back to indexElder Candidacy
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Welcome all of you here for the examination for eldership for James. 00:00:17.420 |
I've never seen a group of people more excited about an examination in my life. 00:00:24.960 |
I'm not sure if you're like that when you get tested. 00:00:28.240 |
But anyway, so I wanted to share a short devotion of what we're doing 00:00:34.720 |
and why we're doing it in this manner before we get started. 00:00:42.280 |
We believe that it is the most biblical model that we see in scripture. 00:00:47.920 |
And I know that it's not the only model that the churches use. 00:00:50.220 |
But we've come to the conviction that that's the model that we see in scripture. 00:00:55.680 |
And that's the model that we've been practicing for many, many years. 00:01:00.580 |
Because it is an elder-run church, we have to make sure that the people who are 00:01:07.740 |
in leadership are people that understand the weightiness of what it means to be an elder. 00:01:13.340 |
And so not only do we want the elders in the church to understand that, 00:01:17.440 |
we want to make sure that the church understands that. 00:01:20.320 |
So we want to make sure that the testing, again, you know, we were kind of going back 00:01:28.580 |
and forth of whether we should do this publicly or not. 00:01:30.760 |
When we did it the first time with the, you know, elders that we have, 00:01:36.040 |
we did it publicly because our church was very small. 00:01:40.380 |
And I was the one who tested the three of them. 00:01:45.760 |
And how many of you were here for the first time when we did that? 00:01:49.600 |
So it's only a handful of you, probably less than 15 of you, less than 10, 15 of you. 00:02:06.600 |
You know? And so initially we were thinking about doing it just kind of, 00:02:16.000 |
So I said, okay, we're not going to fit up there. 00:02:19.680 |
I want to share in Titus chapter 1, 5 through 10. 00:02:26.240 |
It says, "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains 00:02:32.200 |
and appoint elders in every city as I directed you." 00:02:35.500 |
If you notice in verse 5, he says, Paul is sending Timothy back to Crete. 00:02:47.720 |
So Apostle Paul went and he preached the gospel. 00:02:53.200 |
And so in order to finish the work, he says, "I appoint, go back and appoint elders 00:02:59.440 |
In other words, the church is not established until the elders are established. 00:03:03.000 |
So Paul's intent in every city that he goes is to establish the church. 00:03:06.440 |
And the church wasn't complete until they had proper elders there to be able 00:03:10.180 |
to govern the shepherd and to teach the group. 00:03:12.580 |
And if you notice, he uses the elders in plural. 00:03:16.440 |
He doesn't say establish an elder, but establish elders in the church. 00:03:24.680 |
And as our church grows, you know, people ask, "We have such a big church. 00:03:30.180 |
Because eldership isn't something you appoint out of necessity. 00:03:33.760 |
You know, we don't establish elders because we have 500, so we need 15. 00:03:37.500 |
So let's get the next 14 people in here and we plug them in. 00:03:40.460 |
Because you make a mistake in eldership, it unravels the church. 00:03:45.040 |
So it's better to have less elders than to have elders that we are not confident in. 00:03:50.660 |
And so that's part of the reason why we've been very, very, very slow in establishing elders. 00:03:55.840 |
So we want to make sure that we are taking that seriously. 00:03:58.900 |
In verse 7, you know, there's a bunch of qualifications that we can look at, right? 00:04:09.020 |
And the point of that this afternoon is not to go through every single one. 00:04:12.660 |
But he says in verse 7 that this man, obviously above reproach, 00:04:22.600 |
When he says not self-willed, self-willed meaning that you don't become an elder 00:04:26.540 |
because you desire and you look for and you shoot for it. 00:04:29.200 |
And you've done certain things and maneuvered and then so you got noticed. 00:04:37.420 |
This is not something that he wants for worldly or selfish reasons. 00:04:45.780 |
Quick-tempered meaning that in the context, because it's plurality of elders, 00:04:54.560 |
It's meant to have conversations back and forth. 00:04:59.140 |
We're going to have different opinions about certain things that we look at. 00:05:01.680 |
Sometimes it's going to be strong, you know, opinions. 00:05:05.180 |
And so the church is meant to be discussed among the elders. 00:05:10.620 |
So if a man is quick-tempered and he doesn't know how to explain himself, 00:05:14.760 |
he doesn't know how to have discussions of strong opposition without losing his temper. 00:05:20.060 |
And if you don't do it my way, you guys are all dummies and then you explode the group. 00:05:25.660 |
So this man must be able to speak his mind, to have strong opinions, and yet learn how to be able 00:05:34.400 |
to be gracious in the context of difference of opinions. 00:05:37.800 |
He says he, this man in verse 9, needs to be able to hold fast the faithful word which is 00:05:45.740 |
in accordance with the teachings so that he will be able to both to exhort in sound doctrine 00:05:52.460 |
So the part of this testing is, the purpose of it is to make sure that every elder 00:06:01.180 |
in our church is able to handle the Word of God accurately so that the opinions 00:06:05.700 |
and the discussions that we have are not, well, this is what I think. 00:06:10.600 |
Well, I have this degree, you know, or I have that. 00:06:13.780 |
And we don't want that to be the main reason why we have discussion. 00:06:17.100 |
When we have differences of opinion, it has to be because of what we see in Scripture. 00:06:22.620 |
So we need to make sure that every elder in the church is able to argue 00:06:32.240 |
They need to know and be able to handle from Genesis to Revelation. 00:06:35.800 |
They need to be able to recognize false doctrine and not only to recognize it and say, "Hey, 00:06:40.720 |
Pastor Peter, there's something bad going on in there. 00:06:43.360 |
Every elder needs to be able to sit that person down and say, "These are what's wrong," 00:06:47.540 |
and go through the Scripture and rebuke and refute them to protect the church. 00:06:51.260 |
So the elder is not only to govern the church, to shepherd the church, 00:06:56.780 |
And so, again, more elders who are able to handle the Word of God 00:07:02.080 |
and who understand what the Word of God says, it will add to ultimately what we're trying 00:07:06.680 |
to establish in the church, what God is trying to establish in the church. 00:07:09.120 |
To exhort, to be able to teach sound doctrine, to refute those who contradict what we know. 00:07:18.260 |
So let me just give you a broad outline of what we asked him to do. 00:07:23.100 |
So beginning of last year, we asked to confirm if there was any strong opposition in the church 00:07:30.020 |
to establish, you know, possibly add him as a candidate as eldership in the church. 00:07:35.380 |
We had basically 99% approval in the church and with some concerns of certain things. 00:07:43.520 |
And so, again, we've scrutinized, we've talked to him in a lot of details, 00:07:49.620 |
and I'm going to go over that in the part of the testing. 00:07:51.720 |
And so we've dealt with certain things that came up, certain things that we already knew. 00:07:59.200 |
Certain things that we wanted to bring to light to see, 00:08:04.360 |
And again, some of that is going to come up in the discussion 00:08:07.060 |
because the testing isn't simply about knowledge. 00:08:09.720 |
The majority of it is about can he handle the Word of God. 00:08:12.620 |
But also, we want them to be aware, and we want you to know 00:08:19.720 |
If the position of eldership is important to this degree that we would test a man publicly 00:08:29.560 |
to know the Word of God to this degree, we also want you to understand that his character 00:08:34.500 |
and certain things that we may have had concerns, certain things that you may have noticed, 00:08:38.540 |
that we took that very, very seriously, right? 00:08:41.480 |
If for any reason there was a blind spot, we wanted to make sure. 00:08:45.320 |
And so we've dealt with how he deals with people, dealing with money, 00:08:54.220 |
And so there are a lot of things that we've kind of walked through with James in the past year. 00:08:59.360 |
And even in the last year, I can honestly say just from personally meeting with him 00:09:07.160 |
And even in the last year, there's been -- that we've noticed progress, you know. 00:09:11.240 |
And there's been times I've sat in front of James literally in tears, just broken over his sins, 00:09:18.120 |
broken over his mistakes, that he really wants to improve 00:09:22.340 |
and recognizing what it means to be an elder in the church. 00:09:28.020 |
It says in 1 Timothy 3, 6 that he must not be a new convert 00:09:33.280 |
or else he falls into the temptation of the devil. 00:09:35.400 |
Again, we don't take this lightly because becoming a leader makes it difficult 00:09:41.200 |
It doesn't help because when the spotlight is on that person, there is that temptation 00:09:47.400 |
to be concerned about what people think, right, naturally, 00:09:51.480 |
because there's more people looking at that person. 00:09:53.120 |
So if a brand new convert or somebody who's young who can't handle that can easily get 00:09:58.540 |
to their head, either become overly concerned about criticism 00:10:04.980 |
And so all of these things have been considered in the context 00:10:12.140 |
So we're going to get into the testing portion of it, but I want you to know 00:10:15.740 |
that because of time constraint, obviously, we're not going to be able to answer, 00:10:19.140 |
ask every question that we ask him to prepare. 00:10:21.600 |
But basically know this, we basically asked him that from Genesis to Revelation, 00:10:27.920 |
if we pick any chapter in the Bible that he needs to be able 00:10:30.880 |
to give us an outline, tell us what's in there. 00:10:32.660 |
He needs to be able to know the chronological order of all the events 00:10:38.780 |
He needs to be able to refute any doctrine that we hold and any false doctrines 00:10:46.100 |
that may be going around, and so we need to prepare for all of that. 00:10:48.760 |
So basically, the parameters, there were probably no parameters, right. 00:10:54.020 |
So basically, when he asked what should I study, basically, we said everything. 00:10:57.820 |
And then as he was studying, we kind of narrowed it down, saying like, okay, 00:11:02.240 |
now you can narrow it down to this, and then we gave him, you know, three months out, 00:11:05.520 |
you know, focus on this, and then three weeks out, we tell him to focus on this, 00:11:11.220 |
So we're going to choose different parts of it, and it's going to take about an hour, okay, 00:11:17.360 |
or we're thinking it's going to take an hour, or a little bit less than that, 00:11:23.620 |
So the format of what we're going to do is we're going to have the Old Testament portion, 00:11:27.860 |
New Testament portion, and the theological portion, right. 00:11:30.540 |
And so Elder Joe is going to handle the Old Testament portion. 00:11:36.100 |
Elder Philip is going to be asking the New Testament questions, 00:11:39.680 |
and I will be asking him the theological questions, okay. 00:11:42.940 |
So my portion of it is going to be a certain point, and then at the very end, 00:11:46.700 |
I'm going to ask him some personal stuff, okay, that he could not prepare for, right. 00:11:58.100 |
where there's no preparation he's going to get ready for it, okay. 00:12:01.360 |
So just in case it wasn't tough enough, we made it a little bit tougher, okay. 00:12:08.720 |
I'm going to ask the elders to come up, and we're going to get started. 00:13:20.300 |
So as you well know, I'm going to be asking you questions about the Old Testament. 00:13:25.300 |
So with that, we'll start from the beginning. 00:13:28.800 |
Can you go ahead and outline the major storylines in the book of Genesis, 00:13:33.800 |
highlighting the specific chapters that they encompass? 00:13:38.300 |
So that might be a drawn-out question, but if you need more details, you can ask me. 00:13:46.800 |
>> With respect to Genesis in chapters one and two, you have creation, God taking disorder. 00:14:00.800 |
>> With respect to the book of Genesis, you have God creating disorder from disorder. 00:14:06.800 |
He goes through the creation of all and then into mankind, and then you see the fall. 00:14:12.300 |
After the fall, excuse me, and then in chapter three, that's one and two, 00:14:17.800 |
and then in chapter three, you have the fall. 00:14:20.300 |
You have Satan come in the form of a serpent. 00:14:22.800 |
He deceives first Eve and then Adam, and after that, you see the results of the fall. 00:14:29.800 |
Man is at that point going to work from the sweat of his brow. 00:14:34.300 |
There will be enmity between Adam and Eve and from henceforth, man and woman. 00:14:40.300 |
Eve would experience pain through childbirth. 00:14:44.300 |
However, in Genesis 3.15, you have the proto-evangelion. 00:14:48.800 |
You have God promising that he would one day crush Satan, 00:14:53.300 |
but that he would also inflict damage by striking the heel. 00:15:14.300 |
One and two, three, we have the fall, and then four, you have Abel came and then Telemach. 00:15:16.300 |
Then you have from, and then in six, you have the Nephilim, six to nine, you have the flood. 00:15:23.800 |
Chapter nine through 11, you see the rise of Babylon, the fall. 00:15:29.300 |
Chapter 12, you have the hinge story of Abraham. 00:15:33.300 |
From 12 to 25, you have the journeys of Abraham with respect to 15 and 17, credited as righteousness. 00:15:47.300 |
After that, from 25 to 36, you have the story of Isaac and Jacob. 00:15:53.300 |
Most pronounced in that is in chapter 27, you have Jacob deceiving. 00:16:00.800 |
From 29 to 31, you have Jacob being deceived by Laban. 00:16:05.800 |
And then in 32, you have Jacob wrestling with God. 00:16:08.800 |
From 37 to 50, you see the story of Joseph and his brothers. 00:16:21.300 |
And after that, from 39 to 41, he's imprisoned. 00:16:26.800 |
In Genesis 49, you see Jacob giving the prophecy that the star would come from the tribe of Judah. 00:16:33.800 |
The Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. 00:16:35.800 |
I can't go into more detail, but you're asking for a broad outline, so. 00:16:53.800 |
Give me the outline of the book of Acts with in mind Acts 1-8 and how. 00:16:58.800 |
Can you describe how it is fulfilled in the book of Acts as it progresses? 00:17:02.800 |
You said give you an outline of the book of Acts and you said something about 1-8? 00:17:05.800 |
>> Yeah, Acts 1-8 and how that is fulfilled throughout the book of Acts. 00:17:18.800 |
>> Yeah, as Jesus is ascending, he said, you know, go there. 00:17:24.300 |
>> Okay, so you want, if I understand this correctly, you want the progression, correct? 00:17:29.300 |
The progression of the main characters through the book of Acts? 00:17:31.300 |
>> Spreading of the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the remotest part of the world, outlined in the book of Acts. 00:17:37.800 |
>> Okay, so in the book of Acts, you start off with Christ being described as being on earth for 40 days and then he ascends. 00:17:53.300 |
So you see this picture of anticipation of the Holy Spirit coming. 00:17:59.300 |
In chapter 2, you have the Holy Spirit actually coming in power. 00:18:03.300 |
There's wind, there's fire, and they're speaking of different languages. 00:18:07.300 |
Once that happens, Peter gives an explanation and sermon pursuant to the Holy Spirit coming. 00:18:13.800 |
He explains the purpose of the Holy Spirit coming. 00:18:16.800 |
He invites baptism and repentance and then baptism. 00:18:21.800 |
And then after that in chapter 3, you have Peter healing a lame man. 00:18:30.800 |
And then he gives a second sermon in Solomon's portico. 00:18:35.300 |
In chapter 4, Peter and John are arrested, told to no longer speak in his name. 00:18:40.800 |
And then afterwards, the church is told of this. 00:18:44.800 |
They pray for boldness. They share everything. 00:18:47.800 |
In chapter 5, you have Ananias and Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit and because of that being judged. 00:18:57.800 |
They're told to go back again to the very people that they were freed from. 00:19:02.300 |
And because they were ordered not to speak in his name, they were going to be executed, but Gamaliel stays the execution. 00:19:12.800 |
And then in chapter 5, in chapter 6, you have Stephen being chosen as one of the seven deacons. 00:19:27.300 |
And after that, the later part of Acts chapter 6 is devoted to Stephen and his wisdom and his miracles. 00:19:34.800 |
And it specifically says that due to his wisdom and his miracles, he was seized. 00:19:39.800 |
In chapter 7, he gives a response to that, right? 00:19:44.800 |
The content of his sermon is from Abraham to Solomon. 00:19:47.800 |
And the point of his sermon is that the prior, your fathers were stiff-necked and so you are also stiff-necked. 00:19:57.800 |
There's a little footnote, not a footnote, but there's a verse at the end where it says that Saul approved of this. 00:20:02.800 |
In chapter 8, you see Saul ravaging the church. 00:20:07.800 |
Despite that, you see the church thriving because you see Philip going to Samaria. 00:20:11.800 |
And there's a parenthesis portion where you see Simon the magician, he believes, but then he wants it for gain. 00:20:18.800 |
And so because of that, he asks to pay to have the power of the spirit. 00:20:37.800 |
In chapter 10, you have the vision of Peter having a vision, neck coming down, and it happening three times where he's told to eat because God has now made a queen. 00:20:52.800 |
And after that, you see Peter right after that in chapter 11 telling the circumcision. 00:20:57.300 |
He's telling the circumcision, "Hey, look, the Holy Spirit came upon this family. 00:21:01.300 |
They received the Holy Spirit just like we received the Holy Spirit." 00:21:04.300 |
Now, what's noteworthy is that in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit came upon different individuals, they were men from different lands. 00:21:12.300 |
However, they were God-fearing Jews because they had came for the festival, right? 00:21:16.300 |
They came for Pentecost, so they were already God-fearing. 00:21:22.300 |
They were not proselytized into the Jewish faith. 00:21:24.800 |
Cornelius and his family, although they are God-fearing believers, they weren't on the same level as these Jewish proselytes, but the Holy Spirit comes on them. 00:21:32.800 |
So right after that, Peter has to explain to them, "Hey, look, the Holy Spirit fell on them," right? 00:21:37.800 |
And then after that in chapter 12, chapter 13 to 15, you have the missionary, first missionary journey of Paul, Paul and Barnabas. 00:21:45.800 |
And then the second missionary journey occurs in 15 to 18, the third in 18 to 21. 00:21:50.800 |
What's noteworthy is that with respect to Acts 15, you have the Jerusalem Council. 00:21:56.300 |
And then up to that point, right before Acts 15, right, you have Acts chapter 8, where Philip is going to Samaria and preaches to the Ethiopian eunuch. 00:22:06.300 |
You have Acts chapter 10 and 11, like I just described, where the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his family. 00:22:12.800 |
And so you have a Jewish sect coming in, and they're saying, "They must first be circumcised according to the custom of Moses." 00:22:20.800 |
And so the question arose, "Do you first need to become Jewish to be a Christian?" 00:22:25.800 |
And on top of that, "If you're Christian, do you need to conform to the custom of Moses?" 00:22:31.800 |
And that's dealt with in Acts chapter 15, right? 00:22:35.300 |
In Acts chapter 15, what happens is Peter explains what happened with respect to Acts chapter 10 and 11, that he saw the Holy Spirit. 00:22:44.800 |
And then James, the Lord's brother, also says, "They should not bear a yoke that our fathers could not bear." 00:22:50.800 |
A little bit broader. So following the outline of Jerusalem, right? 00:22:58.800 |
And so you've explained how that has transitioned into the Gentiles and then Samaria. 00:23:04.800 |
So if you can just give us a broad outline, because we want to get to the other questions too, about how the progression of the gospel. 00:23:10.300 |
Sure. And then I'll skip to, I think what's noteworthy are the missionary journeys. 00:23:14.800 |
You see Paul going to, depending on which missionary journey, first Lystra, Pergamum, Antioch, Iconium, Cyprus, and the last is Lystra. 00:23:31.800 |
And after that, with respect to a second missionary journey, you see Paul going back to Derbe and Lystra, Philippi in Macedonia. 00:23:38.800 |
And then you see him go to Thessalonica, Berea, and then what's noteworthy is Athens, right? 00:23:44.800 |
Because in Athens, he's preaching to the philosophers in the marketplace. 00:23:49.800 |
And so now, in the first missionary, Paul said, "You know what? I'm going to give up. I'm going to go to the Gentiles." 00:23:55.800 |
He already said that, but he was still going to the synagogues. 00:23:58.800 |
Here, you see him actually going to a predominantly Gentile city that was the epicenter of Gentile influence, 00:24:07.800 |
specifically Greek and Roman, well, Greek philosophy at the time. 00:24:11.800 |
I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, but okay. 00:24:17.800 |
What is the primary distinction between covenant theology and dispensational theology, and why is this important for the average Christian? 00:24:26.800 |
I think to explain the primary difference, one needs to understand, at least with respect to its definition, right? 00:24:48.800 |
One views the Bible a certain way. Covenant theology views the Bible a certain way. 00:24:52.800 |
Dispensational theology views the Bible a different way. 00:24:55.800 |
Covenant views it based on a major covenant, and then subordinate covenants under that. 00:25:00.800 |
Dispensational theology views the Bible as God working progressively and through different ways throughout times. 00:25:06.800 |
Generally speaking, there's different levels. There's classical, and there's progressive. 00:25:10.800 |
And even within covenant theology, they might differ on certain fine points. 00:25:15.800 |
But generally, that's how they kind of view each other. 00:25:18.800 |
So, the bottom line difference, because you're viewing one pursuant to a covenant, and one pursuant to God working, for the most part, in different ways throughout different times, 00:25:30.800 |
the primary difference becomes a hermeneutic. 00:25:32.800 |
Because you're looking at something specifically through a covenant, God is working this way, and one, you're not. 00:25:40.800 |
So what ends up happening is, with covenant theologians, I'll fast forward a little bit. 00:25:45.800 |
With covenant theologians, what they will say is, "All the promises to national Israel have now been disinherited and are now fulfilled in Christ." 00:25:55.800 |
And they say that because of their framework. 00:26:01.800 |
Dispensational theologians will not say that. 00:26:04.800 |
They'll say, "The promises with respect to the nation of Israel are still binding, and they will occur." 00:26:13.800 |
So, you have in Isaiah 49, for example, where God says, "You're the new Israel." 00:26:19.800 |
Peter says the same thing, "We are the new Israel." 00:26:21.800 |
And so they take those verses and say, "Therefore, we're the new Israel." 00:26:26.800 |
And covenant theologians, the other argument is, throughout time, God has, in essence, at many times, disinherited a majority of the population, hence the term "remnant." 00:26:40.800 |
But where that fails, in my opinion at least, I'm sorry there isn't a covenant theologian here, but I'm trying to be objective here. 00:26:48.800 |
The portion where that fails is that the promises were specifically to the nation of Israel. 00:26:56.800 |
And so, if you want to talk about some of the promises, right? 00:27:00.800 |
Isaiah 49 to 55, with respect to the coming of the Messiah, and then at the end, with respect to the second coming. 00:27:17.800 |
You want to talk about Obadiah, the last verses of Obadiah. 00:27:32.800 |
These are all promises to the nation of Israel that a physical kingdom will be set up. 00:27:39.800 |
So if you're a covenant theologian, your thinking is, because the nation of Israel has been disinherited, now we have Jesus. 00:27:49.800 |
So if we skip to Revelation 20, and this is where the biggest difference is. 00:27:53.800 |
If you skip to Revelation 20, the millennial kingdom is happening now. 00:28:00.800 |
If you're a covenant theologian, a faithful one, you're going to say, "I'm either amillennial or postmillennial." 00:28:08.800 |
Postmillennialism has kind of fallen out the wayside, but you're an amillennial. 00:28:12.800 |
So the kingdom is here, and it's now, and we can bring it in, and Jesus is reigning. 00:28:18.800 |
The dispensational theologist will say, "It's already, but not yet." 00:28:22.800 |
He's reigning in one sense, but he will reign another sense in a physical way. 00:28:27.800 |
So I want you to now speak to a college student who's sitting there. 00:28:59.800 |
So, Caleb, the reason it's important is because-- 00:29:06.800 |
The reason it's important is because when you come to the Word of God, right, 00:29:11.800 |
you want to have a high view of the Word of God. 00:29:14.800 |
And one of the prerequisites to having a high view of the Word of God is the following. 00:29:26.800 |
In my opinion, when you hear God saying certain promises to the nation of Israel 00:29:33.800 |
and you say that they are inherited, they're fulfilled in Christ, 00:29:37.800 |
then essentially what you're saying is, "Well, I guess he didn't really say that. 00:29:48.800 |
If he didn't really mean that, if he didn't really say that, 00:29:56.800 |
But if you're really bad like Israel, he might disinherit you if you're really bad. 00:30:01.800 |
That's what it essentially means because if you're saying because of their disobedience 00:30:05.800 |
that Israel was disinherited, then why can't I be disinherited? 00:30:11.800 |
Romans 11 says, "Hey, look, don't get--" I'm speaking to a college student. 00:30:20.800 |
Because if the natural branches weren't saved, why are you going to be saved? 00:30:26.800 |
And so when you hear that, subconsciously in your mind, 00:30:31.800 |
the promises of God are there, but they're not really there. Right? 00:30:46.800 |
if you take the view that God did say what he actually said, 00:30:51.800 |
then the realm of salvation becomes a little bit more multidimensional. 00:30:59.800 |
And you are going to fail, but at the same time, 00:31:02.800 |
the Holy Spirit inside you, that seal, is a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance. 00:31:09.800 |
I don't think you can consistently advocate that point of view 00:31:12.800 |
because if you say that Israel was disinherited, then I'm no different. 00:31:23.800 |
Okay, we won't go through a long list of a whole book. 00:31:27.800 |
We'll talk about the cities of refuge in numbers. 00:31:30.800 |
Can you name all of the cities and the requirements given in numbers, 00:31:33.800 |
what chapters, regarding the rules and regulations regarding the cities of refuge? 00:31:43.800 |
The cities of refuge are six cities that are equal distance from the various other cities, 00:31:48.800 |
and they're cut in half, east and west, from the Sea of Jordan. 00:32:02.800 |
Shechem, Bezir, Hebron, Kadesh, Ramoth, Gilead-- 00:32:11.800 |
Golan, Ramoth, Gilead, and Bezir are east of the Jordan. 00:32:17.800 |
Kadesh, Shechem, and Hebron are west of the Jordan. 00:32:21.800 |
Sorry, I just want to make sure I got that right. 00:32:26.800 |
They were equal distances from the Levitical cities. 00:32:32.800 |
If there was an unintentional killing, a killing without malice aforethought, right? 00:32:39.800 |
You're chopping wood in the forest, you've got your axe, 00:32:43.800 |
and then your blade falls off and you kill some dude. 00:32:48.800 |
Now, that doesn't mean a lot to the daughter, to the son, or to the husband. 00:32:53.800 |
So the avenger of blood, he's going to come after you, 00:33:01.800 |
God viewed that differently from murder with malice aforethought. 00:33:06.800 |
So you can go to these cities that were set on a hill. 00:33:12.800 |
Depending on the result of the trial, let's say you stay in, 00:33:15.800 |
you can stay there until the death of the high priest. 00:33:20.800 |
If you left before the death of the high priest, 00:33:28.800 |
you can then go down and you can live your life again. 00:33:32.800 |
So what is the significance of that in the New Testament? 00:33:38.800 |
You think about the equal distance from the city, right? 00:33:45.800 |
regardless of race, religion, age, or creed, we all have access to him. 00:33:53.800 |
This wasn't, you know, Lothlorien and Misty Wood. 00:33:57.800 |
I mean, like, you know, you didn't have to, like, 00:34:07.800 |
On top of that, you committed a sin that you didn't even know you committed. 00:34:12.800 |
You're chopping wood and axing and flies off, kills some dude. 00:34:17.800 |
I mean, it's a big deal, don't get me wrong, right? 00:34:27.800 |
You might not have meant to kill them, but you still killed them, right? 00:34:34.800 |
You were negligent, but there's still hope for you. 00:34:38.800 |
What's interesting is that your life is intertwined with the high priest, right? 00:34:43.800 |
So you go down before the death of the high priest, you're on your own, right? 00:34:48.800 |
You go outside of Christ, you're on your own. 00:34:52.800 |
The death of the high priest, obviously Jesus doesn't die. 00:34:59.800 |
Can you mention something about the roads that led to the cities of refuge? 00:35:04.800 |
Oh, sorry. They were clear and they were paved. 00:35:16.800 |
So all the best roads in Israel were the roads that led to the cities of refuge. 00:35:25.800 |
So in order to speed it up, let's try to give a condensed version. 00:35:35.800 |
Give us a chronological order of the letters written in the New Testament 00:35:41.800 |
understanding that there are some controversies as to some of the books, 00:35:44.800 |
but to the best of your ability as you understand it, 00:35:47.800 |
a chronological order of how the books were written. 00:35:54.800 |
Can you give them a little bit more condensed? 00:36:05.800 |
Yeah, let's just limit it to the Paul's epistles. 00:36:28.800 |
Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, 00:36:56.800 |
What is the role of the law in the Christian life in the new covenant? 00:37:00.800 |
And why is this important to the college student? 00:37:04.800 |
Do you want me to answer as I'm speaking to college students, Pastor Peter? 00:37:23.800 |
I think it's tempting as a Christian because tempting to think of the law as less important than, 00:37:35.800 |
let's say, the Gospels or the epistles of Paul. 00:37:37.800 |
And the reason it's tempting to do that is because in our minds, well, it's fulfilled. 00:37:41.800 |
Why would I want and why would I need to know something that's already been fulfilled? 00:37:48.800 |
The first thing I would say to that is the law is scripture. 00:37:54.800 |
And all scripture is profitable for correcting, reproof, teaching, training, and righteousness. 00:38:01.800 |
It might not be in that order, but all scripture is profitable for that. 00:38:05.800 |
Psalm 19, David says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, 00:38:09.800 |
converting the soul or reviving the soul, depending on which version you're using." 00:38:14.800 |
But before the New Testament is written, the psalmist is saying, 00:38:18.800 |
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting or reviving the soul." 00:38:22.800 |
Now, we might not normally think of the Ten Commandments as reviving my soul. 00:38:33.800 |
Also in Leviticus, obviously, but we're called to live holy. 00:38:45.800 |
You want to know about God's care for the—as we learned about today— 00:38:48.800 |
God's care for the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, the poor. 00:38:55.800 |
Read Deuteronomy 16 to 19 specifically. 19 to 26 as well. 00:39:03.800 |
You want to know about God's care for the temple, the church? 00:39:11.800 |
You want to know how God's people should live. 00:39:14.800 |
How important it is that the symbolism that we take to the rest of the world as Christians 00:39:20.800 |
is highly regarded, something by us should be highly regarded, because God values that. 00:39:29.800 |
But study the Old Testament, and you'll see a picture of that. 00:39:32.800 |
It doesn't mean much to say, "Well, live holy," but you have no idea what that means. 00:39:42.800 |
In India, the pastors, after they're converted, some of them continue to beat their wives. 00:39:50.800 |
And now you and I might be like, "That's crazy. Why would you continue to beat your wife?" 00:39:58.800 |
But because their culture is so steeped in that, in order to put their women in their place, 00:40:06.800 |
Now, obviously, once you come to Christ, even before that, objectively you can't do that. 00:40:11.800 |
But especially as a Christian, that's not something you can do. 00:40:16.800 |
And instead of judging them, if you want to see God's care for all people, you study the law. 00:40:24.800 |
If you want to see what God means by being holy, then you'll see it right there. 00:40:29.800 |
That's, I guess, in summation what I would say. 00:40:39.800 |
Since we've been going through Leviticus, can you go ahead and go through the five major offerings 00:40:44.800 |
commanded in Leviticus and their significance? 00:40:48.800 |
We have the whole and the burnt, the grain and the meal, the Thanksgiving or the peace or the fellowship. 00:41:00.800 |
We have the sin, and last we have the guilt, the trespass, the restitution, depending on how you say it. 00:41:07.800 |
The sin or whole burnt offering is typically the offering that starts it up, so to speak. 00:41:15.800 |
In the grain and meal offering--and that was a bull, ram, or dove. 00:41:19.800 |
In the grain and meal offering, it was supposed to be seasoned without leaven and with some salt. 00:41:26.800 |
In the fellowship offering, that was given when you want to make peace with your fellow man. 00:41:35.800 |
And so that signifies peace with God and also peace with man. 00:41:40.800 |
The sin offering, it was typically for unintentional sin you committed and then you made a wear off. 00:41:47.800 |
And the restitution offering was the only offering that you could actually pay someone, and it was 1/5 or 20%. 00:41:57.800 |
What you owe, obviously, on top of that 1/5 or 20%. 00:42:07.800 |
So why are you certain that the 27 books of the New Testament is authoritative and final? 00:42:27.800 |
When you think about the New Testament documents, you think of documents from the ancient Near East thousands of years ago. 00:42:36.800 |
There was nothing digital back then, so how can we have faith that the New Testament documents are what they exactly are? 00:42:46.800 |
Number one, now there are over 6,000 documents with respect to the New Testament. 00:42:54.800 |
With respect to the New Testament manuscripts, there were 6,000 documents that are within 99.5% corroboration. 00:43:00.800 |
Now that 0.5% is scrivener error, meaning it's notes error that doesn't have any substantial change to the actual meaning of the text. 00:43:08.800 |
Now, you might look at that and say, "Cool story," right? 00:43:12.800 |
But if I were to come to you, right, if I were to come to you, and I teach this in BCC, but if I were to come to you and ask you, "Did Homer write the Odyssey?" 00:43:30.800 |
There's never a time in high school when you read the Odyssey and the Iliad where you go, "Well, I got some scholarly concerns, AP English teacher," right? 00:43:46.800 |
It's accepted for good reason because there's copies of it, okay? 00:43:49.800 |
So if you have 6,000 for the New Testament, in second place, you have the Iliad. 00:43:59.800 |
So if you are a person who believes in logic, if you say, "Well, I believe Homer wrote the Iliad based on the number of manuscripts," 00:44:09.800 |
then by definition, you must believe that Matthew wrote the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark wrote the Gospel according to Mark, and so on. 00:44:16.800 |
Because the manuscripts are pale in comparison. 00:44:20.800 |
The last thing I'll say is this because I want to truncate it, right? 00:44:23.800 |
Anytime you want a myth to develop, historians will tell you, anytime you want a myth to develop, it takes about two generations. 00:44:29.800 |
The reason it takes two generations for a myth to develop is the following. 00:44:43.800 |
Shantang has wings, and we all made a blood pact. 00:44:49.800 |
We're going to go out, and we're all going to say, "Shantang has wings," okay? 00:44:55.800 |
The reason it's never going to work is because he's alive, right? 00:44:58.800 |
And the fact that he's alive, you can go and you can corroborate. 00:45:01.800 |
You can go to Shantang, examine his back, "Take off your shirt, bro. Do you have wings?" 00:45:08.800 |
If you are removed two generations, if you are removed two generations, 00:45:13.800 |
you make a myth about something where all the people that can verify the claims are now deceased, 00:45:23.800 |
But when you look at--and that's the majority--excuse me, that's all of the other religions, right? 00:45:33.800 |
All by myself about what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. 00:45:36.800 |
Christianity flourished in part because they said, "We saw the risen Christ. 00:45:42.800 |
He was there. I ate with him. He's walking right there. 00:45:48.800 |
Whatever you say, I'm not going to deny it because I saw him." 00:45:52.800 |
This is the last thing I would say to a college student. 00:45:54.800 |
If I had more time, I'd say more, but this is the last thing I'd say. 00:45:56.800 |
Even for something that is true, you might not die for it, let alone a lie. 00:46:02.800 |
If something's false, you're not going to die for something that's false. 00:46:05.800 |
Someone put a gun to my head, "Does Shantang have wings?" 00:46:11.800 |
But let's say, for instance, he did have wings. 00:46:14.800 |
Let's say it was true, and you put a gun to my head. 00:46:16.800 |
I'm still not going to die for it because I don't want to die. 00:46:23.800 |
I don't want to die even if something is true. 00:46:26.800 |
But the problem is Christianity flourished because it was true, 00:46:32.800 |
You're willing to die for something because it's true. 00:46:37.800 |
You're not going to die for something that's false. 00:46:40.800 |
And if it's true, you've got to be convicted of it. 00:46:43.800 |
Actually, as a follow-up, thanks for all that. 00:47:01.800 |
are you certain that this is the final New Testament? 00:47:06.800 |
Okay, in Ephesians 2.20, the foundation was the apostles and the prophets. 00:47:12.800 |
Apostles and prophets--prophets not being the Old Testament prophets. 00:47:15.800 |
Apostles and prophets were the foundation of the New Testament. 00:47:19.800 |
John 14, Jesus said before he leaves in the farewell discourse, 00:47:23.800 |
he says, "I'm going to bring to mind things I told you." 00:47:28.800 |
John 16, he will bring to you all things regarding the truth. 00:47:34.800 |
Jude 3, the faith has been delivered once and for all for the saints. 00:47:41.800 |
And to a little bit more attenuated degree, Revelation 22. 00:47:48.800 |
And so when you look at the formation of the canon, 00:47:54.800 |
because it was promised that it was self-attesting. 00:47:57.800 |
And just so, if you look at the New Testament books, 00:48:00.800 |
every single book was written by an apostle or someone with a close association to an apostle. 00:48:05.800 |
There's only five books that were written not by apostles, 00:48:11.800 |
And if we look at Athanasius' list, it's the ones we have today. 00:48:15.800 |
If we look at the Council of Carthage in 397, it's the ones we have today. 00:48:19.800 |
And the councils did not happen. That list didn't happen. 00:48:22.800 |
Well, you know, let's get together, let's figure this out. 00:48:24.800 |
Those books were already confirmed, which is why at the Council of Carthage, 00:48:28.800 |
they said these are the books, because that's what was known. 00:48:36.800 |
Why is the doctrine of the Trinity so important? 00:48:39.800 |
Why do we consider it heresy to believe in modalism or tritheism? 00:48:45.800 |
The reason it's so important is because, number one, it's scripture. 00:48:56.800 |
God exists eternally as three persons, and God is one. 00:49:02.800 |
He exists eternally as three persons, but God is one. 00:49:06.800 |
Now, modalism and tritheism are on the opposite spectrums of that. 00:49:11.800 |
I don't want to say in the middle, but scripture says three persons, yet one. 00:49:16.800 |
Now, the dogma of the Trinity doesn't come because we don't like modalism or tritheism. 00:49:26.800 |
You look at Psalm 45, "Therefore God, your God." 00:49:34.800 |
Genesis 1, "Let us make man in our image," Elohim, the plural form. 00:49:40.800 |
It doesn't mean three gods, but it's the plural, "Let us make man in our image." 00:49:45.800 |
So already in the Old Testament, you see a picture of the Trinity, Isaiah 9. 00:49:49.800 |
Isaiah 9 says, "His name will be Emmanuel, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." 00:50:03.800 |
"Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." 00:50:37.800 |
And then when you come to the New Testament, you see something a little bit more specific. 00:50:42.800 |
You see Jesus in the extended fire of discourse saying, "I'm going to go, and then you're going to see me." 00:50:48.800 |
How is he going to go, and how are you going to see him again? 00:50:54.800 |
Colossians 1, Galatians 2.20, "I've been crucified, and Christ lives in me." 00:50:58.800 |
How is Christ living in me if he's ascended to the Father? 00:51:03.800 |
Unless the doctrine of the Trinity is actually true. 00:51:06.800 |
Acts 5, "You have not lied to men, but to God." 00:51:13.800 |
So, number one reason it's heresy is because Scripture teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. 00:51:19.800 |
And I can go on about verses with respect to the Trinity. 00:51:24.800 |
So, why is it so important that we get that right? 00:51:30.800 |
Outside of the fact that Scripture teaches it. 00:51:33.800 |
What is the ramification of getting that wrong? 00:51:39.800 |
If you happen to believe in the doctrine of modalism, you say God appears in different forms. 00:51:46.800 |
With respect to God appearing in different forms, at least in my mind, you have a Greek God. 00:51:53.800 |
Someone who's fickle. Someone who just appears this way and appears a different way. 00:51:56.800 |
If you believe in tritheism, Deuteronomy 6.4, the Lord God is not one. He is three. 00:52:03.800 |
The Lord God cannot be one because he is three. 00:52:07.800 |
So, then now I'm a pantheist. Excuse me. I'm a polytheist. I'm a pantheist. 00:52:12.800 |
I'm a polytheist now. I'm not a monotheist, right? I'm a pantheist. 00:52:16.800 |
But in order to avoid a fickle Greek God and a polytheistic Egyptian God, 00:52:23.800 |
I believe in the Judeo-Christian God who is three yet one. 00:52:29.800 |
Alright, good. What I was looking for is the way it affects how we understand the gospel. 00:52:36.800 |
About justification, sanctification, glorification, our union with Christ. 00:52:41.800 |
You don't need to get into all of that. Yeah. 00:52:43.800 |
Oh, I can talk about that. Okay, I know you can. 00:52:45.800 |
Yeah, but don't do it right now. Alright. Joe. 00:52:51.800 |
Can you please go through the Psalms and the Messianic chapters and verses if you know of regarding... 00:53:11.800 |
Psalm 2a, God announced Christ to be his son. 00:53:16.800 |
Psalm 8-6, God will put all things under his feet. 00:53:22.800 |
Psalm 16-10, will not leave his son's shoulders, he will rise from the dead. 00:53:27.800 |
22, 12-18, we see details of his crucifixion. 00:54:06.800 |
110-4, priests forever according to the order of Melchizedek. 00:54:11.800 |
And 118-26, he will come in the name of the Lord. 00:54:19.800 |
It's 69, Christ will be given vinegar and wine. 00:54:39.800 |
What is the difference between the feeding of the 5,000 in all the Gospels, 00:54:43.800 |
or not the Gospels, all the Gospels, and the feeding of the 4,000 only mentioned in Matthew and Mark? 00:54:50.800 |
So, in the feeding of the 5,000, and in the feeding of the, sorry, in the feeding of the 4,000, 00:55:02.800 |
In the feeding of the 5,000, it happens near the Sea of Galilee, the area of Bethsaida. 00:55:10.800 |
In the feeding of the 4,000, it happens near the area of the Gerasenes, around the region of the Copolis. 00:55:17.800 |
In the feeding of the 5,000, you have five loaves, and after they are divided, 00:55:38.800 |
The area of Bethsaida primarily being Jewish. 00:55:43.800 |
In the 4,000, you have seven loaves, seven basketballs left over, 00:55:51.800 |
seven being evocative of creation, completion, 00:55:56.800 |
that area being evocative of non-Jewish believers, or Jewish to mixed Jewish believers. 00:56:04.800 |
And so, you see a picture of God not only coming for the Jews, but also coming for the Gentiles. 00:56:14.800 |
Okay, we're going to go back to the Old Testament. 00:56:18.800 |
So, can you kind of walk us through the split of the kingdom of Israel and Judah into two, 00:56:26.800 |
and who the kings were that were involved in that split, 00:56:30.800 |
and can you also explain the sin of the Israelite king who initiated this split, 00:56:37.800 |
and the after effects of his leadership, and what the Old Testament refers to as a great wrong? 00:56:46.800 |
So, the sin that you're referring to is the sin of Jeroboam. 00:56:49.800 |
I'll start backwards. It's the sin of Jeroboam. 00:56:51.800 |
Now, with respect to Rehoboam and Jeroboam, you see the split happening in 1 Kings 12. 00:56:57.800 |
Now, before that, just to give a truncated example, there was always been Eminy, 00:57:01.800 |
because going back to Rachel and Leah, right? 00:57:03.800 |
And then you see the tribe of Benjamin almost being wiped out at the latter portion of Judges. 00:57:08.800 |
You fast forward a little bit, David had a tough time with the Benjamites, right? 00:57:14.800 |
That was fractured when you see Absalom take over. 00:57:18.800 |
But once again, you have, at least prior to that, a united kingdom, 00:57:26.800 |
And in 1 Kings 11, Ahijah the prophet goes to Jeroboam and says, 00:57:30.800 |
"Look, I'm going to give you the tent, right? 00:57:33.800 |
I'm going to give you the tent, and the reason is because they were unfaithful." 00:57:36.800 |
That's essentially the reason given in 1 Kings 11, right? 00:57:40.800 |
So, Solomon hears about this, he tries to kill Jeroboam, 00:57:44.800 |
he flees to Egypt, after the death of Solomon, he comes back, 00:57:47.800 |
he goes to Rehoboam, he demands a lighter tax burden, 00:57:50.800 |
because, like his father, he was heavily taxing the nation of Israel. 00:57:56.800 |
So, obviously, they weren't pleased with that. 00:58:02.800 |
Obviously, we know that that's not the only thing because of 1 Kings 11. 00:58:05.800 |
But, Jeroboam then takes ten, all the tribes besides Benjamin Judah, 00:58:12.800 |
goes up north, sets up a system of worship in Dan and in Bethel. 00:58:20.800 |
And when he sets up a worship between Dan and Bethel, 00:58:25.800 |
"These are the gods that brought you out of Egypt." 00:58:28.800 |
So, number one, you have a difference of location. 00:58:30.800 |
They are no longer going to pilgrimage to Judah. 00:58:33.800 |
Can you explain why he did that, why he set up those locations? 00:58:39.800 |
To ultimately consolidate power. I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. 00:58:42.800 |
Yeah, basically, because he didn't want the people to go to Jerusalem 00:58:46.800 |
to basically worship and then turn back to Rehoboam, correct? 00:58:56.800 |
Yeah. Which letter has the most extensive use of the Old Testament, and why? 00:59:07.800 |
So, when you say "letter," obviously you don't mean "gospels," correct? 00:59:13.800 |
Okay. So, and when you say "extensive use," I mean, quotes, allusions, 00:59:28.800 |
Revelation has maybe 240, 30, depending on how you count, the quotes are allusions, right? 00:59:34.800 |
Romans and Hebrews obviously has anywhere between 80 and 90, 00:59:37.800 |
depending on how you count the quotes or allusions. 00:59:39.800 |
Matthew has somewhere between 90 and 100, depending on how you count the quotes or allusions. 00:59:43.800 |
The book of Matthew is primarily showing Jesus as the Messiah, 00:59:46.800 |
so for that reason he's going to quote the Old Testament extensively. 00:59:49.800 |
In the book of Romans, you have the backdrop of it, Jewish Christians being exiled, 00:59:55.800 |
now they're coming back, so Paul has to speak to them, 00:59:57.800 |
"How are you going to get together? Let me give you an exhaustive treatment of the gospel." 01:00:01.800 |
So, he goes through the entire gospel, right? 01:00:03.800 |
And Romans 4 is obviously noteworthy because it explains the life of Abraham. 01:00:06.800 |
Hebrews, obviously, because you have Jewish Christians, right, 01:00:11.800 |
who have experienced hardship, but they want to turn back into Judaism, 01:00:17.800 |
So, in order to have the author of Hebrews encourage these Jewish Christians not to turn back, 01:00:24.800 |
he's using presupposed authority to teach them why they shouldn't turn back. 01:00:29.800 |
Instead of using New Testament scripture, he's using Old Testament scripture, 01:00:32.800 |
which they already presuppose as authority to encourage them not to turn back. 01:00:36.800 |
Revelation, because you have a ton with respect to the Messianic kingdom all throughout the prophets. 01:00:44.800 |
Alright, so we're going to wrap up this portion of it. 01:00:46.800 |
If you have one more question, you can ask, okay? 01:00:49.800 |
Something that's not going to take 15 minutes. 01:00:54.800 |
Yeah, I have a question that's going to take like an hour, so we'll skip that. 01:01:01.800 |
Just can you go ahead and identify the pre-exile, exile, and post-exile prophets? 01:01:10.800 |
Sure. Pre-exile, well, Jeremiah's pre-exile, because he's kind of in, he survived both. 01:01:16.800 |
But with respect to Jeremiah being in those both new camps, 01:01:20.800 |
you have Isaiah, and then Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Abbaqit, Zephaniah being pre-exile. 01:01:29.800 |
And then post-exilic, you have everyone else, which is... 01:01:33.800 |
Excuse me. Exilic first. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and then post-exilic, Haggai, Zechariah, and then Malachi, 01:01:51.800 |
What was the significance of the transfiguration? 01:01:59.800 |
Moses and Elijah, you see Jesus in his glory, right? 01:02:02.800 |
And then you say God, you hear God say, "Listen to him." 01:02:08.800 |
So you have the representative from the law, the representative from the prophets, 01:02:12.800 |
but Jesus is the one being glorified, and you send God saying, "Don't listen to Moses. Don't listen to Elijah. Listen to Christ." 01:02:18.800 |
And later on, they would find encouragement from this. 01:02:21.800 |
John 1, we have seen his glory. 2 Peter 1, we have seen his glory. We heard it from the mountain. 01:02:28.800 |
And it fueled them and encouraged them, but also showed Christ as God's son. 01:02:38.800 |
So we can go on and on, and we know, again, the purpose of this is to kind of test him, to make sure that he did his homework, 01:02:47.800 |
and I guess we could stay here three, four hours or more the rest of the day and to keep testing him. 01:02:52.800 |
But again, I think he did a great job doing that. 01:02:55.800 |
But I want to ask some more personal questions concerning the eldership. 01:03:01.800 |
What's a doctrinal position? Again, you don't have to go into the details of it. 01:03:05.800 |
Just tell us, what's a doctrinal position that you changed within the last five to ten years, if there are any? 01:03:17.800 |
Okay, five to ten years. I'm trying to think how old I am. So 28 to now. 01:03:30.800 |
I think the major doctrinal shift that I had that's most noteworthy to me is my shift on Romans 7. 01:03:42.800 |
There was a period in my time where I found the research of theological positions quite interesting, 01:03:51.800 |
and this was when I was living with Pastor Aaron, Brandon Wong, and some other guy no one here knows. 01:04:00.800 |
But I came to the conclusion that Romans 7 was talking about a Christian who was struggling. 01:04:12.800 |
Through my time in studying the last year, specifically for this elders exam, 01:04:19.800 |
I had a chance to really take a bird's eye view of scripture. 01:04:23.800 |
And I'm not saying therefore I'm right. That's not what I'm saying. I'm giving you my personal testimony. 01:04:28.800 |
I had a chance to look at a bird's eye view of scripture. 01:04:32.800 |
And now, obviously because of the exam, I have to memorize. I'm committing things to memory. 01:04:36.800 |
I don't think anyone would have been impressed if I came up here and said, "Hold on. Let me Google this real quick." 01:04:42.800 |
So as I was committing things to memory, one thing I noticed about Romans 7 that I had to concede— 01:04:51.800 |
can I explain the shift as well, Pastor Peter? 01:04:58.800 |
If I believe that Romans 7 is talking about a Christian, 01:05:02.800 |
then I have to believe that that's the only place in the scripture where a Christian is described in that way. 01:05:07.800 |
In every other portion of scripture, the Christian and the Holy Spirit is described as victorious. 01:05:12.800 |
You see that when Jesus comes on the scene, and then he is making the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, and he's raising Lazarus. 01:05:21.800 |
And then in every other portion of scripture, we are commanded to obey. 01:05:25.800 |
How can that be if Romans 7 is talking about a struggling Christian? 01:05:30.800 |
And right before that, right before the last part of Romans 7, he's talking about the law and the spirit. 01:05:39.800 |
It sounds like, at least in my opinion after reading it now and studying it, 01:05:43.800 |
it sounds like he's talking about a faithful Old Testament Jew who doesn't have the spirit. 01:05:48.800 |
But now we have the spirit in Romans 8. Therefore, there's no condemnation in Christ. 01:05:52.800 |
That's the biggest major shift that I can think of, which I'm truncating. 01:05:58.800 |
What is a doctrinal position that you have difference in with the current leaders? 01:06:11.800 |
I am currently as I stand, I am somewhere between, depending on what day you ask me, I guess, what day of the year, what day of the week you ask me. 01:06:30.800 |
I am somewhere between 51 and 75 percent confident that Christians will be raptured pre-tribulation. 01:06:38.800 |
That the tribulation will be pre and not post or mid. 01:06:58.800 |
The only other one I could think of is infant salvation, but I'm not. 01:07:06.800 |
That's the only one that comes to my mind, but I'm not over 50 on that. 01:07:11.800 |
I'm like. I'm like 48 and then 52 and then 36. 01:07:29.800 |
Yeah. Maybe there. I'm 99 percent sure there's nothing else. 01:07:33.800 |
99 percent. So what is that one percent that you're not sure? 01:07:47.800 |
What is something that you are concerned about? 01:07:52.800 |
If we confirm you as an elder in the church, as you examine yourself, 01:07:58.800 |
you know, in the ears and conversations that we have, 01:08:02.800 |
what's a concern that you have of yourself becoming an elder in the church? 01:08:24.800 |
I think that if I am indeed confirmed, I will inevitably, 01:08:42.800 |
I will inevitably do something or say something that I highly regret, 01:08:59.800 |
Joe or Phillip would never do something like that. 01:09:01.800 |
I mean, anything is possible, but Joe or Phillip would never. 01:09:16.800 |
My bet is that I will do something or say something that is unbecoming of an elder. 01:09:30.800 |
I am not speaking about standing up for what is right. 01:09:37.800 |
I am talking about the next day saying to myself, "Why did I do or why did I say that?" 01:09:48.800 |
That is what I think will—I know that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, 01:09:58.800 |
but I think it's inevitable that I will do that. 01:10:01.800 |
If you're asking an honest question, I will give you an honest answer. 01:10:06.800 |
Scripture also says that an elder must rule without compulsion, right? 01:10:17.800 |
He who seeks to be an elder seeks a noble task. 01:10:37.800 |
If you had asked me, "Do I want to be an elder at the age of—what's the youngest number? 01:10:49.800 |
I would have said to myself, "This is God's calling for me. I need to do this. I need to do this." 01:10:57.800 |
As I've gotten older and I have been made more aware of the various sins in my life 01:11:06.800 |
and the things that I am weak to, I began to value anonymity a lot more. 01:11:16.800 |
The reason I value anonymity is because when you're anonymous, you don't hurt people. 01:11:29.800 |
So when you serve, no one's going to say, "Well, he's serving because he's an elder," or whatever else. 01:11:35.800 |
The reason I'm bringing this up is because there's a huge part of me that I know that if indeed I am confirmed, 01:11:46.800 |
There was a period when I was just doing cleanup, and I would lock up. 01:11:59.800 |
I knew at that moment, "I'm doing this for God." 01:12:02.800 |
Going forward, I don't know if I will know if everything I— 01:12:10.800 |
a part of that will be taken from me, I feel like. 01:12:14.800 |
I had so cherished that, especially when I come to value that later on in life. 01:12:22.800 |
Now, you're asking me why. It sounds like I don't want to be an officer. 01:12:25.800 |
Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to ask you. 01:12:27.800 |
I know, but let me answer that question. Sorry, Pastor Peter. 01:12:36.800 |
I struggled with that after I was approached, because that's how I felt. 01:12:41.800 |
That's the place that I was in. That's the place that I was in. 01:12:44.800 |
There's a couple reasons, and I'll give the straight human reason. 01:12:48.800 |
You asked me, and I thought to myself, "Am I really going to say no to you?" 01:12:52.800 |
That's the first thought. "Am I really going to say no?" 01:12:54.800 |
Because if I am going to say no, then just say no now. 01:12:59.800 |
Secondarily, I didn't want—well, you asked me, and I'm like, "No, no, no." 01:13:03.800 |
You asked me, "No, no, no." I'm not going to do that. 01:13:07.800 |
I say yes, or I say no. That's what's going to happen. 01:13:11.800 |
The human thought I had was, "Am I really going to say no to Pastor Peter?" 01:13:16.800 |
The second thought I had was, "Is God calling me to do this?" 01:13:25.800 |
Because if He's calling me to do this, then I have to do this. 01:13:30.800 |
Moses saying, "I'll send someone else. I can't speak," that's not humility. 01:13:45.800 |
Don't mix you wanting to be irresponsible, you wanting to be lazy, with humility. 01:13:51.800 |
Humility is not laziness or irresponsibility. 01:13:54.800 |
Humility is quite different. Humility answers the call. 01:13:58.800 |
The bottom line question I had for myself was, "Is God calling me to do this?" 01:14:02.800 |
If He's calling me to do this, then I want to do it. 01:14:05.800 |
I don't know if that makes any sense, but that was my thought process. 01:14:12.800 |
That's the test portion of it, and I think we are more than satisfied with the answers. 01:14:16.800 |
Again, like you said, we can sit here and test him through all of that, 01:14:19.800 |
and we can testify that James put more than enough time. 01:14:23.800 |
He's been studying the whole year, and we could have waited a little bit longer, 01:14:27.800 |
but we wanted to put him out of his misery, get him back to his wife, have a normal life. 01:14:34.800 |
The process now from this point on is we're going to take some time to, again, 01:14:43.800 |
From now until early, maybe we're shooting for somewhere around February or March, 01:14:47.800 |
before we finally confirm him and install him into the church, 01:14:52.800 |
we're going to give the church an opportunity to respond, 01:14:54.800 |
and not to mumble in the background, "Hey, I have this concern," or this, this, to bring it up. 01:15:00.800 |
If you think that we have blind spots that we are not seeing in James, 01:15:04.800 |
that we want you to take the opportunity to come to us. 01:15:07.800 |
Come to us in private, tell us these are our concerns, have you considered it, 01:15:10.800 |
and we want to try to do our best to answer your questions. 01:15:16.800 |
We're not telling you that we know better than everybody else in the church. 01:15:20.800 |
I've personally wanted James to be on board because I felt that he would add, 01:15:29.800 |
I don't think there's any question of his passion for the Lord, his love for the church. 01:15:34.800 |
I've personally observed him for over a decade. 01:15:38.800 |
We've all seen him from college and mature and married life, and again, as a DA. 01:15:44.800 |
But one of the things that I just, this is more of a personal thing. 01:15:49.800 |
You know, when I turned 50, you know, I started thinking about next generation. 01:15:54.800 |
It just, it wasn't just by choice, it was just, you know, that's just the kind of process you go through. 01:15:59.800 |
And I'm thinking the next, you know, I don't know when, when that would happen. 01:16:05.800 |
That may happen in my 60s, it might happen in my 70s, 01:16:08.800 |
but at some point the elders in the church have to take charge of transition. 01:16:13.800 |
And as I was thinking that, we need, I felt the need for somebody 01:16:17.800 |
who is going to be able to articulate the doctrine, articulate the position, 01:16:21.800 |
and maybe even to a certain degree to fight for the things that we need in the church. 01:16:27.800 |
And so, as I was thinking through these things, I mean, James, to me, 01:16:31.800 |
you know, has been that guy already in the church for many, many years. 01:16:35.800 |
And so, again, the reason why I wanted him to join the eldership is because at some point, 01:16:42.800 |
whether that's five years, ten years down the line, 01:16:45.800 |
that, again, and I'm not saying that I have these thoughts in my mind, 01:16:50.800 |
but at some point we don't want to wait until I'm right there and something happens and then we're not ready. 01:16:56.800 |
And so the elders who are installed and, you know, running the church needs to be able to be strong enough, 01:17:04.800 |
you know, let's say even if I was not here, and to be able to transition 01:17:08.800 |
and to be able to handle that at some point, whether that's ten years, 15, 20 years from now. 01:17:13.800 |
And so, James, I thought, would be a great person to have on board. 01:17:18.800 |
And one of the things that we talked about is, it's really important to us, 01:17:22.800 |
is we have qualifications of character, and as I've mentioned it to you already, 01:17:26.800 |
a lot of the things that you've mentioned in the confirmation, we've talked to, 01:17:32.800 |
James is more aware of it, nothing that you've brought up has surprised us because we knew it already. 01:17:38.800 |
And James is the first person to know throughout the years that I've talked with him, met with him, 01:17:42.800 |
that was the primary thing that we've talked about all these years. 01:17:45.800 |
And if we weren't confident that there has been progress and this is not going to be a hindrance, right, 01:17:56.800 |
We all have flaws that, by the grace of God, covers. 01:18:00.800 |
But, you know, we want somebody who's going to be able to not only just kind of go along with whatever we're doing, 01:18:06.800 |
but who's going to be able to speak up and say, "Hey, I'm not sure if I see that in Scripture. 01:18:09.800 |
I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do. I'm not sure if that's a doctrinal position. 01:18:13.800 |
I'm not sure if that person is the right person for that position." 01:18:16.800 |
And so James would be a great person to add for that purpose. 01:18:21.800 |
And so, again, along with all the other qualifications, 01:18:27.800 |
we want to make sure that this is somebody that loves us, right, and that we love him. 01:18:36.800 |
And so it's in the context of where, even in disagreements, it's a disagreement between brothers. 01:18:45.800 |
I have the nastiest fights with my real brother, right? 01:18:53.800 |
So there are often times where we're in the meeting and we'll have sharp disagreements. 01:18:58.800 |
And sometimes, you know, if I disagree with something, my voice naturally elevates. 01:19:07.800 |
But we want to make sure that when these things happen, when we're struggling and fighting together, 01:19:14.800 |
That we never question that we have our best interests. 01:19:18.800 |
And secondly, we want to make sure that whoever's on leadership loves the church. 01:19:22.800 |
That they would sacrifice their reputation before the church. 01:19:28.800 |
And I've seen this throughout the years, where you have elders who are great, 01:19:32.800 |
and they're doing a great job, and then they get offended, and then they just burn the church down. 01:19:37.800 |
You know, because they're more concerned about their reputation than they are for the church. 01:19:43.800 |
And so, that's something that, again, I'm encouraged with James. 01:19:49.800 |
He would pack up his bag and do something else before he does that. 01:19:53.800 |
And I'm confident that he loves the church sacrificially. 01:19:56.800 |
And so, those are qualifications beyond what I see in scripture that we want to make sure that we have. 01:20:02.800 |
And so, that's the reason why we started this process. 01:20:06.800 |
And again, you know, we're trying to find wisdom in how to best involve you as a church. 01:20:10.800 |
Where we're not just saying, "Hey, just trust us. We're smart." 01:20:15.800 |
So, again, we're going to take this time until the confirmation, until February or March, 01:20:20.800 |
from now until then, if you really feel that these are things that I think are going to disqualify him, 01:20:27.800 |
that's the time. That's the time to bring it up. 01:20:30.800 |
Otherwise, we're hoping that sometime early next year, we'll have a confirmation installation service. 01:20:39.800 |
You can breathe. You can breathe. Take off your tie. 01:20:50.800 |
And, you know, one of the things, okay, you guys can head down. 01:20:54.800 |
Yeah, one of the things that I asked, even before I even asked James, was, 01:21:00.800 |
and Diane doesn't even know, but I was, I actually kind of talked to Diane. 01:21:04.800 |
Diane doesn't know that I was actually poking. 01:21:06.800 |
And to see what kind of influence James was having at home. 01:21:11.800 |
And if Diane said at that time, and Diane had no idea that I was thinking about this. 01:21:15.800 |
If Diane said at that time, it's like, man, you know, I'm having a hard time with James at home. 01:21:21.800 |
If he just kind of said that, you know, I probably would have pulled back and said, 01:21:27.800 |
But Diane's answer is like, man, like, I really respect James. 01:21:33.800 |
And, again, Esther knows, Esther, you know, when she was meeting up with Diane. 01:21:38.800 |
And so we can all confirm that his public life and home life is consistent. 01:21:44.800 |
And so that's part of the reason why I felt comfortable proceeding and asking him to do that. 01:21:49.800 |
Again, but now I'm asking you guys to take the initiative if there is something that you really feel concerned. 01:21:55.800 |
Because not simply because you have something against him, but because you love the church. 01:22:02.800 |
And we need, we're asking you if there are certain things, just take that time. 01:22:09.800 |
And if there are certain things that we need to hear or talk to you about, 01:22:12.800 |
or talk to you about, we'll take some time to do that