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You all right, first question. Why are there 30,000 denominations of Christianity? And actually, is it 45,000 or 50 trillion, as uh, one commenter once said in one of my YouTube videos. So the question from today is, to start us off today, is this, why are there over 30,000 christian denominations all claiming to be true christians? Is which one should I follow and why?

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Yes, um, that is a great question. I'm eager to talk about this question. I was excited, uh, when I found out it was going to be the first one for today. And you guys are loading all your other questions into the live chat, even while I'm going to answer this first one. My name is Mike Winger, and my goal here is to help you learn to think biblically about everything. And I'm serious about the thinking part and the biblically part, both of them, at least to the best of my ability, and hopefully helping you along your path to the best of your ability. Here we go. I am going to share, um, in addition to answering this question, I'm going to share what denomination I would look for personally if I was actually out there searching for a church, which is something we did, um, last year, um, me and my wife. So let me tell you guys what I did, and I'll even tell you what fellowship me and my wife chose. Not that you have to do the same thing, but, um, I want you to know that, uh, I take this question seriously and in a very pragmatic fashion as well. So there is actually a widespread myth out there that there are 30,000. 45,000 is the more current number that people put out there based on the same calculations. Denominations. And I get this in comments all the time. I get people saying this stuff frequently. You can see. I just put some of the comments on the screen here. I'll put some more on the screen here. I could do this all day long. I could show you. Here's some more comments. People just saying, why are there over 45,000, 30,000 denominations? And I had one. I didn't screen capture it. Who told me that there were, um, quintillion denominations? Uh.

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Uh. These numbers are radically exaggerated.

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So, uh, much exaggeration is going on here that it's laughable and pointless to even use these types of numbers. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem with denominations, because there is. Okay, we're going to talk about that. But first, I just need to show you this, because it's so frequently in the comment sections. It's even on, like, news articles, like, here we have, um, the Orange county register, their website, um, giving us. You'd be surprised how many denominations there are. As you read the article, they'll say there are more than 45,000 denominations globally and more than 200 in the US, according to the center for the Study of Global Christianity.

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Um, yeah, you can look at that center for the study of global Christianity. You can look at this stuff. Uh, and it traces back to Gordon Conwell theological seminary. That's where the 45,000 number is coming from right now. And that's connected to the previous 30,000 number that comes from world christian encyclopedia. They've just done new, different editions, and they keep expanding the number and even putting projections out there about how many they think there will be in the future. I smile and laugh because it's just utterly silly to think there's this many, but it's super powerful for people. There are people out there that are, um, just genuinely confused, and they don't know what denomination to pick, or they think that the differences in denominations are bigger than they are a lot of times, and they then get intimidated, and so they just disconnect. It's another reason to say, ah, forget organized religion. I'm just going to disconnect from. Here's what you're really doing. When you say, forget organized religion, sadly, yeah, there's a lot of messed up churches out there. There's also a lot of great ones. But what you're doing is you're saying organically, all these other people that are Christians, that believe in Jesus, that have that same center core of their being, the lordship of Christ, I'm going to disconnect from all of them so that I have no accountability, no fellowship, no iron, sharpening iron. I'm going to do my own thing. And so this feeds into that, where we throw the baby out with the bathwater, we see there's a problem, so we disconnect entirely. It's very unhealthy. I get the temptation, okay, because I'm human like you. There's something tempting about wanting to just disconnect from church, right? But I find lots of things tempting. That's why I deal with sin on a daily basis. It doesn't mean that it's something I should feed into. At any rate, um, let's look at this number. This world Christian World Encyclopedia and Gordon Conwell theological Seminary. And they're garbage statistics that they use, and they get so frequently promoted. So this same, um, methodology that they have uses here, I'm going to put it on your screen. Right here. They use this same way, uh, of counting to come up with over 200 catholic denominations. Let me read to you how that happens. This is right from their website, and they're explaining their methodology. Denominations are defined and measured at the country level, creating a large number of separate denominations within christian families and christian traditions. For example, the presence of the Catholic Church in the world's 234 countries results in 234 catholic denominations.

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Literally, it's just the same exact organization, the same internal affiliation.

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They're being counted different because they exist in different countries. As you read on to the bottom of this section here, it says, using this method, we report 45,000 christian denominations in the world in 2019.

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This is a garbage number. The Gordon Commonwealth Theological Seminary. It's a garbage number, and it's just misleading to people and deceptive. Not that there aren't problems with nominations. There are. Right. But let's be realistic about those problems and not have inflated numbers for people. You know how people are on the Internet, right? You've done it, too. I've done it at some point, too. People just get ridiculous. And this is the kind of statistics that makes people ridiculous. I'm just being honest with you all. Um, we don't want to be misled by these types of things. So, how many people are needed for a denomination based on Gordon Conwell theological Seminary and, uh, this world christian encyclopedia? Well, that is not very many. A denomination can be as few as less than 100 members of one local church.

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Less than 100 people in one local fellowship can be counted as an entire denomination.

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That's just weird. Nobody quotes these numbers and realizes how bad this is. Let me illustrate. So, Pastor Joe Schmo has a church with no affiliation at all. It's just one church. They are not affiliated with anybody else. And a membership of 20 people. Now, they're a whole denomination. And if someone from Pastor Joe Schmo's church goes off and plants another church, like, let's say they're up in New York and someone goes into Canada and they planted, now they're in a new country, and they've got five members in their church. Like, is this two denominations now because they're affiliated with each other? These are garbage numbers. It also includes Mormons and JWS, among other groups. Basically, any group that says, hey, we're claiming we're Christians, they count that as a denomination, right? So they have a little section on their site. Do you consider Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses Christians? And yes, anybody who says we're Christians, they count them as Christians. But historically speaking, Christians would not count them as a denomination of Christianity because they deny core elements of the christian faith. Doesn't mean we don't love jWs, doesn't mean we don't care about them. It's just that you don't count them as their own denomination. So the 30,000 number, the 45,000 number, they came from this methodology. This methodology is why there are, according to them, hundreds of oneness denominations. Hundreds of oneness, which is heresy, right. A serious problem.

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Uh, most christians belong to one of just a handful of denominations. In reality, in the real world we live in, most believers belong to one of just a handful of denominations. There are subgroups within the denominations, right? There's multiple baptist denominations, but they have much in common. There's presbyterian, pentecostal, Methodist, Lutheran, these other ones. Um, and there are distinctions within them, right? But we have to understand that the 30,000 number, the 45,000 number, which I most often hear from Roman Catholics in my comment sections.

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Now, not all Roman Catholics do this. And there's even apologists, catholic apologists, who are like, hey, stop saying this. This is silly. Um, the statement is, hey, you guys have all these denominations, 45,000, 80,060 bajillion. And this is proof that you need to come back to the one true church, the roman catholic church, because Martin Luther caused all this chaos. Um, and then, of course, these numbers give them hundreds of catholic denominations, not even separating by. Right. And then you would multiply it of thousands of them. So, yeah, that's not wise. Um, there is, however, a problem with division, but how should we view it? We shouldn't view it as, um. I think the questioner is under the impression that we have all these different denominations, and each has their own isolated group, and each has their own set of beliefs that fundamentally contradict with each other. So that you have effectively, let's not say 30,000, 45,000, let's say 100, let's say 300, let's say 1000, whatever. You have a thousand different christian versions of Christianity where they're in conflict. Each is claiming to be the one true church. That is not remotely what's actually happening with denominations if we actually put denominations. This is from Gordon Como theological seminary. I found something in theirs that I could actually use.

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What is wrong with you guys? I don't know much about Gordon Como. Right? The one thing I know is not good. Um, at any rate, maybe there's some wonderful things going on there. This is no bueno. This is more of a Venn diagram right, where you have this idea that there are things, um, that these denominations have in common. These are evangelical denominations, and it's just a generic Venn diagram. The Protestants and the Pentecostal charismatic groups and the evangelical groups, they all have areas of overlap, and they have areas of distinction. And this is more accurate. This is really how denominations are in the real world. And I think this is encouraging to Christians when you realize that if I go to a presbyterian church and a lutheran church or a baptist church, I'm going to have areas of overlap that are very, very important, that are what makes us christian denominations. They're not different versions of Christianity, usually as a general rule. They're just, um, differences within the christian world. And that's actually very helpful. Sometimes they're incidental, uh, based on locality and tradition, and sometimes it's really needful differences and big differences. So are denominations really different churches? The answer to that is no. Now, it's possible some of them are, they're just straight apostate, like they're outside the church. But generally speaking, when you say christian denomination, you're not going to assume this is like a different church. This is simply different expressions within Christianity as a general rule. Now, things change, and there are denominations that are just apostate, but we don't just assume that of every single group that's different. You go from a baptist church to a presbyterian church. This doesn't make you, like, moving into, like, well, each of them is not looking at the other going, you're not even christian, because you don't have our version of every single doctrine and every single belief.

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Um, and they shouldn't be like that. Now, there are groups that are like that. Historically, the roman catholic church has been like this. They've been the ones going, we're the one true church. And outside of us, historically, that's an important word, by the way. Right? Because ever since Vatican II, then things are real fishy. Now it depends on which Catholic you talk to and what does it really mean. And is Vatican II really pastoral versus theological and all this other complicated stuff? And there's confusion. Um, there wasn't much confusion before that, okay? Before that, it'd be like, you're protestant, you're not saved. This is pretty much what they were thinking, what the popes were thinking, what the people with the councils were thinking, as far as I can tell.

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And they're claiming to be the one true church, apart from which you can't be a Christian unless you're actually a Roman Catholic. Right? Then the orthodox church, they were making a lot of these claims to historically and making them against the Roman Catholics. And it's actually kind of the protestants who were able to say, hey, this is, uh, a boon to the Protestants view. Like, we're not claiming that if you have to be part of our denominational gathering in order to be a Christian, we're not claiming that this shouldn't be a claim that people make. That's important, that we don't do that. Now, if you want to push back on that, I'm actually going to link a video and, um, this is going to go into the, um.

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Hold on. I'm going to do it right now because I meant to do it earlier here. I'm going to put it right at the bottom of the video description where I just write the word here. I'll change it later. But this video is from, uh, Gavin Ortland, who actually catalogues historically how Roman Catholicism and orthodox have had the more exclusive claims. It's like we're the only ones. And, um, the benefit of these different denominations, one of the things to look at is how they're not exclusive, generally speaking. There are some who will say they are and they're a problem, of course. But this gives us more of this Venn diagram look. Right, okay, so we have this kind of like overlapping views, and these overlaps should be ideally right in the areas of the death and resurrection of Christ, the, um, repentance and faith for salvation that you put your trust in Jesus apart from works, you're going to get saved. These types of things, God is one. There's one God, yet three in one. Father, son and holy spirit. So those types of things, it gets a little more complicated, though. I wish it was that simple. Um, there are groups that have theological grift. I think I just described progressive Christianity, theological ah, drift, which is evangelical. Um, lutheran church in America is one example, the ElCA. Luther, if he could be teleported into the present and could look at the ELCA, he would throw a fit. He probably would actually throw a fit. Luther is a pretty wild guy. Um, they believe now that scripture is errant and not always trustworthy. They're pro abortion, they ordain lesbians, perform gay weddings, and then when it comes to the core issues of the faith, those central issues where you're like, we all should agree here, they've become somewhat nebulous. Like, you're not sure if they really believe. They still say they affirm all these creeds and these statements, but it's unclear that they really do, because sometimes with liberalization of theology, and I'm not talking about politics here, although you might think I am, it, um, affects your politics to some degree. But with liberal theology there do come times where people will say, I affirm all these statements about the exclusivity of Christ, but then they'll redefine some of those words so that it's almost like you're speaking a different language. This is probably because, um, liberal theology generally grows out of conservative theology. And so what they're trying to do is carry with them and be on guard. This is what I think is happening with, say, andy Stanley's church, with uh, Andy Stanley in particular, uh, they'll often try to bring people along the path of their liberal theology unaware so that they can still say all the things that keep the conservatives kind of going along like sheep, not, um, realizing that what's being undercut is the very things that they say, that they hold to and have always held to. And um, this is an example of the ELCA where you're not sure now, there are individually some great churches that are part of the ELCA, some godly leaders, some wonderful fellowships, um, but if you were to roll a die and hit like a random elca church, you wouldn't have as high of expectation that you're going to have a biblical Christianity in that place because of theological drift. So theological drift means that one group might start solid and might move down a bad path. Um, and then you've got other issues like, um, really legalistic denominations, uh, really sort of like, yeah, we are the only right ones. And people who take a very secondary or tertiary issue, like say, which Bible translation they use, and they make this like a make all, break all issue for whether you're really going to be committed to God, you have to follow our Bible translation, that type of thing, um, is unhealthy in the extreme. So what would I do, uh, if it was me, right, for the questioner, the anonymous questioner who was asking like, hey, which one should I follow and why? Here's what I would do. Um, I'm just giving my personal perspective here. If I happen to move into a new place or what we did recently, me and my wife looking for a fellowship, was I would go to a, uh, non denominational church, probably first. I'd start looking at nondenominational churches in my area, like maybe even Calvary chapel, because that's been my history and that's something I'm comfortable with. But it's also a lot of agreement that's there that I think, yeah, I like that. Um, but uh, I would also look at other non denominationals as well, for a number of reasons, but I would visit them and I would look at them and I would spend my time and it would take months maybe looking for a good fellowship to really commit to. And this is what we did. Um, if I didn't see a good one amongst those options, I would look at maybe, uh, Baptist.

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Really, um, nondenominational is very similar to Baptist. My theology is very Baptist like, although within Baptist movements there's different groups. And so that doesn't give you all the answers, but that's where I would at least look. Um, a denominational name doesn't tell you enough about a church. So they might say Baptist, but really they're different. Or they're one of the liberal Baptist movements which are like, oh, there's those two. Okay, but I would consider that. And I would look at the individual church and not just the doctrinal statements on the affiliations website. And the example is the church that me and my wife ended up going to is very unique, even amongst its own denominational group. And so it doesn't really seem all that much like all the other groups, all the other churches in that denomination. It was one of the things that attracted me to it, interestingly. Okay, what else? Um, I would look at Bible teaching personally. I would want to make sure that when I'm sitting there Sunday morning, they're actually teaching the Bible and they're teaching it accurately. That's two things. Teaching the Bible and teaching it accurately. That means we're drawing from the text, things out of the scripture to just tell you what the Bible is communicating. And this is the bread, this is the food that the sheep need on Sundays. Right? So I'll make sure that teaching the Bible and teaching it accurately, that that verse really means that, and that the teachers don't have a habit of bouncing from a verse onto an unrelated point that maybe just they wanted to communicate. And I'm not really going to be okay with that. Not that no one ever makes a mistake, because people make mistakes. I'm talking, what's the habitual rule Sunday mornings? Um, I want conservative theology. Because conservative theology, I'm not talking about politics here. Um, I'm talking about theology. Right. Because politics.

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Go into politics and ask what people's theology is and you'll realize that the theology is a different issue.

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They relate to each other in some ways. Right. Um, but the Bible as inspired and inerrant in its original manuscripts and the Bible as our final authority. Our final authority. If we don't have that in place, then I'm not going to trust any fellowship that's there to go there. Uh, only in dire straits would I attend a church that doesn't hold to those things. I mean, dire straits, like, I'm living in a town with one church and it's this or nothing. And I'll go there and pray that God would help me to make a difference.

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Um, Jesus'death, and resurrection, that's non negotiable.

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The doctrine of the Trinity, non negotiable. Salvation by faith alone. I would avoid theologically liberal fellowships. And how do you do this?

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This is, again, how I process it from my own life. Um, I would ask them questions about their theology, and if you have theologically conservative people, you'll generally get fairly straightforward answers. This is just my experience. If you have theologically liberal people, you will either get, um, the clear answer that this is our theology, we're liberal, or you will more likely, in my experience, you will get obfuscation. You'll get answers, uh, that aren't clear at all. So if you have these unclear answers coming in, they're probably liberal. If you're like, so is Jesus the only way? And they're like, well, you know, he's the only way. For me, it probably just means that they're liberal and they're trying to not lose the more conservative people while they slowly integrate this liberal theology into their lives. That, uh, happens a lot. Interestingly enough, that's kind of what the sadducees did in Jesus's time. They slowly integrated their stuff into people's lives, um, sort of hiding as conservatives when they weren't, um. I also would like to see in a church, ideally, a healthy body.

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There seems to be a real commitment to true discipleship in Christ in the body. The body is giving you a symptom that demonstrates the degree of discipleship that happens in the church. And I didn't realize how important this was when I was younger. Um, uh, but now I think it's hugely, hugely important. A healthy body, not perfect christians, just that it demonstrates genuine desire for discipleship in the body that's there. And I also want to see a healthy leadership style, not abusive, not oppressive, not cowardly, not, um, unwilling to say hard things that challenge our culture and challenge the community, not unwilling to say those things, but also saying them with compassion. I want to see leadership that is not, um, um, one man who rules the world.

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Personally, I don't think that that's, that's that great. Um, sometimes that's a great godly man. But if there's no real accountability, if there's no real correctability that's going on, real correctability, not, oh, he knows people, he knows other lead pastors from other churches and he tells them what he wants and then they give him a device. And so he's like, I'm teachable, but like actual accountability from people in the church, then, um, that will snowball into other problems in the future, eventually, most likely. So those are things that I want to see personally. Um, but in the end, you just pick the best option you got available. This is all you can do. You can't just make a wonderful church appear around you. You might have to drive a little further for it, but you then are just going to pick the best one you can.

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It's not going to be ideal. Maybe it's not going to be perfect. And realize that you then while you were in that sort of critical mode of looking for a church, trying to find one that fit all the check marks and checked all the boxes, right now you need to switch and you need to move into a mode of being very gracious, very kind, very forgiving, very embracing, trying to help where you can help and trying to have a lot of grace wherever that is needed, because otherwise you can't be a healthy part of that fellowship. You can't attend church as a critic of churches. It's not going to be good for you. It won't be good for the church. Pick the best option available. You don't have to agree with them on every single theological point.

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You don't. And if they think you do, then maybe that's not the best option available. Uh, my choice. Uh, me and my wife are now attending grace ev free in la marada. I have a link in the video description to that church. If you guys are curious. I feel like two things. Um, I want a level of transparency. Just people know. I've seen videos of people saying, I don't go to church. Michael, you don't even go to church.

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I don't know these people. I've never talked to them. Um, I don't know how they know this about me. They could just call or email us through the website and ask. Um, but anyway, really, they disagree with me on theology, so they're just sort of fabricating things about me that help them justify looking at me poorly. So then people won't listen to me. Um, which is fine. It's the Internet. Um, but, yeah, I'm in fellowship and submission to the leadership there. And, um, I'm not on staff. I'm not a pastor there. I'm just a guy going to church. Now, ev free is a fantastic church, unique church. I could talk all day about how highly I view my fellowship and the church that's there. This grace. Ev free in la Marada. Is it like other ev frees? I think it's pretty unique, actually. It's very unique. If you live in southern California and you want to come to a great church, not because you just want to come hang out with me all the time, because you want to actually come to a wonderful church and you've been looking, I would recommend it. All right, let's go to question number two. And this one, um, comes in from.

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Huh.

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I, uh, have a question here. Where's my question? Okay, it's my bad. Uh, I didn't have them brought up on my screen. Okay. Question number two comes in from Angie Altimas, who says, hi, mike. I often hear people saying that Jesus was speaking and condemning the religious, only not speaking to the world. How would you respond, um, to this sentiment? Thank you for your thoughts, Angie. I've heard that many times as well. And I think the short version is, um, there's an element of truth to this, but it's basically not true.

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The idea that Jesus did not speak to or condemn the world, but he did condemn religious leaders is not real. It's not true at all. There's a sense in which jesus didn't condemn anyone, where he says, uh, the son of man. I didn't come to condemn. Right. But that's because he was not coming for judgment. He will come and condemn when he comes in judgment. It was because he was coming to save people. So in that sense, he didn't condemn anyone because he delayed their judgment. He took their judgment on the cross. And now is the time of God's grace. Repent and believe and put your faith in Christ. It's not a time of actively judging others, but condemning in a sense. Not of actively judging, of actually condemning in the moment, but condemning in a sense of calling people out for their sins. Jesus, uh, absolutely did that. He told the crowds about their sins.

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It's not just the religious leaders. Yeah, he absolutely highlighted them. But his point, if we think Jesus called out religious leaders for their sins, but didn't call out normal people for their sins, then we completely miss Jesus'actual teaching on the nature of man. Anthropology, the nature of man, Jesus'teaching on the nature of man is that all man is really, really sinful. And can only be saved by the sacrifice of Christ.

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To say that all men are so sinful that Jesus has to die for them, that conflicts with the idea that Jesus never would have, uh, called out the sin of the non religious people.

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Those two do not compute. You feel the conflict that's there because it's pretty significant. In the end, Jesus said of the Pharisees, there are brood of vipers. But then in the sermon on the mount, when he talks about giving good gifts to your kids, he literally says, you being evil, give good gifts to your children. He just calls all people evil.

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That's the anthropology of Jesus. He's not being mean. He's just calling the truth as it is. Jesus was more critical of the self righteous religious leaders, yes, but he was critical of all people in the sense of calling them out for their sins. So I think that this is, um, a very, um, seeker sensitive, inspired idea. And if we adapt Christianity so that it's mostly critiquing people other than our target audience. Because the seeker sensitive thing is, I'm going to get these unchurched people in. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to mostly complain about religious people. Because that's the people that my target audience unchurched. That's the people these people don't like. So I'm going to rip on them. I'm going to really rip on them. But then I'm going to treat these people like they're just such good people and just give me a, huh. Hug. It's just all warmth and kindness. It's nothing to repent of. No sin to deal with, really. Um, not the way Jesus taught.

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What I've done is I've done something that will increase the numbers of my church, but will decrease how much my church is like jesus. I think so, yeah.

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Um, with the wrong way.

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There we go. Number three. Um, alan Higginbotham says, are we guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve? If so, is it unjust for God to hold us accountable for something we had no part of? Ezekiel 18, romans 512. Ezekiel 18 is the thing where you don't punish the son for the things that the father did.

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Um, so that's like the rule in the law. Don't punish the sons for the father. Don't punish the father for the son.

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Okay, let's ask this one first.

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Um, on, uh, the idea, the doctrine that in Adam I actually have sinned, right? That I'm actually guilty. Um, it would sort of bypass this Ezekiel 18 objection. At least it could see what you think of this, because in Adam, all of sinned, um, if you interpret it that way, that idea of original sin, then you're not saying I'm guilty for Adam's sin, but you could just be saying I, in some way partook of Adam's sin.

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Does that make sense, that there's something of me that was there in Adam, not, um, just that I'm guilty for what he did, but I somehow partook of it? That's one way of rescuing it from the Ezekiel 18 passage. The other way to rescue from the Ezekiel 18 passage. I'll just share some thoughts here, is to say, well, that's God's rules for the law, right? This is Ezekiel 18. This is how God will deal with the laws of Israel. But it's not that every law in Israel has a perfect parallel for how God judges humanity. And so perhaps dealing with generational issues and sin, from Adam on down, is something only God will deal with, but the law is only to deal with individual sin issues. The law was not to punish original sin. It was only to punish active personal sins. That would be another way to rescue that. Um, this, of course, comes from romans 512.

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Here, let me go there.

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Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.

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It's that idea right there. Um, did I sin in Adam when Adam sinned? Or what is the nature of my sin? Nature. And this is a bit too much for me to get into today during the q a. So, having shared a couple thoughts, I will direct you to a video I did where I deal with theological problems related to the salvation of infants.

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So after this video, in fact, someone, um. In the live chat, one of the mods. If you could share that video where I deal with, um. I had two videos. I dealt with infant salvation when I was teaching through the gospel of Mark. One of them was, are infants saved? If they die and they're not baptized, are they saved? And my answer was yes, the next video was, okay, what about all the theological questions like original sin? I will direct you to that video where I have a more comprehensive answer for that. I'll link it down in the description below as well. All right, let's go to the next question number four. Jordan Francis says, when it comes to a church service, would it be appropriate on occasion to just have worship instead of both worship and the word preached? Should it always be both? Okay, Jordan. Um, I am against making a rule on this. Um, there's definitely.

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I'm trying to think of how I should answer this.

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There's definitely a need to preach the word. Like Paul tells Timothy, preach the word. Um, his instructions to Timothy make it very clear. Read first Timothy, that the teaching of doctrine and the correcting of bad doctrine is one of the regular preoccupations of the church.

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Okay, so regular preoccupation, that seems clear. Does that mean you can't have a single Sunday where it's maybe just a time of worship? I don't know why it would mean that. That would seem to be pushing too strict of a view. Now, if you take all the elements of what church should be and you do that every Sunday, you will guarantee your church is always doing all the things a church should have. So you have communion and you have worship and you have fellowship and you have times of praying for each other and you have teaching of the word. You've got accessible, um, elders and things like that. And if you do basically take all the stuff that the church is supposed to do, do it every single Sunday. Now, you guarantee your church is covering all the bases if you mix it up and you have some Sundays where it's different, one Sunday where, oh, and reading of scripture, by the way, that's something this church should be doing on a regular basis, is reading scripture.

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Um, that could be an argument against topical teachings that don't actually spend time really reading the Bible. Um, because many of them do, but some of them don't.

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Um, the point then is if you break that up and if you don't do those things every week, you just need to make sure you're getting them done in a healthy way. How do you measure the healthy way?

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I don't know.

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Um, I don't know how to make a solid rule for that. And I don't want to create a law that all churches have to follow that isn't clear in scripture. I'll just say these things should all regularly be taking place.

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That would be my opinion. Um, am I comfortable with the idea of a church gathering your only worship? And that's it? Personally, I'm totally comfortable with that. If it was happening on a regular basis, I would stop being as comfortable with it personally.

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Number, uh, five, Dylan sty says, what are your thoughts on the shrine immersion during baptism, specifically three dippings. Is it justified in Matthew 20 819?

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I don't know that much about this, so let me share with you what thoughts I do have and know that I haven't looked into it enough to. I've seen it. I've seen people do the three dips.

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Um, so, yeah, I'll share. I'll share with you some thoughts. Okay, so Matthew 28, verse 19. Go, therefore, to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. I think that the verbiage implies a singular baptism, which is an immersion.

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Just one time, one dipping.

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Um, so that the verbiage itself implies one in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit. But that's singular. Name the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So that that seems to be standard. I also think historically, when I have research, baptism stuff, I'm not aware of, um, any habit of doing these, like one, two, three kind of a thing early on. I think it more is an infant baptism related event. Um, I wonder, are there churches out there you guys might know where adults are being baptized three times?

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Yeah, I guess not. I guess I just don't know. Maybe there are, um. Maybe there's a bunch, and I'm just not familiar with the practice that much.

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My final thought is this. I don't see it indicated in scripture.

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I think implication is that baptism is singular. Um, like immersion. It literally means to be immersed. Um, and so that implies that it's just the one time. But I also don't think understanding it least what I think I get of the heart behind the issue. I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal. If somebody did do say, well, I was baptized and they immersed me three times. They said they were the father and then the Son, the Holy Spirit. I don't think that that's going to affect your baptism or the validity of it or the goodness of it or the worth of it. I would be against a rule, however, that churches have to do it that way. I would think any church doing the three thing, it's just a quirk of their local fellowship. Um, you said, what are my thoughts? Those are my thoughts based upon the verbiage here. Again, it's on your screen, right, baptizing them.

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There's nothing here that indicates three, uh, dunkings that we would be talking about.

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Uh, number six, anonymous question. I was rejected by my church because of my behavior, PTSD and my mouth. They didn't excommunicate me, but stopped talking to me and started ignoring me. I've repented, apologized and begged, but they still ignore me. It's left me feeling flawed and unloved. What would scripture tell me about my situation? Um.

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Look, I've been around long enough and a pastor long enough to know there are a lot of other details I don't know about your story.

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My biggest piece of advice would say would be this.

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Before you ask what scripture would tell you to do about your situation, soberly, look at your situation again, I'm going to be straight with you here and try to find out what have people tried to tell you is an issue, an ongoing issue that maybe you think isn't. And so you're, like, shocked. Why are you acting this way towards me when I've dealt with all my stuff?

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And then they're thinking, no, but you really haven't dealt with what we're actually concerned about. That would be my suspicion. Now, please do not take this. What do I know? Am I talking about you personally? Like, I read your mind. I don't even know your name. Anonymous question person. I'm just saying, um, on average, in my life as a human being, also as a pastor, reading this type of thing, it sounds like one side of a story. And that my best guess would be that there are things that you don't see that are also going on. And that's partly why you're confused and you're thinking this is all just personal. Now, it may well be that there's sin on the part of others who are not forgiving you. It may well be that there are things that they need to do better. Um, but I'm suspecting there's another side of the story that you're not fully aware of. For your own sake, for you to learn and grow and respond, and that people tend to shut you down and they start ignoring you when they think that they can't have any more forward progress with you in life.

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We can all tolerate a lot of flawed people if they will at least be moving forward. But the point at which you feel like you've hit a wall with them and that it's not going to change and that there's nothing else to be done, that tends to be where we put up our walls, too. And I'm not saying that it's healthy and good.

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I'm, uh, just trying to give you advice that I think would actually help you. So, brother or sister, I would just say this. Don't lose heart, don't lose hope. There is grace for you, and there is hopefully fellowship for you in the future.

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But if you're still confused about what's going on in the past, it will make the future relationships you have also confusing. Go and find out maybe what people have been trying to tell you that you haven't quite heard. Maybe because you feel like it will destroy you to hear those things, but just learn from it. We're all sinners. Just learn from it. Don't give up. And, uh, I hope that advice helps. And listen, if you hear all that and you say, Mike, you're so off base, you really don't understand that. I acknowledge that. You're probably right. I'm so off. Didn't. I don't know enough of your story, and if I knew more, I might give you different advice. So be willing to disregard what I said and don't let it bother you anymore, because I don't want to do that to you. All right, number seven, let's go to question number seven.

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Reed, um, says, if Jesus in the Old Testament was intentional by God, does that mean that God is sometimes deterministic? For example, did God orchestrate Joseph's life?

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Um, I would agree with everything there except the word deterministic. So deterministic tends to, in my understanding, imply, um, the exclusion of human free will.

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Is God sovereign, in control, and orchestrating human events according to a predetermined plan? Yes.

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Does that exclude human free will? That's where the word deterministic comes in, to my knowledge. And that's the part I would disagree with and say, oh, no. God is able to orchestrate things in such a way that even when humans do their free will choices, it still results in something that he had intended in the long run. And I think that that's what scripture seems to indicate. Like when Joseph says to his brothers, what you intended for evil, God meant for good. See, there was their free will and their intent and their desires, but God worked it together for good. And of course, his whole story in Joseph is a picture of Christ that's beautiful and amazing. So I don't think there's anything in God orchestrating events that equals determinism, because I think human free will is clearly taught in scripture in a way that I think would refute determinism. These are big topics. These are big philosophical issues. If, uh, you disagree with me on this, we're still brothers and sisters in Christ. Well, I'm not a sister in Christ. Definitely not confused about that at all. And so, um, uh, that's fine. We might disagree. I would say this, though. Um, anybody who's out there is a determinist. I think you would need, and you should acknowledge this much. You would need a lot more than God orchestrating events to prove determinism. Right. You'd have to have other arguments layered on top, and those would be the things that we would focus on. All right. But still, we fight together as siblings in Christ. All right, number eight, this is from Rebecca Morales, who says, what does building others up with your words really mean? Does it mean that you should compliment people and just say nice things to them, or does it mean something entirely different? Man, that's such a good question. Rebecca, you're asking a good question today, biblically speaking, building people up might occasionally involve encouragement, um, in the sense of like, hey, man, you did a great job. Hey, I really respect you.

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You're a really good example for me to follow. Um. Um, I look up to you. Those types of things are very upbuilding. But we tend to think in our modern times that the reason why those things are upbuilding is because they build up someone's sense of self, as opposed to maybe what the apostles meant more, which is building up their godly character, building up their commitment to good and true things, building up their confidence in what's right, and, uh, even building up a lack of confidence in what's wrong.

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Building people up could even be, brother, I love you. Don't go down that road. Don't do that sin. Don't commit that compromise. It's going to beat you up. It's going to ruin your life. That's going to tear you down. I'm building you up just by telling you the truth. So I think that building up in a biblical sense commits to christian character, whereas building up in a more modern sense commits to making people feel good about themselves, which is frequently destructive, and not building them up at all. That's a really good question. Um, examples of this in scripture can be, um, when Paul writes harsh things in one corinthians, he writes to them some harsh stuff, but he's doing it for their sakes to build them up. Right. This is the kind of thing where our culture would get conflicted about it. They think, well, you're calling them bad things.

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That's not upbuilding. Well, it doesn't build up their ego. It builds up their character.

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Number nine, Joe Poggy. Poggy says, if we are saved by faith alone, why are there so many prayers asking that our sins be forgiven when by faith we know that they have been? Thank you.

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Um.

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Um, so I think the short answer, and I'm going to be doing some short answers for the sake of time today as we move forward.

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Um, the short answer is, uh, to continually say, God, I need forgiveness, is to recognize that my sin can. While it doesn't make me unsaved, I'm not asking for it to be resaved, brought back into salvation again. I am asking to deal with a sin issue in my relationship with God. I can have a relationship with God, but have it be unhealthy, just like in marriage. I can sin against my wife. I'm not divorced now, but I am hurting in the relationship, and I want to restore that. I think that's the simple example.

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Number ten, goose on roof studios says, hello, Mr. Winger. I'm a 15 year old Christian. I read my Bible every day and pray, but I feel guilty when I engage in a hobby or have fun. Is there a limited amount of fun one can have in a day?

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Fun, um, is good. Fun is encouraged. Fun is something you want to participate in. Moderation is the key. And all this stuff, food is like, this. Food is pleasurable in moderation. Right. Um, all these things in moderation. I think that's the biblical example.

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Question number eleven. Okay. Gabby asks, why did Jesus refer to himself as a prophet in Luke 1333 and not the son of God? Wouldn't that be putting himself on the same level as, as regular prophets when he was, in fact, elevated? Let's look at Luke 1333.

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Excuse me.

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Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the following day, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.

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So Jesus is here, um, talking about a major issue in the jewish people's experience with God in that they continually reject and kill his prophets. So God sends prophets throughout time, Isaiah and Jeremiah. And you read about these prophets, they're not well received. They get persecuted by the very people they're being sent to. Now, this isn't exclusive to Israel. Um, indeed, prophets going to other nations were not always treated well either. But Jesus is here showing himself as the culmination of all prophets. He's like the ultimate prophet. And of course, he has to die in Jerusalem to demonstrate the rebellion and the rejection of God's people, how they reject God. Of course, this is not God rejecting them. Jesus dies for them that they might be saved. And so God wants us to be saved, even if we've had a history of rejecting him, even if we had years, years of attacking and coming against God. Um, he wants us to be saved. As Jesus says, forgive them. For they know not what they do. But why does he say prophet? Because if he didn't say the word prophet here, you would lose this connection to all these Old Testament prophets. You would also lose the connection to deuteronomy, where there's a specific prophecy about a specific prophet who is going to be like the prophet, like Moses. And there's this one singular, it's really amazing stuff. There's this one singular prophet who's going to come, and he'll be like Moses. And Jesus in so many ways, he fulfills this. And he is the one like Moses. And we see even in the Bible, other prophets come, and none of them are like Moses. Like, not the one like Moses the deliverer, the one who comes and who's rejected first and accepted second. And the one who comes and is connected to the Passover, the one who comes and is connected to leading the people out of slavery, slavery to their sin. In the case of Jesus, there's so many parallels between Jesus and Moses.

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So if Jesus, um, refers to himself as God here or the son of God, you lose the connection to all these precursors to Jesus and all these representatives of God in the past so that they come as a picture of Christ. The word prophet is, like, strategically chosen here to represent so many things. I would recommend you check out my Jesus in the Old Testament series, where I go over this kind of stuff in detail. Um, Jesus being a prophet or being one who speaks for the Lord does not mean he is not the son of God. Just like being a man doesn't mean he's not also God with us. These are all true of Jesus. He's prophet, priest, king. He's the son of God, and he's the son of man. All of the above.

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All right, we'll go to question number twelve.

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Brecken Larrison says, hi, Mike. Love the show. Thanks, man. It's so funny if people are like the show.

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I don't think of it that way, but you guys do, because from your experience, it is. Um, at any rate, and your channel has made me a believer in Christ.

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Wow.

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Uh, Brecken Larrison, I am amazed by that. Um, I thank God that I got to be used in your life in that way. In any way. I'm just sharing the truth of Christ. But to think that God used me as a vessel in you coming to the Lord is amazing. Okay, so your question is, if basic organisms are discovered on other planets, would that prove abiogenesis and prove evolution?

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Um, I don't think so. Um, let's just think it through.

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First off, if. Let me start with this. If I believed in abiogenesis, which I don't think that is life coming from non life, that's a specific moment in the whole evolutionary timeline. That's where it takes you from what they call chemical evolution. And for anybody who's about to type, there's no such thing as chemical evolution, do 5 seconds of research before you type that. That's where you go from chemical evolution over to biological evolution. And the idea is just chemicals and stuff coming together, and then it turns into like a living reproducing organism. That's when natural selection can take place, right? Because now you have something that's alive and something that reproduces, so it passes down its dna and stuff like that. Um, so then you can have biological, um, stuff going on. So that moment of going from non life to life, um, this is my opinion. I don't think that there's evidence to support that that's ever happened, that something so complex has actually taken place. An interesting guy to look into on this would be, um, the guys over at, um, the Discovery institute. They have interesting info on this believers. James, uh, Tuhr also has a lot of interesting info on that.

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But what if I thought it was true?

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It wouldn't change my faith. It wouldn't change my faith in Christ. Um, I would adopt that into my paradigm of what I understand to be the history of the world and stuff like that. Um, even if it's possible, doesn't necessarily mean it's true. But if it's possible and it is true, and it did happen, I would adapt to it, to be honest, as a christian, and that's obviously a huge question, a huge question of how to do that. But that's not what you're asking about. I'm just telling you how I would respond to this is not, to me, a faith threatening question. And for years, I thought it was because everybody around me also thought it was. And the more I thought about it, the more I was serious about it. Even though I don't believe, say, abiogenesis or universal common descent, there's lots of evolution taking place in different degrees, but universal common descent, I don't hold to that. Um, but if I did, I would still be a christian.

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I would just have more questions about understanding several scriptures, but, um, it wouldn't undercut my actual faith in Christ. Um, I would just think maybe I must have misunderstood something. However, what if we found bacteria on other planets?

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What about finding bacteria on.

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I don't know, mars, what about that would mean that. That bacteria got there through abiogenesis?

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The only thing I can think of is me thinking, well, I can't think of why God would put that bacteria there. So it must have happened naturally.

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I don't think that tracks for a couple of reasons. One, um, just because I don't know why God did something doesn't mean God wouldn't do it. That's kind of presumptive about my own powers of figuring, uh, things out and determining the desires and plans of God, which is obviously, I'm not very good at that. Neither are you.

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And, um, in addition to that, uh, there was another point I had, and now I forgot it because I only got 3 hours of sleep.

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Such a good point. Something about bacteria.

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I don't know what to tell you, ma'am. Um, you say if basic organisms are discovered other planets, would that prove abiogenesis and prove evolution? Yeah, I think that the bar is too low. So what would it take to prove evolution, abiogenesis? I think to prove it, to have a demonstration of it is to perhaps have laboratory results that show realistic, uh, say, early earth conditions, where chemicals naturally on their own, without outside inputs, that are not realistic to the environment that you suspect early earth would have, where these chemicals come together and produce living cells.

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Those kinds of experiments are going on all the time, have been going on for a long time. They have failed to produce quite enough. They'll produce pieces of things, but not what you need to actually prove abiogenesis. That's my understanding of it. I'm out of my field here. I'm just sharing with you guys my thoughts. I'm more personally focused on scripture and what the Bible teaches about these things. And biblically speaking, I'm open to different interpretations there that don't violate the authority and infallibility of scripture, but which are looking at those passages and saying, hey, how am I understanding this? Um, I'm open, uh, which is not where I want to be. I want to actually clamp down on exactly what I think about those passages, all of them. But I'm not there. Just.

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Yeah, all right. Sons of Adam has a question. Sons, uh, of Adam, children of God has a question. Martin Luther has a quote that says, sin boldly. I've heard he meant, don't be afraid of sinning and do so boldly, knowing it has been paid for. But I feel this is dangerous. Your thoughts?

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I've heard the quote as well. Um, and I haven't heard the whole context around it, which I wonder how many of us have. Like, how many of you have heard, read the whole thing. He wrote about sinning boldly, and maybe he explains what he doesn't mean. And he's like, I'm not saying this. And then it would help.

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The way I've heard it kind of pulled. Just standing alone. Sin boldly, um, the positive, it seems to be saying, don't fear that you're just going to lose your salvation because you committed a sin. And now you're sitting under condemnation because Martin Luther's experience was, a lot of it, was just realizing that he was not condemned in Christ. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. And this was a really important thing because he, uh, was not just intellectually convinced of salvation by faith. He was also, um, emotionally satisfied by it. Does that make sense? Nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing, to be emotionally satisfied by salvation, by faith, but to be emotionally satisfied, like, thinking, I am at peace with God, I have peace with God. Like romans five says, we have peace with God and access into this grace in which we stand. I stand in grace, I rest in grace. That's the positive of it. But sin boldly sounds like encouragement to sin. Not just encouragement to be bold about the grace you have in Christ, but it sounds like encouragement to actually go and sin. And any sense of that that's there, go out, just sin so you can kind of shake off any feeling that you'd be okay. I think that that's unhealthy. I think it's unwise. Um, whatever he was getting at, the way I've heard the quote used, I don't care for it myself at all, um, because we should never encourage sin. And it at least can sound like you're encouraging sin. And I've met lots of christians who I know would hear that quote, and they would feel more encouraged, not in grace, but in sin.

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So maybe. Maybe a fuller quote would dispel that. But it's often not shared that way. I've heard it shared several times. I've never heard it shared with any caveats that keep people from, uh, abusing that idea and actually being encouraged to sin.

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Austin Hansford says one, uh, John 516 and 17 seems to support the roman catholic understanding of mortal and venial sins. Is that the proper interpretation of this verse? And if not.

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If not, how should we understand sin and the death it causes?

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You know, I really need to do, um, a serious study of this, because I've been asked this many times, and understandably, and it's been a while since I studied it, so it's not fresh in my mind. But I also haven't never produced a resource that I thought this would be, like, the definitive resource to answer the objections, answer all the questions, like, what you got here. So, Austin, I want to do this sometime, and you've put it up on my radar again, so I appreciate that.

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Um, yeah.

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Uh, I sort of want to hold off on answering too much, but we'll just read through it together. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life. To those who commit sins that do not lead to death, there is sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

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What is the sin that leads to death? Is the question. And what is the death?

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Um, I'll just give you my short working answer here. Um, that. Okay. It could be referring to physical death. Um, some people say, yeah, maybe like, say, uh, overdosing on drugs, that's a sin leading to death. Um, if God's going to bring the consequences, the chastisement of physical death on a Christian because of their sins, you just need to let God deal with them. He's chastening them. But if it's not to that point, then pray for them. Um, so maybe that's the sin. It's a physical death, or it's like a spiritual death. And if it's a sin leading to spiritual death, then the example in first john of sin that leads to spiritual death is not a particular sin, but an ongoing commitment of sin.

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Uh, forgive me.

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Um, so the one who keeps on sinning, who continually sins. So this person is in a habitual lifestyle of sin that demonstrates that they are not really born of God. Don't act like they're christians. Don't embrace them as brothers. Don't pray for them, that God would just forgive them as they continue in this rebellious lifestyle. Leave them alone. So that would be the short answer on that. Is that the catholic doctrine of mortal and venial sins? Um, you'd have to read a lot into the text that's not there. You'd have to have a catholic doctrine. And then you're finding a verse that doesn't actually explain it.

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It could relate to that. If you interpret these as sin is mortal and venial sin leads to death, sin that doesn't lead to death. But then you've got the entire structure of Catholicism about who can forgive different sins. And you need a cardinal for that one. You, uh, just need a priest for this one. And in the text, it's just like, just anyone?

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Anyone. Not priests, not cardinals. It's clearly not in the context of Roman Catholicism. It's just anyone sees his brother. This is not endorsing the roman catholic views. Uh, in my opinion. I think what John is saying is not that you're losing your salvation, then you get it back, then you lose it, then you get it back.

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Right. That's the whole catholic back and forth situation there, um, with mortal sin. But rather, he's describing probably types of people that you're going to continue to pray for and embrace and know that they're standing in forgiveness even though they sin, because there are genuinely children of God versus the false children.

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That's the short answer. I know there's a lot more questions on that. I like to do a real resource. One day, funny farm says, what would you say to the objection that if we don't follow the old covenant anymore, why should we care about Leviticus 18? Thanks, Mike, for teaching us how to engage in apologetics.

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Well, the old covenant, right? The Old Testament, the law of Moses. Really?

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In that section of scripture, there is Leviticus 18, which gives us specific rules about homosexuality. Among. That's the controversial part here, right? Uh, it's the homosexuality part. It's also a section that does this. So if you're going to throw it out, do you want to throw out all these things? Here's one of the reasons why you shouldn't. None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the Lord. He's talking about sexual relations. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father or of your mother. She's your Mother. I like how it just says, she is your mother. You shall not, um, this stuff. Not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. We obviously still want to apply this today.

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The one that they want to take out is homosexuality. That's the one they want to take out. It's not all the incest. And then finally, we have obesiality. That's being said not to do as well. But it's in Leviticus 18. Um, it's the part about homosexuality that they don't want. Verse 22, you shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It's an abomination.

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You shall not sacrifice your children and offer them to molec. These are all things that God is saying in the same passage. Now, if you want to throw them all out because they're old Testament. I think that you have to understand much of the new. Here's another point. Much of the New Testament reiterates old Testament statements. Much of the new it reiterates meaning that these are not, uh, yes, they're part of the old law. But guess what? Maybe God told Israel to do things he also wants you to do, even if you're not under the law. He just happens to not want you to murder either.

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Surprise. You can't say murder is okay because it was in the old covenant. Now this is so clumsy. This is just people making up rules as they go. I want to have clear biblical principles I apply consistently.

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For instance, when there's an old Testament statement that was part of the law which is reiterated in the New Testament for christians, then guess what? It's for christians today too. It's not just part of the Old Testament. Well, the rules about homosexuality, clearly reiterated, couldn't be more clear in Romans chapter one, where it's described in such detail, like, nobody could reasonably argue otherwise. Definitely something that God doesn't want to see. Now, uh, some will hear me and think I'm attacking an identity. No, we're not affirming the existence of such identities. We're suggesting there is sin and its behaviors and fantasies that associate with it, that these are sinful and unhealthy and that you should view it not as an identity, but as a temptation to avoid.

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We all have those, um, it shouldn't be elevated as like some special sacred sin that we call an identity. Now, um, that's not reasonable. It's not healthy and it's not biblical and it's not ultimately going to honor God and it's going to hurt the people. The people are going to hurt the most are going to be the people who engage in all these sinful practices. They're the ones, they think they're in liberty and they're experiencing their best life now, but they're not, um, they're not. God has something much better for them.

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So another reason for this is that God, uh, in Leviticus 18, he specifically says that he's judging not just Israel but other nations for these same things. So look at this, right? You don't, verse 22, don't lie with a males, with a woman. But then he says, do not make yourself unclean by any of these things. For catch the logic? By all these, the nations that I'm driving out before you have become unclean and the land became unclean so that I punished its iniquity and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

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God says, just follow the formula. Hey, pagan nations did this, and I punished pagans for this stuff, so I don't want you doing it either. What does that mean? That means that this is not even in the Old Testament, is not just a law for Israel. This is the kind of thing God judges all people for, whether they're under the law or not. Leviticus 18 in particular is a very strong case for, um, among, uh, other things, homosexuality actually being sinful behavior. And I've never heard a good response to this. I've never heard a reasonable, thoughtful, like, wow, that really makes me challenge that. I've never heard a good response to this. I usually hear people just ignore it. God judges pagan nations for these things. When God's judging pagan nations, it tells you it's not just about the law. It's much bigger than that. It's much broader than that. The New Testament affirms it as well and reiterates multiple times the nature of one man, one woman, and anything else being sinful.

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Number 16, Jeremy Palmer, says, blessings. Pastor Mike. Happy late birthday and Christmas. And happy early new year. You too. Well, except maybe the birthday part. Well, late birthday. It's time of year. Your birthday probably already passed. Uh, since both good and bad things happen in the body of Christ daily, how can we accurately practice romans 1215? Hmm. M rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

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Okay, so it could feel overwhelming because there's bad things happening and good things happening all the time, everywhere. Take any group of, like, say, 100 people and maybe 500 people, and at least one of them has got a real reason to cry that day, and at the same time, someone else has a reason to rejoice. I think the answer is going to be, uh, kind of like with Jesus's parable of the good Samaritan, when he's, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. And they go, well, who's my neighbor? And he describes a story where, um, the neighbor ends up being whoever you happen to come across at the moment. So this guy gets beat up. He's on the side of the road, and the Samaritan just walks by him and he sees him there and he helps him. Now, he's from a different place, from a rival place. Samaria versus Jerusalem. You guys know the story, but he sees him as his neighbor. Why? Because he's there. Like, you're here with me right now, so you're my neighbor. I think that the answer to this, um, when you're around those who are rejoicing, rejoice with them. When you're around those who are weeping, weep with them so that you're not thinking, um, I have to rejoice because somebody four blocks away is rejoicing right now. I'm not even around them. But if you get them on the phone and they're like, hey, what we're talking about is having the kind of empathy to share in other people's things, the things they got going on. Maybe they're celebrating something wonderful and, uh, you delight in that as well. This is interesting because this is like, it almost connects to the modern idea of emotional intelligence, I think. But it's the idea that I'm going to deliberately. Right. Not automatically.

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There's nothing automatic about this, because if it was automatic, why would it be instructed? You're just doing it automatically. But I think we think, well, I don't automatically get happy with people that are happy. No, that's okay. Do it on purpose. That's the point. Christians do it on purpose.

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When you see those around you delighting or in bad situations, delight with them, grieve with, um, them, have emotions with them on purpose, express those things on purpose. Smile because they're smiling, not faking, but sharing in the things that they're going through. This is a beautiful thing, but I think it applies to just whoever's around you at the time. And otherwise, yeah, you'd be smiling and you'd be laughing and crying at the same time all the time. Um, Oscar Estrada says, hi, Pastor Mike. My question is, why is the Holy Spirit not mentioned in the greetings of Paul? And why is he left out in such statements? Like one corinthians eight, six.

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Um, I don't know off the top of my head, know if Paul never mentions the Holy Spirit in his greetings? Um, I don't recall, but let's say that's the case. Um, this is a kind of question I'm not prepared to answer in that I don't know how to get behind the author's mind like that and say, not only why, because usually I'm asking, why did they write this? Um, it's harder to ask, why didn't they write that? And sometimes what happens is when we say that, well, why didn't they write this other thing? Sometimes that can be legit, when there's something in the passage that makes you think they should have written that. But then you got to build that case. Like, here's why they should have said that. And then you ask well, then why didn't they? Um. But until we do that, I guess maybe a question I could ask is why should Paul have said something about the Holy Spirit in the openings of his letters?

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I don't know.

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I don't know why he should have. Unless you're thinking the doctrine of the Trinity has to be preached more often, and so whenever you mention the Father and the Son, I want the Holy Spirit to be mentioned as well. Um, I don't see the need for that. So maybe I'm just not seeing what someone else might see there, because I don't see a need for Paul to do that.

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I don't see a way to explain why he didn't. I hope that my logic follows there. Um.

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Let's see. The rest of your question was, um, why is the Holy Spirit left out in one corinthians eight six? Let's look at that.

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Yet for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

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Um, yeah, I mean, he could have said, and one spirit, uh, who is in all of us and through whom we are sanctified. He could have said that. And maybe I would like that, because perhaps my view of the Trinity is that I want to see it more frequently represented in scripture. And that's sort of fair in that it's not exactly fair, but it's understandable in that I get the desire to see the Trinity more often. They're not debating the doctrine of the Trinity the way that people did later on, the way that people even do. That's just. This is just how it is. So they'll talk about it in a more of a matter of fact way, um, rather than trying to constantly prove it. But if you're in debates about the Trinity, then when you come across a passage like this, you're bringing that debate with you. So you're expecting to see Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and you want to see them all there. I don't think that, um, sense was present in the author that there's, like, had to teach the deity of the Holy Spirit here. Um, but rather the focus here is the relationship between the Father and the Son and how that connects to us. However, Paul talks about the Holy Spirit lots, and I have a video I'll link in the description later. That's about the Holy Spirit who is neglected often in our modern discussions about the deity of Christ or the nature of there being one God. Um, we often neglect, say, the deity of the holy Spirit. And so I have a video I'm going to link below where I talk about that, and you can follow up if you want some more information. I hope that's helped. Um, bottom line, I think it's perhaps us that want to see it there because we're coming to the passage with a concern that isn't in the passage. Right. Our debate about the trinity isn't in every passage of the Bible, and so it doesn't show up there, but it shows up in other places.

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Number 18, Abby Crown, says, how reliable is the Granville Sharps rule? Is it implemented outside of New Testament writings? Thank you, and may God continue to bless your ministry. So, uh, Abby? Um, to my knowledge, um, it's extremely reliable, both inside and outside. And there was even a recent paper I read recent, like, I read it like eight months ago or something, about the Granville sharps rule. It was a paper.

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I couldn't remember the name of it or who wrote it, but it was basically addressing. People are always discussing these things back and forth, offering more evidence to support the consistency of the rule that it is, in fact, consistent. It might have been by Dan Wallace.

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You could look it up, though. Granville sharps. Dan Wallace. See if there's a recent paper. I read it recently. I think it was recent. Maybe it was a couple years ago.

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Anywho, that's my knowledge of it is that it's very consistent. Um, uh, and implemented outside the New Testament as well.

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Um, although that's not exactly necessary, but it certainly makes it that much stronger. Right, the Granville sharps rule. But it's considered a very strong rule. And if you've heard other statements about it, um, I would just recommend. Keep digging. Keep digging. There. Look, uh, for that more recent paper, if I do find it, I will link it in the description below for anybody to check out.

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Arnie probion.

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Sorry? Arnie. Your last name? I don't know. Please help me with how to fast. I'm praying for a friend's salvation and protection from some dark things. I know that's not a lot of info, but I want to know if there's a secret sauce to fasting. Ooh, the secret sauce to fasting. It's garlic with some cheese and some yummy, warm, soft pretzels.

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No, wait, that's not it.

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Sorry, buddy, I just messed it with you. Okay, so, um, help with fasting. Um, what's helped me the most with fasting is the mental fortitude of, um, being committed to the struggle, not just to the idea. So I could be committed, just being from personal experience, I could be committed to the idea of fasting. Ooh, the idea of fasting for the next three days sounds really good to me.

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It's different when I approach it. I'm committed to being hungry for the next three days.

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That's a different kind of commitment. I'm committed to the struggle that this fasting will involve. That's a different commitment. And I flip a switch there and that makes a big difference. Um, in addition to that, I'm not saying you need to fast for three days or something like that. I'm just giving an example. Um, in addition to that, utilizing, um, the time that you would be eating by doing other things that you've already got planned out. That can be very helpful. So let's say lunch break at work, you go out to your car and you're isolated, you're away from food and people, and you're just going to pray there. Because fasting is not just about not eating. It's also about replacing that time and that activity with something else that you're doing instead. And that's the reason why you're fasting. So you're praying for your friend, you're praying for the situation. And, um, I'd recommend having a plan of what you will do during those meal times. I'd also encourage you to have a plan of when you're going to stop your fast and monitor your health and stuff and make sure.

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I once knew a guy who almost killed himself fasting. Um, I met him shortly afterwards, literally almost died. And you could tell he felt really good about it.

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Um, um, that's not the point.

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That's not the point of, of fasting, right? Even Jesus, after 40 days and 40 nights, you might think, well, he almost died. Well, the scripture doesn't say that. I think he was preserved by God.

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The idea that, and some people are medically, it's a problem for them. You can fast for a day, you can fast for a meal, you can fast for as much as you're able to make sure that your body is still able to function for the lord and you're not just ruining yourself. I don't know. I'm not even talking to you, Arnie, anymore. I'm talking to whoever else might be listening because, um. Uh, I think that that's an unfortunate thing.

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You never want to fall into the pillar saint attitude. Have you guys heard of the pillar saints?

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In like, medieval times, there are these pillar saints and these guys would get up on pillars and leave themselves up there and there they would sit and starve these pillar saints, and people would have to bring them food and stuff on sticks because they're so godly.

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They've mistaken suffering for godliness as opposed to, um, suffering. Uh, when you suffer, having faith and being godly, that's godly, but not suffering itself isn't inherently godly.

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Pillar saints even did weird things like where they would close their fist and tie their hands closed, let their nails grow through their hands as a way of causing themselves suffering.

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I'm, um, going to use a modern word for this. This is stupid. This is not honoring God. This is just making God look weird to everybody else, and it's self righteous. Um, the pillar saints were ironically putting themselves on pillars because they wanted to be on pillars. This is, again, nothing to do with Arnie's question. I'm just rambling now about some other stuff. Um, so I think that we do well to remember that we do not do these things to prove ourselves to God. We do not fast, for instance, to prove ourselves to God or to look good to others. We do so to put off the flesh, to deny self, and to have more focused time of prayer. And those are good things.

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But causing yourself simply harm, uh, for the sake of harm, I don't think that that's a God honor anything. Uh, Sean Saban says, hi, Mike. I'm the only Christian in my whole biological family. How do I not despair at the fact that they're all headed to hell? As it stands, it's leading me to doubt the goodness of God. Wow, Sean, um, thank you for the sincerity of your question. And just so you know, I'm not responding weird to it at all. I appreciate you sharing that with me, trusting me with what you're. The struggle you're going through. It's not totally unlike my situation. Growing up, I was the only Christian, uh, only person I would consider a genuine Christian that was part of my close family. Um, and that was discouraging. Um, but it didn't stay that way. Thank God.

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But, um, there's two issues here. One is just you feeling sorrowful about the fate of your family, and the other is you actually thinking it's making me doubt God's goodness.

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That's a, uh, struggle I think a lot of christians have felt when they think of someone they love and care about and they think that, I don't think that person's saved.

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I think a lot of the viewers, people watching this, you feel that, too. And I can say, uh, a few things that do. I have, like, the magic bullet that's going to fix this. I doubt it, but maybe I'll say a few things that I think help me and genuinely do help me. And one of them is just the advice of, wait.

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You don't yet understand the goodness of God in relation to his judgment of sin and his punishment of sinners. You don't yet understand that, but you will. You just have to wait. There's this amazing passage in revelation 19 where they're actually praising God for his judgment on great babylon, right? And he's punishing them and punishing the wicked. And the saints are worshipping God because his judgments are good. In fact, this is what psalm 119 says, your judgments are just and true, and they're pure, like God's judgments are actually good. Well, revelation, here's why it's so encouraging to me. This passage comes at a time when the saints are standing and beholding the judgment of God, but they're also beholding the God who is judge. And when they see not just their mental image of a wrathful God beating up on people, but they see the true, righteous, pure, perfect, holy God, and they see perfect justice being meted out against humans, but they see this in the right context of God's holiness, they're actually praising God. What I'm saying is, you don't maybe get it now, but there's a day when you will get it. And all you have to do is wait. All you have to do is wait. And you say, lord, I don't understand this, but I trust you. I, uh, trust your character, and I will choose to trust in your goodness and not try to make and catch the silliness of this, Sean. Not try to make judgment calls on God's judgments.

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This is silly. We're setting ourselves up as the judge of God when we try to make judgment calls on God's judgments. So I encourage you, please don't do that. This is where you just have to simply look at yourself and say, if I disagree with God, I've got to be wrong somewhere. I don't know where yet. I'll find out later. But I've got to be way off base somewhere. It's like if I came up to someone who's building a wall and they're a master mason, and I look at them and I go, what are you doing, man? That looks so weird in my brain. I cannot understand any reason why you do that. It doesn't seem safe or wise, but there's a little part of me, little voice in my head that says, mike, you don't know anything about this wall or building walls. You just glanced at it and you made a judgment. This is the master Mason. You should just let him do his job. God is the ultimate righteous, perfect, pure judge. Let him do his job. You share with your family when you can preach the gospel to them as much as you're able to. Um, with wisdom and knowing, strategy and tactic, and about, uh, how to try to keep those doors open wherever possible. And be invitational, be when necessary, confrontational, never reactionary, always loving, but full of courage, all those things.

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But ultimately, trust God and just wait. He's going to judge perfectly and righteously. And there's a time coming where, as shocking as this may sound to somebody, I think it'll be comforting to others when they will look at the fact that God has judged even people they loved. They will look at it and go, wow, that was so hard for me to understand, but now I get it. Now I see your holiness, Lord, your goodness, your love.

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I see the love you have for them as well. But I also see their choices and their sin, and I see that you've judged perfectly. And I say, praise you, Lord, for your righteousness. That time is coming. All you got to do is wait. All you got to do is wait. So let's pray. Uh, Lord, we just thank you for your goodness, your love, your kindness, the grace that you've showed us. We pray that you'd help us to be more evangelistic to our relatives, our loved ones, people around us, Lord, that we care about that sometimes we don't know how to start a conversation about it. We don't know what words to use. We can't think of how to break through old biases. Um, and we don't want to be reactionary and start to get annoyed and mean spirited. We just pray that you'd let us be real vessels of the gospel of Christ and the light and the truth of Christ to others, that we could do so in all humility and with the power of your holy spirit. In Jesus name, amen. All right. Uh. I always say I'm trying to go quick and I fail. I should stop saying it.

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All right, you guys, that's it. That's the last stream for 2023. Thankfully, I'm very glad to be done with what has not been the best of years for me and hoping that at least next year is not as bad.

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But lots of ministry and wonderful things happen, and I'm grateful for all that's gone on in this ministry. The amount of reach that we have millions and millions. I am blown away. I'm a guy in his home office trying to share, um, just simply share the truths of scripture, the truths of God, and it is entirely the value of those truths that has been life changing for many people, many of you, and I'm grateful for that. Um, it's the end of the year for this ministry, and I can report to you guys that financially, we're doing okay. And as long as we're doing okay, then on the website, when people go to donate, like, I have a little notice that says, like, hey, I don't want to scare away all my donors, but I also don't want to be one of those ministries that's asking for money when we're funded, okay? I don't want to expand our budget and start hiring a bunch of people to do things that aren't necessary. I'd rather, um, be smart and be like, hey, we're just going to take care of our needs and reach as many as we can with, in a sense, the smallest we can be. And I feel like that's the best longevity for this ministry and the best reach as well. So I'm grateful for that. And part of our witness online, for those who don't know is that I don't want to be one of those people out there asking for money. Ministries, uh, need money to survive. I get that.

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But I really want to never ask if I don't need to. And, um, um, that's because for those who are skeptics, some skeptics are watching this video right now.

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I share your irritation with money grubbing preachers and grifters, religious grifters and all that, and drives me up the wall, always has. And so part of my witness to you guys is that you could go watch the last hundred videos I've made, and you won't hear me asking for money once. In fact, you'll hear me saying something like today where I'm telling you we're doing okay. I'm not doing an end of year ask for money. I'm saying our ministry is doing okay. And maybe by doing that, I'll scare away too many people that are donating, and then I'll have to say, hey, guys, we're not doing okay anymore. Um, but, uh, as long as Lord's providing, then I'm stoked. That's all we want to see.

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I, um, just want this to be real ministry, one that people can, I hope, believe in. Because if they can believe in this ministry a little bit then it gives them the idea that maybe this whole Jesus thing is actually for real. And that's what I want you to know more than anything. All right, um. I'm done. Yep. God bless you guys.