25-0108wc Transcript

Teacher: Scott Reynolds

(0:04) Okay, so we have some handouts, and in the handouts, the first page is about prayer. (0:12) I’ll let you look that over. (0:14) We’ll talk about that next time we get together, maybe when there’s more of us here.

(0:20) Just to go over a little bit of what happened in the first half of the class. (0:28) This is tour two, talking about philosophy and ethics. (0:33) The truth project is, they gave a small blurb about if someone asks you what the truth project is.

(0:43) The truth project is a small group video curriculum designed to build a systematic and comprehensive biblical worldview in the lives of believers. (0:55) And each lesson looks at life from a biblical perspective, studying the very nature and character of God and how he has revealed himself to us. (1:05) And I’m going to play the first bit of part one that we saw, where he talks about 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26, and Colossians 2, 8. (1:22) And I’ll go over a couple of points.

(1:25) I’d like us to read those passages. (1:28) So if you want to pick up a Bible and look at 2 Timothy 2, verses 24 through 26, 2 Timothy 2, 24 through 26. (1:41) Okay, so I’m reading from the New King James.

(1:44) A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility, correcting those who are in opposition. (1:56) If God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. (2:13) So this came out also in the first tour, talking about truth, that Satan takes people captive.

(2:23) He escaped the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him, and he takes them captive to do his will. (2:32) And then, but that’s, as Bill will point out, talking about outsiders, those who aren’t in Christ. (2:40) Colossians 2, verse 8, so take a look at that.

(2:46) Colossians 2, 8, then, is a warning to Christians. (2:52) And Colossians 2, 8, see to it, I’m reading this time from the New American Standard, and it says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception. (3:08) According to the tradition of men and according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

(3:16) So this warning that we are given is about philosophy. (3:23) And Paul is telling Christians that we, Christians, can be taken captive. (3:32) We can again be taken captive through philosophy.

(3:39) And empty deception, so it’s deceptive philosophy. (3:44) So what is philosophy? (3:46) And that’s what this tour 2 is about, philosophy and ethics. (3:51) It’s a combined class.

(3:53) After I show the end of video 2, tour 2, he has, Bill has a summary, and I’m going to play that because he sums it up pretty well. (4:04) All right, so we need to know what philosophy is, and in the first part of this tour, he used Carl Sagan as an example of this kind of philosophy that is deceptive and can take us captive. (4:24) And if you remember what Carl Sagan is famous for saying when he’s talking about the cosmos, and the cosmos is all of what we Christians would call creation, everything that God has made, the cosmos, everything in the physical creation, the creation that we can see.

(4:50) And you might remember that there are two realms, the spiritual and the physical. (4:56) Well, we cannot see the spiritual. (4:59) So natural man who lives in the physical world does not acknowledge something that he cannot see.

(5:08) Natural man is not spiritual because he doesn’t believe what he can’t see. (5:14) And so Carl Sagan says, in this empty philosophy that he’s talking about, this philosophy that can take us captive is that the cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there will ever be. (5:33) And Bell points that out.

(5:36) Carl Sagan is using assumptive language where you make an assumption, and Bell says it’s a powerful and deceptive use of words because you are being given an argument that is not an open argument that you can have a discussion. (5:58) It’s a one-sided delivery, and it has a seemingly simple statement, it’s made hoping that the hearer will buy the simple statement without recognizing the assumptions that go with the statement that may come with it. (6:17) And when one buys the simple statement, we are also buying the assumption.

(6:23) And so what’s the assumption if Carl Sagan says that all there is is the physical world and the physical realm, if that’s all there is, all there ever was, and all there will ever be, what’s the implication of that? (6:44) And the implication is there’s nothing else. (6:47) Well, what nothing else would that be? (6:51) Anything supernatural that excludes God. (6:55) God is not natural.

(6:57) He made nature. (6:59) He is not nature. (7:01) He made nature.

(7:02) He is supernatural. (7:04) He’s above nature because he made it. (7:06) He’s outside nature.

(7:08) So God, by definition, is not natural. (7:12) He’s supernatural. (7:14) And that is specifically what they are railing against.

(7:20) Naturalists are railing against any supernatural explanation for why we’re here. (7:27) There can’t be a God because that’s not natural. (7:31) That’s supernatural.

(7:33) Okay. (7:33) So that’s what it is sometimes. (7:35) And so when this philosophy in particular, the cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be, our culture has bought.

(7:45) Our culture has bought. (7:47) To the extent John Lennon imagined his famous song, Imagine. (7:52) What’s he say at the very beginning? (7:54) Imagine there is no heaven.

(7:57) Why would you do that? (7:59) Because then you can imagine there is no hell. (8:02) He’s just removed the entire spiritual argument. (8:07) And why would they do that? (8:09) Because they don’t believe in the spiritual.

(8:13) It’s only natural. (8:14) Only what we can see. (8:16) Only what we can observe.

(8:20) So that’s assumptive language and those arguments. (8:22) And that’s why we need to be aware of the philosophies that are in the world. (8:28) Okay.

(8:29) Then there’s the universals in particular they start talking about, Bill. (8:33) And I’ll just touch on those. (8:36) Then we’ll look at the second page, postmodern philosophy.

(8:42) And then we’ll do the video. (8:43) So the universals in particular in philosophy, the whole purpose of philosophy is trying to (8:50) determine the truth. (8:53) Of course, now it’s trying to find the natural truth.

(8:57) It’s filtered. (8:59) It’s not the truth. (9:01) It’s the truth that fits within what we can see.

(9:05) And we will only accept natural solutions. (9:09) We will not accept supernatural. (9:11) And isn’t that what Peter says in 2 Peter 3? (9:16) They willfully forget that God spoke things at the word.

(9:22) Things came into being. (9:23) Well, that’s supernatural. (9:25) That’s not a natural process.

(9:27) That’s God who is supernatural by fiat. (9:32) Just by his speaking made the world that was. (9:37) And that world then was destroyed by water.

(9:41) That’s what Peter’s saying. (9:43) They willfully forget that there’s a spiritual realm. (9:48) And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

(9:50) And that’s why they will only accept a natural solution. (9:56) And that’s the assumption. (9:59) OK, so they have to find all the answers have to be natural, because if it’s not, then that (10:06) opens the door that well, then there must be a supernatural.

(10:10) OK, anyway, so in philosophy, the universals and particulars are the questions and answers (10:20) that universals are the big questions and big answers. (10:24) And the particulars are the facts. (10:27) Dell used the idea that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

(10:34) That’s a particular. (10:35) That’s a scientific fact. (10:38) At a certain temperature, water will always boil.

(10:43) That’s the point. (10:44) There is there is that. (10:46) And we’ve assigned 100 Celsius to that event.

(10:51) The earth revolves around the sun. (10:55) It takes between 365 to 366, more than 365 days, less than 366 days for the earth to (11:05) always go around the sun. (11:08) That’s a particular.

(11:10) The universals are questions like, why am I here? (11:16) What is my purpose? (11:18) Where did I come from? (11:20) And it’s those questions that they have a hard time answering. (11:24) If all you can use are natural solutions, the chicken and the egg problem, which came first? (11:32) Well, to a naturalist who only has natural solutions and believes in evolution, (11:37) that’s a tough question, because what did come first? (11:42) In creation, it’s easy. (11:44) God created fully functioning adult creatures.

(11:50) And he tells them to reproduce, so which came first, the chicken or the egg? (11:55) And in reality, since there really is a spiritual realm and a natural realm, (12:00) in reality, the truth is the creature came first, reproduction came second. (12:07) That’s how God did it. (12:09) He made the creatures and he told them to reproduce.

(12:14) So the chicken and the egg is not a problem for creationists. (12:18) We’re given the answers. (12:21) And in naturalism, the universals are not given.

(12:27) So their solution is, if we look at all the particulars, all the facts, (12:33) if we can obtain all these facts, we look at all the particulars, (12:37) and we put them all together, we can come up with the answers to the big questions. (12:44) So that’s why the origin of man by Darwin actually does not address the origin of man. (12:52) It can tell you how it goes once he’s there, according to their mythology, (12:59) but it doesn’t tell you where the first thing comes from, because they don’t have an answer.

(13:07) And if they come up with something to say, well, then the first thing is this, (13:12) and you go, well, where did that come from? (13:13) And they don’t have an answer. (13:15) We have an answer. (13:18) God has always existed.

(13:21) He is not natural. (13:23) He lives outside the confines of what is natural. (13:30) Nature has that problem, beginning and it has a beginning, it has an end.

(13:36) God is from everlasting, has no beginning to everlasting, has no end. (13:41) He’s always been there. (13:43) He’s always existed.

(13:46) So the Bible addresses that right up front. (13:49) It has an answer. (13:51) Naturalist doesn’t.

(13:53) They can’t even begin to tell you how that happened. (13:58) They have no idea. (14:00) Okay, so that’s the universals and particulars.

(14:04) And then before I start showing the video, let’s look at that postmodern philosophy. (14:12) I got this from Brock. (14:14) Bill starts the second part of our video by talking about postmodern philosophy.

(14:21) His explanation was, in postmodern philosophy, there is no truth. (14:27) So Brock says, a short description, postmodernism is a cultural, philosophical, and artistic (14:35) movement that emerged in the mid to late 20th century, characterized by skepticism. (14:44) The scripture says skeptics have skepticism.

(14:49) That’s why they’re a skeptic. (14:51) All right, so they’re skeptic. (14:55) Okay, so postmodernism is made up of skeptics toward grand narratives, grand (15:04) stories, absolute truths.

(15:08) They don’t believe in absolute truths and the idea of objective reality. (15:14) Okay, so it embraces diversity, relativism, and often features a playful, ironic, or fragmented (15:23) style of art. (15:25) So I asked Brock then, what does truth mean in postmodernism? (15:31) And I want you to look at what it says.

(15:34) First one, relativism. (15:36) Truth is seen as varying from person to person or culture to culture. (15:41) It varies based on who you are.

(15:44) What might be true for one individual or group might not hold for another. (15:51) So what’s true to you may not be what’s true to me, emphasizing the diversity of the human (15:58) experience and interpretation. (16:01) It’s how you interpret it.

(16:04) Deconstruction. (16:05) Influenced by philosophers, and they got a name that Jack Derada, I think it is, postmodernism (16:15) questions the stability of meaning and text. (16:21) What’s that mean? (16:22) Stability and texts.

(16:26) Okay, we’ll get to there. (16:27) Or suggesting that truths are constructed through language which is inherently unstable. (16:39) So unstable language is how they construct truth with their language.

(16:47) And therefore, it’s open to multiple interpretations. (16:53) When you construct something, what are you doing? (16:56) Building. (16:57) What’s another word for that? (16:59) I’m going to build this.

(17:00) I’m going to make this. (17:02) So let’s look at that. (17:04) So suggesting that truths are made up.

(17:08) So truths, you can make the truth up through language. (17:14) Just what you say, you can just say it, which is inherently unstable. (17:21) So what you say one time might not be what you say the next time.

(17:26) It’s not stable. (17:28) Which means you can say anything you want anytime you want to say it. (17:33) And that’s open to multiple interpretations.

(17:36) That sounds like our laws. (17:38) Why does it take 1,700 pages to write a law anymore? (17:42) Because it is constructed through language inherently unstable and open to multiple (17:50) interpretations by justices, by judges. (17:55) That’s the whole purpose.

(17:56) So our government’s running on this idea of postmodernism. (18:02) There is no objective truth. (18:06) You can just make it up.

(18:07) And tell me our politicians, don’t you, our media doesn’t just make it up. (18:13) They’re postmodernists. (18:14) They’re just doing what they’ve been taught.

(18:18) Rejection of metanarratives. (18:19) I’m only going to read this one, and then we’ll move on. (18:25) Metanarrative is a big narrative.

(18:28) And it’s a narrative that attempts to give meaning to everything. (18:35) This is a description. (18:37) This tells you how everything works.

(18:40) We know, and they reject all metanarratives. (18:47) What metanarrative are we familiar with? (18:51) An encompassing narration of where everything came from, where everything’s going, and what (18:58) happened in the middle. (19:00) What narrative do we know? (19:02) The Bible, God’s word, is a metanarrative, exactly.

(19:07) And they reject, specifically reject all metanarratives. (19:11) They also reject, by the way, not just Christianity, but Marxism and Enlightenment, (19:18) rational, anybody who claims to be able to explain all aspects of life, of course, except (19:25) science. (19:26) So that’s postmodernism.

(19:27) So in that, he’s going to start talking about ethics, Adele is, from the postmodernists. (19:35) If you don’t believe in objective truth, how do you determine, and that’s what Adele’s (19:43) going to ask, how do you determine then what is right and what is wrong? (19:48) Okay, so let’s start with the first part. (19:54) And then after he talks about the two scripture, I’m going to move it on to tonight.

(20:01) Okay, I do like his emphasis on this idea of metamorphosis. (20:07) And looking at the Greek word of being transformed, the three places he mentioned where that word (20:16) is used, two of them deal with us, one deals with Christ. (20:23) The first one that he mentioned is talking about us, Romans 12, I think it is, the command (20:31) for us to be transformed.

(20:33) Don’t conform to the world, but be transformed, be metamorphed. (20:38) So that’s the command. (20:40) The other one that deals with us is where we are being told that we are.

(20:46) God is changing us, is metamorphosing through metamorphosis, is changing us like a caterpillar (20:55) changes into the butterfly. (20:58) And as he pointed out, and that’s not so obvious, but Paul using that word and then also talking (21:09) about Jesus' transfiguration as a metamorphosis, Jesus was metamorphed from a natural man to (21:17) a spiritual man. (21:19) He was in a spiritual rendering when he was transfigured.

(21:24) It wasn’t in his flesh. (21:28) That’s a spiritualness with Moses and Elijah. (21:33) So you have a drastic change.

(21:36) And so the implication of using that word, the metamorphosis of us, like Bill pointed (21:44) out, where is the hard part? (21:46) Where’s the difficult part in that process? (21:50) Somebody said it’s the larva, and that’s not. (21:53) The butterfly’s the pretty part. (21:55) The larva is where you start before the process.

(22:00) That’s our natural man. (22:01) That’s our sinful man. (22:04) Then we are transfigured.

(22:07) They are transformed. (22:10) That process in metamorphosis is done in a cocoon. (22:17) That’s where that process takes place.

(22:19) And you don’t have just a simple transformation where you go from a caterpillar to a butterfly. (22:29) It goes back to goo. (22:31) It breaks down.

(22:34) That caterpillar dissolves, and it is inside that cocoon. (22:40) It is remade into a totally different creature. (22:46) That’s the process.

(22:48) And it’s in a cocoon. (22:49) And with our Roman study, you will remember that we don’t have a righteousness of our own. (22:59) I’m going to tell you what I think the cocoon is for our transformation.

(23:05) And that is when we were doing the Roman study, we found out that everybody has sinned and (23:14) fallen short of the glory of God. (23:16) None of us is righteous. (23:18) We none of us have a righteousness of our own.

(23:22) But now as Christians, we are righteous. (23:25) Why? (23:26) It’s not a righteousness of our own. (23:28) And a lot of times as Christians, we think it is a righteousness of our own.

(23:33) Well, I got baptized. (23:35) That’s the reason why I’m righteous. (23:37) And that’s in the process.

(23:40) But that’s not why we’re righteous. (23:42) As I remember one member saying, who no longer worships here, I’ve never missed a communion. (23:51) I’ve never missed a Lord’s Day communion.

(23:53) I’ve always taken it every, you know, that’s not why he’s righteous. (23:59) That’s not where righteousness comes from. (24:02) Because we don’t have a righteousness of our own.

(24:07) Well, how come we’re righteous then? (24:08) Because God, Romans 3 tells us and following, God gave us righteousness. (24:16) He made, he gave us righteousness so that we are now right with the law. (24:23) That’s what righteousness means.

(24:25) It means we’re no longer considered a transgressor. (24:30) We are now considered a law abiding person. (24:35) And that the reason we are, is because we received the righteousness that Christ, (24:42) Christ’s righteousness.

(24:45) And so did God, by the way, God received Christ’s righteousness. (24:49) Because there it says in Romans 3, that before time, God accepted people and saved them when (24:57) he didn’t have a valid reason for doing that. (25:01) So Jesus, that he gave his son as a propitiation so that he would be right.

(25:10) Who’s he? (25:10) God. (25:11) So that the father would be righteous in doing that before Jesus' crucifixion. (25:20) So God received Jesus' righteousness and so do we.

(25:25) It’s given to us as a gift. (25:28) That’s why we’re righteous. (25:30) You can go through Romans 4, based on Abraham’s faith.

(25:35) 5, you got the comparison between Adam and Christ. (25:39) 6, you got the typological argument for baptism. (25:45) Baptism takes our sin away because we die.

(25:48) Anyone who’s died, Romans 6, 7, anyone has died has been freed from sin. (25:53) But if you don’t have sin, then guess what? (25:56) You are righteous. (25:58) And how does that happen? (26:00) Because we died with Christ and anyone who has died has now been free from sin.

(26:05) That’s where our sin’s taken away. (26:07) And that’s why. (26:09) Okay, so now that our sin’s been taken away, we get to Romans 8. (26:16) Therefore, there’s now no more condemnation for those who love Christ.

(26:21) It doesn’t happen anymore. (26:22) That’s the cocoon. (26:25) Does that mean we can go and sin is free? (26:28) And Paul addressed that.

(26:29) No, that doesn’t mean that. (26:31) But as long as you’re trying, walking in the light, as long as you’re trying and change (26:38) when you find out you’re right, because God’s given us his righteousness and he’s giving (26:44) us a penalty-free environment to transform. (26:51) That’s the cocoon.

(26:53) He’s given us righteousness. (26:56) He will not hold our sins against us and will allow us to transform. (27:03) And he knows it’s going to take time.

(27:06) You know, the caterpillar doesn’t just spin a cocoon and then it drops and he’s a butterfly. (27:12) It takes time. (27:13) He’s got to go through that process.

(27:15) Well, going through that process, we don’t have to fear that when we find out, wow, it’s (27:22) I’ve been doing that wrong my whole life, that we were in this, if we would have died (27:28) there, we would have gone to hell. (27:29) That’s not going to happen because now we’re in the cocoon. (27:33) We’re given the opportunity to transform.

(27:37) So I like that idea that Del brought out because that’s where it happens. (27:43) That’s where the transformation takes place. (27:45) And Paul tells us that transformation takes place through the renewing of the mind.

(27:54) And as R.C. (27:55) Sproul mentioned, you have to renew it through the mind and then you get a changed heart. (28:04) You know, you can’t go to that changed heart without transforming the mind, renewing the (28:12) mind. (28:13) So how do we do that? (28:14) Well, we’ve got to know the equipping of the saints.

(28:18) Look at what was involved in the equipping of the saints. (28:23) All the officers of the church, their responsibility is to equip the saints for works of (28:31) service as priests. (28:34) So their job and what was it? (28:36) It was about unity and knowledge of Christ.

(28:43) This is done through the renewing of our mind. (28:46) We have to put the work in. (28:49) We have to do the Bible study.

(28:52) It won’t just happen through osmosis. (28:55) You know, it won’t do it by itself, but we can be transformed and God will help us in (29:01) that process. (29:02) And it’s in a penalty free environment, the cocoon.

(29:07) That’s tour two. (29:09) Let’s end with a prayer.