[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'd like to welcome all of our listeners to another episode of the London ICM.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm one of your hostures in the Spaniac, and I'm joined by Hunter Heinzman today.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're podcasts, a dedicated series thinking for a serious church, and while we want to be serious, we also like to have a little bit of humor, so depending on when you listen, we've got a good mix of just sort of seriousness, but also just a lightheartedness, because we're trying to create an intellectual culture of things like charity, curiosity, critical thinking, cheerful, confessionalism.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when we say serious, we mean we're taking arguments seriously, but we, and we're taking people seriously too.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're treating them with kindness and respect and the honor that they deserve as being made the image of God.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we also can do that in a way that can sort of hopefully encourage like, the virtues of like friendship.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when you read about things like in Aristotle's Nike McKinn, Wow, I can't even pronounce the Nike McKinn ethics.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to have to refix this for those of you who are listening.

[SPEAKER_03]: I should be able to pronounce, you just need to sleep through this day next year.

[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, we want to have friendship, we want to encourage that, and so we've got Stephen Presley with us and John Willsey with us, which we have on a regular basis for those of you who are listening.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we talk about various topics that are related to theology and history and just sort of the academic life to hopefully encourage our listeners to have healthier relationships and to be able to cultivate certain intellectual habits that can help them.

[SPEAKER_03]: So today's episode, when we're talking about Church history, particularly as it relates to the life of the local church, what kind of place does it have there?

[SPEAKER_03]: What sort of value does it have there?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, for me growing up, there was no such thing as Church history in my church.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I didn't even know that was really a thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I knew that there was John the Baptist.

[SPEAKER_03]: I knew that there was Moses, but I honestly genuinely did not know anyone.

[SPEAKER_03]: between Jesus, the Apostle Paul, a Billy Graham.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was sort of the trajectory.

[SPEAKER_03]: Theologically speaking, did not know a single thing about the medieval church until right before I started seminary.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was listening to lectures online because I became a nerd at that point and was fascinated by all this stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, even going into seminary, I'm like, I don't know who these orphanatius never heard of them.

[SPEAKER_03]: I never heard of the [SPEAKER_03]: Honestly, the only thing I knew about John Calvin was that he was a Calvinist and Calvinist for bad and so like no context whatsoever for me now we have Stephen your early church guy john you you you you love early church history medieval theology and Baptist especially I know and so those are your specialties forget everybody else hunter you said you don't go past the civil war so this is perfect for John I'm getting a little more [SPEAKER_03]: I'm giving it down a hard time, but we do have high-powered church history here.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know where you guys want to sort of start on thinking through church history in the church, but I'll let either of you sort of take the microphone and lead which ever direction you would like.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'll start off with just a jump in to your comment as well.

[SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in a Southern Baptist church and had absolutely no idea that there were Christians before my pastor.

[SPEAKER_02]: And not even an idea that they were there, not a kind of relevance or consequence to my life.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I can still remember recently I've been thinking about it, reflecting on it, and right around the time when I was graduating and going to seminary.

[SPEAKER_02]: There were a variety of movements that were sort of emerging.

[SPEAKER_02]: One was the emerging church movement.

[SPEAKER_02]: There was sort of gaining traction in the early 2000s.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then there was also the young restless and reform movement.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was sort of sort of emerging.

[SPEAKER_02]: And each of these were trying to do churches.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were interested in churches.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can remember in my emerging church.

[SPEAKER_02]: I went to one that was in the Dallas area, and in the back of the room they had all of these like sort of ritual kinds of practices that were sort of Anglican liturgy light.

[SPEAKER_02]: You had like a bowl of sand that you would you would go and like write your sins in or something like that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Very very sorts of things that were trying to do history in a sort of six point so much about you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, suddenly it all makes sense.

[SPEAKER_02]: It all makes sense.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: But then you had to get a rest of some reform movement that we're often going back to the 16th century and reading kelvin and in the midst of that, when I was in seminary, I started reading the fathers that I can remember reading our NAS, I can remember reading the nation, I can remember reading the gust and then I thought, you know, look, I don't know a lot about just about anything.

[SPEAKER_02]: But these guys seem to have some things to say that I find interesting and helpful.

[SPEAKER_02]: Amid these competing streams of evangelicalism that are kind of emerging and bubbling as we're trying to make our way through the wild early 2000s and all the changes that are happening.

[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, church history became, you know, it has, it has lots of functions, but in particular, just on the personal note to what you said, there was a way that it served to anchor provide a source of authority that was beyond mere experience, and beyond some of the, kind of the things I was experiencing in those various moments.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll jump in with regard to church history and the ministry of the local church.

[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up, I didn't grow up in church.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was not a Christian when I was growing up.

[SPEAKER_01]: My grandparents were believers.

[SPEAKER_01]: They went to Presbyterian church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I went to church, I went with them to their church.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a very strange church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Going to church was weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: The preacher wore a robe.

[SPEAKER_01]: And his name was Dr.

Chilton Thorington.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we called him Dr.

Thor at ten.

[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, that's my grandparents call him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't call him anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I called him Sir.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he was someone you did not trifle with.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he was a serious person.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they had an organ that would play, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: And [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't allowed to fidget or draw or anything if I did.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would incur the wrath of my grandfather.

[SPEAKER_01]: The strange thing about that service was when he would get up to preach, all the lights would turn off in the sanctuary.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess that's what they called it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was an old style, you know, Presbyterian church, dark wood.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had a couple of small windows, but it was dark wood, a dark [SPEAKER_01]: room and then the lights would all turn down.

[SPEAKER_01]: There'd be one little light shining on him when he would preach.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's the kind of vibe as the kids say that the church had.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I always knew that church was about to be over when the lights would all turn on because that was he was about to be done.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, yes, you know, finally it could be like the over.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I became a Christian [SPEAKER_01]: I was interested in history.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was a history manager, but I didn't really, I just thought of history is being totally separated in food church because in church we didn't talk about history.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody, nobody talked about anybody in the past.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was all Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's great, but we didn't talk about history.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now I got interested in church history.

[SPEAKER_01]: particularly with relevance to the ministry's local church by asking myself when I was a young seminary student and youth pastor and so forth, how did we get to the place we are now?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like why do we do the things that we do?

[SPEAKER_01]: So what when I was a young man, we were fighting the worship wars, you know, hymns versus choruses.

[SPEAKER_01]: contemporary service versus the traditional service and I am a traditionalist I don't like contemporary music and I when I say contemporary music I say anything after the first great awakening is contemporary music.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, why are we making this switch?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we going to shine Jesus' shine and hand motions in church when just a year ago we had an organ we were singing hymns.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we're the organs gone and we're doing hand motions and we're taking all our cues from purpose driven church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like why is that?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why do we think the way that we do?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why did Rick Warren say the fruit of a Christian is another Christian?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I always thought, you know, the fruit of a Christian is the fruit of the spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he said, the fruit of a Christian is another Christian.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're not winning people at Christ, then something's wrong with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the church hasn't always thought that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why do we think that now?

[SPEAKER_01]: And why is that accepted so enthusiastically?

[SPEAKER_01]: And so readily?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why do people have such a...

[SPEAKER_01]: Like over the top enthusiasm for getting rid of the organ in the church.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that?

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what got me interested in history.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not so much, you know, reading the fathers or reading the reformers or reading theology.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was more trying to connect the dots about how we got to work.

[SPEAKER_03]: So now I know that you're an old light.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm an old light.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: A new light.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So both of you, I mean, Hunter is your story similar to what they're suggesting here, or did you actually have sort of historical grounding in your church context?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I don't know what these guys were talking about.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've always, I've always, [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't think I would say it was like it was being taught like I understood church history, but it was it was not as arid wasteland is is what many have come up with, you know, I had a general idea of the reformation and the figures of the reformation in particular and and and and and and in some of those kind of things [SPEAKER_00]: coming through.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously when I was going into seminary and in stuff my knowledge grew and I felt like I had a decent understanding of of the history of the church, but not nothing too crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think naturally all of us think that yes, we should have more church history in our churches, but like is that necessary.

[SPEAKER_03]: What does that actually look like?

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, does this have to color the Sunday morning preaching?

[SPEAKER_03]: Are these additional classes that you're offering?

[SPEAKER_03]: Are these simply like one-on-one discipleship opportunities?

[SPEAKER_03]: Are these, hey, you need to go to seminary?

[SPEAKER_03]: What does that look like?

[SPEAKER_03]: in actual practice for the church to care about history, because I think we all would just naturally say, yes, it matters and we need more of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: But what does that look like?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'll say, I think every example you just gave demonstrates a church needs to include history.

[SPEAKER_02]: in every facet of its ministry for a whole variety of reasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, each one of us are stories, you know, you appeal to church history for a variety of reasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: So of course, church history answers or helps you answer questions about your sense of identity, your place and the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: So your people need to hear that because it provides them.

[SPEAKER_02]: It situates them within an narrative, and that on a map as itself, either in preaching, or in some type of classes that you take.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it also needs to be organically from the pastor or the leader.

[SPEAKER_02]: They need to use names like a gustin or Luther, or [SPEAKER_02]: a Calvin or whatever.

[SPEAKER_02]: They need to, those names need to be sort of the, the fervent, you know, needs to populate their, their language.

[SPEAKER_02]: And their people should be familiar with the great heroes of the faith that have walked faithfully before them and important contributions that they've made.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it also, I mean, it doesn't run your reasons, like it helps.

[SPEAKER_02]: I know in times I've taught in church, it helps from extremes or from errors.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you, you know, and it's not like you need to sit up and give a history lesson.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're approach, if you're preaching, you're approaching a point in the text.

[SPEAKER_02]: where a doctor of God issue comes up?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, immediately you can sort of bring in voices from the tradition that have answered questions about this kind of attacks.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it needs on some level to sort of organically filter into the regular habits, the regular practices to church, because tradition does serve as a source of authority, a source of help in certain issues that all of your people are facing.

[SPEAKER_03]: John, before you answer, what you just said there at the end, Steve, and I'm interested in both of your thoughts on sort of the nature of authority of history and tradition as it relates to thinking about Scripture.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think Protestants often times have an uneasy relationship to the idea of authority being vested in something other than the Bible and some sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, is there, how would you walk me through thinking about [SPEAKER_03]: if we're going to use the word authority, what does it actually mean for a historical text or historical figure to have authority alongside the Bible?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have any answer to that?

[SPEAKER_03]: You ask and make?

[SPEAKER_03]: I would love to hear both of you as you describe it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll pitch in and then Stephen and Hunter Yuckin clean up the mess that I'm about to make.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so the Bible is our authority in terms of faith and practice, and in terms of faith and practice, it is the soul authority in faith and practice.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're Baptists, we're Protestants.

[SPEAKER_01]: we don't hold to a ministerial authority, other than the Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: But having said that, tradition does come alongside the scriptures as a prescription, as a guide.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I use the word prescription, it's not loud word, it's a word used by a Russell Kirk.

[SPEAKER_01]: He talks about tradition in terms of prescription or prescriptive authority.

[SPEAKER_01]: Prescriptive authority is, is, uh, that which is handed down by those who have, uh, gone before us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're, we're all Baptist, we're all Baptist, not because we were told by the Apostle Paul.

[SPEAKER_01]: We needed to be Baptist.

[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't told, we weren't instructed by scripture, be a Baptist.

[SPEAKER_01]: we are Baptists through tradition, through prescription from those that went before us, our family members, our parents, grandparents, and then also the friends that we've had along the way that have been important in our sanctification and our development.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was evangelized in college.

[SPEAKER_01]: The guy that led me to the Lord was a Baptist.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, you know, I didn't get converted and then go to an Episcopalian church.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I received something from somebody that had gone before me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's all of our story.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we believe, we believe in that's why we are the people that we are.

[SPEAKER_01]: How do we know what is right, what is true, what is good, what is honorable, is Paul tells us talks about it in Philippians 4.

[SPEAKER_01]: But we also know through the prescription of tradition.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know the good, through both of those sources.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we do judge tradition, we do scrutinized tradition, through the Bible, the Bible judges.

[SPEAKER_01]: a prescriptive tradition.

[SPEAKER_01]: But nevertheless tradition is a guide.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like one other thing I'll say about it is that think about like guardrails or think about like a stop sign or a traffic light.

[SPEAKER_01]: A tradition is [SPEAKER_01]: It's a it's a guiding principle for us in the same way that guardrails or traffic signs or traffic lights are for for driving around town.

[SPEAKER_01]: What would you say, Steven?

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, it's hard to build on that because, uh, because I think Dr.

Willsey has, uh, has articulated.

[SPEAKER_02]: Um, oh, oh, add that.

[SPEAKER_02]: It does seem like, for example, Scripture has, I like the way Jonathan Leeman's book on authority, kind of moves in an unpacked and explains the role of authority in a Christian's life.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he talks about how Scripture has fully invested many institutions with authority.

[SPEAKER_02]: Authority, I'm just building on what Dr.

Wilson gave.

[SPEAKER_02]: Authority has a certain role in the Christian's life.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's scripture has prescribed authority to family authority to government authority to a whole host of things.

[SPEAKER_02]: That scripture itself is guiding and scripture is the right to rule over those particular areas, but has invested those areas of certain authorities.

[SPEAKER_02]: But of course, with every authority, those authorities can be used for nefarious purposes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a struggle with those who are invested with some right and authority from Scripture to abuse and to distort and to not utilize their place in a way that leads to the good, the good-life flourishing, all those kinds of buzzwords that are used.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is in my mind, a classic struggle between power and a force, just because you have the right to rule does not mean you always use that power or exert that power in virtuous ways.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the tradition [SPEAKER_02]: You can demonstrate from the tradition a abuse of power, a abuse of authority constantly and over and over and over again.

[SPEAKER_02]: And in the scripture is the only source.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is the only revelation given to us that is always rules right, that always judges right, that is always true, that is always right, and that is always good.

[SPEAKER_02]: So those are some of the ways I think about it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Scripture is helpful for all the ways Dr.

Wells he just described as guardrails.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's helped us adjudicate, understand his of God, Christ, the spirit of sanctification, justification, all this kind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I have sitting on my desk right here.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is, I'm reading through Augustine's commentary on John.

[SPEAKER_01]: Look at you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sitting right here on my desk.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I had, I'm reading through it myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I had my class, we read together the first, [SPEAKER_01]: the first tract aid in his commentary.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I said to the students, as we were talking about it, Augustine's commentary on John, it's not, is not scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what this commentary does is that it, it sheds light on scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I, if I may just read an example of this, what he does at the very beginning, he uses, [SPEAKER_01]: as a, as a sort of a reference point for understanding, John 1, 1, 3, 3.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he'll say, you know, talking about Psalm 21, I looked at my eyes and the hills, where does my help come from?

[SPEAKER_01]: My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is something that he says.

[SPEAKER_01]: When the Psalm enumerated all these things, it finished us.

[SPEAKER_01]: He spoke and they were made.

[SPEAKER_01]: He commanded and they were created.

[SPEAKER_01]: If he spoke and they were made, he was by the word.

[SPEAKER_01]: that they were made.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if it was by the Word, they were made.

[SPEAKER_01]: The heart of John could not reach to that which he says in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

[SPEAKER_01]: Unless he had risen above all things that were made by the Word, what a mountain is this, how holy, how high among those mountains that received peace for the people of God, that the hills might receive righteousness.

[SPEAKER_01]: So what he's saying in there is that John is like a mountain, John is a mountain, and we lift up our eyes to the apostles to John.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we ask, where does our help come from?

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't come from John, it doesn't come from the mountains.

[SPEAKER_01]: It comes from the Lord who inspired John, and so he takes a scripture in Psalm 21.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he uses it as a metaphor to talk about the role of the apostle.

[SPEAKER_01]: All to the glory of God, this means not writing Scripture, but he is shedding light on our understanding of Scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the fact that this is 1,700 years old means that somehow some way the Holy Spirit in his power and his wisdom preserved this for us and for our use, and over the generations we've received it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And no, it doesn't take the place of scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it doesn't rise to the level of scripture.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it does have incredible value to us and to ignore it is to our own heart and our own detriment.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think just as we think about tradition and the local church, just to be reminded that I think the Bible, [SPEAKER_00]: commands us to utilize tradition in our ministry, liturgy, and our apologetics.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Paul says, and first Corinthians, that they maintain the traditions, that he's delivered to them.

[SPEAKER_00]: He tells Timothy and second Timothy one to follow the pattern of sound words.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not talking about to follow scripture, but he's talking about the proper interpretation of scripture.

[SPEAKER_00]: We test the spirits as first John says and we do so as Paul says in Romans 12 by the analogy of faith So the rule of faith but the measure of faith the proper like the faith when we answer the question You know that what is a Christian?

[SPEAKER_00]: Jude tells us to defend the faith once and for all deliver to the saints, you know [SPEAKER_00]: Timothy made a confession at his baptism, which would have been something close to or preliminary form of the Apostle's Creed.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like the Bible commands us to have this type of response.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even when you think about pastoral ministry, God gives us teachers and preachers, [SPEAKER_00]: who teach the word and expound it rightly divided.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that forms the basis of tradition moving forward.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're to steam those who labor among us very highly and love is first.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's one of these five says.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like if we're want to be biblical, we have to have a category.

[SPEAKER_00]: four tradition in our ministry and and I think that's just a thing that needs to be reiterated because we don't we don't you know I think an orthodox I'm early church guy so like I don't describe two boweres thesis that heresy came first and orthodoxy came second I think there was a a patterned orthodoxy handed down from Christ to the apostles to the church and the heretics departed from that so I don't there's a bunch of varieties in boweres thesis isn't as popular [SPEAKER_00]: And so, like, I think when we, if we [SPEAKER_00]: to say that the New Testament doesn't expect a conservative posture towards tradition, then we got already conceived significant ground to those who seek to oppose us and undermine the faith once and for all over to the saints that we're seeing on academic levels, like Elaine Peggels and who are still very popular in different things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think, Biblically, there's a mandate for us to engage in tradition appropriately in our ministry [SPEAKER_00]: and the way we, you know, baptize people and the way we defend the faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think those are kind of the key uses of it.

[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I find really fascinating part of this whole conversation to you, and it came up in Dr.

Wilson's use of Augustine and Hunters.

[SPEAKER_02]: description of the biblical text.

[SPEAKER_02]: What I find in the pre-modern tradition, I think this is true all the way from Polycar to the Puritans, is they are thinking about life through the scriptures.

[SPEAKER_02]: Scriptures are just invading their conversations.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so you're thinking about even tradition, you're thinking about everything, [SPEAKER_02]: through the scriptures, and it never ceases to amaze me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Whether you read a gusten, whether you read our anass, whether you read Calvin, how much scripture they knew, they were quoting, they were thinking in the logic of the biblical text.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were thinking in the logic of scripture.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they were, the scriptures were orienting their thinking.

[SPEAKER_02]: So even their reflections upon whatever issue we face in the tradition, I find people making argument for tradition today if they make it are often not steeped in scripture, even in the way those traditions are, or even thinking through critical issues that we're facing.

[SPEAKER_02]: through the patterns of Scripture and the arguments of Scripture and the teachings of Scripture.

[SPEAKER_02]: Scripture is constant.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I did my doctoral work on Iron A's and the whole project was his rating of Genesis what a three and I was just absolutely amazed.

[SPEAKER_02]: I can still remember in my little study Carol and in San Andrews, I couldn't, I couldn't even quote all the Bible verses that he was calling to [SPEAKER_02]: And it is to my detriment that I do not know the scriptures, like all of those in the early tradition, all of those in the reformation or even soaked in in the way the Puritans.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, an actual question when you sort of work this out.

[SPEAKER_03]: When it comes to various watershed historical moments, whether that's a nice and creed, Macedonian definition, can we depart from those?

[SPEAKER_03]: because I think there's people who get uneasy about this because they think, well, if you say that that's a rock that can't be moved and it's absolutely correct and you are somehow equating it to scripture and attributing it to a level of authority that the Bible has alone.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so how do we appropriately think about things like that?

[SPEAKER_03]: And besides, say the ecumenical creeds, Athenation creeds, et cetera, are there any other later historical developments that you would say we need to pay more attention to these?

[SPEAKER_03]: It seems like Protestants have spent a lot of time recently carrying about the ecumenical creeds, but what else have we been missing over the last several decades to say we need to return and spend some more time here?

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's two questions in one.

[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe use you decide you want to take the softball one and not the other one.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll either of you jump in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll jump in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think one way we can answer the question both questions is what are the consequences if we have something like an idea like no Creed but the Bible?

[SPEAKER_01]: What has no Creed but the Bible got to us?

[SPEAKER_01]: What have we gained from that?

[SPEAKER_01]: What have we received from that kind of an added?

[SPEAKER_01]: That kind of anti-intellectual, anti-historical, overly piotistic viewpoint.

[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, that's not a realistic rule to live by.

[SPEAKER_01]: None of us live by that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all wake up and get our coffee and we turn, for example, we open up, open up our device and start looking at the newspaper or we start looking at social media or I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just an example that none of us live by the rule.

[SPEAKER_01]: No creed, but the Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: We live by the Bible, the holiest of us.

[SPEAKER_01]: live by the Bible and also live by a whole host of other ideas too.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody has to go to the grocery store and live by rules that are set up by the laws of our society and by custom and tradition.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't cut in front of the person.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the checkout line, even if you intend on paying for your groceries and following the law, you still are going to be nice and courteous to people that you meet.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's a million different rules that we follow.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just not, it's not a realistic way to to live.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's overly pious and unrealistic.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it gives people a chance to lord their self-righteous attitudes over others when they proclaim such things.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's one.

[SPEAKER_01]: example of what that got us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that it got us is an over-emphasis on external expressions of piety, which is a classic theme that Jonathan Edwards harped on in his religious affections.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this gets us, gets me back to, you know, how do we get to where we are?

[SPEAKER_01]: Romanticism in America has shaped our worldview in ways that we just don't, we just have no idea that it's feelings and sentimentality or true tests or or test for truth, that individualism is absolute.

[SPEAKER_01]: So whenever we hear somebody say, well, I don't have a problem with Christ, I just have a problem with his followers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's a totally sentimentalist type or individualist way to think.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can't be a Christian if you have that view.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be a Christian, according to the Apostle John.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't be a Christian if you have that view, and yet that view is held by, in general, by the culture, and a lot of people who say their Christians hold that view.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say that, you know, having an A historical for disposition on reality yields such bad thinking.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so can we let these things go, the creeds, the nice and creed?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, we can't let that go.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can't let that go.

[SPEAKER_01]: We can let that go as much as we can let scripture go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Which is we can't.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think about biblical texts like, [SPEAKER_02]: me if you look like Psalm 78, Psalm 105, one of six, but essentially tell Israel's history from creation until very sports.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you can walk through, scripture is always kind of remembering its story, remembering its past.

[SPEAKER_02]: One of my favorite spots is by the time you get to the New Testament, Hebrews 11, the Great Hall of Faith, Hebrews 12, then moves into the [SPEAKER_02]: discipline.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then at the end of Hebrews 12, it mentions the coming kingdom.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hebrews 11 and 12 traces this whole story of creation through the birth of Israel, through the coming of Christ, and then anticipates a kingdom.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it situates the church and the midst of this broader story.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like you can't, you can't then exercise as John is saying, you can't exercise yourself out of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: you're part of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: You are part of that story.

[SPEAKER_02]: That story is not like part of you.

[SPEAKER_02]: So coming.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is what a guest and does in the beginning of on on the catacizing of the uninstructed when he says the first thing you do with the catacuman is you tell them the story of the Bible and as guest and says on to the present day you include what God had been doing in the church as kind of this narrative of scripture.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now we will know doubt as the tradition has unfolded [SPEAKER_02]: And everyone is going to pick and choose continuity and discontinuity with the end of the tradition.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is going to choose.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is going to choose certain authors, whether they'd be great or Latin.

[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is going to choose certain heroes where all going to make decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: And those decisions aren't always bad, but you've got to make decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you've got to do so with a Bible in front of you and contemplating [SPEAKER_02]: How do I now then live this story, according to what the posses have proclaimed as I'm waiting for Christ to come again in glory?

[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a living with death.

[SPEAKER_02]: And those are decisions that in choices that we have to make as we look at the various authorities and sources of truth that are around us and take into a stock of the complexity of those things as we trouble it, faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I agree and I think like it sometimes talking about the some of the later ones can make it a little bit more clear when you start talking about the earlier ones You know, you think about the five solas of the reformation if someone denies celafide a then they're not Protestant like I don't have a problem Say in that you know if they did not deny celafide, they're just not a Protestant [SPEAKER_00]: and you go back earlier to like nice sea up and I know like night you know let's take the filialqueous side and and think about it.

[SPEAKER_00]: If people have an issue with nice sea of what's the issue with it and and I would say if you just deny nice sea outright I have no problem and I have said this at my church you're not a Christian you know these doctrines here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you want to cash out eternal generation differently like when grudem has in the past he's still doing so in the spirit of nice sea and that's how I kind of make categories for people like him who [SPEAKER_00]: may differ on a particular point and reject a framing of it, even though he's submitting in his mind to the spirit of the ICN Creed, he's still trying to operate giving him the best benefit of the doubt, where they posture up, I want to stand in continuity with this doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to stand in discontinuity with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And same with one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, like different traditions you're going to cash out out differently.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, I think it's one thing to try to maintain the substance with the spirit, you know, the big doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you did not want God, you're not a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not a God as the Creator, you're not a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not a incarnation, you're not a Christian.

[SPEAKER_00]: If, you know, what are you getting at when you, you know, if you're denying the equality of the son to the father, you're not a Christian, you're an area, or a semi-arion.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and I think there's some people who struggle with eternal generation and other things like that need to [SPEAKER_00]: And they have gone for other options.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to examine the fruit of that ministry and kind of ask, is this producing orthodox materials or is this producing functionally semi-arrients?

[SPEAKER_00]: And think, is this actually a best case scenario?

[SPEAKER_00]: So like, I don't have a problem saying, [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, this is a good articulation of the Christian faith like with something like nice to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that this is not only been affirmed by for 17 hundred years, but by generally every tradition of the faith, you know, with some exceptions of like, like, if you though, the filiocoy and they get two different divergence there, but I don't have a problem saying that because I think, but again, and this gets that to kind of I think what's even was articulating earlier.

[SPEAKER_00]: NICA isn't the foundation for NICA and doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: The scriptures as the foundation for NICA and doctrine.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're trying to, if you think, oh, we need to have better communication of NICA, that's what we need to do to save our church.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we probably do need to highlight the nice and clean more often.

[SPEAKER_00]: I do, and my discipleship teaching ministries are quoted often.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually how I frame the articulation of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: I use that second article to kind of frame how I articulate the work of Christ in my preaching.

[SPEAKER_00]: but really what we need is better exposition of the scriptures so that people see the nice and doctrine as we're executing the text and and they see what the early church saw which is that the nice and creed is the proper outgrowth of of good biblical exegesis and i think that's that's important that we we do what they did not just affirm [SPEAKER_00]: what they affirm that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: So for churches that have currently very little historical components and maybe they have a new pastor or some or a pastor who's discovered this and says, hey, I want to incorporate [SPEAKER_03]: more historical elements, where would you suggest they begin?

[SPEAKER_03]: I know Steven you said it needs to pervade the entirety of the life of the church, but if there's nothing there, what's the best sort of like entry way to say, this is going to help and then we can slowly sort of add on the additional pieces as we grow in these things?

[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'll I'll say just some things I have done that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then I would be glad for others to build on it because it's it is that point I do think the pastor or your leader or if you're, you know, if you're an elder or you're teaching somebody school, you need to model for them sort of the way to do some of these things.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm on the first level, I don't think just, I mean, obviously, I think I think Hunter is absolutely right when he said, [SPEAKER_02]: This, you know, these things have to provide the way you talk, but I don't think it's bad to include stories to talk about, let's say, something like what Luther did in the reformation as an example in a service just so your people become acquainted with these things.

[SPEAKER_02]: They just become, it becomes acquainted with great theologians of the church and their contribution.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, you don't need to make every sermon a history lesson or every Bible study at history lesson, but I think including history regularly as a point to just continue a quite your people.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think obviously teaching a class on church history, it will seem foreign that your people will stare at you when you say, but when when you teach it and they see the value of it, they will suddenly say like, [SPEAKER_02]: This is helpful and this is good for all the reasons we've said.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, obviously, I think you need to model it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then also in your own personal study, I think studying the history of the Christian tradition is edifying, listening to the great struggles, the intellectual and struggles with scripture throughout the tradition.

[SPEAKER_02]: So, I think reading [SPEAKER_02]: a balanced reading, a, an encountering a balance of early church medieval reformation post-reformation Puritan theologians.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think reading a balanced diet of all of that is, is what is, is a good practice as a, as a, as a pastor as Melter as a little personally.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was part of a church years ago in rural Virginia.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was founded in 1773.

[SPEAKER_01]: one of the aspects of the origin story that church, which was sort of, you know, cherished by those people at that little church, was that it's first pastor, whose name was John Waller, was thrown into prison for preaching without a license in 1773-1774.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a, there was a painting in the fellowship hall that depicted John Waller preaching from his jail cell to a gathered group of people they were standing there outside the jail while he's out there preaching, because he had been arrested for preaching without a license.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he had been persecuted pretty, pretty severely when he would preach, he would stretch his arms out through the bars.

[SPEAKER_01]: And people would come alongside and grab his arms and slice his arms up with knives.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they would urinate on him, or they would throw Kalman here in his face.

[SPEAKER_01]: while he's trying to preach the gospel.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was also horse-wit when he was baptizing.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was baptizing people on the court square and bowling green, the county seat, and uprode the sheriff and the parish priest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't remember who the parish priest or the sheriff that took a horse-wit.

[SPEAKER_01]: to John Waller, but before they whipped him, they held him down, and they put the whip in his mouth, and yanks the whip across his mouth, and then they whipped him, and then they dumped him in the water, and held him under, you know, and said, do you believe?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do you believe?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, things like that to mock him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so, all of those stories were all part of that church's heritage.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you know, how they started off.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that's a little bit of a unique kind of situation because of the age of the church, and it sort of has this, you know, really auspicious beginning, but every church has a history, every local congregation has a history.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think Steven is absolutely right.

[SPEAKER_01]: You start off by telling stories and talk about these people in the face, but you can also turn to your own church's life.

[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's a new church, a new church plant, but think about if you're a pastor of, and you're doing a revitalization project.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, one of the things that you can do to kind of win some allies to your side is to tell the story of your of the church from from years past and kind of stir up that history again and say this is this is who we we've always been so that's that's one way to incorporate church history is to tell the story of that local congregation and incorporate and situate that local congregation in the life of the of the universal church could.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hunter, do you have any additional thoughts on that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that's the way I've done it is I have taught church history and Wednesday night of starting in the early church going all the way like, you know, we joke, but through the civil war, I've done expositions of the nice and creed, but using it to teach nice and doctrine on a Wednesday night, I incorporate quotes in my sermons.

[SPEAKER_00]: We use PowerPoint, so for those of you who are like super reform, you think I'm violating the regular principle of worship, but [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I'm doing so and I put their pictures up.

[SPEAKER_00]: I put the quote up and always in the handout we have always put when they were born and died or when they died if I don't know when they were born so that people can visually be reinforced of when these people were the church history.

[SPEAKER_00]: Be honest.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you make icons out of them too?

[SPEAKER_00]: I try to avoid the icon art if I can.

[SPEAKER_00]: If I can't, I use it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I refuse to use the most popular picture of just a martyr out there because I think it's horrible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I do use the icon one of just a martyr.

[SPEAKER_00]: But.

[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, and so I use that to visually reinforce people that hey, this faith that we hold has also been the faith has been held throughout the generations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, why I do think it's overblown before.

[SPEAKER_00]: In some regards, like the move from evangelical churches in orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism, I do want to be faithful to show the young people at our church that they are apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even as a Southern Baptist, they are a part of a tradition that confesses a faith that goes to the fathers, that goes through the reformation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even if we, you know, with the reformation in particular, like we differ, [SPEAKER_00]: in our church governance, then Calvin Luther in Zwingley and them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and then I do teach Baptist history.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, and I think that's, there's an important, just highlighting your confession, you know, for us is the BFM 2000, just in our context.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we highlight that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're on a shame about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we say this is what we're going to teach an accordance with.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then just kind of point out that like, hey, everyone else has a confession to you, whether they articulate it, or they don't like, they're going to, [SPEAKER_00]: they're going to teach you court and something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so this helps us to be clear.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for you to know what you're getting into, if you're going to come to church here.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of the ways it would do it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like Steve has said, it incorporates every aspect of our ministry and some degree, personal discipleship, our membership courses.

[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about our posture to create and confessions in those kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't have to be a ton.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't recite the Nicene Creed every week, every month ever, but it is our church has heard the Nicene Creed and has been taught at different times.

[SPEAKER_03]: So our time has gone by very quickly.

[SPEAKER_03]: So two things, one, if you're listening and you think we should have addressed other questions, send them to us and we will talk about them next time, we're together.

[SPEAKER_03]: The other question I have is, if you're gonna rank certain subject disciplines outside of basic exegesis as like you need to do this as a minister, where would you rank historical work alongside other things like philosophy [SPEAKER_03]: external add-on disciplines like how important is history is it like hey that's the number one thing you need to be investing yourself in now or is it like look guys you know as much as I want to write could I can't do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know, and some of the stuff is going to, you know, if you're reading some historical sources, you're probably going to get all the sort of like pieces together at once.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I just want to put that question out there to see what you guys would say in 60 seconds or less.

[SPEAKER_03]: You go first, Stevie.

[SPEAKER_03]: What am I?

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm ranking, which is like, like, like, [SPEAKER_03]: You're a busy pastor.

[SPEAKER_03]: You've got books on leadership.

[SPEAKER_02]: You've got books on like hey I've got it like I don't have Yeah, and I counten at my church like I've got to figure this out like where do I put this on the importance right then the thing about the thing about studying history Is the reason the reason it's tough to rank is it is the synthesis of every discipline you just described You can't study the fathers without knowing philosophy without knowing Bible without knowing theology without knowing doctor [SPEAKER_02]: So I will say, you know, yeah, okay, read some books on leadership.

[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe those are, those are health of those support.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, also look at, you know, one of the things I'm often set around on red, Luther's letters of spiritual counsel.

[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what's so wonderful about reading that is you actually see the doctor justification by grace that faith takes on form in ministry as Luther is sort of reconfiguring his whole life.

[SPEAKER_02]: in light of that, that doctorate, and you actually see it, take off flesh, or, you know, Augustine Sermons, or what, I mean, what I love about history is it's the synthesis of everything you just described.

[SPEAKER_02]: You do need to know your context and your culture.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think John's emphasis on that was particularly good, like know your people, know your setting, know the times in which you live.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just building out what Stephen said, history is concrete reality.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the experience of those who've gone before us.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we can talk about doctrines, and we can talk about philosophy in something more like abstract terms.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you look at the lives of the people of the past who have lived their faith and applied their faith to, you know, the real world.

[SPEAKER_01]: that gives a window into the truth of the gossip in a particular wife and a particular context.

[SPEAKER_01]: That these things that we're learning in the Bible and these things that we're learning from theology and philosophy, you're not just ideas.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're expressed and they have real-life consequences.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in the lives of the people that had done before, the people that we look up to and that are great saints, but also in people who were enemies of the church, we can see, we can see the truth of the gospel demonstrated in their lives too, although in negative ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all that to say that, with Stephen just said, the synthesis of everything, history is the concrete reality that we read about.

[SPEAKER_01]: in textbooks, you know, love it in abstract ways.

[SPEAKER_03]: I need you guys just to wax on eloquently about history for another hour and that would be a very delightful experience to learn.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I appreciate you guys joining us as always.

[SPEAKER_03]: You guys help us to think well about topics.

[SPEAKER_03]: You sort of [SPEAKER_03]: exemplify the collegiality that we've discussed in the past, a care for students lives, a care for the church, and for Christ.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we thank you for your continued service, even in just a small little podcast experience.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think a lot of people benefit from it and are encouraged by it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So thank you for doing that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And for everybody's been listening, we appreciate you tuning in to the only analytic Baptist Confessional podcast on the planet.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll talk to you guys soon.