Matt Slick Live Broadcast of 02-7-2024

The following program is recorded content created by Slick Live. In this video, we're going to talk about the Hebrew manuscripts that we got today from which we translate the Old Testament into English. How do we know that the Hebrew that Moses wrote 1,500 years before Christ was the same Hebrew? What do you mean by same Hebrew?

Same words? Just like in the English language 400 years ago. It was quite different from what the English language is today. And I was wondering about the 1,500 year gap between Moses writing Hebrew and the Hebrew that we got for the manuscripts from the Hebrew language for the Old Testament. So let me jump in by saying that the book of Job I've heard is the oldest book in the Bible.

That it's written chronologically, you know, when it was penned before Moses penned the Pentateuch. And it has a Hebrew style that our Hebrew professor in seminary said is a bit of an older style, but perfectly understandable. And so, you know, OK. Well, when you have a set of scriptures and that's what you as a culture use, it's going to solidify the language. When Luther translated the Bible into German, there were a lot of different accents, dialects and things like that in Germany at the time. And so when he translated it into the German, it solidified the overall language and kind of codified it. The King James, though, did not solidify the English language to 400 years later. Our only English is quite different from the King James English. That is, Musser, Luther's German, you know, make today's German solidify. What I'm saying is that it unified there and it solidified it. It doesn't mean, though, that the language didn't change any because new technologies, no vocabularies, new ideas would come in so that would cause the language to be affected by that.

But generally speaking, you have the German. I have a book printed in 1722 and I've had native German speakers look at it and they could read it from 1722. And they said it was a little bit difficult, but they could. And so it's not that big a deal, but I'm not a Hebrew manuscript expert. And I can just trust that the Jews knew what they were doing when they were keeping the manuscripts because they would consider them to be extremely valuable and from God himself. And so they're going to copy them exceedingly carefully.

And that's what happened. Yeah. I know 1,500 years is a lot of time for the Hebrew to change. Yes. And, you know, our language was translated into the King James English, even Wycliffe, before the King James Version.

Yes. And yet our language still changed despite being put down in Scripture. Well, hold on. There's a difference. The American culture and stuff like that wasn't dedicated to any particular English version of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God that had to be kept in sacred jars and preserved through persecutions and things like this.

It's a different thing. So you'd have to talk to a Hebrew expert about this to see what they would say about this issue of the... Yeah, because I saw a PBS document there on time on ancient Hebrew lettering that unearthed an excavation in Israel. And it was a lot different from the Hebrew that I see in the Strong's Concordance.

It was like stick figures and, you know, everything. Yes. I was wondering if that was the Hebrew that existed when Moses wrote...

I don't know. But I'm familiar with that as well. And so there's ancient forms of writings that have been used. And you could have the ancient writing mean the same thing. The ancient letters mean the same thing. They could just be modified over time for scribal purifications and ease of writing and clarity. So it doesn't necessitate that the language is different, but that the writing style might be different. Like when you read the original King James, the S looks like an F. It's a really loopy kind of a long S. And, well, that could cause confusion.

Yes. And so since the S and F were similar, you could see how people would say, Well, this is a problem. Let's shorten the S form of that.

And that's how the S became. But it's the same thing. So it's just that there's variations. So you have to talk to someone who's an expert in that to see what they would have to say. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time, Matt. You're welcome. Well, God bless. All right.

That was David from North Carolina. If you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276.

Let's get to Jamal. Welcome. You are on the air. Thank you for taking my call.

Sure. What do you got, man? I want to ask about what Jamal saw online. There was this professor. And he was talking and somebody chimed in saying, Well, you know, the Bible is a whiteness Bible and everything and it's oppressive.

And then this African guy chimed in and said, The Bible was in Africa before it got to Europe. Well, you know, I don't have the tools in front of me to do that kind of research. At least I don't think so. So I said, well, I'll just have Matt stick into that question. So I wanted to see what you thought about that. Well, I don't know if that's the case because I'm not a Bible history expert. But so I would say that my first guess, if I had to guess, I'd say, Africa had it first because I would say that. But, see, it's not that easy because the Bible, the Old Testament, is consisting of the 39 books and the Jews had that. And it was basically kept in, well, in Egypt. So they had the Bible there absolutely before Europe did in that sense, of course. And then when they went into the land where Israel is, then they were there for a long period of time.

Well, Jews started moving into the Mediterranean area. They would have had copies of this. In fact, they had the Septuagint version of the Old Testament about 200 B.C. So the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, that would have existed and I'm sure it was brought up and some copies were brought up into Europe. Now, when the New Testament was written, it was probably written in Europe before Africa. It would have to be because Paul was in jail in Rome. He's writing letters in Rome to different churches and different individuals, as an example. So the New Testament was in, I would say absolutely, was in Europe before it was Africa.

But I would say the Old Testament was in Africa before it was in Europe. Okay. Okay.

Thanks. Of course, I can go back and anybody else, you know what I heard from Matt Slick. So it's good to be in the know, to know what knowledge is true about the Bible or what information is true, rather, about the Bible. Can I ask one quick follow-up question, please?

Sure. Can you tell me about the Dead Sea Scrolls? I'm hearing different things about it. I just want to be specific on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Yeah, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. And also a place of history. Mm-hmm. Go ahead.

Sorry. No, I was just thinking, and also that place of history. Yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1946. A shepherd boy threw a rock into a cave thinking a lost goat was in there. And I've actually been in that very cave. I've actually gone to Israel, walked up the hill with a tour guide and everything, and we went into the cave. So I've been in it. It's called Cave One in Qumran.

Yeah, it's totally cool. And so because of the location, geographically, it's kind of steep to get up there. And it's jagged, so you have to be very careful when you go up. And it's not something like, hey, let's just go up and look around up there. You don't want to do that. There's got to be a reason for you to go up these hills.

It's not like it is here in America. You get this hill, let's go walk up while you're whistling. This one you grab, you move, you grab, you move, you grab, you move.

You slide while you're holding on. It's that kind of thing. So they discovered, I don't know how many caves they've discovered, like 17 or something like that. So we've been to a place. You've seen the different caves.

They show different, from a certain area, you can look at them. But at any rate, okay, so it looks like the Essians were the ones who did the scrolls. And in there is the Isaiah scroll, which was done, they say was copied in the Qumran caves, was copied around 100 B.C. Prior to that, the oldest existent manuscript that they'd had of Isaiah was from 900 A.D. So that's a thousand year difference. And the critics were basically silenced. There were a few variants in the wording and a couple things here and there in the copy, a thousand years different, but it was so minor that the critics just didn't really say much.

They'd say, well, it's pretty stinkin' accurately transmitted. And they found other things as well, other writings. And so I've actually seen the Dead Sea Scrolls II in Israel behind glass and got to see them.

So I've been in the cave and have seen them, you know, and what a privilege that has been. But that's about what I know about it, okay. And you said the Dead Sea Scrolls would date it around, you say, 100 B.C.? They were written about that time, I think.

And probably a little bit before and after. So I'll do some research. I can put it in my list of questions, which is what I'm doing right now. You know, what are the Dead Sea Scrolls and when were they written, you know. So I haven't written an article on that, okay. And they were completed in 980, if I heard that correctly? No, no, up to that point, the Book of Isaiah, the oldest copy they had was from 900 A.D. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the Isaiah scroll in there was 100 B.C.

So it's a thousand year difference, okay. So it was really, it was very helpful. It was a very helpful thing. So I just added that question in.

Now I have 785 questions to answer on my list. Oh, you're welcome. No problem. Thanks a lot.

Now I have 785. So there you go, okay. I'm here to help, Matt. I'm here to help. Appreciate it.

No problem at all. Yeah. All right, man.

Well, there's a break. Hold on. Can you hold on? Okay. Just hold on.

We have nobody waiting, so just keep holding. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live. Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, welcome back to the show.

Let's get back with Jamal. Welcome, brother. You still there? Yes, sir. That's good.

All right. The other question that I wanted to ask was about Israel, about the findings. That's comparing about how it belongs to them, it doesn't belong to them. So while I had you on the phone, I wanted to ask you about that as well. Well, it belongs to them because God gave it to them.

And so I actually wrote an article, two articles this morning, one will be released tomorrow. And one of them dealt with the issue of why God had the Jews wipe out Canaan, the Canaanites. And one of the reasons was because God had decided to give that land to the people of Israel. And Canaan was the offspring of Ham, you know, from Noah's flood, Noah's three sons. And so they became wicked, very wicked people. And so they were wiped out. So God himself appointed the Jews to have that land so long ago. So therefore, it belongs to the Jews. Okay.

All right. So that makes sense to me. And also, I mean, that's the only Jewish state in the world that's left to be Jersey.

So it's like, to me, this is kind of being in the flesh a little bit. It's like, well, you guys don't really have to have that. Like, we have all the other money we can go to.

You just want to go after these guys just because it's personal. So that's another reason why I don't agree with the whole free Palestine thing. You guys have the whole world to go to. You have several other places you call home.

This is the only place that you guys call home. Let them have it. I mean, it's not that big of a deal to my people. Yeah. It's just to have them have their own state. Oh, I meant to say it like that.

That's okay. See, the problem is, in the Quran, it says in Surah 551, Oh, you who believe, take not Jews and Christians for your friends and protectors. They are friends and protectors of each other. And so the Muslims are taught early that the Jews are animals. Not every Muslim is, but a lot of them are.

I taught this. The Jews are animals, and they persecuted the... Actually, I could tell you a lot of stuff about it. But at any rate, so the Muslims are taught to basically hate Jews.

So they don't care if they have the land belonging to them or not. They want them out. That's all.

They're irrational, and Islam is an evil religion. So it's bad news. But, you know.

Yeah. When I talk to people about that, according to what you've been teaching, I've been able to say that. It's like, okay, well, you can love the Muslims but don't like their doctrine. Because it has in the book about line and about killing in the name of Allah. And even Allah was... Was it Allah that was a warlord or was it Muhammad? Muhammad was a warlord.

Islam expanded by, I think, had 200 battles within the first 150 years or something like that. And Muhammad was a violent man. He had people killed. And he approved of them being deceptive liars. He took other men's wives, things like that.

He was an evil man. Yeah. Okay. Good stuff. Well, thanks for the call. I apologize for turning it into a conversation. That was my fault, but it's always good stuff.

Thank you, nice looking. God bless. All right, man. Well, God bless, buddy. All right, man. We'll see you. All right. That was Jamal from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. If you want to give me a call, we have wide open lines, 877-207-2276.

We don't have anybody waiting right now. So maybe what I'll do is get to some radio questions and comments. I answered this one before recently, but someone asked me a question earlier.

It was on the radio. I'll go over it again. Is there any doctrines that I've changed my view on as I've gotten older and studied more? And the last doctrine, if you want to call it a doctrine or position, I should say, that I changed was dealing with which one are taken first, with the wicked or the good when Jesus returns. I used to believe the first ones taken were the good, and I've changed, and now I believe that the evil are the ones who are taken first. And that's because of Matthew 13, roughly 30 through 40 range.

And what Jesus says, and he says the first ones taken are the wicked. And before that, and this one might ruffle some feathers, before that, the doctrine that got me, or the doctrine that kind of modified was baptism. I believe now, having studied the Scriptures, I believe it can be by immersion, pouring, and sprinkling. And I believe that Jesus was sprinkled at his baptism.

And the reason I believe that is because he had to fulfill the law. And the law requirement in the Old Testament in order to enter into the priesthood, the man had to be sprinkled with water. That's a direct command out of the Old Testament. And along with that command is anointing with the oil, that's the Holy Spirit, a verbal blessing, given my beloved on whom I'm well pleased.

Had to be 30 years of age, Jesus was 30. And all of this seems to fit what he had to do. And in Numbers 8, 7 it says, let him be sprinkled with water.

So I'm like, I'm reading that going, oh my goodness, that's what it says. And I did a search for the word water in the entire Old Testament. Every single occurrence of the word water, it took me a while. And I looked at every context and everything, and no place that I find where in the issue of the priesthood was a priest immersed in water. I didn't find it.

They had water poured on them or sprinkled. And so then I had to convert to that position. And most people don't agree with that, and that's okay.

I'm just telling people why I believe what I do and stuff like that. And before that, I got some other ones. I changed one view in 1991. Maybe it was 92.

I remember that too. That's another question. All right, let's try Emilio, Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome. You're on the air. How you doing, Matt? Oh, hanging in there, man.

Hanging in there. I would like your comment on Isaiah 6 verses 9 and 10. Okay, well, let me read them then. He said, Go and tell this people, keep on listening, but do not perceive, keep on looking, but do not understand. Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.

Okay, so what about it? Okay, I would like your interpretation or clarification on these two verses. Well, what I believe it is, I believe it's God's judgment on people so they'll not be saved. That's what I believe.

In fact, if I were to read you this, let me read you what Jesus says in Mark. What? That's weird. Wow. Oh, wow. That was weird. You know how you look at something and you don't see what you're looking at.

It doesn't make sense. It just happened because I found out why there's a break. So hold on, brother. Hold on. We'll get back to you after the break. Hey, folks, we have two open lines if you want to give me a call. 877-207-2276. Be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. Before we get back to Emilio, I just want to say that yesterday I forgot to mention it. Yesterday I released my Preppers list. I'm going to keep adding to it. But for a few years now I've been developing a list. It was just a personal list, things to watch for, things to look at. Because sometimes you don't think of things, and a list just helps you go through a bunch of stuff, most of the stuff I don't need. But I developed this list because even though I put things on there that I don't need, I thought they were good to have as a list in general because your needs sometimes change. So I put this list over a couple, three years, and I put it together and released it. It's not a very big deal, but it's on the CARM homepage if you want to check it out. Also, I think I messed up with the newsletter last night when I released it. So I'm speaking at the Utah Christian Research Center in Draper, Utah, on the 17th at 9 o'clock in the morning, Saturday. I put the newsletter out, and I had to do a calendar thing on it. I haven't done a calendar thing in so long I forgot how to do it properly. Well, I had to reteach myself this morning, got it all taken care of, and that's what that is. So not a big deal, but stuff, so many things. Let's get to Emilio.

You still there? Yes, sir. All right, so you asked me about Isaiah 6, 9 through 10, and I'm going to go over it a bit. I'm going to show you something. It says, go tell these people you keep on listening, don't perceive, you're looking, but you don't understand. They're insensitive. Their ears are dull.

Their eyes are dim. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed. So this is what Jesus said when they asked him, why do you speak in parables in Mark 4, 10 through 12, and he said, to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables so that, and he starts quoting this, Isaiah, while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand. Otherwise, they might return and be forgiven. That's what Jesus interprets it as.

So there is to prevent them from being forgiven, so to speak, or actually it would be a statement of judgment on them. Okay? Okay. All right. Did that answer it enough?

Okay. Yeah, so basically what you're saying is, so there are those who are condemned, and there are those who are saved. There are those who are saved. There are those who are condemned. That's right. Jesus speaks in parables, and one of the reasons he says, so the people will not be forgiven. Mark 4, 10 through 12.

They will not be forgiven. Right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

There it is. All right. All right.

You're welcome. Okay. Let's get to Arthur from Utah. Arthur, you're on the air. Hey, how's it going, Matt? Poet's going, hanging in there. Good to hear.

Good to hear. I just had a question for you. So I kind of grew up in the church, been in the church a long time, and my question would be, how do you know when to leave a church, because I've seen a lot of people kind of come and go, and people have their reasons, and just looking biblically, it's hard for me to find anywhere, even where Paul addresses that instance, and I know the early church was typically, you go to the church where your community's at, and is there any grounds for leaving a church?

Yes. What's your opinion on that, or maybe a biblical basis for that? Well, when they stop being a church, for one thing, stop being biblical, when they were, say a church starts denying the Trinity, the deity of Christ, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, then it's a false church, you need to leave. Let's say the church starts having women pastors, well, it's time to leave, because it's definitely a contradiction of scripture, and so leave.

What if they start going woke, and that could take many forms, you've got to leave. What if they start preaching only those things that the denominational headquarters tells them to preach? You've got to leave, because then they're being submitted to an earthly organization and not to God's word, and you can't trust them. Let's say the pastor, for example, I've heard of an instance of this kind of thing happening, uses the people of the church for personal gain, like having them serve him at his house, clean his house, clean his yard, while he goes in and relaxes, because that's service to God, service to the pastor. That's time to leave as well.

And there's other things. Let's say a pastor commits adultery, and then the eldership just says, oh, it's all forgiven, it's all taken care of, and he continues. No, he's disqualified.

He's brought reproach upon the name of Christ, he's disqualified. And if they can't see that, then you leave, okay? Stuff like that.

Gotcha. Okay, so in the sense of, so I'm reminded of that scripture that's talking about bearing with one another in love, and is there a certain extent where you would, let's just say your church is doing something, and is there a certain extent that you would confront leadership and try and work things out? Because I know that biblically, like if your brother's in sin, go to them, and if he continues to sin, then bring a friend, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, I've really just been kind of playing with that idea of bearing with one another in love, and if it's just like as simple as like a theological difference, you know, is it, I mean, I think partially maybe the Holy Spirit is really what should convict you a lot, but definitely the Bible, yes, is the word of God, and that should be your basis, because the Bible's never going to contradict the Holy Spirit.

So in that sense, what levels do you take? Because I've seen people who, you know, they go to church for years and years and years, and then the pastor says something, and they have a theological disagreement, and they leave. So I just, I don't know, you know, I have a hard time with that, and I think, you know, I've been in that position before, too, where I've felt that way, but at the same time, you know, I think Paul does confront even the church of Ephesus, you know, or in Ephesus, and tells them basically, repent in terms of your sins, but that was kind of an apostolic covering, in a sense, I guess. So I don't know, I mean, is it pretty subjective? Yeah, there's a lot of it is subjective.

So if you want to give some specifics about stuff, we can talk about it. Well, I mean, like, let's just say you go to a church, and, you know, there are many in it, and you're a Calvinist, and this is a hypothetical, but, you know, like a theological disagreement with that, you can make a case, I believe, for both, and so I would never see a reason to leave over that, but I have seen people leave over that, and I'm not saying what they did is right or wrong, but same time, you know, it's kind of like where do you draw the line? Well, what if, here's a nice place to go to Calvert Chapel, and they're definitely not Reformed, but I'm Reformed. I went there for years, no problem. If the pastor had started snotting on Reformed theology, I would have talked to him and said, what are you doing, you're causing division in the body of Christ, and if he wouldn't stop, I would say, okay, I'm done, I'm gone.

So, you know, it just depends, you know, and there's lots of other reasons to leave a church, legalism, King James-only-ism, things like that, you know, attacking fellow Christians on debatable issues, you know, causing division, yep, yeah. Okay, well, I appreciate your time, thank you. All right, man, well, God bless. Are you, where are you in Utah? So, I'm in Eagle Mountain.

Oh, boy, I don't even know where that is. Yeah, I'm going to be in Draper on the 17th, you know, speaking at a thing, that's all, no big deal, you know, if you're ever curious. Okay. Awesome, yeah.

I used to live in Draper, so, I used to live in Draper, so it's about 20 minutes southwest from there. Oh, okay, yeah, no big deal. Not too far.

Not too far. All right, well, I mean, yeah, let me know what happens, because what you're talking about is actually closer to my heart than a lot of other issues, believe it or not. Yeah, no, I agree, and I've gone through a lot with other people and had people leave churches over, you know, some silly issues and just disagreements. Yep. It's a difficult thing, but it's, you know, that's one of those things with, you know, you got to love them and, you know, they'll show Christ no matter what and follow truth. Yes, well, since there's nobody waiting, let's see, how about this. I remember back in Southern California, I did pulpit supply for a while, and that means churches all over Southern California, they would call me up and say, hey, could you preach on such and such a date, you know, our pastor's on sabbatical or he's sick or whatever, and I said, sure, you know.

So I did a lot of pulpit supply, and I learned to go into the churches, meet with the elders beforehand and say, is there an issue you don't want me to touch that is sensitive, you know, not that I was going to compromise the word, but you've just got to be aware. And they had just one church that had a division over the color of carpet. Yes, uh-huh, yeah, that's insane. Time to leave. Yeah, all right, brother, there's the music, I've got to go. All right, we'll talk to you later, man, all right?

All right, thanks, take care, bye. Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276.

Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the show. It's the last segment of the hour, and if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276.

I want to hear from you, give me a call, and if you want, you can e-mail me at info at karme.org, info at karme.org, and just put in the subject radio question or radio comment. And there you go, there you go. All right, let's get some more questions. Thank you first, well, that's really long, can't get into that. Interesting. What are the essentials and what should be considered secondary?

Well, let's see, Marsha did that one. I have an article on that on KARM, and if you're interested in that, and I'll go through it. If you go to karm.org forward slash doctrine-grid, it should be maybe doctrine-table, I think both of them will get into it. And what I did was, yeah, I called it doctrine-table. And so what I did was I went through the scriptures over the years, as I would study, whenever I would find an essential doctrine stated by the scriptures, I would make note of it. And so after, I think it was two years of that, that I wrote an article, and I called it the doctrine-table.

Oh, excuse me, oh, connection, sorry about that. And what I discovered through this study was two levels of essentials. I call them primary and secondary essentials. So I'll define what those terms are and why I use them that way, and then I'll go through and tell you what I've seen the scripture says are essentials.

Not what I think, but what the scriptures say, and I'll show you. So a primary essential is an essential doctrine that is stated in the scripture as being so because it contains a warning or a consequence or a penalty for denying it. And so I call that a primary essential, and it cannot be denied and you're still a Christian. You cannot deny these openly, knowingly, persistently, and be a Christian.

Secondary essentials are not stated in the scripture as being essential, because they don't have a warning attached to them, but yet they are also foundational to the Christian church, and so I'll get to those. So, for example, one of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith is that Jesus is still both God and man. And Jesus says in John 8.24, he says, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. And in John 8.58, he says, before Abraham was, I am. He's claiming to be God. So if you don't believe he's God in flesh, you'll die in your sins. Number two is that Jesus rose from the dead physically in the same body he died in.

There was a glorified body. And that is out of 1 Corinthians 15.14. If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain.

See the consequences. If he's not risen, you don't really have true faith. So there's an essential component there. The third one is the gospel is a death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus according to the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 15.1-4. And it says in Galatians 1.8 and 9, if we or an angel from heaven should preach to a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. And Paul says that two times.

He repeats himself. So you have to have the true gospel or you're cursed. Number four, there's only one God in all existence. And you go to Exodus 20 verses 3 through 5 for the warning in there.

But Isaiah 43, 10, 44, 6, 44, 8. Also talk about there's only one God, but the warning comes in when God says in the Ten Commandments, he says you shall have the other God before me. And if you don't, you have other gods, then he will visit iniquity and punishment upon you and your generations to come.

So that's an essential, of course. You've got to be born again, John 3.3. You can't go to heaven unless you're born again. So there's a warning.

Unless this is the case, you cannot. You know, I just thought of something. It might be I could also say you can't come to Christ unless it's been granted you from the Father. But people don't know that. That's interesting.

I might say that. But Jesus says unless one's born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven, et cetera. All right. So salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. That's Romans 3, 28, 5, 1, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, Galatians 3, 1 through 2, and Galatians 5, 1 through 4. Because in Galatians 5, 1 through 4, there's a warning. It says if you are seeking to be justified by the law, you've fallen from grace.

You've been severed. And so there's a warning there. And then the seventh one is Jesus is the only way to God the Father because Jesus says I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father but through me. So I debated on is that a primary or a secondary essential, but I think it has enough in there because it says you can't come to the Father unless this is the case. And so it's an essential doctrine of the Christian faith.

So here are some secondary essentials. They're still part of the essential doctrine or the essential corpus of the Christian faith, but they are not stated in Scripture as being essential with a warning associated with denial or lack of affirming or things like that. And so God exists as a trinity, as a secondary essential. God is one being who exists as three simultaneous co-eternal persons. But nothing in Scripture says thou shalt affirm the doctrine of the trinity, et cetera, or else you'll be damned. Nothing says that. But the trinity is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith, but it's not a primary in the sense that it contains a warning and it doesn't.

You could say, well, yes, if you go to Exodus 20, you know, and you could imply the trinity is a primary essential in that sense. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll modify that a little bit and include it.

I don't know. But you see what I'm getting anyway. Okay, and here's another one. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Nothing in the Bible says that thou shalt believe in the virgin birth or else you go to hell. So you really can't, though, without affirming the virgin birth, you can't affirm the dual nature of Christ, let's say, the hypostatic union, because we want to be able to say that he does have that. So it really is an important doctrine.

All right, so this is in the basics of the Christian faith. Well, what about orthopraxy? What I just taught you was orthodoxy, good doctrine, orthodoxy.

And orthopraxy is good practice. So primary essentials, primary non-essentials, and secondary non-essentials, okay? So primary non-essentials that they are necessary for us to have, moral integrity. And if we say we know God and we don't keep his commandments, the truth is not innocent, we're a liar. So we have to do what God wants. You can't go around murdering, committing adultery, you know, et cetera, and be claimed to be Christian. So there's that. There's practice of fidelity in marriage and in heterosexual relationships, the condemnation of homosexuality.

This is all orthopraxy, proper practice. Also believing and affirming the inerrancy of the Bible. Also that baptism is not essential for salvation, because it's not, but I can get into that.

It's a whole other topic. Eternal security I put as a proper doctrine of orthopraxy, but I put a note in there. If salvation is maintained through obedience, then it's outside of biblical orthodoxy, and I could expand on that.

So I do know that there are people who believe you can lose your salvation, who are genuine Christians. I think they're inconsistent, but I left it at that. All right.

So here's some secondary non-essentials. There's a wide variety of opinions on these. For example, predestination, election, limited atonement, doctrines of free will, how that works. That's not for grabs, but there's just a lot of different opinions about that within the body of Christ. Communion every week, monthly, quarterly, when should you have that?

That's debatable too. Should you worship on Saturday or Sunday or any other day? Or how about pre-trib rapture, mid-trib rapture, post-trib rapture?

Well, these are all secondary non-essentials, I should say. You can believe them, but not believe them. You're still in the camp of Christ. Premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism, partial preorism are within orthodoxy.

Continuationism or cessationism of the charismatic gifts. If you hold either position, it doesn't mean you're not a Christian or whatever. Baptism for adults or infants. Now, I believe in infant baptism, but not for salvation.

I believe it's a covenant sign, a manifestation of the Abrahamic covenant, which is still in effect. It's a theological position, but it's not explicitly taught in scripture. So I say that if you believe in infant baptism not for a saving thing, but as a covenantal requirement that you believe is covenantally faithful, that's acceptable. If you say you don't believe in infant baptism because you don't see it in scripture, that's also acceptable. So both of those are within orthodoxy in that realm. And also musical instruments in church are not musical instruments in church.

You don't have to have them, but the Bible does say in Psalms, praise God with the stringed instruments and things like that so we could make a stronger case to have them then than not. But if you don't want to do it, that's okay. There's all kinds of varieties. That is what I developed over a period of two years, roughly before I wrote the initial document, and then modified it over the next few years. So when did I write this? I think I released it. Yeah, it said November 23rd, 2008.

So it's been out there. And also in that same doctrine table, I wrote religious groups that deny some of the essentials. I have them numbered, the number of essentials there, one through seven, as primary, and which groups contradict which ones or deny which ones, like the Christadelphians deny one, three, and six, and Islam, one, two, three, four, and six. Jehovah's Witnesses, one, two, three, six. Mormonism denies, you know, three, four, five, six, which is the gospel. What it is, there's only one God, must be born again.

And salvation by grace alone. So, you know, it's just different things. It was trying to be helpful. And every now and then, every year or two or three, I go through and modify it a little bit and just kind of polish it up. And I can make a course out of this. I could just teach out of it, which would be fun to do.

I love teaching people. So there you go. I hope that question, Marcia, maybe it's Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, I don't know, but I hope that question was answered well enough. There it is right there on that document, Christian doctrine. It's called the doctrine table. And I say it's a proposed table of essential Christian doctrines. And I do recommend you guys study this out there because it will really help you a lot when you want to discern what are the essentials and what you should do about things that are not essentials, things that are the adiaphora. The non-essentials, things are debatable. Vegetarianism, carnivore, that's up to you. Those are debatable, adiaphora.

They're non-essentials. There's a lot of stuff like that in the scriptures. All right, so there you go. We are about out of time, so may the Lord bless you and by his grace, we'll be back on here tomorrow. I have tomorrow night a two-hour interview or something like that. Someone's going to interview me for a couple of hours. And if you guys are answering Adventism, some of the Adventism. So I'll be doing that for a couple of hours, going through some stuff.

But these guys know more about it than I do. They're just asking me other questions, so we'll see. Hey, may the Lord bless you and I hope that by his grace, you'll be back on the air with me tomorrow listening and having a good time. Drive safely, have a great evening, and God bless. Talk to you later. Bye.