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Episode 14: with The Charismatic Calvinist (John Welnick ).mp3
192 Plays6 months ago
This episode with John Welnick, aka The Charismatic Calvinist, is a buffet of theological topics.
I hope you love fast-moving conversations over a lot of topics, such as:
- Common Straw-man arguments
- Calvinist
- Arminianism
- Pedobaptism
- Credobaptism
- Deconstruction
- Church History
- The Reformation
- Loser Evangelism
- Proof Texting
Make sure to subscribe to all things Office Theology and follow John at @charismatic_calvinst
Recommended
Transcript
Predestination and God's Role
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, well what would you say to the person that says, so does God create people predestined to go to hell? And that's the big, and this is where we'll keep, you know, butting our heads into the why, right? People always have a problem with the why.
00:00:14
Speaker
And with that, that's where Romans 9 addresses this question. It addresses it in a way that people don't like the answer. Because there is no answer for this. That's nice. Because God's not a nice God. He's a kind God. He's not even a nice God. There's a difference. So people will run into this every single time. I'm like, hey, go read Romans 9. Because Paul actually asks the same exact question you're asking.
Introduction of John Welnick
00:00:38
Speaker
Hey, well, welcome to the Office Theology Podcast. On this episode, we have special guest, John Welnick, AKA the Charismatic Calvinist. What is up? Cool. What's up, man? Glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me on. Yeah. And so, explain to us your Instagram handle, because I might confuse some people.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, man, there's a whole story, but I'll keep it short. Several years ago, some, I came to this theology over the course of several years. I grew up in the charismatic church movement, continuationist church movement. And then over the last few years, I came to centeriology, which is just a fancy word that means the theology behind how we are saved, of Calvinism, right?
00:01:28
Speaker
So, but I still was fully continuation is still full of charismatic. So I'm like, well, these two things go together. So just thinking a new Instagram handle, like a long time ago, like, yeah, it's gonna be fun to call myself a charismatic cow. That's why not. I'm thinking I wasn't trying to create content. I just thought it was a funny name because somebody had called somebody, somebody in my church would just call me that one day. And I was like, yeah, I guess I kind of am that. So I just chose the name and went with it. And then over the last few years, as I've been creating more and more content, he's kind of grown into a bit
00:01:57
Speaker
And that's where I'm at.
Content Creation and Audience Engagement
00:01:58
Speaker
I used to just post stories and rant about stuff and I would post like, I'm really into photography. So I post photography and then talk about stuff in my stories, but I never did like reals or anything like that. And about a year and a half ago, I felt a little call to a little push to start creating content more purposefully, which is what I've been doing. And it did nothing for a year. I would get, you know, maybe
00:02:22
Speaker
10, 12,000 impressions of video, maybe 3,000. It was a little discouraging. I was trying to figure out, okay, improve the quality, improve the content, whatever. And then I had one video just kick off. It was kind of by accident. It's usually how it goes. Yeah. So I did a video about our Jews saved or something like that. I can't remember what it was, but it was basically just trying to discern the difference between Judaism and Christianity because a lot of
00:02:52
Speaker
you know, Baptist dispensational churches will, uh, you know, talk about the Jewish people that there are brothers of the faith. And I'm not, I'm not anti-Semitic, uh, to a fault, but I would say, guys, that's not true because kind of the angle I usually like to shoot for, it's just something that's going to get other people's skin a little bit.
00:03:12
Speaker
Um, now I dropped that video October 5th of last year. Okay. And the savvy listener might know what happened two days after that, uh, on October 7th. Yeah. So it hit an algorithm by accident. Uh, and then that, that video did like 200,000 or something, which for me was bonkers and never had anything that much. Unfortunately, it was kind of in the wrong lane. Uh, cause then I got all of the, uh, you know,
00:03:40
Speaker
the anti-Semitic kind of a trap rose and all that hopping on down with Israel, but okay, that's not what I was going for. But the cool thing was with that, and as you know, how Instagram works, when one video gets a bunch of traction, Instagram will start sampling some of your other stuff in the algorithm to see, Hey, is this guy anything else that's good? And then like three other of my videos also took off at the same time. And I gained, you know, thousands of followers in like a week or two, which is great. So since then, since like fall of last year, I've been kind of on a bit of a kink and that's been fun.
00:04:09
Speaker
Oh, nice. So like just a few months old, five or six months. Yeah. So I've been doing this content, just kind of these little Bible teachings spoof things for about a year, year and a half, but it's really only taken off. I mean, October 5th, I was at maybe like 1300 followers. It was nothing. And then now I think I'm just about to break 12 K. So I'm in that tiny little micro influencer category.
00:04:36
Speaker
Dude, the sweet, sweet, sweet rise. That's awesome. Yeah. It's, it's so, it's so interesting too. Um, one, because like I, like I shared, like for me, it was a few hundred followers. And then I made one Easter resurrection video about. Yeah.
00:04:53
Speaker
about Jesus, quote, saying the B word and if people loved it or hated it and the rest is history, you know, just making, making sense. Then it's so interesting how more controversial the topic or the content, the more Instagram loves it. Yeah. And so.
00:05:12
Speaker
At the time of this recording, I've been roasting beliefs and denominations and stances. I just did Catholicism yesterday, today's Pentecostal or Charismatic. And those posts get
00:05:29
Speaker
50 times more reach than just a standard Bible meme. Yeah. And so, Oh, for sure. So here's, here's the, uh, the frustrating mix. I mean, you talked about a little bit about losing followers and things like that when you post something like that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, what I have learned, and I guess this is a little micro tip for micro influencers out there is when you gain a bunch of followers off of one video or one piece of content, um,
00:06:00
Speaker
I don't want to say you have to be careful because you still want to be true to what your platform is. So this is why I would kind of recommend any country out there kind of stick mostly within your lane. Don't bounce out too much outside of your lane too often because you get all these followers, but they're following for that
Calvinism and Arminianism: Theological Debate
00:06:15
Speaker
one piece of content. Right. And I'll, I'll use this as an example. I had a video about Christian dating, you know, how should Christian state get married? And it went nuts. It didn't, I think it's at like 600 K or something.
00:06:26
Speaker
And I had like this apostate deconstruction guy criticize it was fun But that's a really down-the-fair way unoffensive description dating video Yeah, so then when the rest of my offensive content comes into the stories People are like like who the hell is this guy unfollow like this is I thought this is a dating guy now He's talking about so it's like that. I wouldn't have done differently. I love the video. It did really well for me, but it's like I
00:06:52
Speaker
When you post something that's in one lane and then all of a sudden you step outside in the lane, you get all those people who follow for the lane like, I don't like this anymore.
00:07:00
Speaker
So, you know, you're just posting happy, fun memes about Christianity, but all of a sudden you're roasting someone. Yeah, you'll get the people. Who cares? Yeah. Oh yeah. Someone said it was the most perfect response to one of my stories. They said, it sounds like their name was not written in Office Theology book, a meme book of life. And I was like, that was perfect, you know?
00:07:22
Speaker
just going with it. It's kind of like if you watch the office, you know, it's, it's very offensive. Like, yeah, it's just, so part of me is I'm like, you watch the office, but if it hits, if it, if it intersects with your faith and challenges that, then you don't like it. How, how much of the office do you watch?
00:07:42
Speaker
Um, I probably watch, I watch a good amount, but it's, this is kind of funny and a little embarrassing is like, yeah, I've probably watched through the entire season. Now I'm going to roast people one through nine, not, not two through seven seasons, one through nine. Yeah.
00:07:59
Speaker
12 to 15 times. Oh gosh. Yeah. And it's what I figured. I've been watching it since like I was in high school. Well, I figured like the quotes, the captions you pull out are like from scenes. I don't even remember. I've seen it twice all the way through. So I'm like, I don't even remember. This guy must be watching this show a lot. And that's the part like
00:08:22
Speaker
I could watch, see a clip of a scene, and I could think through almost that whole episode. And be like, okay, well, what works well? And my wife's like, I don't know if that's impressive or sad. I'm like, I don't know a little bit. But early on in my youth pastor days, because I was a youth pastor for nine years, I had a student roast me unintentionally, but it was like the Holy Spirit working through that student. I was like, man, imagine if you knew the Bible that well. And I'm like, you know what?
00:08:49
Speaker
Get out of here, leave, I'm done. And so, but yeah, it's basically just baked in my memory now. But still do, big fan, obviously. Yeah, let's jump into some of these topics. So I messaged you a couple weeks ago asking what topics you're passionate about. He said ecumenicalism and the doctrine of salvation. So real quick, why are these two topics, why were these your go-to when I asked you that question?
00:09:18
Speaker
Well, so I'll start with the second one. Soteriology, you know, doctrine of salvation is, as a Calvinist, obviously that's the first thing people talk about. And I'm passionate about that because I believe, you know, the faithful reading of scripture can only really lead you to
00:09:33
Speaker
that or something similar to that. And I'll broaden it a bit and say that it's not just Calvinist, but Monergism. And Monergism is based, there's two types of salvation. There's synergism and there's Monergism. Synergism, as the name kind of applies, is synergistic. So we work together with God. God reaches down, we reach out, and that's how salvation works. So the Monergistic theology is, it's just God, it's only God.
00:09:58
Speaker
you don't contribute anything to our salvation as the saying goes, except the sin that makes it necessary. Um, so I don't like saying Calvinism one, because that comes with a lot of baggage and most of it's just total utter misunderstanding. Uh, I hear from the dumbest criticism for people. It's like, Oh, I guess I'm
00:10:21
Speaker
Not what predestination means. Furthermore, predestination is in everyone's Bible. So if you don't like the word predestination, it's in your Bible. Go check Ephesians. Sorry, bro, it's there.
00:10:31
Speaker
I only read the passion, so nevermind. Exactly, yeah. And that's what I mean when I say it's like a faithful reading of scripture, and this is an arrogant statement, I realize. But for me, I don't see how you can read scripture and come to a different doctrine other than something within the monergistic frame view. And that's classical Lutheranism, Augustinianism, Calvinism. I mean, John Calvin cited Augustine.
00:10:56
Speaker
over 300 times in his last edition of the Institute, which is his famous work. And basically, what this means to me...
00:11:06
Speaker
of Calvinism is it's broken down. You know, talk about the five points of college. So I'll try to break the myth here. No, Calvinism does not teach that everything is predestined down to a T that's called determinism. Right. So, you know, if I, you know, pick up this, this piece of paper, put it down, God didn't predetermine that for jillions of years ago. Okay. That's called agency.
00:11:29
Speaker
Have a free agency to do that. Think of it like a menu. Okay, so when you walk into a restaurant You can order anything you want on the menu
00:11:38
Speaker
It's up to you. However, you can only order from the menu. I can't walk into McDonald's and get a nice 2015 Bordeaux and some foie gras. Like that's what I'm stuck with that menu. Yeah. So that's essentially what God offers humanity. We have this menu, which is called agency, but we can only do what we can only do within this menu because when people say, well, I have free will, I believe in free
Baptism and Tradition in Christianity
00:12:02
Speaker
wealth. You don't have free wealth.
00:12:04
Speaker
You can walk across that lake. See that plane go fly up to that plane right now. That's a lot of ridiculous. That's free will. Free will is a complete total ability to do whatever you want. God has free will. God can do whatever he wants.
00:12:18
Speaker
So you don't have free will, you have free agency, which means that any moment you can choose, do whatever is within your own ability, your own agency. Within the menu. Within the menu. I mean, so for example, you look at a physically disabled person, they have less agency than you do because they can't move as much. So within that menu, so people don't understand what free will means. When I say you don't have free will, I not only mean that,
00:12:44
Speaker
You can't do whatever you want, none of us can. But I also mean that you can't choose God. And that's kind of the big question, what comes down to you. Motors are just about sin, and how it is, and whatever it is. Do you choose God, or does God choose you? That's what it all comes back to.
00:13:00
Speaker
And I think this is where, you know, you'll talk to, um, semi-Pelagians, which is a fancy word, basically just means people who think that we're all born like neutral and then we choose good or bad. And then if we're really good people, we can choose God. They want to retain some kind of control because it makes them uncomfortable that they're out of control. Um, and I, I, I, again, I think a faithful reading of scripture points time and time and time again to God chooses us. We don't choose God. Um,
00:13:28
Speaker
you look at everything from the Old Testament to the New Testament, the whole thematic, systematic theology of the Bible, is that the whole way through is God choosing, God choosing, God choosing. It's God's choice. I mean, how many times did the Israelites choose God?
00:13:44
Speaker
How many times did God choose the Israelites? Then you read through the gospel of John and then you have over and over and over again, Jesus saying, no one comes to me unless the father draws him. My sheep hear my voice. You don't hear my voice because you're not one of my sheep. Well, you can't transform into a sheep. You either are or you aren't.
00:14:04
Speaker
And you can stop me at any point here, but that's kind of, yeah. Sorry question. So what would say if someone made the argument, well, yeah, God chose me, but I had a chance to respond. Either accept it or not.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah. So that would fall under what's classical Arminianism. And I don't, I don't, I like to just define this because when most Calvinists, you know, because most Calvinists are just, you know, they're reformed idiots. But when they talk about our Arminianism, most Calvinists don't even understand Arminianism because classical Arminianism is in itself a form of magnetism, although it's kind of on line and I'll explain it. So Jacobus Arminius was Calvin's big theological
00:14:53
Speaker
right, 16th, 17th centuries. Arminius taught that God still predestines everyone. Again, the words in the Bible, not my problem, taking up with God. God looks down the hallways of time, the passageways of time. God's fore knew who would choose him and who would reject him.
00:15:14
Speaker
And that was God's form of predestining. And Arminius taught that. We have this window of choice, and this window is called Prevenient Grace. Now, at some point in our life, we hear the gospel message, this Prevenient Grace window opens up, and within this window, we have the free will to choose or reject God.
00:15:35
Speaker
But it's only within that window. And if we miss that window, the opportunity is gone. We can never choose God. So it's basically like Calvinism with more steps. And my issue with that is it's like, it doesn't say that anywhere in the Bible. It doesn't. You read through the famous, you know, sincerely logical chapters of Romans, particularly Romans 9.
00:15:55
Speaker
That would have been the perfect opportunity for Paul to talk about this window of grace or God looking down the hallways of time. And he never mentions it. He says, nope, God hated, which doesn't mean a personal, vindictive hatred. It means a rejection. God hated Esau and he accepted. He loved Jacob.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yep. Um, so it's, I don't think God shows me because I'm a good person. In fact, it's the opposite. If I will, and I'll finish this with this, cause I can talk about this for hours, but I'll finish. I'm here for it. I think the thing is.
00:16:28
Speaker
Based on what I've been doing, I poked at Arminianism and Calvinism, and people have all these, what do people say, straw man arguments all over Instagram that don't really, and you said earlier, you like arguments that are good, not just throwing stuff against the wall, like throwing mud. I'll argue for stuff I don't believe in if it's a good argument. Like you did on infant baptism.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I'm not, I'm not a paid O Baptist. I'm a creative Baptist, which basically just means I believe the sacrament of baptism is something you have to elect yourself into. You have to choose it at the point of your conversion. Um, I don't believe that there's any biblical, anything that points to your parents. Cause like here, if you break it down, Sacramento, um, sacraments are, uh, basically rituals that transfer grace from God to us, uh, the Catholic church.
00:17:22
Speaker
other sacraments Protestants traditionally live with two sacraments which is holy comedian and baptism now baptism is the sacrament of grace that transfers conveys salvation from God to you no baptism doesn't save you because again the people on the cross is in heaven however that just means God is not the Catholics like to say God's not bound by the sacraments but we are bound by the sacraments so and that's the perfect way to put
00:17:49
Speaker
in the way he wants. God can save anyone he wants. You don't have to be baptized to
Predestination and Human Free Will
00:17:52
Speaker
be saved. But if you have the opportunity to, baptism is that sacrament that conveys the salvific grace to the believer. It's not, if I hate it when people say this, baptism is just a public declaration of your faith in Jesus Christ. No, it's not. It's not a public declaration of your faith in Jesus Christ. Because it's not even always done publicly. Sometimes people do it like a backyard and there's something cool. How public is that? It has nothing to do with that.
00:18:19
Speaker
This is your typical Baptist, I freaking can't say Baptist. This is your typical Baptist nonsense where we just transform all these saccharites into just something they're not. Because what happens when you throw away all these saccharites and all these traditions is you have to somehow justify them in your Christian tradition. But without 2000 years of Christian tradition, you can't make sense of any of them. So we come up with things like it's a public declaration.
00:18:44
Speaker
No, it's not. Baptism is how you get saved. It's the vessel God uses to transfer salvific grace to you as the believer. Is it necessary to go to heaven? No, but yes, at the same time. So here's what I'll say. So that's how we get that salvific grace. And if nobody can save me for myself, like my parents didn't save me, God saved me.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah. So that, that was a, when I got baptized, that was a response to God's grace. So that being the case, I don't see anywhere how you can logically make a case for your parents being able to choose salvation for you. Um, and yes, I've heard every single argument I've listened to Doug Wilson. I've listened to all those guys, great arguments. I don't agree with any of it. So that I'm, I'm pretty Baptist. So that being the case, yes, somebody was in your comments the other day, say for
00:19:35
Speaker
There's a reason Jesus didn't give that price till he was 30. I know exactly which one you're talking about.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, because Jesus, but again, if you understood the sacrament of baptism, you would understand that Jesus did not get baptized out of necessity because he didn't need to get saved. And it's when you, again, and we'll get into this with kind of the next topic, but it's like when you throw away all this tradition,
00:20:07
Speaker
But you're left with the sacraments, but no tradition to explain them. You come up with all these goofy explanations for baptism, for communion. Communion is the other one. Processes have no idea what communion means. They have no idea what baptism means. So that drives me nuts. But yeah, so back to, with this etymology, I'll try to wrap this up. No, you're good. I always try to say earlier is I'm like,
00:20:31
Speaker
You have, if you want to take time to explain the things that you have bones to pick or different things going on, go for it. I am all for it. I love this type of stuff. I love this conversation. So I'm not like, man, I wish you would wrap up this conversation already. Nope. Oh, no, you're good. Just keep going.
00:20:51
Speaker
Appreciate it. So, so let me explain, cause I kind of, I explained things best. I think we're storytelling. So let me, an anecdote to make the case for motorism, not Calvinism, I can't take the labels off of it. So you, you got you and your friend, right? Let's, let's do you a motor, you and your identical twin.
00:21:07
Speaker
Same age, you're looking identical, you were born somehow at the same exact time, nobody came out first, nobody came out second. You grew up the exact same life, same clothes, same friends, identical people in every quantifiable way. You both are not saved. You go to church, you hear the same exact gospel message from the same exact creature. You both, you know, you weren't on your phones, you weren't distracted, you both heard every single word of it. You both received it in exactly the same
00:21:36
Speaker
sort of look for a semantical way. There was no misunderstanding. One of you responds to the gospel message. The other one rejects it. Okay. So, Monergism has a perfect explanation for this. It's capable of this person who accepted it was one of God's people. And they were chosen before time began, just like Ephesians says, predestined to be adopted as the Son of God. Why? I don't know. That's a whole separate conversation. I'm not answering the why.
00:22:01
Speaker
But I'm answering the what. One of those people was predestined to be adopted as it says in Ephesians. Or I think it's Galatians, I can't remember. The other person was not. Again, Jacob I've loved, Esau I'm hated. Jacob and Esau were brothers. They were twins. They came out at the same time until Jacob was grabbing the heel. So, I don't know the why, but I do know the what. So now you have to explain to me, as the free will, semi-collegiate, Arminian, whatever you want to call it,
00:22:30
Speaker
why one person accepted the gospel and the other person rejected it. And there is no logical explanation. You can point to their lifestyle. Oh, well, maybe one of them has a bad experience with the Christians who already told you their exact same lifestyle, same experience with the church. So they'll come up with all these different anecdotes to try to explain it away. You know, this person has some church hurt or this person, you know, maybe they were distracted, maybe they didn't hear, maybe this same situation was the difference between these two people. And you were left with
00:23:00
Speaker
having to make the distinction that one person had something moral in them that was able to recognize and choose the goodness of God that the other person did not possess.
00:23:09
Speaker
because when you hear goodness and you respond to it, that's not you responding to it as a depraved sinner. That's the goodness in you responding to it. And as a, as a, as a motorist, I would say, we have that goodness in me is not anything good in me. It's something that God gave me from birth that I was able to, that effectual calling. I responded to that as I was predestined to do. Um, yeah. And then there was perhaps our minionism.
00:23:33
Speaker
or not classical or modern or medievalism, which is just semi-Pelagianism, would teach that, yeah, that person who didn't get saved didn't have something good in them that you did because you were able to recognize the goodness of God and they weren't. Well, what does that do, soteriologically speaking, morally speaking? Morally speaking, it says that something you possessed made God save you and didn't make God save them.
00:23:58
Speaker
Or rather, that there was something better in you than marriage and salvation that they didn't possess. There is no other explanation. Because otherwise, okay, yeah, well, they were a worse person. That's why they didn't choose God. I was a better person. That's why I chose God. So a common straw man against Calvinism, or other just in general, is they'll say, oh, you guys think you're so holier than that. Like you think God shows you, you're so special, God shows you.
00:24:23
Speaker
I don't like before people very much, but you will not find more humble I shouldn't say this right because before people some of those area people are not But you will not you will not find someone with a more humble Soteriology before people are arrogant for completely different reasons
00:24:39
Speaker
But their soteriology is the most humble soteriology to a fault that you've ever heard in your life. Because they'll say, there is nothing good in me. I was a worm. I was dirt. I was depraved. I was rotten. I was deserving of hell. And then God through no desert, no bear of my own chose me and saved me and pulled me out of the fire. It's like if you're a kid, you know, you mentioned you've got a toddler. If she's running into the street,
00:25:02
Speaker
and you see a car coming, you're not gonna sit there like debate, well, I don't wanna violate
God's Sovereignty and Fairness
00:25:07
Speaker
her free will. I love her too much to violate her free will right now. She's chosen that for herself and because I love her so much, she can die. It's like, no, you're gonna run after her and you're gonna grab her against her free will and you're gonna pull her out of harm's way.
00:25:21
Speaker
And that is what Calvinism means, is that there's a loving God who sees his people, his children, and he's pulling them against their will out of harm's way, right? There is nobody that's gonna be in heaven kicking and screaming to go to hell. And there's nobody that's begging to get into heaven, like, God, please let me in, please let me in, that God doesn't let me in.
00:25:43
Speaker
The difference, and that's what people don't understand. This is the strong man against Calvinism is to think that what we teach Calvinists teach is that, you know, there's all these folks who just so desperately want to get into heaven, but you didn't make the list like we're JWs or something. Like there's only, you know, 240,000 or whatever.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah. 144. 144. Yeah. That's it. So like, that's what the people think about, honestly think about Calvinists is that we think that, you know, someone begging to get into heaven and God's like, sorry, man, you're not on my list. You are predestined. It sucks for you to go to hell. Yeah. Who are you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm teaching that. Nobody's trying to get into heaven unless they weren't predestined to be there in the first place.
00:26:22
Speaker
Because look, you've got a house, your house has a lot. It's got doors, it's got windows that shut. You get to choose who you let into your house. Why doesn't God get to make the same choice? Why doesn't God get to say, hey, you don't come in, but you get to come in? No, we have this stupid nonsense theology that says we deserve heaven.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yeah. Well, what would you say to the person that says, so does God create people predestined to go to hell? And that's the big, and this is where we'll keep, you know, butting our heads into the why, right? People always have a problem with the why. And with that, that's where Romans nine again addresses this question. And it addresses it in a way that people don't like the answer. Because there is no answer for this. That's nice. Because God's not a nice God. He's a kind God.
00:27:07
Speaker
They are you nice Scott. There's a difference So people will run into this every single time like go read Romans 9 because Paul actually asks the same exact question you're asking He says well, hold on So does that mean that God just created some people for wrath and other people for something? That's not fair. Paul actually says this. I'm not making this up. Paul raises Paul phrases this question he poses it as as
00:27:33
Speaker
as a hypothetical. He says, well, doesn't that mean, Paul, that God created some people for help? And Paul's like, Paul doesn't say, well, he says yes, but what he says is even better than that. He says what?
00:27:44
Speaker
God as the Potter have the right to create some jars for honorable use and suffer dishonorable use if he made it all Doesn't he have then the right as the creator to do whatever he wants with it? Okay, if I if I you know carve a baseball bat I don't know this terrible analogy But if I carve something out of wood in my garage don't I have the right to do whatever I want that
00:28:08
Speaker
thing? God made us, does he not have the right to do whatever he wants with us? He created morality. He created ethics. So he said, well, that's all right. Well, hold on. You're holding God to his own standards. He created the standards. So that if you're ever in a moment where you have to hold God to his own standards, you've got to think I'm the one of the wrong cause I didn't make these rules. But the second thing Paul says,
00:28:29
Speaker
He says first, yes, God's the potter. He gets to do whatever the hell he wants. But the second thing Paul says is he goes, how dare you? He says, who are you? Oh man,
Scriptural Submission and Sovereignty
00:28:40
Speaker
who are you? You tiny little nobody to question God. It's a similar tone that God uses to Job at the end of the joke.
00:28:50
Speaker
he's like hold on were you there when i stretched the stars across the sky are you the one who tells the water where to stop on the shore like is that you were you there it got a box joe and he goes wait let me think back six days of creation like was joe there i don't remember you were there joe i think that was me
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah. And it's this incredible, this incredible humility that God takes upon himself to stoop down to Job's level. Like he doesn't have to answer those questions, but he does. You know, it's like, you have, I think the, the ghost ship, uh, uh, Lear goes, you know, although I had no right to ask my God, Nelson answered me.
00:29:31
Speaker
Right? So Paul responds in the same way. He's like, you're asking why? Fair question. I'll ask the same thing. Here's the answer. The answer is God gets to do whatever he wants. And if you've got a problem with that, who the heck do you think you are? Yeah. And we don't like that because we don't think it's fair. We want to be in control. And that's what you'll run into with every single, every single Calvinism.
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's the common problem with individuals who have a hard time following Jesus or even Scripture. I know what I think would be best, but I'm being faced with something opposite of what I think is best. So then you're battling over
00:30:10
Speaker
Who's right? They don't like that, that God's not made in their image when he's calling them to be estimated in his image. Yeah. Um, talking to handfuls of people just in the social media world that have quote, left the faith through the famous word of deconstruction is they couldn't stomach, um, creator rights. Yeah.
00:30:31
Speaker
You know, well, no, I don't think that God is really like that. So I'm going to morph him or take the pieces I do like, and then just follow that road wherever it goes. The problem with that is you completely neuter the power of God and the power of God and His Almighty and how amazing He is and powerful. And you're just trying to create Him in your own image, one that I can stomach.
00:30:58
Speaker
And then you're not following God at all anymore. You're just following the God you made up. And there's several, there's exploratory questions you can ask with somebody. And you always have to kind of determine, first, am I talking to somebody who's not actually saved, which is a deconstructionist? They're not saved. They're not Christian. Or am I talking to somebody who does have the Holy Spirit and just has some questions? Because there's two different conversations. 100%. Because a lot of the time deconstructionists will ask questions, rather than let me say this,
00:31:27
Speaker
A lot of the times real Christians will ask questions that deconstructionists also ask. So you have to determine, okay, hold on, am I talking to, you know, an apostate of wolf in sheep's clothing, or am I talking to a fellow believer here? And then that determines the direction of the conversation. Totally different conversation. Completely. Because at the end of the day, one of them will submit to the authority of scripture and the other one.
00:31:50
Speaker
Now, and that's, that's the big difference. So, but there's some exploratory questions you can ask with this. Cause if you ask any Christian, is God sovereign? We'll say, yes, of course, God's sovereign, God's sovereign over everything. Okay. And sovereign is just a word meaning that he is the king. He's the world warrior. Nothing happens outside of, outside of God's knowledge, right? So down to the molecular level, every cloud you see in the sky, everything is within of under God's purview, his control of his knowledge. And if it's not, then he's not God.
The Origin of Evil and Universal Guilt
00:32:15
Speaker
So every Christian agrees, God's sovereign. Then you ask him, is God omniscient? Meaning does God know?
00:32:20
Speaker
everything.
00:32:26
Speaker
God. Now we have to determine, we have to reconcile his sovereignty with his omniscience. If he knows everything, and I don't just mean like historical events, or he could pass a really hard test. I mean, like, he knows every rape that's happening right now. He knows the ones that are going to happen tomorrow. He knows all of all this evil in the world. He's aware of all of it. But he's also sovereign. So you have to you have this moral conundrum. How could a good God be sovereign over things he knows that are evil?
00:32:54
Speaker
No. And this is the, again, you keep running into these why questions. Well, why, why, why, why? You have to step back and say, first of all, I'm a man. I am, I'm given this much knowledge. I know, you know, in part now, but I'll know a little more of that. Right. Yeah.
00:33:10
Speaker
And what I always want to bring people back to is, hold on. What's the root of this question? Well, the root of this question is the root of evil. Why does not let bad things happen? And pastors get this question, this and then like, it's like this question and then it's, how do I know God's will for my life? Cause like the two questions pastors get more than anything else. Can confirm as a pastor. Yeah. It's full of especially youth pastor. Everyone's like, I don't know who God wants me to date. Let's go ahead.
00:33:39
Speaker
But where does evil come from? And the thing is, nobody's ever been able to answer. And I don't have an answer for this question. Nobody has an answer for this question. Philosophers, theologians for thousands of years have never come up with a good answer. Some of them will think about it, and that's a crap answer. Because you're left with handful of options. Either God created Adam and Eve with no ability to sin whatsoever, and they somehow managed to sin. Because if you created something without an ability to sin, that means you cannot sin no matter why.
00:34:08
Speaker
Okay, so here's the question. Okay, so how did Advent Eve sin? I don't know what ability to sin. It shouldn't have been. So that's a mystery. Or option two, God created Advent Eve perfect, but with inability to sin.
00:34:24
Speaker
which then makes you wonder, well then they couldn't have been perfect because they had an exhaust vent on their death star, right? And then the moral question it brings in is that, okay, hold on, how did God and his omniscience create them with an ability to sin knowing that they would sin? Doesn't that make God the author of, or at least somewhat responsible for their sin? And so these are dilemmas that nobody's ever had a good answer to. But here's what I will always bring folks back to.
00:34:53
Speaker
Everyone wonders the origin of evil Christians non-christians ever. Where does evil come from? So we share that mystery my friend But what we don't share is what do you do with your guilt? Because what we also both share is guilt because wherever evil came from we've both this is this is the deconstructionist conversation, right? Yeah, whatever We both agree that evil but we don't know where evil came from but we also both agree that we've committed evil and
00:35:19
Speaker
ourselves. And I know what I do with the guilt that comes from that. What do you do with the guilt that comes from your evil? What are you going to do with it? How do you reconcile it? Do you do a lot of good things and help that mix up for it? Where's your framework for that? So Christianity, like every other religion in the world, does not have an answer, a solid answer for where does evil come from is not the author of evil. And I dare someone listening to come up with one because it's
00:35:46
Speaker
None of them are logical or make sense. But what we do have is an answer for your guilt. So this is God saying, I'm not telling you guys everything. You don't get to know everything because you're not God. But here's what I will do. I'll give you this plan. I'll
Reformation's Impact and Protestant Unity
00:36:01
Speaker
give you this book. And if you follow these instructions, you will have a healthy, happy, successful life. And that can look different for different people. Successful for Paul was getting murdered by Nero. Successful for me looks a lot different, thank God.
00:36:15
Speaker
But no, every Christian will have a happy, healthy, wealthy life, and it looks different for everyone, but you will have that if you follow these rules.
00:36:24
Speaker
And, uh, so anyways, but that, that's what that always kind of comes back to. It's just, it's just this debate over evil. And I think with semi-Pelagians, Armenians, the free Williams, whatever, they just, they want to retain some kind of control. And they want to say, no, this, this is, this is, has something to do with me. I'm like, no, it doesn't. It's got nothing to do with it. Yes. Because during that one, someone commented, um,
00:36:50
Speaker
They're trying to like this synergism was that you were talking about earlier, like I was drowning in the water. Jesus reached his hand out and I reached back. Yeah. That was, that's how they're trying to explain. Yeah. Here's the cute thing with that is that it's not that, that analogy, while it sounds great, it's not found anywhere in scripture. Here's the analogy that is found in scripture. You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
00:37:14
Speaker
You were dead. Spiritually dead. Okay. Someone commented below, no, you're dead floating underwater. Yeah. Well, that's what, it's, it's, Bonnie, Bonnie Baucom's got this, this fantastic sermon where he, he, he screams at the end. He's like, dead men don't swim. God is not tossing you like preserver and you just have to meet him halfway. You're dead.
00:37:36
Speaker
You're dead. And then God made you alive. We've forgotten it was just Easter, the whole analogy of the resurrection. This just wasn't swooning on the cross. He was dead. And just like that, we are resurrected to life. So if you're dead, you don't make decisions. You don't
00:37:55
Speaker
You're dead. And that's where even classical arminities, in my view, falls apart because this idea of Pervenient Grace, it's not in scripture, but even if we can make some scriptural case for it, which we can't, because there's not even the framework there, you're dead. So that's why someone's like, what's the best book I should read to understand Calvinism? And they're asking if they want me to give them something like that R.C. Sproul or something.
00:38:18
Speaker
Gospel of John. Yeah. I think I saw that on your Instagram story. Yeah. Get like a tiny little framework of what motorism is and then take that framework into the gospel of John. And no, I'm not saying you should read the Bible with a prejudice or with preconceived notions of what it means. But if you want to understand Calvinism, take the idea of Calvinism and now read John again with that kind of knowledge in mind.
00:38:38
Speaker
And I didn't do that. When I became a Calvinist, when I read the Gospel of John, trying to defend Arminianism, I used to be a free grace guy. I was a Zane Rogers, you know, it's absolutely free. You know, there is no, I was full on the other camp, Dallas Theological Seminary, all that kind of stuff. And I was trying to defend it. And by defending it, I actually converted myself. I'm like, hold on, the Bible doesn't teach any of this stuff. I'm wrong.
00:39:03
Speaker
And I didn't want to be wrong because it's embarrassing but it's like it doesn't teach this stuff So then I became you know, like everyone a four-point confidence and then I just you know, actually admitted on the five points
00:39:14
Speaker
Yeah, so you kind of eased into the five point. Well, it's it's logically it was a slow burn. Yeah. Yeah. The four point Calvinists are just, they're just our minis or their Calvinists into Nile. Yeah. So what's the, what's the point they have an issue with? That's always living in the Thomas. Yeah. They're, they're cool. They're cool with total depravity. So the five points of Calvinism, it's represented by the acrostic tulip. T U I L P.
00:39:36
Speaker
T means total depravity, and I went over this on my page, you can find it in the highlights, but T is total depravity, which basically just means we are all infected and affected with sin through our father Adam. We are all totally depraved, evil through and through. Doesn't mean we're utterly depraved, we're not as bad as, we're not all little Hitler's running around, but we are all completely stained by sin. Imagine putting a drop of food coloring into a bottle of water. The bottle of water is still mostly water, you could still drink it, but it's completely turned black or blue or red or whatever.
00:40:04
Speaker
So we're all completely sinful. Nothing good, nothing in us can choose good. The U of the two of you is unconditional election, which just means, and every Christian believes this honestly, which is that we are chosen by God through no merit of our own. We don't do anything that contributes to our salvation. I'll skip the L, the I is irresistible grace, which just means when God calls you as his chosen person, you can't say no to it. No, it's something
00:40:38
Speaker
time. It never doesn't turn into mud. And that's what irresistible grace is. It's that when God forced grace on his chosen people, we always turn it. There is no other option. And then P is perseverance of the saints, which is just basically once saved, always saved, you persevere. But the L of tulip is what people have a problem with. It's limited in tone.
00:40:55
Speaker
which just means that God's saving grace is not extended to every single human being who's ever lived. In which case I would tell you, do you believe that anyone is in hell? Like anyone? Is Hitler in hell? Is Stalin there? Oh yeah, at least Hitler is there. Okay, then you believe in limited time. God has sent someone to hell. God has not offered forgiveness to someone.
00:41:19
Speaker
Um, but we all need people real quick who are afraid of this. Um, if they've pulled that thread too long, they'll lay, they'll end up in the camp of like Rob bell, rich roar. Yeah. 100%. Like every tongue will confess every new about, which means everybody will get in. Yeah. That's LDS doctrine as well.
00:41:43
Speaker
But here's the thing, when scripture says every time we confess every knee will bow, yeah, that means the people, it doesn't say every time we'll be saved. It means every time we'll confess. And this is the goofy, non-denominational, I hate non-denominationalists, I am non-denominationalists, but non-denominational prophets are to blame for 99% of theological error in America.
00:42:06
Speaker
because you leave a denomination and there's no more framework to guard no more guardrails of anything you just Start believing some nice little buffet now picking chairs. Yeah, exactly. So there's some great non-denominations I go to a great one Anyways, so but we believe for some reason that like Satan rules hell hell's this dope place or maybe maybe we believe that maybe we'll even give that a
00:42:30
Speaker
Hell's not a dope place, it's not like a rock, it's not like a dying bar. Hell's awful, hell's bad, it sucks, but Satan rules over hell, and Satan's there to torture us. Like, no, no, no, no, Satan doesn't rule anything. Okay, Jesus rules over hell, and Jesus rules over heaven. So people will say, like, hell's the total absence from God, like, no, Jesus will be there, Jesus will be in hell, but it will not be a savior, it'll be his judgment.
00:42:54
Speaker
And Satan will be there too, being tormented right next to you. Because it was made for Satan and his angels. So what is this every... Yeah. Sorry, Noah. At our church, we are a rare assemblies of God Church. If someone's listening, they just learned where I'm a pastor at. But we preach expository, like book by book, line by line. And we're going through Revelation right now.
00:43:22
Speaker
line by line by book. Oh gosh. So we're about this weekend is the lamb opening the six seals, the four, the wrath and the martyrs and all this different stuff and not realizing that the same savior that was worthy to open the seals
00:43:40
Speaker
for the, on the wrong side of Jesus, that is not a good day for you. It's the wrath of Jesus and how that is just and how that is good, because we want a savior, we want a slain lamb that's standing as a just and good God as well. Anyways, I love everything you're saying. That's beautiful. I mean, so when every tongue is confessing and he is bowing, they're bowing in hell. Their tongues are confessing in hell. I mean, even the demons believe in shutter. So that everyone will confess.
00:44:13
Speaker
So yeah, but there's just so much goofy cultural theology It's called culture. I call cultural theology where it's we don't really know where it comes from We can't really hit a verse to it, but we just all believe that for some reason and this is where like recently I'm That's why I started my page and started roasting people. Why do you do it? Just
00:44:33
Speaker
And I love tradition. Tradition's great. Especially like sacred tradition. That's all great. But there's a difference between tradition and just goofy things we
Cultural Theology and Tradition
00:44:43
Speaker
say and do. And Charismatics will say all these, like recently, I've just been attacking Charismatics because I'm driving nuts. They just say these dumb things. I'm like, where did you get that from? Like the Holy Spirit's really been telling me like, no, no, he hasn't. No.
00:44:58
Speaker
The Holy Spirit has not been giving you revelation lately. He hasn't. And I'm a continuationist. I'm not a cessationist. I believe God still moves and talks and does all these things. But when somebody says that, it's usually followed by like the most trite, bland, you know, feel good statement. Like God's just been telling me lately that I really just need to dwell in Him.
00:45:21
Speaker
I don't know who's listening. It's just the biggest pile of horse crap. I need to dwell on him more.
00:45:29
Speaker
You don't need revelation for that, just go read your Bible. And again, the word of God told you that and then you just remembered it. And again, it's like, I do believe that God does give private words to people, not new scripture, not new revelation, but God's given me that. I put the wrong emphasis on the word of God. That took me before he's given us people I know, trust and love and respect. So God still talks, God still gives you revelation, but he's not giving you like,
00:45:55
Speaker
You know, this dude, I'm rusting on my stories right now. This guy's like, Oh, God told me to stop driving. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. No. Oh my gosh. No, he didn't. It's like, if you want to be, that was a personal choice. You can stop over spiritualizing all this stuff. Yeah. So over spiritualized guys. Yeah. Yeah. And a word of warning. If you feel like the Holy Spirit is giving you new words and revelations of scripture.
00:46:18
Speaker
You might be Mormon because that's what the Father does nowadays. Open canon, awfully convenient. What I love is they think that Christianity immediately went off the rails in the first century and it didn't recover its scriptural foundation until the 19th century.
00:46:42
Speaker
that Christianity was an error for 2000 years until some guy in the 19th century figured it out. Like that's some 14 year old. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's, that's the issue I'll have. And this might be the segue into the next topic. That's the issue I have with Protestants as well as it's a lot of, especially reform guys.
00:47:01
Speaker
act like the church is only 1517 years old. And it's like, no, I actually wouldn't be with 500 years old. I got you. I got you. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, sorry guys. Like Martin Luther didn't start the Christian church. Nope.
00:47:16
Speaker
The Reformation was not a revolution and it most certainly most definitely has gone too far at this point. Like you see these beams now, it's like, let's check in on the process of Reformation. And it's like, you know, people waving flags and setting their hair on fire. It's like, okay. And, you know, folks will always point at, well, we can't let church, you know, those next ones like, yeah, look, cause it's the largest organization in the world. Any organization.
00:47:45
Speaker
But for the most part, their catechisms are Orthodox doctrine. It might not be doctrine you agree with, but they're Orthodox close-handed doctrine. And whether you like it or not, they defended the Canada scripture for 1500 years. The reason you have a Bible is because of the Catholic church. So we've done this. So there's this Puritan
00:48:09
Speaker
motto, it's called semper reformanda, which is Latin for always reforming. We never stop reforming. We're always trying to purify and reform and reform. It gets the purest purest gospel. And I hate semper reformanda. I think it's blasphemous because we need to stop reforming at some point.
00:48:27
Speaker
We need to stop looking at the walls and figuring out what else we need to tear down. When you tour England in particular, you'll see all of our, not just England, but really the whole of Great Britain. I've never been to Ireland, but the whole of Great Britain at least, you'll see all these churches that were Catholic at one point.
00:48:46
Speaker
have these huge beautiful walls and they're just kind of plain and they're white or they're gray. And you're like, you know, okay. And then someone will tell you, well, hey, you know, these used to be adorned with stained glass that showed gospel scenes. And there was frescoes all over the wall. But then when, you know, Protestants took over and they whitewashed
00:49:09
Speaker
And John Knox in particular was very guilty of this. So you see the Church of England, which reformed under Henry VIII, reformed as the Church of England.
00:49:26
Speaker
formed as a Presbyterian denomination. So Scotland were Presbyterians to England or Anglicans. So John Knox, famous Protestant reformer in Scotland, he took over, what was the name of the church? Someone will know, the church that, I can never remember the name of this church, but this huge amazing, this is what the Scots call churches, this amazing cathedral in Edinburgh.
00:49:51
Speaker
And he comes in, he punches out all the stained glass, he whitewashes all the walls. Yet ironically, he exalts the pulpit. He adorns the pulpit with a beautiful decoration, beautiful ornamentation. Because that's where the preaching of the word's happening from. And it's like, so it's this reversal of
00:50:06
Speaker
priorities and then I mean at least Scotland to do some really bizarre things like Christmas for example was illegal in Scotland for centuries because Christmas is Christmas and Christmas and gift-giving was federally illegal in Scotland for centuries because it was viewed as you know Catholic heresy it's a Catholic holiday
00:50:26
Speaker
They did all kinds of goofy, weird things that just went too far. It's like, guys, whoa, whoa, why do we throw all that out? Certainly the church needed reformation, even Erasmus, who was Luther's famous opponent. Erasmus was a reformer. He was a Catholic reformer though.
00:50:44
Speaker
meaning he didn't want to see schism in the church, he just wanted to reform the church. Everyone right about the turn of the 16th century saw that there needed to be some reforming within the church. The difference was, okay, do we start a new one or do we just clean things up?
00:51:02
Speaker
And I don't know what history would have told or what history, how history would have been different if Luther, and I'm not blaming it all on Luther. Certainly the church was enormously to blame as well. But if both sides had tried to meet somewhere in the middle instead of rejecting it just wholesale.
Understanding Catholic Theology
00:51:20
Speaker
Because Luther's 95 theses, nobody's ever read them. But if you actually read them, you realize his problems were
00:51:27
Speaker
problems that could have been addressed. And nothing he said in those 95 theses was like, I want to leave the church, burn the whole place down. He just had some legitimate questions that he wanted answered, and he didn't get answers that satisfied him. And then by the time of the Council of Trent, which was basically the counter reformation in the Catholic Church, things had gone so far that they went so far the other way. He was just like, shut this down, you know? Yeah.
00:51:52
Speaker
where one wonders how could things have been different if there were actual spiritual Christians on both sides who wanted to work together. And I think Luther, for the most part, really did want to stay a part of the church until later in his life, of course.
00:52:09
Speaker
all of it. But at the beginning, he didn't want to leave the church. He didn't want to give them, he didn't want, they really backed him into a quarter. And that was kind of the, I don't know, maybe the hard truth of it was that if the church needed, rather, the church needed reforming because there wasn't any people that would have listened to that. And if there were people that were willing to listen, the church probably wouldn't have needed reforming in the first place.
00:52:36
Speaker
But anyways, so here we are now, you know, 500 years later, everyone's calling everyone a heretic. Nobody gets along. There's thousands of denominations and yesters all
00:52:50
Speaker
There's Coptic Christians, there's Oriental Christians, there's old rites, it's nonsense. So there is no unification. Yeah, which is kind of a decent segue into the next place that you're really passionate about. Just ecumenicalism, right?
00:53:12
Speaker
Ecumenicalism is just really difficult to pronounce words. Sorry, my dog wants to go outside. You can hold it, bud. You're good. It's just ecumenicalism is just a fancy word that means getting along, right? Yeah. And how do we, as Christians of different denominations, of different traditions, of different theologies, like get along? And this is why I don't like to form guys because, you know, they'll call everyone a heretic.
00:53:41
Speaker
Um, and, uh, and so all you have to do is just ask this question. This is how you find the people you don't want to follow on you is, you know, our Catholics going to heaven, our Catholics saved. And, you know, everyone who says no, just block them because you're just saving yourself trouble. You're saving yourself trouble down the road.
00:53:57
Speaker
You don't want those people around anyways. No! And this is where I'll depart from a lot of respected and former guys, like even R.C. Sproul, I hate to stay homeless. Or James White, right? And very, very respected, intelligent people. But they'll say things like, you know, anyone who's saved in the Catholic Church is saved in spite of the Catholic Church. They won't go as far as saying that there's no one saved, you know, in the Catholic Church, they'll just say that,
00:54:25
Speaker
you know, they're saved in spite of it. And, uh, and once they come to a fuller faith, they'll convert to Protestant. It's like, uh, there's a reason why there's a reason why the Catholic converts to Protestantism were usually Jack Catholics. They were usually cultural Catholics. They usually, yeah, I grew up Protestant or I grew up Catholic, but it didn't mean anything to me. My parents just struck me to mass. And then, you know, I started going to this church and I found Jesus. Right. So it's always the, the.
00:54:53
Speaker
It's always the lukewarm Catholics that convert to Catholicism. However, the Protestant converts to Catholicism are usually the Protestants that have dug into things really deeply. You don't typically find that lukewarm Protestant who just goes to youth group and then goes home, all of a sudden wakes up one day and wants to be a Catholic.
00:55:15
Speaker
never happens. So then you kind of got to ask yourself, how come the Protestants who really take things seriously are converting to the high church denominations? And the only Protestant converts aren't really converts, they're just people who weren't saved in the first place. Yeah. I mean, Hank Hanegraab, Bible instrument, famous radio guy, he's Orthodox now.
00:55:34
Speaker
It's like, okay, so am I saying that the Catholic Church has things right? No, absolutely not. There's so many things to disagree with. I could never be, and will never be Catholic. Because there's just thousands of things I completely at a core level could not submit to. And if you can't submit to the teachings of the church, you shouldn't be in the church. So, but I do recognize that there are some really faithful people who know and trust and believe
00:56:00
Speaker
Yeah. Everything the Catholic church teaches and they're filled with the spirit. Yeah. So it's like, who am I to say that they just don't know what they're talking about? Like I'm not God. Yeah.
Online Religious Discourse
00:56:10
Speaker
And it's, and I feel like this week, uh, cut past couple of weeks of talking about denominations, stances, and beliefs has really highlighted, um, how, how mean we really are to one another.
00:56:26
Speaker
yeah like oh yeah if you're not a christian you're outside looking in and you went to my catholic post you're like there is no way i'm going to become a christian if this is how everybody is oh and it's it's wild because a few people said i almost unfollowed not because of your post but because of the people commenting on your post oh yeah now i was like no thanks okay what is happening here you know yeah i think it's just to me it's sad because i'm like
00:56:53
Speaker
You're, you're roasting and you're fighting and, um, sounds awful lot like a house divided to me, you know? Yeah. Well, this is what I told, uh, Brian, uh, Kathy Hollis ism. It's a great meeting page and he's, he's a buddy of mine. Similar to yourself. We've never met a person's internet buddy, but we talked, uh, for a length about a lot of different things.
00:57:17
Speaker
a lot of awkward reunions in heaven. Let's just not set ourselves up for that. So back to when I was talking about Calvinism is I said that I don't believe you could read scripture and faithfully come to any other belief system other than this, which I realize is an arrogant statement, except I realize it's an arrogant statement.
00:57:41
Speaker
And I'm willing to accept that other people can read the same scripture and come to different beliefs. And as long as those beliefs are within the lanes of Orthodox Christianity, lowercase o, Orthodox Christianity, then we're fine.
00:57:56
Speaker
And Christians, as a whole, Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, we've all agreed on more or less what things fall outside Orthodox Christianity, like Mormons, they're all going to hell. JWs are way outside there. So it's like, we can agree on these core things together. And this is where a lot of the Stramas, oh, Catholics worship there, you know, they don't. And we all point to these anecdotes of the Stramas, well, I heard this one guy say, I hear this one guy say, it's a clip, dude.
00:58:21
Speaker
Why do you meet a Catholic, like in person, not on the internet, and an actual Catholic, one who knows their catechism, one who knows their theology, and talk to them and ask them questions? And don't attack them and don't try to convert them. Go into the conversation like you're sitting down with a fellow Christian who just is a Baptist and you're a Presbyterian. What do you guys believe?
00:58:40
Speaker
Because if a Presbyterian and a Baptist sit down You know, first of all, they would know what to order for drinks But the second thing is they wouldn't they wouldn't go out try to convert each other. They would just have a conversation Yeah, and they have disagreements and they debate things but they would understand that they're both going to heaven. Yeah, so What if it has the same direction maybe just a different lane?
00:59:01
Speaker
maybe just a different lane. And yeah, the trad cats, as people call them, they're really hardcore. They're just as big douche nozzles as the reformed guys are. And see, this is what people don't, like there's douche bags in every lane. So if you're just going to say, I don't like Catholics because this one guy was mean, or I don't like calmness because this one guy is mean. It's like, you're not going to go anywhere where you don't find mean people.
00:59:25
Speaker
Yeah, you'll hear it. You'll have the Catholic. There's no salvation outside the Catholic Church, except for the Orthodox Church. And Protestants were in communion with Rome. And so they have all this goofy theology. And this was done under Pope John Paul II, I believe, in Vatican II. It was a lot of this kind of walking back of theology.
00:59:44
Speaker
Because they realize that Protestant Church, I guess, has turned into something that's kind of undeniable at this point. So they're like, okay, well, we believe Protestants are going to heaven through a secret, invisible communion with Rome.
00:59:58
Speaker
that, you know, is through no fault of their own. It's like, okay, you know what? If that's the hoops that you want to jump through to call me Christian, that's fine. I don't care. Great. Yeah. That affects you more than me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's more of a you thing than a me thing. As long as you'll call me a brother, I'm cool with it.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So it's so interesting. I think that's one piece. I think that's been, I think really tough to stomach with seeing the broad scape of Christians on my page is I'm like, man, anybody who disagrees with you, you better watch out because you turn into someone else. Like you're not that nice.
01:00:37
Speaker
And I had like yesterday I did I commented for people I'm like I think it's time to hang it up like you're done like yeah, just move on man
Evangelistic Approaches and Messaging
01:00:45
Speaker
I'll restrict people if it depends like if I can tell they're really just be you know
01:00:53
Speaker
just a piece of work. I'll block some people, but not usually. Usually I'll just restrict them, because then they can keep commenting to their artists. I won't see any of it. They think we don't see their comments, and we can't, which is great. But yeah, I don't know. So Christian's are not called to be nice. We're called to be kind. So for me, it's like where I will leave that, I'll try to be nice.
01:01:16
Speaker
But I will leave that lane of magstas quickly, depending on their town, right? So it's like, I'll mirror you, bro. So if you're coming at me, I'll come right back at you. I'll be just a squoopy, I'll be just a sassy. But if you've just got an honest question, like, well, what about this? Like, I'm not gonna be...
01:01:32
Speaker
Like, yeah, sure, here's the answer. And it can be disagreement and that's fine, we'll go back and forth. I will escalate in-kind. That's kind of my ethos for online discourse. I'll just mirror what you're giving me. And then this is where the Caleb Christians will talk about turning their cheekers. It'll just pull all these good-sounding verses out. It's like, you guys just need to grow a pair, man. It's the internet. It's not the place for you.
01:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, a hundred percent if you're getting offended by this then time time to hear your Instagram We got to go around police our town and make sure that nobody's ever offended by anything we ever say because what about your witness? Like where is the verse for that man? Break Christian language we use it's just nonsense. Yeah protect protect your witness
01:02:17
Speaker
Like, no, you don't. You've got to speak the truth in love. Love doesn't mean polite. Love doesn't mean nice. Love means love, which means gentle, which means kind. What's kindness? Again, kindness is not politeness, it's boldness, it's anything. So anyways, you preach the truth in love. I can't remember, I think it was you or somebody else, we saw the same reel where some reformed guy was talking and they were saying that
01:02:44
Speaker
Our gospel message is all wrong. We'll just go around like these pathetic losers. Please, please, you know, Jesus loves you. He just loves you so much. Please, you just, he loves you. And where do we see that in acts? Anywhere. I mean, the apostles would go in and they would say, you killed God.
01:03:05
Speaker
But heroes now repent and be forgiven, be baptized. Yeah. Be forgiven, be baptized. So the apostles didn't evangelize like we evangelize. Nope. Neither did Jesus. Jesus said, eat my flesh, shrink my blood. And the people walked away and disciples were like, you want to clarify that sounded kind of weird. Jesus is like, no, I'm good.
01:03:25
Speaker
Well, even like I think it's one of his very first public decorative relations is repent for the kingdom of heaven as a hand. Yeah. Like, yeah, that's pretty intense. I mean, you're right. I think it's John six. He says eat my flesh like five times. You're like, just in case you miss this guy's.
01:03:47
Speaker
I'm literally bread. And it's like, I get it. People were uncomfortable. It was the only thing to say. Jesus let people walk away all the time. So we go into this... No, we go into this really weird loser evangelism where it's like, please, please just know he loves you so much. I'm like, what if you started out by saying, hey guys, room full of people. This is why I'll never get invited to preach anywhere also because I'm not a pastor.
01:04:12
Speaker
Oh, what if you start off by telling the room, God hates some of you in this room. And just let that settle for a second. But with that, without humor. It's very Paul Washer of you.
01:04:23
Speaker
God hates some of you in this room. And there's one way you can fix that. There is a single way you can fix that. But if you don't care, if you walk away, if it's just another message for you, you're gonna leave and God's gonna hate you as you leave. And he's gonna hate you your whole life. And when you die, you're gonna see the consequences of never having tried to reconcile that relationship. But no, we just, we say Jesus loves you over and over and over and over again. I think that changes everything.
01:04:48
Speaker
Yeah and that reminds me of like we had our Good Friday service and Good Friday is probably one of my favorite services to do just because it's like
01:05:00
Speaker
There is no remedy yet in this conversation. It is all just the weight of the cross of what your sin costs, what you put him on the cross, your brokenness, this. You get to sit in that and you get to wait and you just get to feel all of it. No, I just, I preach out of James chapter four, one through 10, the part where
01:05:24
Speaker
James is talking about, uh, let there be sorrow for what you've done and like how partnership with the world makes you an enemy of God. Like to realize that, um, a lot of people like to think that they're not as bad as they really are. And so to be faced with the fact that, no, you're a straight up enemy of God. You know what he does to his enemies? Yeah. Let's talk about this. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go talk about the scrolls that he's unrolling, you know, the wrath that he's pouring out.
01:05:50
Speaker
Oh, and that's sobering. Like you are not better than you think are actually worse than you think you are. Yeah. And that is what leads to repentance. You talk about, you know, are you a bad person? You instantly think all the guys you see on the news, the murderers, the rapists, the carjack. No, no, no. You're the bad person.
Scripture Interpretation and Exegesis
01:06:08
Speaker
You're the bad person. You're better than them. Sure. Here's a sticker for that. Like you're still going to help. So what I'll say is I wrote this the other day. Um, I can't remember. I was good Friday article. I wrote for, uh, for
01:06:20
Speaker
And I said that, um, not all sin is morally equal, but it is all equally damnable. And that the, you know, the tax evaders going to burn hell right next to the pedophile. So this is again, another one of these goofy things that Protestants like to say is, you know, all sins the same in the eyes of God, like absolutely the hell it's not. Absolutely it's not. You think Hitler is in the same level of hell as like, you know, just like the guy in the car? No.
01:06:48
Speaker
No, no, no, no. Like you are, if we actually believe in penal substitutionary entitlement as a process, I don't realize I'm a guilty PSA guy, but you actually believe in penal consequences for what you've done, that means you get just punishment for what you've done. And on the flip side of that, you get just reward for the good things you've done if you're making it to heaven. So anyways, it's not being the case. Yeah, I mean like the pedophile's in a special spot of hell, but he's still in the zip code as everybody else.
01:07:18
Speaker
Yeah. Um, yeah, but it's all, it all comes down to this whole, this weird, goofy, uh, seeker sensitive, you know, non-denominational crap that teaches all this, just like, where do we get this Trump guys? Where did you all, and that's not think what I've realized in running this page and maybe it's kind of cool.
01:07:36
Speaker
is that, and something you mentioned yourself, is that there's so many things that people believe and they can't explain, and they can't defend and they can't argue for it. So that's what I'll tell, I have one guy ask me the other day, he's like, I'm feeling convicted, I'm feeling like I should join a Catholic church. He's like, I'm having a faith crisis. I'm like, it's not a faith crisis, it's not a faith crisis at all. But here's the thing though, dude, is like if you join that church, you gotta do your research, you have to learn everything they teach, and if you can't agree to it, then don't join the church.
01:08:05
Speaker
having a reason for the hope that is in you, be ready to give a defense, right? And if you can't defend it, then don't believe it. And this is where I'll argue for things I don't agree with just because I hate the bad arguments. So it's like, I love people, I love Catholics who want to debate Protestant, but bring a real freaking argument. Don't bring this whole repeated up, well, there's all the one true church that's found about Jesus Christ. Okay, great.
01:08:29
Speaker
What's your church founded by Jesus? Do you have anything better than that man? Or the Protestants who say that they're all pagans and idolaters? It's like, you guys, it's been 500 years, can we have come up with a better... How have the arguments gotten worse in the last 500 years? Yeah, well said, well said. So it's just like, whatever you believe as a Christian, know why you believe it and be ready to defend it with Scripture, not with opinion.
01:08:56
Speaker
And like I mentioned those Charismatics, I was just roasting this this last couple of days. They don't have any verses for anything I you know So I'll say is they're not scripturally illiterate because they've got lots of Bible room. I should correct myself. I have lots of Bible verses
01:09:11
Speaker
they just misapplied it. All they're taking versus Joe versus out of freaking Isaiah and they're just shotgun of them all around. It's like, yeah, what you're doing is you're just googling Bible verse about fill in the blank and then you're just picking one that sounds good and you're slapping it off. Thanks for the list. Bible gateway of the 15 exactly sorrow. Oh dude. And you'll see it like as a pastor, I'm sure you see it when you do like baby dedications or whatever.
01:09:36
Speaker
And so the way we do it in our church is, you know, all the babies being dedicated, they go up on the stage with their parents and the parents each get to go around and like say a blessing and read a Bible verse if they want over, over their baby. Uh, and the amount of times I hear Jeremiah 29, 11, I don't want to shotgun myself in the face. Let's go in the bathroom and like try to start a 12 gauge. It's just like, you guys, it's not about you. Is your child named Israel? Yeah.
01:10:06
Speaker
Like it's not about you. You just found a good sounding verse and you're like, I know the plans I have for you and they're prospering. And I'm like, okay. So it's not, it's not just reading your Bible. It's reading your Bible the right way. And there's a, there's a fantastic booklet.
01:10:26
Speaker
by Archie Sproul, it's called Knowing the Scripture. Now it's a quick read, it's like that thick, you can read it in probably a day if you wanted, but it goes over the rules for an exegeting Scripture, because there are rules. And it says, you can do this, you can't do that. And it's not to limit you or to restrict you in a bad way, it is to limit you and restrict you from coming up with just bonkers, heretical ideas, because, you know, I just felt really good when I was reading this, so I think that means like, no, no, no, no.
01:10:56
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and I would recommend that known scripture to anyone because it's not just reading your Bible. It's knowing how to read your Bible and it will avoid a lot of the goofy charismatic nonsense that people run into. Yeah. Yeah. And it reminds me of, uh, credit to the pastor, whoever said this, cause I can't remember. We said the scriptures can't mean something to you that it didn't mean to the original audience. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. So it's like.
01:11:26
Speaker
You're making it say something completely different than how the original audience would even interpret it. And you know, it's shocking. Yeah, dude. It's shocking. I said that not verbatim, but paraphrase to somebody yesterday, you know, we kept going back and forth the verses. I'm like, no, that doesn't mean that. No, that doesn't mean that. Like he said, God's still speaking. And then he quoted John where John says, where Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice. And I'm like,
01:11:51
Speaker
What the hell does that have to do with God's speaking? That's talking about God calling you to salvation. What? And he says, what do you think God still can't speak? And I'm like, no, I do, but that's not the verse to use for. Why are you talking about John 10? Well, and he says like, oh, you're just limiting what God can do with his word. I'm like, yes, I am because God's not going to do something with his word that he didn't intend to do. So if that's what, so yeah, literally I am going to limit what the Bible, yes, yes.
01:12:21
Speaker
Um, it's crazy. Well, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll take these passages and rip them so far out of context. You can't even see the context from where you're at. And it's like, yo, there's not a verse for everything. There isn't. And so people want to say in the charismatic role, thank God, I don't hear this anymore, but I'm sure you get, you get it a lot in the AG world or maybe not. I don't know. Um, but you'll have these young people that will say, you know, God promised me no one
01:12:48
Speaker
or God promised me a spouse, or God promised me this, and it's like, just hold on to those promises. It's like, how did God promise you that? Now, I'm not saying God can't speak to you in a vision. I'm not saying God can't speak, I know people that God spoke, I went to them while they were fasting, or they had a vision, and that's great, and that's a promise in the name of the planet.
Church Networks and Experiences
01:13:12
Speaker
But these folks, they have no supernatural, miraculous,
01:13:16
Speaker
uh experience to point to they just said why i was just reading this i know that wants me to have a husband so it's promising like god does not promise you a husband anywhere in scripture i read proverbs 18 i think 22 he who finds a wife has a good finds a good thing god wants me to have a wife no thankfully are the ad church i'm at is probably probably the least ad church you've ever been to people usually don't know it until they go through like our membership stuff but
01:13:40
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of AG. There's a good buddy of mine. I think, uh, I think he just left the AG actually for some other stuff. But yeah, he said he would tell me that, uh, people don't even know where AG just people show up and they go to church. We don't broadcast that we're not known because it's, it's kind of like when you say Calvinist, it's like people already have predetermined.
01:13:59
Speaker
mindset of what it's going to be like or who you are. And so, I mean, I love the tribe that I'm a part of. I don't agree with all the 16 fundals. Don't tell them. But I think there's a lot of really great things within it. And so that's why I'm like, yeah, I'm happy where I'm at. Yeah. Yeah. And we all, I think we all need, it's hard to do church without a network nowadays just because it's hard. Yeah. So I think that I think networks are,
01:14:27
Speaker
can be pretty evil, but they can also do a lot of good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. It's good stuff, man.
Conclusion and Social Media
01:14:34
Speaker
Well, thank you for spending an hour, 15 minutes hanging out and chatting about those two topics and about 60 more. So people are going to get a charcuterie board of theology conversation. And so thank you for hopping on here. And if you're not following John on Instagram,
01:14:53
Speaker
Uh, his clapbacks are probably the funniest things I ever read. I love when you roast people. I think it's very, and you're really, really good at it. So not really good at it. I'll say that as a security, I never roast someone in the DMs unless they're like total, not so free. Like the Mormons say, well, if a Mormon D.O. is beyond what I roast, I probably do. But like if a Christian messages to me, I'm never posting your D.O. in public. You know, I will roast public comments. If the people get mad at me, it's like,
01:15:23
Speaker
You're just taking this and you're making it like, yeah, it's a free game. It's free game, bro. If you commented on my post publicly, I'm going to share that. Yeah. Yeah. The DM is different. I'll keep the DM in confidence. But anyways, yeah. Cool. Well, thanks, man. Thanks for being a part of the show. Hope you guys enjoy it. So follow him and all the areas that you can. And so we'll see you next time.