December 21, 2004

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 nine seven three four six zero two or toll-free across the United States. It's one eight seven seven seven five. Three three three four one and now with today's topic.

Here is James white.

Opening Banter and Blog Updates

And good afternoon. Welcome to the outside morning here, isn't it? Yeah. Well, I'm thinking ahead Looks like I may be taking a 12-hour journey today. I'm really excited about that trying to sort of figure out how I can redeem 12 hours of driving time And get ready for Preaching on Sunday and everything else.

So it's just sort of like wow cool. Anyway, eight seven seven seven five three three three four one those of you who follow the blog and if you want to keep up with what's going on around here and if you want to keep up with apologetic stuff, that's what you need to be doing is In fact for those of you who sort of wonder One of the neat things about the new blog the fact that it's a real blog.

Is that it has what's what's called an RSS feed now? What is an RSS feed? Well, that is the The it makes it possible for you to use wonderful technology and keep up with the appearance of articles without having to sit there and Fire up your browser all the time and then put in the address or do whatever it is you do you can Keep up with what's going on on the blog.

Through other things you can use Mozilla Firefox which of course is the best browser out there makes Internet Explorer look really bad and it has a RSS feed feature where it can update those things and there are plugins you can put into that that will Actually function as a reader.

I use a little freeware Program called RSS reader, which will allow you to I've got I think as of last night had 11 RSS capable blogs on my list and each hour it goes out and it's Grabs, whatever's new and then tells you this one.

Here's the new headlines. You can go look at them you can read them right in that open them up in a in a browser so on so forth and That's a really neat way to do it. I've got some interesting blogs on there and some of them are rather technical and things like that but it's but it's that's an excellent way of of keeping up with stuff and and Certainly, I've been spending a lot more time blogging.

You know some of you remember a couple years ago where? It would be you know three months between a new front page article and Now people are saying I can't they can't keep up with what's with what's on the blog.

So You might want to look into doing that. I I try to have a fairly wide variety of things there Mainly theological Christian worldview stuff, but Especially if you are like following for example, the the meltdown of the Berean call and if you'd like to find out about Non-existent Hebrew text prophesied in the Dead Sea Scrolls And how to steal bibliographies from cultic yaoists.

Oh.

So.

It's just it's just amazing and I found out yesterday that I can I can tell my little software Post this at such-and-such a time. So like last night I wrote about five articles, but I didn't want to just throw them all up there at once and so I told it to post the fourth article at midnight and the fifth article at 2 a .m.

And So it you know slows down the the rush Shall we say of stuff going out there and I've got a blog article. I've got one sitting in the editor as we speak and Hopefully get a chance to get that up because like I said, I may be looking at a at a a Little trip here this afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning.

Well, we'll see what happens. But anyway, so that's what's what's going on. And you might want to like I said keep up with it I love I love doing it. I mean, this is how I'm getting to communicate with folks.

This is how we can communicate about stuff much more quickly and.

Oh.

Thank you very much Scott, but I just love sometimes watching the channel, you know We've and I see something go by that giggle has to go. Well, okay. I will promise not to laugh whatsoever during the course the rest of the program I'll slow things down and We will not allow any joy or happiness to take place on the dividing line on this week before Christmas because we don't want to be happy.

And we don't want to be ourselves. No, we need to be someone else. And so that's what I will do. Thank you ever so much Canadians good grief anyway. Get me about Forty seven nasty emails. What are we talking about here?

Oh, yes, I didn't even have a chance actually to Load this up. That's how Busy things have been today. Yeah, everybody pick on Scott. I think Scrooge is a good I think Scott needs to change his nick to Scrooge and he needs to keep the.

Oh.

Oh, okay. Okay. All right, but no see someone just banned. Poor Scott just said not your giggle. A sound in my IRC client. Everyone every time someone posts a smiley face. Okay, you know I thought Scott was nicer than that.

I just didn't think he would be so crass as to as to do that. In in in channel. Oh and Sam fear is spelled. F e a are there's an a. I'm sorry, Scott. I always thought you're a nice guy, even though you're Canadian.

You're one of the few that have a sense of humor. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, I didn't get a chance to sort of cue this up. Because I forgot if y 'all want to see behind the scenes of the dividing line.

I have various programs here on my little computer in front of me. It's funny. There's this other odd Canadian running around.

Other.

Service shot there, but this other odd Canadian Out there who seems to think that we're rolling in dough and stuff like that. Actually. Most of you already know this. I'm sitting at my desk. Okay, this is where I write my books.

This is where I write the blog everything. I'm looking at the same computer screen, which I love this screen. I the only thing that would that would make my Experience even better is if somebody out there owns a computer store and has like a 23 inch.

LCD.

That'd be I've got a 19 right now. It's gorgeous. I love it. It's it's great. And if it's all I ever have next thing, you know, you want a widescreen. I've you know, what? That's the given given, you know, I come in here in the mornings and Sometimes I'm sitting here blinking away trying to read that that stuff.

Anyway, I love this little screen, but anyhow What was I saying? Oh, I've the sound the stuff that I play I'm Playing myself. I've got Adobe Audition up Sometimes I'm stuck using music Mac jukebox, which by the way for for music is just awesome.

I love it, but Playing clips like we've been playing the Patterson stuff and we will be later on that is in Adobe Audition in front of me and I have the waveform and I can sort of go through and pick which sections and bookmark stuff and things like that, I Was trying to get I had recorded The Catholic answers program that Jimmy Akin mentioned on his blog and Coach chuckles at all the rabbit trails.

Dr. O is taking today. Yes. Dr. O is that? Dr Oakley is my my Nick and channel and Yes, I always chase rabbits. It's it's but it's even more fun to chase them the week before Christmas. Especially when it's gonna get nice and cold today.

Did you feel did you feel the the chill in the air? Rich did you it's you can tell it's coming, you know, I got down to 47 this morning 47. Well, it's gonna get it's gonna get colder. Yeah, if you can feel it out there There's there's there's air moving in and it's gonna there.

They're only talking upper 50s tomorrow for a high.

So upper 50s, I heard lower 60s. I.

Well, you know, I've got a little little weather thingy here, you know, I got rid of weather bug.

I tell you that I give you the new thing. I still like weather bug. I like it. You know me I get something I like and I want to hang on to it, you know, you're.

That is not. That is not true. I use weather bug for a long time and I subscribed to it. But then it stopped working after this that Windows update. Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

And when it in a problem. Revenge of bill the revenge of bill. And when you try to tell these people that you know what you get. They they've got these email filters. It catches keywords and it sent me back how to install weather bug.

I know how to install weather bug. That's not what I was asking. You can't get human beings to respond to your questions. So you call and you get. You end up talking with a guy named George with an Indian accent.

His name isn't George.

Come on.

And he still doesn't know what you're saying. So I just I gave up on it and besides Irrational who is an American Canadian don't ask me to explain that. Gave me the heads up on this thing and it works really well.

This is talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday showers really Monday 55 57. Yeah, yeah, and it's talking 64 on Christmas Day. I wonder if they'll be snow snow up north. I bet there will be yeah.

Yeah, but it's talking 59 tomorrow 56 on Thursday, you know, no one really cares about this. Do they the Alpha Omega ministries?

Desert metropolis weather weather update. Has been brought to you by.

Logs.

Yes. Well, anyways, they don't No one would want to bring this to you because they wouldn't want to sponsor this because they'd be offending everybody. Anyway, what in the world was I talking about? Oh, I Was recording the Catholic answers program because Jimmy Akin mentioned That he they had a call about me.

So I've I recorded it but the problem was I forgot I was recording it and I was recording it using total recorder recording real audio so that I could then have a mp3 waveform to look at and I could look at various parts of it and I forgot about.

And so I kept recording for some reason total record just kept on going and so I'm sitting here before the program trying to load This thing and I I noticed the wave file was 1 .4 gigabytes so I trans I converted to mp3 and it was still massive and Finally when it opens after like taking five minutes, so it opens like two minutes before the program starts here I see that it's 66 of nothing.

It's just blank. So I've deleted that. I haven't saved yet because if I save it Give you sitting here and I'm gonna be singing for the next five minutes while I was trying to save this poor thing. So that what that's what was good.

So I haven't had a chance to actually get the the little pointer to where it needs to be to only catch the call that asked about me, so we're gonna have to sort of just listen to it together and And and see what what happens.

So if you're ready over there, mr. Sound man person.

James White on Jimmy Akin, Blogging, and the Day's Technical Hiccups

Let's see if we can find this is that the faithful can perform a penance and thus make reparations and all what their own inclinations are. Try to vary it based on the gravity of what you're confessing.

Something. I'm 48 770 200. Or call the show in the future. Yeah, I like your show.

I've been listening to it while I've been up here at school in Moberly, Missouri.

Very good anyone. I often say there are no bad questions only bad answers. I think we're about here. Thank you very much.

All right. Blessed blessed Christmas to you Nathan. Merry Christmas. All right. So based on what you said Jimmy if I tell the priest that an hour of laying out on the beach is more Conducive as a penance for me.

Well, there are there are limits here. All right, let's go to let me see here. Where is he? There's Todd in Galveston. Todd. We got about a minute or so. We want to help you out. Go ahead.

I really appreciate that. You will. What. What is y 'all's opinion on the arguments of James White?

Well, I'd say it depends entirely on what arguments the you have in mind. If you mean his arguments against King James only ism I think there's considerable more merit to him than his arguments against Catholicism.

So I would say that it depends on what subject we're talking about. Catholicism. Well, I'm not. I'm not very impressed with those. Because I think that he proceeds from a with respect to Catholicism. He proceeds from a position where he doesn't fully understand what he's critiquing and he he has.

He does not give the benefit of the doubt to Catholics on any subject. I think what he does is he or I should say he seldom does. What he tends to do in my impression is He reads Catholic books looking for ammo not looking for Understanding and as a result, I don't think he has a very deep understanding of Catholic theology and practice and consequently He his arguments suffer.

I also think his arguments suffer because he fails to recognize the degree of flexibility in biblical language and he tends to treat biblical texts as if they're mathematical equations that can be decoded and yield one rigorous interpretation and.

And I think that there is considerable more Flexibility in language than that and there's considerable more mystery than that in the Bible and we have to acknowledge that.

Todd that's all we so there were the comments Gotta admit long on assertion very very short on specifics, but let's let's try to be as Charitable as we possibly can be here. Jerry Usher did say we have about a minute and so that means I'm assuming that just as I do I sit here and If someone calls into the program With and you know, I'm looking at a clock.

I know I have time limits. That's that's part and parcel things. And so I can't be overly Picky about the fact that no specifics are provided, but it also makes it next to impossible to respond to it.

I mean I could say all those things about James Aiken. Okay, I could say that. That I don't find his Argumentation to be at all Biblically oriented it tends to be Non exegetical his his comments about the original language is not to my knowledge.

You know, I've been seeing much more about James Aiken suggesting language resources and stuff. But most of you know that the only Interaction we've had at least recently Regarding biblical languages had to do with his claims about John 6 and for years I had been pointing out that Catholic apologists were using his material and his material was wrong.

It was just bad in his claims in a radio debate that we had done and it was actually a radio debate Where he had equal amounts of times and stuff Many many years ago on KIXL in in Austin, Texas, I believe is where it was and.

I.

Had pointed out in writing years ago that he was wrong in identifying Some verbs and John 6 is inceptive eras and I had pointed I'd gone into the language and explain How these just doesn't fit into the category and and yet I would see amateur Catholic apologists all the time on The web repeating this stuff because it was posted on his website and Even just a couple years ago a guy who used to come into channel We eventually had to ban him because he couldn't avoid using four-letter words, which seems to be endemic these days for many people not just Catholics and that he used the the the Nick Savant in in the in the channel he called in and he asked the James Aiken about it Jimmy.

It was I think it's before the Jimmy change. But anyway, he asked about it and Didn't get much of a response then either finally within the past year I sent The audio file of that call to mr. Aiken and I explained on my blog Again, the problems with his position and his response was to go.

Wow. Was I completely wrong about that and So the only time we've actually had interaction where it got down to dealing with syntax and and things like that He's had to admit he was completely totally wrong.

Which means the primary argument he used against John six and our debate was he now admits completely wrong so I guess he must now admit he completely lost that debate, but What is he referring to as far as?

The language, I don't know I don't get the feeling that he's read most of my material in any way shape or form and The only thing I can think about That he may be referring to would would be for example the my pointing out that justification we have been justified in Romans 5 1 that's another place where has been a little bit of Give and take through another person with him.

Especially regarding the textual basis of Whether you have a Indicative or a subjunctive in Romans 5 1 with Ekerman and things like that. But anyway, maybe that's what he's referring to I don't know. Maybe he's he doesn't feel that you can actually Determine that an action is in the past in Romans 5 1 by looking at the grammar.

Maybe he feels it should be a mystery or something. You know, it's odd that Rome can see such incredible Detail in something like the proteo evangelium in Genesis 3 that results in the Immaculate Conception or something.

But we can't look at the at the actual verb in Romans 5 1 and come up with any meaningful Idea of what it's actually saying. So I don't know what he's referring to. He doesn't give any examples. I would love to hear some examples of this alleged misuse of The languages on the part of someone that to my knowledge is self-taught Which you can do I I helped actually sort of there's a fellow who's a minister working on his doctoral degree back east and Contacted me before he went into Seminary and said I want to learn Greek now, so I don't have to learn in seminary.

I can just I can move forward and go farther and I said man, I'll tell you not many people do that. There the fact the matter is I would say That's a nine and a half out of ten of the people who try to do that are gonna fail 95 out of 100 ain't gonna make it because they just don't have the discipline there needs to be disciplined.

It's be scheduling and a lot of us just aren't disciplined in our personal lives in that way. But it can be done that the resources really honestly, there are more resources today for learning the original languages.

Than.

There ever has been the past. At the computer programs and and online stuff and and you know Bible works 6 .0 has flashcards and almost any decent Greek program today does Have a flashcards and parsing programs and and there's just a lot of stuff out there.

I had I had suggest to my friend that uses use mounts as grammar and workbook and get the tapes of Dr. mounts presenting the material and so on so forth and he did he he tested out of Greek and did two master's degrees at master seminary in the time that you normally do one and So it can be done.

But like I said for for every one story like that. I have Gazillions of other stories of people that tried bought the books the books look very nice on their bookshelf. But but they never they never got anywhere.

So it is quite possible. James Aiken is obviously a very intelligent man. And he does have time. He has time on his hands and And I'll tell her babe right if I read his blog, he's one of the 11 blogs I have in my RSS feed and There are many times there are a lot of things the Jimmy Aiken I Aiken and I agree a hundred percent on I mean there if you want a good example of where you know people say well, you know We we can stand side by side on the pro-life issue.

Well, here's the situation. Yeah, we could. In fact, it would be scary. I think.

If.

You know if there if I could just imagine someday some situation happening where there is some person promoting abortion and Aiken and I ended up on at the same time against the guy it would be ugly. I Mean we'd tag-team and probably very very well because we see very much The same things and we come to the same conclusions and argue in a lot of the same ways.

So I.

Read what he has to say. I also like his science fiction stuff and I'm a Trekkie and so I like reading stuff like that. And he obviously has a lot of time to do a lot of reading that I don't get to do because at least he doesn't deal with a lot of the areas that I I Unfortunately have to deal with or do deal with by a simple choice, but be that as it may.

He's an intelligent man and maybe he has taught himself the language. But I don't think that puts him in a position to make that kind of a comment. At least without providing specifics. I would not want if if someone asked me a question with one minute to go I don't know that I would answer the way that he did without Immediately making sort of an apology by saying I'd like to get into specifics.

I'll get into specifics next time. I'll post specifics on my blog. I'll do something along those lines. Because that's a this sort of a general shot that You know really doesn't accomplish anything, especially since we I can't how am I supposed to respond to that, you know?

It's it's extremely difficult to do so. I would like to invite Jimmy Akin to be a little more specific. Maybe from my published works where he would like to demonstrate that that I have done this. It's odd because I believe it was Jimmy Akin who?

Wrote the first review Catholic answers has only acknowledged the existence of a couple of my books. Everybody but King James only people love my King James only book.

But.

They've only acknowledged like the fatal flaw they've responded to maybe a grand total of two and a half paragraphs. The Roman Catholic controversy and I was told back in.

1991.

Probably.

January of 91 Maybe a little after that now I think about it that they were going to respond to all of my books all my books were going to be reviewed in this rock magazine and That didn't happen. But I believe it was Jimmy Akin back then James Akin who? Wrote the review of the fatal flaw for Catholic answers and one of the things he said was this is not your standard Anti-catholicism, it's not your standard jack-chick type stuff.

This is on a completely different level. So, you know, maybe over time his opinions changed. I don't know but you know, that's that's the way the way it is. So anyway, I'm gonna go ahead and try to save this thing.

That's that's that's it's only telling me 38 seconds. That's that's not too bad. It's a lot better than 1 .4 gigabytes. Can you imagine the the fragmentation factoring I have on that drive once I get all this cleaned up what a mess.

But anyways, I'll remember in the morning next time to delete all the dead air. So we're going to continue on with Looking at dr. Patterson's presentation on the doctrines of grace. I well, let me just mention just in passing for those of you who are on the RBDL reform Baptist discussion list or You're familiar with you know, sometimes people will will cross post things will mention things that that are there I Will be responding to the material that appeared on RBD on there was a reference in our BDL to a post made by Paul Kay's of discerning reader on Derek Webb's web board and That is the the blog article that is in the works right now, I'll be posting that hopefully.

Shortly after the dividing line if not sometime tomorrow. Because I haven't I actually believe it would be possible if I had the technology to blog while driving. Seriously. Because there is blog software for the the tungsten t3.

There is a client that will work and so it'd be a matter of getting the connection between my t3 and my new mobile phone. Which would allow for the digital connection it is possible. However, I also happen to know that if I have to take this trip this afternoon, I will be driving on one of the most dangerous roads in America.

Based on I was gonna say I just said you didn't do that.

You know what I'm talking about. That's a tough road to drive.

There's a lot of white crosses on the side.

White crosses between here in Las Vegas. Oh, I just mentioned where I had to go. Well, don't worry folks. It's Just picking someone up who's gonna be stranded there anyway. Yeah, it's a tough road to drive.

That's that that's gonna be but.

I.

May be driving a fairly new vehicle Which handles quite nicely? Just need to make sure that we're well within the speed limit because of the color of the vehicle sort of tends to attract it. You're gonna start posting links to divine on a blog today.

Okay, well I need to agree to the form of these. That's what that's we need to. Well.

It's just gonna be what we post at the On the other page except it's gonna have the hyperlink to the RAM file and the description of the program. Good. That's all good. I.

Need to make sure that it fits in with with what everything else.

But the nice thing about that is is that folks who use the RSS reader will know technology when it's finally actually available when I Get it up there eventually.

Eventually they will be notified, but you know what happens you you upload the file.

And then you get busy, and you don't upload the link and this would actually show you how simple it is. And if I get in that condition, and you can't find me you could post it yourself. Quit pretty easily.

I've wanted to be able to do that, but my understanding was that was a PHP thing isn't it uh?

This would this would do an end around good.

Then I can do that, that's fine. It just I. I just didn't figure you wanted me touching your PHP stuff and melt my SQL on the on the website. I sort of figured that you would scream and.

And arm yourself, and it would be ugly. Well those of us who've been developing the the new technology. You're using. We didn't want to tell you this, but you're actually using my SQL every time you post.

I know that I happen to know that yeah, I happen to be learning things. Understand that all my blog articles are going into a database and the database is searchable and yes, I know.

Cool.

Thanks, nice to the disembodied voice once again. Leaves 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 41. What's happened to the phone calls we used to have. Lots and lots of phone calls have I just been? Talking it can't possibly be that that.

What I'm saying is is of That level of interest. Actually oh look at that I can now I I'm just looking at stuff that you can you can get for your handheld. I just got an email in it is amazing. What is out there?

It truly is the could the the Bible stuff's getting better and better all the time. Yeah, I mentioned I mentioned what happened down there with that that lawsuit and man this one dude. Down in Australia whoo.

I get some very very very interesting. What can I say. We're paranoid no these folks are why are people why would someone like that guy?

That was writing to you all day yesterday. Even read my blog that I don't understand.

I didn't understand because he ended up being anti-reform. Didn't he. Yeah? Yeah, what I don't get it. Why I? Don't understand. It's really very odd. Oh, I just got another really interesting one. I'm sorry, but someone who really really really really really really detests me and is really nasty about it.

Someone just sent an email saying that their website disappeared. He's sending out emails to everybody. Help me help me find my website. Where'd it go?

And I probably shouldn't laugh it so yeah that happened to us once. What do you mean? Don't you remember years ago two weeks? We were down? Yeah, that's because we got kind of conned by a reseller. And the reseller wasn't paying his bills and yeah.

All the resellers accounts got deleted and then the people who actually owned the site kind of left us hanging.

Uh-huh, I was ugly. Oh, well. I kind of commiserate with I I don't remember recommending that person reseller to this guy. Who knows it's been so long ago, and I'm I'm old and I forget things. Yes, this show has turned into a real-time discussion of my inbox.

Which is an interesting thing actually? My inbox is Fascinating and I for those of you who are wondering about whether you should get a spam filter type thing of a Bobby now I know some of the purists like Shamgar and channel do not like my spam filter.

Because it's the challenge type and you have to and it increases mail stuff. I understand that however since February 7th of last year I could bring up the thing, but it might might slow down our feet.

It's got to remember we're using a single feed here just to throw this stuff out there. Let me look here real quick since February 7th, then we have a call. I have a call from the UK. I'm gonna heading over to the UK very soon and I'm gonna have even a better accent that I do now, so let me see here.

Overview.

It is night. Oh goody today. I pass a landmark. Since February 7th 19 ,000 909 spam emails rejected 6172 messages were forwarded that's a total of 26 ,000 email messages since February of last year that's in 10 months.

That's 2600 emails a month. However, 76 of them are not real.

Ah.

There we go so in fact in my my unverified thing right now, I mean I cleaned this out this morning. Oh Check this out. Someone from ailmen org has sent me something, but it's no one who is really at ailmen org.

So they're spoofing the the the website address isn't that great. I just love this stuff.

Oh.

Cool well that means the phone calls have gotten started so we can go ahead and get started with them. So let's talk to our friend over in the United Kingdom first. Hello Jason. How you doing? I'm fine.

Did you know I'm heading over there? Yeah, it's in March, and I'll be in mainly around London and then up to Edinburgh you know and Preaching a number of times, but we'll be able to put something up on the website soon.

So I'll be good. I do live close enough. We might be able to see you. So the universities in the air is it like elevated or what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Higher education yeah.

Good that's very good, and we always thought Monty Python had all the humor left in England. Yeah I'm doing the teacher training there. Oh, yes, you're going to be working for the government. How you plan on doing that without going insane.

That's true, but you give you a lot of pressure you know. Mm-hmm. So anyways, what is your question today?

Covenant Theology and Baptism

Yeah I'm gonna ask a question related to baptism. Baptism. Yes. Yeah, you know um a little while ago I went to that and one of the things that they said.

They bashed Baptists in Britain quite a lot. Let me explain something for those of us here in America pedo baptism for us pedo baptism for us. Which is infant that I just just want people to understand what you were saying.

Yes.

Let me get real serious here for a moment after I noticed this note that someone in channel has said for $47 you can get a real player filter that removes bad British accents. Not yours mine, so I really appreciate Sam for pointing that out, but You're of course dealing with the the primary area of discussion an area discussion that comes up I would say probably monthly in Prasapalagia in the chat channel.

The reason it does of course is because we have a mixture there of primarily Presbyterians and and Calvinistic Baptists Reform Baptists and. So that's one of the biggest areas of discussion. Well I'm sure that they did and I'm very accustomed to that.

Most of the folks who use that kind of attitude to be perfectly honest with you I discover they have never ever interacted with any serious Reform Baptist publications. For example there is a new publication that The next edition is going to be shipping within the next couple weeks called the Reform Baptist Theological Review and in the current Edition of that and then in the next one I have a two-part article on what I think that the primary issue here is and the primary issue that that separates My Presbyterian brothers and notice I use the term brothers their ancestors.

Sorry don't want to be sexist here. Especially we'll talking to you Britt In and their their Reform Baptist hopefully brothers and sisters. Is the nature of the Covenant what Covenant are we talking about?