WWUTT 740 Q&A Calvinist or Reformed, Reckless Love, and Apostleship?

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What's the difference between Calvinism and Reformed theology? Is it biblical to refer to God's love as reckless?

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And how many apostles were there? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky, who prerecorded her introduction for me.

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She's not sitting next to me today. We both had a pretty rough Thursday. I started off the day feeling pretty miserable.

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I won't say what I was sick with, but I felt bad. And then it hit her later in the evening, right before we were about to record the podcast.

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So I send her to bed and I'm flying solo today. On Friday, we respond to questions from listeners, and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Before we get started, I want to mention that when we understand the text has been approved for booth space at the

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G3 conference in Atlanta this coming January. The focus of the conference is missions.

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The name is the mission of God and includes great speakers like Stephen Lawson, Votie Bauckham.

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I would go anywhere Votie is preaching. Owen Strayen, Mark Dever. I don't know if Mark Dever has been there in previous years.

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Excited to see him on the list of speakers. Conrad and Bayway, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, John Piper and David Platt.

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I think this is also their first time at G3. Josh Bice, of course, he kind of spearheads.

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He and his church put the whole G3 conference together. Todd Friel will be there. I believe they're talking about Paul Washer coming back,

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Justin Peters. It's just an exciting conference. We went this past January, myself and Becky and our friend

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Sonia, and we loved it and we want to go back. But as we've been to a lot of conferences over the last three or four years, we're starting to talk about how can we also promote when we understand the text or make people aware of the ministry who have maybe never heard of it.

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And so we want to do a booth at the G3 conference. And this is where you come in.

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We don't really have a budget to do a booth. I'm still a pastor of a small church.

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I don't have a lot of extra money. And so we would like to ask for your help to put our booth together.

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And I don't I don't really have anything that I could pitch to you right now because I want to be able to.

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I don't know if I'm going to do a GoFundMe or we're just going to take the Simple Give link that we have on our website and create like another account that you can give to that would help us get a booth.

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But whatever we raise is not just for G3. It's going to be for a booth that we would take to any future conferences that we would attend because we want to be able to meet those who have listened to this podcast and have supported the ministry and have shared the videos online in addition to putting the ministry in front of more people so that they know we're there, that we exist, that people can use these videos in their church, their youth group,

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Bible studies at home. They can listen to the Bible teaching podcast, and it's all for free.

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Just another way that we would be able to do that by having a booth at some of these conferences. So you could help out with our booth fund.

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But like I said, I haven't put that together yet. I don't know how I'm going to have you donate, but I'll have more information in the future.

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For now, I'm just letting you know about it and telling you to attend G3 because it really is a great conference that's coming up January in Atlanta, Georgia, and attending the conference you can go to.

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Hang on. I don't have it up in front of me here. I was reading the email that I received, G3conference .com.

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It's the number three, letter G, number three, conference .com, and we hope to see you there at our brand new booth.

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All right, let's get to the questions today. Again, if you want to submit a question to the program, email is the best way to get it to us.

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Last week, we were reading comments off of Facebook, but that's really not, I was looking for those comments.

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I don't always read the comments. So if you want to get a question to us that we would respond to either on the broadcast or you can even request, hey,

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I don't want this to be aired. It's just a private inquiry. You can mention that in your email to send it to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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This first question has to do with what we were talking about last week, and that was related to the sermon that Matt Chandler preached in which he encouraged his congregation to prophesy to one another.

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Only what he defined as prophecy was not a biblical definition of prophecy. He was saying that you need to pray about somebody and ask

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God to give you a vision, which you can then take to that person and say, hey, I think God was showing me this to tell you, and that's not what prophecy is.

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The Bible is very clear that if somebody says they're speaking something that was given to them by God and what they say does not come to pass, then it did not come from God and they are speaking presumptuously.

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And in the Old Testament that had the penalty of death if someone claimed to be speaking from God, but they're lying.

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And that's what Chandler was encouraging his congregation to do, to lie to one another as long as what they were sharing with each other was positive and encouraging and also taking the

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Lord's name in vain, attributing God to something that actually did not come from God. It's just random stuff passing through your head.

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So anyway, related to what we were talking about last week, Sandy from Madison, Wisconsin, sent this email,

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Pastor Gabe, thank you for your video about Pastor Chandler's explanation about prophecy. I was a part of a charismatic church for years, and that's exactly the way

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I heard prophecy explained Chandler's explanation was not new to me. I hope it serves as a warning to others that just because a person says they're reformed, that doesn't mean they're truly reformed.

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That brings me to my question. You said that Chandler was a Calvinist, but you said that he's not reformed and that you would explain that.

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But I don't know that if I caught your explanation, what's the difference between being a Calvinist and being reformed?

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And thank you, Sandy. I probably did not explain that. I know that I said I was going to explain the difference. But of course,

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I got sidetracked and ran down some different rabbit trails. So anyway, generally, whenever these terms are used,

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Calvinist and reformed, they're used interchangeably. When somebody says that they're a

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Calvinist, they're also saying that they're reformed. But historically and even theologically, these two terms are different and they mean different things.

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Everyone who is reformed is a Calvinist, but not everyone who calls themselves a

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Calvinist is likewise reformed. Calvinism is limited to the doctrines of grace or what's more commonly referred to as the five points of Calvinism summarized by the acronym

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TULIP. One might say that Calvinism is a summary of John Calvin's teaching on Luther's writings concerning justification by faith in Christ alone.

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So Calvin was expounding upon what Luther had to say about the doctrine of justification.

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But it's not that Calvinism or that Calvin invented something that was not in the

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Bible and just because his name is on it, that it isn't biblical. Calvinism is thoroughly biblical.

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It's not something Calvin came up with, nor was it something Luther came up with when he was writing about justification by faith.

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But Calvinism rather is a summary of what the Bible says regarding how

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God brings about the justification of sinners. So that's

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Calvinism. Reformed theology covers a broader body of teaching than that.

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In addition to justification, it also includes views on who

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God is, what constitutes scripture. Whenever we talk about the Bible, what are we talking about?

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Those kinds of questions are answered with reformed theology. Also the sacraments and their administration,

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God's covenants, the relevance of God's law for believers and the relationship between law and the gospel,

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Christian liberty. What is the church? Whenever we talk about the church, what are we referring to?

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Those kinds of questions and that kind of doctrine is covered by reformed theology.

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So again, reformed theology is a broader body of teaching. Calvinism mainly just has to do with the doctrine of justification and how

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God brings about the salvation of those sinners whom he has elected from before the foundation of the world.

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Now Chandler says that he's a Calvinist, and that's true. When it comes to what

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Chandler has taught about justification, his teaching is in line with what

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Calvin and Luther taught on that particular subject. But Chandler is not reformed, especially when it comes to his understanding of prophecy, of charismaticism.

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And by the way, anybody who's charismatic cannot be reformed. They can call themselves Calvinist, but they wouldn't be reformed.

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Why is that? Well, because the body of reformed teaching that came from the Protestant reformers, they spoke directly against this.

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This is a Catholic thing. This idea that God is still revealing things to us through visions or speaking in tongues and this mystic feeling that people will get where they mutter gibberish and they call it speaking in tongues, even though it's not.

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Or that God is still doing these miraculous healings through certain healers.

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This is all Roman Catholicism that the Protestant reformers were getting away from and back to a biblical foundation.

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And so when Chandler is talking about prophecy the way that he does, he's actually returning to something that's more

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Roman Catholic than Protestant. So he is speaking contrary to the teachings of the

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Protestant reformers and what we have written in those reformed confessions. Like you just go to the 1689

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Baptist confession of faith and in chapter one concerning the it says

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God's former ways of revealing his will to his people have now ceased.

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Reform theology is cessationist. So if a person is continuous, they can't be reformed.

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You can have a Calvinistic understanding of justification and you can believe that and teach that, but that doesn't mean that you are reformed in your theology, which covers a much broader realm of teaching.

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So I hope that makes sense, Sandy, and I hope that that has cleared that up a little bit because I didn't go into that last week.

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This next question comes from Keith in Keller, Texas, also talking about the video that I had posted last week.

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Dear Gabe and Becky, of course, I'll pass this on to Becky. Thank you for your video regarding prophetic visions.

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Some of my loved ones and I have been on the receiving end of some of these even once from a random person in a coffee shop.

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It was quite bizarre. I didn't put any stock into what he said as it was very vague and would have applied to many other people than just me.

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I believe that a lot of what passes itself off as prophecy these days is nothing different than what someone would get by calling

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Miss Cleo psychic hotline. It just has a Christian label attached to it. Thank you for your ministry.

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It has been a blessing to me as I commute to and from work each day. Well, thank you so much for that kind note,

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Keith. Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of these things, too, quite frequently. As a matter of fact, I remember one that I got a few years ago.

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This was somebody who contacted by contacted me by email, and he was upset about some of the things that I was saying about Bill Johnson, the pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California.

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And the funny thing was, when he first contacted me, he said God showed me in a vision that Bill Johnson is a man of God.

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And I don't know how you can see anything but godliness coming from this guy. And I said, actually, what he teaches about the

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Trinity is heretical and how he says that Jesus Christ was merely a man, but not also

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God. When he was here on Earth, these things are heresy. And this guy also said to me that he became a

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Christian because God showed him in a vision. And it was this vision of an angel and dead people around.

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I can't even remember how the vision went. But I responded to him and said, no one gets saved by a vision that they had.

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The Bible says how you get saved Ephesians two, eight and nine. It is by grace you have been saved through faith.

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And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast.

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And Romans 10, 17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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So the only way you come to salvation is because someone preached the gospel to you and you were cut to the heart over your sin and you repented and you believed in Jesus Christ and followed him.

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That is the only way anyone comes to salvation. It is through the teaching of the gospel. Anyway, though he disagreed with me on many points, he was very respectful in his disagreement.

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And toward the end of our email exchanges, he said to me that God had given him a vision concerning me.

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And he said, God has told me this about you. This is a prophecy that God has given to me about you, that you are going to bring forth children with songs of joy.

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That was what he said. About two or three months later, I know it was very close to the time, Becky gave birth to our third born, a daughter whose name is

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Aria Joy. I was a music major in college. For those of you who are musically inclined, you may know that an

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Aria is a solo in an opera and then joy, you know, you, you know what joy means.

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Well, a couple of months later, I, we made the announcement about the birth of our daughter and I changed our photo, our family photo on my blog and that sort of a thing.

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A couple of months later, the guy emailed me back again and he said, ha, see what I told you came true.

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I told you that God gave this vision to me that you were going to bring forth children with songs of joy and you gave birth to a daughter whom you named

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Aria Joy. Exactly what I had in my prophecy.

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I was very kind when I responded to him and I said, well, first of all, we were already expecting when you made that prophecy and secondly, we had already decided upon the name and third, what is the point?

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So what? If you had this vision or this idea, this concept of me bringing forth children with songs of joy, what does that have to do with anything?

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It doesn't change you or me and it doesn't change the fact that you are still clinging to heresy, believing that you became a

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Christian because you had a vision of an angel and believing that Bill Johnson is a godly man when what he teaches is actually contrary to what the

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Bible says about God. And so it doesn't matter that you had some sort of ambiguous vision that has some sort of resemblance to something that actually happened because it doesn't change anything.

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It has no relevance whatsoever. And people who believe this kind of thing about prophecy, it's stuff like this that they will use to legitimize this gift that they claim that they have.

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They will announce like 100 prophecies. God gave me a vision for this. He gave me a vision for this.

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And like two or three of them will actually resemble what it was that they said.

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And then they'll latch on to those and say, ha, see, they're true. All that shows is that you played the odds and you got a few of them right.

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But it does. It is not proof that God still communicates to us in that way.

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And he does not. This is not the way that God reveals truth to us. His truth has already been given to us through the word of God and any other dreams or visions or anything like that, apart from what we read in God's word, they're completely needless.

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They don't do anything for us at all. It's John Owen who said, if private revelations agree with scriptures, they're needless.

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And if they disagree, they are false. Now, the way that Chandler was trying to justify these visions that we'll have that we share with each other, the way that he was trying to justify it in his sermon is that this is the way that God speaks to us to kind of personally show his encouragement and that he's with us and that he speaks to us in our current context and things like that.

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No, that's that's not at all what these random things popping into your head are supposed to symbolize.

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They're just random things popping into your head. The scripture is sufficient for our every need.

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It answers everything. You don't think that the scriptures have don't have anything encouraging for you to say to your neighbor today?

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Are you serious? Like, there's not anything from the scriptures that you can share from your neighbor, share with your neighbor today.

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So therefore, you need to have some sort of random, ambiguous vision that you can go over to their house and share with them.

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God gave me a vision of a pirate ship and a shark chasing a pirate ship, which was the illustration that Chandler gave that doesn't do anything for anybody.

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They are needless visions. We have everything that we need in the scriptures. It is not only inerrant, it is sufficient.

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The Bible is complete and it is sufficient for our every need. So this is the way that you can encourage others with what with what

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God said in his word, because God encourages you by what he said in his word, a scripture that we keep coming back to over and over again.

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I think I've even mentioned this on the last few Friday podcasts, but Second Corinthians one, three through four.

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This is one that I've been teaching lately in my congregation is we're going through Second Corinthians. Blessed be the

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforts us in all our affliction.

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So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

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In the book of James, James chapter one, verse two, we are told to count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

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There is literally a scripture for everything that we are going through in our lives.

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And when we come back to the scriptures, we are reminded of the promises that God has given to us through his prophets and apostles and how he has been faithful to keep his promises in the past.

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Even the the craziest, most radical promises that you could never come up with and never fulfill.

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And yet God has made those promises and he has seen them through. So you know that God is faithful to his promises even now to deliver you from the worst of things that the world could try to throw at you.

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Going on in Second Corinthians, chapter one, the apostle Paul said, we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction that we experienced in Asia, for we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.

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Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

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The the best promise we have is the promise of the forgiveness of sins that we have by faith in Jesus Christ because of his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, he conquered death so that all who believe in him will not perish, but will inherit his eternal life.

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When you know that you have salvation from death by faith in Jesus Christ, there is absolutely nothing that this world can do to you that would make you fall into despair for, you know, that you have life and you have it more abundantly in Jesus Christ.

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And that is a promise that we need a constant reminder of. You need it.

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You probably needed it today and your neighbor needs it and you can share it with them, your brothers and sisters in the

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Lord, in the body of Christ. They need that. They do not need visions of pirate ships and sharks.

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They don't need it. It serves no purpose whatsoever.

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And for Chandler to encourage his congregation to do that kind of thing with one another is to say the scriptures are not sufficient for our every need.

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And so we need these ambiguous visions in order to encourage one another. You barely have a grasp on the deep doctrines and truths that are given to us in the

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Bible. You need to study that and become more familiar with that than you are familiar with the random stuff that flies through your head.

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All right. I get passionate about it because it does bother me that men who, by their reputation, have been as sound in their preaching as Chandler has would then encourage their congregation to do something that actually comes about as lying to one another and taking the

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Lord's name in vain. And that should offend anybody. I've said and I've qualified over and over again,

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I have much respect for Matt Chandler and what it is that he has preached. But this is a problematic teaching, and it does not matter what he has said in the past.

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It deserves to be called out. And Christians need to be warned. This is not biblical, what he was teaching about prophecy.

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And I hope that he repents of it as well. Doesn't mean I think he's a heretic. I don't. Because like I said, what he's taught about justification is thoroughly biblical.

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But then he brings a reproach upon his own ministry when he then says something like this about prophecy, which lessens the importance of Scripture and then says that, you know,

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God will reveal truths apart from Scripture through these random visions and things like that.

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Next question. This one comes from Nate. He says, Greetings. I have been a fan of your videos for some time now, and I wanted to thank you for your hard work putting them together.

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I've sent many people to your YouTube channel. Thank you so much for that. Nate, would you consider doing a video on the song

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Reckless Love? The term reckless drives me a little nuts when it comes to describing

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God, because it implies God doesn't think about what he does. And I believe Corey Asbury's reasoning behind writing the song shows a lack of understanding in the nature of God.

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Whenever I'm somewhere where the song is playing, I turn reckless into relentless.

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I hope you are well. And thank you for considering this in Christ, Nate. You know,

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I have actually never listened to this song. And I've got a mind that is so inclined to music in a certain way that I'm very careful with what it is that I listen to.

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I already told you that I was a music major in college, so I just kind of I guess maybe opens a window up into the mindfulness toward music that I have.

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It is very easy for songs to get stuck in my head. And we often oftentimes will use the term catchy.

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You know, that song is catchy because it's repetitive. It gets stuck in your head and you repeat it over and over again. Every piece of music is is catchy to me.

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If it has some sort of melody line or some sort of pattern, it will get stuck in my mind and it will be in my head all day long.

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So I'm actually very careful with the kind of stuff that I let into my head. The radio that I'm listening to in the car, what

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I listen to on podcasts, you know, I listen to an episode of R .C.

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Sproul teaching on renewing your mind and the the the handle piece that's playing there in the intro and in the outro.

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Then you know that that gets stuck in my head. Now I'm singing that I'm humming that through my head for the rest of the day.

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So I try to be careful with what I let in my mind. And that especially has to do with, you know, songs from Bethel and Hillsong and this this tune from Corey Asbury, which

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I've never even listened to. I saw the lyrics to it. I was not impressed. So it's just not a song that I've brought up and listened to because it's just not something

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I want to have stuck in my head. But here's the lyrics to Reckless to well,

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Reckless Love is the name of the song. Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me.

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You have been so, so good to me so far. So good. It's really not anything wrong with that.

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Before I took a breath, you breathed your life in me. You have been so, so kind to me.

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That's just like Psalm 139. You knit me together in my mother's womb. Oh, the overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God.

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Now we've got a problem. Oh, it chases me down, fights till I'm found, leaves the ninety nine.

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I couldn't earn it and I don't deserve it. That's good. Still, you give yourself away.

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Oh, the overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God. Yeah. So what's the problem with with Reckless?

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Well, that word means words have meaning here. And the definition of reckless is for a person to act without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action.

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Does that describe the love of God? Absolutely not. It's even contrary.

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The chorus is contrary to what he was singing about in the verses. He was saying that before I took a breath, you breathed your life in me.

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Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me. So God is very much thinking about you before you're born.

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This is what the Bible refers to as for ordination and for knowledge that God placed his love and his affection on you before you were even born.

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That's not reckless. That is that is deliberate. That is intentional.

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That is predestination and election. And then you get to the chorus and he says, oh, the reckless love of God without thinking or caring about the consequences.

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No, God absolutely cares about the consequences. He has predestined everything from before the foundation of the world.

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There is nothing that happens that shocks God or takes him by surprise. And likewise, he does not act the same way.

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He's not acting willy nilly, contrary to his will or his foreordained plan. So that's actually a very reckless chorus.

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It's a reckless song to describe God's love that way. And so I appreciate Nate saying that he would change it to relentless love, which honestly matches the lyrics better than reckless love.

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Reckless doesn't even go. Like I said, it contradicts what's in the verses. And Nate's just a little bit more mindful than Corey Asbury was when it comes to the title of that song.

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So anyway, matches better. I'm still not going to listen to it, though. Next question. This comes from Robert in Houston, Texas.

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He says, hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. I thank God for you and your work in brilliantly explaining various biblical principles.

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I don't know about brilliant, but anyway, that are usually a stumbling block to many within the

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Christian faith. I enjoy listening to your daily podcast. They bless my soul. My wife and I think that the two of you are the most adorable couple, especially as we listen to how you interact with each other on the

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Friday Q &A podcast. Well, I'm sorry to deprive you of that today that Becky's not with me, but I know that she would rather be.

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She loves doing this too. You are, you are that cool and fun couple. We see us hanging out with someday just saying, well, that's awesome,

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Robert. Maybe we'll get the chance to meet. I hope so. My question comes from first Corinthians 15, one through 11.

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Where Paul defines the gospel that he has been preaching to the Corinthians. I still read this and go, what?

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When Paul describes who Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, he mentioned Cephas and Peter, then the 12 later on in verse seven, he mentions

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James, then all the apostles, then of course, lastly, he mentions himself. This almost seems to indicate that Paul was suggesting that there were more than 12 apostles.

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I've also thought that maybe Paul used repetition for emphasis. I have also wondered why

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Peter and James were not included among the 12. Could you please shed some light on this? Who are considered to be the original apostles with a capital a.

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And when I mentioned Cephas and Peter, he actually has that as Cephas slash Peter, because that's, that's the same name.

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Anyway, same guy, Peter was his Greek name. All right. Let's, uh, let's first read first Corinthians 15 in context.

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It's that's where Robert has his question from. For, uh, starting in verse one.

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Now I would remind you brothers of the gospel that I preached to you, which you received in which you stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word

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I preached to you, unless you believed it in vain, for I delivered to you as of first importance, what

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I also received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas.

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Then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep, then he appeared to James.

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Then to all the apostles last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me for,

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I am the least of the apostles unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.

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But by the grace of God, I am what I am and his grace toward me was not in vain.

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On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me, whether then it was

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I or they, so we preach. And so you believed.

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Okay. Now about this term, apostle, when we read the word apostle in the gospels,

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it refers to only the 12. The exclusivity of that title is a little bit murkier though.

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When, when we look at the rest of the texts that follow, especially in the book of acts now, some would argue that the 12 plus the apostle

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Paul were the only apostles and some of the teachers that hold this view are John MacArthur, John Piper and DA Carson, but I would be amiss to ignore the discussion regarding the designation of apostle that's given to other men in the new

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Testament, outside of the 12 to be called an apostle. One had to meet two clear qualifications.

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The most specific of which was that they had to have been a witness to the risen

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Lord that's given as one of the qualifications in acts one 22, also in chapter 10 in first Corinthians nine, verse one, the apostle

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Paul says, am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen

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Jesus? Our Lord are not you, my workmanship in the Lord. So one of the things that Paul mentions there is that he's seen the risen

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Lord, and that's one of the qualifications that a person had to have in order to be an apostle.

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The second qualification is that they had to have been personally appointed as an apostle by Christ himself.

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And we have Jesus mentioning that in Matthew chapter 10, verses one through seven, that's talked about as the qualification of an apostle.

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Also in acts chapter one and in Galatians one, one, the way that Paul starts his letter to the

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Galatians, that he was or that he is an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God, the father who raised him from the dead and all the brothers who are with me to the churches in Galatia.

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That's the introduction to the letter to the Galatians. Now, furthermore, the authenticity of an apostle would be affirmed by miraculous signs and wonders.

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Here's what Paul says in his next letter to the Corinthians, second Corinthians chapter 12, starting in verse 12, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.

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So this is Paul saying that I've affirmed my apostleship with you because you saw the signs and wonders that I performed.

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And what were some of these signs and wonders? Well, an apostle had the power to speak in other languages, heal diseases and cast out evil spirits.

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That's in Matthew 10, eight, Luke nine, one through two and acts two, one through six, they were given prophetic visions.

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So they would, and a prophetic vision, contrary to what Chandler said it was, they would say something that God showed them and then it would happen.

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It would come true affirming that what it was that they prophesied came from God and did not come from man.

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Now, when an apostle, uh, their authority was affirmed by these miraculous signs and wonders that they performed.

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The word of an apostle was considered to be the word of the Lord, equal in authority with even the old

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Testament scriptures at something that Peter mentions in second Peter three, 16, second

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Corinthians 13, two through four. Uh, I've mentioned to you several times statements that Paul has made to the

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Thessalonians regarding the authority of the words that come from an apostle. And we see several men in the new

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Testament that are called apostle apart from the 12 and, and also affirm their apostleship through miraculous signs and wonders.

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So who exactly do we see called an apostle apart from the 12? Well, of course there's the apostle Paul, but others described as apostles include

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James, the half brother of Christ. And it seems to be that Paul mentions him as an apostle here in first Corinthians 15 and also

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Barnabas who introduced Paul to the circle of the apostles, which we have in the book of Acts.

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Once Paul was made an apostle, he was then brought before the apostles by Barnabas.

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James is referred to as an apostle, not just here in first Corinthians 15, but also in Galatians chapter one.

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It seems that Paul refers to him there as an apostle. He says, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit

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Cephas and remained with him 15 days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the

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Lord's brother. So is he referring to James there again, referring to James as an apostle?

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The reference there in its context seems to give reason to the argument that he was also an apostle.

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Barnabas is called an apostle in Acts 14, 14, where he is also said to have been doing great signs and wonders along with Paul.

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Now, Barnabas was likely among those who are mentioned in first Corinthians 15, seven to have seen the risen

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Lord along with James. That's conjecture is there's no scriptural evidence for this assertion, but we have to assume that to be the case since he's called an apostle.

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And one of the qualifications is having seen the risen Christ. Remember, though, that this is not the only qualification for apostleship.

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We previously read in verse six that over 500 brothers saw the risen

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Lord at one time. Indeed, many people saw Christ alive during the 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension, according to what we read in Acts 1, 3.

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But this does not immediately mean that they became apostles. So it wasn't that there were 500 apostles, but certainly among that 500, we could include

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Barnabas. Those designated in the New Testament as apostles are very few indeed.

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So it's certainly not hundreds, but maybe it's more than 12 or maybe it's more than 13.

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So at its most conservative estimate, we can say that there were only 13 apostles, the 12 plus the apostle

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Paul. John MacArthur mentions there were 14. As Judas would have been an apostle at one point, but was then replaced by Matthias, so it would be 12 minus one plus one plus Paul.

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That would be John MacArthur's formula. A more liberal estimate would be to say that there were 16.

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We have the 12 Judas, which is then replaced by Matthias. Add in James and Barnabas and finally

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Paul. And these are the only men in the whole New Testament that are ever called apostles.

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And Paul makes clear, as we just read here in first Corinthians 15, that he was the last one to be called an apostle and no one else would be an apostle after him.

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This is first Corinthians 15, eight, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

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Now, some people would say that, well, that doesn't mean that Paul was the last one appointed, but again, he's going through a list of succession and he's talking about those to whom

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Christ appeared. And the last one that he appeared to was Paul. He would never appear to anyone again.

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So not only will there be no more apostles appointed after Paul, but anyone who claims that Jesus Christ has appeared to them is lying because he was not going to appear to anyone else after these apostolic appointments to carry forth the word of God to the world.

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In those 40 years between Christ's ascension into heaven and the destruction of the temple in 70

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AD, with the death of the apostle John at the end of the first century, that brought an end to the apostolic age and God was no longer affirming his word through miraculous signs and wonders as they had been given specifically to his apostles.

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The affirmation of an apostle that came through these signs and wonders. Second Corinthians 12, 12 again, the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.

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Now, that doesn't mean that I don't believe God doesn't do miracles of any kind.

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I believe that he does. And if God wants to heal somebody, he will. And if somebody is healed and you would call that miraculous because there was no way that person could have received healing any other way except by the miraculous, loving, merciful hand of God, then absolutely that person was healed by God's mighty hand.

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I would say a person that is healed over time has even received that healing from God and that he has been merciful to that person.

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But God is no longer proving himself in the miraculous ways that he was doing through the apostles, for there was a specific reason for those miracles and those signs and wonders that the apostles were performing.

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And the reason was to affirm that they were an apostle, that they were carrying the word of God.

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And what they said was every bit as authoritative as the word of Christ himself.

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So there was a specific reason for these miracles and and even the regularity of those miracles and who was performing them.

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As we see it in the New Testament, so it's not something that we see happening in a continuationist fashion to this day.

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Yes, I believe that God still does miraculous things. And and being a cessationist does not mean that you think that all miracles have come to an end and God doesn't do anything miraculous at all.

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I truly believe that if God wants to so move in such ways that he will, if there are places in the world that have not yet heard or received the gospel,

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God may use miraculous means to be sure that those people who is who he has predestined for salvation from the foundation of the world will receive the gospel so that they would hear it and turn from sin and they would believe and be saved.

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And if God uses a miracle to bring the gospel to them in that way, the message of hope and salvation through his son,

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Jesus Christ, then he is going to do it. But there is no longer this continued apostolic performance of miracles through those whom

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God had designated to be carriers of the word of Christ. So over the course of this program today,

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I hope that I have brought greater clarity to how God has communicated his word and the means that he has used to bring about the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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There is not a reason for him to say anything extra than what he has said here in the word of Christ, the

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Bible. It is inerrant, meaning that it is perfect. It is complete.

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It is authoritative. So if the word of God is inerrant, if it is without error, then it has authority over every other word, over every single person, whether they are a believer in Jesus Christ or not.

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That's what it means to say that the Bible is inerrant. It is without error. But in addition to that, to say that the

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Bible is inerrant, if it is the perfect word of God without error, then it is also sufficient.

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It is sufficient for our every need. And the apostle Peter said in second Peter, chapter one, that we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.

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Second, Peter one sixteen. We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty for when he received honor and glory from God, the father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory.

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This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. That's a reference to the Mount of Transfiguration.

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We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

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And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

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Knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.

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But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. And this is not only a word that is good to bring about the salvation of men when they hear it, turning from sin and believing in Jesus Christ.

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But as Peter says here, you will do well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

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You became a Christian because you heard the gospel shared with you. And now you must continue to commit yourself to the word of God, the

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Bible, that you may grow in sanctification and the light of God's word would continue to shine in your hearts and guide your every footstep.

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Amen. Praise the Lord. Glory. Hallelujah. That's as charismatic as I'm going to get.

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Lord, we thank you so much for your word and what a blessing this is. To live in a country and to have an opportunity to to have so many

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Bibles that we have on our shelves, to be able to read this. And I pray that we would cherish it if we're going to have a lot of Bibles.

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Let's read the Bible a lot so that we may know your mind and your heart, your good, pleasing and perfect will.

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And we would desire to do the things that you have called us to do, that you would shape us more in the image of Christ, that we would be like our savior, that we would be

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Christ like with one another, that we would speak the words of Christ with others so that they would be convicted, cut to the heart over their sinfulness, the rebellion that every man is committed against God.

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And they would repent, turn from their sinful, wicked ways, and they would serve the

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Lord God who sits enthroned over all of heaven and earth, creator of the entire universe, who has said to us that if we believe in Jesus Christ and endure to the end, we will be fellow heirs of this coming, beautiful, glorious, perfect kingdom.

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And when Christ is revealed and his kingdom is ushered in, he will dry every tear from our eyes.

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Death will be no more. There will be no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain for the former things will have passed away, and we will dwell with him in his holy habitation forever.

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What greater promise could we be given than that? Amen. In the name of Christ.

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This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.