WEBVTT 00:00:00.381 --> 00:00:12.016 All right, we are on lesson number lucky number 13 of our study, so we're quickly winding down. 00:00:12.016 --> 00:00:20.071 I had in mind what I wanted to do for next week and I've forgotten what it was. 00:00:20.071 --> 00:00:23.884 I'm hoping I. 00:00:23.884 --> 00:00:27.291 I'm hoping I, by the way, was your birthday happy? 00:00:27.291 --> 00:00:28.353 Did you have a good birthday? 00:00:28.353 --> 00:00:29.664 Okay, very good. 00:00:29.664 --> 00:00:31.449 So Glenita had a good birthday. 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:40.369 Our oldest, jason, got married yesterday up in Cortland. 00:00:40.369 --> 00:00:45.551 If you've never been to Cortland, if you know where Youngstown is north of Youngstown is Warren. 00:00:45.551 --> 00:00:47.707 Cortland is northwest of Warren. 00:00:47.707 --> 00:00:49.424 That's where he lives. 00:00:49.424 --> 00:00:58.268 So, yeah, way up north, way up north, way up north, north to Cortland, we're going north. 00:00:58.268 --> 00:01:03.229 Yeah, I got him married and he is on his honeymoon. 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:07.489 Although my new daughter-in-law was Snapchatting Julie first thing this morning. 00:01:07.489 --> 00:01:08.513 It's like you're on your honeymoon. 00:01:08.513 --> 00:01:10.647 Why are you Snapchatting your mother-in-law? 00:01:10.647 --> 00:01:14.891 No way would I be Snapchatting my mother-in-law on my honeymoon. 00:01:14.891 --> 00:01:16.486 That would not happen. 00:01:16.486 --> 00:01:18.998 But it's a different world. 00:01:18.998 --> 00:01:23.302 So, yeah, it was a good time, had a lot of fun, but I am absolutely beat. 00:01:24.281 --> 00:01:29.745 So I did yesterday, not yesterday. 00:01:29.745 --> 00:01:38.629 Yeah, no, saturday, this is Sunday, right, friday, friday, julie says we need to get. 00:01:38.629 --> 00:01:39.409 I took the day off. 00:01:39.409 --> 00:01:40.209 She took the day off. 00:01:40.209 --> 00:01:42.650 We need to go up there and help them decorate for the wedding. 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:46.873 It's like, okay, we can do that and I'm thinking we can put up a couple flowers or something. 00:01:46.873 --> 00:01:49.293 You know, maybe you know some little. 00:01:49.293 --> 00:01:51.355 No, I mean, you know what I was doing. 00:01:51.355 --> 00:01:55.778 I was moving chairs, I was moving benches, I was grabbing this and this. 00:01:55.778 --> 00:02:14.681 I was the mule, I was the unskilled laborer, right so, oh my goodness, neighbor, right so, oh my goodness, it's crazy. 00:02:14.681 --> 00:02:16.342 I may have felt needed, but the next day I felt awful sore. 00:02:16.342 --> 00:02:17.024 I'll just say that. 00:02:17.024 --> 00:02:18.104 So, all right anyways. 00:02:18.104 --> 00:02:25.211 And it was outside and it didn't rain, all right. 00:02:25.211 --> 00:02:29.717 So we're going to talk about D-I-V-O-R-C-E today. 00:02:30.801 --> 00:02:31.485 Who sang that? 00:02:31.485 --> 00:02:41.284 There, she is Tammy Wynette, and there's Mr and Mrs Country Music. 00:02:41.284 --> 00:02:49.021 Before they became Splitsville, right, they sang a song called Golden Ring. 00:02:49.021 --> 00:02:51.828 You ever remember that one, right, golden Ring? 00:02:51.828 --> 00:02:54.032 And then it was D-I-V-R-C. 00:02:54.032 --> 00:02:58.384 So look at him. 00:02:58.384 --> 00:02:59.266 Look at George Jones. 00:02:59.266 --> 00:03:01.231 You can tell why they call him the possum, right? 00:03:01.231 --> 00:03:08.283 I mean, that man was ugly with a capital U, but he was rich and he could sing. 00:03:08.283 --> 00:03:09.768 So I guess that's all that matters. 00:03:10.569 --> 00:03:18.388 All right, now take a look at that group of signs there. 00:03:18.388 --> 00:03:19.570 This is just at random. 00:03:19.570 --> 00:03:23.530 I just Googled church sign and just started grabbing stuff to put up there. 00:03:23.530 --> 00:03:26.019 I just Googled church sign and just started grabbing stuff to put up there. 00:03:26.019 --> 00:03:46.731 Lots of different churches, lots of different churches, lots of places you could go Baptist church, community church, assembly of God, christian science, episcopal Catholic, mennonite I don't know what the evangelical free church is. 00:03:46.731 --> 00:03:48.115 I don't know what the Evangelical Free Church is. 00:03:48.115 --> 00:03:50.080 I don't know if you get stuff when you go there. 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:52.405 It's like every day is giveaway day. 00:03:52.405 --> 00:03:54.469 Get a jersey with the preacher's name on it. 00:03:54.469 --> 00:03:55.012 I don't know. 00:03:55.012 --> 00:04:11.407 I'm not sure what that is, but at the far top right there you'll see Farmington Church of Christ, and here's kind of where I want to go today. 00:04:11.500 --> 00:04:13.266 How did we get to be just one among many? 00:04:13.266 --> 00:04:20.149 Because that's the way that we're viewed and that's kind of the way that things have shaken out over the years. 00:04:20.149 --> 00:04:22.990 We're just another sign on the road. 00:04:22.990 --> 00:04:30.120 Who were just another sign on the road? 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:32.184 Unity lasts but a season. 00:04:32.184 --> 00:04:33.766 Remember we had talked about this last week. 00:04:33.766 --> 00:04:34.970 We had this unified church. 00:04:34.970 --> 00:04:39.701 They had some fractures, they had some stuff. 00:04:39.701 --> 00:04:50.050 They were able to kind of work out to get themselves together on the same page, but it didn't last together on the same page, but in the last and this is the split that we see in this movement. 00:04:50.050 --> 00:05:13.759 You've got the Christian church slash disciples of Christ and, by the way, this gets very confusing, very confusing Church of Christ slash disciples of Christ on the left, church of Christ in the middle, church of Christ Christian on the left, church of Christ in the middle, church of Christ Christian on the right. 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:21.519 And those are kind of the three things that we see coming out of this movement, which we'll talk about a little bit more here. 00:05:23.940 --> 00:05:30.800 So the Restoration Movement, as we've talked about before, did have some things they had in common regarding their foundation. 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:54.920 They had a set of ideals that they thought the reasonable people could agree on, maybe, and they believed that if you could get rid of human tradition, if you could sort all that stuff out and chop it off, get rid of it, you could replace that with the primitive faith of the apostles and everybody would be together. 00:05:54.920 --> 00:05:57.588 That was kind of the idea, right? 00:05:57.588 --> 00:06:25.867 It sounds so simple but like lots of things that are simple in theory, in practice it becomes much more difficult and perhaps becomes impossible, and that's what we're going to talk about today. 00:06:26.880 --> 00:06:27.903 Here are our slogans. 00:06:27.903 --> 00:06:29.509 This is the Restoration Slogans. 00:06:29.509 --> 00:06:34.069 There are more than these, and when I look these up, there are some more that I had never heard of before. 00:06:34.069 --> 00:06:36.920 But these four I think we've been around at all. 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:38.386 You've heard these before. 00:06:38.386 --> 00:06:43.017 Right, no creed, but the Bible. 00:06:43.017 --> 00:06:46.204 Right, no creed, but the Bible. 00:06:46.204 --> 00:06:48.350 Right In essentials. 00:06:48.350 --> 00:06:50.052 Unity In non-essentials. 00:06:50.052 --> 00:06:57.110 Liberty In all things. 00:06:57.110 --> 00:06:58.192 Charity, which means love. 00:06:58.192 --> 00:06:59.797 Do Bible things in Bible ways. 00:06:59.797 --> 00:07:02.127 Call Bible things by Bible names. 00:07:02.127 --> 00:07:07.896 Right, are any of these new to you? 00:07:07.896 --> 00:07:08.600 You've never heard before. 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:11.442 Where the scriptures speak, we speak. 00:07:11.442 --> 00:07:12.524 Where the scriptures are silent, we are silent. 00:07:12.524 --> 00:07:14.088 These were kind of the slogans, these were kind of the underlying. 00:07:14.088 --> 00:07:17.343 This was the way we were going to get to Christian unity. 00:07:17.343 --> 00:07:35.307 This was the idea, okay, and if we could practice these things consistently and agree on some other stuff, we probably could have Christian unity. 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:38.329 But the devil, as always, is in the details. 00:07:38.329 --> 00:07:46.009 What are the essentials that we are going to agree on? 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:49.545 What are the non-essentials? 00:07:49.545 --> 00:07:56.800 How much liberty am I willing to let you exercise before it becomes so uncomfortable for me? 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:58.185 I can't sit next to you anymore. 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:03.427 Where the scriptures speak, well, where do they speak? 00:08:03.427 --> 00:08:07.045 Where they're silent, we'll be silent. 00:08:07.045 --> 00:08:08.370 What does that mean? 00:08:08.370 --> 00:08:14.867 And I'm not saying this stuff. 00:08:14.867 --> 00:08:16.987 Look, lawyers screw up everything. 00:08:16.987 --> 00:08:18.826 I'll just say that right out loud. 00:08:18.826 --> 00:08:20.985 Okay, I'll say the quiet part out loud. 00:08:20.985 --> 00:08:21.427 That's true. 00:08:22.562 --> 00:08:24.173 You get lawyers involved in sports. 00:08:24.173 --> 00:08:25.860 You end up with what we have today. 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:29.869 Right, replay review in the NFL. 00:08:29.869 --> 00:08:30.470 What a mess. 00:08:30.470 --> 00:08:32.293 Who ever came up with that idea? 00:08:32.293 --> 00:08:36.975 Right, lawyers did Lawyers did Lawyers came up with that idea. 00:08:36.975 --> 00:08:41.347 And I can tell you that because when I hear the standard for a replay, it's all lawyer speak. 00:08:41.347 --> 00:08:43.480 If you're not an attorney, it doesn't. 00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:44.644 It just goes right over your head. 00:08:44.644 --> 00:08:46.609 I hear that stuff and I said this is all lawyer speak. 00:08:46.609 --> 00:08:49.001 Why, why would you let lawyers get involved in sports? 00:08:49.001 --> 00:08:49.883 They screw it all up. 00:08:49.883 --> 00:08:56.422 The game stops while lawyers go through and decide now does this play? 00:08:56.442 --> 00:08:58.126 Did he have full control of the ball? 00:08:58.126 --> 00:08:59.230 What does full control mean? 00:08:59.230 --> 00:09:01.062 Well, was there a bobble? 00:09:01.062 --> 00:09:04.048 Now, the ground cannot help the catch. 00:09:04.048 --> 00:09:06.874 However, the ball can touch the ground as long as he has full. 00:09:06.874 --> 00:09:09.609 Only lawyers could come up with that stuff. 00:09:09.609 --> 00:09:11.326 Right, just play the game. 00:09:14.681 --> 00:09:16.047 Did he make a football move? 00:09:16.047 --> 00:09:20.544 Right, that's a football move. 00:09:20.544 --> 00:09:24.085 Right, all right, trev, is that a football move? 00:09:24.085 --> 00:09:25.243 That's it? 00:09:25.243 --> 00:09:25.686 Okay. 00:09:25.686 --> 00:09:32.447 For me, a football move would say anybody need water. 00:09:32.447 --> 00:09:34.092 Anybody need water. 00:09:34.092 --> 00:09:36.166 That was my football move. 00:09:36.166 --> 00:09:37.149 Anybody need water. 00:09:37.149 --> 00:09:43.802 What's that? 00:09:43.802 --> 00:09:46.349 I was consistent in all sports. 00:09:46.349 --> 00:09:51.931 I'll put it that way I learned how to keep the book in baseball like nobody's business. 00:09:55.640 --> 00:09:57.849 This stuff all sounds real good and I love it. 00:09:57.849 --> 00:09:59.046 I think it's fantastic. 00:09:59.046 --> 00:10:02.129 The problem is it's hard to figure out what it all means. 00:10:02.129 --> 00:10:05.908 So what are the weaknesses of the Restoration Movement? 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:09.191 Well, first of all, the goal, I think, is fantastic. 00:10:09.191 --> 00:10:12.448 Let's be Christians, let's have unity. 00:10:12.448 --> 00:10:15.048 You could not have a better goal than that. 00:10:15.048 --> 00:10:18.748 But there's no defined means of getting there. 00:10:18.748 --> 00:10:19.825 How are we going to get there? 00:10:19.825 --> 00:10:23.950 Somebody's got to answer the questions that we have about these things. 00:10:23.950 --> 00:10:26.544 What does the Bible say? 00:10:26.544 --> 00:10:27.126 I don't know. 00:10:27.126 --> 00:10:34.408 Sometimes you know what the Bible is the simplest book in the world and it's also the most complex at the same time. 00:10:34.408 --> 00:10:47.765 So simple, even a caveman can read it right, but so complex you can study it all your life and never be done studying it, because there's so much to learn. 00:10:50.381 --> 00:10:52.148 What does a particular passage mean? 00:10:52.148 --> 00:11:00.548 And, quite frankly, most of the splits that we see are over debates about what particular passages mean. 00:11:00.548 --> 00:11:20.023 Now, there are always unreasonable people around, but the fact is, reasonable people can read the same words and come to different conclusions and have reasons for coming to those conclusions. 00:11:20.023 --> 00:11:26.080 Our problem is that somebody comes to a different conclusion. 00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:28.828 That is, quite frankly, reasonable, but I don't like it. 00:11:28.828 --> 00:11:35.630 Therefore, you are willfully doing it wrong, which leads to disunity. 00:11:35.630 --> 00:11:38.485 Which things are essential? 00:11:38.485 --> 00:11:39.789 Which things are non-essential? 00:11:39.789 --> 00:11:45.005 Who's going to make that decision? 00:11:45.005 --> 00:11:48.687 And how far does liberty extend? 00:11:48.687 --> 00:11:57.389 How far will you let me go in exercising my liberty in Christ Until you disagree with me? 00:11:57.389 --> 00:12:03.350 That's generally the answer, until I can't take it no more, which sometimes isn't very far. 00:12:03.350 --> 00:12:09.168 These are the questions that cause the split within the Restoration movement. 00:12:09.168 --> 00:12:14.107 Quite frankly, we'll get to the specifics. 00:12:14.107 --> 00:12:15.525 The pacifics, that's an ocean. 00:12:15.525 --> 00:12:18.109 Specifics, some point here. 00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:25.447 The basic, underlying problem is this how do you interpret the scriptures? 00:12:25.447 --> 00:12:27.783 How do you interpret this book? 00:12:27.783 --> 00:12:30.087 How do you read it Right? 00:12:30.087 --> 00:12:32.693 What is it? 00:12:32.693 --> 00:12:35.003 Well, just read it. 00:12:35.003 --> 00:12:35.826 It's very plain. 00:12:35.826 --> 00:12:36.849 Yeah, sort of. 00:12:36.849 --> 00:12:41.899 Do you read it as a set of rules? 00:12:41.899 --> 00:12:42.562 Yes. 00:12:42.562 --> 00:12:50.438 Do you read it as a general framework within which the church operates? 00:12:50.438 --> 00:12:59.071 Or are there some of both in there? 00:12:59.071 --> 00:13:02.138 How about this? 00:13:02.138 --> 00:13:03.671 Is silence permission? 00:13:04.325 --> 00:13:05.892 The Bible doesn't talk about a subject. 00:13:05.892 --> 00:13:06.970 Does that mean I can do it? 00:13:06.970 --> 00:13:10.015 Are examples in the Bible? 00:13:10.015 --> 00:13:10.369 Doesn't talk about a subject. 00:13:10.369 --> 00:13:10.706 Does that mean I can do it? 00:13:10.706 --> 00:13:11.823 Are examples in the Bible requirements? 00:13:11.823 --> 00:13:13.991 If I see an example, does that mean I have to do it? 00:13:13.991 --> 00:13:22.735 When you read a statement in the Bible, is it inclusive or exclusive meaning this is the only way to do it, there are no others. 00:13:22.735 --> 00:13:26.514 Or does it mean this is one way among many that you could choose to do it? 00:13:26.514 --> 00:13:43.304 How you answer those questions is going to determine how you answer the underlying issues that come up, because the split between churches generally has to do with differences of interpretation. 00:13:43.304 --> 00:13:50.897 A lot of folks will not even recognize that, and yet that is the core of why churches split. 00:13:56.206 --> 00:13:57.369 We talked about this before. 00:13:57.369 --> 00:14:06.017 Stone and Campbell did not agree on a lot of stuff, but they agreed to disagree about some things and so they, as you would say, papered over. 00:14:06.017 --> 00:14:08.491 I mean, we talked about how you get a crack in the wall. 00:14:08.491 --> 00:14:09.755 You know what are you going to do? 00:14:09.755 --> 00:14:11.753 Well, you paint it or paper it right. 00:14:11.753 --> 00:14:15.113 Or, if it's my house, you just don't do anything. 00:14:15.113 --> 00:14:21.994 Crack looks kind of nice there, you know, kind of like that crack, you know whatever. 00:14:21.994 --> 00:14:25.351 They just never resolved these issues. 00:14:25.351 --> 00:14:39.100 They said, okay, we're just going to agree to disagree, we're just not going to talk about them very much, we'll focus on the things that unify us okay and that works to a degree until something else happens to bring those differences to the forefront. 00:14:39.100 --> 00:14:44.049 Now, campbell unlike Stone. 00:14:47.655 --> 00:14:50.679 Forms and patterns were very important to Campbell. 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:55.556 He was a do-Bible-things-in-Bible-ways kind of guy. 00:14:55.556 --> 00:15:02.298 He was always looking for the right way to do things. 00:15:02.298 --> 00:15:05.793 This is the way that you do it. 00:15:05.793 --> 00:15:11.778 Stone was more interested in the why you do it than the way that you do it. 00:15:11.778 --> 00:15:13.884 Stone was more interested in the why you do it than the way that you do it. 00:15:13.884 --> 00:15:20.424 And Stone was or Campbell was very much interested in the physical elements of primitive Christianity. 00:15:20.424 --> 00:15:23.014 How did they do things in the first century? 00:15:23.014 --> 00:15:25.273 And that's the way we should do them today. 00:15:25.273 --> 00:15:26.844 That was his emphasis. 00:15:26.844 --> 00:15:30.119 Should do them today. 00:15:30.119 --> 00:15:30.740 That was his emphasis. 00:15:30.740 --> 00:15:34.980 And I think around here we are very much products of that Campbell belief system. 00:15:34.980 --> 00:15:39.115 We are very much interested in forms and patterns. 00:15:39.115 --> 00:15:40.671 That's how I grew up. 00:15:40.671 --> 00:15:43.558 I'm sorry. 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:49.065 Did Campbell get the notion that we should do things in the form and pattern of the early church? 00:15:49.065 --> 00:15:52.052 He was trying to get that somewhere from the scriptures. 00:15:52.052 --> 00:15:52.533 Was that his idea? 00:15:52.533 --> 00:15:53.557 It's all scriptural. 00:15:53.557 --> 00:15:56.605 It was scriptural to follow the practice of the early church. 00:15:56.605 --> 00:16:06.695 He believed that the only true unity could be found in the way that the early church did things Before you got all these other churches doing their own. 00:16:06.695 --> 00:16:12.138 Remember, they were very much against confessions of faith and creeds and all that stuff. 00:16:12.138 --> 00:16:15.475 So he believed early pattern was the only way to do it. 00:16:15.475 --> 00:16:22.317 The only true way to achieve unity is to think and do things exactly as they did it in the first century. 00:16:22.317 --> 00:16:26.470 He didn't necessarily have a verse that he could turn to and say this verse tells us to follow the pattern of the early church. 00:16:26.470 --> 00:16:28.014 I don't think so. 00:16:28.014 --> 00:16:29.673 I don't think so. 00:16:29.673 --> 00:16:30.403 I don't think so. 00:16:30.403 --> 00:16:32.152 I've not seen that anywhere. 00:16:32.152 --> 00:16:38.374 It was just his belief that the only way you're going to achieve unity is to go back to the first century and do it that way. 00:16:38.374 --> 00:16:42.546 That's what I have seen Now. 00:16:43.609 --> 00:16:53.114 Campbell provides a lot of structure for the church in his forms and patterns, beliefs, and because of that his side of the movement grows. 00:16:53.114 --> 00:16:57.543 Campbell provides a lot of structure for the church in his forms and patterns, beliefs, okay, and because of that his side of the movement grows. 00:16:57.543 --> 00:17:06.444 Stone's side decreases and Campbell becomes the dominant influence in much of the restoration movement. 00:17:06.444 --> 00:17:16.095 Now some questions start to arise, as they always do when you get a group of people together, there's always going to be questions about how are we going to do things right, and there are people who disagree with the way things are being done. 00:17:16.095 --> 00:17:25.673 As these differences start to arise, those unresolved differences between the stone side and the camel side start to come to the forefront, and now we've got to decide what we're going to do. 00:17:25.673 --> 00:17:36.353 These things that we didn't resolve before have got to be resolved if we're going to continue to be together. 00:17:36.353 --> 00:17:37.076 It's like being married, right? 00:17:37.076 --> 00:17:37.959 I mean, I'm obviously always right. 00:17:37.959 --> 00:17:39.845 It just took Mrs Freeman a little while to figure that out, of course, right? 00:17:39.845 --> 00:17:42.951 So she's got this sharp object back there with her. 00:17:42.951 --> 00:17:45.057 So I may sit up here for a second. 00:17:46.767 --> 00:17:51.027 And we tried to, you know, with Jason and Marnie, and with Brennan and Andrew too. 00:17:51.027 --> 00:17:54.141 You know there's certain things that we as a family have always done. 00:17:54.141 --> 00:17:55.445 It's just always been that way. 00:17:55.445 --> 00:18:01.481 But, as I've heard from Buddy, you make your own meatloaf, you know. 00:18:01.481 --> 00:18:05.551 Well, my mom makes the best meatloaf and you don't make it at all like my mom. 00:18:05.551 --> 00:18:07.297 Those are fighting words, you know. 00:18:07.297 --> 00:18:12.106 Don't make it at all like my mom. 00:18:12.106 --> 00:18:12.648 Those are fighting words. 00:18:12.648 --> 00:18:17.145 You know, you get your own traditions and we tried to tell our kids that, listen, mom and dad don't have kids at home anymore. 00:18:17.145 --> 00:18:17.867 We're flexible. 00:18:17.867 --> 00:18:19.752 Okay, you don't have to be here on Christmas Day. 00:18:19.752 --> 00:18:21.546 You guys do what you have to do. 00:18:21.546 --> 00:18:23.628 You know we'll try to find a way to get us all together. 00:18:23.628 --> 00:18:26.952 Same thing is true with these guys. 00:18:26.952 --> 00:18:32.820 You know how can we stay together as a church? 00:18:32.820 --> 00:18:46.590 Remember these slogans right In essentials, unity In non-essentials, liberty In all things, charity and love. 00:18:46.590 --> 00:18:47.133 How'd they do? 00:18:50.065 --> 00:18:58.834 Individual churches, individual individuals, started saying oh, no, no, no, you're wrong, I'm right, and I'll give you a book, chapter and verses why I'm right and you're wrong. 00:18:58.834 --> 00:19:08.771 And not only are you wrong, if you don't agree with me on what this scripture means, you are willfully wrong. 00:19:08.771 --> 00:19:12.451 You're going straight to eight G double toothpicks. 00:19:12.451 --> 00:19:13.515 You are on the road to perdition. 00:19:13.515 --> 00:19:19.738 My friend, I don't know if I can call you my brother anymore, and that's kind of where it got to. 00:19:19.738 --> 00:19:32.811 And it's a very short step from saying I disagree with you to you're willfully wrong to I don't want to have any fellowship with you anymore. 00:19:32.811 --> 00:19:33.935 I'm going to go my own way. 00:19:38.246 --> 00:19:57.877 And the sad thing is this what began as a movement to unify all Christian believers under the banner of Christians that we believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah by the 1840s and this is a short time later it starts breaking down. 00:19:57.877 --> 00:20:02.515 Very prideful disagreements, very bitter disagreements. 00:20:02.515 --> 00:20:07.517 Every issue you can imagine becomes a source of discontent. 00:20:07.517 --> 00:20:21.387 Now this is interesting In the restoration movement. 00:20:21.387 --> 00:20:23.698 Okay, we're going to get rid of man's traditions, right, we're going to replace it only with the Bible. 00:20:23.698 --> 00:20:24.582 That's all we're going to do. 00:20:24.582 --> 00:20:26.346 We're going to follow only the Bible. 00:20:28.692 --> 00:20:30.657 Let me ask you this question Are traditions bad? 00:20:30.657 --> 00:20:36.987 Are they? 00:20:36.987 --> 00:20:40.593 Are traditions bad, doug Frame? 00:20:40.593 --> 00:20:41.714 What's the answer? 00:20:41.714 --> 00:20:43.858 It just depends. 00:20:43.858 --> 00:20:46.307 He's well trained. 00:20:46.307 --> 00:20:49.557 Connor, give your dad a gold star back there. 00:20:53.046 --> 00:20:54.551 Traditions are very helpful. 00:20:54.551 --> 00:20:55.944 Traditions are very useful. 00:20:55.944 --> 00:21:07.872 Traditions provide sort of the skeleton on which your life lives right, they can be very useful. 00:21:07.872 --> 00:21:10.892 They provide cohesion. 00:21:10.892 --> 00:21:14.066 They provide a unifying force, right. 00:21:14.887 --> 00:21:19.965 How many of you opened your Christmas presents, or some of them on Christmas Eve growing up? 00:21:19.965 --> 00:21:23.791 Okay, some of you did. 00:21:23.791 --> 00:21:31.948 We were so poor, we didn't have Christmas Kidding, we were not allowed. 00:21:31.948 --> 00:21:36.836 There were some permissive parents at our church who allowed their kids to do that. 00:21:36.836 --> 00:21:37.477 We did not. 00:21:37.477 --> 00:21:39.259 We did not. 00:21:39.259 --> 00:21:42.768 We were not of that ilk. 00:21:42.768 --> 00:21:44.633 We did not do such things. 00:21:44.633 --> 00:21:46.538 That was their tradition. 00:21:46.538 --> 00:21:50.109 Their tradition was you open some the night before. 00:21:50.109 --> 00:21:50.750 Our tradition was. 00:21:50.750 --> 00:21:51.112 You don't do that. 00:21:51.112 --> 00:21:52.737 Which one was right and which one was wrong? 00:21:52.737 --> 00:21:56.949 What difference does it make? 00:21:56.949 --> 00:21:59.135 Right, I mean, who cares, you know? 00:21:59.135 --> 00:22:07.395 But people say that until they mess with your tradition, right, you mess with my tradition. 00:22:07.395 --> 00:22:09.038 And now we've got trouble, buddy. 00:22:12.105 --> 00:22:15.528 New traditions began to replace the old, discarded ones. 00:22:15.528 --> 00:22:21.512 Remember, we got rid of this human tradition, but we started to develop new traditions which we didn't even recognize as traditions. 00:22:21.512 --> 00:22:23.528 Those are the most dangerous. 00:22:23.528 --> 00:22:44.255 Traditions are neither good nor bad, but when we fail to recognize them as traditions and begin to think of them as something else now they become destructive and divisive and, as I said, as superheated, as if the belief in Christ was at issue. 00:22:44.255 --> 00:22:55.465 Right, an issue, right. 00:22:55.465 --> 00:23:00.738 People will argue to the point of coming to physical blows over traditions, when a true doctrinal issue they blow off and don't even think about, not even interested in it. 00:23:00.738 --> 00:23:06.586 But I will fight you tooth and nail about the tradition that I believe is every bit as important as belief in Christ. 00:23:06.586 --> 00:23:17.229 Consider the following this is from a book called Discovering Our Roots, which is a fantastic book. 00:23:17.229 --> 00:23:21.054 This is from pages 109 to 110. 00:23:21.054 --> 00:23:26.560 I'm just going to read this real quick, which I don't normally do, but some people will be following along online so I want to read this. 00:23:29.825 --> 00:23:34.182 After 1832, what happened in 1832? 00:23:34.182 --> 00:23:37.945 Do you remember Where's Debbie? 00:23:37.945 --> 00:23:38.528 She's not even here today. 00:23:38.528 --> 00:23:39.390 The Stone and Campbell movement united. 00:23:39.390 --> 00:23:41.457 Remember, we had the handshake, the famous handshake on the screen last week. 00:23:41.477 --> 00:23:48.054 After 1832, a subtle transition occurred the reality of radical freedom and this is what they believe. 00:23:48.054 --> 00:23:50.086 You have radical freedom in Christ. 00:23:50.086 --> 00:23:52.830 Right, you have freedom in Christ. 00:23:52.830 --> 00:23:57.619 I have liberty in Christ Slowly evolved into a rhetoric. 00:23:58.105 --> 00:23:58.747 What does that mean? 00:23:58.747 --> 00:24:00.230 Rhetoric of radical? 00:24:00.230 --> 00:24:02.537 Oh, we're talking about it but not really doing it. 00:24:02.537 --> 00:24:07.516 So real freedom becomes talking about it but not really doing it. 00:24:07.516 --> 00:24:13.545 So real freedom becomes talking about it but not really doing it. 00:24:13.545 --> 00:24:17.256 This obscured from the eyes of these Christians the very real dogmas, forms and structures that were developing in their midst. 00:24:18.164 --> 00:24:23.893 Put another way, their common sense perspective rendered their emerging traditions essentially invisible, at least to them. 00:24:23.893 --> 00:24:28.951 We're going to do Bible things in Bible ways, right, no creed, but the Bible. 00:24:28.951 --> 00:24:33.210 So everything we're doing must be Bible. 00:24:33.210 --> 00:24:34.532 Right, that's our creed. 00:24:34.532 --> 00:24:36.298 So whatever we do must be Bible. 00:24:36.298 --> 00:24:39.913 Even our traditions become Bible. 00:24:44.566 --> 00:24:46.549 When, on occasion, they recognize their traditions. 00:24:46.549 --> 00:24:48.513 However, they viewed them as essentially biblical. 00:24:48.513 --> 00:24:48.934 When, on occasion. 00:24:48.934 --> 00:24:49.615 They recognized their traditions. 00:24:49.615 --> 00:24:50.837 However, they viewed them as essentially biblical. 00:24:50.837 --> 00:24:55.326 They may be tradition, but it's all biblically based, right, it's all Bible. 00:24:55.326 --> 00:25:05.169 They're essentially biblical, primitive and apostolic and not in any sense traditions of a particular people in a particular time in a particular place. 00:25:05.169 --> 00:25:07.295 Right, this is a great example. 00:25:11.904 --> 00:25:13.048 This building is not first century. 00:25:13.048 --> 00:25:14.309 They didn't do it this way. 00:25:14.309 --> 00:25:15.913 They didn't do it this way. 00:25:15.913 --> 00:25:18.317 This building and these pews are catholic. 00:25:18.317 --> 00:25:20.107 This is the way the catholic church does it. 00:25:20.107 --> 00:25:22.314 This is where we got this from. 00:25:22.314 --> 00:25:32.332 I guarantee you, if we tore the building down and said we're going to do it in the first century way, the church would dissolve and people would go away angry Because that's not the way we do things. 00:25:32.332 --> 00:25:38.556 I could bring up lots more divisive ones, but I'm going to use a simple one. 00:25:38.556 --> 00:25:43.807 We don't see this as being. 00:25:43.807 --> 00:25:47.336 This is the way we do things in 2024 in Guernsey County. 00:25:47.336 --> 00:25:49.329 We think this is first century. 00:25:49.329 --> 00:25:50.635 Right, this is the way we do things in 2024 in Guernsey County. 00:25:50.635 --> 00:25:50.948 We think this is first century. 00:25:50.948 --> 00:25:52.138 Right, this is the primitive faith. 00:25:52.138 --> 00:25:59.856 Don't even realize this is all tradition, meeting like this. 00:25:59.856 --> 00:26:07.894 If we wanted to do it first century-wise, we're going to meet in each other's houses and we might meet in a public building, which they did sometimes too. 00:26:07.894 --> 00:26:12.375 We run out the gym at Meadowbrook, like New Point does. 00:26:12.375 --> 00:26:16.394 He ran out the gym at well, he did at Cambridge. 00:26:16.394 --> 00:26:17.528 I don't know if they still do or not. 00:26:17.528 --> 00:26:18.693 Is that still true? 00:26:18.693 --> 00:26:22.592 That's more first century than this. 00:26:22.592 --> 00:26:29.718 But I guarantee you, if we tried to get rid of this, which is total tradition, there would be an uproar. 00:26:29.718 --> 00:26:31.509 People would go crazy. 00:26:31.509 --> 00:26:33.029 That's what this is saying. 00:26:35.665 --> 00:26:38.994 Now, there were two things that really blew up the restoration movement. 00:26:38.994 --> 00:26:41.392 Two things, one of which we don't think about much today. 00:26:41.392 --> 00:26:44.554 It was really of no interest, which is fascinating to me. 00:26:44.554 --> 00:27:01.724 One of the two things that blew up that movement is something we don't even think about, don't even care about today the American Christian Missionary Society formed in Cincinnati in 1845, followed by the Sunday School and Tract Society. 00:27:01.724 --> 00:27:07.698 You guys, we had a tract rack at New Philly. 00:27:07.698 --> 00:27:10.573 I think they probably still do. 00:27:10.573 --> 00:27:12.030 It's been a little while since I've been there. 00:27:16.425 --> 00:27:19.894 I would tell you a funny story, but some people would probably be offended, so I won't do that. 00:27:19.894 --> 00:27:24.684 We have a joyless society today. 00:27:24.684 --> 00:27:25.750 I can't tell jokes. 00:27:25.750 --> 00:27:31.109 Let me ask you this question. 00:27:31.109 --> 00:27:32.307 Okay, let's do this. 00:27:32.307 --> 00:27:34.406 And if I have to continue this the next week. 00:27:34.406 --> 00:27:34.748 I will. 00:27:34.748 --> 00:27:35.209 I don't care. 00:27:35.209 --> 00:27:36.694 I'm the teacher, I can do whatever I want. 00:27:36.694 --> 00:27:44.970 It's good to be the king, right, it's good to be the king. 00:27:47.685 --> 00:27:49.252 Is Sunday school in the Bible? 00:27:49.252 --> 00:27:56.181 This is an easy one. 00:27:56.181 --> 00:27:57.513 This isn't even hard. 00:27:57.513 --> 00:27:59.814 This isn't even a, this isn't even slow. 00:27:59.814 --> 00:28:01.559 Pitch softball, this is tee ball. 00:28:01.559 --> 00:28:02.314 Okay, this is. 00:28:02.314 --> 00:28:06.980 Put the tee there and let the kid swing and hit the tee and pretend he hit the ball. 00:28:06.980 --> 00:28:09.756 Is it in the Bible, sam? 00:28:09.756 --> 00:28:11.435 No, it's nowhere. 00:28:15.830 --> 00:28:17.273 This was a source of division. 00:28:17.273 --> 00:28:25.718 Okay, tuesday class. 00:28:25.718 --> 00:28:34.396 Wednesday is the scriptural day for classes. 00:28:34.396 --> 00:28:41.786 Now listen, when I grew up, sunday morning, sunday night and Wednesday night, you had to go to all three, or you are not a faithful Christian. 00:28:41.786 --> 00:28:47.193 You're going straight to H-E. 00:28:47.193 --> 00:28:50.678 Double toothpicks Is Wednesday night in the Bible? 00:28:50.678 --> 00:28:52.721 Yes, it is. 00:28:52.721 --> 00:28:56.865 So is Monday, tuesday, thursday, friday, saturday in the Bible? 00:28:56.865 --> 00:28:58.653