and greetings welcome to the dividing line that today we're just going to uh... cover one one topic and then open the lines at eight seven seven seven five three three three four one haven't done that for a couple of programs and uh... everyone seems to like to do that for some odd strange reason so uh... eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number. You know, it would have been smart of me to have actually maybe put the phones thing together before we got started, but we'll take care of that as we go along. 877-753-3341. The topic that I somehow did not address on the last program. We covered enough, don't you think? There was a lot on that program. I don't know when I started using the term. It was a very long time ago. well before we had video cameras in this room. And I think before we started, even before we even came over here, while we were still doing stuff back in my office someplace, long, long ago. But the homosexual movement, I used the term long ago, I said, these folks do not want equal rights. They want Uber rights. And we are most definitely seeing that today over and over and over again. I mean, you know, when I first started utilizing that kind of terminology, the idea of profaning marriage and all the gender identity stuff just wasn't even on the horizon for me anyways, and I don't think the vast majority of everybody else in this audience either. And yet here we are, and we are facing an incredible situation in our day. And so a few weeks ago, when I saw an article about AB 2943, a bill in the California state legislature written by and submitted by homosexual assemblyman Evan Lowe. You know, you hear about this stuff, and there have been times in the past when We've heard of weird, strange stuff being introduced, and then it dies in committee, or it doesn't pass, or something, and then it comes back the next year, or the next year, or the next year, it just keeps coming back until it's finally a thing. Well, when you first start hearing this, you're like, well, that's what's going to happen again. But then it goes through committee, and then it goes through the House, and it goes to the Senate, and it goes to the Senate. And of course, in California, you're supposed to have some guy at the top that has some sense of what's right and wrong and what is not going to pass constitutional muster and things like that. But you don't have that in California. there really isn't, there really, I can't see any controls in California. The assembly, you have a one-party system, and once you have a one-party rule, that party just could care less what, not only what the other side is concerned about, but what has been true in the past. You get to, you know, again, it's, I hate to keep telling people to do this, but if for some reason you're one of the last people on the planet that have not read Brave New World in 1984, both, because we're sort of mish-mashing them together with a little Fahrenheit 451 thrown in for the fun of it, you need to read these things because that's where we are. And once you've got the all-powerful state, and this shouldn't surprise anybody as Christians, this is just such basic stuff. When you concentrate power in the hands of one particular group, given our biblical understanding of something called total depravity, just read the prophecy of Jeremiah and note his insight into the heart of man, and then just... What we don't do is, a lot of us have just been taught, we read the Bible, we have our faith, and we keep it over here, and then we go over here and we talk about government. And we've been taught, oh, you're supposed to do that, separation of church and state, you see. The anthropology that we believe over here has to be just as true over there. And so it was a good thing in the history of the United States to diffuse power, to spread it out. Even things like the Electoral College actually had their initial root in Judeo-Christian concepts of mankind. You're diffusing power, you're putting blocks in the way of people who would seek to use their power to overthrow the very governmental system that was being put in place. It shouldn't shock us, really, when we see someone like Evan Lowe and the homosexual lobby and the totalitarian leftists, let's just call them what they are, the communists, the Marxists, who are running the state of California, which, by the way, they're now collecting signatures for CalExit. and you know everybody goes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah right That's pretty much what they thought when Brexit started, too. So, boy, I don't know what that would mean. It's fascinating to think about it. I mean, a lot of us have sort of wished the San Andreas Fault would just sort of open up and California would drift off to China, where it belongs anyways, as far as its politics go. Sorry for those of you in California that are still Americans, but your state isn't, that's for sure. Anyway, it does make you think. Withdraw all the U.S. government money and all the military and stuff out of California and just watch what happens. I mean, it'd be a disaster, obviously. They couldn't defend themselves. They couldn't police themselves. They're already in so much debt, they'd be bankrupt in three seconds. They are bankrupt. But, hey, you know, sometimes you just see what's going on and culturally you just want, yeah, you guys go someplace else. Float on up to Canada or something, you know. Maybe we could get Alaska to float down and take their place and become seafront property or something. That'd be nice. Anyway, the stuff going on over there is absolutely, positively amazing to observe, but it makes sense. Once you have a one-party system, no controls, willingness to just thumb your nose at the Constitution and everything else, hey. And that's what's going to be happening everywhere. I read it before, I'm not going to read it again, but John Adams is right. The Constitution was designed for religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate to the governments of any other. This is not a religious and moral people any longer. I don't think the Constitution is going to work in this situation. I can't see how it can. And what we're seeing, we've been given a couple years respite. with Justice Gorsuch. But there's going to be a wild-eyed socialist Democrat in the White House before long. And every wild-eyed socialist liberal on the court is going to resign so as to be replaced by even wilder-eyed folks. And then the conservatives can't live forever, and they will own the court. They already own the justice system. And all those protections that you've been thinking are yours. In the amendments, first or second, there's words on a piece of paper. Once you no longer believe words have meaning, Once your oath to protect and defend is to protect and defend only whatever you feel like protecting and defending. Because, I mean, that's the whole thing today, isn't it? For everything. You are whatever you think you are. You can be a woman today, and a man tomorrow, and something in between, and 48 different things, and it's whatever's going on between your ears, if that's all that matters. There is no objective truth. That worldview cannot continue to uphold the Constitution of the United States or any meaningful set of Western values at all. It is incapable of becoming anything but 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 craziness, dystopian nuttery. And now, of course, we have the technology to make all of those books look like child's play. Come, Lord Jesus, is what I think many of us are saying. And so we see this bill, and we see very quickly right now what you're seeing are people saying, no, no, no, no, it's not going to mean this. It's not going to mean that. We're not banning the Bible. We're not, no, it's not going to mean this. And then the other side goes, um, have you read it? Well, yeah, yeah. I mean, the author himself says it's not intended. How many, how many times do we have to go through this? If we're going to pass legislation on same-sex marriage, no one's going to be, that's not going to force anybody to do anything. And then six months later, you're bringing cake bakers and photographers up on charges and going, oh, we said that. I don't remember saying that. And it just happens over and over and over and over again. We look at the situation with this poor child in the United Kingdom. Oh, death panels? Oh, come on, you people. You're just trying to scare people. And then you end up with people in silly-looking wigs saying, that doesn't matter. Everything's been paid for to take this child someplace else for medical treatment and stuff. That doesn't matter. Just got to stay here and die. That's the state. And the young generation is just going, yeah, we like the state, state goods, we follow state, state take care of us. So what happens when you don't, I mean, these people can't look 70 years in the past or less. I mean, in the case of East Germany, for example, they can't look 25 years in the past, 30 years in the past. It's astounding. It really, really is. And so, we keep saying it's coming, it's coming. No, it's here. It is now a situation where what's going to happen is this thing's going to become law. And when you make something that is fundamentally immoral, law, then you destroy the moral fabric of law and its power to curb evil, and you turn law into something that actually encourages evil. And that's what these people want to do anyways. That's their worldview to begin with. So what's going to happen is, very shortly after this, you are going to have some event, you're going to have a conference, you're going to have a speaker. I mean, I'll be honest with you, if someone were to say, you know, we for a long time, we've tried to arrange a debate where Michael Brown and I would debate Dr. Brownson and another, you know, someone else who would, Matthew Vines or something, in a two-on-two debate on the subject of homosexuality. I don't know that that would be wise to do in the state of California. I mean, if what you want to do is actually do the debate and see the debate widely disseminated, that might not be the place where you want to do it, unless you want to be the person who is going to invest most of their waking moments for the next few years taking your case to the Supreme Court, risking what would happen over those next few years. I mean, let's say And if you think this isn't a possibility, you're living in la-la land. Let's say two years from now, a younger Bernie Sanders is elected as President of the United States. And if you don't think that's not a possibility, you're just, like I said, you're just not even watching. You're not even thinking. So let's say your court process has already started. You've done something in California. You've preached clearly from 1 Corinthians chapter 6. You have told people that Jesus Christ can, in fact, deliver you from the sinful behavior of homosexuality. And you've put that in a book at a conference, and therefore it falls under the fraud legislation, and you have been charged with a crime under AB 2943. And you have appealed, and of course you lose in the Ninth Circuit immediately. You don't even bother. I mean, just... The Ninth Circuit is... Don't even go there. Well, you have to, I realize. By the time it gets to the Supreme Court, it could be 6-3, 7-2 of people that I don't believe for a second could care less what the Constitution says. The Constitution is whatever they think it is. There's already four people on the court, pretty much, that that's the way it is. And so it just takes one or two more and that's it. That's it. You lose. And First Amendment's gone. Second Amendment will go right after it or before it. One of the two. They'll sort of go together. And there you go. So who's going to do it? I know of a Reformed Baptist Church right there in Sacramento, a matter of blocks from the black hole vortex of lunacy called the state legislature. Don't for a second think that every Bible-believing pastor in the state of California will not have it in the back of their mind, and this is their purpose, this is their reasoning. They are trying to chill the freedom, the expression. They want to silence the other side. And if they can do it the easy way rather than the hard way, they'll do it, is not thinking about these things when they choose the text they're going to be preaching. If they are doing a book study, When they get to Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Genesis 18 or 19, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 Timothy 1, the temple prostitute sections in 1 and 2 Kings, or whatever else it might be, the thought is going to cross their mind. Will I bankrupt my church in seeking to defend itself simply for a single sermon. And obviously, there's a bunch of people that will go, I will do what I need to do. But there's a big group of other people that are sort of a little bit more squishy that are going to go, no, I'm not even going to think about it. And that way, you silence speech. You push the narrative your direction. And that's just all there is to it. That's what's going on. So we have prayed for many years, Lord, protect us from evil men and women in positions of power. And we continue to pray that. But we recognize that when you live in a nation that is under the judgment of God, when you live in a culture that is under the judgment of God, that those texts in, for example, Hebrews, you have not yet resisted unto the point of the shedding of blood, but they had already experienced the taking of their physical possessions, and they did so with joy. So, when the government shows up and padlocks your church, you have no place to meet. Gonna stand outside and rejoice? There's a lot of prime real estate owned by Christian churches. Man, you just knock them buildings down, you could build some pretty cool condos or government buildings on top of those sites. You could make some money. How are we going to respond to those things? That's really the question. It's AB 2943. I saw a lot of people saying, you need to contact the legislators in California. Why? It's a one-party system. There's no responsibility to the citizens of the state of California. There's no moral or ethical foundation left in this place. Why contact them? They know that they have I mean, look at the people they keep electing to Congress. They don't care. It's irrelevant to them. They may mark it down on a sheet someplace, but that's just, well, there's another whacko we're going to have to get rid of someday. There's another person to put on the list of deportation or whatever else. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. 877-753-3341 is the phone number that you can call. 877-753-3341. Let's start taking some of our phone calls and let's talk with David in Chicago. Hi, David. How are you doing, Dr. White? Good. I'm a 33-year-old Hispanic. And I really appreciate the discussion you've been having on so-called radical race theory. It's been extremely helpful. You mean CRT, Critical Race Theory? Yeah, it's been extremely helpful, your discussion, over the last few podcasts. The only time I've ever experienced explicit racism was about 17 years ago, other than economy of black people is related to the fact that i think it can we leave them out of conversation they started they started sells everything the wrong way so we'll we'll just leave them out all but then again you mean that they they do have the highest you count on your videos channel but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but you know, popular scholars such as Craig Keener at Purdue University and major publishers, IVP, with the titles White Awake and Myth of Equality by Ken Wetzma, who was recently at Wheaton College on the same subject here. I read a book called Prophetic Lament by Sung Chan Ra, where he states that for a white person to be reconciled to African-American, that they would need to leave their church and come under the spiritual authority of a black pastor, and this would go a long way into somehow reconciling themselves. I don't know, I just I want to hear your comments on that, as an aside. What would I do if, where I'm at a predominantly white church, it really doesn't come to my mind, should I start bringing up grievances of the Alamo or something? This whole thing is just, where does it end? I don't know. Well, I like to say I don't know what the endgame is, but I think at least politically and socially I know what the endgame is. That's the problem I have in the importation of these political social categories into the church, is that it doesn't fit, because it fundamentally contradicts the oneness we have in Christ, the fact that these issues have been reconciled in Christ already. And so if we're trying to say that this group needs to be in a constant state of repentance toward another group, And okay, how long? Is it a one-time thing? Is it a penance-type thing? Just what is it? And I don't get answers to that. And so, you know, there are issues. My understanding, I could be wrong about this, my understanding in many of the major cities, for example, is that there's strong animosity between Hispanics and Blacks in some of the gang groups and things like that. So what happens if you end up with a, well, in our church, we have Black church members and we have Hispanic church members, and should there be some kind of special pastoral application of seeking to make sure the Hispanic members and the Black members are doing proper penance toward one another or something. You know, we've never even considered these things, because we've always assumed it was a given that when you break bread together at the Lord's table, everyone's seated at the same table, and all those things are under the blood of the cross, and therefore there shouldn't be these divisions. But, you do wonder exactly what it is is supposed to take place. And so last week, I was directed to a book that was recommended by David Platt at T4G called Divided by Faith. It's an older book, actually, interestingly enough. I think it was 2002, somewhere around there, which doesn't sound very old to me, but you know what I mean. And it's not a Christian book. I don't think the authors are Christians in any fashion, but it was recommended to everybody as being extremely enlightening on the subject. I took the time, I bought it, I mentioned this in the last program, I finished it up yesterday, and, you know, it's by sociologists, so all of the solutions are sociological, there's no understanding of the gospel, there's no understanding of reconciliation, there's no understanding of forgiveness, there's no understanding of regeneration, there's no understanding of biblical anthropology. All those things are missing, which obviously means it has very limited utility to Christians, and yet it is one of the main books being suggested to people. And part of the alleged solutions echo what you just said, and that was one of the chapters talked about, they interviewed lots and lots of people and said, so would you be in favor of this kind of means of combating racialism or that kind of means? And one of them was, in essence, a forced or governmental integration of neighborhoods. And this was one of the things that was being suggested. And so when you listen to what some of the individuals within the church are saying, then you're going to hear what you just mentioned, and that is, well, there needs to almost be a quota system. And so if you are a guilty, if you're guilty of whiteness, then the penance, the proper thing that would show your penance, would be to put yourself under the authority of someone who doesn't have whiteness. Now, I'm not sure if that cleanses you of your whiteness, or if it just shows that you have a proper understanding of the wrongness of whiteness. I don't know. I'm not exactly sure how that works, but that kind of thinking is out there. And I said a few weeks ago in talking about this, what my concern is, is if this is exported outside the United States, this is a very American Perspective and one of the things that really bugged me about the book was it it focused solely upon white black issues And I live in Phoenix for crying out loud so, you know, there's there's a huge Hispanic population here and You just you you just get used to it. It's not like it's I mean, that's what you grow up with that's what I've grown up with since I moved here in sixth grade and and You hardly even see it anymore as far as your your personal relationships with people go but When you transport this outside the United States to South Africa or other places, it could create divisions that are not even there right now, that no one even experiences, where the churches are already so far past this. that it's not even funny, and yet if you've got people like David Platt and Chandler and big, big, big names, even John Piper and Mark Dever and others, promoting these kinds of books and these kinds of concepts, then it is going to go outside the United States and could end up creating division where there currently isn't any. because outside the United States, there's evidently been a little more in the way of maturity in recognizing what the real basis of our fellowship in Christ is. So, I don't know what the endgame is, because this is primarily a sociological, political movement that only has very radical concepts as its final outcome, and it you apply it to the church and it makes no sense. It's destructive of the gospel. That's one of the things that's really concerning to people. Thank you, Dr. White. Yeah, that's, you know, what's the endgame? And how do I even know I've reached the threshold of being reconciled? That's just answers that you'll never get. But much appreciated for the response. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. God bless. 877-753-3341. Hmm. All right. Jack in Kentucky. Hi, Jack. Hi, Dr. Wyatt, I just wanted to say, before I start, you have been such a blessing to me, personally. I've been listening to you for a few years now, and it's just been very edifying. Well, thank you! So, about a week ago, I was reading, I got a book called Stories from Ancient Canaan, and it has four texts, I think they're called Bugarit texts, which basically show the religion of Baal. And the author who translated it is kind of making the argument that the Old Testament was a polytheistic text first, and then sort of became a monotheistic text after being edited by later authors. And I just want to preface this, that doesn't make any sense to me, given that Genesis kind of only makes sense in a monotheistic framework. Oh, Jack, Jack, Jack, you're just being too simple here. Trust me, I went to Fuller Seminary, so I've heard this for a long time. Well, since you went to Fuller, what are the other major liberal claims about the Old Testament, and why do they have so much sway? We, as I've said a number of times, we pretty much gave the Old Testament to the liberals about 150 years ago, and there are still a few good conservative Christian scholars out there, but even what used to be our trustworthy Christian publishers don't tend to look to them. They tend to look to others, and that's why I've often said going into a Christian bookstore is one of the most dangerous places you can go. And the commentary section is one of the most dangerous places you can go, because you assume, unfortunately, wrongly, that what you're going to buy there is being written by Bible-believing people, when in reality, so much of that material comes from a very different worldview, and that's especially true, unfortunately, of Old Testament scholarship today. And so the vast majority of Old Testament scholarship is based upon some form of the J-E-D-P theory, the Graf Wellhausen theory, which all this stuff developed at the same time out of German rationalism and things like that. It's a application of naturalistic principles to the text of the Old Testament, beginning with the assumption that the New Testament writers, and especially Jesus himself, were all washed up and wrong about their view of the Old Testament, even though many of those people would still call themselves Christians, interestingly enough. And so, once you look at the Old Testament text, something is written by 40 different authors, and of course, from their perspective, probably 400 different authors, over Well, we would say 1,500 years, they would say over maybe 500 years, between maybe 200 to 700 is as far as most of them would go. But once you are free of any controlling authority that says you need to look at the Old Testament as a whole, you need to operate within the parameters of even Jesus' own teaching about the Old Testament, Once you're free to atomize it and cut it into parts, then what the limit, there are no limits. And so when you say, you know, what else is out there? Everything. I mean, pretty much everything. If you go and just scan the Old Testament titles of papers presented for the past five or ten years at SBL, Society for Biblical Literature, just look at the Old Testament stuff, scan, all you gotta do is, you don't even have to read the papers, you just look at the titles of the papers, and you will sit there staring and drooling at the insanity that is Old Testament scholarship today. I mean, everything you'd expect, intersectionality, homosexuality, this book as erotic literature in regards to Yahweh and other gods, everything that you could ever find is going to be out there someplace. because there are no rules. So you can take any author, you can take any book, and you can just simply theorize that the form we have today was edited in this way, this way, this way, and this way. You don't have to provide anything in as far as hard data is concerned. Because we're talking about such ancient literature, you only have manuscripts back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, so anything before that, yeah, once in a while we'll find a scrap here, a scrap there, but pretty much Once you push back past that point, then you can just engage in theoretical reconstruction of anything, and that's how you get published. That's how you do your dissertations. That's how you get published. You've got to come up with something new. If you're just simply trying to defend orthodoxy or say, yeah, you know what? What Christians or even Jews have always believed about this is actually true, it's going to get you nowhere. So the very way we do scholarship in much of Western thought, the only thing that's going to get published is something that's new, and normally what's new is heretical. And so that's where it got started, that's where it continues. And so the idea that, well, I can tell you back in 1997 or 8, Richard Mao, then president of Fuller Seminary, did a live thing. This was really back in the day when internet stuff was just starting. He did a live thing, and I actually asked him about the idea of Mormonism, because he's been big into dialogue with Mormons without really challenging Mormonism in any significant way. And I mentioned the monotheism in the Old Testament. His response was exactly what you read. Well, it wasn't originally a monotheistic text. It eventually became a monotheistic text. There are polytheistic texts in the Old Testament. There are henotheistic texts in the Old Testament. Then you've got monotheistic texts. But the monotheistic texts are later on. So you stratify the Old Testament. You've got the Yahwists, the Elohists, the Deuteronomists, the Priestly, the JEDP sources, and then, of course, Since then, you've had people introduce 47 other categories along with the JEDP, and so you can just chop it up into bits and pieces and parts and do with it as you wish. And so if you ask what else is going to be heading your direction, pretty much everything, because there's no controls on this either. Once you abandon any type of meaningful understanding of what the Old Testament is, and certainly the idea of allowing Jesus to have the final say, is going to not be allowed in 98.8% of all Old Testament studies programs in the Western world today. I hate to say that. Didn't Alma bring up the polytheistic thing in y'all's talk about who the real Jesus was? Yes. Alright, well, on that, is there any, like, major specific things that liberals, like, at the base, liberal scholars in the Old Testament knows about this in particular theory and will launch it that way. Like, I heard Deutero-Isaiah is, like, a big one. I'm not following the question. What about Deutero-Isaiah? Well, like, that's a major theory that I know has a lot of sway. Do all of these theories just get accepted, like, right away? Or, like, what is the measure? How do these theories get Well, I wish I could say that there is this fair process of scholarly review that keeps bringing these things up and things like that. It doesn't work that way. My experience is that if you go to a conservative seminary, you will unfortunately have to spend a lot of your time learning a lot about what the liberals believe. if you go to a liberal seminary, you will not spend a moment of your time learning about what people used to believe or what people continue to believe on the other side of the aisle. It's an echo chamber, complete echo chamber. So think of the modern liberal university, secular university echo chamber, and it's the same thing in liberal seminaries. And so it's not that there have not been thorough and consistent critiques of this liberalism from conservatives over the years, it's that the liberals don't read conservatives. They don't care what we have to say. Every liberal I've ever debated, John Shelby Spong, John Dominic Crossett, Marcus Borg, Bart Ehrman, well he's not really a liberal, he's an agnostic, but had not even googled my name. had never read a word that I said, because they don't believe that we have anything meaningful to say. And so, it's a one-way street. And so, if you were trained in a liberal seminary, that's all you've ever heard. It's just a given in your mind that this is the Enlightenment view, this is what we've come to know, and the other guys on the other side are just closing their minds. And of course, they can point to some of the fundamentalistic responses in some fundamentalistic-type schools, where they have the same attitude in reverse. You don't read anything from a liberal. That'll cause you to grow horns and read something other than the King James. So they use those extremely rare examples of that, and then do not interact with the entire spectrum of believing evangelical scholarship, Reformed scholarship, that has responded to these things. And so there just isn't a whole lot of communication going on, and that's why it becomes our responsibility to educate ourselves on these issues and to think presuppositionally, to examine what is being said, what we're being told, presuppositionally, and be able to identify the foundational assumptions. I think I can pretty certainly say now, after all these years, that that's why the Lord had me go to Fuller Seminary, is that's where I learned to do that. I had to. There was no other game in town. did not have the money to go anyplace else. The ministry was already started. I had a kid on the way. That was all I could do. And it wasn't fun and it wasn't enjoyable in the sense that it might have been to go to some place where I would have had more consistency with the viewpoints of the professors and things like that. By the way, I had some conservative profs because I went to the Phoenix Extension, so I'm not saying everybody was like that. But I did have to learn to listen and evaluate and to do so presuppositionally, dig out the gems and throw away the dross. And we all have to do that today. All right. uh... last question do you know any conservative old testament scholars who actually deal and with and take apart the things that i'm just not familiar with and could you like to recommend for them to go to really well there there are books it depends on what you're talking about uh... you gotta remember that uh... Most of the time, in most of scholarship, for example, if you're looking at JEDP, then you're going to find articles. They're going to deal with elements. Trying to find books is difficult. You're generally focused upon finding articles. If you look into some of the conservatives, like Lisa Narcher and people like that, they will have bibliographies. Everybody needs to learn how to mine. When you find a really good book on a related subject, then mining it, that is, its bibliography and its footnotes, or endnotes, depending on what the form is, that is just a extremely important skill to be able to find your resources in that way. I know where in the other room I have some various books related to this, but off the top of my head I'd have to go digging them up and drag them out to give you some specifics. But if you go to some of the current Now, remember, I could say, hey, go to such-and-such seminary, find out who's teaching Old Testament there, look at their books, but you'd be surprised. If I mentioned even some seminaries that we would have general agreement with, especially the Old Testament department, you've got to be really careful. But places like Masters, you talk to their Old Testament people, and their books are going to be where you're going to find the bibliographies that are going to give you And of course, their bibliographies are going to include liberal sources because they study liberal sources, but the footnotes and the quotes especially are where you'll be able to find a lot of the good stuff. I had a student did a master's with me in Columbia. I was his mentor a number of years ago. Colin Smith did a real good paper on the JEDP stuff, which I think we posted? I'm not sure. Did we put Colin Smith's JEDP paper on the blog? I don't remember. Rich is looking, so we'll see. But that's the best way to find that kind of information. All right, well, thank you so much, Dr. White. It's been an honor speaking to you. Okay, it is there, by the way. What's the title of it? Does it have JEDP in it? Well, I just went to this site, did a search on JEDP, and that's what popped up first, a critical assessment of the Graf Welshausen documentary hypothesis. Colin Smith is the author. Okay, good. So you put in JEDP at AOMN.org, the search thing. You should be able to pull that up. Okay. Thank you so much, Dr. White. It's been an honor speaking with you. God bless. there's something wrong with your microphone there is a there's a pretty strong uh... in using them some anyway uh... let's uh... press on here cuz uh... three calls fifteen minutes we can probably pull it off uh... let's talk to jeremy in north carolina jeremy good afternoon dot or what wouldn't talk to get to see them Before I speak, I want to preface by echoing what Jack said and pretty much everybody else. Your ministry has been a tremendous blessing to me, and I want to thank you for being obedient to God and doing the work that He has laid out before you. My quick question, and it may be a very quick one, on John 20, 28, your debates that you've done in Islam, you know, how it says, my Lord and my God, well, that has come up in, and I can't remember which one, as an explanation for the deity of Christ. And my question is, by them acknowledging that he said that, are they not acknowledging that Christ was resurrected, because they say that he wasn't crucified, or are they just equivocating on that point for the sake of argument on the topic at hand? Well, there really isn't a consistent Islamic approach on this. They will, on the one hand, quote from the Gospel of John, and they will quote from John 14, they'll quote from John 16 in regards to the Comforter, and identify that with Muhammad. As long as something can be used in defense of Islam, they'll quote from it. But even, for example, when they quote Jesus's words of that day and hour, no one knows, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. Even though, from their own perspective, Jesus would never have uttered those words, because Jesus would never identify himself as a son. So it's more of a rhetorical device that they would be utilizing. But I'm interested, I mean, I've certainly brought up John 20, 28. I don't remember a Muslim bringing it up. They may have, but I know, okay, I'll take that back. I was thinking of the real serious ones there. Okay, I know what you're referring to now. Yeah, the fellow who tried to say that there's a distinction between my Lord, my God. Yeah, okay, that was, yeah. Yeah, that unfortunately, there are well-read Muslim apologists, and then there are really not well-read Muslim apologists. And that was an example of that, I'm afraid. So I do recall that now. I think I know who you're referring to. Has Shabir ever Have you ever gone with him on that topic? I'm drawing a blank. Yeah, we have, of course, addressed the deity of Christ in a number of different contexts. Off the top of my head, Algo, in our chat channel, might remember exactly what Shabir said, but I don't listen to my debates over and over again like Algo does. I would be surprised if Shabir would attempt, at least in debating me, to go there, because if you recall, in our first debate, I caught him in not knowing what the Greek was, and making an argument that he had made for years. And in reality, he was misrepresenting the original text. And as you remember, what he said was, well, if you're correct about that, then I concede the point, and now I have more reason to learn Greek. So, I think he knows better, I think, than to try to go at Greek grammar with someone who's taught the language for a few years. So, I don't remember us going back and forth on it. My assumption would be, since he and I have debated whether Jesus is prophesied, I'm sorry, whether Muhammad is prophesied in the New Testament, And he takes extremely liberal perspectives to where, well, you know, we can sort of take John 14 and 16 out, and it was written at a different time, and it has different meaning, and so you don't have to worry about what it actually means here or there. Then he'd probably do the same thing with John 20, but I don't know. All right. One more question for you real quick. I have recently come out of for lack of a better term, non-reformed. I was born and raised a free-will Baptist, and I held strong to that autonomy of man's will, and it was through your debate that God revealed the beauty of Reformed theology. But I still attend a free-will Baptist church mainly because the pastor does, I mean, he preaches the Word, and I find it consistent on most points, other than, you know, the whosoever, the John 3, 16 thing, and, you know, pleading for the will of man to come down, you know, when he's totally unable, but unless the Spirit of God moves, but how How are you able to know whether or not you need to seek out a different congregation when it comes to, like, I know that that might be considered an important thing, but yet still Adiaphora. But how do you differentiate between those? Well, you know, that's really going to depend on Your situation for me, as a person who was already teaching and writing, there was more of a pressure upon me to have consistency between what was being preached from the pulpit and what I was saying in classes, even within the Church. If you're not teaching, then you don't have the same level of pressure upon you at that particular point. But you also have to think about the implications that this theology has in regards to pastoral counseling, death, the graveside. There are a lot of implications, aside from you know, how you do evangelism, how you do apologetics, there are a lot of things. And so it also depends on whether there are other options available to you that would be more consistent in their exegesis and their theological perspectives within a reasonable distance that you would be able to be actively involved in that church. So it really depends on a number of factors And as I've said to many other people who've called in on that subject, however it works out, it needs to be a situation where it's very prayerfully handled and very seeking to do so in a very gracious manner, especially if you do end up leaving a fellowship, that's very, very difficult to do, and your ultimate goal is to do it in such a way that Christ is glorified in that, but that can be extremely, extremely hard, because many people will interpret your desire to go elsewhere as a personal front against them and their ministry in your life, and it's a minefield. There's no two ways about it. Well, the distance thing is a major issue. I live out in the sticks, so I've been looking online at a bunch of different churches and reading their statements of faith and seeing where they match up theologically with my understanding And the closest one is over an hour or so drive that I think would fall under the Reformed Baptist category. Right. Yeah, that is, believe me, you wouldn't be the only person driving that far. There are a lot of people that do do that. And there are things you can do on long trips like that. Good time to listen to other sermons and things like that. All depends. There are a lot of people that simply don't have a close by fellowship that need to, I still highly recommend they be involved in a fellowship up to the point where their conscience doesn't allow them to be able to do so. And that all depends on the situation you're in. So we'll hope that our work will start up even closer by to you. Oh, right. Well, I do appreciate you taking the time, and thank you also, Rich, for working behind the scenes, and y'all have a wonderful evening. All right. Thank you. All right. God bless. Thank you. God bless. All right, let's uh... I was only going to take two more calls, and I don't think you heard that, so you took a new call after that, but... Huh? Well, we'll try to get everybody. If you've put somebody on hold for nine minutes, we'll try to get to them, so... Let's talk to David. Hi, David. Hey, Dr. White. Thank you for taking my call. You're most welcome. Hey, I had a question about the Holy Spirit. So I come from a Oneness Pentecostal background. I'm young, I'm a college student, and I live here in Charlotte. And like the other day, my brother confronted me for not attending a Oneness Pentecostal church anymore, and he asked me some pretty hard questions about, you know, the Holy Spirit. I think I was able to answer most of them based off of what I've learned so far. The whole tongue thing didn't happen for me. And now I understand why it didn't happen for me. But he was more confronting me based off of his girl, but basically asked me, are angelic tongues biblical, and does the Bible ever mention angelic tongues? And I told him that the only time it was mentioned was in 1 Corinthians 13, but I don't believe that's what happened in Acts chapter 2. And I didn't know how to further answer the question myself. Well, now I'm a little confused, because the topic here said the Holy Spirit, but it sounds more like this is in reference to, like, the UPCI belief in the necessity of speaking in tongues to be saved, or is... Yeah, yeah, so basically they teach that you have to speak in tongues or you haven't received the Holy Spirit. Well, unfortunately, they're not the only ones that teach that, but there are a number of others. It's obvious when Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12, says, not all speak in tongues, do they? The Greek construction that is used there expects the answer that that's correct, not all speak in tongues. I'm going to have to have a little discussion with the young man who keeps trying to FaceTime me, thinking I'm one of his friends. That's what's going on there. Anyway, sorry about that. So you have the direct statement right there in the discussion of the gifts and things like that. not all speak in tongues. Now, I would imagine that those who teach that are aware that it says that, and they'll try to contextualize that passage and say, well, that's in this context, that context. But it's just the basic statement in regards to the gifts of the Spirit that not all experience this. So you have that direct statement. The other thing to keep in mind, and I won't have time to develop it right now, but you can find a number of discussions of this, is I think when you look at the purpose of the gift of tongues as it's laid out in Paul's discussion, especially when you look at his citation from Isaiah as to what the purpose of tongues is, you will see that it had a specific application at a specific time. And that is why someone such as myself would be a person who believes that certain gifts of the Spirit, specifically apostolic sign gifts that had a specific association with the Apostles and a purpose in their ministry, when the when the apostleship ends, when there aren't any further apostles, then the result of that is going to be those gifts. do not continue, all right? And so, hey dude, you got the wrong number. Thank you. The kid looks like he's about nine, so nine to eleven, and obviously he's trying to call his friend. Sorry about this, but we are so connected these days. That's also how my grandkids call me, so I loathe to You know, it's life today. I don't want to not have little January be able to call me and babble at me from Las Vegas just because some kid with spiked hair can't type the proper number on his touchscreen. Anyway, so back to the subject. You can tell these are live programs and they're not edited. Yes, indeed. We're professionals here. So when you look at the purpose that Paul lays out in regards to tongues being a sign to the people of Israel regarding the fact that judgment has come upon them, well, that's only going to be relevant up to a certain point in time. And so you combine those two, and you have the basis for my understanding that that particular aspect of the Spirit's ministry is not continuing in the Church today. It does not follow, as some people have taken it. that the Holy Spirit is not active in the Church today, or the Holy Spirit does not give gifts to His people. He does, but those are ministerial gifts. They are gifts in regards to the continuing ministry of the Word of God, the things that continue to keep the Church alive and growing. And I believe the Holy Spirit is extremely active in conforming the people of God, the image of Christ, and all the things that are associated with that. But I think that the idea of angelic tongues You'd have a real hard time, I think, substantiating any concept of that. I think some of that comes from a misunderstanding of Romans chapter 8 and groanings that cannot be uttered. But the idea, and probably is tongues of men and angels, taking a illustration that Paul used and expanding it way out beyond anything he would have intended. The problem is that there isn't, when you do have Paul specifically teaching on this subject, there's nothing that can be really fairly, in a soundly, exegetical way, expanded out to mean those things. That doesn't mean people won't do it. And they have done it, and that becomes a tradition that becomes read back into the text, and especially in Charismatic Pentecostal circles. Right, right. Okay, I think that answers my question a little bit. Well, a little bit anyways. No, no, no. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Abel. All right. God bless. All right. Two more calls. Let's talk to Zach. Hi, Zach. Hi, Dr. White. You're not the one calling me on FaceTime, are you? No, of course not. I'm 24, I'm not 19. Thank you very much. I would like to also echo what everyone else has said. Thank you to Rich and you as well, of course. Are you telling them how much you pay them as you're screening the calls, Rich, to say that? It's like three words to me. But thank you guys, of course, so much for your guys' obedience and seemingly tireless ministry, of course. But my question is... Well, you've never seen us taking naps around here, so you better not talk about tireless, so, no. Well, it seems like you guys, in my mind, all you guys do is this and debate and bike, so... What is that? But the biking is what I'm preparing to do this part, so that's how that works, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my question is that, so I've been dialoguing with a Jehovah Witness recently, and that monday we're meeting again and she had actually prepared to prove that the Trinity is a biblical thing. And my question to you is, is that if you had two to three hours to discuss the Trinity with a Jehovah Witness, how would you go about it? What would you go to, or what would you stay away from, maybe? It wouldn't take two or three hours. Well, obviously, I mean, you can invest a huge amount of time on the subject, and you can answer all sorts of questions, and if they're willing to do it, that's great. Just keep in mind the fact that there is a very strong controlling tradition in these folks' minds that will even keep them from acknowledging any kind of meaningful point that you make. So don't expect to see it. But don't let that discourage you either, because while I would assume you're not meeting alone with this person. Um, we, we are, so I take Spanish classes from them. Um, and so we meet usually before Spanish class or beforehand and then we go into, go into Spanish a little bit later. Just one person. Oh, that's interesting, because Jehovah's Witnesses, certainly when they go door-to-door, they always go minimally two-by-two. And so it's a little unusual, because, see, they recognize there's a danger there. Because when they've got two, the one can always keep the eye on the other. And that's one of the reasons they do this, is to keep that groupthink going. And then the one can see it, the other is starting to go, oh, that's interesting. Then they shut it down. So that's actually a good thing. That's actually a positive thing. But we'll see where it goes from there. A number, many years ago, I've told the story before, many years ago I was invited over to someone's home to talk to some Jehovah's Witnesses that were coming over and three elders came on a Saturday morning And what I did is I was just straight up front with them. I said, hey, you know, I teach seminary. I have written books on this subject, that subject. I teach Greek, Hebrew, and I teach apologetics. And so I've done many lectures on what you guys believe. Could I lay out for you what you believe? And you tell me if it's accurate. And they're sort of like, um, okay. And it's pretty unusual. And so I just went through, used all their language. I mean, I could have been in the theocratic ministry school thing, you know, just going through the whole thing. And they were blown away because I gave a very, very accurate full discussion of who is God, what they believe about Jesus, Michael the Archangel, Holy Spirit, 144,000, 1914 back then, etc., etc. And then having basically earned a few minutes, I said, now, that's what you believe. I'd like to explain to you what I believe. And so they couldn't say no at that point. And so what I did is I presented to them the one subject that Jehovah's Witnesses have no meaningful responses to. And that is the strongest, clearest texts that demonstrate that Jesus, in distinction from the Father, is identified as Jehovah. You can argue about Jesus being called God or a-God until the cows come home. If Jesus is Jehovah, that's the end of the argument, and that's the end of the story. And so, what I did is, the first text that I walked them through was, I went to Psalm 102 in their Bible, had them read verses 25-27, And then I asked him some questions, and I said, would this be true of anyone other than Jehovah? And go ahead and use Jehovah. Don't even argue about Yahweh and all the rest of that stuff. It's not worth it at this point. Is there anyone other than Jehovah who is unchanging, that all of creation, he will roll it up like a garment and it will be changed, and his years are never-ending, but everything he creates grows old, but he never grows old? This is the immutability of Jehovah God. Is this true of anyone other than Jehovah God?" And they agreed, no, only Jehovah is eternal and immutable, and so on and so forth. And I said, okay, with that in mind, and they were a little bit, they will be intrigued, most will be intrigued by a Christian who not only is talking about Jehovah, but is talking about the immutability of Jehovah from Psalm 102, and doesn't mind if they read from the New World Translation in the process. Keeping that in mind, I then went to Hebrews chapter 1 and had them read verses 10 and following, which, as you know, is, if you go back to verse 8, and of the Son, he says, then verse 10 begins, and, so this is of the Son, and it's the exact same words quoted from the Greek Septuagint of Psalm 102, 25-27, which they had already agreed could only be of Jehovah God. And so you've got to start at Psalm 102 before you go back there, or that provides wiggle room. So you've got to get them to close the back door before you walk into that room. And so at that point, now you could run into some Jehovah's Witnesses who have heard some of this before. It's rare, but it's possible. But the vast majority have never been presented something like this before. And so what you do is there is an awkward moment after they finish reading Hebrews chapter 1 when they realize, and in fact, the New World Translation in the big brown version, their reference edition, I've got it down there, I'm not going to dig it out right now, but in the reference edition, will have a cross-reference there in Hebrews 1 back to Psalm 102. So even their own reference edition will tell them that's what's being quoted. And there's an awkward moment where you have a decision to make. You can either press your advantage, get out your theological sword and run them through, and go, Aha! Mr. Jehovah's Witness, I've gotcha! Or you can leverage that moment and say, now, I can't ask you to answer that right now. I've never seen it before. I'd like you to take a look at it, but could I show you one other? And I've never had somebody say no. So, what you do is, instead of what most people say, you know, push your advantage and push through and, you know, get some theological blood on your sword. Instead, you take the opportunity, you've now purchased for yourself a few more minutes to get a little more truth across, because that's the problem, is the Watchtower has hours to give them untruth, you have minutes to give them truth, so you need as much as you can get. And so what I did is I then presented to them the parallel, very similar parallel, between what you have in John 12, where John quotes from Isaiah 6, Isaiah's temple vision, and then in verse 41 says these things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke about him. And then take that back to Isaiah chapter 6. Who did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? In Isaiah 6-1, I saw the Lord sitting and lofting and lifted up. And there's more to it than that. Do you have my book, The Forgotten Trinity? I do, yes. Okay. If you look up John 12-41. Now, by the way, if I'm recalling correctly, sadly, The Forgotten Trinity didn't have a scripture index in it when it was first published. Someone created one, and it's on our website. So if you search at AOMN.org for the Forgotten Trinity, I know that we posted at some point in the past the scripture index, so you can track it down that way if you need to. But if you have it electronically, then it's right there anyways. But note the footnote that I have on that. There is an endnote on that that gives you more information. It actually strengthens the argument. I just don't have time to get to it today. Check that out. And then again, at that point you can say, so the point is, I believe in the Trinity because the Father is identified as Yahweh, the Son is identified as Yahweh, the Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh. And so we've got one name, Yahweh, or if you want to use Jehovah, that describes the being of God. And you and I agreed, Father, Son, and Spirit are not the same person. You don't believe the Spirit's a person. We could get into that. We could talk about how the Spirit wills and does things that only a person can do. But the point is that the reason Christians believe in the Trinity is we have one God, Yahweh, and we have three persons who are distinguished from one another, each described as Yahweh. And believe me, if you can just communicate that much, you have done more for that person than probably anybody at any door in all their years of going door-to-door have ever done for them. So that's where I'd start. That's where I'd go. Awesome. Perfect. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Dr. White, for your time. All right. God bless. All right. Bye-bye. God bless. All right. Last call. Michael, you snuck in there. I had actually said no more calls, and Rich decided to have some level of mercy upon you. So there you go. Hello. How are you doing, Dr. White? Doing good. Well, I have a question. I just got your book, The Forgotten Trinity. I'm loving it. I'm actually in the part where you're breaking down John chapter 1. My question is, I've also been listening to your study in Hebrews, and Sermon Index, or Sermon Audio, and you know, my question is actually About Hebrews 6, 4-6 and 10, 26-31, you stated that the big sin there was bringing the sacrifice to the temple, correct? Well, that both in Hebrews as well as in 1 John and 2 John, well, 1 John especially, chapter 5, the ultimate act of apostasy in the early church would be the offering of the sacrifice, the cursing of Christ. This was what was required for a person to enter back into the the fellowship having left it to become a Christian, and that this was the great pressure that was being placed upon the Jewish believers at that time period to come back to the old ways. And the whole point of the book of Hebrews is there is nothing to go back to. And so that normally is the specific act that is in view in regards to the denial of Christ by a person of Jewish lineage going back into fellowship with the Jewish people. Okay, so my question is, what of Acts 21, where Paul, you know, offers four annual, you know, pays four annual salaries? Yeah, those weren't sin offerings. He brings a, it's in Acts 21, where he brings, you know, does the Nazarite bow, I believe. Right. Those weren't sin offerings. So there were, these were, there's a lot of discussion of this. I mean, there's certainly an area of inquiry as to exactly what this means as to the freedom of a Christian to participate in, for example, the Jewish feasts and things like that, at that time period when the Temple was still standing. But what was not offered was a sin offering. The Nazirite vow was a very different thing and did not involve the offering of blood sacrifice for sin. I mean, you could have done Nazirite vow where things like that would have been happening, but the specific vows that were being taken that he participated in as evidence of his continued faithfulness to the people of Israel would not involve saying, well, I need to sacrifice an animal on the altar for the forgiveness of sins. It would not involve anything in regards to whether you did or did not confess that Jesus Christ was the Messiah. The specific element of what was discussed as the sin of apostasy that I was just mentioning was the offering of a sacrifice specifically in regards to the denial of the efficacy of the blood of Christ. There's nothing like that, even related to that, in anything that would be going on in regards to the Nazirite vow. you know, there are people that still have serious problems as to why there would be any participation in the temple precincts at all, even though, obviously, you go back to the beginning of Acts, and why are Peter and John going to the temple to pray? There's sacrifices being offered while they're praying there. Well, because they'd always gone to the temple to pray, and they weren't offering sacrifices that in any way Yeah, they weren't offering sacrifices in any way would say that there was something that could be added to what Jesus Christ did. So, it's the nature of those vows that's different in regards to what was being demanded of those who were apostatizing from Christianity. Okay, yeah. I was just curious about that, because it says that Paul offered gifts as well as for these other four men that he took the vow with. Yeah, but it wouldn't be in regards to sin. Okay? Okay, that's it. Thank you very much, sir. Have a great day. All right. Excellent calls, as always. Great audience that we have that listens to the program. I want to hear what happens with the Jehovah's Witnesses, so let us know. I'm pretty sure there's an article Isn't, is Jesus Yahweh? Isn't that one of the articles, one of the classic articles we have on the website, is Jesus Yahweh? It not only is, the noise you're hearing, it not only is, but we just reproduced it. We just reformatted it and sent it out in the newsletter two weeks ago. Well, maybe the fellow who called then might want to call back and get hold of that specifically. All he has to do is that phrase that you just mentioned. All he has to do is put that in the search and it'll pop up. But I want to make sure, since he has the forgotten trinity, make sure to look at every end note in that chapter, because there is an extended end note on Isaiah 6-1 and the Greek Septuagint textual variant that's very important there that helps to solidify the argument that I didn't get into in the presentation. So I just want to make sure that that information is there. So the last three, Is Jesus Yahweh? was three weeks ago. Last week was Protodocus. And then this week's was Theodotus. Oh, okay. So yeah, the last three then would be really useful along those lines, definitely. Yeah. All right. Well, there you go. A little bit of everything for everybody, as we always have. We open the phones. It can get that way. But appreciate your joining with us today. Lord willing, we'll see you next week. God bless.