Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us here on this episode of Ask David Anything with David Bercot. My name is Jason Willis. I'm filling in this evening for Daniel, who couldn't make it up here. As you may have noticed, we're in a new setting. We're in the process of migrating to filming at a new location. So over the next few months, you'll see things change a little bit here and there.
Also, there's an event going on downstairs, so if you hear some noise going on in the background, you can just ignore that. So let's get right into it. Are you ready, David? I am ready. Very good. All right, so the first items that we're going to be looking at are technically not questions. Instead, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking at some actual comments that were posted on our YouTube channels, maybe on our Sound Faith website.
David, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read you these questions, and then if you could just tell us if you see fallacies in these comments. Okay. Question number or comment number one. God commands, thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. Do you do this all the time? Or are there times where you fall short? My contention is that Mr.
Bercot states that God wouldn't give us commands that we can't follow, yet I know no one who claims to keep this command. Would this not stand in stark contrast to his claim? If you don't keep it perfectly, then you don't keep it. It is that to which we are commanded. But because God is holy, and we are not, His standard is unattainable. The good news is that God sent His Son, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life. He bore in His body and soul the penalty of our sins on the cross.
That through Him we may attain the perfection which God requires. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes the sin of those who repent and believe that in Him we may have life eternal. It's not through our goodness or works that attain God's favor, but through Christ's goodness and His work. Okay, so there's a number of fallacies here. Of course, this argument is just standard Reformation doctrine that you can see it in the writings of Martin Luther and for the last 500 years.
So for those who hold a Reformation doctrine, you know, this is familiar argumentation. And for those who don't, you've no doubt have heard these arguments many times. There's a number of fallacies in what this person wrote. For example, his statement if you don't keep it perfectly, you don't keep it. Now that illustrate a perfect illustration of the fallacy of a false dilemma. We talked about this in either January or February.
And the fallacy of false dilemma is where you claim that in a given situation, there's only two possible choices A or B. Here he's saying you either keep it perfectly or you're not keeping it. Well, I'm sorry, but there's a big middle ground in between there and that is you keep them but not perfectly. And there is a difference there. It's not just a play on words that because you can't do something perfectly doesn't mean you can't do it. Like if you ask someone, do you know how to ride a bicycle?
Yes, I can ride a bike. Can you do it perfectly? You know, or can you swim? Oh yeah, I know how to swim. Would you do it perfectly? I mean, do you do your strokes exactly right and all of that? That, yeah, it's not true that if you don't do something perfectly, that means you might as well not do it at all. So, anytime you hear that it's either this or it's that and that's those are the only two choices.
Yeah, keep your eyes open, your head and your mind in gear because normally you're going to see a false dilemma that follows that. The other fallacy is quoting when we quote somebody out of context or quote them in a way that doesn't really accurately reflect what they're saying. And this happens all the time in every kind of setting, social settings, politics, and certainly in theological discussions. So in one of my messages, I must have made the statement, " God would not give us a command we can't follow.
" And I'll stand by that. I believe that. God's not going to give us a command that we can't follow. But now he is taking that and arguing against it in the sense of God would not give us a command we can't follow with perfection. Now, he doesn't use those words, but that's his old chain of argument. Well, no, I've never claimed that. He gives us, I mean, all of his commands, we as fallen humans cannot keep them perfectly, but we can keep them to the standard of what a fallen human is capable of doing.
And then a third fallacy. Now this is going to be new if you remember the lessons on fallacies. This one I haven't talked about, so this might be a good time to introduce it. It's called the fallacy of definition. And well, I guess there's various ways to commit this fallacy. But one way we commit it is when we choose an either overly broad definition of a word or a definition that's way too narrow. It could be a word, it can be a phrase, it can be a figure of speech or an expression.
So here Jesus, when he talks about loving God with our whole heart, whole mind and soul, we actually have both of those words, whole-souled, wholehearted, in the English language. They've come down as words in our language. And I looked up, I thought I'll just look up wholehearted what that means, because that's essentially what Jesus is telling us here that we have to have a wholehearted love for God. He's not going to accept a half-hearted love. And Webster's dictionary defines wholehearted this way.
It says, " Marked by complete earnest commitment, free from all reserve or hesitation. " And he gives the example. He gave the proposal wholehearted approval. So that is exactly what God requires of us. A love that is marked by complete earnest commitment, free from all reserve. We can't say, well, I love you, God, but my job comes first. My money comes first. My particular sins come first. My family comes first. No, God has to be above everything else. We can't have any hesitation or reserve there.
And that is a love we fallen humans are capable of giving. And God doesn't expect anything more of that. He's a reasonable God who we can see in the Scriptures of God who has a lot of understanding. He knows our weaknesses. I'll paraphrase William Law. This is not an exact quote, but the thought is from William Law. God does not expect from us the love that an angel can give, nor does He expect from us the love that a perfect human could give. Rather, he only expects the love that a fallen human can give.
And yet he does require that. What we can do, what we are capable of doing as fallen human beings, that is the standard he requires of us and the love that he expects from us. Okay, did you have some more examples? Yeah, so this next comment is right along the same lines there. So if you don't keep it perfectly, you don't keep it. Who says? By the mere definition of it, God doesn't demand perfection in everything we do. Really?
Jesus said, " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. " My position is God's demand perfection. The only one who was perfect was Jesus. So it's only through Christ that we are or we can be accepted. It's a positional acceptance. We are either in Christ or we are in Adam. In Adam, we are condemned. In Christ we are accepted. He does forgive and cleanse us, but the forgiveness and cleansing is through Christ who paid the penalty for our sins for the wages of sin is death.
Christ paid that penalty with his death on the cross.
All right, so several fallacies here and one of them we'll go back to it again the fallacy of definition and he even uses that he says who says he says if you don't keep it perfectly you don't keep it okay the fallacy of a false dilemma there false dichotomy and he says who says by the mere definition okay so keeping it he defines is keeping it perfectly well that's much too narrow of a definition you know if you keep books for somebody that doesn't mean you necessarily keep them perfectly that there can never be a
mistake there.
If you keep Caesar's law, man's law, it doesn't mean there's no imperfection there. I doubt there is any citizen or resident of the United States who keeps every single law perfectly but the government's not going to come and arrest you because it doesn't expect perfection but it does expect a certain measure of obedience and you will definitely be arrested and charged with a crime if you cross that line. And God is not less reasonable than than the human government's put over us.
The other example of false definition is his quote there, " Be you there perfect even as your father who is in heaven is perfect. " So he's saying, see, I mean, Jesus said this, that, you know, you have to keep everything perfectly. Well, the fallacy of definition comes to play again here.
The fallacy in this instance, and this happens all the time, people take words from the English translation of the Bible and then they take that English word that was chosen to translate a Greek word and say, " Uh-huh, you got to fit, you know, how that word is translated in English. " Jesus didn't speak English. He spoke, well, I believe he spoke Greek and he also spoke Aramaic. May have spoken Hebrew as well. Obviously, he had the knowledge of it, whether he actually spoke it here on the earth.
If you look, if you've got an interlinear Bible where you can look at the Greek, you'll find that the Greek word there that's translated perfect is Teleios. Now in the Greek, Teleios does not normally, I'm not even sure if ever it means sinlessness.
It actually means generally and if you do a strong search where you look where everywhere everywhere Teleios is used in the Bible, you're going to see that it's normally used in the sense of completeness, of being mature, of being full grown, perfect in the sense of being complete, not perfect in the sense of sinless. So like I say, this is giving too narrow of a definition of the word teleios as if it means sinlessness. Okay, so Jesus is saying, and we're going to look at the passage that we have to be complete.
Now the other fallacy or another fallacy here is proof texting. This person and I'm not attacking him. I don't even know who this person is. I'm just looking at the quote. So he quotes that. Jesus said, you know, be ye perfect. Uh-huh. As if that's applying to everything in life. You have to be perfect. Well, see, we can't be perfect. Well, if you look at the passage, you'll see that's not what he's saying. It's Matthew 5: 44 through 48, and I'm going to just read that to you. I have it here on my computer.
Jesus said, " But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your father in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Therefore, you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. So what is the context? He's talking about love and particularly loving our enemies. He said, if you only love your friends, he said, you're no better than the tax collectors who would have been viewed by the Jews as the worst of sinners. Because they were basically robbers, extortionists, John Chrysostom, and this is centuries later calls them is legalized robbery, what they did.
And so he's saying, if you just love your friends, you're no better than the worst people out there because they love their friends too. They do good things to people who are nice to them. But he says, " No, I'm requiring more. You have to love your enemies as well. Love those who do horrible things to you that you show them love in return. " And he says, " Therefore, " and he says, " You know, look at your father in heaven.
When he brings rain, and in this sense, rain is a good thing that they needed for their crops, he doesn't just bring it on those who worship him and those who please him. He brings it, he shares it with everybody. " He says, " You need to be the same way with your love. You have to be complete. You can't just compartmentalize it and I'll love these people and not those. " So his whole emphasis is on being complete.
So yeah, quoting that like God requires sinless perfection from us is taking it totally out of context. And that's a fallacy. And it's dishonest. Now, this person may not have realized he was doing it dishonestly, but it's dishonest when we do that. You always look at a verse. What is the subject of the passage? And you know this whole thing and I'm not attacking this person because this has been used from Martin Luther on. So this is something new.
He's just repeating old arguments that have been out there for centuries. But you know all of this talk about God requires perfection is a very dishonest form of argumentation because the proponent is posturing himself as though I have a very high view of God and His commandments. God requires perfection. That's my view of His commandments. So it sounds like, well, this person really has, like I say, a high view of God's commandments. The truth is this person has a really low view and he's arguing for a low view.
He's saying he's setting a standard that's impossible and therefore and then with the fallacy of false dichotomy or false dilemma, then he's saying, well, it's either that unattainable sinless perfection or doesn't matter. You don't have to obey any of his commandments. All he cares about is that you have faith and you're saved by faith alone. What you do, your works, your obedience, that doesn't matter to God. It's only what Christ does.
And then the false doctrine of imputed righteousness, and we'll hopefully get to that later this evening. But yeah, it's very dishonest to act like, oh, you have this high view of God's laws. When your whole purpose is to argue we don't have to obey His commandments. And that it's not going to affect our salvation. And so, yeah, you get to pick and choose which ones to obey. The ones that, yeah, you don't mind that are easy for you to obey, don't require too much sacrifice.
Yeah, you're going to obey them where you can at least live above the level of the street. But no, you're not going to obey the ones that are really going to require sacrifice. And that's not how Christianity works. Okay, next question. Great answer, David. So a couple more comments here. The next one we've got. Look, I get all those passages you quote, but the bottom line is absolutely no Christian I've ever talked to could tell me which sin it is that takes you out of the body of Christ and into a lost state.
Is it sin number five, number 10, number 30, number 50? Which one does Grace not cover if you die after you commit a sin? Okay, sorry there. I thought I was going to be able to sneak in my thermos while you were reading. All right, this is the perfect illustration of the continuum fallacy that we talked about, I think, in February. It's also, and I learned it in college under the name fallacy of the beard. And it always uses this argument.
Okay, now tell me what number, what, you know, what specific thing, and oh, if you can't name that exact dividing line, then see there is no dividing line. And when it's used, like here in a theological argument, you know, it sounds believable like, hmm, that's a good argument. I remember someone used that on me years ago before I was aware of fallacies. I didn't know how to answer it. I knew something here doesn't add up, but I wasn't sure what the problem was.
And then when we studied it in class, it's like, okay, that was the fallacy of the beard. So why it's called the fallacy of the beard is the question, how many whiskers does it take to make a beard? Okay, you're looking at me and I don't have a beard, and Jason here does have a beard. Okay, so let me ask you the question. How many whiskers does it take to make a beard? Now, I might look like I have none, but I guarantee you when I shave, I don't get every single hair that's on my face. There are some there.
So let's say I have five. Does that make a beard? No, what about 10? What about 30? What about 50? If I had 50 hairs, would I have a beard? You can't answer that question? Oh, well then there's no such thing as a beard. No difference between him and I because we can't define a beard. So beards don't exist. You could use that in a jillion things. What does it mean that the weather's cold? What does the temperature have to be before it's considered cold? 38, 39, 40, 41? Can't say? See, there's no such thing as cold.
No such thing as warm. No such thing as hot. What's an obedient child? Does that mean a child who never disobeys? Well, that would be no children. They disobey five times. Are they still obedient? What about ten times? You know, where is the line? Oh, you can't name it. Well, there's no difference between a disobedient child and obedient child.
I mean, it's just a fallacy because in many things in life, there isn't a clear line of distinction between where cold ends and warm begins where or cold ends and cool begins and where cool ends and warm begins and where warm ends and hot begins. I mean, you know, it's a subjective kind of thing. And yet there is such thing as cold weather, as cool weather, as warm weather, and as hot weather. Now maybe the weather station has a specific one that they arbitrarily use, but it's arbitrary.
There's nothing in nature that gives us a line. And yet all of those realities exist. And so it is with obedience to God and sin. It's not a number. It's not of course you can't point to a number that oh, after this point, then you're lost. There's also another fallacy in here, and this is very common on all of these. Usually when people are using fallacious argumentation, there's usually a number of fallacies all mixed in together.
So here we have the classic example of the fallacy of the beard or the continuum fallacy. Another one is the straw man argument. And the straw man fallacy is where instead of attacking what your opponent actually teaches or says, you set up a fake version of what they're saying and then you attack that fake version, that straw man instead of what they're really saying. So here he says, " Oh, tell me where which one does grace not cover if you died after you committed a sin?
" Well, see, people who hold to the historic faith, who recognize that obedience is required from us by God, none of us would claim, oh, grace can only cover a certain amount of sins. Jesus Himself, when Peter asked concerning us, forgiving our fellow man, he says, " How many times am I to forgive my neighbor when he sins against me up to seven times or my brother? " Jesus said, " Not up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven.
" And since love doesn't keep counter the injury, that means you never stop forgiving them if they come to you and ask forgiveness, or I guess even if they don't. Now, certain sins, yes, there might be action the church needs to take, and it can show an unrepentant heart. And that's what God is looking at. A heart that loves him. Jesus said, " If you will love me, you will keep my commandments. " He didn't say, " If you love me, you will keep my commandments perfectly.
" But he did say, " You will keep my commandments. " He didn't give the option of, " Well, I can't keep them perfectly, so therefore it's fine to not keep them at all. " No, that's not the option. The option is we keep them. And he didn't give an objective requirement of that. It's subjective. Do we love him? If we love him, we're not going to see how few commandments we can keep or how halfheartedly we can keep them. We are going to give God our very best, or at least we're going to strive to do that.
Now, where Jesus said, it's not a matter of grace somehow ends. I don't think grace ever ends. God is always full of grace. But there is a limit where we show ourselves to be unworthy of his grace, that there's a general grace that he gives to all mankind or else he would destroy all of us. But there is another sense of grace of forgiving our sins, admitting us into the kingdom of God, allowing us to be part of Christ's body. And Jesus here tells us, He doesn't give us a specific point.
But John 15, he just talks about bearing fruit. The test is not how many times you disobeyed or how many sins did you commit, but are you bearing fruit? Does our life bear the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of Christ dwelling in us, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us? Or is it the fruit of the world, just the fruit of fallen man that's there? And he said, yeah, if we don't bear fruit, we're going to get cut off of the vine. Now he doesn't say he doesn't give an objective.
He doesn't say, you know, there has to be this much fruit or that much. He doesn't say, but he gets to make that judgment call and it'll be a perfect, you know, decision that he makes. Well, of course, it'll be perfect because not only is he perfect, it's all based on grace and mercy anyway. None of us deserve to be on the vine. We don't deserve to be a part of the body of Christ. But he gives it that is in an absolute sense. But he does give it to those who love him.
And as I said, he said, " If you love me, you will keep my commandments. " And that was, in fact, in the same message where he talked about the vine. So yeah, he's going to look at the fruit we're bearing and God will make that call. But be sure there is a line that we can cross that no doubt is a little different for each person because God looks at, you know, the totality of our life. But he says, you know, that the Father will lop us off the vine.
So, yeah, there's a boundary to cross, but it's not one that we can see or that we can objectively measure. Okay, next question. Very good. Yeah, so we got one more comment we'll look at, and then we'll move on to some questions. This last one here is actually a pair of comments we received. See what you see in this. So the comment number one is the Roman church would agree with your position on works and comment two, Bercot is a Roman Catholic in theology here.
Okay, so this is a fallacy of name calling, sometimes called labeling, also the fallacy of guilt by association. And it's a cheap form of argumentation that you see all the time in the political world and in social world. If you can't address the arguments of your opponent, then you try to smear them as a person. It's also attacking the man, not attacking the argument called the fallacy of ad hominem or against the man.
So, of course, those of us who hold to the historic faith and Bible-believing Protestants, yeah, none of us are Roman Catholics and we would have some major disagreements with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. But neither group, that is neither kingdom Christians nor people who hold to the theology of Martin Luther. Neither group believes completely different than the Roman Catholic Church. There would be a lot of teachings in common.
In fact, there's probably more teachings in common that those who hold to the historic faith would have with the Roman Catholic Church, then there would be differences. And likewise, for someone who holds to Protestant Reformation theology, they would have more in common with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church than they would have differences with it. So, yeah, taking something you believe and say, well, the Roman Catholics believe that too. Aha, you're a Catholic in theology.
That's just cheap, fallacious reasoning, name calling, labeling. So I think most of us don't fall for that kind of thing, but it's very effective, particularly in the political realm, but it can be effective in the Christian or theological realm as well. Now, the irony is that actually I would, although I would have to maybe sit down with paper and pencil.
But off the top of my head, I would probably argue that those who hold to Protestant Reformation theology, to the teachings of Martin Luther, they would actually have more teachings in common with the Roman Catholic Church than those of us who hold to the historic faith, which is what we teach, you know, on this channel. For example, using the Masoretic text for the Old Testament text instead of the Septuagint. Okay, that practice originated with the Roman Catholic Church.
It started with Jerome, who was the Secretary of the Pope, and then his translation would have gone nowhere, but it eventually got the official backing of the Roman Catholic Church. So by the time you got to the Reformation, Western Christians were used to using the Masoretic text for the Old Testament. But that started with, like I say, the Roman church, because the Eastern Church to this day still uses the Septuagint for its Old Testament, as did the apostles, as did the early Christians.
Okay, the satisfaction view of the Atonement. We've talked about the Atonement before. I've got messages on this channel that you can go back and listen to on the Atonement. The satisfaction theory of the Atonement in the form that it later came to be most accepted came from a Roman Catholic archbishop, Bishop Anselm. So again, and most Protestants hold to the satisfaction theory.
The doctrine of original sin, as taught by Protestants, as taught kind of as presented in some of these arguments, that's a Roman Catholic teaching. It's not the same view the early Christians had. Now they certainly believe that there was an original sin in the Garden of Eden and that we've all been affected by that, that humans are fallen. But the Roman view of the of original sin is a little bit different than that of the historic faith. And that's what most Protestants hold to.
It didn't come from the scriptures. It didn't come from the early church. It came from the Roman Catholic Church. And then again, the Protestant views on war, on Oath. That's from the Roman church. Their view of the Trinity is not the original view that was taught. It's not the historic view of the Trinity.
It's what developed later through the centuries, not the Trinity itself, but the particular view of the Trinity that essentially treats the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit as three brothers instead of having a real father and a real son relationship there. That's from the Roman Catholic Church. And the Protestants teach it actually even to a greater degree than than I think Catholics do. So you could go on, on and on. It's, yeah, whether something corresponds to the Roman church or not is irrelevant.
Is it the historic faith? Is it the faith the apostles handed down? All right, well, we've probably done all of the fallacies. Let's move on to some other questions now. Very interesting. Thank you for that thorough answer there. So the next two questions are going to be about the doctrine of predator, sorry, thank you. Preterism is a theological view that all of the prophecies in the Bible, including the Book of Revelation, were fulfilled by somewhere around 70 AD, or at least by the end of the 1st century.
This includes all of the prophecies in Matthew 24 and 25 that talk about the end times. So the first question regarding preterism is how valid is preterist doctrine? And can someone that follows this teaching be a true child of God? OK, so for many of you, this may be a new word for you. I remember I think I heard it for the first time in the 1990s. It's like somebody said that in a letter. They wrote me something about the preterists say this or that. And it's like, I thought it was a typo.
Like, okay, what was he trying to say here? You know, is he Presbyterians? I had not heard the word myself until then. Now, since then, I've heard it quite a number of times. I've gotten literature sent me by people who hold to the Preterist Doctrine. There's books, there's pamphlets, and I've gotten a lot of letters on that. So I thought I've never addressed it in any of my writings or any of my messages, so I thought this might be a good time to talk about it.
You may not ever come across it, and yet you may come across it, you know, tomorrow, or maybe you've already, you know, run across people who hold to this view. Now, there's two types of preterists. There's full and partial. And now all the contacts that I've had, the people who've, you know, tried to bring me around to this doctrine, they would hold to the full preterist view, which is basically what Jason described. In other words, you can hold to some of the elements of it without holding to the whole thing.
Now, full preterism is definitely not the historic faith because it says there's not going to be a future coming of Christ, that the resurrection is a spiritual resurrection that has already taken place or it takes place, you know, with us, that there's really not going to be a future end of the world. That all of Matthew 24 and 25 was fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem and AD 70. All of that, that is not the historic faith. The early Christians look for a future coming of Christ.
They look for an end to the present world. They look to a new heavens and a new earth. They look to resurrection in the future, a judgment day in the future. They did not believe that the Book of Revelation had already been fulfilled. They looked for a future fulfillment. They did recognize that the first part of Matthew 24 where Jesus, when his disciples ask him, what are the signs of your coming and of the end of the age? And he gives a very long answer.
The early Christians recognize, yeah, that the first part of that is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem that happened in AD 70. So part of that, at least say down to verse 22 of Matthew 24, has already been fulfilled. However, the last half of that chapter, and as you go into chapter 25, it's talking about future events and applies to the Second Coming of Christ and what we often call the end of the world.
So yeah, so part of the premise of Preterism is actually the historic faith that, yes, much of Matthew 24 was fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem, but then they take it too far, and then particularly when they claim that revelation was fulfilled in all of that. I'll just read you some examples from the early Christians just to, you know, demonstrate that they were looking for Christ to come in the future.
From the Didache, one of the earliest writings, " But be ready for you do not know the hour in which our Lord comes. " In second Clement, which is actually an ancient sermon, he says, " He speaks of the day of his appearing when he will come and redeem us each one according to his works. " That's not me making up the importance of works. And that person is quoting directly from Paul and James and Revelation, among other passages. Another one, Justin Martyr, two comings of Christ have been announced.
In the first one, he is set forth as suffering in glorious, inglorious, dishonored and crucified. However, in the other coming, he will come from heaven with glory when the man of apostasy speaks strange things. Okay, so again, they were looking for a future coming. And let's see, I maybe have one more quote. " He will soon come from heaven for the punishment of the devil and for the judgment of the human race with the force of an avenger and with the power of a judge. " So there was a coming...
Oh, no, I do have some more. So there was a coming judgment they were looking for. Archelaus, at his coming, only the righteous will rejoice. For they look for the things that have been promised them, and the subsistence of the affairs of this world will no longer be maintained. Rather, all things will be destroyed. Okay, one more, Irenaeus.
In a still clearer light, John and the apocalypse apocalypse has indicated to the Lord's disciples what will happen in the last times and concerning the ten kings who will then arise. So yeah, this is not the historic faith. The early Christians were looking for this future coming of Christ. Now, the second part of that question was, can someone be a true Christian if they hold to the preterist view?
Well, if you hold to the full preterist view, you certainly couldn't claim to be an Orthodox Christian, and you certainly couldn't claim you're holding to the historic faith. You're holding to a man-made doctrine. And this comes from pride, not just the preterist view. There's so many doctrines like that that they originated centuries and centuries after the days of the apostles. The preterist view didn't start becoming it's still not popular. It's a very small minority of people who hold to it.
I get the impression is the end of the 20th century when people started really turning to that view. Like I said, I had never heard it before myself until the 1990s. Now, it was started. I think the earliest person was a Jesuit priest back in the 1500s, but it's not a teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, and it didn't get any traction until I'm sure there have been people here and there. But like I say, it's a very recent doctrine that more and more people are turning to.
And the pride is this idea that virtually 2,000 years after Jesus came and died, that, oh, we just now understand the Bible correctly for the first time, that for 2,000 years, everyone's had it wrong. The people who learned it directly from the apostles, yeah, they had it all mixed up. And the people after them and the Reformers, yeah, they got it wrong. And yeah, just everyone got it wrong.
But somehow now, 2,000 years later, when we are so far removed and we don't even speak the same language, now we understand what they were saying. That's such pride that leads people to that kind of conclusion. Now, I'm not going to say that grace can't cover major theological errors, particularly if our theology doesn't affect the way we live. However, I would say that the full preterists are on dangerous ground because they are going against the historic faith.
They're going against what virtually all Christians have believed for 2,000 years. And they are disbelieving one of the articles of the Apostles ' Creed. Not that the Apostles ' Creed is above Scripture or anything like that, but it shows how the Scriptures were understood at the beginning. And the Apostles' Creed goes back. I mean, you can find early forms of it, you know, getting close to the time of the Apostle John.
And it's such a basic statement that in the early church, they would not baptize you if you did not hold to that. And one of the articles in it is it talks about the future return of Christ and the judgment of the dead, that this is something coming in the future. So if you held to the preterist view, you wouldn't have even been able to say, " Yeah, I believe the apostle's creed, " which was, I mean, like I say, so basic that almost the only ones who couldn't say they believed it were the Gnostics.
So again, I'm not going to make a judgment here. That's in God's hands, but I'd say you're on dangerous ground. And I think there's a big issue of pride thinking that no one got all of this right until just now we're just understanding the Bible. And if it was just a matter of how to interpret Matthew 24, well, yeah, that's not such a big thing. But yeah, to say that there's not going to be a future coming of Christ, not going to be a future resurrection of the dead, not be a future judgment.
That's some pretty serious heresy. Okay, I think I was going to read from Chrysostom, but let's move on to the second, that same person had a second question, I think. Yeah, question two. There are so many times, so there are so many time indicators concerning the end times being near to their time in the Bible. Would it make sense for God to tell believers back then that he would come quickly in their generation and everyone needs to be prepared, but 2,000 years later, he still didn't come.
How do we reconcile this? Well, the early Christians read those very same passages of Scripture, and they were reading them, of course, as native speakers of Koine Greek, the Greek of the New Testament. Now, they weren't the ones getting all upset about this. Well, why hasn't Christ returned? Now, as you can tell from some of those quotes, you know, they were saying, " Hey, be ready. He could come at any time. " And that still applies today.
But except for some of the heretics, the church never set any dates, nor when you read most of the writers. Yes, you can tell that they were thinking this would come maybe within a hundred years, a couple hundred years. They didn't think it'd be 2,000 years away. But neither did they think that it was necessarily going to be in their lifetime.
So they read those same words where, you know, Jesus said in Revelation, you know, I'm coming quickly and that He was revealing things that were going to shortly take place and things like that. They read those same verses we are, but they also said the other ones that, you know, like Peter, when he says, " Yeah, don't be stumbled. " People say, " Well, where is this promise coming? " You know, he isn't here yet. So, you have those scriptures as well.
So, if they weren't stumbled by that language, and they weren't expecting that, " Okay, it's going to be in the next 10 years or in the next 50 years, " because he said quickly, well, then we shouldn't be stumbled today. We should humbly acknowledge, " Okay, they understood the Greek better, the sense of it, of how to take that language than we do today. " And it is funny today because here 2000 years later, in some churches, boy, it's an article of faith.
If you do not believe that Christ is coming, let's say, you know, in this generation or in this lifetime, yeah, you're viewed as a heretic and, you know, you couldn't be in the minister. You might even be put out of the out of the church. And people back then were not, you know, making those kind of stipulations. So I think we can just learn from their example. If you want to move to the next question, like I said, I was going to cover more on that, but I think that's probably enough on that topic. Move on.
Also, just anyone who is watching, we do have someone monitoring the chat. If you do have questions, feel free to post them there. If we don't get to them this evening, we will pay close attention to the questions. And if it's a good applicable, applicable question, we'll work that into our next episode here. So our next question is. What was the position of the early church on homosexuality? Okay, well, I thought, you know, the best answer to that is just, you know, they believed exactly what the Scriptures say.
So, Romans 1:22 through 32, I'm not going to read every single verse there, but this sums up what they believed. " Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.
And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. So that's simply it.
I mean, the early Christians didn't say anything beyond that and they didn't water that down at all. That was exactly their view. Very good. So this next question was submitted to us by Java Bradley. Mr. Bradley says this. He says, " I often struggle with the fact that unity in the church seems like such an impossible goal. For example, someone comes to a different conclusion on a particular doctrine or issue, but he gives a reasonable explanation as to why.
Though I may disagree, he may be bearing what appears to be good fruit in his life, and that's one of the signs I look for in discerning someone's faithfulness. Yet his conclusions may lead to radically different choices and outcomes than mine. How do we navigate relationships with others who seem to love the Lord at least as much as any other devout person, but they hold to convictions that I might disagree with.
Also, how do we deal with the emotional and psychological stress these differences can cause when dealing with people we care about or respect? Okay. I was assuming Java was a lady. Do you know the person? I do not. Oh, okay, so you're guessing a man, I'm guessing. Either way, a good question. So, yeah, a very good question. So, you know, we teach the historic faith. Does that mean that everyone who doesn't hold to the historic faith? That, you know, we view them as heretics. They're not our brothers and sisters.
And yeah, how do we relate to them? Sometimes they make good arguments, and I know that they believe things, even those ones that we were reading under the fallacies section that we talked about at the beginning of this evening. You know, the person who sent that, I believe that person is sincere. He's not even aware that what he's saying contains a lot of fallacies. He's thinking, " Oh, these are good sound arguments. " And maybe a very godly person.
He may be saying that, you know, you'll still be saved if you don't keep God's commandments, but he may be living a very godly life. I've seen that in a lot of people. So, just because I disagree with someone's theology, I don't make any judgment on where they stand with God. There's a lot more to the Christian life and much more than our theology. So, yeah, you're on the right track exactly when you say observing good fruit in his life is one of the signs I look for to discern someone's faithfulness.
That's exactly what I do. You know, I'm looking for the fruit in their life, and I may totally disagree with a lot of their theological views, but I may and there are several people who would fit this description. I mean, there would be, you know, hundreds of thousands, but I mean, that I, you know, that I personally know there's there are a number that I would not be ashamed to say they live a more godly life than I do. But I feel like a lot of their theology is wrong.
But as I said, theology isn't the, you know, the whole thing or that, you know, a person may not hold to non-resistance. And that's certainly a could be a very big thing. But, you know, for much of my life, after the Vietnam War, I mean, there hasn't been, you know, a military conscription in this country. Most countries on Earth haven't been at war during that time. So a person might totally believe in going to war and all that.
But yeah, has never held a gun, never shot a gun, never hurt anyone, never been in the army or anything like like that. I'm not saying that's that's okay. I'm just saying that lots of times some of these positions are just, well, this is what I would do in this situation, but, you know, this situation doesn't actually come up. And, you know, I work in the ministry in Honduras that I've just turned over to another brother.
But, yeah, for 23 years, you know, I've worked with brothers and sisters down there who would not hold to all of my theological views or I should say to the historic faith that I embrace. But wow, I had no problem calling them brother and sister, and like I say, in many ways, look up to them in their commitment to Christ. And then you asked, how do we handle the emotional stress? See, to me, there's no emotional stress involved.
Now, I could see you gave an example in part of your question that we didn't cover, that, yeah, there are times where it is emotionally stressful, particularly if they're coming and wanting to join one of our churches and they would hold to a particular view that would would bar them because it does affect things in their life. Yeah, I understand sometimes, yeah, my heart aches or whatever. But in general, I don't stress over differences in doctrine. I mean, I hold very firmly to the historic faith.
And, you know, I've devoted nearly all of my adult life in trying to promote the historic faith and to defend it. But again, someone isn't automatically my enemy because they I haven't persuaded them or, you know, they have other views. I don't judge them. And I think that's where the stress comes in is if we start judging people based on their theology, or even based on things in their life that we would believe conflict with Christ's teachings on how we should live.
Ultimately, they're the ones that are going to have to answer before God. And so all that any of us can do is to share, you know, the historic faith, share what, you know, Jesus ' words are, and they may interpret them differently. And we just have to leave it at that. They are the ones who ultimately have to answer to God. And something we can do is, you know, pray they'll change their mind, or that God will be merciful. You know, I know I'm not going to be able to change everyone's mind to my view.
I don't want God to punish them because they're holding to a false view. I pray, you know, regularly for Jehovah's Witnesses, something I grew up in, that I would, you know, disagree with much of their doctrine. Not all of it. Certainly, part of their doctrine is the historic faith. But I would disagree with many things, but I don't want God to punish them because of their errors.
I do think the ones at the top are going to have a high degree of accountability before God, but certainly the rank and file, I want God's mercy on them. But, you know, I have to leave that in his hands. All right, let's move from there. All right, so the next two questions, if we get to two, we may only get to one more, but they are in regards to imputed righteousness, and these were submitted by Matthew Gerber.
The question is, what was the belief of the early Christians about imputed righteousness and justification? OK, this will be a very quick answer because it would be a huge one. But yeah, I've done messages on that exact subject, imputed righteousness and justification. So it's part of if you're a subscriber to the historic faith, then it's something that's available to you for free. It's the series of lessons on the atonement. And you probably would want to it's three different messages.
But it's the second one that is specifically dealing with the doctrine of imputed righteousness. So, yeah, I would encourage you to go there and listen to it. I lay out exactly what the early Christians believed on that subject. All right, so second question on this topic. Do Christians have to believe in the reformed view of imputed righteousness in order to be humble and avoid self-righteousness? I certainly hope not. And I hope I don't come across as self-righteous.
I don't even think there's necessarily any connection. You know, I worship with Anabaptists who do not hold to the doctrine of imputed righteousness. And I don't see any greater self-righteousness in our circles than I would see other places. And I would see the same degree of humility. Yeah, I don't see any connection between self-righteousness and theology, particularly concerning imputed righteousness.
Some of the most self-righteous people through history have been the Calvinists who would believe in imputed righteousness. And yet, you know, they can be incredibly self-righteous. I mean, I've had quite a number, you know, that I've had discussions with, we'll call it discussions. And yeah, I'm always just taken aback by how terribly self-righteous they can be. So I don't see a connection. Now, I will say I've met other Calvinists who are really nice people and that I'm happy to call my brother in Christ.
So I don't want to paint all Calvinists with the same brush. Yeah, let's go to the next one. So this next question comes from Jeremy Jeremy Martin regarding school curriculum. There are many generic Protestant curriculums for children around, which are written leaving out many applications. What have you found to be the best publishers for books and material from the historic faith? OK, I'm assuming we're talking about homeschool curriculum.
If you're talking about Sunday school curriculum, some of this would still apply, but I'm taking the question to be homeschool curriculum. And of course, there isn't any curriculum I know of that specifically teaches the historic faith. But there is curriculum that would come from a kingdom Christian perspective. And so most of it is going to conform to the historic faith. Not on every detail, but in general. So Christian light would be one, and it's what I used with our son and daughter.
Rod and Staff is another publisher, and we used a number of rod and staff books, maybe with all of our children, but particularly our youngest. Then Pathway Publishers, we use some of their books with our youngest child. Now, all three of those are Anabaptist publishers who would hold to kingdom Christianity. And then I just learned this today, Faith Builders, which is a school here in Pennsylvania. I started off as a secondary school to train teachers, you know, beyond high school.
And I was told that they have a history curriculum. So I don't know if it's American history or world history or both, but so that would be a source there. And then I felt I should mention, and this would apply only to American history at the high school level.
But you may know I wrote a book, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago entitled in God we don't trust that is dealing with the history of the United States from a kingdom Christian perspective, you know, going through American history is intended as a counter somewhat to the evangelical books that raise up America like this is God's special country and that the founders were all these godly Christians. And then there's a series of messages. It's on CD, and it's also available on download. And it's on the historic faith.
So you have access to this. It's the myth of Christian America, where I go in more detail, actually, than in the book, on the different founding fathers and the history of the United States, beginning with the Puritans back in England and all the way to the end. So those are some sources.
Now, on other subjects, often like in our family, and I know most homeschoolers that I'm aware of in the kingdom Christian circles, they usually then supplement like Christian light or Rod and staff with books of either secular publishers or evangelical Christian publishers like Bob Jones, Abeka, Master Books. Those would be evangelical. Saxon math I think is secular. Don't quote me on that, but I think they are.
And so we supplemented with some of those books because sometimes, you know, they have a better take on, let's say, math or on English or something like that. So a good person to get with would be a kingdom Christian you know who is a homeschooler. And yeah, find out what curriculum are they using. You're going to probably find it's a blend of different things. We probably about used our time up. Do we have any questions from listeners? Not short ones. No, they're going to take okay.
All right, so we will save those for another time. Can I squeeze in another question? Let me see if one of these has a short answer. I'm afraid we probably, unless we go way over, I don't think we can fit. I will go ahead and wrap it up then. Well, I do appreciate everyone for joining us tonight. David, thank you for your very thorough answers. I was very blessed by this. We hope all of you were blessed by this as well. Join us next time. We'll have it prepared.
We're excited for what we're going to be learning next time from David. Thanks again for joining us tonight. And I just want to say, yeah, thank you for the questions and the examples of fallacies that people sent in. It's been very helpful. And yeah, if you've sent in a question we haven't answered, like I've got some I was hoping to get to tonight. Yeah, don't give up on us. You know I'm going to try to work my way through them.
And the ones that got sent in while we were talking, yeah, we will hopefully in the next Q&A be able to address them. So yeah, goodnight. Thanks, David.
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