Dr. Brown Answers Your Personal and Ministry Questions

The following is a prerecorded program. You've got questions. We've got answers. We're going to answer a bunch of questions that have been posted on social media, had been posted earlier in the week. So don't post now, but gather them from Facebook, from Twitter. And this is what I wrote to folks.

I said this. Do you have a question for me that is more personal in nature? Perhaps something I've learned in ministry experience, or something about growing in the Lord, or clarification about a controversy I'm involved in. I'm going to post your question now. I'm going to answer on Friday on the air. So here we are to answer these questions.

I'm going to start over on Facebook. So some really interesting questions that you will enjoy getting answered. Oh, before I go any further, be sure you're getting my emails. You should be sending out a very special announcement about our trip to Israel in May 2023, the long awaited trip after COVID. May is a prime time, one of the greatest times to go to Israel. All five star hotels this time.

We've never done that before. So be sure you're getting my emails. Plus, every single week, we've got great info to send out to you that will keep you equipped, strengthened, and ready to do battle in the spiritual sense, honoring the Lord, living for him, overcoming evil with good, overcoming hatred with love, overcoming lies with truth. So go to AskDrBrown, askdrbrown.org. Sign up.

Make sure you're getting our emails. All right. Mike asked this. When I got saved at the altar way back when speaking in tongues became popular around 1971, I was told to start saying blah, blah, blah, blah, blah until I started speaking in tongues and I would get the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Was that manipulation from the church people or is that how the baptism really works?

No, no, no. This is not how this quote works. And this is not what they did at Pentecost 2000 years ago. Now, there may have been people in the church who were well intended.

In other words, they may have thought that they were helping you. You say, how in the world does saying blah, blah, blah, blah, blah prepare you for the baptism of the Spirit? So this is the way people might have been thinking.

Let me say again, this is not what we are to do. This is not how the baptism in the Holy Spirit works. This is not how tongues is intended to work by God. OK, so it's not. But here's why they may have said it.

Many people, when it comes to speaking in tongues, have all kinds of ideas, right? Think of this. Let's say you're learning to ride a bike for the first time, but you've never ridden and you've never seen anyone ride.

So it's a scary kind of thing, right? And you get there and you all right, what do I do? OK, put my feet over here on the pedals.

All right. And you just sit there. And someone says, no, no, you have to push off. You have to start pedaling. You have to get going.

I'll run along with you, but you have to get going. So some people, when it comes to speaking in tongues, have this assumption that they just kind of sit there blank, hands raised, mouth open. And they're waiting for God to take hold of their tongue and cause them to speak.

Now, maybe that's what happened for some of you. But for many others, the Holy Spirit comes upon you and now you just feel prompted to begin to speak praises to him or begin to speak in a new language or begin to prophesy, right? And as you begin to open your mouth and speak, this new language comes out or prophetic words come out.

You have in Acts 19, prophecy and tongues as a result of being immersed in the Spirit. So sometimes well-meaning but wrongly acting people think, OK, we're just going to help you get started. Say ba ba ba or say this word over and over.

The worst, the worst that I ever heard was someone, I didn't see someone in my eyes, but somebody told me about it. That they were told to say the word money over and over. Money? Are you kidding me? I mean, say something like hallelujah, at least make it a spiritual word. Money. Where in the world did that come from?

It's not even hard to say over and over. So it's possible that someone who loves the Lord and is sincere and honest begins to just speak ba ba ba. And the next thing there, genuinely speaking in tongues, that God meets them in their ignorance and meets the people in the church in their well-intentioned but poorly placed practice and in their ignorance and genuinely fills someone with the Spirit. The fruit would be the fruit of praying in tongues and intimacy with God through that over the years.

That cannot be faked or manufactured. But no, no, no, no. That's not how it works or should be done. This is Dr. Brown. You have a friend that got on Christian TV, national TV, and told people to do something like that.

Just started making baby noise. Well-intended, but wrong. That simple. All right. Trish, as a messianic believer, how can we celebrate Yom Kippur that is not rabbinical and without Yeshua? So much of the liturgy and tradition seems not to be grounded in the scriptures.

OK. I'm not sure what you mean by not rabbinical and without Yeshua. You meant to say not rabbinical and with Yeshua.

In any case, let me answer as best as I can. Everyone is going to relate to God differently in terms of prayers that they feel they can pray. Here's a traditional prayer that one believer feels fine praying and another believer says, no, I just like to pray with my own words or share with God what I'm thinking. Or that tradition doesn't fully agree with how I understand the scriptures. So everyone has to work that out for himself or herself.

Right. Well, especially when it comes to the Jewish prayer book and the Jewish liturgy, because there are many beautiful confessions. There are many beautiful prayers. There are many other prayers that are still waiting for the redemption to come on a national level and therefore on a certain level, on an individual level. And yet and yet as believers, we have experienced that individual redemption and would seem out of place to pray certain prayers when it comes to the liturgy for Yom Kippur Day of Atonement.

It is hours and hours and hours. And there are multiple times of confessing of sin and asking for forgiveness. I don't resonate with that as a forgiven believer. I can do it in intercession for the nation, but I don't resonate with that. I have messianic Jewish friends and for them, this is a time to join in with the nation asking for forgiveness. All right.

In my life, in my experience, that does not work. Day of Atonement service for me in a messianic congregation would look very different than a traditional synagogue. It would be our time to be praying for our people to receive forgiveness, would be our time to be thanking God for cleansing, to ask him to further refine us and purify us and forgive us for wherever we fall in short. But rather than that being the only emphasis, I would also be thanking God for the forgiveness we have, for the redemption we have in the blood. And I would be interceding with the congregation for the salvation of Israel. And if I was fasting, it would be for that reason. So it would look and feel different in my life as a messianic believer if I were part of a messianic Jewish congregation.

All right. JJ, you seem to have a natural boldness and emotional stamina in the face of challenges that many believers would envy. I, for one, don't know that I could flourish in high pressure debates like you have, no matter how sure I am about the topic. What lessons have you learned about staying bold, maintaining a quick mind and keeping emotional composure when others brutally attack and challenge you or your biblical stance? What strengthening advice would you give to believers who become emotionally overwhelmed in a high pressure debate or conflict of any sort? Many blessings.

Thanks for the question. Number one, everyone's calling is different. God's called me to be in the center of controversy day and night. He may not have called others to be in the center of controversy like this. He's called me to public debate.

He's not called everyone to public debate. So let's embrace the callings that we have and rejoice in the grace and gifting that we have without comparing ourselves to one another. I mean, picture a pole vaulter comparing himself negatively to a weightlifter, a heavyweight weightlifter. Picture a ballerina comparing herself negatively to a sumo wrestler.

You get the drift, right? Picture a, I don't know, world's strongest man comparing himself negatively to the world's best flute player. I mean, everybody's different, fashioned differently. So don't compare yourself to someone else unless God's given you a similar calling.

And that's one. Number two, put your strength, your trust in the Lord. I've learned to find strength in him.

Over the years, I had mixed, I'm still just there to an extent, but I don't believe it's nearly as much as it used to be. I've always had, as a believer, great trust in God, great confidence in God, but somehow also confidence in myself. And God really stripped a lot of that from me over 20 years ago. And since then, I've learned even more to find strength out of weakness, to be strong in the Lord. Let the one who's weak say I'm strong in the Lord. So confess to the Lord, Lord, I'm weak in myself, I'm timid in myself, I'm easily flustered.

I put my trust in you. And then you find your strength in the Lord. When it comes to dealing with people graciously, I'm deeply conscious of how gracious God has been towards me. I'm deeply conscious of the many failings in my own life and how deeply he's had mercy on me. And therefore, it's not that difficult for me to be merciful and compassionate to others. I also know that a gentle word can break the bone, that speaking in love and grace can do more to change hearts than being angry and yelling.

So even when we're confrontational, we can do it without losing our tempers, we can do it while still being in control, we can do it while still being gracious. And then as far as quick mind, obviously God's gifted me in certain ways, in other ways he hasn't. A quick mind would be one of them. But even so, I do my best to take care of my body and mind. That would mean eating really healthily, especially as you get older, it makes a difference even more. That would mean regular exercise. That would mean keeping my mind busy and sharp.

That would also mean trying to get adequate sleep. So those things are helpful and important when it comes to keeping ourselves sharp. But above all, I give myself to the calling of God and know that he will equip me to do what he's called me to do. Certain things come very naturally, and there's a deep confidence in God that he made me for this very thing. Other things do not come as natural. For example, being compassionate and kind. That's not who I was over the years. The fact that I've become known for that, and everyone says, Dr. Brown, you're so compassionate, you're so gracious to people, trust me.

That's the grace of God working something in me that was not there before. Trust me on that. We'll be right back. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to a special broadcast during the line of fire answering a unique set of questions that have been posted on Facebook and on Twitter. I believe you'll be blessed, edified, challenged, encouraged.

Don't post now because we solicited the questions earlier in the week for today. But by all means, listen, share with a friend. If you're watching on YouTube, click the thumbs up button.

If you're watching on Facebook, click the share button and just post where you're watching from. Everyone listening on radio, you can wave at me. Yeah, I feel the wave.

Listening on podcast, a little wave is good, too. I'll feel it. OK, here we go. A question on Facebook. This is from Grace.

When you are a social outcast because it is an attack on a gifting and nothing seems to heal it or move whatever is causing it. If you have any answers, I will have to listen to recording as opposed to live because I'll be working or you've met me in Jerusalem at the radio station. You invited me to sit in on the live show. All right. OK, I think I do remember you. All right.

Just looking for info here on Facebook. I do believe I remember you. OK, so here's the first thing you want to be absolutely sure. If you speak of being a social outcast because of gifting and calling, you want to be absolutely sure that's really what it's about. What do I mean?

And I'm just putting things out. This may not apply to you, but it's certainly going to apply to someone else. I might think that it's my gifting and calling that has me excluded socially and it's not. It's that I may be socially awkward or I may have some rough edges or I may fashion myself to be prophetic and I'm just unpleasant or I may fashion myself to be spiritual and I'm just weird. And therefore people exclude me, but has nothing to do with the gifting and calling and has to do with things in my own life that are not normal and not socially compatible. If that's the case, I would ask anyone that's that's a real friend or someone that's an elder in the Lord. But I'm talking about people in the Lord and say, hey, is there anything in my personality that puts people off?

Is there anything in my demeanor or lifestyle that would get me excluded? And they might then have an honest answer. May not be what we want to hear, but we could be helped by that. Now, let's say that's not the case.

Let's say that it's simply a matter of calling. I mean, Jeremiah, because of his calling, found himself socially excluded and he couldn't rejoice with the people who rejoiced. He couldn't mourn with the people who mourned. He seemed to be always out of step and out of sync. He couldn't participate in things that other people participated in.

And thus he was a social outcast. I can relate to that as a believer in high school. When I came to faith, I had a lot of friends in the world. I had a lot of friends, fellow drug users and things like that.

In fact, I'd become very popular as a drug using rock drummer. And also I was a jerk and an idiot. A lot of people didn't like me. Then I got radically saved. And now the people I used to hang out with, well, obviously we're not hanging out anymore.

Why? Because all we did was get high and sin together. So I'm not doing that.

So little by little, my circles are changing. So I'm hanging out with other believers. But there's a few of us in the school, right?

So I'm suddenly excluded. And of course, I was so aggressive with my evangelizing and stuff. But there would be gatherings and I'm kind of by myself and everybody else hanging out. Well, I went in 1998 to a 25th anniversary reunion, high school reunion. The first one I had been invited to, first one I'd gone to then.

And it was really interesting. When it came time for people to sit, the people that knew me best, they were all sitting together. But I wasn't at that table. I ended up sitting with mainly people I didn't know that well from high school, which I found interesting. But the table with a lot of the people that really knew me, one of them told me afterwards we had a discussion at the table as to who was the most memorable personality from high school. And you won.

Well, because when I was lost, I was really lost because when I got saved, I got really saved. But interesting, they didn't sit at the table with me. Well, I got to talk to a lot of people over the night.

I found out one or two, they had come to the Lord through my example, but I only found that out years later. And just others hanging out, finding out what happened in their lives. But as the night wore on, then after the meal and so on, there was the dance floor and music and people were dancing together and some that weren't married were obviously it was their time to hook up. And they were dancing, they were married to other people, but now they're dancing with others and smoking cigarettes and drinking some. And I remember I was kind of on the outside standing there watching them on the dance floor smoking drinking.

I thought, yeah, it's like the old days. So that was because I was a believer. Right. So how do you feel? And you embrace it. You embrace it. You go outside the camp.

It happens to me always when I'm in religious Jewish circles. I'm on the outside. Right. No complaint. No complaint. Fine.

I fully understand it. But Hebrews 13, we go outside the camp with Yeshua. We go outside the camp with Jesus bearing the reproach he bore. And it's it's our place of intercession. It's our place to be praying for those who don't know the Lord. And sometimes it happens in church circles when you're around a lot of people who are superficial. You don't judge them, but you bear that reproach of being excluded and you turn that into prayer for them.

You take that rejection and you own it and then you rejoice if it's for the gospel and then you you turn it into prayer. All right. I'm going to head over to Twitter now where I ask the same question.

And let me see what's come in here if I could scroll down to. OK, Scott, Scott Peters, Chris Rosebrough is attacking you again about NAR because you say it doesn't exist. There's a book out called Modern Day Apostles from Chaon and endorsed by Bill Johnson that is claiming they are NAR. Can you please address this? Thank you, Dr. Brown. Hey, first, I pray for God's best for Chris. I was at a prayer retreat recently, personal prayer retreat, and was praying for some of the folks that I would call critics or hypercritics, really praying for God's best in fullness for their lives.

As I pray for my own life. So I believe Chris believes he's doing right and is helping. So the NAR of the critics, the NAR of Chris does not exist. There is something that Peter Wagner called the New Apostolic Reformation that Bill Johnson and Chaon might well affirm, but that I would differ with. I am branded a leader in NAR, and yet I reject the fundamental tenets of NAR, so-called NAR. I reject the idea that every church must be under apostles and prophets. I believe that apostles and prophets have been with us through church history, just not called by their name, that name.

And now it's something that is simply more recognized by that name. Chris, on his Pirate Christian website, has a list of six characteristics of a so-called NAR church. I find them to be very arbitrary. I find them to be mixing together various extremes or abuses in the charismatic Pentecostal movement, along with some misunderstandings, and grouping them all in one. That's the thing that's a myth that does not exist.

All right? Plain and simple. It does not exist as an entity. As for the things on his list, three of them I categorically reject, meaning I differ with those three tenets.

The other three I either find overstated or somewhat misstated. So I'm not in harmony with the alleged six points of NAR, all right, yet I'm called a leader in NAR, so that NAR does not exist. The New Apostolic Reformation that Bill Johnson and Che would affirm, I agree with some of it, and I differ with other parts of it.

Very simple. Especially some of the alleged authority that apostles have today. No, I differ. With all respect to Che and Bill, who I believe love the Lord deeply and are seeking to honor him and make a positive difference in the church and in the world. So what the critics call NAR is a figment of their spiritual imagination. What Peter Wagner labeled New Apostolic Reformation is something very broad, speaking of churches that are very different all over the world that he would call post-denominational, that organize differently.

That's not what the critics are talking about. What was more narrowly called the New Apostolic Reformation that specifically related to Peter Wagner, that's what Che Alm would be part of, that's what Bill Johnson would be part of, all right, ideologically in many ways. I'm not part of that. That's why I never joined Peter Wagner's organization, what is called the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders. I joined because they made a break with some of the things that Peter Wagner had taught, with all respect to Peter Wagner, all right. So in any case, say it again, the NAR of the critics is a figment of their imagination. The narrow New Apostolic Reformation that Che would be referring to in his book, I am not part of that specific movement.

And if someone says, well, we recognize you as an apostle, I do not consider myself an apostle, okay, and I never have. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on The Line of Fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to a special edition of You've Got Questions, You've Got Answers. I posted this earlier in the week, and now I'm answering today on Facebook, excuse me, answering on the broadcast today questions that were posted on Facebook and on Twitter.

So not taking calls today. Here's what I posted. If you have a question for me that is more personal in nature, perhaps something I've learned in ministry experience or something about growing in the Lord, or clarification about a controversy I'm involved in, post your questions now, and I'll answer on Friday.

All right, so don't post now because I solicited these earlier in the week. I've got all the questions I need for the rest of the broadcast. Cage Stage Calvinist asked this. Was atonement for sins provided for other nations outside of Israel in the Old Testament? God says he only knew Israel. Amos 3-2, you only have I known out of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. So being chosen by God carries great responsibility. So you only have I known means singled out, chosen here. So, was atonement provided for other nations?

Yes and no. Yes in that this was part of Israel's role as a priestly nation. So when Israel offered sacrifices to God, this was done as a priestly nation. For example, the Feast of Tabernacles, a total of 70 bowls offered up to the Lord.

Sermon 13-12 then goes down until you have a total of 70. 70 is the number of nations in the Old Testament, according to Genesis 10 and then Jewish tradition, that 70 represents the number of the nations. And so it was widely believed in the ancient Jewish world that at the time of Tabernacles, prayer was made for the nations. Prayer was made for rain to fall on the nations. Israel was to function as a priestly people. That's why a foreigner could pray towards the temple in Jerusalem, according to Solomon's prayer in 1 Kings 18. A foreigner could pray to the temple in Jerusalem and at that time, when he did, God would forgive because this was the Beit Zevach, this was the house of sacrifice.

Think of the Ninevites. The Ninevites turned to God in repentance, right? They turned to God in repentance, but they did not offer sacrifices. That was for Israel to do as a priestly nation. There's even a Jewish tradition that says that when the temple was being destroyed in the year 70 by the Romans, that one of the Jewish leaders yelled out, you know, foolish Romans, now who's going to intercede for you? Who's going to make atonement for you? Paraphrase.

So that's a big yes. This is part of Israel's role. So someone repenting in the nations could turn to the God of Israel for mercy, and the sacrifices were being brought and offered, which of course all pointed to the cross. On the other hand, no, in terms of there was not an atonement system given to the nations like was given to Israel. So the nations and their polytheism did not have an atonement system.

They would have to pray to the God of Israel and tie in with Israel's atonement system. All right, let's see. James, what is the one thing you wish your younger self knew that you know now? I would say to live each day in the reality and circumstances of the day.

Let me explain what I mean. When I was saved about a year with the light high school schedule that I had, and before I was working a job, I had a lot of free time every day. I went to school early in the morning, but our classes got out at noon while the rest of the school got out at three. And then I basically didn't have homework to do, so I had the afternoons free. I'd get home, I had the afternoon free. Most nights of the week, I would go to either a church service or a prayer meeting or do some kind of outreach or visitation. That was most nights of the week, but that was only until about mid-evening, so I'd be back home with more free time afterwards. So I got locked in a zone, by God's grace, and I would spend at least six or seven hours alone with the Lord each day.

When I mean alone, I mean alone. Remember, this is the days before cell phones, before PCs, before endless TV channels. So I was in the room with my door shut, on my knees, in prayer, and in the Word. I would pray at least three hours a day. I would read the Word at least two hours a day. I would memorize scripture one hour a day. I used to memorize twenty verses a day without fail. And I kept this schedule, by God's grace, for six months, without fail, never missing a day, under any circumstances, seven days a week, and it was beautiful and glorious. Well, there's a little legalism in it. There's a little pressure to make sure I prayed every request, because I prayed for several thousand people by name every day, which was not the wisest thing to do, but every person I witnessed to, every new person I met, everyone that came to a church service, I'd pray for them by name, add them in, every friend from school and loved one and so on.

So that got a little legalistic. But otherwise, it was a wonderful, beautiful, thriving time. And then I started working a full-time job. And now, working this job initially started later in the morning, and then I worked into the early evening. It's like, but I want to go to church services. So they said, okay, you can come in early. So I had to be there like seven, seven in the morning, and I'm not an early morning person. So that was challenging, and I'm still trying to get in all this time, but I didn't have it.

I didn't have it. And rather than say, hey, praise God, that was a special season. That was a wonderful, unique season in life, right? It laid foundations for the rest of my life, especially with the Word.

That was special. Now, if you get two hours a day, or three hours a day, that's wonderful. Use it.

It's great time. Enjoy it. Or skip a church service or something, to spend more time with the Lord. But no, I was going to try to do everything, and I remember computing, okay, I'll have to sleep like an hour or two a day to make this. I'm just going to trust God.

Of course, it was completely unrealistic. Instead of saying, hey, you're getting three hours quality time with God every day, or two and a half hours every day, that's beautiful. That's wonderful. And don't worry about praying for every person by name. That was a season when you did that. Now just focus on key ones that the Lord brings on your heart, etc. I felt every day as if I'm falling short, falling short, falling short, falling short. And that, in turn, led to me feeling the only season in my life, I felt some level of condemnation.

And that stayed on me. So if my younger self could have realized, this is a special season, a unique season, seize it and enjoy it, right? Now, you're in a different season, seize that and enjoy it, and use these days to witness which I did, and just enjoy the Lord in the midst of your job without feeling pressure, it would have made a big difference in my psyche. And I believe it would have helped me keep up a solid pattern with less time rather than kind of ultimately have like an all or nothing at all mentality and things shifted over those years.

That, I believe, would have been one of the most helpful things for me to know back then. Tom, how do you balance apologetics with evangelism when witnessing to a person with different beliefs? I want to win a debate but not lose the person. So if I'm mixing in apologetics with evangelism, there's one goal. It's to get this person to hear the gospel, right? It's to get them to be open enough to think and to stop and to listen. So I'm not trying to win a debate in that setting.

I'm trying to raise questions or respond to their answers or objections in a way that makes them realize, okay, you got a point here, or all right, I can see that you're reasonable. I still think you're wrong. Okay, let's keep going with this.

That's the goal. To put down their defenses, to put down their hostility. I can never believe in a God who's a God like this, never. Okay, well, what can I say to get them to realize that's not the God I worship either? Or what's so bad about a God like that? Maybe you've got some fundamental misconceptions or everybody knows that intelligent design is crazy. Okay, so why do you think that way?

Why is it crazy? So just, I'm curious to know, like, from your thinking, how do you explain DNA coding? Or could you see how someone could think that's intelligent design?

Or where did matter come from? Or, you know, just ask those questions. Or say, you know, if you went to take a walk on the beach early in the morning, and there one mile long was a very personal message spelled out to you with rocks, little rocks that were put in letter form on the beach, and each time the waves came in and went out and a new thing was formed, would you just say, well, that's coincidence?

Or would it get your attention? Well, see, that's what I believe. And just get them thinking so that now I can talk to them about God. Now I can talk to them about their own lives. So that's the goal. Same if someone gives me an objection, a Jewish objection, I want to answer it in a way that at least makes them say, okay, this guy's thinking, this guy understands. Now, now, you know, let's see if we can go deeper here.

Let's see. Okay, Michael, Obadiah Alliance confirms that the Igbo of Africa are descendants of ancient Israelites. Sixty percent of African Americans descend from Igbo. Are we Israelites also?

Okay. I cannot confirm that 60 percent of African Americans descend from Igbo. Nor can I confirm that all Igbo people are descendants of the ancient Israelites. So I might argue then that that many are among the Igbo and that some African Americans are descended from Igbo and that some African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Not that the ancient Israelites were black Africans, but that through intermarriage and exile and conversion into Judaism, that many Africans became Jews, just like many Caucasians became Jews. Many European Caucasians became Jews, hence white Jews, black Jews, you have Chinese Jews, you have Indian Jews. That's because of conversion to Judaism and intermarriage and then being the dominant race there, growing up among them, continuing to see conversion intermarriage, who now will look like the surrounding peoples as a Jew.

So DNA tests will point in the right direction there. DNA tests will confirm certain aspects of ancient Israelite heritage. But to think that most African Americans are descended from ancient Israelites, I would say no to that question based on my understanding and my limited studies.

I am not a scholar in this field, but I have studied it. That's one thing. The other thing is, this is where some of the black Hebrew Israelites cult gets its mentality from. Originally, African Americans, descendants of slaves who believed and had a heritage that they were actually Jewish and therefore keeping command of the Torah. I mean, this became all descendants of the slaves, all African Americans. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get on the line of fire by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. All right, we're going to dive into some more questions that have been posted on Twitter. These are really great questions, and let me get to as many of them as I can here. All right, Matthew, if you had one last thing to say to my generation, what would it be?

So I'm assuming, younger generation, I would say two things. Major on the majors. Keep the main thing, the main thing. Going after the Lord, knowing the Lord, being intimate with God, knowing the word, winning the lost, making disciples. Let your life revolve around knowing God and making him known, being a disciple and making a disciple. And then don't be reactionary. The world is going to pull you this way. Something in the church is going to pull you that way.

Don't be reactionary. Major on the majors, other things will fall into place. Caleb, what is God teaching you personally right now? To live in the now more than ever before.

I wrote an article on that should be up any day on the stream. Carpe Momentum, seize the moment, not even seize the day, but seize the moment. My mind is always racing. I'm always on to the next thing.

And God is really helping me more than I can remember in years and in certain ways ever to thank God for now. OK, right now I'm here to be present. That's always been a challenge for me because I'm always on to the next thing. I'm always absorbed with the next thing. Before I finish one trip, I'm already on the next one. While I'm working on one thing, my mind's racing to the next book. So this is a major thing for me, and I'm trying to articulate it to help others to be more in the present, to thank God for now.

Let's see. Sarah, what do you think is the major problem in the body of Christ to accept women in the fivefold ministries? Bible translations, cultural mindset, perhaps. How can we have a breakthrough in church culture in that area?

I don't think it's Bible translations. It's a question of what the Bible really says. In other words, does the Bible clearly teach that women can have equal authority to men in the church and can lead and govern equally or not? So there are some who are completely egalitarian, egalitarian, excuse me, and for them, any position, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, it could be a woman or it could be a man equally without restriction. There's no male or female in Christ, et cetera. Others, others, their view would be no, clearly authority is given to the male, a governmental authority, and therefore senior pastor, apostle, et cetera, governmental leadership is not for women. And there are others who say God can use anyone in any situation, but the normal order is male governing authority. That's my view, the last view. All right. But to me, the big issue is not so much culture, though in some cultures it's going to be so different.

You know, the role of a woman versus the role of a man is going to be almost unthinkable for a woman to be in senior leadership, governmental authority. That being said, that being said, there's no question in my mind for most is what does the Bible actually say? What did Paul mean when he wrote to Timothy? What did Paul mean when he wrote to the Corinthians?

What are the biblical patterns? That's the big question. What does the Bible actually say?

Let's see. All right, our friend Jesse. It would be great to hear your story, how you got into and then left Calvinism. Okay, so the church in which I was saved, Italian Pentecostal church, Armenian, if we ever heard of Calvinism, we heard it as a bad thing. Didn't really talk about it a lot, but we heard of it as a bad thing, even though men like Charles Spurgeon were Calvinists. When I started going to college a few years into being a believer and then started to do more academic study having to do with the Bible, I was amazed to see that the great theologians, the systematic theologians, some of the great commentators were Calvinists.

And they were not charismatic either. So I began to wonder, well, if they're so brilliant, they know the language is so well, they know the Bible so well, could it be that they have some insight in this that I don't have? And then for me, for me, I'm not saying anybody else, but for me, my journey, as I became more and more intellectually theologically oriented and that was reading the Bible in Hebrew or trying to read it in Greek just to learn the languages better, my devotional life slacked. I was not spending as much time just in fellowship with the Lord or feasting on the word. And I got more into an intellectual theological mindset. And then I met a pastor who was a really zealous Calvinist and a really learned guy and encouraged me in my studies. Whereas the church where I got saved, I mean, he didn't really do a lot of study. I don't know that anybody even had a college degree in the church before me.

If so, it was rare. So I got an environment more where I was the people I was around. The smart Christians were Calvinists and the literature I was reading, Calvinistic. And so I started to read more and more and then reading J.I. Packer's Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

I just felt this confrontation. Well, I believe that God can be both king and judge at the same time. And I said, well, I'm going to bow down and worship God. And I kind of converted to Calvinism and then dove in and read everything I could and gloried in it. We teach adult Sunday school classes on Tulip and the five points of Calvinism, et cetera, and show the error of the other systems. What happened, though, over the years, it did not deepen my walk with God. Again, me, I'm not accusing other Calvinists to say it did not deepen my walk with God. The Calvinists that I got to know were not people that really prayed the way the people did my first church.

And they didn't evangelize the way the people did. I remember thinking, where are the Calvinists like Whitefield and Edwards and Spurgeon that were so passionate for the lost that I'm not seeing a lot of that. And then in my own life, I actually had more assurance as an Armenian than a Calvinist, because as a Calvinist, I had to demonstrate to my old Armenian friends that I was not becoming complacent or falling into some one saved always saved that I was examining my life. But still, I was a dogmatic Calvinist and was quite sure I was right and found much beauty in the, quote, doctrines of grace and had lots of great quotes from some of the great Calvinist leaders through the centuries. What happened was when God brought me to repentance of my theological pride and coldness in 82 and then poured out a spirit on me afresh, I realized that so much of what I had embraced in those previous five or six years was not based on being with God, immersed in the scripture and letting God speak to me through his word, although I had lots of scriptural arguments for Calvinism.

But it was instead stuff I read in books. So I stepped back and said, I have to rethink all of this because I didn't get this the way I like to on my knees with the Bible open and countering God through his word. And then it's just in one moment from beginning to end of the Bible, I thought of all the verses, choose, choose, choose, choose, choose and say, I just do not see this ultimately is compatible with Calvinism.

I knew the answers, but did not see this compatible. That being said, I'm not a Calvinist basher. I can see the glory of God in it as opposed to just makes God into a monster the way some would see it. And I still have great appreciation for Calvinist theologians and commentators through the years, although we differ on these other points.

Okay, let's see. Okay, Manny, how do you respond to those who say the Gospels are doctored, they're not reliable? Example is Mark 16.

Now, this is not a problem to me as it seems some older documents don't have it. Number one, Mark 16 is one of the few passages that is in dispute in the Gospels. In other words, there are no lengthy passages. The other question would be the one we call adultery.

So this is the exception to the rule, the longer ending of Mark. And there are different views about it in the early church. As far as being doctored, I would get books like Craig Blomberg's Historical Reliability of the Gospels. There's so many books that show that the Gospels are reliable, that the Gospels give solid history, that from archaeological viewpoints and linguistic viewpoints, that they are highly reliable. Just get online and search for the Historical Reliability of the Gospels.

Different books written by Craig Keener, edited by Darrell Bock, others are really, really rich in content academically. The Gospels have stood the test of time for good reason. Or J. Warner Wallace, the cold case detective, where he writes about the reliability of the Gospels.

The evidence is overwhelmingly on behalf of the Gospels rather than against it. Brian of God, is your view of the Trinity right on par with any particular faith, or do you see a highly compatible variance with one? I don't like the word Trinity.

It causes too many assumptions. I see the Father, Son, Holy Spirit as unified but distinct. I believe that God is eternally one God, one God only, and that he is simultaneously Father, Son, and Spirit, and that Father, Son, and Spirit are one and yet distinct, and that God has revealed himself to us as a triunity. What I like to speak of as complex unity, especially for Jewish people, because Trinity can sound like three gods, and even the way things are formulated, say in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, to me get philosophical beyond the statements of the Bible.

Those are crafted in the midst of great philosophical thinkers, and therefore try to give articulation to things that, in my view, sharpens, refines states even beyond what Scripture states. So, we might affirm what they say is true, but I cannot simply say, well, that's just what the Bible says. It's what the Bible says, not put in philosophical language. But I do fundamentally uphold God's triunity and simply emphasize that the great testimony of Scripture, there is one God, one God only. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, the Father is like the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, etc. But one God, one God only, the Father is like the Spirit. And that is pretty mainstream, fundamental in that regard. Friends, if you're out of time, visit us at Ask That's the Ground. That's all there is.