Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Never Discussed
There are some things that secular culture never discusses but always struggles with, the conflict of the rights of the individual and the needs of the group. Why? Because they don't have an answer.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2:In other words, there is no concept of threeness and oneness unless God is first there as three and one, and so this is the basis, or root or justification for why we experience number and the concepts that we all use every single day, whether you're a believer or not. Now I said I don't want this to become too abstract, but it's not abstract and this problem has been pointed out. In fact, I pointed out that this is exactly the problem that Aristotle and Plato were dealing with in Athens, you know, centuries and centuries ago, right Four or five centuries before Christ. But here it's called the problem of the one and the many, the oneness meaning. Well, it's easier to talk about the many. The many is the individual things that are in our world. Okay, like you're an individual thing, okay, or person. The one in this case would be our society as a whole, let's say our nation, the United States of America, or we could also look at it this way the many would be the many nations on earth, but the one would be the whole earth or global concept of governance and law. So there's always one and many. We're always dealing with this we have in family or, let's say, in marriage. In marriage, you have the individual persons in the marriage and then you have the marriage itself. So the many would be the two individuals, the one would be the marriage itself. And we're always asking ourselves in these questions which we're all involved in every single day. You're either in a marriage, you have a family there's the concept of a one family but there's many members in the family. You're always asking yourself which takes priority. Does the individual's rights and needs, are they the priority, or does the family's interest take priority?
Speaker 2:In our country we have people who are very individualistic. They are concerned about individual rights right, and they're strongly in that position. And then you have other people who are strongly concerned about the unity of society and keeping everybody together. So they're more interested in the one, the country, society and other people are more interested in the many, that is, the individuals and individual rights. And they say if you allow the government more power, then that will take away freedom, and we're interested in our freedom. More power, then that will take away freedom and we're interested in our freedom. And both of these have logical outcomes. If you emphasize one over the other, if you emphasize just the one, the government, the many, the whole, then of course, there are a lot of laws that govern every single thing that we do and we lose freedom right, we lose, lose individual freedom. But if you emphasize just individual rights, right, then everything runs to anarchy, because everyone does what's right in his own eyes.
Speaker 2:So we're all involved in this problem, okay, whether we like it or not. And I'm going to show you it's even worse than that. It's worse than that in the sense that you're involved in it every time. You say a sentence okay, that you cannot escape this problem. And Plato and Aristotle knew this. They just didn't have an answer. They could never resolve it, and so societies swing from one to the other.
Speaker 2:You know, we have a crisis in our country. Which way do we swing Toward more control or do we swing toward allowing people more freedom? Well, more control. That's the tendency, because we have to come together, we have to stop this problem or solve this problem. So let's make all these laws and freedoms get restricted. So how do we balance these?
Speaker 2:Okay, and what is the answer to the problem? So, everybody faces it. That's the point of this slide, and you're trying to decide which gets more emphasis. So how do you solve the problem? Or the one in the money, this ancient problem. By the way, this problem, if you take a philosophy course today, will likely not be discussed, and the reason even though it is the greatest philosophical problem in question ever discussed in the history of the world still being discussed and people are obviously still trying to deal with it, is because there's no answer from unbelief. Paganism has never been able to answer it, and so it's just been pushed out of the discussion. So how do you solve it?
Speaker 2:Well, you need two things. You need language. By that I mean propositional speech, as I'm using now. I don't mean like stomping on the ground, like a herd of elephants communicating to another herd across the desert. We're talking about propositional speech, where ideas can be entertained and discussed and words can be put together in sentences and viable ideas that present concepts and logic. You also need logic. Now, those are linked. Language and logic are linked right, because logic is thinking and language is what you use to think. If you don't have language, then all you have is that's all you have. There's nothing more than a feeling.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app, and until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.