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Is there a chance that Paul is not talking about the Old Testament "law" in Romans (1-8)? Must our giving be to a local church or ministry? Is there freedom to work that out a different way? I've seen biblical evidence the Earth is flat. What are your thoughts?
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And, here's a little bit about it.
That's cheap grace.
That's hyper-grace.
That's greasy grace.
Have you heard those accusations?
Well, first, there's nothing cheap about God's grace.
After all, it costs Jesus everything.
It costs Him His life.
Then, God's grace is free to you and me.
So, cheap grace, I don't think so.
And, hyper-grace?
Well, I got to admit, God's grace does make me hyper a lot
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Plus, oh my goodness.
The prefix hyper is all over the New Testament
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All right, as I said, we're going to Texas
for our first call.
Let's talk with Samuel.
Hi, Samuel.
Hello, Andrew.
First, I just wanted to mention,
you know, get on that bandwagon, you know, you hear it daily.
We're so grateful that, you know,
you've helped us come to understand that it's not us.
We don't have to major up.
And being good enough is just not good enough, you know,
and at price.
When he paid the ultimate sacrifice
with death burial and resurrection,
if it depended on us, then he did it for nothing.
And if it depended on me majoring up
or it depended on my extra credit, again,
did it for nothing and he helped us realize
that it's Jesus, yes, like you say, plus nothing.
It's great, great and liberating.
So my question, I had read an article
about Paul's use of the word law in the Romans
and that the majority of the time,
or a great portion of the time, he omits
and doesn't have the definite article D in front of law.
So he says works of law.
And the author was making the illusion
or they making a stretch that when Paul says law works of law,
he's not referring to an English A clause
he's referring to works of law in general.
So I just kind of threw me and I know you said
that a number of occasions on life cast that, you know,
the scribes would add maybe a phrase or something
or they wanted to maybe bolster a theological view.
So they put in an extra line where they sometimes,
I guess, even omit something and insert another word
to chase the meeting.
So your comments on false use of the word law.
Yeah, okay, yeah, I hear you, Samuel.
Well, first of all, hey, thank you for joining the bandwagon,
as you said, that's a bandwagon of encouragement,
which I need.
I need every day, every week, I'm a human being.
So thanks for that encouragement.
I really appreciate you taking the time.
As far as this claim that you heard,
that is not going to be a reliable indicator
of what Paul is talking about.
The presence or absence of a definite article,
the is not going to be reliable.
The bottom line is we have this word nomos in the Greek
and Paul uses it a whole lot to refer to the mosaic law.
You know, sometimes those arguments,
they stem from people that are trying to look for anything
to wiggle out of our freedom from the law,
to wiggle away from us being not under the law.
And so I've heard various arguments over the years,
but here's the problem with that.
You can argue to your blue in the face
about a definite article or an indefinite article
or no article, you can try to get as grammatical as you want.
But look, I love language.
I've got a PhD in linguistics.
This is my thing.
I gotta tell you, there's no wiggle room
when you go to second Corinthians three
and he defines law.
He says it was written on stone.
And then he says it's a ministry of condemnation and death
and that Jesus brought a greater ministry,
a ministry of the spirit, a ministry of grace,
the new covenant.
So he compares the old covenant with the new covenant
and he says the ministry of the old covenant was engraved.
Now notice that word and talk about words.
Let's notice those words in second Corinthians three,
ministry that is engraved in letters on stone.
Well, that can only refer to the 10 commandments.
So Paul literally with loads of evidence
in second Corinthians three calls the 10 commandments
a ministry of condemnation and death
and then he says there's a greater ministry
which is basically trusting Jesus.
Trusting Jesus with your lying problem.
And you got a coveting problem, trust Jesus.
You got a stealing problem, don't trust Moses.
Trust Jesus.
So this whole thing, you know, this whole idea
that there's gonna be this gotcha moment
with some argument about a definite article
and that all the scales will fall off your eyes.
The curtain will be drawn back
and suddenly we'll see, aha, Paul didn't mean freedom
from the Old Testament law.
He meant something out now, now, now.
In fact, even in Romans, right?
Romans is the book you're asking about
and even in Romans chapter seven.
Paul shows us very clearly what he's talking about.
He says that I experienced coveting of every kind.
Now what could he be referring to?
We don't have to wonder because he tells us.
He says I would not have known what sin was
if the law had not said thou shalt not covet, okay?
Well, where do you get thou shalt not covet from
from the Ten Commandments written on stone?
That's the law he's talking about.
And in that exact paragraph, in that exact context,
the Apostle Paul says, you want the solution here it is.
Apart from the law, sin is dead.
You want to stop coveting?
Get away from now, shall not covet.
You want to stop stealing?
Get away from now, shall not steal
because under the law, sin is excited.
Apart from the law, sin is dead.
What law is he talking about?
The covet law?
Where do you find thou shalt not covet
in the Ten Commandments?
So we just blew the roof off of this whole thing.
I mean, everybody can sound real scholarly
and they can sound real convincing
about a definite article, its presence, its absence
and how suddenly that changes Paul's meaning nonsense.
There's more to understanding language
than a definite article.
You got to look at the phrase level
and the sentence level and the paragraph, basically,
the context because there's going to be lexical clues
that is vocabulary clues in that context
that show you exactly what law Paul is talking about.
So it's almost like we got to stop looking at one tree
and we got to look at the forest.
And when we look at the forest of God's grace
in the Book of Romans, we see that Paul wants us
to trust Christ Jesus when we have a coveting problem.
He doesn't want us to run to tablets of stone.
He doesn't want us to run to rule keeping.
He wants us to let Christ rule in our hearts by faith.
That's what it's really about.
So Samuel, I'll put you back on and see,
does that make sense, my friend?
Well, it makes total sense.
I will add this that author had mentioned that he said,
I think his exact words were, we may sin
and it doesn't please God, but it's still incumbent
on us to obey God.
It throws in that thought of who I better obey too
because if I don't obey, if I don't obey,
then I may be put out.
Yeah, I hear you.
Well, there's no being put out.
I mean, it doesn't matter whether you me
or that guy or anybody else has an opinion on it.
It really comes back to those promises of God
that we seem to so often emphasize on this broadcast.
I'll never leave you.
I'll never forsake you.
Nobody can snatch you out of my hand.
Even when you're faithless, I remained faithful.
Nothing separates you from the love of Christ.
So there's no putting out.
Obedience is awesome.
I mean, here's the thing.
We're not anti-obedience.
I hope you're not.
I know you're not.
I know your heart.
You got a new heart.
And speaking of that new heart of yours,
Romans chapter six says, you became obedient from the heart.
And now you don't want pressure
and you don't want a guilt trip
and you don't want condemnation.
Who does?
Nobody wants to be beat over the head with condemnation.
But I'll tell you what, that beautiful new heart of yours
where Jesus lives, nothing else is
going to satisfy except obedience.
I know that word obedience for a lot of people is tough.
Oh, it sounds legalistic.
Oh, it sounds like it could get abusive or something.
That's because we've had bad human experiences
with that word.
And yet, those don't define the heart of our God.
And he has given us, get this, our new nature
is to be obedient.
He's given us an obedient heart.
You are the righteousness of God.
That means he changed your desires.
So obedience is not really just like a blind submission
to something you don't want.
No, that's not true Christian obedience.
The obedience that I'm speaking of in the book of Romans
is something that flows from the heart.
It's want to's.
And you know, we're so used to obedience
and fall down well, thou shalt witness enough.
Thou shalt read your Bible enough.
Thou shalt go to church enough.
We got all these rules.
We invented and you say the word obedience
and people freak out and they feel guilty.
But the truth is, look at the fruit of the spirit.
I mean, that's what God is doing in us.
The fruit of the spirit is not church attendance
with a star chart.
The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control,
faithfulness.
That's the fruit of the spirit.
So if that's what God's agenda is,
you know what my attitude toward that is, bring it on.
Let's do it.
Go ahead and do in and through me
what only you can do, Lord.
And I present my body to you today.
That's obedience from the heart.
It's a desire that God gave you.
He began a good work in you.
He carries it on to completion.
So nothing wrong with obedience when we understand it
properly.
In fact, it's the very desire of our heart.
Yeah, you know, you could scour the Book of Romans
and you could see Paul using the word law creatively.
He talks about the law of sin, which
is referring to the power of sin.
He talks about the law of God, which
is referring to the power of God.
But most of the stuff that you and I are talking about
on a daily basis in the Book of Romans
is about the Old Testament law.
And how we died to the law.
How can we live in it any longer?
We died to sin.
How can we live under its power any longer?
He's talking about being under the Old Testament law
and the bondage that that brought.
But now we're free.
We're free to bear fruit.
So thanks for your call tonight.
Reach out to us again any time.
Great to hear from you.
Hey, everyone.
Andrew Farley here.
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All right, let's go now to California.
We'll talk with Michael.
Hey, Michael, what you got for us tonight.
Hey, Andrew, how are you?
Good.
I had called up for the monastery last week
when we talked to somebody about giving to the church.
Yeah.
And I've heard from the past that the grace message
started thinking in and it does take a while.
Was the fact that you're given to the not just to the church
but you give them to the message.
Now the message is either set you free or not.
And the sense that we're in particular
when he heard behind the pulpit
where they call you while we're all sinners
and it goes here's things.
They don't hear the fact that our identity is in Christ
and the grace is not there.
So a lump is all in together
and I kind of cringe every time it.
Yeah, he says it's a pulpit.
Yeah.
But as far as the grace giving is concerned
and freely giving, I don't resent my life
or given what she does,
I just look at it for the fact that
I guess we're just getting locally.
I guess that's what I'm looking at.
I see.
Yeah, I hear you.
Well, here's what happens.
Okay, so people love face-to-face fellowship
and they tend to give, you know, a lot of people
tend to give right in your local environment
which is what you're describing.
And your wife is looking at things like,
well, they've got a great children's program.
They've got a program for our youth.
There's a 25-year-old young man
who's spending time with our teens
and teaching them about the Lord
or there's a whole team of Sunday school teachers
that are spending time with our kids
and investing in their lives
and they're coming home every Sunday
with a craft that they did
and a memory verse.
And so they're investing in our family
and we want to give back.
Well, I mean, you got to understand that.
That's a natural desire
to want to give back to folks
that are investing in your life.
Now, what you're encountering
is that, oh my goodness,
you could have a very well-organized church
with great programs
and lots of stuff going on
and a huge staff
and yet that 32 minutes
that you're sitting in the message
you might hear some things
that you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You know, that doesn't quite line up
with the truth of the gospel.
Whoa, I've seen different than that.
The light bulb has gone on for me.
So then you hit a crossroads.
You're like, what do I do?
Do I say something to my wife?
She loves the youth program?
Do I say something to my wife?
She loves the children's program
and she's got her eyes
on certain things
that involve mentoring
and helping children, for example.
Maybe she hasn't noticed
the discrepancies you're talking about.
It's a decent conversation
to have, it can't hurt.
But maybe the two of you
need to come to some sort of compromise
where you split it down the middle
or decide to do this and that
with different portions
of the money you want to give.
I mean, Michael, there's a joy in giving
and you need to experience that joy too
if you're a married couple.
It's not just your wife
that makes the full decision.
So I would encourage you
to just consider all of that.
Have a good, healthy conversation
with her, not something
that goes negative,
but something that expresses your desire
to support a healthy message,
whether that's a church down the street
that you got some buddies at
or any other organization,
you need to be able to give freely
from your heart
just as she's giving freely
from her heart.
That's the bottom line
and I get it.
I mean, some people have decided
you know, a message that's telling me
I still need to get more forgiveness.
I still need to get more cleansing.
I still need to get closer to God.
I still need to try to die every day.
A message that has gone that morbid root.
I just can't, I just can't abide it.
And so they decide not to give there.
Well, again, every Christian
on the planet is free.
We are free to decide
what we want to support.
It's like a scripture passage
that says it's got to be local.
There's no scripture passage.
It says it's got to be one place.
I think the average Christian gives
to somewhere between five
and eight different charities.
And that's just how generous
the believers are in the United States of America.
So take that to heart.
You've got a diversity
of a variety of decisions you can make.
You all can have a healthy conversation
about that between the two of you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Good night, Michael.
And reach out again anytime
there in California.
All right.
Well, we're almost out of time,
but we're going to make a little bit of time
for Indianapolis where Josh is.
Hi, Josh.
Hey, good.
Go for it.
Good.
Well, I was hoping that you might
be able to share a couple of passages
with me that would support the idea
that we're on a spinning ball
and I'm finding a lot of verses
that support the opposite of it.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah, I can share some of those.
So the earth is not flat.
And you're going to lose all your reputation.
I mean, imagine you got pictures
and I know you might have heard their fake,
but you got pictures
from dozens and dozens of astronauts.
You got pictures from space.
You got pictures from satellites.
You got the horizon.
When a ship goes over the horizon
and disappears,
the crazy radical truth
that airline trips
are not to secretly hiding the edge
of the earth.
I mean, come on, Josh.
You're smarter than this.
You're better than this.
I know what you've heard.
The four corners of the earth,
Isaiah 11, so what?
That's an ancient idiom
for the whole world,
north, southeast, west.
It's an ancient idiom
and an expression.
The ends of the earth,
that's another idiom used
in Deuteronomy and the Psalms.
And that just means
the farthest reaches of the planet.
You know, so I think
you can do better than that.
When you end up believing something
that literally millions of photographs
have disproven,
it hurts your credibility.
So the earth is not flat.
If it is, I'll meet you at the edge
and you can point to it.
Let's have a meeting at the edge.
Well, you know,
the flat earthers
just need to hold a convention
at the end of the earth.
And slam dunk, evidence,
evidence, exhibit A
is all they would need.
Just one photograph of the tip.
All right?
So see how ludicrous that is.
You need to stop it.
Get away from it.
It hurts your reputation.
Put your eyes on Jesus.
Believe the truth.
And recognize that,
oh my goodness.
I mean, when it comes to the earth,
you got Isaiah 40.
He sits above the circle of the earth.
Job 26, he has inscribed a circle
on the surface of the waters.
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