Jeff Durbin vs. Andy Stanley (Coming Soon!)

Non-rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite? We're being delusional. Yeah, I love to get that.

Delusional?

Yeah.

Delusional is OK in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your world view is.

Perfectly OK.

It doesn't really hurt.

She hung up on me.

What?

What? What?

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.

Right.

Don't go into the world and make homies.

Right.

Disciples.

I got a bit of a jiggle neck.

That's a joke, master.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street.

A bruised reed he will not break. In a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law.

The Andy Stanley Debate and Why It Matters

What's up, y 'all? This is Jeff Durbin. Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. This is the gospel heard around the world, y 'all. Big day today. Exciting news for all you guys that have been partners and supporters and been a part of this ministry with us for a very long time.

I was up this morning at 3 .30 a .m. getting ready for a discussion with Andy Stanley. That's right, y 'all. Andy Stanley, Charles Stanley's son. I even told him today in the episode that when I first heard the gospel, came to Christ very early on, not raising a Christian home, didn't know anything about the Bible except there was a person named Jesus.

People say he died and he rose again. I didn't know what was in this book, what it was all about. And I told him I cut my teeth on Charles Stanley's teaching. So I used to watch him on TV and listen to him on the radio.

So Charles Stanley's son, Andy Stanley, and I had a radio debate, discussion. We had time together today on the unbelievable radio program on premier Christian radio with Justin Briley. Justin Briley.

I've been listening to that show for a very, very long time, and it's a good show. They have a lot of important discussions on there and some great, great people just back and forth. You should go check it out.

Go check out unbelievable radio program with Justin Briley, and I think you'll be blessed to do that. I'm just going to get stuff together here. So as you can see, it's just me today, just the ninja in the studio today.

I am without the bear because the bear is on his mandatory sabbatical right now. He's actually in Japan with some other members of Apologia Church. Joy the girl is here today. She's in the back right now.

We thought, hey, I'll do the show today to talk about my discussion with Andy Stanley. What's up, y 'all? Welcome to everybody who's watching live right now on YouTube and across them internets. So we thought we'd do the show today to talk about the discussion that I had with Andy Stanley.

Andy Stanley's "Unhitch" Teaching and the New Covenant

And it all really comes around his recent, fairly recent messages he did, the Aftermath series and other things, where he has suggested that Christians, because of the New Covenant, need to unhitch from the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, really.

The Ten Commandments are not your laws. You're not under those anymore, those sorts of things. He wants to disconnect from the Old Covenant law in many ways. He's also written a book that I was able to read, and it's called Irresistible.

The book is Irresistible. It's where he really tries to lay out his position. And it really moves from the issue of the law of God in the Old Testament to apologetic methodology in some ways. How should we actually be talking to the world about the word of God?

Should we say things like, because God says? Or should we say, no, it's centered around an event. Because Jesus rose again from the dead, we need to listen to.

That person.

Whoever rises from the dead, that's who we need to listen to. And so the book Irresistible, I was able to take a look at and read through. So we didn't get a chance today to get into a lot of the details I would have liked to have gotten into in the book itself.

There's some pretty serious and significant statements made in that book. But I am going to play for everybody today, if you haven't heard it yet, some of his message, Aftermath Part 3. It's called Not Difficult.

You can watch it on them internets anywhere that you can. Really, I think it's on Facebook too. But go take a look at that. I'm going to be playing for it for some of it for you now. If you guys are wondering where you can get a link to the discussion that I had with Andy Stanley, it's not available yet.

It was done through video and audio. Justin said that he's going to be putting it up on May 29th. So that'll be up in about two weeks. So you'll be able to check that out. We'll make sure it's available to everybody.

You'll get a chance to see it. And we'll probably do a review of it just to play through it.

For everybody.

Very important discussion. And let me just say why we are doing it. Why would we do a discussion like this? Why do we think it's important? I do believe that the issues that are contained in this discussion are vitally important.

As a matter of fact, I would actually argue that Andy Stanley's position that he's arguing from would gut the witness of the church in many ways, moving the church away from a historic perspective in many ways of the self-attesting nature of the Word of God, the Word of God as authoritative in and of itself, carrying its own authority, moving people away from that epistemological standpoint to another standpoint and saying, no, we know because the resurrection and we just need to have it all be there.

The resurrection.

That's where it's all at. I also think it's important because there are promises. We're going to talk about them today. There are promises in the Word of God about the new covenant, about what God's going to do when he brings Messiah to bring salvation, forgiveness to the ends of the earth and draw the nations to God.

There are promises contained there that are not just about salvation and forgiveness. A promise that I just read at the start of this episode, and that is about what God's going to do through this Messiah to bring justice to the world.

The Messiah is not going to grow faint or weary until he's established justice. And one of the final parts of that, that I read there, you heard that, Isaiah 42, 4, he will not grow faint or be discouraged until he's established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his Torah.

They wait for his law. That's significant. It's important. We're going to talk about some of those. The fact that the law of God is a constituent element of what God is going to do in the new covenant economy.

What God's going to do in the new covenant is something new that's different from what was before, but does not negate the justice and the goodness of God's law from before. He's going to do it in a new way.

Jeremiah 31, 31. I'm already getting into it here, but just to just give you a little bit of a teaser here. In Jeremiah 31, 31, in that promise of the Messiah's kingdom and the new covenant itself, of course, the promise there is about forgiveness and salvation.

Forgive their sin, forgive their iniquity. That's there. But before God talks about what he's going to do in the new covenant in terms of forgiveness and salvation, he says the new thing he's going to do, he's going to put a spirit within us.

He actually does something in the new covenant where the God's going to take the law, the known law, the law that Jeremiah knew about, the law they were accustomed to, the law that was spoken by God. He was going to take that law and he was going to put it within the people of God.

He was going to write it on their hearts. So now we go from having stone tablets outside the people of God, exerting pressure from the outside to now the spirit empowered obedience to that law. And that law now actually coming and taking residence within the people of God.

So just think about it in terms of what God says is so unique about the new covenant is not that now it's a lawless covenant. Now that it's, it's not that it's a, it's a covenant that now negates the law and the goodness of God's law that he gave in those commandments.

But now it's those commandments now taking residence within us empowered by the spirit of God. The law, the known law, is going to be written within the people of God. God with his finger is putting it on your heart.

Now, now, now not just on stone tablets outside the people of.

God.

So the discussion is vital. It's so important. And I do want to argue that what Andy Stanley is arguing for and what he's propagating today, I think does destroy much of historic orthodoxy. I think that it is a very, very dangerous perspective.

I don't think that Andy is an awful man. I love and respect Andy. I want to give him my love and respect. But theologically speaking, what Andy Stanley is promoting, what he's teaching is dangerous. Theology matters.

Theology matters a lot. And our theology will lead to our praxis. It will lead to our apologetic methodology. It will lead to our evangelical approach to the world. And theology matters. If we adopt what Andy is suggesting, then we, I think, are doing damage to what the scriptures themselves promise about God himself and what he's going to do in the world.

But if we also adopt what he's suggesting, we are abandoning the goodness and the blessing of God's law. Is the law of God a curse?

Yes.

In one aspect, when the law of God is put over fallen people in the flesh and they cannot accomplish God's law, yeah, there's a curse aspect to that. Absolutely. If you don't obey, there's a curse to that.

But now Christ has redeemed us from that.

Why?

We're no longer in the flesh as the people of God. That's Paul's whole argument in Romans chapter 8. The people who are in the flesh cannot submit to God's law. They're not even able to do so. So think about it logically.

The argument there is that you're not in the flesh. You're in the spirit. Those who are in the flesh cannot submit to God's law. They're not even able to do so. But part of the blessing and the goodness of the new covenant is that we're not in the flesh.

We're regenerated and in the spirit. And so just consider now, this has implications, very serious implications in so many different aspects of our walk with the Lord, of our witness to the world. And I think that if we have a departure as the Christian church in terms of our witness to the world from the self-attesting revelation of God from the Old Testament, if we have a departure from the declaration of God as to what is righteous and good and holy and just, then we're going to be in this very difficult place as the church to be a witness to the world and a light to the world in so many different areas.

Jesus says, you're the light in the world. You are scattering darkness. You're salt. You're salt. Salt, by the way, wasn't just about making things taste better. I've heard about people talking about, you know, Jesus, you know, you're the salt church.

You're going to make life so much more vibrant and amazing for the world. You know, salt makes things so much more savory and amazing. Well, salt in that day was a preservative. It preserves things from spoil and decay.

You take away the witness of the church in all these aspects, you're taking away the witness of the church in terms of spoil and decay of the culture around about us. Boy, oh boy, are we not seeing that today?

Stop and think about it for a second. Christians have moved away from a bold proclamation of the gospel, standing in the word of God as the revelation of God, the self-attesting authoritative word of God.

We're afraid to say it in the public square. We are, let's confess it. Largely speaking, the Christian church is afraid to talk about the word of God in the public square. We even go to the magistrates and we try to assume a position of neutrality.

No, no, we're not saying because God says. We're not saying because God has declared it. We're just saying like, this is the moral position. And we try to assume a position of neutrality in the public square, even to the degree of the magistrates.

We don't want the world to know that say we want an end to abortion because God has declared it's murder. And that's the image of God. We just want to use morally neutral arguments. And even the pro-life movement has been on record to say, no, we're not saying pro-life because God says.

We're just saying that it's the morally right thing to do. And my answer to that is says who? And if you got the discussion for justice and righteousness and all these things, if you got from the discussion, the word of God and his self-attesting authority from that discussion, you lose, you lose.

Jesus says, whoever is ashamed of me in this wicked generation, the son of man will also be ashamed of when he comes in judgment with all his holy angels with him. And so I think that these issues are very, very important.

They are vital. Again, I have no hatred for Andy Stanley. I have great respect for him and love for him. And I think that what he has to say is very much an error. And it is ultimately devastating to the witness of the church in many ways.

And so are you all ready to get to it? Let's get to it. Let me play for everybody a clip from Andy Stanley's sermon on a Sunday, I believe. This is Aftermath Part Three, not difficult. It's about 31 minutes into the video.

So I'll go ahead and play this for you guys now so you can hear it. And then I'll make some comments.

The Old Testament, Sexual Ethics, and the Jerusalem Council

Paul tied sexual behavior to Jesus' new command. The old covenant, the old covenant law of Moses was not the go-to source regarding sexual behavior in the church. More importantly,.

The old covenant law, the law of God was not gonna be the go-to source for sexual immorality in the church. The old covenant law is not gonna be the go-to source for sexual immorality in the church.

Now it's interesting here, if you listen to this discussion, he says now in the new covenant, it's built upon image of God concepts and your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. And you go, wait a minute, Andy, you said that the old covenant is not gonna be the go-to source when it comes to sexual morality and sexual behavior in the church.

But when he talks about it, he says, the concepts in the new covenant are image of God and your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. And you wanna just say to yourself, wait, Andy, can you stop and think about what you just said?

Those are statements that completely collide with one another. The old covenant law is not gonna be the go-to source for sexual morality in the church. The new covenant concept is image of God and your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit.

And you say, Andy, can you not see how you are flatly contradicting yourself at that point? Where'd you get the concept of image of God from? Is it not from those old covenant documents, that Old Testament document?

Where'd you get the concept of temple and Holy Spirit and temple of God? Is it not from that Old Testament revelation of God? So also I wanna just point out a very, very serious inconsistency here. When Andy Stanley says that for new covenant believers, sexual immorality is not defined by the Old Testament.

It's not defined by the Old Testament. I wanna say, okay, I'll bite. Let's ask some questions then. My question then is if sexual morality is not defined by the Old Testament revelation of God, then in the new covenant, Andy, can we have sex with animals in the new covenant?

Are we allowed to have sex with animals in the new covenant? Or how about this? Are we allowed to have sex with our brother or sister in the new covenant? Is it permissible under the new covenant for a father to have sex with his daughter?

Now I know these are some heavy, heavy things to talk about brothers and sisters, but we have a man who's preaching before a church body and broadcasting into the world the idea that sexual morality is not defined by the Old Testament for new covenant believers.

And so let's ask those questions and let's mean them. Can we have sex with relatives like brothers and sisters in the new covenant? And if you say, no, I'm gonna say, by what standard? By what standard, Andy?

Can we ask those questions? Because you said it's not defined by the Old Testament, so we can't appeal to that revelation of God to define what is sexually immoral for new covenant believers for the church.

And so we can't say, well, because God has said here in his word that no, having sex with animals is an abomination and no, we can't have sex with brothers and sisters and fathers and children. We can't go to that revelation.

It's not the go-to source for any sexual behavior in the church. That's what Andy says, that the Old Testament there is not gonna be the go-to source for any sexual behavior in the church. And so we have to ask those questions.

And I think that they're meaningful questions. And I don't believe that Andy's position gives us a solid basis to answer. Also, it's internally contradictory and inconsistent when you say that the Old Testament revelation of God, that old covenant, it's not gonna be a basis for sexual morality in the church for defining it.

And then you start using Old Testament concepts like image of God and temple of the Holy Spirit to give your platform. You're just using the Old Testament to do so. So a little bit more here, so you guys can hear a little bit more of his own words.

And perhaps more disturbingly, that's a word, or offensively, the Old Testament or the law and the prophets as they called it was not gonna be the go-to source for any behavior in the church. Now, to make this point, because this is so important, I originally in my notes, I was gonna put a screen up here that said, in other words, that means thou shalt not obey the 10 Commandments.

But I knew someone would take a picture of that and it would define me for the rest of my life. So I'm not gonna put it up there.

Rightly so.

I want you to hear me say it. Here's what the Jerusalem council was saying to the Gentiles. You are not accountable to the 10 Commandments. You're not accountable to the Jewish law. We're done with that.

God has done something new. Besides, he would say to them and he would say to you, thou shalt not obey the 10 Commandments because those aren't your commandments. Yours are better.

Thou shalt not obey the 10 Commandments because those are not your commandments. First of all, that is not what happened at the Jerusalem council. They were not casting out the 10 Commandments and the Old Testament revelation of God of his standards of righteousness and holiness and justice and all the rest.

It was about keeping peace within the church. And of course, we see in God's new covenant revelation what they were saying was the holiness code, of course, is done with because now we've gone from the dress rehearsal of the Old Testament.

We've gone from the shadows of the Old Testament to now the substance and the body of Christ. And so, of course, now the dietary restrictions, of course, now all of those holiness code, Ephesians chapter two, the law of commandments in ordinances, of course, those are passed away.

And why?

Because they serve their purpose as the shadow to point to the body and substance, but that has nothing to do with whether or not the 10 Commandments, whether or not the 10 Commandments, which express, by the way, love for God and love for neighbor are still relevant today.

That's what I wanna ask there in terms of when we talk about the 10 Commandments gone, Jesus was asked at a point in his ministry, Master, what's the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus quotes this Shema, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad.

Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, Jesus says. And he says, the second is like it. You should love your neighbor as you love yourself.

He says, all the law and the prophets are built upon this. I wanna ask Andy Stanley, Andy, are we still commanded in the new covenant to love God and love neighbor? And if Andy were to say to me, yes, we're still commanded in the new covenant to love God and love neighbor.

I would say, thank you, Andy. You just gave me all the law and the prophets. You did, because Jesus says so. All the law and the prophets built upon love for God, love for neighbor. You wanna know how?

Let's just take the 10 Commandments as an example. Love for God and love for neighbor. Love for God, first table. What is it? He's God. There is no other God. He's God. Don't even make a God that looks like him.

Don't even have a God in his sight. That's love for God. Do you see that? And the second table, you look over here at the other one and you're seeing love for neighbor stuff, like love your neighbor. Well, what's it look like to love my neighbor?

Well, don't lie. Don't lie to them. Don't steal from them. Don't murder them. Don't commit adultery and don't covet, right? You're beginning to see now, oh, now I see. So love for God, love for neighbor are the platforms from which the 10 Commandments come.

But then you have now in the case law system of the Old Testament, you have examples of what it means to love God and love your neighbor in every area of life. For example, in the judiciary, when God said, here is a just penalty for theft, God is showing you how to love your neighbor.

How do you love your neighbor when there's theft? How does a judge make sure that neighbor is loved when there's theft? How do you love your neighbor when there's a murder? How do you love your neighbor in terms of protection of human life?

Well, I'll give you an example of loving your neighbor in the judicial system and case law system of the Old Covenant. It's not just laws that, you know, they're meaningless laws and God was just throwing these out.

They're just for them, you know, no big deal. It was about love for neighbor, Jesus said so. You know, God had in his law, he said, many people are familiar with this. God said, you were to build a parapet around the rooftop of your houses.

I love this example because it's such an easy one for us to grapple with. God says, build a parapet around the roof of your house, right? And we think like, well, okay, I got to do that today in the New Covenant.

No, it's a case law example. You take the principle of the law. That is an abiding principle of loving neighbor. And God gives you an example in culture and society. And he says, build a parapet around the rooftop of your house.

Well, why?

Because they used to spend a lot of time on the roofs of their houses to cool off at night, to store stuff up there and all the rest. And so because you had people, neighbors, hanging out on top of rooftops, you wanted to make sure that you preserve life.

Why? Because you love your neighbor. And I want to say that that principle does come over into the life of the New Covenant believer. You ought to care about that. Why? Because the principle is abiding.

Love your neighbor. Preserve human life.

How?

Well, build a railing where there could be potential harm to human life, like on your rooftops where you're hanging out. The principle abides. So you say, well, how would that look in the life of the New Covenant believer?

Well, I ought to love my neighbor and be concerned with the preservation of life. So that means if I have a pool, what ought I to do as a New Covenant believer who has a law written in my heart? I ought to care about the preservation of life, which means put a railing or put a fence around a pool.

Or if you have deep wells in your property where little kids can fall into it, make sure you put a railing around that. Why? Because of the preservation of human life. You ought to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

So when Andy argues that that's not your law, those aren't your commandments, he'll say things like, you know, you've got something better. Jesus says, I give you a new commandment, that you're to love one another as I have loved you.

Now, I want to say this, this is a critical failure, I think, in Andy's thinking. And I mean this with all due respect. When he says, well, Jesus gives us a new commandment to love people like I've loved you.

I want to say, because Jesus gives a new commandment, it doesn't mean that the old ones are irrelevant. Jesus is now the lawgiver walking among us now, God taking on flesh, saying, I've put flesh on this.

Here's what I want you to do. Here's a new one, love people the way I've loved you. Like how I washed your feet, how I've served you, how I've given myself up for you. But watch, this is critical. Because Jesus says, I've given you a new commandment, it doesn't logically follow that now God's other commandments are irrelevant.

He still requires of us to love our neighbor. He still requires of us to honor father and mother. And I'm going to give you proof of that in just a minute here. This is a critical, critical failure that I think will create conflict within the church, conflict in terms of our witness to the world and conflict to the scriptures themselves.

It will make it near impossible to read your Bible and make any sense of it when you adopt Andy's perspective here. Those aren't your commandments, Andy Stanley argues. Well, I want to go into that here just for a moment here and make sure I get some of these notes together here.

And let's just do this just quickly. You guys ready for this? So thank you guys all for hanging on and watching right now. Let's talk about it. He says, those aren't your commandments. You're not under those at all.

Again, I said, this is going to make mishmash of the New Testament record itself. It won't make any sense. But let's just go to some promises briefly. Jeremiah 31, 31 is one of those old covenant, Old Testament promises about what God is going to do with the new covenant.

And again, I mentioned it. I won't belabor the point here. But for those of you guys who just joined, one of the things that God announces before he talks about forgiveness and salvation in the new covenant is he announces that he's going to do something new, not like the covenant he made with the people of God, even though he was a husband to them and they broke his covenant.

He says he's going to do something new where he will actually write his law, his Torah within them. Which Torah? Well, the known law, the law of God, the law that was revealed by God is now going to be written inside of us.

So now no longer on stone tablets outside the people of God exerting pressure. Now you have something new with spirit-filled people indwelled by God with the law written now, not on stone, but inside, internally motivated to obey the law of God.

Then you also have Isaiah chapter two, God promises in Isaiah two and the kingdom of the Messiah, the nations were going to stream up to God. So that's not just Jews. God's drawing the world up to his mountain.

Very beautiful, symbolic, poetic language there. The nations are streaming up to the mountain of God being drawn up. Water doesn't go up by the way. It goes down. So they're being drawn up to God's mountain.

And then it says that the law, the Torah is gonna go forth from Zion. So the Torah, the law is coming out from the people of God. So far from being irrelevant in the new covenant, the promise is the law of God is the constituent element of what God is gonna do in the Messiah's kingdom with the salvation and forgiveness.

It's not merely people going to heaven one day. God is regenerating people. He is empowering people by his spirit. He is making people alive. He's making them relate to one another and to him in a new way, in a new and powerful way through Jesus Christ and redemption.

But don't forget, it's the law, the Torah that goes forth from the people of God. Isaiah 42, the coastlands wait for his Torah. He will establish justice on the earth. The coastlands wait for his law.

That's a constituent element of what God's gonna do in the Messiah's kingdom and salvation and forgiveness. But Ezekiel 36 is another powerful promise in terms of what God is gonna do that's so powerful and unique in the new covenant.

It says that God is gonna sprinkle clean water on them so they'll be clean. They'll be cleansed from all their idols. Yes, praise God for all of us struggling and warring against our flesh and idolatry and sin.

God says, I'm gonna do this. It's not for your sake, but for the sake of my holy name. God's doing this himself. He's gonna empower us. He says, I'll put my spirit within you and I will cause you to observe my statutes.

Which statutes are those, Andy? When God promises that he's gonna cause his people to observe his statutes in Ezekiel 36, which statutes do you think Ezekiel is referring to? And I wonder, by the way, how Andy's perspective can be squared with the psalmist in Psalm 119.

Just read it, guys. Just read it. It's the longest chapter in the entire Bible, but go read Psalm 119 and ask yourself the question, does Andy's preaching and his sermons about the law of God in the Old Testament, when he refers to the law of God and he speaks about it, do you get the impression that Andy's perspective of the law of God is anything like the psalmist in Psalm 119?

Is it anything like the psalmist about the law of God in Psalm 119? That was before the new covenant now, remember that. Psalm 119, of course, we recognize is how Jesus thinks perfectly about the law in his life and in his ministry.

But of course, that's the righteous standard. When Jesus calls us to be like him, we're being conformed to his image. If Psalm 119 is the righteous and perfect way to think about God's holy law, his unchanging character and law, if it's the righteous way to view God's law and it's the way that Jesus viewed the law of God perfectly, if we're being conformed to Christ's image, then how are we to think about God's Old Testament revelation of his law?

Now, I wanna ask you, and I mean this with all due respect and humility towards Andy, completely and totally. I wanna ask you, when you listen to Andy talk about the law of God in the Old Testament, does he sound like the psalmist in Psalm 119?

Does it sound anything like it? And I wanna argue that it doesn't. Now, when Andy says, those aren't your commandments, you are not obligated to obey the Ten Commandments under the New Covenant. Those are not your commandments.

I wanna say this is critical because the Ten Commandments are repeated throughout the New Covenant. So I want you to consider now, post-cross, post-resurrection, and post-ascension, the New Testament documents are actually filled with references to the Ten Commandments.

So they're just assumed throughout the New Testament. So here's the critical part of how we need to think about this as Christians and be Bereans and actually test all things here and actually see if what Andy Stanley is saying is so.

Remember what happened in Thessalonica and Berea when Paul goes into Berea and it says they searched the scriptures daily to see if what the apostle Paul was saying was true. They were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica.

By the way, also, this is a critical point. Andy, if you see this, my friend, I want you to consider this. It says that the Berean Christians searched the scriptures daily to see if what the apostle Paul was saying was true.

So these early Christians are complimented in the word of God for searching the scriptures to test Paul's claims about Jesus Christ. Now, which scriptures do you think they were searching, Andy? Which scriptures?