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Hey, I'm Matt Brownell.

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And I'm Van Owens.

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And I'm Tim Adams.

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Welcome to Climbing the Mountain, where we dive into the scriptures and discuss themes,

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connections, and real life application.

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We're kicking off a series here where we're going to examine the Sermon on the Mount and

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discuss implications for this teaching for Christians today.

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This is part two of wrestling with the word, individually and in community.

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And last time what we did was we looked at Romans 14 and we took a passage where on the

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surface we're like, we're dealing with food and days and why are people so up in arms

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with this.

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And we just started to get into why it was such a big deal for the people of that day,

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these were matters of belief that people had gone back to the scriptures and developed

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with strong conviction.

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And Paul actually wrote for them to be fully convinced about things because these are matters

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of faith.

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And if you don't do things by faith, that's sin too, which is so interesting that our

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consciences could be part of that equation.

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And we talked about how when we're wrestling with the scripture, to develop a conviction,

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this is not something that we just do on a whim.

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We feel something strongly and so therefore I must have a conviction.

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No, no, no.

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We have to go back to the Bible.

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We have to wrestle with it.

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And then we might have to wrestle with that in community as well.

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And we're starting to talk about that now and how that happens.

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And what we saw with Paul's example was that he was fully convinced that no food was unclean,

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yet he wouldn't let his freedom be a stumbling block for his brother or sister whom Christ

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died for.

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And it reminds me of, I mean, we talk about things where we read stuff the wrong way.

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I read in verse 16 of this chapter for years, I read, so do not let what you regard as good

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be spoken of as evil as Paul saying, you know, we should stick up for something we believe

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is true and good.

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And of course, that's exactly the opposite of what Paul is saying in context, right?

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Okay, so that was my goof, but, you know, when you start to read things, you know, what

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he's actually saying there, how we should view our freedom in community is one, is

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something that we'd be willing to give up for our brother or sister, which is beautiful,

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because that demonstrates how we value each other, those who Christ has died for.

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So that's where we were, and we're starting to pivot now a little bit as we start to zoom

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in on what's a debatable matter versus an essential matter.

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And I start, I think we should start to pick this up as we, you know, we'll stay in Romans

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14.

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And I think that chapter, it concludes more in Romans 15, verse 7 or 13, I don't

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know, we're called to please our neighbors for their good, to build them up, and to welcome

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each other as Christ has welcomed us for the glory of God.

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Paul then reminds his hearers how Jesus revealed God's truth concerning the Gentiles that

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they would be part of true Israel, which was another major theological hurdle in the first

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century.

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It's routinely called a mystery in the sense that only God could have helped people see

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it.

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Before we pivot then from debatable matters to essential matters, I want to just take

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a second to ask, how do we know something is debatable versus essential?

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I could see someone in the first century having a really hard time with something that seemed

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to be supported one way from scripture that Jesus seemingly upended.

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For instance, we're talking about days, we talked a little bit about the Sabbath last

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time, and Jesus routinely violated how the Pharisees interpreted one of the Ten Commandments

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to prove a larger point.

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How are we supposed to tell the difference between something debatable versus essential

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when we might feel very strongly about a particular issue?

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Yeah, so this question has been something that I've been wrestling with for a decade,

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which for me, being younger is a long time, but not pales in comparison, I'm sure, to

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others in the room.

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But it's felt like a very difficult question for me to kind of wrap my arms around, because

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it has to do with authority, and what authority, if someone needs to have the authority to

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make that call.

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As much as possible, I want Jesus to be the authority of making that call, and so it can

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feel confusing where we feel like we have to make that stand ourselves.

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And so, I don't know, I think this conversation I'm hoping will be really helpful to bring

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up different ways of thinking about this, because I'm really curious to hear what you

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two think about how to make those distinctions.

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I've been thinking about this whole thing in terms of two different pillars.

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One is I want to be orthodox, I want to have the right beliefs, and then I want to be orthoprax,

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I think is the word, but I want to have the right conduct.

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And I just want to be on that narrow path.

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But when I think about what are the correct beliefs, I've more and more actually gone

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back to the, what is the church historically taught?

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If I believe that the Spirit of God is moving within the church at all times and in all

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places, then I'm going to put a lot of weight in what the collective consensus of the church

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has been over what the true essential beliefs are.

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And so, there's a ton of different places we could go in the scripture to hit on these

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things, but I just wanted to read the Apostles Creed, which is one of the many, many creeds

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that have been developed over the centuries, but has very, very broad agreement within

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the church for across denominations, across thousands of years.

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And I'll kind of just leave it at that for my section here of what I think it means to

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have the right belief.

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And so, I'll read it, but I'll just say that there's a lot in here, but there's also not

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a lot in here.

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There's a lot missing from this list that I might be tempted to put up at a higher level

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than it is.

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The Apostles Creed is, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,

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and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born

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of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

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He descended into hell.

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The third day, he rose again from the dead.

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He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and from

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there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

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I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, which just means universal church,

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the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life

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everlasting.

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And so, yeah, I think that's been, when I think about what's essential to believe, like

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the things that are in my head about to be actually a Christian.

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I'm not saying that this is like the list, but I think it's pretty close to that core.

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If I don't believe this, I just can't call myself a Christian.

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I'm something else.

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If I do believe this, I can call myself a Christian.

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Yeah.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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Yeah.

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This is, so, you know, I'm a person that people will approach a lot of times with questions.

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I mean, I think it's because I'm old.

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I think it's also because I do some teaching.

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And so people come at me with their questions.

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And here's how I almost always answer the question.

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The first thing I'll say is that's a good question.

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And I'll say, I'm not sure that I know the be all end all answer to that question.

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I don't, I don't know if I know that.

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This is what I think just off the top of my head.

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And then I'll tell them what I think and I'll say, but before I'm willing to say this is

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my conviction, and this is with something that's not a conviction for me.

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If it is a conviction, I'll tell them this is what this is the truth.

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This is what my conviction is.

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This is what it's based on.

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But if it's not, I'll say I need to think about that a little bit more.

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I need to study about that a little bit more.

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I need to talk to some people in authority.

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I need to talk to some people who know the Bible a little bit better than I do to figure

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out my answer to that question.

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And so a lot of what I think about when I think of what is a, what is a, what's an essential

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belief, what are debatable matters versus what are, what we call sometimes salvation

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issues come from sort of that frame of working of that way of thinking.

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And then once it's established, then it's established for me.

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And I try to make sure that it is not too far outside of, of some sort of basic guidelines

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for, for belief.

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It's a lot of words that I just said.

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Yeah.

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Can you summarize that?

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It's not, it's not very convincing.

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So the process for me is I don't really know if I have a conviction about it.

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It's really hard to talk about this without talking about concrete things.

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So it, but if I don't really have a deep solid conviction about it, my first, the first place

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I go is to the scriptures to find as much scripture about that issue as I can to try

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to figure out what the truth is from the Bible.

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And depending on the issue, it might be very clear from the scriptures.

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There might be just the same line all the way throughout.

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Now if it's not clear, then I will get a little deeper into my study, a little deeper into

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what the, what the original Christians thought or what is the original context of the passage

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or who were the original recipients of this word that is written right here at this moment

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to try to get a little bit deeper into it.

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If that doesn't satisfy me with a little, with, with a deep conviction about it, then

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I will go to an elder or I will go to an evangelist or I will go to a teacher in the church and

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I will say, and I'll ask them, what do you think about this?

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This is what, this is what I've come up with so far.

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I don't, I don't know.

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So the process is not, it's not always the same process and it's not step A, B, C, D,

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but it is a process.

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And the way that I kind of justify that in my mind is so that we have the scripture,

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we have the Bible and we know that the Bible was written over many thousands of years and

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the hands that wrote it were many different hands.

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And though the scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit and all comes from God, it all

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came through many, many different authors.

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And there will be some things in the scripture that appear to be contradictory.

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And so you, you have to, you have to dig in and it almost, the way the Bible is compiled

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almost lends itself to a process that has to be spirit led, that has to be, there's

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a, there's a thin line to walk on and it's hard to know where that line is without being

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spirit led.

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And the, what I, what I do, the one sort of hard and fast rule that I have in trying

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to determine what I should have a conviction about is that I need to be humble.

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I need to be willing to be wrong.

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And I need to be open to someone proving to me, if I am wrong, somebody, I need to be

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open to someone saying, I think you're wrong on that.

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And this is where I think you're wrong.

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And if it's based on scripture, then I need to pay really close attention to it without

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debating it necessarily right away, but I need to, I need to sort of take that, go back,

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ruminate, meditate, pray, study, and then come back to the discussion.

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And I think that there are some things that, you know, the discussion just kind of continues

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and it evolves and there are some things that I can land on very solidly.

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But it has to be, it has to be, has to be spirit led.

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We have to feel like that it is, that, that the spirit of God is leading me in a direction

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and I have to be open to that direction being something different than what I had anticipated

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or what I wanted.

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Yeah.

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I think I'm going to just copy what you said.

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This was a hard question.

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So I think I'm going to say, really good question.

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And let me think about it for a while.

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I'll get back to you.

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Yeah.

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I, when I was being a little silly when I was thinking about this, I was thinking, well,

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if two people don't agree, then it's debatable, right?

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But, you know, I liked what you said, Tim, when you brought out that creed because, you

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know, you get a group of people that were differentiating themselves from the rest of

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the world and making a statement about what it meant to be a Christian.

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And I think there are certain things that you really, you know, you can't argue.

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But what gets tough for me is, so you've, then, you know, if you look at scripture and

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it's even in Romans 14, when we were just looking at, if you violate your conscience,

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that could be something that damns you.

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Like that gives me pause.

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Like, geez, you know, all of, all of scripture matters.

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And not only that, but our faith matters incredibly.

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And so I got to wrestle with that too, in this kind of, what do we, what do we say is debatable

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versus essential?

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I think that might change from person to person slightly, which is kind of unnerving for me.

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But based on if some person who has drawn their conclusions from scripture differs in

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the way they view it than me, if they violate their conscience, that is something that's

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bad.

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And so I think that's a challenge for me to understand and then work back through in

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community because how does that work?

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Paul says in that passage also to whatever you believe, keep it to yourself.

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So is that what we're supposed to do?

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Just keep things to ourselves?

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Or if we are fully convinced about something and we think, hey, this right here is something

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that I believe will send you to hell, then what do we do about that?

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If we see someone else we believe, you know, that's the part I think is tough to figure

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out.

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Yeah, and just, I don't think we actually read that verse in Romans 14.

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So for context, the verse that you're talking about, Matt is Romans 14 :20-23

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says, don't for the sake of food destroy the work of God.

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Everything is indeed clean and put it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what

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he eats is good not to eat, meet or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother

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a stumble.

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The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God, blessed is the one who has no reason

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to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

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But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith

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for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

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Yeah.

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Thanks for reading that.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I think there's different buckets here.

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And I know that in the last, there was a teaching day that our church talked about women's issues

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and they actually talked about three different kind of buckets and I'm forgetting exactly

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what they called them.

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But it was basically essential debatable on two sides.

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And then there was like really important in the middle, which is like something kind of

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in between.

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And I think there's some validity to that as I've been chewing on it.

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My first thought was like, where did these come from?

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But there are some things that are truly essential.

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It says in 1 John in many places, if you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you're

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not a Christian.

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You're not.

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Yeah.

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You just aren't.

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There's no way to the Father except through the Son.

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Yeah.

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And you're like, okay, that if anything's essential, right?

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And that's one of the things that's in that creed.

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It's like, okay, that's essential.

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Yeah.

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If you don't believe that, like we're just not on the same page.

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And there are things that are explicitly debatable from the scriptures and many others probably

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that we can infer are debatable pretty easily.

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You know, they're talking about observing certain days and keeping certain days holy,

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whether or not we eat or drink certain foods.

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Those are the two that are talking about Romans 14.

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But also, you know, I think one that I think is a pretty obvious one is when we think Jesus

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is going to come back, right?

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Jesus says, no one knows when I'm going to come back.

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Yeah.

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I have an opinion on that and it's pretty easy to say that this is not an essential issue.

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Right.

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The reason I had split up things in earlier in terms of like orthodoxy, like what we believe

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in orthopraxy, like how we're living is because I think that's where it gets complicated.

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It's clear when we're looking at Matthew 5 through 7 that Jesus demands obedience.

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Right.

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If you, it's not, it's the parable of the which rock, are you building on a rock or

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are you building on the sand?

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You have to hear his words put into practice.

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And James says like, even the demons believe and shudder, right?

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So we have to put our faith into action.

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We need to obey and this is not an easy question.

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Well, I'll put it to you guys because I'm just struggling with it.

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If obedience is essential, why are not all matters of obedience essential?

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Right.

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That feels to me like the crux of the question.

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Right.

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Then everything becomes essential.

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Right.

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That's the, that's the thing I was just wrestling with too.

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So if you, so then what do you do with that?

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And where do you bite your tongue or not?

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And how does that work out in community?

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These are all really thorny things to, to wrestle with.

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And I mean, so there's also an element to this where if you're going to follow God,

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you can't be a people pleaser.

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So Galatians, and this is a perfect verse for this, but you know, Galatians 1:10 says,

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am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?

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Or am I trying to please people?

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If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

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And you think of, you know, what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mountain, Matthew 5,

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10-11, same kind of thing.

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If we follow Jesus's righteousness, we'll be persecuted.

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And so I think we have to take Jesus's words on any given subject very seriously and not

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shy away from them just because they're difficult.

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But again, what is essential?

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Are there any other verses that stick out to you?

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Well, it's, it's, you know, I think of, I often think of Philippians 2 where it says

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your attitude should be that of Christ Jesus, where in humility you consider others better

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than yourself.

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And so it's on the one hand, we've got Paul and Galatians saying, don't please people.

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Don't be a people pleaser.

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On the other hand, in Philippians, he seems to be saying, well, consider everybody better

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than you.

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And then in Romans, he seems to be saying, don't, but don't violate your conscience.

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And all of these things are on the surface.

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They're seemingly contradictory.

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But I think what they prove, what, what it proves to me is I feel like living by faith

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is, is trying to walk a series of thin lines between issues and that it's really, it's

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sometimes very difficult to discern where that line is to stay on it.

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And the only way to stay on it is, like I said before, to be spirit led.

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But part of being spirit led is to be deeply involved in fellowship with other Christians

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to help you find those lines, to help you define those lines.

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Because if so, and you know, there's a, there's a perfectionist in me that sort of wants everything

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that I just want it laid out.

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I just want it to be.

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I just want to know what the rules are so I can follow the rules.

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But we know from the history of God dealing with man that just having all the rules doesn't

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work, because we, we, we are sinful natures won't allow us to, to stick to the rules.

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And so it's, it's this, it's this dynamic mix of studying the scriptures, meditating

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the script on the scriptures on your own, talking about it in your fellowship, being

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open about your thoughts and your feelings and your concerns and working out your convictions.

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All the time.

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I like how you keep coming back to process because I think that you're right.

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This is a process.

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And the other thing I heard in there was maybe something that we can pick up next time because

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I can't believe we're, we could keep talking about this for a long time, but we, you know,

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this notion of spiritual discernment that you're developing, I think.

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So let's pick up on that again next time.

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Sounds good.

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Thank you.