WEBVTT 00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:06.160 It is the 5th of March 2026. 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:07.360 I am Corey J. 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:10.640 Mahler, and this is at any cost. 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:14.560 This is, I believe it is the 19th episode, and 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:18.640 just a little bit of housekeeping before I get started in on 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:21.440 the questions this week. 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:23.520 And really it's just one issue. 00:00:23.520 --> 00:00:27.600 If you are watching this on YouTube, please let me know if 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:32.800 it shows any mid-roll ads whatsoever, I have tried to disable all 00:00:32.800 --> 00:00:33.600 of those. 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:36.080 And so if it's showing those, it means that there is a 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:39.120 problem. I don't want any of that going on. 00:00:39.120 --> 00:00:43.360 And I've also tried to disable all of the inappropriate categories on 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:45.360 YouTube for advertising. 00:00:45.360 --> 00:00:49.040 You can't just disable all advertising because it wouldn't be a Google 00:00:49.040 --> 00:00:50.720 company if you could do that. 00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:53.440 But at any rate, please let me know if you encounter something 00:00:53.440 --> 00:01:00.240 that shouldn't be there, whether it's mid-roll or inappropriate. 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:04.320 But getting into the questions, I have 13 questions. 00:01:04.320 --> 00:01:06.400 I just kind of like the numbers, so we'll see if I 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:07.520 can get through that many. 00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:11.520 It's just what I have in my template for questions for each 00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:15.520 week. The first question is about 00:01:16.800 --> 00:01:18.640 first question's an easy one. 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:21.600 When are you releasing your stone choir clothing line? 00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:25.040 Shirts with the Hebrew is unknown or something like that would make 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:27.280 good conversation starters. 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:30.160 I do actually agree. 00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:33.520 That would I send it to Woe as well and we would 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:34.640 like that one. 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.880 It would be great fun to have the the Hebrew is uncertain 00:01:39.040 --> 00:01:42.960 and perhaps even have that in Greek just as an added bonus. 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:45.520 We don't have any current plans to do that. 00:01:45.520 --> 00:01:48.800 We're both pretty picky when it comes to these things. 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:49.120 So 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.800 there would be the issue of finding a producer that is of 00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:56.000 the appropriate quality and things like that, and preferably, you know, an 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:00.080 American producer or at least a European producer, and then all the 00:02:00.080 --> 00:02:01.200 logistics and such. 00:02:01.520 --> 00:02:05.200 we've talked about things like that, we don't have any concrete plans 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:05.840 for that. 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.440 But certainly something like that would be entertaining and I think that 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:13.040 a lot of guys would enjoy wearing something like that. 00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:17.120 I see someone mentioning in the chat that there's a little more 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:18.880 artifacting with this shirt. 00:02:18.880 --> 00:02:23.120 I did actually notice that when I started up my own camera, 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:29.920 for whatever reason, the combination of my beard and this shirt, particularly 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:32.960 YouTube's compression algorithm, does not like it. 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:36.240 And so there may be some weird artifacting probably like in this 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:40.080 area I would think, because of the lighting and the beard and 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:41.120 things interacting. 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:45.120 The compression algorithm on YouTube has trouble with things that are very 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:48.720 fine detail, and this shirt kind of is. 00:02:48.720 --> 00:02:52.000 It's not one it really is a solid color, but it's not 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:53.760 because of the kind of fabric that it is. 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:57.760 So unfortunately, there may be a little bit of weird artifacting from 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:02.320 compression, but other than that, I hope there are no issues. 00:03:02.320 --> 00:03:07.200 The lavalier mic should be fine in terms of sound quality. 00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:13.840 The next question is about this is question two. 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:17.520 How do I convince a girlfriend that I would like her to 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:22.000 wear dresses or skirts and a head covering as much as possible? 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:24.960 This is going to be one of those as far as skirts 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:28.000 and dresses are concerned, much easier than head coverings. 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:32.480 Part of this is going to be that women are creatures of 00:03:32.480 --> 00:03:34.160 herd habit. 00:03:34.160 --> 00:03:38.320 Women don't really like to actually stand out from all of the 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:39.280 other women. 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:42.160 And so it's one of the reasons that if you can get 00:03:42.160 --> 00:03:45.600 more women in your church, for instance, to wear head coverings, it 00:03:45.600 --> 00:03:49.920 makes it easier for each additional woman to wear the head covering. 00:03:49.920 --> 00:03:53.120 It's not an excuse for her not to do it, but it's 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.520 the reality of the thing. 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:55.840 So 00:03:57.360 --> 00:04:01.120 if you can get her to wear a head covering at church, 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:05.360 that's a great opening step insofar as that is concerned. 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:10.080 But with dresses and skirts, there's partly the issue that she's not 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:11.200 your wife, right? 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:14.320 So you don't really have authority over her at this point. 00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:16.480 You can't tell her to do anything. 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:17.680 She's just your girlfriend. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:19.840 Her father still has authority over her. 00:04:19.840 --> 00:04:22.000 Her father can tell her to do things. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.360 She should listen. 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:26.960 Maybe she won't given the reality of society we live in these 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:31.280 days, but you can do things that encourage her to do so. 00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:34.800 One of the things, go shopping with her. 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.520 Tell her you like how the skirt or the dress looks. 00:04:37.520 --> 00:04:41.280 Women respond well to positive reinforcement. 00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:46.080 And women like to have more of that interaction and more of 00:04:46.080 --> 00:04:49.120 that feedback than men do generally. 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:52.000 Few men want to hear those things all the time. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.720 Women want to hear those things all the time. 00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:56.960 Even if she tells you she doesn't want to hear compliments all 00:04:56.960 --> 00:04:58.880 the time, she still does. 00:04:58.880 --> 00:05:01.040 Because psychologically she's built to want that. 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:04.720 That's part of the relationship that you are building with a woman. 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:09.600 And so if you do things with her and make comments, positive 00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:14.880 comments, give or compliments about the clothing that you like, you're reinforcing 00:05:14.880 --> 00:05:18.080 that. You don't have to say you always have to wear a 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:22.800 dress. That's a different sort of thing because we're talking about what 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:26.720 is ideal in society, and that should be something that is enforced 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.880 with regard to our laws and our culture and our norms. 00:05:30.880 --> 00:05:34.560 That's something that is enforced in a way that you personally don't 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:35.760 have complete control over. 00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:39.120 You have some little influence because every man does. 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:42.880 And so for instance, men dressing well when they go to church, 00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:46.000 that's going to influence other men to some degree. 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:47.840 Men less than women. 00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:51.280 If the women see that every woman at church wears a dress, 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:54.400 you are going to find very few women who are going to 00:05:54.400 --> 00:05:57.360 rebel against that and say, Well, I'm going to wear blue jeans. 00:05:57.360 --> 00:05:59.280 Women don't like to do that typically. 00:05:59.280 --> 00:06:02.480 There's a certain streak of rebelliousness in some women, certainly, but 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:06.720 by and large she's going to follow the herd. 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.600 So the best thing you can do, because again, you're not her 00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:14.080 head yet, she's not your wife, is just give her the encouragement 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:15.440 to do these things. 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:18.560 Say you like the dress, say you like the skirt, hopefully an 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:22.080 appropriate length skirt and such, but and go shopping with her. 00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:23.360 There's nothing wrong with that. 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:25.600 Maybe it's a little bit of suffering as a man, but you 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:27.200 know, you can deal with it. 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:35.520 Take a sip of tea here before we get to question three. 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:38.240 Actually tangentially related to the tea. 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:43.840 Relatively tangential, but it's about microplastics. 00:06:43.840 --> 00:06:44.640 Question three. 00:06:44.640 --> 00:06:48.240 What are your tips on protecting oneself from microplastics? 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:51.600 I have bought some tweezers to handle receipts and all my underwear 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:53.200 is one hundred percent cotton. 00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:55.040 What are some lesser known tips? 00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:57.920 The underwear thing is actually really big. 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:02.960 And I think a lot of guys underestimate that one, and incidentally 00:07:02.960 --> 00:07:04.480 women as well. 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:07.680 Maybe harder to sell women on that for some reasons, but by 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:09.760 all means get cotton or linen. 00:07:09.760 --> 00:07:11.280 There's some great options out there. 00:07:11.280 --> 00:07:16.080 They aren't necessarily cheap, but if you get, for instance, linen and 00:07:16.080 --> 00:07:19.120 take good care of it, it'll last you years and years and 00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:22.960 years. So that's worth doing. 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:27.680 Now many of the linen options, and indeed cotton as well, you're 00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:30.960 not going to have zero plastic because they will usually have an 00:07:30.960 --> 00:07:32.160 elastic band. 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:35.920 But as long as it is encased in linen or cotton so 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:38.960 it's not touching your skin, and you don't put it in the 00:07:38.960 --> 00:07:43.040 dryer so it doesn't degrade as much, you're fine. 00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:45.600 Is there some marginal exposure there? 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:49.360 Sure. So if you're concerned about that, get one that has drawstrings. 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:51.120 I'm not aware of any brands that do that. 00:07:51.120 --> 00:07:52.400 I'm sure they're out there. 00:07:52.400 --> 00:07:55.360 Probably easy to find. 00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:58.880 On a more general note, before I get to some basic recommendations 00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:02.080 for avoiding this stuff, don't go overboard. 00:08:02.080 --> 00:08:06.080 Don't let this sort of become your personality certainly. 00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:08.800 Don't become neurotic about it. 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:13.680 Partly because you can't avoid all of the microplastics. 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:15.120 There's no way to do it. 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:16.640 It's impossible. 00:08:16.640 --> 00:08:19.600 There are microplastics in just everything. 00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:22.160 It's in the air, it's in the soil, it's everywhere, it's on 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:25.520 surfaces you touch touch, it's on the food you buy at the 00:08:25.520 --> 00:08:28.160 store, it's in some of the food you buy at the store. 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:31.200 It's not I'm not telling you these things to make you neurotic 00:08:31.200 --> 00:08:31.920 about it or worry. 00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:35.440 I'm saying you can't avoid all of it. 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.240 And so don't make that your goal. 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:43.360 Make your goal the minimization of the really big in terms of 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:49.600 magnitude exposures, the bad exposures, which that you can certainly avoid. 00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:55.920 You can, for instance, buy Pyrex storage containers to use in your 00:08:55.920 --> 00:08:57.280 kit. They're better. 00:08:57.280 --> 00:08:59.680 They're vastly superior. 00:08:59.680 --> 00:09:03.920 I have replaced most of my plastic ones with Pyrex at this 00:09:03.920 --> 00:09:07.920 point. One thing in particular, I use clarified butter for cooking a 00:09:07.920 --> 00:09:13.200 lot. Plastic has a tendency to get little micro basically cuts in 00:09:13.200 --> 00:09:16.880 it, little openings, where it's very hard to get all the bacteria 00:09:16.880 --> 00:09:19.440 out. Yes, you can run it through your dishwasher, but that increases 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:22.640 microplastics because you're exposing it to high temperature. 00:09:22.640 --> 00:09:28.400 But it's harder to sanitize and sterilize plastic, and so things that 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:31.600 you want to keep for a long period of time will not 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.520 keep as long in plastic. 00:09:33.520 --> 00:09:37.840 My pyrex that I use now for those who don't know pyrex 00:09:37.920 --> 00:09:39.520 is a type of glass. 00:09:39.520 --> 00:09:44.640 The pyrex that I use for clarified butter, zero problems, keeps for 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:47.920 a very long time, great way to go. 00:09:47.920 --> 00:09:49.680 Are they more expensive? 00:09:49.680 --> 00:09:53.440 Yes. Are they fragile to some degree? 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:55.280 I mean pyrex is very durable. 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:57.360 Granted, there are two different kinds of pyrex. 00:09:57.440 --> 00:09:59.040 Not going to get into that now, but 00:10:00.160 --> 00:10:01.920 are they breakable? 00:10:01.920 --> 00:10:03.040 The answer is yes. 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:05.440 You can actually break them. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:05.760 But 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:08.720 they're reasonably durable. 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:11.680 They're going to last you a lifetime as long as you don't 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:14.480 break them, but you know lots of things are breakable. 00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:15.840 You have to be careful with things. 00:10:16.160 --> 00:10:17.840 my teacup is Pyrex. 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:18.320 It's glass. 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:20.240 Like this is breakable as well. 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:22.720 I have a lot of glass things on my desk, so just 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:24.560 because something's breakable doesn't mean it's worse. 00:10:24.560 --> 00:10:26.240 It just is a consideration, you know. 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:28.800 The ink wells on my desk are glass. 00:10:28.800 --> 00:10:31.600 So that's a good option because this is something you're putting food 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:33.040 in all the time. 00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:36.720 And maybe you're even reheating food in it. 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:42.160 So when you mix plastic and heat, you're going to have greater 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:45.840 exposure, generally speaking, to microplastics. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.880 So don't drink water from the plastic bottle that you left in 00:10:48.880 --> 00:10:49.760 the sun. 00:10:49.760 --> 00:10:53.760 By and large, try to drink water and other things from things 00:10:53.760 --> 00:10:55.040 that aren't plastic. 00:10:55.040 --> 00:10:56.080 Use glass. 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:57.600 Use stainless steel. 00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:00.000 Stainless steel is great for a lot of drinks. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.000 It's it stays cooler. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.240 It feels nicer when you're drinking from it. 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:06.640 So for instance, if you're living somewhere warm like I am in 00:11:06.640 --> 00:11:09.200 the south, in the summer it's nicer to have that. 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:10.240 You can keep them cool. 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:12.000 Some of them are insulated. 00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:14.720 I mostly have Hydroflats stuff. 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:16.640 I'm not necessarily saying go with them. 00:11:16.640 --> 00:11:19.120 I found their products to be well made. 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:20.640 I'm not sponsored by them. 00:11:20.640 --> 00:11:22.080 I don't get anything for saying that. 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:24.000 I just use them and I like them. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:26.240 So that's another good way. 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:31.600 Basically, you're trying to avoid the microplastics you'd have exposure to with 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:33.040 regard to food and drink. 00:11:33.040 --> 00:11:34.400 It's an easy way to eliminate. 00:11:34.400 --> 00:11:36.640 And then obviously the clothing issue. 00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:41.600 If you can underwear probably the biggest one, socks another big one, 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.240 you're going to have a very hard time avoiding all plastic and 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:50.080 socks. And in fact in some cases, so performance socks for hiking 00:11:50.080 --> 00:11:53.120 and things like that, you basically will not be able to avoid 00:11:53.280 --> 00:11:58.240 100%. But you can get something that's 90-95% not plastic. 00:11:58.240 --> 00:12:01.280 That's better than 100%, certainly. 00:12:01.280 --> 00:12:05.120 You're not aiming for perfection because perfection is sort of a systemic 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:09.760 issue, things have to change all up and down the production line. 00:12:09.760 --> 00:12:12.640 You're doing what you can do on your end. 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:17.280 So replace your underwear with things that aren't plastic, replace your socks 00:12:17.280 --> 00:12:20.160 with things that are at least mostly not plastic. 00:12:20.160 --> 00:12:25.840 Buy shirts that are made from actual materials instead of plastic. 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:29.120 You'd be surprised how many things are plastic these days, it's unfortunate, 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.840 but these are the sort of steps that you can take in 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:35.680 your daily life, and they're not that difficult. 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:39.920 There's going to be a little bit more initial investment, but it 00:12:39.920 --> 00:12:41.200 pays off in the long term. 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:44.320 But the fundamental point is just don't get neurotic about it. 00:12:44.880 --> 00:12:49.040 Avoid the things you can and don't worry about the things you 00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:52.400 can't avoid because you can't avoid and worrying won't make it better. 00:12:52.400 --> 00:12:56.880 You mentioned labels and yes there is microplastic exposure with regard to 00:12:56.880 --> 00:12:59.040 thermal paper and things like that. 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.120 I don't avoid it 100%. 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:04.000 If you ordered a Stone Choir Challenge coin or a confident faith 00:13:04.160 --> 00:13:06.880 one, you know that the label is indeed thermal paper. 00:13:06.880 --> 00:13:08.880 I have the label printer right here on my desk. 00:13:08.880 --> 00:13:09.440 I'm looking at it. 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:13.040 It's out of the camera view, but I use it because the 00:13:13.040 --> 00:13:17.520 amount of time that I save by using a label printer versus 00:13:17.520 --> 00:13:20.160 handwriting each label is immense. 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:22.720 So is there a trade-off there? 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:26.800 Yes, there's a trade-off, but I don't think the exposure is necessarily 00:13:26.800 --> 00:13:30.480 of such a magnitude that I have to be particularly worried about 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:34.160 it. And by and large you can avoid touching receipts these days 00:13:34.160 --> 00:13:37.200 just by paying with a credit card or your phone. 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:40.160 Use your Apple Pay or your Google wallet or whatever and then 00:13:40.160 --> 00:13:42.720 you have the receipt electronically stored. 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:44.400 You don't need the paper anyway. 00:13:44.400 --> 00:13:46.400 Unless of course you go to C V S in which case 00:13:46.400 --> 00:13:49.280 they force you to take the thing. 00:13:49.280 --> 00:13:55.680 So the next question pull that up. 00:13:55.680 --> 00:13:57.120 Question four. 00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:01.280 Why is the Magdeburg Confession not part of the Book of Concord? 00:14:01.280 --> 00:14:04.000 It seems like it should be. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.200 And for those who don't know what the Magdeburg Confession is, basically 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:12.320 it is an explanation of the doctrine of the lesser magistrate, which 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:15.760 is Christian resistance to wicked rulers, more or less. 00:14:15.760 --> 00:14:18.880 So it's on the use of force by Christians, but in a 00:14:18.880 --> 00:14:20.400 particular circumstance. 00:14:20.400 --> 00:14:23.920 It is the Lutheran statement of it, but it is also sort 00:14:23.920 --> 00:14:28.880 of the earliest full treatment of it with regard to that doctrine, 00:14:28.880 --> 00:14:30.000 certainly in that way. 00:14:30.800 --> 00:14:31.120 And 00:14:32.400 --> 00:14:34.400 should it be in the book of Concord? 00:14:34.400 --> 00:14:37.760 I think it should probably be included in a collection of confessional 00:14:37.760 --> 00:14:41.520 documents, not necessarily in the book of Concord itself, because the book 00:14:41.520 --> 00:14:41.760 of Concord 00:14:42.720 --> 00:14:48.160 was meant specifically to deal with theological issues that were in contention 00:14:48.160 --> 00:14:53.520 between the Lutherans and Rome and in many cases the Lutherans and 00:14:53.520 --> 00:14:59.040 the Reformed because The reason the Reformed were included, in essence, is 00:14:59.040 --> 00:15:03.440 because Rome tried to lump Lutherans in with the Reformed to just 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:07.200 say, you're all Protestants, you're all whatever, you're all heretics, is really 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:08.320 what they were calling us. 00:15:08.320 --> 00:15:08.640 But 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:12.880 we felt that we needed to distinguish what we teach versus what 00:15:12.880 --> 00:15:15.440 the Reform teach because we're not the same. 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:16.480 We are not identical. 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:18.800 We do not teach the same things. 00:15:18.800 --> 00:15:21.760 But that was the point of the book of Concord, and then 00:15:21.760 --> 00:15:24.240 solving some disputes among Lutherans as well with regard to a couple 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:27.440 documents, the formula of Concord. 00:15:27.440 --> 00:15:32.800 But the point was not a full statement of the Christian religion 00:15:32.880 --> 00:15:36.560 or a full statement of every facet of doctrine and theology that 00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:37.360 could ever arise. 00:15:37.360 --> 00:15:41.200 In fact, the authors themselves recognize there are issues that will need 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:44.240 to be addressed in the future by other men because they're not 00:15:44.560 --> 00:15:46.480 addressed to the Book of Concord. 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:49.120 It's not a full statement of all these things. 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:51.920 And so it didn't aim to be that, and so it is 00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:52.720 not that. 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:55.520 That's why the Magdebird Confession is not included. 00:15:55.520 --> 00:15:59.040 So I would say in a collection of confessional documents? 00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:00.960 Absolutely it should be in there. 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.680 But it's not in the Book of Concord for a number of 00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:10.720 reasons. Just not what the book is, what the confessional book is. 00:16:10.800 --> 00:16:12.800 Question Question five 00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:19.920 How to discern if helping a neighbor is helping an enemy? 00:16:19.920 --> 00:16:23.200 Those whom you come across are your neighbor when you meet them, 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.000 but is it ever appropriate to not help them because doing so 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.600 is helping someone who seeks to destroy you whether now or later? 00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:33.120 For example, helping a non white with workout advice, although it seems 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:36.880 that very soon nation will rise against nation. 00:16:36.880 --> 00:16:41.120 This is a difficult question, and part of it is going to 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:42.400 be a matter of conscience. 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:44.400 What is your conscience telling you you need to do? 00:16:44.400 --> 00:16:47.440 God gave you a conscience, you should employ it, you should not 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:49.120 ignore it. 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:49.440 And 00:16:50.560 --> 00:16:54.960 the question is, can someone basically the underlying ultimate question here is 00:16:55.120 --> 00:16:58.560 can someone who is in physical proximity, who would otherwise be a 00:16:58.560 --> 00:17:00.880 neighbor, be an enemy instead? 00:17:00.880 --> 00:17:04.400 The answer is obviously yes, because if you're on a battlefield, the 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:07.680 guy next to you may very well not be your friend. 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:11.920 And so just because someone is physically proximate does not mean that 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:16.480 he qualifies as a biblical neighbor to whom you must render aid. 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:18.720 There are times where he's going to be an enemy and you 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:20.480 should not render him aid. 00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:25.680 And so, for instance, if you are going out and feeding the 00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:30.640 homeless or the less fortunate, those in poverty, those who've lost jobs, 00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:33.840 the injured, disabled, etcetera, at all. 00:17:33.840 --> 00:17:37.200 If you are going out and feeding those individuals or otherwise helping 00:17:37.200 --> 00:17:40.240 them, you should focus on the members of your own nation. 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:42.960 You should focus on those people who should be here. 00:17:43.280 --> 00:17:46.000 Do not go out and do that with regard to those who 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.000 should not be here. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:50.320 Because they shouldn't be here. 00:17:50.320 --> 00:17:53.920 And their presence here is harmful to the members of your own 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:57.120 nation. And so by helping them, you would actually be harming those 00:17:57.120 --> 00:17:59.440 to whom you owe a higher duty. 00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:04.320 Now, does that mean that you never under any circumstances render aid 00:18:04.320 --> 00:18:10.720 to someone who, under some analysis, is wrongfully in your country. 00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:12.880 I'm going to say no. 00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:18.000 For instance, if you are out boating, right, you're out fishing or 00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:21.600 something, and you see someone who shouldn't be in this country, and 00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:25.040 he's drowning, do you throw him a life ring? 00:18:25.040 --> 00:18:26.640 The answer is probably yes. 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:30.000 You generally do indeed throw him the life ring. 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:32.880 That's a different sort of thing. 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:37.200 And And I'm not going to say you always, absolutely in every 00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:39.760 case have a duty to do so, but generally speaking, you have 00:18:39.760 --> 00:18:42.160 a duty to render aid under those circumstances. 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:45.760 And that's always been the understanding, even in European law. 00:18:45.760 --> 00:18:48.720 The US is actually a weird outlier when it comes to that. 00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:52.400 There's sort of no general duty to legal, positive law duty to 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:54.400 render aid in the US. 00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:59.040 Modulos state differences and distinctives, but that's the general rule in the 00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:02.720 US. For weird historical reasons. 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:06.880 But insofar as the neighbor in terms of proximity is concerned, no, 00:19:06.880 --> 00:19:09.520 the person is not always your neighbor in terms of those to 00:19:09.520 --> 00:19:11.680 whom you owe a duty of aid. 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:16.320 So employ the wisdom God has given you and listen to your 00:19:16.320 --> 00:19:19.680 conscience. There are going to be times where no, you should not 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:21.440 render that sort of aid. 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:24.000 But by and large, I just don't think it's going to come 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:25.840 up in a practical sense because 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:31.040 All of us are limited in terms of our resources and particularly 00:19:31.040 --> 00:19:31.600 just our time. 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:34.480 Doesn't matter how much money you have, your time's still limited. 00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:37.840 You can only render aid to so many people. 00:19:37.840 --> 00:19:40.240 You are not going to run out of the members of your 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:45.840 own nation before you run out of time and resources. 00:19:45.840 --> 00:19:49.680 So it's just never really going to arise because you're not going 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:55.760 to go, I've helped absolutely everyone in my city, town, whatever it 00:19:55.760 --> 00:19:59.520 happens to be, who belongs here, who is a member of my 00:19:59.520 --> 00:20:03.280 nation, who is a distant cousin, which is what we're really saying. 00:20:03.280 --> 00:20:05.920 I've helped all of them and I still have ten hours left 00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:08.000 in my day and a bunch of money left over. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:10.160 That's just never going to happen. 00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:14.560 Because there are more men and women and children who need aid 00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:19.440 than we can possibly aid and then have leftover time to do 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:20.400 other things. 00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:24.560 If we were in a situation where everything was going perfectly for 00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:27.600 our own people and everything was in order in our country and 00:20:27.600 --> 00:20:30.480 we didn't have any of these problems and we just had abundant 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:33.600 resources left over, then by all means yes we can aid other 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:36.640 people. But we're not there and we're nowhere near there. 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:39.760 So that's a discussion for at some point in the future. 00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:45.360 I do see the questions that have popped up in the chat. 00:20:45.360 --> 00:20:47.600 I've added a few of them to my growing list. 00:20:47.600 --> 00:20:50.880 I don't know that I'll get to them tonight just because. 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:56.640 Well, time constraints tying into that question I just answered. 00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:03.040 Question six, I'm pulling questions from the X thread at this point. 00:21:03.520 --> 00:21:06.880 Do you think godly white men with families are under any guilt 00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:10.000 for not unleashing violence at the evils we face? 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:13.120 Would it be even worse to essentially abandon our families for a 00:21:13.120 --> 00:21:17.920 quick victory over not doing certain things? 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:20.800 I'll not read certain of the words in the question because 00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:27.840 obvious. The initial response to this is that we did an episode 00:21:27.840 --> 00:21:30.160 of Stone Choir specifically on this. 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:32.640 We did the episode on violence. 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:34.320 That's the title. 00:21:34.320 --> 00:21:40.960 And I will go ahead and link that in the show notes. 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:44.560 Because that is my initial recommendation with regard to 00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:46.720 this issue. 00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:49.680 Because obviously I agree with everything we said in that episode. 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:54.800 But the question is, essentially broader, when is violence warranted? 00:21:54.800 --> 00:21:57.920 And the Christian answer cannot be never. 00:21:57.920 --> 00:22:00.480 Because there are times when God requires it. 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:01.120 And so 00:22:02.080 --> 00:22:07.040 this is a matter of wisdom, as many matters are, and generally 00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:10.880 speaking, going out and committing random acts of violence is deeply unwise. 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:12.800 I'm obviously going to say, don't do that. 00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:14.960 Do not go out and commit random acts of violence. 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:18.480 It's just going to ultimately harm you and your family and make 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:19.120 a mess. 00:22:19.120 --> 00:22:20.720 Don't do that. 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:24.560 This also ties back in to the issue earlier of the Magdeburg 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:26.320 Confession and the Lesser Magistrate. 00:22:26.320 --> 00:22:32.240 The question is when does the duty to wield the sword devolved 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:34.320 to the common man, right? 00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:40.080 Because the lesser magistrate is the magistrate who is lesser than the 00:22:40.080 --> 00:22:42.240 one who is causing some evil. 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:46.800 And so in our system I'll just use our system, even our 00:22:46.800 --> 00:22:50.800 system is a giant mess, if the president is doing something deeply 00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:55.920 wicked, in theory, the governor has a duty to protect the people 00:22:55.920 --> 00:22:58.320 of his state from the president. 00:22:58.320 --> 00:23:02.480 The governor being the lesser magistrate, regardless of what people and talk 00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:03.760 about states' rights and such. 00:23:03.760 --> 00:23:05.600 That's how it works today. 00:23:05.600 --> 00:23:08.080 Historical issues are another matter. 00:23:08.080 --> 00:23:09.760 He's the lesser magistrate. 00:23:09.760 --> 00:23:10.960 But what if he's wicked? 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:11.440 Well then you have 00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:13.280 mayors, right? 00:23:13.280 --> 00:23:15.840 That's sort of the next step down in our system. 00:23:15.840 --> 00:23:19.040 Maybe it's the county mayor instead of the city mayor, but if 00:23:19.040 --> 00:23:21.040 it's a big city, it's the city mayor, right? 00:23:21.040 --> 00:23:24.240 So if you're talking about California, it'd be the mayor of San 00:23:24.240 --> 00:23:26.640 Francisco and the mayor of Los Angeles. 00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.440 Not going to be good men in this case, but that's how 00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:30.080 it falls. 00:23:30.080 --> 00:23:32.480 And then the question is what happens after that? 00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:34.320 And it keeps devolving downward. 00:23:34.320 --> 00:23:38.000 But if all of the men in this list are wicked, at 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:40.880 some point it devolves to the common man, just the Christian man 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:42.960 who's the head of the household. 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:46.320 And as we said in that episode, you do have a duty 00:23:46.320 --> 00:23:49.840 to protect those who are entrusted to your care. 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:52.480 That is the key there, though. 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.840 You owe them the highest duty because God has given them into 00:23:55.840 --> 00:24:00.240 your care, and so your wife and your children, your extended family, 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:04.000 you owe these individuals the highest duty of care, and so you 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:09.520 should not do things that jeopardize your ability to care for them. 00:24:09.520 --> 00:24:13.520 Does that mean that a man can never go out and risk 00:24:13.520 --> 00:24:18.960 his life and his ability, obviously, attendant with his life, to provide 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:19.920 for these individuals? 00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:23.920 The answer is no, because if the answer were yes, it would 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:25.840 always be wrong to be a soldier. 00:24:25.840 --> 00:24:28.800 And there are times where it is incumbent on men to be 00:24:28.800 --> 00:24:35.200 soldiers. But this is Nat pestering me here, this is a matter 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:39.520 of wisdom, and it is also a matter of leadership, which is 00:24:39.520 --> 00:24:42.800 severely lacking right now in our case, because 00:24:43.760 --> 00:24:47.760 someone has to have that duty to stand up and act as 00:24:47.760 --> 00:24:54.080 the lesser magistrate, telling the higher magistrate, he's wicked, and that if 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:57.760 you are not going to stop, we are going to do whatever 00:24:57.760 --> 00:25:00.240 is necessary to stop you 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:04.640 I think we probably are at that point. 00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:09.040 We just lack the structure and the leadership and the organization to 00:25:09.040 --> 00:25:10.400 do that properly. 00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:13.440 Again, don't go out and commit random acts of violence, don't do 00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:17.520 that, that is deeply unwise, just going to cause trouble for everyone. 00:25:17.520 --> 00:25:17.680 But 00:25:18.800 --> 00:25:23.120 no, that's not something that Christians can say is simply morally prohibited 00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:26.080 in all cases, because it would be to accuse God of evil. 00:25:26.080 --> 00:25:28.720 And it would be to accuse God of sin with regard to 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:29.920 the things he commands us. 00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:30.160 So 00:25:32.080 --> 00:25:36.240 it is again at risk of ad nauseum, I guess, but it 00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:38.000 is a matter of wisdom. 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:42.960 But no, there is not sort of a generalized guilt for not 00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:45.840 going out and doing something on your own. 00:25:45.840 --> 00:25:46.160 But 00:25:47.040 --> 00:25:53.840 is there a sort of higher level more generalized in another sense 00:25:54.400 --> 00:26:00.000 guilt among those of us who using the broad sense of the 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.320 pronoun there, those of us who could have done something, so mostly 00:26:04.320 --> 00:26:06.080 past generations, right? 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.960 At this point, it's kind of falling on us as well because 00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:12.160 now we're in sort of their shoes where they should have acted. 00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:14.560 Do they bear moral guilt for their failure to act? 00:26:14.560 --> 00:26:16.240 The answer is yes. 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:16.560 But 00:26:17.840 --> 00:26:21.840 there is a difference among men, even because there are men to 00:26:21.840 --> 00:26:25.360 whom God has given the skills to lead these sorts of things, 00:26:25.360 --> 00:26:28.400 they will bear a greater guilt if they do not act. 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:31.360 The common man who is just going through his day and going 00:26:31.360 --> 00:26:34.640 to work and providing And providing for his family, he doesn't have 00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:37.680 the duty to stand up and say, I'm the leader now, everyone 00:26:37.760 --> 00:26:39.920 follow me, grab your pitchfork, right? 00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:41.440 That's absurd. 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:45.600 That's anarchy, it's can't how it works, and it's egalitarian as well, 00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:48.880 so it's wrong on every possible level. 00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:52.160 But there are men to whom God has given the necessary skill 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:53.200 set to do these things. 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:57.280 If they do not act, God will have some questions for them 00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:01.040 as to why they did not, because that is a moral failing. 00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:04.080 But I would say go and listen to the episode, go into 00:27:04.080 --> 00:27:10.640 it in greater depth there for some obvious reasons. 00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:12.880 Question seven is 00:27:14.320 --> 00:27:15.360 a transition here. 00:27:15.520 --> 00:27:18.000 What do you believe hell is? 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:21.760 There are a number of different ways I could take this question 00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:26.560 and a number of different answers I could give, then, but Hell 00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:28.560 is eternal conscious torment. 00:27:28.560 --> 00:27:32.640 That is the short answer, and that is the term that many 00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:37.600 who argue for annihilationism or some other heretical position. 00:27:37.600 --> 00:27:40.480 It's the one they try to say, well, you're just this and 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:42.400 that's the epithet they give. 00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:45.280 But it's true, because that's what hell is. 00:27:45.280 --> 00:27:48.560 It is a fire that does not consume. 00:27:48.560 --> 00:27:51.920 It is it is eternal torment. 00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:56.080 Hell is not somewhere you want to go and scripture is abundantly 00:27:56.080 --> 00:27:58.720 clear that it is eternal. 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:02.240 If you just read the passages that talk about hell, it is 00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:05.600 clear that it does not end, there is no escape, there is 00:28:05.600 --> 00:28:09.520 no way out Hell is eternal torment. 00:28:09.520 --> 00:28:13.920 Prepared for the devil and his fallen angels, but those men who 00:28:13.920 --> 00:28:16.640 reject Christ will join them. 00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:19.360 Completely and utterly foolish. 00:28:19.360 --> 00:28:22.080 But to explain a little bit of the just a little bit 00:28:22.080 --> 00:28:25.760 of the theology, the reason that hell is eternal is because the 00:28:25.760 --> 00:28:27.680 debt of sin is infinite. 00:28:27.680 --> 00:28:31.600 You being finite can never pay an infinite sum. 00:28:31.600 --> 00:28:35.040 And so you will be there forever. 00:28:35.040 --> 00:28:40.960 Because the infinitude, right, the infinite has to be somewhere in that 00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:45.600 equation. And the equation, of course, if you're talking about something paid, 00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:49.920 in this case is going to be time versus value. 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:50.240 So 00:28:51.120 --> 00:28:55.520 nothing you can do as a finite is of infinite value, and 00:28:55.520 --> 00:28:58.080 so the time is the one that has to be infinite in 00:28:58.080 --> 00:28:59.280 your case. 00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:03.680 Christ was able to pay the infinite debt of sin because the 00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:06.880 value of his sacrifice was infinite, so he didn't have to suffer 00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:10.000 forever from the eternity past, right? 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:13.840 The value of his sacrifice was infinite, and that's paid for the 00:29:13.840 --> 00:29:15.440 infinite debt of sin. 00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:20.320 And so those who are in Christ are covered by Christ's payment 00:29:20.560 --> 00:29:25.840 and declared innocent, declared not guilty. 00:29:25.840 --> 00:29:30.880 And so that's what salvation is, that's what forgiveness is. 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:36.080 Those in hell have had their sins forgiven because Christ atoned for 00:29:36.080 --> 00:29:40.480 all sins, he atoned for all creation, they just rejected it, and 00:29:40.480 --> 00:29:43.280 so they're trying to pay the infinite debt themselves. 00:29:43.280 --> 00:29:48.640 And they will be there forever doing that. 00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:50.800 Question eight. 00:29:50.800 --> 00:29:56.320 In light of the increased discourse surrounding interracial marriage, there has generally 00:29:57.440 --> 00:30:01.280 been considerable neglect for people in such marriages with children who have 00:30:01.280 --> 00:30:04.720 come under new convictions and are unsure on how to navigate going 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:07.360 forward, what advice would you give them? 00:30:07.360 --> 00:30:10.480 Of course this is a difficult position, right? 00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:15.120 If you find yourself in the position where you believe that you 00:30:15.120 --> 00:30:20.320 did something that was sinful or unwise, not necessarily both, but if 00:30:20.320 --> 00:30:24.160 you did something that was sinful or unwise, and now you recognize 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:26.640 that you would have done something else if you had known better 00:30:27.040 --> 00:30:29.120 at the time, but 00:30:30.080 --> 00:30:33.600 because of the reality of what you did, you are now stuck 00:30:33.600 --> 00:30:36.320 with the consequences. 00:30:36.320 --> 00:30:39.200 That's a difficult position in which to find yourself, but at the 00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:43.280 same time it's the position in which every single man finds himself. 00:30:43.280 --> 00:30:45.760 And not just in the personal case, right? 00:30:45.760 --> 00:30:49.680 We've all done stupid things at some point and had at least 00:30:49.840 --> 00:30:52.160 consequences that lasted for a little while. 00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:53.840 It can even be something trivial, right? 00:30:53.840 --> 00:30:56.880 Every man listening to this can go, Well that scar is from 00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:59.440 the time I did X, and this one's from when right, you 00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:03.280 did something stupid, and you have a scar to prove it. 00:31:03.280 --> 00:31:05.760 Well that scar is a consequence, and you can't get rid well 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:08.720 yes, I mean these days obviously there's plastic surgery and things, but 00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:12.080 let's say it's more extreme, you're a woodworker and you're missing a 00:31:12.080 --> 00:31:14.560 finger like most woodworkers are, right? 00:31:14.560 --> 00:31:17.520 That's a consequence of something you shouldn't have done. 00:31:17.520 --> 00:31:22.480 In that case it's something probably stupid that you did, which marrying 00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:24.240 outside your race can be stupid. 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:25.760 In many cases it is. 00:31:25.760 --> 00:31:30.400 And so you have the consequences to speak broadly, not necessarily just 00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:32.080 in a pejorative sense, right? 00:31:32.080 --> 00:31:36.400 Children Children are also a consequence of marriage, in the sense of 00:31:36.400 --> 00:31:40.720 they are consequent to marriage, and they are a natural outcome of 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:43.120 the exercise of marriage. 00:31:43.120 --> 00:31:43.440 So 00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:51.280 what I have always recommended all along is the children who are 00:31:51.600 --> 00:31:55.440 half one thing and half something else are going to have to 00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:59.120 choose. Someone said volume dropped on X. 00:31:59.120 --> 00:32:02.000 Did the tell me in the chat, did the volume drop or 00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:04.800 did it drop, which is to say did it decrease or did 00:32:04.800 --> 00:32:06.160 it disappear? 00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:08.880 Because I would hope it didn't disappear, there are still people who 00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:12.480 are clearly listening because they're not saying that I they can't hear 00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:13.600 me. But 00:32:15.520 --> 00:32:18.080 my levels show fine. 00:32:18.080 --> 00:32:21.440 The issue for those children is that they are torn 00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:24.160 for between two worlds, right? 00:32:25.040 --> 00:32:28.640 They do not have what all of us have, what I pointed 00:32:28.640 --> 00:32:29.520 out before. 00:32:29.520 --> 00:32:35.360 I didn't have to choose if I were, you know, American or 00:32:35.600 --> 00:32:36.480 something else. 00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:37.760 Because I am American. 00:32:37.760 --> 00:32:38.960 That's just what I am. 00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:42.240 Yes, I'm also German, because obviously I am 00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:47.040 German biologically and a little bit of Scottish, but I didn't have 00:32:47.040 --> 00:32:48.000 to choose 00:32:49.280 --> 00:32:52.720 what I am, because I'm not multiple things. 00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:54.800 And the Scottish and the Germans are cousins. 00:32:54.800 --> 00:32:56.880 They're as close as they the Scottish and the Dutch, but they're 00:32:56.880 --> 00:32:59.920 close enough that I'm not torn between two worlds, right? 00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:02.800 I don't have to choose if I want haggis or vice verst. 00:33:02.800 --> 00:33:05.440 That's not a big life choice. 00:33:05.440 --> 00:33:07.680 They're both good, incidentally. 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:09.600 The vice versa is better. 00:33:09.600 --> 00:33:15.600 But if you are split between two vastly different cultures, that's a 00:33:15.600 --> 00:33:16.880 more difficult thing. 00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:19.280 So, you know, you can pick any example of this. 00:33:19.280 --> 00:33:21.440 Just pick any two peoples that are far apart, right? 00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:25.440 If you're half Korean and half Ugandan, you're going to feel torn 00:33:25.520 --> 00:33:29.200 between those two worlds because those cultures are not the same. 00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:30.160 They're not even compatible. 00:33:31.040 --> 00:33:32.880 They're wildly different. 00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:36.640 And so those children are going to have to choose. 00:33:36.640 --> 00:33:40.320 And then the question of course is, well, how do they choose, 00:33:40.320 --> 00:33:44.000 right? How do you choose which one you are? 00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:49.760 Generally speaking, you are going to choose your father, because your father 00:33:49.760 --> 00:33:51.120 is your head. 00:33:51.120 --> 00:33:53.520 Until you are, of course, of age as a man in case 00:33:53.600 --> 00:33:57.120 you're own you're your own head, and then if you're a woman, 00:33:57.120 --> 00:33:58.880 your husband, right? 00:33:58.880 --> 00:34:02.800 But you're still going to be torn between those two worlds. 00:34:02.800 --> 00:34:08.240 Generally, you choose your father's side and go with that and you're 00:34:08.240 --> 00:34:12.080 making a conscious decision in a way that other men do not. 00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:15.760 There is a burden there, and those who are of mixed ancestry 00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:16.240 know that. 00:34:16.240 --> 00:34:19.280 They recognize it, and quite frankly, a lot of times I've heard 00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:23.440 from they don't like being patronized by these supposed Christians and others 00:34:23.520 --> 00:34:26.400 and say, oh no, it's it's perfectly fine, there's no difference and 00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:30.080 everything is great and it doesn't cause pro because they know that's 00:34:30.080 --> 00:34:31.120 a lie. 00:34:31.120 --> 00:34:35.920 Because they've lived it, because they personally experience it every single day. 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:38.880 It's one of the reasons that I and others oppose it, because 00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:40.640 it's deeply unwise. 00:34:40.640 --> 00:34:43.520 It places a burden on your society, it places a burden on 00:34:43.520 --> 00:34:46.000 your family, and it places an immense burden on your children. 00:34:47.200 --> 00:34:51.200 And there are things that are so unwise they become sin. 00:34:51.200 --> 00:34:54.560 It's not always sin, it is sometimes sin. 00:34:54.560 --> 00:34:58.960 And I have another recording I did one of the archival episodes 00:34:58.960 --> 00:35:02.080 of this show actually, on interracial marriage. 00:35:02.080 --> 00:35:04.160 I will link that in the show notes. 00:35:04.160 --> 00:35:06.960 I would say listen to that as well, because I I go 00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:08.400 into it a little bit more. 00:35:08.400 --> 00:35:11.600 But insofar as the children are concerned, they have to choose. 00:35:11.600 --> 00:35:15.520 And it's going to depend on the mixture as to what your 00:35:15.520 --> 00:35:17.600 viable options are, right? 00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:22.080 You have a much harder decision to make if you're Korean and 00:35:22.080 --> 00:35:27.360 Ugandan versus versus if you are you know Russian and British. 00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:29.120 You still have to choose. 00:35:29.120 --> 00:35:32.880 But that's not as hard of a choice because two European peoples, 00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:36.400 even though in this case they are opposite sides of one of 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:39.760 the great divides in Europe, the great divides being west, east, and 00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:43.440 south, it's not as big of a difference as if you're crossing 00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:47.360 the lines of the great races descended from the sons of Noah. 00:35:47.360 --> 00:35:51.840 So if you are half African and half European, that is more 00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:56.800 difficult than if you are half East European and half West European, 00:35:56.800 --> 00:35:58.880 or you know, half Japanese, half Korean. 00:35:58.880 --> 00:36:00.000 Do you still have to choose? 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:02.000 Yes. Is there a distinction there? 00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:04.960 Yes. Are you going to have a little bit of tension, particularly 00:36:04.960 --> 00:36:07.120 some historical tensions in some cases? 00:36:07.120 --> 00:36:08.960 Absolutely yes. 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:13.280 But the best thing you can do is be deliberate about what 00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:17.600 you are doing, choose the one side and go all in on 00:36:17.600 --> 00:36:21.200 that. Because it is the best thing you can do with the 00:36:21.200 --> 00:36:25.280 circumstances that are inescapable at that point. 00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:28.000 And as far as the marriage is concerned, obviously divorce is not 00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:30.480 permissible, except in cases of adultery. 00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:34.160 So the Christian answer on that one is quite easy. 00:36:34.160 --> 00:36:38.080 But the reality is that yes, it causes problems and it is 00:36:38.080 --> 00:36:41.680 going to be difficult regardless of the decision you make. 00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:45.120 In many cases, it will be a matter not for the individual, 00:36:45.120 --> 00:36:48.880 but a matter of future laws in any given country. 00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:53.920 Because if countries start enforcing scriptural morality, there will be laws regarding 00:36:54.560 --> 00:36:55.200 these things. 00:36:55.200 --> 00:36:57.680 And so part of it will be you have to pick the 00:36:57.680 --> 00:36:59.760 option that's open to you at the time. 00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:03.520 But again, that comes down to the mixture and various things like 00:37:03.520 --> 00:37:06.240 that. It is a fact-specific inquiry. 00:37:06.240 --> 00:37:10.000 It's not a general rule, other than the the general rule of, 00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:12.640 you know, side with your father when you can. 00:37:12.640 --> 00:37:16.000 But go and listen to the other episode I recorded on that 00:37:16.080 --> 00:37:18.160 because I go into a little bit greater depth and I think 00:37:18.160 --> 00:37:23.920 that's probably a a good starting place. 00:37:25.520 --> 00:37:27.680 And I guess before I move on to the next question, I 00:37:27.680 --> 00:37:32.000 have had people basically ask me to draw up essentially Nuremberg Laws 00:37:32.080 --> 00:37:32.800 two point oh. 00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:36.800 I don't know that I'll do that because I don't know how 00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:41.120 helpful that would be at least at this time and also 00:37:42.080 --> 00:37:45.120 I don't know that we're really going to ever wind up with 00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:48.960 that sort of law being enacted in that way. 00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:52.000 I think it might wind up being a little more hodgepodge just 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:55.920 because of the reality of the the mess we've made for ourselves. 00:37:55.920 --> 00:38:00.000 But I I don't have any current intention to drop those laws. 00:38:00.560 --> 00:38:02.560 Hypothetical, obviously not real. 00:38:02.560 --> 00:38:06.000 I don't have the power to drop the real ones. 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:07.280 Question nine. 00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:12.400 Where in scripture do people, mostly, boomer generation, feel they can justify 00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:14.240 war as we are currently seeing 00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:19.440 And how do those passages need to be properly interpreted? 00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:22.480 Whenever it's brought up to parents, I get the it's in the 00:38:22.480 --> 00:38:28.800 Bible. This one obviously relates to Iran and Israel and things like 00:38:28.800 --> 00:38:29.760 that. So 00:38:30.720 --> 00:38:31.040 the 00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:35.760 basic question, for those who are not reading into it, what is 00:38:35.760 --> 00:38:38.400 actually being asked here, is war morally permissible? 00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:39.680 The answer is yes. 00:38:39.680 --> 00:38:44.720 Because Because just war is morally permissible. 00:38:44.720 --> 00:38:45.040 So 00:38:46.560 --> 00:38:48.560 But it has to be a just war. 00:38:48.560 --> 00:38:49.040 You know. 00:38:49.040 --> 00:38:52.160 A war of aggression because you just feel like killing people is 00:38:52.160 --> 00:38:53.520 not morally permissible. 00:38:53.520 --> 00:38:55.280 That would be a violation of the moral law. 00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:57.040 You're not permitted to do that. 00:38:57.520 --> 00:39:02.080 This war, and most of the wars related to Israel and the 00:39:02.080 --> 00:39:07.600 Jews, you have You have those who are dispensationalist or dispensationalist adjacent, 00:39:07.600 --> 00:39:10.240 and I just put them all under the umbrella of dispensationalist because 00:39:10.240 --> 00:39:13.440 that's where they belong, other than in jail. 00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:17.280 They all believe that this is a fulfillment of prophecy. 00:39:17.280 --> 00:39:22.960 The problem is, you ask them what prophecy, and 90% of the 00:39:22.960 --> 00:39:25.040 time they don't have an answer. 00:39:25.040 --> 00:39:28.560 Some of the time they just vaguely point, hey, Revelation. 00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:30.720 Great, what verse? 00:39:30.720 --> 00:39:32.000 What part of Revelation 00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:34.720 is involved here? 00:39:34.720 --> 00:39:37.520 Because as far as I'm concerned, it looks a lot more like 00:39:37.520 --> 00:39:43.440 Israel is Babylon the Great, the whore in Revelation, than anything related 00:39:43.520 --> 00:39:45.520 to God. 00:39:45.520 --> 00:39:48.000 I'm not saying that it is in that case, I'm saying it 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:49.840 looks more like that. 00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:56.080 But they can't actually point to any sections of Scripture, any prophecies 00:39:56.080 --> 00:40:00.480 that actually make any sense here, it's always wild misapplication. 00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:05.280 They'll interpret things like the passages about the sting of hornets and 00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:07.760 they'll say, Oh well that's Apache helicopters. 00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:10.320 This is schizo level insanity. 00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:12.640 This is not something that should be taken seriously. 00:40:12.640 --> 00:40:17.200 But the problem is they've heard it so many times over so 00:40:17.200 --> 00:40:21.200 many years from so many different sources that you are going to 00:40:21.200 --> 00:40:24.960 find it very difficult to break through that programming because they read 00:40:24.960 --> 00:40:27.520 Left Behind, or they watched it, I think there was a television 00:40:27.520 --> 00:40:29.520 series, I I don't remember. 00:40:29.520 --> 00:40:34.080 They've read other various fiction dealing with dispensationalist ideas. 00:40:34.080 --> 00:40:40.400 They have listened to various heretical pastors saying that Israel is somehow 00:40:40.640 --> 00:40:44.400 some important part of the end times. 00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:47.600 It's very difficult to break through that level of programming. 00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:51.360 And as I've said before to those who have particularly boomer parents, 00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:55.120 so millennials, just don't raise the issue. 00:40:55.120 --> 00:40:56.720 You're never going to get anywhere. 00:40:56.720 --> 00:41:00.080 It's going to give you a headache and be a nightmare and 00:41:00.080 --> 00:41:01.360 cause strife in your family. 00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:02.000 Just don't do it. 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:05.120 Don't open the can of worms. 00:41:05.120 --> 00:41:09.920 If it comes up, speak the truth as best you can. 00:41:09.920 --> 00:41:15.200 Don't necessarily be abrasive with regard to the truth because his family 00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:16.800 it's a different sort of thing. 00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:18.480 If it's a stranger, it's a different thing. 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:21.200 You obviously owe a different duty to a stranger. 00:41:21.200 --> 00:41:25.600 But in so far as these passages are concerned, it would depend 00:41:25.600 --> 00:41:26.160 on the passage. 00:41:26.160 --> 00:41:28.400 I have to know what on earth they're arguing. 00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:31.760 And like I said, most of the time, they're not arguing anything. 00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:35.760 They're just emoting they're expressing their love of Israel because people have 00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:37.760 told them they're supposed to love Israel. 00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:43.280 The problem is the Israel that is chosen is the Israel of 00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:47.040 God, otherwise known as the Church. 00:41:47.040 --> 00:41:50.160 Christians are the true Israel. 00:41:50.160 --> 00:41:56.160 The nation state over in the Near East, from nineteen forty eight 00:41:56.160 --> 00:42:00.960 onward, is a geopolitical abomination or aberration, is what I've usually called 00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:03.280 it. It has nothing to do with prophecy. 00:42:03.280 --> 00:42:06.480 It has everything to do with corruption and Satan. 00:42:06.480 --> 00:42:06.800 So 00:42:08.320 --> 00:42:12.240 the issue is that unless you can break them of the dispensationalist 00:42:12.240 --> 00:42:17.440 theology, you can't break them of the political conclusions they draw from 00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:21.680 it. Because like I said, there's no reason involved. 00:42:21.680 --> 00:42:28.000 It's just misapplication of scripture they've never even bothered to read. 00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:32.240 And I've gone over some of the passages in Revelation and elsewhere 00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:33.840 in the Bible before. 00:42:33.840 --> 00:42:36.880 So the one hundred and forty four thousand isn't Jews. 00:42:36.880 --> 00:42:38.720 It's representative of the entire church. 00:42:38.720 --> 00:42:42.560 It's twelve for the Old Testament, twelve for the New Testament, a 00:42:42.560 --> 00:42:45.360 number of perfection and completion related to humanity. 00:42:45.360 --> 00:42:46.720 What is twelve times twelve? 00:42:46.720 --> 00:42:47.920 A hundred and forty-four. 00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:49.920 Why is it one hundred and forty-four thousand? 00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:53.920 Because the number one thousand is symbolic of the number of God's 00:42:53.920 --> 00:42:55.920 perfection. Because what is it? 00:42:55.920 --> 00:42:59.920 ten the number of perfection three three, the Trinity. 00:42:59.920 --> 00:43:04.640 You know, these things make perfect sense if you actually understand Scripture 00:43:04.640 --> 00:43:07.920 and are able to couch these things in the context of the 00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:10.800 rest of Scripture and just so people don't think that I sound 00:43:10.800 --> 00:43:14.160 crazy talking about numbers, which is always the danger with numbers, right? 00:43:14.160 --> 00:43:16.720 What does scripture say about the number one thousand? 00:43:16.720 --> 00:43:19.040 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, if I were 00:43:19.040 --> 00:43:20.320 thirsty, I would not tell you. 00:43:20.320 --> 00:43:23.840 I own the cattle on a thousand hills. 00:43:24.160 --> 00:43:26.720 Does God own the cattle on a thousand hills? 00:43:26.720 --> 00:43:28.080 Yes and no. 00:43:28.080 --> 00:43:30.880 Because he owns the cattle on every hill, because everything is his. 00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:34.240 It's a number of God's perfection, it's not a literal number. 00:43:34.240 --> 00:43:37.760 So when you see that number somewhere in scripture, particularly in a 00:43:38.080 --> 00:43:41.680 prophetic book, your first thought should not be, Oh, a literal thousand. 00:43:41.680 --> 00:43:44.560 It should be, What does this represent? 00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.640 And the danger of the prophetic books is that you get people 00:43:48.560 --> 00:43:52.000 people who just go completely off the rails because they don't read 00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:54.960 it in the right context and then they try to extrapolate it 00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:58.160 out to what's currently happening in the world, and that's how you 00:43:58.160 --> 00:44:01.760 get people standing on a mountaintop having sold all their possessions and 00:44:01.760 --> 00:44:03.360 waiting for God to show up. 00:44:04.080 --> 00:44:05.280 What does scripture say? 00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:07.360 No man knows the hour. 00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:07.680 So 00:44:08.800 --> 00:44:13.680 anytime you get people who are really into eschatology, you should be 00:44:13.680 --> 00:44:18.880 worried. Because no one gets really really into eschatology without going off 00:44:18.880 --> 00:44:20.080 the rails. 00:44:20.080 --> 00:44:23.200 Because eschatology is not the most important thing in scripture. 00:44:23.200 --> 00:44:24.800 Why would you focus on it? 00:44:24.800 --> 00:44:28.240 Focus on the things in scripture that are the most important. 00:44:28.240 --> 00:44:32.640 And one of the signs that you'll find with regard to those 00:44:32.640 --> 00:44:37.520 who get into the weeds and off into crazy places with eschatology, 00:44:37.520 --> 00:44:43.600 they'll take revelation, as they say, literally, and then they will try 00:44:43.600 --> 00:44:47.920 to spiritualize away the historical books. 00:44:47.920 --> 00:44:51.520 So that's the exact opposite of what you should do. 00:44:51.520 --> 00:44:53.360 Genesis is history. 00:44:53.360 --> 00:44:55.760 You should read it like a history book. 00:44:55.760 --> 00:44:58.080 Revelation is prophecy. 00:44:58.080 --> 00:45:00.800 You should read it in a totally different way. 00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:04.640 And part of what confuses people is that they look at scripture 00:45:04.640 --> 00:45:06.640 as if it's one book. 00:45:06.640 --> 00:45:11.440 It's one book in the sense that God is the ultimate author 00:45:11.440 --> 00:45:15.280 in terms of inspiration, and God is the one who put his 00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:18.960 seal on it, and it is bound together. 00:45:18.960 --> 00:45:25.600 But. It's not one book, because it is a collection of books, 00:45:25.600 --> 00:45:29.760 and they are of different genres written at different times, and you 00:45:29.760 --> 00:45:33.040 need to read them in context and accordingly. 00:45:33.040 --> 00:45:34.800 And the example I usually give people 00:45:35.680 --> 00:45:40.080 would you read poetry in exactly the same way you would read 00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:44.480 just a dry historical account of the Civil War? 00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:48.160 The answer is no, because it would be crazy to do that. 00:45:48.160 --> 00:45:51.120 But you get people who try to do that with scripture, and 00:45:51.120 --> 00:45:52.640 it's inappropriate. 00:45:52.640 --> 00:45:56.800 And they wind up in very bad places causing us a great 00:45:56.800 --> 00:45:58.960 deal of political harm. 00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:02.800 But But like I said, for the older generation you're probably never 00:46:02.800 --> 00:46:03.920 going to get through them. 00:46:03.920 --> 00:46:05.120 Just don't bother. 00:46:05.120 --> 00:46:09.280 Reach the younger generation that will be around longer and may actually 00:46:09.280 --> 00:46:13.200 listen. So just avoid the issue with your boomer parents 00:46:18.640 --> 00:46:21.360 The next question. 00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:22.960 Question ten. 00:46:22.960 --> 00:46:27.840 What is the Lutheran answer to the reformed objection to carnal presence? 00:46:28.240 --> 00:46:30.320 And then he attaches a screenshot. 00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:33.840 For those who want to, you can go look at the screenshot 00:46:33.840 --> 00:46:34.640 on X. 00:46:34.640 --> 00:46:39.840 It's in the thread from yesterday announcing the QA. 00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:44.000 Basically the question I don't I don't want to get too deeply 00:46:44.080 --> 00:46:47.840 into this because this gets very complicated and at a level of 00:46:47.840 --> 00:46:52.240 theology that isn't going to be useful to most men, and that's 00:46:52.240 --> 00:46:56.560 just not necessarily the focus of this particular show. 00:46:56.560 --> 00:46:58.640 It's not my my goal here. 00:46:58.640 --> 00:46:58.960 But 00:47:02.240 --> 00:47:07.120 what he's asking about is the communicatio idiomatum, right? 00:47:07.120 --> 00:47:09.840 The communication of attributes. 00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:12.640 And the communicatio is 00:47:13.600 --> 00:47:19.920 basically a description theologically of how the I want to stop using 00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:24.960 Latin, the personal union works with regard to Christ. 00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:28.320 Right? He's fully man and he's fully God. 00:47:28.320 --> 00:47:29.760 But how does that work? 00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:35.600 And And discussing this is basically seeing how far we can take 00:47:35.600 --> 00:47:41.280 our human understanding with regard to these things without going off the 00:47:41.280 --> 00:47:44.320 rails, which is always the danger when you're talking about 00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:46.720 things that are 00:47:47.600 --> 00:47:51.840 above you and beyond you, which that's sort of my starting place 00:47:51.840 --> 00:47:55.440 often when I talk to the reformed, because the reformed will say 00:47:56.640 --> 00:48:01.680 You know, with regard to this issue in particular, the finite is 00:48:01.680 --> 00:48:04.080 not capable of the infinite. 00:48:04.080 --> 00:48:06.960 If they're feeling, you know, spicy, they'll say it in Latin, which 00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:08.080 is fine. 00:48:08.080 --> 00:48:11.120 Words are almost identical. 00:48:11.120 --> 00:48:16.800 But the problem with that is that so much of Reformed theology 00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:19.840 is in fact the finite, the person 00:48:20.960 --> 00:48:28.080 telling other finites what the infinite cannot do. 00:48:28.080 --> 00:48:29.760 There's a bit of irony there. 00:48:29.760 --> 00:48:31.440 There's a contradiction. 00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:33.600 And so things that are 00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:37.920 self-invalidating can typically be ignored. 00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:42.000 But with regard to the person of Christ, I want to give 00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:45.680 some reading recommendations for those who are actually interested in the issue. 00:48:45.680 --> 00:48:48.400 I'm not going to necessarily say that I'm going to go deeply 00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:52.880 into it for the reasons I already mentioned, but I do want 00:48:52.880 --> 00:48:57.280 to read a little bit of the formula of Concord because that 00:48:57.280 --> 00:49:01.200 is sort of the most theologically dense document in the Book of 00:49:01.200 --> 00:49:06.480 Concord, and it goes into it in a way that's not incomprehensible 00:49:06.480 --> 00:49:07.280 for most men. 00:49:07.280 --> 00:49:11.600 It's still in a way that can be grasped and understood. 00:49:11.600 --> 00:49:14.560 But I will give some other recommendations that maybe are not in 00:49:14.560 --> 00:49:17.600 that vein, they're a little higher level. 00:49:17.600 --> 00:49:22.320 So with regard to the person of Christ, that's what this article 00:49:22.320 --> 00:49:25.040 is. This is Article 8 of the Solid Declaration of the Formula 00:49:25.040 --> 00:49:25.920 of Concord. 00:49:26.160 --> 00:49:30.000 We believe, teach, and confess that God's Son from eternity has been 00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:33.520 a particular, distinct, entire divine person. 00:49:33.520 --> 00:49:36.800 Yet He is true, essential, perfect God with the Father and the 00:49:36.800 --> 00:49:37.840 Holy Spirit. 00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:42.240 In the fullness of time, he received also the human nature, into 00:49:42.240 --> 00:49:44.000 the unity of his person. 00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:46.400 He did not do this in such a way that there are 00:49:46.400 --> 00:49:49.680 now two persons or two Christs, and of course you can think 00:49:49.680 --> 00:49:52.160 of the creeds here as well, right? 00:49:52.160 --> 00:49:56.000 Christ Jesus is now in one person at the same time true 00:49:56.160 --> 00:50:00.560 eternal God, born of the Father from eternity, and a true man, 00:50:00.560 --> 00:50:02.880 born of the most blessed Virgin Mary. 00:50:02.880 --> 00:50:06.320 This is written in Romans 9 5, from their race, according to 00:50:06.320 --> 00:50:09.840 the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed for 00:50:09.840 --> 00:50:15.840 ever. So, we believe, teach, and confess, this course speaking as Lutherans, 00:50:15.840 --> 00:50:19.120 but I firmly believe this is just what Scripture says 00:50:20.080 --> 00:50:24.320 that now in this one undivided person of Christ there are two 00:50:24.320 --> 00:50:29.200 distinct natures the divine which is from eternity and the human, which 00:50:29.200 --> 00:50:32.720 in time was received in the unity of the person of God's 00:50:32.720 --> 00:50:36.800 Son. These two natures in the person of Christ are never either 00:50:36.800 --> 00:50:41.840 separated from or mingled with each other, nor are they changed into 00:50:41.840 --> 00:50:42.560 each other. 00:50:42.560 --> 00:50:46.400 Each one abides in its nature and essence in the person of 00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:48.960 Christ to all eternity. 00:50:48.960 --> 00:50:54.240 We believe, teach, and confess also, that both natures mentioned remain unmingled 00:50:54.240 --> 00:50:59.760 and undestroyed in their nature and essence each keeps its natural essential 00:50:59.760 --> 00:51:03.520 properties to all eternity and does not lay them aside. 00:51:03.520 --> 00:51:07.040 Neither do the essential properties of the one nature ever become the 00:51:07.040 --> 00:51:09.200 essential properties of the other nature. 00:51:09.200 --> 00:51:13.360 For those who are familiar with theology and philosophy, you note the 00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:14.960 technical use of the terms here, right? 00:51:14.960 --> 00:51:19.920 Essential There are things going on here beyond just the the words 00:51:19.920 --> 00:51:21.040 on the surface. 00:51:21.040 --> 00:51:23.840 We believe, teach, and confess that it is the property of the 00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:29.120 divine nature to be almighty, eternal, infinite, everywhere present at the same 00:51:29.120 --> 00:51:30.480 time and all knowing. 00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:33.920 In other words, it agrees with the property of the divine nature 00:51:33.920 --> 00:51:35.600 and its natural essence. 00:51:35.600 --> 00:51:39.280 Thus These are essential attributes of the divine nature. 00:51:39.280 --> 00:51:44.480 Never in eternity do they become essential properties of the human nature. 00:51:44.480 --> 00:51:48.640 On the other hand, these are properties of the human nature, being 00:51:48.640 --> 00:51:53.600 a bodily creation or creature, flesh and blood, finite and located in 00:51:53.600 --> 00:51:58.480 one place, it suffers, dies, ascends, and descends, it moves from one 00:51:58.480 --> 00:52:02.240 place to another, suffers hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like. 00:52:02.240 --> 00:52:06.880 These properties never become properties of the divine nature. 00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:09.600 And then I'll read one more paragraph here because I think this 00:52:09.600 --> 00:52:14.560 is sort of what's necessary for getting into answering this question. 00:52:14.560 --> 00:52:19.520 We believe, teach, and confess that now since the incarnation, each nature 00:52:19.520 --> 00:52:23.200 in Christ does not exist by itself, so that each is or 00:52:23.200 --> 00:52:25.200 makes up a separate person. 00:52:25.200 --> 00:52:28.480 These two natures are so united that they make up one single 00:52:28.480 --> 00:52:32.960 person, in which the divine and the received human nature are and 00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:34.880 exist at the same time. 00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:39.120 So now, since the incarnation, there belongs to the entire person of 00:52:39.120 --> 00:52:44.800 Christ, personally, not only his divine nature, but also his received human 00:52:44.800 --> 00:52:49.440 nature. So without his divinity and also without his humanity, the person 00:52:49.440 --> 00:52:53.200 of Christ or the incarnate Son of God is not complete. 00:52:53.200 --> 00:52:56.480 We mean the Son of God who has received flesh and become 00:52:56.480 --> 00:53:02.000 man. Therefore Christ is not two distinct persons, but one single person, 00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:06.000 even though two distinct natures are found in him, unconfused in their 00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:10.720 natural essence and properties. 00:53:10.720 --> 00:53:17.680 The question here, with regard to the reformed position theologically, the one 00:53:17.680 --> 00:53:21.520 that is being asked specifically here is about the Lord's Supper. 00:53:21.520 --> 00:53:25.760 It's about the Lutheran conception of the real presence or as we 00:53:25.760 --> 00:53:29.840 also call it the sacramental union, because the reformed also call their 00:53:29.840 --> 00:53:31.920 understanding the real presence and we disagree, so we call it the 00:53:31.920 --> 00:53:35.600 sacramental union to make sure that is specifically what we mean when 00:53:35.600 --> 00:53:38.000 we say it. 00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:42.480 This has arisen a number of times, and in fact, a Lutheran 00:53:42.720 --> 00:53:49.920 theologian, so-called modern one, not ancient, recently got this wrong 00:53:50.240 --> 00:53:51.840 and has not 00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:54.640 recanted his false statements. 00:53:54.640 --> 00:53:58.960 And it's part of why I went into this a number of 00:53:58.960 --> 00:53:59.760 years ago. 00:53:59.760 --> 00:54:02.560 This is also another archival episode of this show. 00:54:02.560 --> 00:54:03.760 I would say go and listen to that. 00:54:03.760 --> 00:54:05.200 I will add that to the notes as well. 00:54:05.200 --> 00:54:08.880 It is the mode of Christ's presence in the supper. 00:54:08.880 --> 00:54:09.520 And so 00:54:10.800 --> 00:54:13.760 I will include that in the show notes, but 00:54:14.720 --> 00:54:18.320 the objection the reformed have is that they say he is not 00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:20.320 carnally present. 00:54:20.320 --> 00:54:24.000 Part of the issue here is that it's squabbling over words, right? 00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:32.720 And so do Lutherans believe that Christ is carnally present? 00:54:32.720 --> 00:54:35.520 We don't use that term, right? 00:54:35.520 --> 00:54:37.600 We say he is sacramentally present. 00:54:37.600 --> 00:54:39.120 We say he is truly present. 00:54:39.120 --> 00:54:40.960 He is really present. 00:54:40.960 --> 00:54:44.080 And I have gone so far as to say he's physically present, 00:54:44.080 --> 00:54:46.160 because I don't think that's inappropriate. 00:54:46.160 --> 00:54:48.960 But he's not present locally. 00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:51.840 And this is where it starts to get into philosophy that's going 00:54:52.240 --> 00:54:54.480 to be not particularly useful for a lot of men. 00:54:54.480 --> 00:54:54.800 But 00:54:55.920 --> 00:55:01.440 when we talk about presence, right, there are different kinds of presence. 00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:05.520 And thankfully for modern men I can kind of use a very 00:55:05.520 --> 00:55:08.720 easy example to get you to understand exactly what we're talking about 00:55:08.720 --> 00:55:09.840 with presence. 00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:12.640 It's a rough example, but it works for this. 00:55:12.640 --> 00:55:18.400 I am physically present, locally present in my chair, in my study, 00:55:18.400 --> 00:55:19.840 in East Tennessee. 00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:20.800 That's where I am. 00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:21.840 I'm a human being. 00:55:21.840 --> 00:55:23.760 That's the only place where I am, right? 00:55:23.760 --> 00:55:26.480 I know the reformed are listening to me say that like, ah, 00:55:26.480 --> 00:55:28.480 but just wait. 00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:33.520 I am also I am also present virtually on your screen. 00:55:33.520 --> 00:55:37.600 I am virtually present with regard to my voice in your ears, 00:55:37.600 --> 00:55:40.000 right? I am present a different way. 00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:43.760 You are all virtually present to me in the chat. 00:55:44.240 --> 00:55:47.120 Are you locally present in the chat? 00:55:47.120 --> 00:55:48.800 The answer is no. 00:55:48.800 --> 00:55:52.720 Is Christ locally present in the supper? 00:55:52.720 --> 00:55:55.040 We would not say he is locally present. 00:55:55.040 --> 00:55:57.920 We object to the use of localiter is what it's called because 00:55:57.920 --> 00:56:01.520 it's just Latin for locally, it's the adverb. 00:56:01.520 --> 00:56:03.440 That is the objection. 00:56:03.440 --> 00:56:05.760 But is he physically present? 00:56:05.760 --> 00:56:07.040 The answer is yes. 00:56:07.040 --> 00:56:11.280 And so the reformed will try to say that it is an 00:56:11.280 --> 00:56:17.120 essential property of the human nature to be locally present only in 00:56:17.120 --> 00:56:18.320 one place. 00:56:18.320 --> 00:56:19.440 Okay, fine. 00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:22.560 We're not saying he's locally present in the supper, so there's no 00:56:22.560 --> 00:56:28.080 objection there with regard to the sacramental union, because his present his 00:56:28.320 --> 00:56:30.320 presence is sacramental. 00:56:30.320 --> 00:56:31.440 Is it physical? 00:56:31.440 --> 00:56:34.160 Yes, and the reason we say that is simple. 00:56:34.160 --> 00:56:36.400 Well What does he say? 00:56:36.400 --> 00:56:39.360 I'm so tempted to use Latin, but I will not use the 00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:43.280 Latin. He says, this is my body. 00:56:43.280 --> 00:56:44.240 Right? 00:56:45.200 --> 00:56:47.520 But think about the fullness of the statement. 00:56:47.520 --> 00:56:48.480 What is he saying? 00:56:48.480 --> 00:56:51.280 What is he holding when he says it? 00:56:51.280 --> 00:56:54.400 He's saying, you know, pretend this is bread. 00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:55.440 This is my body. 00:56:55.440 --> 00:56:57.280 I'll try and hold it in front of the camera instead of 00:56:57.440 --> 00:56:58.560 this is my body, right? 00:56:58.560 --> 00:56:59.440 Pretend it's bread. 00:56:59.440 --> 00:57:01.040 So what is he saying? 00:57:01.040 --> 00:57:04.720 This bread, well it's bread, I can see it's bread, is my 00:57:04.720 --> 00:57:08.080 body. It's also his body, it's bread and body. 00:57:08.080 --> 00:57:10.720 We simply affirm what Christ says. 00:57:10.720 --> 00:57:14.080 We're not going to subject the word of God to the logic 00:57:14.080 --> 00:57:18.320 of men and then tell God what he can't do. 00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:20.240 Because he can do that. 00:57:20.240 --> 00:57:23.600 The other proof that I will give for the reformed, because I 00:57:23.600 --> 00:57:25.360 know many of them are going to be unsatisfied with 00:57:26.240 --> 00:57:30.080 that. But this one I don't know how you can possibly avoid 00:57:30.080 --> 00:57:33.920 it. There are two things in scripture we need to pull out 00:57:33.920 --> 00:57:37.440 in order to address this particular issue. 00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:39.760 I won't necessarily pull them out because I don't need to, you 00:57:39.760 --> 00:57:41.600 you all know these ones, right? 00:57:42.080 --> 00:57:48.240 Scripture says that in Christ, the fullness of deity dwells bodily. 00:57:48.240 --> 00:57:52.400 Well if the fullness of deity dwells bodily in Christ, it is 00:57:52.400 --> 00:57:56.160 And the deity is never absent from the essence of deity, and 00:57:56.160 --> 00:58:00.560 the attributes are essential to the essence, then the fullness of the 00:58:00.560 --> 00:58:04.880 attributes of the deity are also dwelling in the Christ. 00:58:04.880 --> 00:58:06.320 That's sufficient. 00:58:06.560 --> 00:58:10.400 That's sufficient with regard to logic, it's sufficient with regard to Scripture. 00:58:10.400 --> 00:58:14.800 But there is also the fact that Scripture speaks of Christ in 00:58:14.800 --> 00:58:20.400 two distinct ways, two distinct phases, as it were, parts of his 00:58:20.720 --> 00:58:28.080 life. You have the state of humiliation, which is from his birth 00:58:28.240 --> 00:58:33.440 or conception, until his death, right, or his resurrection, depending where exactly 00:58:33.440 --> 00:58:35.200 you want to put that line either end. 00:58:35.200 --> 00:58:38.480 And then you have the state of exaltation. 00:58:38.480 --> 00:58:41.760 And so if you just look at that without thinking about it, 00:58:41.760 --> 00:58:45.840 it seems like, okay fine, that makes perfect sense What does that 00:58:45.840 --> 00:58:48.080 mean about the human nature? 00:58:48.080 --> 00:58:51.280 Well, it says the human nature is the one that is exalted 00:58:51.280 --> 00:58:57.280 to the right hand of God, because God, Christ, according to his 00:58:57.520 --> 00:59:02.640 divinity, has had the fullness of the divine attributes, the glory, the 00:59:02.640 --> 00:59:07.920 power, the omnipresence, the omniscience, all these things, from eternity past, because 00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:10.960 it is his essentially for all time. 00:59:11.120 --> 00:59:14.000 There's no canoticism or anything like that here. 00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:17.920 He's not emptying himself of the deity. 00:59:17.920 --> 00:59:21.920 And so the deity is not what is exalted, because with regard 00:59:21.920 --> 00:59:24.400 to his essence he is equal to the Father, with regard to 00:59:25.040 --> 00:59:27.200 his divinity he is equal to the Father. 00:59:27.200 --> 00:59:31.200 And so the exaltation can only be of the HUMANIT. 00:59:31.200 --> 00:59:34.400 And so if the humanity is exalted to the right hand of 00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:38.800 God, That is saying exactly what Lutherans are saying, about Christ being 00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:44.080 omnipresent, omniscient, and all these other things also according to his humanity. 00:59:44.080 --> 00:59:48.480 Not because they are essential attributes of the humanity, but because in 00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:53.360 the personal union of Christ, you do not have this distinction where 00:59:53.360 --> 00:59:57.120 you can say, humanity cannot do this, and so no, because it 00:59:57.120 --> 00:59:59.680 is the person of Christ. 00:59:59.680 --> 01:00:03.600 The person of Christ is fully God and fully man. 01:00:03.600 --> 01:00:07.520 And so, yes, he is physically present in the supper, he is 01:00:07.520 --> 01:00:11.920 sacramentally present in the supper, as he says in his word. 01:00:11.920 --> 01:00:13.760 And we simply affirm what he says in his word. 01:00:13.920 --> 01:00:16.720 We're not going to try to say, no God, you can't do 01:00:16.720 --> 01:00:19.040 that. Christ knows what he can do. 01:00:19.040 --> 01:00:20.880 And he told us what he can do, and he told us 01:00:20.880 --> 01:00:21.680 what he will do. 01:00:21.680 --> 01:00:22.720 He promised it. 01:00:22.720 --> 01:00:24.560 We simply rely on his words. 01:00:24.560 --> 01:00:26.880 And I could go into this in greater depth, of course, and 01:00:27.200 --> 01:00:30.560 go to the communication of attributes and all the different kinds and 01:00:30.560 --> 01:00:32.560 the genus and stuff stuff like that. 01:00:32.560 --> 01:00:35.120 But that would be for if I were going to do like 01:00:35.120 --> 01:00:36.640 a class on this subject. 01:00:36.640 --> 01:00:40.640 It's not really the point of again this. 01:00:40.640 --> 01:00:43.440 And so I think that's a sufficient answer for you, but I 01:00:43.440 --> 01:00:46.480 did say that I would mention some resources for you, particularly to 01:00:46.480 --> 01:00:49.840 give you a deeper understanding of the Lutheran position and the fullness 01:00:49.840 --> 01:00:51.040 of it. 01:00:51.040 --> 01:00:56.800 Start with Peeper's Dogmatics and then read the things he references. 01:00:56.800 --> 01:01:00.560 That's generally a great starting place for Lutheran theology, just on most 01:01:00.560 --> 01:01:05.040 issues. But to give you an idea, in Peeper's Dogmatics I have 01:01:05.040 --> 01:01:09.760 the volume over here, but it's about three hundred pages on the 01:01:09.760 --> 01:01:14.000 doctrine of Christ, so I can't really summarize that in five minutes, 01:01:14.000 --> 01:01:15.440 ten minutes, whatever that was. 01:01:15.440 --> 01:01:17.120 So I would say start there. 01:01:17.120 --> 01:01:21.280 Read the Doctrine of Christ section in Volume two of his three 01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:24.560 volume work, Christian Dogmatics. 01:01:24.560 --> 01:01:27.920 It's available on Logos if you want the electronic version. 01:01:27.920 --> 01:01:31.600 It's usually available relatively cheaply as a used book if you want 01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:33.600 the physical copy. 01:01:33.600 --> 01:01:36.640 You can order it new from CPH, but they charge an arm 01:01:36.640 --> 01:01:40.000 and a leg, so maybe don't do that. 01:01:40.000 --> 01:01:44.080 And of course read the fullness of article eight of which I 01:01:44.080 --> 01:01:48.080 read part of of the Solid Declaration that's available free online. 01:01:48.080 --> 01:01:55.760 So thebookofconcord.org. 01:01:55.760 --> 01:01:58.800 The next question, question 11. 01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:03.440 If parents who are clearly not practicing Christians and not part of 01:02:03.440 --> 01:02:08.960 our congregation ask to have their baby baptized, should our church agree? 01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:12.000 The concern is that the child will probably not be raised, as 01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:16.880 Jesus teaches in Mark sixteen sixteen, or would refusing mean inviting the 01:02:16.880 --> 01:02:24.880 millstone? The baseline answer to the question is 01:02:24.880 --> 01:02:28.880 that it is always good when the child is baptized. 01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:29.200 But 01:02:30.480 --> 01:02:34.640 the sort of caveat there is that if you know the child 01:02:34.640 --> 01:02:38.720 is not going to be raised a Christian If you know the 01:02:38.720 --> 01:02:41.760 child is going to be taught to reject his baptism is the 01:02:41.760 --> 01:02:45.600 wording Lutherans would use, then you actually are not doing him any 01:02:45.600 --> 01:02:53.520 favors. You are in some ways even sort of profaning the sacrament. 01:02:53.520 --> 01:02:59.680 But the usual Lutheran way around this, right, if you have unbelieving 01:02:59.680 --> 01:03:02.960 parents of the child who for some reason want the child to 01:03:02.960 --> 01:03:06.000 be baptized, which there's already some questions there, right? 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:09.120 Why do unbelievers want the child baptized? 01:03:09.120 --> 01:03:11.920 That's something for the pastor to suss out, right? 01:03:11.920 --> 01:03:15.760 This is an opportunity to talk to them about the Christian faith. 01:03:15.760 --> 01:03:18.800 You recognize your child should be baptized. 01:03:18.800 --> 01:03:20.640 Why aren't you attending church? 01:03:20.640 --> 01:03:21.840 Why aren't you Christian? 01:03:21.840 --> 01:03:23.840 If you recognize the realities thing, right? 01:03:24.160 --> 01:03:26.640 This is something that a good pastor should be doing. 01:03:26.640 --> 01:03:31.760 And just the baptism itself provides the opportunity to preach the gospel 01:03:31.760 --> 01:03:34.240 to the parents and for others who are in attendance. 01:03:34.240 --> 01:03:38.880 It's one of the prime opportunities that we get to talk about 01:03:38.880 --> 01:03:43.200 these things with unbelievers in a context where they're actually likely to 01:03:43.200 --> 01:03:45.920 listen. Another, of course, would be marriage, right? 01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:47.040 The marriage ceremony. 01:03:47.040 --> 01:03:51.680 You should have a short statement of the gospel there as well. 01:03:51.680 --> 01:03:56.000 So if you have the unbelieving parents, the usual Lutheran solution is 01:03:56.000 --> 01:03:59.760 called godparents, which is what Roman Catholics and others do as well, 01:03:59.760 --> 01:04:05.920 right? You have someone present who swears that he will undertake the 01:04:05.920 --> 01:04:09.520 duty to raise this child child in the Christian faith, right? 01:04:09.760 --> 01:04:15.760 Because that's part of the the ceremony of baptism is the parents 01:04:15.760 --> 01:04:18.560 swearing to raise the child as a Christian, or in this case 01:04:18.720 --> 01:04:19.600 the godparents. 01:04:19.600 --> 01:04:22.560 Usually you want to have both present because you know, sometimes parents 01:04:22.560 --> 01:04:24.160 die. Things happen. 01:04:24.160 --> 01:04:29.440 So you want some assurance there, some insurance against disaster. 01:04:29.440 --> 01:04:34.080 So if you can get godparents, who are believers, to be present 01:04:34.240 --> 01:04:37.120 and to swear that they will raise the child in the Christian 01:04:37.120 --> 01:04:40.880 faith despite the unbelief of the parents, then by all means baptize 01:04:40.880 --> 01:04:42.000 the child. 01:04:42.000 --> 01:04:42.880 If you 01:04:44.480 --> 01:04:50.400 have unbelieving parents and you have no godparents. 01:04:50.400 --> 01:04:54.080 So basically, you have the second worst possible scenario, right? 01:04:54.080 --> 01:04:56.640 The worst possible scenario is you know Satanists come to you and 01:04:56.640 --> 01:04:58.960 say, We want to baptize our child because we want to profane 01:04:59.200 --> 01:05:00.320 and insult the sacrament. 01:05:00.320 --> 01:05:01.520 You tell them no, right? 01:05:01.520 --> 01:05:03.040 That's the easy case. 01:05:03.040 --> 01:05:07.760 The hard case is the worst case where you have unbelieving parents 01:05:07.760 --> 01:05:11.680 who for some reason want to have their child baptized, but then 01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:14.960 But then clearly have no intention of raising the child as a 01:05:14.960 --> 01:05:20.320 Christian. That one is going to be a matter for the pastor 01:05:20.480 --> 01:05:24.000 because he is the one who has to investigate the parents. 01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:26.080 He is the one who has to figure out what's going on 01:05:26.400 --> 01:05:27.520 in this child's life. 01:05:27.520 --> 01:05:29.200 What is the family life going to be like? 01:05:29.200 --> 01:05:31.280 What is the home life going to be like? 01:05:31.280 --> 01:05:36.720 Are these parents actual unbelievers, or are they just sort of very 01:05:36.720 --> 01:05:37.840 weak in their faith? 01:05:37.840 --> 01:05:38.720 Have they fallen away? 01:05:39.200 --> 01:05:40.960 Did they used to believe? 01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:43.600 Are they open to attending church? 01:05:43.600 --> 01:05:47.600 Are they open to their child at least being catechized? 01:05:47.600 --> 01:05:50.000 There are a lot of moving parts here. 01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:53.040 That is the duty of the pastor to figure out exactly what 01:05:53.040 --> 01:05:55.440 is going on and make that call. 01:05:55.440 --> 01:06:00.080 I think that if you can mount any argument whatsoever that you're 01:06:00.080 --> 01:06:02.800 going to be able to get this child some sort of education 01:06:02.800 --> 01:06:06.560 in the Christian faith, then by all means baptize that child. 01:06:06.560 --> 01:06:08.960 Baptism is still a means of grace. 01:06:08.960 --> 01:06:12.080 Baptism is a sacrament, it is a blessing and a gift from 01:06:12.080 --> 01:06:15.120 God, and it should always be cherished, and baptizing a child is 01:06:15.120 --> 01:06:18.240 always a good thing. 01:06:18.240 --> 01:06:22.160 So if So if there's any way that you can ensure this 01:06:22.160 --> 01:06:24.560 child is going to be raised in the Christian faith, then yes, 01:06:24.560 --> 01:06:26.560 baptize that child. 01:06:26.560 --> 01:06:30.000 But the obvious extreme example up, you know, the Satanists. 01:06:30.000 --> 01:06:32.160 I don't think that's probably the case here. 01:06:32.160 --> 01:06:35.520 So have the pastor call them in and talk to them. 01:06:35.520 --> 01:06:39.200 Have another elder there to answer as many questions as you can. 01:06:39.200 --> 01:06:42.400 Try to get them to understand this is an important thing. 01:06:42.400 --> 01:06:43.200 It's a real thing. 01:06:43.200 --> 01:06:44.000 It means something. 01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:47.680 You recognize that by virtue of the fact you've admitted by virtue 01:06:47.600 --> 01:06:50.960 of the fact that you want your child baptized. 01:06:50.960 --> 01:06:53.600 Why would you want that if it means nothing? 01:06:53.920 --> 01:06:56.560 So the door's open. 01:06:56.560 --> 01:06:57.920 Bring them in. 01:06:58.400 --> 01:06:59.200 that's the point. 01:06:59.200 --> 01:07:00.960 That's the goal of the pastor. 01:07:00.960 --> 01:07:01.280 And 01:07:02.160 --> 01:07:03.920 hopefully that's what happens in this case. 01:07:03.920 --> 01:07:07.680 Hopefully they recognize that they want the child baptized because this is 01:07:07.680 --> 01:07:12.000 something that's important And so they themselves become believers as well. 01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:15.680 But certainly take the opportunity of a baptism to preach to those 01:07:15.680 --> 01:07:19.120 who are unbelievers and are present, because many times at a baptism 01:07:19.120 --> 01:07:20.720 you have unbelievers present. 01:07:24.640 --> 01:07:28.000 The next question, question twelve. 01:07:28.000 --> 01:07:31.440 What do you think of the push pins and yarn on corkboard 01:07:31.440 --> 01:07:36.320 theory about the number six six six, Saturn, Jews, Stones, Cubes, Color 01:07:36.400 --> 01:07:37.680 Black, Sabbath, etc. 01:07:38.400 --> 01:07:41.440 I see many connections, but feel like there's a deeper evil meaning 01:07:41.440 --> 01:07:42.640 that I cannot grasp. 01:07:42.640 --> 01:07:44.160 Maybe we're not meant to. 01:07:44.160 --> 01:07:45.600 It's a little spooky. 01:07:45.600 --> 01:07:47.200 You sort of answered your own question. 01:07:47.200 --> 01:07:49.040 We're not meant to. 01:07:49.040 --> 01:07:52.720 Because there are some things that you're actually just better off not 01:07:52.720 --> 01:07:53.920 knowing, right? 01:07:54.640 --> 01:07:55.600 We know that. 01:07:55.600 --> 01:07:58.560 That's sort of the narrative of the fall of 01:07:59.840 --> 01:08:03.360 the beginning of Genesis and the tree of the knowledge good and 01:08:03.360 --> 01:08:09.040 evil, there are things that men are not meant to know. 01:08:09.040 --> 01:08:12.080 God didn't give us any access to it. 01:08:12.080 --> 01:08:14.720 God didn't give us any way to gain access to it. 01:08:14.720 --> 01:08:16.000 And that's sort of a key here. 01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:18.640 Because I know those there are many who will hear, well, all 01:08:18.640 --> 01:08:19.360 knowledge is good. 01:08:19.360 --> 01:08:21.680 First off, that's a lie. 01:08:21.680 --> 01:08:24.080 And the example I usually use, let me take a sip of 01:08:24.080 --> 01:08:26.560 my tea before I continue. 01:08:28.080 --> 01:08:31.280 The example I usually use is an extreme one because extreme examples 01:08:31.280 --> 01:08:35.120 work really well. 01:08:35.120 --> 01:08:39.440 Hopefully, none of you listening know what it is like to be 01:08:39.440 --> 01:08:41.360 stabbed. Right? 01:08:42.000 --> 01:08:46.400 But if you get stabbed, you have gained knowledge in the process 01:08:46.400 --> 01:08:48.240 of being stabbed. 01:08:48.560 --> 01:08:50.720 Is that knowledge good? 01:08:50.960 --> 01:08:55.040 I don't think there's any way to say that knowledge is good. 01:08:55.040 --> 01:08:59.120 Would and you can even take the abstracted out to the extreme 01:08:59.280 --> 01:09:01.120 and then analyze that. 01:09:01.120 --> 01:09:04.880 Would the universe be better if knowledge of what it is like 01:09:04.880 --> 01:09:05.600 to be stabbed 01:09:06.560 --> 01:09:09.600 never occurred, never came into being? 01:09:09.600 --> 01:09:11.200 The answer is yes. 01:09:11.200 --> 01:09:13.840 So there's bad knowledge. 01:09:13.840 --> 01:09:17.040 It's not morally neutral, not all knowledge is morally neutral. 01:09:17.040 --> 01:09:19.280 Some things are horrible. 01:09:19.280 --> 01:09:23.200 And I would say notably I have never had to have this 01:09:23.200 --> 01:09:29.200 discussion with friends who practice criminal law and deal with, so for 01:09:29.200 --> 01:09:31.200 instance, sex crimes. 01:09:31.360 --> 01:09:34.080 You're never going to find a single attorney working in the DA's 01:09:34.080 --> 01:09:36.640 office who deals in that unit and says that there's no such 01:09:36.640 --> 01:09:39.440 thing as bad knowledge because he knows what it is because he's 01:09:39.440 --> 01:09:41.360 seen it and he has it in his head. 01:09:41.360 --> 01:09:44.320 And it will never go away until the day he dies. 01:09:44.320 --> 01:09:47.680 So there's such a thing as bad knowledge. 01:09:47.680 --> 01:09:52.160 Knowledge of demons and things like that in this way is going 01:09:52.160 --> 01:09:53.120 to be bad knowledge. 01:09:53.120 --> 01:09:56.640 Does that mean that knowledge of sort of the symbols and the 01:09:56.640 --> 01:09:59.360 conspiracies and things like that and how they work is always bad. 01:09:59.360 --> 01:10:02.800 I don't think so, because at least for certain men, it's going 01:10:02.800 --> 01:10:06.560 to give you the ability to recognize it and to map these 01:10:06.560 --> 01:10:08.960 things out and be able to warn other men. 01:10:08.960 --> 01:10:09.520 Not all men 01:10:10.480 --> 01:10:12.960 should go after these things because some men don't have the same 01:10:12.960 --> 01:10:17.600 defenses, either intellectually, psychologically, spiritually. 01:10:17.600 --> 01:10:23.360 If a man who does not have sufficient defenses against these things, 01:10:23.360 --> 01:10:26.640 starts investigating them, he's opening himself up to demons. 01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:29.120 And possession is real. 01:10:29.120 --> 01:10:33.200 You don't want to play with that stuff. 01:10:33.200 --> 01:10:33.280 So 01:10:35.840 --> 01:10:39.120 The other part of that, the point I wanted to make with 01:10:39.120 --> 01:10:42.400 regard to the access to knowledge, right? 01:10:42.400 --> 01:10:45.520 There are things to which God has given us access. 01:10:45.520 --> 01:10:48.080 The workings of the universe to some degree. 01:10:48.080 --> 01:10:50.240 It gets a little wonky when you get out into the quantum 01:10:50.640 --> 01:10:54.320 because things start to behave differently when you look at them. 01:10:54.320 --> 01:10:58.800 But beyond that, right, higher level, God has given us knowledge. 01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:00.800 He has given us access to knowledge, right? 01:11:01.520 --> 01:11:02.800 I'll hold this up again. 01:11:03.040 --> 01:11:05.440 It took knowledge to figure out how to make ink. 01:11:05.440 --> 01:11:08.240 It took knowledge to figure out how to make teal ink. 01:11:08.240 --> 01:11:10.880 It took knowledge how to figure out, you know, blotter paper and 01:11:10.880 --> 01:11:12.880 this design and glass and all those things. 01:11:12.880 --> 01:11:13.920 That took knowledge. 01:11:13.920 --> 01:11:17.840 We have access to that knowledge because God has provided us the 01:11:17.840 --> 01:11:21.600 tools and has not made the knowledge inaccessible. 01:11:21.600 --> 01:11:29.040 We have no tools to access knowledge of how that demonic stuff 01:11:29.040 --> 01:11:34.480 works. Now, the surface level recognizing their symbols and when they're bragging 01:11:34.480 --> 01:11:38.000 and confessing their crimes and things like that and mapping their networks, 01:11:38.000 --> 01:11:42.320 that's all basically just psychology and politics and sociology. 01:11:42.320 --> 01:11:42.960 We have that. 01:11:42.960 --> 01:11:44.480 We have access to that. 01:11:44.480 --> 01:11:47.920 But But the rules God has imposed on demons for how they 01:11:47.920 --> 01:11:51.840 interact with the world and human beings, how demons interact with each 01:11:51.840 --> 01:11:57.360 other, the hierarchy, how none of that is accessible to men. 01:11:57.360 --> 01:12:00.560 There are only two places you could possibly get that. 01:12:00.560 --> 01:12:04.880 You could get it from God, or you get it from demons. 01:12:04.880 --> 01:12:07.920 God doesn't seem like he's going to tell us anything about it, 01:12:07.920 --> 01:12:11.920 and so your only possible route would be demons. 01:12:12.080 --> 01:12:16.400 As a general rule, and I hope this goes without saying, you 01:12:16.400 --> 01:12:20.480 should one not be asking demons questions, and two, you shouldn't believe 01:12:20.480 --> 01:12:23.120 their answers even if they tell you. 01:12:23.120 --> 01:12:27.040 So there's no good way to gain access to the information. 01:12:27.040 --> 01:12:30.640 There are only horribly dangerous and wicked ways to do it. 01:12:30.640 --> 01:12:34.160 So yes, we should just we should ignore it. 01:12:34.160 --> 01:12:36.480 We should not deal with that stuff. 01:12:36.480 --> 01:12:37.760 We should not try to delve into it. 01:12:37.760 --> 01:12:39.920 It's one of those things that Satan tries to use to lead 01:12:39.920 --> 01:12:40.800 you astray, right? 01:12:41.040 --> 01:12:43.920 it's bait for a certain kind of man. 01:12:43.920 --> 01:12:48.480 Because, you know, it's esoteric, it's interesting knowledge, it's something that other 01:12:48.480 --> 01:12:52.320 men don't possess, and maybe there's a reason. 01:12:52.320 --> 01:12:53.920 Maybe you don't want to possess it. 01:12:53.920 --> 01:12:56.400 Maybe you don't want to be possessed by it. 01:12:56.480 --> 01:12:56.800 So 01:12:57.920 --> 01:13:01.040 is the Is there some sort of connection there? 01:13:01.040 --> 01:13:02.960 Are there threads running through these things? 01:13:02.960 --> 01:13:04.400 Absolutely yes. 01:13:04.400 --> 01:13:08.320 But I think the best thing that we can try to do 01:13:08.320 --> 01:13:13.440 is endeavor to erase their reality in this world, their presence and 01:13:13.440 --> 01:13:17.280 their power, and then not ever contact or deal with them again 01:13:17.280 --> 01:13:18.800 as best we can. 01:13:18.800 --> 01:13:24.080 I don't think trying to map the rules of engagement of hell 01:13:24.400 --> 01:13:28.480 is is a wise way for a Christian to spend his time. 01:13:28.480 --> 01:13:28.800 So 01:13:29.680 --> 01:13:34.560 yes, there's reality to it, but it's not knowledge you want and 01:13:34.560 --> 01:13:37.280 it's not knowledge you should seek. 01:13:37.520 --> 01:13:42.240 I'm going to refill my tea. 01:13:42.320 --> 01:13:45.760 As a slight contrast to talking about the d the demonic, I'll 01:13:45.920 --> 01:13:50.160 have some tea. 01:13:50.240 --> 01:13:53.040 Question 13, and then I think I'll just run over a little 01:13:53.040 --> 01:13:56.800 bit and I'll get to some questions in the chat. 01:13:56.800 --> 01:14:01.040 Christ commanded as for these enemies of mine who would not have 01:14:01.040 --> 01:14:04.080 me to rule over them, bring them here and slaughter them at 01:14:04.080 --> 01:14:05.840 my feet. 01:14:05.840 --> 01:14:10.160 How am I not supposed to immunitize the Eschaton with what seems 01:14:10.160 --> 01:14:11.360 so clear a command? 01:14:11.360 --> 01:14:15.120 His intended audience was two thousand plus years in the future, question 01:14:15.280 --> 01:14:21.920 mark. This ties back into you know the Magdeburg confession and the 01:14:21.920 --> 01:14:24.480 question about violence and things like that. 01:14:24.480 --> 01:14:27.760 What is it that Christians are supposed to do in this world 01:14:27.760 --> 01:14:31.200 with regard to bringing the nations under 01:14:32.560 --> 01:14:34.800 Christ's control, right? 01:14:34.800 --> 01:14:36.880 That's the essential question here. 01:14:36.880 --> 01:14:41.600 And what tools are permitted for us to use in seeking to 01:14:41.600 --> 01:14:44.480 achieve that end? 01:14:44.480 --> 01:14:50.960 Violence is not impermissible, but the sword is entrusted to the state. 01:14:50.960 --> 01:14:57.280 So for instance, when Europeans went and conquered the third world and 01:14:57.280 --> 01:14:59.440 Christianized much of it in the process. 01:14:59.440 --> 01:15:01.040 That was not impermissible. 01:15:01.040 --> 01:15:03.760 Enslaving was not impermissible. 01:15:03.760 --> 01:15:08.400 Using these means in order to spread the faith was not impermissible. 01:15:08.720 --> 01:15:14.240 And so, should we, as Christians, speaking in terms of a Christian 01:15:14.240 --> 01:15:17.120 state, destroy those who are enemies of Christ? 01:15:17.120 --> 01:15:19.520 I think the answer is yes. 01:15:19.520 --> 01:15:22.640 I don't mean that our foreign policy should be to wage war 01:15:22.640 --> 01:15:26.480 with everyone at all times with everything we possibly have. 01:15:26.480 --> 01:15:28.800 It's still a matter of wisdom, right? 01:15:28.800 --> 01:15:33.200 You're not going to declare war on the entire non-Christian world day 01:15:33.200 --> 01:15:37.600 one of of theoretical Christian nationalist administration. 01:15:37.600 --> 01:15:39.280 That would be stupid. 01:15:39.280 --> 01:15:41.920 Unless, you know, God specifically tells you to do it, which I 01:15:41.920 --> 01:15:45.200 don't think that he he does that, typically. 01:15:45.200 --> 01:15:45.520 So 01:15:47.440 --> 01:15:50.720 Are we permitted to engage in a holy war? 01:15:50.720 --> 01:15:52.560 I say the answer is yes. 01:15:52.560 --> 01:15:55.040 But it again is a matter of wisdom. 01:15:55.040 --> 01:15:58.560 It is something that should be undertaken with due deliberation, and in 01:15:58.560 --> 01:16:01.120 accordance with God's commands and word. 01:16:01.120 --> 01:16:01.600 So So 01:16:03.440 --> 01:16:07.840 it's partly related to you have so many Christians these days who 01:16:07.840 --> 01:16:10.800 were almost tying back into how you interpret different books of scripture 01:16:10.800 --> 01:16:14.560 and different genres, but you have so many who want to spiritualize 01:16:14.560 --> 01:16:18.480 away the passages about the conquest of Canaan. 01:16:18.480 --> 01:16:20.480 And you can't do that because it's history. 01:16:20.480 --> 01:16:21.520 It's a history book. 01:16:21.520 --> 01:16:23.600 It's not symbolic. 01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:26.480 I mean it is symbolic on one layer, but it's not primarily 01:16:26.480 --> 01:16:30.800 symbolic. The surface first layer is the reality of the thing having 01:16:30.800 --> 01:16:32.160 happened in history. 01:16:32.160 --> 01:16:36.160 These events transpired as recorded. 01:16:36.160 --> 01:16:38.240 You can't spiritualize them away. 01:16:38.720 --> 01:16:43.120 And so you have to accept the fact that God occasionally commands 01:16:43.120 --> 01:16:47.920 genocide, and he commands it as a punishment for wickedness, and he 01:16:47.920 --> 01:16:52.080 commands that the righteous enact it on his behalf. 01:16:52.080 --> 01:16:54.560 And God doesn't change. 01:16:54.560 --> 01:16:57.360 So I don't think that the people who try to argue it 01:16:57.360 --> 01:16:59.520 away by saying, well, that was then, right? 01:16:59.520 --> 01:17:01.200 Oh, that that was then, okay. 01:17:01.200 --> 01:17:03.840 You're making the exact same argument as the people who say that 01:17:03.840 --> 01:17:08.080 homosexuality is fine now because Sodom and Gomorrah was oh that was 01:17:08.080 --> 01:17:11.600 then. No, God doesn't change. 01:17:11.600 --> 01:17:16.160 And nations that worship demons are still an abomination to God, and 01:17:16.160 --> 01:17:19.440 if he gives them into your hands, if he delivers them into 01:17:19.440 --> 01:17:22.640 your hands, it is your It is your duty to destroy them. 01:17:22.640 --> 01:17:26.640 Because God has given them to you, and God has given them 01:17:26.640 --> 01:17:28.880 to you as partly as a test. 01:17:28.880 --> 01:17:33.200 And it's one of the ways that quite frankly Europeans failed historically. 01:17:33.200 --> 01:17:36.720 Because we kept a lot of rank demon worshippers around and let 01:17:36.720 --> 01:17:38.800 them go right back to worshiping their demons. 01:17:38.800 --> 01:17:41.760 I think it's one of the reasons that we're currently being judged. 01:17:41.760 --> 01:17:42.080 So 01:17:44.400 --> 01:17:49.120 No, there is a political and a geopolitical element to Christianity, and 01:17:49.120 --> 01:17:51.680 it is something that has been ignored for far too long. 01:17:53.360 --> 01:17:57.680 But that is the thirteenth question that I have for 01:17:58.960 --> 01:18:00.880 tonight. So 01:18:02.240 --> 01:18:06.640 I will go through the chat now and see which questions I 01:18:06.640 --> 01:18:07.840 can answer. 01:18:08.160 --> 01:18:11.840 I see the question about Ezra nine and ten. 01:18:11.840 --> 01:18:13.440 I can answer briefly. 01:18:13.440 --> 01:18:14.880 I'll just read the question first. 01:18:14.880 --> 01:18:16.000 Question fourteen. 01:18:16.000 --> 01:18:16.400 I should 01:18:17.680 --> 01:18:21.040 make notes for myself so I can make the show notes later. 01:18:24.160 --> 01:18:26.960 It seems that Ezra 9 and 10 are not often cited in 01:18:26.960 --> 01:18:28.720 the interracial marriage debate. 01:18:28.720 --> 01:18:31.040 I have never heard you mention them in your explanation of the 01:18:31.040 --> 01:18:32.720 issue. Why is that? 01:18:33.040 --> 01:18:37.440 Partly it's because Ezra 9 and 10 are very difficult to apply, 01:18:37.440 --> 01:18:43.520 not in the sense of being difficult to exegete, but difficult to 01:18:43.520 --> 01:18:48.000 employ in a way that doesn't just explode the conversation immediately. 01:18:48.000 --> 01:18:52.720 And so I don't typically use them in part because of that 01:18:52.800 --> 01:18:56.400 and partly because I haven't personally decided how best yet to integrate 01:18:56.400 --> 01:18:59.440 them into the overall tapestry of the argument. 01:18:59.440 --> 01:19:01.520 I just haven't set aside the time to do it. 01:19:01.520 --> 01:19:03.120 I probably should. 01:19:03.120 --> 01:19:03.440 I 01:19:04.400 --> 01:19:08.160 should probably address the issue at greater length at some point in 01:19:08.160 --> 01:19:12.240 an actual article, an essay, because it is just going to be 01:19:12.240 --> 01:19:15.280 a continual issue, it's just going to keep coming up, it's never 01:19:15.280 --> 01:19:19.360 going to go away, at least for the foreseeable future. 01:19:19.360 --> 01:19:21.840 But I'm not avoiding it because I you know I don't believe 01:19:21.840 --> 01:19:22.400 it or anything. 01:19:22.400 --> 01:19:24.560 No, I'm just I haven't brought it up because 01:19:25.600 --> 01:19:27.680 it causes some problems. 01:19:27.680 --> 01:19:31.680 And it is to some degree a little bit difficult to apply 01:19:32.000 --> 01:19:32.320 because 01:19:34.080 --> 01:19:38.720 obviously it's not a blanket rule to send away your foreign wives, 01:19:38.720 --> 01:19:42.480 right? It can't be because God hates divorce. 01:19:42.480 --> 01:19:46.400 But at the same time, now you have God hating divorce and 01:19:46.400 --> 01:19:50.720 at least one case in which divorce is not only permissible but 01:19:50.720 --> 01:19:53.840 the moral option. 01:19:54.320 --> 01:19:55.920 That's a challenge. 01:19:55.920 --> 01:20:00.160 That is something that has to be applied and interpreted very carefully 01:20:00.240 --> 01:20:03.360 because particularly for the teacher who teaches on it, he better get 01:20:03.360 --> 01:20:06.800 it right because you know the stricter judgment awaits and you don't 01:20:06.720 --> 01:20:08.000 want to get something like that wrong. 01:20:08.000 --> 01:20:09.760 It's an important issue. 01:20:09.760 --> 01:20:14.480 So I'm not necessarily avoiding it, I just haven't used it because 01:20:14.480 --> 01:20:18.880 I haven't decided exactly how to integrate it with the overall argument. 01:20:18.880 --> 01:20:20.000 But yes, it's relevant. 01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:29.840 It's absolutely relevant. 01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:36.000 Your thoughts on Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana versus Concordia 01:20:36.000 --> 01:20:36.960 Seminary in St. 01:20:36.960 --> 01:20:41.440 Louis. Fort Wayne is typically the more conservative at this point, so 01:20:41.440 --> 01:20:46.320 if you are going to attend one, go to Fort Wayne. 01:20:46.320 --> 01:20:55.120 But similar to what I've said about seminaries previously, at this point, 01:20:55.120 --> 01:20:57.680 yes, there's some value in a seminary education. 01:20:57.680 --> 01:21:02.640 I'm not going to say there isn't, but if you can obtain 01:21:02.720 --> 01:21:08.640 the necessary education some other way and then become ordained in the 01:21:08.640 --> 01:21:12.000 relevant body, at least consider that. 01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:14.640 Unless, of course, you know, you have a full ride scholarship or 01:21:14.640 --> 01:21:16.400 whatever, then by all means take advantage of that. 01:21:16.400 --> 01:21:17.120 That's fine. 01:21:17.120 --> 01:21:17.440 But 01:21:18.320 --> 01:21:22.800 I don't know that I could justify spending that much money and 01:21:22.800 --> 01:21:23.120 time 01:21:24.080 --> 01:21:28.160 for what is now these days at basically every existing seminary a 01:21:28.160 --> 01:21:33.520 rather lackluster education and also having to deal with some professors who 01:21:33.520 --> 01:21:34.960 are not going to be 01:21:36.080 --> 01:21:38.560 will say firm Christians. 01:21:38.800 --> 01:21:45.120 So there are serious problems there, but there's still value to be 01:21:45.120 --> 01:21:47.520 had. It's a wisdom call, right? 01:21:47.520 --> 01:21:50.560 It's calculation. 01:21:50.640 --> 01:21:54.080 Do you think Latin is a compromise language for someone to learn, 01:21:54.080 --> 01:21:58.800 or is it important to learn because of Hebrew? 01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:04.640 Well, Hebrew is just not anything that a Christian needs to learn 01:22:04.640 --> 01:22:06.960 ever and we'd all be better if it were erased from the 01:22:06.960 --> 01:22:08.320 earth. But 01:22:09.600 --> 01:22:14.560 Latin is fine, but Latin is not a language you need to 01:22:14.560 --> 01:22:17.120 learn for scripture, right? 01:22:17.440 --> 01:22:21.760 The The Vulgate is not the inspired word of God. 01:22:21.760 --> 01:22:24.640 I'm not saying the Vulgate is a bad translation, it has its 01:22:24.640 --> 01:22:31.040 quirks, but it's not a divinely inspired text like the Septuagint. 01:22:31.040 --> 01:22:33.440 So you don't need to learn Latin so you can read the 01:22:33.440 --> 01:22:37.520 Vulgate. Latin is useful for other reasons. 01:22:37.520 --> 01:22:41.520 Latin will force you to learn grammar, particularly as an English speaker. 01:22:41.680 --> 01:22:44.080 It's going to force you to learn grammar you never learned as 01:22:44.080 --> 01:22:46.080 an English speaker. 01:22:46.080 --> 01:22:50.320 Because grammar is just not taught in most English speaking countries anymore, 01:22:50.320 --> 01:22:54.480 unfortunately. Or it's taught on a very surface level. 01:22:55.200 --> 01:22:55.920 Excuse me. 01:22:55.920 --> 01:23:00.400 Latin is going to force you to understand the machine of language 01:23:00.400 --> 01:23:04.000 in a way that you probably don't if you speak only English. 01:23:04.000 --> 01:23:09.760 If you learn some other language that has more structured grammar, German, 01:23:09.760 --> 01:23:12.720 Latin, Greek, you'll get it as well. 01:23:12.720 --> 01:23:14.160 But Latin has utility. 01:23:14.160 --> 01:23:17.680 And it opens up a world of poetry and historical writings and 01:23:17.680 --> 01:23:21.200 things, and it has use, but it's not something you need to 01:23:21.200 --> 01:23:23.680 learn for the sake of scripture. 01:23:23.680 --> 01:23:25.760 Greek is far more important. 01:23:25.760 --> 01:23:29.840 And quite frankly, I know that a certain subset of Christians aren't 01:23:29.840 --> 01:23:32.880 going to like to hear it, but German is better than Latin 01:23:32.880 --> 01:23:40.000 for theology because a giant chunk of theology was 01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:43.600 written in German, not in Latin. 01:23:43.600 --> 01:23:46.880 And that's particularly so for Protestants, right? 01:23:47.280 --> 01:23:50.000 So, but no, there's nothing wrong with learning Latin. 01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:51.280 I know some Latin. 01:23:51.280 --> 01:23:52.960 I'm nowhere near fluent, certainly. 01:23:52.960 --> 01:23:55.760 I couldn't have a conversation with the Pope if he were so 01:23:55.760 --> 01:23:56.720 inclined. But 01:24:01.360 --> 01:24:10.160 Any advice for a university student in a campus full of liberals? 01:24:10.160 --> 01:24:15.040 Keep some of your opinions to yourself. 01:24:15.200 --> 01:24:19.680 And the reason that I say that is that you should think, 01:24:19.680 --> 01:24:21.040 why am I here? 01:24:21.040 --> 01:24:22.880 What am I here to do? 01:24:22.880 --> 01:24:26.640 And yes, historically, of course, part of the reason to be on 01:24:26.640 --> 01:24:30.240 a university campus was debate issue was to debate issues, to have 01:24:30.240 --> 01:24:33.920 interesting discussions, to have that meeting of minds and the mixing of 01:24:33.920 --> 01:24:35.680 ideas and things like that, right? 01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:36.000 But 01:24:37.120 --> 01:24:39.200 you're not going to find that these days. 01:24:39.200 --> 01:24:43.120 What you're going to find is hostility and attack and altercation and 01:24:43.440 --> 01:24:44.880 possibly assault. 01:24:44.880 --> 01:24:50.560 So I don't think there's any real utility for you in broadcasting 01:24:50.560 --> 01:24:54.240 your ideas and making yourself a target, unless, of course, that's you 01:24:54.240 --> 01:24:58.400 know, your life path is that's what you're planning on doing, then 01:24:58.480 --> 01:24:59.840 you know, start early. 01:24:59.840 --> 01:25:04.720 But if you are just attending to get your degree, which is 01:25:04.720 --> 01:25:08.080 most likely what you're doing, then attend to get your degree. 01:25:08.080 --> 01:25:08.720 You know. 01:25:08.720 --> 01:25:13.440 Don't cause unnecessary problems for yourself. 01:25:13.440 --> 01:25:15.520 There's just no need to do it. 01:25:15.520 --> 01:25:17.040 Let them be stupid. 01:25:17.200 --> 01:25:19.680 You know, they want to be stupid in their little bubble. 01:25:19.680 --> 01:25:23.040 Let them be stupid in their little bubble until life slaps them. 01:25:23.040 --> 01:25:26.000 You can discuss the issues with those who are like minded and 01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:26.960 close friends, right? 01:25:26.960 --> 01:25:29.600 That's we're getting back into a wisdom call again. 01:25:29.600 --> 01:25:32.000 You know the men with whom you can discuss issues and the 01:25:32.000 --> 01:25:33.680 men with whom you cannot. 01:25:33.680 --> 01:25:36.080 So it's the same sort of thing. 01:25:36.080 --> 01:25:38.880 I've answered the question before with regard to family and things like 01:25:38.880 --> 01:25:42.000 that. There are just some issues you have to think, okay, fine. 01:25:42.000 --> 01:25:44.320 We're not gonna deal with this because dealing with it is just 01:25:44.320 --> 01:25:47.760 going to cause strife and trouble and suffering, and there's it's not 01:25:47.760 --> 01:25:49.360 worth the cost. 01:25:49.360 --> 01:25:55.840 So on a university campus, you're really trying to graduate, you're trying 01:25:55.840 --> 01:25:58.080 to get your degree. 01:25:58.080 --> 01:26:00.160 Should a university be more than that? 01:26:00.160 --> 01:26:02.400 Yes. Is it these days? 01:26:02.400 --> 01:26:07.200 No. And that was true to a large degree even when I 01:26:07.200 --> 01:26:08.080 was in undergrad. 01:26:08.080 --> 01:26:10.080 I mean it's That long ago, but you know, it's been a 01:26:10.080 --> 01:26:14.240 while. I'm forty, so even when I was an undergrad. 01:26:14.240 --> 01:26:17.920 Granted, I was on a relatively left-wing campus at the University of 01:26:17.920 --> 01:26:23.120 Michigan, but even then, you probably don't want to reveal too many 01:26:23.120 --> 01:26:25.280 of your far right positions, right? 01:26:25.280 --> 01:26:27.040 Far right? 01:26:27.040 --> 01:26:32.160 Because the only right wing stance that is relatively acceptable on university 01:26:32.160 --> 01:26:35.840 campuses is being a libertarian, because they look at libertarians as just 01:26:35.840 --> 01:26:38.720 being degenerate drug users and they're like, oh, it's my my favorite 01:26:38.720 --> 01:26:39.360 brother, right? 01:26:39.360 --> 01:26:40.480 That's how they look at them. 01:26:40.480 --> 01:26:44.320 So the you know the guy who has weird views on taxes, 01:26:44.320 --> 01:26:46.160 that's how they think of libertarians. 01:26:46.160 --> 01:26:49.440 So yeah, just don't reveal your power level, basically. 01:26:49.440 --> 01:26:51.120 There's no need to, there's no reason to. 01:26:51.120 --> 01:26:55.200 It doesn't benefit you, it won't benefit them. 01:27:04.560 --> 01:27:07.760 See if there are any other questions in the chat. 01:27:13.040 --> 01:27:17.600 Someone asked about the legal or or constitutional implications of the 1790 01:27:17.600 --> 01:27:20.080 Naturalization Act for America today. 01:27:20.080 --> 01:27:24.640 That is a slightly more complicated more complicated and complex question than 01:27:24.640 --> 01:27:27.280 I am going to answer off the top of my head. 01:27:27.280 --> 01:27:29.680 So I will note that one for 01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:33.920 a later episode. 01:27:37.520 --> 01:27:41.040 Constitutional law was not my specialty. 01:27:41.040 --> 01:27:42.880 I did actually focus on a little bit, but it was it 01:27:42.880 --> 01:27:43.920 was never my specialty. 01:27:43.920 --> 01:27:47.200 The question of the constitution generally is that it won't be relevant 01:27:47.200 --> 01:27:47.760 going forward. 01:27:47.760 --> 01:27:50.160 It'll be relevant for a period of time, but it's not going 01:27:50.160 --> 01:27:51.920 to get us where we need to go. 01:27:51.920 --> 01:27:54.480 And at most it's going to stand in the way. 01:27:54.560 --> 01:27:58.160 Sort of the the basic answer to the constitutional question, but not 01:27:58.160 --> 01:27:59.920 specifically that one. 01:28:12.640 --> 01:28:16.960 Let's see. 01:28:16.960 --> 01:28:20.160 I spoke with someone about World War Two, and I brought up 01:28:20.160 --> 01:28:24.080 the God commanded destruction of the Amalekites, and they basically said, Yeah, 01:28:24.080 --> 01:28:29.920 but God explicitly told them to and not Uncle Adolf. 01:28:29.920 --> 01:28:31.280 What would you say to this? 01:28:31.280 --> 01:28:36.560 Well, neither side in that conflict descended from Amalek. 01:28:36.560 --> 01:28:39.200 So it it just isn't relevant. 01:28:39.200 --> 01:28:43.760 And also, the Jews are an apostate nation. 01:28:43.760 --> 01:28:49.440 They don't have any command from God to do or to execute 01:28:49.440 --> 01:28:51.040 or implement anything. 01:28:51.040 --> 01:28:54.400 They're hostile to him, they hate him, and he hates them because 01:28:54.400 --> 01:28:57.040 God does not just hate the sin, he hates the sinner as 01:28:57.040 --> 01:29:00.720 well, because you can't judge Just hate the sin, that's completely incoherent, 01:29:00.720 --> 01:29:03.520 because there's no sin without the sinner. 01:29:03.520 --> 01:29:06.800 So obviously his command to them is to repent, to turn from 01:29:06.800 --> 01:29:09.120 their wickedness, which they will not do. 01:29:09.120 --> 01:29:14.320 But people who bring up Amalek on our side are just trying 01:29:14.320 --> 01:29:17.520 to invert what the Jews claim because the Jews claim that everyone 01:29:17.520 --> 01:29:23.040 else basically on earth is Amalek, largely those of fair complexion. 01:29:23.040 --> 01:29:28.080 So they hate Germans specifically, they hate the Iranians, they hate most 01:29:28.080 --> 01:29:29.280 of Europe. 01:29:29.280 --> 01:29:31.600 They try to say that we are Amalek. 01:29:31.600 --> 01:29:33.520 We're descended from Japheth. 01:29:33.520 --> 01:29:35.920 It's not even the right son of Noah. 01:29:35.920 --> 01:29:40.080 Amalek is their cousin, not ours, but they they make these crazy 01:29:40.080 --> 01:29:43.760 claims and when men on the right try to invert it, it 01:29:43.760 --> 01:29:45.120 just sounds ridiculous. 01:29:45.120 --> 01:29:47.120 There's no reason to do it. 01:29:47.120 --> 01:29:50.400 We aren't Amalek, they aren't Amalek. 01:29:50.960 --> 01:29:53.760 They are evil Christ-killing apostates. 01:29:53.760 --> 01:29:56.000 I feel like that's probably sufficient. 01:29:56.000 --> 01:29:56.320 So 01:30:11.200 --> 01:30:16.000 What do you think about Japheth being mythologized into Jupiter by later 01:30:16.000 --> 01:30:21.520 Indo-Europeans? I do think that's probably part of it. 01:30:21.520 --> 01:30:24.480 I think that's part of how that played out. 01:30:25.120 --> 01:30:28.240 There are obviously some, I don't want to get too deeply into 01:30:28.240 --> 01:30:30.320 mythology, but there are some distinctions. 01:30:30.320 --> 01:30:32.000 So you have Odin, right? 01:30:32.000 --> 01:30:34.080 There are some obvious parallels with Noah. 01:30:34.080 --> 01:30:36.320 What does No what does Odin carry around? 01:30:36.320 --> 01:30:39.520 Ravens? What did Noah send out from the Ark? 01:30:39.520 --> 01:30:44.720 Ravens, also dove, of course, but you get those parallels, you get 01:30:44.880 --> 01:30:48.400 you know the wandering about in the forest, maybe it's a throwback 01:30:48.400 --> 01:30:50.960 to the fact the first worship of God took place in a 01:30:50.960 --> 01:30:54.160 grove because you had sacred trees, right? 01:30:54.160 --> 01:30:58.000 One of the ways you can interpret the tree in Genesis is 01:30:58.000 --> 01:31:02.320 not being a singular tree, but tree in the sense that we 01:31:02.320 --> 01:31:04.480 would say apple tree, right? 01:31:04.480 --> 01:31:07.280 As a species, and so a a grove. 01:31:07.280 --> 01:31:10.080 So the first worship of God took place in a forest. 01:31:10.080 --> 01:31:12.640 Even if it was one tree, it's still in the Garden of 01:31:12.640 --> 01:31:15.600 Eden, which is full of fruit trees, so it's still a forest. 01:31:15.600 --> 01:31:15.920 But 01:31:16.880 --> 01:31:19.440 you have a lot of parallels there, and you have obviously the 01:31:19.440 --> 01:31:23.200 similarity of the name J Fith and Jupiter, Jove, things like that. 01:31:23.200 --> 01:31:25.200 You have the titles for them. 01:31:25.200 --> 01:31:28.400 You have, you know, the All Father and things like that. 01:31:28.400 --> 01:31:31.840 It's a title for the head of something. 01:31:31.840 --> 01:31:36.400 Well it's the federal head of the European race, Japheth. 01:31:36.400 --> 01:31:41.280 In some cases a conflation of Japheth and Noah and maybe some 01:31:41.280 --> 01:31:43.840 other ancestor who did great things as well. 01:31:43.840 --> 01:31:48.800 But that sort of conflation happens with mythology when you have Oral 01:31:48.800 --> 01:31:51.680 retellings of these stories down through the centuries. 01:31:51.680 --> 01:31:54.000 Basically a giant game of telephone, right? 01:31:54.240 --> 01:31:57.920 I think that a lot of that played into European mythology. 01:31:57.920 --> 01:32:00.720 I think a lot of it is based in reality. 01:32:00.720 --> 01:32:04.480 Is there some influence from malign forces as well? 01:32:04.480 --> 01:32:08.320 Absolutely. You certainly have some very strange things in some of the 01:32:08.320 --> 01:32:09.920 European mythologies. 01:32:09.920 --> 01:32:13.920 The Greek gods are not the best people in the world. 01:32:13.920 --> 01:32:17.440 But that could mean they were just mythologized people, because people are 01:32:17.440 --> 01:32:18.400 often like that. 01:32:18.400 --> 01:32:20.880 So is there reality to mythology? 01:32:20.880 --> 01:32:27.920 Absolutely. And is the European mythology aligned with and parallel to the 01:32:27.920 --> 01:32:29.680 biblical truth in some ways? 01:32:29.680 --> 01:32:30.960 Absolutely as well. 01:32:30.960 --> 01:32:35.040 I've said before, I think that's one of the reasons that Europeans 01:32:35.040 --> 01:32:39.440 were able to be converted back to Christianity so easily and it 01:32:39.440 --> 01:32:43.280 was much more difficult in other cases because you don't have those 01:32:43.280 --> 01:32:48.480 parallels in say African mythology, ignoring intelligence issues and other things like 01:32:48.480 --> 01:32:50.480 that. You don't have the parallels. 01:32:50.480 --> 01:32:54.800 You don't have these figures who look very much like Christ, you 01:32:54.800 --> 01:32:57.600 don't have these figures who look very much like Noah. 01:32:57.600 --> 01:33:01.680 And all of these things you can draw out and bring someone 01:33:01.680 --> 01:33:05.120 into the Christian faith by saying, Your ancestors were Ancestors weren't entirely 01:33:05.120 --> 01:33:08.560 wrong, they just played telephone a little bit and messed some stuff 01:33:08.560 --> 01:33:10.800 up. Let me tell you the truth. 01:33:10.800 --> 01:33:14.640 As opposed to coming to someone and saying, literally everything your ancestors 01:33:14.640 --> 01:33:17.840 believed and did was wrong and evil, and you have to stop. 01:33:17.840 --> 01:33:20.560 That's what we found when we got to Africa and they were 01:33:20.560 --> 01:33:24.000 eating people and engaging in witchcraft and all these other things. 01:33:24.000 --> 01:33:26.720 That's a harder sell, right? 01:33:26.720 --> 01:33:30.720 So I think that played into the Christianization, the conversion of Europe 01:33:30.720 --> 01:33:32.160 to Christianity. 01:33:32.160 --> 01:33:36.720 I think that our ancestors did not fall as far and did 01:33:36.720 --> 01:33:41.440 not fall for as long with regard to their apostasy. 01:33:41.440 --> 01:33:43.920 And so they just weren't as evil. 01:33:43.920 --> 01:33:45.920 That is an easier conversion. 01:33:45.920 --> 01:33:51.200 Someone who is less wicked is generally easier to convert, particularly what 01:33:51.200 --> 01:33:54.320 they believe is already parallel to Christianity. 01:33:54.320 --> 01:33:59.280 So yes, Japh, Jupiter, those things definitely related. 01:33:59.280 --> 01:34:03.920 Kind of hard at this distance to figure out exactly what fed 01:34:03.920 --> 01:34:07.680 into it and how things got changed over time. 01:34:07.680 --> 01:34:10.800 We just don't have the documents to draw that out because most 01:34:10.800 --> 01:34:12.800 of them have been lost to time. 01:34:12.800 --> 01:34:15.680 They were written on animal skins, they decayed. 01:34:15.680 --> 01:34:17.440 If they were written down at all. 01:34:25.680 --> 01:34:28.640 Let's see, I'm trying to get around my camera which is blocking 01:34:28.640 --> 01:34:30.160 the question I want to read. 01:34:30.160 --> 01:34:34.240 You previously recommended I'm not afraid by Robert Bennett to understand African 01:34:34.240 --> 01:34:38.800 syncretism. Do you have any other thoughts on that book or its 01:34:38.800 --> 01:34:42.160 sequel? It's been a long time since I looked at that book, 01:34:42.160 --> 01:34:44.160 so I don't really have any particular thoughts on it. 01:34:44.160 --> 01:34:47.360 I think it from what I remember, it's really a good view 01:34:47.360 --> 01:34:51.520 of View of some of the challenges of dealing with trying to 01:34:51.520 --> 01:34:56.560 Christianize people who just have a very wicked mythology and a very 01:34:56.560 --> 01:34:58.880 corrupted view of the world. 01:34:58.880 --> 01:34:59.200 And 01:35:00.560 --> 01:35:01.760 yes, it is 01:35:03.120 --> 01:35:06.960 not as frank as perhaps some in our circles would be, but 01:35:06.960 --> 01:35:11.120 it's a pretty blunt depiction of the reality of dealing with people 01:35:11.120 --> 01:35:14.240 in Africa and trying to get them to not just become Christian, 01:35:14.240 --> 01:35:16.400 but stay Christian. 01:35:16.400 --> 01:35:22.560 And also, of course, the reality of demonic possession and the just 01:35:22.560 --> 01:35:26.560 the presence of the demonic in places that have been so far 01:35:26.560 --> 01:35:28.320 from Christ for so long. 01:35:28.720 --> 01:35:31.920 You can feel the evil in some places. 01:35:43.680 --> 01:35:45.920 I think that is 01:35:46.880 --> 01:35:49.440 probably it for 01:35:50.720 --> 01:35:52.880 this time. 01:35:52.880 --> 01:35:53.520 I think 01:35:54.560 --> 01:35:55.280 20 questions. 01:35:55.280 --> 01:35:58.400 I think that's probably pretty good for one week. 01:35:58.400 --> 01:36:01.120 So I think I will call it here. 01:36:01.120 --> 01:36:03.920 If I missed your question, by all means, submit it on the 01:36:03.920 --> 01:36:06.480 forum. That is, of course as I as I always say the 01:36:06.480 --> 01:36:08.560 preferred way to submit the questions. 01:36:08.560 --> 01:36:11.280 So if you have a question you would like to ask me, 01:36:11.280 --> 01:36:12.640 you can submit it on the forum. 01:36:12.640 --> 01:36:15.360 The link will be in the show notes for the episode. 01:36:15.360 --> 01:36:18.080 It should also be in the notes or the description for the 01:36:18.080 --> 01:36:22.480 stream. You can find that it's omniphora.com, and then you can just 01:36:22.480 --> 01:36:24.720 find the request category. 01:36:24.720 --> 01:36:28.000 If you want to submit a question elsewhere, that's also of course 01:36:28.160 --> 01:36:32.640 find my telegram channel on X or in the comments here. 01:36:32.640 --> 01:36:36.800 If you submit it in the comments to a previous video, it 01:36:36.800 --> 01:36:40.480 will probably take me longer to notice it, just because I have 01:36:40.800 --> 01:36:44.640 a wild amount of notifications to try to get through and sometimes 01:36:44.640 --> 01:36:46.000 I miss things. 01:36:46.000 --> 01:36:50.800 But if I see your question, I will try to copy it 01:36:50.800 --> 01:36:54.960 into I have a standing thread on the forum of all of 01:36:54.960 --> 01:36:56.960 the questions I have in my backlog. 01:36:56.960 --> 01:36:59.920 So if you don't see it there, please submit it on the 01:36:59.920 --> 01:37:01.440 forum or somewhere where I notice it. 01:37:01.840 --> 01:37:05.520 I try to go through and like the questions on X so 01:37:05.520 --> 01:37:07.920 that the person knows that I saw it and added it to 01:37:07.920 --> 01:37:10.480 my list or I'm going to answer it. 01:37:10.480 --> 01:37:13.040 But I think that's basically all of the housekeeping. 01:37:13.040 --> 01:37:16.080 And since it's Thursday I guess we still have a little bit 01:37:16.080 --> 01:37:18.480 of work and other things to do tomorrow, but I hope you 01:37:18.480 --> 01:37:22.160 all have a great weekend coming up and of course, go to 01:37:22.160 --> 01:37:23.600 church on Sunday. 01:37:23.600 --> 01:37:26.960 And God bless you all until I see you next week. 01:37:26.960 --> 01:37:28.240 God bless.