25-0115wc Transcript

Teacher: Scott Reynolds

(0:04) We’re in the Truth Project starting tour three, Anthropology. Tour three, Anthropology, Who is Man. (0:14) In this tour, we are going to need to be like the Bereans.

And if you remember when Paul, (0:22) the apostle, journeyed to Berea in Greece in Acts chapter 17, the Bible tells us that the Bereans (0:30) were more fair-minded or noble than those in Thessalonica, and that they received the word (0:37) with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. (0:45) So even though Paul, an apostle, was giving them these words, they still (0:52) checked it out and verified what he was saying. So we need to do the same with Del Tackett.

(0:59) Trust but verify is another way of saying that we all have our bias and religiously ours (1:06) is from the restoration movement, that’s the churches of Christ. (1:11) And Del has his bias and it’s from the reformation movement. (1:18) And they think a little differently on certain things religiously than we do.

(1:24) And in this tour, Del, as we’ll see, uses a translation when he’s reading specifically, (1:34) as an example, will be Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17. And in the translation he has, (1:43) and I believe it would be the NIV, except in my digital form of the NIV, it no longer says (1:53) sinful nature. And the other translations say the flesh.

And on my digital format, (2:06) the NIV now says the flesh also instead of the sinful nature. But even so, in my digital format, (2:14) the NIV still has a couple of places where they use that term, sinful nature. And the way Del (2:21) uses it, let’s read Galatians 5, 16 and 17.

And it says, but I say, walk by the spirit. (2:34) I’ll use what he’s going to do in the video and say, instead of the flesh, which the ESV says, (2:48) I’ll put in sinful nature. So that when we see it, you’ll understand what he’s talking about.

(2:55) But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (3:03) Other translations say the flesh. For the desires of the sinful nature are against the spirit, (3:12) and the desires of the spirit are against the sinful nature.

For these are opposed to each other (3:18) to keep you from doing the things you want to do. And read the ESV, it says, (3:23) but I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (3:29) For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against (3:36) the flesh.

For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (3:43) So the translation Bill uses interprets instead of translates there. (3:50) It’s making an interpretation of what that word means.

And the Greek word there, (3:58) which is spelled S-A-R-X, which is translated the flesh, the word means according to Strong’s (4:09) dictionary, the word means the flesh stripped of skin, meat that’s used as food, the body as (4:17) opposed to the spirit or soul, and by implication, and this is Strong’s interpretation, and by (4:25) implication, human nature with its frailties physically and morally. So Dell relates then (4:34) that passage that don’t gratify the sinful nature with Romans 5, 12, where the Bible says, (4:45) therefore justice through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death (4:53) spread to all men because all sinned. And I get the idea that he’s saying that we are predisposed, (5:03) or we are inclined to a specified attitude or action to sin because of Adam’s sin.

(5:17) We sin because Adam sinned, is the idea that the Reformation people preach. (5:25) That’s our sinful nature. So we are predisposed then to sin because of the fall.

Because of the (5:36) fall, man now sins, and he’s inclined to do so. And that’s why you have those ideas, especially (5:46) with the Catholics, that Jesus then, how come Jesus, well the Catholics go a step further and (5:54) say you are born in sin. So that’s, what’s that called? Original sin.

And why didn’t Jesus, (6:07) why wasn’t, didn’t Jesus have, didn’t Jesus have original sin? How could he? Because he was sinless. (6:13) Well he didn’t because his mom was immaculate, was conceived immaculately. She didn’t have sin (6:21) either.

But you have to remember, Hebrews tells us that Jesus was made exactly as we were, (6:31) or we are. Or to be a good propitiation, to be a good sacrifice, it was necessary (6:38) that Jesus also was made just like us. Well how could he be just like us if he doesn’t then, (6:48) is not predisposed or inclined to sin like the rest of us are? That doesn’t seem very fair, (6:56) that we’re predisposed because Adam sinned.

And that’s not what Romans 5.12 is saying. Romans (7:04) 5.12 is saying that just as through one man sin entered the world, sin became, sin, (7:17) Adam is the first sinner. Prior to Adam, no human had sinned.

So Adam introduces sin (7:28) into the world. So just as sin came into the world through one man, and that’s true, (7:39) but they want to go further and say then that’s, then sin is, (7:45) sin comes to every man because of Adam’s sin, because he sinned. And it doesn’t say that.

It (7:53) says just as one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all (8:06) men. Not sin spread to all men, but death spread to all men because of sin. They didn’t inherit (8:17) sin.

They weren’t born with sin, but they did sin. And they didn’t sin because Adam sinned. (8:28) They sinned because the same way we do, because we lust and, if I remember correctly, (8:36) gave a great lesson on how sin progresses to the point from the temptation all the way until it is (8:49) born, sin.

And that’s how it works for us. We don’t inherit the sin. We inherit the penalty (9:01) when we sin.

We inherit death. Death comes to all men because Adam sinned. But it only comes to them (9:13) because all have sinned.

That’s something they’ve done on their own. We don’t inherit sin. We (9:22) inherit the penalty when we sin.

Yes, the law of sin and death came in force when Adam sinned. (9:32) That’s what that’s saying. Not that we have a sinful nature.

Not that we are predisposed because (9:40) Adam sinned. We are now inclined to sin, and all men might become lustful and all men will sin, (9:55) but it’s not because we are predisposed to it. That’s a choice.

That’s a choice, (10:05) just like it was with Adam. It was a choice Adam made. He wasn’t predisposed, (10:12) and neither are his descendants predisposed to sin.

It’s a choice we all make. (10:19) Okay, so I get the idea that Del’s saying that we are predisposed, and you’ll see that (10:27) in the second half of the tour also. And the reason he says that is to contrast the biblical (10:35) worldview to our culture’s worldview, which says man is basically good.

So the world goes (10:48) the opposite way and says, well, we’re just all good, which begs the question, well, (10:55) where did evil come from? So to me, man is brought forth even after the fall, neutrally, morally, (11:05) neither with an inclination to sin nor an inclination to righteousness. And righteousness (11:11) implies, by the way, that one knows the law. To be righteous, you have to be right with the law.

(11:19) How can you be right with the law if you don’t even know the law? So to be righteous implies (11:26) someone knows the law, since righteousness means being right with the law. And a newborn (11:33) nor cannot know the law before he knows language and how to listen and read and understand, (11:40) as Job says in Job 14.1, man who is born a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Well, (11:51) he’s not full of trouble in the womb, and he’s not full of trouble when he’s born in a few days.

(11:59) So it takes some time. We do not inherit, and it’s not inherent in us. We’re not inclined to.

(12:09) We choose to sin. Okay, enough of that. So the Truth Project itself is a comprehensive and (12:18) systematic Christian worldview study, and that’s why I got the compass up there.

I tried to expand (12:26) it more, and it does on my machine, but it didn’t on the TV. So that’s the best we can do to see (12:34) that. I’ll have to get a…​ This is in the link to the first set of lessons, and it’s on our (12:40) website.

So you can look at that. That’s a mnemonic. That’s a tool for remembering.

Those (12:48) are all the things that the Truth Project is going to talk about, and it’s a 16-point compass. It’s a (12:59) directional compass. I love the idea because a worldview is going to help us find the direction (13:07) God wants us to walk in.

It’s a directional compass, and that’s a directional compass rose, (13:16) and it’s got 16 points. The four main points of the compass, north, east, west, and south, (13:25) if you remember spell news, n-e-w-s, north, east, west, and south, and on north, the four (13:33) main categories that the Truth Project is organized around is about truth, about God, (13:41) about man, and about social order. Then it has the northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.

(13:53) Those are the next four points to make an eight-point compass, and then you have (14:01) the other one, another set of eight in there, which makes a 16-point compass. (14:09) Anyway, as we go through here, the first tour was, as he said, if you remember, he goes, (14:17) we’re going to head north in the tour one, and that was truth is on that compass setting. (14:28) We’re not going to do God in tour three.

We’re going to do God in tour four. (14:35) If you look just above there at northeast and east, northeast, you got philosophy and ethics. (14:45) That was tour two.

That was tour two. We’re going to, and he’ll say this in the tour, (14:53) we’re going to head due west in this tour, which is where man is. That’s the main compass point, (15:01) west, and anthropology, what is man, where we discuss what is evil, where the evil comes from (15:09) also.

That’s a tool. You might want to look at it from time to time because we get all this (15:22) information, and what do we do with it? We’re being inundated with the truth, with stuff about (15:31) philosophy and ethics, and you got man and God, and what do you do with this? Well, this is a (15:37) memory device to help you organize the information that’s coming in so we can get an idea, try to (15:46) retain by thinking of the compass what it’s talking, what we’ve talked about. Okay, and then (15:58) there’s the problem of evil and who is man is the first part of today’s tour, (16:09) and there is a lesson guide.

My printer broke as I was, this is the last thing I was trying to print, (16:17) so you don’t have it. It’s on the links for the class, so you can still look that up for (16:25) tour three, lesson three, but I will read this because it will tell us what he’s going to (16:31) do in this lesson, and then following when we stop, he has a summary that he does after the (16:39) whole tour, and I’d like to show that it’s about three or four minutes, not bad, but he does a (16:45) great job of summarizing what he’s been talking about. So the lesson guide, anthropology, who is (16:52) man.

Lesson three takes us into the western regions of the compass where we engage in an (16:59) in-depth examination of biblical and contemporary ideas. We’re going to see the (17:08) biblical worldview contrasted with the world’s contemporary worldview. Ideas about the nature (17:17) of the human race.

The focus of the discussion is anthropology, who is man, where did he come from, (17:25) what is the meaning and purpose of his existence. In this course of study, Dr. Tackett demonstrates (17:32) the meaning and purpose of his existence. In the course of this study, Dr. Tackett demonstrates (17:43) that the answers we bring to these questions have a direct bearing on our approach to another (17:51) pressing problem, one of the thorniest and most challenging of all, why is there evil in the world? (18:01) And having established the importance of determining whether the cosmos is to be (18:07) viewed as an open box or a closed box, what he means there is with an open box, (18:16) the stuff in the box is open to influence from outside the box.

That’s the biblical worldview. (18:26) God’s not in the box. He’s outside and influences what’s in the box.

That’s an open box. The closed (18:36) box is, the cosmos is all there is, all there was, and all there will be. That’s the closed box.

(18:46) There is no supernatural. And you’ll see some of the people will actually say that, (18:56) that knowing that there is no supernatural, we think this way, as how contemporary experts (19:10) believe. Okay.

So here, let’s see. So Dell moves on to examining another defining aspect of the (19:23) comprehensive worldview, its basic assumptions about mankind. And here again, we discover (19:33) a fundamental conflict between Christianity and the perspective of contemporary culture.

(19:41) The Bible teaches that man consists of both body and spirit, and is created in the image of our (19:49) God. Our culture assumes that he is purely, that man is purely material, the product of mindless, (19:59) purposeless forces. The Bible says that man has rebelled against God and fallen from his original (20:06) state of innocence.

Contemporary thought maintains that he is basically good. The Bible affirms (20:14) man’s need for divine grace, redemption, and regeneration. Popular thinking asserts that (20:22) self-actualization is the key to happiness and fulfillment, where it is focused on self.

(20:33) Okay. Christianity represents evil as the product of the cosmic battle that rages within man, (20:40) the conflict between humanity as it was meant to be, and what it has actually become as a result (20:48) of sin. Godless philosophy and psychology, on the other hand, can suggest only one possible solution (20:56) to the problem of evil in the world.

Man must throw off the restraints of superimposed social (21:07) conventions and institutions—that is, any kind of moral standard they must throw off—and pursue (21:15) self-fulfillment to the fullest possible extent. And this is what Dr. Tackett calls the pernicious lie. (21:25) So some points to watch for.

Some viewers, even those who consider themselves Christians, (21:33) may have difficulty accepting the idea of self-fulfillment and the call to follow your heart (21:40) as inconsistent with a Christian worldview. Others may object to Dr. Tackett’s assertion (21:47) that a great deal of the radical social and political activism we see in the world today (21:53) is driven primarily by secular man’s sinful desire to throw off the shackles (22:00) of God’s social design. All will find it stimulating and profitable to wrestle with (22:07) the questions he poses—why do nonbelievers and evolutionists find evil so troubling? (22:18) And that’s the class.