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Hearing the Missing Premise: Enthymeme and Compressed Logic in the English Bible · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back. We are kicking things off by
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  officially stamping this program as reformed thinking.
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  It's good to be here. If you're a returning listener,
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  you know the drill. We usually take a stack of
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  articles, books, notes, and we just try to get to the bottom of
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  them. We do, but today is going to be
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  a bit different. We're not just looking at a
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  specific doctrine, you know, like justification or
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  sanctification. No, we're going deeper.
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  We're looking at the machinery, we're we're looking at the
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  engine under the hood of the Bible itself.
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  I like that. I like that image of an engine
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  because I think for a lot of people the Bible is treated more
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  like a Magic 8 ball or, you know, a collection of greeting
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  card slogans. Right, right.
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  You shake it, you get a verse and you hope it makes you feel
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  better. You hope for some good news.
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  You're looking for that verse that gives you that liver
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  shiver, that little emotional bump for the day.
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  But the sources we're looking at today are arguing something,
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  well, something radical. They're arguing that the Bible
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  is a book of rigorous divine logic.
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  It isn't just a stream of consciousness or a set of
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  disconnected emotional appeals. So it's an argument.
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  The whole thing is an argument, and if you don't know how to
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  track the argument, you are going to miss the voice of God.
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  That is a big claim. And I mean, our mission for this
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  deep dive then is to investigate a specific tool that the
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  biblical writers used constantly.
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  It's something called the enthameeme.
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  Now I have to be honest, when I first saw that word in the
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  notes, I thought it sounded like a frantic medical condition.
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  It does sound a bit clinical. Dr. I've got a bad case of the
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  enthamemes. Doctor, I think I have an
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  enthamememe, yeah. But it's actually a term from
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  classical rhetoric. Aristotle talked about it in
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  simple terms, and emphameeme is just a compressed argument.
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  Compressed. It's a syllogism, you know,
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  logic, math, where one of the premises is left out.
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  It's unstated. OK, let's slow that down.
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  Logic math. A syllogism is usually what A
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  equals BB equals C Therefore A = C.
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  Right, the classic example everyone learns is all men are
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  mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore
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  Socrates is mortal. Got it.
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  That's the full spread. Everything is on the table, no
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  hidden parts but an Ensign meme. It removes one of those steps.
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  It assumes the audience is smart enough or maybe culturally
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  connected enough to fill in the blank.
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  So it would just say it. Would just say Saka Socrates is
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  mortal because he is a man. It skips the all men are mortal
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  part. It skips it.
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  Because everyone knows that it's a given.
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  Precisely. And the biblical writers do this
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  on almost every single page. They leave out the bridge
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  premise because they assume the reader knows the covenant.
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  They assume the reader knows who God is.
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  And this is where the danger comes in, right?
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  Because we are reading this thousands of years later.
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  In a different language. A different culture, a different
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  language. If we don't know what that
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  missing bridge is supposed to be, we might build our own
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  bridge. And that's the problem.
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  And that bridge might lead us right off a Cliff.
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  That is the risk. If you supply the wrong hidden
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  premise, you end up with heresy. You end up with a God who looks
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  a lot like you rather than the God of the Bible.
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  So today is about learning to spot those gaps.
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  And filling them with the right mortar, not just any mortar.
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  I want to start with that aha moment the sources described,
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  because I think this will resonate with anyone who has
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  tried to read the Prophets or, you know, the episodes of Paul.
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  Oh, definitely, Paul. You're reading along and
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  suddenly the text feels like it just It jumps.
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  It goes from a statement to a conclusion, but it feels like
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  there's a missing step. It's like walking down a
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  staircase in the dark and realizing one of the steps is
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  gone. That's a great way to put it.
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  You see this all the time in the letters of Paul.
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  He is famous for it. He'll lay out some deep
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  theological truth and then suddenly hit you with a
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  therefore and in English. Sometimes we look at that,
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  therefore, and we think, wait, why are we here?
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  How did we get from point A to point B?
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  It feels like a non sequitur. I mean it really does.
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  Like he just changed the subject entirely.
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  But he hasn't. The logic is tight, it's
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  ironclad, but the connection is happening in that unstated
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  premise. He's relying on a shared
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  theological air that he had with his original audience.
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  Yeah, he expects them to just nod their heads and say yes,
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  obviously because of XY follows, but we miss X because we aren't
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  thinking like 1st century Jews or Romans.
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  OK, let's ground this. The notes give a fantastic
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  everyday analogy that I think nails this.
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  I like this one. Imagine you're at a dinner party
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  and someone starts using really foul language and a friend pulls
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  them aside and says hey, don't talk that way, you're a
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  Christian. That is a perfect enthe meme.
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  Let's just look at the logic there.
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  Stated premise you are a Christian.
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  Conclusion do not talk that way. Now logically if a computer were
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  reading that it would say error missing data.
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  Why does being a Christian mean you can't use certain words the.
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  Computer needs the bridge and needs the connecting logic.
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  The unstated bridge is Christians are people who speak
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  in a manner worthy of Christ. Or maybe Christians do not use
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  filthy language. The speaker doesn't say it.
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  He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to.
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  And you know saying it might actually weaken the punch if he
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  stopped and said premise 1 you are a Christian.
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  Premise 2 Christians should not swear Conclusion stop swearing.
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  He sounds like a robot it. Sounds like a lecture.
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  It's condescending. By leaving it out, he forces the
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  listener to do the work. The listener has to access their
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  own conscience. They have to supply the bridge
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  themselves. They have to think, I am a
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  Christian, right? Oh, right.
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  Christians don't do this. It engages the will.
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  It hooks the heart. So when we see this in
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  Scripture, it isn't God being vague, it isn't God being poetic
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  just for the sake of poetry. Not at all.
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  It's God engaging us as covenant partners.
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  It is God treating us as adults. And this brings us to the
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  theology of logic itself. I mean, we live in an age that's
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  very suspicious of logic. Very We think logic is cold,
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  dry, academic. We think spiritual means
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  emotional, spontaneous, maybe even irrational.
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  I don't need theology, I just need Jesus.
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  I hear that a lot. Which is a theological
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  statement, ironically. But the God of the Bible is the
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  God of truth. He is supreme rationality,
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  logic, the laws of non contradiction, valid inference.
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  These aren't things man invented.
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  These are reflections of God's own character.
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  God cannot lie. God cannot deny himself.
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  So when he speaks, he speaks with impeccable propositional
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  logic. So an enthusiasm for logic isn't
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  unspiritual, it's actually an act of worship.
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  It is. It's loving God with your mind.
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  We need to recover this. The sources use a phrase I
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  really like, Covenantal shorthand.
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  Unpack that. What does that?
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  Mean well, think about a husband and wife who've been married for
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  40 years. They're at a party.
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  The husband just looks at the wife, maybe raises an eyebrow
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  slightly, and the wife immediately stands up, grabs her
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  post and says well it's getting late, we should probably go.
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  Right, I've seen this happen. He didn't say a word, or maybe
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  he just said something simple like honey.
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  Look at the time. The logical leap there is huge
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  for an outsider, but for them there's a shared history.
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  There's a shorthand that look means he is tired, and when he's
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  tired he gets grumpy, so we need to leave now before he says
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  something we regret. The relationship supplies the
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  missing premise. Exactly.
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  The biblical writers wrote to community Israel or the church
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  that shared a specific set of beliefs.
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  They didn't need to prove every single time that God is holy.
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  They didn't need to prove that sin brings death.
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  That was the air they breathed so the prophets could use this
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  shorthand. The lion has roared, who will
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  not fear? They don't have to explain.
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  God is like a lion, and lions are dangerous, therefore you
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  should be afraid. No, the metaphor does all the
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  work because the theology is already there in the listener's
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  mind. That makes sense.
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  It's efficient. It is efficient, yeah, and it's
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  pastoral. Pastoral.
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  How is logic pastoral? Usually we think of pastoral as
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  you know, gentle or hugging. Pastoral means caring for the
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  soul, and sometimes caring for the soul means confrontation.
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  Entity memes force the listener to participate in the truth.
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  If I give you a full syllogism, you can observe it from a
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  distance, you can critique it, you can say oh that is a valid
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  argument and feel very detached. Like a math problem.
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  Right. But if I give you an entity
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  meme, you have to step inside it to make it work.
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  You have to supply the missing piece.
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  And once you supply it, you've essentially admitted.
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  I know this is true. You have convicted yourself.
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  That is fascinating. So it functions like a trap, but
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  a good trap. A trap to catch the conscience.
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  It acts like a well forged nail. I mean, in an oral culture which
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  the Bible was written in, you couldn't look back at the
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  previous page to review. You had to remember sure and
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  compressed arguments. They stick in the memory.
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  They're sharp. They dig in.
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  OK, so we know why God uses them.
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  Now I want to get practical. I want to open up the toolbox.
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  Because if I'm sitting there with my English Bible trying to
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  do my devotions before work, how do I actually spot these things?
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  Right? I'm not reading Greek.
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  I don't have Aristotle sitting next to me.
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  And you don't need to be a Greek scholar, but you do need to
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  learn to look at the bones of the text.
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  The source material talks about linguistic mechanics.
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  You need to become a hunter for connector words.
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  Connector words OK, give us the hit list.
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  What are we looking for? In Greek there are three big
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  ones to watch out for, and even in English they usually show up
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  OK. First is gar.
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  GAR usually gets translated as 4.
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  Not 4 like the number, but four as in because.
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  For God so loved the world. Because God so loved the world.
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  Right second is own OUN. It means therefore or so then.
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  The classic logic word. That's the big 1/3 is hoti HOTI,
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  which often means because or that.
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  And in Hebrew, the big one is key.
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  OK, these words are the flashing red lights.
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  They have the hinges of the door.
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  Whenever you see a therefore or a four, you are standing on top
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  of an argument. But here's the problem I've run
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  into, and I think others have too.
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  I read modern translations, which are great.
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  I love that I can read the Bible in English, but sometimes they
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  smooth these words out. They do.
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  They think, oh, it sounds clunky to start a sentence with four,
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  so let's just drop it. That is a real issue.
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  English style guides. They hate repetitive connectors.
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  If you have a paragraph in Paul where every sentence starts with
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  44A, modern translator might say, let's turn this into a
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  bulleted list, or let's just make them separate sentences to
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  improve the flow. And what happens when they do
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  that? They hide the logic.
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  They turn a chain of steel links into a pile of loose rings.
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  The argument is gone. So sentence diagramming, that
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  thing we all hated in 7th grade is actually a spiritual
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  discipline. In a way, yes.
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  You have to visualize the text. You have to ask, is this a main
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  clause? Is this a dependent clause?
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  That's giving a reason for the main clause.
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  You're looking for the leap. OK, Paul is saying X.
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  Now he is saying why? How did he cross the Canyon?
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  So if you can't see the bridge in the English words.
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  You know you found an entheime. You found the spot where you
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  need to start digging. Now I can hear a listener
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  thinking, OK, I found the gap, I found the blank space, now I can
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  fill it with whatever speaks to me.
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  That's the temptation. If I'm a pragmatist, I might
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  fill the gap with whatever works is true.
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  If I'm a Mystic, I might fill it with whatever I feel is true.
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  How do we stop ourselves from just projecting our own baggage
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  into the Bible? Silence.
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  This is where we need discipline, real rigorous
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  discipline. We call it the minimal
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  reconstruction principle. OK, that sounds serious.
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  It is. Imagine you're a civil engineer
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  fixing a bridge. You don't build a roller coaster
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  loop in the middle of the bridge just because you think it would
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  be fun. You build the shortest,
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  strongest span possible to connect side A to side B.
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  In the text, you ask what is the smallest bridge premise the
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  author must have assumed for this argument to make sense.
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  So no creative writing, no allegories?
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  No. This reminds me of a movie I saw
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  last week, no? You are looking for the logical
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  necessity, and we have a boundary line for this, a very
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  clear one. It's called the analogy of
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  faith. That sounds official.
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  It is a bedrock principle of reform terminutics, which is
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  just a fancy word for how we interpret the Bible.
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  The Westminster Confession calls it Scripture Interpreting
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  Scripture. Here's the rule.
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  Any hidden premise you reconstruct must harmonize with
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  the entire rest of the Bible. It must fit the system of truth
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  God has revealed everywhere else.
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  So if I find a hidden premise that implies I can earn my
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  salvation. You know you're wrong.
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  I know I'm wrong because Galatians and Romans and
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  Ephesians say clearly that I can't.
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  Spot on. As Reformed thinkers, we have
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  specific checks. Does this premise align with the
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  decree of God? Does it align with Providence?
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  Does it align with justification by faith alone?
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  If your reconstruction suggests that God is surprised by events,
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  or that man is the one in charge of his own salvation, you have
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  built a faulty bridge. You've imported A premise from
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  human philosophy, not from biblical theology.
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  That is a crucial safeguard. It really is.
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  It keeps us on the rails. It has to.
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  I want to shift gears now and look at this in action.
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  The theory is great, but let's see how it actually changes the
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  way we read a verse. We have 4 case studies lined up.
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  Let's start with the comfort food of the Bible.
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  Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd.
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  I shall not want Classic. We've heard it at every funeral.
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  We have seen it on cross stitch pillows.
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  But there's an argument there. It's a beautiful tight argument.
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  Look at the structure statement A.
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  The Lord is my shepherd statement BI shall not want or I
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  shall not lack. The logic is because A is true,
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  B follows, right? But why?
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  Why does having a shepherd mean you don't lack?
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  The hidden bridge has to be about the definition of a
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  shepherd, what a shepherd does. Correct.
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  The bridge is a faithful shepherd, provides everything
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  his sheep truly need. Because Yahweh is that faithful
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  shepherd, the conclusion is inevitable.
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  OK, but now imagine you're a prosperity gospel preacher.
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  You're looking for a promise of wealth.
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  You come to this verse and you swap out the bridge.
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  You supply your own. You supply your own, you say the
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  hidden premises. A shepherd makes his sheep the
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  richest, fattest, most pampered animals in the county.
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  And if you plug that premise in, the conclusion changes
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  completely. The Lord is my shepherd,
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  therefore I will have a private jet.
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  Therefore, I will never get sick.
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  Exactly. And when you do get sick or you
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  don't get the jet, your faith collapses, of course, because
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  you built it on a faulty emphyme.
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  But if the premise is the shepherd provides what is needed
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  for the sheep's survival and flourishing according to the
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  shepherd's wisdom, that even in the valley of the shadow of
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  death, the logic holds right, You might lack comfort, you
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  might lack health, but you do not lack the shepherd.
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  That is huge. It ankles the promise in God's
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  character, not in our consumer desires.
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  It has to. OK let's go to the New Testament
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  Mark chapter 2. This is one of my favorite
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  scenes. Jesus the paralytic.
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  The roof being porn apart. It's just chaotic dust falling
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  on the Pharisees heads. It's an incredible scene.
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  But in the middle of this chaos, Jesus springs a logical trap.
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  It is a master class and rhetoric.
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  Jesus looks at the paralyzed man and says, Son, your sins are
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  forgiven. And immediate.
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  Immediately watch the scribes. They're the theological
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  watchdogs, and they bristle. They think to themselves, He is
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  blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God
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  alone? Now Jesus knows what they're
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  thinking. He hears their thoughts,
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  basically. He reads their hurts and he
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  decides to heal the man. Not just out of compassion,
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  though that's there, but as a proof.
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  A proof for his argument, yes. Here is the logic Jesus is
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  using. He wants to prove the conclusion
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  I the Son of Man have authority on earth to forgive sins.
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  Premise one, which he demonstrates is I have the power
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  to do this miracle, to say rise and walk and make it happen.
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  But he relies on a premise the scribes hold dear.
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  What's that? There's a connection between the
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  spiritual realm of the physical realm and only God has this
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  ultimate authority. He essentially says, you say
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  only God can forgive sins, correct?
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  I'm going to do a miracle that only God can empower, therefore.
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  Therefore, he is God. He forces them to do the math.
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  If premise A is only God can forgive sins and premise B is
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  Jesus just proved to him he has the authority that belongs to
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  God by healing the man as a visible sign of an invisible
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  reality. The conclusion is inescapable.
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  The conclusion is Jesus is the IAM.
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  He doesn't scream I am Yahweh. He constructs A logical box
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  with. The only way out is to worship
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  him or to kill him. And because they refused the
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  conclusion, they eventually decide to kill him.
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  It wasn't a misunderstanding, it was a rejection of the logic.
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  A willful rejection. OK Case study 3 The Apostle Paul
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  Roman 6 verse 2 How can we who died to sin still live in it?
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  A classic Pauline rhetorical question.
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  It is, but it's doing heavy lifting, isn't it?
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  It's acting as a verdict. The implied answer is we cannot.
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  But why? Let's break it down.
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  Premise we died to sin. Conclusion, we cannot live in
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  it. What's the bridge?
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  Well, the bridge can't be Christians lose the ability to
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  sin, can it? Definitely not, because I proved
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  that wrong on the drive to the studio today.
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  We all do every day. If the hidden premise was
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  Christians are perfect as in reality would falsify the Bible.
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  So what is it? The hidden premise is
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  ontological. It's about being The bridge is
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  union with Christ's death breaks the reign of sin over a person.
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  The reign of. Sin It's like asking how can a
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  butterfly crawl back into a cocoon and become a Caterpillar
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  again. It's not that the butterfly
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  can't crawl on the ground. It can, But it can't be a
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  Caterpillar again. Its nature has fundamentally
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  changed. So the argument isn't try
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  harder. The argument is be who you are.
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  If you as a Christian live in sin, you are acting like a
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  Caterpillar, but you are a butterfly.
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  You're contradicting your own new existence.
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  Yes, it creates an ontological contradiction.
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  It makes sin irrational for the believer.
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  It isn't just naughty, it's insane.
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  It's a denial of reality. That hits hard.
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  OK Case study for the misfire. Philippians 4.13 I can do all
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  things through him who strengthens me.
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  Oh, this one. We see this on basketball shoes.
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  We see it on the walls of CrossFit gyms.
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  Stated premise Christ strengthens me.
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  Conclusion. I can do all things.
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  How do we usually fill that gap? Well, the American culture fills
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  it with ambition. The hidden premise becomes
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  Christ wants me to achieve my personal dreams and crush my
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  goals. So the conclusion is.
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  The conclusion is, therefore I can dunk this basketball,
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  therefore I can close this sales deal.
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  Therefore I can bench press 300 lbs.
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  Pure triumphalism. But look at the context.
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  Where is Paul when he writes this?
• 18:46
  He's in prison. He's in prison.
• 18:48
  He's potentially facing execution.
• 18:50
  He just got done saying I've learned in whatever situation I
• 18:54
  am to be content. I know how to be brought low and
• 18:57
  I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.
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  I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger,
• 19:03
  abundance and need. Right, So what is the all things
• 19:06
  he's talking about? He's talking about enduring
• 19:08
  poverty or enduring wealth without letting it corrupt his
• 19:11
  soul. OK, so the true bridge is
• 19:13
  totally different. The true bridge is Christ
• 19:17
  supplies the spiritual strength to endure and obey in every
• 19:21
  circumstance He places me in. So the verse just completely
• 19:25
  changes. It goes from a promise of
• 19:26
  worldly success to a confession of spiritual sufficiency.
• 19:30
  I can endure starvation through Him who strengthens me.
• 19:34
  I can endure being rich and not worshipping money through Him
• 19:37
  who strengthens me. That is a completely different
• 19:39
  religion. It is 1 is a religion of using
• 19:42
  God to get what you want. The other is religion of being
• 19:45
  sustained by God in whatever he gives you.
• 19:47
  And the bad logic sets you up for failure, doesn't it?
• 19:49
  It does. If you think Philippians 4.33
• 19:52
  means you will win the game and then you lose the game, what's
• 19:55
  the logical conclusion? God failed me.
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  Exactly. My faith isn't strong enough.
• 19:59
  Yeah, but if you know the true premise and you lose the game,
• 20:03
  the conclusion is God gave me the strength to lose with grace
• 20:06
  and to glorify Him even in defeat.
• 20:08
  The logic protects the soul. It does.
• 20:10
  This leads us right into the safeguards.
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  Because, as we just saw, bad logic isn't just an academic
• 20:15
  error. It hurts people.
• 20:17
  It destroys faith. It really does.
• 20:19
  The notes mention we need to guard against modern errors like
• 20:22
  pragmatism and mysticism. Let's start there.
• 20:25
  These are the two ditches we constantly fall into.
• 20:28
  Pragmatism operates on the hidden premise.
• 20:31
  Whatever works is right. So if a church service draws
• 20:34
  10,000 people. It must be blessed by God.
• 20:38
  Let's look at the logic. Premise A It works.
• 20:41
  Hidden premise. God blesses what works.
• 20:44
  Conclusion. This is God's will.
• 20:47
  But that hidden premise isn't biblical.
• 20:49
  Not at all. The Bible never grants that.
• 20:51
  The Bible says pagans can draw crowds.
• 20:53
  The Bible says heretics can be popular.
• 20:55
  The biblical bridge is God cares about truth and holiness
• 20:58
  regardless of the numbers. OK, So what about mysticism?
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  Mysticism operates on the premise my inner impressions are
• 21:05
  authoritative. I felt a piece about it,
• 21:07
  therefore it's God's will. Right, That bypasses the logic
• 21:10
  of Scripture entirely. It makes your emotions the
• 21:13
  bridge. And our emotions are terrible
• 21:15
  bridges. They are rickety, the sway in
• 21:17
  the wind. Let's talk about the law.
• 21:19
  We mentioned legalism and antinomianism.
• 21:21
  These are big words, but they're basically bad logic about how we
• 21:25
  relate to God's rules. They're two sides of the same
• 21:27
  faulty coin, the legalist says. Premise I weigh the law Hidden
• 21:32
  Premise God accepts those who perform well.
• 21:34
  Conclusion. Therefore, God accepts me.
• 21:37
  And that hidden premise is a complete denial of the gospel.
• 21:41
  It is. It's heresy.
• 21:42
  Then the antinomian, the guys who says the law doesn't matter,
• 21:45
  says premise. I am saved by grace.
• 21:48
  Hidden premise. Grace cancels obligation.
• 21:51
  Conclusion. I can do whatever I want.
• 21:54
  That hidden premise is also a lie.
• 21:56
  So what's the Reformed biblical logic?
• 21:58
  How should it work? It's what we call the third use
• 22:00
  of the law. The logic goes like this
• 22:02
  premise, which is the indicative you are justified freely by
• 22:06
  grace through faith in Christ. That's the fact.
• 22:08
  That is the fact then the bridge people who are loved by God
• 22:12
  naturally desire to please Him and reflect his character and
• 22:15
  then the conclusion the imperative, therefore pursue
• 22:18
  holiness it. Completely flips the order.
• 22:20
  Completely. You don't obey to get saved, you
• 22:22
  obey because you were saved. I'm thinking of Romans 12.1.
• 22:26
  I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,
• 22:29
  to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 22:31
  That, therefore, is hinging on the mercies of God, which is
• 22:35
  everything Paul just spent 11 chapters explaining.
• 22:37
  Yes, 11 chapters of deep theology, 11 chapters of God did
• 22:42
  this, God did this, God did this for you and finally therefore
• 22:45
  give him your life. So obedience is a rational
• 22:48
  response. It is the only rational response
• 22:50
  to the sovereign decree of God. It isn't a bribe to get His
• 22:53
  favor. It is gratitude for favor
• 22:55
  already shown. There's one more specific
• 22:58
  theological note here, the dispensational note.
• 23:01
  This relates to Romans 9 through 11 and the distinction between
• 23:05
  Israel and the Church. Why is logic so critical here?
• 23:08
  This is a heavy debate in theological circles, but looking
• 23:11
  at the logic helps clarify it. In Romans 911, Paul is agonizing
• 23:15
  over his kinsmen, ethnic Israel, and he argues that God has not
• 23:19
  rejected his people. OK, his entire argument rests on
• 23:22
  an unstated premise. God's gifts and callings are
• 23:25
  irrevocable. That goes all the way back to
• 23:27
  the Abrahamic covenant. So if you come in and say, well,
• 23:29
  the church has just replaced Israel.
• 23:31
  If you say the church has replaced Israel, so those
• 23:34
  promises to Abraham are now just spiritual promises to us, you
• 23:38
  bring Paul's logic. You make God's specific
• 23:41
  historical promises subject to change.
• 23:44
  And if God can change the definition of his promise to
• 23:47
  Abraham? What stops him from changing his
• 23:49
  promise to you? That's a chilling thought.
• 23:51
  So keeping the distinction, saying God said X to Israel so
• 23:55
  he must fulfill X to Israel actually protects the
• 23:58
  faithfulness of God for everyone.
• 24:00
  It protects the integrity of the promisor.
• 24:02
  If the logic fails at any point, our assurance fails.
• 24:06
  Let's bring this home. We've talked high level
• 24:08
  theology. Now I want to talk about Monday
• 24:10
  morning. Good.
• 24:11
  How does this change the way we actually live and minister?
• 24:14
  Let's start with the preachers. If there's a pastor listening or
• 24:18
  a Sunday school teacher, how does this deep dive change their
• 24:21
  sermon prep? It has to kill mere moralism.
• 24:24
  It just has to. If you get up in the pulpit and
• 24:26
  preach, be nice to your neighbor.
• 24:29
  That is true, but it isn't Christian preaching.
• 24:31
  It's just advice, you could get that from anyone.
• 24:33
  You could. The preacher has to expose the
• 24:35
  logic. He has to show the why.
• 24:37
  He has to say be nice to your neighbor because Christ died for
• 24:40
  you while you were his enemy. He has to ground the imperative,
• 24:44
  the command in the indicative, the fact of the gospel.
• 24:47
  If you don't show the people the therefore you're just giving
• 24:52
  them A to do list they can't possibly fulfill on their own.
• 24:55
  You're giving them bricks without straw.
• 24:57
  Exactly. And frankly, there's a need to
• 25:00
  push back against the seeker sensitive model that has
• 25:03
  dominated the last few decades. That model often tries to hide
• 25:07
  the theology to make the message more consumable.
• 25:10
  Right. More palatable.
• 25:11
  But when you dumb down the logic, you rob the people.
• 25:14
  You give them a sugar rush when they need a steak.
• 25:16
  You aren't giving them the hidden pillars that will hold
• 25:18
  them up when cancer strikes or they lose their job.
• 25:21
  Speaking of cancer in crises, what about counseling?
• 25:24
  You mentioned earlier that anxiety often runs on a bad,
• 25:27
  empty meme. Anxiety is almost always a logic
• 25:30
  problem. I know it feels like an emotion
• 25:31
  problem, but the emotion flows from a thought, from a premise.
• 25:34
  So. Someone comes and terrified of
• 25:36
  the future. Their internal logic is this
• 25:39
  premise I cannot control what will happen tomorrow.
• 25:43
  Hidden premise. If I am not in control, I am
• 25:46
  unsafe. Conclusion.
• 25:48
  Panic. So the counselor's job isn't
• 25:51
  just to say breathe deeply, it's to attack that hidden premise.
• 25:55
  You have to dismantle the lie with truth.
• 25:57
  You replace the hidden premise with the biblical one.
• 26:00
  If I am not in control, God is still in control and He is my
• 26:04
  Father. And if you change the premise?
• 26:06
  The conclusion changes from panic to peace.
• 26:09
  Your Father knows what you need. That is the logic Jesus used
• 26:12
  against anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount.
• 26:14
  He didn't just say don't worry, it'll be fine.
• 26:17
  He gave them a theological argument about birds and
• 26:19
  flowers. He out argued their fear.
• 26:22
  That is spiritual warfare, taking every thought captive.
• 26:25
  We think of spiritual warfare as casting out demons, but
• 26:28
  sometimes it's just casting out a bad syllogism.
• 26:30
  Most of the time, that is exactly what it is.
• 26:32
  OK, finally, for the daily reader, the person sitting in
• 26:34
  their armchair with a cup of coffee, what is a practical
• 26:36
  habit they can start tomorrow morning?
• 26:38
  I would suggest using the three line paraphrase.
• 26:41
  When you hit a verse or a short passage that feels dense, just
• 26:44
  stop. Get a piece of paper or open a
• 26:47
  note on your phone. Write it down.
• 26:48
  Line 1, the text says A, line 2, the text says B, line 3.
• 26:53
  Therefore the text implies C. And you have to find the C.
• 26:57
  You have to force yourself to find the C, the unstated bridge
• 27:00
  and read slowly. We read way too fast.
• 27:02
  We skim for inspiration. Instead, look for the four.
• 27:06
  Look for the because when you see those words, treat them like
• 27:09
  a stop sign. Ask yourself, what is this word
• 27:12
  doing here? What is it connecting?
• 27:14
  It changes reading from a passive activity to an active
• 27:17
  investigation. You become a detective in the
• 27:19
  text. And you start to think God's
• 27:21
  thoughts after him. And that is the goal of Reformed
• 27:24
  thinking, not just to know facts about God, but to think like
• 27:27
  God, to share his logic. We have covered a massive amount
• 27:30
  of ground. I mean from God as supreme
• 27:32
  rationality to the mechanics of the anthem.
• 27:35
  We've seen how bad premises lead to prosperity gospels and
• 27:39
  legalism, and how biblical logic leads to assurance and holiness.
• 27:42
  It's a lot, but it's all connected.
• 27:44
  To wrap this up, the Bible is not a collection of slogans.
• 27:47
  It's a covenant document written in covenantal shorthand.
• 27:51
  It demands that we think. It demands that we know the
• 27:55
  character of the one who is speaking to us.
• 27:57
  I want to leave our listener with a final thought to chew on.
• 28:00
  This is a challenge for the week ahead.
• 28:01
  Here is the test. If you are reading a promise in
• 28:05
  scripture, any promise at all, and the conclusion you draw is
• 28:09
  that your life should be easy or comfortable or free from pain,
• 28:13
  stop. Just.
• 28:14
  Hit the brakes. Hit the brakes and ask yourself,
• 28:17
  what hidden premise did I just supply?
• 28:19
  And the answer is probably not biblical I.
• 28:22
  Guarantee you that premise didn't come from the Bible.
• 28:24
  It came from your culture. It came from the American Dream.
• 28:27
  It came from a television commercial.
• 28:29
  True biblical logic always leads to Christ.
• 28:32
  Always. It leads to His sufficiency, His
• 28:35
  work, and His glory. It doesn't promise you a storm
• 28:38
  free life. It promises you a rock to stand
• 28:41
  on in the middle of the storm. That's the filter.
• 28:43
  Does the logic end with me, my comfort, my success?
• 28:47
  Or does it end with him? That's the question.
• 28:49
  Thank you for guiding us through this.
• 28:51
  It has been a heavy session, but a really good one.
• 28:54
  It has been my pleasure. Keep reading, keep thinking, and
• 28:57
  keep hunting for those hidden pillars.
• 28:59
  We will see you next time on the Deep Dive.