Behind The Pulpit
Our weekly pastors podcast where we discuss fun new stories, church events, previous sermons. As well as answering interesting questions from you!
Behind The Pulpit
I'm Now a Cyborg
Pastors Bob and Dave are joined by special guest Pastor Chris Tenny from Silicon Valley for a wide-ranging conversation on theology, technology, and cultural shifts. They respond to the breaking news of a potential ceasefire in Israel, explore how artificial intelligence is shaping how we think about the soul, and reflect on the spiritual tension between innovation and incarnation.
They also dive into listener questions on biblical tree imagery, the fear of the Lord, and whether Golgotha has ties to Goliath. Add in a Book War shake-up, millennial lions and lambs, and a few questionable holiday deserts—and you’ve got an episode full of depth, wit, and timely insight.
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:26 Spotlight: Chris Tenny
4:26 Denver vs. Dallas
7:37 In The News
21:58 The Great Book War
33:12 Audience Questions
47:03 Sermon Recap
1:15:34 Theology Sprint
Music
"Ventura"
Morgan Taylor
U76EPPNJDYZYU0Y7
Hey everybody, welcome to Behind the Pulpit for October the 13th, 2025. We are back. We're back at it. Thank you for all of you that survived the the non-Nor'easter that happened this weekend. The weather channel fails us again, and yet here we are. I am joined by my esteemed colleague, Pastor Dave, over there, rocking it. And uh we have a very uh there he is, look at that man, rocking it over there.
Dave:Just so you know, Bob's been warning me about this Nor'easter since like Thursday at noon.
Bob:I just asked a question.
Dave:I'm gonna get text from him. He wants to talk about it. I think he called a meeting.
Bob:I changed my flight. Yeah.
Dave:How bad is this computer?
Bob:United said you might want to change your flight.
Dave:He's like, I'm over here Saturday morning. Should I put up the flood shield? I'm like. Bob, I think we're gonna be alright, man. It ended up being like 853 inches.
Bob:What are you talking about? You told me. I already got my generator gapped up. I'm ready to go.
Dave:I was, I did get 10 gaps. Got my flashbacks to Sandy. I I did. I was ready. Because of you! You freaked me out.
Tim:Welcome to behind the players.
Bob:I warned you about that. You warned me about the drones. We just we keep a prize and all the the necessary things. All right. Um, we in the middle here we have my friend, uh, my friend Chris. Chris is uh well, Chris, why don't you tell folks about who you are and why you're here and what you what's your thoughts on New Jersey so far? My thoughts on New Jersey so far.
Chris:Uh yeah, I'm Chris Tenney. I originally from Colorado have been doing ministry in San Jose, California since 2009, since we're two weeks after we graduated from Denver Center.
Bob:Kind of wandered into New Jersey and thought it was a good church found in the internet.
Chris:Previously was a radio frequency engineer for T Mobile, so Bob used to call me T-Mobes. You're still on my phone as mobile, just so you know. Yeah, well, I'm thinking about going back to T-Mobile. Um I mean like service carrier, not otherwise. But anyway. Uh yeah, wife is uh Cassandra and two boys, Calvin and Archer, who are 14 and 10. Um, and yeah, I am a pastor at Will Glenn Bible Church in San Jose. Um at the heart, the capital of Silicon Valley. Yeah, we're really right in the middle of the you know tech utopia, let's call it. I've I've heard of that. I've heard that. So go ahead, Tim.
Tim:So you grew up in Colorado and you now reside in San Jose. So as someone who um is very interested in the subject, um Avalanche or Sharks?
Chris:Oh, Avalanche. I mean good for you.
Tim:Yeah, Tim is a big he's a big hockey fan.
Chris:At least the Avalanche have won a few times.
Tim:That's true.
Bob:I think the only time I've seen an NHL hockey game was when you got tickets to go see the Avalanche and I went with you. The Pepsi.
Chris:I think the Sharks are the Browns of the NHL.
Tim:They have some good prospects, but they were really for that. They were really good for a while, but didn't win the cup. Yeah, they never. And then now they're just bad. I don't know.
Chris:I did I did almost become a San Francisco Giants fan when the first time I went to ATT park, or that's not called that anymore. Um it's a fun park, though. It's a great park. I mean, they went on a great run. You know, very bumps. And the Rockies have been terrible forever, except the one year um when we were in school.
Bob:You know, did I found out that the other day I saw the uh Somerset Patriots play the uh Hartford Yard Goats, and the Yard Goats are actually they are a minor league team for the Colorado Rockies. So it was kind of like the Yankees played the Rockies. So essentially every single person on the Somerset Patriots are a minor league team for the Yankees.
Chris:That's uh a very intimidating mascot.
Tim:Every single person on the Yard Goats probably wakes up hoping they get traded.
Bob:So uh Chris is here. Chris and I went to seminary together at Denver Seminary, if you need to pick up on that. And he's doing a training at the center consulting group that we work with. So he he made his way across the country to go and see uh see the center in Pennsylvania uh starting tomorrow, right?
Chris:Yes, yep.
Bob:You're gonna accelerate your leadership. That's right. Yep. Solve all the world's problems.
Chris:Um maybe just my congregation. Okay. That's the thing. Maybe we'll have you back next week to report. Or maybe they'll fix me as a leader.
Bob:That's what we're doing. They fixed they fixed us to some extent, I think. Well, uh so we thought here at the beginning, before we dive into our our next segment, would be to talk a little bit about uh uh Chris and I went to Denver. Dave went to Dallas. We might have a little Denver and Dallas uh competition here, and uh and Chris had some stories from back in the day since Chris knew me before I was married and here and all of that.
Dave:Yeah.
Bob:So what what questions do you have for Chris, Dave?
Dave:Well, you know, um what made you choose to go to Denver seminary?
Chris:Um it was local.
Dave:Local.
Chris:That's one. Uh two, I think the primary reason was when I first became a Christian, that's 1999. Case for Christ, I think would recently been published. That was one of the first books I read after I became a Christian, and Craig Blomberg was in it, and he taught at Denver. And then uh uh there was a college ministry that I got connected with, and the um leader of that ministry went to Denver. So all of my associations with Denver were positive. All right, nice.
Bob:So Craig Blomberg, a friend of the Underground Sessions podcast, we had him on to talk about eschatology last year with uh Daryl Bach from Dallas. So very fun episode. Big friends of the channel. Yeah. It was, yes. Having both of them on at the same time was lots of academic laughter, we'll put it that way. They've known each other a long time, too. Yeah, very cordial.
Dave:They were pretty uh amicable with each other there.
Bob:What questions do you have for Dave about Dallas? Oh boy.
Chris:Um I don't know. Um why did you choose to go to Dallas? Oh, there we go.
Dave:You know, I went to Philadelphia College of Bible, um, and a lot of my professors had gone to Dallas and spoke very highly of it. Uh, this is back in back in the day. So I think for me, it was a place to go and um get some of the best Greek training. Dan Wallace was the professor there. Yeah, okay. I think um at that time Daryl Bach was getting more and more well known, and I wanted to study this thing called progressive dispensationalism and kind of think differently about the church and eschatology, so I wanted to be exposed to that. And then there was like a a couple Mount Rushmore names for me. So um there were some wonderful influences in my life that were professors there, and I got a chance to take them, like Howard Hendricks and uh guys like that. So it was a good experience. I enjoyed my time in Dallas. Julie and I both enjoyed living in Texas, but New Jersey is where we're from, so we're back on that.
Bob:There you go. Well we went to the uh Colson Center National Conference in Dallas uh last year, the year before, and uh Dave took me to the seminary campus, so I got to I got the full tour of the Dallas experience. Yeah.
Dave:I know you were very impressed. I was. Wasn't quite exactly the picturesque Rocky Mountains in the background like that. Yeah, the Denver campus is nice.
Bob:I did I did pop by when I was in there in June. So anyway, well, Chris, we're glad you're here. Chris is going to participate in our podcast in all of its glory, and uh speaking of which, behind the pulpit is brought to you today by the Little Footprints Fot Pie Fundraiser as well as the little substitute little footprints substitute uh plea. There we go. You can go back to the pie fundraiser. So uh Little Footprints is doing a fundraiser right now. Hey, this is what I always say about these food fundraisers. You gotta eat, you gotta get some pies for Thanksgiving. They will be ordered, they will you can order them by the end of the month, and you'll get them in time for uh Thanksgiving by November the 20th, and you'll help support our wonderful preschool here at Little Footprints. Um, and they are sponsoring the show today so that they can get a big shout out. Also, if you have some skill sets to serve in a substitute capacity, there are some substitutes and assistance needed still for the school year. So if you want to love the I I shall read the bottom here. If you wanna, if you love Jesus and his precious children, then we need you come and be a part of a ministry that is so rewarding and far reaching. So there you go. That's our first sponsor for uh the show today.
Tim:All proceeds will go to the preschool. Uh they're sponsoring us, but their fundraiser is sponsoring them. That's true.
Bob:Yeah, it's true. That's true. We are not we need to we are not the uh the derivative of the uh of the of the of the fundraiser. Good good clarification. I just want to make sure everyone is.
Dave:You can get the pies just in time for Thanksgiving. Yes. There's a timing thing there. Yes. Not only do you have to buy the food anyway, you definitely need a pie for Thanksgiving.
Bob:Yeah. I mean I mean, who's gonna have Thanksgiving without a pie? That's just would you go to Thanksgiving without a pie at your house? No way, Jose. There you go. Would you you would not have a pie at your house? No. Well, that's because you're from California. My goodness. All right. Sorry.
Chris:Some avocado toast for out here. Not a lot of avocado pie pie for the turkey. No, my my wife like wants cheese for dessert. Okay. Just cheese. Yeah, like nice cheese. Really great. Okay.
Bob:Well, we call that an hors d'oeuvre, not a dessert. Maybe they had time to talk with your wife.
Chris:When in Rome.
Bob:I guess something like that. All right, now we've come to our world-famous segment that we come to every week in the news. All right, Pastor Dave, what what news story is there any news stories that caught your eye this week that we should uh we should talk about? Anything that you were uh texting me back and forth? What should we talk about today?
Dave:The breaking news story is that after over two years, um finally the rest of the Israeli hostages have been returned back to their families. There was a early morning headline that I woke up to this morning. Very glad to hear this actually went through. I think the peace treaty looks like it's held at least so far, phase one. I think they were supposed to return 20 live prisoners, and they did, and then there were some other human remains that were part of this particular peace treaty as well that have not totally been returned yet, but they're still supposedly working on that. Um BB made a speech, Trump made a speech this morning. It wasn't morning for them, it was like two in the afternoon in Israel, but um looks like this is actually happening. There is actually a ceasefire that is kind of sticking between Israel and Hamas right now, and we're all thankful that perhaps this will be the end to this what has been a horrific war in so many different ways, and there's so many side stories to talk about here. But today I think we can all rejoice because there's been some families that have been reunited after looks like 738 days of captivity. Um and so uh we thank the Lord for that. That's a pretty big news story. I don't know that we get to have a news story bigger than that, like this whole year. That's a huge thing. Uh it's just like a mic trap news story, is like I mean it uh uh I haven't seen this kind of thing in my whole life, I don't think. There was a there was a hostage uh situation back in the eighties, right? But this was like, wow, we got to see this. This is happening.
Bob:And we can hopefully pray that all this all this will uh go by the wayside, right? We'll have some peace.
Dave:We are praying for that. Yeah. So that's a big news story.
Bob:Good.
Dave:I don't know how we can uh top that. That's okay. Well, why don't we top it?
Bob:Why don't we go lower? Let's see if we can go to a lower news. What's a little bit less you're from uh Silicon Valley? I see a ton of um uh news about like the AI and tech stuff. What's what's going on in Silicon Valley in the news? What what what what are we missing? What's coming from Silicon Valley to the rest of the world?
Chris:I don't I don't know how much I really like have followed some of the news. I've seen that there's a lot of talk about um the difference between AI, which is what most of us have experienced with, say, ChatGPT, versus AGI, uh artificial general intelligence, which would be more sci-fi-y type uh level. Um there is talk that that could be achievable within five years, something where it may be very difficult for ordinary people to distinguish talking with an AI chatbot, for instance, from a real person. So there's that there's a bunch of funding stuff and always speculation about whether or not this bubble is gonna pop financially from Wall Street's point of view.
Bob:That's true. Are we on the big AI tech bubble?
Chris:I think the bigger, broader concern that I hear on the street level is where's all the power gonna come from? Because AI is a massive. Oh, oh, you mean like literally the electricity. And I don't think people realize how much our utility bills in San Jose are gonna go up as a result of the massive amount of consumption. I think I've I forgot the statistic, but the amount of energy being consumed to power all of this stuff in San Jose is mind-boggling in comparison to what your ordinary person is using.
Bob:So when you push that button, just know I pay more for push the button, just know Chris may have a blackout and not be able to take a shower. So that's the news story. Interesting. Well, why don't you say you you had that uh interesting experience when you went to Atlanta and you had the self-driving car that came and picked you up uh from a few months ago? Just to be clear, I did not get in, but I saw them. Uh but I'm sure they have a bunch of those in San Jose and San Francisco.
Chris:You know, there there's just interesting byproducts for these types of things. And and uh and I've been a part of uh multiple panels, not but I mean as an audience member of talking with not sitting on the panel, yeah, listening to the panel but of of theologians and you know Christian thinkers trying to talk about like theologically how do we process all this stuff. But there's also just the nitty-gritty of like basic somebody told me last week, uh if you're in San Francisco, you know that if you see a Waymo, you can cut them off because they'll always stop. You know, and that's an interesting what does that do to human behavior when we all know that there's a white car with lots of cameras that you can just cut off whenever you want.
Bob:Very true.
Chris:Now you were saying from a so we always try to know that at some level there's no Waymo's around here, but yeah, and also Jay, like you you could just cross the street right in front of the car and the car's gonna stop because it's programmed to stop. I don't know if you know. So there's all kinds of but just it's just interesting the types of human behaviors that are a byproduct of these things being out there and people knowing what they are programmed to do and not do.
Dave:You know what I was also thinking about human behavior regarding AI and like it's kind of rude to cut a car off, but we tend to think, well, there's nobody in the car, so I'm allowed to treat a you know a machine that way. Yep. But I think similarly there's some iterations with even Chat GPT. Um I can type something into an you know some sort of large language model and kind of be rude in a way that shouldn't bother me because it's just a machine. But it is a way I'm sort of customizing and I'm getting used to talking like this to um to another entity, right? And that's perhaps gonna affect the way I might talk to another human being too, because I'm used to this. Like Huh. Well, you were also So we're gonna become ruder drivers and we're gonna become more jerky textures. That's my that's my own.
Bob:You were also talking about, from a worldview perspective, the philosophical underpinnings of some of this uh is getting at the idea of transhumanism. Yes. Could you could you could you define that really quickly and talk about how you've been talking about that with your people out in the Silicon Valley?
Chris:I would say transhumanism uh uh in a nutshell is essentially uh well, I I think they would talk about it as the next stage of human evolution. And that in order to achieve the next stage of human evolution and is going to require a technological enhancement of what it means to be human. We're gonna have to become a nutter order of being. And I think in a way it's kind of uh pushing on um even from a Christian point of view, what the ultimate what glory is for you know, our ultimate transformation. Right? So I think us talking about uh eschatology for personal eschatology with respect to what our destiny is and uh and our ultimate glorification is going to be important to speak into. Um that I think that's one component of it. But most of technology at the end of the day is pushing and a lot of other cultural issues, I think is all really hinging on our anthropology. What does it mean to be human? What what is what is our created intent, what's our fallen, you know, what's our redemption and glory look like for us. And I think technology is really pushing on those points and and multiple fronts. But so transhumanism is what we will, you know, I I have a uh defibrillator installed on my chest uh because of uh heart disease I had a few years ago. And so on one hand, I'm now a cyborg. I'm Iron Man. Um There's the title of the show right there. I am Iron Man. So so on the one hand, the technology is being used for therapy in a good way, but we're talking about it being likely in the future to have, you know, an enhanced heart installed that would give me abilities I never had before. And and there are many in Silicon Valley like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, others, who are investing billions investing in essentially some kind of promise of eternal life through technology or a next stage of human evolution, because they truly believe if we don't do it, the human race is gonna become extinct. And we have to do this. Peter Thiel also recently, I think, had an interview with uh uh the New York Times uh columnist uh Ross to do that. Okay. Anyway. Um this this is in the news, Pastor Dave.
Bob:That's a it's a lot of It might be a cyborg someday.
Chris:Maybe. So yeah, so I think that's a that's a big challenge, and I'm trying to s speak to some of that with respect to it relates to Christology if you think about Christology and some of the early heresies revolving around Christology, one of them being Eudychaism, where Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's let's get let's let's spell that and then define it. Okay, so Eudychaism is was Eudychus.
Bob:Which which superhero did you do that for the uh Articles of Faith discussion?
Chris:Oh, I totally did the same thing. You use superheroes as analogies for Christology? Oh yeah, totally. Oh, he doesn't remember.
Bob:I'm looking up my PowerPoint. You keep talking. Keep talking, he's gonna talk about that.
Chris:So Eudichaism is that the divine and human natures in the person of Christ were merged, and the problem with that is then he is becoming a completely new kind of being. In a s in a way, kind of a superman, I guess. Um and if you think about a lot of sci-fi movies that play out the scenario of having a superhuman, apart from Superman, who's always good and all that, except for maybe in more recent ones.
Dave:Spider-Man.
Chris:Spider-Man, okay, yeah, Spider-Man would be be a good where he becomes a new he becomes a new kind of being.
Dave:Because he's he's not a spider and he's not a man. He's a he's a Spider-Man. Yeah. He's your friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man. I thought it was Spider-Man, but I had to just maybe double check there.
Chris:Point is I think transhumanism it would and uh the lessons learned from that particular debate.
Bob:So what you're saying is you've got a lot of Eutacheans out in your church.
Chris:I I don't have a lot of Utichians. I don't think. Because I think most people are familiar with all of these heresies and why they are important. Functional Eutichians. All right.
Bob:There you go. Oh, book recommendation. There we go. All right. Any final thoughts here on the uh on this uh this is mind-blowing right now.
Dave:So just to be clear, Eutikianism was a heresy about Jesus. What you're saying is that actually the future of the transhumanist movement is making a similar mistake.
Chris:I think so.
Dave:Just to be clear what we're talking about theologically. You're saying that instead of hoping in the glory and the promises of Christ that we have for a future and resurrection and where we're headed, that we might come up with our own plan. And it's going to disappoint. This is not going to save you. It's gonna be an idol. It's gonna Elon Musk is not going to give you the same kind of caliber hope that the everlasting promise of Jesus Christ is.
Chris:Yeah, they're in a way trying to create a new Christ. Right? Through Yep. It is a it is a type of false gospel. I think so. You heard it here first, folks. There might may be some connections. Would you agree, Dave?
Bob:I do.
Chris:Yeah.
Bob:Okay. Yeah. That's that's his I agree face right there. I like it.
Dave:I've never thought of this before. I never thought of transhumanism and how that might connect with early church Christological heresies, but now I'm thinking.
Bob:There you go. Boom. All right. So that brings us to the end of In the News, and uh that brings us to our second sponsor of the program today. This episode of Behind the Pulpit is brought to you by the Men's Breakfast.
Tim:The Beans are back.
Bob:The beans are back, and uh I think they're gonna wreak some havoc on October the 25th later on in the day. Uh, but if you want to come out for the men's breakfast, it's gonna be uh Saturday, October the 25th, 7 30 to 9 a.m. right down here in Fellowship Hall. Do we got a speaker, Pastor Dave, for this uh this shindig right here?
Dave:We're putting together a panel, and the the theme, I believe, is gonna be around Christianity and and athletics. Uh more to come, but it's gonna be a very good breakfast. There you go.
Bob:But you'll have a nice protein-filled breakfast and be able to uh go out and perform some athletics after uh this uh men's breakfast event. So behind the pulpit, men's breakfast, we're friends. Uh thank you for sponsoring us today. And that brings us to our even more world-famous segment, the Great Book War. Tim is fired up over there. Chris is gonna participate today. And uh I heard we had some updates right here, Tim, about the Great Book War. We do, so you had some critics who were not who said you were not properly reporting the results of this book war, so correct yourself.
Tim:Let me let me start off like this. I need to issue a public apology to the listeners and fans of Behind the Pulpit. I said last week that I was going to have a section on the form where you would write your name so that we can keep all the tallies and then we could have at the end of the season a fan of the year. Monday got busy, I totally oversaw it, and it never happened. And I had a lot of you be like, hey, what's the deal? I want to be fan of the year. So we will be starting this week. I'll make sure that we're gonna be.
Bob:So you're saying the fans chased you down and they shamed the show? They shamed.
Tim:They love the show so much. There's they're such big fans that they chase me down. Um, and I I really appreciate it. Now you know how to get your way, folks. Chase chase down the producer. So here is the current outlook of the scoreboard. Pastor Dave in a commanding.
Bob:And looks like looks like the end of the Yankee season, right there.
Tim:And I'll tell you what, that there seems to be no end in sight to the onslaught that is the victories by Pastor Dave, unless it's this week. And it is Pastor Bob! Storm it back, Pastor Dave. It's not like being black Pastor Bob.
Bob:You did the strap Vodi's name and you win. By one vote.
Chris:Another one that's a lot of the works of John Owen, though. This is the works of John Owen? Wow.
Tim:That's can you believe it was that close? I can, because Pastor Dave is paying off the voters.
Bob:All right.
Dave:Well, I had the feeling I was gonna lose this week. That's such a catchy title. Three to one. Yeah. All right. Well, is the new score. I don't blame you guys. I don't blame you guys. But you should you need to read it though. It's not fair for you just to vote and not read it. You gotta read it. That's true.
Bob:All right. All right. So let's go around the horn. Pastor Dave, since you lost, you get to go first today with your recommendation. Okay. So this is Chris has a recommendation too, so maybe you can throw him in the mix here too. We'll see if you we have a third-party voting that's going to be.
Dave:Crossway Publishers uh has a book by Frank Turek and Stormannorm Geisler called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. I'm studying this book because the foundation's first homeschool co-op program that meets here at Millington Baptist Church on Wednesdays asked me to do a guest lecture on a chapter from this book, and it's all about do we have early testimony about Jesus? So I get to do chapter nine. Frank Turek is a Christian apologist. He also does a lot of work on college campuses. Um, he was super close with Charlie Kirk. He was like um one of the speakers at that big memorial service. He was actually in the SUV when they were going to the hospital. They were very tight. And so he's done a lot of work on some of the major questions of apologetics, and I've enjoyed his sort of summary. Norm Geisler is a classic old Dow Seminary guy, and this is a pretty good book. If you're looking for like an accessible treatise on the popular level apologetics questions that are out there, um, this is this is a book for you. It's got some stuff in the beginning about creation, design, then it's got um some questions about evil, uh Hitler. There's a question on Mother Teresa versus Hitler. Because how could you ever talk about evil without also talking about Hitler? Because it's like mandatory. There's a question about miracles, um, then there's the gospel stuff that I'm dealing with. The top ten reasons we know that the New Testament writers told the truth. That's right. Chapter 11. So um I don't have enough faith to be an atheist Frank Turek. Check it out, and I hope that this will be a blessing to you.
Bob:I'm enjoying it. All right. So that's the first uh submission. We have a third party, we have a Ross Perot right here, a third party uh candidate coming in this week for the uh for the uh book work. Chris, what what would you recommend?
Chris:Uh I'm gonna recommend He's gonna mess up the voting this week. The expectation gap by Pastor Steve Cuss. Uh Steve. Steve who? Steve Cuss? C-U-L-C-S.
Tim:Not to be conserved with Steve Badword.
Chris:So uh it's uh spiritual guide exploring how to bridge gaps between beliefs about God and actual experience, offering tools to manage anxiety, quiet inner criticism, and deepened spiritual connection. That's the brief. Um we I've read the book multiple times because it's asks a lot of really great reflective questions about what's going on in your heart. And uh we've used it as a staff as well to um yeah, and he kind of explores three gaps. Uh one being our experience of God's love for us, two being our experience of God's presence, and third being that we think we ought to be better by now. Like I've been a Christian, shouldn't I be more mature at this point? And I just think it's been very deeply formative, and um and I highly recommend it, especially uh if you struggle with anxiety uh or emotional reactivity, I think his tools um uh inner uh integrated with the gospel are super, super beneficial. So highly recommend it.
Bob:Boom.
Chris:There you go. It's short too.
Bob:It's like this big. Hey, those of you out there that like short books, this is it right here. Because my my submission this week is not a short book. I brought the big book this week. Uh check that out right there. Boom. Uh my submission in honor of Chris is uh Christian Theology by Millard Erickson. This was one of my favorite systematics when I was in seminary, a good um reformed, slightly reformed Baptist uh theologian. Millard Erickson taught at uh Western Seminary for a bit. He also taught down at the uh school at Baylor, I believe. Um I'm forgetting the name of that school down there. Um but Truitt. Truitt. Truett Theological Seminary. Thank you so much. Um great. If you really want and and speaking of also, you got your systematic theology class you're doing on Sunday mornings. If you want a really good systematic theology, this is one of my favorites, Millard Erickson right here. He covers all the major doctrines, and he does a good job of uh weaving in some of the philosophical theology as well as the core doctrines uh in here and giving a good good overview of it all. So, Millard Erickson, Christian theology. That's my uh submission for uh for uh systematics this week. And as always, we say we recommend you decide the Great Book War.
Tim:Get out to the polls, people.
Bob:And this time Early Voting begins today, so make sure you get out to the polls right now.
Tim:Go click it and put your name in, because I did it this time.
Bob:That's right. And if you want to be known, if you want to know who You want Tim to know who you voted for, put your name in there. There you go. And Tim will make sure that the name, the name uh tab is in there too, right? Yes. Otherwise, we'll all chase you down. Yes. All right. Thus ends the Great Book War for October. This is the uh third edition, I believe. This is the most updated one.
Tim:Yep, third edition. It may be a long book, but I think there's a lot of crossover between the theologi uh the systematic theology class and behind the pulpit listeners. So this might be a good uh alright.
Bob:What was there a systematic they're recommending in that class or a specific one?
Dave:I think probably that's on the list. Um Jack would probably say wonderful works of God, but Ken might say Ericsson. I don't remember which one there. I think Ken was also going through um Grudem.
Bob:Grudem is probably the most popular one.
Dave:Ericsson is great. He's a he's a good Baptist. Yeah. I got to see Ericsson speak at the Evangelical Theological Society. Is he a good speaker? He was like talk he's okay.
Bob:Is he like a preacher? Is he like a he's a scholar? Okay.
Dave:No, he's not a preacher. But he was talking about some complicated um scientific concept of like, you know how there's four dimensions? He was like imagining that there's a fifth dimension and God is outside of you know our four dimensions. He was drawing the phone. That's that's part of the philosophical theology stuff. He had like a picture of like one of those venturi tube things, and he was trying to explain to us in a scientific way how God was outside of time. That's his position. Good. He's an interesting dude. He's getting up there, he's in his 90s, I think. I don't know. Is he still alive? I think he's still alive. He's still alive. He's like old, but I think he's still hanging with us.
Bob:He's old. I don't know. Millard Erickson. If he's still alive, he's in his 90s, I believe. He's Googling it.
Dave:But he's uh he's a sharp guy. He was born in 1932. So that means he's 93. He might still be with us.
Bob:He is. All right. Well, maybe we need to get him on the podcast before he goes to be with the Lords.
Dave:Did you know he taught at um the the CB seminary over there in Oregon? Western, yeah. That's what I said.
Bob:Yeah. Okay. So he's our he's one of our guys. I still agree with most of his presuppositions. We got like a CB theme going on here. There we go. Denver and Yep.
Chris:That's true. Denver was historically C B.
Bob:They were. Historically. No more though. No more.
Chris:What about what about what Western was historically CB, but probably not.
Bob:I think it still is. No, I think they're still but they're they're definitely more connected with CB than uh or venture than uh Denver is. Yeah.
Dave:All I know is we get a discount if we go to Western, but we don't get anything with Denver.
Bob:No. No, no, there's something with Denver too. Oh, there is? Yeah, they they got them on the list. Oh, never mind. Sorry. I missed it. I think there's like a twenty, I think it's twenty-five percent. Fake news. That was thirty years ago that they Denver's already expensive, so it just kinds of brings down.
Dave:I think we have a read here. It used to be called like the Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver.
Bob:And uh Vernon Grounds was a quite a rabble rouser back in the day. They of course were the ones that were teaching the uh the the post-tribulational rapture, which made them very liberal at the time. So in the 50s. Yeah. Anyway. Alright. So there we go. That is the Great Book War, the recommendations, vote. Uh next sponsor of our program, this is brought to you by Behind the Pulpit by the Music Camp Vision Meeting. Music Camp has not been with us for a few years, and and yet we we are seeing the Ezekiel 38 Valley of Dry Bones Vision uh Vision Meeting for Music Camp. Uh the dry bones will rise and the flesh will return in Music Camp. It's the the resurrection, so to speak. The trumpet is Tim is blowing the trumpet over there.
Dave:Can these bones live camp? You know, Lord.
Bob:That's right. There you go. So if you're interested in uh participating potentially in Music Camp, there's a vision meeting October the 26th. Um it doesn't say a time, so at some at some point on October is that. Okay, go check, go check out the webpage of the show notes. There they're at some point on October the 26th, there will be a vision meeting. And if you're interested in participating, go check it out. And uh they paid a lot of money to be sponsored sponsoring our show today.
Tim:I'll pitch it like this music camp. I remember it as the best part of my childhood.
Bob:Whoa!
Tim:Whoa! Millington Baptist Church Music Camp. Well, uh well, you got to go to the vision meeting. This is the best part of my childhood. I think they paid you to say that though. They did not. They did not. I've been I've been ringing necks trying to get this thing back for years, so this is big for me.
Bob:A lot of people were choked to get this back. All right. Okay, so let's let's move on to our next segment. We got our we got some audience questions today. Man, we made a big, a big push last week for audience questions, and you you came through. We got uh well there was there were two questions. We combined into one, but one was a second one. So we got two questions today. All right, Pastor Dave, these are these are focusing on your passage. Oh, okay. Nice segue into the uh into the sermon discussion here. Uh first question comes in from Clint, I believe. It's uh in Isaiah 1033. God's justice is pictured like an axe cutting down trees. Remember you made a big deal about those trees getting cut down, Pastor Dave? I do. Here it is. Which reminded me of John the Baptist's warning the axe is laid to the fruit of the tree. Did John intentionally draw from Isaiah's imagery? And more broadly, are there are are there there are many tree references in Scripture. Psalm one being an example, trees by streams of water in the trees to the trees in Eden. Are they all theologically connected to the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or the tr or are the trees simply used as a recurring analogy for God's work and human flourishing? That was the uh an abridged version. Yes, the question was was longer than that, but that's the heart of the question right here. Do you have any initial thoughts on this, Pastor Dave? Yeah. Having studied this passage?
Dave:There's a lot of trees in the Bible. When we did the Cultivating the Christian Life workbook, we had um an entire couple sections about how many different trees are in the Bible, and there's some connectedness to the imagery. I don't know that it's um they're always talking about the same thing, but I would say a tree is a common image for like a nation or even an exalted king that um is getting cut back. So we see that like in the book of Daniel, or we see that in a couple other places. Was John specifically referring to Isaiah? I think Isaiah is commonly being uh thought about and alluded to, and sometimes directly quoted by the New Testament authors um all the time. So perhaps what I will say is um the image is the same. So you have like a nation, Assyria, that's being pictured as a cut-down forest, and then John the Baptist is actually talking about the nation of Israel and how they're about to be um judged by God based on what's about to happen in the first century. And so we know everything that happened in AD 70 and all that stuff. I will say this: when I was studying this chunk of Isaiah 1 through 12, what struck me is the chapter um that talks about the vineyard, chapter 5. So chapter 5 has this song of the vineyard, and God like chooses a piece of land, clears out the rocks, plants the this vineyard, and then he takes care of it, and then he has to judge it. I do think that's directly being talked about when Jesus told the story about um in the New Testament, there's a parable about how the owner had a vineyard and the people were supposed to take care of it, it was supposed to have fruit, and then the sun comes and then they kill the sun. I do think that that is a direct allusion or parallel that's going on in Jesus' mind. So he's certainly thinking about Isaiah. Was John thinking about Isaiah? I I don't see why that couldn't be the case. As far as going back to the Garden of Eden and those other trees, I don't know if we're exactly connecting to those images, but we do have a resident scholar on the program today. Chris is here.
Bob:What do you think about the trees, Chris?
Dave:First of all, can humans and trees become intermixed. Isn't that what? Transhumanism. Yeah. Like the Ents, you know? Like the Ents. Yeah. Well, yeah.
Bob:Wasn't that Tolkien's point though? Was fighting against the uh industrial uh industrialization of a beautiful image.
Chris:Right.
Bob:The uh um Saruman and the orcs were representing the technology of the age and the ants were pushing against that and the purity of the garden. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah. Um are we we're still on that question? Yeah.
Dave:Do you see any connection to the Garden of Eden trees?
Bob:Actually, let's put this. How would you grade Dave's answer?
Chris:I'd give him an A. I thought that was really good. Look at that. Yeah.
Dave:What about the Garden of Eden stuff?
Chris:Um Yeah, I think maybe sometimes uh it what called to my mind when um with the Garden of Eden stuff is uh you know Bible project has done a lot of great summary videos and and uh biblical theology theme videos, and one th and Tim Mackey seems to always make a Garden of Eden connection, and sometimes it's a little stretched. Um so I don't know if I would necessarily go that far in this particular example um without maybe some more direct connections um as far as a Garden of Eden. Uh it does also make me think of the cross. The cross is talked of of a tree, and in many ways Christ himself allows himself to be cut down in order to achieve our redemption. Cut off. There you go. And so I think that's kind of an interesting thing to think about as well.
Dave:Yeah, I mean, what is a cross if it's not a tree that's been stripped completely of all of its leaves and all of its branches, and there it is, you know. So he takes our judgment, he takes the axe on our behalf. That's the beauty of the gospel. So hey, thank you very much. That was a cool question. Um, who was that? Clint? That was Clint. Good question. And Emily, I believe. Mr.
Bob:Pompeii. They were bring they were bringing it, man. They also thanked us for our series on biblical justice. So lots of things are happening.
Tim:Very cool. Sorry we had to cut down to summarize your question. We had to fit on the slide, but it was very good.
Bob:Second question. The second question. Still in Isaiah, Isaiah 11. 11, Isaiah 11, 2 to 3 mentions that the Messiah has the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord, which what is meant by this fear? Uh the son would not dread or be scared of the Father. If it is meant to be reverence or awe, then why would English translations use the word fear, which brings to mind fright, dread, or being scared? Especially challenging in this regard is how his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. So I I was mentioning to Chris before he came in. I think this concept of the fear of the Lord, which is especially often mentioned in the Old Testament, is a hard concept for people to get, and how it can be a positive and something that we should aspire towards. Um, what what what would you say as this relates to Isaiah 11, 2-3?
Dave:I would say there's a little too much push in our culture to um make Jesus into our friendly best friend that we forget that that's actually a very significant friend to have. Um this is the omnipotent, omniscient God of the universe, and a healthy respect and a healthy awe is good to have. So Jesus is the perfect divine son, as the the one who was human who lived the life we should have lived and uh came in our place and was the perfect, the second Adam, he lived his life in such a way that he had a healthy uh fear of the Lord. And so that was, I think, a perfect fulfillment of that verse in Isaiah. In the book of Exodus, I was trying to look this up real quick. The word Yahweh or fear there is actually used in the same verse in two different ways. Okay, I found it. So it says this in Exodus 20, 20. Do not fear, for God has come to test you, so that the fear of him may be before you. So here it's like, well, which one is it, Moses? Do you want us to be afraid or not be afraid? So I think you know, there's a way in which we don't have to be uh afraid in the sense that uh we we're terrified and we think that God's gonna you know come get us, but then there's another sense that we're supposed to be treating God with a healthy reverence and respect because of who he is. He is as as Isaiah 6 tells us, he's holy, holy, holy. So remember when we met with Rabbi Mendy and he was explaining in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 that the culmination of Solomon's book there is that like this is the end of the matter. Fear God and keep his commandments. And he was explaining that in that way it was a very similar concept to like loving your spouse. It was like yeah, I want to like setting them apart, right?
Chris:Yeah, yeah. That's how I've used it as an illustration. Like I'm would be horrified to do something that would hurt my wife. Um, the the fear of it hurting my wife is why I don't uh do something that would hurt her. On on the other hand, yeah, as we were saying beforehand, God is so other too. I think we there's so much I in many ways, modern theology is trying to make God more accessible by making him kind of more smaller and relatable and then forgetting his infinite qualities, the ways in which he is not like us, the attributes of God that we do not share, but that are utterly distinct, that belong to God alone, and are not shared with humans. And I think in that sense it might be better to think about in comparison to fear of man, you know, like that the fear of the Lord is what keeps me from people pleasing, it keeps me from seeking approval of people in a s in a sinful way. And so as much as uh you know we're nervous about it being the big angry God in the sky, I think is the concern. The other part is to think, well, we don't want to be afraid of of people, and the fear of the Lord is something that protects me from that. That makes me I want to honor God above all else.
Dave:Yeah.
Bob:Yep. And I think um the other thing I would add in to tie back to Isaiah six, which you highlighted as the central uh chapter in the first twelve chapters, there is this amazing scene of Isaiah coming before this holy God where even the seraphim have to cover their eyes. We tend to forget that God is holy, holy, holy. Uh and if you had encountered that scene, you probably would have had a healthy fear of that God who is.
Chris:Isn't the Exodus text that's in you have they actually the people get a vision of God and then Exodus 24, if I remember correctly, and then they say, Moses talk to him for us. We can't be before that guy. Yeah. Well there's also the sense of like without you go.
Bob:When Moses goes before the mountain, he can't even he can't even catch a glimpse of God's glory. God has to cover his.
Chris:But the interesting part is it's not that God doesn't want to reveal himself, he does want to reveal himself, but when he reveals himself in his full glory, the people freak. Like they freak out.
Dave:You know, um Erickson talks about instead of using the terminology of like communicable attributes versus incommunicable attributes, he says it's the goodness of God and greatness of God. So in the section that's like the greatness of God, those are those attributes that God has that we do not have, that we cannot relate to. So yeah, we can be loving and we can be merciful and we can be just and stuff like that. But we cannot be holy, we cannot be, you know, um omniscient, omnipotent. Those are things that are they're other omnipotent. Yeah, we're not that.
Chris:And most of them are stated in the negative, too. They're all the because they're a quality we do not have. So by definition, we can't know what it's like to be infinite or um immutable or uh um escaping me, but yeah, I know what you're saying.
Dave:A sayity.
Chris:Yes, thank you.
Dave:Uh you know, there's a famous story about the disciples in the boat and they're afraid that they're gonna drown, and then Jesus actually stills the storm, and they were afraid at first of the storm, and then after Jesus stills the storm, it says, and then they were very much afraid after they found out, okay, who's in the boat with us? There's like mega uh phobia going on when we recognize just the power of who God is. And I think that's an okay thing to be aware of that God is is a being that we should be feared in a reverent way. Good question. Thank you guys for always pouring in helpful questions. And now that we have Chris on the show, I hopefully that was a very satisfying answer. Because we have like a, you know.
Bob:Uh what's your email, Chris? Because if anybody has to email you at Willoglon Biblechurch.com.
Dave:We have three-headed monster here today.
Bob:That's we got it. We got it going on. All right. Well, before we dive into the sermon recap, we have another sponsor who would like to get in on the get in on the action today. It's our last chance. From 3 to 5 p.m. There's also VIP access for children with special needs starting at 2 30 p.m. Um if you're watching this on a computer screen, you can scan that QR code and you can go uh sign up to come and be part of us. The event is free, um, but they are sponsoring our show, and so we're getting dividends uh from Trunk or Treat. So uh mark your calendar. We hope to see you out this coming Saturday, 3 to 5, trunk or treat, trunk or treat, trunk or treat loves behind the pulpit, behind the pulpit loves trunk or treat. All right, now we've come to our sermon recap segment of this uh episode, and we got some stuff to talk about here, Pastor Dave. You covered you covered a lot of ground uh in your sermon on Sunday, so why don't you give us the 60 second flyover if that's possible? And then we're gonna talk about how there was a chart sighting in your message. Number three. There it is, right there. Boom.
Dave:I can't remember what I was numbering, but there was a uh probably the three movements.
Bob:It was towards the beginning. Gang sign right there? Or the three movements. You were summarizing the Trinity.
Dave:Yeah. Isaiah 11 was my assignment. I decided to tack on chapter 12 because I feel like it was part of it. It's all about the culmination of this Messiah's reign, and Isaiah's been hinting at it here and there, but I think it came to full flower in chapter 11 as he now describes when this this coming son of David comes uh as the spruit, that's the sprout that's gonna come out of the stump. He's gonna reign in a kingdom that will be um number one, uh bringing justice for the vulnerable and for the poor. He will be characterized by perfect uh justice and uh the marginalized. Number two, he will bring complete peace on earth, uh, not just between human beings and nations, but also even the animal kingdom. And then third, he will regather uh his people back to himself, and uh even the nations, it says, will come to him like a signal, like a banner, and uh he will bring the whole world together. And then when that happens, there's this grateful response of praise and worship that occurs in Isaiah chapter 12. So it's a wonderful passage of hope. It's a wonderful passage of something that we look forward to. And I was thinking about this yesterday, even though we keep getting disappointed with like elected leaders or world leaders or the people that you know are in charge and they don't bring us the kind of hope and peace that we were hoping for, longing for, we keep hoping, we keep wanting someone to come and make this right. And I wonder, well, like, where did that come from? Where we've had nothing but abysmal failures in the history of humankind, but we keep on thinking, but the next person's gonna bring it in. And I gotta think that's some kind of like memory trace that inside of us, God has placed inside of us a desire, a burning uh longing for there's gonna be somebody who's gonna come and they're gonna make it right, and that's only gonna be satisfied by the great Messiah Jesus, who is going to one day bring in his kingdom. So that's what Isaiah 11 and 12 are all about. Little Tim Mackey uh exit there.
Bob:There you go. And that's what it's all about. Boom. All right. So, Chris, did you have any questions for uh Dave? I have some written down here, but I'm gonna let you have first shots since you're uh you're on the show today. Well, how how did it strike you? It was uh first first word.
Chris:I thought it was good. Um I was impressed with the amount of ground that you covered. Um I don't know if you met your five-minute mark, though. Um probably more than five, right? Yeah, probably. He said five, and I'm gonna. Is it his summary, his summary of the first uh twelve chapters?
Dave:It was a symbolic five-minute goal.
Chris:Yeah, it's good.
Dave:Kind of like the theology sprint here on the show.
Bob:So uh when I say five minutes, I mean it wasn't a literal five minutes, it was a symbolic goal.
Dave:It's like when my wife is getting ready to go on a date and she's like, I'll be ready in five minutes. It was like that.
Chris:That kind of five minutes. Okay. It's a preacher five minutes. It's too different.
Bob:Yeah. If you were if you were watching, you keep looking at your watch, something something's wrong with you, you got a heart issue right there.
Dave:I had a so okay, the thing about the five minutes, I really debated even doing that. It wasn't like homiletical, but we've been skipping around, and Isaiah 1 to 12 is like something that I had trouble figuring out. It's like here's some poetry, then it goes to prose, and here's like present tense fulfillment. Now we're into the distant future, and then here's like a shot of heaven with what's going on here. So I actually wanted to map it out myself, and then you know, convey that to our people so that when they open up like Isaiah 4, they say, Oh, here's what's going on in this this part of the Bible. So that was my point.
Chris:Your your teaching pause was good. All right.
Bob:You let people know just long. You let people know what was coming. Yeah. So they they could have taken a break and come back in or well, and you you made connections.
Chris:Yeah, it's you know, they use this. I don't remember what the phrase was, I'm sorry, but and then you tied it in with this gets repeated later on and how this is all united.
Dave:Yeah, it was like the anger of the Lord is still not yet passed. And so finally in chapter 12, that anger had passed.
Bob:All right, so here's my question for you as I was I was watching the by the way. Do we have the chart since we had a chart sighting? Is it Tim doesn't have it to put it up? Uh Tim out to you. Tim, can I send it to you? You can insert it later. We had a chart sighting, man. Uh I'll insert it later. He'll insert it. Right here. Boom. There's the chart. All right, I'll send it. All right, so while the chart's up there, but you were, and it was it was it was a wonderful chart. I I didn't look at it. I didn't enjoy looking at it. Look, it's right there.
Dave:It's colorful. I went with the like the incremental building this time. I didn't put the whole chart.
Bob:I didn't overwhelm and made chapter six, the cornerstone, which I was very excited about. I saw that.
Dave:I thought I thought you'd like that.
Bob:So my my question is, what what strikes you, having having done all the building blocks here, what strikes you as the most profound thing in Isaiah 1 to 12? What jumped at you as as the pinnacle?
Dave:You know, I think um the fact that our God is going to glorify himself in salvation through judgment is a very difficult message to accept, but a very beautiful message to accept. And then I didn't really get to talk about this that much, but to think about the fact that Isaiah was picturing the future for the nation of Israel, and then the Messiah coming on the scene and taking it as his mission to live out this story as the new and greater Israel, and then himself being the chosen one of God, going through ruin, and then rising from the dead, and in a sense, like taking that three-part plot line and then living it out as the Messiah was a very profound, aha, beautiful moment. I didn't really get a chance to talk about it in that in the sermon, but you asked me like what struck me. I'm like, well, the fact that Jesus just redid Israel's story in his own life was was really like kind of blew my mind.
Bob:This three-part idea of what Tim Mackey was getting at, right? Which is is and he and he's not necessarily the only one that's done that. I think it's uh I think uh Greg Beale has that kind of uh the judgment idea of the cycles, and Jim Hamilton has that salvation through judgment, is a common theme with which you thread the biblical story together. It's kind of a repeated thing that happens over and over again, and Isaiah being a mini mini version of that. Um my other question was Isaiah uh Isaiah 11 2, where you have the spirit of the Lord resting upon him, which you know obviously brings to mind the spirit coming down, resting on Jesus at his baptism, and then you have the spirit of wisdom and counsel and knowledge. And my question was does that have a connection with Isaiah 9, 6 and 7 that we covered last week? And are these elements of the kingdom that he's coming to bring?
Dave:There's some overlap in the Hebrew words that are used, such as the spirit of might, and he's called the mighty God. I think Isaiah 9 talks about more, you know, who this person is going to be, the wonderful counselor. Um I think the word counselor there might be some overlap in chapter 11. The thing that I was thinking about with regards to the sevenfold spirit is this is new information. So in chapter nine, we don't really hear about the spirit, it's more just this is the son of David, and he will be a child and a son, and the government will be on his shoulder. But then in chapter eleven, we're given this spirit anointing piece of information. Yeah. So there's a Trinitarian effort going on there. You know, if you if you ever read the book uh He Who Gives Life by Um the guy at Trinity, Cole, he actually says that before Messiah was the the the giver of the spirit, uh he's the bearer of the spirit, and he traces the the spirit's work in the milestones of Jesus' life. So his virgin birth, there was a spirit element, there was a spirit as his baptism, everybody knows about that one. There was the spirit was there at his temptation, the spirit was there empowering him for ministry, the spirit was there in his miracles, the spirit was there. The cross is the hardest one, I think, for him to to find, but I think there's a verse in Hebrews or something that talks about how the atonement was um somehow the spirit played a role in the I'm not remembering, but there's a verse in Hebrews about that. And then, of course, the spirit was there in the resurrection, and then the spirit was there uh, of course, on Pentecost when he poured it out for for all of us. So it the spirit played a significant role in the the entire career of the Messiah, and you're missing something if you if you don't see that as Jesus' um life is played out in the gospel story. Yeah, certainly.
Bob:So and that's the verse that Jesus reads as he begins his public ministry. So good, good observations there. Um so I want to bring us back to last fall, and you said you want to talk about this.
Dave:So Hebrews 9 14. How much more then will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences? So even there, uh it's it's a Trinitarian work happening in our salvation.
Chris:So inseparable operations.
Bob:You know, uh to to call the Chris here, I remember one time we were talking while we were still students at Denver, and we were talking about the Trinitarian concepts. And and I remember this conversation being about how a lot of times we we attribute certain elements to the wrong person of the Trinity. Um and that sometimes we you know we we pray to uh the Son when we should be focusing on the Father or to the Spirit.
Dave:Or we thank the Father for dying on the cross.
Bob:We shouldn't be thanking the Father for dying on the cross as the Son, right? So um it it's it's good to get the persons of the Trinity correct in terms of the economy and what they're doing.
Dave:Um it's critical. Yeah, so uh a Isaiah 11 2, I think gives us a little like taste. You know, in the Old Testament, I think the Spirit was more known to come upon these leaders, like the Spirit comes upon the judges, and the Spirit comes upon the kings, and it's like the anointing oil image. So in that way, you're I mean the word Messiah, Meshiach is like the the anointing, the one who has the the anointing of God. So the spirit will be upon him. And he certainly was true.
Bob:It's true. Speaking of, we didn't do any uh uh recaps recaps of House of David, Pastor Dave.
Dave:Oh, where are we?
Bob:Well did another episode drop? Drop last night. I didn't get to watch it yet, but did you watch the first two?
Dave:I did.
Bob:Alright, what'd you think about the f the battle with the Philistines?
Dave:It was much longer than I thought. It was the whole episode. Yeah, and there was a lot of stuff in there that didn't happen in the Bible. So I'm like, Well, that wasn't mentioned in the Bible. We don't giant shows up and like rescues Akish, and um it was neat, it was like creative, but I'm like, man, they're going way, way off script here.
Bob:My daughter has been watching with us and then wanted to listen to more of first and second Samuel, and I was struck by what a central role Akish or Akish plays in first and second Samuel. Like he's there the whole time. Yes.
Dave:And I'm glad about that. I'm glad that they have chosen a character that's playing him well and they're giving him he's not flat. He's got um, you know, we're interested to see what will happen to Akish. Yeah. We don't normally hear like that much about Akish in sermons and stuff like that.
Bob:So he does eventually. At the end, his that final battle with Saul, Saul dies, and Akish, I guess, wins. Anyway, side note. Um, okay, so let's talk about the um uh verses seven and eight of chapter eleven, where that sort of brings us back to the millennial debates we had last fall with uh uh you know Revelation, and then you have the whole regathering of Israel piece. So let's talk a little bit about those verses, I guess seven seven to twelve. Uh what are we to make of these and these different concepts? The regathering? And the millennium. Like the you said seven and eight is sort of a a a tacit call to the millennium and what's gonna happen. Is there gonna be a physical rebirth of things that are happening here on earth? Will this world be remade?
Dave:Yeah. Like with animals and stuff?
Bob:Yeah, well, I thought you you were starting to get into that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:I mean, there's different views on that. So is Isaiah talking about something that's very literal with actual animals getting along in ways that they don't get along now? Um, some people see it that way. I tend to lean that way. That's probably more of a pre-millennial view. I guess in the omillennial view, you could see that as new heavens, new earth, right? Um or post-millennial, I guess you could see that as the I guess any view could have literal animals doing that. Never mind.
Bob:So when my friend Rob Barker, when I was on the panel with him last year, saw that as New Creation Light. New Creation Light. I said kind of like the millennium, right?
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, or but other people take that to be more like symbolic. So Isaiah's using this imagery to talk about peace on earth. Um, I I don't know. What do you guys have an opinion about the animals and the imagery there? Have you thought about that? Have you studied it?
Bob:I have well, it's it's more prominent in 65 and 66, but it's sort of it's mentioned here too. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah, I I don't know. I probably would lean to not be too literal with it. Um, we got an opposing view here too. Yeah, I think that'd be a little bit I I and I think I'm taking it as it's it is communicating peace. Um it's hard to imagine a lion that's not a predator. And I think the the my question, you know, we're for a more literal view would be uh was there something wrong with the way God made a lion to be? Um or is really the the problem is human sin. It's not necessarily I it it just begs the question of to what extent has sin corrupted creation itself or it there's nothing wrong with the lion made the way it is. Um and then what does that mean for the new heavens and the new earth? Are we not gonna have predators anymore? Um because there's there's it makes me think of the end of Job when God confronts him and he is talks about the behemoth and the Leviathan, and he basically is communicating, I made creation wild. Um and there's something important to learn about the fact that he made creation wild. Um and so if that's an intrinsic good, then why would that be something that's removed in in the new heavens and new earth? I I don't but that that's those are my questions. I don't really have an answer. I just I do think that we tend to flatten out the new heavens and the new earth like it's gonna be all perfect and we're not gonna have, you know, sports anymore or something like that because that involves competition. Yeah, yeah, we'll definitely involve. Uh and and I kind of wonder, no, what what's the promise is is that there won't be sin, and it's very difficult for us to imagine what many normal human activities will look like without the presence of sin. Like I don't how I like to win. I don't play board games with my family that I can't win at. And then that means we don't play board games because they don't want to play board games that they always lose at. So, you know, but like what is it gonna be like to do something that we do for the competitive fun and then there's no competition? Like, will we participate in these activities in a way that we can enjoy it for the activity itself? Which I think is basically what is gonna happen. Like, I think So in the animal kingdom, to what extent are the things that they do that is natural and good that God intrinsically created um will just continue to happen. Um it's just it's the challenge is death. There's gonna be no death, there's gonna be no need for sacrifices, so you know, that would be that would be the pushback to what I said.
Dave:That's what I was gonna ask you about. So are we gonna have like dying stuff in the new heavens and new earth?
Chris:I don't know. I mean I don't think so. I don't think we'll have dying stuff.
Dave:Um I was teaching this in adult education one time, and they said, Where are we gonna get our meat?
Chris:Yeah, right. No, that's a good question. Like, what if there's gonna be meat and meat imagery is used in Isaiah, I think specifically it is. So I think that's where you go philosophically. There are moral evils and natural evils. And so the evil that scripture's talking about being removed, is it just the moral evil?
Dave:So do you know what some people say about that?
Chris:What would they say?
Dave:You don't need death to have meat. Like Jesus fed 5,000 people with fish without killing anything.
Chris:Sure, sure.
Bob:So we'll have replicators like Star Trek the Next Generation.
Chris:It's this is fun stuff to talk about, but I have no dog in the fight. Literally. Literal dog? No dog. No, not yet. My dog is still alive. It's not in doggy heaven yet.
Bob:Would you eat your dog if uh you were hungry?
Dave:What's your view on your dog making it to the other side?
Chris:Ooh, that's questioned a couple things. But now that I have a dog and I love the dog, and I've every dog owner friend I have all dogs go to heaven. Say they cry like they've never cried before when their dog dies. And uh Yeah, it makes me think that we'll there is something to be said if if this is if heaven's gonna be all that scripture seems to promise that it be, that it will have those things that we have enjoyed here, but even more deeply, because it'll be without all the the broken, sinful part of it. So I look forward to a dog that um is perfectly obeying, and there you go, there we go. You know, doesn't scratch up my house.
Dave:Uh uh here's a couple little views I just did little chat GPT. So the um lions and wolves and lambs and stuff like that. If you are gonna want to follow Augustine, he saw the peace between animals as symbolizing reconciliation among former enemies. Calvin sees this as a metaphor for peace and harmony among those people who are transformed by Christ. Um B.B. Warfield, Voss, Klein, Hookma, Kim Riddlebarger sees this as describing the spread of the gospel and the spiritual reign of Christ right now. Wow. John Calvin, Isaiah 11 6. The picture of universal peace is not zoological but moral. Um, and then you have Edwards, Hodge, and these guys saying this is an imagery of formerly hostile peoples living at peace through the transforming power of the gospel.
Bob:So history talking about the Israel Gaza thing, is right here.
Dave:Yeah, like that. Boom. So it could be that, and then there's the more literal folks. Alec Motyer, um, I'm referring to his commentary on Isaiah quite a bit. He says this is more like actual peace among animals. So I always kind of lean that way, but I I do want to just say a lot of good Christians see that differently, and they um deserve respect, and we should maybe think about some other views and how how else the text might be interpreted. Whatever we're saying, when the Messiah comes, it will be a beautiful reign of peace.
Bob:Mm-hmm. Good. Well, why don't we finish with the regathering of Israel? Because you promised you'd talk about that. Okay, let's talk about the views there.
Dave:All right, so the second section, Isaiah 11, 10 through 16, or 11 through 16, depending upon where you divide it, talks about some sort of regathering and a return, and there's three basic views. So view number one is we're talking about the return that happened under Ezra and Nehemiah. Um, this fits the historical context of Isaiah's settings. Um the language parallels a lot of the post-exilic texts in Isaiah 1, Nehemiah 1, and he says, uh a second time specifically, and so if you count one and two, the first being the Exodus, this would be the second time, which is the regathering that happened in the Bible. Like this was already fulfilled. The the cons of that view are that the geographic scope are not exact. So he mentions Egypt, Assyria, Kush, Elam, Shinar, Hema. That's exceeding the Babylonian return. So most of the Jews came back from Babylon, period, full stop, not like the four corners of the earth, north, south, east, west. So we're in a little bit of a different territory. Uh, the second thing is like the conditions were not as ideal. Isaiah 11 seems to be talking about this for this future like time of peace, and we're certainly not there in Ezra and Nehemiah. And the main problem I had with it was like the Davidic ruler's not there. So, you know, in Isaiah 11, we're talking about the shoot that comes up from the stump, and the fact that he's there means that like that's why this stuff all comes together. And he's certainly not there under Ezra and Nehemiah. He doesn't come till 400 years later. But a lot of people think this, including Bob and I's like pretty much go-to commentary by John Oswald. He says this is like the historic fulfillment under Babylon, but he also says it could be a typological fulfillment for something later, like an anti-type for a year for why not a both and okay. That's view four. Hold on. So that's view one. Um, view two, that's also Brother Child's. Okay, so view two.
Bob:It's a good Denver seminary answer. Yeah. How about everything? Yeah, exactly.
Dave:A bunch of fence riders on this panel here today. All right. View two is this spiritual view, the church view, fulfillment in Christ in the church. This happened in Acts chapter two. Um the strongest evidence for this is not just that John Calvin said this, but in Romans 15, 12, Paul literally quotes Isaiah 11, verse 10, applying it to the Gentiles in the church age as part of their inclusion. So if the scripture in Romans 15 is your authority, then you have to say, then, at least in some sense, this is getting fulfilled in the days of Paul, and he's seeing this uh regathering happen before his eyes, and the nations are coming to Christ. So that's a reputable view. Um, you know, Pentecost has like all these nations that are named there, then they're coming to Jerusalem, and then they're exploding out into the world. So that's Calvin. This guy wants to eat you, Pastor. Yeah. Yeah. He looks safe. He looks pretty calm.
Bob:He's not safe, but he's good.
Dave:Yeah. So we also have been reading Barry Webb. I know some of you are reading Barry Webb. Nice. Bible speaks today. He takes this view. It's a good one, man. Okay. Third view. You guys bored? You guys alright? Can I go again? All right. Third view, eschatological end times regathering view. This is the view that says this is a later prophecy. This is, you know, happening at the end of the world. There will be like a, you know, a great revival amongst the Jewish people, a national day of repentance, that kind of thing. And Paul alludes to something like that happening in Romans 11 when all Israel be will be saved and they'll be regathered back to the land. Um, most dispensationalists would take it this way. Um, some people say even in the late 1800s, early 1900s, the Zionist movement was like moving towards this thing, bringing the modern state of Israel to its inception in 1948. And here we are, like watching prophecy unfold before our eyes. I think that's probably taking this a little bit too far. We don't know exactly that that's happening. Dispensationalists speak in terms that are a little bit too certain sometimes, and I can say that as somebody who went to Dallas. Um so I think we should be careful about that. But it is a reputable view. We have Charles Feinberg, we have John Wolver, John Oswalt again, with the nuance there that this could be talking about something in the future as well. So that could be something later, something later in the future. And then there's Chris's view, which is why not everything. So the synthetic view.
Chris:Oh, they call it synthetic. The synthetic view, not to be clear, view number four. Just to be clear. Talking about it's a Silicon Valley view. Synthesizing the views together.
Dave:So the this is kind of the already, not yet. It's kind of the both and approach. The already sense is that hey, Christ is the root of Jesse. He has gathered together the spiritual remnant of Israel, and uh the nations are coming to part of his kingdom. He is the banner, he is the signal, he is uh the Messiah that we are all waiting for. That's the already. And then the not yet part is God will one day also bring about a future um incoming wave of Jewish people to Christ as part of the hope of Romans 11. So those are the three three and a half views. There's four views. Those are the four views of the regathering in Isaiah 11. What do you think? Chris. What's your view? I want to hear from you. I want to know. Like make a comment. What's your view and why do you think we don't want just questions, we want comments.
Bob:Why?
Dave:Why do you think that? Convince me. Convince me of your view. I'd love to hear from you.
Bob:Prove them wrong. Yeah. So which one did you lean towards?
Dave:Oh.
Bob:All right. Well, he doesn't know, so convince Pastor Dave what the right answer is.
Dave:You know, these all are tough. These are tough for me. Yeah. I'm I feel like being dogmatic about this is not a hill I want to die on. I can see a lot of truth in each of these.
Bob:Okay.
Dave:We'll go with that. I'm probably frustrating everyone with that.
Bob:So you're kind of a both hand with all the so it could be why not all of them? Why not all of them? Why not, yeah.
Chris:That's why I like I like those answers because it tr it the hard part is when you get the devil's in the details and you start trying to work out how you make sense and put all the pieces together, and then those views start uh having a hard time. Yeah. So the other sometimes the other ones are cleaner, easier to understand. People like black and white, not gray. That's true.
Bob:It's true. Yeah. All right. Good. Well, thank you for preaching. Next week we're gonna we're gonna uh catapult all the way to chapter 25. So you're gonna have a lot of reading in between uh it's gonna be a serious five-minute catch-up recap. It is. I'm gonna have to figure out a way to take us through uh chapter 13 to 24 and symbolic five minutes, Tim. Yeah. It is. It is. It is. We'll figure it out. I got an idea for you there. We'll figure it out. All right. So that's that's that. We have one final sponsor of our show today, so let's get to it. Our final sponsor of the show today is the senior lunch. If you are a senior, I'll let you uh define that for yourself. Or if you identify as a senior.
Tim:No, they say it's it's sponsored by the seniors, but they tell you that anyone can come.
Bob:Okay, so anybody who identifies as a senior can uh can indeed attend the senior lunch. There's lots of good food. You can gobble it up, and there's gonna be a wonderful presentation. I forget what it is. Do you know, Pastor Dave, who's who's presenting? Dr. Funk on Food. That's right, Dr. Funk, Dr. Funk on Food will be there today. Right.
Dave:Carol Funk is gonna do a cooking presentation about the beauty of the spiritual nature of cooking and how that's a blessing from God.
Bob:There we go. So you don't want to miss this, especially if you like to eat. The senior lunches for you. And uh they love behind the pulpit, and behind the pulpit, we will enjoy the senior lunch this week, I think. Yes. All right, boom. All right, now it's on to the theology sprint. Here you go, uh, Chris. This is what ChatGPT came up. Tim put in two pictures of us. Go back to that so we can take the look in that. Oh, I got a look. Like, so here's here's me, and there's uh Dave. I always just can we get a new picture with him not looking like he's gonna go beat somebody up. He has the fear of the Lord. He is putting the fear.
Dave:Bob's like, can we lighten up here, Dave, or not? Can we can we have some fun on this podcast or not?
Bob:Why do we have to be so serious all the time, Dave? So what we do is uh Tim or Noah usually give us a question. We do have some more ground rules this year, though. We can veto it, we can go to another question, but they will throw out a question that we have to answer on the spot. Boom. In ideally 60 seconds, although with Dave it's usually a symbolic 60 seconds. So let's talk about that. All right, are you guys ready for today's question?
Dave:Let's see what we got. I'm mad and long-winded.
Tim:If it's a great combination. Put that on a t-shirt. All right.
Bob:That's gonna be it next on our store. Make sure you put the village last day, right? We can make that a sticker.
Tim:Pastor Dave. He's mad and long-winded. All right. If that's a good title for this podcast. If Jews today sincerely pray to the God of the Old Testament, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, does God still hear their prayers and accept their worship even though they don't believe in Jesus as the Messiah?
Bob:That's a good question for N.T. Wright. What do you think?
Dave:You know, there's a couple people that are on TBN that actually answer this question wrongly that frustrate the heck out of me. Um. So the entire New Testament, the gospel story, all of the epistles, the entire missionary movement of the first century was about teaching the Jews that the Messiah had come and that apart from him there is no hope. I yes, we love the Jewish people, but they come into the church the same way that we come into the church through faith in Jesus Christ, through repentance, and through honoring the Son. Now, if someone is Jewish and truly seeking the Lord and truly wanting to honor him with their lives, then I believe that that God will honor that and and God will reveal himself fully to that person. But only until they accept the Son are they really part of God's kingdom. So, you know, we are Trinitarian, so we worship God, but the question is who who is God? So uh if you don't worship the Father, Son, and Spirit, then we don't worship the same God. And so I think we have to understand that um in the New Testament, the culmination of all of God's revelation is in the person of Jesus Christ. And that's the greatest news in all of the world for the Jew first and then for the Gentile. Um, but we all come into the kingdom through the cross, and Jesus was Jewish, the disciples were Jewish, and the Apostle Paul was Jewish, and their main message to everybody is there is no hope unless you accept our great Jewish Messiah. The root and the shoot from Jesus.
Bob:The root, the shoot, and the tree. Yeah. Who died on the tree to save us?
Dave:Did that come across too harsh? I don't mean to sound harsh with that. Depending on who you are. That was good. Do you guys want to soften that at all? No.
Chris:I think may maybe the only thing I I would say is is is the question kind of first off, it's the same as speculating about what about somebody who's never heard about Jesus. So theologically I put it in the same category as that there does need to be explicit knowledge about Christ in order to to know him in a saving way. I think the only other thing about it is to say, is someone asking, does someone have enough information if they only had the Old Testament in order to know Christ? And so on the one hand I want to say, well, there's continuity there, but there's a lot of open questions that the New Testament answers with respect to things that the Old Testament pointed to, alluded to, but didn't give the full revelation, because we have the full revelation in Christ. So maybe I would build up to your answer.
Dave:I wish I would have started there. That's a better place to start. I came in a little hot.
Bob:So you but you would also agree that they need to know Jesus in order to be saved.
Chris:Yeah, I d I do. I I I think the only way the way this question was once asked while we were in seminary that tripped me up was what about Jews that were faithful in the first century and the gospel hadn't come out to them yet? Like that pushes it's still the same theor hypothetical believer type of situation. Um but that kind of tripped me up to say, oh yeah, that that seems odd that one day they're good and the next day they're not. Like at the end of the day, God's just, he's gonna sort it out, everybody comes through Christ. You know.
Bob:So we will leave it in the hands of the sovereignty of the Lord.
Dave:The judge of all the earth will do what is right.
Bob:That's right. Amen. The just and the justifier. All right. Well, hey. Thank you so much for joining us today, Chris. Thanks for having me. We'll have to have you fly from uh California over to here more often. Yeah, I don't know. Thank you. We should go over there. Yeah. We should, yeah. Are you are you doing the thing in San Diego? Well, yeah. Well, not that he's anywhere close to San Diego, but I might be.
Dave:Actually, there's a thing called the Dasco seminars where you um get together with a bunch of other pastors and go through a book of the Bible. They're going through Ezekiel down in San Diego next June.
Chris:Who's leading that?
Dave:Tim Mackey. And I was thinking about going, but Bob won't come with me.
Bob:It's not that I wouldn't. I just I just can't. I can't. I want to stay married, so I gotta I'll go with you. That's a good answer, Bob.
Dave:All right, Tim, let's do it. We'll visit Chris. Awesome. How far is that from San Jose? It's it's a way from the five. It's like nowhere near that. Oh my word. Okay, never mind. It's like eight hours. All right. Well, hey, you know what?
Bob:Thanks for joining us for Behind the Pulpit today. Uh, if you want to be a sponsor, right into Tim. Maybe we can get you a spot on the show. Uh we hope to see you back next week, October the 20th. We'll be right here, same bad time, same bad channel on Behind the Pulpit. Go read some Christian theology this week.