Episode Information
- Date: 2026-02(Feb)-27(Fri)
- Number:
e0018 - Links:
- Episode: https://podcasts.coreyjmahler.com/2026/02/27-february-2026-qa/
- Transcript:
- Other Platforms:
- Original Broadcasts
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Topics Covered
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Dinosaurs.....one of Satan's tools?
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For the great races of men, is one (over and against the others) innately primed to receive The Gospel and to put on Christ? If the flesh profits a man nothing, how should the aforementioned race understand the endowed gifts in light of the purpose of God?
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How can something spiritual (like millennia of pagan idolatry) manifest in physical genetics over time? Are the two simply inseparable as we aren’t gnostics, obviously?
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On the matter of God’s omniscience and omnipresence: what is a good way to rectify that with the verses that at times in scripture indicate He is in a specific place (temple for example), or is petitioned and seems to change His mind, or seemed surprised?
Some examples of what I am wondering about:
* Genesis 11:5
* Genesis 18:20–21
* Exodus 32:9–14
* Mark 13:32 (This seems to indicate distinct knowledge between the members of the Trinity but omniscience is I think generally considered to be an attribute of God on the whole)::–::
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You said in “Election in View of Headship” that God doesn’t make anyone to damn them.
How doesnt that contradict Romans 9:22, “What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?”::–::
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What are the main scripture verses that contradict/disprove double predestination?
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Where do you place the value of house churches in comparison to denominational establishments?
And do you think with the growing number of denominational churches disqualifying themselves, are house churches going to trend upward in popularity?::–::
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Similarity to what we see with public schools verses home schooling as of late?
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Should my young daughters be covering their heads in church or is that just for wives?
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As the head of my household, how much of an opinion should my wife get when we are trying to pick a church to go to?
Here recently, I’ve been looking into some Lutheran churches as well as a Greek Orthodox Church.
It should be noted that me and my wife grew up as assemblies of God and Baptist.
When I presented these to my wife, she had a few complaints.- Both Lutheran and orthodox were to closely resembled to Catholicism.
- She doesn’t feel like she will have a personal relationship , nor will she be able to grow a personal relationship with God in those churches
- she also doesn’t think that our kids will be able to learn if there is not a separate Sunday school service tailored to the kids.
Any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
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Transcript
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It is the 27th of February, 2026.
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I am Corey J.
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Moller, and this is At Any Cost.
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Before I begin tonight, just, I guess, a little bit of almost housekeeping, but not really, just a question for those of you who are actually watching the video instead of just listening to the audio.
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I can take off these headphones here, speaking of which, since I’m no longer listening to anything.
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Do you care about the fact that I have a microphone and a boom arm obstructing part of the field of view?
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Because I do have lavalier mics I could use.
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They are marginally less good in terms of sound quality, but for anything like YouTube or streaming, I highly doubt it could be noticed by anyone.
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It’s really only noticeable on my end, listening to the raw audio.
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So anyway, if you care, comment in the comments and the replies.
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And I will consider that setup going forward, because I do have the hardware here.
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I just have not bothered to hook it up, partly because of that audio quality difference.
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But again, it’s not going to matter for streaming.
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So getting right into the questions, then.
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The first question is about the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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And then the second question is sort of tangentially related.
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And so I will go into greater depth about that specific aspect when I get to that.
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But to first read the question, should we believe anything about the Dead Sea Scrolls?
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Or are they unreliable?
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If they are reliable, do they provide any insight on the Septuagint or the Lost Original Hebrew Text?
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And so there are a number of things here that need to be drawn out of the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls first, and then are they reliable or not?
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The baseline answer is no, I would not rely on them for anything.
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But the reasoning is important, because just the bald answer isn’t really sufficient here.
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And so the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to a number of mostly fragmentary pieces of supposedly scripture and some other things found in various caves in what was part of the territory of Jordan, not the modern nation state of Israel at the time.
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That comes into play as well.
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The initial discovery was supposedly by a Bedouin who was just grazing his flocks in the area.
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He took a stone and tossed it into a cave.
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This is the narrative, they say.
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He took a stone, tossed it into a cave, heard pottery shattering, and went in to investigate.
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That should probably already raise some alarm bells, because it’s kind of odd that something would be that accessible and have been completely ignored for a period of centuries.
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But beyond that, the narrative changed over time.
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They were not always completely consistent about how it had been discovered, who had discovered it, who had been brought in to look at the materials after it had been discovered, and a lot of other things like that.
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So an inconsistency in the narrative does raise some questions, because something like this should have a consistent narrative.
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Yeah, I threw a stone, heard some pottery, I went and got my cousin who knows these things, and he came out and looked at it, and then you go from there.
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The narrative was not always consistent, it tended to evolve over time.
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And so part of it is you have that unreliable discoverer, and then part is you have subsequent individuals who were themselves also unreliable, and the narrative changed.
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Some of the men who were involved very early on were in fact antiquities dealers.
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For those who are familiar with this part of the world, alarm bells are already going off in your head.
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You know how Arab and Jewish antiquities dealers are, and how reliable they are.
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And the baseline for that is that they aren’t at all, because they’re usually trying to pass off forgeries.
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And so the early involvement of those men also raises some very severe questions.
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The part that I want to get into with the next question, because it’s tangentially related, is that these were dated using radiocarbon dating.
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That is unreliable.
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I will get into some of the specifics of that with the next question, because it is more directly related.
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But it is worth mentioning that some of the early dating by various individuals, including a number of Jewish scholars, incidentally, for whatever you want to value that, said that, no, these are medieval forgeries.
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These are not from whenever they’re supposedly claimed now.
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Usually, the oldest claim now is 250 BC.
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But the problem there is that if you’re relying on something that is itself unreliable to date them, well, I think we can all see the problem.
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The next part of this would be what I mentioned earlier.
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This was Jordanian territory at the time.
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And you should also bear in mind the timeline here.
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The first discovery was 1946.
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Kind of convenient for reasons that are very obvious to this audience.
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These subsequent discoveries were basically over the period of a decade, up through about 1956, in various caves in the same general region.
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But like I said, Jordanian territory, and I say it in the past tense, because it became territory controlled by the modern nation state of Israel, which is not Israel, in 1967, after the Six-Day War.
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And in fact, part of the argument that Israel used for saying they should have this territory and be allowed to keep it, is they said it had historical and religious ties to Israel.
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And they used the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of that justification.
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Again, highly suspect that they just so happened to find something in a region where they wanted to take that territory, and then use the thing they found as warrant for keeping that territory.
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On top of that, and this is going to sound familiar to some other historical things, many of them were not released to the public for 40 years after they were discovered.
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In fact, they were not made widely available until 1991, when the Huntington Library in California released copies basically of them, scans of all of these.
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And so, that raises some more red flags.
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If something is held for that long, that of this level of importance, why did you not release pictures at least to the public?
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Why did you not allow other experts to come in and look at these during this period of up to 40 years?
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Why did you hold them in secrecy and only let your hand-selected experts look at them?
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You can think, for instance, about the Gerber’s diaries that were held right after World War II by Russia until today.
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Only very recently were some scholars allowed to come in and look at them.
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I don’t consider them reliable because I consider the source.
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If the source holding this thing is itself hostile and has gated access in that way for this long period of time, and in fact both sources are known for forging documents and other things, you should probably be hesitant to rely on anything they are trying to sell you.
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As a tangent here, the Huntington Library in Los Angeles is very worth visiting, so if you happen to be in the area, if you happen to vacation there, that is worth at least half a day of your time.
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Great, beautiful grounds, lovely museum, all sorts of great artwork.
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Some of the memes that some of us know and love, the original artwork is actually in that museum.
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You’ll walk around a corner and walk right into it, so a bonus for those who have spent perhaps too much time on the Internet.
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But continuing on with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the relationship now to the Septuagint, the oldest dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls places the oldest ones in the collection at about 250 BC.
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The Septuagint was completed in 280.
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For those who don’t remember, BC is backwards, so the Septuagint is in fact older.
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So even if these were reliable, even if these were true, the Septuagint is still the older copy that we have on hand.
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And as we went over in the Septuagint series, God preserved his word in the Greek, he didn’t preserve his word in the Hebrew.
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Also worth mentioning here, not everything found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and this should also go to comments with regard to the timeline and other things like that, not everything was in Hebrew.
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And in fact, the things that were in Hebrew were not in ancient or biblical Hebrew, they were in a, not modern Hebrew, because modern Hebrew is a separate, totally separate thing, but in sort of the second temple Roman occupation period Hebrew, of the the sects that were out in the desert basically.
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So you had that Aramaic Greek, and in fact some Latin as well.
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But the Hebrew text, by and large, the majority of them were written in the Babylonian script, which is the same one that is used by modern Hebrew, not in the Paleo-Hebrew script, which is what would have been used originally for the original versions of scripture that are no longer extant, because God preserved his word in Greek.
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He did not need to use the Paleo-Hebrew anymore.
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And so most of them aren’t even in the Hebrew that would have been the relevant one for copies of scripture.
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There are some that are in the Paleo-Hebrew script, though.
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There are a few of those in there.
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But the fundamental problem is, you have something that is younger, still has all the problems Hebrew has.
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It’s an abjad, you don’t have the vowels, you need the vowels in order to…
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So on and so forth, right?
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Because you don’t have until the Masoretes are the one who gives you the vowel pointers.
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You have all these same problems we brought up in the Septuagint series with regard to Hebrew.
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Again, they’re younger, they come from an unreliable source, they were held in secrecy for years, even after they were discovered, supposedly.
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You have all the irregularities surrounding the discovery and the subsequent handling.
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I just don’t find them reliable at all.
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My baseline conclusion on them would be that at the absolute best, they’re a product of Jews going out in the desert and larping around the time that they were occupied and destroyed by the Romans, and they should be taken with a grain of salt and probably just ignored.
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Why would we use them?
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We have the Septuagint.
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Of what value are these documents?
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Maybe they’re of some value with regard to the groups that were out in the desert being weird and what they were doing.
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Okay, fine.
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Maybe it’s a document.
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It’s a narrative of what they were doing.
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But is it scripture?
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My basic answer is no.
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And so we should not rely on them.
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We shouldn’t use them.
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The people who bring them up generally know nothing about them.
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And I won’t say they’re doing it in bad faith, though, because I think generally the people who know almost nothing about them hear Dead Sea Scrolls and think that’s proof that scripture is really old and we can rely on it.
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They just don’t know the reality.
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They don’t know that, no, the Greek is older, and we have the Greek, and God preserved his word in the Greek.
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If they knew the reality in the actual history, I think they’d be happier to have the Greek.
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Not least of all, because Greek’s actually a proper language, and Hebrew’s awful.
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But that’s the basic answer to, in the history for the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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And now the second question, where you’ll see why radiometric, radiocarbon dating, really radiometric, not specifically radiocarbon here, is more relevant.
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Do you believe that dinosaurs ever roamed the earth, or do you believe that God created dinosaurs, bones, fossils, etc., due to creating the earth with age?
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Which I’ve explained in an article, and I will make a little note to myself to add that article in the show notes.
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Do you think dinosaurs are a tool that Satan may be using to get people to doubt that God created the earth in six literal days?
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Do you think believing that dinosaurs once roamed the earth can be problematic?
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And so obviously, radiometric dating comes up here.
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The baseline answer here is that yes, I think dinosaurs were real.
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And in fact, we have recovered some corpses from dinosaurs that were weirdly fresh if they are extremely old.
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Notably, those have typically been the sea-dwelling ones.
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Kind of obvious why perhaps some of those could have survived after the flood.
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God didn’t kill all the fish, which is something people tend to overlook in the flood narrative.
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God killed all life on the earth and in the air.
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He didn’t kill all the fish.
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And so anything in the ocean could very well have survived because it was not part of the judgment that was the flood.
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But the basic answer is that yes, dinosaurs did exist.
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A great deal of the stuff regarding sediment layers and things like that is explained by the flood.
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And there are men who have gone into the physics and all those things, the geology of that in greater depth than I’m going to here.
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I’m not as familiar with geology in that field, so it’s better if other men more versed in it do that.
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But the flood does explain these things.
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There’s some very good books that do that.
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I don’t know that I have my shelves in here.
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I have to look up those titles.
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But the fundamental problem, as I already mentioned, is that radiometric dating is unreliable.
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And that’s where you wind up getting this narrative of, you know, the dinosaurs were 65 million years ago, right?
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Or depending on which particular period and which dinosaurs.
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You get people who are really into it and love to say, no, that dinosaur can’t be in this film with that one because they were 10 million years apart, right?
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Stuff like that.
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The issue is that men are going to use whatever they are handed from whatever source, if they don’t want to believe in God, they’re going to use these things as an excuse.
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And dinosaurs become an excuse for men when they aren’t really a proper excuse.
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And so, you’ll have Christians who try to reconcile it and try to say, oh, well, we’ll go with, you know, God created the earth over time using these methods, and so, it’s an old earth in the sense of an old earth chronologically, not in terms of how it was created, which is the distinction I’ve drawn, and I’ll again link that article.
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I recommend reading that for that distinction.
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God made the earth mature.
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The short version of that is just God didn’t put Adam in the garden as a zygote, or an infant, or a five-year-old.
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Adam was a fully mature man in the garden.
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God made him old.
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He did the same thing with the earth.
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God didn’t make a primordial earth that was covered in lava, and then wait for it to cool, and then bring life.
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But to go back to radiometric dating, the fundamental point here that I want to make, the biggest issue with it is that they assume the starting conditions.
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And for those who don’t know, a quick rundown of how radiometric dating works is that you have elements, and then you have isotopes of those elements.
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And so an element is basically determined by the number of protons in the nucleus.
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You have protons, neutrons, and then obviously the electron circling it.
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That’s the rough model.
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And isotopes are determined by the number of neutrons.
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Different number of neutrons, different isotope.
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And so what you can end up with is that some of these are not stable, which means they decay over time.
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These are what we call radioactive.
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These are the ones that we use for these dating practices, because we contend, in this time, I’m speaking as the scientist, of course, I don’t believe that this is accurate.
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We contend that we can not only predict the rate of decay, which is somewhat accurate.
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It’s one of those things that can be stochastically assessed, because it is not, in a sense, it’s not like a metronome, right?
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It’s not tick, tick, tick, tick.
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It doesn’t happen like that, but it happens with a statistical regularity that, given a large enough sample, you can basically say what has happened in the past.
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The fundamental problem is that you don’t know the starting ratio, and that you also can’t predict, in some cases, various things, cosmic rays, things like that, that can influence your results, particularly in talking large spans of time.
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Fundamentally unpredictable, absolutely no way to account for that.
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You can make a rough guess statistically, but a rough guess statistically over a course of millions of years is not accurate.
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And in fact, your error compounds.
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But if you don’t know the starting conditions, which are fundamentally unknowable, then you can’t actually know where you are in that line of decay.
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Let’s say the decay is absolutely predictable.
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We know that if you started with this percentage of carbon-14 in your sample, and you have this percentage today, then because we know the rate of decay, we know the amount of elapsed time.
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That’s all true.
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I’m fine with that.
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That is good enough.
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Statistically, we can rely upon it.
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You can’t know that starting condition.
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If you don’t know how much of it was in the sample proportionally at the beginning, then you can’t draw that out.
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You cannot figure out how much time has elapsed, because you don’t know the starting conditions.
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And yes, I know that they use all sorts of statistical models and assumptions and things to try to do that, but that’s the issue.
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They are assumptions.
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They are projections.
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They are not known facts, and so they’re not reliable.
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And this has been demonstrated, for instance, by sending samples off to a lab and getting it back dated 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 years ago.
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Radiocarbon dating is for relative things.
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It’s 58 to 65, I think, it is 1,000 years, supposedly.
00:18:10.980 → 00:18:15.500
For the rate of decay, it’s 5,700-ish for the half-life of carbon-14.
00:18:15.500 → 00:18:16.080
Don’t quote me on that.
00:18:16.080 → 00:18:17.540
I don’t remember the exact number.
00:18:17.540 → 00:18:18.460
I believe it’s right around there.
00:18:19.040 → 00:18:22.380
So 50-ish thousand years, give or take a little bit.
00:18:22.380 → 00:18:34.000
And they sent things off that were very recent, like garbage produced in the last 50 years, and it’s come back dated 5, 6, 7,000 years old.
00:18:34.000 → 00:18:34.780
That’s not great.
00:18:35.460 → 00:18:40.640
Now, a fudge factor of 5,000 years, if you’re dealing with 65 million, that’s not so bad.
00:18:40.640 → 00:18:45.740
But it’s a different kind of decay, and the fudge factor again compounds.
00:18:45.740 → 00:18:51.140
So you could be off by absolutely enormous numbers, and you have no way of knowing it.
00:18:51.140 → 00:18:53.580
So is it a useless tool?
00:18:53.580 → 00:19:00.760
I wouldn’t go that far, but is it a tool that is so reliable we can say this is definitively 60 million years old?
00:19:00.760 → 00:19:01.520
Absolutely not.
00:19:02.660 → 00:19:11.680
So the dating of dinosaurs is a fundamental unknown, because we do not have the tools to actually date it in that way.
00:19:11.680 → 00:19:14.920
We do have the bones in things, though, and those aren’t false, those are real.
00:19:14.920 → 00:19:16.320
We know what a bone looks like.
00:19:16.320 → 00:19:18.100
We know what happens when it calcifies.
00:19:18.100 → 00:19:22.400
We know what happens when you have these things in the ground, when it fossilizes.
00:19:22.400 → 00:19:24.960
We know those processes.
00:19:24.960 → 00:19:28.020
And so did these creatures exist?
00:19:28.020 → 00:19:29.820
Yes, certainly they did.
00:19:29.820 → 00:19:31.040
How much do we know about them?
00:19:32.060 → 00:19:37.860
That’s very debatable for almost all cases, because we’ve usually only recovered small fragments.
00:19:37.860 → 00:19:41.660
In some cases, we have full skeletons, so we know more about those.
00:19:41.660 → 00:19:47.720
But we’re relying again on projection and reconstruction.
00:19:47.720 → 00:19:55.680
Go look at the skeleton for some modern creatures and tell me that the people who’ve reconstructed dinosaurs would reconstruct those correctly.
00:19:55.680 → 00:20:05.360
A good example would be any number of, say, turtles, tortoises, the hippo, in particular, looks like a cyclops.
00:20:05.360 → 00:20:07.960
The skull of a hippo is very weird looking.
00:20:07.960 → 00:20:09.700
They would never reconstruct it correctly.
00:20:09.700 → 00:20:11.800
So do we know what the dinosaurs looked like?
00:20:11.800 → 00:20:13.640
I don’t think that we do.
00:20:13.640 → 00:20:18.740
For some, certainly, because some we have more of them, but for most of them, we don’t have very much.
00:20:18.740 → 00:20:21.980
This is an ongoing problem in this area of science.
00:20:21.980 → 00:20:32.760
For instance, some of the supposed missing links, they have one bone, and they reconstructed a whole creature, supposed ancestor of humanity, out of one bone.
00:20:32.760 → 00:20:38.780
The point that I’ve always made when that gets addressed, when someone brings that up and starts saying, no, we have a missing link, we know.
00:20:38.780 → 00:20:40.060
No, you don’t.
00:20:40.060 → 00:20:42.380
Look at the skeleton of the elephant man.
00:20:42.380 → 00:20:45.560
Tell me that science would reconstruct that correctly.
00:20:45.560 → 00:20:50.720
They wouldn’t, because they just, they fundamentally would not know, right?
00:20:53.300 → 00:21:07.420
So, the issue that we have with dinosaurs is that we don’t have enough of the material to reconstruct it, we don’t have the methods to reconstruct it, and we don’t have reliable date methods, dating methods.
00:21:07.420 → 00:21:10.260
So, are they a tool of Satan?
00:21:10.260 → 00:21:12.080
Not explicitly, but does he use them?
00:21:12.080 → 00:21:16.440
Absolutely, because he’ll use anything he can to try to deceive you.
00:21:16.440 → 00:21:19.020
That is just how he does things.
00:21:19.060 → 00:21:30.500
And so, the next question here, question three, I guess, sort of tangentially related, but not really in the same way.
00:21:30.500 → 00:21:41.180
I believe that you have mentioned that the left stole the issue of the environment from the right, but that whenever they try to help the environment, they always end up making things worse.
00:21:41.180 → 00:21:44.420
I was wondering if you could expound on this point.
00:21:44.420 → 00:21:49.440
Do you believe the left may also be using environmental issues for political purposes?
00:21:49.440 → 00:21:57.780
For example, I believe the left is using the notion of man-made global warming as a massive wealth transfer and a way to hurt white people economically.
00:21:57.780 → 00:22:04.060
At least for me, a less clear-cut, no-pun intended example is microplastics.
00:22:04.060 → 00:22:13.840
There have been several studies claiming that humans ingest microplastics from the environment —eyes are watering a little bit because I tried to suppress a sneeze there— which cause health damage.
00:22:14.180 → 00:22:19.900
Other studies have recently shown that these original studies likely contained several false positives.
00:22:19.900 → 00:22:25.420
Is there any harm in taking precautions, for example, using wooden cutting boards, in light of such studies?
00:22:25.420 → 00:22:33.940
How are we to discern which environmental issues are legitimate, and which ones are used by the left for political purposes?
00:22:33.940 → 00:22:39.380
So the issue here is that yes, absolutely, these things are used by the left for political purposes.
00:22:39.380 → 00:22:42.740
Particularly global warming is one that has been used by the left for.
00:22:43.600 → 00:22:47.320
Like you said, a wealth transfer, that is exactly how it’s been used.
00:22:47.340 → 00:22:50.780
Climate change is real.
00:22:50.780 → 00:22:54.260
Anthropogenic climate change is not.
00:22:54.260 → 00:22:55.740
That’s the contention here.
00:22:55.740 → 00:23:02.220
They contend that human, which is that’s all anthropogenic means, is human originated, human caused, right?
00:23:02.220 → 00:23:06.140
Anthropos, human, gen, source, seed.
00:23:07.380 → 00:23:13.020
So they’re saying that climate change is a role of human activities, and that’s simply not true.
00:23:13.020 → 00:23:19.620
Our activities are not of such a scope and scale that we have changed the global climate.
00:23:19.620 → 00:23:22.380
Now, have we changed the global environment?
00:23:22.380 → 00:23:23.300
Absolutely yes.
00:23:23.300 → 00:23:26.860
We have done some rather bad things to the environment in many places.
00:23:26.860 → 00:23:31.940
China’s fishing fleet is a great example currently, basically killing the oceans.
00:23:31.940 → 00:23:36.520
So it is possible for human beings to cause damage on a global scale.
00:23:37.380 → 00:23:44.960
I don’t believe that what we have done with regard to the atmosphere has actually changed the climate of the planet.
00:23:44.960 → 00:23:46.760
I disagree with that.
00:23:46.760 → 00:24:00.360
Does that mean that we shouldn’t take measures that are good for the atmosphere, like for instance, banning CFCs, which did have negative consequences for the ozone layer?
00:24:00.360 → 00:24:01.760
No, I think that’s a good measure.
00:24:01.760 → 00:24:04.220
We’re supposed to be good stewards of the environment.
00:24:04.880 → 00:24:12.920
And so, we shouldn’t just reflexively disagree with everything the left says about the environment, because every now and then, they’re right.
00:24:12.920 → 00:24:18.940
You know, if they’re out there saying that we shouldn’t be littering, we don’t disagree and start littering because we don’t like the left.
00:24:18.940 → 00:24:20.140
That’s stupid.
00:24:20.140 → 00:24:25.020
That would be at least as stupid as the left is on these issues, because they’ll do things because they just hate the right.
00:24:25.020 → 00:24:28.600
So they’ll do something because, oh, the right does the opposite, right?
00:24:28.600 → 00:24:29.360
We shouldn’t do that.
00:24:30.400 → 00:24:42.240
But insofar as the environmental issues are concerned, and how do you determine which issues are fake versus which ones are real?
00:24:42.240 → 00:24:48.400
Which ones are being used as a political cudgel instead of as an actual concern?
00:24:48.400 → 00:24:52.060
The left is always going to use things as a political cudgel because that’s just how…
00:24:52.060 → 00:24:53.120
Everything for them is politics.
00:24:53.120 → 00:24:54.140
I’ve explained this before.
00:24:54.140 → 00:24:56.280
Their whole life is politics.
00:24:56.280 → 00:25:01.420
They don’t have things that are more important to them than politics.
00:25:01.420 → 00:25:03.220
Politics is their world view.
00:25:03.220 → 00:25:05.000
Politics is their religion.
00:25:05.000 → 00:25:08.240
Politics is their reason for living.
00:25:08.240 → 00:25:14.600
And so they’re going to treat these things as a knife fight in a bar, right?
00:25:14.600 → 00:25:16.720
Absolutely anything is a weapon to them.
00:25:16.720 → 00:25:21.140
So do not use them as your index of morality.
00:25:21.140 → 00:25:24.380
Now, you can take cues from them, signals from them, right?
00:25:24.380 → 00:25:26.960
If they support something, be skeptical, that’s fine.
00:25:27.920 → 00:25:32.840
But the fundamental answer, the baseline answer, is look at the data.
00:25:32.840 → 00:25:36.680
Look at the things that are incontrovertibly true.
00:25:36.680 → 00:25:39.180
And so can you play games with statistics?
00:25:39.180 → 00:25:40.740
Absolutely.
00:25:40.740 → 00:25:52.360
But if you have the ability, this is one of those that’s going to depend personally on you, but if you have the ability to look at their data and run the analysis yourself, do that.
00:25:52.360 → 00:25:56.460
Look at their data, see if their data support their conclusions.
00:25:57.060 → 00:26:00.240
If not, go ahead and reject it.
00:26:00.240 → 00:26:04.940
These days, sure, you can run some things through an AI.
00:26:04.940 → 00:26:16.020
To what degree you trust the AI not to have been programmed to give you a specific answer on a politically controversial issue, but run it through three, four different AIs, see if they all agree.
00:26:16.020 → 00:26:20.880
Maybe that helps a little bit if you don’t know how to run the analysis yourself, or find someone who does.
00:26:20.880 → 00:26:28.600
If you have someone you trust who is good at statistics, have him run the analysis and then use that to draw your conclusion.
00:26:30.080 → 00:26:38.060
But to address the specific issue here, other than, of course, manmade climate change, which I just addressed, microplastics are an issue.
00:26:38.060 → 00:26:40.880
I think that is incontrovertibly proven at this point.
00:26:40.880 → 00:26:50.920
I don’t think really anyone with any actual credentials and believability has said they are not a real concern.
00:26:51.820 → 00:27:01.380
And one of the horrible things is that we actually can’t run sort of the usual experiment we would, because usually you need control, right?
00:27:01.380 → 00:27:16.820
If you’re running a drug trial, say for instance, you have one group you give a placebo, you don’t tell them because then placebo effect, and it winds up getting complicated, but you try to do a double blind, which just means that neither the individual receiving it nor the individual administering it knows, right?
00:27:16.820 → 00:27:26.740
But you have a group that’s given the drug, a group that’s not given the drug, and then you compare the results, and you run that a number of times, you randomize things, you have all these safeguards in place.
00:27:27.760 → 00:27:41.120
Our issue, we obviously can’t run that experiment because that’s considered human experimentation and unethical, generally speaking, partly due to IRBs and things like that after Milgram and the Stanford Prison Experiment.
00:27:41.120 → 00:27:51.040
But we can’t find a group of men anywhere in the world who do not have microplastics in their blood and elsewhere.
00:27:51.040 → 00:27:55.920
We can’t even run the experiment because we don’t have a control group.
00:27:55.920 → 00:28:00.440
Now, of course, we can look at magnitude of harm because we can look at people who have more microplastics.
00:28:00.440 → 00:28:08.000
So the people who are warming things in plastic and then drinking them, those men are going to have more microplastics.
00:28:08.000 → 00:28:18.040
So if you’re a tea drinker, for instance, I don’t have my tea tonight, I have coffee, but if you’re a tea drinker, please do not use plastic for anything in the process.
00:28:18.040 → 00:28:20.220
Heat your water in something metal.
00:28:20.220 → 00:28:29.860
Drink your tea from something that is made of ceramic or glass, or mine is Pyrex, it’s glass, so do not involve heat in plastic.
00:28:29.860 → 00:28:36.140
That is a great way to introduce as many microplastics into your blood as you possibly can.
00:28:36.140 → 00:28:38.060
Not great.
00:28:38.060 → 00:28:40.060
Don’t drink water out of plastic water bottles.
00:28:40.060 → 00:28:40.900
Those are terrible.
00:28:41.200 → 00:28:44.540
Not just for you, for the environment as well.
00:28:44.540 → 00:28:46.240
Single-use plastics are not a good thing.
00:28:46.240 → 00:28:49.680
We should be trying to avoid those where we can.
00:28:49.680 → 00:28:52.960
This is not a leftist issue where tree-hugging not…
00:28:52.960 → 00:29:00.380
Which, quite frankly, that even is almost an insult, because saying someone cares about trees should be something with which we agree.
00:29:00.380 → 00:29:01.580
That should be a right-wing issue.
00:29:01.580 → 00:29:13.240
We care about the forests and preservation of the environment and the green areas and making environments that are fit for human habitation, not just for cockroaches living in 15-story buildings, right?
00:29:13.240 → 00:29:20.000
But microplastics are decidedly an issue, and they are endocrine disruptors.
00:29:20.000 → 00:29:23.000
We know that for an absolute certainty.
00:29:23.000 → 00:29:27.640
And so they do cause problems, not just for human beings, for other animals as well.
00:29:27.640 → 00:29:29.100
They’re particularly bad for fish.
00:29:29.100 → 00:29:35.940
Fish and amphibians are very vulnerable to environmental pollutants in a way that some other animals are not.
00:29:36.980 → 00:29:42.180
Of course, there is the issue of concentration, as you go up the trophic levels, and humans are pretty high up.
00:29:42.180 → 00:29:53.360
So predators can wind up getting very high concentrations of certain pollutants that are in the environment, and have greater negative consequences because of that concentration effect.
00:29:55.500 → 00:29:59.700
So, yes, we have a very real problem with regard to microplastics.
00:29:59.700 → 00:30:03.480
If you can avoid them by all means, do avoid them where you can.
00:30:04.800 → 00:30:07.120
You can’t avoid them completely.
00:30:07.120 → 00:30:09.580
Because let’s say you don’t use any in your kitchen.
00:30:09.580 → 00:30:12.040
All of your food was still shipped using plastic.
00:30:12.040 → 00:30:13.920
It was processed using plastic.
00:30:13.920 → 00:30:22.380
Unless you’re growing absolutely everything at home, and it never has any inputs from anywhere else, and even then, it’s in the soil.
00:30:22.380 → 00:30:25.780
So it’s one of the things where you do what you can.
00:30:25.780 → 00:30:27.320
Don’t become neurotic about it.
00:30:27.320 → 00:30:28.480
Don’t let it control your life.
00:30:28.480 → 00:30:38.720
Don’t become someone who is so crazy about the idea of plastic that, you know, you would have to retreat to the woods and live in a wood cabin, and even then, can’t really avoid it.
00:30:38.720 → 00:30:43.840
So the thing that you mentioned, absolutely, that’s completely reasonable.
00:30:43.840 → 00:30:47.480
And that’s not just because the cutting board is what I’m speaking of here.
00:30:47.480 → 00:30:50.180
That’s not just because wooden cutting boards are better.
00:30:50.180 → 00:30:53.300
They’re better in terms of bacteria and things like that.
00:30:53.300 → 00:30:54.800
They’re actually better than plastic.
00:30:54.800 → 00:30:56.900
That’s been clearly demonstrated now.
00:30:56.900 → 00:30:58.780
They’re also better for your knives.
00:30:58.780 → 00:30:59.900
Plastic’s terrible on your knife.
00:30:59.900 → 00:31:03.500
You’re just gonna wear out your knife and wind up cutting with a dull knife, and that’s dangerous.
00:31:03.500 → 00:31:05.280
Keep your kitchen knives sharp.
00:31:05.280 → 00:31:07.880
As best as you can, keep them sharp.
00:31:07.880 → 00:31:09.300
Excuse me.
00:31:09.300 → 00:31:15.060
But definitely go for the wooden cutting board, or if you’re so inclined, you can go for the glass or the steel, right?
00:31:15.060 → 00:31:19.340
But for the sake of your knives, wood is probably the way to go.
00:31:21.220 → 00:31:29.220
But the overall issue of how do we discern what is real and what is not is that we look at it for ourselves.
00:31:29.340 → 00:31:34.140
We trust men on our side who have the competence to look at the issues.
00:31:34.140 → 00:31:40.080
And we use what our enemies say, particularly the left on environmental issues.
00:31:40.080 → 00:31:41.540
We use it as a signal.
00:31:41.540 → 00:31:44.960
It’s not irrelevant, but it’s not decisive.
00:31:44.960 → 00:31:48.860
Just because they advocate for it doesn’t mean it’s bad.
00:31:48.860 → 00:31:52.400
Just because they advocate against it doesn’t mean it’s good.
00:31:52.400 → 00:31:55.000
But it can be a strong signal.
00:31:55.000 → 00:32:01.080
So maybe part of it is you’re just looking at the general standard when you’re looking at anything in politics.
00:32:01.080 → 00:32:03.800
Cui Bono, who benefits, right?
00:32:03.800 → 00:32:05.940
Who benefits from this?
00:32:05.940 → 00:32:21.900
If the only people who are benefiting from a policy are special interests that are aligned with the politicians enacting it, so say wind power or solar power, probably be a little bit hesitant, a bit skeptical of those projects.
00:32:21.900 → 00:32:23.860
I don’t think solar power is bad.
00:32:23.860 → 00:32:24.960
I think it’s overhyped.
00:32:24.960 → 00:32:26.820
I don’t think it’s ready for mainstream deployment.
00:32:27.340 → 00:32:34.420
Wind power has severe negative consequences, particularly for birds and bats, and so I think it should generally be avoided.
00:32:34.420 → 00:32:42.440
Also, it’s an eyesore, and the return on investment period is so long that many of those will simply never see a return on their investment.
00:32:42.440 → 00:32:45.740
So things like that, you can definitely discern.
00:32:45.740 → 00:32:48.080
These are just pork barrel.
00:32:48.080 → 00:32:53.520
In some cases, pork barrel, in some cases, a wealth transfer, because sometimes we’re funding those things in other parts of the world.
00:32:54.620 → 00:32:59.280
But another rule of thumb, when it comes to environmental issues, this is one I’ve long employed.
00:32:59.280 → 00:33:10.680
If you are dealing with someone who talks about environmental issues, but never critiques China, India, various other countries like that, the person is a political operative or a hack.
00:33:10.680 → 00:33:12.440
The person is not serious.
00:33:12.440 → 00:33:22.760
Because those countries are causing such a magnitude of harm in excess of what any Western country is doing, that unless you address what they are doing, you’re not serious.
00:33:23.860 → 00:33:25.140
You’re just anti-Western.
00:33:25.140 → 00:33:35.900
You’re just anti-modernity, which not in the negative sense of the cultural and social things, but in the sense of just, you want everyone to live in a mud hut without air conditioning.
00:33:35.900 → 00:33:39.080
And those people, you can ignore.
00:33:39.080 → 00:33:46.360
Again, it doesn’t mean the issues that they are raising are wrong, but it means that you don’t want to use that person as a strong signal.
00:33:46.360 → 00:33:57.100
This is a matter of wisdom, but you do have a lot of information at your fingertips, and you do have ways you can filter and process that to make an informed decision.
00:33:59.240 → 00:34:15.560
And I guess there’s also worth noting, if you have issues where the experiments themselves and the conclusions are physical, the conclusions follow necessarily from the data, that’s a little more reliable.
00:34:15.560 → 00:34:17.280
Microplastics will be one of those.
00:34:17.280 → 00:34:25.420
Like, we can measure the effects on the endocrine system of these microplastics, and that’s just math.
00:34:25.420 → 00:34:27.260
The math is not political.
00:34:27.260 → 00:34:29.720
Until you give it to a statistician, of course.
00:34:31.360 → 00:34:35.460
The next question, this is question number four.
00:34:35.460 → 00:34:39.540
I may have been ambitious with 13 questions, but we will see.
00:34:39.540 → 00:34:44.200
Question four is about culture and race.
00:34:44.200 → 00:34:48.220
Can you explain how culture is downstream from race?
00:34:49.400 → 00:35:01.660
This is one of those questions that, of course, is quite broad in scope, so I won’t get into everything here, but I’ll give sort of an outline of it, a basic answer.
00:35:01.660 → 00:35:09.540
You know, you could think of the classical problem posed about evil, right?
00:35:09.540 → 00:35:22.500
The question that particularly atheist, agnostic, smothers will pose, usually to Christians, but to most theists, they’ll pose the question of whence cometh evil, right?
00:35:22.500 → 00:35:25.140
What is the source of evil if God is the source of all things?
00:35:25.140 → 00:35:28.300
And I won’t get into that now, because the answer, of course, is free will.
00:35:28.300 → 00:35:33.200
I’ve got it in that previous episodes, but they think it’s a gotcha.
00:35:33.200 → 00:35:37.520
You can actually ask the same question here, and it is a legitimate question in this case.
00:35:37.520 → 00:35:40.780
Whence cometh culture, right?
00:35:40.780 → 00:35:48.360
If they want to say, usually this is the left, someone like that, that race has nothing to do with culture.
00:35:48.360 → 00:35:51.000
Okay, where did culture arise?
00:35:51.000 → 00:35:53.060
What caused culture?
00:35:53.060 → 00:35:55.660
What is the source of culture?
00:35:55.660 → 00:36:03.260
It has to be something innate, because culture is something constructed to some degree.
00:36:03.260 → 00:36:06.640
It’s not like skin color, right?
00:36:06.640 → 00:36:09.280
You don’t have to say, where’d skin color come from?
00:36:09.280 → 00:36:12.660
Because we didn’t invent skin color, we didn’t create skin color.
00:36:12.740 → 00:36:22.340
It’s not a social construct, because it is simply the phenotypical expression of the underlying genotypical reality.
00:36:22.340 → 00:36:26.040
It’s the expression outward of your DNA.
00:36:26.040 → 00:36:29.100
So that’s something that is concrete.
00:36:29.100 → 00:36:30.920
That’s something we don’t really have to explain.
00:36:30.920 → 00:36:39.140
The mechanism we may want to explain so that we understand how these things work, but culture is not like that.
00:36:39.140 → 00:36:42.080
Culture is, in a sense, metaphysical.
00:36:42.240 → 00:36:46.120
It is abstracted out a level from the physical.
00:36:46.120 → 00:36:48.120
Well, what is the basis then in the physical?
00:36:48.120 → 00:36:57.080
The basis is race, because your race is a lot of different things, but part of it is your set of dispositions.
00:36:57.080 → 00:37:02.160
The way that you are going to respond to certain things, the way you’re going to view certain things.
00:37:02.160 → 00:37:08.520
And we could mention things that are as trivial as, you know, Germans like sausage and beer, right?
00:37:08.520 → 00:37:09.220
That’s cultural.
00:37:10.300 → 00:37:15.560
But it has a partial basis also in your biology.
00:37:15.560 → 00:37:21.920
Germans have more of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol than East Asians.
00:37:21.920 → 00:37:28.660
Those cultures are going to have different interactions with alcohol because of that biological fact.
00:37:28.660 → 00:37:33.260
You can think of what happened to the Amerindians when they were introduced to alcohol.
00:37:33.260 → 00:37:34.640
They went off the rails.
00:37:34.640 → 00:37:39.200
Alcoholism swept through their populations and caused massive problems.
00:37:39.200 → 00:37:54.160
Because if they went drink for drink with a white man, the Amerindian would be under the table, and the white man would still be going, because they lack the enzyme to break down the alcohol, because they’re related to East Asian populations.
00:37:54.160 → 00:37:59.260
So culture is intimately linked to your biology.
00:37:59.260 → 00:38:03.820
The way that you interact with other men is going to be a matter of your disposition.
00:38:03.820 → 00:38:06.240
Your disposition has a basis in your biology.
00:38:07.040 → 00:38:18.400
That is going to be extrapolated out and built over a course of not just generations, but also a wide swath of the population, a large number of men.
00:38:18.400 → 00:38:23.540
All these connections built up, there’s some, is going to add up to culture.
00:38:23.540 → 00:38:26.340
There’s no other source you have for culture.
00:38:26.340 → 00:38:38.020
And so those who would argue for culture as some sort of nebulous thing that’s just sort of floating out there, and you can join it if you want, or leave it if you want.
00:38:38.020 → 00:38:42.100
What they’re always arguing for ultimately is magic soil.
00:38:42.100 → 00:38:45.520
They’re saying that if you just, instead of soil, they’re calling it culture, right?
00:38:45.520 → 00:38:56.660
If you just take this nebulous cloud of culture, and take this man and stick him in it, or take the culture and drop the cloud on him, suddenly he’ll be American, right?
00:38:56.660 → 00:38:57.920
Doesn’t matter what he was before.
00:38:57.920 → 00:39:02.220
He was Thai or Ugandan or something else, whatever he was before.
00:39:02.420 → 00:39:08.360
Now he’s American because you took the culture and suffused it into him.
00:39:08.360 → 00:39:10.540
Well, one, you can’t do that.
00:39:10.540 → 00:39:17.300
And two, that doesn’t change the fact that the culture had to come from somewhere.
00:39:17.300 → 00:39:28.520
So even if non-Western populations adopt some Western cultural practices, but certainly they do, look at the rest of the world, they dress in a Western style to a large degree these days, right?
00:39:28.520 → 00:39:30.060
Blue jeans are universal now.
00:39:31.420 → 00:39:40.900
Just because they’ve adopted some cultural practice doesn’t mean they could recreate the culture that created the practice.
00:39:42.680 → 00:39:50.260
It has become part of their culture, and that will change them over time, because I’m not going to say this is a one-way street, right?
00:39:50.260 → 00:40:12.980
This is a feedback loop, and it has to be a feedback loop, because otherwise it would not be propagated down through the generations, because your culture influences your genetics, because your culture influences sort of decisions that you make, which ultimately will influence marriage, child rearing, and things like that, which has genetic consequences.
00:40:12.980 → 00:40:18.700
This is actually tied into a question later in the episode that I believe I will get to.
00:40:18.700 → 00:40:29.820
So, your culture is produced by your biology, by your race, because the most salient biological reality for you is going to be your race.
00:40:29.820 → 00:40:40.100
Yes, of course, also your sex, your genetic sex, because there is no other form of it, but also your race, because you are fundamentally X.
00:40:40.100 → 00:40:41.840
Insert your race here.
00:40:41.840 → 00:40:46.600
You are fundamentally male, if you are male, and most of my audience is male.
00:40:46.600 → 00:40:48.960
But if you’re female, you’re fundamentally female.
00:40:48.960 → 00:40:59.040
That is something that you are essentially, and it is those things that are essential that can produce these things that are abstracted out that level, these metaphysical truths.
00:40:59.040 → 00:41:02.340
They have to have some sort of basis.
00:41:02.340 → 00:41:12.920
The only alternative would be that if you wanted to say, as a Christian, right, God created cultures as some sort of nebulous abstraction, then imposed them on people.
00:41:12.920 → 00:41:15.060
I don’t know how you’d build up that argument.
00:41:15.060 → 00:41:16.680
I don’t see it.
00:41:16.680 → 00:41:19.420
I don’t see it anywhere in scripture.
00:41:19.560 → 00:41:21.280
I don’t see it anywhere in history.
00:41:21.280 → 00:41:24.440
I don’t see any mechanism by which that would be done.
00:41:24.440 → 00:41:45.960
So, I think that culture is simply the natural product of various peoples over a course of generations, in some cases, thousands of years, entrenching and this cycling back and forth, this feedback loop that you have with your biology and your culture.
00:41:45.960 → 00:42:04.460
And so, ultimately, yes, it is the biology that produced the culture, but the culture influences the biology down through the years, which is why you can’t just take someone and train him up in a different culture and have him be part of that group, because he doesn’t have the basis for it.
00:42:04.460 → 00:42:11.740
If you want to look at it as sort of an analogy, look at it as hardware versus software, right?
00:42:11.800 → 00:42:14.440
Or maybe better, hardware versus firmware.
00:42:14.440 → 00:42:19.820
Because, right, software can kind of run on various different kinds of hardware fairly easily.
00:42:19.820 → 00:42:21.800
Firmware is specific.
00:42:21.800 → 00:42:26.820
Firmware runs on a specific kind of hardware because it’s designed for that hardware.
00:42:26.820 → 00:42:29.220
That’s sort of how culture and biology works.
00:42:29.220 → 00:42:33.300
Biology is the hardware, culture is the firmware.
00:42:33.300 → 00:42:39.420
Some of the higher level aspects of it can sort of be transferred, or trivial in some cases, like blue jeans, right?
00:42:39.420 → 00:42:45.780
It can be transferred from one group to another, and you can get that cross-pollination, as it were.
00:42:45.780 → 00:42:52.540
But the reality is that the production of the culture could not have occurred otherwise.
00:42:52.540 → 00:42:55.920
The Ugandans would never produce German culture.
00:42:55.920 → 00:43:02.000
The Germans would never produce Ugandan culture because it is a product of race.
00:43:02.000 → 00:43:06.260
And I think that’s basically the outline form of the argument.
00:43:07.380 → 00:43:10.720
I will probably go into that in greater depth at some point in the future.
00:43:10.720 → 00:43:12.680
I’ll make a note for myself.
00:43:13.760 → 00:43:19.500
But I think that’s sort of the outline, the skeletal way to look at this.
00:43:20.800 → 00:43:29.800
So the next question, question five, related to race.
00:43:29.800 → 00:43:38.380
For the great races of men, is one over and against the others innately primed to receive the gospel and to put on Christ.
00:43:38.380 → 00:43:49.320
If the flesh profits a man nothing, John 6, of course, how should the aforementioned race understand the endowed gifts in light of the purpose of God?
00:43:49.320 → 00:44:09.980
And so I will pull up that verse, but first I just want to comment that yes, the European race, the white race, is essentially primed to receive the gospel more readily, more thoroughly, more completely than anyone else on the planet.
00:44:09.980 → 00:44:12.520
There are a number of reasons for that.
00:44:12.520 → 00:44:24.200
Part of it is that our mythology never strayed as far from the truth as the mythology of other peoples, and so we had a lot of echoes of Christianity in European mythology.
00:44:24.200 → 00:44:28.720
It’s going to vary a bit, of course, between Nordic and Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, right?
00:44:28.720 → 00:44:31.340
These are not exactly identical mythologies.
00:44:32.820 → 00:44:45.120
But you have echoes of it in these mythologies that make it easier to convert European populations to Christianity than, say, African populations that are just outright worshipping demons.
00:44:45.120 → 00:44:55.140
Because for them, you have to say, everything you believe is wrong and, in fact, evil, and you have to completely abandon it and adopt this totally new system.
00:44:55.140 → 00:45:00.640
For Europeans, it was a little easier, because what’s the sales point there, right?
00:45:01.360 → 00:45:03.500
Some of the things you believe are wrong.
00:45:03.500 → 00:45:14.640
They’ve been corrupted over time, but you have these echoes, you have these commonalities, you have archetypal and typological relationships here.
00:45:14.640 → 00:45:17.900
It is an easier transition for Europeans.
00:45:17.900 → 00:45:21.300
And like I’ve said before, this is returning to the faith of our forefathers.
00:45:21.300 → 00:45:28.500
It’s the same for the Africans, because you could debate when exactly they fell off the wagon, if it was Ham himself or later on.
00:45:28.500 → 00:45:33.240
Ham was certainly not a great person, but maybe he had faith, maybe he didn’t.
00:45:33.240 → 00:45:37.460
I don’t know how, I don’t know if he died in Penitent or not, Scripture doesn’t say.
00:45:38.600 → 00:45:44.880
But that was the ancestral faith of everyone, because of course, everyone’s ancestor is Noah.
00:45:44.880 → 00:45:46.240
He is the father of us all.
00:45:46.240 → 00:45:50.080
And of course, all the way back to Adam, whose faith was also Christianity.
00:45:50.080 → 00:45:54.960
But it was easier for Europeans, because we had not strayed as far.
00:45:54.960 → 00:45:59.040
But I would also like to pull up John 6, like I said.
00:45:59.140 → 00:46:02.800
So let me pull up Logos here.
00:46:04.040 → 00:46:14.640
There’s also the fact that, while I’m pulling up Logos, just the biological reality that some things have requirements.
00:46:14.640 → 00:46:19.340
I could even tie this back into the mention of firmware versus hardware, right?
00:46:19.340 → 00:46:25.840
Certain firmware is only going to run at least well, in this case, maybe software, run well on certain hardware.
00:46:26.620 → 00:46:38.140
So, if you have someone who has an IQ of 85, you are going to have more trouble explaining a hypothetical to him than to someone with an IQ of 145.
00:46:39.340 → 00:46:47.400
The man with an IQ of 145, if you explain a hypothetical that has six different layers to it, he’s going to follow you and have no trouble.
00:46:47.400 → 00:46:52.140
He may have questions for you, he may want you to prove some things, but he will follow you.
00:46:52.920 → 00:46:58.360
The man with an IQ of 185 is going to get lost at step two at the absolute best.
00:46:58.360 → 00:46:59.540
That’s just the reality of it.
00:46:59.540 → 00:47:13.960
So we can’t say that there is no relevance with regard to the flesh, with regard to what we are when it comes to belief, when it comes to the scriptures, right?
00:47:13.960 → 00:47:15.660
Faith is always a gift.
00:47:15.660 → 00:47:25.040
And so that in and of itself, at that point, taking nothing else into consideration is just a gift from God.
00:47:25.040 → 00:47:26.500
God can give that to any man.
00:47:26.500 → 00:47:28.800
He can give that to a man with an IQ of 65.
00:47:28.800 → 00:47:31.980
He can give it to a man with an IQ of 165.
00:47:31.980 → 00:47:33.620
God’s not limited in that way.
00:47:33.620 → 00:47:39.220
But the man with an IQ of 65 will never be a theologian.
00:47:39.220 → 00:47:42.860
He is never going to be someone who teaches and defends the faith.
00:47:42.860 → 00:47:51.400
And so certain races are not going to produce men who can defend the faith and keep carrying it forward for their own people.
00:47:51.400 → 00:47:54.960
There are parts of the world that have an average IQ under 60.
00:47:54.960 → 00:48:03.780
They will never be able to maintain the Christian faith unless it is imposed by another group from outside and maintained by that other group.
00:48:03.780 → 00:48:05.860
That is a biological reality.
00:48:05.860 → 00:48:09.640
And so that is a reality of the flesh for those groups.
00:48:09.640 → 00:48:12.280
I think it’s 63.
00:48:12.340 → 00:48:19.820
Yes, and so John 6 63, it is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all.
00:48:19.820 → 00:48:21.680
What is that speaking about?
00:48:21.680 → 00:48:25.460
This is the same sort of issue that comes up with Galatians, right?
00:48:25.460 → 00:48:36.760
Everyone always likes to, not everyone, in our circles at least now, but on the other side, the enemies love to bring up, there’s neither Jew nor Greek, there’s neither slave nor free, there’s not male and female, right?
00:48:36.760 → 00:48:38.220
It’s talking about soteriology.
00:48:38.220 → 00:48:39.920
The same thing is true here.
00:48:39.920 → 00:48:40.920
The flesh won’t save you.
00:48:41.620 → 00:48:45.900
No one is ever going to say, well, no one should ever say, there are those who do, but they aren’t Christian.
00:48:45.900 → 00:48:50.160
No Christian is ever going to say that you are saved on account of your race.
00:48:50.160 → 00:48:51.960
That’s the Jewish position.
00:48:51.960 → 00:49:02.800
They believe, oh, I’m a son of Abraham, and so I am necessarily saved, because I am a descendant of Abraham, to which God says, I could make sons from these stones if I were so inclined, right?
00:49:03.880 → 00:49:06.440
You are not saved by your blood.
00:49:06.440 → 00:49:11.340
Does that mean it has no effect, no interface with your faith?
00:49:11.340 → 00:49:15.980
Of course not, because you are the one who is given the faith.
00:49:15.980 → 00:49:21.260
God didn’t give the faith to a stone or an automaton or something like that, right?
00:49:21.260 → 00:49:25.900
God gave the faith to a living flesh and blood human being.
00:49:25.900 → 00:49:40.060
And so necessarily, who and what you are, and your capacity, your abilities, your attributes, do have an interfaith, an interaction with your faith, with the Christian faith.
00:49:40.060 → 00:49:43.620
But ultimately, you’re not saved by your flesh.
00:49:43.620 → 00:49:45.740
You’re not saved by your blood.
00:49:45.740 → 00:49:46.880
You are saved by your faith.
00:49:46.880 → 00:49:50.120
That’s what it means here when it says, it is the spirit who gives life.
00:49:50.120 → 00:49:52.440
The flesh is no help at all.
00:49:52.440 → 00:49:57.400
And so the baseline is that, no, you’re not saved because you’re German or you’re American.
00:49:57.400 → 00:49:59.540
You’re not saved because you’re a son of Japheth.
00:50:00.320 → 00:50:09.900
You’re saved because you are given the free gift of faith by the spirit, by the means God has instituted to give you that faith, the word and the sacraments.
00:50:11.640 → 00:50:22.880
But with regard to preserving the faith, with regard to relaying the faith to others, which with regard to defending the faith against the world and the devil, absolutely, yes, the flesh matters.
00:50:22.880 → 00:50:24.420
And that verse says nothing to the contrary.
00:50:32.107 → 00:50:36.987
And I think I’ll pull up one more verse, actually, while we’re on this subject.
00:50:36.987 → 00:50:38.807
Incidentally, from Galatians.
00:50:43.327 → 00:50:45.787
So, Galatians 17, I typed it wrong.
00:50:51.062 → 00:50:55.422
For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.
00:50:55.422 → 00:50:59.982
For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
00:51:01.122 → 00:51:06.002
This starts to raise the question of what is original sin, what is the nature of original sin.
00:51:06.002 → 00:51:12.702
Incidentally, it’s the part of the Book of Concord that I’ve been reading for the Daily Devotion, so I also have it on my mind.
00:51:12.702 → 00:51:24.262
But this is not saying that the flesh period is operating against God, because that would be Gnosticism, and we’re not Gnostics, right?
00:51:24.262 → 00:51:36.682
And then, of course, it wouldn’t make any sense with regard to the resurrection, because we believe in the resurrection of the body, or as it says, the flesh in many of the translations, including in the Greek.
00:51:36.682 → 00:51:48.202
And so, if you were saying that the flesh is wicked, and then God raises the flesh on the last day, you would be saying that God raises sin.
00:51:48.202 → 00:51:49.882
Well, that can’t exist, that can’t be a thing.
00:51:50.562 → 00:51:52.862
That would be heresy, that would be blasphemy.
00:51:52.862 → 00:51:56.262
And so, the flesh is not innately wicked, that’s not what’s being said here.
00:51:56.262 → 00:52:00.402
It’s saying the fallen flesh is wicked.
00:52:00.402 → 00:52:04.082
Because of course it is, the fallen flesh has original sin.
00:52:04.082 → 00:52:06.402
The fallen flesh is tainted.
00:52:06.402 → 00:52:13.962
It is not that original sin is our essence, but it is a corruption of our essence, a corruption of the flesh.
00:52:13.962 → 00:52:19.842
And so, the same thing is true in the previous passage we read, as what is being said here.
00:52:19.842 → 00:52:23.962
The fallen flesh is against the spirit, and the spirit is against the fallen flesh.
00:52:23.962 → 00:52:37.242
God will eventually restore us to unfallen, uncorrupt flesh, in which case it will no longer be contrary to the spirit, because it will obey us and do the things that we wanted to do, right?
00:52:37.242 → 00:52:42.922
That’s what’s part of what is being said here, and said in other places as well.
00:52:42.922 → 00:52:51.862
The fallen flesh wars against the things that you know in your mind and your spirit that you want to do, that you desire to do.
00:52:51.862 → 00:52:59.182
There are desires of the flesh that are contrary to what you, speaking in terms of your mind and your spirit, would prefer to do.
00:52:59.182 → 00:53:03.262
Because the fallen flesh has various desires that are going to pull you away from God.
00:53:03.262 → 00:53:07.582
And part of keeping the flesh under control is not giving in to those things.
00:53:10.342 → 00:53:12.202
I do see there are questions in the chat.
00:53:12.202 → 00:53:13.562
I will at least write those down.
00:53:13.562 → 00:53:19.982
I don’t know that I’ll get to them, because again, I have 13 questions, and I am not sure that I’m going to.
00:53:19.982 → 00:53:23.342
In fact, I’m pretty certain I will not get through all of them tonight.
00:53:24.482 → 00:53:27.582
The sixth question here.
00:53:27.582 → 00:53:33.702
How can something spiritual, like millennia of pagan idolatry, manifest in physical genetics over time?
00:53:33.702 → 00:53:37.142
Are the two simply inseparable as we are not Gnostics?
00:53:37.142 → 00:53:41.202
Obviously, that’s very much tied into the previous question.
00:53:41.202 → 00:53:43.022
Yes, of course, we are not Gnostics.
00:53:43.862 → 00:53:52.682
And let me look at my notes here to make sure I’m not going to want to pull up any scripture before I switch back to not having it on the screen here.
00:53:53.842 → 00:54:24.382
But this is one of those where it’s actually sort of dull or mundane, ultimately, because when you start talking about things like how demon worship is going to cause these longitudinal problems for a race, for a population, people start thinking of, like, Satan directly involving himself and doing something to these people and start thinking of things that are basically almost magic.
00:54:24.382 → 00:54:25.202
That’s not how it works.
00:54:25.202 → 00:54:26.622
It’s very mundane.
00:54:26.622 → 00:54:31.702
It’s, like I said, practically, it’s disgusting, but it’s practically boring.
00:54:31.702 → 00:54:37.262
Look at the list of sins in the Old Testament in which the Canaanites engaged.
00:54:37.982 → 00:54:46.062
Look at the sins that God said, these are the reasons they are being vomited out of the land, to use the language of scripture.
00:54:46.062 → 00:54:48.622
These are the reasons they are being dispossessed.
00:54:49.942 → 00:54:52.162
Many of them are sexual sins.
00:54:52.162 → 00:54:56.302
And so, for instance, a lot of them were incest.
00:54:56.302 → 00:54:58.402
That was part of how they worshiped their gods.
00:54:58.402 → 00:55:01.302
It was part of just their cultural practices.
00:55:01.302 → 00:55:16.062
And so, well, what’s the consequence of that over a course of not actually that long, even just a course of a handful of generations, certainly over the course of a handful of centuries, you know, the wickedness of the Amorites is not complete, give them 400 years sort of thing.
00:55:17.182 → 00:55:24.942
If you do that for a period of centuries, you are going to have a very degenerate, in the biological sense, population.
00:55:24.942 → 00:55:27.962
You are going to have severe genetic problems.
00:55:27.962 → 00:55:31.462
One of those is going to be lowered intelligence.
00:55:31.462 → 00:55:35.082
One of those is going to be lower self-control, lower inhibition.
00:55:35.482 → 00:55:38.242
I’m going to close my window, because my dog is barking.
00:55:41.082 → 00:55:45.402
Apparently, Gizmo has something to say about something in the backyard.
00:55:45.402 → 00:55:58.822
But these various degenerations that happen over time are going to lead to the problems I just discussed with regard to the Christian faith and how it can be propagated in a population and defended.
00:55:58.822 → 00:56:08.802
So it’s not necessarily the case that the demon worship itself causes this biological corruption and degeneration.
00:56:08.802 → 00:56:15.342
Rather, it is the types of worship that the demons command that necessarily causes.
00:56:15.342 → 00:56:17.102
The demons know what’s going to happen.
00:56:17.102 → 00:56:18.922
They’re doing it intentionally.
00:56:18.922 → 00:56:20.822
And so that’s why you have these things.
00:56:20.822 → 00:56:22.502
And what else do you have?
00:56:22.502 → 00:56:27.022
You have the sacrifice of the firstborn.
00:56:27.022 → 00:56:29.062
Statistically, the firstborn is the most intelligent.
00:56:29.622 → 00:56:36.682
Well, what’s going to happen if you keep killing your most intelligent children, generation after generation after generation?
00:56:36.682 → 00:56:39.162
Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out, right?
00:56:39.162 → 00:56:45.602
If you shave off an IQ point every generation, not going to take very long before you can no longer count to ten.
00:56:45.602 → 00:56:48.982
So that’s all it is.
00:56:48.982 → 00:56:50.362
It is very mundane.
00:56:50.362 → 00:56:59.762
It’s just the consequences of biology and demons pushing a people to do things that are going to harm that biology over a course of generations.
00:56:59.762 → 00:57:06.202
So no sort of grand Satan involving himself in using magic to corrupt people.
00:57:06.202 → 00:57:10.022
It’s just the harsh reality of biology.
00:57:12.822 → 00:57:19.042
The seventh question, getting back into some scripture verses here.
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On the matter of God’s omniscience and omnipresence, what is a good way to rectify that with the verses that at times in scripture indicate he is in a specific place?
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The temple, for example.
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Or is petitioned and seems to change his mind, or seemed surprised?
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I’ll go ahead and read the full question before getting to the specifics.
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Some examples of what I am wondering about.
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Genesis 11.5, Genesis 18.20-21, Exodus 32.9-14, Mark 13.32.
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This seems to indicate distinct knowledge between the members of the Trinity, but omniscience is, I think, generally considered to be an attribute of God on the whole.
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So I will pull up those verses.
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Let me get Logos here.
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Use the floating window again.
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So part of the answer is that Scripture often speaks in ways that are comprehensible to human beings.
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Scripture has to do this, and in fact, all human beings have to do this.
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There are things that cannot be expressed in sort of an ultimate sense because they are beyond the understanding of men.
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You can think of course, Romans 6, I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.
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Scripture does this in a number of places.
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And so when God is spoken of as seemingly changing his mind, he’s not changing his mind.
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He is doing what he was always going to do, but God is able to take all things into account in eternity past, right?
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Because time is not linear for God.
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God is not greeting every new second as a new thing.
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Everything has happened, everything is done from the perspective of God, because time does not bind God.
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God is not bound in time.
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He created time.
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This is related to, I don’t personally object to say prayers for at least the recently deceased, because there are those who are going to say, well, they died, and then the judgment, and it’s over, and so you can’t…
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God is not bound by time.
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Does it matter if my grandfather died three days ago, and I pray for him now, versus if I prayed for him three days before he died?
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Maybe, because I think God probably does want you praying for these people before they die, but is there anything saying God can’t take your prayer into account after the fact?
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From our perspective after the fact, it’s not from his perspective.
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I don’t think there is.
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Don’t pray to the dead.
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I obviously object to that as a Lutheran.
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Perhaps I’ll get into that if I get to the question I have in the future here, but you can certainly pray for them.
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I don’t think that’s a problem.
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Don’t go praying for all of your ancestors back through time and become obsessed with it.
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That’s going to have other problems attendant to it, not the specific theological issue, but that becomes obsessive.
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To get to the specific verses here though, pull up Genesis, what is it?
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Genesis 11.5 first.
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Actually, I should pull that up in the Septuagint instead of in the ESV.
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And the Lord came down to see the city in the tower which the sons of men had built.
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This is one that I’ve, I know I’ve said it before, but I taught a class on Genesis.
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I have this in my Genesis notes.
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I like this one for a specific reason.
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It’s irony.
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This is God employing both irony and mockery.
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And so you could call it perhaps mocking irony, or ironic mockery.
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But what are they doing here?
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This is the Tower of Babel.
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Let us build a tower that will reach to the heavens.
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What does God say to them?
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Well, to see your little tower, I have to come down there.
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They’re building up to God, and God’s saying, I have to come down to look at you.
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He’s just mocking them.
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It’s irony.
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God doesn’t actually have to go down and look at the tower.
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God knows exactly what the tower looks like.
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God knows how tall the tower is.
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He knows the tower is never going to get out of the atmosphere, let alone reach heaven, which is not just up high in the sky.
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He’s mocking them.
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And this is similar to, not in the sense of the mockery, but in the sense of God already knowing the answer to the question before he asked the question, and this links in to Sodom and Gomorrah as well.
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But you have in the narrative of the fall, right?
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God says, Adam, where are you?
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And then he asks Adam, did you eat from the tree?
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Well, God knows he ate from the tree.
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God’s not asking him to get the answer.
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And an analogy that is often used here, and I think it’s a very good one, certainly for any parents, when you ask your toddler who ate the chocolate, and the chocolate is smeared all over his face, are you actually asking the question?
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You’re giving him a chance to admit to it.
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You’re not asking because you don’t know.
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God knew that Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit, and he knew it just as well as you know as a parent when the toddler has the chocolate smeared up one side of his face and down the other.
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That happens in a number of places in scripture.
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And go to the next one, Genesis 18, verse 20.
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This is, of course, Sodom and Gomorrah, like I mentioned.
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And so, in this narrative, then the Lord said, the outcry concerning Sodom and Gomorrah has been increased, and their sins are very great.
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So when I go down, I shall see whether they are perpetrating according to the outcry concerning them that is coming to me.
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But if not, that I may know.
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God already knows.
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He’s not going down there to see what they’re doing.
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He knows what they’re doing.
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Maybe they had a chance to repent here.
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The narrative does not really necessarily say one way or the other, but it is virtually always the case in scripture when God does something like this, or he sends a prophet, or whatever happens to be, the people have an opportunity to repent.
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The people of Sodom and Gomorrah chose to double down on their sins and do the most wicked thing they could think of doing.
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But they could have repented.
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They did not repent.
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That’s what God’s doing here.
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He’s not going down to find out what they’re doing.
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He knows what they’re doing.
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There are times where God chooses to interact with his creation in a certain way.
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Sometimes you have a theophany, sometimes a Christophany, sometimes the angels show up.
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Sometimes you have a prophet sent.
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Sometimes it’s a voice.
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God interacts with creation in different ways at different times.
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He knows the answer before he goes.
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He’s not going to be surprised by what he finds.
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It is speaking in a human way, and in some cases, like the previous one, of course, it’s mockery as well.
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Next one is Exodus 32.9.
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These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
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And now allow me, and enraged with anger against them, I will destroy them and make you into a great nation.
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This is the golden calf, of course.
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And Moses prayed before the Lord his God and said, Why, Lord, are you enraged with anger against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power and an uplifted arm?
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Lest the Egyptian should speak saying, with evil intent he led them out to kill them in the mountains, and to destroy them utterly from the earth, stop the anger of your rage, and be propitious at the wickedness of your people, remembering Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, your domestics, to whom you swore by yourself and spoke to them saying, I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the sky in number, and all this land that you said you would give to their seed, and they will possess it forever.
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And the Lord was propitiated concerning the harm that he said he would do to his people.
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Now, of course, I could just appeal to the Septuagint here and say that Moses’ prayer was sufficient.
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And so the question, though, is, did God change his mind?
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And the answer again is no.
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God knew what the people would do before they did it.
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God knew what he was going to say before he said it to Moses.
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God knew what Moses was going to do before he did it.
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God is doing what he was going to do all along, but God knew all of the things that were going to lead up to it.
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To give a trivial example, a lot of times interacting on social media, interacting particularly on X usually these days, there are times where I will tell someone, at the beginning of a discussion, we are going to get to a point where I am going to say this, and you are going to reply with this.
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And then it happens.
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That doesn’t mean that I changed my mind, if it is something where the person had a chance to change and didn’t, right?
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It doesn’t mean that I caused it to happen, as some will try to argue, because God’s foreknowledge caused it to happen, right?
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They try to say that.
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It just means that I saw what was going to happen in the future before it happened.
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In my case, it’s because I’m predicting it.
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In God’s case, it’s because he knows, right?
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So, God didn’t change his mind.
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It’s speaking in a human way, and it’s relaying a lesson.
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Prayer matters.
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Asking God for deliverance matters, because God listens to our prayers.
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He listens to our prayers in the sense of, he knows every prayer you’re ever going to pray before you pray it, but you still have to pray it.
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God isn’t bound in time, but you are, and so you respond to things as they happen.
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Cause and effect are binding on you, and so you still ask for forgiveness when you sin.
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God’s already forgiven you, because he knows all of the things that have happened and ever will happen, but you being bound in time, still do things in a sequence in time, cause and effect.
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And that’s exactly what’s happening here.
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Moses is the one interceding for his people, of course.
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And then, Mark 13, 32, I could just say it, because I know which one it is, but I’ll pull it up so I get the exact wording.
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But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
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This is, of course, speaking of the Second Coming.
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This gets into a relatively complicated area of theology, but I will give the overview of it.
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With regard to the humanity and divinity of Christ, because of course, Christ is fully man and fully God, you have what is called the technical term in theology, is communicatio idiomatum, which just means the communication of attributes.
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And so, you have attributes that are properly pertaining to the divinity or properly pertaining to the humanity.
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And Christ, the person of Christ, being fully God and fully man, has the properties of both.
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And so, when we speak of Christ, we are typically speaking of the person, but there are instances in scripture where it speaks of the divinity or the humanity, not of the person, which is to say, Christ, who has the attributes of both.
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And so, to make this a little more concrete, you have times in scripture where it says that Jesus was tired, right?
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The woman at the well would be a good example, or the ship in the storm.
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God doesn’t get tired, but the person of Christ, having the attributes of the humanity, can indeed get tired, and does indeed get tired in scripture.
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Christ had to learn to speak Greek.
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God, according to his humanity, knew Greek.
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In his state of humiliation, which is to say during his earthly ministry until his resurrection and then his state of exaltation, Christ does not employ the full powers of divinity.
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It’s not that he doesn’t have them, because he does employ them every so often, when he slips through the crowd, instead of letting the Jews stone him to death, various other times, when he calms the storm, for instance, the miracles.
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He does not employ the full power of the divinity.
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And so, this verse is speaking of Christ according to his humanity.
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Christ, according to his humanity, does not know everything.
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He does not know the hour of the second coming.
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Again, he did not know Greek when he was one.
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He didn’t know Aramaic yet.
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He had to learn those languages.
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But according to his divinity, which he did not exercise fully during his state of humiliation, he did in fact already know these things.
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That is what is going on in this verse and other similar ones to it.
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And it is also the general theological point of how you have the attributes of divinity and humanity that are together in Christ, not fused in the sense of intermingled, but together in the person of Christ.
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And this is of course just exactly what we confess in the Athanasian creed.
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In the older language of the English, I don’t remember off the top of my head the modern English, equal to the father is touching his godhead and inferior to the father as touching his manhood.
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This is what the church has always confessed.
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With regard to his humanity, Christ is lower than the father.
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With regard to his divinity, he is equal to the father, because the persons of the Trinity are equal.
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So, I guess for a fuller explanation of exactly what Christians believe, just confess the Athanasian creed.
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You can go ahead and read that.
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If you go to Athanasian Creed | Book of Concord, it pulls up that one.
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Because of course there are three creeds, and c1, 2, and 3 will pull up the creeds.
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I just added that shortcut because it makes it easy for people.
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The next question is in a somewhat similar vein.
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Two questions really related to each other here.
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Question 8.
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You said in Election in View of Headship, the Stone Quire episode, that God does not make anyone to damn them.
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Correct.
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How does that not contradict Romans 922?
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Okay, we will pull up Romans 922, because of course, anytime we deal with the scripture, we should actually pull it up and look at what it says.
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And yes, I have no problem using the ESV for the New Testament as I pointed out before.
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There are some quirks here and there, but I’m aware of them, and I’ll fix them when I read them.
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There aren’t any here, I don’t believe.
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What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?
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I think that’s sufficient.
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The rest of the verse just sort of doubles down on what’s said there, the rest of the passage rather.
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And so for this one, there are a number of points, most of them actually just grammar.
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First off, what is this?
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What grammatical construction do we have here in Romans 9?
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Well, it’s a conditional, and we see that two different ways.
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It is a subjunctive, which is just a statement counter to fact, basically.
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Subjunctive has unfortunately fallen out of use in English, which is a very bad thing for a number of reasons.
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The most common subjunctive in English, and the one that is still occasionally used correctly, if I were to do x, then y.
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That is a statement of a hypothetical future, or it could be, if you phrased it in the past, a statement, a counterfactual.
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So if I had done x, then y, right?
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Well, here we have that, obviously, because what do we have?
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We have if, what if God?
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And yes, we have that in the Greek, and it’s very clear.
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So the first point is that this is not a statement of fact.
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This is a statement of what if.
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What if God had done this?
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Speaking about God’s power and what God has permitted to do, and who are you, O man, to question God?
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Who are you as the clay to speak back to the potter?
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But it is not saying what God did, and there are some ways that we can see this.
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One of them, again, is the subjunctive, which is emphasizing this is indeed a conditional.
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Another is the active versus the passive, which many look at, just sort of overlook in this verse, which is kind of easy to do.
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But what do we have?
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We have the vessels of mercy, right?
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Which, let’s see if I can get Logos to actually show when I highlight a word here.
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Well, it shows that I highlighted the word, but it doesn’t show the interstitial, so I will just have to read the interstitial for you.
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But prepared here is active.
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It is aorist, which is a tense we don’t really have in English, but it’s an aorist active indicative third person verb here.
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So it’s saying God prepared, active versus passive, right?
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I hope everyone knows active versus passive verbs.
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We do have those in English, right?
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That’s very common.
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Well, what does it have here for the vessels of wrath?
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That’s passive.
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God’s not the one who prepared the vessels of wrath.
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God permitted the vessels of wrath to be prepared for destruction.
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That’s what the passive here is implying.
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They prepared themselves for destruction even inside of this hypothetical.
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God is the one, he is the active one, preparing the vessels of mercy, because of course it is God who grants the free gift of faith.
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That can only be given by God.
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It can only be given by God’s action through the sacraments, of course, including the word.
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But you have the passive here with regard to the vessels of wrath.
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The other aspect of this, the third point that I want to make, I don’t want to go into too much depth with this one, just because it will absorb so much time, it would need a standalone episode, practically.
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But the other part of this verse that is absolutely essential, you must notice when you read this, and now that I’m going to point it out, you’ll never miss it again.
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You will never be able to miss it now when you read it.
01:16:51.403 → 01:16:53.343
Endured with much patience.
01:16:55.083 → 01:17:01.083
Does that make any sense in a system where God created them for wrath?
01:17:02.423 → 01:17:04.303
The answer, of course, is no.
01:17:04.303 → 01:17:13.683
Because if God had created them for wrath, first off, that would be active instead of passive, why would he endure with patience?
01:17:14.143 → 01:17:15.623
There’d be no endurance there.
01:17:15.623 → 01:17:23.043
God wouldn’t be giving them time to repent because he created them for destruction.
01:17:23.043 → 01:17:26.743
So God didn’t create these vessels for destruction.
01:17:26.743 → 01:17:38.423
This is a number of different layers here, but they all demonstrate independently and certainly together, God did not predestine anyone for damnation.
01:17:38.423 → 01:17:39.383
That is not how it works.
01:17:39.383 → 01:17:40.883
That is not what God did.
01:17:40.883 → 01:17:44.863
And you have this in many other places in scripture.
01:17:44.863 → 01:17:55.143
And the next question, because it is related here, so I’ll just go straight to it, what are the main scripture verses that contradict or disprove double predestination?
01:17:55.143 → 01:18:00.963
Again, this is one where I don’t want to go in it to great depth because it will take quite a bit of time.
01:18:00.963 → 01:18:05.763
This is something that, of course, has been ongoing between Lutherans and the Reformed for 500 years.
01:18:05.763 → 01:18:12.743
So instead, I will just pull out about four different verses, really five verses if you want to count one of them as two different verses.
01:18:12.743 → 01:18:15.803
Same chapter, but separate a little bit.
01:18:15.843 → 01:18:18.343
The first one, of course, is 2 Peter 3.9.
01:18:18.343 → 01:18:20.103
So let me pull that up.
01:18:23.703 → 01:18:34.663
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
01:18:35.903 → 01:18:43.583
If you hold to double predestination, you must necessarily read this as God having lied.
01:18:43.583 → 01:18:48.823
I don’t see any way to avoid that, because it says God does not wish that any should perish.
01:18:48.823 → 01:18:59.003
If he has created some as vessels of destruction and predestined them to damnation, well, that is desiring they should perish.
01:18:59.003 → 01:19:05.903
I don’t see any way to get around this without trying to play little word games with regard to wishing.
01:19:05.903 → 01:19:10.103
But that doesn’t make any sense, because this is wishing or want, it’s the same here.
01:19:10.103 → 01:19:18.743
And whatever God wants in that sort of system, that we’re talking about, it’s going to happen.
01:19:18.743 → 01:19:28.703
So if God wanted all to be saved, and you have that sort of determinist system, none would be lost.
01:19:28.703 → 01:19:34.543
So you have to have free will to explain this, and then you also have to believe that God wants all to turn to him.
01:19:34.543 → 01:19:38.003
He wants all to reach repentance, but not all do.
01:19:38.003 → 01:19:43.723
It’s not because God begrudged them faith, or God would not forgive them, or he wouldn’t grant them repentance.
01:19:43.783 → 01:19:49.443
It is because they persisted in their sin and refused to repent.
01:19:50.723 → 01:19:53.783
The cause of damnation lies in man, not in God.
01:19:55.943 → 01:20:01.203
And then, of course, Ezekiel again, I should pull up in the Septuagint instead.
01:20:03.723 → 01:20:11.163
By my will do I actually will the death of the lawless one, says the Lord, rather than for him to turn back from his wicked way and live.
01:20:12.563 → 01:20:17.243
And then, of course, God answers his own question at the end of the chapter.
01:20:17.243 → 01:20:21.563
For I do not will the death of the dying, says the Lord.
01:20:21.563 → 01:20:24.463
This is consistent from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
01:20:24.463 → 01:20:26.703
God wants all to reach repentance.
01:20:26.703 → 01:20:28.903
He does not want any to be damned.
01:20:30.383 → 01:20:33.143
The next part is, of course, Ezekiel 33.
01:20:34.643 → 01:20:37.183
Say to them, I live, says the Lord.
01:20:37.183 → 01:20:44.983
I do not wish the death of the impious, rather that the impious turn back from his way and he live.
01:20:44.983 → 01:20:48.283
Again, consistent between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
01:20:48.283 → 01:20:52.783
God wishes for those who are impenitent to reach repentance.
01:20:52.783 → 01:20:54.983
He does not begrudge anyone faith.
01:20:54.983 → 01:20:58.263
He does not want anyone to be damned.
01:20:58.263 → 01:21:05.423
The next, of course, is probably helps if I pull up the New Testament in a resource that has it.
01:21:06.603 → 01:21:11.043
Luke 13, this is the final example for this question.
01:21:11.043 → 01:21:25.383
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing?
01:21:25.383 → 01:21:27.123
That means God is willing.
01:21:27.123 → 01:21:41.343
This is God, the person of Christ, stating unambiguously that he wants all to reach repentance, that he wants them to repent, and they would not.
01:21:41.343 → 01:21:44.443
You cannot read double predestination into this.
01:21:44.443 → 01:21:45.923
You cannot find it.
01:21:45.923 → 01:21:48.403
In fact, what you find is a refutation of it.
01:21:48.403 → 01:21:55.423
I know the Reform don’t like to hear that, but I’m Lutheran and you should expect it from me, because of course I’m going to hold to that.
01:21:55.423 → 01:22:10.203
But I also believe that even if I were not Lutheran and I were just reading scripture and looking at what it actually says, I would never arrive at double predestination, because the verses that are used, the one in Romans, to try to justify it, are hypothetical.
01:22:10.203 → 01:22:16.143
They’re not speaking out what God actually did, and even inside the hypothetical, they reject that interpretation.
01:22:16.143 → 01:22:23.143
And then you have all the places where God says he wants all men to reach repentance, he does not want any to be damned.
01:22:23.143 → 01:22:40.263
If you are saying contrary to this, that God has not so much wanted them to be damned, but done it himself, destined them for it, fated them to it, then you are teaching something that is directly contrary to the words of God.
01:22:41.563 → 01:22:44.283
In this case, a literal quote from Christ.
01:22:44.283 → 01:22:47.783
I don’t see any way to justify it, I don’t see any way to defend it.
01:22:47.783 → 01:22:53.583
And again, I know the reform don’t like to hear that, but take it up with God, take it up with scripture.
01:22:53.583 → 01:22:54.923
All I’ve done is read what he says.
01:22:59.483 → 01:23:06.983
The next question, perhaps less controversial for certain members of the audience.
01:23:06.983 → 01:23:07.803
Question 10.
01:23:07.803 → 01:23:13.903
Where do you place the value of house churches in comparison to denominational establishments?
01:23:13.903 → 01:23:18.643
And do you think with the growing number of denominational churches disqualifying themselves?
01:23:18.703 → 01:23:20.063
Unfortunately true.
01:23:20.063 → 01:23:23.403
Are house churches going to trend upward in popularity?
01:23:25.723 → 01:23:38.303
I firmly believe, and I guess I can transition back to having the video full screen there, I firmly believe that having established denominational, as it were, churches is preferable.
01:23:38.303 → 01:23:42.603
Just the same as I believe having a regular government is preferable.
01:23:42.603 → 01:23:49.743
And having hierarchy is preferable, and having things running normally is preferable.
01:23:49.743 → 01:24:00.023
But these days, we’re not talking about what is preferable or what is optimal, but rather what is the best under prevailing circumstances.
01:24:01.683 → 01:24:11.703
And I don’t think that joining any of the existing denominational churches is the best route.
01:24:12.463 → 01:24:23.603
Now, that comes with the major caveat that many of them are congregationalist in terms of their polity, and so, as I’ve said many times before, there are faithful congregations.
01:24:24.703 → 01:24:27.063
The LCMS is a great example.
01:24:27.063 → 01:24:30.323
The LCMS leadership is wicked.
01:24:30.323 → 01:24:31.703
They are evil men.
01:24:31.703 → 01:24:35.683
I will say that in completely unambiguous certain terms.
01:24:35.683 → 01:24:37.643
They are evil men.
01:24:37.643 → 01:24:38.883
They have done evil things.
01:24:39.663 → 01:24:48.323
I won’t state them specifically, because, quite frankly, it invites a lawsuit, which should also tell you something about the reality of what is going on.
01:24:48.323 → 01:24:55.203
But that doesn’t mean they’re all, that does not mean all the congregations of the LCMS are bad.
01:24:55.203 → 01:24:56.323
There are some very good ones.
01:24:56.323 → 01:24:59.283
I know some very good men who are leading those congregations.
01:24:59.283 → 01:25:14.003
I won’t name them, of course, because that just invites the Inquisition, Satan’s Inquisition, in this case, to come down on them and their families, demonstrating which side is Christian, of course, how they treat these good men who have been in the pulpits, in some cases, for many, many years.
01:25:14.003 → 01:25:16.863
But there are good congregations, and you can find them.
01:25:16.863 → 01:25:23.843
So, if you can find a good congregation, by all means, join that congregation and worship together with the other saints and have that fellowship.
01:25:23.843 → 01:25:26.963
That’s an important part of being a Christian.
01:25:26.963 → 01:25:33.343
But if you do not have a faithful congregation near you, don’t join a faithless one.
01:25:33.343 → 01:25:35.563
Do not be unequally yoked.
01:25:35.563 → 01:25:36.403
Start a house church.
01:25:36.483 → 01:25:38.643
A house church is better under those circumstances.
01:25:38.643 → 01:25:42.303
So, the question sort of has two answers.
01:25:42.303 → 01:25:49.163
Is the organized, hierarchical, established church better than a house church?
01:25:49.163 → 01:25:52.763
Absolutely, when everything is running well.
01:25:55.283 → 01:25:58.623
But everything is not running well these days.
01:25:58.623 → 01:26:04.383
And yes, I’ve seen some questions asking about where to find churches in various places.
01:26:05.523 → 01:26:16.543
Usually, for that, if you, sort of as an aside, if you need a recommendation of a church, DM me, or DM woe, or DM oldleuthrin on X, or we can also be reached on Telegram.
01:26:16.543 → 01:26:17.243
That’s the way to do that.
01:26:17.243 → 01:26:26.043
So, we can give a more personal recommendation instead of making a broad recommendation and making it easier for the enemies to find these men.
01:26:26.043 → 01:26:35.823
Because there is a full-scale inquisition underway in a number of denominations in the US, and they are persecuting faithful men countrywide.
01:26:35.823 → 01:26:38.243
So, that’s ongoing.
01:26:38.243 → 01:26:40.683
That is an ongoing problem.
01:26:40.683 → 01:26:51.603
But yes, house churches are going to trend upward in popularity simply because of the reality that there are so many faithless churches, and it is better to be in a small, faithful gathering in your home.
01:26:51.603 → 01:27:00.483
And again, join together with three or four other families, and by all means, ordain a man, the most capable man among you, and then have the Lord’s Supper as well.
01:27:00.483 → 01:27:01.203
There’s nothing wrong with that.
01:27:01.823 → 01:27:05.163
So, yes, things are going to trend in that direction.
01:27:05.163 → 01:27:09.023
Question 11 is a related question, same person asking the question.
01:27:09.023 → 01:27:14.883
Similarly, with what we see with public schools versus homeschooling as of late.
01:27:14.883 → 01:27:16.503
So, are we going to see the same sort of thing?
01:27:16.503 → 01:27:17.863
And I think yes.
01:27:18.983 → 01:27:20.863
In some places, the state cracks down on that.
01:27:20.863 → 01:27:23.123
In fact, it’s illegal in some parts of Europe.
01:27:23.123 → 01:27:26.803
They will come to your house and potentially take your children away.
01:27:26.803 → 01:27:31.823
But here in the US, you do generally have the right to home school your children.
01:27:31.823 → 01:27:32.863
There are some requirements.
01:27:32.863 → 01:27:34.943
Make sure that you do follow those.
01:27:34.943 → 01:27:38.983
They’re usually not particularly onerous in the US, and they’re usually pretty easy to adhere to.
01:27:38.983 → 01:27:45.683
And quite frankly, your children will probably be ahead of the public school unless you happen to be somewhere that has a very good public school.
01:27:45.683 → 01:27:52.003
I had the great fortune of going to a public school that was still a very good one.
01:27:52.003 → 01:27:54.643
My public school offered Latin, for instance.
01:27:54.643 → 01:27:57.983
I went to one of the last few good public schools in the US.
01:27:59.063 → 01:28:01.403
Probably not as good these days as it was then.
01:28:01.403 → 01:28:06.923
But if you have a good public school, I think the same thing is true.
01:28:06.923 → 01:28:15.223
I don’t know where you’d find that these days, but is it better to have a public school that is good than only to have private school and home school?
01:28:15.223 → 01:28:17.183
I think the answer is yes.
01:28:17.183 → 01:28:23.683
Maybe part of that is the northern German Prussian blood speaking, but I am a firm believer in public school.
01:28:23.683 → 01:28:31.083
I do think that it is a good thing, but the problem is it’s a good thing only when the government running it is good.
01:28:31.083 → 01:28:33.343
Our government is not good.
01:28:33.343 → 01:28:39.863
I think that is probably the biggest understatement of this episode, except for maybe some earlier things said about the Jews.
01:28:39.863 → 01:28:41.243
Our government is not good.
01:28:41.243 → 01:28:45.043
Our government is evil, and so it is teaching evil in the schools.
01:28:45.043 → 01:28:53.003
So yes, your children, if you can by any means manage it, should be in a private school or in a home school.
01:28:54.303 → 01:28:55.603
Do what people have always done.
01:28:55.603 → 01:28:59.463
Band together, particularly this is for the younger children, right?
01:28:59.463 → 01:29:07.683
Have the women take partial teaching duties, and have one house be the house where you have your home school.
01:29:07.683 → 01:29:09.923
There’s no reason that you have to do all of it yourself.
01:29:09.923 → 01:29:12.803
It’s a completely ridiculous, modernist concept.
01:29:12.803 → 01:29:16.363
Maybe you have one person who is much better at math.
01:29:16.363 → 01:29:18.223
Have her teach the children math.
01:29:18.223 → 01:29:26.263
Or if the men in this group happen to have the time to do so, if they work from home and can take off a couple hours.
01:29:26.263 → 01:29:29.303
Have them teach math or history or whatever subject.
01:29:29.303 → 01:29:31.483
That is a great way to do this.
01:29:31.483 → 01:29:35.023
Basically all you’re doing is an informal private school.
01:29:35.023 → 01:29:39.803
If you happen to have a good church that has a good school attached, all the better.
01:29:39.803 → 01:29:40.723
Nothing wrong with doing that.
01:29:40.723 → 01:29:44.263
There’s nothing wrong with having your children go to a private school.
01:29:44.263 → 01:29:53.463
Yes, you should still be teaching them things at home as well, but it’s not bad to have some of those duties taken on by others.
01:29:53.463 → 01:29:56.143
We can’t do everything, right?
01:29:56.143 → 01:30:04.663
I’ve pointed this out before in sort of the, excuse me, in sort of the trivial but extreme way, right?
01:30:04.663 → 01:30:06.783
I don’t know how to build this thing.
01:30:06.783 → 01:30:11.023
I mean, I’m holding a fountain pen for those who will listen later via audio.
01:30:11.023 → 01:30:14.383
I should probably hold it on the side where the mic boom is not blocking it.
01:30:15.743 → 01:30:19.283
I understand almost everything that went into this pen, right?
01:30:19.283 → 01:30:25.023
But at the same time, centuries of expertise went into making this thing.
01:30:25.023 → 01:30:27.763
There’s nothing wrong with delegating that to other men.
01:30:27.763 → 01:30:40.863
And the same thing holds true with regard to the instruction of children, with regard to education, because I certainly don’t know trigonometry as well as someone who teaches trigonometry day in and day out.
01:30:40.863 → 01:30:41.423
I just don’t.
01:30:42.083 → 01:30:45.203
I have not done that particular area of mathematics in a long time.
01:30:45.203 → 01:30:46.303
I know statistics pretty well.
01:30:46.303 → 01:30:48.043
That I could probably teach.
01:30:48.043 → 01:30:54.183
But geometry, trigonometry, probably even calculus at this point, it’s been a long time.
01:30:54.183 → 01:30:55.763
So there’s nothing wrong with…
01:30:55.763 → 01:31:02.543
If I had children who were of that age, there’s nothing wrong with delegating that and having other men teach that.
01:31:02.543 → 01:31:07.463
But as a Christian, you need to make sure that your children are not being taught by evil men.
01:31:07.463 → 01:31:09.843
In particular, they’re not being taught evil things.
01:31:10.503 → 01:31:21.163
And so, if you can avoid the public schools where they’re going to teach your children about transgenderism and all sorts of other perversions, then by all means do so.
01:31:21.163 → 01:31:25.223
And maybe that’s going to require sacrifice on your part.
01:31:25.223 → 01:31:32.063
Maybe you’re going to have to cut back on hours in order to facilitate doing that with your children.
01:31:32.063 → 01:31:40.743
And in many cases, assuming that you have a home where you have a wife, part of that’s just going to fall to that’s what your wife should be doing.
01:31:40.743 → 01:31:43.843
Because she should be at home, and she can set aside the time to do that.
01:31:43.843 → 01:31:52.463
Because quite frankly, the amount of stuff that children actually learn in schools these days, what they actually learn, most what they’re doing is wasting time.
01:31:52.463 → 01:31:58.163
You can teach them the same amount in a couple, maybe three hours a day, and then let them play outside.
01:31:58.163 → 01:31:59.783
It’s better for them anyway.
01:31:59.783 → 01:32:02.463
And your wife should be able to manage that.
01:32:02.463 → 01:32:08.423
There’s plenty of various resources out there that you can use for that.
01:32:08.423 → 01:32:14.663
There’s all sorts of things for teaching math and all the basics that children are supposed to learn.
01:32:14.663 → 01:32:16.223
And you can do that in relatively short order.
01:32:16.223 → 01:32:26.843
So yes, I think that home schools and things like that are going to become more popular just because it’s a way to avoid subjecting your children to these various kinds of evil.
01:32:37.158 → 01:32:43.718
I think I will actually get through at least the 13 questions, which it was a little ambitious, but I’m fine with running over.
01:32:45.318 → 01:32:51.258
Question 12, should my young daughters be covering their heads in church, or is that just for wives?
01:32:51.258 → 01:32:54.818
That is for all women, because it is a sign of authority.
01:32:54.818 → 01:32:59.738
Your daughters are under you, you are their head, you are the one who’s in authority.
01:32:59.738 → 01:33:03.618
And that is part of what marriage is, it’s a transfer of headship.
01:33:04.278 → 01:33:08.718
It is the father transferring the daughter to her husband.
01:33:08.718 → 01:33:11.038
He becomes her head.
01:33:11.038 → 01:33:14.718
So you still want that sign of headship.
01:33:14.718 → 01:33:19.378
For very young daughters, no, because it just is irrelevant, right?
01:33:19.378 → 01:33:21.298
Under a certain age.
01:33:21.298 → 01:33:30.318
I saw someone who commented on that on X, this one I pulled off of a thread on X, but a very short thread, but a thread.
01:33:30.318 → 01:33:34.858
Someone said, after puberty, I would say go for a little bit before that.
01:33:34.858 → 01:33:40.678
And the reason for that is, what are your girls going to become when they go through puberty?
01:33:40.678 → 01:33:41.958
A little more rebellious.
01:33:41.958 → 01:33:43.698
They’re going to be a little harder to handle.
01:33:43.698 → 01:33:46.038
They’re going to be a little more argumentative.
01:33:46.038 → 01:33:50.978
That’s simply the reality of hormones and biology and the maturing brain and all that stuff.
01:33:50.978 → 01:33:52.758
We’re aware of that stuff.
01:33:52.758 → 01:34:05.758
You are going to have an easier time maintaining that as something that you do if your wife routinely does it, and it is something they started doing a year or two before puberty onsets.
01:34:05.758 → 01:34:10.138
You’re going to have fewer problems in your life if you do it that way.
01:34:10.138 → 01:34:18.898
So whatever it happens to be, start them when they’re 10, 11, 12, whatever age happens to be best for your circumstances.
01:34:18.898 → 01:34:21.138
And make it something they enjoy doing.
01:34:21.138 → 01:34:23.378
There’s nothing wrong with women enjoying doing it.
01:34:24.678 → 01:34:29.878
It’s not that they do it and they dislike it, and that’s why it’s good, right?
01:34:29.878 → 01:34:32.978
It’s a sign of authority, but she doesn’t have to hate it.
01:34:32.978 → 01:34:38.878
So if you can make it something that your daughters enjoy, it’s something that they do when they go to church.
01:34:38.878 → 01:34:46.838
And it would be good if we had it in society at large as well, but that’s a little bit harder to sell these days and a little harder to do.
01:34:46.838 → 01:34:51.278
But at the very least, make it part of their Sunday routine.
01:34:51.298 → 01:34:59.718
Just make it something that they do on Sunday and I think it will be much easier for you if you start a little bit in advance, as it were.
2/2
01:35:01.378 → 01:35:09.198
And then question 13 is a related question, again, about headship.
01:35:09.198 → 01:35:13.058
And then I will, I think, get through a few of the questions in the chat at least.
01:35:14.298 → 01:35:19.838
As the head of my household, how much of an opinion should my wife get when we are trying to pick a church to go to?
01:35:21.058 → 01:35:25.958
Here recently, I have been looking into some Lutheran churches as well as a Greek Orthodox church.
01:35:25.958 → 01:35:31.078
It should be noted that my wife and I grew up as Assemblies of God and Baptist.
01:35:31.078 → 01:35:34.858
When I presented these to my wife, she had a few complaints.
01:35:34.858 → 01:35:37.058
The complaints are enumerated.
01:35:37.078 → 01:35:43.918
One, both Lutheran and Orthodox were too closely, or they too closely resembled Catholicism.
01:35:43.918 → 01:35:52.198
Two, she doesn’t feel like she will have a personal relationship, nor will she be able to grow a personal relationship with God in those churches.
01:35:52.198 → 01:36:00.858
Three, she also doesn’t think our children will be able to learn if there is not a separate Sunday school service tailored to the children.
01:36:00.858 → 01:36:03.558
Any advice on how to proceed to be greatly appreciated.
01:36:04.838 → 01:36:10.798
I think I will start with the initial bit and then take the complaints in reverse order.
01:36:12.278 → 01:36:15.898
So obviously, I’m going to say, pick the Lutheran over the Orthodox.
01:36:15.898 → 01:36:25.738
For reasons I’ve gone over before, we have the episode on Eastern Orthodoxy, and I have my article on the website on Eastern Orthodoxy.
01:36:26.798 → 01:36:29.578
I don’t know why you’d consider Greek Orthodox unless you’re Greek.
01:36:29.578 → 01:36:33.578
And obviously, I have no idea, because I don’t know this man, I don’t know anything about him.
01:36:33.578 → 01:36:36.138
If you’re Greek, then I guess it makes a little bit more sense.
01:36:36.138 → 01:36:41.158
I would still object simply because I don’t agree with their theology.
01:36:41.158 → 01:36:44.998
But at the same time, most of the people attending an Orthodox church don’t know anything about their theology.
01:36:46.418 → 01:37:01.198
You have some of the theobros, as it were, or not even really that term, but the convertodox on X and elsewhere, who get very into certain aspects of theology, but even they know it so shallowly.
01:37:01.198 → 01:37:04.818
They just know one particular thing has become an obsession.
01:37:04.818 → 01:37:17.198
So if you’re Greek and your family has a very long history of connection to the Greek Orthodox Church, then I can’t object as strongly to you participating in that church.
01:37:17.198 → 01:37:21.518
Just don’t believe the handful of false doctrines they teach.
01:37:21.518 → 01:37:33.618
Believe the simplicity of the faith, and if it becomes a matter of conscience for you, if you believe you can no longer participate because of the false things they teach, then it would be incumbent on you to leave.
01:37:33.618 → 01:37:51.238
But if you happen to have a church where they just teach the basics and ignore, you know, palimism and energies, distinction and hesychasm and all those various things that are not Christian, then sure, I think you’re probably fine attending that church.
01:37:51.238 → 01:37:53.298
But just recognize there are problems there.
01:37:53.298 → 01:37:56.458
Again, I’m going to say Lutheranism is the better way to go.
01:37:56.458 → 01:37:59.518
I’m sure that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one.
01:37:59.518 → 01:38:07.638
But if you don’t have a reason to attend the Greek church, which is, say, if you’re not Greek, go to the Lutheran church.
01:38:07.638 → 01:38:08.678
Those are the two you’re considering.
01:38:08.678 → 01:38:10.158
Go to the Lutheran church.
01:38:10.158 → 01:38:22.098
And the objections that she has, and I said I’d take them in reverse order, this one is going to, of course, be an answer that will be similar for many, not just Lutherans.
01:38:22.098 → 01:38:24.318
Sunday school is not a thing.
01:38:24.318 → 01:38:40.178
And the reason Sunday school is not a thing, and I’m just going to go ahead and say that Sunday school should not be a thing, is that if you send them to Sunday school, are you really treating them as Christians?
01:38:41.218 → 01:38:43.478
Because what is the divine service?
01:38:43.478 → 01:38:48.078
And of course, I’m going to give a very Lutheran-flavored answer, but what is the divine service?
01:38:48.078 → 01:38:50.978
The divine service is…
01:38:52.098 → 01:39:00.178
I’ll just go ahead and give the fully Lutheran answer, but the divine service is where you receive the gifts of God, and then you return thanks.
01:39:00.178 → 01:39:10.658
This is sort of a fundamental difference from how many view it, because many view it as I’m going and I’m worshiping God, and I’m giving him thanks, and then maybe I receive something.
01:39:10.658 → 01:39:15.898
That’s not how Lutherans conceive of it, and I think Lutherans are absolutely correct in this one.
01:39:15.898 → 01:39:22.898
You go to the divine service because that’s where God has said, I am going to provide for you my gifts here.
01:39:22.898 → 01:39:26.578
I’m going to do it in this way, and you come here and receive them.
01:39:27.618 → 01:39:29.098
We should be thankful for that.
01:39:29.098 → 01:39:38.038
If we had a king and the king said, if you come to my banqueting hall on Wednesday, you will get to partake of a feast.
01:39:38.038 → 01:39:47.298
Are you going to tell him, no, I’m going to come on Thursday, and I’m going to tell you that I want to say you’re a great king, and then maybe you’ll give me some…
01:39:47.298 → 01:39:51.158
The king’s going to hit you with a stick, and you’re going to deserve it.
01:39:51.158 → 01:39:55.478
God says he’s going to give you things during the divine service.
01:39:56.138 → 01:40:00.878
Go to the divine service, receive the things of God, and return thanks.
01:40:00.878 → 01:40:03.638
Your children are Christians.
01:40:03.638 → 01:40:07.298
Your children should be baptized because they’re Christians.
01:40:07.298 → 01:40:19.138
Your children should participate in the divine service, should be there to receive the gifts of God, and hear the sermon, and sing the hymns, and recite the liturgy because they are Christians.
01:40:19.138 → 01:40:23.458
And in fact, they are learning more from that than they would learn in Sunday school.
01:40:24.378 → 01:40:26.858
Because most Sunday schools, what are they going to learn?
01:40:26.858 → 01:40:29.238
David hit a big dude with a rock.
01:40:29.238 → 01:40:30.838
Maybe that’s what they’re going to learn.
01:40:30.838 → 01:40:31.678
That’s not wrong.
01:40:31.678 → 01:40:32.778
I mean, it’s good that they should learn.
01:40:32.778 → 01:40:36.918
But you can read that level to them at home.
01:40:36.918 → 01:40:43.418
Or you can read the actual scripture and explain it, depending on the capacity and the age of the children, right?
01:40:43.418 → 01:40:50.198
Sunday school is just segregating out some chunk of the body of Christ and treating them differently.
01:40:50.198 → 01:40:50.918
Don’t do that.
01:40:50.918 → 01:40:52.058
Your children are Christian.
01:40:52.138 → 01:41:02.318
They should be sitting beside you in the service and seeing that they are participating in the very thing in which you are participating, because they are Christians as well, and you should treat them as Christians.
01:41:02.318 → 01:41:04.698
They’re going to recognize that.
01:41:04.698 → 01:41:12.118
There’s also the aspect of it, and this is an argument for the liturgy and for not changing things too much over the years.
01:41:13.338 → 01:41:25.018
If you’ve ever dealt with the elderly, particularly those who are in hospice care or similar, particularly if they have some dementia, some deteriorative disorder, right, something like that.
01:41:26.298 → 01:41:32.158
Those who are Christian and went to a liturgical church fare the best.
01:41:32.158 → 01:41:36.658
Lutherans in particular fare very well at the end of their lives.
01:41:36.658 → 01:41:57.838
Lutherans die confident in their faith, without doubts, secure in their knowledge of their election, secure in their knowledge of their faith, their place before God, and for those who have lost some of their faculties along the way, sometimes it is the liturgy that is the last thing to go.
01:41:57.838 → 01:42:09.858
You can start playing parts of the liturgy or reciting parts of the liturgy, and suddenly the person who doesn’t communicate at all, who has lost that ability to interact with the world, will start singing along.
01:42:09.858 → 01:42:15.858
And I think that’s completely invaluable, and the only place you are going to get it is if you go to a liturgical church.
01:42:17.138 → 01:42:24.378
I think that’s a very good thing, and I think you should want that for your children, and you should start them young.
01:42:24.378 → 01:42:37.418
That is a good thing for them, and you want to give them as much time as possible in order to build that up in their mind, to build up that spiritual bulwark, because the world is going to assault them.
01:42:37.418 → 01:42:43.058
It’s not that you’re necessarily going to send them off to university and just toss them as a sheep to the wolves, right?
01:42:44.598 → 01:43:04.638
But at some point, they have to go out into the world, and the world is going to assault their faith, and I think you want to have given them the strongest possible defenses they can have against that, and part of the way you do that is having them participate in that divine service every single Sunday, year after year after year.
01:43:04.638 → 01:43:10.298
So I don’t think there’s any real objection when it comes to Sunday school.
01:43:10.298 → 01:43:16.118
They don’t need to have a Sunday school, because they’re Christian and they have the divine service.
01:43:16.118 → 01:43:17.698
They should participate in that.
01:43:17.698 → 01:43:26.558
If you want to have something additional for them, you want to have something for the children, I don’t think that’s objectionable, but you have that in addition to the divine service.
01:43:26.558 → 01:43:29.518
You go to Bible study, they go to Sunday school.
01:43:29.518 → 01:43:32.798
You can do that, that’s totally fine, but they should go to the service.
01:43:34.458 → 01:43:37.178
The second objection is the personal relationship thing.
01:43:39.758 → 01:43:45.118
That’s going to depend on what exactly she means by personal relationship, right?
01:43:45.118 → 01:44:01.078
If she means that she thinks that, you know, it is an emotional relationship that you have with God, and that, you know, if it’s Jesus is my boyfriend, that’s a problem, that needs to be addressed.
01:44:01.078 → 01:44:03.738
That is not what you’re supposed to have with God.
01:44:03.738 → 01:44:13.738
If it’s that she doesn’t think that you’re going to have a walk with God, you’re not going to develop in your faith over time, then that’s just a matter of instruction.
01:44:13.738 → 01:44:25.478
That’s a matter of pointing out that it’s not going and feeling emotional when you sing these modern contemporary worship hymns.
01:44:25.478 → 01:44:38.138
It’s deepening in your understanding of what God has done for you, and how you have that relationship with God, and what are the contours of that relationship, right?
01:44:38.138 → 01:45:03.158
And as far as that goes, I think quite frankly, the Lutheran church is going to be better off, the liturgical church is better off, because you’re going to have the structured prayers and things like that, that are very much a part of the Christian faith, and that is totally absent from things like Baptist churches and other things, where I just don’t find that depth there.
01:45:03.158 → 01:45:19.258
I’ve never once heard anyone critique going from a non-denominational or a Baptist church and becoming a high church Christian and saying that they lost depth.
01:45:19.258 → 01:45:21.278
It’s always been the opposite.
01:45:21.278 → 01:45:25.838
And so, I think that she will find that she has more on offer.
01:45:26.458 → 01:45:38.558
She has a greater and deeper presentation and reality of the faith in that Lutheran church than she had in the Baptist church or the Assemblies of God church.
01:45:40.038 → 01:45:44.918
And part of the way you can start that off is start studying the small catechism.
01:45:44.918 → 01:45:53.778
You study the large catechism after you know the small catechism, and then you can together go over the things in the small catechism in light of the large catechism.
01:45:54.458 → 01:45:57.778
Part of this is you taking that spiritual headship.
01:45:57.778 → 01:46:05.158
You recognizing you have a greater duty to know this and to know it better and to lead her in it.
01:46:05.158 → 01:46:18.058
And then, insofar as the first objection, the third, given that I’m going in reverse order here, if she thinks that it’s close to Catholicism, tell her two different things.
01:46:18.058 → 01:46:21.058
One, yes, and that’s not bad.
01:46:21.058 → 01:46:23.118
Two, theologically no.
01:46:24.558 → 01:46:26.918
And that’s what matters more.
01:46:26.918 → 01:46:47.858
So, insofar as the praxis is concerned, insofar as the look and the feel of things, yes, it’s going to be at a high Lutheran church, because obviously there are some that are a little bit lower church these days, but if you have the full liturgy at a Lutheran church, it is going to look very Roman Catholic.
01:46:47.858 → 01:46:50.318
And the reason for that is that the faith hasn’t changed.
01:46:51.658 → 01:46:53.478
The praxis of the faith hasn’t changed.
01:46:53.478 → 01:46:57.118
It is the same faith delivered once for all to the apostles.
01:46:57.118 → 01:47:02.158
It is the same faith maintained by our European forefathers for hundreds of years.
01:47:03.498 → 01:47:08.958
There were two different wings of the Reformation, broadly speaking.
01:47:08.958 → 01:47:14.498
There was the conservative Reformation led by the Lutherans, and the radical Reformation.
01:47:14.498 → 01:47:17.058
The radical Reformation threw the baby out with the bathwater.
01:47:18.298 → 01:47:26.918
Those are the ones who smashed the organs and tore out the stained-glass windows and removed the paintings and everything else.
01:47:26.918 → 01:47:29.278
Nowhere in Scripture is that commanded.
01:47:29.278 → 01:47:30.398
Nowhere is that required.
01:47:30.398 → 01:47:38.298
And so, having a service that looks like what our forefathers would have recognized as a Christian service isn’t a bad thing.
01:47:38.298 → 01:47:42.438
That’s a wonderful blessing from God that we still have it.
01:47:42.438 → 01:47:45.578
But it is the doctrinal difference that matters.
01:47:45.698 → 01:47:51.258
The reason we are not Roman Catholic is because we disagree with them on theology.
01:47:51.258 → 01:47:59.758
It’s not because we disagree with them when it comes to stained glass and organ music and decorating the church and all these things like that.
01:47:59.758 → 01:48:02.378
You’re going in for an audience with the king.
01:48:02.378 → 01:48:05.738
It should look appropriate and you should dress appropriately.
01:48:07.958 → 01:48:11.278
But it is that doctrinal difference that matters, right?
01:48:11.698 → 01:48:16.618
You want to go somewhere that preaches the word in the fullness of the truth.
01:48:16.618 → 01:48:17.318
You don’t want to…
01:48:17.318 → 01:48:25.678
This is another reason again to avoid the EO, because you are going to find that they teach things that are not true.
01:48:25.678 → 01:48:29.198
So you have a split there with regard to that objection.
01:48:29.198 → 01:48:34.778
Yes, it looks Roman Catholic, but that’s because the Roman Catholics get a lot of things right.
01:48:34.778 → 01:48:39.518
It’s not because the less Roman Catholic you look, the more Christian you are.
01:48:40.758 → 01:48:44.978
A lot of what Rome teaches and a lot of what Rome does is right.
01:48:44.978 → 01:48:48.878
That’s why the conservative Reformation didn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
01:48:48.878 → 01:48:53.298
We didn’t say everything Rome does is wrong, we have to get rid of it all and start from scratch.
01:48:53.298 → 01:49:01.998
No, we said we have a list of things to which we object, and you as the head of the household should go through that list and see if you agree.
01:49:01.998 → 01:49:08.258
See if you agree with what the Lutheran reformers said about the Roman Church and why we disagree.
01:49:08.258 → 01:49:08.898
But it’s a list.
01:49:09.358 → 01:49:10.918
It’s not a very long list.
01:49:10.918 → 01:49:12.918
We disagree with these things.
01:49:12.918 → 01:49:14.238
Some of them are very important.
01:49:14.238 → 01:49:16.898
Some of them are core to the faith.
01:49:16.898 → 01:49:20.078
But it’s only these things.
01:49:20.078 → 01:49:22.158
We don’t think that it’s bad to have music.
01:49:22.158 → 01:49:23.838
We don’t think it’s bad to have statuary.
01:49:23.838 → 01:49:25.978
We don’t think it’s bad to have stained glass.
01:49:25.978 → 01:49:35.198
We don’t think it’s bad to have beauty in the Church that worships a God who is himself the transcendental of beauty.
01:49:35.198 → 01:49:39.338
So yes, we’re going to look Roman Catholic, but we’re not Roman Catholic.
01:49:39.338 → 01:49:43.958
Because if we agree with them doctrinally, there would have never been any split.
01:49:43.958 → 01:49:52.118
If there had been an actual meeting, if we’d had a council, then perhaps there would have been no split.
01:49:52.118 → 01:49:54.898
But that starts to get into why that happened.
01:49:56.338 → 01:50:03.318
But then finally, to answer sort of your first question, you are absolutely responsible for picking which church you attend.
01:50:04.718 → 01:50:15.838
You can consult with your wife in the sense of feeling out why she is concerned, in the sense of her worries, what she wants.
01:50:15.838 → 01:50:18.398
All of those are totally fine, and you should do those things.
01:50:18.398 → 01:50:20.598
Your wife is another human being.
01:50:20.598 → 01:50:21.798
You are her head.
01:50:21.798 → 01:50:23.598
You are responsible.
01:50:23.598 → 01:50:24.938
But she’s still your wife.
01:50:24.938 → 01:50:26.018
She’s still your helper.
01:50:26.018 → 01:50:28.958
You should care what she wants, how she’s feeling.
01:50:28.958 → 01:50:30.658
That’s the biggest thing for women, of course.
01:50:32.758 → 01:50:44.098
Those should be relevant to you, but they’re not determinative, because you are the one who is going to stand before God and have to answer, man, where is your wife?
01:50:45.138 → 01:51:00.478
Because you are the one who is responsible to make sure that she has the true faith, believes the true things, and you are responsible to make sure your children also believe those things and have a true faith, because you are the head of the household, and so you have final say.
01:51:02.378 → 01:51:11.238
She can talk to you about it, and you should talk to her about it, but you have the final say, and you need to make clear to her those things.
01:51:11.238 → 01:51:17.178
You need to say, I have the final say on this, because I am the head of the household.
01:51:17.178 → 01:51:23.458
I have the final say on this, because I am the one who will answer to God for what I do.
01:51:23.458 → 01:51:26.458
She will have to answer to God for what she believes and what she does in this life.
01:51:26.458 → 01:51:27.538
Women don’t get off the hook.
01:51:27.578 → 01:51:31.718
It’s not you’re scot-free because you happen not to be a man.
01:51:31.718 → 01:51:35.938
But as the head, you are held to a different and higher standard.
01:51:35.938 → 01:51:41.778
So make it clear to her why you are the one who has the authority, why you are the one who makes the decision.
01:51:41.778 → 01:51:48.998
Quite frankly, for almost all women, she is going to be more comfortable with that because you are doing what you’re supposed to do as a man.
01:51:48.998 → 01:51:49.938
Women are going to test you.
01:51:49.938 → 01:51:51.738
They’re going to push boundaries.
01:51:51.738 → 01:52:00.898
But if they find that you don’t have a spine and that you are not willing to stand up and do what needs to be done as the man, that’s when you’re in some real trouble.
01:52:00.898 → 01:52:03.118
So make sure you do what you need to do.
01:52:03.118 → 01:52:04.578
You have the final say.
01:52:04.578 → 01:52:06.018
You have to make this choice.
01:52:06.018 → 01:52:08.338
Your wife does not get to make the choice.
01:52:08.338 → 01:52:17.038
Even if she has some things that make her a little bit uncomfortable at first, or she has some concerns, you can alleviate those, you can address those.
01:52:17.038 → 01:52:19.278
But they are not dispositive.
01:52:19.278 → 01:52:23.358
What she feels, what she wants is not determinative because you are the head.
01:52:23.358 → 01:52:31.058
You will answer to God for what you do and what you fail to do or fail to do.
01:52:31.058 → 01:52:34.638
Let me go through the chat here.
01:52:34.638 → 01:52:43.178
I got through the 13 questions that I had on my list for the episode, but I will go through the chat now and try to get some of those.
01:52:44.518 → 01:52:51.178
The first one, are you convinced Yahweh is a demon rather than just a linguistic error?
01:52:51.178 → 01:52:52.158
That’s going to depend on the person.
01:52:52.558 → 01:53:11.818
I think, for many people, it is just extremely stupid and a linguistic error, but I think that it, if it is not originally the name of a demon, I think it is the adopted name of a demon that is in some way involved with the Jewish people.
01:53:11.818 → 01:53:19.198
And I think that’s very clear from what has been done in that name and under that name over a course of centuries.
01:53:20.518 → 01:53:24.658
So, I would definitely object to using it in any way.
01:53:24.658 → 01:53:27.878
I would not, I hesitated to read it.
01:53:27.878 → 01:53:30.298
And that’s not saying, you know, name magic or anything like that.
01:53:30.298 → 01:53:39.978
But there are some ways that these things play out that we do not fully understand because God did not explain them to us because perhaps we don’t need to know them.
01:53:39.978 → 01:53:53.778
But I don’t think that we should in any way be using the names of demons unless it is sort of in the sterile environment of, you know, noting that this thing existed or exists or is historically real.
01:53:53.778 → 01:53:57.958
You know, for instance, I don’t not read the name Baal when I’m going through Scripture, right?
01:53:57.958 → 01:54:01.438
It just means Lord, but it is the name of a demon.
01:54:01.438 → 01:54:08.618
I don’t not read it because it is that, but I’m not going to use it outside that context because I think it’s unwise.
01:54:08.618 → 01:54:11.098
Same thing with regard to Yahweh.
01:54:11.098 → 01:54:13.458
We should not be using it, certainly as Christians.
01:54:13.458 → 01:54:16.458
And we should be very skeptical of anyone who does.
01:54:17.618 → 01:54:22.858
Usually, those people are seeking to mislead you in some entirely predictable way.
01:54:24.638 → 01:54:27.578
Someone asked about a top 10 reading list.
01:54:27.578 → 01:54:32.678
I don’t know that I have that off the top of my head.
01:54:32.678 → 01:54:37.698
People have asked before, and I just have not actually compiled one.
01:54:37.698 → 01:54:40.538
I’ve read so many books at this point, quite frankly.
01:54:40.538 → 01:54:46.258
I have, I don’t even know how many volumes my own library, because I never actually got through scanning them all.
01:54:48.618 → 01:54:55.318
But I think it would largely depend on if we’re talking about just any book, or if we’re talking about certain genres.
01:54:55.318 → 01:54:59.878
If we’re talking about fiction, then obviously Dune is going to be in my top 10.
01:54:59.878 → 01:55:03.678
He’s saying that a series should count as one, which I think is fine.
01:55:03.678 → 01:55:04.478
Lord of the Rings is good.
01:55:04.478 → 01:55:06.098
That was an example he gave.
01:55:06.098 → 01:55:09.098
I actually think I’ll say something controversial for some men.
01:55:09.098 → 01:55:11.358
I think Tolkien is a much better writer than CS.
01:55:11.358 → 01:55:13.138
Lewis.
01:55:13.138 → 01:55:14.118
It’s just the reality of it.
01:55:14.578 → 01:55:16.378
I don’t think Lewis is bad.
01:55:16.378 → 01:55:21.038
I would not put the space trilogy in my top 10.
01:55:21.038 → 01:55:21.698
I just wouldn’t.
01:55:21.698 → 01:55:33.238
I know many men on our side are very fond of Lewis and fond of the space trilogy, but I just didn’t find it that particularly compelling.
01:55:33.238 → 01:55:36.358
It’s not bad, just not my top 10.
01:55:36.358 → 01:55:38.398
So I don’t really have a top 10 list.
01:55:38.398 → 01:55:45.938
I don’t know that I will ever make one, but I’ll give book recommendations here and there, and I’ve done that for various genres, various areas of interest.
01:55:54.118 → 01:56:00.218
Someone asked about the music used for Stone Choir.
01:56:00.218 → 01:56:02.298
That one’s actually very easy.
01:56:02.298 → 01:56:05.778
I don’t even know if it counts as a question necessarily, but I guess it does.
01:56:05.778 → 01:56:06.758
Question 16.
01:56:06.758 → 01:56:16.518
So if you go to Stone Choir and click on the resources page, it gives both a download of the intro and outro, and says which songs they are.
01:56:16.518 → 01:56:18.138
It’s two different hymns.
01:56:18.138 → 01:56:29.778
Well, it’s two different tunes, many different hymns in the one case, because one of the tunes is used across various denominations, and one is going to be pretty much just Lutherans who know it.
01:56:29.778 → 01:56:32.258
But they are both hymns.
01:56:32.258 → 01:56:34.138
The outro is indeed from Martin Luther.
01:56:41.857 → 01:56:49.517
Someone asked, in regards to not listening to women, I understand, to some extent, but is it okay to take your woman’s opinion into consideration, discuss topics?
01:56:49.517 → 01:56:52.957
I think I sort of answered that with the last question there.
01:56:52.957 → 01:56:54.417
The answer, of course, is yes.
01:56:54.417 → 01:57:05.297
And you absolutely should, because your wife’s desires and her thoughts, and her feet, particularly her feelings, that’s just the reality of it, they do matter.
01:57:05.297 → 01:57:14.197
They’re going to matter for your relationship, they’re going to certainly matter for her and her happiness, and that’s going to influence your home, it’s going to influence you, your children, everything else.
01:57:14.197 → 01:57:17.417
So, it’s not that you’re ruled by your wife, right?
01:57:17.417 → 01:57:22.917
Because if you’re ruled by your wife, that will make her extremely unhappy, so that’s not good in any system.
01:57:22.917 → 01:57:30.997
It’s not good because it’s bad to be ruled by your wife, and it’s not good because being ruled by your wife will actually make her unhappy as well.
01:57:30.997 → 01:57:31.697
So don’t do that.
01:57:31.697 → 01:57:33.517
But can you discuss things with her?
01:57:33.517 → 01:57:34.897
Absolutely.
01:57:34.897 → 01:57:36.137
Be judicious.
01:57:36.137 → 01:57:38.457
Don’t discuss absolutely every topic with her.
01:57:38.637 → 01:57:51.497
If you discuss the political, if you are so inclined and you know about it, if you discuss the political reality of our situation with your wife in depth, you are just going to make her depressed and anxious.
01:57:51.497 → 01:57:53.557
Don’t do that to her.
01:57:53.557 → 01:57:55.617
Save that for your male friends.
01:57:55.617 → 01:57:59.777
That’s something that is not really something that involves women.
01:57:59.777 → 01:58:03.277
That is a male area because God has assigned it to men.
01:58:03.277 → 01:58:05.177
So exercise your judgment.
01:58:15.638 → 01:58:23.238
Someone asked about attending seminary, specifically about the LCMS and some others as well.
01:58:23.238 → 01:58:32.778
If a man wants to become a pastor, but if you go to Concordia Seminary, let’s say, we’ll skip the university part, you go to Concordia Seminary, you will have to learn Hebrew.
01:58:32.778 → 01:58:36.178
So should a young man not go to LCMS University and seminary?
01:58:36.178 → 01:58:39.598
I guess I could give really two answers to that.
01:58:39.618 → 01:58:58.718
One is that you can go to another seminary, and then you can basically wave in, as it were, which was what attorneys would call it, but there’s a process to become an LCMS pastor, despite not having gone to an LCMS seminary, if that’s the route you want to take.
01:58:58.718 → 01:59:06.418
So, but insofar as becoming a Lutheran pastor, if you really want that education, I still think the LCMS seminary is going to be good for that.
01:59:07.498 → 01:59:09.898
And learn enough Hebrew to pass the class.
01:59:11.698 → 01:59:25.898
You know, I think anyone in this chat who learned a second language in high school probably understands exactly what I just said, because most men who learned a second language in high school learned enough to pass the class.
01:59:25.898 → 01:59:32.598
And if I asked you a question in Spanish, or German, or French right now, today, you probably would not be able to answer it.
01:59:32.598 → 01:59:35.898
So, do the same thing with Hebrew, just get enough to pass the class.
01:59:35.898 → 01:59:37.378
I think that’s fine.
01:59:37.378 → 01:59:37.878
Is it ideal?
01:59:38.538 → 01:59:50.358
Absolutely not, but it is the reality, and I think you’re probably going to get a better education at that seminary, particularly if you can get the tuition covered in some way.
01:59:50.358 → 01:59:57.178
So, don’t go into debt for this, but I think that’s probably the best way to handle that one.
01:59:59.138 → 02:00:02.018
Someone asked, how do you recommend dealing with unemployment?
02:00:02.018 → 02:00:04.798
I think there are two obvious answers.
02:00:04.798 → 02:00:10.278
That one is do whatever you can to get a job, because for men, that’s pretty important.
02:00:10.278 → 02:00:11.438
Just psychologically.
02:00:11.438 → 02:00:14.758
I mean, it’s important for a lot of reasons, but psychologically, it’s certainly important.
02:00:14.758 → 02:00:19.098
But the second answer to that is perhaps more the sort of answer you’re seeking.
02:00:20.418 → 02:00:22.918
Don’t be idle.
02:00:22.918 → 02:00:24.298
Do something with your time.
02:00:24.298 → 02:00:29.178
This is one of those areas that’s going to be highly dependent on the type of man you are.
02:00:29.178 → 02:00:44.798
Some men are very good at structuring their lives, and even if they have basically unlimited free time, regimenting things and doing them, despite the fact that they could just sit on the couch all day and do nothing, you know, play Xbox or whatever it is.
02:00:44.798 → 02:00:46.358
Excuse me.
02:00:47.638 → 02:00:51.238
So make sure you have a schedule, basically.
02:00:51.238 → 02:00:55.398
It doesn’t have to be, you know, for 10 minutes, I do X, and then for 20.
02:00:55.398 → 02:01:00.098
Just have time chunked out, so you work out.
02:01:00.098 → 02:01:01.298
That should be part of your daily schedule.
02:01:01.298 → 02:01:04.698
You work out for this period of time.
02:01:04.698 → 02:01:06.118
You take the dog for a walk.
02:01:06.318 → 02:01:07.978
You have lunch during this time.
02:01:07.978 → 02:01:09.918
You read during this time.
02:01:09.918 → 02:01:12.798
You know, have chunks of time where you do things.
02:01:12.798 → 02:01:18.318
Have that organized schedule, or you’re probably going to fall into depression.
02:01:18.318 → 02:01:20.218
That’s the psychological reality for men.
02:01:20.218 → 02:01:25.218
Men do not do well when they’re idle, until you get really old and you’re retired, right?
02:01:25.218 → 02:01:27.358
Even then, not great.
02:01:27.358 → 02:01:30.678
Older men still should have some sort of schedule.
02:01:30.678 → 02:01:32.138
It’s going to be different for older men, right?
02:01:32.138 → 02:01:34.738
You play bocce ball, and then you play bridge in the afternoon or something.
02:01:34.798 → 02:01:46.398
But if you just have open-ended free time and you do nothing with it, it is terrible for you, psychologically, morally, biologically, it’s going to start to weigh on you.
02:01:46.398 → 02:01:49.358
Don’t fall into that trap.
02:01:49.358 → 02:01:54.398
So continue looking for a job, assuming that is, I assume that is what’s going on here.
02:01:54.398 → 02:01:55.398
Continue looking for a job.
02:01:55.398 → 02:01:59.718
But in the interim, make sure you are using that time to do something.
02:01:59.718 → 02:02:03.878
It doesn’t mean every minute of the day has to be devoted to doing something productive, right?
02:02:04.498 → 02:02:06.758
Leisure time is also important.
02:02:06.758 → 02:02:12.638
But don’t let all of your time become, not leisure, but at that point, sloth.
02:02:12.638 → 02:02:15.378
So make sure you maintain that structure in your life.
02:02:20.735 → 02:02:30.375
The next question, did you consider joining a traditional Roman Catholic Church before you became Lutheran, or were you fully convinced of Lutheran doctrine early on?
02:02:30.375 → 02:02:36.415
I looked at a lot of different things before I became Lutheran.
02:02:36.415 → 02:02:41.515
I wouldn’t say settled on Lutheran, because that’s not how it was, but convinced of Lutheran doctrine.
02:02:43.695 → 02:02:45.915
I’ve gone over this before, I’ll go over it again.
02:02:45.915 → 02:02:47.975
I grew up sort of half Lutheran and half not.
02:02:48.535 → 02:02:53.555
Half Lutheran, because I attended an LCMS school, and so I went to chapel and things like that.
02:02:53.555 → 02:02:58.015
And half not, because my parents were not Lutheran.
02:02:58.015 → 02:03:04.615
They went to a, ironically perhaps, Lutheran descended church, but it was a covenant church.
02:03:04.615 → 02:03:07.535
And so it was largely non-denominational.
02:03:07.535 → 02:03:13.455
You can even figure out which one it was in Southern California, won’t be that hard to find if you know the rough area where I lived when I grew up.
02:03:13.455 → 02:03:16.615
But, actually you can probably just find it very easily.
02:03:18.795 → 02:03:20.415
So, I started off that way, right?
02:03:20.415 → 02:03:28.175
And so, really what I started is returned to Lutheranism, kind of, but, you know, like I said, half and half not.
02:03:28.175 → 02:03:41.835
In undergrad is really, the end of undergrad is when I started taking theology more seriously and looking at it, because up to then, I was really political science and sociology and psychology and various other fields like that.
02:03:41.835 → 02:03:43.875
That was my interest at first.
02:03:43.995 → 02:03:48.175
And I still have a great deal of background in that stuff.
02:03:48.175 → 02:03:54.815
But I started reading more theology, and I actually read a lot of reformed theology.
02:03:54.815 → 02:04:14.055
It’s probably not now, because now I’ve read more Lutheran, but up to that point and up to the point where I decided to become firmly Lutheran and actually, you know, go through the process in a Lutheran church, being a member and all that, I read more reformed theology than probably anything else.
02:04:14.055 → 02:04:25.915
But I did read Roman Catholic, and I did read from the Baptists and the Puritans and many others, and I was not convinced by any of it except for Lutheranism.
02:04:25.915 → 02:04:36.375
And this is a similar thing that I hear from many of those who will tell me, I’m Lutheran now, and they’ll tell me one of two reasons usually.
02:04:36.395 → 02:04:43.595
One is I read the Book of Concord, and it agrees with scripture.
02:04:43.595 → 02:04:47.035
I compared it to scripture, and I found it said the same things.
02:04:47.035 → 02:04:51.575
I was convinced by it because it sounds like scripture.
02:04:51.575 → 02:04:55.695
And then the second is, I tried to argue with Martin Luther and I lost.
02:04:55.695 → 02:04:58.395
I hear that one pretty frequently too.
02:04:58.395 → 02:05:00.495
So I think that’s very reasonable.
02:05:00.495 → 02:05:10.495
If you read Luther and you read the Book of Concord, and you find that it agrees with plain reason and agrees with the Word of God, then by all means become Lutheran.
02:05:10.495 → 02:05:14.215
I’m not going to say you have to become Lutheran just because I think it’s right.
02:05:14.215 → 02:05:18.535
I think that a man should be convinced to some degree because it is a matter of conscience.
02:05:18.535 → 02:05:23.995
But I have found that Lutheranism is the most consistent with scripture.
02:05:23.995 → 02:05:26.955
I believe everything it teaches about scripture is true.
02:05:26.955 → 02:05:34.175
I don’t believe there are errors, doctrinal errors in the Book of Concord, which is why I’m Lutheran.
02:05:34.175 → 02:05:41.355
But no, I did look at a lot of other things before I eventually turned to reading Martin Luther in the Book of Concord.
02:05:42.435 → 02:05:48.155
Other than obviously, I knew the small catechism because you memorize it when you go to a Lutheran school.
02:05:48.155 → 02:05:50.495
So I did have that little bit of background in Lutheranism.
02:05:55.951 → 02:06:05.871
The next question, trying to keep a running note tally here so that I can add this to the show notes.
02:06:09.651 → 02:06:11.831
Have you ever spoken with Joel Webin?
02:06:11.831 → 02:06:17.891
If not, are you going to be doing so, or would you ever like to do an interview with him in the near future?
02:06:17.891 → 02:06:19.791
I have not spoken with him.
02:06:19.791 → 02:06:27.391
I don’t know that I would object to doing an interview, but I have a feeling that he probably would.
02:06:27.391 → 02:06:32.231
And there are a number of reasons for that.
02:06:32.231 → 02:06:39.171
I’m not going to say anything concrete, because I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to say it here and now.
02:06:39.171 → 02:06:44.111
But I have not spoken with him, no.
02:06:44.111 → 02:06:51.631
But again, I would not object to an interview, because generally speaking, I don’t object to talking to anyone who is at least vaguely onside.
02:06:53.951 → 02:06:59.551
So, last year, I issued a blanket open door policy, as it were.
02:06:59.551 → 02:07:13.511
I basically said, anyone who wants to invite me on to a podcast show, whatever it happens to be, as long as you have some sort of audience, you know, I didn’t want to open the door for the person who spins up a YouTube channel and five minutes later says, hey, you want to have a chat?
02:07:13.571 → 02:07:19.151
I put some reasonable restrictions on it, but I basically said, I will say yes.
02:07:19.151 → 02:07:24.611
That’s no longer open, because it was really just for that period of time, but it kind of still is.
02:07:24.611 → 02:07:31.731
I’m not going to object to talking to most men, because I think that it is useful to hash out some of these issues.
02:07:31.731 → 02:07:39.351
I know that we stopped Stone Choir because we had already addressed basically all the core issues, which I still believe is true.
02:07:39.351 → 02:07:49.811
I do this because I believe that men still want to have some answers to certain questions and clarification of certain things that pop up every, you know, almost weekly.
02:07:49.811 → 02:07:52.771
But I think it’s reasonable to have this as well.
02:07:52.771 → 02:07:58.571
But what we set out to accomplish with Stone Choir was accomplished, and therefore the catalog was closed.
02:07:58.571 → 02:08:01.591
That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing left to be discussed.
02:08:01.591 → 02:08:04.991
And so I don’t object to having these discussions with other men.
02:08:04.991 → 02:08:09.051
And no, I would not object to talking to him.
02:08:09.051 → 02:08:13.691
Perhaps if there were other men in the area, maybe I’d start up the Tisha Raiden podcast again.
02:08:13.691 → 02:08:16.111
But there would have to be other men in the area who like to drink beer.
02:08:16.111 → 02:08:19.091
So I don’t know if that will happen in the near future.
02:08:23.311 → 02:08:24.611
The next question.
02:08:24.611 → 02:08:25.191
Hi, Corey.
02:08:25.191 → 02:08:29.051
I recently saw Woe denounce theonomy as a modern heresy.
02:08:29.051 → 02:08:31.671
The elevator pitch sounds similar to CN.
02:08:31.671 → 02:08:32.891
Do you share this view?
02:08:32.891 → 02:08:36.131
And if so, what is the key difference, if any, from CN?
02:08:37.951 → 02:08:54.831
That’s going to depend very heavily on the man who is advancing theonomy, because insofar as I’ve seen from the Reformed camp, I’ve seen a bunch of different formulations of it, and I can agree to various degrees with the various formulations.
02:08:54.831 → 02:08:57.571
So I don’t know that I could give a blanket answer.
02:08:57.571 → 02:09:08.851
It would have to be a particular formulation of theonomy, and then I could give a concrete answer as to, I agree with this, I disagree with that sort of thing.
02:09:08.851 → 02:09:11.851
So it would depend on the specific man.
02:09:11.851 → 02:09:17.651
But I would have to see to what Woe was responding, to see why he called it a heresy.
02:09:17.651 → 02:09:18.871
I would probably agree with him.
02:09:18.871 → 02:09:21.531
I trust his judgment on these things.
02:09:23.611 → 02:09:26.571
But I don’t know to what he was responding.
02:09:26.571 → 02:09:27.431
I didn’t see that one.
02:09:28.871 → 02:09:34.631
The X algorithm has a great way of hiding things from you, even when you follow someone and have notifications turned on.
02:09:49.973 → 02:09:55.273
The next question, how do you get single guys to not seek a female that is based?
02:09:56.353 → 02:10:21.533
I don’t know if it’s bad to find a woman who agrees politically, but I think that if guys are going to make that a requirement, they have not necessarily set up politics as an idol, but they’re in error with regard to judgment, because this is not an area that is really, an area for women.
02:10:21.533 → 02:10:38.793
And so, it’s more important that you find a woman who is going to take care of the home, is going to be a wife and mother, and is going to submit to you as her head, than finding a woman who already agrees with you on everything.
02:10:38.793 → 02:10:45.773
If she agrees with you on some certain core things, that’s great, because it means that her father raised her right, and the world didn’t corrupt her.
02:10:46.773 → 02:10:51.893
But she doesn’t have to agree with you on everything at the outset, and she’s not going to.
02:10:51.893 → 02:10:57.013
So I think you’re looking for the wrong things, if you’re looking for politics first in a woman.
02:10:57.013 → 02:10:58.613
That’s kind of odd.
02:10:58.613 → 02:11:01.713
You’re looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place.
02:11:01.713 → 02:11:04.633
You know, don’t look for a dog that speaks French, right?
02:11:04.633 → 02:11:06.493
It’s not how you choose.
02:11:06.493 → 02:11:10.573
It’s not to insult women or to insult dogs, or maybe the French.
02:11:10.573 → 02:11:14.753
But you’re looking at the wrong things, and you’re looking in the wrong place for them.
02:11:14.853 → 02:11:22.033
If you were trying to find a woman who is in the parlance of the right based, look for other things that matter more.
02:11:22.033 → 02:11:34.193
And the rest will follow, because if she submits to you as her head, then by and large, she’s not going to care about politics, because that’s not going to be what she is doing in the home.
02:11:34.193 → 02:11:38.473
She is going to have plenty to do with children and running a home.
02:11:38.473 → 02:11:46.793
And quite frankly, women are a lot happier when they don’t think about politics, because politics, like I said earlier, just makes them depressed and anxious.
02:11:46.793 → 02:11:53.693
So you probably don’t want her to be that deeply involved in it, because it comes with a cognitive and psychological burden.
02:12:05.081 → 02:12:10.381
I know I have run a little bit over, but I will see if there are any other questions in the chat that I can answer quickly.
02:12:24.110 → 02:12:30.070
Would you consider an appearance on Kevin Deanna’s show Identity Politics?
02:12:30.070 → 02:12:37.770
He seems to be sympathetic to the takeover of some churches by modernity, and expressed an interest in having you on.
02:12:37.770 → 02:12:41.910
I am not off the top of my head.
02:12:41.910 → 02:12:44.970
Familiar with him, I don’t think.
02:12:48.250 → 02:12:56.650
But if he’s a guy who’s on side, I don’t think that I would necessarily object to having a chat with him.
02:12:58.570 → 02:13:02.410
But like I said, I don’t think that off the top of my head.
02:13:02.410 → 02:13:04.330
Wait, are you just talking about…
02:13:04.330 → 02:13:08.570
If you’re just talking about the V-Dare guy, then yeah, I know him, and I obviously wouldn’t object to talking to him.
02:13:08.570 → 02:13:10.650
I thought you were talking about someone else.
02:13:10.650 → 02:13:17.290
But if we’re just talking about the V-Dare guy, then yeah, I know him, and I’d have no trouble talking to him.
02:13:23.750 → 02:13:26.550
So, any fiction recommendations beyond Dune?
02:13:26.550 → 02:13:29.190
I don’t know that I necessarily have one off the top of my head for that.
02:13:39.007 → 02:13:44.347
I guess I will keep that in mind in case I read a fiction book that I find particularly good.
02:13:44.347 → 02:13:50.367
I have not been reading that much fiction these days, so I don’t have as many recommendations, I guess.
02:13:53.507 → 02:14:02.327
So, I have recommended something with regard to fiction that I will go ahead and reiterate here for those who are interested, though.
02:14:02.327 → 02:14:26.647
If you want to, and I guess, you know, necessarily disclaimer and what not, but if you want some sort of familiarity with or insight into the Jewish mind with regard to what they think of as they’re making a better world, right?
02:14:26.647 → 02:14:27.567
Tikkun olam.
02:14:27.567 → 02:14:52.867
If you want sort of an insight into what they believe that would look like, then you can read the Foundation Series by Asimov, because Asimov himself was indeed a Jew, but he made the spacers basically their version of the paradise on earth they’d like to create, the utopia they’d like to build.
02:14:52.867 → 02:14:59.287
And you can, I’m not saying watch the TV series, I’ve seen some clips of it, and I think it’s garbage compared to the books most likely.
02:14:59.747 → 02:15:03.507
The books aren’t bad, like he was a decent author.
02:15:03.507 → 02:15:06.607
So, but you know, cum granos salis, he was indeed a Jew.
02:15:06.607 → 02:15:11.507
But you’re going to get an insight into that view of the world.
02:15:13.927 → 02:15:23.667
So, yeah, I think if you want that sort of insight, and you like that kind of sci-fi, that’s probably a pretty good reading recommendation for certain men.
02:15:23.667 → 02:15:28.467
And it will give you that psychological insight into the Jewish mind.
02:15:28.567 → 02:15:31.747
Whether you want that or not, that’s sort of the question.
02:15:31.747 → 02:15:34.027
If you don’t want that, then don’t read it.
02:15:43.746 → 02:15:48.666
I, excuse me, I think that is probably going to be it for this episode.
02:15:48.666 → 02:15:58.086
I’ve already run a little bit long, but I was just trying to get through the questions in the chat instead of having the backlog increase, as it were.
02:15:58.086 → 02:16:00.846
So I think I got through pretty much all of the questions.
02:16:00.846 → 02:16:07.786
If I missed your question, which may very well be true as I was scrolling through the chat, then by all means, please submit the question on omnifora.com.
02:16:09.126 → 02:16:16.626
That should be linked in the description, regardless of on which platform you happen to be watching right now.
02:16:16.626 → 02:16:18.606
And it will also be in the show notes.
02:16:18.606 → 02:16:21.526
I try to do these streams on Thursdays.
02:16:21.526 → 02:16:25.746
They often wind up being Fridays instead.
02:16:25.746 → 02:16:37.626
But I then release the audio afterward, and I try to release the higher quality audio when I remember to hit record here on my end anyway, which is not always true.
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But I release high quality audio only for those who want it.
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It’s, of course, available still on YouTube and X.
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You can view it after the fact.
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But the questions are preferably submitted through the forum because it makes it easier for me to organize them.
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If you submit them in the chat or elsewhere, I try to compile them.
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I have an ongoing list of them on the forum.
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So if you do not see your question there, that means I probably missed it.
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So please submit it, and then I will add it to the growing list.
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Thank you for those of you who submitted questions, and for all of you for taking the time on a Friday night to listen to me answer them.
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I’m always glad to take the opportunity to answer your questions and clarify whatever it happens to be, whatever the topic or the question.
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So until next week, I guess I will see you all hopefully Thursday next week.
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I’ll try to hit that for once.
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It’ll be the one out of three.
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But make sure that you attend church on Sunday, and I will see all of you next week.
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May God bless you until then.
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Have a nice evening.