Post Debate Road Trip Dividing Line: Flowers Debate Review

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March 8, 2024

Today we went back over the key issues in the Flowers debate on John 6, looked more closely at 6:45, documented errors on LF's part, etc. Also thanked a bunch of folks for their support and a super cool gift I was given last evening (the A&O Bow Tie!). Spent about ten minutes looking at Chris Fisher's misuse of 1 John 2:20 (the Byzantine textual variant), had a few words about tomorrow night's debate with Dale Tuggy as well.

00:29: Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. We are, uh, we are in between debates,
00:36: I guess would be the way to, uh, put it. Coming to you live from, uh, the Houston area where everything is covered with a very thick film of pollen.
00:48: I'm going to tell you, man, you, you don't even bother washing your, your vehicle because the next morning, it's yellow.
00:57: Uh, it's a different color. And, um, that's just great for the sinuses, let me tell you. Uh, I imagine the makers of most, uh, uh, brands of antihistamine have headquarters right here in Houston.
01:12: It's, it's fun. But anyways, we're in between debates, um, 25 hours, 25 hours?
01:20: Yeah, 25, 25 hours ago. No, 23. Uh, yeah, 23 hours ago. Uh, 23 hours ago. Yesterday, an hour from now, uh, we had the debate with, um,
01:31: Light and Flowers at, uh, First Lutheran in Houston and, uh, 25 hours from now.
01:38: There we go. Uh, we will have the debate with Dale Tuggy at the exact same, uh, location, uh, there in Houston.
01:46: A number of people that were there last night said they're going to be there tomorrow night and I, I appreciate that.
01:54: Um, number, debate number five, really was thinking on Tuesday, um, of this week that this wasn't going to happen, that these debates weren't going to take place.
02:06: I met a couple last night that, uh, had traveled for their anniversary from Florida, I believe it was, uh, to be there.
02:14: Nice fellow, I will forget if I don't do it, uh, gave me this last night and you have to be a
02:19: Trekkie to understand I might not make it. I've thought about getting this shirt many times.
02:26: Uh, I've chuckled at it on Facebook and stuff like that and just never pulled the trigger. So someone, someone gave me a red shirt and so I will try not to beam down in it.
02:37: Um, you're, you're fairly safe on the Enterprise, though I can think of a few episodes where, yeah, being in, being in the red shirt is a good way to die.
02:49: And of course the same actor, if you know the original series, died multiple times in a red shirt.
02:56: He's kept killing the guy off. So anyway, um, so we, uh, we had the debate last night and oh, oh, uh, and again,
03:08: I will forget unless I, uh, unless I do this. Um, Daryl Daniel, um, came up to me with a, a real nice, uh, box, gold colored box with a red bow on it and stuff and, uh, pretty high quality thing, you know, and he says, go ahead and open this now.
03:31: And so he says, take out the, take out the, uh, towel completely.
03:38: And I opened this thing up and this, I don't know what this weighs.
03:44: I'd say between five and 10 pounds. Um, it is aluminum, machined aluminum.
03:52: I'm trying to, yeah, see how, see how shiny and reflective it is. Uh, on the back it has, um, first Peter two 16 act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as slave of God.
04:08: Um, and, uh, that's where my Twitter handle comes from host
04:15: L Uthroy as free men. But it's, it's a alpha and omega bow tie, machined metal bow tie.
04:24: And I would love to find a way to have it in the background, but it weighs way too much. There's, there's,
04:30: I don't think we could find a way, maybe over near the alpha and omega logo over here, but even then it would have to be,
04:38: I mean, it's, it's got some serious, it's solid metal. I think it's aluminum.
04:44: Uh, it is, it's beautiful. But yeah, I got this, uh, last, yeah, there you go.
04:49: D D D D D uh, last evening, uh, after, after the debates. So, uh, that was super cool and I'm very thankful for that.
04:57: And, uh, minimally it'll end up in the background, uh, in Phoenix, uh, uh, because I'm not sure how many gallons of diesel we would, we would burn over the years, uh, carrying that much weight, uh, solid chunk of metal in the, uh, in the
05:12: RV. So anyways, I want to make sure to, to thank everybody for those things, for the red seems to have been the color last night.
05:19: Now I think about it. Um, uh, Matt. Oh yeah. Rich says, see rich.
05:25: See when the, when the, when the cats away, the mice will play. And when
05:31: I go on these long trips and this is the longest trip I've gone on, um, rich just starts doing stuff, you know,
05:39: Tim Taylor, Tim Taylor, the tool man, whatever guy. And so, uh, he's been working on a new podium for the big studio and, uh, he just said that that might go real well on the, on the new podium.
05:54: And, uh, I'm like, yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's way too heavy to wear chain around.
06:05: But yeah, it's, um, it's great. So red was the color last night. All right.
06:11: Um, so much to get to. And, um, I suppose we could start off with what
06:19: I just saw. Um, Layton just posted a screenshot from some online
06:30: AI bot. I don't know if it was chat GPT or there's so many of them anymore.
06:37: Um, I've subscribed to two. I had resisted them for a long time, but, um, sometimes when you're just doing a, a, you know, a resource search or something like that can be really fast and save you a lot of time.
06:52: Um, and so I've subscribed to a couple, um, and in some areas it's been really helpful, useful, but in theology, um, church history, basically what you get is
07:13: I'd recommend you check some scholarly websites type stuff. It's just, it's just not something that AI is overly interested in yet.
07:23: But Layton Flowers just posted, um, a tweet with a
07:29: AI chat, um, interpretation of John 645.
07:39: Now Layton Flowers can't read Greek. It's obvious. It's plain. It's, it's, it's sadly plain.
07:48: Um, evidently you can get a demon, uh, without getting, um, much
07:55: Greek or whatever it is it did. Um, he, he showed last evening, he was extremely uncomfortable when
08:04: I just sat there as I told him I would. Um, as I've said from the beginning, we would, this is what we're going to do.
08:15: I just sat there and, um, I used,
08:22: I used the, my, my Nestle All in Text in the, where we made the presentations.
08:29: Sometimes you have to have a computer. I'll have to have a computer up there tomorrow night because I have avoided using a presentation in the debates, uh, on this trip, uh, mainly because, uh,
08:43: Pastor McClanahan at the church has expressed to me what he really would like to see in the debates is, um, you know, an advancement in oratory and not in technical presentations.
08:56: And so I haven't used one, but Dale Tuggy required that I do so.
09:02: He wanted to have that before, before the debate. So we'll have to do the swiping, swatching, swatching, swapping, swapping out of computers and plugging stuff in and everybody gets to sit there and watch people adjust things and blah, blah, blah.
09:16: Um, so tomorrow night I'll have to do that, but I, I prefer, um, speaking to people and communicating to people and bringing them along.
09:28: And with some subjects, a digital presentation can be helpful.
09:36: Um, but with others, it's just distracting. And certainly last night, um, Layton has not learned much since 2015 as far as how to make a presentation.
09:48: Um, you know, last time he was reading everything, um, his opening, his rebuttal, his closing, his questions, everything was in a notebook.
09:57: Now it was on a MacBook. Um, but he decided to read it like the
10:02: FedEx guy from the 1980s, just and throwing all these, uh, uh, slides up and everybody's again, sitting there just like, um, way too fast, way, way, way too.
10:17: But even when he admitted it, even when I made a wise crack about it in my rebuttal, um, did that stop him?
10:24: Nope, nope, nope, nope. It was just, and just doesn't seem to realize that especially in talking about topics like this, it's a good way to make sure your audience is just sitting there staring at you and not following what you're saying.
10:37: So, um, I can only explain that so many times. And if you don't want to learn, you don't want to learn this, nothing you can do about it.
10:44: Anyway, so when, when we were doing the cross -examination, I had, um, my iPad, um, and I've just got accordance up and, you know, nice big fonts, a little bit easier to see than the
10:57: Nestle Allen 28th. I wish there was a giant print, uh, Nestle Allen text that might help, but you can't really get anything that's gonna be printed with as large a font as you can get on the iPad.
11:09: And I'm just asking him questions straight from the text. That's, that's what the cross -examination was about for me.
11:16: And you could just tell he was like a cat on a hot tin roof. He didn't want to be there.
11:22: Uh, it's clear to me he had been instructed, try to avoid this like the plague, do not get into a word by word exegesis of the original languages, you know, try to go here, go there.
11:36: Um, and so he just doesn't, doesn't have language. And so he can't dispute what I've said.
11:42: Oh, he did by saying, well, this person disagrees, that person agrees. And when I, when I press, okay, where, where'd they disagree?
11:48: What, what's, give me some citations. He doesn't have anything. It's just, it's just not there. Um, and that's not what you do in a debate.
11:56: I mean, so you've got hearsay evidence, someone that we cannot cross -examine in the debate, you say says this, but you won't give us a reference.
12:03: There's nothing we can look up. Okay. That's just not appropriate, uh, debate behavior. Almost nothing he did last night was appropriate debate behavior actually.
12:11: But anyway, um, so he just, he just posted saying, uh, well, so who supports
12:20: White's position when I've got AI, you know, and I, I had to sit back for a second and go, you know,
12:27: I wonder how long it's going to be until AI is considered the ultimate authority in all things.
12:35: It's pretty obvious to me, Gen Z is already there. Um, so many of these, these, if it's, if it's online, it's, it must be true.
12:46: There's a real lack of critical thought, but, um, it, it, it is, it is amazing to see.
12:53: Now, some of this morning, there's been a lot of chatter, um, on, um, uh, online, uh, about last night.
13:04: And one that early on this morning, I saw that I was really impressed with is a, uh, it's
13:17: CC shorts. Um, the exact moment, the debate on John Six ended between James White and Leighton Flowers and why, and it's a two minute and 20 second, um, collection of some of the material from the debate last night.
13:36: Uh, very well done. And I want to, whoops, hold on there a second now.
13:43: I want to put it up here and I want us to, uh, listen to it.
13:51: Um, because if, if I had put together a less than two minutes summary of what the debate was actually all about, not all the, but the babies and, you know, all the, you know, every tired mantra of some soteriology 101 repeated ad nauseum over and over again on every subject that could
14:17: Calvinist this and Calvinist that and even got a shot in at presuppositionalism. That was, that was pretty interesting.
14:24: Um, as if he has a clue and as if he's read Bonson, right.
14:29: Uh -huh. Uh, or Ventile or any of that. Anyway, um, all this stuff that was just complete distraction.
14:39: Uh, if I were to put together a video, this would be it. This would be what the key issue was.
14:47: And so, um, I want to play this for you and well, the, the
14:55: PC's on. I just, I don't know how to, I can't adjust volume, so I have no earthly idea how to do that.
15:01: Um, here's, here's the section, uh, as it, uh, as it was posted.
15:16: What if verse 45 actually comes after verse 44 and is describing the drawing that results in giving of eternal life and resurrection.
15:25: What if all who are taught by God, all who are, who hear from the father, all who learn from the father is the effective action of God that's provided in scripture and being described by Jesus.
15:38: What would that do to your theological understanding of this text? If that were true, then your presupposition tulip would be true.
15:45: The debate ended when Dr. Flowers in the cross examination said that if the actions in verse 45, specifically it is written in the prophets, they shall all be taught of God.
16:01: Everyone hearing from the father and learning is coming to me. When he admitted that if those are effective actions by God, specifically teaching as in revealing who
16:14: Christ is, and they all, they who are drawn, that's the contextual reading, they who are drawn are taught by God, that's why they are effectively drawn, and they hear everyone who hears from the father, everyone who learns from the father is coming to me.
16:33: If those are effective actions by God that describe what drawing is, he admitted, that means my position is correct.
16:43: And then when I pointed out that his interpretation of this text involves not only ignoring the instrumental mechanism by which the teaching takes place,
16:54: God is the one doing this, but also ignores the fact that if you are hearing and you are learning, you are passively receiving information into you effectively, and to say that, well, the one is
17:07: Israel and the other is others, and I'm simply asking a simple question. The reason it says they shall all be taught of God, and then it says everyone hearing and everyone learning, the point is this is
17:18: God's effectual power being demonstrated in the salvation of his people, and his position requires you to draw a line before the the word pass in the original language, and say this is one group, this is another group, and he can't substantiate that.
17:39: So there you go, that's the debate, and for those who will listen carefully and honestly, and listen with intent, and many people did,
17:55: I'm very thankful. Obviously, I saw all the provisionists and stuff, and they're tooting their horns and doing their thing, but their comments have next to nothing to do with what the supposed topic was supposed to be, and what the argumentation was, and whose presentation from the beginning was focused on that, and whose presentation very intentionally, purposefully, and knowingly beforehand was not going to be focused on John 6, but was going to be focused on the same focus from the
18:30: Romans 9 debate, and that is inability, free will, all the standard responsibility means this, all that kind of stuff.
18:40: It wouldn't matter what we were debating. It would not matter what text we brought up.
18:51: For example, we could debate First Chronicles 2618.
18:57: Leighton Flowers and I could debate. We could say, let's have a debate on First Chronicles 2016, 2618, which says that the parbar on the west, there were four at the highway and two at the parbar.
19:07: It's the only time you'll ever hear me speak in tongues. At the parbar on the west, there were four at the highway and two at the parbar.
19:13: That's First Chronicles 2618, and I believe Leighton Flowers would have an ability to go after something like that and find a way to talk about all of his favorite things, which is what
19:32: Soteriology 101 is all about. It doesn't matter. It was very plain from his prepared cross -ex questions.
19:42: I had no prepared cross -ex questions. I had no no's. I had my Greek text. That's all I had.
19:47: I didn't have anything else. I never even opened my Johnny Cash Bible. I just,
19:53: I had the text. That's what I said I was going to do. That's what you should be able to do if you're going to engage in this type of thing.
20:00: That's what I did. And so the cross -ex questions, what was I doing? I was just sitting there. You know, there's two 10 -minute segments.
20:07: And so after his first 10 -minute segment,
20:13: I'd done my 10 -minute segment. We ended in verse 45. Second 10 -minute segment,
20:20: I picked up with verse 45. That's just pressing on.
20:26: That's what you're supposed to do. He started his second cross -ex, notice it was the beginning of the second cross -ex, with infant damnation,
20:36: Baalgate. Obviously, all of that was intentionally started like a month and a half ago with this debate in mind.
20:47: So it was intentional, not only by Leighton Flowers, but I think there's a whole group of people associated with Trinity that were involved in coaching him and helping him to write stuff and giving him advice and all the rest of that kind of stuff.
20:59: That whole group already knew what they wanted to do. And it was not to honestly do what
21:07: Leighton said he would do in this debate. So that was there.
21:15: So if you go back and listen to it, you will see.
21:21: I knew what his position was. I took the time to listen to his decalvinizing John 644.
21:27: And I started listening to this almost three -hour -long blatherfest that he and some other people did.
21:32: It just wasn't even worth the time. But I did listen to his stuff and I knew that what he was going to do is he was going to take
21:41: John 645 and he was going to disconnect it from 644 and then insert his ideas into what this means.
21:56: And I recognize a lot of people don't know, and some people aren't interested in finding out, but you need to understand where he's coming from when we talk about what
22:09: John 6 is all about. He's willing to say that all that the
22:14: Father gives to the Son will come to the Son. Now, we didn't get a chance to flesh out exactly how he can be consistent there.
22:21: At one point, I did ask him once, so you believe people can come to the
22:29: Father freely by their own free will. The choice meets people. Because they're humble and things like that.
22:42: But then they're given by the Father to the Son because they've already come to the Father. And so they have to come to the
22:49: Son. And his response was sort of like, well, that's because the Father and the
22:54: Son are one. And so if you believe in the Father, you're going to believe in the Son, etc., etc. But it seems like the idea is people have the free will to come to the
23:04: Father, but not the free will to come to the Son. Why there would be a distinction there,
23:10: I don't know. Why you have to be given by the Father to the Son, I don't know.
23:17: But I just saw that Leighton is posting, when was the
23:23: Steve Gregg thing? I don't even know when that was. That was many, many years ago.
23:29: Audio only. So yeah. So when Leighton can't handle the debate, he starts posting other people's debates.
23:42: I really suggest, Leighton, you just move on to other stuff. This isn't your thing. So anyways,
23:48: I knew what the argument was going to be. The argument is this.
23:55: How do you avoid the biblical doctrine of God's freedom in the salvation of individuals?
24:06: How do you make it to where man's choice determines what
24:12: God's going to do? Well, a lot of the, and give him credit, there's a lot of the attempts to get around John chapter 6, just are very surface level.
24:24: Norman Geisler's attempts stunk. They really did. He didn't even try to give a coherent interpretation of John chapter 6.
24:33: He just didn't. And so, what he and others have done is to say, well, yes, the father gives a particular people to the son, but it's because they've already come to the father.
24:51: So they make the free will choice. Nobody's truly dead in sin.
24:56: Nobody's truly in Adam. Um, nobody is an enemy of God. Everybody has the ability.
25:03: Um, it's, it's weird. No one can come to Christ. No one has the ability to come to the son.
25:09: That's wrong with the father, but everybody has the ability to come to the father, which is obviously absurd.
25:16: But anyway, synergism is synergism. And so, uh, the idea then is to go to verse 45 and we're going to, we're going to pop this up here.
25:29: I posted a fairly lengthy, uh, item, uh, on Twitter this morning.
25:37: If you're not into Twitter, um, then, um, I'll sort of repeat some of that stuff today.
25:46: Um, oh man, I wish, well, maybe we'll see, we'll see if this will, will actually work. Um, let's, uh, let's, let me expand the fonts here real quick.
25:58: Uh, so it's a little bit clearer. Of course, some of you don't need that, but I do.
26:05: And, uh, let's look here and then let's look there.
26:11: Okay. All right. I just got to remember that I take up the bottom part over there on the, on the
26:16: Greek. So I'll have to keep scrolling it so that, um, we can see it.
26:23: So what they do is they, they take verse 45. We'll, we'll put up the English up here as it is written in the prophets and they shall all be taught by God.
26:32: Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. So the idea is that you take this text, they shall all be taught by God.
26:41: Layton said in the debate, um, he interpreted this as God teaching
26:47: Israel, that all Israel has been taught by God. Uh, even though in both
26:54: Jeremiah 31 and Isaiah 54, the two probable locations for the origination of the phrase Pontus Didactoi Theou, um, that is specifically in regards to, in Isaiah 54, it's the covenant people of God, um, redeemed, not just the mixed, uh, old, old covenant people, but the specific redeemed people.
27:17: And Jeremiah 31 is, is about the, is about the new covenant. So that's the elect that is in view in, in both.
27:25: So that would not flow from the old Testament passages. Um, he tried to go to some other places in Jeremiah 32 and stuff like that, instead of the sources that were actually being used in John 6, another interesting maneuver.
27:39: But anyway, um, so everyone's taught by God, and then everyone who hears, and so the choice meat can hear, um, the, the non -choice meat don't hear, or they don't open their ears, they don't open their eyes, or whatever else it might be, um, and, and learning.
28:02: They, they learn, and they hear, and that's, and as a result, they come to God, and when they come to God, then
28:10: God the Father gives them to the Son. So you go to the end, 37 through 45, you go to the end, and then you read this into verse 45, and you go backwards, and there's even, uh, he, he jumped down and kept giving wrong references, um, but down to the end of the, the talk in John 6, but there are some of you who do not believe, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.
28:40: Now, you know, that causes all sorts of problems for open theists, and things like that, and we then get to ask questions as to how
28:49: Jesus knows these things, and what's the source of supernatural knowledge, and these are things that, that, uh, provisionists don't really want to be talking about.
28:59: It's not something that's the favorite part of their discussion, uh, it's really where it should all start, but anyway.
29:07: So, um, and then I point out verse 65, and he was saying, for this reason
29:14: I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the Father, and I pointed out that Elegan here is in the imperfect, and the imperfect is a somewhat unusual, it's not, it's not, no, you got a whole lot more presence in, in Eris, uh, in, in the
29:33: New Testament. I think, I'm sure if the, if perfects don't maybe outnumber, but imperfect is, is a continuous action in the past, and there's different syntactical categories, and one of them is the iterative, and so it's, it's repetition.
29:48: It's something that is being repeated in the past, I think that's what's saying, and he was saying, he kept saying to them, for this reason
29:54: I said to you, no one is able to come to me unless it has been granted to him by the
30:02: Father. So they're, they're granting to him is the same thing as the drawing of verse 44, but again, once you take verse 45, you disconnect it from 44, you take it out of its place, and you read, um, autonomy, um, free will, human capacity, etc.,
30:23: etc., into it, then you can use it to then change the meaning of everything goes before, and everything goes after, by saying it's, it's not the
30:31: Father's choice, uh, it's our choice to come to the Father.
30:36: We have the freedom to do that. We have the dunamis to do that, um, but once you come to the
30:42: Father, you don't have the ability to come to the Son unless the Father gives you, and that's what verse 65 is about.
30:49: So anyway, the, the point was, I, in my opening statement, knew this is where he's gonna be going, and so I pointed out various of the problems, uh, in that, in that concept, and the, um, in the rebuttal, in his, in his opening, you know, again, the, the high speed stuff, a, um,
31:14: I don't have it right here. I did post it, um, on Twitter.
31:20: Uh, I saw, uh, Rich mentioned, he said, did, did you see the, he, he, he did the same thing to Matthew 23 -37 that he's done over and over again.
31:30: He's been corrected on it over and over. He said, no, I'm not looking at the slides. Um, and so he sent it to me.
31:36: He, he rolled the video back and screenshot it and sent it to me, and again, all the context of Matthew 23 -37, the, the
31:45: Jewish leaders, uh, just gone, you know. It's, God wanted to do this, and they would not, and it, and, and the entire actual meaning of Matthew 23 is right out the, right out the window.
31:57: Um, it's, it's, um, there are just a couple verses in the, in the
32:02: New Testament that just, they never get quoted correctly. Um, Acts 2, 38, and 39 by some of our dear brothers, and, uh, and then, uh,
32:12: Matthew 23 -37. So anyway, when
32:18: I had my opportunity for rebuttal, I again refocused everything, and I said, okay, as I told you, what he's doing is he's looking at Matthew 645, and he's reading things backwards.
32:33: I had a guy on Twitter today who says he has an MDiv, who asked me to identify the source of the rule that says that you should interpret a passage in the order in which it was written.
32:48: I almost took his tweet and read it back to him backwards to see if he appreciated that, you know, because he obviously sent the tweet to me assuming
32:58: I would start the first word and read the last word and let the words have their natural meaning to one another while asking me why we should do that.
33:11: I don't even know what to say. What, what, what can you say in a situation like that?
33:17: I, I, I don't know. Anyway, so, uh, I, I again pointed out that John 645 is the sentence following John 644, and obviously, um, what you have in 645 is
33:44: Jesus showing us that the Hebrew Scriptures had already indicated that what he was teaching right now about his centrality and about the, um, witness of the
34:03: Father to him as the bread of life is contained prophetically in the
34:10: Scriptures. So, it says, they shall all be taught by God.
34:17: So, right here, um, future by me, they shall, pontes deductoi theiou.
34:28: Okay, theiou is in the genitive, uh, if you were taught 8k's genitive ablative, but the genitive here obviously is means, um, agency, um,
34:40: God is the one who is teaching. Now, deductoi is a, um, adjective.
34:46: So, it's the taught ones, and they are taught by God.
34:54: This is verse 45's explanation of helkusei altan, hapemsasme helkusei altan, the one who sent me draws him.
35:08: That is taught by God. Just, if you follow it down, because what's the result?
35:18: Everyone who is drawn in verse 44 is raised up in the last day by Jesus, and I, anastaso, future,
35:30: Jesus, I will raise him up on the last day, and we've already, we had already worked through 637 following, where you have all the father gives him, you'll come to me.
35:42: When it comes to me, I'll never cast out, and that results in all the given to me by the father,
35:48: I raise up in the last day. So, coming to me, being raised up the last day, they are the same thing. This has already been established before that, and Leighton did not argue any of that.
35:56: He agreed with that. So, they shall all be taught by God.
36:03: Pontus, all. What all? Well, in Isaiah 54, Jeremiah 31, it's the new covenant people.
36:09: Those who are forgiven. It's the elect. In verse 44, no one has the ability to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise up in the last day.
36:19: We already had verses 37 following. There's some specific people that the father gives to the son.
36:25: When you're given the son, you come to the son. That's why you come to the son. So, they shall all be taught by God is the same thing as they all,
36:38: God's elect people, they all who are drawn by the father to the son, raised up in the last day by the son, come to Jesus.
36:49: Then, I pointed out that you have Pontus, they shall all be taught by God, and then you have
36:58: Pascha accusas. Now, a couple things happen. Again, I wrote on Twitter about this, but not everybody does
37:06: Twitter. I get it. I pointed out that there is an assumption being read into this text by our provisionist friends that the fundamental meaning of these words, so you have didaktoi, taught, you have accusas, from accuo, to hear, and you have manthano, to teach, of which you get mathetes, disciples, so on and so forth.
37:45: Each of these terms refers to passive reception of something from outside of oneself.
37:54: You could argue that someone is learning in the sense of, well, we had the roof problem on the
38:07: RV, so you're learning how to get hold of mobile repairmen real quick when you have an
38:14: RV that you're actually using and moving from one place to another. That's a way of learning something.
38:30: Sorry, Rich, I can't do that without stopping the program. It's supposed to be in the presets, so we'll have to fix that in the presets, but I have no way of doing that while I've got stuff on the screen.
38:42: It's just impossible. Anyway, my wife, I think, was asking for a link, so maybe my wife wants to watch or something like that, or just not catching up.
38:52: Maybe someone can help with that. Anyway, so you can come up with some context, but in this context in John 6, this is
39:03: God actively bringing about something, teaching, which is the same as drawing, and you have the one hearing and the one learning.
39:15: Hearing comes from outside. Learning, the data is coming from outside, and so I had emphasized this because these are efficient and effective acts of God.
39:31: God is the one who causes someone to hear. God is the one who causes someone to learn, but the synergist has to say, oh no,
39:41: God can try, and that's why he goes to Jeremiah chapter 32 and the places where God complains.
39:47: I have extended my hands to these people, and I have taught them, and they've refused.
39:52: They've stiffened their necks and their backs, and so they go to those sections where God is dealing with Israel, and it's a demonstration of what the uncircumcised heart does, and takes those to be the general application, rather than the places where God has capacity.
40:15: Isn't it interesting that this is right after verse 44? No one is able to come to me.
40:20: The inabilities of man, followed by the provisionist interpretation verse 45, the abilities of man.
40:26: There you go. That's consistent with provisionist eisegesis, but anyway, and so I had talked about the passive taking in of knowledge, taking hearing, so on and so forth.
40:41: In his final statement, in his closing statement, he attempted to undercut that observation by first erroneously identifying hearing and learning as passive verbs, and then catching himself going, no, no, no, they'd have to be passive.
41:01: They're active verbs. They'd have to be passive for White's assertions to be true. I only had the opportunity during one of the,
41:13: I think it was 32nd audience Q &A sections, to just throw out a correction, and so that's why
41:25: I provided the thing earlier today on Twitter. These are participles, and if you don't read
41:34: Greek, I understand how you could miss that. If you're just putting your cursor on something, you see a heiress active, and say, ah, active, got him.
41:46: Got to read a little bit farther down, participle, masculine, and once you go into participle, the time emphasis and issues of aspect and stuff change when you go into the realm of participles, especially when you have a substantival participle, and again, if you don't read the language, if you don't regularly read
42:15: Greek, okay, I regularly read Greek. If all I was doing was teaching
42:20: Greek, I'd read it better than I currently do, but I don't just teach
42:25: Greek right now, and I'm having to read all sorts of other stuff in the process, and so there you go, but I've taught
42:35: Greek for years and years and years. I did all of my, everything I read in that debate,
42:40: I translated live during the debate. Layton Flowers can't do that, and I don't know more than two or three other people actively involved in doing debating anywhere who could.
42:53: That's a fact, and so when I'm reading, and if you're going to read something to where you're actually reading the text, you have to have the ability to parse on the fly and rearrange, because Greek word order is not anywhere near English word order very often.
43:13: Rearrange things so that you're providing somewhat of a consistent understandable translation, so a person who doesn't know the language, they look at this right here, let me scroll this up here, right here, ha akousas, all right, and they're looking at this, and they see aristactive, and oh, you know, they don't even see this.
43:44: They don't see why this is, because that's just the, the, so you don't get it unless you read the language.
43:50: When you read the language, you see the sas ending on akuo, and so you know how eris participles are formed with the second sigma alpha, and then you see the article, and that article is often your friend when you're first learning
44:06: Greek, because some of the participial forms will, especially eris and things like that, become strange, and the form of the article becomes a real help to you, because that's a nominative singular, ha, and so, you know, that you don't necessarily have to necessarily memorize all of your eris participial endings real clearly to, to go, oh, okay, the one hearing.
44:39: You can't read the Gospel of John without encountering the one believing, the one seeing, the one hearing.
44:49: It's constant. It's constant. You can't be dealing with this text if you can't recognize these things, and so, likewise, that article right there, right, right there, is also functioning for this participle right here, the one learning, so para, paratupatras is a descriptive phrase, a prepositional phrase, hearing from the
45:22: Father just as taught by God, and learning, and you could, you could, you could expand the translation out, the one hearing from the
45:32: Father and learning from the Father. If you wanted to do that, you could do that. That would be perfectly proper, be a little bit stilted, but you could do that, so that article is also functioning with this participle right here, so what
45:46: Leighton did in his closing is he gets up and he goes, ah, these are active verbs.
45:52: They're not passive. He has not understood what I've even been talking about, about the lexical meaning, so something called semantic domains.
46:01: When you study lexicography and how lexicons are produced and how you, how you look at the use of terms in language over time in different ancient languages, well, modern languages too, obviously, the meaning of a word has a semantic domain, and within that, you can have different nuances, and so hearing something coming to you from outside, learning something coming to you from outside, this was the past.
46:37: It had nothing to do with verbal aspects, had nothing to do with parsing it. It had to do with the meaning, so he tried to come back with, oh, it's active, so it would have to be passive, wouldn't have anything to do with it, has nothing to do with it at all, and he doesn't see that, you know, if you're going to make any distinction between they shall all be taught of God and then everyone hearing from the
47:07: Father and learning comes to me, it's just this, just as up above, so for example, let's, let's scroll up here to, yeah,
47:16: John 640, and this is the will of my Father, oh, got to put it up there, and this is the will of my
47:22: Father, in order that, what's their own?
47:33: Again, present active participle, masculine what? Masculine singular, there's ha, so the one looking upon the sun, gazing upon the sun, and believing, so again, one article functioning with two participles, and believing in him will have eternal life.
47:55: Now, is it possible that the distinction between present active participle and aorist active participle could have some exegetical significance in this section of John?
48:13: Could have a debate about this. I think the fact that he does, the author does differentiate, means we do have to consider it.
48:22: I've always believed that thearon and pistuon, especially pistuon in the Gospel of John, the present tense utilization of that singular, nominative, masculine, some type of participle, is emphasizing the nature of faith, because when you don't have the present being used in John, when he switches the aorist and once in a pluperfect, in both those it's a false faith, and so I think you can make the argument, at least in John.
48:54: The big thing today in New Testament syntax, really over the past 20 years, has been a de -emphasis in regards to what's really being there in the present versus the aorist.
49:14: Today the aorist is just the simple action. I was taught it was primarily a past action.
49:20: Now it's just simple action. So there's been some shifts, and I like to let a few generations go by before something becomes really axiomatic, partly because to get published you have to come up with new stuff, and that doesn't necessarily mean that it's right stuff, and correction takes place over time, so we'll see.
49:42: But anyway, the point is, you can't do John. You can't even pretend to do
49:51: John if you don't know what a substantival participle is, and how it functions here.
49:58: And so go back to verse 45. What you could understand this as is, here you have, they shall all.
50:07: Here's the all. Here's all that the Father gives the Son. All that are drawn by the Father to the
50:12: Son. Here's the all. They're all taught by God. That's the drawing. That's the effect of power.
50:19: And so you could look at pas ha accusas. So now you've switched from pontes, masculine plural, to pas, masculine singular.
50:31: So this could be the application. So just as up above, a group, using a neuter, wrapping up the group.
50:43: A group is given to the Son, and then he raises each one of the group up on the last day.
50:51: Here you have, a group is taught by God, drawn by the Father to the Son, and the result of that is that every single one who hears from the
51:02: Father and learns from the Father, that's, there's, there's God. Theu, right there, is coming to me.
51:12: All the Father gives me will come to me. Everyone hearing and learning from the
51:17: Father comes to me. Perfectly consistent. Perfectly harmonious.
51:26: Layton comes along and says, well, this is actually Israel here being taught by God, and then it's whoever in Israel, because I never,
51:33: I didn't understand. I was really asking honest questions because I don't think there's anything coherent in his application here, because again, one of the things he emphasized at the end of the debate was
51:45: God is hardening these people so the crucifixion can take place. Well, I'm not sure how many people in the synagogue in Capernaum were actually, you know, down in Jerusalem saying crucify him.
51:59: You know, well, that's why he always talked to them in parables, because he didn't want anybody to understand, except there were some people who did.
52:10: Eleven of the disciples sort of did, but you had Mary and Martha and Lazarus and, and I think
52:15: Nicodemus hopefully got the message at some point or another, but, you know, that's why
52:22: I asked him at some point, so is John 6 44 still relevant today? Well, yeah, no one can come to the
52:27: Son unless granted by the Father, but the only people that the Father can give to the
52:33: Son are those who've already come to the Father. So it's still man's choice, ultimately, in all of these things, and I don't,
52:40: I don't really, I don't know how this applies today, because he put a book out,
52:47: The Drawing of Jesus, based on John 12 32, which is about Jews and Gentiles, and he made some application, how it's coherent or consistent,
52:59: I'm not going to comment right now. So I asked him, because he makes a distinction right here, see this, where the, where my cursor is there, right before pause, he's saying this is one group, and this is a completely different group here.
53:15: So he divides 6 45 up right there, and I pressed him.
53:22: I ignored all the canards and the red herrings and the let's talk about this, and let's talk about that, and let's go over here, and let's make this just a big thing about Calvinism, and not
53:34: John 6. I ignored all that laser beam time, and that's where he didn't have answers, and that's where that clip came from.
53:46: So if verse 45 actually comes after verse 44, yes, that was meant, that snarky comment was meant to communicate something.
53:55: If that is the relationship between these verses, and if these are actually expressions of divine power, that there is a teaching by God of all the people he draws to the sun, so that everyone who experiences that, hears and learns from the
54:23: Father, that's being taught by God, same thing. If those are actually divine actions that are accomplished by God, what would that do to your system?
54:34: He'd say, you'd be right. Debate's over, because if he says, you'd be right, then he had better have an exegetical, consistent argument to refute what
54:46: I just said, and he had nothing. Nothing there, nothing there, and so I could just tell, you know, they had had the discussion.
55:01: Don't get into the text like that. Well, you can't, you can't help it. You have to.
55:08: You've got to get into the text. You can't be running around all over the place, which, you know, during his cross -examination, he did.
55:15: So there. Ah, ta -da.
55:23: All right, that's cool. Yeah, I don't think
55:29: I can do that from here. Anyway, to put this back down to regular here. So, wow, $6 .55.
55:36: All right. I didn't get my one -string banjo, which, if you saw the opening,
55:45: I wouldn't have accepted it anyways. I may look for one myself, though. Though, to be honest with you, my feeling right now, when
55:53: I left, oh, I should mention, a lot of people did catch this.
55:59: One of the audience questions was, can you, and it was addressed to Leighton, can you call conversion a miracle?
56:12: And he couldn't. He talked about all sorts of stuff that surrounded it, that were acts of grace and things like that, but he couldn't call conversion a miracle.
56:23: And, of course, I only had 30 seconds, but I'm like, take out a heart of stone and give it a heart of flesh.
56:28: That is absolutely a miracle. You absolutely have to believe that. Everybody in here knows. Everybody in here who's a follower of Christ knows that their conversion was miraculous.
56:36: But if you believe everyone has that capacity and power and fundamentally do not believe that there is a necessity of extension of specific grace to bring that about, that really, that was telling.
56:51: That was very, very telling. And so, the church has the participants go into two other rooms in other parts of the building to meet and greet, take pictures, sign books, get really cool gifts.
57:14: And so, I sort of saw him. I went off the stage one direction and was joined up by Rudy Jabouri.
57:24: Rudy and his family sort of take care of me. They just brought me chewies for dinner. Very, very appreciative of that.
57:32: And they take care of me while I'm here in Houston. They used to be members of PRVC years and years ago back in Phoenix.
57:39: And Rudy's an Assyrian. And he's made a reference to the Assyrians. I tried to find other funny ways to work the
57:46: Assyrians into the debate just to take shots at Rudy. Because Assyrians were once in control of everything and now they're not really in control of anything at all.
58:00: So, anyway, but I'm walking with Rudy. Wonderful guy. Great family.
58:07: And I say to him, I say, um, if you ever hear me in the future giving consideration to debating
58:19: Leighton Flowers again, I'm asking you to punch me in the nose. And I said the same thing to Rich.
58:26: And Rich even said, yeah, you know, when I heard you were thinking about doing this, I was like, do you remember what you said last time?
58:35: And it's been a number of years. I think that was 2015. And so it's been, you know, eight and a half years.
58:44: No, eight and a half. Yeah, eight and a half years. Because I think it was during the summer. And I do have a recollection of afterwards going, oh, gosh, never again.
58:56: Don't put yourself through that. And don't put the audience through that.
59:03: And I don't know what happened. I may blame Evan for that.
59:10: He may have talked me into it. I don't know. But it was just so plain to me that it was, this was, it wouldn't have mattered, again, what the text was.
59:25: His intention in every debate is simply to give vent and expression to his detestation of Reformed theology,
59:38: Calvinism, whatever else you might want to call it. And he just has a, his detestation has only increased since 2015.
59:49: And that's why I think he was, now, I think he was under pressure last night. He just announced that he's leaving the position he had with the liberal
59:57: Baptists in Texas. And he's going to be doing Soteriology 101 full time.
01:00:05: You know, I know he teaches for Trinity, but, you know, that's a really small school. And you have small classes, you don't really make enough to live on doing something like that.
01:00:12: So I'm sure this other had been an important part of that. And so he needs support, that means he's under pressure.
01:00:21: Would that explain the yelling and the fast talking and the that everybody got?
01:00:27: Because I did see one guy saying, white seemed to be really low energy. Well, I suppose in a sense,
01:00:34: I mean, I have been hospitalized recently, but I don't think it was low energy.
01:00:42: What happens in a debate when my opponent starts losing it? And this happened in the first debate that I did in August of 1990, when
01:00:51: Jerry Madetich started getting crazy in that debate, because I wasn't doing what his previous opponents had done.
01:01:01: I am naturally wired by God to become more calm and more focused.
01:01:09: And as I see it, I'm just giving him more rope. You want to start tying yourself up?
01:01:15: Um, okay, I'm not gonna get in the way. I'll let you let you fly off the handle and run off the rails or whatever terminology you want to use.
01:01:27: That's what you want to do. Okay, well, we'll let you do it. And that's just the way I am. And that's what
01:01:33: I did. And so why should I try to talk as fast as him? Why should
01:01:39: I even, uh, why should I grant legitimacy to all the wild and crazy stuff that he's going after?
01:01:48: Uh, when the only people I'm there to debate for are the people who are going to seriously consider the topic of the debate and who has handled the scriptures consistently.
01:01:59: But why, why else do anything? Why do anything else? I don't know. I don't know.
01:02:05: So, um, so there you go. Um, fascinating evening.
01:02:10: Now, um, one little thing, I just heard a gust of wind go by. So I heard stuff moving.
01:02:16: Just so y 'all know, I should let everybody know, um, it's fixed.
01:02:22: Um, there is a nice, I'm wondering if it may not end up being permanent, um, patch, a real good patch job up there, um, with even thicker rubber, uh, than had before.
01:02:39: And, uh, we've already had rain and stuff and we're, we're good. Um, I'll let you know that was a $900 repair on the roof.
01:02:47: Um, but I'm awful glad there was someone who'd come out here and do it fast because I would say it was raining within three hours of when they finished.
01:02:57: And I could show you the pictures. It was down to the wood. That would not have been good for the unit to have been exposed to that weather.
01:03:04: So, uh, we did get that taken care of. And, um, I'm very, very thankful for that. One other thing
01:03:10: I did want to do before we, uh, wrap stuff up here, as long as Rich tells me that the stream is still,
01:03:17: I'm not seeing, I'm not seeing any cash, um, uh, go by.
01:03:22: So I, I guess we're, we've got a good, uh, connection, uh, going on here. Um, is
01:03:28: I wanted to, um, go ahead. And I'd said last time that a couple of times in the, um, it's good.
01:03:41: All right. Um, wow. We got a lot of people listening today too.
01:03:46: Nice to have all you provisionists with us here hung over today. Interesting.
01:03:57: I know we're gonna have to have a conversation, Rich. I'm wondering if it's being later in the evening. I really wonder.
01:04:05: Uh, we've, we've had, um, a lot of people, uh, much, much more live viewing the last two dividing lines than we normally have because we normally do them more during the day and people then watch it another time, but I'm wondering, uh, maybe evening time's the time to do it.
01:04:27: Um, oh, um, okay.
01:04:47: Rich is, I am being given instructions. Um, oh, okay.
01:04:55: I'm being given lots of instructions, which is somewhat distracting. Anyway, I didn't know that those, okay.
01:05:02: I will, um, I don't have anything else to play, but I'll keep that in mind now.
01:05:08: Uh, I thought I had to go into the ATEM thing in here and if I've got something on the screen, I can't, I've only got one screen, uh, can't do it that way.
01:05:15: Um, so yeah, we'll see. Anyway, Chris Fisher. Um, and, so we're still doing the debate thing here.
01:05:25: Oh, by the way, um, I did tweet, uh, last night that, um, the debate here in Houston was significantly more interesting than the doddering old man giving a speech in Washington, D .C.
01:05:41: Um, and that I think was unquestionable. I think that, that was, yeah, that was, that was true.
01:05:48: What a mess that was. What a, oh, and that man's soul has been sold to the culture of death.
01:05:55: Oh, it's horrible. Just horrible. Uh, we'll go into that right now. Uh, one, one thing
01:06:00: I will do since I have it up and I mentioned it last time and before I forget it, we'll just go ahead and do this. Um, in that debate, uh,
01:06:09: Matt Slick, Chris Fisher, um, I don't remember if Chris Fisher tried to preemptively do this or, or, or just what.
01:06:21: Um, but at least three or four times, at least three or four times, um, it came up that Matt Slick would probably quote, or did quote from,
01:06:36: I think he did quote from at some point, um, 1 John 3 20. And here's 1
01:06:44: John 3 20, uh, 3 19. And by this, we will know that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before him in whatever our heart condemns us for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
01:06:58: So because my zone, Estin Hatheas, Teis Cardias Haemon, Kai Ganoski Ponta.
01:07:05: So there is the promise here that God by his spirit will assure our heart before him of the truth.
01:07:19: This again, primarily in the context of, um, those who've gone out, uh, the, we might call them proto -gnostics, those who were denying that Christ came to flesh.
01:07:30: Um, so this is causing division and, uh, will assure our heart before him in whatever our heart condemns us for God is greater, my zone, uh,
01:07:43: Hatheas God, Teis Cardias Haemon, than our heart. Kai Ganoski Ponta and knows all things.
01:07:54: Now you can, you can say, you know, contextually, is this meant to be an overarching theological statement that God knows all things?
01:08:11: Or is this a statement that assumes that that's already a given from the old
01:08:21: Testament text, from, from the teachings of the prophets, from the teachings of Jesus, and hence is being stated that God knows the truth and God can assure our hearts he's greater than our heart in whatever condemns us because God knows all things.
01:08:40: He knows our hearts, but he knows the truth. God knows all things. Is, is that what's being said there?
01:08:47: Or is there something in the text, could you argue that, well, it's, it's only saying that God knows,
01:08:54: I mean, it says, it says Ponta. It's right there. God knows all things about mankind, um, all things about men's hearts.
01:09:04: That's really problematic for an open theist to say, because that's the one area where an open theist says
01:09:09: God doesn't know, at least the open theists that are published, uh, and have taught and things like that.
01:09:20: Um, you know, Sanders, certainly his whole thesis was God knows all natural knowledge of things he's going to do in his own creation, but he doesn't know what free moral agents are going to do.
01:09:31: That's, that's the, at least the most basic assertion of the open theist.
01:09:37: I don't think it works, but that's the idea. So the response that Fisher gave was to pop up to 1st
01:09:50: John 2 .20. And he tells this story. He told the story. I think he told the story in the debate, and I know he told it more fully, uh, in the after program thing where, uh,
01:10:07: I guess there was some communication or something. Um, I, I think it was with the
01:10:16: Will Kinney guy. I don't, I don't know. I don't remember what the context was anyway. Um, where Chris Fisher had said to Matt Slick, well, 1st
01:10:29: John 2 .20 says mankind knows all things. And Matt had gone to, you know, he looks it up in the
01:10:42: Bible. Um, and it says, but you have an anointing from the
01:10:47: Holy One and you all know. It says it doesn't know all things as well. It's a, it's the
01:10:52: Byzantine reading. And he says that Matt kept looking at English translations, not knowing that, you know,
01:10:59: Byzantine reading is different than the critical text reading or whatever else it might be. That was the story that was told a couple of different ways,
01:11:09: I think during the debate and then repeated in the after show. So here's the variant.
01:11:17: So kai oidate, notice it's different than Gnosko, probably not a super significant thing, but should be looked at.
01:11:26: Uh, they are frequently used as synonyms and here's Pontus is the critical text reading.
01:11:34: Um, but you'll see that the variant, and I don't really think that you could probably see that it does display up there, uh, over on the right hand side, uh, is
01:11:43: Ponta. Um, and so that'd be the difference between and you all know
01:11:50: Pontus versus Ponta and you know all things.
01:11:56: So it's different between the nominative and accusative. Now, um, there's a number of minuscules and when you got 1739, 1881, that's, um, not, um, insignificant.
01:12:12: I didn't, and I should have, um, maybe I'll remember to do it.
01:12:18: Maybe I won't. I've got a debate tomorrow night, but, um, I should have looked this up because I'm, is 1st
01:12:28: John done in CBGM? Was that in the general epistles or is that in the Johannine literature? I'd have to look.
01:12:34: I don't remember off the top of my head. I would like to see what the CBGM databases have on it.
01:12:40: Um, but you've got Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, um, a few early translations and Jerome, uh, that all have
01:12:50: Pontus and the, the difference, the, the, the meaning difference is look at, look at the context.
01:12:59: Um, it's 219, 20. They went out from us, but they're not really of us.
01:13:05: This is talking about the Antichrist, the Protonostics.
01:13:12: Um, they've gone out from us. If they were of us, they would have remained as they went out. So it might manifest. They're not all of us, but you have an anointing from the
01:13:19: Holy one. And so, you know, you know who the Antichrists are, you know who
01:13:25: Christ is. And so, you know, so if it's, if the critical text, if, if it's
01:13:34: Pontus rather than Ponti, and obviously they're, you know, just different case forms, the same underlying term.
01:13:43: If the critical text reading is right, then what's saying is, is, is basically denying that there is some kind of special secret knowledge that they then, that the other people were claiming that the people who went out from them were claiming for themselves.
01:13:57: We have a secret knowledge. That's why we've gone out. You all need to follow us because we have this secret knowledge. That's the Gnosis, Gnosticism, so on and so forth.
01:14:06: But if it is Ponta, if, if you have, um, the, um,
01:14:15: Byzantine reading of Alexandrinus and, uh, again, well 33, that's an important, it's important manuscript.
01:14:26: Um, then is that parallel to first John, um, three, what we just looked at where it says
01:14:37: God knows all things. And the answer is no, this would not be a claim to omniscience on the part of human beings.
01:14:44: Every time that Chris Fisher said that, I'm like, what is he talking about? It's not saying, you know, everything.
01:14:53: It's saying that you know, because of the Chrisma. And he kept saying, well, you have to argue contextually.
01:14:59: Okay. Contextually, you have a Chrisma from Tuhagiu, from the
01:15:07: Holy One. That Chrisma is not omniscience.
01:15:14: That's absurd. That, that is, that is the last possible reading of the text.
01:15:21: It would be saying, you know, who Christ is, you know, who those in the fellowship are and are not in the fellowship because you have anointing from the spirit that is not, that has nothing to do with omniscience.
01:15:36: And I'm just like, I really wonder what's the motivations of someone that would make that kind of wild, wacky assertion other than, well, it works, works real good in, uh, online debates because nobody knows what
01:15:54: I'm talking about. Okay. But he kept saying, well, you have to make a contextual argument.
01:16:00: Okay. The context says that's stupid. You have a Chrisma from the Holy One. That's not a claim of omniscience.
01:16:07: There, there is no parallel between the two. So I just thought it would be useful to address that while we had, uh,
01:16:17: Accordance up and, uh, could pop it up there and, and accomplish something in the process.
01:16:22: So tomorrow night, um, if you're asking, how am
01:16:27: I feeling? Um, no,
01:16:34: I'm, I'm going to be there. Um, and I'm looking forward to it. Um, it's gonna be a whole new, last night,
01:16:44: Reformed people were not in the majority in the audience, in the room. Um, Evan estimated it was about 55, 45 for the provisionists.
01:16:53: They did not seem overly happy in the room last night. I, I, I'll mention that. Um, I can't imagine that there are all that many
01:17:03: Unitarians that are going to be showing up tomorrow night. Could be wrong. Uh, I've certainly seen them show up in other contexts.
01:17:09: So for Dale Tuggy, they may, um, I haven't, I haven't seen any online chatter, but, um, for Unitarians, this is a big one.
01:17:21: Um, so we'll see. We will see. And, uh, hopefully
01:17:27: I sleep well this evening and, um, Lord's been gracious to me in, in four debates so far.
01:17:36: And so your prayers will be appreciated. And, uh, we hope that God's truth will be vindicated and made very clear.
01:17:45: Um, I will tell you right now what's going to happen. Um, I will present, um, a biblical argument that the
01:17:55: New Testament writers purposefully and intentionally identified Jesus as Yahweh.
01:18:01: They are not identifying him as the Father. They're not identifying him as the Spirit. Uh, but they do identify him as Yahweh.
01:18:11: They use texts to identify him as Yahweh, not merely representationally, but functionally and ontologically.
01:18:19: And that whatever we do with that, our philosophical categories and theologies have to be big enough to allow for everything that the
01:18:27: Bible teaches. Um, his response is going to be what his response always is.
01:18:35: Dale Tuggy does not believe in the incarnation. He does not allow incarnational categories to fit into his, um, sophistry, his philosophical argumentation, which begins, whether he wants to admit it or not, begins with the assumption that Yahweh has to be
01:18:59: Unitarian. Yahweh is just one person because Yahweh speaks as one person. Therefore he must be one person.
01:19:05: So it doesn't matter what the rest of the Bible says. And I hope that he will attempt to provide some kind of in -depth counter -exegesis, but my intention is, again, outside of the presentation,
01:19:26: I don't have printed out notes. I don't read from a manuscript. Um, I'm gonna do the same thing
01:19:32: I did last night. I'm gonna set up my iPad. I'm gonna have to bring this computer tomorrow night to do the projection.
01:19:40: Um, but I'll probably close it up after that. Set up the iPad, um, and start working through the key texts.
01:19:49: And for me, it's exegesis. For me, it's the text.
01:19:55: For me, it's what God has said in his word. And so my prediction is my cross -examination period will be textually focused on the original languages, on Hebrew, on Greek.
01:20:08: And his cross -examination will be, how can Jesus be God if God doesn't die and Jesus died?
01:20:15: You're gonna hear that. I can tell you that right now. You're gonna hear that. And it's just like talking to a
01:20:22: Muslim. It's just like talking to a Muslim. So there you go.
01:20:30: That's, uh, that's what's gonna happen. Um, and it'll be significant and hopefully very, very useful to everybody.
01:20:39: And then I, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a day of rest. Um, I want to get home.
01:20:46: And so part of me just wants to head out as quickly as possible.
01:20:54: But I also want to get home. And after doing two debates like this,
01:21:01: I think it would be good. Give the body a rest, get some extra sleep, get a nice long nap. It's a beautiful lake out here.
01:21:08: Take a few walks. Okay. Suck in 14 pounds of pollen.
01:21:17: Poppin, poppin antihistamines. See, I told you, man.
01:21:26: Um, anyway, and then I'm gonna get home and, um, see my kitties, the ones
01:21:33: I have left anyways. Um, and, uh, Kelly tells me that, uh,
01:21:38: Sophie especially, uh, listened to the entire debate last night. And I told you,
01:21:44: Sophie's a tortie. And, um, I adopted her last year and, and, um, she's now obviously fallen in love with my wife too.
01:21:54: And I'm very thankful for that. I really hoped that that would happen. Um, when torties decide they're gonna love you, they're gonna love you the rest of their life.
01:22:05: They're, they're, they're, that's the way they are. And I'm really looking forward to, uh, getting to cuddle with her and Dini and, and, uh,
01:22:12: Miss, Miss Coper. Um, but, uh, have, have wonderful memories of him and, uh, but get home.
01:22:19: And, um, who knows? I don't know what Jeff's schedule is, but I, I, I could be up on Sunday.
01:22:30: Who knows? We'll see. It would be fitting, wouldn't it? Uh, the way this, uh, this whole trip has gone. Um, but, um, yeah, uh, first appreciated for the long drive back, uh, safety, rest, recovery.
01:22:45: Um, because I'm heading to Louisiana at the end of April. I wish I could give you an announcement.
01:22:51: We gave people till today to get their act together, quit playing around and make a commitment as to whether we're going to have some debates there or not.
01:23:03: And now we've been told Monday and I, I and the pastor have agreed. That's it. There is nothing beyond that.
01:23:10: That if, if, if we, if they keep playing games on Monday, okay, we're done.
01:23:17: We tried. So we'll see. We'll see what happened. I mean, the debates would be useful, but you have to have somebody you can actually work with.
01:23:25: And we've been doing it. We've been trying for months and there's just no, there's no excuse.
01:23:31: There's no reason for it. There really isn't. It's just silly, but anyway, so much, much coming, uh, in the future.
01:23:40: Need your support. Um, appreciate your support. This is support.
01:23:46: Uh, thank you very, very much. Uh, I know not everybody can, has the machine shop to do something like that.
01:23:53: Um, but I really, really appreciate that. And, um, uh, we appreciate your support for the travel fund, travel funds, how we do this, how we have money to repair the roof.
01:24:06: Um, when something goes wrong, um, while you're on the road and, uh, we really appreciate and to do this wonderful studio, which you all made available and everybody who sees it when
01:24:18: I travel, they're just astonished that the bedroom of this unit is actually a two camera, 4k studio.
01:24:25: It is a two camera. I know, I know. I, I never, I feel sorry for this camera.
01:24:32: We don't use it enough. Um, but I, I have to look like this to my computer if I'm using that camera.
01:24:38: So it's sort of how it works. Obviously we had a guest in here.
01:24:43: We'd end up using that one and we'd stick them over there and things like that. Anyhow. All right.
01:24:48: Thanks for watching the program. I, I I'm sitting here yammering away and haven't, hadn't even queued up, uh, queued up how to get out of here.
01:24:57: Uh, and that's like, that is how we get out of here. And I appreciate your watching.