Transcript — Dialogue With An Eastern Orthodox Priest w/ @AaronGallagherTV and @FrStephenDeYoung

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00:03 >> This song goes out to everyone who loves Yeah, we [music] back, y’all. >>

01:57 Man, I’m so sorry I to do that to everyone. Wow, that was rough [laughter] to sit through that from my perspective was very rough. Um well, uh >> Hi Evan. >> Hi man. I I have to say like, you know, there was a time in my life where I was a singer-songwriter AI it’s pretty amazing what AI can do with music. >> Yeah, just that not that, right? It’s like it’s like in Jurassic Park where he’s like, you you you were thinking about whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think about whether or not you should. Uh that’s a >> know. I mean, it’s amazing they can write songs with something like that. I mean, like the melody was good, the music is good. I mean, it’s It makes me think like It makes me wonder if there are laws out there because I feel like if I was a professional musician like AI would be coming coming for your like coming for your job, you know.

02:50 >> Uh please, don’t don’t get on your moral high horse right now. We have a very important guest here. Uh >> Okay. I don’t want to make everyone wait any longer. I mean, we’re psyched Aaron and I that you guys are here tonight. And since we’ve been talking about Eastern Orthodoxy, we’ve done a lot of this stuff together like since the beginning of me being interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, I brokered the deal for the Alex Oren versus Aaron Gallagher Apostolic Succession debate. We We talk so much. Anytime I talk about Eastern Orthodoxy, I’m probably talking to Aaron uh during that time. But since the beginning this conversation tonight is like one of the most highly demanded conversations probably ever. I think people have been uh wanting us to talk to this distinguished guest uh since like the very beginning. Um he is, if you know him at all, the host of the Lord of Spirits podcast.

03:41 And uh and there’s a whole Council of God as and uh is Am I lagging right now, by the way? I think I’m lagging a little bit. Am I lagging or is it fine on your end? >> Just a Just a ti- Just one section there. It cut out for a second. >> Yeah, okay. Well, I love you all so much. >> Support Support Marco’s Patreon so you can get him higher speed internet. >> Yeah, yeah. Or drop a super chat or something. Um Lord Spirits podcast, uh he’s an author, been reading uh Religion of the Apostles uh for a while. Um maybe one of the best Eastern Orthodox Marvels uh Marvel Rivals players there is out there. Highly respected, uh greatly loved. Uh Orthodox priest Stephen De Young. And there’s already a question for him tonight. Uh I need to pull it up here. Uh the first one is uh do a priest’s parents call him father?

04:32 My My mom tries to remember when in >> Refer to me as Father Stephen. >> Well, that’s nice. >> Let’s leave it at that. >> All right. Well, Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We’re so happy that we finally get to do this together. Great. Um yeah, everyone’s here. Saying I’m in 240 uh p uh here. Again, I don’t know why. Was it blurry before we were before we started the stream, my camera? >> I don’t know. The screen is really small on my screen anyway, so I don’t >> It was a little bit. It was a little bit. You kind of have a like ’80s sitcom vibe going on. >> Like Full House or something. >> All right. I can Yeah, I’ll I’ll I’ll be looking into this as we start.

05:18 But again, I want to thank you so much for talking to us tonight. >> Let me establish some Church of Christ street cred. Not only is my PhD in Biblical Studies from Amridge, but in the process, I’m willing to say I have read more articles in Restoration Quarterly than any other Orthodox >> Probably more [laughter] than me, too. >> So, you like that stuff or is it just a fascination of yours? Is it like, you know, watching cartoons or something or you [laughter] know? What is the intrigue for you? >> but I want to watch cartoons. No, it was it was uh on my way we’re going to So, my understanding is is uh Church of Christ doesn’t necessarily believe in having non-church institutions that are Church of Christ branded, per se.

06:10 So, Emory University, most of the faculty >> at the Candler School of Theology is from a Church of Christ background, right? Um and so, you know, when you’re working on a PhD, with faculty who are from that sort of the literature, the part of the literature they’re most familiar with just offhand, is going to be the literature from their own background, right? Like >> Okay. Well, nice. >> Well, that How was How was your time there? >> I I really enjoyed it and and uh I still good good friendships with uh some of the faculty uh who I grew close to and came to admire, Dr. Rodney Cloud, who’s sort of the head of the program there.

06:58 Uh Dr. Kirkland, who ended up being my dissertation supervisor, I’ve stayed in touch with. >> Um so, yeah. >> with what that what that must be like like to have you in their class and can’t stand this guy or something. Like, what was that? Was there anything like that or >> What what was what was What made it great from my perspective, right? Especially doing biblical stuff. When you’re doing academic biblical there tends to be, in terms of schools, there tends to be two poles, right? So, the one pole is complete liberal >> Right? Where the example I give to people is and this is absolutely true.

07:44 In Old Testament studies the current sort of scholarly consensus is that the the book of Joshua is entirely fiction. And that what actually happened is that there was a Marxist peasant revolt in Against like [laughter] the oppressive Canaanite kings. And then Joshua was written afterwards as sort of propaganda. Like whatever. That’s the going scholarly consensus in Old Testament studies. So you get that, right? >> Like that kind of thing. >> On the one >> That sounds like something I’d hear on TikTok, you know, like TikTok and liberal scholarly consensus. You know, like you don’t know what to believe which one’s right anymore. >> I’d hear a protester say. >> And and so then on the other side you tend to get unfortunately the other end of the pendulum swing where it’s somebody who’s conservative or more traditional in their scholarship but because of that they often become very sectarian.

08:44 >> Right. So you know, if they’re a Calvinist then, you know, and you’re not you’re not going to have a good time, right? In the same way that on the other side >> If you’re not a Calvinist, it’s not your >> Yeah. Well, [laughter] that’s true. You think they chose him. >> God didn’t They didn’t pick you, yeah. >> Why did we let this reprobate into the >> So just like on the other side, you know, those liberal folks, if you won’t buy into that they don’t want you there, >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And so one of the big reasons I chose to go to Amridge is that they had a more conservative approach but one that was not sectarian. Right? That was not They did not They were not trying to convert anybody to go to the the Church of Christ, right? If you were from a different background who went there.

09:31 >> Yeah, there wasn’t a mandatory baptism or something. >> So like >> Submit to Cane Ridge or something. yeah, and so all all of the all of the professors I worked with in seminars and stuff, all of the faculty I worked with all of you’d having me there as sort of value added, right? Oh, okay, here’s somebody with a totally different perspective on some of these things. That’ll be good for generating discussion and for looking at things from, you know, which if you’re doing PhD-level studies, hopefully that’s what you’re doing, right? You’re not just memorizing wrote, “Okay, this is what my tribe says about this.” >> Well, um I I’m I on on some of that agreement actually on we talked about you know the Calvinist and stuff.

10:22 Uh if it’s cool I I did I did I think email you about this. I don’t know if you saw the email or not, but I know you’re a very busy I when I first, you know, was setting this up with you, you were you were in the middle of like the whole Pascha season, and that’s really involved. I had no idea it was that involved. I didn’t know there’s stuff almost every day at a lot of parishes. >> Uh so incredible the the resilience people have to have to get through all of that like on the survey on your side of But when I set it up with you, I wanted to talk to you about like 15 different I had a long list of stuff and I went, “I’ll talk to him about all this stuff.” And then I went like, “That’s Wait, how long he he doesn’t have that long, surely.” So when I’ll narrow it down I narrowed it down narrowed it down then and then Aaron and I were like, “All right, we’ll talk about these three things.” And then as we’re thinking about them we thought, “That’s probably there might not even be time for that.” So tonight we have one big like one one main thing that we’d like to talk about, and then we’ll we’ll go where it goes basically.

11:25 But >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our fascination, as you know, is like in Churches of Christ we talked a lot about baptism and infant baptism is like the point of divergence a lot of the time. Now, I was just moderating a debate between like a non-denom Calvinist antinomian kind of guy and one of my friends. And [snorts] our mutual friend Idle Killer, Warren, said, “Don’t debate the Church of Christ on baptism unless you want to get a black eye or something like that.” Cuz like the [laughter] the joke about us is that all we want to do is talk about baptism, but I I thought maybe tonight we could talk about where we agree on baptism and then what we think about like why is baptism a necessary thing and then get into some of the divergence on stuff like infant baptism and all that.

12:17 I have a lot of questions about this and and I think the more I’ve been looking into like the Eastern Orthodox view of infant baptism, it it seems to constantly produce even more questions. So, is that cool with you? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Okay. Well, nice. Um I’ll give you the Church of Christ framing and Aaron, again, like you know, modify whatever you want to modify. If if you would add something or whatever may be a better word. Um [clears throat] I like we we preach all the time to people baptism is necessary for salvation. People sometimes quibble about the wording of that, but unlike, you know, like a Baptist or something, we would say to someone who wants to come to Christ that one of the things they need to do in in to become a follower of Christ is to submit themselves to be baptized in water for the remission of sins among other reasons as well.

13:11 There’s lots of passages that we can get into and we hopefully will get into tonight, but if you had to give like if someone asked you what is like the Eastern Orthodox reason for why baptism is just so important, how would you like put that into words? >> Yeah, I’ll try to make this somewhat >> I know with baptism there’s not that much to say, so. >> Yeah, so. >> There’s a lot to say. Yeah, sorry. >> Yeah, I mean baptism is really the end of the end of one life and the beginning of another. so with everything that entails. So, the old self with its sin, not just and we don’t think of sin primarily in terms of guilt, but in terms of the actual effects.

14:05 Right, of sin. Right, the on the person, right? We talk about that. [laughter] >> Yeah, like all all of that, right? All of that dies. All of that is left behind. A new person comes into being. that person who comes into being has a human nature that’s been renewed to be like Christ’s human nature, which has been united to God in his and uh so we begin a life of drawing closer to God, following God, participating in the divine energies, which is really about God’s activities in the world, right? And so it’s the beginning then of a life of transformation, right?

14:51 Toward uh toward the end of being formed in the likeness of Christ, which is the likeness of God. Of God himself. Um so we sometimes use the image and likeness language. So, in baptism the image is removed is renewed. The image is renewed, and then we begin to grow uh in the likeness. Uh we use the language of purification, right? That our our human nature is purified so that it can be now united to God. on and on, right? We can We can keep >> say I I even I semi regret asking you that question cuz I’m like, oh, I want to talk about like seven I want to talk about all of those things.

15:41 There’s so much to talk about. >> Yeah, we can pause it. >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where should we go first with this, Jared? I mean, there um there’s there’s so much agreement I’ll say this, we we can both agree that when John Calvin in his John John commentary, John 3:5, I won’t get it word for word, but I remember reading it and Calvin said something like, you know, Chrysostom and the greater part of expounders like throughout church history for the first 1,500 years in John 3:5, he said, “Made water refer to baptism here.” And Calvin’s word basically said, “But I think it would be inappropriate.” And I thought, “Wow, you think it’d be inappropriate? Like, you know, man, it’s not your house. You don’t get to make the rules, you know?” >> Calvin did a lot of that.

16:27 >> I know. I couldn’t believe it. I thought man, just to say you think it would be inappropriate for God I think his words were to con- confine salvation to the signs. Like, God can do whatever he wants to do. >> Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cal- I remember Calvin also uh in his commentary on Melchizedek, when Melchizedek set out bread and wine before Abraham, he said, “This is not a type of the Eucharist.” And I’m like, “What?” >> Why? Why? Why not? >> Yeah, give give an argument. Don’t just say you don’t like it, you know? >> Yeah, I mean I I mean there’s >> Well, I was just going to say there’s there’s a lot of agreement, you know, when if someone’s watching this, you know, that is, you know, a a Protestant or someone that doesn’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation.

17:14 I mean, you know, I I just say like if you just look in the New Testament, I think it’s five different times where baptism and salvation are mentioned together. Salvation always precedes it. And we would say, you know, similarly, you know, when you’re baptized, the New Testament uses language, you know, like you’re you’re added to the family of God. I’m paraphrasing, but Galatians 3:27, you you put on Christ. You know, you you your old life is gone and you rise to walk in newness of life, you know, Romans 6. It’s Well, another thing we got is participation, not so yeah, I mean, we would just say baptism’s a part of, you know, faithfulness. You know, what God asked you to do, you do it and you receive the benefits. I know we agree there. Yeah, and that’s Yeah, you you get it most of the counter arguments to baptism being necessary, right, are confusion about the term >> Right.

18:09 It’s like cuz it’s oh, what about the thief on the cross, you know, and it’s well, if you’re being crucified next to the Lord, right, there may be a different set of rules that apply to you then But the person talking to me is living in the United States of America in the 21st century, and there’s no reason why you can’t go and get baptized. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Yeah, the guy that tells me that is sitting across me at the Dairy Queen >> You’re [laughter] hardly in the same situation as the thief on the cross. >> Eating his Eating his Reese’s cup milk, you know. >> You’re eating an Oreo Blizzard. >> You know. >> Uh of course, you know, God isn’t bound by his even his own rules, right? Those [clears throat] rules are for us, right? And so, if we want if our goal is salvation, if our goal is then we go and we get baptized, and then Orthodox perspective, we you know, receive the Eucharist, we did the other sacraments, right?

19:04 Like all of that is right, not cuz God can’t save someone who hasn’t received them. He can. He can do what he wants, right? But this is the path he’s set before me. Right? If I want to, right, find my >> Yeah. Is the way you would put it like, yeah, God can do what he wants to do, um the way that you and I could be able to like um distinguish who the Christians are, you know, or like yeah, I don’t know how the best way to put it, but like as far as like what you and I can deal in is not what God may or may not do with the end of time. It’s we’re supposed to be able to tell now what has God told us, and then therefore that’s what we all need to do, right? >> Right. Right. And this is part of I mean, just the general principle throughout the New Testament and throughout Christian history of this isn’t written for me to use to as a measuring stick to judge other people.

20:05 >> Right? This is written to me to inform me. Right? So, that guy over there didn’t get baptized. Does that mean he’s going to hell? I don’t know. That’s up right? That’s between him and God, right? But I know I need to go and right, get baptized. I know I need to go and right, and and do these things. >> Yeah. You know, I I >> Go ahead. >> I was going to say, you know, we’re talking about just the arguments with baptism. I remember the first time reading you know, cuz I grew up, you know, I was my dad was an elder in the Churches of Christ, and then um you know, I went off to college and then moved to North Carolina where nobody knew me, and really sort of I mean, the faith wasn’t necessarily my own. And so, I remember I wasn’t reading my scriptures as much, and I had been visiting a Southern Baptist Church, and really sort of for the first time thought baptism wasn’t necessary.

20:56 And then I started like studying, and essentially studied myself back in. Like Acts 22:16, you know, Paul had already, you know, if you go read Acts 9 and Acts 22, he’d already met Jesus, asked Jesus what to do, Jesus didn’t say nothing. Jesus said go to the city. He fasts and prays for three day all these things. He does, you know, all and then he’s told why are you waiting arise and be baptized and wash away your sins. And so I remember, you know, that was sort of what I was more solidified in my faith. But I remember starting to study the objections to baptism. And I remember one of the ones that I hear still every day, sure all of us do, is, you know, 1 Corinthians 1, Christ sent me not to baptize. And uh you know, I had whoever I was watching they they explained the context and then like couple months later I was just reading through.

21:41 It’s when I’d started to read through the the early church writers, the fathers, and I read And Tertullian, you know, starts out chapter one of his doctrine on baptism saying, essentially, you know, we obtain in water the remission of sins. And then it says, those vipers of the Cainite heresy make it their first aim, this Gnostic group, to destroy baptism. And I was like, oh wow. And then I started reading the arguments that they made. And the arguments that those those Gnostics were making 1,800 years ago were literally the arguments I was hearing from like the Baptist church down the street. Like I it was like, you know, why would Paul say Christ sent me not to baptize? And Abraham wasn’t baptized. And I remember thinking, wow, so for 1,800 years people have been and of course I would say it’s the devil influencing different people with these bad arguments, but they’ve been making the same argument 1,800 years later just to try to get around the idea of baptism being connected, you know, to the blood of Christ.

22:37 It was just wild to me. >> And it’s it’s it’s grounded in a lot of the same, like philosophically, >> it’s grounded in the same kind of Platonic metaphysics. It’s really the idea that God doesn’t work through >> He doesn’t work through material things, he doesn’t work through the creation and in the creation. And so, what? Just >> dunking somebody in water three times, right? What what is That can’t possibly do anything spiritual, right? >> Well, it’s like Calvin. It’s like imagine telling God how he how he can and can’t work. >> It’s like, yeah, no thanks. That’s that’s I’ll just let God tell me how he works and stay out of it, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah, it blew my mind recently I heard a like a Calvinist guy say about denying that baptism is at all He said, “How could a physical baptism get you into a spiritual man?” And when I heard that I went, “Wait a second.

23:35 What are we doing here?” >> How could you say that? >> How could you say that could ever >> It’s the only way that could happen. How [snorts] could a spiritual God cleanse Naaman of a physical disease? Because he’s God. He can do what he wants to do. >> Uh I’m going to leave I’m going to leave real quick and come right back. Like 10 seconds or something. I’m I’ll hopefully that fixes my camera issues. I I I >> Yeah, yeah. >> We’ll hold it We’ll hold it down while you’re gone. >> Okay, okay. Please do. >> So, I also heard you’re a fan of unsweet tea. Is that correct? >> I I am even though that is a grave down here in the deep south. That’s >> Hey man, unsweet tea all day for me. Yeah, people look at you like you’re a serial killer down here if you >> Well, the the reason I started drinking unsweet tea I used to drink sweet tea, but I have four kids.

24:26 And when I get a sweet tea, they want mine. So, I thought, “Man, I really want to be able to drink my own drink.” So, I started ordering unsweet tea. And I remember the first time one of my sons took it, he was like, “Oh, yucky. This is gross.” My little boy. And I was like, “Oh, sorry.” So, now the kids have learned daddy’s drink always tastes awful. And so, now I get to drink my own drink in peace. When we We’re just talking about how much we both like unsweet tea, Marco. >> Oh, we didn’t settle our disagreements on baptism yet? >> Oh, man. >> Here’s Here’s a pro tip. If you are in the deep south and you order unsweet tea and you get the look of horror, ask say, “Oh, I like to add my own >> And then they’re like, “Oh, okay.” And they’ll bring it to you unsweet and then you can just not add any.

25:12 >> They won’t call the loony bin on [laughter] you. Um okay. I did want to ask So, I I asked like what is the the what would you say is why someone needs Um [snorts] we’ll get more specific now like when it comes to an infant, you know, unsurprisingly, you know, Aaron and I I think you have an understanding of our view at least and um uh when it comes to why we don’t baptize infants and you probably heard uh did you get in get to hear some more of this stuff in your time at Amridge? Did you ever have conversations with people about this or was it like other stuff? >> of that ever. I mean, I was kind of generally aware >> the Church of Christ didn’t do it, but I don’t think we I ever had a super >> Okay.

25:58 Well, if at any time, by the way, uh you like go like, “Hey, I need you guys to unpack that.” Like just let us know. You can do whatever you want. Um uh [snorts] you’re better at me than um you’re better than me at Marvel Rivals. You can do whatever you want here on this stream as far as I’m concerned. But um when it comes to if someone said like why and I’m sure you had you’ve gotten this question by people like in the parish and stuff, why do I need to baptize my baby? And maybe this comes from like people who come out of Catholicism or something and they go like um is this what you think or is this like what do you guys think about babies that makes you uh that makes in the Eastern Orthodox view you say that there is a need to baptize them? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we not Yeah, and we not only baptize babies, we commune >> Yes, there was some controversy about you saying that in Catholicism that sometimes they refuse uh communion to people who are like mental mentally incapable or handicapped or something, right?

26:53 And some people got mad at you, but I never heard anyone like refute and disprove that that was inaccurate what you said. >> No, and Ben Cleave to antiquity came with the receipts. Like >> Like all the documents from the Roman Catholic Church. Yeah. Um but yeah, so we also we also commune infants and we actually have in terms of fathers, like church fathers quotes, we actually have earlier comments about communing infants than we do about baptizing. Just in terms of date of writing. but um so there’s a couple pieces there. One of those is a question about the command to baptize.

27:45 Right? So and obviously this is related to our understanding of the relationship with circumcision, also, right? >> Um the command to Abraham to circumcise himself was also to circumcise his sons. Right? On the eighth day. So it was a commandment to him, but to him as head of household. Right? To also right? Apply this to to the household. >> And so that is a major part of it is our understanding of that continuity between circumcision and and baptism. Um and for example, in Colossians, right? Saint Paul says that, you know, if you’ve been baptized, you’ve been circumcised with Christ’s circumcision. Right?

28:30 That you been set apart as holy because you’re in Christ. Right? And so um and we actually that’s that’s the epistle reading that we we celebrate the feast of Christ’s circumcision on January 1st, in between the celebration of his of his birth and the celebration of his baptism on January 6th. And that’s the epistle reading. Is that from Colossians? Um And [clears throat] so, that that feast that we celebrate, a lot of the hymns are surrounding that I the the idea of Right? And Christ is the one who gives the Torah. And now in the incarnation, he comes under the Torah that he gave. >> So, and sort of meditating on that, you know, element of the of the incarnation and his fulfillment of the Torah.

29:23 And so, and there are there are other places um like when St. Paul talks about uh if one spouse is among the faithful, if one spouse is is a Christian and the other isn’t, the believing spouse sanctifies the non-believing spouse and the children, right? And uh what I argue he’s doing there is is he’s repurposing the Jewish theological understanding of circumcision cuz of course circumcision you only circumcise males. what made a woman, >> right, part of Israel who wasn’t circumcised? Well, she was the wife or the daughter of a circumcised man. Right? Um and so, in that way sort of the head the the male head of household sanctified his wife right, him setting himself apart by being circumcised also set apart his wife and his daughters.

30:22 And St. Paul, because baptism is applied to both spouses, can apply that sort of in both Right? And and uh So, there’s that that household element, right? And there’s And and I know you know, you can get we can get into the weeds of >> Believe it be baptized you and your whole household. Well, it doesn’t say there were baby right. It doesn’t say [laughter] all the right. And that’s that’s kind of a dead end going back and forth cuz we can’t >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> ever know for sure, right. Um, unless we get a time machine and a GoPro or something. Um >> That would settle all of this, but >> To judge how messy uh Cornelius’ house was on a daily basis. >> but but to me the strength of that argument is not trying to nitpick those fine details.

31:11 Surely there were right or something, but just to distress the continuity. The idea that if one of the changes from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant is that now children are excluded until they reach the age of knowing good and evil. And that’s how it’s expressed in the Old Testament. There’s an age where children know good and evil. >> Mhm. Right. >> If that had changed right, I would expect to see that in the New Testament. Right. Um, because that would be the change. So, and again, this isn’t a linchpin proof, right? But it’s why I would lean in that direction, right? Is when I read and if you’ve read even part of Religion of the Apostles, I’m sure you’ve seen this in terms of my where there are changes in the New in my mind those are spelled out in the New Testament.

32:10 So, if someone asks me, why don’t we sacrifice animals anymore? I can take them to Hebrews and show them exactly why we don’t right sacrifice, why the Levitical priesthood is done. Um, why do we worship on the Lord’s Day? So, the Sabbath, I can take them to Acts, I can show them, right? They’re gathering on the Lord’s Day. So, all of those things I can show you. And so, if it’s if there’s not a place in the New Testament to go to say, “See, it’s my methodology is it didn’t. All right, that the the Jewish Christians just continued doing as they had been doing. up until that up until that point. Now I would say that you can you can poke at that, right? >> Sure. Well, I was going to say what I appreciate about your argument is that typically like when talking about infant it’s like I’m the one that goes to that guy like you got to show it to me.

33:06 And but with your approach it’s more like Marco and Aaron you have to show that it stopped, right? For me it’s like you have to you have to find I usually go like you have to find that for me in the New Testament. But then like from your perspective it seems to be something more like it was already there. It’s presupposed and you have to show if there’s if it stops at any point, right? Is that a is that a fair way of kind of saying like >> In terms of my methodology, yeah. Yeah. And and to me boiled down I thought a lot of the debate between Aaron and Alex right? At one level came to how much continuity is there between Old Covenant and New Covenant in terms of these And Alex was arguing for a lot of continuity and I think Aaron was arguing for less right continuity in terms of those leadership structures, right?

33:56 >> And so that’s that’s part of the issue. Now now in terms of why a baby would be baptized, right? There’s actually a quote from St. John Chrysostom about this because he was asked, well look if baptism is for the remission of sins and the baby hasn’t committed any yet. Right? Why do you baptize babies? And he runs through a list slightly longer than the one I sort of started with. It’s like, well yes that’s one thing baptism does, but it also, right? Newness of life and right? Restoration of human nature, right? The human nature we inherit is mortal and fallible and right? And weak. Right? And prone to sin right and all all of these other benefits. So he says you know the infant receives all these other benefits. Um and so I think and we may at some point we can sort of put a pin here and come back to it if we discuss this other issue in terms of our catechisis period before we baptize Right?

34:52 Like I imagine that might seem inconsistent to you. It’s like you baptize a baby but if it’s an adult you make them wait. >> An adult sinner? >> this other stuff. >> Right? Um and part of that is right it if from our perspective if you don’t baptize the and let them come of age you’re essentially letting them live a sinful life in the world that they’ll have to repent of. >> And so we baptize them so that their their life in their church their life as a child of God their life is begins pretty much within a few days right coterminous with their earthly life right?

35:40 whereas an adult right um depending on how old you are and what you’ve been through and what you may have done in your life there’s a lot there to repent of to change to rethink right to change your to be able to really begin a new life as a Christian. So like the difference you would say is like you got one person that you kind of have to like rewire and then another one that starts with like a blank slate so that would be like the determining difference for that. Kind of? >> Yeah so we’re going to we’re going to part of what you’re doing when you bring your child to be baptized is you are committing to raising this as right in Orthodox Church as an Orthodox Christian.

36:34 I’m going to bring this child to church. I’m going to make sure this child receives the sacraments. I’m going to educate them in the faith. I’m going to right that you’re committing to do that. And if you’re not able to make that So tech technically so in the Orthodox people who aren’t in good standing with the church can’t get their children Right because they can’t make that Now sometimes the way we’ll make exceptions is we do have the idea of So if we have some faithful Christian people who are willing to be godparents and they’re willing to make that commitment. They’re going to bring the child right to church. They’re going to make sure the child is raised as a Christian then we can do it. Right but we don’t we don’t do it just to do it.

37:23 Right and Right it’s it’s there’s there’s a right there that’s required. with something that you said earlier this is probably a good place to like dig into for a little while. Maybe like for the first four hours of our dialogue we can dig into that. >> You’re breaking out his record? Is that what you’re going for? >> Yeah. No [laughter] yeah that sounds torturous but he does he does like eight hour streams and then you join in like the last hour and then he does like three more hours. You you said that like the did you say something like the New Testament spells out where cuz like you know circumcision baptism are not exactly the same thing. Do you say like the New Testament spells out where the differences are between these two things or like where the changes are if any?

38:16 >> Yeah I I think so right cuz we see the baptism obviously of both men and women. and baptism >> is the fulfillment of circumcision, meaning it’s not just a one-to-one, but baptism is superior in various >> in various ways. and so the the I don’t want to be too graphic getting into the symbolism of circumcision, but the idea of there being a cutting off, and and therefore, you know, the the the connection between that and the idea of holiness and separation, right? But also, you’re making a commitment and there So, there are a lot of these passages get uh sort of bowdlerized.

39:03 Like it kind of euphemisms get used in the English So, you’ll get these things where Abraham’s servant comes and it says he he put his hand on Abraham’s thigh and swore an oath, all right? >> Right? And you know, if you read just the patriarchal narratives in in Genesis, you understand that in in Israelite culture, right? Your firstborn, your progeny, like that’s everything. >> Right? That is everything. And so, what that actually is, how you would put your hand on the thigh swearing an oath on his genitals, all right? >> That’s that representing his seed, right? His posterity, right? Like sort everything he has, his future, right?

39:49 And so, making the mark of the covenant there, right? Is is particularly right? Uh I don’t want to turn this into a pun. I was about to say it’s a potent symbol, but too late, I said it. Um right? So, there there’s there’s sort of that going on, right? Um uh the problem is even once you’re circumcised and you’ve sort of made this identification to be holy, now you’re an Israelite, now you’re subject to sort of the full commandments of the law and the holiness code in Leviticus and all of this. And the the holiness code in and of itself ultimately shows its own eventual obsolescence because everything is repeated.

40:44 I mean, this is what Hebrews argues, right? That that you have to keep doing the Day of Atonement every year. You have to keep doing sin offerings every day. You have to constantly keep purifying and rededicating and right? [clears throat] Over and over and over again. Uh whereas uh and so that represents sort of a sin management system until the Messiah comes and deals with sin once and for Right? And so in the same way, baptism, this is why in the Nicene Creed, one baptism, right? The idea that baptism is this one-time Right? Um once and for all, right? Accomplishes what all of the ceremonial washings of the Old Testament and all of the purification rituals of the Old Testament with the blood of sacrifices and all of those things.

41:34 It accomplishes all of those for a person once and for right? Because they die and rise with Christ who died and rose again once and for all and will not die again. Right? Um And so that makes it so far superior to to uh >> Uh so then um and but I I don’t I hope you don’t feel like I’m just like cutting you out of the conversation there and that, but I I’m I want to pursue this this part of it cuz like when it comes to like circumcision baptism, >> uh this is something that I came up for me recently that like when I look at like a passage like Colossians 2 which you made mention of like I I definitely get the the idea that this is presupposed in it but also like I see qualities surrounding the description of the of the fulfillment of circumcision and baptism.

42:30 I see qualities there that seem to like isolate out non-infants let’s say or people who have sinned like like in Colossians 2 one of the first things it says is like the what is it the sins of the flesh yeah or at least in in my version sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ or like raised through faith in the very next verse and then it says like you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. Like when I look at a passage like that like it it appears that like the description of the differences are is that this circumcision is for people who have sins of the flesh to cut off and who have a faith by which they will do this like is something that I tell to like a Calvinist a lot of the time where they say like it’s either faith or if it’s either faith or it’s you know your salvation is merely by works or something like that where I go no this is done through faith.

43:24 So like qualities like that where I see like in Colossians 2 again the cutting off of the sins of the flesh through faith these are this is you that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. What do you think about that? I mean yeah that’s some of the first thoughts I have from like a passage like that where I I I understand the idea of the presupposition but the description in the New Testament seems to isolate it out for that group. >> So I’m twofold on that. So first a lot of that could have been said about circumcision to someone in in in the Old Right? You’re circumcised the cutting off of the flesh represents the cutting off of sin, right? Even if they were circumcised on the eighth day after they were born, you could still say that to Right?

44:10 In terms of And and and that’s kind of how it’s applied like in Deuteronomy, Moses will say, you know, you were circumcised. Yes, you probably don’t remember it. You were You were eight days old. But now circumcise your heart. Right? And cut off the sin that’s in your heart. Right? That was cutting off the Right? So you could make that same kind of argument. But also St. Paul was talking to people whom he baptized. >> Right? So most of the people he’s talking to are people who were baptized as adults. Right? So like when when he’s when he says to them, so you can make the same argument about for example when he’s going through in 1 Corinthians and listing all the things, you know, homosexual offenders and drunkards and thieves and right all those things and such were right some of you.

45:06 Well, there were probably some three-year-old kids there, right? >> had been since birth, whether they were baptized or not, since birth they had you know, there at the church with parents who had become Christians. That doesn’t directly apply to them, right? Some of the But but most of his audience of the adults were living in sinful ways >> Yeah, yeah. >> becoming Christians. So I don’t I don’t that to me um that would require like way too much precision of St. Paul’s language, right? To sort of require him to say, “By the way, I’m only speaking to those of you entered the Christian community as adults.” Right? Like in either case. Right? Like >> Yeah, this this may not come come across as like a fair answer, but like um >> Yeah, well, we’re having a conversation.

45:59 >> Well, let’s try it out, yeah. >> It may going to going to be a terrible terribly unfair answer. Uh why do you hate the Bible? No, I’m just kidding. for me the the the the absence of even like a mention of of that like as direct as it is towards the people who had like, you know, committed sin in their lives and did this through faith and it was their trespasses and the uncircumcision of their flesh, um which is related to their sin that it appears. Uh from from for me like the absence seems to be like for lack of a better term kind of loud there where like it doesn’t seem that there’s anything even remotely as direct as those statements as the ones that would have been like in your children or some some kind of a reference to that.

46:45 You know what I mean? I I get it. I’m I’m probably asking for too much there when I go, “Why couldn’t he mention the children?” But it’s really in a passage where he would be describing uh circumcision and giving details about it. It’s strange to me that that um thing that would uh apply the infants um and not the adults in terms of like being born not guilty. Um it it’s strange to me that it’s not Can you deal with my mental state on >> No, I understand what you’re saying. Part part of it too is is is how you read the epistles. so I don’t expect you to have read my St. Paul book, but um I think and this is and I don’t get this a lot from Church of Christ stuff I’ve read, but especially Calvinist stuff.

47:35 You know, they treat Romans like it’s a systematic theology, right? And >> and St. Paul’s epistles tend to get treated as just they’re these documents where he’s making theological arguments and theological statements. And I very much read them the opposite way that no, these are letters from St. Paul to a group of people whom he knows. >> Addressing their sort of day-to-day issues and problems and that kind of and that doesn’t mean they’re irrelevant to us, obviously, right? [laughter] Like there is greater, right? But the way we get to that we have to first focus in on, okay, what is this actual real-world situation say Paul was Then when we understand that situation and how he addresses it, then we can draw the larger right, the larger theological things from that.

48:29 uh why I’m bringing that up now is to me, I I don’t know that in that passage he’s trying to set out like here is my theology of baptism and everything I think about how it relates to circumcision. [laughter] >> Sure. Sure. >> cases. I think he’s addressing something directly with them. I think the reason he’s talking about circumcision and baptism is in part because of the Right? And so >> you don’t need to go and be circumcised. >> Right? And experience the cutting off of the flesh because you have been baptized. Right? And the baptism has done these things that circumcision only Right? And so it’s sort of what he’s again, from my perspective, is more particular than that. And that that you’re trying I from my perspective you’re trying to generalize from that more than I would.

49:21 That’s a nice way of saying that, by the way. Uh >> I but I I I I get what >> Well, I could have just said I disagree, but I thought that would be more >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> No, yeah, you could have just said no. Um no, I I get that. I I agree as well. Like the the purpose of the passage and it it does bother me as well when people do this sometimes. Uh he’s not he’s not going like, “Let me take a pause.” You probably hear people say this a lot of the time to go, “I used to hear this a lot.” They go, “Paul a lot of the time would just pause to talk about my pet doctrine for a little while.” And then he went back to his original point where it’s like this he’s probably not doing that. He’s making a broader point and he’s using this to support that.” >> I know I’ve been talking to you about the salvation of the Jewish people, but let me pause and talk to you about unconditional election for a couple of chapters. or Romans 4, right? Let me stop and tell you why baptism is never in the picture at all.

50:10 I I’m not going to mention that even explicitly, but let me just tell you why it has no relevance here. >> Um yeah, it’s always strange when people do that, so. Um Okay, well, uh you you have any thoughts on Colossians 2, Aaron? Or >> Well, yeah, I mean, I guess I I mean, I agree with looking at it, you know, how how would a 1st century, you know, Jewish audience, you know, approach it? And uh I do agree that you sort of have to think is there something that would what would cause them to look at this differently? You know, I think I think probably where we would diverge is the idea of, you know, we I would agree with you that baptism is the fulfillment, you know, of uh circumcision. So, you know, Colossians 2, I think that’s essentially what it what it’s connecting there.

50:55 Like the the type antitype. And uh I mean, if I I’ll just read the what you know, the way I’m going through it. It’s like, you know, “In him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, you know, so a spiritual instead of, you know, a physical, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” So, one spit cutting away with physical, one spiritual. And then connecting it with buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. So, one of the first differences we’d have is there in verse 12, you know, the faith in the working of God. You know, we would probably approach that and say, “Hey, this is something that is indicating I I indicating the faith of the individual, you know, being baptized.” And I think for me, it’s almost like I would start trying I mean, if Alec Is Alex watching?

51:46 Is Alex the attorney? Alex >> Uh not I haven’t seen an eagle emoji in the chat yet, so >> Okay. Okay. Well, you know, like like as as an attorney, if you’re just putting together pieces of evidence to try to help you understand, you know, I think the the first piece that would be one of the pieces of evidence, you know, that it seems to me like Paul is saying, you know, circumcision was looking forward to this spiritual this fulfillment, the cutting off of these sins, you know, physical circumcision didn’t forgive sins, but spiritual circumcision does. You know, and I and I would say that there’s a biblical principle you’d probably agree on that you know, one can’t be forgiven of sins for another. Um that would be one piece of evidence I that I think I would I’d probably also chalk up. There’s other things that I think you know, like 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 1, whenever Paul talks about babes in Christ, it seems to me he always applies that to new converts as opposed to you know, like uh like infants.

52:44 Um And I guess one there’s so there’s a lot of stuff to to go the roads to go down, but you know, I think there’s that. I think, you know, I don’t know if you want to talk about um Jeremiah uh 31 at all, cuz that’s another thing where I would say it seems to me that the Jewish people in the 1st century would number one, you know, Jeremiah 31:31-34 points to there’s a difference in the covenant. And I know we’ll disagree on how much of a difference. Um and then of course I also would say with regards to and this is where I think the in the view towards the innocence of infants might might come in. Uh and I know that’s probably something that we could go down the road. I feel like from the scriptures and what I see in earliest, you know, the earliest writers after you know, the apostles, I feel like I see a view of the innocence of infants.

53:42 And you know, I know you get to I would my I would argue, and I’m open to new information, that by the time you get to Irenaeus, you start to see maybe hints of it based on how you take uh the passage he says about being born again into God. Um but I feel like once you get to Origen, it’s definitely there. But I feel like the writers before Irenaeus have this idea that innocence that that infants are innocent, you know, and pure. Like >> we agree we agree with that. We think they’re innocent. >> Vis-a-vis vis-a-vis guilt. >> Yeah. So, I mean, I I I guess yeah, maybe we can talk about that because, you know, I It seems to me the earliest like Origen, you know, and I know, you know, not trying to make anybody’s head explode. Although, yeah.

54:29 >> Origen’s wrong about a lot of things. >> Yeah, well, I I agree with you there. [laughter] I definitely agree with you >> He was condemned by the Orthodox Church as a heretic. So. >> Yeah. He He had He had a lot of uh saints who defended him, but but I don’t want to have My hot take on Origen we’ll talk about later. >> They Yeah, they tended to defend his biblical exegesis, not his systematic But I guess for me it’s the pieces of evidence, you know, okay, looking at Jeremiah 31, the new covenant’s going to be different. Um looking in the New Testament, it seems like this new covenant is predicated on, you know, not just the faith of your parents or the head of your household, but the faith of the individual, you know, with the call to repentance into baptism. Uh so, it seems to me like the evidence I would say the evidence, you got Jeremiah 31, you’ve got all the New Testament passages predicated on faith, repentance.

55:22 You’ve got Colossians 2, which seems to say, “Hey, this is the fulfillment.” And the fulfillment is one that’s expressed. Your sins are cut away when you place your trust in God. And then, you know, I think just the like you You earlier, the household discussion, I mean, I kind of agree with You could say, well, they’re in they’re infants and they’re not and we could argue back and forth and at the end of the day, we’re going to be able to say that the text never says it. And I would I would just say in those household accounts, it always points to you know, household faith or household fear or they believed with their household. And um I think for me, it’s this these multiple pieces of evidence that sort of leads you to the conclusion of uh I can I see why we think it’s different. You >> Yeah. Yeah.

56:08 So So, yeah. So, we we agree about the innocent innocence of infants, but there there’s more to say there. >> So, we’ll put a pin in that for a second just on the other things. Um So, I and I I agree that Jeremiah 31 and you know, Ezekiel and Joel 2 and right, the new covenant passages, right, are the key. How we interpret those is going to be how much continuity we think there is in it. So, and my approach to that is So, in in Greek, kaine, the word that’s translated new, right, kaine diatheke, the new covenant, new testament, right? Um uh doesn’t necessarily mean new in terms of like you’ve never seen it before.

56:56 >> And think about like in 1 John, right, a new commandment I give you to love one another, but this isn’t a new command Right, this is what we’ve told you from the beginning, but he is renewing that commandment to them, right? And so I’ll take the perspective that we’re talking more about a renewed covenant. So, it’s not cuz because part of the those passages is the Torah, which was the old covenant, being written on our heart, right? >> So, it’s not that it’s disparate and and that’s the way I reconcile things like Christ saying not one yod or tittle, right, will disappear or to that, right? Is that it’s not setting that aside, but it’s renewed and this time there are a bunch of things that are different. It’s not just okay, we’re going to give it another go.

57:44 Hopefully you guys do better than Israel did, right? and one of those things that’s very key in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel is that and Joel 2 is that now is is what was external obedience becomes internal. Right? Sort of exactly what we see in Colossians 2 with what St. Paul is doing with circumcision and baptism. the way St. John Chrysostom talks about this in his in his homilies on Romans and this is what he sees as the major theme of Romans in terms of the Christian life, right? Is that the Holy Spirit dwelling within us empowers and enables us to keep the commandments, right?

58:31 To to be obedient. that’s one of that that’s probably the biggest difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is then, you know, the Holy Spirit indwelt this prophet and the king maybe until he sinned too much, right? And and this other righteous person, but now we all, right? Have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to to empower us to do that. so I guess I mean boiling it down I see a little less discontinuity Um now in terms of this sin issue and I and I think this is part of it. So when I mentioned that before that St. John Chrysostom quote about babies are innocent, they haven’t sinned, so why do we baptize them?

59:22 >> He doesn’t go the like later Augustinian tradition route of well, no they’ve inherited guilt from you know Adam. >> Which contradicts Ezekiel and a bunch of other scripture but it says >> Glad to hear you say that, yeah. >> He says there are these other benefits. Right? And in Romans 5 one part that that gets left out in their reading of Romans 5 when they get this is the part where he says death reigned over all men because all men said even those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam. >> Right? So as we know infants, unborn are mortal, right?

1:00:08 And and some physically die. So even though normally the wages of sin is death, >> right? And and it’s sin that brings death into the world they are still subject to death even though they have not personally the commandment, right? There is still that mortality. So our understanding is they experience the effects that were brought into the world by Adam’s sin. Right? And when they’re born they’re born into a world that’s full of sin and violence and and wickedness and temptations and subject to demonic influence whispering in their ear, right? And and all of these things. and so a lot of our in in our baptismal prayers, right?

1:01:01 A lot of them are talking about that, right? Preservation and purification from that. There’s also when I when I first was talking about baptism it is the beginning of what we call theosis. >> Right? Of our our participation in the life of God. And so when we look at Adam, there’s a tendency following again in that Augustinian tradition to view Adam as having been perfect. And we don’t view Adam as perfect. We view Adam as innocent. That Adam was like a child. Right? But he was at the beginning. He was created with a purpose ahead of him to fulfill. He was created in the image of God and commanded to be formed into the likeness of God.

1:01:52 Right? He gets the commandment to fill the earth and subdue it before the fall. >> Right? And those are the two So, going all the way back to Genesis 1, God looks at the world. He sees the earth is uh formless and void. Sometimes it’s translated without form and void, tohu wa-bohu in Hebrew, right? Which means right? Basically, it’s empty and it’s chaotic. It’s in disorder. And so, the first 3 days of creation, right? God puts things in order. He separates light and darkness. He separates the sky and the sea. He separates the dry land and the and the water. And then days 4 through 6, like in parallel to those three, he fills, right? The the night sky with >> He fills the seas, sky, and then he fills the land, right?

1:02:42 With with life. And then he gives the command, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it, right? Put it in order.” So, they’re to continue the work of God in the world. Um and so, he was at the beginning of that process when sin broke that. Right? He’s expelled from paradise, so he he was to go out and turn the whole creation into Eden. Now he’s cast out of Eden, and he’s not bringing Eden with him. >> But he’s we still receive that same Right? So, we still have that same command to be formed in God’s likeness, to participate in his work in the world, and continue it. Right? But now we have these additional obstacles that Adam and Eve didn’t have when they were created of sin, death, the devil, right?

1:03:36 to prevent us. And so, those have to be dealt with first, right? Christ deals with those. We receive that in baptism. And then we begin that life from that innocent point again. Right? That point of now pursuing, participating in the work of God in the world that transforms us. And this is what St. Paul is talking about for us when he talks about becoming mature. That all that language he uses, becoming perfect, becoming mature, reaching the fullness of the likeness of Uh that that our Christian life is aimed at. It’s not just, “Okay, we’ve been justified. Now we’re saved. Now we’re done.” Right? Like this. >> No, yeah. We >> That’s There’s this ongoing, right? And so, for us with an infant, right?

1:04:26 Like St. John Chrysostom says, “Yeah, they haven’t committed personal sins now that need to be forgiven.” Right? But they do need to begin all of the rest of this. Right? They do need to receive Christ’s gift of of eternal life and immortality. They do need to uh receive uh the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and uh the protection of the Holy Spirit from the demonic powers and and from evil influence. They need to begin this Christian life. And so, for us, that’s the purpose it’s serving. If you’re an adult and you have committed sins, it also takes care of >> right? It also washes those away. >> Yeah, I don’t I mean, I don’t I think >> You got to do it.

1:05:13 >> I don’t think there’s really a ton there overall to disagree with. I think, you know, I think we just would approach it from the perspective of, you know, we don’t we think that those children all right are already in a, you know, relationship with God due to there not being separation. And I think the only difference would be you know, we would like you mean we would just wait till they reach an age where like, you know, my kids we’re teaching them about Christ and when they reach an age where they realize they need to dedicate their life to him they would do that. You know, I don’t I don’t know that there’s I mean maybe there are people out there that think I mean it’s not like they go sow your wild oats, you know, that what is it? >> No, I don’t know anybody who >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> Who actually does that. >> There’s really not much that that you said that I think we would disagree with. I mean I know I know we might use different terms, you know, like with theosis we might use sanctification, you know, I know like I’ve heard some Coptic Ortho- Orthodox guys say that they I don’t know why that but they said they don’t use theosis they use sanctification but I mean I don’t know that I have issues with the way you described it, you know.

1:06:16 Marco, you go ahead, sorry. >> Yeah, I I have a quick question on on one part of this. There’s something that still hasn’t been super clear. It didn’t get cleared up for me cuz it wasn’t really my question anyway when I was talking to Well, when I was on Classical Antiquity talking about infant baptism. Um you mentioned that um that infants you know, they maybe this isn’t what you said but there’s two things I’m I’m trying to resolve that infants need baptism to receive Christ’s salvation to have to have that process start but you also do believe right that that like an infant who passes away Well, I I I I guess do you guys speak on certainty when it comes to like an unbaptized infant who passes away?

1:07:02 And I I do know I Is it like the Latinizer guys who are or allegedly misusing the Dositheus or something like this on >> Like what’s the belief on on unbaptized infants who pass away and the need for baptism? >> we should be clear. The Latinizers are not like a particular school of Orthodox theologians. They’re randomly people on Twitter, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re And trying to read a kind of weird Augustinian model into some 18th and 19th century doctrinal statements that were translated into Latin. And because they use certain Latin words, they’re sort of other things. Yeah. So, what you find when you actually read the Orthodox sources and St.

1:07:55 Gregory of Nyssa uh wrote a treatise on the souls of infants, right? So, like he’s he directly addresses this, right? So, it’s not like ambiguous. And that’s that uh an infant who dies hasn’t begun that Right? So, they’re innocent, but they also haven’t spent a life, right? Participating in God’s love and his right? They They haven’t gotten to do Right? And so, what they’ll tell what what primarily you find in the literature and and what some of those folks don’t understand uh cuz they haven’t gone deep enough into theology is that that’s talking about like the intermediate state. That’s talking about between now and the >> Right?

1:08:45 So, they will talk about because the child wasn’t baptized and didn’t live a whole life, like they don’t enter into the kingdom of heaven, meaning like they’re not sort of done, right? Like they’re not like entering into their reward, right? But they also clearly say, but they do not go to any condemnation because they have not sinned, >> right? So there is no condemnation for them, right? But that’s talking about after the the the the infant would die and then before the resurrection. Right? And so when the resurrection happens, we believe the resurrection of the body, that’s every human who has ever lived. That’s including them, right? And they don’t remain a zygote or a fetus or an infant like for eternity.

1:09:34 >> Right? But but so essentially we believe that for everyone that process of growing closer to God continues into eternity. Cuz the distance between me as a creature and God the creator is infinite, right? So I can continue to grow in the grace of and knowledge of into eternity. I’m never going to you’re like, oh, well, now I got the whole God thing figured out, right? Like >> I’m going to have it all encompassed. Right? This is an This is an eternal thing. And so the infant will just be beginning that process in the new heavens and the new >> Yeah, is there >> I’m sorry. Go ahead. >> Uh uh Maybe let’s vote whose question is better then we’ll do that. >> Is um Is would you say like is there is there a possibility of damnation after their um passing on from this life in in eternity or that’s just them like they’re they they’re in a in a saved state but at the beginning of the process and they’re experiencing that on the other side of this life?

1:10:41 >> They are the language that gets used over and over again by Orthodox church fathers is that they are safe. >> They are preserved. They’re essentially preserved for the life of the world to come. So there’s nothing for them to be condemned them >> Right? A child who’s miscarried hasn’t done anything that God would condemn them for. And so essentially their life begins uh of coming to know God because of the life of the world to come, right? And so we believe there’s this road, right? If the theosis is a way is a road, right? If our salvation is this road, we’re all on that road if we’re working out our salvation. So people we identify as saints are just people who are ahead of us on the road.

1:11:27 Like that way ahead of where I am, so I need to follow him. That will help me get where I’m going, right? >> Like learning from his example and his Right? Like St. Paul says, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ,” right? Um and so uh an infant is just further back on the road. Right? Um but like I said, that’s a road that stretches into eternity, so it’s not >> Is this some kind of >> real disadvantage? >> So could could I I I really want cuz when I watched um I watched when Marco was on with Cleve and it’s kind of it’s almost like something I don’t really like asking on stream, but I I kind of want you know, cuz for instance, in all my research, right?

1:12:14 Like I’ve I’ve tried to read as many documents as I can and I’ve seen sort of mixed I mean, I was on a Reddit thread literally for like an hour today reading because, you know, like when like, you know, Dositheus, that’s that’s what you are talking about, right, >> Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, the confession of >> That that’s what came up when I was on the stream with Cleve and he was saying like, “No, they’re not reading this.” Um I think he used the term reading comprehension. But when he explained it, I just I I didn’t fully grasp it. >> Well, there’s there’s multiple versions of it. It gets really There’s multiple versions in different languages. >> And some of them were approved by some bishops and others were not. And so there’s a lot of people who haven’t really understood this who just quote one version of it online.

1:13:04 Cuz that’s what I I I got on I got on and looked up like I you know, I have a link. I mean I looked up three versions and and maybe you could send me a version that you like think is right cuz cuz I watched cuz I Okay, so like I had read it you know, a long time ago and then thought like all right, I’m not going to bring that up till I can talk to somebody about it and then Marco brought it up with Cleve and and the answer was kind of like well hey, I think you’re reading it wrong and so I thought well maybe I read it wrong. So I went back and found like three versions and and from different like I mean I tried to find three that were from like Orthodox, you know, websites. And maybe they’re just bad translations cuz every every time I read it I mean I read the whole thing. Like I didn’t just read like the one little quote off some other for you know, Protestants website.

1:13:52 And you know, I mean I I and maybe this is just a bad translation but to me it was it said essentially like if they’re not baptized they’re subject to eternal punishment and I thought it I kind of thought like well that doesn’t sound like anyway, that’s I say like I feel bad even bringing it up but I feel like if there’s anyone that can correct it it’s and maybe you’re saying hey >> you know >> Well you need you need to make sure you’re reading the Greek version that was that was approved as binding. >> And not the Latin text. >> That’s the biggest divide here. >> So what what would the So instead of So you’re basically saying that the versions online that say, you know, those that are not regenerated since they’ve not received the remission of hereditary sin are of necessity subject to eternal punishment.

1:14:39 You’re saying that the Greek version doesn’t say that. The Greek version says that they’re not subject to >> It’s specific in terms of infants, >> Right. So, they’re willing to make that in terms of adults, right? But even then, that subject to language is God could still do what he wants on the day of judgment, right? And so, for example, in the Orthodox Church, we pray for the departed. Right. We we wouldn’t do that if we thought like oh, well, you know, there’s there’s nothing you could do now, right? >> And so, yeah, and there’s there’s also a problem, and this is what I was alluding to when I talked about the intermediate >> It will take stuff that’s talking about sometimes the the intermediate state, things saying, “Oh, they weren’t baptized.

1:15:32 They weren’t illumined, and so they don’t go to heaven.” And say, “Oh, well, that’s saying they go to >> Yeah, it’s like it’s the difference, you know, like well, Luke you know, Luke 16, how you’ve got the Hadean realm >> until judgment, yeah. >> Right. Right. And they’re not It’s like, “Okay, but yeah, we believe in the bodily resurrection, right? We don’t think you just go to heaven or hell when you die, and that’s it, right?” >> Yeah, exactly exactly, yeah. >> Okay. Well, maybe I maybe I can get maybe you can send me a >> Yeah. Yeah. And it also distinguishes in the case of infants, it it will often distinguish between Hades and Gehenna. >> Right. When it’s talking about where they are in the intermediate state, it’ll make very clear that they’re saying Hades, not >> Yeah, so when it says eternal punishment, you’re saying it’s just sort of the temporal, you know, the the you know, torments part of >> Like Hades or Sheol.

1:16:26 Yeah, like yeah, like where everyone went before Christ’s harrowing of Hades in our understanding, >> Okay. Okay. >> Um I had a question about it, but it’s not super relevant to it. It’s just a question, but >> It’s just a question, really. It’s more of a comment, but uh it’s not super relevant to this. Okay. let’s see. I I I got lost in this. This is very interesting in in this part of it. Um Uh so we talked about Colossians 2. Uh I’m trying to remember. There was a verse that you brought up I wanted to ask about. Aaron, do you know what I’m talking about? Uh >> I mean, we talked we talked >> We talked about Jeremiah 31. Um we we talked a little bit about Colossians 2 mainly.

1:17:15 We we talked about >> I I had something real quick. Um because I I do I do have people um ask these questions. I don’t I don’t really So I guess now if my understanding is is correct, things like emergency baptisms are of infants are not like we want to make sure this infant doesn’t end up in hell as much as it is we want to try to start them on the process of uh theosis or like of a relationship with God as soon as possible. Would that be more of the reason why >> We do emergency baptisms for anybody, right? If we have if they’re in danger of dying, right? And we’re able to baptize them, we baptize them. So um and that’s just part of our belief in right?

1:18:05 In baptism. But there’s a key difference here that I think is really revelatory between our practice and Roman Catholic practice. in that Roman Catholics will do emergency baptisms of miscarried In miscarriages they will locate attempt to locate the body and emergency and baptize it. >> Yeah. Be because they believe in that Augustinian tradition unbaptized go to hell. >> So, we do There is no tradition of doing that.

1:18:50 We are not allowed to do that. If someone tried to do that, you would not allowed to do that in the Orthodox So, I think that difference in practice you know, because we don’t we don’t we don’t baptize a baby, you know, the day after it’s born. We baptize a baby a few months later. Some Orthodox countries, they baptize children when they’re two or three. but uh >> What would be the reason for that? Like I I feel like wouldn’t you be like the priest better show up day one >> Well, you’d think that if we thought they would go to hell, though. >> But I mean like if you want to start them on the path as soon as possible, wouldn’t you be like well then it’s got to be day one? >> A lot of A lot of that comes from um even though it’s not necessary now, it comes from a time when it was necessary in the past and now it’s just sort of become a tradition.

1:19:45 Um so, like one of the countries I know of where they baptize children when they’re two or three is a Muslim country. >> And so, in the past they didn’t always clergy there, right, to do a baptism. Uh we believe lay people can do emergency baptisms. Right, but if it’s not an emergency you you need a priest to do a baptism and so, there wasn’t always a priest And so, you would see a priest every so often when you were able to make a trip or when a priest was able to travel to where you were and so, they would sort of do all the baptisms at that time. And so, after a hundred years of doing that, now everyone just thinks you’re you do it when they’re two.

1:20:34 >> Just sort of a thing that’s happened, yeah, emergency baptism anybody could do. And then if the person lives, then that baptism is sort of regularized. It’s received into the church. So, when we when we baptize someone, we baptize them, then we chrismate them, anoint them with oil for the receiving of the Holy Spirit, and then they receive the Eucharist for the first And so when I say regularize, so if someone was emergency baptized and lived, thank God, right, then we would bring them and chrismate them and and they would receive the Eucharist and that would be sort of regularizing their baptism. And that’s why when they’re in the Orthodox Church, some people from some backgrounds, some bishops choose to receive them.

1:21:25 They’ll say they receive them by Right, meaning they aren’t baptized again. And that’s they receive chrismation and the Eucharist and that regularizes their baptism that happened outside the church. So, it’s pretty good sort of like the baptism of a layman. >> Yeah, that element chrismation has been one very fascinating thing that I’ve been learning about. I I do want to talk about that, but maybe if we if we handle things more chronologically >> Prior to chrismation is the And you mentioned that earlier, maybe we could talk about the catechumenate a little bit. >> Can I Can I ask one thing real quick? This is more about the difference between cathol- So, the Augustinian view of original sin and they need to be baptized before they, you know, before they die or else they’ll be separated.

1:22:20 I mean, I know like from my understanding, you know, like Barnabas, I know he’s He’s some the Epistle of Barnabas, He’s got some like wild allegorical stuff. Um like there if if anybody’s wondering what I mean by that, there’s one thing where he’s asking why did Abraham have uh servants or 300 in his house 18 in his household and he basically uses like Gematria the letters equal numbers and says like J and E means Jesus and T is the cross. And so like that’s basically his 300 Abraham’s 318 servants are pointing forward to Jesus in the cross. But even with like I still think he seems to be fairly well respected. So like how how would they deal with where you know, he says things like whenever we are converted, we’ve been renewed uh remission of our sins renewed to another pattern and we have the souls of children.

1:23:11 You know, like Arista Aristides is a saint, isn’t he? Like in in the Catholic and Orthodox >> I don’t know if he is for us. I think he is it for Rome. Although they have revised their calendar so many times in the last Okay. >> Okay. Well, you know, he says he writes an apology like early 2nd century. He basically says when a child of the Christians has passed through life and it dials in in dies in infancy, like they get the Christians give thanks to God because he passed through this world uh never touching sins. You know, >> it seems to me like those early writers are just I mean Hermas and you know, of course Tertullian like >> you know, all these guys say very clear things about the innocence of infants.

1:23:57 >> It’s kind of to me trying to like, okay, look at the biblical argument. What’s the position I think the scriptures teach from the Old Testament, the New Testament and then the early history. To me it just seems like it’s not till Origen and and uh Hippolytus, I think it’s Hippolytus, maybe Cyprian, where you get to this idea of well, they’re tainted with and they need to be baptized to have their sins forgiven. It’s like I guess your position seems a little more consistent. >> even later than that. I think it’s I don’t think St. Irenaeus is really >> Well, I yeah, Irenaeus he has that one quote in Against Heresies, I think it’s like two, where it’s the recapitulation section. Um so, I think that kind of quote’s kind of a toss-up. But like yeah, I mean you get to like Origin and stuff. Go ahead. >> Yeah, to me with that you have to get into his view of sin. >> Right, cuz there’s a to hold that later Augustinian view, this is why I don’t I call it the Augustinian and not St.

1:24:49 Augustine’s view, because I don’t think St. Augustine held to it. Yeah. You have to view sin as this kind of forensic >> criminal charge. >> And I don’t think that’s how St. Irenaeus views sin. >> Yeah, I would agree. >> So, that that sort of moderates how you read any of those quotes. But yeah, no, I can throw in more. The The um The Apocalypse of Peter um which we know there were a lot of individual churches all the way up until the 9th century that still treated it as canonical. >> Right. Uh The Apocalypse of Peter has I don’t know how much you know about the geography of Hades. >> There’s There’s a There’s a lake there called the Acherusian Lake.

1:25:40 >> Like [laughter] Acherusian. Two parts. There’s one one >> Good part, bad part, Greg Golf. >> Um well, in the Greek there there’s this Acherusian Lake. And in Hades and Plato Plato talks about it. It’s in a bunch of Greek texts. But uh in The Apocalypse of of Peter uh the souls of infants are baptized in that lake. They weren’t baptized in life. They go to Hades, they’re baptized in that lake, and then they begin their like Christian life. So, that imagery is used, right? Like um um but yeah, the the the innocence thing right, is uh is absolutely I I concur.

1:26:27 I mean, even even the language that’s used for what we would call the age of accountability >> In the Old Testament, I referenced this earlier in Hebrew is knowing good and >> Meaning before that, they’re in the state that Adam was before >> In Deuteronomy 1 and yeah. >> Before eating, right? They’re literally saying Yeah, and in in Isaiah 7, right? And lots of Yeah. Um I mean, that there’s no way to get around that in the Old Testament. It’s the same language. They’re in the same that Adam was before the fall. So yeah, and and and I think part of that gets confused also then once [snorts] you start confusing Adam’s state before the fall, once you start saying he was perfect and he had arrived, see that means you’re making a different claim about a child.

1:27:16 And I think that’s part of where the confusion creeps in. >> Right? Cuz children aren’t perfect, they’re innocent and those are two different concepts. Yeah, so I mean, I would Yeah. I think that’s pretty >> I understand you did say it earlier. I had a question like perfection is like um lacking nothing, right? Like completely complete Oh, I get completely complete is a dumb thing. Complete, >> right? That’s what you mean by perfect. >> Yeah. And think about what Christ says, right? To the the man who comes to him. Right? He says, uh what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? Right? Christ gives him an answer. Right? And he says, okay, well, what else? And Christ says, well, if you want to be perfect go and sell everything you have, come follow me, right?

1:28:03 Like if you want to >> Really pursue. Um yeah. Okay. Uh do have anything more on that Aaron on on boring patristics? >> No, no, no, no, no, that’s that’s >> No, there’s there’s you know, there’s not many people I can talk church history with so I enjoy this. >> Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, I I did have a couple thoughts or just questions about the catechumenate stuff like I I think when this conversation first started to come up maybe it was like there was a little bit of misunderstanding not in this conversation but earlier since Aaron and I have like done some stuff to address this idea in the past that like we don’t disagree with the idea of you know, teaching people before they are baptized obviously, right?

1:28:52 >> Um you know, >> Yeah, they have to know what they’re doing and what they’re committing to and who Jesus is and yeah. >> Right, right. You know, from our you know, from our paradigm let’s say like I I definitely can agree with the principle of the concept of the catechumenate stuff in a way again, we have one. I would just say that ours is far less like extensive maybe um than in terms of like what we require to see in a person. I want to ask like what is what if any are the expectations of like what you what you want to see in the person in terms of their own qualities cuz like for us it’s pretty much like I want to see a uh a genuine faith and a desire to follow Jesus that’s a in response to the gospel that they understand and um Right, that’s probably the short way that I would say.

1:29:41 This guy is professing faith in Christ, wants to follow Christ and understands the gospel and that’s in response to that that he’s doing this and so um at that point like I I think I I can’t think of a situation where I wouldn’t baptize someone um who by everything I can tell at least is expressing that. Um what’s with the catechumenate? >> What’s the deal with the catechumenate? >> yeah, yeah. So a part of this is muddied, right? We got to be We got to be honest about stuff. Part of this is muddied by the fact that until fairly recently Orthodox churches in the United States were doing catechesis really badly. And I’m not talking out of school here.

1:30:28 Right? My bishop, Metropolitan Saba, right? He’s putting together >> I think catechesis regulations and guidelines and more guidelines and stuff. So, this is something that’s been recognized by the Orthodox bishops in the United States and that they’re working to fix it as a group. >> the bar was super low or something or >> No, it’s that it was uh basically So, Orthodox churches came to the United States as immigrant churches. >> Uh with some exceptions, right? Like Alaska was a mission effort. Right? Russian missionaries came to Alaska to evangelize the Aleutian people, like the native peoples. So, there is that that happened. But, in terms of the the continental United um the first Orthodox churches here, people immigrated from Greece, from Russia, from Serbia, right?

1:31:21 From from Christians from the Middle East. And when they came here, they were Christian people, they built churches, they sent back to the old country for a priest, right? To come and and do the especially in the 20th century, almost all of those countries were either under uh Islam or communism. And so, they weren’t receiving a lot of Yeah, yeah. Rock and a hard place. >> Yeah, cuz in both cases, that was kind of a death sentence, right? If you >> if you decided to convert. Um when, especially in the second half of the 20th century, your regular run-of-the-mill Americans started coming to Orthodox churches and falling in love with the Orthodox liturgy and the Orthodox way of life and faith and practice, it kind of didn’t have any kind of established thing.

1:32:26 And so, what ended up happening different priests did different things, but a lot of it was modeled on like RCIA in the Roman Catholic Church. >> The Rite of Christian Initiation for >> Which is basically a lecture curriculum. So, Orthodox churches started having these Orthodoxy 101 courses, right, where they taught you about the seven ecumenical councils and a bunch of church history and about the Bible and all which was good stuff. All which was good stuff. >> But, was not the original purpose of the And um and ultimately was was teaching new converts a lot of things that none of the lifetime Orthodox people knew >> in terms of facts and details and and so, that that gave people a skewed view that like it’s very intellectual, like you have to learn and master these theological things in order to become Orthodox.

1:33:30 And so, that’s what’s being corrected now, right? That’s And and I do catechesis very differently in my uh than that. Um the original purpose of the catechumenate and why it was 1 to 3 uh in the early centuries was how long it was was based on the type of life you had led up to that point. >> Like if you were Like if you were a >> Depending on where you juggle. >> That’s in That’s if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, that’s in Hippolytus’ Apostolic Traditions. It says if you were a juggler, like is it evil occupation. But I I know what it was associated with. >> just going to say that myself actually. >> So, uh you know, and and you could look at the Book of Acts and you could see, you know, you’ve got some people who are very pious Jewish people where the question is, “Okay, Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.” A lot of it follows from that.

1:34:35 They know the Old Testament scriptures very well. They Right, that’s sort of one situation. And then you have the people who are like burning their books of sorcery and [laughter] coming from, you know, very, you know, those those kind of backgrounds, right? And so, what it was really about was about the changing their way of living. So, they become a part of the community. That’s why catechumens really are part of the Orthodox Church. >> Right? And if a catechumen dies before they’re received in the Orthodox Church, they still receive an Orthodox funeral. >> Um they’re still treated as right, uh as an Orthodox Christian, but they are becoming part of the community.

1:35:23 They’re coming to the church, they’re coming to the services, they’re participating in the fellowship. They’re learning the whole way of life in terms of fasting and praying and and right, and also repenting of their previous life, right? Putting off those things. you know, if they’ve been living with someone outside of wedlock, they’re correcting that situation, right? If they’re right, and all of these things. And, you know, maybe in 1950 there would have been fewer people that but now in 2026, [clears throat] a lot of the people showing up in churches again. Thank God they’re coming to churches, all right? Are in very bad, very sinful kind of situations and ways of life. Um and they’re receiving guidance in that process.

1:36:11 Right? And so, what what we what we don’t want is we don’t want to receive so we we take the apostasy passages in Hebrews very We don’t want to quickly receive someone in the church, start giving them the sacraments, and then have them fall back into their old way of life. Right? And never return. Right? And so, that’s what we’re going for. And there are situations now, and I’m sure this is true in the Church of Christ, too. You have a much shorter process. Even if that process was just a couple of weeks, if during that couple of weeks you found out that the person you were discipling had gone and hired a prostitute, you’d probably say, “Okay, let’s slow this process down a little bit.” Right? >> Red flag. >> Talk about some more things, right?

1:36:59 Before we go forward. >> Clearly, you haven’t understood everything involved in what you’re you know, embarking on, right? And so, that’s the original understanding of the catechumenate. It’s about giving you this space to sort of transform how you look at the transform how you’re liv- you’re liv- very concretely sometimes your living situation, right? Uh what you do for a living, depending on what it is, right? If it’s immoral. all of those kind of things, so that you’re prepared to make this new start. Right? It’s in preparing you to make this new start and now live a different kind of life in Christ going forward and leave all of that behind. >> Yeah, cuz we do like a well, um I definitely do when I study with people like a uh accounting the cost kind of a thing as well.

1:37:49 I I I feel like most people if not all people I know in Churches of Christ do that as well saying that like, “Hey, this isn’t like easy believe-ism anti-nomian. You just become a Christian once and you’re good forever.” Like you know, in Churches of Christ, we don’t believe in one saved always saved. And we also don’t believe in the nonsense that if someone does apostatize, well then that means they were never saved in the first place because of the misuse of 1 John 2, which drives me insane, too. >> You have like the Antichrist passage there and they’re like, “Well, yeah, that’s about people who, you know, pretend that they were Christians or you know, people, yeah, whatever.” They they misuse that all the time. yeah, I I definitely have an appreciation for that. I think Alex time in the catechumenate was like 3 months. He must be morally excellent or a super good repenter or both, huh? >> Well, he was >> Part of it is he grew up and was in a Romanian Pentecostal group.

1:38:42 It was very and and he joined the Romanian Orthodox Church. So, there was a lot of cultural dovetailing and stuff there, right? And that determination is made with each catechumen, right? We we’re kind of you know, it’s it’s there’s no like but the idea is we’re preparing you for baptism. And we have it’s a big part of life is anytime you’re receiving a sacrament, we have a preparation period that we take very seriously, right? I just did a wedding last week and there’s marriage preparation where you meet with a couple and right and we and we go through, right? Because we all marriage is a sacrament, so we’re going to prepare you to receive this and receive it in the right way.

1:39:30 Right? And to start your married life together in a good way. We have preparation to receive the Eucharist. We have the Eucharist every Sunday, right? And there’s a process of preparation there. You don’t go to confession every single week, but if there’s some sin going on right in your life, you come and you confess that and we talk about it and we deal with that before you come to the to the altar, right? Um >> So, that in general is a pattern, right? And so, the catechumenate is sort of that applied to baptism. >> Okay. So, like in terms of like biblical passages for this, um I you know, I think about like you know, uh Paul was pretty bad. Uh the uh I mean, he was just doing his job.

1:40:15 He’s just following orders, I guess, but But I think about people like this >> Chris Ostom said of the jailer, “What worse than a jailer? What more ruthless and more savage?” >> All right, never mind. >> pretty brutal in their >> That’s true, yeah. That’s true. So, like um you know, like Aaron and I like we see examples of people and it seems like, you know, that that same hour of the night or like the Ethiopian. Now, granted, you know, he was going to worship, so he you know, he wasn’t just some random dude off the street, but with some people um like again, like it seems like very quickly like like Saul of Tarsus, 3 days praying, he’s baptized, and then he’s after his baptism like received with the disciples, they spend some time with him, and then he immediately goes and starts preaching Christ in the synagogues.

1:41:04 Like again, maybe maybe there’s something about that that specifically details in his case um would make you say, “Well, that’s very different than like a 3-year Hippolytus kind of a thing.” But um >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. St. Paul especially is kind of unique. >> I’d say Paul I would say like Paul’s probably he’s an apostle, so he’s I think he’d be like I’d be like give him a pass. >> of course. Right, right. >> I think I would too. He said, “Go to this guy and have him baptize you.” So, I mean >> Yeah, [laughter] yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, of course, of course, yeah. I’m I’m just saying like when I think of all the examples, um I I don’t feel like I ever see one that’s like and they made this guy wait a while or something like that. Usually it seems like the hard work and stuff is like a Simon the Sorcerer kind of a guy, but this happens after he’s he believes and is baptized.

1:41:51 >> Right. So >> Is there like a clear or a decent like kind of a passage that you might use to bolster this? >> To me, part of this question comes down all things being equal in normal cases, What is lost by taking that time to Because we do do emergency baptisms. Like if I have a catechumen and there’s some reason to there’s something wrong, we just go and baptize them. We don’t we’re not like, “Oh well, you’ll still get an Orthodox funeral.” No, we’ll we’ll go baptize them today, right? I’ll leave the house right now, drop this stream, >> go to the hospital or wherever, and we’ll baptize them. So, it’s not that we’re, you know, forcing it, right? Um and experientially, the the people I work with, I I’ve even heard some of them say later on, you know, I almost wish I had spent longer.

1:42:44 Like I almost wish I had spent some more time preparing for it, right? So, I mean, I I don’t think I would not argue dogmatically even that there’s some minimum time. >> Right? I I think there there could be a today a bishop or someone could meet someone and say, “You know what? I don’t think you need >> a catechumenate period, right? Or not a substantial one, you know, like we’ll we’ll we’ll baptize you this Sunday, right? Um and I don’t I don’t think that that wouldn’t be violating any or doctrine to do that. >> Sure, sure. But I just it’s strange to me that that’s not the general rule versus, you know, something else.

1:43:31 Like if I had a guy that I was real concerned concerned about, maybe I would go, “I’m going to plan for this to take longer cuz I think he needs a lot.” But it it appears to me that like uh from everything I can read like in Acts, for example, the general rule is like what you mentioned, like a a guy saying, “Oh, yeah, like this Sunday.” or something like that. Um what I think from the outsider’s perspective of like the Eastern Orthodox Church is that generally that’s not what happens and it’s like a much longer term thing for people. >> Yeah, it usually I don’t know what the average is now. I think the average may only be actually 6 months. Um we tell everybody a year, but >> is actually uh uh closer to uh to 6 months.

1:44:16 And yeah, again, I mean, I I’m not dogmatic about it either way, right? In the sense that right, I mean, I understand the practice because but I mean, and part of it is I understand it at a pastoral level, right? Like I’m a priest in a parish, so I’m the one actually dealing with these folks, right? [laughter] Talking to them and walking them through this. And I don’t the people involved in the process, right? They’ll they’ll say they’re eager, right? They’re they’re eager to be, you know, received, baptized, right? And fulfilled everything. I don’t get a lot from them like, “Why are you making me wait, right? Why are you right? You know, I don’t I don’t feel that push, right? And and like I said, we don’t dogmatically say, “Well, it has to be this kind of waiting period.” So, to me, I guess I I don’t You know, I mean, are you arguing you shouldn’t wait?

1:45:11 Like that it’s wrong for us to wait and take longer? >> Yeah, well, basically uh yeah, that’s a good question. Basically, like what I’m saying is like it seems like more information, like information that belongs on the other side of the baptism is being placed on the on the front end of it and saying like this needs to be figured out before we can get there. Like again, I that’s why I asked in the beginning. I don’t know how much of this is like a character thing versus a knowledge thing. Like is it I it surely depends on the purpose, but you >> Yeah. Yeah. >> If it’s information, if it’s you have to pass this test, then I think that’s >> Uh-huh. Okay. >> That’s what I was describing as the wrong way to do it. >> Yeah, I mean if I if I think of >> Sorry. No, go ahead. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut >> It should be a character thing.

1:45:59 It should be a character thing. It should be about you being ready, right? To to do it. Not just be baptized, but to now going forward, right? Live as a Christian. And so whatever we have to do, right? Like I wouldn’t say, “Okay, well, you’re you’re living with this person you’re not married to and you’re you’re sexually active, but you know, we can take care of that after you get baptized, right? Like we’d say, “No, let’s take care of that. Then we’ll baptize you, right? Um So, yeah. So, that to me that’s it’s it’s a character thing. It’s about getting you set up so that you can make the commitment you’re clear conscience, clear heart, ready to live a different kind of life.

1:46:48 >> Yeah, I think that I mean I think there’s, you know, for instance, in my, you know, ministry, there’s been I can think of one person. I was in St. Louis and uh he heard heard the the sermon. He was there on Sunday and he basically said he wanted to talk. So, we went into a room afterwards and we were talking and you know, he basically said, “I think I want to give my life to Christ.” And I said, “That’s great.” So, we sat down and started studying and we talked about counting the cost and you know, your your you know, pick up your cross. This is an instrument of death. You’re dying to yourself, you know. And we started talking about something and he there was a sin in his particular life and he said, “Well, can I still do this?” And I said, uh well, let’s look at what the Bible says. So, I showed him and he said, “So, I can’t still do this.” And I said, “Well, you could do it, but the Bible says not to do it.” Like, you know, I’m not going to be following you around.

1:47:35 And he said, “I’m not going to stop doing that.” And I said, “Well, if you’re not going to stop doing that, then I can’t baptize you.” You know, like I I I’m not going to I’m not going to have you do that. Second Peter says it’s worse >> Yeah, you’ll bring more condemnation on you. Yeah. >> That’s right. And I said, “I won’t I won’t do that.” So, that that’s one of the there’s been a few other that’s the I guess main example. And then there was one instance where a woman who was raised Orthodox Jewish and she did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. And that study took a little bit longer, you know, but as but as soon as she, you know, and that was interesting. We had to look at historical evidence for the resurrection. And when she saw that, you know, she was she was blown away and and then there are a lot there are many studies from our perspective, you know, where we essentially You know, like I I the Acts 16, the Philippian jailer, right?

1:48:22 So, if if Chris Austin was right, you know, saying what’s worse than a jailer, which makes sense to me. That’s the Back then they didn’t have like, you know, security code cards and electronic doors. Like, if you’re if you’re watching over the worst of the worst, you’re probably a pretty bad dude in there yourself. And um but anyway, you know, in that example for us, you know, he this you know, Acts 16:25, you know, they’re singing hymns, there’s an he says, “Don’t kill yourself, we’re all here.” And it says later in the same hour of the night. So, for us, you know, we know he’s the apostle. But to our view is that, you know, if someone understands the most basics and says, “I will commit my life to Christ.” And I studied with one guy after a Sunday evening service, after the lesson, he was a visitor and I went over and shook his hand and asked him if, you know, how he was and thanks for being there and he said, uh I said, “Is there anything we can do for you?” He said, “I’d like to study.” And I said, “Well, you know, great.

1:49:16 When would you like to study?” He said, “Right now.” I said, “Okay.” I told my wife, like, “You know, you know, I’ll get I’ll get I’ll get I’ll get a ride home.” And so, we went in the back room, and he had a pretty, you know, messed-up life, and uh and he basically said, “You know, what do I need to do?” And And from our perspective, I said, “Will you make a commitment right now that you’re going to do the right thing in all of these situations?” Cuz I said, “As soon as you come up from the water, you’re a different person. You do not have You You You can be If you were a All these evil things in your life, you don’t have to be that. As soon as you come up out of the water, that’s all gone.” And he made the commitment to do that. And so, you know, so we baptized him. So, I think that’s maybe just the difference is we both agree that there should be teaching, and hey, this is a serious commitment. I think we would, you know, we would just look to the the New Testament pattern and say, “It can take longer, but it can also be, you know, a a very quick thing.” So.

1:50:08 >> Yeah. Yeah, I don’t think we’re that far apart. I mean, I’ve also had the many times of I go to the person and say, “Hey, you know, I’m not going to wait you make you wait any longer, right? I think I think we’re where we need to be.” And have them tell “I’m not ready yet.” >> You know, and when someone tells me that, I deeply respect it. Cuz I’m like, “Okay, you’re taking this very >> Right? And I say, “You You come see me. As soon as you’re ready, you come see and we’ll do it. And until then, that’s good, right?” >> Um it Okay, I I did have some questions on on some uh uh passages Or or Yeah, one that you mentioned earlier, or at least hearkened to, was uh like Romans 6.

1:50:57 This is one of my This is one of my beefs. This is one of my beefs with infant baptism. Like, a passage like Romans 6, where like it talks about like the new life, and I I think I understand um a little bit the direction you go in like in terms of like they they’re beginning the process of theosis and stuff. So we do that as soon as uh as soon as we can or as soon as it’s decided, I guess, but when I look at a passage like Romans 6, um you you see like, you know, buried with him in baptism, like you’re dead, walk raised to walk in newness of life, and um you know, one thing that is pretty prominent to me is in that same context that talks about, you know, the death, the burial, the walking in newness of life that happens with baptism, um it is I would argue tied to the presence of sin in the individual, uh like in Romans 6:16-18, that same passage there, as slaves to sin, now slaves to righteousness.

1:51:55 and and maybe this can help for just the conversation itself that I I think like in every uh baptism or every passage that I’ve seen used for infant baptism, there is something pretty prominent in those contexts that saddles the baptism still in some way with a sinner or someone that has committed sin and needs salvation from that. And I think even Romans 6, which talks about the new life that begins with baptism, is a good example of this as well, that like death and how that’s used in the New Testament, and then again in that same context of chapter 6, slaves um slavery is mentioned there as well to sin. Uh and then now slaves uh to righteousness because you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine as well. So, uh maybe maybe I I I’m forgetting something, but I think in every infant baptism um passage that I’ve seen used, there’s always something in those contexts uh that ties it with um something like like a sinner that needs to be saved from their sin, even like a Acts 2:39, the promise is to you and to your children.

1:53:00 Like even in that context, I think there’s something there as well that makes it clear um Um, what what baptism again is there for in that kind of a situation? Does that question make sense? It’s more of a statement, but it’s a >> Yeah, yeah. So, there’s a there’s a couple things I’d say there. First of all, well, with the slavery example, you got to remember that slavery was generational. >> If you were a slave, your children were all born slaves. Uh, they hadn’t contracted the debt that caused you to sell yourself into slavery, but they’re still born slaves, right? Because of your debt. >> sense In what sense would you say an infant is like a slave? >> Well, and this is point two. >> And that’s there’s different there’s different ways of talking about sin.

1:53:45 Like I reference Romans 5 where it talks about those who hadn’t sinned in the likeness of Adam. Meaning they hadn’t transgressed a commandment directly. >> Saint Paul almost always, there’s a few special cases, almost always uses sin in the singular. He talks about sin rather than sins. >> And the language of sins plural is referring to transgressions, right? Like individual acts, right? Of sin, right? >> Whereas sin in the singular, Saint Paul very often is talking about it the way that for example Genesis 4 talks about it. >> Yeah, like it’s a master. It’s like personification. It’s crouching at your door like ready to tear you apart.

1:54:34 >> to master you, you must master it, >> And so, that’s kind of how Romans 5 is talking about sin. In that, you know, sin sin enters the world through Adam and there it is after his son, right? In the very next Right? And so, sin is this power that’s in the world that everyone born in the world becomes subject to to one degree or another. Now, you you haven’t been mastered by it until you actually yield to it. Right? But that power is still in the That power is still opposed to you. That power is still literally out to kill Right? That’s [laughter] and to bring death about. So, a child is born innocent, has not been mastered by sin yet, but is still mortal.

1:55:27 And it’s still in a world where sin is active. So, from my perspective, if I baptize an infant, that infant has been saved from sin and from bondage to sin by being removed from this world and placed into Christ. Um no longer subject to the power of death. Right? And and the power of sin. But now but now in Christ. Right? So, that language to me can be used in that Right? So, yes, the child doesn’t have sins plural to be forgiven. Right? But will inevitably, frankly, come under the power of sin. >> Right?

1:56:13 Um otherwise, right. >> If If I can clarify a little bit, like um part of part of what I didn’t mention here in Romans 6 is like yeah, I I definitely there’s like the dominion sin shall not reign over you, those kinds of But with that again, I maybe I can see what you would say there, but with that again, there’s like, you know, verse 1, shall we go on sinning that grace may abound? And I think he even says that later again, like it appears that like connected with all of this, he is talking about the act of sinning or living in a sinful way um and and not that like um being under the the impact of sin or something like >> So, I I I think the about sinning so that grace may abound is actually countering something else.

1:57:01 Um because he’s been arguing that God has brought good out of human sin. Right? That sort of our evil I mean Joseph of course is the paradigm for that in Genesis, right? You meant it to me for evil. God used it contra Calvinism. I don’t think that means God, you know, made them do it. Right? But >> But God brought great good. He saved the whole family out of this evil deed of the brothers, Um and so St. Paul is arguing from that, right? So, yes, there’s this transgression, there’s this sin of Adam, but look at this glorious salvation that came as a result of it. Right? And so, he’s then answering the objection. Someone might object or try to twist his argument and say, “Oh, so we should just not worry about it then.

1:57:50 We should just go ahead and sin cuz God will bring good out of it anyway.” Right? Or, you know, forgiveness is so much greater than than, you know, not having sinned that I’ll just sin and get forgiven and that’ll be better somehow, right? Like, I’ll be better and he’s >> Like, that’s actually actually that’s one of the places he uses the optative mood, which is almost never used in the Greek of the New Testament. It’s me It’s like, no. >> It’s translated >> May it never be. >> Very strong, yeah. >> Hey, to what we talked about earlier, to what we talked about earlier, I was going to joke and go, “Aaron, do you agree with that? Does that exist in the >> I I I do agree. I do agree. so, would you >> That but that So, that’s yeah.

1:58:36 So, that’s that’s a twisting. And of course, there are people like that. Uh read Martin Luther’s Sin Boldly sermon, just go out there and live cuz Christ died for actual sins, not not potential ones. So, just go out there and >> Yeah. You know, do your thing. And if you make some oopsies, no big deal. >> Did he say that? Repeat that. What did he say? >> It’s a sermon he gave called Sin Boldly. Where he was encouraging one of his friends who was sort of paralyzed by the you know, if he just went and lived life in the world, right? So, he’s he you know, Luther’s coming out of this monastic background where they had left the world. >> And so, he’s saying, you know, you’re scared to go out sort of live life cuz you think you’re going to fall into sin. And so, the title of the sermon is Sin He says you can just go out there and live life cuz Christ died for actual sins that you were going to actually commit.

1:59:31 And so, >> So, he wasn’t encouraging him to sin. He was saying it’s going to hap- it’s going to happen or >> going to happen and don’t worry about >> No. Well, I would say first I would say first John 1. Look, if you say you’re not going to sin, you’re a liar, but >> Yeah, it it seems similar to what St. Paul is trying to cut off, right? Like >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. >> Yeah, I had a guy in preaching school who would jokingly say uh brothers, if you’re going to go sin, you might as well go first class. Like whenever he was reading about a guy in the Bible committing some like very serious sin. Like he was joking and saying like if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it, you know. I guess that’s not what Martin Luther was >> Yeah. He was not giving us that recommendation by the way. It was not a serious advice. Just so it’s on record.

2:00:17 He was a great guy. Okay, so uh would you like connect like the there where where Paul says later on in Romans 6 right before he talks about presenting yourselves as slaves to obey or to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey. >> He That’s where he says again like what then shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not. Uh you’re saying that’s like related to the context of chapter 5 again as well? >> Yeah. Yeah. That that it that’s that certainly That’s exactly the me getting to. Yeah, that’s certainly not. Yeah, and he’s drawing so the slavery language is important. This is connected to the Passover. Right? And the language that’s used in Exodus, they were set free from slavery in Egypt to serve and the verb for serve there is related to the word for Right?

2:01:07 To serve the living God. >> Well, chapter five the language of king, you know, sin reigning. It’s like it’s your master. It’s the word for you know, reign as a king, you know. >> So Saint Paul is appealing to that idea. Right? And so if I was going to try to force the metaphor of infant baptism, I’d say, well, you know, they brought their kids with them when they left Egypt, right? But I’m not going to I would I don’t think that’s a legitimate push there. I don’t think I don’t think Saint Paul had that in view. He’s easy arguing. >> I don’t think I don’t think he had Saint Paul had that in view, but but I think that’s the idea. The idea is that are you are you under this reign of sin or are you in Christ? Right? Like >> Uh can I read real quick some super chats that I had?

2:01:55 I don’t I don’t want to be rude to the people who have super >> Yeah, I know, but Cali Roofing, where are you? There is I’ll start with the most hilarious one. It’s perfect for this stream. Earmark for the IBS upgrade from dial >> Oh man, I I don’t think my family ever had dial up dial up. I’m a little >> to say, are you old enough to remember dial up? >> No, but I read about it in an ancient scroll one time. I found like some >> You know, the the way you could really, you know, the way you would mog your siblings is they would be on the computer like on AOL Instant Messenger and you would go to a different phone and you would pick up the phone and you’d hear that and it would kick them off and then you’d walk downstairs and I’d be like to my younger sister like, oh hey, are you done?

2:02:41 And she’d be like, I know that you kicked me off.” Like, what are you talking about, you know? >> It was rough. It was It was rough. >> Uh the olden times, yeah. Thank you so much, Journey, for for the $20.Verygenerous.Again,itcouldhavebeen$2. It I think any amount of money would get me better internet than what I have right now. So, thank you. Um Orthodox Christian Andrew says, “Being Orthodox Christian has changed my life for the better. It’s S-tier Christianity.” I don’t know if you know what S-tier is, Aaron, but >> I don’t. That’s why I was I was about to >> That’s top tier. >> like the top tier. Yeah, it’s about A-tier. Yeah, S-tier. Um why does Acts 2:39 claim that the promise is for you and for your children in the context of baptism for the remission of sins?

2:03:28 Uh I thought that was a good question. I think it’s a good question. Yeah. >> I was going to say I I don’t think so. I think that’s for you. I’ll just volley that one back to you. Um I I actually was hoping we could talk about it that one a little bit because like one thing from Acts 2 that again kind of um in is is impresses upon me is that the promise to you for your into your um you see that it that the command to be baptized is also connected with the command to repent. And also, like those who gladly received his word were baptized. Um now, this is um this is interesting. I don’t I don’t know if we’ve talked about this yet as well, and maybe we can just put a pin in this for later so we can start talking about this, but the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

2:04:20 I think I understand now what your view would be on that language, that they’re not saved in the sense that they would be automatically punished at birth or something like that, but they’re saved in the sense that they’re saved from the effects of sin and brought into through covenant. So, maybe I’ll just throw that part out. >> Sure. Yes. Yeah. Um but yeah, one thing that that impresses im- upon me from Acts 2 is that 38 connects baptism with repentance, and 41 says, “Those who gladly received the word were baptized.” what what would be like the the the sense in which infants can be included in that uh from that passage for you? >> Well, I mean again, we would we would connect this to the household idea. Right? That >> that there there is a person who has authority in the household to do this.

2:05:09 Right? Um and so, and also, as soon as you hear to you and to your children, you got to follow that language back into like Deuteronomy, where that same right is used, and this idea of inheritance, right? And this idea of this is a this is an ongoing thing for for generations to come. Right? So, I wouldn’t even say you know, even though I obviously I think this works with infant baptism, I I wouldn’t say that this is explicitly directed at infant baptism. Uh I think it’s more directed at that generational idea. right? Which is sort of built into from Deuter- I mean, over and over The reason I mentioned Deuteronomy is there in particular it’s over and over again, you know, when your son sees these stones, you will say, “This is the place where,” right?

2:06:05 When your son asks you, when your son asks you, right? Um that that uh is about that. And so, yeah, if I was talking to somebody some kind of extreme Baptist who was trying to argue that like, you know, you should essentially raise your your children as if they’re not Christians or something until the age of accounta- or whatever, uh you know, I think that would directly apply. But, um I don’t think I don’t think it’s a just an individual proof text for uh >> for infant baptism. But, I [clears throat] would say I do think it is a piece of evidence, a data point in favor of continuity because of what I just said in terms of >> the structure of the Old Covenant, structure of the New Covenant.

2:06:58 Right? I don’t think it’s a proof text, but it’s a data point toward continuity. >> Sure, sure. I can appreciate that more uh modest use of that passage, actually. I I I think I see people overstate the case a little bit from this passage. Uh so, I actually respect there. Um yeah, I um here’s another one. Uh Aaron Marco uh 1 Corinthians 7:14, “Does this not plainly allude to children of Christian couples being holy? If not, what other verse does?” Uh you have an answer for this, Aaron? Thank you, by the way. >> Yeah, I mean, 1 1 Corinthians 7:14, um it says, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they’re holy.” I mean, there’s lots of different, you know, takes that I’ve read even in the early church on this.

2:07:46 But, I think there’s, you know, some people think it’s the idea that, you know, in the Old Testament, if someone was, you know, like an uh is it Ezra 10 or Nehemiah 13? I was getting Ezra 10 and Nehemiah 13 mixed up. There’s a situation in there where these men had married people they weren’t supposed to be married to, and they were essentially ended their marriage. So, I’ve heard some people say, “This is Yeah, this is somebody saying, ‘Wait a minute, if in the Old Covenant, you weren’t supposed to be married to someone who didn’t have the same God, is this essentially a New Testament question?” Because, you know, 1 Corinthians 7 is all about “Do I stay?” You know, it’s all about marriage. The context is marriage, and “Do I stay? Do I leave? What do I do in this situation?” And so, you know, I know there’s a lot of people that take the view, this person, if you’re a Christian, you’re saying, “Hey, if I’m spiritual Israel and this person is not a Christian, they’re not of Israel.

2:08:34 Do I Do I sep- Do I sever this relationship?” And he’s saying, “No, this cleanse. Your kids aren’t illegitimate. You know, your kids are, you know, a member of the of the uh they’re sanctified.” Of course, we would say innocent, which we don’t disagree on that, you know. >> Yeah, that’s that’s the passage I was referring to earlier where I I think St. Paul is applying the logic of of to marriage in that way. But yeah, I don’t I And again, obviously I believe in infant baptism, >> right? Obviously I believe data point, but it it In many of these especially if it was the husband uh even even for my belief that the apostles were baptizing infants, >> if the pagan spouse was the husband, he may very well not have allowed the infants to be baptized.

2:09:25 >> Right? So, >> Well, I know I know other people will bring up like 1 Peter 3, you know, basically saying to the wife, you know, if your husband is an unbeliever, you know, you by just your behavior and your conduct, you may win him over. Right. So, I know other guys who think that’s kind of the idea here as well, like, you know, hey, look, you may have one spouse that’s an unbeliever, but that child’s in a sanctified environment because one of the parents, you know, are are holy. A $5 thank you so much. Had to decide between you and Cleve on who’s getting my money tonight. [laughter] Decided to come support the cult of irritable bowel syndrome. Thank you so much. That’s very nice. I hope Macaulay Roofing makes the same decision tonight as well. >> Cleve Cleve had the gall to counter program us, so. >> I know.

2:10:11 I know. That’s crazy. >> a lesson by supporting me. >> Literally as soon as the stream started, I was thinking, “Where’s Macaulay >> There’s still time. There’s still time. >> Yeah, if I ever need a new roof. >> This next one I apologize if this comes off as rude or something. why do you practice necromancy? >> So listen, if I practice necromancy, it would be cool necromancy. I would have a skeleton If I was going to practice necromancy, I would not just be, you know, asking one of the saints in glory to pray for me. No, skeleton army. So that’s how you know I am not actually a necromancer. >> You battle for me.

2:10:58 >> Vanquish my enemies. Um All right, thank you so much for the $2anduhRobertsent$5. Thank you so much. Former COC question for M&A, why does COC have a low emphasis on complete church history, all the players, all the places, all the beliefs? Uh complete church history, um what does >> Well, I mean, I would say I guess all of church history. I mean, I guess I would say just depends where he grew up or where he’s from, you know, like cuz, you know, there’s a variety I think anybody would say this and there’s a variety of people. Like some people aren’t as interested like I am. I mean, I’m interested, you know, almost every argument that I make, I try to say, “Okay, how does this start in the Old Testament so there’s continuity in the new?” And then essentially, okay, I I don’t think that the early I mean, I know we no one thinks that the early fathers individually were infallible.

2:11:49 But I look at them and say, “Okay, how does this explain all the evidence? You know, because it’s easy for me to just cherry-pick a guy and quote mine, which I’m feel cool using that new young kid word, but quote quote mine something. Yeah, but it’s like to me, how does it explain all the evidence, you know, like And so for me, I mean, I love church history, you know, and and this is one of the things where I feel like and of course I’m always open to the new information, you know, many of the things where, you know, I don’t believe the view, I try to read all The other thing is that I mean I’ll Well, I’ll try to finish my thought. I try to read as much as I can. Like the fathers are a massive volume of literature. I mean >> And that’s just what in English. >> Yeah. Oh, I can’t imagine. Yeah. Like I mean it’s like Philo wrote more than the New Testament himself.

2:12:35 You know, so there’s so much stuff. So, I think you know, I try to be gracious. There’s a lot of people like I know I’m in a very privileged position to have the time to read. The the people who I don’t know where you grew up. There may be people who don’t have the time cuz they’re working two jobs, you know? So, you know, I try I try to emphasize all of church history, you know? I mean just tonight you probably there’s lots of guys that I disagree with on a lot of issues, but really still appreciate their writing, you know, and and their So, yeah, I mean maybe it’s just where you are, they don’t I mean I we care about church >> Yeah, and like you know, someone that’s been on the channel before and we’ve done stuff with is like uh you know, Dr. Rick Brumback as well who’s um very scholarly on this stuff and you know, Alex wanted to try to get like a debate with him on something, but he’s super busy, but I hope uh we can get him out in the public eye a little bit more.

2:13:31 He’s a great great dude. >> Well, like an Everett Ferguson, I would I would say you know, Everett Ferguson. He you know, he got his PhD in church history from Harvard. He has tons of books. Um you know, on you know, baptism and ecclesiology and all these different Um so, if you wanted someone from a Church of Christ perspective on church history who you know, is scholarly, you know, that would be one guy to look into, but you know, we we There’s there may be less of an emphasis because of sort of the approach, you know, the approach that you know, the scriptures as opposed to like of course in Orthodoxy and Catholicism, there’s going to be more of uh an approa- a focus on church history because of the reliance on it more so than the you know sort of sola scriptura approach, you know.

2:14:20 >> Uh next one uh $20. Thank you so generous. Thank you at Father Stephen De Young for sharing your knowledge with us and thank you for Aaron and IBS for engaging with the Orthodox Church. God help us. It’s it’s very funny uh Thank you for taking time by the way out of the all-out war between the evangelicals and their anger over the fact that you and the Orthodox Church believe that you need to be in the Orthodox Church. I don’t You don’t know this, Aaron. Right now, the evangelicals are losing their minds because uh you know, Alex and others say, you really need to be in the Orthodox Church. And that idea that there is a like a church that you need to be in just blows their minds that they can’t be in whatever church they want. >> I think it’s because you know, the Protestant movement has always been everybody is okay, you know, we’re all on different paths to the same place.

2:15:10 And the question I’ll always ask people and and I understand I mean, I got used to it a long time ago, people getting angry at me. Um but I I mean, I always just say, do you have to be a member of the church that Jesus started? Do you think you have to be a member of the church of the Bible to be saved? And they’re like, well, yeah, of course. And I’m like, okay. Well, let’s talk about why we think we’re the church of the Bible. Like otherwise, I mean, what’s what’s the point, you know? Like >> So, to me, it’s like a pretty simple concept. Did Jesus say that he the church was his body and that there was one church and he’s the savior of the body? Yes, he did. So, he’s going to save his body. There’s only one. Which one is it? >> The idea’s fairly simple, you know? It’s just when people get offended, they get angry, you know? >> Well, yeah, there’s it’s weird to me and maybe it’s just cuz I’m an old man, right?

2:15:58 And you know, I’m Gen X especially, so I don’t have feelings like these kids. >> But yeah, a lot of these things, it’s how dare they say there’s only one true church? And I’m like, well, shouldn’t you ask first if we’re right? >> Yeah, that’s exactly >> Yeah. Shouldn’t the first question be is it true? Not like is it mean? >> Not does it make me feel good, but is it You know? >> Yeah, I I very much appreciated like that posture. You know, we have a very similar posture as well where we’re not like, yeah, I think all the denominations are cool. Oh, what’s that? You don’t like you teach that baptism is not necessary and that it really is not a big deal if you do it. Yeah, let’s have full fellowship with each other. We preach the same gospel. What are we talking about? No, we don’t.

2:16:44 We don’t preach the same gospel. Like And for for like recently with like, you know, J. Dyer and Andrew Wilson and others saying like, no, you need to be in the one true church and there is a one true church. To watch them lose their minds is so fascinating to me. There was a guy recently that said, uh and my head exploded. He goes, “Salvation is not in the church. Salvation is in Christ, guys.” What are we talking about now? >> Of course salvation’s in Christ, but Christ adds you to the body. Acts 2:47. Acts 5:14, they were increasingly added to the Lord. Like, yes. >> Yes. And the >> of Christ, Christ >> any of us are >> That’s right. It’s like it’s the whole idea it’s the whole idea. It’s like if someone said, “Aaron, I really love you, but I hate your wife.” I’d be like, “Oh, great. Yeah, I don’t like you.” >> Like, you know.

2:17:30 >> There was a quote there a text There was a text I was looking for somebody sent me the other morning and it was a it was like a a meme or a graphic. What do I mean? It was a graphic and it had the church of the New Testament in one column and it had the fundamental Baptist Church and then it had the Orthodox Church and it was things that the New Testament taught and check marks, right? And of course I went looking through it and the very first thing I noticed is they had like baptized believers, right? And they had like New New Church check, they had Orthodox X, and they had Primitive Baptist, check. But, what I thought was completely I I texted the guy back. He was He was a preacher in the Church of Christ, and I said, “You notice that they conveniently left out baptism is necessary for salvation?” Like It’s like It’s like the guy who shot at a barn shot his gun at a barn, and then went and drew bull’s-eyes around wherever his targets hit.

2:18:23 You know, it’s like, “Hey, I’m such a great shot.” It’s like, “No, you made the graphic, you know?” But, yeah, we agree on that. It’s like, we might disagree on which the church which church it is. And and I’ve I’ve I’ve There’s so many things I appreciate about about Orthodoxy. I appreciate the reverence. I appreciate you know, I appreciate the tradition, the history. I, of course, think some places went a little too far. And but, you know, I do appreciate, you know, you dialoguing and appreciate Zach. Shout-out to Zach Morris. Every time I tell someone his name, I think I’m allowed to say his name. Hope Everyone’s like, “From Saved by the >> Yeah, exactly. [laughter] >> All right. >> Is that what that means? >> What? Yeah, that’s right. >> Hopefully Hopefully not enough people. >> So, should I not be using my real name? Oh, we’re all in trouble. Never mind. >> Yeah, yeah, we’re all in trouble. Uh >> He [laughter] doxed himself. >> We did talk about Yeah. No, we did talk about this earlier, but um it did Father Stephen Duke out with COC’s at Amridge.

2:19:14 I think every day he was fighting with people at Amridge. I think uh >> I don’t think I I got along really well with people. [laughter] It was Uh thank you so much. >> In a couple cases, I persuaded people of things. Not major things, but uh I talked somebody out of thinking the Garden Tomb was actually Christ’s tomb. Video Integrity, thank you for the $5.IsthatCanada$5? Cool. God only knows who’s saved in the Book of Life. Do you think you’re in the Book of Life? If you do, are you saying that you know the mind of God? Um Very interesting question here. >> I would say that this I would say first First Corinthians 1 and 2 says that who can know the mind of one unless he reveals it.

2:20:01 And so God Deuteronomy 29:29 says certain things are mysteries but there’s other things God’s revealed to So I would say that you can have confidence that if you do what the New Testament says that you will be saved. I think you can have confidence. Not over no overconfidence. You need to live faithfully and become more more like >> Yeah, whatever whatever >> Whatever shirt stuff comes up I I always use the metaphor of marriage because I think it’s appropriate given how often that’s used in the Bible. >> Right? Which is uh you know, technically Louisiana’s a no-fault divorce state, right? Like anytime my wife wants to, she can go online fill out some papers and divorce But I don’t sit around all day worrying that that’s going to happen.

2:20:51 Cuz I know my wife. >> And I love my wife and I know my wife loves me. Right? And so I also know there are things I could do that if I went out and chose to do them, it would destroy my marriage and she’d be right to go and download those papers and and divorce me, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And I because I love her, I don’t do those things. >> And and so that’s why I have confidence in terms of salvation in Christ. I know Christ, I know who he is, I know he’s not going to just abandon me or forsake me or turn out to have not been telling me the truth because he is the truth. And even though I know there are things I could do that would destroy that relationship. I I don’t go do that because I love him. >> So like when people ask like do you know that you’re do you know that you’re saved?

2:21:42 Do you say like I can know that I’m saved now but I don’t know what the future holds or like you know, I don’t I don’t know yeah, everything. >> I’m in control of my actions. >> You know. >> And that’s a problem sometimes. >> I worry that like, what if tomorrow suddenly for some reason I download those papers and fill them out >> and turn them in at the courthouse, right? Like No, I just I don’t do that, right? Like >> I don’t >> You know, um and if I find out I did something that hurt our relationship, I go and I apologize, right? I repent, right? I go and I I return. So, there are actions to do. So, if ever on a given day I’m concerned about that and I look at my life and say, “Oh, well, the reason I’m concerned is I’ve been doing this or I’ve been, you know, I go and I make that right, right?

2:22:33 I repent of that, I go I confess, I right, you know, and uh do what I need to do to make that situation right so that I don’t have to worry anymore. >> Uh thank you so much for that. Oh, sorry. I was just going to say, you >> I was moving on to the super chats, but go ahead go ahead go first. >> Well, I was going to say Matthew 18:21, you know, Peter came to him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him up to seven times?” You know, I think if I recall, I think the Jewish like norm was three. >> And so, I think Peter thought he was being pretty generous. Seven times, Lord? Like hey, Lord >> Seven is the perfect number, yeah. >> Yeah, it’s a perfect number. And Jesus said, “I don’t say seven, but seven up to up to 70 * 7, 490.” Which means obviously not if someone crosses you 491, that’s it. But the idea is just like perfect perfect perfect, you know.

2:23:20 So, I was talking with a guy in email today. It’s like, you know, I believe the New Testament and the Old Testament teaches God is a god of grace and mercy and he will forgive you as many times as you’ll repent. It’s like a father. He wants you to come home. He does not want you, you know, he doesn’t want you to think that, “Oh, this is, you know, it’s too many times.” I’ll say one thing then I’ll be quiet. Um one more thing. You know, Jeffrey Dahmer uh was a serial killer and, you know, cannibal and uh he actually had a Bible study before he died Um with you know preacher in the Churches of Christ and he said he was terrified to speak to that preacher. And he sat across the table the preacher said Roy Ratcliff is his name. He talks about this in interviews. He said that Jeffrey Dahmer they brought him in to the room. They sat him down at the table and the guards left. So he’s looking across the table at Jeffrey Dahmer.

2:24:08 And he said he was terrified and Jeffrey Dahmer said he was terrified to be talking to a man of God. And he asked the preacher he said to Roy Ratcliff am I too wicked to be forgiven? And the preacher said I’m not aware of a single sin that the blood of Christ can’t cleanse. And they studied and he baptized Dahmer and there were people who were furious at him for what he had done. And there were some people that said you should not have baptized him he was too wicked to be forgiven and Roy Ratcliff said that if the idea Jeffrey Dahmer can be forgiven of his sins stretches your idea of grace then your idea of grace needs stretched. And the idea that there’s a sin that can separate you too far from God if you are if you’re willing to repent of it. You know if you’re willing to repent and come back to God he’s that perfect spouse that will forgive you you know over and over as long as you’re willing to to change your life and come back to him so.

2:25:02 >> Yeah. Yeah I I I I would add to that those people also don’t really understand their own sinfulness. >> I agree. I’m not that bad yeah. >> they did yeah if they did they would be despairing of their own salvation with that view. >> Yeah. Score one for Church of Christ we got Dahmer on our team. You guys got what Ali Soaring come on. We got Dahmer way cooler. >> Uh we might have Ivan the Terrible. Wait really? That’s true yeah. Terrible yeah. FSDY with that beard you remind me of the prospector from Toy Story. Love you guys. Oh, we love you. >> love Toy Story. >> Oh, there’s a clarification here, Aaron, on the question earlier about 1 Corinthians 7.

2:25:51 I was saying that if one Christian parent makes the children holy, then the married Christian couple should not need to baptize their infants, not MDR Christian. >> Oh, yeah. I don’t >> Uh, what was the original question? Uh Uh, do you have any thoughts on that, >> if that sanctifies the child, then why would the child need baptism? >> Yeah, yeah. >> are there are Yeah, I don’t think that’s what’s being discussed there. Of course, they they could argue in their position the child would have already been baptized. If if I mean, they could argue that. I’m not >> Well, we’re not, right? Because we’re we’re dealing with different categories here, too. >> Right. Like, if they’re innocent, why would they have to be sanctified? Yeah. Right. I mean, we could parse this all kinds of different ways, but I I don’t think that’s what St. Paul’s getting at >> Thank you so much again for the the first and the second one.

2:26:38 Uh, I’ve only heard say one bad joke three times today. Thanks, Aaron. >> Sorry, man. >> I was uh I was just telling him that like I don’t know if you know this, but he is the one that got Aaron to talk to the Transfigured Life guys and got us on this whole trajectory into talking to the Eastern Orthodox and led us to you today. I mean, it’s like literally that one like, “Hey, Aaron, would you talk to these guys?” Now it’s going and they’re doing this whole thing. Now I Yeah. Now I text with Alex, Soren. All right. Uh, one more. Uh, maybe unfair, but FSDY, can you speak to how EO teaches all the players, all the places, and all the beliefs? To clarify, I am new EO many years to all. Not sure I understand >> You want me to explain >> I’ll be back in 30 seconds.

2:27:26 >> and belief in church history real >> Yeah, make it quick. >> Be brief about it, please. >> The the >> Can you explain how every element of EO doctrine is biblical? >> What’s that? >> Yes, I can. There we go. That’s a good one. >> I thought you were going to use the classic ask your priest or something like that. >> Yeah. Yeah, no, I I can. Yeah, that’s the answer to the question. >> It didn’t say will you or please do it. >> doing that. Yeah. >> No, if you want if you want to if the person who asked that question wants to narrow it down a little or something. >> Yeah, yeah. I’ll watch the chat in case you know >> more money. >> No, no, he does. He definitely does.

2:28:12 This is Ruslan stuff over here. This is Yeah, no, I I did I did want to say one more thing about the ex >> Octavian says, “We have Vlad.” That’s funny. Um I did want to say one more thing >> Yes, we do actually have Vlad the Impaler. That is true. >> Oh, really? >> Vlad the Impaler. Wow. Yeah, he’s I was going to uh say like do you guys do you guys have like a Jack the Ripper kind of guy? But you guys do have a Jack the >> Yeah, that’s that’s probably the closest one. Yeah, Dracula. Yeah. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Um uh someone said I think it’s a explain holy tradition type of question maybe. I’m not really sure. >> Explain holy tradition and give three JP wants to know if COC believes in intersection of the dead saints?

2:29:05 >> That guy JP is a fascinating individual for sure. Intersection [laughter] of dead saints. Um yeah, no, with people like him though >> the axe >> Yeah, the book of Acts. A X E. Um I really have been kind of dumbfounded and I really do um as we start to wrap up here uh approaching the time that I I had promised you. Um I I do want to say like I I really appreciate the conversation. And again, because like we um Aaron and I like are in Churches of Christ uh broadly, we we don’t hold like the like the highly like that we don’t hold like the denominational posture of like we can disagree on major things and it’s no big deal. Like we we really wrestle towards unity directly and and quite viciously uh at times even because um you know, under our paradigm, that has to matter deeply.

2:30:03 It has to be it that I if Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-23, the standard that he holds up there in in his unity with the Father, it seems to me a lot of the time like in the denominational world, they they don’t like they don’t feel they don’t have that sense of urgency and there is a major problem if major elements of doctrine we have these big disagreements on and we just don’t seem to really care all that much. And and if anything, a lot of the time it seems like they joke about them or just brush them right off. And there’s even weird things like you know, like in in like the I think it’s the Westminster Confession where it says it’s a great sin not to baptize your infants, but then they look at all their like Gavin Ortlund friends who don’t baptize infants and they go, “Ah, I love him.

2:30:49 He’s the best. He’s great.” Um that kind of a posture like we don’t share that at all in Churches of Christ. So, I was really dumbfounded when I when I saw the evangelicals kind of losing their minds over this. It it’s why don’t you care and why don’t you try to They don’t seem to be trying at all to be the one to be the one true church. It it’s like they’re they’re totally okay with like all the flavors in the world, you know what I mean? >> Yeah, it’s it’s uh I I said, you know, and it was hours and hours long, but the other night on Cleve’s channel, like when I was watching that thing with Tony Costa and and David Wood, right? The the the point I most respected there was when Tony Costa basically laid out as a Calvinist what he believes the gospel is and said, “I don’t have it.” And that my church is anathema and I preach a false gospel.

2:31:40 That’s the part I >> Yeah. Yeah. Like cuz that was honest. >> That was honest. And I could actually sit down and have a beer and argue with him about it, right? And I could still [snorts] be friends with him as a human. And we could be clear about our differences and try to persuade each other, right? >> I respect that way more than the like, “Hey, what why are you saying there’s one true church? Hey, come on. We’re all brothers in Christ.” You know, like it doesn’t doesn’t matter. And and it’s especially weird to me with some of these Protestant groups that historically were literally killing each other over this >> I [laughter] know. >> Not that long ago. And now they’re all holding hands and singing Kumbaya and talking about how mean the Orthodox are, right?

2:32:30 Or whatever else, right? And yeah, so it’s it’s weird like I I have a friend who’s an Orthodox Jew and like we get along great, but when the chips are down like somebody will say something like, “What? Are you guys just like communists or something?” We’re like, “No.” I’m like, “I think it’s going to be really bad for him on the day of judgment if he doesn’t accept that Jesus is the Messiah.” Right? And he thinks I’m an idolater for believing in the Trinity, [laughter] right? But we know that. Sometimes we go at it about that, but we’re also two we’re brothers in Adam, right? We’re two humans who can >> come in >> Yeah. I wonder I wonder if you guys hear this one I guess you’re hearing it now, but one thing that’s like a caricature in Churches of Christ is we hear all the time, “Oh, so you guys think that you’re the the ones going to heaven.” That that’s like the old joke about like people say this I hear it all the time as a preacher locally.

2:33:26 I’ll meet people in the community and they’ll go, “Oh, Church of Christ. Oh, you guys think you’re the only ones going to heaven, don’t you?” And it’s weird. Like people treat it like we’re mean because we make a one true church claim. Like we like we’re like talking about how like our like it’s like a sports team kind of a thing. Like, “Oh, my team is the best. All the other teams are filled with losers.” Like they seem to treat it that way. It seems to be such like a denominational kind of a mindset where it’s rude to say No, I Yeah, go ahead. >> Well, no. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. >> No, no. Just like it like for them it’s rude to say “This is the church you need to be in.” Like I I’ll argue that till I’m blue in the face. [laughter] You know? >> Yeah, I mean I think that I think there is a misunderstanding where, you know, people sometimes think that we’re saying, you know, we’re the best denomination.

2:34:13 Just join our denomination. It’s like, “No, no. Our whole Our whole goal [clears throat] is No, no. If you took a time machine back to Acts chapter 2 and someone comes up out of the water and you said, ‘Hey, what denomination are you? Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh Day Adventist?’ Like the list goes on. They’d be like, ‘What are you talking about? Never heard of any of that stuff.’ You’d be like, ‘Yeah, no. But what denomination are you?’ They’d be like, ‘We’re following the Messiah. Like we’re the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham.’ Like him. We’re following it’s him. We’re following him. You know? And so when we say that, you know, there’s like a lesson that B.J. Clark has done Switch Church to Join and he’s talking about Why not just join them all? You know? He’s like, you know, if you’re going to join one, just join them all. And it’s like, “No, that’s not The idea is God has a church. Christ has a church. It’s his body.

2:34:59 You need to be a part of that.” You know? >> Yeah. And of course we have the same view, but of course it’s about >> Yeah, exactly. >> Yeah. Like I’ll say, you know, >> the same thing in the time machine. You They’d just be baptized and little ones, too. Yeah. >> Yeah. And from our from our perspective, right? Orthodox as an adjective is doing the same thing before Christian that it’s doing before Judaism. >> Right? It’s the traditional original right from our perspective. >> Like the full >> Right belief. Right glory. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um So yeah, yeah, from uh >> from our perspective. But I I think one of the good hopefully if something good comes out of the current online hubbub, some of the best of the Orthodox folks who are involved in it are making this point that I think is good.

2:35:45 Our claim to be the one true church, to be Christ’s is an invitation, not an insult. >> Right? We say that cuz we’re inviting >> to come and be a part of it. >> Right? We’re not saying we’re better than you and yours stinks. We’re inviting you to come be a part of what we see as the real thing. >> Yeah, and >> Yeah, and and ultimately and ultimately >> You go ahead. You go first. You go I was just going to say ultimately like the goal >> Ultimately the goal is to is to please Christ and to do what God wants us to do, you know? And at least these discussions will get people to hone in and, you know, iron sharpening iron and say, “Okay, there’s multiple groups that are claiming to be the New Testament church.

2:36:37 These are the claims of each.” You know, what which what each person has to use, you know, their judgment say which person aligns best with it. And uh you know, it’d be nice if we could just, you know, say, “Hey Lord, can I ask you a couple questions? Like which who’s which one of us is right?” You know? But uh But yeah, we’ve you know, we got this we got the scriptures. So that’s to to examine and discuss. And >> Um a couple super chats popped in real quick. I’ll read them real fast. Um so we can wrap up here. I I’ll only know I’m saved if I’m a sheep, not a goat. Judge yourself by Christ. To say that otherwise you have no clue. Lord have mercy. Thank you for the $5. I love you very much. A1C Robertson, I’ve been listening to FSDY for years and I fell for the yes no question. So what Y and this? I was throwing FSDY a softball to show how ELT teaches full church history.

2:37:26 Um it was a softball to ask you to >> There you go. >> No, so >> I’m famous for messing with people who call in on Lord of Spirits. Where they’ll ask some really long involved question and I’ll respond with like yes. >> Or or they’ll say like can you da da da da da and I’ll say yes I can. >> And then I give an actual answer but >> You take That’s what he’s talking about falling for. >> You take Collins? >> Uh you take Collins on Lord of Spirits? >> Oh, no way. >> Yeah, when we’re on live. >> I’ll call in sometime. Oh, cool. Okay. Um >> Yeah, we did we do have an episode on baptism. If if if you want to follow that that’s just a positive presentation from us of the Orthodox understanding of baptism.

2:38:14 Uh so if you’re interested in that, that’s available on YouTube and podcast places. >> Yeah, yeah. Definitely will check that out. Um Aaron, you got anything else before we say goodbye here? >> Not really. No, I mean I I appreciate you coming on and uh Yeah. and discussing some of the differences and Yeah, it’s good to meet you. >> Yeah, again means the world to me I know you’re uh >> I know you got a lot going on so I again it means the world to me that you took the time. Again, I I’ve been um hoping to eventually be able to talk to you in some way. Um so I really means a lot and I hope maybe some way down some uh but some point down the line we can do this again. Be very cool for me. >> Um so yeah.

2:39:02 Well, thank you all so much for being here tonight. Uh I’m going to hurry up and end the stream so we can get out of Um I love you all. God bless. Take care. End stream. End stream. End stream. I think I got it. Let’s see.