WEBVTT

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Welcome to the At Any Cost Podcast.

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I am Corey J.

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Mahler. This is the fourth episode of 2025.

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Also, incidentally, the fourth QA episode.

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There will eventually be episodes of another kind, hence the numbering scheme.

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Sorry about the slight delay there.

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Apparently OBS is not currently cooperating with Rumble very well, and when

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I went to activate Rumble output it crashed the app, so I

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got to restart and reconfigure everything.

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Kick output is also not working for some reason.

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I'll look into some sort of restreaming service instead of the plugin

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since the plugin seems to be not entirely reliable at this point.

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But But everything is live and it looks like it's all working

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on X, YouTube, and Twitch, so hopefully you can listen on one

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of those platforms.

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Shouldn't be any audio issues.

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I reconfigured my entire audio pipeline for this, so everything should be

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working now, hopefully there are no problems.

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And so I may as well just get right into the questions

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because I have a number of them and I don't know if

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I will get through all of them tonight, but hopefully that will

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be the case.

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So the first question is about Proverbs 15, specifically verse 27A,

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which is not in your Bibles, you will notice if you are

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reading from the Masoretic text, but it is in your Bibles if

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you are reading, as you should be, from the Septuagint.

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As Protestants, how should we interpret Proverbs 15, 27, in the Septuagint

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By acts of mercy and faithfulness sins are cleansed, and by the

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fear of the Lord everyone turns from evil, and that is citing

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to the Lexum.

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And he says mainly because of the first half of this passage.

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And so let me go ahead and pull up

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that scripture passage if I can get Lagos to cooperate with me

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here.

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Logos is great when it decides to work.

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There we go.

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For some reason it did not want to open up this window,

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so I will swap this over to the left hand side for

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us.

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And open up Proverbs fifteen.

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So obviously the question here is twenty-seven A, twenty-seven B, however you

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want to number that, that again, verse number is not actually a

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part of scripture, so that's not really relevant.

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But for 27a here is it's numbered in the nets, which is

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the version that I'm using here.

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By acts of mercy and by faithfulness sins are purged, but by

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the fear of the Lord everyone turns away from evil.

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And so the question of course is how is that compatible with

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solafide by faith alone?

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Really is the underlying question there.

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And this is the same question that has been raised by Roman

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Catholics and others in objection to what Lutherans and other Protestants teach.

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Usually not based on this, because usually they're using the matter masoretic

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text. Usually that is instead James, and so let me pull that

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up as well.

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That is going to be James actually we'll start in James 1

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and

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let me see verse 22.

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But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

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if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer

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He is like a man who looks intently at his natural face

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in a mirror, for he looks at himself and goes away and

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at once forgets what he was like, but the one who looks

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into the perfect law, the law of liberty and perseveres, being no

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hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be a

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blessing in his doing.

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And of course this is simply pointing out what you know I

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have the Stone Choir Challenge coin.

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I have a few of them sitting on my desk here.

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This one's unfortunately numbered, this is six six six, which is why

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it's still on my desk because I didn't really feel like giving

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that one to anyone, so I'll just pick up this one instead.

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You know, a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree

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bears bad fruit.

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A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot

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bear good fruit.

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That's what's being taught here.

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If you have a living faith, your faith is necessarily going to

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produce good fruits.

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If you have a dead faith, then it's not going to produce

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any good fruits.

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It's going to produce nothing, in fact, because it's dead.

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Dead trees don't produce anything.

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And so the question here, and what is taught here, of course,

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and I'll go back over to Proverbs here.

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But by the fear of the Lord everyone turns away from evil.

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That's a necessary part of the interpretation here because it is the

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fear of the Lord that enables you to do these acts of

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mercy and this faithfulness by which sins are purged.

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And so it's a living faith producing good works if you don't

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have the fear of the Lord, which is what faith is, of

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course, that's one of the things produced by a living faith is

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the fear of the Lord.

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So if you don't have that fear of the Lord, then you

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can't actually commit you can't do any good works.

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Because it's not a matter of the works themselves being good in

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themselves, because there are things that are good in themselves, right?

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So taking care of your children, loving your wife, tilling the soil,

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whatever it happens to be, many good things that you can do

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in this life that don't require faith, but they are not counted

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to you as good works if you do not do them in

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faith. Because even the good works of those who are not in

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Christ are not per se good, because they are not counted to

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that person unless he is in Christ, because otherwise he is simply

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a sinner and everything he does is sin.

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And so this isn't incompatible with what Protestants teach, and I'll read

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another passage from James because I know that there's a Roman Catholic

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and probably someone else shouting at his screen somewhere because I didn't

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read the passage of James that he expects me to read, wants

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me to read.

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Which is fine, I'll read it.

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It's James two, starting with verse eighteen.

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But someone will say, You have faith and I have works.

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Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show

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you my faith by my works.

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You believe that God is one and you do well.

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Even the demons believe and shudder.

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Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart

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from works is useless?

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Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up

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his son Isaac on the altar.

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You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith

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was completed by his works, and the scripture was fulfilled that says

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Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and

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he was called a friend of God.

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You see that a person is justified by works and not by

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faith alone.

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And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified

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by works, when she received the messengers, and sent them out by

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another way.

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For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also

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faith apart from works is dead.

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Again, if you read everything that's actually said here and don't focus

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on the little snippet there that I don't even need to repeat

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because we all know which one which one.

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If you focus on what is actually said here in context, it's

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very clear that you have to have faith, but a living faith

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that produces good works.

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The issue here is whether or not you are a true believer.

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The person who simply pays lip service to Christian faith, to Christ,

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and says I believe in Jesus and then never does any of

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the things that a true Christian would do, you can tell that

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he doesn't have a living faith because it's not producing fruit.

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It's a dead tree.

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It's not producing the good fruit which is good works.

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And so there's nothing incompatible there.

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It's the same teaching we see in James, just in the Old

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Testament and conveniently for whatever reason the rabbis decided to remove that

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in their version.

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So there's nothing incompatible with Christian theology, with Protestant theology in this

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case, and this has been treated a number of times, but very

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clearly the baseline, the foundational matter is that a true and living

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faith will produce good works.

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And so you cannot be justified by a dead faith, because a

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dead faith doesn't do anything.

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It has to be a living faith.

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The next question is slightly different topic, a little technical in a

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different way this time.

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Let me pull that up here.

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What are the illicit therapy modalities for Christians?

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This is of course talking about psychology.

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In a previous Stone Choir episode, I recall you endorsing cognitive behavioral

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therapy. Are there any other therapy modalities that you value?

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I am specifically curious what your thoughts are on internal family systems

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and whether its premises are compatible with Christian Orthodoxy.

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This one is maybe a little in the weeds for some people,

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but it's it's useful, it's a very relevant thing in our modern

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world, certainly.

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And so when it comes to psychology and the different therapy modalities,

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you're going to have a handful of different ones that are the

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main ones.

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There's some minor ones as well, but you have psychodynamics also called

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psychoanalysis, more typically psychoanalysis, I think is the one of which people

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are more aware.

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Cognitive behavioral as mentioned, the existential or humanist school, the FST,

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which is the one that is sort of the point of this

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question. Then you have the somatic theories which basically focus almost entirely

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on biology.

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And then there are a few other minor ones, like I said,

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so coherence theory and things like that.

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But insofar as all of these theories are concerned, none of them

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are without issue for Christians, but all of them have some value.

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I am definitely going to say that some are more valuable than

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others. Certainly I'm going to say cognitive behavioral is the best school.

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Not simply because I believe it is the most compatible Christianity, which

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I do believe that it is.

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I do also think, incidentally, that psychodynamic psychoanalysis can be compatible with

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Christianity, although not so much in the Freudian sense and not following

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Freud, a little more following Jung, but specifically purged of his esoteric

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and just very weird elements, Gnosticism, things like that.

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But insofar as these schools are concerned, if you don't just buy

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into them wholesale, which there's no reason you have to do that,

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you can take the good and leave the bad, then there will

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be utility in all of them, but some more than others.

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And so just to run through the game again very quickly, obviously

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for psychoanalysis you have the problems inherent in Freud.

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Everyone is kind of aware of those, just stay away from Freud,

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he was a weird Jew.

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And so Jung Jung was a better psychologist anyway, better psychiatrist, more

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intelligent man.

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But one of the fruits of that particular school would be the

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Myers Briggs, which would be the the personality typing, and we're all

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familiar with that, as that has come up a number of times

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on X, in Stone Choir, elsewhere.

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I'm an int J, we all know that.

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So that is Jung

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purged of the esoteric and Gnostic elements and boiled down to something

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that actually has a great deal of utility.

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I would say that after probably IQ, the personality typing is probably

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the most useful thing that has been produced by psychology, at least

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in the last you know, eighty years, give or take.

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Maybe more than that.

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For cognitive behavioral the problem would be that it tends to lean

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into being a little too materialistic, but that's not inherent in those

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theories, so you can simply ignore the fact that many of those

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who practice it are materialists are atheists.

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You could You can integrate cognitive behavioral therapy into a Christian worldview

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with no problem because cognitive behavioral therapy does not rely upon, it

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does not even assume a materialist worldview.

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It assumes the reality of the flesh, which as Christians we should

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do because the alternative is Gnosticism.

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So I don't think there's any conflict, any inherent problem there.

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Then you have the existentialist or humanist school, whichever term you want

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to use for that, the problem there is that it views man

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as essentially good.

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Which, as we know as Christians, man is not essentially good because

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man is fallen, man is flawed because of original sin.

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And so you're going to have to work that into how you

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use those theories if you go with those schools.

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I don't know how much those are worth necessarily.

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Some of them maybe have some utility.

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I am not familiar with some of the more recent developments.

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I have not spent a great deal of time reading psychological literature

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in the last, say, five, ten years.

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So it's been a while, but I am familiar with all of

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the the groundwork, the history of it, all those things, and I

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do read papers every so often to stay up to date on

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it. So there may be some more modern theories in some of

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these schools of which I am not aware that may have more

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utility and may be more compatible with Christianity, but this is sort

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of the historical overview, the the thirty thousand foot foot view, as

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it were.

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I already said the somatic theories have the problem of being a

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little too hard line when it comes to materialism and biology.

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They tend to focus on that to the exclusion of the fact

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that man is more than his body.

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Man is his body.

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You are your body.

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You don't have a body.

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You are your body.

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But you also are spirit and mind.

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You're not just your body.

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And so that's sort of the problem that the somatic theories tend

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to have.

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So insofar as the FST theories are concerned, I don't think that

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they're necessarily useless, but I would be very careful with regard specifically

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to the fact that some of them lean a little heavily into

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dividing up man's psyche into these different parts, they will say, which

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verge on being different personalities.

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And obviously the last thing you want to do is train someone

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to have MPD, which I think is what you can kind of

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run the risk of doing with FST.

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So the overall answer is just that yes they have utility, but

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be aware of the deficiencies and calculate those into how you use

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them in whatever it is that you happen to be doing.

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If you're a trained therapist, whatever it is, jettison the parts that

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aren't compatible with Christianity and use the parts that are.

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There's nothing wrong with doing that.

00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.960
You are perfectly allowed, it is perfectly acceptable to take the good

00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:03.680
and leave the bad.

00:15:03.680 --> 00:15:08.400
The next question, again shifting gears a little bit, is about Anabaptists

00:15:08.400 --> 00:15:10.320
in Paraguay.

00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:16.240
And of course, for those who are not familiar with the history,

00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:22.480
at one point during the eighteen hundreds, I don't remember exactly when,

00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:24.880
but you had a number of German immigrants.

00:15:24.880 --> 00:15:26.720
There's going to be two different waves here, and I think he's

00:15:26.640 --> 00:15:28.960
talking about the second, not the first.

00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:32.720
You had two waves of German immigrants who moved to Paraguay, what

00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:38.800
is now Paraguay, and the first group moved to the department that

00:15:38.800 --> 00:15:42.080
is known as San Pedro, San Pedro as it would be pronounced.

00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:45.440
I lived in Southern California where there was a San Pedro and

00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:48.640
yes it was pronounced like that despite being a Spanish name and

00:15:48.640 --> 00:15:52.240
that would be the Nueva Germania was what they were setting up

00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:58.320
there and then the second wave moved to the department of Bocaron.

00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:01.040
And I think he's probably talking about that one because that's where

00:16:01.040 --> 00:16:04.720
most of the Mennonites went, which would be the Anabaptists.

00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:10.160
And so insofar as that is concerned, you have a population in

00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:13.760
Paraguay of seven million-ish.

00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:18.000
And you have 400, uh, 500,000 of the

00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:23.360
German descended Anabaptists, which a lot of people don't know that that

00:16:23.360 --> 00:16:24.960
population exists, but it does.

00:16:25.280 --> 00:16:28.960
And so his question, after that little bit of context, I am

00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:31.440
from the Anabaptist group that left Prussia.

00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:33.040
We are in Paraguay nowadays.

00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:36.880
Sadly, most of our groups still hold to Anabaptist and pacifist teaching,

00:16:36.880 --> 00:16:40.400
working to change that given the fact that we separated from Protestants

00:16:40.400 --> 00:16:44.240
and ultimately from the Germans for unbiblical reasons, which is true, would

00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:46.880
you say it is our moral duty to repent and seek to

00:16:46.880 --> 00:16:49.840
reunite? Some of our people say God has put us here to

00:16:49.840 --> 00:16:52.880
do good in Paraguay, but we don't know what to make of

00:16:52.880 --> 00:16:54.320
that argument.

00:16:54.320 --> 00:16:57.760
And so I think that I do agree with sort of the

00:16:58.080 --> 00:16:59.920
argument there at the end.

00:16:59.920 --> 00:17:04.080
I think that you are where God has put you, and yes,

00:17:04.080 --> 00:17:07.680
there's always the fact where you can look at historically have our

00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:09.440
ancestors done things that were wicked?

00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:10.880
That's true for all of us, of course.

00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.600
Some more so than others, certainly not all of us are descended

00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:17.200
from those who murdered Christ, for instance, thank God.

00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:17.520
But

00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:23.200
insofar as where you are, do good works where you are for

00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:23.680
your people.

00:17:23.680 --> 00:17:28.080
Like I said, there are four to five hundred thousand German descended

00:17:28.080 --> 00:17:30.160
Christians in Paraguay.

00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:31.600
That's a sizable community.

00:17:31.600 --> 00:17:34.560
That's not a an insignificant number of people.

00:17:34.560 --> 00:17:39.600
And so yes, you're going to have some challenges in maintaining your

00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:45.520
culture and your ethnicity, your nationality, your racial characteristics living there surrounded

00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:48.880
by this larger culture of millions, but at the same time it's

00:17:48.800 --> 00:17:51.840
not a trivial number, so that can be done.

00:17:51.840 --> 00:17:56.480
And so maintain your customs, maintain your history, yes, amend the theological

00:17:57.120 --> 00:18:00.320
errors, which pacifism obviously is false.

00:18:00.320 --> 00:18:02.880
Christianity has never been a pacifist religion.

00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:06.080
Christ is often spoken of as wielding a sword in Scripture.

00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:09.040
Scripture, he comes back on a war horse wielding a sword, so

00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:11.920
not a pacifist religion.

00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:15.600
Insofar as obviously baptism and things like that, it's the same problem

00:18:15.600 --> 00:18:18.560
that many Christian groups have with regard to theology, and I'll get

00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:22.400
into that in a later question in this episode, I believe, with

00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:23.840
regard to the churches of Christ.

00:18:23.840 --> 00:18:25.200
That's what it was.

00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:25.520
But

00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:30.640
yes, work on the theological and doctrinal problems, but I think that

00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:34.160
where you are is where you should continue to live.

00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:35.360
You have a community there.

00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:37.920
It has fairly deep roots at this point.

00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:40.640
Many of the Germans who live in the United States have been

00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:44.320
here since the early 1800s, and so you've been there roughly as

00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:46.400
long as a lot of the German population has been here.

00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:50.240
Incidentally, my family has been here longer, but a lot of Germans

00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:52.480
came over in the eighteen hundreds.

00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:57.200
So you have your community there, you have your people there.

00:18:57.200 --> 00:18:59.840
I don't think that you have to move back to Germany or

00:18:59.840 --> 00:19:03.840
move to the United States and integrate into a Germanic community.

00:19:03.840 --> 00:19:05.760
You have that there.

00:19:05.760 --> 00:19:08.480
Do the best that you can with what God has given you

00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:10.560
and where God has placed you.

00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:15.840
And if circumstances were to change in the future, then sure, you

00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:18.480
may have to move somewhere else in the world, but I don't

00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:21.120
think that Paraguay has many of those problems right now, so you're

00:19:21.120 --> 00:19:24.720
probably in a pretty good position overall relative to a lot of

00:19:24.720 --> 00:19:28.080
other Christian groups in the world, particularly Germanic Christian groups in the

00:19:28.080 --> 00:19:31.920
world. So no, I think stay there and do the best you

00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:33.200
can. Be a good Christian there.

00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:34.800
Do well for your people.

00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:39.280
The next question is

00:19:40.320 --> 00:19:44.880
a question about the development of the modern Jewish population.

00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:48.320
And I won't get too far off into the weeds with regard

00:19:48.320 --> 00:19:52.640
to DNA and all those things because I just don't want to

00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:55.440
do that, and also I don't have all of the setup right

00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:57.600
now to show all the charts and everything, and that's not really

00:19:57.600 --> 00:19:58.640
why we're here.

00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:02.640
But to read the question, I don't think the Stonequire episode on

00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:05.680
the Jews explained this the best to me or maybe I didn't

00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:09.600
pay attention enough attention, but can you explain how we got from

00:20:09.600 --> 00:20:12.960
the Israelites slash Hebrews in the Old Testament to the Jews we

00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:13.920
have today?

00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:16.480
I know that the Israelites were wiped out of existence by the

00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.640
Assyrians and the kingdom of Judah was deported, but how did we

00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:23.840
get from Judeans to Pharisees to the Jews we know and love

00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:25.840
in quotes today?

00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:29.520
you also explain the Khazars and whether or not today's Jews have

00:20:29.520 --> 00:20:32.800
anything to do with that theory?

00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.960
And so, with regard to the Jews, the history that he has

00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:38.240
there is correct.

00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:41.760
You have the Assyrian exile, which was the destruction of the northern

00:20:41.760 --> 00:20:45.200
kingdom. The northern kingdom is the kingdom that was called Israel.

00:20:45.520 --> 00:20:50.880
When you are distinguishing between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:52.480
Judah is the southern kingdom.

00:20:52.480 --> 00:20:57.040
You can look at a map of modern day, so called Israel,

00:20:57.040 --> 00:20:58.960
and see that Jerusalem's in the south.

00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:02.240
Jerusalem, part of Judah, Southern Kingdom.

00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:07.360
The Babylonian exile did not destroy Judah.

00:21:07.360 --> 00:21:10.480
Now it did not do anything good for Judah, certainly, and that's

00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:12.880
sort of where they started firming up their Talmud.

00:21:12.880 --> 00:21:18.160
So historically that has been beneficial to basically no one, but the

00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:20.880
Babylonians did not destroy them as a people.

00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:25.760
The Babylonians deported many of them to Babylon, some stayed in Judah,

00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:28.880
but then many of them returned later on.

00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:32.080
And then what you have, and why we have them now in

00:21:32.080 --> 00:21:36.400
Europe and everywhere else in the world, is they migrated out of

00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:41.600
Judea during the time of the Roman Empire, and then also subsequent

00:21:41.600 --> 00:21:45.360
to the destruction of Judea by the Romans, because the Romans did

00:21:45.360 --> 00:21:45.920
not kill them all.

00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:49.280
The Romans didn't destroy them all, many of them escaped.

00:21:49.280 --> 00:21:52.640
Granted, a huge chunk of the population did not, as judgment from

00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:58.720
God, but they had already spread out in the diaspora before Rome

00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:02.560
destroyed them, and so they spread from there.

00:22:02.560 --> 00:22:08.240
But to answer the question about the the Khazar theory, the Khazars,

00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:11.840
some of them we know, converted to Judaism, at least some of

00:22:11.840 --> 00:22:14.080
the upper echelons of their society.

00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:18.240
we don't have evidence of a wholesale conversion, we don't have evidence

00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:23.040
of a mass integration of them into the Jewish population, and we

00:22:23.040 --> 00:22:25.920
don't have evidence of a mass migration of them.

00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:31.200
And so theories that depend on those claims don't have sufficient warrant.

00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:34.480
But more importantly than that, perhaps, is the fact that we do

00:22:34.480 --> 00:22:36.640
have the hard evidence of DNA.

00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:41.360
And so if you look at, for instance, the YDNA, which say

00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:45.920
the male DNA of Jews, the male sex chromosome.

00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:50.720
They are Middle Eastern and Southern European.

00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:54.240
There's some overlap there with Southern Europeans, not Northern Europeans, not the

00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:56.720
Khazars, but some Southern Europeans.

00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:59.680
Because of course they migrated during what time?

00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:04.080
The height of the Roman Empire, and so Italy, Southern Europe.

00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:06.880
And so the groups for Y DNA would be J one, J

00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:10.080
two, E one, B one B.

00:23:10.080 --> 00:23:14.080
And additionally you can look at the mitochondrial DNA, which of course

00:23:14.080 --> 00:23:18.000
is the maternal DNA, that's also Middle Eastern and Southern European.

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:22.320
And so the Kazar theory just doesn't pan out from the evidence

00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:23.520
that we have.

00:23:23.520 --> 00:23:28.320
They are related to the populations from that part of the world,

00:23:28.320 --> 00:23:33.920
from Judea, from ancient Israel, but they have some admixture from southern

00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:37.120
Europe and a couple other places as well in many cases.

00:23:37.120 --> 00:23:38.960
They are miscegenated.

00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:41.760
That is a curse from God, that is a judgment on them.

00:23:41.760 --> 00:23:44.080
That is one of the ways in which God has cursed them.

00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:47.760
But they are very much related to the ancient people.

00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:49.840
And if you look at the Old Testament, they behave in the

00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:50.480
same way.

00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:52.800
They're doing the same thing today that they did in the desert

00:23:52.800 --> 00:23:55.520
while they were wandering that they did, while God was blessing them

00:23:55.520 --> 00:23:57.920
in the promised land that they have done again and again and

00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:01.120
again, despite the number of prophets that God has sent to them,

00:24:01.120 --> 00:24:06.000
despite how many times God has punished them and then relented, they

00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.960
are very deeply cursed and they've always behaved this way.

00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:11.920
So So particularly the theories that try to say that Europeans are

00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:13.040
the real Jews.

00:24:13.040 --> 00:24:14.160
Completely laughable.

00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:15.040
We don't behave like that.

00:24:15.040 --> 00:24:18.640
Look at our ancestors and how they behave versus how the Jews

00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:19.840
in the Old Testament behave.

00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:21.440
I don't want to be related to those people.

00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:24.080
Why would anyone want to be related to them.

00:24:24.080 --> 00:24:25.360
It's complete nonsense.

00:24:25.360 --> 00:24:27.200
The evidence just doesn't pan out.

00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:30.080
So hopefully that answers your question about the Jews and how we

00:24:30.080 --> 00:24:31.440
wound up with them.

00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:35.520
Just basic migration under the Roman Empire, and then diaspora.

00:24:35.520 --> 00:24:40.560
Also partly subsequent the Babylonian exile and partly after the destruction of

00:24:40.560 --> 00:24:46.400
Judea. And unfortunately Christian princes in Europe were wicked enough, stupid enough,

00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:49.600
but wicked enough to permit them to settle in their lands for

00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:55.520
a number of different reasons.

00:24:55.520 --> 00:24:59.280
The next question is about Zechariah, but before I do that, I'm

00:24:59.200 --> 00:25:01.280
going to have a sip of tea here.

00:25:01.280 --> 00:25:04.000
The problem of not having a co-host when you're doing a solo

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:12.880
podcast is you can't just have someone else talk for five minutes.

00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:16.320
Try not to get tea in my mustache there.

00:25:16.320 --> 00:25:18.640
So the next question.

00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:22.160
Zechariah fourteen and Isaiah sixty-five.

00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:24.720
Let me read the question here.

00:25:24.720 --> 00:25:30.080
Where or how does Zechariah fourteen fit into an all millennial view,

00:25:30.080 --> 00:25:34.800
verses sixteen through nineteen in particular, and what of Isaiah sixty five,

00:25:34.800 --> 00:25:38.320
sixteen through twenty five.

00:25:38.320 --> 00:25:41.360
So again I will pull up logos for this

00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:45.920
since that will

00:26:01.840 --> 00:26:06.960
I don't think that I will read all of Zechariah fourteen.

00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.440
Well I'll read some of it.

00:26:09.520 --> 00:26:11.440
We'll see, maybe I'll wind up reading the whole thing.

00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:12.320
It's not that long.

00:26:12.320 --> 00:26:17.280
I read far more every day when recording the devotions and such.

00:26:17.280 --> 00:26:20.400
Behold, days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils shall be

00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.600
divided in you, and I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem

00:26:23.600 --> 00:26:27.040
for battle, and the city shall be taken, and the houses looted,

00:26:27.040 --> 00:26:30.880
and the women defiled, and half the city shall go into captivity.

00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:34.160
But the rest of my people shall not be utterly destroyed from

00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.960
the city, and the Lord will go forth and draw up in

00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:40.320
battle order against those nations like a day of his marshalling in

00:26:40.320 --> 00:26:43.520
a day of battle, and on that day his feet shall stand

00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:47.200
on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east,

00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:50.240
and the Mount of Olives shall be split, half of it to

00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:53.600
the east, and half of it to the sea, an exceedingly great

00:26:53.600 --> 00:26:57.120
chasm, and half of the mount shall incline northward and half of

00:26:57.120 --> 00:27:01.040
it southward, and the valley of my mountains shall be blocked up,

00:27:01.040 --> 00:27:04.720
and the valley of the mountains shall be joined up to Jasel

00:27:05.040 --> 00:27:06.960
some of the names in the nets are a little weird every

00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:07.680
so often.

00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:09.840
And it shall be blocked up as it was blocked in the

00:27:09.840 --> 00:27:12.960
days of the earthquake in the days of King Osias of Judah

00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:16.240
And the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones

00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:17.040
with him.

00:27:17.040 --> 00:27:20.320
On that day there shall be no light nor cold weather nor

00:27:20.320 --> 00:27:24.240
frost. It shall be for one day, and that day is known

00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:26.960
to the Lord, and not a day and not a night, and

00:27:27.360 --> 00:27:29.600
at evening time there shall be light.

00:27:29.600 --> 00:27:33.520
And on that day living waters shall come forth from Jerusalem, half

00:27:33.520 --> 00:27:35.920
of it into the first sea, and half of it into the

00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:36.800
last sea.

00:27:36.800 --> 00:27:39.680
Even in summer and spring it will be so.

00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:42.320
And the Lord will become king over all the earth.

00:27:42.320 --> 00:27:46.000
On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:49.200
One shall go around the whole land by way of the wilderness,

00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:52.880
from Gabe unto Ramon south of Jerusalem.

00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:55.200
Going to skip a little bit here.

00:27:55.200 --> 00:27:57.680
And it shall be on that day a great panic from the

00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:00.640
Lord shall be upon them, and each will seize the hand of

00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:03.040
his neighbor, and his hand will be joined to the hand of

00:28:03.040 --> 00:28:03.680
his neighbor.

00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:07.120
And the And Judah will fight at Jerusalem, and shall collect the

00:28:07.120 --> 00:28:11.040
strength of all the peoples round about, gold and silver and apparel

00:28:11.040 --> 00:28:12.400
in great abundance.

00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:15.360
And this shall be the overthrow of the horses, and the mules

00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:18.080
and the camels and the donkeys, and all the animals that are

00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:21.280
in those camps, according to the calamity.

00:28:21.280 --> 00:28:23.520
And of course it goes on in the same way talking about

00:28:23.520 --> 00:28:25.600
Egypt and a few other things.

00:28:25.600 --> 00:28:28.080
And the Canaanite shall no longer be in the house of the

00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:30.320
Lord almighty on that day.

00:28:30.320 --> 00:28:34.080
I encourage you of course to go and Go and read that

00:28:34.080 --> 00:28:39.360
entire thing for yourself, particularly from the Septuagint, because of course the

00:28:39.360 --> 00:28:41.200
Septuagint is better.

00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:42.960
It is the Word of God, and so it is the one

00:28:43.040 --> 00:28:44.320
we should be using.

00:28:44.320 --> 00:28:47.680
Insofar as I'll leave the scripture up for now because I'm also

00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:51.680
going to read that section from Isaiah.

00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:55.680
Insofar as these sorts of passages are concerned, and there are many

00:28:56.080 --> 00:28:58.080
of these passages in scripture.

00:28:58.080 --> 00:29:01.920
It is important to bear in mind that typically when you are

00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:05.760
dealing with these passages, they're dealing with the Eschaton.

00:29:05.760 --> 00:29:09.200
They're not dealing specifically with any particular battle

00:29:10.240 --> 00:29:15.680
in ancient times, any particular fight against ancient Jerusalem.

00:29:15.680 --> 00:29:17.760
This isn't ancient Jerusalem here.

00:29:17.760 --> 00:29:22.080
Now of course there are times and to some degree and typologically,

00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:24.480
at least symbolically, this is one of those.

00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:27.840
There are times where you have a cyclical fulfillment of prophecy.

00:29:27.840 --> 00:29:32.960
And so you'll have one fulfillment in ancient Israel, and you'll have

00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.640
it looking forward to the eschaton, and that's the true fulfillment.

00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:38.880
You have the type and the antitype there.

00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:41.200
That's the sort of relationship.

00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:46.160
This is dealing with the new Jerusalem, with the Jerusalem that comes

00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:50.080
down out of heaven, the true Jerusalem, the city of God.

00:29:50.080 --> 00:29:52.800
And one of the ways that you can tell that is that

00:29:52.800 --> 00:29:57.120
if this were some sort of future battle, as many of those

00:29:57.120 --> 00:29:59.520
in the dispensationalist camp are of ghost of course, going to try

00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:03.680
to claim Why on earth do we have horses and donkeys and

00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:05.920
camels in a modern battle?

00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:08.000
No one uses those.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:09.360
No one is going to use those.

00:30:09.360 --> 00:30:13.200
If you had a major battle like this is portraying here, you

00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:16.560
would not have a bunch of animals in your camp these days.

00:30:16.560 --> 00:30:18.320
This is not going to happen.

00:30:18.320 --> 00:30:21.440
Because that's just not how modern wars are waged.

00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:24.240
Now I'm not saying that occasionally the Arabs don't try to strap

00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:27.360
a rocket launcher onto a camel, those sorts of things happen.

00:30:27.360 --> 00:30:29.440
But that's not what this is speaking about.

00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:33.120
And clearly we can see here that this is again eschatological.

00:30:33.120 --> 00:30:34.880
This is talking about the future.

00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:40.240
This is talking about what will happen with regard to basically, the

00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:44.480
serpent, Satan and all of his armies, all of those who follow

00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.840
him waging war against the saints, waging war against the city of

00:30:47.840 --> 00:30:53.280
God, the true Jerusalem, and of course, God triumphs.

00:30:53.280 --> 00:30:55.680
But one of the ways we can look at this is let

00:30:55.680 --> 00:30:58.800
me pull up another passage here.

00:30:58.800 --> 00:31:04.400
One of the related passages is of course Revelation is it Revelation

00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:05.280
twenty one?

00:31:05.280 --> 00:31:07.040
Yes, it's twenty-one, I believe.

00:31:07.360 --> 00:31:12.480
Pull that up.

00:31:12.480 --> 00:31:17.120
So yes, starting with verse ten, not actually nine.

00:31:17.120 --> 00:31:19.360
And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high

00:31:19.360 --> 00:31:22.560
mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of

00:31:22.560 --> 00:31:26.240
heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a

00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:29.840
most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal.

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.160
This is the Jerusalem of which the Old Testament is speaking.

00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:38.640
When you see these passages about massive end times battles and God

00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:42.800
coming down to fight for his people and a restoration, and one

00:31:42.800 --> 00:31:45.840
of the other ways that you can see this is many times

00:31:45.840 --> 00:31:51.600
in these passages dealing with eschatological battles and the last day, is

00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:54.400
that it will speak of the last day.

00:31:54.400 --> 00:31:56.640
It will speak of the day of the Lord.

00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:57.200
That's what this is.

00:31:57.200 --> 00:31:59.840
Behold, days of the Lord are coming.

00:31:59.840 --> 00:32:04.160
And another way you can look at this and recognize when Scripture

00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:09.360
is doing this is that it speaks of the consequences of God

00:32:09.360 --> 00:32:10.560
doing this in terms of

00:32:11.520 --> 00:32:15.120
all of his people turning to him, everyone having his word in

00:32:15.120 --> 00:32:20.560
their hearts, everyone believing, that's never going to happen in this life

00:32:20.560 --> 00:32:21.920
on this earth.

00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:25.360
That is That is the next life, that is the new earth,

00:32:25.360 --> 00:32:29.760
that is when the holy city Jerusalem, the true Jerusalem, not the

00:32:29.760 --> 00:32:35.120
one over in Palestine, that one is irrelevant, when the true city

00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:39.360
of God comes down to earth, which that's speaking of the renewal

00:32:39.360 --> 00:32:40.560
of all things.

00:32:40.560 --> 00:32:44.240
So if you pay attention to these terms that are used, you

00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:48.320
can start to notice when something is eschatological, when something is typological

00:32:48.320 --> 00:32:52.480
logical dealing with the new heavens and the new earth, not dealing

00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:53.760
with ancient Israel.

00:32:53.760 --> 00:32:58.160
Even if again you may have that cyclical fulfillment in some cases

00:32:58.320 --> 00:33:01.840
where you had a fulfillment for Old Testament Israel and then you

00:33:01.840 --> 00:33:05.040
had the true fulfillment in the future for Christians.

00:33:05.040 --> 00:33:10.160
And so I'll pull up the is it Isaiah 65 here?

00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:11.360
Yes.

00:33:14.880 --> 00:33:17.520
Pull up the verse here in Isaiah as well starting with verse

00:33:17.520 --> 00:33:21.440
sixteen. Actually I'll start with fifteen fifteen's the beginning of the thought

00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:24.560
there. For you shall leave your name for fullness to my chosen

00:33:24.560 --> 00:33:27.840
ones, but the Lord will do away with you, but to those

00:33:27.840 --> 00:33:31.040
who are subject to him a new name shall be called, which

00:33:31.040 --> 00:33:34.320
shall be blessed on the earth, for they shall bless the true

00:33:34.320 --> 00:33:37.520
God, and those who swear on the earth shall swear by the

00:33:37.520 --> 00:33:41.520
true God, for they shall forget their first affliction, and it shall

00:33:41.520 --> 00:33:45.040
not come up into their heart, for heaven will be new, and

00:33:45.040 --> 00:33:48.240
the earth will be new, and they shall not remember the former

00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:52.000
things, nor shall they come upon their heart, but they shall find

00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:56.080
joy and gladness in it, because look, I am making Jerusalem as

00:33:56.080 --> 00:33:59.280
gladness, and my people is a joy, and I will be glad

00:33:59.280 --> 00:34:03.200
over Jerusalem, and rejoice over my people, and no more shall a

00:34:03.200 --> 00:34:06.560
voice of weeping be heard in it, nor a voice of crying,

00:34:06.560 --> 00:34:10.080
and there shall not be there one who dies untimely, or an

00:34:10.080 --> 00:34:13.520
old person who will not fulfil his time, for the young person

00:34:13.520 --> 00:34:16.160
will be a hundred years old, and the one who dies a

00:34:16.160 --> 00:34:19.200
sinner will be a hundred years old and accursed, and they shall

00:34:19.200 --> 00:34:23.440
build houses and themselves shall inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards,

00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:26.800
and themselves shall eat their fruit, and they shall not build and

00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:30.000
others inhabit, they shall not plant and others eat.

00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:32.560
For according to the days of the tree of life shall the

00:34:32.560 --> 00:34:36.160
days of my people be, they shall make old and the works

00:34:36.160 --> 00:34:40.400
of their labours, and my chosen ones shall not labor in vain,

00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.000
nor bear children for a curse, because they are an offspring blessed

00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:47.440
by God, and it shall be that before they have cried out

00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:50.320
I will listen to them, while they are yet speaking I will

00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:51.440
say what is it?

00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:55.040
Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, and a lion shall eat

00:34:55.040 --> 00:34:58.640
straw like an ox, but a snake shall eat earth is bread.

00:34:58.640 --> 00:35:02.560
They shall not do wrong or destroy on my holy mountain, says

00:35:02.560 --> 00:35:04.400
the Lord.

00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:07.360
And so the very sort of things that I said there, you

00:35:07.360 --> 00:35:11.120
can see taking place in this particular passage.

00:35:11.120 --> 00:35:13.200
For heaven will be new, and the earth will be new.

00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:14.880
This is the renewal of all things.

00:35:14.880 --> 00:35:18.400
I wish that Lagos would not pop up that interstitial menu, but

00:35:18.720 --> 00:35:19.920
it does.

00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:22.400
So you see the renewal of all things here, and you can

00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:25.520
also see it when it speaks about the lion shall eat straw

00:35:25.520 --> 00:35:26.400
like an ox.

00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:28.400
This is not something that happens in this life.

00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:30.080
It doesn't happen on this earth.

00:35:30.080 --> 00:35:32.000
That is the renewal of all things.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:37.840
That is what is being spoken of here in this passage.

00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:41.200
So the next question was actually one that I said in a

00:35:41.200 --> 00:35:44.160
previous episode that I would answer because I had not looked into

00:35:44.160 --> 00:35:48.480
it recently and I wanted to make sure that I remembered correctly.

00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:53.680
This is dealing with the churches of Christ and what I think

00:35:53.680 --> 00:35:54.960
of that denomination.

00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:56.720
Now is it better than many?

00:35:56.720 --> 00:35:59.120
I think I could start off by saying that yes, it probably

00:35:59.120 --> 00:36:02.560
is better than a lot of current denominations these days.

00:36:02.560 --> 00:36:06.160
It is going to depend, as is true for almost every denomination

00:36:06.160 --> 00:36:11.200
these days, in part on your particular congregation, because some congregations are

00:36:11.200 --> 00:36:13.200
certainly going to be better than others.

00:36:13.200 --> 00:36:13.520
So

00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:16.720
what are the distinctives of the churches of Christ?

00:36:16.720 --> 00:36:19.600
May as well run through those so people have some idea.

00:36:19.600 --> 00:36:21.440
They are restorationist.

00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:24.400
They believe that the New Testament is the only rule of faith

00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:28.560
and practice, and that and practice part is important.

00:36:28.560 --> 00:36:31.520
They They do seem to minimize the Old Testament in a way

00:36:31.520 --> 00:36:34.640
that is not permissible for Christians.

00:36:34.640 --> 00:36:36.480
That is a problem they have.

00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:40.400
Because the New Testament is more important than the Old Testament.

00:36:40.400 --> 00:36:42.960
There's nothing wrong with saying that certain parts of Scripture are more

00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:47.200
important than others, that is certainly true, and God himself treats some

00:36:47.200 --> 00:36:49.120
parts of scripture as more important than others.

00:36:49.120 --> 00:36:52.080
You can think about how many times God cites to certain books

00:36:52.080 --> 00:36:54.400
in the Old Testament.

00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:58.720
Another thing that they do is they reject creeds, and you can

00:36:58.720 --> 00:37:01.200
make that an uppercase C or not, because it's true in both

00:37:01.200 --> 00:37:04.400
cases. It's not they reject the content of the creeds, but they

00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:07.120
reject the creeds as being binding on Christians.

00:37:07.120 --> 00:37:11.120
I would of course disagree with that as a traditional Protestant, and

00:37:11.120 --> 00:37:14.000
so would any other traditional Protestant, because at least we can all

00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:18.800
agree that the apostles, the Nicene and the Athanasian creeds are binding

00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:19.920
on Christians.

00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:22.080
And the reason they're binding is not because they're creeds.

00:37:22.720 --> 00:37:28.240
It's because they are statements that are completely, entirely, categorically consonant with

00:37:28.240 --> 00:37:30.320
scripture. They are taken from scripture.

00:37:30.320 --> 00:37:35.280
And I've published before as part of the Stone Choir notes, various

00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:38.960
people have gone through and footnoted the creeds to show where they

00:37:38.960 --> 00:37:42.960
reference Scripture and what they teach, and how it is directly from

00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:46.000
Scripture. And so I would disagree that the creeds are not binding

00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:48.800
because I would say the creeds are binding because they are a

00:37:48.800 --> 00:37:50.240
restatement of Scripture.

00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:53.600
And so insofar as Scripture is binding, they're binding.

00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:57.360
In the Lutheran context, the way that we would usually speak about

00:37:57.360 --> 00:37:59.440
this, and we usually speak about it with regard to the book

00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:03.200
of Concord, the three ecumenical creeds are the first thing in the

00:38:03.200 --> 00:38:06.320
Book of Concord, other than the introduction.

00:38:06.320 --> 00:38:09.520
And so we would speak of it in terms of you have

00:38:09.520 --> 00:38:13.600
the Norma Normans and the Norma Normata, which is just Latin for

00:38:13.600 --> 00:38:20.240
Norma Normans, the norming norm, and the norma normata the normed norm,

00:38:20.240 --> 00:38:24.240
which just means scripture and the confessions.

00:38:24.240 --> 00:38:27.760
But it means it in a specific way, because scripture is the

00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:30.320
norm that norms all other norms.

00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:32.480
And after a while, yes, the word norm starts to sound like

00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:33.440
it makes no sense.

00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:38.080
But scripture is the standard by which everything else must be judged,

00:38:38.080 --> 00:38:41.360
and everything else must be consonant with scripture.

00:38:41.360 --> 00:38:46.720
Everything else must be conformed to scripture or normed by scripture.

00:38:46.720 --> 00:38:51.200
And so we hold to the confessions because the confessions are the

00:38:51.200 --> 00:38:56.400
normed norm and the and they are normed according to the norm,

00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:00.400
Scripture. And so we don't hold to the confessions because they're c

00:39:00.560 --> 00:39:01.760
the confessions.

00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:06.240
We hold to the confessions because they are a true statement of

00:39:06.240 --> 00:39:08.400
what is in Scripture.

00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:13.520
And so insofar as they disagree with creeds, I'm obviously when disagree

00:39:13.520 --> 00:39:17.280
with them, moving on and back to the churches of Christ, they're

00:39:17.360 --> 00:39:18.880
congregationalist in polity.

00:39:18.880 --> 00:39:22.080
I don't personally prefer a congregationalist polity.

00:39:22.080 --> 00:39:25.680
I think that these days it's very beneficial because if you are

00:39:25.680 --> 00:39:28.720
part of a body that is going off the rails or has

00:39:28.720 --> 00:39:32.960
already done so, your congregation can just leave because you own your

00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:37.440
property, most likely, and so the supervising body, whatever it happens to

00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:41.520
be synod, corporate, whatever you call it, can't tell you no you

00:39:41.520 --> 00:39:42.960
can't leave because we own your building.

00:39:42.960 --> 00:39:45.200
That's a problem the Roman Catholics have.

00:39:45.200 --> 00:39:48.400
And of course they have other problems as well theologically with doing

00:39:48.400 --> 00:39:51.120
that because they can't really leave.

00:39:51.120 --> 00:39:54.720
But as a Lutheran, for instance, there's nothing preventing a Lutheran church

00:39:54.720 --> 00:39:57.440
from leaving the LCMS, they can do that.

00:39:57.440 --> 00:40:02.000
And so having the congregationalist polity is beneficial on a in a

00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:03.040
practical way.

00:40:03.040 --> 00:40:05.520
I just don't agree with it necessarily that it is the best

00:40:05.520 --> 00:40:08.080
way because it lacks that hierarchy that I do believe has some

00:40:08.080 --> 00:40:13.360
benefits. It just has to be held in check and constantly checked

00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:16.800
against the Word of God.

00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:21.440
Insofar as their view of the New Testament is concerned, many of

00:40:21.440 --> 00:40:25.680
them would hold Perhaps not all, because there's some it's an umbrella.

00:40:25.680 --> 00:40:28.640
There are differences within the churches of Christ, but many of them

00:40:28.640 --> 00:40:32.720
will hold that if the New Testament doesn't explicitly authorize it, then

00:40:32.720 --> 00:40:33.840
you can't do it.

00:40:33.840 --> 00:40:36.720
This is one of the things against which we fought in Stone

00:40:36.720 --> 00:40:38.240
Choir and elsewhere.

00:40:38.240 --> 00:40:42.000
There are truths that are not contained in Scripture.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:43.120
We all know that.

00:40:43.120 --> 00:40:45.280
I'm sitting here looking at my cup of tea.

00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:47.120
There's caffeine in this.

00:40:47.120 --> 00:40:50.240
Scripture doesn't say anywhere that there's caffeine in this.

00:40:50.240 --> 00:40:52.800
Scripture doesn't say anywhere that I can drink tea.

00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:54.080
I'm allowed to drink tea.

00:40:54.080 --> 00:40:54.960
Tea tastes good.

00:40:54.960 --> 00:41:01.120
This is a truth that's not contained in Scripture.

00:41:01.120 --> 00:41:03.920
Now the question is The question is, is there any truth about

00:41:04.160 --> 00:41:07.760
the Christian faith that's not contained in Scripture?

00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:10.320
Again, I would say yes, because I think there is truth that

00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:14.560
is accessible to human reason via philosophy, for instance.

00:41:14.560 --> 00:41:18.400
Is everything you need to be saved contained in the pages of

00:41:18.400 --> 00:41:20.560
Scripture? Absolutely, yes.

00:41:20.560 --> 00:41:24.000
You can be saved believing nothing except what is in Scripture.

00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:27.040
Of course we could get technical in there, we could get technical

00:41:27.040 --> 00:41:29.920
here and say, well, you have to have a language in order

00:41:29.920 --> 00:41:34.400
to read scripture, and that's extraneous, that's external to scripture.

00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:36.080
Sure, that's true.

00:41:36.080 --> 00:41:40.320
But in so far as you can understand scripture, scripture contains everything

00:41:40.320 --> 00:41:41.600
you need to be saved.

00:41:41.600 --> 00:41:44.960
But not all truths are in scripture.

00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:49.200
And similarly, there are practices in which Christians are permitted to engage

00:41:49.520 --> 00:41:51.760
that are not contained in the pages of Scripture.

00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:54.800
The organ is not in Scripture because it had not been invented

00:41:54.800 --> 00:41:57.920
yet. The piano is not in Scripture, because it had not been

00:41:57.920 --> 00:41:59.120
invented yet.

00:41:59.120 --> 00:42:02.640
There are stringed instruments, those are particularly noted in the Psalms, they

00:42:02.800 --> 00:42:06.080
literally have places in the Psalms where it says musical interlude.

00:42:06.240 --> 00:42:09.520
And so music has always been a part of Christian worship from

00:42:09.520 --> 00:42:10.880
the very beginning.

00:42:10.880 --> 00:42:14.960
The book of Psalms is a book of songs that have musical

00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:18.800
accompaniment. And so this is part of how God ordained for humanity

00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:19.280
to worship.

00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:21.120
God's also the one who made music.

00:42:21.120 --> 00:42:25.040
Music doesn't just exist for some reason.

00:42:25.040 --> 00:42:26.320
God created it.

00:42:26.320 --> 00:42:30.160
It's not just some outgrowth of the natural world.

00:42:30.160 --> 00:42:31.600
God wanted it to exist.

00:42:31.600 --> 00:42:34.160
It is part of how we worship him.

00:42:34.160 --> 00:42:36.880
Continuing on down the list.

00:42:36.880 --> 00:42:40.480
I would disagree with their view on baptism, of course, as a

00:42:40.480 --> 00:42:45.040
Lutheran, as a traditional Protestant, because I believe in infant baptism so

00:42:45.040 --> 00:42:50.400
called. I spoke about that recently in the homily for couple weeks

00:42:50.400 --> 00:42:54.160
ago. Infant baptism is a misnomer because there's no such thing as

00:42:54.160 --> 00:42:55.440
infant baptism.

00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:56.640
There's just baptism.

00:42:56.640 --> 00:42:59.680
The way that I highlighted it in that homily was I said,

00:42:59.680 --> 00:43:02.480
Is there any such thing as German baptism?

00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:03.360
Well no.

00:43:03.360 --> 00:43:04.800
American baptism?

00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:07.520
No. Baptism for men?

00:43:07.520 --> 00:43:09.280
No. Baptism for women?

00:43:09.280 --> 00:43:12.240
No. Because it's just baptism.

00:43:12.240 --> 00:43:14.560
Because it's God's work, not man's work.

00:43:14.560 --> 00:43:18.160
And so infant baptism is not a thing, it's just the baptism

00:43:18.160 --> 00:43:19.360
of an infant.

00:43:19.360 --> 00:43:23.120
And so insofar as they don't do that, I would disagree.

00:43:23.120 --> 00:43:24.640
And they also are

00:43:25.680 --> 00:43:28.560
mostly, I believe, pretty staunch on saying that you have to be

00:43:28.560 --> 00:43:29.760
immersed in the water.

00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:32.800
I don't hold to that because it's just the water and the

00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:37.040
word, the means, insofar as the amount of water, is not the

00:43:37.040 --> 00:43:37.600
key point.

00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:39.600
Do I think it's better to have immersion?

00:43:39.600 --> 00:43:44.240
Absolutely. Although obviously modulo I don't think that dunking an infant three

00:43:44.240 --> 00:43:47.040
times is necessarily something we should be doing.

00:43:47.040 --> 00:43:50.880
But if you are an adult convert, I think that the symbolism

00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:54.800
is important enough to warrant having enough water to submerse the person

00:43:54.800 --> 00:43:55.360
in the water.

00:43:55.360 --> 00:43:56.640
I think that that's a good thing.

00:43:56.640 --> 00:43:58.400
I don't think that it's necessary.

00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:00.880
I don't think that it's a a point of faith or anything

00:44:00.880 --> 00:44:01.280
like that.

00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:05.040
I don't think that God commands it, but I do think that

00:44:05.040 --> 00:44:09.520
it is better because again, the symbolism's important.

00:44:09.520 --> 00:44:13.760
You are dying and being resurrected, and you have that symbolism if

00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:14.720
you go under the water.

00:44:14.720 --> 00:44:18.000
I was baptized by immersion, by submersion.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:22.240
You don't have that symbolism if it's effusion or aspersion, which is

00:44:22.240 --> 00:44:26.080
to say pouring or sprinkling.

00:44:26.240 --> 00:44:30.400
To continue on with the rest of my commentary on the churches

00:44:30.560 --> 00:44:34.400
of Christ, they reject the real presence, obviously as a Lutheran, I'm

00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:35.600
not going to agree with that.

00:44:35.600 --> 00:44:39.520
They don't hold that the sacraments are sacraments, they just hold them

00:44:39.520 --> 00:44:43.680
to be They're kind of halfway between those who believe they're purely

00:44:43.680 --> 00:44:46.720
symbolic and those who believe that they are sacraments, and so they're

00:44:46.720 --> 00:44:49.280
a little gray area on that.

00:44:49.280 --> 00:44:52.560
When I was looking at some of the churches, it seems like

00:44:52.560 --> 00:44:55.200
some of them have fallen to letting women teach, which is obviously

00:44:56.560 --> 00:44:57.600
you can't do that.

00:44:57.600 --> 00:44:58.720
That's not Christian.

00:44:58.720 --> 00:45:01.200
If you ever walk into a church and there's a woman preaching,

00:45:01.200 --> 00:45:02.560
turn around and leave.

00:45:02.560 --> 00:45:03.760
Do not stay.

00:45:03.760 --> 00:45:05.600
It's not a church, it's a brothel.

00:45:05.600 --> 00:45:07.600
Do not stay.

00:45:07.600 --> 00:45:11.040
They don't have a liturgy, and again, I already mentioned many of

00:45:11.040 --> 00:45:13.760
them do not have instruments.

00:45:13.760 --> 00:45:16.560
God's worship has always been liturgical.

00:45:16.560 --> 00:45:19.040
Look at the way that God instituted his worship in the Old

00:45:19.040 --> 00:45:22.880
Testament. When they asked him for a prayer, he didn't say do

00:45:22.880 --> 00:45:24.320
whatever feels right in the moment.

00:45:24.320 --> 00:45:29.520
He gave them a a liturgical prayer, a formulaic prayer, God likes

00:45:29.760 --> 00:45:32.560
order. And so I think that that's just part of how human

00:45:32.560 --> 00:45:34.240
beings are supposed to worship God.

00:45:34.240 --> 00:45:39.040
And that is not something that this particular denomination does.

00:45:39.040 --> 00:45:43.920
Again, I don't think that they're necessarily as bad off as some

00:45:43.920 --> 00:45:45.680
denominations, some traditions.

00:45:45.680 --> 00:45:49.200
Some of them might be good, you might find a good congregation.

00:45:49.200 --> 00:45:52.480
And if you are in a good congregation in the churches of

00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:56.400
Christ under that umbrella, then try to nudge them in the direction

00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:57.760
of being more faithful.

00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:01.040
You don't have to leave immediately just because they get some things

00:46:01.040 --> 00:46:03.360
wrong doctrinally and theologically.

00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:06.480
If that were the standard, then no one would have a church

00:46:06.640 --> 00:46:11.120
because there is no church that lacks all doctrinal and theological problems.

00:46:11.120 --> 00:46:14.880
That's just not the reality of the situation which we find ourselves

00:46:14.880 --> 00:46:15.840
these days.

00:46:15.840 --> 00:46:22.320
Every church has problems.

00:46:22.320 --> 00:46:28.960
The last of the questions that I have prepared, as it were,

00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:32.080
not my answers, but that I have written down here at least

00:46:32.320 --> 00:46:36.800
from people who submitted them on the forum, and I didn't do

00:46:36.800 --> 00:46:40.000
the housekeeping beforehand, but if you do have questions, please submit them

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:40.480
on the forum.

00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:43.120
I will repeat that at the end of this episode as well.

00:46:43.120 --> 00:46:45.760
And add the link and such.

00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:47.840
A question regarding Nick Fuentes.

00:46:47.840 --> 00:46:53.520
I understand some criticism regarding Marxist infiltration methods, Catholic faith, etc., but

00:46:53.520 --> 00:46:57.600
hasn't he been instrumental in shifting the Overton window in political discourse

00:46:57.600 --> 00:47:02.640
and bringing awareness to the Jewish question?

00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:06.320
I don't think that he has necessarily been instrumental.

00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:08.880
I won't go so far as to say that he hasn't done

00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:13.360
anything beneficial with regard to the Jewish question, because I think that

00:47:13.360 --> 00:47:16.880
would be oversailing my warrants there.

00:47:17.120 --> 00:47:20.480
I think it would be just I would be going too far.

00:47:20.480 --> 00:47:21.920
I'm gonna take my headphones off.

00:47:21.920 --> 00:47:23.280
I don't know why I left them on.

00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:25.520
I don't really need them.

00:47:25.520 --> 00:47:27.520
But insofar as

00:47:28.480 --> 00:47:31.920
the Jewish question is concerned.

00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:34.800
I don't think that he has been the one who has been

00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:38.960
instrumental in spreading that because this is a sort of view that

00:47:38.960 --> 00:47:41.920
you wind up with for those who have sort of a shorter

00:47:41.920 --> 00:47:45.520
window, a shorter viewpoint with regard to these matters.

00:47:45.520 --> 00:47:49.360
You have men who have been working at this for decades.

00:47:49.360 --> 00:47:53.200
And just because you have someone who is now in a position

00:47:53.200 --> 00:47:56.560
of prominence who is spreading those views does not mean he is

00:47:56.560 --> 00:47:59.360
the one who did the lion's share of the work.

00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:02.880
Now, I said that he has done some beneficial things, which certainly

00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:06.560
he has on this front, because he has found himself in a

00:48:06.560 --> 00:48:09.680
position where he has been able to spread that to a certain

00:48:09.680 --> 00:48:14.400
demographic subset, and that has been beneficial because there are some young

00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:15.520
men who watch him.

00:48:15.520 --> 00:48:21.360
And certainly that is good because they've heard that now and if

00:48:21.360 --> 00:48:24.480
they take it and run with it, and they find men who

00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:29.200
understand the question better, quite frankly, and get better arguments for why

00:48:29.200 --> 00:48:32.720
they believe those things, then that's beneficial, certainly.

00:48:32.720 --> 00:48:35.920
And insofar as he has contributed to that, he has contributed something

00:48:36.720 --> 00:48:40.800
worthwhile. But the problem that I have, I have a number of

00:48:40.800 --> 00:48:44.000
problems here, but one of the big problems is that he acts

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:50.000
as guardrails for what is and is not acceptable to discuss within

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:51.840
the minds of these young men.

00:48:51.840 --> 00:48:54.960
And so the men who are listening to him are going to

00:48:55.120 --> 00:48:59.760
have set up these artificial constraints within their own mind, subsequent to

00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:02.400
what he has told them, and then they will not be willing

00:49:02.400 --> 00:49:04.640
to go outside of those.

00:49:04.640 --> 00:49:09.600
And some of his comments have very clearly been drawing back on

00:49:09.600 --> 00:49:14.080
that leash because you've seen recent comments saying things like, I don't

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:16.320
care what color you are, as long as you want to make

00:49:16.320 --> 00:49:19.040
America great, as long as you're America first.

00:49:19.040 --> 00:49:22.720
That's fundamentally not nationalism.

00:49:22.720 --> 00:49:26.960
It's fundamentally certainly not Christian nationalism because a nation is a race.

00:49:26.960 --> 00:49:29.120
That's what nation means.

00:49:29.120 --> 00:49:32.960
You cannot have colorblind nationalism.

00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:34.480
It's not a thing.

00:49:34.480 --> 00:49:39.120
Because a nation is the thing that is supported by nationalism, and

00:49:39.120 --> 00:49:41.520
a nation is a is a race.

00:49:41.520 --> 00:49:46.480
And so if someone is trying to channel you down into the

00:49:46.480 --> 00:49:51.280
belief of basically civic nationalism, well that's a contradiction in terms.

00:49:51.280 --> 00:49:53.120
There's no such thing as civic nationalism.

00:49:53.120 --> 00:49:54.240
That's a cult.

00:49:54.480 --> 00:49:57.920
That's the cult of the Constitution, and that is not nationalism.

00:49:57.920 --> 00:49:59.920
It's not Christianity.

00:49:59.920 --> 00:50:02.880
It is incompatible with what we actually want to build, what we

00:50:02.880 --> 00:50:05.360
need to build and what God demands of us.

00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:09.040
And so that's globalism inherently.

00:50:09.040 --> 00:50:12.000
That is one of the key problems that I have with Fuentes

00:50:12.160 --> 00:50:13.600
and the things that he has been selling.

00:50:13.600 --> 00:50:14.960
Now there are other problems as well.

00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:17.440
I can look at his associates and his behavior in the past,

00:50:17.440 --> 00:50:19.760
and these are not the sort of things that you should see

00:50:19.760 --> 00:50:21.440
from a Christian man.

00:50:21.440 --> 00:50:24.800
I can certainly say that I have not spent my time hanging

00:50:24.800 --> 00:50:26.880
out with a sodomite Jew.

00:50:26.880 --> 00:50:28.080
He can't say that.

00:50:28.080 --> 00:50:29.760
That's a very real problem.

00:50:29.760 --> 00:50:32.560
And I think I just think there is a lack of

00:50:33.760 --> 00:50:37.280
insight, a lack of discernment on the part of those who listen

00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:39.280
to him uncritically at least.

00:50:39.280 --> 00:50:42.160
I'm not going to go all the way out and say that

00:50:42.160 --> 00:50:45.280
you can't ever listen to someone who's wrong on stuff if you

00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:47.120
find him entertaining.

00:50:47.120 --> 00:50:52.000
Because then you would never have any podcasts or TV shows or

00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:55.840
anything, and I don't think that it's bad one hundred percent to

00:50:55.840 --> 00:50:58.080
watch and enjoy some of that stuff.

00:50:58.080 --> 00:51:02.000
Be cautious, because of course, anything you're letting into your mind is

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:03.360
going to influence you.

00:51:03.360 --> 00:51:06.640
And so have some discretion there, have some discernment.

00:51:06.640 --> 00:51:09.920
Exercise your Christian gifts insofar as you've been given them.

00:51:09.920 --> 00:51:13.200
And if you'd haven't, then listen to men who have.

00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:13.680
But

00:51:15.200 --> 00:51:18.480
I do not think that he is going to be an overall

00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:21.280
positive force going forward.

00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:25.600
I think that he has sort of run his course with regard

00:51:25.600 --> 00:51:30.160
to the potential positive influence on the movement, and I think that

00:51:30.160 --> 00:51:35.360
his entire role going forward is a de radicalization agent.

00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:39.600
But But in a form that is extremely effective, because it looks

00:51:39.600 --> 00:51:43.920
like he's radicalizing young men, when he is really keeping them from

00:51:43.920 --> 00:51:45.840
becoming what they need to be.

00:51:45.840 --> 00:51:48.480
He's placing a ceiling, he's placing a cap.

00:51:48.480 --> 00:51:51.200
And I've gone into why I think that's the case previously.

00:51:51.200 --> 00:51:53.840
I pointed out that yes, I do believe he is an FBI

00:51:53.840 --> 00:52:00.320
asset. I don't know when exactly that happened, but certainly subsequent to

00:52:00.320 --> 00:52:04.000
January 6th, he is an asset, and I think he was before

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:04.880
that as well.

00:52:04.880 --> 00:52:07.760
You can look at the Bitcoin transfers, you can look at the

00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:10.800
associations. There is a mountain of evidence there.

00:52:10.800 --> 00:52:12.800
And that is my firm opinion on the matter.

00:52:12.800 --> 00:52:15.920
That's my legal opinion as well as my personal opinion, as I've

00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:20.400
said before And so that's basically my stance on the matter and

00:52:20.400 --> 00:52:25.440
the answer specifically to the question about the JQ.

00:52:25.440 --> 00:52:29.840
And that is basically the end of the questions that I had

00:52:29.840 --> 00:52:34.400
prepared, but I will quickly look through and see if I can

00:52:35.680 --> 00:52:40.000
find any questions that were submitted in chat.

00:52:42.560 --> 00:52:52.640
Chat is not working perfectly here in OBS, but we'll try.

00:52:52.640 --> 00:52:54.160
Where do we send questions?

00:52:54.160 --> 00:52:56.560
I I I answered that one already, but I'll also add a

00:52:56.560 --> 00:52:57.520
link as well.

00:52:57.520 --> 00:52:58.960
It is to

00:53:00.160 --> 00:53:02.480
here, let me see if I've got that in my

00:53:03.680 --> 00:53:06.000
history here.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:07.280
It is on

00:53:08.640 --> 00:53:12.640
Omniphora, it's a just a disco uh discourse, not discord.

00:53:12.640 --> 00:53:13.760
You should not be using discord.

00:53:13.760 --> 00:53:15.280
Discord is very bad.

00:53:15.280 --> 00:53:18.720
It's run by communists who will very gladly dox you and destroy

00:53:18.720 --> 00:53:20.800
your life if they have any opportunity.

00:53:20.800 --> 00:53:24.080
Here I'll paste the link in to Well, I will try to

00:53:24.080 --> 00:53:26.080
paste the link into chat, but it's not working.

00:53:26.080 --> 00:53:26.400
So

00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:30.000
technology. There we go.

00:53:31.280 --> 00:53:34.240
It is a discourse forum, and the reason for that is that

00:53:34.240 --> 00:53:36.960
I like to have the history of my answers along with the

00:53:36.960 --> 00:53:40.960
questions so that people can point other men to those and I

00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:46.160
don't have to constantly re-answer them or retype out or copy-paste, whatever

00:53:46.160 --> 00:53:49.280
it happens to be, it's nice to have the archive.

00:53:49.280 --> 00:53:53.360
And it also helps to control spam and all of the other

00:53:53.360 --> 00:53:56.640
problems that are inherent with not just being on the internet, but

00:53:56.640 --> 00:53:59.600
the number of people who are less than fond of me.

00:53:59.600 --> 00:54:02.560
That's the reason that I've set it up that way.

00:54:02.560 --> 00:54:06.080
So if you submit the questions on there, I will definitely get

00:54:06.080 --> 00:54:06.480
to those.

00:54:06.480 --> 00:54:09.040
I will always go to those first because that's sort of the

00:54:09.040 --> 00:54:12.240
way that I want this to work because it's more orderly.

00:54:12.240 --> 00:54:15.360
I will try to have it so that the questions I answer

00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:17.760
are in the show notes in the thread.

00:54:17.760 --> 00:54:19.840
That way people can go and click and look at the question

00:54:19.920 --> 00:54:21.360
and then look at my answer.

00:54:21.360 --> 00:54:24.000
And hopefully eventually there will be timestamps and all that as well.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:27.440
It makes it easier for people to find these things, instead of

00:54:27.520 --> 00:54:30.160
you know sitting through however long my answer was.

00:54:30.160 --> 00:54:32.240
But at the same time, there's also a transcript.

00:54:32.240 --> 00:54:34.960
The transcripts for all the previous episodes are up and so it's

00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:36.240
very nice and searchable.

00:54:36.240 --> 00:54:39.920
Discourse has a very good search facility, very easy to find things.

00:54:45.600 --> 00:54:47.760
Cory, I'm not sure if you read this, but I believe the

00:54:47.760 --> 00:54:52.000
sons of Ham represent North African slash Egyptians and Lebanese type peoples,

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:54.000
not sub-Saharan Africans.

00:54:54.960 --> 00:54:59.280
If you look at the genetic studies, you can look and see

00:54:59.280 --> 00:55:03.760
that there are essentially, at this point, a little more than three,

00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:07.360
but there are, if you trace it back far enough, three large

00:55:07.360 --> 00:55:09.440
groups of human beings.

00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:13.440
Everyone else is an admixture of those or descended from them.

00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:17.440
So you have the Europeans, you have the Asiatic peoples, and you

00:55:17.440 --> 00:55:18.960
have the Africans.

00:55:18.960 --> 00:55:22.720
So insofar as North Africa is concerned, you do have an admixture

00:55:22.720 --> 00:55:27.280
there, because there's an admixture of most likely all three groups, all

00:55:27.280 --> 00:55:32.480
three sons of Noah, Japheth, Shem, and Ham, because many of them

00:55:32.480 --> 00:55:35.920
stayed in the Near East for a period of time.

00:55:35.920 --> 00:55:39.680
It seems like more of the sons of Japheth left more quickly

00:55:39.680 --> 00:55:43.040
and moved to the Northwest, moved into what is Europe, instead of

00:55:43.040 --> 00:55:44.560
staying in the Near east.

00:55:44.560 --> 00:55:47.040
But you had peoples who stayed in the Near East, mixed a

00:55:47.040 --> 00:55:49.920
little bit to some degree depending on the groups, and then spread

00:55:49.920 --> 00:55:52.480
out through the Mediterranean along the coast.

00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:57.120
Insofar as the North Africans are concerned, they are genetically distinct from

00:55:57.120 --> 00:55:58.960
the sub Saharans, certainly.

00:55:58.960 --> 00:56:01.680
So they split off earlier and they stayed separated.

00:56:01.680 --> 00:56:05.920
Not surprising because there's a Sahara Desert there that developed at some

00:56:05.920 --> 00:56:08.000
point in the past because at one point one point it was

00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:10.080
a forest, then it became a desert.

00:56:10.080 --> 00:56:13.280
That was God walling off the sub Saharans to keep them away

00:56:13.280 --> 00:56:16.640
from everyone else, and then we foolishly decided to take them from

00:56:16.640 --> 00:56:18.880
there and spread them all over the world.

00:56:18.960 --> 00:56:22.480
We could argue about the Jewish involvement at another time, but we're

00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:25.840
all aware of who owned the slave ships and things like that.

00:56:25.840 --> 00:56:29.840
But that doesn't excuse the Europeans who participated, not because slavery is

00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:33.200
per se evil, but because spreading the sons of Ham all over

00:56:33.200 --> 00:56:33.440
the world

00:56:34.400 --> 00:56:36.080
was deeply unwise.

00:56:36.080 --> 00:56:39.840
And that which is unwise is generally also sin.

00:56:39.840 --> 00:56:46.400
I would disagree that they are descended from anyone other than Ham.

00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:48.640
I think that many of them are sons of Ham.

00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:53.520
Except of course for historically you had large populations in North Africa

00:56:53.520 --> 00:56:58.800
that were European, because North Africa was originally Europe, essentially.

00:56:59.120 --> 00:57:03.840
because everything around the Mediterranean was peopled by the sons of Japheth,

00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:07.680
with the exception of the far eastern part which was people was

00:57:07.680 --> 00:57:09.840
peopled by the sons of Shem.

00:57:09.840 --> 00:57:14.000
And so it depends on what you're talking about historically.

00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:15.440
What time period?

00:57:15.440 --> 00:57:19.280
If you go back far enough, they're the sons of Japheth.

00:57:19.280 --> 00:57:22.400
If you move forward in time, then you have the Islamic conquests.

00:57:22.400 --> 00:57:24.960
Well now they're a mixture of the sons of Shem and Ham,

00:57:24.960 --> 00:57:30.320
because remember the Arabs are descended from not just Shem and not

00:57:30.320 --> 00:57:39.200
just Ham, but a mixture of those two through Abraham's concubine.

00:57:39.440 --> 00:57:47.920
See if there is another question here in chat.

00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:52.720
Someone asked about the interview with Will Spencer and the question is

00:57:52.720 --> 00:57:53.920
whether or not he got the call.

00:57:53.920 --> 00:57:56.800
The answer is yes, he definitely got the call.

00:57:56.800 --> 00:58:00.800
And that is why he ended up pulling the interview and not

00:58:00.800 --> 00:58:01.760
publishing the full thing.

00:58:01.760 --> 00:58:04.800
Thankfully, we did have recordings on our end, and so I did

00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:05.920
publish those.

00:58:06.240 --> 00:58:10.080
They are not fully edited, they are not as high a quality

00:58:10.080 --> 00:58:13.360
as they would be because I didn't have his local audio.

00:58:13.360 --> 00:58:17.040
Because for those who aren't familiar with how audio works, despite the

00:58:17.040 --> 00:58:19.840
audio problems that I've had in a couple previous episodes of this,

00:58:19.840 --> 00:58:24.480
live streaming is a different creature altogether, but in so far as

00:58:24.480 --> 00:58:28.480
audio quality is concerned, if you want maximum quality, usually what you

00:58:28.480 --> 00:58:31.680
do is you record a local file which is the high quality

00:58:31.680 --> 00:58:37.360
file, and then you have obviously the audio playing remotely over whatever

00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:40.240
software it is you're using to communicate while you record.

00:58:40.240 --> 00:58:43.840
If you're in the same studio, that's obviously ideal, but Woe and

00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:47.600
I don't live in the same house, and thank God Will Spencer

00:58:47.600 --> 00:58:49.360
is also not living in my house.

00:58:49.360 --> 00:58:53.600
So you have the local audio that has to be stitched together

00:58:53.600 --> 00:58:57.040
after the fact if you want a high quality version of the

00:58:57.040 --> 00:59:01.120
audio. I just have his remote audio, so it's streaming quality.

00:59:01.120 --> 00:59:02.000
It's not as good.

00:59:02.000 --> 00:59:03.280
It sounds kinda tinny.

00:59:03.280 --> 00:59:07.040
It has that, you know, old phone sort of sound to it.

00:59:07.040 --> 00:59:08.000
But it works.

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.200
You can listen to it.

00:59:09.200 --> 00:59:10.800
There are transcripts, you can read it.

00:59:10.800 --> 00:59:13.920
It's available, but yes, he got the call, and so the full

00:59:13.920 --> 00:59:17.600
version never became available because he has the only copy.

00:59:17.600 --> 00:59:20.640
Because he has his local audio and I do not.

00:59:23.520 --> 00:59:28.160
What makes you sure the Orientals are Shemitic and not Japhethitic?

00:59:28.160 --> 00:59:31.760
It has been questioned in the past just DNA studies prove that

00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:36.640
one. We know that the Asians are their own separate people group.

00:59:36.640 --> 00:59:39.040
They are not the sons of Europe.

00:59:39.040 --> 00:59:41.280
And so that one can just be answered by science.

00:59:41.280 --> 00:59:44.800
That one we just run the statist the statistical analysis of the

00:59:44.800 --> 00:59:49.040
DNA and we know exactly who is descended from whom.

00:59:49.040 --> 00:59:52.640
And yes, there are places in scripture where it says where certain

00:59:52.640 --> 00:59:57.040
sons of Noah did go, because it calls Egypt the land of

00:59:57.040 --> 00:59:59.520
Ham, several times in scripture.

00:59:59.520 --> 01:00:00.960
Just as one example.

01:00:03.920 --> 01:00:05.840
Am I going to put a sticky note to remind me to

01:00:05.840 --> 01:00:07.280
take my headphones off next time?

01:00:07.280 --> 01:00:12.640
Maybe. I am accustomed from all the past recording to leaving my

01:00:12.640 --> 01:00:15.680
headphones on because usually I was listening to Woe while recording Stone

01:00:15.680 --> 01:00:18.160
Choir, and so I needed the headphones on.

01:00:18.160 --> 01:00:21.280
But to set up the episode I need to put the headphones

01:00:21.360 --> 01:00:23.280
on so that I can listen to the stream and see what's

01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:23.680
going on.

01:00:23.680 --> 01:00:27.280
Yes, I know that the audio was still playing mono on X.

01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:28.960
I honestly don't know why.

01:00:28.960 --> 01:00:30.240
Because it's fine everywhere else.

01:00:30.240 --> 01:00:32.160
So X has some weird quirk.

01:00:32.160 --> 01:00:35.920
I'll have to interrogate Grok, I guess, and see if it understands

01:00:36.240 --> 01:00:40.960
understands in quotes, but perhaps I will take off the headphones next

01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:44.160
time a little more quickly.

01:00:44.160 --> 01:00:48.240
Any thoughts on the James White debate in retrospect?

01:00:48.240 --> 01:00:55.520
I accepted that debate with basically no modifications except for the minor

01:00:55.520 --> 01:01:02.000
caveat in order to make the debate topic worthwhile, workable.

01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:06.800
I knew that obviously I was picking not picking, accepting a proposed

01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:12.720
debate topic that was not only unfavorable, but also going to be

01:01:12.720 --> 01:01:17.040
difficult for others to follow, but because of the nature of the

01:01:17.040 --> 01:01:19.760
debate, I knew that it would be worthwhile and that is why

01:01:19.760 --> 01:01:20.880
I took it.

01:01:20.880 --> 01:01:25.040
And so I did not try to get them to amend the

01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:26.320
topic or anything like that.

01:01:26.320 --> 01:01:31.120
I just got the necessary carve out that we were not arguing

01:01:31.120 --> 01:01:34.240
about the pure possibility, although

01:01:35.120 --> 01:01:39.840
James White didn't quite grasp that necessarily, because obviously no Christian thinks

01:01:39.840 --> 01:01:41.600
that God cannot.

01:01:41.600 --> 01:01:43.760
No one is arguing about that.

01:01:43.760 --> 01:01:47.040
So I think it was worth taking the debate, and quite frankly,

01:01:47.040 --> 01:01:50.320
I think that if you do a logical analysis of the debate,

01:01:50.320 --> 01:01:51.840
then clearly I won.

01:01:51.840 --> 01:01:54.640
But also I achieved what I wanted to with the debate, which

01:01:54.640 --> 01:01:55.680
was sort of the whole point.

01:01:55.680 --> 01:01:58.800
The same as Stone Choir, we achieved what we wanted to achieve.

01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:01.200
It wasn't necessarily a matter of

01:02:02.080 --> 01:02:05.280
everyone coming over to my side and loving me for the argument

01:02:05.280 --> 01:02:05.840
that I made.

01:02:05.840 --> 01:02:07.360
That was never going to happen.

01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:11.840
The goal was to demonstrate that an argument could be made for

01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:17.040
the position that I took with regard to the proposition, and that

01:02:17.040 --> 01:02:21.040
it could be argued consonant with logic and with scripture, and that

01:02:21.040 --> 01:02:24.400
this was not something Christians simply can't believe, but rather something that

01:02:24.400 --> 01:02:28.560
Christians can believe historically have believed, and that it is something we

01:02:28.560 --> 01:02:30.640
should believe, because it is true.

01:02:36.000 --> 01:02:37.200
I think I will do

01:02:38.160 --> 01:02:43.280
maybe one more question, I think, since there's sort of a good

01:02:43.280 --> 01:02:46.720
one to end I guess a good one to end on here

01:02:46.880 --> 01:02:48.640
depends how one defines good.

01:02:48.640 --> 01:02:51.680
But if you submit more questions in the chat, I will try

01:02:51.680 --> 01:02:55.600
to get those written down for next time, and otherwise please submit

01:02:55.600 --> 01:02:58.320
them on the forum because again, that is the best way to

01:02:58.320 --> 01:02:59.040
do it.

01:02:59.040 --> 01:03:02.880
But the last question for this week What should Christians make of

01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:06.960
the concept of genocide in light of God's actions with the flood

01:03:07.040 --> 01:03:12.560
and his orders regarding Canaanites and Amalekites is denouncing genocide confessing a

01:03:12.560 --> 01:03:15.040
false sin?

01:03:15.040 --> 01:03:20.560
If you denounce genocide qua genocide, that would be a sin because

01:03:20.560 --> 01:03:22.640
that would be accusing God of sin.

01:03:22.640 --> 01:03:27.120
And so for those who aren't familiar, denouncing qua the thing is

01:03:27.120 --> 01:03:28.240
denouncing it per se.

01:03:28.240 --> 01:03:32.560
If you are denouncing genocide itself as being per se sinful, as

01:03:32.560 --> 01:03:38.160
being inherently sinful, inherently wrongful, never something you're permitted to do.

01:03:38.160 --> 01:03:38.800
And so

01:03:39.840 --> 01:03:44.160
when Christians speak about genocide we have to be careful, because on

01:03:44.160 --> 01:03:50.800
the one hand, obviously there is a general prohibition against murder, not

01:03:50.800 --> 01:03:52.400
killing, murder.

01:03:52.400 --> 01:03:56.320
Notably the term is a little broader than our modern definition in

01:03:56.320 --> 01:03:57.600
English of murder.

01:03:57.600 --> 01:04:01.600
It does also include what we might call reckless homicide.

01:04:01.600 --> 01:04:05.680
And so basically just don't kill someone by being a complete idiot.

01:04:05.680 --> 01:04:07.200
That's also prohibited.

01:04:07.520 --> 01:04:11.760
But it essentially is murder just an expanded sense of murder.

01:04:11.760 --> 01:04:14.400
Some states might encompass that in their laws.

01:04:14.400 --> 01:04:17.600
And so with the different degrees of murder.

01:04:17.600 --> 01:04:19.360
With regard to genocide

01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:24.080
If you are going to kill someone in war, you have to

01:04:24.080 --> 01:04:26.720
have a sufficient moral warrant.

01:04:26.720 --> 01:04:29.760
Because otherwise it is morally impermissible.

01:04:29.760 --> 01:04:33.360
And so the question then for Christians is: what is a proper

01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:37.360
moral warrant for killing someone in war?

01:04:37.360 --> 01:04:41.680
That has to be consonant with scripture, with what God has taught

01:04:41.680 --> 01:04:46.320
us with regard to warfare, with regard to killing, with regard to

01:04:46.320 --> 01:04:49.760
all of these related matters.

01:04:49.760 --> 01:04:53.760
One of the things that God says, and this is unambiguous in

01:04:53.760 --> 01:04:58.720
scripture, if you have a nation of demon worshippers, one of the

01:04:59.280 --> 01:05:03.520
just punishments for them is devotion to destruction, is what we would

01:05:03.520 --> 01:05:06.480
call, in modern terms, genocide.

01:05:06.480 --> 01:05:10.560
Above and beyond even genocide, because it often included destroying the cattle,

01:05:10.560 --> 01:05:14.640
the cities, hardscape, everything, just burning everything to ash.

01:05:14.640 --> 01:05:16.720
That is something that God did.

01:05:16.720 --> 01:05:18.960
That is something that God ordered done.

01:05:18.960 --> 01:05:21.840
That is something that God is going to do on a much

01:05:21.840 --> 01:05:23.840
greater scale in the future.

01:05:23.840 --> 01:05:27.680
Because most of the human population is not Christian.

01:05:27.680 --> 01:05:31.280
And so not only is God going to kill them temporally, he

01:05:31.280 --> 01:05:34.800
is going to kill them eternally.

01:05:34.800 --> 01:05:35.440
And so

01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:41.360
we can't possibly accuse that action of being evil of being sin

01:05:41.440 --> 01:05:43.920
because it would be to accuse God of sin.

01:05:43.920 --> 01:05:49.680
And so genocide under certain circumstances is morally permissible for Christians as

01:05:49.680 --> 01:05:52.000
a tool of statecraft.

01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:55.600
Sort of a long form of a short answer.

01:05:55.600 --> 01:05:58.800
But that is the basic answer to the question.

01:05:58.800 --> 01:06:02.480
So no, we can't condemn genocide qua genocide because that would be

01:06:02.480 --> 01:06:03.920
to accuse God of sin.

01:06:04.240 --> 01:06:07.760
But we have to be careful when we are advocating for using

01:06:07.760 --> 01:06:12.720
that as a tool of statecraft, because you must have adequate moral

01:06:12.720 --> 01:06:15.520
warrant in order to engage in that, or else you're engaging in

01:06:15.520 --> 01:06:21.360
sin. And that is something for which a Christian ruler, Christian prince,

01:06:21.360 --> 01:06:24.960
to use the generic term, will one day have to answer to

01:06:24.960 --> 01:06:28.160
God if he makes the wrong calculation.

01:06:28.160 --> 01:06:31.760
So maybe don't envy the Christian prince on that count, because

01:06:32.720 --> 01:06:35.680
he's sinning if he doesn't do it and God wants him to

01:06:35.680 --> 01:06:38.480
do it, and he's sinning if he does it and God did

01:06:38.480 --> 01:06:39.920
not want him to do it.

01:06:39.920 --> 01:06:42.240
It's not like you get a stand back and just say, Well,

01:06:42.240 --> 01:06:44.560
I'm not going to choose and that way I can't be held

01:06:44.560 --> 01:06:48.880
responsible. No, because inaction is sin when you are required by God

01:06:48.880 --> 01:06:49.760
to act.

01:06:49.760 --> 01:06:50.400
And so

01:06:51.760 --> 01:06:55.040
this is a question of wisdom for a Christian ruler.

01:06:55.040 --> 01:06:58.160
So pray for your rulers, because they will be held to account

01:06:58.160 --> 01:07:00.560
and they will be held to a strict standard.

01:07:00.560 --> 01:07:03.680
But the basic answer is that no, genocide is not per se

01:07:03.680 --> 01:07:08.640
immoral. It is conditionally moral and conditionally immoral.

01:07:08.640 --> 01:07:10.960
It depends upon the circumstances.

01:07:10.960 --> 01:07:16.880
It is a fact specific inquiry.

01:07:16.880 --> 01:07:20.320
And yes, that is a somewhat relevant question in our day and

01:07:20.320 --> 01:07:24.480
age, to sort of put the cap on that.

01:07:24.480 --> 01:07:29.200
But I think that is going to be all for this week.

01:07:29.200 --> 01:07:32.480
I would remind all of you to submit questions if you have

01:07:32.480 --> 01:07:35.840
additional questions, which undoubtedly there will be more questions for next week

01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:38.640
Please submit those on the forum.

01:07:38.640 --> 01:07:43.280
I linked to the specific category in which you can submit those.

01:07:43.280 --> 01:07:46.560
And so if there are other questions that are currently there, you

01:07:46.560 --> 01:07:47.680
can vote on those.

01:07:47.680 --> 01:07:50.160
The ones that rise to the top, I will try to prioritize

01:07:50.560 --> 01:07:52.800
those, at least unless there's something insane.

01:07:52.800 --> 01:07:56.080
I'm not going to answer every question regardless of the content, of

01:07:56.080 --> 01:08:00.800
course, but I will try to prioritize those that have shown a

01:08:00.800 --> 01:08:04.720
clear degree of interest from those who want me to provide answers.

01:08:04.720 --> 01:08:06.560
So go and submit those.

01:08:06.560 --> 01:08:09.600
Thank you for those who submitted questions for this episode.

01:08:09.600 --> 01:08:12.240
Thank you for those who submitted them ahead of time and those

01:08:12.240 --> 01:08:14.320
who participated in the chat as well.

01:08:14.320 --> 01:08:17.920
Thank you for your time and I hope this was edifying for

01:08:17.920 --> 01:08:19.120
all of you.

01:08:19.120 --> 01:08:22.320
Have a wonderful evening and may God bless all of you.

01:08:22.320 --> 01:08:23.200
Until next week.