WEBVTT 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.440 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:40.400 I am Cory J. 00:00:40.400 --> 00:00:41.920 Mahler. And I'm 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:47.760 Wo. What problem are you trying to solve? 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:51.440 Anyone who's been friends with me for any length of time has 00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:53.520 probably heard me ask that question more than once. 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:55.360 Uh probably dreads hearing it. 00:00:55.360 --> 00:00:58.720 Uh if you come to me with a problem or a question, 00:00:58.720 --> 00:01:02.400 or even if with an earshot you're complaining about something, there's a 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:05.600 decent chance that eventually I will ask you what problem are you 00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:07.600 trying to solve. 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:12.800 Today we're gonna apply that question to a couple different circumstances that 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:14.560 are part of the Christian experience. 00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:18.400 as part of our Christian lives, we are we're called to testify 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.160 to our faith to others and we're called to discuss our faith 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:24.720 with others um in within the church. 00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:28.000 So outside of the church to those who are unbelievers and inside 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.480 the church to those who do have faith. 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:34.320 But maybe they have they come from differing beliefs. 00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:38.160 So the first scenario we're going to discuss in the first half 00:01:38.160 --> 00:01:42.880 of the episode is how do you discuss your faith with an 00:01:42.880 --> 00:01:46.240 unbeliever? And the reason I want to frame that in terms of 00:01:46.240 --> 00:01:50.960 what question are you trying to solve is that as Christians, we 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:54.640 want to ultimately share the good news of the gospel, namely that 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:58.880 Jesus Christ died for our sins on the cross because we know 00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:02.080 that there's nothing we can do to pay for our sins. 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:05.840 But for an unbeliever, those there are a lot of assumptions packed 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:07.280 into that that they don't follow. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:09.920 They don't have the gimmins givens that we have. 00:02:09.920 --> 00:02:13.680 So to tell them Jesus died for your sins, sort of is 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:16.880 the intro, it's kinda like reading the last page of a novel 00:02:16.880 --> 00:02:17.920 to someone. 00:02:17.920 --> 00:02:18.800 They don't care. 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:21.360 Like they're they're they're not invested in any of it. 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:23.040 So you gave them a fact. 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:25.680 Why does it how's it connected to them? 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:30.640 So we're gonna talk about how to in some cases discuss your 00:02:30.640 --> 00:02:34.160 faith with people in a way that you wouldn't necessarily think of 00:02:34.160 --> 00:02:38.640 normally. And it's going to challenge all of us to think about 00:02:38.640 --> 00:02:43.280 Christian life in areas where we don't normally think about it, in 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:47.120 areas that don't typically apply to faith when you're looking at them. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:48.880 And we'll give some examples. 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.360 The second half of the episode, we're going to talk about something 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:54.320 that's blown up on Twitter for the last couple weeks, but it's 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:59.440 a very good example of how within the church it's possible to 00:03:00.320 --> 00:03:04.160 not ask the question, what problem am I trying to solve before 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:08.640 you start arguing with someone or start correcting someone or start trying 00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:12.320 to manage the words that someone's using in such a way that 00:03:12.320 --> 00:03:16.640 you can actually do more harm than good because you didn't understand 00:03:16.640 --> 00:03:20.000 where they were coming from and so you were trying to solve 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:21.520 the wrong problem. 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:25.200 So we're gonna talk about listening better and about unwinding back to 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:29.280 what's going on it to begin with, so that you can communicate 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:33.360 clearly, but you don't do harm in attempting to do so. 00:03:33.600 --> 00:03:37.280 Because if you can't communicate without doing harm, then you should keep 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:38.000 your mouth shut. 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:40.720 That's That's always an option for anyone. 00:03:40.720 --> 00:03:45.360 Um ironic for the jerk with a microphone to say bet, but 00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:49.600 that's honestly something that's an important part of the Christian life too. 00:03:49.600 --> 00:03:51.680 And as I've said in past episodes, there are times when I 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:54.560 do keep my mouth shut, but not right now, not for the 00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:56.080 next hour. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:59.840 So the first scenario we're going to talk about is you know, 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:03.760 say in the workplace you have a coworker who you're having lunch 00:04:03.760 --> 00:04:09.280 with him and And he confides in you that his teenage boy 00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:13.360 has fallen under the spell of some friends, he's fallen into new 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:17.680 friends, and there's influence he's getting in his social circle that amounts 00:04:18.080 --> 00:04:20.320 to pressuring him to do drugs. 00:04:20.320 --> 00:04:23.760 But it's not the drugs that maybe you or your parents' generations 00:04:23.760 --> 00:04:24.720 are familiar with. 00:04:24.720 --> 00:04:26.640 I'm not talking about pro party drugs. 00:04:26.640 --> 00:04:29.440 I'm talking about hormone replacement therapy. 00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:32.400 His friends don't want him to get high on cocaine or smoke 00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:37.440 marijuana. His friends want him to inject estrogen into his body so 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:40.400 that he will grow breasts and so that he will lose his 00:04:40.400 --> 00:04:41.360 facial hair. 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:46.640 And he's going to want to have his genitals surgically removed because 00:04:46.640 --> 00:04:49.200 he's been convinced that he wants to be a girl or that 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:51.760 he is a girl, and that the only way to realize that 00:04:51.760 --> 00:04:54.640 is through the application of science. 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:58.000 And so you as a Christian are sitting there listening to this 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:01.040 horror story from this man and 00:05:02.640 --> 00:05:06.240 the question that though the reason I'm raising the question what problem 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:10.160 are you trying to solve is that I feel I think that 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:14.480 today as Christians, as we're looking at the decaying world, as we're 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:17.760 looking at things like that man is suffering, and you know, this 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:21.120 this hypothetical conversation, the other person's not a Christian. 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:22.960 So he's he's completely at a loss. 00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:27.440 Not only is he bereft and beside himself suffering for the future 00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:29.280 of his son, but 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:34.000 he doesn't have a frame of reference for how something so terrible 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:35.280 could happen. 00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:35.600 And 00:05:37.200 --> 00:05:40.960 If you're a Christian, you're listening to this podcast, you're you're gonna 00:05:40.960 --> 00:05:41.840 be a conservative. 00:05:41.840 --> 00:05:43.360 You're probably very conservative. 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:45.360 Again, that's not a great word, but you know what we mean 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:47.760 when we say that. 00:05:47.760 --> 00:05:50.960 As conservatives, we are fond of 00:05:51.840 --> 00:05:56.160 calling this the culture war or calling it wokeism. 00:05:56.160 --> 00:05:59.600 Or, you know, maybe if you've done some more sophisticated digging into 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:03.760 the genealogy of these ideas, you'll call it cultural Marxism or just 00:06:03.760 --> 00:06:08.400 Marxism. And to some extent all of those things are true, but 00:06:08.400 --> 00:06:12.640 as we talked about in the frame episode, it's not the frame 00:06:12.640 --> 00:06:17.840 that the Christian should bring to the discussion because what is implicit 00:06:17.840 --> 00:06:20.480 in all of those characterizations 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:25.840 is in the case of calling something woke, you're saying effectively it's 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.600 you're being derisive or you're being dismissive, saying that well, those guys 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:30.240 are just being silly. 00:06:30.960 --> 00:06:34.240 Uh it's you know, kind of implying that it's a phase. 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:37.360 The yeah, this world's really crazy right now, I don't know what's 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:38.000 going on. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.960 This is a bunch of wild cultural stuff. 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:43.760 Um, or if you want to call it Marxism, you can maybe 00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:47.440 get closer to the root that there's something bad happening, but you're 00:06:47.440 --> 00:06:50.080 thinking of it even as a Christian as bad in terms of 00:06:50.080 --> 00:06:53.680 good ideas or bad ideas, and which ones are going to win 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:56.080 in the marketplace of ideas. 00:06:56.080 --> 00:07:00.320 So what I want you to think about is the the question 00:07:00.320 --> 00:07:03.760 that you should be asking and the way that you should frame 00:07:03.760 --> 00:07:09.040 your response to anyone who's coming to you describing their suffering in 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:14.320 the world is to avoid discussing it in terms that don't starkly 00:07:14.320 --> 00:07:16.080 speak of good and evil. 00:07:16.080 --> 00:07:18.160 Because fundamentally that's what this is. 00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:22.320 The fact that that man's son has fallen under the spell of 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:25.600 this destruction is satanic. 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:30.240 For a for anyone to be convinced that he should destroy his 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:33.520 body, it's three things that Satan's doing. 00:07:33.520 --> 00:07:36.800 First, Satan has robbed him his of his faith, if he ever 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:40.240 had it, because no Christian is ever going to decide to change 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:41.040 their sex. 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:42.800 It's an impossibility. 00:07:42.800 --> 00:07:46.080 To reject the body that God gave you is to have already 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:50.160 rejected your creator, is to say, I hate you, God, you don't 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:52.880 exist. This is my body, I'm gonna do what I want. 00:07:52.880 --> 00:07:55.840 So the faith has already been lost before they even get to 00:07:55.840 --> 00:07:56.720 that point. 00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:01.680 And then Satan destroys their minds by convincing them of these lies 00:08:01.760 --> 00:08:04.880 that yes, I was born a boy, but now I'm a girl, 00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:06.880 and so I need to fix that. 00:08:06.880 --> 00:08:10.240 And the fix is the third act of destruction by Satan, and 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:12.480 that is the destruction of the body. 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:15.200 So the soul and then the mind and then the body are 00:08:15.200 --> 00:08:19.200 destroyed. And in the case of transsexuals or those who who mutilate 00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:23.920 their bodies to pretend to be the other sex, the suicide rate 00:08:23.920 --> 00:08:26.400 is over forty percent for those people. 00:08:26.400 --> 00:08:33.040 And when that is admitted by those who will advocate those acts, 00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:35.920 they're not saying it to say, wow, maybe this is a really 00:08:35.920 --> 00:08:37.440 bad place to take someone. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.360 The excuse is that well, these people are misunderstood and they're bullied 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.040 and that's why they're killing themselves. 00:08:43.040 --> 00:08:46.480 No. The suicide rate is so high because that is the final 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:49.360 act of Satan in this act of destruction. 00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:52.640 Begins with the soul, then the mind, and then the body, and 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:54.480 he doesn't care what order he does it in, but that's the 00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:56.560 order that happens in this case. 00:08:56.560 --> 00:09:01.200 And the destruction of the body through mutilation and then through self 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:04.800 murder ultimately ensures damnation. 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:08.960 Because even someone who has suffered through that sort of demonic oppression, 00:09:08.960 --> 00:09:11.600 there's still hope for them as long as they draw breath. 00:09:11.680 --> 00:09:14.000 Doesn't matter what you've done to your body, it doesn't matter what 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.200 you've done in your life, you can be redeemed. 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:21.440 And so Christians know that, but we also know that there's evil 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:22.960 that's causing these things. 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:26.720 And so when we say, well, that's that's woke, that's crazy, that's 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:32.960 cultural, and we can't say that's evil, we're fundamentally betraying the faith. 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:38.880 We're in effect as Christians providing cover for Satan to run wild 00:09:38.880 --> 00:09:39.840 in the world. 00:09:39.840 --> 00:09:42.800 Because the only people who are going to call him out, who 00:09:42.800 --> 00:09:45.120 are gonna shine a light and say, look at what Satan is 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:48.480 doing, look at this evil, we're the only ones who know that 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:50.640 and can see that authoritatively. 00:09:50.640 --> 00:09:53.200 There are non-believers who can see it's evil, but they don't know 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:54.240 what evil means. 00:09:54.640 --> 00:09:57.120 They it's more relativistic to them. 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.120 We know that there's absolute good and evil. 00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:04.000 And so we must learn as Christians to make sure that when 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:07.920 we see evil in the world, that's that's what we call it. 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:12.000 Because as I said, to discuss your faith with someone in this 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:15.280 century, it's not going to begin with talking about Jesus. 00:10:15.280 --> 00:10:18.160 It's going to begin with pointing to the evil in the world 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:21.440 that you share with your neighbor and then helping to frame that 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:25.600 evil that he's suffering from in terms of the Christian faith that 00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:28.480 you want to be his as well. 00:10:28.560 --> 00:10:33.600 Some unbelievers do see some of this more clearly than Christians because 00:10:33.600 --> 00:10:38.160 much of this is not only immoral, not only against the moral 00:10:38.160 --> 00:10:40.400 law, but it's against nature. 00:10:40.400 --> 00:10:45.600 And in particular, some pagans actually do better with the against nature, 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:49.360 the continentum arguments than some Christians do. 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:53.120 And so when it comes to things like transsexualism, they will look 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:57.840 at that and viscerally understand that is contrary to nature, and so 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:00.320 they'll call it evil, which they're right. 00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:05.360 They just don't understand why it's necessarily evil and the source of 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:06.160 that evil. 00:11:06.160 --> 00:11:08.720 And so it depends on the person with whom you're speaking. 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:14.160 For a pagan who already recognizes the evil, you can explain, well, 00:11:14.160 --> 00:11:16.480 I can tell you why it's evil and the source of that 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:18.720 evil. And so that can be a way you can open up 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:21.200 that conversation and maybe get somewhere. 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:26.880 But you mentioned the the order in which this particular new it's 00:11:26.800 --> 00:11:30.800 actually not a new evil because this existed back in cult prostitution 00:11:30.800 --> 00:11:35.680 in ancient times, but it's a recurrent evil, it's new for recent 00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:39.520 times. Soul, mind, and body, it's really the inversion of what happens 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:43.280 with most drugs, because most drugs destroy the body. 00:11:43.280 --> 00:11:46.240 Then there's addiction that follows on, which is the destruction of the 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:50.320 mind, and ultimately despair, which is the destruction of the soul. 00:11:50.560 --> 00:11:54.080 Satan found a way to do it in reverse, which is quite 00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:57.040 effective, unfortunately. 00:11:57.040 --> 00:12:02.640 But one of the other problems when dealing with Christians who say, 00:12:02.640 --> 00:12:07.520 you know, it's just woke or it's liberal or leftist or and 00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:10.400 I'm not saying it's necess not necessarily those things, because it is 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:14.640 indeed those things, although I think the term woke is terribly stupid, 00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:17.040 I wouldn't really use it. 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:22.400 You're making it sound like Christianity is one solution among many. 00:12:22.400 --> 00:12:25.840 And it lends a sort of legitimacy, it's a framing issue. 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:30.400 It lends legitimacy to the other side, to Satan and his minions, 00:12:30.400 --> 00:12:32.080 that they do not have. 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:36.160 You are saying, well, my view is better, the way that I 00:12:36.160 --> 00:12:40.400 look at the world has more explanatory power or is X, Y, 00:12:40.400 --> 00:12:43.120 and Z, and so you should really believe my view. 00:12:43.120 --> 00:12:46.960 No, you should believe what Christians believe because it's true. 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:50.240 It's not one competing view among many. 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:51.680 It is the only solution. 00:12:51.680 --> 00:12:52.720 It is the only truth. 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:55.600 And so it matters how you frame these things. 00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:00.640 If you make it sound like it is just politics, if you 00:13:00.640 --> 00:13:04.720 make it sound like your solution is one among many, you've already 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:09.360 seeded the field in a way that has probably fatally undermined any 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:13.200 chance you have of really getting through to that person with the 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:15.200 law and then the gospel. 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:18.480 Because of course you have to have the law first. 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:19.920 You're exactly right. 00:13:19.920 --> 00:13:22.320 And that's it's a case that 00:13:23.760 --> 00:13:28.320 is we've talked about in previous episodes, what Satan is doing to 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:32.080 the world in this century and beginning in the last century century 00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:36.800 is to attack creation itself. 00:13:36.800 --> 00:13:41.200 Satan's not going after Jesus died for you anymore. 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:44.720 I mean he does, but he doesn't even need to go there 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:46.880 because Christendom is dead. 00:13:46.880 --> 00:13:51.120 There's no there's no more Christianity built into society. 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:55.520 Christianity itself is dying as a part of the nations that have 00:13:55.520 --> 00:13:58.080 hosted it for thousands of years. 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:01.280 And so he doesn't have to go after how are you saved? 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:06.960 He's going after what you are and turning people from men and 00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:10.240 women who were made men who are made in the image of 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:11.360 God into 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:17.680 self-actualized not creatures because creature implies creator. 00:14:17.680 --> 00:14:20.720 He's saying you are your own person, you can be whatever you 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:21.360 want to be. 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:24.080 If you want to be a dog, you can be a dog. 00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:28.960 And this is something happening before the zoomer generation, now we're younger 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:34.080 kids, are actually being convinced that they can be animals and they 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:38.320 are living their lives in school in some cases as animals, where 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.960 they will dress up like an animal in school. 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:42.640 They will not sit in a chair. 00:14:42.640 --> 00:14:44.560 They have to sit on their dog bed. 00:14:44.560 --> 00:14:49.680 And the teachers are required to tolerate this behavior, to not interfere 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:54.400 with their self-realization of their identity as a dog or a cat 00:14:54.400 --> 00:14:56.080 or whatever they're doing. 00:14:56.080 --> 00:14:56.400 And 00:14:57.280 --> 00:15:02.160 as an adult who is not paying attention to what's going on, 00:15:02.160 --> 00:15:05.840 when you hear these things, you think instinctively, that's just crazy. 00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:07.600 And yes, it is crazy. 00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:11.760 Like a hundred and fifty years ago, these sorts of things would 00:15:11.760 --> 00:15:15.040 uh periodically pop up, but they were either in people who were 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:20.960 directly and overtly demon possessed or oppressed or or clinically insane, if 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:23.600 there can be if you can say there's any difference between those 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:26.080 two. I don't know that there is, but even assuming for the 00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:28.800 sake of argument they're not the same thing, those are the only 00:15:28.800 --> 00:15:31.840 categories of people who would ever think, I'm a dog, you need 00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:33.040 to treat me like a dog. 00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:35.760 Today there's so many kids doing it. 00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:38.320 The schools have to have policies around it. 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:42.480 Now, that's their generation that people aren't seeing yet because they're too 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.960 young really to have a lot of this stuff videotaped and show 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:48.080 up on the internet, but it's happening and it's coming. 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:50.960 And so again, Satan is 00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:58.960 destroying creation itself, both by the pollution and the destruction of the 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:03.760 physical world, and by convincing man to destroy himself. 00:16:03.760 --> 00:16:08.400 And he's man is destroying himself by denying how God made him. 00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:11.040 So we spend a lot of time talking about how God made 00:16:11.680 --> 00:16:14.480 us as men for this very reason. 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:17.760 You know, we've we've alluded to race numerous times as a future 00:16:17.760 --> 00:16:20.720 episode. We're gonna do an episode soon where we go into it 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:21.440 in depth. 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:24.880 And it's not because we think race is that important or interesting. 00:16:24.880 --> 00:16:27.600 Honestly, I find it a tedious and boring topic. 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:30.880 It's not gonna be a tedious and boring episode because it's probably 00:16:30.880 --> 00:16:32.000 gonna light your hair on fire. 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:35.040 It you're gonna hear some things you've never heard and it's probably 00:16:35.040 --> 00:16:36.080 gonna make you pretty mad. 00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:38.800 And that's also not why we're talking about we're talking about it 00:16:38.880 --> 00:16:40.080 because it's true. 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:43.360 The way that God made the races is a real thing. 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:47.840 And so it's not a coincidence that before Satan convinced people to 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:51.040 deny that they were human, or to die deny that they were 00:16:51.040 --> 00:16:52.080 men and women. 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.520 He got everyone, including a lot of Christians, denying that God made 00:16:55.520 --> 00:16:58.880 you as an African or as a European or as an Asian. 00:16:58.880 --> 00:16:59.840 Those aren't things. 00:16:59.840 --> 00:17:01.600 Those are social categories. 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:05.520 They're superficial, they're not real, God didn't do that. 00:17:05.520 --> 00:17:08.880 And that was a small crack in the door, but all of 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:11.520 the rest of the stuff is plowed right through it. 00:17:11.520 --> 00:17:15.600 So when we discuss these things, again it's not because we think 00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:18.320 like, oh well race is the foundation of the faith. 00:17:18.320 --> 00:17:21.680 No. It has nothing to do with it, except that it's how 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.680 God operates in our lives to create us. 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:29.280 And when you concede that, well, you're just a generic human being. 00:17:29.840 --> 00:17:32.960 Well why aren't I just a generic human being that's sexless? 00:17:33.280 --> 00:17:38.480 how is that dichotomy possibly tolerated in a world where all these 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:44.000 other differentiations that are physically observable and scientifically demonstrable, if those can 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:46.720 be discarded, well you can't tell me I'm not a woman. 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:47.440 I'm a woman. 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:49.680 I I feel like a woman, I have a woman's thoughts and 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:50.720 a woman's needs. 00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:53.040 You can't tell me otherwise. 00:17:53.040 --> 00:17:56.880 You lose the moral high ground and you lose any credibility as 00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:57.600 a Christian. 00:17:57.600 --> 00:18:01.200 If you lie about one, you've lost the ability to speak truthfully 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:02.160 about the other. 00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:02.560 And 00:18:02.560 --> 00:18:04.160 we've seen that play out in history. 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:06.400 As you mentioned, that is exactly what happened. 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:08.320 You have the attack on On 00:18:09.520 --> 00:18:13.840 it really happened sort of simultaneously, but the attack on the reality 00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:19.440 of human race took off more effectively earlier, and then you had 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:22.400 following on the attack on male and female. 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:26.720 So you have the denial of the distinction, the differences between the 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:29.360 races of men and the very existence of them. 00:18:29.360 --> 00:18:32.640 Initially that's not of course where they started, but today that is 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:33.120 what you see. 00:18:33.120 --> 00:18:34.560 You see that all the time. 00:18:34.560 --> 00:18:36.880 People will deny that race is real. 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:40.000 They will say that it is, as you mentioned, merely a social 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.840 construct, merely a reporting category for the census. 00:18:43.840 --> 00:18:47.120 I saw someone actually argue that I didn't follow it because I 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:49.440 didn't want to go insane. 00:18:49.440 --> 00:18:55.760 But the attack was first on that, and then it immediately followed. 00:18:55.760 --> 00:18:59.040 Well, if there's no difference between it among the races of men, 00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:01.840 then there's no real difference between men and women. 00:19:01.840 --> 00:19:03.840 And that's where you get the nineteenth Amendment. 00:19:03.840 --> 00:19:07.280 And before that in Europe, you get all of the countries permitting 00:19:07.280 --> 00:19:10.080 women to vote and run for office and do all these various 00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:14.640 things. Because as soon as you give up any of these truths 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:17.920 about creation, you've lost all of them. 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:20.000 It's just a matter of time. 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.960 You already gave Satan the foot in the door, you opened the 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:25.200 door for him and let him walk into the room. 00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:31.440 He is going to own everything before he's done, unless he's stopped. 00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:36.160 Today, he is attacking still male and female because the goal is 00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:39.520 to completely destroy that distinction. 00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:42.480 But he's moving on as well, and that's why, as mentioned, you 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:45.040 have people who say, No, I'm actually not a human, I'm a 00:19:45.040 --> 00:19:46.960 dog or a cat. 00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:51.520 You have officers in our military posting pictures of themselves on social 00:19:51.520 --> 00:19:53.600 media in fursuits. 00:19:53.600 --> 00:19:57.200 This is not something that is in the closet or under the 00:19:57.200 --> 00:19:59.680 rug, or no, this is out in the open. 00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:02.080 Happening before the eyes of the world. 00:20:02.080 --> 00:20:03.520 Satan is not subtle. 00:20:03.520 --> 00:20:08.320 He doesn't need to be subtle, because Christians have abandoned the field. 00:20:08.560 --> 00:20:12.320 And I think most people listening probably don't know what fursuits are 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:15.360 and I don't I don't want to tell you, but it's the 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:19.440 Again, back to the the term wokeism and woke. 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:19.840 you're right. 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.000 it's a I I please do not Google it 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:23.760 for your own sanity. 00:20:23.920 --> 00:20:26.560 Don't don't look it up, you don't need to know, just it's 00:20:26.560 --> 00:20:27.760 horrible. 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:34.160 It's horrible, it's depraved, it's evil, it's degenerate, and it's normal today, 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:38.320 in the sense that it happens and you can't stop it or 00:20:38.320 --> 00:20:40.240 you will be arrested. 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:40.560 And 00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:45.920 so as Christians, the reason that that I want us to focus 00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:48.960 on what problem are you trying to solve when you're talking to 00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:52.640 people, whether it's a coworker or you know, maybe it's an extended 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:57.280 family member, who is seeing the horrors happening in the world. 00:20:57.280 --> 00:20:59.920 The reason that we I mentioned race and we're talking about a 00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:04.480 couple of these things is for the fact that people who aren't 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:08.560 Christians can see that these things are evil. 00:21:08.560 --> 00:21:11.680 They can look at them and see that as Corey as you 00:21:11.680 --> 00:21:16.000 said, it is contrary to nature on its face, plainly. 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:18.640 Christians have lost the ability to say that. 00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:23.360 We're afraid to say that now, because Satan convinced Christians judge not 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:27.040 means that you can't point at something in evil and say it's 00:21:27.040 --> 00:21:30.880 evil. When Scripture directly commands us to do that very thing, if 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:34.880 you cannot point to evil and say that's evil, you're not a 00:21:34.880 --> 00:21:36.640 Christian. Period. 00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:39.600 If you can't say something's evil, you're not a Christian. 00:21:39.600 --> 00:21:39.760 Well 00:21:39.760 --> 00:21:44.400 and if you're not calling it evil, you are tacitly calling it 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:45.920 good. Exactly. 00:21:46.240 --> 00:21:48.800 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. 00:21:48.800 --> 00:21:50.400 Scripture is not subtle about this. 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:51.600 It's very clear. 00:21:53.280 --> 00:21:56.800 And so as we discuss these things with friends and family, whether 00:21:56.800 --> 00:21:59.600 it's in person or on the internet or whatever, you're going to 00:21:59.600 --> 00:22:02.160 talk to people who do not have faith. 00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:03.280 They don't know Jesus. 00:22:03.280 --> 00:22:04.160 They don't know God. 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:06.080 They don't know about justification. 00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:08.400 They know that the world is evil. 00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:12.800 And this is the this is God opening the door for us 00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:14.960 to share our faith with them. 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:18.240 But we don't begin I humbly submit. 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:20.320 I'm not saying you can never talk about Jesus. 00:22:20.320 --> 00:22:22.320 We have to get to talking about Jesus. 00:22:22.320 --> 00:22:26.000 I would humbly submit to you can to consider that you don't 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:30.480 begin by talking about Jesus when someone says, Why is my child 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:32.000 mutilating himself? 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.000 Why are my neighbors pretending to be dogs and doing obscene things 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:38.640 in the yard and the police won't stop them? 00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:40.160 Why is this happening? 00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:44.800 If you as a Christian, you know, you're a Tucker Carlson listener 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:45.920 or whatever, like 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:50.560 if you call these things woke, if you say that they're cultural 00:22:50.560 --> 00:22:54.400 warfare, if as as Corey said, if you say that, well, maybe 00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:59.120 Christianity has a better explanation for what's going on, you're never going 00:22:59.120 --> 00:23:01.600 to make any impact in that person's life. 00:23:01.600 --> 00:23:05.680 Because that's the same equivocation and the same gutlessness that they see 00:23:05.680 --> 00:23:09.360 defining the very people who are destroying things. 00:23:09.360 --> 00:23:12.560 If you can come to someone who is horrified by the evil 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:17.120 in the world, and I think one of the things that Christians 00:23:17.120 --> 00:23:22.800 need to get comfortable with is being strategic about how we share 00:23:22.800 --> 00:23:23.600 our faith. 00:23:23.600 --> 00:23:26.240 So for example, I have I have numerous friends who are not 00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:27.280 Christians. 00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:34.320 they're good friends, they're loyal, they're funny, they are sincere and they're 00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:39.040 honest, and they some of them don't have faith. 00:23:39.040 --> 00:23:42.480 There are a few who, when I share my faith with them, 00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:46.960 in whatever context, or even just if something comes up, they will 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:50.800 go out of their way to blaspheme and say, ha, I can't 00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:53.680 believe you fall for this crap and you know they'll say terrible 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.800 things about God and so I try not to instigate situations where 00:23:56.800 --> 00:23:59.760 they would do that because I don't want them to be sitting 00:23:59.760 --> 00:24:01.840 because I go to them into it. 00:24:01.840 --> 00:24:06.640 But at the same time, when situations arise where I can point 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:09.440 to my faith and say, look, I know you think this is 00:24:09.840 --> 00:24:11.520 silly. I know you don't believe it. 00:24:11.520 --> 00:24:13.360 I know you think it's stupid. 00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:17.280 I'm going to tell you anyway why I think that Christianity, that 00:24:17.280 --> 00:24:21.680 my faith, that my godly understanding of the world is relevant to 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:22.560 this situation. 00:24:22.560 --> 00:24:25.120 And you can say up front, I know you're gonna think I'm 00:24:25.120 --> 00:24:28.080 stupid. I know that I have friends who think I'm retarded because 00:24:28.080 --> 00:24:30.880 I believe in Sky Daddy and I don't care. 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:31.840 Because you know what? 00:24:31.840 --> 00:24:36.480 Every time they insult me and say that stuff When I don't 00:24:36.400 --> 00:24:39.760 respond in kind and I just continue to share what I know 00:24:39.760 --> 00:24:44.080 in whatever small way I can in the moment, that is demonstrating 00:24:44.080 --> 00:24:44.880 my faith too. 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:47.440 Even if they don't care, they don't believe anything I say. 00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:51.280 The fact that I can respond in a way that is consistent 00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:56.400 and tries to be supportive of doing something good will stand out 00:24:56.400 --> 00:24:59.360 to someone even if they reject the message. 00:24:59.360 --> 00:25:02.080 And you never know how the Holy Spirit's gonna work in someone's 00:25:02.080 --> 00:25:06.880 life. I th I think that we know as Christians intellectually, but 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:10.320 we don't necessarily internalize it, that 00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:14.320 we're planting God's seeds and He will give the growth. 00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:16.320 We don't know what's going to happen. 00:25:16.320 --> 00:25:19.200 All we can do is speak truthfully. 00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:24.640 And truthfully, as I've said, as we've said numerous times, is all 00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:28.000 truth. It's not just truth about John 3:16. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.440 I say John 3.16 all the time, not because I don't love 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:33.360 that verse, I love it dearly. 00:25:33.600 --> 00:25:38.560 It's the perfect encapsulation of why we are Christians, but it's not 00:25:38.560 --> 00:25:42.320 an explanation for why someone someone would be Christian if they don't 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:44.880 already know why they need to be Christian. 00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:48.400 You know, we've talked before about the law gospel distinction. 00:25:48.400 --> 00:25:53.280 The gospel is incoherent to someone who doesn't think they're a sinner, 00:25:53.280 --> 00:25:55.360 who doesn't think they have a creator? 00:25:55.360 --> 00:25:58.720 So the first hurdle you need to cross with someone is not 00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:01.360 let me tell you how Jesus died for your sins. 00:26:01.360 --> 00:26:07.680 It's let me connect your lived experience to use the Marxist term. 00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:09.600 Let me let me use your life. 00:26:09.600 --> 00:26:13.600 Let me you use what you are suffering in this world to 00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:17.360 connect you to your creator whom you do not know. 00:26:17.360 --> 00:26:20.320 And if you can make even that one small connection, 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:23.200 maybe you can't talk about Jesus that day. 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:24.000 That's fine. 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:27.520 If you can plant a seed that will grow a little bit, 00:26:27.520 --> 00:26:31.600 if you can nail them down on one simple concession to your 00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:36.320 frame, to to your your Christian worldview, to use another terrible term, 00:26:36.320 --> 00:26:38.960 but we're kind of stuck in a world where we have to 00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:41.600 use terrible terms because the good ones are dead. 00:26:41.600 --> 00:26:45.360 And that's amusingly, that's actually the subject for the second half of 00:26:45.360 --> 00:26:46.720 this episode episode. 00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:47.040 But 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:53.760 when we fail to realize that these struggles people face are spiritual, 00:26:53.760 --> 00:26:57.280 that they have Satan behind them and that they have human beings 00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:02.080 acting in this life as Satan's agents, some of whom know and 00:27:02.080 --> 00:27:03.280 some of whom don't know. 00:27:03.280 --> 00:27:05.920 They don't realize that they're serving Satan. 00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:09.360 They just they're motivated by whatever has possessed them. 00:27:09.360 --> 00:27:11.280 It's usually good intentions. 00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:14.560 They're malformed intentions, but they think they're doing good. 00:27:14.560 --> 00:27:18.400 They think they're making the world a better pay place by denying 00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:23.360 creation. And so when Christians can say, What problem are you trying 00:27:23.360 --> 00:27:28.880 to solve by looking at the state of the world, eventually you 00:27:28.880 --> 00:27:33.120 will have to unwind that conversation back to the source of good 00:27:33.120 --> 00:27:37.440 and evil and the source of creation itself, and how God's rules 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:42.640 are baked into creation, and how every time we physically and spiritually 00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:48.240 and mentally deviate from what God has ordained, we suffer in this 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:53.200 life, we suffer temporal consequences for the sin of disbelief of not 00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:57.920 doing the things that God has ordered the world to function. 00:27:57.920 --> 00:27:58.240 And 00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:03.440 as as we're talking about this today, I realize that this is 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:05.600 probably not the way the most people who are listening. 00:28:05.600 --> 00:28:07.200 You probably don't look at the world this way. 00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:09.760 You probably think more in terms of culture war. 00:28:10.080 --> 00:28:11.680 You don't want to think about evil. 00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:16.480 And you especially the the sort of existential looming evil that is 00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:20.640 ravenous and is all consuming and all destructive. 00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:22.960 That's too much for most people to bear. 00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:24.480 That's understandable. 00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:28.320 But if you want to share the gospel in this year with 00:28:28.320 --> 00:28:32.480 people who are facing that devouring lion, you're going to have to 00:28:32.480 --> 00:28:35.920 face the existential evil, even if it's in a small way, even 00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:38.080 if it's in a conversation that's limited. 00:28:38.080 --> 00:28:41.360 And so I'm encouraging people to just to think about this because 00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:45.680 if we're not looking at the world through spiritual eyes, we can't 00:28:45.680 --> 00:28:47.040 describe it in that way. 00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:49.840 We if we can see the frame that this is just it's 00:28:49.840 --> 00:28:52.480 culture war, man, I hope I hope that the good culture wins 00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:54.160 and the bad culture loses. 00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:58.960 If you've taken good and evil off the table, you cannot speak 00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.320 as a Christian. 00:29:00.320 --> 00:29:05.040 And that's a terrible thing because that that's an opportunity that God's 00:29:05.040 --> 00:29:08.160 given you in someone else's life to tell the truth. 00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:13.200 And if if you can't do it, even in a small way, 00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:16.160 that person's just gonna go on like nothing ever happened. 00:29:16.160 --> 00:29:19.200 But it was a it was a a change that occurred in 00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:22.080 that in that timeline where in the other direction, if you'd been 00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:26.080 able to mount a forceful, clear defense of what God wants for 00:29:26.080 --> 00:29:28.720 the world, even knowing that they don't believe in God, yes, fine 00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:31.520 for you to talk about God and say, I understand that you 00:29:31.520 --> 00:29:34.400 don't believe this is true, but if you don't mind, you can 00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:36.240 be you can act a little bit embarrassed about it. 00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:37.120 That's fine. 00:29:37.120 --> 00:29:39.040 And you can say if God is real. 00:29:39.040 --> 00:29:42.000 That's not a denial of God in con in conversation for you 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:43.200 to say if. 00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.880 You're offering an alternative to what they already believe. 00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:49.280 So you're not making thinning things any worse. 00:29:49.280 --> 00:29:53.520 What you're doing is enticing the other person to concede for a 00:29:53.520 --> 00:29:59.120 moment the possibility that maybe you have something that's explanatory for what 00:29:59.120 --> 00:30:00.240 is ailing them. 00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:03.840 Because the thing that's ailing them, while it is ultimately sin, they're 00:30:03.840 --> 00:30:05.680 not going to get that until they get a lot of other 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:09.600 givens taken out of the way first. 00:30:09.600 --> 00:30:09.840 And 00:30:09.840 --> 00:30:12.880 it is worth noting that all men who do not have a 00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:16.720 seared conscience do believe in God. 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:21.520 They are suppressing it, but they do actually believe in God. 00:30:21.520 --> 00:30:25.760 And your opening for many of these interactions is going to be 00:30:26.080 --> 00:30:28.720 if the other person is looking for an explanation 00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:35.280 for why the world is as it is, that person has already 00:30:35.280 --> 00:30:37.680 tacitly admitted a belief in God. 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:40.560 He may not recognize that it's a belief in God, but that 00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:42.720 is where that eventuates. 00:30:42.720 --> 00:30:46.240 That is the end of that line of thought. 00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:50.000 Because if there's a reason, there's a God. 00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:51.360 We're not going to get into that today. 00:30:51.360 --> 00:30:54.640 We're not going to explain all of the reasoning that gets you 00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:58.880 there, but the alternative is to say there's no reason. 00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:01.360 And then it's just a matter of preferences, and this is one 00:31:01.360 --> 00:31:04.480 of the arguments of modern philosophy and modern ethics. 00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:07.520 I think I just don't like that, or I do like that. 00:31:07.520 --> 00:31:10.400 If someone is speaking in those terms, you're going to have more 00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:13.360 trouble. Because that person is saying there's no reason. 00:31:13.360 --> 00:31:14.960 There's no ultimate meaning. 00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:19.520 It's just preferences expressing themselves and catching on in groups and then 00:31:19.520 --> 00:31:21.040 group psychology, etc. 00:31:21.360 --> 00:31:25.360 But if someone is open to the idea that there may be 00:31:25.360 --> 00:31:29.520 a reason people behave the way they do, things are the way 00:31:29.520 --> 00:31:32.960 they are, our society has changed in the ways that it has 00:31:32.960 --> 00:31:35.200 changed. That's your opening. 00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:37.040 That's someone you can give him. 00:31:37.040 --> 00:31:39.520 You can say, Well, I know the reason. 00:31:39.520 --> 00:31:41.600 I know why things are the way they are. 00:31:41.600 --> 00:31:42.800 I know what the cause is. 00:31:42.800 --> 00:31:44.640 It's evil. 00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:46.240 And there's an alternative to that. 00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:47.760 It's called God. 00:31:47.760 --> 00:31:50.400 And so there's an opening for you there. 00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:54.560 You just have to recognize that opening and know how to approach 00:31:54.560 --> 00:31:58.800 that person, how to offer the information that you have that he 00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:01.280 needs. 00:32:01.760 --> 00:32:07.520 There was something fundamentally fascinating that happened at the very beginning of 00:32:07.520 --> 00:32:12.880 the BLM riots that followed George Floyd's suicide in 2000. 00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:17.200 Early on when BLM kicked off, there were a few people who 00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:20.880 were the ringleaders, who were the they were out in front, they 00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:24.960 were collecting the funding, they were shaping the messaging. 00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:31.920 They were helping to orchestrate nationally both the violence and the public-facing 00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:35.120 good parts of what they were trying to sell, even while they 00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:36.720 were destroying our cities. 00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:41.120 The fascinating thing that happened was that for a period of several 00:32:41.120 --> 00:32:48.320 months after the the BLM was formed and before this came to 00:32:48.320 --> 00:32:55.360 wide knowledge, Black Lives Matter's website as part of their ethos page, 00:32:55.680 --> 00:32:58.960 part of their about page, talking about their motives. 00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:04.480 They went far beyond racial justice and racial equity and the various 00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:10.880 other things that most naive observers thought that their so called movement 00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:11.840 was about. 00:33:11.840 --> 00:33:13.760 They went on on the very same page to say 00:33:14.720 --> 00:33:18.880 we are also here to topple the patriarchy, we are here to 00:33:18.880 --> 00:33:24.000 topple heteronormativity, we are here to topple the nuclear family. 00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:26.640 And they went into depth on each of those why they wanted 00:33:27.280 --> 00:33:30.480 to destroy those foundational things. 00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:35.920 Now, as a Christian who has thought about these things for some 00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:39.920 time and who has a proper understanding of what's actually going on, 00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:43.520 it's no surprise at all that the people, the same people who 00:33:43.520 --> 00:33:48.320 are shouting racial justice are shouting down with the patriarchy, they're shouting 00:33:48.320 --> 00:33:55.760 up with homosexuality, up with homosexu with transgenderism for children, shouting destroy 00:33:55.760 --> 00:34:01.040 the family, let us have groups of individuals who are connected by 00:34:01.040 --> 00:34:04.640 bonds that have nothing to do with bloods whatsoever. 00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:08.000 To the naive observer, that sounds like just a random grab bag. 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:10.960 Like that's all how did all those crazy woke things end up 00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:12.080 in the same place? 00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:14.240 These guys are such Lib Tards. 00:34:14.240 --> 00:34:16.320 That's what a lot of people thought. 00:34:16.320 --> 00:34:20.800 What was actually going on was that all of those things, including 00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:25.280 the racial aspect that was the top line item, they're all part 00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:27.440 of the same attack. 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:32.080 The fact that patriarchy was second on the list was not a 00:34:32.080 --> 00:34:34.960 coincidence. And so we're not going to get into that today. 00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:38.240 We're going to we've talked about patriarchy and headship in past episodes, 00:34:38.240 --> 00:34:40.720 and we'll connect it in some future ones as well. 00:34:40.720 --> 00:34:43.200 But I want to ill I want to use that as an 00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:45.360 illustrative example of how. 00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:50.000 So something that if you're naive, if you don't have spiritual eyes, 00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:51.520 you can't really make sense of it. 00:34:51.520 --> 00:34:54.480 Like why do these people who are upset that cops are being 00:34:54.480 --> 00:34:58.400 mean to minorities, why are they mad at the nuclear family? 00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:00.160 And why do they want sodomy for children? 00:35:00.720 --> 00:35:02.400 That doesn't make any sense. 00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:04.320 And on paper, it doesn't. 00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:08.480 Unless you realize that the animating evil behind one of those things 00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:12.320 is the animating evil behind every one of those things. 00:35:12.720 --> 00:35:12.960 And 00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:16.400 the overarching goal is the subversion of nature. 00:35:16.720 --> 00:35:20.400 Because Satan is already more or less one when it comes to 00:35:20.400 --> 00:35:24.960 the field of making the church irrelevant in modern society. 00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:28.320 We can look at the numbers all day that say, you know, 00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:33.440 double digit whatever, high double digit percentages, claim to be Christian. 00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:37.120 But when you actually get down into the real information There are 00:35:37.120 --> 00:35:39.280 very few Christians in the world. 00:35:39.280 --> 00:35:43.920 And even in the places that are more Christian than most others, 00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:45.760 there are very few actual Christians. 00:35:45.760 --> 00:35:48.400 And that's just basic things in Christianity. 00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:50.800 You know, is Jesus the Son of God? 00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:52.880 Is Jesus God? 00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:54.160 Is Jesus created? 00:35:54.160 --> 00:35:55.600 And they give the wrong answers to these. 00:35:55.600 --> 00:35:57.120 These are not Christians. 00:35:57.120 --> 00:36:02.080 But so the animation behind it, the animating intelligence behind it is 00:36:02.480 --> 00:36:05.440 Satan and his goal is the subversion of nature. 00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:08.240 And that's what all of these things have in common. 00:36:08.240 --> 00:36:11.360 Now, as mentioned earlier, there are some pagans and others who will 00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:15.040 recognize that all of these are against nature. 00:36:15.040 --> 00:36:18.560 They're all perversions, and so it makes sense that they're related. 00:36:18.560 --> 00:36:22.400 Many will not, most will not recognize these things are related. 00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:26.560 But every so often, Satan slips up, and he puts out a 00:36:26.560 --> 00:36:30.160 website that gives you his game plan. 00:36:30.160 --> 00:36:35.840 It pays to pay attention when your enemy accidentally publishes his battle 00:36:35.840 --> 00:36:40.560 plan. Satan telegraphs what he's going to do and we should pay 00:36:40.560 --> 00:36:44.960 attention to that because he is telling us what he hates, and 00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:48.160 he hates all of the things that God loves. 00:36:48.560 --> 00:36:50.720 And we need to take them seriously. 00:36:50.720 --> 00:36:54.320 And that's why we're that's why we're attacking the concept of using 00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:58.480 culture war as any sort of frame of reference for what's going 00:36:58.480 --> 00:37:02.880 on. If you think it's just cultural or it's just people being 00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:08.480 silly or stupid or unrealistic or impractical, you will never see Satan's 00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:09.680 hand up their butt. 00:37:09.680 --> 00:37:10.320 And it's there. 00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:14.320 Those people who are advocating those things, even if they're in our 00:37:14.320 --> 00:37:19.120 churches, they are agents of Satan when they're doing those things. 00:37:19.120 --> 00:37:21.920 It doesn't mean that they don't think do godly things on other 00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:25.120 days, but when they're doing these things, they are acting on behalf 00:37:25.120 --> 00:37:25.760 of Satan. 00:37:26.080 --> 00:37:26.640 Get behind 00:37:26.720 --> 00:37:29.040 me, Satan said to Peter. 00:37:29.040 --> 00:37:32.160 Yeah. In the in the Lutheran church, and I think in in 00:37:32.160 --> 00:37:35.600 many churches, I just don't know of the others when someone is 00:37:35.600 --> 00:37:40.400 baptized as an infant, their parents and sponsors will speak these words 00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:43.680 and when you're confirmed you you will speak these words again. 00:37:43.680 --> 00:37:47.920 Do you renounce the devil and all his works and all his 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:48.240 ways 00:37:49.200 --> 00:37:54.080 and the Christian will respond, I do renounce them. 00:37:54.400 --> 00:37:58.160 We don't want to think about all his works in all his 00:37:58.240 --> 00:38:00.400 ways as as modern Christians. 00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:03.280 We want to renounce the devil, but we don't want to pay 00:38:03.280 --> 00:38:05.840 attention to what his works and his ways are. 00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:07.120 Because you know what? 00:38:07.520 --> 00:38:11.200 if we unravel that too deeply, we might find that the genealogy 00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:14.640 of some of our beliefs and some of our ideas traces back 00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:16.560 to something that isn't godly. 00:38:16.560 --> 00:38:19.680 And I don't know how many people realize that, either consciously or 00:38:19.680 --> 00:38:22.800 subconsciously, but I can tell you for a fact that it's there. 00:38:22.800 --> 00:38:25.920 And it's not only there in people who are casual, it's there 00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:28.640 in people who are serious about their belief. 00:38:28.640 --> 00:38:32.240 Uh the guys up in Wyoming in Wyoming that are doing Luther 00:38:32.240 --> 00:38:34.720 Classical College are doing fantastic work. 00:38:34.720 --> 00:38:37.120 I'm very excited to see how that's coming together. 00:38:37.120 --> 00:38:40.400 One thing that frightens me is that a lot of their discussion 00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:42.720 is framing things in terms of 00:38:43.680 --> 00:38:48.800 cultural war and how can we be in opposition to the culture? 00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:51.840 And now when they go downstream a bit, they'll focus on Jesus. 00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:58.160 If you give the farm away by not explicitly condemning and damning 00:38:58.240 --> 00:39:04.080 the evil that is occurring, you're not drawing a strong enough contrast. 00:39:04.080 --> 00:39:09.120 And that's the reason that Corey, you and I are viewed by 00:39:09.120 --> 00:39:12.080 most people as speaking so stridently. 00:39:12.080 --> 00:39:15.680 I've had numerous people say to me uh on Twitter since I 00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:19.280 got on for the first time ever, I expected you to be 00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:19.920 much angrier. 00:39:20.080 --> 00:39:21.040 You sound normal. 00:39:21.040 --> 00:39:23.120 You sound like a normal human being. 00:39:23.120 --> 00:39:24.400 Um Yes. 00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:25.600 Which is funny. 00:39:25.600 --> 00:39:28.160 Like, you know, in two hundred and eighty characters there's only so 00:39:28.160 --> 00:39:28.880 much you can do. 00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:32.480 And so I've always been careful when I'm speaking online 00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:35.760 to speak clearly. 00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:40.640 I don't care if I hurt your feelings, if I've spoken clearly. 00:39:40.640 --> 00:39:44.240 It's not my principal concern that you come away feeling good about 00:39:44.240 --> 00:39:45.760 the interaction. 00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:49.440 It is my principal concern that you have clarity about what it 00:39:49.440 --> 00:39:52.480 is I'm trying to say, which is the other topic we're gonna 00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:54.400 get to in a couple minutes. 00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:57.920 Speaking unclearly is what Satan loves. 00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:00.560 'Cause it doesn't matter what you're speaking unclearly about. 00:40:00.560 --> 00:40:06.400 See, when these Christians categorize something as culture war or or Marxist 00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:10.240 or woke, those things are all true to a degree, but they're 00:40:10.240 --> 00:40:12.720 not the final cause of what's going on. 00:40:12.720 --> 00:40:16.880 And so when you can say something is just kind of silly, 00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:20.400 you're providing cover for Satan even while you're condemning it. 00:40:20.400 --> 00:40:23.600 See, it's not that you didn't land on the right side of 00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:24.400 the issue. 00:40:24.400 --> 00:40:27.840 It's that you landed on the right side so weakly that it 00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:29.760 has no impact on the observer. 00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:32.960 Because someone looking at the thing will say, Well that Christian doesn't 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:34.240 seem that worked up about it. 00:40:34.240 --> 00:40:37.280 I guess, you know, I think I care about this more than 00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:38.160 the Christian. 00:40:38.160 --> 00:40:41.040 I think it's more evil than this Christian does. 00:40:41.280 --> 00:40:45.040 Why would why would that person who doesn't know God, but they 00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:48.080 do know evil when they see it, why would they ever listen 00:40:48.080 --> 00:40:52.320 to you as a lukewarm Christian who can't even condemn the evil 00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:54.000 that they do see? 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:57.760 When someone comes to you who's not a Christian, who's left the 00:40:57.760 --> 00:41:01.040 faith, or they're weak in the faith, or they're an absolute unbeliever, 00:41:01.040 --> 00:41:04.960 if you can't stand right beside them shoulder to shoulder and say, 00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:07.920 yes, that is this is evil, and I can tell you where 00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:11.200 this evil came from because there's more going on than meets the 00:41:11.200 --> 00:41:14.400 eye. If you can do that, you have at least had the 00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:18.000 door opened to have a conversation that will lead to a conversation 00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:21.920 about the gospel and about the saving work of Jesus. 00:41:21.920 --> 00:41:26.080 If you're weaker on evil than they are in that moment, they're 00:41:26.080 --> 00:41:29.200 not going to think you have any credibility when you try to 00:41:29.200 --> 00:41:30.480 bring it up elsewhere. 00:41:30.560 --> 00:41:33.920 You're slamming the door on your own face if you can't condemn 00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:35.360 evil where it pops up. 00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:37.760 And it's not going to pop up where you want it to. 00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:40.160 It's going to be these things that are called cultural. 00:41:40.160 --> 00:41:45.520 It's gonna be these thorny issues like race and IQ and nationality, 00:41:45.520 --> 00:41:49.520 things that are divisive because we've been lied to for so long 00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:51.920 in order to ensure that they're divisive. 00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:55.280 The truth is not divisive, except that it divides people who can 00:41:55.280 --> 00:41:59.200 discern the truth from those who can't, for those who confuse truth 00:41:59.200 --> 00:42:00.400 with lies. 00:42:00.400 --> 00:42:05.280 So the division is not caused by the tone of voice or 00:42:05.280 --> 00:42:10.480 by the clarity of speech, it's caused fundamentally by the content. 00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:15.120 And so when Corey and I speak and we seem strident and 00:42:15.120 --> 00:42:20.480 we seem forceful, one, that's our personality, but I can be more 00:42:20.480 --> 00:42:21.840 laid back about stuff. 00:42:21.840 --> 00:42:25.120 I can I can be I can get into the weeds on 00:42:25.120 --> 00:42:29.520 things and not take a strong point and talk about the subtleties. 00:42:29.520 --> 00:42:32.240 And there are subtle subtleties to some of those things. 00:42:32.240 --> 00:42:34.080 Subtleties are a luxury. 00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:37.680 You don't get to debate the subtleties and you till you agree 00:42:37.680 --> 00:42:38.640 on the principles. 00:42:38.640 --> 00:42:41.600 And the principles are that these things are either good or they're 00:42:41.600 --> 00:42:45.040 evil. And until we can settle on that, there are no subtleties 00:42:45.040 --> 00:42:47.360 to be discussed under any circumstances. 00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:50.160 Cause as soon as you start wrestling with that pig, the pig 00:42:50.160 --> 00:42:53.440 is happy and you get covered in mud and Satan loves it. 00:42:53.440 --> 00:42:55.280 He's sitting on the sidelines and cheering. 00:42:55.280 --> 00:42:57.760 Cause you're working your butt off, trying to be a good Christian 00:42:57.840 --> 00:43:00.880 in the fight, and all you're doing is making things worse for 00:43:00.880 --> 00:43:02.080 everyone who's observing. 00:43:02.560 --> 00:43:07.200 And I I think that as Christians, we have to think all 00:43:07.200 --> 00:43:08.960 of these worldly things through. 00:43:08.960 --> 00:43:12.080 It's not enough just to think about your faith anymore. 00:43:12.080 --> 00:43:15.520 You can't just think about justification and think, all right, I'm done 00:43:15.520 --> 00:43:16.960 being Christian for the day. 00:43:16.960 --> 00:43:20.160 You need to think about the world, about all the things that 00:43:20.160 --> 00:43:25.200 happen in creation and how they apply to the Christian life and 00:43:25.200 --> 00:43:27.120 how they apply to God's word. 00:43:27.120 --> 00:43:30.080 Because God has something to say about all of these things, all 00:43:30.080 --> 00:43:30.800 of them. 00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:32.800 God tells us how He created us. 00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:34.880 He gave us a roadmap for how He created us. 00:43:34.880 --> 00:43:37.440 And Corey, as you mentioned, Satan gave us a roadmap for how 00:43:37.440 --> 00:43:39.040 he's trying to destroy it. 00:43:39.040 --> 00:43:41.520 And we just laughed and pointed and said, Look how silly that 00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:43.120 is. No one believes that. 00:43:43.120 --> 00:43:45.760 And Satan was like, wow, that was a close one. 00:43:45.760 --> 00:43:49.200 Meanwhile, he's already on point five or six of his ten point 00:43:49.520 --> 00:43:52.480 plan. But no, clearly he's not accomplishing anything. 00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:56.960 He's only been one after the other with basically no opposition. 00:43:57.120 --> 00:43:59.600 And the reason, you know, we like I've said we we we 00:43:59.600 --> 00:44:01.840 mentioned race very frequently. 00:44:01.840 --> 00:44:05.600 Race is one of the principal ways that Corey and I have 00:44:05.600 --> 00:44:10.000 been able to speak to non-believers on the right because there is 00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:14.720 a discussion around how God made us and it's largely taking place 00:44:14.720 --> 00:44:18.160 among people who don't believe in God, which is a nightmare. 00:44:18.160 --> 00:44:23.520 Because while they can discern the truth from creation, they can discern 00:44:23.600 --> 00:44:28.480 measurable truth, they can discern things that can be correlated that can 00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:32.160 be observed, they don't have any frame of reference for where it 00:44:32.160 --> 00:44:33.200 came from. 00:44:33.200 --> 00:44:37.440 And the lack of God in those conversations will take them to 00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:39.520 dark places that we condemn. 00:44:39.520 --> 00:44:43.200 And so while others are afraid to speak about those subjects or 00:44:43.200 --> 00:44:46.640 to speak to those people, the reason that we have found it 00:44:46.640 --> 00:44:50.000 vital to do so and to gain expertise on the matter is 00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:53.600 specifically because that's where Satan's taking the battle and it's where he's 00:44:53.520 --> 00:44:55.280 been for a while. 00:44:55.280 --> 00:44:59.280 And there's a fight to be had there that's a vital fight 00:44:59.280 --> 00:45:01.600 to the Christian faith. 00:45:01.600 --> 00:45:06.960 And if you as a Christian are talking to someone who's an 00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:13.040 unbeliever who's you know they're very conservative, they're concerned about societal decay, 00:45:13.040 --> 00:45:18.800 they're concerned about violence in bad neighborhoods, they're concerned about the performance 00:45:18.800 --> 00:45:24.160 of groups of people in schools, all of these problems have explanations 00:45:24.160 --> 00:45:28.320 that in many cases they have access to that you don't, because 00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:32.240 as soon as they say, Hey, it seems like all the African 00:45:32.240 --> 00:45:36.880 American kids are scoring over a standard deviation lower than the white 00:45:36.880 --> 00:45:39.600 kids, you say that's disparity. 00:45:39.600 --> 00:45:42.880 That's caused by socioeconomic differences. 00:45:42.880 --> 00:45:45.680 When the other person knows for a fact that that's not true, 00:45:45.680 --> 00:45:49.120 you've lied and you've last lost credibility. 00:45:49.120 --> 00:45:52.960 And like I've said repeatedly, Satan is the father of every single 00:45:52.960 --> 00:45:59.040 lie. And the unbeliever who hears you telling lies that are leftist 00:45:59.040 --> 00:46:01.040 lies, they know that they're not true. 00:46:01.040 --> 00:46:04.960 They don't know Jesus, but they know they know test scores and 00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:08.640 they know crime statistics and they know how to parse those out 00:46:08.640 --> 00:46:12.320 in such a way to arrive at unassailable conclusions. 00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:14.240 If you lie to them and you say, Well, no, that's not 00:46:14.640 --> 00:46:17.360 what's really going on, all people are exactly alike. 00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:18.240 That's how God made us. 00:46:18.240 --> 00:46:22.880 He made us all exactly alike in this life, we're all unidentified, 00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:27.760 fungible, interchangeable creatures who could you could drop one person anywhere on 00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:31.200 the planet, they're gonna be exactly the same as any other person. 00:46:31.200 --> 00:46:34.320 When you tell that lie to someone who knows better, you have 00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:36.400 closed the door on ever sharing your faith. 00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:39.120 Because you've proven yourself a liar about the very God that you 00:46:39.120 --> 00:46:40.640 claim to proclaim. 00:46:40.640 --> 00:46:44.240 They know that he if if there is a true God who's 00:46:44.240 --> 00:46:47.440 created things, that this is the creation that God made. 00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:50.160 Or maybe those things are the result of the fall, which they 00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:51.920 wouldn't know because they don't know about the fall. 00:46:52.240 --> 00:46:55.360 You should know about the fall and how it correlates with these 00:46:55.360 --> 00:46:58.640 facts on the ground and where the fall is in play and 00:46:58.640 --> 00:47:01.040 where God's created order is in play. 00:47:01.040 --> 00:47:05.440 And we do a lot of in-depth episodes on those things specifically 00:47:05.440 --> 00:47:09.440 to equip the Christian to speak truthfully when otherwise there's a very 00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:11.520 good chance that you would lie inadvertently. 00:47:11.520 --> 00:47:15.600 Like it's it's not a lie that you intend to deceive, is 00:47:15.600 --> 00:47:18.640 that you never looked at the genealogy of where your talking points 00:47:18.640 --> 00:47:19.440 came from. 00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:21.520 You thought, well, this is just how Christians talk. 00:47:21.520 --> 00:47:23.200 I know that X, Y, and Z. 00:47:23.200 --> 00:47:26.400 When someone who's an unbeliever who knows more than you about the 00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:29.280 world says, no, well, X, Y, and Z are not actually true. 00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:30.880 I know this to be a fact. 00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:34.560 If you argue with them, you've lost the chance to have any 00:47:34.560 --> 00:47:36.320 credibility about any truth. 00:47:36.320 --> 00:47:39.760 And the most important truth that that person can ever hear about 00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:43.200 their salvation, they'll be deaf to you saying it because why would 00:47:43.200 --> 00:47:46.160 they believe you have something big when you're gonna lie about something 00:47:46.160 --> 00:47:49.520 as small as test scores? 00:47:49.520 --> 00:47:54.000 And even if there is no intent to deceive, you are still 00:47:54.000 --> 00:47:57.840 endangering your soul by holding to that lie. 00:47:57.840 --> 00:48:02.640 It may not be that lie itself that will endanger your soul. 00:48:02.640 --> 00:48:07.600 You could potentially hold a small lie your entire life right up 00:48:07.600 --> 00:48:10.480 to your death, and be fine. 00:48:10.480 --> 00:48:12.480 Would you have been better off believing the truth? 00:48:12.480 --> 00:48:17.120 Yes. Can you believe certain lies without damning yourself? 00:48:17.120 --> 00:48:18.480 Of course. 00:48:18.480 --> 00:48:22.000 But if you believe a lie, it's never one lie. 00:48:23.200 --> 00:48:27.200 Because you have to defend that lie in order to continue to 00:48:27.200 --> 00:48:31.280 hold it in the face of countervailing information. 00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:35.200 And so you will tell yourself another lie, or someone else will 00:48:35.200 --> 00:48:38.400 tell you a lie, and you'll believe that one, and another lie, 00:48:38.400 --> 00:48:43.840 and another lie, and over time, these add up, you will eventually 00:48:43.840 --> 00:48:47.440 get to something that touches on some part of the faith more 00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:50.400 directly, and you will have to choose. 00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:53.840 Are you going to continue to believe this entire house of cards, 00:48:53.840 --> 00:48:56.880 all these lies you've built up over the years, or are you 00:48:56.880 --> 00:49:02.480 going to let that collapse and up And uphold the Christian truth, 00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:06.880 many people will choose to compromise on the truth. 00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:09.520 Because it is easier to compromise on the truth. 00:49:09.520 --> 00:49:14.000 It's easier to say, well, the six-day creation wasn't literal. 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:15.040 It was Was 00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:19.760 eras or ages or an indefinite period of time. 00:49:19.760 --> 00:49:21.680 There were gaps between the days. 00:49:21.680 --> 00:49:24.480 God was active for a while, then he took a nap. 00:49:24.480 --> 00:49:26.320 It's easier to do that 00:49:27.440 --> 00:49:30.160 than to let the entire house of cards collapse because your entire 00:49:30.160 --> 00:49:33.920 worldview I don't mind the term as much, but your entire worldview 00:49:33.920 --> 00:49:39.200 has now turned into dust because you built it on one lie, 00:49:39.200 --> 00:49:43.280 and you had to tell all the other lies to support it. 00:49:43.280 --> 00:49:48.240 And so when it comes to race, the reason Satan loves it 00:49:48.240 --> 00:49:52.080 so much, loves the issue of race, he hates race, because he 00:49:52.080 --> 00:49:56.240 hates everything about creation, everything about humanity particularly. 00:49:56.240 --> 00:50:01.360 But the reason that he loves the issue is because he gets 00:50:01.360 --> 00:50:03.360 both sides with it. 00:50:03.360 --> 00:50:09.120 He gets those on the largely political right who recognize that biological 00:50:09.120 --> 00:50:10.640 race is real. 00:50:10.640 --> 00:50:14.400 And he gets them because many of them do not believe they 00:50:14.400 --> 00:50:15.440 aren't Christians. 00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:19.840 But they'll talk to Christians, and then Christians will deny race, and 00:50:19.840 --> 00:50:22.480 so these people who know that race is real, who know the 00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:27.600 truth now think that Christianity is a lie, because Christians keep lying 00:50:27.600 --> 00:50:28.720 to them. 00:50:28.720 --> 00:50:33.520 Well, as I just mentioned, the other side is Satan gets Christians, 00:50:33.520 --> 00:50:36.960 because Christians are supporting a lie and building their worldview on a 00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:41.360 lie. So he gets you as a Christian, and he gets those 00:50:41.360 --> 00:50:44.960 who could have been Christians if you had believed the truth. 00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:48.480 And that is why Satan loves the issue of race and loves 00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:53.360 that modern Christians fall all over themselves to support what the world 00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:56.880 says about it, to support lies, to support what Satan says about 00:50:56.880 --> 00:50:57.600 this issue. 00:50:57.920 --> 00:51:02.080 instead of what Scripture says about the issue, and what reality, what 00:51:02.080 --> 00:51:06.640 biology says about the issue, because God has two books one of 00:51:06.640 --> 00:51:09.520 them is the Bible, one of them is creation. 00:51:09.520 --> 00:51:11.200 God is the author of both. 00:51:11.200 --> 00:51:14.800 Both of them are true. 00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:19.840 I never would have cared about race until I saw the attacks 00:51:19.840 --> 00:51:24.400 that were occurring in the world and the direction of those attacks. 00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:27.040 It was it's just never been a part of my life. 00:51:27.040 --> 00:51:28.240 It's never been interesting. 00:51:28.240 --> 00:51:29.280 I've observed things. 00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:33.200 I've I've had observations and I've had opinions, but it never seemed 00:51:33.200 --> 00:51:36.480 important to me because I was I I fell into the the 00:51:36.480 --> 00:51:39.760 lulled false sense of security that I can just ignore something 00:51:40.640 --> 00:51:42.720 and everything's honky dory. 00:51:42.720 --> 00:51:45.360 And that usually works when there's no attack. 00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:49.040 But when the storm comes, if you haven't battened down all the 00:51:49.040 --> 00:51:53.280 hatches. If you haven't put the storm shutters on all the windows, 00:51:53.280 --> 00:51:56.640 when the wind starts howling and the branches start flying off the 00:51:56.640 --> 00:51:59.920 trees, they're gonna punch through those windows and you're gonna have glass 00:51:59.920 --> 00:52:02.800 everywhere and you're gonna have water everywhere and it's going to be 00:52:02.800 --> 00:52:06.000 a terrible mess because you didn't plug one of the holes in 00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:07.520 your defenses. 00:52:07.520 --> 00:52:08.080 And so 00:52:09.200 --> 00:52:13.040 it's important to look at these subjects and to be knowledgeable about 00:52:13.040 --> 00:52:16.640 them to the point that you can at least not lie to 00:52:16.640 --> 00:52:17.760 someone else. 00:52:17.760 --> 00:52:22.400 And ideally that you would know enough to be able to amount 00:52:22.400 --> 00:52:24.160 a simple defense. 00:52:24.160 --> 00:52:26.880 Even just you know for a a a minute or two in 00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:27.920 a conversation. 00:52:28.080 --> 00:52:30.000 It's why we talked a little bit about in one of the 00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:31.360 recent episodes about evolution 00:52:32.320 --> 00:52:35.360 and or not about evolution per se, but about the creation of 00:52:35.360 --> 00:52:41.040 the universe and how God created the six day universe and how 00:52:41.040 --> 00:52:44.400 scientists have now simulated some of those things. 00:52:44.400 --> 00:52:49.200 I made clear that we're not trying to say science justifies faith, 00:52:49.200 --> 00:52:52.640 but the point that the unbeliever who would point to that article 00:52:52.640 --> 00:52:55.840 and maybe come taunt you with and say, look, where's your God 00:52:56.000 --> 00:52:56.960 in this? 00:52:56.960 --> 00:53:00.240 If you know about the science enough that you can point to 00:53:00.240 --> 00:53:03.840 Genesis and say, well, I'm glad you found that article. 00:53:03.840 --> 00:53:05.360 Here's my version of that article. 00:53:05.360 --> 00:53:07.040 I've known this since I was a little kid. 00:53:07.040 --> 00:53:09.520 It's nice to see the scientists catching up. 00:53:09.520 --> 00:53:12.960 That's how the truth works, and that's how God works in the 00:53:12.960 --> 00:53:17.840 Christian life by revealing truth through scripture and through reason. 00:53:17.840 --> 00:53:23.360 Both avenues are accessible ways of reaching truth. 00:53:23.360 --> 00:53:28.480 Reason can apprehend truth on its own, not that truth which saves. 00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:32.800 That is contained only in scripture, which is precisely why a vital 00:53:32.800 --> 00:53:36.800 part of the Christian life must be precisely this, must be making 00:53:36.800 --> 00:53:40.880 sure that the problem that you're solving when you're talking to someone 00:53:41.200 --> 00:53:45.120 is that you're being truthful and that you're paving the road in 00:53:45.120 --> 00:53:49.120 such a way that maybe that conversation won't take you there, but 00:53:49.120 --> 00:53:50.480 it's going to be a brick in the road. 00:53:50.480 --> 00:53:54.320 So then a future conversation, you will have built up credibility and 00:53:54.320 --> 00:53:57.920 you will have been building a road towards God by saying things 00:53:57.920 --> 00:54:02.000 that are truthful and things that are scriptural in ways that are 00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:05.600 consistent with what the person knows, so that you become a more 00:54:05.600 --> 00:54:09.520 and more trusted source of truth to them because you know things 00:54:09.520 --> 00:54:13.840 that they don't from a perspective they don't share share and they 00:54:13.840 --> 00:54:17.200 may never believe in Jesus, they may never believe in the cross 00:54:17.200 --> 00:54:21.040 and in their salvation, but you will never get the chance if 00:54:21.040 --> 00:54:25.120 you lie to them so many times that they're like, I just 00:54:25.120 --> 00:54:26.320 don't care what you have to say. 00:54:26.720 --> 00:54:29.920 And in many cases, the number of lies that it may take 00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:33.440 from you who claim to have a source of all truth before 00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:36.160 they will disregard your opinion, it may be one. 00:54:36.160 --> 00:54:39.200 It may be the one time that you say something worldly that's 00:54:39.680 --> 00:54:43.760 popular on MSNBC is the one time that they'd say, you know 00:54:43.760 --> 00:54:46.720 what, I'll still talk to this guy, he's my friend, but this 00:54:46.720 --> 00:54:49.360 Christianity stuff he's selling is a bunch of garbage. 00:54:49.360 --> 00:54:52.800 All the churches around me have rainbow flags, I know exactly what 00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:55.280 these guys are up to, and I know what it is that 00:54:55.280 --> 00:54:58.880 they're capable of defending, and it's not the sort of good and 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:01.600 evil that I know as an unbeliever. 00:55:01.600 --> 00:55:04.800 This is the frame that we need to bring in our own 00:55:04.800 --> 00:55:09.200 minds as we're tackling these problems, because God will ultimately give you 00:55:09.200 --> 00:55:13.120 the chance to share the good news of their salvation, but only 00:55:13.120 --> 00:55:16.480 if you can first tell them the good news of God's creation. 00:55:16.480 --> 00:55:19.680 And again, we're I'm not trying to say never talk about Jesus 00:55:19.680 --> 00:55:21.520 first. Every situation is different. 00:55:21.520 --> 00:55:23.040 Every conversation is different. 00:55:23.040 --> 00:55:25.840 There's no script, which is why we're not giving you a script 00:55:25.840 --> 00:55:28.880 here. I don't know what conversations you're gonna have, but I can 00:55:28.880 --> 00:55:32.080 tell you that if you've not thought things through in this way, 00:55:32.080 --> 00:55:35.840 you're not going to be equipped to have those conversations later on. 00:55:35.920 --> 00:55:39.200 We would love to give people a script, but that's just not 00:55:39.200 --> 00:55:40.560 how this works. 00:55:40.560 --> 00:55:43.760 You have to have a sort of general knowledge of a lot 00:55:43.760 --> 00:55:48.560 of different things in order to have these conversations because you're having 00:55:48.560 --> 00:55:49.760 a conversation. 00:55:49.760 --> 00:55:51.600 This is not a telemarketing call. 00:55:51.600 --> 00:55:52.400 That's not what you're doing. 00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:56.160 You're not cold calling people, you're dealing with another human being as 00:55:56.160 --> 00:56:01.840 an actual person, asking questions, answering questions, moving things forward in the 00:56:01.840 --> 00:56:05.360 discussion. Yes, you may very well have a goal in mind. 00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:08.800 You may be trying to get somewhere, but conversations evolve naturally, you 00:56:09.360 --> 00:56:13.520 just have to know how to conduct yourself in the conversation. 00:56:13.520 --> 00:56:17.040 And if you lie to people, one of the things they are 00:56:17.040 --> 00:56:20.560 going to think about you is that you are stupid. 00:56:20.560 --> 00:56:24.320 Because as mentioned, they are going to see these rainbow flags and 00:56:24.320 --> 00:56:28.000 they're going to think, well, he's just he doesn't pay attention. 00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:30.720 Or they'll think you don't really believe it. 00:56:30.720 --> 00:56:33.200 Or they'll think that you are lying. 00:56:33.200 --> 00:56:34.560 None of these options are good. 00:56:34.560 --> 00:56:40.560 You may very well destroy any opportunity of ever getting that person 00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:45.600 to truly listen to the gospel because you lied about something about 00:56:45.600 --> 00:56:48.000 which he knows the truth. 00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:50.960 And it is incumbent on you to speak the truth. 00:56:50.960 --> 00:56:52.880 You don't have to know everything. 00:56:52.880 --> 00:56:56.960 If you don't know, it is fine to say, I don't know, 00:56:56.960 --> 00:56:59.200 and then find someone who does. 00:56:59.200 --> 00:57:03.440 Because there are plenty of very intelligent Christians who are specialists in 00:57:03.440 --> 00:57:04.880 various different areas. 00:57:04.880 --> 00:57:06.320 The information is there. 00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:09.680 You can find it, you can get it for this person. 00:57:09.680 --> 00:57:13.360 It is better to say I don't know than to give a 00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:15.200 false answer. 00:57:15.600 --> 00:57:15.840 I'm 00:57:15.840 --> 00:57:18.800 glad you brought up scripts because I think that's a good swing 00:57:18.800 --> 00:57:21.280 to the second half of this conversation. 00:57:21.280 --> 00:57:26.880 Uh there's a recent debate that occurs I mentioned on Lutheran Twitter 00:57:27.040 --> 00:57:30.080 that had to do with the sacrament of the altar, with communion 00:57:30.160 --> 00:57:31.440 or Eucharist. 00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:33.040 The Eucharist. 00:57:33.040 --> 00:57:36.400 Now, we're not going to go through the entire discussion and we're 00:57:36.320 --> 00:57:40.560 not going to make the case for the full case for the 00:57:40.560 --> 00:57:41.840 proper view of the sacrament. 00:57:42.720 --> 00:57:46.080 What we're going to do is discuss this conversation as it played 00:57:46.080 --> 00:57:52.000 out online as an example of how the treatment of conversation as 00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:57.120 a series of scripted responses can do tremendous harm. 00:57:57.120 --> 00:58:03.280 Because again, when people are talking about points of doctrine and you're 00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:07.520 disagreeing about terms, the first question you need to ask is what 00:58:07.520 --> 00:58:12.240 problem are you trying to solve by disagreeing with the other person? 00:58:12.400 --> 00:58:15.200 Now I realize that there's a bit of irony in the two 00:58:15.200 --> 00:58:15.840 of us 00:58:16.800 --> 00:58:21.520 sort of bac backing away from the discussion of terms because has 00:58:21.600 --> 00:58:24.560 been such a prominent aspect of so many episodes. 00:58:24.560 --> 00:58:27.120 But I think that a careful 00:58:28.320 --> 00:58:30.000 problems. Yes. 00:58:30.240 --> 00:58:35.200 And we're we're we're focusing on terms specifically so that there isn't 00:58:35.120 --> 00:58:39.440 confusion sown by the misuse of that terms, those terms. 00:58:39.440 --> 00:58:43.200 So if you've listened to me talk about what a nation is 00:58:43.680 --> 00:58:46.400 When I say nation, you're never going to think I mean coun 00:58:46.640 --> 00:58:50.080 country. You're always going to think I mean race, if you've been 00:58:50.080 --> 00:58:51.200 paying attention. 00:58:51.200 --> 00:58:54.080 I'm very specific about the terms that I'm using. 00:58:54.080 --> 00:58:56.560 So even if you think that's terrible, even if you think I'm 00:58:56.560 --> 00:58:59.520 a a horrible or a stupid person, at least you know what 00:58:59.520 --> 00:59:00.560 I'm talking about. 00:59:00.560 --> 00:59:04.880 And you can properly cag categorize whatever it is I'm saying about 00:59:04.880 --> 00:59:07.280 nations at the moment. 00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:10.240 The problem that played out online, and again, this is not an 00:59:10.240 --> 00:59:10.960 online question. 00:59:11.760 --> 00:59:13.760 This is not about online drama. 00:59:13.760 --> 00:59:19.040 This is specifically about how a group of Lutherans who were generally 00:59:19.040 --> 00:59:23.040 aligned on the same type of beliefs ended up having a knockdown 00:59:23.120 --> 00:59:27.520 drag out fight over a single word that was taken out of 00:59:27.520 --> 00:59:32.160 context, was misused by people who on both sides didn't understand the 00:59:32.160 --> 00:59:35.600 word or how it was being used by either side, and it 00:59:35.600 --> 00:59:39.520 resulted in people having their faith undermined to the point that there 00:59:39.520 --> 00:59:44.160 are absolutely people who observe that conversation who will ultimately leave the 00:59:44.160 --> 00:59:48.480 Lutheran church because of how it played out. 00:59:48.560 --> 00:59:52.400 So this began with someone who's probably going to come up perhaps 00:59:52.400 --> 00:59:54.880 on his own episode at some point in the future, a guy 00:59:54.880 --> 00:59:56.320 named Jordan Cooper. 00:59:56.320 --> 01:00:00.960 He's he has the largest single presence online as a Lutheran talking 01:00:00.960 --> 01:00:04.800 head. He's got a YouTube channel with over 20,000 followers. 01:00:04.800 --> 01:00:06.880 He's got a bunch of people on Twitter, but he cares about 01:00:06.880 --> 01:00:09.840 YouTube because he makes some money there. 01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:15.120 He tweeted, apparently there's discourse on here about the Lutheran doctrine of 01:00:15.120 --> 01:00:20.800 communion. We do not believe in a physical presence or local presence. 01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:26.960 It's a real presence and a substantial presence, but a mysterious one. 01:00:26.960 --> 01:00:31.520 Now, in a recent episode where w where I was talking about, 01:00:31.520 --> 01:00:35.200 you know, the the Genesis narrative, you may have heard me over 01:00:35.200 --> 01:00:39.120 and over talk about real but not factual and I sort of 01:00:39.120 --> 01:00:43.040 iterated through things seemingly at random and it was deliberately at random 01:00:43.200 --> 01:00:47.760 because that's a very common thing that happens where people will say, 01:00:47.760 --> 01:00:52.000 Well, real doesn't mean true, and true doesn't mean factual, and factual 01:00:52.000 --> 01:00:53.760 doesn't mean actual. 01:00:53.760 --> 01:00:54.080 And 01:00:55.280 --> 01:01:00.000 that's the perfect opportunity for Satan to undermine faith. 01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:00.640 And so 01:01:01.520 --> 01:01:06.160 the reason that this discussion blew up was that in the sixteenth 01:01:06.080 --> 01:01:11.600 century, the very same f fight was being had among the Lutherans, 01:01:11.600 --> 01:01:14.880 the Reformed, and the Roman Catholics. 01:01:14.880 --> 01:01:19.600 The Roman Catholics had invented the doctrine of transubstantiation, which I mentioned 01:01:20.160 --> 01:01:25.040 in in an earlier episode, where they agreed with the reformed at 01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:26.560 the time. 01:01:26.560 --> 01:01:32.320 Either the bread and wine in communion is only bread and wine 01:01:32.640 --> 01:01:35.760 or it is only Christ's body and blood. 01:01:35.760 --> 01:01:37.840 Now scripture says both. 01:01:37.840 --> 01:01:40.720 In separate places it says one and it says the other. 01:01:40.720 --> 01:01:42.800 In some places it says both. 01:01:42.800 --> 01:01:49.280 But as a logical deduction, both the reformed and the Romanists agreed 01:01:49.280 --> 01:01:50.800 that it can only be one of them. 01:01:50.800 --> 01:01:53.680 If you have body, you don't have have bread, if you have 01:01:53.680 --> 01:01:56.000 bread, you don't have body, and the same with the blood and 01:01:56.000 --> 01:01:57.200 the wine. 01:01:57.440 --> 01:02:03.760 The Lutherans were caught in the middle of this highly technical, highly 01:02:03.760 --> 01:02:07.120 philosophical debate, and they 01:02:08.080 --> 01:02:13.520 necessarily engaged with it because this was not only a doctrinal problem, 01:02:13.520 --> 01:02:17.120 but it was a political problem because there were princes who were 01:02:17.120 --> 01:02:20.240 choosing one side or the other in these fights. 01:02:20.240 --> 01:02:25.040 And so they were basically demanding explanations for what's going on. 01:02:25.040 --> 01:02:28.480 The Pope says one thing, Calvin says another, what do you Lutherans 01:02:28.480 --> 01:02:30.320 say? We need to know the truth. 01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:35.120 And so for a period of fifty years, the Lutheran reformers and 01:02:35.120 --> 01:02:41.360 the fathers in the faith formulated repeated arguments getting deeper and deeper 01:02:41.360 --> 01:02:47.280 into the philosophical weeds to try to narrow down what the sacrament 01:02:47.280 --> 01:02:49.600 was and what it was not. 01:02:49.600 --> 01:02:56.720 And I think unfortunately, by doing so, they fundamentally ceded the frame 01:02:56.720 --> 01:03:03.920 to the rationalists who were using these philosophical presuppositions to impose 01:03:04.240 --> 01:03:08.720 rules on God, when as we've said before, this is a God 01:03:08.720 --> 01:03:11.440 who spoke the universe into existence. 01:03:11.440 --> 01:03:15.600 If Jesus says this is my body, that's declarative. 01:03:15.600 --> 01:03:18.000 That that's a statement of fact. 01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:21.600 Not because Jesus can't lie, but because when he says it, it 01:03:21.600 --> 01:03:23.040 becomes true. 01:03:23.040 --> 01:03:24.640 It's performative as well, exactly. 01:03:24.640 --> 01:03:26.480 That's what I was going to point out. 01:03:26.880 --> 01:03:27.680 It's both yes. 01:03:27.680 --> 01:03:28.160 It's both. 01:03:28.160 --> 01:03:30.480 Yeah. it's it's not descriptive. 01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:32.800 That that's the crucial distinction. 01:03:32.800 --> 01:03:34.480 Exactly. And again, yeah. 01:03:35.120 --> 01:03:37.680 Again, we again these things were like uh we use a lot 01:03:37.680 --> 01:03:39.600 of synonyms, do they mean the same thing? 01:03:39.600 --> 01:03:42.800 So Jordan back to the tweet says we don't believe in physical 01:03:42.800 --> 01:03:46.640 or local, we do believe in real and substantial. 01:03:46.640 --> 01:03:49.440 And so there was a reply from one of his followers who 01:03:49.440 --> 01:03:53.440 said getting a lot of pushback from your fellow Lutherans here as 01:03:53.440 --> 01:03:58.160 they insist that Christ is physically present, and several have told that 01:03:58.400 --> 01:04:00.960 when it says real, it means physical. 01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:04.560 And Jordan's reply was sorry, but they're wrong. 01:04:04.560 --> 01:04:07.600 Now, this is interesting for several reasons. 01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:12.000 we'll get into the rest, but a friend dug up one of 01:04:12.000 --> 01:04:16.000 Jordan's comments on YouTube four years ago where he says the exact 01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:18.880 opposite, and he says it in a good way. 01:04:18.880 --> 01:04:20.320 The fight that they were having 01:04:21.440 --> 01:04:25.600 uh again on one hand you have the romanists the pope who's 01:04:25.600 --> 01:04:28.800 saying this is christ's body and blood only 01:04:29.680 --> 01:04:32.880 the position of Rome is that the bread and wine are no 01:04:32.880 --> 01:04:35.840 longer there There's no bread and there's no wine anymore. 01:04:35.840 --> 01:04:36.880 It's not home. 01:04:36.880 --> 01:04:39.120 All you have is Jesus body and blood. 01:04:39.120 --> 01:04:41.920 We're scripture. 01:04:41.920 --> 01:04:42.720 Yes. Yes. 01:04:42.720 --> 01:04:45.840 Plus some philosophy to explain why you don't taste flesh. 01:04:45.840 --> 01:04:46.640 You taste flesh. 01:04:46.640 --> 01:04:46.960 Which is why 01:04:47.280 --> 01:04:49.440 Cooper said substantial. 01:04:49.440 --> 01:04:52.640 That is what well at least if he was actually thinking about 01:04:52.640 --> 01:04:54.800 it, he may have been to be charitable. 01:04:54.800 --> 01:04:56.960 That's what he was thinking of when he said substantial. 01:04:56.960 --> 01:04:59.120 He was thinking of the essence. 01:04:59.280 --> 01:04:59.440 Why 01:04:59.440 --> 01:05:00.400 don't you give the breakdown? 01:05:00.640 --> 01:05:01.440 give the substance. 01:05:01.600 --> 01:05:02.080 Yeah, I may 01:05:02.080 --> 01:05:05.840 as well give the the quick version. 01:05:05.840 --> 01:05:09.200 When it comes to the Eucharist, you can fall off one side 01:05:09.200 --> 01:05:10.000 or the other of the horse. 01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:12.400 It's like so many other issues in Christianity. 01:05:12.720 --> 01:05:16.400 The Romanists, the Papists fall off the right side of the horse. 01:05:16.400 --> 01:05:21.040 They say, Well, Christ says it's his body and his blood. 01:05:21.040 --> 01:05:22.960 So it's just his body and his blood. 01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:26.080 Of course they miss the part where he says, This bread is 01:05:26.080 --> 01:05:26.640 my body. 01:05:26.640 --> 01:05:27.680 So he actually does say two things. 01:05:28.240 --> 01:05:30.400 One, it's bread, two, it's his body. 01:05:30.400 --> 01:05:31.680 That's the Lutheran position. 01:05:31.680 --> 01:05:33.440 We don't fall off the horse. 01:05:33.440 --> 01:05:35.600 The Reformed fall off the other side of the horse. 01:05:35.600 --> 01:05:37.920 They say, Well, I see bread. 01:05:37.920 --> 01:05:38.960 I taste bread. 01:05:38.960 --> 01:05:43.040 I see wine, I taste wine, and so according to my reason 01:05:43.280 --> 01:05:47.760 it's bread and wine, and so when Christ says it's his body 01:05:47.760 --> 01:05:50.800 and blood, he must mean something else, and so then they launch 01:05:50.800 --> 01:05:54.400 into their arguments about what it actually is, or how it actually 01:05:54.400 --> 01:05:55.360 happens, etc. 01:05:55.360 --> 01:05:58.400 And that's where you get giant volumes on this full of terms 01:05:58.400 --> 01:06:00.240 that are alien to scripture. 01:06:00.240 --> 01:06:02.720 And so they fall off the left side of the horse. 01:06:02.720 --> 01:06:06.640 Lutherans, to reiterate, stay on the horse. 01:06:06.640 --> 01:06:10.720 Christ says, this bread, okay, it's bread, is my body, okay, it's 01:06:10.720 --> 01:06:11.840 his body. 01:06:11.840 --> 01:06:16.400 This cup, the wine, is my blood, okay, it's wine and blood. 01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:20.320 We just affirm what Christ said, and we're fine with it. 01:06:20.320 --> 01:06:22.240 That's enough, we're done. 01:06:22.240 --> 01:06:28.080 Now, the reason that the Romans came to their conclusion is that 01:06:28.080 --> 01:06:31.760 they mixed the words of God, Scripture, with Aristotle. 01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:34.480 I am not necessarily condemning all philosophy. 01:06:34.480 --> 01:06:38.320 Philosophy is useful, you can go overboard. 01:06:38.320 --> 01:06:39.600 And they did. 01:06:39.600 --> 01:06:43.200 So what they do is they take Aristotle, which the two terms 01:06:43.200 --> 01:06:46.960 you need to know here are essence and accident. 01:06:46.960 --> 01:06:49.600 The essence of a thing, which is what substance is, we're just 01:06:49.600 --> 01:06:52.960 dealing with Greek versus Latin essentially in different terms for the same 01:06:52.960 --> 01:06:58.720 things. The essence of a thing is what that thing is. 01:06:58.720 --> 01:07:00.560 I am male. 01:07:00.560 --> 01:07:01.920 I am a human. 01:07:01.920 --> 01:07:06.160 These are things related to my essence as a being. 01:07:06.160 --> 01:07:10.320 I happen to have a black shirt on. 01:07:10.320 --> 01:07:11.920 That is an accident. 01:07:11.920 --> 01:07:14.480 That is not something that is essential to me. 01:07:14.480 --> 01:07:16.960 I could have paint on myself or something. 01:07:16.960 --> 01:07:18.240 These are accidents. 01:07:18.240 --> 01:07:21.360 And so what the papists say 01:07:22.480 --> 01:07:28.400 is that the essence of bread and wine is removed by the 01:07:28.400 --> 01:07:34.000 words of institution, by the consecration, and that the essence of body 01:07:34.000 --> 01:07:38.640 of flesh and blood is what takes the place, but the accidents 01:07:38.640 --> 01:07:40.480 of bread and wine remain. 01:07:40.480 --> 01:07:43.440 And so it looks and tastes like bread and wine, but in 01:07:43.440 --> 01:07:45.200 essence, it is body and blood. 01:07:45.200 --> 01:07:48.560 Now, of course, you could wrangle over whether or not taste is 01:07:48.560 --> 01:07:52.000 part of the essence of bread and wine, and they have, trust 01:07:52.000 --> 01:07:55.280 me. But that is essentially how they came to their conclusion. 01:07:55.280 --> 01:07:59.360 So again, to the short summary is just Rome falls off the 01:07:59.360 --> 01:08:02.560 right side of the horse, the reformed fall off the left side 01:08:02.560 --> 01:08:04.720 of the horse and Lutherans stay on the horse and just say 01:08:04.800 --> 01:08:06.160 God said it, I believe 01:08:06.160 --> 01:08:07.920 it. 01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:11.440 But when Lutherans stayed on the right side of the horse, which 01:08:11.440 --> 01:08:15.120 I believe, which is on top of it, right in the middle, 01:08:15.120 --> 01:08:20.320 they engaged in lengthy debate in the terms of their opponents. 01:08:20.320 --> 01:08:23.680 So they got down in the mud and they argued these things 01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:25.360 in philosophical terms. 01:08:25.360 --> 01:08:28.640 Now, the reason the script was a good jumping-off point is that 01:08:28.640 --> 01:08:32.480 that's where the conversation online really went to hell. 01:08:32.480 --> 01:08:33.920 I mean that literally. 01:08:33.920 --> 01:08:37.040 I I can tell you one one of the well Yeah, well 01:08:37.280 --> 01:08:39.760 here's one of the follow-ups from someone else on that thread a 01:08:39.760 --> 01:08:40.960 few hours later. 01:08:40.960 --> 01:08:44.240 This entire thing is honestly shaken my faith today. 01:08:44.240 --> 01:08:47.360 I was always under the impression that we did affirm a physical 01:08:47.360 --> 01:08:50.800 presence. If we don't, I don't see a distinction between us and 01:08:50.800 --> 01:08:51.520 the reformed. 01:08:51.520 --> 01:08:53.840 I need to talk with my pastor about this. 01:08:53.840 --> 01:08:56.240 I'm terrified of receiving improperly. 01:08:56.240 --> 01:08:57.600 And he was right to do so. 01:08:57.600 --> 01:09:01.120 His faith was rightly underbined by this argument. 01:09:01.120 --> 01:09:05.680 Now, the reason that this argument was so contentious was that in 01:09:05.840 --> 01:09:09.440 the the response that Jordan had, rather than trying to comfort this 01:09:09.440 --> 01:09:14.240 soul who was terrif terrified and terrorized by this sort of scholastic 01:09:14.240 --> 01:09:19.040 wrangling, he said read the formula of Conquered Article Seven, which is 01:09:19.040 --> 01:09:23.680 very long, it's very detailed, it's very technical, it's all the very 01:09:23.680 --> 01:09:29.680 worst things about the Reformed and the Romanist position on these things. 01:09:29.680 --> 01:09:33.840 Now, it expresses the Lutheran position, but it doesn't do it in 01:09:33.840 --> 01:09:34.720 Lutheran terms. 01:09:34.720 --> 01:09:39.360 It does it in the opponent's terms in order to circumscribe our 01:09:39.360 --> 01:09:43.040 position in contradistinction to theirs. 01:09:43.040 --> 01:09:47.520 So to make clear, this was a sixteenth century 01:09:48.480 --> 01:09:54.880 argument taking place among extraordinarily learned men who were s far smarter 01:09:54.880 --> 01:09:58.320 than anyone involved in this modern debate, who had Who had far 01:09:58.320 --> 01:10:04.320 greater knowledge, far greater training and education than anyone who's saying read 01:10:04.320 --> 01:10:06.080 the formula of Concord. 01:10:06.080 --> 01:10:10.400 Now, this is not an argument against the formula of Concord. 01:10:10.400 --> 01:10:13.680 It's an argument for what problem are you trying to solve? 01:10:13.680 --> 01:10:19.440 Because no, the the people who were expressing doubt in this thread 01:10:19.440 --> 01:10:23.680 about whether physical means real, they were Lutherans. 01:10:23.680 --> 01:10:28.240 They were not papists who are saying, No, that's only that's transubstantiation. 01:10:28.240 --> 01:10:33.680 It's physical, it means blood and guts, minus this the accidents. 01:10:33.680 --> 01:10:36.960 It wasn't Reformed guys saying, No, there's no Jesus there. 01:10:37.200 --> 01:10:38.640 it's only spiritual. 01:10:38.640 --> 01:10:40.240 It was Lutherans. 01:10:40.240 --> 01:10:43.920 And see the problem that they were trying to solve should have 01:10:43.920 --> 01:10:48.480 been can I make sure that my Lutheran brothers are describing this 01:10:48.960 --> 01:10:52.720 the way that we understand it to be faithfully described. 01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:54.800 Nobody in the conversation did that. 01:10:54.800 --> 01:10:58.240 Nobody. Except for me and Corey and and uh one or two 01:10:58.240 --> 01:10:58.720 other people. 01:10:59.120 --> 01:11:01.760 I was still banned at the time, so I didn't participate. 01:11:02.320 --> 01:11:06.480 Yeah. Yeah, your God's New Year's present to Lutheran Twitter is that 01:11:06.480 --> 01:11:08.240 Cory was unbanned. 01:11:08.240 --> 01:11:10.560 So welcome back, Cotter. 01:11:11.120 --> 01:11:11.440 The 01:11:13.360 --> 01:11:17.920 the the terrible thing that happened in this fight was that Jordan 01:11:18.080 --> 01:11:20.080 and a number of other other people 01:11:20.960 --> 01:11:23.520 focused on the word physically. 01:11:23.520 --> 01:11:27.200 Now they did it not because they understood what the man meant 01:11:27.200 --> 01:11:31.920 when he said it because again his comment was is Christ physically 01:11:31.920 --> 01:11:37.760 present in the sacrament when a Lutheran asks that he's talking about 01:11:37.760 --> 01:11:42.240 the sacramental union and no point has any Lutheran in my life 01:11:42.240 --> 01:11:48.400 that I've ever talked to or heard talking believed in transubstantiation or 01:11:48.640 --> 01:11:50.880 that Jesus isn't really present. 01:11:50.880 --> 01:11:55.360 Every Lutheran, regardless of their education level that I've ever heard discuss 01:11:55.360 --> 01:12:01.520 this, whether they use the word or not, they effectively subscribed to 01:12:01.520 --> 01:12:03.760 the mystery of the Eucharist. 01:12:03.760 --> 01:12:07.120 And I I have to give credit again to the Eastern Orthodox. 01:12:07.120 --> 01:12:08.400 They just call it a mystery. 01:12:08.400 --> 01:12:10.960 They didn't get bogged down in this crap like we did in 01:12:10.960 --> 01:12:11.440 the West. 01:12:11.440 --> 01:12:14.320 And I think they were better for it in that one regard. 01:12:14.320 --> 01:12:18.320 They're terrible about anything everything else, but at least they didn't make 01:12:18.320 --> 01:12:21.360 the mistake of wrestling with these pigs. 01:12:21.360 --> 01:12:25.120 Because Because again, it's not that the formula of Concord is wrong. 01:12:25.120 --> 01:12:30.080 It's that when you take a 16th century technical treatise and you 01:12:30.080 --> 01:12:36.800 take physic philosophical terms from that treatise that we're not telling Lutherans, 01:12:36.800 --> 01:12:40.240 here is what we believe, they were telling the reformed, here's what 01:12:40.240 --> 01:12:41.600 is in error. 01:12:41.600 --> 01:12:44.000 That's a that's a crucial distinction. 01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:45.840 What problem were you trying to solve? 01:12:45.840 --> 01:12:48.080 They knew what problem they were trying to solve. 01:12:48.080 --> 01:12:50.080 They were trying to testify for once and for all 01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:55.680 time. Here is how our position differs from the Reformed and differs 01:12:55.680 --> 01:12:57.040 from the Romanists. 01:12:57.040 --> 01:13:00.000 They were not in the Formula of Concord, which was written in 01:13:00.240 --> 01:13:04.800 fifteen seventy seven, this is nearly fifty years after the initial confessions 01:13:04.800 --> 01:13:07.040 of what we believe about the Eucharist. 01:13:07.040 --> 01:13:12.400 Those initial confessions were sufficient for any Lutheran to understand what we're 01:13:12.320 --> 01:13:12.960 talking about. 01:13:13.680 --> 01:13:18.080 It was only once these philosophical fights dragged out for decades after 01:13:18.080 --> 01:13:22.240 Luther was dead that these other guys wrestled with the pig and 01:13:22.240 --> 01:13:23.840 wrote these things down. 01:13:23.840 --> 01:13:27.520 And so again, I I want to keep saying this because I 01:13:27.520 --> 01:13:32.720 was accused of numerous hilarious and terrible things, including that I didn't 01:13:32.640 --> 01:13:34.640 believe in the Book of Concord at all. 01:13:34.640 --> 01:13:41.040 Um I was also accused simultaneously of uh being a cannibal, uh, 01:13:41.040 --> 01:13:44.480 which is fascinating because that is not only the accusation that the 01:13:44.480 --> 01:13:48.720 Calvinists leveled against the Lutherans, but it's a com it's an accusation 01:13:48.720 --> 01:13:52.880 that was leveled in the first and second century by the Romans 01:13:52.880 --> 01:13:57.600 when they were murdering Christians, when when the first and second century 01:13:57.600 --> 01:14:02.800 Christians were testifying to what the sacrament was to them, and they 01:14:02.800 --> 01:14:06.640 said this is Jesus' body and blood, they were legally charged with 01:14:06.640 --> 01:14:09.920 cannibalism. And they were sentenced to death. 01:14:09.920 --> 01:14:13.200 And at any point, they could have said, no, we don't mean 01:14:13.200 --> 01:14:17.120 physically, we don't mean that it's actually really Jesus' body and blood 01:14:17.520 --> 01:14:18.800 in a real sense. 01:14:18.800 --> 01:14:20.960 It's just it's there in a spiritual sense. 01:14:20.960 --> 01:14:24.080 And let me explain how Jesus body is in heaven, but it's 01:14:24.080 --> 01:14:27.600 a spirit body, and so there's a spiritual mode of presence. 01:14:27.600 --> 01:14:29.200 They didn't say any of that. 01:14:29.680 --> 01:14:32.960 those explanations hadn't been invented yet. 01:14:32.960 --> 01:14:34.160 Well also to be clear, 01:14:34.160 --> 01:14:37.600 if they had done that, Romans would have been fine with that. 01:14:37.600 --> 01:14:39.600 That would have been just like any other Gnostic cult. 01:14:39.600 --> 01:14:41.200 They would have been totally fine with that. 01:14:41.200 --> 01:14:43.120 Oh, you're just doing weird Gnostic stuff. 01:14:43.120 --> 01:14:44.480 Great. Have fun. 01:14:44.480 --> 01:14:45.520 They didn't do that. 01:14:45.520 --> 01:14:48.960 That would have been a very natural explanation at the time in 01:14:48.960 --> 01:14:50.560 that context. 01:14:50.640 --> 01:14:52.240 Yeah, that's an excellent point. 01:14:52.240 --> 01:14:54.640 And yet there's no record of that ever happening. 01:14:54.880 --> 01:14:59.280 Those men, the men who were ripped to shreds by lions, yeah, 01:14:59.280 --> 01:15:02.400 we've heard about Christians being fed to lions. 01:15:02.400 --> 01:15:07.120 We don't get told why that happened, except that they were Christians. 01:15:07.120 --> 01:15:10.880 In some cases, they were literally fed to lions because they were 01:15:10.880 --> 01:15:14.000 accused of cannibalism and they would not deny it. 01:15:14.000 --> 01:15:17.200 Now it wasn't that they wouldn't deny it because they were cannibals. 01:15:17.200 --> 01:15:18.720 They were nothing of the sort. 01:15:18.720 --> 01:15:23.120 There is no Christian belief that we are gnawing on the toe 01:15:23.840 --> 01:15:25.760 or on the finger of Jesus. 01:15:25.760 --> 01:15:26.960 It is mysterious. 01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:30.640 We don't know how he's there, but we know that he's God. 01:15:30.640 --> 01:15:34.240 And when Jesus said this bread is my body, that's the end 01:15:34.240 --> 01:15:35.040 of the discussion. 01:15:35.360 --> 01:15:40.240 If you don't believe that, if you need other explanations, that is 01:15:40.240 --> 01:15:42.080 unbelief. That is sin. 01:15:42.480 --> 01:15:46.880 And he was holding physical bread with his physical body, worth noting. 01:15:46.880 --> 01:15:47.600 Yes. 01:15:47.600 --> 01:15:47.760 And 01:15:47.760 --> 01:15:50.320 he hadn't been crucified yet. 01:15:50.960 --> 01:15:53.600 This the the the thing that one of the one of the 01:15:53.600 --> 01:15:56.960 ways that our reason breaks down when we discuss God's action in 01:15:56.960 --> 01:16:00.640 the creation is that God is not bound by time. 01:16:00.640 --> 01:16:04.800 So when Jesus on Thursday night held up the bread and said, 01:16:04.800 --> 01:16:08.320 This is my body, referring to the body that was sacrificed on 01:16:08.320 --> 01:16:13.680 the cross the following afternoon, he wasn't saying something he he wasn't 01:16:13.680 --> 01:16:16.000 making a forward forward looking statement. 01:16:16.000 --> 01:16:19.360 He wasn't something saying something that would be true the next time 01:16:19.360 --> 01:16:22.960 they had communion, because it would be after Jesus was sacrificed on 01:16:22.960 --> 01:16:23.680 the cross. 01:16:23.680 --> 01:16:28.160 He was saying something that was true because the propitiating sacrifice of 01:16:28.160 --> 01:16:33.120 Christ's body and blood, physical body and blood, real blood and guts 01:16:33.280 --> 01:16:37.600 on the cross, that happened one time for all sins in every 01:16:37.600 --> 01:16:41.760 direction. And we receive that by faith, and we receive it in 01:16:41.760 --> 01:16:46.880 the sacrament, and we also receive it in baptism because God pours 01:16:46.880 --> 01:16:50.160 out his blessings on us because he knows that we need the 01:16:50.160 --> 01:16:55.760 reassurance. And so for these men to take what was intended to 01:16:55.760 --> 01:17:00.640 be reassurance and turned it into something that undermined faith is the 01:17:00.640 --> 01:17:03.760 most wicked and evil thing that you can possibly do in Christian 01:17:03.760 --> 01:17:07.600 discourse. So if any of these guys had asked at any point, 01:17:07.600 --> 01:17:12.080 what problem am I trying to solve by arguing with the man 01:17:12.320 --> 01:17:16.400 who is saying physical presence, they would have known better. 01:17:16.640 --> 01:17:19.120 they wouldn't have done it because they would have understood 01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:21.840 that I'm talking to a Lutheran. 01:17:21.840 --> 01:17:24.160 I I'm not confused about what he believes. 01:17:24.160 --> 01:17:30.880 Maybe it's worth clarifying when physical means toenails and when physical means 01:17:30.880 --> 01:17:34.320 real but mysterious and we don't understand. 01:17:34.320 --> 01:17:39.920 I affirm the physical presence of Christ's body and blood because I 01:17:39.920 --> 01:17:41.760 affirm the mystery. 01:17:41.760 --> 01:17:43.920 I don't affirm transubstantiation. 01:17:44.320 --> 01:17:49.280 I don't affirm solely a spiritual mode by which I ascend to 01:17:49.280 --> 01:17:54.160 heaven where Christ's spiritual body body comes down to earth. 01:17:54.160 --> 01:17:56.880 I affirm that it's truly his body and blood. 01:17:56.880 --> 01:17:58.160 Because that's what he said. 01:17:58.160 --> 01:18:01.040 And I don't need any further explanation. 01:18:01.040 --> 01:18:04.240 And if the conversation had been left at that, we would have 01:18:04.240 --> 01:18:05.600 been fine, but it wasn't. 01:18:05.600 --> 01:18:07.360 And everyone is worse for 01:18:07.360 --> 01:18:08.000 it. 01:18:08.320 --> 01:18:12.400 It's also worth mentioning just how ridiculous the entirety of it was, 01:18:12.400 --> 01:18:18.240 because the word physical doesn't actually appear in either article under discussion. 01:18:18.240 --> 01:18:23.440 Because of course he directed people to article seven, which is the 01:18:23.440 --> 01:18:26.320 article on the Lord's this is in the epitome, incidentally, it's worth 01:18:26.320 --> 01:18:26.800 mentioning that. 01:18:26.800 --> 01:18:29.040 There's the epitome and the solid declaration. 01:18:29.040 --> 01:18:31.200 Article seven is the Lord's Supper. 01:18:31.200 --> 01:18:34.960 The word physical doesn't appear anywhere in that article. 01:18:34.960 --> 01:18:38.000 And I just checked in the reader's edition as well, it's also 01:18:38.000 --> 01:18:39.520 not in there. 01:18:39.520 --> 01:18:46.640 The word physical appears once in Article eight, which is on 01:18:46.720 --> 01:18:49.520 the nature, the person of Christ. 01:18:49.520 --> 01:18:54.720 Now it appears twice in the reader's edition because they translate one 01:18:54.720 --> 01:18:57.440 word differently is physically, but it's a it's a different issue, so 01:18:57.440 --> 01:18:58.400 it's not related. 01:18:58.400 --> 01:19:01.520 The one that is translated physical is 01:19:02.640 --> 01:19:08.400 in brackets to give people context to help them understand what is 01:19:08.400 --> 01:19:12.400 meant, and then it is also said Copernitic, which is exactly what 01:19:12.400 --> 01:19:13.120 you were just saying. 01:19:13.120 --> 01:19:16.560 We're not saying that you're chewing on Jesus' toe. 01:19:16.560 --> 01:19:18.880 That's all that's condemned there. 01:19:18.880 --> 01:19:22.800 And again, not the word physical, because the word that is actually 01:19:22.800 --> 01:19:27.680 used, as I've mentioned elsewhere, is Idisch in German, which does not 01:19:27.680 --> 01:19:29.200 mean physical. 01:19:29.200 --> 01:19:31.920 Physical is Kerpelish, a different word. 01:19:32.480 --> 01:19:36.800 Iddish means earthly or mundane. 01:19:36.800 --> 01:19:37.920 That's all we're saying. 01:19:37.920 --> 01:19:39.760 We're saying you're not chewing on his toe. 01:19:39.760 --> 01:19:42.160 It's a polemic against the reformed. 01:19:42.160 --> 01:19:46.240 And so not only does the word not appear in the actual 01:19:46.240 --> 01:19:51.200 text, the argument they were having is not at all what is 01:19:51.200 --> 01:19:55.200 addressed by the article, because it is a polemic against the Reformed, 01:19:55.200 --> 01:19:58.000 and they're basically adopting the Reformed argument. 01:19:58.000 --> 01:20:01.360 So the entirety of it was harmful to me to faith and 01:20:01.360 --> 01:20:05.040 had by men who didn't even understand the terms being used in 01:20:05.040 --> 01:20:06.640 German or Latin. 01:20:06.640 --> 01:20:10.640 They tenuously perhaps understood them in English and got them wrong. 01:20:11.040 --> 01:20:11.200 And 01:20:11.200 --> 01:20:14.080 it was done for the worst possible motives because it wasn't done 01:20:14.080 --> 01:20:16.080 to try to clarify Yeah. 01:20:16.320 --> 01:20:19.200 It was about what it was was that a man said the 01:20:19.200 --> 01:20:23.600 word physically and that set off all the alarms at Lutheran headquarters. 01:20:23.760 --> 01:20:26.480 Like, well, physically, that sounds like that might be one of these 01:20:26.480 --> 01:20:27.520 number of errors. 01:20:27.520 --> 01:20:31.200 We have to fight this error without any regard for either the 01:20:31.200 --> 01:20:34.720 man who is speaking or anyone who is observing. 01:20:34.720 --> 01:20:38.640 Now you mentioned Capernaic, which is a word that got thrown around 01:20:38.640 --> 01:20:41.680 around a whole bunch by guys, which I found hilarious because the 01:20:41.680 --> 01:20:43.200 word basically doesn't exist. 01:20:43.520 --> 01:20:45.600 Yes. I I looked in Google Google books. 01:20:46.480 --> 01:20:51.920 The word refers to the Jews from Capernaum in John six fifty-two, 01:20:51.920 --> 01:20:55.200 who were arguing with Jesus, how can this man give us his 01:20:55.200 --> 01:20:56.400 flesh to eat? 01:20:56.400 --> 01:21:02.160 So Capernaatic is a term of art specific to this very argument. 01:21:02.160 --> 01:21:03.600 It doesn't exist anywhere else. 01:21:03.840 --> 01:21:07.520 it's it's the most technical term I I think I've probably ever 01:21:07.520 --> 01:21:10.880 heard. Like it comes from one verse, it deals with one dispute, 01:21:10.880 --> 01:21:13.680 and it exists nowhere else in the English language. 01:21:13.680 --> 01:21:16.640 I did a search on Google broke Google Books. 01:21:16.880 --> 01:21:18.960 it it's effectively never used. 01:21:18.960 --> 01:21:22.560 It's like five zeros before you get past where you will find 01:21:22.560 --> 01:21:25.760 a numeral for the frequency of the use of the word. 01:21:26.240 --> 01:21:30.000 It's such a technical term that for a bunch of guys on 01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:35.280 Twitter to be throwing it around pretending that they're clarifying, it would 01:21:35.280 --> 01:21:38.560 be laughable if not for the fact that it was so destructive. 01:21:38.560 --> 01:21:42.320 And it was destructive because I don't disagree with I I think 01:21:42.320 --> 01:21:45.840 what came out of this, I think 80% of them were fighting 01:21:46.640 --> 01:21:50.000 the wrong fight for a silly reason. 01:21:50.000 --> 01:21:52.560 I I think that they were just mad that someone said physical 01:21:52.640 --> 01:21:54.640 and they said, well that sounds like it might be heresy. 01:21:54.640 --> 01:21:56.640 I'm gonna get really mad on the internet. 01:21:56.640 --> 01:22:00.080 I think the other twenty percent it came out actually are reformed 01:22:00.320 --> 01:22:04.480 because the the number of people who made z explicitly Zwinglian Calvinistic 01:22:04.480 --> 01:22:07.840 arguments against me and against other Lutherans. 01:22:07.840 --> 01:22:12.720 Again, I I have never held any anything other than the mysterious 01:22:12.720 --> 01:22:17.280 bodily presence that I can't understand or explain beyond its true. 01:22:17.680 --> 01:22:20.880 Now I'm not using true as a as a weasel word. 01:22:20.880 --> 01:22:24.080 I'm saying I don't how is anything truer than the word of 01:22:24.080 --> 01:22:27.920 God? There's no truer true than when truth speaks truth. 01:22:27.920 --> 01:22:30.160 So I let that rest. 01:22:30.160 --> 01:22:34.320 But But people came out of the woodwork, including some people who 01:22:34.320 --> 01:22:38.960 had been friends, called me a demon and a wolf because I 01:22:38.960 --> 01:22:40.400 said physically. 01:22:40.400 --> 01:22:43.040 And again, as you said, like the words not even in the 01:22:43.040 --> 01:22:45.760 book of Concord, except in error irrelevant places. 01:22:45.760 --> 01:22:49.040 And they were using Capernaatic as though it meant anything to them. 01:22:49.040 --> 01:22:52.560 All of this was a fight about a word that nobody understood. 01:22:52.560 --> 01:22:55.440 And if they had asked themselves what question what problem am I 01:22:55.680 --> 01:22:58.720 trying to solve, the fight never would have happened in the first 01:22:58.720 --> 01:23:01.280 place. If Jordan had any sense, he could have linked to the 01:23:01.280 --> 01:23:04.160 video four years ago where he did clearly explain this in a 01:23:04.160 --> 01:23:05.680 way that was defensible. 01:23:05.680 --> 01:23:10.080 His explanation this time was not only indefensible, but it was fundamentally 01:23:10.080 --> 01:23:14.000 subversive because it destroyed faith in real time. 01:23:14.160 --> 01:23:16.240 It's not the first time that he's done this. 01:23:16.240 --> 01:23:20.720 Jordan has mentioned repeatedly on his streams that he had that he 01:23:20.720 --> 01:23:24.240 has lost track of the number of men who have reached out 01:23:24.240 --> 01:23:28.720 to him and said because of your videos I became Roman Catholic. 01:23:28.720 --> 01:23:31.040 This is a man who claims to be Lutheran, who claims to 01:23:31.040 --> 01:23:32.560 be making Lutheran videos. 01:23:32.560 --> 01:23:36.240 When people hear him talk, they become papists. 01:23:36.240 --> 01:23:39.200 Some of them go east, some of them become Roman uh Eastern 01:23:39.200 --> 01:23:43.600 Orthodox. I have talked to a lot of people and I've made 01:23:43.600 --> 01:23:45.040 many of them angry. 01:23:45.040 --> 01:23:48.400 I've never convinced anyone to become a papist because I argued the 01:23:48.400 --> 01:23:50.560 Lutheran position for anything. 01:23:50.560 --> 01:23:54.640 So when we express a concern for the clarity of speech and 01:23:54.640 --> 01:23:58.320 the clarity of descriptors, it's for this reason. 01:23:58.320 --> 01:24:01.360 When a man can talk for an hour and the end result 01:24:01.360 --> 01:24:04.800 is that people are more confused than when he began, that man 01:24:04.800 --> 01:24:06.560 shouldn't be speaking at all. 01:24:06.560 --> 01:24:08.400 And that's what we had here. 01:24:08.400 --> 01:24:11.280 And again, some some of the people who are arguing against us, 01:24:11.280 --> 01:24:15.120 I think actually don't believe in the the sacramental union. 01:24:15.120 --> 01:24:17.600 They don't believe that it is Christ's body and blood. 01:24:17.600 --> 01:24:22.560 They had to resort to so many terms that pushed God his 01:24:22.720 --> 01:24:23.920 body can't be here. 01:24:23.920 --> 01:24:25.120 His body's somewhere else. 01:24:25.120 --> 01:24:26.400 Jesus not here. 01:24:26.960 --> 01:24:29.760 And the fact that they called us cannibals just like happened in 01:24:29.760 --> 01:24:34.080 the 1600s and just like happened in the first century, like I'm 01:24:34.080 --> 01:24:34.960 not insulted. 01:24:34.960 --> 01:24:37.520 Like it's it's it would be laughable again if it weren't so 01:24:37.520 --> 01:24:39.840 tragic and if it weren't so blasphemous. 01:24:39.840 --> 01:24:44.640 They're blaspheming the body and blood of Christ, which is truly present 01:24:44.880 --> 01:24:49.120 when they call a Lutheran who receives the sacrament a cannibal for 01:24:49.120 --> 01:24:50.800 believing what Christ says. 01:24:50.800 --> 01:24:52.480 That is a horrible thing. 01:24:52.480 --> 01:24:55.680 And although a couple men spoke up and said that their consciences 01:24:55.680 --> 01:24:58.960 were burdened, many thousands of people saw that. 01:24:58.960 --> 01:25:02.800 And the ones who weren't Lutheran went away thinking who knows what 01:25:02.800 --> 01:25:05.440 they thought, but they certainly didn't think Lutherans had her act together. 01:25:05.680 --> 01:25:08.480 They did either they think that we're reformed or they think that 01:25:08.480 --> 01:25:10.800 we're just jerks and we're incoherent. 01:25:10.800 --> 01:25:14.000 And uh the Lutherans who read it, some of them will cease 01:25:14.000 --> 01:25:16.640 to be Lutheran as is Corey, as you said, not because of 01:25:16.640 --> 01:25:18.000 that one thing. 01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:22.160 What happens the way Satan takes advantage of error, a point that 01:25:22.160 --> 01:25:24.240 we will make over and over. 01:25:24.240 --> 01:25:27.840 Satan just needs a chink in the armor in this one small 01:25:27.840 --> 01:25:31.920 subversion of one corner of faith in some of the men who 01:25:31.920 --> 01:25:36.000 read that, later on it's gonna come up in a different context, 01:25:36.000 --> 01:25:39.840 and they're gonna have doubts maybe in some from some other angle. 01:25:39.840 --> 01:25:42.640 And then Satan's gonna hit them from a completely different perspective. 01:25:42.640 --> 01:25:44.640 It's got nothing to do with the sacrament. 01:25:44.640 --> 01:25:45.200 And you know what? 01:25:45.520 --> 01:25:48.000 Maybe one day they just don't go back to church. 01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:51.200 You know, their kids got a soccer game, and then their kid 01:25:51.200 --> 01:25:54.160 makes the finals, and so it's three more weeks. 01:25:54.160 --> 01:25:57.440 And you know, come to think of it, Jesus isn't actually present 01:25:57.440 --> 01:26:00.080 there and the preacher's kind of boring, he's kind he's got a 01:26:00.080 --> 01:26:01.360 limp handshake. 01:26:01.360 --> 01:26:02.720 I'm just not gonna go back. 01:26:02.720 --> 01:26:05.440 You know, I'll maybe I'll find another church later, but it's I'm 01:26:05.440 --> 01:26:08.560 just I wasn't getting anything that I thought I was getting there 01:26:08.560 --> 01:26:12.080 in the first place first place, that man will eventually lose his 01:26:12.080 --> 01:26:14.880 soul because of what happened on Twitter. 01:26:14.880 --> 01:26:18.640 So when we talk about being careful about what problem you're trying 01:26:18.640 --> 01:26:21.680 to solve, it's not about being spurgy and it's not about being 01:26:21.680 --> 01:26:25.840 picky. It's about understanding who you're talking to when you speak because 01:26:26.400 --> 01:26:30.160 if it had been Romanists or if it had been Calvinists, some 01:26:30.160 --> 01:26:32.160 of those discussions maybe could have happened. 01:26:32.160 --> 01:26:35.040 I think it's it's pointless to happen on Twitter 'cause you can't 01:26:35.200 --> 01:26:36.880 make any point really on Twitter. 01:26:36.880 --> 01:26:40.880 But the fact that the words of the Lutheran confessions were used 01:26:40.880 --> 01:26:44.640 as weapons against other Lutherans is evil. 01:26:44.800 --> 01:26:47.920 It's honestly the most evil thing I have ever seen happen in 01:26:47.920 --> 01:26:52.560 the Lutheran Church and I I I grow increasingly ashamed of Lutheranism, 01:26:52.560 --> 01:26:55.760 not because I don't believe our claims, but because the more I 01:26:55.760 --> 01:27:00.320 see of the conduct of Lutherans, the less I can explain to 01:27:00.320 --> 01:27:02.880 people when I'm trying to explain that we're right. 01:27:02.880 --> 01:27:06.320 How can we be right if we say and do these things? 01:27:06.320 --> 01:27:06.640 And 01:27:07.760 --> 01:27:10.320 you know, it's it's there's nowhere else to go. 01:27:10.800 --> 01:27:13.520 it's not like, oh well, I don't believe these things, I'm gonna 01:27:13.520 --> 01:27:14.400 find another church. 01:27:14.400 --> 01:27:19.600 No. Lutheranism is the best explanation for these things, but it doesn't 01:27:19.520 --> 01:27:22.320 mean that we've been infallible, we've been perfect about it. 01:27:22.320 --> 01:27:24.560 And the Book of Concord is not a script. 01:27:24.560 --> 01:27:26.720 If it were a script, it would tell us how to deal 01:27:26.720 --> 01:27:27.840 with trannies. 01:27:27.840 --> 01:27:30.000 It would tell us how to deal with all these things that 01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:30.800 aren't in there. 01:27:30.800 --> 01:27:33.200 Because Satan wasn't attacking creation. 01:27:33.200 --> 01:27:34.400 It doesn't fair century 01:27:34.960 --> 01:27:38.000 have a statement that God created us male and female. 01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:39.200 That is actually in there. 01:27:39.200 --> 01:27:39.440 So 01:27:40.880 --> 01:27:41.280 that's just 01:27:41.280 --> 01:27:42.320 quoting scripture. 01:27:42.320 --> 01:27:45.600 I've exactly I've paid close enough attention that I've found these little 01:27:45.600 --> 01:27:49.760 tidbits that Lutherans keep missing, like for instance it basically does advocate 01:27:49.760 --> 01:27:50.880 for monarchy. 01:27:50.880 --> 01:27:52.800 But that's a discussion for another time. 01:27:53.760 --> 01:27:54.560 And you're right. 01:27:54.560 --> 01:27:58.880 It's the to say that the Book of Concord is incomplete is 01:27:58.880 --> 01:28:00.160 not to denigrate it. 01:28:00.160 --> 01:28:03.200 It's to say that they settled the questions that they were debating. 01:28:03.200 --> 01:28:03.600 And so when 01:28:04.560 --> 01:28:04.640 it 01:28:04.960 --> 01:28:06.400 said it is. 01:28:06.400 --> 01:28:08.880 Yes. In their own writing. 01:28:08.880 --> 01:28:11.920 Yes. They were very explicit within the text of the Book of 01:28:11.920 --> 01:28:14.880 Concord that this is not everything that there is to be said. 01:28:14.880 --> 01:28:18.320 This is what there is to say about these controversies. 01:28:18.320 --> 01:28:18.640 And 01:28:19.600 --> 01:28:22.800 I I'm not advocating for a new book of Conquer for a 01:28:23.040 --> 01:28:28.000 volume tube to be written, principally because there are no worthy theologians 01:28:28.000 --> 01:28:30.880 alive today who would be remotely competent to the task. 01:28:30.880 --> 01:28:33.680 There might be one man somewhere, but frankly, you know, I don't 01:28:33.600 --> 01:28:35.920 know what his name is, but the fact that I don't know 01:28:35.920 --> 01:28:38.640 his name tells me that he's not competent to do this because 01:28:38.640 --> 01:28:42.320 he would already be producing the works that are necessary to battle 01:28:42.320 --> 01:28:43.760 today's fights. 01:28:43.760 --> 01:28:45.840 So I'm not saying crack anything open. 01:28:46.080 --> 01:28:48.080 I'm not saying give it a second shot. 01:28:48.080 --> 01:28:52.640 I'm saying don't take something that you don't understand and use it 01:28:52.640 --> 01:28:57.280 as a cudgel against your brother when he's trying to be faithful, 01:28:57.280 --> 01:29:01.840 even if he made a small mistake, talk about how to narrow 01:29:02.000 --> 01:29:05.120 down that mistake in a way that won't undermine his faith and 01:29:05.120 --> 01:29:07.440 won't betray the truth of scripture. 01:29:07.440 --> 01:29:09.040 Because this is about scripture. 01:29:09.040 --> 01:29:12.800 It's not about the book of Concord or anybody else's confessions. 01:29:13.120 --> 01:29:18.000 If you're from another denomination and you have another confession, insofar as 01:29:18.000 --> 01:29:21.040 it agrees with scripture, it's valuable. 01:29:21.040 --> 01:29:24.560 Now I said insofar specifically because that's one of the disputes within 01:29:24.560 --> 01:29:29.600 Lutheranism. There are those who subscribe to the Book of Concord in 01:29:29.600 --> 01:29:33.440 so far as it agrees with Scripture, and there are those who 01:29:33.440 --> 01:29:36.480 subscribe to it because it agrees with Scripture. 01:29:36.480 --> 01:29:38.160 Corey and I are the latter. 01:29:38.160 --> 01:29:41.840 It agrees with Scripture, which is why it's true, but it's not 01:29:41.840 --> 01:29:43.200 true by itself. 01:29:43.200 --> 01:29:46.800 It's only true because it agrees with scripture. 01:29:46.800 --> 01:29:49.040 It doesn't have anything new to say. 01:29:49.040 --> 01:29:53.520 It has arguments to be made from scripture and reason to defend 01:29:53.520 --> 01:29:56.080 what is re-revealed in Scripture. 01:29:56.080 --> 01:30:00.960 And Lutherans who go to proof texting from the confessions to attack 01:30:00.960 --> 01:30:03.040 faith and to attack scripture 01:30:04.160 --> 01:30:06.000 Guys, you're not Lutheran anymore. 01:30:06.320 --> 01:30:08.400 you're doing something terrible. 01:30:08.400 --> 01:30:12.000 And it's not about winning arguments. 01:30:12.000 --> 01:30:15.440 It's about being a faithful confess confessor. 01:30:15.440 --> 01:30:18.080 And if you don't have the words, shut up. 01:30:18.320 --> 01:30:19.280 That's okay. 01:30:19.280 --> 01:30:22.400 There are arguments that occur that I bow out of because I'm 01:30:22.400 --> 01:30:24.000 not fit to engage in them. 01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:27.680 When we raise topics on this podcast, it's because we believe that 01:30:27.680 --> 01:30:31.360 we can speak speak faithfully in a way that will be true 01:30:31.360 --> 01:30:36.960 to God, that will be edifying, and that will will teach something 01:30:36.960 --> 01:30:40.160 that is not going to do harm, but is going to do 01:30:40.160 --> 01:30:43.760 good for people If we didn't believe that about a subject, you're 01:30:43.760 --> 01:30:46.080 never going to hear us talk about it. 01:30:46.080 --> 01:30:47.280 That's the approach. 01:30:47.280 --> 01:30:48.240 You can be quiet. 01:30:48.240 --> 01:30:49.840 You don't have to have an opinion. 01:30:49.840 --> 01:30:53.040 And don't go word searching either in the Bible or the Book 01:30:53.040 --> 01:30:55.040 of Concord or in any in anything else. 01:30:55.040 --> 01:30:55.520 Don't say oh 01:30:56.640 --> 01:30:57.760 is not theology. 01:30:57.760 --> 01:30:59.040 Yeah. Yeah, that's 01:30:59.520 --> 01:31:02.640 Control F for the the windows, unfortunates. 01:31:02.640 --> 01:31:05.520 Yeah, and that's uh we probably won't use that for the title 01:31:05.520 --> 01:31:07.600 of this episode, but that's pretty much what it could be. 01:31:07.600 --> 01:31:09.440 Command F is not theology. 01:31:09.440 --> 01:31:11.680 You don't just go find a word and say, Well, you you 01:31:11.680 --> 01:31:15.040 use the wrong word, you you lose, you're wrong, you're you're a 01:31:15.040 --> 01:31:16.400 demon, you're a blasphemer. 01:31:16.400 --> 01:31:16.960 No, man. 01:31:16.960 --> 01:31:17.760 I particularly 01:31:17.760 --> 01:31:19.280 when you don't know what the word means. 01:31:19.280 --> 01:31:24.080 Yes. in the sixth, in the fifth, in the sixteenth century, when 01:31:24.080 --> 01:31:29.600 the accusation against the Lutherans that they ascribe to a physical presence, 01:31:29.600 --> 01:31:30.960 it was false. 01:31:30.960 --> 01:31:35.040 When a twenty-first century Lutheran says, if they choose to, that they 01:31:35.520 --> 01:31:40.560 confess a physical presence in the context of the Lutheran faith and 01:31:40.640 --> 01:31:44.000 scripture, that is a true and faithful statement. 01:31:44.000 --> 01:31:47.920 Now you may ask for clarification, that's fine, but to say it 01:31:47.920 --> 01:31:48.400 is untrue 01:31:49.680 --> 01:31:55.040 is not solving the right problem, and it's potentially doing tremendous harm. 01:31:55.040 --> 01:31:58.240 And so just pay attention to what it is you're doing before 01:31:58.240 --> 01:31:59.680 you wade into something. 01:31:59.680 --> 01:32:03.600 Because it's easy to do damage trying to score points without even 01:32:03.600 --> 01:32:05.200 realizing that you're doing it. 01:32:05.200 --> 01:32:07.600 I think that some had good intentions and I think that a 01:32:07.600 --> 01:32:10.560 lot were just midwits were in over their head. 01:32:10.560 --> 01:32:13.040 They felt like there was some attack on the faith and they 01:32:13.040 --> 01:32:15.840 had to protect the symbol of the faith, which is the book 01:32:15.840 --> 01:32:17.040 of Concord. 01:32:17.040 --> 01:32:19.600 But they didn't know how to do it because they didn't realize 01:32:19.600 --> 01:32:21.200 that it wasn't under attack. 01:32:21.200 --> 01:32:24.400 The only the only people talking were Lutherans. 01:32:24.400 --> 01:32:26.640 And then Reform saying, wait, you guys are reformed? 01:32:26.720 --> 01:32:28.800 You're like, no, no, no, we're not reformed. 01:32:28.800 --> 01:32:30.800 But some of them effectively said the same thing. 01:32:30.800 --> 01:32:34.720 And that's the the confusion and the damage is unspeakable. 01:32:34.720 --> 01:32:37.920 So as we've talked about this, we haven't tried to make the 01:32:37.920 --> 01:32:40.800 case for the full the full Lutheran position you can find it 01:32:40.800 --> 01:32:41.920 in the book of Concord. 01:32:41.920 --> 01:32:46.240 You can look for where where communion is discussed. 01:32:46.480 --> 01:32:48.240 Start with the catechisms. 01:32:48.240 --> 01:32:49.200 Yeah exactly. 01:32:49.600 --> 01:32:53.120 start small because the simplest explanation is the best one. 01:32:54.080 --> 01:32:55.520 start with scripture. 01:32:55.520 --> 01:32:58.720 Start with where Jesus gave them the Eucharist and then where Paul 01:32:58.720 --> 01:33:01.200 describes the use Eucharist that was given to him. 01:33:01.200 --> 01:33:04.240 I think that's one of the well that's a topic for another 01:33:04.240 --> 01:33:09.600 day. But these comp these conversations don't need to be complicated. 01:33:09.600 --> 01:33:14.240 I think one of the most valuable differences between Lutheranism and some 01:33:14.240 --> 01:33:18.240 other denominations is you don't have to be smart to be a 01:33:18.240 --> 01:33:19.440 good Lutheran. 01:33:19.440 --> 01:33:23.360 You don't have to be able to debate in these highly technical 01:33:23.440 --> 01:33:27.440 philosophical terms in order to hold pop proper doctrine. 01:33:27.440 --> 01:33:29.680 And that's what really actually happened. 01:33:29.680 --> 01:33:34.960 Everyone suddenly believed, I I'm not sure if I'm Lutheran because they 01:33:34.960 --> 01:33:37.840 thought maybe they were using the words wrong or maybe they believed 01:33:37.840 --> 01:33:38.880 the wrong words. 01:33:38.880 --> 01:33:42.800 When Jesus says this is my body, if you believe that, you're 01:33:42.800 --> 01:33:44.800 done. There's nothing more. 01:33:44.800 --> 01:33:48.080 The reason that the Book of Concord has so much to say 01:33:48.080 --> 01:33:51.920 about the Eucharist is the unbelief of others. 01:33:51.920 --> 01:33:54.080 It's because people said, Well, what about? 01:33:54.080 --> 01:33:55.200 Well, I don't believe that. 01:33:55.200 --> 01:33:56.960 Well, I don't think that's possible. 01:33:56.960 --> 01:33:58.080 They were arguing with God. 01:33:58.720 --> 01:34:00.560 It was sinful doubt. 01:34:00.560 --> 01:34:03.760 And so, yes, there's a lot said, but it's not because there's 01:34:03.760 --> 01:34:06.160 a lot that has to be said for you to believe. 01:34:06.160 --> 01:34:09.840 It's because there's a lot that can be said in refutation of 01:34:09.840 --> 01:34:12.480 unbelief. Those are two separate questions. 01:34:12.480 --> 01:34:16.400 They may look the same superficially, but it's a crucial distinction that 01:34:16.400 --> 01:34:18.160 Christians need to make. 01:34:18.160 --> 01:34:21.840 Just because there's a lot to be said about something doesn't need 01:34:21.840 --> 01:34:25.360 to mean that you necessarily need to understand all of it to 01:34:25.360 --> 01:34:26.880 understand the thing. 01:34:26.880 --> 01:34:30.080 The person, you know, the 13 year old who maybe is a 01:34:30.080 --> 01:34:34.640 little slow developmentally, who's been catechized properly by his parents and his 01:34:34.640 --> 01:34:38.320 pastor, who's told this is the body and blood of Jesus? 01:34:38.320 --> 01:34:41.680 This bread and wine is the body and blood of Jesus that 01:34:41.680 --> 01:34:44.800 he shed on the cross for you for the forgiveness of your 01:34:44.800 --> 01:34:50.160 sins. If that boy believes that, he is worthily receiving the sacrament, 01:34:50.160 --> 01:34:51.200 the end. 01:34:51.200 --> 01:34:53.120 Nothing else needs understood. 01:34:53.120 --> 01:34:56.640 And he's blessed if he's developmentally challenged, because he's not going to 01:34:56.640 --> 01:35:01.520 devolve into Aristotelian arguments over well ha is is is that really 01:35:01.520 --> 01:35:04.400 true? it's the smart people that make these horrible. 01:35:04.400 --> 01:35:05.360 Is it the essence or 01:35:05.360 --> 01:35:06.320 the accident? 01:35:06.320 --> 01:35:08.960 Yeah. Is he is it his physical mode? 01:35:08.960 --> 01:35:10.640 Is it his spiritual body? 01:35:11.280 --> 01:35:13.040 Which cause are we talking about here? 01:35:13.040 --> 01:35:16.320 Yeah. These terms Yeah. 01:35:16.320 --> 01:35:21.840 Th these terms of art have a place in highly formal debate. 01:35:22.080 --> 01:35:25.360 Personally I don't think I don't think they have any place in 01:35:25.360 --> 01:35:28.160 the normal Christian discussion of what's going on. 01:35:30.160 --> 01:35:33.200 Yeah, no pastors shouldn't be explaining things to the laity in this 01:35:33.200 --> 01:35:33.680 way. And 01:35:33.920 --> 01:35:36.240 although actually I am fine with the pastor saying physical because I 01:35:36.400 --> 01:35:38.960 think physical today is the right way to describe it. 01:35:38.960 --> 01:35:41.840 I We'll add in the show notes the the one the one 01:35:41.840 --> 01:35:44.720 sentence that I said say it this way. 01:35:44.720 --> 01:35:46.880 This is this is the best way to say it. 01:35:46.880 --> 01:35:50.240 Because I I think that that was so I'll show us read 01:35:50.240 --> 01:35:50.800 the sentence. 01:35:50.800 --> 01:35:55.760 Christ is physically, substantially, sacramentally present in with and under the bread 01:35:55.760 --> 01:35:59.120 and the wine in the supper as he promises. 01:35:59.120 --> 01:36:00.160 That's it. 01:36:00.160 --> 01:36:03.680 That is the totality of the correct of the Lutheran position on 01:36:03.680 --> 01:36:06.000 the supper, and in fairness to the men who wrote the Book 01:36:06.000 --> 01:36:09.920 of Concord, if those telling them to go read the Epitome had 01:36:09.920 --> 01:36:12.720 told them to read paragraphs six and seven, they would have been 01:36:12.720 --> 01:36:15.280 set. Because those are the Lutheran position. 01:36:15.280 --> 01:36:19.680 The rest of it is refuting false doctrine. 01:36:19.680 --> 01:36:23.200 So if you just and it those two paragraphs are very short. 01:36:23.200 --> 01:36:23.920 I won't read them. 01:36:23.920 --> 01:36:26.480 You can go read them yourself, I'll link them in the show 01:36:26.480 --> 01:36:30.800 notes. But they are very short, and they are the correct statement 01:36:31.040 --> 01:36:35.280 of what Lutherans believe, of what Scripture teaches. 01:36:35.280 --> 01:36:38.800 Anything beyond that has its place. 01:36:38.800 --> 01:36:42.320 If you want to have a Stammtisch and go drink beer and 01:36:42.320 --> 01:36:45.360 talk with your theologically literate friends about these issues, by all means 01:36:45.440 --> 01:36:47.200 have fun. 01:36:47.280 --> 01:36:49.440 But don't privately church. 01:36:49.440 --> 01:36:50.480 Exactly. You do 01:36:51.440 --> 01:36:52.160 Twitter. 01:36:52.320 --> 01:36:56.400 Yeah. these are BS sessions that you can have with friends privately 01:36:56.560 --> 01:36:59.520 where you're not going to burden consciousness of people you don't know 01:36:59.600 --> 01:37:01.920 where you're Luther did with Melanchthon. 01:37:02.400 --> 01:37:03.680 That's fine. 01:37:04.240 --> 01:37:04.560 So 01:37:05.600 --> 01:37:08.080 again, what problem are you trying to solve? 01:37:08.080 --> 01:37:11.120 If you want to wade into an argument by control Fing the 01:37:11.120 --> 01:37:13.600 Bible or the Book of Concord and saying, Well, I found this 01:37:13.600 --> 01:37:16.480 word here, here's a screenshot where it says the opposite of what 01:37:16.480 --> 01:37:20.240 you said, but it's a screenshot from a forty page treat forty 01:37:20.400 --> 01:37:25.120 page treatise that's refuting the reformed or somebody else, it's not refuting 01:37:25.120 --> 01:37:26.560 what you believe. 01:37:26.560 --> 01:37:31.280 Don't begin with the presumption that the Lutheran you're talking to is 01:37:31.280 --> 01:37:33.040 a crypto Calvinist. 01:37:33.040 --> 01:37:36.800 Like there's I I uh it hasn't come up yet on this 01:37:36.800 --> 01:37:39.600 podcast, but I have a real problem with the way the English 01:37:39.600 --> 01:37:44.320 small catechism translates Luther's words, put the best construction on everything for 01:37:44.320 --> 01:37:46.240 the eighth commandment. 01:37:46.240 --> 01:37:48.880 Not that it wasn't a correct thing to say, but that the 01:37:48.880 --> 01:37:54.320 way it's employed as a weapon within modern discourse is actively destructive. 01:37:54.320 --> 01:37:58.080 Because today when a pastor says put the best construction on things, 01:37:58.080 --> 01:38:01.600 usually they mean pretend something evil is good so you don't have 01:38:01.600 --> 01:38:03.040 to condemn it. 01:38:03.280 --> 01:38:06.400 There is a time for a best construction, and that's when a 01:38:06.400 --> 01:38:11.360 Lutheran who's concerned about making a faithful statement about the Eucharist says 01:38:11.360 --> 01:38:16.800 physically, and he's concerned specifically that we don't deny that Christ is 01:38:16.800 --> 01:38:17.920 truly present. 01:38:17.920 --> 01:38:20.000 You don't beat that man over the head with a book of 01:38:20.000 --> 01:38:23.760 Concord. You give him a hug and you say thank you, I 01:38:23.760 --> 01:38:24.880 share your belief. 01:38:24.880 --> 01:38:27.360 I would put it a different way and hear some of my 01:38:27.840 --> 01:38:31.280 reasons why and then you can talk about the book of Concord, 01:38:31.280 --> 01:38:34.720 but you don't begin by undermining a true confession. 01:38:34.720 --> 01:38:38.080 If you're if the problem you're trying to solve is that someone 01:38:38.080 --> 01:38:41.280 is using a word that you don't understand and don't like, please 01:38:41.760 --> 01:38:42.960 be quiet. 01:38:42.960 --> 01:38:46.080 For the sake of souls, for the sake of observers, and for 01:38:46.080 --> 01:38:50.880 the sake of everyone's sanity, it's okay to sit out some conversations. 01:38:51.920 --> 01:38:56.400 There's also a little comment there in the best construction that is 01:38:56.400 --> 01:39:00.160 always left out rather curiously, it's a parenthetical. 01:39:00.160 --> 01:39:04.000 It's there even in the English, in the words of the triglotta, 01:39:04.000 --> 01:39:08.400 if it be not notoriously evil. 01:39:08.400 --> 01:39:13.680 There is a very clear, very obvious exception to best construction. 01:39:13.680 --> 01:39:17.680 So many of the times that we are supposedly supposed to apply 01:39:17.680 --> 01:39:24.400 it to various people by these very online pastors, it doesn't apply. 01:39:24.400 --> 01:39:28.400 Even literally as it's just written, even if you don't actually understand 01:39:28.400 --> 01:39:32.640 what is meant by best construction, the exception is what applies in 01:39:32.960 --> 01:39:34.480 many of those cases. 01:39:34.480 --> 01:39:38.000 If you have someone who is openly defending abortion, this is not 01:39:38.000 --> 01:39:39.600 a best construction issue. 01:39:39.600 --> 01:39:41.280 That's notoriously evil. 01:39:41.280 --> 01:39:44.160 You speak truthfully, 01:39:44.320 --> 01:39:44.480 so 01:39:44.480 --> 01:39:46.800 I think to wrap things up, I would just point back to 01:39:46.880 --> 01:39:51.040 the first first example in concert with the second. 01:39:51.040 --> 01:39:54.320 As a Christian, you have a duty to God to talk about 01:39:54.320 --> 01:39:57.840 your faith with unbelievers and with believers. 01:39:57.840 --> 01:40:00.000 You're going to talk to them differently. 01:40:00.000 --> 01:40:04.640 You would never go to someone who didn't even understand Jesus and 01:40:04.640 --> 01:40:08.320 try to explain the sacrament to them in any words, because it 01:40:08.320 --> 01:40:10.960 would be it would be like talking to your dog, it's just 01:40:10.960 --> 01:40:12.480 noisy. He has no idea. 01:40:12.560 --> 01:40:16.560 Like he might pick up one word, but there's no context. 01:40:16.560 --> 01:40:20.880 When we speak about our faith, we must speak truthfully and we 01:40:20.880 --> 01:40:22.640 must speak with wisdom. 01:40:22.640 --> 01:40:26.080 We must understand to whom we're speaking so that the manner in 01:40:26.080 --> 01:40:29.120 which we speak, the words that we use, and the approach that 01:40:29.120 --> 01:40:33.200 we take, and how far we go are all in accord with 01:40:33.200 --> 01:40:37.440 what they can receive, because different people can receive different teachings at 01:40:37.440 --> 01:40:38.320 different times. 01:40:38.560 --> 01:40:43.520 Paul talks about spiritual milk and solid food as different types of 01:40:43.520 --> 01:40:47.360 teaching, and that some of the people they still needed milk. 01:40:47.600 --> 01:40:51.920 they weren't ready for solid food because they had so little understanding. 01:40:51.920 --> 01:40:52.880 That's fine. 01:40:52.880 --> 01:40:56.320 That's That's in a way that's a blessing for someone to still 01:40:56.320 --> 01:41:00.000 need spiritual milk because whatever mistakes you're going to make are going 01:41:00.000 --> 01:41:02.880 to be very simple and very easily corrected. 01:41:02.880 --> 01:41:06.640 By the time you get into the red meat of of theology, 01:41:06.640 --> 01:41:10.320 you're if you keep learning and you keep digging, you may get 01:41:10.320 --> 01:41:12.320 very far off into the weeds. 01:41:12.320 --> 01:41:16.400 Not to say that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it does 01:41:16.400 --> 01:41:21.520 become dangerous because when you start worrying more about putting your reason 01:41:21.920 --> 01:41:26.560 above what God has revealed, you can make these messes that we're 01:41:26.560 --> 01:41:28.320 describing in this episode. 01:41:28.320 --> 01:41:34.960 And again, it's ultimately always about sharing your faith faithfully. 01:41:34.960 --> 01:41:36.960 Sometimes that requires silence. 01:41:36.960 --> 01:41:40.160 Sometimes it requires only sharing a tiny piece of it at a 01:41:40.160 --> 01:41:43.360 time and praying for the opportunity to go further. 01:41:43.360 --> 01:41:48.880 Sometimes it involves in-depth discussion, but the more in-depth you go, the 01:41:48.880 --> 01:41:51.920 more wisdom and understanding you need to have about what it is 01:41:51.920 --> 01:41:55.040 you're saying, to whom you're speaking, and what problem you're trying to 01:41:55.040 --> 01:41:57.520 solve. Because maybe nothing mean needs to be said. 01:41:57.520 --> 01:41:57.840 I 01:41:59.040 --> 01:42:03.760 if if the argument that the Lutheran Reformers had made had been 01:42:04.480 --> 01:42:08.080 is means is the sacrament is a mystery. 01:42:08.080 --> 01:42:10.960 That would have been a sufficient confession. 01:42:10.960 --> 01:42:13.040 Personally I wish that they left it at that. 01:42:13.040 --> 01:42:15.920 I understand why they didn't, and I don't fault them, but as 01:42:15.920 --> 01:42:18.240 a Lutheran, that's all we need. 01:42:18.240 --> 01:42:22.800 His means is this is my body means precisely that. 01:42:22.800 --> 01:42:25.120 God cannot lie. 01:42:25.120 --> 01:42:29.840 I believe it, it is my confession, and it's what I receive. 01:42:29.840 --> 01:42:32.720 No amount of philosophizing is going to change that. 01:42:32.720 --> 01:42:36.000 That is what the faith is supposed to be. 01:42:36.000 --> 01:42:37.200 Amen.