Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tony and Jesse answer listener questions about the Law/Gospel distinction and spiritual discernment.

Listener Name: Billy (Arkansas)
What are our thoughts regarding the law and gospel distinction and its place in reformed preaching?

Listener Name: Nick (Ontario, Canada)
What does it mean for Christians to ‘discern the Spirit’ and how should Christians manage conflict around discernment?

Jesse Schwamb 0:10
Welcome to Episode 168 of the reformed brotherhood. I'm Jesse.

Tony Arsenal 0:16
And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast that sticks closer than a brother. Hey, brother.

Unknown Speaker 0:30
Hey, brother.

Tony Arsenal 0:33
I feel I have this strange sense of deja vu right now.

Jesse Schwamb 0:36
Yeah, it's only you and I that sense that though nobody else knows all of this amazing subtext. That's actually brought us to the place where we're at right now.

Tony Arsenal 0:45
Yeah, I have this strange sense of deja vu right now. It's strange. I have this strange sense of deja vu right now. So I'm just

Jesse Schwamb 0:54
gonna keep saying the lesson and amazing podcast.

Tony Arsenal 0:57
I tried to set that bit up and Jesse was like, I'm gonna Take a drink of my coffee right now. So we, this is now attempt number three. I think this is the most times we've had to like retry to do a podcast. So the first time we did this probably we got about 20 minutes in, we're rockin affirmations and denials. And I discovered that I had neglected to press record on my side of the audio. So we had to start over and then there was a moderate family crisis that had to be addressed. And now we are starting over a third time on a second night. So let's do this.

Jesse Schwamb 1:34
Yeah, it's okay. This is Trinitarian I feel really good about the third take.

Tony Arsenal 1:40
I feel like you just became a heretic of some sort. I'm not sure which heresy it is. Yeah, but why don't why don't we jump right into some affirmations in denials?

Jesse Schwamb 1:50
Everything's already lost in

Tony Arsenal 1:54
the last

Jesse Schwamb 1:54
episodes, we can't go any further. Yeah, we can't go any further off the rails by the way before we actually Actually officially start with some affirmations Niles. I went back and listened to the portion that I just recorded, which is just me and I forgot how ridiculous it is to listen to just one side of a conversation. I really sound intelligent when there's actually two voices that you can hear, but when it's just mine, it just sounds absolutely insane.

Tony Arsenal 2:19
It's even funnier if you listen to just one portion of a recording on a podcast, but you listen to the part where the person the other person's talking. Because you get like silence and then out of the out of nowhere. It'll be like, huh, yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:34
yeah, exactly.

Tony Arsenal 2:38
So it's funny, but if you cut that out, like a lot of podcasts cut out that second. It sounds really like artificial like, it's like monologue with no interaction monologue with no interaction. So that's the price you pay. And yeah, yeah.

Jesse Schwamb 2:54
So there it is. All you get people's out this authenticity with us. Straight up.

Tony Arsenal 3:00
Yeah, so one other sort of like preemptive affirmation that I have. There's this go celebrity in the reformed world, who recently joined our Facebook group and I'm really honored to have this person on my word. It seems like this person actually joined Facebook just to join our Facebook group. And it's you and I'm excited that you're in the group now it's kind of rocking my world that you're on Facebook. Like I don't really know what to do with it. I know you've had like a, sort of like an underground Facebook profile to do some things with like fast God stuff. But to have like a real actual Jesse suam Facebook profile. I'm not entirely sure how to react to

Jesse Schwamb 3:42
that. Listen, you and me both. I definitely am excited to be in the group. I've really had a fun time already interacting with people. I'm trying to figure out all of the Facebook culture and to figure out how to behave and sounds bad. I think I can handle myself online, but interaction there's Yeah, there's culture there's tradition there's like right ways, I guess to reference things and apparently means that are big part of that. So I'm still learning but yeah, I guess I'm, I'm in at this point I kind of, I don't know, I feel like a different person. It feels like a new birth of social me.

Tony Arsenal 4:21
Yeah. You know, the way that you show everyone online that you're super chill and like not angry or aggressive at all, is you actually type in all he type in all caps and it makes you seem like, it seems like you're typing in like New Testament Greek and so you seem really, really righteous, sanctified. So make sure that when you're dealing with people that you're typing in all caps, especially when you're having like a good conversation with someone.

Jesse Schwamb 4:47
Yeah, that sounds like something I'm definitely going to give a shot.

Unknown Speaker 4:50
Yeah, I like it.

Jesse Schwamb 4:51
I don't need all the help I can get. Thank you.

Tony Arsenal 4:54
Yes. So why don't you kick us off with some affirmations here.

Jesse Schwamb 4:59
Alright, so I'm I love that our podcast is straight up nerdery a lot of the time. So sometimes we're talking about Greek, sometimes we're talking about maps or weather. And so this is right within that frame. So what I'm affirming is a gift that I received recently. And it is a game despite maybe the title, and it's called math dice. So the beauty of this game is it's super simple. It's just five die. And basically, what you get is to 12 sided sided die. And then three, six sided, you roll, the 212 sided, and then you multiply the numbers that are on the face. And then the goal is to roll the other three, the six sided ones, and then to use any kind of arithmetic, division, multiplication, addition, subtraction, exponents, to then arrive at the target number, which was the product of the 212. So the guy now I realized, like if you this is actually I think, would be a really great game among people. I've only played it amongst myself because Apparently I'm very lonely. And when you say words like, Hey, want to play math dice? Not a lot of people say, yes. So it's been just me. But it's, it's, I think it'd be great. I'm affirming it because it's super fun. It's really simple to play, but a lots of fun to have. And especially if you have kids, I think that are in grade school that are learning math. It's just a really fun way to have like all these fun perpetual puzzles. And what a great way for parents in particular to kind of so to speak, come down to the level of their children as they're learning this and go through the same type of problems in real time that they're experiencing outside the classroom. So I'm going I'm unashamed supporter and a firmer of math dice. I think it's super fun.

Tony Arsenal 6:40
Yeah, you know, when I was in, to sort of connect math and dice together with each other in a totally, totally different nerdy way. When I was in high school, I played Dungeons and Dragons type game called rifts, which is sort of like a techno magical version. Have it but, you know, dices are a big part of those kinds of games. And I remember a group of my friends were playing, and we were talking about how we didn't understand how certain elements of math, you know, like the classic trope is like, when am I ever going to use this in real life? Like, what am I ever going to need to use trigonometry? And so we were I was the Game Master, which is person like the person who's setting up all the contacts and you determine how like, different non player characters react and the scenarios they go in. And somehow it came up that the, the, the animal or the beast that my The party was fighting was a certain distance away, but it was also flying. And so it was up in the air. And there was a question about whether or not the gun that the person was using was actually going to be able to reach it. And it was like this realization where I was like, This is when trigonometry comes in. So it's like, learn your trigonometry folks, because you're going to need it someday when you're playing nerdy role playing games.

Jesse Schwamb 8:02
I'm glad you said that the end because all I'm thinking during this example is, this is exactly the kind of thing we talked about in our podcast. I love that your demonstration of here's where you can practically use mathematics was completely fantasy related. Yeah.

Tony Arsenal 8:17
The answer was that his gun could not reach the dragon or whatever it was, he was fighting and the whole, the whole party got wiped out because he miscalculated whether or not he could reach it. And it was, it was pretty epic, that it went down that way.

Jesse Schwamb 8:32
I was gonna say those are actually pretty high stakes.

Tony Arsenal 8:35
Yeah, yeah. I can't think of a real world situation where you would actually use that. I guess, I don't know, like, trying to figure out how much rope you have. If you need to, like, zip line down from a building to the ground, I guess. I don't know.

Jesse Schwamb 8:50
I don't know at the risk of going further off track. Might I relay something that that makes me think of so I use this phrase, which I'm pretty sure Probably not my own, but I just think it's hilarious. And you know in Lord of the Rings The creature with the wings the nazgul Yeah, no, I'm talking about

Tony Arsenal 9:09
Yeah, I know what you're gonna say next to and I love every minute

Jesse Schwamb 9:12
of we talked about this. Yeah, I routinely Oh, someone's like, what's the distance between these two points? I'll be like, you know, it's two miles as the nazgul flies. Which is great because either causes mass confusion and judgmental ism on the part of the person listening because they realize you're super nerd, or the person immediately knows what you're talking about. It's like, Oh, yeah,

Tony Arsenal 9:33
yeah. Your wife's not in the room with you. But I know that wherever she is, she just rolled her eyes. So yes, actually correct. Yes. She's like, what?

Jesse Schwamb 9:43
Alright, so how about you save us?

Tony Arsenal 9:46
Yeah, so mine is slightly more spiritual. It involves a little bit of self reflection. I think. I'm affirming the ninth the ninth commandment. And the reason I'm doing this, I don't want to get into The details of exactly what figure I'm talking about, or what my tentative conclusions are. But there's a relatively well known controversial figure, or relatively well known controversy, that I've been kind of revisiting. It's not the emfs controversy, if anybody's wondering, and I'm not changing my position, but I'm sort of reevaluating what I thought a particular finger was saying, or may have been saying. And so I'm affirming the ninth commandment, because sometimes it's really hard for us to recognize that, like, we need to go back and reevaluate something we've read and may need to rethink the conclusion we came to. And the reason I'm saying this is, you know, I was having a conversation online with someone today and I said, You know, I hate to say this, but I may have been wrong about what I thought this person was saying. They may have been saying this and I thought they were saying this, and they said to me, kind of half joking, like, Well, why do you hate to say that and I said, not for any real sanctified reasons, like I hate to say it because I'm gonna Have to go back. If If my conclusions now are right, I might have to go back and explain that I was wrong and do my best to try to like, find the ways that I've propagated the wrong conclusion and like contradict those are contraband, those. So I'm affirming the ninth commandment, because it's important for us as Christians. And I think, especially for Christians, like you and me, who are, you know, we're not like big names on the internet. But like, we have a we have a platform, we have a podcast that people listen to, for better, I hope that more often than not, or worse, people take what we say seriously, they take what we say and they, it influences them. So we have a responsibility to really think through the things that we've said. And if there's a reason for us to reevaluate something, to do that hard work of doing it and potentially to acknowledge that we were wrong about something.

Jesse Schwamb 11:48
Right. Can I see this as one of the really wonderful outworking is of following Jesus Christ closely, and that is when Christians can say I've reevaluate or I've listened better to what this person This saying and the ability in some ways to abstract the person from the position that they're holding, there is absolutely a time to call out heresy. And that's always important. There's also a time to listen and to always be willing to listen to almost like a new if somebody comes with a revised perspective, or a revised heart and something the Christian is always inclined, I think, toward what is the loving behavior and that loving behavior is always to offer the chance to be heard again,

Tony Arsenal 12:25
right? Yeah. And I mean, there does come a point where you you have to say to someone who's propagating what you think to be false, where you have to say like, all right, there's there's no more opportunities unless something, something happened, something changes, there's no more opportunities for you to continue to try to rice me. Like there's a point where you cut off someone you perceived to be a false teaching and no longer allow them to try to convince you. But if you have a reason to go back and reevaluate, or if you have a reason, something happens and you now have a reason to think you may have misunderstood. I absolutely think that as Christians, we have obligation to seek, you know, the ninth commandment is fundamentally about preserving truth as it applies to how we interact with each other. And so if you have a reason to think that either your understanding is not correct of what somebody said, and and especially if you've publicly stated about made a statement about it, or if something changes in a person's theology where it seems like they may no longer believe what they did at one point, then you have an obligation to investigate that. And this is where it gets to be tough. And I've had to do this before. So it's not like it's the first time I've ever had to do this. But it gets to be tough when you've made a public statement. I really do think you have an obligation to go back and try to track down the areas that those public statements have been made and issue some sort of corrective statement if you have the ability to

Jesse Schwamb 13:51
write I totally agree with that. I would go as far as even to say that in Christianity, there is no permanent cancellation culture. That like you said, If There's a change of heart, if there's a change of mind, if the Holy Spirit is at work, then there is a natural obligation for us to again, listen again or come with fresh eyes. But there are times when we say like, well enough is enough of this same stream of thinking or conversation, right? But when somebody comes forward, I think, stepping forward and saying why I want to be heard again, in a different way, or I've had to change my thought on this. And I like your idea of a thing, which I think it's just generally good behavior, of really trying to understand what somebody's saying, like this sounds kind of like where you're at as it's, we can hear something and sometimes we'll meditate on it or ruminate on it. And we'll think, you know, what, maybe I didn't understand this as well as I thought, I think that is a wonderful frame of mind to take with almost any argument is to, even if you disagree with it, process it, set it aside and then maybe even come back to it and say, does it mean the thing I thought it meant in the time when I originally heard it, what has changed? Have I changed? Was this person changed at all that is just really good behavior, especially sounds like for online interaction in particular where a lot of it could be divorced or abstracted from the actual like sense of what somebody's saying?

Tony Arsenal 15:04
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So why don't we move on to some denials? What are what are you denying this evening?

Jesse Schwamb 15:11
Alright, so this is pretty much a just me ranting denial very briefly, but I don't know. Let me ask you a question. And it's okay, if there's something that comes to mind. But has there been anything that's happened to you recently, where you thought I can't believe we still do it this way? Like, how are we doing it this way in the day and age in which we live anything like that happening recently?

Tony Arsenal 15:30
I'm sure there probably has been nothing I can think of off the top my head.

Jesse Schwamb 15:34
So the thing that just like just happened to me before we started recording was I I live in a rented space. And so oftentimes, I'll get utility related information or inquiries, but they don't really want me they want the landlord so right and I will just ignore them. Yeah. And this was happening with my water meter. And finally I got a message that was like, we were just going to shut off your water. If you do not Call us back. So it's like, I'll call them back. And it goes, Yeah, so I call them back. And they tell me straight up that I'm going to be on hold for 35 minutes. And I wasn't hold for 35 minutes just to talk to somebody. That's terrible. I could schedule time for them to come. How are we doing it this way? Still? Like, should I be able to go online and select from it availability of different windows and just say, hey, come change my water meter?

Tony Arsenal 16:25
Yeah, you know, I have some personal experience with phone systems because we use a computerized phone distribution system where I work, and it is so much more ridiculously complicated than it needs to be as far as how calls get routed to where they go. And it's really hard because there's so many little factors that play into how long a person is on hold at any given point. But yeah, it is it is insane how many times you have to still wait on hold. To do something simple or to like, schedule a simple appointment. I love nothing more than when I can just go online and book an appointment, like on a website like a well designed website. And you know, like medical scheduling, you can't really always do that. Sometimes you have to really have that person who knows, like the doctor schedule or what you're being scheduled for. But for simple things like I like a meter checker utility check, it should be really straightforward.

Jesse Schwamb 17:22
That was my thoughts too. And I want to be clear, they were super friendly. They're really helpful. And it's not their fault. I don't know what their staff things like, like they're doing their jobs, and they were really, really great to me. So yeah, that was all fantastic. But what's funny is, I had a sense that like, of course, they can tell how long have been and hold and right away like recognize my phone number. So it asked to prompt me what is it that you're calling about? So I just said the meter thing? So recognizes like, Oh, are you you're calling about a meter, is that correct? And I was like, Yes, yes, it is. Yeah. And so when it got to the guy, I sense that he's probably taken this type of call like a million times already. And what was so funny is he seemed like he felt this Need to over convince me that the meter be need to be replaced? And I was just like, yeah, whatever man like, I'm totally down. But he would i would he would say, sir, calling the scheduled a meter replacement is like yeah, whatever you have, you know, we can make it work. And he was like, so your meter needs to be replaced. I was like, yep, I understand that. And he's like, well, it is from 1998. And I was like, yep, that's fine.

Tony Arsenal 18:19
Yeah. They almost don't know what you'll do when you're agreeable. You know, I found that and you know, it. I once in a while, I'll do this goofy thing and the reform pub, where I'll go live on Facebook. And I'll just like, I'll have my phone like in the harness in my my computer, like my car, and I'll just go live and it's just like me driving like, I'm not looking at the screen. I'm not interacting with the screen. It's just a goofy thing I do once a while and it's funny because there's always that guy that will listen, they'll only watch the video for like 15 or 20 minutes while I'm driving home from work or something. And at the end of it, they'll be like, what you're not actually going to do anything. But one of the things that's funny is sometimes When I go grocery shopping I put it on before I go grocery shopping, and I stopped to get dinner at like a fast food restaurants like one one night a week a taco bell or something silly like that. And it's funny because I I make a point to be super polite to fast food workers because my first job I worked at McDonald's, I worked in the drive thru, it's a terrible job to have, especially like in the winter, you're stuck like putting your hand outside and in, in and out, but you can't wear gloves, you gotta cut money, like it's just a terrible job to have. It's great for kids to have like a first job, but it's not something you want to do long term. So I make a point to be super polite. And it's funny because then you get people who are like watching me do this on live video, and all this and you can tell they're like super convicted because they're not polite to fast food workers. And it's funny because everybody's had that experience where like, you go to McDonald's and you you asked for no ketchup on your burger and they give you extra catch up or something like they screw something up. They forget to put something in and all you got to do that. The next time you go to McDonald's is politely say, last time I was here, there was a mistake on my order. And I would like you to provide me with a free meal in order to make up for the inconvenience of the mistake on my order. I have never once in 10 years of doing this, and I learned this because I worked at McDonald's and I learned how it was that that customers who ended up getting free meals for management how they did it, literally not once in the 10 years since I've been doing this Have I ever had a manager at a fast food restaurant go? Now we don't really do that. Usually they're like, Oh, yeah, for sure. I'd be happy to compensate you with a free meal for it. But like if you're rude about and you're like, I hate this place. I hate you. You're stupid. I hope you die and give me a free meal. They're going to tell they're going to tell you to pound sand and not give you a free meal. So you know, just be polite to people just be nice to people. But it is really funny because it's like they don't know what to do when someone is just courteous and polite and making a reasonable request in a polite fashion. They like don't know how to handle that.

Jesse Schwamb 21:02
It's almost like it's the Christian thing to do the loving thing to do.

Tony Arsenal 21:06
You want to be countercultural. That's great. Be nice to people after you've been on hold for 35 minutes.

Jesse Schwamb 21:12
Yeah, for sure. You're right about that. It's not just that you get more with honey than you do with vinegar. It's just people. I think we said this before, my conviction is the same as yours. I started in retail, I started on the front lines of customer service. Everybody should have that experience once their life because we'd all just treat each other a lot better. Yeah, a lot more mutual respect. Yeah, for sure. Alright, so hit me with a denial.

Tony Arsenal 21:35
So I'll keep this brief. There's a little bit of a backstory, but I'll keep it brief. I'm denying onions. Okay. So, Ashley and I, we were limited on time and anytime you have to make a decision between you know, I need a little bit of time back. time and money are kinda like interchangeable. So sometimes you can gain a little bit of time by spending a little bit more money. Sometimes you You can save a little bit of money by spending a little more time. And one of the ways that we save time by spending a little bit more money is we utilize a bot like a box meal service like we use every plate, but there's a bunch of them out there for two or three meals a week. And it just saves time because all your ingredients are all put together. So I don't have like reform brotherhood coupon code to give you but every meal every plate is great if you have the discretionary income to do that. And it saves a lot of time because you don't have to think of a recipe. But tonight I made the I made the recipe and I was in a little bit of a rush because I'm trying to get ready to do the show. But after work, I gotta cook dinner and then we eat on this recipe. It was it was sausage like pork sausage, rice and then some vegetables. But one of the things that called for was an entire onion to be sliced up and cooked with the the sausage, and then you eat it with the onions. It's not like you cook the onions for the flavor and then you throw the onion like you're supposed to eat the onions but it was a whole Onion between the two of us. So each of us ate a half onion with the meal. And I went back and looked at the instructions after we got done and I was like gets us to use the whole onion. So like that was a lot of a big egg onion. It was a lot of onion. And it was just too much so maybe that maybe tomorrow I won't feel the same way about onions but right now I'm just denying those things all day long.

Jesse Schwamb 23:24
I kind of have a feeling that you might feel more strongly about this denial tomorrow. Yeah, possibly.

Tony Arsenal 23:30
I can already feel I have gastro esophageal reflux disorder. I can already feel the extra like acid in my throat right now from the extra onions.

Jesse Schwamb 23:41
Yeah, onions are no joke. Is this one of those things though. We're like some people when they eat sausage, they really love to have those caramelised softens, kind of fried onions. sauteed onions is that what did tempt heroes?

Tony Arsenal 23:54
I don't know. I'm not entirely sure. I think maybe the instruction card may This step where it said to like, only use half the onion, because like, a lot of times, you know, they ship out ingredients and they ship them out there trying to keep them fresh, but they also don't know how long they're going to sit in your refrigerator and to use them. So they could probably ship out half an onion, but when they cut that onion, you know, it violates the integrity, it's gonna, it's gonna go bad faster. So a lot of times they'll ship you a whole onion, but then they tell you to use half of it. So I feel like maybe the car just like miss that. You're only supposed to use half of it. Like there was a typo on the card or something. I don't know. Or maybe I missed it multiple times when I looked at it, but it wasn't good. It was a lot of onion.

Jesse Schwamb 24:38
Since this is like the deja vu episode. Do you ever hear what we're talking about? And just think, I can't believe we record this and that people actually listened to it like my favorite part of this episode so far by far. Is you saying it violates the integrity of the

Tony Arsenal 24:56
I mean, it does like the structural integrity of the onion right Once again, the onion rots faster, right?

Jesse Schwamb 25:05
You know it. You're right. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I just think that was a pretty like, epic way of saying something. It's just like the onion will go bad.

Tony Arsenal 25:16
Yeah, I mean, I don't ever say anything. I'm like a Puritan. Why say something in two words when you could say it in 10?

Jesse Schwamb 25:22
Yeah, that's true. That should be the tagline for this podcast.

Tony Arsenal 25:26
Yeah, there you go. reform, brother honor. Honor everyone say it in as many words as possible.

Unknown Speaker 25:34
It's actually pretty good

Tony Arsenal 25:36
that we need that on a T shirt.

Jesse Schwamb 25:40
Yeah, we need a lot of things on a T shirt. We need somebody to collect all the insane, crazy wild things that we've said and somehow amalgamate them and put them on this shirts or multiple shirts at this point if we should get like a Puritan version of a T shirt, which is just covered in words from like a single sentence.

Tony Arsenal 25:55
Yeah, what I would like to do if you're in the reform brotherhood Facebook group, I would like you to come up with a Puritan esque tagline for our show. So like one of those, one of those that's like, concerning Reformed theology and also spiritual family and including the difference between this and that like something epic in long. That's a tagline for our show.

Jesse Schwamb 26:21
I love it. Somebody get on that.

Tony Arsenal 26:24
Yeah. Why don't we actually get on to our show? And we're doing question. Yeah,

Jesse Schwamb 26:29
speaking of getting on. Yes, this is question cast. Again, we got a couple of doozies. So how about we get to it, but before we jump a couple voicemails, why don't you remind everybody because I need reminding. What is the phone number where they can leave us a voicemail question.

Tony Arsenal 26:46
That phone number is 607444 to 767. And that spells out bros Bros. So why don't we Why don't we get on to the first question.

Jesse Schwamb 27:00
All right, here we go voicemail one.

Listener Billy 27:03
Hey guys, Billy calling from Arkansas. And I just had a question about your thoughts on the law gospel distinction and its place in reformed preaching. Right now I'm drinking a last 40 stout are called the 99. Delicious. So yeah, I guess that's it. Cheers, David. So I

Jesse Schwamb 27:26
love that brother Billy has thrown this question out to us. Because if anything, it just gives me an excuse to shamelessly plug something the podcast that you're listening to right now and give another advertisement for the whole reading series that we're doing. We're working through that book reform preaching by Dr. Joel beaky. And so much of what we said and we've read so far really centers on his question of law and gospel distinction and its place in reform preaching, but when I like even better than the questions that he's actually asking what our thoughts are regarding that distinction between long gospel and its place in preaching. So how about you go first? What are your thoughts?

Tony Arsenal 28:07
Yeah. So I mean, on one level, this is one of those questions that has like a really simple answer. The log gospel distinction is not something that you can really have reformed preaching apart from the law gospel distinction, right. So there is this weird quarter of Reformed theology that I actually think is kind of an overreaction to some things that wants to position the line gospel as though it's some sort of like sub reformed doctrine, or it's a it's a Lutheran doctrine, right. But you know, when you look, I'll put a link in the show notes to this. But there's a an article on the haidle blog.net, which is our Scott Clark's website. And he has, you know, probably five different quotes by heavy hitters in the reformed tradition. JOHN Calvin Zacharias are scientists who is the primary drafter of the Heidelberg catechism Casper old on, you know, Theodore beza. And William Perkins. And beta actually says this, he says, ignorance of this distinction between law and gospel is one of the principal sources and abuses which corrupted and still corrupt the Christianity. So what basis getting out there is that failing to properly distinguish between the law and the gospel is part of what makes Rome wrong. The reason that the Roman Catholic Church slid into the error that they that they slid into is at least in part, because they confused the law and the gospel. Right on. Yeah, what about you? What do you think?

Jesse Schwamb 29:39
Oh, sorry. I thought there was more there. I was getting all stoked up for

Tony Arsenal 29:43
no more, but we'll take a little break for me. I gotta go take some Tums to take care of this onion breath.

Jesse Schwamb 29:51
And yet again, we cut two possible slogans from reformed brother. Yes. Oh, there'll be more

Tony Arsenal 29:56
and also possible sponsors for the reform brotherhood.

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Oh,

Jesse Schwamb 30:00
yeah, well done. Well done. Yeah, of course, I'm going to agree with you on this. I mean, this is one of those things where understanding along the gospel properly is really the key to Christ centered living and to preaching. What I think is maybe maybe this is not a distinctive with respect to how I think, but I find it a little bit unique in that I've grown away from trying to measure out or way out in a sermon, or as we're speaking about the gospel, well, how much of this is gospel? How much of this is law? Am I getting them in the right proportions to one another? I think what we need to focus on is preaching salvation, that when you preach salvation, you're going to get both of them and they come into constant unity and harmony with one another. And of course, you cannot preach salvation, salvation by Christ alone, which of course, was one of the main tenants of the Reformation. Without getting at the same time, I think a really good measure of balance of long gospel, because we present Jesus as the one who filled the law for sinners under the law right here is They took their law breakings and our deserve judgment upon himself, and then died a righteous sacrifice to God upon the cross for the unrighteous. So, I think some of this, we get caught up because we're evaluative people. And because we have a pension at turn of mine to really try to assess all the nuances of what we're saying, and the arguments are again, are we being fair and a representation, and we just need to focus on salvation through Christ alone, when we explain that we will naturally have to come to terms with balancing out the law in the Gospel without being unnecessarily worried about making this distinction. I think it will come about naturally, when we have a biblical understanding, and we approach salvation in a way the Bible speaks of it.

Tony Arsenal 31:41
Yeah, and you know, the law gospel distinction, although it may seem like kind of an auxiliary point, it actually is really fundamental to what it means to be properly and classically reformed. Right. So, so the reformed position and I say like this reform position capital capital T, capital R, the reform position is that prior to the fall, God entered into a covenant with Adam, and that this covenant with Adam was graciously given in that in that God was not obligated to extend to Adam, a covenant which would grant him the blessings which the covenant works granted. But right the terms of those, that covenant was a covenant of works. So God offered something to Adam, in in return for his fulfilling the covenant which included perfect perpetual obedience as the Westminster standards indicate. And so when we look at that we talk about the covenant of works. We're talking about the moral law primarily, and then some positive law, some laws that were added on top of that moral law. When we talk about the post fall covenant, we're talking about the covenant of grace. Well, that's the gospel right. So the pre covenant was, if you if Adam if you accomplish a BNC, right if you live according to God's moral law, and if you do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, at some point in the future when you fulfilled all of these commands with perfect perpetual obedience, God is going to reward you with immutable, permanent righteousness and the status as the Son of God who is the CO Regent of the universe. Right, but Adam fails. And so the post fall covenant is that, Adam, if you will trust in the promise that I've given you that a redeemer will come, then I will give you all of those blessings, because that Redeemer will fulfill the covenant you failed and will obtain those blessings for you. Right? So if we deny this log gospel distinction, or as the federal vision does if we confuse this law gospel distinction, and I'll talk about exactly how they do that in a second here, if we deny or confuse that la gospel that distinction, then we actually erode the foundations of Covenant theology, such that we're not really we're not really adhering to to Reformed theology anymore. Right? If we, if we say that all the all there is is grace, all there is is gospel and say that somehow prior to the fall, the covenant of works wasn't actually a covenant of works, but instead was a covenant of grace, then we have now kind of lost the law and the force of the law, we've become practical and to no means and if the flip side happens, and we deny that after the after the law or after the fall, there's there's gospel, then we essentially become legalists. If we still have to work for our salvation, we become legalists. And where the federal vision goes awry on this, and there's some debate and some discussion about who exactly holds this and how they hold it. But Doug Wilson, for example, will say that, had Adam succeed in his probation, he would have done so before. faith that there's no one who is justified in God's sight any other way besides faith alone. And so he's wanting to say that before the fall, Adams great Adams covenant was a gracious covenant. What I think he's trying to say if I'm being charitable, and gracious in my reading, he's trying to say that God didn't have to give Adam this covenant and give him any promise of a reward or anything like that, that that the the terms of the covenant are voluntary on God's part. And so they're they're gracious in some sense. But what he ends up doing or what I shouldn't say what Doug Wilson does, because I'm not I'm not 100% convinced that he does this anymore. But what what the federal vision does some of the more extreme federal vision opponent proponents will say, or, like Norman Shepherd would say is that the terms of the of the post fall covenant are essentially the same as the pre fall covenant. And that means that a person may be entered may enter into the covenant graciously, but they stay in that covenant and they obtained the blessings of that covenant by means of faithfulness by by means of their choosing to remain in the covenant, whether that's by good works or by consciously staying in the covenant. There's all different ways that different federal vision proponents do it. But they confuse this law gospel distinction, or a lot of them flat out deny the law gospel distinction. And that's where we see things like either the covenant of grace becoming a covenant of works, or the covenant of works becoming a gracious covenant that doesn't have a legal element to it. They flatten those things out and that's why they get accused of being mondo covenantal. Because even though not all of them explicitly deny a plurality of covenants, Doug Wilson, for example, affirms that the terms of the covenant prior to the fall were different than the terms of the covenant established after the fall. There's a practicality or implicit denial of those differences. When you say that the the covenant before the fall was entirely gracious and the covenant after the fall was entirely gracious, it forces you to ask the question, well, then what's the difference? And I'm not sure sure that they have a great answer for that. So this distinction between law gospel is not just a question that comes up in preaching. It's not sort of an esoteric or an auxiliary doctrine. But it really gets at the heart of what it means to be reformed. And this distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace,

Jesse Schwamb 37:15
as I see it, that is one of the great advantages and I like the way that brother Billy phrase the question because he's asking about reform preaching in particular. And I think this is where you're going to find it. in balance, you're always going to find both parts and how they interact again, right and with one another, it's like a fine stew with all the ingredients interacting to create some kind of like really beautiful tea, some really rich experience, right? And I think that what you just described in kind of contra distinction to the federal vision view, that is the remedy actually for shallow evangelism or shallow sanctification unconverted church members ramping or unguided mysticism and a lack of church discipline is actually in the country writings of long gospel. The long the gospel are different, but they're inseparable friends to say it right I'm in a different way. Yeah, you The law supports the preaching of the gospel. And it reveals the meaning and the glory of the cross. And the gospel, which saves from the condemnation of the law is the thing that should send redeemed people back to the law as a rule of life under grace. And I think we both talked about how, at certain times, we've seen pastors often inadvertently emphasized one over the other, right? And so what that means is sometimes, you know, to the unconverted there, the pastor must be sure that they explain that they are under the law and have no hope of self righteousness or work salvation before God, they must show them that the transgression of the law, so they will know that they're sinners condemned under it, and that their repentance is needed, because they are a law breaker before God. But at the same time, you've got to be communicating to the converted as well are those who are experiencing that weight and are being diverted by the Holy Spirit. And I think we've talked about how many times we heard pastors calling like, for instance, the saints to holy living, faithful obedience to God's commands without giving The comfort of the gospel right away. Yes, I think, yeah, the reformed tradition really is among the best I would say. Because I think sometimes when a reformed person who is convicted of this particular stream of theology speaks, and they're talking about salvation, their first point of entry into the conversation is somewhat dismal. And I think sometimes for the route an evangelical just to kind of be the standard nominal or curious, evangelical, it sounds too harsh, right? But it's really not because of course, you cannot have the beauty of the gospel without the hard edge of the law. And even once you are redeemed by Christ, then even that hard edge of the law becomes soft and wonderful, because now there's a sense of obedience born again, not out of some kind of meritorious satisfaction, but more out of loving kindness and generosity back to God, because He loved us first.

Tony Arsenal 39:56
Yeah, and you know, that's a good point. So, one of the things right Julian Covidien is a controversial figure. And one of the things is his actual theological controversy has been overshadowed by his personal sinful scandal, but totally into video and prior to all of the mess with his various affairs and and all that stuff that's happened. He got in some hot water because he he seemingly denied what's called the 30 years of the law. And so the Lutheran perspective on the law is that their God has two words, he has law and he has gospel. And so the first word is do this and live or fail to do this and die. That's the law. And then the gospel is Christ has done this for you therefore live where the Lutheran reduction of that I think goes awry and not all Lutherans fault, arrive this but where it goes sideways is a lot of Lutheran law gospel preaching. The law is For Non Christians, and the gospel is for Christians, and we're reformed preaching picks that up and corrects that. And this is where we're truly and what wrong is. And he didn't explicitly deny this, right. This is another thing where you have to kind of look at the implications of the of a person's teaching is that the law still has a place for Christians. Right? So we talked about the three uses of the law, the first use of the law is, and the order of these is different depending on who you ask, but one of the uses of the law is to threaten and condemn those who are apart from Christ. And so for the reprobate, this actually hardens them in their sin, right? It calls out their sin, it actually sort of entices them to sin. It's just like if I say to you don't think about elephants, the first thing that happens in your mind is you start to think about elephants, or how when you walk by a sign that says wet paint, almost the first instinct you have is to touch it to see if it's actually wet. Like when we're given a restraint. Our boundary, our sin nature wants to push against that boundary regardless of what it is. And so that's where Paul says, You know, I think it's in I want to say it's Ephesians. Or no, it's Romans seven, right? Where he says, I wouldn't have even known what it was to cover it had not the love, the law, told me not to cover it. But then the law right responding or my sinful flesh responding to the law. covetousness is aroused in me because the law prohibits it. Right. So the law serves to accuse and condemn those who are apart from Christ. The elect are those who respond to the gospel, and respond to that condemned natori function of the law. It drives them to Christ where they find salvation. And so then what's called the third use of the law kicks in for the Christian and more or less what it does then is it now shows us how to live a righteous life. So in the first use of the law, the righteousness is held up in front of us and we see that we can never we can never live up to it, and it terrifies us, and it accuses us and it condemns us. In the 30 years of the law, what we see is now the Holy Spirit has given us the power to live according to the law, albeit in perfectly. And it gives us this perfect pattern by which to to actually live the righteous life that we have now been granted in Christ. And so sanctification is this process whereby, through faith, the Holy Spirit brings us into greater and greater conformity into Christ. And the law doesn't give us that conformity. But the law shows us what that conformity looks like. And then there's a second lease of the law, which is more or less, it's a it's a universal moral law that restrains evil, it's not really germane to this conversation itself. But if you lose that third use of the law, whether you want to or not, you slide off into a sort of practical antinomianism. If the law is no longer for Christians, then who's to tell me that I can't last who's to tell me that I can't steal who's to tell me that I can't lie, because the laws not for Christians anymore. And so there are certain streams of truth. ism that fall prey to this new covenant theology can fall prey to this and why it's a new covenant theology. I'm talking about that as a theological discipline. So you think of john Piper, in a certain sense falls under this Tom Shriner sort of sort of that Baptist stick Not, not 1689 confessional, but a total distinction between the covenant New Covenant, the Old Covenant kind of a perspective, they fall into this sort of theological antonian ism that takes different forms, but it can be really damaging. So this log gospel distinction, and a fully org reformed perspective of the law gospel distinction is not that the law is for non Christians, and the Gospels for Christians, but that the law serves different functions. And some of those functions apply to Christians in a particular way.

Jesse Schwamb 44:48
Right. So in other words, the law is for good both pre and post conversion, right. It is an active part of what God wants to do in our lives both before he regenerates us and then of course afterwards and I've heard people make the art You could infer certain things if you throw out if you abrogate the law altogether, you could infer certain things if you want to embrace all of the teachings of Jesus in the way that he gives them to us, for instance, how he elevates the idea of what it means to last, however, the last unnecessary because all of those, all of his teachings are derived from that law. But again, the law provides that direct, explicit, very clear and distinct edge, which we still need, it is still the basis of moral behavior, it just changes with respect to why we're able to obey it. And that in itself, is an amazing testimony at the power of God. Because when the human heart by God's power is turned from stone into flesh, and then embraces these choose, not again, out of some kind of need to behave, but out of a desire to be gracious and generous and loving toward God in a way that's one over by the law in not burdened by it under there, the weight of some kind of performance, then that is an amazing testimony to change and that Change can only come from the outside, it's transcended, it is not self help. Which brings us into embracing the law with love. It is only God Himself. So how amazing that guy would not remove the law, but would change our the way in which we interact with it, and the way in which we use it and the way in which by using it and embracing it, it gives him glory.

Tony Arsenal 46:18
Yeah. And just a little, little minor side point, we'll have to come back to this, I think in a different episode, I actually rejected the idea that Jesus elevated the law, right, so that the common interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is that there are certain laws which, which God gave in the Old Testament, and then Christ actually intensifies those. And the common example is, you know, in the Old Testament, you weren't allowed to commit adultery. But then Jesus intensifies that by saying like, You're not even allowed to less than a person. And I actually don't think that that's an accurate way to read the Bible. So even within the 10 commandments, right, we have the first nine commandments, right? So we have, you know, God is the only one to worship. He's this preme God only only worship Him. The second commandment is only worship him the way that he is commanded to be worshiped. And and and worship him the way is commanded to be worshipped. The third commandment is honor God's name and all the ways that he's revealed himself. And then the fourth commandment is worship, the way that God or worship on the time that God has commanded, right? And then we get into the fifth commandment, or the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth and ninth commandment, which has to do with how we interact with each other. And then you get to the 10th commandment, which is we talked about coveting earlier. And what does it say? Don't covet your neighbor's property, don't covet your neighbor's wife, right? So we have a reaffirmation in a certain sense and an internalizing of the prohibition against adultery and the prohibition against theft. Right. So even in the 10 commandments, we already see that the the law of God extends to our internal motivations, and that's where the law operates differently for Christians than it does for Non Christians as a non Christian, could conceivably, except for the first four, we can talk about the second table could conceivably obey outwardly all of the fifth through 10th commandments, right, conceivably or fifth through ninth commandments. They could conceivably never dishonor their parents in an outward fashion, they could conceivably never committed an act of anger or murder, they could conceivably never steal something, they could always tell the truth. They could always I'm missing one here, they could always be honest, you know, that they could, they could do that out outwardly, but they can never fulfill the 10th commandment because that extends to the inside. Right? And so the law shows us how to live but it also demands that we live righteously in our internal thought life, even in the 10 commandments. That's president. And so we're the third use of the law comes in and this is where the run

Unknown Speaker 48:55
Korea think there's glad

Jesse Schwamb 49:00
Yeah, no, I was gonna agree with you. I don't, I don't think there is like a difference in magnitude. I do think there's like a difference in intensification of expression of the heart of God, as Jesus expound on what those mean, but it was always present. You're right. But there is certainly like an intensification of the way in which he's trying to reveal the heart of God, because we have these stiff necked people, which I'm one who want to take it at the lowest common denominator without really being concerned with the heart of God we're more concerned with just tell me what rules I need to follow,

Tony Arsenal 49:31
right? Yeah. And so that's where the third use of law comes in. Why it's a blessing for Christians, is because now we actually can obey the law, in the intention of the law not perfectly. But we can now not only not lie about our neighbors, but we can do so with the right motivation because God has given us that new heart. We can now not only not committed adultery, but we can do so with the purity of heart that God demands Because he's given us that clean heart. And so the Christian life is an increasing growth in not only the external conformity to the law, which should be growing and increasing, we should becoming more and more conformed externally to the law. But there's also a matching, increasing internal conformity to the law, that's almost more important, if not more important than the external conformity. So it's important in reformed preaching as a whole, to be able to utilize both the law and the gospel. Because if you're not calling Christians to increasing holiness, you're missing an entire part of what it is that Christ does for his people. And that's really, really key.

Jesse Schwamb 50:39
Yeah, for sure. That's one of the things that we said that maybe on this podcast has been a little bit more controversial. It's more just because the words we choose, but we're trying to emphasize a point. We've spoken about how and again, this is going to sound a little bit brash to some people's ears, how the Christian life is, try harder. It's harder, under the power in the grace of the Holy Spirit. It's not this passive Where we just hope that God is going to do some amazing work in our life and crush all the large boulders into soft sand between our toes, but that we must actually struggle with our own behavior right and constantly reach out to God under his graciousness, to ask the he might not necessarily remove us from the struggles that we have, especially with sin, but that by his power, he might help us to overcome them. But we still have to fight right and that fight is reflective of the law that the law still stands right but that we obey it for different reasons than we did before. But this is where it's if you have a pastor that can striking this balance well, that when you come into the Lord's day and you're sitting under his preaching, that you're feeling this almost equal weight of the gospel is this weight that forced you to your knees, and then the law is also this weights. And I'm using these almost an opposite ways to prove a point or make a point. is is this way that is a warm blanket like the last should be A warm blanket to us now really should because it's emphasizing that godly behavior looks like this. And that's possible for us to achieve it in some measure, not perfectly, as you said. But certainly in a way that honors Jesus Christ. Actually, there's a great honor in struggling through the law in obeying God and seeking his power and his guidance and his love. As you force your way through it.

Tony Arsenal 52:23
Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we? Why don't we move on to the next question?

Jesse Schwamb 52:28
Yeah, let's do it.

Listener Nick 52:30
Hey, brothers. It's super early in the morning here. This is Nick calling from Ontario, Canada, just pulling up to my school here. Tyndale seminary for an early start to take classes. I have a tendency to ramble. So I'll try to be succinct to my question, but I won't be beating the 19 second records that are just heard on the Most recent episode. So in my community we've had some, some conflict come up. And part of it result revolved around discerning the Spirit. And yeah, so that's basically generally what my question is, is we have some people in our community saying that no one should ever tell someone else or or limit someone else in their discerning the spirit or relying on the spirit and what they should be doing. And then the leadership basically saying that someone can just come in and and decide that they are going to control things because they believe the Lord or the spirit told them that they should be able to do that. So I guess, yeah. As a leader, a small "l" leader, I guess In the church, how how would somebody go about discerning someone else's interpretation of the Spirit? Or the validity of that? and managing conflict that results from that? Yeah. I'm sure there's a million different ways to approach this question. But yeah, feel free to even call me back if you want to clarify it. Again, this is Nick, and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Jesse Schwamb 52:30
Alright, so here's another question with what how much time do we have left?

Tony Arsenal 54:40
Seven and a half minutes?

Jesse Schwamb 54:43
Awesome. So, brother, yeah, brother, Nick.

Job, too, I think is a pretty exceptional question. And this could go a million places. So we'll try to keep it pretty brief. But I think this is something hasn't every Christian wondered about this. And he's speaking specifically about How do Christians discern the spirit? But I think in equal part, and perhaps the more important part of this question, at least from my perspective is, how should Christians manage conflict around this idea of discernment? So, let me start off really quickly with my perspective on why it is to begin with that the Spirit is given to Christians. So the Holy Spirit is given to Christians, of course, to transform us by the Holy Spirit's teaching, making us into God focused thinkers and equipping us to discern God's will and make decisions accordingly. So we do this by rational reflection, of course, in our life situation, helped along by wise and godly advice, which I think is pertinent to the question within the parameters of the Word of God as established. So the idea to begin with that there's some kind of superior path in matters of guidance, that is passively accepting, that is, like, all I want to do is accept some kind of internal promptings as they come into my mind. They're separated from godly conformity. That is a mistake. Yeah, I don't know. That's exactly where Nick is going with this. If this is sense of, you know how many times you've been in a situation where somebody tries to play like this Trump spiritual card, well, God told me this, or the Holy Spirit laid this on my heart. And so this idea of the Holy Spirit is absolutely given. But one, we know that one of the marks the Holy Spirit is unity. And second, that it always confirms and brings attention to and focuses on what God has established in His Word, right?

Tony Arsenal 56:32
Yeah. So you know, where you and I are both cessationist. Right. So we would run and maybe on different degrees, but I don't think so. We would deny that there's any sort of sense of ongoing direct revelation from the Holy Spirit. So of course, so when we talk about discernment, sometimes people talk about like supernatural discernment that they can just look into a situation and they just know things that they can't possibly know about the situation is the Holy Spirit reveals that to the directly, and I want to unambiguously say, absolutely no, you do not have information that is not accessible to somebody apart from some sort of direct spiritual, Holy Spirit. Like, that's absolutely not the case. It's absolutely not true. You may think it is I don't I don't want to say you're a liar, but you're wrong. But that doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit doesn't influence us and give us promptings and insights. And here's a real concrete example. I don't think he would be bothered with me sharing this, but if he is, I'm sorry. So a couple of weeks ago, you know, everybody's sort of heard about this big conflict that happened between Jeff Durbin and Tim heard from the Bible thumping wingnut podcast, right. So a couple weeks ago, I'm you know, this was probably a month and a half ago. I'm setting up the Christmas tree, right. I'm not thinking about Jeff Durbin. I'm not doing anything. And actually Jeff Durbin's sermon series. I had his sermon series on my podcast. He's his preaching. comes up. And, you know, I stopped that, you know, ministry is really hard, like ministry is tough. You and I even doing a podcast can be challenging sometimes. But being a pastor, his abortion ministry, you know, we've talked about how much respect we have for the different work he's doing. That's really hard. And so I stopped, I prayed for them. And I, you know, I just said, God, I know Jeff is a godly man, I know that ministry is hard, and he's a very high profile Christians and sometimes he takes some extra heat. So please be with him and be gracious to him and encourage him. And you know, the the verse came here, the myriad of verses that came into my mind is encourage one another, right? It's all over the New Testament. So I'm friends with them on Facebook. So I pause for a second, and I send them a little message on Facebook that says, hey, I've been really encouraged by your sermon series. I know that ministry is hard. I just want you to know that I'm praying for you and I hope you're doing well. He wrote back to me, and I didn't know any of this stuff that had been going on with him and Tim with with all this different stuff. He wrote back to me and it meant a huge was a huge encouragement to him to know that someone who cared about him was praying for him. Do I think that the Holy Spirit gave me some sort of divine revelation? No, not at all. Do I think that God providentially orchestrated circumstances where I would be listening to a sermon and be thinking about the difficulties of ministry and take time to pray for him? Absolutely. So the Holy Spirit prompted me to reach out to him and communicate with him at a time when he needed it in a way that I could encourage my brother, but not in some super kooky, spooky, mystical sense, but through the ordinary means of grace of prayer and preaching, and reading the Bible and understanding what it says about encouragement. When the Scripture talks about discerning the spirit or discernment in the spirit. What it means is, God has to go back to our last question, God has given us the moral law. He's given us His roadmap and his compass for what is moral and righteous living. And the way that we discern the spirit is we apply that Moral Law to the situations we're in. And I heard it explained to me one time, and this is when it finally clicked, is that discernment is a compass that points true north. If you have a compass that points true north, and you know the bearing of the direction need to go, you'll always get there. It's not a GPS, it's not going to, you're not going to be able to expect God to say to you, all right, turn left here, and then go two blocks down this way, and there's going to be a homeless guy on the corner, he doesn't actually need your physical help. But what he wants you to say Are these three words, and that's going to make them come to faith. Like, that's not how the Holy Spirit works. It's not really how the Holy Spirit works predominantly in the Bible. And we have no reason to think it's how he works now, but instead, we have the moral law. And you know what, what that homeless person that I see on the way to work needs, he needs me to do good to all people, and especially those who are the household of faith, right? I don't need some mystical experience of the Holy Spirit to know that I should seek to take care of his physical needs if possible, and I should always pray for him and actually share the gospel with him. I don't need special Revelation, special, direct extra biblical revelation from the Holy Spirit to know those things that's right there in the Bible, you know, on the face of it,

Jesse Schwamb 1:01:08
right? Yeah, at the risk of using maybe a strange alliteration. There's difference between prompting and premonition, right. And that's why this question is really wonderfully open ended. There's a part of this where the answer is really easy, which is let the Word of God speak, that is the priority. It holds priority over everything, including our thoughts. And it is basically the safety which we should pass all of these internal promptings to make sure that they actually comport and conform to the Word of God. So in some ways, I said, that's the easy answer. And it's possible that maybe where Nick is with this is maybe in the stuff that's a little bit more nuanced, which people can have all kinds of what they think are promptings from the Holy Spirit, about a million lesser things that they still have really strong opinions about. So one of the verses that been really helpful to me and thinking about this because it could be anything from I sense that the Holy Spirit wants us to have green carpet in our church to, you know, like any number of things that still get people fired up. So yeah, this is Paul writing to the Philippians chapter one, verses nine through 11. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ, you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, for the glory and praise of God. And so what has been helpful for me with respect to this idea of discerning the spirit and helping and speaking to others who have opinions that they believe have been influenced by the Holy Spirit is you'll notice at the heart of Paul's prayer is his desire, the readers will exercise this classical virtue of discernment. And he wants them to be able to make good choices determine what is the thing that is best. And what I find wonderfully comforting and super helpful is that Paul gives really anatomy of discernment. He points the three necessary building blocks for that love, knowledge, insight, and what I find is that when you're interacting with Christians, and they have strong opinions and those opinions and I would say responses become unmeasured, It's generally because even if they're claiming the Holy Spirit is the progenitor of those, they lack either love knowledge or insight or some combination of those, right. And so it's this idea of that the virtue of discernment and energizes, empowers the thoughtful, mature Christian life, and it brings more unity than it brings separation. And so I think when we can focus on is the thing I'm asking for is the thing I'm fighting for, is it loving? Is it filled with knowledge? Does it have the insight that comes through the Scriptures by the power of the Holy Spirit? When we focus on those things? I think they can help be guiding rails, like you said, that put us back on the path toward true north and I do believe that the Bible is the appropriate rule for all of life. That doesn't mean No, it's going to tell you how to act in every circumstance, like you just said. But what it does mean is there are guidelines and guide rails and helpful pinning in that moves us in the proper direction. And part of that I think, is the person who early is concerned discerning the Holy Spirit I believe will always be open to Appropriate critique from a fellow brother or sister to say to them, hey, just show me or explain to me how the scriptures support what you're saying, I want to really understand what you mean. Can you point me and help me process how this is the biblical norm right here. I think the brother or sister that is really concerned with living in a way that honors Jesus Christ, because they're walking in the Spirit, as Paul says, will receive those comments appropriately will be eager to say this is what I'm thinking, this is the scripture that has really been helpful in helping me to discern this particular way or this path.

Tony Arsenal 1:04:32
Yeah, you know, if someone is truly being this is an easy test, or an easy sort of criterion, if someone is truly being influenced by the Holy Spirit of God, then the Holy Spirit of God is going to direct them to the scriptures. So Exactly. Even if for the sake of argument, the charismatic position is right, right that the charismatic position that God delivers the special words of knowledge to people, even if that's true For the sake of argument, there's still never going to be a point where the Holy Spirit says to that person. Well don't go to the Scriptures though, because because that doesn't make any sense because the scriptures time and time again and the scriptures are the spirits. The spirits work, right. So the Scripture is God breathed. And it's also God breathing, it's God's, God's speech to us is this are the scriptures. And so the spirit is always going to be amenable to us going to the Scriptures, even if we were to grant the charismatic argument. But But what I want to read here, you know, this is kind of like the classic text for discerning and testing the will of God is Romans 12, one and two. It says, I appeal to you brothers, therefore by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual irrational worship. Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and testable and perfect. And so, sometimes this takes on sort of a mystical bent that if you just worship in a spiritual sense, then and you don't live an unholy life, but you allow God to transform you, then you'll have this sort of mystical ability to understand the will of God. But if you actually look at the language that's not at all what's being said. So if you're not conformed to the world, but you're transformed by the by the what, by the mystical sensation, the Holy Spirit No, no, by the hope, the renewal of your mind, by the renewal of your thinking capacity, that by testing, you may discern what the will of God is, right? That word for testing or discernment here is the act of holding something up to a standard and comparing it to that standard. And so what what can we see then when we do that act of comparing something to a standard, we see what is good and acceptable and perfect. Well, what are we comparing it to, to see if it's good and acceptable and perfect, while we're engaging our mind to compare it to the good acceptable perfect standard of Scripture. And that's how we test it by discerning is by comparing all things to the Word of God found in the scriptures. So if you if you take this passage and you understand that Paul is telling you to compare what's happening to a known, established standard, well, that's not some mystical experience of the Holy Spirit. It's looking at the scriptures and comparing it like Paul says, and other places, your rational people search the Scriptures, see if this is true, right? So we have to be careful not to let let someone who's got a different position or unbiblical position, sort of set the terms of the discussion, because if we let someone who is of a more charismatic bent, set the terms of the discussion in this sort of like, sensation, sensory experience of the Holy Spirit, like I can't, you know, I can't tell the difference whether this thing that I'm feeling is the Holy Spirit is because I ate a half an onion with dinner tonight. Right? Like, there's there's this difference? You know, I'm gonna have creepy dreams tonight because my stomach is all upset? Well, is that the Holy Spirit? Is it just the weird onions that I hate? The answer is it's just, you know? Right. Yeah. Bit of something or other.

Jesse Schwamb 1:08:10
Exactly. See, it's the same thing. No, of course, I'm total agreeing with you. And I hope that in the position that brother Nick describes, I think it is appropriate. And I'm guessing you would say the same thing to have those conversations to say to the brother, sister, listen, I know that your concern is that we follow after the Lord Jesus Christ properly. And thankfully, he's given us His scripture, right as the means of in the Rule of Life. So let's go to that. Show me help explain to me where you're coming from, and how it comports with the scriptures. And again, I think that the brother or sister that's really concerned that is genuinely wanting to do that will have those conversations that itself is a bit of a test because it'll really kind of root out the behavior that is principally selfish or self seeking or self serving. And again, where there's unity and love and knowledge and insights, you're going to find that we automatically are Hold back to the scriptures. And I want to echo something that you said because I think this is just worth saying again. And those this a lot recently my own life, we need to be the kind of people that are steeped in marinated or pickled in the Word of God, right. And we live in such as of this time, it's such a wonderful blessing where we get access to the Word of God, in nearly almost every language, almost every translation almost every medium, and we have no excuse for really not being consistently involved in discerning what the Scriptures say to us by way of just being in them, like anytime in them is good time time well spent. Yeah. And so what I found is that the more time we spend in the Scriptures, and the more time that we spend praying over the scriptures, and praying and preparation for time in the Scriptures, the more I find that that transformation just happens automatically. atrophy happens automatically. And so instead of being passive about that, when we go actively into the Word of God by spending focus time in it, we're going to find that naturally, just like you said, that we'll be doing other things and the word God just inundates us it is that is the power and the amazing fulfillment of God's promise that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and the truth he wants to lead us into His the scripture itself. And so we ought to spend as much time as we can in that, and will find that it will just buy a natural byproduct, a wonderful outworking will be that starts to transform how we think casually and in a normative sense. So the ultimate purpose of God for every Christian is this character transformation and growth into the full image of Christ, which will happen at the time of the beatific vision when we Yeah, we come before Him in His presence. Yeah, the Holy Spirit's work in a parting wisdom for discerning the will of God is case by case. But it's part of this larger enterprise for which our sanctification is what we call the usual name of it. And so I just want to encourage you to have those conversations and to continue in his own life to pursue the Scripture with reckless abandon, so that he and everybody else who calls themselves a Christian are able to know when it's time to have that conversation. And like we talked about can have that almost spiritual muscle memory or have that ear towards something doesn't sound right about what's being spoken here or this doesn't seem to comport with my understanding of the Scriptures and to be able to call it out but until you have the Paragon something else against which to compare it, like you just said, this transformation of the mind you you're just walking in complete darkness. And we need to be careful about calling that out if we ourselves are stumbling in the dark.

Tony Arsenal 1:11:26
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jesse, I think this has been the definitive. I don't even know what to call it. The Definitive math onion, possibly reevaluating a formal conclusion about a particular person also in gospel and discernment podcast, the definitive one of those.

Jesse Schwamb 1:11:48
Yes. And is it fair to say because you've been with me on all three versions of Episode 168 this one I think, actually was the best.

Tony Arsenal 1:11:56
Yeah, I think it was the only one that actually is a Full Episode like an actual episode.

Jesse Schwamb 1:12:02
That's true. It didn't reach completeness or it's about to reach completeness. And before we sign off officially, why don't you remind people and myself one more time what the number is to leave us a voicemail? I just know that area code. I know it's 607

Tony Arsenal 1:12:17
at 607-444-2767. You know, Jesse, I actually thought about in the middle of this podcast, playing a prank on you and being like, Oh, I forgot to start recording again. But I thought that there was two possible outcomes. One is one is almost infinitely more likely than the other. The first outcome was going to say a cuss word which I've never heard you say a cuss word. The second like was that you were going to stop recording immediately. Yeah. And that was a likely candidate for an option. So I decided against that.

Jesse Schwamb 1:12:57
Yeah, that's that's more likely. I think the most stress I've ever become on this podcast like the most visceral reaction that's ever actually been recorded in real time. Dude, do you know this?

Tony Arsenal 1:13:08
Lucky Oh, I know exactly which one you're talking about.

Jesse Schwamb 1:13:11
Yeah, it's the time I accidentally while I'm making a point knocked over a full bottle of kombucha all over my desk, and I don't know what episode number that is, but it's out there somewhere and it's and you can just hear me being like, Yeah, I was so frustrated. I forget what I said. But I was so frustrated.

Tony Arsenal 1:13:30
Yeah. Well, you were like, just running around the room going like

Unknown Speaker 1:13:33
no, no, no.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:37
Yeah, well, it's funny, I guess it was like,

Tony Arsenal 1:13:40
you have that like glass plate kind of desk where there's like a glass plate on top of your desk. So the liquid start to like seep under that glass plate.

Jesse Schwamb 1:13:50
Yeah, that's what made me so mad. So number of years ago, I'm so proud of this desk because I don't know anything about woodworking but a friend of mine helped me refinish it and I love to go glass plate because it's usually pretty awesome so it's slam down you can hear it on the recording and super loud it was like a firework went off. And then yeah it's pouring down the back of the desk and I can see it coming underneath the glass top so I'm just thinking the finish Yeah, that was just like it's all gone set it on fire I was so mad and all over and and also like Kambou just like kind of expensive. So it wasn't like it just knocked over water. I was like, this is a delicious fermented beverage. Yeah, is now I'm thinking all of like the bacteria all like the wonderful bacteria just like eating through my finish. You're like literally

Tony Arsenal 1:14:34
let the whistle pigs have the whole building

Jesse Schwamb 1:14:40
whistlepig that's yet another thing. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation, Tony, how do I say so?

Tony Arsenal 1:14:48
You may say so if you'd like.

Jesse Schwamb 1:14:50
Thank you. Yeah, I do. And once again, I want to commend ourselves on the number of topics that we fit into just under an hour and 15 minutes.

Tony Arsenal 1:14:59
Yeah. Well, we still have to add in the recording. So it's definitely going to be longer than hour and 15 minutes.

Jesse Schwamb 1:15:05
Yeah, that's true. But everyone, you're welcome.

Tony Arsenal 1:15:08
Yes. Well, Jesse until next time, honor everyone.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:12
Love the brother.