WWUTT 2680 Q&A Communion, Noah's Ark, Is James Talarico a Christian, the Caleb Flynn Case

How often should a church partake of the Lord's Table? The Duripanar Formation in Turkey, is that really Noah's Ark? And how should Christians consider the case of Caleb Flynn? The answers when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky and greetings everyone. I'm going to start by reading from Psalm 90. I'm going to read the whole thing because it's just such a good psalm. A prayer of Moses, Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting.

You are God. You return man to dust and say return, O children of man, for a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood.

They are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and is renewed. In the evening it fades and withers. For we are brought to an end by your anger, by your wrath we are dismayed.

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy or even by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble.

They are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long?

Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.

Such a great reminder to hear. Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. That we would recognize we're not invincible. We're not going to last here forever. As Paul says in Ephesians 5, make the best use of the time because the days are evil.

So teach us to number our days. Help us to recognize we are limited so that we may gain wisdom for the here and now, for our future, living every day in obedience to the Lord and for his glory. For he has given his son for us, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us that by faith in him, our sins are forgiven and we have everlasting life.

Live every day in the righteousness of Christ that he has given to you. This is the Friday edition of When We Understand the Text. When we take questions from the listeners and respond to them in this end of the week edition, you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com or go to www .utt .com.

Click on that voicemail tab and you can record a voicemail to us using your phone or your computer, whatever recording device. It'll give you about 90 seconds to ask your question and we would love to hear from you.

You can also send an encouraging word. Just say, hey, love the podcast. I don't know why you weren't on for a week, but I'm glad you're back. Yeah, you know, when we get behind, it's really hard to catch up.

So if I miss Friday and then I have to record it Saturday, well, that's the day that I'm usually prepping for a sermon and we're in soccer season now. So all the morning is taken up. Saturday morning, we've got soccer games all morning.

We do all the games in the morning because it's Arizona and it gets hot in the afternoon. So we've got the soccer games and then the kids will probably have friends parties that they will go to. And then whatever time I get left in the late afternoon and evening to kind of finish up stuff that I've been working on all week for the sermon.

So if I haven't recorded the podcast Thursday for the Friday episode, I don't get it recorded Friday. Then it's like I'm just never going to get to it. So that's what happened last week. Didn't get the Friday edition recorded, could not catch up, and so therefore it just became well, I'm going to leave stuff as it is and I'll pick up the next Friday episode.

So this is the episode that would have aired last week. That's where we are now. I thank you for letting me have a week to sleep and kind of catch up a little bit. God willing, I will be back on with our New Testament study on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and the Old Testament study on Thursday.

As you could probably tell, Becky is not along with me for the episode this week. That has to do with all of our busyness and everything that we have going on. Some pretty amazing things happening for us, though, on this side of listening land.

So keep us in your prayers, and we always appreciate your support and sharing this podcast with somebody else. All right, let's get to the questions here. I've got, oh, it looks like three emails, one voicemail.

Let me go ahead and start with the voicemail. This is from Ken.

Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. This is Kenneth Coleman from Baltimore, Mississippi. I had a question about communion. I go to a very small church, maybe 20 people. I don't know that that matters, but we don't take communion very much.

It's probably been over a year now since we've had communion, maybe two years. Sometimes I do it by myself here at home. Is that good or bad? Can I use coffee and a cracker? Does it matter what I use?

Does it have to be grape juice? What do I say? Should I do it by myself again, or should I have someone else do it? What words do I use? Can you give me some advice on all of this? I love y 'all, and thank y 'all for all y 'all do.

Talk to y 'all later.

Bye. Well, thank you for your notes, Ken. And that sounds very difficult. I'm sorry that your church doesn't do communion that often. It's been over a year, you said, maybe even two years since the last time you did communion.

So the first thing I would tell you to do is talk to somebody about that. Let me address this in three ways. Based on the question that you've asked, let's talk about frequency, how often you do communion.

Secondly, company, who you're doing communion with. And then thirdly, substance. What should communion be made of? Since you had said, what can I have? Must it be bread? Must it be grape juice or something like that?

We'll talk about the frequency, the company, and the substance. First of all, frequency. Yeah, I think that's not good that you haven't done communion in over a year, if not two years. So the first thing that I would tell you to do is talk to somebody about that.

Since you said your church is only about 20 people, I'm guessing you don't have a plurality eldership. There aren't many elders, maybe just one pastor or somebody who is leading your study. But that's who I would go to first.

Talk to him and say, why are we not doing communion? Why haven't we done this in over a year or two years? Were you gone on a Sunday that they did it? Maybe they have done it more recently than that, but it's still so sparsely practiced that you can't even remember the last time that you guys had communion.

Now, there isn't anything in scripture that explicitly says communion must be done this often. But I have argued for weekly communion. And I want to say that I've made this argument for weekly communion even before I came into a church that practiced the Lord's Table weekly.

The first church that I was a pastor of, we did it quarterly. That was when I took over the church. It was once a quarter. Then when we became a plurality eldership, it was argued among the elders, we need to be doing communion more often.

Let's have a set time once a month that we would do communion. And so I think it was either the first Sunday or the last Sunday of the month that we did communion. So that way it became 12 times a year.

And then with the church that I was pastor of in Texas, we just continued that pattern. It was once a month. But upon coming to Providence Reformed Baptist Church here in Casa Grande, Arizona, they were already practicing weekly communion.

And I was already in favor of that. Even before I moved to Texas, I wanted to do weekly communion. And I have loved being able to come to the Lord's Table every Sunday at Providence. In fact, when we talk about what you can expect in a Sunday service at Providence, I have said that we are committed to the preaching of the word, partaking of the Lord's Table, singing praises to our King.

Those three Ps are in every worship service at Providence. So frequency, I think, should be weekly. And I think that you can make a biblical argument for that. For the apostle Paul, when he talks about the Lord's Table and instructions concerning the proper practice of the table, he says that it will be done whenever you come together.

When you come together. That's the instructions that we see in 1 Corinthians 11, verses 17 to 34. And occasions where it is mentioned in the book of Acts, when the church would gather together, it said that the church would gather to break bread.

The inference there would be the breaking of bread is also the partaking of communion. So when the apostle Paul confronts the church in Corinth over their improper practice of the Lord's Table, five times in this section, again, that's chapter 11, verses 17 to 34, five times in this section, he uses the phrase, when you come together.

So all of this having to do with every time that the church gathers as a church, every time it is the corporate gathering. So let me move from frequency then to company. You had said that you take communion by yourself.

Because your church doesn't do it frequently, so you do it on your own sometimes, I would discourage you from doing that. Because that's not actually communion, right? The word communion itself means that we are in communion with one another.

So if you are doing the Lord's Table by yourself, that's not really communion. I'm sure it's meaningful for you. I'm sure that you do it in a worshipful way. I'm not really saying that you're even sinning by doing something like that.

But it's just not truly communion, because we need to be with the church when we do this. These are instructions to the church. Again, Paul says, when you come together, it would be this practice that we do together as a church, not individually, and certainly not taking the matter into our own hands.

So remember that the church in Corinth was practicing this in an improper way, so that Paul has to rebuke their improper practice. Verse 17, but in the following instructions, I do not commend you, because when you come together, that's the first occasion that phrase is used, it is not for the better, but for the worse.

For in the first place, when you come together, there's the second time, as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. So again, the clarification even that's given in verse 18 is when you come together as a church, you are gathered as the ecclesia, the calling out of people from the world into Christ.

You are there together as a body to worship God and even to break bread and remember the bread in the cup that he gave to his disciples saying, this is my body and this is my blood. It does seem like the way that Paul is talking about this again, going back to frequency, it seems like this is a weekly practice, but Paul is rebuking their weekly practice because there's a lot of division.

Even they, what they were practicing wasn't true communion because everybody was divided among one another. When you come together, there's the third time that phrase appears and it's in verse 20. When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat for an eating.

Each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you?

Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. And then Paul gives the proper practice. Here's how it should be done. So the church in Corinth was, they were taking these big agape feasts, these love feasts, and they were making that the Lord's table.

But those who were rich were bringing a lot of food and going home drunk and full. And those who didn't have a lot of food were bringing little and they were going hungry, little or nothing. And then they weren't eating at all.

This is not how the Lord's table is supposed to be practiced. It's supposed to look like this. Verse 23, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And then Paul returns to his rebuke. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

So they needed to examine themselves that they would not partake in the Lord's table in an unworthy manner. So then we have the last two when you come together in the closing of this section. Verse 33.

So then my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that when you come together, there's number five, it will not be for judgment about the other things.

I will give directions when I come. So here we see frequency and we see company. Again, the argument appears to be that it would be whenever you come together. That's how often you should be taking the Lord's table.

But I don't want to impose something on you that you as a church don't feel convicted in and isn't an explicit instruction in scripture. There isn't something that explicitly says you must do this every Sunday.

But I think that would be the proper practice according to the biblical pattern that we have laid out for us. So frequency, weekly. If not, if that's not the conviction of your church, don't try to impose that.

But you still want to question your pastor and ask, why do we do this so seldom? Can we do this more often? I would like to do it more often. Once a month, maybe make that suggestion work toward doing it weekly.

If that would be the decision that your body comes to together. So first of all, frequency. Secondly, company. We're doing this together as a church, not individually, not separated. This group goes over here, does communion.

That group goes over there. No, we all do it together. And then thirdly, the substance. What should it be? And again, we have it said in 1 Corinthians 11, 23 to 26, that it's the bread and the cup. It should be bread and the cup.

And what's in the cup? Well, according to Matthew chapter 26, according to every instance that you have in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where we have actually in the narrative of Jesus partaking in the Lord's table with his disciples, in all three of those instances, it is recorded as the fruit of the vine.

It never explicitly says that it's wine. But of course, that's what we understand it to be. It does say that it's the fruit of the vine. And I think charitably, one of the reasons why it says this, this is just speculation on my part, but one of the reasons why it says fruit of the vine and not explicitly wine is because wine is not going to be available to everybody everywhere.

So as long as you are drinking a substance that I would hope comes from the fruit of the vine, I don't think the Lord is going to strike you dead if you're drinking water. And if that's all that you have access to, the judgment of God is not going to be upon you for that.

But we should aspire to drink the fruit of the vine because that is the description that we have in scripture, whether that would be wine or grape juice or some kind of juice that comes from a fruit of the vine.

Wine is not always available, so you use what you can. But this cup represents always referred to as the cup. This cup represents the new covenant in my blood. Jesus said, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

And so that should be the substance of what we use bread and the cup, which should contain the fruit of the vine. I'm not one of those that says that it has to be wine. In fact, I think that those who impose that, who say it has to be wine, I think you get legalistic there.

We take the better communion because we have wine. Yeah, let's not get competitive that way. Then we get to the same kind of separation, the same kind of boastfulness that was going on in the church of Corinth because I have the true communion and you don't.

Let's be charitable with one another. Wait for one another, as Paul instructed there, so that when you come together, it will not be for judgment. Let us celebrate together the sacrifice of our Lord, what Jesus gave for us with his death on the cross, pointing also to his resurrection from the dead and the coming of his kingdom.

That's that's even depicted in the Lord's table. Let us rejoice in these things together. It is our delight to come to the table and praise God for the giving of his son, for the forgiveness of our sins.

Let's go on to this next question from Mac in Athens, Georgia. Dear what? Thank you for your videos addressing so many different Bible subjects. I wish you could do more of them. Me too. I wish I had time.

I could do more videos, but I am a pastor. Duty calls. First to my wife and children and then to my church before I can get to podcast and videos. That's another reason why the podcast hasn't been on for a week.

So Matt goes on. Have you seen this article in the Daily Mail that just came out this week? It claims Noah's Ark resting place 100 confirmed after 4300 years. That's quite a statement from a secular news source.

The claim is concerning the famous Dura Pinar Formation. Derupinar Derupinar. I'm about to play a clip here where the gal is going to say it, so she'll give us the proper pronunciation. Anyway, the Dura Pinar Formation that's in the mountains of Ararat, which has been studied for decades now.

If you're unfamiliar with the research into this site, look up the website. Noah's Ark scans. Apparently, there's going to be some big unveiling later this year of what some of their underground probes have found.

Do you think this is Noah's Ark or just a boat shaped piece of ground? I'd love to see you do a video on it. Thanks for the God honoring content. Well, I appreciate that, Mac. Yeah, so let me play this clip here.

This is from the X account or the social media account Noah's Ark scan. The same website that Mac recommended is also the social media account that I'm looking up here on X. So here's this gal giving a plug for what they have found at the Dura Pinar Formation, and she'll give us the proper pronunciation of that here.

Right behind me is Mount Ararat. Here in this beautiful backdrop is where the Dura Pinar Formation is. Okay, there you go. Dura Pinar. Dura Pinar. I was close. As close as I could have gotten, I guess.

This is the site where Noah's Ark came to rest. This region became one of the great ancient travel corridors connecting the east to the west. The Silk Road traveled through here for centuries. Pilgrims and travelers passed through this region, and there are ancient accounts that some of those pilgrims stopped right here.

There are legends that these pilgrims even picked off pieces of wood from the Ark and kept them as sacred relics. You can see some of these bits of wood in churches today, and right now we have a huge team of researchers on the Ark.

They're doing core drilling, soil samples, radar scans, all to find out what is really underneath this site, and is it really Noah's Ark?

All right, so that's that clip anyway. There was another one on here. That's not the one I'm looking for. That's not the one I'm looking for. There was an interview that a gal was doing with one of the guys at the dig site.

Well, I can't find that one, but I do have this one right here. I know this guy is like the lead researcher here, so let me click on his explanation. He'll probably tell us a little bit about this too.

Friends, we're now on the west profile, or the western edge, of the Dura Pinar Boat Formation that we believe to be Noah's Ark. As you can see behind me, this is not a solid sedimentary rock. People keep saying it's a syncline, for example.

Well, a syncline has folds of sedimentary rock that, once the tops are exposed, it forms an oval shape, but they're large structures. But guess what? This 515-foot-long boat-shaped object is made of earth.

There are boulders in it, but this is not sedimentary folded rock layers, and on top of it, the layers, the folds in this mountainside are going on north-south direction. From Iran to Mount Ararat, they are not even going the right direction to create a syncline at this area.

Now, the other debate is, well, maybe it's bedrock that's just exposed and mud went around it and formed a boat shape, an oval shape. Again, none of the geophysical surveys have shown that there's a solid bedrock column coming out of the mountain floor below us.

You know, we're in a melange of rocks, material, a debris flow that has collapsed on this mountainside. According to Dr. Salih Barak Tutan, bedrock is at least 70 meters below us. There's nothing in nature that would form a column sticking straight up from that 70 meters to where the Dura Pinar site is, and then mud going around it.

Yeah, anyway, I'll stop it there. Obviously, he's making arguments for how this is not just some naturally occurring geological site, but rather this boat shape is actually a ship. There is a boat underneath this, and he says, matter of factly, it's the same guy.

I watched another video with that same guy who says, matter of factly, this is Noah's Ark, and I don't believe it at all. I do not believe that formation in the ground is Noah's Ark for a couple of reasons.

The chief of them being that this was already debunked as a Noah's Ark site decades ago, where the ground was actually studied through peer review, peer review, meaning that there were multiple different persons that came and reviewed each other's work, and they all kind of came to the same consensus that this was a naturally occurring formation.

It's odd. It's a strange shape. It certainly looks like a boat from the air, and that's what got people's attention in the first place. Like back in the 1940s was when the shape was first formed because of earthquakes in the area, and then it was in the 1960s that I think somebody noticed it in an aerial photo and decided, yeah, that looks like a ship.

We ought to study that. Why would this boat shape be there? And then from that point on, it became this site of interest for the possible resting place of Noah's Ark. So long ago, it was already decided even from Noah's Ark enthusiasts, even from people who wanted it to be Noah's Ark.

The ground was studied, and they decided it's not. It's a naturally occurring ground formation. There is not a ship underneath this formation with decks and layers that proves itself to be Noah's Ark.

Now, this group, Noah's Ark Scans, that's exactly what they claim, that there are decks below this ground formation. When they use their technology, the new technology that we have now to do sonar scans and even sending probes and pulling out core samples and things like that, they are now saying that it is proven.

Absolutely. This is not only a boat. It is not only a 515 foot long ship, but it is actually Noah's Ark. And that, Mack, would have been the article that you saw from the Daily Mail that this is 100 confirmed to be Noah's Ark.

That is a very audacious claim. That is even a reckless claim, I would say. That this is 100 confirmed to be Noah's Ark. No, it's not. It is not 100 confirmed. It is not even confirmed to be a boat, let alone to have been the resting place of Noah's Ark.

But I think common sense also kind of rules this out. When the Ark rested in the mountains of Ararat. Now, you heard that woman in the first clip that I play say, behind me is Mount Ararat. Well, what we know today as Mount Ararat doesn't mean that was the mountains of Ararat.

That's what we call it today. But tradition doesn't necessarily preserve the same location as the mountains of Ararat as they would have been over 4 ,000 years ago. Apparently, that name back then was for a mountain range.

Whereas today, there is a mountain that is singled out and pointed at as that's Mount Ararat. But Noah's Ark did not land on Mount Ararat. It landed in the mountains of Ararat. So we don't even know that what is today the mountains surrounding Ararat was the same location where Noah's Ark would have ended up.

But the Ark, when it landed in that area, would not have remained the Ark. You have perfectly good wood when there are no trees that are growing yet, right? There's no big trees because the entire world has just been destroyed in a flood.

And so when Noah and his family disembark the Ark, what are they going to do with that wood? They're going to dismantle it. They're going to take apart the Ark, and they're going to use the wood for their homes and for other things.

And that would have continued to happen for several years. So I don't think it's even feasible that the Ark could still be there. That's my first argument. Just, again, from common sense, why would the Ark have remained when they could have used the wood, dismantled it, and used that wood for something else?

But then the second reason why I don't think that this is Noah's Ark, and I think you can just kind of reason this deductively, is because the shape that we're looking at that is being said to have been Noah's Ark is way too narrow.

It has almost too much of a boat shape to it to have been this ship the way that it is described in Genesis, the dimensions that God gave to Noah that he was supposed to build. This shape doesn't actually fit those dimensions.

It's long enough at 515 feet, but it's not wide enough. And there are portions of it that are way too narrow. Now, maybe the shifting ground and the earthquakes and stuff like that would have altered the shape, but I still don't think Noah's Ark was shaped like a boat, like what we consider a boat shape to be.

That was not Noah's Ark. Now, I know that the Ark encounter in Kentucky is a big, giant ship, and they even have their arguments. Answers in Genesis has their arguments for why they make the ship that way, and that's reasonable.

But I don't think that the Ark was actually shaped like a boat. It was more like a giant barn. Because you shape a boat this way to cut through the water, the Ark would not have had to go anywhere, and it didn't go anywhere.

All the Ark had to do was float. What was it covered with so that it would be waterproof? It was covered with pitch. Remember that? And so, being waterproof, it keeps the water out. All it has to do is float for as long as it's going to be on the water as God has destroyed the entire world in a flood.

It was more like a barge than a boat. It doesn't have that boat shape because it doesn't have to cut through the water. It doesn't have to steer anywhere. It just has to sit in the water, and it sat low in the water, so it had more of a rectangular shape than it had an actual boat shape.

But, of course, down through the years, the story of Noah's Ark has gone out into even many civilizations and cultures. So there are many other cultures that talk about a noetic flood or a global flood, a widespread flood, and people surviving on a great big ship.

It's because they know the story of Noah's Ark, even though they may not know the Book of Genesis or would be repeating the Book of Genesis. Yet this account has continued through many ancient civilizations of a massive flood and people surviving on a giant boat.

So most of those civilizations are going to recap this as a boat and not as a big rectangular barge that sat low in the water. Now, we don't need the Dura-Penar Formation to be Noah's Ark in order for Noah's Ark to be true.

Of course, we don't need that. In fact, the evidence of a global flood can be found the world over, and we don't have to find Noah's Ark in order to prove it. In fact, 2 Peter 3, verses 5 through 7, talks about scoffers who will come in the last days.

And Peter says,. For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

Peter talks about this as a fact, and the scoffers deliberately overlook this fact. Science testifies to there being a massive global flood, but the scoffers will scoff at it and they will deny that it happened.

And so Peter goes on to say,. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. So another reason why we need to be out there with the gospel of Christ so that people will be saved from the wrath of God and not perish in his judgment.

Mack, I thank you for drawing my attention to that article from the Daily Mail. I don't think that the Dura-Penar Formation is Noah's Ark. It's interesting, and I'll be interested in hearing what their findings are even this coming winter, but I think they're being a little audacious by saying it is 100 confirmed to be Noah's Ark.

I don't even think it's been confirmed to be a boat, let alone Noah's Ark. Going on to this next question from Megan, Pastor Gabe, I've got another question for you, and feel free to use it on the show if you want.

What do you say to the argument that we cannot as a Christian say whether or not someone else is a Christian? For example, a James Tallarico or some of these other political candidates who claim Christianity, but they make moral and theological arguments distinctly at odds with Christianity.

Are you ever able to voice a judgment on someone else's salvation? And no rush, it's just a question. I've been thinking about this after I saw Rod Dreher say that we can never do this, and I was asking myself whether that is absolutely true.

Megan in Tennessee. Well, I appreciate the question, Megan, and Rod Dreher is Eastern Orthodox, so I would not take anything that he says as sound in doctrine anyway. Can we look at a person who is making claims that are at odds with Christianity and draw the conclusion that they are not really a Christian?

Now, first of all, let me say that I think too many people throw it around a little too carelessly whether or not a person is actually a Christian, and they are imposing judgments on somebody else saying you're going to go to hell or you're not a Christian or you are not saved, you are not in the family of God.

I think we throw that around way too often and way too carelessly, and we really need to humble ourselves in that respect and understand the words that Jesus said in Matthew 7, 1, judge not that you be not judged, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

So what is the standard that you are using when you look at a person and declare that that person can't be a Christian? Now, we were just talking about Noah's Ark. There are many professing Christians who deny the global flood or that Noah's Ark was really a thing, that it was really more just a legend or it is mytho-history is the way that William Lane Craig has argued about Noah's Ark.