Talarico & Timothy

This week on Behind the Pulpit, the pastors look ahead to Holy Week at MBC, including Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. They walk through what makes this week so central to the Christian faith and invite listeners to intentionally slow down and reflect on the cross and resurrection as a church family.

In the news segment, the conversation focuses on James Talarico’s recent theological comments in the public square, including claims about God being non-binary, the Bible being pro-choice, and the priority of the red letters over the rest of Scripture. The discussion also includes a brief tribute to Chuck Norris and the cultural phenomenon that followed him for years.

The sermon recap covers both recent messages from 2 Timothy, with discussion on courage under fire, fear and moral cowardice, co-suffering in the Christian life, gospel drift, and the challenge to guard and pass on the faith to the next generation. Book War continues, two listener questions take up prayer and Jesus’ words from the cross, and the Theology Sprint closes with a focused explanation of why Christians do not affirm the Quran.
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HOLY WEEK
https://millingtonbaptist.org/holy-week-2026/
THE BRIDGE
https://millingtonbaptist.org/the-bridge-april-12th/
MEMBERSHIP CLASS
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
7:49 In The News
30:29 The Great Book War
39:00 Audience Questions
48:48 Sermon Recap | 2 Timothy 1:6-18
1:09:10 Sermon Recap | 2 Timothy 2.1-7
1:21:23 Theology Sprint

Music
"Ventura"
Morgan Taylor
U76EPPNJDYZYU0Y7

Transcript

Tim 0:00

Hey guys, if you haven't noticed, Millington Baptist Church is growing, and because of that, the parking lot can be a little bit crazy between our first and second services. In order to remedy that, we have come up with a solution to move back our second service from 1045 to 11 a.m. in order to allow cars to come in and out in a more orderly fashion as we look to transition from our first to second service. This change will take place on April the 12th, so the Sunday immediately following Easter, and we will be moving our second service back from 1045 to 11 a.m. So please take note of that. Tell everyone you know who goes to NBC, text them, call them, write them a letter, whatever you need to do. Starting April the 12th, our Sunday services will be taking place at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. We look forward to seeing you at these new service times.

Bob 0:53

Alright, well, hey there. Welcome to Behind the Pulpit. Today is March the 30th, 2026. We're coming at you right here from the Unhindered Studios. That's what we're calling this thing right now, right, Tim?

Tim 1:05

Yes.

Bob 1:05

Alright, good. We're back, and I'm here with my illustrious colleague, uh Pastor Dave. Is it radically inclusive? And what's the other side? So I'm glad you asked about my coffee mug right here. So this is from uh Biddy and Bose Coffee Shop. Uh Judy Torgramson gave this to me. And uh this coffee shop is run by a family who I believe it's a family that really wanted to employ folks with special needs. So it is a uh coffee shop run by people with special needs, and it's out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Uh one of these Saturdays, I'm looking to make my way out there to see what it's all about. But she got me this mug and gave it to me. And I guess this is one of their uh one of their themes, is the radically inclusive uh theme on the back here.

Dave 1:53

So it reminded me of a Tim Keller quote. Oh you used to say the gospel is both radically inclusive and radically exclusive at the same time. Interesting, in the sense that it it it brings in all nations, tribes, tongues, there is no Jew, Greek, woman, male, uh slave free. It's inclusive, right? It's also radically exclusive in that there is one way and there is only one savior and one gospel. So it's kind of both, but that quote kind of reminded me of uh the late great TK.

Bob 2:27

Good conversation starter. That's where we're gonna be at today, as far as lots of good conversations. Uh Pastor Dave, are you are you prepped for the the epic week of the year, Holy Week? Easter is coming up next Sunday, and we got a whole bunch of stuff in between now and then.

Dave 2:45

I can't wait. We just had a wonderful uh good Friday rehearsal. We're looking forward to a Thursday night drama in the upper room. Easter Sunday, the Super Bowl of all Sundays. It's gonna be a great week of ministry. Don't miss one thing. Carve out time to really just uh swim in the good news of the gospel this week with us. So if I wanted to get involved this week, what what what are the things I need to remember? All right, set your alarm. Thursday night, seven o'clock. That's when the play starts. Come to the play. Do not miss it. We're gonna share the Lord's Supper at the end. It's gonna be awesome. And then Good Friday, seven o'clock. Seven last words of Jesus, seven different speakers. Every generation is represented. We got Gen Z, we got Millennials, we got Gen X, we got Boomers.

Bob 3:27

What's the what's the lineup? Tell us the lineup right now.

Dave 3:29

Who's who's gonna be uh bringing it? Batting first uh is gonna be the Reverend Jack Krause. Uh he's gonna be kicking it off. We've got Jeff Callender coming in. Uh we also have Frank Donaruma, we got Oliver Ariti. We've got Ken Huber. Oliver's batting cleanup. Yeah, definitely. All right. Uh really impressive. I think Oliver's 18. I could have never come up with his devotional that he shared with us. Fantastic word from the scriptures. I'm going to be sharing one of them. We've got uh James Rickershauser is in the house. He's going to be uh sharing with us. And um bringing home.

Bob 4:13

If you were the seventh and we can't remember you, I'm sorry. No, is it Kenny? No, he mentioned Ken.

Dave 4:19

Who is number seven? Yeah, I okay. Let's count again. So Oliver, Jeff, Frank, Ken, Dave, Jack, and um James. James. Yeah, I got all seven.

Bob 4:34

So the issue is with how well we sound.

Dave 4:37

That would not be good. Yeah. This is true. This is true. It's gonna be good. Don't forget, three services on Easter, eight o'clock, nine thirty, or eleven.

Bob 4:43

And if you can, come to the uh eight o'clock. Eight o'clock's gonna be the best service, I'm telling you. It's gonna be like the the pseudo-sunrise service this coming uh coming Easter, and you can uh you can beat the crowds if you do that.

Dave 4:54

So I want you to think about this. This is an interesting piece of trivia. This year in 2026, Easter is on April 5th, and if you uh know your history, you may know that the Sunday, April 5th in A.D. 33 was the actual date where Jesus rose from the dead. Those who take the A.D. 33 year, which is an interesting thing. So what that means is the sunrise is exactly the same time this Sunday as it would have been the day that Jesus rose from the dead. So think about when the ladies were going to prep the body at the empty tomb. This Sunday, the sunrise is like around 5 43 or something like that. So that those ladies are getting up early if it's April 5th and this is what's going on. So that's an interesting piece of trivia. It's the same exact date. Uh the month of Nissan lines up exactly the same as it does this year.

Bob 5:43

So this year, are you saying we'll feel a little bit closer to Jesus than usual? It's gonna feel really authentic. Okay. This is what it was like. The most authentic Easter ever. Actual date. I was driving by a cemetery this morning on my way to the gym, and uh I noticed that uh one of the churches in downtown Basking Ridge is gonna be doing a sunrise service over in the cemetery off of Oak Street. So I guess if you want to go go have a sunrise service in the cemetery, that's the place to be. At the Basking Ridge Press. At the ever Evergreen Cemetery. Evergreen cemetery. I don't I think it was the Methodist Church. I'll have to go back and look.

Dave 6:17

Then there's always the sunrise service at Washington Rock Park as well. So get up early. A couple options for you guys that are early risers. My daughter Michaela likes to drive down to the beach and there's a sunrise service in one of those beach towns that she likes to go to. She gets up really early and sends me pictures because I'm not with her.

Bob 6:35

That's is that that's out of the ordinary, right? She doesn't normally get up that early.

Dave 6:38

Uh not normally, but she has this Easter tradition thing going on. Sometimes she can drag her sister Felicity out of bed and go together. But all right.

Bob 6:46

Well, there we go. That's some uh housekeeping items here. One last thing I want to mention before we go into our uh in the news segment, right? Is that next?

Tim 6:54

Yes.

Bob 6:54

Okay. Uh so we're gonna be some of you might be wondering, where is behind the pulpit been? Where were we last week? Well, we have made an executive decision that we're gonna be moving to a bi-weekly schedule because um Pastor Dave and I are getting old. We're getting very old. We can't keep up this weekly uh pace, and so we're gonna be doing every other week. So you'll have to uh uh you're just gonna have to be patient. That's just the way it's gonna have to be. But we're gonna be still bringing you the action-packed show that we always uh do, and then hopefully adding a little bit of supplemental content in between.

Dave 7:28

So I don't know if we talked about the reason being we're old, but that's what we're doing now. That was Bob's idea. I've decided that we're gonna be able to do that. That's what was communicating to me.

Bob 7:38

Metabolism is slowing down just a bit. So I'm feeling youthful and spry. So these guys can feel old if they want to. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Tim 7:48

To each his own. As we enter the most meaningful week of the Christian year, we want to invite you to walk through Holy Week with us here at NBC. It begins on Thursday at 7 p.m. with our Maundy Thursday service in the sanctuary. This year we'll feature a special dramatic presentation titled The Upper Room, along with a time of communion as we remember Christ's final moments with his disciples. Then on Good Friday at 7 p.m., we gather again for a reflective service centered on the seven last things of Jesus, paired with worship as we remember the weight and wonder of the cross. And then Easter Sunday. On April 5th, we come together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the turning point of history, the foundation of our hope, and the victory that changes everything. We'll have three services at 8 o'clock, 9 30, and 11 a.m., and all three will be family worship services where kids will join their parents in celebrating together. Preschool care will be available during the 9.30 and 11 a.m. services, so make plans now Monday, Thursday, and Good Friday at 7 o'clock p.m. and Easter Sunday at 8 o'clock, 9 30, and 11 a.m. And then please note that Monday, Thursday, and Good Friday will not have child care available, whereas Easter Sunday will be family worship services with preschool care provided at the 9:30 and 11 a.m. services. Come walk through the cross and step into the joy of the resurrection with us here this holy week at Millington Baptist Church.

Bob 9:09

All right, let's jump into in the news.

Dave 9:16

All right, well, there's been a lot happening, but we want to uh nail down, right?

Bob 9:23

I think we're gonna we're gonna stick with one and an honorary mention. So let's let's do it.

Dave 9:27

So the the the headline is Mr. Tallerico uh running for senator in Texas, recently beat out his Democratic opponent, uh Crockett, uh running against uh John Cornyn. James versus Jasmine and James one. Yes. And uh it's interesting to see this gentleman do his town halls and go on the shows and get his talking points going, because he has said some things that are not necessarily political in nature, but definitely theological in nature. So we wanted to talk about those for a little bit. Three things in sp that are very specific. So uh on the House floor in Texas, he made the statement that God is non-binary. Number two, he went on Joe Rogan's show and said that the Bible is explicitly pro-choice, and then number three, he is uh of the position that we should prioritize the red letters in the Bible over and against the regular old black letters in the Bible. So those are at least three things that he has said that are rather, let's say, interesting and maybe in need of being responded to. Uh Bob, you had mentioned that there was another dust up on a different platform with some other leaders that were a little upset with what happened.

Bob 10:51

Yeah, so if you if you uh which I I don't know how many of you actually are are into this, but if you're on primarily Twitter, Twitter is where the uh the dust ups happen in the in the Christian world, I think. Um but over at Christianity Today, uh Mike Cosper um is one of their uh key guys over there, and I guess he interviewed James Tallerico on his podcast, and some people felt that he did not push back against him enough on some of his points, in fact, even sort of commended him, uh, one of which was uh Mark Driscoll was a big guy who pushed back against him. We might get Mark Driscoll angry at us. We might be sorting him. He does listen to the show. He's a big fan of the Well, you never know. His name was invoked, so it he might he might AI scouring the internet for who's mentioning him. How dare you! But uh but anyway, he was he was calling out Mike Cosper and saying that he should he should have been more, I guess, condemning of James Tallerico. There's others that I I saw also saying that pastors should be should be condemning him as well. And uh Mike Cosper, of course, um if you maybe you follow this, Mike Cosper did a um uh podcast series called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Church, and it was interesting to watch them going back and forth because Mark Driscoll refused to have uh Mike Cosper interview him as part of that podcast, and so Mike was saying, You never you never let me interview you, and they were going back and forth, and it was all over this Talo Rico thing. So anyway, that that happened.

Dave 12:19

I was wondering if they were ever gonna talk ever, or if Mark was ever gonna acknowledge Mike Cosper's existence.

Bob 12:25

Well, maybe that was part of the motivation for why he's criticizing him here to discredit him. But Mark was asked to get interviewed, and Mark refused.

Dave 12:35

So here's the problem Tallerico um is doing theology, and there's this progressive liberal theology that wants to separate out doctrine from Christianity, which you just simply cannot do that. Um it was Jay Gresham Machin that famously said, anytime you're talking about God, you're doing theology. Just the statement he's famous for saying, just the statement, Christ died for our sins. That's theology. So Christ died, that's history. Christ died for our sins, now you're doing theology, right? So you can't avoid talking about doctrine, and Taller Rico is talking about doctrine, and he's doing that in a very open political atmosphere, and he's quoting the Bible, and he's definitely bringing his faith into that context. And what struck me first before we even try to like answer some of his theological claims is how come when Taller Rico is bringing in the Bible that there's not this uprising that there's no separation of church and state here, and what is this Christian nationalism? How dare you bring your faith into your political race? What are you trying to do? Bring us into a theocracy? Are you a theonomist? How come none of that is even being said? Doesn't that seem to be a little inconsistent, a little bit of a double standard? Yeah.

Bob 13:57

Um, we were at our Colson cohort meeting, and Tim can speak into this uh last month, and somebody was commenting on how some of their friends were really getting into James Tallerico and saying, Oh, yeah, he's really he's really bold about his Christian faith. And so there is I think that was me. Uh I think it was Johnny, but maybe you chimed in too. I I I remember Johnny mentioning it first. But there there's there's a there's a lot of banter about uh Taler Rico and Christianity and what that looks like. So I think it's a good point.

Dave 14:28

Well, here's the thing um anybody can make the Bible say what they want it to say as long as they leave certain parts out and twist certain parts. And I think that's m what's kind of going on here. In fact, the Bible warns us this that this might happen. Paul says in 2 Corinthians that there's another Jesus that's being taught there at the church in Corinth, and they need to avoid that. Um, I think you could say that there's another Jesus being taught here with Talerico. Uh, just as a parody of this, you can do this with any worldview, any political worldview. Um, it doesn't just work with like the liberal Jesus, right? So let's say uh you wanted to do this with a conservative Jesus. Josh Howerton, the pastor of Lake Point, actually just did a parody of what this would look like if you only picked out like hardcore red uh MAGA talking points and made Jesus fit all those, right? So his post was hey, Jesus was unvaccinated. Uh Jesus fed the poor without raising taxes. Number three, Jesus told people to buy self-defense weapons. Number four, Jesus was majority culture in his region. Number five, Jesus only selected men for leadership positions. And on and on and on. You could you could selectively edit Jesus to be your mascot for whatever your cause is, but Jesus is not your mascot, he's the Lord, right? So you shouldn't do that. That's not that's not fair. So let's take on these these things like one on one one by one, right? So the first thing that Talerico is saying is is that God is non-binary. And of course, that's a modern term. What do people mean when they say I'm non-binary? What is the 21st century definition of non-binary?

Bob 16:11

Can I give the the context of what what he actually said in the floor? Okay, so context. So the statement came from a 2021 Texas House floor speech where he was opposing a GOP transgender sports bill, and it's been quoted recently because, well, he's he's now running for for Senate. So the statement was God is both masculine and feminine, and everything in between, God is nonbinary. And then in the same context, he added, trans children are God's children made in God's own image. There's nothing wrong with them, nothing at all. So I think he's trying to equate the idea of everybody being made in the image of God, but then he gets into problems where he's also not affirming that God says people were made male and female in Genesis.

Dave 16:55

Yeah. So, you know, the that's kind of like hard to answer that question because the the simple answer is not, well, hey, God is a boy. All right, end of show. No, that's not really the right way to answer that question. So God has attributes, and some of those attributes reflect masculinity, some of those attributes reflect femininity. It's not a problem to talk about that. It's a problem when you start turning God into something that he's not. So there are passages in the Bible that use feminine imagery for God. In Isaiah 49, it says, like a mother can't forget her nursing baby, I will not forget you. That's feminine imagery. Jesus talks about the hen gathering her chicks together. Uh, there's a passage, it's in Hosea or Amos, where it's like like a mama bear robbed of her cubs, I will tear your enemies asunder. So there occasionally you have feminine imagery that's ascribed to God. More often, I think we have to be fair, more often in the Bible, there is masculine terminology being used. God is primarily called our Father, Jesus is God the Son. Jesus is always described with masculine pronouns in the Bible, period, full stop. Now, that does not mean God is a male, but he's not a female either. And because that's true, that he's not a male or not a female, the next thing to say is not that God is non-binary. No, God does not belong to any group. God is not part of the categories that you're using, he's the grounding of those categories. So Talarico's statement is one that it sounds inclusive, but it really doesn't actually make sense. The problem is not that God does not have a gender, but to put him in any category of things that have a gender is itself wrong theology. God would not be seen as someone who is non-binary in the sense of belonging to the LGBT movement, because that's kind of how it's sounding. That's the way it sounds coming out of his mouth. And so the idea there is to take a popular position from today and then retrofit the God of the Bible into it. And I think the first question you have to back up and ask is do non-binary people truly exist or not? Like that's that's a question behind the question that I think the Christian worldview would speak to and say, no, there's two genders, male and female. Uh we want to be clear about the creation order there. Now, that's not to say that people who think they are non-binary don't exist, um, they do exist, but there is some categories that we have to set forth as foundational. Um, and of course, these are people made in the image of God that God loves, they are human, they are uh of equal value and worth. The only cases that could apply to this are intersex people, and even then, most of the time with an intersex person, there's there's a tendency more towards one side or the other. Um there are some cases where people have an extra chromosome, but still they're either male or female. We have a case in our society where how a person feels right now about themselves, though, is more important than the actual evidence about themselves biologically, and so to that category is not fair to apply that to God. Um so uh I would say I heard somebody kind of liken this to an analogy, but um it's it's a little bit like saying um fish uh fish live in water, right? But fish don't know what the water is, and so fish are kind of swimming around there, and you ask a fish like what is water, and the fish goes, I don't know what water is, right? So they just sort of swim in this environment, they're not aware that they even are surrounded by water. In the same way, I think sometimes we have a culture, we have terms, we have things that we're using in our day, and we don't even recognize that those things are being uh they're they're surrounding us all the time, and we don't even realize that um, okay, this is something I picked up from the world I live in. It's not something that came from out here. And uh now I'm taking this world that I just sort of assumed was the case and superimposing it onto the theological categories, and that's that's a problem. We have to let the Bible be authoritative in that way. So Talerico, I I would disagree with the non-binary thing. Second one?

Bob 21:19

Let's do number two.

Dave 21:20

The second one's even more wild, I think.

Bob 21:23

Which one are you calling the second one? Okay, the pro-choice one?

Dave 21:26

The pro-choice. Okay. So he's saying that the Bible is explicitly pro-choice. So when we think about the issue of abortion, when we think about the pro-life movement, Talerico says, You've got that wrong. The whole thing is backwards. God is actually explicitly pro-choice. And the scripture that he uses to ground that theological position is from Luke chapter one, where the angel comes to Mary and announces that she's highly favored and that she's going to be with child. And Mary's response is to agree, to consent, and to say famously, let it be. Right, let it be to me. Uh I am I am your maidservant. And so Mary's consenting, therefore, because Mary consented in that fashion, you can never force any woman to bring a child to term because of that scriptural um basis there.

Bob 22:19

So this was something that he discussed on the Joe Rogan podcast, and one of the comments that he made in relation with, he actually made the comment the idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in scripture. So that's his assertion. Let's uh let's chat about that.

Dave 22:37

Yeah, I mean, what about the idea that Genesis chapter 1 says we're made in the image of God, we're equally valuable, we have worth. What about Psalm 139 that says God knew us in our mother's womb? Uh what about the fact that a human being from the moment of conception has the exact same DNA that they will for the rest of their lives, and it's just a different phase of development. I don't know that you can ignore all of those principles and say, okay, the Bible is pro-choice and it it doesn't matter anymore, and the baby's not worth um equal protection. So Bible verses.

Bob 23:17

Well, not just Bible verses, but but the uh the um the corpus or the canon of church history also speaks to that too. I mean, you're doing you're doing work on historical theology, but it was the Christians who in the first century Rome were the people who were actively opposing abortion and infanticide in in a uh in a culture that very much um didn't value children.

Dave 23:40

Yeah. So they would leave babies out for exposure. That was the most common form of abandonment. And it was terrible. But the Christians would oftentimes adopt these abandoned babies. And there's a deep, long, sorted history of Christians valuing life. So I think it's really uh rich for him to say that the Bible's explicitly pro-choice.

Bob 24:00

Now, if he was here, he probably would say we're we're being uh uncharitable about that. But I mean, the logic does get you there, right?

unknown 24:07

Yeah.

Bob 24:08

The logic he's using.

Dave 24:09

Well, I think he's being uncharitable towards the gospel of Luke. So that's that one. Um there was a third one that might be worth just talking about as well. So the the third thing that he says is he's emphasizing the red letters of Jesus over and against the other parts of the Bible. Let's say Paul's letters or you know, the other parts of the law, the black letters. He's gonna emphasize certain parts of the Bible over other parts of the Bible and sort of pit the Bible against each other or make make hierarchies, if you will. So, how would we respond to his prioritization and his desire to elevate the words of Jesus over and against other words of scripture? How do we correct that kind of biblical theology there? What's he doing with the Bible?

Bob 24:53

That's kind of been a famous of more uh Christians that are more in the progressive vein, is to call themselves red letter Christians. Um I just stick with the words of Jesus.

Dave 25:02

Uh Tony Campolo, yeah. Uh one of his famous students at Eastern he was there when we were there. Shane Shane Claiborne.

Bob 25:10

Shane Claiborne, that's right. Yeah.

Dave 25:11

Red Letter movement. Yeah, it's not that uncommon to be thinking in those terms. I'm actually not a huge fan of the Bible actually having red letters because it seems to communicate something I don't think we should be communicating.

Bob 25:23

But I mean we we would affirm that all you know, we're going through 2 Timothy, eventually we'll get to 2 Timothy 3, which says all scripture is is God breathed, not not just the red letters. So you can't, you know, superimpose these are more important than these. You have to wrestle with the two of them uh together. You know, if there's a if there's something that doesn't seem to agree, you have to come come to some conclusion as to how you reconcile it.

Dave 25:46

Yeah. Yeah. There's a famous quote about liberal theology from Richard Niebuhr in his book The Kingdom of God in America back in 1937, and he said liberal theology is basically a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. This is the kind of liberal theology that's still being propagated. It removes divine holiness, it downplays human sinfulness, it ignores final accountability, it reduces Jesus to whatever is your cause, or just maybe a moral teacher, not a savior. And it's hollowing out the truth of the gospel. And I think that's a real danger in liberal theology. Now I don't want to say that there are there are not certain causes that the liberal movement um is espousing that we can't we can't also get behind. Like there are good things about caring for the poor, and there are you know values that we can actually you know agree with, but I think throwing out the doctrine at the expense of the doctrine is a huge problem, or making up new doctrines uh to fit you know these these types of principles is a is a huge uh theological issue that we want to avoid. But so be very careful. Just because somebody is quoting the Bible, that doesn't necessarily mean they're using the Bible correctly. Second Timothy 2 says we have to rightly divide the word. We have to accurately handle the word of truth.

Bob 27:15

And and maybe be most careful if the person quoting the Bible is a politician, because they might they may be quoting the Bible for ulterior motives to get people uh to vote for them um and emphasizing certain things depending on who their who who their uh who their audience is.

Dave 27:31

Fair enough. Yeah. Well, that's a good uh summary of that news story. Was there another honorable mention you said we were gonna cover? Honorable mention.

Bob 27:39

Pastor Dave, honorable mention here. This this past week, Chuck Norris um went to be with the Lord. Chuck Norris passed away at the age of 86. And uh back when I was doing youth ministry, now, man, can I now say about 20 years ago, Chuck Norris' memes were all the rage. There was a Chuck Norris saying for everything. Chuck Norris doesn't um sleep. He I don't know, he's that there was all different kinds of things. The the one that I I I saw this week, I told I told Tim before was uh Chuck Chuck Norris um died five years ago and death just found out.

Dave 28:20

Yes.

Bob 28:21

I'm sure you could go look up Chuck Norris' uh sayings and find a whole bunch of other things.

Dave 28:26

So Chuck Norris doesn't read books, he stares them down until he gets the information he wants. Uh here's another one. The flu gets a Chuck Norris every year. Or in the beginning there was nothing, and then Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked nothing and told it to get a job. A lot of good Chuck Norris jokes out there. Yeah.

Bob 28:46

Chuck Norris had an interesting story. We don't have time to go into it, but he did become a Christian a little bit later in life, and God did uh kind of a work of redemption in him. He was very famous for being in movies and of course martial artist, uh, famously played Walker Texas Ranger, and then he was in the Expendables and uh uh lots of different movies. He was he was kind of the action star around the same time as Sylvester Salone and Arl Schwarzenegger and all of that. But he did become this cultural phenomenon at some point.

Dave 29:13

So did um did wasn't he in Return of the Dragon with Bruce Lee early? That was his breakout role. Yeah. That was the way the way of the dragon. I'm sorry, the way of the dragon. I might be thinking of the thing.

Bob 29:24

I think he fought he fought Bruce Lee in there, yeah.

Dave 29:28

So there was a story that I just heard about Chuck Norris that um I'm not really sure if it's true or not, but apparently uh Chuck Norris was um planning this fight with with Bruce Lee in the movie, right? And and they wanted to make it like an awesome fight, right? And I think there were some things that were happening in that fight that were um maybe a little bit more dramatic than they had assumed, and there was some some some actual real danger and injuries that happen in that movie. But both of those guys can sure uh fight pretty pretty good. So if you've ever wanted to see a really interesting martial arts dramatic fight, there's sort of a quasi-real fight that happened in that in that dragon movie. It's on YouTube too. You can check that out. Yeah, he's a legend. Chuck Norris.

Bob 30:24

Well, there you go. That's what's happening in the news back next week.

Tim 30:29

All right, next segment. Tim, I believe we're on to the book war, right? We are, and there's been some new legislation that's been taking place.

Bob 30:38

Right.

Tim 30:38

Well, please enlighten the board of the book war governors um at the book war UN have come up with some new things. In Gringotts. Yes, that's actually where we have our we have our meetings. It's at Gringotts in London. We fly out once a week. Um, okay, so here's the score going into this week. Pastor Dave is up by five points. Now, what we have decided is that since we are going to a bi-weekly schedule, the book war will now be worth two points per victory. So from this episode forward, uh the book war winner will receive two points. And the two points this week Double Jeopardy, right? Double Jeopardy. Um does that mean if we take three weeks off that we get three points? Uh by that logic, it would be six. Um, okay, well. But if we're if we're consistent from here on out, each one will be two points. Uh and the two points this week will believe it or not, go to Pastor Bob. Whoa! Okay, so pulls one out.

Bob 31:43

Okay, so so since we're mentioning this, I have to I will not say who sent me this. Jared Wilson. I will uh I will not say who sent me this, but I got an email. I got an email from uh somebody who shall not be named saying, Pastor Bob, I listened to behind the pulpit last night. I think the book war is not fair. Your review time is from he mentioned the time span at two minutes, and Pastor Dave's is from it's four minutes. I am on your side now. So I'm I'm getting some people to my side. The people are rising up, Pastor Dave.

Tim 32:17

There shouldn't be sides when it comes to the book war. Apparently, you should just pick which you'd rather get. There shouldn't be sides. Um, so so Pastor Dave, how do you I've also received an email from I believe the same person about a similar observation on a different episode. Pastor Dave, what do you have to say? Now, this is this isn't a rule that's been written down, but people feel that you are taking an unfair amount of time to recommend your book. Do you have any comments?

Bob 32:45

Yes, maybe there should be a shot clock.

Dave 32:47

I cannot control how excited I get about my book and somehow set a timer and like be done in a certain this that's just way too restrictive to me. I say what I need to say, and when I'm done, I I wrap it up. I I I don't have a strategy, I just talk, and whatever comes out comes out. I don't know. Bob, you can talk as long as you want to. We're not restricting him, you know, but I have to get my thoughts out. Sometimes it takes me some time.

Tim 33:15

We'll see how the votes uh tally in the future. So the votes for this past week were as follows uh nine votes.

Bob 33:21

A landslide victory.

Tim 33:22

Pastor Bob receiving six of those nine votes. Um so the score is now eight to eleven. Pastor Dave with a three-point advantage. And I was actually going to implement a stopwatch this week, but it appears the batteries in the stopwatch that we have are dead. So that's good. I'm glad to hear that. Pastor Dave, I'm sure.

Bob 33:40

It looks like you're gonna need to go first, Pastor Dave, because I had a my first victory in a while. Pastor Dave will go first for the first time in a little bit.

Dave 33:47

Okay. So my book this week is a callback to yesterday's sermon. We talked about Princeton Theological Seminary and the good old days of what's now called Old Princeton. And I want to highlight a great systematic theology that has stood the test of time, that's written by the second president of Princeton Seminary, and that is the systematic theology of Charles Hodge. I know it looks like three books, but it's really one book, and it just has three volumes. So you have to get them all. Volume one.

Bob 34:20

If you had one book, it would be this thing.

Dave 34:22

Imagine. Volume one is theology, volume two is anthropology, volume three is soteriology. This is uh his magnum opus. He did a fantastic job with this. It's got a wonderful section on scripture and the authority of scripture in here. It's not the kind of thing you read cover to cover, but if you're looking for a good systematic to have on your shelf, you can't do that much better than Hodge. He does a great job. He's uh polemical, he argues, he's persuasive, he's very clear, he's biblical. Um, a lot of people teach using Hodges theology. It's a famous work. It's from the good old days of Princeton Seminary, and you can get this, you can pick this up for pretty inexpensive uh pricing uh at at wherever books are sold. So if you're interested in learning more about old Princeton and you want something on your shelf that's going to be like good for the rest of your life, get Hodges Systematic Theology. It will be well worth your time and effort. That is my book recommendation, and I will stop there. So for those that don't know what the word polemical means, can you give a definition? Oh. It's the idea that he's not just teaching and you know going through propositions and you know explaining things. It's that he's also arguing and making a case against other kinds of theologies. So it's helpful in terms of debate and it's helpful in terms of refuting error. And so he's he's got some issues that he needs to address, and he's not shy about addressing them.

Bob 35:57

So he's so he's going on the offense. He's he's bringing some epic fury to theology right here.

Dave 36:02

He'll equip you. Okay. There you go. All right, good. His big thing, like just think about the time where Darwin was writing Origin of Species. So he's gonna write a lot about how is evolution a problem for Christianity. And so he takes a lot of time to be polemical about that. All right, all right.

Tim 36:19

Notice he said he was done and he continued to there was a follow-up question following up.

Bob 36:24

I did ask a question. I did.

Tim 36:26

I think that's allowed.

Bob 36:27

All right. So uh my my uh in um what's the word? Installment, my my recommendation this week is one I I spoke about the other week when we were talking about I Iran, the Iran War. How do you think about that as a Christian? There was a good podcast that the Colson Center put out uh with this guy, Eric Patterson, and he also has a book called The Basic A Basic Guide to Just War, to the Just War Tradition, Christian Foundations and Practices. So if you are looking for an accessible book that's gonna help you think through the issues of war from the Christian perspective, um, this is a good one to pick up. I've uh I've enjoyed looking through it. Um so he talks about theological foundations, he's gonna look at scripture, he's gonna look at the kind of the morality, the historical overview of how Christians have come to their uh just war traditions, and he's gonna give you lots of good things to uh to think about. So uh a basic guide to the just war uh tradition by Eric Patterson. I think that'll that'll help you think through the current issues of the day. Now, I do have a second one. I'm not recommending it, but it's an honorary mention, and uh I'm I'm gonna mention it because this is from a series. There's not a flag Jason Jason Thacker. Jason Thacker, who spoke the other week at the Underground, is the editor for the series, Essentials and Christian Ethics. Uh Ethics of War, a short companion. Um so if you want to check that out by Paul Miller, uh, that also will help you think through uh the ethics of war. But this one, this one is my my recommendation this week. So don't vote for this, vote for this.

Tim 38:00

I will be getting a flag for next season.

Bob 38:02

But look, we've been talking about it for a while.

Dave 38:04

So I I those of you who are writing email my size, can we get an email about this situation? What's going on over here? I still don't think I talked as long as we're gonna do that. There's a penalty point right there.

Bob 38:18

I don't know, man. Well, I'm not recommending two war books two weeks in a row. I had to give my honor. It's like my I'm like doing the honorary mentions today. I had Chuck, I had that one. There you go. All right. Anyway, we recommend you decide. Let's see who won't two points. Going for the two-point conversion now.

Dave 38:37

You ride, we reward. I'm not as good as Tim.

Bob 38:41

Oh, that's right.

Dave 38:42

Tim, give it to me, yeah.

Tim 38:43

Give it to me. You ride, we reward Larry is on vacation. Bora bora. Tahiti? Oh. He's got celebrating the resurrection in Bora Bora. You guys give him 51 weeks of paid vacation. He's he's gonna have a sunrise service on the beach down there. All right. That's what I heard. Are you new to NBC or just looking for a way to get more connected? We want to invite you to something very special called the Bridge. The Bridge is a simple, relaxed opportunity to learn more about who we are as a church and what we're about, and how you can take the next step here at Millington Baptist Church. It's happening on Sunday, April 12th at 12 30 p.m. in the YFNB great room, and you're welcome to bring the whole family. During that time, you'll enjoy some light refreshments, meet members of our staff and leadership team, and have the space to ask questions, connect with others, and explore how to get more involved with the life of the church, or even what it looks like to become part of the NBC family. Again, that's the bridge on Sunday, April 12th, after the second service at 12 30 p.m. in the YFMB Great Room. If you'd like more information, you can reach out directly to Amy Heber, or you can simply plan on joining us. We'd love to see you there.

Bob 39:48

So uh we're gonna move on to audience questions, and I do believe we had a few that came in uh this week.

Tim 39:55

We have three. Uh one of them we will be uh saving uh until the next episode. We have only so much time on the show here. You heard the producer. So here's the first question. Question number one. In Psalm 139, it speaks about the Lord knowing our thoughts uh from afar and knowing our words before they are ever spoken. But in Philippians 4, 6, it tells us to make our requests known unto God. If our words and thoughts are known to God, why do we need to ask? Also, what are what about unbelievers? How does God handle their prayers?

Bob 40:31

All right, good question. I think that's uh a natural question to uh to ask. Uh one of the things that uh I I think when it comes to prayer, uh there there's a tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility throughout the scriptures, and this is one topic where that very much um uh comes into focus. Yes, God is sovereign over all things, but he does still call us to come to him uh and bring our requests to him in prayer. Um he talks about bringing those those uh requests in in faith as well as to stimulate that relationship that we have with the Lord. We can't just treat God like He's a genie in the sky, but he wants us to come and spend time with him and uh and and believe that he can do what he says he's going to do. So um there's also a bit of a mystery. I know you were gonna say a little bit about that, but just there's a bit of a mystery with this here. Um but but it does bring out that that tension. And I think as we're coming to God and bringing our request to him and he's working on our hearts, there's certain it's it's uh part of God's way of shaping us more and more into his image. So um that's that's the the piece of uh I think why God wants us to come to him in prayer. Regarding the prayer of the unbelievers, I do think God hears everything. So God hears their prayers. Um but uh if you're an unbeliever, I'm not sure that you can come to him in faith as he wants you to. So um obviously a prayer to receive Christ would be something God God would love to hear. Um so what else would you add to that?

Dave 42:02

It's a really good question, and that has taxed theologians for centuries. Um we see in the Bible it's pretty clear God is in total sovereign control. Our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases, period, full stuff. Yet those same scriptures teach that our prayers matter. Our prayers actually matter in the unfolding of actual events in the universe. I'll give you a couple examples. Abraham like not just is found praying to God, he bargained with God in Genesis chapter 18. You know, God, would you would you save it if there was this many righteous people? He's going back and forth, almost like haggling with God. If there's no point in us talking to God and interceding, then that passage makes no sense whatsoever. In the New Testament, James clearly says, You have not because you ask not. There's two theological truths that are both taught in the Bible. God is sovereign, yes. Number two, your prayers are effective, they seem to be intention. Um way to find some compatibility here is to talk about means and ends. And so the same God who ordains the ends also ordains the means. And so the prayer is the means by which God will be enacting and unfolding his sovereign plan. He wants you to pray for it. And I'll just give you an illustration. This might help you. So try this on. Um let's say that God promised you that you're gonna live to 80 years old. And this was something God spoke to you, and you were clear, and there was no doubt about the fact that you know you're gonna be eighty. Why do you need to eat every day? The answer is if you don't eat, you're gonna die. Right? So the means are important to achieving the ends. And so, in the same way, God has ordained the means by which his plan is unfolded in the universe. And one of those means is our prayers, which is an amazing and humbling privilege if you think about it enough that we as human beings would get to be part of the unfolding of God's plan. Now, does this mean that we get whatever we pray for? Of course not. But we pray according to God's will as Jesus modeled for us, not my will, but yours be done. And so there's some humility that we have to bring to our request. But we definitely want to remember that God invites us to be part of the unfolding of events in the universe through this amazing tool, privilege, uh relational conversation that the Bible calls prayer. That's my short answer. Uh, longer answer, we have some sermons up on our website about prayer, and we get into in-depth about those kinds of things. But it's a really good question. It's a hard question, but it's worth thinking about uh because prayer is so important. Wonderful.

Bob 45:09

All right, what's the other question?

Tim 45:11

Question number two is from our friend Clint Pompeii. Clint, thank you for writing in. All right, look at you. Uh Clint emailed me earlier today with a question for the show, and I told him it would get into the show. And Clint, here it is. And here it is. Uh Clint says, I was recently talking about forgiveness and repentance in one of our small group gatherings. While Jesus was on the cross, he said something intriguing, uh, though it was uh though it sounded simple on the surface. The famous sentence he said uh to the father was, Father, forgive them for they not for they know not what they are doing. Speaking about people or specific people who uh who were taking part in his crucifixion. Is it then reasonable to take the stance that those specific people who Jesus was referring to were eventually granted, guaranteed, repentance by the Father, giving them salvation sometime after the crucifixion? P. S. Are there historical records of personal experience uh testimonies of those specific people coming to salvation?

Dave 46:15

Short answer is Friday night, we're gonna have a service going through the seven last words of Jesus. This is the first thing Jesus says on the cross. Imagine that. He goes through torture and beatings and everything.

Bob 46:26

The very first thing he says a leadoff hitter is gonna answer it.

Dave 46:29

Yeah, it's father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. So you have to come Friday night. At least to the first part of it. Yeah, Jack Krauss is gonna answer that question. He does a good job teasing out. If you can't come, we'll be live streaming it. Yeah. Ooh, there you go. I think you should come Friday night, though, because it's really worth thinking deeply about all seven sayings of the cross, because that's not the only intriguing statement that he makes, but that's a good one. As far as your like historical question, we know from the Bible that the centurion that was there at the scene of the cross proclaimed, surely this was the Son of God. When he saw everything unfold and all of the events that took place, including that statement of forgiveness, we know that he did that. There's one other sort of hint in the Gospels that someone may have come to faith because of what happened there at that scene, and that is the person of Simon of Cyrene. And the reason is because Mark says that Simon was the father of Rufus and Alexander. And then if you read like the end of Romans, he mentions, I think Rufus. Simon was related to some early church Christians, and it may very well be that because of his um you know exposure and because of what he saw on Good Friday, that sooner or later in his life he crossed the line of faith, and not only that, but led his family in saving faith as well. So there are some hints there. Um, believe it or not, early church tradition names the centurion. Uh his name, according to church history, is Saint Longinus. And according to church tradition, he converted and eventually became a Christian martyr. Uh, however, the document that says that is centuries after the gospel story, so we're not totally sure that that is um accurate, but church tradition does preserve that, and I think there might be something to that. But Friday night, you're gonna get a much fuller answer, and I think that you're gonna enjoy the rest of the service too. Want to add anything to that?

Bob 48:32

I think that was a great answer, Pastor Dave. Okay. Come come to the service.

Tim 48:37

We're working hard for you. Yeah.

unknown 48:39

Thanks.

Tim 48:40

Clint and whoever else has the question. And you know who you are who had the question that we're not answering. We'll see you next episode. All right. All right, what do we got next here? If you've been attending NBC and are starting to feel at home, we want to invite you to take a meaningful next step through our upcoming membership class. This will be a two-week class taking place on Sunday, April 26th, and Sunday, May 3rd at 10 30 a.m. at the YFMB Great Room. Church membership isn't about joining a club, it's about stepping into a spiritual family. At Millington Baptist Church, membership means committing to a community that encourages one another, serves together, and lives on mission. This class is designed to help you make an informed decision to learn about the history, vision, and beliefs of MBC, explore what it means to live in Christian community, and have the opportunity to ask questions and connect with church leadership. Topics will include our articles of faith, church covenant, and mission and vision, along with practical next steps for getting more involved. At the end of the class, you'll have the option, without obligation, to move forward in the membership process. So if you're considering making MBC your church home, this is the place to start. For more information, you can contact the church office or reach out through the website. We would love to see you at our very next membership class.

Bob 49:51

Sermon recap. Okay, so since we're doing this show every other week, we're gonna be taking turns reviewing both sermons. So I preached two weeks ago, or last week, Pastor Dave preached yesterday. So uh Dave's gonna ask me some questions uh first. So let's do segment number one on sermon review.

Dave 50:09

Okay. Your passage was 2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 6 through, is it 18? 18. 18. Uh see, I got it. Um so I know it's been like eight days, but can you remember and summarize the gist of that particular sermon for us? What was that about?

Bob 50:29

Yeah, man, it's gonna be hard. I'll see if I if I got it here. Um so the sermon's title was Courage Under Fire. And we were coming off of your wonderful uh introduction to the to the series in chapters uh verses one to five of chapter one, and it picks up with um Paul giving Timothy a charge uh in in verse six and uh and really calling him to be faithful uh to following the Lord in in the midst of challenging circumstances. Now we talked a little bit about the background was Timothy um is in Nero's Rome. Paul is in prison, he he is uh in prison um uh uh because there's a lot of persecution going on for Christians. Um we we can talk about this later, but there was a big fire that happened. Nero set the city on fire, he blamed the Christians, and then there was intense persecution. And so anybody associating with Paul or somebody who was a Christian was very much um in danger of losing their life. So we talked about three things that uh we should do in answering the question, what what how should we live when our faith costs us? Because it did cost quite a bit to follow Jesus in that day. The three points were uh number one, you have to fan the flame. Number two, shun the shame, and number three, break the chain. So fanning the flame was uh was passionately using the gift that God has given you. That's a very famous uh section of verse six. Uh second was shunning the shame. So Paul is talking about how people need to share in their suffering. How do you have how do you become a co-sufferer in the midst of this uh this challenge? And then the last one was to break the chain um of fear, because the idea of fear and moral cowardice was a key piece to this uh this passage. And uh my my I don't know if it was my big idea, but it was a key statement that if we're going to uh fan the flame and shun the shame, uh we have to believe in Jesus' fame, that we're gonna make Jesus famous no matter what uh comes at us. And we had a big spotlight for the Colson Fellows as an application. So that was the my sermon.

Dave 52:39

Great. Well, I actually took notes for Pastor Bob's sermon. Here's my one pager, yellow legal pad notes from me on the front row. Uh I listen to sermons too, by the way. And um we need to always be diving into God's word every Sunday. Couple questions. So the first one's really a technical question, it's a little bit of a Bible nerd thing, but I've noticed there's a famous verse in 2 Timothy 1 7, I think it is, that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power. And then the King James says sound mind. But then I've noticed that other English translations have a wildly different English translation of whatever this Greek word is here: love, power, and self-control, love, power, self-discipline. Those seem like really different translations. Sound mind, self-discipline, self-control. So, what's going on with that translation? How come it's like that? Does that word have a difficulty in coming over into English, or what how come it's so diverse like that?

Bob 53:46

The answer is yes, it does. Uh it is uh it is uh difficult to translate, uh, and the translation choices reflect uh a lot of uncertainty amongst interpreters. So a lot of modern translations like the ESV, which is the one that I used, will render it as self-control or self-discipline as the NIV, or discipline, good judgment, uh sound judgment. Uh the King James Version, if if you are familiar with that, or if you think that's the only version that you should read of the Bible, uh, translates it as sound mind, which comes from an older interpretive uh tradition emphasizing mental clarity and stability. Now, the debate really what the word centers on the term whether the term emphasizes restraint or wisdom. Now, interestingly, you know, the Greek word for wisdom is Sophia. Uh, you might you might know that. Um, I'm sure Pastor Dave does, being the scholar that he is, but there's the word that's used here is not is not Sophia. Um but the word uh really in and of itself in the in the lexical um uh study uh does denote self-discipline and sound judgment, the ability to control one's emotions, their feelings, their thoughts, their trials, no matter how uh severe. So sound mind in the sense of self-discipline can carry the meaning of being careful, being rational, having sensible thinking. It's a thought process based on God's wisdom and clarity uh rather than being manipulated by fear. So that there is a debate on how to how to capture that word, and people are not um not in agreement about it. Uh so that's why there's a big debate about it.

Dave 55:26

That's helpful. Yeah, thank you for uh helping us with the mystery there. Tim, I actually sent you a picture. I don't know if you're able to grab that. Um, a chart, but I had a question regarding the sermon first, and that is this whole idea of fear. So you had really drawn out that you had the audience learn the Greek word, dahlia, and that was a big point in your sermon. And so my question is uh what's going on with the fear, and how does that relate to us? Why are we struggling with fear? Why was he struggling with fear? And how come that's such a problem that Paul is getting after, like right at the beginning of this letter? Uh Timothy is being attacked with fear. And so tell us more about that and how that relates to them back then and us today.

Bob 56:21

Yeah, uh good question. Uh so so the the Greek word for fear is uh Dahlia, uh D-E-I-L-I-A. Not to be confused with Delhi. Not to be confused with Delia. Who goes to our church. Who Yeah, maybe, maybe she was taking this this message very personal, but uh it's not Delia. It's dahlia. Different spelling. It's an extra I. Um so the word fear, Delia, that's Delia that's translated as fear, refers to moral cowardice. Um and it's it's different than the way other it's not it's not the same as like when you see translation saying the fear of the Lord. That's a different word, a different meaning. This one really refers to moral cowardice um in the face of challenging suffering. Now we we did get a little bit into um the contextual background, and I mentioned earlier, uh Nero, the Emperor Nero, who some people think was at the uh centerpiece of even Revelation, he's the beast, all of that. Um he he was very much persecuting the Christians, um, set the whole city on fire, blamed the Christians, and then I actually sent Tim a very famous portrait that's called Nero's Torches.

Dave 57:32

Okay, so we have it? Yeah. This is a thousand years after the actual writing of Second Timothy. But this is a very interesting rendering. Perhaps you've seen this uh painting before. Uh Fakelm, I believe is the artist's name. It's got the Christians on the torches on the top right there. Um it was painted in 1876, oil on canvas, and it's also known as candlesticks of Christianity, and it depicts a group of early Christian martyrs who are about to be burned alive as the alleged perpetrators of the Great Fire of Rome during AD 64. And people from many different social spheres, including the emperor himself, are present there watching the burning, which takes place uh in front of the Domus Aurea. And the motif is based on the descriptions of Suetonius and Tacitus of the torture of the Christians. Uh, and they actually tell us in detail of like what happened. I'll just read you one historical uh description of this. Uh it says, mockery of every sort was added to their deaths, covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle and was exhibiting a show in the circus, which he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Of special note is that the signs attached to the feet of the condemned list their alleged crimes. Uh I don't know if you can read that there, but um, that's a famous painting of what was going on there. Nero's torches. So I think I might have some dahlia. It was, yeah, right.

Bob 59:25

If I'm looking at that stuff, now the the the truth was Nero burned the city and then blame the Christians and then burn them in retaliation for his his own crimes. Um so if you were that gaslighting. Ancient forms of gaslighting, yeah. So if you were a Christian in in the first in in this time frame in the 60s, um, the original 60s, uh, if you were identifying yourself as a Christian or coming to see Paul, uh, you very much could be somebody who's who was lit on fire in for all to see. And that probably would give me some some fear.

Dave 59:59

So it makes sense why he would start the letter saying, you know, Timothy, God's not giving you a spirit. This this fear that you have is not from God. It's you don't have to be timid, and you don't have to be ashamed either of Paul. Even though I'm in chains, there's nothing I'm doing to be ashamed about. Instead, I want you to have this moral courage. So where bring it to today. Where do people struggle with Dahlia today? Where are we wrestling with fear? And how does how does this passage relate to the 21st century follower of Jesus?

Bob 1:00:30

So this is interesting because I think there's there's uh cultural swings that go back and forth. Uh it seems like now, at least culturally, Christianity is is a bit more um in vogue. Uh people think it's a positive, at least uh, you know, part of the the Tal Rico thing was that you know he's got a certain brand of Christianity that he's putting out there because it seems like being a Christian is is more is more in. Now, depending on the politician that's in office, that may go back and forth. And I'm sure Christians feel like in in the modern century that you will um maybe be shamed. I mean, we we live in an era of social media that if you were to say you're a Christian, to post things online, uh, may get you attacked and called names, maybe you know, not now in America to the point of death, um, but certainly to the point of social ostracism. And I think that's probably where we're seeing it more and more. People are shying away from um saying they're a Christian because they think there's baggage associated with it, or taking stances that are informed by the truth of the Bible that uh would very much have consequences. Um, you know, things about sexuality or the family or um or abortion, you know, that we talked about earlier. Uh those are some unpopular positions in in certain crowds and in society today. So I think people are afraid to share because of what they they they might lose a job, they might lose friends, they might lose a number of other things. Uh, and that's that's the way I think it it's looking today. Um so you add anything to that?

Dave 1:02:06

There's a pastoral counseling example that may apply here. This is not so much a public square kind of dahlia, but you know, recently I had a parent come in who was dealing with a teenage child, and the teenage child was there were some behavioral issues, and the parent was pretty upset, and uh I could tell that there was a lot of emotions going on behind why is my child being like this and how do I fix it, right? And before we even got to some strategies about how we might deal with this behavioral thing, we took up the first part of our session just to talk about fear because biblically speaking, we don't make good decisions out of fear, we don't we don't want to do that. Um, so you know, the parent had fears about oh man, if my child keeps going down this particular trajectory, then it means this, and then this is gonna mean this in his future, and then this is gonna mean me about me as a parent. And there's all kinds of ways our mind goes nuts with stuff like that. And we do not do our best parenting when we're in that mindset or when we're kind of in the you know, trigger fight or flight mode. We're gonna explode on our kids, or we're gonna really become uh a source of resentment for them based on our reaction. So um we have to get our fears under control before we can be our best selves as parents. And now it's important to validate those fears and you know, understand that hey, those are legit concerns you have about your kid and and you, and that's fine. But calm down, take some breaths, and let's get to the place where you're calm yourself, and then once you're calm as a parent, you can then best guide or direct your your child accordingly. So I just thought pastoral counseling, it's always also good to put our fear in check before we take action in a way that seems a little um too intense. Yeah, yeah. It's good. One application. All right, next question on your sermon. Okay, so there's this guy, Onecephorus, at the end. He shows up. He does. Paul says he's an encouragement to him. He goes searching for him. Evidently, Paul was hard to find. He finds him, and this was a positive example in the letter of 2 Timothy, as opposed to two other guys who were called out by name.

Bob 1:04:25

They were called, which doesn't always happen, but they get they get he named names, Paul did.

Dave 1:04:30

Yeah. Uh Philetus and Hermogenes, is it? Is that what it was? Phigellus. If I'm saying that correctly, and Hermogenes. So, you know, sometimes people say, hey, you don't have to name names, you could just speak generally. Uh, Paul named names sometimes. He did. He said, this guy, boom, right here. Yeah. So help me understand what's the purpose of those negative examples and positive examples in 2 Timothy, and how does that help me understand what Paul's doing with what he's saying in this passage? How how could I apply that part of the scriptural section to my life?

Bob 1:05:06

I I think he specifically called out Vygellus and Hermogenes because they they did not stand so the they did not stand with him. So the example I gave was imagine if uh the state turned against uh me or you as a preacher and uh wanted to put us on trial and throw us in jail and maybe ultimately execute us because uh we were preaching the gospel, we were standing up for Christ. And nobody else in our church would come and stand with us. Um I think that's what happened with these guys. That's what that's what most commentators think as well. Um but Onocephorus was somebody who actually sought out Paul and the um uh the the the word you know in verse 17 it says that he searched for me earnestly or zealously, which gives the impression that he he didn't give up until he could find a way to get in and see Paul and give him some encouragement. So these are two pretty different contrasting examples of people who who chose to um approach the situation situation with Paul differently. Um now uh the thing with Onocephorus was also that he wasn't he wasn't a pastor, he wasn't like an elder in the church, he was just a layperson. So imagine you just think of the regular person who thinks they're just I'm just a lay person, they went out of their way courageously to go and be a co-sufferer with Paul in the midst of this challenging time. That's what's that's what's going on with him here. So I think it's it's a challenge for us to always find a way to um Paul Paul says in uh in uh in verse eight, and then in chapter two, verse three, he wants us to share in suffering together as Christians. Now, and now in the original language, he's the the force, the meaning of that is really that you're a co-sufferer for the gospel. And that's what he's highlighting here with Onocephoris. Now, how do we do that today? Well, we talked about a few different examples at the end of the message, and I'll just get I'll give you one example. We were talking about the co-worker idea, and and you were saying to me, well, you know, what what if there's rules against proselytizing about sharing Jesus? Is that this is a religious liberty issue? Do we want do we want everybody just kind of preaching their religion at work? And and okay, that's a fair, that's a fair critique, but let's just say there's um you know there's some moral issues that come up in your work. And the example we thought of was, let's say there's there's a mandated policy that you have to put your pronouns in your your your bio or in your your email signature, and you just have an issue with that because of what we were talking about before. Well, if there's a couple Christians in that office, is could you could you stand together and be be a co-sufferer together on an issue like that that you view as being a moral uh issue where there's a biblical commandment? Um and that's just one example, there's probably others, uh, but I think that's kind of more of what Paul's getting at uh here in in the text.

Dave 1:08:02

You know, I was encouraged, I think I was telling you last week I was officiating a funeral Thursday morning, and this person's funeral was all the way out in Linden, and it's far for most of our people to drive there. And uh I was really encouraged by I think there were six Millington men that came out just to be there for for this man's funeral. And I don't know that all these guys were really that close to him, uh, but they came out and they showed up and they they searched earnestly and found the funeral home in Linden, New Jersey, which actually wasn't that easy to do. And it was like, hey, it's like going through the Roman streets. Here's people who show up who are you know following Christ and being there. Sometimes that's what Christianity is. It's like, yeah, hey, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna show up for this. And that's what Onocephorus did. And I think that's a good reminder to us that sometimes it's just the simple things to encourage others uh in the Lord.

unknown 1:09:02

Good.

Dave 1:09:03

Was there anything else you wanted to chat about regarding your sermon from a couple weeks ago?

Bob 1:09:07

I think that was some that was some good questions. Thank you for for bringing those up. Um I also took uh took some notes, I took some colorful notes on Pastor Dave's sermon right here since we're showing, and I was able to uh share with him a PDF uh ahead of time.

Dave 1:09:20

So uh why don't you get the digital analog?

Bob 1:09:23

This is very sometimes I write it down like that, but this is just a little easier. Okay, so tell me, um, give us a quick summary of what you talked about, and then I got a I got a few uh a few important questions for you.

Dave 1:09:34

Second Timothy chapter two, verses one through seven is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible. I love 2 Timothy. It was drilled into us in seminary. It's a letter written to a pastor. I take it very personally, I take it to heart. This is the passage, the passage about how do you avoid the drift that can sometimes happen in gospel ministry. And there's a few principles that Paul's gonna lay down here in chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. First, he's gonna say, number one, you got to depend on God, not yourself. This is something that he's gonna have to do. You cannot do it in your own strength. Be strengthened by the Lord. Number two, after you learn to depend on God, you've got to learn to pass on and entrust this truth to others. You cannot keep this to yourself. You've got to multiply your ministry. The strategy, if you will, is to entrust this teaching you've heard from me to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. And that will continue to go in every single generation. That is the strategy, that is the play in the sermon. I gave the illustration of the Green Bay power sweep from the 1960s. It is a play that Christians have to run if we are going to keep the gospel intact. Number three, uh, we have to be willing to suffer together with our brothers and sisters in Christ for the sake of the gospel, for the faith. Christianity is a faith that does not promise us life on easy street. We've got to be willing to endure hardship. He gives three metaphors here. Um, I actually have a chart, I'll show you that later. He talks about the athlete, the farmer, and the soldier, and all three of them are all about somebody who's like making sacrifices today for some benefit tomorrow in the future. And then number four, Paul just kind of wraps up this section by saying, I want you to think about this. I want you to reflect deeply on everything I'm saying, and the Lord will give you more insight. And so Christians are a thinking people, and we have to think really deeply about what really matters. Those are some ways in which we can protect ourselves from gospel drift in a church, in a ministry context, in a seminary context. Uh, but this is the way that Christians have preserved the truth down through the centuries.

Bob 1:11:40

Well, great. Thank you so much. It was a very uh engaging and challenging message yesterday. Um you opened with an illustration about old Princeton, old Princeton back in the day. Um, and you you talked about the current state of Princeton Seminary, where they have a farminary and uh there's a lot of focus on ecological issues. Um my question is since they drifted, what is it that causes, in your mind, theological drift, and what is the appeal of this progressive theology that's been all all over the place in in the Christian world? The ex-vangelicals, the uh even the the uh news story we talked about, there's an appeal to this kind of progressivism from a theological perspective. What's what's the what's what's going on there?

Dave 1:12:31

Well, I think there's a couple different things that might be attractive. It's uh a desire to avoid being counter-cultural to fit in, it's a desire to take Jesus and remake him into my image. It's a desire to uh be comfortable. And so, you know, I don't want to in any way downplay the issue of farming or you know, food justice. Those are issues that you know we can care about. And I said in the sermon, I guess that's okay if they talk about that, but never at the expense of sound doctrine. You you cannot replace uh teaching and orthodoxy with just works of love, mercy, and justice. That is not fair. That's not going to be faithful to the calling that God has given us. And so uh that's where they made their mistake. It's not that they were going somewhere wrong by talking about issues of food. Uh, that's fine. But there has to be a wedding together of both gospel proclamation and gospel demonstration, and they are leaning more towards gospel demonstration in a way that sacrifices gospel proclamation, and that's where they went wrong in the early 1900s. Uh, they were trying to, as I said earlier, separate out Christianity from doctrine, as if you can do that, but you really cannot do that. Uh, the Christian faith is a doctrinal faith, and so that's where they kind of began to shift. Uh, you know, B.B. Warfield, when he passed away, they had his funeral there. Um, and actually Jay Gresham Machin was at the funeral, and Jay Gresham Machin actually, as they were carrying the casket off, he said, uh, there goes old Princeton with him. He knew the writing was on the wall. Uh Machin understood that the seminary had taken a turn and the Warfield Hodge, you know, Alexander days were a thing of the past. And so he began to buck up against New Princeton and eventually left to find found Westminster Seminary along with Cornelius Van Till and some other more sound teachers. So that's where they kind of went off the beaten path there in the early 1900s. It's a temptation for them back then, it's a temptation for those of us today. I mean, Lest We Drift was the name of your book recommendation that apparently was very popular last time. So drifting two-thirds of the votes, Pastor David. Yeah, so I think it's a temptation for every generation to drift away and let go of the truth.

Bob 1:15:05

All right. Well, very good. So the um the second question I have here comes from a memorable part in your sermon. Um, you did not do this at the 1045, but in the uh in the run through, uh you you uh you let the pipes flow, Pastor David. You were singing the Mariah Carey song. And I'm really sorry that you had to hear that. That was really painful. The hero lying in us. But my question is, why is there a poll?

Dave 1:15:32

The hero comes along.

Bob 1:15:34

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Hey. That was funny. Hey, hey. Well, my question is, why is there a pull in in the human heart of today to depend on our own strength? Why do we um almost what's that's the default? Like we want to we wanna be the hero of the story. Why what's what's going on there? Why do we want that? Why why do we resonate with that Mariah Carey song? Even if we don't want to admit it.

Dave 1:16:06

Bro, after Mariah sings, I can run through a wall. It's so good. But it's not true. There's not a hero living on the inside of me. Adam lives on the inside of me, and I am a person in need of a hero. There is only one hero in the Bible, and it is Jesus. If you have never read the Jesus Storybook Bible, and maybe you don't have kids, you should get it anyway. It is one of the best Bibles, even for adults. It's a beautiful depiction of the fact that all of the stories in the Bible ultimately end in some way, shape, or form in failure. And there's only one that is the hero of this story, the Lord Jesus, the promised one. I guess we're pulled to that because of our own pride. We're pulled to that because we want to make a name for ourselves. We are building the little tower of babel in our own hearts. We want to be somebody. And that ugly arrogance rears its head. Maybe, you know, when we're least expecting it, maybe even in the good times, we start to think, hey, I've got I got something going on here, right? I'll tell you a parable. Okay, this is a parable, Dave's parables. It's gonna be a new segment. So imagine there's two animals, an elephant and a mouse, and they are crossing over one of those bridges that's like one of those swing bridges that's like, you know, it's uh it's it's not very steady, so it shakes a lot when you're when you're so that the mouse is on the elephant's back, and the the elephant crosses the bridge, and it gets to the other side of the bridge, and the mouse makes it over the other side of the bridge because the mouse was riding on the elephant's back, right? And then after they're on the other side of the chasm, the mouse turns to the elephant and says, Boy, we sure did shake that bridge, didn't we? Well, that's kind of like how it is when when when I want to take credit for something that really God is responsible for. I'm not able to do anything apart from him. John 15 is pretty clear, apart from him, I can do nothing. Paul in Philippians actually uses what was a first century curse word to describe the works of the flesh. He says it is scubola, it's the Greek word for uh, well, you know, the kind of thing that you would find in the bathroom. So that's what our flesh can produce, scoobola. And we need the Spirit of God to do his work, and that's the only hope that we have. We're not the hero. We need a hero, and thank God we have one. That's what we celebrate on Holy Week. Yes, I just used a little Greek curse word on the on the show today.

Bob 1:18:48

News story here, Tim. Oh man. This may be actually that might be the title.

Tim 1:18:52

FCC is gonna come after that. Might be the title of the episode. It's a strong word. Scoobola. Yeah.

Bob 1:18:58

We don't have a delay on this. This is live. It is, it is live. We'll no takebacks. Okay, so um uh I I I do want to do a little rapid fire here. So you you gave a chart with uh three illustrations about the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. And uh I'll I'll give you uh uh a moment to explain the chart if you want, but I have three rapid fire questions that are applicational that I'd like to I'd like to discuss.

Dave 1:19:23

Every single image has two things. It has an exhortation and it has a promise. The soldier, uh the exhortation is we have to be undistracted. He wants a single-mindedness there. He doesn't want us uh messing around in civilian affairs. And we do that, we're gonna be pleasing to God. The athlete, he says you've got to compete according to the rules. So I just phrased it like be upright, uprightness, integrity. You do that, you're gonna earn eternal rewards. The farmer? Well, the farmer works hard. He's hardworking. And if you do that, you're gonna enjoy the first fruits of the crop. So you'll enjoy the fruit of your labor. Those three images all really are communicating something very similar. It's somebody who's willing to put in the work in advance and delay gratification and do the hard now so that they'll enjoy the blessing later. You know, someone once said you can do life one of two ways. You can do life hard, then easy, or easy then hard. So Paul is saying, why don't you choose this hard then easy? Uh go ahead and just embrace the difficulty that is the Christian life, and you will reap a greater reward, more than you could ever ask or or imagine. Be like Moses, who sought God's greater reward than to be promoted in the ranks of Egypt and uh live for what really matters in eternity. And so this is what the imagery is talking about there in 2 Timothy chapter 2.

Bob 1:20:44

By the way, you just made me think about a story that I meant forgot to mention before. The Wonder Project is putting out a Moses series starring Ben Kingsley. It looks rather uh rather interesting.

Dave 1:20:56

And it's gonna be a one movie um production or a series or a a show episodes or I assumed it was a series, but I will double check as we're going through.

Bob 1:21:10

But if you haven't seen the trailer, go and check it out. It's uh it's pretty uh it's pretty cool. Just so you're clear, this is the same exact outfit that produced the House of David. Yes. Sorry, that's why the Wonder Project that made House of David. I'm hoping we're getting a season three so David becomes king, but I haven't seen it yet.

Dave 1:21:28

So all right, so is it definite?

Bob 1:21:31

Is there is there a season three? I don't know if it's definite. That's my uh that's my I'm not sure. We'll have to look it up. Okay. I might I might find an answer for you by the end of this segment. All right, so I have a question for the soldier. So you talked a little bit about the entanglements, and my question was, what are let's tease out, what are our entanglements? What are what are the things that are uh uh drawing us in that we should avoid that maybe we don't we don't normally think about being entanglements?

Dave 1:21:57

In the sermon, but I talked about the phone, and it's hard not to think of that. I was in my study the other day reading, I think I told you the story, and I was reading something difficult, something intense, something that required quite a bit of deep work and focus. And I found myself unconsciously reaching my hand for my phone that was nearby when I don't want to be on my phone. It was sort of like this natural magnetic gravitational pull into the abyss of the phone world. And I like that's how trained we are to constantly have our phones and check our phones. I actually took my phone and I threw it across the basement because I was so frustrated with myself. Thankfully, these iPhones can take a lot of beatings nowadays. And Julie comes downstairs later on and she sees my phone is like down at the other side of the basement. She said, Why is your phone over here? So I got mad and I threw it because I kept on like reaching for it. So I think that's one area where we can get distracted, where we can get easily entangled. I suppose there's other areas, uh, you know, anything that gets undue um attention on your part. That could be NCAA basketball right now. I mean, you could pretty much spend your whole weekend, Thursday through Sunday, watching basketball. That's probably not the best use of your time, right? But sometimes we can get a little too into hobbies, things like that. Although that Duke UConn game, Tim, that was a really good ending to that game last night. Uh I actually had Duke winning the whole Final Four, and I was more than happy to give up that uh uh tournament victory just to see an ending like that. You still might win the Bandit Brothers bracket, though. You could do it. I appreciate you having hope in me, but I think I'm in like sixth place.

Tim 1:23:47

You're five points away.

Dave 1:23:48

Okay. Well, that's a long five points, and people really have to do terrible for me to catch up. So I don't I don't know, don't have much hope in that. But sometimes we can get a little too entangled in those types of things. I don't know. That's one answer.

Bob 1:24:01

Good. I do have an answer to your question. It is a three-part companion special.

Dave 1:24:07

Okay.

Bob 1:24:08

And uh House of David season three has not yet been confirmed, but we're we're praying and hoping it will. All right, second. Like later this year.

Tim 1:24:15

So, like Pastor Dave's books over there that he recommended. Three parter. It's right there.

Dave 1:24:20

Moses one movie, three parts. But what but one volume one, volume two, volume three. There you go. It's only one movie, though.

Bob 1:24:27

All right, the athlete section. My my question is uh you talked a little bit, use the illustration of Lance Armstrong and how we need to compete against the rules. And uh what I thought when I I I read I was listening to you was why are we tempted to cheat? Like why why are we tempted to bend the rules? What's the motivation behind that? It's ugly, isn't it? Yeah. There was an experiment.

Dave 1:24:54

Like, why did Lance Armstrong feel like he needed to do that? Oh, well, for him, I mean that's I think there was some vainglory there.

Bob 1:25:04

Well, okay, but is that do do we have some of that in different ways?

Dave 1:25:07

Yeah, I mean I guess that's that's part of why we might want to bend some rules so that we can make a name for ourselves. You know, maybe he didn't think he could do it without getting performance-enhancing drugs. I don't know, maybe he could have, but history will never give us the answer to that because that's what he chose to do. I I do know that there is something deep inside the human heart that wants to do what is wrong because it's wrong. Now that's kind of wild, right? But there was actually an experiment in a museum where they had an exhibit and they had a pole that was like maybe a four-foot pole, and there was a circle around the pole, and the circle around the pole said, like, do not go past this circle, do not touch the pole. But there was no guard, there was no fence, there was no barrier, and it was just an experiment to see who in the museum would obey this rule and who would not obey this rule. And they had a camera on this exhibit, and a lot of people were touching the pole. It was quite comical. Um, people would touch it twice, people just wanted to touch it just because it was I don't, I don't want to obey your rule. It's like a wet paint sign. Like I see that, I'm like, let me just I just want to I just want to touch it, see if it's really wet wet paint.

Tim 1:26:30

Okay, the human heart is is weird. It's it's rebellious. There was a psychology experiment, I forget when, but they put, I want to say it was a it was a decent amount of children in a room with a plate of cookies. And they said, if you can make it, I think it was I want to say three, three hours in the room without eating any of the cookies, you'll have you'll be given a a really amazing prize that far outweighs any of the cookies. No kids were able to not eat the cookies. Is it is that the famous marshmallow experiment? Potenti potentially.

Dave 1:27:08

Yeah, I understand. Or something similar. It was the idea that we kids don't really understand delayed gratification, right? That was really interesting too. Yeah. So the human heart, it's it's there's something off there.

Bob 1:27:24

All right. So I'm gonna give you the choice of two questions to answer here at the end. The first one relates to your um your farmer analogy. And that question is uh, why don't we work hard? Why, why, why do we why are we tempted to take shortcuts? And then uh or or you could choose to talk about the life of the mind and tell us why there's an appeal to emotionalism in today's world. Which one would you like to answer, Pastor Dave? See, see, I gave you a choice here at the end.

Dave 1:27:53

Okay. Uh well, the easy answer to the hardworking thing is sloth. We're lazy. But I want to go with the mind one.

Bob 1:28:00

Okay.

Dave 1:28:01

So the mind one is really fascinating. So I actually read Mark Knoll's book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, where he theorizes on what happened. Because it didn't used to be like this. Like a lot of the Christian uh philosophers of the past, scientists of the past were genius level. Like there was there was a huge emphasis on the mind. Thomas Aquinas, absolutely brilliant. Saint Augustine, Luther, Calvin Edwards, the greatest philosophical mind to ever come out of the United States of America. We have people like Pascal, we have, you know, scientists, chemists, physicists. The life of the mind used to be thriving and vibrant in Christianity. And something happened to really change that. And so my sort of um read on that coming from Mark Knoll, and I I think he's right about this, is there were three conflating realities that all took place at the same time over the last hundred years in order to sort of downplay the evangelical mind and why the intellectual life has kind of been a lost cause lately, unlike our spiritual ancestors. Um so, for example, um number one, the first cause of the evangelical church uh losing its mind has been the topic of revivalism. Revivalism is something that came in in the early mid-1800s that emphasized emotionalism, emphasized feelings, emphasized having an experience, emphasized the sawdust trail, emphasized Christianity coming and affecting you, and crying and weeping and making a decision for the Lord. And that revivalism uh has kind of taken over to the point where we don't even recognize Christianity without revivalism. Like that's just what we think Christianity is now. But that was born in the Second Great Awakening, and preachers were manipulating circumstances to get an emotional response out of the people. What they would do is they would take a group of Christians out into the Kentucky woods, leave them away from their home, give them very little sleep. There was not that much food out there. They were away for days and days and days. And when you are in that context, that environment, there can be a kind of a disorientation that happens, and you have strong emotions in those environments. And so they um de-emphasize the mind in that context. Uh, so that's one sort of strand of what happened there. Another strand that he says happened to um cause the life of the mind to be downplayed or whatever, is dispensationalism. So he actually says this is part of the thing, all right. He it's really unfair, but he he actually has a whole section in the book like dispensationalism and the theology of the rapture has caused problems, and the problem is escapism. The problem is there's no use in applying my mind to this world. We're getting out of here, and it's all gonna blow up anyway. And because of that dismal, you know, dark picture of the future, the life of the academy, the life of the mind is not something that has been emphasized over the last hundred years, too. And so that's contributed to the lack of emphasis on the mind as well. And then the third strand that um he says has contributed to this environment where where we're not really thinking so clearly now is what he calls the um higher life theology, the higher life theology. So it's it's um a downplaying of intellectual life and a an upplaying of the spiritual life in a way that it's almost Gnostic. It's like I'm just gonna, I'm just going to forget about the the realm of the physical and why would I want to study sciences and this world and my the human body and things like that? What really matters is this Gnostic experience that I'm you know having with the Lord. And so that environment with those three different trends over the last hundred years has contributed to why the mind has been de-emphasized. I I don't know if he's totally right about that, but it is thought-provoking as far as what caused this and how did we get to where we are. So I thought that was an interesting thesis, something to wrestle with.

Bob 1:32:49

Well, very good. Um, anything else you'd like to add about the sermon, or do you feel like we've covered the salient points?

Dave 1:32:57

Uh I would just encourage you if you have never looked into the story of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, it's a fascinating story. And I only touched on like two seconds of it, but it is really cool thing that God did um in the 80s. So if you want to chase down that story or you want to ask me about it, I will like spend a whole hour on the cup of a cup of coffee just talking about that story. It's really cool. So uh check it out. That's worth um looking into for your own personal inspiration. There you go. Oh, by the way, Jack Krauss was really mad at me. He said I'm disappointed in this thing in the world because I did not mention Westminster, which is his alma mater, and of course, Westminster is a Westminster from Princeton. And I said, Jack, the reason I didn't mention it is because they didn't have a turnaround story at Princeton, and I'm I didn't want um a breakoff story. But you've mentioned Westminster. We mentioned Westminster in a series of previous sermons in in our series on loot.

Bob 1:34:00

It also would have been like a redo. We've got no, we've got we've mentioned Westminster's been mentioned. All right, let's just say it that way. It gets plenty of love. We love Westminster. All right, so we're on to the theology sprint, and uh what was the uh we decided on a question for today. What was the question? What do you mean we decide on a question?

Tim 1:34:16

You guys don't have to know the question before.

Bob 1:34:17

Okay, so surprise me then. What was the question? What's the question you want to offer us here, Tim?

Tim 1:34:22

Uh this question that you guys have never heard before is the following. Why do we as Christians not affirm the Quran?

Dave 1:34:34

All right. If you haven't figured it out already, we do know we did know this question. And I think I wanted to share a really interesting argument about this. It's by David Wood. He's got his PhD from Fordham, and it's an argument that will the Muslim will um be able to engage with you on. And uh every Muslim believes that the Quran says Allah initially inspired the Jewish and Christian scriptures, but that the Jewish culture and the Christians corrupted those scriptures. This is false. Uh the Quran affirms not only the inspiration of the Torah, but also the inspiration of the gospel and their continuing authority. And so this creates what's called the Islamic dilemma. I'll give you a few passages in the Quran. Surah 3.4 says, Allah revealed the Quran, and before that he revealed the Torah as guidance for mankind. Actually, the Quran never says that the Jewish and Christian scriptures were corrupted. That is not a teaching of the Quran. That is something that came up way later. Actually, the main argument in the Quran as to why we should accept Muhammad as a prophet is because he's affirming the same scriptures that we have. So why like why would you reject somebody who affirms your scriptures, right? That's like the number one argument in the Quran. The second argument is that Muhammad was actually prophesied in our scriptures. Um, and so uh, like passages like Jesus says he's gonna send you another helper, they say that's Muhammad, not the Holy Spirit. That's the Islamic belief. But if our scriptures are corrupted, like how does this work? There are verses in the Quran which testify about God's words. Surah, Surah 18, 27 says, No one can change Allah's words. So think about that. No one can change Allah's words. But yet the basic Islamic belief is that Allah's words have been corrupted and changed. So here's an illustration. Imagine a heart surgeon who is bragging about having never lost a patient, but then you go back and look at his history of surgery and you found out every single patient has died on his operating table. That's basically what happened to these scriptures, right? So Allah is saying my word cannot be changed or corrupted, but every single example of his word, whether it's the Jewish scriptures or the Christian scriptures, they're saying also have been corrupted. So that doesn't work. Another example, Surah 7, 157 says, Jews and Christians who read about Muhammad and who read about Muhammad, and we find him mentioned in the Torah and the Gospels that have been written down to us. Surah 285, if you don't believe in all your book, uh, he says, I will send you to hell. So this is the way that the Muslims are talking about the Jewish and the Christian scriptures. It talks about it, he they're affirming them. Like this, this talks about Jesus. And if you don't believe them, you're gonna go to hell. So that's a strange way to talk about the Bible if they're saying they're corrupted, right? Surah 543. Jews come to Muhammad to settle a dispute, and Allah says, Why are they coming to you if they have the Torah? And Muhammad actually says, Bring me a Torah. He gets up from his cushion, he puts the Torah on the cushion and says, Let the Torah be your judge. So this is the way the Quran is talking about the Torah. Um Surah 548 says, Allah sent Muhammad as a guardian of the previous scriptures. Surah 568, he says, You have no ground to stand upon unless you stand fast on the Torah and the gospel. Surah 1094, Allah said, Muhammad, if you're in doubt, ask those who are reading the book before you, make sure your revelation lines up with theirs. So again and again and again, the Quran is affirming the Jewish and the Christian scriptures. So eventually, over time, the religion of Islam came up with this belief that the Jewish scriptures and the Christian scriptures were corrupted, but that wasn't what they said at the beginning. Uh, they found out later, oh, wait, this is contradictory to what we're teaching, and then they had to come up with this teaching that, oh, that's because they must have been corrupted. But that was not what they said at the beginning. So here's the dilemma. Are you ready for this? Either the Jews and Christians have the inspired authoritative word of God, or we don't. You have to just say that. Yes or no? If we do have the inspired authoritative word of God, Islam is false because of the contradictions between the Jewish scriptures and the Quran. And if we don't have the inspired authoritative word of God, Islam is false because it says that those scriptures were inspired. So either way, Islam is false. If we have the word of God, Islam is false. If we don't have the word of God, Islam is false. Either way, Islam is false. So that's called the Islamic dilemma, and it's a big problem for the Quran, which is one reason why we don't believe the Quran. That's what I wanted to share today.

Bob 1:39:13

Well, good explanation. Hopefully you can uh comment down there and let us know what you think. Well, Pastor Dave, we'll be back in two weeks, uh diving back into all issues behind the pulpit. Write in your questions. Uh, we'd love to engage with you. Uh we'll be covering uh, I guess, Easter and uh the sermon after after Easter, which is uh what are you doing after Easter?

Dave 1:39:35

2 Timothy chapter 2 verses 14 to something.

Bob 1:39:39

All right, so we'll be I think we'll be finishing up chapter two by the time we're back uh next time. Hope you have a wonderful Easter. We hope to see you this week. God bless you.