens when we don't have these things ordered in our mind from a biblical perspective.

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And that's what we're to do is help people think biblically about these things. We don't want to draw arbitrary lines.

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We want to draw biblical lines. I wasn't raised in the church, but when

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I started going to church, it was an independent fundamentalist Baptist church. I remember a guy who was visiting the church, comes to the house, and he saw a

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TV in my living room. It wasn't a very big one. It was back with the old tube type TVs, maybe 17 inch.

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And he saw that and went, just literally started sharing the gospel with me. And I just was like, okay, what's going on here?

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He's new to the church. I was, I think, a deacon at the church at the time. And I actually just asked him, do you think

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I need the gospel? And he goes, well, you must, you're worldly. I was like, what? He pointed to the

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TV. And I was just like, uh -huh. And at that point, that became an issue where it's,

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Anthony Svester and I had, he had someone over his house staying over and we had a case where he and I enjoy watching

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UFC. Some people think that's wrong. That's, see, I would say that's their liberty to think it's wrong.

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And it's, I think, my liberty to enjoy the skill of watching people that are at the top of their sport doing what they do.

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Well, the two people that were also staying in the house, when they found out we're watching it, left gospel tracks around Anthony's house and wouldn't talk to us anymore.

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Cause we, you know, like, I was like, well, if you think we're not saved, you should at least share the gospel with us. You know, they just left tracks all over, but it's pretty wild.

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I mean, people who come from those settings may have a very specific, you know, length for skirts for women.

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It has to be at least this long, you know, and your hair has to be at least this long and men's hair can't be, you know, this long, but then you ask them to define propitiation or ask them to give you a biblical defense of justification by faith alone.

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And well, I don't know, but I know that your hair can't be more than this many inches, you know, and that is not the way it's supposed to be.

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And it goes the other way in the progressive Christianity world where nothing is primary. So in the legalistic world, everything is primary in a more progressive or liberal world.

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Nothing is primary and everything is doubtful. And scripture actually gives us great directives on this.

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And that's our goal is to think biblically, think scripturally about these things. Yeah. And hence you can say that you think drinking alcohol is part of the gospel.

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I mean, you get there because everything is allowed. Yeah. You know, this is important because, you know, this whole notion of gospel centered, everything nowadays is gospel centered.

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It's a gospel issue. Your melanin content is probably the most preeminent issue that is gospel related.

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So being able to take this kind of theological thinking from what scripture drives us to, boy, the church needs that.

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And certainly the world needs to see the church knowing that. So the essential thing here for us is to be recognized.

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The reason we're doing this episode is because we do have to know what things we're willing to die for, what things we're willing to fight for, and what things we're willing to let go.

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That's really a simple way of looking at the three categories, at least in my mind. So as we go through this, we want to start putting different theological topics into categories.

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And before we do, I'm going to ask you to define your categories, Jeremy, but for you who are listening, the reason this becomes important for us is so that we can know how to respectfully talk to one another.

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So that we know what issues, when you have someone who is saying, well,

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I really like Beth Moore. She's great to listen to. Why wouldn't we want to?

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Some of the things that she says, which category are in? There's something she says that I would put in a primary category as being wrong.

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That means we have to break fellowship. We can't endorse. When she says she's hearing from God, she's saying that God speaks to her.

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That is inspiration. So when she's doing that, in my category,

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I'm going to put God's word in a primary category. And so when she's messing with that, that's not something that we can fellowship over.

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That puts her outside of the camp of what I'm going to say is biblical Christianity, because she's getting extra revelation.

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And so we end up looking at things like that that we get into. But there's others who we're going to say, okay, secondary doctrines, we're going to disagree on things, that post mill, for example.

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I just know that every time I say that, I'm going to see Bud's head go down and shake. It's great. But, you know, that's something that we can we look, we're all going to be wrong in some theological areas, every one of us.

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Okay, we can't be wrong in the in the primary area. Okay. We can be wrong in the secondary or the tertiary areas.

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But we can't be wrong in the first, otherwise, it means you're out of the kingdom. So we need to know where that line is.

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But then the other line, we have to know where, yeah, this scripture speaks pretty strongly on this, but we might be wrong.

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We all are going to have an end times theology. I think too many people will get to this, put end times at the end.

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That becomes a tertiary issue. I think that, as you put it in your chart, Jeremy, it's a secondary issue.

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It is important, much of scripture talks about it. But yet, because it's a difficult thing to interpret, there are some areas,

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I think, the big picture, there's agreement on, but then there's when we try to get to details, it gets harder.

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When you can't get those details right, I think that's where we have to be a little forgiving with one another. So let me do this, as far as definitions,

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Jeremy, could you, you have a definition for primary, secondary, and what you call doubtful things.

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Could you give your definition and also give your principle that you have on your chart for each one of those three?

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Sure. So with primary doctrine, these are definitional to Christianity. And that's what we start off by saying is that these issues define

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Christianity. Not every doctrine that is found in the primary doctrine column is an aspect of the gospel message, but each one is clearly articulated in scripture.

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And the line that we draw between primary and secondary is that the primary doctrines transcend hermeneutics, meaning these things are clearly taught in scripture, no matter what type of interpretive

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Bible study method you come to scripture with. For instance, if you have a valid interpretive model, there is no way you're going to walk away from scripture saying, well,

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Jesus is never coming back. It's clearly taught in scripture that Jesus is returning. So that doctrine transcends our interpretation of scripture, it transcends hermeneutics, and that's why it's primary.

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And the principle there is that we need to hold fast to what God holds fast to, and we need to be willing to be divisive over those issues.

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Secondary on the other hand are a result of our hermeneutics. These are the areas of disagreement oftentimes among Christians, and they're rooted in church history, which can kind of make them gnarly sometimes, and they do result in denominational divides at times as well.

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So our principle is we need to take a stand on these, but keep fellowship with believers who disagree.

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So if we're going to keep using end times as an example, it is primary doctrine that Jesus is returning again.

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If you deny the second coming of Christ, you're not a Christian. If you're a full -on preterist, you're not a

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Christian, because we are waiting for his bodily return. That's clearly taught in scripture.

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Now if you believe that before a millennium, after a millennium, if the millennium is figurative, those are all results of our hermeneutic, therefore they are secondary.

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But the principle that Jesus is returning bodily, that transcends our hermeneutics, and that's primary.

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You have the principle there, and also the doubtful things. Doubtful things, that's actually taken from the

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New King James rendering of Romans 14. The new American standard says opinions, so we could have titled it opinions also.

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But we are not to quarrel over these things scripture teaches. The definition of the third column, doubtful things, are issues that are to be discerned individually as the

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Spirit, the Holy Spirit, binds and loosens Christian consciences differently.

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They're matters of wisdom and foolishness, so they're not inherently right or wrong, but they are topics, they are issues that can be discerned differently by Christians.

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There's freedom in these things. So our principle is to obey your God -given conscience, and don't cause others to stumble with these things, and be wise.

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Honor God with wise living in these areas. I look at the way you have it.

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Primary things, you say truth that affects fellowship with others, which is what I had said earlier.

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Secondary doctrine, you say convictions that affect ministry with others, and then doubtful things are the conscience matters that affect friendships.

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It's interesting how you do it. This is what I found interesting with your breakout, is your focus on the hermeneutics and the separation, because doctrine does divide.

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That's not a problem. It divides truth from error, but it also unifies. People always forget that, because those of us who agree, the three of us agree on core issues, and that keeps us unified.

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In the primary areas, we have unity. Many of the secondary areas, we have unity. That doesn't cause us to separate, that actually causes us to come together.

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Just as much as doctrine divides, it unifies, but we have to know what to unify over and what things can we not unify over.

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What I find nowadays is everybody is dividing over their feelings, not over the scripture.

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That's why I think it's neat the way you're saying it. What things, regardless if you're a covenant, a dispensational, a post,

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I was going to say post -mill. You could say five -point

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Calvinist versus four -point Calvinist versus non -Calvinist. Any of them. Everyone's going to interpret these core primary doctrines the same.

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That's one of the things when people say, well, there's all the churches, therefore, we can't know what the

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Bible is. No, the core doctrines, everyone agrees to. You're right, that transcends hermeneutics. I like how you had done that.

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Then the secondary is really the working out of the hermeneutic. It's taking that now, okay, here are things that within, like you said, denominations or things like that, the hermeneutic is different.

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We come up to different conclusions. Let's go through some of the categories.

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Bud and I both probably have differing ways of categorizing some of these things.

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A lot of what you have is more, I think, more in the practical than what

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Slick has is all the theological. I think there's a difference there that it could be helpful, but go ahead.

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I wanted to clarify something for me, Jeremy, because I like you've got primary doctrine, secondary doctrine.

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When you get to the category of doubtful things, these are almost all orthopraxic effects of that doctrine.

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The implications of primary doctrine spill over into secondary doctrine, the teaching, but the doubtful things really are the behavior.

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It's the effect of our understanding of either the primary and the secondary. Is that right?

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Is that how you've orchestrated that? Yes. At the top, there's that line at the top of the chart that says primary doctrines should not be violated by other doctrines.

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If you take alcohol, for example, which is all the way in the doubtful things column, that is not a doctrine on paper necessarily.

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It's how you go about living your life. We know that scripture clearly teaches Christians are not to be drunk.

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Therefore, your relationship with alcohol is limited by the primary doctrine column.

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The objective truths found in the first column inform and limit the second and third columns.

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If you notice too, there's red, yellow, and green. It's like a stoplight. With primary doctrine, there's nowhere to have wiggle room on that.

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Those are things where you stop and yield to what the word of God clearly teaches. Secondary doctrine, yellow light.

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Go slowly because you can fall off and be in heresy land to any extreme on any one of those.

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Then when it comes to doubtful things, we have a lot of freedom. You're free in a lot of ways.

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Now, you're still limited by what is objective, but there's a lot more freedom there in the opinions area of life.

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I think that's very helpful, that explanation. Thank you. I think this becomes important because legalism and liberality are both easy.

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Right? Legalism, you don't have to think about it. You have a list of do's and don'ts. Someone else makes it up.

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Whatever they say, whatever said you could do, you do that. Whatever say don't, you don't do. Like some of the things we were talking about, how long your hair is, or whether women can wear skirts, like all this stuff.

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Then you have liberality, which again, requires no thinking. You could do whatever you want. Everything's good.

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You're under the blood of Christ. You could do whatever you want. God has forgiven you. There's no thinking involved.

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The truth requires thinking. Who is it that said this?

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Was it God that said, come let us reason together? Yeah. He wants us actually thinking.

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The truth is going to take some work. That's why categorizing these theological topics becomes important, because without knowing which category they're in, we don't know whether this is, oh,

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I can't fellowship with this person, or it's going to affect whether we can minister together.

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I can go side by side with, depending on, say a

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Presbyterian or a Lutheran, depending on which denomination, what they're believing, and work at an abortion clinic.

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I can't do that with a Catholic. The Roman Catholic, who's not saved,

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I can't sit there and say we're unified at an abortion clinic. They need the gospel.

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You can't evangelize together if you have different gospels. Correct. If I have someone that's a

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Presbyterian, and we're in agreement with the primary things, we can work side by side.

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Maybe, depending on some of those things, we can't work side by side on something.

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I've preached at plenty of Presbyterian churches. I've even taught on baptism in a

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Presbyterian church and can teach Presbyterian view of baptism, but I wouldn't actually perform an infant baptism.

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Why? Because that's an area where it affects our ministry. I can understand their position. I could even teach their position, but I can't practice their position.

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You're right. We have to know which category these things are to know how we're going to serve alongside one another.

29:17

It's not enough to say we're all one. I believe we're going to see a lot more of this melding together in the future because you're going to see a lot of people who are upset with the current political administration.

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For that reason, it's, hey, let's get together. We're unified in numbers. The temptation for many is to argue for politics.

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They're going to start trying to work together with people that need the gospel. They're going to let that go rather than push to teach the gospel to these people.

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I'll give you a for instance. There is a guy who has his whole ministry is rethinking hell.

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They want to get rid of the thought that there's a hell. He works with people that he admits are not saved, but he still does these podcasts and ministry with them.

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Instead of sharing the gospel, it's like, well, there's not many of us around, so we have to stick together.

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Right there, there's primary areas where he should be separating and he doesn't because what's more important is his one theological bent that he wants everyone to buy into.

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This is what we're going to be seeing a lot more of, I fear. Absolutely.

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But I think we'll also be seeing more of the positive outworking of this as persecution becomes more and more real in America.

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I think more and more Christians are going to understand what really is important and that we do need each other despite some of our secondary or tertiary differences.

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I think that's going to be an effect of what the Lord is doing to His church right now that so many in pulpits over evangelicalism don't recognize.

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But it is going to drive the true sheep to recognize especially those primary issues.

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The winnowing that's happening, you want the goats to go. Get the goats out.

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I think the Lord's doing that. In Utah here, we're already experiencing that to a degree because in our area, our church's footprint, there's about 60 ,000 people in our church's area that we are seeking to reach.

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There are four or five non -Mormon churches. You've got us, you've got an

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Assemblies of God church, a King James only Baptist church, a Roman Catholic church, and a Russian Orthodox church.

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There's no preference of, I like this Southern Baptist church over and against those five other Southern Baptist churches.

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We don't have that. It wasn't a first century, it was just the church. One of the first things

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I do when we have new visitors to our church is I'll hand them this chart and say, this is my paradigm for viewing doctrine, just so you know.

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Obviously, our church has a stance on things outside of the primary category, but this is how

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I view it personally. Hope you can get on the same page with that because they're coming from all different types of backgrounds. I want this to be upfront so we're all on the same page together.

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Let's look at some of these things that you have and discuss on these. The first you put is the gospel message.

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You lay out five points for the gospel message, sinfulness of man, the unique nature of Christ, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, justification by faith alone.

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You're putting all these under gospel message. If you don't get any one of those points, you haven't gotten the gospel.

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You have to understand all five of those if you're going to get the gospel. You must be a

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Calvinist. Everything's a five -point thing with you. Armenians believe in the five -point gospel message.

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What you have here is you look at Romans 10, 9, and 10.

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When you look at that, that is one of these examples that we're talking about because the scripture makes it clear.

33:43

It says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

33:51

For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.

33:57

This text is giving us that these are two things you must believe. This is why these would be primary because scripture is saying you don't do this, you don't have salvation.

34:10

What's baked into those concepts there is that man is in need because of our sinful condition.

34:17

We are in need of a savior. Jesus rose from the dead, meaning that he died. You have to believe in his death in our place for our sins, that he is

34:29

Lord, he is Yahweh in flesh, that he lived a perfect life. It's not just his passive obedience, but his active obedience.

34:35

You don't have to know all those terms, but if you just believe he was a creature like us, then he couldn't be your savior.

34:42

He physically rose from the dead, and we are justified by faith alone. Nothing that we add to it contributes to our salvation.

34:51

It is by faith and his finished work alone by which we are saved. That is the gospel.

34:57

If you're missing any of those points, then you haven't actually heard the gospel. Folks, I want you to hear how

35:05

Jeremy and I just did that because this is really what you see with Matt Slick's primary, secondary way he does it.

35:14

The scripture, Romans 10, says, here's two things you must believe.

35:20

Here's two essential doctrines. I shouldn't use the term essential with the way

35:25

Matt uses it. Here's two doctrines that are explicitly in scripture as you must believe this.

35:35

Then you see how Jeremy takes that and says, okay, but here's what Matt would end up calling the secondary. You have all these things that are implied from that.

35:45

The idea of, I would say, a primary doctrine is the whole idea that our sin was placed upon Christ and Christ's righteousness placed upon us.

35:59

It's the doctrine of imputation. We see this in 2

36:04

Corinthians 5 .21. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of him.

36:17

We could say, okay, this becomes something that is primary. It's explicitly taught, but yet what's implied in that?

36:26

What's implied is, as Jeremy just said, you have the sinfulness of man because it has to be our sin placed upon him, the righteousness of Christ, the substitutionary atonement.

36:35

That's really what this is addressing, but you have much more than this when you start to see, well, what is essential?

36:43

I'm trying to not use the way Matt Slick is using it, but what's essential to that doctrine that may not be explicit in scripture?

36:51

That's what Jeremy just did. He's saying, okay, well, what explains some of this?

36:57

When we look at these categories, you have to understand the implications of some of these things as well.

37:03

It's not enough to say, well, scripture says you must believe Jesus rose from the dead. What does that tell you?

37:09

You have to believe that he not only died, but rose from the dead.

37:14

Well, what's that death about? When you're in a Mormon context like I am, they'll say that Jesus rose from the dead and they'll gladly affirm it.

37:25

They celebrate Easter every year. Big celebration. They celebrate Christmas every year. Jesus was born.

37:31

In fact, they'll say Jesus is divine. But massively different.

37:38

That's right. A different Jesus. It's a different Jesus. Divine when he walked the earth. What does that mean?

37:46

Is he the one true God, or is he another God? The implications of it are just as important, because if we're just looking at words on paper, there are a lot of cults that would agree.

37:58

We would give biblical definitions. That's where we divide. I like this. The first one you've got under gospel message, sinfulness of man, inherent in that is the law of God.

38:10

When we talk about sin, we're not talking about you've done something that you know is wrong and it violated your conscience.

38:16

No, the sinfulness of man has to do with the law of God. You're violating the holy creator.

38:23

There's a lot of doctrine even behind what you've got there that would be intrinsic and primary,

38:30

I think, in the way you've got it defined. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we have to define things the way

38:36

Scripture defines things. We can't arbitrarily or contextually define things, thinking that we're wiser than Scripture.

38:44

We have to have chapter and verse for everything we teach. And so when we look at some things, we would say the doctrine of God would be primary.

38:55

Having a proper view of who God is, that he's triune. Because if you don't have a right view of God, then all bets are off, right?

39:06

I mean, you can't, I always think of the, if you guys saw the movie Courageous.

39:13

In Courageous, there's this one scene that is a funny scene, but it really works well when we think about who

39:20

God is. You have this guy, I forget his name, the character,

39:27

I think it was Julio or something like that. Two police officers, one guy needs someone to work on his house.

39:35

So he says, I'll send my friend Julio over. He'll come over and he'll be there. Okay, great. Well, this guy

39:41

Julio, different Julio, gets fired. He's just walking down the street, doesn't have anywhere to be.

39:50

And the guy that needs help on his house turns and says, hey, Julio, what are you doing? Well, that's his name. He says, come on, let's get to work.

39:56

Well, he's praying for God, looking for work. So he's working with the guy all week. It's now like toward the end of the week, and the one officer gets together for lunch with his buddy.

40:06

And he's like, his friend goes, yeah, sorry, I couldn't get Julio over. He's been in the hospital. He goes, what do you mean?

40:11

Julio has been working with me all week. They start describing who Julio is, and guess what?

40:17

Totally different description. Of course, he then realizes, so who's the guy at my house? And he goes, I don't know.

40:22

And he runs home to get back home. If you have the wrong person, if I'm to sit there and say, well,

40:30

I know Joe Biden. And you say, really? I see him on TV.

40:36

You know him? Yeah, he's an orange man. Orange man bad. He's crazy on Twitter, right?

40:44

You're gonna go, wait, no, no, he doesn't even know how to use Twitter. He doesn't even know what day of week it is.

40:51

You realize you have two different people. Well, same thing with God. If you have a wrong God. So for example, like you're saying in Mormon country where you're at, they would say that there's many gods.

41:02

And yet scripture will say, this is Exodus 20, verse 3, you shall have no other gods beside me.

41:10

Deuteronomy 5, 7, you shall have no other gods before besides me. Isaiah 45, 14, 45, 21,

41:20

Daniel 3, 21, all of them say that there is no other

41:25

God. So when you argue that, well, there's other gods, right?

41:33

Now that becomes a primary issue we can't separate on. You can't say there's multiple gods and God says you can't have any gods and there are no other gods.

41:43

Those are mutually exclusive. So those are things that are primary. Yep, absolutely.

41:49

And there are a lot of things that fall into the dogma category of primary doctrine.

41:55

So back in the definition of primary doctrine says that these issues define

42:02

Christianity and not every doctrine here is an aspect of the gospel. So for instance, if you're in a plane that's going down and you're the only

42:11

Christian there who's willing to stand up and declare the gospel, you're not going to get into the omnis of the attributes of God, right?

42:19

Because just like Paul said, when he wrote to the Corinthians, here's what is of first importance that Jesus died according to the scriptures that he rose again, according to the scriptures.

42:28

There, if you've got 30 seconds, 45 seconds, there are certain things you're going to choose and there are a whole lot of things you're going to leave out.

42:35

Now that doesn't mean that those things you leave out are all equally unimportant. There are varying levels of importance in all those things that are left out, like biblical inerrancy.

42:45

You might not get to that in a quick gospel proclamation, but that is still definitional to Christianity.

42:53

And lots of people make this mistake by saying that the gospel is all that there is in primary doctrine.

42:59

Well, it's not a gospel issue, so it's not primary. And that is wrong thinking. Christianity is not defined by what can fit into a 30 -second gospel message.

43:09

Christianity is defined by all of the issues that transcend hermeneutics in the Bible that are clearly taught.

43:15

We have one book, the Bible, and whatever it clearly teaches defines our faith.

43:21

We can't go on and say, well, the future judgment of God, heaven and hell, you can believe whatever you want about that and still call yourself a

43:31

Christian. Or the Trinity, you can believe whatever you want about that and still call yourself a Christian. That's not true.

43:38

Those two items might not make it into a gospel proclamation as clearly and fully as it would in a systematic theology class.

43:46

That doesn't make them unimportant. They are still very important, and they define Christianity. You end up having to be careful because you don't want to promote doctrinal regeneration.

43:58

You're not a Christian because you can explain these doctrines. That has nothing to do with it. Although, these doctrines are intrinsic to the faith as it was delivered.

44:09

Someone, a new Christian perhaps, especially take my context out here in Mormon land.

44:15

They are raised believing that the Trinity is a heresy.

44:21

They don't like that word. They believe it's an abomination. If a Mormon gets converted, they have all of that baggage, that presupposition against the word

44:32

Trinity. The former pastor of our church used to say, all their wires got soldered in the wrong places.

44:41

You've got to undo each wire and correct each one. That person may be genuinely born again through the gospel.

44:49

Then it might take that person months to come around on fully embracing the Trinity.

44:54

If that person continues in denial of the Trinity, that is evidence that that person probably isn't born again, because you're just denying what

45:02

Scripture teaches. If you can walk that person through Scripture, it might be difficult for that person to swallow for a while.

45:08

But if they eventually affirm, that is great evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in that person's life.

45:14

I never heard the word Trinity because I was raised

45:20

Jewish. We didn't talk about that. When I became a Christian, and I didn't know anything about the

45:27

Trinity, I believed Jesus was God. I had someone that asked me, okay, what do you think happened?

45:33

If you only thought Jesus was God, and you didn't think of God as a Trinity, what do you think was happening when

45:39

Jesus was dying on the cross? Who was controlling the universe? I said, Jesus, he's God. It was simplistic to me.

45:47

But when I heard the doctrine of the Trinity, and I looked at the Scriptures, I became more fully informed.

45:54

But I had to believe Jesus was God for salvation. I didn't need to understand the

46:01

Trinity for salvation. But like you said, I didn't fight it. When I came to terms with it,

46:07

I didn't go denying it. This would be why I would say someone like a T .J. Jakes is not saved, which probably horrifies some people.

46:14

But he has a belief of the Trinity of modalism. He doesn't believe in the

46:19

Trinity proper. He knows it. He understands the issues. Because of that, where someone in his church may be genuinely saved, believing in modalism, because they don't understand the biblical view.

46:34

Well, I was going to make a comment. I think this is important for us to understand not only, and obviously, in a

46:41

Mormon context like Jeremy is in, but you run into this with regular evangelical pew sitters.

46:49

I read a book the other day from Sproul, R .C. Sproul, Making a Difference. He says this, one of the most difficult tasks of the theological educator is not to get new information to people, but to unteach them.

47:04

What Jeremy's done here, I think, helps outline that. It's pointing back to Scripture.

47:10

This is the authority, so you submit to this. The genuine believer, the genuine disciple who is going to be teachable, will do that.

47:20

I just wanted to throw that in there. I thought that was - There's ways this practically works out.

47:28

Because if you think about it, as we look at this, I'll give you, for instance, when

47:33

I go on the streets and do open air evangelism, I've gone in New York where I've had people that will sit and challenge me if I quote

47:43

Scripture, not from the King James. Now, what happens? I'm sitting there, and I'm getting into a debate with someone over a translation of Scripture.

47:56

Now, I'm going to put that in Jeremy's chart, doubtful things. That's the preferences in my mind.

48:04

But to some people, that's a primary. Now, I want to share the gospel to people.

48:10

What does this do? Now, it becomes a distraction. Now, I'm arguing with someone that claims to be a believer in Christ over a translation.

48:18

Now, we have to get into that. What does that do to the people watching? Well, they're going, look, these guys can't even agree on primary things.

48:26

You see? And so, what I do many times, I've started doing this more and more, is

48:33

I will, when I'm up there doing open air, I will use the King James. The Mormons use it.

48:38

The Jehovah's Witnesses use it. The public domain. Yeah. They don't have to get a

48:44

Christian publisher's permission. Yeah. But what you end up seeing there is that it avoids what

48:51

I'm going to put in a tertiary, a third level issue, and someone else is putting as a primary issue so that I can get the gospel out.

49:00

I become all things to all men. Yeah. And that's really, and what you're doing is exemplifying the principle of doubtful things.

49:09

Don't cause others to stumble. And we have genuine brothers and sisters in the Lord who believe the

49:14

King James version is the only correct English version. They're wrong on that, but many of them are saved.

49:21

And what you're doing is removing a stumbling block for your brother, which is love. It's Christian love. All right.

49:28

So, after this break, bud, I'll throw a doozy Jeremy's way. So, maybe we'll ask this question after this break.

49:36

We'll give him some time to think about it. It's not, I don't see it on his chart, but voting

49:42

Democrat. We'll see which category he puts that in right after this. Evangelism, apologetics, parenting, homeschooling, sermons, and much, much more.

50:21

So, check us out at christianpodcastcommunity .org.

50:31

One stop for all your favorite Christian podcasts. And one of those podcasts on there is the

50:43

Do Theology podcast, along with this one, obviously, but Do Theology is a podcast that Jeremy is on.

50:49

So, Jeremy, what would you say? This is such a hot topic these days. We've seen a lot of people discussing, saying that no

50:59

Christian could vote Democratic, can vote for a Democrat. We have Christians that were arguing that they should vote for, you had

51:06

Christians for Biden, and some pretty big named Southern Baptists who are supporting that. So, what say you?

51:14

I see where you kind of put that in your chart. You have that there, but some people put that up a little bit higher.

51:22

What say you? Yeah. So, we have politics in the third column. And to me, the real easy way to think about it in our current day and age, and for the politics that are a part of this cultural moment, the easiest way to think about it is this.

51:38

Is it a sin to be a Roman Catholic? Okay. No, but it's sinful.

51:46

It's against God. It's heretical to believe what the Roman Catholic Church officially teaches.

51:52

So, is it a sin to vote Democrat? Maybe, maybe not.

51:59

But you have to ask, if a truly born -again person is a Roman Catholic, if a truly born -again person is voting

52:05

Democrat, you have to ask, what's going on? So, that's the way I view it, is I'm not going to go through the steps of Matthew 18 with somebody who

52:15

I know voted Democrat, but I do want to have a conversation with that person about it. And I want to be open and honest and genuine and cause that person to think more, because probably many people, especially if you were raised in a blue -collar working family and your dad was a member of a union, you've just grown up voting

52:34

Democrat. Or if you're from an urban area, you just grew up thinking R next to your name is evil,

52:40

D next to your name is good, and you vote Democrat. So many people haven't thought about these things.

52:46

And if a person has thought through these things and a person still wants to support those policies, then it might become a more serious issue.

52:54

But on the surface, I think of it in terms of, dude, why are you still a Roman Catholic?

52:59

You believe in justification by faith alone, get out of there. And a lot of those conversations can be fruitful and good.

53:06

So that's where I start with that whole line of thinking. Yeah. And see, that's the thing is we are seeing a lot of people who are starting to put politics up there as not a secondary issue.

53:18

Some of them are putting it as a primary issue. As Bud knows, I did the major faux pas of quoting first Timothy two and saying we should pray for President Biden.

53:32

And I was called all kinds of names. I was evil and wicked and worshiping Satan. And no,

53:39

I'm just trying to follow scripture. So people have really raised this one up in recent days.

53:46

And you're in Pennsylvania, right? Yeah. So you're both in swing states, Florida and Pennsylvania.

53:51

Really, you guys were dealing with this way more than I was. I mean, Utah is pretty far away from us.

53:57

And our six electoral votes aren't really appealing to any candidates. So anyway, yeah, that's you guys have had plenty of opportunity to talk through these things and think through these things.

54:08

And where have you landed on it? Well, I mean, it comes down to I'm pretty close with what you're saying.

54:14

If the person is untold, and there's a lot of people that just haven't thought it through. And as they're starting to think it through, you work with it at a doctrinal level.

54:24

So when I'm going to talk about the Democrat Party, what am I going to be focusing on? What are they supporting?

54:30

Well, they don't support the family. They support everything that causes destruction of the family.

54:38

Family is a biblical thing. They support homosexuality. They support killing children in the womb.

54:46

They don't support Christianity. In fact, they're in opposition to it.

54:51

So you start looking at these things, you go, everything that they support is what the Bible condemns. So do we really support that?

55:00

I would approach it by what is it that the Democrats are supporting, not who the Democrat is.

55:06

Because really, it's the platform that we're looking at. So was

55:14

Donald Trump horrific on Twitter? Yeah. I don't think there's anyone that denies that.

55:22

But did he have policies and legislate or execute in such a way that was in line with Scripture?

55:33

Well, it was more in line than Joe Biden is. So I'm going to look at that and say, okay,

55:39

I'm looking at the policy. I'm looking at the platform. I'm not looking at the individual as much.

55:46

Now, the individual, yeah, that does come into play. But when I'm talking to someone who is like, well, just orange man bad,

55:53

I've been watching the news and the news just teaches me everything Donald Trump does is wrong. Well, I'm not going to say, well, we need to church discipline you because you don't understand he's good.

56:05

No, you need to figure out why do they think that. Right? And so this becomes an issue.

56:13

One of the issues we're having nowadays in church that we're seeing is the issue of Black Lives Matter and social justice.

56:23

And so that is becoming a thing that many people, as Bud alluded to, are raising this up.

56:29

The amount of melanin in your skin is becoming a primary issue. It's becoming a gospel issue that this is what we should be doing.

56:37

We should be focused on trying to right the wrongs of previous generations with social justice.

56:45

And that's what the church is. It's a distraction in my mind, but this is being raised up to a primary issue that this is what church should be doing.

56:54

And this is why this becomes important is because we have to put these in this category so that we realize that when the church starts focusing on social justice, then they've lost the ministry and mission of the church, because that's not a primary thing.

57:12

And the church needs to focus on the primary and even the secondary.

57:18

But when the church takes the tertiary, that third level, and raises it up, then you now have a wrong message.

57:28

If they take something that's in that third column, and they don't allow primary doctrine to be the guardrails, then they've forsaken wisdom.

57:40

Because really in the realm of politics, our choices get whittled down by the primary objective truths of scripture.

57:47

And so you take a Democrat candidate, for example, what Biden and Harris are wanting to do in this country, and you start their view on all morality is basically antithetical to the

57:59

Christian cause. So that really takes a lot of appeal away from voting for them.

58:07

And you start getting into the other issues, and it just whittles down, whittles down, whittles down your options in the political arena that in good conscience you could support as a

58:15

Christian. But if you forsake that and say, well, it's a doubtful thing, I'm totally free, and you forsake all wisdom, then you might end up supporting something like that.

58:25

And people have to let what is primary and what is objective affect what is doubtful, because that's how we live a wise life.

58:35

Yeah, because what we see is there's a constant barrage, century after century, attacking the church, trying to distract the church on things that are in the third category, and trying to make them primary.

58:50

And you can fall astray if you don't have these categories laid out and knowing which is which.

58:57

So let me just read some of the things you have in your list of doubtful things. Alcohol, Bible translations, clothes, food, hobbies, holidays, mission field, music, and other media, personal appearance, personal finance, personal health care decisions, personality, politics, schooling, social networks, tattoos, tobacco.

59:20

And yet as I look through that list, I know different churches that have made those primary issues. Yeah. Yeah.

59:26

And the tail starts to wag the dog because you end up defining objective biblical morality by your opinions.

59:33

You define what is moral by what you have concluded, apart from Scripture in the third column.

59:40

And that's what cults do. That's why when you go to a Mormon church on a Sunday morning, all the guys look the same.

59:47

That's why none of them drink coffee. That's why they're uniform in the way they go about living this life is because the things in the third column, these issues have been defined for them.

01:00:01

And that ends up all your opinions in the third column end up being the definition of biblical morality.

01:00:06

And that is not the way Scripture presents it. Scripture presents morality and says, this is what's right.

01:00:12

This is what's wrong. Now you're free in all of these areas in light of that objective truth to choose for yourself based on your conscience.

01:00:20

And that's much more complex, but it's much more beautiful. Yeah, I agree.

01:00:27

So, I mean, we're at the top of the hour. I want to just to wrap up.

01:00:33

I mean, I think this is hopefully helpful for folks to realize that if we're not putting our theology in the proper categories, we could end up folk majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors.

01:00:47

And so we got to be careful not to do that. So, Jeremy, we appreciate you coming on and helping us with this.

01:00:54

Again, go to DoTheology .com to get the chart that we're referring to. If you want to check the one out at CARM that I was referencing to, just go to CARM .org

01:01:04

and I think it's called the Theology Chart or Doctrine Table. Just search for Doctrine Table and you will find that there.

01:01:13

So, Jeremy, anything you want to close out with, anything you want to share, what's happening with your podcast this season? Yeah, so we've got some great, great interviews.

01:01:21

Jump on over there. We've interviewed Ray Comfort and Elisa Childers, Bob Coughlin, Carl Truman, several names that people recognize.

01:01:29

And the theme of our podcast is this chart and weighing the importance of doctrine. So, we try to ask tough questions and get the answers to the questions that you want to know.

01:01:38

So, please join us over there. We'd love to add you to our audience. Well, thank you.