00:09:35.960And so, you know, one of the ways that God, you know, whether it be a nation and empires
00:09:41.420or Christodom or whatever it might be, is that God uses those failed empires, all that
00:09:47.000was good in it, right? You know, removing the sin, but all that was good in it, it functions as the
00:09:53.000manure. Toby Sumter talks about this, you know, that makes the ground more fertile in order to
00:09:57.340produce something better the next time. And so as we're seeking to do that, we want to look at
00:10:02.160things that went wrong and we want to look at things that need to be revised. How can we do
00:10:05.800this better? And so my thesis, I want to frame up the show like this. My thesis is I feel like
00:10:11.740over the past 20 to 30 years um in the evangelical world there's been a reformed resurgence right you
00:10:19.140know a lot of guys became calvinists now a lot of them never really became calvinists like you know
00:10:23.700rc sprawl says what do you call a four-point calvinist an arminian you know and so uh so guys
00:10:28.600like mark driscoll never really became uh reformed you know but but some guys actually did and then
00:10:34.420you know god has just over the last few years taken his winnowing fork and and just separating
00:10:38.800the wheat and the chaff. And so some guys went from, you know, young reformed restless to
00:10:43.180full blown apostasy. And then other guys have gone to a four full orbed confessional reformed
00:10:49.760position, not just Calvinistic, you know, Baptist, you know, but, but actually really embracing,
00:10:55.480you know, whether it be Sabbatarianism or patriarchy or like a general equity theonomy,
00:11:02.140you know, or post-millennialism, like more of a full or mature reformed theology. So God took this
00:11:07.260Calvinistic resurgence and half of it went apostate and the other half of it is maturing
00:11:13.360and growing up and not just, you know, boys, but men. And so we thank God for that. And I think
00:11:19.200that what the Lord has done, I'm thinking of not just the young reformed and restless, but thinking
00:11:23.200of just the reformed movement over the last 30 years combined. Ligonier, grace to you. Think of
00:11:27.680like Paul Washer, you know, all these different guys, Votie Bauckham. It seems like what the Lord
00:11:32.820used these men to do in our own lives, and we're exceedingly grateful for it, is really expose
00:11:38.580heresy. So you can have a false doctrine that's unbiblical, but orthodox, that meaning it's wrong.
00:11:45.960We're not relativists, right? So it's like, all right, it's not heresy, but it's still wrong.
00:11:49.060It's still unbiblical. And then you can have doctrines that they're not merely unbiblical,
00:11:52.400but they're outside of the realm of orthodoxy. And it seems like the last 20, 30 years,
00:11:56.440the Lord has used reformed guys primarily, but other guys as well, to expose some of these
00:12:01.240things that are straight up heresy, that will damn you to hell. Things like the prosperity gospel,
00:12:07.280things like Roman Catholicism, things like, you know, that would deny the gospel. And, you know,
00:12:12.760so all these different things, prosperity gospel, I feel like every conference for the last 30 years
00:12:16.740was, you know, it's like half of the speakers would say, this is why Catholicism is bad.
00:12:22.600This is why charismatics are bad. This is why Catholicism is bad. And this is why charismatics0.60
00:12:27.300are bad. And so it's like, great. We appreciate that. American gospel, the documentary they put
00:12:32.060out, I appreciate it. Thank you. But we want to press on to maturity. And so basically for this
00:12:38.980episode, what I want to do is list some doctrines that aren't necessarily prosperity gospel. They're
00:12:44.800not necessarily heresy, but I think they're still unbiblical. I'm going to give my list in order of0.99
00:12:48.860what I think is most dangerous, stunting the maturity of the church to least dangerous,0.85
00:12:54.460but all five being what I would consider orthodox but again wrong unbiblical and unhelpful stunting
00:13:04.640the church's growth and then I want to see if you guys agree with my list if you want to add
00:13:08.820something to the list take something off the list what would be your list of the top five and then
00:13:13.440at minimum I think you guys would disagree maybe with the order of my list so here's my list no
00:13:17.880without further ado number one radical two kingdom theology and in parentheses I'm putting
00:13:23.860there pietism, an idea that it's just the home of the church, the home of the church, the home of
00:13:28.900the church. And so, you know, there's not a single square inch of all of creation that Christ doesn't
00:13:36.180cry out mine. This would be, you know, anti-Kyper, the all of Christ for all of life. They want some0.99
00:13:42.080of Christ for some of life. So a radical two kingdom theology, I think is number one. I think
00:13:47.440it's the worst. Second, dispensationalism, anti-covenant theology. I think dispensationalism,
00:13:53.300that's second on my list of most dangerous. Then I put complementarianism in that. Yeah,
00:13:59.020sure. You know, egalitarianism, you know, but complementarianism, it seeks to make roles,
00:14:05.300God assigning roles to men and women arbitrary in my assessment. And so it lends towards sexual
00:14:10.460androgyny that men and women are really the same. But for whatever reason, God's just determined
00:14:15.580that we have different roles. And I think that's led to a lot of sexual chaos. Number four,
00:14:20.620all millennialism. I think that that's worse in my assessment in terms of stunting the growth
00:14:26.220of the church than pre-millennialism. And so pre-millennialism is number five.
00:14:31.220My last one, the reason why I'm putting all millennialism as more dangerous than pre-millennialism
00:14:35.560is I found, I don't know if it's your experience, but I found that there are more dispensational
00:14:40.820pre-millennial guys, especially the historic guys, but even dispensational pre-mill guys who are
00:14:46.500willing to actually fight in the culture war, that actually want to see all of Christ for all
00:14:51.600of life, that actually think, you know, basic things like Christians should vote. And whereas0.85
00:14:57.360all millennials, I always say, you know, all millennialism and post-millennialism, we agree
00:15:02.960on the timing of the millennium, but pre-mill and post-mill agree on the nature. And I feel like the
00:15:10.660timing is important, but the nature seems to be more important. Pre-mill guys actually think that0.99
00:15:15.180Jesus reigning has an effect on earth, even if he's not reigning yet. Whereas it seems like some
00:15:21.360of the all male guys, not all of them, but a decent amount, the reign of Christ is in terms
00:15:27.280of earthly, tangible, physical effects is inconsequential. And I think that that's a0.85
00:15:32.280bigger problem. So number one, radical two kingdom theology. Number two, dispensationalism. Number
00:15:36.840three, complementarianism, add androgyny, egalitarianism in there. Number four,
00:15:42.280all millennialism, which I think can be another form of pietism and the number five pre millennialism,
00:15:48.220which is just the eschatological pessimism. What do you guys think?
00:15:54.860Yeah, well, I was going to say, Joel, it's overall, I think a good list, like any good
00:15:58.780Presbyterian, you know, we always take our exceptions. It's what struck me is, first of all,
00:16:06.540there should be a picture somewhere on here of Tim Keller. You know, he's been in the news lately.
00:16:12.280been on Twitter. What I would say about his stuff is sort of, I don't know what exactly you call it,
00:16:18.240but sort of the middle way ism. I would definitely put that on this list. That's a good one.
00:16:24.460It's interesting, too, because sort of, in my mind, the two flavors that run through everything
00:16:28.580on the list are sort of like Gnosticism and Pietism. And so like, maybe it shows up in
00:16:34.560eschatology, maybe it shows up in, you know, your sexual theology, complementarianism, for example.
00:16:40.440but fundamentally it's kind of these two undergirding things of pietism and
00:16:44.800Gnosticism that sort of plague everything. You know,
00:16:47.880we don't think that physical bodies and physical realities really matter.
00:16:52.220And so these two things tend to downplay all of them. I don't,
00:16:56.700I don't really have a disagreement I think on any of these. You know,
00:17:00.660we recently did a podcast on our top books and we had about 50 picks for the
00:17:06.280top five so that was my fault i'm very indecisive as these other men yeah eric all the sudden is
00:17:12.760like in my number four cluster is and we're like number four cluster well they're not even like
00:17:18.300connected they're not even connected it was so sneaky but then we all were like okay if that's
00:17:24.720what we're doing that's funny yeah okay so what do you guys think brian dan you know i would i
00:17:30.600would agree with your list in uh everything that's on there i would find similar issues and i think
00:17:36.140The way that you framed the ones that I think people might have the most issue with who are closer to us would be amillennialism and complementarianism, where they might agree with a lot of the other stuff, but maybe not see what's happening in the amillennial instinct that we would object to and say, from the foundations, you are making yourself impotent.
00:17:58.560And it is pietism. It's this instinct where I agree, the premillennialist actually takes these texts more seriously. And they just say, well, we don't think that's happening now, but we do think it's going to happen.
00:18:12.180You know, like Christ reigning from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. Well, that's the spiritual kingdom, the amillennialist would say. And so I do have a lot of respect for those who are, you know, I'm a premillennialist, historic premillennialist, they might say, but it's because I take these texts so seriously.
00:18:31.520Right. So I agree with that. I think complementarianism on the list. Again, what we're talking about and the reason that we need to object to it is because we're basically removing, we're making it arbitrary by removing the reason for which men ought to rule in the home and the church.
00:18:53.160and we're just saying it was a coin flip instead of no god actually made something in the the nature
00:19:00.660of maleness and in the nature of femaleness that will show up everywhere in every sphere of the
00:19:08.140world right and when you lose that principle you've lost you've really lost i mean everything
00:19:14.880in principle and you're going to end up egalitarian eventually i always tell people i always tell
00:19:19.860people with a home in the church you know because it limits it to the home of the church i always
00:19:22.860tell people, you know, an amazing thing happened the other day. It was the Lord's day and my wife
00:19:26.980and I were leaving church and we, you know, we pulled out of the parking lot and she still had0.92
00:19:31.520breast. It blew my mind. It was unbelievable. And I, for one, you know, when I looked over at my0.56
00:19:38.740wife in the seat, I was happy. Praise God. I praise, I sang the doxology again. You weren't
00:19:45.820even in the sanctuary one thing for your other podcast bro i think you're welcome
00:19:50.600one thing i would add to the list um and and i i don't think you actually missed it i think you
00:19:57.540included it in your things we've dealt with in like the prosperity gospel and charismania
00:20:03.020but i i would still add some kind of um instinct of revivalism where where the church is conflating
00:20:12.900emotional response to spiritual things with spiritual maturity.
00:20:18.700And you would add to that like the decisionism, right?
00:20:20.920Yeah, revivalism, decisionism. And I think that while we've probably in a lot of reform circles
00:20:27.120dealt with the formal issues of prosperity gospel and hyper charismania, I don't think that we've
00:20:33.960properly or adequately dealt with the instinct that would say, well, how's your quiet time?
00:20:40.400And what they mean is like, how are your emotions rather than where the more mature Christian
00:20:49.180instinct, which would be to say, my faith is in the objectivity of God's work and his promises
00:20:54.720to me. I'm going to believe them and do my duties before God with as cheerful a heart as I can
00:21:00.600muster today by the grace of God. And I'm going to tell my emotions, kneel to King Jesus. So I
00:21:07.960still think that's that's part of it's all wrapped up in effeminacy this kind of like designing of
00:21:13.040the church service around emotionalistic responses so there's a lot of these that the threads are
00:21:18.940interwoven yeah and i would definitely add that and and with that you know i always think of
00:21:24.300federal vision and doug wilson so i i don't prescribe to federal vision but um i think i
00:21:29.540think that was the heart behind it you know and doug wilson you know in his defense i think good
00:21:34.100intentions. And I think he's backed off. And I think there's also a spectrum within the federal
00:21:38.300vision camp. And there are guys who are much more hardcore than Doug would be. So all that being
00:21:43.680said, all the disclaimers out there, I think the heart behind it, the intent was working against
00:21:50.100the revivalism and decisionism of all these people wrestling with assurance of salvation,
00:21:55.380myself for several years being one of them, like, well, I'm probably not saved. I'm probably not
00:21:58.720saved. I'm probably like every day having to re-decide to be a Christian, having to
00:22:03.800you know, feel something and work something up. And I think Doug was just a lot of different
00:22:08.320aspects, but I really think that that was like the core intention of the federal vision movement
00:22:12.440was just to try to provide some kind of clear, tangible, you know, fruits, evidence, proof of
00:22:21.040like, this is in, this is out. Yeah. This is living faith. Yeah. Objectivity of the covenant.
00:22:26.680Right. And, you know, Joel, after you said that, I'm wondering, maybe you should get baptized
00:22:30.900again. Sounds like you've maybe sinned since we were baptized. So I don't know. You should
00:22:35.680consider that. I don't think it's by accident that we saw a rise in dispensationalism and
00:22:43.700denying the covenants, along with revivalism. And so that emotionalism and the denying of the
00:22:51.700objectivity of the covenant, like Brian said, have gone hand in hand. And so you're positionally
00:22:57.420always unsure because you're you don't have this framework of god's covenants right working but god
00:23:02.780has actually declared over you because you are responsible then for your standing essentially
00:23:08.480in you know apart from these covenants right and so i you know that's not really a surprise
00:23:13.620right and that becomes the motivation the motivation is uh fear-based rather than uh
00:23:18.920confidence in christ and and and it makes sense that pre-mill you know would would go right right
00:23:24.200there with dispensationalism it's like every day i need to make you know so it's it's a diluting of
00:23:29.040the covenantal promises um and and a removal of the objective reality of being in christ and and
00:23:36.160it becomes more of a subjective personal individual feeling and and a decision that needs to be made
00:23:41.580and remade and remade and so there's the fear there fear incentive and then on top of it um
00:23:47.900jesus you know is you know could come back tomorrow you know and and uh things are going
00:23:52.900going to get worse and worse until he does. So you better be resolute. You better be standing
00:23:56.320strong. So it really feels like fear, fear-based. Yeah. And I think, I think another thing that
00:24:02.240could be on the list would be denying legacy, which is a fruit. It's not exactly a category
00:24:08.020in itself, but it's definitely a fruit of all of these because Brian said, this is, you know,
00:24:13.240impotent theology. And this morning I was, I was thinking through this list and I was like,
00:24:18.200this is really castrated Christianity. This is fruitless Christianity. If it was a house,
00:24:22.900it would be like issues with the foundation, with the roof and the HVAC. That's what all of these
00:24:28.080are. And you're not thinking like, oh man, I, I'm, you know, I better attend this so that I can pass
00:24:33.680it on to the next generation. You're like, man, I hope this thing doesn't fall apart in the next
00:24:37.10015 minutes. Right. Yeah. And that's kind of, um, so, so all of these theologies are not looking
00:24:44.220past themselves in, in a lot of ways. You're not going to be passing this on to the next generation,
00:24:49.740like a robust covenant theology, post-mill, Calvinistic theology, passing it on to the
00:24:58.180next generations. It really does deny your legacy. And so just looking through your list,
00:25:03.800I was ready to disagree with you. I really wanted to pick a fight somewhere. And I was talking to
00:25:09.620Brian. I'm like, I think complementarianism should be number one. It's not necessarily
00:25:13.320like my least favorite. Like if I R2K theology, radical two kingdoms, man, I loathe that theology.
00:25:20.340I absolutely loathe it. And I was making an argument to Brian about complementarianism
00:25:25.820being so dangerous because there's so much gravity in our culture towards sexual, sexual
00:25:32.800androgyny, you know, it's towards this like grayness of gray blob humanity, you know, denying
00:25:38.960the image bearingness of God into self-definition of the person. And he said, well, that's really
00:25:48.560kind of the same thing that R2K theology does. It's just another category of it. They're so0.90
00:25:53.560connected. But this, and tying it all together within pietism, the roots of pietism, another
00:26:01.520reason why I would say it's castrated is because pietism in its essence was this pietist movement
00:26:07.780was founded because of how tired they were of fighting this Lutheran pietistic movement.
00:26:13.740They didn't want to fight anymore. And a Christianity that does not fight will ultimately0.91
00:26:19.620lose. They will be swallowed up. It won't produce fruit. I mean, the Bible, the scriptures are just0.99
00:26:26.140chock full of language of fighting, you know, in this, in this cosmic battle. And so it really does
00:26:34.120this list, I think I would put it in the same order you did, even all-mill over pre-mill,
00:26:40.320because we've found the same thing is that we will gladly link arms with pre-mill brothers
00:26:46.940because they're willing, even if our eschatologies are radically different, our motivations,
00:26:53.440you know, you say like, hey, we should go fight. We should go take that hill. And they're like,
00:26:56.460okay, yeah, let's do it. You know, whereas the all-mill guy is like, well, that's a spiritual
00:27:00.900hill it's like no actually the hill's right there it's real we should go take it we can take it we
00:27:05.600should go take it no we should have taken it like jesus is ruling spiritually over the spiritual
00:27:11.040hills right he owns the spiritual cattle on all yeah no they spiritualized jesus right out of his
00:27:17.000lordship for for sure and jesus becomes sequestered his his king kingship becomes sequestered
00:27:23.140and quarantined to the heart right we used to say jesus is lord of all now we say jesus is lord of
00:27:27.660my sweet little heart and and so it's a confinement of of his lordship so i know i think that's great
00:27:33.120dan so real quick can you do this dan let's i think we need to define some of our terms because
00:27:37.220otherwise um people are going to just think that we're egotistical you know just spouting all these
00:27:42.160things we don't actually know what they mean and for me the guiding force of ministry is always
00:27:46.260what people think so uh so uh it shows so i want everybody to like me so let's define our terms
00:27:53.740and, uh, and try not to be, uh, try not to be presumptuous. So, uh, Dan, can you take pietism?
00:27:59.560What would is pietism? Yeah, sure. I can give you, uh, some of the historic roots of pietism and0.65
00:28:05.900then, uh, you know, kind of define it. So really the roots of pietism came out of the 17th century.
00:28:11.980Um, there were folks that were sick of this in this infighting within Protestantism and with,
00:28:18.400uh the catholics you know so the protestant catholic fighting uh was pretty intense i mean
00:28:24.840like you know there's a reason that bloody mary got her name that way because she killed
00:28:29.060protestants i mean so within this uh debating doctrine and and um desire to hammer out truth
00:28:36.660and to figure out like you know what is this reformation what are we reforming what did the
00:28:41.360past say they this pietistic movement the roots of the pietists they grew sick of this this fighting
00:28:47.120And so this led to some movements that is distinct from Lutheranism. It came out of Lutheranism, but it's not necessarily the doctrines of Lutheran, you know, conservative, reformed Lutheran theology today.
00:29:01.340but it's really a distinction between, uh, the head and the heart. And so it became, um, they
00:29:08.220have this really strong distinction between head and heart, uh, of emotion, how you feel and this,
00:29:15.280um, this somewhat disdain for, uh, theology proper. Uh, and so this led to, for example,
00:29:24.120in Bible studies, uh, became very introspective instead of what is true. The question is asked,
00:29:30.540how does this make you feel or what does this mean to you? Uh, and so that's how I would
00:29:35.420describe some of the roots of pietism. And so you can see that, you know, the mega church Ted talk
00:29:43.460sermon is all about how to, how does this make you feel? That is really one of the root questions.
00:29:50.680So even you, you joke, like you care what people think that's, that's a pietistic impulse,
00:29:56.280you know as far as emotions being very important in that movement right yeah no i completely agree
00:30:04.080i would add to that like i you know if i could you just do a two-word definition i say pietism
00:30:08.460is privatized lordship right that jesus is just it's just this personal and so it's this emphasis
00:30:14.240on quiet time right so how do i know i'm doing well in in the christian faith well i have a
00:30:18.920quiet time every single day i've been doing it for 40 years it's great great awesome um so so
00:30:24.320what's the fruit of your quiet time well my my children have gone apostate and um you know and
00:30:29.220uh this and that you know and so it's like yeah okay well faith without works is dead like what
00:30:35.000there should be there should be some fruit of this 40 year quiet time um yeah so thank you it ends up
00:30:41.080being like christianity is a cesspool instead of as a stream yeah you know and so everything gets
00:30:46.280damned up and it becomes rotten instead of having an outflow i like your definition better than mine0.95
00:30:52.200No, no, no. Yeah, it's short. Okay. So Brian, and then I'll go to you, Eric. I want you to do0.98
00:30:57.640complementarianism. Because people are like, complementarianism, why is that bad? But Brian,
00:31:02.100first, can you do radical two kingdom theology? Explain a little bit of that.
00:31:07.880Yeah. Radical two kingdom theology, very briefly, at the heart, it's making a division between
00:31:14.120the common kingdom and the spiritual kingdom. So that's really the sine qua non of radical
00:31:20.020two kingdom theology. It's saying there's this kingdom that Christ rules over. It's his spiritual
00:31:24.300kingdom. It's his church. And so whenever they look at passages of scripture about the spread
00:31:30.260of the kingdom, like the mustard seed, Daniel and the stone in the mountain, they're saying,
00:31:36.120yes, we believe that the church is going to spread through the whole world. We absolutely
00:31:40.460believe that. But then they divorce that from the effect of leaven being present everywhere in the
00:31:47.240world. And they say, well, there's this other kingdom. It's called the common kingdom. It was
00:31:52.240established in the Noahic covenant, Genesis 9. And it basically is just ruled through natural law
00:31:58.260and human reason. So it sounds pretty straightforward. You're like, oh, that doesn't
00:32:04.700sound too bad as long as you believe Christ is going to rule over the church, the spiritual
00:32:07.860kingdom through the whole world. The problem is that as soon as you take that common kingdom and
00:32:13.660say it's not ruled by scripture, and Christians aren't necessarily therefore going to have a
00:32:18.320leavening effect on any of it, you've actually just divorced the transformational effect of
00:32:24.440Christianity from everything outside of the four walls of the church. And that's why what you
00:32:30.820described in complementarianism, with your wife still having breasts when she drove out of the
00:32:35.200church parking lot, really you can see that it's the same instinct. That's what Dan was talking
00:32:40.860about it's the reason that uh i would agree to put radical two kingdom at the top is because
00:32:47.540what's bad about complementarianism is just an outworking of the principles of radical two
00:32:52.700kingdom theology so you know you'll hear people say like um those there's this neutral politics
00:32:59.620is this neutral common kingdom sort of issue um you can read i think brian mattson and another
00:33:06.000guy wrote a book on this where they were talking about how you know two kingdoms guys will say
00:33:11.100yeah so how does the bible affect how you'd make a stir fry and that's like their point of trying
00:33:16.480to say see there are all these neutral things the bible has nothing to do with and their rejoinder0.72
00:33:21.400was like really have you tried making dinner in india where they worship cows right does it does
00:33:28.100your christianity affect the food there food how about deeply religious yeah islam yeah all of
00:33:34.460christ for all of life rather than what you said earlier again great pithy summary some of christ
00:33:40.100for some of life right that's how i would describe radical two kingdom i completely agree and it's
00:33:45.780everything i like i think of art so like um i think it's pollock is his name the guy who just
00:33:49.820splatters paint you know and yeah jackson jackson pollock right exactly yeah jackson pollock and
00:33:54.680it's kind of you know you think of like the you know uh the emperor has no clothes right the little
00:33:59.380boys like the only one who actually has the audacity to say he's naked you know and uh and
00:34:04.060and and i feel like that happens like you know you you go into an art museum and it's the little0.99
00:34:08.540kids who actually have like the gravity to be able to say um i could do this painting this is stupid0.65
00:34:13.820you know and i think what's your favorite painting the storm on the sea of galilee like0.91
00:34:17.440look at all the colors and the people in the boat and they look at this like reader response
00:34:22.260splattering and they're like but that but that came from that secular sacred divide um and and
00:34:27.580everything in the secular realm became subjective. And so art was, was, was secular and, and then it
00:34:33.580became subjective. And then you have, you know, we, we get expressions like beauty is in the eye
00:34:37.300of the beholder. Right. And then you see that even with, you know, pertaining to complementarianism
00:34:41.740and sexual ethics, you know, so now it's like, we, we got to get the fattest chick we can find
00:34:46.300on the cover of a beauty magazine to say this is right. Because there is no objective standards0.95
00:34:51.420of physical beauty. And so like, I think, you know, from a post-millennial framework, I think
00:34:56.520that we're going to have jason pollock paintings in museums uh hundreds of years from now maybe
00:35:00.880it'll be a couple thousand years from now um but but they'll be there so that that society can go
00:35:05.620and kids will go on field trips and stuff like that from their classical christian schools and
00:35:08.820they'll go and and and they'll go and the point will be to go and laugh and make fun of jason
00:35:13.720like and it'll be this glorious god glorifying thing like we'll go and we'll laugh and say isn't0.98
00:35:18.440that stupid like this is what happens when we reject christ um that you know that like we0.93
00:35:23.420actually there were people who actually thought that this was a good painting and the kids will1.00
00:35:26.860laugh and pat each other on the backs we'll all have a good time you know eat a hot dog and go
00:35:30.560home and laugh at jason pollock and it'll be a beautiful thing and you know and we'll laugh at
00:35:34.380you know uh the fat girls on the covers of beauty magazines and all those kind of things and not
00:35:38.660saying that we're making fun of people who are fat but but what we're doing is we're saying we're
00:35:42.360making fun of of the culture that tried to to force us to say that this is beautiful um that
00:35:48.040said beauty is completely subjective no no it's not yes there are there's there's some measure of
00:35:52.840personal preference, but there is a guiding universal transcendent standard of what is
00:35:58.720beautiful. And the same way that, you know, so it's like engineering, right? It's not like a
00:36:03.300free for all. Well, I think that, you know, that the foundation should be built. Like, no, it's
00:36:07.180like there are things at work, right? There are standards and rules for building a suspension
00:36:11.580bridge. And likewise with art, there is a universal standard to be able to say, yeah, that this guy
00:36:18.320is artistic. This guy is talented. This guy, music, right? That guy can't sing. That guy can
00:36:24.400sing. And we continue as a culture to gravitate away from that because ultimately we're gravitating
00:36:31.280away from transcendent standards. What I would say with the two kingdom thing, so that was super
00:36:34.760helpful, Brian. I like to say, maybe you guys will disagree with it. I think you'll agree.
00:36:39.880But I like to say, just to make it real short, three spheres, two kingdoms, one king. Three
00:36:45.240spheres two kingdoms one king and uh because what what's been helped so the lutheran um you know
00:36:50.740perspective like martin luther himself kind of made the kingdoms um relegated them to the church
00:36:55.580and the state you know and then you have you know long long time before him augustine right you know
00:37:00.160the city of god and city of man um but but it seems as though that you know joe boot i think
00:37:05.300is really helpful on this his mission of god and the work that he's done but um we do all four of
00:37:10.460us just for the record for the listener we believe that there are two kingdoms the question is what's
00:37:15.140the dividing line what's the distinction um and so we would say it's not two kingdoms as church
00:37:19.780and state i i would use sovereign sphere language uh for that and say okay there's the home the
00:37:25.420church and the state these are spheres uh the kingdoms is not church and state and it's not
00:37:29.960secular and sacred um or or sacred and common um so it's it's not a secular sacred divide it's not
00:37:36.660church and state divide that's a sphere thing not a kingdom thing um it's light and dark and and the
00:37:42.600thing that blows people's minds, that really blew my mind in the last couple of years as I've been
00:37:47.100studying these things, is that there is the kingdom of light within the civil magistrate.
00:37:53.600And there's most certainly the kingdom of darkness within the church. What do you call
00:37:58.400false teachers will arise from among you, right? What do you call apostates? What do you call,
00:38:05.240that's the kingdom of darkness in the church. And what do you call Constantine, right? Or what do
00:38:11.780you call a christian governor or or mayor or uh what do you call the overturning of roe and there's
00:38:17.220obviously a lot more work to be done um we should have been functioning as roe never existed in the
00:38:22.660first place right why are they desperately trying to codify it and not just codify roe but way beyond
00:38:26.780that all the way to the moment of birth blah blah blah but you know it was never law but the point
00:38:31.020is if if roe is overturned and i think it will be um that that is a a win um there's a lot more wins
00:38:37.000that we need, but that is a win in terms of outside of the church, in the civil sphere,
00:38:43.360the kingdom of light breaking through. If we cure cancer, right? All these things is pushing
00:38:49.700back the kingdom of darkness, but it's not just because someone got saved. And so Joe Boots says
00:38:56.240the church and the kingdom are not synonymous. There's massive overlap, but they're not a one
00:39:01.500to one ratio synonymous. The church only numerically grows one way, conversion. But
00:39:07.300the kingdom of God grows every time the good, the true, and the beautiful, those things which
00:39:12.280align with the law of God and the gospel of God are furthered and pressed forward in any sphere
00:39:20.260of human society. And so nobody could get saved. Now, I believe it would lend towards salvation,
00:39:26.540but initially no one could actually get saved. So the church did not numerically grow.
00:39:31.500but a good law was passed. The kingdom is advancing. And the kingdom advancing in these
00:39:38.740other spheres in all of life, it lends towards the advancement of the church. And to be fair,
00:39:45.880to play the devil's advocate, you know, the blood of the martyrs is also the seedbed of the church.
00:39:49.620So the church grows under persecution, but we act as though that's the only way. And so then we do
00:39:54.840these self-fulfilling prophecies where we rig the game to make us lose because we think that that's
00:39:59.400going to be what's the church, the church grows when it's persecuted. But the church also does
00:40:04.220really great, really great. When, when you have Christian rulers put in place, it explodes that1.00
00:40:10.880way too. So any thoughts on that? Briefly look at the growth of the, of the Christian church0.99
00:40:16.520through the Roman empire. And I think we were under 5% at about 300, five to under 10% for sure
00:40:24.020within a century of Constantine, that number had grown to over 50%.
00:40:29.360So the results of Christian governance, or you could argue about Constantine's genuineness or
00:40:36.360whatever, but the fact remains, objectively, Constantine was claiming Christ and giving
00:40:43.980freedom and decriminalizing Christianity. And the result was explosive growth. So a lot of the time
00:40:51.260people want to universalize that, like you said, that principle of winning by losing.
00:40:55.780Well, yeah, death, burial, and resurrection is true, but on the other side of resurrection,
00:41:00.340there's 30, 60, 100-fold growth, and that's from the seed going into the ground and dying,
00:41:06.200which is going to happen in families and nations. In God's story, it's going to happen over and
00:41:11.460over, but the result, they want to take away the actual results of the seed being planted,
00:41:16.920dying, and coming up. You're like, well, what about the 30, 60, and 100-fold?
00:41:20.060Right. They want to die a million times between now and the return of Christ, but only resurrect once. And we see it as, no, we're going to die and resurrect and die and resurrect. They want to die over and over again, but only resurrect once. And we want to die and resurrect again and again and again as individuals, as families, as households, as nations, all those kinds of things.
00:47:22.980They say, how do we combat the feminism that's going on?
00:47:28.160And really what they do is they say, well, let's really what we want to stress is that men and women complement each other.
00:47:36.360So this is a couple of things. Number one, it's a downplaying of hierarchical order as found in like Ephesians five and six.
00:47:44.660They're trying to stress, hey, look, you guys are, you know, you're different, but you complement each other.
00:47:50.300And they really typically are going to want to downplay the fact that there's, you know, a wife has to submit, a husband is Lord, he is the authority.
00:48:00.380And so even Mary Cassian has written on the Gospel Coalition, she's explained this, she said, we intentionally chose anti-hierarchical language.
00:48:10.620And really, she comes out and says it.
00:48:14.140It was a lot of the, like, Marxist thought that was influencing that decision.
00:48:33.740And, you know, typically, though, what you're going to end up with is men and women, yeah, they kind of have some roles, but it's mostly relegated to family and the church.
00:48:44.240um some uh they've been kind of picked on uh but the john pipers of the world he would be harder
00:48:52.080in this camp where he's saying look i and he won't even honestly he won't even really be that0.88
00:48:57.280hard in my view he won't just come out and say look absolutely not women should not be serving
00:49:02.340in law enforcement women should not be um serving in these like combat roles police officers john
00:49:09.680will say, yeah, that's probably maybe not the best idea. Let's talk. And then you get the Amy0.98
00:49:15.300Byrd, Carl Truman camp, and they were actually ridiculing John Piper for this. So I think
00:49:20.760fundamentally what's happening here, it's a war on biblical sexuality. And I think this one is
00:49:26.040particularly dangerous. I've gone after it a lot because it is such a Trojan horse. It looks like,0.97
00:49:32.660many times is faithful reformed-ish guys who are saying yeah i'm complementarianism you know i'm
00:49:40.580complementarian and and for a long time i would have said that too um i thought well i thought
00:49:45.660that was the conservative position uh because really nobody at the time so like late 90s early
00:49:51.7402000s nobody was really defending patriarchy right it was like well this is horrible except
00:49:57.120for russell moore obviously yeah except for russell moore god bless him yeah that's right
00:50:03.420so i think really it's a war on all of sexuality we have to recognize it as such
00:50:10.920um it's a war against women as well it's not doing women any favors and we can also look at
00:50:16.860the fruit of complementarianism it's been really bad for the church most of the people who've
00:50:21.840defended it uh have given ground pretty quickly to the left and to false sexual ideology yeah i
00:50:29.980completely agree what would you say to somebody who says but we find complementarian principles
00:50:34.240within the trinity right there's a there's a hierarchy in the trinity you know um so like i
00:50:39.140think of like eternal subordination of the son you know so i'm you know you know spoiler alert i'm i
00:50:44.540would adhere to classical theism but for those who would say all right well you know the father
00:50:49.040and the Son are equal in terms of the divine essence, nature, that the Son is fully God,
00:50:56.960not partly God of the same substance, not just a similar substance, but the same substance.
00:51:01.180So their essence and nature is equally worthy of worship and honor. And yet the Son plays a role
00:51:09.480of submission to the Father. And then they would argue, and this continues beyond just his earthly
00:51:14.940ministry, but that he is still subjected to the Father in terms of role, but equal to the Father
00:51:19.560in terms of nature. And if we can see that within the Trinity, then we can do that within
00:51:23.380gender roles with men and women. Yeah, I would say part of the issue here,
00:51:30.160so, you know, like Bruce Ware, I've had him as a professor, you know, friends with Owen Strand,
00:51:36.180a lot of the ESS debate. The way that I look at it is like, why do we even have to go there?
00:51:42.060god said there's authority structures there's hierarchy it's very plain and very clear from
00:51:48.100scripture let's base our arguments on the things that we know and are clear and not on the things
00:51:54.300that are like conjecture about some hypothetical you know it's it's a it's a tough area when you're
00:51:59.760like well how exactly does the um you know certain structure and i think that's typically what's
00:52:05.740going to happen when you spend most of your time studying and researching doctrine of god not that
00:52:10.660it's not important but i think sometimes you can you can miss the obvious like just read ephesians
00:52:16.1205 and it is hyper crystal clear you can read genesis 1 and 2 and you see that i mean any it
00:52:22.840pretty much any honest old testament scholar will tell you the act of naming which god delegates to
00:52:28.800adam is de facto authority and who does he name the woman he clearly has authority over her you
00:52:38.740know submission and obedience i mean these so that's what i would say just go to what's clear
00:52:43.060and it is crystal clear and let's deal with that no that's super helpful just saying you don't have
00:52:48.320to be a master on the trinity to um to be obedient in your marriage yes the trinity matters but uh
00:52:54.340but yeah that's i i didn't even i mean that's super simple but i never thought of it that way
00:52:58.380in the sense that like the the subliminal statement that's being made is um you you have to you have
00:53:03.700to master one of the most difficult doctrines, you know, that we have, doctrine of God, theology
00:53:08.360proper in order to have a position on the nature of men and women. When it's like, well, the secret
00:53:16.080things belong to God. Let's do, you know, Trinitarian work, but some of these things are
00:53:20.740secret things, but the things he's revealed to us belong to us and our children forever. And yeah,
00:53:26.460that's really good. Any thoughts from Dan, Brian on complementarianism or two kingdom or any of
00:53:32.940these things? I do think the urge in the complementarian world to eliminate the
00:53:41.820language of hierarchy is just another example of that egalitarian spirit that runs through
00:53:49.200everything. We're an atomistic, individualistic society where we really want to make every man
00:53:56.360his own Pope, every man his own God. And what that means is that nobody can be an authority
00:54:01.880external to me so then you're stealing from the woman what makes her a person if you put her under
00:54:10.040any kind of hierarchical authority in this if if you buy that presupposition where scripture says
00:54:15.880no everybody is in hierarchical relationships with superiors and inferiors and that doesn't
00:54:21.780that language itself we would object to but historically that's just normal language of
00:54:26.800if you're in a military unit you have a superior it we're not talking about your ontology we're
00:54:34.440not talking about your you know that you're less of an image bearer of god we're saying you're in
00:54:40.160authority and that authority is real and therefore it's a hierarchy like this just terror at the
00:54:46.020language of hierarchy is completely the result of rationalistic individualistic modernism not
00:54:54.800biblical covenantal thinking so another grounds that i would just say interrogate your presuppositions
00:55:01.600modern man and understand that your framework is already from the beginning flawed in the
00:55:08.900foundations so your instincts as you build doctrines on top of it are going to be flawed
00:55:13.700you need to go back to a covenantal hierarchical type of thinking yeah i think the other thing
00:55:20.800there brian it's a fantastic point but the other thing is when you create a theology because you
00:55:27.720want to soften the word of god or appease the culture even if it's just an instinct like well
00:55:33.380how do we make this this thing that's been around forever hierarchy and marriage we how do we make
00:55:37.400that more palatable i think whenever you start there you've already lost it may take 20 years
00:55:42.780to get to the full fruit of it but you already lost the game yep yep yeah what i would say so
00:55:48.900you're right it's this um this obsession with uh egalitarianism and when egal i would say it like
00:55:53.900this when egalitarianism is the goal uh androgyny is the the result um because the only way that
00:56:00.360you can really say that we're equal is um is it's not enough to say we're equal it has to be sameness
00:56:06.400we have to be the same right so that's like for women to actually be equal with men well men can't1.00
00:56:10.540get pregnant you know so i mean that's a part of egalitarianism feminism was you know women allegedly1.00
00:56:16.360right right right birthing persons yeah exactly but but that's when you think like where does1.00
00:56:23.120this come from it comes from feminism and it comes from you know feminism wanting to be equal1.00
00:56:27.660um but realizing we will never be equal unless we're the same but the reality is like god created
00:56:32.840the world uh with divisions and distinctions and he did so um on purpose so we live in a world that
00:56:38.680is designed um with a hierarchical structure and and so it's it's this um the desire for for
00:56:45.700egalitarianism uh leads to the fruit of androgyny and and what it what it's opposing is hierarchy
00:56:52.440you're absolutely right and the the opposition of hierarchy really is an opposition of authority so
00:56:57.580it's a hatred of authority a desire for anarchy um and and that can be applied to a million
00:57:02.520different things so we're just applying it right now to the the sexual ethic but that can be applied
00:57:06.460to economics right so so what do you see happening you see um a hatred of patriarchy oh but you also
00:57:11.240to see a hatred of capitalism right you want socialism which is you know and that so so the
00:57:15.560goal of egalitarianism produces the fruit of androgyny well the goal of socialism produces
00:57:19.240the fruit of communism you know so like um you know and so in all these different levels and
00:57:23.500and and then you see that like in the church i would argue that this hatred of hierarchy and
00:57:27.440these kinds of things um i think that's even been applied to sin right all sin is equal
00:57:31.380nope oh right no it's not no it's not right all sin is equal in the sense that that all sin even
00:57:37.700the smallest sin, whatever a small sin would be, is fully capable of separating you from God and
00:57:43.260placing you under his eternal wrath forever. So all sin is equal in that sense. But Jesus
00:57:47.900pronounces woes on certain cities saying it will be worse for you than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah.
00:57:56.840Woe to you, this Israelite city, you know, and this is, and why? Well, I would say there's two0.67
00:58:02.000things. One, so Jesus says, so talk about hierarchy. There's a hierarchy on earth and the
00:58:06.880world that god made but there's also a hierarchy in hell according to jesus and i would argue
00:58:10.820along with jonathan edwards and guys for a hierarchy in heaven i think it'll be unlike
00:58:15.240any earthly hierarchy that we're well aware of um but but i do think that in heaven there are
00:58:19.940seats of honor right like when when uh the sons of zebedee you know who granted to us lord that
00:58:24.640to sit at your right jesus doesn't say well that's not a thing that's not his response he's like can
00:58:29.600you can you drink the cup that so he's like that is a thing is what he's implying that is a thing
00:58:34.920but I don't know if you'll make the cut because I don't know if you're good
00:58:38.440enough. Right. And which, which is a profound thing. So, so with, with how,
00:58:43.100you know, Jesus even says, but you know,
00:58:44.900to one will be given a light beating to the other will be given a severe
00:58:48.360beating. And that's based on, in my exegesis, it's based on two things.
00:58:52.560Him pronouncing greater woes on, on the Israelite cities is in one sense,
00:58:57.900because they were given greater revelation.
00:58:59.860I think he says that explicitly, right?
00:59:01.520If the signs, if the miracles performed by me in these towns were performed in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented a long time ago.
00:59:09.660So one thing that makes their sin worse is their sin in the midst of a higher degree of God's grace.
00:59:15.120If there's more grace in revelation from God and sin persists versus another scenario where there's less grace and sin persists, well, the sin that persists in the greater context of grace is a greater sin.
00:59:29.180And then I think you can talk about, so one is degrees of revelation, and then the others is just degrees of sin.
00:59:35.540There are some, and we know this from just the law of God, and there being varying penalties, varying penalties on earth for different sins.
00:59:43.840Eye, eye, like God has proportional justice, right? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life.
00:59:50.080So, you know, so my point is different degrees of sin, also different degrees of grace, particularly in the form of revelation, creates a hierarchy of sin.
00:59:58.040All sin, again, capable apart from saving salvation by grace alone, through faith alone,
01:03:07.400calls them all to faithfulness with the measure of faith and gifting he's given them. Egalitarianism
01:03:13.060hates that because it rejects the authority of God in giving his gifts. It wants a world that's
01:03:17.860fair, meaning equal. And the thing is, God did not make a fair world. Jesus even said that to those
01:03:25.100who have little, even what little they have will be taken and given to the one who has much. And
01:03:29.580he's talking specifically about this issue that we're describing. I would say Arminianism has a
01:03:36.120very similar error where it wants to say that God can't make from one lump vessels for honorable
01:03:41.840use and dishonorable use, but that everyone has to have equal opportunity to respond, that
01:03:47.700prevenient grace must go out and make everybody equally able to respond and have the same
01:03:53.480opportunity. And it's like, no, God judges, as you demonstrated, God judges individuals differently
01:04:00.260based on the light of revelation that they had i think that's beyond dispute in scripture which
01:04:06.480that right there assumes that there god doesn't reveal himself equally to everyone exactly that
01:04:11.240doesn't sound fair you can't say that my son had the exact same opportunity to bend the knee to
01:04:18.460christ as lord as the son of some muslim kid right in you know some muslim guy in saudi arabia they0.51
01:04:25.400didn't yeah and christians that try to argue and like come up with elaborate gymnastics to make it0.91
01:04:31.760seem as if that's the case through natural revelation or whatnot we're all responsible
01:04:35.680because of that absolutely but it's just not the world god made god made a world that wherein one
01:04:42.320of the glories would be this massive differentiation and and it's like it is it is far more glorious
01:04:50.160that Tom Brady exists, this sounds really gay now that I say it. But it is. It's far more0.86
01:04:58.000good. Should I call you mister? Why are you gay? No, it's true though. I mean, the fact that there
01:05:05.440are people that can sit down and can intuitively understand engineering and design and build
01:05:13.800things like, you know, guys working on quantum computing right now. I don't even understand the
01:05:19.660terms that you need to understand to get even the concept. And there are people that God made and
01:05:26.640he gave them minds that they do what is the glory of Kings, which is to search out the mysteries
01:05:32.140that God has hidden in the world. And so it's like egalitarianism just wants to make this
01:05:37.260big gray homogenous lump out of everything. And the prop one argument against it isn't just
01:05:43.680theological it's just well that's boring it's the argument from boringness and and god didn't make
01:05:50.200a boring world god made it because god himself is interesting god made an interesting world yeah
01:05:55.260and he the the creator maintains the rights like the master of the house the owner he maintains
01:06:01.040the rights um to to be generous with what he has and to give to one and i always you know that the
01:06:07.300parable like you said that you know the one one talent two talents five you know and the two talent
01:06:11.480guy doubles to four and the five doubles to 10. And, you know, but the one, he buries it, you
01:06:16.700know, in the sand, he hides it. And, you know, I always thought, I think a lot of Christians think
01:06:21.480that that's, you know, an expression of what's coming across as he's fearful. He was driven by0.86
01:06:27.380fear and that's why he buried it. Whereas I would say that he was driven by hatred of the master
01:06:31.760because he didn't think the master was fair. So, because ultimately, so when he says the master
01:06:36.540returns and he's like, you know, what have you done? What fruit have you produced? And he says,
01:06:41.480why I hid, uh, the talent that you gave me because, um, and, and what he's, what he's
01:06:46.780ultimately saying, what he's implying is because you gave me so little, uh, you gave me such a
01:06:51.340small investment that if I was to try to, you know, invest this in the markets and do this
01:06:56.280and that, it was so little that, um, I probably would have lost it. Right. That's, that's what
01:07:00.180he's saying. And, um, and, but beyond that, he says, I knew you to be a hard master reaping
01:07:05.620where you did not sow, right? And, and, and the master, you know, responds by saying, if you knew
01:07:11.760me to be like that, this is what you would have done. You would have at least, right? So you're
01:07:17.520saying it's not, it's not hatred. It's just fear. And it's really my fault because I gave you too
01:07:21.660little. And I'm also not, not only was I stingy and gave you too little, but I'm also unjust. I
01:07:27.040try to reap where I don't sow. And, and so what the way he's responding is he's saying, okay,
01:07:32.320I'll accept your premise. And I'm going to prove that you're a liar. If your premise was true,0.99
01:07:41.120this is how somebody who actually believes that would have behaved. You would have at least
01:07:46.380invested with the bankers so that I might receive interest. So you buried my talent,
01:07:51.980not because you were afraid, because I gave you too little. You buried my talent because you
01:07:56.180didn't want me to get a single dime of return because you hate me. And you hate me because
01:08:01.780your two peers over here, I gave them more and I, and you didn't like that. You know? And so I think
01:08:07.920that that's what, cause it's like, you knew me to be, you know, we, we look at the master's
01:08:11.980response. Well, if you knew me to be a man like this, then this is what, and we look at it almost
01:08:15.400like if we don't read carefully, we look at it as like, like Jesus is actually affirming his view
01:08:20.680of the master. And that's not what's happening because his view is you reap where you do not
01:08:25.360sow. And we know that God doesn't affirm that view because where has God not sown? God never
01:08:30.620reaps where he doesn't sow god sowed everything he created everything that exists is his doing
01:08:35.600you know and so so he he has rights he has king rights to reap from anywhere and anyone at any
01:08:44.440time because it's all his doing it all came from him every good and perfect gift comes from him
01:08:50.300he created ex nihilo so even when all we ever do is we cultivate we steward you know we and we
01:08:55.240multiply resources. And in that sense, we are creators in the lowercase C kind of, but God's
01:09:00.780the one who, who provides all the materials. God's the one who created the cosmos and the,
01:09:05.500and the world that we live in. And so in that sense, he is the original investor. He's the,
01:09:11.120you know, he has rights to reap from, from everyone. And, and so anyway, so I, you know,
01:09:17.580even with that, and the last thing I'll say on that, a talent, you know, part of it is we don't
01:09:21.700understand the culture and how much a talent was. It doesn't say if it was a talent of silver,
01:09:24.980or bronze or gold but um but if it was a talent of gold it would be in our dollars i think the
01:09:30.220equivalent of of about two uh two plus billion dollars um is you know if it was a talent of
01:09:36.000gold and even if it was even if it was silver it still would be it would be you know like 50
01:09:40.840million dollars um and so you know the the point is like he gave him it it was it was massive it
01:09:46.900was a lot of resources and so that that reading of the text saying oh he was just he was given so
01:09:52.940little, you know, and he was fearful. He didn't want to make a bad, like, it's just not, not an
01:09:57.340accurate reading of the text. So, all right. Um, any, any other thoughts you guys got? If not,
01:10:02.320um, can, can somebody, I think the last one that I'd really like to do is can one of you guys
01:10:06.180just, uh, describe, define dispensationalism? Uh, I hate to interrupt. I've got to jump off
01:10:12.740for the next meeting. That's fine. You guys are more than good. We'll take it. We'll take it.
01:10:17.640Yeah. Thank you much. Thanks. See Eric. Yep. Yeah. But Brian or Dan, you want to just
01:10:22.460knock out dispensationalism. We'll talk about that and then call it a day.
01:10:26.380You know, I think I'll let Brian define dispensationalism. I mean, he taught a college
01:10:30.600class on dispensationalism. So I think he's the preeminent expert on this subject.
01:10:36.800That was when I was a dispensationalist as well. When I, you know, obviously like many of us,
01:10:42.620I grew up in a dispensationalist assumed environment. You know, I read all the Walvoord
01:10:49.180commentaries on Daniel and Revelation and, you know, the whole nine yards. So, dispensationalism,
01:10:55.740some of the core tenets, or I guess the first thing to understand about dispensationalism
01:11:01.020is it's a whole Bible theology. It's a way of attempting to understand how the whole story of
01:11:07.780the scriptures fits together. How do Israel, the promises, the land relate to Christ, relate to
01:11:14.020the church it's like covenant theology or new covenant theology or you know some of these other
01:11:19.700systems it's trying to establish this meta narrative or this great grand uh coherent
01:11:25.660understanding of all of scripture and so it basically uh answers that question first it's
01:11:31.480very recent uh it's you know finds its roots in the 19th century so very very recent uh but it
01:11:37.300it essentially tries to answer that question by dividing god's story that he's telling into
01:11:42.660different dispensations. And there's no real agreement on how many or what the delineations
01:11:49.240are. But the way that I heard, like, for example, David Guzik of Calvary Chapel describe it is that
01:11:55.960each of these dispensations was essentially God governing his household in a certain way.
01:12:03.320And that those, you know, each dispensation was governed differently. So you have the age of
01:12:07.540innocence, you know, you have different ages that go through. And then what that gives you is a
01:12:13.760story of a lot of discontinuity. So dispensationalism is marked by discontinuity, where God
01:12:19.300changes how he's governing his household at different steps. He has different rules for
01:12:23.420different people. Israel are his, you know, his special people that he's made special promises to
01:12:29.700that he's given them the land. A lot of dispensational premillennialism is founded on
01:12:34.900the idea that those promises were not fulfilled in the Old Testament period. The land promises
01:12:41.260even weren't fulfilled. And so those are waiting for a future fulfillment because when Christ came,
01:12:47.800the idea is that Israel rejected their king. And so what God did is he hit pause on the
01:12:54.200fulfillment of all of his promises. And he turned aside for a time to a different people and a
01:13:00.440different plan. And that's the Gentiles and the church. So the church are different people0.98
01:13:04.540from Israel. They have different promises. They have a whole lot of different managing of the0.99
01:13:10.820household. And that's the age we live in. But that at the end, God is going to restart his plan
01:13:19.580for Israel. He's going to return to his plan for Israel. There'll be a great tribulation,0.79
01:13:24.100rapture of the church, remove the church from the world before that so that he can turn back to1.00
01:13:28.900Israel. He'll save a lot of Israel through this tribulation period. Then Christ will return0.95
01:13:33.720physically to the earth and he will establish the Davidic kingdom again. And he will physically rule0.98
01:13:40.180from Israel from Mount Zion for a thousand, literally a thousand years. And that's when0.96
01:13:44.940he will fulfill all of these great old Testament promises before there's a final rebellion and an
01:13:50.740end period in which Christ will make a final end of evil, cast Satan into hell. He'd been bound
01:13:57.360during this thousand year period. And he'll return. He'll then, you know, usher in the new
01:14:02.380heavens and the new earth, the eternal state and the great white throne judgment. The dead will be
01:14:07.600raised. That's when death will die. So, you know, a lot of the differences between that reading of0.97
01:14:14.340scripture and, for example, a covenant theological reading of scripture, whether baptistic or
01:14:20.020pedo-baptistic would really come down to that difference of continuity discontinuity and uh
01:14:27.180you know so a lot of the differences that you'll find when you're talking to dispensationalists
01:14:31.200will be things like you know do you believe that the promises to israel are given to the church
01:14:38.620in some meaningful way the promises and patterns of blessing and cursing and a lot of these things
01:14:42.880dispensationalist has to say no uh those aren't for you in the same way those are for israel
01:14:48.680because they're expecting at any time for this cataclysmic great tribulation to happen.
01:14:56.460They don't really believe that the church age is the age where we're going to see
01:15:01.300the fulfillment of these promises in any sense.
01:15:04.480Christ reigning from sea to sea, the rivers to the end of the earth.
01:15:07.260They don't see that as being about this time in history.
01:15:10.480So if you go to a dispensationalist and you say,
01:15:12.860Christ is reigning as king over all of the earth, they'll say, not yet.
01:15:17.060You know, not yet. He will. And he's reigning in heaven right now. And they might even say something similar to the amillennial. He has spiritual authority, but he's not aiming to fulfill those promises right now. That's happening in the future. So that discontinuity does introduce quite a few problems.
01:15:34.120I'm trying to be charitable to the dispensationalists and not just dunk on them, but it does lead to a lot of issues with legacy, with, you know, building, expecting long future still to happen.
01:15:45.540There's a lot of expectation of the rapture of the church at any moment.
01:15:49.460So you have a lot of newspaper exegesis associated over the last 50 years with dispensationalism.
01:15:55.060There's a handbasket of problems that really come back to that discontinuity idea, I think.
01:16:02.280um it seems like the like the pre you know a dispensational pre-millennial would say like
01:16:07.500uh so so we would say already not yet we would we would agree with that um something is happening
01:16:13.200the leaven is actually in the dough it's doing something it's you know um the the mustard seed
01:16:17.720is planted and it's growing um something is happening and so the mountain is growing you
01:16:22.380know all the all these different things and and we would look at you know part of what i would
01:16:26.260reject uh kenneth gentry talks about this but you know with the dispensational pre-millennial you
01:16:30.240secret rapture, right? There's nothing that talks about a secret rapture, but the secret
01:16:35.080rapture that the world, the whole world somehow misses, but all the Christians see it. It's1.00
01:16:40.560cataclysmic. I think he uses the word, it's catastrophic and sudden, sudden and catastrophic
01:16:46.560rather than what we see as kind of a common theme and pattern throughout scripture is
01:16:52.020gradualistic. So when you think of even creation, right? I would hold to six literal
01:16:59.980days, you know, cause I'm not a heretic, but you know, so I would hold to, you know, young earth
01:17:04.260and six literal days, but still like God could have done it all at once, but he does it, he does
01:17:09.640it gradually over six days. So creation, sanctification, right? God is, it's a process,
01:17:14.600right? And so like it's, it's gradual revelation. I mean, we have, we have this, you know, this
01:17:20.360progression of revealing the Messiah, Adam and Eve knew him as the snake crusher, you know,
01:17:25.100Abraham knows him as the seed, you know, and just further and further, you know, David knows him as0.55
01:17:29.420a king you know of the increase of his government there'll be no end so now we see that you know the
01:17:32.860and then you know but then we know him with greater clarity and god has only saved a people
01:17:37.900for himself in one way old testament saints and new testament saints the new covenant being
01:17:41.380you know well we might disagree there but you know whether it be one covenant of grace one
01:17:45.480substance with two administrations you know or whether it be the new covenant you know being
01:17:48.780the only saving covenant covenant synonymous with the covenant of grace is where i would be at
01:17:52.280retroactively applied but the point is that god has only ever saved people one way but there is
01:17:56.940the distinction since that we have greater revelation us on this side of the cross we know
01:18:01.760christ to a much uh fuller degree than than david um knew new christ um but but we were both saved
01:18:08.760by faith in the same person in christ and so all that is gradual right but the the pre-mill
01:18:14.580dispensation it's it's sudden and catastrophic you know whereas post-millennialism it's it's
01:18:20.400it's keeping in the pattern of what what god did in the old testament what god did in creation what
01:18:25.160god does individually in sanctification it's keeping with this this gradualistic um it's it's
01:18:31.500small it starts small it grows slowly but it becomes significant it's dominant yeah yeah you
01:18:37.240can see this in in daniel with uh nebuchadnezzar's statue representing kingdoms that will be destroyed
01:18:43.160by a small stone that then grows into a mountain that swallows a whole earth yeah he's those
01:18:48.520kingdom parables you know yeast is not exactly like a speedster you know and a mustard seed that
01:18:55.000as a small seed and it grows to be the biggest tree where birds nest in it and it overshadows
01:18:59.640everything so that's even a theme throughout these pictures that god gives us of the dominion of
01:19:04.840christ over the whole world so i would i would agree with that yeah and and i think some of the
01:19:10.200the because a dispensationalist they hear us talking about this and they say but there is
01:19:15.080cataclysmic immediate huge judgment language and and we would say look the error that's being made
01:19:20.680that was fundamentally made in darby's writings and you know expanded in the 19th and 20th century
01:19:26.540with some of these ideas of the the future seven-year great tribulation that daniel's 70 70th
01:19:32.740week is you know we're still waiting for it a lot of these ideas really it comes from a failure to
01:19:38.940read the text literally right which is funny when you think about it because that's funny that's
01:19:44.880the essence of the dispensationalist hermeneutic is a literalistic uh historical grammatical
01:19:50.980approach is what they're saying but the problem is take the olivet discourse or take the book of
01:19:57.300revelation both of those sections that deal with this great tribulation coming language
01:20:03.000are emphatically clear that it is coming upon this generation of israel that is living at the
01:20:09.200time that those works were given. I mean, emphatically clear. It is the most clearly
01:20:14.560literal part of all of those passages. You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds and
01:20:23.680clouds being judgment. And when you see Daniel and you understand that the Son of Man being
01:20:28.340presented to the Ancient of Days in the heavens as a sign of his judgment, coming judgment upon0.55
01:20:33.540Israel. When you see that the book of Revelation was not sealed up because these things were soon
01:20:41.420to take place, and yet the prophecies of Daniel and Daniel 12 were sealed up because they weren't
01:20:47.080going to happen for 700 years. Well, why would Daniel be sealed up because the time wasn't near
01:20:51.980in 700 years and then Revelation not sealed up because they're near if we've already had 2,000
01:20:58.100years of church history after that? Well, it's because they were near. God was going to judge
01:21:04.040apostate Israel for her covenant breaking, which happened in 70 AD, just as Christ said it would,0.50
01:21:11.260that not one stone would be left standing on the temple, that the end would come with a flood.0.65
01:21:16.300In Daniel, that essentially God would come and he would judge his house. He would knock it down
01:21:22.540because he was building a house no longer of stone. He was building a house of living stones
01:21:27.460And no longer would he call the nations to worship at this physical temple.
01:21:31.320He would send his temple to the nations, the living stones, and he would build a temple that swallows the world out of those living stones.
01:21:39.340So, I mean, you just have a lot of a failure to read the Bible biblically, to read it apostolically, to read it in its types and shadows and its language and its prophetic imagery.
01:21:51.660You have a failure to take literally what ought to be taken literally in those passages.
01:21:56.140And the errors compound on top of that.
01:22:00.820So, you know, dispensationalism, I love dispensationalist brothers.
01:22:04.720Again, pre-millennialists, we've found to be great partners in a lot of work.
01:22:09.860And not all pre-mill are dispensationalists.