Matt Slick Live

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Listen to Matt Slick live. All right, so I was in Israel just last week, and I am still trying to get over the jet lag. Man, I was talking about somebody else who went and just said the same thing.

You know, going over wasn't that tough, but coming back, wow. Don't know what it is. Don't know what it is, but hey, that's what it is. All right, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276, and we can talk if you have a question about theology, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Unity Baha'i, Islam. Let's see, did I hear Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy? Oh, I didn't tell you that I witnessed to a Catholic priest at the hotel. And I'll tell you about that, what I said to him.

Now, I got to tell you, you know, there's different contexts. Or did I say that one? Did I mention that already? I don't know if you can hear me in the chat room.

I already mentioned that, what I said to him. Did I do that, Charlie? Do you remember? No? I did?

Okay, never mind. Yes, you heard? I did say it or no, I did not? I did not?

What's your head doing? Yes or no? No. He kind of went diagonally.

I'm like, what is that? So I'll tell the story anyway. Oh, Joanne says I did. Okay, well, good. See? See? I'm tired.

Oh, well, it's no big deal. So if you want to give me a call, like I said, 877-207-2276. I want to hear from you. Please give me a call and we can talk. And if you are a little intimidated about the idea of getting on the radio and asking questions or talking to me, well, you can also email me. All you have to do is just send one to info at karm.org.

Info at karm.org and I can read it on the air. That's what I like to do. So there you go. All right. In fact, I think I'm going to do that right now.

We've got nobody waiting on line right now. By the way, we are moving over to kind of moving. We're working on Rumble as well. Rumble seems to be the place where everybody is going.

And so because the thought police in YouTube, they penalize a lot of people. We're slowly moving away from the liberal bastions of wackoness and moving over to more conservative areas so we can be a little bit more secure in what it is that we're doing. And if you are looking by any chance at me on line, this coffee cup I got in Bethlehem. This is the second. There's two that look pretty similar. This one's different. Hold on. Oh, yeah.

And for some reason, the coffee cup makes the coffee taste better. All right. There we go. I think what I'm going to do is go into some of the mail.

And we had one yesterday, and I wanted to get to that. So I'm going to go through some of these. Let's see. I didn't get a chance to check them. Okay.

I hope you're doing well. I have a question about John 14.12, so let me get to John 14.12. And let's see. John 14.12, truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these he will do because I go to the Father.

All right. Can I explain the verse? Someone I work with asks me what does Jesus mean when he says that works that I do shall be greater than we can do. Are we to do greater than him? That's a tough verse to interpret because, you know, Jesus who did so much, he raised people from the dead, and calmed a storm with a command.

Let me ask a question. What would be greater than that? If you were to think about it, what's a greater thing than calming a storm or raising someone physically from the dead?

And I have an answer. A greater thing than that is the preaching of the gospel and the proclamation of that truth of who Christ is and being in the presence of someone when God has brought them into the faith through the work that you are doing in the speaking, the teaching, the living of the gospel. Now that is a greater work than calming a storm.

Calming a storm indeed is a miracle, for example, but the salvation of the soul for eternal gain and glory before God is a greater thing. So that's one of the things that people have come back with and responded with about that, and that's what I lean towards. So I thought I would write you and see how you would explain this verse. I think he's referring to sharing the gospel, but I'm not sure how to explain it. My coworker might ask, how do you know that?

I'd appreciate your time and information. So, yeah, that's what I have said, and that's what I've seen others in commentaries that I've read over the years about that. Generally, that seems to be the issue, okay? So let's see, what are the greater works? And the reason I'm typing this out is I'm going to write an article on that. If I haven't already done that, I'd write in so many articles that I just don't know. And there you go, all right? So let me see what else I've got here.

If you want to give me a call, all you're going to do is dial 877-207-2276. And Gabe sent me the information about the five stones. Hey, thanks, Gabe, I appreciate that, and I'll get to look at that another time. And I only have 300 emails, so that's good. Let's see, that's a long email, can't get to that one.

Okay. Hi, Matt. Oh, it's the interview I was telling you about. Jonathan Rumi describes how he prepared for the Jesus Revolution movie.

He went to Lonnie Frisbee's grave and laid down at the grave. Oh, man, that is so horrible. Yeah, it is. All right, we're going past that. Let's see, let's see, let's see. One of the more core convictions of, oh. You know, I saw something yesterday. Here we go. Also, I don't know what to make of the Church Fathers of the first and second centuries. I taught Christians were supposed to confess their sins to the Church Fathers, which is early history that the Catholic Church refers to today to justify confession to a priest. Well, you know, I'll tell you what, Tim, Tim who wrote that, send me the documentation for that.

You know, here's the thing. There is, and I can tell you where to go to get this, there is a brilliant work that I refer to periodically done by, I believe it was the Catholic Church. And I have to give credit to where it's due. It's a brilliant work.

And it's very, very useful. So let's see, early Church Fathers. It's the early Church Fathers scripture reference, catholiccrossreference.online, catholiccross, so C-A-T-H-O-L-I-C, then C-R-O-S, two C's in a row, catholiccrossreference.online forward slash fathers. And so for example, I can go, I elected John 14, 12, the guy we talked about. I can put it in there, and I just now did, and it gives the references through the Church Fathers where they talk about the verse, where varying Church Fathers talk about that verse. And I'm just telling you, it's an awesome resource.

It is. And I've used it numerous times over the years to verify and contextualize certain quotes that people like to promote out of the Church Fathers. What I've discovered is that by looking at a particular verse, that you'll find the Church Fathers are varied on every single verse that I've looked at. Some will say that baptism is necessary. Some will say it's not. Some say Jesus meant this, and some say he meant something else. And I've discovered that is the case. If Catholics or Eastern Orthodox mention this phrase, the unanimous consensus of the Church Fathers, just don't buy it. It's just not the case.

You can do your research by going to that great resource. It is. Anyway, catholiccrossreference.online.

So Catholic Cross Reference is all one compressed word.online forward slash fathers. And you can do that. You can do that. It's really a very helpful thing.

And I've added stuff. In fact, one of the things I've been working on using that very resource is, for example, John 639. I started it there where it says, This is the will of him who sent me, that all is given to me, I lose nothing.

But raise it up on the last day. Well, that's eternal security. Augustine said, for example, from him, therefore is given also perseverance in good, even to the end. So Augustine taught perseverance. Augustine said none of his will perish. And then Chrysostom said that people can lose themselves. So you see, the Church Fathers just differ on things. And so I started doing more research, like John 10.28, where Augustine says, John 10.28, I give eternal life to them, they shall never perish. He says he declared when previously speaking of his sheep that not one of them would be lost. And then Chrysostom says you can lose yourself.

So you can find stuff. And I did that, and I'm still working through that. I also did it on Colossians 2.14. Colossians 2.14 is a really interesting verse because it says that Jesus canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees, which was fossil to us.

He took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Now, this is a significant verse because what do the Church Fathers say about a verse like that? It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible, that Jesus canceled out the certificate of debt. What is the certificate of debt? What is the blotting out, as King James says, the blotting out of the ordinances, the handwriting of ordinances?

What is it? Well, Irenaeus said it's the sin debt, and he died in the year 202. Justin Martyr, who died in 165, said it's the law. Tertullian, he's not clear.

And I have the quote that shows he's not clear. Hippolytus, who died in 235, he said it's a sin that Jesus blotted out. Origen said it was sin. Augustine said it was a sin, as did... And Chrysostom says it was a sin.

Chrysostom died in 407 A.D. So Rufinus is not clear, and Jerome said it was a sin that was canceled. By the way, I was there at Jerome's cell in the ground, the cave where he translated the Latin Vulgate.

I was just there a week ago. And so Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, died in 461, says it's the bond of death. So you see that the Church Fathers have a variety of understanding of varying things. And the reason I'm spending a little bit of time on this is because I want Christians to understand that there's a way for them to do the work that's easy. And you can. You can do this. You can do this on your own.

I can give you the references. And I'll be publishing those finds that I do as Church Fathers differ on different verses. And this idea that the Church Fathers have a consensus on things is not true. And I've heard that over the years from so many Catholics. It's a unanimous consensus. It's just not true.

It is not true. So I will add to that to the resources I have on CARM. And so anyway, the reason I brought that up, of course, is because of this email where a guy says that there's a consensus that the Church Fathers are supposed to confess your sins to the Church Fathers, to people. So I'd like to know what reference that is because the Church Fathers are going to reference a scripture or two about it. And that's what I'll need, the scripture that the Church Fathers would reference. Then I can compare the Church Fathers on that particular verse. I can do John 2023 and other verses and things like that and see.

But I'm rambling a little bit. And there's time for the break. We have four open lines. That's 877-207-2276. Give me a call. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. All right. Hey, thanks a lot, Mark.

Saw that. All right, let's get on the air here with Joe from North Carolina. Joe, welcome. You're on the air.

Hey, Matt. I just had a question about any church that preaches the prosperity gospel. Would you consider that a cult? Well, I would consider it to be, at the very least, aberrant, but not necessarily cult. Generally, a cult generally means they're not Christians. So you can have a Christian church that's been infested with the filth of positive confession theology. And they can still be Christian. And then they'll slowly move away from the truth. And people who are truly saved and believe the word of God in totality generally will end up leaving churches like that. But I wouldn't call it a cult necessarily, OK?

Yeah. What would you say about the people that don't leave and continue there? Well, people can be saved in different levels of ignorance. And as long as you're trusting in Christ, ultimately, that's what's good. But the ones who are going to be under judgment are the teachers, like Charles Capps, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Hagen, Benny Hinn, others. You know, Fred Price, Joel Osteen. So these are the ones who are going to face the judgment of God for their false teachings. And they're not being true shepherds. So the individuals who are in those churches, that's different because they're not the ones doing the teaching. They're being misled. Now, they're not being misled in the essentials unless, for example, people are, you know, I know they listen to this, and they go, what are you saying?

Unless they say things like Joyce Meyer said, OK? So Jesus, this is what she said in the book The Most Important Decision You'll Ever Make by Joyce Meyer, second printing, May 1993, page 35. He became our sacrifice and died on the cross. He did not stay dead. He dazed during that time he entered hell, where you and I deserve to go legally because of our sin.

He paid the price there. Now, that is a damnable heresy. So I cannot call her a Christian because of that false teaching where she denies the sufficiency, the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross. So I would say then that those who would follow her are mixed up in cult theology and false theology. And she's a false teacher and a false leader because of this. She even said, incidentally, on page 37 of the same book, his spirit went to hell because that is where we deserve to go.

There is no hope of anyone going to heaven unless they believe this truth. So now what she's done not only is denied the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but now she's saying that if you don't believe that he went to hell and finished the atonement in hell, that you can't be a true Christian. So now she's preaching a false gospel. So she needs to be rebuked, and nobody should support her because of this false gospel, but people do because they're ignorant. So are those people who believe that, Christians? I would then say I can't affirm the Christianity and the regeneration because they're believing damnable heresy. So it's not so easy to say about every individual in every church and this kind of stuff. Do you see what I'm saying?

Yes, absolutely. In my opinion, those that do stay under those teachings, no matter who it is, their brain was. They are.

They are. And if I were to meet someone who sat under Joyce Meyer, for example, who said, yeah, of course Jesus paid a price in hell, and of course you have to believe it in order to be saved, I'd say, can we go through the scriptures and show what the scripture says? He bore our sin in his body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his stripes we are healed. So that's where the atonement occurred, and it's a propitiation on the cross, 1 John 2. And I would go through this. And if a person then said, oh, I didn't know that, and then they receive the truth out of God's word, well, that means they're already regenerate.

If they say, I refuse to believe even what the word of God says, and I'm going to believe what she says over it, then you'd have a case for saying such a person is not Christian, not regenerate. Okay. Yep, I agree with that. Good. Okay, that's it. All right, man. Well, God bless, buddy. All right. Thanks, Matt. Thanks. Thanks for calling.

And that's right, folks. I'm calling Joyce Meyer out as a false teacher. And I'd be willing to talk to her personally and interview her. We did try and contact the ministry and ask these questions, specific questions.

They refused to really respond to us except for just a boilerplate, thank you for responding, kind of an email. But she is teaching heresy. And, you know, Fred Price, God can't do anything in this earth realm except that we, the body of Christ, allow him to do. That's stupid heresy. You know, God had to fight to get back into earth.

He needed an invitation, Fred Price says. And he says the disciples had lots of money because we're supposed to have lots of money. So Benny Hinn said Adam used to fly and Eve was supposed to bring children out of her side. And to say you're a Christian is to say you're a little Messiah. He says God touched a piece of dust and turned it into a god.

You are divine. This is what Benny Hinn is teaching. And let's see what else.

Here's something from Kenneth Hagin. He said Satan became the god of this world due to Adam's sin. And, you know, there's a lot of truth in that one. Adam became satanic when he sinned. Now that's a problem. Jesus' physical death did not remove sin.

Oh, really? And Jesus went to hell. Every believer is an incarnation of Jesus. You are as much an incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was. That's what he says.

I got the documentation on the website. Let's see. How about this? I'll get to Kenneth Copeland and then we'll get to the callers. Just giving you guys a heads up on some of the false teachers out there. And they're false teachers. I'm telling you, they're false teachers.

I'm saying it publicly. They're false teachers. Kenneth Copeland says heaven is a planet. Faith is a conductive force. Earth is a copy of the mother planet. Adam had the same size body as God. Adam is a reproduction of God. Adam was as much male as female.

For God to work on earth, he has to be in agreement with a man. And check this out. I'll just read the headlines of what he said. I can read each quote, but it takes too long right now.

This is what he said. I was shocked when I found out who the biggest failure in the Bible actually is. The biggest one is God. I mean, he lost his top-ranking most anointed angel. The first man he ever created, the first woman he ever created, the whole earth and all the fullness therein. A third of the angels at least.

That's a big loss, man. Now, the reason you don't think of God as a failure is he never said he's a failure. And you're not a failure until you say you're one. That's what Kenneth Copeland said, that God's a failure. This is just abject foolishness. And I can go on with more, but you get the point, I hope.

And we need more people standing up for the truth of the word of God and denouncing these false teachers for what they are, servants of the evil one. Let's get to Herb from Raleigh, North Carolina, here on the air. Hey, Matt, always good to talk to you. Sorry, buddy, I just timed it so badly.

There's the music. We'll get right back to you after the break. Okay, sorry about that. Three open lines, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Herb. Hey, Herb, sorry about the timing there. Put your back on.

Hey, Matt, no problem at all, buddy. I wanted to ask you kind of a two-part question. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they saw God.

Yes. Right, I mean, so what form was God in? You know, you cannot see the face of God. What kind of form would he have been in, you know, for them to see him?

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that would have been most probably what we call an anthropomorphic form, a Christophany. So the Bible teaches us that the God the Father can't be seen, John 1-18, 1 Timothy 6-16, John 6-46, and yet they saw God in the Old Testament in many places, Genesis 17-1, 18-1, Exodus 6-2-3, Exodus 24-9-11, Numbers 12-6-8, and here. So when it says that Adam and Eve, you know, they walked with God, it doesn't say, I don't think it says they saw, but we can certainly assume that.

He was in the garden with them walking. Now, who was that? That's a pre-incarnate Christ.

The Holy Spirit always appears, flame, wind, fire, things like that. So what we assume here is that it's the person, the pre-incarnate Christ. It's not Jesus.

Now I've got to be more technical than most people. Jesus, this for the listeners, Jesus did not exist until 2,000 years ago. Now Jesus is by definition the person with two natures, divine and human. The pre-incarnate Christ, the second person of the Trinity, is eternal, but that eternal person was joined to a human nature 2,000 years ago, and we call that joining the person who has the two natures, we call that person Jesus.

So, when people say it was Jesus' New Old Testament, I understand what they mean, but technically they're not correct, because the union of the incarnation had not yet happened there. But they're just talking about the pre-incarnate Christ, and that's why I say the pre-incarnate Christ. All right, so it was probably in anthropomorphic form as a human being. Manifestation, not an incarnation. There's a difference between a manifestation and an incarnation. An angel can manifest in human form as can God, and then they can walk around a corner and dissolve. But an incarnation is what Jesus is, and that's permanent. And so it was a manifestation, most probably the pre-incarnate Christ in the garden that they saw and interacted with.

Okay, well let me ask you, that makes perfect sense. And one other quick question I want to ask you too, and I'm not asking this because I doubt, because I truly believe in every way. In those times when Adam and Eve, Adam was creative and woman was creative, Eve, who was documenting this? You know, if it's just, quote, Jesus, Adam and Eve, how do we get our information knowing all these things happened, like walking, you know, Jesus in, where are you? I'm not doubting it, I just don't understand.

How did they determine all of this? I don't know. There you go. I don't know. It just popped in my mind to wonder about that. I don't know, but I'm not, like I say, I'm not doubting, but I just don't understand how the messages got through to everyone with that scenario. Well, you know, obviously God was there, and Adam and Eve were there. So what Adam and Eve could have done was pass down the words and the dialogue to their descendants. Because, I mean, you think about it. They fall, they're outside the garden, they have children, and the children say, Mom, Dad, what was God like?

And they'll sit down and go, I'll tell you. Because we walked with him. We saw him. I mean, that's what they could have said. I'm sure they did have conversations like that, even though it's not recorded.

I'm sure that occurred. And that the words of dialogue that were there were recorded by people as they heard them being passed down. And so at some point, Moses had access to those writings, those records. And we don't know, there's a lot here, we don't know to what kind of access he had. Was it simply oral, or was it written, or was it a combo? Was it some other sources we don't know about? We just don't know. But we do know this, that Jesus himself attributed the Pentateuch to Moses.

So Moses, at the very least, compiled some previous information and put it together, and it is the authentic truth, because God worked through him to do that. No problem. That makes perfect sense. I never thought about this, and just yesterday I was just driving and it just came in my mind. And I said, I don't understand that, and I said, if anybody on this earth knows the answer to that, it's got to be Matt Slick. So that's why I've been trying to get over it.

See, now, you see, right there, you just caused me to lose a lot of respect for you that you would say that if anybody would know that it's a guy named Slick on the radio. You see, that's just not, doesn't sound good, but you know. So I just kind of guessed through it, because it would make sense that that would be part of how it would work. I'm sure there are people who study this kind of stuff and have even, I'd like to say, more better answers than me. Okay.

Yeah. Well, it makes perfect sense, Matt, as you mentioned about the offspring and that passing it down some kind of way. And I was kind of thinking along those lines, but I just thought, well, how do you start from when there's nothing? You know, of course, God started from nothing, created the earth and everything.

But who is watching all this going on according to all the details they put? So it would make sense that maybe some of the future children would see that. That makes perfect sense. Yes, it does.

Matt, thank you so much. Now, I want to say something, because Charlie put a link to creation.com, and who wrote Genesis are the Teladoth colophons. Now, I don't have an article on Karm on the colophons, but what a colophon is, if I remember correctly, is an ending sentence and a beginning sentence in large documents to show where the end of one document is and another one begins. And they're called colophons that they match. And so this is evidence within the documents that they were compiled and put together.

So you can go to creation.com to research on that. Okay? Well, thank you so much, Matt. That's good information, and tell him thank you as well. God bless you and your wife, and we pray for her every day that she'll continue to get better and pray for your ministry as well. And God bless you all. Thank you for those prayers. I really appreciate that.

I really do. All right. Well, God bless. You're so welcome. God bless.

All right. Now, before we get to the next call, who's Jimmy. He's been waiting for 15 minutes. I want to say something, because he just said something that I want to mention. He said he's praying for my wife and for this ministry. Well, when I got back from Israel, I lost my hearing aids, and God has provided a way for me to get some replacements through the company that I got them for, and I didn't even realize this, but we had insurance on them, and so I'd get them at a greatly reduced price. I got a replacement pair.

It's going to cost me a few hundred, but that's okay. Better than thousands. So praise God. But the reason I'm bringing this up, not for about that, but the people who were praying for me on the trip and that particular issue, and the way I heard about them praying and how they're praying in their faithfulness to the Lord, their humility before the Lord, that really ministered to me.

It really did. You see, I'm so intellectual because I have Asperger's, and I do all this doctrine stuff and debate stuff and teaching stuff. A lot of it is just swimming around in my head all the time, and it's really a blessing to see my brothers and sisters in Christ in their humble trust of God, utter simple prayers, and they ministered to me.

When that man, the guy who was just on, said the same kind of a thing, his humility before God and simple trust before God, well, that's great. And for those who do that, wow, I think you're special. I do. Of course, I'm special too, but a different kind, as my wife would say. Yeah, you're special. All right.

That's what my wife would say. Let's get to Jimmy from, I guess, Apex, North Carolina. Jimmy, welcome.

You're on the air. Hey, brother. How are you doing? Doing all right. Hang it in there, buddy.

What do you got? All right, so I'm starting to get back into reading the Bible, and my parson at church, he's recommending that I get into Romans 8, Romans chapter 8, okay? Good chapter. Yeah.

The one verse I'm stuck at is at verse 34. Okay. Okay. I'm looking at it. All right.

James Version. Okay. I'll read it for you, okay, because I can do it right here. Who is he that condemneth?

It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Okay. Go ahead. All right. The part that I'm stuck at, and I have been reading and following all the Bible study notes and so on and so forth, that is risen again.

Can you explain that part to me? Oh, risen again, as though it's the second time he rose. Okay. Yes.

So, the Jesus who died, yes, rather was raised. Okay, during the break, what I'm going to do is look at the Greek and look at a couple of things, and I'll give you a little bit more informed answer when we get back, okay? So hold on, buddy. Sure.

All right. Hey, we have four open lines. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back and get on with Jimmy right after these messages. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

It's Matt Slick. All right, buddy. Welcome back to the show, doing some Greek checking on my Greek New Testament, which has the textual apparatus in it, and Jimmy from North Carolina, are you still there? Yes, sir.

All right. So what I did is I looked at the Greek, and the word, again, is not there. And then I have in my hand, I'm going to show it to the people online, I have my, it's called the Nestle-Allen Greek New Testament, and what this is is on the one side of the book is the English, and the other side is the Greek. And it has what's called a textual apparatus underneath that. What that means is it lists textual variants. So I wanted to see if there's a textual variant in that particular place.

There is, but it's on the word judgment, actually it's on the word krino, to separate, to distinguish, discriminate. And in that sense, so the word, again, is no, it's not there, and okay, so having said that, this is why I recommend people not use the King James Bible, because it causes problems like this. All right. Okay. This is not there. Gotcha.

Yeah. And so the King James is fine, and it's a great translation for its time, but there are better ones now. There are translations that serve us more accurately, more truthfully, than the King James does.

I would recommend a version that's close to the King James, but that is more easier to understand in today's language. Okay. Well, here's what I recommend.

If that makes sense. Yes, it does. There's different, um, here's what I recommend.

I recommend that the NASB 95 and the 20-20 are both good. It's better than the ESV. The ESV is very good, very good, but it shows me a false, not so very good translation of Romans 5-18, which is a critical verse.

And uh, but it's good, you know, and a lot of sites use it, and that's fine. But I believe in using something that is as close to the Greek as possible. And the reason is because you don't want to find a translation that has just been smoothed over.

Let me give you an illustration of something. Back in seminary, a guy came in and talked about an interesting translation problem they had at a tribe, I forgot which country it was. And in this country, they live in the jungle, and periodically rain would come through and cause flooding. And if you built your house on the flat rock area, it would be swept away. In order to make your house secure against a flood, you had to take bamboo poles and drive them deep into the sand, because that was how they would anchor things.

That's the culture. But the Bible says if you build your house on the rock, you'll be okay. So what were they to do when they would do a translation? So they decided not to go literal in that sense, but to say build it on the rock, because it would have confused people in that culture, in that context. So they said sand, and then they put a note. The original says this, and they explain the difference. So you see, that's an example of smoothing things over to make it make sense for the average Joe. And that's okay. Now, what if you want to study something that's even more better?

I like really doing bad things with English, it creates a lot of fun. So John 3.16, for example, everybody knows that verse, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life. It does not say whoever believes in the Greek, for example. Whoever is the Greek word host, it doesn't say that.

It says pass ha, it's pass ha is all the, and then the word is believing one. So what it literally says is that, that all the believing one in him will not perish. So now how literal do you want to go? Because I would prefer that that translation be as I just stated it, that all the believing one in him shall not perish. I prefer that.

The reason I would prefer that is because of what I do for a living. I do apologetics, and I need literalness. You on the other hand, don't need that literalness.

You don't need that. So you know, to say that whoever believes is fine. So both can be intentional on how you want to translate them, but the whoever believes is a, in a sense, it's a commentary. Because the word whoever does exist in Greek, but it's not right there. So what the translators are doing is making it make sense to us, because we don't say all the believing one. It doesn't make sense in our language that way. So they do is they dynamically translate it so that it carries the same meaning in clarification. So this brings up the issue here of how literal of a translation do we want. If we were to go literal translations in Greek, for example, a lot of things wouldn't make sense because the word order in Greek is different than in English.

So now we have another issue here. To what level of precision do you want? Because for me, I want more precision than the average Joe. You wouldn't need it like that. So the ESV would be good. The ESV would be good, you know, the NASB would be fine. The King James is sufficient, but the King James is anachronistic in a lot of ways and has some not so good translations that I can show you what some other problems in the King James are. So having said all this, I'm not trying to ramble too much.

The thing is that I believe people should have a translation that's as literal to the Greek as possible and yet smooth enough to make it make sense. And you can do that with the NASB and with the ESV and the LEB are good also. Okay. LEB? Yeah, Lexham English Bible is pretty good.

That's uncommon. So the NASB is my favorite Bible. That's what Paul the Apostle used, you know, that's what everybody says. You know, that's what King James, what Paul the Apostle used or whatever. So here's another example of something, okay? We don't have anybody, but we do have someone waiting.

Let me go to this one thing. This is Titus 2 13 and I'm going to read out of the King James. It says this, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ. So what the King James says is the appearing of the great God and our savior, Jesus Christ. So the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses would use this, particularly Jehovah's Witnesses. They'd say Jesus is not God because it says the great God and also our savior, Jesus.

They're different. That's what the King James supports, but the King James has it wrong because what it actually says is the great God and savior, didn't say great God and our savior. And this is due to what's called the Granville Sharp rule. The Granville Sharp rule is the Greek rule, which has been discovered after the King James was written. It was discovered, I believe in the 1800s and Granville and a guy named Sharp, I believe is what came up with this.

And what it is, is really something simple. They went in and looked at every single occurrence of a certain kind of syntax in the Bible and learned something. And here's what it is, that whenever you have the definite article, the word the, and it's followed by two nouns that are separated by the word and the God and savior, then the God and savior are in reference to the same person called the Granville Sharp rule. That was discovered or developed or understood in the 1800s, well after the King James was developed.

This is why the King James makes a mistake in the translation of Titus 2.13. And so if you say in the SB, you're better off. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just stuff like that.

But on the other hand, if you like the King James, then stick with the King James, as long as you know how to kind of check on a few things that like Romans 8.34, that caused you to go, Hey, wait a minute. And then you can check other translations. Okay. Right. Yes, sir. Okay.

That helped? Either the 95 or the 22. The 2020 or the 1995, I use the 1995.

I'm very used to it. And so I'm going to look at the 2020 more carefully, but that's what I use. Okay. And if you want to check them out, those are just years, correct?

Yes. The year that they were updated and developed. 1995 was one year.

2020 was another. And you could go to blueletterbible.com and then you can look at the translations there and you compare them. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome very much.

God bless. All right. All right. Let's get to Alan from, I guess that's Oregon. Hi, Alan. Welcome. You're on the air. Okay. Thank you, Matt.

I know I'm probably a last caller, so I'll be quick here. Thanks to articles that you've written and Luke has written. I feel very equipped to talk with LDS missionaries. I asked them how they reconcile with the false prophecies of their prophets and presidents.

They tell me, this is one that I continually get, and that's why I'm calling you. They tell me that no prophet has ever been wrong about everything. They tell me that prophets are men just like us. I ask them to give me an example of when a prophet was wrong about something, and they usually say, well, we don't know, but since biblical prophets are human infallible just like us, it's safe to assume that they have been wrong about things that are or are not documented in the Bible.

And other than Galatians 1-8, I always take them to Galatians 1-8, following other gods that are not documented in the Bible. After that, I'm wondering how you would respond to this. Could they be wrong? Could Isaiah say something like, water is not wet? Okay, so let's go through this.

We've got about two minutes. So the prophets were not perfect. The Old Testament prophets made all kinds of mistakes and said all kinds of things that were wrong. However, when they were inspired of God, prophetically, they could not be wrong. Period.

Okay. In Deuteronomy 18-20, the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously, in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. So when Mormons say, well, you know, Isaiah made mistakes. Of course he made mistakes. Well, then it's okay for Joseph Smith to make mistakes.

What they're doing is ignoring the issue. Prophecy by God's will and the work of the Spirit through a prophet can't be wrong because it comes from God. So what the Mormons are doing in this case is ignoring that and saying, well, everybody makes mistakes. They're admitting that Joseph Smith made false prophecies, and he did. But he said that he was true and a prophet of God.

Therefore, he was admitting he was a false prophet and Mormonism is a false church. Okay? Yes. Okay. Okay. So distinguish between the casual goofs and oopses that all men make. Distinguish that from the act of God inspiring them and speaking through them.

That's what Deuteronomy 18 is dealing with. Okay? Okay. Yeah.

All right? That's what's going on. So that's the difference. They need to be more precise.

You've got to understand this. The cults always twist things to make it fit their theology and their church. Yeah. They don't do it the right way. Yeah. They don't fit their church into the Scriptures.

They make the Scriptures fit into their church. And for this, they're damned. All right. We've got to go. Okay? Yeah. Okay. God bless. Thank you, Matt. Sure. Hey, folks. We're out of time. Tomorrow's Friday.

Hopefully, we'll talk to you then. God bless. Have a great evening. Have a great evening.