The NXR Podcast - March 14, 2023


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

Topics
secularism influence secularism vs. islam covenant succession
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Joel Webin Joseph Boot John Bunyan Kuyperianism William Wilberforce Charles Spurgeon George Whitefield Jonathan Edwards Thomas Aquinas Apostle James Charles Hodge Jesus Christ John Wesley Joe Boot Vox Dei Ayatollah Kuyperian Baptists Paedo Ummah and 2 more
DAILY TRUTH - This Is The #1 Biblical Doctrine That Big Eva Hates! DAILY TRUTH - “Physical Training Is Of Some Value”

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 15 minutes

Words per minute

155.2

Word count

11,660

Sentence count

299

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

48

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Pastor Joel Webin is joined by Dr. Joseph Boot, who is a Presbyterian pastor in both a Presbyterian and a baptist church. Dr. Boot shares his experience in both environments and how they shaped his theology.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
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00:00:38 Thank you so much.
00:00:39 God bless.
00:00:40 Is this the episode where I finally come out
00:00:41 as a Presbyterian?
00:00:43 I know you Presbyterians have been waiting.
00:00:46 You've all said that it's just a matter of when
00:00:49 and not if that's gonna happen.
00:00:51 He's already Presbyterian.
00:00:53 He just doesn't know it.
00:00:54 I give it six months.
00:00:55 I see you guys online on Twitter taking bets.
00:00:58 I say within three years, he's baptizing babies.
00:01:01 I say he's going to be doing it within three months.
00:01:05 This is the episode.
00:01:07 We talk about baptism.
00:01:09 Me and Joe Boot.
00:01:11 Fantastic episode.
00:01:13 I get real close.
00:01:15 Do I go over the line?
00:01:17 You got to stay tuned to find out.
00:01:19 Tune into this episode of Theology Applied with your host, Pastor Joel Webin, and special guest, Dr. Joseph Boot.
00:01:26 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.
00:01:29 This is Theology Applied.
00:01:36 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
00:01:39 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
00:01:42 And in this episode, I am very privileged to welcome back, I believe for the 64th time
00:01:48 or something like that, a regular guest to our show, someone that I have benefited much
00:01:53 from, Dr. Joseph Boot.
00:01:55 welcome thanks joel it's great to see you again great to be back thank you for having me
00:02:00 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 level but very unique to you i want to talk about baptism and instead of having a quasi-informal
00:02:14 charitable debate and hosting someone who is exclusively fully you know blood sweat and tears
00:02:20 prescribed to the 1646 Westminster Pato persuasion. What I like about you in this conversation is 0.90
00:02:26 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 aisle. And so could you maybe start this conversation by just maybe giving a little bit of, we'll get to
00:02:39 the theology, but let's start with maybe your testimony, your pastoral experience in pastoring
00:02:45 a presbyterian church and a baptist church yeah um it's interesting i think that uh sometimes with
00:02:54 with questions like this we are going to be inescapably shaped and informed by some of our
00:03:01 own experience in in the christian community um for me uh within the global christian community
00:03:08 and um i often find that people who've had considerable exposure to the to the global
00:03:15 christian community um will nurture a kind of i hope a healthy catholicity when it comes to
00:03:22 some of these questions but i was actually raised in um a baptistic environment uh because um i grew
00:03:32 up in the pentecostal church uh in england and um which is which is baptistic uh and um but my
00:03:42 studies took place in um an evangelical uh seminary not in a pentecostal seminary so when i was 18 i
00:03:50 actually went to to theological college and um there were reformed uh professors and scholars
00:03:59 there one of them was a congregational minister actually who i found to be the most engaging
00:04:07 of the professors and he introduced me to the puritans and it really introduced me to reform
00:04:16 thought and so uh in the early part of my christian life i was exposed to and ended up
00:04:25 getting experience in both a credo-baptist and a paedo-baptist environment and you know
00:04:34 a number of my professors were paedo-baptist the number were credo-baptist. By the time I was 24
00:04:44 and in the sort of after my formal initial part of my formal theological education
00:04:51 I actually was working as an evangelist apologist for an organization in England called Saltmine Trust, actually.
00:05:01 Still going. They used creative arts largely in going into schools and colleges and doing evangelism with young people.
00:05:10 And my task was to go in with these creative arts teams into schools, prisons, colleges and share the gospel.
00:05:21 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 Some were, um, credo-baptists, some were paedo-baptists.
00:05:40 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 and um my uh this led on actually to my first pastoral role in my mid-20s i was actually
00:05:58 you mentioned um presbyterian it was actually anglican it was reformed anglican so my first
00:06:03 pastoral role where i was essentially functioning as the uh associate pastor my official title was
00:06:11 director of evangelism was at a church in southwest london which was a uh paedo-baptist
00:06:17 community and uh i felt as comfortable there um and as as happy there as i had done in any credo
00:06:28 baptist environment and so um i would say that kind of my my initial experience in the early
00:06:34 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 on to westminster in a moment but in that early part of my ministry um found myself with with a
00:06:46 non-sectarian attitude at least have some of my own convictions but i had a non-sectarian attitude
00:06:51 to the baptism issue in part because it was driven by a passion for evangelism and apologetics and
00:06:59 my priority at that time was not really having to manage disagreements or disputes in the local
00:07:05 church around that issue yeah well that makes a lot of sense i appreciate you sharing a little
00:07:09 bit of your early ministry experience with us um you know for myself personally as somebody who
00:07:15 prescribes to the 1689 London Baptist confession of faith. One of the challenges that I've noticed
00:07:21 pastorally is that I too would prescribe to this kind of lowercase c baptismal Catholicity,
00:07:27 wanting to link arms across the aisle, so to speak. I don't, that's not my all of time
00:07:34 definitive and definite position. So I, you know, if Christ chooses to tarry for 10,000 years, I
00:07:40 I wouldn't hold that in one local assembly, you should have both the Paedo and Credo Baptist
00:07:47 position represented by the eldership of the church and practiced for all of time.
00:07:53 But I think that we're living, for lack of a better word, in a unique dispensation in
00:07:57 this moment where we've got some pretty ferocious giants that the church is facing, some dragons
00:08:05 that need to be slayed, most notably and urgently, I would say secular humanism being a very large
00:08:12 one. We've seen the eroding and kind of recession of Christendom in the West, and we want to regain
00:08:18 that. And so the idea that Presbyterians and Baptists, both being confessionals, 1689 and 1646,
00:08:27 partnering for the next 20 or 50 years in a local assembly, because they have postmillennialism in
00:08:34 common, Kuyperianism in common, theonomy in common, patriarchy in common, these kinds of things that
00:08:39 are absolutely vital in order to, to slay this, this present dragon of, of secularism in order
00:08:47 to reassure, you know, reassure a Christendom 2.0, and then maybe we can start to fight about
00:08:55 baptism again. I just feel like the debate of baptism, it matters. It certainly matters,
00:09:00 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 What do you think about that? Would you agree with that sentiment?
00:09:12 Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it, Joel, actually.
00:09:15 We don't have that luxury right now. It's a luxury for times of peace.
00:09:20 I think that the church is under tremendous pressure in the West, unprecedented, really, in many, many years.
00:09:28 and I think a good example of what you're saying actually is found in on the mission field uh in
00:09:35 the traditional mission fields I should say of the of the western church so when we talk about
00:09:40 mission we still tend not to think about our own nations which I think we really should be as well
00:09:45 um but we think about um heathen lands historically is Islamic cultures pagan cultures
00:09:52 right um hindu cultures and so on um my family um were missionaries in the islamic world
00:09:59 um for for about 17 years my parents uh and in the part of the world that they were
00:10:07 for all those years uh the the missionaries were from uh both paedo and credo baptist backgrounds
00:10:16 presbyterians anglicans baptists pentecostals and in that setting when you're up against the 0.89
00:10:23 the behemoth of islam the colossus of the islamic world and you're and the percentage of christians 0.81
00:10:29 is you know hovering around one percent your priority is not uh ironing out the details of 1.00
00:10:37 which of those confessions should be adhered to, and the niceties of how one should deal with
00:10:49 perhaps a paedo-baptized person who wants to go and join membership in a Baptist community.
00:10:56 Those simply aren't the priorities for obvious reasons. You've got a much larger, broader
00:11:02 battle to fight. And so, as you say, it's not that the question of baptisms is not important,
00:11:08 but as the book of Hebrews says, it's one of the foundations. It's the milk.
00:11:17 Baptisms and discussions about baptisms have gone on for centuries. And this is not an argument
00:11:23 that we are going to solve anytime soon. In my view, I think we're going to have these two
00:11:30 emphases with us for a very long time and so in a missions context it's simply not the priority
00:11:36 and I think that in times of great prosperity for the church in the west in times of
00:11:43 in a certain sense we might say cultural influence or even cultural victory
00:11:49 it wasn't just baptists and paedo-baptists that were squabble it would be baptist denominations
00:11:56 and reform denominations on even lesser issues dividing and and um where i was in toronto there
00:12:05 was a whole story about the two two um baptist movements that where you know some of the older
00:12:11 people would would uh tell me that you know when they were kids there would sometimes be some stone
00:12:16 throwing and argy-bargy between kids from the two different baptist communities because one was on
00:12:22 that side of the road and the other one was in the other neighborhood and they belonged to two 0.69
00:12:25 different fellowships and it's like so um in a certain sense that sort of thing uh clobbering
00:12:32 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 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 with the assault of secularism of repaganization in some parts of europe islam and i think um
00:12:54 there's a good precedent for what you're saying. John Bunyan in that time of tremendous pressure
00:13:00 on the church in England, pressure on non-conformists. Bunyan spent a lot of time in
00:13:08 prison, as you know. Bunyan was a non-sectarian on the baptism issue. And actually, some of the
00:13:14 great Puritan leaders like Cromwell had that Catholicity that you were talking about on this
00:13:22 issue. So I do think one major factor to consider is, what is the cultural environment? What's the
00:13:28 cultural situation? Is that discussion, the intramural debate between reformed, evangelical,
00:13:39 faithful, Christ-honoring believers, is that the priority? And is it something we should be
00:13:46 splitting up, dividing over, avoiding co-belligerence, not welcoming each other to the
00:13:51 Lord's Table and so on, or welcoming one another into membership. No, I don't think so. I think
00:13:56 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 view, there's one faith, there's one baptism. And right now, there are much bigger challenges that
00:14:09 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 highest priority. Yes, I completely agree. And I like what you shared in terms of the
00:14:20 foreign mission field, especially in Islamic countries and cultures that, again, that's a 0.74
00:14:30 perfect example of those who do not have the luxury to debate this particular issue. And I
00:14:35 think in the West, we need to come to those similar terms and recognizing that secularism 0.90
00:14:42 is quickly becoming a comparable threat to what Islam is in other countries, that as
00:14:52 we look at the West, if we're to analyze things properly and honestly, and we run through 0.99
00:15:01 the statistics, we run through the numbers, and if we actually don't include in those
00:15:07 numbers false churches prosperity gospel preaching heretical churches and we actually just look at
00:15:14 true churches within the bounds of orthodoxy in the west with the rise of the nuns you know those
00:15:21 who would prescribe to no religious affiliation I think that the west is quickly becoming comparable
00:15:28 to the east and other places that have whether a pagan culture or is Islamic culture and so if we
00:15:36 if we think of secularism in those terms, and we think that, um, that the West is no longer in its
00:15:42 heyday of Christendom, uh, certainly there are many, uh, um, still remnants of Christendom that
00:15:47 we often take for granted. Um, but, but we're no longer in the heyday of, of Christendom and
00:15:54 Christendom is eroding. Foundations are being destroyed. Secularism is a formidable enemy,
00:16:01 quickly becoming comparable to Islam, for example, then I think we need to employ wartime 1.00
00:16:10 strategies and not peacetime strategies. And in wartime strategies, there should be an extra 0.96
00:16:21 willingness to form alliances, right? That Americans may not be particularly fond of the
00:16:27 French. Um, but, but if Great Britain is, uh, is, is on our doorstep, uh, then all of a sudden
00:16:35 an American French alliance, you know, it may, may make sense. Um, even if we perhaps regret it
00:16:41 at a later point. And so I think that we're in that kind of moment. Um, one quick question on,
00:16:47 on that end. I, I have the sense that secularism, that things are going to get worse before they
00:16:53 get better in the, in the short run with secularism in the West. In the long run though, if Christ does
00:17:00 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 a possibility, I have the sense that, that secularism, although a formidable enemy and a
00:17:12 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 quickly, I think will be slain. I think that there's a sense in which there's, there's worse
00:17:24 things yet to come, but, but also if, if we think in the next 50 years, but if we think in the next
00:17:29 500 years, I think 500 years from now, our, our great, great, great grandchildren will go on field
00:17:36 trips to museums and look at Jackson Pollock paintings. And, and the teacher will inspire
00:17:41 the children to collectively laugh at the absurdity of what we once thought was beautiful.
00:17:47 and, and the, the fruit of secular. So I think 50 years of secularism, I, I'm not particularly
00:17:53 encouraged for my children and grandchildren's sake, uh, 500 years of secularism thinking of
00:17:58 my great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. I think that they will be laughing at the corpse
00:18:03 of this dragon that's been sufficiently slain back to Islam. If I was to write a fictional book, 1.00
00:18:10 a fantasy, um, of post-millennial, you know, progressive, gradual conquering of Christ through
00:18:16 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 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 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 secularism um and the power of islam their influence i think both have the same root they
00:18:45 they ate they copy um christianity with but with key differences and it's their it's their similarity
00:18:54 to christian truth that gives them their cultural force so secularism was really an attempt to strip
00:19:02 um to maintain the to to maintain the the liberties freedoms um institutional life uh the um
00:19:11 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 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 Secularism has really sought to do that. It wanted to maintain the fruits. It didn't want the root. 0.59
00:19:52 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 similarities and that gives it its sense of cultural force but because of the nature and 1.00
00:20:07 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 now the muslims having great difficulty retaining their own children in the faith in the western 1.00
00:20:19 context. You have a place like Iran, where you have huge levels of conversion to Christianity.
00:20:28 And the Ayatollah needs to keep his foot on the necks of the people. And that is similar 0.94
00:20:35 throughout much of the Islamic world, which has been for a long time in a state of decay. 0.99
00:20:40 So I'm not sure. When you look at it, Islam is definitely a major threat, 1.00
00:20:47 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 and i would include secularism in that secularism is a form of paganism and it's becoming more and
00:20:59 more spiritualized um they are they're both uh significant uh they're both significant threats
00:21:08 that neither are going anywhere soon um both are totalitarian in their outlook uh in in terms of
00:21:16 their view of the state. Both are concerned to deny certain critical freedoms that are
00:21:25 fundamental in the Christian view of reality. And I think that really they're both utopian too.
00:21:35 Secularism does believe in man building his own future, his own prosperous future without God,
00:21:45 and believes that by right now in our current secular moment,
00:21:49 we believe that by a grand leveling, a utopia,
00:21:54 even if we don't use the term, a kind of utopia is going to emerge.
00:21:59 Islam, likewise, in the Ummah, the world Islam, 0.96
00:22:04 that through the imposition of Sharia, 0.81
00:22:07 a kind of utopian order is going to emerge through world Islam.
00:22:13 um so that they they bear similarities to one another their their cultural strength is in their 0.85
00:22:20 aping of christianity but there's always a tipping point and i think that um it's very difficult to
00:22:26 say isn't it i mean you've kind of wrestled with that question right there it's difficult to say
00:22:31 when we will reach that point where we're going over the edge and um people start to by the grace
00:22:39 of god uh begin to look back with some sense of longing and yearning to a christian past and god
00:22:46 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 years um we don't know uh the lord knows um but um in the meantime facing down those giants those
00:23:03 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 a very tidy theology right amen uh just for to address the devil's advocate um some would be
00:23:17 listening to everything you're saying and i think they would say well you know you said that 0.70
00:23:21 secularism is totalitarian um in the sense that it's it's it forces uh it's coercion and islam
00:23:29 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 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 How would you address that counter, that pushback?
00:24:18 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 The reason that secularism is totalitarian is its view of the state. 0.87
00:24:45 The state is the all-encompassing, all-inclusive institution.
00:24:50 And it begins to, you can see it, you observe the West today, the state now dominates more
00:24:55 and more areas of people's lives, begins to redefine the family, seeks to control the
00:25:00 church, education, economics, media, everything.
00:25:04 totalitarianism you don't need to be looking for a hitler or stalin type figure that's
00:25:10 authoritarianism that is usually um accompanied by totalitarianism but totalitarianism is when
00:25:17 one created sphere or well-made institution by the lord seeks to swallow and treat the other 0.84
00:25:24 spheres of life in parts the whole relationship in islam the the the the state is everything 0.80
00:25:32 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 of life there's no there's no grasp of the principle of sphere sovereignty um the same is 0.92
00:25:45 true and of course the in you know islam grew out of an undifferentiated society in any case 0.96
00:25:51 uh tribal society and that's why whenever it dominates you get this totalizing um statist view 0.93
00:25:58 um the um uh the secular world which now rejects uh post the the french revolution rejects the
00:26:08 lordship of jesus christ and sees um society basically rooted in just a social contract
00:26:14 well that's jean-chac crousseau and his view of the state was totalitarian the the the general
00:26:21 will is where the the people surrender in a sense their independence their individuality
00:26:26 and the general will is what the state says on their behalf um so the the state becomes you know
00:26:34 it's precisely why you know the goddess of reason was enthroned in notre dame and um the the living
00:26:40 god is is uh is thrown out uh the human society human community is no longer about covenant and
00:26:50 it's certainly no longer a covenant with past, present, and future. It's a revolutionary act
00:26:55 to say, we're starting over. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God.
00:27:03 That's embodied in the state in the general world. And increasingly, that's the position
00:27:07 that we're seeing in Western states. There is no transcendent authority over and above the state
00:27:13 that could bring it into judgment, that can hold it accountable, and that can delimit its power,
00:27:23 which is the foundation of liberty. The foundation of liberty is the delimiting of state power and
00:27:30 authority. You see that throughout the pagan empires of the Older Testament period, and of 0.93
00:27:34 course, in the Greco-Roman world. So biblical law, theonomy, as you talked about there,
00:27:40 is about the rule of God's law, one law for all, freedom under the law.
00:27:47 And unlike statist law, it's restrained and it's very limited.
00:27:52 Most areas of life are freedom.
00:27:56 There are 10 commandments, not 10,000 commandments.
00:28:00 And then there are case law applications,
00:28:04 which um we need to positivize those for our for our own time and our own environment
00:28:10 but the concern of biblical law it's often been described really as biblical libertarianism
00:28:15 freedom under god where family church state vocations and the various other areas of life
00:28:21 are left free uh free to serve serve the lord so people do get uh this rather wrong-headed
00:28:28 um if i can shamelessly plug my book ruler of kings toward a christian view of government
00:28:33 i explain how people get confused about this they think oh you know uh biblical law that's like
00:28:40 sharia law for christians um that's like a totalitarian authoritarianism where clergymen
00:28:46 are going to rule the state and enforce biblical law on an unwilling society that's the absolute 0.80
00:28:51 opposite of our position it's regeneration uh it must be something that comes from the bottom up
00:28:58 because godly and righteous laws are demanded by a godly and righteous people
00:29:03 who want to be in covenant with the Lord and want to live in freedom
00:29:09 and know righteousness and justice.
00:29:12 The third and final point would be, if it's the law of Christ,
00:29:15 if it's the law of the living God,
00:29:16 if it's the law that Jesus Christ himself expounded on the mountain,
00:29:21 why wouldn't we want that?
00:29:23 His law is liberty.
00:29:25 That's what the Apostle James tells.
00:29:26 His law is love, and it's also liberty.
00:29:28 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 god and his law um not the uh apostate um totalitarian law of man that reaches into
00:29:43 every single department of life uh to control you and coerce you right well said um one more point
00:29:52 on that and and it does relate to baptism so staying in the theonomic vein but starting to
00:29:59 inch our way back to baptism um i have heard several 1689 prescribed individuals one thing
00:30:09 they have in common is they all tend to be big fans of thomas aquinas and by no coincidence they
00:30:17 also would strongly assert that someone cannot affirm the 1689 second london baptist confession
00:30:26 of faith and prescribe to theonomy they would say that the 1689 is wholly incompatible even with a
00:30:35 general equity theonomy position which my understanding is that that bonson greg bonson
00:30:41 was a general equity theonomist what would you what would you say if you were trying to
00:30:48 to defend from the 1689 that you can affirm theonomy how would you address that critique
00:30:54 well i don't frankly i've never really been able to see why any of the core
00:31:03 uh reform confessions the or the three forms of unity or the london baptist confession
00:31:08 are in any way incompatible with a theonomic reading of scripture.
00:31:16 If you imprison the law of God into an older covenant period,
00:31:25 I mean, one of the things I think surprises people is when you do have
00:31:29 uh baptistic christians who are theonomic um because they assume that um you would have to
00:31:39 have a um a strongly um paedo-baptist covenantal view in order to to be uh to to recognize a
00:31:48 continuity of of uh of the um older covenant law um and the commands of god um to hold to
00:31:58 the theonomic position in the present and there's a general assumption that well if you're not
00:32:02 really presbyterian um and uh strictly covenantal in a presbyterian sense then um you're not going
00:32:11 to be a covenant theologian and therefore you're going to struggle to get to a theonomic perspective
00:32:16 um on the law and see the continuity of one great covenant of grace that unfolds
00:32:21 over time through different administrations.
00:32:27 But you take a look at somebody like Charles Spurgeon.
00:32:32 And I talk about Spurgeon quite a bit in my book,
00:32:35 The Mission of God, as a great Baptist.
00:32:39 You can only look at his writings on public life
00:32:42 and on God's law and see a theonomic,
00:32:45 an inherently theonomic reading of scripture.
00:32:47 um you look at his preaching and you can only see a covenantal understanding of the of the gospel
00:32:56 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 is a view of christian ethics uh it's how we're looking at what does god require of us morally
00:33:11 ethically as as believers and then how are we to think about the the life of the state
00:33:17 public life culture in its relationship to god's commandments now to my mind whether you're
00:33:24 anglican presbyterian or baptist or pentecostal there's nothing to stop you saying looking at
00:33:31 the theonomic view of ethics um i think barneson's major work was called theonomy in christian ethics
00:33:38 and and and recognize that we can we as believers we need to look at the see the standing law of
00:33:46 the old testament as binding and recognize that the applications the positivizations of the case
00:33:53 law most of that is moral law as barneson would have argued which is looking at minimal cases of
00:34:00 a particular application of the ten commandments for that particular context and then we look for
00:34:07 as we're doing our biblical interpretation and as we're looking at the our current cultural
00:34:12 situation what are the fundamental principles what's the general equity of that law that
00:34:17 applies i've never been able to see why that position is not applicable across the um
00:34:23 reformed confessions when we think about the um the issue of covenant which obviously is
00:34:30 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 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 commandments um he he doesn't give a new uh two two new tablets of stone and a new set of
00:34:53 commandments for his people he says i'm gonna i'm gonna add a particular model for you he says
00:34:58 there's a new commandment i'm going to give you love one another as i have loved you so follow
00:35:03 this example but covenant is about law and blood and all of us as christians come around the reality
00:35:11 of the lord's table uh that sin is lawlessness we violated his law and the cost is the blood
00:35:17 of the covenant it's the blood of christ so the the blood of the older covenant the administration
00:35:24 of the old covenant of bulls and goats uh was insufficient could not take away sin
00:35:29 the blood of christ our sacrificial lamb our great high priest of the order of melchizedek
00:35:37 the it's it's uh the new administration is the blood of christ but the with respect to law the
00:35:44 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 redemption of christ because of our lawlessness that that because of christ's death for our for
00:35:58 our lawlessness and rebellion that post the resurrection we now no longer need to pay any
00:36:02 attention to his law for which which was the reason our rebellion against which was the reason
00:36:07 he actually went to the cross so we can unite around the lord's table law and blood and recognize
00:36:14 that the law abides and remains and the new location of the law is no lot is is now on the
00:36:19 heart rather than on tablets of stone jeremiah 31 and hebrews chapter 6 and as we think about
00:36:25 the covenant then that that covenant reality that we come into as believers that as and as families
00:36:33 because the promises for you and your children and all those whom the lord our god shall call
00:36:37 both the baptist and the presbyterian is thinking if they're reformed in terms of the covenant the
00:36:45 covenant that God has made uh with us and that baptism is a recognition of the reality of the
00:36:52 covenant that God has made with us and we are um dead to ourselves and alive to the Lord Jesus
00:37:00 Christ um and uh you know there are it's interesting I I sometimes explain it um this way
00:37:09 the way in which we sort of handle that in the two traditions so I would say that the Baptists
00:37:13 and the Presbyterians or the Paedo-Baptists both have a non-biblical ceremony that is added
00:37:20 or is utilized to fill in the gap that we both feel in our traditions at an appropriate moment.
00:37:32 So in the Baptistic tradition, when a child is born and comes into the family,
00:37:39 most baptists most baptistic churches uh will have a dedication service
00:37:47 um we dedicate children i don't know you were going to say that
00:37:51 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 because there there is a sense of need to to recognize that we want to call upon the parents
00:38:02 and the family to recognize the reality of god's covenant and his obligations uh that the
00:38:09 obligations that he places on us as a family to educate our children in the faith. And we want to
00:38:14 bring our child to the Lord, dedicate them to the Lord to say, Lord, thank you for this child
00:38:21 you've given to us. And the congregation prays and joins in prayer that together as a community,
00:38:29 we're going to raise this child in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And we recognize that
00:38:35 the promises for us and our children and all those whom the lord our god shall call
00:38:39 we don't baptize them uh the baptists at that point but there's this there's this sense of a
00:38:46 desire and a need to recognize that moment that this is a significant moment in the life of the 0.95
00:38:51 family that the child is the lord's and that we need to raise them in the faith the paedo baptist
00:38:57 position on the other hand feels that need so in the baptist tradition then we baptize on confession
00:39:03 of faith but then in the presbyterian tradition we we uh recognize of course the entrance of the
00:39:11 child into the world the obligation of the family the promises for you and our children and we and
00:39:17 we mark them with baptism with the with the sign of the covenant but then because they as children
00:39:24 are are um well especially if their babies will not even remember that baptism uh there's no
00:39:31 personal um uh involvement for the child it's the parents acting on behalf of the child in terms of
00:39:40 the covenant there is there is a sense of need that the child when they reach a certain age
00:39:46 whether if you're in the reformed churches in the dutch reformed churches you know do confession of
00:39:50 faith it's usually around the same time somewhere between about 12 and 16 when they've done their
00:39:55 catechism and they want to confess the faith for themselves in the anglican tradition which i
00:40:01 served in it's confirmation there's a confirmation service and a first communion um and and usually
00:40:10 it's first communion in most of those uh paedo-baptist traditions when confession of faith
00:40:16 or confirmation has happened and so i think it's very interesting that um that in both of those
00:40:25 traditions typically um we we feel a need to recognize those both of those moments especially
00:40:35 as you said joel if we're covenantal in our thinking and i recognize that not all are so
00:40:39 i'm not really speaking about we haven't got time to talk about those that aren't covenantal in the
00:40:43 thing but those of us who are covenantal in our thinking there is this sense of a desire and a
00:40:48 need to recognize both moments um one uh baptizes on anticipation of the fulfillment of the promise
00:40:57 holding god to his promises the other baptizes on fulfillment of the covenant of promise
00:41:02 and we fill the gap with with a ceremony on on either side in in those traditions
00:41:10 right yeah you're right i i'm unique among my 1689 reformed baptist friends in the sense that
00:41:18 I actually do prescribe, and I believe that I can do this consistently from my position,
00:41:24 but I do prescribe to covenant succession, as it's literally defined, that it's the,
00:41:30 not presumption, not assumption, but it's the eager, joyful, humble expectation of Christian
00:41:37 parents that their children will succeed them in the faith, not by covenant nature,
00:41:43 but by covenant nurture and i do believe even as a baptist that by covenant nurture by not that god
00:41:51 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 but what i wish more reform 1689 baptists recognized is that it's not so much an argument
00:42:05 of good godly parenting meriting the salvation of our children that um but um i wish i've said
00:42:14 it like this i wish that more reformed baptists would recognize that there is a a thin but real
00:42:21 distinction between unconditional election and arbitrary election and god's election is not
00:42:30 arbitrary. It is unconditional, but it is not arbitrary in the sense that God never severs
00:42:37 means from ends. The means of grace are designated by God exclusively for bringing about his ends of
00:42:47 grace. Romans 10, 14, how would they believe unless they hear? You know, how would they hear
00:42:52 unless someone preaches? And so again and again and again, we see God bringing about his
00:42:56 decreed of will in its ends of grace and in every facet, but especially as it pertains to the
00:43:04 salvation of an individual, the ends of grace in salvation are always brought about by the means
00:43:11 of grace. And therefore I believe that again, it's not meriting. So it's a not, not a 100%
00:43:17 guarantee, which even the Presbyterian wouldn't affirm. They have a category for apostate children
00:43:22 being, you know, a part of, you know, this external covenant members, but not internal,
00:43:29 not decreed elect. And so even the Presbyterian has this understanding. So for the, on the Baptist
00:43:36 side of the aisle, what I'm recognizing is I'm saying that by and large, more often than not,
00:43:41 I think that it should be the hopeful, but serious expectation of, of Christian reformed
00:43:49 covenantal Baptist parents, that God is going to save not some and not most, but all of our
00:43:56 children. And that's precisely why he gave those children to us. If God was not intent on my
00:44:04 children being elect and saving them, he could have given them to my pagan neighbor. But he gave 0.99
00:44:09 them to me because the means of grace are not severed from the ends of grace. Unconditional
00:44:14 election is not synonymous with arbitrary election. God brings forth salvation through
00:44:20 a designated means. And it's a means that just so happens that my wife and I are very committed by
00:44:25 the grace of God to submerse and emmerse our children in, namely gospel preaching, catechism,
00:44:33 training up in the paideia of the Lord, in our home, through family worship, in our children's
00:44:39 education through a christian classical school through um through uh participation in the lord's
00:44:46 day both in the morning service and the evening service um in the means of grace that our children
00:44:51 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 but it is to suspect that that it is god's ordinary pattern to use his ordinary means
00:45:05 of grace to bring about the ends of salvation. Unconditional election is not arbitrary election.
00:45:11 And to those who would push back and say, well, what about, you know, Jesus who says,
00:45:14 I have not come to bring peace, but a sword, division. From now on, a household of five will
00:45:19 have two against three and three against two. I personally, and I'd like to get your sense on this,
00:45:24 Joe, if you agree, I personally see that as Jesus speaking very, it's not an indefinite prophetic
00:45:31 declaration, but not a prescription, indefinite prescription, but a particular temporary
00:45:41 description of what it looks like in the days of Christ and his earthly ministry for the gospel to
00:45:47 come to a first generation that was ultimately predominantly hardened in unbelief, that ultimately
00:45:59 They crucified the Messiah, rejected, he came to his own, but they received him not.
00:46:04 And so when the gospel first comes to bear with the first generation, that's what we 0.76
00:46:09 saw in the time of Christ. 0.87
00:46:11 And I would say that that's a pattern that we continue to see throughout this gospel
00:46:15 age, whenever the gospel comes for the first time to a first generation.
00:46:19 So whether it be Judaism at the time of Christ, or whether it be an Islamic nation, or whether
00:46:25 it be some other pagan nation, when the gospel first comes to bear, we do see it being ordinary,
00:46:32 the splitting of households, that a husband is saved and a wife is not, that a sibling is saved
00:46:38 and another is not, that the children are saved, but the parents are not, or vice versa. But on
00:46:43 the heels of multiple generations of Christendom, that should no longer be the pattern. I think that
00:46:50 you should expect in in countries and cultures that have been dominated by by christian ethic
00:46:56 christian gospel christian preaching christian culture for centuries we should expect that by
00:47:03 faithful parenting covenant nurture we should have covenant succession an expectation that
00:47:09 god would save not just some or most but all of our children and i think the baptist the
00:47:14 covenantal reform 1689 baptist has just as much claim on that doctrine of covenant succession
00:47:20 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 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 indication that actually we're in a time when you know faithful reformed people can get closer and
00:47:39 closer together on this on the significance of of the covenant i mentioned that i had served in
00:47:46 in both baptistic and paedo-baptist churches when i planted westminster chapel in in toronto
00:47:53 uh about um where was 2008 so 14 15 years ago now i had initially had conversations with the
00:48:02 with the anglicans because that's where i in uh in in in london and england that had been where i
00:48:08 had been uh more familiar with pastoral ministry but i very quickly discovered that that was going
00:48:13 to be essentially impossible because of the episcopal the state of the episcopal church in
00:48:19 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 liberal direction and fall apart so so that never happened so the so the plant ended up being a bit
00:48:30 of a coalition of the willing and it was a baptist movement that um wanted to uh come alongside this
00:48:37 vision that i put together a plant team and we have this vision for the church plant it's actually
00:48:43 in a conservative evangelical baptistic movement that said we would love to stand with you in this
00:48:48 um and so i thought well uh you know who is the lord brought uh along alongside us right now and
00:48:57 i had some interesting conversations early on because this particular movement that i won't
00:49:01 name on the podcast but this particular movement uh it's uh it's it's sort of confession of faith
00:49:08 it's uh it's peculiar commitments uh opened with uh this this statement the church of jesus christ
00:49:16 consists of all fully immersed believers um and um uh it was a holdover from uh you know from a very
00:49:25 very sort of strongly uh you know baptists in in canada seeking to find their identity their
00:49:33 peculiar identity in the practice of of water baptism by by full immersion and i i said to
00:49:39 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 god-ordained coalition of the willing but so i cannot sign up to that um i can't possibly sign
00:49:51 up to that statement statement of faith i can't agree with how can how can we say that george
00:49:55 whitfield and jonathan edwards and um and john wesley and and um william wilberforce and many
00:50:04 of the puritans and and and uh on and and charles hodge and benjamin warfield these people are not
00:50:12 part of the church of jesus christ because they're not fully immersed of course the absurdity of the
00:50:17 position was very obvious to them as we talked about it at the table and they said well no you
00:50:21 you can just ignore that um and uh you know just um you know and i said i want to receive
00:50:29 i want to be able to receive people who have been baptized as infants i said this is a church plant
00:50:35 in a in a pagan one of the most pagan cosmopolitan cities in north america perhaps the most
00:50:42 multicultural in the world i said this is not a time for us to be all saying we all want to
00:50:47 pee in our own paddling pools i said this needs to be uh i need to be able to receive people
00:50:54 who were baptized in evangelical reformed homes as infants who believe that their baptism is valid
00:51:04 and uh they they stand by that baptism and they want to become members or want to move into
00:51:09 show promise to move into leadership positions i want to be able to receive them
00:51:13 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 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 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 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 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 with an approach, because we had elders in the church that were both Paedo-Baptist and
00:52:09 Credo-Baptist, and lived together in joy and harmony in the leadership of the church. I would
00:52:17 have ideally liked to have gone with the conscience of the parents, that I would have gone with what
00:52:24 what is it that the parents believe that because we had people from the church of about 400 in the
00:52:32 end by the time that I moved on and we had people from a variety of different backgrounds in
00:52:38 different places some people wanted to reaffirm their baptismal vows of their parents by full
00:52:44 immersion so it wasn't a re-baptism as such it was a reaffirmation this is something that some
00:52:48 of the reformed Anglican churches do in England if somebody feels they were christened by
00:52:53 unbelieving parents by an unbelieving pastor or vicar um they want to reaffirm uh something so
00:53:01 there are a number of things that could be done there and there were some people that wanted to
00:53:04 do that but there were others that had the conviction that no they're they're presbyterian
00:53:09 or anglican uh faithful parents it was a legitimate baptism and so uh in in the ideal world for me at
00:53:17 this cultural moment and at this time in which we're we're we're living especially in these sort
00:53:23 of missional environments in inner city metropolitan centers where we need to be
00:53:30 bringing God's people together around the truth of the covenant, his law, the lordship of Christ,
00:53:35 the fullness of the gospel, the reformed faith. I think that to me, and I know I probably will
00:53:42 upset people on both sides of the aisle saying that, but that's really what ideally I would
00:53:47 have wanted to do is is is you know uh affirm the conscience the conviction of the family the
00:53:53 parents and gone with the mode of baptism that uh that that they were requesting amen yeah i i take
00:54:01 a similar position i'm not quite to the point where you are but i take a similar position in
00:54:04 the sense that i i love how you just said mode of baptism so i'm unique again among 1689 baptists
00:54:10 in the sense that we will receive a sprinkling infant baptism.
00:54:17 So we have multiple members of our church, adult members,
00:54:20 not just speaking of their kids, but adult members of our church
00:54:22 who they themselves were baptized in a gospel preaching church as an infant.
00:54:29 And even our statement of faith, so we have two statements of faith by design.
00:54:34 We have what we call our general statement of faith,
00:54:37 and then we have the church's specific statement of doctrine.
00:54:40 general statement of faith, specific statement of doctrine. The specific statement of doctrine,
00:54:44 as it currently stands, is the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And that is,
00:54:50 we have very specific language in our constitution of the church that says that each member of the
00:54:56 church must recognize the specific statement of doctrine that is the 1689, but that they're not
00:55:01 required necessarily to affirm it. And we bifurcate what it is to recognize versus affirm.
00:55:07 recognized means that they're not going to be visibly and audibly, you know, vocally divisive
00:55:13 over it. And they would come to expect that the public preaching ministry of the church would be
00:55:18 within the theological guardrails set forth by the 1689. We do require officers of the church,
00:55:25 any ordained officer, which for us, the diaconate would be an ordained officer of the church. And
00:55:30 we would hold to a male diaconate just as we hold to a male eldership, but male elders and deacons
00:55:35 ordained by the church, they are required not only to recognize, but also affirm the specific
00:55:43 statement of doctrine that is the 1689. But members of the church only have to recognize
00:55:49 that specific statement of doctrine 1689, but they must affirm another statement of faith,
00:55:55 which is our general statement of faith. And it's just that by design, it is general. It is
00:56:00 so intentionally narrow that no non-Christian could affirm it. A Muslim cannot affirm it. A 1.00
00:56:05 Buddhist cannot affirm it. An atheist cannot affirm it. A Roman Catholic actually would not 0.99
00:56:10 be able to affirm it. But a Presbyterian can affirm it. An Anglican can affirm it. A Baptist 0.77
00:56:17 can affirm it. An Arminian could affirm it. A Calvinist could affirm it. Continuationist could 0.98
00:56:22 affirm it. Cessationist could affirm it. And so we're intentionally having the statement of faith
00:56:28 that requires prescription from the members of the church intentionally broader. And so what it
00:56:36 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 a baptized follower of Jesus. And it makes intentionally no mention of mode. And so what
00:56:54 I do with that Presbyterian family, that because churches are few and far between right now,
00:56:59 because we're in a time of war, not a time of peace and solid covenantal reformed theonomic
00:57:04 post-millennial Kuyperian churches don't currently grow on trees. Um, when a family like that finds
00:57:10 themselves in our geographic area and they're looking for a church and they can't find a
00:57:15 Presbyterian church like ours, um, then, and they want to be members in our church. I simply ask
00:57:20 them, do you believe that your infant baptism of sprinkling in terms of mode, do you believe that
00:57:28 that was a legitimate baptism? And if they say yes, then what I say is in order to obey the
00:57:35 teachings of scripture in Galatians, one baptism, one Lord, one faith, I say, well, I am not
00:57:39 comfortable as a pastor subjecting you to sinning against your own conscience by subjecting you to
00:57:46 what, what your conscience would see as a second baptism. And so we're going to say that we have
00:57:52 a difference in mode, but that we both have a baptism. And so therefore we welcome them in as
00:57:57 members of the church. Now, what I'm not currently able to do in my own conscience is that even if
00:58:03 the parents' conscience had their own children and wanted them as an infant to receive infant
00:58:09 baptism, pedo-baptism, the parents' conscience would be clear, but I could not perform, actually
00:58:15 practice that baptism as a minister. And so I have a Presbyterian minister who is close by,
00:58:22 who we have a good friendship with. And so I would actually send them over to him
00:58:27 to receive that infant baptism and then come back to us and the membership residing with us.
00:58:35 And so that's how I'm navigating it right now. And again, this is not for anybody,
00:58:40 because I know you and I are both going to get pushback from this episode as relativist or
00:58:44 whatever um which were not but again my position is i'm not saying that this was um a good position
00:58:51 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 believe with my heart of hearts that chrysidom was stronger 200 years ago and i believe that
00:59:03 chrysidom will make a comeback 200 years from now but in this unique moment that we're living in um
00:59:08 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 there's no presbyterian church but this is what they have to choose between joe and you know this
00:59:19 better than i do they have to choose between the presbyterian church in town that's radical two
00:59:24 kingdom um um to mystic um not presuppositional no room for van till or bonson or or anything like
00:59:33 that. So, so they have to choose between a church that is reformed and that, that is
00:59:39 paedo-baptist that will baptize their children, but then will disciple their children to have
00:59:46 no influence in culture whatsoever. And, and to not seek to restore Christendom, to, to not seek
00:59:54 to, to, to engage culturally with, you know, all of Christ for all of us. And so what happens is
01:00:00 the parents, they're like, we can't do that, Joel. We would rather be in a Baptist Kyperian 0.97
01:00:07 church than a Paedo-Baptist pietist church. We see pietism as actually a bigger threat to our 0.99
01:00:14 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 their conscience uneasy. And I can see it as they're in terms of their conscience, they're
01:00:25 foregoing what they see as a commandment from the Lord to choosing not to baptize their children.
01:00:31 So I send them over to my friend in town so that their conscience can be at ease. But then they
01:00:36 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 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 that a lot of my 1689 friends would say that I'm compromised on this issue, but I think that
01:00:49 that history will look back and say, yeah, what Joe and Joel were doing in that moment,
01:00:55 given the larger context, what was at play was not the ideal position, but probably the lesser
01:01:03 of the poisons to choose from? Well, I don't think that's a compromised position at all. I think that
01:01:12 the the um a compromised position uh the um the the experience that you're talking about of people
01:01:20 coming to the church who are from a a paedo-baptist background but cannot uh stomach the retreatism
01:01:28 pietism uh sometimes antinomianism in the uh in in the perhaps the paedo-baptist environment
01:01:37 around the corner was something that we dealt with.
01:01:41 We had migrants from, for example, in terms of response to lockdowns.
01:01:46 There were people that came to us from Presbyterian environments 0.51
01:01:49 because they just could not deal with the compromise anymore.
01:01:53 What do sort of, you know, hardcore credo or paedo-baptist people
01:02:01 on either side of the aisle who will not bend and flex on what is ultimately a secondary issue
01:02:09 in in situations of critical missional importance are going to do with families like that just turn
01:02:19 them away and I think you make a critical point that you cannot force people's consciences and
01:02:26 actually what you described as your practice is exactly what we did at Westminster when I said
01:02:31 that my my ideal would be able to follow the conscience of the parents that was not what we
01:02:37 were able to practice um because of the you know our desire to um be faithful to the uh the community
01:02:45 the baptistic community that we we were part of um that it would be you know to be a bridge too
01:02:53 far to do that but we did have situations where we had reformed presbyterian families in the church
01:03:00 who had a child or they were reformed Dutch reformed and they were in the uh the church
01:03:07 and they wanted their child baptized and so um we helped uh with arrangements um for that to
01:03:16 for that to happen um and then but they continued to be worshippers members of our church
01:03:21 and uh I think that um that's what we in terms of the broader unity of evangelical
01:03:28 called reformed believers who love the lord love his covenant i want to love and serve one another
01:03:35 in a time of war as you say i think this is important and until at the end of the day
01:03:40 um look we have we know and this is really my last remark on the on the issue but
01:03:46 we we both know that there are godly faithful covenantal uh reformed and if you want to add
01:03:55 um some of the other distinctives um you know theonomic um optimistic eschatology so the
01:04:01 postmill presuppositional uh kyperian you can add all of these additional descriptors
01:04:07 on both sides of this discussion and i think that that many of these issues though like the one you
01:04:15 mentioned there for example that like a two kingdoms issue uh today to my mind is a much more
01:04:22 critical and vital issue for the church at war than the mode of baptism uh and uh and i think
01:04:32 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 mind on the mode and timing of baptism until that time comes i think we have to develop ways
01:04:47 of building unity in the local church on this issue because as you say the churches that are
01:04:54 truly faithful and committed to the reformed faith today are increasingly scarce and those
01:05:00 that will be prepared to confront prophetically culture and uh engage uh all of you know as you
01:05:07 said um all of christ for all of life in its totality and take the totality of his word
01:05:13 seriously they're not growing on trees so what are we going to do with our faithful brothers and
01:05:17 sisters in those different environments surely the attitude of christ the attitude of the apostles
01:05:24 would have been that i think the one that you know without wanting to uh uh you know place
01:05:30 ourselves on the side of the angels automatically i think that's the one that that would have been
01:05:35 pursued by um uh the the apostles were this question a a matter of a matter of division
01:05:43 in their time um these this is a secondary issue where godly men and women of faith and truth
01:05:50 and like commitment have differed for centuries and um we are in we're at defcom three possibly
01:05:59 DEFCON 4 right now in the West. So this is surely not the time to focus on division over secondary
01:06:08 issues when we've got the battle of a lifetime to struggle with for our children for the future.
01:06:14 Amen. Amen. I'll let that be the final word. So let's go ahead and do this now.
01:06:19 In light of everything that we've been talking about, we're not relativists. We're not saying
01:06:25 that baptism doesn't matter. It certainly matters. We're not even saying that moat doesn't matter.
01:06:29 Although we are distinguishing baptism as a whole from mode of baptism.
01:06:36 But even with mode of baptism, we're not saying it doesn't matter.
01:06:39 What we're saying that a lot of guys don't get right now is that that matters a great deal.
01:06:45 But this two kingdom, radical two kingdom pietism is a bigger problem.
01:06:52 And so there are very few, and speaking about how rare it is right now, it doesn't grow on trees.
01:06:56 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 straight whiskey no chaser christian faith you're doing that joe better than than just about anyone
01:07:33 that i know so so bless our listeners with with an opportunity with some of the things that they
01:07:39 could partner with you with well you're very generous to me joel and i i appreciate it um
01:07:46 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 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 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 because fruit always follows faithfulness um the um i would want to let people know about an
01:08:10 opportunity a couple of opportunities that they have to get equipped um in this you say the moment
01:08:16 of this moment of cultural struggle how do we begin to develop the christian mind how do we
01:08:22 um uh over over a period of time begin to uh get the tools necessary for this kingdom struggle
01:08:31 that we're in i will just just want to mention two opportunities that the ezra institute uh has
01:08:36 on offer um amongst several others in in the us right now so for those listeners who don't know
01:08:43 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 But the the programs are happening in various parts of the US.
01:09:02 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 and it's aimed at 19 through 40 year olds thereabouts so students and younger professionals
01:09:24 to develop um a robust biblical world and life view and a cultural apologetics so we deal with
01:09:32 things like law politics education christian apologetics church and state these kinds of
01:09:37 questions we have fellows from um from around the world that come and teach people if they go to our
01:09:44 website ezrainstitute.com they can look at our fellows and and it's not just our fellows we have
01:09:49 other guests speaking at these programs um this year we've got people like james white uh joining
01:09:56 us and many others um and we are going to be in uh chatsworth georgia for the runner academy it's
01:10:06 it's it's we shorten it to the runner academy it's called the h evan runner international
01:10:11 Academy for Cultural Leadership. It's named after an American philosopher who was a reformed thinker
01:10:19 and Kuyperian and was wanting to advance the Christian world and life view. And so we name
01:10:25 it after him. We shorten it to the Runner Academy. So that is May 7th through 17th. May 7th through
01:10:32 17th 19 to 40 year olds chats with georgia 10 days residential fellowship teaching fun it's an
01:10:42 amazing time go to ezrainstitute.com and you can click on the runner academy and then find all the
01:10:50 details about the program there we would we would love to see a full program of american students
01:10:58 young professionals gathering together with like-minded people to get equipped so I'd really
01:11:03 encourage people to look at that and the other opportunity is in the summertime not the spring
01:11:10 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 in the US as well and it's called the worldview leadership academy so we so the runner academy
01:11:25 is for our 19 through 40 year olds our worldview leadership academy is a one-week program for 14
01:11:34 through 18 year olds so there's got to be parents or grandparents listening to this program we think
01:11:39 i need my children to get a biblical world and life view and a cultural apologetic training so
01:11:45 they're grounded in the faith they can face all the ideological challenges of the day they can
01:11:51 develop an effective vindication of uh the gospel uh an effective vindication of the christian view
01:11:58 of life they can begin to understand human identity sexuality law politics education the arts
01:12:04 all in terms of a christian world and life view lordship of jesus christ over every area of life
01:12:10 so again if you go to the website ezrainstitute.com click on you'll see in the on the landing page
01:12:16 there worldview leadership academy click on that and you'll be able to find our program that's
01:12:21 happening in the summer in the usa this year as well so those two programs i i just thank you for
01:12:26 the opportunity joel to mention those absolutely runner international academy for cultural
01:12:31 leadership the worldview leadership academy for teens um go to our website get signed up you won't
01:12:38 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 just imagining how different my life would have been if for youth camp in the summer when i was
01:12:50 in high school, I was going to what you just described. I'm thinking my oldest is five right
01:12:55 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 if I could send her. But yeah, the grandparents and parents listening to this, anybody who has
01:13:04 a teenager. It's not all lectures for the World of Leadership Academy is demanding. There are
01:13:12 lectures, but there's lots of activity and fun thrown in there as well. But yeah, sorry, I
01:13:16 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 are of that age i that sounds amazing i i think that they would yeah it was just so fruitful for
01:13:28 a teenager i'm just thinking you know i came into these doctrines in my 30s my early 30s
01:13:34 and the last i became reformed when i was you know calvin you know embracing the the tulip when i was
01:13:41 21, you know, so it's been 15 years. Um, but, but some of these other things and understand,
01:13:48 you know, a Kuyperian post-millennial theonomic, um, presuppositional, I,
01:13:54 Calvinism, 15 years, these other doctrines, five, it's really been five years. And, uh,
01:14:01 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 these things when I was 14 years old, I just can't imagine, you know, I just can't imagine.
01:14:10 So God bless you.
01:14:11 And I hope that everyone listening, if you are a parent or a grandparent, don't miss out on these opportunities.
01:14:18 One more time.
01:14:19 The website is Ezra.
01:14:21 EzraInstitute.com.
01:14:23 EzraInstitute.com.
01:14:24 And people can follow us if they want on Facebook or Twitter.
01:14:28 They can follow me on Twitter.
01:14:29 And if they're interested, we also have our podcast for cultural reformation in terms of a resource.
01:14:35 That's a weekly podcast that they can get wherever they listen to their podcasts.
01:14:40 Great.
01:14:41 Well, Dr. Booth, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
01:14:43 And to all of our listeners, I hope that you were blessed by this discussion.
01:14:47 I know that I personally was, and I hope that you were too.
01:14:50 Thanks for tuning in.
01:14:51 Thanks so much for listening.
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01:14:57 review if you enjoyed the show.
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01:15:07 Thanks so much.