Pastor Jeff Durbin (15:00)
Now, where's this coming from? It's coming from a consistent theme that you'll see with Brandon Robertson. You see to Brandon Robertson, he'll, he'll say about particular texts in the Bible, I don't believe that, or that's just Paul's opinion, or Paul was wrong about that, or Jesus was wrong for that. You know, Jesus was a racist with this woman in this story, like literally calls Jesus a racist. And so for Brandon Robertson, it isn't a question of what does the text of the Bible say? Because Brandon Robertson doesn't really believe that God can communicate so effectively and clearly on his own that he can be just straightforward, understood. Brandon Robertson doesn't like the black and white statements. And so he even. And during this interview, he can, he condemns that with the, the, the radical progressives on left, the really far left is, is they like to see things in black and white. Brandon Robertson doesn't like to do that. He doesn't like to see the world as black and white, although we can't actually live that way, because when it comes to really dramatic issues of ethical failures like, say, rape and those sorts of things, he did, he does think in black and white categories. Brandon Robertson likes to be fuzzy and gray when it comes to moral issues and lust that he has. And on issues like this, he likes to stay in the gray and he likes to be muddy. Because ultimately, Brandon Robertson doesn't believe these are the very words of God. Thus saith the Lord. In certain state, in certain instances, he might say, no, I believe God said that. But generally speaking, he looks at the Bible with a lot of suspicion. And so for Brandon Robertson, this isn't the question of, well, what has God said? You know, can we say what Jesus says? Have you not read what was spoken to you by God and then quote Scripture? Jesus takes the, the reading of Scripture as God spe being. Brandon Robertson doesn't like that. He doesn't like to live in that world. That's not his worldview. That's not his perspective on Scripture. He has an epistemology that he can't really know. Doesn't really know. And yet he claims no on many of these issues. And so this is where Brandon Robertson's at. And this is why, you know, he'll bounce around from maybe text of the Bible to maybe, you know, what did Thomas Aquinas say? Or what did Augustine say? What did those fallow men say on this issue do? And it, for us, it's always a question of, all right, but what did God say? Like, how do I know that Augustine or Augustine, however you want to say it. I have to say Augustine because my son's. My son's name is pronounced. We say it Augustine. So I get, I get stuck on that. How do we know that Augustine was right or wrong? Is it just our opinion? We just, it's just subjectively interpreted. You know, I feel that way. It goes well with my worldview, my current view on ethics and how do we know Augustine was right? How do we know that John Chrysostom was right? How do we know that Athanasius was right? How do we know that the Didache is saying anything worth listening to? How do we know? And so for the Christian, the Christian says, well, here's the thing, God has spoken. It's what I actually communicated to Brandon in our discussion. John 17:17, Jesus says in his high priestly prayer to the Father, he says, thy word is truth. For Jesus, the word of God is the truth. The revelation of God is the truth. And so how do you know that what I'm saying is true? What Brandon's saying is true, Michael's saying is true. For the Christian who's grounded in the word of God and God's revelation, the Christian says, well, God's word is the standard. It's the plumb line. That's literally what it is. And the word there, Aletheia in the Greek there. John 17:17, Truth, it's the plumb line. It's how you know something is right or is true. It's the thing you very, you test and you measure. I'm learning a lot about this actually. I've built some things in my life. You know, I've built, you know, I've done dryw and when Luke and I were planting apology at church, you know, we had to do side jobs and to survive and things like that. And so I helped Luke build some things and a lot of drywall and stuff like that. But I have been helping my father in law with a family business in building luxury, mobile, portable bathrooms and, and some other things. And so I'm doing framing and all the rest. And my father in law is a master builder. He's been building for like, like 50 some odd years. And he's just, he's just a master and a perfectionist. And so I, you know, I'm just learning so much about things being right and true and squared up just right. And he is just, he, he'll see stuff that it's like, how do you even see that that's off? How did you even know that that was off? And making sure that everything is right and making sure everything is true. And when he's, when he's figuring out though if something is right or if it's actually true, he's not just eyeballing it. He'll see and he'll say this isn't right, this isn't true. But when it comes out, when we're doing the framing and getting everything together, and squared up and all that stuff. He's using tools and levelers and lines to ensure that what he has put up is right and true. And so he gauges the work and what he has done by what is the standard. And the standard tells him he's wrong. And I can't tell you how many times already that I've been helping him. And it seems like it's perfect and it's true and it's right. And he'll go, nope, this is off by an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch. And how does he know it's off by an eighth of an inch, of a quarter of an inch? It's not because he's simply eyeballing it. It looks fine to me, and it might even look fine to him at a point. But he'll realize that it's off by that eighth of an inch or whatever it is. He'll realize it because he has the standard by which he measures it. And what he doesn't do is get the standard out and say, no, the standard is wrong. What I've done is right and true, and ignore the standard. If you do that, your house is going to collapse, your building is going to fall apart. And that is how we use the word of God, is that we might have a system we've constructed, we might have a view that we've constructed. We've built it up, we think it's right, we think it's true. And then along comes the standard. And this is the standard and what we ought to do. And this is something that is stated by every major church Father. You can pick them. I mean, just Athanasius will talk like this. Augustine will talk like this. You see it throughout the Fathers. It doesn't ultimately matter epistemologically in terms of certainty. How do I know this is true? What some council has said and what some church father has said? I mean, they say this. It is the word of God that is the standard by which you measure whether the council got it right, or this church father, or this pastor or bishop got it right. And so the standard is the word of God, the revelation of God. That's how you know that is not Brandon Robertson's worldview, not even close. And that's why you see a lot of bouncing around and a lot of drawing from different sources to say, well, look, Thomas Aquinas, he said this. Thomas Aquinas said a lot of asinine things. Thomas Aquinas said a lot of things that were inconsistent with Scripture. Thomas AQUINAS is not an inspired apostle. Thomas Aquinas is a man who lived at a certain point in history that honestly was ignorant about a lot of things in life. And it's not to say that he didn't offer some things that might be helpful, not to say that at all. It's to say that he did say provably so with the Scriptures, a lot of things that were not biblical and true. And so where do you go for solace? Where do you go for a foundation? You go to the word of God. You test Thomas Aquinas by the Scriptures, you test Thomas Aquinas by the word of God, you test Augustine by the word of God. And so just, I mean, just think about the. Just the one text, just the one text that was brought up here at the beginning of the, of the program today for you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. Look, that's. That's the Bible. That's the word of God. That's what God says about this process of a human being, that it is God himself, uniquely as the creator and the artist who forms my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. So the place where the potter works is in the wombs of mothers. This is where the artist, the master artist, creates human beings in the wombs of their mothers. And the wording there is formed. My inward parts knitted me together in my mother's womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Not an accident, not potential life, not an accident, made. It is God who makes human beings in mother's wombs. And so Robertson is going to try to say, what's potential human life? Where do you get that in the Bible? I mean, it says knits them together in the womb. He makes them in the womb. And I love this part here. This is really, really cool. It says, my frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes, this is. This is big. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them. The days that were formed for me. There it is again. Formed by God, created by God. And the days for us are formed by God when there's not even one of them. How do you get away from that? You don't. You don't accept, you ignore, you don't accept. You create a system that is in opposition to it. And that's what Brandon Robertson could deliver master classes on.