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Ah uh, cool.
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Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. I am Corey J. Moller, and I'm low.
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What problem are you trying to solve? Anyone who's been friends with me for any
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length of time has probably heard me ask that question more than once. Probably
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dreads hearing it. If you come to me with a problem or a question or even if with
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any air shot you're complaining about something there's a decent chance that
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eventually I will ask you what problem are you trying to solve. Today we're
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gonna apply that question to a couple different circumstances that are part of
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the Christian experience. As part of our Christian lives we are we're called
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to testify to our faith to others and we're called to discuss our faith with
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others within the church. So outside of the church to those who are unbelievers
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and inside the church to those who do have faith, but me they come from
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differing beliefs. So the first scenario we're going to discuss in the first
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half of the episode is how do you discuss your faith with an unbeliever? And the
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reason I want to frame that in terms of what question are you trying to solve?
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Is that it's Christians we want to ultimately share the good news of the
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gospel. Namely that Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross because we know
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that there's nothing we can do to pay for our sins. But for an unbeliever those
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there are a lot of assumptions packed into that that they don't follow. They
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don't have the gimmons given that we have. So to tell them Jesus died for your sins
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sort of as the intro it's kind of like reading the last page of a novel to
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someone. They don't care like they're not invested in any of it. So you gave
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them a fact why does it how's it connected to them. So we're gonna talk about
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how to in some cases discuss your faith with people in a way that you wouldn't
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necessarily think of normally and it's going to challenge all of us to think
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about Christian life in areas where we don't normally think about it. In areas
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that don't typically apply to faith when you're looking at them and we'll give
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some examples. The second half of the episode we're going to talk about something
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that's blown up on Twitter for the last couple weeks but it's a very good
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example of how within the church it's possible to not ask the question what
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problem am I trying to solve before you start arguing with someone or start
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correcting someone or start trying to manage the words that someone's using in
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such a way that you can actually do more harm than good because you didn't
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understand where they were coming from and so you were trying to solve the wrong
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problem. So we're gonna talk about listening better and about unwinding back to
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what's going on to begin with so that you can communicate clearly but you don't
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do harm in attempting to do so because if you can't communicate without doing
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harm then you should keep your mouth shut. That's that's always an option for
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anyone. Ironic for the jerk with a microphone to say but that's honestly
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something that's an important part of the Christian life too and as I've
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said in pass-up so there's times when I do keep my mouth shut but not right
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now, not for the next hour. So the first scenario we're gonna talk about is you
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say in the workplace you have a coworker who you're having lunch with him and
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he confides in you that his teenage boy has fallen under the spell of some
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friends. He's fallen in new friends and there's influences getting in his
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social circle that amounts to pressuring him to do drugs but it's not the
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drugs that maybe you or your parents' generations are familiar with. I'm not
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talking about party drugs talking about hormone replacement therapy. His
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friends don't want him to get high on cocaine or smoke marijuana. His friends
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want him to inject estrogen into his body so that he will grow breasts and so
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that he will lose his facial hair and he's going to want to have his genitals
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surgically removed because he's been convinced that he wants to be a girl or
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that he is a girl and it's the only way to realize that is through the
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application of science and so you as a Christian are sitting there listening to
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this horror story from this man and the question that the reason I'm raising the
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question what problem are you trying to solve is that I think that today is
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Christians as we're looking at the decaying world as we're looking at things
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like that man is suffering and you know this this hypothetical conversation the
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other person is not a Christian so he's he's completely at a loss not only is
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he bereft and beside himself suffering for the future of his son but he doesn't
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have a frame of reference for how something so terrible could happen and if
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you're a Christian you're listening to this podcast you're you're going to be
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a conservative you're probably very conservative again that's not a great
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word but you know we mean we say that as conservatives we are fond of calling
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this the culture war or calling it wokeism or you know maybe if you've done
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some more sophisticated digging into the genealogy these ideas you'll call it
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cultural Marxism or just Marxism and to some extent all of those things are
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true but as we talked about in the frame episode it's not the frame that the
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Christian should bring to the discussion because what is implicit in all of
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those characterizations is in the case of calling something woke you're saying
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effectively it's you're being derisive where you're being dismissive saying
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that well those guys are just being silly it's you know kind of implying that
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it's a phase the yeah this world's really crazy right now I don't know what's
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going on this is a bunch of wild cultural stuff or if you want to call it
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Marxism you can maybe get closer to the root that there's something bad
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happening but you're thinking of it even as a Christian is bad in terms of
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good ideas or bad ideas and which ones are going to win in the marketplace of
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ideas so what I want you to think about is that the question that you should be
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asking and the way that you should frame your response to anyone who's coming
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to you describing their suffering in the world is to avoid discussing it in
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terms that don't starkly speak of good and evil because fundamentally that's
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what this is the fact that that man's son has fallen under the spell of this
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destruction is satanic for a for anyone to be convinced that he should destroy
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his body it's three things that Satan's doing first Satan has robbed him as of
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his faith have he ever had it because no Christian is ever going to decide to
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change their sex it's an impossibility to reject the body that God gave you is
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to have already rejected your creator it's to say I hate you God you don't
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exist this is my body I'm gonna do it I want so the faith has already been lost
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before they even get to that point and then Satan destroys their minds by
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convincing them of these lies that yes I was born a boy but now I'm a girl and
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so I need to fix that and the fix is the third act of destruction by Satan and
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that is the destruction of the body so the soul and in the mind and in the body
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are destroyed and in a case of transsexuals are those who who mutilate their
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bodies to pretend to be the other sex the suicide rate is over 40% for those
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people and when that is admitted by those who will advocate those acts they're
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not saying it to say wow maybe this is a really bad place to take someone the
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excuses that will these people are misunderstood and they're bullied and
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that's why they're killing themselves no the suicide rate is so high because
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that is the final act of Satan in this act of destruction begins with the soul
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then the mind and then the body and he doesn't care what order he does it in but
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that's the order that happens in this case and the destruction of the body through
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mutilation and then through self murder ultimately ensures damnation because
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even someone who has suffered through that sort of demonic oppression there's
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still hope for them as long as they draw breath doesn't matter what you've done
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to your body it doesn't matter what you've done in your life you can be
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redeemed and so Christians know that but we also know that there's evil that's
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causing these things and so when we say well that's that's a woke that's crazy
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that's cultural and we can't say that's evil we're fundamentally betraying the
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faith we're in effect as Christians providing cover for Satan to run wild in
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the world because the only people who are gonna call him out who are gonna shine
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light and say look at what Satan is doing look at this evil we're the only ones
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who know that and can see that authoritatively they're non-believers who
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can see it's evil but they don't know what evil means they it's more
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relativistic to them we know that there's absolute good and evil and so we
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must learn as Christians to make sure that when we see evil in the world that's
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that's what we call it because I said to discuss your faith with someone in this
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century it's not gonna begin with talking about Jesus it's going to begin with
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pointing to the evil in the world that you share with your neighbor and then
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helping to frame that evil that you suffering from in terms of the Christian
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faith that you want to be his as well some unbelievers do see some of this more
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clearly than Christians because much of this is not only immoral not only
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against the moral law but it's against nature and in particular some pagans
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actually do better with the against nature the continental arguments then
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some Christians do and so when it comes to things like transsexualism they
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will look at that and viscerally understand that is contrary to nature and so
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they'll call it evil which they're right they just don't understand why it's
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necessarily evil and the source of that evil and so it depends on the person
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with whom you're speaking for a pagan who already recognizes the evil you can
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explain well I can tell you why it's evil and the source of that evil and so
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that can be a way you can open up that conversation and maybe get somewhere but
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you mentioned the the order in which this particular new it's actually not a
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new evil because this existed back in cult prostitution in ancient times but it's
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a recurrent evil it's new for recent times soul mind and body it's really the
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inversion of what happens with most drugs because most drugs destroy the body
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then there's addiction that follows on which is a destruction of the mind and
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ultimately despair which is the destruction of the soul Satan found a way to do
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it in reverse which is quite effective unfortunately but one of the other
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problems when dealing with Christians who say you know it's just woke or it's
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liberal or leftist or and I'm not saying it's not necessarily those things
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because it is indeed those things although I think the term woke is terribly
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stupid I wouldn't really use it you're making it sound like Christianity is one
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solution among many and it lends a sort of legitimacy it's a framing issue it
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lends legitimacy to the other side to Satan and his minions that they do not have
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you're saying well my view is better the way that I look at the world has more
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explanatory power or is x y and z and so you should really believe my view no you
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should believe what Christians believe because it's true it's not one
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competing view among many it is the only solution it is the only truth and so it
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matters how you frame these things if you make it sound like it is just politics
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if you make it sound like your solution is one among many you've already
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seated the field in a way that has probably fatally undermined any chance you
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have a really getting through to that person with the law and then the gospel
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because of course you have to have the law first you're exactly right and
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that's it's a case that as we've talked about in previous episodes what
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Satan is doing to the world in this century and beginning in the last
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century century is to attack creation itself Satan's not going after Jesus died
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for you anymore I mean he does but he doesn't even need to go there because
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Christendom is dead there's no there's no more Christianity built into
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society Christianity itself is dying as a part of the nations that have hosted
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it for thousands of years and so he doesn't have to go after how are you saved
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he's going after what you are and turning people from men and women who were
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made men who are made in the image of God into self-actualized not creatures
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because creature implies creator he's saying you are your own person you can be
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whatever you want to be if you want to be a dog you can be a dog and this is
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something happening before the zoomer generation now where younger kids are
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actually being convinced that they can be animals and they're living their lives
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in school in some cases as animals where they will dress up like an animal in
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school they will not sit in a chair they have to sit on their dog bed and the
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teachers are required to tolerate this behavior to not interfere with their
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self-realization of their identity as a dog or a cat or whatever they're doing
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and as an adult who is not paying attention to what's going on when you hear
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these things you think instinctively that's just crazy and yes it is crazy
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like 150 years ago these sorts of things would periodically pop up but they
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were either in people who were directly an overly demon possessed or oppressed
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or clinically insane if there can be if you can say there's any difference
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between those two I don't know that there is but even assuming for the sake of
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argument they're not the same thing those are the only categories of people who
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would ever think I'm a dog you need to treat me like a dog today there's so
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many kids doing it the schools have to have policies around it now that's their
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generation the people aren't seeing yet because they're too young really to have
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a lot of this stuff videotape and show up on the internet but it's happening
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and it's coming and so again Satan is destroying creation itself both by the
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pollution and the destruction of the physical world and by convincing man to
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destroy himself and he's man is destroying himself by denying how God made
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him so we spend a lot of time talking about how God made us as men for
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this very reason you know we've we've alluded to race numerous times as a future
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episode we're gonna do an episode soon where we go into it in depth and it's
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not because we think race is that important or interesting honestly I find it
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a tedious and boring topic it's not gonna be a tedious and boring episode
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because it's pregnant light your hair on fire you're gonna hear some things
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you've never heard and it's probably gonna make you pretty mad and that's also
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now why we're talking about we're talking about it because it's true the way
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that God made the races is a real thing and so it was not a coincidence that
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before Satan convinced people to deny that they were human or to deny that
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they were men and women he got everyone including a lot of Christians denying
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that God made you as an African or as a European or as an Asian those aren't
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things those are social categories they're superficial they're not real God
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didn't do that and that was a small crack in the door but all of the rest of
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the stuff is plowed right through it so when we discuss these things again it's
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not because we think like oh well race is the foundation of the faith no it has
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nothing to do with it except that it's how God operates in our lives to create
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us and when you concede that well you're just a generic human being well why
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aren't I just a generic human being that's sexless how how is that dichotomy
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possibly tolerated in a world where all of these other differentiations that
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are physically observable and scientifically demonstrable if those can be
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discarded well you can't tell me I'm not a woman I'm a woman I feel like a
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woman I have a woman's thoughts and a woman's needs you can't tell me
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otherwise you lose the moral high ground and you lose any credibility as a
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Christian if you lie about one you've lost the ability to speak truthfully
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about the other and we've seen that play out in history as you mentioned that
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is exactly what happened you have the attack on it really happens sort of
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simultaneously but the attack on the reality of human race took off more
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effectively earlier and then you had following on the attack on male and female
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so you have the denial of the distinction the differences between the
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races of men and the very existence of them initially that's not of course
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where they started but today that is what you see you see it all the time
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people will deny that race is real they will say that it is as you mentioned
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merely a social construct merely a reporting category for the census I saw
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someone actually argue that I didn't follow it because I didn't want to go
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insane but the attack was first on that and then it immediately followed well
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if there's no difference between among the races of men then there's no real
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difference between men and women and that's where you get the 19th amendment
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and before that in Europe you get all of the countries permitting women to
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vote and run for office and do all these various things because as soon as you
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give up any of these truths about creation you've lost all of them it's just a
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matter of time you already gave Satan the foot in the door you opened the door
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for him and let him walk into the room he is going to own everything before he's
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done unless he's stopped today he is attacking still male and female because the
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goal is to completely destroy that distinction but he's moving on as well
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that's why as mentioned you have people who say no I'm actually not a human I'm a
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dog or a cat you have officers in our military posting pictures of themselves on
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social media in fur suits this is not something that is in the closet or under
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the rug or now this is out in the open happening before the eyes of the world
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Satan is not subtle he doesn't need to be subtle because Christians have
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abandoned the field and I think most people listening probably don't know what
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fur suits are and I don't I don't want to tell you but it's the again back to
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the the term woke ism and woke you're right it's it I please do not go for your
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own sanity don't don't look it up you don't need to know just it's horrible it's
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horrible it's depraved it's evil it's degenerate and it's normal today in the
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sense that it happens and you can't stop it or you will be arrested and so as
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Christians the reason that I want to focus on what problem are you trying to
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solve when you're talking to people whether it's a coworker or you know
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maybe it's an extended family member who is seeing the horrors happening in the
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world the reason that we I mentioned race and we're talking about a couple of
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these things is for the fact that people who aren't Christians can see that
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these things are evil they can look at them and see that is as Cory's you said
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it is contrary to nature on its face plainly Christians have lost the
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ability to say that we're afraid to say that now because Satan can
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bins Christians judge not means that you can't point at something an evil and
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say it's evil when scripture directly commands us to do that very thing if you
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cannot point to evil and say that's evil you're not a Christian period if you
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can't say something's evil you're not a Christian well if you're not calling it
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evil you are tacitly calling it good exactly woe to those who call evil good and
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good evil scripture is not subtle about this it's very clear and so as we
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discuss these things with friends and family whether it's in person or on the
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internet or whatever you're going to talk to people who do not have faith they
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don't know Jesus they don't know God they don't know about justification they
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know that the world is evil and this is the this is God opening the door for us
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to share our faith with them but we don't begin I humbly submit I'm not saying
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you can never talk about Jesus we have to get to talking about Jesus I would
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humbly submit to you consider that you don't begin by talking about Jesus when
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someone says why is my child mutilating himself why are my neighbors pretending
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to be dogs and doing obscene things in the yard and the police won't stop them
22:38.120 --> 22:44.280
why is this happening if you use a Christian you know your Tucker Carlson
22:44.280 --> 22:49.640
listener or whatever like if you call these things woke if you say that they're
22:49.640 --> 22:55.360
cultural warfare if as Cory said if you say that well maybe Christianity has a
22:55.360 --> 23:00.280
better explanation for what's going on you're never gonna make any impact in
23:00.280 --> 23:03.960
that person's life because that's the same equivocation and the same
23:03.960 --> 23:09.120
godlessness that they see defining the very people who are destroying things if
23:09.120 --> 23:15.440
you can come to someone who is horrified by the evil in the world and I think
23:15.440 --> 23:21.160
one of the things that Christians need to get comfortable with is being
23:21.160 --> 23:25.440
strategic about how we share our faith so for example I have I have numerous
23:25.440 --> 23:31.200
friends who are not Christians they're they're good friends they're loyal they're
23:31.200 --> 23:38.680
funny they are sincere and they're honest and they some of them don't have faith
23:38.680 --> 23:44.080
there are few who when I share my faith with them in whatever context or even
23:44.080 --> 23:49.280
just if something comes up they will go out of their way to blaspheme and say
23:49.280 --> 23:53.840
ha ha I can't believe you fall for this crap and they'll say terrible things
23:53.840 --> 23:57.840
about God and so I try not to instigate situations where they would do that
23:57.840 --> 24:02.280
because I don't want them to be sitting because I go to them into it but at the
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same time when situations arise where I can point to my faith and say look I
24:08.160 --> 24:12.200
know you think this is silly I know you don't believe it I know you think it's
24:12.200 --> 24:17.320
stupid I'm going to tell you anyway why I think that Christianity that my
24:17.320 --> 24:22.560
faith that my godly understanding of the world is relevant to this situation and
24:22.560 --> 24:26.320
you can say up front I know you're going to think I'm stupid I know that I
24:26.320 --> 24:30.120
have friends who think I'm retarded because I believe in skydady and I don't
24:30.120 --> 24:36.040
care because you know what every time they insult me and say that stuff when
24:36.040 --> 24:39.960
I don't respond in kind and I just continue to share what I know and
24:39.960 --> 24:45.120
whatever small way I can in the moment that is demonstrating my faith too even
24:45.120 --> 24:48.360
if they don't care they don't believe anything I say the fact that I can
24:48.360 --> 24:54.160
respond in a way that is consistent and tries to be supportive of doing
24:54.160 --> 24:59.000
something good will stand out to someone even if they reject the message and
24:59.000 --> 25:03.720
you never know how the Holy Spirit's going to work in someone's life I think
25:03.720 --> 25:09.320
that we know as Christians intellectually but we don't necessarily internalize
25:09.320 --> 25:15.160
it that we are planting God's seeds and he will give the growth we don't know
25:15.160 --> 25:21.080
what's going to happen all we can do is speak truthfully and truthfully as I've
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said as we've said numerous times is all truth it's not just truth about John
25:26.920 --> 25:32.200
316 I say John 316 all the time not because I don't love that verse I love
25:32.200 --> 25:38.520
it dearly it's the perfect encapsulation of why we are Christians but it's not
25:38.520 --> 25:42.880
an explanation for why someone would be Christian if they don't already know
25:42.880 --> 25:46.480
why they need to be Christian you know we've talked before about the law
25:46.480 --> 25:52.280
gospel distinction the gospel is incoherent to someone who doesn't think
25:52.280 --> 25:56.760
they're a sinner who doesn't think they have a creator so the first hurdle you
25:56.760 --> 26:00.840
need to cross with someone is not let me tell you how Jesus died for your sins
26:00.840 --> 26:08.200
it's let me connect your lived experience to use the Marxist term let me let me
26:08.200 --> 26:14.320
use your life let me use what you're suffering in this world to connect you
26:14.320 --> 26:19.600
to your creator whom you do not know and if you can make even that one small
26:19.600 --> 26:24.440
connection maybe you can't talk about Jesus that day that's fine if you can
26:24.440 --> 26:29.240
plan a seed that will grow a little bit if you can nail them down on one
26:29.240 --> 26:35.200
simple concession to your frame to your your Christian worldview to use
26:35.200 --> 26:39.040
another terrible term but we're kind of stuck in a world where we have to use
26:39.040 --> 26:43.800
terrible terms because the good ones are dead and that's amusingly that's
26:43.800 --> 26:49.240
actually the subject for the second half of this episode but when we fail to
26:49.240 --> 26:54.320
realize that these struggles people face are spiritual that they have
26:54.320 --> 26:58.800
Satan behind them and that they have human beings acting in this life as
26:58.800 --> 27:03.560
say in the agents some of whom know and some of whom don't know they don't
27:03.560 --> 27:08.480
realize that they're serving Satan they just they're motivated by whatever has
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possessed them it's usually good intentions they're malformed intentions but
27:13.080 --> 27:16.040
they think they're doing good they think they're making the world a better
27:16.040 --> 27:22.880
place by denying creation and so when Christians can say what problem are you
27:22.880 --> 27:29.480
trying to solve by looking at the state of the world eventually you will have to
27:29.480 --> 27:34.600
unwind that conversation back to the source of good naval and the source of
27:34.600 --> 27:40.200
creation itself and how God's rules are baked into creation and how every time
27:40.200 --> 27:47.120
we physically and spiritually and mentally deviate from what God has ordained we
27:47.120 --> 27:51.800
suffer in this life we suffer temporal consequences for the sin of
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disbelief of not doing the things that God has ordered the world to function and
27:59.960 --> 28:04.120
as we're talking about this today I realize that this is probably not the way
28:04.120 --> 28:07.000
that most people are listening you probably don't look at the world this way
28:07.000 --> 28:11.000
you probably think more in terms of culture war you don't want to think about
28:11.000 --> 28:17.680
evil and especially the sort of existential looming evil that is ravenous and
28:17.680 --> 28:22.480
is all consuming and all destructive that's too much for most people to bear
28:22.480 --> 28:28.280
that's understandable but if you want to share the gospel in this year with
28:28.280 --> 28:33.000
people who are facing that devouring lion you're going to have to face the
28:33.000 --> 28:37.080
existential evil even if it's in a small way even if it's in a conversation
28:37.080 --> 28:42.000
that's limited and so I'm encouraging people to just think about this because if
28:42.000 --> 28:46.360
we're not looking at the world through spiritual eyes we can't describe it in
28:46.360 --> 28:50.880
that way we if we can see the frame that this is just it's culture war man I
28:50.880 --> 28:55.160
hope I hope the good culture wins in the bad culture loses if you've taken good
28:55.160 --> 29:02.280
evil off the table you cannot speak as a Christian and that's a terrible
29:02.280 --> 29:06.360
thing because that that that's an opportunity that God's given you and someone
29:06.360 --> 29:13.640
else's life to tell the truth and if if you can't do it even in a small way that
29:13.640 --> 29:17.880
person's just going to go on like nothing ever happened but it was it it was a
29:17.880 --> 29:21.880
change that occurred in that in that timeline where in the other direction if
29:21.880 --> 29:26.160
you've been able to mount a forceful clear defense of what God wants for the
29:26.160 --> 29:29.200
world even knowing that they don't believe in God yet it's fine for you to talk
29:29.200 --> 29:33.600
about God and say I understand that you don't believe this is true but if you
29:33.600 --> 29:36.640
don't mind you can be you can act a little bit embarrassed about it that's fine
29:36.640 --> 29:41.880
and you can say if God is real that's not a denial of God in conversation for
29:41.880 --> 29:47.320
you to say if you're offering an alternative to what they already believe so
29:47.320 --> 29:51.480
you're not making things any worse what you're doing is enticing the other
29:51.480 --> 29:57.080
person to concede for a moment the possibility that maybe you have something
29:57.080 --> 30:01.480
that's explanatory for what is ailing them because the thing that's ailing
30:01.480 --> 30:05.280
them while it is ultimately sin they're not going to get that until they get a
30:05.280 --> 30:11.080
lot of other givens taken out of the way first and it is worth noting that all
30:11.080 --> 30:17.880
men who do not have a seared conscience do believe in God they are suppressing
30:17.880 --> 30:24.160
it but they do actually believe in God and you're opening for many of these
30:24.160 --> 30:29.280
interactions is going to be if the other person is looking for an explanation
30:29.280 --> 30:37.360
for why the world is as it is that person is already tacitly admitted a belief
30:37.360 --> 30:41.800
in God he may not recognize that it's a belief in God but that is where that
30:41.800 --> 30:48.280
eventuates that is the end of that line of thought because if there's a reason
30:48.280 --> 30:52.200
there's a God we're not going to get into that today we're not going to explain
30:52.200 --> 30:57.760
all of the reasoning that gets you there but the alternative is to say there's
30:57.760 --> 31:01.520
no reason and then it's just a matter of preferences and this is one of the
31:01.520 --> 31:06.480
arguments of modern philosophy and modern ethics I just don't like that or I do
31:06.480 --> 31:10.120
like that if someone is speaking in those terms you're going to have more
31:10.120 --> 31:13.800
trouble because that person is saying there's no reason there's no
31:13.800 --> 31:18.760
ultimate meaning it's just preferences expressing themselves and catching
31:18.760 --> 31:23.960
on in groups in the group psychology etc but if someone is open to the idea
31:23.960 --> 31:29.480
that there may be a reason people behave the way they do things are the way
31:29.480 --> 31:34.800
they are our society has changed in the ways that it has changed that's your
31:34.800 --> 31:39.120
opening that's someone you can give him you can say well I know the reason I
31:39.120 --> 31:44.240
know why things are the way they are I know what the cause is it's evil and
31:44.240 --> 31:49.360
there's an alternative to that it's called God and so there's an opening for
31:49.360 --> 31:54.680
you there you just have to recognize that opening and know how to approach that
31:54.680 --> 32:02.280
person how to offer the information that you have that he needs there are
32:02.280 --> 32:07.640
something fundamentally fascinating that happened at the very beginning of the
32:07.640 --> 32:14.400
BLM riots that followed George Floyd's suicide in 2000 early on when BLM
32:14.400 --> 32:19.600
kicked off there were a few people who were the ring leaders who were the they
32:19.600 --> 32:23.960
were out in front they were collecting the funding they were shaping the
32:23.960 --> 32:29.280
messaging they were helping to orchestrate nationally both the violence and
32:29.280 --> 32:35.080
the public facing good parts of what they were trying to sell even while they
32:35.080 --> 32:39.920
were destroying our cities the fascinating thing that happened was that for a
32:39.920 --> 32:48.200
period of several months after the the BLM was formed and before this came to
32:48.200 --> 32:55.280
wide knowledge Black Lives Matter's website as part of their ethos page
32:55.280 --> 32:59.840
just a part of their about page talking about their motives they went far
32:59.840 --> 33:06.760
beyond racial justice and racial equity and the various other things that most
33:06.760 --> 33:12.760
naive observers thought that their so-called movement was about they went on on
33:12.760 --> 33:18.640
the very same page to say we are also here to topple the patriarchy we are here
33:18.640 --> 33:24.520
to topple heteronormativity we are here to topple the nuclear family and they
33:24.520 --> 33:29.160
went into depth on each of those why they wanted to destroy those foundational
33:29.160 --> 33:36.400
things now as a Christian who has thought about these things for some time and
33:36.400 --> 33:41.160
who has a proper understanding of what's actually going on it's no surprise at
33:41.160 --> 33:45.320
all that the people the same people who are shouting racial justice are
33:45.320 --> 33:50.400
shouting down with the patriarchy they're shouting up with homosexuality up with
33:50.400 --> 33:57.120
homosexuality with transgenerism for children shouting destroy the family let
33:57.120 --> 34:02.320
us have groups of individuals who are connected by bonds they have nothing to do
34:02.320 --> 34:07.400
with bloods whatsoever to the naive observer that sounds like just a random
34:07.400 --> 34:11.160
grab bag like that's all how did all those crazy woke things end up in the
34:11.160 --> 34:16.680
same place these guys are such lib tards that's what a lot of people thought what
34:16.680 --> 34:22.040
was actually going on was that all of those things including the racial aspect
34:22.040 --> 34:28.280
that was the top line item they're all part of the same attack the fact that
34:28.280 --> 34:34.200
patriarchy was second on the list was not a coincidence and so we're not going to
34:34.200 --> 34:36.800
get into that today we're we're going to we've talked about patriarchy and
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headship and past episodes and we'll connect it in some future ones as well but
34:40.680 --> 34:47.160
I want to I want to use that as an illustrative example of how something that
34:47.160 --> 34:51.200
if you're naive if you don't have spiritual eyes you can't really make sense of
34:51.200 --> 34:55.560
it like why do these people who are upset the cops are being mean to minorities
34:55.560 --> 35:00.080
why are they mad at the nuclear family and why do they want sawdemy for
35:00.080 --> 35:05.440
children that doesn't make any sense and on paper it doesn't unless you realize
35:05.440 --> 35:10.160
that the animating evil behind one of those things is the animating evil behind
35:10.160 --> 35:16.320
every one of those things and the overarching goal is the subversion of nature
35:16.320 --> 35:22.200
because Satan is already more or less one when it comes to the field of making
35:22.200 --> 35:26.920
the church irrelevant in modern society we can look at the numbers all day
35:26.920 --> 35:32.200
that say you know double digit whatever high double digit percentages claim to
35:32.200 --> 35:37.000
be Christian but when you actually get down into the real information there are
35:37.000 --> 35:42.680
very few Christians in the world and even in the places that are more Christian
35:42.680 --> 35:47.040
than most others there are very few actual Christians and that's just basic
35:47.040 --> 35:53.600
things in Christianity you know is Jesus the son of God is Jesus God is Jesus
35:53.600 --> 35:58.640
created and they give the wrong answers to these are not Christians but so the
35:58.640 --> 36:03.400
animation behind it the animating intelligence behind it is Satan and his goal
36:03.400 --> 36:07.960
is the subversion of nature and that's what all of these things have in common
36:07.960 --> 36:11.800
now as mentioned earlier there are some pagans and others who will recognize
36:11.800 --> 36:16.880
that all of these are against nature they're all perversions and so it makes
36:16.880 --> 36:21.360
sense that they're related many will not most will not recognize these things
36:21.360 --> 36:27.920
are related but every so often Satan slips up and he puts out a website that gives
36:27.920 --> 36:34.560
you his game plan it pays to pay attention when your enemy accidentally
36:34.560 --> 36:40.160
publishes his battle plan Satan telegraphs what he's going to do and we
36:40.160 --> 36:45.440
should pay attention to that because he is telling us what he hates and he hates
36:45.440 --> 36:51.240
all of the things that God loves and we need to take them seriously and that's
36:51.240 --> 36:56.000
why we're that's why we're attacking the concept of using culture war is any
36:56.000 --> 36:59.840
sort of frame of reference for what's going on if you think it's just
36:59.840 --> 37:05.960
cultural or it's just people being silly or stupid or unrealistic or impractical
37:05.960 --> 37:11.840
you will never see Satan's hand up their butt and it's there those people who
37:11.840 --> 37:16.640
are advocating those things even if they're in our churches they are agents of
37:16.640 --> 37:20.800
Satan when they're doing those things it doesn't mean that they don't do
37:20.800 --> 37:24.720
godly things on other days but when they're doing these things they're acting
37:24.720 --> 37:31.200
on behalf of Satan and me Satan said to Peter yeah in the in the Lutheran
37:31.200 --> 37:35.000
church and I think in many churches I just don't know of the others when
37:35.000 --> 37:40.240
someone is baptized as an infant their parents and sponsors will speak these
37:40.240 --> 37:44.320
words and when you're confirmed you you will speak these words again do you
37:44.320 --> 37:50.520
renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways and the Christian will
37:50.520 --> 37:57.920
respond I do renounce them we don't want to think about all his works and all
37:57.920 --> 38:02.880
his ways as modern Christians we want to renounce the devil but we don't want
38:02.880 --> 38:07.760
to pay attention to what his works and his ways are because you know what if if
38:07.760 --> 38:12.160
we unravel that too deeply we might find that the genealogy of some of our
38:12.160 --> 38:17.040
beliefs and some of our ideas traces back to something that isn't godly and I
38:17.040 --> 38:20.480
don't know how many people realize that either consciously or subconsciously
38:20.480 --> 38:24.680
but I can tell you for a fact that it's there and it's not only there in people
38:24.680 --> 38:29.760
who are casual it's there in people who are serious about their belief the
38:29.760 --> 38:33.640
guys up in Wyoming and Wyoming that are doing Luther classical college are
38:33.640 --> 38:37.600
doing fantastic work I'm very excited to see how that's coming together one
38:37.600 --> 38:41.480
thing that frightens me is that a lot of their discussion is framing things in
38:41.480 --> 38:49.280
terms of cultural more and how can we be in opposition to the culture and now
38:49.280 --> 38:54.680
when they go downstream a bit they'll focus on Jesus if you give the farm away
38:54.680 --> 39:01.240
by not explicitly condemning and damning the evil that is occurring you're
39:01.240 --> 39:06.880
not drawing a strong enough contrast and that's the reason that core you and I
39:06.880 --> 39:13.000
are viewed by most people as speaking so stridently I've had numerous
39:13.000 --> 39:18.880
people say to me on Twitter since I got on for the first time ever I expected
39:18.880 --> 39:23.440
you to be much angrier you sound normal you sound like a normal human being
39:23.440 --> 39:29.160
which is is funny like you know in 280 characters is so much you can do and so
39:29.160 --> 39:36.320
I've always been careful when I'm speaking online to speak clearly I don't
39:36.320 --> 39:41.240
care if I hurt your feelings if I've spoken clearly it's not my
39:41.240 --> 39:46.120
principal concern that you come away feeling good about the interaction it is
39:46.120 --> 39:50.480
my principal concern that you have clarity about what it is I'm trying to say
39:50.480 --> 39:55.040
which is the other topic we're going to get to in a couple minutes speaking
39:55.040 --> 39:59.400
unclearly is what Satan loves because it doesn't matter what you're speaking
39:59.400 --> 40:05.160
unclearly about see when these Christians categorize something as culture or
40:05.160 --> 40:10.560
or Marxist or woke those things are all true to a degree but they're not the
40:10.560 --> 40:15.440
final cause of what's going on and so when you can say something is just kind
40:15.440 --> 40:20.760
of silly you're providing cover for Satan even while you're condemning it see
40:20.760 --> 40:24.960
it's not that you didn't land on the right side of the issue it's that you
40:24.960 --> 40:29.520
landed on the right side so weakly that it has no impact on the observer
40:29.520 --> 40:32.880
because someone looking at the thing we'll say well that Christian doesn't
40:32.880 --> 40:37.160
seem that worked up about it I guess you know I think I care about this more
40:37.160 --> 40:42.000
than the Christian I think it's more evil than this Christian does why would
40:42.000 --> 40:46.320
why would that person who doesn't know God but they do know evil when they see
40:46.320 --> 40:51.280
it why would they ever listen to you as a lukewarm Christian who can't even
40:51.280 --> 40:56.000
condemn the evil that they do see when someone comes to you who's not a
40:56.000 --> 41:00.160
Christian who's left the faith or their weak in the faith or their absolute
41:00.160 --> 41:04.920
unbeliever if you can't stand right beside them shoulder to shoulder and say
41:04.920 --> 41:09.800
yes this is evil and I can tell you where this evil came from because there's
41:09.800 --> 41:14.360
more going on than meets the eye if you can do that you have at least had the
41:14.360 --> 41:18.280
door opened to have a conversation that will lead to a conversation about the
41:18.280 --> 41:24.320
gospel and about the saving work of Jesus if you're weaker on evil than they
41:24.320 --> 41:28.800
are in that moment they're not going to think you have any credibility when
41:28.800 --> 41:32.880
you try to bring it up elsewhere you're slamming the door on your own face if
41:32.880 --> 41:36.840
you can't condemn evil where it pops up and it's not going to pop up where you
41:36.840 --> 41:40.720
want it to it's going to be these things are called cultural it's getting
41:40.720 --> 41:46.240
to be these thorny issues like race and IQ and nationality things that are
41:46.240 --> 41:51.200
divisive because we've been lied to for so long in order to ensure that they're
41:51.200 --> 41:55.600
divisive the truth is not divisive except that it divides people who can discern
41:55.600 --> 42:00.760
the truth from those who can't for those who confuse truth with lies so the
42:00.760 --> 42:08.000
division is not caused by the tone of voice or by the clarity of speech it's
42:08.000 --> 42:13.800
caused fundamentally by the content and so when Corey and I speak and we
42:13.800 --> 42:19.840
seem strident and we seem forceful one that's our personality but I can be
42:19.840 --> 42:25.560
more laid back about stuff I can I can be I can get into the weeds on things and
42:25.560 --> 42:30.040
not take a strong point and talk about the subtleties and there are
42:30.040 --> 42:35.240
subtleties to some of those things subtleties are a luxury you don't get to
42:35.240 --> 42:39.040
debate the subtleties and you till you agree on the principles and the
42:39.040 --> 42:42.800
principles are that these things are either good or they're evil and until we
42:42.800 --> 42:46.240
can settle on that there are no subtleties to be discussed under any
42:46.240 --> 42:50.320
circumstances because as soon as you start wrestling with that pig the pig is
42:50.320 --> 42:54.040
happy and you get covered in mud and Satan loves it he's sitting on the
42:54.040 --> 42:57.360
sidelines and cheering because you're working your butt off trying to be a good
42:57.360 --> 43:00.960
Christian in the fight and all you're doing is making things worse for
43:00.960 --> 43:07.240
everyone who's observing and I think that as Christians we have to think all
43:07.240 --> 43:11.120
of these worldly things through it's not enough just to think about your faith
43:11.120 --> 43:15.480
anymore you can't just think about justification and think all right I'm done
43:15.480 --> 43:19.760
being Christian for the day you need to think about the world about all the
43:19.760 --> 43:25.280
things that happen in creation and how they apply to the Christian life and
43:25.280 --> 43:29.240
how they apply to God's word because God has something to say about all of
43:29.240 --> 43:34.040
these things all of them God tells us how he created us he gave us a roadmap for
43:34.040 --> 43:37.800
how he created us and Corey's you mentioned Satan gave us a roadmap for how
43:37.800 --> 43:40.920
he's trying to destroy it and we just laughed and pointed and said look how
43:40.920 --> 43:45.200
silly that is no one believes that and Satan was like wow that was a close one
43:45.200 --> 43:50.920
meanwhile he's already on point five or six of his ten-point plan but no
43:50.920 --> 43:54.960
clearly he's not accomplishing anything he's only been one after the other with
43:54.960 --> 44:00.000
basically no opposition and the reason you know we like I've said we we mentioned
44:00.000 --> 44:05.560
race very frequently race is one of the principal ways that Corey and I have
44:05.560 --> 44:10.760
been able to speak to non-believers on the right because there is a discussion
44:10.760 --> 44:15.720
around how God made us and it's largely taking place among people who don't
44:15.720 --> 44:21.200
believe in God which is a nightmare because while they can discern the truth
44:21.200 --> 44:26.360
from creation they can discern measurable truth they can discern things that
44:26.360 --> 44:31.520
can be correlated that can be observed they don't have any frame of reference
44:31.520 --> 44:37.120
for where it came from and the lack of God in those conversations will take
44:37.120 --> 44:42.040
them to dark places the we condemn and so while others are afraid to speak
44:42.040 --> 44:46.440
about those subjects or to speak to those people the reason that we have found
44:46.440 --> 44:51.320
vital to do so and to gain expertise on the matter is specifically because that's
44:51.320 --> 44:56.440
where Satan's taking the battle and it's where he's been for a while and there's
44:56.440 --> 45:02.960
a fight to be had there that's a vital fight to the Christian faith and if you
45:02.960 --> 45:08.640
as a Christian are talking to someone who's an unbeliever who's you know
45:08.640 --> 45:13.280
they're very conservative they're concerned about societal decay they're
45:13.280 --> 45:18.000
concerned about violence in bad neighborhoods they're concerned about the
45:18.000 --> 45:23.040
performance of groups of people in schools all of these problems have
45:23.040 --> 45:28.520
explanations that in many cases they have access to the you don't because as
45:28.520 --> 45:34.320
soon as they say hey it seems like all the African-American kids are scoring
45:34.320 --> 45:39.320
over a standard deviation lower than the white kids you say that's disparity
45:39.320 --> 45:44.400
that's caused by socioeconomic differences when the other person knows for
45:44.400 --> 45:50.000
fact that that's not true you've lied and you've lost lost credibility and like
45:50.000 --> 45:55.200
I've said repeatedly Satan is the father of every single lie and the
45:55.200 --> 46:00.160
unbeliever who hears you telling lies that are left to slice they know that
46:00.160 --> 46:04.720
they're not true they don't know Jesus but they know they know test scores and
46:04.720 --> 46:09.760
they know crime statistics and they know how to parse those out in such a way to
46:09.760 --> 46:14.400
arrive at unassailable conclusions if you lie to them and you say well no that's
46:14.400 --> 46:18.120
not what's really going on all people are exactly alike that's how God made
46:18.120 --> 46:23.520
us he meant is all exactly alike in this life world unidentified fungible
46:23.520 --> 46:27.760
interchangeable creatures who could you could drop one person anywhere on the
46:27.760 --> 46:31.880
planet they're going to be exactly the same as any other person when you tell
46:31.880 --> 46:35.720
that lie to someone who knows better you have closed the door on ever sharing
46:35.720 --> 46:39.320
your faith because you proven yourself a liar about the very God that you claim
46:39.320 --> 46:45.600
to proclaim they know that he if there is a true God who's created things that
46:45.600 --> 46:49.400
this is the creation that God made or maybe those things are the result of the
46:49.400 --> 46:52.880
fall which they would know because they don't know about the fall you should know
46:52.880 --> 46:57.200
about the fall and how it correlates with these facts on the ground and where
46:57.200 --> 47:02.240
the fall is in play and where God's created orders in play and we do a lot of
47:02.240 --> 47:07.520
in-depth episode on those things specifically to equip the Christian to speak
47:07.520 --> 47:10.720
truthfully when otherwise there's a very good chance that you would lie and
47:10.720 --> 47:16.000
inadvertently like it's it's not a lie that you intend to deceive is that you
47:16.000 --> 47:19.720
never looked at the genealogy of where your talking points came from you
47:19.720 --> 47:23.520
thought well this is just how Christians talk I know that X Y and Z when
47:23.520 --> 47:27.560
someone who's an unbeliever who knows more than you about the world says no
47:27.560 --> 47:32.040
X Y and Z are not actually true I know this to be a fact if you argue with them
47:32.040 --> 47:36.960
you've lost the chance to have any credibility about any truth and the most
47:36.960 --> 47:41.240
important truth of that person can ever hear about their salvation they'll be
47:41.240 --> 47:45.160
deaf to you saying it because why would they believe you have something big when
47:45.160 --> 47:50.720
you're going to lie about something as small as test scores and even if there
47:50.720 --> 47:56.560
is no intent to deceive you are still endangering your soul by holding to
47:56.560 --> 48:03.080
that lie it may not be that lie itself that will endangere your soul you could
48:03.080 --> 48:09.720
potentially hold a small lie your entire life right up to your death and be
48:09.720 --> 48:14.080
fine would you have been better off believing the truth yes can you believe
48:14.080 --> 48:21.440
certain lies without damning yourself of course but if you believe a lie it's
48:21.440 --> 48:27.320
never one lie because you have to defend that lie in order to continue to hold
48:27.320 --> 48:32.680
it in the face of countervailing information and so you will tell yourself
48:32.680 --> 48:37.080
another lie or someone else will tell you a lie and you'll believe that one and
48:37.080 --> 48:43.960
another lie and another lie and over time these add up you will eventually get
48:43.960 --> 48:49.120
to something that touches on some part of the faith more directly and you will
48:49.120 --> 48:53.240
have to choose are you going to continue to believe this entire house of
48:53.240 --> 48:57.560
cards all these lies you built up over the years or are you going to let that
48:57.560 --> 49:05.800
collapse and uphold the Christian truth many people will choose to compromise on
49:05.800 --> 49:10.440
the truth because it is easier to compromise on the truth it's easier to say
49:10.440 --> 49:18.480
well the sixth-day creation wasn't literal it was eras or ages or an
49:18.480 --> 49:22.920
indefinite period of time there were gaps between the days God was active for a
49:22.920 --> 49:28.640
while then he took a nap it's easier to do that than to let the entire house
49:28.640 --> 49:32.320
of cards collapse because your entire worldview I don't mind the term as much
49:32.320 --> 49:38.440
but your entire worldview has now turned into dust because you built it on one
49:38.440 --> 49:45.280
lie and you had to tell all these other lies to support it and so when it
49:45.280 --> 49:50.400
comes to race the reason Satan loves it so much loves the issue of race he
49:50.400 --> 49:54.880
hates race because he hates everything about creation everything about humanity
49:54.880 --> 50:02.080
particularly but the reason that he loves the issue is because he gets both sides
50:02.080 --> 50:08.360
with it he gets those on the largely political right who recognize that
50:08.360 --> 50:14.200
biological race is real and he gets them because many of them do not believe
50:14.200 --> 50:18.240
they are Christians but they'll talk to Christians and then Christians will
50:18.240 --> 50:23.840
deny race and so these people who know that race is real who know the truth now
50:23.840 --> 50:29.320
think that Christianity is a lie because Christians keep lying to them well as
50:29.560 --> 50:34.240
as I just mentioned the other side is Satan gets Christians because Christians
50:34.240 --> 50:39.080
are supporting a lie and building their worldview on a lie so he gets you as a
50:39.080 --> 50:44.360
Christian and he gets those who could have been Christians if you had believed
50:44.360 --> 50:48.920
the truth and that is why Satan loves the issue of race and loves that modern
50:48.920 --> 50:54.120
Christians fall all over themselves to support what the world says about it to
50:54.120 --> 50:58.520
support lies to support what Satan says about this issue instead of what
50:58.520 --> 51:03.120
scriptures says about the issue and what reality what biology says about the
51:03.120 --> 51:09.080
issue because God has two books one of them is the Bible one of them is creation
51:09.080 --> 51:17.760
God is the author of both both of them are true I never would have cared about
51:17.760 --> 51:22.240
race until I saw the attacks that were occurring in the world in the
51:22.240 --> 51:27.160
direction of those attacks it was it's just never been a part of my life it's
51:27.160 --> 51:30.880
never been interesting I've observed things I've had observations and I've
51:30.880 --> 51:36.280
had opinions but it never seemed important to me because I was I fell into the
51:36.280 --> 51:41.640
the lulled false sense of security that I can just ignore something and everything's
51:41.640 --> 51:46.240
hunky-dory and that usually works when there's no attack but when the storm
51:46.240 --> 51:50.560
comes if you haven't batten down all the hatches if you haven't put the
51:50.560 --> 51:55.600
storm shutters on all the windows when the wind starts howling and the branches
51:55.600 --> 51:59.360
start flying off the trees they're gonna punch through those windows and you're
51:59.360 --> 52:02.720
gonna have glass everywhere and you're gonna have water everywhere and it's
52:02.720 --> 52:06.080
going to be a terrible mess because you didn't plug one of the holes in your
52:06.080 --> 52:12.560
defenses and so it's important to look at these subjects and to be knowledgeable
52:12.560 --> 52:17.720
about them to the point that you can at least not lie to someone else and
52:17.720 --> 52:24.560
ideally that you would know enough to be able to amount a simple defense even
52:24.560 --> 52:29.000
just you know for a minute or two in a conversation and it's why we talked a
52:29.000 --> 52:33.320
little bit about in one of the recent episodes about evolution and or not
52:33.320 --> 52:38.920
about evolution per se but about the creation of the universe and how God created
52:38.920 --> 52:43.160
the six day universe and how scientists have now simulated some of those
52:43.160 --> 52:49.520
things I made clear that we're not trying to say science justifies faith but
52:49.520 --> 52:53.480
the point that the unbeliever who would point to that article and maybe come
52:53.480 --> 52:58.520
to you with and say look where's your God in this if you know about the
52:58.520 --> 53:03.080
science enough that you can point to Genesis and say well I'm glad you found
53:03.080 --> 53:06.440
that article here's my version of that article I've known this since I was a
53:06.440 --> 53:10.440
little kid it's nice to see the scientists capturing up that's how the truth
53:10.440 --> 53:15.560
works and that's how God works in the Christian life by revealing truth through
53:15.560 --> 53:22.440
scripture and through reason both avenues are accessible ways of reaching
53:22.440 --> 53:28.920
truth reason can apprehend truth on its own not that truth which saves that is
53:28.920 --> 53:33.680
contained only in scripture which is precisely why a vital part of the Christian
53:33.680 --> 53:38.080
life must be precisely this must be making sure that the problem that you're
53:38.080 --> 53:43.360
solving when you're talking to someone is that you're being truthful and that
53:43.360 --> 53:48.360
you're paving the road in such a way that maybe that conversation won't take
53:48.360 --> 53:52.120
you there but it's going to be a brick in the road so that in a future conversation
53:52.120 --> 53:56.560
you will have built up credibility and you have been building a road towards God
53:56.560 --> 54:01.320
by saying things that are truthful and things that are scriptural in ways that
54:01.320 --> 54:05.880
are consistent with what the person knows so that you become a more and more
54:05.880 --> 54:10.520
trusted source of truth to them because you know things that they don't from a
54:10.520 --> 54:15.920
perspective they don't share and they may never believe in Jesus they may never
54:15.920 --> 54:20.720
believe in the cross and in their salvation but you will never get the chance if
54:20.720 --> 54:26.120
you lie to them so many times that they're like I just don't care what you have to
54:26.120 --> 54:31.280
say and in many cases the number of lies that it may take from you who claim to
54:31.280 --> 54:35.400
have a source of all truth before they will disregard your opinion and maybe
54:35.400 --> 54:40.280
one and maybe the one time that you say something worldly that's popular on
54:40.280 --> 54:45.280
MSNBC is the one time that they say you know what I'll still talk to this guy
54:45.280 --> 54:48.960
he's my friend but this Christianity stuff he's selling it's a bunch of garbage
54:48.960 --> 54:53.320
all the churches around me have rainbow flags I know exactly what these guys are
54:53.320 --> 54:58.360
up to and I know what it is that they're capable of defending and it's not the
54:58.360 --> 55:02.920
sort of good and evil that I know as an unbeliever this is the frame that we
55:02.920 --> 55:08.360
need to bring in our own minds as we're tackling these problems because God will
55:08.360 --> 55:12.880
ultimately give you the chance to share the good news of their salvation but
55:12.880 --> 55:17.000
only if you can first tell them the good news of God's creation and again
55:17.000 --> 55:21.160
where I'm not trying to say never talk about Jesus first every situation is
55:21.160 --> 55:24.960
different every conversation is different there's no script which is why we're
55:24.960 --> 55:27.720
not giving you a script here I don't know what conversations you're going to
55:27.720 --> 55:31.840
have but I can tell you that if you've not thought things through in this way
55:31.840 --> 55:36.400
you're not going to be equipped to have those conversations later on we would
55:36.400 --> 55:41.400
love to give people a script but that's just not how this works you have to have
55:41.400 --> 55:46.960
a sort of general knowledge of a lot of different things in order to have these
55:46.960 --> 55:51.200
conversations because you're having a conversation this is not a telemarketing
55:51.200 --> 55:54.920
call that's not what you're doing you're not cold calling people you're dealing
55:54.920 --> 55:59.560
with another human being as an actual person asking questions answering
55:59.560 --> 56:04.760
questions moving things forward in the discussion yes you may very well have a
56:04.760 --> 56:08.400
goal in mind you may be trying to get somewhere but conversations evolve
56:08.400 --> 56:13.920
naturally you just have to know how to conduct yourself in the conversation and
56:13.920 --> 56:18.400
if you lie to people one of the things they are going to think about you is
56:18.400 --> 56:23.360
that you are stupid because as mentioned they are going to see these rainbow
56:23.360 --> 56:28.960
flags and they're going to think well he's just he doesn't pay attention or they'll
56:28.960 --> 56:33.720
think you don't really believe it or they'll think that you are lying none of
56:33.720 --> 56:39.400
these options are good you may very well destroy any opportunity of ever
56:39.400 --> 56:44.680
getting that person to truly listen to the gospel because you lied about
56:44.680 --> 56:49.880
something about which he knows the truth and it is incumbent on you to speak
56:49.880 --> 56:55.400
the truth you don't have to know everything if you don't know it is fine to say
56:55.400 --> 57:00.960
I don't know and then find someone who does because there are plenty of very
57:00.960 --> 57:05.120
intelligent Christians who are specialists in various different areas the
57:05.120 --> 57:10.200
information is there you can find it you can get it for this person it is
57:10.200 --> 57:16.560
better to say I don't know than to give a false answer I'm glad you brought
57:16.560 --> 57:19.760
scripts because I think that's a good segue to the second half of this
57:19.760 --> 57:26.320
conversation there's a recent debate that occurs I mentioned on Lutheran
57:26.320 --> 57:30.280
Twitter they had to do with the sacrament of the altar with communion or
57:30.280 --> 57:35.440
Eucharist the Eucharist now we're not going to go through the entire
57:35.440 --> 57:40.600
discussion and we're not going to make the case for the full case for the
57:40.600 --> 57:44.600
proper view of the sacrament what we're going to do is discuss this
57:44.600 --> 57:50.080
conversation as it played out online as an example of how the treatment of
57:50.080 --> 57:57.440
conversation as a series of scripted responses can do tremendous harm because
57:57.440 --> 58:03.320
again when people are talking about points of doctrine and you're
58:03.320 --> 58:07.880
disagreeing about terms the first question you need to ask is what problem
58:07.880 --> 58:13.200
were you trying to solve by disagreeing with the other person now I realize
58:13.200 --> 58:19.680
that there's a bit of irony and the two of us sort of backing away from the
58:19.680 --> 58:23.640
discussion of terms because it's been such a prominent aspect of so many
58:23.640 --> 58:31.680
episodes but I think the care trying to solve problems yes and we're we're
58:31.680 --> 58:36.720
focusing on terms specifically so that there isn't confusion sewn by the
58:36.720 --> 58:42.360
misuse of that terms those terms so if you've listened to me talk about what
58:42.360 --> 58:46.160
a nation is when I say a nation you're never going to think I mean
58:46.160 --> 58:50.280
country you're always going to think I mean race if you've been paying
58:50.280 --> 58:55.160
attention I'm very specific about the terms that I'm using so even if you think
58:55.160 --> 58:59.040
that's terrible even if you think I'm a horrible or a stupid person at least
58:59.040 --> 59:03.640
you know what I'm talking about and you can properly categorize whatever it is
59:03.640 --> 59:09.560
I'm saying about nations at the moment the problem that played out online and
59:09.560 --> 59:12.400
again this is not an online question this is not this is not about
59:12.400 --> 59:18.360
online drama this is specifically about how a group of Lutherans who were
59:18.360 --> 59:22.960
generally aligned on the same type of beliefs ended up having a knockdown
59:22.960 --> 59:29.560
dragout fight over a single word that was taken out of context was misused by
59:29.560 --> 59:34.280
people who on both sides didn't understand the word or how it was being used by
59:34.280 --> 59:39.160
either side and it resulted in people having their faith undermined to the point
59:39.160 --> 59:43.240
that they're absolutely people who observed that conversation who will
59:43.240 --> 59:49.080
ultimately leave the Lutheran church because of how it played out so this
59:49.080 --> 59:52.880
began with someone who's probably going to come up and perhaps on his own
59:52.880 --> 59:57.080
episode at some point in the future a guy named Jordan Cooper he has the
59:57.080 --> 01:00:02.000
largest single presence online as a Lutheran talking head he's got a
01:00:02.000 --> 01:00:05.920
YouTube channel with over 20,000 followers he's got a bunch of people on
01:00:05.920 --> 01:00:10.720
Twitter but he cares about YouTube because he makes some money there he tweeted
01:00:10.720 --> 01:00:16.400
apparently there's discourse on here about the Lutheran doctrine of communion we
01:00:16.400 --> 01:00:22.600
do not believe in a physical presence or local presence it's a real presence and
01:00:22.600 --> 01:00:30.560
a substantial presence but a mysterious one now in a recent episode where where I
01:00:30.560 --> 01:00:35.160
was talking about you know the the genesis narrative you may have heard me over
01:00:35.160 --> 01:00:40.040
and over talk about real but not factual and I sort of iterated through things
01:00:40.040 --> 01:00:45.160
seemingly a random and it was deliberately a random because that's a very
01:00:45.160 --> 01:00:49.560
common thing that happens where people will say well real doesn't mean true and
01:00:49.560 --> 01:00:56.240
true doesn't mean factual and factual doesn't mean actual and that's the
01:00:56.240 --> 01:01:02.600
perfect opportunity for Satan to undermine faith and so the reason that this
01:01:02.600 --> 01:01:08.440
discussion blew up was that in the 16th century the very same fate fight was
01:01:08.440 --> 01:01:15.360
being had among the Lutherans the reformed and the Roman Catholics the
01:01:15.360 --> 01:01:19.720
Roman Catholics had invented the doctrine of transubstantiation which I
01:01:19.720 --> 01:01:24.960
mentioned in an earlier episode where they agreed with the reformed at the
01:01:24.960 --> 01:01:33.520
time either the bread and wine in communion is only bread and wine or it is
01:01:33.520 --> 01:01:39.200
only Christ body and blood now scripture says both in separate places it says
01:01:39.200 --> 01:01:44.160
one and it says the other in some places it says both but as a logical
01:01:44.160 --> 01:01:50.440
deduction both the reformed and the Romanists agreed that it can only be one of
01:01:50.480 --> 01:01:54.400
if you have body you don't have have bread if you have bread you don't have
01:01:54.400 --> 01:01:59.960
body and the same with the blood in the line the Lutherans were caught in the
01:01:59.960 --> 01:02:07.480
middle of this highly technical highly philosophical debate and they
01:02:07.480 --> 01:02:13.680
necessarily engaged with it because this was not only a doctrinal problem but
01:02:13.680 --> 01:02:17.960
it was a political problem because there were princes who were choosing one
01:02:17.960 --> 01:02:22.040
side or the other in these fights and so they were basically demanding
01:02:22.040 --> 01:02:27.520
explanations for what's going on the Pope says one thing Calvin says another
01:02:27.520 --> 01:02:32.000
what do you Lutheran say we need to know the truth and so for a period of 50
01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:38.600
years the Lutheran reformers and the fathers in the faith formulated repeated
01:02:38.600 --> 01:02:44.160
arguments getting deeper and deeper into the philosophical weeds to try to
01:02:44.160 --> 01:02:50.880
narrow down what the sacrament was and what it was not and I think
01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:58.280
unfortunately by doing so they fundamentally ceded the frame to the rationalists
01:02:58.280 --> 01:03:07.040
who were using these philosophical presuppositions to impose rules on God when
01:03:07.040 --> 01:03:11.720
as we've said before this is a God who spoke the universe into existence if
01:03:11.720 --> 01:03:17.480
Jesus says this is my body that's declarative that that's a statement of fact
01:03:17.480 --> 01:03:23.360
not because Jesus can't lie but because when he says it it becomes true it's
01:03:23.360 --> 01:03:27.200
performative as well exactly that's what it was sorry yeah yeah yeah it's both
01:03:27.200 --> 01:03:32.000
yes it's both yeah it's it's it's not descriptive that that's the crucial
01:03:32.000 --> 01:03:36.440
distinction exactly yeah yeah yeah you know again we get these things were like
01:03:36.440 --> 01:03:40.960
we use a lot of synonyms do they mean the same thing so Jordan back to the
01:03:40.960 --> 01:03:45.320
tweet says we don't believe in physical or local we do believe in real and
01:03:45.320 --> 01:03:49.440
substantial and so there was a reply from one of his followers who said
01:03:49.440 --> 01:03:54.240
getting a lot of pushback from your fellow Lutherans here as they insist that
01:03:54.240 --> 01:03:59.880
Christ is physically present and several have told that when it says real it
01:03:59.880 --> 01:04:06.320
means physical and Jordan's reply was sorry but they're wrong now this is
01:04:06.320 --> 01:04:11.560
interesting for several reasons we'll get out of the rest but a friend dug up
01:04:11.560 --> 01:04:15.920
one of Jordan's comments on YouTube four years ago where he says the exact
01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:22.600
opposite and he says it in a good way the fight that they were having again on one
01:04:22.600 --> 01:04:27.960
hand you have the Romanist the Pope who's saying this is Christ's body and blood
01:04:27.960 --> 01:04:33.400
only the position of Rome is that the bread and wine are no longer there
01:04:33.400 --> 01:04:37.800
there's no bread and there's no wine anymore it's not home all you have is
01:04:37.800 --> 01:04:45.240
Jesus body and blood yes yes plus some philosophy to explain why you don't
01:04:45.240 --> 01:04:51.560
taste flesh which is why Cooper said substantial that is what well at least if
01:04:51.560 --> 01:04:55.520
he was actually thinking about he may have been to be charitable that's what he
01:04:55.520 --> 01:04:59.680
was thinking of when he said substantial he was thinking of the essence why
01:04:59.680 --> 01:05:03.400
don't you give the breakdown give the subset I mean as we'll give the the quick
01:05:03.400 --> 01:05:09.600
version when it comes to the Eucharist you can fall off one side of the other
01:05:09.600 --> 01:05:13.720
of the horse it's like so many other issues in Christianity the Romanist the
01:05:13.720 --> 01:05:19.800
papus fall off the right side of the horse they say well Christ says it's his
01:05:19.800 --> 01:05:23.920
body and his blood so it's just his body and his blood of course they miss the
01:05:23.920 --> 01:05:28.600
part where he says this bread is my body so he actually does say two things one
01:05:28.600 --> 01:05:32.440
it's bread to it's his body that's the Lutheran position we don't fall off
01:05:32.440 --> 01:05:37.080
the horse the reformed fall off the other side of the horse they say well I see
01:05:37.080 --> 01:05:43.680
bread I taste bread I see wine I taste wine and so according to my reason it's
01:05:43.680 --> 01:05:48.800
bread and wine and so when Christ says it's his body and blood he must mean
01:05:48.800 --> 01:05:52.040
something else and so then they launch into their arguments about what it
01:05:52.040 --> 01:05:56.400
actually is or how it actually happens etc and that's where you get giant
01:05:56.400 --> 01:06:01.160
volumes on this full of terms that are alien to scripture and so they fall off
01:06:01.160 --> 01:06:07.440
the left side of the horse Lutherans to reiterate stay on the horse Christ says
01:06:07.440 --> 01:06:14.120
this bread okay it's bread is my body okay it's his body this cup the wine is my
01:06:14.120 --> 01:06:19.760
blood okay it's wine and blood we just affirm what Christ said and we're fine
01:06:19.760 --> 01:06:26.280
with it that's enough we're done now the reason that the Romans came to their
01:06:26.280 --> 01:06:32.000
conclusion is that they mixed the words of God scripture with Aristotle I am
01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:36.780
not necessarily condemning all philosophy philosophy is useful you can go
01:06:36.780 --> 01:06:42.960
overboard and they did so what they do is they take Aristotle which the two
01:06:42.960 --> 01:06:48.160
terms you need to know here are essence and accident the essence of a thing
01:06:48.160 --> 01:06:51.320
which is what substances we're just dealing with Greek versus Latin
01:06:51.320 --> 01:06:55.640
essentially in different terms for the same things the essence of a thing is
01:06:55.640 --> 01:07:04.040
what that thing is I am male I am a human these are things related to my essence
01:07:04.040 --> 01:07:12.440
as a being I happen to have a black shirt on that is an accident that is not
01:07:12.440 --> 01:07:17.000
something that is essential to me I could have paint on myself or something these
01:07:17.000 --> 01:07:26.320
are accidents and so what the papers say is that the essence of bread and wine
01:07:26.320 --> 01:07:32.720
is removed by the words of institution by the consecration and that the essence
01:07:32.720 --> 01:07:38.480
of body of flesh and blood is what takes the place but the accidents of
01:07:38.480 --> 01:07:43.760
bread and wine remain and so it looks and tastes like bread and wine but in essence
01:07:43.760 --> 01:07:47.920
it is body and blood now of course you could wrangle over whether or not
01:07:47.920 --> 01:07:52.880
taste as part of the essence of bread and wine and they have trust me but that
01:07:52.880 --> 01:07:57.120
is essentially how they came to their conclusion so again to the short
01:07:57.120 --> 01:08:01.920
summary is just Rome falls off the right side of the horse the reformed fall
01:08:01.920 --> 01:08:04.760
off the left side of the horse and Lutherans stay on the horse and just say
01:08:04.760 --> 01:08:10.920
God said it I believe it but when Lutherans stayed on the right side of the
01:08:10.920 --> 01:08:17.040
horse which I believe which is on top of it right in the middle they engage in
01:08:17.040 --> 01:08:21.880
lengthy debate in the terms of their opponents so they got down in the mud and
01:08:21.880 --> 01:08:27.200
they argued these things in philosophical terms now the reason that script was
01:08:27.200 --> 01:08:31.440
a good jumping off point is that that's where the conversation online really went
01:08:31.440 --> 01:08:37.760
to hell I mean that literally I can tell you one of them well yeah well here's
01:08:37.760 --> 01:08:41.280
one of the thoughts from someone else in that thread a few hours later this
01:08:41.280 --> 01:08:45.880
entire thing is honestly shaken my faith today I was always under the impression
01:08:45.880 --> 01:08:50.280
that we did affirm a physical presence if we don't I don't see a distinction
01:08:50.280 --> 01:08:54.680
between us and the reformed I need to talk with my pastor about this I'm terrified
01:08:54.680 --> 01:08:58.840
of receiving improperly and he was right to do so his faith was rightly
01:08:58.840 --> 01:09:03.360
undermined by this argument now the reason that this argument was so
01:09:03.360 --> 01:09:08.800
contentious was that in the response the Jordan had rather than trying to
01:09:08.800 --> 01:09:13.480
comfort this soul who was terrified and terrorized by this sort of
01:09:13.480 --> 01:09:18.880
scholastic wrangling he said read the formula of conquered article seven which
01:09:18.880 --> 01:09:23.840
is very long it's very detailed it's very technical it's all the very worst
01:09:23.840 --> 01:09:30.680
things about the reformed in the Romanist position on these things now it
01:09:30.680 --> 01:09:34.800
expresses the Lutheran position but it doesn't do it in Lutheran terms it
01:09:34.800 --> 01:09:40.320
does it in the opponents terms in order to circumscribe our position in
01:09:40.320 --> 01:09:48.040
contra distinction to theirs so to make clear this was a 16th century
01:09:48.040 --> 01:09:54.760
argument taking place among extraordinarily learned men who were far smarter
01:09:54.760 --> 01:10:00.040
than anyone involved in this modern debate who had far greater knowledge far
01:10:00.040 --> 01:10:05.000
greater training and education than anyone who's saying read the formula of
01:10:05.000 --> 01:10:10.960
conquered now this is not an argument against the formula of conquered it's an
01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:16.200
argument for what problem are you trying to solve because no the the people who
01:10:16.200 --> 01:10:22.320
were expressing doubt in this thread about whether physical means real they
01:10:22.320 --> 01:10:26.800
were Lutherans they were not papers who are saying no that's only that's
01:10:26.800 --> 01:10:31.760
transubstantiation it's physical it means blood and guts minus the the
01:10:31.760 --> 01:10:37.320
accidents it wasn't reformed guys saying no there's no Jesus there it's it's
01:10:37.320 --> 01:10:42.480
only spiritual it was Lutherans and see the problem that they were trying to
01:10:42.480 --> 01:10:47.800
solve should have been can I make sure that my Lutheran brothers are
01:10:47.800 --> 01:10:53.320
describing us the way that we understand it to be faithfully described nobody
01:10:53.320 --> 01:10:58.080
in the conversation did that nobody except for me and Cory and you know one or
01:10:58.080 --> 01:11:03.440
two other people I was still banned at the time so I didn't participate yeah yeah
01:11:03.440 --> 01:11:08.360
your God's New Year's present to Lutheran Twitter is that Cory was unbanned so
01:11:08.360 --> 01:11:17.440
welcome back Carter the the terrible thing that happened in this fight was the
01:11:17.440 --> 01:11:23.800
Jordan and a number of other other people focused on the word physically now
01:11:23.800 --> 01:11:28.040
they did it not because they understood what the man meant when he said it
01:11:28.040 --> 01:11:35.000
because again his comment was his Christ physically present in the sacrament when
01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:41.080
a Lutheran asks that he's talking about the sacramental union and no point has
01:11:41.080 --> 01:11:45.840
any Lutheran in my life that I've ever talked to or heard talking believed in
01:11:45.840 --> 01:11:51.880
and transubstantiation or that Jesus isn't really present every Lutheran
01:11:51.880 --> 01:11:57.160
regardless of their education level I've ever heard discuss this whether they
01:11:57.160 --> 01:12:02.840
use the word or not they effectively subscribe to the mystery of the
01:12:02.840 --> 01:12:07.560
Eucharist and I have to give credit again to the Eastern Orthodox they just
01:12:07.560 --> 01:12:11.040
call it a mystery they didn't get bogged down in this crap like we did in the
01:12:11.040 --> 01:12:15.360
West and I think they were better for it and that one regard they're terrible
01:12:15.360 --> 01:12:19.960
about everything else but at least they didn't make the mistake of wrestling
01:12:19.960 --> 01:12:24.440
with these pigs because again it's not that the formula of conquered is wrong
01:12:24.440 --> 01:12:30.280
it's that when you take a 16th century technical treatise and you take
01:12:30.280 --> 01:12:37.080
philosophical terms from that treatise that we're not telling Lutherans here's
01:12:37.080 --> 01:12:41.880
what we believe they were telling the reformed here is what is in error that's
01:12:41.880 --> 01:12:46.320
that's a crucial distinction what problem are you trying to solve they knew
01:12:46.320 --> 01:12:50.040
what problem they were trying to solve they were trying to testify for once
01:12:50.040 --> 01:12:54.880
and for all time here is how our position differs from the reformed and
01:12:54.880 --> 01:12:59.800
differs from the Romanists they were not in the formula of conquered which was
01:12:59.800 --> 01:13:05.080
written in 1577 this is nearly 50 years after the initial confessions of what
01:13:05.080 --> 01:13:10.040
we believe about the Eucharist those initial confessions were sufficient for
01:13:10.040 --> 01:13:14.960
any Lutheran to understand what we're talking about it was only once these
01:13:14.960 --> 01:13:19.840
philosophical fights dragged out for decades after Luther was dead that these
01:13:19.840 --> 01:13:25.920
other guys wrestled with the pig and wrote these things down and so again I
01:13:25.920 --> 01:13:30.560
want to keep saying this because I was accused of numerous hilarious and
01:13:30.560 --> 01:13:34.280
terrible things including that I didn't believe in the book of conquered at all I
01:13:34.280 --> 01:13:42.040
was also accused simultaneously of being a cannibal which is fascinating
01:13:42.040 --> 01:13:46.080
because that is not only the accusation that the Calvinist leveled against the
01:13:46.080 --> 01:13:51.080
Lutherans but it's a it's an accusation that was leveled in the first and second
01:13:51.080 --> 01:13:56.520
century by the Romans when they were murdering Christians when when the first
01:13:56.520 --> 01:14:01.920
and second century Christians were testifying to what the sacrament was to
01:14:01.920 --> 01:14:06.640
them and they said this is Jesus body and blood they were legally charged with
01:14:06.640 --> 01:14:11.760
cannibalism and they were sentenced to death and at any point they could have
01:14:11.760 --> 01:14:16.560
said no we don't mean physically we don't mean that it's actually really Jesus
01:14:16.560 --> 01:14:21.120
body and blood in a real sense it's just it's there in a spiritual sense and
01:14:21.120 --> 01:14:25.560
let me explain how Jesus body isn't heaven but it's a spirit body and so
01:14:25.560 --> 01:14:29.960
there's a spiritual mode of presence they didn't say any of that those those
01:14:29.960 --> 01:14:34.840
explanations hadn't been invented yet well also to be clear if they had done
01:14:34.840 --> 01:14:38.760
that Romans would have been fine with that that would have been just like any
01:14:38.760 --> 01:14:41.880
other Gnostic cult they would have been totally fine with that oh you're just
01:14:41.880 --> 01:14:46.080
doing weird Gnostic stuff great have fun they didn't do that that would have been
01:14:46.080 --> 01:14:51.880
a very natural explanation at the time in that context yeah that's an excellent
01:14:51.880 --> 01:14:56.200
point and yet there's no record of that ever happening those men the men who
01:14:56.200 --> 01:15:01.000
were ripped to shreds by lions you know we've heard about Christians being fed
01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:06.880
to lions we don't get told why that happened except that they were Christians in
01:15:06.880 --> 01:15:11.320
some cases they were literally fed to lions because they were accused of
01:15:11.320 --> 01:15:15.680
cannibalism and they would not deny it now it wasn't that they wouldn't deny
01:15:15.680 --> 01:15:20.800
because they were cannibals there were nothing of the sort there is no Christian
01:15:20.800 --> 01:15:26.840
belief that we are gnawing on the toe or on the finger of Jesus it is mysterious
01:15:26.840 --> 01:15:31.960
we don't know how he's there but we know that he's God and when Jesus said this
01:15:31.960 --> 01:15:37.640
bread is my body that's the end of the discussion if you don't believe that if
01:15:37.640 --> 01:15:43.400
you need other explanations that is unbelief that is sin and he was holding
01:15:43.400 --> 01:15:48.640
physical bread with his physical body worth noting yes and he hadn't been
01:15:48.640 --> 01:15:54.160
crucified yet this the the thing that one of the one of the ways that our
01:15:54.160 --> 01:15:58.960
reason breaks down when we discuss God's action in the creation is that God is
01:15:58.960 --> 01:16:04.800
not bound by time so when Jesus on Thursday night held up the bread and said
01:16:04.800 --> 01:16:08.920
this is my body referring to the body that was sacrificed on the cross the
01:16:08.920 --> 01:16:14.600
following afternoon he wasn't saying something he wasn't making a forward
01:16:14.600 --> 01:16:18.320
looking statement he wasn't something saying something that would be true
01:16:18.320 --> 01:16:22.720
the next time they had communion because it would be after Jesus was sacrificed
01:16:22.720 --> 01:16:26.280
on the cross he was saying something that was true because the
01:16:26.280 --> 01:16:31.640
propitiating sacrifice of Christ body and blood physical body and blood real
01:16:31.640 --> 01:16:37.400
blood and guts on the cross that happened one time for all sins in every
01:16:37.400 --> 01:16:43.120
direction and we receive that by faith and we receive it in the sacrament and we
01:16:43.120 --> 01:16:48.400
also receive it in baptism because God pours out his blessings on us because
01:16:48.400 --> 01:16:54.960
he knows that we need the reassurance and so for these men to take what was
01:16:54.960 --> 01:16:59.760
intended to be reassurance and turned it into something that undermined faith
01:16:59.760 --> 01:17:04.120
is the most wicked and evil thing that you can possibly do in Christian discourse
01:17:04.120 --> 01:17:09.160
so if any of these guys had asked at any point what problem am I trying to
01:17:09.160 --> 01:17:15.680
solve by arguing with the man who is saying physical presence they wouldn't
01:17:15.680 --> 01:17:20.040
own better they wouldn't have done it because they would have understood that
01:17:20.040 --> 01:17:24.760
I'm talking to a Lutheran I'm not confused about what he believes maybe it's
01:17:24.760 --> 01:17:31.640
worth clarifying when physical means toenails and when physical means real but
01:17:31.640 --> 01:17:37.880
mysterious and we don't understand I affirm the physical presence of Christ body
01:17:37.880 --> 01:17:44.160
and blood because I affirm the mystery I don't affirm transubstantiation I
01:17:44.160 --> 01:17:50.560
don't affirm solely a spiritual mode by which I ascend to heaven or Christ
01:17:50.560 --> 01:17:56.520
spiritual body comes down to earth I affirm that it's truly his body and blood
01:17:56.520 --> 01:18:02.280
because that's what he said and I don't need any further explanation and if the
01:18:02.280 --> 01:18:05.600
conversation had been left at that we would have been fine but it wasn't and
01:18:05.600 --> 01:18:10.880
everyone is worse for it it's also worth mentioning just how ridiculous the
01:18:10.880 --> 01:18:16.240
entirety of it was because the word physical doesn't actually appear in either
01:18:16.240 --> 01:18:22.800
article under discussion because of course he directed people to article seven
01:18:22.800 --> 01:18:26.040
which is the article on the Lord's this is in the epitome incidentally it's
01:18:26.040 --> 01:18:29.880
worth mentioning that there's the epitome and the solid declaration article seven
01:18:29.880 --> 01:18:34.800
is the Lord's supper the word physical doesn't appear anywhere in that article
01:18:35.040 --> 01:18:40.080
and I just checked in the reader's edition as well it's also not in there the word
01:18:40.080 --> 01:18:50.800
physical appears once in article eight which is on the nature the person of Christ now it appears
01:18:50.800 --> 01:18:56.480
twice in the reader's edition because they translate one word differently is physically but it's
01:18:56.480 --> 01:19:03.760
it's a different issue so it's not related the one that is translated physical is in brackets
01:19:03.760 --> 01:19:10.000
to give people context to help them understand what is meant and then it is also said
01:19:10.000 --> 01:19:14.480
Coperniatic which is exactly what you were just saying we're not saying that you're chewing
01:19:14.480 --> 01:19:22.080
on Jesus's toe that's all that's condemned there and again not the word physical because the word
01:19:22.080 --> 01:19:29.360
that is actually used as I've mentioned elsewhere is Iadish in German which does not mean physical
01:19:29.840 --> 01:19:38.160
is Coperniatic is a different word Iadish means earthly or mundane that's all we're saying we're
01:19:38.160 --> 01:19:43.760
saying you're not chewing on his toe it's a polemic against the reformed and so not only does the
01:19:43.760 --> 01:19:51.760
word not appear in the actual text the argument they were having is not at all what is addressed
01:19:51.760 --> 01:19:56.400
by the article because it is a polemic against the reformed and they're basically adopting the
01:19:56.400 --> 01:20:02.640
reformed argument so the entirety of it was harmful to make to faith and had by men who didn't
01:20:02.640 --> 01:20:08.720
even understand the terms being used in German or Latin they tenuously perhaps understood them
01:20:08.720 --> 01:20:13.840
in English and got them wrong and it was done for the worst possible motives because it wasn't
01:20:13.840 --> 01:20:20.400
done to try to clarify yeah it was about what it was was it a man said the word physically
01:20:20.400 --> 01:20:25.120
and that set off all the alarms elutheran headquarters like well physically that sounds like
01:20:25.120 --> 01:20:30.640
that might be one of these number of errors we have to fight this error without any regard
01:20:30.640 --> 01:20:36.720
for either the man who is speaking or anyone who is observing now you mentioned cavernatic
01:20:36.720 --> 01:20:41.440
which is a word that got thrown around around a whole bunch by guys which I find hilarious because
01:20:41.440 --> 01:20:48.720
the word basically doesn't exist yes I looked in google google books the word refers to the Jews
01:20:48.800 --> 01:20:55.120
from cavernium and john six fifty two who were arguing with jesus how can this man give us his
01:20:55.120 --> 01:21:03.440
flesh to eat so cavernatic is a term of art specific to this very argument it doesn't exist anywhere
01:21:03.440 --> 01:21:08.960
else it's it's it's the most technical term I think I probably ever heard like it comes from one
01:21:08.960 --> 01:21:14.560
verse it deals with one dispute and exists nowhere else in the english language I did a search on
01:21:14.560 --> 01:21:21.600
google broke google books it it's effectively never used it's like five zeros before you get past
01:21:21.600 --> 01:21:28.400
where you will find a numeral for the frequency of the use of the word it's such a technical term
01:21:28.400 --> 01:21:33.840
that for a bunch of guys on twitter to be throwing it around pretending that they're clarifying
01:21:34.960 --> 01:21:39.920
it would be laughable if not for the fact that it was so destructive and it was destructive because
01:21:40.480 --> 01:21:45.200
I don't disagree with I think what came out of this I think 80% of them were fighting
01:21:46.720 --> 01:21:52.800
the wrong fight for a silly reason I think that they were just mad that someone said physical
01:21:52.800 --> 01:21:56.640
and they said well that sounds like it might be here see I'm getting really mad on the internet
01:21:56.640 --> 01:22:02.480
I think the other 20% it came out actually are reformed because the the number of people who made
01:22:02.480 --> 01:22:08.880
explicitly swingly and Calvinistic arguments against me and against other Lutherans again I
01:22:08.880 --> 01:22:16.000
have never held anything other than the mysterious bodily presence that I can't understand or explain
01:22:16.000 --> 01:22:22.960
beyond its true now I'm not using true as a as a weasel word I'm saying I don't how is anything
01:22:22.960 --> 01:22:28.880
true than the word of God there's no true or true then when truth speaks truth so I let that
01:22:28.880 --> 01:22:37.120
rest but people came out of the woodwork including some people who had been friends called me a demon
01:22:37.200 --> 01:22:43.520
and a wolf because I said physically and again as you said like the words not even in the book of
01:22:43.520 --> 01:22:48.400
conquered except in your relevant places and they were using cavernatic as though it meant anything to
01:22:48.400 --> 01:22:54.320
them all of this was a fight about a word that nobody understood and if they had asked themselves what
01:22:54.320 --> 01:22:59.280
question what problem I trying to solve the fight never would have happened in the first place
01:22:59.280 --> 01:23:03.040
they have Jordan had any sense he could have linked to the video four years ago where he did clearly
01:23:03.040 --> 01:23:08.640
explain this in a way that was defensible his explanation this time was not only indefensible
01:23:08.640 --> 01:23:14.960
but it was fundamentally subversive because it destroyed faith in real time it's not the first time
01:23:14.960 --> 01:23:22.720
he's done this Jordan has mentioned repeatedly on his streams that he has lost track of the number
01:23:22.720 --> 01:23:29.440
of men who have reached out to him and said because of your videos I became Roman Catholic this is a man
01:23:29.440 --> 01:23:34.880
who claims to be Lutheran who claims to be making Lutheran videos when people hear him talk they become
01:23:34.880 --> 01:23:42.560
papists some of them go east some of them become Roman Eastern Orthodox I have talked to a lot of people
01:23:42.560 --> 01:23:48.400
and I've made many of them angry I've never convinced anyone to become a papus because I argued the
01:23:48.400 --> 01:23:55.200
Lutheran position for anything so when we express a concern for the clarity of speech and the clarity
01:23:55.200 --> 01:24:01.600
of descriptors it's for this reason when a man can talk for an hour and the end result is a
01:24:01.600 --> 01:24:07.440
people are more confused than when he began that man shouldn't be speaking at all and that's what we
01:24:07.440 --> 01:24:12.880
had here and again some some of the people who are arguing against us I think actually don't believe in
01:24:12.880 --> 01:24:18.960
the sacramental union they don't believe that it is Christ's body and blood they had to resort to so
01:24:18.960 --> 01:24:25.840
many terms that pushed God his body can't be here his body somewhere else Jesus not here
01:24:27.120 --> 01:24:31.920
and the fact that they called us cannibals just like happened in the 1600s and just like happened
01:24:31.920 --> 01:24:37.360
in the first century like I'm not insulted like it's it would be laughable again if it weren't so
01:24:37.360 --> 01:24:43.360
tragic and if it weren't so blasphemous they're blaspheming the body and blood of Christ which is
01:24:43.360 --> 01:24:49.760
truly present when they call a Lutheran who receives the sacrament a cannibal for believing what
01:24:49.760 --> 01:24:54.880
Christ says that is a horrible thing and although a couple men spoke up and said that their
01:24:54.880 --> 01:25:00.720
consciences were burdened many thousands of people saw that and the ones who weren't Lutheran
01:25:00.720 --> 01:25:04.640
went away thinking who knows what they thought but they certainly didn't think Lutherans that
01:25:04.640 --> 01:25:09.280
are act together they did either they think they were reformed or they think they were just jerks
01:25:09.360 --> 01:25:15.120
and were incoherent and the Lutherans who read it some of them will cease to be Lutheran as
01:25:15.120 --> 01:25:21.520
quarries you said not because of that one thing what happens the way Satan takes advantage of error
01:25:21.520 --> 01:25:27.760
a point that we will make over and over Satan just needs a chunk in the armor in this one small
01:25:27.760 --> 01:25:34.560
subversion of one corner of faith and some of the men who read that later on it's going to come up
01:25:34.560 --> 01:25:39.920
in a different context and they're going to have doubts maybe in some from some other angle
01:25:39.920 --> 01:25:43.440
and then Satan's going to hit him from a completely different perspective it's got nothing to do
01:25:43.440 --> 01:25:48.720
with sacrament and you know what maybe one day they just don't go back to church you know
01:25:48.720 --> 01:25:53.680
their kids got a soccer game and then their kid makes the finals and so it's three more weeks
01:25:54.240 --> 01:25:58.560
and you know come to think of it Jesus isn't actually present there and the preacher's kind of
01:25:58.560 --> 01:26:03.600
boring he's kind he's got a lamp hand shake I'm just not going to go back you know all maybe I'll
01:26:03.600 --> 01:26:08.080
find another church later but it's I'm just I wasn't getting anything that I thought I was
01:26:08.080 --> 01:26:13.760
getting there in the first place that man will eventually lose his soul because of what happened on
01:26:13.760 --> 01:26:19.920
Twitter so when we talk about being careful about what problem you're trying to solve it's not
01:26:19.920 --> 01:26:24.560
about being spurgian it's not about being picky it's about understanding who you're talking to when
01:26:24.560 --> 01:26:31.440
you speak because if it had been Romanus or if it had been Calvinus some of those discussions maybe
01:26:31.520 --> 01:26:35.920
could have happened I think it's it's pointless to happen on Twitter because you can't make any point
01:26:35.920 --> 01:26:41.840
really on Twitter but the fact that the words of the Lutheran confessions were used as weapons
01:26:41.840 --> 01:26:47.680
against other Lutherans is evil it's honestly the most evil thing I have ever seen happen
01:26:47.680 --> 01:26:53.600
Lutheran church and I I grow increasingly ashamed of Lutheran as I'm not because I don't believe
01:26:53.600 --> 01:27:00.560
our claims but because the more I see of the conduct of Lutherans the less I can explain to people
01:27:00.560 --> 01:27:05.360
when I'm trying to explain that we're right how can we be right if we say and do these things
01:27:06.240 --> 01:27:12.880
and you know it's there's nowhere else to go it's it's not like oh well I don't believe these
01:27:12.880 --> 01:27:18.880
things I'm going to find another church no Lutheranism is the best explanation for these things
01:27:18.880 --> 01:27:23.040
but it doesn't mean that we've been infallible we've been perfect about it and the book of
01:27:23.040 --> 01:27:28.000
conquered is not a script if it were a script it would tell us how to deal with trannies it would
01:27:28.000 --> 01:27:32.640
tell us how to deal with all these things that aren't in there because Satan wasn't attacking
01:27:32.640 --> 01:27:38.560
creation does in fair century have a statement that god created his male and female that is actually
01:27:38.560 --> 01:27:44.960
in there so I was quoting scripture I've exactly I've paid close enough attention that I've found
01:27:44.960 --> 01:27:50.000
these little tidbits that Lutherans keep missing like for instance it basically does advocate for
01:27:50.000 --> 01:27:57.440
monarchy but that's a discussion for another time and you're right it's to say that the book of
01:27:57.440 --> 01:28:02.160
conquered is incomplete is not to denigrate it it's to say that they settled the questions that
01:28:02.160 --> 01:28:10.560
they were debating and so we don't need said it is yes they were very yes they were very explicit
01:28:10.560 --> 01:28:14.880
within the text of the book of conquered that this is not everything that there is to be said
01:28:14.880 --> 01:28:21.920
this is what it there is to say about these controversies and I'm not advocating for a new book
01:28:21.920 --> 01:28:27.840
of conquer for a volume tube to be written principally because there are no worthy theologians
01:28:27.840 --> 01:28:33.120
alive today who would be remotely competent to the task there might be one man somewhere but frankly
01:28:33.120 --> 01:28:36.880
you know I don't know what his name is but the fact that I don't know his name tells me that he's
01:28:36.880 --> 01:28:41.520
not competent to do this because he would already be producing the works that are necessary
01:28:41.520 --> 01:28:48.000
to battle today's fights so I'm not saying crack anything open I'm not saying give it a second shot
01:28:48.080 --> 01:28:54.080
I'm saying don't take something that you don't understand and use it as a cudgel against your
01:28:54.080 --> 01:29:01.840
brother when he's trying to be faithful even if he made a small mistake talk about how to narrow
01:29:01.840 --> 01:29:07.360
down that mistake in a way that won't undermine his faith and won't betray the truth of scripture
01:29:07.360 --> 01:29:13.120
because this is about scripture it's not about the book of conquered or anybody else's confessions
01:29:13.120 --> 01:29:17.920
if you're from another denomination and you have another confession and so far is it
01:29:18.480 --> 01:29:23.840
agrees with scripture it's valuable I said and so far specifically because that's one of the
01:29:23.840 --> 01:29:30.640
disputes within Lutheranism there are those who subscribe to the book of conquered and so far as
01:29:30.640 --> 01:29:35.920
yet agrees with scripture and there are those who subscribe to it because it agrees with scripture
01:29:36.640 --> 01:29:42.240
Cory and I are the latter it agrees with scripture which is why it's true but it's not true by
01:29:42.240 --> 01:29:49.520
itself it's only true because it agrees with scripture it doesn't have anything new to say it has
01:29:49.520 --> 01:29:57.120
arguments to be made from scripture in reason to defend what is revealed in scripture and Lutherans
01:29:57.120 --> 01:30:02.480
who go to proof texting from the confessions to attack faith and to attack scripture
01:30:03.440 --> 01:30:10.400
guys you're not Lutheran anymore you're you're doing something terrible and it's not about
01:30:10.400 --> 01:30:18.320
winning arguments it's about being a faithful confessor and if you don't have the words shut up
01:30:18.320 --> 01:30:23.920
that's okay there are arguments that occur that I bow out of because I'm not fit to engage in them
01:30:23.920 --> 01:30:29.520
when we raise topics on this podcast it's because we believe that we can speak speak faithfully in a
01:30:29.520 --> 01:30:37.680
way that will be true to God that will be edifying and that we'll we'll teach something that is not
01:30:37.680 --> 01:30:43.520
going to do harm but is going to do good for people if we didn't believe that about a subject
01:30:43.520 --> 01:30:48.720
you're never going to hear us talk about it that's the approach you can be quiet you don't have to
01:30:48.720 --> 01:30:53.840
have an opinion and don't go word searching either in the Bible or the book of conquered or in
01:30:54.400 --> 01:31:01.280
in anything else don't say that is not theology yeah that's control F for the the windows
01:31:01.280 --> 01:31:06.240
unfortunately yeah I met we probably won't use that for the title of this episode but that
01:31:06.240 --> 01:31:11.360
pretty much what it could be command F is not theology you don't just go find a word and say we
01:31:11.360 --> 01:31:17.120
you use the wrong word you you lose you're wrong you're you're a demon you're a blasphemer no man
01:31:17.120 --> 01:31:22.320
I particularly when you don't know what the word means yes and in the sick in the fifth in the
01:31:22.320 --> 01:31:29.520
16th century when the accusation against the Lutherans that they ascribed to a physical presence
01:31:29.520 --> 01:31:36.640
it was false when a 21st century Lutheran says if they choose to that they confess a physical
01:31:36.640 --> 01:31:43.520
presence in the context of Lutheran faith and scripture that is a true and faithful statement
01:31:44.080 --> 01:31:51.760
now you may ask for clarification that's fine but to say it is untrue is not solving the right
01:31:51.760 --> 01:31:57.840
problem and it's potentially doing tremendous harm and so just pay attention to what it is you're
01:31:57.840 --> 01:32:02.960
doing before you wait into something because it's easy to do damage trying to score points
01:32:02.960 --> 01:32:07.440
without even realizing that you're doing it I think the sum had good intentions and I think that a
01:32:07.440 --> 01:32:12.960
lot were just midwits were in over their head they felt like there was some attack on the faith
01:32:12.960 --> 01:32:17.680
and they had to protect the symbol of the faith which is the book of conquered but they didn't
01:32:17.840 --> 01:32:22.240
know how to do it because they didn't realize that it wasn't under attack the only the only people
01:32:22.240 --> 01:32:27.840
talking were Lutherans and then reform saying wait you guys are reformed and like no no no we're
01:32:27.840 --> 01:32:33.200
not reformed but some of them effectively said the same thing and that's the the confusion and the
01:32:33.200 --> 01:32:38.880
damage is unspeakable so as we've talked about this we haven't tried to make the case for the full
01:32:38.880 --> 01:32:44.640
Lutheran position you can find it in the book of conquered you can look for where where communion
01:32:44.640 --> 01:32:51.040
is discussed start with the catechisms yeah exactly start start small because the simplest
01:32:51.040 --> 01:32:57.360
explanation is the best one start start with scripture start with where Jesus gave them the
01:32:57.360 --> 01:33:02.160
Eucharist and then where Paul describes the Eucharist that was given to him I think that's one of
01:33:02.160 --> 01:33:09.840
the that's a topic for another day but these these conversations don't need to be complicated I
01:33:09.840 --> 01:33:15.360
think one of the most valuable differences between Lutheranism and some other denominations
01:33:15.920 --> 01:33:22.480
is you don't have to be smart to be a good Lutheran you don't have to be able to debate in these
01:33:22.480 --> 01:33:28.640
highly technical philosophical terms in order to hold proper doctrine and that's what really actually
01:33:28.640 --> 01:33:35.440
happened everyone suddenly believed I I'm not sure if I'm Lutheran because they thought maybe
01:33:35.440 --> 01:33:40.480
they're using the words wrong or maybe they believe the wrong words when Jesus says this is my
01:33:40.480 --> 01:33:46.720
body if you believe that you're done there's nothing more the reason that the book of conquered has
01:33:46.720 --> 01:33:54.160
so much to say about the Eucharist is the unbelief of others it's because people said well what about
01:33:54.160 --> 01:33:59.200
well I don't believe that well I don't think that's possible they were arguing with God it was
01:33:59.200 --> 01:34:04.880
sinful doubt and so yes there's a lot said but it's not because there's a lot that has to be said
01:34:04.880 --> 01:34:10.880
for you to believe it's because there's a lot that can be said in refutation of unbelief those
01:34:10.880 --> 01:34:15.920
are two separate questions they may look the same superficially but it's a crucial distinction
01:34:15.920 --> 01:34:22.080
that Christians need to make just because there's a lot to be said about something doesn't need to
01:34:22.080 --> 01:34:27.920
mean that you necessarily need to understand all of it to understand the thing the person you know
01:34:27.920 --> 01:34:33.680
the 13-year-old who maybe is a little slow developmentally who's been categorized properly by his
01:34:33.760 --> 01:34:39.600
parents and his pastor who's told this is the body and blood of Jesus this bread and wine is the
01:34:39.600 --> 01:34:45.840
body and blood of Jesus that he shed on the cross for you for the forgiveness of your sins if
01:34:45.840 --> 01:34:53.120
that boy believes that he is worthily receiving the sacrament the end nothing else needs understood
01:34:53.120 --> 01:34:57.280
and he's blessed if he's developmentally challenged because he's not going to devolve into
01:34:57.280 --> 01:35:03.920
Aristotelian arguments over will it is is that really true it's it's the smart people that make
01:35:03.920 --> 01:35:10.320
these whole the essence or the accident yeah is it his physical mode is it a spiritual body
01:35:11.040 --> 01:35:19.120
which cause are we talking about here yeah these these terms yeah these terms of art have a place
01:35:19.120 --> 01:35:25.920
in highly formal debate personally I don't think I don't think they have any place in the normal
01:35:26.000 --> 01:35:31.440
Christian discussion of what's going on pastor should use them yeah no pastors shouldn't be
01:35:31.440 --> 01:35:35.840
explaining things to the lady in this way and actually I am fine with the pastor saying physical
01:35:35.840 --> 01:35:40.720
because I think physical today is the right way to describe it I will add in the show notes the
01:35:40.720 --> 01:35:46.320
the one the one sentence that I said say it this way this is this is the best way to say it
01:35:46.880 --> 01:35:52.640
because I think that that was so I'll show us read the sentence Christ is physically substantially
01:35:52.640 --> 01:35:58.560
sacramentally present in with and under the bread and the wine in the supper as he promises
01:35:59.200 --> 01:36:04.960
that's it that is the totality of the correct of the Lutheran position on the supper and in fairness
01:36:04.960 --> 01:36:09.920
to the men who wrote the book of Concord if those telling them to go read the epitome had told
01:36:09.920 --> 01:36:14.320
them to read paragraph six and seven they would have been set because those are the Lutheran
01:36:14.320 --> 01:36:22.400
position the rest of it is refuting false doctrine so yeah if you just and those two paragraphs are
01:36:22.400 --> 01:36:26.640
very short I won't read them you can go read them yourself I'll link them in the show notes
01:36:27.200 --> 01:36:33.280
but they are very short and they are the correct statement of what Lutherans believe of what
01:36:33.280 --> 01:36:41.280
scripture teaches anything beyond that has its place if you want to have a stomp dish and go
01:36:41.280 --> 01:36:46.000
drink beer and talk with your theologically literate friends about these issues by all means have
01:36:46.000 --> 01:36:54.480
fun but don't bring up a church exactly you don't drive Twitter yeah these these are BS sessions
01:36:54.480 --> 01:36:58.960
that you can have with friends privately where you're not going to burden conscious as a people you
01:36:58.960 --> 01:37:07.360
don't know what you don't belong to them yeah that's fine so again what problem are you trying to
01:37:07.360 --> 01:37:12.800
solve if you want to wait into an argument by controlling the Bible or the book of Concord and
01:37:12.800 --> 01:37:16.480
saying well I found this word here here's a screenshot where it says the opposite of what you
01:37:16.480 --> 01:37:23.120
said but it's a screenshot from a 40 page treat 40 page treatis that's refuting the reformed or
01:37:23.120 --> 01:37:29.040
somebody else it's not refuting what you believe don't begin with the presumption that the
01:37:29.040 --> 01:37:37.120
Lutheran you're talking to is a crypto Calvinist like there's I I hasn't come up yet on this podcast
01:37:37.120 --> 01:37:42.320
but I have a real problem with the way the English small catechism translates Luther's words
01:37:42.320 --> 01:37:47.680
put the best construction on everything for the mafe commandment not that it wasn't a correct
01:37:47.680 --> 01:37:53.200
thing to say but that the way it's employed as a weapon within modern discourse is actively
01:37:53.200 --> 01:37:59.280
destructive because today when a pastor says put the best construction on things usually they mean
01:37:59.280 --> 01:38:04.640
pretend something evil is good so you don't have to condemn it there is a time for a best
01:38:04.640 --> 01:38:09.760
construction and that's when a Lutheran who's concerned about making a faithful statement about
01:38:09.920 --> 01:38:16.720
the Eucharist says physically and he's concerned specifically that we don't deny the Christ is
01:38:16.720 --> 01:38:22.400
truly present you don't beat that man over the head of the book of Concord you give him a hug
01:38:22.400 --> 01:38:27.760
and you say thank you I share your belief I would put it a different way and hear some of my
01:38:27.760 --> 01:38:33.200
reasons why and then you can talk about the book of Concord but you don't begin by undermining a
01:38:33.200 --> 01:38:38.880
true confession if you're at the problem you're trying to solve is that someone is using the word
01:38:38.880 --> 01:38:44.800
that you don't understand and don't like please be quiet for the sake of souls for the sake of
01:38:44.800 --> 01:38:50.000
observers and for the sake of everyone's sanity it's okay to sit out some conversations
01:38:52.000 --> 01:38:57.760
there's also a little comment there in the best construction that is always left out rather
01:38:57.760 --> 01:39:03.280
curiously it's a parenthetical it's there even in the English in the words of the trigolata
01:39:04.080 --> 01:39:13.600
if it be not notoriously evil there is a very clear very obvious exception to best construction
01:39:13.600 --> 01:39:20.880
so many of the times that we are supposedly supposed to apply it to various people by these
01:39:20.880 --> 01:39:27.520
very online pastors it doesn't apply even literally as it's just written even if you don't
01:39:27.520 --> 01:39:33.120
actually understand what is meant by best construction the exception is what applies in many of
01:39:33.120 --> 01:39:38.960
those cases if you have someone who is openly defending abortion this is not a best construction
01:39:38.960 --> 01:39:46.960
issue that's notoriously evil you speak truthfully so I think to wrap things up I would just point back
01:39:46.960 --> 01:39:54.000
to the first first example in Concord with a second as a Christian you have a duty to God to talk
01:39:54.000 --> 01:40:00.400
about your faith with unbelievers and with believers you're gonna talk to him differently you would
01:40:00.400 --> 01:40:06.960
never go to someone who didn't even understand Jesus and try to explain the sacrament to him in any
01:40:06.960 --> 01:40:12.720
words because it would be it would be like talking to your dog it's just noises he has no idea like
01:40:12.720 --> 01:40:20.320
you might pick up one word but there's no context when we speak about our faith we must speak truthfully
01:40:20.320 --> 01:40:26.400
and we must speak with wisdom we must understand to whom we're speaking so that the manner in which we
01:40:26.400 --> 01:40:33.120
speak the words that we use and the approach that we take and how far we go are all in accord with
01:40:33.120 --> 01:40:38.080
what they can receive because different people can receive different teachings at different times
01:40:38.640 --> 01:40:45.040
Paul talks about spiritual milk and solid food as different types of teaching and as some of the
01:40:45.040 --> 01:40:50.880
people they still needed milk they they weren't ready for solid food because they've had so little
01:40:50.880 --> 01:40:57.040
understanding that's fine that's in a way that's a blessing for someone to still need spiritual
01:40:57.040 --> 01:41:01.760
milk because whatever mistakes you're going to make are going to be very simple and very easily
01:41:01.760 --> 01:41:08.640
corrected by the time you get into the red meat of theology you're if you keep learning and you
01:41:08.640 --> 01:41:15.680
keep digging you may get very far off into the weeds not to say that that's necessarily a bad thing
01:41:15.760 --> 01:41:22.320
but it does become dangerous because when you start worrying more about putting your reason above
01:41:22.320 --> 01:41:29.360
what God has revealed you can make these messes that that were describing in this episode and again
01:41:29.360 --> 01:41:36.960
it's ultimately always about sharing your faith faithfully sometimes that requires silence
01:41:36.960 --> 01:41:41.920
sometimes it requires only sharing a tiny piece of it at a time and praying for the opportunity
01:41:41.920 --> 01:41:49.040
to go further sometimes it involves in-depth discussion but the more in-depth you go the more
01:41:49.040 --> 01:41:53.760
wisdom and understanding you need to have about what it is you're saying to whom you're speaking
01:41:53.760 --> 01:41:57.920
and what problem you're trying to solve because maybe nothing needs to be said I
01:41:59.120 --> 01:42:07.120
if if the argument that the Lutheran Reformers had made had been is means is the sacrament is a
01:42:07.120 --> 01:42:12.960
mystery that would have been a sufficient confession personally I wish that they left it at that
01:42:12.960 --> 01:42:18.320
I understand why they didn't and I don't fault them but as a Lutheran that's all we need
01:42:18.320 --> 01:42:27.840
is means is this is my body means precisely that God cannot lie I believe it it is my confession
01:42:27.840 --> 01:42:33.840
and it's what I receive no amount of philosophizing is going to change that that is what the faith is
01:42:33.840 --> 01:42:38.480
supposed to be oh man
01:43:03.840 --> 01:43:05.840
you