The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Should Presbyterians & Reformed Baptists Be In The Same Local Church？｜ with Dr. Joe Boot

00:00:00.000 All right, listen, guys, I get it.

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00:00:40.100 Is this the episode where I finally come out

00:00:41.840 as a Presbyterian?

00:00:43.180 I know you Presbyterians have been waiting.

00:00:46.020 You've all said that it's just a matter of when

00:00:49.140 and not if that's gonna happen.

00:00:51.960 He's already Presbyterian.

00:00:53.380 He just doesn't know it.

00:00:54.780 I give it six months.

00:00:55.840 I see you guys online on Twitter taking bets.

00:00:58.060 I say within three years, he's baptizing babies.

00:01:01.520 I say he's going to be doing it within three months.

00:01:05.480 This is the episode.

00:01:07.320 We talk about baptism.

00:01:09.540 Me and Joe Boot.

00:01:11.740 Fantastic episode.

00:01:13.960 I get real close.

00:01:15.860 Do I go over the line?

00:01:17.380 You got to stay tuned to find out.

00:01:19.340 Tune into this episode of Theology Applied with your host, Pastor Joel Webin, and special guest, Dr. Joseph Boot.

00:01:26.240 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:01:29.600 This is Theology Applied.

00:01:36.120 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:01:39.340 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.

00:01:42.760 And in this episode, I am very privileged to welcome back, I believe for the 64th time

00:01:48.340 or something like that, a regular guest to our show, someone that I have benefited much

00:01:53.000 from, Dr. Joseph Boot.

00:01:55.380 welcome thanks joel it's great to see you again great to be back thank you for having me

00:02:00.140 you're very welcome um so what i want to discuss is unique to you and unique to myself um at some

00:02:07.480 level but very unique to you i want to talk about baptism and instead of having a quasi-informal

00:02:14.320 charitable debate and hosting someone who is exclusively fully you know blood sweat and tears

00:02:20.020 prescribed to the 1646 Westminster Pato persuasion. What I like about you in this conversation is 0.90

00:02:26.720 there's a very real sense in which you've had each of your feet in, you know, in both sides of the

00:02:33.340 aisle. And so could you maybe start this conversation by just maybe giving a little bit of, we'll get to

00:02:39.740 the theology, but let's start with maybe your testimony, your pastoral experience in pastoring

00:02:45.020 a presbyterian church and a baptist church yeah um it's interesting i think that uh sometimes with

00:02:54.980 with questions like this we are going to be inescapably shaped and informed by some of our

00:03:01.720 own experience in in the christian community um for me uh within the global christian community

00:03:08.000 and um i often find that people who've had considerable exposure to the to the global

00:03:15.000 christian community um will nurture a kind of i hope a healthy catholicity when it comes to

00:03:22.900 some of these questions but i was actually raised in um a baptistic environment uh because um i grew

00:03:32.480 up in the pentecostal church uh in england and um which is which is baptistic uh and um but my

00:03:42.160 studies took place in um an evangelical uh seminary not in a pentecostal seminary so when i was 18 i

00:03:50.620 actually went to to theological college and um there were reformed uh professors and scholars

00:03:59.400 there one of them was a congregational minister actually who i found to be the most engaging

00:04:07.000 of the professors and he introduced me to the puritans and it really introduced me to reform

00:04:16.520 thought and so uh in the early part of my christian life i was exposed to and ended up

00:04:25.720 getting experience in both a credo-baptist and a paedo-baptist environment and you know

00:04:34.200 a number of my professors were paedo-baptist the number were credo-baptist. By the time I was 24

00:04:44.440 and in the sort of after my formal initial part of my formal theological education

00:04:51.720 I actually was working as an evangelist apologist for an organization in England called Saltmine Trust, actually.

00:05:01.040 Still going. They used creative arts largely in going into schools and colleges and doing evangelism with young people.

00:05:10.380 And my task was to go in with these creative arts teams into schools, prisons, colleges and share the gospel.

00:05:21.720 Um, and, uh, in many of the sort of missions contexts that we were involved with, with churches, uh, it was with, um, every kind of evangelical, um, Christian community.

00:05:35.640 Some were, um, credo-baptists, some were paedo-baptists.

00:05:40.280 And I saw the love of God and the commitment to Christ and, um, frequently genuine faithfulness to God and his word in all of those environments.

00:05:49.280 and um my uh this led on actually to my first pastoral role in my mid-20s i was actually

00:05:58.280 you mentioned um presbyterian it was actually anglican it was reformed anglican so my first

00:06:03.940 pastoral role where i was essentially functioning as the uh associate pastor my official title was

00:06:11.420 director of evangelism was at a church in southwest london which was a uh paedo-baptist

00:06:17.780 community and uh i felt as comfortable there um and as as happy there as i had done in any credo

00:06:28.280 baptist environment and so um i would say that kind of my my initial experience in the early

00:06:34.600 part of my ministry if i can sort of i'll let you come in here and i'll i'll stop there maybe move

00:06:39.520 on to westminster in a moment but in that early part of my ministry um found myself with with a

00:06:46.240 non-sectarian attitude at least have some of my own convictions but i had a non-sectarian attitude

00:06:51.800 to the baptism issue in part because it was driven by a passion for evangelism and apologetics and

00:06:59.600 my priority at that time was not really having to manage disagreements or disputes in the local

00:07:05.800 church around that issue yeah well that makes a lot of sense i appreciate you sharing a little

00:07:09.920 bit of your early ministry experience with us um you know for myself personally as somebody who

00:07:15.380 prescribes to the 1689 London Baptist confession of faith. One of the challenges that I've noticed

00:07:21.200 pastorally is that I too would prescribe to this kind of lowercase c baptismal Catholicity,

00:07:27.980 wanting to link arms across the aisle, so to speak. I don't, that's not my all of time

00:07:34.460 definitive and definite position. So I, you know, if Christ chooses to tarry for 10,000 years, I

00:07:40.740 I wouldn't hold that in one local assembly, you should have both the Paedo and Credo Baptist

00:07:47.640 position represented by the eldership of the church and practiced for all of time.

00:07:53.680 But I think that we're living, for lack of a better word, in a unique dispensation in

00:07:57.780 this moment where we've got some pretty ferocious giants that the church is facing, some dragons

00:08:05.260 that need to be slayed, most notably and urgently, I would say secular humanism being a very large

00:08:12.360 one. We've seen the eroding and kind of recession of Christendom in the West, and we want to regain

00:08:18.640 that. And so the idea that Presbyterians and Baptists, both being confessionals, 1689 and 1646,

00:08:27.100 partnering for the next 20 or 50 years in a local assembly, because they have postmillennialism in

00:08:34.400 common, Kuyperianism in common, theonomy in common, patriarchy in common, these kinds of things that

00:08:39.960 are absolutely vital in order to, to slay this, this present dragon of, of secularism in order

00:08:47.740 to reassure, you know, reassure a Christendom 2.0, and then maybe we can start to fight about

00:08:55.400 baptism again. I just feel like the debate of baptism, it matters. It certainly matters,

00:09:00.960 But in some sense, it feels as though it's a luxury of times of peace for the church that we currently are not living in.

00:09:08.720 What do you think about that? Would you agree with that sentiment?

00:09:12.360 Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it, Joel, actually.

00:09:15.260 We don't have that luxury right now. It's a luxury for times of peace.

00:09:20.580 I think that the church is under tremendous pressure in the West, unprecedented, really, in many, many years.

00:09:28.740 and I think a good example of what you're saying actually is found in on the mission field uh in

00:09:35.380 the traditional mission fields I should say of the of the western church so when we talk about

00:09:40.060 mission we still tend not to think about our own nations which I think we really should be as well

00:09:45.080 um but we think about um heathen lands historically is Islamic cultures pagan cultures

00:09:52.540 right um hindu cultures and so on um my family um were missionaries in the islamic world

00:09:59.440 um for for about 17 years my parents uh and in the part of the world that they were

00:10:07.680 for all those years uh the the missionaries were from uh both paedo and credo baptist backgrounds

00:10:16.360 presbyterians anglicans baptists pentecostals and in that setting when you're up against the 0.89

00:10:23.980 the behemoth of islam the colossus of the islamic world and you're and the percentage of christians 0.81

00:10:29.860 is you know hovering around one percent your priority is not uh ironing out the details of 1.00

00:10:37.340 which of those confessions should be adhered to, and the niceties of how one should deal with

00:10:49.120 perhaps a paedo-baptized person who wants to go and join membership in a Baptist community.

00:10:56.420 Those simply aren't the priorities for obvious reasons. You've got a much larger, broader

00:11:02.400 battle to fight. And so, as you say, it's not that the question of baptisms is not important,

00:11:08.460 but as the book of Hebrews says, it's one of the foundations. It's the milk.

00:11:17.000 Baptisms and discussions about baptisms have gone on for centuries. And this is not an argument

00:11:23.600 that we are going to solve anytime soon. In my view, I think we're going to have these two

00:11:30.120 emphases with us for a very long time and so in a missions context it's simply not the priority

00:11:36.780 and I think that in times of great prosperity for the church in the west in times of

00:11:43.220 in a certain sense we might say cultural influence or even cultural victory

00:11:49.300 it wasn't just baptists and paedo-baptists that were squabble it would be baptist denominations

00:11:56.760 and reform denominations on even lesser issues dividing and and um where i was in toronto there

00:12:05.640 was a whole story about the two two um baptist movements that where you know some of the older

00:12:11.880 people would would uh tell me that you know when they were kids there would sometimes be some stone

00:12:16.480 throwing and argy-bargy between kids from the two different baptist communities because one was on

00:12:22.380 that side of the road and the other one was in the other neighborhood and they belonged to two 0.69

00:12:25.520 different fellowships and it's like so um in a certain sense that sort of thing uh clobbering

00:12:32.980 each other with our clogs um is a luxury for for a different time uh to say well you know we're all

00:12:40.840 going to be in our own paddling pool right now um there there are a bigger fish to fry as you said

00:12:48.720 with the assault of secularism of repaganization in some parts of europe islam and i think um

00:12:54.760 there's a good precedent for what you're saying. John Bunyan in that time of tremendous pressure

00:13:00.840 on the church in England, pressure on non-conformists. Bunyan spent a lot of time in

00:13:08.080 prison, as you know. Bunyan was a non-sectarian on the baptism issue. And actually, some of the

00:13:14.540 great Puritan leaders like Cromwell had that Catholicity that you were talking about on this

00:13:22.460 issue. So I do think one major factor to consider is, what is the cultural environment? What's the

00:13:28.400 cultural situation? Is that discussion, the intramural debate between reformed, evangelical,

00:13:39.960 faithful, Christ-honoring believers, is that the priority? And is it something we should be

00:13:46.160 splitting up, dividing over, avoiding co-belligerence, not welcoming each other to the

00:13:51.620 Lord's Table and so on, or welcoming one another into membership. No, I don't think so. I think

00:13:56.820 we're at a moment, as you say, you know, from a, even if we talk about from a pragmatic point of

00:14:02.860 view, there's one faith, there's one baptism. And right now, there are much bigger challenges that

00:14:09.260 I think if the church got our mind into those, let's come back to this one. But it's not the

00:14:15.160 highest priority. Yes, I completely agree. And I like what you shared in terms of the

00:14:20.340 foreign mission field, especially in Islamic countries and cultures that, again, that's a 0.74

00:14:30.940 perfect example of those who do not have the luxury to debate this particular issue. And I

00:14:35.900 think in the West, we need to come to those similar terms and recognizing that secularism 0.90

00:14:42.060 is quickly becoming a comparable threat to what Islam is in other countries, that as

00:14:52.160 we look at the West, if we're to analyze things properly and honestly, and we run through 0.99

00:15:01.940 the statistics, we run through the numbers, and if we actually don't include in those

00:15:07.220 numbers false churches prosperity gospel preaching heretical churches and we actually just look at

00:15:14.300 true churches within the bounds of orthodoxy in the west with the rise of the nuns you know those

00:15:21.520 who would prescribe to no religious affiliation I think that the west is quickly becoming comparable

00:15:28.380 to the east and other places that have whether a pagan culture or is Islamic culture and so if we

00:15:36.500 if we think of secularism in those terms, and we think that, um, that the West is no longer in its

00:15:42.420 heyday of Christendom, uh, certainly there are many, uh, um, still remnants of Christendom that

00:15:47.960 we often take for granted. Um, but, but we're no longer in the heyday of, of Christendom and

00:15:54.260 Christendom is eroding. Foundations are being destroyed. Secularism is a formidable enemy,

00:16:01.000 quickly becoming comparable to Islam, for example, then I think we need to employ wartime 1.00

00:16:10.820 strategies and not peacetime strategies. And in wartime strategies, there should be an extra 0.96

00:16:21.620 willingness to form alliances, right? That Americans may not be particularly fond of the

00:16:27.180 French. Um, but, but if Great Britain is, uh, is, is on our doorstep, uh, then all of a sudden

00:16:35.420 an American French alliance, you know, it may, may make sense. Um, even if we perhaps regret it

00:16:41.400 at a later point. And so I think that we're in that kind of moment. Um, one quick question on,

00:16:47.660 on that end. I, I have the sense that secularism, that things are going to get worse before they

00:16:53.160 get better in the, in the short run with secularism in the West. In the long run though, if Christ does

00:17:00.300 tarry for 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 years, who, who knows the day or the hour, but, but if that is

00:17:06.400 a possibility, I have the sense that, that secularism, although a formidable enemy and a

00:17:12.480 dragon of, of significant size, that it's, it's, it's going to get a little bit stronger, but 0.74

00:17:19.220 quickly, I think will be slain. I think that there's a sense in which there's, there's worse

00:17:24.600 things yet to come, but, but also if, if we think in the next 50 years, but if we think in the next

00:17:29.200 500 years, I think 500 years from now, our, our great, great, great grandchildren will go on field

00:17:36.160 trips to museums and look at Jackson Pollock paintings. And, and the teacher will inspire

00:17:41.820 the children to collectively laugh at the absurdity of what we once thought was beautiful.

00:17:47.280 and, and the, the fruit of secular. So I think 50 years of secularism, I, I'm not particularly

00:17:53.020 encouraged for my children and grandchildren's sake, uh, 500 years of secularism thinking of

00:17:58.380 my great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. I think that they will be laughing at the corpse

00:18:03.780 of this dragon that's been sufficiently slain back to Islam. If I was to write a fictional book, 1.00

00:18:10.660 a fantasy, um, of post-millennial, you know, progressive, gradual conquering of Christ through

00:18:16.980 the church in the earth um and and the progression of chrysidom i have a sense and i'm curious if you

00:18:23.300 feel the same dr boot that i think islam may be one of the last dragons to be slain what do you 0.88

00:18:29.540 what do you think well all of these things as you say do reach a tipping point um the the power of

00:18:38.660 secularism um and the power of islam their influence i think both have the same root they

00:18:45.460 they ate they copy um christianity with but with key differences and it's their it's their similarity

00:18:54.660 to christian truth that gives them their cultural force so secularism was really an attempt to strip

00:19:02.020 um to maintain the to to maintain the the liberties freedoms um institutional life uh the um

00:19:11.220 The prosperity of, you know, free markets of a Christian order, the branches without the root. In some respects, Marxism is a secular eschatology. It posits a utopian future by the creative work of man.

00:19:35.360 And so it strips out. It keeps on to this idea of it holds on to this idea of progress in history, but it strips the Christ out of it and strips the word of God out of it.

00:19:47.400 Secularism has really sought to do that. It wanted to maintain the fruits. It didn't want the root. 0.59

00:19:52.880 now islam again is uh is a apes christianity it's a it's a counterfeit but it has certain 0.90

00:20:01.360 similarities and that gives it its sense of cultural force but because of the nature and 1.00

00:20:07.440 character of islam the seeds of its own destruction are built into it um you're seeing even in the west 1.00

00:20:13.440 now the muslims having great difficulty retaining their own children in the faith in the western 1.00

00:20:19.360 context. You have a place like Iran, where you have huge levels of conversion to Christianity.

00:20:28.240 And the Ayatollah needs to keep his foot on the necks of the people. And that is similar 0.94

00:20:35.360 throughout much of the Islamic world, which has been for a long time in a state of decay. 0.99

00:20:40.640 So I'm not sure. When you look at it, Islam is definitely a major threat, 1.00

00:20:47.180 uh whether it's a greater threat than a sort of revival of paganism uh which is a sort of 0.99

00:20:54.460 and i would include secularism in that secularism is a form of paganism and it's becoming more and

00:20:59.800 more spiritualized um they are they're both uh significant uh they're both significant threats

00:21:08.260 that neither are going anywhere soon um both are totalitarian in their outlook uh in in terms of

00:21:16.640 their view of the state. Both are concerned to deny certain critical freedoms that are

00:21:25.300 fundamental in the Christian view of reality. And I think that really they're both utopian too.

00:21:35.680 Secularism does believe in man building his own future, his own prosperous future without God,

00:21:45.120 and believes that by right now in our current secular moment,

00:21:49.040 we believe that by a grand leveling, a utopia,

00:21:54.080 even if we don't use the term, a kind of utopia is going to emerge.

00:21:59.640 Islam, likewise, in the Ummah, the world Islam, 0.96

00:22:04.860 that through the imposition of Sharia, 0.81

00:22:07.300 a kind of utopian order is going to emerge through world Islam.

00:22:13.980 um so that they they bear similarities to one another their their cultural strength is in their 0.85

00:22:20.860 aping of christianity but there's always a tipping point and i think that um it's very difficult to

00:22:26.620 say isn't it i mean you've kind of wrestled with that question right there it's difficult to say

00:22:31.680 when we will reach that point where we're going over the edge and um people start to by the grace

00:22:39.600 of god uh begin to look back with some sense of longing and yearning to a christian past and god

00:22:46.600 you know by his grace begins to pour out his spirit is it 20 years is it 50 years is it 100

00:22:53.280 years um we don't know uh the lord knows um but um in the meantime facing down those giants those

00:23:03.340 dragons as you say is is a greater priority than dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's of

00:23:08.760 a very tidy theology right amen uh just for to address the devil's advocate um some would be

00:23:17.500 listening to everything you're saying and i think they would say well you know you said that 0.70

00:23:21.880 secularism is totalitarian um in the sense that it's it's it forces uh it's coercion and islam

00:23:29.880 Certainly, Sharia law is coercion, but you and I would both prescribe to theonomy, and there would be some who don't like our position, and that would claim, you know, some who even are Christian would claim that what we're advocating for is just another form of coercion. 0.98

00:23:50.640 And so, you know, that as post-millennial theonomic reformed Christians, I think, you know, the devil's advocate would say, you know, they would say, how is what you're trying to accomplish any different than ushering in some kind of earthly utopia through force?

00:24:13.040 How would you address that counter, that pushback?

00:24:18.600 Yeah, first, the Christian way, the biblical way is regeneration, not revolution. And, or the, which is, you know, and I would include Islam in that revolutionary model of, you know, conquest by the sword, by violence, by force.

00:24:39.040 The reason that secularism is totalitarian is its view of the state. 0.87

00:24:45.560 The state is the all-encompassing, all-inclusive institution.

00:24:50.100 And it begins to, you can see it, you observe the West today, the state now dominates more

00:24:55.680 and more areas of people's lives, begins to redefine the family, seeks to control the

00:25:00.700 church, education, economics, media, everything.

00:25:04.340 totalitarianism you don't need to be looking for a hitler or stalin type figure that's

00:25:10.740 authoritarianism that is usually um accompanied by totalitarianism but totalitarianism is when

00:25:17.780 one created sphere or well-made institution by the lord seeks to swallow and treat the other 0.84

00:25:24.720 spheres of life in parts the whole relationship in islam the the the the state is everything 0.80

00:25:32.180 uh the and so there is a there is a reach of the power and authority of the state into every area

00:25:40.400 of life there's no there's no grasp of the principle of sphere sovereignty um the same is 0.92

00:25:45.060 true and of course the in you know islam grew out of an undifferentiated society in any case 0.96

00:25:51.760 uh tribal society and that's why whenever it dominates you get this totalizing um statist view 0.93

00:25:58.900 um the um uh the secular world which now rejects uh post the the french revolution rejects the

00:26:08.440 lordship of jesus christ and sees um society basically rooted in just a social contract

00:26:14.580 well that's jean-chac crousseau and his view of the state was totalitarian the the the general

00:26:21.280 will is where the the people surrender in a sense their independence their individuality

00:26:26.620 and the general will is what the state says on their behalf um so the the state becomes you know

00:26:34.340 it's precisely why you know the goddess of reason was enthroned in notre dame and um the the living

00:26:40.920 god is is uh is thrown out uh the human society human community is no longer about covenant and

00:26:50.760 it's certainly no longer a covenant with past, present, and future. It's a revolutionary act

00:26:55.840 to say, we're starting over. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God.

00:27:03.640 That's embodied in the state in the general world. And increasingly, that's the position

00:27:07.500 that we're seeing in Western states. There is no transcendent authority over and above the state

00:27:13.800 that could bring it into judgment, that can hold it accountable, and that can delimit its power,

00:27:23.160 which is the foundation of liberty. The foundation of liberty is the delimiting of state power and

00:27:30.240 authority. You see that throughout the pagan empires of the Older Testament period, and of 0.93

00:27:34.940 course, in the Greco-Roman world. So biblical law, theonomy, as you talked about there,

00:27:40.020 is about the rule of God's law, one law for all, freedom under the law.

00:27:47.680 And unlike statist law, it's restrained and it's very limited.

00:27:52.980 Most areas of life are freedom.

00:27:56.020 There are 10 commandments, not 10,000 commandments.

00:28:00.980 And then there are case law applications,

00:28:04.520 which um we need to positivize those for our for our own time and our own environment

00:28:10.520 but the concern of biblical law it's often been described really as biblical libertarianism

00:28:15.440 freedom under god where family church state vocations and the various other areas of life

00:28:21.740 are left free uh free to serve serve the lord so people do get uh this rather wrong-headed

00:28:28.120 um if i can shamelessly plug my book ruler of kings toward a christian view of government

00:28:33.520 i explain how people get confused about this they think oh you know uh biblical law that's like

00:28:40.280 sharia law for christians um that's like a totalitarian authoritarianism where clergymen

00:28:46.200 are going to rule the state and enforce biblical law on an unwilling society that's the absolute 0.80

00:28:51.360 opposite of our position it's regeneration uh it must be something that comes from the bottom up

00:28:58.820 because godly and righteous laws are demanded by a godly and righteous people

00:29:03.960 who want to be in covenant with the Lord and want to live in freedom

00:29:09.100 and know righteousness and justice.

00:29:12.120 The third and final point would be, if it's the law of Christ,

00:29:15.760 if it's the law of the living God,

00:29:16.920 if it's the law that Jesus Christ himself expounded on the mountain,

00:29:21.200 why wouldn't we want that?

00:29:23.420 His law is liberty.

00:29:25.120 That's what the Apostle James tells.

00:29:26.680 His law is love, and it's also liberty.

00:29:28.820 the law of liberty and so if we want a liberating law it's going to be uh law of god freedom under

00:29:36.160 god and his law um not the uh apostate um totalitarian law of man that reaches into

00:29:43.740 every single department of life uh to control you and coerce you right well said um one more point

00:29:52.860 on that and and it does relate to baptism so staying in the theonomic vein but starting to

00:29:59.480 inch our way back to baptism um i have heard several 1689 prescribed individuals one thing

00:30:09.920 they have in common is they all tend to be big fans of thomas aquinas and by no coincidence they

00:30:17.420 also would strongly assert that someone cannot affirm the 1689 second london baptist confession

00:30:26.140 of faith and prescribe to theonomy they would say that the 1689 is wholly incompatible even with a

00:30:35.120 general equity theonomy position which my understanding is that that bonson greg bonson

00:30:41.580 was a general equity theonomist what would you what would you say if you were trying to

00:30:48.060 to defend from the 1689 that you can affirm theonomy how would you address that critique

00:30:54.240 well i don't frankly i've never really been able to see why any of the core

00:31:03.040 uh reform confessions the or the three forms of unity or the london baptist confession

00:31:08.860 are in any way incompatible with a theonomic reading of scripture.

00:31:16.680 If you imprison the law of God into an older covenant period,

00:31:25.800 I mean, one of the things I think surprises people is when you do have

00:31:29.320 uh baptistic christians who are theonomic um because they assume that um you would have to

00:31:39.360 have a um a strongly um paedo-baptist covenantal view in order to to be uh to to recognize a

00:31:48.160 continuity of of uh of the um older covenant law um and the commands of god um to hold to

00:31:58.560 the theonomic position in the present and there's a general assumption that well if you're not

00:32:02.400 really presbyterian um and uh strictly covenantal in a presbyterian sense then um you're not going

00:32:11.600 to be a covenant theologian and therefore you're going to struggle to get to a theonomic perspective

00:32:16.960 um on the law and see the continuity of one great covenant of grace that unfolds

00:32:21.760 over time through different administrations.

00:32:27.360 But you take a look at somebody like Charles Spurgeon.

00:32:32.160 And I talk about Spurgeon quite a bit in my book,

00:32:35.740 The Mission of God, as a great Baptist.

00:32:39.040 You can only look at his writings on public life

00:32:42.840 and on God's law and see a theonomic,

00:32:45.360 an inherently theonomic reading of scripture.

00:32:47.520 um you look at his preaching and you can only see a covenantal understanding of the of the gospel

00:32:56.020 so i i tend to believe that um well i do believe don't tend to believe i do believe that um theonomy

00:33:04.120 is a view of christian ethics uh it's how we're looking at what does god require of us morally

00:33:11.720 ethically as as believers and then how are we to think about the the life of the state

00:33:17.800 public life culture in its relationship to god's commandments now to my mind whether you're

00:33:24.560 anglican presbyterian or baptist or pentecostal there's nothing to stop you saying looking at

00:33:31.380 the theonomic view of ethics um i think barneson's major work was called theonomy in christian ethics

00:33:38.180 and and and recognize that we can we as believers we need to look at the see the standing law of

00:33:46.220 the old testament as binding and recognize that the applications the positivizations of the case

00:33:53.700 law most of that is moral law as barneson would have argued which is looking at minimal cases of

00:34:00.860 a particular application of the ten commandments for that particular context and then we look for

00:34:07.100 as we're doing our biblical interpretation and as we're looking at the our current cultural

00:34:12.200 situation what are the fundamental principles what's the general equity of that law that

00:34:17.020 applies i've never been able to see why that position is not applicable across the um

00:34:23.480 reformed confessions when we think about the um the issue of covenant which obviously is

00:34:30.260 you know is is is central to this um you know the lord jesus doesn't at the the last supper doesn't

00:34:38.380 say um this is uh uh the here's here's the blood of the new covenant and now here's a new 10

00:34:45.540 commandments um he he doesn't give a new uh two two new tablets of stone and a new set of

00:34:53.440 commandments for his people he says i'm gonna i'm gonna add a particular model for you he says

00:34:58.600 there's a new commandment i'm going to give you love one another as i have loved you so follow

00:35:03.340 this example but covenant is about law and blood and all of us as christians come around the reality

00:35:11.220 of the lord's table uh that sin is lawlessness we violated his law and the cost is the blood

00:35:17.940 of the covenant it's the blood of christ so the the blood of the older covenant the administration

00:35:24.020 of the old covenant of bulls and goats uh was insufficient could not take away sin

00:35:29.500 the blood of christ our sacrificial lamb our great high priest of the order of melchizedek

00:35:37.240 the it's it's uh the new administration is the blood of christ but the with respect to law the

00:35:44.920 law remains the same and so whatever um you know it'd be a bizarre thing indeed wouldn't it if the

00:35:51.120 redemption of christ because of our lawlessness that that because of christ's death for our for

00:35:58.360 our lawlessness and rebellion that post the resurrection we now no longer need to pay any

00:36:02.980 attention to his law for which which was the reason our rebellion against which was the reason

00:36:07.480 he actually went to the cross so we can unite around the lord's table law and blood and recognize

00:36:14.340 that the law abides and remains and the new location of the law is no lot is is now on the

00:36:19.760 heart rather than on tablets of stone jeremiah 31 and hebrews chapter 6 and as we think about

00:36:25.900 the covenant then that that covenant reality that we come into as believers that as and as families

00:36:33.500 because the promises for you and your children and all those whom the lord our god shall call

00:36:37.760 both the baptist and the presbyterian is thinking if they're reformed in terms of the covenant the

00:36:45.020 covenant that God has made uh with us and that baptism is a recognition of the reality of the

00:36:52.360 covenant that God has made with us and we are um dead to ourselves and alive to the Lord Jesus

00:37:00.580 Christ um and uh you know there are it's interesting I I sometimes explain it um this way

00:37:09.020 the way in which we sort of handle that in the two traditions so I would say that the Baptists

00:37:13.620 and the Presbyterians or the Paedo-Baptists both have a non-biblical ceremony that is added

00:37:20.960 or is utilized to fill in the gap that we both feel in our traditions at an appropriate moment.

00:37:32.000 So in the Baptistic tradition, when a child is born and comes into the family,

00:37:39.580 most baptists most baptistic churches uh will have a dedication service

00:37:47.080 um we dedicate children i don't know you were going to say that

00:37:51.120 yeah for the record i don't but go ahead right yeah most do you're right most do but most have

00:37:57.060 because there there is a sense of need to to recognize that we want to call upon the parents

00:38:02.780 and the family to recognize the reality of god's covenant and his obligations uh that the

00:38:09.200 obligations that he places on us as a family to educate our children in the faith. And we want to

00:38:14.720 bring our child to the Lord, dedicate them to the Lord to say, Lord, thank you for this child

00:38:21.920 you've given to us. And the congregation prays and joins in prayer that together as a community,

00:38:29.320 we're going to raise this child in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And we recognize that

00:38:35.300 the promises for us and our children and all those whom the lord our god shall call

00:38:39.280 we don't baptize them uh the baptists at that point but there's this there's this sense of a

00:38:46.020 desire and a need to recognize that moment that this is a significant moment in the life of the 0.95

00:38:51.040 family that the child is the lord's and that we need to raise them in the faith the paedo baptist

00:38:57.200 position on the other hand feels that need so in the baptist tradition then we baptize on confession

00:39:03.160 of faith but then in the presbyterian tradition we we uh recognize of course the entrance of the

00:39:11.120 child into the world the obligation of the family the promises for you and our children and we and

00:39:17.020 we mark them with baptism with the with the sign of the covenant but then because they as children

00:39:24.560 are are um well especially if their babies will not even remember that baptism uh there's no

00:39:31.400 personal um uh involvement for the child it's the parents acting on behalf of the child in terms of

00:39:40.280 the covenant there is there is a sense of need that the child when they reach a certain age

00:39:46.120 whether if you're in the reformed churches in the dutch reformed churches you know do confession of

00:39:50.280 faith it's usually around the same time somewhere between about 12 and 16 when they've done their

00:39:55.660 catechism and they want to confess the faith for themselves in the anglican tradition which i

00:40:01.200 served in it's confirmation there's a confirmation service and a first communion um and and usually

00:40:10.540 it's first communion in most of those uh paedo-baptist traditions when confession of faith

00:40:16.980 or confirmation has happened and so i think it's very interesting that um that in both of those

00:40:25.640 traditions typically um we we feel a need to recognize those both of those moments especially

00:40:35.240 as you said joel if we're covenantal in our thinking and i recognize that not all are so

00:40:39.700 i'm not really speaking about we haven't got time to talk about those that aren't covenantal in the

00:40:43.380 thing but those of us who are covenantal in our thinking there is this sense of a desire and a

00:40:48.840 need to recognize both moments um one uh baptizes on anticipation of the fulfillment of the promise

00:40:57.220 holding god to his promises the other baptizes on fulfillment of the covenant of promise

00:41:02.680 and we fill the gap with with a ceremony on on either side in in those traditions

00:41:10.240 right yeah you're right i i'm unique among my 1689 reformed baptist friends in the sense that

00:41:18.780 I actually do prescribe, and I believe that I can do this consistently from my position,

00:41:24.280 but I do prescribe to covenant succession, as it's literally defined, that it's the,

00:41:30.220 not presumption, not assumption, but it's the eager, joyful, humble expectation of Christian

00:41:37.620 parents that their children will succeed them in the faith, not by covenant nature,

00:41:43.920 but by covenant nurture and i do believe even as a baptist that by covenant nurture by not that god

00:41:51.540 owes us it's not that there's a way in which we can work the god of the universe into our debt

00:41:56.280 but what i wish more reform 1689 baptists recognized is that it's not so much an argument

00:42:05.360 of good godly parenting meriting the salvation of our children that um but um i wish i've said

00:42:14.480 it like this i wish that more reformed baptists would recognize that there is a a thin but real

00:42:21.980 distinction between unconditional election and arbitrary election and god's election is not

00:42:30.480 arbitrary. It is unconditional, but it is not arbitrary in the sense that God never severs

00:42:37.600 means from ends. The means of grace are designated by God exclusively for bringing about his ends of

00:42:47.620 grace. Romans 10, 14, how would they believe unless they hear? You know, how would they hear

00:42:52.520 unless someone preaches? And so again and again and again, we see God bringing about his

00:42:56.820 decreed of will in its ends of grace and in every facet, but especially as it pertains to the

00:43:04.460 salvation of an individual, the ends of grace in salvation are always brought about by the means

00:43:11.080 of grace. And therefore I believe that again, it's not meriting. So it's a not, not a 100%

00:43:17.080 guarantee, which even the Presbyterian wouldn't affirm. They have a category for apostate children

00:43:22.480 being, you know, a part of, you know, this external covenant members, but not internal,

00:43:29.860 not decreed elect. And so even the Presbyterian has this understanding. So for the, on the Baptist

00:43:36.840 side of the aisle, what I'm recognizing is I'm saying that by and large, more often than not,

00:43:41.940 I think that it should be the hopeful, but serious expectation of, of Christian reformed

00:43:49.380 covenantal Baptist parents, that God is going to save not some and not most, but all of our

00:43:56.540 children. And that's precisely why he gave those children to us. If God was not intent on my

00:44:04.020 children being elect and saving them, he could have given them to my pagan neighbor. But he gave 0.99

00:44:09.720 them to me because the means of grace are not severed from the ends of grace. Unconditional

00:44:14.720 election is not synonymous with arbitrary election. God brings forth salvation through

00:44:20.180 a designated means. And it's a means that just so happens that my wife and I are very committed by

00:44:25.760 the grace of God to submerse and emmerse our children in, namely gospel preaching, catechism,

00:44:33.380 training up in the paideia of the Lord, in our home, through family worship, in our children's

00:44:39.420 education through a christian classical school through um through uh participation in the lord's

00:44:46.160 day both in the morning service and the evening service um in the means of grace that our children

00:44:51.280 are swimming in this and so again it's not that um that that if we do this god owes us that

00:44:57.860 but it is to suspect that that it is god's ordinary pattern to use his ordinary means

00:45:05.200 of grace to bring about the ends of salvation. Unconditional election is not arbitrary election.

00:45:11.020 And to those who would push back and say, well, what about, you know, Jesus who says,

00:45:14.940 I have not come to bring peace, but a sword, division. From now on, a household of five will

00:45:19.660 have two against three and three against two. I personally, and I'd like to get your sense on this,

00:45:24.600 Joe, if you agree, I personally see that as Jesus speaking very, it's not an indefinite prophetic

00:45:31.780 declaration, but not a prescription, indefinite prescription, but a particular temporary

00:45:41.520 description of what it looks like in the days of Christ and his earthly ministry for the gospel to

00:45:47.780 come to a first generation that was ultimately predominantly hardened in unbelief, that ultimately

00:45:59.100 They crucified the Messiah, rejected, he came to his own, but they received him not.

00:46:04.440 And so when the gospel first comes to bear with the first generation, that's what we 0.76

00:46:09.080 saw in the time of Christ. 0.87

00:46:11.000 And I would say that that's a pattern that we continue to see throughout this gospel

00:46:15.340 age, whenever the gospel comes for the first time to a first generation.

00:46:19.280 So whether it be Judaism at the time of Christ, or whether it be an Islamic nation, or whether

00:46:25.760 it be some other pagan nation, when the gospel first comes to bear, we do see it being ordinary,

00:46:32.460 the splitting of households, that a husband is saved and a wife is not, that a sibling is saved

00:46:38.520 and another is not, that the children are saved, but the parents are not, or vice versa. But on

00:46:43.040 the heels of multiple generations of Christendom, that should no longer be the pattern. I think that

00:46:50.540 you should expect in in countries and cultures that have been dominated by by christian ethic

00:46:56.380 christian gospel christian preaching christian culture for centuries we should expect that by

00:47:03.300 faithful parenting covenant nurture we should have covenant succession an expectation that

00:47:09.500 god would save not just some or most but all of our children and i think the baptist the

00:47:14.820 covenantal reform 1689 baptist has just as much claim on that doctrine of covenant succession

00:47:20.660 as the presbyterian tell me i'm crazy you know i um you know i i like that i think this is an

00:47:28.600 i'm i'm encouraged that we're singing from the same hymn sheet on this and i do think it's an

00:47:32.920 indication that actually we're in a time when you know faithful reformed people can get closer and

00:47:39.680 closer together on this on the significance of of the covenant i mentioned that i had served in

00:47:46.040 in both baptistic and paedo-baptist churches when i planted westminster chapel in in toronto

00:47:53.360 uh about um where was 2008 so 14 15 years ago now i had initially had conversations with the

00:48:02.900 with the anglicans because that's where i in uh in in in london and england that had been where i

00:48:08.480 had been uh more familiar with pastoral ministry but i very quickly discovered that that was going

00:48:13.820 to be essentially impossible because of the episcopal the state of the episcopal church in

00:48:19.380 in uh in north america it was at a time when it was all beginning to uh to to move in a strongly

00:48:25.360 liberal direction and fall apart so so that never happened so the so the plant ended up being a bit

00:48:30.620 of a coalition of the willing and it was a baptist movement that um wanted to uh come alongside this

00:48:37.640 vision that i put together a plant team and we have this vision for the church plant it's actually

00:48:43.800 in a conservative evangelical baptistic movement that said we would love to stand with you in this

00:48:48.900 um and so i thought well uh you know who is the lord brought uh along alongside us right now and

00:48:57.640 i had some interesting conversations early on because this particular movement that i won't

00:49:01.760 name on the podcast but this particular movement uh it's uh it's it's sort of confession of faith

00:49:08.820 it's uh it's peculiar commitments uh opened with uh this this statement the church of jesus christ

00:49:16.520 consists of all fully immersed believers um and um uh it was a holdover from uh you know from a very

00:49:25.460 very sort of strongly uh you know baptists in in canada seeking to find their identity their

00:49:33.020 peculiar identity in the practice of of water baptism by by full immersion and i i said to

00:49:39.320 them i said look you know i'm i'm i want to to to to to work with you this is it this is i think a

00:49:45.120 god-ordained coalition of the willing but so i cannot sign up to that um i can't possibly sign

00:49:51.760 up to that statement statement of faith i can't agree with how can how can we say that george

00:49:55.540 whitfield and jonathan edwards and um and john wesley and and um william wilberforce and many

00:50:04.900 of the puritans and and and uh on and and charles hodge and benjamin warfield these people are not

00:50:12.800 part of the church of jesus christ because they're not fully immersed of course the absurdity of the

00:50:17.840 position was very obvious to them as we talked about it at the table and they said well no you

00:50:21.680 you can just ignore that um and uh you know just um you know and i said i want to receive

00:50:29.120 i want to be able to receive people who have been baptized as infants i said this is a church plant

00:50:35.880 in a in a pagan one of the most pagan cosmopolitan cities in north america perhaps the most

00:50:42.420 multicultural in the world i said this is not a time for us to be all saying we all want to

00:50:47.160 pee in our own paddling pools i said this needs to be uh i need to be able to receive people

00:50:54.820 who were baptized in evangelical reformed homes as infants who believe that their baptism is valid

00:51:04.000 and uh they they stand by that baptism and they want to become members or want to move into

00:51:09.420 show promise to move into leadership positions i want to be able to receive them

00:51:13.180 And, you know, I was given dispensation to do that. Periodically, I was accused of dry baptisms of infants, because when we dedicated children, I would use a bottle of oil and make the sign of the cross on there.

00:51:28.620 So I had quite an anglican thing to do. And there was this dry baptism. I was careful with the wording. It was it was that covenant succession.

00:51:36.740 That's the kind of wording that I used. In the ideal world, this wasn't possible in that context because we were part of a large family of Baptist churches.

00:51:47.500 And I wanted to respect and honor the fact that the practice of baptism in the life of the church needed to be in keeping with the fellowship we were part of.

00:51:56.520 that is the God-honoring, was the God-honoring thing to do. In my ideal world, I would have gone 0.91

00:52:04.640 with an approach, because we had elders in the church that were both Paedo-Baptist and

00:52:09.420 Credo-Baptist, and lived together in joy and harmony in the leadership of the church. I would

00:52:17.580 have ideally liked to have gone with the conscience of the parents, that I would have gone with what

00:52:24.680 what is it that the parents believe that because we had people from the church of about 400 in the

00:52:32.140 end by the time that I moved on and we had people from a variety of different backgrounds in

00:52:38.540 different places some people wanted to reaffirm their baptismal vows of their parents by full

00:52:44.520 immersion so it wasn't a re-baptism as such it was a reaffirmation this is something that some

00:52:48.980 of the reformed Anglican churches do in England if somebody feels they were christened by

00:52:53.740 unbelieving parents by an unbelieving pastor or vicar um they want to reaffirm uh something so

00:53:01.320 there are a number of things that could be done there and there were some people that wanted to

00:53:04.540 do that but there were others that had the conviction that no they're they're presbyterian

00:53:09.600 or anglican uh faithful parents it was a legitimate baptism and so uh in in the ideal world for me at

00:53:17.320 this cultural moment and at this time in which we're we're we're living especially in these sort

00:53:23.060 of missional environments in inner city metropolitan centers where we need to be

00:53:30.440 bringing God's people together around the truth of the covenant, his law, the lordship of Christ,

00:53:35.840 the fullness of the gospel, the reformed faith. I think that to me, and I know I probably will

00:53:42.820 upset people on both sides of the aisle saying that, but that's really what ideally I would

00:53:47.520 have wanted to do is is is you know uh affirm the conscience the conviction of the family the

00:53:53.620 parents and gone with the mode of baptism that uh that that they were requesting amen yeah i i take

00:54:01.080 a similar position i'm not quite to the point where you are but i take a similar position in

00:54:04.940 the sense that i i love how you just said mode of baptism so i'm unique again among 1689 baptists

00:54:10.520 in the sense that we will receive a sprinkling infant baptism.

00:54:17.300 So we have multiple members of our church, adult members,

00:54:20.300 not just speaking of their kids, but adult members of our church

00:54:22.580 who they themselves were baptized in a gospel preaching church as an infant.

00:54:29.340 And even our statement of faith, so we have two statements of faith by design.

00:54:34.080 We have what we call our general statement of faith,

00:54:37.400 and then we have the church's specific statement of doctrine.

00:54:40.520 general statement of faith, specific statement of doctrine. The specific statement of doctrine,

00:54:44.840 as it currently stands, is the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And that is,

00:54:50.440 we have very specific language in our constitution of the church that says that each member of the

00:54:56.020 church must recognize the specific statement of doctrine that is the 1689, but that they're not

00:55:01.960 required necessarily to affirm it. And we bifurcate what it is to recognize versus affirm.

00:55:07.480 recognized means that they're not going to be visibly and audibly, you know, vocally divisive

00:55:13.940 over it. And they would come to expect that the public preaching ministry of the church would be

00:55:18.520 within the theological guardrails set forth by the 1689. We do require officers of the church,

00:55:25.320 any ordained officer, which for us, the diaconate would be an ordained officer of the church. And

00:55:30.220 we would hold to a male diaconate just as we hold to a male eldership, but male elders and deacons

00:55:35.900 ordained by the church, they are required not only to recognize, but also affirm the specific

00:55:43.020 statement of doctrine that is the 1689. But members of the church only have to recognize

00:55:49.500 that specific statement of doctrine 1689, but they must affirm another statement of faith,

00:55:55.680 which is our general statement of faith. And it's just that by design, it is general. It is

00:56:00.380 so intentionally narrow that no non-Christian could affirm it. A Muslim cannot affirm it. A 1.00

00:56:05.760 Buddhist cannot affirm it. An atheist cannot affirm it. A Roman Catholic actually would not 0.99

00:56:10.560 be able to affirm it. But a Presbyterian can affirm it. An Anglican can affirm it. A Baptist 0.77

00:56:17.080 can affirm it. An Arminian could affirm it. A Calvinist could affirm it. Continuationist could 0.98

00:56:22.860 affirm it. Cessationist could affirm it. And so we're intentionally having the statement of faith

00:56:28.800 that requires prescription from the members of the church intentionally broader. And so what it

00:56:36.900 says in regards to baptism is it simply says that in order to be a member of the church, you must be

00:56:43.220 a baptized follower of Jesus. And it makes intentionally no mention of mode. And so what

00:56:54.340 I do with that Presbyterian family, that because churches are few and far between right now,

00:56:59.240 because we're in a time of war, not a time of peace and solid covenantal reformed theonomic

00:57:04.960 post-millennial Kuyperian churches don't currently grow on trees. Um, when a family like that finds

00:57:10.420 themselves in our geographic area and they're looking for a church and they can't find a

00:57:15.280 Presbyterian church like ours, um, then, and they want to be members in our church. I simply ask

00:57:20.840 them, do you believe that your infant baptism of sprinkling in terms of mode, do you believe that

00:57:28.200 that was a legitimate baptism? And if they say yes, then what I say is in order to obey the

00:57:35.000 teachings of scripture in Galatians, one baptism, one Lord, one faith, I say, well, I am not

00:57:39.920 comfortable as a pastor subjecting you to sinning against your own conscience by subjecting you to

00:57:46.600 what, what your conscience would see as a second baptism. And so we're going to say that we have

00:57:52.020 a difference in mode, but that we both have a baptism. And so therefore we welcome them in as

00:57:57.960 members of the church. Now, what I'm not currently able to do in my own conscience is that even if

00:58:03.360 the parents' conscience had their own children and wanted them as an infant to receive infant

00:58:09.060 baptism, pedo-baptism, the parents' conscience would be clear, but I could not perform, actually

00:58:15.680 practice that baptism as a minister. And so I have a Presbyterian minister who is close by,

00:58:22.540 who we have a good friendship with. And so I would actually send them over to him

00:58:27.820 to receive that infant baptism and then come back to us and the membership residing with us.

00:58:35.480 And so that's how I'm navigating it right now. And again, this is not for anybody,

00:58:40.760 because I know you and I are both going to get pushback from this episode as relativist or

00:58:44.880 whatever um which were not but again my position is i'm not saying that this was um a good position

00:58:51.380 to hold 200 years ago and i'm not saying it's a good position to hold 200 years from now as i i

00:58:57.840 believe with my heart of hearts that chrysidom was stronger 200 years ago and i believe that

00:59:03.160 chrysidom will make a comeback 200 years from now but in this unique moment that we're living in um

00:59:08.800 um i what am i what am i going to tell them that you know this couple comes and and i'm not saying

00:59:15.580 there's no presbyterian church but this is what they have to choose between joe and you know this

00:59:19.660 better than i do they have to choose between the presbyterian church in town that's radical two

00:59:24.880 kingdom um um to mystic um not presuppositional no room for van till or bonson or or anything like

00:59:33.740 that. So, so they have to choose between a church that is reformed and that, that is

00:59:39.460 paedo-baptist that will baptize their children, but then will disciple their children to have

00:59:46.560 no influence in culture whatsoever. And, and to not seek to restore Christendom, to, to not seek

00:59:54.600 to, to, to engage culturally with, you know, all of Christ for all of us. And so what happens is

01:00:00.360 the parents, they're like, we can't do that, Joel. We would rather be in a Baptist Kyperian 0.97

01:00:07.520 church than a Paedo-Baptist pietist church. We see pietism as actually a bigger threat to our 0.99

01:00:14.340 children in the long run than a church that won't baptize them. But then the parents sit there with 0.83

01:00:19.680 their conscience uneasy. And I can see it as they're in terms of their conscience, they're

01:00:25.560 foregoing what they see as a commandment from the Lord to choosing not to baptize their children.

01:00:31.300 So I send them over to my friend in town so that their conscience can be at ease. But then they

01:00:36.480 can be a part of our church. And that's just, I don't know what else to do in this current moment.

01:00:40.520 I don't think it will always be the case, but I think it's currently where we're at. And I know

01:00:44.660 that a lot of my 1689 friends would say that I'm compromised on this issue, but I think that

01:00:49.060 that history will look back and say, yeah, what Joe and Joel were doing in that moment,

01:00:55.780 given the larger context, what was at play was not the ideal position, but probably the lesser

01:01:03.540 of the poisons to choose from? Well, I don't think that's a compromised position at all. I think that

01:01:12.680 the the um a compromised position uh the um the the experience that you're talking about of people

01:01:20.740 coming to the church who are from a a paedo-baptist background but cannot uh stomach the retreatism

01:01:28.920 pietism uh sometimes antinomianism in the uh in in the perhaps the paedo-baptist environment

01:01:37.940 around the corner was something that we dealt with.

01:01:41.600 We had migrants from, for example, in terms of response to lockdowns.

01:01:46.760 There were people that came to us from Presbyterian environments 0.51

01:01:49.640 because they just could not deal with the compromise anymore.

01:01:53.180 What do sort of, you know, hardcore credo or paedo-baptist people

01:02:01.820 on either side of the aisle who will not bend and flex on what is ultimately a secondary issue

01:02:09.780 in in situations of critical missional importance are going to do with families like that just turn

01:02:19.600 them away and I think you make a critical point that you cannot force people's consciences and

01:02:26.480 actually what you described as your practice is exactly what we did at Westminster when I said

01:02:31.220 that my my ideal would be able to follow the conscience of the parents that was not what we

01:02:37.420 were able to practice um because of the you know our desire to um be faithful to the uh the community

01:02:45.560 the baptistic community that we we were part of um that it would be you know to be a bridge too

01:02:53.220 far to do that but we did have situations where we had reformed presbyterian families in the church

01:03:00.780 who had a child or they were reformed Dutch reformed and they were in the uh the church

01:03:07.260 and they wanted their child baptized and so um we helped uh with arrangements um for that to

01:03:16.000 for that to happen um and then but they continued to be worshippers members of our church

01:03:21.400 and uh I think that um that's what we in terms of the broader unity of evangelical

01:03:28.660 called reformed believers who love the lord love his covenant i want to love and serve one another

01:03:35.040 in a time of war as you say i think this is important and until at the end of the day

01:03:40.700 um look we have we know and this is really my last remark on the on the issue but

01:03:46.280 we we both know that there are godly faithful covenantal uh reformed and if you want to add

01:03:55.460 um some of the other distinctives um you know theonomic um optimistic eschatology so the

01:04:01.820 postmill presuppositional uh kyperian you can add all of these additional descriptors

01:04:07.580 on both sides of this discussion and i think that that many of these issues though like the one you

01:04:15.260 mentioned there for example that like a two kingdoms issue uh today to my mind is a much more

01:04:22.680 critical and vital issue for the church at war than the mode of baptism uh and uh and i think

01:04:32.280 that until we are in a time of peace where if the lord would would grant it we could come to one

01:04:39.940 mind on the mode and timing of baptism until that time comes i think we have to develop ways

01:04:47.480 of building unity in the local church on this issue because as you say the churches that are

01:04:54.360 truly faithful and committed to the reformed faith today are increasingly scarce and those

01:05:00.540 that will be prepared to confront prophetically culture and uh engage uh all of you know as you

01:05:07.960 said um all of christ for all of life in its totality and take the totality of his word

01:05:13.580 seriously they're not growing on trees so what are we going to do with our faithful brothers and

01:05:17.780 sisters in those different environments surely the attitude of christ the attitude of the apostles

01:05:24.020 would have been that i think the one that you know without wanting to uh uh you know place

01:05:30.280 ourselves on the side of the angels automatically i think that's the one that that would have been

01:05:35.700 pursued by um uh the the apostles were this question a a matter of a matter of division

01:05:43.400 in their time um these this is a secondary issue where godly men and women of faith and truth

01:05:50.980 and like commitment have differed for centuries and um we are in we're at defcom three possibly

01:05:59.800 DEFCON 4 right now in the West. So this is surely not the time to focus on division over secondary

01:06:08.020 issues when we've got the battle of a lifetime to struggle with for our children for the future.

01:06:14.360 Amen. Amen. I'll let that be the final word. So let's go ahead and do this now.

01:06:19.420 In light of everything that we've been talking about, we're not relativists. We're not saying

01:06:25.660 that baptism doesn't matter. It certainly matters. We're not even saying that moat doesn't matter.

01:06:29.800 Although we are distinguishing baptism as a whole from mode of baptism.

01:06:36.800 But even with mode of baptism, we're not saying it doesn't matter.

01:06:39.420 What we're saying that a lot of guys don't get right now is that that matters a great deal.

01:06:45.920 But this two kingdom, radical two kingdom pietism is a bigger problem.

01:06:52.120 And so there are very few, and speaking about how rare it is right now, it doesn't grow on trees.

01:06:56.760 There are very few churches, but there are also very few programs and trainings and resources to, to get these things in your bloodstream, the optimistic eschatology, theonomic thought, all of Christ for all of life, Kuyperianism, presuppositionalism from your, from your apologetic to your, to your ethics, to, to markets and economies and vocation of full orbed.

01:07:26.760 straight whiskey no chaser christian faith you're doing that joe better than than just about anyone

01:07:33.820 that i know so so bless our listeners with with an opportunity with some of the things that they

01:07:39.160 could partner with you with well you're very generous to me joel and i i appreciate it um

01:07:46.120 and um i'm i'm grateful to see the way that the lord is using you and raising you up there in

01:07:52.000 texas and in america with uh with a with a voice on these issues and um and i think uh that the

01:07:58.520 lord is going to continue to to bless what you're doing as you're as you're faithful to him um

01:08:04.040 because fruit always follows faithfulness um the um i would want to let people know about an

01:08:10.760 opportunity a couple of opportunities that they have to get equipped um in this you say the moment

01:08:16.880 of this moment of cultural struggle how do we begin to develop the christian mind how do we

01:08:22.680 um uh over over a period of time begin to uh get the tools necessary for this kingdom struggle

01:08:31.440 that we're in i will just just want to mention two opportunities that the ezra institute uh has

01:08:36.560 on offer um amongst several others in in the us right now so for those listeners who don't know

01:08:43.280 The Ezra Institute was started in Canada, but we recently opened offices in the United States and in the United Kingdom in process and our offices in Tennessee.

01:08:56.520 But the the programs are happening in various parts of the US.

01:09:02.860 But this year, there is a really exciting opportunity. Our flagship training program is a 10 day intensive Christian worldview, cultural apologetics, residential program.

01:09:16.700 and it's aimed at 19 through 40 year olds thereabouts so students and younger professionals

01:09:24.560 to develop um a robust biblical world and life view and a cultural apologetics so we deal with

01:09:32.040 things like law politics education christian apologetics church and state these kinds of

01:09:37.640 questions we have fellows from um from around the world that come and teach people if they go to our

01:09:44.020 website ezrainstitute.com they can look at our fellows and and it's not just our fellows we have

01:09:49.580 other guests speaking at these programs um this year we've got people like james white uh joining

01:09:56.340 us and many others um and we are going to be in uh chatsworth georgia for the runner academy it's

01:10:06.200 it's it's we shorten it to the runner academy it's called the h evan runner international

01:10:11.140 Academy for Cultural Leadership. It's named after an American philosopher who was a reformed thinker

01:10:19.240 and Kuyperian and was wanting to advance the Christian world and life view. And so we name

01:10:25.760 it after him. We shorten it to the Runner Academy. So that is May 7th through 17th. May 7th through

01:10:32.020 17th 19 to 40 year olds chats with georgia 10 days residential fellowship teaching fun it's an

01:10:42.500 amazing time go to ezrainstitute.com and you can click on the runner academy and then find all the

01:10:50.240 details about the program there we would we would love to see a full program of american students

01:10:58.340 young professionals gathering together with like-minded people to get equipped so I'd really

01:11:03.400 encourage people to look at that and the other opportunity is in the summertime not the spring

01:11:10.100 that's in July and I'm blanking on the date off the top of my head but that program is is happening

01:11:19.280 in the US as well and it's called the worldview leadership academy so we so the runner academy

01:11:25.720 is for our 19 through 40 year olds our worldview leadership academy is a one-week program for 14

01:11:34.280 through 18 year olds so there's got to be parents or grandparents listening to this program we think

01:11:39.260 i need my children to get a biblical world and life view and a cultural apologetic training so

01:11:45.860 they're grounded in the faith they can face all the ideological challenges of the day they can

01:11:51.840 develop an effective vindication of uh the gospel uh an effective vindication of the christian view

01:11:58.880 of life they can begin to understand human identity sexuality law politics education the arts

01:12:04.220 all in terms of a christian world and life view lordship of jesus christ over every area of life

01:12:10.060 so again if you go to the website ezrainstitute.com click on you'll see in the on the landing page

01:12:16.400 there worldview leadership academy click on that and you'll be able to find our program that's

01:12:21.260 happening in the summer in the usa this year as well so those two programs i i just thank you for

01:12:26.960 the opportunity joel to mention those absolutely runner international academy for cultural

01:12:31.940 leadership the worldview leadership academy for teens um go to our website get signed up you won't

01:12:38.780 regret regret that you did no way i you definitely won't regret it i just can't this whole time i'm

01:12:44.800 just imagining how different my life would have been if for youth camp in the summer when i was

01:12:50.240 in high school, I was going to what you just described. I'm thinking my oldest is five right

01:12:55.480 now. And I'm thinking, I wonder if she could hang. I wonder if Joe would take her as a five-year-old 0.82

01:13:00.180 if I could send her. But yeah, the grandparents and parents listening to this, anybody who has

01:13:04.940 a teenager. It's not all lectures for the World of Leadership Academy is demanding. There are

01:13:12.560 lectures, but there's lots of activity and fun thrown in there as well. But yeah, sorry, I

01:13:16.920 interrupted you joe go ahead no no no that's fine i was just thinking that man i when when my kids

01:13:21.580 are of that age i that sounds amazing i i think that they would yeah it was just so fruitful for

01:13:28.880 a teenager i'm just thinking you know i came into these doctrines in my 30s my early 30s

01:13:34.020 and the last i became reformed when i was you know calvin you know embracing the the tulip when i was

01:13:41.160 21, you know, so it's been 15 years. Um, but, but some of these other things and understand,

01:13:48.500 you know, a Kuyperian post-millennial theonomic, um, presuppositional, I,

01:13:54.340 Calvinism, 15 years, these other doctrines, five, it's really been five years. And, uh,

01:14:01.240 I'm just thinking, man, if I had, if I, I didn't even know they existed. If I had heard about

01:14:04.940 these things when I was 14 years old, I just can't imagine, you know, I just can't imagine.

01:14:10.500 So God bless you.

01:14:11.980 And I hope that everyone listening, if you are a parent or a grandparent, don't miss out on these opportunities.

01:14:18.460 One more time.

01:14:19.140 The website is Ezra.

01:14:21.100 EzraInstitute.com.

01:14:23.300 EzraInstitute.com.

01:14:24.720 And people can follow us if they want on Facebook or Twitter.

01:14:28.020 They can follow me on Twitter.

01:14:29.880 And if they're interested, we also have our podcast for cultural reformation in terms of a resource.

01:14:35.320 That's a weekly podcast that they can get wherever they listen to their podcasts.

01:14:40.300 Great.

01:14:41.140 Well, Dr. Booth, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

01:14:43.860 And to all of our listeners, I hope that you were blessed by this discussion.

01:14:47.940 I know that I personally was, and I hope that you were too.

01:14:50.200 Thanks for tuning in.

01:14:51.300 Thanks so much for listening.

01:14:52.500 But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star

01:14:57.720 review if you enjoyed the show.

01:14:59.700 This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content

01:15:04.940 to as many people as possible.

01:15:07.100 Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - March 14, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Should Presbyterians & Reformed Baptists Be In The Same Local Church？｜ with Dr. Joe Boot

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

The NXR Podcast - March 14, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Should Presbyterians & Reformed Baptists Be In The Same Local Church？ ｜ with Dr. Joe Boot

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Should Presbyterians & Reformed Baptists Be In The Same Local Church？｜ with Dr. Joe Boot