Enns, Mouw, and the Foundation of Scripture

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Covered a wide range of themes but tried, anyway, to connect them together. Will let you judge if I succeeded! Discussed a little bit of Peter Enns' new book, noted Dr. Mouw's continued white-washing of Mormonism, etc. Toward the end started looking at some Muslim issues as well.

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Sometimes things pop up right before we start the program and I forget
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Which whether it's on my phone or on here, but it was like five minutes ago short -term memory.
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It's gone It's it's the open up browser go.
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What was I about to do type thing? Yeah, mm -hmm. I think I think modern life is doing that to us too many gadgets and things like that.
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But anyway, I Was directed To a text of Scripture and when
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I looked at it something struck me So I thought I'd share that first and we'll move on with other things in the program today Greetings and felicitations, by the way
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Am I going to talk about Stephen Furtick? Nope. Don't know anything about Stephen Furtick Psalm 4 2
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Oh sons of men. This is New American Standard Oh sons of men How long will my honor become a reproach?
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How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception and I Looked at that.
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Oh, I know what it was. It was There was a program. That's right you know how sometimes you look at your iPhone and you go, uh
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What's that? been so long, uh was that so I I tapped on it and Morning of April 7th, there's where it is you men
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How long will you try to turn my honor into shame how long will you love what is worthless a search for what is deceptive?
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Sila psalm 4 2 in the NET and So I looked it up. It's got a pretty picture in the background.
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It's sort of nice and I just happened to glance over at the
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Septuagint and By the way many Congratulations to my longtime
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Greek professor and then colleague dr. Mike Baird named the only step only the 17th professor emeritus of Grand Canyon University and I'm sure the seven longest years.
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He had Where when he had me as a student, but congratulations to Mike Baird, but because of Mike Baird, I can read the
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Septuagint sons of men How long will you be
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Baru? cardioid Baru cardioid and That's a that's a compound term to refer to heaviness of heart heavy hearted nuts
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I Haven't had time to look and see if there's any Variation in the tradition between the
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Hebrew which seems to have somewhat of a different understanding and reading to it and the
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Septuagint that wouldn't be the first time But and then it says in order that a certain one would love emptiness or futility and seek after lies or the the
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Hebrew aim at deception and it's a it's it's a lament it's a it's a
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It's recognizing that pretty much in every generation
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You have those who are heavy hearted hard hearted description and very often in scripture is
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I've made their hearts fat. So in other words if the heart is where True sensitivity to God and truth is to be found and if you make it fat if you make it heavy if you make it hard then it's not
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Sensitive to the truth of God in the world around in the world around you and So the result is it's a
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Hinnok clause interestingly in the Septuagint if You're heavy -hearted then you're going to love futility and seek after lies and it just You know, some people would go.
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Ah, see You Had not even tapped on that icon and it fits with everything you're talking about.
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Yeah, it does but God's words that way because When I got into work today
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I had even paid an extra couple bucks to to get this and it won't be available on Kindle until After I get back from Texas gonna be in Lyndale Starting Saturday.
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So if you want to come out Saturday evening, we're gonna be discussing We're discussing homosexuality.
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We're discussing a Christian response to it Dealing with it from a
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Christian perspective in our society today and Including the recognition that we need to understand what is being said by the
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Collapsing Empty Evangelical majority, how's that for a description the collapsing empty evangelical majority?
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You know in the 1980s, you couldn't have said the things are being said today and get elected office, right?
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but how many of those people back in the moral majority days the days of Falwell and three -piece suits
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Had a truly biblical worldview or We're just very pragmatic
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That's a that's a question to be considering and we'll be talking about that Saturday night. I'll be preaching
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Sunday morning on the gospel in an ecumenical world and Then Sunday night, we're gonna have an open
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Q &A which could always get interesting But Tom bucks a big guy.
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He's much taller than I am. So I'm sure he'll keep keep it under control Anyway So I won't get this in Kindle until I get back so I put though it won't take long to get through I noted
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That it's a it's a puff piece when I say puff When when you're an author you you can look at how a book is typeset and And figure out fairly quickly
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When someone is trying to get more pages than they have material and this is this is lots of line space and lots of Empty page, you know a lot of room a lot of room could have been made much much smaller than it is
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It's it comes in. It's a hundred and Let's see here
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Oh 220 pages could it could have been a hundred and forty Pretty pretty easily
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I would say anyway It's Peter Enns his newest book
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And when you have people like Walter Brueggemann and Brian McLaren endorsing on the back
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Gives you an idea Peter Enns is The man who was very rightly dismissed from Westminster Theological Seminary how he ever got there is good question, but hey
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There's a sad history. Well, there's a sad history of seminaries as a whole going wonky
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I believe that's because almost all seminaries have embraced a non -christian methodology of education rather than a
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Christian methodology of education and Hence Put right within the methodology itself the seeds of apostasy and almost the necessity of turning away from Orthodoxy towards something other
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I and Proof of that is in the pudding You can name on one hand the number of seminaries that have gone
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Toward biblical truth and The list is almost limitless for the number of schools of seminaries that were once Orthodox and today are the very
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Heart of the anti -christian movement in our in our nation and certainly overseas as well
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So anyway Enns was was dismissed from Westminster, whatever terminology you want to use
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I'd and Since then has been very actively involved in Well promoting
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Unbelief And here we have the sin of certainty why God desires our trust
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More than our correct beliefs and correct is in air quotes
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I guess is what we call them today. Now, like I said, it just arrived today. I I had time to sort of go through it and I don't know, you know, he's trying to be very very
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Humorous I Not quite as badly humorous as Scott Hahn was in his book on Mary which was just oh my that was but Tries to be sort of humorous
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But Someone might say well, aren't you the one that just recently said
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That there are people Who will trade? Truth for certainty weren't you saying there's something wrong with certainty there
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No, I wasn't. I Was saying that if you trade truth for certainty, you no longer have
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Certainty because certainty requires what? truth and so I Was not in any way
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Speaking against the propriety of having assurance I believe firmly that regeneration places within the heart of man a
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Fundamental trust of the Word of God a fundamental trust that God has spoken I believe we live in a day where that very
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Spiritual reality is under tremendous attack And So I fully accept that There is to be a desire on the part of the
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Christian to not be tossed about by every wind of doctrine and To trust what the
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Word of God says What where we're running into things today is there's many people like Peter ends and many many many others
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Who are seeking to tremendously diminish What it is anyone can have any certainty that God has spoken about at all
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So that faith turns into this nebulous Trust concept that has no object has no objective object any longer other than a very minimized
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Range of of things So That the idea of having
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Meaningful doctrinal boundaries now, they'll never well, they can eventually they do but when they're still trying to I'll call it speak behind them.
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So in other words, they're moving away from orthodoxy, but they're trying to speak to those behind them
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When they're trying to do that they will continue to use language of You know use orthodox language, you know, if they no longer believe orthodox things by the use that orthodox language
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What struck me about that Were some other articles
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That came out one is on the extreme edge and these are all related.
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I honestly believe this and The text
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Psalm 4 2 4 3 in the Septuagint by the way if you're looking for it And then the next two articles we look at are all related to one another
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They all have a common foundation I Was sent a email this one came from email didn't come from Twitter or anything like that But There was a an article posted on patios, you know
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That's sort of an automatic thing for me anymore if it's on patios in but It is
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Titled queerness the idolatry of norms and the new morality that sort of gives you a warning pretty much right up and it comes from an
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Author who is involved fell by the name of Morgan Guyton Who is?
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involved in campus ministry for the United Methodist Church well
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There you go the United Methodist Church abandoned
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Meaningful orthodoxy a long long time ago When I was told over a decade ago
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That if you wanted to actually teach at their graduate school You could never admit in the interview process that you actually believe in the deity of Christ So that just sort of gives you an idea just how far out in in the woods
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United Methodist Church has has gone But This article is a study in Post Christianity there.
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There's nothing of Scripture Whatsoever. No, it's just and as far as I can tell there is well
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Okay, I just found it. I found a scripture reference. Let's read it together This really isn't a new morality at all
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It's been around for 2 ,000 years in the tucked away pockets of Christianity that quote have been hidden in Christ Colossians 3 3 and have never stopped being crucified by the
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Empire builders who have co -opted Jesus name for their power It's the morality it says things like I desire mercy not sacrifice humanity was not created the
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Sabbath but Sabbath for the humanity There is no longer male or female for all one in Christ Yes, and God has chosen despised ones to bring to nothing the things that are
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Now what's amazing is that is being used to promote the idea that God celebrates the violation of Jesus teaching that from the beginning
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God made the male and female there's I mentioned I Think I mentioned in the sermon that I did on Sunday the abuse of Galatians 328.
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There it is That's the abuse of Colossians 3 3. That's not what Colossians 3 3 is about But again for someone like this context exegesis that kind of stuff isn't relevant anyways
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Scripture exists just to be cobbled together not to actually be believed as a divine revelation.
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So but the worldview of this article is just Undiscernible from a
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Christian perspective, I mean that no one in Christian history Would have been able to read this and go.
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Oh, this is being written by a Christian. It's just that far out from any sound biblical theology and where did that come from how is it
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I mean I imagine and and I'm not sure if my dad gets to watch this very often anymore, but I Remember and I'm gonna have to call and or write or something, but I It's funny the things you remember from your childhood, but I remember very very clearly
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I Think we were in the car Yeah, remember, you know how there's these these certain conversations you had that just stick with you and they were literally 40 45 years ago maybe longer for some of you and you wonder why those stuck and 99 % of the rest of your experience at that time didn't stick but But I remember my dad specifically saying that back in his day
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The liberal denominations of our day Were still filled with gospel preaching churches
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They maybe had been going liberal at the top, but he said there was a day when you would find, you know gospel preaching
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Methodists and You know specifically as I recall mentioning the
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Methodist Church He you know, it's become the about the only Methodist left of the United Methodist. But anyway and So what what can explain
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What has what happens now with just how? completely removed from any kind of meaningful
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Orthodox interpretation. Well, I Said it before I'll say it again and sometimes some some of you have not heard me say it before so I'm not just repeating myself but Fundamentally Once a denomination loses a conviction that God has spoken authoritatively in his word
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It's just a matter of time and anymore it can be a very short period of time now, but in the past things didn't move quite as fast as they do now and Once but once that foundation is gone,
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I mean if you really don't believe that God has spoken with clarity There's no reason to be a
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Trinitarian There's no reason to actually believe that the doctrine of Trinity is true
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So you gotta understand for many liberals they'll say the doctrine of Trinity is true what they mean by that is our
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Tradition affirms this but it's just our tradition. It doesn't have any corresponding reality
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It's just that it's true that we affirm this tradition. That's different than saying no
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It's actually true that God exists in this way and has revealed that he exists in this way huge difference massive difference
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So Anyway You look at an article like this and a lot of people
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Wonder how did we get to something like this? How can we have people? Who are celebrating the fundamental
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Rebellion of man against God as creator and calling themselves Christians in the process and actually saying that Jesus would have celebrated this
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I mean, it's such a perversion of What obviously the
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Bible is actually teaching well the same culture that is Celebrating the perversion of what the founding fathers intended the
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Constitution to mean too. So words, especially words uttered in history Are irrelevant now words are what you feel them to mean in in our society, but if you want
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To see how all this fits together I almost sent this to Rich, but I didn't because I would have distracted him this morning, but we have other things going on.
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Anyways First things calm posted an article today
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Called Mormons approaching orthodoxy and Guess who it's by.
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Yes, of course a man who obviously must have been Well, there's a lot of descriptions
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I could use here but Richard Mao the greatest Force in De -evangelizing the
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Mormon people ever the greatest compromiser we have
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Gone into he and Robert Millett's stuff many many times in the past.
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Just look up Mao M O U W Millett's M I L L. I think it's e
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TT or something like that. I forget how many L's and T's but Look it up on the blog and you'll see the programs a couple years ago.
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They did a Some type of author thing. What was it Erdman's it was
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Erdman's it wasn't Erdman's. Yeah Wow, it was just shocking it was just so bad
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And it's a long article. It's a long long article about the alleged diminishment of emphasis upon the concept of exaltation to Godhood especially as seen in the famous couplet by Lorenzo snow as man now is
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God once was as God is God now is man may become and You know
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There's no question that Mormonism is losing its way there's no question that the Mormonism of today is is not the
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Mormonism that I dealt with every April or March depending on time of year in in Mesa or First weekend
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April in Salt Lake the first weekend in October in Salt Lake for 18 years going up there and doing that kind of stuff
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There's no question That Mormonism Especially since the days of the most greatest the greatest influence of Gordon Hinkley Has lost its focus lost its impetus
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We read regularly now on the internet of high -ranking people
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Leaving the Mormon Church people leaving in droves They're just they're treading water.
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Oh, yeah, they're still getting converts. They've still got lots and lots of missionaries out but the back door
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Is Just as big as the front door is they're treading water and The superstructure is creaking and groaning under the
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Evacuation of the stuff inside basically And I don't know what's gonna happen.
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I don't claim to know what's gonna happen. I think there will be a split eventually Because you still got lots of believing
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Mormons In Utah places like that but the leadership of the church has lost its way they
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Not sure what they believe anymore. But what they haven't done is repudiated
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The orthodoxy of what has been taught all along and what people need to understand is if you stop teaching
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The God men and angels are of the same species just different places along the spectrum of exaltation if you if you try to change the radical polytheism of Mormonism for any form of monotheism at all
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You no longer have Mormonism You must repudiate
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Joseph Smith as a prophet It's just you cannot Continue to believe that that man
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Received revelation from God saw God the Father and Jesus Christ as separate distinct personal in Individuals with physical bodies in the spring of 1820
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And what's now known as the first vision you you can't Continue to believe those things and without that you don't have
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Mormonism and There are still tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of Mormons going through Masonic religious rituals in special buildings called temples
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This very day Thinking that they are providing for their own salvation or the salvation of their loved ones
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Getting sealed for time and eternity in the temple blah blah blah blah blah blah How can that be described as orthodoxy
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Well, it can be once you adopt the Richard Mao Of broad spectrum type stuff and that man claims to be a
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Calvinist, sorry, but We are not of the same ilk by any stretch of the imagination and You know when
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I was a fuller I wasn't at the Pasadena campus I did my work here in Phoenix as the only way the ministry continued, but I Don't think
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Mao was president I Forget when he became president, but I think he came after the time
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I was there and You know, it's not that I didn't have liberal have some liberal professors. I did but thankfully here in the
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Arizona campus. We had primarily conservative Professors drawn from Grand Canyon University, especially and that was that was very helpful, but Mao's understanding and the the direction of fuller during his time was definitely not to the right and It has continued tacking left
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Since Mao's departure, I mean given the reality that Daniel Kirk still teaches for fuller seminary and A very strong argument can be made that Daniel Kirk does not in any meaningful sense believe in the deity of Christ Obviously that gives you an idea of the direction that's that's going there.
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Well, what's what's behind all of this? well certainly again a
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Fundamental distrust in the ability of the Word of God to define meaningful
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Parameters and This is behind so many of the things that we talk about It's behind Why the
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Muslims can quote so many people who are quote -unquote Christian against Christian orthodoxy, of course, those people don't believe what the
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Word of God actually says and So even quoting them as Christians is questionable, but hey we live in a day where They're atheist professor atheist priests in the
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Anglican Church in England. So why not? It's It's behind so many of the things that that we address the collapse
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You know Rachel held Evans we talked about last time the collapse on the part of so many people and it's just gonna keep going and going and going and the names are gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger as To people just throwing their hands up on the marriage issue
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All those things it Told you it's coming. We're seeing it.
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It's happening right before our eyes. It's so common now that It hardly even makes the news for another church another church
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This isn't a hill to die on by the Bible blah blah why if you don't believe that God has spoken
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What are you supposed to do? If it's just if if in your theological education you became
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Oh There it is. Am I it's two L's and one T Miller just happened to look over and there's one of the books sitting right there spell that right if in your theological education you were
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Instructed to believe that the best you can do is come up with your particular understanding of Scripture, but that that's
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No one can really know if this is what what of this is really inspired and what isn't
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What comes from God what comes from man? You know, it's all contradictory to itself
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And so, you know if that's what you've been taught, it's no wonder people like that come out of seminary going yeah, whatever and not standing for the ones for all delivered to the
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Saints faith and Folks like this Don't believe there is a once for all delivered the
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Saints faith They've abandoned that they just don't think it's it's obtainable or understandable or knowable
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Which in of itself is is a tremendous issue. So There's so much of this
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That just fills Fills our newsfeeds today and it all comes back to our bibliology and I simply say to everyone listening
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I've never heard anyone make an argument. Well, I know what the argument is. I'll mention in a second, but I Think we need to have the view of Scripture that Jesus did
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I? Don't think anyone will ever go wrong who has the level of Dedication To the truthfulness and the finality of the
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Word of God that Jesus did now their response is you have no earthly idea What Jesus's view was they they have to go to the skeptical and say well all right, you're all you've got here is
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Matthew Mark Luke and John and You know, they're they're fundamentally unreliable as well.
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So You you can't say that But that level of skepticism leaves us with absolutely no idea about anything in history at all and so given that Even even accepting liberal views of the synoptic
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Gospels. There is no question. I mean almost going to the
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Jesus seminar level of Of Skepticism there really isn't any question of what
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Jesus's view of Scripture was. I mean you can you can sift through the layers of tradition as they would like to put it and Still you're gonna you're gonna get one thing
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Very clearly communicated to you and that is Jesus would often say as it is written
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Have you not read have you not heard and you're not gonna find any word anywhere
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Where Jesus says? Well, you know, we're really not sure if That part of the
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Old Testament is true. It's just not there so No one has ever gone wrong
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Exercising the same level of trust in the scriptures that Jesus did And I would simply say that in our day, it's just the rare person who does that It's where a person who does that now.
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I do need to mention There are people that make something like this look
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Needed and They are the people who trade truth for certainty. They are the cultic
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King James only us I saw a I Saw a
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Tweet yesterday from Sam Gipp and Someone right toward the beginning of the program tweeted
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Ray Lewis, did you see the Ray Lewis video? Someone sent it to Seiko Woods yesterday, and so I decided
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I'd listen to it and It was once again one of those situations, you know who Ray Lewis is
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Right. He's also a preacher Yeah, and Look it up online he started preaching and He was extremely upset about what's going on in Chicago and stuff like that And once again, it was the same situations we've seen over and over again some people are allowed to say the things he said and some people are and Unfortunately for a lot of people
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The color of the skin of the person speaking is more important than the content of their words
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That's a sad reality and So someone on Twitter yesterday
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Mentioned, you know, they repost this tweet from Sam Gipp and it was in the full sense of racist a racist tweet
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And I just commented in response. I said well you need to realize in the cultic
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Ruckmanite camp Racism is rampant real racism not. Oh you offend me because you're the wrong color racism.
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It's the old -style southern white racism
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Very very deeply and I didn't bring it in here. Oh Man, I'd know exactly where it is, too
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But if you If you know, you know the you know, the the shelves where the light turns on when you walk in If you walk straight through middle shelf is my
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King James only section Ruckman's book black is beautiful because there's something written in it back in 19 95 or 96 so about right at 20 years ago
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Some of you have seen the Correspondence that I had with Peter Ruckman where I posted I posted the letters.
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I sent him with his nasty Comments. Thank you, sir and At some point.
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I wonder if he dated it No Didn't didn't date it but this is a
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Oh My okay, this is a racist book.
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I mean, I won't go into it, but it includes cartoons mocking black people
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So on and so forth Ruckman's insane. All right.
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This is this is about space aliens area 51 I mean it is truly
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Insanity Insanity it really is but here right up front Notice the okay, there's you'll notice handwritten dear
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Jimbo Some more ammo you can use to prove
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Ruckman ism is a heresy Glad to be of assistance. You need something to keep you busy
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Peter Ruckman sound familiar Who has sent me coloring books? Sam get
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Sam. Gip is just a chip off the old Ruckman. I block though. He's not nearly Ruckman Ruckman is one of those people that inhabits that line between and he's over on one side insanity and genius
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Gip is just mean -spirited and he's not overly bright. So he just tries to be like Ruckman Thankfully not too many people try to imitate
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Peter Ruckman But this kind of this kind of racism blatant open type of racism
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Not uncommon in the the cultic King James only movement. No, it's not. I'm not saying there aren't black
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King James only us But they're not gonna find any support from that wing which is the loudest and nastiest wing and It's the
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Ruckmanites it's the that kind of mindset that trades truths for certainty and attacks anybody
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You know, you know my my the internet troll the king of the internet trolls the guy that goes after me all the time one of my internet stalkers another example of the type of Person that attacks anyone
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Who differs from them at any point of theology at all any point of theology so Their range of certainty is inexhaustible.
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They're absolutely certain about every aspect of What they call the faith so instead of having the core teachings of Scripture and Then Recognizing gradations beyond that and then finally the
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Adi Afra the things where people can disagree with one another They make all of that This is my area of certainty.
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And so that's why you see Steven Anderson and Sam Gip Just going
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Going at it full bore Calling each other wild -eyed heretics and what are they arguing about?
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They're arguing about a specific view of when the rapture takes place Okay They're so absolutely certain about this stuff that if you differ from them just a little bit
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And they can't they can't even begin to conceive of how someone
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Could have fellowship When you disagree about something obviously far bigger now, of course for them,
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I suppose that's just one of the biggest things there is but They can't conceive of how
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I could preach the gospel in a Presbyterian Church and Then the next night debate the pastor of that church on the subject of baptism.
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They just can't see that and Since it does take work To think issues through figure out where they are in the spectrum of Definitional things versus Adi Afra important things things that will divide us
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Ecclesiastically, but maybe not in regards to the gospel. What's definition of the gosh definition of the gospel, of course
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We live in a day. Let's be honest ourselves Huh many, you know, I've I've talked about it many many times before the mere
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Christianity movement the Least common denominator stuff and put the gospel out here someplace
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There's all sorts of things that we we have to think through and yesterday in channel a couple of us a
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A couple of us were I don't know what it was yesterday, but there was just It seemed like everything that was being discussed every link that was being dropped
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Had something to do with more insanity
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Either it was heresy You know abject foolishness in the church
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Christian Christians being persecuted Just a promotion of Godlessness in our society and a couple of us were just like, oh stop the world.
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I want to get off Just so much of it That I think there's a strong temptation for a lot of us just throw our hands up in the air and say enough
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I can't I Can't deal with all this and and and you might say you get to feel like that I sure do
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Yeah, you bet sometimes it's just like There's too much and and for me, of course
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I always have people saying you need to go say this and you need to debate this person and you need to you need to Start talking about this and you need to go research that and some of those things.
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I'd like to research. I Really would there's there's one particular movement I'm not gonna mention it right now because then everyone's gonna jump down my throat and and expect me to have something done and who knows
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When and I'm so far behind on everything else. I don't know that I could ever do it, but there is one particular group I'd like to be researching right now that I've never addressed
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But you gotta understand we're a little different than Any of the the major ministries that you're familiar with there are major Parachurch ministries and organizations in this nation that have
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Multi million dollar a year budgets multi million dollar a year budgets
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They could buy and sell us on the interest on their savings account, okay we're just I Don't have anybody to do research for me if I you know, there are some folks that will help me with certain things but And I would imagine if I if I put out a call and say hey
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I'd like to try to get three or four people together and You get me the best information and I'll read it and stuff like that.
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I could probably put that together But you must be I'm not even good at organizing other people that way
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And so it's it's a bit of a it's it's a bit of an issue there. But anyway, I just chased a rabbit
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It got back out of the path there The point is yeah, sometimes I just feel like And I know in my mind
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God still on his throne I'm only seeing a very small portion of it we've seen all sorts of people brought out of out of error and It's just I Know all that but sometimes you just start getting
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Tired and on the short term thing what helps me and situations like that is to get on the bike and Go for a long ride and listen to something other than heresy
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Maybe something positive maybe some some fiction or some history. That's you know, not you know
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Maybe that's escapism, but I Just don't think that anyone can just sit around all the time constantly facing the the weirdness and the strangeness today and For some of us older folks some of you younger folks need to realize some of us older folks
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It's the speed at which this is happening that is downright disorienting to us. It really is.
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That's not how we were raised Generally one year was pretty much like the next year and you can sort of count on that now
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You can't count on things being the same for six months let alone a year or two years or anything like that The this the rate of change is is extremely extremely rapid.
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So back to the point what some What was the foundation for all of this
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What what causes the problem here is a is a fundamental distrust in the
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Word of God a fundamental distrust in the Word of God and Just to make a transition here.
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You keep looking at me like there's something you want to say. Oh, okay um The We're not it's not just apostates that have a fundamental distrust
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It's not just former Christians that have a fundamental distrust But our our
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Muslim friends have a fundamental distrust not and this is what's weird to me not in the idea that God can speak
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Because that's a given they believe that he has in the Quran But the problem is the
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Quran specifically says that that's not the only place where he's spoken and Yet I would argue for the vast majority of Muslims today
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Functionally, that is the only place where God has spoken for them. I Mean if you're a Muslim today, let me shift gears here if you're a
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Muslim Do you really believe God has spoken anywhere else now? Some of you Sufis are going.
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Well, yes, but If you're a non Sufi Sunni Where where are these other revelations that have been nuts all
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Or wouldn't you have to really admit that fundamentally? When you boil it down The Quran is pretty much it because if you look at anything else if you look at the throng you look at the injeel
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You have to look at it through what the lens of the Quran. It's the It's the corrector right and I I Posted a little what
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I did with this is I used I've got this program. It's really a cool program on my phone
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Rich likes it because when I'm traveling and I Have an expense.
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I just use this Program Where I can take a picture of the receipt and it automatically crops it turns into a
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PDF and I can send off to rich Instantly instead of handing him a bunch of crumpled
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Pieces of paper when I get back. He's he's got it right there. Just boom. Boom. Boom Well, I use that because I was reading
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Well, I just realized I was reading this which is the nine volume
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Halal econ Translation of the other
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Quran it has all sorts of Of Commentary and citations from Bukhari and the
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Hadith right along with the with the text rather rather useful and here was
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This is in surah 5 Ibn Abbas said why do you ask the people of the scripture?
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Jews and Christians about anything while your book the Quran which has been revealed to Allah's messenger is newer and the latest
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You read it pure Undistorted and unchanged and Allah has told you that the people the scripture changed their scripture and distorted it and wrote the scripture of their
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Own hands and said it is from Allah to sell it for a little gain Does not the knowledge which has come to you prevent you from asking them about anything?
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No by Allah. We have never seen any man from them asking you regarding what has been revealed to you
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And that's from sahih al -bukhari That attitude of The supremacy and Finality of the
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Quran That's not the only place in the in the Hadith where that attitude is expressed there's the other story that I've told number of times of the
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Situation when I think it was Umar was reading from the Old Testament when Muhammad came in and and Muhammad's face became red and basically he said
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Have do you not find sufficient what I have given to you and it communicated the idea
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There's no reason to look at these things now The same time
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I'm really not sure how that that works. I mean I I see clear Evolution and development in Muhammad's thought even as it's found in the in the
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Quran you know that Doesn't get to be a fair question in Sunni orthodoxy
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They're really not allowed to ask questions about that or to even factor that in Because well, you know
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Quran's eternal. It's It's there's there's no there's nothing of man in it
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There's been no change or alteration. You saw that in the quote that I just gave you and so the idea of well you know there seems to be a
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Section of a period of Muhammad's life when he sort of thinks he can get the
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Jews and the Christians on his side and and he emphasizes the similarities and and And you know all the way up through surah 2 which is it's a
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Medinan surah When I say when you hear people talking about Surahs the chapters of the
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Quran They will sometimes say it's a Meccan surah or a Medinan surah now
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I've explained this before but we have new listeners From 610 To 622
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You have Muhammad in Mecca and he is a minority Prophet what
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I mean by that better define my terms these days Mecca is a polytheistic
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The Kaaba by tradition had 360 idols in it The tribe that Muhammad was a part of was in control of the
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Kaaba Part of the economic well -being of Mecca was dependent upon people coming to worship there because Mecca could not substantiate itself given where it was in the
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Arabian Peninsula and so he's in the minority very small minority and And he's only kept alive by his uncle
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Abu Talib during this period of time and finally pressure gets so strong at especially after Abu Talib's death that You have the beginning of the
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Islamic calendar with the pilgrimage from Mecca to Yafri which becomes known as Medina and Though we don't have a an exact Listing we can sort of guess at the order in which the surahs the chapters the
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Quran were written and so you'll see them identified as Meccan which would make them the earlier portions of the
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Quran or Medina which are the later portions of the Quran and That's why we put a little chart in whatever
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Christian needs to know about the Quran which gives you a Best guess scenario of the order in which the chapters of the
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Quran were actually written. So if you read them that way at least you have sort of a idea of where in the spectrum of Muhammad's life this particular thing falls and all the way up to early
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Medina and surahs there Muhammad speaks like Someone who's in the minority who's saying to the majority look you need to listen to what
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I'm saying There is only one true. God. God will bless those who follow the one true God and It's also where you've got there can be no coercion in religion
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It is clearly Coming from the position of someone who recognizes they're in the minority and so they can't enforce something upon the majority
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But then that starts changing and by the time you get to the last of the
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Medina the later Medina the middle and the later Medina surahs now you've got the
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Prophet and she had and a much Stronger now now you have the majority religious perspective being expressed
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Whereas in other surahs you have a minority religious perspective being expressed now, it's funny my my
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Muslim friends My Muslim friends
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Love to quote Scholars who will look at the
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Bible and say well You know the historical context here was such -and -such and there's often much to be learned from that But they don't want to do the same thing when it comes to come on They certainly don't want to go.
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Well, yeah, you know it it does seem that Muhammad's view of the
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Christians is different in Meccan surahs than it is in Medina and surahs
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Because that would admit that what we see here is an evolution in The experience of the author
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From the Orthodox Sunni perspective Muhammad's experience is irrelevant doesn't matter because none of this reflects him.
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It is a dictation theory of Inspiration all of the Quran is sent down on Laylatul Qadr the night of power during the month of Ramadan to Shabriel and then it's parceled out
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Over the next 23 years or so 22 years to Muhammad and Muhammad's just a
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He's an mp3 player he's a he's a dictation machine
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There's no Interpretation of what is being said to him now, obviously there are liberal
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Muslims Not in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, but there are liberal
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Muslims that Look at this and go. Yes There's clearly something to be thought of here, but that's why they're not at Al -Azhar.
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That's why they're not at the in In the nations that are majority Muslim because they would not be safe there.
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They would not survive there Literally on a physical level they would not be able to live in those places
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And they recognize that there is an evolution but they're unorthodox that's why they only live in Western societies
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Not in majority Muslim societies. So just some thoughts there in regards to the same issue of what believing scripture does and Does not do
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I had a I had a video queued up and I I never I never got to it But we will get back to that someday.
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I have got to get this unfortunately left this one Article up on the screen.
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It's like I get that either anyway Wandered around us a little bit but covered a lot of different topics today appreciate you taking the time to listen
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Lord willing Should be back Same time next week because I fly on on Monday if you're in the
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Dallas area I know Lindale's a little bit of a drive But if you want to come on out say hello look forward to seeing you then otherwise.