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Welcome to the Restless Theologian podcast, where we focus on having insightful conversations in biblical history and theology.
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I'm your host, Zechariah Eshack.
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We're going to be discussing and examining cessationism and we're going to be taking a look at whether the miraculous gifts, whether tongues, prophecy and healing, are still active in the church today.
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So what we're going to do is we're going to look at arguments just from a biblical perspective as well as a theological framework, and we're also going to bring in critiques from those opposed to cessationism, and those include we're going to touch briefly on Gavin Ortland, dr Michael Brown, pastor Mark Driscoll and T Wright as well, and so those are just a little bit of like the YouTube videos that me and Cory, my guest.
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How you doing, Cory?
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Hey, good, zach, how are you
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Good?
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Good, thanks for coming back on.
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I appreciate you taking the time today.
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Yeah, of course, love being here.
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Thank you, thank you, yeah, so this one's a really interesting topic, cessationism, because up until this point I have not put a whole lot of thought into it and I haven't really known much about it, and I would say so I watched the cessationist film, which is a film that's a documentary by Les Lampere.
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He's the guy who also did, um, the spirit and truth documentary as well as the Calvinist documentary, and, uh, he's, he's actually done a little bit of work, um, like secular work on, like transformers and a few other videos, uh.
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But so what is cessationism?
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It's basically, it holds that the miraculous gifts have ceased with the apostles or shortly thereafter, after the New Testament was completed, and so we're going to bring in Hebrews, chapter two, verses three, through four.
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How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation through 4.
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How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?
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It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
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So the view is that the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit does continue in works such as regeneration, sanctification, uh, through prayer, um, as well as illumination of the scriptures, um.
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So next, I would like to just um kind of unpack the four different views, or actually we're just going to briefly touch on them, if you wouldn't mind reading.
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Uh for me, the four different types of cessationists and their explanations.
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Yeah.
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So the first one is called classical cessationists, which means believing miraculous gifts ceased with the apostles, so that's classical.
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Then there's consistent cessationists, which tie the cessation of gifts directly to the closure of the canon and foundational offices, like the apostles and prophets Ephesians 2.20 is a good reference for that.
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There's concentric or pragmatic cessationists, and these allow for rare signs in unreached mission fields, but they're not normative in the local church.
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And then the last one is hardline cessationists.
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Hardline, they deny all post-apostolic miraculous claims, often polemical against what we would call continuationism, which is the exact opposite of cessationism right.
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Yeah, continuationism is basically that you believe that the sign gifts have continued to the present day.
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They don't stop until basically the end times, until the last day.
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So that's a continuationist view and yeah, so I really loved um kind of diving deeper into this.
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Um, I didn't for me personally, I didn't agree a hundred percent with the cessationist documentary.
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At least there was a claim in there that um, obviously I think I, where I found myself to fit the most in line with um between just all those different definitions, is consistent since a uh, cessationist, that's where I think I fit most closely.
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So it's like you believe the gifts directly related by the apostles, profits, like they've all, like those sign gifts have ceased and as well as their offices have ceased Um, so there was these three different 65 year periods that the film had held that, okay, these three 65 periods from you know, like Moses and Joshua, elijah and Elisha, jesus and the apostles, those three distinct epics were when the sign gifts were prevalent.
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So I thought it was interesting that Gavin Ortland, kind of you know, did a rebuttal of the film and of that in particular.
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But we, you know, I would love to get your take on it.
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You know, so far, that's funny.
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I've never honestly thought about the fact that it was.
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It was taking place during the 65 year increment of time, right.
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With these, these three different portions of biblical history.
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So that's hilarious because it's like, oh wow, that's very specific.
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That is very specific Even when I even
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when I was watching the film, I kind of, you know, had a little bit of a raised eyebrow and I'm like I don't know if that fits in line with um, cause I think Gavin Ortlund does have a point in his response video with just the idea that, um, uh, what did he bring up?
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He brought up, uh, you know, times in between those timeframes, such as, like, Samson, Daniel, uh, some of the angelic visions and some of the healings that were done.
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You know, post Elijah, the way the film put it is almost like there was those three clusters where that's, you know, it's like this is when this is actually defined as being a miraculous time period.
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Yeah, Right, Compared to, like you said, it being spread out.
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It's happening, you know, let's say, in between the chapters and all of that right in between the Bible books.
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These are the.
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It's almost like these are the epochs of, like you said, of the miracles times, right.
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Yeah.
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And you said that Gavin Ortland.
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So he I'm sorry you have to remind me, did you say that he doesn't agree with that, or he does agree with that?
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No, no.
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He was refuting it, you know, and he was bringing up other times in scriptural history outside of those time frames when miracles occurred.
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Gotcha Okay.
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And I thought that that was a fair rebuttal.
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On that ground, I would say the biggest thing that I would bring up about him and his response one of the things I was thinking was between him and mark driscoll.
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I felt like that they both were getting a.
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It's like an error in categories, right, because how I feel like they're.
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The error is is that they're kind of conflating the um agents of god, which, meaning prophets or apostles, and the sign gifts that they had, um, that there seems to be a conflation between that and then just other miraculous things that God does right.
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Let's just say not in a situation like we're, like Jonah, for example, when God calmed that storm after Jonah was thrown over the boat, Okay, there was no actual human person that was involved in stopping that.
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That was a direct um miraculous work by God.
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That's outside of normal nature, I guess.
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Yeah, right, yeah.
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Cause he in a divine way intervened.
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Um, what do you think about this?
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Does that make sense to you?
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It does.
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Um, so you're about this.
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Does that make sense to you?
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It does, so you're saying that the argument that's being made is that these very specific, miraculous, interventionist happenings were so specific and directly tied to, like these biblical narrative portrayals that it doesn't necessarily equate to.
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This is a normative type of a thing.
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Like this is like explaining a little bit more about whatever, like something really specific, defining the moment in God's story, compared to like this is just how people do it every single day in the church, right?
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Or this is how people have always done it, like in the ancient Hebrew religions, right?
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Like do you know what I mean?
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Like this is it's so specific that it can't be done again.
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That's why I'm trying to get a little more clarity on your position on the whole thing too, because you said they're making a category error and I want to hear what you say about that.
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Yeah, yeah, so I think that I probably could rephrase it a little bit better.
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So I think that the category error is is basically this so there is a distinction that should be made between the direct um, like, say, peter and, and Paul directly healing somebody, so that God is using an agent of his to perform a miraculous work, right.
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That to me is a little bit different than the providential acts of God when it comes to miracle, like even let's put it in today's context.
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So I noticed that the error that Mark Driscoll was making was like oh, we believe in prayer, we believe that someone prays and a person may be healed.
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So god uses means.
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It's just the means are different in the sense that, like, um, you know, he may or may not heal somebody through prayer, right, but that is very different than an apostle laying hands on somebody and healing them instantaneously.
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Okay, right.
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Yeah, so like their specific sign gifts were, because the argument is is that their particular sign gifts were correlated to their distinct offices that they held.
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Does that distinction, those distinctions, make sense to you?
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It does, and I guess the way that my mind works is I guess I haven't really ever thought of it that way, right, like I've never really thought of it that specifically, but it makes more sense when you explain it that way, because you're saying based off of the offices right, I love that term that you're using office.
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Right, this is their office, this is their role.
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Yeah, and with a role comes a responsibility, and due to the responsibility, they're going to perform a certain way with specific whatever.
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Um, so that's not true of everybody, though all the time, like I'm thinking Moses, right, parting the red sea, it's like you don't really see another example of that happening throughout all scripture.
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Like to that degree, right.
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Yeah.
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I know Joshua had an instance where that had happened, but it wasn't the same thing.
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It was the Jordan River, and you don't see Jesus even parting the Red Sea, right?
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I mean, you see him doing miraculous things with water all the time, but because of Moses's office, and you know what he was expected to be doing, that was something that miraculously happened and it was such a divine interventionist, an interventionistic miracle, that it's not expected to be such a regular thing, right?
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right yeah, but like with offices like you said, that makes more sense too, because it's like okay, so somebody's office, like, let's say, just more of a, you know, modern day example, if you're a CEO I'm sorry, maybe not a CEO let's say, if you're like an operations manager, you're expected to perform certain jobs.
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Yeah.
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Being an office.
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I'm sorry.
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An operations manager, right, but if you're a marketing manager, that's going to look a little different, you know.
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So you can't always expect a marketing manager to do the same things as the operations manager, yeah Right.
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So it's just different because of their roles.
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Yeah, and I do think that the sign gifts do seem to be an act of confirming that these apostles were of God.
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Yeah, and sent by God.
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Okay, yeah, that makes sense too.
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Yeah, yeah, I like that.
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Yeah, so, um, real quick, I think I kind of wanted to briefly touch on it, cause cause, I mean, you could look at it a few different ways.
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Obviously, different denominations are going to look at this differently, like, for example, like so the, so that the sign gifts continue.
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Obviously, in some other denominations, the offices that the apostles had would continue, I think, in Romanism and orthodoxy, right.
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So I guess you could look at it a certain way that, like in Rome, it would be the chair of Peter, and then I'm guessing they would probably reason that the other disciples' roles that are underneath Peter would probably be maybe the cardinals, or the cardinals and bishops however you would like to look at that and then, I think, maybe an orthodoxy, because they would see it as a continuation too right, they're continuing those specific roles.
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Obviously, our position is different than that.
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From the reform standpoint, I would say this that, like you, would take the passage that the church is built on the apostles and prophets, with Christ being the chief cornerstone, right, so the foundation is already laid and so, whatever abilities and powers and signs that came with, like the prophets or the apostles, I believe that those signs did cease and I think I mean, I think it's just looking at the pattern of scripture, right, because revelation is closed.
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So that was a big question I had when I was watching some of the videos, because someone like John Piper, he's kind of continuationist but he's kind of more cautious about it.
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But the thing is, when you talk about prophecy and I feel like a lot of people are all over the place and I'm like what is being said here, if it was important enough to be prophetic, I feel like it wanted to be a closed canon.
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Does that make sense?
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Cause there there's that passage in revelation where you know it says in the book that like, if anyone adds, let me see if I can find it Adds to or takes away words from this book.
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They'll be cursed, yeah, yeah.
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And you could think of it because it does use prophecy of this book.
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So some people have interpreted that to mean the whole scriptures altogether, or maybe just specifically the book of Revelation by John.
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Either way, it does sound like that when it comes to the end time stuff, and that's usually where you get more of the dispensationalists Some of them that are a little bit more fringe making these prophetic declarations of what they think is going to happen next.
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And, like you said, I can get very messy.
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It can't get very messy.
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It's not just speculative, like sometimes.
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They'll actually make prophecies about it.
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So what are your thoughts on that?
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Yeah, oh, my goodness, what a loaded subject, right?
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I know.
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Especially that.
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Yeah, oh my goodness, what a loaded subject right I know, especially with prophecy, yeah, um.
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So prophecy is such a funny one to me because, you know, I guess you don't even always need to be like a believer to sometimes prophecy something.
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You know what what I mean?
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Yeah, you're making a prediction.
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A prediction of some kind, and only God knows if it's going to happen or not.
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Right, yeah, 100% at least.
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And I've had people in my life like believers that maybe have approached me and they're like I sense God is going to do this in your life.
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Yeah, and it didn't happen you know, but then I've had other people say the same thing and it did happen.
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And so for me, um, there's a lot of trickiness with prophecy, because I know when you, when you get into Paul's teachings, especially where he talks about that, like in Corinthians he's talking to Corinth and all those believers he mentions tongues and prophecy.
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I know we're going to get into all this stuff too, but with prophecy in particular, it was fascinating because it's almost like he said prophecy is used to draw unbelievers to Christ, right, because he says if everybody in there is prophesying, the unbeliever will be convicted and then they'll drop to their knees and say Jesus is Lord.
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But with tongues he's like that gets messy, because if there's no interpreter, the unbeliever will be like you guys are out of your mind, right, and I think For the speaking in tongues.
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You mean For the speaking in tongues?
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Yeah, Okay.
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And I'm sure if you've kind of been around the Christian block for a little while, you've seen the opposite happen in both of those regards, right, you've seen maybe somebody, or maybe I've heard testimony of somebody that said they heard somebody speaking in tongues and it really hit them hard and then that led them to Christ, you know.
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Or the opposite happened, where all these people, like you said, maybe in like a messy prophesying environment, all these people were prophesying over somebody and they're like that led me completely away from Christ, you know, because it was just weird you know, so I think it's tricky, because the Bible specifically says in the Old Testament if there's somebody that says they're a prophet and they start prophesying over you and what they say doesn't come true, then you'll know that they were a false prophet, right?
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Yeah.
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But what happens when we've got these people out there that would claim, like you mentioned, the offices are still going on, they're continuing on and they say they're a prophet, right, right, but maybe they're not really doing things that are questionable necessarily.
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They're just like trying to give words of God to people, right, and some of that stuff happens for some people, right.
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Well, it's really easy for maybe somebody that doesn't know scripture as well to be like, well then it's true, right, and they are a prophet, Right, they said they were what they've told me.
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It has come true to some degree, or whatever.
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What they've told me, it has come true to some degree or whatever.
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So I've got to believe that these offices continue, right, yeah, okay, well, that's confusing, right.
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But then you've got some of the rest of us out here who might not be considered quote-unquote prophets, but we will also prophesy into each other's lives, you know, because of Scripture, right, because scripture is a very prophetic tool used by God to pronounce, maybe not necessarily predictions, right, but like, like security in Christ.
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Or you know, salvation mechanisms that play out right.
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And when we speak into each other's lives for encouragement, sometimes we actually prophesy over each other's lives.
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You know what I mean, but I don't think it's necessarily always a predictive thing, and I'm sorry, maybe I'm know what I mean, but I don't think it's necessarily always a predictive thing, and I'm sorry, maybe I'm opening up so many extra doors.
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I don't want to get you off track here, but I'm just saying with the idea of prophesying alone.
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That's why, to me, prophecy can be very tricky.
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You know what I mean.
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Well, I think there's a distinction to be made between prophecy and encouragement.
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Sure Right Sure.
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Or declaring something to another, believer that you know.
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You did this.
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Therefore, you know you did X therefore, y, you know, right, um, so you could make predictions, you know speculative, or you can make educated guesses about things, and you can use information from the Bible to make those type of educated guesses about what may happen in a church and like, but I don't see that as or in a person's life, but that's very distinct and different than an actual, than actual prophecy Do you think so, I think so, I don I don't think, I don't, I think that I think prophecy a lot of times.
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Um, at least where my mind goes to is that these are, uh, that god used the prophet.
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He spoke through the prophet and it's his word and I think um that information obviously was inscripturated, so I don't think that there's any need for prophecy today.
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Personally, but you mean by that?
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You mean there's no need for, like the future, predicting?
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Of anything.
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Of anything.
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Nope and specifically for, like all of God's people too, because we have that, like you said, kind of already contained in the scriptures.
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Yeah, yeah, because there's that other passage that talks, where I think it's Paul that talks about it.
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Let me see if I can get my get it pulled up here, a commonly known passage 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16 through 17.
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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness.
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That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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Yeah, comment that all scripture is breathed out by God and that it's profitable and that the man of God may be complete.
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So what I kind of see happening is that I think in more of the charismatic movement, for example, you have people that are praying for these specific sign gifts and elevating those things and instead of what Paul talks about like faith, hope and love, you know, with the greatest of these being love Right, and you know cause.
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What does he say?
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You know, if I have you know the gift of uh, to speak in angelic tongues, or if I have you know the gift of miracles.
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I mean, he goes through like a whole the whole, thing, yeah, the whole thing.
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And he said but I have not love.
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The chief thing to be sought is love.
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And so and you'll have to provide a little bit of your background because I know that you have some experience with this Because when I grew up because my parents, for example, when they first kind of converted I was pretty young, I mean, I was I don't know exactly what timeframe, but I was probably around five or six and um, I remember they got into like TBN and stuff.
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Okay, and I think it's cause they didn't really have a starting point, they didn't know where to go.
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So that was like the first thing, and obviously they would have their, you know, 24, 40 hour give-a-thons and they would have all these like supposed healings by benny hen and all these others which you're, I'm sure you're familiar with.
00:23:09.124 --> 00:23:18.153
And I've been in churches, uh say, like assemblies of god, where they do the speaking in tongues, and I've also been in um, I think it's um.
00:23:18.153 --> 00:23:19.576
What denomination is like the?
00:23:19.576 --> 00:23:21.400
Is it the church of christ?
00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:27.340
I think um, but anyway, they, they would do the slain in the spirit thing too.
00:23:27.340 --> 00:23:39.511
Oh yeah, and I remember it being very off-put just because it's weird, and I wasn't sure if it was just because I was off-put because it's different, or if I was off-put because I, even at a young age, was like I don't know if this is of God.
00:23:39.511 --> 00:23:42.196
Yeah, so I know you have a little bit of.
00:23:42.196 --> 00:23:45.784
You've had some experience in the charismatic movement, right.
00:23:46.430 --> 00:23:46.671
A little bit.
00:23:46.671 --> 00:23:48.357
You've been to churches like that, yeah.
00:23:48.357 --> 00:23:59.923
So just to sum everything up about my background, so I was not really raised with any denomination specifically like more than others.
00:23:59.923 --> 00:24:00.384
Yeah.
00:24:00.384 --> 00:24:04.542
My grandma was a Methodist and she took me to Methodist church.
00:24:04.723 --> 00:24:05.105
That's funny.
00:24:05.105 --> 00:24:05.365
Mine was too.
00:24:05.365 --> 00:24:06.087
Okay, yeah, that's funny, mine was too.
00:24:06.087 --> 00:24:06.529
Okay, yeah, that's fine.
00:24:06.529 --> 00:24:07.715
That's pretty normal for a lot of grandmas.
00:24:07.715 --> 00:24:12.624
She was that she converted to be Roman Catholic because my grandpa was Roman.
00:24:12.624 --> 00:24:14.388
Catholic Okay, got it, yeah, yeah.
00:24:14.628 --> 00:24:30.884
Yeah Well, so my grandma was Methodist and she took me to Methodist church quite a bit when I was a little kid and then I kind of just stopped going because I just didn't want to go to church anymore.
00:24:30.884 --> 00:24:32.366
When I was a younger kid and my dad, who was divorced from my mom, he experimented with pretty much everything Like.
00:24:32.366 --> 00:24:36.599
He went to charismatic churches, he went to Baptist churches, he went to literally like all different kinds.
00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:40.942
He was even a part of the Roman Catholic Church for a little while too.
00:24:41.991 --> 00:24:44.759
OK, so he tried out a lot of different denominations, yeah.
00:24:44.878 --> 00:24:56.590
And he also, like you know, not to you know, put my dad on the spot here, but he a few times when he was kind of walking away from God, he got into like Buddhism and like Taoism and all kinds of stuff Right.
00:24:56.590 --> 00:25:00.442
So he literally dabbled with not everything but a lot of different things.
00:25:01.329 --> 00:25:20.494
So I kind of had a mixed variety of a perspective growing up with all of that and I think it kind of confused me yeah um, I don't think I witnessed too much of like the slain in the spirit stuff when I was growing up, but I did see, like the tongues that uh, you know practice and I saw a lot of um, just a little bit more charismatic churches.
00:25:20.494 --> 00:25:22.721
You know kind of expressing themselves by dancing and everything on stage at.
00:25:22.721 --> 00:25:26.653
You know kind of expressing themselves by dancing and everything on stage at.
00:25:26.653 --> 00:25:28.277
You know church functions and all that.
00:25:28.277 --> 00:25:28.678
Yeah.
00:25:28.959 --> 00:25:29.842
So I saw a lot of that.
00:25:29.842 --> 00:25:32.136
Then I saw the Baptist
perspective was very conservative.
00:25:32.136 --> 00:25:38.218
There wasn't as much, you know, like dancing right and other you know free formed stuff.
00:25:38.218 --> 00:25:46.321
So growing up I didn't really know what to think about any of that because I also kind of walked away from God when I was younger also.
00:25:46.321 --> 00:25:51.420
So I just kind of saw that stuff and said, oh, it's just these Christian people kind of being a little crazy here and there, but whatever.
00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:57.021
And then when I recommitted my life to Christ in my early twenties I didn't know what to do.
00:25:57.021 --> 00:26:03.996
So I kind of went out seeking different experiences, just trying to look for what maybe could be true about all this.
00:26:03.996 --> 00:26:14.621
And one of the first churches I got involved with they were super charismatic and they were all about speaking in tongues and getting they called it drunk in the spirit.
00:26:14.821 --> 00:26:16.048
Yeah, I remember that yeah.
00:26:16.088 --> 00:26:23.243
Yeah, so they were all about that and I had a few experiences where they were like trying to get me to be a part of that whole thing.
00:26:23.243 --> 00:26:28.977
Yeah, there was one event I went to so wild I mean it was impressive, but it was wild Okay.
00:26:28.977 --> 00:26:30.000
It was at a church.
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:36.321
They recreated the whole Old Testament tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant.
00:26:36.321 --> 00:26:36.803
Oh, wow.
00:26:37.109 --> 00:26:40.156
Like throughout their whole church and they would take us on a tour of it.
00:26:40.156 --> 00:26:49.349
And then at the end they're like, okay, so now because you've had the true experience of.
00:26:49.349 --> 00:26:53.400
And then at the end they're like, okay, so now because you've had the true experience of the Shekinah glory, we're going to slain you in the spirit.
00:26:53.420 --> 00:26:57.269
And they literally went around and just started pretty much pushing people onto the ground and saying now speak in tongues, right, and I was a new believer.
00:26:57.269 --> 00:27:01.721
I'm like I don't know what to do here, so maybe I should just do it or try to do it.
00:27:01.721 --> 00:27:05.800
And I tried to do it, there was like nothing that happened.
00:27:05.800 --> 00:27:09.618
I'm like I'm trying to talk in like this tongue language, but I don't know.
00:27:09.618 --> 00:27:10.982
What is it like?
00:27:10.982 --> 00:27:11.951
What do I do, you know?
00:27:11.951 --> 00:27:12.292
Yeah.
00:27:12.493 --> 00:27:16.250
So like oh, just let it free flow, Just open your mouth and just start talking.
00:27:16.250 --> 00:27:20.333
And I did and I'm like I feel like I'm kind of just pretending a little bit.
00:27:20.333 --> 00:27:20.752
Yeah.
00:27:21.834 --> 00:27:28.218
And so there were a few more experiences I had like that, nothing to that extreme degree, but a few other experiences where I would meet up with Christians.
00:27:28.218 --> 00:27:39.364
They do the whole let's all speak in tongues thing, and so, yeah, I had a little bit of a charismatic beginning with my faith in Christ when I came back to him and then it grew much more conservative.
00:27:39.364 --> 00:27:45.508
I started getting involved with much more conservative church who didn't agree with any of that and they would also challenge all of that.
00:27:45.508 --> 00:27:48.278
So I kind of got both extremes right.
00:27:48.278 --> 00:27:48.599
Yeah.
00:27:48.769 --> 00:27:55.875
And then I think it eventually molded me to who I am today, to where I could kind of see both sides and why people, would you know, agree and side with those sides.
00:27:55.875 --> 00:28:26.094
But uh, me personally I would say, uh, because of my own experience, there's not much difference with how confused I can be about that stuff now compared to when I didn't even know Christ, because so many Christians practice so many different things I think you know, especially with like the drunk in the spirit stuff, the speaking in tongues nonstop and all that.
00:28:26.094 --> 00:28:39.821
I personally believe that that kind of sides more on the side of error and misinterpretation of scripture than I would say it's based and grounded historical knowledge of the scriptures, right.
00:28:39.821 --> 00:28:51.627
An example of what I mean by that is the Bible, where Paul says do not be drunk with wine but be filled with the spirit right.
00:28:51.627 --> 00:28:59.144
People have taken that verse and turned it into don't get drunk with wine but get drunk with the spirit right.
00:28:59.269 --> 00:28:59.530
Is that?
00:28:59.530 --> 00:29:00.394
Where is that?
00:29:00.394 --> 00:29:01.837
That's probably where that came from.
00:29:01.919 --> 00:29:04.395
It is yeah, that's that's the verse that I would always hear.
00:29:04.395 --> 00:29:09.719
Yeah, right, and when I was a newer believer, I'd asked this older guy who was my mentor at the time.
00:29:09.719 --> 00:29:11.866
I was like what, what is Paul saying there?
00:29:11.866 --> 00:29:17.615
And he's like, oh, he's saying to get drunk in the spirit, like the Holy spirit will provide you with so much sensation that it's.
00:29:17.615 --> 00:29:21.882
And I heard that.
00:29:21.882 --> 00:29:25.888
I'm like, oh wow, I didn't know we could party like this, being Christians, you know.
00:29:26.250 --> 00:29:26.369
Yeah.
00:29:26.369 --> 00:29:28.478
And that the Holy Spirit would pretty much— it's a new type of high.
00:29:28.478 --> 00:29:30.035
It really is yeah.
00:29:30.195 --> 00:29:30.758
Nothing like it.
00:29:30.758 --> 00:29:42.874
But yeah, so experimenting with that and having a result that was completely flat, I'm like I don't think that that's going to work right for me.
00:29:42.874 --> 00:29:46.657
And then I started hearing other testimonies of Christians that experienced the same thing.
00:29:46.657 --> 00:29:48.240
They're like yeah, I tried that Didn't work at all.
00:29:48.240
--> 00:29:48.760
Yeah.
00:29:48.760 --> 00:29:49.121
You know.
00:29:49.121 --> 00:29:50.041
So I'm like okay.
00:29:50.041 --> 00:29:59.422
So that's kind of weird, that like it's so projected onto people to be like that, and for these teachers and leaders to say that that's actually what Paul is saying to me is kind of weird.
00:29:59.422 --> 00:29:59.871
Yeah.
00:30:00.090 --> 00:30:03.176
And I'm like it's totally misinterpreting what he's actually saying.
00:30:03.176 --> 00:30:06.544
With that, I'll just sidebar real fast.
00:30:06.544 --> 00:30:21.219
I believe what Paul is saying there is you used to get drunk with wine, but now you're a believer and the Holy Spirit hasn't dwelt you, so let him fill you up more with spiritual power, not spiritual drunkenness.
00:30:21.219 --> 00:30:21.640
You know what I?
00:30:21.700 --> 00:30:21.861
mean.
00:30:21.861 --> 00:30:31.575
But it's just a little variation of what you might hear when you read that passage, and I think that that could be true of like all the spiritual gifts you know, like miracles, right?
00:30:31.575 --> 00:30:32.861
I know we're going to talk about miracles too.
00:30:32.861 --> 00:30:46.101
Somebody could read that and be like, oh well, god's giving us the power of miracles, like Moses or like Paul, right, or like Jesus, and so we are expected to perform these miraculous things.
00:30:46.101 --> 00:30:48.436
It's like, okay, well, maybe you're misinterpreting the scripture.
00:30:48.436 --> 00:30:49.339
Did you ever think of it that way?
00:30:49.490 --> 00:30:54.579
You know, yeah, Well, one note about your the wine verse.
00:30:54.579 --> 00:31:00.820
I do think there's parts in scripture that talk about like wine, you know, make, make it the heart glad, and stuff like that.
00:31:00.890 --> 00:31:21.305
Oh yeah sure, and I think that maybe, and I guess in that sense, if you're going to you know, we can maybe make the correlation that that type of joy is obviously now to be found with the Holy Spirit Right, it's kind of crazy that some denominations it's almost like you don't reach that top-tier Christianity until you hit that mark where you're actually speaking in tongues.
00:31:21.305 --> 00:31:21.545
Yeah.
00:31:26.529 --> 00:31:32.442
And for me, I definitely don't think it's what a lot of people have perceived it to be, because I think that tongues have ceased and so I don't believe in.
00:31:32.442 --> 00:31:34.532
So I think a lot of people that do it now.
00:31:34.532 --> 00:31:36.519
It's just gibberish where it's like.
00:31:36.519 --> 00:31:43.892
I think that when it was done in the book of Acts, I think they were actually known languages and I think that it could be.
00:31:43.892 --> 00:31:46.631
There's a couple of reasonings why that could be.
00:31:46.631 --> 00:31:52.593
One could be to break that language barrier and spread the gospel faster so you can speak in someone's native tongue.
00:31:52.593 --> 00:32:01.395
Second, it was actually supposed to be
at least the movie Cessationist makes the claim that.
00:32:02.498 --> 00:32:10.298
So when the speaking of tongues was actually a sign that, um, so when the speaking of tongues was actually a sign, not necessarily to the, to the believers, but the unbelievers.
00:32:10.298 --> 00:32:49.255
So the unbelieving, uh, jews, for examples, like, say, the pharisees and sadducees, who didn't believe and you know, I think that there were some that obviously did believe but, um, but it's a sign to them that that the holy spirit and that the, the kingdom, was actually expanding to the gentiles and it wasn't just, uh, exclusively israel, right, because you know, like paul makes a mention in romans 9, that not all who are israel are israel and that it's, um, the people of the promise, not those of the physical descent of abraham right you know what I mean so it extends out to not just his.
00:32:50.217 --> 00:32:56.103
It's not necessarily his physical seed, or else, you know, because what would the pharisees oftentimes claim, you know?
00:32:56.223 --> 00:32:57.529
we're the children of abraham.
00:32:57.951 --> 00:33:01.876
That means we're the children of god yeah, right, yeah, and you're not, yeah, yeah.
00:33:01.876 --> 00:33:08.928
But then he uh says back you know, you're children of satan, satan.
00:33:08.928 --> 00:33:20.603
So you know, I mean, obviously jesus didn't make that, make that correlation, just because they were physically descended, uh, you know, from a grace right oriented view I was gonna.
00:33:20.782 --> 00:33:36.506
I'm sorry, I'm gonna interrupt you but I was gonna further point too about the tongues, especially specifically in the book of Acts, where it was almost like a tool used to spread the gospel, to expand the gospel and to include the Gentiles.
00:33:36.506 --> 00:33:41.340
At that point I wanted to share with you a really cool thing I'd heard from Michael Heiser.
00:33:41.340 --> 00:33:44.337
I know I've always brought him up on our podcast here, but your podcast, sorry.
00:33:44.337 --> 00:33:50.996
If you look up ChatGPT, who runs the Restless Theologian podcast, sometimes it will say Cory Reckner, let's make that clear now.
00:33:50.996 --> 00:33:51.758
That is not true.
00:33:51.758 --> 00:33:53.722
Okay, this is Zach's podcast.
00:33:54.570 --> 00:33:55.896
You're writing all the scripts for me.
00:33:56.351 --> 00:33:57.153
I am yeah, that's right.
00:33:57.153 --> 00:33:58.117
Yep, it's my podcast.
00:33:58.150 --> 00:33:59.111
I'm just an AI bot.
00:33:59.111 --> 00:34:00.833
I'm just saying what you tell me.
00:34:00.953 --> 00:34:02.295
That's right, yep, just follow my lead.
00:34:02.295 --> 00:34:20.706
No, so Michael Heiser actually makes a good point about Pentecost, specifically because the author Luke, when he wrote this whole section of the story, it was actually like part two of an Old Testament narrative with the Tower of Babel.
00:34:21.148 --> 00:34:22.755
Yeah, I've heard that correlation before.
00:34:22.775 --> 00:34:27.199
Yeah, when, instead of separating all the nations, he was starting to bring them back together.
00:34:27.199 --> 00:34:28.523
Got it.
00:34:28.523 --> 00:34:30.655
Yeah, because Babel was all about you know.
00:34:30.655 --> 00:34:34.351
They were trying to build a tower to heaven and replace God and God's like.
00:34:34.351 --> 00:34:38.802
Well, because of that, I'm just going to confuse the nations and everyone just starts speaking their own language.
00:34:38.802 --> 00:34:39.302
Yeah.
00:34:39.429 --> 00:34:40.672
Well, what happens in Pentecost?
00:34:40.672 --> 00:34:49.204
Because of the Holy Spirit, they're all given the gift of tongues, to speak different languages, so it's bringing them all back together, you know.
00:34:49.204 --> 00:34:56.481
So it's kind of like a full circle of the spiritual power of God to bring people to him, because of the gospel.
00:34:56.481 --> 00:35:04.155
Yeah, but it's also in reference to this separationist standpoint from the Old Testament, because of what that was declaring right.
00:35:04.436 --> 00:35:07.068
Yeah, standpoint from the Old Testament, because of what that was declaring, right?
00:35:07.068 --> 00:35:17.829
Yeah, it's almost like he's saying you know you wanted unity in error and falsehood and idolatry, but then you know it's like I'm going to bring about true unity through you know, through the Holy Spirit.
00:35:17.829 --> 00:35:18.653
Through the Holy Spirit.
00:35:18.653 --> 00:35:20.496
Yeah, yeah in Christ.
00:35:20.496 --> 00:35:27.474
I wanted to make a couple comments about Mark Driscoll, and then we'll move on to probably NT Wright.
00:35:27.474 --> 00:35:30.559
And then also, who's the third guy?
00:35:30.699 --> 00:35:37.481
it was Dr Michael Brown right, okay so real quick I wanted to say about Mark Driscoll, one of the videos I watched with him in it.
00:35:37.481 --> 00:35:49.065
Like I said, I think that he's making a category error because he's correlating prayer and the fulfillment of prayer to God as equivalent to these sign gifts.
00:35:49.065 --> 00:35:56.543
Also too, he kind of would make statements that oh, you know the gift of evangelism.
00:35:56.543 --> 00:35:59.719
He was kind of correlating that with the sign gifts where it's like.
00:35:59.719 --> 00:36:01.391
I don't think that that's the same thing at all.
00:36:01.391 --> 00:36:06.782
I think evangelism can be done by any believer I don't think it's I don't.
00:36:07.190 --> 00:36:07.652
You know what I mean.
00:36:07.652 --> 00:36:09.927
I don't think it's a gift that's necessarily unique.
00:36:09.927 --> 00:36:11.572
I think some people are better at it than others.
00:36:11.572 --> 00:36:14.416
Sure, um, but uh.
00:36:14.416 --> 00:36:24.811
So there was that comedy made but he also was kind of um, honestly, I think pretty down, like I usually like his takes, even though I'm not a big driscoll fan.
00:36:24.831 --> 00:36:47.199
Like usually when it comes to family type
stuff, I think uh, but you could kind of tell driscoll is um, you know he's kind of a celebrity type pastor, oh yeah, big time yeah, and uh, but one of the things I didn't like that he mentioned was like he was basically almost kind of like saying that reformed, like reformed baptists and presbyterians, are those who might hold a cessationist view.
00:36:47.199 --> 00:36:49.293
He's like, you know, they're basically their church.
00:36:49.293 --> 00:36:59.380
Churches are lifeless, they don't believe in the power of prayer and kind of just stereotyping them as like, just because they don't believe in this distinct sign, gifts um extending.
00:36:59.500 --> 00:37:00.902
They're kind of dead, yeah, yeah.
00:37:01.389 --> 00:37:13.355
It's like that's not the same thing as saying that the Holy Spirit doesn't work at all, that the Holy Spirit doesn't bring a believer to faith in Christ and provide regeneration, justification, sanctification, all of these things.
00:37:13.355 --> 00:37:15.219
So there was that.
00:37:15.219 --> 00:37:18.934
And then next I wanted to kind of mention, um, the NT right thing.
00:37:18.934 --> 00:37:26.903
I thought it was funny that when I was watching the video it's the I think thought it was really funny that you messaged me back after you sent me a video to watch it.
00:37:26.943 --> 00:37:28.186
I'm like hey, watch this.
00:37:28.186 --> 00:37:28.989
I just watched it.
00:37:28.989 --> 00:37:30.251
Yeah, that's too funny.
00:37:30.271 --> 00:37:42.780
I one of the things that he had said was um, you know, a woman prayed with him that he would have the ability to speak in tongues and then magically, the next day he's praying in tongues.
00:37:42.780 --> 00:37:49.820
And I'm just like that's very convenient and very quick, but I'm like, what purpose does it serve?
00:37:51.632 --> 00:38:37.579
It almost seems to me kind of be similar to the idea of stigmata, and I know that's kind of sounds strange, but I think it reminds me of that in such a way that like Sounds strange but I think it reminds me of that in such a way that like, because it is a route that people sometimes go to show that their holiness and Christ likeness to other people, and I think that that's what's happening with the speaking in tongues thing right, Because it's you have achieved this level of holiness that you now have the ability and gift to speak in tongues yeah where I also think, too, that there is a mental thing that happens, where you believe something is going to happen and sometimes it manifests.
00:38:38.461 --> 00:38:52.054
And the reason why I say that is because I think some things can be psychosomatic, if I'm using that term correctly Placebo effect, almost yeah, you believe it, so it's going to happen.
00:38:52.054 --> 00:38:54.800
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, you have this faith that it's going to happen, so it just does.
00:38:54.820 --> 00:39:00.239
And so I definitely think that you know BB Warfield in his book Counterfeit Miracles.
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:29.956
I think he does a great job at explaining all of this, because I do think it's true, because, as someone who's you know, has OCD, like there was a time where I more frequently went through a phase of like oh, I almost like a hypochondriac, where you think something's wrong with you and say, you know, I think I have an ulcer or I have this or that, and then I would start to feel the symptoms of that, and so I I actually think that those symptoms can be real.
00:39:29.956 --> 00:39:36.693
Um, and your bot, like the mind body connection I think is very real.
00:39:36.853 --> 00:40:01.164
Like I don't think that you're necessarily gonna regrow a limb, but I do think that if you think something's wrong and your body fixates you, it puts all of its energy Um, for example, one of the things that was brought up in the book was that, um, so this woman, uh, she had, her fingers were like, just like tripled or quadrupled in size.
00:40:01.164 --> 00:40:02.954
Where they were they.
00:40:02.954 --> 00:40:10.481
It was hard to separate them from each other and her hand was constantly like clenched and she couldn't open her hand like a web web hand.
00:40:10.740 --> 00:40:12.052
Yeah, I've heard that condition before.
00:40:12.052 --> 00:40:15.021
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if that's what it's called, but yeah, it's like a webbed hand.
00:40:15.291 --> 00:40:18.356
So the doctor actually believed that it was all in her head.
00:40:18.356 --> 00:40:25.461
So what he had done was he put like a I think it was he put a needle in between her, her, uh, uh, one of her fingers and he told her.
00:40:25.461 --> 00:40:27.239
He said you know, you fixate on this, I don't know.
00:40:27.239 --> 00:40:46.992
It was like five, 10 minutes and after that five or 10 minutes he was like you could literally see the swelling dissolve and just disappear and her hand went back to normal because it it tricked her mind from focusing on what she thought was a problem to something else, and so it was like that distraction.
00:40:46.992 --> 00:40:50.842
I you know like I thought that that was really really cool to think about.
00:40:51.010 --> 00:40:53.460
And it led to a physical effect happening to you.
00:40:53.559 --> 00:40:53.800
Yeah.
00:40:53.942 --> 00:40:56.490
Yeah, which almost seems miraculous, right.
00:40:56.490 --> 00:40:56.931
Yeah.
00:40:56.931 --> 00:40:58.416
When you think it into existence.
00:40:58.416 --> 00:41:01.771
Yeah, it can happen, you know, yep, yeah, yeah, that's funny.
00:41:01.771 --> 00:41:02.715
Yeah.
00:41:03.617 --> 00:41:04.802
Um, what I?
00:41:04.802 --> 00:41:11.608
Another thing that I thought was interesting in the book was they had something back back in the day it was called like.
00:41:11.608 --> 00:41:30.885
I think they were called like faith houses or faith healing houses, where they would actually take people who were sick and they were kind of almost like prayer houses, but like these type of people, like
they didn't really believe in medicine at all, it was more about like you go there for prayer and then you just have to have faith and God will heal you.
00:41:30.969 --> 00:41:32.436
That's kind of like Christian science.
00:41:32.436 --> 00:41:37.661
Christian scientists, for the majority, don't believe in like modern medicine.
00:41:37.661 --> 00:41:38.003
Yeah.
00:41:38.003 --> 00:41:40.304
They believe everything needs to be faith, healing and same thing.
00:41:40.304 --> 00:41:41.090
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:41:41.530 --> 00:41:46.371
It was on his chapter on faith healing and I thought it was kind of funny that he brought up a really good point.
00:41:46.371 --> 00:41:59.579
He said that a lot of times these faith healers they don't have faith in modern medicine but they have faith in the doctors to be good diagnosticians.
00:41:59.579 --> 00:42:03.260
And he said that's another problem with these supposed miracles.
00:42:03.260 --> 00:42:17.206
He said that a lot of times the doctors are just poor diagnosticians, so where they may categorize something that you were diagnosed with X, Y or Z, but that may not be the case, it may not be accurate.
00:42:17.206 --> 00:42:19.347
So when you get better, it's like a miracle.
00:42:19.387 --> 00:42:20.527
It's like a miracle, right.
00:42:20.527 --> 00:42:21.771
Yeah.
00:42:22.291 --> 00:42:27.322
I think it's funny because I previously have've gone to when my OCD symptoms were bad.
00:42:27.322 --> 00:42:32.702
I had gone to two different counselors and one of them said I didn't have OCD.
00:42:32.702 --> 00:42:37.239
The other one did say I have OCD, not his friend, my buddy's mom.
00:42:37.239 --> 00:42:38.402
I think it's funny.
00:42:38.402 --> 00:42:46.050
She actually is like a trained psychologist and that's what her degree is in, trained psychologist.
00:42:46.050 --> 00:42:46.793
And um, that's what her degree is in.
00:42:46.793 --> 00:42:47.054
In an order.
00:42:47.054 --> 00:42:49.081
I don't know if she was working on her dissertation, but, um, she was at that level.
00:42:49.081 --> 00:42:55.811
In order for her to get her, I don't know if it was maybe her doctorate or whatever it was, but she basically had to have a guinea pig.
00:42:55.811 --> 00:43:08.476
And, um, she needed someone to basically, you know, ask a bunch of series of questions and, uh, she was supposed to provide some sort of like diagnosis or just you know her observances.
00:43:08.476 --> 00:43:11.634
And so I remember I actually had to meet with her like three times.
00:43:11.653 --> 00:43:25.911
I was like I'll, I'll be your guinea pig, it's fine you know I'm like just to help her out, you know, and um uh, but what I thought was funny, that she was like no, she's like you don't.
00:43:25.911 --> 00:43:28.635
She's like I don't think you have OCD, I think it's that you have specific phobias and it manifests as OCD symptoms.
00:43:28.655 --> 00:43:35.489
So here you have three different counselor types providing three different, different diagnosis, right?
00:43:35.489 --> 00:43:40.327
So I think that that and I think that she was probably the most right out of all of them.
00:43:40.327 --> 00:43:46.690
Yeah, but like, I do think it's kind of funny, though, right, because it's like three different people, three different diagnosis.
00:43:46.690 --> 00:43:50.177
So I think that bb warfield's right.
00:43:50.237 --> 00:43:58.494
There's a lot of poor diagnosticians out there there really are, yeah, and especially when it comes to, like you said, the sign gifts.
00:43:58.494 --> 00:44:12.751
I mean, the Bible says where there are two or three witnesses, a testimony can be valid, right, yeah, but it doesn't say if there are two or three bad witnesses the testimony would be invalid.
00:44:12.773 --> 00:44:13.775
Right, right, yeah, but that happens all the time.
00:44:13.775 --> 00:44:23.452
Like we, I've had situations where maybe I'd be in a group of people and everybody in that group is testifying to something, and I found out later it was completely incorrect, you know.
00:44:23.452 --> 00:44:23.934
Yeah.
00:44:23.934 --> 00:44:31.057
And I think that that happens all the time with these different circles, branches of Christianity, you know.
00:44:31.057 --> 00:44:31.539
Yeah.
00:44:31.539 --> 00:44:39.137
Especially with assigned gifts, and I do think you had mentioned this earlier because you'd mentioned NT Wright too, right?
00:44:39.137 --> 00:44:45.380
And I was going to ask you did you hear why he said that that happened though?
00:44:45.481 --> 00:44:49.373
No, okay, I mean, I'm sure I did, but I don't remember all the video.
00:44:49.373 --> 00:44:50.637
No, it's okay, let me know.
00:44:50.844 --> 00:45:06.402
He was saying the reason that that was like relevant to him, you know, eventually speaking in tongues was because he was entering, I think he said he was going back to Oxford to get his PhD or whatever, and he was really nervous.
00:45:06.402 --> 00:45:22.911
He was really nervous about um, entering into like ministry in general and to advise all these people who would come to him with all these questions and problems, and he's like I just don't know if I can handle that and if I'm I'm equipped well enough to do that.
00:45:22.911 --> 00:45:30.594
And so the way he kind of put it was then this woman, you know, said she spoke the gift of tongues into existence for him.
00:45:30.594 --> 00:45:31.869
Had God do that for him.
00:45:31.869 --> 00:45:33.771
And then he started speaking in tongues.
00:45:33.771 --> 00:45:34.514
Right, yeah.
00:45:34.824 --> 00:45:48.675
And because of that I do like how he put it, because he said it was more so for the purposes of his like deeper connection with God than it was about being showy to the people he would minister to.
00:45:48.675 --> 00:46:00.623
Right and I know Paul definitely makes that point in the Corinthian letter Right when he says I'd rather have you know like what'd he say.
00:46:00.623 -->
00:46:08.704
He's like I speak in tongues, but I'd much rather have prophecy be the main thing rather than tongues, because tongues is more between me and God.
00:46:08.704 --> 00:46:14.873
It's not necessarily like the tongues that he's referring to, not like necessarily the tongues that are spoken of in the book of Acts, right?
00:46:14.873 --> 00:46:15.313
Yeah.
00:46:15.844 --> 00:46:28.728
So the way I interpret that is I'm like it's more of like a worship thing and it's a deep prayer thing than it is necessarily like a miraculous thing necessarily.
00:46:28.728 --> 00:46:29.331
You know what I mean.
00:46:29.331 --> 00:46:40.382
Maybe we could still label it as somewhat of a miraculous thing, but I would say it's more so a worshipful thing between the believer and God than it is the believer and other believers.
00:46:40.382 --> 00:46:40.842
You know what I mean.
00:46:41.025 --> 00:46:47.518
So do you think that, from your perspective, you think that the speaking in tongues is still legitimate, like it still happens?
00:46:47.824 --> 00:46:52.416
Well, so this is like and I texted you this, so this is always comical.
00:46:52.416 --> 00:47:35.873
I'm like my stance is kind of confusing on all of this no-transcript um, you know, claiming to say they've done these sign gifts.
00:47:35.873 --> 00:47:38.659
So that leaves a bad perspective, right.
00:47:38.659 --> 00:48:08.117
You're like, oh, there's frauds out there saying they're, you know, healing limbs and everything, and maybe they're just con artists, right, but then there are other instances where you might hear of testimonies happening, maybe especially in, like, third world countries, right, and I know that was one of the categories you'd mentioned with the four different kinds of cessationists, where they say, practically speaking, you know, this can happen maybe every once in a while, right, like a divine interventionistic moment from God, but it doesn't mean it's like a normal thing, like all the time.
00:48:08.117 --> 00:48:12.875
Right, and I haven't experienced enough of the mirror.
00:48:13.054 --> 00:48:21.547
Miraculous side of things, like the sign miraculous side of things, to say that I'm a full on continuationist, right, because I just don't know.
00:48:21.547 --> 00:48:30.666
I don't want to say God is contained by the box, that I want to put him in.
00:48:30.666 --> 00:48:33.195
Right, because I think that God is a miraculous God.
00:48:33.195 --> 00:48:39.288
The fact that if we believe that he created everything alone is pretty ridiculous.
00:48:39.288 --> 00:48:46.452
It's pretty miraculous the world we live in this little rock, the third rock from the sun, as they call it.
00:48:46.452 --> 00:48:50.697
The fact that this thing is the way it is and that it's surviving at all is just insane.
00:48:50.697 --> 00:48:53.659
Uh, compared to all the stuff we know about space and everything.
00:48:53.659 --> 00:48:55.300
Now, too, it's all miraculous to me.
00:48:55.300 --> 00:48:56.920
Now, too, it's all miraculous to me.
00:48:56.920 --> 00:48:57.342
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
00:48:57.362 --> 00:49:07.355
Yeah, no, I was just going to say yeah, I just had a conversation with Katie earlier this morning and I think it boils down to how do you classify a miracle right?
00:49:07.355 --> 00:49:15.864
Good question, because if I pray for something, you pray for something and you see the hand of God in an answered prayer.
00:49:15.864 --> 00:49:17.327
The hand of God and answered prayer.
00:49:17.327 --> 00:49:23.956
In some sense I see that as a miracle, but it's like I do think a distinction.
00:49:23.956 --> 00:49:25.960
I'm all about the distinctions.
00:49:26.585 --> 00:49:34.166
I do think a distinction should be made between the signed gifts and like the normal means of grace.
00:49:34.166 --> 00:49:36.230
You know that, like the Reformed talk about like the normal means of grace.
00:49:36.230 --> 00:49:42.380
You know that like the reform talk about like the normal means of grace in the sacraments and like the power of prayer as well.
00:49:42.460 --> 00:49:57.333
As you know studying the scriptures and God speaking through the scriptures to you, to believers, yeah, so if I could comment on that too, because I don't want to confuse you with my stance, like I said, I have a hard time explaining it.
00:49:57.333 --> 00:50:02.793
I'll put it this way too I love and this is why I commented on it earlier.
00:50:02.793 --> 00:50:05.153
I love the idea of this office that you mentioned, right?
00:50:05.153 --> 00:50:14.273
I don't think there's ever going to be another Apostle Paul, nor another Apostle Peter, nor another any of the 12 apostles, right?
00:50:14.273 --> 00:50:14.795
Right.
00:50:15.025 --> 00:50:24.498
Because that was a very specific time in history that Jesus designated between him and these very specific group of guys.
00:50:24.804 --> 00:50:26.793
And there were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.
00:50:27.125 --> 00:50:29.028
There were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.
00:50:29.028 --> 00:50:33.418
They were the ones tasked with spreading the whole gospel across the world.
00:50:33.418 --> 00:50:39.356
But, like you said, they were eyewitnesses not only of Jesus's ministry on earth, but after he had resurrected from the dead.
00:50:39.356 --> 00:50:39.936
Yeah.
00:50:40.137 --> 00:50:49.177
Which is crazy, right yeah, because even though Paul, I guess, even though he didn't witness the resurrection, but he saw the resurrected Christ right on the road to Damascus.
00:50:50.418 --> 00:50:50.960
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:50.960 --> 00:50:59.485
And so Paul had a really specific set of things that he was doing on his, you know, during his time on earth.
00:50:59.485 --> 00:51:06.074
Right, he even said I'm a minister to the Gentiles, right, but he was a devout Jew and raised that way.
00:51:06.074 --> 00:51:11.170
He was, you know, among the tribe of Benjamin right, a Jew among Jews, right, that was his thing.
00:51:11.170 --> 00:51:28.199
With the continuation of like tongues, I'll say this about myself, with my stance, I'm not going to say that I believe it's necessarily done, but I don't think it's messy, if that makes any sense.
00:51:28.199 --> 00:51:28.719
Yeah.
00:51:29.244 --> 00:51:40.382
If it's messy, I don't think it's from God, because I think the Bible even Paul, explicitly states God is a God of order, not of chaos explicitly states God is a God of order, not of chaos, you know?
00:51:40.382 --> 00:51:45.007
So I don't know, but I want to say I lean more towards.
00:51:45.007 --> 00:51:52.248
I think tongues probably has continued on in the sense of it's not meant to be a showy thing and it's not meant to be something that doesn't help a believer.
00:51:52.248 --> 00:51:53.092
You know what I mean.
00:51:53.092 --> 00:51:58.231
Yeah, if it's just a big old performance and someone's like here, god's giving me a word right now, blah blah, blah, blah.
00:51:58.231 --> 00:52:01.237
You know I'm like I don't know if I can side with that.
00:52:01.237 --> 00:52:02.458
You know perspective.
00:52:02.458 --> 00:52:03.510
I just feel like what's the point?
00:52:03.764 --> 00:52:20.271
So do you think that in speaking of tongues, like if a person's going to hold to that view, if speaking in tongues exists today, do you think it's an angelic tongue or you think it's just a foreign tongue, like meaning, like a foreign language?
00:52:23.626 --> 00:52:25.132
If somebody speaks a tongue today.
00:52:25.632 --> 00:52:33.572
Yeah, if someone's speaking in tongues, like, let's say, nt Wright was speaking in tongues in his prayer Right right, right, was he speaking a foreign language or was he speaking an angelic tongue?
00:52:34.735 --> 00:52:51.226
That's a good question and I would say the way I could answer that is I think sometimes it's a little bit of both right, because I think that heaven is a little beyond us and there has to be things going on in heaven that we just can't comprehend down here sometimes yeah and I would side with the perspective of.
00:52:51.365 --> 00:52:56.452
I think that there is other languages in, maybe, that we just don't know about.
00:52:56.452 --> 00:53:23.574
You know that perhaps an angel is helping sometimes a believer indwell in themselves with the power of the Holy Spirit For the sake of worship, right, but not for the sake of, like, you know, being this, like necessarily like special person above and beyond everyone else, cause Paul even says any believer has a spirit.
00:53:23.574 --> 00:53:33.592
You know, might have more than one spiritual gift, but we all have spiritual gifts and the parts that we consider lesser should be considered in higher regard, right, the parts of the body, you know.
00:53:33.592 --> 00:53:38.675
So I don't think it should ever be a whole like look at this person, they can speak in tongues thing.
00:53:38.675 --> 00:53:45.358
I think it's more like, oh, this person communicates with God and they've got a very deep relationship with God going on, you know.
00:53:45.358 --> 00:53:45.778
Yeah.
00:53:46.286 --> 00:53:50.657
But to answer your question originally, I would say I think sometimes it is a little bit of both.
00:53:50.657 --> 00:54:01.762
But I do know that God gifts people sometimes to speak in different cultures and, um, you know, ethnicities, languages sometimes too.
00:54:01.762 --> 00:54:02.684
But what's the point of that?
00:54:02.684 --> 00:54:06.675
Right, it's not just to like, give them the sweet gifts so they can speak in another language.
00:54:06.675 --> 00:54:08.128
Um, I think it's.
00:54:08.128 --> 00:54:09.974
It's very complicated sometimes.
00:54:09.974 --> 00:54:22.744
I think sometimes God might empower somebody so they're able to start learning a new language for the purposes of whatever to go be a teacher or maybe to spread the gospel or something, um, but I don't know if it's like wham bam, that's it.
00:54:22.744 --> 00:54:24.168
You know, you got a new spiritual gift.
00:54:24.168 --> 00:54:27.596
You can go speak in, uh, you know, zwahili.
00:54:27.596 --> 00:54:30.751
Tomorrow, you know, and you're going to go to Zwahili and start speaking to everybody.
00:54:30.751 --> 00:54:34.429
I think it's more like it can vary amongst believers, you know.
00:54:35.572 --> 00:54:50.213
Yeah, well, I think that there's a difference between um, obviously, IQ has something to do with it, right, like someone's IQ theoretically impact how many languages they can learn and how quickly that they can learn something.
00:54:50.213 --> 00:54:54.128
So, that would be like a normative, or not a normative, I guess I should say like a?
00:54:54.128 --> 00:55:07.293
Um natural result of the gifts that God's given them, Not signed gifts, but gifts that God's given them of their ability.
00:55:07.293 --> 00:55:08.175
You know what I mean.
00:55:08.175 --> 00:55:08.757
Yeah.
00:55:08.965 --> 00:55:10.010
Maybe knowledge and wisdom.
00:55:10.010 --> 00:55:16.755
But I'm trying to think I was going to go back a little bit to Mark Driscoll.
00:55:16.755 --> 00:55:28.293
Yeah, because one of the things I thought he said and you kind of briefly touched on it a little bit to Mark Driscoll, yeah, because one of the things I thought he said and you kind of briefly touched on it a little bit, was that he doesn't think cessationism makes sense because God's the same yesterday, today and forever.
00:55:28.293 --> 00:55:32.567
That was one of his claims, right, but I mean he's automatically assuming.
00:55:32.567 --> 00:55:43.860
I mean I think that he is conflating how God acts in certain in biblical redemptive history.
00:55:43.860 --> 00:55:47.735
Right, he spoke to us in different ways, right?
00:55:47.735 --> 00:56:00.661
So I think that that's where I feel like he is making an error in that, because, well, at some point he was speaking to us through prophets, you know in the Old Testament and more commonly in the New
Testament, through apostles.
00:56:00.661 --> 00:56:04.114
So his mode of you know what I'm saying.
00:56:04.135 --> 00:56:10.012
Yeah, Like obviously it's slightly it's changed, but that doesn't change the nature and character of God.
00:56:10.152 --> 00:56:11.237
Sure His immutability.
00:56:11.706 --> 00:56:16.557
That was just something I wanted to bring up because I had kind of honed in on that.
00:56:16.557 --> 00:56:24.614
I was like that to me doesn't make sense because, um, I don't know, in noah's day, him flooding the earth.
00:56:24.614 --> 00:56:30.452
Just because he's not flooding the earth now again, doesn't mean the way he treats us, or you know what I mean.
00:56:30.452 --> 00:56:39.016
Just because how he's treating us or his actions are different doesn't make it, doesn't, doesn't necessitate that he's different.
00:56:39.016 --> 00:56:45.128
Sure, and I wanted to get your take on that Dr Michael Brown comment.
00:56:45.128 --> 00:56:47.215
Yeah, about um.
00:56:47.215 --> 00:56:57.135
He was saying about, uh, you know, he's had a friend whose wife sick and died and then she came back to life you know real, real resurrection.
00:56:58.157 --> 00:56:59.179
Well, what are your thoughts on that?
00:56:59.460 --> 00:57:04.876
Oh, man, see, this is where I I'm not, in a subject matter, expert in this regard.
00:57:04.876 --> 00:57:10.056
Um, do I think it's possible?
00:57:10.056 --> 00:57:13.391
I definitely think it's possible.
00:57:13.391 --> 00:57:18.085
Um, do I think it's always probable?
00:57:18.085 --> 00:57:22.635
And do I think it's, like the norm, like you said, more normative?
00:57:22.635 --> 00:57:27.076
I don't know, I don't think so I'll.
00:57:27.076 --> 00:57:29.313
I'll share something really briefly with you.
00:57:29.313 --> 00:57:29.594
Yeah.
00:57:30.346 --> 00:57:35.612
I actually had somewhat of a similar experience to that, but it wasn't like that.
00:57:35.612 --> 00:58:02.911
It wasn't because the way Michaelael brown explains it his friend's wife she had like cancer and she was literally on a deathbed and they they put the tarp over her head and they pretty much considered her dead and he said that people had prayed over her and I think you know his friend had specifically prayed for his wife and prayed that she would come back from the dead right after they declared her dead and it was like what he says like the next day, I think.
00:58:02.972 --> 00:58:03.954
No, he says 12 minutes.
00:58:03.954 --> 00:58:07.623
Oh, 12 minutes, See that to me that's a little hard yeah.
00:58:07.623 --> 00:58:28.692
Because it's like people have gone unconscious and gone into comas for 12 minutes, and there's times, too, that people whose pulse is so low it's undetectable.
00:58:28.731 --> 00:58:30.179
And I also argue that, if you know, I don't know where she was at the time.
00:58:30.179 --> 00:58:31.182
I don't know if it was a third world country.
00:58:31.182 --> 00:58:31.664
I think it was in India.
00:58:31.664
--> 00:58:33.487
Okay, is India considered a third world country?
00:58:33.487 --> 00:58:33.746
I don't know.
00:58:33.746 --> 00:58:34.208
That's a good question.
00:58:34.208 --> 00:58:34.469
I don't know.
00:58:34.469 --> 00:58:37.233
They're one of the most populated countries in the whole world, but I don't know if they're considered their world.
00:58:37.275 --> 00:58:39.378
Yeah, I'm sure there's parts of it that are yeah, yeah.
00:58:39.378 --> 00:58:42.273
So that begs the question you know how?
00:58:42.273 --> 00:58:45.311
What is their healthcare like?
00:58:45.311 --> 00:58:46.695
You know what I mean.
00:58:46.695 --> 00:58:47.195
Cause.
00:58:47.195 --> 00:59:05.195
I mean, that's a, that's an important point to bring up Right Cause it's like if you are truly declaring and you don't have any sort of devices that can detect her pulse or heart rate, all of that, then it's like, well, you know, like you said, maybe in a coma-like state.
00:59:05.195 --> 00:59:08.516
And then obviously, you know, they just assume she was dead.
00:59:09.317 --> 00:59:12.498
She appears dead, yeah, yeah but she might not be dead, yeah.
00:59:12.679 --> 00:59:19.922
And I mean even, you know, not opening up this can of worms too but like near-death experiences, right yeah, you hear about these all the time.
00:59:19.922 --> 00:59:29.300
You hear about people that have experiences where they literally say they've died and their soul, or whatever they think that was of their own, leaves their body.
00:59:29.300 --> 00:59:31.130
Right and then they can see things.
00:59:31.130 --> 00:59:33.452
It's almost like an astral projection, almost, you know.
00:59:33.452 --> 00:59:34.911
So that's another can of worms.
00:59:34.911 --> 00:59:37.070
We won't go into that, but I'm saying we will actually.
00:59:37.190 --> 00:59:38.233
Oh, we will.
00:59:38.233 --> 00:59:40.219
That's awesome, perfect segue.
00:59:40.260 --> 00:59:40.521
Perfect.
00:59:40.521 --> 00:59:54.054
Okay, there we go, um, but yeah, that is something that people have throughout all of time, so they've experienced, and you know that's a tough one too, because we didn't experience it with them.
00:59:54.054 --> 01:00:08.559
So all we really have to rely on is our own discernment and, like you'd mentioned, maybe smarter, more discerning, you know professional opinions about this, about these things also.
01:00:08.559 --> 01:00:09.025
Yeah.
01:00:09.327 --> 01:00:17.882
Because that does ground us a little bit more and be like, oh, is that actually something that is possible or, you know, whatever it could actually happen?
01:00:17.882 --> 01:00:21.655
Right, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know, um, because we don't experience that every day ourselves.
01:00:21.655 --> 01:00:25.347
But I would say, um, this is what I was going to tell you.
01:00:25.347 --> 01:00:27.192
So I had a little experience like this one time.
01:00:27.192 --> 01:00:46.135
So, my dad, uh, before he had ended up passing away, um, he had been in and out of the hospital for a few years before he passed, and uh, uh, about six or seven months before he had passed, he was sent to hospice care and he had lung issues.
01:00:46.135 --> 01:00:47.356
He was a chronic smoker.
01:00:47.677 --> 01:00:48.518
So, he did.
01:00:48.518 --> 01:00:49.889
He have lung cancer, is that?
01:00:49.889 --> 01:00:50.590
Is that what his?
01:00:50.891 --> 01:00:56.135
I don't think he ever had lung cancer, but he had like emphysema, he had copd, he had pretty much everything but lung cancer, I think.
01:00:56.135 --> 01:01:06.913
Yeah, um, but yeah, he had all these conditions and it was causing him to, just, you know, be too medicated and then they eventually, just you know, pretty much pronounced him dead in the hospice care.
01:01:06.913 --> 01:01:23.815
And I went and visited him one time and he was, you know, out cold and he wasn't able to talk or anything and he was medicated and I just felt like I really I selfishly, I'm like I wish I could get a little bit more time with my dad.
01:01:24.074 --> 01:01:26.177
Yeah, you know, I don't think that's selfish.
01:01:26.177 --> 01:01:27.320
I mean, I think that's oh, it's so selfish.
01:01:27.340 --> 01:01:27.920
No, I'm just kidding.
01:01:27.920 --> 01:01:42.487
Yeah, no, it was in the moment.
01:01:42.487 --> 01:01:51.932
You know I about to pass away, but for me I was like I really want to spend some more time with my dad and I'd like to just talk to him a little bit more about things, cause we had reconnected later on in his life and by the time I was in my mid twenties.
01:01:51.932 --> 01:01:54.615
We got really close, but I didn't have that growing up.
01:01:54.715 --> 01:01:56.637
So it was a really nice communal moment with him.
01:01:56.637 --> 01:01:57.378
Yeah, it's thanks.
01:01:57.378 --> 01:02:00.422
You got to kind of reconnect with him and you know it was great.
01:02:00.422 --> 01:02:02.045
Yeah, it was awesome, so anyway.
01:02:02.184 --> 01:02:06.572
So he was on his deathbed, literally on his deathbed, and I prayed.
01:02:06.572 --> 01:02:13.655
I just remember being in the hospital room and I said, God, I really just want to ask you this right now.
01:02:13.655 --> 01:02:24.045
I I want to ask if you would allow it, if you could give me just a little bit more time with my dad.
01:02:24.045 --> 01:02:31.284
Sure enough, the next day he bounced back and then he came back to consciousness and he was alive for seven more months after that and I got to spend a lot of good time with him.
01:02:31.304 --> 01:02:43.574
Yeah, and I'm not saying I'm this, you know, miracle guy, but at the same time it was a moment where I mean you could have just said, like he was about to die, like you know, miracle guy, but at the same time it was a moment where I mean you could have just said, like he was about to die, like you know the next day or something, I don't know.
01:02:43.855 --> 01:02:48.795
Yeah, but he came back, and I
don't think I could do that with everybody out there.
01:02:48.795 --> 01:02:50.907
I don't think I'd go around and pray for people to come back to life.
01:02:50.907 --> 01:02:52.989
I don't think I have this gift of miracles necessarily.
01:02:52.989 --> 01:02:58.438
Well, but in the moment I, like I said, it was kind of a selfish thing, but I'm like I really don't want him to die right now.
01:02:58.438 --> 01:03:06.164
I want him to spend some more time with me, and so I prayed for that and I really do think God honored that prayer and it was awesome because I got to spend more time with him.
01:03:06.164 --> 01:03:17.114
But that's where I think sometimes with these miracle gifts, it's kind of it's hard to say right, Because, like I said, I don't think I'm a miracle gifted person.
01:03:17.114 --> 01:03:23.949
I Because, like I said, I don't think I'm a miracle gifted person I've prayed that for other people and it didn't happen.
01:03:23.949 --> 01:03:26.652
I put my hands on people before and prayed maybe a sickness or disease would leave them.
01:03:26.652 --> 01:03:27.492
It didn't go away.
01:03:28.875 --> 01:03:33.860
So that's why I feel like I'm very conflicted with what I think about that.
01:03:36.289 --> 01:03:36.528
Go ahead.
01:03:36.528 --> 01:03:43.106
I hope you don't mind me chiming in Chime in sir that well, go ahead.
01:03:43.106 --> 01:03:46.893
I just I hope you don't mind me, no chime in, sir, no, I I think from a cessationist standpoint it it doesn't.
01:03:46.893 --> 01:03:53.954
It doesn't necessarily follow that you don't believe in the power of prayer or that god answers prayers and that god can do the miraculous.
01:03:55.275 --> 01:03:56.565
Um wait, say that again, I'm sorry.
01:03:56.585 --> 01:04:02.445
You said from the cessationist perspective, from the cessationist perspective, from the cessationist perspective, cause they're not arguing that God doesn't answer prayers.
01:04:02.445 --> 01:04:03.449
They're not saying that.
01:04:03.449 --> 01:04:21.201
They're not saying that that if you pray for something that God's just not going to answer, you're not going to listen, um, you know, cause, obviously they, they do believe that God is, you know, all powerful and they do believe that he's asked us to pray, you know, pray to him.
01:04:21.201 --> 01:04:21.501
Yeah.
01:04:21.501 --> 01:04:28.164
And um we do believe that God um does perform miracles.
01:04:28.164 --> 01:04:28.445
Right.
01:04:29.224 --> 01:04:29.686
It, it.
01:04:29.686 --> 01:04:48.693
The argument is not that God doesn't perform miracles, it's that that the signs that are that were distinct because, like I said, I think that when we pray for something like how you prayed for that, it's totally understandable and obviously you saw and answered prayer in that.
01:04:48.693 --> 01:04:51.333
And I do believe in the power like a power of prayer.
01:04:51.413 --> 01:04:53.746
Yeah, that that can happen, yeah exactly.
01:04:54.327 --> 01:05:05.800
I think it's just when these distinct signs of like that would be different than you have, a buddy that comes in, puts his hands on him and he's healed of every infirmity that he's ever had.
01:05:05.800 --> 01:05:10.315
Like to me that there's a distinction to be made there, sure.
01:05:10.476 --> 01:05:10.735
Right.
01:05:10.936 --> 01:05:11.137
Yeah.
01:05:11.137 --> 01:05:24.679
So like I don't want you to your takeaway from this being like oh, Zach doesn't believe, he doesn't believe in an all-powerful god who's able to operate freely like because obviously he, he can and does.
01:05:24.679 --> 01:05:26.347
It's just um.
01:05:26.347 --> 01:05:27.650
So this is a good passage.
01:05:27.650 --> 01:05:29.112
I thought it was kind of connected.
01:05:29.112 --> 01:05:32.768
It's second corinthians, chapter 12, verse 12.
01:05:32.768 --> 01:05:42.079
It says the signs of a true apostle were performed among you with the utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
01:05:42.079 --> 01:05:42.561
Yeah.
01:05:46.949 --> 01:06:04.155
So it does sound like that there is a distinct I use that word a lot lately signs, wonders and mighty works that they could have to kind of confirm who they are in their ministry and that they were God sent Sure.
01:06:04.155 --> 01:06:09.697
So you know, I thought that that was important to kind of that is good.
01:06:09.697 --> 01:06:12.016
Set like a little bit of a backdrop, I guess.
01:06:12.458 --> 01:06:16.635
Yeah, and what you're saying is like from your stance on it.
01:06:16.635 --> 01:06:17.056
Yeah.
01:06:17.056 --> 01:06:26.315
Like that was designated for a very specific time yeah yeah, and we're not like that's not going to happen again to the same degree.
01:06:26.315 --> 01:06:27.838
No, like ever again.
01:06:27.838 --> 01:06:29.668
Yeah, down here, yeah, down here.
01:06:29.708 --> 01:06:51.969
So like the role of prophet, like I don't think, since jesus now fulfills the role of prophet, priest and king, um, we and king, we don't have any longer need for those offices from where I'm standing, because since Christ has fulfilled all those roles but I know I don't want to keep you too long, but I thought going back to I was looking up something.
01:06:52.009 --> 01:06:52.451
Yeah, go ahead.
01:06:52.844 --> 01:06:57.161
No, no no, it's kind of touching on something you said previously.
01:06:57.161 --> 01:07:01.094
So if you have something to say that we're currently on, go for it.
01:07:01.545 --> 01:07:06.561
No, I mean you brought up a subject that I wanted to reiterate.
01:07:06.561 --> 01:07:22.686
You had mentioned Hebrews earlier, and in the first chapter of Hebrews the author even says in the past we had prophets and other people pretty much that people would rely on to communicate about God.
01:07:22.686 --> 01:07:27.836
But now we have Christ right, and so Christ is like the fulfillment of that.
01:07:27.836 --> 01:07:32.135
Like you said, with prophet, priest and king, he's the ultimate fulfillment.
01:07:32.135 --> 01:07:42.876
So it's like we'd have to go through him, through the filter of christ, now for anything else you know yeah so I just wanted to touch on that too, because you brought it up and I love that.
01:07:42.918 --> 01:07:44.766
That's that actually rocked my world.
01:07:44.766 --> 01:07:54.251
When I finally started resonating with that, I was like, oh, okay, or absorbing that, I should say, um, because I'm like so, yeah, course, back in like old Testament times, people would rely on prophets.
01:07:54.251 --> 01:07:58.572
They would rely on, you know, quote unquote, the Jewish evangelists.
01:07:58.934 --> 01:08:01.670
Yeah, but yeah, they would rely on the prophets.
01:08:01.670 --> 01:08:07.853
Sometimes they would rely on the priest to fulfill their priestly duties, the Levitical priesthood or the King Right.
01:08:12.644 --> 01:08:14.632
Yeah right, yeah, david, you know, but now that we have christ, it's like a different thing altogether.
01:08:14.632 --> 01:08:34.389
It's like a different covenant, you know, yeah, and that's where I just I think that that was a good point you brought up too, because christ is the fulfillment of all three of those roles yeah so to kind of delegate it out, like delegate christ's fulfillment of those roles to somebody else, is just kind of like you, you know, kind of saying scripture's wrong in my opinion.
01:08:34.470 --> 01:08:43.356
So yeah yeah, we'll have to kind of um, in another episode, dive deeper into like more of ecclesiology, as in like how the church is supposed to look.
01:08:43.356 --> 01:08:43.658
Yeah.
01:08:43.864 --> 01:08:53.779
Sure, it's not really my strong suit because it's like, I know, anglicans, catholics, orthodox, you know um, you know they, uh, presbyterians.
01:08:53.779 --> 01:08:54.800
There's a lot of different.
01:08:54.800 --> 01:09:02.331
You know there's some overlap with, like you know, I think, anglicans and Roman Catholics.
01:09:02.331 --> 01:09:03.956
I mean, they have like a hierarchy where it's like Presbyterians.
01:09:03.956 --> 01:09:16.515
It's a little bit different structure and I'd like to be able to dive deeper into it and kind of understand it, where they get their understanding of these different offices that are held within the church and where they get it from, you know, scripture.
01:09:16.515 --> 01:09:17.216
Yeah, that'd be good.
01:09:17.565 --> 01:09:18.711
I think that would be a good topic.
01:09:18.711 --> 01:09:42.810
But before we end, though, I kind of wanted to because you had talked about, like obviously you know, dr Michael Brown brought that up that death and what he believed was a quote unquote resurrection and then obviously the you know other, like you said, like where people think that they've have seen hell or heaven and they have like temporarily died and brought back to life.
01:09:42.810 --> 01:10:06.918
Um, this was I, this was in, um bb warfield's counterfeit miracles, and so in it he
brings up dr Michael Brown actually brought up Augustine, and I think he mentioned how Augustine obviously softened his stance and was more of like a kind of a little bit more of a continuationist and believed in miracles later on in his life.
01:10:06.918 --> 01:10:28.516
So not only Ortland but Dr Michael Brown brought this up and what I thought was interesting about that was because, like I think it was Trent Horn had back when he was a little bit more on the free will bandwagon, and I feel like he's kind of softened his stance on predestination a little bit.
01:10:28.516 --> 01:10:32.095
I feel like now that he's kind of gotten deeper into it.
01:10:32.827 --> 01:10:41.692
Um, I'm pretty sure he was talking about how, or he was asked like what his view of predestination was and specifically about Augustine.
01:10:41.692 --> 01:10:42.472
And he was, like.
01:10:42.472 --> 01:10:50.608
You know, augustine has some great views but, like, once he got further on in life, you know, he kind of went off the rails and went too far with the predestination thing.
01:10:50.608 --> 01:10:55.719
You know, as someone who's a Calvinist, obviously I'm very strict Augustinian.
01:10:55.719 --> 01:11:01.016
So it's like Warfield talks about how the Reformation was nothing other than Augustinianism.
01:11:01.016 --> 01:11:05.287
There's a strong branch of Augustinianism in it, anyway.
01:11:05.287 --> 01:11:29.507
So it's like I kind of have the opposite view when it comes to his cessationism, because he actually held stronger cessationist views, like early on and midway through, and then it wasn't until later on in life when, you know he was, you know, believed in more of, like, the miracles that were happening around him, or secondhand miracles they seemed hard to validate, but one of the ones that he had mentioned it's in the city of God.
01:11:29.729 --> 01:11:33.698
So he recounts this story of Karma of Tulium.
01:11:33.698 --> 01:11:42.887
It's basically a man who died and then afterwards he was taken to the afterlife but then is sent back.
01:11:42.887 --> 01:12:02.431
So here's his quote Karma was dead and already laid out, but he returned to life and said that he had been taken I'm sorry and he had been where he was, um, where he saw a great light and he heard a voice and it was not Kerma the shoemaker that was wanted, but it was Kerma the iron worker.
01:12:02.431 --> 01:12:09.073
Augustine also notes that the man then rose up, told what he had seen and he lived for a long time afterwards.
01:12:09.073 --> 01:12:10.957
So what's happening there?
01:12:10.957 --> 01:12:23.978
Basically, some guy named Kerma you know, maybe one of the angels decided it was his time to go, but then got mixed up and be like oh no, we don't want the Kerma the shoemaker, we want Kerma the iron worker.
01:12:24.725 --> 01:12:34.039
And this same story is repeated in very similar fashion by Gregory the Great and it's supposed to be evidence of, you know, resurrection and a miracle.
01:12:34.039 --> 01:12:38.154
And then, but it likely has a pagan origin.
01:12:38.154 --> 01:12:46.519
So Lucian of Samasada this was in the second century, obviously, you know, a couple hundred years before Augustine.
01:12:46.519 --> 01:12:50.435
He was a second century pagan satirist.
01:12:50.435 --> 01:12:56.608
He wrote a parallel version of this mistaken resurrection trope, obviously Warfield.
01:12:56.608 --> 01:13:01.618
What he's basically bringing up is that this repeated story is folklore.
01:13:01.618 --> 01:13:12.421
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that Augustine or Gregor the Great are saying it with ill intent, like they're knowingly spreading misinformation.
01:13:12.421 --> 01:13:19.068
I mean they would get the misinformation from facebook if they had posted it online, yeah uh, especially if it was during covid.
01:13:19.429 --> 01:13:22.338
Oh, yeah, there we go we all love that.
01:13:22.380 --> 01:13:28.954
We all love the oh man constant notifications that something's misinformation, according to, but anyway.
01:13:28.954 --> 01:13:42.480
Um, that just goes to show you the power of a story, and just just because someone believes it to be true, it doesn't make any of them any less of great theologians.
01:13:42.480 --> 01:13:49.323
But I mean, it just goes to show you that just because they believe it to be true doesn't make it true.
01:13:49.764 --> 01:13:49.944
Sure.
01:13:50.265 --> 01:13:57.734
And that you can have this continuing folklore or myth kind of being told, but people in their minds may believe it actually happened.
01:13:57.734 --> 01:14:05.770
So that's what I wanted to say about the whole you know miracle thing because, um, I don't know, thought it was relevant it's really good.
01:14:05.970 --> 01:14:14.175
it's a good point too, because I feel like not to play devil's advocate here too, but it's almost the same from the opposite point of view also.
01:14:14.175 --> 01:14:25.034
Right, like cause, I know when I think of what you're explaining and your standpoint on the whole thing, I don't view you as like a naysayer of miracles at all.
01:14:25.315 --> 01:14:25.796
Yeah, right.
01:14:25.796 --> 01:14:26.257
Right.
01:14:26.405 --> 01:14:28.005
And I think that that could be misinterpreted.
01:14:28.005 --> 01:14:34.189
I think people could hear, maybe, what you're saying and say, oh, you just don't believe in the power of God, right.
01:14:34.189 --> 01:14:46.136
But like you had expressed and explained earlier, you're like it's not that I don't believe in the power of God, I just believe that the function and these miraculous happenings were very specific already in history.
01:14:46.136 --> 01:14:46.778
Yeah.
01:14:46.778 --> 01:14:50.430
So it doesn't mean that like it has to be like this regular thing all the time.
01:14:50.430 --> 01:14:51.032
Right.
01:14:51.351 --> 01:14:59.090
But people could still say oh, but you're denying the modern power of God, and I don't think that's what
you're saying either.
01:14:59.090 --> 01:15:07.836
What you're saying is you stand from a perspective that God is very organized with how he expresses himself through these miraculous events.
01:15:07.836 --> 01:15:08.478
Right.
01:15:09.145 --> 01:15:11.713
And I have to say that that's exactly how I feel it as well.
01:15:11.713 --> 01:15:21.832
I I that I agree with that a hundred percent also, um, but I will say this so one thing I've learned about God is, I think, even with miracles, right.
01:15:21.832 --> 01:15:30.475
I think it's really easy to say more, so to say that God couldn't do something, than to say he could sometimes Right.
01:15:30.475 --> 01:15:32.841
I think that's just our natural, sinful way of thinking.
01:15:32.841 --> 01:15:33.225
Yeah.
01:15:33.485 --> 01:15:46.353
And that's why the Bible is constantly commending us to have faith, because it's just so easy to not have faith, especially with God, that he will come through and do something powerful, and I don't think either one of us would disagree with that.
01:15:46.353 --> 01:15:51.322
But I also think it's easy to say that it's always going to happen.
01:15:51.322 --> 01:15:52.024
Yeah.
01:15:52.024 --> 01:15:59.413
You know, and we know that that's not true either, because God is very intentional, he's very strategic in how he does things.
01:16:00.746 --> 01:16:07.139
The way Jesus fulfilled his life and ministry through how he did things, was very, very fine tuned.
01:16:07.139 --> 01:16:16.391
And I know in my own life when I've seen God providentially come through and do things that I personally would say were miraculous.
01:16:16.391 --> 01:16:18.978
Somebody else might not think that right.
01:16:18.978 --> 01:16:24.536
They might think, no, that's just whatever you know, that's just normal things that happen.
01:16:24.536 --> 01:16:24.815
Right.
01:16:24.815 --> 01:16:28.395
Theory of probability, whatever you know, you name it.
01:16:28.395 --> 01:16:30.832
Tell a skeptic that God came through for you.
01:16:30.832 --> 01:16:31.814
Let's see what they say, right?
01:16:31.814 --> 01:16:45.059
So I think it's really easy to dismiss the power of God and then it's also really easy to just over abundantly say it's something that it's not you know.
01:16:45.059 --> 01:16:45.458
Yeah.
01:16:45.744 --> 01:17:00.688
So, yeah, I just wanted to comment on that because I think that that's a really good thing that you said, because it's almost like you're saying, augustine took these kind of like performative stories and said, well, this is how God works too.
01:17:00.688 --> 01:17:11.818
Yeah, right, or he can do that, but it was more so in the later stages of his life, where he was maybe getting a little little loose with things.
01:17:11.818 --> 01:17:12.479
Right.
01:17:12.524 --> 01:17:19.810
Well, I think it was just the overall influence of the culture around him and the belief in miracles.
01:17:19.810 --> 01:17:20.833
Right.
01:17:20.833 --> 01:17:31.970
Well,
I guess the way I look at it is that I think about all of the problems that come along with continuationism.
01:17:32.592 --> 01:18:17.114
You know, the false prophecies, the false prophets, the like, even with the faith healing, just the false hope that is given to people in the sense that, like they're not putting their hope in Christ, they're putting their hopes in a faith healer, or a supposed faith healer, that they have this special power and that they are similar to the apostles and had the same signs that they had, and they have the same power and holy spirit of gifted abilities to be able to just at will miraculously heal somebody, and it's like I can't recall how many times I've seen, where you know, someone like Benny Hinn or whoever, where it's just kind of like years down the road you hear that they were.
01:18:18.104 --> 01:18:28.195
It felt like pressure to feel like that they to claim that they were healed or that they were paid, or you know what I mean, like you just hear a lot of that type of stuff happening a lot.
01:18:28.195 --> 01:18:28.476
Yeah.
01:18:28.476 --> 01:18:34.337
And it's just think about all the damage that some of the continuationist movement has brought about.
01:18:34.337 --> 01:18:34.738
Yeah.
01:18:35.386 --> 01:18:38.274
But it's just the thought I want our listeners to think about.
01:18:38.274 --> 01:18:44.738
It's like to enter, at least entertain this view and be like well, what if it is this way?
01:18:44.738 --> 01:18:47.474
What if the particular sign gifts have ceased?
01:18:47.474 --> 01:19:04.362
Not that we don't have a God that does miracles, not that he can't perform miracles, but that these specific offices of like prophet and apostle, where they had special sign gifts to confirm their role and that they were God sent, is no longer a thing.
01:19:04.362 --> 01:19:06.609
So that's kind of.
01:19:06.609 --> 01:19:09.275
I know we're kind of running out of running out of time here.
01:19:09.465 --> 01:19:13.475
But, was there anything else you wanted to say before we kind of wrap up or um.
01:19:14.016 --> 01:19:16.885
So unfortunately I don't think we got to tap into the prophecy.
01:19:19.488 --> 01:19:29.931
Um, you're too much yeah you're in luck because um next season oh yeah, I, I'm talking profits well, I'm leaning pretty heavy that it's gonna be unpacking.
01:19:29.931 --> 01:19:36.529
I think it's called hypoglossia, which it's, speaking in tongues we're going to be talking about.
01:19:36.529 --> 01:19:41.631
Um, I wanted to be, I wanted to talk about stigmata, I wanted to talk about faith healing.
01:19:41.631 --> 01:19:43.015
So charismatic.
01:19:43.015 --> 01:19:43.597
Um.
01:19:43.597 --> 01:19:50.234
So it's going to be heavily influenced by this counterfeit miracles book I read by BB Warfield.
01:19:50.234 --> 01:19:52.137
I feel like that's the direction I want to go.
01:19:52.137 --> 01:19:52.786
Yeah, nice.
01:19:53.167 --> 01:20:00.271
Um, so we'll definitely get time to uh I'll have you back on and uh have you pick a couple episodes that you think are ones you would like to do.
01:20:00.452 --> 01:20:02.275
Okay, so to be continued.
01:20:02.275 --> 01:20:03.546
Yep, yeah, yeah.
01:20:03.546 --> 01:20:04.567
This is just the opener.
01:20:04.567 --> 01:20:06.248
Yeah, nice yeah.
01:20:06.630 --> 01:20:09.092
So but yeah, thanks, man, I really appreciate you coming on.
01:20:09.092 --> 01:20:10.755
Yeah, really appreciate the insight.
01:20:10.755 --> 01:20:15.921
Even though we have slightly different views, I think it was good to kind of talk about it and see where each other's coming from.
01:20:16.185 --> 01:20:17.631
Yeah, we're going to fight after this is over.
01:20:17.650 --> 01:20:18.474
We're going to fist fight.
01:20:18.474 --> 01:20:20.390
You'll probably win, since you're a kickboxer.
01:20:21.094 --> 01:20:23.083
That's okay, I'll give you the upper hand a little bit.
01:20:23.083 --> 01:20:24.650
I'll let you get a couple shots in there.
01:20:33.104 --> 01:20:41.391
Thanks again, and I want to thank our listeners for tuning in and if you would like more additional information, I have transcripts, frequently asked questions and just a lot of other information on our website, as well as resources.
01:20:41.391 --> 01:20:50.627
It's going to be at therestlesstheologiancom and we also have merch t-shirts nothing crazy, but just a few things out there.
01:20:50.627 --> 01:20:54.769
Just wanted to bring that up and check it out and we'll see you next time.
01:20:54.769 --> 01:20:55.692
Thanks, Cory.
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Yeah, you got it, sir.