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Oh, boy.

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This is Apologetics Live to answer your questions.

Your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapaport.

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All right, so we are in a different.

I'm in different, as many of you regulars know, moving.

So you see yet another setup.

I'm now in the guest bedroom and I'm doing this wirelessly, which is, I think, the first time I'm doing it that way.

And therefore I hope the WI fi works, but I do have the ERO router right there, so hopefully it'll come in fine.

I am your host, Andrew Rapaport.

I am the executive director, Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community.

And this show is a ministry of Striving for eternity.

What we're going to cover tonight is the question, did Jesus claim to be God?

That is the question.

As we've been doing when we're not having guests in, I want to try to tackle some of the biggest arguments or issues that we have in Apologetics and give you guys great answers.

Well, hopefully great answers for them.

Never know, but.

So that will be what we're going to discuss tonight.

I, I thought that this was kind of funny.

I, I, I like to sometimes start the show.

I don't have my co hosts in yet, but I like to start with either things in the things.

So I got this from a guy named Mark.

This was a message I got on on Facebook and he said, morning, brother.

So at least let's stop there and just say at least he called me brother.

That's a good sign, right?

Okay.

Morning, brother.

Can you please share your greatest argument from scripture as to why you have told the God, told the God's people to ignore the commandment of scripture, to quote, earnestly desire the spiritual gifts that you may prophesy, unquote and quote, earnestly desire to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues, unquote and quote, do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, unquote.

Should you not acknowledge the things that Paul have written to you, quote, are commandments of the Lord, unquote.

So my response was, well, where did I say what you've quoted me saying?

I doubt I ever said such things, therefore could.

You would need to support your false claims.

He goes, my apologies if I misunderstood.

I thought you were a cessationist.

Okay, let me stop there and just.

This is apologetics.

Lie.

So what do we do?

We want to do apologetics.

We want to show how to do apologetics.

And therefore, one of the things we like to do here is to, Is to break down arguments and show how to, how to reason through them.

That's part of apologetics.

So what do we see right now?

We, we see that he claimed I said things that I don't remember saying.

And then what his conclusion is, well, that since I'm a cessationist, that means that I have said these things.

Now I do want to just stop and take a look at what he, what he's quoted.

What he did quote is the different scripture verses that he's taken out of context, slammed them together, and is trying to say that they're all one thing.

Okay, did Paul, and I don't know what translation he's using, but did Paul say to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy?

Yes.

In comparison to speaking in tongues, especially that you may prophesy rather than speaking in tongues.

He ignores that part.

And so is that a command?

I don't think so, but let's actually take a look at that.

I didn't think to do this beforehand, but that would be in First Corinthians, and I believe it is what's here, chapter 12, 13 or 14.

So I think it's, I think it's actually 14 where he says that.

So it is a, it is a command.

Pursue.

Oh, this is interesting.

If he gets the whole verse.

Pursue is a command.

Pursue.

Love.

Love is a definitive article there.

Which means that's the may, that's the love.

Right?

So, so pursue love, yet desire earnestly is a command.

Desire earnestly.

Spiritual.

The word spiritual is a definitive.

So therefore it's the spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

For those who speak in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God.

So, so he's saying that it's better to speak to men than God.

It's one of the things when people say that tongues is a spiritual language that you speak to God.

Well, when is it ever better to speak to God or to man over God?

Just saying.

But you see the command he didn't finish.

He took it out of its context.

The other one that he quoted it is, do not quench the spirit.

Well, I.

I don't know that that's the same context as.

As here.

So I'm gonna go look that up on my Logos to see where it is.

Say where it says, do not quench the spirit.

So I type in do not quench the spirit, and then I find it is in Thessalonians 5:19.

Now, I want to point out what he did.

He says, quote, do not quench the spirit.

Do not despise prophecies, unquote.

The only place where do not quench the spirit is.

Is in 1st Thessalonians 5:19, which says, Do.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not despise prophetic utterances.

Oh, okay.

That word utterances in some translations as gifts.

So the issue here is, if we look at the context of.

Of this is the idea of rejoice always pray without ceasing in everything.

Give thanks to the Lord for.

For God's will for you in Jesus Christ.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not despise prophetic utterances.

But examine everything carefully, holding fast to what is good.

Abstain from every kind of evil.

Interesting.

Do not quench the spirit.

Do not despise prophetic utterances.

Is right in the area of testing the spirit and abstaining from evil.

Just kind of interesting, the context there.

So.

But this is not tied to the same thing that he tied it to in First Corinthians.

Okay?

So, but I want you to note that what he concludes is that because I'm a cessationist, I must hold to the.

The fact that I must have said these things.

I said I am.

But you have not shown me where.

I said what you claimed.

I said, if you are, quote.

If those quotes are from scripture, then ple p.

The please repent for your wife in your profile picture is not wearing a head covering as commanded.

Now, what am I doing in saying that?

What I'm doing is pointing out.

He's saying, well, if it's a command, it has to be for all times.

And if it's a command, if it's command in scripture for all times, then what we must do is we must obey it all the time.

So I'm pointing out the head coverings issue because he's got a profile picture with his wife who wasn't wearing a head covering, and he says, she does.

I said, not in your profile picture.

He said, not in church, not in Church in that picture.

Goodness, Andrew, please answer my question.

Okay, so now what I've established is that his wife doesn't wear head coverings outside of church.

That that's a command of Paul, and he believes that if there's a command, it must be obeyed.

Now, I hope you're seeing all I'm doing here is, is applying some logic, right?

That's, that's how we do these things.

We look at this logically.

We apply logic to this.

So my response was Paul did not command it only in church.

I said that because in First Corinthians 11, where you have the head coverings, the head coverings are tied to marriage, not church.

So he's picking and choosing when his wife wears the head coverings or his wife is.

And they're deciding it's only a church command.

But, so I said Paul did not command only in church.

So you have a problem.

Your argument requires that you take every command literal and for all time.

If you do not keep kosher or the Passover, you would be in sin.

For do you keep them?

They are commanded.

If you claim that that was.

That was a for that time, then I agree with you because you just made my argument.

Since Paul also stated that once the canon was complete, prophecy, wisdom and the gift of languages would cease to be given.

So why do you deny scripture?

Now?

See, I'm, I.

This is a case where I do admit I am.

He's come on very hard.

And this is where sometimes when you have someone that's kind of on heart, it's okay to come back with this kind of the same force.

And, and that's what I'm doing here.

Okay?

And so what you see is the response.

Do you think he's going to sit here and.

And so pop quiz for those live in chat, you can answer this question.

Do you think he is going to say, oh my.

Yes, I recognize now that we're making the same argument.

We're.

We're saying that certain things are for certain times and other, other things are not.

That.

That there could be a command like head coverings, that could be for a, a specific group of people, or keeping kosher or Passover for a specific group of people, or the gift of prophecy or tongues, the gift of languages for a certain group of people, but they're not for all times.

See, he wants to hold to the one, but not the other.

So how many of you in the chat think that his answer is going to be?

I recognize I'm wrong.

I'll give you guys a Couple seconds, you could type it in.

I'll.

I'll answer before you get.

Before you.

I can see what your answers are.

So the answer is very simple.

He says for context, are you reformed in your theology?

I'm not asking.

I'm not asking sarcastically.

Now, that seems like a really good question right now.

But what's he doing?

He's first made the assumption, if you're a cessationist, you hold to this specific view that he's decided.

And then he came up and said, you know, okay, are you reformed now?

I don't know where we would have gone with that question.

I'm assuming that he asked that question because the.

My assumption, purely my assumption.

I'm assuming he asked that question because he was going to assume all reform people either are cessationists, which wouldn't be true, or maybe, you know, Sam, there's something wrong because of the.

My.

Because I'm reformed.

I won't know.

You know why I won't know?

Because after telling me, he's asking me this question and he's not being sarcastic, you know what the next thing he did.

Take a guess.

Those.

Those there in the chat, you can guess.

I'll give you a couple seconds to give a good guess.

And meanwhile, I'll read what Drew, non Vanita says.

He's waiting to come in here because he's busy, is taking care of kids.

But he said he's shifting the argument to assume that since you're reformed, you must be a cessationist.

Yeah, I.

I might be doing something like that, Drew, but.

Oh, Kathy Demings gets it right.

He blocked me.

That is exactly correct, Kathy.

We have a winner.

First.

First to answer that way.

Good job.

Yes.

His response was to immediately block me.

And I mean immediately, because I read his.

His comment only a few minutes after he put.

Posted it.

So, yeah, you gotta love it.

You gotta love it.

So this is what we.

This is what we deal with.

Riley.

I saw Riley was backstage.

I was just about to bring Riley in, but I didn't see if they were fully connected because I didn't see it.

But Riley, if you're still watching, I'd love to have you come back in.

And so.

So Biblical Baptist says, who blocked Andrew?

I just got here.

His name, I think I can't go to his.

I can't go to his page anymore and see, but his name is Mark Massey.

M A S S I M E I Matt Mark Anthony Massimi.

I think if I remember correctly, he's from Italy.

I thought But I could be wrong about that.

I can't go check anymore.

So.

So the, you know, so why do that?

And Drew Vonita says, who hasn't blocked Andrew?

Well, Drew, you haven't.

So we get this all the time, folks.

You, you get, you get people that comment to you on social media, they aren't really making a genuine comment as much as they're making conclusions.

And I'm just going to lower the camera here a bit.

And so what do we do with that?

There's a lot of different ways we can handle it.

You could try to honestly answer the questions now.

I chose not to in the sense that in his way of coming on so strong and then me saying I didn't say those things.

And it seemed at first like he was kind of repentant in a sense, maybe because he.

He's like, my apologies, I thought you were cessationist.

But in his apology note, the problem is he's.

He's concluding.

Well, all cessationists believe this.

Yeah, no, no, actually, not all cessationists are.

Are commanding people the way he said it, to ignore the commands of God.

I'm not telling anyone to ignore the commands of God.

You see, that's the point.

I never tell people to ignore the commands of God.

I just obey the.

What God says when he says that certain gifts will cease.

I actually believe that.

I.

I know this is a radical idea.

I believe God.

I take him at his word.

That's it.

So let us get into tonight's topic.

This is one where there is.

There's lots of debate, discussion when it.

Especially when it.

If you think of.

If any of you have done any evangelism to Jehovah Witnesses, you've come across this.

You have.

I mean, this is something where you deal with where they deny the deity of Christ.

They'll say, scripture doesn't say that.

Okay.

Oh, Riley's backstage, so let me.

Let me bring Riley back in before they disappear again.

And then we'll come back to the deity of Christ.

Riley, are you there?

Yes, I'm here.

Hey, how you doing?

How are you doing tonight?

Better than I deserve.

Same here.

So I don't know if I'm interrupting what you're trying to do right now, but I do have, I think, a pretty good question that would be helpful.

I haven't heard one like this in a while, and it's should I leave my church Question.

Ah, yeah.

That is always a tough one.

Ultimately, I mean, not a very satisfying answer.

I.

I can't say yes or no.

Oh, you just turned sideways.

Oh, man.

No, there you go.

No, I'm trying to make you bigger on my.

I'm on my phone.

Oh, no, it actually fixed it soon as.

If you do again, it.

It just took a second.

That was kind of what fun didn't know would do that.

So it may not be a satisfying answer because I won't know all the details.

And I mean, quite honestly, if you tell me the details, guess what?

I know your side of the story, not your church's side of the story.

Right.

For sure.

And so I can only base the information based on what you tell me.

Yeah.

Right.

And so you kind of have to just assume that I'm telling the truth.

Correct.

And you don't know me at all.

So.

Yeah.

So there, I mean, there are some.

There are some reasons to leave a church.

Right.

So let me just give.

Give you some general things.

I mean, obviously, death, that kind of ends your church membership.

Yeah.

You get.

You graduate to a better church.

That's all.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Move.

Like if someone moves that, you know, that's perfectly good reason to, to leave a church.

I, I will say this, though.

Moving to avoid leaving a church that, you know, that you need to confront, I think that becomes a different issue.

Yeah.

And I do know people who've done that for sure.

And, and just looking through scripture, I just don't.

I don't see anywhere where Jesus says or, or any, any of the apostles say, like, hey, leave your church, but maybe I'm missing something.

Well, there's good reason for that, because in the first century, you went to, like, the Church of Corinth, because it was the only church in Corinth.

You know, I mean, you, you didn't have the townships, the towns we have today with thousands and thousands and thousands or tens of thousands of people.

You had hundreds to thousands and people, you know, unless you're in a big city type thing, which their big cities might be thousands, you know, or ten thousands, you wouldn't have the huge cities we have today.

But you had one church, so it became a thing where you really didn't leave to go to the, the next local church.

Right.

Yeah, there wasn't one.

There wasn't one.

So, you know, that formed later.

But.

And, And I don't, I don't know when we started seeing multiple churches in multiple towns, you know, because you think about, you had the first century, then you have some persecution coming.

When you have persecution, people aren't so worried about fighting over their doctrine.

They're worried about Staying alive.

So, yeah, you know, we have a.

Little fewer things to worry about here.

Yeah.

So.

But there are areas that would be more concerning that people should need to think about, such as doctrinal error.

Now, when it comes to doctrinal error, it's, you know, it's, there's several different things there.

One is it that this, this is what the church always believed and you didn't know it.

Is the church changed their view.

Is it that you changed your view.

Okay.

Because those become different on how you may handle them and whether you need to leave.

Okay.

Yeah.

And, and you don't have to, by the way, you don't have to agree with your church doctrinally.

Okay.

You could go to a church you disagree with theologically.

And, you know, in, in my case, I, and I think I said this on a previous program.

I went to a church that was.

I, I had been going to a church that was not Calvinistic.

Now, I say that because they, it's not that they were armed, a millennial.

Sorry, a millennial Armenian.

They just were against Calvinism.

But I come to realize it was just a wrong definition of Calvinism.

Right.

So I start going to a Calvinistic church, I start hearing it more, and I'm going, oh, wait, this is what I believe.

Right.

So it, you know, sometimes that can happen.

There, There was a person who, who had the reverse, you know, he was a Calvinist and went to Armenian church.

Didn't change his view, but he could go.

I'm personally might find it harder to go to a Lutheran or Presbyterian Church, being a Baptist.

But if that's, if there's no good churches, I might do that.

You know, it might limit what I could do in the church.

You know, they, they may, you know, Presbyterian Church may not let me teach if I'm, you know, Baptist.

And I have to respect that.

You know.

Now if I go do that, I shouldn't be demanding.

In fact, let me put it this way.

So I'm, I'm dispensational, if you, if you know that terminology.

My pastor at that church I said that I went to that was Calvinistic.

He was covenantal.

He's actually New Covenant Theology.

And so we would disagree on certain passages.

And I was, he was teaching through, in Sunday school, teaching through Acts, and he was going away for vacation, asked whether I could teach Sunday school and preach.

And so I asked whether I could teach something else other than Acts, because we were in a passage in Acts that I would have a different interpretation than he would being a Dispensationalist.

Now, out of respect, I said, look, I'll teach something else.

We could.

Like, there's ways of doing that.

Now, this pastor was very comfortable and just said, teach what you believe.

And if people have questions, hey, good, then we just go to Scripture, and guess what?

I come back next week and I can always correct it, you know.

Yeah, sure, right.

That one's.

That's someone who's more secure in that.

Right?

So.

So just because, look, you're never going to find a church that agrees with you completely theologically if you study theology.

Yeah, true.

So.

So when it comes to theology, it's the question of, do I need to leave?

Is there, like, is it a theological error that's, like, glaring or I just can't live with.

And in that case, what, you know, I encourage people to do is sit down with the pastor or pastors and talk to them, work through it.

Because a lot of times, theologically, what ends up happening, Riley, is just pick.

Pick your.

Your doctrine.

Someone starts studying it, they get into it, and they get so into it that it's like they.

They don't see how.

I'll give you the example.

I mentioned dispensationalism and Covenant theology.

Someone comes from a dispensational background, they're in a dispensational church, they start studying Covenant theology, and all of a sudden they're like, you know, this is the.

This is the right way.

Okay.

Or the example, a better example, the one I gave about Calvinism.

Right.

I kept fighting with.

With, you know, not, well, kind of fighting, but verbally fighting, but in a good way, with the pastor and different friends in the church over the issue of Calvinism.

And, and yet when it was defined for me, instead of using the labels, I was like, well, that's what I believe.

And he's like, well, that's Calvinism.

And then he started giving the labels.

I was like, wait, no, that's not what I understood the labels to be.

See, that's what ended up helping me.

Right?

And so sometimes it.

It's a matter of not saying, well, since I knew it, you know, one position was because I grew up, that therefore I start studying another and I.

I jettison the other.

Right.

Sometimes what it takes is actually, okay, I'm dispensational.

I go to a covenantal church.

I don't sit there and say, well, I know everything about dispensationalism just because I grew up in that church.

I.

I study both sides, you know, and we had Someone in our church, they started going to the way morphed was the wife was going to Presbyterian mom's group.

And that church was.

I'm really trying to.

And this I have an issue with when churches try to pull people out of their church into our church type of thing.

And, and that's what had happened.

And so the, the thing that you end up seeing is, you know, she started to get.

Getting into Covenant theology.

And I didn't have an issue with that.

I actually said I'd be happy to study it with you.

And we could study both sides, you know, and I would study it with her and her husband, you know, but she ended up just going, nope, we got to go to the Presbyterian church.

We have to be Presbyterian.

You know, that becomes the issue where you just jump into something and you're.

It's like, it's got to be this way.

So we have to be careful if we've done that.

That's why I say it depends who changed, if someone changed in their theology, because we could be causing strife within the church.

And I'll just say from a pastor's perspective, you have people that start studying something, they get totally into it and, and then they are trying to convince everyone in the church that pastor's wrong.

You got to believe this.

It becomes very undermining.

And as from a pastoral perspective, pastors start getting defensive about that.

Right?

Sure.

Yeah.

So, you know, we gotta be careful with that.

Not just be like, well, pastor's wrong.

Look, he's in sin now.

And you know, that happens a lot.

I don't know.

Your, your situation right there.

Could.

How about this?

Would it be valid if, if say because, because this is kind of my situation.

I lean more Calvinist and you know, like, I haven't studied it nearly enough for me to say for sure, Eileen, one way or the other.

But, but the church I attend is more, you know, mostly more Armenian.

And so one of the things that I've said, I'm worship leader at this church, by the way.

Probably would have been helpful to lead with that.

But yeah, that's, that's a different issue.

Yes, for sure.

But so, so one of the things that I've always said is, look, I.

With, with non essential doctrine, we have to agree on the essentials.

You know, we're by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ.

If they're, you know, if he, if the pastor's denying the deity of Christ, totally different issue.

Oh, obviously.

Get out of there.

Yeah, I totally agree.

Yeah, that's not what we're talking.

I'm just saying, would it.

Would it be valid to suggest.

Hey, why don't we.

Why don't I.

Since.

Since there are, you know, multiple beliefs in this church, why don't I teach people the best I can, both sides of it, instead of teaching people, hey, this way is right or the other way is right.

You know what I mean?

Because people have been arguing on this for a long time, and nobody's, you know, nobody ever seems to get convinced one way or the other, or it seems really rare.

Which.

Which issues theologically is the struggle with.

Well, is there.

If.

If you want to share that.

That's not.

That's not at all.

Why.

Okay.

Why I considering leaving the church at all?

Okay.

Okay.

So, yeah.

I mean.

But that is a good way of doing it.

Study both sides.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, we.

We had.

This was so bad.

I.

I had this.

I just felt really bad about this.

But we had a guy that I had met doing evangelism, and his church wanted to use our study guides that we had, which covered, you know, like what, basically from the book, what we believe.

And I was concerned because they came out of the Assemblies of God, and I was like, you know, there's things that I teach in there that, you know, like, I said, you know, let me talk to your pastor before, you know, before, you know, you go ahead and talk, you know, like, and teach this.

And I talked to the pastor.

I said, you know, there's.

There's things in there that I think you guys wouldn't hold to, you know, such as, you know, you can't lose your salvation.

And the pastor goes, that's okay.

We want to study the word of God.

And if it's from the word of God, we'll study it.

And if not, you know, we'll just disagree with what you.

What you've written, but we're going to go with the word of God.

I said, okay, so this guy starts teaching it in Sunday school, and.

And I see him at a conference, and I said, hey, how's.

How's the church going?

He goes, oh, we had a church split because of your study.

I went, what?

I felt so bad.

I called the pastor, and he goes, oh, it's great.

I'm like, it's great you had a church split.

He goes, hell, yeah.

Because we had a bunch of people because of the study.

Your study guide.

They.

They just didn't want to look at what scripture actually taught.

And the people that are left are the people that said, what does scripture say?

Oh, when we changed our view.

And I'm like, okay.

And so.

Yeah.

And so I want to be care.

Like, I don't, you know, like Jesse here is saying, teach both sides with.

As a question.

And then he said as.

Like they're both valid.

Well, like Jesse, it depends on what it is.

Right.

There's good arguments for that both sides can have on some topics.

And, you know, I'll often do that.

I'll often, even here on this show, I'll give both argument, both sides of an argument and then give why I think the view I hold is.

Is better.

But it doesn't mean that others don't have good arguments.

Sometimes they don't when it comes to the deity of Christ that we'll talk about today.

Yep, that one's clear.

Right.

And it's clear in Scripture, but it's people that want to ignore the clarity of it.

And so, yeah, it has to be something like that.

So if it's, if it's not a theological one, it.

Sometimes it's leadership issues.

You know, I know people leave over personality issues, but, you know, a lot of times you gotta get to the root cause.

So share as much as you want with what you know, what you.

What your specific issue may be.

Sure.

Yeah.

So without getting too far into details, we do not have a pastor right now.

And so we've had one elder, one of three elders standing in and doing all of the teaching on Sundays while they, while they're, while they've been looking for a pastor.

It's been about two years or so.

So about.

About September or October was whenever I started being the worship leader here.

I had played on the praise team and attended this church for years.

So they, I.

And I was kind of, you know, the best fit to do this since I already had held leader, like, leadership positions at work and stuff.

And.

One of the first things I had to do, unfortunately, was remove somebody who happened to be an elder's wife off of the praise team because she basically, like over 50% of the team had requested not to serve with her.

And it was, it was pretty clear, like, this is what needed done so upon doing that, I really kind of just made this terrible situation for myself because the person preaching the sermons is now so angry with me that he will not talk to me.

And when I've tried to reconcile with him, it's just, it doesn't go anywhere.

He, you know, like, it'll be like, I'm sorry.

You know, he'll say, I'm sorry for certain things.

And accusing me of doing other certain things that, but all the while they're kind of like slandering my wife and I behind our backs in the church.

And so we're, we have, this is our family and we have so many people that we love here and we've really been through it with these people and we don't want to let them go.

But at the same time it's like, I don't know, with what we are doing here, I don't know that we have any power to do anything other than just set ourselves up ourselves to send more because then maybe we'll start getting angry and we'll start slandering them and you know, it's a really tough situation.

Situation for us.

Okay, so first off, if, if Christ didn't die on the cross, what would you rightly deserve?

Hell.

Okay, so 50 years of slander compared to eternity in Lake of Fire.

I would choose the 50 years of slander.

You get my point, right?

I see what you're saying.

Slander's hard to deal with, but in light of what we deserve, it's not so bad.

No.

Especially considering it's not true, you know?

Yeah.

So, so I'm saying that to say, you know, we, we, we have to, you know, if, if we get angry because what someone did, then we're in sin.

They didn't make us sin.

Right.

So we, we throughout the whole thing, we, we have to try to keep a proper attitude and perspective.

So you're a worship leader, you're not, you're not an elder, I'm assuming?

No.

Okay.

Have you met with all of the elders?

Do all the elder or like all the elders in agreement?

I, I don't know what they think.

There, there seems to be like flip flopping on what they think should have been done or what we should do now.

They, they're all, they're all new to this and admittedly as a church, we haven't done a good job of training people up for ministry.

So.

So it's, it's, it's a lot of, it comes from like, lack of experience or lack of knowledge of what we should do.

And it, you know, that's kind of where we're at.

So, so there's a, there's, it sounds like there's a lot you could do before considering to leave.

One would be to humbly, you know, talk to all the elders together.

Okay, if.

I'll just put point blank if anyone's refusing to reconcile, if someone's like refusing to talk to you, they're disqualified for ministry.

Period.

Because a Christian.

Yeah, Christian is supposed to be marked by reconciliation.

And so if someone is refusing, they won't even talk to someone.

They.

You know, I've had this plenty of times.

I've actually.

One.

I'm.

I had a case where someone was, you know, a pastor, you know, came as was saying that this guy is disqualified.

He's a wolf.

Da, da, da, da, da.

And okay, let's set up a meeting.

Let's.

Let's, you know, talk.

Nope, I won't do it.

I won't meet with him.

There's no way until he does this, this, this, this.

So he had to.

The guy had to confess sins that he doesn't think he actually did, but the pastor wants him to confess it.

Otherwise, he's.

Otherwise he's not really repentant.

Right, sure.

And so if the.

I said, you know, if this guy.

If this pastor is unwilling to reconcile with you, then you're free and clear, in my opinion.

Because he's the one putting a roadblock to reconciliation.

And as a pastor.

Yeah.

That.

You're the last one that should be doing that.

I mean, any Christian should be willing to reconcile.

We've been reconciled with Christ.

He gave us a ministry of reconciliation.

We.

That's what we should be doing.

Second Corinthians 5.

So I would pursue with the other elders to say, can we all get together and work through this?

Be humble, you know, make sure you're in a right spirit with that.

But at the same time, look to see, you know, he may point things out that you did wrong and.

And if so, own it.

Right.

And if you point out things that he's doing wrong or did wrong, and, you know, you got to encourage him to own it, but not own it.

Not being like, hey, I said.

I said I was wrong, you have to say you're wrong.

You know, yeah, sure.

Right.

Yeah.

And so.

But it may be.

It's.

I mean, it sounds like you're saying, hey, this is new to everyone.

Don't know the church dynamic.

It could also be good to get another experienced pastor in the area to come in and act as mediator and kind of wade through it.

That's another option.

I was gonna ask that.

But if I do that.

Right.

Like, I shouldn't be telling them my side of things before.

Correct.

We get correct.

So.

Yeah.

What you do is.

I'm trying to think of how I would do that without saying what it is.

Well, you.

You.

Very simply, you.

If there's a pastor that.

That, you know that everyone would trust.

You know, you say, hey, could we.

Can we.

Can you meet with me and the elders?

We're just.

We're.

We're having some tension.

We need some biblical guidance and counseling.

I don't want to tell you any of the details so you can hear both of our sides at the same time.

I don't want you to go to them and try to find.

Just, can we find a time that we can meet?

Okay.

And that's what I do with church discipline.

That's kind of how I word it with people, with church discipline.

When I need a witness or something.

I don't.

That's basically my.

You know how I ask it.

So.

So that's something you could do.

You know, I'm assuming your church is pursuing, looking for a pastor.

Yeah.

And I.

I'm scared to death this is just going to become their problem.

Then once we find them, like, that's horrifying to me.

If we.

If we did find them within the next couple months, it would just be, yeah, here you go.

Welcome.

Welcome to church.

Yeah.

You know, and I mean, I don't.

If.

If I was counseling, you know, offline line, I'd be asking, what was the issue?

Why did you have to ask the elder's wife to step down?

Why wouldn't anyone want her?

I don't think that's good for.

For public consumption.

But, you know, you can always.

You can contact me offline, and we could set some time, get.

Go into more detail, but.

Okay.

I think there's a lot you could do before leaving the church.

I mean, I would first try to meet with all the pastors and.

And just know that.

That you.

It could feel like they're ganging up on you.

So you got to know that.

Because they're going to want to defend one another.

Yes.

So don't get defensive.

Try not to.

And if you're coming in saying, hey, I want to.

You know, I want to work this out.

I want to see us reconciled and.

And moving forward in ministry.

You know, I think.

I think any good elder is going to want to say, yes, let's work that out.

Drew, you came in.

It sounds like it looks like you have some comments.

You want to.

Yeah, so.

Because when I was listening, one of the things that kind of jumped in my mind was, if I can get this boom out of the way.

Is this something where before you removed her from the worship team, that you could have approached the elders beforehand and say, hey, this is the issue that we're having as elders.

I Think, I think we should remove her.

But as elders, what would be the proper course of action in dealing with this situation?

Yeah, so the person who was, who was doing the worship leading before me, he actually stepped down.

We were both bi vocational, so we both had full time jobs and he was just standing in.

He never really wanted to make it his long term thing, but I kind of do.

But he, he actually stepped down in part because he couldn't get engagement with the issue.

And so this, this had been brought to the board of elders and I think they, they, it's just, it's a heck of a situation for them to try to navigate because it's one of, it's the wives of one of their peers.

Yeah.

You know, so it's, I, I really, I, I try to have appreciation for that too.

So is, is the, is it the wife of the guy who's doing the preaching that you're having?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

So I mean there's a couple things you could do depending how you handled it already.

You could, if you get that meeting with the elders, you could start by apologizing to him for not going directly to him for first if.

Unless you had done that.

Yeah, that's a, that's another route I was thinking as well, getting with the elders, apologizing for that and then saying, you know, as elders, what do you think the best course of action would have been?

To do this, you know, something to get that conversation going, to get them talking to you again, to address the situation while they're in front of you.

I know you said the other guy before tried to do that and it didn't go anywhere, but at least you're making the effort.

You're, what I would say is you're being above reproach in that you're not trying to go behind their backs, you're not trying to undermine their authority, but you're trying to go to them respectfully as elders of the church and rectify the situation.

Yes.

And I, I don't want to misrepresent what has happened.

I, I have sat in a room with all of the elders to attempt to reconcile this.

And I, and I did go to the elder and his, the elder with the wife who was going to be removed from the team.

I did go to them before removing her from the team, just those two, to talk about what the issues were.

So.

Okay, I, I think that I have done, done these things you've said so far.

Did you go to the elders?

I think that what you guys are saying Is totally correct.

But did you go to the elders and work with them on how to handle it before you removed her?

No, I did not.

So, I mean, that could have been a better way.

Like what Drew saying, a better way of dealing with it could have been that.

And so you could start that by saying, you know, guys, hey, for all of you, forgive me that, you know, I tried working out with so and so it didn't work out.

I should have come to all of you so we can work it together because it's a church issue.

It's not my issue.

It's not this elder's issue.

Well, could be the sellers issue, but depending what the reason is, it could disqualify him.

And is.

Is he full time or is he bivocational or is he lay pastor?

He's.

He's bivocational.

I.

What would be the difference, I guess, between lame and.

By vocation, Layman means he's not paid anything, and he's just.

He's doing it the way you're doing, you know, unless you're getting paid by the church.

So I.

I am.

Okay, so you'd be bivocational that you have a.

You have two jobs, two vocations versus where he's.

His only job is.

Is pastoring.

Yeah, so.

So he's either bivocational or layman.

I don't know.

Okay.

I don't know if he.

Don't know if he gets paid, but it.

I mean, it's a thing of.

Look, depending on what the issue is, if his wife had to step down, it reflects poorly on how he manages his household one way or another.

And so it could be he's just defensive because, hey, you're calling my qualifications into question.

Or he's afraid others will, and he may be defensive and irrational, even if that's the case.

So, you know, try to understand it from his perspective.

If you.

Because the more you can try to think how he's thinking through things, it.

You might be more sympathetic to.

Hey, you know, hey, look, I'm sorry that I had to ask your wife to step down.

I didn't want to have to do it, you know, and I wish we could have worked something out.

And.

And maybe I should have brought, you know, to the other elders, May.

I should have brought you all in so we could all work this together.

But we are where we are.

Like, this is what Drew said, right?

We are where we are.

Where.

What can we do now?

How can we work this out now?

What.

What do you guys, as elders, propose?

So you Made the decision before alone, now work together with them and making the decision together.

Yeah, because especially in a situation where, let's say, do they preach expositionally, verse by verse?

No.

Okay.

I'm pushing for it, but I.

Okay, well, because there's, there's issues where.

Let's say, say he's preaching on a topic then, and he's preaching on forgiveness, he's preaching on unity.

He can't rightly stand up there and preach on those topics while he's not in unity with the other serving staff of the church.

I don't.

I don't think I understand.

So, okay, so if he's going to preach on unity in the church, if he's going to preach on unity within the body and how we serve together, we love one another, we forgive one another, we carry each other's burdens.

He can't rightly preach that if he's holding anger and resentment towards you.

Okay.

And the word rightly there.

And the longer this goes on, the more of that kind of stuff is getting stored up.

I just.

Yeah, yeah.

Because eventually at some point it's going to spill out into the congregation and the congregation is going to see that.

They're going to see kind of the tension he has with.

If they haven't already, and they're gonna, they're gonna raise questions and it's gonna be.

It's just not going to be good.

Right.

You're.

Then you're going to have a lot other people talking and gossiping behind the backs of the elders and behind you, and it's going to be a bigger firestorm.

So as long, whatever it takes on your part so that your conscience is clear to do, can, to try to reconcile with them, do that.

And if they won't, that's on them.

Which calls into question their qualifications to be elders in the first place.

Yes.

Okay.

Is that helpful?

It is.

It is very helpful.

It's a lot of this stuff we've been thinking through over the past, you know, what.

How long has it been been since December?

Seven months, Eight months.

You know, so I, I just, I really appreciate you guys for everything that you do.

You guys have through this show ministered to me a lot, so I, I just wanted to say that too, and I appreciate all your time tonight.

Well, I just, in, in the private chat there, I just put my email address so you can shoot me an email.

Let's, you know, if I can help in any way, if I'm close enough, I, I wouldn't.

I'll come in and act as mediator if, if they'll have me and, you know, we can work.

We could try to work through things together.

But, you know, if I could be of any help, by the way, I guess you could.

We always.

I say like the Ohio Valley, but we're like Northeastern Ohio.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll be driving through there soon.

Oh, will you?

Yep, yep.

Because I'll be going to western, the west side of Ohio.

So that's all.

Oh, it's all flat out there.

Yeah.

So.

But yeah, I mean, shoot me an email.

Look in the private chat.

You got my email.

Shoot me an email.

And let's, let's try and touch base, find a time we could, we could talk more, see how to help the church.

Thank you guys both.

I really appreciate your help.

Yeah.

Thanks for coming in.

Absolutely.

All right, so I'll leave Riley backstage in case.

Riley, if you have another question, you could just pop it in the private chat and, and I'll bring it back in.

All right, so let's get to this topic.

Drew, the topic for tonight, we've.

We've dealt with a lot of the major topics that people have when doing apologetics.

Right.

We, we dealt with, is there a God?

Can you trust the Bible?

The next big one is, did Jesus actually claim to be God?

Yes.

And when we look at the other religions, we get this a lot from other religions, but not only we, sometimes we get it from those that profess to be Christian.

I mean, to Muslims, Jesus was a prophet.

He wasn't God.

He just claimed to be a prophet.

Okay.

To Jove, witnesses, he was just a man.

Right.

But there are professing Christians that use the term.

And I remember I was in California, I was doing some open air preaching, and I had a guy that, you know, I think a very kind, kindly was trying to correct me, but he came up to me and said, hey, when you were up there, you said, jesus is God.

He's the son of God.

Now, I quickly realized what he was saying, but a lot of people use the term son of God.

I don't use that language because people don't understand the terminology of son of and what it is.

In a Jewish mindset, it means essence of.

And so James and John were called the sons of thunder.

No one thinks they were the offspring of, you know, two.

Two lightning bolts.

And the crackling noise came out John and.

And James.

No, it means that they were loud and boisterous.

Right.

So Son of Mercy.

That's Barnabas.

That wasn't his actual name.

That's his nickname, but he was called Son of Mercy.

So Son of God and Son of Man are.

Are titles to say or nicknames, the way some could be done.

But in this case, it's a title of the.

The nature.

So Jesus is not only Son of God, but Son of Man.

In fact, he called himself Son of Man a lot.

Yeah.

And Son of Man specifically is a distinct title that is reserved for Christ because it comes directly out of the book of Daniel, which was to show who the Messiah would be.

Okay.

So I know.

I know everyone says that.

I don't disagree with it.

Let me expand on it.

And I don't know if I'll ever get this book written.

I have a book that I've half written called Jesus Christ Claims of Deity and.

Or Claim of Deity.

And I go through all the Gospels, just the Gospels, in showing what Jesus actually claimed.

But here's the thing, Drew, if I had to.

Because think about this.

Jesus kept telling everyone he's the Son of Man.

Right.

They would have understood that, meaning that he's human.

Right.

Now, see, I thought it was.

See, I thought it was the other way around.

So Son of God, everyone believed.

Would believe that more of a human title, because everyone was a son or child, because they're human.

They're a Son of God, whereas Son of man was a.

So I.

I believed them to be reversed.

Yeah.

No, no.

So Son of God is the idea.

You have the essence of.

Of God versus Son of Man.

You have the essence of man.

And this is why the Jehovah Witness.

I mean, remember, in this time, Gnosticism is just getting started.

And anything physical evil, that's bad.

Yeah.

Anything spiritual, that's good.

In the first century, we believe that because of the miracles Jesus did, people knew he was God.

They doubted his humanity, and that's why he kept having to remind them.

So, Drew, if I kept telling you over and over again, I'm a human.

I'm a human.

I'm a human.

I'm human.

I'm human.

Hello, I'm human.

At some point, you're gonna be like, of course you are.

What do you think?

Who do you think you are?

God?

You see, so indirectly, him constantly having to remind people that he's human is.

It points to the fact that people in that time frame accepted his deity.

Right.

Because he had to keep reminding them of his humanity.

Right.

I don't have to remind you that I'm ugly.

You can see that.

That's right.

I mean, it's in our text thread.

Yeah, that's Why I use that one.

Right.

I.

I don't have to keep reminding you.

You can look at it.

No.

Now, if I was trying to convince you that I'm beautiful or handsome, I would have to keep trying to convince.

Keep telling you.

In this case, you'd.

You'd keep laughing at me every time.

Right?

So.

So, yeah, you're looking in the wrong.

Mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of.

Of them all?

And remember, I will break you if you don't answer correctly.

So the, the thing is, is that the, the term does refer back to Daniel.

I don't, don't disagree with that.

Which is a term of deity.

But it's also, I think, because it.

It talks of his humanity.

He.

It's the.

The Son of Man is a title Jesus used.

Right.

You don't see too many others calling him Son of Man.

They refer to him as Son of God.

Right.

Interesting.

Is an.

Interesting.

That's something I haven't.

I, I don't think I put together is that everyone else calls him Son of God, but he is the one that calls himself Son of Man.

Correct.

There's.

There's.

In John, there's one time where he confirms the title Son of God and they want to kill him.

Right.

So that shows you what their understanding of the term Son of God was.

Blasphemy.

Now, Kathy is saying Son of God or God the Son.

Okay.

So there is some distinction that we can have between these.

And I think that sometimes some of this is just arguing for the sake of arguing.

Son of God is the title that he's given.

But when people say God the Son, how that is sometimes used, and this is why we got to be careful.

This is used by, In.

By some modalists.

It's also used by some to say that there's, like, there's multiple Gods.

Okay, so he's God the Son versus God the Father.

So you have God is the.

You have one God the Father, one God the Son.

Right.

And that's not how we would mean it.

We definitely don't mean it in the modalist sense that he is God the Son in this mode.

So I don't use the term God the Son.

I'm not opposed to it, Kathy.

It's just I refer to Christ as God because that is clearest that way, that Son of God, God the Son.

Either way, there could be confusion.

So that's why the guy on the street came up to me, because I said Jesus is God.

And in that way, there's I mean, there's no ambiguity.

That's why the guy came up to lovingly correct me, you know, in which I said, no, no, no, he's God.

And we got.

We got into discussing that.

Okay, you're not leaving.

You're not leaving any wiggle room for discussion.

Correct.

I want to try to be as precise as I can, especially, like, if I'm dealing with a Jehovah Witness.

My, my.

Okay, so this is the thing, because I know Jehovah Witnesses nowadays, they don't actually talk to anyone that knows the.

Of the bottom Bible.

So you got.

You know, if I want to try to witness to a Jehovah Witness, I have one of two ways of doing it.

I could let them know I know the Bible, or I could play dumb.

Problem with playing dumb is, well, it's almost deceiving.

Yeah.

And so I got to be careful.

Like, you know, I don't want to be.

So I got to, like, I have to do it in such a way that I'm not pretending like I don't know the answer to questions.

So I have to ask it in a way of, well, how would you answer this?

How would you answer this?

But when once they ask me what I believe, I'm stuck.

See, I wouldn't be able to play dumb at all because as I've talked to enough Jehovah's Witnesses, and when they give their answer, if I'm playing dumb, it's gonna drive me up a wall.

Wall.

So I just start right off the bat, I say and I tell them, this is what I know.

Where do you want to go from here?

We can have a discussion.

I'm more than willing to have a discussion with you.

And we can talk about these things, or you can.

You can put a big X over my name, over my house and whatever, and, you know, that'll be that.

Well, see, I see them on the street, and this was really funny.

We were doing Striving for attorney and Hearts for Loss was doing a combined train evangelism training, and we went, did an outreach.

And I'll tell you, the Jehovah Witnesses there in Indianapolis made a liar out of me because I.

The guys were like, hey, there's Joe Witness.

I really want to talk to a Joh Witness.

Would you come?

And I said, sure.

They said, would you open?

I said, the problem is, is they're only going to give me about, you know, 90 seconds, you know, four at the most.

Only because they'll give me two minutes before they swap out, and then they'll get the more experienced people, and they'll just ignore me.

So it turned out that I.

We had two different groups of job witnesses, and we had conversations for over 45 minutes.

But typically what I do is I ask this question, do you know why Jesus had to be God?

You see?

So I'm getting right to the heart of the issue.

I could attack their.

Their organization.

I could att.

There's so many different things I could.

But the.

The core issue is, if Jesus Christ isn't God, we're dead in our sin, right?

So that's why I want to go right to that issue, because it gets to the gospel.

And so they'll be like, well, I don't.

We don't believe he's God.

I said, I know that, but do you know why he had to be God?

You know, and they usually will say, no, tell us.

So that lets me share the gospel and explain why he had to be God to pay a fine that takes forever to pay.

And I'll go, I understand you think it's not an eternal fine, but he's paying it for more than one person, and he can't possibly do that once in time unless he's an eternal being, right?

So.

So it lets me get to the gospel.

And so that's why I do it.

And they usually give me just a few minutes.

I share the gospel.

I start sharing the gospel before, you know, the more experienced people switch out.

That, yeah, it's funny because they just tap them and, you know, I know.

I know what they're doing, you know, so then I go, well, let me continue with what I was saying to you.

And then they.

And then they walk away from me.

I was at a.

I was at a flea market years ago, and the only reason I went there is because someone who was there text me and said, hey, the Mormons have a booth up here.

And I said, oh, perfect, I'm not doing anything right now.

So I went and drove over there.

I found their booth, and I start talking to them.

And I mean, there's a.

There's like 10 or 12 of them that are there.

Well, so I started engaging with some of them.

And the one who kind of stepped up front to engage me was.

And I was shocked was a woman, because I'd never encountered that before from the Mormon.

From the Mormon camp.

It's always just been two males that either address me or come to my house or whatever.

I'd never seen women or.

Or even one who would step out in front of all the males in Order to, in order to have this discussion.

Well, and yeah, it was, it was fun.

It was interesting.

It was interesting at least because she's talk, talking a guy behind her is throwing out questions and I'm like, who am I talking to here?

So it was very interesting just to be the, the one person sitting there amongst 10 or 12 of them and, and then everyone else who you can tell are they're probably on their first year of mission.

They're, they're just listening, you know, just kind of like deer in the head what's going on.

And, and those are the ones you're actually witnessing to folks.

It's, it's not the person you're talking to, it's those, it's the hanger ons, those that are listening in.

Yeah, it's especially in terms of, of Mormons because usually there's, when they're on mission, they're going two by two to houses.

One is on his first year, the other one is on his second year and so he's teaching the other one how to do everything.

And so he really is, like you said, the one that you're ministering to because the one who's on his second year, he's really not going to hear anything you have to say unless you're agreeing with him.

It's the one who's on his first year that's never heard these arguments or these positions before and he's the one that's being the most affected by it.

Yeah, I mean both could be, but yeah, so, so let's look at some scripture and what, you know, people will say, well, Jesus never claimed to be God.

I debated a guy, Joshua Evans, he's a grew up in a Christian home.

Claimed, I say claimed because as far as I know, I think he stopped making this false claim.

But he claimed he used to be a Christian.

He used to claim before I debated him that he was for a former Christian youth minister.

And then just as our debate, he was just dropping the youth part and saying former minister, Christian minister, which people think is pastor, but.

Right.

He, what he meant is he was just a leader in his youth group because at 17 he, he qu.

He doubted Christianity.

So he was.

So at 17 you're not a pastor, you're not even done with high school.

So at 17 he, he questioned, he said in, in one year he studied seven religions or 14 religions, I forget how many and knew that Islam was right.

But you know, his thing was is Jesus never said I am God, worship me.

And I said I agree.

And Muhammad never said, I am the prophet that follows after Jesus.

Listen to me.

Therefore, he wasn't the prophet.

He's like.

But he's, he didn't say it in those exact words.

That's right.

He didn't say it in the words you want, want for Today's Day, the 21st century.

He said it in language that was understood in the first century because that's when he lived.

Yeah, which is why they kept trying to kill him.

Correct.

I mean, and it's even, you know, he even says, you know, for my good works.

You know, why do you stone me?

And, and they said, for your good works, we don't stone you, but because you a man, make yourself God.

And we're gonna, we're gonna get there in a moment.

First, let's look at John 8 to get the context, because in John 8, end of John 8, let's.

I'm going to start in verse 56.

Okay.

There's, there's, you know, Jesus heals someone.

The Jewish leaders don't like it.

Jesus says, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.

And he saw it and was glad.

And Jewish leaders like, what?

So their response is, so the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham.

I mean, that's seems like a logical question because how did Abraham see you and rejoice in it when you're, you're 50 years old and he's.

He was year thousand a year before.

Right.

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you before, Abraham was, I am ego I me.

The same wording that is used in Exodus when Moses asks God in, in this pituitary in the Greek translation of the Hebrew, who do I say that you are?

He says, I am ego I me.

And so it says, therefore the Jews picked up stones to throw at him.

But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

So this happens in the temple.

They, they're.

He just.

Because he's God, he can just hide himself.

And there's, you know, you hear different arguments people make.

Oh, he just, it was crowded and he just kind of ducked away and.

But why, but they picked up stones to stone him, which means he wasn't, you know, he had to have been where there were some stones.

Why did they pick up stones?

Well, that gets to the passage that you referred to.

Now just to correct at that point, there's nowhere where we see Jesus going, oh, hey guys, you misunderstood me.

Like you're picking up stones.

Why, why are you picking up the Stones.

But John, chapter 10, starting in verse 24, just to get a lot of the context, the Jews gathered around him and were saying to him, how long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

Okay, this shouldn't be too hard, Drew.

What did they want to know?

What they.

What did they want to know?

They wanted to know.

They wanted him to outright claim to be God.

So there you go.

Blasphemy.

They wanted him to claim he is the Messiah.

He's the Christ, the Son of David, which would be eternal, which would have to be God, right?

Which is.

Which is really funny.

The very next line that Jesus says.

Correct.

Jesus says in verse 25, he.

Jesus answers them, I told you.

Okay, that's it, Right?

I told you.

And you do not believe.

Now is.

Does that sound like a denial?

That doesn't, to me sound like a denial.

That sounds like affirmation.

Yes, I'm telling you, I am the Messiah.

I told you.

And you do not believe.

Now how does it.

How's he going to prove that he is the Messiah?

Look what he does.

He says, the works that I do in my Father's name, these testify of me.

Now, least you're concerned.

Claiming that God is my Father in a Jewish time would be blasphemy.

Jewish people never refer to God.

They might say, almighty Father, Almighty Lord, Everlasting Father.

They're not going to just.

They're not going to say my Father.

It's not personal.

But Jesus did, and that sets them off.

Okay, so right there, he's claiming a deity that he has a special relationship with God the Father.

So he's.

But he says the works.

He does.

Well, what are the works?

Well, he had been healing people.

That's what they got upset with, verse 26.

But you do not believe because you are not my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me.

I give them eternal life to them.

I give eternal life to them.

God can do.

Only God can give eternal life.

So not only does he say, hey, look at the works, but now he's making yet another claim that he.

This is explicit.

He can give eternal life.

He says, I give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Now, here's where it gets really.

They really get over the edge.

This is what you had referred.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.

Okay, now think about that.

If the.

His Father gave the us, Those of us who know him, to Him.

And no one could take him out of his hand.

And the Father is greater of all.

No one could take him out of his hand.

What does that say?

If no one could take them out of his hand?

He's greater than all right?

And no one is able to snatch him out of the Father's hand.

Now here's the kicker.

He says, I and the Father are one.

Now a lot of people will say, oh, one in mindset.

They, they were unified, like Drew and I can agree on what we're going to talk about tonight.

And, and, and we're in agreement.

We, we've talked through show notes, and we're, we're in line.

We're.

We're one.

That's not what he's saying.

First of all, we don't even use show notes.

Well, maybe you don't, but I have them up right here.

So I just don't share them all the time.

So now, see, I just make it up as I go.

I'm not as good as you.

Now, look at the context here, okay?

The last time Jesus said before Abraham was, I am.

And he used the term I am.

They pick up stones to stone him.

It says in verse 31, the Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

What's the again referencing?

The again is referencing John chapter eight.

So that's the again.

So now that the, the Holy Spirit is putting these two together, because the Holy Spirit's the narrator here, that the Jews are picking up stones again to stone him.

And Jesus also, if you look at kind of the logical flow of John, it's even an extension from John chapter 6, because Jesus says something similar in John chapter 6, that those who come to me, they come to me because the Father has given them to me.

Right?

And so it's just the natural.

He's just reiterating everything he's already said in John chapter six.

And then you have John chapter eight, right?

Where.

Well, you have, you have all the I am statements.

Then you have the one that we just went over in John chapter 8, 58.

And then now you have this other instance incident right here where he says, I and the Father are one, right?

Which is a, A term of.

It's another term of essence, a relationship and essence, because it's a plural, right?

Are one, meaning we are one.

And not just, not just like you said, not just one in mindset, not just one in you, but we are one in essence, together.

And then the explanation that you're about to get into right here defines what I and the Father are One means how the Jews, how the Pharisees would have understood that this very statement.

Correct.

So Jesus answers them.

I showed you many good works.

What is he looking to?

The evidence of his deity, he's claiming is his good works.

Works that only God could do, such as healing, controlling the weather.

In fact, let me.

Let me.

Go ahead.

Yeah, yeah.

No, let me.

Let me give you a list of.

From the.

My study of the gospels, of the different things.

So I broke this book out.

The way that I broke it out was his words, his works and his witness.

So his words are things like this, things he explicitly said or implicitly said, his witness of deity, things like, you know, his titles, his attributes, claims from those who you know are his enemies.

And so his works, here's some of the works of.

Of that Jesus did.

He showed he had the authority of God in the works he did.

He had the authority over illness, death, demons, weather, physical bodies.

He had the.

The works that he had the forgiven.

He had the authority to forgive sins.

Yes.

Salvation.

Acting as the judge of salvation and the source of salvation, acting as the.

Not only in.

As judgment, but acting as the judge of.

Of people's souls, creation, his resurrection, adoption, election.

These are the works of God.

And yet Jesus did those same things.

Yeah, and you know.

It.

I like that you said that you know the authority to forgive sin.

Because like, when we see where the paralytic is lowered through the roof, Jesus, the focus.

People like to focus on the healing.

The healing isn't the main focus.

The main focus is the forgiveness of sin.

And then the Pharisees are upset.

Only God can forgive sin.

Well, in that moment, Jesus was teaching them he is God.

But then he says, just in case you don't believe.

Yeah, I'll heal him too.

Now, folks, in case you think that Drew really doesn't know their show notes, you will see that he's following my show notes and just trying to steal the thunder before we get there.

But that's okay.

All right.

So Jesus answers them.

I've shown you many good works, works from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me?

Now, the response of the Jewish leaders are very important because it tells you what their understanding was.

So when people say, well, Jesus saying the Father and I are one is not a claim of deity.

They didn't see it that way because they said the Jews answered him for a good work.

We are.

We do not stone you, but for blasphemy.

For blasphemy.

For you being a man, make yourself God.

That there's no clearer passage than the two that we've looked at so far.

And the reason those are so clear is because of the fact that he is.

He's explicitly claiming deity in a way that they would understand.

And In John chapter 10, we see them stating they're going to stone him because he, being a man, claims to be God.

They understood what he was saying.

Yeah.

One of the things you have to teach people who bring up this argument, and really they bring up.

It's almost.

The arguments can be across the board.

You know, pick a subject.

But you have to teach them that there is an audience relevance to who Jesus is speaking or to whom the writers are writing and how they would understand that.

Right.

So when Jesus is speaking, the audience relevance is going to be the Pharisees and how the Pharisees perceive what he said.

So we can't go, right?

We can't go.

Well, I don't see where Jesus said he was God.

Okay, well, first of all, this wasn't said to you.

Look at the people to whom it was said, how they view it.

They said, oh, he's claiming to be God.

And that's what made them angry.

Yeah.

So now your answer is questioned just because.

Or your question is answered.

So just because to you, it's not written in the way you want it in the nice little English statement, I am God.

It is written how they would have understood it.

And, and he's emphasized.

Remember, the question being asked is, can you plainly tell us if you're the Messiah?

And he's saying, I told you.

And he's clarifying that now, if he's not God, you would think the thing he would do is say, hey, guys, guys, put the stones down.

You got me wrong.

I didn't say that.

No, Jesus answered them.

Is it not written in your law that.

That I said we, you are gods.

If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world?

You are blaspheming because I said, I am the Son of God, If.

If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me.

But if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe.

Believe me.

Believe the works so that you may know and understand the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

And their response was not to say, oh, we understand.

You're just saying you're.

You're a son of God the way we're all sons of God the way that Drew was referring to it earlier.

No.

Therefore, they were against seeking to seize him, and he eluded their grasp.

Okay, why did they want to seize him?

The same reason before.

Right.

And so this is the clearest.

Now, the.

I want to go to the one that, that Drew referenced in Mark.

But I want to give you a way to remember these things.

Let me first go to Matthew chapter 9.

Why go to Matthew chapter 9?

Because we went to the end of John 8 and the end of John 9.

So if we go to the beginning of Matthew, not.

Sorry.

If we went to the end of John 8 and the end of John 10.

So if we go to the beginning of Matthew 9, we get the.

The begin.

The story that Drew referred to.

Sorry, the account that Drew.

That Drew referred to where he's going to end up forgiving the guy.

Sorry.

It was not the.

The beginning, but the.

The end of, of Matthew 9.

So.

So he gets to the.

The point where he's going to give the account.

Why am I not finding.

Yeah, I thought it was Matthew, the.

Beginning of Matthew 9.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Oh, I.

Oh, I see what I did.

I was in 10.

I scrolled past it.

I'm like, why am I not finding this?

Okay, so.

So now the better one to use is Mark two.

It's clear.

But I want to do this just so you know, if you can remember nine or eight.

Nine and ten, sandwich John by.

With Matthew in the middle.

You can find these.

That's.

That's how I.

I use this.

But so Matthew's account says this.

Getting.

Getting into a boat.

Jesus crossed over to the sea and came to his own city and brought.

And they brought to him a paralytic lying in a bed.

And they're seeing their.

Their faith.

Jesus said to the paralytic, take courage, son.

Your sins are forgiven.

Some of the scribes said to themselves, this is the.

This fellow blasphemes.

And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, why do you.

Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?

Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up and walk.

But so that you know that the Son of man has the authority to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, get up, pick up your bed and go home.

And he got up and went home.

So we can deal with it here.

I'm going to later read Matthew Mark 2 and show you that.

But what do you see?

You.

You see him saying to someone, your sins are forgiven.

Okay.

Only God can do that.

Now, this passage isn't going to explain that, but they recognize Just him saying, your sins are forgiven.

They see it as blasphemous.

Remember, blasphemy is claiming to be God.

They see it as blasphemous.

Why?

Because man can't forgive sins.

Now, there's a couple things here that you see even here.

First, he claims to have the authority to forgive sins, something only God can do.

But don't overlook this in verse four.

And Jesus knowing their thoughts.

Oops, he's omniscient.

Number two, There's.

He has the ability to read people's minds.

He knows what people are thinking.

We can't do that.

We could think.

We can.

We.

We might wish we could understand our wives, but we really don't know what they're thinking.

And we.

We're really glad they don't know what we're thinking.

So.

But then what does he do?

He doesn't say, guys, you know, you got me wrong.

I'm not.

I'm not committing blasphemy.

No.

He says, which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk to a man who's.

Who's crippled?

Well, they're both actually easy to say.

I can say and watch.

Your sins are forgiven.

Get up and walk.

See?

Easy to say, but harder to prove.

Right.

I can say, your sins are forgiven.

It's kind of like the charismatics.

They always speak in some angelic language because there's no way to prove it.

It's always convenient.

Right.

But no, you have people that will.

That can say things, and there's no way to prove it.

If I say, drew, your sins are forgiven.

No one can prove that, at least this side of heaven.

But if I say, if you.

You've never walked a day in your life, and I say, get up and walk, and you do as this guy did, you get up and went home.

There was no atrophy in your legs.

You got up and walked.

That physical healing is something only God could do in that way.

Okay, God can do that.

So.

So what does he do?

He tries to show.

Sure.

He just didn't need his leg lengthened.

Yeah.

Maybe he just.

He just needed, you know, some fake preacher to lengthen his leg.

Now everyone's lengthening arms, and they keep going, oh, I lengthen it too much.

Going back and forth.

Before you know it, your arms are going to be six foot long.

The.

The thing is that Jesus ends up saying again, thinking what we've said already.

Look at the context he's saying.

Look at the works that I do.

You want me to prove that I am God.

Okay?

Look at what I do.

I will heal this person.

He'll get up and walk.

Now let's look at Mark, chapter two, because this is a little bit clearer, gives us more details.

All right, but it's.

But you can use Matthew 9.

So if.

If you just have that, that's fine.

And at least if you get to Matthew 9 and you have a Bible that has footnotes, it may reference Mark two, in case you forget.

So beginning of Mark two, starting verse one.

When he had come back to Capernaum several days afterwards, it was heard that he was at home.

And many were gathered together so there was no longer room, not even near the door.

And he was speaking the word to them.

Then came then.

And they came, bringing him paralytic, carried by four men.

Being unable to get to him because of the crowd, they removed the roof.

By the way, we'll stop there and say, that's what every good friend does, right?

Let me go up to the roof.

Let me rip your roof off.

No, by the way.

Yeah, Instead of saying, we ain't getting in tonight, man.

Yeah.

So just picture Jesus is preaching.

They're.

They're probably like, going, okay, Jesus is probably right about here.

And they let's rip up the roof right here, right?

So that they like, okay, we're good.

And Jesus is.

Is preaching.

And all of a sudden the ceiling's coming down.

I mean, you picture everyone looking up at the ceiling, right?

And then they.

And it's got to be.

I mean, if they're lowering him down, it's got to be at least like six foot by two foot, probably maybe three foot, right?

And then they lower him down.

It says so.

And.

And when they had dug an opening, they let down a pallet on which the paralytic was laying.

And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven.

But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoned in their hearts, why does this man speak this way?

Now, unless you're going to deny that the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures, this Holy Spirit is giving us the narration, that they only reasoned it in their hearts and never said anything.

Anything.

Okay, why.

Why does this man speak this way?

He is blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins but God alone.

So they recognize that, but they're thinking it in their hearts immediately.

Jesus answer.

Jesus, aware in his spirit.

So where was he aware in his spirit?

He knew it not because he heard them.

So this, again, it's trying to make this emphasis that he has omniscience he knows their thinking immediately.

Jesus, aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, now before we get to what they said, he said, notice again, the Holy Spirit's emphasizing Jesus is reading their minds.

So what does he say?

Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts?

So he's calling out what's in their heart.

They should realize, how does he know we're thinking that now?

Maybe it's because it's the obvious thinking.

And that's what many people try to say.

Well, that's obviously what he's thinking.

Well, that's only obvious if they knew he's God.

Right?

The only way for those that wanted to say that, well, he's just saying what would be the obvious thought for them.

Yes, it's only obvious because him claiming to be able to forgive sin, you know, is that claim.

So one thing I'll do if I'm talking to Jehovah Witness is before I get to this passage, I will ask them, does Jesus have the authority to forgive sin?

And when they say, yes, I go, okay, let's just.

I just tuck that away.

Because when I get here now, I say, well, you said Jesus has the authority to forgive sin.

And the obvious, what you're saying, the obvious question that would be in people's minds is he must be God.

So why don't you believe He's God?

You see some ways of doing that.

So he says, which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to.

Or to say, get up, pick up your pallet and walk so that, you know, this is the thing.

We already talked about the, the title Son of Man.

But he says, so that, you know, the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.

Why does he heal the guy?

So that they may know he has that authority.

He said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.

And he got up and immediately picked up his pallet and went out of sight of everyone so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, we have never seen anything like this, this.

And he went out again to the seashore, and all the people were coming to him and he was teaching them.

So the people there said, we ain't seen anything like this.

Okay, this is him showing that he's God.

And so dealing with the claim, did he make it?

Well, these are three passages where he explicitly made the claim that he is deity and said, look at the works that he does as the evidence, you.

Know, because you mentioned the Jehovah's Witnesses again.

And so I just looked to make sure I had my New world translation accessible.

Just happened to turn to Mark chapter two.

And.

And it says, we'll start in just verse five.

And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic child, your sins are forgiven.

Now, there were some of the scribes there sitting and reasoning in their hearts, why is this man talking in this manner?

He is blaspheming.

Who can forgive sins except one God.

But Jesus, having discerned immediately by his spirit that they were reasoning that way in themselves, said to them, why are you reasoning these things in your hearts?

Which is easiest to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or.

Or say, get up and pick up your cot and walk.

But in order for you, for you men to know that the Son of man has authority to forgive sins upon the earth, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, get up, pick up your cot and go to your home.

In their own texts, their own translation, it you have Jesus's own words and inspired by the Holy Spirit that say he is God.

Well, I wouldn't say their translation is.

Inspired by, but I mean, they're pulling from inspired scripture.

Yeah.

And.

And even in their own translation, it says, he is God.

Correct.

You see, everything he's doing is trying to.

He's trying to emphasize it by what his works.

And so, you know, here's the thing.

People say, well, Jesus didn't claim to be deity.

Right.

So I gave you some ways in his words, his works and his witness, the fact that demons refer to him as God, the fact that the Jewish leaders knew he claimed to be God and, and refer.

Say that that's what he.

He did.

That's what they put him on trial for.

Okay, so do directly and indirectly, do the gospels refer to Jesus as God?

Well, let me give you some numbers.

I'm an engineer.

I like numbers.

Right.

So Matthew has 1071 verses in it, and 482 of them refer to Jesus as God directly or indirectly, that's 45%.

Okay, I was about to do that math, but you've already got it there.

Mark.

Now, depending if you take the long ending of Mark or not just saying so.

I don't.

So I'll go with the.

And I'm sorry about this, folks.

Just the number that it is.

If you don't take the long ending of mark, you have 666 verses.

If you take.

If you take the long ending if you really hate 666, then you have 678.

There are 310 unique references to Jesus being God, directly or indirectly.

That is 60, 46 to 47%.

Luke, which has.

Did you.

You said there.

Oh, because you went to the longer ending.

Never mind.

Yeah, so it's.

If you go shorter or longer, it's still 44.

So you have Matthew at 45.

You have Mark, which everyone says Mark.

This is the irony.

People say Mark is the first Gospel and that later it got embellished, that he's.

That Jesus is God.

Well, Mark has 45.

Matthew has 45%.

Mark has more.

He's got 46 to 47.

Now Luke, Luke is the one where he's trying to prove that Jesus is human.

So Luke has 1151 verses and has 446 unique verses that refer to Jesus Christ as God.

That's 39.

Okay.

That's the least.

So now look at John.

Okay, John has 586 references out of 880.

878 verses.

So that's 66.7%.

So overall, the Gospels, when you look at the Gospels, whether you take the long or short reading of, of Mark, okay, The Gospels have 3766 verses and 1824, four of them refer to Jesus as God directly or indirectly.

That is 48.3 to 48.5%.

In other words, half of the Gospels refer to Jesus as God.

And I'm only giving you the unique verses because if you actually look at it, even though there's.

There's 482 unique verses in Matthew, there's 593 references.

Because sometimes you have ref.

2 references in 1 verse.

Yeah.

So when you look at that, okay, within the, the 3,766 verses of all the Gospels, there's a total of 2, 783 references to God, to Jesus being God.

So when people say that Jesus never claimed to be God, it never taught that he's God.

Well, if you look at.

Sure seems like there's a lot of references.

Now if you just want to count the number of references to the number of verses.

Well, like 74% of the Gospels, that's a lot.

But I'm being more conservative when I say 48% because I'm looking at the unique verses that contain a reference.

So when people want to say the Bible doesn't really say that Jesus is God, the evidence is overwhelming in the Gospels alone.

And guess what, folks, it gets even more so.

When you go outside the Gospels.

Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, it can only go up from there once you start bringing in Acts and then you.

And then the epistles.

Yeah.

When you start bringing in Paul's writings, Philippians, Colossians, I mean, they're, they're abundantly clear.

But the question is, what did Jesus claim?

Well, you know, throughout the Gospels, those are the, the account of Christ.

You know, it's pretty clear the numbers are there.

I'll eventually get this book out.

One day when I have time, I'll.

I'll get back to writing.

Let me see, it's, it's right now 72 pages in eight and a half by 11.

So you double that.

So I have about 100, 140 pages and, and a lot of it isn't even written.

It's just, you know, notes to myself.

So.

Come on, man.

I'm, I'm putting, I'm putting things together left and right.

Okay, now here's going to be a great way to not only end the show, but bring back to the beginning of the show civically minded Corey Wing says.

Andrew bringing the factual fire.

Thank you for your faithfulness.

Well, Corey, if you didn't watch the beginning of the show, you need to, because the guy who blocked me that I mentioned the beginning of show, he's, he's Facebook friends with Corey.

And so, yeah, I was, I was planning to reach out to Corey, say, hey, this dude's a friend of yours.

Do you know him?

Like, if, because Corey, if you do know this character, please, like, like you know him personally.

Have him come in here.

Let's, let's discuss, you know, cessationism and what cessationists believe and whether cessationists tell command.

Tell people to ignore God's commands.

I'd love to have that discussion.

Yeah.

So I think so.

You know, there's, especially on, on X, there's a, there's been a lot of cessationist talk.

I mean, I think most of it is centered.

Was centered around Ryan Denton trying to get Jolly Justin Peters and I think someone else to debate him on the idea of hyper Calvinism.

Yeah, but hyper cessationism.

But the thing is those guys don't debate.

And that's why I said, like, I'll, I'll debate, you know, but, but I guess I'm not, I don't believe in, you know, he's, I, I guess as I was told by someone, is, you know, he's, he's willing to have discussions, but he the issue is he wants to talk about a hyper cessationism, which I'm not sure, you know, I have to talk with him to know what he means by it.

Right.

So, so Brandon Scalf replied to him and said, look, I've got, I've got these things going on.

Once these things get done, I'll be happy to have a debate with you on this topic.

However, we have to get a little more specific in terms of what you're talking about, so I know what I'm even arguing.

Yeah.

So now folks, I just want any of you who are watching who saw the, the live here, you've seen, you know, if, if you wanted to know whether or not Drew was stealing from me because he's pr, he's trying to pretend like he, he wasn't.

I just, I, I, I just, I, I just want to share something here, just, you know, just for the record.

Okay, I'm sharing the Apologe Live page and let me.

So this is Apologetics Live, the one that those who came in came to when they wanted to.

Let me make this bigger.

And can, can anyone see the verses that I put there?

That was too big.

There we go.

Can anyone see the, the three verses that I said we'd reference?

We will walk through key passages such as John 8, John 10, and Mark 2.

What do you know?

And he claims he wasn't reading the notes.

Huh.

Huh.

I didn't even know what the show topic was on until like 6 o' clock.

I just, I was like, is there even a show?

Because you hadn't text me.

I didn't see anything on our text thread about a show.

And I just happened to look and go, oh, we are talking about that.

Okay, cool.

I'm gonna try to, try to be in.

So.

All right, so let me just get one comment up here.

Kathy earlier was talking about Son of God or God the Son, she said, I heard that from a biblical pastor.

Yes, I agree.

He was just trying to clarify as he was trying to teach a doctrine in class.

And, and I'm sure that's the case.

I mean, it's, it is something we do to try and get clarification.

So here, here we go.

From A's philosophy.

I, if I'm not mistaken, I, I'm, I believe he's not a believer, but he can correct me if I'm wrong, if I remember, if he's the person who I'm thinking.

But he says, having read the Gospels, there is no way about 50 of the Gospels, directly or indirectly.

Refers to Jesus as God.

A lot of it is talking about where Jesus is and what he's doing and how he got there.

Okay, let's.

Let's go back to the things, you know, the thing that people forget the most, the one that he did the most is his omniscience.

But every time that you see the titles of deity, like Son of God, Son of Man.

Oh, he says he's.

I'm a Christian, I'm Unitarian.

And we said we'd answer how Unitarians.

Because Unitarians aren't saved, because they think everyone is saved.

But every time you see the title Son of God, Son of Man, the fact that Jesus is recognized by demons who, who know him and refer to him that way, they use those titles.

You then have his words.

We looked at some explicit.

There's plenty of implicit words.

But then his works, and I went through these earlier, but I'll do it again in case A's philosophy wasn't here.

When he claims he has the authority of God.

The authority over illness, the authority over death, the authority over demons, the authority over weather.

The.

The authority over physical.

The over the physical, the power to forgive sins.

The.

The is the source and the one to do saving.

The the source and the one to do judgment.

That he is active in the act of creation.

He's active in his own resurrection.

Because that's kind of hard to do if you're not God.

By the way, when you're dead, you rot.

You don't raise yourself.

He's active in the.

In the act of adoption and election.

But then there's the witness of deity that he's virgin born.

That he has titles like Lord, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, the Christ, King of Israel or King of Kings.

I am.

And there's other titles, attributes of deity, such as omniscience that he shows a lot.

He goes.

We looked at that tonight.

Omnipresence, omnipotence.

He's states he's eternal, he's holy, he's the source of life.

He.

He's the glory of God, he's sovereign.

He claims to have the knowledge of.

Of God and the knowledge of what goes on in heaven.

We don't know what goes on in heaven unless God reveals it.

But he.

He can explicitly tell you what's going on right now.

The fact that he's worshiped.

References.

References, excuse me.

References.

God the Father as my Father.

We looked at that tonight.

That he.

That he's testified within Scripture, recognized as God the Father.

God recognized by God the Father is God recognized by the Holy Spirit as God recognized by angels, recognized by demons, recognized by his disciples, recognized by other men, recognized by his enemies.

That's an important one because the enemies testify that he was claiming to be God.

We saw that tonight.

And they wouldn't do that if they.

Because they were trying to prove he wasn't.

And there's many other witnesses.

So I, I have all those verses actually in, in this book that I'm writing.

I have them all laid out.

Part what I, what I'm going to do just for, just for someone like a philosophy when I, whenever I get this book is I'm going to write the book.

But part part twos of the book is going to be nothing.

But let me, let me actually get to, to that section of the book.

Let's see if I have, if I could.

So let me share this.

Share screen window.

Here we go.

I'm not going to, I won't enlarge this so much, but all you can see here is this is implicit statements of Christ.

And what I have is, I have all the verses and just, just a synopsis, a quick synopsis.

So I'm gonna, I'm, I'm just gonna scroll through this and you can see all of the references.

Okay.

How many?

Each, every one of those paragraphs is a reference to Jesus as God, explicitly or implicitly.

Okay, I'm, I'm going slowly, but I want you to notice over at the right, this is the second half.

Look at that thing moving very slowly.

This is part two of the book.

And I still got a ways to go.

I can keep going because I have 74 pages that are like this.

I have what's.

It's not.

All 74 is, is of this.

And, and the, the chapters I have that are written out are in a different fold file.

This is just the references.

Just look at all these.

You're going to tell me that that's not 50% because these, these are all the references.

So when you're looking at this, you're looking at what I say.

78%.

78, if you're going to count every single reference.

I tediously went through all of the gospels and I think I made the point well enough.

You know, I, I do have to bring up some, some comments here and address them so that a philosophy is saying, so he's saying so.

So Son of God equals God.

Why not just say God?

Well, we actually addressed that in the show.

So you'll get to go back and listen to.

Well, let me address it for him really quickly is it's because he's speaking to the people of the first century and they would have understood that just like Son of Thunder is not the offspring of thunder, it's a title of essence.

Yeah.

And so that goes along with this.

If you want people to think you're God, you don't just say you are the son of God.

Well, we addressed in the, in the show.

And then he says to Jason Cave, he says, because Jason made a statement, he said, I didn't do that.

I questioned one person's interpretation of Scripture, but we didn't interpret it.

We read it correct.

And we looked at what it actually said.

So we really didn't, we didn't have to interpret anything.

We just read it and, and let it interpret itself.

We, we read it and let folks see what it was that they said, what those around Christ said of it.

And that's, that's the issue.

We didn't have to say it.

Right.

They told us.

And that's the thing.

Yep, exactly.

So closed.

Yeah.

So with that, let me.

Before we end next week, there will be no show.

I will be traveling.

Me too.

I will be out headed to Ohio.

So I'll be maybe driving through Riley's area.

You know, we'll have to see.

I'll have to, if he emails me, I'll have to like, get in touch with him, be like, all right, hey, you know, we're, you know, let's, let's get together and talk.

We could do that.

So there will be no show next week.

Jason Cave says I missed the beginning.

I'll have to go back.

Yes.

If, and do me a favor, if you found this helpful, if you, or please share this with folks.

I, I tried to be super concise and, and answer the challenges that people often give.

Just kind of God's providence.

I said in the show notes we'd answer you a Unitarian view.

I, I mentioned the Muslims.

I mentioned the, the Jehovah Witnesses.

I forgot to mention the Unitarians.

And one comes in God's providence.

So no show next week.

But let me just give a shout out to our sponsors.

First off, Scrolly Joe's Coffee, because, well, you know, as we said in our text message, Drew, some of us are getting up pretty early in the morning.

I'll be up at 3:30 in the morning.

Tom gets up at, at 4 in the morning.

And you're gonna roll out of bed somewhere around 10 or 11 and just.

You know, try 6 o' clock.

Okay.

I leave my house by 7.

Yeah.

So obviously, you guys need to get your coffee.

I do.

I do.

Something else I'll get to in a moment, but you need your coffee in the morning because you won't do what I do, and I get it.

But you want to get yourself a good cup of coffee, go to strivingforattorney.org Coffee.

Not only are you supporting a fellow Christian brother, but you're also getting a great cup of coffee.

Now what do I do?

Well, I do a cold plunge.

And so Drew doesn't want to do that.

Neither does Tom.

But that wakes me up better than coffee.

I prefer, is it an Irish shower.

Whereas you started off hot and then you gradually turn it cold.

That's.

That's how you can start doing the cold plunges.

But yes, I just get right into a cold plunge.

Nice flip 44 degree water.

And that is for, you know, five minutes and then I'm awake for hours.

Great.

It's.

It's great for the health.

I.

I love it.

You can get yourself one.

They are expensive.

If you get the ones where they actually have a chiller and if you live where I do, where you need the heat for the summer, I needed to get one that would chill and heat because mine is outside.

So, yeah, when it's nine degrees out, I'm in there and I need something to keep it at 44 degrees and keep it clean.

And therefore they get more expensive.

But if you can afford one and want.

Look, folks, you got a choice.

You can either pay to keep yourself healthy or you could get old and pay for health care.

Keeping yourself healthy is actually better.

You know, it's funny because my mom, I go to my mom's for lunch every day because she's about 10 minutes, 5, 10 minutes away from my work.

And one day she goes, I'm really worried about Andrew doing these cold plunges every day because that can't be good for his health.

And I go, no, mom, it's actually really good for you.

Doing cold plunges is really good.

It brings down blood pressure.

It's good for your skin, it's good for your brain.

Cold plunges are really good for it.

And she was just like, I don't know.

I was like, trust me.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, the science is there.

So if you want to get yourself a apply you.

If you want to get your.

The plunge that I have, go to Strivingfor Eternity.org plunge and you will.

That's our affiliate link that we have set up with them.

Lastly, I just want to mention, I can mention Some others.

So my pillow, because Drew needs a good night of sleep because he's going to get up early in the morning.

So if you go to mypillow.com use the promo code SFE.

That is the code that lets know you you heard about them from, from us.

I will say make sure that you act that it actually goes through.

I do know someone that typed in SFA and it, it substituted it with some other code, another ministry which is, you know, kind.

Another group.

I mean, I think it was Daily Wire, not Ministry, but you know, I think it substituted with like Daily Wire.

And he caught it and he said, he sent me the screenshot and so I was able to say, hey, don't know why this happened, but you know, just to point it out, but make sure that use promo code sfe.

It stands for Striving Fraternity when you go there.

Lastly, I was using my Logos Bible software tonight.

You guys might have heard me referencing it where I could just do some searches that way if you want to get yourself a discount.

And by the way, they used to be super uber expensive to get the big libraries.

That's not the case anymore.

And so if you want to get yourself a subscription to Logos Bible software, you can now do that.

And the way to do that would just be to go to logos.com SFE SFE again stands for Striving Fraternity.

So lagos.com SFA so again, no show next week.

We'll pick up unless we have a guest come in, we'll pick this up and continue in answering some of the most apologetic questions that people have.

So I ask you if, if you're finding these helpful.

I mean, first off, bookmark them so you have them.

When people make these challenges, that's why we're doing it this way is so you have this information but then share it with folks.

I mean the best way for folks to know.

We've, we've noticed that Apple's been playing some games and we have like duplicate fee feeds now in Apple.

And so it's kind of getting messed up with, with them.

And I know that one of the things that's happened now is that people who had been following have Apple has kindly decided to unfollow for, for them.

And so if you're listening to us now or you know, share with others so that they know, oh, hey, these stills.

Because there are people.

I, I found out someone was like, hey, are you doing apologize live anymore?

I'm like, yeah, every week.

And they're like, I haven't listened to you for like a year.

I thought you just stopped and it's like, no apple.

Just unfollowed it for them.

And so they went in and looked and they were like, oh, that's why.

So, so, yeah, share it with others.

So others go, hey, wait, he is still doing this show.

I enjoyed this show and it's still going on.

So that's I, I, I don't know.

Let's see.

So my brain is still.

I haven't recovered from coming back from Japan yet.

Next speaking event I have is here in north of Philadelphia on August.

It's a twofer.

August 3rd and August 10th, I will be preaching at Oxford Valley Chapel, and that's in Levittown, Pennsylvania, which is north of Philly.

So and then I will have a busy September.

I'll get, I'll give those as we get some more details.

But I do want to encourage you to go and check out Roadmap to Revival.

Just do a search on Roadmap to Revival.

This is the conference Jeffrey Rice is putting on.

James White will be there.

Keith Foskey, a lot of great speakers will be there.

So go check that out.

Really want to encourage seeing you there.

And if you go there, please remember to come up to me and say hello.

Let me know you listen.

So with that, Drew, I think that we'll say call it a night and remind everyone to always.

What do I say, Drew?

Let's test.

Let's give you the test drive to.

Make each day an eternal day for the glory of God.

Just testing you.

All right.

Have a good night.

I'll see you next week.