S3E06 Fellowship: The Ministry of Reconciliation

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the fellowship. We are

your host erin and Matthew. Boy, it's been a while

since we did this. Huh, it's been a long time

since we done this. So sonight's program is, well, it's

just going to be open format. We haven't got to

give him studied for this, right, We haven't put together

notes or anything like that. But you know, the theme,

if you want to give this chapter a theme, is

certainly our command to have a ministry of reconciliation. So

that means something, and it obviously means something pretty important,

this ministry of reconciliation, So you know, with that in mind,

what's your comments about the chapter?

Eric, Well, I actually took a Corinthians class in college,

so I studied a lot the context of this text,

and I think it's really helpful to place the context

of what it's talking about so it doesn't confuse you.

I've noticed that it can really be confusing. It was

confusing my first time reading it over this time and

I was like, wait a second, I know what the

context is, so it's helpful to place it in that.

So this is a sequel to the first letter that

he sent to the Corinthians. And the issue that the

Corinthian Church was having was that there was a set

of people claiming to be apostles. They came to these

churches and they claimed to be speaking for God, they

had special revelations, there are many things that they were teaching.

Know that they were judaizers. They thought that you had

to be circumcised to join the faith. They also denied

that Jesus physically rose up from the dead, so they

thought he rose up from the dead in some spiritual sense.

But another thing that we're doing was accusing Paul. So

Paul was the one who came in set up this church.

He's the one who converted these people. He's the one

who shared the Gospel with them. So the super apostles

they show up while he's gone, while he's gone, and

he's like, yeah, well, get a load of these guys.

And they started accusing Paul of being proud, trying to

prop himself up. They're saying he made up a bunch

of stuff. And so basically the Corinthian Church whom Paul

established started turning against Paul, and so Paul is having

to kind of so they're accusing him of boasting, and

so when he talks about boasting here, that's the context.

What can I boast about? So I thought that.

Was a good thing to point out before we get

into it.

What I'd like to say about this is it's really

off the hook, the opening verses here when you put

this into the context of Revelation chapter seven, because Revelation

chapter seven, starting in verse nine, make no mistakes here.

Literally in the Greek, it says that during this time

God is going to tabernacle over us. He uses meta

in Greek, He's going to tabernacle over us. When you

see that's what's going on there in those verses. I mean,

for anybody who wants to check that out, I strongly

suggest that you do so, because that's what that chapter

is about. The Greek comes right out and says that

when you realize that, boy, these opening verses in Sewod

Corinthians chapter five are really off the really off the rails.

So God's word being polycenic, he's prophetically talking about that tabernacle,

and he's also talking about the tabernacle of our body,

because yes, we are going to in the future tents

have this resurrection event. It is literally going to happen

where we get how do you even describe that? I mean,

we who are alive and remain, we get transformed. But

what about the dead people's bodies?

So, yeah, what's going to happen to those who have?

You know, they've been eroded, they be and centuries now.

But these opening versus says no, they that they still

have their their their dwelling, their tent. So in that aspect,

it's always been pretty prophetic to me, but very you know,

it does have a very simple message about it when

you just go to read it through, and you know,

this is a real good chapter. Twenty one verses, so

it's not too short, it's not too long, it's just

right in there with This is really right along the

lines of your perfect length of chapter and really simplistic.

So I am going to read it through.

We are absolutely going to read it through. I don't

do it any other way.

So we do we read it an increments, We read

the whole thing through and then go through.

Well you know, we'll we'll go back to what I

normally do. We just need to let the spirit move.

So if you go to read it and you get

to a certain point and you think the Lord's wanting

you to stop and com in on it. I think

that's what we need to do. So are you going

to be written? Why don't you go ahead and read

it and let everybody know what you're reading it out of.

Yeah, I'm reading from the nab r E or the

New American Bible Revised Edition. I did a study. I

did a test on a bunch of different Bibles, and

it turned out that this one was the most literal,

most reliable to the original text, which is rightly ironic

because it's it was a Catholic translation that's been approved

by the Vatican for her liturgy. So I'm using a

Catholic Bible. But it turned out to be the best

one that I could find.

I got to the point.

Where I was just so tired of using English Bibles

because I knew it wasn't telling me the truth. So

I got to a point where I just didn't I

just carried my phone. I didn't want to have a

paper Bible because my phone at least I can check

what the Greek says. This is one that I can

read with without having to look.

So let's let's stop right there for just a minute.

So you put together this chart of these verses that

you would check. Are you going to publish that or what?

Are you going to this list mus test? You send

it to me and I looked at our We're so

you are going to eventually publish that listmus test you've

got going on?

Yeah, okay, I.

Hope to expanded to other translations as well. Uh, I

was just using the translations that are available on Bible

Hub not I know that Bible Gateway has a lot more,

although it makes a little harder for you to compare

all of the translations at the same time, but I

would have to go in through and look at individually,

but it's probably worth it. It turned out that the

best translation was this one and the Smith's literal translation

one out pretty fast. Technically, the Smith's literal translation was

better and.

It was more literal.

However, it's it's older English, so it's not very understandable,

so that's it was kind of the down downgrade of

that and ultimately made this one when and you know,

end up end out on top. For instance, you know

that verse in Exodus that says that the staff turned

into a dragon. Yes, the Smith's literal translation translates that

as a dragon. But this translation was just as serpent

as most do. So that was the one one of

the big issues.

That I had with it.

But ultimately overall this ended up being more reliable, trustworthy

in my opinion.

So okay, all right, well, I will be giving commentary

when I speak about it. I will be speaking from

the new King James version, of course, So read away,

go as far as you want to stop for commentary.

If you don't feel like it, read right through. Just

let the spirit move.

I guess.

But we know that if our earthly dwelling a tent,

should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a

dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven. For in

this tent we grown longing to be further clothed with

our heavenly habitation. If indeed, when we haven't taken it off,

we shall not be found naked. For a while we

are in this tent, we grown and are weighed down,

because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to

be further clothed, so that what it is mortal may

be swallowed up by life. Now, the one who has

prepared us for this very thing is God, who has

given us the spirit as a first installment. So we

are always courageous, although we know that while we are

at home in the body, we are away from the Lord,

for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we

are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and

go home to the Lord.

Therefore we aspire to please Him, whither we are at

home or away, For we must all appear before the

judgment seed of Christ, so that each one may receive

recompense according to what he did in the body, whether

good or evil. Therefore, since we know the fear of

the Lord, we try to persuade others.

But we are.

Clearly apparent to God, and I hope we are also

apparent to our consciousness. We are not commending ourselves to

you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast of us,

so that you may have something to say to those

who boast of external appearance rather than of the heart.

For if we are of our minds, it is for God,

for we are rational, it is for you. If we

are rational, it is for you, for the love of

God impels us. Once we have come to the conviction

that one died for all, therefore all have died. He

indeed died for all, so that those who live might

not may no longer live for themselves, but for Him

who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from

now on we regard no one according to the flesh,

even if we want new Christ according to the flesh.

Yet now we know him no longer. So whoever is

in Christ is a new creation. The old things have

passed away, and behold, new things have come. And all

this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself

through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation. Namely,

God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not

counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the

message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as

if God were appealing through us. We implore you, on

behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God for our sake.

He made him to be sin, who did not know sin,

so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Now this this is where the context is important, because

he actually mentions that context in verse twelve. We are

not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an

opportunity to boast of us, so that you may have

something to say to those who boast of external appearance

rather than of the heart. These people were. Among the

things they were accusing Paul of was that he wasn't

very well dressed, He wasn't very well articulated in the

very there was a way of Greek argumentation that the

philosophers would use. He wasn't using it when he was preaching.

So they were looking down on him. They're saying, well,

he's dumb, he doesn't know what he's he's uneducated, and like,

why would you even listen to him? But they were

boasting of outward appearance. They dressed very nicely, so obviously

they looked better than Paul. So they were boasting of

their outward appearance. And here they were pointing fingers at Paul,

saying he was boasting of himself, when all they were

doing was boasting of their appearance, of their own flesh.

So again it says, consequently, from now on, we regard

no one according to the flesh. Again, according to the flesh.

It's referring to this outward appearance. And so he's saying,

we are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving

you an opportunity to boast about us. Now what are

they boasting about? So he's saying, I'm not boasting of

myself as of the flesh, as they're accusing me. I

am boasting of what the spirit is done in me.

I am no longer me because I have died with Christ. Basically,

my individuality has been killed by Christ, so that now

I am an extension of Christ as part of his body.

Christ does his work through me. And that's why he says,

you can boast of us, because you can see what

Christ is doing through us. It's not me who does

these miracles. It's Christ who does them through me. It

is not me who preaches, but Christ who does them

through me. So yeah, I'll pass it over to you

before I say the next thing.

That is evident your train of thought. There is evident

in the simple fact that the doctrine from the Lord

Jesus Christ to Nicodemus himself was you must be born again.

And really that's what he's saying here. He's really saying

that I have been born again and these jokers have

not been born again. And he is saying that if

you have been born again, you will be an extension

of Christ. You will literally be a part of the

Lord Jesus Christ body. You will be a body part

in that body. And it's from this, this connection, in

this heavenly connection wherein we did not only our authority,

but it's where we get our ability to work the

works of Christ. That's where we get the ability to

do it right. So it's of paramount important that you

realize this, that you do not continue acting and living

the way you did before you obtain salvation. You just don't.

You do not continue in your sin. No, I know,

that's that's plain to the text when you read the

New Testament. That's plain to the text. It's plain to

the text. Yet the church today absolutely preaches against that.

For some reason, they have become enamored with this free

grace Antiinomian well heresy. I don't know what else to

call it. I just watched a couple of videos this

morning before I went to work. I mean, off the rails,

these people literally saying that if you do, you know,

even follow the minimum of the ten commandments, your heretics

and it's just it just blew me away what they

were saying.

But tier in imagine them saying with heresy exactly.

I mean it.

You know, it would be like Jimmy Swagger calling somebody

a heretic he got busted three times with prostitutes.

This is what's really interesting to me. That a point

that people don't really make, but once it hit me,

it was very powerful. There are nominal adherents of every

religion in the world. There are always these people who

are only part of that religion because their family is,

or because that's the thing with the culture, but they

don't actually follow everything that their faith commands. But our

faith is very distinct in this regard that of our creed,

of the things that you must believe to be a Christian.

There's also in that orthopraxy.

You have to obey the.

Teachings of Christ. You have to do what you can

to you. So what's interesting is is that you are

not a Christian if you are not regenerate, if you

are not obeying his most basic teachings, like loving your

neighbor as yourself, crucifying the flesh. If you're not, you

are a heretic. You are not a Christian if you

if you disobey his teachings, even if you confess the

right things it's not good enough to me. That was

very profound that if you do not obey, if there

it doesn't come just with a confession.

It's not just.

About what you believe, it's about what you do. What

you do, And I would actually go as far as

say that what you do is more important than when

you believe in our faith.

Well you know, and I can absolutely, unequivocably attest to

this because I have told you your whole life. I've

informed you no matter where I went to church, there

were always Christians there, did matter if there's Catholic church,

didn't matter what church it was, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, there

were always Christians there, right, and your mother will attest

to that there was always Christians there. We would find them.

So this attests to that that you must be born again.

You will run across these people from every denomination. They've

been born again, and they are by their nature. Let

that sink in. They will buy their nature by their

very nature, because they have been changed, not conform to

those rules and regulation of that denomination. But yet they

will stay because they've been born again. They do not

practice the the practices of that church, but they will

be there and they will be born again.

Yeah.

That's an interesting point to me because this is one

of the things that you know, that has shaped my

view of the Church. There are these Christianity is divided,

and it's been divided for a long time, and they

debate over these different theological issues and it seems like

no one's coming to a solid answer. No, everyone is

reading the same Bible, but somehow coming to different conclusions,

and they get very dogmatic about it, some of them

more so than others. When Christ asked us to be united,

he begged the Father to keep us one, but it didn't.

That's not what happened, unfortunately. And I think this is

what after studying all this, I was like, there's no

proof for any of these positions. All of them are

saying it's a salvation issue, and yet Christ. This is

what convinced me. Christ did not vindicate any of them.

Christ could come down and tell us, yeah, the yeah,

the Catholics are right that you know that the pope

is the supreme authority of all the church.

He didn't do that.

Instead, he gave ample evidence for us to not agree

with that. And so what I think is that he

doesn't care God doesn't care about these squabbles. If he did,

he would do something about it. Right, he didn't. Right,

if he cares about salvation, Let's say this is a

salvation issue, as many people say it is, then why

didn't he clarify them? And I think it's because he

doesn't care. What he does care about is whether you're regenerate,

and that whether you're born again. Yes, right, and so

I think that there's the evidence of that. As you said,

you see, you see true regenerate Christians in every church,

even though in you know, some churches have more problems

than others, and so you could say there's a less

of them because of those cultural issues. But there are

still people there, and those are people that God didn't

save through those creeds. He didn't say, He saved through

his through his own self revelation.

That's right, That is right. And if you don't see it,

you can't see it. Verse seventeen. Therefore, if anyone is

in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things

have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. You

stuff up living according to your natural carnal instincts. You

start living according to the Holy Spirit granted unto you

through the sacrifice of God the Son, you become born again.

And unfortunately, here's the problem, erin. The problem is trying

to get someone who has been born again accredited by

a church. That's extremely difficult.

Isn't it.

Yeah, because it's very hard to because there's always deceivers.

There's always people who can do and say all the

right things, but they're just doing it for that fact,

they're not actually truly believing it, So they're wolves in

sheeps School. And I was thinking about that recently. I

was thinking, like, like, if I as a minister, what

could I do to make sure that my church never

hires a wicked man or never has that and or

they will never condemn a innocent man, or they would

never acquit a guilty man who was in the ministry.

Because I'm very strong in my opinion that that the

ministry is the most that of course God is merciful,

but I don't think, but I think there needs to

be a higher level of strictness toward people who are

in the ministry, Like if you commit adultery, that needs

to be exposed or that or at least they need

to like repent openly and they need to be open

and honest to everyone, and they need to step down

because what are the wicked going to say?

What about what.

Non believers going to say? They're going to say, this

person was a representative of Christ and he did this.

We have scripture for what God would have done. He

took David's son, and he didn't take David's son to

punish him because he didn't forgive him.

We know this.

He said he did it so that the nations.

Wouldn't have a reason to mock.

If God did nothing about David's adultery with Bathsheba, then

the nations would have mocked God, and they would have

accused God for what David did.

Well, not just the nations themselves, the Prince is over

those nations.

Yeah, So that so that's one of my very strong

opinions that you must be harsh with ministers because they

represent Christ. And we see this so much clearly in

my generation that many people I know were one of

the great hindrances that they have to faith is that

it doesn't seem that Christ is working in the church

because so many pastors that are caught with horrendous crimes

and so, I mean, I think the biggest issue is

that you know, churches tend to they try to push

it under the rug because ultimately Christ would be a shame.

It would cause people to curse Christ if they saw

what these people did. But it actually ends up being

worse because when they are exposed, it shows that the

church were willing to put it put it under the rug.

So it actually is the more Christian thing to openly

expose it. Anyway, back to what you said, like, how

do you know, like how are you going to appoint

someone who's actually converted? And I think that's going to

take that takes time, and that takes time of you

knowing this person, how they how they live out their faith.

Honestly, I wouldn't. I wouldn't.

I would care about people's confession initially, like what they

they confess, what they believe, but then I would have

to wait till to actually put those things into practice.

Are you actually practicing what you preach? I would honestly

force before anybody became a minister as part of my church,

I would force them that they had to do a

certain amount of community work. They would have to be

working in homeless shelters and things like that.

I know it would be a better ploy to do. Make

them take a light detector test, Christian, you know, because

we're we're way down the road, right, And I will

say this, the board should conduct an investigation. Yeah they should.

And I would just openly say before you we're going

to hire you as our pastor, we're absolutely we must

talk to every family member you got. You must give

us references, and we are going to do a formal investigation.

So if you don't give us our sources of security number,

you can't be hired.

But I think another issue is that I think that

the people evaluating him need to be regenerate. It's kind

of like right, so it's kind of like like the

structure needs to be there in places, right of course.

But so therein lies your problem, right, Okay, how many

board members do you know of I'm not being facetious, Aaron.

How many board members do you know of? Pick any

church you want to. How many of those board members

are actually born again? How many of them can be

applied to verse seventeen they are a new creature? Sorry,

I don't know any I don't have a problem saying

that because, just like these verses said, I'm going to

have to deal with christ recom That's what it said,

That's what it meant.

So I don't have a problem telling you the truth.

So the most important thing, I would say that a

church always needs to pray that they have at least

one person with the gift of discernment.

At least one but that cannot be Okay, let's ask

a harder question. So you are assuming, or maybe you're

not assuming, but I would say this, If a person

is not regenerate, if they have not been born again,

if they are not a new creature, what makes you

think they have the gift of discernment?

Ar, Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Specifically, Like if we

are to like bare minimum, if if no law of

the Church could could ever you know, show improve whether

a person's truly regenerated, that every church should at least

ask the Lord, should be in constant prayer that at

least one of them is given the gift of discernment.

That so that they have a regenerate Christian who has

that gift of discernment to be able to tell who

could be a good pastor.

So okay, okay, so you're serious. I don't even know

of a church that has a Wednesday night prayer meeting anymore.

So you know of a church that has prayer meetings now,

I mean, so you're just you're just saying that with

tongue in cheek. Everybody should be praying about it. I

was raised in a church like that. I know what

it's like. And every Wednesday night, I assure you, I

was at Wednesday night prayer meeting and that's what the

meeting was for. Everybody prayed.

That's literally, I think.

So yeah, I think in what world are you talking?

Yeah?

I think to be honest, I think we would all

agree with this. We have a whole lot of steeple

houses and not a lot of churches. And I'm just saying, like,

in practice, like if you have a true Body of Christ,

a true church, then the board needs to have the board.

Each member of the board would have one or more

spiritual gift and they should be praying for it because

it's a responsibility. I mean, it's I think one of

the biggest problems in the church today is that people

don't take it seriously enough. They don't take it, they

don't take they don't take the ministry seriously enough. I mean,

I one of the things things that haunted me when

I left college is that the college that I graduated

from just pumps out pastors. People who are younger than

me were going straight into the ministry. And I realized

it was because they had the charisma, and they had

the charisma, and they had the connections people like, they.

Like their family, their like, yeah, you mean the connections

they had that.

But the worry that I had is that I don't

think that they lost sleep like I do over their

own sin. I I am haunted by my sin, and

I not just about I'm not saying about my past

sin necessarily sometimes it is, but I'm talking about my

fallen nature.

It bothers me.

I'm constantly testing whether I had the right intention about

something that I said, something that I did, especially if

I did something harsh or did I Was I wrong?

And if I'm wrong, please show me? And I and

I lose sleep over this I am. It weighs on

my heart a lot, maybe too much. But I think

that a true pastor would be worried about these things,

that he would spend his life looking inwardly, searching himself,

asking the Spirit to show him where he's wrong, or

show him where he's not fully committed himself to Christ,

because if that happens, that man will always hold himself

accountable every time he's tempted. And that's the sort of

man that I would want to be my pastor because

he must be better than me. And I think I

don't like. I don't say that with pride. In fact,

I say it in humility because I know my failures,

I know my errors, I know my flaws and some

of them I don't know. And so if I am

better than these other people because I know them, because

I know my flaws and I hold myself accountable, that's

an issue because I wouldn't put myself into a pastor's

position right now in my life.

At this point in my.

Life, I need a pastor. So how can I have

a man over me who's not who have more spiritual

development than I do.

That's a problem. Well, I think that perhaps, Well, I'm

just going to I'm just going to say it plainly.

I'm not going to be around the bush. Your sister

struck a chord with me with the last drama at

the last church we went to. I was shocked and amazed.

It took me several days for me for what your

sister said to me to sink in. She said, Daddy,

it is a church, but it's not a congregation. And

I think really that is the problem here. A church

is a congregation, that's what it is, and that everyone

must be promoted to pastor or this or that or

the other in from within that body. Let's look at

this physiologically speaking, any gathering of people is a complete

body of Christ.

Right.

That tells you that the head of that localized body

must be one of the body parts of that local body.

Here in lies the problem. That is not how it's

done today. No one promotes to pastor from inside their congregation.

They have to go get somebody from somewhere else that

has a license and a degree, from somebody else some

remote location. That's the problem. Son. You gotta have a

congregation first, and then that congregation must come to the decision.

We got enough body parts here. We need to start

a signing task. We need a right hand, we need

the left hand, We need a lung, we need a

left knee. We need a head. Whoever's the head, that's

the pastor. So I think I think Mariah was just

a stroke of genius. I mean, I literally had to

ask her to repeat it over the next two or

three days. She said, Daddy, it's not a church. They're

not a church, Okay. A church is a congregation. They

have a church, but there's no congregation there.

Yeah.

I mean we're seeing an issue within the English language

that we are using the same word for two different things.

The term church comes from the German form of the

Greek curiakos, and curiakos was the word for the bill.

It's the steeple house that I would call and for

some reason in English and we started using that term

also for the ecclesia, the ecclesia being the assembly literally

in Greek, the gathering together of So this, this is

the living body of Christ. It is the ecclesia, which

we would translate as congrege congregation. Yes, the community even

it's it's a living it's a living thing.

Yeah, and that living thing has to get to the

point where there's enough body parts. They elect themselves a pastor.

You cannot have an external person be imported into that body.

That makes it a foreign body.

So so let's let's get let's move on a little

bit if you'd like, Is there anything more you'd like, no.

Go ahead, I'm good.

So here he's.

Talking about the resurrect we're going to be transformed. He

says that the Holy Spirit is the first installment, and.

Yes it does.

This isn't the first.

Time that this is used in the epistles, the Pauline epistles.

It comes the word for installment here is in Greek

are a bone, and it's actually the transliteration of a

Hebrew bird. It literally means a pledge, a security, kind

of like a down paint, kind of.

Like a a dowry for marriage, or.

Kind of like I would say, mostly like a down payment,

I pay this much.

And by that he's.

Let me extrapolate in a hypersensitive way. Let's go back

to Judah and Tamar. Judah said let me come into you,

and she said, you need to give me something, and

he gave her the staff. Remember he gave her the signet.

YadA YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. Right, So that's what the

Hebrew is talking about. There, give me something as a

guarantee that you're going to, you know, send me this goat.

You said you're just going to send me, right, So

what it does is that we don't experience the resurrection

in the flesh yet, but we do experience the resurrection

and the spirit of the spirit.

That's what you just said. That is what it means

to be born again.

Yes, But basically, regeneration is a promise for the thing

to come right. It is the sign that God is

promising us he will resurrect us. The fact that I

am regenerate. Hopefully that I am that he's promising to

me that I will also be raised up from the dead.

But not only that, he's also using me as a

witness to other people who have not been saved, that

he's going to raise me up from the dead. He's

going to raise the dead up. And I think that's

what he's talking about. That this is why you're able

to boast of us. We're talking about all the good,

mighty deeds that we do through Christ, not so that

you can put us up on a pedestal as great people,

but so that you can boast of Christ, the work

of Christ that he's doing through us. And that's what

he's saying.

We have died.

We cannot boast of ourselves, of our own flesh. We

cannot boast of the things that I've learned in college.

We cannot boast of the things that of my outward appearance,

whether I'm dressed nicely, whether I look attractive, whether I

speak clearly, and I'm very very articulate in my words,

which most of the time I'm not. Those things cannot

be things to boast about because they're all of the

things are meaningless. I am just a body part. I mean,

that's like boasting of a hand above yourself. Right, They're like,

it's not me, but my hand that's stronger than me. Like, look, right,

I mean I've done Look look all the things that

my hand has done. But no, when you think of

yourself as a body part of Christ, then all the

things that are boasted of you are boasting of Christ.

And that is that's the point that they're making here.

So it's kind of there's two facets of the resurrection

and being born again that occurs and in our time,

but it's just the promise of the thing to come.

We are born again in spirit, but eventually our bodies

will also be reconciled.

To your right. So right now we've been born again

in spirit. At the first resurrection, our bodies get reborn.

So so let's talk about let's talk about the questions

that you were having, the discussions that you were having

theologically that opened up our.

Debate.

Here, are you healed of physical ailments of addiction? Are you?

I mean you mentioned that you will not continue in

sin once you're sin well, but we know that all

of us are still sinners.

Well, that there's two different types of addictions. There is

physiological addictions and they're psychological addictions. So a physiological addiction

is like an alcoholic right. Yeah, it is of paramount

importance that people realize that once you've been born again,

does that mean you'll be delivered from all physiological addictions?

Does it mean you will be cured and healed, delivered

from all psychological addictions?

Well, I realized when we started this conversation that we

had to answer another question because you are saying something

that have been learning, but it wasn't what I was taught.

When does the new birth occur? Does it occur at salvation,

when you confess Christ's name, when you're baptized, or is

it a separate event.

That's the real cool crux, that's what has people all

tied up, and it is grossly obvious. It is not

at salvation, although it can be. It's not at baptism,

although it can be. Normally for most people, this is

a process, and I'm not sure why. I'm not sure

why it is that there is this rampant thing in

the church now that this idea of super sessionism, that

the gifts of the Holy Spirit are stopped. There's no

more miracles, there's no more healings.

There are lots of things that are at issue here,

but I want to point out because in my experience,

most people who are part of this ministry or evangelicals.

There are some exceptions, but for the most part, that

is so right. And evangelicalism in the United States has

been corrupted. It has been twisted over the generations, and

it's very amalgamated. The Baptists are those who would say

that salvation occurs at that the new birth occurs at salvation.

But the Baptists they got it from the Methodists, and

the Methodists don't say that. See John Wesley. When the

Lord appointed John Wesley, he was teaching. When he said

the new birth, he was speaking of entire sanctification, and

so under the way he would describe it, I mean,

this is clearly what the Bible teaches. But the way

he would describe it is is that there is initial

sanctification that occurs at salvation. So the Holy Spirit. We're

given the Holy Spirit, right, so the Holy Spirit starts

as work. At the new birth. We are completely reconformed

to the image of Christ.

We are made.

It's basically, all our desire to sin is cut off,

is cut off, and so we are completely reformed to

the image of Christ.

So that is to say, in our list of definitions,

at new birth, you are delivered from all psychological addictions.

From that point forward, you are not going to categorically

plan to sin. You are not going to be able

of your own volition to intentionally lie to your employer

or lie to your neighbor. It's not gonna happen. You

can't because because your conscience outweighs your desires to counter

man the Holy Spirit's instructions.

But I just want to.

When we point this out, I think it should be

a thing of encouragement to people, because when we're having

this conversation, I don't know if anyone like me started

feeling a little bit unlomferable because we started saying, well,

I know I still struggle with sin. I know I'm

still tempted. Well, so does that mean I'm not born again?

And well, basically what we're saying is pretty much that, pretty.

Much that outside of of course, of course, nobody expects

you to be Jesus Christ. Okay, that is to say, Eric,

what would happen if you're to go up and smack

my wife across the face? What do you think would happen?

Would I sin or not? I'd run you over like

a truck. Do you understand after I did it? Of

course I would have to repent of that sin. Okay,

because what I should have done is a Christian is

stopped you from assaulting her, got in between you, and

then called the police. Right, That's what a Christian would

have done. A Christian would not have I mean, because

you must admit I would do more than assault you.

By God, you wouldn't do it again. Right. So yeah,

so I'm not Jesus Christ. So I'm still going to

be tempted. You know what I'm saying. But I said planned,

you're not going to plan? Who sin?

Yeah?

I think, but I think it's quite more than that.

Like I think.

I said that if you now still experience desire to sin,

and of course in your heart you have the conviction

you love Christ. But you know there's this inconsistency with

you and your flesh. Look forward to the new birth.

Look forward to it because He's promised it to you

by giving you the spirit as a down payment. Because

by giving you the spirit, he's promising to you, I

will take these things from you. I will make it

so that no longer you desire to sin. I think

that most people still, most even of the most saintly Christians,

they still have work to be done. The scripture teaches

sanctification as a process. The Christian life is work. When

you get up out of bed, you need to get

to work, right, Yeah, you need to wake up when

you wake up in the morning. It's like, Lord, is

there anything that I haven't given fully to you in

my heart?

Right? That is to say, what you're trying to say

is that you have to You have to exert force

over your carnal nature. It literally has worked. You have to.

You have to intentionally do it.

You have to be at it every day because as

soon as you don't, weeds will grow up.

That's just how it works. Yeah, And like I.

Can't tell you how many times pride has risen up

where when I wasn't looking like it's it's it's astonishing

so many times that has happened to me that I

didn't do it intentionally, but it showed up and I

was convicted by it. I had to I had to repent.

I had to go back and change.

But like.

If you're not looking, if you're not intentionally looking for

those things, they're going to miss your gaze. And the

reason why it's not fear or guilt. And this is

what the scriptures taught that the guilt has been taken

from us on the cross, so no longer to our

sins chain is down. Perhaps you may feel discouraged, Oh

I sinned again, But no longer does that weight actually

weigh upon us as our individual souls lays upon Christ

on that crossed. So now instead work optimistically on yourself.

When you see these things, it's kind of like when

you're going to work out, right, I can't lift this

weight yet, right, but that's why you keep going to

the gym. Or I haven't lost the weight that I

wanted to. I'm not losing it very fast. Perhaps that

can make you feel discouraged. But you just keep going,

keep going to the gym, keep going to the gym

until you get to the point where you lose that

weight because you can. It's literally physically and like the

law that if you keep working at it, you're going

to get there. You're going to get there if you

keep on your diet, you keep on your work, you're

going to get there. In the same way the Holy

Spirit as long as you were working on it the Lord,

as long as you let the Holy Spirit do what

his work in your right, as long as you intentionally

submit to him every day and crucify your flesh, then

you will. The promise is there. Look at it this way.

Okay, you just categorically said that our guilt has been

taken from us and put on Christ right right. Put

this into practical application physically. Lets use the laws of

physics to apply this. When I do something, when I

violate God's law, when I become unrighteous, that guilt being

placed upon Christ, it exerts pressure on him. The counter

balance to that is the Holy Spirit is then triggered.

From that applied weight to Christ, It's transferred to me

via the Holy Spirit, and my conscience will ring like

a bell. As long as I adhere to that equation,

and remember that I cannot continue to put this guilt

on Christ, you will eventually be able to overcome that

particular sin. Let's say that particular sin is drinking bubblers.

Given enough time in this dynamic, as you're struggling to

take that guilt off of Christ via the Holy Spirit

triggering you via your conscience, it will eventually happen. It's

not instantaneous.

And I would the way that John West described entire sanctification.

It doesn't mean you're perfect when they say, a lot

of people like to call it Christian perfection. He didn't

like that expression, but what he said was, it's when

your love is made perfect. And this is what we

find in the epistles of John It's when you love

him so much, so perfectly, that you wouldn't want to sin.

I sinning is in a sense, backstabbing God. When you

say you love him, but out of the other side

of your mouth.

You're going behind his back, right, You're lying on the

other side of your mouth.

Right, And so my love isn't I can admit as

a Christian, I do not love him enough. I do

not have a perfect love. And so even though I wish,

I wish that I did have a perfect love, that

should not be an aspect of guilt. That should be

something that I look forward to because He is promised

to fulfill that in me, and that he will perfect

my love. Because once your love is perfect, you will

obey his commandments as it is written. If you love me,

you would keep my commandments. And so when we get

to that state of perfect love, we will no longer

do these things, because not because the law said no,

but because the law had been written on our hearts,

and our heart would no longer want them. That's what

the Kingdom of Heaven has to look like. Being a

Christian isn't a list of things you have to do,

like I didn't do this, I didn't do this, I

didn't do this, I did this, I did this, I

did this. No, it wasn't good enough. That's what Christ taught.

He told the Pharisees it wasn't good enough not to

commit adultery, because even if you desire to commit adultery,

then you've committed adultery in your.

Heart right and your heart. So let me say this,

I think you can reduce this down. What total sanctification

is is Revelation, chapter twelve, verse eleven. And they overcame

him by the blood of the lamb and by the

word of their testimony. And they did not love their

lives to the death. I think in this phrase they

did not love their lives unto death. However, your translation

says it. That's what it is. It's when you cross

over between having selfish intentions to having perfect intentions. It

is your perfect intention to fulfill the will of God.

And it's at that point when you would rather die.

You'd rather die than stab God in the back. As

you're using your own phraseology you did a few minutes ago.

I think that's where it's at. I think that's what

it is. I think once you cross that threshold and

obtain this perfect intentions is when you're entirely sanctified, and

at that point you do not love your life under death.

I figured out that the church, the Conservative Church specifically,

has gotten to the point where they've set up a

law of ordinances. Oh yeah that, Oh yeah, you can't

do this. You can't do this. If you wear this,

then then you're this. If you listen to this, you're this.

Do you like like you like, literally, there are people

out there who believe that you get demons from listening

to uh, the heavy metal music doesn't matter if it's

Christian heavy metal, it's it's literally, if you listening to

heavy metal, you get a demon.

And definitely we need to do another another program on that.

We definitely do.

Is it is.

It watching horror movies? Can I if I'm sitting there

watching is it a sin for me to sit there

and watch you know, I don't know the Woman in

Black or the Conjuring? Do I get demons from that?

Am I sitting against God by watching these things? And

and they've made this law. Oh so the thing that

irony is is that they've made this law so that

they can obey it the non regenerate. This is actually

how the most wicked of people have infiltrated the church

because they've checked off that.

List, they check off this list, and then all of

a sudden they're qualified to be your pastor no, no

you're not, you must be again.

I like using this example because it's one of our

worst in our day, and it was it really enraged

me when I was in the apologetics community on TikTok

that you may have heard of Ravi Zacharias. Ravi Zacharias

was all loved by the church. Like most people thought

he was the greatest Christian ever by the way that

he conducted himself in person. If you were to come

and and speak to him, he would say the most

Christian things you've ever heard of. He would even have

the most Christian tone you ever heard of. He said

all the right things. You know, he's not sitting there

listening to heavy metal. He's not listening. He's not listening.

He's not saying curse words. He's not He's got all

the checklist. Yeah, but when you weren't looking, he was

raping women.

And we know this.

We know this for a fact because his own institution

that he set up, the Ravi Zacharias Foundation, investigated and they.

Proved it he did it.

But while he was alive, While he was alive, there

were women who came out and confessing like, this guy

raped this woman, this guy assaulted me. But nobody believed

them because why did they not believe them? Because he

had the checklist. He hadn't filled out the checklist. And

to this day there are people who still defend him.

Even though his own his own foundation, admitted it. They

still defend him, and this is a plague in the

church because of that. They've made a law. But here's

the thing. If you read the New Testament, it is

that law that leads you to sin. Because the law

said thou shalt not cove it, then.

Sin.

My flesh, seeing an opportunity in the law, killed me

because of it. And that's why we see in the

New Testament that the law expressed in ordinances have been abolished,

and the law of Christ has been established in our hearts,

so that you can't be sanctified from the down up.

You can't be sanctified by doing the works right. Your

heart needs to be fixed. That's why when it speaks

that your heart needs to be circumcised, your heart needs

to be circumcised. And these are all images that are

applied to the new birth. The law written on your heart,

the circumcised heart, putting to death, the flesh having a

perfect love. All these things are basically saying that your

intentions obey the law.

That's what I said. You have perfect conventions.

So that is not just you choosing as if there's

an A and a B there you're going to want good,

so you're always going to choose what it's good. This

is Praise be to God. Let's take a moment to

praise him, thank him for this.

Amen.

Because at this point, man no longer will be desire

some We will want to do good and we will

feel pleasure in it every time.

Well, son, this is why I've taught you your life

that every decision is a moral decision. I've never went

to left or right of that. I've always stated that

every decision is a moral decision. Many people don't understand that.

That's how I've always lived in my life. For example,

all right, when I had the choice of what color

our house would be, I chose white. And I chose

white because that was a moral decision because it is

that color in that climate that we lived in, was

best for that climate because white would reflect and conduct

the least amount of heat. So that's why you lived

in a white house, Son, That's why, because in that climate,

that's what it should be. In this house. I would

not have this house be white, would I know? Because

here we have our first freeze the first week of October.

We experienced our last freeze the third week of May.

So if I was to choose the color of our house,

I would naturally choose the darkest color possible to augment

and encourage as much heat transfer as possible. Literally, And

you can ask your mother this. Every decision you can

ask her, she will tell you your dad. Every decision

to me is a moral decision, every single one.

That's yeah.

One of the reasons why I didn't vote last year

is because I didn't know. I didn't know, I didn't

know who is who is right, and I would I will.

I was afraid that if I had, I had, if

I had been wrong about one of them, I thought

that I was choosing a lesser of two evils. And

there wasn't anything that's not such things. There's no such

there is no lesser too. And so ultimately, if you

put your put your lots into it, you kind of are, yes,

you are, yet you're going to be partially responsible for

what was brought about. And I couldn't even if I,

let's say I was indirectly responsible for what came from

it because I didn't vote, that would be better for me,

because I didn't do something like put my lots in

so that it actually assigned to me like legally I

don't know. I'm not accusing anyone who voted, because that

was your conscience, right. My conscience didn't let me well, and.

So I don't vote. I mean, and I've always told

you why I'm not. I'm not casting my lot with

the wicked first, I'm not going to do it.

So anyway, like what you said, like every decision is

a moral decision, and I I I think we should

read a little bit from Romans chapter seven.

Okay, I'm gang. If you're a gang, how much time

do we have left? H all the time in the world.

I mean, my record seven hours, thirty eight minutes. So

go for it.

I'm going to start with verse seven. What then, can

we say that the law is sin? Of course not yet.

I did not know sin except through the law. I

did not know what it is to cove it, except

that the law said you shall not covet.

But sin.

Finding an opportunity in the commandment produced in me every

kind of convedousness. Apart from the law.

Sin is dead.

I once lived outside the law, but when the commandment came,

sin became alive. And then I died, and the commandment

that was for life turned out to be death. For me,

for sin seizing an opportunity, and the commandment deceived me

and through it put me to death. So then the

law is holy, and the Commandment is holy and righteous

and good. But the good, then, the good then become

death for me, of course, not sin, in order that

it might be shown to beastin work, death in me

through the good, so that the sin might become sinful

beyond measure through the commandment. We know that the law

is spiritual, but I am carnal sold them to slavery,

to sin.

What do I do?

What I do I do not understand, For I do

not do what I want, but I do what I hate.

Now I do what is what I do not want.

I concur that the law is good. So now it

is no longer I who do it, but Sin, who

dwells in me. For I know that good does not

dwell in me, that is in my flesh. The willing

is ready at hand. But doing the good is not.

For I do not do the good I want, but

I do the evil I do not want. For I

do what I do not want. It is no longer

I who do it, but Sin, who dwells in me.

So then I discover the principle that when I want

to do right evil, it is at hand. For I

take delight in the law of God in my inner self,

but I see the members. But I see in my

members another principle at war with the law of my mind,

making me capable captive to the law of sin that

dwells in my members. Miserable one that I am, who

will deliver me from this mortal body, Thanks be to

God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Therefore, on myself, with

my mind, serve the law of God, but with my

flesh the law of sin. So I don't think this

is a wrong ext of Jesus to admit. Paul is

basically admitting that he is not achieved entire certification at

this point. He does confess this in another verse he says,

I'm still running the rest.

I'm not there yet.

But in the Epistles of Timothy, I don't know the

exact verse, he does say I finally got there. I

finally finished the race. So he did reach entire sanctification,

but he didn't have it at this point, And what

he's saying is that at the time his body was

still enslaved to the law of sin. What he said,

I am still enslaved to the law. He's talking about

his flesh because there's no longer a meat, right that

it was just Christ living in me. So when it's

the law of my mind, that's actually Christ or what's

united to Christ. But my body is what you would

call the eye, that thing that separates us from Him.

And so.

What's important here is that it's saying that the law

was taking an opportunity in the sin. Before I knew

that it was a sin to covet, right, I didn't

know to covet it was an a sindy. I wouldn't

have thought to take from the cookie jar unless if

I knew there was a cookie jar to take from,

that's right, or whether I knew it was wrong to

take from the cookie jar. And this is very common

aspect of human psychology.

And most of those things you were taught by your

mom and I right, Yeah, you just can't take from

the cookie jar.

Statistically, you may be shocked to hear this, but statistically

Christians struggle with pornography more than non believers do. Think

about that people who are out there having sex outside

of marriage are struggling with it less than Christians. People

out there who don't think it's wrong to look at pornography,

don't look at it. And I think it is this

principle in action, my friends.

That's crazy that it was because there was a law.

It was a law. It was a Christian law that

our church is established that it's do not look at pornography,

and that so long as you do this, then you're

a Christian.

Or you don't do this, you're a Christian.

Right And because then, because it was viewed that way,

I think that it became a law to too many

Christians and they stumbled. And you need to look further

than that. It's not just Lord, don't let me look

at pornography any more. It's Lord, take away this desire

for me, change me right. And that's the sort of

thing that it is with alsin that we all need

to get to a point where we are free from that.

Sin thrives on.

The law right. It is the medium in which it

grows right because it has the opportunity by knowledge of it.

This is why Adam fell by eating from the tree

of knowledge of good and evil. When it says that

the knowledge of good and evil, that's not wrong. It

wasn't wrong to know good and evil. We know this

because literally, God gave the knowledge of good and evil

to Solomon right when he asked for it. If you

look at the language, that's quite literally what it says.

And what happened was is that Adam was not ready.

He was not ready to receive the knowledge of good

and evil. That's why it became death to him. Because

once you know good and evil, you better have the

spiritual strength to say no, to resist it.

And he did not.

He didn't have the spiritual growth prior to know, to

have his love perfected in such a way that he

wouldn't desire evil when he knew that it was there. Right.

That is to say, he never knew that chocolate ice

cream was good. He acquired the knowledge, Hey, chocolate ice

cream is the bomb, but you can't eat it, right,

And he only wanted to eat it once he gained

the knowledge that he shouldn't eat it because there is

no good thing there. It's full of high frucdose corn syrup.

Its YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA. It is bad for

you or fact. Whatever God didn't make with his own hands,

be well rest assured it's bad for you. Because if

you think that Cargill or Tyson, or or you know,

General Mills, if you think they have your best intentions

at heart, you're grossly mistaken.

Here's the most important thing that I learned from these passages,

and it has helped me throughout my Christian life, and

I think that every Christian should put it into practice

that when you want sin, remember this is no longer.

I who want it.

It is your flesh who wants it, because your flesh

is enslaved to sin. Now, through Christ, you have been divided.

Your flesh has been put to death, and your spirit

has become alive. Now, remember you need to be able

to say this, I want I want to be happy,

I want to feel peace, I want to feel pleasure.

I want all these things which are all good because

God gave them to us. But the flesh wants to

fulfill those things, gratify those things in sinful ways. And

so as long as you understand that that you want

what is good, but your flesh wants to twist that

for evil, then you have the tools to go forward

to say, is my flesh who is trying to convince

me right instead of your spirit right? So when we

walk by the spirit. That's what's happening. We're walking by

what We're not walking by our flesh, by the desires

of our flesh. The most important thing here, the promise

of entire sientification, the entire promise of it, is that

we will get to the point where we will understand

fully our spirit. There will be no inconsistently in our hearts.

We will know fully that we will find pleasure and

no evil.

Right, yeah, you, And that's what I was trying to

say before. Once you commit evil, you cannot find pleasure

in it. The Holy Spirit, be it that guilt you've

put on Christ. That'll be the last thing on earth

you'll be able to do is take pleasure in it.

Your conscience will haunt you because the Holy Spirit will

be constantly reminding you, will be ringing you like a bell.

You just put this guilt on Christ, and you dead

bang will not be able to enjoy it.

I think that's another problem with a lot of Christians,

was that they when they send they don't realize it's

kind of like betraying your closest friend.

It's like crucifying Christ.

Again, do you think of it the same way? Do

you think of it the same way as like, do

you feel the same sort of hindrance in your heart?

I better not lie? I better not cheat on my acts?

As the same way do you think the same way

as when you say I better not.

Cheat on my wife? I do.

I don't know everyone should because if you if in

your heart, you don't, because in your in your mind,

what are you thinking? I not only do you have

a law, not only do you have you made a

sworn an oath, but you've also you don't want to

hurt this person that you love, right, is that you

love them so deeply that you would not betray them

in such a way. In the same way, that's what

entire sanctification is, you will In a sense, you are

doing the same thing to the Lord because it's a

relational thing. Christ has a relationship with us, so betrayal

to him is emotional, It is personal because you promised

him this, I will do whatever you ask. I love

you perfectly by obeying your commandments, but you didn't. And

when you come to him in apology, you're restoring a relationship.

You're saying I betrayed you, right, please forgive me. And

as if we an'll think if in that way, then

I think it's easier to manage well.

To me, I think that a lot of people, especially

when I went to when I entered the university, I

encountered something that well, I encountered many things I was expecting.

I mean those people, I mean I didn't understand these people,

even though I was living in the dormitory where all

the Christian ministry may just we was so it was

literally in the dorm living with all the soon to

be preachers, right, they were not on my page. They

obviously did not even have an elementary understanding of the

simple fact that there are no degrees of sin. And

I was just in the state of shopland. Finally, I

will remember it crystal clear when Tony came to me,

one of my friends, Tony came to me, and he's like,

am I to understand you correctly that you think that

stealing is just as bad as murder? I said, absolutely,

because God will send your butt to ll for either offense.

It isn't offense. There isn't there isn't degrees. And I said,

until you know that, Tony, until you know that, you're

never going to think that stealing bubble gum is a sin.

You're only going to think that, like abortion is a sin,

so you can steal all the gum, all the bubble

gum you want, and never never come under condemnation. And

once I did this to him. Once, once I told

that to him, I mean over the next several months,

he had to work it out. And finally he's like, well,

you're right, that's what my problem is. I've been committing

all these sins and I'm not feeling convicted for it.

I said, well, of course you have, because you have

built up a callous toward the Holy Spirit himself. You're

practicing lawlessness. Guess what you're gonna get good at, Tony.

And he just stood there, looked at me this dumb

look on his face. Well, I'm going to become an

expert at what I practice. Yeah, Tony, But I think

here again we have this checkless Christianity.

Here, here's one of the more and interesting things that

I'm learning about sin because i'm studying it. I'm studying

it not just by reading the Bible, but by studying

the cultures in which it's written. So I'm looking at

the context of the language then speaking, and all that

sin was more than just a moral offense. It was

simply anything that separated you from God. So when so

people tend to think that there's some kind of substitution

happening when they were performing the sacrifice, that this animal

was dying so that the person didn't have to die.

But no, really, what was happening is that the blood

expiated the sin so that people were able to enter

into the Holy Place. So that people could enter into

the temple, the temple had only maintained its holiness through

the shedding of blood. This is why I mean, if

you think that it's it's a sort of substitution, then

tactically a woman had to do a sin offering. Literally,

if she had she gave birth to a baby, so

had the sin for her to have a baby like

a moral offense. Well, no, but it was something, but

it was uncleanliness. It was impurity in another sense that

made it so that if she entered into the Holy Place,

it would defile it. So by the blood it was undefiled.

In other terms, sin is that state of being in

impurity that you cannot enter into the Holy Place as

long as you're impeer. So with that stated, personally, I

think it's true that rape is more, is much worse

than stealing, but both of them separate you from Christ.

Apart from Christ is death.

Yes, and.

So when you're stealing, you become apart from Christ and

you enter into that world of death. There's capital as

sin and lowercase sin. So there's sin, which is that

state of being apart from Him, and then there's sins,

which is the individual things that you do to right

that's what gets you separated from Him. And so you

want to be at a point where no longer are

you defiling yourself. You are no longer defiling yourself because

your heart is undefiled.

You're not voluntarily sin, You're not intentionally sinning. That's what

you just said in a different way. That is how

you keep from violating yourself.

So it is that intention, like that language that you're

saying that you're not intentionally saying. Your intention must be converted.

You have perfect intentions, that's what John Wesley was trying

to say. You have been entirely sanctified when you have

perfect intentions.

Yes, so.

We do have to answer a question here of from Jony.

Doesn't the word say there is one head Christ, Jesus,

not a pastor, which is which is true.

I had thought that.

I thought that when he said it, I was thinking

in my head, here, I'll go on a very short

diatribe about ecclesiology. In the time of the New Testament,

they didn't have such thing as pastors. They had a

group called the president or the elders, so we would

now call the board right right, And very quickly after

the apostles died, the church was like, hey, we need

somebody who's over who's the final word. He's like, he's

a little bit above the group of presbyters, and they

ended up calling him the overseer or bishop, which now

we would actually call a pastor. It's not identical to

what the Catholics call a bishop. But he was the

overseer who was above them. So actually he rose up

out of necessity.

I just said this at the beginning of this program.

But it's true that there's a person who in a

sense takes a leading position over the body. What is

he doing? I would say this much you say there's

only one head over the church, that is Christ. That's

also true. But he also, in the same context says

that a husband is ahead of his wife in the

same way that the Christ is the head of the church. Right,

So if we speak of the church as referring to

the body to like the church at large, like the

upper the ecclesia upper case. So this is all the congregations. Yeah,

Christ is the head of that right right ultimately, But

has he appointed his heads over the individual congregation.

That's another question. Well, what she's trying to get at

is the word the pastor in the New Testament. It's

not just in one verse and it's just not translated pastor.

One time that word is the word for shepherd. Okay,

So the New American Standard or the new King James

version has it in if it is in chapter four,

verse eleven, and it said and he gave himself some

to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and

teachers their pastor. This time it's not translated shepherd. This

one time, it's translated past her. That word is shepherd.

It's shepherd.

Yeah.

So so in this sense, this is not talking about

a physical body with arms and legs. This is what

it's talking about is a flock. A ecclesia is a flock,

and over that flock is one shepherd that you hearkened.

To, yeah, there there there's a church, and then there's

churches right, right, we're talking about the body of Christ

at large. That's that's the great ecclesia, the great ecclesia.

When we're reading in Revelation, for example, there are seven churches, right,

and so we're talking about like small.

Uh.

The body of Christ is churches within a church, local

flocks or congregations within a congregation. So ultimately I am

united with a church that I don't even know about.

I'm united with other another body of Christian believers in Africa,

right trillions. Yet, So I think that that's how I

would respond to what you said, Joni, because certainly they're

kind of acting like heads, hopefully because they are fully

submitted to Christ. And no longer is an I who

do it but Christ than me? Right, so they ought

to be that they better be.

But ultimately, I'm going to say the thing what this

is talking about in the Physions, chapter four, verse eleven,

you already have the congregation, and inside that congregation is

not somebody from another state that gets a degree that

comes to your your congregation. Inside that congregation you have

some that's apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and

some teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the

equipping of that congregation. All right, when he ended there

had a blast, how about you good stuff, good stuff,

good stuff to talk about and just hammer it out.

It's good to just hammer it out.

That really is.

All right. With that in mind, I'm gonna have to

pray us out of here. So I'm thinking the Lord's preton.

I don't know. I could be wrong. Our Father, which

are in heaven, follow you be your name, Thy kingdom come,

and thy will be done on earth as it is

in heaven. Give us this day or daily bread. Forgive

us our trustpasses, as we give those who trespassed against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the

glory Forever ah Man till next time, ladies and gentlemen,

God bless, God speed.