Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Pastor Wolfe here together with Pastor Andy Packer, who's pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois. I heard a rumor about you, Pastor Packer, and that is that you are wearing a jacket because you're so ashamed from me pointing out the size of your biceps from our last episode. Is that true?
[00:00:19] Speaker B: It's totally true. I was embarrassed. Now I have to cover them. Hide my shame. Yeah.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: My biceps.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: What do you got? So we are answering YouTube deal. We're answering your theology questions. God be praised for you sending them in. I'm. I'm currently going through my junk mail to find 30 more questions that I apparently get forwarded there. I'll be sending those to Pastor Packer. But we got a lot today, so let's You. Let's make today a lightning round. What do you say?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Just roll through, see how we can get through. Okay. This one's on the canonization of scripture.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: This has the potential of getting me worked up. All right.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Okay, here we go.
So they said that a Lutheran and an advocate of sola scriptura. But an argument from Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox apologists that has lately been troubling me is that by trusting the early church for the canonization of the 27 New Testament books means the church is a higher authority than Scripture.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: It's so ridiculous. It's like, hey, we're going to pick the books. And then say, hey, because we picked the books, we have the authority to pick the books. It's just. It's. And they think that sola scriptura is a circular argument. I mean, this is like the definition. And so you just go back to the early church and ask, hey, how come you guys can teach with authority? And they say, because we teach in line with the prophets and the apostles. And this is why the books of the New Testament are in the New Testament or in the Scripture is because they are prophetic and apostolic in authorship and in content. This is like, oh, anyway, I mean.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: I think that's the issue, right? Like, were they the judge and jury and executioner over Scripture, or were they just acknowledging what scripture attested to be right? And it seems like it's the latter. They want to make it the former because their whole authority structure hinges on that, right?
If you can't be over the scripture, then a lot of the arguments kind of fall apart. But then it also gets into issues with. Isn't it the first time, like, we have a full list of, like, what's considered scripture and canon that includes, like, some of the apocryphal books is. You don't even get that till the Council of Trent.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: And they needed that. I mean, so the. And the Council of Trent was like. They were like. They were like the. You know, so the guys on, like, Reddit, where you up vote your own answer to the question.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: They're like, we need something on purgatory. Upvote Maccabees, you know, ding, ding, ding, ding. We need something. Prayer of the saints. Upvote Judith. Because the church always knew that these were historic books, not prophetic books. They don't claim to be books of the prophets, and yet they need them for the. They're like, oh, man, Paul didn't say anything about purgatory. What are we going to do now? Let's. We. We have to pretend like it comes from the Bible. But this is, in fact, the whole thing that the Catholic Church is stuck in because we just. So here's the critical question for the Catholic theologians. What would you require me to believe that is not taught by the prophets and apostles?
And when we ask that question, one of two things happens. Either the Catholic theologian says, nothing. Everything we teach is taught by the prophets and apostles. We say, great. Sola scriptura. Glad we're on the same page. Or they say, well, here's the list of things you must believe to be saved that's not taught by the prophets of apostles. And then we can just. They just expose their spiritual gaslighting and abuse by putting us under the authority that is not divine, that is not God's word. So it's one of the other guys. So, I mean, pick your poison.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: I was going to recommend, especially since they said they were Lutheran. They could possibly ask their pastor.
Hopefully he has covenant to his examination of the Council of Trent, because I think it's volume one, where he deals with their arguments about Scripture. And it's quite helpful. He goes through the Old Testament and then into the New Testaments, showing why we hold what we do regarding it.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Look at this. Do you know what this is? Martin Chemnitz did a summary of his own examination of the Council of Trent. That's never been translated until now. Not by me, by Dylan. And it's almost done. And so we're going to publish the first volume of this so that everyone can have Chemnitz's examination in their hands. This is so good. And he makes this brilliant argument, Kimnitz does to the Catholics who are like, hey, we have to have traditional. He says, fine. It's great, great. Tradition's great. Let's Just let the Bible be the oldest tradition and the preeminent tradition, and anything that comes later in that tradition will be contradicted. I mean, it has to be overruled by the earlier tradition of the Scriptures, which is so. Because it's so weird. Like tradition is always newer than the prophets and apostles, but it's presented to us like it's the old ancient stuff against our new stuff. But no. So we just say, you know, this is just Chemnitz's great argument for Sola scriptura. The authority of the scriptures is that the scriptures are the, are the prime tradition. And then you're there.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: And I think he makes the other argument that's similar to that when he starts talking about how, yeah, it had to be written down because. And he gave, he gives examples from Scripture like when it's not written down, people lose sight of it really fast. And so if you're going to argue that these things have equal bearing with Scripture, but no one bothered to write them down, it's a really strange argument because Kennens argument is the things that don't get written down get messed up pretty early on. And you needed the Scripture to keep everyone looking to the truth and within the bounds of the truth. And that just looking to tradition that way does end up putting tradition above Scripture no matter what they say. Like you're just like, well, it's just wasn't included, but this is what they taught. Well then why didn't they include it if it was important enough to be binding on everyone? And then Chemnitz destroys that kind of thinking pretty easily.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: He makes this great argument that there was a time when there was no New Testament, just Old Testament. There was a time when there was no Old Testament, just oral tradition. And the results were catastrophic. I mean, it's like if you want the authority of tradition, then you end up getting Noah's flood so that the Lord recognizes, I mean, the apostles recognize themselves. They're like, man, I better write something down because this is getting out of hand over here in Corinth or Galatia or whatever, I better write it down.
And that written down apostolic and prophetic word becomes the touchstone upon which everything else is judged. And from the get go, I mean, that was the purpose. The reason why Paul wrote these letters, why Peter wrote these letters, why the gospel, the evangelist wrote them down, is so that the teaching that they were hearing can be tested against the word of God. It's, I mean, like just reading first, I mean any, take any paragraph of any book of The Bible and say, why is this given to us by the Holy Spirit? So that I can judge the teaching that I'm hearing against this truth. I mean, when Paul says, if an angel of heaven or if I come preaching another gospel, then what I've preached you and what I am in scripture, what I'm writing down here, let them be anathema. And that's the point, is that for the Scriptures to stand as judge over whatever is being taught in the church is why they exist. And the Catholic Church says, no, no, no, no, no. They exist because we let them exist. You know, we, we. We chose. We. We were picking the team, you know, come on, come on.
These guys are just. It's like they're playing theology. It's, it's so. And then, and, and then they accuse us of their nonsense.
Those who came, the Catholic guys, why did Luther want to take books out of the Bible? What books? And how do you even know? Because you don't even have a Bible.
You claim that the Catholic Church has the authority to choose what's in and out of the Bible. And on that, you claim your authority, and then you insult Luther because you accuse him of picking which books are going to be in and out of the Bible. You actually do. You boast that you picked what books are in and out, and that is your place of authority. And then you accuse Luther of doing it and say it's sinful when he does it. Well, first of all, he didn't do it. You did it. And it was. It's sinful that you claim to do that. How bad are they. Is Rome gaslighting everybody in the whole world? It's just like.
I mean, can you imagine the goal of it? We picked what books are in and out. That's why we're in charge. And then Luther picked what was in and out. That's why he's a heretic. Well, what. Which is it, guys? And in fact, it turns out that both of them are lies. That the Lord Jesus chose his prophets and apostles and gave them the Spirit so that they could write these things down, so that we could know what's right and wrong and true and false and have the confidence of the forgiveness of sins, which is the very thing that the Catholic Church is trying to steal from us. Because they say you cannot be sure of these things unless you are subject to the Pope in Rome.
They do that, too. So they say you have to be subject to a man to be saved. And then they say, look at you Lutherans. You're subject to a man.
So they claim their deceptive sins as their good work and then they accuse other people of doing them as sins.
Okay, that's what I say to that. That's a quick answer to that question. This gets me so worked up. I mean, maybe it's Reformation time and we're supposed to get worked up about this nonsense.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: I was going to say happy Reformation Day Eve.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here. So we're talking about. I'm gonna, I'm gonna title this video something about the Pope so that the order of Catholic trolls will like the hordes to join in the comments here and make all of these accusations without actually listening to the video or responding to anything that we said. And this is our great joy, right, that we get to be like the stink that attracts the flies. Man, oh man.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: I also think it's why this isn't related directly to the question, but it's also why I'm a pretty big advocate that Matthew wrote his gospel really shortly after the ascension.
All the ideas that people like waiting, I don't know, 10, 20 years to write stuff down to me is absolutely silly and based on lots of assumptions that I think are also silly. But to think that Matthew waited after the most important event in history that they've been waiting thousands of years for, and Matthew's like, you know what? I'm not gonna write about it for like 20 years. I'm just gonna wait and see how things work out to me is kind of ridiculous. But we won't go down that road today. We're gonna go to the next question.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Here's one more thing that just, I mean, okay, the Catholic Church will sit there and argue this. They'd say how Luther, you know, was choosing what's in and out. But here this is. The whole thing is for the Catholic Church, it doesn't actually matter. Like, the reason why Luther was having all was wrestling with these texts, the homologomina and anti Legomena. Here I'm thinking about the New Testament texts like Hebrews and Revelation and stuff is because it actually mattered for the Catholic Church. It doesn't even matter because the whole point is we believe things that are not in the scriptures. So it's like I've never met a Catholic priest or theologian who believes in the six day creation, for example, who believes that Genesis is history, or even who believes that Isaiah was written by Isaiah. They're all higher critics. They're, they're, they all of them believe that the Bible contains error, but it doesn't change their Doctrine, because their doctrine never came from the Bible in the first place. It's like those, those videos where, you know, the guy's sitting on the, on the chair, on the swimming pool, by this pool, and someone kicks the leg out from under the chair and the leg flies off and they're still sitting there because it doesn't. Because there was no weight on the leg of the chair anyways, so. So they claim that Luther kicks the authority out from under the scripture, which they actually do. And it doesn't even change anything. Like, why does the Catholic Church now not have women priests?
That's not because Paul said not to do it. It's just because they've never done it before. And, I mean, who knows how long it'll last because they also, they claim this authority of tradition, and then they also claim to be able to change doctrine. It's not changing, it's clarifying. What do they call the growth of doctrine? It doesn't change.
It gets exemplified or whatever. I mean, it's the same difference between worship and adoration. They invent some sort of term to say that the thing that's obvious isn't the thing that's obvious. More theological gaslighting. All right, sorry, I said one more thing. That's probably enough.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: It made me think, though, of if, especially since it's Reformation date tomorrow and most of us celebrated Reformation this past Sunday.
How, how much, though now in our own circles, do we make the same kind of arguments based on tradition rather than. Than scripture? So I once, I've said a few times here at my new church and, and I've said it other places too. Like if you went to a Lutheran church and said, why do you do it this way? Why do you do this? And they answer, because that's the way we've always done it.
And you hear that all the time, right? But if you went to Roman Catholic church and you asked them that and said, why do you do it this way? And they said, this is the way we've always done it, the Lutheran would be appalled and be like, see, that's why.
That's why they're Roman Catholic, because it's all tradition. But if you go to Lutheran Church and ask the same question, you get the same answer. It doesn't register with them. It's also just as bad to say, this is just always the way we've done it, therefore it's right because we've done it this way. Without asking the question of, well, is one, is that in line with scripture? Are you sure that's even actually Lutheran tradition, Or is that just your own church's tradition? Is that just an LCMS tradition? Whatever. Like, are these things actually in line with Scripture? Are they actually.
Are we actually looking at it through the lens of scripture and our confessions, or are we just doing it because we've been doing it that way for a long time now? And so we're just going to keep doing that thing. So I think it's a temptation for us as well. And I hear that kind of language, you know, in Lutheran churches. I'm always like, that should never be the Lutheran answer ever. Should not be. We've always done it that way. Like, there should be a reason you've done it that way. And if there's not and. Or if that reason is bad or if that reason is not in line with Scripture, then. Then we have problems that we need to step back and say, maybe we need to take a look at this practice for this thing and actually evaluate it and see if we're in line with what Jesus said or if we're just doing it because we've always done it that way.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: I think that's right. Although we do have a generous view of tradition. But it must be underneath the scriptures. It must serve law and gospel. So, in fact, well, we've always done it this way.
That is a. Maybe it's part of the argument. It's not the conclusion.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. I don't think it can be the sole reason ever for something. You have to be able to say, we've done it this way because maybe you can say, we've always done it this way because xyz and you're building upon Scripture, that's fine. But just to say we've always done it that way, and then that's the end of the discussion. It's no different than what we're criticizing the Roman Catholics for.
It's a temptation on our side as well as theirs.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Okay, lightning round starts now.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: I was gonna say that wasn't. That was not very lightning. I. That was. That was like the. The lightning storms I used to see in Arizona. But thunders for. Like.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: That was the thunder round. Kaboom.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: All right, this one's on divorce and remarriage.
I recently had a family member go through a divorce. It was a very sad situation involving adultery. Both parties are now starting to date new people with the possibility of remarrying. I know divorce is always wrong, but permissible. Permissible, if I can say that word, in severe cases of adultery, abuse, et cetera but is remarrying ever okay after divorce? I know in our American context, people divorce and remarry constantly. But what does the Bible say about this? And I've seen recently, I don't know if you've seen this. There's been a new push movement that I've seen that argues that it's never okay to remarry after divorce. I don't know if you've seen this. There's even been some books come out, I think recently that make that argument. So it does seem to be a topic that's coming up more and more in light of some recent things. So what do you think? Can people marry after divorce?
[00:17:47] Speaker A: It goes back to the text of Matthew 19 where the Pharisees are asking about divorce. Can a man divorce his wife for any reason? And it's interesting that Moses. So the vicar preached on this a couple of weeks ago and he pointed out that the text that they refer to in Moses. It's interesting that the text the Pharisees go to is the one little place where the Lord mentions divorce in Deuteronomy, not to the gift of marriage. So Jesus says that not that text is not the key. The key is the Genesis text. He also pointed out that the text about divorce is not in commanding divorce or even authorizing divorce, but constraining divorce. So much like the verses on slavery, which almost assume that it's happening and is trying to sanctify this bad thing happening.
It's almost like the Lord says through Moses, I know you're going to do this, so do it this way, not this way.
But it should not be understood as a divorce, as a.
Well, as Jesus says, it's not an option for the Christian. Now there's two cases where the Lord does talk about the authorization to divorce, and it's adultery and abandonment in 1 Corinthians. So Jesus talks about adultery, Paul talks about abandonment. And in both cases, the one who is cheated on or the one who is abandoned is explicitly, I think in the Scriptures someone have to argue different explicitly given permission to remarry. So it's when Jesus talks about if a person is divorced and they get remarried, they commit adultery. It's interesting that the adultery doesn't happen in the act of divorce, but actually in the act of remarriage in that case. And because the Lord does not see the divorce, he still sees the original marriage standing. He joined the two together, let not man separate them.
This is our attitude. But the result is that then if you go get remarried, it's you're, you're. You're getting divorced now.
So so far, the biblical witness. So I think the simple answer to the question is if there's a, if there's a marriage that is broken up by abandonment or adultery, the victim of the abandonment or the unfaithfulness is free biblically to remarry. Is that. Are you, are you and I on the same page on that?
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've been surprised by some of the arguments saying that you can't remarry. Like you said, I think there's clear instances where Christ says, yeah, you can remarry. And Paul too.
I mean, and it seems. Because in some ways then it seems to make the victim of those things under a harsher law than the Old Testament, if that makes sense. Like, it seems like you're putting that. Making them bear a greater burden than even the Old Testament saints had to bear under. And that also, to me then seems. Seems like an odd place to end up. Like they're the victims of these things, and yet somehow if they remarried, then they're the ones sinning.
But that, that to me seems like a hard argument to make and maybe I'm just ignorant. Need to look into it more.
I haven't read newest stuff out on this topic yet, but that's. So I would see it the same way you do.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the key verse is probably. I'm looking here at 1 Corinthians 7:15. If the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage. In such cases, God has called us to peace. So that seems to indicate to me that there's a freedom then to, to remarry. I. I don't know. I don't know how to now. But there are cases also of divorce where there. It was a sinful divorce and now you have the situation of it was just you. So you just. If you're married, you are fighting like crazy to keep that marriage together. And I mean, you're, you're resourcing, you're mustering all the resources you can, including you got to call your pastor before you call your lawyer. You have to get people involved in this thing because we have to help each other. We're fighting for these marriages for the sake of the marriage itself, for the sake of God's word, for the sake of the Lord's work, for the sake of. For the families and so forth. We gotta, especially in the church, we have to be fighting like crazy if, though. So you're Looking at a situation where there already is a divorce right now, how do we sanctify this? So plan A is to live in chastity and pursue reconciliation.
So say you have a husband, wife, and they're divorced. And now the question, well, what do I do now? How do I sanctify this mess that I'm in? Live in chastity and pursue reconciliation. What if reconciliation is no longer possible because the person I was married to is dead? Or that would end the covenant of marriage, I think. Or what if they are. What if they got married to somebody else? Or what if they.
The guy became a woman or whatever? You know, I mean, what. Like, what if that possibility of reconciliation is gone? Now, plan B in that case is to live in. To live in chastity. But what. But now I come to the point where St. Paul says, it's better to marry than to burn. So that if I do not have the gift of chastity, and this should not be something to take, be like, I'm sure I don't have it, that's not the case. To pray that the Lord would give you the gift of continence and chastity and to work towards that. But if that becomes an overwhelming burden, it's probably indicated by months of kind of obsession which cannot be escaped, this kind of thing, and we're trying to work through that, then you now might have the option of, Well, I. It's either.
It's like I get remarried because that is the most sanctified place that I can express my, you know, sexuality because. Because I just can't escape it.
And so there's kind of a plan C, which is almost like it's.
I don't. Like, I'm out of. I'm out of godly options here. So I'm picking the thing that is the most sanctified. And we get into these very, very difficult, just kind of practical situations where we're trying to make the best of it that we can because.
Because everything is falling apart in an ungodly way. And so I think there's these sort of practical, difficult questions where our ideal plans are not. Are not working themselves out. But so. So anyway, that's my kind of big picture thing. You got thoughts on that? That also was not a lightning round question.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: I was going to say. I was. I thought that was good summary and I was going to move on to the next question to try.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: All right, let's do it.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Speed up. Speed up your lightning round.
The slowest lightning round in the history of lightning Rounds.
All right. This is on the rosary.
Their Lutheran, their wife is Roman Catholic.
Issue with Mary and the rosary.
She says she's not praying to Mary, but with Mary. And he thinks that if anyone says hail anyone 50 times and mentions God 5 times, they're not worshiping God, but the other person.
They've been really struggling with this and troubled by it. And could you explain the Lutheran teaching on Mary and the rosary?
[00:25:49] Speaker A: So the Lutheran doctrine is the prayer of the saints, that it is not commanded and it's not helpful. So there's no command, there's no promise, and there's danger in the idea that, that we pray to the saints or that we enlist the saints in helping us to pray because we just don't have a word from God for it. So I think the way to get into the conversation is to discuss the perceived helpfulness of it because that gets to the root problem, which is that mercy and kindness is connected in Catholic doctrine to marry more than to Christ so that there is more comfort in praying to Christ. So I think I would have this conversation is to say to your wife, what about the rosary comforts you?
And if it's just the repetitious prayer, then that's the. If it's just the family history, then you're talking about that. If it's the idea that I now have this spiritual closeness to Mary and I derive some comfort to that, then let's look at the danger because Christ would have us draw near to him. Jesus says, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Mary does not offer that same promise. So the last words of Mary recorded in the scriptures have to be our guide.
Whatever he says do. That's what Mary says. So if we're going to kind of draw near to Mary, she says, pay attention to my son Jesus, and draw near to him and listen to him and pray to him and look to him for all help and I'll be with you because that's what I also do. I look to him for mercy and salvation and kindness and love.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: What do you do with. He mentioned this in there and I hear this a lot or see it a lot online. What do you do with the argument that, well, it's just like me calling you up and saying, hey, I'd like you to pray about this thing for me. And I call you up and say, pray for me and I trust that you're going to pray for me. And so it sounded like she used language of that I'm praying with Mary. Not to Mary. I'm not worshiping Mary.
How do you answer that? Because that's the one I hear and see a lot now is I'm not praying to them, I'm praying with them. It's no different than you asking your friends to pray for you.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: So this would be a weird thing, thing if I needed something, like, if I was in desperate need of, I don't know, wisdom. And I never prayed for wisdom. I just called everybody I knew constantly and asked them to pray for me. And it's like, maybe I could also pray for wisdom. So you could maybe start that way, say, well, okay, for every time you call a friend, you also have to speak to the Lord. Because there's a weird thing when I start thinking that your prayers are going to be much more effective than my prayers, right? And again, we have no command, we have no promise that they can hear us. In fact, I mean, we do have the prohibition from. Of speaking to the dead, which should probably apply to this necromancy. So it becomes a kind of sanctified witchcraft. But I think the helpful thing is, what is it about.
What is it about the Lord Jesus that intimidates you from speaking directly to him?
And that is the. I think that's probably the real issue.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: And it's always odd to me, too, because there's an assumption that whatever saint I'm asking for help or praying to, or however you want to word it, that they can hear me.
Which is an odd thing because you're assuming some kind of omnipresence of some kind, right? For them to be able to. To hear, like you are giving them some kind of divine, like, abilities along the way, like you have to. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense. Like, how else then do they hear, you know, millions of people? How does Mary hear all of them unless she has some way to do that? I mean, with the Lord, that's an easy answer because of who he is.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Right?
[00:29:56] Speaker B: And now with. You have to add something to Mary to get her to that level, or any saint, really, to get them to that level where you're saying, well, yeah, of course they can hear me, because. Well, why. Why is it obvious that they can hear you unless they've taken on some kind of divine attributes that I'm unaware we're supposed to receive.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Right? It should. Jesus is the mediator. So I think our right instinct would be the other way around. Like, I have those that I love that are in heaven, and it's not like I talk to them to get a message to Jesus, but rather I talk to Jesus to get a message to them. Yeah, I don't think we need to pray like this all the time, but especially in the midst of mourning to Lord, please comfort my grandfather and give him the confidence that we'll be there soon or whatever. I mean, I'm not sure that Jesus is passing on messages to the saints that are adoring him, but that's a better way to think about it than the other way. Because Christ is the mediator, not that the saints don't mediate. Christ does.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Do you want another one or see.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: What'S lightning round next?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yes, lightning round.
Let's do this one. This one, I think is. Should be an easy one to end with.
All right, I'm going to summarize it because it's a long. It's a very long message, but I've. I've read over it before, so I know. Know the gist of it. So they're asking about infant baptism and they were noticing whenever they hear this brought up, they often hear Acts Chapter two brought up the people at Pentecost, and they raised the question, were only the adults baptized? And they say, surely not. There would be, without doubt, have also been children among those.
And then they say that Credo Baptists love to use Acts 2 to bolster their argument against info baptism. However, Acts 2 seems to be, in my view, clearly pointing to the fact that children of believers should also receive the gift of baptism. You do refer to Acts 2 in your videos, but I've not heard you speak about there being infants amongst those baptized on the day of Pentecost. Maybe I'm wrong about this. I would love to hear your thoughts.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: I don't know if. Yeah, I don't know if there's. So we do have this. What we have in Acts Chapter two is this promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off. So that any attempt to exclude the gift and promise of baptism from the children or from the far off is explicitly addressed in the text. Now, it could be that there's no children there and no infants there. And so they're wondering, is this just for me? Is it also for my family? And Peter says, yes, in fact, it is also for your family.
Is it for those who aren't here now? Yes. In fact, it's for those who are everywhere. It's all nations. That's how Jesus said it. So that any attempt to exclude people who either were there or were not there, but were in the concerns of the People who were being baptized is addressed by that text.
That's confirmed. Then when we get to the two family baptisms in Philippi, Lydia's family and the jailer's family, both all families baptized. It doesn't mention that there were children there, but nor does it mention that there were not. This is the point is that it is only the Credo Baptist, the anti pedo Baptists. What is their name?
We are believers, baptizers too. It's not like we baptize the babies and say that they don't believe. I mean, that's nuts anyway. Anyway, the those who refuse to baptize until you know that you have faith to the onset of reflective faith, which is mistakenly called faith by the Anabaptists.
Okay, maybe on that. Remember how our dogmatic theologians make the distinction between saving faith and reflective faith? Saving faith is the faith that believes the promise. Reflective faith is the awareness that we have of our own faith. And it is that awareness of our own faith that the Anabaptist tradition, the adult Baptist tradition, mistakes for faith. So me knowing I have faith, they say that's faith. Or me even deciding to have faith or acting out on my faith. That is faith. No, saving faith is that trust in the promise of God. And we don't always know that we have it, for example, when we sleep or when we're babies or when we get Alzheimer's or when we're running from a snake. But that doesn't mean that we're not saved because we're not aware of our faith. Okay, so that distinction is really super helpful. So those who make the awareness of faith the equivalent of faith and therefore deny that those who cannot be aware of faith that they have faith, they bring those assumptions to the text and then kick all the babies out of the house. And that's just rude. It's rude. Let the babies be in the household, I say.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: All right, well, I don't know if we've rewritten the definition for lightning round on the Internet, but that'll be our last question for today.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: All right, thanks for everyone who sent in all those hundreds of questions that we answered. It was great.
You'll want to keep an eye on the comments on this one because we'll get the old Catholic apologist crowd going, no doubt. So that'll be exciting to see. And so that'll give us some good fodder for next time for my blood pressure. Thanks everyone who did write questions. Wolfmuller co contact for more or put them in the comments of this video. Thanks, Pastor Packer, for coming along. This is really great. God's peace be with.
