It's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies.

And biases in another religion.

I think that what's fascinating, you're raised.

You'Re razor sharp on your, your, your.

Criticism of Islam here.

Yeah.

And.

But what I find fascinating, Jeff, is that you, you recognize that with other religions, but you don't do it with your own.

Because I.

That may be the case.

I'm just saying.

And there's that confirmation bias coming up.

Again, this is Apologetics Live to answer your questions.

Your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapoport.

We are live Apologetics Live here to answer your most challenging questions you have about God and the Bible.

This is a Ministry of Striving for Eternity.

We are here.

You can join us every Thursday night.

Well, most Thursday nights, I should say, where we will seek to answer any questions that you have about God and the Bible.

That is what we do.

We seek to answer them.

And I will tell you right up front, I can answer every single question that you have about God in the Bible.

If you doubt that, please join us.

Just go to apologeticslive.com.

come on in.

Ask me your hardest question.

Just remember one thing I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

I didn't say I'd give you a satisfactory one.

I just said I would answer it.

With that, let me bring in my co host from Open Air Theology, which we are also streaming on.

Mr.

Tom Shepard from Open Air Theology.

Welcome.

Hello.

How you doing, Andrew?

Glad to be here.

Oh, look, the Bigfoot hillbilly is here.

He haps Addison.

He says, sup, y'all?

Yeah, he's, he's.

If.

If there ever was a Bigfoot Hillbilly, that, That's it right there.

Yeah, he is proof that Bigfoot exists.

Yeah, you know, I bet there, there's probably a movie on.

On that, that subject.

You know, I, I wish, I wish we had a movie buff that would just.

Yeah.

Pop in when, you know.

Oh, hey, there it is.

That's.

That's Parker Brown from the Watch well podcast, all about movies.

How's it going, fellas?

What are you doing crashing us?

Good to meet you, buddy.

Yeah, nice meeting you, bro.

Well, thanks for inviting me on.

And we are also streaming on.

On his feed as well at the Watch well podcast.

Another good podcast to be followed.

Although we, we should talk about the fact that out of the.

Did make it into the, into the.

The big brackets there.

The, the Dead Man Walking every year has these brackets and he had the three of our Podcasts in there.

Yes, now, now, you know, Parker, you, you put up a good fight.

You had some great videos against the Ezra Institute, but you came up a little short.

It came up short.

You know, I will say I was very proud of the race we ran.

We, we had them there for.

It was like, kind of going back and forth.

You know, they were, they were up, I think, like 53, and we were at 47.

Then we came back, and then we were up by a couple percent.

And then we were tied for a while at 50, 50, and that was with, you know, 300 votes in.

And then they, and then, you know, as it, as it kind of got closer to the end, they, they took off and then they were up 10.

But I was just glad that we were able to compete.

We rallied the, the, the twits on X, the on Twitter.

We rallied the troops and, and, and more than that, it was just a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And open air theology was, was in the running.

But, but at least, I mean, Parker, you can, at least you, you, you lost to, to a manly podcast, though, right?

That's right.

I heard you guys lost to women, which means you can't be reformed.

Right.

Let me, let me just say that egalitarianism is running rampant.

It's rampant.

I mean, they podcast even now.

Yeah.

I don't know if you noticed, but there are quite a few women podcasts now that are actually entered into the contest.

Most of them lost, but Bright Heart Podcast whooped us like, yeah, matter of fact, it was 69 to 31.

I will say, I will say it's super interesting that, that, that you brought that up, Tom, because there was a comment on the, on the podcast bracket, and this guy was actually serious and he said feminism will remain in the Reformed Christian space on social media while they, while female podcasters are allowed in the bracket.

And I was like, dude, you got to stop taking yourself so seriously.

I'll tell you.

You know what the interesting thing is, is the open air theology.

We created a, a cigar smoking video, and it basically had a video and, and the first one starts out with the sbc and it's a woman smoking a cigar.

I think we're, we're, we're getting in trouble there with that.

But we go all the way through the Reformed Baptist and everything.

You know, who's smoking a cigar and all that, but so funny.

I'm hoping, I'm hoping that that video might put us through, through one of the other prizes, perhaps the Patriarchy Cigar Company.

I'm hoping to win that.

Yeah.

Well, let me put up, let me put up a picture of the, of the bracket here if I can.

This is some folks, if you want to go out and check it out, you can go to.

If you're on X, it is.

If you go to on X, it's Real DMW Podcasts.

That stands for Dead Man Walking.

Real Dead Man Walking Podcast.

These are the brackets.

It's.

I know it's hard to read.

You're gonna just have to go to the website and so, you know, some, some may be wondering where our other co host is here, Tom, and let me just put up his comment and you'll see why Drew's no longer here.

He said, I voted for my friend Jere Me of the money.

He voted against my Rap Report podcast and voted for the money, which was the closest at least the first day.

But he, he then tried to recover and say he voted for Apologetics Live.

So I actually have two podcasts in, in here.

And so both did make it to the second round.

I was a little nervous with the amount of money.

It, it was pretty close.

But these folks every day is a new voting.

So what you see here is listed day four down here.

That's what is going on right now.

So you can go out and vote and I'm gonna give you.

And we're, we're gonna get into Colossians 2, 8.

Don't worry.

That is the topic for today.

And we're going to be answering your, you know, we're, we're going to be answering your, your questions that you have.

Oh, look, Drew's trying to save himself now.

He wants to come.

He says, I, I voted for Theology Throwdown today.

That's another one of the Christian podcast community podcasts.

We actually have a number of podcasts in the Christian podcast community that are in here.

Apologetic Live, Matter of Theology, the Court, the Caleb Gordon podcast.

Who's.

Who is.

Caleb's awesome.

He's a rock star.

Yeah.

If he hasn't joined yet.

He's, he's, he is part of the, he's becoming part of the network of our community.

Did okay with Justin Peters my Rap Report podcast, Squirrel Chatter.

He made it to the next round to second round.

Religionless Christianity Reformed rookie was so close.

It was like less than a percent.

That's, I think the closest one right now.

But he lost that Matt Slick Live lost in the first round.

I, I think Matt never got the email that I sent out that said that he was in the, in the run that was in the podcast bracket theology throwdown that's up today.

It was really hard.

I had to choose between Truth Espresso and Doctrine matters.

They were both up against each other and truth be known is in there.

He thoroughly equipped with Melissa Lex and then two more Christian podcast communities podcasts that were against each other was Truth Love Parent versus Street Talk Theology.

That was to go with our brother Aaron though.

I know, I know on the show all the time.

I actually, I, I actually voted Street Talk Theology at first to do the Underdog and then realized he wasn't the underdog.

I was like, oh, can I take my vote back?

Oh no.

So every day go vote now.

I, I gotta let you know folks, I, I'm calling out an audible now.

I need your help because this Saturday I'm going up against the king, Mr.

The king of amillennialism, the one who has won this contest in the past, Mr.

Keith Harbor Face, Harbor Freight.

Doug W.

Keith Fosky of the your Calvinist podcast.

And I am going to need every vote out there to get past Keith Fosky.

Of course Keith did make it last year past around against James White because James bowed out because he figured he won this already so why be in it?

I, I think, I think he should do the same.

Personal opinion, I think that there was some, some greasing of the palms going on last year and I think that there was some money exchanged behind, behind closed doors.

I don't know how fair that is, but James White bowing out two years in a row.

I mean I get it.

This year he wanted a smaller podcast, but to Keith.

Yeah, well, don't buy it.

I just don't buy it.

So he did, he did go on all the way.

He won it all.

Yeah, he didn't win it all.

I'm just going to say this, you know, I did reach out to James and I said, you know, could you please give me a shout out for a vote for the rap report over Keith Foskey on Saturday.

Now if anyone doesn't know the way Keith and and James know each other, James needed was, was really hungry and Keith ran out and got a hamburger for him and came to his hotel room, knocked on the door, opens the door, was just like, he hands him the, the bag and he's just kind of standing outside.

So, so James is like, do you want to come in?

He's like, yeah.

And he just sat there in silence watching James eat the burger.

So I said that James had to teach him how to, how to wear a bow tie as well.

Well, he did.

He did.

But.

But.

So here's the thing.

So I said, I, I know, I know I have about as much chance of winning against him as I did against you, but let's at least make it fun, if possible, please.

I said, I'll even bring you a burger to your hotel.

His response was, yeah, I'm staying out of this this year.

I tried.

I really tried.

That's so funny.

So, so we do ask folks, if you, if you want to go to the.

On X, go to the Dead Man Walking podcast.

You can find it at Real.

Real DMW Podcast.

So that is his handle.

Go there and be.

Be voting every day.

He does it every day except Sunday.

So it's a new vote every day except Sunday and Saturday.

I will be needing your vote big time.

Because, yeah, it's going to be a tough.

If I can make it past this round, you know, pretty far, I'll be amazed.

I have a chance with Apologetics Live, too, against.

You know, we have another.

You have another.

Who are we going against?

So Apologetics Live will be tomorrow against Theology Applied.

And so I'd really like to see, you know, I mean, I got some good ideas there.

You know, if it's me against Haunted Cosmos, the winners from last year, you know, I forget if it was Haunted Cosmos or King's.

It was, it was the same guy.

I think it was the same guy that was in both.

So they were either first or second.

So I won't, I won't win against them, I'm sure, but I might be at least have some fun with it.

Absolutely.

Maybe, Maybe they'll be haunted that year.

Yeah, maybe they'll get spooked out of it.

That's right.

Yeah.

Well, you guys were talking about Bigfoot at the beginning, right?

Haunted Cosmos, you know, it's not looking good for them.

So, so some of the things that we, we could talk about and I, I know, you know, you guys probably watched the Super Bowl.

I, I kept with my tradition of not watching it.

I, I've actually only watched the super bowl sort of once.

I, I watched it because our church would have this super bowl part, and I know you can't say super bowl, sorry, big game.

You know, it's Super Bowls copyrighted.

They're going to flag me.

But the, they, they.

We would have a, you know, go to some, A house.

One person in church had a big house, and everyone that was really interested in watching the game would watch it in high definition.

And me and one of the deacons who had no Interest in the game were in another room so we could just talk privately, but the TV was on in standard deaf.

And we both at one point looked at each other and realized, oh, there's a five second delay.

Because we're like, the TV's just on.

So we're kind of watching it and we're hearing when they're cheering like five seconds after our play or booing.

So we start like actually watching it just so we could cheer and boo at the plays until the other room knows that we have a, that there's a delay.

And so once they told us, like, will you guys stop it?

You're ruining it for us.

Because now they're anticipating it.

So like all of a sudden there's a timeout.

Like we, he and I are doing hand signals and like to cheer or to boo.

And so it was like we would like there'd be a timeout.

We're like, yes, yes, yes.

And then the other room's like all anticipating.

So.

And it's like time out.

And so once we, we got them where they realized that we were now throwing them off, it was, it was like two minutes before the end of the game.

And I did not know in football that the, the two minute warning is actually like 20 minutes later before the game's over.

I thought two minutes was like two minutes, right?

So there's like this two minute warning and I literally run into the other room and I'm thinking, like, what's the most bizarre thing I could come up with?

I run in the room, I go, did you see that?

The guy intercepted the ball, ran it all the way back, tied it up, and they wanted in a field goal in overtime.

Twenty minutes later, that's what happened.

And everybody's like, you ruined the game.

You're not allowed to eat back at the party anymore.

To like, it's a five second delay.

There's no way I could have guessed that.

I mean, at least there is a time stamp on football.

I mean, baseball can just keep on going.

Which they're trying to change.

The last I heard.

Yeah, I don't know.

I didn't watch the football either this year again, as, as well.

But I did hear about the halftime show, the whole he gets us thing.

The whole.

Yeah, and that's what I want to talk about.

I didn't, I didn't see it, but I did predict, I did put a poll out on X.

You knew they were going to do something.

Yeah.

I asked, I said, how, you know, it was like, I, I gotta go look and see what the percentage was.

It was a large percent of people that knew that it was going to happen, that I said, okay, are they going to give some Marxist talk about Christianity needing to be more Marxist?

And sure enough, they did.

Did either of you see that he gets us campaign Marxism?

No, I, I did not see this one.

Okay.

Did you see it, Parker?

Yeah, I saw it, but it.

I, I really wasn't paying attention.

So you, if you, if you're playing it again or.

I don't, I don't know what your plan is.

No, I don't.

Like, I had no intention of playing it, period.

Yeah, I was like, I don't know if you want to play it.

I, I think it really ties along with what you're going to be talking about in Colossians 2, 8, talking about cultural Christianity, a social gospel, and how worldliness has just gotten in.

The whole theme of it, you know, he gets us is basically an idea where God just gets us as we are.

And he's basically going to dismiss our sin because he gets us.

You know, he's just all loving, all tolerant.

You can live any way that you want to live.

Christ gets us.

God gets us, you know, so that's, that's their premise, and it's basically a false gospel leading people right to hell.

Yeah.

And you know, the thing is, they do it under the guise of, of Christianity.

And that's the thing that I think is.

So, you know, that we're going to get into later in the show is the fact that what you see.

And you know, Megan Basham, I've had her on my, my rapper for podcast talking about her book Shepherds for Sale, and she nails it.

The fact that what you have is the Marxists are buying.

They're buying Christian big Eva types to promote their, you know, their, their Marxism.

It is interesting the, the.

He gets us.

I have yet to find out who is behind it.

They're really, really secretive about that.

And it's like, oh, we want to be anonymous.

No, it's probably George Soros.

And you don't want to admit it.

You know, that's a good question.

Have you Googled that there?

Well, when they first started, we.

I did.

I tried looking into it and they were.

It was something that they just.

You couldn't find out who is behind it.

They were like, oh, we don't want it to be about who's behind the campaign.

We want it to be, you know, it's about Jesus.

And, and yet everything they teach about is.

Is not about Jesus.

So it's something that.

And we'll talk about the, the empty deception.

So I, I don't mean to cut you off, Andrew, but there was.

I actually, I didn't want to speak before I confirmed.

I just looked it up here.

It says that he gets us Ad campaign is primarily driven by a non profit organization called Come near which took over the campaign in early 2024.

Prior to this, it was operated by the Servant foundation, or yeah, the Servant foundation, also known as the Signatory.

Come near is led by CEO Ken Caldwell and it has connections to the billionaire family behind Hobby Lobby.

Interesting.

That's interesting.

That is interesting now, but I wonder.

Who else might be behind.

Like I, I wonder who started it.

And yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure.

When I did my original, I remembered my original research last year.

I remembered looking up and getting to Hobby Lobby.

But then after that it was kind of cloak and behind the scenes, in the shadows.

And you can always have people who are, you can have people who don't want their name known.

Right?

I mean, my, my uncle owned the L A Rams, but he was, he, he didn't want his name out there.

So even though he was an owner, it was someone else that, who, who was seen as the owner.

You know, I mean, they, they, they both had partnership in it.

But you know, now, now we know.

How you had that huge library of yours.

Yeah, well, owner of LA Rams.

You know, it's.

Well, I, maybe I could find the photo of the, when the LA Rams won the Super Bowl, I got a photo of my, of my, you know, my uncle's house, of the, the trophy that they give.

But you know, it's funny you mentioned about the library.

And so I, I actually had a book.

Not that, that I pulled from the shelf just because this is the neat thing of having a library you inherit from others.

And you know, I'm selling my, my library right now and maybe you'll start seeing, you see books week to week changing behind me because as I keep selling them, I'm moving things around.

So if anyone wants to get some good used Christian books, just go to my Facebook wall, just Andrew wrapper on Facebook, find me.

And I got all my books out there, just DM me what you want.

But this is really neat.

I got this book from a pastor who had his.

After he passed away, his wife called me and asked, asked if I'd come by the office.

And I didn't go to the church, but I, I, you know, I knew him and basically in, in his before he passed away, he told his wife that if he passes away, he wanted me to inherit his library because he knew the books would get put to use.

And so one of the books that I had that I was able to return to the family was I have a book from John MacArthur's father, Jack MacArthur.

And I returned that to the, to John MacArthur's family.

That was one I didn't just sell or give away.

I.

I figured it'd be best to keep that one in, in the family.

It had notes in there, but this is kind of neat.

You Sometimes you get things like this.

I got this.

This is from December 25th, Christmas 1996.

This book was given as a gift from a daughter to her father before I was born, two years before I was born.

And she's like, dear Daddy, I am, I am not only giving this book as a Christmas gift, but also as a gift of appreciation for the many things that you have done for me over the years of my child life.

I know I haven't appreciated the things that you have that you did for me many times, but I realize now that it was done for my own good.

I also thank you for allowing me to have a Christian mother to guide and direct me in my daily Christian life.

I understand from mother that this book is one of the many books that you would like to have for your own.

I pray that this book will give you many spiritual blessings as you read it and study.

Yours truly.

Sorry, your daughter Trudy.

And I can't read the last name.

That's just kind of amazing.

That's that like it's.

That's the neat thing.

When I look at some of the books that I have on the shelf that I've gotten from.

I mean I got some books from the, from the 40s and you know, it's just kind of neat.

My wife and I went into Dallas.

This is a.

I don't know, years ago into a half price books.

And there was a Pilgrim's Progress in there for $5.

And I went and I got it and it was the first year that they actually came out with colored illustrations for the Pilgrim's Progress.

Wow.

We opened it up and very.

Something similar.

It was a Sunday school teacher that had given this book to, to this little girl.

And it had a little note, you know, just reading through the.

The Pilgrim's Progress.

And I misplaced the book.

I don't know where it is now.

But I mean stuff like that is just amazing.

It's so neat to see.

See now Parker doesn't understand this because he only understands movies, which I don't understand.

That's right.

That's kind of true.

Kind of true.

Except that not so, you know, you're studying the Confessions and all right.

You're trying to.

So, folks, I mean, Parker does, you know, podcasts about movies and all, but.

And he definitely knows the pop culture, but he's also trying to memorize, like, early Confessions.

How about you guys try that?

I don't know about that.

Let's not do that.

No, Yeah, I, I've got a lot of friends.

I've met a lot of, you know, interesting people and people that have become good friends.

The last.

Let's say, what do you say, Andrew, maybe a last year between you and Keith Fosky and Greg Moore, Corey Wing and Cody Fields from Westminster Effects Podcast, Doxology Podcast.

And yeah, there's a.

There's a good mix of Baptists and Presbyterians and all kinds of different people.

So I'm actually going back and trying to learn the intricacies of, you know, the, the 1689 London Baptist and the Westminster and, and trying to figure out, you know, who's right so I can be on the winning team.

Well, you know, I can tell you who's right.

Yeah.

Look, if you want.

He has an opinion on who.

So look, look, let me just, let me make it easier for you, okay?

If you want to know who's right.

Okay.

If you look, if you look right over here, what do we believe?

There's the confession that you need to have.

Okay.

If you want to be right, forget the Westminster, forget 1689.

What do we Believe by Andrew Rapport.

Go get yours at striving for turn.org that.

Hey, look, I'm.

I told someone earlier this week, they, they were.

They, they had said they don't like certain.

They don't like the labels, the label, you know, because labels are so misunderstood.

And he's like, I'm getting away from using the term reformed because it's just.

It's becoming such a bad label.

Like, everyone's just attacking and not understanding.

I said, well, that's why I always go by the label report.

Right.

I'm a rapaport.

So, you know, you got to ask me what I believe.

Andrew, by the way, I, I did get that book.

I received that with the Bible.

I didn't.

He surprised me with that book.

So.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Matter of fact, a couple hours ago and realized that.

Wow.

Hey, thank you very much.

Not a problem.

Systematic theology book by Andrew Rappaport.

Yeah, that's, that's a gift that I'm giving to everyone who's, who buys books from my library.

I'm just giving them a copy of what do we believe is a gift.

So an incentive.

And actually I got a, a shelf that has brand new books, have not been read, no markings in them at all, that if anyone spends over $250, they get that.

So, so yeah.

So let's talk about just one more thing before we get into Colossians 2, 8, 9, folks.

If you have questions, there's two things you could do.

If you have questions you'd like us to answer, you can.

If you're watching on X or YouTube, you can put those into the chat and we can answer them.

The other thing that I'd encourage you to do even better would be to join us.

Go to apologetics live.com, you just scroll down till you see a little duck icon for Streamyard.

Click that.

Allow your browser to use your microphone and camera.

If you don't want to be on camera, that's fine.

Just give access and you can, there's a way you can just stop the camera and just use the audio, but come on in and ask questions is much better that way.

By the way, I should have mentioned from the beginning anyone who's, who watched last week.

We did have a guy that was very vocal in the chat, you know, basically telling us that he claimed to be an atheist, that he was, he could disprove Christianity using Catholicism.

If you guys remember the end of the show last week, I, I did dare him.

I challenged him.

I double dog dared him to come on in here this week.

Tom, do you see him backstage?

I, I, he's, he's missing.

He did not show up.

He might have gotten raptured, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

And like Kathy is saying, yes, he was vocal.

Yeah, he was very vocal.

He was a very vocal keyboard warrior, saying he could demolish us.

I love these guys that could demolish us.

But don't come in here.

Yeah, look, you know, I don't know about Tom or Parker.

I'm a little fuzzball.

I mean, I'm not so bad.

You know.

That's right.

So you guys say something vocal as he was.

I mean, it was a loving challenge.

You're welcome to.

Come on, let's talk about this.

And he's, he's, he's nowhere to be found.

Yeah.

Licking his chops, right?

Yeah, look, Greg Moore from Dead Man Walking podcast thinks it's the funniest thing that I actually like it when people come in, I.

When they're ready to debate me on a subject, and I don't even know I'm doing a debate that night.

Yeah, I think that's fun.

Well, I don't know what it is about me that's so messed up that I think that's a fun thing.

I think that's.

That's a place that most Christians should strive to get to, because that means that you really know the word and you can, you can stand on the word.

Well, well, you know, I get asked a lot, like how I did it.

Not that you're like this perfect.

No, no, no, I didn't mean it that way.

No, that's a good goal.

You know, a good day.

Be ready always to answer me and to ask you the reason of the hope that is within you.

Yep.

Yeah.

And it does challenge us when, when we have that we have to be ready.

And, you know, I'm asked often, like, how do we.

How do you prepare?

I mean, how do you prepare for a debate when you're not prepared for a debate?

And, you know, the thing is, is that there's two areas that I study.

And when Haps did had a class, he was.

Had a school he was trying to start up there called Passing the Torch.

And I taught, I guess, the last class.

That's what you get for inviting me as a teacher.

I teach the class and the school closes.

But I.

It was on.

It was on, you know, debate and apologetics and debate.

And there's two areas that I study.

If I'm.

When that happens, it's hermeneutics and it's logic.

Now, yes, James White, he'll say early church history and original languages, but I would say the early language.

The language is a part of hermeneutics.

And, but really, if you, if you know how to interpret the scripture, whenever they code a scripture, all you got to do is back up a couple verses and start reading what it actually says.

And that's usually all you have to do.

Yeah.

And then logic and, and keep a good faith mindset.

Well, yeah, that's the, the iseges or exegesis over eisegesis.

Right, Correct.

But it's all.

But you're right with the, you know, we also have to have.

You know.

And I just recorded a podcast.

He's the Reformed Rican, but I, I forget the name of his podcast.

He's in the.

In the providential perspective.

He's in the.

He.

He actually.

He's in the Bracket, I think, today.

And so I just recorded with him on this subject of how do you.

How do you deal with our differences Sec.

On secondary issues and not get nasty with one another?

And it's really.

We have to recognize that we're all wrong in our theology somewhere.

I mean, I don't know where I'm wrong.

You know, yes, Sister Tara's right there.

You put it up.

Context is key, but also logic, knowing logic, you don't have to know all of the logical fallacies.

But.

And, and you can take the, the class that I, That I offered.

You can go to Striving Attorney's YouTube channel, and it's there, and you can watch it for free.

It's only like eight classes.

So kind of quick.

And, you know, I walk through.

So you can identify when there's a bad logical argument being made.

You don't have to know what fallacy it is.

But if you can.

And there's.

I think I teach that in just one or two classes of identifying a good logical statement and a bad one, you know, and so if you know that, you, you can point that out.

I mean, and folks think about this like we do apologetics live, not just to do apologetics, to show apologetics.

And so you'll see me do that when people come in and debate.

I'll just point out, hey, this is, this is a logical fallacy.

Because actually, the opening of the show we did was with Jeff, who was a professing atheist, Right.

And he couldn't recognize his own atheism.

He couldn't.

He could point out that I could point out errors in other religions, but he didn't recognize in his own.

He had to finally admit that might be my confirmation bias because I was pointing that out earlier in that show.

So, you know, this is a thing we do apologetics.

So you're gonna say sometime.

No, I'm sorry, I was, I was commenting.

Okay.

All right, so let's.

Before we get into Colossians 2.

8, I.

I want to bring up one thing of pop culture, which, Which Parker's going.

Andrew is going to talk about pop culture.

Well, I'm kind of nervous because I wasn't prepared.

You didn't prepare me for this.

Oh, I didn't prepare if.

I know.

Oh, actually, I might have prepared time for this.

No, but here's the thing I do want to talk about.

And this is going to tie into Colossians 2.

8.

I want to talk about Kanye West.

You know, when Kanye west came out and professed to be a Christian, and there so many people wanted it to be true.

And what happened a lot was people, you know, I was one of myself and, and Justin Peters, Justin Peters actually got off of X.

Well, I guess it was Twitter back then.

He got off of Twitter because the backlash that he got because he's got a larger account than I do, so he got a lot more backlash than I did.

And I got the backlash too.

I just couldn't, I could care less.

But Justin's wife couldn't stand seeing the backlash he got because both of us were saying, hey, let's hold up a minute before we say Kanye is a brother in Christ.

Give it some time.

Because you see so many of these people that they just make a profession.

And especially my concern with Kanye was he's doing these Sunday services.

Well, if he's a new believer, he shouldn't be doing things like that.

Right.

And then on top of that, you know, he's selling an album, a Christian album, and he's selling Christian T shirts and people were spending all this money.

Yeah, like, okay, he was on the verge of bankruptcy and he just, he just cashed in on a new, a new group of people that would give him a new audience.

And, and a lot of Christians being global, like, yeah, I'll eat that up.

Gobble, gobble, gobble.

And you know, I think, you know, you could look at the different things already that would vindicate the concern that I had and Justin had.

But I'll just tell you after this, what past week or so, when I heard about the Grammys, I didn't see it thankfully, but I heard that his, his, his wife that he paraded had walked up to the cameras, had a mink coat on and purposely like waited, turns her shoulder, they said, and just drops her coat in a, a completely mesh, see through dress.

So she's basically completely nude.

My understanding was that all the, the, the cameras had to blur it out for tv.

This is not a Christian man, folks.

Well, and I think too, Andrew, is that the whole idea that Christians think that God needs help by bringing a celebrity, a well known celebrity, as if, oh, wow, here, here it is.

We have somebody that's been changed for Christ and he's got great celebrity status.

He's going to be able to, to reach people from all over the world because of his status.

And it's like they want to hold on to that and so they want to quickly affirm somebody that has made a profession of faith without, without making a, you know, looking at him, you know, who is he?

Associating himself with TD Jakes and all these other people.

Yeah.

And it's like, well, hold on for a second.

You know, what does the Bible say, you know, about what a.

What a true follower of Christ is?

And, and I think, you know, God doesn't need help by.

By converting a.

Praise God, if he did.

But, but the whole idea.

What's the motive behind Christianity wanting to say, yes, he's a believer?

You know.

Yeah.

When he professed to be a believer, I had a guy, he's.

He wasn't a member of our church.

His wife was, and I was.

I was pastoring there.

And.

But he knew Kanye personally.

He used to do recordings with him many, many years ago before Kanye became well known.

And even this guy who thinks he's a Christian, he's an unbeliever, very social justice warrior.

He and I would talk about it all the time, but we, you know, he even recognized that Kanye should not be doing what he's doing.

You know, he.

He even.

He's.

He had called Kanye and told him, you know, if you're now a Christian, you should be getting out of the limelight.

Right.

And it was interesting because I.

I had made a comment, and he actually told Kanye the comment.

He said, you know, you know, my.

And he referred to me, I guess as my.

As his pastor, but he said my, you know, my pastor, you know, had said that you should be, you know, getting discipled, because that's really what I think he needed to do if he really was saved.

What he should do is go attend, you know, a church, be discipled under someone.

There's another guy now, an actor.

So this would be where, you know, Parker, you'll probably know.

I don't.

I don't remember the.

The guy's name, but there's an actor now who recently got baptized.

Denzel Washington.

Washington.

And wouldn't he get baptized, like, Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox?

I'm not sure.

They've already ordained him as a minister of the gospel.

Yeah, yeah.

Just crazy stuff.

Well, I mean, the other one is Russell Brand.

I don't even know who Russell Brand is.

Yeah.

So Russell Brand is more of a comedic actor.

He was real into, I think.

I'm almost positive he was more into, like, the new age kind of stuff.

And.

And I saw a video floating around on social media where Russell Brand was on stage talking to the pastor, and there were, like, one or two points that he made that I was like, that's.

That's not accurate.

You know, that's not.

That's not Biblical.

And so I think and, and, and if I'm, you know, being honest, I don't think he.

It was in terms of Russell Brand.

I don't think he was intentionally distorting anything.

I just think no differently than anybody else.

When you become a new believer, you just don't know a lot of things and, and communications is even, even more difficult than you even imagine.

So on certain, you know, doctrine or whatever.

So I think he was just accidentally distorting or there was no malicious intent.

But that goes back to what you said, Tom.

That's why, you know, you see, when, when somebody goes from unbelief to belief and chooses faith, and I know somebody's probably going to rake me over the cold for saying chooses faith.

I don't mean it that way.

I just mean when they go from.

Do you want to be removed from that reform podcast bracket quickly?

I mean, now, just because you lost, just because you lost, now your true colors are coming out.

You can kind of smell the humility on somebody.

And a lot of these celebrities, you can just kind of tell that there's not a lot.

There's still that pride of, you know, they're in the limelight.

And so I guess, you know, my, my co host and I, My co host name's Nick.

He's my cousin.

And we talk about that, we talked about this quite a bit on our podcast where if a celeb, if a Christian sees a celebrity claim Christ, their response should be okay.

And then after that, it should be exactly what Andrew said.

You know, time, time will tell.

You know, and, you know, if you, if you show up to the Grammys and you, you, you make a, A pornographic stunt out of your wife.

Yeah.

Writing's on the wall.

Yeah.

And, and Luke, Luke corrected me here.

Denzel Washington was part of the Church of Christ.

So you think it was Church of God in Christ.

Is it okay, that group.

Yeah, because Church of Christ, depending on the group, could is.

Is the International Church of Christ is a culture believes, baptism saves.

And so that becomes a big thing.

Drew, I saw that too.

Yeah.

Joe.

Joe.

So the reason.

Sorry, I don't mean to touch you.

Let me put the comment up that you're referring to.

So read the comment.

It was a, There was a podcast, I think.

Why don't you read the comments before you respond?

Scene was seen holding Joe Boots.

Mission of God.

Well, read the comment that you're responding to first.

Joe Boot, I think, is a typo here.

So Joe Boot has been, has been trying to reach out to Russell Brand to disciple him since Brand read the book Mission of God but hasn't heard back.

So, yes, thank you for reminding us about that.

I forgot.

But yes, Russell Brand read Mission of God and was talking about it on a podcast.

So I did.

I did hear about that, too.

And that that was Drew Von Nita, who should be in here but isn't.

You know, he's, he's watching, you know, I mean, what kind of co host is this?

I mean, just because he didn't vote for the rap Report.

So he's making Russell.

Russell Brand was like, at hotels like, like baptizing people in the pools.

And it's just, it's just I don't, I don't necessarily think it's a great look.

Yeah, Mike Michael says, I've heard Kanye post porn on X2.

I.

I did hear on Daily Wire.

I was.

I heard that.

All right, so before we get to Colossians 2.

Eight, let me bring.

We have someone backstage.

I'm going to bring Melissa in.

You got a question for us tonight?

Yeah, can you hear me?

Nope, we can't hear you at all.

Just kidding.

Okay.

I have a question.

I was wondering, is Eastern Orthodox and.

Anglican, are they Christians or does it.

Depend on the person or the church or whatever?

Well, Eastern Orthodox is really hard.

So when I was writing my book, what do we believe?

What do they believe?

Which is where I was trying to go through different religions.

I did deal with Catholicism and one of the ones I was going to pick up was Eastern Orthodox.

And I was also going to pick up Buddhism and Hinduism when I started with the Buddhism.

And I realized you really can't systematize it because there's no set authority.

Same with Hinduism.

So I moved to Eastern Orthodox and found the very same thing.

It's a very more mystical belief system.

It's hard to.

I would put it in the same category of Catholicism.

They kind of split from one another.

And the Orthodox was more into icons.

And yeah, they would say, like looking at the icons.

And that's why they have all the stained glass, the beautiful churches where the Catholics have venerate the saints, the Orthodox venerate icons.

And so it's a distraction from the Bible.

So I think if anybody is saved within them, it is not because of their doctrine that they're saved.

They're saved in spite of their doctrine.

I don't think with the Orthodox doctrine, at least my understanding, where you have to be baptized to be saved, where you have to almost worship icons, that's not the same gospel Message.

Right.

So I would probably add, we know that a person is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And so if we.

If we change that and the object of our salvation, if we are adding a little bit of, you know, some of Christ to a little bit of our works, that, yes, we need to hold to and believe in the personal work of Christ, but then we also need to add water baptism, or we need to add going to church, or we need to be able to continue to do these works to keep our salvation, as if the work that Christ did on the cross wasn't sufficient enough to save us.

And so when we add anything else to the gospel, we're believing in a false gospel.

And so typically, the Eastern Orthodox churches would add something to the gospel.

And so, like Andrew said, if there is somebody in that church there, maybe perhaps they are trusting in Christ alone for eternal life, but they're not adhering to what their system teaches.

So.

And God, I honestly believe that if they are truly God's elect, truly God's people, that God will bring them out of that, too.

Yeah.

Is it the same with Anglicans?

So that's a little different in.

I mean, like, there are Anglicans.

All right, so the history of the Anglican Church was really because you had a king that wanted to have a male offspring, and he had a wife that couldn't produce children, and so he wanted to divorce her and marry someone else.

Okay.

That's really what it comes down to.

And so the church would not allow him to divorce, to marry.

Oh, I forget her name.

But.

But he wanted to.

He wanted to marry this other woman so that he could have children.

And what ended up happening was he just.

He split from the Catholic Church and created his own religion.

And that's why in the United Kingdom, the king or queen is the head of the church instead of the Pope.

The king took that position.

And.

Thank you, Drew.

Drew is saying Anna Boleyn, and that is her name.

And she had a sister.

And so what ended up happening was, is that I think it was Anne Boleyn.

I want to say Mary, I forget, but one of them he married.

So he splits.

He removes England from the Catholic Church.

And so they're very.

They were very Catholic, like, but without the.

The church magisterium being the in charge, it was the government that became in charge.

And so he became the head of the church.

And the irony was he ends up doing all that to only not have any male children from her.

He ends up marrying her sister.

And, you know, I think her sister is the one that produced a male heir.

But it, the, it's very, it's close to Catholicism.

But there was some reform, you know, when they left the Catholic Church.

There's a lot of reform that went on.

So there are Anglican groups both in the UK and, and more.

So those that came here to America where they, they were formed to have a more biblical message.

So J.C.

ryle for example.

J.C.

ryle would be one.

Yeah, yeah.

So you know.

Yeah.

So yeah.

And I'm trying to think there's a preacher, a well known preacher.

Is it Yusuf that is Anglican.

I forget there's a well known preacher who's Andrew?

No, I, I don't know anyone from Fight Laugh Feast that was Anglican.

Okay.

A lot of them are just very high churchy, very high, you know, looking the part and stuff like that.

Again, what is the object of their faith?

Who is the object of her faith?

There was one from England, I think that's that they said that he's sound teacher by Anglican.

I think he is a black man.

I don't know how to say that.

Sorry.

So yeah, seven foot apologist.

Are we both trying to put up the same one?

I'll put it up.

We both had the same idea.

He says J.I.

packer was Anglican.

No, I think he was, Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

And you know, just a seven foot apologist says I'm going to put a different comment.

He puts up and say who he is in a moment.

But seven foot apologist says do the EO believe in that salvation could be lost.

I think they do.

I don't want to say definitely because it's been a long time since I've studied Eastern Orthodoxy, but I believe so Dan that you know, because they got that from the Catholicism, that the in Catholicism is the church that saves you.

So you can lose that.

You have to keep earning it back.

I think when they replaced it with the government it's a similar thing.

And that can be a false understanding of what a misunderstanding of how God saves us and that it would be inconsistent.

So while somebody could be ignorant of the full truth, you know, when you first become a believer, you're not going to understand the order of salvation.

You're not going to understand Tulip, you're not going to understand how total pravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, you're not going to understand those things until later.

So just because we think, you know, we just have a misunderstanding of how I.

All a new believer thinks is they came to Christ, they made A decision to follow Christ.

And so it's just inconsistent.

And I think over time as they're discipled, that's why it's so important to get into a good church.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Discipled, rightly, you know, and Drew says, you know, I was giving him a hard time not being here.

He says, hey, I'm taking care of the babies at the moment.

Well, he, he says that.

And you know, the thing is that, you know, I put up a comment from 7 Foot Apologist.

That's Dan Kraft.

He's one of the speakers at, at Striving for Attorney.

You guys have seen him if you're regulars at Apologex Live, because he's come here several times.

But he says we lurk because we have to run for to dinner in a few minutes.

When you're seven foot tall, Dan, you don't lurk anywhere.

Okay, I'm sorry, dude.

I, I don't know him, but I saw, I saw him.

Oh, he is, he's, he makes, he makes everybody look short.

It's, it's.

Well, I mean, I saw them aren't known for their ability to lurk.

Yes, his feet were huge.

I mean they were like skis in the picture.

Very, very quiet.

Yeah, that's what he says.

He says I'm very, very quiet.

Besides 19 shoe, I bet.

Yeah.

When you can stuff Shaq, I guess, you know, you can't be very, very quiet.

Sorry, dad.

So, Melissa, does that answer your questions for tonight?

Yeah, just one more eyes, one more denomination.

What about you?

Do you know about Lutheranism?

Like what I, you think like they're Christian or what?

Again, it depends.

I know it's not a very good answer.

It depends on which group.

I mean, you have, you have some Lutherans that are, that, that are solidly saved and you, you have many who are very liberal.

Okay.

And I think, I think when I first, when I first became a Christian and started learning about different denominations, I, I was basically under the impression like Lutherans were so liberal, none of them were saved.

And then I started meeting some and like, oh, okay.

Oh, I, I, his name just escaped me.

Pirate radio.

Chris Roseborough.

I hate this getting old stuff, guys.

Chris Roseborough is a Christian?

Yeah.

One that I watch is, I, I think he is a Christian, but I'm not sure his name.

He's saying the guy that does Lutheran satire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He, he does a lot of videos for Keith Foskey.

Yeah.

And, and right now, you know, we, for, for until after Saturday we can't mention Keith's name, you know just unless we're in bad in a bad like Saturday vote against Keith.

You got just, you know, anybody associated with Keith.

Yeah yeah.

Until after maybe, maybe it's going to take till Monday for the, the wounds to, to, to rub off.

By the way, I will say if anybody on X goes and follows Corey Wing, he was in the, in the bracket and he, he, he was.

You know I'm just going to put my pitch in here.

I know that you know as one of the sponsors, Parker, you, you have to be you know, non biased and, and give a vote here.

But I'm just going to say that I, I really think that when I look at the brackets man, Corey in his video when he lost, that was classic.

So, so in it was.

I think he was in day one, right.

Yeah, he's the first day and he's, he's got the Civically Minded podcast and it was hysterical and he kept doing these videos on why you should vote for him over over whoever he was going against.

It was actually eschatology matters which is.

Which is part, which and he's part of that, he's part of that, that network.

Yeah, that's right.

I forgot.

And so you just, his, his lost after he loses was great.

He's got a black eye, he's, he's got blood coming out of his mouth and he's like ah.

My mother always taught me that if you get into a good fight, make sure the other guy knows he's been in a fight.

You know he's like, he did, he did makeup.

He gave us an, an Irish accent.

So if you haven't seen the video, you gotta go watch it.

Everybody needs to go watch that video.

You can find it.

Follow Corey.

Yeah, you can follow Corey.

If you, if you have trouble finding him, go to the Dead Man Walking when you go to vote and, and you can find it there.

Yeah, it's at Civically minded.

Right.

C I V E C E C C L Y minded E C C L.

Yeah.

See if, if he had joined the Christian podcast community instead of, you know, eschatology matters, I, I would have helped him to say.

Yeah, you can't have a podcast name that you got to spell out every time.

I know.

Well it's, it's civics and ecclesiology.

Yeah.

Is what he's going for.

I know.

Hey, let me, let me point out what what the seven foot apologist said here.

He was talking about put it up.

So you can read it.

Yeah.

Let's sure.

Let's go ahead.

Yeah, we always got to put the comments up for the audio.

Decent.

Here's the long and short of it.

There are some Baptists who are Christians, some Presbyterians, some Methodists, etc.

Salvation is not denominational membership.

It's.

It's an election.

And so when you think about that, the, the whole, the whole premise of it is there, that salvation comes to individuals and everything.

What is the object?

What are they believing in?

What are they trusting in?

And if they're trusting in anything other than the person and work of Christ alone, the name, they're believing in a false gospel.

So.

But here, here's the thing, though.

There are denominations, typically there are churches that teach right doctrine.

And so you want to be able to be under the authority of those elders, under the teaching of qualified men who teach the Bible biblically, what salvation is.

How does a person become wise into salvation and all those things?

And that way we know that we're not going to be veering off into some crazy doctrine that think that I need to add something else to my, to the object of my salvation, which, which is Christ.

The personal work of Christ alone.

Yeah.

And so that I think that's the issue.

It's a personal salvation.

How can I be reconciled to the Father?

If the answer is anything less or anything other than Christ alone, then I'm believing in something wrong.

Yeah.

And so what it is is that you have people who could be saved.

I knew a girl in college who I think was saved and she still went to the Catholic Church out of, you know, out of like what she thought was honoring her parents.

So you have to recognize that she was saved because she started reading the Bible.

So she was saved in spite of.

Of Catholic doctrine, not because of it.

And that's the thing we always have to remember.

Amen.

So does that answer your questions there, Melissa?

Yeah.

All right.

Very good answer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Put you backstage.

By the way, Dan let you know his shoe size there that you asked earlier.

His big feet size 21 shoes.

Yeah.

So you don't even need to buy flippers when you go swimming.

Well, the problem is the, the problem actually is when you have shoes that big, they're all custom made.

They're all custom made.

That's right.

So, all right, let's dig into some scripture.

And, and because this is.

And folks, I'm just going to encourage you guys as we look into the scripture before we jump into text, just if you guys don't mind sharing this out on the social media, wherever you are, so that folks will find us here.

You can always find us here Thursday nights, apologetics live.com, but want to give a shout out because we're also streaming on Open Air Theology.

It's a good podcast.

Well, it's not a podcast yet.

It's a YouTube channel.

But they, they're.

They do lives every Saturday night.

So it's good to go check them out and then watch.

Well, Podcast, which another good podcast and a good channel we're streaming there as well as.

As Parker crashed into our.

Our.

Our feed here, which we appreciate the.

Yeah.

On.

On X.

It's at Real Parker Brown.

Yeah, I, I really thought.

According to Greg, he told me I'm supposed to look for, you know, the.

Or.

It was a part.

It was a Gregor or Keith that told me to just look up the feed.

The real fetus.

Parker calls you the fetus.

Do you.

Do you.

Do you know the story?

No, I don't.

I.

I've always been curious.

So we were.

We were going back and forth, me and Keith, and like, ribbing each other and.

And he hit me with an ageist joke is what it was.

So he just started calling me fetus because I'm so much younger, which I also think, you know, like, I think that means that I'm more beautiful too, you know, more handsome, ruggedly handsome.

Because, you know, in your own mind, I'm younger.

So it kind of follows with the whole beauty idea.

Right.

You know, so he's getting old and.

But he keeps calling me fetus because I'm so young.

Well, let me just put it this way.

You can have somebody.

Somebody in his comment section.

I'm.

I'm not an expert on the.

I should be because I've had two kids and we've got one on the way, actually.

Okay, congratulations.

Stages of development, you know, like, like you have the fetal stage.

And then like, somebody was like, upgrade or downgrade to zygote.

And it was getting wild in his.

In his comment section because all of his, all the people in his comment section call me fetus now, too, which is hilarious.

Well, you know, I'm just going to say this.

You know, you may want to think twice about insulting him too much because he does have three different black belts.

But, you know, Dan just, you know, just wants to let you know that fetus means young, wrinkly, blind and weak.

Fair enough.

So I don't know if it's.

Exactly.

At the very least, I have my whole life ahead of me, and they don't.

Well, they still do.

Look, all it means is the problem.

The probability is that we will get shorter and shorter.

We will get to heaven before you, probably probabilistically.

Okay, that's so, I mean, you think about it.

In 20 years, I mean, you're gonna be doing podcasts and neither Andrew and I aren't going to be around.

Yeah, I don't want to think about that.

Parker's gonna be going.

You know, I remember the day when I was podcasting with some old guys, Andrew and Tom.

I hate to tell you, in 20 years, I'm gonna be 53 years old.

You'll still be young.

Well, that's about, that's not far off of what I am.

I'm 56, so.

See that?

You'll be my age.

You'll be the old man your age.

And I'll be able to look at the podcasters I'll probably be with.

Christ went before and be able to reminisce on the apologetic live episode, the one episode that I was allowed to be on.

You're, you're always welcome.

You're always welcome.

So let's, let's read some scripture this second.

This is, I keep saying second.

This is Colossians 2, 8.

And I, I should, I should say I'm going to be preaching that this a week from Sunday at Caleb Gordon's church, which should we see how Caleb's preparing for me coming down?

You guys, you guys want to see how Caleb's preparing?

I, I, I, I've seen one, but go ahead and show it.

So cover your eyes.

Yeah, yeah.

This is, this is Caleb preparing.

You know, he, he, he, you know, Parker, I don't know if, you know, he, he, he, he doubted me and he just, he, he wanted to, he said that, you know, sure, if I come down there, he would be willing to do a cold plunge.

So I made sure, sure.

I sent a cold plunge down.

And so this is him getting a couple.

I'm not going to play the audio because.

Oh, okay.

I guess it's just going to do that.

Let's see.

Can you see that?

So, so there, there he is getting into the cold plunge.

He's gonna attempt 10 seconds.

Come on, Caleb.

Look, look how excited he is for this.

Is there snow outside?

The cold plunge is there.

He ends up singing.

He ends up singing in it.

So there he is.

That's him preparing for the, the conference.

And so if you guys want to come to the conference, just go to Caleb.

Caleb gordon.org.

caleb gordon.org he's singing.

Praise God.

He's To, To God be the glory.

He is singing in a cold plunge.

He's actually a good singer, but he's not right there.

Yeah, no, his voice was, was, was, was a tad bit.

Yeah, he was.

He's hating life, but, but he, he's.

He's yet to break a minute and, but hey, for anyone who, who doubts he walked barefoot in the snow into the cold plunge to get in there.

So fun.

So he's, he's.

Well, I heard that there was a, there was a bet or a challenge rolling around with Greg.

With.

Greg's gonna get in there.

I'd like to see that.

I, I know Tom, you mentioned Greg about this cold plunge thing, and I didn't hear anything else.

Yeah, so I heard a mention of it.

Tom was supposed to be there.

Oh, okay.

But, but folks, all you guys that are regular listeners here, you remember when, when Tom said he was gonna come and he would do the cold plunge if Brandon Scalf would do it?

Well, yes, you're.

No be.

No, Brandon said he's willing to do the cold plunge.

And all of a sudden Tom is like, oh, I gotta.

I got to be in California.

I, I'm gonna be.

I'm gonna be in California from the 1st through the 10th.

And I have a wife.

So.

So bring your wife Oklahoma.

Somebody's either somebody's got to be dying or it's your anniversary or you just.

Have a wife that is not going to let.

You could bring.

Think you can bring your wife to Oklahoma because.

And you would need to.

So she can witness you doing a cold plunge.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, So I, it's just, I don't.

It's probably not gonna happen.

We have, we have too much going on.

And I thought I was going to be able to pull it off, but.

So, Parker, what would be the word for someone like that?

Oh, my gosh.

Is there a word for someone that.

Chicken.

Can I use a phrase?

Sure.

Faithful husband.

Hey, look, a faithful husband could bring his wife to the conference.

I thought, I thought there was going to be a movie quote in there, so.

Yeah, not on the couch.

All right, so let's take a look.

This is Colossians 2:28, reading out of the New American Standard Bible.

Okay.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and the empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the empty principles of the world rather than according to Christ.

This really does help us, I, I think when we talk about, you know, apologetics.

Because if we think about this.

So much of the apologetics, the things we already talked about, whether it be Kanye west or the he gets us.

What is the he gets us campaign other than philosophy and empty deceptions of the traditions of men, the empty principles of the world.

And we can get into what each of those things mean.

But.

Right.

Isn't that.

I mean, what's social justice?

That's, that's the, the tradition of the.

The world's religion.

Sure.

Something that seems right unto man.

Yeah, it's, it's the.

Would we, could we say it's maybe that rel.

You know, social justice is the, the religious.

The religious ceremony or, or doctrine of Marxism, of the religion.

Of Marxism.

Sure.

Yeah.

You could probably say that.

You know, it's.

It's a.

Religious drapings.

That would be a good word, right?

Yeah, definitely.

A secular worldview.

What, what, what is the way that we can just be that.

That's all accepting, all tolerant, you know, that everybody's equal, everybody's in the same boat.

God, he gets us.

And that's the.

I guess that's the flaw.

Right?

Because in accepting everybody, if there's a dissenting opinion, you don't like, you're not tolerant to that.

So like it is self refuting.

Right?

Because in the attempt to include everyone, you exclude some.

Well, no, it's just Christianity you exclude.

Fair enough.

Right.

Absolutely.

Anything else is acceptable but the truth.

Yeah, right.

The, the, the self refutation still exists.

And that's why I always say, you know, quote that I'm getting known for is the fact that we now live in a culture where the truth doesn't matter, the narrative matters.

Right.

And that's.

The truth is subjective too.

Wouldn't you believe, say to the world.

Yeah, they would say it's subjective because when they've given up God in their attempt to.

Given up God, they gave up absolutes.

They have to.

Because if, if you believe in absolutes and you say there is no God, what is the source of the absolutes if not God?

And why care about what other people think?

Yeah.

So that it's man center then.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's, it's Drew.

How's it going man?

Pretty good.

So Parker, this is the other co host who must have put his babies to bed.

This is Drew.

Nice to meet you.

Howdy.

They are all asleep.

Yes.

And I'm sure, I'm sure that they're all sleeping on.

You're my pillow that each one of them have stolen over the years.

Yep.

So the.

Between the three year old and the five year old, they're on each side of the bed.

And then when we get done here, I've got to then take them and put them in their bed because they won't go sleep in their bed on their own.

I've got to wait for them to fall asleep in our bed, then pick them up and carry them to them.

You gotta, you gotta train them better.

But, but I, that would be a good time to mention because they, they each have a my pillow.

Because they steal them from daddy.

They won't go to sleep without their my pillow.

And so if you want to get a good b.

Sleep like a baby, go get yourself a good mypillow.

Use the promo code sf it stands for Striving for Eternity.

So that they know that you heard about them here at Apologex Live.

That helps them to continue to support us.

And you can get a good night's sleep.

If you want to sleep like a baby, like Drew's children, go and do that.

And then you don't know how bad it is.

Okay?

So in the middle of the night, they'll get up and they'll come into our room because they want to get back in our bed.

And my son will grab my pillow and he'll wake me up and he'll go, daddy, get off my pillow.

Because it's, it's his.

My pillow.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is now.

Yeah.

And so when, when you wake up in the morning, you know, make sure you get yourself a good cup of Squirrelly Joe's coffee.

It is great Christian coffee because it was Christian packaged and brewed and, you know, roasted and all.

But Squirrely Joe is a fellow believer in Christ.

Great brother.

Got to be on the phone, talk to him this, this past week.

Love that guy.

But go to Squirrely Joe's.

You can get the.

What you can do is just go to striving for eternity.com coffee that's driving fraternity.org coffee.

Use the promo code SFE for that first purchase and you either get a free bag or 20 off.

And before we continue on, on Colossians.

Aaron in the comments here, making fun of me right here, right?

No children in bed.

Why don't I just bring him in?

Say that to my face.

I'll say that to your face.

There he is.

Just remember, in their bed, you sleep in your bed.

You know, because none of this, none of this stuff.

What, what's going on here?

If you're unbelievable, if you're having any trouble, if you're having any trouble with strife in your household with your children.

May I recommend Aaron's new book, Quit how to End Family Strife for Good?

It is available.

You can, you can find it@restriving fortune.org it's there in the store.

So.

But yeah, I think since I know.

The author, why don't I just give him a call whenever we have strife.

On that note, Andrew, you know when you're talking about empty, empty deceit, you know, it talks about a teaching that sounds good, but it's kind of empty.

So kind of in the way that you put your child asleep, sounds good in your bed and then you move them over.

Well, direction this is going, I'm gonna move down here.

Yeah, or you could or it's like getting, you know, giving, you know, all the speakers a free bag of coffee at a conference and you got a guy like Aaron who's just empty and doesn't, doesn't drink good coffee.

He doesn't, you know, that's true.

I don't appreciate that.

I love the smell of it.

I love the smell of it.

But empty, it's just taste is not the same.

Yeah.

Who do we have here?

I don't know.

Real Parker Brown.

That's the real Parker Brown.

So Real Parker, Real Parker Brown is with the Watch well podcast he does.

He covers movies and things like that.

Nice.

And a.m.

brewster is one of the speakers at Striving for Eternity.

He also has his own ministry called Evermind Ministries, and his podcast that is in the bracket is Truth Love Parent.

He does have another podcast called the Celebration of God, which is an evergreen podcast.

It's something that goes through the Christian calendar and looks at the Christian holidays and gives it a biblical perspective.

So good ones.

Go back.

Did you.

Yeah, I was gonna say, speaking of the bracket, I'm, I'm concerned.

I'm behind.

It's, I'm at 42% street talk theology, which is a little unfair because isn't street talk theology one of ours?

It, we have two, we have two of our podcasts that are up against each other and Aaron, I, I actually, I actually thought, I, I, I assumed because your podcast is, is, is a pretty well known big podcast.

So I kind of figured, let me throw a bone to street talk theology.

And I ended up after I voted, thinking I was voting for the underdog.

And I, and I was ready to put a thing saying, hey, I, you know, this was tough, but I voted for the underdog.

And then I realized, oops, well, now there's still, if you're listening, you can go on to x.

There's still 13, according to this, 13 hours and 49 minutes left that you can vote.

You can go on X.

You can find the Dead Men Walking podcast at Real DMW Podcast.

And you can go there and you can vote for this fourth round for.

It's the first round, but it's the fourth day of it and you can find Truth Love Parent.

And if you don't vote for anything else, vote for Truth Love Parent.

The reality is we can't say, were you the, Were you the underdog?

No, he wasn't.

I'm currently.

Because it currently is.

Yeah.

So, so 42 to 58.

The thing that's kind of funny is.

You can get Andrew back because he's going up against Fosky here pretty soon.

I did, I did balance it out because I do have the Christian podcast community Twitter feed, so I forgot about that.

So I actually went in and balanced it out by voting for Truth Love Parent on that one.

So I wiped myself out.

I did that.

I did that with both of the.

Podcasts thing to do for some reason, I don't know why.

So, yes, that was, that was tough.

And, and you can't, I mean, look, you're going up against Dominic Galdi.

The, the reality is Dominic's not even on X.

He, he, he was like, he goes, what is this thing that, this Twitter bracket thing?

I don't, I'm not on X.

I don't know what.

Can I, can you help me set up an X account?

And so I really.

We never did.

But, but so here's my, here's my thought.

Like a lot of these podcasts I haven't heard about, right?

But the ones I know, I go in there, I vote for them.

And then the ones I don't like, oftentimes there's, there's a.

They're head to head and I'm like, I haven't heard of these.

So then what I do, being a biblical counselor, there is a lot of psychology in what I do.

Not like that I use in therapy or anything like that, but just you learn to think how other people think, right?

And I can pretty much call who's ahead or who's behind based off of two things.

One, if I've heard of it, they're probably ahead because I don't know most of them, so that's an easy one.

But two, I can judge it by the name and I'm.

I like you, Andrew, deliberately, if I don't know them, I'll deliberately vote for the underdog or sometimes I'll just vote for the name that I like.

So with, like, street.

With street talk.

Theology versus truth, love, parent.

I'm like, oh, there's gonna be a lot of people who are in that parenting phase who are just gonna want to go with the one, you know, I just.

I get it.

I.

I understand it.

I.

I really.

I was.

You know, I.

But I get it, you know, I mean, Dominic, you know, he went to jail for 20 years.

You're.

You know, people are afraid to go up, you know.

Yeah.

They don't want to vote against him.

I get it.

You end up with cement shoes at the bottom.

You know?

That's right.

Yeah.

He still won't.

He.

He still won't tell the stories what put him in jail.

He told me.

You don't want to know.

Andrew.

Andrew knows, but he won't say it publicly.

Oh, yeah, One on one.

He'll get you one on one.

Yeah, but he.

There's certain things that he's like, hey, I did 20 years to keep my mouth shut, so.

See, and Drew's gone to take care of the babies.

All right, so.

So let's talk about.

Speaking of Aaron, let's talk about philosophy and empty deception.

Oh, sorry.

But.

Wow, that's.

That's nice.

Good.

But this.

I mean, when we.

When we talk about apologetics, I mean, this is a thing to think about, to realize that, you know, a lot of the apologetics that we're dealing with is.

We are dealing with people who have been captive.

They're being held captive by a society that is just filled with.

With their.

Their view of philosophy, with their empty deceptions, with their traditions of men.

And that's what we.

We.

What we combat that with is the truth.

Right?

So.

So, I mean, let's.

Let's deal with some of this.

I mean, guys, how do you.

How do each of you see when it comes to apologetics?

I'll start with Parker, because, Parker, you're.

I mean, your podcast deals with, you know, the influence of movies in our society.

And I think that's been one of the biggest ways in the last hundred years that has influenced the.

That has taken people captive is movies, and now in our generation, social media.

How do you see this.

This captive.

This captivation occurring to the movie?

Yeah, I guess I would say, you know, what we say on our podcast is that every movie is a Christian movie, because in order to have a narrative, you have to build that narrative upon a structure of truth, and that truth is eternal.

So despite a movie's Messaging, it has to acknowledge or borrow from our worldview, the eternal truths required to even hold itself to be coherent, to tell a story and deliver a message.

So even though the message that it's trying to deliver may be, like, Marxist, or maybe it's feministic, or, or.

Or maybe just more broadly secular, there's still fundamental truths that the movie requires the viewer to believe, or else the story can't support itself.

So on our podcast, we just say we observe what Hollywood steals from our worldview.

So that's kind of where we get this, don't watch lazy, watch well, kind of saying that we say is, is if you don't watch well or you're not actively engaged in what you're watching, you can be swept away by the message and start to believe anything.

And I mean, the, the world has really used movies to.

I mean, I.

So I'll go back to my childhood and I know, you know, as a fetus, you.

You.

You don't know this movie, but I remember watching in theaters the movie Kramer vs.

Kramer, and, and I've just dated myself, and probably most in the audience, you're going, I never even heard that movie.

The.

And that was the last time he went to the theaters.

Hey, I walked out halfway through Mary Poppins.

So, you know, yeah, high standards.

I.

I was bored and, and, and my dad was upset because he paid 50 cents.

They.

There was an inter.

Intermission, and my dad said, are you really going to sit through the full movie?

I'm like, yeah, dad.

So instead of paying 25 cents, he paid.

Made 50 cents.

And I was bored senseless and walked out and.

Five dollars on popcorn.

Yeah, so.

But Kramer versus Kramer was a movie about a divorce.

And I remember sitting in that movie, my, My mother, who, you know, was a liberal, you know, fancied herself as a feminist.

She.

She had brought all of us to see this movie.

And I remember sitting there and I did not know at that time, I do not know anybody that was divorced.

I didn't have a single friend in school, and I didn't know anyone who was divorced.

And I was sitting there watching a movie, and I went there.

It's almost like they're trying to normalize divorce, like they're trying to say it's okay to be divorced.

And, you know, it was years later when I was older that, you know, I started seeing reviews about that movie, and people would say, like, that was the movie that made it okay to be divorced.

And I went, that was their goal.

Like, that was their plan.

And so I Think that we see that a lot with the movies is that they, they can influence very much, you know, society with, with their philosophy.

You know, I love, I love what.

You'Re saying about thinking.

Well, one of the things that my wife and I have driven.

Is that the word we've striven to do.

Yeah.

Strived.

Stroke.

Striving.

Striving for eternity.

Yeah.

What strove for eternity with our kids is to have an open conversation during, after, sometimes before the movie where we're realizing like, I mean, this is.

I might be repeating things that were said earlier or definitely things that you said on your show.

Now is, is it Parker?

Is that your first name correct?

Parker?

No, his actual first name is real.

Because it's real.

Parker's his middle name.

This, I, this idea of amusement to amuse yourself, that, that no musing, no thinking.

You're turning your brain off.

When you turn your brain off, stuff just, just flies right into your ears and your eyes and you're being influenced by it.

We need that.

We need to reject the idea of amusement, especially when that we're being amused by the world because they, they have their failure philosophies.

We need to, we need to be musing.

And so having those open conversations with our kids, talking about what do you think about what was said?

What do you think about their worldview?

What do you think the consequences of that are going to be?

It's just something that we've done sometimes we spent more time talking about the movie after watching it than we did watching the movie as we watched it.

I think it's interesting that you say, what?

How'd you say it?

You said some.

Ah, shoot, I just lost it.

But anyway, what you said, I agree with what we say on our show is we want to unhook ourselves from the IV drip of passive consumption.

Yeah.

We want to combat the passive consumption of entertainment, whether that be on social media, whether that be in the movie theater or at home on a streaming service.

We want to combat that.

So even.

It's a really good way to start your kids off young too.

I do it with my now 5 year old where we would watch something like Mario and it's like, oh, well, you know, try to like, okay, what is right?

What is wrong?

Like every movie has to make a moral claim.

Like Kramer and Kramer.

I've obviously never to watch.

I'll take over.

Thanks, Siv.

I appreciate it, buddy.

I, I've never seen that movie, obviously.

But my question is, even though they were trying to push a message and normalize Divorce was divorced looked at as a good thing in that movie?

Or was there some type of remorse or was there some type of negative emotion that they, they, that the film forced them to maintain?

Yeah, because if there was, then it's self refuting, right?

Yeah, I, I think it, it painted a, a tragic picture of a, of a.

How reckless a divorce can be on a child, for sure.

But the message was to normalize it.

So you have this dichotomy.

Right.

So it's like, oh, this should be a normal thing, but it's super sad and that's incoherent.

Sure.

So Aaron has a guest on.

Yeah, I invited, I invited my daughter Ivy to come join us frequently.

She's, she's sitting over there.

We usually only get to see her.

One half of the con.

We, we usually only get to see her give you a kiss goodnight at the end of the show, but now we get to see her on the show.

She's off.

Well, I invited her in because as I was sitting there saying that obviously she didn't hear anything that you guys had sex.

I had my earbuds in.

But as she heard me say that and explaining what we did, sometimes we talk more about the movie after.

Spend more time talking about it than watching it.

She said, and it's so fun.

It's a blast.

Well, see what I'm doing.

See what I ended up doing with the kids.

Maybe I should have done it more your way, Aaron, because I would actually stop the movie.

Like if we were watching TV and I could stop it, I would stop it and discuss it right then.

And my daughter was like, my kids stopped enjoying the movies because they were just like, dad, you're ruining movies for us because like, you keep pointing out the worldview.

You've done that.

And it's not bad if you do it with moderation.

It's not bad.

Sometimes I do.

Like one time I remember my son was watching Turbo and Turbo, this little snail who wanted to be really, really fast.

And my son asked me, dad, is it okay for him to want to go faster?

Because in his mind he's a snail.

He can't do this thing.

So it was okay for him to want that.

We paused it.

Probably had a good 10.

My son was like 6 at the time.

And we had like a 10 or 15 minute conversation about godly ambition versus selfish ambition and whatever else.

And then we continue watching the movie.

So that was something that we did.

That's tough, man.

That's so good.

Yeah.

But then what's one thing like, so sometimes we like to use Vidangel and things like that so we don't have to worry about certain language and whatever.

But every now and then, we're watching something that can't be filtered.

And one.

This is one of the things that I've done that if somebody uses some type of language, what's the first thought that goes through your head?

Don't say that.

Don't say that.

Because someone will be sitting watching the movie, and someone will say any kind of profanity, whatever else.

And my wife and I, for years now.

I mean, she's.

She's gonna be 16 this fall.

For years now.

Are we always, like, don't say that.

No, we don't say that.

And it's become such a thing that even when my wife and I don't say anything.

That's great.

Moment.

She hears it.

All she hears in her head right afterward is, don't say that.

Love it.

Love it.

I'll even say it back to him.

Like, I'll be like, don't say that.

That's so cool.

I love that.

I actually might steal that from you.

So we.

We don't have, like, a thing.

Parker, maybe you need to just.

Maybe you just need to have them on your podcast.

Yes.

Yeah.

You do.

Yeah.

So I.

I think that's important, too, especially if you homeschool.

There's a lot of times a lot of people would say that people.

Kids don't get exposed to the world and stuff like that, but through movies and theater and stuff like that, you can actually teach your children, okay, this is what the world sees.

This is the worldviews that are going on, and this is what we.

This is what we believe through the lens of Christ.

Amen.

I was just finishing up the final episode of the current series I'm in called parenting your children to adulthood.

And one of the things that we talk about a lot is the fact that there are certain things your kids need to be protected from.

But the list of things that.

From which they need to be protected is far smaller than we think it is.

And a lot of those things we shouldn't be protecting them from.

We should be preparing them for.

For preparing an answer.

Love that.

Yeah.

How to think through it.

So, like you said, Tom, I think it's a really huge thing.

Sometimes we go into a movie or we go into a series with the idea, like, so.

So as an example, my wife has always loved the TV show Survivor, and she's always said that Survivor is a really good little petri dish.

To see mankind at their worst, their most deceptive.

You know, they're manipulative, all that kind of stuff.

It's really just a case study in, in, in sin in many ways.

But she and my daughter have been watching it more and more, and I can't tell you how many times they've gone to an episode or gone to a season with the idea, this is what we're going to learn about the world and how they think.

Yeah.

This is what we're going to learn about these different.

And they've had the transgender issue.

Sometimes they've had people, come on, you didn't know what sex they were and whatever else.

There have been so many of these opportunities where we, in a safe environment can pause it or we can talk about it.

And it's not just her meeting some person out in the world that she's never seen.

Like, she doesn't even, she can't even conceptualize the fact that a person would think this way.

Sure.

Let alone live this way.

And now she's like, she doesn't know what to do.

She's encountering that in a safe space where we're able to prepare her for how to think biblically about it and respond to it.

Amen.

That's awesome.

Love that.

Love that.

And, and ultimately, you know, I love that you're doing that.

I, I, I mean, I'd hope that most Christians are doing that, but that's kind of the culture that our podcast wants to create, is that becomes a very normal thing.

I do want to add a clarification that we say this not every time, but we've made it known on our podcast that if we watch a movie, it's not an endorsement of everything within that movie.

And it's also not, you know, an encouragement for someone who may feel a certain conviction to go watch that movie.

We wouldn't want anyone to ignore a conviction or anything like that.

So there's obviously biblical wisdom and discernment and what we, you know, see with our eyes.

But, but for the most part, we try to help equip parents with ratings.

And when we do new movies, we talk about, do we agree with ratings that the movies have?

Do we not agree why?

Do we agree or not?

And then ultimately, what we can teach from watching this movie and watching, actively watching.

Well, so, you know, it's interesting, and I don't want to go too much into it, but there's a, there's a show or a program that I used to like to watch, was called Alone, and it was Basically a great show.

Love it.

Yeah.

Where they would go out and stuff like that.

And I do love it.

And what grieves me though, every time I see it or, you know, these people who aren't Christians and anytime they go fishing with their man made tools that they made with.

They didn't have anything when they were dropped off the island and they catch a fish and they're in this beautiful environment.

Thank you, universe.

You know, thank you for feeding me.

Thank you, Lake Chickata, for feeding me this fish.

They know they didn't do it on their own, but they can't.

They don't want to give God credit.

Yeah.

About the person that created all the lakes in the land.

Absolutely.

And you just see Romans 1 in that and it's like, wow.

And it's just what a lesson, you know?

But over a period of time, it would literally grieve me to just listen to these people.

But that's exactly what Paul's talking about in this, in this verse.

Right.

They're captive.

They don't.

And they don't even recognize the idea of the captivity is.

You don't even recognize that captivity.

Sure.

They're totally blind.

Actually, I would like your opinion, your guys's opinion on that.

So how do, how do we reconcile being trapped in, in that vain philosophy.

And then Romans 1, where God puts his law in our hearts and every man is without excuse.

Every man knows without excuse.

How do we.

How would you, how would you parse.

You guys parse that out?

Yeah.

Well, I think, I think the way I would see it is the, the fact is, is that people sear their conscience.

Right.

I mean, Paul talks about that in Titus that, that people's just, they.

They just go up against sin and sin and sin till it's.

It just becomes second nature.

You know, there was an interesting book that I read secular book about.

I forget the title of it, but it was basically about cheating.

You know, how does someone become the CEO that.

That embezzles money?

Or, you know, it was in the, in the wake of all the scandals of all the companies that, you know, I forget the guy who got in charged with you basically ripping off, you know, deceiving people with, with his business.

Which was really funny because he, he said, well, all he did was copy what the Clinton administration was doing.

But.

But it was the Clinton administration that was putting him in jail.

Right.

So the DOJ for Clinton was prosecuting him.

But.

And so the, the thing that's interesting is the book was saying no one starts off saying I'm going to embezzle for my company or I'm going to cheat my, my customers.

It.

He's, he was saying they start off by cheating on a grade to get ahead in school, cheating on the SATs to get into a good university.

So you get good at what you practice.

Yeah, well, it's just, it's.

It's that you sear your conscience so you don't think it's wrong.

And you do that in enough areas are so deep.

And that's why, like the movies, that, that's the whole purpose.

They desensitize you.

That's why, you know, we, I think the reason we have so much transgenderism is Tick Tock had the goal that China had the goal of desensitizing Americans to that idea.

And so it's just having it over and over and over again.

So, yes, you have that guilty conscience, but the more you, you just push against it, push against it, push against it.

You, you end up not hearing that conscience.

It deadens it, it sears it so that you're.

That's the, that's when you're taken captive by the philosophy.

You, you still have that guilty conscience.

But that's also why when I do open air evangelism, I'll talk about the fact.

Do any of you have a problem with alcohol or drugs or working too much or name the addiction?

Because the reason those addictions are there is because you're trying to get over the guilty conscience of your sin.

And so, yeah, I think that God does put his law in our heart and we fight against it so much that we become captive to the worldly philosophies.

Aaron, you were going to say something?

Yeah, if I understand the question correctly, and it's very possible that I didn't.

I think there's probably.

Don't laugh at me.

I think there's possibly another level here because I agree 100% with everything that Andrew just said.

We do cauterize our conscience and it becomes easier.

I say that you know the primary consequences of all sin.

You can't escape these three.

It hurts your fellowship with God, it hurts your fellowship and relationship with other people.

But it also hurts you by making it easier for you to continue doing that same sin again and again.

That happens every single time.

But I do believe that Romans 1 also reveals a place, because we're all completely, totally depraved.

But by the grace of God, we can do nothing good.

And that includes his specific special grace and salvation and sanctification.

Justification.

Sanctification.

But Also in his common grace.

But there does reach a point where God gives us up.

Yep.

Like Pharaoh and I.

I think that, I think that's a new.

A new level.

Okay.

I think that's not just I've cauterized myself the way we all do.

Right.

But I think potentially there's a.

There's a line being crossed there too, where God is no longer.

And I don't want to, I don't want to jump into.

Open a can of worm theological worms here.

Not saying that he was drawing us and he stopped because we pushed back against his grace.

I don't want it to sound that way at all, but just that he says, you know, I'm going to allow you to destroy yourself and your sin now to a unique level that not everybody gets.

And so I would say that maybe there's other line.

Yeah.

So I guess, in short, it would be what we want to do by our flesh is to self further self deceive.

And then you've got the world giving us more of that to, to further cauterize that conscience.

And then God at some point just says, take what you want, like you can have what you want.

And I would say, yeah, yeah, leave.

It to your own.

To exactly what you do want, which is not him.

Right.

Amen.

Yeah.

And, you know, Kathy here says, she said this earlier is, you know, deception, which we see here, an empty deception means deceit, fraud, or to trick.

Yeah.

You're lying to yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And it's, you know, it's interesting because, you know, that is, that's the meaning of it.

The, the idea of, of deception here in, in the Greek, it's, it's the idea of to.

Not just to trick, but it's to entice a deceitfulness, to lead astray, to cause someone to wander or to mislead.

So it's the idea of treachery.

And so the idea there is.

It's a purposeful thing.

And I like how it's described here as.

It's not just a deception of trickery, but it's an empty one.

There's nothing behind it.

Referencing this is Colossians 2, 8.

And, and because it's interesting, Ivy's taking.

Ivy's almost a, a sophomore in college.

She's doing her online and for folks to understand.

And how old is avi Ivy?

I'm 15 years old.

And she's what grade Omar?

She's six credits away from being a sophomore in college.

So folks, if you want the value of homeschooling okay.

It's okay.

It's either that or just somehow he.

They.

The kids, both are really, really smart.

They must have got it from the mother.

I'm just saying that's how it works.

For sure.

I've.

I've never.

Ivy, I've never met your mother, but I have met your dad.

Therefore, I think you must have got it from mom, because I've met.

I've met your brother too.

Was it in general psych or was.

It in and biblical worldview?

Actually.

Okay, explain.

Explain what?

That.

What that thing, that project was.

You were going over.

Well, no.

You were talking with your grandfather about the self deception versus.

Oh, yes.

So I was discussing with somebody about the fact that most.

Let me see if I can get it right.

Psychotropic drugs are only work because of the placebo effect where you know, just they're giving a sugar pill and they believe that it worked.

And I said that they are lying to themselves.

And that person pushed back and said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Lying is when somebody tells somebody something that they know is a falsehood, is deceitful.

Now, my dad, being a smart person, taught me that a lie isn't just something deceitful that a person says to try to deceive, to try to deceive something.

You can lie to yourself without even knowing that you're doing it, but you're telling yourself a falsehood.

And it's not exactly important that you know whether or not it's.

Whether or not you're trying to deceive yourself.

Like you know that you're deceiving yourself.

Yeah.

And I wanted to ask.

So you said the verse again was Colossians what, two, eight.

Okay, so Colossians two eight.

Because one of the things I wanted to say in line with that idea is that this idea of that being deceived by other people, but also even worse than that being deceived by ourselves, are two different things, but they're equally deceived.

Deception, they're equally falsehood, they're equally lies.

But the key thing about self deception is the fact that we don't know we're doing it.

And that is where.

That is where I think we probably oftentimes get into the most trouble.

Especially even with this verse too, says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception.

Right.

Do all of those people.

Are all of those people deliberately trying to deceive us, or have they themselves lied to themselves?

They honestly believe what they're saying is true and they're passing it on to you with all the conviction and all of the honesty I can say of believing that it's true, and yet it's still deception.

It's still.

It's them believing a lie now.

It's them passing that lie on to you.

And I think that's a big part of it.

And I think it's important to recognize that because that happens a lot.

And as long as a person isn't deliberately trying to deceive us, we kind of like, brush it off like it's not that big of a deal, or we take it more seriously because we inherently trust them.

But then we also sometimes give ourselves a pass too much because, well, you know, we're not deliberately doing it.

Does that make sense?

Can I ask a clarifying question real quick?

So I guess it sounds like what you're saying is that deception is not bad based off.

How do I want to say deception is not bad solely based off of malicious intent?

It's bad because it's deception.

It's.

It's inherently.

It's.

It's false.

Yeah, because.

So, for example, hypochondriac can believe they have cancer with all of their heart and not have cancer.

They're.

They're telling their closest friends, I think, I've got cancer, and all of this, and it's a silly example, but they're not trying to lie to their friends.

They have just believed a lie themselves.

So I think you're.

You're.

The observation is accurate.

The idea that a falsehood is being stated is just as dangerous.

In fact, I would say it's more dangerous when we have been convinced of the falsehood than when we're trying to convince somebody of something that we know is not true.

When we're trying to lie and deceive about something that we know is not true, that takes a greater level of skill in lying and deception than it does when we're convinced of the lie in the first place.

Place.

So I think that's just something we gotta watch out for.

Yeah.

So I think it's important too, when we continue on in that verse, it says, empty deception.

Yes.

According to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world and everything.

So what.

What is that?

That's number one.

We're talking about traditions of men and elementary principles of the world.

People who are enslaved to their sin, people who are without Christ.

And then it goes on to say, rather than according to Christ.

So 1st Corinthians 2:14 says, the natural man receives not the things of the spirit because why he's spiritually discerned, they are foolish.

It's all foolishness unto him.

So all of these things, so the whole self deception and the emptiness, why does it come up empty?

Because we have a false identity.

We have a false think at thinking that men are so elevated that we can just, oh, let's just go into some self help.

And that way I could have a relationship with this God.

We have a misunderstanding of who God is and a misunderstanding of who we are compared to Him.

So that's the problem.

And we need to have a right understanding of how holy he is, what he requires of people to be able to have a relationship with Him.

And that's, that's holiness, that's perfection.

And we can't be perfect, so we need a substitute.

We need Christ's righteousness being put on our account.

We need to be safe from our sin.

We need to be wash clean.

And so if we have a high and mighty thought and lofty view of ourselves, and then we don't understand our condition.

Yeah, because one of the things is, is that when you look at the passage, right, you have the human tradition and this, the elements of the world.

The idea of the elements in, in the original Greek, the way it was used before the New Testament was you know, referring to, you know, the, the, the elements of the, the universe.

Right.

The, the air, water, fire and a missing one, earth.

So those are the four elements.

Yeah, and so, so that was the idea.

It's the, it's, it's like the universe and things that, but, but with the New Testament it brought in a different idea.

So the human traditions and the elements here are both under this idea, this, this heading of philosophy.

And, and it's describes that, that this human tradition and these elements of the world under the philosophy seek to prey on people.

And, and this is a philosophy that as you said, it's, it's, it's long been defeated by Christ.

But it is something that enslaves people into a world system that tries to pull them away from Christ.

Yeah.

And so this is the thing that we have to recognize.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Galatians 4:3 tells us that we were enslaved like you just said.

And then Colossians 2:20 says, you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world.

The only way to break free from this deception, the only way to not be enslaved by it anymore is you have to die with Christ to those things, otherwise you can't and then slave to it.

And whether you're deliberately deceiving people or not more often than case, not.

You are fully invested.

You believe with it all of your heart.

Because God created us to believe.

He created us to worship.

He created us to have faith in something.

And so you believe these elementary principles with all of your heart.

You're willing to die for them.

You're willing to do insane, crazy things.

And I think as a biblical counselor, I believe we Christians need to take back the word insane.

Because when you study through Scripture about what sin is, sin is the very definition of insanity.

It is a mindless, it is a senseless, It's a soulless thing that we do to our own detriment, and yet we pursue it, we return to our vomit.

It is an insane thing.

That's what sin is.

And so people who have not died with Christ, they are enslaved, they are in delusion.

We, they are literally insane, incapable of understanding, of discerning the Scriptures.

And that is why the, the truth of the gospel of the light and the salt of the gospel.

So.

And the work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to break that bondage and to set people free.

That's why I'm glad you brought up Galatians 4.

Three, because I like the new American standard.

Makes it a little bit stronger in the reading.

It says so also we will, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elementary things of the world.

It's a, It's a slaver.

So that, so where, where Colossians 2.

8 is saying it hold, it takes us captive.

What we end up seeing in Galatians 4.

Three, it's holding us in slavery.

Yeah.

Romans 6:16 says, do you not know that when you present yourself to someone as slaves of obedience, you are a slave of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness.

So you either a slave of Christ or you are a slave to your sin.

Yeah.

And.

And this is, I think, you know, for a lot of folks.

So how this applies to apologetics is we have to recognize when we're out there defending the Christian faith or in the case of, you know, we're, we have the, the Watch well podcast represented.

When you're watching a movie, right, you have to recognize that you're sharing the gospel, you're defending the faith.

You're dealing with someone who is taken captive by the empty deception and the traditions of men.

Right.

They're, they're, they're captive to a philosophy and an empty deception that is holding them in bondage.

And, and when you.

What, you know, if you're going to watch movies or watch social media.

You have to recognize the people that are creating this stuff, they're doing it while being enslaved to this philosophy and empty deception.

And, and this is why, right?

It's the idea that sin loves company, right?

This is the whole idea.

They're enslaved to sin, and they don't want to be there by themselves.

They, they.

They could feel better about their sin if they get more people agreeing with them.

This is why when you look at the transgenderism, you.

You see the people who.

They want every.

They want acceptance by everybody.

I don't know if you guys saw.

I forget where it was.

It might have been Minnesota.

I put it on my acc.

There's a video I put on X of.

Of a bunch of trans people, and I'm looking it up, okay?

It was in.

In Massachusetts.

Yet all these trans people that are at a, you know, demanding they be heard and because they, you know, Trump is so dangerous, and, you know, we got to be careful of Trump.

And it.

I mean, it's hard not to laugh when you see someone with purple hair and.

And, you know, big makeup all over her face or his face, I should say, you know, like, you know, dressed all the.

And he's like, I was afraid I had to hide coming here that I was in drag.

You weren't hiding it when you got a purple hair.

You're.

You're not hiding.

You're saying, hello, look at me.

I want attention, okay?

And it's funny because they're all going, I don't want to be here.

I don't want to have to be here.

But here's my socials.

Here's where you can find me.

Victim.

Yeah.

Gonna say the same thing.

There's nothing about that movement that is trying to be discreet.

Correct?

Correct.

Because the one person's like.

The one person's like, look at me.

I demand you look at me.

It's like, yeah, that's the problem.

We don't want to look at you.

Like, you know, but.

But see, they f.

They want the acceptance of others, and if you don't accept them, it.

Because for them, they are trapped.

And this is the thing we have to recognize when we're defending the faith to these people.

They are enslaved to a sinful secular philosophy and an empty deception.

Right?

And.

And even the.

The morally upright grandma that doesn't have of Christ is also enslaved in that same way.

True traditions of men.

But.

Yeah, yeah, Aaron, go ahead.

Now we're talking about apologetics, and I think it's important I think we're talking about apologetics and I think it's important to notice that there are some people who are going to listen to what Andrew just said and they're gonna say, see, that's why we don't need apologetics, because people are, they are blind.

And no amount of, of man arguing a point is inherently going to convince them, is going to give them sight, is going to convince them of things that they literally need the Holy Spirit to be able to understand.

Right?

So there are people who will, who will notice that truth from the Scriptures, who will understand that and say, well, therefore, what's the point of apologetics?

And I think so if somebody's listening to this and they're going, they're like, well, wait a second, that's actually a reason why we don't do apologetics.

I think you're missing something really key, because remember, God uses the speaking of his Word.

Yes, he uses theologic.

Okay, That's a real word on purpose.

Okay, I don't even like talking about logic anymore.

Because Christians, we need to be arguing theologically, that's what we need to be using.

He uses that.

That does not return void as a part of the process of opening up somebody's eyes.

So that is not an argument for why we shouldn't do apologetics.

That is literally an argument for why we need to.

Because they are so enslaved, incapable of coming out of it on their own, of opening up their own eyes, that they need the truth of God's Word shown into their hearts so that they can expose the sin that's there and do the work of redemption.

And the other word, the other R word, I could remember the giving us new life, regeneration.

It's not like that's an important word for your theology.

Kind of is important.

You're right, I should have remembered.

It doesn't come by the waters of baptism either.

Guys, just in case anybody's out there.

It's hard to speak truth to yourself when you're believing a lie.

It's impossible.

It's impossible to speak truth to yourself when you are believing a lie.

That's why you need apologetic people to tell you that truth in love, so that you can see that you are lying to yourself.

Because yes, a person lying to another person is very, very bad.

But when that person is self deceiving, it's.

I would argue that it might be harder to get out of that.

Then it'd be harder to say, oh, I was lying to myself, than saying, oh, they lied to me.

To be convinced that they were lying to you is way easier than to be convinced that you're lying to yourself.

Yeah.

And because, you know, one of the things of pride.

Pride deceives us.

Like, pride always tells us we're right.

And so when someone is enslaved by their pride, they can't see that they're wrong.

Sure.

It's always everyone else is wrong.

And this is why, like, if you ever come upon a person who's.

Who, they.

They never take responsibility for their.

Their.

Their actions.

It's always someone else's fault.

They're probably their fault, and they just can't see it.

Right.

You know, I'm glad.

I'm glad that Ivy brought that up, that you need other people because God has actually given us the institution of the church.

That's right.

That we are to belong to, so that we're doing life with those people.

They're coming around us.

We have faithful pastors and leaders who are to be teaching us and growing us in these things and disciples tackling us.

But those around us are to be able to.

And we should accept it, call those things out in us, those deceptions when we fall into them.

And for those that aren't and for those that aren't saved, we're commissioned to go to them and do exactly that as well.

Because I.

I think there's a difference in.

In somebody who.

Well, you guys would agree with this too.

That is not saved.

They.

They are enslaved to their sin.

They are.

Are fully deceived.

Their eyes are fully.

They are incapable of coming unless the Holy Spirit regenerates that person versus a person who is a Christian who is not a slave of sin, but still can be deceived in their own.

In.

In their remaining sin.

So, so because we do have power over sin now, as a believer, you know, we should be able to receive construction, constructive criticism and, And.

And.

And be able to.

To recognize our sin where the unbeliever is incapable of seeing that unless the Holy Spirit has made them alive.

Yeah.

And.

And how hateful is it?

And I know we've all heard this before, but how hateful is it to have the map and not share it?

Yeah.

Correct.

So.

And there you go.

And I was gonna go there.

Ephesians 2:10.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good work works which God has prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

And so when.

We have to remember, too, that when we're out in the culture, we need to engage the culture with the gospel, because there was a point in time when I was blinded when I was lost.

And it was through the gospel.

It was through the preaching of the gospel, through an evangelist, through a sermon, through God's Word.

As Aaron said that.

That converted me.

You know, that's the power of God and salvation.

We need to do his work well.

And I know it's, it's, you know, we got to wrap up.

And so let me, let me just say this.

You know, this is something that we have to realize as apologists or if.

For watch.

Well, when you're, when you're, you're dealing with culture, right?

We have to recognize this now.

So next week, what we're going to cover next week, we're going to talk about.

We've talked about this week.

We're, we.

We are focused in Colossians 2.

Eight, looking at the way that the world makes people enslaved and captivates them.

Next week, what we want to do is talk about false converts.

We're going to focus on Matthew 7:21-23.

Again, we'll do open Q A, but we didn't have many questions tonight.

We.

And we didn't get many questions last week.

So what Tom and I decided to do is we want to walk through some scripture.

By the way, I should give a shout out.

Earlier, the Twitchy Theologian was saying, I'm listening while doing.

Doing my Greek homework.

Appreciate you guys.

I was just on the Twitchy Theologian podcast, had a enjoyed, enjoyable time with him.

So be checking that channel out and, and see that podcast as that drops.

And so the week after that, Aaron's gonna have to prepare himself.

And the reason I jokingly say that is for folks that might remember, remember we had Doreen Virtue on and, and everybody was like, everyone was like, okay, you know, because those who watch theology Throwdown.

We did one where we discussed yoga.

And, and everyone was against Aaron on his views with yoga.

And so when, when, when he came in with Doreen Virtue, everyone was going, oh, where's Aaron?

He should be here for, for Doreen.

So Aaron came in and, and they had a.

I think it was a, a good discussion, though they disagreed with one another strongly.

But I, I would say go look at how they disagreed very respectful to one another.

Well, we're gonna have.

In.

I was talking to Doreen and I mentioned the fact because I'm, as some of you know, obviously the.

We talked earlier about the cold plunging.

I do.

I've really gotten into a lot of health things.

And part of my morning routine is not just cold plunging, but it's also getting sunlight When I can.

I wish I lived in Florida where I could do it easier.

But I try to get some sunlight and try to do some breathing exercises.

And Doreen and I were talking because some of the breathing is, you know, has Eastern philosophy in it.

And so she started to mention to me a friend of hers, Marcia Montague Martinogrago.

I forget how to pronounce her last name.

Marsha Montenegro Negro.

You'll have to help me.

Next two weeks when she's on.

It turns out actually that somewhere along the line, she and I.

Because I actually had her email.

I had an old email for her, and when I went to put her new email in, I went, oh, I already have you.

So we were talking.

We're going to Talk on the 27th about things like breathwork, chi, all of those things.

And so.

Yeah, so.

So it might be fun, you know, Aaron, Aaron May, you know, get in the hot seat again.

I've already prepped her.

I told her, you know, about the conversation with Dee and, and Aaron, so she's ready for you, Aaron.

That could be fun.

So those are the.

The next two weeks of shows.

There, There is some possibility.

We are working on a possible formal debate.

And so.

And if folks want to have certain debates and, you know, two people willing to debate a topic, be happy to do that.

But there.

There is the possibility of a debate with myself and a rabbi and so on, whether Jesus is.

Would.

Could possibly be the Messiah.

We will see if that comes to fruition because.

Well, folks.

Drew, what's our record with people that challenge me to a debate and actually show up?

Oh, I've lost count at this point.

I mean, how many have actually shown up?

Maybe, maybe.

Maybe two, three.

Yeah, I mean, they.

I mean, we had the Ben Benzion.

Yes.

That showed up.

Well, okay, so here's the thing.

This is somebody who either knows him or follows him.

It's because Ben Zion was on that.

This guy reached out to me and he thinks.

Thinks he can make a better argument than Rabbi Benzion did.

Interesting.

Very interesting.

But he hasn't committed to a date yet, so.

We will see.

People don't typically show up when they say they're going to.

I mean, we had the.

The Hebrew Israelite guy that showed up.

We had the guy from last week that Aaron was talking with.

I mean, what is it?

Am I really that scary?

I mean, guys, really.

Come on.

Yes.

I mean, look, I think you guys are cool.

Yeah, that's.

That's because the little fetus has never debated me.

I mean, I agree with everything you believe.

Yeah, yeah.

Debate that.

I mean, I, I guess.

I guess, you know, which is not true.

If you.

Yeah.

If you want to see a classic.

Easy thing to say.

Yeah, if you want to see a classic.

One of my debates, go look at the one with R.A.

fuentes and myself on debating Calvinism.

Where.

Where Round round one of the cross examination.

I, I convinced.

I convinced the audience that he was a Calvinist as he's arguing against Calvinism and everyone saw it but him.

And so, yeah, that was.

That was quite an interesting.

An interesting debate.

I really do hope that this guy shows up because that sounds like a fantastic.

I think it would be.

I think it would be, but I, I fear that he won't show because he's yet to.

I mean, it's been two weeks and he's yet to be willing to commit to a date, so.

We will see.

You had the COC guy, Pastor.

Yeah, yeah, the Church of Christ guy.

That was years ago, Norm.

That was.

That was around the same time as the R.A.

fuentes, correct?

Yeah, yeah, that was John.

I'm trying to remember his channel, Atomic Apologetics.

He was one that set that up.

Oh, there he is.

There he goes.

Preacher Nor.

He's.

He's watching.

There we go.

We haven't seen him in the comments and here he is posting.

Andrew is a threat to bad theologians.

You're seeing the comments and I'm telling her there are two different shows going on.

Yes.

There's the show that you can see in here when you watch the video, listen to the podcast.

And there is a completely different show in the pod.

Like she's sitting here looking at the comments, just losing it.

Yeah.

Folks, if you're not, if you're not watching live, you are missing out on all the fun.

Yeah.

Or are you gonna say Ivy?

Well, it's great though, because it's like you're a little scary.

Not scary.

Bad theologians.

Yeah.

So, okay, here's a question that's come in last minute.

Sarah Terra saying, Andrew, have you been affected by the persecution towards Israel?

I'm not sure what you.

You mean.

I mean, for folks who may not know, maybe new to the channel.

Yes, I, I am from a Jewish background.

I.

I am a Levites.

More specifically, Korine.

So we would be the family that would be taking care of temple elements.

I was bar mitzvahed, you know, so there was a lot after October 7th, I think.

I, you know, not.

I wouldn't call it persecution that I suffered, but because it really wasn't.

It was Just a whole bunch of people saying some pretty nasty things about me and then unfriending me or blocking me or I block them.

So it really didn't bother me much.

But yeah, I was, you know, I, I was called the son of a.

The devil because I'm Jewish.

I was told I'm not really a Christian because I'm Jewish.

More recently, Haps told me that I guess Joel Webbin said that I don't exist because I'm Jewish.

Because all the ethnic Jews, I guess, just disappeared in 70 A.D.

i.

I don't get that one at all.

But.

But you're the cause of everything.

You're going wrong too.

Yes, that's true.

But Jewish people are the cause of everything that goes wrong.

Which, which we did on Open Air Theology ideas earlier.

Yeah, well, that was the thing that Brand Braden from Open Air Theology when I was on there was like, well, how are the Jews going to controlling everything if they disappeared?

And.

And so I jokingly came up with, you know, look, Jewish people are.

Are trained to debate where to sharpen our skills.

And so I quickly came up with a conclusion.

It's called a time machine.

See, us Jewish people, we have a time machine and we just know to go into the.

We go all the way in the future to know how to go into the past so we can control all the money.

That's why we all vanished in 70 A.D.

because that's when the time machine was developed.

Is that really what the yarmulke is?

You just turn it.

That's right.

There we go.

There we go.

That's what it is.

That puts a whole new spin on Back to the Future.

Does the Yamaka protects you from the capacitor.

How do you get a flux capacitor in there?

Yeah.

So it was a sports almanac.

Civically minded Cory Wing says, Wait, Andrew, you do exist.

That's right.

Andrew knew that the Eagles were going to win.

Well, that's why.

That's why I'm in Philly.

Share the secret right here, right now.

Drew let me in on this a while ago.

Andrew is AI Yeah.

He doesn't really exist.

He's just an algorithm.

He's A.I.

Yeah, well, that, that.

Well, that's what.

That's what was Haps theory was that I'm just AI.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we are all just figments of your imagination.

Considering nickname officially Grok now.

Yeah, well, considering.

Considering the fact.

Considering the fact that I've been writing AI for probably 35 years, I've been working in artificial intelligence.

So call them GPT.

Yeah, that's what AI does.

And it writes its own code now.

Yeah, you're only proving the point.

It's derailed.

All right, well, we're.

We're gonna sign off.

Go to bed.

Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, it's about we gotta sign off, but before we do, I think it would be appropriate to end the way we always see it.

And, And, Ivy, why didn't you give Dad a kiss good night?

You know, I mean, you always sneak onto the camera to give a kiss good night.

There we go.

All right.

So, so.

And.

And civil came out.

It says the yarmulke is both a time machine and a Faraday cage.

The secret is now out.

I can't believe it.

You know what?

Since.

Since John's in the audience, he says, but do babies exist?

I see.

Still, I, I.

So I've heard.

I will.

I will close by playing an oldie.

This is back when Matt and I were starting this show, and we had an atheist that came in, and Matt was trying to convince this guy of basic things.

And, and this is how that conversation had gone.

This.

You said statements either true or false.

I gave you a statement, and you said, it doesn't apply.

Not too theft.

It's not the only two.

The statements would be either true or false.

So is it true that.

I'm talking to you, Is it true?

That is true.

Statement.

I'm talking to you, Is that true?

Yes.

Okay.

Is it true that babies exist?

Well, I mean, how.

Babies exist.

Babies exist.

Babies exist.

Is that true, or is it not the case that it's true?

I would.

I mean, if you want to go.

Down the, you know, if you want.

To be very strict about it, I.

Would be skeptical about.

Okay, we're done talking.

And with that, what's the backstory there?

I know, I know.

We got to sign off.

So I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, the back.

The backstory was the guy, Matt was trying to teach him that there's.

There's absolutes.

And, and the guy wouldn't even admit.

He admitted that they're having a conversation, but he could not admit that they were.

That babies exist.

Matt was just asking a basic thing.

Do babies exist?

That's why the guy couldn't admit.

Well, depends how, you know, how skeptical we want to be.

Because he didn't want to give in on the fact that there is an absolute, because if there's absolutes, there's God, and he knew that, so he all of a sudden was going to deny that babies exist.

And Matt's like, okay, we're done here.

And that's a good way to end this show.

So remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

And we'll see you next week.