The Theology Tango: A Playful Debate Among Friends

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the

Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. We are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the

Christian life. And on this episode, I have recently gotten back from the

Fight, Laugh, Feast conference and I was hanging out with my friend Cody Fields. He is with the Westminster Effects Podcast.

Check it out. This is a fun conversation, a lot of back and forth, playful discussion, even in disagreement on issues, well, on things like dispensationalism and covenant theology.

So we are friends with one another. He had just picked me up from the airport, brought me to the event.

And so we jumped right into the heat of Tennessee to start discussing some theology.

So I hope you enjoy this episode of The Rap Report coming your way right now.

This is from Cody's Westminster Effects Podcast, so you can enjoy that and go follow him as well.

Welcome to the Westminster Effects Doxology Podcast, where we exist for the glory of God and the tone of his people.

I'm Cody Fields. Go buy stuff for your guitar at WestminsterEffects .com and you know the drill. At this point, go like, subscribe, share it, all that good stuff.

I have here at the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, my guinea pig to see if all of this is going to work.

My friend Andrew Rapaport. Andrew, welcome to the podcast. We always need a good guinea pig. Always need a good guinea pig.

And I did just make sure that we are actually recording. We are actually recording here on the video.

Thank goodness. The power bank. The power bank says I have 23 hours.

I don't think we'll be here that long. So power banks lie. Yeah. And I picked you up from the airport this time.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. Not a problem. But that was an adventure. I'd never driven to the

Nashville airport. I'd only had a brief layover last month. That was my first actual move.

It was hairy there for a second, but we got out alive. So tell us about Andrew Rapaport.

Who are you for those who don't know you? Okay, we're done. Okay. We'll see y 'all later.

Love God. Love your neighbor. Makes music. See you next time. Not much to tell. I mean,

I got saved at 16. You know, I was saved in a

Jewish home. So I lived as a secret Christian for two years. Oh, wow. I did not know that.

Oh, you didn't know that. Yeah. So I knew that the moment my parents found out that I was a Christian, they were going to bury an empty casket and I was going to be dead to them.

And I fully expected that. They did find out two years later and they discovered

I was a Christian. First thing they did was go casket shopping. And so I was actually more surprised that they didn't do it.

There was something that happened in the family that they, my dad told me, he's like, we were casket shopping this morning.

And then he explained what had happened. And he said, because of that, we didn't go through with it. Wow. Okay.

And so I was more shocked they didn't. Yeah. So yeah, I lived, I had, you know, not much of a relationship with family after that, obviously.

Sure. And became a pastor of a church, Chinese church. My wife is from Hong Kong. And so a pastor at a

Chinese church and resigned from there and started speaking all around the world. Yeah.

So you, you do a decent amount of open air. Like you do, you do a live stream, uh, what is that apologetic slide every

Thursday. And so you're, you're kind of out there all the time, right?

It's I'm a, it's quirky. It's I think it's the Jewish upbringing that we're trained to debate, but I think it's fun.

I think it's fun when someone comes in and we had, we had an Orthodox Jewish rabbi come into the program.

He had prepped for like months to argue with me. He had, he had pages of notes and cause he ended up sending me the notes and he's like,

I want to be on your show. I'm like, okay, you know, come on. You know? So, uh,

I, I, I think it's fun. I just, I think it's fun to, you know, I think what it is is.

I'm not looking to win a debate when I do that. Sure. It's more, I'm interested in how people come to their conclusions.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There, there are times when I definitely want to win, which is all the time. However, uh, and anybody that knows me at all knows that that's totally true, but at the same time, learning how people got to where they got, that's important to know one that'll actually help you win more.

Oh yeah. Yeah. If you, if you know the missteps they took along the way, but also if, if you don't just treat them as a project to win, you end up with a better winning percentage that way too, because you can win the person.

I know that's a little bit of a third way cliche a lot of times, but it is kind of true in a lot, in a lot of areas.

No, you're right. You're right. Because the, the reality is, I mean, that's why I wrote the book. What do they believe it deals with the major Western religions, but it's trying to be faithful to what they actually believe so that when you argue, well,

Hey, you as a Muslim, this is what your Quran teaches, right? And they go, Oh, you understand the

Quran, right? I mean, I had a debate and you're like, yeah, I did read it. Yeah. Well, I'm yeah, more than read it.

But yeah, I, I, I had a debate at a university with a Imam and when one, it was, it was just a really interesting event and that we had a whole bunch of Muslims.

They were, they were limited on the questions. So they had to, they grouped together to come up with their killer question.

It's like the Pharisees. Yeah. And they, they come up with their killer question and the Imam turns to them and says,

Oh, don't, don't ask that. He understands Islam and it was like, okay.

So I start answering. He's like, no, no, you don't have to answer that. And it was, it was hysterical because so in Islam they have a doctrine called

Takiyah. It is the belief that you could lie to preserve the faith, which kind of seems weird.

I'm going to break God's law in order to save the, like, okay. And it's not just like, um, like,

Oh, Rahab, uh, saying, Oh, the spies totally aren't here. It's more of, Oh, I'm totally not

Muslim or any number of other things. In this case, they were totally denying what Islam teaches because they realized,

I was going to point out a problem with it, like that the Trinity is not the father, the mother, and the son.

So big problem. And so it was just funny because I'm like, so I turned to the Imam, I said, are you guys going to practice

Takiyah right now? And he just looked at me like, Oh, he really does understand.

Yeah. And he, you know, he actually took a New Testament from me. Oh, wow. Yeah. It was, it was really interesting.

Now that next year, that same college, a university, the Muslim group wanted me to debate, but they, they had another guy they wanted me to debate.

And this guy, his name is Joshua Evans. I am the last person he will ever be, last

Christian he'll be on stage with. It's now in his contract. He will not be on stage with a Christian, but he, his whole claim was that he, he was, he applied to, uh,

I think it was Bob Jones university. Oh, down the road from me. Yeah. So he grew up in a Christian home, senior year.

He applied to Bob Jones university, but then he, in his senior year of high school, he started looking at all the religions and realized

Islam's right. And so he's this big name in apologetics for Islam.

And I just sat there in the debate and I just said, you know, so they thought they had the killer guy now because it didn't go well the previous year.

And I just said, you know, okay, let me ask you a question. Did you ever go to seminary? He's like, no.

I said, did you ever go to Bible college? Not that you apply, did you actually go? And he had to say no.

And his whole thing was he, he claims he was a former Christian youth minister. And at the time of our debate, he just said, minister, okay, he was removing it.

So I said, were you ever a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ? And you see him just shake his head no. And I turned to the guy and says, folks, here's the issue.

He was a senior in high school. So for those of you who are Muslims here, that means that he was in a youth group and he was just a leader youth group.

He was never a minister of the gospel. He was never a pastor as he tries to pretend.

So he lied to you to get a big salary to come here. I came here free of charge. And so he ends up getting up and tries to say why, you know,

I didn't get paid to be here. I already called that his organization, he gets paid 10 grand to speak.

Okay. And so I said, I sat there, I said, like, I came free of charge.

Yeah. And he's like, I'm actually free of charge, actually free of charge. I paid the tolls and gas to get up there.

And he's like, well, I get paid to do martial arts. I said, well, I have a background in martial arts. You said that you've only been home for three weeks this year.

I do martial arts. You can't do that virtually. It's just not the sort of thing you could do virtually.

Right. Right. So you can't be making much of a living if you're only doing it three weeks a year. It didn't work well for him.

No, not at all. So other than Apologetics Live, are you still doing the Wrap Report?

I still am. I've been kind of, I'm getting back to being more consistent with it. I haven't been because just as you know,

I moved back to Jersey and just a lot going on in my life and I just wasn't being consistent.

Something had to give. Yeah. So for the people who aren't aware, what is the Wrap Report? So my

Wrap Report podcast is where we deal with biblical interpretations, applications for the Christian life. So we do have a lot of different topics, but we're gearing it toward how do

I as a Christian live? How can I apply things that I see either in culture or, you know, which became a big thing, you know, since 2020.

A lot of people were asking, how does this apply? Yeah. My church is closing down.

What should I do? Yeah. I mean, I said on my podcast once that I never,

I travel, even during COVID, I wouldn't wear a mask. Right. And there was a guy that actually recognized me in the airport because I wasn't wearing a mask.

And he walks up to me and just grabs his face, rips off his mask, goes, you really don't wear a mask.

I'm like, no, I don't play this game. You know, I mean, some of us have actually read the science.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm polite to the flight attendants. And so because if you're super polite, they're like, okay, you're not trying to just make an issue of it.

Right. But I'm not playing the game. It's funny how far you can get in life, one, by acting like you should be there, or two, just kind of being nice to people in customer service jobs.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's so, you know, the wrap report is an hour pre -recorded, roughly an hour, where Apologetics Live, you go to ApologeticsLive .com,

anyone comes in, it's usually about two hours, but it's a live stream. So I never know what I'm getting that day.

Yeah. Anybody and everybody could pop in. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we're in a group chat and you've invited us, you know, hey, whoever wants to come on,

I'm doing this thing. And here's the subject. Oh, yeah. I don't care if people disagree. I actually. So as you know, most of my friends don't agree with me, theologically.

Right. Right. All right. We'll get there. You can go there if you want. No, but I like that because the things it sharpens my,

I mean, one of my best friends is Matt Slick. Okay. Carmen Butler. Yep. He and I have debated each other more than anyone else because we disagree on so many issues.

Right. But we have such a respect for one another. We know where each other comes to the conclusions and it doesn't, it's not like, well, okay, there is name calling, but it's, it's in jest.

It's different when you're friends. That's when it's expected at that point. Yeah. I mean, so Matt Slick and I were doing an

Apologetics Cruise, the, we did a debate. We did a bunch of talks, but we did debate on covenant theology versus dispensationalism.

Someone noticed and asked the question, she's like, why is it that Andrew, you are making points about bad arguments dispensationalists make against covenant theologians, and Matt, you're making, you know, talking about bad arguments covenant theologians make about dispensationalists.

Now, Matt had a far better answer than me, so I'll give you mine first because Matt's was better. I was like, well, if a dispensationalist is listening from me, a dispensationalist, they're going to realize that's a really bad argument to be made, and they're going to hear better from someone that's in their own camp type of thing.

Matt had a better answer. Matt just says, Matt answered first, he's like, Andrew and I both know we're wrong theologically. We don't know where, and if we did, we'd correct it, but we don't.

But when we sit at the feet of Christ, we're both going to be corrected. We're going to be thrilled to be corrected, and we're going to be happy to be in the same page then.

Yeah, that was a better answer. And I'm like, yeah, I had to follow that. I'm like, uh, can

I just pass on this? Right, and so this is not yet, I want to have you back on another time.

I have a series called The Common Thread where we just have people from different traditions come on. We talk, we do talk about differences, but it's not a debate, right?

Yeah. So me being Reformed Baptist, we'll have Presbyterians on, it's like, all right, how do you get there with Baptists, for instance?

But you're a dispensationalist, and you're here at the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, which is very

Presbyterian and particularly very post -mill. Yes. Right, and so me being post -mill, so how do we not kill each other right now?

Well, actually, you know, I've been saying, Fight, Laugh, Feast, the name says it all. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. So we come here, we could fight over a theology, laugh about it, and then go have dinner.

And it's, this is the common thread that I've seen here where, I mean, I enjoy that.

Yeah, I do too. I enjoy being with brothers who don't agree with me, because you know what, the reality,

I'm not 100 % right in my theology. I think I am. Right. But I'm not.

Right. That's the key. Everyone, like, I'll engage with people online or whatever.

You always think you're right. Yeah. Of course. Of course I do. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't.

Like, I do know that I am incorrect somewhere, like we've talked about. I just don't know where it is yet.

And that's why we need to talk about these things and disagree in public sometimes and in private. But it's okay to hash that stuff out, thinking,

Yes, I do think I'm right here. Right? Like, I just think you're incorrect on dispensationalism, and that's okay.

It's, you know, but the thing is that there's certain brothers who can get together.

I can disagree on covenant theology dispensationalism, right? There's some people that can't handle that disagreement.

Right. Right. And there's some who, Greg Moore, who we both know, he and I jab at each other all the time.

And the one joke, I mean, when I knew that I was going to be good friends with Greg Moore, is we were at Jeffrey Rice's first conference.

We're all out. We're sitting there at a Buffalo Wild Wings. It's actually where Keith Foskey came up. This has become the running joke in this group chat is,

I guess that's where we're going to dinner tonight is beat up. That's where we all got together.

And that's where Keith Foskey came up with a how different denominations would order Buffalo Wild Wings.

We actually, Greg started that there. But everyone. I haven't seen that one. Okay. Did the dispensationalist need a chart?

Oh, no, no, no. Okay. I will freely admit this. I'm a dispensationalist. I thought what

Keith did with the dispensationalist at the end was the funniest thing ever. Good.

Okay. So you go watch it. I'll just say he tried getting out of paying the bill. You figure out how he did it.

Okay. Keith had to actually publicly go online. I do remember that one. Keith had to go online and go, Andrew was there and he's very generous.

He actually paid the bill. But the thing is that Greg's sitting there and everyone's busting on him because it's all

Baptists there. Yeah. And he's the only Presbyterian. And Greg just turns and looks at everybody and goes, why are you all busting on me?

There's a dispensationalist here. And I'm sitting right next to him and everyone just turned their guns and started ripping on me.

And I'm like, I looked at Greg and I was like, right then they're like, you and I are going to be good friends. The only two options there is to either immediately become very good friends with that guy or to hope for the rapture to happen in that moment, right?

No, I wanted the friendship for longer. Oh, yeah. Well, that's why you got the thousand years, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

A thousand years, you and I are going to be hanging out and well, that's right now. See people you can, you can be friends and bust on people.

It's more fun that way. It is. It really is something that I think a lot of Christians need to learn, is that we can't hold so tightly to our theology that we can't, we can't joke about it.

We can't have someone kind of bust on us about it. It's okay for someone to give a good ribbing.

Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of funny jokes about dispensationalism that I think are funny. Yeah. But when people completely misrepresent it, that's, and then they knowingly do it.

That's when I have the issue. Right. And I would have the same issue with covenant theology on the dispensational side.

And of course, we will recognize the difference between making a joke, which is an intentional misrepresentation for humor's sake, because we're friends and all that kind of stuff, and actually making the argument of X, Y, Z, right?

Yeah. I mean, I look, I spoke at a Presbyterian church. Uncomfortable position, but I'm speaking, no, not that, but this guy comes up and he's

Uncomfortable position, but not like the fetal position. No, not to speak at the Presbyterian church, but this, this guy that came up, so this guy comes up, new visitor to the church, first time there.

And he says, he's like, I grew up in a Baptist church. What would this church teach different than my church?

Like on baptism? To you. Okay. To me, because I was speaking, I'm the preacher, right?

And I'm like, and the pastor's sitting right here and I'm like, okay, so first off, let me say

I'm Baptist, but, and then I explained Presbyterian baptism. I have no problem, like I identified it's not what

I believe, but I have no problem faithfully explaining that view. And when pastor took me out to lunch, he goes,

Andrew, I gotta tell you, son, I wish my congregation understood Presbyterian baptism as well as you, a

Baptist, understand it. And that's the thing is, I don't have to win this guy to baptism.

Right. Right. If he's first time, he's coming out to church, hasn't been to church since he's a kid,

I'm glad he's coming to church. Is he Presbyterian? Is he baptism? Is he Reformed Baptist?

Is he dispensational Baptist? It doesn't matter. Cause in heaven, that's all going to be worked out. Right. You'll be postmill eventually.

Yeah. Well, you know, R .C. Sproul and Votie Cockham are pre -mill there with MacArthur today.

We just made a joke a couple of weeks ago that Votie's postmill now, because he was But, you know,

Votie, R .C. and MacArthur, they all agree now, one way or another. That's right. On baptism, on eschatology, on whatever.

So, oh man, I had a question and it just left. Keep going though. This is a very skilled professional.

This is what happens when my phone is doing all the video work instead of having notes. I need to get a notepad.

He was planning on ripping on me for my different views, but he figured he'd be nice.

Right, figured I'd be nice. So let me do this and we can rehash this again when we get you back on a

Common Thread episode. How did you come to become dispensational?

Was that the default when you became a Christian or did you work your way there? Interesting question.

I actually, I guess I was dispensational and didn't know it. So when I got to college, which was the first time

I met other Christians, they were all Word of Faith. Oh, okay. Yeah. And so I got into Word of Faith because I didn't know any better.

Right. Right. I'm just like, well, they grew up Christian. They got to know better than me. I grew up in a synagogue.

You know Dwayne Atkinson, right? Yes. Yeah. So it's kind of like him. It's like, well, all the big name preachers are on TV, just like the athletes.

That's who I need to listen to, right? Yeah. It makes perfect sense. They grew up in it. They know. They must know more than me.

Right. And I still remember after I, so I went four years of college, Word of Faith.

My senior year, I was at a Bible study that was not associated with anyone from the school, just someone that I, that I had met and he went to a

Bible study. So I went and two guys are at the other end of the table having a discussion. And one guy is saying to this guy that's visiting the

Bible study for the first time and he just goes, well, not all of us believe that the gifts continue. And I went, wait, what?

Like I didn't know anything else, that all the gifts, these gift of tongues and all this, because I was taught to do this.

So I went home that night and I read 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 in one sitting, in context.

And I went, wait, not looking for it to prove what I was told it does, but to say, what does it actually say?

And I walked away going, wait a minute, this is actually speaking against everything I was taught to believe about the charismatic gifts.

Right. Because like, I'm, I am, I'm a squishy continuationist, but I think the continuationist cessationist definitions aren't ultimately helpful because I think,

I think ultimately it comes down to definitions. Like, like tongues, tongues would be real languages that someone can understand.

And if God wants to do that, he's going to do it. Right. Like, and, and I've heard of recent things like where that's happened, like with street preaching and someone doesn't speak

English, they hear him in Spanish or something like that. Yeah. And, uh, but I think it ultimately comes down to definitions.

And then what do you need to make a church service happen? Like, you know, like what can we expect normally, like the gift of teaching, the gift of administration, that kind of thing, gift of service, as opposed to, all right, we're going to get together and then weird stuff is going to happen.

Like, I think that's what it comes down to in my mind. I could be wrong. Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, what ended up happening with me was

I ended up realizing I might've been taught wrong. Yeah. So I just started studying hermeneutics. That's the art and science of interpretation.

So I said everything I can get on that. And I just wanted to be faithful to a, what

I'll say, a literal understanding of scripture. As a dispensationalist does. And, and when

I say literal, I don't mean everything is taken absolutely literal. I mean, I actually like Keith Foskey's, he talks about a literal literary, the literary sense.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's really, I think that's probably a better definition, a better term for it. But yeah, I think,

I think a lot of people get, and I think I see this more from dispensationalists as they get hung up on literal being, yes, this monster has 10 heads as opposed to that standing.

That's an imagery. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and, and the thing is like, for me, dispensationalism is not an end times view.

Sure. It's a hermeneutic view. Yeah. It's an entire Bible view, really. Correct. Yeah. The end times view is a by -product of it.

And it's not something I really focus on much. Right. But for me, the issue becomes,

I want to be faithful to God's word. The one thing I don't want to stand, I don't want to stand before Christ and him tell, say, Hey, you went beyond what scripture says.

Right. Right. So to me, a dispensational view is actually a safest position because I'm not taking something in God's word and saying it has a meaning other than what it, it has from the scripture in the context at that time.

Right. And so that becomes the thing is that it's a, if you could charge me, it's a safe position, but it's,

I'm not, I'm, I'm not going to be hearing from God, Hey, you, you said this is what this means when it doesn't.

Right. I'm, I'm careful with that. And it's, it's a thing where it's because I had been led astray for four years that I was like,

I never wanted to be led astray again. And if, if God, if I stand before God and he says, you know what you, you thought, you know, circumcision was circumcision and baptism is baptism, but circumcision is actually baptism.

I'll go, okay. Yeah. But he's not going to say you went beyond what my word says. Right. Right. He's going to say, you didn't go far enough.

I understand the impulse because like, I grew up church of Christ. We're all, we're all reformed now, but when you grow up in a church, well, it depends how you define reformed or deal with definitions.

Cause R .C. Clark would say that I'm not, but he doesn't get to define how

I, anyway. So yes, we're all reformed now, but you know, growing up in, in that denomination church, whatever, because they claim.

Were you in the position, in the, cause there's, there's different groups of those. So were you where baptismal regeneration and only a church of Christ could save you?

So my church was considered more of a quote unquote liberal church of Christ because we had a playground and a kitchen and we capitalize the

C in church on the, on the side. To think that that's what makes it. So our church was not hardcore.

Not all of the people in our church were hardcore about the Baptists are going to hell. The Presbyterians are going to hell, that kind of thing.

There definitely were people who thought that, and there were church of Christ exclusivists in there as well. The more

I think of it, the more I don't think it's actually baptismal regeneration as much as I think it's just baptismal justification because ultimately what they argue is kind of Pelagian, right?

Because I've outright heard people in the church of Christ and I'm, and I understand it's not a universal thing.

It's nailing down all of their views across the group is like nailing jello to a tree and it's difficult, but I heard a significant amount of people talk about man being either neutral or good by nature.

You really didn't have a lot of sin nature stuff unless somebody was smuggling in John Piper, which did happen, which did happen.

By you or others? By others. I didn't get into Piper until my, what was it, my senior year of college.

So I graduated college in 2009. So I went to a Southern Baptist private school for middle school and high school, and then

I went to North Greenville University, which is a Southern Baptist institution. So I always had Baptist and Presbyterian and Methodist friends and whatever.

And so at North Greenville, I took an elective, which was a post -modernism in the emerging church, right?

And that was, that was when Driscoll was just coming out of the emergent movement, right?

And so Rob Bell was still popular. You had a man, all those guys are just,

I'm blanking on all of those guys. Brian McLaren. Is that one of them? Yeah. Yeah. So all those guys.

And so I got senior year of college and after graduating college, I got into Driscoll and Piper and those were my gateways into Reformdom.

For so many people, that was the gateway drug. Yeah. I like how Driscoll yelled at me. And now he denies

Calvinism. Right. And a bunch of other stuff. Goodness.

So yeah, like I liked how he yelled at me and I was like, I'll get over that predestination stuff. Well, whatever.

And then it was like, okay, I can't get away from it. So you're saying I should yell at you? Maybe. Okay. Maybe. Maybe that's why we're here.

That didn't work. That didn't work. You need to go, how dare you?

So yeah, that was, that was my gateway. And then it just kind of went from there. And my family left that church shortly after, and then

I ended up at a seeker sensitive church plant for a year. I was already drifting away from that more toward being properly

Reformed. I was drifting away from that. And the last straw for me was the pastor insisting that the worship band, which

I was in, which is hilarious in itself, I go from Church of Christ to playing in a band and now building guitar pedals.

Explain this to folks who may not know Church of Christ. Right. So why is that? The Church of Christ is hardcore about acapella worship.

And I'm not opposed to it by any stretch. Are you tired of pillows that go flat or every couple of years you, they smell bad and what are you going to do with them?

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SFE. No instruments at all? No instruments at all.

It was actually a controversy in my church for a little while of people clapping or not. Should we do that?

Will that offend people? Does that release endorphins and make it about you?

That was the actual thing. So going from that, and now I build guitar pedals that are church history themed.

It's terribly ironic. The church grew up and doesn't like you very much. Yeah, exactly. But the last straw was the pastor of that church, which doesn't exist anymore, by the way.

The pastor or the church? The church. The pastor still exists. Good catch. So he was insistent that the worship band was going to open a service with Katy Perry's Roar.

And I was like, no, I'm not. I'm not doing that. And that's how I ended up at the church where I'm at now.

I'm a deacon. We're 12 years in and it's awesome. So it's much more freeing.

It's funny how you get into the doctrines of grace.

So not properly reformed, just Calvinism in general. You don't have to run that rat race anymore.

It's not up to you. It's all grace all the way down. It's not you deciding. It's not you getting dunked.

It's not you drumming people up with just as I am a hundred times or whatever seeker sensitive silliness.

It's just, it's not you. It's not you. And that's so much more. And that's, that's where we end up having the most common ground.

Oh yeah. You know, I had a guy who I went to church with who, he asked me, you know, he was against Calvinism. He's like, you know, my kids are young back then.

He said, what if your kids don't believe in Christ? Like, you know, how are you going to deal with that with a God, your Calvinism God who, you know, he didn't choose them to be saved.

And I went, I probably deal with a lot better than you would if you ever have kids, because if you don't have kids and you think it's something you did wrong, like in my case,

I'm just going to go, God knows better than me. Yeah. In your case, what are you going to say that you didn't do enough?

Yeah. And, and Revelation 15, however, we understand that whether it's preterist or futurist or whatever, you still at least get the principle of his people praise him for doing what's right.

That's right. And he's going to do right. If somebody deserves to go to hell, they deserve to go to hell. And that's all of us.

Yes. And it's only grace that gets us out of it. You know, not enough, and I'm going to say this as myself, but I probably speak for most

Christians. Yeah. Not enough of us meditate on the fact that we deserve hell.

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, seriously, to, to those listening in the audience, how many of us really sit there and go,

I rightly deserve eternity in a lake of fire, but by the grace of God, that's, that's where you and I could disagree theologically and argue about it and go out to dinner later tonight and have a great time because, but by the grace of God, you and I are, we're both saved.

But by the grace of God, I'm a dispensationalist. It's the only way to be dispensational, follow

God. But, but, you know, but that's the point, right?

Is that we do not think enough about where we were and what we deserve.

You know, Jerry Bridges read any of his books and they all have, it's basically every book is the same thing.

Preach the gospel to yourself. Okay. It's basically, that's what it is. Yeah. But you know, it's a really important thing.

Why is he such a, so many feel like his books? Because so many of us need to remind ourselves, you know what, this is where I was.

This is where God has brought me and I don't deserve the eternal life God's given me.

I have noticed that with a lot of Calvinists, a lot of reformed guys with their books is the first goodness chapter, maybe three chapters is just rehearsing the gospel of grace first.

And it's like, all right, now how does that apply to whatever it is? Like, we got to remind ourselves of this first and then how does that fit into or inform our understanding of,

I mean, goodness, parenting, education, politics, how we worship, whatever. It should influence everything.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because if it is all grace, then goodness, that's freeing.

I mean, if, if God is actually doing well, like the Bible says. All of it. All of it. Yeah. That he's sovereign.

Yep. Then why are we not looking to say, what is God doing here? Yep. I need to get in line with what

God's doing and further what he's doing in this world rather than saying, look, I got to build my kingdom.

Like I got this platform I got to build and I got social media and I got to get my clicks and I got. And all that's fun, but like you tell us in this group chat all the time, stop worrying about the numbers.

Stop worrying about the numbers. I'm not getting annoying with it. No. You might be annoying, Parker, but sorry,

Parker, no, we're not, but you know, but it is, it's an important thing because dude, you know how easily it is to fall into the trap of following numbers and things like that.

Oh yeah. Right. You just had an incident where you decided to voice some of your opinions and you lost just a few thousand followers, maybe over a hundred, right?

So there are so many people that would look at that and unlike the way you handled it, they would go, what do

I got to do to get these people back? Yep. Right. Yep. Your attitude was, Hey, I just lost these many people because I said this.

Okay. God's glorified. Yep. Done. And then move on. Yep. Right. That's the difference. Yeah. There's a lot of people that don't do that.

They're like, I got to get those people back. And then they start compromising their ethics, the gospel, everything they believe.

And it's so easy to do that. That is the easy way out temporarily. Yeah. I mean, look, you mentioned

Driscoll. How could Driscoll get to where he got? A lot of compromise. It's small little compromises because it was more important to have the audience, the crowd, the platform.

Yep. And when that became more important than godliness, he ended up not even realizing that he was compromising a little here, a little here, a little here, and then he's disqualified.

Right. Yep. That's how it works. Good stuff. Lots of good stuff.

We're 35 minutes in. Holy crap. This has been fun. This has been fun.

We got to get you back on. I'd be glad to. We got to get you back on. Where can people find you? Basically, the easiest is strivingforeternity .org.

Strivingforeternity .org. And then you do the X, the Instagram, any of that stuff. Yeah. I do. I'm trying to get off of Facebook and X more, but unfortunately with ministry, it's the easy way to announce what's going on.

But yeah, I'm on Facebook. I'm on X. We have the podcasts.

We have the Christian Podcast Community, which is, we've got like 50 podcasts on there. We don't all agree.

We've got Presbyterians, Baptists, you know, we've got some, we have cessationists like myself and continuationists.

So it's, but we have the core gospel that we agree on. The only thing I've always asked there is don't misrepresent a position you don't hold to.

That's all. You know, as long as you're not doing that, we can, you know, because then it becomes, hey, you're misrepresenting

Calvinism. No, no, actually I'm not. Okay. Then you can continue. But if you are, okay, then we got an issue.

That did remind me of my favorite eschatological joke, which I'm, I've sure, I'm sure you've heard before of, you know, if, if eschatology is like a football game, then the post -millennialists have the playbook, they love and trust the coach and they're playing and they believe they're going to win.

And the amillennialists have the playbook. They love and trust the coach. They're playing.

They think they're probably going to eke out a tie. The pre -millennialists have the playbook, they love and trust the coach and they play and they're, they're probably going to get killed.

The dispensationalists are hoping for a helicopter ride out of the game so they can watch chaos break out in the stadium.

See, this is, this is why I'm pro -millennial. Pro -millennial. Yeah, the pre -millennials, they pan out.

I'm pro -millennial. If there's a millennium, I'm all for it, man. I'm all for it. Well, welcome to it. Go love

God, love your neighbor. We'll see. Make some music. We'll see you next time. The good news is

Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them biblical hermeneutics.

That's right. The art and science of interpreting scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover

Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life verse. To learn more, go to strivingforeternity .org