WEBVTT 00:00:01.260 --> 00:00:04.040 It is the 5th of February, 2026. 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:05.040 I am Corey J. 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:05.560 Mahler. 00:00:05.560 --> 00:00:07.100 This is At Any Cost. 00:00:07.100 --> 00:00:09.560 This is the 15th episode. 00:00:09.560 --> 00:00:14.560 It is a question and answer episode, and I will go ahead and get right into the questions. 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:19.140 I don't have any housekeeping matters for this week. 00:00:19.140 --> 00:00:25.280 The first question here, I will pull up the actual wording of the question instead of just my summary. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:34.060 How do we discern between false brethren and those who will be saved as through fire, especially given the current climate? 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:46.860 And so, this is one of those questions that is going to just be relevant for quite some time, given the reality of the times in which we live. 00:00:46.860 --> 00:00:51.380 But, of course, this is a reference to the passage in 1 Corinthians, and I'll pull that up here. 00:00:54.940 --> 00:00:59.740 Probably helps if I switch over to Logos, so you all can see that. 00:01:09.768 --> 00:01:11.868 I'm on the log, there we go. 00:01:12.988 --> 00:01:13.128 So. 00:01:21.727 --> 00:01:24.847 So, the reference here is to 1 Corinthians 3.15. 00:01:24.847 --> 00:01:31.587 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 00:01:31.587 --> 00:01:34.727 And you could also read that as if through fire. 00:01:34.727 --> 00:01:37.707 It's not saying that, you know, purgatory, they try to draw that out of here. 00:01:37.707 --> 00:01:39.387 This is not purgatory. 00:01:39.387 --> 00:01:41.467 It is exactly what the verse says. 00:01:41.467 --> 00:01:46.287 You suffer the loss of the works not being actually good. 00:01:46.287 --> 00:01:58.447 So, for instance, those who do things they think are righteous, that turn out not to be righteous, those works, you don't get credit for them in eternity, basically, is what is being said here. 00:01:58.447 --> 00:02:12.787 This is also a reference to a few places in the Old Testament where there's a reference to God pulling something out of the fire, which is almost a proverb, a proverbial saying, that thing being rescued. 00:02:12.787 --> 00:02:30.907 So, one of those would be, I happen to remember this because I just read this passage in Zechariah, but Zechariah 3.2, And the Lord said to the slanderer, of course, the slanderer being Satan, one of his names, the Lord rebuke you, O slanderer, and the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. 00:02:30.907 --> 00:02:34.627 Behold, is not this like a brand plucked from the fire. 00:02:34.627 --> 00:02:46.427 And of course, it says Jesus here, because the Septuagint uses Jesus, because it's the same name instead of Joshua, as it is translated in your Bible undoubtedly, if you're using the Masoretic text. 00:02:47.727 --> 00:02:55.827 So, this is a proverbial saying, someone who has been rescued from destruction. 00:02:55.827 --> 00:03:08.647 And so, how do we tell those who are not false brothers, but are doing wicked things from those who are, in fact, just wicked? 00:03:08.647 --> 00:03:09.967 They're not even real brothers. 00:03:09.967 --> 00:03:13.167 They are going to spend eternity apart from us. 00:03:16.747 --> 00:03:23.667 It almost feels like I have to say this every episode, but it remains true, and so it bears repeating. 00:03:24.827 --> 00:03:35.147 Part of this is going to be a wisdom call, because you simply are going to have to be able to tell true brothers from false brothers. 00:03:35.147 --> 00:03:38.247 Part of this is going to, of course, be works, right? 00:03:38.247 --> 00:03:41.727 Because a Christian is known by his works, ultimately. 00:03:42.347 --> 00:03:46.347 Yes, it is your faith that saves you, but your faith is demonstrated in your works. 00:03:46.347 --> 00:03:54.407 And so you can look at the works of those who are claiming to be Christian, and you can run an assessment on the basis of those works. 00:03:54.407 --> 00:03:55.887 It's not a wicked thing to do that. 00:03:55.887 --> 00:03:59.547 In fact, that is using your God-given wisdom. 00:04:00.727 --> 00:04:10.847 So if you have someone who claims to be a Christian brother, but everything he does in his life is wicked, and we can, of course, think of the most obvious examples of this. 00:04:10.967 --> 00:04:19.727 You have the female so-called pastor in the rainbow stole, saying BLM and all that nonsense, right? 00:04:19.727 --> 00:04:23.987 Clearly not your sister in Christ. 00:04:23.987 --> 00:04:25.327 That's the obvious example. 00:04:25.327 --> 00:04:27.087 We're not asking really about that. 00:04:27.087 --> 00:04:29.287 That's not difficult. 00:04:29.287 --> 00:04:31.667 Everyone can make that call. 00:04:31.667 --> 00:04:39.227 The question is, how do you discern those who are closer to being Christian, right? 00:04:39.367 --> 00:04:48.667 They're better at presenting themselves as Christian, and the better the person is at deceiving, the harder it is going to be to detect him. 00:04:48.667 --> 00:04:50.607 That's sort of how deception goes. 00:04:50.607 --> 00:04:55.527 It's one of the reasons that sometimes what Satan is doing is difficult because Satan is very good at deceiving. 00:04:55.527 --> 00:04:57.467 He's been doing it a long time. 00:04:57.467 --> 00:04:59.407 He doesn't sleep. 00:04:59.407 --> 00:05:02.927 He's better than most human beings at deceiving people. 00:05:02.927 --> 00:05:04.847 Most people aren't that good at it. 00:05:04.847 --> 00:05:16.767 And so you can get a pretty good feel for whether or not someone is trying to maneuver you to stab you in the back to be sort of blunt. 00:05:16.767 --> 00:05:17.567 You have instincts. 00:05:17.567 --> 00:05:19.467 God gave you instincts. 00:05:19.467 --> 00:05:21.347 In large part, you should trust those. 00:05:21.347 --> 00:05:22.967 They're not always accurate. 00:05:22.967 --> 00:05:26.387 Sometimes they're 95% accurate instead of 100%. 00:05:27.847 --> 00:05:33.467 But you should trust them, at least as a data point in making your final assessment. 00:05:33.467 --> 00:05:43.567 And so if someone gives you a really bad feeling, well, those are your God-given senses telling you there's something off here, there's something wrong here. 00:05:43.567 --> 00:05:45.167 Listen to that. 00:05:45.167 --> 00:05:49.027 But the biggest part of it is going to be looking at those works. 00:05:49.027 --> 00:05:54.747 If you have someone who is producing good works, who happens to simply be in error, that's a different thing. 00:05:54.747 --> 00:05:56.867 You should want to rescue that brother from his error. 00:05:56.867 --> 00:05:58.727 He is not a false brother. 00:05:58.727 --> 00:06:00.467 He's simply a brother in error. 00:06:00.467 --> 00:06:02.307 There are many of those. 00:06:02.307 --> 00:06:05.687 Most Christians are going to have some false belief somewhere. 00:06:06.387 --> 00:06:10.787 It's not going to damn you if you have some minor false belief. 00:06:10.787 --> 00:06:15.487 There's a question about that later on, so I'll get into that when I get to that question. 00:06:15.487 --> 00:06:16.487 Hopefully get to that question. 00:06:16.487 --> 00:06:18.367 There are a lot of questions. 00:06:18.367 --> 00:06:31.327 So for the false brothers, it's very similar to what we have to do all the time in our current social and political climate. 00:06:31.327 --> 00:06:32.267 We're all accustomed to this. 00:06:33.287 --> 00:06:43.067 If you are dealing with new people, you don't go ahead and bring up all of your political beliefs right up front, right? 00:06:43.067 --> 00:06:45.347 Particularly if you're one of us, right? 00:06:45.347 --> 00:06:48.507 You're a guy who's on the far right, so to speak. 00:06:48.507 --> 00:06:56.707 You're not far right by historical standards, of course, because most of us are pretty moderate by historical standards, even if you would call yourself far right. 00:06:56.707 --> 00:06:58.867 A separate topic perhaps, but related here. 00:07:01.447 --> 00:07:17.747 You already know how to do this because you know that many times you are going to be dealing with people in society, in your social life, who would cause you harm if you revealed all of the things that you actually believe. 00:07:17.747 --> 00:07:21.327 And so you're already running that sort of assessment. 00:07:21.327 --> 00:07:32.667 Unfortunately, you have to run that assessment in the churches as well, particularly these days, because there are many false Christians, there are many who claim the name of Christ and don't follow Christ at all. 00:07:32.667 --> 00:07:33.767 We run into this all the time. 00:07:33.767 --> 00:07:47.987 You can see many examples of this, particularly on X, where any number of us at this point will post a Bible verse, sometimes in quotes, sometimes not, and then someone says, well, I don't believe that. 00:07:47.987 --> 00:07:49.607 Well, that's the problem. 00:07:49.607 --> 00:07:53.767 They don't actually believe what Christianity teaches because they aren't actually Christians. 00:07:54.947 --> 00:08:07.087 And so, use those skills that you have undoubtedly developed with regard to politics and just living your life in society, and translate that into the church. 00:08:07.087 --> 00:08:11.567 It's again unfortunate, but that is the reality of where we are today. 00:08:11.567 --> 00:08:17.967 And you can also think of the verses that speak of handing someone over to Satan, right? 00:08:18.767 --> 00:08:27.307 Because, ultimately, that is the point of driving someone from that fellowship, is you want him to repent, right? 00:08:27.307 --> 00:08:27.537 That's... 00:08:27.537 --> 00:08:29.647 it's speaking of excommunication. 00:08:29.647 --> 00:08:32.967 And I know that someone in the comments will post, well, weren't you excommunicated? 00:08:32.967 --> 00:08:41.487 Yes, by a church that thought that racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism were sins. 00:08:41.487 --> 00:08:46.207 Found nowhere in scripture, addressed thoroughly in stone choir and elsewhere. 00:08:46.367 --> 00:08:49.587 So, for those who want to look for those, that's all there. 00:08:49.587 --> 00:08:51.907 I can put some of that in the show notes as well. 00:08:51.907 --> 00:08:55.867 And obviously, I recognize that happened. 00:08:55.867 --> 00:08:57.907 Luther was excommunicated. 00:08:57.907 --> 00:09:00.687 Chrysostom was driven from his church at some point. 00:09:00.687 --> 00:09:04.407 You can think, of course, of Matthew 5, right? 00:09:04.407 --> 00:09:20.807 Your reward will be great in heaven, because these people who are persecuting us today for believing the things that Christians have always believed, well, their ancestors, spiritual or physical in many cases, persecuted the prophets in the same way. 00:09:20.807 --> 00:09:26.067 So, blessed are you when they persecute you for the sake of Christ. 00:09:26.067 --> 00:09:30.347 And of course, I posted the video of me being challenged by police outside my church. 00:09:30.347 --> 00:09:31.167 I'm not hiding that. 00:09:31.167 --> 00:09:33.547 I recognize that's the reality of where we are today. 00:09:33.547 --> 00:09:35.987 It's important for people to see that. 00:09:35.987 --> 00:09:52.887 Like I've mentioned before, when people ask about, say, confronting their pastor on some particular issue of false doctrine, usually judaizing, but sometimes other things, your outcome may very well be that he calls the police on you and has you escorted out of the building. 00:09:52.887 --> 00:09:55.227 So, I tell people, you need to be ready for that. 00:09:55.227 --> 00:09:57.247 It doesn't mean that you don't do it. 00:09:57.247 --> 00:09:58.447 It means you be ready for it. 00:09:58.447 --> 00:10:14.567 But to get back to the immediate question about false brothers, exercise the wisdom that God has given you and run the same sort of identify friend or foe analysis that you would in the world at large with regard to social and political issues. 00:10:17.687 --> 00:10:18.847 The next question here. 00:10:24.848 --> 00:10:27.388 Next question is about the Lutheran Church. 00:10:27.388 --> 00:10:29.948 I don't believe I answered this one previously. 00:10:29.948 --> 00:10:34.828 I think I answered something that was similar to it, and so I'm remembering that. 00:10:34.828 --> 00:10:39.548 But the question is, I have been strongly considering joining our local LCMS congregation. 00:10:39.548 --> 00:10:52.028 I don't know how many Lutherans in the area I live in, or I don't know many Lutherans in the area I live in, nor was I raised Lutheran, but I do believe the Lutheran confessions are consonant with the word of God and is the only church I wish to advance being a member of. 00:10:52.028 --> 00:10:58.428 One of the obvious things noted after viewing the congregation's staff is that there's a female educator. 00:10:58.428 --> 00:11:03.348 I would presume this may be a Sunday school or Bible study teacher. 00:11:03.348 --> 00:11:08.228 Do you have any advice on how to proceed visiting the church service at this congregation? 00:11:08.228 --> 00:11:11.728 Or is this a clear marker to stay away? 00:11:11.728 --> 00:11:19.728 So I don't think it's necessarily a clear marker to stay away, because it's going to depend on what educator means. 00:11:21.528 --> 00:11:22.208 Could be a teacher. 00:11:22.928 --> 00:11:27.388 We have, and in that case, I mean a school teacher, not a Bible study teacher. 00:11:27.388 --> 00:11:28.968 It's a different thing. 00:11:28.968 --> 00:11:38.928 In many cases, you're going to have a school attached to the church, and so if it's an educator in that sense, that's not a problem, because it's going to be a primary school. 00:11:38.928 --> 00:11:44.128 They're going to be teaching children, which women are permitted to teach children, that's fine. 00:11:44.128 --> 00:11:46.828 Women are permitted to teach other women as well. 00:11:46.828 --> 00:11:51.068 There's some limits on that, but that's sort of a tangential issue. 00:11:52.128 --> 00:11:58.708 If you have a woman who is leading the Bible study that is mixed men and women, that's unacceptable. 00:11:58.708 --> 00:12:06.888 If you have a woman who is standing up in teaching and just saying that she's not acting like a pastor, but that's really what she's doing, that's not acceptable either. 00:12:06.888 --> 00:12:13.988 The best way to figure it out is either attend a service or watch one online. 00:12:13.988 --> 00:12:25.268 If you're watching online, you can probably get through things much more quickly, much more efficiently, because you can skip around and figure out if she appears and if she does appear, what she's doing. 00:12:25.268 --> 00:12:27.788 So I would say just do that. 00:12:27.788 --> 00:12:29.888 Check the live stream if they have it. 00:12:29.888 --> 00:12:33.488 Check their back catalog of stream services. 00:12:33.488 --> 00:12:35.988 If they have that, that's the easiest way. 00:12:35.988 --> 00:12:37.908 Or go to a service. 00:12:37.908 --> 00:12:42.048 You could email the pastor and see what he says. 00:12:42.048 --> 00:12:46.968 That's also an option, but I think the easiest way is just look at what they're actually doing. 00:12:46.968 --> 00:12:49.148 Women should of course not be doing those things. 00:12:49.228 --> 00:12:53.428 I've gone into that before many places and many times. 00:12:53.428 --> 00:12:57.628 But it's not necessarily a red flag that she's listed. 00:12:57.628 --> 00:12:59.528 People just like to be listed. 00:12:59.528 --> 00:13:00.548 They like to be included. 00:13:00.548 --> 00:13:02.488 They like to be on the website. 00:13:02.488 --> 00:13:05.088 It may be she's doing nothing wrong. 00:13:05.088 --> 00:13:15.468 There's a non-trivial chance she's doing something she shouldn't be doing, but the only way to figure out which one it is, is to actually look at the service or attend one of the services. 00:13:15.468 --> 00:13:18.048 So hopefully it's a good church. 00:13:18.188 --> 00:13:22.488 Hopefully she's not doing things that God has told her not to do. 00:13:22.488 --> 00:13:26.668 But these days, you just have to check. 00:13:28.808 --> 00:13:32.248 The next question is about Greek. 00:13:32.248 --> 00:13:32.928 Hello, Corey. 00:13:32.928 --> 00:13:38.288 I'm early in my Coina Greek journey myself, and greatly enjoyed your Septuagint series. 00:13:38.288 --> 00:13:39.488 Thanks for the great content. 00:13:39.488 --> 00:13:43.628 I have a few questions about your learning process that would be super helpful. 00:13:43.728 --> 00:13:48.028 One timeline, how long did it take you to feel comfortable with your understanding of Greek? 00:13:48.028 --> 00:13:50.328 I'll just answer these sequentially. 00:13:50.328 --> 00:13:55.988 I'm not fluent in Greek, and I'm obviously completely fine admitting that. 00:13:55.988 --> 00:13:59.768 I am probably quite a ways off from being fluent in Greek. 00:13:59.768 --> 00:14:04.088 My German is much better than my Latin is better than my Greek. 00:14:04.128 --> 00:14:16.668 But, you know, maybe at this point, they're about parity, but I don't need to have the fluency in that sense, because I understand the mechanics of how language works. 00:14:16.668 --> 00:14:18.888 I'm pretty good with that part of it. 00:14:18.888 --> 00:14:28.168 And so having access to things like Logos, which obviously I pull that up all the time, you can use the language if you understand the mechanics of how a language works. 00:14:28.168 --> 00:14:31.368 Obviously, it helps a lot if you know the alphabet, because Greek's a different alphabet. 00:14:32.728 --> 00:14:43.728 But if you know those basics and then you understand language, you can achieve a lot without yourself being fluent, absent access to those materials. 00:14:43.728 --> 00:14:51.648 So in terms of the timeline, I can't give you really an answer because I'm not personally fluent. 00:14:51.648 --> 00:15:00.688 The general rule for a language is going to be something like 10,000 hours, I think it is, that you want to invest to reach a certain level of fluency. 00:15:01.548 --> 00:15:07.568 It's going to depend on the distance of the language from your native language and other languages you know. 00:15:07.568 --> 00:15:15.528 So for instance, if you know Italian, right, it will take you less time to pick up Latin than Japanese. 00:15:15.528 --> 00:15:17.588 So that's going to partly depend there. 00:15:17.588 --> 00:15:25.928 Greek is a little more distant from other European languages, so as an English speaker, it is not something where you have huge overlap. 00:15:25.928 --> 00:15:43.068 You already know some of the terms, some of the language, the vocabulary, just because English has imported so much from Greek, mostly Latin and French, right, and obviously French, ultimately Latin, some German, in the case of French being some German, not in the case of English. 00:15:43.068 --> 00:15:44.928 English is a lot of German. 00:15:44.928 --> 00:15:51.728 But not as much of an overlap in terms of the overall language, English and Greek. 00:15:51.728 --> 00:15:56.228 So there's a lot of stuff that's going to be new for an English speaker. 00:15:56.228 --> 00:16:00.428 Not least of all because English has dropped a lot of the things that other languages have. 00:16:00.428 --> 00:16:01.888 Inflection and things like that. 00:16:01.888 --> 00:16:04.648 We have very little of that left in English. 00:16:04.648 --> 00:16:07.328 Personal pronouns basically the only exception. 00:16:07.328 --> 00:16:12.908 The word blonde, which we ultimately Latin, but we took it from the French there. 00:16:12.908 --> 00:16:15.648 And so that's why that E is on the end. 00:16:15.648 --> 00:16:18.788 It's blonde with an E if it's referring to a female. 00:16:18.788 --> 00:16:21.528 It's blonde without the E if it's referring to a male. 00:16:21.528 --> 00:16:26.768 Everyone forgets that rule, but it's one of the only things in English we have that's inflected other than the personal pronouns. 00:16:27.548 --> 00:16:32.048 But that's basically the rough answer for timeline. 00:16:32.048 --> 00:16:33.788 Grammar reliance is the second question. 00:16:33.788 --> 00:16:35.668 Do you still need to frequently reference grammar? 00:16:35.668 --> 00:16:36.328 Yes. 00:16:36.328 --> 00:16:52.308 For me, in the sense of referencing a grammar, which is telling me functionally how the mechanics of Greek works, I don't have to reference it in sense of what most people hear when they hear grammar, because I know that stuff. 00:16:52.308 --> 00:16:54.528 I know what the accusative is. 00:16:54.608 --> 00:16:58.808 I know what the dative is and the genitive and all of these things. 00:16:58.808 --> 00:17:09.188 But in order to actually understand how a particular Greek verb has been conjugated, yes, of course, I'm going to use logos. 00:17:09.188 --> 00:17:11.768 But the nice thing about logos is... 00:17:11.768 --> 00:17:16.728 I'll go ahead and just switch back over to logos here for a second. 00:17:16.728 --> 00:17:20.128 One of the nicest things about logos is... 00:17:20.128 --> 00:17:20.608 Let's pull up... 00:17:22.568 --> 00:17:28.188 Not the nets, because the nets does not have the full thing that I want here. 00:17:28.188 --> 00:17:30.028 So we'll pull up the lexem. 00:17:30.028 --> 00:17:38.968 And so one of the nice things here, right, like garments, I click on this and it tells me, of course, it doesn't show the interstitial menu to you, because why would it do that? 00:17:38.968 --> 00:17:45.968 But anyway, if you click on a word, it gives you all the information you need about the word, which obviously very useful. 00:17:45.968 --> 00:17:55.388 It also gives it down in the lower left, which it also does not show in the preview for streaming, because why would they implement that? 00:17:55.388 --> 00:18:04.268 But with these sorts of tools, you can get a lot done in the language in which you are not yet, anyway, personally fluent. 00:18:04.268 --> 00:18:07.288 Methods and resources, the third sub-question, as it were. 00:18:07.288 --> 00:18:09.988 What did you use to learn and what was your overall approach? 00:18:09.988 --> 00:18:15.628 I have some Greek books, just standard language learning books, and then I've used some online tools a bit. 00:18:15.628 --> 00:18:27.288 And then most of it has just been looking at scripture, switching back and forth between the Greek and the English and using the available tools in Logos, because the tools are very nice. 00:18:27.288 --> 00:18:30.108 And no, this is not an advertisement for Logos. 00:18:30.108 --> 00:18:35.248 I absolutely hate their pricing model, and I think that it's highway robbery. 00:18:35.248 --> 00:18:57.268 But the reality of our situation is that these tools overcharge, and part of it is not their fault to give them credit where credit is due, because of course, this is IP, intellectual property, and so the ultimate owners of these things get to set some of the terms and the prices and things like that, and so they don't have 100% control. 00:18:57.268 --> 00:19:07.028 But my position, as I've been very clear all along, long held position, most resources of this kind at least should be free. 00:19:07.988 --> 00:19:16.608 The men who are capable of using these resources who aren't going to get off into crazy trouble on their own with them should have access to these. 00:19:16.608 --> 00:19:26.468 If someone is going to seminary to be a theologian, someone who has the skills to do that, he should just have access to all of the materials for free. 00:19:26.468 --> 00:19:29.308 You should not be gatekeeping things related to God. 00:19:29.308 --> 00:19:31.128 That's completely ridiculous. 00:19:31.128 --> 00:19:33.368 No Christian should want to do that. 00:19:33.368 --> 00:19:35.348 But tangential issue there. 00:19:36.768 --> 00:19:39.388 The fourth and final subquestion. 00:19:39.388 --> 00:19:43.988 You recommend modern Greek pronunciation, very much so, over Erasmian. 00:19:43.988 --> 00:19:48.288 However, most Koina materials seem to stick exclusively to Erasmian. 00:19:48.288 --> 00:19:49.728 That's also true. 00:19:49.728 --> 00:19:53.908 What's the best way to learn and practice modern pronunciation for Koina? 00:19:53.908 --> 00:19:57.308 So for modern pronunciation, you're just learning modern pronunciation. 00:19:57.308 --> 00:20:00.008 You're not learning it for Koina, really. 00:20:00.008 --> 00:20:04.548 It's not sort of the difference here. 00:20:05.328 --> 00:20:11.928 It's that Greek hasn't changed as much as English in the same period of time. 00:20:11.928 --> 00:20:14.248 Of course, English isn't that old. 00:20:14.248 --> 00:20:17.368 But it's closer to say what German has done. 00:20:17.368 --> 00:20:24.628 And so I've mentioned before, I can pick up a German text from the 1500s and get through it just fine. 00:20:24.628 --> 00:20:29.848 There will be some quirks, there are some rules that have changed, there have been some standardizations in terms of spelling. 00:20:30.708 --> 00:20:37.528 But by and large, any German speaker can pick up a text from the 1500s in German and read it. 00:20:37.528 --> 00:20:41.708 So I have a Luther Bible that's on my shelf over here from 1545. 00:20:43.308 --> 00:20:46.868 That's not that much more difficult to read than modern German. 00:20:46.868 --> 00:20:49.928 English is not the same, because English has changed a lot. 00:20:49.928 --> 00:20:52.908 You have Old English, you have Middle English, you have Modern English. 00:20:52.908 --> 00:20:57.928 And I'll put a link to Chaucer in the show notes, for anyone who wants to go and look at it. 00:20:57.928 --> 00:20:59.388 You can see how much it's changed. 00:21:00.568 --> 00:21:02.268 For Greek, it's not as big of a change. 00:21:02.268 --> 00:21:09.148 So just learn how modern Greeks pronounce their words, and then read the Koina as if it were modern Greek. 00:21:09.148 --> 00:21:10.528 There are some things that have changed. 00:21:10.528 --> 00:21:15.968 There's some spelling quirks and things like that, but you won't have trouble doing that. 00:21:15.968 --> 00:21:22.688 And the reason I recommend that you learn modern pronunciation and not Koina, really it's kind of twofold. 00:21:22.708 --> 00:21:31.508 One, Erasmus just constructed his pronunciation rules, partly because he didn't want any vowels to sound the same. 00:21:32.988 --> 00:21:35.948 The problem is, natural language has things that sound the same. 00:21:35.948 --> 00:21:37.168 That happens. 00:21:37.168 --> 00:21:44.308 I can think of a number of different vowel pairings in German that are not the same, but sound the same. 00:21:44.308 --> 00:21:45.988 And English does the same thing, of course. 00:21:45.988 --> 00:21:52.968 English less so because English has a lot of weird sounds from importing other languages and blending them together. 00:21:52.968 --> 00:22:03.988 But the second part of the reason would be that you have an entire world of materials available to you if you are learning modern pronunciation. 00:22:03.988 --> 00:22:07.188 Because the Greek still exists. 00:22:07.188 --> 00:22:08.528 The Greek language still exists. 00:22:08.528 --> 00:22:10.808 The Greek language is still in use. 00:22:10.808 --> 00:22:18.288 If you are learning Erasmian, that's not in use because it was never in use, because it was never a real thing. 00:22:18.288 --> 00:22:25.928 It was a constructed pronunciation of Greek specifically for use in Biblical studies. 00:22:25.928 --> 00:22:33.948 So just use modern Greek because you are going to have more materials available to you, and it will actually be helpful as well. 00:22:33.948 --> 00:22:39.848 Because say you want to visit Greece at some point, you will actually be able to speak to people. 00:22:39.848 --> 00:22:40.988 Not if you are Erasmian. 00:22:40.988 --> 00:22:43.428 They will look at you like you have two heads. 00:22:43.428 --> 00:22:46.768 So it just makes more sense to learn modern. 00:22:47.368 --> 00:22:56.508 There is no benefit to learning the Erasmian other than you can talk to pastors who also learned it. 00:22:56.508 --> 00:22:58.488 But I don't think that's very compelling. 00:23:01.248 --> 00:23:07.848 The next question, moving on to some of the questions from X, I believe now. 00:23:10.568 --> 00:23:15.028 I don't know that I will get to many of the questions in the chat this time. 00:23:15.028 --> 00:23:19.408 I will go through and write them down because I have a lot of questions. 00:23:19.408 --> 00:23:23.188 I will not get through all of them this episode. 00:23:27.868 --> 00:23:39.768 But the next question, what are your thoughts on why the left can organize so easily, often around a single issue, while the right cannot seem to do so, even on a very small scale? 00:23:39.768 --> 00:23:42.288 I'm thinking about the American context specifically. 00:23:42.288 --> 00:23:46.628 It seems like there are relevant internal and external factors. 00:23:48.828 --> 00:23:57.828 This is very true, and it certainly makes things more difficult in the American context. 00:23:59.708 --> 00:24:04.548 Because let's see, what is the best way to start for the core reason here? 00:24:04.548 --> 00:24:10.768 The core reason really is that politics is the identity of the left. 00:24:10.768 --> 00:24:17.188 That is who they are, because they ultimately found their life on that. 00:24:17.188 --> 00:24:21.468 They don't have any other coherent organizing principle. 00:24:21.468 --> 00:24:25.568 They don't have something that means more to them than politics. 00:24:25.568 --> 00:24:27.908 Politics is their life. 00:24:27.908 --> 00:24:30.108 Politics is their core. 00:24:30.108 --> 00:24:39.488 And so, it's going to make it easier to organize people when you are appealing to their highest principle, to speak about principles they don't have. 00:24:39.588 --> 00:24:43.048 But when you are appealing to them in that way. 00:24:43.048 --> 00:24:51.808 Versus the right, well, anyone on the right has things that he cares about ultimately more than politics. 00:24:51.808 --> 00:24:53.828 And that's correct, you should. 00:24:53.828 --> 00:24:56.628 You care about your family more than politics. 00:24:56.628 --> 00:25:00.528 You care about politics because you care about your family. 00:25:00.528 --> 00:25:04.288 You care about God more than you care about politics. 00:25:04.288 --> 00:25:12.008 You care about politics because you care about God, because you want to bring our politics in line with what God demands. 00:25:12.008 --> 00:25:13.868 Ultimately, that's what Christian nationalism is. 00:25:13.868 --> 00:25:17.008 It's sort of a short summary of that. 00:25:17.008 --> 00:25:28.148 But politics is the end goal for the left, because the left is animated almost exclusively by power, which they're not wrong for that. 00:25:28.148 --> 00:25:33.568 They recognize that power ultimately is what matters in these affairs, and that's true. 00:25:33.568 --> 00:25:35.228 The person who has the power sets the rules. 00:25:35.368 --> 00:25:38.588 Mike makes right in a certain sense of right. 00:25:38.588 --> 00:25:42.388 Not in the sense of ultimate moral good versus wrong, right? 00:25:42.388 --> 00:25:48.488 But in the sense that the person who has the power gets to set the terms and say what is right and wrong. 00:25:48.488 --> 00:25:49.848 That's absolutely true. 00:25:49.848 --> 00:25:54.428 The left is better at recognizing that than the right, at least these days. 00:25:54.428 --> 00:25:58.508 In the American context, there's another aspect of it. 00:25:58.508 --> 00:26:02.108 It's actually perhaps two facets, same thing. 00:26:03.268 --> 00:26:23.628 The first part of it would be that we have this strain of individualism and just sort of being obstreperous almost, just being disagreeable in the US., particularly on the right side of politics, that has been there since the beginning in the American context. 00:26:23.628 --> 00:26:41.068 Part of it is going to be constitutional, not uppercase C referring to the document, but lowercase C referring to the people, because just some of the people who came over here from Europe were more like that than average, and it has entrenched over time. 00:26:41.068 --> 00:26:53.848 A bit of it's genetic in our case, partly because we have the Scottish admixture and things like that, people who are a little less agreeable, and Germans aren't entirely agreeable when it comes to certain things. 00:26:53.848 --> 00:27:03.968 So part of it is going to be constitutional in that sense for us, and then entrenched and sort of a feedback loop with how our society has been organized. 00:27:03.968 --> 00:27:16.468 And then there is also the fact, the second facet of this, libertarianism has long been a force on the right side of politics in the US. 00:27:16.468 --> 00:27:24.348 Left as well, but very minor over there, because left libertarian never really got any traction. 00:27:24.348 --> 00:27:34.808 Supposedly right-wing libertarianism has, for many years, decades, been part of the right-wing in the US context. 00:27:34.808 --> 00:27:51.708 And so, because of that, and because of the intellectual push they've had, they've had fairly good funding in some cases, you have various outfits putting out, all these pieces trying to push libertarianism and libertarian thought. 00:27:51.708 --> 00:28:02.468 And it gets tied up with the American love of freedom and liberty, regardless of whether or not the person who is advocating for those things knows what either term means. 00:28:02.468 --> 00:28:09.548 And because of that fact, it makes it more difficult to get men to follow orders, to fall in line. 00:28:09.548 --> 00:28:17.808 And ultimately, if you don't have people willing to follow orders, you don't have an actual movement. 00:28:17.808 --> 00:28:23.308 All you have is a bunch of people in a room arguing with each other and not cooperating. 00:28:23.308 --> 00:28:24.908 That's the problem the right has. 00:28:25.008 --> 00:28:31.328 It is very difficult on the right to be a leader, because most men are not very good at following orders. 00:28:31.328 --> 00:28:41.588 They always want to question your orders, which I'm not saying you can't question the orders of a leader, but there's a time and a place. 00:28:41.588 --> 00:29:00.188 If you're in the middle of a battle and your commander tells you to do something, unless it is completely and utterly insane, and you know that because you're in a position to know it, and he isn't, so unless you have a compelling, truly compelling reason to ask him about his order, right? 00:29:00.188 --> 00:29:01.648 You just obey. 00:29:01.648 --> 00:29:03.588 That's what you do as a soldier. 00:29:03.588 --> 00:29:08.768 And we are going to have to recognize that we are actually in a war. 00:29:08.768 --> 00:29:13.028 It is not simply political disagreement. 00:29:13.028 --> 00:29:14.188 It's a war. 00:29:14.188 --> 00:29:19.668 And so in a war, and given that we are in a war, men need to learn to follow orders. 00:29:20.228 --> 00:29:29.528 That's going to be difficult on the right side of things in the US context, for all the reasons I mentioned and some others as well. 00:29:29.528 --> 00:29:37.688 The left does not have that problem, because again, no animating principle for them, except for politics and power. 00:29:37.688 --> 00:29:41.188 So for them, politics is the goal. 00:29:41.188 --> 00:29:41.888 It's the end. 00:29:41.888 --> 00:29:44.768 It's the thing toward which their life is oriented. 00:29:44.768 --> 00:29:46.908 For the right wing, it's not. 00:29:46.908 --> 00:30:04.848 And so you have men who are going to have competing principles, as it were, because they want to try and make whatever the leader has said, whatever someone has told them they need to do, consonant with these other things that demand a greater allegiance. 00:30:04.848 --> 00:30:09.748 The problem is that all of those things about which you actually care, and I'm not saying they're wrong. 00:30:09.748 --> 00:30:10.848 Again, I'm saying those are right. 00:30:10.848 --> 00:30:12.468 You should care about those more. 00:30:12.468 --> 00:30:23.348 But all of those things about which you actually care, you can't get to them, you can't defend them, you can't achieve them without the power. 00:30:23.348 --> 00:30:27.488 The left recognize that aspect of it much better than the right. 00:30:27.488 --> 00:30:42.728 The right needs to get more serious about the fact that if you do not have political power, if you do not maintain political power, and if you don't crush your enemies when you have political power, you will never achieve all the other things that are more important than political power. 00:30:43.868 --> 00:30:46.648 You need the means to achieve the ends. 00:30:47.448 --> 00:30:54.408 For us, on the right wing, politics is the means to the ends we seek. 00:30:54.408 --> 00:31:01.208 For the left, politics is the end, and so they will do anything to achieve it. 00:31:01.208 --> 00:31:09.308 We need to be willing to look at politics and political power in the way that they look at all these other things they're willing to do to achieve that. 00:31:09.308 --> 00:31:11.668 Because otherwise, they win. 00:31:11.668 --> 00:31:14.628 The side that wants it more generally wins. 00:31:14.628 --> 00:31:23.188 We need to want it more than the left, and we need to be willing to wield it in a way that even they aren't willing to do, quite yet. 00:31:23.188 --> 00:31:31.788 Now, I think they will in the near future if they should have power again, but we need to be ruthless, because that's politics. 00:31:31.788 --> 00:31:36.308 And again, men need to learn to follow orders. 00:31:36.308 --> 00:31:48.988 We need to treat it more as if we are, which we are in reality, soldiers in a war, instead of men discussing philosophy around the dinner table. 00:31:48.988 --> 00:31:54.728 That's how politics has been treated by the right wing for many years. 00:31:54.728 --> 00:31:57.188 That's not what it is. 00:31:57.188 --> 00:32:00.208 Politics is a knife fight in a bar. 00:32:00.208 --> 00:32:07.508 You need to take it a little more seriously than discussing the philosophy of Kant over coffee. 00:32:07.508 --> 00:32:15.708 Kant would approve of the coffee incidentally, but we just don't take it seriously in the same way the left does. 00:32:15.708 --> 00:32:21.248 And it's for a number of reasons, but that needs to change, and it needs to change yesterday. 00:32:25.908 --> 00:32:28.568 I have a question here from the chat. 00:32:28.568 --> 00:32:31.868 Hi, I'm EO, but I love the podcast. 00:32:31.868 --> 00:32:34.708 How do I start to get educated on political science? 00:32:34.948 --> 00:32:39.328 What reading material, podcasts, et cetera? 00:32:39.328 --> 00:33:00.208 I don't know of that many podcasts for political science, but if you need, say, the philosophy background for it, there is the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, is probably one of the better summary podcasts for philosophy to give you. 00:33:00.208 --> 00:33:11.508 And at this point, it's many, many hours of listening, but it will give you sort of the foundation you need for many political ideas, because many political ideas ultimately are philosophical. 00:33:13.568 --> 00:33:21.028 So you can pick and choose the episodes that are relevant, listen to the political philosophers instead of others. 00:33:21.028 --> 00:33:27.328 But insofar as reading is concerned, that is almost an endless number of suggestions. 00:33:27.328 --> 00:33:30.348 But for anyone on the right wing, you probably want to read Schmidt first. 00:33:31.748 --> 00:33:33.688 That's just the reality of the matter. 00:33:33.688 --> 00:33:42.568 So definitely read Schmidt, and then looking at what books I happen to have here. 00:33:42.568 --> 00:33:44.928 Most of my political science books are actually in another room. 00:33:46.488 --> 00:33:53.048 But it's partly going to depend on what your goal is with reading political science. 00:33:53.048 --> 00:33:54.148 Why are you reading it? 00:33:54.148 --> 00:33:56.548 Are you reading it to get into politics? 00:33:56.548 --> 00:33:57.728 Because then you want practical. 00:33:58.448 --> 00:34:01.088 Are you reading it because you just enjoy it? 00:34:01.088 --> 00:34:04.408 Then you probably want to go heavier on the philosophy. 00:34:04.408 --> 00:34:11.868 So depending on your goal, you're going to tailor your reading list to that goal. 00:34:11.868 --> 00:34:14.968 So if it's just for enjoyment, then read whatever you like. 00:34:14.968 --> 00:34:31.608 But if it is for discussing with other men, it's because you want to understand this fundamental aspect of humanity and human nature, then go heavy on the philosophy, even more so than the straight political science, as it were. 00:34:31.608 --> 00:34:36.548 But the practical side of things, read about actual campaigns that worked. 00:34:36.548 --> 00:34:40.728 It's the same sort of thing that you have over in the military, right? 00:34:40.728 --> 00:34:48.348 The military will read about historical battles and what worked or didn't work, because theory is one thing, but it's sort of like a battle plan. 00:34:48.348 --> 00:34:50.408 It doesn't survive contact with the enemy. 00:34:51.088 --> 00:34:55.228 So, you can read political theory all day. 00:34:55.228 --> 00:35:08.628 You're not going to get a real, deep understanding of how the game is actually played, how the sausage is actually made, until you actually start looking at real campaigns, real politicians, and probably get involved in it as well. 00:35:08.628 --> 00:35:15.708 So, tailor your reading list with regard to what it is you want to achieve. 00:35:15.708 --> 00:35:21.188 It's basically the spectrum, his philosophy on the one end, and reading about the nitty-gritty of running a campaign on the other. 00:35:29.578 --> 00:35:31.778 Next question is, nice and short and easy one. 00:35:31.778 --> 00:35:33.198 Will you start a Bible study? 00:35:33.198 --> 00:35:46.018 I have begun the process of revising my notes on Genesis, partly because obviously this time they will be based on the Septuagint instead of the Masoretic text. 00:35:46.018 --> 00:35:53.838 And I don't know when I will start that, but I do intend to at least do a Bible study on Genesis. 00:35:53.838 --> 00:35:58.118 I'll make the video freely available in the audio and whatnot. 00:35:58.118 --> 00:36:04.418 I won't give a timeline on that because again, I have no idea when I will manage to set the time aside and actually get through that and finish that. 00:36:04.418 --> 00:36:07.758 But yes, I do intend to resume... 00:36:07.758 --> 00:36:10.598 I did a Bible study back at my church in California. 00:36:10.598 --> 00:36:13.358 I do intend to resume doing that. 00:36:13.358 --> 00:36:19.858 So hopefully in the relatively near future, but I guess we will all see how that goes. 00:36:24.978 --> 00:36:29.718 The next question, what makes someone Lutheran? 00:36:33.638 --> 00:36:44.018 I actually want to abstract this one out at least one level, I think, because I will answer the question itself, but I think abstracting it out of level is perhaps more helpful here. 00:36:49.158 --> 00:36:53.678 My first answer would be, of course, that a Lutheran is just a Christian. 00:36:53.678 --> 00:37:08.778 That is, what you should believe about whatever denomination is your denomination, whichever one you claim, because if you think that you're some other thing than Christian, why are you still that denomination, right? 00:37:08.778 --> 00:37:16.178 You are part of your church, part of your denomination, because you believe it teaches the Christian truth. 00:37:16.178 --> 00:37:23.018 And so, if you are a Baptist, it's because you don't believe that baptism saves. 00:37:23.018 --> 00:37:36.038 If you are any number of, usually non-denominational Baptists as well, you probably don't believe in the real presence, because if you believed in the real presence, you would not stay in one of those churches. 00:37:37.318 --> 00:37:50.098 If you don't believe that the Mass, the Roman Catholic Mass forgives your sins, you're probably not going to stay in a Roman Catholic Church. 00:37:50.098 --> 00:37:57.998 And so, my first answer again is that I am a Lutheran, because I believe that that is simply another word for Christian. 00:37:59.138 --> 00:38:18.618 For those who don't know the history, the Roman Catholics during the time of the Reformation started calling the Protestants Lutherans, because they were trying to say, you follow a man instead of following Christ, perhaps never realizing the irony of the fact that they call themselves specifically Roman. 00:38:18.618 --> 00:38:29.858 But leaving that aside, the Lutherans just said, okay, fine, we'll keep that term, we're fine with it, because we believe what Luther has taught, and so we agree with that. 00:38:31.578 --> 00:38:43.238 But to give sort of the abstracted-out answer to the question and get into some specifics as well, you have different levels at which you can answer that question, right? 00:38:43.238 --> 00:38:45.858