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The Anchor of Historical Theology for the Local Church with Raphael Mnkandhla · Ministry Minded

0:16
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Ministry Minded Podcast,
0:20
SPEAKER_00: a show that seeks to marvel at the mercy of God that meets us in our messy ministries.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm, of course, your host, Pastor Brad Gray.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: I serve as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church in Pax Sinus, California.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Pennsylvania, and I'm happy to share a brand new episode of this podcast.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: It's been kind of quiet on this feed, and I make no apologies for that.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: It's just been one of those seasons wherein I haven't been able to get a lot of
0:45
SPEAKER_00: these out,
0:45
SPEAKER_00: but I'm happy to share this conversation with you.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm joined by Pastor Rafael M. Kandla.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: He serves as the lead pastor of City Church in
0:55
SPEAKER_00: in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And we were able to just sit down and talk a lot about historical theology and the
1:04
SPEAKER_00: reasons why the church,
1:06
SPEAKER_00: especially those disciples who are in the church on a regular basis,
1:12
SPEAKER_00: should be engaged in learning and studying and gleaning from
1:18
SPEAKER_00: the history of the church throughout all ages of the church,
1:22
SPEAKER_00: but especially recovering and retrieving some of those eras of church history that
1:26
SPEAKER_00: are often forgotten or ignored or just kind of never engaged in at all.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Eras in which I think a lot of very important doctrine,
1:38
SPEAKER_00: but also really important and practical theology was not only developed,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: but articulated in
1:45
SPEAKER_00: and I think stands the test of time.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: So,
1:48
SPEAKER_00: we have a really fun time talking about why the church should be engaged in this,
1:54
SPEAKER_00: and that it kind of is an echo of that very familiar quote that you've probably
2:00
SPEAKER_00: heard maybe a million times.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: It's that quote, you know, that if you ignore history, you are doomed to repeat it.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of that on display throughout the history of the church.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: So,
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Dr. Raphael, he is a PhD.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: He has that from Midwestern and we got to talk a little bit about that.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: His PhD work was in the patristic era theologian Athanasius.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: And so we talk a lot about him and his ministry,
2:30
SPEAKER_00: but also how he is sort of a great paradigm for understanding not only patristic
2:36
SPEAKER_00: era theology,
2:37
SPEAKER_00: but also historical theology as a whole.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: So, I'm really happy to share this conversation with you.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: I just had a fun time just chatting history and theology and the church and why all
2:49
SPEAKER_00: of it's important as we live as disciples of Jesus Christ.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: So, I hope you're blessed by this.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're encouraged by this.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And I hope this sort of inspires you to engage in some history of the church, especially on your own.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: So,
3:04
SPEAKER_00: enjoy this conversation.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: We're going to hear a quick word from the presenting sponsor of Ministry Minded,
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3:12
SPEAKER_00: of course.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, after that quick word, we're going to jump right into the conversation.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So enjoy.
3:17
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4:36
SPEAKER_00: Whenever I'm reading about historical theology,
4:39
SPEAKER_00: for whatever reason,
4:40
SPEAKER_00: my mind always goes to those early conferences and councils that were dealing with
4:48
SPEAKER_00: the identity of the Son of God.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: But before we get all of that,
4:52
SPEAKER_00: just start out by introducing yourself and where you serve and all those stats and
4:58
SPEAKER_00: bio stuff,
4:59
SPEAKER_00: and most especially how to pronounce your last name.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: So I'm Raphael Mkandla.
5:07
SPEAKER_03: So how you pronounce my last name is Mkandla.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: Mkandla.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
5:12
SPEAKER_03: There you go.
5:13
SPEAKER_03: I got it.
5:14
SPEAKER_03: Mkandla.
5:15
SPEAKER_03: And I am lead pastor at City Church in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
5:23
SPEAKER_03: And I've been there for nine years.
5:26
SPEAKER_03: And prior to that, I was in Dallas as a youth and associate pastor for eight years.
5:33
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah.
5:34
SPEAKER_03: And, yeah, I've got a wife and six kids.
5:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're a busy man.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: I guess I should have started out by calling you Dr. Raphael, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I... Yeah.
5:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I did some of my schooling at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
6:00
SPEAKER_03: That's where I got my THM and then a PhD work on Athanasius.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: My topic was on calling the Psalms and community as components of Athanasius' resiliency.
6:17
SPEAKER_03: And prior to that, I did my master's at Criswell College.
6:22
SPEAKER_03: And then my bachelor's at Southwestern Assemblies of God University.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: And just before that, it's irrelevant.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: What was one of the big takeaways if you had to like kind of digest your PhD
6:41
SPEAKER_00: research and work like that?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Either like from a practical side,
6:45
SPEAKER_00: like here's something I learned from like as a researcher to here's something I
6:49
SPEAKER_00: really gleaned as just like a pastor slash theologian.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: What was like what's something that stands out to you from that?
6:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
6:58
SPEAKER_03: historical theology helps a lot more in terms of like when you go into and you camp out,
7:07
SPEAKER_03: like,
7:07
SPEAKER_03: so I was camping out in the third,
7:09
SPEAKER_03: fourth century,
7:10
SPEAKER_03: fifth century,
7:11
SPEAKER_03: somewhere there.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: And as I was conversing through,
7:15
SPEAKER_03: you get someone,
7:18
SPEAKER_03: basically like you now have an interaction between two centuries,
7:24
SPEAKER_03: right?
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Like you have an interaction that's like, okay, how did you view this thing?
7:32
SPEAKER_03: Like has the gravity of how I view this.
7:38
SPEAKER_03: So for example, like how do we view persecution?
7:42
SPEAKER_03: How do we view faithfulness?
7:45
SPEAKER_03: What does it look like when you're called into the ministry?
7:50
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah.
7:51
SPEAKER_03: So,
7:51
SPEAKER_03: so just walking into that,
7:53
SPEAKER_03: like for me was walking into a totally peculiar room that has,
8:00
SPEAKER_03: that is talking,
8:01
SPEAKER_03: uh,
8:03
SPEAKER_03: the same language,
8:05
SPEAKER_03: but in a loftier way.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_03: Um,
8:08
SPEAKER_03: where if I had taken something like calling,
8:12
SPEAKER_03: for example,
8:13
SPEAKER_03: is something that like maybe,
8:16
SPEAKER_03: um,
8:16
SPEAKER_03: today I'm feeling like I need to quit.
8:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: Like it's just so easy to just give up.
8:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: But you walk in right after the great persecution and you're watching these people
8:28
SPEAKER_03: giving their lives like Athanasius.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: Like it's like you've had how many emperors come after you?
8:36
SPEAKER_03: Four emperors like come after you and send out 4,000 plus soldiers to try to capture you.
8:46
SPEAKER_03: and you don't want to quit because you really see the grave,
8:51
SPEAKER_03: the grave,
8:52
SPEAKER_03: what the,
8:53
SPEAKER_03: what the call comes,
8:54
SPEAKER_03: the implications that come with the call.
8:56
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
8:57
SPEAKER_03: Um,
8:59
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
8:59
SPEAKER_03: like it's just like seeing how clouded my view of the call or maybe the rose
9:05
SPEAKER_03: colored glasses like that.
9:06
SPEAKER_03: I look at it with versus actually what it comes with.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:11
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, just kind of seeing those two views.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: Um,
9:15
SPEAKER_03: You know,
9:16
SPEAKER_03: their Christianity clashing with our Christianity and and then from there walking
9:22
SPEAKER_03: away with the gravity of like,
9:25
SPEAKER_03: what does it look like to shepherd God's people today versus like what it looked
9:30
SPEAKER_03: like then?
9:31
SPEAKER_03: What does faithfulness look like today?
9:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: yeah what does it look like to run your race and and how limited a perspective that
9:43
SPEAKER_03: like sometimes we can have yeah because we can get stuck in our own our own little
9:49
SPEAKER_03: um like like timeline instead of actually just really realizing there's something
9:56
SPEAKER_03: bigger um
9:58
SPEAKER_03: This is a bigger story than ours.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a great point.
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SPEAKER_00: Because as you look at the history of the church and how theology has developed,
10:09
SPEAKER_00: it's like we keep going away from and then coming back to the same things that are
10:13
SPEAKER_00: always points of need in terms of...
10:18
SPEAKER_00: How the church is going to understand its mission,
10:21
SPEAKER_00: how it's going to apply that mission to the current climate of the culture or like
10:26
SPEAKER_00: the society and stuff like that.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's always like it's interesting because in my own investigation within
10:34
SPEAKER_00: historical theology,
10:35
SPEAKER_00: it's been.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: dynamic in terms of it doesn't always look the same, but it always has the same sort of threads.
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SPEAKER_00: And I always keep,
10:45
SPEAKER_00: as I said in the beginning,
10:46
SPEAKER_00: I always keep going back to those really early centuries in which you can see a
10:53
SPEAKER_00: really pointed affront on the identity of Christ.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: I always liken theology to a stack of Jenga blocks.
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SPEAKER_00: If you take one out,
11:08
SPEAKER_00: then it's going to really make the tower teeter and totter,
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SPEAKER_00: and it's going to eventually topple.
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SPEAKER_00: You can't just pull one out and be fine.
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SPEAKER_00: They all are stacked upon each other.
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SPEAKER_00: I think you can see that quite clearly, and that's why some of these guys that were...
11:27
SPEAKER_00: in those early centuries were battling so fiercely for a proper biblical
11:36
SPEAKER_00: understanding of who the son of God is slash was,
11:40
SPEAKER_00: um,
11:41
SPEAKER_00: it's because you can't just,
11:43
SPEAKER_00: you can't just like make up a new thing for,
11:46
SPEAKER_00: like,
11:46
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about some of like the weird,
11:48
SPEAKER_00: like extreme forms of,
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SPEAKER_00: of like,
11:52
SPEAKER_00: trying to understand the identity of Christ,
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SPEAKER_00: like that one guy who was basically saying,
11:57
SPEAKER_00: like,
11:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
11:58
SPEAKER_00: he's divine,
11:59
SPEAKER_00: or he's human,
12:00
SPEAKER_00: but he has a divine mind.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: So they're, like, dividing up his... Like, there's always these, like, dividing lines.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And, like, we just want to have...
12:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where it comes from,
12:10
SPEAKER_00: maybe,
12:10
SPEAKER_00: but it's like that idea that we want to understand it,
12:15
SPEAKER_00: and yet I think that's like...
12:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: not to just jump right into Athanasius,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: but I think that's one of the things that's great about his book on the Incarnation,
12:23
SPEAKER_00: which is that he explains the identities and natures of Jesus and the Son of God,
12:32
SPEAKER_00: but he does so without like...
12:37
SPEAKER_00: he does so without like diminishing its mystery.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: If I can, if I can say that, you know what I mean?
12:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:42
SPEAKER_03: No, that's good.
12:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:43
SPEAKER_03: And that's now like where like historical theology is so helpful in,
12:50
SPEAKER_03: in rescuing us from,
12:52
SPEAKER_03: um,
12:53
SPEAKER_03: like seeing like the threads of like,
12:57
SPEAKER_03: Hey,
12:58
SPEAKER_03: there's a connection here.
13:00
SPEAKER_03: Like we can connect now, um,
13:04
SPEAKER_03: And just the ability today,
13:06
SPEAKER_03: we can preach some of these truths like confidently because we recognize like,
13:15
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:15
SPEAKER_03: we...
13:17
SPEAKER_03: We're echoing what's been being echoed for ages.
13:22
SPEAKER_03: We're not having to defend the new truth.
13:24
SPEAKER_03: No, no.
13:25
SPEAKER_03: And there's a safety in there.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
13:29
SPEAKER_03: Just a safety there where it's like, okay, how then today do we distinguish heresy and orthodoxy?
13:41
SPEAKER_03: And if we just only have our glasses to look at,
13:47
SPEAKER_03: and there's a way in which our glasses can be tainted by our preferences and our times,
13:54
SPEAKER_03: and everyone is a product of their own time.
13:58
SPEAKER_03: We've been...
13:59
SPEAKER_03: influenced by enlightenment and all those things and like the way we think is
14:05
SPEAKER_03: totally different than the way they did but yet what's so beautiful about that is
14:10
SPEAKER_03: that like church history doesn't allow us to settle like and you know so we don't
14:17
SPEAKER_03: even have to think about these things in a vacuum no yeah we can now be able to
14:22
SPEAKER_03: look back and be able to say okay
14:25
SPEAKER_03: Like, who is Jesus?
14:28
SPEAKER_03: So we've seen more controversies about the person of Jesus come,
14:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
14:33
SPEAKER_03: all the way to later on,
14:34
SPEAKER_03: like when you have these historical Jesus problems.
14:41
SPEAKER_03: And you've got to at least like church history gives you that.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: Like where now you can go and be able to say,
14:49
SPEAKER_03: my anchor is not like in within my own two-year-old or like,
14:55
SPEAKER_03: you know,
14:55
SPEAKER_03: I've been in the faith for at least 20-something years.
14:59
SPEAKER_03: It's deeper than that.
15:01
SPEAKER_03: It's centuries deeper.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
15:03
SPEAKER_03: So you can't rattle that anchor.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: That's like anchored so deep into you had some men and...
15:11
SPEAKER_03: That wrestled with these things.
15:13
SPEAKER_03: So,
15:13
SPEAKER_03: for example,
15:14
SPEAKER_03: the Council of Nicaea,
15:16
SPEAKER_03: this is like 380 bishops coming and they're sitting and for three months plus.
15:23
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, we get tired of two day conferences.
15:27
SPEAKER_03: You're watching these guys having to work through just phrase by phrase.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Because this is so pivotal for who we are.
15:38
SPEAKER_03: And these people getting banished.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: And these people getting, you know, like... And it's just a crazy thing of just like thinking about...
15:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is something that's not only just like people believed.
15:52
SPEAKER_03: It's like we go back, for example, to the person of Jesus.
15:56
SPEAKER_03: We go back to the disciples that were able to that really like where they would die for this.
16:02
SPEAKER_03: And you jump to the first century, you just die.
16:05
SPEAKER_03: You know,
16:05
SPEAKER_03: you continue going and you realize,
16:08
SPEAKER_03: oh,
16:08
SPEAKER_03: wow,
16:09
SPEAKER_03: I don't have the privilege of actually just going and relaxing on this.
16:15
SPEAKER_03: Because this is something that is grave.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: But yet at the same time, it helps you today to be able to see...
16:23
SPEAKER_03: okay, what, what then do we, you know, we don't have to think about these things in a vacuum anymore.
16:31
SPEAKER_03: Um,
16:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
16:32
SPEAKER_03: we have something that's bigger than ourselves,
16:37
SPEAKER_03: but yet at the same time,
16:38
SPEAKER_03: like,
16:38
SPEAKER_03: man,
16:40
SPEAKER_03: we can be hit by,
16:41
SPEAKER_03: uh,
16:41
SPEAKER_03: what I would say,
16:43
SPEAKER_03: um,
16:46
SPEAKER_03: the failure of nerve.
16:48
SPEAKER_03: In leadership,
16:49
SPEAKER_03: there's that like,
16:52
SPEAKER_03: like you choke at the time,
16:53
SPEAKER_03: like,
16:54
SPEAKER_03: but yet,
16:55
SPEAKER_03: church history gives us like,
16:57
SPEAKER_03: when you go,
16:59
SPEAKER_03: when you go back,
17:02
SPEAKER_03: You start realizing, like, you see these guys like Athanasius, for example.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: For me,
17:06
SPEAKER_03: like,
17:07
SPEAKER_03: when I look at Athanasius,
17:08
SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking about someone who's got,
17:11
SPEAKER_03: you know,
17:12
SPEAKER_03: you see an example of faith,
17:14
SPEAKER_03: courage,
17:15
SPEAKER_03: like,
17:16
SPEAKER_03: obedience,
17:17
SPEAKER_03: long obedience in the same direction.
17:20
SPEAKER_03: Like, just a stubbornness.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:22
SPEAKER_03: Of like...
17:25
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
17:25
SPEAKER_03: like,
17:26
SPEAKER_03: if you can be persecuted and be thrown out of your parish,
17:29
SPEAKER_03: like,
17:30
SPEAKER_03: from your church and your post for almost 20 years,
17:35
SPEAKER_03: and you are just,
17:36
SPEAKER_03: like,
17:37
SPEAKER_03: nonstop.
17:39
SPEAKER_03: Like, and you are believing that.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: And I'm talking about you're in exile for those years.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: And all because you just cannot relax.
17:49
SPEAKER_03: Like what?
17:51
SPEAKER_03: You cannot relax.
17:53
SPEAKER_03: Like one phrase.
17:56
SPEAKER_03: Like one phrase, which is actually like, you know, equal substance with God.
18:03
SPEAKER_03: And just like, as in like, ah, homoousius, homoousius.
18:07
SPEAKER_03: And just like this little, little thing like that, where it's like,
18:12
SPEAKER_03: If you wanted your security and you were all in this ministry for comfort and all
18:18
SPEAKER_03: that stuff,
18:18
SPEAKER_03: you could have been like,
18:19
SPEAKER_03: ah,
18:20
SPEAKER_03: you know what?
18:20
SPEAKER_03: Capitulate.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: And it just kind of like, let it ride.
18:25
SPEAKER_03: But you watch him going through that and you watch.
18:29
SPEAKER_03: So then there's actually like a way in which, what's his name?
18:35
SPEAKER_03: Matthew Barrett says that if Athanasius doesn't inspire you,
18:40
SPEAKER_03: What else can inspire you?
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Who else can?
18:43
SPEAKER_03: So I like that kind of stuff.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
18:47
SPEAKER_03: so church history does give you that,
18:51
SPEAKER_03: like,
18:52
SPEAKER_03: that you are just entering into a long...
18:56
SPEAKER_03: I always think of it this way.
18:59
SPEAKER_03: Like,
18:59
SPEAKER_03: you know,
19:00
SPEAKER_03: when you're reading about Zechariah,
19:02
SPEAKER_03: like,
19:04
SPEAKER_03: you know how the Levites used to wait forever,
19:07
SPEAKER_03: but they were called.
19:08
SPEAKER_03: This is your time to go offer.
19:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: This is your time to go off.
19:12
SPEAKER_03: This is your time.
19:13
SPEAKER_03: And so he's chosen and he goes in, obviously, then, you know, the story of John.
19:20
SPEAKER_03: But I always look at that like where it's like he is going in there,
19:24
SPEAKER_03: but like he is coming from a very long lineage of priesthood.
19:28
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
19:29
SPEAKER_03: That has actually like...
19:31
SPEAKER_03: And so he can't go in there and think like, oh, I'm the first one to ever offer.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: No, you're entering into a long story.
19:42
SPEAKER_03: That's not now what ministry for us is like.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: It's like we've been chosen now to labor in the field,
19:51
SPEAKER_03: but we can't come in and say,
19:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm the one who broke ground here.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: You see what I mean?
19:57
SPEAKER_03: Oh, totally.
19:58
SPEAKER_03: You're coming in there...
20:01
SPEAKER_03: There's already been millions of servants that have just been faithful.
20:07
SPEAKER_03: And you're joining in.
20:08
SPEAKER_03: And there's a pride in that.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: In joining in.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: And actually, that's one of the things that kept Athanasius going.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: Because he knew, like... In fact, when he's writing to Dracontius, a monk who he had...
20:26
SPEAKER_03: we had put over a church to be bishop,
20:29
SPEAKER_03: one of his apologetics towards him for him to go back to his post was the whole
20:35
SPEAKER_03: idea that like,
20:36
SPEAKER_03: we are continuing in the legacy of the apostles,
20:40
SPEAKER_03: prophets,
20:40
SPEAKER_03: and the martyrs.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: Like, and he just kept looking back so that like, he can be able to say, hey, this is way bigger than us.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:52
SPEAKER_03: And that's a very...
20:53
SPEAKER_03: It's just an amazing way to enter into historical theology in that way.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: I want to stay on that point because
21:06
SPEAKER_00: I like what you said in terms of the historical theology for the church is like an
21:12
SPEAKER_00: anchor that keeps us grounded.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: One of my other friends,
21:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it's Chad Bird,
21:18
SPEAKER_00: who I think he kind of has this idea that we walk into the future backwards,
21:24
SPEAKER_00: where we're looking at all the stuff that's already happened before,
21:30
SPEAKER_00: either within the church or just that's been revealed through God's word.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: But I like that idea because it's kind of counter,
21:37
SPEAKER_00: cultural in terms of like what modernity is kind of telling us which is that like
21:42
SPEAKER_00: we're pioneers we're evolving and all that idea kind of plays into this notion that
21:49
SPEAKER_00: we're approaching new ground that no one has ever tread before so that we have to
21:54
SPEAKER_00: come up with new answers and solutions to solve issues
21:59
SPEAKER_00: inherently unique problems.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And yet I think what happens is,
22:03
SPEAKER_00: as you read church history,
22:04
SPEAKER_00: predominantly is the fact that a lot of these things are cyclical.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: A lot of these problems that are plaguing the church that seem new really are just
22:17
SPEAKER_00: old things in new clothing.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Which is just to say, there is so much...
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Labor that's already been done that we can truly cherish.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: And again,
22:28
SPEAKER_00: if we're walking into the future backwards,
22:30
SPEAKER_00: then we can hold tightly some of those traditions that have been passed down,
22:37
SPEAKER_00: which then again brings us to this notion of the fact that I think one of the.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: one of the key like sticking points,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: of course,
22:45
SPEAKER_00: of like,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: let's say Reformation era theology was this like trying to ascertain where the
22:54
SPEAKER_00: dividing line is between upholding tradition and then not letting that supersede
22:59
SPEAKER_00: scriptural authority.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes,
23:01
SPEAKER_00: at least in my experience of church,
23:04
SPEAKER_00: we've almost like shunned tradition in favor of scriptural authority,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: where now like as Christians,
23:11
SPEAKER_00: the more I'm gleaning from church history is the fact that you can hold both intention,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: but always have scriptural authority,
23:18
SPEAKER_00: always supersede.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: But just because you're saying that like sola scriptura.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: doesn't mean just like turning a blind eye to tradition.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: I think that's kind of the fallacy that's kind of been like not always ascertained correctly,
23:33
SPEAKER_00: which has led to some of these like modern evangelical notions that,
23:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:37
SPEAKER_00: no creed,
23:38
SPEAKER_00: but the Bible,
23:38
SPEAKER_00: blah,
23:38
SPEAKER_00: blah,
23:39
SPEAKER_00: blah,
23:39
SPEAKER_00: which I think is a really,
23:41
SPEAKER_00: just a really ignorant way to approach like how to do ministry,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: but also how to do theology.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: Because it robs you from, what I would say, it robs you from the development.
23:55
SPEAKER_03: I would say the development that comes with,
24:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
24:03
SPEAKER_03: the development that comes with,
24:06
SPEAKER_03: hey,
24:06
SPEAKER_03: how did we get here?
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: How did we get here?
24:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:11
SPEAKER_03: Sola Scriptura, yes, hold on to it.
24:14
SPEAKER_03: But how did we get into the Bible to actually get to the doctrine of the Trinity?
24:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:23
SPEAKER_03: And you see where historical theology is going to be helpful is that it helps us
24:28
SPEAKER_03: now be in a way of just like a development of
24:32
SPEAKER_03: So that you're not the one who's coming in.
24:34
SPEAKER_03: So,
24:34
SPEAKER_03: for example,
24:37
SPEAKER_03: you know,
24:37
SPEAKER_03: there's some churches that I know that will actually be like,
24:40
SPEAKER_03: the word of Trinity is not in the Bible.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: So, therefore, that is a, you know what I mean?
24:45
SPEAKER_03: And it's like,
24:46
SPEAKER_03: hold on,
24:47
SPEAKER_03: hold,
24:47
SPEAKER_03: like,
24:48
SPEAKER_03: it helps you,
24:49
SPEAKER_03: it rescues you from,
24:51
SPEAKER_03: like,
24:52
SPEAKER_03: doing things like that,
24:53
SPEAKER_03: like,
24:53
SPEAKER_03: where you can now be able to say,
24:55
SPEAKER_03: man,
24:56
SPEAKER_03: like,
24:57
SPEAKER_03: how did they get to this?
24:59
SPEAKER_03: Like,
25:00
SPEAKER_03: and then even the,
25:01
SPEAKER_03: the doctrine of Christ divinity,
25:03
SPEAKER_03: like,
25:04
SPEAKER_03: uh,
25:04
SPEAKER_03: the doctrine of the Holy Spirit there,
25:06
SPEAKER_03: like all the,
25:08
SPEAKER_03: you know,
25:08
SPEAKER_03: whether it's going into all the saluters,
25:11
SPEAKER_03: like whether it's actually going into like the Imago Dei,
25:15
SPEAKER_03: like all the,
25:16
SPEAKER_03: how we do systematic theology,
25:18
SPEAKER_03: how we do biblical theology,
25:19
SPEAKER_03: how,
25:20
SPEAKER_03: how we've come to these conclusions that are there,
25:24
SPEAKER_03: whether it's all the solas,
25:25
SPEAKER_03: right?
25:26
SPEAKER_03: Um,
25:27
SPEAKER_03: At least just getting to see the battle.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: How would you communion?
25:32
SPEAKER_03: How would you,
25:33
SPEAKER_03: you know,
25:33
SPEAKER_03: the sacraments and all that stuff like,
25:36
SPEAKER_03: and going and seeing,
25:37
SPEAKER_03: okay,
25:38
SPEAKER_03: here is the development of so-and-so came and say this.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: And as a result, so-and-so came and this is actually what really was.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: And you just follow those, whether it's Pelagianism, whether it's like,
25:54
SPEAKER_03: All these issues that are going on,
25:57
SPEAKER_03: you hold on to them because you've been able to see them actually going into...
26:04
SPEAKER_03: You can champion...
26:10
SPEAKER_03: Theologies,
26:11
SPEAKER_03: because you've seen them go in through and in and through the fire and be tested
26:17
SPEAKER_03: and refined.
26:19
SPEAKER_03: And what we sometimes do is that like in our desire for novelty, not desire for.
26:26
SPEAKER_03: relevancy and our desire for to be the first founders of something you know what I
26:34
SPEAKER_03: mean because we like to be the one that like has found oh yeah we do you know like
26:42
SPEAKER_03: we like to be the one who's found the new the diamond in the rough and then just
26:48
SPEAKER_03: but yet that's now like where I think it was like what was it
26:54
SPEAKER_03: robert wilkin um is it wilkin uh he wrote like and he just really like a church
26:59
SPEAKER_03: history book um that like he was talking about like that ours is not to be to
27:07
SPEAKER_03: invent a new truth like ours is actually like to um
27:14
SPEAKER_03: I was just like, is to be faithful.
27:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
27:20
SPEAKER_03: And that's just really like where it was like, okay, what's the...
27:26
SPEAKER_03: You know, we enter into other nations and and see, you know, who believe Christ was fully human.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: And then like and we look at it and just be able to like,
27:37
SPEAKER_03: OK,
27:38
SPEAKER_03: what we're called to now is to be faithful to those truths instead of trying to
27:43
SPEAKER_03: like come up with something totally new.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: And I think that was Robert Wilk in his book on early Christian thought,
27:52
SPEAKER_03: where he was saying that just our main thing is to walk in there and is to make
27:58
SPEAKER_03: sure that we are faithful.
28:02
SPEAKER_03: And week in, week out, really what we're called to is exactly what God is going to look at us later on.
28:09
SPEAKER_03: And Athanasius uses that as also an argument for faithfulness to Dracontius.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: And he's like,
28:18
SPEAKER_03: It is before God you're going to stand.
28:20
SPEAKER_03: And he is going to either say, well done, good, and what?
28:24
SPEAKER_03: Faithful servant.
28:25
SPEAKER_03: And really just like our call is to be to faithfulness versus like, yes, we do theology in our own time.
28:34
SPEAKER_03: But our theology is still making sure that like it's actually still what?
28:38
SPEAKER_03: Anchored in the church.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: It just hit my mind when you were saying exactly that,
28:45
SPEAKER_00: which is it reminds me of that phrase from the pastoral epistles where Paul tells
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Timothy to guard the good deposit,
28:52
SPEAKER_00: which is like he doesn't tell him to reinvent it or to revise it or to even,
28:58
SPEAKER_00: you could say,
29:00
SPEAKER_00: to recast it for his particular era or his generation.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: No, his charge was to stay true to sound doctrine, to guard the good deposit that he had received.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And so in the same similar way,
29:14
SPEAKER_00: like from the apostles till now,
29:17
SPEAKER_00: the charge of the church,
29:19
SPEAKER_00: like in terms of theology,
29:21
SPEAKER_00: has been the same thing,
29:22
SPEAKER_00: which is to guard the good deposit of the doctrines that we've received from God.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: From the apostles,
29:30
SPEAKER_00: but even you could say from Christ himself as he's revealed them through his word,
29:34
SPEAKER_00: through his spirit.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: So that's where I find like a lot of great hope in the fact that like this is like,
29:43
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
29:43
SPEAKER_00: we're not always necessarily breaking new ground.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: We just need to hold firmer to what we've already received.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: You know?
29:52
SPEAKER_00: No, that's good.
29:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
29:54
SPEAKER_03: and it also rescues us from,
29:55
SPEAKER_03: because as you kind of keep going forward within the historic timeline,
30:02
SPEAKER_03: the more you move more into individualistic thinking.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:10
SPEAKER_03: And church history doesn't allow you to do that.
30:13
SPEAKER_03: No, no.
30:14
SPEAKER_03: It rescues you from this new cycle of individualism that's there.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: yeah and which is one of the reasons why today it's so hard to get a whole lot of
30:25
SPEAKER_03: people in an ecumenical kind of like um like in these kind of councils and all that
30:31
SPEAKER_00: stuff how that let's just like take a rabbit trail how do you think they did that
30:35
SPEAKER_00: back then how do you think they had all those ecumenical councils with all these
30:39
SPEAKER_00: different bishops from all over the place i don't know i just look at that it's
30:43
SPEAKER_00: just like man what a product of its time
30:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is a product of its time.
30:49
SPEAKER_03: But out of that was just a big... So you've got to love and hate Constantine.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's very true.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: You've got to love and hate Constantine.
31:02
SPEAKER_03: But a lot of times some people usually just kind of go towards hating him altogether.
31:08
SPEAKER_03: But there is a way in which like obviously when that church and state kind of just collided there.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:14
SPEAKER_03: There was a way in which like the emperor could call those things.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:21
SPEAKER_03: But then there was also a way in which the bishop,
31:25
SPEAKER_03: so for example,
31:25
SPEAKER_03: Athanasius is a bishop of Alexandria,
31:30
SPEAKER_03: but the sea in Alexandria was over how many churches?
31:35
SPEAKER_03: It was like he had 500,
31:36
SPEAKER_03: 600 plus churches underneath him because it was churches all over Egypt,
31:41
SPEAKER_03: all over Libya,
31:42
SPEAKER_03: and some of the bishops in some countries and some places in Africa as well.
31:47
SPEAKER_03: So you have,
31:48
SPEAKER_03: so you could call and basically because of that,
31:54
SPEAKER_03: like these bishops,
31:55
SPEAKER_03: you needed like,
31:57
SPEAKER_03: so you could call them to come and visit and be in one place because they needed.
32:03
SPEAKER_03: So Avinash, for example, when you read, he's a pastor.
32:09
SPEAKER_03: His festal letters.
32:13
SPEAKER_03: And all of those are the ones where he's charging,
32:16
SPEAKER_03: he's charging all these churches around to,
32:21
SPEAKER_03: when they're to keep the feast of the Passover,
32:23
SPEAKER_03: like the Easter feast,
32:25
SPEAKER_03: like Lent is going to be.
32:28
SPEAKER_03: And all of them, there was a way in which it wasn't an individualistic kind of thing.
32:35
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
32:36
SPEAKER_03: Everyone depended.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: They wanted to hear from their bishop or they wanted to hear from one another.
32:41
SPEAKER_03: They spurred one another towards faithfulness.
32:45
SPEAKER_03: So even when you read Athanasius' letter to Marcellinus,
32:49
SPEAKER_03: arguments are that Marcellinus is also a bishop from another church that he has put.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: But he is writing to Athanasius and saying, I long to read the book of Psalms.
33:02
SPEAKER_03: Could you help me interpret it?
33:04
SPEAKER_03: Like, could you let...
33:05
SPEAKER_03: Teach me how to read.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: And Athanasius himself is also... So there's a dependency there where the pastor is also pastored.
33:13
SPEAKER_03: He says that I learned this from an older man.
33:17
SPEAKER_03: And that's actually now like where you're watching this.
33:23
SPEAKER_03: Even the bishops actually are discipled.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: Because we go into later...
33:30
SPEAKER_03: Letter number, I think it's 31.
33:37
SPEAKER_03: where it's monks writing to Athanasius and saying, which ones are the authoritative books?
33:46
SPEAKER_03: And he has to write to them and tell them, hey, these are the books that are authoritative.
33:50
SPEAKER_03: So you're seeing just quite a lot.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: Even when you read the biography of Anthony, he's actually writing because they're asking.
33:57
SPEAKER_03: He's writing Serapion to Serapion about the doctrine of the Trinity, of the Holy Spirit.
34:03
SPEAKER_03: And like every one of those books,
34:05
SPEAKER_03: What we have most of those writings are actually like letters to churches.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: They're writing towards one another.
34:13
SPEAKER_03: And there's that desiring orthodoxy to thrive through...
34:23
SPEAKER_03: like this just greater accountability.
34:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:28
SPEAKER_03: Like where, who's exonerating Athanasius?
34:30
SPEAKER_03: Who's defending him?
34:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:32
SPEAKER_03: It's actually other bishops.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: They are actually going in there fighting for him.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: And it's all these councils.
34:39
SPEAKER_03: So I look at that and I just think it's pretty interesting to see just like,
34:46
SPEAKER_03: there's that individualistic faith that we see today.
34:49
SPEAKER_03: And there's actually now like when,
34:51
SPEAKER_03: when you go back there,
34:53
SPEAKER_03: it was like,
34:53
SPEAKER_03: it was really just a communal,
34:57
SPEAKER_03: um,
34:58
SPEAKER_03: and they would also call for repentance.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:00
SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah.
35:01
SPEAKER_03: And I would say also as well,
35:04
SPEAKER_03: like,
35:04
SPEAKER_03: so here's just at least like what I,
35:07
SPEAKER_03: when I go into,
35:09
SPEAKER_03: let's say for example,
35:10
SPEAKER_03: someone like Athanasius,
35:11
SPEAKER_03: um,
35:13
SPEAKER_03: One of the things that blew me away was like getting to see one of the reasons why
35:20
SPEAKER_03: like he's like he calls it the grace of the font,
35:25
SPEAKER_03: which is the grace of baptism.
35:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:28
SPEAKER_03: And where it's one of those things where it's like we can walk into today.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: How many days do you.
35:38
SPEAKER_03: Work in your ministry and you are reminded of the power of baptism for what you do.
35:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:51
SPEAKER_03: You see what I mean?
35:52
SPEAKER_03: Oh, totally.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: And so you walk in there and you're like,
35:57
SPEAKER_03: you know,
35:58
SPEAKER_03: are we looking at our baptism in a totally different way?
36:05
SPEAKER_03: Like,
36:05
SPEAKER_03: it's just a one-and-done event versus actually,
36:08
SPEAKER_03: like,
36:10
SPEAKER_03: what do we...
36:11
SPEAKER_03: Do we go back and we...
36:12
SPEAKER_00: Instead of,
36:13
SPEAKER_00: like,
36:14
SPEAKER_00: a starting point of your new identity.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:17
SPEAKER_03: But also as a sustaining point of your new identity.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, correct.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's just like, I'm in here.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: And if you were to just look at it from there, and then he actually, like, he calls it also...
36:34
SPEAKER_03: And he would also just,
36:36
SPEAKER_03: for example,
36:37
SPEAKER_03: you're looking at Alexander and Athanasius literally being willing to be persecuted
36:46
SPEAKER_03: by the emperor simply because they're refusing to give communion to Arius.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:54
SPEAKER_03: Like, and you just look at that and you're like, okay, what is it that I am actually like...
37:03
SPEAKER_03: what is it that I look at because today we look at maybe things like the sacraments
37:12
SPEAKER_03: as you know we can fence the table but like we don't fence it as aggressively as
37:19
SPEAKER_03: that no we don't no like what was it that like Alexander is willing to be to
37:28
SPEAKER_03: literally to defy the emperor because of that yeah yeah
37:33
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's just that, yeah, just serve him communion and just let him get off your head, right?
37:38
SPEAKER_03: And you're just looking at that and you're like, and it's the same thing.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: And you're looking at,
37:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
37:45
SPEAKER_03: even ministry-wise,
37:47
SPEAKER_03: he says to Dr.
37:48
SPEAKER_03: Contius Athanasius,
37:50
SPEAKER_03: he says,
37:51
SPEAKER_03: you received the grace.
37:53
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, what does that mean?
37:57
SPEAKER_03: And you're looking,
37:57
SPEAKER_03: and the only time when you can be able to now,
38:00
SPEAKER_03: yes,
38:00
SPEAKER_03: you're looking at history,
38:02
SPEAKER_03: and you're like,
38:02
SPEAKER_03: where are you anchoring this?
38:04
SPEAKER_03: And you go to now, what would say scripture, and you're looking, and he's...
38:09
SPEAKER_03: anchoring it in maybe let's say a text like where where the angel shows up to Mary
38:15
SPEAKER_03: and says you've been highly graced um which is not only just like it's like yeah
38:21
SPEAKER_03: you will carry this child but yet I will also give you the endurance and the
38:27
SPEAKER_03: perseverance to be able to still to
38:32
SPEAKER_03: To be able to, like, endure, like, I mean, people are going to shun you.
38:37
SPEAKER_03: People are going to do this.
38:38
SPEAKER_03: But you are going to continue to, like, you see her when there's a bump showing up.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: And she goes to visit Elizabeth.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: And she is bubbling forth with just, like, what?
38:50
SPEAKER_03: Praise to God.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: In the midst of, like...
38:54
SPEAKER_03: In the midst of gossip and everyone saying, Joseph, put her away.
39:00
SPEAKER_03: You still see because she's being sustained.
39:04
SPEAKER_03: And looking at that and then having to say, wow.
39:08
SPEAKER_03: Is there a grace that I'm forfeiting that comes with actually like ministry that
39:15
SPEAKER_03: like maybe some of the suffering and stuff like that,
39:18
SPEAKER_03: that I'm maybe just even overlooking when I'm opposed in the church or something
39:25
SPEAKER_03: like that.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:26
SPEAKER_03: Yet other nations is like you received the grace.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: I love that conviction that he had.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the things that I think stands out to me about a lot of
39:39
SPEAKER_00: the patristics is they were very dogged in their conviction about,
39:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:45
SPEAKER_00: whatever theological point they're trying to make.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: But again, like that point about baptism is really good.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Like Luther has that phrase, you know, remember your baptism.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: And that sort of carries forward.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: That's something that I think even Baptists should recover is this idea of the meaning,
40:02
SPEAKER_00: but also the enduring,
40:03
SPEAKER_00: like you were trying to hint at,
40:05
SPEAKER_00: like the enduring sustenance that your baptism ought to be able to give you as a believer.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: But that feeds into...
40:15
SPEAKER_00: And that conviction is like a byproduct of faith.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think all of that plays into where you see those patristic fathers as they
40:26
SPEAKER_00: were dealing with error,
40:27
SPEAKER_00: as they were dealing with things that would later be known as heresy.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: really standing their ground and not giving an inch,
40:35
SPEAKER_00: like just like the refusing communion for someone,
40:39
SPEAKER_00: like because they were so sure they were so convinced of,
40:44
SPEAKER_00: of where,
40:46
SPEAKER_00: of what they believed and of,
40:48
SPEAKER_00: of what the word said.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: So what's, what's, so in light of all of that, because I, I think a lot of modern Christians, um,
41:01
SPEAKER_00: maybe don't have the best,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: not only best understanding,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: but best perspective on like early patristic theology.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Um,
41:09
SPEAKER_00: and so like,
41:10
SPEAKER_00: what's,
41:11
SPEAKER_00: what's a misconception about the patristic period that you think ought to be kind
41:17
SPEAKER_00: of cleared up or ought to be kind of like,
41:20
SPEAKER_00: like maybe not dismissed,
41:21
SPEAKER_00: but just like explained better,
41:23
SPEAKER_00: like in terms of like misconceptions about the early church fathers and stuff like that.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: Is there something that like, um,
41:31
SPEAKER_00: we could understand better about who they were,
41:35
SPEAKER_00: like Athanasius especially,
41:37
SPEAKER_00: like how he's kind of been maybe misconceived or misconstrued in some sort of way.
41:45
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's at least the biggest one.
41:52
SPEAKER_03: We have to, first of all, to embrace church history and
41:59
SPEAKER_03: And to profit from it,
42:02
SPEAKER_03: I think,
42:05
SPEAKER_03: first of all,
42:05
SPEAKER_03: I would say we have to look at how we look back,
42:13
SPEAKER_03: for example,
42:13
SPEAKER_03: to how do we view the Jim Crow era?
42:19
SPEAKER_03: How do we view the slavery era?
42:22
SPEAKER_03: How do we view the...
42:26
SPEAKER_03: Today,
42:26
SPEAKER_03: there is a way in which I'm trying to find the term that like when we look at some
42:32
SPEAKER_03: of them and we're like,
42:36
SPEAKER_03: which is almost like a very evolutionary kind of thought.
42:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:42
SPEAKER_03: And if we have to first get over that,
42:46
SPEAKER_03: like the evolutionary thought of the human species is getting better and better and better.
42:55
SPEAKER_03: Like, and so therefore, because that's where liberalism comes from.
42:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, totally.
43:00
SPEAKER_03: Like in just looking back and saying like, because depravity kind of shocks us.
43:07
SPEAKER_03: It does.
43:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: And we try to explain it away.
43:11
SPEAKER_03: And we try to, like, so we can't, we cannot, like, we cannot agree with Luther's bondage of the will.
43:24
SPEAKER_03: Like, or even entertain it.
43:27
SPEAKER_03: if we look at it from Emmanuel Kant going forward,
43:33
SPEAKER_03: and all these other,
43:35
SPEAKER_03: let's say,
43:36
SPEAKER_03: for example,
43:37
SPEAKER_03: theories of atonement that have come,
43:41
SPEAKER_03: whether it's Schleinmacher and all these other guys,
43:44
SPEAKER_03: and just kind of thinking about actually...
43:47
SPEAKER_03: No, this was not actually just like... It was, you know, it was a transactional thing.
43:52
SPEAKER_03: It was...
43:53
SPEAKER_03: This is actually like what...
43:55
SPEAKER_03: There's a reason why we have all these different theories of atonement that have
44:01
SPEAKER_03: come up.
44:02
SPEAKER_03: That a lot of them that came a lot later refused to say that like, hey, it was just an example.
44:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:11
SPEAKER_03: Right?
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Why?
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Because now...
44:16
SPEAKER_03: I think therefore I am, right?
44:17
SPEAKER_03: And now we're moving towards just even where it's...
44:25
SPEAKER_03: It's just so easy for us today to look at all these guys and just say...
44:32
SPEAKER_03: what were they fighting over?
44:34
SPEAKER_03: That's just totally like today we've got it better.
44:37
SPEAKER_03: So I think that's actually like the moment we,
44:41
SPEAKER_03: we confront ourselves in terms of like where we are and the way,
44:47
SPEAKER_03: especially the way we get shocked by depravity.
44:50
SPEAKER_03: Right.
44:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:51
SPEAKER_03: Um, it usually exposes to us.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: We think we should be better.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
44:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like the way I would look at my two-year-old making a big fuss about something.
45:06
SPEAKER_03: And I just think, that's not a big deal.
45:10
SPEAKER_03: Get over it.
45:12
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's just not.
45:14
SPEAKER_03: But yet,
45:14
SPEAKER_03: what does that require for you to be able to really,
45:18
SPEAKER_03: really understand why it's a big deal to them?
45:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:22
SPEAKER_03: It would require you being able to say...
45:26
SPEAKER_03: Even though I don't think it's a big deal, it is really a big deal.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: Because it fundamentally will shift.
45:35
SPEAKER_03: It will affect.
45:36
SPEAKER_03: If I don't really try to struggle to see it from their view,
45:42
SPEAKER_03: I can see how it can affect their health and growth throughout life.
45:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:48
SPEAKER_03: You see what I mean?
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
45:50
SPEAKER_03: So innocent, like a child's cry.
45:53
SPEAKER_03: Because we look at it,
45:55
SPEAKER_03: this is Christianity,
45:56
SPEAKER_03: and as we're wrestling through,
45:59
SPEAKER_03: we get to eat out of that fruit.
46:01
SPEAKER_03: But that's the sad part.
46:03
SPEAKER_03: The sad part is that we can look back at them, and we're like...
46:09
SPEAKER_03: Man, like those were so backward, but yet we're eating from their fruit.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
46:15
SPEAKER_03: We can be able to sing God in three persons, blessed Trinity today.
46:21
SPEAKER_03: Because of what came before.
46:22
SPEAKER_03: Because what came.
46:23
SPEAKER_03: So we don't, there's a disconnect there.
46:25
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
46:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:27
SPEAKER_03: That's the disconnect.
46:28
SPEAKER_03: I think what then would really be very important for us today is to be able to say, you know,
46:36
SPEAKER_03: look at something and be able to trace and then say,
46:40
SPEAKER_03: Hey,
46:40
SPEAKER_03: today you can say,
46:41
SPEAKER_03: what if I was to actually like,
46:45
SPEAKER_03: why is it that today you,
46:49
SPEAKER_03: as soon as you see someone with a black,
46:53
SPEAKER_03: black slacks and a white shirt and a black tie knocking at your door,
47:00
SPEAKER_03: why is it that you just can't let them in and say,
47:03
SPEAKER_03: Oh,
47:03
SPEAKER_03: they're just the same as us.
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: Why?
47:06
SPEAKER_03: And like, some people are like, yeah, it just doesn't feel right.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: It just doesn't feel, it's just something awkward.
47:14
SPEAKER_03: What about those ones that come and knock at your door and say, hey, can we talk to you?
47:19
SPEAKER_03: And they carry those pamphlets and stuff like that.
47:22
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's just, you know there's something very different with them.
47:28
SPEAKER_03: Why is it that like there's something different with them?
47:31
SPEAKER_03: You know, usually we just don't like them because they just nag us.
47:36
SPEAKER_03: But there's actually something inherently different because it's actually exactly
47:41
SPEAKER_03: what Athanasius was fighting.
47:44
SPEAKER_03: Like...
47:47
SPEAKER_03: Begotten, not made.
47:49
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
47:49
SPEAKER_03: Right.
47:50
SPEAKER_03: And then that's actually now like if we were to actually trace what's happening.
47:56
SPEAKER_03: And that's now like where I'm like,
47:57
SPEAKER_03: hey,
47:57
SPEAKER_03: guys,
47:58
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
47:58
SPEAKER_03: today you see the Latter-day Saints knocking at your door.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: The only way you're going to get to understand who they are is when you can go back to.
48:08
SPEAKER_03: there are some that usually areas his um songs that used to say there was a time
48:14
SPEAKER_03: when he was not yes exactly like and if you don't understand that you won't
48:19
SPEAKER_03: understand this yes like you see what i mean like and you're just kind of looking
48:24
SPEAKER_03: and and being able to connect the threads of like hey by the way
48:30
SPEAKER_03: The freedom you get to,
48:33
SPEAKER_03: especially,
48:33
SPEAKER_03: and this is also the way at least I get to...
48:40
SPEAKER_03: I'm not American,
48:41
SPEAKER_03: so I can tech jab at American culture.
48:45
SPEAKER_03: It's pretty interesting to think about how...
48:48
SPEAKER_03: you know, how dogged we are at the stadium, the land of the free, the home of the brave.
48:56
SPEAKER_03: We go,
48:57
SPEAKER_03: I've seen like every single place I can go that really just like,
49:02
SPEAKER_03: man,
49:02
SPEAKER_03: like Colin Kaepernick kneels down in a football field,
49:07
SPEAKER_03: like kneels down,
49:09
SPEAKER_03: doesn't stand for the flag.
49:11
SPEAKER_03: He gets what?
49:12
SPEAKER_03: Oh, he gets...
49:15
SPEAKER_02: Obliterated in the media.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: Why is it that he's getting obliterated?
49:18
SPEAKER_02: Because we hold our patriotism really, really high.
49:21
SPEAKER_02: But what is patriotism?
49:23
SPEAKER_02: It's the country's history.
49:25
SPEAKER_03: Correct.
49:26
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
49:26
SPEAKER_03: That you're literally just like... And so, at the same time, I fly quite a lot.
49:31
SPEAKER_03: And every single time, who gets first preference to board?
49:35
SPEAKER_03: Veterans.
49:36
SPEAKER_03: The veterans.
49:37
SPEAKER_03: And you see what I'm talking about?
49:40
SPEAKER_03: And for us in church history, basically, like...
49:44
SPEAKER_03: Church history is our veterans.
49:47
SPEAKER_03: That's what I get.
49:48
SPEAKER_03: It's our veterans.
49:50
SPEAKER_03: It's why we literally just cannot allow anyone like Jehovah's Witnesses come into our doors.
49:57
SPEAKER_03: And we feel like that's an insult to our history.
50:02
SPEAKER_03: If we take... And that's now where probably I would say that we have a patriotism...
50:09
SPEAKER_03: Like,
50:09
SPEAKER_03: we try to come up with our own patriotism that actually trumps the,
50:15
SPEAKER_03: like,
50:15
SPEAKER_03: what I would say,
50:16
SPEAKER_03: I don't know whether it's patriotism,
50:18
SPEAKER_03: like,
50:19
SPEAKER_03: biblical patriotism,
50:21
SPEAKER_03: something like that.
50:23
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how, like, the phrase that would come.
50:25
SPEAKER_03: But, like, just, like, it's...
50:29
SPEAKER_03: we can now be able to go back.
50:32
SPEAKER_03: And it's just something beautiful about walking into museums, and especially the war museum.
50:39
SPEAKER_03: And you're like, oh yeah, that's the general that held that fort and held whatever, whatever.
50:45
SPEAKER_03: You guys have Pearl Harbor.
50:48
SPEAKER_03: You've got whatever the battle in Normandy.
50:50
SPEAKER_03: You go to Gettysburg, and it's just like these reenactments.
50:56
SPEAKER_03: And it's fascinating for me.
51:00
SPEAKER_03: Church history gives us that.
51:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right.
51:02
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's like, yeah.
51:04
SPEAKER_03: Contramundum.
51:06
SPEAKER_03: Athanasius against the world.
51:08
SPEAKER_03: Like, and bro, what was he going through?
51:11
SPEAKER_03: This is actually, he held the battle lines.
51:15
SPEAKER_03: And man, never caved in even a bit.
51:18
SPEAKER_03: Like, they came after the fact that he was too young.
51:21
SPEAKER_03: They came after this.
51:23
SPEAKER_03: They tried to fake...
51:24
SPEAKER_03: Like, they try to come up, he's killed Asenius.
51:28
SPEAKER_03: Like, and then all of a sudden he's, and people are defending him, having to go find Asenius.
51:33
SPEAKER_03: And then at the trial, he's, you know what I mean?
51:36
SPEAKER_03: Like, he has to reveal Asenius.
51:38
SPEAKER_03: Like, and just like watching some of those things where it's like, man, what was the best?
51:44
SPEAKER_03: Like, and we can now be able to go back, right?
51:48
SPEAKER_03: And say, thank you for your service.
51:50
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
51:53
SPEAKER_03: Church history allows us to be able to actually recognize that the bedrock to our
51:58
SPEAKER_03: faith is so...
51:59
SPEAKER_03: It's thicker than we...
52:02
SPEAKER_03: It's very deep.
52:02
SPEAKER_03: It's deep.
52:05
SPEAKER_03: And which is so helpful for us today.
52:07
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
52:08
SPEAKER_03: Because then it's so...
52:10
SPEAKER_03: Especially when you're looking today.
52:12
SPEAKER_03: Why is it so easy for most of the people to deconstruct?
52:16
SPEAKER_03: We deconstruct because our well is not deeper.
52:20
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
52:20
SPEAKER_03: That's good.
52:21
SPEAKER_03: You see what I mean?
52:22
SPEAKER_03: It's all just in the therapist.
52:25
SPEAKER_03: There's more power than...
52:31
SPEAKER_03: yeah than the truth of the of the scriptures yes and you see what i mean like so at
52:37
SPEAKER_03: the end of the day it's just like we and simply because we're an inch deeper right
52:43
SPEAKER_03: like it's just and that that's now like where i would look at that and just think
52:48
SPEAKER_03: um i don't know if i'm answering your question no you're good uh
52:55
SPEAKER_03: This is what sucks about doing these things as a pastor and also as a,
52:59
SPEAKER_03: you know,
53:00
SPEAKER_03: like you're always constantly running between these two worlds.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
53:05
SPEAKER_03: So,
53:06
SPEAKER_03: so yeah,
53:08
SPEAKER_03: when you look at church history and you go back there,
53:13
SPEAKER_03: there's a way in which church history,
53:16
SPEAKER_03: as you continue to go,
53:18
SPEAKER_03: um,
53:22
SPEAKER_03: There are things we make a lesser and lesser deal of today that they made a bigger deal of then.
53:30
SPEAKER_03: Definitely.
53:32
SPEAKER_03: Like,
53:32
SPEAKER_03: the things that,
53:33
SPEAKER_03: like,
53:33
SPEAKER_03: would have been,
53:34
SPEAKER_03: like,
53:35
SPEAKER_03: appalling to them,
53:38
SPEAKER_03: that,
53:38
SPEAKER_03: like...
53:39
SPEAKER_03: And we look,
53:40
SPEAKER_03: for example,
53:40
SPEAKER_03: like,
53:40
SPEAKER_03: the church during the Holocaust.
53:43
SPEAKER_03: To us, we look back there and, like, today, we're like, how could they?
53:48
SPEAKER_03: And they're just some of those things that, like, okay...
53:51
SPEAKER_03: And so historical Christianity helps us now to be able to also be able to actually
53:57
SPEAKER_03: ask ourselves,
53:59
SPEAKER_03: while the Trinity is no longer a big deal for us today,
54:03
SPEAKER_03: we can now notice all the people that preach heresy,
54:08
SPEAKER_03: whether it's oneness,
54:10
SPEAKER_03: Pentecostalism all these other ones but then we also now need to also be able to
54:16
SPEAKER_03: ask ourselves what's our battle today and be able to actually also be sympathetic
54:23
SPEAKER_03: towards let's say the Southern Baptists and recognize like
54:28
SPEAKER_03: What is it that they are fighting?
54:30
SPEAKER_03: And in the midst of that,
54:32
SPEAKER_03: who were some of the people during Athanasius' time who were looking and they were saying,
54:37
SPEAKER_03: Athanasius,
54:39
SPEAKER_03: you're making a big deal.
54:41
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know what I mean?
54:42
SPEAKER_03: Like, who are some of the... Whether it's just going to Wycliffe.
54:46
SPEAKER_03: Whether it's going to Wycliffe, whether we're going to Tyndale.
54:50
SPEAKER_03: Like, there were some people who were just like, Tyndale, you shouldn't be trying to...
54:56
SPEAKER_03: Why is it so important that you be chased all the way to Germany and all that?
55:01
SPEAKER_03: You're trying to translate the Bible.
55:03
SPEAKER_03: Why is it that you're trying to like,
55:05
SPEAKER_03: let's just kind of settle in this and just like have bishops and all that stuff
55:10
SPEAKER_03: translate scriptures for us?
55:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
55:12
SPEAKER_03: Luther,
55:13
SPEAKER_03: why is it that like now you're having to,
55:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
55:17
SPEAKER_03: to run around and be hidden in all this because you're trying to translate
55:22
SPEAKER_03: scripture to make the,
55:23
SPEAKER_03: you know,
55:24
SPEAKER_03: to make it accessible?
55:27
SPEAKER_03: And that's now where we look at that.
55:30
SPEAKER_03: There were some people who were always just sitting on the fringe and saying,
55:34
SPEAKER_03: that's not a big deal for me.
55:36
SPEAKER_03: I'm just going to do this thing.
55:39
SPEAKER_03: But then Luther is looking and he's hearing Tetzel saying, as soon as the coffer hits, what?
55:45
SPEAKER_03: The bottom of that barrel, a soul is going to spring.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: And he's like, no, that's not what Scripture holds.
55:54
SPEAKER_03: And so that's very important to just kind of look at it and then continually just kind of fight.
56:01
SPEAKER_00: So if you had to ascertain what might be,
56:05
SPEAKER_00: and I don't mean to put you on the spot,
56:06
SPEAKER_00: but if you had to ascertain what might be one of the battles of our time,
56:13
SPEAKER_00: What would you say that is?
56:14
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we've got sexuality right now.
56:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:19
SPEAKER_03: Like, I would say everything kind of goes back, for example, like to the doctrine of the Imago Dei.
56:27
SPEAKER_03: Like, going back to the fundamentals, what is a human being?
56:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:34
SPEAKER_03: When is a human being?
56:36
SPEAKER_00: And what does it mean to be created in God's image?
56:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:41
SPEAKER_03: Right now, that's like, we're still fighting that.
56:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's very true.
56:45
SPEAKER_03: Whether it's conception, like, when is a human being?
56:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:48
SPEAKER_03: Like, and then not only that, like, how much authority does God have?
56:56
SPEAKER_03: Because we might be talking two different languages all together.
57:02
SPEAKER_03: If we have, for example, today I can come and say the Bible says so.
57:10
SPEAKER_03: But when feelings, like I feel, which is really relativism and all that stuff, I feel, therefore, I am.
57:22
SPEAKER_03: And I feel like I'm being true.
57:25
SPEAKER_03: So even when I'm bringing in the world of scripture, it has to become like I am the...
57:33
SPEAKER_03: I am the one who interprets that.
57:36
SPEAKER_03: And if I deny who I am, because I feel like I have these feelings for another man.
57:47
SPEAKER_03: And I feel this way.
57:50
SPEAKER_03: And it seems unfair to those people when you're telling them, no, leave apart.
57:56
SPEAKER_03: This is what God is calling you to.
57:59
SPEAKER_03: And it's almost like a denial of self.
58:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
58:02
SPEAKER_03: Because it's a denial of self, of being true to yourself.
58:08
SPEAKER_03: But yet, actually, there's a way in which there's an overlooking of actually like, hey,
58:15
SPEAKER_03: If there's one who made you, he actually is the one who dictates what you are like.
58:22
SPEAKER_03: Correct.
58:25
SPEAKER_03: And if he is the one who made you,
58:26
SPEAKER_03: redeemed you,
58:27
SPEAKER_03: he has a greater joy than actually your self-prescribed joy.
58:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
58:33
SPEAKER_03: You see, so once again, we're going back to...
58:37
SPEAKER_03: It's pretty interesting.
58:38
SPEAKER_03: After nature, we've been fighting for Jesus being actually what?
58:44
SPEAKER_03: Divine and human.
58:47
SPEAKER_03: And it's pretty interesting to see that we're actually now going back and we're
58:51
SPEAKER_03: saying we're fighting now for is man made in the image of God?
58:58
SPEAKER_03: And if made in the image of God, what are the implications of that?
59:02
SPEAKER_03: Correct.
59:03
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
59:04
SPEAKER_03: So we might be looking at that as one of the biggest fronts.
59:08
SPEAKER_00: Well,
59:08
SPEAKER_00: that brings us again back to that idea of like theology as a Jenga tower,
59:13
SPEAKER_00: because if you're talking about the Imago Dei,
59:15
SPEAKER_00: just like you said,
59:16
SPEAKER_00: if we're approaching it from two different starting junctures,
59:20
SPEAKER_00: then again,
59:21
SPEAKER_00: we're having to put forward the reasons why scripture is our authority.
59:27
SPEAKER_00: So then we're going into all of that stream of thought in order to prove this other thing,
59:31
SPEAKER_00: which again,
59:32
SPEAKER_00: lets us understand that there's not just one
59:37
SPEAKER_00: front,
59:38
SPEAKER_00: so to speak,
59:39
SPEAKER_00: on which we're kind of holding the line,
59:42
SPEAKER_00: if you can think about it that way,
59:43
SPEAKER_00: in terms of Orthodox theology.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: We're doing so as in all ages.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of been multiple little fronts in which...
59:53
SPEAKER_00: There's little jabs,
59:54
SPEAKER_00: there's little things that are coming across that are causing some to question,
59:59
SPEAKER_00: to doubt,
59:59
SPEAKER_00: or then even entirely recast and revise and reinterpret what has been handed down.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_00: Which again brings us back to guard the good deposit.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: So it's like that same sort of through line is coming through once again,
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: where the church has been entrusted with this...
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: beautiful gift known as God's self-disclosure in Jesus through word and through spirit.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: And then that's what we are being commissioned to hold forth,
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: no matter kind of what monolithic sea changes happen all around us,
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: which I think kind of gives us...
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: A great sense of calling, as you were mentioning earlier, and a great sense of conviction.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: But then it lets us navigate these waters.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: Again, they're not uncharted necessarily.
1:00:54
SPEAKER_00: There's lots of, like, again, the well is deep.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: The foundation is really sturdy in terms of what the church is standing on.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_00: So in that standpoint, we, again, don't have to...
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: approach like the modern church era.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: Cause I think this is another thing.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: Like we look at this revolution of sexuality and gender identity and all that kind
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: of stuff as inherently,
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: totally unique and new,
1:01:23
SPEAKER_00: never before seen and all that kind of stuff.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: Um,
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: And maybe in some ways it is,
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: but maybe in other ways we don't have to approach it so like white knuckly.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's what a lot of,
1:01:37
SPEAKER_00: maybe I'm making a generalization,
1:01:38
SPEAKER_00: but I think that's what a lot of people in the church are doing.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_00: Like they're so fearful over what this is.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_00: movement is going to do to the church that we can sometimes pretend as if Jesus'
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: promise that the gates of hell won't prevail against his church is maybe not
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: totally true all the time.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's like...
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: I think a healthy relationship with church history lets us know that,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: no,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: when he says that the gates of hell won't prevail against his church,
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: he means that and he means anything else as well.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will prevail against what God has ordained to be.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's, for me, that's a really healthy and helpful way to bring historical theology into life.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, the modern day, but also like a local church context.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's good.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_03: That's good.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then it rescues you from now, just like looking at that.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_03: I was looking for this phrase,
1:02:40
SPEAKER_03: and Timothy George uses like what he calls theological fadism,
1:02:48
SPEAKER_03: as in like it's a theological fad,
1:02:50
SPEAKER_03: like where you just kind of...
1:02:53
SPEAKER_03: Church history rescues you from that.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_03: Yes, it does.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_03: And...
1:02:58
SPEAKER_03: And then it inspires you towards perseverance,
1:03:01
SPEAKER_03: towards faithfulness,
1:03:03
SPEAKER_03: towards...
1:03:06
SPEAKER_03: And it's just in a way of like,
1:03:08
SPEAKER_03: okay,
1:03:11
SPEAKER_03: there are just some things that we do not wrestle and push the envelope enough on
1:03:20
SPEAKER_03: just simply because we are scared of...
1:03:25
SPEAKER_03: sometimes because we're cowards, right?
1:03:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_03: Like just entertaining some, some form of cowardice.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_03: Um,
1:03:33
SPEAKER_03: but yet there's just something that is just like you,
1:03:36
SPEAKER_03: um,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:03:39
SPEAKER_03: I was at a conference with,
1:03:40
SPEAKER_03: um,
1:03:40
SPEAKER_03: and just watching a guy like John Piper this week.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_03: Um,
1:03:48
SPEAKER_03: And just looking at, like, the last 50 years, what he has fought for.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_03: Like, what he has fought for and...
1:03:59
SPEAKER_03: And just the things that, like, okay, you fought for this.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_03: You have... You know, you've been attacked.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_03: You've been...
1:04:06
SPEAKER_03: And it's so easy to look and see someone,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_03: whether it's him,
1:04:11
SPEAKER_03: whether it's,
1:04:11
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:04:12
SPEAKER_03: anyone that we...
1:04:14
SPEAKER_03: And look at them and just be like,
1:04:16
SPEAKER_03: oh,
1:04:16
SPEAKER_03: man,
1:04:17
SPEAKER_03: you have fought the fight.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_03: But he's got the scars to show it.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_03: Like, and anyone today, like, who really goes against and just...
1:04:28
SPEAKER_03: And just dare say something that's not within the same traffic direction of everyone.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_03: You're asking for a firing squad to come against you.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_03: But yet there is something about that, like, wait, number one, you are entering into that...
1:04:50
SPEAKER_03: Like, you consider it worthy to suffer for the what?
1:04:55
SPEAKER_03: You know, to suffer for Christ.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_03: You know, you study the Moravians.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_03: You study, like, all these guys, and you're just like, okay.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_03: I can go ahead and write that article or I can go ahead and preach and teach.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_03: Because that's what we see even Paul when he's kicked out of the synagogue.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_03: He says he went and rented the what?
1:05:16
SPEAKER_03: The hall.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_03: The hall.
1:05:19
SPEAKER_03: And he taught for two years.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_03: And he says all of Asia was actually what?
1:05:26
SPEAKER_03: Heard the gospel through that.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_03: I think that's now like where church history helps us to look back and then be able
1:05:34
SPEAKER_03: to find that and not be submerged underneath the...
1:05:39
SPEAKER_03: Like we are not the...
1:05:41
SPEAKER_03: We're not the...
1:05:43
SPEAKER_03: we're not going to be the first ones to die in this.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_03: We just need to be able to still remain.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_03: And we've watched God sustain some of them, and we've seen God do all that.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_03: So we just kind of come into a bigger story.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_03: But then it helps also as well just to be able to think about,
1:06:02
SPEAKER_03: okay,
1:06:04
SPEAKER_03: church history helps us now also to be thinking about,
1:06:07
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:06:08
SPEAKER_03: What is it that Athanasius was fighting for that now we are actually like sitting
1:06:14
SPEAKER_03: here and we,
1:06:16
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:06:21
SPEAKER_03: we are today blessed because of that.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_03: Someone had also said infidelity to orthodoxy.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_03: creates what would they say infidelity to orthodoxy in the past like because we are
1:06:41
SPEAKER_03: called to fidelity this courageous fidelity to orthodoxy over some time that like
1:06:49
SPEAKER_03: if we let go of some things we will create theological offense in the next
1:06:56
SPEAKER_03: generation yeah
1:06:58
SPEAKER_03: And they're going to have to wrestle with that.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_03: So you look at right now what we're struggling through,
1:07:06
SPEAKER_03: you ask yourself,
1:07:08
SPEAKER_03: what is it that maybe was relaxed?
1:07:09
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_03: you know before yeah and let's go back to the church during during what the
1:07:21
SPEAKER_03: holocaust let's go back to to the slavery the child slavery slave trade let's go
1:07:28
SPEAKER_03: back to what was actually happening there you kind of like look through all that
1:07:33
SPEAKER_03: and some of our best theologians wrote during that time yep
1:07:38
SPEAKER_03: and what was actually getting dumbed down more and more,
1:07:41
SPEAKER_03: they were actually like focusing so much more on,
1:07:44
SPEAKER_03: on,
1:07:45
SPEAKER_03: on,
1:07:46
SPEAKER_03: on,
1:07:46
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:47
SPEAKER_03: on,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_03: the,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_03: the deity of Christ and everything.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_03: And then also just kind of the,
1:07:54
SPEAKER_03: the Imago Dei was kind of deteriorating,
1:07:57
SPEAKER_03: going down,
1:07:57
SPEAKER_03: going down to the point that like,
1:07:59
SPEAKER_03: okay,
1:08:00
SPEAKER_03: two thirds of a human,
1:08:01
SPEAKER_03: someone is like,
1:08:02
SPEAKER_03: you see what I mean?
1:08:03
SPEAKER_03: And just kind of like,
1:08:05
SPEAKER_03: They had to do some theological navigating to actually be able to read the same Bible.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_03: For example,
1:08:13
SPEAKER_03: you go to a church,
1:08:16
SPEAKER_03: you think about a church in Zanzibar,
1:08:20
SPEAKER_03: like in Zanzibar where the church would hold the church service on top.
1:08:29
SPEAKER_03: And they would open scripture and read,
1:08:31
SPEAKER_03: but you go underneath that church,
1:08:34
SPEAKER_03: the basement was the holding pen for all the slaves that were going to get shipped.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_03: And they would be making noise at the bottom.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_03: So you see how, you ask yourself, what theological shift had to be made
1:08:55
SPEAKER_00: A pretty seismic one.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm saying.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_03: You kind of look at that and you're like, what disconnect was there?
1:09:03
SPEAKER_03: What theological juggling did we have to...
1:09:06
SPEAKER_03: What is it that we had to suppress in order to actually just be able to overcome that?
1:09:15
SPEAKER_03: And then obviously after that, now the Imago Dei... So then that lets us...
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: kind of perceive like, hey, what are we suppressing in order to make whatever theological point.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_03: So we think about like, we're orphans of that.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_03: Correct, yeah.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_03: And then,
1:09:33
SPEAKER_03: so therefore,
1:09:34
SPEAKER_03: that's why we can think about like,
1:09:37
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:09:38
SPEAKER_03: how much,
1:09:39
SPEAKER_03: how many children,
1:09:41
SPEAKER_03: because we can look today and we can look at,
1:09:45
SPEAKER_03: it's so easy now to go and defend Pharaoh.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_03: One of the reasons why some people don't come to the faith because they're like,
1:09:54
SPEAKER_03: how many people did God kill in Egypt?
1:09:58
SPEAKER_03: And we look at that and we will chastise the God and we say that's a God who's cruel.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_03: But then we will overlook the fact that all the two-year-olds were killed.
1:10:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_03: You see what I mean?
1:10:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, of what he just did before.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_03: So it's just one of those things.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_03: We will look and we will literally not come to faith because of that, like, we see that kind of God.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_03: But then, history-wise, like, we are doing exactly what, what's his name, Marcion did.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_03: Today, we're doing exactly, it's like, oh, yeah, God is love, which is the
1:10:41
SPEAKER_03: which is the leading, like, kind of, like, overarching.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_03: God is love.
1:10:47
SPEAKER_03: And that's what Marcion did over there.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_03: Whatever Jefferson did with his Bible.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_03: And, like, you see what I mean?
1:10:55
SPEAKER_03: Like, you're watching and you're watching, which is good.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_03: You're saying history is cyclical in some way.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_03: But if you never studied Marcion and see what his reasons, and today you will feel like,
1:11:10
SPEAKER_03: You look at some people today that think they are so enlightened.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_03: And you're like, no, you're just repeating the same thing that happened.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_03: You go back to the prosperity preaching today.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_03: I was watching a clip yesterday.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_03: This pastor is showing like a Range Rover and he's like, you're going to buy this for me.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_03: And no shame, at least he's open with it.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_03: Like it is like you're going to buy this for me.
1:11:38
SPEAKER_03: And as a result of doing that, you will be blessed as you help the bishop buy this car.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_03: You also will prosper and God is going to bless you and all that.
1:11:51
SPEAKER_03: Tell me that is not exactly what like Luther record like sees literally like when
1:11:59
SPEAKER_03: they are doing the indulgences.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_00: And all the corruption of the priests and the parish priests and the bishops.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_03: Like,
1:12:05
SPEAKER_03: tell me,
1:12:06
SPEAKER_00: like,
1:12:06
SPEAKER_03: it's like,
1:12:07
SPEAKER_03: hey,
1:12:07
SPEAKER_03: for this prize,
1:12:08
SPEAKER_03: you give me this and I'm going to send you this handkerchief.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to send you this water that we got from the Dead Sea.
1:12:14
SPEAKER_03: And you just got it from a swamp behind your backyard.
1:12:20
SPEAKER_03: And you just like, tell me that's not like exactly what Luther witnesses.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_03: People literally going up the steps, just trying to touch the St.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_03: Peter's tour.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
1:12:33
SPEAKER_03: Remember that, like, some of the relics and all that stuff?
1:12:36
SPEAKER_03: Like,
1:12:36
SPEAKER_03: you watch all that,
1:12:38
SPEAKER_03: and then you're actually watching some people that,
1:12:41
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:12:41
SPEAKER_03: for example,
1:12:42
SPEAKER_03: tell me it's not,
1:12:43
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:12:44
SPEAKER_03: the same as the Crusades,
1:12:46
SPEAKER_03: where it's like,
1:12:47
SPEAKER_03: if you don't fight for so-and-so,
1:12:49
SPEAKER_03: if you don't fight for this,
1:12:53
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:12:53
SPEAKER_03: you will not be saved.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_03: You will not...
1:12:56
SPEAKER_03: And you're watching all these things,
1:12:57
SPEAKER_03: whether it's in the Middle Ages,
1:12:59
SPEAKER_03: whether it's in the Dark Ages,
1:13:01
SPEAKER_03: whether it's church,
1:13:03
SPEAKER_03: in all these different times.
1:13:04
SPEAKER_03: And you're watching and you're like, oh, wow.
1:13:08
SPEAKER_03: We're seeing that happening again and again and again.
1:13:12
SPEAKER_03: So we can look at asceticism, for example, and we can see there's something totally different.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_03: You know, we can look at it today.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_03: We avoid some of these.
1:13:22
SPEAKER_03: And because we're like, oh, that's just too, that's crazy.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_03: But yet today we have a resurgence of stoicism.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_03: Like, and it's growing.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_03: A resurgence of that.
1:13:37
SPEAKER_03: That's actually like where it's like, like you're looking at that.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_03: And then,
1:13:41
SPEAKER_03: oh,
1:13:41
SPEAKER_03: we can have like,
1:13:42
SPEAKER_03: let's say,
1:13:42
SPEAKER_03: for example,
1:13:44
SPEAKER_03: hyper Pentecostalism or charismatic stuff and all that.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_03: But then we, you know, if we're not looking at St.
1:13:53
SPEAKER_03: Bernard of Claveau, you know, Madame Guyon, all those, and you're going back to the mystics.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_03: And then you see even like all the unhealthy practices, we get to see them today.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_03: Because people are chasing experiences.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_03: I think church history basically gets to remedy some of that stuff and just be able
1:14:13
SPEAKER_03: to look at it and you're like,
1:14:14
SPEAKER_03: okay,
1:14:16
SPEAKER_03: all right,
1:14:16
SPEAKER_03: some of this stuff.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_03: But at the same time, should we throw away fasting and prayer and seeking the Lord?
1:14:24
SPEAKER_03: No, we shouldn't.
1:14:26
SPEAKER_03: But we should also just be able to actually learn from history,
1:14:29
SPEAKER_03: bring it here,
1:14:31
SPEAKER_03: and then be able to practice it.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_03: And whether it's actually like whether it's how we look at the sacraments,
1:14:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:14:39
SPEAKER_03: you're looking at Luther,
1:14:40
SPEAKER_03: Zwingli,
1:14:40
SPEAKER_03: you're looking at Calvin and all these.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_03: And you're just like watching them wrestle with that.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_03: And so that today you can be able to,
1:14:49
SPEAKER_03: I think the biggest thing,
1:14:51
SPEAKER_03: you can now be able to answer some of the questions of your parishioners using,
1:14:58
SPEAKER_03: hey,
1:14:59
SPEAKER_03: that question has been asked before.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_03: Hey, let me show you where it has been asked.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_03: And this is how so-and-so answered it.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_03: Instead of actually like, hey, pastor, so...
1:15:11
SPEAKER_03: is does it become the body literally of the blood or what happens there like what
1:15:17
SPEAKER_03: and then we at least can be able to wrestle i can give them these views and be able
1:15:23
SPEAKER_03: to give them actually like all those things so i think that's important for the
1:15:27
SPEAKER_00: church as a whole so then how would you so like
1:15:33
SPEAKER_00: I think we've been kind of talking like from a pastoral theological standpoint.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_00: How would you say historical theology should be either received or engaged in by just,
1:15:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:15:45
SPEAKER_00: average Joe on the pew who is not like,
1:15:49
SPEAKER_00: quote unquote,
1:15:50
SPEAKER_00: a vocational theologian or anything like that?
1:15:53
SPEAKER_00: So like where would you say either a, they should start or B, why should they be interested in this?
1:16:00
SPEAKER_00: Like we've been talking as like pastors and like,
1:16:04
SPEAKER_00: this is our world,
1:16:05
SPEAKER_00: but how would you,
1:16:06
SPEAKER_00: how would you apply that to someone who's like just coming on Sundays and that kind
1:16:10
SPEAKER_00: of stuff?
1:16:12
SPEAKER_03: I think three pillars are important when it comes to just a normal believer.
1:16:17
SPEAKER_03: Um,
1:16:19
SPEAKER_03: understanding obviously like uh christian belief um which is like hey who is man
1:16:25
SPEAKER_03: who is god who is christ who's um who's who's the holy spirit who's you know like
1:16:30
SPEAKER_03: just your normal theology yeah um and then and then also as well understanding
1:16:37
SPEAKER_03: let's say um christian formation how do i put that into practice in my daily life
1:16:43
SPEAKER_03: And all that.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_03: But in the middle of that Christian story,
1:16:48
SPEAKER_03: Christian story,
1:16:48
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:16:51
SPEAKER_03: and and that looking at like when we're looking at Christian story,
1:16:56
SPEAKER_03: we owe it to God.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_03: Like, I think just as a believer to know, where am I in the story?
1:17:06
SPEAKER_03: Where am I in the story?
1:17:08
SPEAKER_03: Because, like, the big overarching is, like, what?
1:17:11
SPEAKER_03: Creation, fall, redemption.
1:17:14
SPEAKER_03: Creation, fall, redemption, and then consummation, right?
1:17:17
SPEAKER_03: And...
1:17:20
SPEAKER_03: And watching church history is literally living in between that valley of redemption and consummation.
1:17:31
SPEAKER_03: And what is God doing in the midst of that?
1:17:36
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, another way of looking at that is what?
1:17:39
SPEAKER_03: Creation, corruption, right?
1:17:42
SPEAKER_03: And then like, and you're watching like the promise is coming and then you have the cross and
1:17:49
SPEAKER_03: And then you have now like the valley where the church lives in.
1:17:53
SPEAKER_03: And when that in that valley where the church lives in and that's where God is
1:17:58
SPEAKER_03: doing his sanctifying work.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:18:01
SPEAKER_03: And I think for the normal believer to know that like I am also swept up the moment I am saved.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm swept up into a big story that's happening.
1:18:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:18:18
SPEAKER_03: And this story that's happening,
1:18:20
SPEAKER_03: I need to know all the,
1:18:23
SPEAKER_03: I also need to know all the twists and turns of our story.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:18:27
SPEAKER_03: That's good.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_03: Like, and this, this is, this is, uh, ancestral, what was it?
1:18:33
SPEAKER_03: Ancestral.com, whatever.
1:18:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_00: Ancestry.com.
1:18:38
SPEAKER_03: This just gives us,
1:18:40
SPEAKER_03: it gives me,
1:18:41
SPEAKER_03: there's a security and assurance and perseverance that comes with,
1:18:48
SPEAKER_03: I'm part of this.
1:18:52
SPEAKER_03: Here we are in the Shemokin Valley.
1:18:55
SPEAKER_03: This is right here.
1:18:57
SPEAKER_03: There's an assurance that comes with,
1:19:01
SPEAKER_03: Who traversed here?
1:19:04
SPEAKER_03: I know that Gerhard Voss was buried right close to where we are.
1:19:13
SPEAKER_03: I know that David Brennert,
1:19:15
SPEAKER_03: when I'm reading his biography,
1:19:18
SPEAKER_03: he comes into this valley and he starts praying,
1:19:21
SPEAKER_03: Christ,
1:19:21
SPEAKER_03: would you be known here?
1:19:25
SPEAKER_03: So as you and I are preaching on a Sunday morning, oh, as a believer...
1:19:29
SPEAKER_03: as I'm walking into here, I know that like, you know what I mean?
1:19:34
SPEAKER_03: Like just getting to know that just limiting it,
1:19:37
SPEAKER_03: just maybe just to those two things and getting to know that like,
1:19:41
SPEAKER_03: Oh,
1:19:42
SPEAKER_03: who else came and preached around these areas?
1:19:45
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, and just, just, just knowing that it's actually knowing that also like, Oh wow.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_03: Like,
1:19:54
SPEAKER_03: I'm watching the Ethiopian eunuch get saved and get saved and baptized by Philip
1:20:01
SPEAKER_03: and then go to Africa.
1:20:03
SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden, Africa gets Christianity and it spreads like a veiled fire.
1:20:09
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm reading, for example, Thomas Auden's book, How Africa...
1:20:18
SPEAKER_03: influence Christianity or something like that you read those kind of stories and
1:20:24
SPEAKER_03: you get to see that like hey the first missionary came there's a missionary that
1:20:30
SPEAKER_03: came in 15 something like and this is where the first convert here or this is like
1:20:36
SPEAKER_03: or going and discovering the oldest Ethiopian Bible and getting to see that like or
1:20:43
SPEAKER_03: going and seeing in Carthage or Alexandria and seeing
1:20:46
SPEAKER_03: hearing about this big library that's going on.
1:20:50
SPEAKER_03: And then you get the sense of like...
1:20:54
SPEAKER_03: I am part of a big heritage.
1:20:56
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_03: I am part of a big story.
1:21:00
SPEAKER_03: That's like,
1:21:02
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:21:03
SPEAKER_03: I like revisiting our warriors and just being able to like,
1:21:07
SPEAKER_03: if I know I'm part of like a lineage of warriors,
1:21:11
SPEAKER_03: like there's just something about that.
1:21:13
SPEAKER_03: Like it's something.
1:21:14
SPEAKER_03: So I would say for a Christian, you know,
1:21:17
SPEAKER_03: I'm swept into a story.
1:21:19
SPEAKER_03: Every single time I'm being baptized,
1:21:21
SPEAKER_03: this is now the grace of the font is that I'm being swept up into a bigger current.
1:21:30
SPEAKER_03: That's bigger than I, but that is echo from eternity past to eternity what?
1:21:36
SPEAKER_03: Future.
1:21:37
SPEAKER_03: And in there...
1:21:41
SPEAKER_03: As I'm being swept in within that,
1:21:44
SPEAKER_03: just like we launch someone from this planet to another planet,
1:21:48
SPEAKER_03: and we pack it inside there with all the food and the sustenance,
1:21:52
SPEAKER_03: the oxygen that they need to make it there,
1:21:55
SPEAKER_03: church history becomes that capsule.
1:21:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's good.
1:21:58
SPEAKER_03: That just captures the believer to know that like, hey, man...
1:22:06
SPEAKER_03: people think I'm strange at work.
1:22:09
SPEAKER_03: Like,
1:22:09
SPEAKER_03: and you read the first century Christians who were thought called atheists because
1:22:14
SPEAKER_03: they believed in Jesus and they wouldn't offer libations to,
1:22:19
SPEAKER_03: to Rome.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_03: Like, and you just read that and you're like, Oh,
1:22:24
SPEAKER_03: awkward it's been part of our lives all this time it's just one of those things
1:22:30
SPEAKER_03: where you're like okay I am part of why should I try to be mainstream when I've
1:22:37
SPEAKER_03: never been mainstream I need to embrace who I am and then just I would say also
1:22:43
SPEAKER_03: just being swept up in that story and then also the development of what you believe
1:22:52
SPEAKER_03: in
1:22:54
SPEAKER_03: So that now as we sing,
1:22:57
SPEAKER_03: every song we sing,
1:22:58
SPEAKER_03: usually every hymn we sing is so packed with,
1:23:02
SPEAKER_03: where did that start?
1:23:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:23:05
SPEAKER_03: Like if I don't study the story of Horatius Bonner, like Horatius, what's his name?
1:23:11
SPEAKER_03: Spafford.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_03: Spafford.
1:23:13
SPEAKER_03: Like, and I'm singing that.
1:23:16
SPEAKER_03: They still, like, the historical aspect of that song has a way of giving me hope today.
1:23:22
SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly.
1:23:23
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
1:23:24
SPEAKER_03: Like, amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.
1:23:28
SPEAKER_03: There's a way in which, like, I'm swept up also in his story, in Newton's story.
1:23:36
SPEAKER_03: I'm swept up in his story, and...
1:23:41
SPEAKER_03: And there is a way in which, like, you met him there.
1:23:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:23:44
SPEAKER_03: Like, Almighty Fortress is our God.
1:23:48
SPEAKER_03: Like, and what's it like when I've just lost, like, a son?
1:23:52
SPEAKER_03: I think Luther had lost a son, right?
1:23:56
SPEAKER_03: Had lost...
1:23:57
SPEAKER_03: And then just kind of thinking about that,
1:23:59
SPEAKER_03: or even just thinking about,
1:24:01
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:24:01
SPEAKER_03: why is it that we sing?
1:24:04
SPEAKER_03: There was one time when Luther is looked at as, like...
1:24:09
SPEAKER_03: His songs were just annoying to the Catholics because that's just, this is it.
1:24:14
SPEAKER_03: How was he able to bring the Reformation about?
1:24:19
SPEAKER_03: Most of it was taking Christianity, bringing it down,
1:24:24
SPEAKER_03: And then just having to now, why should we guard the songs of our people?
1:24:28
SPEAKER_03: Like, why should I go and sing with others?
1:24:32
SPEAKER_03: Because that's actually how,
1:24:33
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:24:33
SPEAKER_03: you go to areas,
1:24:34
SPEAKER_03: for example,
1:24:35
SPEAKER_03: takes all these bar tunes,
1:24:37
SPEAKER_03: turn them into,
1:24:38
SPEAKER_03: because even Luther himself takes some of the bar tunes,
1:24:42
SPEAKER_03: turns them into what?
1:24:43
SPEAKER_03: Into songs?
1:24:44
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:24:45
SPEAKER_03: But Arius is taking these songs,
1:24:47
SPEAKER_03: you're watching how orthodoxy reforms through song and then heresy reforms,
1:24:57
SPEAKER_03: heresy deforms through song.
1:24:59
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:25:00
SPEAKER_03: And you're just kind of looking at those two things and you're like...
1:25:04
SPEAKER_03: Why should we sing?
1:25:06
SPEAKER_03: We sing because our people are formed even through that.
1:25:10
SPEAKER_03: Or our people are deformed through that.
1:25:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:25:13
SPEAKER_03: Right?
1:25:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:25:14
SPEAKER_03: Which is good.
1:25:14
SPEAKER_03: That's good.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_03: I've never thought of that.
1:25:17
SPEAKER_03: Right?
1:25:18
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah.
1:25:18
SPEAKER_03: Just thinking about that, like, and looking and bouncing through.
1:25:22
SPEAKER_03: And so, and just also looking.
1:25:25
SPEAKER_03: So, for me...
1:25:28
SPEAKER_03: One of my main arguments right now is what I found in Athanasius and seeing,
1:25:36
SPEAKER_03: for example,
1:25:36
SPEAKER_03: at the Council of Oviedo,
1:25:38
SPEAKER_03: I think,
1:25:40
SPEAKER_03: where they would not ordain anyone unless they had memorized the whole book of Psalms.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_03: But you're looking at Athanasius and you're seeing him...
1:25:56
SPEAKER_03: knowing every single Psalm to pick out when you're going through this,
1:26:01
SPEAKER_03: seeing this Psalm,
1:26:03
SPEAKER_03: going through this,
1:26:04
SPEAKER_03: seeing this Psalm,
1:26:06
SPEAKER_03: you're watching all these people that like,
1:26:08
SPEAKER_03: and you're looking at this book and you're like,
1:26:10
SPEAKER_03: I see it in Christ's mouth.
1:26:12
SPEAKER_03: I see it in the, in the, the most quoted book in the new Testament.
1:26:16
SPEAKER_03: And I see it in church history as something that was so used and all that stuff.
1:26:23
SPEAKER_03: And, but yet today, um,
1:26:26
SPEAKER_03: The book of Psalms is probably not read as much.
1:26:31
SPEAKER_03: And it's just one of those, it's just too Philly for me.
1:26:35
SPEAKER_03: I just don't.
1:26:36
SPEAKER_03: So I'm just going to go play with Paul.
1:26:40
SPEAKER_03: And you look at that.
1:26:41
SPEAKER_03: So as a believer, you go into church history and you find...
1:26:46
SPEAKER_03: Like, oh, wow, this book was so important.
1:26:50
SPEAKER_03: So now, and you look at that, they didn't have therapies then.
1:26:55
SPEAKER_03: They didn't have all that stuff.
1:26:57
SPEAKER_03: And then now you wonder, like, why did you sing that?
1:27:02
SPEAKER_03: And you go and you read,
1:27:03
SPEAKER_03: for example,
1:27:04
SPEAKER_03: with Athanasius,
1:27:05
SPEAKER_03: he's like,
1:27:05
SPEAKER_03: when you're going through this,
1:27:07
SPEAKER_03: sing this psalm.
1:27:08
SPEAKER_03: When you're going through this, sing this psalm.
1:27:11
SPEAKER_03: And then at the end of the day, you're looking at that and you're like, okay.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_03: This is why this is so important.
1:27:19
SPEAKER_03: So the believer today is able to also enter that same current I was talking about.
1:27:25
SPEAKER_03: It's also as well just like asking, what made this person persevere?
1:27:32
SPEAKER_03: They ate large quantities of this.
1:27:34
SPEAKER_03: So, therefore, let me eat the large quantities of this as well.
1:27:39
SPEAKER_03: And if I can do so, then I also will find strength.
1:27:44
SPEAKER_03: And you're also finding strength and perseverance in a tried and true source versus actually what...
1:27:54
SPEAKER_03: you're finding it in a tried and true source versus something you're having to come up with yourself.
1:28:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
1:28:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:28:04
SPEAKER_03: So it's very important to kind of think about that.
1:28:07
SPEAKER_03: So let me read you something.
1:28:10
SPEAKER_03: Listen to this.
1:28:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:28:13
SPEAKER_03: So this is Athanasius and he says this.
1:28:17
SPEAKER_03: So think of it this way and think about I'm a parishioner.
1:28:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm a person who's in the church and I I'm having to think about like, man, why is this?
1:28:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm going through problems.
1:28:29
SPEAKER_03: I'm going through.
1:28:29
SPEAKER_03: So listen to this.
1:28:32
SPEAKER_03: For overcoming the enemy and the preservation of creation,
1:28:38
SPEAKER_03: not boasting in oneself,
1:28:40
SPEAKER_03: but making known that the Son of God is accomplished.
1:28:44
SPEAKER_03: So listen to this.
1:28:47
SPEAKER_03: Moreover,
1:28:48
SPEAKER_03: if you want to celebrate the wine harvest by giving thanks to the Lord,
1:28:54
SPEAKER_03: and you have the same psalm as well as 84,
1:28:57
SPEAKER_03: for overcoming the enemy and the preservation of creation,
1:29:02
SPEAKER_03: not boasting in oneself,
1:29:03
SPEAKER_03: but making known the Son of God has accomplished this,
1:29:07
SPEAKER_03: recite Psalm 9,
1:29:10
SPEAKER_03: which is spoken to him.
1:29:12
SPEAKER_03: And whenever one finds...
1:29:15
SPEAKER_03: wants to stir up a lot of trouble for you, have confidence and sing Psalm 11.
1:29:21
SPEAKER_03: So, and what does Psalm 11 do?
1:29:23
SPEAKER_03: I was reading it the other day and I was reading this,
1:29:26
SPEAKER_03: like where it's like someone is trying to stir up trouble for me and what gives me confidence?
1:29:34
SPEAKER_03: all of a sudden now i'm communing with this father who's like he tells me to sing
1:29:40
SPEAKER_03: psalm 11.
1:29:40
SPEAKER_03: psalm 11 says i have set my refuge on the lord how can you say flee to the
1:29:46
SPEAKER_03: mountains like a bird yeah yeah yeah and you start thinking about like when did
1:29:52
SPEAKER_03: athanasius sing that
1:29:54
SPEAKER_03: Who's stirring trouble for him?
1:29:56
SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden I realized my trouble is not as big as someone stirring
1:30:02
SPEAKER_03: trouble to run him out of.
1:30:03
SPEAKER_03: You see what I mean?
1:30:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
1:30:05
SPEAKER_03: And you're just kind of looking at that.
1:30:06
SPEAKER_03: And when you witness the arrogance of the crowd and increasing evil,
1:30:11
SPEAKER_03: and so much that nothing is considered holy amongst men,
1:30:15
SPEAKER_03: flee to the Lord and cry out Psalm 12.
1:30:19
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
1:30:23
SPEAKER_03: Can you see that?
1:30:24
SPEAKER_03: It's like I'm seeing all that stuff.
1:30:27
SPEAKER_03: And he's going on.
1:30:28
SPEAKER_03: And if you're waylaid by the snare of your enemies, do not desert your post.
1:30:35
SPEAKER_03: This is what was interesting for me.
1:30:37
SPEAKER_03: Do not desert your post as if you were forgotten by God, but call on the Lord, singing Psalm 13.
1:30:46
SPEAKER_03: And you see just like he is going prescriptively through that.
1:30:51
SPEAKER_03: So here you are.
1:30:52
SPEAKER_03: You're part of the church.
1:30:54
SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden,
1:30:55
SPEAKER_03: man,
1:30:56
SPEAKER_03: I feel like quitting today because,
1:30:59
SPEAKER_03: man,
1:31:00
SPEAKER_03: Dickon so-and-so and all these other,
1:31:02
SPEAKER_03: or even just as a believer,
1:31:05
SPEAKER_03: my family is going against me.
1:31:07
SPEAKER_03: And this is what's happening.
1:31:09
SPEAKER_03: But yet he has blinded me here.
1:31:13
SPEAKER_03: And you kind of start singing.
1:31:15
SPEAKER_03: You're seeing now the bridge of days.
1:31:18
SPEAKER_03: I actually like seeing.
1:31:19
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:31:20
SPEAKER_03: Because you can go even, for example, at Dorian M. Johnson.
1:31:26
SPEAKER_03: You go to him and you're like, how do you lose all those children in the mission field?
1:31:31
SPEAKER_03: And all those wives that like your first wife dies, your second wife dies.
1:31:35
SPEAKER_03: And it's just like you're watching and you're asking yourself, how do they stay afloat?
1:31:43
SPEAKER_03: And you find out, man, this man also prayed the Psalms.
1:31:48
SPEAKER_03: All of a sudden, now, it takes
1:31:52
SPEAKER_03: We can say sola scriptura, but then that kind of puts so much more weight on your sola scriptura.
1:32:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it does.
1:32:01
SPEAKER_03: Which is good.
1:32:02
SPEAKER_03: And it puts weight on your sola fide.
1:32:05
SPEAKER_03: It puts weight on your sola Christus.
1:32:07
SPEAKER_03: You know,
1:32:08
SPEAKER_03: like all the things that like,
1:32:09
SPEAKER_03: basically now,
1:32:11
SPEAKER_03: it's just like,
1:32:12
SPEAKER_03: for me,
1:32:12
SPEAKER_03: I think church history takes what we made light.
1:32:17
SPEAKER_03: And start saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
1:32:19
SPEAKER_03: This is a lot more expensive than this.
1:32:22
SPEAKER_03: And then just kind of puts the gravity on there.
1:32:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:32:25
SPEAKER_03: Whether it's our call, whether it's our faith, whether it's anything.
1:32:29
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, that's the word of God.
1:32:31
SPEAKER_00: So, that's good.
1:32:33
SPEAKER_00: Dr. Raphael, thank you.
1:32:34
SPEAKER_00: This has been wonderful.
1:32:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for spending time with me and talking about this.
1:32:40
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
1:32:41
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:32:41
SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
1:32:42
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again also for Pastor Raphael for joining me on this conversation.
1:32:46
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you've had a great time listening to this and benefiting from it.
1:32:51
SPEAKER_00: Make sure to check out some of the links below for some of the items that we
1:32:54
SPEAKER_00: discussed and also other places where you can connect with Pastor Raphael and get
1:32:59
SPEAKER_00: to know his ministry a little bit more.
1:33:02
SPEAKER_00: But thanks so much again for listening.
1:33:04
SPEAKER_00: Please subscribe if you haven't to Ministry Minded on Apple Podcast or on Spotify.
1:33:09
SPEAKER_00: And also share this with anyone that you think might be able to benefit from this
1:33:14
SPEAKER_00: episode and what we talk about.
1:33:16
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you very much.
1:33:17
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
1:33:18
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time.
1:33:19
SPEAKER_00: comments and your support and your subscriptions um i will see you on the next
1:33:24
SPEAKER_00: episode hopefully it's sooner uh than this one got out so but anyways god bless you
1:33:29
SPEAKER_00: um and i hope you have a great rest of your day