August 5, 2003

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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We invite your participation today, as has become rather popular over the past number of weeks, at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341.
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We haven't said anything about the cruise for a long time. We're going to be putting some new information up over the next couple of days on the fact that, well, there's some neat new opportunities for those of you who thought, well,
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I've missed it. I can't get in. There's a window of opportunity yet for our cruise on December 6th on the
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Zondam, a Holland America ship going to the Eastern Caribbean. Seven days, a beautiful, beautiful ship.
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And so we'll be listening Thursday night. Also be listening two weeks from today.
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Two weeks from today, we are going to have a special guest on the program.
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Probably go a little long that day. I've asked my friend Eric Svendsen, Professor Eric Svendsen, Dr.
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Eric Svendsen, author Eric Svendsen, who has written a number of books,
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Evangelical Answers, and his most recent work on Mary, Who Is My Mother?
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To join me, I was working out Thursday night, and I was listening once again, hadn't listened in a couple of years, to the debate between Eric Svendsen and Jerry Matitix on the subject of the perpetual virginity of Mary, specifically, did
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Mary have other children after the birth of Christ? And that is the thesis for the debate
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I'll be having with Mr. Matitix, the exact same thesis, at the University of Utah, Friday night,
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October 3rd, I believe is the date. And so, I wanted to listen to that debate and refresh my memory on what had taken place.
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And as I was listening, especially to Mr. Matitix's opening statement,
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I was again reminded of why I have often said that Mr. Matitix is the king of the cheap debate tricks.
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And I'm going to play an example of that today, analyze it. And I've asked
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Eric Svendsen to join me. We're going to play sections of that debate, and give
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Eric the opportunity to do what you rarely get to do when you're in a debate, and that is to actually comment on everything that's being said, with enough time to actually say something.
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And that's what I would like to do. So that's what we're going to be doing. I believe that's the 18th, or is it the 19th?
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19th. Yeah, the 19th. In fact, the 18th, for those of you in the St. Louis area,
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I will be... And you know, we ought to see if there's some way we could webcast this at the same time, because this station isn't on the internet.
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But I'm going to be doing a debate on whether the sun has eternally existed as a divine person on KJSL in St.
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Louis. And against one of the leading oneness scholars. And so that's going to be two days in a row we're going to be doing some interesting things in the morning.
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If you are in the area where you can pick up KJSL, you'll want to listen to Tim and Al's show that day, as we attempt, obviously, the problem, of course, is this isn't...
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I think we are going to have equal time and stuff, but when you throw commercials into a morning program, it's going to be very, very, very, very, very brief.
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And so anyway, that's going to be coming up in just a couple of weeks from now.
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So what I'd like to start doing while all of you are climbing onto the phone lines at 877 -753 -3341 is to play some sections from this debate that we're going to be listening to in a few weeks.
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This debate is available at StraightGate .com, and remember that's straight as in the
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King James Version, S -T -R -A -I -T -G -A -T -E .com,
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StraightGate .com that hosts the archives of this program. I believe that we actually uploaded the archives of last week's program now, so you'll be able to listen to those as well.
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And there at StraightGate .com, you can listen to the entirety of this debate.
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I think it was 2 hours and 47 minutes, somewhere along those lines, and Eric tells me that there is exactly one evangelical in the audience, aside from himself.
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I know, I really know that feeling. I have been there, been there, done that, got the t -shirt, in essence, and it's always interesting, you know, to walk into the lion's den, but I've done the same thing a number of times actually, and so it's worth listening to all of it.
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What I want to do is, there is this one thing that just really hit me, and that's what gave me the whole idea. I'm going to play the one section that really,
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I listened to this, and I was just, I was angry. I was very angry, because I don't understand,
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I don't believe that anyone could do what Jerry Matitix does in the clips we're going to play for you, and not do it purposefully.
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It is a skill, it is an ability to twist truth, and that's what he does here.
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I've absolutely come to the conclusion, listening to this, that this is absolutely, positively purposeful, but interestingly enough, the debate started, as did so many of my debates with Mr.
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Matitix, and I think I've done about 12. I think I sat down once and figured out, somewhere around a dozen debates with Jerry Matitix at some point in time, starting, in fact, he was the first person
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I debated solo scriptura in August of 1990, at a Catholic church in Long Beach, so he was the first one to ever contact me and challenge me to a debate, so it is interesting that that is the history here.
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Listening to him debate someone else, I was really, really taken aback by the way that he handled himself, and he started, and I would say at least in three, possibly four of our debates, he started in almost exactly the same way as he started this debate.
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Let's listen, make sure the computer's up and running here, in fact, I'm going to turn the volume up just a little bit, so you've got a little bit more to work with.
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Listen to how Jerry Matitix started the debate with Eric Svensson.
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Well, I, too, had a few surprises by way of travel. I was supposed to be in San Jose Tuesday and wasn't allowed onto the plane.
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They'd overbooked it from Scranton, and so I ended up going to Tucson, Arizona, Monday night, rather, and didn't get a chance to see, get a look at Eric Svensson's book on Catholic, his response to Catholic apologists until I had one fed -exed to me yesterday.
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So I am also a little bit, I've been giving three days' worth of talks in New Mexico. I have a full day's of talks in Sacramento tomorrow, and I'll be speaking here in San Jose again on Sunday, so I would ask that you would pray for me that I would be able to do my very best job.
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Now, that, at least he didn't use there the same argument that he always, that he's used before in our debates, he's
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David and I'm Goliath, and he's been driving all day and he hasn't eaten, and he drank a
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Coke, and he was, and that's all he's had, and he was writing his notes on a yellow pad in the car while he was driving there, trying to follow a map, and he had just moved, and he has 47 ,000 children, and so all of his books are in boxes, and so he's really not prepared, and it's just, you have to wonder, doesn't he realize that people are going to listen to more than one of his debates, and after about the fourth debate in a row where you hear the same excuse, you start going, excuse me, but why do you do this?
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I mean, it's so obviously meant to try to endear himself to the audience, oh poor man, he's just so tired, and he's so thin, and he's so abused, and I just listen to this and just want to go, just show up and debate, would ya?
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I mean, come on, it just, I don't know, it just leaves me amazed.
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Now, what I wanted to play for you is Eric Svensson made a presentation, now remember, and this is one of the reasons
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I wanted to do this, because it gives you some insight I think into the pressure of debating,
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I mean, every time I debate, and this debate that I'll be doing with Meditix will be my 48th debate that I've done, and every time you get done, you look back and you go, well,
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I could have done this, I could have said that, it's very easy to second guess yourself, but most of the time you have an extremely limited amount of time, not only to listen to what your opponent is saying, and take a note of it, and especially if you encounter something you've never even heard before, to try to analyze it while still listening, and still hearing the next things being presented and all the rest of that kind of stuff, but you just have sometimes 30 seconds in which to try to address an issue, and I always live with the reality that many of the people who are listening to me speak at that particular point in time, they are looking for any reason to ignore the majority of what
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I've said, they're simply looking for the one little thing that they can focus on that will give them a reason to continue believing what they're believing, and I realize that, and I understand that, and so you have to try to put in 100 % on everything, there's no point where you can just simply back off and say, well you know, the debate part's over, you just can't do that.
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So, Eric Svensson made a presentation, the first point that he made in regards to the thesis statement that Mary had children after the birth of Jesus was based on Matthew 1 .18,
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now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the
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Holy Spirit. He discusses the Greek term Synerchimi, it's in this particular form that it's used here in the
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Aorist, Sunelfine, and he makes an excellent presentation, he discusses the fact that there are numerous lexicons that give as the meaning here, in context, the natural coming together in marriage of man and woman, and he points out that it can be used in a basic way, simply to mean to gather together, but that in the context here, the only way it makes any sense is in light of the statement, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the
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Holy Spirit, that obviously is in reference to the virgin birth, okay?
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And so, there's the context, so what I'm going to do, is I'm going to play you first,
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Eric Svensson's statement on this particular subject, then I want you to listen very carefully to Jerry Matzik's reply, and what you might want to learn to do, is you may want to try to, in essence, sort of do a flow chart, in other words, take down the points that Eric makes, and then put a line next to it, and then as Jerry addresses the same issue, what points does he address, what points does he not address?
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That would be a very, very important thing for you to do. So let's listen to Eric Svensson's presentation here on Matthew 1 .18.
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Number 1, Matthew 1 .18 says, this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
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His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the
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Holy Spirit. Now, the phrase, before they came together, is soon erchemai in the Greek, and it means simply to come together.
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But it is often used in context to denote sexual relations. Scholars point to Wisdom 7 .2
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as an example this uses, as well as a variant reading in 1 Corinthians 7 .5. The lexicon of Liddell and Scott cites another instance of this phrase that bears the meaning to share the bed.
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The lexicon of Bauer, Arndt, Diggers, and Danker, the scholarly standard today, cites both
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Philo and Josephus, both of whom use this word to denote sexual relations. The lexicon of Lo and Nida gives the meaning sexual relations as that which is to be applied to Matthew 1 .18.
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But even the context suggests that this means sexual intercourse. Remember, the context is that Mary is betrothed to Joseph, but it is before they came together that she is found to be with child.
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Indeed, Matthew's purpose for this phrase is very polemic. He mentions that Mary conceived before she and Joseph came together to convince his readers that this was a virginal birth and not an ordinary one.
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Why do I bother to mention something so seemingly obvious about the text? Catholic apologists invariably argue, as will my opponent tonight, that Mary took a vow of virginity prior to her conception of Jesus and therefore never intended to have sexual relations with Joseph.
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The phrase before they came together must, on this view, mean before they came together platonically.
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That is to say, before they began to reside together. The text is thus stripped of any reference to sexual relations.
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Such a view, however, raises more questions than it answers. Why would Matthew mention this phrase at all if he knew sexual relations had never occurred?
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If we take this simply as a reference to Joseph and Mary taking up residence together without thought of ensuing sexual relations,
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Matthew's point regarding the virgin birth is in quite lost. If he is attempting to show, as he surely is in this passage, that the birth of Christ was a virginal birth, then the phrase before they came together must mean before they engaged in sexual relations and cannot mean before they came together in a platonic living arrangement.
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If the latter is true, then it would be no more remarked that if Mary was pregnant before they came together than it would be if she became pregnant after they came together.
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Well, there's the presentation. And that obviously is a compelling presentation.
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It is contextual. It gave lexical sources that, at this particular point in this verse, give as the meaning of sunerchemi, sexual relations.
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He points out that this whole idea of a platonic protectorate relationship is acontextual.
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There's nothing in the scriptures that even begins to suggest such a thing. It is read into the text by Catholic apologists very, very clearly, eisegesis to the max.
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And so, if you love truth, and even if you believe what
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Rome teaches, then at some point in time you're going to have to respond to that argument.
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You're going to have to actually deal with the argument as it was presented. You're going to have to look at the text.
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You're going to have to go, no, it doesn't mean that, and here is how I determine that from the text.
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But I think most of you who've listened to debates with Roman Catholic apologists recognize that is not what a
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Roman Catholic apologist is able to do. Think of Patrick Madrid with the issue of Latria and Dulia.
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Well, those laws were back then when they had a real problem with idolatry. We don't have a problem with idolatry anymore.
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Think of Stravinskis. Who is the blessed man?
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Well, that's Jesus. That's Jesus to whom his sins will not be imputed. Just go through the list of debates and you can see exactly where the problem lies.
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Roman Catholicism is not based upon the exegesis of the text of Scripture. It is based upon the overriding authority of the
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Roman Magisterium. So, if you are a truth lover and you believe what Mr.
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Mattox believes, at this point you would expect in the response some dealing with the context and especially an accurate dealing with what
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Eriks Venson said. Did Eriks Venson say that the only meaning of the text, the only meaning of the term, is always sexual?
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No, he did not say that. He said, in this context, in light of... In fact, he even said the normal meaning of the word is to gather together.
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But, in this context, it has to mean this and here's why. So, keeping that in mind, let's now fast forward to Jerry Mattox's opening statement.
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He's already made a number of statements. We'll listen to these in a couple of weeks where he weaves this intricate tapestry of stuff that has nothing to do with the text itself.
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But, here is where he attempts to respond to the use of Matthew 1 .18
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by Eriks Venson. The first thing that we can say is that even Protestant commentators and Protestant lexicons, that is dictionaries of the
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Greek language, point out every single one. And I will ask Mr. Venson to produce one single instance tonight, in your hearing, of any
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Greek lexicon written by Protestant or Catholic, doesn't matter, which said that the phrase translated, come together, has as its primary purpose sexual relationships, so that there would need to be a clear statement in the context precluding this to allow you to interpret it in a different way.
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You will see, if you look at the Greek dictionaries, that the term can also be used, and it's frequently used, to mean simply to come into the marriage from a period of betrothal.
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That is, to finally enter into that final phase. Because betrothal was more binding in the biblical world than it was in our day.
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We think of engagement as something we can easily break. But that come together means to move out of the betrothal period into the period of actual full legal status as husband and wife.
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Now, if you were following that, and you did a little bit of a flow chart, then you were able to catch the various assertions that were made.
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Now, I'm going to replay it, then I'm going to stop it. And unfortunately, for some reason, since I upgraded my system, cool that it's not working properly anymore.
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It cuts off the beginning of every file I play. So I'm playing this on a different program. It's not going to allow me to be quite as accurate in stopping and starting.
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But let me stop at this time and see if you caught the exact same things that I caught.
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And if you had the opportunity, and this is what's frustrating, there are so many of these types of errors in Matatex's statements, that in the cross -examination, you can never get to them all.
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Even in your rebuttal period, you can only make reference to them. Remember, it takes far less time to state a falsehood than it does to expose a falsehood.
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And that's why he gets away with things like this. But let's listen to it one more time, and I'll stop and start it.
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Number one, Matthew 1, 18 says... Ah, it would help if I went back to the right one. Here we go. The first thing that we can say is that even
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Protestant commentators and Protestant lexicons, that is, dictionaries of the
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Greek language, point out every single one. And I will ask, Mr. Stevenson, to produce one single instance tonight, in your hearing, of any
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Greek lexicon written by a Protestant or Catholic, doesn't matter, which said that the phrase translated, come together, has as its primary purpose sexual relationships, so that there would be...
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Do you hear that? Its primary meaning. Eric didn't say that.
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In fact, he specifically gave its basic meaning. If you were actually concerned about truth, what would he be attempting to deal with here?
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That he would have to prove that it can never mean this, in light of the context. But you see, didn't it sound wonderful?
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And can you hear how the person who is easily influenced by smooth, deceptive speech...
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That's what this is. This is smooth, deceptive speech. There is nothing truthful about this.
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And remember, Mr. Matitix, his bachelor's degree is in Greek, from Exeter Academy, I think, in New Hampshire, or something like that.
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So, he knows better than this. This is purposeful. This is not something that's just, oh, I just didn't mean to do...
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That was just totally unintentional on my part. I'm sorry, I don't believe that. This is intentional.
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He starts off talking about Protestants and Catholics, all of them together, but he never then finishes that sentence, does he?
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He doesn't. Now, he's given the impression that all of scholarship stands against Eric Svensson, but he hasn't given you one single meaningful shred of foundation for the assertion.
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He just lets it hang out there. And that's his purpose here, is to create confusion, to throw out all this aura of, everyone agrees with me, and nobody agrees with you.
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When, if you listened carefully, Eric had already quoted from Loa Nida, and Byron Gingrich and Donker, and so on and so forth.
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He had already given you the standard lexical sources that, at this very reference, refer to sexual union.
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And so he's already given that, but Matitix just ignores that, and knowing that he's going second, I guess just hopes that there will be so much other stuff to talk about that he won't get pressed upon this particular issue.
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Context precluding this, to allow you to interpret it in a different way. You will see, if you look at the
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Greek dictionaries, that the term can also be used, and it's frequently used, to mean simply to come into the marriage from a period of betrothal.
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Now, notice, he does not give you a single reference. Where is it used to come into a marriage from a period of betrothal?
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When I looked it up, it's primarily utilized of gathering together, people gathering together in meetings, and things like that.
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This idea of this betrothal stuff, remember, entering into the final step of the marriage, well, again, it is absolutely the farthest out in left field interpretation to think that a
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Jewish person would understand a marriage in the way that Jerry Matitix is understanding this concept here. This idea of a protectorate type thing is the way out left field, well, maybe we can find one reference to it someplace type meaning, rather than the normative meaning.
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And yet, he's complaining that the meaning that Eric is using here is not the normative meaning? Well, Eric didn't say it was, but he did demonstrate that it's well within the semantic domain of the word itself, and it is substantiated by the lexicons themselves.
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Betrothal engagement was more binding in the biblical world than it was in our day. We think of engagement as something we can easily break.
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But the come together means to move out of the betrothal period into the period of actual plural legal status, accustomed in life.
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Now, in reality, the meaning of sexual intercourse would be significantly more attested than the meaning he is trying to push.
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And it just seems to me that Jerry Matitix recognizes that in a debate, especially, and I've noticed he debates differently in front of a
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Catholic audience than he does a non -Catholic audience. And this is a Catholic audience, and he knew it.
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And so all he's got to do in front of people who want to believe is to give them a reason to.
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It doesn't have to be a sound reason. It doesn't have to be a solid reason. It doesn't have to be a reason that's going to pass, muster later on, because he recognizes that 95 % of the people sitting in front of him are never going to listen to this program.
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They're never going to listen to me. They're not going to look at any of the information that anyone else publishes. So all he's got to do is make it look like there is a possible explanation for each of the points raised.
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It doesn't have to be consistent. He doesn't have to deal with the fact that, you know, I've used the same illustration when talking about the first vision of Joseph Smith, and as I was listening to Jerry Matitix, trying to deal with this issue, knowing that I'm going to be facing the exact same smooth -tongued deception in just a matter of weeks, literally.
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I've used this illustration before, and I'll probably use it in the debate, toward the closing or something like that.
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Theoretically, it is possible for a person, if an avalanche came at you one rock at a time, it would be theoretically possible for you to dodge each one of them.
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But avalanches don't come at you that way. Theoretically, you can come up with a plausible explanation.
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It may be a real stretch, but, you know, it's within the bare realm of possibility for each of the many, many, many facts that demonstrate that Joseph Smith did not have a vision of God the
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Father and Jesus Christ, a separate, distinct person, in the spring of 1820. And it may be possible to throw out an argument that's barely within the realm of plausibility for each one of the many facts in the
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New Testament that demonstrate the falseness of the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary.
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But, as I said, avalanches come all at once. And you can't, you know, when you think about it, if you take a 5, let's take argument
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A, you take the 5%, 95 % probability that the argument goes against you, but there's a 5 % possibility.
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And I'm going to cling to that. And then you take argument B, and you take the 10%. And it's 90 % against you, but 10 % in your favor.
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Then argument C, you take a 15%, and it's 85 % against you, but 15 % you're right.
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And then you're back to a 95 -5. You multiply all those together, and the probability you're right is 0 .000
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-something. It gets smaller and smaller and smaller as you deal with more and more and more of the information, more and more and more of the argument.
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But Mr. Matitix isn't really concerned about that. As long as you hear him and believe him, well, that's all you really need.
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And if you want to believe, hey, he'll give you a reason to. It doesn't mean it's true. 877 -753 -3341.
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877 -753 -3341. I hope in listening to just that little bit, first of all, you'll be joining us in two weeks from this morning when we have
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Eric Svensson on, but also that you've learned to listen carefully to what's being said to recognize the false arguments being used.
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We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Incorporating the most recent research in solid
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Mormon missionary examining the teaching and theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.
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With well -defined arguments, James White provides readers with insight and understanding into the
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Letters to a Mormon Elder. Get your copy today in the Mormonism section of our bookstore at aomen .org.
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More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils.
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They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements. And many
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Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing.
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This newfound rapport has caused many Evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided
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Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,
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The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.
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James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.
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Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomen .org.
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What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen but Free, A New Cult, Secularism, False Prophecy Scenarios?
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No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Pottish Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Pottish Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.
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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Pottish Freedom, a defense of the
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Reformation and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomen .org.
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Hey, we appreciate you're listening in at 8 -7... Well, you're not listening in at 8 -7 -7 -7 -5 -3 -3 -3 -4 -1.
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That's the number that you call in. You're listening in, and I guess today we switch back to real audio.
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The great MP3 experiment came to an end, because, well, you know, it's just one of those things.
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Eventually, everybody will have high -speed hookups, and that'll probably work someday, but we're back to real audio.
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But anyway, we have one call online right now. That means there's plenty of room for you at 8 -7 -7 -7 -5 -3 -3 -3 -4 -1.
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Let's go ahead and talk with Kendall in Iowa. Hi, Kendall. Hi, James. How are you, sir?
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Good. Very interesting topic. I actually called in. I was going to talk to you about the UPC -1S, and then ask you about atonement question.
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I've debated with Catholics throughout the years, and usually I would use the passages that deal with Jesus had other brothers and sisters.
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This is real interesting. This is a new twist on using this passage, Matthew 1 -18, to talk about the
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Catholic claim of perpetual virginity.
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Actually, Eric just used his book, Who Is My Mother?
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It's an excellent work. He was working on it at the time of this debate. It's out now, and we carry it.
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It's just one of many passages. Eric is also the one who has pioneered the study into the phrase, in Matthew 1 -25, and has caused
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Catholic apologists no end of difficulty at that point. It's just one of an entire stream of passages that, when you allow the
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New Testament to speak for itself, when you practice sola scriptura rather than sola ecclesia, it is one of those passages that simply doesn't make any sense if you adopt the concept of the perpetual virginity and the overriding authority of the
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Church of Rome. Jerry's response was not a valid response. It does not actually answer the question in any way, shape, or form.
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But again, it requires critical thinking on the part of those who listen to such things.
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One thing that, sadly, I think we have discovered in regards to our nation is that critical thinking skills are not exactly at their all -time high.
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The political dialogue within our land would demonstrate this. The discussions going on right now concerning, quote -unquote,
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Bishop Robinson and the Anglican Church and homosexuality and abortion and everything else demonstrates that critical thinking abilities are sadly lacking, and that then translates into the
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Church as well. I just pulled up Bauer as I was listening to Jerry's argument.
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He says, well, you can't find it in any of the lexicons and so forth. So I pull up Bauer, and the first definition is, come together, literally to assemble, but right under that B it says of coming together in a sexual sense.
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Then it gives Josephus and Philo and some others, and then it gives Matthew 18 as the marriage contract, the sexual union there.
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But see, what he is attempting to say, of course, and you heard it, but he didn't really emphasize it or anything like that.
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What he said was, this is not the main meaning. Well, of course, that's not what
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Eric said that it was. Right, and look at all the other words. How many other Greek words have five different connotations to it?
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Exactly. So you have to make that statement, blanket statement. But like you said, not enough people really go back and check it out.
37:49
Well, not enough people have the desire to go check it out. One of the things that I hear so often is, let's say
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I'll do a debate, and let me see an example on justification. And I will make reference to the different Hebrew terms that were used, the
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Zedekah family of terms. And when I first debated Mitch Packel, we got into, since he's a
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Hebrew scholar, the various verb forms that were used and how these come across in the
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New Testament. And so often what I'll hear from people is, well, you know, there's just so much, there's good men on both sides.
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And it's so complicated. I just can't believe that God would allow us to be confused by things that are so complicated.
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So it really can't matter. And it's just extremely frustrating to try to deal with that kind of situation.
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Well, and to deal with, I called actually at the beginning of the hour to talk about one of his
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Pentecostals. There's a radio station in my sister's hometown where they'll, it's supposed to be a solid radio station, but they have for an hour a
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UPC guy on. And, you know, they give their website address out, and you can get on there.
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Is that David Bernard, by the way? No, it's Baxter. Oh, okay. Eddie Baxter. David Bernard is the chief theologian for the
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UPCI, and he's the fellow I'll be debating on KJSL two weeks from yesterday.
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Well, this station's in Missouri as well. Oh, interesting. And, you know, the sad thing is, I mean, do we take the doctrine of the
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Trinity seriously? You know, your book, The Forgotten Trinity. I mean,
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I don't even live in the town, and I emailed the radio station and asked if they had any doctrinal standards on what they allow played on there.
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And, you know, they've been on there for two years. That really does not surprise me. I've mentioned before the interaction that I had back in about 1999, 2000, with K -Love, the
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Christian music network concerning Phillips, Craig, and Dean. And the response that I got basically said that, well, we rejoice in the 90 % of things that we all share together that define the faith.
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In other words, the Trinity falls into the 10 % that doesn't. So, you know, I think that's a good example of what happens when you have quote -unquote ministries that are out from underneath the everyday oversight and life of the church itself.
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They're out there doing their own thing. And so standards like that. And let's face it, for a lot of radio stations, now you said this one has a fairly decent reputation.
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I don't know what it is about Arizona, but at one point I'm trying to think. We had like six
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Christian stations in the valley. I mean, just a huge number of them. And at least four of them were commercial non -music.
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In other words, they were all teaching. It was, you know, Chuck Swindoll and John MacArthur, but then it was all the word faithers and all the rest of that stuff.
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And anybody, I don't care what quality program you produced or what you believed, as long as you had a check that didn't bounce, you were good to go.
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And there's a lot of stations like that. There really are. It's completely business oriented. It has nothing to do with a doctrinal standard whatsoever.
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But it does reflect on the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is not central to most people's thinking any longer.
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They may say it. They may say it in their statements of faith. But when it comes to the practical outworking of it, no way.
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And the same thing with Christian bookstores carrying T .D. Jake's material. You know why most of them have to do it?
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It's interesting. When you talk to the local people, many of them would rather not do it. Now, I know that there's others that have absolutely no discernment whatsoever.
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But I saw T .D. Jake's books in the bookstore on the campus of Golden Gate Seminary when
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I was teaching there a couple years ago. And I asked the bookstore manager, I said, Do you realize this man's not even a
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Trinitarian? And he just rolled his eyes and he said, We are a lifeway bookstore. We are actually part of a chain.
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And by contract, we have to carry that. It wasn't that the bookstore manager just sits down and orders the books that he wants to have in there.
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That now they have these contracts where they will contract with an entire chain. And I guess it's so the chain can get a certain price on all the books from a particular distributor.
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They say, Okay, if you're going to get our premium discount rate so they can make the most they can on a book, then you have to carry these books.
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And you get your book on that list, and it's guaranteed to be everywhere. I think they might have changed that, though, hopefully.
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I hope so, too. Because I think there was an outcry for a while that they were recommending books that were outside the realm of orthodoxy.
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Well, I still see T .D. Jakes every place. He's all over the place. I was wondering, do you have tapes from your talk in Phoenix to the
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Founders Group on the Atonement back in June, I believe it was? I didn't do that. I was scheduled to do that, and I was then asked to teach.
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As I've taught for, I think this is my fifth year, teaching L1311, Christian Philosophy of Religion, on the main campus of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, California, June 15th through the 17th.
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So it was strange to have ongoing classes going on on the main campus in Mill Valley during the convention in Phoenix.
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So I left, and everybody came in town. So I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. But I didn't end up getting a chance to do that.
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I would love to have done so, but I thought it was more important to maintain that opportunity of being able to teach that class.
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I really enjoyed doing that, and so I didn't get a chance to do that. I appreciate your ministry. All right. Thank you, sir.
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Learned a lot over the years. Became a five -point Calvinist through the years. Was a four -pointer for a long time, like yourself.
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Yep. And then we had a, you know, for a long time it wasn't a big, you know,
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I could say I was five, but I really hadn't studied it enough. You know, I just thought, well, if there's the elect, well, it only makes sense that Christ died for them.
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And I never really thought it through. Right, right. So, you know, I really appreciate your ministry, and it keeps me on track.
44:35
Okay. A lot of good stuff to think about. All righty. I really appreciate you up there in Iowa. Good to know that the
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Lord still has his people everywhere, even in the great... If you're ever wanting to come to Nauvoo, you know, that's where Joseph Smith is buried.
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Nauvoo, Illinois? Illinois. Yeah, right. I'm just 20 minutes from there. Oh, really? Oh, okay. They just built a new temple and all that.
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They have the City of Joseph pageant where thousands come. Yep, yep, I've heard of it. And he was killed just a few miles from there in Carthage.
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Right, right. So if you're ever down this way and need to take a tour... Love to do it. Okay, thanks a lot.
45:10
All right, thanks. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341. Let's talk to Jeremy down in Atlanta.
45:18
How are you doing again, Jeremy? Hey, Dr. White, doing fine. Appreciate you taking my call. Yes, sir. I'm excited to hear, but also a little apprehensive about the debate or discussion on KJSL with the commercials.
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It's almost going to be like snippets, I'm sure. It will be snippets. I don't know how long, honestly, it's going to go.
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I would assume minimally a full hour of airtime, maybe two. But once you take out all the preliminaries, news breaks, and commercials, if it's a full 60 to...
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Well, when we did the program with Dave Hunt that I hosted, it was like, I think, 84 minutes out of a total of two hours.
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So that's sort of standard, I guess. This certainly isn't the big debate that everyone has wanted, but it is my understanding, if I'm remembering who is who, that the person who arranged this, who works at KJSL, is
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Oneness. He attended a seminar, a three -day seminar I did on the Trinity, which included a fair amount on Oneness.
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He sat right down in the second row and took notes and talked and asked questions and so on and so forth.
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So I think this is the same person that has set this up. So I don't expect it to decide a whole lot, but I think it would be good, especially in KJSL territory.
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I would assume that Bernard will draw a good audience, and so there's an opportunity for me, anyways, to present the key passages that demonstrate the eternal nature of the sun as a divine person and hopefully cause some questions to be asked at that point.
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Well, I hope so, and I guess now is the time to beg Rich to do a live webcast or put it on straight gate, because I'll probably have no way of listening to it otherwise.
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I don't know if you can go on, maybe you can go on KJSL and archive the Tim and Al show and listen to it that way, but I've got a lot of people, both
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Oneness and otherwise, who are interested in it. Well, we are supposed to receive the tapes, but it would be,
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I think, just wisdom would be that we will probably do it through the,
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I know we'll get tapes, but it would probably be best just for sound quality if I did it here at the microphone at my desk rather than doing it on a headset or over a regular connection that way, and that would probably be a good way to do it.
47:46
And if we do that, then there's no reason not to bounce it off of the server and make it available to folks to listen to live. I really hope so, because when you were on that.
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Two quick things, and then I've got a question for you, but one word of caution, and I'm not really qualified to give you a word of caution, but I would say just coming, you know, my
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UPC background, I can just tell you the listeners there are going to have you between the phyla and charybdis from the beginning, because you were mentioning earlier in the program today about listeners wanting to believe that someone is right, and I can tell you in advance that the oneness listeners will be asking themselves, well, does
48:24
James White have the Holy Ghost, as they call it, meaning the translation has to be spoken in tongues, and then if you haven't, then they would say, well, he doesn't even have the
48:34
Holy Ghost, so why should we believe him? And then the flip side of that, if you're like me on my, you know, they would consider someone as myself who has supposedly known the truth and then would debate them, would be a reprobate, so you're kind of caught on the horns of the limit as far as they're concerned.
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Yeah, well, you know, I'm sure you've heard, well, I'm not sure, but have you heard the discussion he and I had on speaking in tongues and justification?
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Yeah, so, yeah, I'm not sure how much caller participation there's going to be.
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I'd have to look at the thing again. I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of that, and to be honest with you, callers,
49:17
I don't think callers help either side. When his side of callers call in, it's generally not overly difficult for me to deal with them, and vice versa.
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They generally don't promote my side very well either, so it's best when the two are allowed to just go back and forth and go from there, but, you know.
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Well, I hope you guys will have some time to, he's not as bad as Robert Sabin as far as playing the
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Miguel Cervantes card, which is just tragic every time I go back and listen to that, but he won't go that far, but they'll be looking for an opportunity, which you're being spirited, and that'll be cause to throw the whole thing out, as far as they're concerned, but just a word of encouragement.
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I mentioned last time I'd ask you about anything as far as churches looking for potential pastors, and you mentioned a book coming out, but just the good news that we'll be encouraging to you is a traditional
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Southern Baptist church, and it looks a lot like our next pastor.
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We're really a non -reformed church. There's maybe two or three of us out of 200, but if everything goes like it looks like it's going to go, we're going to have a reformed pastor, and I'm so thankful for it.
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God is really blessed in that regard. Well, the main person to pray for is that pastor. I've met with so many people.
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I had the opportunity when I spoke at a Founders Conference meeting in Lynchburg, and I met with a lot of folks who were in that process, and it can be extremely discouraging for that person, so you'll need to definitely lift him up and encourage him.
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Absolutely. My quick question, I know it's taking forever here, but I had a friend of mine ask me, and I hope it's not a silly question.
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I thought of simplistic answers to this, and maybe you can think of something more theological or biblical to address it.
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As far as what we hear a lot of times in these parts of Georgia, it's not a sin issue, but it's a son issue.
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Therefore, he's done everything. Atonement is universal, and all you have to do is accept it.
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But in light of the Reformed view… You actually hear that in Georgia? It's not a sin issue, it's a son issue?
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It's a son issue. S -O -N. That's the big thing. It's no longer a sin issue. It's an acronym.
51:48
Great. Wonderful. It's a son issue, meaning the son has done everything. You just have to accept it to make it effective.
51:55
But a friend of mine is having a discussion. He's pretty much Reformed, and he said that the question that he was asked, and I thought
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I'd just ask you, if Christ paid the penalty at Calvary for the elect who were to be born in the future, yourself, for example, why were you born a sinner?
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Well, that is a good question. A lot of people ask that because they confuse the reality of our union with Christ with the application of that reality in time.
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It's very, very clear, biblically, that we were enemies of God before that point in time when regeneration takes place, that we experienced, we were called children of wrath.
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Paul says that to all the believers. And so once we were we all, we all walked amongst them, but God being rich in mercy.
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And so there is a difference we have here is that salvation is the work of an eternal being, and we are temporal beings.
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We have to experience that in time by his will. And so while the union with Christ, indeed, we experience something similar even now.
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I'm preaching through Romans 8 right now on Sundays at our church, and those sermons are actually available at prbc .org.
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And one of the emphases of Romans chapter 8 is the now and the not yet. We have the first fruits of the spirits.
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We are adopted, but yet we still await our adoption. And so if it's true that there is a sense in which we now have a certain standing, and yet we still look forward to the fulfillment and fruition of that, then it's perfectly understandable in light of the biblical evidence that prior to regeneration there was no question that God in his time and in his way was going to bring about our regeneration and the whole work of salvation.
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But in this life we are in the midst of that process. It is not something that happens overnight in the sense that regeneration is, but we have been adopted and yet we await the adoption, that is, the redemption of our bodies.
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And so there's the now and the not yet. We are temporal beings, and all this that God has purposed in Christ he will accomplish, but he applies it over a period of time according to his purpose.
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And so there are some who've developed a concept of what's called eternal justification, things like that, but you just simply can't derive that from the straight reading of the text itself, because the apostle makes it very clear that up until that point in time we walked amongst them, we were under the wrath of God, and then
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God broke in and applied to us what had been provided to us on the cross of Calvary.
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So it's just the difference between the eternal and the temporal. I got you. Okay. That clears it up, and I certainly appreciate it.
54:49
Thank you, Jeremy. I look forward to the debate. All right, God bless. Let's real quickly run to Jim in New Jersey, see if we can sneak him in the next about two or three minutes.
54:57
Jim, are you there? Oh, hey, Dr. White. How are you, sir? I'm doing good. I have a quick comment on your debates with Jerry Madetich.
55:02
Yes. I've listened, I think, to almost all of them. I'm sorry. A couple times. I'm very sorry.
55:10
And he seems to always run off on a lot of different tangents. Oh, yeah. And you always have to corral him back in.
55:17
And you can't always do it if you don't have the last word. Correct. And one tangent I noticed with the
55:22
Mary stuff is he'll want to go talk about the Reformers' theology of Mary, and you corraled him back into talking about what the
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Scriptures say. And a similar thing happened when you debated him on justification. He brought up a book that I actually went and got just to see what he was talking about, which was
55:40
Alistair McGrath's book, Justitia Dei. And I read those quotes about the theological novum.
55:48
I haven't picked up your book on justification. Did you ever tackle what McGrath said in there, or is there something? I read through it.
55:54
I don't even think I understand what McGrath is saying. Well, McGrath was referring to a specific form of the concept, and when you listen to everything he said, when you listen to what he's actually talking about, when he talks about how
56:08
Augustine misunderstood the Latin verb justificare, and that he made a mistake, and that he then becomes the paradigm for the rest of the medieval period and their understanding of what justification means and all the rest of that stuff, it's a misuse of McGrath at that point to try to say, well, he's saying that no one had ever believed this before.
56:30
He's not saying that's not the biblical doctrine in any way, shape, or form. He's just simply saying that the medieval period following after Augustine and his misunderstanding of justificare had a completely different understanding of what the term meant.
56:45
And there's no question that the Reformation in many ways was a rediscovery of truths that had been encrusted by tradition for quite some period of time.
56:56
But I did address at least the issue, there's a short section on history, but I really strongly attempted to avoid getting off track.
57:07
I mean, the book was much longer than a lot of people can handle these days anyways, and I wanted to really remain biblical. So there are some references to it and some footnotes that I dealt with the issue of history just very, very briefly, again, reasserting the supremacy of Scripture and the necessity of focusing upon that.
57:24
But there's not like a chapter interaction with Alasdair McGrath on his historical view of justification or something like that.
57:31
But I think there is at least enough discussion to give you some foundation for considering the historical issues over against the biblical teaching.
57:41
Okay, thank you. Alrighty, thank you very much, Jim. God bless. Well, another exciting program here at the
57:49
Radio Ranch. No, it's always good to have the callers who are able to bring up all sorts of interesting issues and hopefully their questions parallel and reflect the questions that other people have as well.
58:04
To me, it's very encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in New Jersey and Atlanta and Iowa and to know that there are brothers and sisters in the
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Lord all across our nation, the world, in fact, for that matter, of course, as we know, that have similar interests and still have a real concern for the truth of God.
58:26
Hopefully that little foray into analysis of argumentation from debates was useful to you.
58:33
Two weeks from today, Eric Svensson will be joining us. We're going to do a whole lot more of that. I hope you'll be listening on the 19th of August will be the date on that.
58:43
And we'll be back Thursday evening here on The Dividing Line. God bless. See you then. That's A -O -M -I -N dot
01:00:06
O -R -G where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks. Join us again this