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 - Science! Not.
Science is the source of all factual knowledge and truth. If you believe this statement, you have been deceived. Science has some insights on the natural world but it is not the source of truth.
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:That's because Burkauer is trying to stay in step with his academics. You know, peers of the time See, the rule in academics is publish or perish, right. And so in academics there's a lot of peer pressure to go along with the status quo, whatever the reigning theories of the day are. Burkauer was in many cases orthodox, but when it came to the scripture itself, he was giving away ground to his liberal peers who didn't believe the Bible was God's work for even a second Okay. And so he made this statement to appease academics. And then, by the way, once it's in academia, where the pastors are trained, where do you think it's going to be next? It's going to be in the pulpits where those pastors preach, just as Ken told us 1980, presbyterian Church right over there in Portland. Not even believing that, isaiah wrote. Isaiah Believing Jesus made an error. A lot of stuff here.
Speaker 2:But let's get into how this all got started. Here's our doctrinal saying, which I kind of want to amend a little bit. We believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be God-breathed, plenary, verbal and errant In the original writings. They are supreme authority in faith and life. Okay, but what about all matters upon which it touches Now? Is it true with respect to scientific and historic details? I want to toss that in there and I'll show you why in a little bit, as we look at the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy from 1978.
Speaker 2:Most of the church doesn't realize this language has crept in to distinguish faith and morals from history and science. They just we're kind of late in the game. Robert Thomas wasn't late into the game, he said the ascendancy of Francis Bacon's thinking. Now, you know this guy right. Francis Bacon, 1600s, early 1600s. If you don't, he's a very he's what I call a key idea man. A key idea man. You want to know the key idea man. You want to understand what they thought, because what they thought has influenced how you think. You say you can't say that oh yes, I can, I just did Okay. You say you can't say that, oh yes, I can, I just did okay.
Speaker 2:I'm very confident that everybody in this room has been influenced very heavily by the key idea of men in history. Uh, when I was in seminary we had to read a book called seven men who ruled the world, who ruled the world from the grave, by david greece, and he just goes through seven individuals Karl Marx, you know, maslow, freud, and in all there's seven. Darwin. These men, he's saying, are the most influential idea of people in the history of the human race, and their ideas are everywhere. You can hear them all day long. If you are aware of what these seven men taught, you can be in a conversation with anybody and say that's Karl Marx, that's Maslow, you, you can hear it and you're like how can this possibly be? Because, well, these ideas are powerful, and he's talking about the ideas of Francis Bacon.
Speaker 2:He said the ascendancy of Francis Bacon's thinking pictured Scripture as infallible in matters of only faith and practice, but not science and history. Bacon cleared the way for the historical critical view that the Bible is infallible only in spiritual matters but does not speak inerrantly on historical and or scientific matters. Instead of scripture serving as a guide to science, scientific interpretations became the exclusive avenue to all truth and they stand in judgment on scripture. So what I'm doing now is I'm just backing up and I'm saying how did all this get into the church? How did it get to the point where in Christianity we have many Christians who are totally open to and totally embrace evolutionary theory and then, on the other hand, the league of monogamous marriage between one man and one woman. How can you have this? Well, this is the first big step in the direction, the ascendancy of Bacon's thinking.
Speaker 2:In 1620, he published the book Novem Organum. In this work he claimed that all knowledge guess these words all know. Is that an absolute yes, absolutely. All, every, always All knowledge is gained exclusively through experience and experience. This is the philosophy of inductivism and it's at the heart of the scientific method. Of course, I was trained in science. That's what I did After I got my degrees five years in plant physiology. I hope I understand Bacon because he was taught in our courses, our biology courses at least.
Speaker 2:This was the stepping off point. What had happened, by the way, just before 1600? What happened in the 1500s? What is the big story in Europe? Okay, the Reformation, the Reformation Interesting. Here we have. The Reformation was essentially a back to the Bible movement. Essentially, that's what it was An interest in the Bible. How long did Satan let that last? Not very long, because this next century was a century that said oh no, no, no, you can't get knowledge from the Bible. You have to get it through experience and experiment, which is what led to what we call the scientific method, scientific method, so that now all knowledge is exclusively held by who? Science Science? In fact, that comes from the Latin scientia right, which means to know, or not right, science to know. So this is very common in our society, that people think that the Bible is where you exercise faith, but science is where you get known.
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.