Oneness Pentecostal

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 at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Taking your phone calls today at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you'd like to join us live on the program today.

We are live in studio, which we normally are. We used to do taped stuff when we weren't going to...

That was when we were on the radio, though, and we had to provide something. And now if we're not going to be there, we just sort of go, eh, whatever.

So I hope some of you are possibly planning on joining us in Virginia coming up Easter weekend.

I will be doing one of the, I believe, is it a total of six debates, five debates?

I'd have to look again, but it's a lot of debates, many, many debates on Islam. And you'll see the banner ad, which

Micah just fixed, which now has the date in it on there.

And there are debates afterwards. I'm moderating two of the debates coming after the debate that I myself am doing.

So you will, if you like all sorts of stuff, then you'll find that to be...

All sorts of debate, you'll find that to be very, very interesting. I do have a video lined up here, which videos don't work as well on the dividing line, but you can still listen.

And what I'm going to do is I'll describe for you what's going on when it gets a little bit quiet, basically.

But we'll get to those in just a moment. But we are taking your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

And we've already got one caller online. So get in line. I don't have too much patience for the folks who call into our agenda program, they have to talk really fast like this and can't really answer the questions because you had all the time in the world.

And of course, next week, there won't be anybody calling anyways, because the time changes. Time changes really, really early this year.

And it changes Sunday... That usually takes us a couple of months to recover from the time change. Oh man, I'll tell you.

It changes 2 a .m. Sunday morning for all the rest of you people out there who absolutely insist upon dishonoring time and dishonoring

God's creation. And but you know, there's nothing we can do about it. And what really bugs me is I really like radio controlled clocks, so they're always exactly on time.

So I still have to run around my house resetting all the clocks, the ones that don't have you turn off the stupid daylight savings time button on them, because in a day or two, they're all confused.

And then I'm all confused. And I just every, oh man.

But anyway, at least from now on, it's like eight months, I think eight months in daylight savings time and only four months out.

So but like I said, for about two weeks, nobody will be going, hey,

I had the dividing line resign, so I didn't tell you time, it's just like, how do you people get to work on time?

I mean, do you get to work an hour late? I don't get it. Yeah, well, anyway, all right.

So right off the bat, we have I have a sneaking hunch that there's an objection to be rendered here.

But let's go to Missouri and talk with Manuel. Hello, Manuel. Hi. Hi.

How are you doing, Dr. White? Doing good. Good. Yeah, I do have an objection to your

YouTube, your fast apologetics. Are you on a cell phone or?

No, sir, I am not. It sounds like there's wind behind you or something. You got a loose connection? No. I'm probably a little nervous.

I don't know much. No, no. Well, it has nothing to do with your voice. It had to do with, we just got a bunch of static all of a sudden.

But anyway, go ahead. Huh. That's odd. Yeah, I just happened to read through this course and I read this little apologetics on your site and it's not correct concerning what we believe.

Okay. We're still trying to hear you. Okay. We're going to keep trying. But for some reason, when you're speaking, it sounds like there's an ocean behind you.

It's almost like something's dragging across your phone or something. So I'm sorry. No, right now it sounds fine.

So however you're holding your phone now is probably the way to do it. I just don't know how else to describe it. Okay. I'll have to maybe go get some tinfoil or something.

I don't know. Like we used to do with the old TV? Yes. Yes. Well, is this one of the radio things?

I don't know. No, but I mean your phone, is it hardwired in or is it cordless?

It's a cordless. Ah, there you go. That may be the problem. Yeah. You need to get as close to the base with it as you can.

I'll do that then. I'm sorry. That's what's going on is we're getting a bunch of static. Okay. Okay. And you'll hear that if you listen to the archive.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not listening to the podcast. I'm just trying to listen to you on the phone. I know. But I mean when we post it, you'll be able to hear why

I was saying get close to that thing. All right. Countdown. That's actually even worse. But let's go ahead and go for it and see what happens.

Okay. All right. Can I go ahead? Can you go ahead and what? Read your apologetics here on your

YouTube. Sure. Sure. Go ahead. It says, and finally, one is Pentecostal. They confuse the Father and the

Son, making Jesus two persons. Of course, that's not the divine side.

It's the human side. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Manuel. Most of what you're saying is getting lost.

And I'll tell you what, do you have a corded phone somewhere? No, I don't.

Okay. All right. Because right now, we're getting about 30 % of what you're saying. How about I call you back?

My cell phone probably will be worse. No, I doubt it, because I've not heard a cell phone sound this bad.

Okay. Can I call you back? Sure. Please, please feel free. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Bye -bye.

Remember those cordless phones like that? That's one of the old style with the, and I'm getting static.

And I think what he was saying was, of course, that's untrue. And let me just say for the audience, there are all sorts of different forms of oneness theology.

But what I was referring to was, of course, the idea that Jesus is two persons. That is, the deity aspect of Jesus is referred to as the

Father. The Son is a created being and came into existence at a point in time, which is what

I was referring to there. But that's okay. We don't need all the type and stuff.

I'll just go ahead and we're ready to go. Got him? All right. Let's try it this time.

Hello? Yes. Wow. Sounds totally different. Sound better? Yes, sir. Okay. Great.

All right. So, go ahead. All right. It says, and finally, one is Pentecostal. They confuse the Father and the

Son, making Jesus two persons. That's not correct. Let me stop you right there.

Okay. Has the Son existed as an eternal divine person? No. Okay.

Of course, you know that's our belief. We don't believe that he was an eternal person separate from the

Father. Right. And so, Jesus, when he... But, Dr. White, do you believe that? Do you believe he was a separate person from the

Father? Yes, sir. I'm a Trinitarian. Well, I thought classical Trinitarian doctrine taught that that was a distinction, not a separation.

Well, you're using... I don't know how you're using those terms, but the Father and the Son communicate with one another.

Jesus was not praying to himself. Of course they do. Okay. So, when I said that the

Jesus of Oneness theology is two persons, who was Jesus praying to in his prayers?

He was praying to his Father that existed before he did as a real human man. So, that Father wasn't him?

Because all humans are in subjection to God the Father.

Jesus was a real human man. The Trinitarian doctrine actually denies the real humanity of the

Son and makes him actually a hybrid. No, it doesn't. But your first objection was to say that I was misrepresenting you.

I'm giving the same viewpoint of Dr. Bernard and everybody else. Yes, of course you are.

And I agree that Jesus is a Father because the Father is his deity that was given to him without measure.

John 3 .34, 1 Corinthians 15 .45, Matthew 28 .18.

Nobody's looking up all your references. You can skip those unless they're relevant. So, the

Jesus who spoke as God, that was the Father speaking when he spoke as God?

That was the deity that was given to the real human Son. And so, the Jesus who then prayed, that was the human nature?

I didn't say anything about nature. I said that was the real human man, the Son. Okay, the real human man. So, that just proves exactly what

I said in my video, however, because you still have... Was that one mouth? Was that one mouth saying both words?

No, Dr. White, we haven't argued the person thing yet. I don't believe God as a spirit is a person.

We'd have to argue that point first. Well, that's just basic language, sir. I mean, we're talking about someone who can communicate.

No, it's not basic language. Do persons die? You'd have to qualify that statement, then.

You'd have to qualify your statement on persons. Yeah, well, most people recognize that God is personal because he speaks of himself in distinction with others.

He's personal because he deals with mankind that are real persons. Well, but he was personal before mankind existed.

He's God above us, and he doesn't die, but persons die. But that's not what

I'm here for. I wanted to read your apologetics and show how it's wrong. And actually that you have two persons in Jesus.

Well, okay, first, but your first accusation, I have refuted it. To anyone, I think, who's listening to what we're saying.

What did you refute? I refuted the assertion that I was misrepresenting someone when

I said that you believe Jesus is two persons. If you have one man, and out of the same mouth comes a speech of one person or a deity or whatever, you know, if you want to play games with person, fine, but you've got a deity speaking and a man speaking.

Don't interrupt me, sir. If you have a deity speaking and a man speaking, then you have two persons speaking, especially when they address each other.

No, sir, you do not. Balaam's donkey that talked, was that a person or was that God speaking through the donkey?

If you want to turn the sun into an analogy for Balaam's donkey, sir, I think you just offended everybody in the audience.

I want to turn the sun into what the sun really is. He was a real human man, which you deny.

No, I do not deny that. You do deny that he's a real human man. Okay, thank you ever so much for calling up and demonstrating that you're incapable of meaningful communication.

All right, well, I'm happy to talk with folks. You know, we can have discussions, but leave your temper and your inability to allow for other viewpoints someplace else.

Okay? I'm just, you know, this is too important for that kind of behavior. And I'm just not going to do it.

So 877 -753 -3341 for people who want to have meaningful conversation and who do not want to just constantly interrupt and basically change the entire historical dialogue on the subject of the

Trinity and change words and falsely accuse me of things and then when refuted, refuse to admit that.

So, anyways, we will move on from there. As I mentioned, I have on YouTube the conversion of some people to Islam.

And I wanted to play this because I don't think Christians really realize this happens.

I really, really don't. I don't think that they have seen this and recognize this.

And I think if you will hear Khalid Yassin. Khalid Yassin is a black preacher.

And if you listen to black preachers, he is a black preacher, but he is a black

Muslim preacher. And I'm not saying black Muslim as in Farrakhan and all that wackiness. As far as I can tell, he's an orthodox

Muslim, but he preaches the way that black preachers preach.

And he preaches all over the world. At the end of one of his talks, according to the YouTube item here it says, 22 people accepted

Islam. And this is as similar as you're going to get to an altar call in an evangelical church.

But what you've got to realize is most of the people on this video are denying

Christ by doing what they're doing. They are professed, quote unquote, professed Christians. And that makes it all the more interesting.

So I want to play for you this clip. And I'll be interested in what your responses are to it and what you think about it.

Let's listen to Khalid Yassin as he basically instructs.

It's very similar, very, very similar to what you'd see at the end of a lot of evangelical meetings.

People coming forward and the preacher talking to them. And they're given a Bible, but this time they're given a

Koran. And they're led in the Muslim equivalent of the sinner's prayer, but it's not the sinner's prayer at all.

In fact, that's one of the things I hope you will hear and notice that it's striking. And the fact that they are led to say these words in Arabic, even though they don't know what

Arabic means. That's the only way to do it is to just repeat the words after him.

And that's how a person becomes a Muslim. So let's listen to this clip. And I'll describe some of the things going on as we're moving along.

One, can you stand for me quickly? Just stand for me. Come right here, please.

Now, if you're wondering, that is Allah Akbar is being yelled in the back. And we've gotten used to that because that's basically what terrorists are screaming as they blow themselves up.

But that is the Islamic equivalent of hallelujah,

Allah Akbar. And that's what you're hearing in the background. There are people coming forward to the front.

I want to make this transition or this transaction because this is what it is.

These are human beings that are making a transaction with God. They're not making a transaction for us.

They're making a transaction with God and a transition in their lives. So I want to make this easy for them.

We have a gift for them. And we're going to give them this gift, which includes, give each one of them.

I'm going to tell them what it is. And now you, Kelly Dawson has walked away. He's handing some stuff to the people in line.

There's a bunch of people up there helping him. They're basically packages of books, including the

Quran, a biography of Muhammad, and some basic instructions for new

Muslims. Now the gift that we're giving to them is something that will help them on their way.

One, it's a copy of the Quran with the transliteration of the meanings.

Secondly, it's a short, easy to read, authentic biography of the

Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Thirdly, it is a set of seven books.

It is a set of seven books that have in it lessons for new

Muslims. Now your acceptance of Islam is your acceptance of God.

Not your acceptance of me, or not your acceptance of these people, nor your acceptance of the political dynamics in the world, because it has nothing to do with that.

It's just your acceptance of God. And this gift is to help you make that transition. Did everybody receive a copy?

You have a copy? Wonderful. I want you to say with me the simple words.

And these words are nothing more than what I have explained. Now here's how a person becomes a

Muslim. A lot of Christians don't know how a person becomes a Muslim. And the reason

I'm playing this for you is so you can compare and contrast. And I think it helps to make it real to watch this and to recognize this is down,

I believe, in Sydney, Australia. So what would be the nominal background of the vast majority of these people staying there?

They are at least nominal Christians, probably very nominal Christians. But this is the mechanism, the means by which you become a

Muslim. And you're not going to, well, I'll let you listen for yourself. No trick, no curve, and we don't have a pool in the back for you to dip in.

I .E. no baptism. Now a guy is talking to him about someone who is supposed to be coming.

They're going to have a little bit of a disagreement here. She's here. My brother who is, and rightfully so, is very concerned and very inspired about one of the ladies who are here.

And I also, because she was brought here last night by her son.

And I mean that's profound. That's the most profound gift that a son can give to his mother.

And that's certainly the most profound gift that a mother can give to her son. And that's our sister

Pam that's here. And I'll meet with all of these fortunate and special people after we finish our meeting here this evening.

But let's say the words. Let's just go over the words called the shahada.

The bearing of witness. And I'll tell you what it is. Essentially it is the saying of that there's none to be worshipped except almighty

God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. Saying that word and then adding to it,

I testify or I declare or I announce that there's none to be worshipped except almighty God.

And that I testify or I declare or I announce that Muhammad is the messenger of God. Brings you all into the transition of Islam.

From that point it's your sincerity. It's your acts of worship. It is your commitment that will make the difference.

Now whatever you owe God of something you did that only you know and God knows after tonight, your board is clear.

Because God is the forgiver of those that come back to him. But whatever you owe somebody, money, rent, a loan, you still owe that.

Is that fair? Okay, please just say after me the words la ilaha illallah.

Now let me just stop there. There is no ilah, God, other than Allah, the one true

God. Muhammad, Rasulullah. Rasulullah, Rasul, prophet, apostle.

The, in this context, the apostle of Allah. So it's really a two -fold confession.

You could go on from there for a little bit more. But it's a two -fold confession. There is no God but Allah. And Muhammad is his rasul.

Muhammad is his prophet. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.

And I bear witness that Muhammad is his servant and his rasul.

Peace be upon him. Ameen. Now, what

I want to say to you, brothers and sisters, and honestly, I'm truly grateful in the sight of Allah.

Not because I'm going to get paid for each one of you. Because it's not about that.

But I'm grateful because when I look at you,

I see myself 37 years ago. And I do realize,

I do realize that sincerity and commitment and straight talking can change a person's life.

Because it certainly changed mine. And what I want to tell you is that all of you are fortunate because certainly someone brought you here tonight.

I mean, your own inquisitiveness, your own concern about life sort of navigated you here or brought you here.

But someone, some Muslim who you have as an associate or a relative brought you here.

That person is your sponsor. That sponsor should help you work out your problems and your transition.

Now, because I live in the UK or because I'm from America, it means that I'll be a long distance mentor, friend of yours, brother in Islam and open for you to help you resolve your problems.

But the Muslims of Sydney, Australia and in particular the sponsor that brought you here, your relative or your friend, those are the people that should work things out for you, yes.

That's right. She said it doesn't even have to be a person that you know because God might have brought you here.

Isn't that beautiful? Now, unfortunately, tomorrow morning

I'll be going to Melbourne and coming back on Thursday. And what I would like to do is to arrange to have dinner with all of you when we get back.

Can we arrange that? So please, take your gifts. I can't shake hands with you pretty ladies.

You can't shake a woman's hand. Not now. You could have before.

Couldn't now. Well, he wouldn't have. May God bless you so much. Have your seats, okay?

So there you have the conversion of 22 people to Islam in Sydney, Australia.

And, you know, how do you feel? Well, most Christians, I'll be honest with you,

I think one of the odd things that I remember feeling the first time I walked into a Mormon church, there's an element of challenge.

It makes a Christian feel uncomfortable to see something that you've only seen in one context taking place in another context.

When you talk to a person who has joined the Mormon church from an evangelical church, you have that same feeling.

Here you have a person joining a completely different religion. And yet, conversion in some ways is similar, but there were some major differences.

At least, I hope. Sadly, there weren't a lot of major differences in that to a lot of evangelicalism.

But I would hope that especially this audience would recognize the difference between the type of conversion and I've got someone trying to PM me and flooding my screen in front of me while I'm doing the dividing lines.

Very, very disruptive. The vast difference between true conversion and what we just saw there, which was, you know, he said some words.

Now, don't get me wrong. An orthodox, well -intended, well -meaning

Muslim is going to say, Look, when you say those words, those words have to be filled with meaning and commitment and all those things like that.

Okay, I understand that. But saying that your board is going to be clean with God is not quite the same thing.

And did you hear about your faithfulness and your acts of worship? That's what continues your state as a

Muslim. There is a vast difference between, well, you've said the Shahada.

You have confessed the oneness of Allah and that Muhammad is his

Razul. But you have to then continue on.

You have to continue with your acts of faithfulness. That's what keeps you as a

Muslim. It's not like your nature has been changed. It's not like you have a new heart and a new nature and a new orientation.

I didn't hear anything there about repentance. I heard nothing about turning from sin or anything along those lines at all.

And you've got to realize that Islam is not just a religion.

It is a way of behavior as well. And so those books are going to tell you how you should now start dressing and how you should now start washing.

When you're to do the Fujr prayers in the morning and five times during the day and all these things.

And that's what makes you a Muslim. I see another one here about a revert.

And I may just go ahead and play that after we take our break.

But it depends on what phone calls come in. 877 -753 -3341. We'll be back right after this break.

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This sounds a little bit like the kind of music you'd play at a revival meeting. Come on down, front brothers and sisters.

I see that hand, yes. That's sort of how you do it, I guess.

And sort of similar to, it's a similar song, too. Hey, let's go ahead and take a phone call.

Let's talk with Pierre. Hi, Pierre, how are you doing? Hi, Dr. White. Doing pretty good.

What's going on? Yeah, I just wanted to comment on something

I saw today on a program. It was a leader of an Islamic information center here in Canada, and he was...

In Toronto? Pardon me? In Toronto? No? I don't know where he's from. I actually forget, but no, not from Toronto.

Okay, so it wasn't Shabir Ali? No, it wasn't Shabir Ali, no. But he was referring to the difference between Muslim evangelism being sort of like an invitational and very open, where he believes that you can discuss

Islam and discuss religion in a very logical way, because he believes people are reasonable and logical, versus...

I don't know what his point was about Christianity and our evangelism, but... I would assume he'd probably be arguing that it's emotional and non -rational.

Well, the thing that I wanted to point out is that, yes, we are reasonable and rational people, but I guess the thing that struck me immediately was that it doesn't matter how rational and how logical you are in your presentation, they have no real doctrine of total depravity.

Well, just the opposite. I mean, literally, their doctrine is just the opposite of that. Yeah, exactly. So, it seems that, number one, no matter how logical and through debates and through coffee houses and these types of friendly interchanges, if you don't address thin and you don't understand the thin effects, even your logic and your thinking, that's going to undermine what you're trying to do.

And second of all, I think it was a little bit disingenuous of him to suggest that Islamic evangelism is somehow friendly and that it's an invitational type of approach, given that if it is invitational, then people wouldn't have to fear for their lives in different Muslim countries, for example.

Well, there's two things. If I could play the advocate for that side for a moment, just simply to flesh it out, basically what they would say is, look, no, we don't believe in conversion by the sword, those who practice that are not true

Muslims. However, in a Muslim country, it is perfectly proper to not only put limitations on your proselytizing of others, but likewise, in exchange for your protected status and your ability to continue to worship as a

Christian or as a Jew, there is the jizya that you need to pay, the tax you need to pay, and there are certain limitations.

If you're not going to be a Muslim, then you cannot bury your dead where the Muslims bury their dead. You cannot wear the clothing that Muslims wear, etc.

There's all these limitations that are placed upon Christians. But obviously,

I point out that true Christianity should not change whether it is in the majority or minority as to its nature and its teaching.

And when cultural Christianity takes over, I'm just as opposed to that as I am anything else, but Islam and its evangelistic methodologies, its proselytizing, does change and change radically when you go from Islam being the minority religion to being the majority religion.

And that says a lot to me, personally. I think that says a lot concerning the nature of this religion, that it is something completely different when it is the majority than when it's the minority.

Yeah, but the thing is, I don't think you'll ever hear that coming from a

Muslim apologist or a Muslim evangelist. Maybe not in the West, but I've seen some things once in a while.

Sometimes it's memory .tv that's translating it, but sometimes you will find this.

I was watching a clip about an Egyptian Muslim really lamenting the massive losses

Islam is experiencing in Africa. And it was pretty unusual to see someone being so honest about the situation in Africa.

Islam was the primary religion there for a long time, and it is shrinking in Africa.

A lot of people do not know that. And so they were discussing it.

So I think there is a vast difference between the external discussion that takes place in Western cultures and that which takes place elsewhere.

Yeah, I would caution my fellow believers in Christ that when they're dealing with Islam, here in the

West even, my experience has been that your life could be in danger if someone is radical enough to defend

Islam and defend Mohammed. Well, there certainly is that within the religion that would allow that kind of radical behavior.

There's that, honestly, in a number of religions, even not just Islam. But there is that foundation within the concept of jihad and within the

Koran that certainly does allow for very radical forms of behavior. And I've had a lot of folks ask me with great sincerity, do you wear a bulletproof vest when you speak and things like that?

And I've had people come up to me and say, you should never speak on these subjects without a bodyguard and things like that.

So that has happened more than once. So what did you think listening to the people giving their confession?

What kind of feelings does that bring up in your mind? I'm sorry,

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I was playing the clip. Did you hear the clip of the people converting to Islam?

Oh, I'm sorry. No, I kind of caught the program late. Okay, that's fine. I want to get that call in. Okay, no problem.

Thank you for the call today. Okay, thanks a lot. Alright, God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.

Let's go ahead and let's do this. I'm going to play a clip

I've not even looked at. It's a little bit dangerous. It might be boring. But this is an

Australian reverting to Islam. And it sort of follows along a lot. We're all going to get to learn this, about this, together.

Of course, the problem is, what I should have done is started this a few moments ago. I'm going to go ahead and let it buffer up.

Since we're streaming right now, I'm trying to download a video on the same line that we're streaming our audio on.

Well, you know what? It's only 2 minutes and 35 seconds. It's actually pretty short. So I'm going to go ahead and play it here.

And it should work. Let's see what happens. And everyone's just standing there, looking around.

What's your name, brother? Finbar. Finbar. Finbar. Where are you from, brother? I'm from here.

You're from Australia also? Did you study something about Islam before?

No, I met someone while I was at university. And you were here last night?

No, I wasn't. You just came tonight. So what you understand about Islam, you accept?

Yes. You believe there's none to be worshipped except the Creator? Yes. Beautiful.

Thank you so much, brother. They were very generous. They increased the time for half an hour. And what you have understood about the

Prophet Muhammad, you also accept that? Yes. Okay, so you heard what I said to Tony.

You heard the words I recited. But this is a simple proclamation of Islam for you, for me, for anybody that does it.

So I'm going to just ask you to take my hand and just recite after me. There is no god but Allah.

Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.

Alone, there is no partner but Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad is

His servant and Messenger. Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.

And he gets his package right there at the end. Finbar, can you spell your name?

Finbar. Finbar, have we met before? So on your own inspiration, on your own reading, on your own investigation, you accepted this.

Is that correct? Yes. Do you believe, Finbar, that this will make you a better human being?

Yes. Will this give you a better insight into life? I think so. Do you think that when you see your parents and your siblings and people that you go to school with or whatever, that you will have the ability to explain to them why you made this choice?

Yes. Alhamdulillah. That's important. That's interesting.

Will this make you a better human being? Who's selling a lot of books with that one right now? Seriously, that's what

Joel Osteen is. Being the best you you can be. You know,

I hear that. At least

I can be very, very consistent in saying I have consistently decried the watering down of the gospel to where it becomes nothing more than a self -help methodology.

I've been saying that for a long, long time. And so,

I have often rebuked those who have turned the gospel into something that, well, it'll make you a better human being.

That's not what the gospel is about. The gospel is about recognizing God for who He is, me for who

I am, understanding what sin is, the justice of God in punishing my sin, and fleeing from the wrath of God to the only place where I can have eternal life, and that is in Jesus Christ.

Turning from my sin. Seeking His mercy. The idea of me being a better person?

Well, I should hope so. If the Spirit of God changes my heart, if the

Spirit of God changes me from being a God -hater to a God -lover so that I will delight to do what is pleasing in His sight, then that's going to make me a better person.

Maybe not in the world's perspective. In fact, in the world's perspective, it's going to make me a freak. But it's certainly going to make me a better person from God's perspective.

But very, very, very different mindset that is being illustrated here in this particular context.

I just noticed there's a whole series of convert videos here of people professing that religion.

And so here you have, in essence, the counter -evangelist, the

Islamic evangelist. And a lot of Christians, I just wonder how you're feeling about it.

When you hear something like that, for most Christians who have never experienced something like that before, that is disorienting and troubling.

Because you think that only happens one direction, and it doesn't. And when you see the parallels, that bothers folks.

It bothers folks that that kind of thing can happen in religions that we know that there's this huge chasm between Christianity and Islam.

And yet you hear this kind of thing going on, and you go, that looks just like what I saw on TBN a couple nights ago, except that there's no one wearing really frou -frou looking hair dancing around behind the guy.

It actually, sadly, looks considerably more respectable than a lot of what you see, sadly.

But that's the situation you face. But I play that hoping to discomfort you.

Because this is going on. And we tend to live our lives, and that which is uncomfortable to us, we just put it out of our minds, and don't worry about it,

I don't want to think about that. And we need to be thinking about these things, because our brothers and sisters who live in those lands where they are the religious minority, they see it all the time.

My Arabic tutor was raised in Syria as a Christian, and it's interesting to me that he can quote

Surah Al -Fatiha, the opening, the first surah of the Qur 'an, by heart, though he certainly did not ever seek to memorize it.

Because the culture in which he lived was so saturated with the repetition of that very brief opening prayer, that he didn't have to try to memorize it, he just memorized it.

It's like there are certain songs that if you're an American, and you're exposed to the culture for any period of time, you know those songs.

You don't have to sit down with a piece of paper and go, okay, I'm going to memorize this, or sit there and listen to the song over and over again.

It's already there. There are certain advertising jingles that I could start going after.

And everybody in the audience, unless you live in a lead mine, or one of those folks that's never owned a television set, and never opened up, never turned on a radio, maybe you wouldn't know it, but everybody else would just be able to hum along, sing along, quote along, whatever.

You didn't even have to try to. That's how Christians are in those particular cultures with so much of this

Islamic material. So anyways, I wanted to play that and to sort of go think about it. This is what's going on.

It's real for most American Christians. Islam is out there. You don't know almost any

Muslims. Those that you do know are in a very small minority standing, and so it's just easy to just push that stuff away and say, ah, well, let's let white worry about it or something like that.

That's not really an option. I can do everything I can, and others who are working in this field can do everything they can to equip you, encourage you.

But the vast majority of meaningful, apologetic evangelism with Islam takes place one -on -one between individuals, and that's where you come in, and everybody listening who is a believer in Jesus Christ, that's where it comes in.

877 -753 -3341. Let's talk with Josh. Hi, Josh.

Hey, Dr. White, how are you? Doing all right. So I had a question about marking priority. I was on a blog, and they were talking about the

NASD update, and they seemed to have the impression that pretty much everybody who worked on that committee would reject marking priority.

And I was wondering, first of all, I guess if that were true, and regardless, what implications would the rejection of marking priority or holding to the masking first, how would that affect someone's translation of the

Bible? Well, I have no idea how one would determine the translation committee's views on marking priority.

I really can't comment on that. I would imagine that especially the earliest translators probably would have been less friendly to that perspective than maybe in the mid -1990s.

But I know that, for example, Dr. Thomas at Masters, he's written the lengthy book from that perspective rejecting marking priority.

I don't know if you've seen it, but if you haven't, you might want to look at Dr. Thomas's work on that subject.

And, of course, he was one of the NASD translators, so that would seemingly indicate something along those lines.

But maybe there was a specific criteria that was used in that way.

I'm unaware of if that's the case. But I don't see, I suppose there might be some impact only in the sense that if you're doing translation and you are assuming a particular literary dependence of Matthew and Luke on Mark, as if they literally possessed the finished text in written form themselves and had it laying on a table in front of them, which is a pretty large assumption that a lot of people make today, but it's a very large assumption that even folks like N .T.

Wright don't actually make those assumptions, which is interesting. But I suppose if you start there, then you might allow that to impact your translation of those synoptic parallels that would not fall into what's called the

Q elements, because that's Matthew and Luke dependent upon some other source. But where Matthew and Luke are following Mark in that way,

I suppose that might have some impact at that point.

I can't think of any particular examples at the moment, but I don't think that it would of any necessity require a difference in translation.

So when you said something about a blog, I'm not even sure which blog you're referring to. It wasn't your blog.

It was a guy named Rick Mansfield, and he talks about Bible translations and stuff like that quite often, and this just kind of came out of nowhere.

He contacted the Lockman organization, and they seemed to think that the market priority tended to be that most people who worked on the

ASB 95 update rejected. Well, I've never heard any discussion of it. I don't know how relevant it is, but I would imagine that probably reflects the fact that I know

Dr. Thomas didn't work on the 95 update, though. He was one of the original translators, but he's fairly well known from Master's Seminary for his books arguing against Mark in priority and so on and so forth.

So that would be something that I really couldn't comment on, but I can't see how you could make much of a really strong argument that it's going to override the translation of the text.

Were there any examples given? Oh, no, and they didn't suggest that. It was never suggested in the blog that it did influence the translation.

It's just kind of one of those interesting kind of anomalies because from what I understand, it seems like most people, most academic people do accept

Mark in priority, which of course doesn't mean that's right, but it's kind of the majority view, and so it was odd to have a translation committee that seemingly pretty much rejected that.

Well, you've got to remember, majority views amongst scholars, especially today, and this is something people really, really need to understand, need to learn how to debunk scholarship.

Majority views amongst scholars today, that does not carry near the weight that it would have, say, 200 years ago.

Why do I say that? Because scholarship by its very nature, there is such a massive volume of data in almost any meaningful field that a person by nature to get a

PhD has to be very specialized in one particular area, and I've met people, and I'm not going to go into any names, but I've met people who will be called a

Bible scholar who have a scholarly level of understanding and information in particular aspects of biblical translation, but when it comes to something like systematic theology or even the deity of Christ, what they present as a defense of the deity of Christ is very, very basic because that's just simply not a part of what their field of scholarship was focused upon.

And so you can get into a doctoral program with some pretty basic levels of knowledge in other areas, and it doesn't fall that just because you've learned to use research tools that you've actually had the time to use those in all areas of knowledge.

And so there are lots of things that are just basically taken as a given and are therefore the majority view, but it does not follow that what that means is that majority of people have actually studied the issue at all.

It could actually be a very small minority of people who've studied that issue, and if their opinions then become the prevalent ones within the academy, within academia, then yeah, they get the majority report, but that does not mean that all those scholars have studied this stuff and come to the same conclusions.

And in fact, in many ways, once a majority perspective takes root, that can actually very much limit the amount of counter -study that would be done because it is taken as a given.

It's like, well, that's not really a fresh new area of research. Let's move on to something over here. It's sort of a given, and you can have majority views remain majority views for a long, long time and get repeated over and over again that are not really being critically examined.

Now, that's not necessarily the case here because there are a lot of voices out there going, you know, this may be the majority perspective, but man, it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and it really makes you wonder why people are so willing to be so downright dogmatic about things when, you know, even

N .T. Wright says, we don't know. We just don't know. Scholars say they know, but we don't know.

We need to say this three times before breakfast. We don't know. That's a refreshing element of honesty at that point.

If it was absolutely necessary for us to know, I think God would have arranged for us to know, but we don't know, and I really have a hard time with the folks who get very, very dogmatic about it and say, well, since everybody believes it, then it must be true.

So keep that in mind when you hear people talking about the majority of scholars. The only thing that's relevant is the majority of scholars who actually do specific study in that particular area.

The rest of it, it really doesn't matter a whole lot. Anyway, thanks for the call, Josh. Appreciate it for calling

The Dividing Line today, and we will be back, Lord willing, next Tuesday morning on The Dividing Line to have the clue we'll be talking about, but that's what makes it fun.

Thanks for listening. God bless. We need a new

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