SPEAKER_1: Welcome to the At Any Cost Podcast.
SPEAKER_1: I am Corey J.
SPEAKER_1: Mahler.
SPEAKER_1: This is the fourth episode of 2025.
SPEAKER_1: Also, incidentally, the fourth Q&A episode.
SPEAKER_1: There will eventually be episodes of another kind, hence the numbering scheme.
SPEAKER_1: Sorry about the slight delay there.
SPEAKER_1: Apparently, OBS is not currently cooperating with Rumble very well.
SPEAKER_1: And when I went to activate Rumble output, it crashed the app.
SPEAKER_1: So I got to restart and reconfigure everything.
SPEAKER_1: Kick output is also not working for some reason.
SPEAKER_1: I'll look into some sort of re-streaming service instead of the plug-in, since the plug-in seems to be not entirely reliable at this point.
SPEAKER_1: But everything is live, and it looks like it's all working on X, YouTube, and Twitch.
SPEAKER_1: So hopefully, you can listen on one of those platforms.
SPEAKER_1: Shouldn't be any audio issues.
SPEAKER_1: I reconfigured my entire audio pipeline for this, so everything should be working now.
SPEAKER_1: Hopefully, there are no problems.
SPEAKER_1: And so, I may as well just get right into the questions, because I have a number of them, and I don't know if I will get through all of them tonight.
SPEAKER_1: But hopefully, that will be the case.
SPEAKER_1: So, the first question is about Proverbs 15, specifically verse 27a, which is not in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_1: You will notice if you are reading from the Masoretic text, but it is in your Bibles if you are reading, as you should be, from the Septuagint.
SPEAKER_1: As Protestants, how should we interpret Proverbs 15, 27 in the Septuagint?
SPEAKER_1: By acts of mercy and faithfulness, sins are cleansed, and by the fear of the Lord, everyone turns from evil.
SPEAKER_1: And that is citing to the lexem.
SPEAKER_1: And he says mainly because of the first half of this passage.
SPEAKER_1: And so, let me go ahead and pull up that scripture passage, if I can get Logos to cooperate with me here.
SPEAKER_1: Logos is great when it decides to work.
SPEAKER_1: There we go.
SPEAKER_1: For some reason, it did not want to open up this window, so I will swap this over to the left-hand side for us.
SPEAKER_1: And open up Proverbs 15.
SPEAKER_1: So obviously, the question here is 27a, 27b, however you want to number that.
SPEAKER_1: That, again, verse number is not actually a part of scripture, so that's not really relevant.
SPEAKER_1: But for 27a here, as it's numbered in the nets, which is the version that I'm using here.
SPEAKER_1: By acts of mercy and by faithfulness, sins are purged, but by the fear of the Lord, everyone turns away from evil.
SPEAKER_1: And so the question, of course, is how is that compatible with Sola Fide, by faith alone, really is the underlying question there.
SPEAKER_1: And this is the same question that has been raised by Roman Catholics and others, in objection to what Lutherans and other Protestants teach.
SPEAKER_1: Usually not based on this, because usually they're using the Masoretic text.
SPEAKER_1: Usually that is instead James, and so let me pull that up as well.
SPEAKER_1: That is going to be James, actually we'll start in James 1, and let me see, verse 22.
SPEAKER_1: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
SPEAKER_1: For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
SPEAKER_1: For he looks at himself, and goes away, and at once forgets what he was like.
SPEAKER_1: But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be a blessing in his doing.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, this is simply pointing out what, you know, I have the Stone Quire Challenge coin.
SPEAKER_1: I have a few of them sitting on my desk here.
SPEAKER_1: This one's unfortunately numbered.
SPEAKER_1: This is 666, which is why it's still on my desk, because I didn't really feel like giving that one to anyone, so I'll just pick up this one instead.
SPEAKER_1: You know, a good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit.
SPEAKER_1: A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
SPEAKER_1: That's what's being taught here.
SPEAKER_1: If you have a living faith, your faith is necessarily going to produce good fruits.
SPEAKER_1: If you have a dead faith, then it's not going to produce any good fruits.
SPEAKER_1: It's going to produce nothing, in fact, because it's dead.
SPEAKER_1: Dead trees don't produce anything.
SPEAKER_1: And so the question here, and what is taught here, of course, and I'll go back over to Proverbs here, but by the fear of the Lord, everyone turns away from evil.
SPEAKER_1: That's a necessary part of the interpretation here, because it is the fear of the Lord that enables you to do these acts of mercy and this faithfulness by which sins are purged.
SPEAKER_1: And so it's a living faith producing good works.
SPEAKER_1: If you don't have the fear of the Lord, which is what faith is, of course, that's one of the things produced by a living faith, is the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: So if you don't have that fear of the Lord, then you can't actually commit, you can't do any good works, because it's not a matter of the works themselves being good in themselves, because there are things that are good in themselves, right?
SPEAKER_1: So taking care of your children, loving your wife, tilling the soil, whatever it happens to be, many good things that you can do in this life that don't require faith, but they are not counted to you as good works if you do not do them in faith.
SPEAKER_1: Because even the good works of those who are not in Christ are not per se good, because they are not counted to that person unless he is in Christ, because otherwise he is simply a sinner, and everything he does is sin.
SPEAKER_1: And so, this isn't incompatible with what Protestants teach, and I'll read another passage from James, because I know that there's a Roman Catholic and probably someone else shouting at his screen somewhere, because I didn't read the passage of James that he expects me to read, wants me to read, which is fine, I'll read it.
SPEAKER_1: It's James 2, starting with verse 18.
SPEAKER_1: But someone will say, You have faith and I have works.
SPEAKER_1: Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
SPEAKER_1: You believe that God is one and you do well.
SPEAKER_1: Even the demons believe and shudder.
SPEAKER_1: Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?
SPEAKER_1: Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?
SPEAKER_1: You see that faith was active along with his works.
SPEAKER_1: And faith was completed by his works.
SPEAKER_1: And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God.
SPEAKER_1: You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
SPEAKER_1: And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way.
SPEAKER_1: For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
SPEAKER_1: Again, if you read everything that's actually said here, and don't focus on the little snippet there that I don't even need to repeat because we all know which one.
SPEAKER_1: If you focus on what is actually said here in context, it's very clear that you have to have faith, but a living faith that produces good works.
SPEAKER_1: The issue here is whether or not you are a true believer.
SPEAKER_1: The person who simply pays lip service to Christian faith, to Christ, and says, I believe in Jesus, and then never does any of the things that a true Christian would do, you can tell that he doesn't have a living faith because it's not producing fruit.
SPEAKER_1: It's a dead tree.
SPEAKER_1: It's not producing the good fruit, which is good works.
SPEAKER_1: And so there's nothing incompatible there.
SPEAKER_1: It's the same teaching we see in James, just in the Old Testament, and conveniently, for whatever reason, the rabbis decided to remove that in their version.
SPEAKER_1: So there's nothing incompatible with Christian theology, with Protestant theology, in this case.
SPEAKER_1: And this has been treated a number of times, but very clearly, the baseline, the foundational matter is that a true and living faith will produce good works.
SPEAKER_1: And so, you cannot be justified by a dead faith, because a dead faith doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_1: It has to be a living faith.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is a slightly different topic, a little technical in a different way this time.
SPEAKER_1: Let me pull that up here.
SPEAKER_1: What are the illicit therapy modalities for Christians?
SPEAKER_1: This is, of course, talking about psychology.
SPEAKER_1: In a previous Stone Quire episode, I recall you endorsing cognitive behavioral therapy.
SPEAKER_1: Are there any other therapy modalities that you value?
SPEAKER_1: I am specifically curious what your thoughts are on internal family systems, and whether its premises are compatible with Christian orthodoxy.
SPEAKER_1: This one is maybe a little in the weeds for some people, but it's useful, it's a very relevant thing in our modern world, certainly.
SPEAKER_1: And so when it comes to psychology and the different therapy modalities, you're going to have a handful of different ones that are the main ones.
SPEAKER_1: There are some minor ones as well, but you have psychodynamics, also called psychoanalysis, more typically psychoanalysis, I think is the one of which people are more aware.
SPEAKER_1: Cognitive behavioral, as mentioned, the existential or humanist school, the FST, which is the one that is sort of the point of this question.
SPEAKER_1: Then you have the somatic theories, which basically focus almost entirely on biology.
SPEAKER_1: And then there are a few other minor ones, like I said, so coherence theory and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: But insofar as all of these theories are concerned, none of them are without issue for Christians, but all of them have some value.
SPEAKER_1: I am definitely going to say that some are more valuable than others.
SPEAKER_1: Certainly, I'm going to say cognitive behavioral is the best school, not simply because I believe it is the most compatible with Christianity, which I do believe that it is.
SPEAKER_1: I do also think, incidentally, that psychodynamic psychoanalysis can be compatible with Christianity, although not so much in the Freudian sense and not following Freud, a little more following Jung, but specifically purged of his esoteric and just very weird elements, Gnosticism, things like that.
SPEAKER_1: But insofar as these schools are concerned, if you don't just buy into them wholesale, which there's no reason you have to do that, you can take the good and leave the bad, then there will be utility in all of them, but some more than others.
SPEAKER_1: And so, just to run through again very quickly, obviously for psychoanalysis, you have the problems inherent in Freud, everyone is kind of aware of those, just stay away from Freud, he was a weird Jew.
SPEAKER_1: And so, Jung was a better psychologist anyway, better psychiatrist, more intelligent man, but one of the fruits of that particular school would be the Myers-Briggs, which would be the personality typing, and we're all familiar with that, as that has come up a number of times on X, in Stone Choir, elsewhere.
SPEAKER_1: I'm an int J, we all know that.
SPEAKER_1: So, that is Jung purged of the esoteric and gnostic elements and boiled down to something that actually has a great deal of utility.
SPEAKER_1: I would say that after probably IQ, the personality typing is probably the most useful thing that has been produced by psychology, at least in the last, you know, 80 years, give or take, maybe more than that.
SPEAKER_1: For cognitive behavioral, the problem would be that it tends to lean into being a little too materialistic, but that's not inherent in those theories, so you can simply ignore the fact that many of those who practice it are materialists, are atheists.
SPEAKER_1: You can integrate cognitive behavioral therapy into a Christian worldview with no problem, because cognitive behavioral therapy does not rely upon, it does not even assume a materialist worldview.
SPEAKER_1: It assumes the reality of the flesh, which, as Christians, we should do, because the alternative is Gnosticism.
SPEAKER_1: So I don't think there's any conflict, any inherent problem there.
SPEAKER_1: Then you have the existentialist or humanist school, whichever term you want to use for that.
SPEAKER_1: The problem there is that it views man as essentially good, which, as we know as Christians, man is not essentially good, because man is fallen, man is flawed because of original sin.
SPEAKER_1: And so you're going to have to work that into how you use those theories if you go with those schools.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know how much those are worth necessarily.
SPEAKER_1: Some of them maybe have some utility.
SPEAKER_1: I am not familiar with some of the more recent developments.
SPEAKER_1: I have not spent a great deal of time reading psychological literature in the last, say, five, 10 years.
SPEAKER_1: So it's been a while, but I am familiar with all of the groundwork, the history of it, all those things, and I do read papers every so often to stay up to date on it.
SPEAKER_1: So there may be some more modern theories in some of these schools, of which I am not aware, that may have more utility and may be more compatible with Christianity, but this is sort of the historical overview, the 30,000 foot view, as it were.
SPEAKER_1: I already said the somatic theories have the problem of being a little too hard line when it comes to materialism and biology.
SPEAKER_1: They tend to focus on that to the exclusion of the fact that man is more than his body.
SPEAKER_1: Man is his body.
SPEAKER_1: You are your body.
SPEAKER_1: You don't have a body.
SPEAKER_1: You are your body.
SPEAKER_1: But you also are spirit and mind.
SPEAKER_1: You're not just your body.
SPEAKER_1: And so, that's sort of the problem that the somatic theories tend to have.
SPEAKER_1: So, insofar as the FST theories are concerned, I don't think that they're necessarily useless, but I would be very careful with regard specifically to the fact that some of them lean a little heavily into dividing up man's psyche into these different parts, they will say, which verge on being different personalities.
SPEAKER_1: And obviously, the last thing you want to do is train someone to have MPD, which I think is what you can kind of run the risk of doing with FST.
SPEAKER_1: So, the overall answer is just that, yes, they have utility, but be aware of the deficiencies and calculate those into how you use them in whatever it is that you happen to be doing.
SPEAKER_1: If you're a trained therapist, whatever it is, jettison the parts that aren't compatible with Christianity and use the parts that are, there's nothing wrong with doing that.
SPEAKER_1: You are perfectly allowed, it is perfectly acceptable, to take the good and leave the bad.
SPEAKER_1: The next question, again, shifting gears a little bit, is about Anabaptists in Paraguay.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, for those who are not familiar with the history, at one point during the 1800s, I don't remember exactly when, but you had a number of German immigrants, there's going to be two different waves here, and I think he's talking about the second, not the first.
SPEAKER_1: You had two waves of German immigrants who moved to Paraguay, what is now Paraguay.
SPEAKER_1: And the first group moved to the department that is known as San Pedro, San Pedro, as it would be pronounced.
SPEAKER_1: I lived in Southern California, where there was a San Pedro, and yes, it was pronounced like that, despite being a Spanish name.
SPEAKER_1: And that would be the Nueva Germania, was what they were setting up there.
SPEAKER_1: And then the second wave moved to the department of Bucaron.
SPEAKER_1: And I think he's probably talking about that one, because that's where most of the Mennonites went, which would be the Anabaptists.
SPEAKER_1: And so insofar as that is concerned, you have a population in Paraguay of seven million-ish.
SPEAKER_1: And you have 400, 500,000 of the German-descended Anabaptists, which a lot of people don't know that that population exists, but it does.
SPEAKER_1: And so his question, after that little bit of context, I am from the Anabaptist group that left Prussia.
SPEAKER_1: We are in Paraguay nowadays.
SPEAKER_1: Sadly, most of our groups still hold to Anabaptists and pacifist teaching.
SPEAKER_1: Working to change that, given the fact that we separated from Protestants and ultimately from the Germans for unbiblical reasons, which is true, would you say it is our moral duty to repent and seek to reunite?
SPEAKER_1: Some of our people say, God has put us here to do good in Paraguay, but we don't know what to make of that argument.
SPEAKER_1: And so I think that I do agree with sort of the argument there at the end.
SPEAKER_1: I think that you are where God has put you, and yes, there's always the fact where you can look at historically, have our ancestors done things that were wicked.
SPEAKER_1: That's true for all of us, of course.
SPEAKER_1: Some more so than others, certainly not all of us are descended from those who murdered Christ, for instance, thank God.
SPEAKER_1: But insofar as where you are, do good works where you are for your people.
SPEAKER_1: Like I said, there are four to 500,000 German descended Christians in Paraguay.
SPEAKER_1: That's a sizable community.
SPEAKER_1: That's not an insignificant number of people.
SPEAKER_1: And so yes, you're going to have some challenges in maintaining your culture and your ethnicity, your nationality, your racial characteristics living there, surrounded by this larger culture of millions.
SPEAKER_1: But at the same time, it's not a trivial number, so that can be done.
SPEAKER_1: And so maintain your customs, maintain your history.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, amend the theological errors, which pacifism obviously is false.
SPEAKER_1: Christianity has never been a pacifist religion.
SPEAKER_1: Christ is often spoken of as wielding a sword in scripture.
SPEAKER_1: He comes back on a warhorse wielding a sword.
SPEAKER_1: So not a pacifist religion.
SPEAKER_1: Insofar as obviously baptism and things like that, it's the same problem that many Christian groups have with regard to theology.
SPEAKER_1: And I'll get into that in a later question in this episode, I believe, with regard to the churches of Christ.
SPEAKER_1: That's what it was.
SPEAKER_1: But yes, work on the theological and doctrinal problems.
SPEAKER_1: But I think that where you are is where you should continue to live.
SPEAKER_1: You have a community there.
SPEAKER_1: It has fairly deep roots at this point.
SPEAKER_1: Many of the Germans who live in the United States have been here since the early 1800s.
SPEAKER_1: And so you've been there roughly as long as a lot of the German population has been here.
SPEAKER_1: Incidentally, my family has been here longer, but a lot of Germans came over in the 1800s.
SPEAKER_1: So you have your community there.
SPEAKER_1: You have your people there.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that you have to move back to Germany or move to the United States and integrate into a Germanic community.
SPEAKER_1: You have that there.
SPEAKER_1: Do the best that you can with what God has given you and where God has placed you.
SPEAKER_1: And if circumstances were to change in the future, then, sure, you may have to move somewhere else in the world, but I don't think that Paraguay has many of those problems right now, so you're probably in a pretty good position overall relative to a lot of other Christian groups in the world, particularly Germanic Christian groups in the world.
SPEAKER_1: So no, I think stay there and do the best you can.
SPEAKER_1: Be a good Christian there, do well for your people.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is a question about the development of the modern Jewish population, and I won't get too far off into the weeds with regard to DNA and all those things because I just don't want to do that, and also I don't have all of the setup right now to show all the charts and everything, and that's not really why we're here.
SPEAKER_1: But to read the question, I don't think the Stone Quire episode on the Jews explained this the best to me, or maybe I didn't pay attention, enough attention, but can you explain how we got from the Israelites slash Hebrews in the Old Testament to the Jews we have today?
SPEAKER_1: I know that the Israelites were wiped out of existence by the Assyrians, and the kingdom of Judah was deported, but how did we get from Judeans to Pharisees to the Jews we know and love, in quotes, today?
SPEAKER_1: Can you also explain the Khazars and whether or not today's Jews have anything to do with that theory?
SPEAKER_1: And so, with regard to the Jews, the history that he has there is correct.
SPEAKER_1: You have the Assyrian exile, which was the destruction of the Northern Kingdom.
SPEAKER_1: The Northern Kingdom is the kingdom that was called Israel.
SPEAKER_1: When you are distinguishing between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, Judah is the Southern Kingdom.
SPEAKER_1: You can look at a map of modern-day, so-called, Israel, and see that Jerusalem is in the South.
SPEAKER_1: Jerusalem, part of Judah, Southern Kingdom.
SPEAKER_1: The Babylonian exile did not destroy Judah.
SPEAKER_1: Now, it did not do anything good for Judah, certainly, and that's sort of where they started firming up their Talmud.
SPEAKER_1: So, historically, that has been beneficial to basically no one.
SPEAKER_1: But the Babylonians did not destroy them as a people.
SPEAKER_1: The Babylonians deported many of them to Babylon, some stayed in Judah, but then many of them returned later on.
SPEAKER_1: And then what you have, and why we have them now in Europe and everywhere else in the world, is they migrated out of Judea during the time of the Roman Empire, and then also subsequent to the destruction of Judea by the Romans, because the Romans did not kill them all.
SPEAKER_1: The Romans didn't destroy them all.
SPEAKER_1: Many of them escaped, granted, a huge chunk of the population did not, as judgment from God, but they had already spread out in the diaspora before Rome destroyed them.
SPEAKER_1: And so, they spread from there.
SPEAKER_1: But to answer the question about the Khazar theory, the Khazars, some of them, we know, converted to Judaism, at least some of the upper echelons of their society.
SPEAKER_1: We don't have evidence of a wholesale conversion.
SPEAKER_1: We don't have evidence of a mass integration of them into the Jewish population.
SPEAKER_1: And we don't have evidence of a mass migration of them.
SPEAKER_1: And so, theories that depend on those claims don't have sufficient warrant.
SPEAKER_1: But more importantly than that, perhaps, is the fact that we do have the hard evidence of DNA.
SPEAKER_1: And so, if you look at, for instance, the Y DNA, which say the male DNA of Jews, the male sex chromosome, they are Middle Eastern and Southern European.
SPEAKER_1: There's some overlap there with Southern Europeans, not Northern Europeans, not the Khazars, but some Southern Europeans.
SPEAKER_1: Because, of course, they migrated during what time?
SPEAKER_1: The height of the Roman Empire, and so Italy, Southern Europe.
SPEAKER_1: And so, the groups for Y DNA would be J1, J2, E1, B1B.
SPEAKER_1: And additionally, you can look at the mitochondrial DNA, which, of course, is the maternal DNA.
SPEAKER_1: That's also Middle Eastern and Southern European.
SPEAKER_1: And so, the Khazar theory just doesn't pan out from the evidence that we have.
SPEAKER_1: They are related to the populations from that part of the world, from Judea, from ancient Israel, but they have some admixture from Southern Europe and a couple other places as well, in many cases.
SPEAKER_1: They are miscegenated.
SPEAKER_1: That is a curse from God, that is a judgment on them.
SPEAKER_1: That is one of the ways in which God has cursed them.
SPEAKER_1: But they are very much related to the ancient people.
SPEAKER_1: And if you look at the Old Testament, they behave in the same way.
SPEAKER_1: They're doing the same thing today that they did in the desert while they were wandering, that they did while God was blessing them in the promised land that they have done again and again and again.
SPEAKER_1: Despite the number of prophets that God has sent to them, despite how many times God has punished them and then relented, they are very deeply cursed and they've always behaved this way.
SPEAKER_1: So, particularly the theories that try to say that Europeans are the real Jews, completely laughable.
SPEAKER_1: We don't behave like that.
SPEAKER_1: Look at our ancestors and how they behave versus how the Jews in the Old Testament behave.
SPEAKER_1: I don't want to be related to those people.
SPEAKER_1: Why would anyone want to be related to them?
SPEAKER_1: It's complete nonsense.
SPEAKER_1: The evidence just doesn't pan out.
SPEAKER_1: So, hopefully, that answers your question about the Jews and how we wound up with them.
SPEAKER_1: Just basic migration under the Roman Empire and then diaspora, also partly subsequent to the Babylonian exile and partly after the destruction of Judea.
SPEAKER_1: And unfortunately, Christian princes in Europe were wicked enough, stupid enough, but wicked enough to permit them to settle in their lands for a number of different reasons.
SPEAKER_1: The next question is about Zechariah, but before I do that, I'm going to have a sip of tea here.
SPEAKER_1: The problem of not having a co-host when you're doing a solo podcast is you can't just have someone else talk for five minutes.
SPEAKER_1: Try not to get tea in my mustache there.
SPEAKER_1: So the next question, Zechariah 14 and Isaiah 65.
SPEAKER_1: Let me read the question here.
SPEAKER_1: Where or how does Zechariah 14 fit into an all millennial view verses 16 through 19 in particular, and what of Isaiah 65, 16 through 25?
SPEAKER_1: So again, I will pull up Logos for this.
SPEAKER_1: Since that will.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that I will read all of Zechariah 14.
SPEAKER_1: Well, I'll read some of it.
SPEAKER_1: We'll see.
SPEAKER_1: Maybe I'll wind up reading the whole thing.
SPEAKER_1: It's not that long.
SPEAKER_1: I read far more every day when recording the devotions and such.
SPEAKER_1: Behold, days of the Lord are coming, and your spoils shall be divided in you, and I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem for battle, and the city shall be taken, and the house is looted, and the women defiled, and half the city shall go into captivity.
SPEAKER_1: But the rest of my people shall not be utterly destroyed from the city, and the Lord will go forth and draw up in battle order against those nations like a day of his marshalling in a day of battle.
SPEAKER_1: And on that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split, half of it to the east, and half of it to the sea, an exceedingly great chasm, and half of the mount shall incline northward, and half of it southward, and the valley of my mountains shall be blocked up, and the valley of the mountains shall be joined up to Jassel, some of the names in the nets are a little weird every so often, and it shall be blocked up as it was blocked in the days of the earthquake, in the days of King Ozias of Judah, and the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
SPEAKER_1: On that day there shall be no light, nor cold weather, nor frost.
SPEAKER_1: It shall be for one day, and that day is known to the Lord, and not a day, and not a night, and at evening time there shall be light.
SPEAKER_1: And on that day living water shall come forth from Jerusalem, half of it into the first sea, and half of it into the last sea.
SPEAKER_1: Even in summer and spring it will be so.
SPEAKER_1: And the Lord will become king over all the earth.
SPEAKER_1: On that day the Lord will be one, and his name one.
SPEAKER_1: One shall go around the whole land by way of the wilderness, from Gabe unto Ramon south of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_1: Going to skip a little bit here.
SPEAKER_1: And it shall be on that day a great panic from the Lord shall be upon them, and each will seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will be joined to the hand of his neighbor.
SPEAKER_1: And Judah will fight at Jerusalem, and shall collect the strength of all the peoples round about, gold and silver and apparel in great abundance.
SPEAKER_1: And this shall be the overthrow of the horses, and the mules and the camels and the donkeys, and all the animals that are in those camps, according to the Calamity.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, it goes on in the same way, talking about Egypt and a few other things.
SPEAKER_1: And the Canaanites shall no longer be in the house of the Lord Almighty on that day.
SPEAKER_1: I encourage you, of course, to go and read that entire thing for yourself, particularly from the Septuagint, because of course, the Septuagint is better.
SPEAKER_1: It is the Word of God, and so it is the one we should be using.
SPEAKER_1: Insofar as, I'll leave the scripture up for now, because I'm also going to read that section from Isaiah, insofar as these sorts of passages are concerned, and there are many of these passages in scripture, it is important to bear in mind that typically, when you are dealing with these passages, they're dealing with the eschaton.
SPEAKER_1: They're not dealing specifically with any particular battle in ancient times, any particular fight against ancient Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_1: This isn't ancient Jerusalem here.
SPEAKER_1: Now, of course, there are times, and to some degree, in typologically, at least symbolically, this is one of those.
SPEAKER_1: There are times where you have a cyclical fulfillment of prophecy.
SPEAKER_1: And so you'll have one fulfillment in ancient Israel, and you'll have it looking forward to the eschaton, and that's the true fulfillment.
SPEAKER_1: You have the type and the antitype there.
SPEAKER_1: That's the sort of relationship.
SPEAKER_1: This is dealing with the new Jerusalem, with the Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven, the true Jerusalem, the city of God.
SPEAKER_1: And one of the ways that you can tell that is that if this were some sort of future battle, as many of those in the Dispensationalist Camper are of course going to try to claim, why on earth do we have horses and donkeys and camels in a modern battle?
SPEAKER_1: No one uses those.
SPEAKER_1: No one is going to use those.
SPEAKER_1: If you had a major battle like this is portraying here, you would not have a bunch of animals in your camp these days.
SPEAKER_1: This is not going to happen, because that's just not how modern wars are waged.
SPEAKER_1: Now, I'm not saying that occasionally the Arabs don't try to strap a rocket launcher onto a camel.
SPEAKER_1: Those sorts of things happen.
SPEAKER_1: But that's not what this is speaking about.
SPEAKER_1: And clearly we can see here that this is again eschatological.
SPEAKER_1: This is talking about the future.
SPEAKER_1: This is talking about what will happen with regard to basically the serpent, Satan, and all of his armies, all of those who follow him, waging war against the saints, waging war against the city of God, the true Jerusalem, and of course, God triumphs.
SPEAKER_1: But one of the ways we can look at this is, let me pull up another passage here.
SPEAKER_1: One of the related passages is, of course, Revelation, is it Revelation 21?
SPEAKER_1: Is it 21, I believe?
SPEAKER_1: So, yeah, starting with verse 10, not actually nine.
SPEAKER_1: And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.
SPEAKER_1: Its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal.
SPEAKER_1: This is the Jerusalem of which the Old Testament is speaking.
SPEAKER_1: When you see these passages about massive end times battles and God coming down to fight for his people and a restoration, and one of the other ways that you can see this is many times in these passages, dealing with eschatological battles and the last day is that it will speak of the last day.
SPEAKER_1: It will speak of the day of the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: That's what this is.
SPEAKER_1: Behold, days of the Lord are coming.
SPEAKER_1: And another way you can look at this and recognize when scripture is doing this is that it speaks of the consequences of God doing this in terms of all of his people turning to him, everyone having his word in their hearts, everyone believing.
SPEAKER_1: That's never going to happen in this life on this earth.
SPEAKER_1: That is the next life.
SPEAKER_1: That is the new earth.
SPEAKER_1: That is when the holy city Jerusalem, the true Jerusalem, not the one over in Palestine.
SPEAKER_1: That one is irrelevant.
SPEAKER_1: When the true city of God comes down to earth, which that's speaking of the renewal of all things.
SPEAKER_1: So, if you pay attention to these terms that are used, you can start to notice when something is eschatological, when something is typological, dealing with the new heavens and the new earth, not dealing with ancient Israel.
SPEAKER_1: Even if, again, you may have that cyclical fulfillment in some cases, where you had a fulfillment for Old Testament Israel, and then you had the true fulfillment in the future for Christians.
SPEAKER_1: And so, I'll pull up the...
SPEAKER_1: Is that Isaiah 65 here?
SPEAKER_1: Yes.
SPEAKER_1: Pull up the verse here in Isaiah as well, starting with verse 16.
SPEAKER_1: Actually, I'll start with 15.
SPEAKER_1: 15 is the beginning of the thought there.
SPEAKER_1: For you shall leave your name for fullness to my chosen ones, but the Lord will do away with you.
SPEAKER_1: But to those who are subject to him, a new name shall be called, which shall be blessed on the earth.
SPEAKER_1: For they shall bless the true God, and those who swear on the earth shall swear by the true God.
SPEAKER_1: For they shall forget their first affliction, and it shall not come up into their heart.
SPEAKER_1: For heaven will be new, and the earth will be new, and they shall not remember the former things, nor shall they come upon their heart.
SPEAKER_1: But they shall find joy and gladness in it.
SPEAKER_1: Because, look, I am making Jerusalem as gladness, and my people as a joy.
SPEAKER_1: And I will be glad over Jerusalem, and rejoice over my people.
SPEAKER_1: And no more shall a voice of weeping be heard in it, nor a voice of crying.
SPEAKER_1: And there shall not be there one who dies untimely, or an old person who will not fulfill his time.
SPEAKER_1: For the young person will be a hundred years old, and the one who dies a sinner will be a hundred years old and accursed.
SPEAKER_1: And they shall build houses, and themselves shall inhabit them.
SPEAKER_1: And they shall plant vineyards, and themselves shall eat their fruit.
SPEAKER_1: And they shall not build, and others inhabit.
SPEAKER_1: And they shall not plant, and others eat.
SPEAKER_1: For according to the days of the tree of life, shall the days of my people be.
SPEAKER_1: They shall make old, and the works of their labors.
SPEAKER_1: And my chosen ones shall not labor in vain, nor bear children for a curse, because they are an offspring blessed by God.
SPEAKER_1: And it shall be that before they have cried out, I will listen to them.
SPEAKER_1: While they are yet speaking, I will say, what is it?
SPEAKER_1: Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, and a lion shall eat straw like an ox, but a snake shall eat earth as bread.
SPEAKER_1: They shall not do wrong or destroy, on my holy mountain, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_1: And so the very sort of things that I said there, you can see taking place in this particular passage.
SPEAKER_1: For heaven will be new, and the earth will be new.
SPEAKER_1: This is the renewal of all things.
SPEAKER_1: I wish that Lagos would not pop up that interstitial menu, but it does.
SPEAKER_1: So you see the renewal of all things here, and you can also see it when it speaks about, the lion shall eat straw like an ox.
SPEAKER_1: This is not something that happens in this life.
SPEAKER_1: It doesn't happen on this earth.
SPEAKER_1: That is the renewal of all things.
SPEAKER_1: That is what is being spoken of here in this passage.
SPEAKER_1: So the next question was actually one that I said in a previous episode that I would answer because I had not looked into it recently, and I wanted to make sure that I remembered correctly.
SPEAKER_1: This is dealing with the churches of Christ, and what I think of that denomination.
SPEAKER_1: Now, is it better than many?
SPEAKER_1: I think I could start off by saying that yes, it probably is better than a lot of current denominations these days.
SPEAKER_1: It is going to depend, as is true for almost every denomination these days, in part on your particular congregation, because some congregations are certainly going to be better than others.
SPEAKER_1: So what are the distinctives of the churches of Christ?
SPEAKER_1: May as well run through those so people have some idea.
SPEAKER_1: They are restorationist.
SPEAKER_1: They believe that the New Testament is the only rule of faith and practice, and that end practice part is important.
SPEAKER_1: They do seem to minimize the Old Testament in a way that is not permissible for Christians.
SPEAKER_1: That is a problem they have, because the New Testament is more important than the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_1: There's nothing wrong with saying that certain parts of Scripture are more important than others.
SPEAKER_1: That is certainly true.
SPEAKER_1: And God himself treats some parts of Scripture as more important than others.
SPEAKER_1: You can think about how many times God cites to certain books in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_1: Another thing that they do is they reject creeds, and you can make that an uppercase C or not, because it's true in both cases.
SPEAKER_1: It's not that they reject the content of the creeds, but they reject the creeds as being binding on Christians.
SPEAKER_1: I would, of course, disagree with that as a traditional Protestant, and so would any other traditional Protestant, because at least we can all agree that the apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian creeds are binding on Christians.
SPEAKER_1: And the reason they're binding is not because they're creeds, it's because they are statements that are completely, entirely categorically consonant with scripture.
SPEAKER_1: They are taken from scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And I published before, as part of the Stone Choir Notes, various people have gone through and footnoted the creeds to show where they reference scripture and what they teach, and how it is directly from scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And so, I would disagree that the creeds are not binding because I would say the creeds are binding because they are a restatement of scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And so, insofar as scripture is binding, they're binding.
SPEAKER_1: In the Lutheran context, the way that we would usually speak about this, and we usually speak about it with regard to the Book of Concord, the three ecumenical creeds are the first thing in the Book of Concord other than the introduction.
SPEAKER_1: And so, we would speak of it in terms of, you have the Norma Normans and the Norma Normata, which is just Latin for Norma Normans, the Norming Norm, and the Norma Normata, the Normed Norm, which just means Scripture and the Confessions.
SPEAKER_1: But it means it in a specific way, because Scripture is the norm that norms all other norms.
SPEAKER_1: And after a while, yes, the word norm starts to sound like it makes no sense, but Scripture is the standard by which everything else must be judged, and everything else must be consonant with Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: Everything else must be conformed to Scripture, or normed by Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And so we hold to the Confessions, because the Confessions are the normed norm, and they are normed according to the norm, Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And so we don't hold to the Confessions because they're the Confessions.
SPEAKER_1: We hold to the Confessions because they are a true statement of what is in Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And so, insofar as they disagree with creeds, I'm obviously going to disagree with them.
SPEAKER_1: Moving on and back to the Churches of Christ, they're Congregationalist in polity.
SPEAKER_1: I don't personally prefer a Congregationalist polity.
SPEAKER_1: I think that these days, it's very beneficial, because if you are part of a body that is going off the rails or has already done so, your congregation can just leave because you own your property, most likely.
SPEAKER_1: And so, the supervising body, whatever it happens to be, synod, corporate, whatever you call it, can't tell you, no, you can't leave because we own your building.
SPEAKER_1: That's a problem the Roman Catholics have.
SPEAKER_1: And of course, they have other problems as well, theologically with doing that, because they can't really leave.
SPEAKER_1: But as a Lutheran, for instance, there's nothing preventing a Lutheran Church from leaving the LCMS.
SPEAKER_1: They can do that.
SPEAKER_1: And so, having the Congregationalist polity is beneficial in a practical way.
SPEAKER_1: I just don't agree with it necessarily that it is the best way, because it lacks that hierarchy that I do believe has some benefits.
SPEAKER_1: It just has to be held in check, and constantly checked against the Word of God.
SPEAKER_1: Insofar as their view of the New Testament is concerned, many of them would hold, perhaps not all, because there's some...
SPEAKER_1: It's an umbrella.
SPEAKER_1: There are differences within the Churches of Christ, but many of them will hold that if the New Testament doesn't explicitly authorize it, then you can't do it.
SPEAKER_1: This is one of the things against which we fought in Stone Choir and elsewhere.
SPEAKER_1: There are truths that are not contained in Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: We all know that.
SPEAKER_1: I'm sitting here looking at my cup of tea.
SPEAKER_1: There's caffeine in this.
SPEAKER_1: Scripture doesn't say anywhere that there's caffeine in this.
SPEAKER_1: Scripture doesn't say anywhere that I can drink tea.
SPEAKER_1: I'm allowed to drink tea.
SPEAKER_1: Tea tastes good.
SPEAKER_1: This is a truth that's not contained in Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: Now, the question is, is there any truth about the Christian faith that's not contained in Scripture?
SPEAKER_1: Again, I would say yes, because I think there is truth that is accessible to human reason via philosophy, for instance.
SPEAKER_1: Is everything you need to be saved contained in the pages of Scripture?
SPEAKER_1: Absolutely yes.
SPEAKER_1: You can be saved believing nothing except what is in Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: Of course, we could get technical in there.
SPEAKER_1: We could get technical here and say, well, you have to have a language in order to read Scripture, and that's extraneous, that's external to Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: Sure, that's true.
SPEAKER_1: But insofar as you can understand Scripture, Scripture contains everything you need to be saved.
SPEAKER_1: But not all truths are in Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: And similarly, there are practices in which Christians are permitted to engage that are not contained in the pages of Scripture.
SPEAKER_1: The organ is not in Scripture because it had not been invented yet.
SPEAKER_1: The piano is not in Scripture because it had not been invented yet.
SPEAKER_1: There are stringed instruments.
SPEAKER_1: Those are particularly noted in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_1: They literally have places in the Psalms where it says musical interlude.
SPEAKER_1: And so music has always been a part of Christian worship from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_1: The Book of Psalms is a book of songs that have musical accompaniment.
SPEAKER_1: And so this is part of how God ordained for humanity to worship.
SPEAKER_1: God's also the one who made music.
SPEAKER_1: Music doesn't just exist for some reason.
SPEAKER_1: God created it.
SPEAKER_1: It's not just some outgrowth of the natural world.
SPEAKER_1: God wanted it to exist.
SPEAKER_1: It is part of how we worship him.
SPEAKER_1: Continuing on down the list, I would disagree with their view on baptism, of course, as a Lutheran, as a traditional Protestant, because I believe in infant baptism, so called.
SPEAKER_1: I spoke about that recently in the homily for a couple of weeks ago.
SPEAKER_1: Infant baptism is a misnomer because there's no such thing as infant baptism.
SPEAKER_1: There's just baptism.
SPEAKER_1: The way that I highlighted it in that homily was, I said, is there any such thing as German baptism?
SPEAKER_1: Well, no.
SPEAKER_1: American baptism?
SPEAKER_1: No.
SPEAKER_1: Baptism for men?
SPEAKER_1: No.
SPEAKER_1: Baptism for women?
SPEAKER_1: No.
SPEAKER_1: Because it's just baptism.
SPEAKER_1: Because it's God's work, not man's work.
SPEAKER_1: And so, infant baptism is not a thing, it's just the baptism of an infant.
SPEAKER_1: And so, insofar as they don't do that, I would disagree.
SPEAKER_1: And they also are mostly, I believe, pretty staunch on saying that you have to be immersed in the water.
SPEAKER_1: I don't hold to that because it's just the water and the word.
SPEAKER_1: The means insofar as the amount of water is not the key point.
SPEAKER_1: Do I think it's better to have immersion?
SPEAKER_1: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_1: Although obviously, modulo, I don't think that dunking an infant three times is necessarily something we should be doing.
SPEAKER_1: But if you are an adult convert, I think that the symbolism is important enough to warrant having enough water to submers the person in the water.
SPEAKER_1: I think that that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that it's necessary.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that it's a point of faith or anything like that.
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that God commands it.
SPEAKER_1: But I do think that it is better because, again, the symbolism is important.
SPEAKER_1: You are dying and being resurrected, and you have that symbolism if you go under the water.
SPEAKER_1: I was baptized by immersion, by submersion.
SPEAKER_1: You don't have that symbolism if it's a fusion or aspersion, which is to say pouring or sprinkling.
SPEAKER_1: To continue on with the rest of my commentary on the Churches of Christ, they reject the real presence, obviously, he's a Lutheran, I'm not going to agree with that.
SPEAKER_1: They don't hold that the sacraments are sacraments.
SPEAKER_1: They just hold them to be...
SPEAKER_1: They're kind of halfway between those who believe they're purely symbolic and those who believe that they are sacraments, and so they're a little gray area on that.
SPEAKER_1: When I was looking at some of the churches, it seems like some of them have fallen to letting women teach, which is obviously...
SPEAKER_1: You can't do that, that's not Christian.
SPEAKER_1: If you ever walk into a church and there's a woman preaching, turn around and leave.
SPEAKER_1: Do not stay.
SPEAKER_1: It's not a church, it's a brothel.
SPEAKER_1: Do not stay.
SPEAKER_1: They don't have a liturgy and again, I already mentioned, many of them do not have instruments.
SPEAKER_1: God's worship has always been liturgical.
SPEAKER_1: Look at the way that God instituted his worship in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_1: When they asked him for a prayer, he didn't say do whatever feels right in the moment.
SPEAKER_1: He gave them a liturgical prayer, a formulaic prayer.
SPEAKER_1: God likes order.
SPEAKER_1: And so, I think that that's just part of how human beings are supposed to worship God.
SPEAKER_1: And that is not something that this particular denomination does.
SPEAKER_1: Again, I don't think that they're necessarily as bad off as some denominations, some traditions.
SPEAKER_1: Some of them might be good.
SPEAKER_1: You might find a good congregation.
SPEAKER_1: And if you are in a good congregation in the churches of Christ under that umbrella, then try to nudge them in the direction of being more faithful.
SPEAKER_1: You don't have to leave immediately just because they get some things wrong doctrinally and theologically.
SPEAKER_1: If that were the standard, then no one would have a church, because there is no church that lacks all doctrinal and theological problems.
SPEAKER_1: That's just not the reality of the situation which we find ourselves these days.
SPEAKER_1: Every church has problems.
SPEAKER_1: The last of the questions that I have prepared as it were, not my answers, but that I have written down here at least from people who submitted them on the forum, and I didn't do the housekeeping beforehand, but if you do have questions, please submit them on the forum.
SPEAKER_1: I will repeat that at the end of this episode as well, and add the link and such.
SPEAKER_1: A question regarding Nick Fuentes.
SPEAKER_1: I understand some criticism regarding Marxist infiltration methods, Catholic faith, etc., but hasn't he been instrumental in shifting the Overton window in political discourse and bringing awareness to the Jewish question?
SPEAKER_1: I don't think that he has necessarily been instrumental.
SPEAKER_1: I won't go so far as to say that he hasn't done anything beneficial with regard to the Jewish question, because I think that would be over sailing my warrants there.
SPEAKER_1: I think it would be just…
SPEAKER_1: I would be going too far.
SPEAKER_1: I'm going to take my headphones off.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know why I left them on.
SPEAKER_1: I don't really need them.
SPEAKER_1: But insofar as the Jewish question is concerned, I don't think that he has been the one who has been instrumental in spreading that, because this is a sort of view that you wind up with for those who have sort of a shorter window, a shorter viewpoint with regard to these matters.
SPEAKER_1: You have men who have been working at this for decades.
SPEAKER_1: And just because you have someone who is now in a position of prominence, who is spreading those views, does not mean he is the one who did the lion's share of the work.
SPEAKER_1: Now, I said that he has done some beneficial things, which certainly he has on this front, because he has found himself in a position where he has been able to spread that to a certain demographic subset, and that has been beneficial, because there are some young men who watch him.
SPEAKER_1: And certainly that is good, because they've heard that now, and if they take it and run with it, and they find men who understand the question better, quite frankly, and get better arguments for why they believe those things, then that's beneficial, certainly.
SPEAKER_1: And insofar as he has contributed to that, he has contributed something worthwhile.
SPEAKER_1: But the problem that I have, I have a number of problems here, but one of the big problems is that he acts as guardrails for what is and is not acceptable to discuss within the minds of these young men.
SPEAKER_1: And so, the men who are listening to him are going to have set up these artificial constraints within their own mind, subsequent to what he has told them, and then they will not be willing to go outside of those.
SPEAKER_1: And some of his comments have very clearly been drawing back on that leash, because you've seen recent comments saying things like, I don't care what color you are, as long as you want to make America great, as long as you're America first.
SPEAKER_1: That's fundamentally not nationalism.
SPEAKER_1: It's fundamentally certainly not Christian nationalism, because a nation is a race.
SPEAKER_1: That's what nation means.
SPEAKER_1: You cannot have colorblind nationalism.
SPEAKER_1: It's not a thing, because a nation is the thing that is supported by nationalism, and a nation is a race.
SPEAKER_1: And so if someone is trying to channel you down into the belief of basically civic nationalism, well, that's a contradiction in terms.
SPEAKER_1: There's no such thing as civic nationalism.
SPEAKER_1: That's a cult.
SPEAKER_1: That's the cult of the Constitution, and that is not nationalism.
SPEAKER_1: It's not Christianity.
SPEAKER_1: It is incompatible with what we actually want to build, what we need to build, and what God demands of us.
SPEAKER_1: And so, that's globalism, inherently.
SPEAKER_1: That is one of the key problems that I have with Huentas and the things that he has been selling.
SPEAKER_1: Now, there are other problems as well.
SPEAKER_1: I can look at his associates and his behavior in the past, and these are not the sort of things you should see from a Christian man.
SPEAKER_1: I can certainly say that I have not spent my time hanging out with a Sodomite Jew.
SPEAKER_1: He can't say that.
SPEAKER_1: That's a very real problem.
SPEAKER_1: And I just think there is a lack of insight, a lack of discernment on the part of those who listen to him uncritically, at least.
SPEAKER_1: I'm not going to go all the way out and say that you can't ever listen to someone who's wrong on stuff if you find him entertaining, because then you would never have any podcasts or TV shows or anything, and I don't think that it's bad 100% to watch and enjoy some of that stuff.
SPEAKER_1: Be cautious, because of course, anything you're letting in to your mind is going to influence you, and so have some discretion there, have some discernment.
SPEAKER_1: Exercise your Christian gifts insofar as you've been given them, and if you haven't, then listen to men who have.
SPEAKER_1: But I do not think that he is going to be an overall positive force going forward.
SPEAKER_1: I think that he has sort of run his course with regard to the potential positive influence on the movement, and I think that his entire role going forward is a de-radicalization agent.
SPEAKER_1: But in a form that is extremely effective, because it looks like he's radicalizing young men, when he is really keeping them from becoming what they need to be, he's placing a ceiling, he's placing a cap.
SPEAKER_1: And I've gone into why I think that's the case.
SPEAKER_1: Previously, I pointed out that, yes, I do believe he is an FBI asset.
SPEAKER_1: I don't know when exactly that happened.
SPEAKER_1: But certainly, subsequent to January 6th, he is an asset.
SPEAKER_1: And I think he was before that as well.
SPEAKER_1: You can look at the Bitcoin transfers, you can look at the associations, there is a mountain of evidence there.
SPEAKER_1: And that is my firm opinion on the matter.
SPEAKER_1: That's my legal opinion as well as my personal opinion, as I've said before.
SPEAKER_1: And so that's basically my stance on the matter, and the answer specifically to the question about the JQ.
SPEAKER_1: And that is basically the end of the questions that I had prepared, but I will quickly look through and see if I can find any questions that were submitted in chat.
SPEAKER_1: Chat is not working perfectly here in OBS, but we'll try.
SPEAKER_1: Where do we send questions?
SPEAKER_1: I answered that one already, but I'll also add a link as well.
SPEAKER_1: It is to...
SPEAKER_1: Here, let me see if I've got that in my history here.
SPEAKER_1: It is on Omnifora.
SPEAKER_1: It's just a discourse, not discord.
SPEAKER_1: You should not be using discord.
SPEAKER_1: Discord is very bad.
SPEAKER_1: It's run by communists who will very gladly dox you and destroy your life if they have any opportunity.
SPEAKER_1: Here, I'll paste the link into...
SPEAKER_1: Well, I will try to paste the link into chat, but it's not working.
SPEAKER_1: So, technology.
SPEAKER_1: There we go.
SPEAKER_1: It is a discourse forum, and the reason for that is that I like to have the history of my answers along with the questions so that people can point other men to those, and I don't have to constantly re-answer them or re-type out or copy and paste, whatever it happens to be.
SPEAKER_1: It's nice to have the archive.
SPEAKER_1: And it also helps to control spam and all of the other problems that are inherent with, not just being on the internet, but the number of people who are less than fond of me.
SPEAKER_1: That's the reason that I've set it up that way.
SPEAKER_1: So if you submit the questions on there, I will definitely get to those.
SPEAKER_1: I will always go to those first, because that's sort of the way that I want this to work, because it's more orderly.
SPEAKER_1: I will try to have it so that the questions I answer are in the show notes, in the thread, that way people can go and click and look at the question, and then look at my answer.
SPEAKER_1: And hopefully, eventually, there will be time stamps and all that as well.
SPEAKER_1: It makes it easier for people to find these things, instead of sitting through however long my answer was.
SPEAKER_1: But at the same time, there's also a transcript.
SPEAKER_1: The transcripts for all the previous episodes are up, and so it's very nice and searchable.
SPEAKER_1: Discourse has a very good search facility, very easy to find things.
SPEAKER_1: Corey, I'm not sure if you read this, but I believe the sons of Ham represent North Africans slash Egyptians and Lebanese type peoples, not Sub-Saharan Africans.
SPEAKER_1: If you look at the genetic studies, you can look and see that there are essentially, at this point, a little more than three, but there are, if you trace it back far enough, three large groups of human beings.
SPEAKER_1: Everyone else is an admixture of those or descended from them.
SPEAKER_1: So you have the Europeans, you have the Asiatic peoples, and you have the Africans.
SPEAKER_1: So insofar as North Africa is concerned, you do have an admixture there, because there's an admixture of, most likely, all three groups, all three sons of Noah, Japheth, Shem, and Ham, because many of them stayed in the Near East for a period of time.
SPEAKER_1: It seems like more of the sons of Japheth left more quickly and moved to the Northwest, moved into what is Europe, instead of staying in the Near East.
SPEAKER_1: But you had people who stayed in the Near East, mixed a little bit to some degree, depending on the groups, and then spread out through the Mediterranean along the coast.
SPEAKER_1: Insofar as the North Africans are concerned, they are genetically distinct from the Sub-Saharans, certainly.
SPEAKER_1: So they split off earlier and they stayed separated.
SPEAKER_1: Not surprising, because there's a Sahara desert there, that developed at some point in the past, because at one point, it was a forest, then it became a desert.
SPEAKER_1: That was God walling off the Sub-Saharans to keep them away from everyone else.
SPEAKER_1: And then we foolishly decided to take them from there and spread them all over the world.
SPEAKER_1: We could argue about the Jewish involvement at another time, but we're all aware of who owned the slave ships and things like that.
SPEAKER_1: But that doesn't excuse the Europeans who participated, not because slavery is per se evil, but because spreading the sons of ham all over the world was deeply unwise.
SPEAKER_1: And that which is unwise is generally also sin.
SPEAKER_1: I would disagree that they are descended from anyone other than ham.
SPEAKER_1: I think that many of them are sons of ham.
SPEAKER_1: Except, of course, for historically, you had large populations in North Africa that were European, because North Africa was originally Europe, essentially.
SPEAKER_1: Because everything around the Mediterranean was peopled by the sons of Japheth, with the exception of the far eastern part, which was peopled by the sons of Shem.
SPEAKER_1: And so, it depends on what you're talking about historically, what time period.
SPEAKER_1: If you go back far enough, they're the sons of Japheth.
SPEAKER_1: If you move forward in time, then you have the Islamic conquests.
SPEAKER_1: Well, now they're a mixture of the sons of Shem and Ham, because remember, the Arabs are descended from not just Shem and not just Ham, but a mixture of those two, through Abraham's concubine.
SPEAKER_1: See if there is another question here in chat.
SPEAKER_1: Someone asked about the interview with Will Spencer, and the question is whether or not he got the call.
SPEAKER_1: The answer is yes, he definitely got the call.
SPEAKER_1: And that is why he ended up pulling the interview and not publishing the full thing.
SPEAKER_1: Thankfully, we did have recordings on our end, and so I did publish those.
SPEAKER_1: They are not fully edited, they are not as high a quality as they would be, because I didn't have his local audio, because for those who aren't familiar with how audio works, despite the audio problems that I've had in a couple previous episodes of this, live streaming is a different creature altogether.
SPEAKER_1: But insofar as audio quality is concerned, if you want maximum quality, usually what you do is you record a local file, which is the high quality file, and then you have obviously the audio playing remotely over whatever software it is you're using to communicate while you record.
SPEAKER_1: If you're in the same studio, that's obviously ideal, but Woe and I don't live in the same house.
SPEAKER_1: And thank God, Will Spencer is also not living in my house.
SPEAKER_1: So you have the local audio that has to be stitched together after the fact if you want a high quality version of the audio.
SPEAKER_1: I just have his remote audio, so it's streaming quality.
SPEAKER_1: It's not as good.
SPEAKER_1: It sounds kind of tinny.
SPEAKER_1: It has that old phone sort of sound to it, but it works.
SPEAKER_1: You can listen to it.
SPEAKER_1: There are transcripts.
SPEAKER_1: You can read it.
SPEAKER_1: It's available, but yes, he got the call.
SPEAKER_1: And so the full version never became available because he has the only copy, because he has his local audio, and I do not.
SPEAKER_1: What makes you sure the Orientals are Shemitic and not Japhethitic?
SPEAKER_1: It has been questioned in the past.
SPEAKER_1: Just DNA studies prove that one.
SPEAKER_1: We know that the Asians are their own separate people group.
SPEAKER_1: They are not the sons of Europe.
SPEAKER_1: And so that one can just be answered by science.
SPEAKER_1: That one, we just run the statistical analysis of the DNA, and we know exactly who is descended from whom.
SPEAKER_1: And yes, there are places in scripture where it says where certain sons of Noah did go, because it calls Egypt the land of Ham several times in scripture, just as one example.
SPEAKER_1: Am I going to put a sticky note to remind me to take my headphones off next time?
SPEAKER_1: Maybe.
SPEAKER_1: I am accustomed from all of the past recording to leaving my headphones on, because usually I was listening to Woe while recording Stone Choir, and so I needed the headphones on.
SPEAKER_1: But to set up the episode, I need to put the headphones on so that I can listen to the stream and see what's going on.
SPEAKER_1: Yes, I know that the audio is still playing mono on X.
SPEAKER_1: I honestly don't know why, because it's fine everywhere else.
SPEAKER_1: So X has some weird quirk.
SPEAKER_1: I'll have to interrogate Grok, I guess, and see if it understands.
SPEAKER_1: Understands, in quotes, but perhaps I will take off the headphones next time a little more quickly.
SPEAKER_1: Any thoughts on the James White debate in retrospect?
SPEAKER_1: I accepted that debate with basically no modifications except for the minor caveat in order to make the debate topic worthwhile, workable.
SPEAKER_1: I knew that obviously I was picking, not picking, accepting a proposed debate topic that was not only unfavorable, but also going to be difficult for others to follow.
SPEAKER_1: But because of the nature of the debate, I knew that it would be worthwhile, and that is why I took it.
SPEAKER_1: And so I did not try to get them to amend the topic or anything like that.
SPEAKER_1: I just got the necessary carve out that we were not arguing about the pure possibility, although James White didn't quite grasp that necessarily, because obviously no Christian thinks that God cannot.
SPEAKER_1: No one is arguing about that.
SPEAKER_1: So I think it was worth taking the debate, and quite frankly, I think that if you do a logical analysis of the debate, then clearly I won.
SPEAKER_1: But also I achieved what I wanted to with the debate, which was sort of the whole point.
SPEAKER_1: The same as Stone Quire.
SPEAKER_1: We achieved what we wanted to achieve.
SPEAKER_1: It wasn't necessarily a matter of everyone coming over to my side and loving me for the argument that I made.
SPEAKER_1: That was never going to happen.
SPEAKER_1: The goal was to demonstrate that an argument could be made for the position that I took with regard to the proposition, and that it could be argued constant with logic and with scripture, and that this was not something Christians simply can't believe, but rather something that Christians can believe, historically have believed, and that it is something we should believe, because it is true.
SPEAKER_1: I think I will do maybe one more question, I think, since there's sort of a good one to end, I guess a good one to end on here, depends how one defines good.
SPEAKER_1: But if you submit more questions in the chat, I will try to get those written down for next time.
SPEAKER_1: And otherwise, please submit them on the forum, because again, that is the best way to do it.
SPEAKER_1: But the last question for this week.
SPEAKER_1: What should Christians make of the concept of genocide in light of God's actions with the flood and his orders regarding Canaanites and Amalekites is denouncing genocide confessing a false sin?
SPEAKER_1: If you denounce genocide qua genocide, that would be a sin, because that would be accusing God of sin.
SPEAKER_1: And so for those who aren't familiar, denouncing qua the thing is denouncing it per se.
SPEAKER_1: If you are denouncing genocide itself as being per se sinful, as being inherently sinful, inherently wrongful, never something you are permitted to do.
SPEAKER_1: And so when Christians speak about genocide, we have to be careful, because on the one hand, obviously, there is a general prohibition against murder, not killing, murder.
SPEAKER_1: Notably, the term is a little broader than our modern definition in English of murder.
SPEAKER_1: It does also include what we might call reckless homicide.
SPEAKER_1: And so, basically, just don't kill someone by being a complete idiot.
SPEAKER_1: That's also prohibited.
SPEAKER_1: But it essentially is murder, just an expanded sense of murder.
SPEAKER_1: Some states might encompass that in their laws.
SPEAKER_1: And so, with the different degrees of murder.
SPEAKER_1: With regard to genocide, if you are going to kill someone in war, you have to have a sufficient moral warrant, because otherwise, it is morally impermissible.
SPEAKER_1: And so, the question, then, for Christians is, what is a proper moral warrant for killing someone in war?
SPEAKER_1: That has to be consonant with scripture, with what God has taught us with regard to warfare, with regard to killing, with regard to all of these related matters.
SPEAKER_1: One of the things that God says, and this is unambiguous in scripture, if you have a nation of demon worshipers, one of the just punishments for them is devotion to destruction, is what we would call in modern terms genocide.
SPEAKER_1: Above and beyond even genocide, because it often included destroying the cattle, the cities, hardscape everything, just burning everything to ash.
SPEAKER_1: That is something that God did.
SPEAKER_1: That is something that God ordered done.
SPEAKER_1: That is something that God is going to do on a much greater scale in the future, because most of the human population is not Christian.
SPEAKER_1: And so not only is God going to kill them temporally, he is going to kill them eternally.
SPEAKER_1: And so we can't possibly accuse that action of being evil, of being sin, because it would be to accuse God of sin.
SPEAKER_1: And so genocide, under certain circumstances, is morally permissible for Christians as a tool of statecraft.
SPEAKER_1: Sort of a long form of a short answer.
SPEAKER_1: But that is the basic answer to the question.
SPEAKER_1: So no, we can't condemn genocide qua genocide, because that would be to accuse God of sin.
SPEAKER_1: But we have to be careful when we are advocating for using that as a tool of statecraft, because you must have adequate moral warrant in order to engage in that, or else you're engaging in sin.
SPEAKER_1: And that is something for which a Christian ruler, Christian prince, to use the generic term, will one day have to answer to God if he makes the wrong calculation.
SPEAKER_1: So maybe don't envy the Christian prince on that count, because he's sinning if he doesn't do it, and God wants him to do it, and he's sinning if he does it, and God did not want him to do it.
SPEAKER_1: It's not like you get to stand back and just say, well, I'm not going to choose, and that way I can't be held responsible.
SPEAKER_1: No, because inaction is sin when you are required by God to act.
SPEAKER_1: And so, this is a question of wisdom for a Christian ruler.
SPEAKER_1: So, pray for your rulers, because they will be held to account, and they will be held to a strict standard.
SPEAKER_1: But the basic answer is that no, genocide is not per se immoral.
SPEAKER_1: It is conditionally moral and conditionally immoral.
SPEAKER_1: It depends upon the circumstances.
SPEAKER_1: It is a fact-specific inquiry.
SPEAKER_1: And, yes, that is a somewhat relevant question in our day and age, to sort of put the cap on that.
SPEAKER_1: But I think that is going to be all for this week.
SPEAKER_1: I would remind all of you to submit questions if you have additional questions, which undoubtedly there will be more questions for next week.
SPEAKER_1: Please submit those on the forum.
SPEAKER_1: I linked to the specific category in which you can submit those.
SPEAKER_1: And so if there are other questions that are currently there, you can vote on those.
SPEAKER_1: The ones that rise to the top, I will try to prioritize those, at least unless there's something insane.
SPEAKER_1: I'm not going to answer every question regardless of the content, of course.
SPEAKER_1: But I will try to prioritize those that have shown a clear degree of interest from those who want me to provide answers.
SPEAKER_1: So go and submit those.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for those who submitted questions for this episode.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for those who submitted them ahead of time and those who participated in the chat as well.
SPEAKER_1: Thank you for your time, and I hope this was edifying for all of you.
SPEAKER_1: Have a wonderful evening, and may God bless all of you.
SPEAKER_1: Until next week.