Primary vs. Secondary Issues in Christianity

1, 2, 3. Welcome to the Rap Report with your. Host, Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity in the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a. Speaker for your church, go to strivingforeeternity.org. Welcome to another edition of the Rappaport. I'm your host Andrew Rapaport, the executive director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member.

With over 50 podcasts, I'm sure you're going to find something worth listening to over there. This would be one that's, well, maybe worth listening to. And if you're not following it, wouldn't you mind doing that now?

Follow it, maybe share it with friends so others will Today's topic is Defining Primary and Secondary Issues of Faith. This is a podcast where I was the guest on the Providence Perspective podcast with the Reformed Rican. It was a good lively discussion. I think this will be helpful to many in defining what issues we need to fight over. Which ones can we let past?

Where is it when we have something that happens that we have to say, okay, this is something I die for versus I feel strongly about, versus, say it's just a preference, let it go. This is something where what we often see within Christianity, many people major on the minors and minor on the majors, and that's a big problem. A lot of social media is fighting over things that really shouldn't be fought over.

And so I hope that this episode is very helpful for you and others to learn where to draw those lines and how to know what things really need to be addressed, whether it be within your church, online, your family, your work. What issues need to be addressed and which don't. What do you have to say things when do you maybe don't need to. I hope this is very helpful. I hope this lively discussion educates you and if it does, would you do us a favor and share it with others?

Maybe just grab your phone out and text it to five friends. If you find a good quote that you like in it, just quote it out and then reference the podcast. We would appreciate it. And now for the Providence Perspective with the Reformed Rican. What's going on everybody? Welcome to Proverbs Perspective on Dave. Thank you very much for joining me today or this evening or whatever time it is, wherever you are right now watching.

Guys, we're going to talk about something that is very, very important, something that I've discussed in the past briefly, but I've never really Gone in depth too much on and that is the essentials of the faith versus secondary issues. Right. How do we determine these things? When does something matter? Does it matter at all? Those kinds of things. And so I'm not going to try to figure this out myself. I do have a guest with me. Please welcome Pastor Andrew Rapaport. How are you doing today?

Good, Jay. How are you doing? Good, good. How are you? I'm doing well. And so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do, that kind of thing. Sure. Yeah. I long long ago I was born no, we don't go that far back. But what a lot of people do find interesting about me is that I was raised in a Jewish home bar mitzvah at well technically 12 just before 13. My parents when they found out did exactly what I expected them to do.

They went casket shopping looking to we call sit shiva. They were gonna I'd be dead. They chose not to do that which I was glad for. But later as they you know that kind of I actually had to living in their house. I was saved at 16 and let lived a secret Christian life for two years. They no one knew as a Christian until 18 they discovered that and by then I was kind of halfway out the house anyway.

So I later on went to seminary, got became a pastor, was left the pastorate in 2010 and have been traveling around the world preaching well literally preaching the gospel. But most people know me from my evangelism but started a ministry called Striving Fraternity which is a discipling ministry. So we go into churches, do weekend seminars basically for smaller churches. We try to give that big conference feel at a small church. And so that's what we do. We have four speakers.

We have online classes people could take at our striving academy. We have have a Christian podcast community very similar to the the network that you have with truth and Truth and love. Right. Always get mixed up. I think it's truth and love and so you know similar thing just getting guy you know I shouldn't say guys but getting Christians working together in the podcasting realm. So I my podcasts are the rap and I should say the full name so you get the the pun.

But it's Andrew Rappaport's rap report. And then Apologetics Live is a live stream we do every Thursday night where we answer anyone's questions, any difficult questions. The I I like this. Okay Jay, I know you're gonna think I'm nuts, but I love it when someone comes in and they're ready for a debate. And I don't know, I'm debating that night.

You know, they come in to apologize live because anyone can come in and I get Catholics and Church of Christ and Mormons and they want to debate something. And I'm like, oh, we're doing a debate tonight. Okay, that, it makes for a lot of fun for, for the audience. But we, we answer any questions people have. So people want to join. They could go to apologexlive.com. so that's, that's what I do. Absolutely. And great. Thank you so much for that.

And guys, by the way, I will be putting more of Pastor Rapaport's information in the description below, so be sure to check that out, especially if you enjoy the video. If you don't enjoy the video, don't go be mean or anything like that. Just, just move on. Okay. Why not? Well, actually, you know what? He did say he likes the baits, in fairness. So. Yeah, I mean, we, we just had recently an apologetics Live. We had.

Was it five full preterists that, wow, told me that full preterism is undeniable. There's, it's irrefutable. And none of them came on to discuss it. I guess it was, you know, it's unrefutable in an echo chamber. That would have been very fun to watch. So sad that they missed it.

But, but see, that is some of what we're going to talk about tonight, right, is the fact that for some people, okay, for a large group of people that are on social media, they do not know how to have discussions without feeling that if you disagree with them, you're, you're calling them unsaved or nowadays the thing to say is if you disagree with someone, you're saying they don't exist. Which is really strange because if I'm talking to you, obviously I think you exist.

But that's, I mean, that's the culture we're in now that everyone must agree. And that's just not reasonable, logical, or realistic. And so when people do that, it's like, what are you really trying to get out of this? And so this is the thing that we end up seeing is that for many people, they get too tied up in what they believe and cannot separate primary doctrines, secondary doctrines, tertiary doctrines. I'm sure we'll get into what those mean throughout the show. Yeah, absolutely.

Actually, that's a great segue because I wanted to ask you the first question that I wanted to discuss with you. What are primary versus secondary or even Tertiary issues. You brought that up as well. Like what do we mean by those terms? Yeah. So when we talk doctrines, theology, there are certain things that we're going to hold in at different levels, especially as we communicate with people. So primary, I mean, I think people can figure out primary first, secondary second, tertiary third.

I like to explain it this way. Primary issues are beliefs. They're things I'm going to die for. Right. Someone puts a gun to my head and says, denied Jesus is God. That's a primary thing. That's a belief. And that's something if we're going to do ministry together, we must agree with. Then you have a secondary issues, convictions. I feel really strongly about some things, but it's not a salvation thing. So I, I'll give some examples. I feel I'm a cessationist.

I believe that some of the gifts, those miraculous gifts, have ceased after the completion of the canon. Now am I going to break fellowship with that? No. 1 of 1 of my very good friends, we've debated the issue of gifts probably a half dozen times formally. So do we have. Does that affect our friendship? No. Can we do ministry together? Yes. But do we have strong convictions against each other's view? Yes, we do. Then that would be secondary. Tertiary are what I would call preferences.

Things that I prefer this, but it's not a big deal if we disagree. And that, that's going to. There's going to be a wide range in, in there. But let's do some, some extremes. I mean, there's things that people will, you know. Right. Nowadays there are folks who are in reformed camp that it's big to show yourself having a cigar with, with alcohol and posting pictures. Okay. Is. Does the Bible condemn that? Well, it condemns drunkenness. Now that's not what I would present. I wouldn't do that.

But that's a preference. I can't sit there and say this is something. The first is I'll die for. The second is I'll fight for. And the third is, okay, we can, we could just forego these things. Yeah, we can, we can just for, for, you know, just deal with one another and say that's not a big deal. Music is another one. Although some churches put music to the level of, you know, well, belief of primary.

I mean, there's some churches that music is the main issue that they're going to fight over and, and divide over. Music shouldn't be. Now, now, to one, to some extent, if you're singing unbiblical lyrics, if, you know, if you're singing like, boy, I may get myself in trouble with you in your audience, Jay. I'll try not to, but send the hate mail to me, not Jay. I'm saying this. He has no. But I won't sing, I won't sing in my church songs from Bethel or Hillsong. Why? Because.

Well, when you start to dig into Bethel and Hillsong and their theology, it's, it's cultic. The, the problem is, is that they use their music as the hook, as the evangelism to get professing Christians to get into their belief system. And that's why, where I have the issue with it is because they openly admit their music is the hook to bring people into. So I wouldn't do that any more than I would have the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing in my church.

Yeah, because it's a known heretical group that's using it to bring people to their, their false teaching. Yeah, yeah. No, by the way, I, I think if anybody's been following my show for a while, they would know that. Yeah, they can, they can go ahead and send me hate mail as well, because that's my position and I've spoken about it at length, at least, I don't know, two or three times. I don't remember how many videos I've done on that.

And you know, the funny thing is I've had good, solid brothers who don't necessarily agree with that, and that's that.

I guess that kind of leads to a follow up question that I want to ask because it can get muddy from, from the way I see it, it can get muddy sometimes, you know, when it, when we're talking about like tertiary issues versus, like secondary issues or even, even sometimes, and we'll probably talk about this a little bit more a little bit later, but even, you know, secondary issues and how they affect what is essential. So how do you, how do you work your way through this stuff? Carefully.

Fair enough. So when we look at the primary issues, they're going to be things where we look in Scripture and it says, you are outside of the faith.

If you don't hold to this, such as Jesus being God, that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Amen. Right. Those are things Scripture is clear, that we cannot be saved by works that's explicit in scripture. And when it's explicit, then I'm going to take that in a primary way. But there's a lot of things where it comes to how you're interpreting.

And even if someone disagrees with me, I can look at, I can look at how they're coming about their conclusions from the way they interpret and say, okay, I disagree with your conclusion, but at least you're being consistent within your system of interpretation. And I'm going to have a little bit more grace there and say, okay, that's going to be a belief. You know, I, I personally, I'm Baptist, so I'm not going to believe in infant baptism.

But if I'm talking with a Presbyterian, in fact, I was preaching in a Presbyterian church and first time visitor came up and because he saw me at the pulpit, he walks up to me and he literally says to me, I'm a, I was raised Baptist, but my first time in this church, how would this church differ from my church, like with baptism? So I said, well, I'm a Baptist, what did I do? I immediately identified that I'm not in agreement with Presbyterian baptism.

But then I went on to explain Presbyterian baptism. Why, I mean, shouldn't I fight to say like, no, you must believe the Baptist baptism? No, I'm, I am at that moment an ambassador for that church. I am representing that church. So I'm going to explain their view of baptism. In fact, when the pastor took me to lunch afterwards, he actually said, andrew, I wish people in my church understood Presbyterian baptism as well as your Baptists do.

And we got to be able to be fair with each other's sides to do that, to rightly define what they believe. And so it's a matter of, I would say that baptism is a sign after salvation, but when you're viewing it through a covenant lens and you're looking at baptism replacing circumcision, therefore you're going to see why you would baptize children as a covenant sign. Right? So we're going to approach that differently. But people can be consistent with their system and that becomes a belief thing.

So I'm not going to fight them over it in that sense. And so by the way, for any Presbyterians listening, sometimes Baptists will make the claim that Presbyterians don't believe in believers baptism. Because Baptists think they're the only ones that believe in believers baptism, to which I will always ask the Baptist that says that, what do you think Presbyterians do with adults that get saved? And they go, well, they baptize them. What's that called? Infant baptism?

They're like, no, it's for adults. So when you get baptized as an adult, what do you, what do you call it? They go, believers baptism, what do you think they call it? Oh, you know, the Point being is a lot of times what we're doing in discussions like that is we're looking how to attack someone's view rather than how to understand someone's view.

If we're looking to attack it, we think we have great arguments and they're straw man arguments that get burned down very quickly, but we don't accept that they got burned down because we think they're good, but we didn't take the time to try to understand them. And you know, part of being raised Jewish, it does affect it because just a Jewish way of raising your kids, you raise them to debate you. You do. That's why I think so many Jewish people become lawyers.

What other profession do you get paid to debate? Right. So I think that's why so many Jewish people become lawyers. But the purpose of it is for sharpening your thinking and being able to understand someone else's perspective. I mean, a Jewish father will sit down and say, okay, older son, you're going to debate this, you're for it. Younger son, you're against it. Go ahead. And you may not have been prepared. You're just, okay, what are some good arguments?

And what you're doing is working off one another to sharpen your thinking, even in something you would disagree with. I think that a lot more Christians need to do that, be a lot more open minded, be more willing to have their own thoughts challenged. Because if you think your theology is perfect, let me, let me reassure you, you're wrong. Well, I don't know about that. I know my theology is perfect. Well, I'm just being great. No, I'm just kidding. Well, no, it's, it's.

So I was, I was invited to be a keynote speaker on an apologetics cruise with a friend of mine, Matt Slick. We were debating, we did a whole bunch of talks. I, I think I did nine talks, he did 10. And we, one of those was we did a debate against each other on covenant theology versus dispensational theology.

Very interesting comment from one of the people in the audience was that this woman had said, you know, I notice that, Andrew, you keep defending bad arguments that your side makes against Matt's side, and Matt, you keep arguing for bad arguments your side makes against Andrew's side. Why do you do that? Now, I'm going to give you my answer first because Matt's was far better. So even though Matt answered her correctly, and after he did, I was like, yeah, I got nothing to say after that.

But, but my, my response was because I, I do it because someone from my side will hear it better when they're making bad arguments, when it's coming from someone that agrees with their position. Matt's argument was even better. His answer, he just said, because Andrew and I both know we're wrong in our theology. We do not know where, because if we did, we would change. But when we sit at the feet of Christ, both of us know that we will be corrected in areas of our theology.

Amen. And really, what he's saying there is that neither one of us holds so tightly to our theological systems that we can't be convinced otherwise and that we can't be. That we don't recognize that we could be wrong in some areas. We don't think we are. I mean, you don't think you're wrong, otherwise you would change, right? Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. And. But if you do disagree with me, you are wrong. No. We will find out soon enough. Yeah. I will say this. I will say this.

RC Sproul will agree with me when. I get to heaven on everything. On everything. And both of us will be corrected. Correct? Correct. Because he's. He's. He's already got it right. His. His theology is solid today. Correct. I argue he's a Baptist today. He is a Baptist. Yeah. I'm a Baptist. So, yeah, my podcast, I'll. Sometimes when I do a live stream, I get Presbyterian, and they're. They really want to push for Presbyterian. I'll just say, you know, that R.C. sproul is a Baptist today now.

He was not a bat. And then they realized. I said, today. They get what I'm saying. That's awesome. You know, so, okay, I'm thinking through this and so just kind of going back to the whole essential versus secondary thing. Right? We can work with our differences, obviously, but sometimes. And this. I think this is. This is one of the bigger, biggest problems that we have with.

With this whole thing is who or what, I guess you could say who or what gets to determine what is a primary, secondary, or tertiary issue. Right? Because I'm thinking of, for example, some churches, they saying, well, well, we got to sing psalms only. Right? And that's. That's very important. Or. Or not have instruments or, you know, we wear head coverings or we don't wear head coverings or, you know, who gets to say how important these things really are? Because I can.

I can almost see, like, if. If we had a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox or something like that listening in, they would say, well, that's the problem with you guys is that you guys don't have a centralized authority. So how would you respond? Well, we need a Pope and ah, there it is. We, we need some fallible man who could speak ex cathedra who they claim never did it because any of the things that they used to say was ex cathedral they didn't have to screw. Right.

So I think the way it really comes down to is, like I said earlier, those things that are absolutes in scripture, those things that the scripture is clearly explicit on that are required for regeneration or required, in other words, when scripture makes it explicit that homosexuality is a sin and someone wants to say no, God never meant that. He just meant the abuse of homosexuality, that's the sin, it's pretty explicit.

And now you're re trying to twist and rewrite scripture to fit what you wish it said. Well, when it's explicit and you're in denial, then you got a problem. So let me give an example of this. Do you need, let me ask you this, Jay. I'll ask it and see. Do you need to believe in the Trinity to be saved?

I mean, I, I would, I would say so if you don't know who the Father, the Son and the Spirit are, their nature, who, I mean, the centrality of who they are, I mean, or, or even God's attributes, if we want to add that in there as well, I would say you don't know God because if you, you know, you say you come from a Jewish background, for example, Right. Well, Jews say that they believe in the God of the Bible, but Jesus is the God of the Bible.

And so if they deny Jesus, I, I don't, there's no salvation in anyone else. So I would say, yeah, you kind of have to, you would have to affirm the Trinity. Okay, so now here's where I'll. Now let me twist it for you and see whether you're going to change your view quickly because I think you will. Okay. Being Jewish, I never heard the word Trinity nor understood anything about the Trinity. I was told Jesus is God. That was enough.

Did I understand there's separation between the Father, the Son and the Spirit? No. And people will say, well, how did you, how did you believe Jesus was God and he was on the cross and still controlling things because he's God, I can't understand him. Right. I knew enough to know Jesus was God. I didn't understand all the in depth things of the Trinity. In fact, the Trinity wasn't defined for quite a while after a few hundred years after Christ died.

So we have all the Old Testament Saints, plus many of those first couple century saints that never had the Trinity defined and laid out. It, it needed to be it. It came about when someone denied that Jesus was God, that it was defined. So the difference being is I believe, yes, you can be saved, but you have to believe Jesus is God. But. Because that's explicit. But the Trinity, though taught in scripture, doesn't say you have to explicitly teach that or understand that to be saved.

But I would say that in a case like where I was out of ignorance, I could be saved not knowing the Trinity. However, if I understand the biblical teaching of the Trinity and then deny it, believe in modalism or something else, now I can't be right. Okay. Because it's open denial of the truth versus ignorance of the truth. Right.

Okay, so now you're getting into what I was thinking because you, you, I believe your initial question, maybe I'm wrong on this was that do you have to believe in the Trinity in order to be saved?

Okay, so not to believe in a triune God or believe in. Right. The idea is the, the, there are people who, and I, I, the reason I use this as an example is because when we think about it, there's so many who, who think when. That everyone has some orthodox doctrine. So when we hear Trinity, well, you must believe in, in the Trinity because that's what the, the Bible teaches. That's what the church has taught. And yet it doesn't explicitly teach that. It implicitly teaches that.

It explicitly teaches that Jesus is God. And so now what we end up looking at is which, what are we actually seeing? Well, we're seeing that we have to believe that Jesus is God. But the Trinity is a solution to a problem. You have three persons that are separate from one another and they're all called God. Right? So you're right when you said, hey, the, the, the view of, of Rabbinic, the God of Rabbinic Judaism today would not be the God of the Bible. Why?

Because they, they deny the triune nature of God. They believe in a God that will not come as a, as a suffering servant. Isaiah 53. They believe in a God who will not make a sacrifice for them. You know, Psalm 22. So they're holding to a different God. That's, that's different. Knowing the truth and denying it is different than just being ignorant of the truth. Right. If they're just denying, well that, you know, that doesn't, don't know anything about it. There's a difference I think there.

And we have to treat that differently too with One another, right? Yeah. It's funny because providentially we'll say. Because it is, because this is the Providence perspective. So. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So, so I was speaking to a. Friend and as a Baptist, you have, you know, you have, you don't have, you know, you have pot providences, right. At your church. We, we are reformed Baptists, so we, we kind of try to be like the Presbyterian Presbyterians.

Sometimes we're just posing as Presbyterians, but then when it comes to baptism, then we, we get weird about it. So, but, but, so, yeah, so I was talking to a friend of mine, providentially, like I said today, about my conversion, and it was about how, just like that, just like what you were saying, I did not understand the Trinity. Right. Like, I, I kind of heard about it. I, I was like, yeah, I believe Jesus is God. And I've had heard it. The, the, the, I had heard the explanation. Right.

Well, the Trinity is like a tree, right? And then there's the roots and then there's the trunk and there's the branches. And so those are. Right.

Which of course, I didn't realize that was modalism. Right. Or actually partialism, I should say. But, but I, I believed that Jesus was God. Right. But it's like you're saying, because that, that's what we were talking about. If you come to an understanding of the truth, somebody teaches you, walks you through it, shows you in Scripture, and you're like, no, no, it's, you know, that's not true. At that point, I'm wondering, do they even know the God of the Bible? Right.

Because they're not, they're no longer following. Not just, not just what church teaches. Right. But, but ultimately what the Scriptures teach. Yeah. And that's where, if they're being ignorant of it, I'm going to treat it differently. If someone's like, I never heard this before. Right. Okay. But if they know it and they're debating it and arguing and they're telling you how wrong you are, that then we're in a different, we're at a different level.

So you, you're talking to, let's say you're talking to a, a Mormon. Are they, they going to have the same view that we would have of the Trinity? No, very different. I mean, they're going to think that, that Jesus, that, that Heavenly Father was a man on another planet who, who lived as a good Mormon and became God of this world. He. And, and they'd even argue he sinned in that other world. Very different view. Right.

But if they're arguing it, because that's the only thing they ever heard, okay, I'm going to give a little bit more grace with that and try to work with them. But if they understand that the Bible teaches that the God of this world was from everlasting to everlasting, and they still deny that and say, no, no, no, it's that Jesus was, you know, or the heavenly Father was a God of another planet, I'm gonna go, okay, we're now, can't. This can't be reconciled. Right, right.

And so, you know, when do we have grace with one another? I think it's going to come down to the fact of what we're looking for is how, how much they understand first. We don't want to take our, our theology like a sledgehammer to people because I, I don't know about you, Jay. Typically when people come at me with a sledgehammer, I, I don't sit there and say, yeah, hit me over the head. Right. I, I don't appreciate it. I don't want to hear from them. Right. That becomes the difference.

So if you, if now, I, I. On Apologetics Live, we get different people that come in. And my audience was very surprised when I had a Jewish rabbi came in. And I'm. The people will always tell me what patience I have with different people that come in. But with the rabbi, they saw that I took a very aggressive stance and people were confused with it. And so, you know, that he knows. Because I know that he knows what we're saying.

He knows he's making an argument out of Hebrew that he knows is not valid, but he wants to keep making it, but he's doing it aggressively. And so I returned in kind to, you know, and, and I explained to people that, you know, there's, there's two factors there. One, knowing the person you're talking to. And this is why on my show, I can explain to audience why I do what I do. That's what we do in apologetics live is, is things like that.

But when you have certain, there are certain people or groups, for example, Nabil Koresh, people didn't understand how he would speak to American Muslims and be very calm, but if he spoke to a Middle Eastern Muslim, he would get very emotional and raise his voice and be very adamant, and people couldn't understand why. Well, I, I understand why very well. And he, he's explained it when, when he was alive.

But because the, in the Middle east, if, if you don't show emotion, it's as if you don't really believe what you're saying. You don't truly believe it. You're just saying it. So he has to show that emotion to this, the person he's speaking with to show that he believes this firmly. Now that's a cultural understanding. It's kind of like Paul's becoming all things to all people. Would you, would you say that's exactly what it is.

And that's the passage that I used when, with explaining with the Jewish rabbi. This Jewish rabbi knows what he's saying is not valid. He understands the Hebrew better than me. But he also knows that if he gives an inch, he lost his argument. Yeah. And his pride is such that he didn't, he didn't want to even give an inch. Right, right. And so this is the thing that sometimes you, you deal with. And so I'm going to deal with everybody as an individual.

Someone comes to me and disagrees, even if they degree disagree adamantly. I'm looking to see a. Are they consistent when they're within their hermeneutic? They're, they're the harmony says, the art and science of interpretation. And so a Presbyterian covenantal hermeneutic would be different than a dispensational one. There's just going to be differences in the way we approach things.

A Presbyterian Reformed hermeneutic is going to be different than a Reformed Baptist 1689 Hermeneutic because the Presbyterians believe that you should be Reformed and stop reforming and the Reformed Baptists believe you should be Reformed and keep reforming because that's actually what it is. Means they just stopped, see, you know, had the Westminster that kept reforming it and you got the 1689. So the, the Baptist just kept reforming. That's all. That's exactly what it is.

That's, that's what it is. Exactly. But are they consistent within that hermeneutic? And, and if they are, I can say, okay, I disagree with it. I, I was out speaking in the United Kingdom and met, you know, got there late at night and a bunch of the, the guys wanted to go out, grab something to eat. And one of the guys just, it was me and this other guy and we were talking about some differences we have between Covenant theology and dispensational theology.

And as we're having that discussion, this other guy who's just listening in, what we were walking to the hotel after we eat and he says, you know, I gotta tell you two something. I have never seen two guys who feel so strongly about their own position discuss opposing views so civilly. And what struck them is because at one point, as I'm listening to this. This brother explain his view, and I'm asking him, well, how do you interpret this? How do you interpret it? How do you.

And I said, well, at least I see that you're consistent in your system of. Of harmeneutic. You're being consistent. I disagree with your conclusion, but you're consistent. Right. And he appreciated that and said, well, I can see how you are too. Right. This is the hardest thing, Jay and social media, man. It's like people put something out there on social media, and it's as if, no, I can never take it back. I always have to prove them right. I don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, you're not. Never seen that. I've seen people be cordial with one another and never, never hurl insults at each other. Okay. Much less for the audience. I encourage you to go back a few episodes to when Jay was talking on several episodes about, you know, Joel Webbin, and we will see whether he thinks that he's never seen this before. No, I'm sorry. The Internet's out there, Jay. We have the rep. Listen, I don't know what you saw in those episodes, but. But it's a lie.

You think it's what you think you saw, Andrew. It wasn't what really happened. Joel. Joel and Tobias were getting along just fine. There was no disagreement at all. Absolutely. Absolutely. There was no problems at all. Listen, so, okay, we. We can. We can disagree and still have fellowship and still have friendship and be respectful. But you mentioned earlier that there are things that you would fight for. Maybe you wouldn't necessarily die for them, but you would fight for them.

Right, so you were referring to secondary issues. So what. Why. Why fight for them? Why do they still matter even though they're not essential? Okay, so. Because I think that when we get to the secondary issues, there are ones that we feel are very important. They're implicit in scripture. And because they're implicit, we can't be absolutely dogmatic on it, but we. We're inferring it. So let me use the example that I used earlier. The. The. The gifts certain get. The miraculous gifts.

Some people would say they continue for today. I would believe that they had ceased after the completion of the canon. Now, why would I fight over that? Well, it's. It's because it becomes a serious issue if you believe that God is still speaking and providing prophecy today. Because that would say that the scripture he gave Us is not sufficient if we have to look for something more. And so what at the heart of the issue is the sufficiency of Scripture and the sufficiency of Christ.

And because of that, I'm going to approach that to say, okay, is your salvation on the line? No, not, not unless. And there are some who I, I then put it to a belief system. There are some charismatics I've spoken to that would say you must speak in tongues to be saved. Yeah, well, First Corinthians 12 would definitely not say that. Right, Right. Now, are they consistent with their view?

Well, yes, because their starting point is that speaking in tongues is proof that you're baptized in the Spirit. So if you remember that that's their starting point, then they come to a pastor that says, we're all of one baptism, the baptism of Spirit. So they then conclude, you must speak in tongues to have that baptism. So you must, you must speak in tongues to be saved. Now, there's a consistency there.

When we deal with logic, and I teach a class on logic and debate, you can see that, okay, there's a, the issue there is the premise is wrong. Because 1st Corinthians 12 makes it really clear that not everyone's going to have the same gift. Right. So we can't expect that everyone will speak in tongues. But if their starting point is that everyone must, then you're gonna, you might be consistent in your interpretation, just consistently wrong.

And so what we have to do is in that case recognize that why will I fight over it? Because it can mislead people to distract them. Rather than looking to Scripture alone, they look to experience with scripture. And there's so many people I know who have had that. I've said this for four decades now. Sorry, three decades. Because I was charismatic for, for a while, but over three decades, I, I have said that I have yet to find a Charismatic who will not eventually fall back to their experience.

When we start discussing spiritual gifts right now, I'm looking forward to a discussion I'm going to be having with Michael Brown on this. We're going to have. Originally we were playing a formal debate. We, we both agreed to do a long form discussion so we can go longer, three, four hours and get more into details. And, and so the issue is, he says, we are going to argue just from Scripture. And I told him, I would love to see you do that.

I've never seen it done before because even, even though they start from Scripture, they, they eventually fall back to experience. And now we get into a question. What becomes our ultimate authority, scripture or our experience. Because for so many charismatics, and there may be charismatics listening and they, they're disagreeing with what I'm saying. And yet when it ultimately comes down to it, how do you know the gifts continue for today?

So many of them will say because I, I speak in tongues. I healed someone, I, I, I, I. And they go back to the experience. Right. And that's. So I think there's a danger in the areas where I'm on secondary issues, but I can't be, I can't be dogmatic on it because I'm taking it implicitly and not explicitly so explicit. It's a clear command. Implicit. I'm implying it.

I'm taking some things that I'm seeing, I'm seeing that in 2nd 1st Corinthians 13, 8 and following he's saying that there's things like tongues, prophecy, wisdom, they are, they're partial. But the prophecy and wisdom is in part. But when the telios comes, they, these won't be needed. It's complete. So, so whatever that thing is, it's got to complete the prophecy and wisdom. Notice which one's missing there. The, the gift of languages. That's, that one's different than those other two.

But, but those other two give us the indicator for what the teleas is. Those other two are revelatory gifts. They have to do with revelation and they would stop once the canon is complete because if God is no longer speaking that way when the canon's complete, he doesn't need those gifts anymore. And so, so I, I mean this, this is just an example of it and there's many others that we could look at. But, and, and let me take the side of the charismatic now, okay.

And this is something folks we have to be able to do when we do apologetics if we're going to do. Or polemics. Polemics is we're defending the faith with, within the Christianity. So if you're, if I'm discuss debating it with a Presbyterian, it's, it's an in house debate. We're both saved. Okay, that's polemics. But where I'm defending the faith apologetics to unbelievers, that would be the apologetics. So in, when we are doing polemics, we're doing an in house debate.

We need to be able to understand the other side. We should be able to do it for, with either one. Okay, you, you want to make sure you know that you're opposing the opposing view.

So from, from a, a charismatic view and now, so all the charismatics who are just angry at me in your audience now, now they're going to see whether I actually understand their view, but they're going to have an issue with someone like me because quite frankly, they look at me and say, well, you're denying the Holy Spirit what he does. You're grieving the Spirit. If the Spirit gives these gifts, you're, you're trying to suppress the work of the Holy Spirit. And that's a serious issue for them.

And they want to fight for that because to them, I present a danger in what I teach because it's suppressing or an attempt to suppress the work of the Holy Spirit, which in their mind would be a danger. And it would be a danger if we were doing that. Right. And so I can recognize where each side is, is, is arguing that is a very, very, very helpful thing to do when you have these kind of discussions.

And if you can't do that, then, then take the time to understand the view you're arguing against. Don't just counter it, but, you know, don't just look for, for holes to poke in it, but look to understand it. So you could debate their argument. Yeah, you know, I've. One thing I have found is if you do not try to understand the other side, they're going to expose you for that anyway. So you might as well get on board and try to figure it out from their end. Right.

Because ultimately, if you do not understand it, it will show that you do not understand it. And if it shows that you do not understand it, even if ultimately maybe you are correct, you've lost your credibility. Right. And so know it's important to try to, to understand. And I, I say that just on top of everything that you're saying, just because if anybody out there says, well, you know, I, you know, I don't care. Right. I don't want to understand it, they're heretics or whatever else. Right.

But even, even if you're right, even if you're right, you still, if nothing else, want to show that you actually know what you're talking about. And if you maybe you're correct, but it's not going to seem that way. So let me, let me ask you. This, actually, and let me, let me give you an example. I'll give you a quick example that I'm in the streets of New York City, Union Square, this is probably about seven years ago, a Muslim family. And when I say family, it's adult children.

So it was a father, mother, their two sons and the son's wives. Okay? The father was a PhD professor at a university. And he, we start talking. A friend of mine was doing Open Air and I was over there when they came up and were challenging him on, on his, what he was saying about Jesus. He just directed them to me. So they came over this group of, of six people and, and they, this professor tells me he understands Christianity. And I'm like, okay, I start to address the.

Does the Quran teach that we believe in three gods? Yes. Does the Quran teach that we believe that the, the Trinity is the Father, the Mother and the Son? Yes. Is that what we believe? He goes, yes. I said, but you said you understand Christianity. And I literally was picking one after another in the, in the crowd of the evangelists that we had out there because we had 25 of us.

And I'm describing them like, Bobby, come here, define the Trinity, you know, Paul, come here, define the Trinity, you know, and one after another, three persons, one God. And I'd go, how many gods? One God. Not three gods, no one God. Okay? After about seven people, the guy goes, I get it, I get it. I get what you're saying. Right at the end of the conversation, I, I literally said to him, I said, let me ask you this.

At any point during our, it was like two hour conversation, I said, at any point in our conversation, did I misrepresent anything that you believe when I spoke about Islam? He says, no, no, you had a really good understanding of Islam. I said, okay. In any point during this conversation, did I correct you on what you said, Christians believe? And at first he said no. And then I started laying out four or five different things I corrected him on.

He ended up going, yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. I said, so your view of Christianity that you, you and I both agree you got from the Quran is false to what Christians actually believe? I said, so this is why I don't believe you when you say that I'm wrong because you misrepresented what I believe secondarily. He said to him, it means that the author of the Quran did not know Christianity, which means he could not be God. He did not like that at all, right?

And I hope to see him in heaven one day because of that comment. You never know. You plant the seed. You know that. I'll say this, guys, I was talking to some people from, from church this past Sunday and we were talking about how often you share the gospel with somebody and you will never see the results. But it's not up to you, right? Not, not that it has anything to do with this conversation, but I just want to encourage you if you're afraid of sharing the gospel or you have, you haven't.

You've shared the gospel in the past. You've been kind of discouraged because you're like, yeah, nobody believes it. You don't know that. You don't know when God's gonna work. So plant water. But God will make it grow in its own time. Yeah. I mean, two decades of going to New York City, Union Square, I have had 12 people that I know got saved. Wow. And you'd go after two decades, wow.

Yeah. That's the people who knew who I was to be able to look me up on social media or I happened to be there when they happen to be there and they saw me. But here's the thing. Those 12 people that I know of were people that heckled me so hard that when they got saved, several of them said, I needed to tell you because I gave you such a hard time. How many others were just passing by? I have no idea. Right. So when people go, oh, how's. How successful is it?

I go 100. As long as I was faithful, that's nothing to do with the number of people that are saved. Right. It has to do with, was I being obedient to Christ. And if the answer to that is yes, then I was 100 successful. Amen. Even if no one comes to Christ because that was God's will as long as I was faithful to him. Amen. That takes all the pressure off. And God's words never, never returns back void. Right. So that's right. You're, you're.

You just gotta trust and do your part and let, Let God do what he does. Right. You, you. Well, I'm a Calvinist first and foremost. Right. So maybe somebody who's not a Calvinist would disagree with what I'm about to say. That makes. That makes it easier as well, again, because now the results aren't from you. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, if you're watching, you're not a Calvinist. Maybe you disagree with this, but really it is just in God's hands to open the heart of somebody and believe.

So pressure's off, man. Just. I had a friend in church many, many years ago. He says to me, my kids were young. He didn't have kids at that point. He says to me, you know, he's arguing against Calvinism. He goes, well, you're with your Calvinism. He says, you know, what would you. What would happen if your kids didn't believe. Like, if your kids weren't saved, I mean, you'd just be like, oh, God hates my kids. I said, well, I would. I wouldn't. I'd say, God knows better than me.

I said, but if I wasn't. If I was in your shoes and my kids aren't saved, I'd be beating myself up because I'd be like, why didn't I try harder? What did I say wrong? I must have. I didn't do something right. Exactly. Because it must be on me. I said, I'm more happy. I'm happier to say God knows what he's doing better than me because. Yeah, he knows way better than I do. Exactly. 100%. Yep. Okay. So there was something. Oh, okay.

Okay. So I have this question, but I have to ask a question before the question. So.

Would you agree that women should not be pastors? I. I would say that that is explicit in Scripture. Okay, so. Okay, so that kind of answers my second question, which is, would you say that that is an essential issue? Yeah, that's an essential issue, because it's very clear in First Timothy that women should not be having authority, a forceful authority, or give general instruction.

That's what the Greek means there, that a woman should not give a general instruction or have a forceful authority over men in the church. And so what you have there is the fact that that is tied not to some cultural thing, as people try to say in the first century. The. The purpose clause is following it, and it's rooted in the creation order and the sin order. So it's rooted in Adam being created first, Eve having sinned first. I don't have to like it, Jay. I. That. That's the reality.

I don't have to like what Scripture says. But he explicitly teaches this. Are there women who can teach and preach better than me? Yeah, lots of them. Should they do that in the church with men there? No. Why? Because I don't like women? No, because God said so. Right, right. God gets to make the rules of how he wants us to function within his body. We don't get the right to change it because the. The culture feels different. And so, yeah, I. I have.

That is a primary issue because it's explicit in Scripture. Okay. I. I'm asking that because there are Christians. I know of Christians who hold to the essentials. Right. But when it comes to, for example, this issue, they would say, well, it's a really, really important issue, you know, And I don't believe that women should be pastors, but I'm not willing to say that it's an essential issue.

So when you, when you're dealing with brethren who, who do take that position, brothers who, who you know are solid, you know, maybe you disagree on some things, but, but otherwise, you know, you, you would work with them. How do you handle these kind of situations when you don't necessarily agree on something that one would say it's secondary, the other says is essential.

Yeah. First off, let me first start by saying there's an important thing that you express there because you're saying brothers, people who are saved. I want to say that the way I'm defining primary, secondary, tertiary is different than others. Some will say primary is specific to salvation. So in other words, do you have to believe that women can't preach or teach in the church to men to be saved? I would say no, you don't have, that's not a salvific thing.

But if your view is that a primary issue is anything dealing with salvation, you're going to have a problem with that. With what I just said. Because you're saying, well, that, you're saying that if I, if, if there's a woman pastor, she's not saved. I'm not saying that my way of defining the difference between primary and secondary are explicitly taught versus implicitly taught. And that's the difference. So I just want to explain that, that lay that groundwork so people don't say that.

I'm saying female pastors aren't saved. Many of them aren't. But you know, let me put it this way. I was in the Philippines preaching and we actually had a woman who had heard. I don't know if it was Justin Peter's message or my message, but one of our messages where we mentioned it and that night she resigned from her church. That night it was. And she made it effective immediately.

We that one of the pastors contacted us and said this woman contacted him to say, can you find someone to fill in the pulpit this week and for the next couple weeks? Because I am resigned immediately because I am not. I do not belong in a position of pastor of the church. So there's someone who heard the teaching. The Holy Spirit convicted her. She saved. Right. But she's just hadn't hurt. That's the ignorance again.

But once she heard the true teaching, what happened, she immediately took action and repented. Right. So I'm not saying that some, you know, just so we clarify, so how do we know where, like where do we draw these lines? I think that. So let me go back to the, the gifts issue.

Had a fun discussion with Michael Brown on this is I said to Michael that I think that part of the issue is, you know, cessationists like me tend to be a little bit quicker to, to judge and call people out and, and whatnot and say, okay, you know, and be more. Having too much discernment to where we lack grace, where a guy like Michael Brown has so much grace, I say I think he lacks some discernment. And he actually said, you know, that's a fair point, right? We, we both can do that.

So what are we doing? Like, you take a, you take someone like Michael Brown and myself who very much disagree on these areas, but we can have really good, enjoyable conversations because we want to learn how each other's point of view is. We try not to misrepresent one another. And, you know, he and I have said hard things to one another and we both receive it well. And so we have to.

First off, in the, the area that I would struggle more with than, Than he would be is to have a little bit more grace than discernment. Right. And I would challenge him to have a little bit more discernment than grace. Right. And that's the thing is what we need to do is have grace in these areas. We have to, we have to recognize as we work with one another that we're not going to be perfect. We're not going to be flawless in our theology or in our approach.

And so we're going to have to come to Scripture, look at what the, the Word of God says, see if it's explicit or implicit. And we got to recognize when we are saying it's explicit, when it really is implicit. The, the, the teaching of the Trinity is implicit in Scripture. Is it really strong? Yes. Is it really clear? I would say yes, but it is implicit. We are referring from different passages and inferring things from that.

And so I think what we have to do is first, and this is what I teach when I teach hermeneutics how to interpret the Bible. One of the first things we have to do is question our own presuppositions. We all come to the Bible with presuppositions. We have to be willing to question those, to say, is this explicit? Is it implicit? Is it really a matter I should put as a primary, or am I making too much of it?

And, and that becomes a starting point of how we're gonna, how the rest of the conversation is going to go with someone. The biggest thing we need is grace. Amen. Absolutely, absolutely. I don't know if you might have any last comments for anybody that might be listening, you know, in terms of how they would, I guess, work through these different things. Maybe, maybe there's a new Christian, right, who's listening in.

I know, I know that once in a while I've gotten messages from brand new Christians and asking me questions about the things that they just watch on my channel or even, even the seasoned Christian, right, that has never really thought about these things before. Is there anything that you would want to leave them with? Asking a pastor if he has any last words. You do realize you're, you know, you got two minutes later, you finish a. Sermon, you know, you got a hard two minutes.

Take, take your time, take your time. No, but I think if someone's newer listening, you know, I think of the passage in scripture and there's two that I'm thinking where you kind of see the depiction of the Christian life, right, as the young man, you know, first, you know, the, the young child that just wants to follow the Father wherever the Father leads, just, just wants to learn. Then you get the young man who wants to fight Satan, right?

And then you get the old man who just wants the wisdom, just sit back and you know, and, and so there, there really is dep. Depicting a lot of our Christian walks. You know, we get saved and it's just like we just grab the Bible and all. We just want to keep studying, studying, studying, studying. And there becomes a point where as we're studying and we start seeing differing views, then we want to fight over it because everything's Satan, right?

We, we in Calvinism we call that the stage cage, right? We just stick it in the cage until they're past that point of wanting to fight everyone over everything, right? I think I'm still there sometimes. Yeah. And so as you get older, encouragement, brother. We get to the, hopefully we all get to that final point where we're, you know, I, I think I'm, I've, I'm there in my walk is where I'm a lot more forgiving with the differences with other people. I can forbear it a lot more than I used to.

I mean I used to, you know, I, I literally remember fighting against parts of Calvinism for the longest time. And I remember, you know, with guys, you know, well known Calvinist guys that I'd go to conferences with and they would just every year at the conference, these speakers, their, their mission was convert me to Calvinism. And we talk about it for hours and hours and hours. I disagree. And we'd make our arguments. And then I'm preaching through Philippians 1, and I get to 29.

Just as it has been granted to you to believe, so it's been granted to suffer. Wait, wait, my belief was granted to me? Oh, yeah. So I had to call some, some friends and go, hey, Fred, you know, I gotta tell you, I was preparing my sermon on First Philippians 1:29. Why didn't you years ago, bring that passage instead of Ephesians 2?

89. It's like, that one's clear that that's explicit and, you know, but we have to submit to Scripture and, and a lot of times, whether we like it or not, we tend to submit to our theological system unknowingly more than we do Scripture. Right. And that's why I say there's two ways to interpret Scripture. By rules or person. Personal experience, personal theology, whatever you want to put there.

It's either I believe the Bible teaches this because I had this experience, or this is what my systematic theology teaches. So therefore, no, your. The Scriptures should inform your theology, not your theology. Inform the Scripture. And so we really need to.

I, I know it feels like we're doing the right thing when we're constantly fighting everyone and, and saying we're doing it because we got the truth. But as you mature in your walk, you eventually get to the point, as Paul was, where you don't have to fight everyone all the time. You can forbear and you can realize others are grown too. I'll illustrate that with a, with an event that happened. And I'm just talked against experience, and I'm giving you an experience, right?

So I'm recognizing what I did, what I'm doing. But I remember in my first church, there was this guy, Danny. He's been gone to, to be with the Lord now, but he was safe for like 30 years when I met him. And, you know, saved from a rough background. And there was a time where there was a guy, he had just came in the church, he had been saved, I think a few days, if not weeks, and we're in church.

Those two happen to be sitting in front of me next to each other, and this guy didn't know his way around the Bible. I remember that. I, I remember when I was looking in a table of contents, especially for New Testament, but even Old Testament, because the Jewish, the, the way the Jewish Bible is laid out is, Is different than the way Christians lay out in the New. In the Old Testament. So I remember going to the table of contents and flipping around and flipping around.

And I felt bad for the guy because, you know, it takes extra time and he's. He's trying to keep up. But Danny was so frustrated, he literally grabs that guy's Bible and like, flips to the page and shoves it back in. Right? And I talked to Danny after church, and I said, you know, Danny, you were really frustrated with that guy. Why? He goes, he's just flipping pages. Why doesn't he just open to the book? He should know his Bible. I said, danny, do you remember when you first got saved?

Did. Did you know your way around the Bible? He's like, no. Why do you expect him to know what it took you years?

So you expect him to have the theology you have of 30 years of studying, and he's been saved only a few days. Right. Needless to say, we never saw that guy come back to church. Right? And so the next week, when he didn't come back, it was a different discussion with Danny. Now he was a lot more humble and realized, you know what? I. I should have been more patient with him.

I say that to say that was something early in my Christian walk to help me realize I, too, need to learn to be more humble with others and not think I'm always right. I think I'm right. You think you're right. Right. We always do. But we have to not always think that we're always right, because we may not be. You know, it's a hard thing to do, especially on social media, you know, where no one's ever wrong.

You know, look, and folks who follow me on social media, you'll see me on X or Facebook, and. And you'll see, I'll blow it. I'll get into a discussion, I'll say something wrong, or I'll do it on Apologetics Live. I'll. I just did this recently where I said something wrong in Apologetics Live, and it was pointed out to me after the show.

And the next week, the first thing I'm doing, correcting it, you know, you'll see me apologize to people on social media when I say something wrong and I blow it. I. If I sinned in public, I need to ask forgiveness in public. Right? And. And I had one guy who I publicly, you know, I privately apologized to him, and I told him I'm going to be doing this publicly. And he's like, you don't need to, brother. I said, no, I do need to, because I called you out and I was wrong, and I did that publicly.

And everyone needs to See that not only was I wrong, but that I repented of it. Right. And. And when I did do that, he. He actually posted and said, I told him he didn't need to do this, but I have way more respect for him that he did. Yeah, I think we. We. And I'm saying that, but it doesn't mean I've always been perfect at doing things. I don't want to make it look like I always do things. Right. If you. If you want to talk to my bride, plenty of stories for you.

But let's try to show more grace with one another. Look, folks, if we're believers in Christ, we are going to be spending eternity together. Yep. Could we get along now? I mean, we differ now. We won't differ then, but how much sweeter will it be in heaven when we. If we differ now and can get along and then we don't differ and we can get along. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Pastor Rapper Boy, I appreciate your time. Stick around for just one moment. I'm sorry, you want to say one more thing?

Go ahead. No, I mean, all I was going to say is I really appreciate you having me on. I. I appreciate, you know, you and I. You were going to have me on originally. Talk dispensationalism. Yeah. Which would have been a lot of fun, but. But, you know, I appreciate the fact that you were like, hey, we couldn't talk on that, but let's talk about the fact of how we do have differences and it is an important thing for us to do. So I really appreciate you having me on and.

And give me a chance to be part of, you know, with your audience and being able to. To be part of your podcast. Yeah, no, absolutely. And actually, since you touched on it, I just want to let you guys watching know I do have a dispensationalist debate coming up. I'm gonna give more details as we go forward. I was about to say Dr. Rap Report. Pastor Rap Report. I can't help doing it, man. Pastor Rapport. I wouldn't make a good doctor. I don't have any patience. That is a dad joke. And while.

While some people watching may not appreciate it, I certainly will appreciate it. And if I get a chance to, I'm going to use it with my wife so that she can lower her face and wonder why she ever married me. So I can tell you why my bride married me. Rewards in heaven, crowns upon crowns upon crowns for her. I think my wife can say the same. Yeah. So, guys, so I'm gonna be doing. I'M gonna be hosting. All right, all right. I can do this. I can do this.

I'm going to be hosting a dispensationalist dispensationalism debate. I will be giving out more details. Pastor Rapaport had actually reached out to me because he heard that I was looking for somebody to join in debate, and unfortunately, I had already set it up with two guys already. But, yeah, I was. I'm very glad that he was able to be here with us.

And so if you have not watched this channel before, or maybe this is your first time joining and you like the content of what you're seeing, please go ahead and subscribe. If you like the video, give it a like. If you didn't like it, just move on. Just move on. Don't want you touching anything. Thank you guys very much for watching. Until next time. God bless.