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Matt
Sam.
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Greg Koukl
Hello, friends. Greg Koukl here. And the show is Stand to Reason. And I realized, and maybe you haven't known this because whenever I go away for a few weeks, we put a bunch of shows in the can in advance, and so we can just keep providing for you while I'm gone. But I have been gone for four weeks or so. And so I have been remiss now in reminding you about one of the most fun and productive things that I get to do every year for what, 18 years or so now, and that is CIA, which stands for Cross Examined Instructor Academy. And many of you know about this. You recognize the acronym from actually, Frank Turek, who is the founder of CIA. Crossexamine.org is their website. And Frank and I have been working in lots of stuff for a long time. And this particular project for every year, I think this might be his 18th or 19th year that he's been doing this. And let me just tell you what it is. Usually I interview Frank, but there's not an opportunity to do this now. But CIA is coming up July 30th through August 1st. So that's like Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Right? And what it is is an instructor academy that is meant to improve the skills of Christian communicators. Now, when I say Christian communicators, I don't mean people who are already on the road and got their name and a marquee, although occasionally that's the case. It means people that are already in play, doing something, speaking, training, teaching of some sort, but want to improve their capability of doing that. And so we take these two and a half days, Thursday, all day Friday, in the evenings too, in some cases, and all day Saturday, actually, three days. And we provide an environment. I mean, this is Frank's baby. I'm along for the ride, and I do whatever he asked me to do. But we provide an environment where these folks can grow in their ability, wherever it is, make the next step forward. And so there's training on public speaking, there's training on using PowerPoint, and about being podcasters. There's all kinds of. And of course, in the last, you know, maybe just shy of 20 years, the nature of the training has changed because the field of communication has changed. I mean, 15 years ago, there weren't any podcasters. We had events. What do you call them? They were called, you know, the radio shows or shows like we did. They were called something else. I can't remember. Amy. You know what it is, Amy? You haven't got, like, I forget. Don't catch the disease I got Amy, it's, you know, I'll think of it in a little bit. But anyway, so there, there's lots of people are screaming at the radio or at the computers right now thinking, I know what that is. But podcasts, oh, I guess that's one of the things we call a podcast. Anyway, since that's changed then we are now we got YouTubers. And so Frank has brought in the people to meet the needs to help in that. And that means you, you're going to give a some presentations, you're going to develop some presentations, you're going to give some presentations, you're going to get juried by your students and by other speakers that are part of the group. And these are experienced people. All right, for example, not only will Frank and I be there, of course, but Natasha Crane will be there, Alisa Childers will be there, Hilary Farrar, Jason Jimenez, Alan Parr, Bobby Conway, I mean, each one of these people have been very effective communicators for a long time. And by the way, I know this is true of Elisa. Elisa was a student at CIA in the past. She was actually in my class when she gave her first presentation. I don't remember that, but she said I told her that she did a really good job. Okay. But now she is one of the instructors and many of you know her as one of the finest podcasters, Christian podcasters going, and a best selling author. With her actually a number of books. But the ones that come to mind right away is another gospel about progressive Christianity and the book she wrote with Tim Barnett called Deconstructing Christianity. So these are people who know the ropes. Well, we'd like you to spend three days with us, all the details, there's a fee involved. Of course you've got to travel, you've got to get a hotel, but these are three days that could change things for you in a very significant way, help you to be more effective. Now I'm going to give you the URL so you can get the information. Usually I have, it's May or April that I'm making an announcement like this. So now here we are, mid June, we are about seven weeks away from the event. But there's, as I understand, there's still room, it's a smaller group. I mean, I think there's total like 60 people, something like that. And all of us that I just mentioned, we are all there and there's more too. But we're there, we're right there mixing it up with you. And then we're working with you to hone your skills as communicators. The website is CIA.crossexamined.org Pretty easy. CIA.crossexamined. org O R G and you'll need to fill out an appeal basically to be part of it. You get some references. It's not too hard. I mean, we want to help people who are in play in some way and get better at this, at their, at their craft. And you have a great group of people that are excellent communicators that are able to pass their skills on in some measure to you as well. So once again, CIA.crossexamined.org for July 30 through August 1. So that's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. You got to arrive on Wednesday and there's some homework you got to do. You got to read some stuff. Okay. Got to read Frank's book and you got to read my book on tactics, Frank's book on I don't have enough faith to be an atheist, et cetera. So there you go. Hope to see you there. All right. Now I just have another thought I want to pass on to you. And you know that I have daughters, an 18 year old and a 21 year old. And I have been more liberal with my opinions lately just about their choice of men. And I mean kind of theoretically, not theoretically in principle. I'm not saying, hey, you're going out with that guy, He's a rat. Don't do that anymore. I'm not criticizing anybody. I'm communicating to my daughters something about what they ought to be looking for. And I want to pass a couple of thoughts on to you because I think that Christian parents may be allowing their daughters in this case. Let me just talk about daughters because I got daughters. And there's maybe an analog here for sons as well. But I'm just going to talk about daughters. I have not been impressed with Christian young men on balance. On balance, of course, there are lots of remarkable Christian young men and a lot of them, you know, I run into at places like Summit or Reality. But there are so many guys in general that are. Well, what I tell my daughter is they're boys. They're just boys. You don't want a boy, you want a young man. And if you just look for a simple maybe aphorism, a little quickie, that sums it up. That's it, honey. You don't want a boy. There's a lot of boys out there and some of those boys are cute, some of them are athletic, some have good money because they come from families that are well healed and. But they're boys. They're not growing up. And I want you. And I even. It's not just my daughters, my daughter's friends, girls. And I tell them the same thing. I said, you don't want a boy. So I ran with that in mind. My wife sent me something actually that comes from the source. I have no idea what it is. It's Readerpreneur. P R E N E U R. So it's like an entrepreneur, but it's Readerpreneur. And there's between the R and the P reader, there's an underlined space. She sent me it from Instagram. And this is a list of nine qualities that this person and I don't know who it is, so I can't give any more credit for this, but this person says are what he calls green flags in men. Of course, you know about red flags, right? Uh oh. This is a red flag. Uh oh, Danger. Danger. Well, it's good to see that. But what about the green flags? What are the things that you're not just looking to avoid, but things that you actually see in the person that are pluses in the young man category, by contrast to the boy category, Lots of boys, not many young men. Emerging men. There was a. Now let's see how I want to say this. Look, if you have a guy that takes your daughter out, doesn't address you as an adult, as a parent. Hi, Mr. Koukl. Hi, Mrs. Koukl. They don't come in and address you. They don't greet you. That's a very simple thing. But there are lots of people don't do that. A lot of young men, they don't do that. Maybe they were never taught. They may be nice guys. But anyway, that's a missing. That would be a red flag or a green flag if they did it. But anyway, let me give you the nine green flags that are on this Instagram piece. Here's the first one. Has a close relationship with his parents, especially his mom. Especially is his mom. Why? Because his mom is female. He's male. If he's got a good relationship with his mom and treats his mom well, that's probably an indicator that he will treat your daughter well too. Has a close relationship with his parents, especially his mom. Number two, has. Oh, here's an archaic word. When was the last time you heard this word? Has hobbies. Has hobbies. That is he has recreation that he does that. And hobbies aren't just recreation. They're Not. You're not just recreating. Although I think that word means recreate, right? There's some substance to it, but it isn't just, you know, empty activity. It's something you're doing to develop an interest or a skill or something like that. Now, what is offered here has hobbies like hiking or reading or guitar, et cetera. You know that stamp collecting used to be a hobby, or shortwave radio or building model airplanes or. I mean, I'm not recommending anybody collect stamps. That's boring to me. But it's just something you could do so you're not in front of a screen your whole life. Vegetating. Green Flag has hobbies. Number three. Goes to the gym or plays a sport. Well, a lot of guys do that. Well, that's good. Why is that good? Because it displays. It shows discipline and consistency. In other words, this is something that a person is committing himself to do on a regular basis. It's not always fun and not always easy, but they're doing the hard thing for the good reason. All right, what's this one? Can cook, or at least takes an effort to. Can cook or at least takes an effort to. All right, you can do with that what you want. I think the point there is independence. Appropriate independence. They're capable. If they need a meal, they can. All right, they'll just cook it or figure out a way to. Or at least are interested in finding a. Figure out a way to take care of themselves in this regard. Here's another one. Wears clean, neat clothes. Wears clean, neat clothes. In other words, he takes care of himself. He takes care of himself. Now, that's a big deal for me. I did not like sloppy. Now, why is that? Well, I'm a boomer. I'm an early boomer. 1950, tomorrow's my birthday and I'll be 76. But I carry with me a lot of values from that great generation, greatest generation that fought the war. And my dad was part of that generation. He wasn't in the military, but he was part of that generation. He was born on October 29, 1929. That date ring a bell? That was the day the stock market crashed. And that's the day he was born. He was born into this tough situation. At 10 years old, he was orphaned. Both of his parents killed in an auto crash. And so there were things that he had to develop in terms of skills and competencies to take care of himself in the midst of hardship and difficulty. And I think that was true of a lot of those guys that generation. And some of that rubbed off on me. And that's why order is really important to me. What do I do for a living? I take ideas and I put them in order and then I try to pass them on and translate them in an orderly way. So I throw the ball so people can catch it. And so how does that relate to where's clean, neat clothes? Well, it seems to me it falls broadly in the same category. The person is orderly, takes pride in their appearance. Not flashy, not with all the tats necessarily. I don't know if that's pride in appearance. I think that's trend, that's different for me. But someone who takes pride in their appearance, that's a green flag. Here's one I didn't expect to see. This one has a pet. That's number six. Has a pet. Why would that be a green flag? Well, if you have a pet, you have a responsibility. You have to take care of that pet. Some are more demanding than others. Cats are less demanding. We have three cats in our house and they're nice, you know, but they're pretty self sufficient. You feed them on a regular basis, let them out the door, they go to the bathroom in the yard or whatever and run from the coyotes where I live. But okay, but they do need care and you got a pet that shows responsibility. Number seven is religious or has strong values. Now, I don't think this person here is a Christian, but I do think that the person who wrote the Green Flags in men understands the. Let's see, how do I want to say this? Understands that someone who has religious convictions and values that goes along with it is reflective in an area of life that's important to be reflective on. Now I think in the long run, if you're religious but not you don't know God in the way he wants you, then that's a problem, you know, because you get satisfied thinking you're fine with God when you're not. But it's a little different issue in this case. He's just talking about somebody who has religious convictions. It is an evidence of something about their character. Okay, number eight. Has kind, funny and respectful friends. Has kind, funny and respectful friends. I don't care so much if they're funny, but that they're kind. Because not everybody can be funny. It's a gift, I guess. But everybody can be kind and they can be respectful. Birds of a feather what flock together. Okay, Bad company corrupts good morals. So that was Ben Franklin, I think. And well, God's word, I don't know, where does that come from? In Proverbs or somewhere, bad company corrupts good morals. So the more you hang out with the right kind of people, the more you're going to be like those kinds of people. If you hang out with a good crowd, you just kind of absorb each other's virtue, so to speak. Right. Has kind, funny, respectful friends. Finally, is motivated and driven. Even that's pretty strong words, motivated and driven. Sometimes driven is considered a pejorative, a negative thing. And people who are driven, you know, are just. It's like it's a compulsion and they can't manage it. I don't think that's what this individual, who I think is a man who put this together has in mind. He's got motivated and driven, and they're together. So there's a kinship between that. This is somebody who's got a plan, who wants to do something with their life that they may not end up doing what they're thinking about. Many times we have one goal and we end up shooting for another one down the line. But having a goal, we're not meandering, we're not going nowhere. Before I was a Christian, I was pretty much going nowhere. And that all changed when I came to know the Lord. But you don't have to know the Lord to have this kind of change. If you're a good man or a good young man and not a boy, then there is something that drives you to move forward, to get better, to progress, to take responsibility and make a contribution. And that's what you're looking for. So here they are again. Just by summary, we'll take a break and we got some calls. Has a close relationship with his parents, especially his mom. One has hobbies. 2. Goes to the gym or plays a sport. Shows discipline and consistency. That's three. Four, can cook or at least takes an F or two. By the way, I would add, they cook and clean up their mess. That matters to me. Leave it better than you found it, right? Five, wears clean, neat clothes, takes care of himself. Six, has a pet. Seven, is religious or has strong values. Eight, is. Has kind, maybe funny, but certainly respectful friends. Is motivated and driven. And then there's a subtext here. Bonus points if he grew up with sisters. Or it says female cousins, but that may be too far removed to have much of an impact. If he grew up with sisters, why is that good? Because he knows something about women. Can't grow up with sisters and not know something about women. I had two and they had three brothers, so That's a plus. Anyway, there you go. And just to drive the point home and to bookend this, ladies, young ladies, you don't want a boy. Too many boys. You want a young man, an emerging man. And these nine plus things here, I think are good guidelines for that. Okay, let's take a break. Be back in just a moment. On Stand A Reason. Would you like a Stand a Reason speaker at your event? Greg, Alan, Tim, John, Megan, and I, Tripp are available in person or online. Just email bookingstr.org Our team speaks on a wide range of topics, from issues in bioethics, gender, and science to topics in apologetics, theology, and philosophy, and how to respond to other worldviews, all from a biblical perspective. Whether it's a conference, youth event, or Sunday service, we're here to give confidence for every Christian, clear thinking for every challenge, courage and grace for every encounter.
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Nate's Wife
As a high school teacher, I always had a red pen close at hand. When I wasn't in front of my students teaching a lesson, you could find me assessing assignments, grading essays, and evaluating exams. The red pen played a crucial role in the educational development of my students. With it, I questioned their assumptions, expose their errors, and challenge them to think critically. You see, a good teacher doesn't merely tell his students that they're wrong. A good teacher shows his students why they're wrong so they don't make the same mistakes twice. He corrects because he cares. Last year, I was scrolling through social media, and frankly, I was discouraged at all the bad thinking that undergirded much of what I was reading. Then it hit me. What if someone applied the red pen to this flawed thinking? And Red pen logic with Mr. B was born. In the last few months, Red Pen Logic has grown in popularity through our engaging and shareable educational graphics and videos. We are helping people, especially young people, assess bad thinking by using good thinking. And we have a lot of fun in the process. So here's your homework assignment, like the Red Pen Logic Facebook page so you don't miss our next graphic. And subscribe at the red Pen Logic YouTube channel so you don't miss a single video. Class dismissed.
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Greg Koukl
All righty, friends, we have Matt in Pittsburgh here. And Matt, you've been very patient. Thank you for hanging on for so long. Welcome to the show.
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Matt
Thank you very much, Greg.
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Greg Koukl
Okay, what's up?
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Matt
Yeah, I just wanted to ask a quick question about dispensationalism. My question is basically that dispensationalism seems to appear in the 19th century alongside modern nationalist movements. Why Should Christians trust it over the near unanimous understanding of the church fathers and reformers regarding national Israel prior to John Nelson Darby?
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Greg Koukl
Well, there's a lot there here. And just to make clear my own view, because I suspect you've listened to when Amy and I were talking about the rise of antisemitism. Is that correct?
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Matt
Yeah, that's correct. I'm more, I'm just for the record, I'm Catholic. I'm just more interested in dispensationalism from a historical perspective.
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Greg Koukl
Okay. Well, in a certain sense I'm not, I'm not interested in dispensationalism from an historical perspective. Personally, when I look at some particulars, defining particulars of dispensationalism, these are things that I think are biblically sound. And it may be that in the 16th, and I don't know, I'm just trusting what you say because I haven't done historical. Look, it may be that it just kind of coalesced in the 16th century as a definable or definable view with these particular points, just like it was until the second. Well, it was Tertullian in the end of the second century used the word Trinity for the first time and later on when that got more and more refined. But the defense of the notion of the Trinity goes back to the text. And so even if dispensationalism was refined and formed into a systematic way of understanding the flow of biblical salvation history in the 16th century, that doesn't detract from the, you know, arguably the truth of its parts that go back to the text. But I just want to make it clear, Matt, I'm not campaigning for dispensationalism. I don't want people to be a dispensationalist. There is one feature that is a defining feature of dispensationalism, though that I think is really critically important, relates to the anti Semitic movement. It ties in with that. And I think it's critical in virtue of God's long term purposes in the world. And that is that God chose the nation of Israel for a purpose and has promised long term never to abandon them. So even though in the church the New Covenant there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free, that doesn't mean that there is not a special covenantal purpose that God has for the nation of Israel. And I make that point from the text itself. Not to disregard what it says in the New Testament about neither Jew nor Greek in the church, but it's an apples and oranges kind of thing. So my view is actually Amy and I have. Are a little different. We are grounded a little differently theologically with regards to this. But my view is that Israel still has a place in God's economy, and therefore they are still the people of God in a qualified sense. That has to be qualified. Okay. And has a future for that national entity. All right? And consequently, if we put ourselves against Israel, then we are putting ourselves in an awkward position where we're opposing God's own chosen people. Now, when I say put against, I'm not just referring to criticizing Israel when they deserve it, because every single prophet did that. I'm talking about something else. And Amy's view is she comes from a very different theological perspective here. But the basic thing is she looked at in Romans, for example, here was Paul a Jew himself who was being persecuted by Jews, by the nation of Israel. And what was Paul's perspective? Paul's perspective was to pray for them, to love them, and to work as much as he could for the salvation of any of them, and that eventually God would draw them to him as a nation, at least on her reading of Romans 9 and following. So notice that Amy's not dispensational. And the only thing about dispensationalism that I am pressing for is really what I take to be an unequivocal promise of God to the Jews that the Jews for 2000 years understood to be that way. And so when we go to the New Testament and some people say, oh, those are the Christ killers, you know, that's the synagogue of Satan, or however they want to characterize it, and then oppose Israel and Jews and anti Semitic in a hateful way. And I use that word very advisedly. You know, this because I think it's overused in many circumstances when they do that. This is just not Christlike for Christians to hold that view, but many Christians do. So I just kind of went on for a few minutes there to kind of put it into perspective. You may still push back, and that's okay, but I just wanted to be more clear on precisely what I was advancing here.
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Matt
Yeah, I appreciate your perspective, and it does seem well thought out. The point I wanted to say, though, is the term Israel as it gets used by 1948, Israel is not the same as Israel in the Bible. And the early Israelis, Jews, whatever term you want to use, they went through multiple different covenants. They went through, obviously, the Abrahamic covenant, the Noah covenant, and then it ends in the New Testament in the person of Jesus. You'd mention that God's not done with his promises to them. And I don't think he's done with his promises to all nations of the world. I think they're all meant to be gathered together under Jesus Christ.
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Greg Koukl
Sure. Yeah.
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Matt
And notice too, in Romans 11, there's only one olive tree representing one covenant. There's not two different olive trees. There's not a reference to, like, an olive stump that still has purpose for the future. And I know that's like trying to read back and maybe like, say, like, oh, why didn't explain this perfectly, but.
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Greg Koukl
Yeah, well, look at the. Yeah, I think you're maybe using that illustration there in Romans a little bit too loosely. God had a nation of people that he formed Abrahamic covenant to be a group of people. He chose to accomplish a certain purpose,
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Matt
which was bringing the Messiah.
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Greg Koukl
Yes, that's ultimately a blessing to all the nations. But notice how the modus operandi that he describes there in Genesis 12, and then it's interesting, in Genesis 15, he cuts a contract with Abraham, and Abraham is asleep. And that whole scene with the smoking pot and all of that passing through the parts of the animal, this is in the context of that culture. This was signing a contract of which God was the only signatory. And just before that, when Abraham was saying, lookit, you promised me kids. I don't have any kids. Eliezer of Damascus, he's the head of my household. He's going to get everything that I have, you know, and then God says, no, it's going to be one that comes forth from your own loins. That is the group that I am building, and I will. That's the nation I will give you. And then you can see the development later with the Mosaic covenant is an outworking of some aspects of the Abrahamic. The problem with the Mosaic covenant is that it was. Well, there are two things. One is it was conditional. You do good, you get good blessings, you do bad, you get bad cursings. Then you can see that most vividly in Deuteronomy 28:30. And so it was conditional. And the other thing is, and Amy makes this point very often, and that is, there's no power in the law to keep the law. There's no provision for power to keep the law. And so I got Jeremiah 31 open here in front of me. And Jeremiah 31, 31 is where Jeremiah promises a new covenant. Now, Jeremiah is a prophet to the Jews, the nation. Well, nation of Israel, technically, at this point in history, Israel was the northern kingdom, and they were Dispersed. And the Jews were the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin. And they were going into captivity during this time of Jeremiah. But he's making a promise to the nation. The nation is not just in the land, a remnant and that one being deported. But there are also those that are scattered. That's still the nation. The ones that came forth from Abraham's loin and further delineated Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob. Okay? And that's the line of Jews. Even though they're scattered now, those people regained their ancient homeland in 1948 and have growing since then. I don't see any reason we don't
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Matt
know if that's the same exact people that, you know, Jeremiah was writing to. I'm not doing the like conspiracy Khazar kind of thing, but I mean, there's many people who are descended from Abraham. Paul specifically says children of the promise are those that believe in Jesus in Galatians.
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Greg Koukl
But what you're doing at this point, if I can say this, Matt, is now you're conflating two different covenants. Because the thing that Jeremiah, the only one covenant, what Jeremiah is promising here in chapter 31, is the new covenant. And the new covenant is the covenant for the Jews to which Gentiles are added. And that was the mysterious thing that wasn't really clear that Paul makes clear in his writings. And we see that also in the book of Acts. Okay, I'm going to the Gentiles. And so the Gentiles are now being grafted in. But it's a Jewish covenant that they're being grafted into. It's not a non Jewish covenant. It's in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But in this passage here. I read it once before. You could read it for yourself. But that's 31, 31 and 32. I will make a new covenant, etc, not like the one you broke, but I'll write my words on your heart, etc. But then he says that the Lord who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night. Now he's making a comparison. He said if that fixed order ceases to be like day and night and moon and sun.
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Matt
Yeah. If the political order collapses.
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Greg Koukl
Say again?
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Matt
If the political order collapses. That that was an illusion that had been used to refer to political orders collaboratively.
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Greg Koukl
I do not believe that's the case. I do not believe that's what's happening here in Jeremiah 31. If you read it, it's very clear. The God who gives these things and then he says, if this fixed order departs from me, then the offspring of Israel will also cease from being a nation before me forever. Now, that is very straightforward, I think, Matthew. I mean, if you want to take it differently, you're welcome to. But I think God is just saying, look, there's a new covenant coming and you're still my people. And as long as the sun's still rolling and the moon's still doing its thing, you know that the nation of Israel is still a nation before me. That's the language.
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Matt
Okay, but you're using a different definition of nation than the authors would have used, which is why I started by referencing 19th century nationalism.
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Greg Koukl
Well, look, I'm just following the flow of thought here. In verse 31, these are the people who are given one covenant that they broke, and now they're giving that group of people is being another covenant. I don't see any reason in the context to think of this promise pertaining to anyone but the nation of Israel. The whole book of Jeremiah relates to that and the dispersion. And they're coming back. Jeremiah 29, you know, 70 years have been decreed, you know, for this. And then you're going to come back and I'll establish you in the country. I will return you to all the lands where I've sent you. That's also in Deuteronomy 30. Anyway, that's my pitch, totally. But if I could gently offer a little warning. It seems to me you're reading into these texts that are not equivocal. It isn't like, oh, this means these other things. No, if you take your straightforward sense, it seems very straightforward to me to be an encouragement by Jeremiah to the people that are now some dispersed, some in Babylonian captivity, that God hasn't forgotten them and that they are Hebrews.
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Matt
It says the old covenant is obsolete.
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Greg Koukl
Wait, say that again. I'm sorry.
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Matt
Hebrews 8, 13. It says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
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Greg Koukl
That's right.
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Matt
And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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Greg Koukl
Exactly. That's exactly what Jeremiah is essentially saying in verse 32. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers the day I took them from the land to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant, which they broke. So that's right, I agree. But because one covenant has been replaced with a new covenant doesn't mean the people of God have been replaced with another people of God.
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Matt
Well, it means the old covenant is no longer in effect, essentially.
- [38:36]
Greg Koukl
I agree.
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Matt
And God didn't replace the people. The people. You know, the early church was entirely Jewish, and then it grafted more and more people onto grew to what we have today, even though there's however many
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Greg Koukl
denominations, because we were able to take advantage of the promise of the spirit, of the New Covenant. That's our participation in a Jewish covenant. It's not a replacement.
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Matt
So is it ethnic or is it spiritual? Sagan, is it ethnic or is it spiritual? Like, is it by descent since, you know, God can make stones, children of Abraham?
- [39:23]
Greg Koukl
Well, yeah. What's going on there is just because you're Jews doesn't mean you're saved. That's what he's saying there. And it's a hyperbole, it's an exaggeration. God isn't turning rocks into any people. He's making a point.
- [39:39]
Matt
So now it's not the plain text, meaning that the dissent is irrelevant.
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Greg Koukl
I think maybe in some ways you're making it more difficult. There is a new covenant for the Jews who have faltered badly under the Old Covenant. Okay, and this new covenant, there's no
- [39:56]
Matt
reference to another covenant for the Jews in the New Testament.
- [40:00]
Greg Koukl
Say it again.
- [40:01]
Matt
There's no reference to like a new covenant for people who practice, like rabbinic Judaism in the New Testament. You know what I'm saying? There's the New Covenant, and its earliest members were Jewish.
- [40:15]
Greg Koukl
Yeah.
- [40:16]
Matt
So please unto Jesus.
- [40:17]
Greg Koukl
Right.
- [40:18]
Matt
And then that's the only covenant there is. There's not a second olive tree.
- [40:24]
Greg Koukl
Well, if you're talking about salvation, you're right. The old covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant, is no longer in play. The Abrahamic covenant has not been neg just by the new covenant. It's an extension of the New covenant. And so when God makes a promise to the people that would come forth from Abraham's own loins, and then Jeremiah, among many other places, repeats God's faithfulness to that promise. The New covenant doesn't negate that. There's an interplay between that. But it isn't like all those Jews are gone. If it is, look at. You've got passages upon passages upon passages in the Old Testament that. That appear to be God making a perpetual or a promise of perpetual relationship with the national Israel. And by the way, I have no reason to believe that Jews today are not related to the Jews before. Jews have a history from all of that time, and they were persecuted that whole time. It isn't like Jews disappeared and then a bunch of people with long locks of hair show up somewhere and call themselves Jews and you say we don't know if you're Jews. These guys have a continuity for the last 2,000 years. I mean, I hear that kind of stuff and it just frustrates me like crazy, man. Anyway, go ahead.
- [41:45]
Matt
I attend like a Lebanese church. You know, they're Middle Eastern. They're from, you know, right next door, essentially. And they have similar claims about how, you know, well, we're descended from the earliest Christians or the earliest Jews, however you want to phrase it. And the problem is, when you go back, I don't know, Abraham lived what, like 3,500 years ago, 4,000 years ago? When you go back that far, isn't everybody in the region descended from Abraham?
- [42:09]
Greg Koukl
The difference is. No, I don't think so. It's not just Abraham. It's Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's constrained. And all of those, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob went to Egypt for 400 years. And so you have an historical record of these people for 2000 years and everything that they went through. So anyway, just something to chew on. Okay. I'm going to leave it at that.
- [42:36]
Matt
Matt, you know, I appreciated this a lot, to be honest.
- [42:40]
Greg Koukl
Well, I'm glad you do. And I hope it got you thinking about some things. And like I said, take a look at Jeremiah 31, 35, 37. Okay.
- [42:50]
Matt
I hope you would look into John Nelson Darby's early life in the era of revolutions in the 19th century, just for context on how dispensationalist perspective got started.
- [43:02]
Greg Koukl
Well, I don't know how dispensationalists start and I don't care. That's what I said at the beginning. What I care about is whether God has made a promise to national Israel. Those that come from the loin of Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, and as his nation, and whether he's keeping that. That's all I care about. Now, that is a distinctive of dispensationalism, but I'm not trying to argue for dispensationalism per se, not at this point. Okay.
- [43:27]
Matt
All right, fair enough.
- [43:28]
Greg Koukl
Hey, Matt, nice talking to you, buddy.
- [43:30]
Matt
Yeah, yeah, you too. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
- [43:33]
Greg Koukl
All right, thanks for the call. Bye bye.
- [43:34]
Matt
Thank you. Bye.
- [43:36]
Greg Koukl
All right, we got 15, about 15 minutes left. So I have some open mic calls that I'd like to take. And let me see, we're not going right from the top here, Kyle, Let me look down. Well, here is. Nate has a question about Muslims and Jews worshiping the same God. Do you see that one? Okay, let's go there. Yo, that's it.
- [44:08]
Nate's Wife
Hi, Greg. I have a question for my husband Nate. He asks, do Muslims and Jews worship the same God as Christians? And why do some evangelicals avoid answering this question? William Lane Craig, for example, avoids this question. But I also don't agree with R.C. sproul, who makes a strictly theological argument for a. No, I say empathetically. No. The essence of God is a triune God. To say the other Abrahamic religions worship, in essence, the same God goes way too close to relativ. Relativism for my comfort. For a Christian to say yes would, in my opinion, separate the triunity of God, therefore making it a different God. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.
- [44:49]
Greg Koukl
Wow. Okay. I didn't catch your name. You're Nate. Wife. So Nate's wife. This is a good question and it's asked quite a bit. And I think I'm just going to give an answer that I think is kind of nuanced. All right. And I want you to. There is a category where, and I can't remember the exact phrase of it. I was talking with Alan about it earlier today and he got it right. Maybe, Amy, you could write it down for me and post it. But it's where you, you are referring to the same thing under a different description. So if someone was referring to my wife, for example, and my wife, but they thought she was, you know, 40 instead of older the age she is, well, we'd still be referring to the same person, but we would not be referring to. But, but, but, but even though some detail, they're getting wrong. So there, there is a. It's, it's like the same one under a different descript. Now that can't be carried too far. And if it turned out that the God of the Old Testament revealed himself very clearly as triune in nature, then I think my assessment here, which I'll give you in a moment, would be different. But he didn't do that. The Trinity is a detail of the character of God we get through. Or the, Yeah, I guess the character of God, a detail of God's nature. Here we go. That we get through as a result of progressive revelation with God showing us more and more and more about himself as time goes on. And then the New Testament, we have more detail now with the detail we have in the New Testament about what is called the Trinity. It doesn't use that word, but the concepts are in place there. We can look back in the Old Testament and we could see what seemed to be hints at these things. The Trinity, but not necessarily the teaching itself or a robust characterization of the nature of God from which we could easily draw the doctrine of the Trinity. I do think that's the case in the New Testament, but not in the Old Testament. But, you know, at Christmas time, we talk about this verse in Isaiah, and it says, unto us us a child is born, unto us a son is given. There you've got. Oh, well, there's an example of what I think an inference of the two natures of Christ. Okay, you have a son is given, that's the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. But the child is born. That's the human nature. And there are other passages that is the dual nature of Christ. But there are other passages that seem to hint, once you have it in mind, the Trinity, that that something's going on in the Old Testament. Now, because the Trinity is not taught in the Old Testament about the God of the Bible, I think it makes it difficult for us to hold those people who believe in the Old Testament responsible to this detail about God that is true about God, true about his nature, but wasn't revealed in the Old Testament, it was revealed in the New Testament, to which they're not maybe privy or concerned. All of the prophets are the prophets of the true God who became a man in the person of Jesus, who is, we deduce later from subsequent revelation, is triune in nature. Now, Jews adhering to God's word, their understanding of God's word, are Unitarian. The Lord God is one that's, you know, hear, O Israel, you know, that's foundational to their theology. And it comes out of Isaiah. Now, of course, we say the same thing. The Lord God is one, meaning, one nature, one being, one individual, if you will. But that there are three centers of consciousness, each fully God divine, that are coterminous with the divine nature, so share the same single divine nature. Now, all this to say is, I actually think that it's not with the question, do Muslims and Jews worship the same God as Christians? I would say the Muslims do not. Because there are distinctive differences beyond the Trinity that make it clear, even if they make the claim that make it clear that they're not worshiping that God. But when it comes to the Jews, who are also not trinitarian, they're Unitarian. I think they are directly insofar as they're using the Hebrew Scriptures and maybe more like the Talmud or whatever, but the Hebrew Scriptures, certainly those Jews, they're not saved. But it isn't like they got the wrong God, they got the right God. But There's a detail about God that they are not privy to because it's not revealed until later. And when they hear about that, they deny it in what they think is faithfulness to the text in the Hebrew scriptures about the God of the Bible. Now, I could be mistaken about this. And so, I mean, I'm just giving you my point of view on this. I think Muslims do not worship the same God of Christians, but I do think that Jews do worship the same God, but they don't understand everything that's true about him, precisely the Trinity and that God became a man in the person of Jesus. And so that when we worship Jesus, we are not just worshiping a man as God, we're worshiping God as man. So that's the distinction. Now, again, I am sympathetic to people who disagree. It sounds like, ma', am, you do Nate's wife, and vigorously so. And I'm sympathetic to that. I'm not sure ultimately what final difference it makes, because the real issue isn't whether they worship the same God. The real issue is if they worship God or follow God as that God wants. By the way, when the Jews, during the history of the Jews, they worshiped Yahweh and also a pantheon of sorts of other gods, they included Yahweh. So when they included Yahweh, they were worshiping Yahweh, but they were not worshiping Yahweh righteously. They were worshiping him unrighteously in a way that was not appropriate insofar as he was part of the pantheon. So with these Astra, etc. And sometimes they didn't worship Yahweh at all. It was all Astra and BAAL and all these nature gods so they could have good harvest or whatever. And by the way, that's where this idea of dying and rising gods come from. A lot of it is that the God, you know, mythically dies in the fall and the leaves turn brown and everything gets cold and wintry, and then in the spring, oh, he comes alive again, he rises again. And so this is not a real human individual who dies and rises from the dead like Jesus of Nazareth, but rather this understanding of the cycles of the seasons and they. They personify that and divinize it. But my point is, even when Israel was involved with the pantheon insofar as they worshiped God or they showed obeisance to God or did rituals for God, and they did that a lot. Now, God hated it because he said, it's a broken and contrite heart that you want David said in Psalm 51, and they weren't like that. They were disobedient. And so I would say when they did these things, like did the festivals and the new moons and blah, blah, blah, and all the things that the law required from God, from Yahweh, they were doing the things to Yahweh that he wanted them to do. But they were not doing it in a righteous manner because they were polytheistic. De facto, in their practice, they were polytheistic. And so consequently they fell under God's judgment. So even in those cases, I would say they were involved with the true God, they just weren't obeying the true God. And ergo, the trouble that they got themselves into. And I mean, we got a thousand years of all of this stuff. I mean, before that even look at you start with Moses to, you know, and all of that wandering stuff and the people, oh, I want to go back to, you know, whatever. And so they were bad then. Then they take the land and they. They were good for a while, then they got bad again in the Book of judges, another 400 years of nonsense. Then finally we have Samuel help straighten them out a little bit. And then they want a king, you know, oh, Samuel's bugged. And God tells him, samuel, they're rejecting me. They're not rejecting you. But he acquiesces, gives them a king, and they got a lousy king Saul. He is a mess. And then they got a great king, and that was David. And then they got a compromise king, that was Solomon. And then there's a civil war and the kingdom split and you got all kinds of trouble. So God's all mixed in with all of that. It is the God of truth that they were involved in, even though they weren't obeying him completely or obeying him at all in some cases. Nevertheless, the God of Israel was still the true God. The God of Islam is not the true God. It's a counterfeit. And there's enough differences between them in character, etc. That can demonstrate this. In other words, who they are and what they're like. But even though the true God is a trinity and the Jews do not believe in the Trinity, which is an essential part of God's nature, that in my view, that doesn't mean they're worshiping a different God. What they means is they got something they're mistaken about, something true about God. But the mistake in some ways is understandable given the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures do not give us a robust reason to believe in the Trinity. So there you have it. And you know, that's my take on it, although lots of people disagree. So that's all right. Anyway, it's a timely question, and I think it's absolutely safe to say that the God of Islam is not the God of Christianity or the God of the Bible, no matter what they claim. All right, friends, thank you for spending this time with me. Greg Koukl here for Stand a reason. Give them heaven. Bye bye now.
- [57:29]
Matt
Sam.