Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry found online at karm.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines turn to Matt Slick live.

Francis, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right and welcome to the show. I hope you're having a good day and I just want to say happy birthday to my wife. She's having a nice birthday today and boy she's so lucky to have me. I'm her best present. I am. I might go down and tell her that after the show.

Let's see what she does when I say that. Hey, if you want to give me a call, all you got to do is dial 877-207-2276. Easy peasy. And I want to hear from you. Give me a call. All right, so you can also send me an email. That's easy to do as well.

Just direct an email to info at karm.org, info at karmcarm.org and put in the subject line, radio comment, radio question, one of those and we can get to those. Today's a nice Thursday. Today's Thursday, isn't it?

I believe it is Thursday today. Let's see. Yeah, it is. And we got hit with snow here today in Idaho. I like it. Oh man, I'd love the snow.

I think it's a blessing. I love rain too. I like weather, you know, like when things happen with the weather. You know, I grew up in Southern California and mostly, and I'll tell you the weather there was boring. You know, we had winter on Tuesday and that was it. You know, just good, good weather the whole time. Like man, it's boring.

And my wife says, no, it was. It was great. So anyway, there you go. I want to hear from, like I said, you can talk. Um, and I just want to say thanks to all of you who are supporting us. I've been making calls to the donors and just saying thanks. And I'll continue to do that. And just want to say thank you for all of you who have supported us, who really do appreciate it. That is a great privilege to be able to serve the Lord in the capacity that he's granted for us here in this ministry. And we are grateful for your support that enables us to do that. So, uh, praise God. All right. Hey, let's just jump on the calls.

Let's get to Luciano from Arizona. Hey buddy, welcome back, man. How you doing? Hey man, how's it going? It's going, it's going man. So what do you mean? Happy birthday to, happy birthday to Anik. That's awesome. Yeah, she's, she's, she's made it with all her health things.

Praise God. That's right. Yeah, that's awesome. Um, so my question is, or, so this is what, this is what I want. So I want to be able to debate predestination and total depravity against other positions. I find myself coming across the opportunity a lot and I haven't really went for it yet because I wasn't sure if I'd get stuck on something. So I thought I'd ask you. Well, uh, you're talking to the right guy.

I've only done it a thousand times, uh, since 19, basically 1990 or 91. I started, I adopted full five points in 91, but I was already, uh, lectured predestination way before that. So, um, what you'll need to do, and I can send you information. I have a file on information I can send you if you want.

You send me your email address cause I know you. I will send you a file that I've been working on. I don't know, a hundred pages, 140, might be more, might be less. Uh, on reform theology with notes, comments and the whole bit and, uh, answers, responses and, and stuff like that. So in the meantime, what I would recommend that you do for, and this is for anybody who wants to do a topic study, wants to learn something is you can, cause you have a phone, you can go to Google docs, you can go to office.com, whatever one you want to use. And you develop online an outline form, an outline situation, and it develops as you learn. And so you know how to do outlining.

You're in college. And so this is something I do all the time. In fact, I'm converting my Catholicism outline document to the web for some use later on. And, uh, my outline in Microsoft word is 241 pages. It's a lot of information. So when it's done, it'll, cause there's a lot of repetition I have, it'll be about 200 pages as a printout that I'm going to be putting into one single file in HTML. And it's an outline form.

And the reason I do that is because it becomes very easy. All right, so here's what you do. I'll send you the information. It's already an outline form, but you need to develop something that's based on your thinking, on your way. So I recommend people to get an online document that you can then access from your laptop, your desktop, whatever it is, and your phone. And you can always go in and add something. And it doesn't have to be perfect. You just add something, do it alphabetically. The nice thing about the outline is if you give it a head, uh, the upper level is an H1, a heading one, heading two, heading three. And each time you give a value to something, it indents. And that's, that's all it is. And then you put everything in alphabetical order.

So you might have a topic, election. And then you might, you know, hit enter, tab, it comes over. And now you have a sub-section inside of that. A biblical verses in support of.

Okay? And then you might put a bunch of verses in there. And then you hit tab and, um, shift tab, and it goes back one level. At any rate, and you say, uh, verses people use against election. And then, because you're going to interact with people and you write those down and you, and then you go, you put the verse in. And what I do is I do claim and response.

They claim this, and then the response is this. And so that's what I do. And that's how I've done things. And by me also just talking about it, I've memorized hundreds and hundreds of verses this way. Because of course, you know, I've been doing it a long time.

So, but if you have the file there, and here's another little something you can do. Let's say they have a verse or an issue or something that, that particular, for you in particular, it came up as important. What you do is in that outline, you write a little thing, you say, read this. And you write out something that you would literally read to them.

I've done this many times because sometimes your thought is more complicated and it's difficult to articulate. And I put verses in, I do all this stuff and you'll see, you'll see when I send you that outline that, um, you have my cell number, I think. I know your dad does. Yes, sir. Give me your, uh, don't call me sir, call me Matt. And you can, um, just text me that and, uh, then I'll send it to you.

And you can call me, we can talk and say, look at this, look at this. And one of the other things I do is I put an asterisk around the major topics. Not around, but after the major topics. So you might have, for example, limited atonement. I'll put limited atonement asterisk. That means, cause the word limited atonement might occur 50 times in a document, but I want the main category and I categorize it. I put an asterisk. So I hit control F, limited atonement, asterisk, boom, enter.

I'm at the major area. And, uh, and so this is one of the ways I do this with, I have about 30 outlines I'm working on where I do this technique and, uh, it's very relevant, very helpful. I have them on the Canon. I have it on black, Hebrew, Israelite, biblical apologetics, baptism, annihilationism, interpretation, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, marriage, open theism, philosophy, science. So I have, I have all these categories and all these outlines and, um, I need to do a video. I got to just do a video, just talk through it and say, this is not what I do.

Uh, cause it's very useful. Okay. So that's what you got to do. And now if you want particular verses, you need to really know Ephesians one, four and five, Ephesians chapter one versus four and five and verse 11. Ephesians one, verse four and five and verse 11. And also you need to know Romans eight, 29 and 30. And then I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'll just list some verses off. You write them down.

You go look them up. Okay. Acts 13. All right. Acts 13, 48. All right. First Peter one, three, John one versus 12 and 13.

Okay. Um, Colossians two, 14 is critical. Romans five, 18 and Romans five, 19 are also critical verses.

And I'll just throw some stuff out. You won't even know how they go together, but they do. First Corinthians 15, 22 is very important along with second Corinthians five, 14. These are verses I use all the time.

Uh, first Peter two, 24 that's cross referenced with Colossians two, 14. And, um, so your brain's going to be over, over, over loader with a lot of stuff. I've done this so much that it's like a, an address to me is a vocabulary word. Like the word pentecontemporaneous means at almost the same time.

So I can say to somebody, well, pentecontemporaneously, blah, blah, blah, or the penumbra, which is the gray area between light and dark. And so think of a verse like John three 16 as the word and the definition is for God's love the world that gave his only begotten son, whoever believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. And so you just remember then what I do is I talk in terms of the word, not the definitions. When I do a lot of stuff in my head and when people need to know the verse, I explain the verse.

Like I might say to you, you know, you need to circumambulate a well fenestrated edifice, curtailing your relative, uh, cogitations. And so I can, those are words, right? They have meanings.

I could explain what they all are. So this is, to me, this is exciting stuff because it's how I learn, you know, I'm autistic and I agree. I love the, I love stuff like this.

So, and then you can do other tricks. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. Lately. I've been really getting, uh, fired up about, um, um, Calvinism and all this stuff and just seeing people's different perspectives and opinions on Twitter and stuff. And, um, my, my dad tells me I'm in the cage stage of, of Calvinism. He says everyone goes through it.

He went through it at the, um, in his early twenties. And I just, I want to like, I want to study about this and then like, I know this might not be the best thing, but I want to go punch someone in the face with this stuff. I know that's not exactly good. Yeah. Well, let me give you some other verses then. Okay.

This is stuff you've really got to know. All right. Colossians verse, chapter four, verses five and six. And second Timothy two, 24 and 24, 25, 26, 24, 25 action, because it tells you specifically, it says, conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be seasoned with grace.

So you don't have to respond to each person. And Timothy verse, second Timothy two, 24 says the Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome, but be patient, kind, um, correcting those gently and things like that. For chance God may grant them repentance. So this is our obligation. Truth is not a hammer.

Okay. The love of Christ opens the hearts. And when people will, they'll say, well, I deny election and I say, well, okay, why, why do you do that? And then I'll show them the verses in the Bible where election is taught and it is, and Christians hate God's sovereignty.

They hate God's election because ultimately they want their own. That's what it comes down to. You will be like God knowing good and evil.

You'll be like God deciding what is good and bad. And that's what people do. It's called the Edenic lie. And people today, I'm included where we all do this. We inherited this and the fall of Adam and the transgression of the one through his transgression. The many were made sinners, Romans five 19. So this is just part of our nature to desire sovereignty apart from God.

They don't like the idea of God's sovereignty. You'll also need to learn Romans nine, nine through 23. And I can walk you through Romans nine, nine through 23 and to show you how to use it as a scalpel to pick apart people's theology when they disagree with what God has said. And a lot of times... That was Romans nine, 22, 23? Romans nine, nine through 23, verses nine through 23 of Romans nine. Also, you want to go to Proverbs 16 four. It's just another verse that you need to have in the repertoire. If you have about 15 verses in your head, you can argue all of it.

And I can show you how to argue well enough that you'll be able to counter any of their arguments and point them to the truth of God's word. This is not an issue of winning. It's not the goal.

The goal is to bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ because he's a sovereign king. And he says he lays his life down for the sheep, John 10 11. And he says in John 10 26, you're not my sheep.

What does that mean? Hey, we've got a break. Hold on buddy. Okay. If you want to hang up in the meeting, that's okay. Or we'll just talk to you afterwards. So hold on. Hey folks, there's the music, which means a break's coming up and we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. Welcome back to the show.

Let's see if Luciano is still on. Are you still there, buddy? Yes. All right. Hey, I thought of another verse.

Oh, you got to get to know second Thessalonians 2 13 second Thessalonians 2 13. You guys show people. I set them up a lot. I set people up.

Well, they don't know that I'm doing that. And, uh, you know, I'll say things like, uh, you know, I believe that God chose us from the beginning for salvation. That's what I believe. God did that choosing. And, uh, and they say, no, he never did that.

No, no, he wouldn't do that. I said, yeah, second Thessalonians 2 13, but we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification. Yeah, that, that's a great, that's, that's awesome.

Yeah. So it's another thing I'll do is I said, I believe God makes all things, even the wicked for the day of destruction. And I'll say, he does not. I said, that's Proverbs 16 four. So a lot of times I'll quote the verse as if it's my opinion, because it, what the verse says is my opinion.

That's what I'm going to go with it. Oh, man, I can't tell you how many times. Oh yeah, I've trapped so many people that way. And it's not a trap to, to, to make them look bad because if you say something ahead of time, this works with not just reformed theology, but it just works with apologetics or defending the faith. If you say something that they don't know the source of, and you say it like it's your opinion, and then they believe the source. That's where you can get them to see a lot of times people just, they will reject, Oh, that's reformed.

Forget it. And this happens a lot too. I'll be talking to somebody on quote verses and they'll say, Oh, you're just pushing Calvinism. And I say, wait a minute.

If I quote a verse and you say this Calvinism, are you saying Calvinism is biblical? Exactly. That's awesome. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And here I got, I can talk about this.

I talk about this a lot. Let me tell you, there's two religions in the world, Christianity and all the others. Within Christianity, there's two groups. Those who want their own sovereignty and those who want God's sovereignty.

And if you think in those terms, you'll know where people fit. Now it doesn't mean they're malicious. It doesn't mean that they're evil. It doesn't mean that they're wicked. It means they've been taught in their churches.

They've been taught half truths. And they follow the blonde haired, blue eyed Caucasian surfer Jesus who's dressed in a woman's nightgown. And he's standing at the door of your heart asking permission for you and your wisdom to let him in. Oh, there's so much I could talk about. And I talk about this a lot online. So, you know, I do.

I talk about this a lot. So, yeah. Last quick little question. Would you say the majority of Christians oppose election?

Or is that not true? I don't know. I don't know if a majority oppose or don't.

Because the reason I can't answer the question is because I haven't done a survey, which I'd like to do a survey to see. But because wherever I go, not to sound boastful or anything, but I'm a public figure. I go into rooms.

Hey, you're Matt Slick. And then they come out of the woodwork and they want to tackle me. So what I experience most is those who are against election when I'm having that discussion. Because those are the ones who are going to come out. They want a piece of me. They want to destroy Reformed theology. And, you know, they'll say, you know, God from the world, you know, John 3.16, God from the world, whoever. You see, Matt, whoever. And John 3.16, whoever believes.

It proves Calvinism is false. And I'll say, it doesn't say whoever. It says all the believing one.

Pashapastuon in Greek. All the believing one. It doesn't say whoever. That's the word hos, and it's not there. And then I ask them, what does the word world mean?

What means every individual ever lived? How do you know? I start asking diagnostic questions. And so people get irritated with me sometimes. I try not to be irritating. I try to be just careful and loving on them.

Because I remember, I used to believe as they did in these things, and it was difficult to make the jump, to realize there is a God. You are not him. He's the Sovereign King. Submit to him. That's hard. That's hard for us. Because we're taught that, for example, oh, this gets me.

I talked about it yesterday. We're taught in churches that the sacrifice of Christ makes forgiveness of sins possible. The propitiatory sacrifice of Christ then becomes activated by what you do in your wisdom and your decision, and you apply it to yourself by faith. That's a heresy, and it's taught in most churches. It's a false teaching. Absolutely false. It doesn't mean they're not saved, but it's a false teaching.

I teach people. That's what scripture teaches. At any rate, I can't help it. You touched on one of the topics I love discussing. So there you go.

Well, I love hearing about it, Matt. Thank you so much for the time, and I'll call back soon next week. Sure. Call back, and you can text me. I'll text me your email, and I'll forward you that file, all right, on Reformed theology.

Sounds great. Oh, it's good. Oh, it's good. All right, buddy. All right, man.

God bless. Yes, Matt. Okay. All right, that's Luciano. I know him. He's a good kid, and I know his dad and everything down in Arizona. Great, great family.

Great family. Let's get to Scott from Spokane, Washington. Scott, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how are you doing, buddy? Can you hear me?

Yes, I can, man. How you doing? I'm doing good. I was going to say, it's great to talk to you. It's been a little while, huh? Yeah, that's right.

It is. So what's up? What do you got, man? So I had two quick and slick questions for you.

Nice. The first one is quite simply, you know, in the crazy Catholic system, who does the Pope confess his sins to? Another priest. He does a confession. Really? Yeah, he does an other priest, yeah.

Because they have... In the old booth? Well, I don't know if it's a special arrangement, but he has to go to a priest. Yeah. Okay. That's what happens. Well, that's quick enough. The second one is... Tell me if my way of thinking is correct.

Probably not. I assume because, you know, sin brought death into the world, including sickness, disease, all decay, right? Right. So am I correct in thinking that the Lord Jesus never got sick? Yes, that's correct. Okay, yeah.

I would think so. Yeah, because sickness, illness, death are the results of sin, nature upon us. Now, let me kind of clarify a little bit more, though. Most probably, I'll say this, most probably he never got sick.

However, so let's talk about this. He would not have gotten sick as a relationship of himself to the sinful situation around him in the world. There would never have been anything within, I should say this more specifically. There's no sin nature in Christ, so therefore there's nothing of himself and or consequences of himself that would be deleterious, that would lead to hidden harmful effects, fever, sickness, et cetera. The question I really can't answer is what about someone around him?

Because he was and still is human. What if somebody made a mistake and threw a board into a pile and the board hit a rock and the board flipped up and hit Jesus in the thigh and hurt him? Is that possible? I'm not sure. Is it possible that there could be an infectious germ that could affect him externally? And that's the question I think the answer is possible.

Yeah, because he's fully human, but he didn't have a sin nature, but he's fully human, so I think he could have, now that I'm thinking about it out loud, I think he could have got sick. But I can't say for sure. Hold on now, we've got a break, okay? Hey folks, be right back after these messages, please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Everybody, welcome back to the show.

And if you want to give me a call, all you've got to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get back on with Scott. Scott, are you still there? Yes, sir. Okay. All right, well, did I answer the questions enough? Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.

I appreciate it. I just had one more question, I guess, just off the top of my head. When are you going to do a next debate? I've got nothing scheduled, and I'm glad. So we're holding off, and it's really fortuitous, because I really don't want to do any more right now. I've got too many things on my plate, and I am prepping for an online conference on Eastern Orthodoxy.

I'll be teaching on sacerdotal salvation and the priesthood. So you're making noise back there, buddy, making noise. And so I've got nothing going on. And when we do have another debate, the person is going to have to sign an agreement. We're going to work this out, because I'm tired of people not sticking to the debate topic.

I'm tired of them being obstreperous and stuff like this. Like that last debate I had with that guy, he was all over the map, and he essentially broke his word. So, yeah, okay. Can you tell me a little bit about this online conference? Yeah, it's just with Ministry to Muslims, and they do a lot of stuff, and it's ministrytomuslims.com, I believe it is. George Saik, he speaks Arabic. He knows Islam very well.

I was down last year in Southern California speaking at his conference, and there were others there. And he invites me periodically to go speak at these conferences, which I'm always intimidated at, because I know Islam enough, but this guy, the people he has, they've forgotten more about Islam since lunch today than I've ever learned, that kind of thing. And so I have to tackle it from different directions. I do more theologically, biblical-theological analysis and stuff like that, and so I pick up the pace that way.

That's what I'm doing. But anyway, they're going to have a conference on Eastern Orthodoxy. But one of the things we want to do at CARM pretty soon is start having our own online seminars where we have a lot of people. We're going to have stuff going on, things like this, and regular weekly interviews and stuff.

So we've got some stuff we're working on too. So is this conference open to anybody who wants to go? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if it's going to cost or not cost. I always tell George, hey, just invite me. I'll do whatever you need. I'll help you out, because he's a great guy.

He's a humble man. So I don't know. But go to ministrytomuslims.com and see what's there. See if it's not released yet, okay? Last, last, last, for real last question. Do you know, have you hired the new guy that you planned to hire prior? I was going to let people know in a few days, but yes. We know who it is, and we already made a decision.

But it's not official official, it's just official. And so I actually talked to a person today, got a couple more questions to get out, and then we're going to, yeah, we've already got this person going, okay? Okay, congratulations.

I'll talk to you soon. All right, buddy. I appreciate it, man. God bless. All right.

All right. A lot of stuff going on. Hey, let's get to Pete from Florida.

Pete, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, how you doing, Matt? Oh, I'm hanging in there, man. Got a lot going on.

Okay, what's up? All right, so I'm going to try to phrase this question the best I could. It's basically about me, so I know that I'm safe.

Okay. The question is, is that what I'm having an issue with is feeling that the Holy Spirit is within me, because I really don't exemplify a lot of the fruits of the Spirit. And what I mean by that is, yes, I have love, you know, for my family, you know. I do have joy at times.

It seems like the more these fruits of the Spirit is more like feelings. You know, I do have peace. I definitely don't have patience. You know, kindness. You know, yeah, I really don't. I don't really like people all the time is what I'm figuring.

And it's the older I get, I'm only 40. I'm feeling like I'm really I don't like people. And so I don't know. I don't know. Can you help me with this?

Can you help me with this question? I'm liking you. We get along. It's like, you know, you know, I gotcha.

You know, I'm laughing not at you, but with you. I understand. Okay, so now let's first things first. Okay, we're talking about Galatians 522. Just so you know, it's not fruits plural. The Greek is singular. It's the fruit. The one fruit.

Because in the Greek it's Karpas, masculine, nominative, singular. It is just one thing. The one fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fruit, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law. Okay, now let's imagine a tree. So you go out and you plant a tree in your backyard. Say it's a, I don't know, it's an apple tree or whatever. Orange, I like oranges better than apples. Orange tree, okay.

And here's a question. Will the tree produce all the fruit right away? No. Nope. Doesn't it take time for that fruit to manifest?

Yep. Doesn't that tree need to be pruned and worked with sometime and watered? And then it starts producing fruit and you start seeing, you know, I don't want to press the analogy so far. You start seeing, hey, look, those little things are growing.

I mean, those are going to be oranges. And it's not like they all start at one time and then exactly three months later all of them drop to the ground in the same second. Done. Okay. It's not how it works.

Gotcha. Because the fruit manifests at different times. They grow at different rates. There's different fruit, different oranges on this tree that are going to grow better than others. You think of yourself as that tree. Think of yourself as a tree. The fruit is there because you're rooted in Christ. But some of those fruit for some reason on one side of the tree go better than the other.

Or that fruit on that one branch next to the, that's a big one, and this one's not so good. It's just how it is. And that's how you are.

All right. You've got some strengths and you've got some weaknesses. The thing is, man, you're aware of them. And what you need to do is say, Lord, I think people are horrible. I don't like them.

Could you tell me or teach me how to love them? No, you don't want to be. You've got to be careful when you ask that because he's going to say, okay, here you go. And what he does.

Oh, man, he's going to bring me a bunch of crazy folks. That's right. That's right. And that's how it works. And so if you ask, be ready for the answer. Because what God does is he just flashes in my mind. Back in Southern California, 20 some odd years ago, I prayed and I said, Lord, reveal to me my sinfulness so I know the areas to repent of.

And this went on for six months. I kept praying it until I was at a gas, not a gas station, but I was looking at the Arco gas station, Escondido, California, getting ready to turn left at the left turn light when I prayed. And I said, Lord, I'm done with that prayer. With respect, my holy Lord, I just don't have prayer anymore. It's too hard.

It's too rough on me. And he had shown me. And, you know, I'm a sinner.

When you ask, Lord, teach me how to love people. Oh, my goodness, you're asking for trouble. You are asking for trouble.

You are. And he will strip you. He'll break you. He'll put you in a corner. And he's going to say, but you ask for this.

You know, don't complain to me. And sometimes what you'll be doing, you'll be sitting there going, man, I have to love that person. I have to be patient with that person.

Are you kidding? I don't have to be patient with that person. And then you might hear the voice of God sometimes say, do you want to take your agreement back, your request? No, I don't.

Okay, here we go. Because that's what he does. He'll prune you so that the fruit of that tree that you are rooted in Christ, nourished by the word and the light of his truth, you will bear fruit for his glory. Always keep that in mind. It's for his glory that you are what you are. You're saved for his glory.

Isaiah 43 verse 7. And this is why you have to say, Lord, teach me how to be more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, more kind, even if it really, really hurts me. And it's very difficult.

Please do it anyway so I can bring glory to you and you can use this broken, filthy vessel in your hands. That's what you've got to do. And then get ready.

It's like walk outside, you kind of wince at the light. Okay, oh, I'm safe. Okay, what are you going to do?

And you'd be surprised how he'll work on you. That's what you've got to do, buddy. All right? That makes sense? I appreciate it. It does. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

I appreciate it. Yeah, I know, because I've done it. Lord, make me more like this or more like that and he puts you in situations where you're stretched and when you blow it and you're going to. I'm not accusing you.

I'm just saying this is how it works. You're going to mess up. And when you do, you go to that cross over and over and over again and glorify him in that. All right, brother? Awesome.

Thanks, Matt. I appreciate you. All right, man, God bless.

Let me know how it goes. You call me back in a month. And if you're crying, I'll know it's going well. Okay, good. All right? Sounds good. All right, brother. God bless.

All right. Hey, folks, be right back after these messages. It's Matt Slick live.

Taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick. Listen to Matt Slick live.

He's networking out really nicely. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276. Let's get to Mark from Connecticut.

I believe that's Connecticut. Welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt. How are you today? Hanging in there.

Hanging in there. Okay. All right.

I got a question on textural criticism and how it relates to Bible versions. Okay. Okay. What about it? Well, if you could define textural criticism first.

Oh, textural criticism is the process of studying and comparing different manuscripts, usually of ancient manuscripts, to determine which ones are the originals and which are copies of the originals to the best of their ability. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's great. All right. Thank you.

That's it? Well, I had a couple of other questions. Let me think. Sure. One was four-point Calvinist is a certain name for that, isn't it?

Yes. Four-pointers are known as Amoraldians, and they're the ones who denied limited atonement. Amoraldianism is, they agree to tulip except limited atonement.

They still say that Jesus died more or less than everybody ever lived. All right. Do you think that fits in scripturally?

I know you believe in limited, but would that fit in? Is that scriptural, I guess, for some people that would like Dallas Seminary is four-point? Well, you know, you know, I am, I'm a Calvinist. Okay. And I don't, I'm not ashamed of that at all. But, you know, I don't put that up there.

It's not the way the truth and the life Jesus is. And if I meet someone who's an Amoraldian, okay, I'm not going to tackle them. What I know sometimes we'll do, we'll say, Hey, you look, look, if, if you'd like to go through that last one, let me know sometime I can bring you some points of maybe it'll consider. Maybe you won't if you want. Great. If not, that's okay. And that's the attitude I have with people if they want to affirm it or not.

You can go to seminaries, you go to different places, you can learn. And generally speaking, it should be that the conversations are, are tolerable and equitable and people are, are fair to each other and loving and patient. That's what needs to happen. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Matt. You have a great night.

You too, man. Well, God bless. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Bye bye. Okay. All right.

Well, we don't have any callers waiting on it. Sometimes what I'd like to do is just either go to the emails and, or continue with the last topic spoken of, and this textual, excuse me, textual criticism issue. Why don't we just talk about that a little bit and I'll explain some things that are really interesting.

But if you do want to give me a call, we have wide open lines, 877-207-2276. All right. So textual criticism is, is basically, it's like a science and there's different kinds of science. Some people say you need microscopes and experiments and well, yeah, but, uh, the idea of looking at ancient manuscripts. So the, the new Testament, for example, has roughly 5,800 Greek manuscripts, roughly 6,000. There's, it goes up and down over the years. I remember when it was like 4,000, then it was 5,000.

Now it's closer to six. And what this means is that when the writers of the Bible would write a book, you know, like John would write the Gospel of John, for example. Well, he'd write it. And a lot of you don't know is that the letters in Greek, the new Testament is written in ancient Greek. The letters in ancient Greek are also numbers so that when you write a letter, you're also writing a number. And the reason this is significant is because it means then that when they're copying, they can add up the letters, which are also numbers, and they can do a check to make sure that the copy is original, uh, is equal to the original by adding up all the numbers and columns and things like this and rows. That's what they do.

All right. So there are copyist variations, and it can happen for different reasons. A scribe could be tired. He could just skip a letter like the word ha, which is the word the.

It's a letter O with a little breath breathing comma over it. And so it's not a big deal, but that could flake off in a manuscript and someone copying a later manuscript would not see it because it flaked off because these documents get old sometimes and you copy without the definite article, the ha, the word the. And so these kinds of things happen. And over the years, uh, the manuscripts would be distributed geographically. So they would be, uh, uh, hold on.

Oh, that, okay. So I'm trying to do something. So, um, so here we, so anyway, something came up. So what they would do is the scholars, what they'll do, they get these manuscripts that are copied that might have a little error that, and they get it from different geographical places. And what they'll do is they compare them and there's really interesting methodologies that they have to compare them. They can use microscopes to look at the fiber of the document that it's written on, the pen strokes, uh, they can look at the type of ink. They can look at varying things. They can do tests on segments of the paper to see its age.

And so they can really date these things pretty well. And also a lot of these manuscripts are placed in pots and pots are like fingerprints in history of time, uh, uh, or time and location. So I have right behind me a goblet, uh, that was produced. It's a wine goblet.

It's meant to, to be in a person's hand. And that goblet is from 330 BC, plus or minus 10 years, Southern Italy. And they know that because of the style. And so the people who know pottery, ancient pottery are experts about this. Well, if you have a pot that has a manuscript in it, they can really determine pretty accurately where and when these things were written. And then they can make, they can do a tree where they relate them to each other and which manuscripts copy from what. They do all this stuff. It gets really complicated. And these experts love this stuff and they're good at it. And they can tell you all kinds of stuff. And so what they'll do is they will work to rebuild the original. And they, I think the accuracy estimate of the, to the originals is now 99.8% accurate.

That's what it's rebuilding. It's incredible. Okay, let's get to, uh, Jim from Ohio. Jim, welcome. You are on the air. Uh, yes. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. I, um, I would just like your comments on, um, I heard a Bible teacher talking about, um, about women pastors and women in leadership positions. He was explaining that, um, God does not do that because the woman is the glory of man, whereas the man is the glory of God. It takes the glory of God upon the man to deal with the pressures and the satanic forces that come against the pastor or someone in leadership. And that's just not the woman's calling. She's not equipped to fulfill that calling.

I just like to get to that. That's not good logic. Yeah. His conclusion's correct, but his logic is faulty. Uh, it's not for the glory of man. That's not the biblical reason given why women are not to be pastors and elders because they're not to be pastors and elders or deacons or bishops. They're not too biblically.

Okay. And Paul gives the reason 1 Timothy 2, 12, uh, and 13, he says, but I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet for it was Adam who was first created and then Eve. It has to do with the created order and it's called primogeniture. What this means is that the firstborn male in a family has certain rights that the rest of them don't.

The rest of the siblings and children don't. So you get double portion, double authority and things like that. And Adam is the firstborn male, primogeniture.

He's a first man. So it's the created order of God. That's why women are not to be in that position of authority. Furthermore, in the created order, Adam is one who named all the animals, signifying his authority over them.

And he named Eve signifying his authority over her. He's not better than her. That's not how it works, but it's that they're just different and have different roles.

And the role of the woman is not to be a pastor, uh, an elder or a deacon or a bishop sort of in scripture that can go into that a lot more. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Um, all right. Yeah. Thanks, man.

Thank you. So when, just so you know, when churches do have women pastors and elders, they are violating scripture. And personally, I recommend anybody in a situation like that in a church where they start having women pastors and elders, get a woman to get up to preach, just leave the church. Just don't go because they're disobeying scripture. Because when I read you in first Timothy two, 12 and 13, the very next verse or very next chapter, Paul says, in case I'm delayed, I write so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. That's what he's giving instruction for.

And he says that the, uh, that, uh, the overseer, which is in the Greek is a Piscopas, which is, we get the word Bishop. He must be a husband of one wife. And in Titus chapter one, uh, Paul says the elder must be a husband of one wife.

There's just no way you can get a woman out of this. Okay. And I can get into more details about what the reason is under the Trinity and things like that and hierarchical, uh, work and, uh, temporal priorities and not get into some complicated stuff, but women are not to be pastors and elders. Okay. And if the church has them, they're violating scripture.

And you made a comment there a while back, and I've actually had seen this as true myself that, that every denomination that has appointed women as pastors within about a 20 year period ends up being like in a backslidden condition. Right. Yeah.

My research is 80%, 80% within two generations started adopting homosexuality and they'll adopt other liberal things, other liberal views because they're not being faithful to God's word. People say it's a minor issue, but it's not. Sorry, go ahead. Right.

That's the first step to dwindling further away from the truth. Amen. Okay. Well, hey, thanks, Matt. Appreciate you taking my call. You're welcome.

Thank you for the program. Amen. Thank you. God bless. All right. Thanks.

See you later. Sure. All right. So this is not male chauvinism.

It's not the, you know, the patriarchy, all the stupidity that's, that's in our culture. It has to do with the created order. Now let me explain something really quickly.

I've got about a minute. The Trinity is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son. The Son came to do the will of the Father. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit. There's a hierarchical structure within the doctrine of the Trinity as is revealed.

The Father begets, the Son is begotten. So Jesus has sent and yet he's God in flesh, second person of the Trinity. It does not mean because he was under authority of the Father and being under the law, Galatians 4, 4, it does not mean that he is inferior to the Father. Positionally, there's differences. And that's the case with us, with women in the church. Positionally, they're different.

It's not their position, not the authority position that they have. It deals with the nature of the created order and primogeniture, the Adamic creation order that God himself instituted. And Paul referred to in 1 Timothy 2, 12 and 13 in the pastoral epistles. This is what the Bible teaches. And if you go to a church that has women pastors and elders, I'd recommend you leave.

That's my recommendation. Okay, go to a church that would be biblical. All right, there's the music. I'm out of time. May the Lord bless you by his grace. We'll be back on there tomorrow. And, oh Lord, well, we'll talk to you then. So I hope you have a great evening, everyone. God bless. God bless. Another program powered by the Truth Network.