Latest / Reformed Thinking / When Bible Talk Becomes Bible Panic: Resisting the Gish Gallop in English Bible Controversies

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When Bible Talk Becomes Bible Panic: Resisting the Gish Gallop in English Bible Controversies · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reform Thinking. It is really good to have you
• 0:03
  with us today, yeah. Glad to be here.
• 0:05
  We have a pretty massive stack of notes on the desk today and
• 0:09
  honestly looking at it I feel a little bit intimidated.
• 0:13
  I mean, it is a lot of material. It really is.
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  We're doing a deep dive into two specific sources today that,
• 0:20
  well, at first glance, they don't really seem to belong in
• 0:22
  the same room. No, they don't.
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  Sounds like a mismatch honestly, right?
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  One is this heavy theological treatise on how God reveals
• 0:31
  himself in Scripture and the other the other is.
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  Basically a cultural analysis of how people argue about the Bible
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  on the Internet. Yeah, you've got the Creator of
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  the universe on one side and a YouTube comment section on the
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  other. But when you layer these two
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  sources on top of each other, they actually expose something
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  really fascinating about how we process information.
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  Yeah, the core concept we're unpacking today is the Gish
• 0:54
  Gallop. Which is a term that usually
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  belongs in political debates. Right.
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  But today, our mission for this deep dive is to see how this
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  concept interacts with our faith.
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  Specifically, in two ways. Yes, first we are looking at the
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  divine barrage, which is how secular skeptics falsely accuse
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  God of Gish galloping us in dense biblical.
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  Texts and 2nd The human gallop, which is how some Christians
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  unfortunately use this overwhelming tactic to create a
• 1:23
  lot of panic about English Bible translations.
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  So before we get into the weeds and we are wading into some
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  heavy waters today, textual criticism, the nature of
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  inspiration, all of that, I want to set the stage.
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  Yeah. That's a good idea.
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  We need to be clear about our starting.
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  Point because I know you, the listener might be a seminary
• 1:41
  grad, or you might just want to know why your study Bible has
• 1:44
  footnotes. And we are approaching both of
• 1:46
  these sources through a very specific theological lens.
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  Both sources rely heavily on a high view of scripture.
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  Consistent with the Westminster Confession.
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  Right. We believe the Bible is the word
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  of God. We believe it is self
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  authenticating. So we aren't approaching this as
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  skeptics. Today, not at all.
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  We are approaching this as people who trust the text, but
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  because we trust it, we have to deal with the facts honestly.
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  Whether we are talking about God shouting out of a whirlwind or,
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  you know, a TikTok influencer yelling about missing verses,
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  the standard is always what is true.
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  So maybe we should define the term first?
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  Let's do that Gish gallop. I mean, I've heard it thrown
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  around online mostly as an insult.
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  Like, oh, he's just Gish galloping me.
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  Yeah, but what is it technically?
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  Where does it come? From the term actually comes
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  from Dwayne Gish. He was a biochemist and a really
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  prominent creationist debater back in the late 20th century,
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  OK. And he had this very specific
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  style when he debated evolutionary biologists.
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  He would stand up at the podium and just unleash this massive
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  torrent of arguments like a firehose.
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  A total firehose of claims. He'd say the fossil record has
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  gaps. Thermodynamics disproves
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  evolution. What about the bombardment
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  beetle? Carbon tating is flawed.
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  All in one breath. Basically he would throw out
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  maybe 20 distinct claims in a 5 minute opening statement.
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  And the opponent is sitting there thinking, OK, I have 10
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  minutes to speak and it takes me 3 minutes just to explain the
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  second law of thermodynamics. That is the whole mechanism of
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  the tactic. It relies on the asymmetry of
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  time. The asymmetry of time that makes
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  sense. Because it takes 5 seconds to
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  make a false or misleading claim.
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  You just say dating is a lie. Boom, it's out there.
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  But to refute that? To refute it, you have to
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  explain radioactive decay, half lives, calibration curves.
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  You need 15 minutes for that 15 second claim.
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  So the gallop or kind of wins by default.
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  To the audience, yes. The audience sees one guy with
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  20 facts and the other guys struggling to explain just one
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  concept. The gallop or looks
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  knowledgeable and the expert just looks stuck.
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  It creates the illusion of victory through sheer volume.
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  Quantity over quality. The goal isn't to clarify truth.
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  The goal is to bury the opponent under a mountain of noise so
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  they just can't dig themselves out.
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  All right, so let's jump into our first source, the divine
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  barrage. This looks that those dense,
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  difficult parts of the Bible. Where God or the biblical author
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  just seems to pile on the argument.
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  I'm thinking of Romans 3 or the end of the Book of Job.
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  Those are the perfect examples. And the modern secular reader
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  looks at those texts and says this is bullying.
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  Bullying. Yeah.
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  They see a passage like Romans 3 where Paul lists sin after sin
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  after sin, and they think, OK, I get it, I'm bad.
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  Why do you have to say it 12 different ways?
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  They view it as a rhetorical trick, like God is trying to
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  hide A weak argument behind a wall of noise.
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  Which is the secular critique? According to the source, the
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  modern mind wants a debate. They want God to sit across a
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  table, slide a logical syllogism over and let them critique the
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  premises. They want to say God proved to
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  me that I am a Sinner. And instead of a neat little
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  syllogism, God gives them an avalanche.
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  The source connects this to intellectual pride, doesn't it?
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  It does. We feel entitled to a debate
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  because we think we are on the same level as the Almighty.
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  We act like we are the judge and he is the defendant on the
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  stand. But the whole point of this
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  source, and really of our theological tradition, is that
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  God does not debate the creature.
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  He declares, he declares. So when you see these dense
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  passages, it isn't a Gish gallop.
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  These aren't weak arguments. The source calls it a torrential
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  downpour of truth. I love that phrase.
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  A human Gish gallop is a pile of garbage, but the divine barrage
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  is a pile of gold. The density is intentional.
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  The source calls this the central idea of the text.
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  The density is the point. God isn't trying to win on
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  debate points. He is trying to crush human
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  pride. This connects directly to the
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  reformed view of total depravity right, the first use of the law.
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  Yes, the law acts as a mirror to show us our dirt, but if you
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  just have a tiny little mirror, you might look and say, well, I
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  have a smudge on my cheek, but otherwise I look great.
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  So God brings out a floor to ceiling mirror with really
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  aggressive high definition lighting.
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  And he doesn't let you look away.
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  That is why the text is so rapid.
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  We are naturally self-righteous. We act as defense attorneys for
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  our own souls. We always have an excuse ready.
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  I didn't mean to. Or at least I'm better than that
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  guy over there. The Divine Barrage cuts off
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  every single exit. Let's look at the first case
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  study the source provides for this Romans 3.
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  Paul writes this famous section starting in verse 10.
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  None is righteous. No, not one.
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  No one understands, no one seeks for God, and he just keeps
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  going. It feels completely relentless.
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  Critics call this a catina, a chain.
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  They accuse Paul of taking quotes out of context from
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  Psalms, Isaiah, Proverbs and just pasting them together.
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  They say it's incoherent. But the source points out it is
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  actually a highly structured rabbinic technique.
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  It's called Haraz. Which is the Hebrew word for
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  stringing pearls. Right.
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  It isn't a random grab bag of verses.
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  Paul is stringing together the testimony of the law into this
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  unified necklace of judgment. And the structure this part of
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  the source completely blew my mind.
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  It is an anatomical structure. The anatomical inclusio Paul is
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  basically conducting an autopsy on the center.
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  He starts the top, the head and the heart.
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  None understands that is the mind.
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  None seeks for God, that is the will.
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  So the corruption starts right at the Control Center.
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  And then he moves down, down the body.
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  Verse 13. Their throat is an open grave.
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  That is such a visceral image. It's gross, an open grave.
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  The source zeroes in on the Greek perfect tense used here.
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  It isn't a hole that someone dug yesterday.
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  It is a sepulchre that has been opened and left gaping open.
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  It implies a state of permanent decay.
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  Imagine walking past the cemetery where the stones are
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  rolled away. What do you smell?
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  Rot. You smell death.
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  Paul is saying that the natural man, apart from Christ, speaks
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  death. Our words are spiritually
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  decomposing. It isn't just that we say mean
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  things sometimes. So it's that our speech proceeds
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  from a dead heart. And then he moves further down
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  to the tongue and the lips. They use their tongues to
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  deceive. The venom of ASPs is under their
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  lips. He's tracing the poison from the
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  throat to the tongue to the lips.
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  It's spilling out. And finally, the feet.
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  Their feet are swift to shed blood.
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  And the eyes. There is No Fear of God before
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  their eyes. From head to toe.
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  The mind, the throat, the mouth, the feet, the eyes.
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  It is a complete picture of total depravity.
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  And this is where that secular accusation of a Gish gallop just
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  falls apart entirely, because in a Gish gallop, the points are
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  weak or false. Here, every single point is
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  verifiable. Paul isn't throwing out lies to
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  confuse you. If you say, well, my mind is OK,
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  Paul says check your throat. If you say your throat is fine,
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  he says, look at your feet. By the time you get to the end
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  of the list, you are completely cornered.
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  It really feels like a courtroom scene.
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  The prosecutor lays out 20 pieces of evidence, the weapon,
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  the fingerprints, the DNA, and the defense attorney just sinks
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  into his chair. That is the intended goal,
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  Romans 3.19 says. Now we know that whatever the
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  law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every
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  mouth may be stopped, stopped, silenced.
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  The divine barrage isn't there to cause confusion, it is there
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  to shut you up. Because as long as you are
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  talking, you aren't listening. And you need to listen to hear
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  the gospel. You have to be silenced by the
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  Law before you can be justified by faith.
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  The overwhelm is actually an act of mercy.
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  A severe mercy. It strips away the self
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  righteousness that would otherwise condemn us.
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  Let's shift to the second case study in this first source, the
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  book of Job. This is a difficult book, but a
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  favorite of mine. Job has been suffering for 37
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  chapters. He lost his kids, his wealth,
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  his health. His friends have been awful to
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  him. And Job has one main request He
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  wants a hearing with God. He wants to talk to the manager.
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  He believes he has a case, he feels he has been treated
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  unfairly and wants to present his arguments.
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  And in chapter 38, God finally shows up, but he doesn't bring a
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  clipboard and pull up a chair. He shows up in a whirlwind.
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  And the interrogation begins. This is the Divine Barrage in
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  its absolute purest form. God asks Job over 70 questions
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  in rapid succession. Where were you when I laid the
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  foundation of the earth? Who determined its measurement?
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  Have you commanded the morning? The secular critic reads this
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  and says this is evasion. They claim God is just bullying
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  Job with volume. Because Job asks a question
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  about justice and God is yelling at him about astronomy and
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  zoology. They think God is using a
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  barrage to avoid answering the tough question about human
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  suffering. Superficially, it does feel like
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  a deflection. Job asks why his kids died and
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  God says look at this hippo. But the source corrects this by
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  looking at the genre. This is a covenant lawsuit.
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  A rib in Hebrew. God is establishing His absolute
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  standing as the Creator. He is showing Job the sheer
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  incomprehensible scale of reality.
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  The detail in these questions is amazing.
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  It isn't just a generic I made the world, it's can you bind the
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  chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion.
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  That is Providence. The Westminster Confession
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  chapter 5 talks about God upholding and directing all
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  things. From the stars down to the
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  animals. He points Job to the wild
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  donkey, the hawk. He describes the feeding of
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  lions. The ostrich example always
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  stands out to me. God points out that the ostrich
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  treats her young harshly, as if they weren't hers because God
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  made her forget wisdom it. Is such a specific weird detail,
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  but God is saying I managed the psychology of the ostrich.
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  I managed the constellation clusters.
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  I managed the storehouses of the snow.
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  And the implication being, if I have the wisdom to coordinate
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  the entire cosmos, do you not think I am competent to handle
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  your life? So the barrage isn't to confuse
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  Job, it is to recalibrate him. It puts him back in his place as
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  a creature. The central question is where
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  were you? And the obvious answer is I
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  wasn't there. It re establishes the creator
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  creature distinction. We live in an age that wants a
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  buddy God, a God we can fit in our pocket and understand
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  completely. But the God of the whirlwind is
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  terrifying. He is holy.
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  He is entirely other. So when you, the listener, read
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  Job 38 through 41, you should feel small.
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  You should feel a holy trembling.
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  And the result of all this isn't resentment.
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  Job doesn't walk away, grumbling that his question wasn't
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  answered. No job worships, he says.
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  I lay my hand on my mouth. I had heard of you by the
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  hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.
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  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
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  The barrage produces worship. But we need to make a
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  Christological connection here too, because the God who just
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  shouts from a whirlwind can seem very distant, right?
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  He can. But we have to remember who was
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  speaking. This is the second person of the
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  Trinity. This is the Word.
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  The same God who asked Job where were you is the God who came
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  down. He entered the creation he just
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  described. He entered the suffering and on
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  the cross he was the one who was crushed.
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  He stepped into the whirlwind of wrath for us.
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  So the divine barrage humbles us, but the Gospel assures us
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  that this all powerful God is actually for us.
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  The bottom. To summarize, source one, when
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  God overwhelms us with text, it is to break our pride and lead
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  us to trust. Now we are going to pivot.
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  We have to flip the script entirely.
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  Moving to source 2. Source 2 is titled When Bible
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  Talk becomes Bible Panic. This is where the overwhelming
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  volume turns ugly. This is the shift from the
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  Creator revealing His Majesty to the creature using unholy tricks
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  to cause fear. Let me paint a picture for you,
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  the listener. You are at home.
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  It's a random Tuesday night. You are scrolling through
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  YouTube or TikTok and you see a video titled The Truth about
• 13:39
  Your Bible. And you click on it you.
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  Click it and suddenly the temple of the video is incredibly fast.
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  There's intense music playing in the background.
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  And the speaker just starts listing claims.
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  Did you know the NIV deleted 64,000 words?
• 13:53
  Did you know they removed the word fasting?
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  Did you know they took out the blood of Christ in Colossians?
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  Did you know the translation committee members were involved
• 14:00
  in the occult? And he just doesn't stop.
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  He hits you with 20-30 claims in under 2 minutes.
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  And you are sitting there, holding your ESV or your NIV,
• 14:11
  the Bible your grandmother gave you, the Bible you read to your
• 14:13
  kids. And you start to panic.
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  You start thinking, Have I been duped this whole time?
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  Is this book even God's Word? The source calls this Bible
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  panic and it is completely manufactured.
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  That video scenario is a textbook Gish gallop.
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  And we have to ask why it works so well on us.
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  We are rational people. Why does a random guy with a
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  webcam have the ability to shake our faith in 60 seconds?
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  It goes right back to that asymmetry of time we talked
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  about earlier. Let's look at one of those
• 14:40
  common claims. The NIV removed Acts 8.37.
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  They removed a verse that sounds terrible.
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  It sounds like malicious censorship.
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  And it takes 3 seconds to say that claim.
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  But to explain why Acts 8.37 isn't in the main text of modern
• 14:54
  Bibles, you have to open a literal lecture on textual
• 14:58
  criticism. Which most people don't have a
• 15:00
  degree in. Right.
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  You have to explain to the listener that we have over 5800
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  Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.
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  You have to explain that this specific verse appears in later
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  manuscripts, but not in the earliest ones we have found.
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  You have to get into scribal habits.
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  How scribes would sometimes add a clarifying note in the margin,
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  and then 50 years later the next scribe copying that page would
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  accidentally bring the note from the margin into the main text.
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  That is easily a 10 minute conversation.
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  And while you are taking 10 minutes to explain Scrabble
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  margins, the galloper has already moved on to claim the
• 15:34
  translators were ghost hunters. You literally cannot keep up.
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  The sheer volume of accusations creates this burden of proof
• 15:42
  that feels totally impossible to meet.
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  The source also dives into something called confidence
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  theater. This is a huge component of the
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  tactic. The speaker uses a lot of
• 15:51
  technical jargon. They throw around heavy words
• 15:53
  like textus, Receptus, Synanticus, Vaticanus,
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  Alexandria and cult. And to the average person, those
• 15:58
  words sound incredibly academic. It sounds like this guy has
• 16:01
  spent years doing the research. IT projects immense authority,
• 16:06
  but usually if you scratch the surface, they are just repeating
• 16:09
  a list they found on a conspiracy blog.
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  They don't. Actually know Greek.
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  They couldn't read the Textus Receptus if you handed it to
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  them, but the performance of confidence makes you trust them
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  it. Appeals to that almost Gnostic
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  desire. We have the appeal of insider
• 16:25
  knowledge. I know the secret.
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  Your pastor doesn't know this. Your seminary doesn't want you
• 16:29
  to know this. It creates a massive US versus
• 16:32
  them dynamic. It isolates the listener from
• 16:34
  their local church and makes them dependent on the Internet
• 16:37
  guru. Which is spiritually toxic.
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  The source really highlights the pastoral fallout here.
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  If you destroy a Christian's confidence in the physical Bible
• 16:45
  they hold in their hands, you are cutting off their food
• 16:47
  supply. Because the Westminster
• 16:49
  Confession states that the Word is the only rule of faith and
• 16:52
  obedience. If you look at your Bible and
• 16:55
  all you see is a conspiracy instead of a revelation, you
• 16:58
  cannot feed on Christ. You stop being a disciple and
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  you become an amateur text critic.
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  You are just constantly scanning the pages for errors or changes
• 17:06
  instead of looking for the gospel.
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  And there is a serious ethical dimension to this that the
• 17:11
  source brings up the 9th commandment.
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  You shall not bear false witness.
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  We often forget that this commandment applies to history
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  and scholarship when these gallopers accused translation
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  committees, men like the scholars on the ESV or NIV
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  committees of hating God or trying to hide the deity of
• 17:29
  Christ. Those are incredibly serious
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  charges. These were committees of godly
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  scholars who dedicated their entire lives to the text.
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  To accuse them of malice without absolute undeniable proof is
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  slander. It is bearing false witness
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  against brothers in Christ. Just because you disagree with a
• 17:46
  translation choice doesn't mean the translator is a secret agent
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  for the devil. So we have this massive problem.
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  The human gallop is creating real panic in the pews.
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  What is the remedy? The source gives us a very
• 17:57
  practical tool. It's called the three category
• 18:00
  grid. The three category grid.
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  I love this tool. It stops the room from spinning.
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  But the first step before you even use the grid is to slow
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  down. Do not accept the tempo of the
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  speaker. You hit pause.
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  If the video makes 20 claims, you pause it.
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  You tell yourself I'm going to investigate one claim.
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  Just one. Do not let them drown you.
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  And then you use the grid. What are the three categories 1?
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  Text 2. Translation 3 Interpretation.
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  Every single accusation falls into one of these three buckets.
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  And when you sort them, the panic usually just evaporates.
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  Let's walk through these with some real examples from the
• 18:38
  source. Category one text.
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  This is where the missing verses live, right?
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  Yes, let's take the story of the woman caught in adultery, John
• 18:46
  7.53 through 8.11. It's a very famous story.
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  Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
• 18:53
  A galloper will point at that and say look at your modern
• 18:55
  Bible, it has brackets around the story or there's a footnote
• 18:58
  saying it might not be original. They're trying to delete the
• 19:00
  Bible. OK, so we put that claim into
• 19:02
  the text bucket because this is a question of manuscript
• 19:05
  evidence. What do the Greek manuscripts
• 19:07
  actually say? The reality is, the earliest,
• 19:11
  oldest manuscripts we have found simply do not contain this
• 19:14
  story. It shows up later in history.
• 19:16
  So the translators aren't evil liberals who hate the story.
• 19:20
  No, they probably love the story, but they are bound by the
• 19:23
  historical evidence. They are trying to give you what
• 19:27
  the Apostle John actually wrote. The footnotes aren't a
• 19:29
  confession of guilt. They are badge of honesty.
• 19:32
  They are telling the reader, we want you to know the textual
• 19:35
  history of this passage. It's transparency, not a
• 19:38
  conspiracy. I want to touch on the
• 19:40
  Alexandrian versus Byzantine argument here, because that
• 19:43
  comes up a lot in these text category debates.
• 19:45
  Can you explain that simply? It sounds super complex, but it
• 19:48
  is largely about climate. Climate.
• 19:50
  Yes, we have manuscripts from different regions.
• 19:53
  The Byzantine text comes from the area around Turkey and
• 19:56
  Constantinople. The Alexandrian text comes from
• 19:59
  Egypt. Geography.
• 20:00
  Think about the weather. Turkey is wetter.
• 20:03
  Egypt is a dry desert papyrus, which is essentially paper rots
• 20:07
  and humidity. It lasts forever in the dry
• 20:09
  desert sand. So the manuscripts from Egypt
• 20:12
  just naturally tended to survive much longer.
• 20:14
  Exactly. The Alexandrian texts are often
• 20:17
  our oldest, earliest copies simply because the sand
• 20:21
  preserved them. The Byzantine texts we have are
• 20:24
  usually younger copies of copies because the older ones rotted
• 20:27
  away. So modern translators look at
• 20:29
  the Alexandrian texts and say these are 500 years older, so
• 20:33
  they are likely closer to the original.
• 20:35
  It isn't a conspiracy, it is just humidity.
• 20:38
  It's climate science applied to history.
• 20:40
  But the gallopers turns the word Egypt into something spooky.
• 20:43
  Oh, the Alexandrian cult. No, it's just dry heat.
• 20:46
  All right, let's look at Category 2 translation.
• 20:49
  This is about how we render those Greek words into English.
• 20:52
  A classic example the source uses here is the word
• 20:54
  Hillisterian in Romans 3.25. The King James Version
• 20:59
  translates that as propitiation. Which is a beautiful, heavy
• 21:02
  theological word. It means a sacrifice that
• 21:05
  actively satisfies wrath. But some modern translations,
• 21:08
  like the NIV, render it as a toning sacrifice.
• 21:10
  And the accusation is immediate. See, they removed propitiation.
• 21:13
  They are watering down the wrath of God.
• 21:16
  They are soft on sin. But this is strictly a
• 21:18
  translation issue. The committee is asking
• 21:21
  themselves, does the average modern English speaker know what
• 21:24
  propitiation means? Honest answer?
• 21:27
  Probably not. If you walk down the street and
• 21:30
  ask 10 people, zero will know the definition.
• 21:32
  So the translator has a tough choice to make.
• 21:35
  Do I keep the precise historical technical term and risk the
• 21:39
  reader entirely missing the meaning?
• 21:42
  Or do I use a phrase like atoning sacrifice that conveys
• 21:45
  the basic idea of payment for sin, even if it loses a tiny bit
• 21:50
  of specific nuance? Both are faithful, honest
• 21:53
  attempts to capture the text. One prioritizes historical
• 21:56
  vocabulary, the other prioritizes immediate
• 21:58
  comprehension. You can personally prefer one
• 22:01
  over the other, but you shouldn't call the other one a
• 22:03
  heresy. It's a trade off.
• 22:04
  That brings us to Category 3 interpretation.
• 22:07
  This deals with the fear of lost doctrine.
• 22:10
  The idea that if a verse is translated differently or a
• 22:12
  textual variant is noted, the core theology of the Church is
• 22:15
  going to collapse. And this is where being reformed
• 22:17
  really saves us. We believe in the analogy of
• 22:19
  today. The analogy of faith.
• 22:22
  We interpret Scripture by Scripture.
• 22:24
  We look at the whole Council of God.
• 22:26
  Doctrine is never built on a single isolated twig.
• 22:28
  It's a whole forest. Right.
• 22:30
  Even if, hypothetically, a translation made a genuinely
• 22:33
  poor choice in one single verse, let's say the weak and diverse,
• 22:37
  about the deity of Christ. Did the deity of Christ
• 22:40
  disappear from the Bible? No, it's in John one.
• 22:43
  It's in Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, Revelation 1.
• 22:46
  It is woven into the entire book.
• 22:48
  The Gish Gallop relies entirely on isolation.
• 22:51
  It zooms in on one single word and says look, the foundation is
• 22:55
  cracking. But if you zoom out, you see the
• 22:57
  billing is made of solid granite.
• 22:59
  The Bible is a robust book. It can withstand a synonym.
• 23:02
  It isn't a fragile House of Cards.
• 23:03
  That is so reassuring. The grid, text, translation,
• 23:06
  interpretation, it just takes the emotion out of the debate.
• 23:09
  It turns a panic attack into a calm study session.
• 23:11
  It allows you to use your mind. God gave us minds to weigh
• 23:14
  evidence, not just to react to fear tactics.
• 23:17
  The source also gives us a taxonomy of panic.
• 23:19
  We talked about the conspiracy narratives, but there is also
• 23:23
  overconfident history. This is the claim you hear
• 23:26
  constantly. The church used one Bible for
• 23:30
  1800 years and then these modern perversions showed up.
• 23:34
  The King James only argument often relies heavily on this.
• 23:37
  The old saying, if it was good enough for Paul, it's good
• 23:40
  enough for me. Which is funny because Paul
• 23:42
  wrote in Greek, but it completely ignores the actual
• 23:47
  history of the church. The church has always translated
• 23:50
  the Bible. We had the Latin Vulgate for
• 23:53
  1000 years. Which the reformers actually
• 23:55
  fought against. Right.
• 23:56
  The entire Reformation was about getting the Bible out of the
• 23:59
  standard ancient language, Latin, and into the street
• 24:02
  language of the people, German, English, French.
• 24:06
  William Tyndale died for that exact 'cause he was strangled
• 24:09
  and burned to the stakes so that flowboys could read the Bible in
• 24:12
  their own language. So modern translations like the
• 24:15
  ESV or the CSB are actually standing in the tradition of
• 24:18
  Tyndale. They're they're not opposing it.
• 24:20
  They are doing the same work, putting the word in the language
• 24:22
  of the people today. Let's pivot to the practical
• 24:25
  pastoral application of all this.
• 24:27
  How should we behave? If you are a Reformed thinker
• 24:31
  and you are sitting in a Bible study and someone starts
• 24:34
  galloping, they just start throwing out these accusations
• 24:37
  against the text. What do you do?
• 24:39
  First, you have to check your own heart.
• 24:41
  It is very easy to get arrogant, to think, oh, you don't know
• 24:44
  about the critical text. Let me educate you.
• 24:47
  We have to renounce underhanded ways.
• 24:48
  Yes, Second Corinthians 4 says we renounce disgraceful,
• 24:52
  underhanded ways. We don't fight fire with fire.
• 24:54
  We don't just Gish gallop them back with manuscript data.
• 24:57
  We don't overwhelm them with technicalities.
• 24:59
  We need patience, precision and charity.
• 25:02
  We are commanded to speak the truth in love.
• 25:05
  The source suggests a very practical tip for these moments.
• 25:07
  Read the context out loud. It works like absolute magic.
• 25:11
  Let's say someone in your group claims the NIV denies the deity
• 25:14
  of Christ because of how it translates a verse in
• 25:17
  Philippians 2. OK.
• 25:18
  What do you do? Instead of arguing about Greek
• 25:20
  syntax, you just say hey, let's read Philippians 2 verses 5
• 25:23
  through 11 out loud together. And as you read it, who?
• 25:26
  Being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God
• 25:30
  something to be used to his own advantage.
• 25:33
  As you read it, the panic just vanishes.
• 25:36
  Because the doctrine is so clearly there in the text.
• 25:39
  The sheer weight of the surround context crushes the conspiracy
• 25:43
  theory. The Bible defends itself.
• 25:45
  Let's bring these two sources together.
• 25:46
  Synthesis. We have the tale of two gallops,
• 25:49
  the Divine Barrage and the Human Gallop.
• 25:51
  They both involve a massive flood of information, but they
• 25:55
  are total opposites. They really are.
• 25:57
  Think about the intent behind each.
• 25:59
  In Source One, God overwhelms us to reveal His Majesty.
• 26:03
  The outcome is humility. We realize we are creatures, we
• 26:06
  stop arguing, and we trust. It leads straight to the cross.
• 26:10
  We are undone by the law, so we see our desperate need for a
• 26:12
  savior. And source too.
• 26:14
  In the human gallop, the overwhelm is a trick.
• 26:17
  It is a creaturely noise designed to hide the truth, not
• 26:19
  reveal it. The outcome isn't humility, it
• 26:22
  is suspicion. It breeds division in the
• 26:24
  church. It makes you doubt the
• 26:25
  Providence of God. One leads to woe is me, I am a
• 26:28
  Sinner. The other leads to woe is the
• 26:30
  Bible. It is broken.
• 26:32
  And as Reformed Christians, we entirely reject that second one.
• 26:36
  We stand firmly on the Westminster Confession, Chapter
• 26:39
  1, Section 8. Which says that God by his
• 26:41
  singular care and Providence has kept his word pure in all ages.
• 26:45
  We believe God is competent. If he can manage the psychology
• 26:49
  of the ostrich and bind the chains of the Pleiades, he can
• 26:52
  absolutely manage the transmission of his own text.
• 26:54
  We don't need to panic. The Bible has survived the Roman
• 26:57
  Empire, the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment, and liberal
• 27:00
  theology. It will definitely survive a
• 27:02
  YouTube video. That is a rock solid place to
• 27:04
  stand. We are stewards of the text, but
• 27:06
  God is the preserver. Amen.
• 27:08
  So final charge for you, the listener.
• 27:11
  We have covered a lot of ground today.
• 27:12
  I would say this. Learn to distinguish the two
• 27:15
  galaxies. When you read Scripture and feel
• 27:18
  overwhelmed by God's holiness in Job, in Romans and Isaiah, lean
• 27:22
  into it. Put your hand over your mouth
• 27:24
  and worship. Let it crush your pride.
• 27:26
  But when you hear men speaking rapidly, accusing the Bible of
• 27:29
  error or conspiracy, hit the brakes.
• 27:32
  Do not accept the tempo. Ask for evidence.
• 27:34
  Use the grid. Ask yourself, is this an issue
• 27:37
  of text translation or interpretation?
• 27:40
  And remember that truth is never afraid of examination.
• 27:43
  Truth acts like a lion. You don't need to nervously
• 27:46
  defend it, you just let it out of the cage.
• 27:49
  We can be completely calm because God is sovereign over
• 27:53
  His Word. Consider this as you go about
• 27:56
  your week. We often complain that God is
• 27:58
  silent, but maybe we're just avoiding the places in His Word
• 28:01
  where He has spoken so loudly and overwhelmingly that it
• 28:04
  terrifies us. That is a heavy thought to sit
• 28:06
  with. It really is.
• 28:08
  Well, this has been a helpful deep dive.
• 28:09
  I feel like my blood pressure has gone down just talking
• 28:12
  through it. That is the goal, Peace through
• 28:14
  understanding. Thank you for guiding us through
• 28:16
  the theology today. And to you, the listener, thank
• 28:18
  you for joining Reformed Thinking.
• 28:20
  We hope this helps you work through the noise with a little
• 28:22
  more discernment and a lot more faith.
• 28:24
  Until next time.