Answering ASU Students, Union With Christ and Chat GPT

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When the scribes and Pharisees asked our Lord about the greatest commandment, He replied, You shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

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So, why do we hear some of today's most prominent pastors saying things like this? It had everything to do with how we talk about the

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Bible. And specifically, or along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith, which for most

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Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible. We need to do better.

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We need to love God with all our hearts, and stand unashamedly on the rock of His Word. We need to love the

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Lord with all of our souls, and respond to the worldview issues of our day with the wisdom and discernment that comes only from Him.

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We need to love the Lord with our minds, and understand the calling of God's people in every area of life in God's world.

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We need to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and face the work of building a life -giving,

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God -honouring culture. Join us for 10 days at the Runner Academy for Cultural Leadership, as we consider how the gospel influences all of life and culture, and the role that we have to play in applying foundational

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Christian thinking to every area of life. This is

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The Academy. I am Eli Ayala of Revealed Apologetics, and I will be bringing a six -part series on presuppositional apologetics.

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What is this called, the Apology Academy? It's just called The Academy. Okay. What's up, everybody?

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My name is Pastor Jeff Durbin, and you're watching Collision Today. I'm gonna be interacting with an atheist on TikTok.

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So here we go. Unsupervised and unhinged. Welcome back to Cultus the

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Aftermath. Hey, everybody.

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Welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. You are watching Apologia Radio's after show exclusively for all access.

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Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it. Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?

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We're being delusional. Delusional? Yeah. Delusional's okay in your worldview. I'm an animal.

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You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

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It doesn't really hurt. It's hung up on me. What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosifs.

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Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck.

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That's a joke, pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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Yeah. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

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Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their

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God. That is Revelation 21 .3. Amen. That's what it's all about.

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Amen. That's the goal. So if you're watching on YouTube or watching live on YouTube, or if you're listening to this later on the podcast, you've already recognized that I'm not

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Jeff. It's true. And that's not Luke. That is Zach Conover. Yep.

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Director of communications with EA and End Abortion Now. He's typically on the show, and he's probably going to be a regular moving forward.

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My name is Isaac. I'm the production manager here at Apologia Studios. Let's jump into it.

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All right. Sorry, I got blinded by your shirt for a second. You got the Lion shirt. Oh, yeah, a few things here.

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We got Los Angeles Dodgers hat. There's a lot going on. Yeah. Dallas Cowboys mug, of course.

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You guys might know me from Ask Me Anything. There are times where I'll pull out the Dallas Cowboys mug. Okay. It seems to be kind of an attention grabber.

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Okay. We got the lo -fi chill beats, the Hawaiian t -shirt.

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All these things that kind of, you know, we're dialing it back a little bit. We're not taking a step back, but we're kind of dialing it back, kind of just approaching it, you know, a little bit differently this time.

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It's not your run -of -the -mill Apologia Radio episode. It's not. I mean, I don't know who left us in charge, but there's a little bit of alternative flavor going on here.

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We got a message on Monday. Right. Because the pastors aren't here. Right. What's the saying?

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When the cats are away, the mice... What is it? Play? Yeah.

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I've heard that. And that's kind of what it is here at the studio. The pastors are not here, and so here we are.

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That's right. But we did get a message on Monday from Jeff saying, hey, you guys need to do an Apologia Radio. We kind of convened and thought, hey, what should we do?

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Let's change things up a little bit. And so, yeah, here we are. Good to be here. To kind of start things off,

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I want you guys to make sure that you guys are interacting with us in the live chat.

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I'm looking at it now. We will be responding to any super chats at the end of the program.

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So go ahead and put in those super chats if you guys have any questions. And then, like I said, throughout the episode, we'll be looking at some of these comments here that you guys are making.

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I'm looking at them now and trying to keep up with them. I see a real interesting one from someone that you might know.

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I don't know if you've ever heard of Eric. Oh, yeah, look at that. What's written on your Dallas Cowboys mug, though?

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I'm telling you, dude, it's an attention grabber. I mean, you love him or you hate him. That's right. He says,

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Dallas Cowboys mug super dispy. Oh, man. So he's saying it promotes pessimism.

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That's like the worst insult. And some people mentioning some stuff here about ChatGBT.

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We'll kind of get to that as I introduce the show. So, yeah, bring in those super chats if you guys have any questions, and we'll see what we can do and hopefully address those at the end of the program.

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Also, too, following this, right after this, we'll be on ApologiaStudios .com. The after show.

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And we got some things planned for that, and I'll talk about that here in a bit. But that's where else you can find us.

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ApologiaStudios .com. We got tons of things that are available to you at ApologiaStudios .com.

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We're working on a lot of different content that we're putting up there. So kind of just some announcements before we kind of introduce the show here.

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Beginning on Monday, if you have an account at ApologiaStudios .com,

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which you should, because there's two options. You can get all access with a paid subscription.

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You can also have a free account. And with the free account, you get tons of free videos and information and shows from Apologia Studios, but you also get

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Bonsin U as well. So if you go and sign up for a free account, you get Bonsin U.

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We are continuing to post courses every single week. We have at least one to two courses being posted every single week automatically at this point.

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Everything's good to go. Audio's been mastered. So we're all set. What a body of work.

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A phenomenal body of work. So many resources available for free with that free account.

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So if you have a free account and you log in on Monday, May 22nd, so this

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Monday, and you just have the free account, we're going to give you all access for seven days free.

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And you have seven days to kind of look and see and go and listen and learn with all the content that we're currently putting up and all the content that we have put up in the past.

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You can listen to The New Academy by Eli Ayala on Presuppositional Apologetics.

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All six courses are, all six lectures that is, are there and ready for you. Tomorrow on YouTube, we're going to be putting the free

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Presuppositional Apologetic First Lecture by Eli Ayala. We're putting it up free tomorrow on YouTube.

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Treat yourself. Yes. He did a phenomenal job. So be on the lookout for that on YouTube tomorrow.

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Of course now that we have Eli out of the way and we have the

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Presuppositional Apologetic Sixth Lecture course, we're now moving into Andrew Sandlin.

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Oh, and you do not, trust me when I say, you do not want to miss his course on prayer.

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Yes. It's titled The Power of Prayer. And it's only a three part but those three lectures are phenomenal.

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Yes. Phenomenal. So be on the lookout for that on All Access. We have

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Ask Me Anything, which is I like it. It's great. It's just an opportunity for you guys that are

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All Access members to be blessed and ask Jeff anything. That's actually going to air live on Monday as well at 1 p .m.

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Arizona time. So if you have All Access, tune in. If you don't, you have the free account. Sign in.

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You get All Access free and then you can watch Ask Me Anything with Jeff Durbin and it's just that.

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You get to ask him anything from personal tidbits to deep theological questions. What's your favorite candy,

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Jeff? What's your favorite candy? I know that. But the question is, do you know that?

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Sour Patch Kids, I'm assuming. Anything sour and gummy and chewy and stringy.

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That's right. If you know Jeff, he's all about that life. That's right. Of course, like I said, it bonds in you.

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That's kind of the announcements out of the way. I appreciate you guys' patience on that. What's in line for us today?

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Let's talk about that. What's the layout? We've got a few segments that we want to cover. I'm super excited.

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I'm very excited, bro. It's great to be here with you. We're going to talk about union with Christ, primarily.

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We're going to respond to some questions that we were able to gather from ASU students.

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Then we're going to end with some fun with ChatGPT. I'm down.

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Let's do it. Before we move into our first segment, though, I have a surprise for you guys.

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These right here are four... One's a book. Three of them are booklets.

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Let's be clear. They all are books. They're all books. There's paper. There's information on this paper.

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These, of course, are authored by my favorite. I mean, isn't he everybody's favorite?

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Joe Boot. If you work here, then you know he's probably most people's favorite.

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I know for sure Conover has read all of these books. Yes. Are these good?

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Yes. I would say the first place you need to start in Joe Boot's arsenal is the mission of God, which you don't see here.

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But the amazing thing about these booklets is each of them are bite -sized pieces of content from the mission of God.

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For mission, for government. He even has one for life that we've given out to our church partners for end abortion now.

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All of those draw heavily from that. And then Ruler of Kings, of course, is kind of that magnum opus to sphere sovereignty and the recognition of the state, the fact that they have to honor

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Christ and what the implications are in the life of the church and our role and how those things relate to one another, how those various spheres relate and talk to each other.

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Yeah, definitely required reading, I would say. Great, okay.

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So we have four titles. Ruler of Kings, for life, defending the unborn, for government, toward a

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Christian view of authority, for mission, the need for scriptural cultural theology. So this is what

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I want to do. I want to give away these books. Give away. I want to give away these books for free.

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So this is what I want you to do. Those who are listening live on YouTube or tomorrow on the podcast,

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I want you guys to email me at Isaac at ApologiaStudios .com.

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That's I -S -A -A -C at ApologiaStudios .com So you're going to send me an email and you're going to put in the subject line

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Joe Boot is my favorite. Okay? Joe Boot is my favorite in the subject line.

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Even if he isn't? He should be. So maybe kind of like a name it, claim it type thing.

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Once you say it, it's just going to soak in. You'll get the idea when you get the books. Right, so like I said,

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Isaac at Apologia Studios .com and in the subject line you're going to put Joe Boot is my favorite.

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You're going to email me and the first, no, no, sorry, sorry, sorry.

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The twenty -fifth email that I receive with that in the subject line is the winner.

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Okay, you've got to be twenty -five. You've got to be number twenty -five. This reminds me of those radio giveaways. You know, if you're the twenty -fifth caller then you get the free two -week trip.

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We don't have a free two -week trip anywhere. We don't. But what we do have are some stellar resources theologically to equip you.

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Yes, Ruler of Kings and then, of course, these other three booklets. Email me,

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Isaac at Apologia Studios .com If you're number twenty -five with the subject line Joe Boot is my favorite, then

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I will get in touch with you, of course, via that email thread. We'll get these books sent out.

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That's something for all you guys to look forward to. Alright, so with that, yesterday, and this is segment number one.

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Yes. Okay, so segment number one. Officially. We're calling this The Public Square. I love it.

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You love that? I mean, that's what it is. You like that? Yeah. Do you think it would be... Let me ask you this.

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Do you think that's a good title for just a show in general? The Public Square. You go out into the street.

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We film interactions. Yeah. The Public Square. Which, I mean, the people that tune into our content on a day -in and day -out basis.

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That is, I mean, one of the primary reasons that they come is to be equipped, to interact, to answer challenges to the faith, to go out and actually bring the gospel out into the

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Public Square. So, absolutely. It's an essential element of what we do here. Yep.

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So this first segment, we're calling it The Public Square. This is what we did. We thought to ourselves, okay, what's something we can do?

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What's something that's going to be beneficial for you? I had Zach go out to ASU yesterday along with Gabe, who's also a part of this show, but he's kind of behind the scenes.

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Yeah. Behind the camera. Like Isaac, usually. Yeah. Operating the switcher, mixing the audio, all that good stuff.

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Thank you, Gabe. He went out with Con over yesterday to the campus here in Tempe, ASU, Arizona State University, on a hot sunny Wednesday afternoon.

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For those of you who don't know Arizona, it's starting to warm up a little bit. It's not, I mean, it hasn't been really poured on yet, but we're getting there.

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You can feel it. Oh, yeah. You can definitely feel it. And so they went out yesterday and the goal was to not engage in conversation, but just get some questions.

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Right. Right. Just some... We'll play a clip and this will kind of set the context for you as far as the question that we asked, but I guess for now, what was the question that you asked?

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So, I mean, really, it's great to do this kind of thing, too, because these are our future.

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These young people on university campuses and college campuses, and so it was interesting for me to kind of get a taste of the things that are on people's minds.

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And what I mean by that is the question that I asked, you know, I would approach people, ask them if they were a student here, and then

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I would say, you know, if you could ask a conservative, Bible -believing Christian one thing, what would that be?

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And most people kind of paused at first, and they said, wow, man, I don't really know or I need to think about that.

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Yeah. And then you kind of ask variations of it, like, well, is there anything about what a conservative,

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Bible -believing Christian, you know, that loves Jesus with all their heart, that would concern you about what they believe?

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You know, and that kind of allowed people to I think more easily come up with things that they would ask.

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And of course the response is varied, because it's a very diverse group of people, but that's the question that was posed to them.

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Okay. And how many people did you ask? How many did you get?

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So kind of what was the percentage? Were people kind of readily? I'd say there was about 25 to 30 people

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I tried to get, right? It wasn't very busy in terms of foot traffic at that time. Okay. But I believe we got 8 to 10 solid responses.

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Some people, like, oh, I can't think of anything, and then, you know, they walk off, you know, so they actually would engage and talk, but when it came to actually providing an answer, they wouldn't or they didn't have anything.

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So I'd say we got about 8 solid responses of, you know, people that actually engaged.

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Okay, cool. Alright, so this is the goal. We're going to see if we can get through at least 3 of those questions.

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Okay. And then anything that's left over, we'll get to as many as we can, but anything that's left over, we're going to carry on into the after show.

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So if you guys, after this, stick around for the after show. Of course, that's on ApologyofStudios .com. That's for all our

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All Access members. If you guys stick around for that, we're then going to tackle the remainder of the questions, see what we can get through.

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But let's go ahead and let me pull up this first one here real fast. This is a question that I think is quite common.

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I think it's valuable to at least for the audience to address just because this is something you're going to hear quite often, especially in our society today.

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Yeah, in our current cultural context, this is front and center. So go ahead and cue that up,

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Gabe. I'm going to go ahead and play this and this is question number 1.

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Again, this is from Arizona State University. Question 1. Why not just love everyone?

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Okay. Why not just love everyone?

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Why not? Yeah. Why not? I think the first step to providing an answer to this is providing a definition of love.

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That's right. That's really what it comes down to here. So the culture and the world, they're working with a particular definition of love.

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And that definition is far and away different from the definition of love that we find in Scripture.

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What God defines as love, and normally when you hear this kind of quip or remark, it is placed in a certain context of discussion.

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And I mean, where we've noticed it in particular is in the area of sexual ethics.

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So why don't you just love everyone? Well, who are the people that we are referencing here?

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Because there must be someone that's being referenced that is being excluded from the kind of, say, acceptance, validation, which, you know, has more to do with how they're defining love than the

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Scriptures would. There's a particular person that's in mind here. And there's a particular either lifestyle choice or decision, possibly, you know, about what one does with their body and who they do it with, whether it's their own or whether it's with someone else.

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And so this is normally where this question relates to.

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Why don't you just love everybody? In other words, kind of the assumption here is Christians are mean -spirited and hateful towards the homosexual or the transsexual or the person that just simply makes a different lifestyle choice than you.

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Why don't you just love everyone? Right? And of course it could be broader than that. It could be related to sexual ethics.

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It could be just related to a certain decision they make about how to live their lives. Why don't you just love everybody?

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But again, just starting off the discussion here, we have to define what that is. That's right. Yeah. That's kind of where, when

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I first heard that question, that's kind of where I was going to. That's my first initial thought.

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And it's interesting too because I think even for Christians as well, I think this is something that is important to discuss because when

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I've had conversations with people in reference to maybe my understanding of God's law, they'll be quick to point out that the

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New Testament isn't so much about law but it's more about love. Right. Grace.

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And grace. Right. And the question that I have for them is, well, how is love defined in the

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New Testament? How is love defined by Christ himself? And what we know is that Christ said, the law and the prophets hang on these two things.

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Right. Right. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And so what God is doing is he's saying that true love is defined by the law.

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By his law. By his law. Right. His word. If we want to know how to love someone, then we have to go to the word of God to inform us on what love is.

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Yes. And, you know, and of course that's you know, like you said, that the world just has, they have a different definition of what love is.

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And so as a Christian, to the world, it may seem as though we're unloving.

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Yeah. Or hateful. Or hateful. Or bigoted. Or bigoted. But ultimately, of course, we're displaying true love.

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I don't know if you want to talk more about that. I think that's key in providing the definition. I mean, we're talking about a working

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Christian definition of love is simply this. Treating our neighbor lawfully from the heart.

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That's what the Bible would define as love. Treating our neighbor lawfully from the heart.

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That is according to what God's standards say. That's how we should treat them. So contextualize that a bit and flesh it out and make the application here.

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Loving someone does not include accepting the things that God says he will not accept.

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That is not an example of Christian love to have unconditional acceptance of all of a person's many huge proclivities and sinful choices, whether they be lifestyles or even desires that they're harboring in their heart.

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Christian love is not making allowance for those things and just saying, you know what? You're okay. Just the way that you are.

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You can keep all those things and still have peace with God, a relationship with God where there isn't this ongoing hostility between you and your creator because of your fallen nature.

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Right? Because all of us fundamentally have the same problem. It doesn't matter what the sin is in terms of how it separates us from God, but we cannot love and we cannot be loving outside of following the prescription of God's word and his law and therefore we cannot accept, promote, make peace with, if you will, or celebrate, which is what the world is commanding that we do, things that are contrary to God's will.

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Right. And dehumanizing. Ultimately, yes, this is about worship. This is about what it means to image

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God faithfully. If we are not being an accurate picture of who we were created to be, then that leads away from God.

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It leads to misery, death, destruction and a dehumanization of the creature that's made in his image.

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Right. I mean, there's so many presuppositions that go into understanding what the loving approach would be to a fallen humanity and it starts in the beginning.

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God created. God created, therefore God defines. He defines life and he defines lifestyle.

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He created us in his image and anything contrary to what he created us for is dehumanizing.

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And not only is it dehumanizing but ultimately sin separates us from God.

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And I mean, of course, we're going to kind of talk about that. What God is doing in Christ to make us fully human.

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To make us fully human. To restore us in Christ who is the ultimate humanity.

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He is God in the flesh. The perfect man. The head of the new human race.

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And interesting too because the next question we're going to go into, and not quite yet, but it's going to address kind of the it's going to be about whether or not we're anxious.

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Right? And we'll get to that question but I just thought it'd be something to kind of even discuss now because our goal ultimately when we evangelize or have any type of disagreement, when we go onto the street, when we engage people is we want to glorify

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God in the proclamation of that truth. We want to be a part of God's mission and what he's doing to restore all that has been lost.

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To be the means that he uses to call a people unto himself.

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Right? And also too our goal is to reach the lost.

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To love our neighbor and calling them back to the very source of life who is

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God and ultimately the experience of that in Christ and that brings a peace.

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Yes. It brings a restored life. It brings a new creation. It brings a newness.

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Yes. It brings a joy that surpasses understanding. It brings a joy that surpasses any type of suffering that they're going to experience in this fallen world which of course we all experience because we live in the same context.

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But when you have a creature in hostility as you said with their creator there's no peace in that.

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There's no experience of an ultimate fulfillment or satisfaction.

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So cut me off at any point. Well the Bible gets at that in numerous ways. I mean we're talking about divine wisdom here.

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We're talking about the way God made the world. He made it to operate according to certain norms, structures, patterns, and when we cut with the grain of that we are living in accordance with the purpose for which we were created and we are operating according to God's norms, his creational normativity, his laws, his structure, and that brings blessing and life.

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But when we cut against the grain, when we attempt to jump out of the window thinking that we can fly and that there isn't such a thing as gravity, that never ends well.

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It ends in destruction when we try to live apart from the way

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God has created us to live. And notice we keep using that terminology, creation.

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It's so foundational to the good news because that's what salvation does for us.

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It restores us to our created purpose which has been lost because of sin.

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Right. Of course, the question that's asked is asked in passing.

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There would probably be some things I would like to ask this individual. Maybe some examples that he would have when he has come across Christians that have been unloving.

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What do you mean by that? Right. What do you mean by that? What's been your experience as far as people you know that have professed, let's say,

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Christ? Because I'm not saying that there isn't times where people who profess

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Christ can be jerks. They may have treated their neighbor unlawfully.

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That's right. But, of course, like I said, if we were to kind of just narrow this down, that's kind of where we would go with this individual.

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How do you define love? Who gets to define love? Who gets to define it?

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Is it the God who says He is love? Right. Right. Is it the God who's created all things?

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That not only defines life, but also lifestyle. Who has authority in this conversation?

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Exactly. Do you get to define meaning for yourself, or does the God who made all things?

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That's right. Let's go ahead and go into the next question. This one is the one

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I was talking about. Yeah, this is actually the last one of the day. Oh, was it? Okay. Not today, but yesterday.

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No, yesterday. We caught her crossing the street, and she said, you know what? I need to go get some lunch.

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I can't think of anything, but catch me on the way back. We just happened to be walking out, and she was walking past us, and I said, well, how about now?

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Did you think of something? And this is what she said. How are you not anxious all of the time with all of the restrictions, punishments, threats involved in the belief system?

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That's my question. How are you not anxious all the time? Okay. What's your initial thought?

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It's a good question. It is a good question, because based on her assumptions, Christianity means to her rules and regulations.

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You either do, but if you do not, then there's punishment.

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There is something that awaits that is destructive, at least to her, from her viewpoint.

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What would you say to that? The first thing that strikes me about this question is the elementary commitment that the majority of our culture has to human autonomy and freedom, and by that I mean freedom apart from God.

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We just talked about defining things of our own accord, but also together with that is, as creatures plagued by sin and living in God's world, it's not as if we're going to escape accountability for what we've done, for sinning against God, and so all of us inherently know that God will call it all into account, and that we're going to be judged by that, and we don't like that.

33:34

We don't like the idea of being held accountable for our sin before our

33:40

Creator. But that's the first thing that I hear, is a person that values the ability to be completely autonomous in their choices.

33:55

They decide for themselves what's good, and what's bad, and what's right, and what's wrong, because the question is phrased in such a way as to say, well, how are you not so anxious by all these rules and regulations?

34:11

In other words, your freedom will be hindered. Your freedom will be shackled, and if you are this, which

34:19

I'm assuming that you are, you won't be free anymore because you'll constantly be stressed and anxiety -ridden and worried about this.

34:28

But I think one thing that unbelievers, our culture, misunderstands about this because of the problem of sin is that people will say,

34:40

I could never come to Christ, or I could never follow a God that would inhibit my freedom, that would make me any less free.

34:49

The thing to point out is, you're not free. Not according to Scripture.

34:54

The Bible says that in our fallen natures, we're enslaved. We're enslaved to sin.

35:00

So, the deception is thinking that outside of Christ, you're free. And I'll segue into this and kick it back over to you, but only in Christ, which we're going to be talking about today, is freedom.

35:15

It's operating in the liberty and the freedom of functioning in the way that you were intended to function.

35:23

Not going outside of that and thinking, that's what I need. I need to be able to have just radical individualism and self -expression with no restrictions whatsoever.

35:32

Otherwise, I'm just going to be anxious and tied down. How are you not anxious and tied down by all these rules and regulations?

35:39

And I say, well, the answer is that, yes, Christianity is a religion.

35:45

There is doctrine. There are commandments from God. But the Scriptures say that His commandments aren't burdensome. So how could that be?

35:51

Well, you fundamentally have a change in nature as a Christian where God's commandments become your delight.

35:59

They are no longer burdensome because you see the heavy price that was paid for your sin, number one, but you also have an operant power within you now that didn't exist prior,

36:09

God Himself living within you to actually change your desires and to change your loves and to change your hates.

36:15

And so now, you relate to the law of God not out of hostility and, oh, this is just going to infringe on my freedom.

36:21

Now you understand what it truly means to be free. And you can run in the way of God's commandments with joy because they are delightful.

36:30

They do bring peace. They do bring blessing. Yes, it is a relationship with God. However, it's very real that there are rules, that there are commandments, that God commands us to be obedient.

36:43

But for the Christian, that call to obedience has become a delightful endeavor.

36:49

Yeah, I think, and I'm seeing a comment here that I want to address after this because I think it's a great question.

37:02

I'll say this. I believe everybody, because they're made in the image of God, pursues justification.

37:10

Right? They pursue justification. They pursue that declaration of right.

37:18

Because all of us, being image bearers of God, and if they were to look in their heart of heart, they're pursuing some type of acceptance in some way.

37:27

Everybody's heart clings to something and finds it ultimate. There's a standard that they're looking to, something ultimate, that they're then drawn to because that's what they're made to do.

37:40

And they're pursuing that validation of their existence.

37:46

But everybody knows that you can't even live up to your own standard.

37:52

They can't even live up to their own standard. They can look at other people and they can avoid this, but they're going to make judgments about how other people should live.

38:04

And if they were to then apply those same standards to themselves, they wouldn't be able to live up to their own standard either.

38:11

That sounds like it might produce a little bit of anxiety. It would, because what's going to happen is you're going to then labor for that justification.

38:19

The thing that Christians have that the non -believer doesn't is a gospel of grace.

38:26

A good news that says it's not what you have done, it's what one has done on your behalf.

38:32

And so now the pursuit of that justification that all of us pursue is no longer based in fear.

38:40

It's not based in, if I don't do this then I won't receive this. But everybody, whether you're in another religion, whether you deny

38:52

God altogether, because you're made in the image of God, you pursue justification. You pursue a validation of your worth, a validation of your existence, and you are going to labor in order to gain acceptance from whatever it is that you have set in your heart as your ultimate standard.

39:12

We're all looking for righteousness. We're all looking for it. And so the Christian, the reason we don't live in anxiety on a day to day basis,

39:21

I'm not saying there's times where we don't experience maybe even certain levels of doubt, anxiety, or fear, but for the

39:29

Christian though, what we have is we have a source. We have not only a truth that is, how should

39:37

I say it, something we think, but we have a person who is truth that of course lives within us.

39:46

And that source that we pull from as we speak to ourselves, these truths about God's grace and what

39:51

He's done eliminates of course any fear and anxiety. Because we're no longer laboring for this justification.

39:59

But the justification is given to us as Paul says freely. And that's where the assurance comes from, is that it doesn't depend upon me.

40:08

It doesn't depend on my ability to produce or to achieve or to succeed or to excel or to clear some bar of standard of perfection that I have constructed or that is being imposed upon me.

40:23

The gospel is just about saying, you're not good enough. You're never going to make it. It'll never be enough.

40:30

And so come and receive what's been provided for you already. Because this could easily be turned around on her to say, listen, if you don't have that blessed assurance, if you don't have the peace of knowing that this is going to be true about you if you're in Christ and that's never going to change your position, the forgiveness of your sins, all of that is secure in Him, then all you have left is anxiety and worry and frustration and constant doubt and really despair, ultimately because you know the truth.

41:10

You know this God and you're going to make an appearance before His judgment throne.

41:15

And so that should cause you to, at the very least, be filled with anxiety.

41:21

Right. You know this God. He created you in His image. You know you're created in His image because you know

41:28

His eternal decrees, because you're a moral creature. You know that there's a standard.

41:33

You have one yourself. You can't even live up to your own standard. So what do you do with that?

41:40

And like you said, there's two things, I think. One, you're not free. And the way you know you're free is that you can't even live up to your own standard.

41:48

Yeah. The way that you know you're not free is that you fail yourself. You fail yourself. And you're going to stand before a holy

41:56

God whose standard is even greater than yours. And, of course, we're saying that peace and reconciliation can be found in Jesus Christ.

42:06

And that's why the Christian is not anxious on a day -to -day basis. Her assumptions are incorrect about Christianity and yeah.

42:17

That's kind of the answer I would provide. Yeah. I think that's great. So there was a question here in the chat by Brooklyn Lou, the skeptic.

42:26

And Brooklyn, I don't know. I'm pretty sure you're maybe going back and forth in the chat.

42:34

And I don't think I'll be able to get to all your questions. But I did see one thing here. And he asked, let me see if I can find it again.

42:45

Do you think reading the Bible gives you any more love than someone who does not? How would you answer that?

42:53

I think that's a great question. Well, it gives us, of course, like we talked about already, the categories to understand what love is and truth.

43:00

So if you can understand what it is, and ultimately if you have the experience of love, a .k

43:07

.a. God dwelling within you, then you're uniquely equipped because you have the example of Christ, of course, his life, his ministry, and all of that.

43:18

So yes, because you have an explicit content of love and you have the guide to understand what it is.

43:25

Because as you put already, it is based on the law of God.

43:30

It's based on those commandments that tell us how to treat our neighbor. Tell us what God says is their due.

43:36

What do they have? How does God expect them to be treated in this instance? If you don't have that, sure, you might get it right by accident every now and then.

43:48

You may do good deeds. Even Romans chapter 2 says this.

43:53

There is a sense because of your religious relationship to God that you occasionally do the things that God requires, even if it's by sheer accident from your perspective.

44:05

All the while denying with your mouth that he exists, that his whole creation is shouting at you every day of your life, and there's a sinful suppression of truth that's taking place, causing you to swap him for the things that he made and worship those things instead of him and give glory to him.

44:23

But you may still occasionally get things right every now and then. However, that does not negate the necessity of the explicit standard you need to define love and to embody and apply it in your life.

44:38

That's right. I think that's good. Like you said, in Romans chapter 2, there are those who don't have the law who fulfill the law.

44:50

They have the work of the law written on their hearts in the sense of they're a creature, they're in religious relationship to God, but still there is a necessity for God to republish his law, which is found in the pages of Scripture.

45:03

Right. So this is, and maybe this is what we'll say, because there's two aspects to this as far as God's special revelation.

45:12

So we do believe that there is a general revelation, Brooklyn, that gets through to you. Yes. Creation.

45:17

Creation. The things you see around you. You see that there is an order to this world. You see that, and sometimes atheists will point this out as far as, well, we know that in order to be social beings, there has to be some type of agreement as far as different laws or as far as us loving...

45:35

They just won't name it as what God calls it. Right. But it is an order that God has put into this world.

45:42

And so that general revelation of God, his divine decrees, his power, it gets through to you.

45:50

And you see it in the things that he has made outside of you, but you also see it internally in that you're made in the image of God.

45:58

And so your question, of course, presupposes that love is something that's important. Yeah.

46:03

That it matters how we treat my neighbor. That it matters. And so what we're not saying is that somebody who denies

46:10

God in their heart isn't moral, or at times doing things that we would even look at and say, well, that's a loving act.

46:19

Okay. As far as the underlying motivation behind that, for us, we can't see that.

46:26

But that is an issue to God. Because he doesn't just look on the external, but he looks at the intentions of the heart.

46:32

So that's an issue. But God is revealing himself to you, Brooklyn, externally, internally.

46:38

What we're saying is that in order for you to be reconciled to God, and to be even able to maybe test certain inclinations you have that you may call love, in order to know that, they must be filtered through what

46:51

God has revealed in his word and through his Holy Spirit. And not even our consciences, right?

46:57

God has given us this gift. However, that's still affected by the problem of our sin, too.

47:02

So even that is unreliable. You know, if you say, well,

47:08

I know this is wrong just because I feel. It makes me disgusted inside. Or this is virtuous because it makes me feel happy, and it makes me feel good.

47:15

Well, your conscience, unfortunately, is not a reliable guide to what is moral, immoral.

47:23

And so, again, that's why we need that objective standard. Right. Special revelation.

47:29

Yes. Which is also external and internal. External in the written word of God, and internal by the testament of the

47:36

Holy Spirit that dwells within God's people. And so I would say this to you, Brooklyn, that if you want to know what it is to love, first and foremost, love the

47:45

God who created you, but to love your neighbor, then you need to come to Christ who is in the embodiment of love.

47:51

Yes. And the ultimate act of love He committed. And you need to see Him and learn from Him, but not only learn from Him, but also be indwelt by Him.

48:02

Yes. And He's going to live in and through you. And so you have the written word that's going to guide you, and then the testament of the

48:09

Holy Spirit in you that is going to bear witness to that word and then lead you in greater love.

48:16

So that would be my answer to you, Brooklyn. Good stuff. Thank you for that question. Let's go ahead and I'll pull up the third and final.

48:25

We got time for one more? Well, we do. I mean, technically we can go as long as we want, but I didn't think we'd go as long as we have.

48:30

We can go as long as we want with this. Right. We're in charge today. So let me cue this up.

48:36

And this is a great question, I think relevant, of course, to the ministries that we have here at Apologia.

48:42

Yeah. But it's cued up, and I'm going to play it. You know, it's a tough one.

48:47

I want to ask something about abortion, but I'm nothing... It would be related to the issue of abortion?

48:54

Yeah, it would be related to abortion. So something about their perspective that they hold that would concern you about that issue.

49:00

I think so, yeah. Okay. How they reconcile it, I think. Okay, reconcile it with the

49:05

Bible? With probably the people that they know who have likely had abortions, or, you know,

49:12

I think it's a tricky one. I see. So the first thing that strikes me about this is, and I wanted to ask that additional follow -up when she said how they reconcile it.

49:25

And in my framework, from a Christian perspective, that's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, okay, how do I reconcile it with the standard?

49:32

And she says, no, how do you reconcile it from a relational perspective with people that you know?

49:39

Because that seems to be a defining element of how she would determine whether yay or nay.

49:47

Right? Has this affected someone close to me? Does that change your perspective to know that things happen and, you know, you just maybe don't understand what this person is going through?

50:01

It's complicated. Right? It's complicated. How about you? Do you know? This is probably, if we continued on, do you know someone who's had an abortion?

50:08

Right? So how do you reconcile, I guess the assumption that's being smuggled in here is that this is okay as long as it's complicated and undefinable and, you know, it's somewhat justified, in a manner of speaking.

50:23

A follow -up question for her would be, do you know anybody that you're close to that you disagree with?

50:29

Do you know anybody that you're close to that has committed something in the past that you think is wrong? Well, however you would, in a sense, feel towards that,

50:40

I mean, I guess what I'm saying is kind of like there are degrees of sin and things that we commit here in this world that have varying consequences.

50:53

Right. And we do believe that abortion is the unjustified taking of a human life.

50:59

Right. Okay. And that's why we, of course, at EAN pursue equal protection under the law for that unborn child, that unborn human.

51:10

And so I'm not trying to lessen the blow or dull the edge of the severity of that and the consequence that comes from that type of action.

51:22

But like you said, for her, it's more of, well, as a

51:28

Christian, you believe this about that, but you know people that have committed that.

51:33

So if Christianity holds to that and you know people who have committed that, how do you reconcile your belief with the relationship you have with that person?

51:42

But I'd imagine it applies to her too. With her relationships and people that she knows that have committed things in the past that she would say is wrong.

51:52

Maybe she knows somebody that's in prison. Maybe one of her family members have created a grievous crime.

51:59

So that kind of be a follow -up question. I'd like to hear what she'd have to say with that. Yeah. But you answered it, as far as from our perspective, the way we reconcile it is that, well, we reconcile it with the cross.

52:13

Yeah. It's a gospel issue. It's a gospel issue. That's really what we say all the time, and what we would get at is the message that I would have for the person close to me, from a relational standpoint, is the same as that I would have for the adulterer, or the thief, or the sexually immoral, or it's the same message.

52:33

So it doesn't change, number one, the standard of God's law. This is a human being in His image.

52:39

This is murder to take their life in an unjustified manner. But the good news is Jesus forgives murderers that turn from their sin.

52:45

That's right. Just like He forgives thieves, and He forgives adulterers, and He forgives fornicators, and liars, and so the answer is the same.

52:52

Right. It's turn from your sin. This is a violation of God's law, and, you know, you're accountable for that life, but guess what?

53:01

There's peace. There's forgiveness. It doesn't mean that there will be a, you know, that you will not struggle with the reality, the ramifications of what you've done.

53:12

But it does mean that you actually have a place to take it. You actually have a sin -bearer that can bear the weight of your guilt and your shame, and can give you a spotless record of righteousness in return that will set you free.

53:29

That's right. And really, the same question could be asked to the

53:35

Apostle Paul. Paul, how do you reconcile what you've done in the past with your

53:40

Christianity? And he would give that answer. I mean, you know,

53:48

I've been crucified with Christ. Right. And we're going to talk about that passage. Right. I would reconcile it by pointing to my reconciliation with God.

53:55

That's right. So, let's segue. Okay. Because we've gone actually longer than what I thought we would with these two questions.

54:01

You should have known that. You put me in front of a microphone. I've spoken more than what I thought I was going to speak, to be honest.

54:07

I told Zach, I was like, dude, I'm going to lean on you heavily. Yeah. So far, not so much.

54:13

But it's been pretty even -handed. I like this. I hope you guys are enjoying it. I'm trying to keep up with the chat, too. And it hasn't been easy.

54:20

But I hope you guys are being blessed. So, those were the three questions that Zach and Gabe were able to pull.

54:27

Like I said, on the After Show, which is following this, if you guys go to apologyistudios .com, on the

54:32

After Show, we have about four other questions that we're going to look at and answer from the

54:37

ASU students that we got questions from yesterday. But that's the segue into the next segment.

54:43

Okay? Yeah. Union with Christ. Which I'm very excited for. Because this is how Paul would answer that question. He would say,

54:48

I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.

54:55

Right? And He loved me and gave Himself for me.

55:01

Yeah. The life I live now in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave

55:07

Himself for me. That is what we're going to discuss. Union with Christ.

55:13

It may be a term that not many of you are familiar with. Right. Could be foreign.

55:19

It could be foreign. But what we want to do is, I guess, as quick as we can, because we've gone long, is kind of answer what was kind of the outline that you had for this?

55:28

What is union with Christ? Yeah. I guess you could ask, why does it matter?

55:35

Why does it matter? Right? So what of it all? And then... The implications. How. The implications and really how to abide in that union.

55:45

I think, you know, in beginning a discussion like this, while it may be foreign to some modern listener's ears,

55:52

I guarantee you that it is not foreign to the pages of Scripture. It is utterly central to the question of what it means to be a

55:59

Christian. When you ask someone, are you a Christian? It would be more appropriate, biblically speaking, to ask them, are you in Christ?

56:07

That's right. Because that is the language of the New Testament authors. You know, the

56:12

Apostle Paul, if you read his epistles to the Church, in his addresses that he opens, speaking to the

56:19

Church, he calls his readers saints in Christ or believers in the

56:24

Lord. Over a hundred times, I believe. I mean, a hundred and sixty times you see this kind of verbiage used to describe what it means to be a

56:34

Christian. It's really the doctrine, if you will, that lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It's what it fundamentally means to be a believer is that you have been united to Christ.

56:46

And I do have a working definition here. Union with Christ is this. It's the vital bond between us and Christ created by the agency of the

56:57

Holy Spirit that we enter into through the gift of faith. That's my working definition of union with Christ.

57:05

The vital bond between us and Christ created by the agency of the Holy Spirit that we enter into through the gift of faith.

57:14

See, the Bible has a very descriptive way of talking about what it means now to have such a dramatic departure with the former way of life as an unbeliever.

57:30

You're baptized into Christ. It's a baptism of blood because you have been crucified with Christ, the passage that we already read.

57:38

You have died with Him. There is a dramatic break with the old way of life.

57:44

Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. But that's the language there. If anyone is in Christ, if you're in Christ, God has made you dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

57:58

That's what it means to be a Christian. That's ultimately what we're getting at when we talk about salvation.

58:06

It's why the gospel is good news. If you want to sum it up there, it's the reality that God in Christ has joined

58:16

His life to yours. Your life now as a Christian is no longer your own and it is so intertwined with Jesus' life that every spiritual blessing that Jesus purchased for you on the cross and in His life and His work and His ministry,

58:36

His resurrection from the dead, everything that He did, this is the means by which that gets distributed to you, by your connection to Him.

58:45

Right? And so to kind of add another layer to this here is to say this, what's true of Christ is true of you if you're in Him.

58:56

What's true of Christ is true of you if you're in Him. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places He distributes to you through your vital union to Him.

59:05

And Scripture gives us a variety of pictures to come to this understanding and that's why it's an issue of, and you might want to talk about this, the issue of imagination and how important it is.

59:15

Yeah, so for me, when it comes to, and I said this earlier, it's hard for me to call this a topic because at its heart this is the essence of Christianity.

59:27

If somebody was to ask me, what does it mean to be a Christian? At its very basic, essential element, being a

59:36

Christian is experiencing union with Christ, that you've been united to Him.

59:42

That you're in Christ and He's in you, and then even to broaden that picture, if you look at all of Scripture, the goal for God is to reconcile all things in Christ.

59:54

From Genesis to Revelation, that's what God is doing in Christ, is to bring all things to Himself, and we'll kind of talk about that a little bit more later.

01:00:03

But, it was a few years ago, and I was listening to a sermon and it said that.

01:00:08

That at its essence, Christianity is union with Christ. And it just sparks something in me.

01:00:14

So I just kind of started looking up sermons, resources, books.

01:00:20

I came across a book that I know both me and you enjoy.

01:00:26

It's called Union with Christ by Rankin Wilburn. I would highly recommend it. It'll bless you.

01:00:34

And the thing with this, when it comes to union with Christ, and this is what you were getting at, is if you look at the, we're talking about the epistles, if you look at some of the prayers that Paul has for the people he's writing to.

01:00:45

Yeah. The words of Jesus. His concern is that they would just be able to see and understand.

01:00:52

And he knew that a lot of this stuff can be somewhat, as far as moving from the head to the heart.

01:01:00

Yes. There's a gap. There's a gap, and it's a long road to travel. And a lot of times these things, when we hear about the immeasurable love of God, or things about God and our relationship with him that surpass understanding, that's just what it is.

01:01:15

Yeah. And so, what the Bible does is it uses symbols and pictures and images, illustrations, to capture our imagination.

01:01:26

And that's where we get that word, by the way. Images, imagination. Right. All we're saying is this. Imagination. It sounds like, oh, that's childish.

01:01:34

Use your imagination. Fairytales. You know, fairytales, stories, all this stuff. But here, all it means is this. You have pictures that aid you in viewing things that aren't immediately visible to your eyes.

01:01:46

Right. Right? That is what Scripture provides us with. So, examples of that would be the vine and the branches.

01:01:54

Vine, branches. Right? Jesus is talking about that. I wrote a couple of these down here too, but the bride to the husband, right?

01:01:59

The union that happens there. Jesus says our relationship to him is like that. Or parts of a body with the head, right?

01:02:08

One body, many parts. How about living stones, right? I just did this last night with my family, family worship, 1

01:02:14

Peter 2. We are living stones, believers are, being built together with Christ as the chief cornerstone, and we're being built up as the structure and indwelled by the very presence of God.

01:02:26

And so, there's numerous things you could say about this. There's an individual element of being in Christ, there's a corporate element, based on 1

01:02:35

Peter 2 and other places, and then there's a cosmic element, in terms of where the goal of history is headed, right?

01:02:44

What God is doing in the world and what he plans to do. So, those are some of the images, right?

01:02:49

Right, and so what that does is, that is supposed to spur us on, in our imagination, to more and more comprehend this union we have with Christ, because like you said, if Christ remains outside of us, his work is no benefit to us.

01:03:06

Yeah, amen. It's the fact that I'm united to Christ, that his work actually becomes a benefit to me.

01:03:12

Right. And that's the essence of salvation. And I wrote this down too, and I thought this was good.

01:03:18

This is a quote here, that one way to define faith is faith means finding your identity in Christ.

01:03:27

Yeah. And so, do you identify with him? Yeah. Right. That's key. A new identity, new story. New creation, new identity, yes, new story.

01:03:38

Jesus Christ, of course, he dwells within us, and his story becomes our story.

01:03:45

Yes. Right. We're joined to a story that predates us. We're joined to his story that predates us.

01:03:51

I will say this, like I said, sometimes I think these truths, because there's a mystical element to union with Christ, sometimes they can escape us, but one of the things

01:04:05

I learned in kind of the study, and this has been something that I've been looking into for a few years now, is that my understanding of it doesn't negate the truth of it.

01:04:14

That's right. But the power I receive when I reflect upon it, or meditate upon it, or captivate my imagination with these things, produces things in me that I can now live in that newness.

01:04:31

Because Paul says, you know, if you're in Christ, you're a new creation. That's right. And there's times where I don't feel like a new creation.

01:04:38

And I think what you're getting at here is central to the Christian experience, because how many times have you heard a believer say that?

01:04:44

I affirm these truths doctrinally, but I'm not changing the way that I live. There's a gap, right, between my experience as a believer and the truths that I believe.

01:04:56

Right? That is a major struggle for every Christian, right? Does it make a difference in my life?

01:05:02

And we're here to tell you that, I mean, according to what the pages of Scripture say is, everything that you need has been given to you to live the

01:05:10

Christian life, but it comes to you through particular means. And that is by virtue of the vital connection that Christ has established to His people, right?

01:05:20

He has joined His life to theirs, and that's what it means by the way, to have eternal life. It means so much more than heaven one day, and I want to hear, obviously, how you would define heaven here, because this is, you know, very important to this discussion, right?

01:05:35

We're talking about knowing God, fellowship with God, communion with God, enjoying

01:05:40

Him forever, but hey, Isaac, I thought heaven was this cosmic dimension way out there, this kind of ethereal, spiritual plane that we'll get to one day after we die, but is that how

01:05:53

Scripture defines heaven? No. I would say that the definition of Scripture when we speak of heaven is heaven is where God is, there is a uniqueness to heaven when it comes to the presence of God, okay?

01:06:14

And so if we, and what you're getting at, because this is where I want to go with this. Yeah, I figured,

01:06:20

I was picking up on that. Is in the beginning, alright?

01:06:28

You're going to get Genesis with Isaac, whether you like it or not. When God created us, right,

01:06:33

He places us in this garden, and we're not going to get too much into this, but ultimately what you have is the presence of God within this garden in a very special, unique way.

01:06:41

And you have heaven on earth, because God is dwelling in the midst of His people.

01:06:47

Recall the verse that was read at the beginning of the show. That's right. In Revelation. That is the goal for humanity, is that they would have communion with God.

01:06:55

That is the experience of heaven. And so you had God's presence in this garden in a very special, unique way.

01:07:02

It was a garden temple. And the mandate for Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and to multiply, right?

01:07:10

To tend and keep this garden, which is the same language that's given to priests later on in the Old Testament, as they serviced the temple.

01:07:17

That's right. And as they were fruitful and they multiplied, what they're doing is they're now spreading the presence of God all over the world.

01:07:25

Everywhere. Everywhere. Yes. They're practicing dominion by godly role, and they're subduing things for the glory of God.

01:07:33

As vassals, as co -regions. Vice regions. Vice regions with God, yeah. Vice gerund. And they're spreading the lordship of God in Christ all over the world as they are fruitful and multiplying.

01:07:45

They take what's in the garden, which is this unique, special presence of God. And they bring it everywhere.

01:07:50

And they bring it everywhere. But we know that that, of course, was forfeited by our first parents.

01:07:56

Yeah. We sinned and fell short of the glory of God. Yes. And when they did, we did. Okay? And that mandate is forfeited.

01:08:03

And the image of God, of course, for which they were made to represent him as they should, was tainted and it was marred.

01:08:10

And I know we're going long, but this is important. Oh, it's all important.

01:08:15

This is important. There's so much we can say. I remember listening to Sinclair Ferguson once say that if you look at Genesis 3 .15,

01:08:29

and you see the proto -Euangelion. Right. Right? Yeah. That he's going to put enmity between the serpent and the woman and her seed.

01:08:38

Yeah, their seeds. Yes. Right? The seeds, right. And her seed will crush the head of the serpent. Yes. And he'll bruise his heel.

01:08:44

Right. He says that is the primary text of Scripture. And everything else is just a footnote of how that's going to be accomplished and fulfilled.

01:08:53

And he says it in that delicious Scottish accent too. Right. Yes. It just makes you feel like you're in the presence of William Wallace.

01:09:01

But in reading this book, Union with Christ, that we just mentioned, there's something said in there.

01:09:06

And you pointed it out before the podcast. There's another way to look at that scene of the fall.

01:09:17

And the first thing that God says, I believe in Christ as he's walking in the coolness of the day.

01:09:25

The first thing he says is, where are you? Right. Right. And he's not looking for information.

01:09:33

Yeah. Yeah. That is a relational question. You had communion with me and now there's separation.

01:09:42

Where are you? I think that's the primary text. And the rest is the footnote as far as what

01:09:48

God is going to do to reconcile what was lost back to himself. Right.

01:09:53

And so in Christ, what God is doing is to bring atonement.

01:09:59

To bring one. Not only with a people. Yeah. We're not just talking about individual sinners that have violated his law.

01:10:07

But all things being reconciled to God in Christ.

01:10:13

And so what we see laid out in Scripture is God now in this drama of redemption bringing that about.

01:10:20

And so Christ comes as the last Adam. And where Adam fails, he succeeds.

01:10:25

Yes. And when he accomplishes his work in his first Advent there's something said in Matthew 28 all authority in heaven and earth have been given to me.

01:10:33

And one thing we were talking about was, yes, his first Advent and his work accomplished an individual salvation.

01:10:41

But there's something about that work that he's now able to say all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

01:10:49

Therefore you go. Right. Okay. In other words, this authority belongs to you as well.

01:10:56

Yes. Because it belongs to me. Right. And what's true of him is true of us. And I'm skipping over a lot.

01:11:03

But even if you go back a little bit, you look at John 14 where he says, hey I need to go and it's better for you.

01:11:09

And their question is, how is it better for us if you're not here? Right. He's saying, well, guess what?

01:11:15

Because, yes, I'm with you, but if I go, there'll be another comforter.

01:11:21

That's right. Speaking of another. Yeah. John 14, 16, and 17 by the way. And not only am

01:11:27

I going to be with you, but I'm going to be within you. Yes. And so there's a union that of course those who now identify with Christ, place their faith in Christ, there's a union that now comes and the images we're now given is like what you said in Peter to where we are living stones being built up for what?

01:11:48

To be the house of God. You're individually a temple of God, but collectively as Christians we are the temple of God.

01:11:58

Right. Okay. First Corinthians, you know, Paul says you're the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's right. And so what was the mandate at the beginning was that this garden temple that had the unique presence of God would fill the earth.

01:12:13

Well, when someone is saved and they're united to Christ and God dwells within them, you have heaven on earth.

01:12:20

You have the reconciliation of the presence of God in an individual and now their lives reflect that heaviness and they spread it to their neighbors and to creation and as they spread the gospel and someone gets saved then you have heaven on earth.

01:12:43

Heaven on earth. Which is much more effectual than having a center of worship in any geographical location because even like the

01:12:51

Old Testament taught us and showed us in shadows, the temple of God was mobile. Right. Right?

01:12:57

The tabernacle moved. It moved and it went to the nations. And now

01:13:02

Christians being indwelt by the spirit of God and having his presence, having a taste of heaven on earth, right? Obviously not in consummated form, but there is a sense in which

01:13:11

Paul says elsewhere, we carry the death of the Lord Jesus in our bodies so that his life will be manifested also.

01:13:20

That's right. That's beautiful. So we actually are little vessels of heaven. Carrying God's presence with us.

01:13:27

So how do you think this relates to your eschatological understanding because there's a lot of conversation today.

01:13:37

There was a clip kind of floating around from somebody we highly respect, John MacArthur.

01:13:43

Right. And he had said that one thing we can be sure of is that we lose down here.

01:13:49

Okay. So his view as far as what the work of Christ accomplishes is different.

01:13:58

He does believe that Christ will be victorious. But when that is fulfilled or to what extent we experience that now, that's kind of where we differ.

01:14:09

How does something like this, because I know that's one thing you were talking about, is when we talk about eschatology, you had quoted somebody about tying it into like these other, what

01:14:22

Dr. White said. What did Dr. White say? Pastor James, Dr. White from the

01:14:27

Dividing Line and also an elder at our church said something on a recent radio program talking about one's view of history and the future, and he said this.

01:14:38

Essentially to summarize, Christians have failed to attach their eschatological positions to the essentials of the faith.

01:14:45

Right. Which really, I think sums up well the implications of this discussion.

01:14:52

And, you know, the individual elements of union with Christ, the corporate elements of Christ being joined to his body, and then the ultimate goal of history, which is the union of all things to the

01:15:08

Lord Jesus. There's so many places you could go to flesh this out. And I say that pun intended, because so much of this also is dictated on the incarnational reality of Christ taking on flesh and identifying with a particular people as their covenantal federal representative.

01:15:28

And that is critical for understanding union with Christ. Right? Because he's the one that's the victor, and he takes the spoils and distributes them to his people.

01:15:37

Right? Everything that he achieves in battle, right, the battle that he won, is what he gives us.

01:15:43

And consequently, right, because he's taken on our nature, because he's become like us in that, as our great and sympathetic and faithful high priest, and of course as we identify with him, as we're united to him, we participate in his triumphs.

01:16:02

So, when Christ died, you died. When he rose, so did you.

01:16:08

When he was seated in the heavenly places, so were you. Right? He's reigning now, and you're seated with him.

01:16:17

As a present reality, right, not something off in the future, that's something that has present day application.

01:16:24

And so, how does that change the way that you view right now?

01:16:31

Right? The mission of the church, what the church, what the people of God are for, what we're to accomplish in the earth as participating in this mission of God, that God has enlisted us for, by joining us to the life of his son, giving us new life, forgiving our sins.

01:16:49

All of that has to do with union with Christ, and the implications for how we view this.

01:16:56

So, if we're the body of Christ, we're growing up, Paul says, into a head.

01:17:02

Right? God is maturing us, he's discipling us, he's, and he won't stop until we're mature.

01:17:09

Until we're brought to maturity. Until we're brought to fullness. And that process has begun.

01:17:15

Of course, in the incarnation, right, when the child was born, the son was given, the government, the rule, or the empire of Christ, if you'll say, was established.

01:17:25

His kingdom was inaugurated, right, during his time on earth, and then clinched, if you will, by the spoils that he wrestled away from the enemy, from the adversary at the cross.

01:17:38

Colossians says he put them to open spectacle, triumphing over them in him. So the point is, if we're the body,

01:17:45

Christ is the head, we're in him, we go where he goes. Right? We triumph where he triumphed.

01:17:52

Right. And we do, moving forward from the time that we're brought into this whole operation, right, it's not something that is later, it's victory now.

01:18:02

Not just on an individual level of personal sanctification and obedience, but every adversary is being put under the feet of Christ.

01:18:09

If we, if we lose here, my question is, who wins?

01:18:17

But that Colossians passage you just mentioned, because I was thinking about this actually when you bring that up. I was looking at that passage and I'm thinking to myself, if we lose, who wins?

01:18:29

Because they've been defeated. I don't, who wins? Right. That'd be the question

01:18:35

I would have. Right. If we lose, who wins? Because in that Colossians passage, like you said, they've been put to open shame.

01:18:41

They've been defeated definitively. And what you have now, as you mentioned, is now the spread of this kingdom.

01:18:49

Right. So the age to come is breaking into this current age. Yeah. Has already. Has already.

01:18:54

And I think a lot of Christians will agree with that. I think all Christians would. Like I said, the distinction is to what extent do we experience that now?

01:19:03

Whether we have like a, some would say an over -realized eschatology, we'd say they have under -realized. That's kind of where the debate is.

01:19:10

But I think what we're establishing now is that if union with Christ is at the essence of Christianity, and what

01:19:18

He is, we are, as far as what He's accomplished in our union with Him, His mission is our mission.

01:19:26

Yeah. His success is our success. And He even says you'll do greater things than these. Yes. In the very passage that you were referencing about Him dwelling in us.

01:19:35

I want to bring up real quick, and we were talking about this yesterday, and I've mentioned this,

01:19:41

I don't know how many times, but we talk often. If you didn't get that. Sometimes. Especially about these kinds of things.

01:19:48

In Psalm chapter 2, which of course us post -millennialists like to quote.

01:19:53

There's a few passages that post -millennials will just kind of quote over and over again. Psalm 2 is one of them. And it goes on to say of course, you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.

01:20:04

That's the verse. Which is just a reiteration of Psalm 2 that we see in Revelation. Well, this is Psalm 2.

01:20:10

Okay. Right. I'm getting ahead of myself here. I was excited for you to make this connection. What's the context of Psalm 2?

01:20:18

Because I know just by memory you're... So Psalm 2, the nations are raging, the peoples are plotting and rebelling against the

01:20:25

Lord and against His anointed. And then God establishes His King on Zion. His holy hill.

01:20:31

And all this raging and commotion going on, which the apostles tell us that passage is applied in Acts.

01:20:36

Right? They were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus. And all these different groups with different motivations.

01:20:42

And yet God established Him as King. And then the call goes out to the kings of the earth.

01:20:49

Therefore obey Him. Submit to Him. Do homage to Him. Kiss the Son lest He perish.

01:20:55

Right. And so the context is that God's Messiah is reigning. Right? He's seated.

01:21:01

Which we know that that is present day because the New Testament authors cite

01:21:07

Psalm 2 as true in their context. Right? Right. Jesus is reigning.

01:21:12

Now He's King of kings and Lord of lords. He's been seated. He's been exalted. He's ascended. He's enthroned as a present reality.

01:21:20

And if we move this to any other time, how are the kings raging?

01:21:28

I guess that's the question. The same way they always have, and that is trying to throw off the shackles of God's constraints.

01:21:34

Right. But if we take this verse and say, well that's for kind of a millennial reign.

01:21:40

Right. I'm just saying during the millennial reign, it sounds like it's kind of like today because you're still going to have kings raging?

01:21:46

You see what I'm saying? So it has to be applied. I see the issue. To the here and now. Because it speaks of the context we live in with kings raging against this anointed one.

01:21:57

And He says, ask of me and I'll give the nations to you as an inheritance. And if you look at Revelation chapter 2, as John is writing to the church, he says the one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him

01:22:12

I will give authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron as when earth and pots are broken in pieces.

01:22:20

Even I myself have received authority from my father and I will give him the morning star.

01:22:27

The prophecy that we have in Psalm chapter 2 is then applied to the church.

01:22:34

And what we're saying is the reason that's applied to the church is because the church is the body of Christ. The reason the church is the body of Christ is because we have union with Christ.

01:22:44

And we share in the triumphs of another. That's right. Yes. Right. I think the simplest way to say it is that there's no scenario in existence where the head triumphs and the body loses.

01:22:56

Right. I'm satisfied with that. I know we've kind of run somewhat over time.

01:23:03

Gabe is, I think Gabe is just furious back there because I told him we're going to go a certain amount of time and I did the very thing

01:23:12

I was supposed to destroy. Right. If you know what that is referencing.

01:23:18

Yes. As I know. Okay. But there's one more thing we have to do. Okay. And we'll make it quick because we have to.

01:23:24

Okay. And we put it in the title. A lot of you guys know about ChatGPT. I don't know if any of you guys have had the time to kind of mess with it.

01:23:32

But initially what I wanted to do was kind of have a little fun where we ask

01:23:38

ChatGPT some questions and kind of see what it spits out and kind of go from there.

01:23:47

You don't have to pull up my screen Gabe. Not right now. But I asked a question to ChatGPT.

01:23:55

Yeah. Had to do with the gospel. Had to do with the gospel. And I mean there's tons of things that we can ask and I will ask this.

01:24:02

If you are of course still watching and we haven't lost you. I hope we haven't. I hope you guys have been blessed.

01:24:09

Tell me something in the comments that you would like me to ask ChatGPT and maybe we can ask one and then respond to it.

01:24:16

But I asked ChatGPT to articulate pretty much the gospel.

01:24:21

Okay. And it came up with something a little long. Let's see how it did. Okay. And I was like well can you condense it and shorten it?

01:24:27

And it said certainly. Here's a shorter version. And this is what it said. The gospel is the good news that despite our sins and separation from God, Jesus Christ came to reconcile us through his death and resurrection.

01:24:41

By placing our faith in him, we receive forgiveness, eternal life and the opportunity for a restored relationship with God.

01:24:49

It's a message of hope, love and salvation. Okay. Yeah. In terms of the soteriological aspect, very accurate.

01:25:00

Very accurate. Okay. Very accurate. And I had the initial question

01:25:05

I had asked is what is the gospel? And then it kind of just gave me some background into what the gospel means.

01:25:12

And I just thought it was too long for the show. And that's when I was like hey can you give me a short gospel presentation?

01:25:19

And then it was still a little bit too long and then that's when I asked can you make this response shorter? And that's what it spit out.

01:25:27

Okay. Okay. That was the summary. AI is very intriguing. I don't know honestly what to think of it.

01:25:35

Yeah. I think like any technological advance as people of God, we just I think we gotta figure out how we're gonna approach it and use it to the glory of God.

01:25:44

Right. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that as far as maybe certain boundaries that you think would be in place.

01:25:50

I don't know what to do with this stuff because it's phenomenal. Some of the things that I can type in and ask within seconds.

01:25:58

It's just providing an in -depth, succinct information that I don't have myself.

01:26:08

I think Wilson talks about this a lot in his book Plot Activity. Talking about approaching these kinds of things with grateful suspicion.

01:26:19

So we're thankful that God has given us all of these little servants to do our bidding. Right. Like I can get on my phone right now and I did it today.

01:26:27

I placed a lunch order and it was here in 15 minutes. And that's remarkable innovation right there and a blessing of technology to be able to do that.

01:26:37

And I think that of course AI has the similar potential and capability to bless.

01:26:44

The problem is of course the hearts of sinful people that will use tools that are completely neutral in their functionality and use it for evil and not good.

01:26:58

Those are my initial thoughts about it. I approach it in that way with grateful suspicion because when you have even the people of God who are supposed to have standards of ethics and all of that using it to advance either their own writing or messages or all of that, we definitely have a problem in and of itself.

01:27:20

And so you'd hate to get to the point where technology even for the Christian replaces the necessary work for certain things that we're engaged in.

01:27:32

Good. I got one question here or at least one response on the chat.

01:27:37

They want me to ask how a blueprint for the human brain came out of the

01:27:42

Big Bang. Man. It's just pretty much the same.

01:27:48

The evolution and development of complex biological systems including the human brain are explained by the process of biological evolution and natural selection rather than being directly linked to the

01:27:59

Big Bang over a billion of years. AI is somewhat of a chameleon.

01:28:05

Yeah. I asked it too earlier because when it came with that statement that we're like, well, soteriologically, that's just there.

01:28:14

It's not the good news of the kingdom. Right. But it is how one is reconciled to God. Right. If I was to, if somebody was to say, hey, gospel presentation,

01:28:21

I mean, tell me, you know. Yeah. I mean, of course I would include, and did, it said reconciliation. So it includes, of course, union with Christ.

01:28:28

I asked it, where are you, what source are you pulling from? And then it just said that, you know, it's kind of like, let me see what it said.

01:28:35

It said, I asked where did you get this response from? And it's just, as an AI language model, my responses are generated based on a mixture of licensed data, data created by human trainers, and publicly available data.

01:28:49

But that it can pull from all these different sources. It's pulling from a variety of sources. Yeah. And then come up with, to me at least, historically, what the

01:28:56

Christian church has always believed. Yeah. It's pretty phenomenal. Yeah. Pretty phenomenal. Yeah. There's no telling. It's got unlimited potential, in a sense.

01:29:06

So, what I'm hearing from Gabe is that this is a record. He says Jeff has never gone this long, which is hard for me to believe.

01:29:12

It is possible. It's not even an hour 30. That's not too bad. Hour 30.

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01:29:25

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01:30:47

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