COVENANT Theology versus dispensationalism coming your way on the Rap Report.

1, 2, 3.

Welcome to the Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast community.

For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity.org welcome to another edition of the Rap Report.

I am your host, Andrew Rapaport, the executive director of Striving for your Eternity and the Christian Podcast community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

We are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the Christian life.

We're going to do that on this episode.

I am joined by a special guest.

And so we just recorded for his podcast and you're going to have to go listen to that one as well because, well, we started on his and we carried over a fight.

We'll find out.

But we carried over a discussion into this podcast.

So this is Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Oh, wait, no, no, sorry.

Joseph Spurgeon.

He is pastor of the Baptist.

Well, we wish, but maybe not.

But he is.

He is the pastor of Sovereign King Church and he is the podcaster of the Patriarchy podcast.

And you need to go at the time that you're listening to this go and not just find the episode we did on the part Patriarchy podcast, but I will also encourage you to follow so you can hear the rest of the podcasts that he does where they build, fight, protect and lead.

So that is what they do there.

And so he's going to do exactly that.

He here as we continue as we ended that on a discussion of Covenant theology and dispensationalism, a Baptist and Presbyterian.

Can we get along?

Joseph, we, you and I met, as you mentioned on your podcast.

We met at the at a conference that Tim Beauchon put together the Jesus in Politics.

You spoke, we got together, hanging out, really enjoyed the fellowship.

And then you and I also wrote an articles for Fight Laugh Feast magazine.

Now, the best part of me holding this up for the camera is it covers my face.

See, that's what everyone loves.

You wrote an article.

I wrote an article.

That was my testimony, which is kind of what we covered on your on your podcast.

But we did cover not only my testimony.

We talked about debate, how to raise up children to debate.

You had an article on Judaism and a view we should have toward Jewish people and enemies yet beloved.

And so we are going to talk about that.

So I encourage you guys, if you don't have The Fight Laugh Feast magazine.

Maybe you want to go get that so you can read those articles.

Wait a minute, Joseph.

Am I encouraging people to get a magazine that their episode is called the Dispensationalist?

The Dark Right, the Dank Right, and Jesus.

I mean, the whole magazine is against dispensationalism, Pretty much.

And I'm recommending it.

What.

What are you doing?

Welcome to the Rap Report.

Why don't you introduce yourself to folks and let people know, you know, real briefly.

I say briefly, as he's a pastor, briefly.

How did you get saved?

And a little bit about your church and your ministry in case anybody is in the Jeffersonville, Indiana area and want to come out to visit you.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for having me.

It's good to be here.

And thank you for coming on my podcast.

We had a good time.

Just, Just.

Just before we record this, you know, people get me confused all the time with Charles Spurgeon.

I think it's probably my rugged good looks and great theology.

Probably.

But.

Wasn'T Charles a Baptist, though?

I'm just saying.

Yeah, he was.

Was the key word.

No, he still is.

He still is.

He's in heaven, and he knows the truth.

R.C.

sproul's Baptist today.

I. I always say.

Say that I just went back a generation and recovered what his parents were.

So.

His parents were not Baptists.

You know, I don't know if you know the story, so you'll.

You'll.

You'll appreciate this, that when he got saved and then he became a Baptist, he was telling his mom, and his mom was like, well, I was always praying for you to get saved, but this Baptist thing.

And he said, well, God doubly answered your prayers.

And so, you know, I. I did grow up, as all Spurgeons probably do, a Baptist now.

So I grew up Baptist.

I grew up dispensational, actually.

So Jack Van Impe used to watch the Jack Van Impe things.

You may not want to own him.

My condolences.

Roxella, if you remember her, the.

And.

And the.

The guy that did the.

The voiceovers.

So, yeah, I grew up a dispensational and grew up in a godly home.

My parents are.

Are Christians.

My dad's a pastor.

My.

My uncle is a worship leader.

And so I think it kind of runs in the family.

And that was actually kind of the.

The.

Maybe the sticking point a little bit was like, everybody always asks, are you related to Charles Spurgeon?

And.

And then it's like, well, everybody always thinks you Ought to be a pastor.

Like, are you gonna be a pastor because your dad's a pastor?

And it just happened to be that, like, when I did grow up, we went to Awana and I did very well at memorizing scripture.

And, and, and I think it was pretty clear actually very early on that my calling in life was to be a pastor.

My, My parents have this little.

I got a tape recorder from when I was like a child and I hit play and I was preaching sermons.

And so they've got sermons for me from when I was like five or six preaching.

And, and so.

But I felt a lot of pressure about that when I got into high school and, and I was also starting, you know, enter my rebellious phase.

I, I had this girl I thought I was going to get married to.

And so instead of like going off to a Christian college maybe and starting the path, I will, I will join the army and have some money for some college and I can stay.

I can go to a college close by.

I could be near this girl and whatever.

And she cheated on me while I was gone that basic training.

And so I came back and I can remember now.

I appreciate the comment.

At the time, I didn't.

Lady at the church was like, well, maybe that was God's plan for you.

Like, maybe God was trying to keep you from something or whatever.

And, well, I just got angry at God and, and I think some of us, you know, it's my own stink of fault.

I should have known better.

I was trying to be a savior to this.

This girl who grew up in a broken home and all that stuff, and she wasn't even quite a believer and, and that the.

At the church, praise God, she was right.

Actually more than right.

I, I do think God.

God was sparing me because I know, like, if we had gotten married, probably in a divorce, everything else, but.

So I ran from God for a while.

Ran from the call to ministry.

When I say run, I wasn't like, you know, I was still going to church.

Like, I was still helping with stuff as I could, but in my heart, I would make atheist arguments and I would be involved with filthiness and, and pornography and other just wickedness and believe it or not, and you're gonna love this.

A couple things that God used to bring me back in and to call me into repentance again and, and really into ministry was at the college where I was going, there was this campus Christian center, and there was a ruf, which is a Presbyterian minister, and he began talking about how Israel in The Middle east is not the Israel in the Bible.

And I grew up dispensational.

And even though I not really walking with God, those are fighting words.

And I'm going to, I'm going to fight, I'm going to defend what I grew up.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

Of course they are.

And you know, and, and so we got in a big debate.

I remember he had a great chart that he put up.

But he mentioned this guy named John Calvin.

And I grew up and we did, other than Charles Spurgeon.

Didn't really know much from church history though.

I love history.

So I was like, well, who's this Calvin guy?

So I went and I read John Calvin's Institutes.

I got it and started reading through that.

And then like God just started breaking my resistance down, breaking me down, calling me.

And that's how I became a Calvinist.

Like I came a Calvinist the honest way actually, by reading John Calvin.

And God used that, he used panic attacks that like whenever I would commit sin, this anxiety would come on to me to show me like it was my guilt.

And then he used a Keith Green song.

So use the Calvinist.

Then he used.

I think Keith Green was probably an Armenian, Pentecostally kind of guy.

Use that as well.

The song called Asleep in the Light.

I mean, you ever heard of it?

But there's this line which is Jesus rose from the dead and you can't even get out of your bed.

And I was a DJ and a musician doing rock band stuff and I would stay up all night and sleep all day.

And that line hit me because I knew I was supposed to be preaching God's word.

I was supposed to be.

And, and it's like the church, the world's dying in the dark because the church is sleeping the light.

And how can you be so dead when you've been so well fed?

And Jesus rose from the dead.

You can't even get out of your bed.

It's still.

I get goosebumps even thinking about it now.

That's a great lyric.

It is.

And it nails me.

It still nails me.

And, and, and so God used that use John Calvin used getting her going on the trip to the Philippines and all of that to really wake me up and, and call me into ministry.

And then, and then at seminary I started getting involved in abortion ministry, started to get involved in street preaching.

And then God called me to plant the church, Sovereign King Church, where we're at.

So I remember what, first seminary they had this church planting seminar.

And my I had stopped being rebellious, but not completely.

When I first went to the seminary, I was like, well, I won't ever need to do that because I'm never going to plant church.

And so that you know that God has a sense of humor.

And so maybe I should have took that seminar.

Maybe I shouldn't.

Maybe I'm glad I didn't.

I may have learned not been able to do it.

But God has blessed us.

We're about eight, nine years or almost 10 years and started with three families, up to over 150 people now.

And we just got lots of children, lots of God blessing us left and right.

And beautiful thing about our church, we're Presbyterian, which means as far as ecclesiology, our government.

In our congregation we have people that are both Credo Baptist and Pedo Baptists, including our elders.

Some of our elders are credo, some are pedo.

And I'm the head pastor.

I have an associate pastor who's a Credo Baptist, I'm a Pedo Baptist.

So we work out this unity while having these kind of in house fights a little bit and debate.

So.

Well, I said to you your church is sort of a little taste of heaven in the sense of all the people think well you have to be this you have to be your church is what heaven's going to be like where everyone just gets together, disagreements are put aside and we focus on Christ.

That's that's what most heaven Sovereign King Church we're going to change John Denver's song.

So, so you have, you have an article that you wrote in, in Fight, Laugh Feast.

We started talking and I should, I should mention if folks want to find you the, the website for the podcast is the patriarchy podcast.com and if you want to find the church, the church is sovereign king church.com so sovereignking church.com for the church and the patriarchy and the word the is there so the.

Patriarchy patriarchy podcast.com so don't forget to.

The the patriarchy podcast.com or if you're on your app, just search for p Patriarchy Podcast and so let, let's talk about the article that you wrote.

I'm.

I'm just going to tell and I told you I wanted to say this on the air and not tell you beforehand but when I read your article right the, the.

The whole magazine issue is really kind of against dispensationalism and I'm a dispensationalist and I, I will say that your article was, was extremely refreshing and it was refreshing because of the fact that the way you handled the topic, it wasn't like, hey, I got an ax to grind.

And I was expecting, I was expecting like, because, yeah, I'm kind of expecting that with every article that I've been reading it like that there's going to be an axe grind.

But your, your article was, was really well balanced in not just taking the position that you take, but in helping people in their application to, okay, what do I do with Jewish people today?

How do I, how do I deal with them?

And so let's start there and then I'm sure we're going to get into debating covenant theology and dispensationalism at some point.

But let's talk about your, the article you had, it was called Enemies yet Beloved.

So who are the enemies?

I might take personal offense to this.

Who are the enemies and how are they beloved?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Well, we have lots of enemies as Christians, but in, in this case, we're, we're talking about Jews and we're talking about obviously unbelieving Jews.

We're not, not talking about you, but we're talking about the Jewish people.

We're speaking in generalities and I think that's perfectly fine to do.

And I think we can call them enemies as far as, as far as the gospel sake.

In fact, that's what the Apostle Paul, I think, calls them and that they've become our enemies because they've a rejection of Christ and rejection of Jesus.

And we see this in the New Testament.

He came to his own, his own didn't receive him.

And it's very sad.

I mean, they have the oracles, they have the, the covenant promises, they have the word of God, they have everything they need to know that who Jesus is, who he says he is, and there he is.

And other than like you know, a handful, at least 12 at the beginning, and then the, the quite, maybe a large minority of them after Pentecost, but generally they reject Christ.

And Christ, a lot of his parables are really punching them in the face about that.

Like, this is who I am and you're rejecting me and this is what's going to happen.

And, and so they reject Jesus as the Messiah, which it means they're rejecting their God.

And I, I read this quote a long time ago and I can't remember who it was by.

I think, yeah, I can't remember who exactly it was by, but which is that when the, when the Jewish people as a whole rejected the Messiah, they didn't give up on Messiah ship.

They gave up the Messiah, but they, because of so many of the prophecies.

In fact, when you were on my podcast, you were talking about, you had a discussion with a rabbi and you were talking about the Messiah and the 70 weeks and how it comes right up to Jesus and then the Messiah.

The, you know, then the rabbi was like, well you do you or whatever.

You could probably tell the story better than I can.

But when they reject the Messiah, they have to get, they have to also then like what do they do with all the prophecies about it?

Well, they kind of have to rewrite them, re, re.

Change them around.

But the, the quote is like when they rejected the Messiah, they didn't give up on the Messiah, but they themselves tried to become the Messiah.

And there's a kind of a revolutionary spirit among them.

And you see that after Jesus is ascended and he, he, I think he prophesied this in Matthew 24 and maybe that's where we can debate that a little bit.

But like he's.

The destruction of the temple.

The, the, the, there's a lot of people claiming to be messiahs around that time, but there's like this revolutionary, we're going to, we're going to have to do it now mindset.

And of course that gets stomped down in the destruction of the temple.

But that, that hasn't gone away.

And I, I, that spirit is still there in a sense of like you have the, the Talmud and Judaism as a religion starts to come into place after destruction of the temple.

And a lot of it is what do we do now?

We've lost the temple, we've lost the Old Testament, we can't practice that.

What do we do?

And so like there's this new system, new things, and a lot of it's very, it can be revolutionary.

Jews have throughout history kind of sided with revolutionary type movements.

I mean, Marxism and stuff like that.

And because of that, that puts them often at opposition with Christians.

You reject Christ, you're also going to reject Christians.

And if you were to put yourself in the, the shoes of a Jew, they're going, that's, you know, they're going to think, well, Christians are against them.

You know, as you were sharing, they think of Christianity as the Nazi religion or, or whatever.

But there's this opposition that has happened and I think as Christians we just, we dishonest, we just, we just speak truthfully about this.

We recognize that if they are enemies of Christ rejecting Christ, they are in a sense our enemies.

And we we, we are truthful about what Judaism is, as you know, it rejects Christ, what it teaches about Jesus, some of the stuff in the tablet.

Now, not every Jewish Jew even knows that, what it taught.

But, but it teaches things about Jesus that are just blasphemous.

And it's a rejection of, of God, the triune God.

And we can truthfully say that, that, that Judaism's false.

No one will be saved by it if they are saved by Jesus.

But, and I think we can also point out that there have been Jews throughout history that have done some things, things that are, that are wicked.

I think people, when they reject Christ, well, they will turn to things that are not good for society as a whole.

Right?

There's common grace that God gives all people.

But the best thing for society is God's commands and God's ways.

You reject God's ways, you're not going to get the best.

And we're seeing that.

And I think we can even see where people like George Soros and others with lots of money have funded a lot of wickedness.

That's the enemy's part, but there's still the other half, which is, I don't think that their rejection and God's, I think in a sense of his punishment and, and curses on them as, as we see in the destruction of the temple.

I don't see that as an ultimate rejection of Jews altogether.

And I, I think God will uphold his promises so that all of Israel will be saved.

And I don't mean Israel there, by Israel in the Middle East, I mean all of God's people.

And I think that includes Jews and Gentiles.

And I think that there are promises in Scripture and that Paul the Apostle Paul talks about in particular for the Jewish people as a whole, that they've been kind of broken off of the branch.

They've been broken off of Israel, if you will.

I believe Jesus is the true Israel.

They've been broken off from that.

But one day in God's timing as a whole, they will be grafted back in.

And along the way, Jews are converting you yourself.

And we're brothers.

And I think that teaches us, okay, we're truthful about the enemy side, but we're also then hopeful about the other side.

And we, therefore Jesus teaches us to love even our enemies.

So we proclaim the Gospel and we have great hope that God will convert them.

We speak truth, we pray for I'm a Westminster guy and the Westminster Larger Catechism on the Lord's Prayer teaches us to pray for the conversion of the Jews.

And so my, my article was, you know, there's a lot of grifters out there that, that have made this Jewish thing the thing for like for a while and they're getting gaining a lot of popularity.

And it's because there's grifters on both sides.

I think there's grifters that say Israel in the Middle east exactly as it's constituted now is, you know, almost equivalent as if Moses was there in charge.

And that is that.

And therefore any criticism of the Jewish nation or any of their policies is off limits because of an Old Testament about blessing those who bless and cursing those and curse.

And so, you know, Ted Cruz comes to mind that kind of, you can't say anything wrong.

And so I think that's grifting and I think that's wrong.

I think there's people that want to influence our government and they maybe shouldn't have that influence as foreigners over our government.

But then on the other hand there's grifters that make you know, like, well, the Jews can become the ultimate bad guy and like, and they, everything becomes about that and everything's this conspiracy.

And it's not that there's not conspiracies.

Jews do conspire and old in, in the book of Acts to try to kill Paul.

And I think there's still conspiracies that way.

But on the other hand, we're not taught in scripture to look at as people groups as our ultimate enemies and behind every like ultimately our battle is with beyond flesh and blood.

It's spiritual.

It operates in the flesh and blood.

But like so there's grifters that then use this.

They use the fact that people are tired of our political leaders cowtowing to Israel's policies or, or foreign things and now they just build up themselves as constantly hyping on the Jews.

And there's got to be some.

There's.

The truth is, is neither the I'm going to use the word Zionist but is the that side or the Jew hatred thing altogether.

The truth is I'm going to love and pray for Jews.

I'm going to preach the the gospel as God gives me calling.

I'm going to speak out against where they're wrong.

I'm going to be feel free to criticize the nation of Israel and I'm going to encourage our country's politicians that their highest duty is to care for our people and not any other nation's people, whether it's Israel or Zimbabwe.

So there we go.

There's my article.

Or Somalia.

Yeah, but you, you know, you, you're right in the fact.

And for folks that may not be aware of some of what you're talking.

So I had a pastor, I, I think I preached as church, I don't know, eight or nine years ago.

And I haven't been in touch with him Price since then that I, that I know of.

But after the Tucker Carlson debate interview, whatever you want to call it, with Ted Cruz that you referenced.

And I mean, Ted Cruz coming up with a doctrine that he even.

He couldn't come up with what scripture verse says it because.

Yeah, that it didn't say There, there isn't a verse that tells us as Americans, if we bless Israel, we're going to be blessed.

Okay.

But you know, I had this.

A pastor who after that sent an email to the ministry and told me that he was no longer going to be having his congregants to follow anything that striving for eternity does.

In fact, he informed me that I not only am not saved, but cannot be saved because I'm a Jewish.

And so that is an extreme.

Granted, but it is out there.

And this is a church that I would have assumed is solid.

And I mean, I spoke at the church, right.

I preached there before.

So it was a thing where there are some real hard dividing lines.

And we talked about this on your podcast, these dividing lines that people have.

And I really think that there, there's some real issues here.

And this is why I say your, your article is refreshing because you, you know, and you.

And I may disagree with where these lines are, right.

I, I read the article and said, oh, I'm so glad that you agree that all Jewish people will be saved.

No, no, no, you said all of Israel.

And, and, and yet, you know, you're going to interpret that different than I would, right?

So I can look at this and say, okay, you're, you're seeing Israel referring to the people of God.

You're seeing the scripture says they're, they're all of Israel will be saved.

But you, you look at this and you're, you're having your dividing line and yet you're telling people be, be praying for Jewish people to get saved, be evangelizing to Jewish people to get saved.

It's not that we just cut them off just because if you, if you're believing that, okay, God worked through the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, now he's working through the church.

And you don't believe there is a future for a nation of Israel.

Right.

Because that would be the, The.

I think that would be fair to say.

You don't believe there's a future for the nation of Israel, right?

Not in a sense.

I don't think the, the Bible prophesies like particular reconstitution of a nation or that kind of thing.

I think as a people, like, there's a future in a sense of them being grafted back in.

But I don't, I don't think the Bible switches.

Like when you said in the Old Testament was with Israel and then the New Testament he's doing with the church.

I. I wouldn't quite use that language.

Yeah.

Because I think the Old Testament people are the church.

Correct.

You would see two administrations, one, one people.

Yes.

Y.

And.

And, and see, that's, that's the thing is that, you know, even with a view where you're saying, okay, we're, we're cutting these div.

These lines here, you're very balanced in saying, but you still need to reach out to Jewish people.

You need to be sharing the gospel with them, praying for them to get saved.

And that's the thing that there are these hard lines, as you mentioned, people who are just going one extreme or the other.

There are those on the other extreme.

So I told pastor that says, I'm not saved because I am Jewish.

There are others.

And I almost wonder if Tucker.

Sorry, Tucker Carlson, if, If Ted Cruz would be in this category, but it almost seemed like he was saying all Jews are saved.

You know, I, you know, I know that Ted Cruz claims to be a Christian.

I listen to his podcast and it causes me to question.

So I'm just saying I don't know his heart.

I don't.

You know, he's never shared how he came to Christ.

But, but in that interview, I, I was looking at, like, it seemed like both, Both extremes.

One was saying, like, no, the Jews are the cause of everything wrong in the world.

And the other saying, no, Jewish people can't do anything wrong.

And, and yet your article was really in the middle, filled with grace.

And yet, you know, cutting the line where you made.

Well, let's deal with it.

You dealt with some, Some really good arguments that were to point out that, look, Jewish people in the time of Christ, they put him to death.

They conspired, as you said earlier, right?

They conspired against him.

And so it's not that.

And not only conspired against him.

The scriptures even use the word conspiring when it Talks about Acts 23:12, when it was day The Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under an oath saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul.

So it was quite clear that they were able, they, they conspired against Christ.

They're obviously going to conspire against his followers.

Yeah, I had to just check because I was like, I think that's how the article opens.

And it was, it opens with that verse.

And so, so let's, let's deal with this.

I mean, I think that both of us agree that the nation of Israel, people that are, you know, in the constitute Israel today, who are the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Really Jacob.

Right.

The 12, the 12 tribes after him.

They are both good and bad.

Right.

There's people who they, so my, my thing of, you know, people would ask me, do I support Israel?

Well, for what right do I support their attacking of Hamas after October 7th?

Yes, that's called justice.

Just like I support America going after, you know, people that, that on 9, 11.

I think, I think you could even, I, I would take a little, I hate to say don't call me, please don't call me balanced or fair anymore.

I don't want to be that.

I said that's too kind.

No, but I, I, I, I, I would take a more nuanced position in that I think initially there was justice in order to, you have a right response to, to what has happened.

And I'm not somebody that's going to just jump and say that, that it's a simple answer.

But I, I think you can still be critical of how they responded.

Enlarge like there were individual, there were, there were innocent people that were being butchered without care, being killed.

And, and who's the blame for that?

I don't think you can put all the blame on Israel, the, the nation of the Middle East, Israel, Ver.

Or, or all the blame on the Palestinians.

You know, I, when I went to, to Israel, I, I enjoyed meeting the Israeli, the Jews and the Palestinian people.

Some of the most hospitable people I've ever met were Palestinians.

And, and it's just a mess over there and like people want easy answers and there is not right now.

And, and think of, well, here's an example.

When we went to Bethlehem, you got to leave the, you got, you go to the west bank, basically you're leaving behind the, you're going behind the lines, if you will, in the, and our driver was a Palestinian.

To come back into Jerusalem, you got to go through checkpoints and when we come back in, they pull Our driver over and they just give him like the business, like they're just going crazy until they stuck our heads in and saw a bunch of Americans and they're like, oh, okay, well go on.

Yeah.

In the Palestinian, he said effing Jews as he was driving away.

And I just thought, man, that's, that's probably the, the whole thing in the nutshell.

Like the Palestinians feel put upon by all the checks and stuff.

And the Jews of course are recognizing that there's going to be terrorists and things.

And, and it's, it's a mess.

It's.

Anyways, yeah, it's hard to try.

Look for folks that don't realize, you know, when they say from, you know, the river to the sea, they're talking about the elimination of, they're calling for genocide of people.

So it is a thing where, yeah, you're going to get.

How do you, generation after generation, you know, for decades instill this hatred for one another and then say, oh, you know, they're going to, they're going to get along.

Right.

I mean, and the reason I bring it to 911, a lot of Americans felt we had the right to respond in 9 11.

And yet what happened?

Well, we had Bush who took away a lot of our freedoms.

Though people didn't recognize it, they gave up those freedoms.

So we had our own government taking advantage of that to their own benefit to empower the government over the people.

I, I could disagree with that and still say, but it was just to go after the enemies that caused it.

Sure, absolutely.

And, and so this is where I think this, it's, you said this.

It's not so clear cut that it's one answer to, to these problems.

These are complicated issues.

When we talk about who Israel is, it's, it's not so easy as saying, oh well, it's, it's just the offspring of, you know, Jacob, the 12 tribes.

Is that true?

Yes.

But is, as you referenced, is there references to the church as being spiritual Israel?

Yes.

Now what do you do with that?

Because that, that's then Gentiles.

Okay.

And then there's Jesus who is Israel.

Yeah, yeah.

Out of, out of Egypt.

I have called my son.

So that's in Matthew.

Right.

It's talking about Jesus.

And yet the quote is not, is, is.

If you go back to what he's quoting from the Old Testament, he's quoting, referring to Israel, clearly the people of God.

Yeah.

And yet it's, it's now referred to as Jesus.

And it's Christmas time.

We're putting this out.

So like I've been.

So I'm preaching through a focus on Joseph, Jesus earthly father.

And just the connections between Joseph in the New Testament and Joseph in the Old Testament and the stories that are like being interwoven in Jesus's birth and how he's.

It's almost like a replaying of Old Testament Israel and Jesus.

Like, you know, Old Testament Joseph, his father is Jacob.

New Testament Joseph, his father is Jacob.

Old Testament Joseph gets betrayed.

New Testament Joseph thinks he's betrayed with Mary.

Old Testament Joseph gets tons of dreams.

New Testament Joseph gets tons of dreams.

Old Testament Joseph goes to Egypt and becomes a father to Israel in a sense.

And I don't mean like a biological father because his Israel was his biological father, but he's a civil father over Egypt to protect, I mean over Egypt and over Israel to protect Israel in Egypt.

Joseph in the New Testament is not the biological father of the new Israel or Jesus, but he is a father who now protects Israel in Egypt.

And just like all these little things, things that are there and it's, and, and then of course there's also allusions to out of Egypt I call my son.

Now there's the, the, the, the leaving Egypt like with Moses and, and just Jesus is fulfilling all that the Old Testament Israel was meant to do, was was called to do.

Jesus fulfills it perfectly.

Like they were given the law to obey and they fell it.

Jesus has the law and obeys it perfectly.

And, and so anyways, so you can get me going.

Okay, so let me ask a question, a theological question with what you said.

Do you, would you say that Joseph, the, you know, the, the, the human adopted father of Jesus is a, or let me word it properly, that the Joseph of the Old Testament is a type of the Joseph that we see in the New Testament.

Yes.

Okay.

And I.

The type of Jesus that's crazy.

He's also kind of a type of Jesus and a savior, but I think actually more accurately would be like of Joseph in the, in the New Testament.

It's just.

Yeah.

Now the reason I ask that is because this is a really good example of the differences where you and I would have when it comes to how we interpret it's, you know, this can.

Like I did a debate with Matt Slick on covenant theology dispensationalism, and we came to a similar thing.

But in that case it was the, the offering of Isaac and the offering of Jesus and the similarities.

And, and so here where you say, you would say, yes, Joseph of the Old Testament is A type of the Joseph of the New Testament.

And Matt would say the offering of Isaac was a type of Christ.

And I say, I say there's similarities.

I don't say they're a type because the Scripture doesn't say they're type.

So, so as a good Presbyterian as you are, you should appreciate this.

But my, my argument for my hermeneutic is that I, I use the regulatory principle for hermeneutics, not, not necessarily for worship.

Right, right.

The, the, the principle that we don't go beyond what Scripture allows.

And so I would say there's, I definitely agree with the similarities.

I just don't say it's a type unless Scripture says that.

So what do you think?

Well, I, I, yeah, I think this would come to another probably thing we disagree on maybe.

And it's a very fundamental thing to Presbyterianism.

It's in the Westminster Confession, which is it's not only those things that are explicitly said in Scripture that are, are binding, but those that are implied or the implicit.

So for example, here's an area where we agree on, right, the Trinity, the word Trinity is not used in Scripture.

Some of the things, and maybe, I don't know if you would hold this or not, but the Nicene Creed, for example, some of the language there is not biblical language as far as like in the Bible.

And yet as Christians, we can look at, I think, what Scripture says and we do theology and we, we see that not only is the explicit, but the things we call it good and necessary consequence of that is, is also binding upon us so that they're in for, you know, that it wouldn't need necessarily be a Bible verse that says this is a type for this to be a type.

Now we may argue about that.

Like there's a big argument among Presbyterians on what we, what if you know, what's called the covenant of works or sometimes called the covenant of creation.

In other words, did God make a covenant with Adam?

Well, in Genesis there's no explicit.

Yes, there is a. I think in Hosea or Amos it talks about the covenant of Adam.

But most covenant theologians will say, yes, God did make a covenant with Adam in the garden.

And that's because it's got all the hallmarks of what a covenant is.

It doesn't necessarily have to use the explicit language to say so.

So the question is, what is a type?

If you look at what types are biblically and then say, okay, are there things that are types?

But the Bible doesn't explicitly say are types, do they fit the Criteria for being a type.

If they do, they are a type.

Yeah.

Unless you can make a good argument for why they, they're, they're not a type.

Like, you know, there are things that are similar, for example, and they may not be types because there may be something else that shows it.

So.

Yeah.

And I think this is where.

Right.

The way you're going to approach the interpretation, the way I'm going to approach interpretation, we're going to come to differing views and yet there's a lot of similarity that we have.

Right.

We, we both, we both would see that, yes, God has a specific people that he is redeeming throughout history.

Right.

I would, I would argue, I'm gonna, I would argue both of us agree that there were different laws for the Old Testament saints versus the New Testament saints.

And the reason I would argue that is because you don't keep kosher.

Right.

So it some way there's some discontinuity between the two, though I think you would agree that there's more continuity than discontinuity.

Would that be fair?

Yes, I would, I would argue that the discontinuity must, you know, should be more explicit, though it can be implied.

Yeah.

But I think, you know, even when you say there's different laws, I, I don't think there's a different moral law.

I think we have the same moral law in the old and the new, like, so that governs us.

But as far as ceremonial laws, I do think there was a change from the old to the new.

Like we, we have two ceremonies in the, in the New Testament, if you will, we have Lord's Supper and, and, and baptism, whereas in the old we, There was multiples.

Yeah.

And that there's an interesting thing because, So I, I understand that tripart division, Right.

That we see in the Westminster Confession you have moral laws, ceremonial laws, civil laws.

Now I've, I've never seen maybe you know of one where the 614 laws that we have in, in the Pentateuch, where they're listed, in which category that they're in, I haven't seen that.

I keep asking for it, but I, I do approach it differently and it's probably because of my Jewish upbringing, because in Judaism we would refer to holiness laws.

Those were the kosher laws.

And the idea of those laws were to keep the Jewish people separated from the nations around them.

Now I would argue that that separation was so that there would be the line to Christ, to the prophecy that we have of Christ.

So is it needed now that Christ came Do we need those laws?

Well, in one sense I would say no, because if, if there's a sign pointing to something, when the thing comes, you don't need that anymore.

If you're going to say, well, do we need holiness?

Well, yes, we need to be separate from the world.

So now you know.

So the way I divide the law, I do have a tripart division, but my tripart division is more.

Are they universal laws?

For example, the Ten Commandments, I think those are universal.

A good one to, to talk about is the Sabbath.

I believe and feel are going to go, wait, you're Baptist.

I, I believe that on the seventh day of creation, God gave a law for us keeping the Sabbath.

However, I think then there's also laws for Israel that, that nation from the Old Testament and laws for the church.

So in Moses's time, the Sabbath was expanded from what was given to universally.

And so there were more specific laws for the, the, you know, for Israel, the nation that I don't think carry it over into the New Testament.

And therefore we have, we still have a Sabbath, but it's not the Old Testament Sabbath.

It's a New Testament Sabbath.

You, you may want to rip that apart, but go for it.

No, I, I, you're actually what you're maybe it may be in the details.

The devil's always in the details, but you're not really arguing much different than what I would say that tripod distinction of civil, ceremonial and moral.

Maybe you're, you're articulating slightly different.

You know, when people always say was there a list of these things?

Well, I would ask where is there a list of the, you know, Jesus talks about, about the Pharisees keeping the, what they're tithing the deal.

Yeah.

And the, the thing.

And what does he say about that?

Yeah, well, they missed the mark.

No, no, I mean, he says specifically that like you're, you're, you're very particular about what.

But you, There's a weightier, the weightier.

Issues of the law that they're missing.

They focus so much on small, small details, a small little seed and miss the big picture.

Same as the toothpick in your eye versus the, the log in your eye.

Same thing.

Well, yeah, well, he's talking about there's weightier.

So I'd like what, what issues are weightier versus the less weighty issues of those laws?

We don't have a list.

We've got to examine scriptures or for example, God himself.

We go to the Old Testament with Isaiah.

He's like, you know, I, I, I don't like your ceremonies.

You know, I hate your, not this, I don't like, I hate your ceremonies, I hate your new moons, I hate your Sabbaths.

And he calls it yours when he, the one that commanded all this.

Like, what are you talking about?

You hate those, those are your commands.

But then he then says, why your, your hands are covered with blood.

So he makes a distinction between even there, between the ceremonial and the moral law or the ceremony.

So either that or the weightier and the less weightier, There's a distinction and I liked how you worded it.

Is that those kind of what you called holiness, they provided the hedge, if you will.

The, the, the line around these are God's people versus these are not God's people.

And, and that's actually what reform people have always said about the ceremonial laws or at least like the dietary laws.

And some of those things, some of those things also pointed to the coming of Jesus.

And so as you talked about Jesus's fulfillment of them, you know, when you're building a house, you put up the scaffolding.

Once the house is built, nobody's like, man, I love how beautiful the scaffolding is.

I want to keep that up around the cathedral.

No, you take that down so you can actually see the cathedral.

Now that Jesus has come, the Old Testament sacrifices which are pointing to him, we don't go back to those.

Actually the book of Hebrew tells us we're not to go back to those because it's, it's, it's like, I mean, it's blasphemy in one sense.

It is, it is.

But like, it's also, it's a rejection of Christ.

Christ made the one time sacrifice for all time.

Why would we go back to these things that, that were types and shadows at best, and who couldn't actually, they're the blood of bulls and goats can't redeem us.

Why would we go back to that?

Like those things pointed to Jesus.

Now that Jesus has come, you don't need it.

If you go back to that, you're basically saying, Jesus not enough, I needed, I need all this.

And that, that was big stumbling point for Jews, I think.

Yeah.

And, and I think, you know, a lot of people don't recognize, excuse me, but you know, we talk about, for example, the food, when, when did the food become clean?

Because a lot of people think that it was, you know, in Acts when Peter has his vision.

And yet Jesus in Mark declared all food clean.

And it's so, it's in Mark that You have that not in Acts.

This is, this is Mark 7.

We'll just read 1819.

And he said to them, you are so lacking in understanding also.

Do you not understand?

Whatever goes in to the man from the outside cannot defile of him because it does, it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated.

Thus he declared all foods clean.

So that's before the cross.

And people don't realize that.

So these, these laws with the food actually change before the cross according to, to Mark seven.

And so, you know, it's, it's something where I think I find.

And this goes back to what you and I talked about on your podcast, the patriarchy podcast, that people should go listen to the fact that a lot of people don't listen to others.

Right.

So what are you and I doing?

We're hearing each other out now.

I do word things different than others, I think because of my background maybe.

But I, I like to find where we can find agreement and then talk from the disagreement from there.

So let, let's.

Let me do something with that.

So you and I, I think, would agree when we talk about the church.

You, you would you agree that there is a, a visible or local church versus an invisible universal church.

And if you agree with that, could you define the two?

Yes, I, I wouldn't say.

I think.

Okay, yeah, there's the.

The invisible church is made up of all the elect, all of the.

Those who are truly saved throughout time from, from, from Adam.

If, and I believe Adam was saved by God's grace to till till now and beyond.

That's the invisible send called invisible.

Not because like there's ghosts or something, but because we don't know.

We, we can't see it.

God does.

And it's not invisible to him.

He knows who's truly saved.

Yeah.

The visible church is all those who profess faith with Christ and their children, I would argue.

But all those who profess faith in Christ, we can at least agree on that part, I think, and throughout the world and throughout time.

And so everyone who makes a profession of faith from, from, you know, again, Old Testament.

But also we can say where we, you and I could actually agree would probably be what Peter and, and, and the apostles to, to C.S.

lewis, like every, like all the people that make profession of faith and they.

Throughout time and throughout the world, and they might use the word Catholic in that sense, it's like universal.

And then that visible church is made up of local congregations.

So local congregation is a, A visible is a manifestation of the Visible church.

Like, you know, because it's impossible for the whole visible church to meet at one location.

They.

We meet locally.

And so I would argue there's invisible, visible, and then local is a manifestation of the visible church.

Okay, does that, does that help?

Does that.

Yeah, we agree there.

Okay.

And so.

So now what I'm going to do, so I take from the agreement, let's go to.

And this is just the way that helps me to understand when we take it into Old Testament Israel, I want to use a similar type of language, what I would refer to as local or national Israel and universal or spiritual Israel.

And so I make that same distinction with Israel so that I can see spiritual Israel, spiritual church, they're both universal.

There are believers everywhere, universally.

And then there's this local gathering that's made up of believers and unbelievers.

Whether it is the local gathering of a church building where people go to a church building and call themselves part of a church, and you have believers, unbelievers.

Same thing with the nation of Israel where you had believers, unbelievers.

Is that, does that make sense to you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is a very.

This is.

This is a very.

I think a understood thing is that the Old Testament church had a mixture.

So not everybody that is a part of the visible church, and I think you would agree not everybody that's a part of the visible church is necessarily a part of the invisible church.

Like there are sheep and then there are goats, there are wheat and tares.

There are.

Judas was a part of the visible church, and yet not part of the invisible church.

Agreed.

So Old Testament Israel as a nation is a part of the visible church.

The invisible church is all those who were saved were a part of that.

Yes.

So that distinction, I think, is pretty good.

Yeah.

And the reason I make that distinction because I. I think.

I think even for Christians, a lot of people make the mistake of doing as what I said on your podcast when being raised Jewish.

I thought I was going to heaven because I was Jewish.

Right.

That I was taught that all Jewish people go to heaven because we're God's chosen people.

We're after Abraham.

I actually think that Christians struggle with that same thought that, that they think as if.

Well, just because they're Jewish in the Old Testament, they're God's chosen people means that they're saved.

I. I don't.

I don't make that distinction in the Old Testament, but I think when we come to Romans and, And Paul's making this argument between a F physical Israel, not all Israel is Israel.

He's making that distinction between local and universal.

He didn't use that language.

And I think that's.

So when I come to that passage, I, I can say, okay, he's making that distinction.

He's.

I don't think he's saying, okay, that.

And, and is where you would disagree.

I don't think he's saying, well, in the Old Testament that was the church, or in the New Testament that's Israel.

Right.

I make that distinction as well.

But a lot of people, I think they use that verse to say, oh, see, that was Israel in the Old Testament is the church now.

Because they weren't all God's chosen people.

Now they are.

Right.

Because in the, you know, I, So I think that that's.

I'm not sure I followed for a second, but yeah, I think, I think I agree that Paul is using.

In fact, this is part of the difficulty when we talk about Jews or the Jewish question, dealing with, with the Israel and all that is that the word can have multiple meaning.

And it's very easy to equivocate.

Use the word one way here and then.

And, and take that definition and bring it over to this other context where it's actually not meant to be used.

And now you equivocate, which means you're using in the wrong place.

For example, and in Paul man, in the book of Romans, Paul does this quite a bit with the word law.

Like he can have a paragraph in which the word law can have like four different definitions.

Yes.

And so you're like trying to figure out, like, is Paul saying the Old Testament moral law was bad?

No.

What's he talking about?

Sometimes he means the principle of death, something the principle that leads to like our.

The.

Or the law of sin.

And so he can use this stuff, same thing.

In that passage, he can be talking about Israel as God's people, the invisible church.

And then he can talk about how all Israel is not Israel in the sense that not all Jews are actually of God's, of the invisible church.

All part of actually saved, but outwardly.

And then he's got a great concern for them.

Like, I, I wish they would all be saved.

In fact, the whole passage from, I think Romans 8, Romans 9 is dealing with this.

Well, if Jesus is who he says he is, if the Gospel is who isn't then and God keep his promises, then how are their Jewish people rejecting Jesus as God's promises failed?

And he's like, well, hang on, we got to get this right.

God has not failed because some have rejected.

And I think it's easy to just mix those all up and people do.

And I think that that makes.

That helps you read.

Like when he says, I. I would like to be accursed for the sake of my kindred of the flesh.

He's talking about Jews according to the flesh.

There are Jews according to the flesh, ethnic Jews, if you will.

And then there are Jews, true Jews, those who are truly saved.

And you can be an ethnic Jew and be truly saved or, and.

And be a true Jew.

And then I think you can be a Gentile and be a true Jew in the sense of being saved, be a child of Abraham in that sense, and part of the spiritual Israel.

And, and so when I get through that, and I see, well, these Jews have been cast.

They've been broken off as far as, like, the.

A visible church can cease to be part of the Catholic Church, if you will.

And by Catholic, I don't mean Roman Catholic, but it could be.

It could be broken off.

It could cease to be a real church.

Like a branch can be broken off a tree.

But Jesus, I mean, Paul makes the point, though.

These are the natural branches.

They got broke off.

And you were like, you belong to this tree over here, wasn't even part of this.

And God's graphed you in.

Well, don't you go boasting and bragging like, like you're, like the.

The natural branch.

You're not.

You got.

You got.

You got torn off that ivy bush that was getting ready to get burned.

Burned into hell and put on here.

So shut up and be gracious.

Be grateful.

And don't you.

Don't look at these other branches that have been broken off and gloat, because that can happen to you.

Furthermore, I think he's saying that if they're being broken off as good, how much more is there coming back from the dead?

Like there's a resurrection.

And I think that points to.

I do think there is a future for the Jewish people as a whole.

Whole.

I just don't.

I don't think it has to mean a reconstituting of a political entity, a national entity, that kind of thing.

Yeah.

And.

And what I want folks to hear, right, is the fact that we started with dispensationals, Covenant theology, and everyone thinks they're.

They're on completely opposite sides.

And, you know, there's no in between.

There's nowhere where they meet.

And, and yet, okay, we have some differences in language.

We have differences in how we're approaching it.

We're going to have differences in, in how it works out, but yet what I really want to encourage folks is listen to the way Joseph and I are listening to one another.

Dialoguing, it'd be fair to say.

Joseph, you, you have some pretty strong views on, on this stuff, right?

Yeah, I'm pretty settled in my convictions.

I think so.

Me too.

And, and yet, you know, no name calling, no attacking, none of that.

And, and I think that's a healthy discussion.

Well, should I start going there?

Maybe that'll help.

Well, there's probably a lot you could say.

It has nothing to do with me being dispensational.

Dude is ugly, right?

Yeah.

You could talk about my face for radio all you want on.

Right.

So.

So, but, but you know, this is a thing where I think that it's helpful for folks to see that we could disagree, you could disagree, as you mentioned, you could disagree with some of the political decisions Israel, the nation is making today and yet still say, okay, but God could be doing something with individuals there that he's going to redeem them.

Right?

We, we, we have to get out of.

Everything's a black and white issue.

As if it's so easy to answer because nothing in scripture is that easy.

Why would we think life is going to be that easy?

Right?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the thing I've noticed in counseling that people want either liberality or legalism because they, they require no thinking.

I could do whatever I want or I can't do anything, but the truth is in the middle where you actually have to think through issues and struggle with it and wrestle with it and see what, what Scripture says.

Yes.

That's the hardest part of being a Christian.

It's.

And it's the thing that God has been teaching me more and more is that we, obviously we are, we want to have, we don't just like throw everything out and have no principles.

We want principles.

I want to obey God's commands.

I don't want to be somebody that replaces the commands of God with man's commands and those things.

I want to follow what the Bible says.

And yet the Bible teaches us that, like, there's a lot of wisdom in applying it, like proverbs.

I always bring this up.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly.

Okay?

That's my law.

I know I'm not supposed to answer the fool according to his folly.

That's the, that's the thing.

So any fool.

I'm not answering you.

You're an idiot.

You're a fool.

And then the very next verse is, what?

Answer a fool according to his folly.

What?

Celeste, you be like.

Or.

Or, let's see.

Be wise in his own eyes.

And it's okay.

Is there a scribal error?

No, they can't.

The Bible contradicts itself.

That's what it is.

This is.

No, no, no.

What it's saying is like, you've got to know.

You've gotta.

Both of those are right, and they're both.

And they're not at odds.

Then it's not illogical.

Is saying there's wisdom in obeying God and it takes judgment calls.

And ultimately it's impossible.

And I think we both agree on this 100%.

It's impossible to do without the Holy Spirit, without the walking, without God's leading.

That's right.

So, folks, again, let me just give a plug.

If you're.

If you're, you know, just north of Kentucky, I think it's like Louisville, Kentucky.

Yeah, Louisville.

Louisville.

You gotta spit it out of your mouth.

Just think of it like this.

Louisville, Louisville.

There we go.

Go check out sovereign king church.com and check it.

Check that out.

Even though they're Presbyterian, they'll be baptized in heaven.

It's okay.

And if you wanted to listen to the.

He's going to say that I'll be Presbyterian in heaven.

So it's okay.

One of us.

One of us might be right.

What if we're both wrong?

We could both be wrong and we'll all be Anglican.

No, that can't be.

But, but also check out the podcast, the Patriarchy podcast.com if you want to check out the old episodes, but search for it on your podcast app.

Joseph, any last words?

You have anything you want to share with folks here?

Tell me how wrong I am on.

On everything.

That's fine.

No, I've, I've thoroughly enjoyed our time on my podcast and yours.

And, and it's an encouragement to, to, you know, as I, I grew up in dispensational.

I went through the cage stage of anti dispensational, and I'm still.

I'm still not dispensational, and I'm probably not going to be.

And there are things I think that are there.

There are bad people that have put some bad things with it.

Right.

Jack Van Impe kind of stuff.

And, and God had to get me away from that to actually use it.

But there.

There are dear brothers like yourself, my father, and others that, that are faithful and trying to be faithful to God's word.

And so I appreciate that.

And.

And may God bring us to unity in the truth.

Maybe fight and wrestle for the truth and do so as.

As brothers that love each other.

And so with that, folks, I would just say that's a wrap.