Should Grape Juice Be Served in a Sippy Cup for Communion?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Gabriel Wrench, co-host of CrossPolitik, as we answer the age-old question, should grape juice be served in a sippy cup during communion?

So like I said, we've got Gabriel here joining us from CrossPolitik, and so before we really dive into this question, and sort of the spirited discussion, I would say, that's been going on online for a few weeks now around communion, and should you use wine, should you use grape juice, Gabriel, why don't you take just a second and tell us a little bit more about you for those who are listening, who maybe haven't seen a lot of your stuff before?

Yeah, certainly, thanks for having me on, guys, appreciate it. I'm gonna start here, because I grew up in Texas, so I'm a southern boy heart, love the humid nights and the lightning bugs, okay, but now I moved up to Oregon in 97, my dad was a pipe fitter, fab worker at Texas Instruments in Texas, and then went to College of California, and then ended up in Idaho, so now I live in northern Idaho.

I basically am the business guy behind CrossPolitik, which is our TV show and podcast, we're on DirecTV and Xfinity also, and then I run our conference, if anybody knows or ever been to our conferences, so I run the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, Fight, Laugh, Feast is our tagline, we came up with that tagline because we believe Christians need to fight together, feast together, and laugh together, and that's been something that I don't think the church has done very well over this last 40 years, I was born in 1979, so I kind of categorize everything on my experience in the church these last 40 years, and so we have a conference called the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, and this year it's in Fort Worth, Barbecue, Promised Land, and it's on Prodigal America, ProdigalAmerica .com, where does America need to repent, is kind of the theme of the topic, so I'm really excited kind of about what God's doing there, and then I'm an entrepreneur, I run a podcast hosting business, which if you guys aren't hosting on my platform, your podcast is probably gonna be canceled, so I run a podcast hosting business, and I run a public relations agency on top of everything that I do, so, and I coach my, I gotta say this, I coach my girls basketball team at.

School, that's probably my funnest thing I do. You know, I was about to say too, because you're just ragging on me for liking football and not liking basketball before we started the episode, and then I thought you weren't even gonna bring up basketball.

So, one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on was because of your recent infamous tweet, and really, I mean, it kind of reminded me of the Baptist, do Baptist cause transgenderism kind of discussion, and so there was a similar internet meltdown related to that, that I know that you, I don't, that was Farley that said that, that wasn't you that said that, but then I'm sure that you fielded some of the heat related to that, but it was a similar kind of thing, and I'm gonna go and read the tweet that you said, and then elaborate a little bit on the reaction there, which was a little bit interesting to me, but you basically said, how many masculine men emphasize scare quotes, sit under pastors who serve them grape juice for communion, might as well serve them a baby bottle with a nipple and milk in it, and yeah, I mean, so the internet, I mean, it basically collectively lost its mind on this one, and it's funny, because, you know, Harrison and I, we're both Baptist, and we actually serve grape juice for communion at our church, and so with both of these things, I mean, with both of these events, with the do Baptist cause transgenderism, and we're not going to really talk about that, but we could talk about that if you want, yeah, but I mean, with both of them, what was funny to me is that I didn't take offense to either one of them, I just, I mean, I understood where you guys were coming from, considering that you're post-millennial and all that, with the do Baptist cause transgenderism kind of conversation, and I disagreed with it, but then I could understand the logic, I can understand how you get there, and then with this one, I can also understand the logic and how you get there, even though I'm not fully persuaded that that's right, but then in both cases, I didn't really take offense to it, so part of how we wanted to start was I wanted to get your take on, like, why do you think that so many people were so predisposed to, you know, light their beards on fire and, you know, burn down the.

Internet because of this one? Yeah, a couple things there, for one, I do want to point out that we're equal opportunists, like, I can't tell you how many times we've gone after Presbyterians and our own people on our show, so when we say Baptists are responsible for transgender, I've said on our show, Presbyterians who wear robes and the pulpit are responsible for the gay revoice movement, so, you know, I don't want to act like we're just like, well, we only wanted to go after Baptists and they're what we think are, they're since connected to some of their theology.

Now, this tweet was after, part of the context of the tweet too was, you know, Kevin DeYoung just kind of came after us and the Moscow Mood, did you guys read Kevin DeYoung's article? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and he kind of coined the term Moscow Mood, which has turned into its own thing, which has been pretty funny too, but my tweet was actually more in context of that, so Kevin DeYoung came after Moscow for largely kind of our serrated edge theology is what we call it, kind of using the punchier and kickier verses and scripture and employing it on our culture, that's what kind of one of the things Moscow's known for is kind of like what's been coined as the serrated edge, you know, so taking Ezekiel, taking Paul, taking Elijah, taking Jesus and kind of taking some of their harder rebuking edgy rebukes and we've kind of embodied that here in Moscow and used it on our culture, the church and so forth.

So Kevin DeYoung kind of came after us for our serrated edge and called it in a couple of things in context there and kind of coined the term Moscow Mood to describe what we're doing and there's a certain mood to Moscow, but it got me thinking.

The fight left, the fighting part. Yeah, the fight left, the fighting part, that's a good way to, yeah, that's great and so it kind of got me thinking and part of like the problem with Kevin DeYoung kind of, I've gone to Kevin DeYoung, he has a regional conference up in Washington, five, six years ago I went to, I met him there, I talked to him, you know, so I've sat under Kevin DeYoung's teaching, I've read his book, it was The Hole in Holiness or whatever and so I've liked Kevin DeYoung's writings and theology, but he came after us for this particular issue and but has refused himself to, he's still on the gospel coalitions author list, he's still, he's on the council at the gospel coalition, he's, the PCA has dealt with revoice for, you know, five years or something, six years, where the cross-politics was one that blew the lid off the revoice thing, not Kevin.

Now Kevin has, to his credit, he has written some good things on revoice, so I'm not, but like he's kind of refused to kind of hold his own ranks.

Accountable and then he doesn't come after us. Yeah, he doesn't, like I haven't seen any, you know, strident articles about all of Brett McCracken's, yeah, movie reviews with all the language and the swear words and everything else that are in there.

So that was, so that got me thinking though about Kevin DeYoung and so I was actually, my comments were more directed at Presbyterian than probably anybody and then so I said, Kevin, the whole thing, my original tweet, and then the second tweet was the effeminate tweet, my original tweet was, this whole Kevin DeYoung thing got me thinking that those pastors and ministries who do not like the serrated edge theology, which is literally about what five percent of Moscow actually writes about, speaks about, blogs about, podcasts about, I mean it's not, but that's really what we're known for, it's hilarious, like you go through Canada Press's books and there's one book on serrated edge theology out of their, you know, 500 books of family and other stuff, but Kevin, so, but I said in the tweet, I was like, you know, those who reject the serrated edge theology are the same people who serve wine and communion, or serve grape juice and communion, meaning they're just, they're just weak sauce ministries, they're just, they're all foam and no beer kind of people, and so then I followed up with, and then those congregants, those men in the congregation who sit under pastors, who give them grape juice, are being effeminate, and so that's the context, and so and then I wrote a blog post, I don't know if you guys caught the blog post on it, and I started, when I started writing through the blog post, I started thinking further about this, the real trifecta of effeminacy in a church is the church that rejects biblical theology around the serrated edge, a church that serves grape juice instead of wine, and a church that willingly mandated government protocols in their own pews, and I did my research, and that was actually Kevin's church, he mandated government COVID protocols in his church, masking, social distancing, and all that stuff, and you can go to his website, and it's on their website talking about it, I kept screenshots of it in case they ever take it down, but that's, he's just submitting, so I guess part of this conversation will define effeminacy, define what's the definition, a biblical definition of effeminate, man or effeminate, and basically a good definition of someone, a man who's being effeminate is basically taking good and godly women characteristics and embodying them in a way he shouldn't, and so the man who's, you know, should, a man who's wearing women's clothes, Deuteronomy 22 .5, he's being effeminate, a man who is, when he knows better to obey God rather than man, he's being effeminate, and so then you got a soft man in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, 9, the word for soft there's malachoi, it's literally the, basically playing the submission role in a homosexual relationship, soft, malachoi, and the word soft applies a lot, way beyond just a homosexual relationship, it goes into the world of man being soft, and so go ahead, it sounds like.

You want to ask the question, Tim. Yeah, well, I think one of the reasons why I wasn't so predisposed to take offense to it, even though what you're saying directly applies to what we're doing in our ministry as a church, I mean, I think part of the reason why I'm not so predisposed to take offense to it is because I agree with the basic premise, like, meaning I agree that the major failing of the church is essentially at the topic of effeminacy in general, so I mean, it's just overwhelmingly obvious, like, we're just, we're a society right now that's being ruled by women, essentially, and this shows up in, you know, every single area imaginable, so then, like, that is, I think, the central failing, I mean, and that's something I see just related to counseling situations, church situations, everything else, I mean, almost every single situation you can imagine, you have a very passive male, and you have a lady who basically is, you know, you better give her what she wants, or else she's going to be, you know, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, and that's, I mean, that's basically the situation that, and that's, I mean, that's obviously the problem that's present in the garden, so when I'm looking at that, and I see this, like, the basic, you know, the church in America, if you're going to talk about it in that kind of language, that is overwhelmingly the problem that we see.

You have a bunch of, like, you have a bunch of men who are basically spineless and cowards, and, I mean, in COVID, I mean, COVID and all that, everything you're mentioning about COVID, there's just a great example of just how feckless and cowardly the standard American man actually is in our nation today, so all those things are true, and we've been, like, all of our impulses are basically geared that way, so then if you mention that as it relates to communion, I might say, hey, well, I don't, I don't know if that applies in the way that you're trying to apply it, but I'm willing to consider it, you know, so first, I'm willing to consider it.

I'm willing to hear you out. I'm not just predisposed to say, okay, well, that's crazy, but then, too, like, I'm not, like, I don't quite understand the response that says, like, if you challenge men's masculinity, I'm not predisposed, like, I'm not trained in such a way to, like, roll over and just get all bent out of shape about it, right?

Like, I mean, I think part of the function of men is to call other men to be more manly than they are, to be better embodiments of their gender, so, I mean, if there's, if there's something you're seeing that maybe I haven't seen yet, I'm at.

Least willing to hear it out, and... Yeah. Let me, let me give you a couple qualifications that you can't put in a tweet, so there's a couple qualifications there. One is, we've been doing this practice for about 200 years, so I, I think there's a lot of churches who are doing it who aren't being effeminate.

I think there's a lot of churches who are doing it because that's been the tradition of the church for the last 200 years, so there can be other reasons for putting grape juice in communion, and we just need to, I think the church just need to grow in knowledge there.

There's a challenge to be like, okay, we need to know why we're doing this, and why we've been doing it. The other thing related to that issue is, like, my church, King's Cross, Pastor Toby's my pastor, Pastor Doug planted our church here in town.

I still call Doug my pastor. I mean, I went to help the church, but, you know, but served as a deacon at Doug's church, but my church, we have wine in the communion trays, and then we have grape juice in the back that those who kind of have religious scruples and tenor consciences can, can go in the back, grab the cup, and come and sit down and drink with everybody, the grape juice, but again, we're doing that because whoever comes to these convictions should go slow at their church.

You should, you know, I said in my article, anybody who's coming under the conviction of like, hey, yeah, we need to serve wine in communion, because that's what God commanded in the scriptures. That's what Jesus drank out of the cup.

That's what he said, do this in remembrance of me. We need to serve wine in communion. If you're new to these convictions, go as slow with your congregation as God went as slow with you. Be as patient with your congregation as God is patient with you on this issue, which means, you know, it probably is going to take five years to bring your congregation along.

You know, don't just plop wine in communion, you know, teach them robust biblical theology and teach them walking through, do some sermons on communion and fellowship. So I think the caveat and some of the qualifications that don't make it in the tweet, I understand hits brothers like you guys, where it's like, okay, that's not us, but he didn't explain himself.

I want to hear him explain himself. So I appreciate, you know, part of that explanation is to explain myself. The fallout of this, I think kind of, so I'm trying to get at like what you were saying, the broader effeminate issues in the church.

The reason why we have women in the pulpit is because men were being bad women in the pulpit. Men were trying to do relational sermons and then, well, let's just put a real woman in there that can do that sermon.

And so the effeminacy in the church has just been so well adopted because the male pastors had embodied it for a long time. And then it's no wonder a woman can slip right into the pulpit and no one notices the difference of the preaching.

And so there really is, I'd say the center of effeminacy and cowardness cowardice in this is a big issue in the church and COVID showed us that. And so I think, you know, when you throw a rock into a pack of barking dogs and the one that got hit yelps, the one that yelps is the one that got hit.

And so I think that's part of why the tweet went so viral is because I think it made a lot of dogs yelp. And I think when you're, I believe what Jesus taught, this remembers to me, it's very clear that he served one in communion.

And so, but that's one of the other challenges to me was, well, it wasn't clear that Jesus did that. And so I think because I was stating something dogmatically that they were saying was not very clear, that was, so the two problems, the two feedback I had was that one, I'm stating dogmatically something that wasn't very clear.

And then you're drawing effeminate conclusions from that and you shouldn't do that. You're being divisive at the church. And so that's why I think the tweet went viral. And then you get the feminists actually adding to the flame and you get the perfect recipe for the tweet.

Yeah. You definitely get like a, once a few, this is what I've noticed being online and, you know, getting interaction with people is once you get a few people who just totally light their hair on fire about something, it's like, they're all leaning in together, you know, to light everyone else's hair on fire as well.

And they, you know, it's like, it's like sharks smelling blood in the water or something. Sometimes that's what it feels like where it's like, all these people are coming in and it's like, I've never seen you before in my entire life.

Where did you even come from? Um, but, uh, you know, and in terms of like, Hey, your tweet, you know, you were saying, Hey, I'm maybe part of why some people were just getting so bent out of shape about it is because I was, I was speaking so dogmatically about something that, you know, is, is at least in, you know, at least in the minds of some is, is not very clear in scripture.

So us being the people, you know, you met, you mentioned the analogy of like, Hey, when you throw the rock into the pack of barking dogs, you'll hit the one or the one you hit the one that yells. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the one that yells. I guess Tim and I were probably like, we're not the dog that got hit by the rock, but then we're the dog that's right next to the dog that got hit by the rock. And we're wondering, Oh man, why'd that dog get hit by the rock?

We better, we better figure out why. Um, so, so give us, you know, your argument for why, you know, what, what is it in scripture that convinced you that, Hey, this isn't just some obscure, Hey, we'll just throw our hands up.

We'll never really know the answer. There is actually an answer here. Um, so, so give us that, you know, what convinced you in scripture that this, that serving wine and communion is the faithful way to go.

Yeah. So I think there's kind of an exegetical answer to this. And then there's a historical answer to this. Um, the exegetical answer is kind of, and it basically falls under kind of, um, it's twofold.

Um, when Jesus commanded us to do this remembrance of him. So we all believe that the Lord's supper is a commandment. Do this remembrance and we should do it. And, and we should, um, uh, do it in church.

It's a sacrament that we do in the church. It's not a sacrament. We do it home by ourselves. Um, there might be some disagreement there. Um, but it's a, it's a okay. So it's a commandment he gave to the disciples.

He gave to the church that the church should continue on. And Paul reiterates that first. Uh, so when Jesus says, do this remembrance of him, well, do the next question is do what do peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Dr. Pepper do, you know, do, do what?

So, um, well, Jesus showed us, he showed us what he's and he took the wine. Um, now the, um, the argument for wine, um, when Jesus said, this is the fruit of my vine and this is the fruit of my, not my vine.

This is the fruit of the vine. It's Friday. So I'm, I'm, I'm a little slow at this point, but this is the fruit of the vine. The word fruit there, uh, the Greek word for fruit is actually product. It's like, you know, what's the, what's the fruit?

What's the product of the vine? Well, the product of the vine was, was wine. Um, that was the only thing that no grape juice had been invented then. So, um, it was the only thing that.

Was in Jesus. You're telling me Welch's wasn't around yet. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get there. That's,.

That's, that's where we're going. So Gabe, I would push back on you a little bit on that because this is something I looked up as well. And you know, as you, I mean, so the verse you're talking about is Matthew 26, 29.

He says, I'll tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day. And when I drank it new with you and my father's kingdom. So I, one of the things I did was I looked up because I was curious about this as well, but I was looking at Moynias and Oinos is the primary Greek word for wine essentially.

But then they also did, they had, um, they had a category for unfermented wine. So just, I mean, reading out of the BDAG here, you have Oinos is a beverage made from fermented juice of the grapevine. The word for must or unfermented grape juice is trucks essentially.

So they had a word for that. It's, it doesn't actually show up in the Bible anywhere. And so that may make your case stronger. The fact that the word trucks doesn't show up in the Bible anywhere, but then there is like a Greek word for that at the time.

And it was a concept and both of them were essentially described as the fruit of the vine. But then your, your argument is more though, just because overwhelmingly wine is the word that's showing up, then it's the natural assumption is that's what they're going.

To be drinking. Is that fair? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Well, I would say,.

And then, and then you jumped to Corinthians chapter 11, where Paul rebukes the Corinthians for getting drunk at the Lord's table and his solution wasn't to come up with some non-alcoholic beverage. His solution was to prevent getting drunk and do it rightly.

So we

And that would relate to the historical argument. The historical argument you're making is they, I mean, if there, if there's a possibility, they're getting drunk at the Lord's supper, then that means they're probably using the ONS and not the trucks, right?

Yeah, correct. And also, I mean, it's just, and then you have the biblical culture of just wine and the Passover meal. So the Passover meal had wine and in the new Testament, the Lord's supper is the new Passover.

And so you have this, you know, deep embedded connection with Israel and wine for centuries. And, and, and so it wasn't, it wasn't like an odd thing for Israel to, you know, to receive from Jesus the Lord's supper and then not be something other than wine.

You know, I know that's kind of a weaker argument, but let me add this real quick, where that's, but that's also why I think the symbolism, I didn't talk about this in my blog post. There's just, there's so many things I could have brought in there, but the symbolism of wine is, is very powerful.

You know, it symbolizes the blood of Christ, you know, death, death, burial, the bleeding of Christ on the cross. Wine, I think one of the reasons why wine is symbolically so important in the Lord's supper is because there's a kick to that gospel.

Grape juice is just blah. There's, there's no, symbolically, there's just no kick there. I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. I wanted to.

Ask you about that because like, I know a lot of the, a lot of the arguments that I hear related to wine. So, I mean, just full disclosure, I went to John MacArthur school. So I went to the and then I went to SBTS after, after that, but then I repented, but, but no with, so a lot of the arguments I'm used to hearing related to this topic are centered around the idea that, okay, like why, why did they drink wine?

Why was wine such a big part of the culture in general? Well, a lot of it's just related to the fact that when you have bad water, you need something to. And so then, you know, the, the arguments that are related at this, at this point is the arguments I hear are one, you know, why do they drink wine?

Well, because they dirty water kills people. So this fermenting the grape juice, like letting it sit, it's going to preserve it, remove the impurities out of it. And then, you know, the, the secondary argument is that yes, they had a category for strong drink, but then also you have like wine, like wine is being used and it's not like near the alcoholic content that we have here today in general.

So then the idea is that the, the alcohol itself is just kind of like an afterthought. And then maybe that's why you have these vague descriptions in the Lord's supper, like in that, you know, he's saying, I'm not going to drink the fruit of the vine again.

Maybe that's ambiguous as to what it is. It could be something that looks like blood. So like the issue is both grape juice, wine, they both look like blood, like in terms of visually, they look like they're symbolizing what we're talking about, but then why is the alcohol so central?

Right? So what, what about the fermented part make is necessary? And you explained some of that related to the kick part, and that's probably why you're going, you're leaning into the masculinity direction, but then I guess the main question I'd have, and then we can kind of transition into some other thoughts, but my main question is why is the, what makes, what about the symbolism of the alcohol is important to this being what it's meant to be in your mind?

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't just, I'm not, I guess I wouldn't first and foremost make this some symbolism connected to masculinity. I want the symbolism to be connected to the gospel. So the gospel has a kick.

The gospel is, is powerful. The gospel is dangerous. And I think that's one of the reasons why the symbolism of wine is so helpful and powerful in this context. Grape juice has no kick. Grape juice is not dangerous.

Grape juice is just, just a bland cold drink. That's good to drink. I don't, I don't mind, but there's, there's, there's just no connection to what Jesus was teaching us in the Lord's supper versus there's no connection in terms of the symbolism of what grape juice is beyond the blood.

I can, I can, I can see, you know, I can see, I can understand the connection there. You can still draw the blood connection, the blood of Christ to grape juice, just like you could wine. But the, the, the gospel is what's powerful like wine.

Even when you make wine, you got to crush the grapes. You got to work them. You got to, you know, put pressure on them. You got to break them. And that's what happened to Christ on the cross. And, and then that, that wine is better in the new resurrection, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

You crush the grapes. The grapes are good by themselves. You pop a grape in your mouth. That's great. But then you crush them. And then on the resurrected side of that vine is this bold, beautiful Merlot.

And the same way that I think kind of typifies or symbolizes Jesus dying and rising again and the resurrection, you know, we're on the sunny side of the cross. It's beautiful and better. And so, but you also, there's also a very practical problem in this is that grape juice, grapes, once you crush them, they just start fermenting.

You just, you just get them on the ground and they, they fall off the vine and they just sit there and they break. They're just going to start fermenting. And it wasn't until Thomas, Pastor Thomas Welch in the late 1860s found a process to basically pasteurize the grapes so they wouldn't ferment.

But the, but what you need there is a refrigeration. There was no refrigeration in, you know, historic Israel time. So no matter what you did, you would get wine unless you, unless you went immediately from the wine, the grape juice being pressed into the cup, into the sermon or into the, you know, Passover into, you know, whatever, which was not happening.

It was not the case. So I think there's a, there's a practical issue of just the inability to create grape juice before refrigeration.

Do you know of any passages in the New Testament that are drawing any symbolism from the, well, a couple of questions. One, like, do you know of any passages which are drawing any symbolism beyond just the blood symbolism related to the Lord's Supper?

And then two, I mean, so practically speaking, like, how do you, you know, we're Baptists, we're in the, we live in the South. This is a tradition that we've had. I don't even know how that works practically.

So, I mean, you guys, I'm sure that you, from what I've heard, I mean, you guys give, you know, communion to your babies too, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't be giving them, you would be giving them grape juice, right?

You wouldn't be giving them wine or would you?

I give them wine. I gave, I gave my, my baby's wine, but let me, let me explain that because.

That can sound really weird and foreign. Well, I'm asking about it because I don't know. I don't even know if it's legal. So I'm asking like, what are, what are the legal entailments of this? Like you, you, you walk us through what this looks like as, because we're.

Baptist aliens on another planet here. Yeah. That's the, we're kind of aliens. We're both one another. So legally it's a religious sacrament and you're allowed to do it legally. But even if it was illegal, I, I, the government can't tell me what I can get my kids and what, what, what, you know, but legally it's a sacrament, it's a religious experience, a religious service.

So the kids are allowed to do it. Now our view is so we feed our kids communion. And I think there's where Baptist would get us, would get us. So Presbyterians, which I am one, we believe that the covenant sign of the new Testament covenant sign of, of being in covenant with God is baptism.

Just like the old covenant sign was circumcision. Now the new covenant signs, baptism and, you know, Colossians chapter two versus I think it's 10 and 11 you were, you were buried in a, in a circumcision.

You were, you, you died. Let me, let me just, I don't want to butcher this. I'm at the, it's at the end of my week and I will butcher this in a way that probably won't be helpful to everyone. Oh man, there we are.

Colossians chapter two versus yeah, 10, 10 and 11 and you are completing him, which is the head of all principality and power in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein you also are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who has raised him from the dead.

So basically Paul is comparing, Hey, the old Testament sign of circumcision represented this and the new sign of baptism represents this in Christ. And so I take, I think that's just a clear example, not so much of what I'm going to talk about here about the covenant here in a minute, but it's just a clear example that Paul is saying, Hey, this is the old Testament circumcision.

It points to Christ and this, the new Testament baptism, it points to Christ. Okay. Um, now in, in terms of covenant, uh, we believe that baptism replaced the old covenant sign of circumcision. And so that's why that's a good explanation.

If you have any of your friends ever asked, this is why Presbyterians do it is because we believe baptisms, the new Testament sign, the new covenant signs. And so that's why we'll baptize our babies. They're born.

We baptize our babies, just like in the old Testament, they would, they would circumcise.

Their male on the eighth day. Yeah. I mean, a lot of Baptists like understand that basically, like they, they misunderstand and think that you're basically saying that, you know, they're saved, uh, right.

Which is not, you're not saying at all, but all right. So you would give your babies, you would give them wine and, but then you do, well, you do allow connection real quick. And so if, if we, I'm not, I'm not arguing with that.

I wasn't arguing with that as if it's like,.

Uh, I understand that. Yep. No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm trying to answer the question about the baby wine thing. Yeah. Okay. So are, so basically my point by just describing the baptism thing is, so if we believe our children are in covenant with God, we don't know if they're saved or not, but we believe they're in covenant with God, um, because mom and dad are in covenant with God and we're, we're a Christian family.

Did we believe that? Well, why, why wouldn't our kids, um, get to participate in the covenant mill? Um, and, and so I think you guys would do this just a little differently. You guys would say your kids need to become, um, come into a saving faith and then they need to confess publicly that Jesus is Lord.

And then they get baptized and then immediately they come, they get to come to the Lord's supper. Right. Yeah. And that all makes.

Perfect. Yeah. That all makes perfect sense based on what you believe about the covenant and what we believe about the covenant. And so we believe that the new covenant is, you know, for regenerate people and that's a distinction between the old and you don't.

So, I mean, that all makes sense to me. I actually, I think that you, you guys are a lot more consistent Presbyterians than those who wouldn't practice pedo communion. Like it doesn't even make any sense to me at all.

Yeah. No,.

Whenever I have this conversation with my Baptist buddies, they're like, oh yeah, you guys are way more consistent than the halfway. Presbyterians is what we'd call them. Yeah. I mean, they're.

More Baptist than they are Presbyterian at that point. So, I mean, it never made, that doesn't make any sense to me at all. So I actually understand where you're coming from with that. So, but then you would, you would go with, with your children, you would go ahead and give them wine at that point, because it's a convictional issue for you that now like related to that.

Now I did have a question about that. So you believe it, like you believe it's a convictional issue for you, but then you also allow for grape juice at your church. And so then you're making some sort of accommodation for the wicker brother, so to speak, but then how do you reconcile that in your mind?