Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast. Making theology central. Good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday, December the 10th, 2025. It is currently 1215 a.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. That's the Theology Central Studio. Don't know why I stumbled over those words, so let me say that again. Good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday, December the 10th, 2025. It is currently 1215 a.m. Central Time, And I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, why am I sitting here at 12.15 a.m. Central Time? Why am I here, you know, a little bit after midnight? Well, it wasn't really my intention. I wasn't. I was listening to some classic radio dramas. Then I remembered I forgot to do something. So I had to get up, I got dressed, I had to go outside to take some things down that were up and had to do some things outside that I'd forgotten to do. Came back inside, then came back upstairs to the studio, kind of going, okay, do I try to go back to sleep? What do I do? What do I do? I grabbed the iPad, started looking around, and remembered that there was some notifications and comments left for me on YouTube. And I looked at the comments and I'm like, oh, here we go. Many of you know that we, I have spent, I don't know, 10 hours. I don't know how many total hours. I can't give you an exact number, but probably close to 10 hours of broadcasting. doing for what we call the Project 28, or the 2819 Project, the 2819 Project, or Project 2819, all right? The 2819 Project, and 2819 is a church located in Atlanta. The Associated Press did an article about them. They're getting all the attention. Lines are forming for people to get in. It's a big deal. We've talked about the numbers, how they're on the podcast chart, over a million subscribers on YouTube. They are the hot thing right now, the thing that's getting all the attention, getting all the buzz. So, I read the article about 2819 Church from the Associated Press. We talked about it, and then I thought, okay, if I'm going to offer any criticism about 2819 Church, if I'm going to be fair and accurate, then what we need to do is listen to, well, I said sermons because the goal was to review a number of sermons. That was really the idea. It was like, okay, this is 2819 church. If we're going to be fair, we're going to be accurate. We're going to review a number of sermons. Hopefully it'll go relatively quick, right? We can make it through this series on the 2819 project relatively quick. We can get through it. Everyone will be able to hear for themselves. I told everyone about the website, told them about the podcast, that they can go listen to 2819 Church on their own. You know, it's not like I hid the information. I told you where you could find them on Spotify, wherever. And so, you know, I thought, you know, I'm gonna do my very best to be fair, but at the same time, I'm going to offer critique and analysis based off historical biblical theology, off basic hermeneutical principles, I mean, basic hermeneutical principles, context, historical context, all those just basic things that I would review any sermon with. And I've reviewed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sermons. So I picked one. I specifically chose one on Matthew 5, because that's the Sermon on the Mount, which will immediately tell me if the church offers a proper distinction between law and gospel, or if they destroy the proper distinction between law and gospel, which is a very important thing in the history of Christianity, especially if you know anything about the Protestant Reformation. I mean, that's a very important concept there. So I thought, okay, let's do this. It sounded You know, fun. Oh, we're going to do an investigative report. You know, 2819 project. Okay. That's got artwork, got everything ready to go. Okay. I think this should be interesting. Should be fun. I know I got all these other things I need to do. Let's jump in. Right. I was, I think somewhat, I'm not gonna say optimistic, like I thought that I was going to agree with everything because I knew for the most part I wasn't going to agree, but I was going in blind, right? I didn't listen to the sermon first so that I could pick a bad one. I didn't edit the sermon so I could just pick out the bad parts. I was like, we're gonna listen to the entire sermon and I'm going to listen to it in real time with you, nothing planned, nothing rehearsed, and it will be real, it will be organic, it will be fair, and the church can speak for themselves, right? I thought that was very, I thought it was a very good approach, right? Very fair, very upfront, and anyone who listens to me already knows the theological my theological background, know how I'm going to approach it, know how I handle things hermeneutically. So, you know, everything is right there, ready to go, and then we start the first sermon. And I was, I could never have dreamed, I could never have imagined just how bad it was going to be. I was not prepared for how bad it was going to be. It may be the worst sermon I have ever reviewed out of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sermons I have reviewed and analyzed and critiqued in my life. I mean, literally, it may be. And as someone who listens to a ton of sermons, it's pretty—something's got to be pretty severe for me to say it's one of the—it may be the worst ever. I mean, that's got to be pretty bad for me to say that, considering the thousands upon thousands—I mean, I don't even know how many sermons I've listened to in my life. I don't even know, right? I don't even know how many sermons I've preached in my life, right? You know, all the, all the, I mean, all, I mean, I could go through all my theological education, Bible Institute, Bible college, seminary, all the different things I have done, all the things I have encountered, this sermon, just like, I was not prepared for it in any way, shape or form. And it turned into seven plus hours of reviewing one sermon. Now, it should not take seven hours to review one sermon unless something really significant is going on in that sermon. Either it's the most theologically profound thing I have ever heard in my life, it's offering the most unique interpretation of scripture, it's presenting something that like, wow, this is awesome, and so we're gonna have to spend hours you know, considering this, but no, no, no, no, no. This went the opposite direction. The reason this went seven hours is because I couldn't go more than 12 seconds with having to stop the audio because it was just filled with, I don't even know what to say. It was so bad. I mean, you listen, if you listen to the seven hours of review, you can make the judgment for yourself, right? You have to take my word for it. And that's the thing. I didn't turn on the microphone and tell everyone, hey, I listened to this sermon from 2819 Church. It was disastrous. And just start criticizing it and then just play little clips of the part that I thought were bad. That would be disingenuous. That would be unfair. What I allowed is I told you the name of the church, I told you the website, I told you how to subscribe to their podcast, I told you they're on YouTube, so that you could go listen for yourself. And then what I did is let you hear the entire sermon, because we listen to it together in real time. Yes, did I interrupt it? Yes, but you could go listen to the whole thing without my interruption on your own. I didn't hide the information. I was very forthcoming so that you could go listen for yourself. Even by the time the seven hours was done, I told you, look, if that's what you like, go listen to 2819 church, go join, go to Atlanta. I didn't tell you not to. I didn't tell you not to listen to them. I didn't do anything like that. So I thought I would try to be very fair, but at the same time, my criticism was strong. My criticism was blunt. My criticism was direct. My criticism was critical. And as it continued hour after hour after hour, I became more frustrated, more irritated, more angry, more bothered, more disturbed, more disgusted, and then it just turned into depression, discouragement, and being despondent by the time it was over. By the time it was over, I never wanted to turn on this microphone ever again. I even apologized if I got too upset or if anyone perceived me to be too mean. I even gave apologies before it was all over. However, I should have known that there would be comments and feedback coming in based off it. I mean, when you go after a church that popular, you're going to get some feedback. You're going to get some criticism. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read the criticism I have received. I am not going to give the name of the individual in any way, shape or form, because it's not really about this individual. It's not really even about what they said. What this does is this provides me an opportunity. to just talk about the series, talk about my approach, offer any apology if I feel like I need to offer an apology, try to explain my reasoning, my thinking, and just try to kind of bring all of this to some kind of a conclusion. Because when I saw the criticism, I first just, yeah, whatever, just kind of ignored it. I gave like a couple of little, just little brief comments, I think two, nothing of great significance. I wasn't going to engage in any long back and forth because ultimately, If someone has already made up their mind theologically, the one thing I know after all of my years of theological education, all of my years of preaching, and all of my years of broadcasting, is it really doesn't matter. Everyone makes up their own mind, and there's no changing anyone's mind. They think they're right. It doesn't matter. So, you know, whatever. What I do is I present a a different perspective, and then you can listen, and you don't have to listen. If you don't like it, you don't have to listen to me. You can move on, right? There's plenty of room on the internet for 2819 to say what they want, and there's room for people to offer criticism, analysis, and critique. So typically, I just don't respond. That's what I typically do. But in this case, because this series was so emotionally draining, so frustrating and just so philologically and hermeneutically bad. And I don't think there's any other way to get around it. I mean, even artificial intelligence referred to it as a complete, I think it said it went off the rails. I can't remember all the words it used, but it was very negative as well. When it was all said and done, I feel like, well, this gives me the opportunity to let you hear what someone else is saying about me. and not really try to respond so much to them, but just try to respond in general to the sentiment being put forth by this individual. This individual, I'm just going to say, represents probably what a lot of people are thinking. And so it's not really about trying to provide a response to them, because ultimately it doesn't matter. Trying to respond to anyone really doesn't matter. But I just want to at least use this as an opportunity to kind of just bring all of this to some kind of conclusion. And the reason I decided to broadcast, another reason I decided to broadcast after midnight, well, I haven't really given you a reason. I guess the main reason I decided to broadcast is because one, I realized, okay, I'm up. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to fall back to sleep. And then once I reminded myself and saw on the iPad the feedback, the criticism, I was like, I'm gonna lay here and I'm gonna think about this all night. That's not going to help my sleep. And another thing I thought, another reason was, it's after midnight. I've had a little distance. I've had a couple of hours to get away from all of this. And after midnight just has a different vibe and broadcasting, right? So I think maybe I can read the feedback, the criticism, and respond in a much more calm fashion. If it would have been right after, then I would have been still really emotional and frustrated. But I think this is a good time of morning to say, hey, let's talk about it, all right? So let's go to the first criticism. This was based on the message. This is one of the first messages I did. 2819 Church, hype or revival? 2819 church hype or revival?" I put a question mark because when I started that episode, I was not making a determination yet, hype or revival. I was going to read the report. I was going to give my response to the report, which ultimately led us to the church's website, where I began to have some problems. And I don't know how anyone can criticize me for that. A church selling merch? I don't know. I don't think churches should be selling merch. Just seems like a weird thing for a church to do, you know? Kind of like turning the church into a store. I don't know. Not so down with that. I think that's fair criticism. I gave the prices. Everyone can go look at the store themselves and decide if they think a church should be selling merch. All right? Another thing was I found the merch store before I even could find where you could download sermons. I never found on the website where you could even download the sermons. Well, that's concerning. you're a church, shouldn't the proclamation and the preaching of God's Word be at the forefront of your website? I think so, but okay. But we did find the link to subscribe to their podcast, which is really good. I do love that. But typically you would have embedded in your web—if you go to TheologyCentral.net, our website and I don't have some big church. I don't have any big money. Okay, definitely don't. Our pod page, you can listen and download everything right there. So, and the episodes are at the forefront and there's not a merch store. So, you know, I don't know. I think that's fair criticism. But then I went to their doctrinal statement. That's being fair, right? Am I not being fair? I let you, I read their doctrinal statement to you. and everything was going pretty good. For the most part, I was like, okay, that's not bad. Okay. All right. Kind of vague, but okay. Not too much information. But then when we got down to baptism and the Lord's Supper and they refer to them as sacraments, yet the definitions they give for baptism and the Lord's Supper is not sacramental. It's ordinance language. So they're misusing the word sacrament, which is a visible means of grace. That's a theological category. That's a theological fact. I gave the definitions to AI, and AI would say, well, that's ordinances. I'm like, well, they call them sacraments. They're like, well, they're misusing the term sacrament. It's not a sacrament. Sacrament is a visible means of grace. You're going to either be a Lutheran, you're going to be Episcopalian, you're going to be a Catholic if you're going with a sacramental approach. So that to me as a church who doesn't understand the difference between a sacrament and an ordinance, that's theologically majorly significant. If you don't even can't get that— Simple philological category, right? You got problems, all right? So I thought, I tried to be very fair. And what did I say? I said, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to begin a series and I'm going to review sermons to be fair, to make sure that everyone can hear exactly what this church teaches in their own words. A lot of people would not even have done that much work. They would have just written a hit piece on 2819 Church, criticized them, and moved on. I did not. I created an entire series, the 2819 Project. I think I should have called it Project 2819 now that I'm thinking about it, but the 2819 Project. I'm changing the title of it now, okay. And so then everyone could go find all of the content, and then we started. And the goal was to look at it carefully, Logically, theologically, boom. And so we found a sermon and we started. Well, this person is offering their feedback on that first message, 2819 Church hype or revival, and this is what they have to say. You're coming across as very negative towards a church that you admittedly know nothing about. The whole point of that broadcast was me responding to what we were finding out in real time. I did not offer any criticism to that which I did not know. I was offering criticism to what I was unfolding and discovering in real time. That was the whole point of the episode. And then I even stopped at the end of the episode saying we were going to pursue further information, do further investigating. But I can draw a conclusion about a church when they don't know the difference between a sacrament and an ordinance. I can draw some conclusion about a church when they're selling merch. I literally based it off their website. I literally was looking at their website, responding to their website. I was very careful not to base things specifically off the Associated Press article, other than the numbers and all the things that they were responding. And, this person at the time did not know this, come to find out, I'd already talked about 2819 church. February of 2025. So I'd already investigated the church and listened to one of their sermons all the way back in February. So I already knew some things about the church, but in that episode, I had forgotten what I'd already explored, but I'd already explored some, but I only responded to what I saw. I did not make assumptions about that which I did not see. it says you're basing this opinion off one article. No, I was basing the opinion, not off the article, off what we were seeing on the church's own website. It says, please listen to his actual sermons before speaking negatively about a place you know nothing about. Well, number one, I'd already listened to a sermon even before I did that article, even before I responded to the Associated Press article. However, I didn't know it at the time. And secondly, I have spent over seven hours listening to a sermon. But OK, the point was, I didn't say anything about his preaching. In that episode, I didn't say anything about the preaching. What was I responding to? The church's website that I was reading to people in real time. I guess you can't look at a church's website and point out what's literally on the church's website. I didn't put the word sacrament there. They did. I didn't build the merch store. They did. And I called them red flags. I was still very careful to not say too much. And I even said what was good in their doctrinal statement, I pointed out as being good. This person says, I've been listening to him for about two years. He preaches the full gospel. Now that's interesting. He preaches the full gospel. Now see right here is why Christians have so many problems speaking to one another. They say full gospel. What do you mean by full gospel? What do you mean by that? Because that's a loaded term. Some charismatics mean full gospel in a very charismatic theological way. I would mean full gospel as a gospel that has a proper distinction between law and gospel. Because the sermon we listened to was not the full gospel, it was a very law-based sermon. And when we say full gospel, we got to define what we mean. But once again, that's you making an assessment that he preaches the full gospel. He preaches the full gospel according to your assessment, according to your judgment. And I could draw a conclusion that he's preaching, I could even go so far to say, possibly I could arrive at a conclusion that he preaches a false gospel. That's the difference. How are we going to make the judgment? Based off what? Your theological background or my theological background? Your theological education or my theological education? Your interpretation of Scripture or my interpretation of Scripture? your hermeneutical system or my hermeneutical system? Who's going to get to decide if he preaches the full gospel? They go on to say, he encourages people to examine themselves, have a relationship with Jesus, let him work in you and change you, spread the gospel, love others. It's not about numbers. It's about following Jesus. Okay, well, if it's not about numbers and it's about following Jesus, that's good. I'm not going to argue. I pointed out the numbers because the numbers signify the popularity and the influence. And then because of the numbers and of the influence, I felt the need to address and talk about what's going on in a place that's drawing such numbers. I never said it's about the numbers. I just pointed out the reality of the numbers. I mean, it may not be about the numbers, but the numbers signify something, right? It can signify a lot of things, good or bad. It's not a tickle your ear motivational speech. It's about respecting the creator of the universe, recognizing what Jesus did for us because of how much he loves us, and letting it change you through that. And through that, change the world. Not just taking up a seat in a pew every week, but actually living what you believe Monday through Saturday, not just on Sunday. All right? This person very much loves the church, very much has great respect for the church, and is very much defending it, saying all the positive things it does. That's great. By all means, listen, attend, support. Not gonna tell you not to. Even after all of my hours of review, I still told people, go listen, go support. That's great. I'm glad you perceive it to be all of those wonderful things. That's great. I'm always skeptical about large churches, but I truly believe that this church is exploding because people are hungry to hear the actual Word of God preached. I always find that interesting. Everyone thinks the church they like is actually preaching the Word of God. And it's interesting. Everyone who loves a certain church will say, our church preaches the full gospel. Our church actually preaches the Word of God. Our church doesn't tickle ears. Our every church claims the same thing. We preach the Word of God. We do this. We do that. This church does that. Everyone says that. Everyone says that. I just find it interesting. Every church claims the same thing, so then everyone is doing the same thing? I mean, very few churches are saying, hey, come to our church, we do not preach the Word of God. We do not preach the full gospel. We don't care if you respect the Creator. We want you just to sit in a pew and not do anything. Very few churches would describe themselves, they would describe themselves the exact way She's describing that church. Every church perceives themselves as doing those exact same things. So do we just take, hey, well, you say that's what the church is, then that's what we just go with because you say so? Every church would say that. But I can understand being skeptical. I would say I'm skeptical about every church, but okay. It's not a watered-down gospel. Again, it would be interesting to know how they define the gospel, but okay. It's not a church that looks down on you because you don't look as holy as every other person in the 45-member congregation. This seems to be going after maybe a criticism of a small church, that other churches look down on you. So, now this seems that there's a little kind of a hint, it sounds like there's a hint of criticism of other kinds of churches. This church does things the right way, or other churches do things the wrong way. Sounds like that they're kind of being maybe negative. Are you being negative towards other churches that don't do things the way you are describing this church is doing this? So this church is doing it right, almost implying that other churches are not possibly doing it correct? Are you not being the negative? God is moving there, and it's growing and reaching people. Every church believes God is moving there. Everyone believes that. Rarely does a person go, God's not moving in our church. Every church sells itself as God is moving and God is doing all of those things. Everyone. That 45-member congregation that supposedly looks down They possibly look down on you because you don't look holy as every other member of that 45 congregation. They probably would say that they don't do that and that God is moving and that they are, and the reason there's 45 is because they stand for the truth while everybody else compromises. They probably would say something along those lines. Then this person here makes a massive, assumption. Do some actual research into listening to sermons rather than having a biased opinion off a single article. Number one, my opinion was based off what we were seeing on the church's own website, not off one article. So if you are going to be negative towards my broadcast, maybe you should be accurate in how you describe what I did. I read the article and we reviewed the website. Criticism more arose from the website, not the article. I even said I'm not going to base some things off what the article is saying because it's from the Associated Press and some of the things they said didn't seem to be very in line with proper theology. So, I did not base a lot off the article. I did base off the strong reaction and what did that mean? Is it emotionalism? Is it hype? Or is it revival? I framed it more as questions. I mean, if need be, I can go back and review my entire audio. Oh, now this person is going to get very negative with me, right? Do some actual research, listening to sermons rather than having a biased opinion off a single article. Notice, they already accused me of having a biased opinion. And they accused me of not doing research, even though the very episode that they are critiquing, I do research in the very episode in real time. But notice, I'm the one Who comes across negative? It sounds like they are coming across negative at me. So is my negativity wrong or is your negativity wrong? Who gets to be negative? Just you? They go on to say, you likely can't get five star reviews because your attitude is nasty. Oh, my attitude is nasty. Thank you. Yours is very pleasant. Even if you're 100% theologically sound, you sound like you're digging for dirt on others and would be filled with joy to find something negative. I was looking at the church's website, because the church is being talked about in the news, and I tried to be very fair with what I found. I wasn't looking for dirt. I wasn't even looking to talk about this church until I saw the news article. Where is Jesus in the negativity in this? " Well, it wasn't an episode about Jesus. It was an episode about a church that had been talked about in the Associated Press, and then we reviewed the church's website, and we found that they were selling merch. Where is Jesus in selling merch? I mean, I guess I could just flip it around and do the same thing, right? If you find a legitimate issue, then absolutely bring it to light. " Okay, and what did I do? I legitimately went through the church website and pointed out what was there. That's legitimate because it's legitimately on the legitimate website. I did not legitimately create an illegitimate website and then create illegitimate criticism. I opened the website and literally read what was legitimately there so that what I said was legitimate. Okay, but you're trying to present something positive as something negative just because it's getting attention and growing. No, I presented something, it's getting attention and growing, so let's investigate it. And so let's start by looking at the church website and then we discover that they don't know the difference between a sacrament and an ordinance and that they're selling merch. And then I said, we're going to have to do more research. So I don't know what I was doing so bad there, all right? How about looking into the bright side of people or actually attending church and hearing sound preaching? Okay, right. I guess, so I should actually attend, which church should I attend? 2819, because that's where I'm gonna get sound teaching. Is sound teaching defined by you? Or is sound teaching defined by me? Or is sound teaching defined by scripture? Who gets to define? And I guess this person doesn't know that, you know, I don't know, I was a pastor of a church for 23 years. I don't know if they know that. And that church were, yeah, I don't think they know my situation in any way, shape or form. I don't think they know anything, but they're making a lot of assumptions and they're coming across kind of negative. So I responded with, I responded with, I spent over seven hours reviewing one sermon. All the episodes are right there on YouTube and every podcast app and SiriusXM. That's all I said. I did not fight back. I did not argue. So it's just funny that criticizing me for being negative, while at the same time displaying negativity and seemingly to imply that some churches are doing things wrong, which would mean you're negative towards them. Isn't it interesting? Don't be negative, but I'm going to be negative. So negativity is not the issue. Criticism is not the issue. Negativity and criticism directed towards 2819 Church, that's the issue. And it sounded like they could be a little nasty towards me, and that was okay. I just can't be nasty towards 2819 Church. Isn't that convenient? So I was just a little taken back by that, but I'm like, okay. I gave my response. Move on, right? I did not try to do anything. I thought I handled it pretty well. Okay. Overall, not a bad comment. I mean, their comment, you could see some of the, okay, are they being logically consistent here? But that's okay. It's no big deal. Like, you know, no big deal. Just leave it alone. Move on. Move on with your life, all right? And it gives me a chance to explain what I was trying to do in that episode. And I think anyone who listens to the episode, I think we'd probably draw a somewhat different conclusion. They may not like the negative things I said about sacrament and ordinances. They may not like the fact that I keep pointing out that the church is selling merch. But those are things I don't like, and I have every right to put forth my opinion. Right? And I didn't tell anyone, don't go to this church. Don't listen to this church. I never say that. I never do anything like that. Right? And I said, we have to do more research. That's being fair. I didn't immediately draw a conclusion. I said, we're going to have to do some more study, and which we did. So I feel like that that's not quite a fair representation of what I did because the person never once stated, just kept saying, I based everything off the article, but ignored the exploration of the actual website. which is kind of frustrating because I was using the church's own words, not what a reporter was saying. I was using the words on the very church's website. How much more accurate can I be? How much more fair can I be? And everyone listening could go check the same website and see what I was seeing and draw their own conclusion. So I thought I was being fair, but okay. But I just want you to point out how it always works, right? You're being nasty, you're offering criticism, you're being negative, while they offer criticism and negative and be a little bit nasty. It's just kind of like, well, then I guess we can just both do that, right? But okay, I was ready to move on. But then the little notification light shows up. Oh boy. And I'm like, okay, what's the next one? And the next one is this. This one goes on to, I hope you continue to listen to these sermons and pray. And I hope you continue to listen to these sermons and pray for God to soften your heart. So my heart needs softened, not theirs. Mine. You're stopping every few seconds to rant about things that you think. It's not about you. It's about God. You're literally criticizing prayer. You're making judgments based on sentences. Jesus said that we would know them by their fruit, and the fruit you're presenting is rotten. You sound like an atheist criticizing a church. Oh, wow. maybe God needs to soften your heart. Because if he softened your heart, then maybe you would hear my criticism is theologically sound. Ever think about that? I mean, I can flip it on you. If I need my heart softened, then maybe I could flip it around and say, you need your heart softened. And I may sound like an atheist criticizing the church, and you could sound like a heretic defending a heretic. I could flip it around that way. I mean, if you want to get nasty, I mean, right? I mean, can't we just, couldn't we just go back and forth that way? God needs to soften my heart. God needs to soften your heart. My fruit is rotten. Your fruit is rotten. I sound like an atheist. You sound like a heretic. I mean, we can call each other names. We can do that if you want. I mean, we can play that game. We can go back and forth. If you truly believe that God no longer heals, no longer speaks to people, and no longer moves, you need to read your Bible. Oh boy. Now remember, they accused me of critiquing and criticizing that which I know nothing about. And this person now offers a criticism. This is the same person who made the first comment. Now this person says, I need to read my Bible. That's pretty fascinating to me. That is. That just is. I mean, anybody who knows me, how many times have I read the Bible? I don't even know. I don't even know how many times. I've lost count. How many years did I spend teaching through the Bible, verse by verse? 23 years. Verse by verse. Multiple hours a week. taught Bible in a Christian school, gone to Bible college, Bible institutes, Bible seminaries, multiple degrees in biblical studies, written countless papers on biblical subjects and passages of scripture and interpretation. I've taught Bible study methods for 30 plus years. I have spent thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in front of a microphone doing biblical studies, but I need to read my Bible because I have a different theological approach than they do. They believe some of these signs continue and I don't. Cessationism is an entire theological system. Many people hold to it. It's not that uncommon in Christianity. And no, if I believe God is speaking to people outside of the Bible, then the Bible is not the final authority, which denies Sola Scriptura, which is one of the key elements of the Reformation. I mean, I can get into theological discussion all day about this, but you're going to accuse me that I need to read my Bible? You're right. I've never read it. I don't even have one. I don't even—oh, wait. I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 I got like 11 Bibles around me, but you're right. I've never read one. I don't even know what's in it. I have no clue But seeing it interesting attack me for criticizing a church that I supposedly know nothing about, but my criticism was based off the very words of the church's own website. And your criticism is of someone you do not know. And you don't know how many times I've read the Bible. You know nothing about my theological education. I need to read the Bible more, and I need to ask God to give me wisdom." Well, maybe God has given me wisdom, and maybe God's wisdom is for me to see the error in what you see as being true. Have you ever thought that maybe the wisdom God has given me is the true wisdom, and the wisdom God has given you is not the true wisdom because God didn't give you that wisdom? Maybe Satan gave you your wisdom, and God gave me my wisdom. because everyone thinks their wisdom is from God. So I'm assuming you think your wisdom is from God. I'm assuming that I think my wisdom is from God. So whose wisdom is right? And if you believe God speaks to you outside of the Bible, maybe God spoke to me outside of the Bible and told me 2819 church is wrong. So maybe what God told me, and you're not listening to what God told me, so maybe you're the one who needs to read their Bible and listen to God. But see, I would have to make a lot of assumptions about you. It says, you've become so wise and educated that you're forming man-made opinions and have no humility to consider that you could possibly be wrong about anything or have anything new to be open to you. Now, anybody who's listened to this podcast knows that's completely and totally fraudulent, false accusation. Anyone who knows me knows I constantly say, here is my theological or hermeneutical hypotheses. Here is the conclusion I come to today. This conclusion will be of no value come tomorrow, because the next time I study the text, I'm going to study it completely new, and again, forgetting everything I knew before, because I could be wrong. There are literally sermons where I have stopped in the middle of the sermon going, wait, I think I am wrong here. I have stated that I could be wrong a million times. I have stated saying that I don't think I could be wrong. You have never listened to me in any way, shape or form. So maybe before you make accusations about me, maybe you should listen to my sermons. Maybe you should listen to my teaching since you told me that's what I should do for 2819 church. But for 2819 church, my criticism was based off the actual words of their website and the actual words of the sermon that I spent over seven hours reviewing. So I gave 2819 Church the benefit and the respect of criticizing their actual words, where you are criticizing me, clearly knowing nothing about this broadcast or anything about me. So I showed more respect than you're showing me. But I'm the nasty one. I'm the critical one. I'm the negative one. Okay, I love the way this works. You're going into this with your mind already made up. No, I'm going into it not knowing what the sermon is going to say because I don't listen to the sermon in advance. I listen to it in real time. Now, did I have a pretty good idea that the church was going to be something I was going to disagree with? Yes, because I already reviewed a sermon of theirs in February. But guess what? I set aside. I'd never brought up what they said in February. I didn't even use it against them. I started brand new, started fresh, and let the sermon play. And everything that I heard, I responded to. I responded to their actual words within their actual context. I'll be praying that God softens your heart. Why don't you pray that God softens yours? See, why is my heart the one that needs softened and not yours? Why is it that your judgment, your critique is right? How about, how come you're not showing me that you could possibly be wrong? If I'm the one who's so educated and doesn't think I could be wrong, I can flip it. Why don't you think you could be wrong? Why don't you think that maybe your entire assessment of 2819 Church is completely wrong? But see, no, no, no, you're operating under the assumption that you are completely right and that I am completely wrong. Even though you've made assumptions and accusations that are just basically baseless and fraudulent. Based off what anybody can go listen to all of my... 4,000 plus hours of content on, no, it's probably over 5,000 hours of content online and would be like, I don't think that's quite the way he operates. I think anyone, long-term listeners will be like, I think they will say, that's not really accurate or fair. It says, I'll pray that God softens your heart and you experience a life change where you spread joy instead of anger. You're full of bitterness and you're not going to accomplish anything to further the kingdom of God by focusing on criticism. Isn't that interesting? I'm not going to accomplish anything because I'm focusing on criticism as they criticize me. They took the time to write two comments criticizing me about being critical. Does anyone, isn't that ironic? Don't you think? I know I'm quoting a famous song. So I responded with, I'll take your criticism about my criticism to heart. It's just so ironic. Hey, you need to do your research before you say anything. In an episode where I was literally doing real-time research, but they didn't do research about me, but yet made assumptions and accusations about me. They act as if they're right and I'm wrong, but they're mad because I act like I'm right and they're wrong. Well, then both of us are acting like we're right and the other ones act like they're wrong. So we're in the same boat. So you can't be criticizing me for doing what you're doing. And then you're mad at my criticism as you're offering your criticism. And it sounds like you're focusing on criticism. You're focusing on me. And let me make it very clear. No one made you listen to the Theology Central podcast. You could have stopped listening as soon as you saw that I was going to be somewhat negative towards 2819 Church. You could have moved on, went and listened to another sermon from 2819 Church. But obviously what I said bothered you enough that you had to offer your criticism about my criticism because I'm being too negative while you're being negative. It's just so weird. You're being negative towards me. You're being nasty towards me. You're making assumptions about me as you accuse me of doing the very things you're doing. It seems very kind of odd that that's the approach. Now, you can disagree with me and that's fine. And just note, he didn't offer any theological, exegetical, hermeneutical, Discussion or arguments here? None. None. You just offered your just reaction in criticism. And I can see why, because you're convinced that their theological system is right, and any other theological system that would counter theirs is inherently wrong. And you're free to do that. But don't get mad. someone offers a criticism of your theological system. That's what theological systems have been doing for 2,000 years. This group says that group is wrong. That group says that group is wrong. This group thinks God is speaking to them, doing this, doing that, and doing this, and doing that. The other one thinks, no, God is doing that for us. And contradictory doctrines, contradictory theologies, contradictory biblical interpretations, that's what's been going on for the entire history of the Church. Everyone thinks they're right. Everyone thinks their interpretation is right. Everyone thinks their theology is right. Everyone thinks that they are showing the fruit and the other people aren't. It never stops. Okay, well, great. You think you're right. You think that church is great. Wonderful. A lot of people will agree with you. Then don't worry about me disagreeing. Right? I'm a nobody. I'm nothing. just don't claim or don't act like I haven't read my Bible, because that's the biggest—that's just, man, that is such a slap in the face and just so fraudulent. And don't act like I don't think that I'm wrong. I constantly frame my approaches as hermeneutical hypotheses, and in fact, I challenge some of his key interpretation in his sermon on Matthew 5.13. I offer a counter one, and I classify my interpretation as a hermeneutical hypothesis. It's interesting that the pastor for 2819 Church never offered that kind of humility that he could be wrong. He never acted like his interpretation was wrong. He acted like his interpretation was right. And he criticized other churches for doing things this way and that way. He rebuked people. He criticized. Where is his humility? I'm the one who framed my interpretation as a hermeneutical hypothesis. But see, you're going to ignore all of that. You're just going to ignore everything. You ignored the fact that my criticism in the very first message was not criticism. It was me reading the very words from the church's website and pointing it out as red flags and saying, you know, we're going to be fair. We're going to be fair, and so we're going to let them speak for themselves by reviewing sermons. At the time, I thought I was going to review many. At this point, I don't know if I will review anymore. I mean, this thing was so bad. And no, I do not apologize for criticizing charismatic ideas of divine healing. I think it's horrible and insane the way they do it. Sorry. I've worked in the medical world long enough to see real suffering. Everyone who knows about this podcast knows I cannot stand anything connected to charismatic theology. So no, I do not believe in divine healing occurring today. I believe divine healing is guaranteed in the atonement when we get a new body. No more pain, no more suffering, no more death in heaven. But now there's pain, suffering, and death and disease. I do not believe God is speaking to us outside of Scripture because that would destroy the authority of Scripture. Scripture can't be the authority alone if God is speaking to me directly. And if you're going to say God is speaking to us directly, then guess what? I will say God just spoke to me 15 minutes ago and told me that you're 1000% wrong. Prove me wrong! have a hard enough time arguing about what the Bible says. Now, if we add that God is saying extra things to us outside of the Bible, there would be no way for anybody to critique or judge anything. And you would have no way to disagree with me because I would say God told me you're wrong. I mean, the logical implications of that are absolutely spiritual and philological anarchy. Now, it's after 1 a.m. Definitely not what I want to be doing. I really thought about, instead of doing this, I could listen to music or something, but see, then I would be thinking about this. So this is over and done now that I've responded to it. Here's what I would say to everyone. In theology, even in the Bible, there is this whole group of passages and content and material within the Bible that talks about false teachers, false prophets, having discernment, seeing if what you're hearing is according to the Scriptures, beware of false teachers, beware of false prophets. And to beware of false teaching and to beware of false prophets means you have to offer criticism to what you hear. You have to analyze and critique it to some level. You have to, right? You have to. Theology systems, theology in the way it is, there are different theological systems. Those theological systems are at odds with one another. They're opposite to one another. They contradict one another. Right? So, if you listen to this church, he obviously clearly offered a Pelagian understanding of man's anthropology, of man's makeup. Okay, well, that's a Pelagian view. That goes very much against the Augustinian view, against Augustine, Augustine and Pelagian debate. You can read about it in church history. Okay, those two systems are not compatible. They are absolutely at odds with one another, not even in the same ballpark. And then we could get to, we could continue that with semi-Pelagianism, but I reject Pelagianism. So guess what? If he's a Pelagian and I'm not a Pelagian, and I'm not saying he is a Pelagian, I'm just saying he taught practical Pelagianism, clearly by saying we're born innocent, that's straight up Pelagianism. Well, then I'm going to disagree and I'm going to critique it. If he comes at it from a charismatic approach, I'm not a charismatic. There's millions of Christians who are not charismatics. There's millions of Christians who are opposed to the charismatic movement. So I'm going to criticize it. I could go on and on and on. That's the way it works. I wish it wasn't that way. I wish we were all unified. We could all pick up the Bible. We could all agree. We could all hold hands, sing Kumbaya. There would never be any disagreement, but it doesn't work that way because the Bible calls for us to pursue truth, expose error, and critique teaching to see if it's true or false. Well, that's going to put us at odds. Now, it's very true. that my criticism in that sermon, I come across very passionate. I come across very blunt. I come across very loud. I can come across very nasty. I can come across very hateful. But I want to make it very clear. I never said a hateful word about the pastor. I never even said his name. And in any of my sermon reviews, I may have mentioned his name in the very first one, but I was nothing against him. My criticism is against the teaching. My criticism is against the doctrine. It's against the theology. It's against the hermeneutical error. I try never to make it personal. I try to never make it personal. And so to me, I can be blunt and I can be nasty because I'm going after a theology. I'm going after a hermeneutic. I'm going after an idea. I'm going after an interpretation. I'm not going after a person. Now, I may not always make that distinction clear. I may not. I try to say, when I say I hate charismatic theology, I say I hate charismatic theology. I don't say I hate charismatics. Charismatics are people. Charismatic theology is the teaching. It's the ideals. It's the practices. It's the methods. I don't like the way 2819 church used the music in a manipulative way. I don't like that. That's going after the practice. I didn't say anything about the music, the people playing the music. Now, I did get upset with some of the audience members and saying all the, just acting out of their mind about some of this stuff. And I'm like, what are you going crazy for? But even there, I tried to be very careful not to offer criticism. Now, do I always handle everything perfectly? No. I'm a human being reacting in real time. It's not performative. I don't know what's going to be said when I do a sermon review. So I react strongly. Sometimes my reactions, I will say something and go, well, I could have framed it differently. I could have said it differently. And there's times I could. So, if I said anything against a person, and I offered some criticism against a person, then I apologize, and it was never my intention to attack a person. Will I attack the doctrine, the theology, the practice, the method of a church? Yes, I will, and I will not apologize for attacking what I believe to be false doctrine and criticizing it. Scripture calls us to do that. But I'm not going to attack people. People are created in the image of God. People, I'm supposed to love people, even supposed to love my enemies. I tried to be very careful. Do I always do so? Again, I don't. See, here's the difference. I don't believe what 2819 Church believes, that we're born innocent. I believe we're all born totally depraved and that we are sinners. We are sinners from conception. We are sinners at birth. We are sinners, and we remain sinners even after salvation. We have a sinful nature. We are depraved. It is from the heart where evil arises. entire theological system says, I am still a sinner and I sin in thought, word, and deed by what I do and what I do not do 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I'm in perpetual sin. God says, be holy as he is holy. I have never been holy as God is holy, never will be in practice. I will be in position because of an imputed righteousness, but I will not be. So that means I'm in a perpetual state of sin because I never will be holy as God is holy. That's one command. I don't follow that command. And if I'm guilty of one point of the law, I'm guilty of all of it, meaning I'm a complete lawbreaker 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'm supposed to love God with all my heart, mind, body, and soul. I don't do that. No one else does. I'm a perpetual state of sin. I'm supposed to love my enemy. I don't always do that. On and on and on and on and on. The thing is, I know that I'm a sinner, and I know that I fail, and I know that I mess up, and one of the key taglines I say on this podcast all the time is, I'm just a sinner with a microphone. And I know I fail. I know I get too emotional. I know I get too upset sometimes. I get very discouraged. I get very despondent. I get very sick and tired of so much parts of Christianity because I just don't get the theological, like, what happened to historical, biblical Christianity that's been present forever? And all of a sudden I look at the modern church and I'm like, what is this nonsense? And especially looking at it from a hermeneutical standpoint. So do I get frustrated? Yes. Do I get upset? Yes. Am I too emotional at times? Yes. Can I be nasty? No question about it. Can I offer criticism that's sometimes not fair or accurate? No question. But I also know when someone is upset with me and they're doing the exact same thing they're basically accusing me of, that's somewhat kind of frustrating. Hey, you're criticizing what you don't know anything about. And then you make statements about me showing you don't know anything about me. And I got thousands of hours of content online that would show you that what you're saying is absolutely false. So you made a false accusation. That's not right. You're mad that I'm being critical where you're being critical. You're mad that I'm being nasty where you're being nasty. You're saying that I'm making a criticism about what I don't know anything about, while you make criticisms about someone you don't know anything about. That's frustrating. Now, I know I'm going to get more criticism and I know I'm going to get pushed back, but let me say to the person who wrote these, Just go. Like if you want to have a meaningful conversation, great. If you just want to go back and forth, we're not going to get anywhere. No one's stopping you. You're on YouTube. Listen to 28, 19, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now, if you feel the need, you've got to go defend the church, then by all means, I guess you can defend it, but your defense is basically you're mean and you're nasty and you're being critical, and I'm going to be mean, nasty, and critical to you. That's not much of a defense. Now, you did have some positive things to say about the church, yes, and that's great. That's your opinion. That's the way you perceive it. Great. Wonderful. Guess what? Not everyone's going to see it the same way. Just like not everyone would see my broadcast the same way. This has been a very long series. It's been filled with frustration. It's been filled with irritation. And I never thought I would get in. Look, my original idea was, oh, This'll be quick. We do a couple episodes, review a little bit. We'll make a determination. And my thought would be like, you know, 2819 Church. It's going to be, you know, it felt a little bit like Mars Hill. I got no problem seeing that correlation as someone who studied Mars Hill Church over and over and, you know, listened to the entire Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast. I do see some similarities. I do see similarities in how churches explode. I mean, it's not that this is not the first time a church has done it. Won't be the last time. But I really thought it was going to be like, okay, well, yeah, here's 2819 Church. Yeah, it's kind of your typical big church. Nothing major. Yeah, there's a bunch of hype now. Okay, got it, whatever, move on. And let's just move on quickly. I mean, that's how I handled it in February, right? But I was not prepared for this sermon and to the level of craziness that it involved in. It's just so crazy. And that's okay. Other people will disagree. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, look, I don't want to argue with anybody and I don't want to fight with anybody. 2819 is not going to be negatively impacted by my critique and my analysis. It's not going to impact one thing. And even if you say it's going to have a negative impact, I don't know how it would have a negative impact, because I didn't tell one person to not go listen to them or stop listening to them. I would never say that. I never tell people, don't read this, don't do that. No, go, look, read, listen. Investigate for yourself. Draw your own conclusion. So I'm not doing anything to hurt 2819 Church. I don't want people to go listen for themselves. Subscribe. I have called all of my listeners to investigate for themselves, to go look it up, to subscribe. They'll be broadcasting this Sunday. Everyone go watch it. I got no problem with that. So I'm not doing anything to hurt them in any way, shape, or form. Go buy their merch. And you're right, maybe I'm too nasty to get a five star rating. Okay, well. then that's on me. Thank you for pointing out that my reason I don't have a five-star rating is because I'm nasty. Thank you. I greatly appreciate that. I'm glad you know that. It's pretty good. So there's no need to continue going back and forth. You made your point. Thank you. I do appreciate it. I do appreciate you taking the time to listen. I do appreciate taking the time for you to put forth your opinion. I do appreciate that. By no means am I being sarcastic. All right. Well, the series that will never end. It will not end. All right. I hope it's the end. I hope. If anybody else has any criticism. No, I guess you can share it if you want. I just need to move on is what I, you know, depending on how the rest of the criticism goes, I may come back and try to address some of it. But I guess I'll just say this, to anyone I offended, if I offended you with truth, then I don't apologize. If I offended you because I was, I gave a personal attack, then that would be wrong and I'm sorry. If I did not come across as loving my enemy, now, I do not love the enemy of false doctrine, right? Because that, I don't have to love that. I have to love the people. If I didn't come across as loving the people, then I will admit that I'm wrong. It's a very emotional, draining thing to do that many hours trying to combat what I clearly see as fraudulent or wrong hermeneutical approach to a very important text. But, you know, so I wish I could say I do everything right. I wish I could say I do everything perfect, but I never will. Look, I make mistakes in every area of my life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right? You know, there's one thing I know in life is that I mess up. And I've been told it my whole life. And I will mess up more. And when you mess up, you pay the price, right? People don't like you, whatever. This falls apart. You've got to do everything right. Because if you don't, there's very little forgiveness or mercy in life. You know, you don't get a second chance. You mess up once you're done. That's how it works in life. And so if I messed up here, that's fine. Move on. And there's plenty of podcasts out there that will make you very, very happy. But I'm going to continue approaching things the way I do, and we'll just see where it goes. So I will say this. This is a Theology Central podcast, and it is hosted by a sinner with a microphone. And it will continue to be hosted by a sinner with a microphone. And that means sometimes I won't do everything right. But I know this. I'm going to continue to fight and argue for theological precision and hermeneutical accuracy and not saying things in sermons that are just absolutely false and not true. And that I can't apologize for. God bless.