Speaker 1: Alright, we have a very special episode here today. We
have Jay Dyer, who is, if you're not familiar with,
is an Orthodox Christian apologist, a student of philosophy, theology,
co host the Alex Jones Show as well as the
Sam Hyde Show, co creating co host of Hollywood Decoded.
He is a general nightmare for every soy boy in
the apologetics arena. Jay, really really happy that you've come
back on here today. I appreciate it absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We had a great conversation a while back, so I'm
always down to come back and chat it up some more.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, it was actually good chat. You actually changed
a few of my understandings and views on things. But first,
first and foremost, we are talking about end times today
and how that we reconcile that with Israel and American
evangelicalism and how they view the political Israel and the
state and how it's going to work in the end
times and biblical prophecy. But before get into all that,
after watching your videos for quite some time, you're a
man of many accents. Can you do an Australian one? Uh?
Speaker 2: You're Australian, I assume.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah mate, Yeah, I'll just talk like this.
Speaker 3: Australian I think pretty well, all.
Speaker 1: Right, it's it's it's not too bad. It's not too bad.
That's a little bit. It sounds like a pommy a
little bit, a little bit British. The key is is
trying to talk out of the nose instead of how
are you going? Hang gown your naws? That's it a gown.
That's not a bad effort. I love it. That's great,
that's good. We can try and do the podcast in
Australian accents if you like to make it really entertaining.
Hey mate, what about end times? Right? You should see
you should any christ? Yeah, pre belletial, this becalist, Mike,
I'll tell.
Speaker 3: You what I had to think for a second to
run the program in my head of Australian speak.
Speaker 1: So, dude, it's actually it's hilarious watching other people trying
to do it. It's a very very hot it probably
a Sithifrican accent is quite odd as well. But if
you've ever played that rugby you you'll get to it's
very melodic. Yeah, and almost the Scottish just then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm from the South, so when I hear people
trying to do Southern accent in the US.
Speaker 2: It's pretty. It's pretty noticing.
Speaker 1: How you doing, baby, Let's talk eschatologia and times? Baby,
not bad. I'm trying. I man, I like doing accents.
Speaker 2: To hey girl, Hey girl, you won't come talk about
and times of me? What you doing to that? Darling?
Speaker 1: Is it? Man? Is it in the South, especially in
the Bible Belt? Is it all like premium dispensationalism, rap schut?
Speaker 2: A lot of it?
Speaker 1: What percentag would you think it is?
Speaker 2: Probably seventy eighty percent?
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that's big, because you know it's funny. When
I got into my Christian faith, I actually watched a
lot of apology at church. Jeff Derbin, James White, and
I know it used to be a Calvinist as well,
and they were really advocating for this postal eschatology. And
I will get you to explain it for the audience
to the different viewpoints. But one thing for me was
just seeing the historical fulfillment in seventy eight D kind
of blew me away and it really impacted my faith
in a positive way, you know, just to see God's
word come true and how so many Christians believed in
this understanding of pre meal, just qush, just let's just
probably start this. Can you explain these with end times
and the fascination with the millennial kingdom and what the
three positions are for the audience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the basics of are premal all mil postmil. Premillennialism
says that Jesus returns before the thousand year kingdom or millennium,
and usually most of them agree that there's some kind
of relationship to the nation state of Israel. Not everybody
is a dispensational prim millennialists. There are some just pre
millennial minded people. Some of the early first, second, first,
second century Church Fathers were just pre millennial but they
were not dispensationalists. So the idea is again Jesus comes back,
sets up an earthly kingdom, he rules from most people
think Jerusalem. There is a time of peace, prosperity, and
for them this fulfills all of these global eschatological prophecies
in the prophets, you know, in the New Testament and
the Book of Revelation.
Speaker 2: So that's pre millennialism and then a millennialism.
Speaker 3: Millennialism is the idea that the kingdom is a spiritual reality,
not the premal most necessarily deny its spiritual but the
focus of the millennium is a literal, historical a thousand
your kingdom on Earth. Amil says that there is not
a literal thousand year kingdom on earth.
Speaker 2: It's a spiritual.
Speaker 3: Reality that began with either the beginning of the world
and all of God's people from the very beginning, or
it begins with the First Advent of Christ setting up
the kingdom which is the Church.
Speaker 2: And they don't necessarily.
Speaker 3: Have a positive view of estatology. Most millennialists think that
the world gets kind of progressively worse and then we
get the return of Christ and then you just have
the end of the world period, right, so that's the
final judgment, the great White Throne, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's the end.
Speaker 3: And then post Mill says that there is a kingdom
that's set up that is the Church. It's synonymous with
the First Advent. It's not a literal thousand years. For
almost every post millennialists there are there have been a
few post Mill people who thought that Jesus set it
up and then the kingdom went in with one thousand years.
Speaker 2: Later, but that's very very few people.
Speaker 3: But so post Mail typically has a positive appraisal of
where history is going, and the idea that a lot
of those prophecies are fulfilled, not at an end times
literal kingdom, but that the Church grows and grows and grows,
kind of like a tree from a seed to a tree,
filling the whole earth. The knowledge of the Lord will
cover you know, the earth as the water covers the sea.
All the tribe sellings and nations will not necessarily all
be converted, but it will be a worldwide.
Speaker 2: Phenomenon at some point.
Speaker 3: So the first two tend to be pretty pessimistic in
their appraisal of where we are and where history is going,
and post millennism tends to be more long sighted in
the fact that maybe we've got another ten thousand years.
Speaker 2: Maybe we got you know, time the world to be.
Speaker 3: Christianized in some significant sense, and then comes the return
of Christ. So that's the basic breakdown of the three positions.
And then amongst, as you mentioned, the first position to premillennialism,
there is this subset that became very popular in the
last one hundred plus years from John Nelson Darby and C. I. Schofield,
the Plymouth Brethren and then the US with a lot
of evangelicals what's called dispensationalism, which is the idea that
history's chopped up into a bunch of different plan bes
that God had for people, and many of them believe
in a dual covenant theology that a lot of the
promises to the nation state of Israel were not fulfilled
and so they still lack fulfillment. But there's this sort
of separate thing going on with the Gentile Church, which
is a separate covenant from the churches from the Nation
State of Israel. So you've got church in Israel, two
dual covenants, and then in the future there will be
this you know, pre tribulation, rapture, and there will be
this series of you know.
Speaker 1: And just to interject here, one of the reasons why
this is an important topic, we actually see it influence
certain international foreign policies and the culture of American evangelicalism.
This idea that is that of these covenants yet to
be fulfilled, and how we interpret that for the nation
state of Israel. It almost gets to the point where
you've heard those sermons of passes in the States, where
let's bring on the Third Temple, let's demolish the mosque
and bring about the end times. There's almost this idea
that they can bring about the end times themselves if
they get this third temple rebuilt on the Temple Mount
So and there's a huge part of the population that
believes this, almost advocating for starting a new Holy war.
So it is actually far more serious even from an
unbelievers perspective. And you need to take this serially because
so influential. So that's that's certainly something to consider. Can
you briefly explain pan millennialism as well for the audience
is a niche option.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what pan millennialism.
Speaker 1: It's means all pan out so flight joke there we
are cliche biblical joke for people that get so worried
in the different positions. We actually have a lot of
Christian brothers and sisters actually fight over it over end times.
I mean we all we always try and reconcile the
best we can.
Speaker 2: But one thing I.
Speaker 3: Would say is that in the attitude of the Orthodox
and the Calvic Church, romancloy Church and Orthodox Church, the
Second Acumenical Council dealt with killism or the idea of
literal millennialism, and it forbade it when it composed the
addition to the Nicene Creed which says whose kingdom shall
have no end? That was actually intended to be added
to exclude any form of pre millennialism.
Speaker 2: So no orthodox or calog person can.
Speaker 1: Interesting. So it is the church historically or postmil or
how do they?
Speaker 3: I would say predominantly amil, But you could make an
argument that some people had a positive quasi post mail approach.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense too because if we go to
the dating system, you know, anam Domini the year of
our Lord, they must have seen him reigning in some capacity.
You can't make a historical case for pre millennialism of
for the church. And now that you've mentioned that, could
you just briefly mentioned that again, which Econmenical council would
to create?
Speaker 3: So the second Acumenical councils kind of Constantinople one in
three eighty one. It was presided over by saying mildials
of Antioch and the chief theologians are the Cappadocians. So
Basil Gregor of Nissa and Gregor nazi Azeus are the
main theological proponents of that council. This is the one
after and I see it it was held actually out
of communion with Rome, which is interesting because we typically
use that as an argument against papal authority in the
early Church, because you have an acumenical council defining the Trinity,
and this is really the essential trinitarian council after and
of course Nicea deals with the deed of Christ, and
then constant umber One deals with the triad and it
affirms the Cappadocian doctrine of the Trinity, but it also
deals with other errors in heresy that were around at
that time. It deals with the pollinarianism. I think it's
the first time that that's addressed, and millennialism.
Speaker 1: What's pollinarianism.
Speaker 3: Pollinaris is a heretic who denied the full humanity of Christ.
He denied Christ having a rational soul, and so the
replacement in Christ for the rational soul he thought was
the person of the logos, and the rejection of that
was on the basis of the fact that if Christ
didn't assume all of our nature, including all of its parts,
including irrational soul, then he didn't redeem us. He can't
redeem a whole man if he doesn't assume that whole
man's nature. And I don't mean to start, you know, squabbles.
But William Lane Craig, for example, is a modern day
self profess a pollinarian. He believes the appollinarian position. So
he's an example of somebody who would disagree with the
Second Acumenical Council.
Speaker 2: But that's just a separate issue from escaltal.
Speaker 1: Just real quick that just on that point, I wouldn't
mine since you brought it up, because I saw that
he recently, you know, did a debate with Muhammad Hijab
and he was actually commenting him on that that the
historical Church has got it wrong. According to William Lane
Craig with regards to the Trinity, why did he take that?
I assumed many the many the positions with top line
apologists aren't necessarily I would they'd say they're adhering to scripture.
But you can see that it seems to come from
an apologetic standpoint about what's the best argument, what's the
best argument of defense? Why did he take just according
to your opinion, why would he take that position on
the Trinity?
Speaker 3: What Trinity is reflecting from his position on personhood in Christ?
So because he thinks that personhood is in some way
a reducible to a trade of nature. That's the Apollinarian mistake.
He does the same thing in terms of personhood in
the Trinity. So he believes in what's called the inseparability
of the separability of.
Speaker 2: Operations in the Trinity.
Speaker 3: So he has a position that nobody in the verse
thousand years of the Church had that the persons of
the Trinity have their own will and energy. All Trinitarian
theology has always held that there's one will, one essence,
in one operation in the Triad. So he departs from
that Trinitarian view. I don't exactly know what he thinks.
I'm sure he's got some reason why he thinks that's
a solution to problems, but it probably due to challenges
from Muslims on what's called the logical problem of the Trinity.
But if you want, if you look up doctor bo Branson,
he's an Orthodox professor. That's a good buddy of ours.
We've done a couple breakdowns of this position from William
Land Craig and doctor Branson just published a book with
doctor Craig on four of you on this issue.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, Well, what I'll do is I might get
you to send me that link and I'll leave it
in the description below. This is just a quick digression
to the into the trinity, but for those that are
interested in this, we'll leave it in the description for
you to follow up on that. That would be highly interesting.
I'll watch that myself. Okay, so good.
Speaker 3: He'd be a good if you want to like an
Orthodox professor on anytime, Doctor Brands would be really good.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely check it out. You my last video,
you messed with my epistemology and no you're with our
last podcasts. Yeah. Man, you had to really reconcile how
broken sole the scripture is anyway, So it's something that
I've been reconciling over time. Nonetheless, I think yeah, I'll
definitely follow up that video as well. Now for clarification,
what is your position? Where are you at? Catallogically speaking?
Speaker 3: That book that compares the US is called One God.
It just came out One God, three Persons, four views. Awesome, okay,
and with Kayline Craig is in there, Doctor bo Branton
is in there, and I forget the other guys in there.
Speaker 1: But we'll leave that. We'll leave that Amazon link as well.
Speaker 2: I have a. I would say that I tend to
favor the post mill position. I think has the most
evidence behind it.
Speaker 3: But there's also the possibility that you could have a
fulfillment of a lot of those positive universalized texts within
a short span of time. So a lot of times
postmo people say, well, maybe we've got ten thousand more years. Well,
if you look at Roma's eleven, Paul says that when
the Jews convert, it'll be like life from the dead, right,
And so you get this idea that it might even
be possibly a phenomenon that only takes a few years
to achieve the fulfillment of a lot of the prophecies
about the the widespread acceptance of the Church and the
success of Christianity.
Speaker 1: Okay, plenty of things that come back to you. I've
even got a friend of mine that believes were in
the little season where Satan is loosed after the millennial rate, people.
Speaker 2: Calling in and asking me and I don't even know
what I mean, I know what.
Speaker 1: The tax My mate JT follows JC. I call him
the Christian Alex Jones. Okay, he's on Instagram. I've about
one hundred thousand followers. Super passionate guy, but loves to
try and draw in all the conspiracy theories through a
Christian lens. It's a bit of entertainment, but he is convicted.
He does you know, he does love the Lord. But
he he's really a strong advocate for it. When we
started talking about post mill and he's gone on this
year journey and he's really the one that's really pushing
this narrative. Actually the little season. It's an interesting thing
because he's tied it in with these dates. And I'll
explain another time. But one of the reasons I like
for anyone, especially in terms of my audience, they like
apologetics like yours. One of the reasons post millennialism is
and a millennialism is a strong position to consider, is
because you'll see that there's an atheistic hand grenade that
gets thrown out towards Christians. And Christopher Hitchins did it
on his tour with a lot of pastors and pologists
who were pre millennial which is the idea that Matthew
twenty four, Luke twenty one, Mark thirteen, the Olive It discourse,
the end of the world that was predicted by Jesus
never happened. And guess what if it never happened, Jesus
is a false prophet, and the only way for the
premal position to get round that is when Jesus says
all these things will take place in this generation, have
to change the word from this to that, they corrupt
the text. So, in your opinion, if you can explain
how I would love to get into this olive discourse,
and then I'd love to live the israel component and
the dual coment theology and all that for the latter
half of this episode, just to get people understanding about
end times and why it's important. This hand grenade by
atheist is still being used today. Alex O'Connor, bart and
Dan McClellan, all these guys, they're saying that Jesus is
a false prophet because of the end of the world
did not happen. So without having to go through everything,
can you take me the two main scriptures in that
in Matthew twenty four is the idea of the Son
of Man coming in the clouds. How do you interpret
that the idea that every man will see it, everyone
on the earth will mourn when they see the Sun
of Man coming in the clouds. That's taken as a
literal prophecy, the perusia. How do you negotiate your way
out of the text, as mister doctor Dan McClellan says
all the time, Well.
Speaker 3: We already have in Ezekiel and in Isaiah very similar
prophetic language that when God comes in judgment on Egypt
or on battleon that he will come in the clouds,
he will, you know, destroy the city the idols. Right,
you get this very similar type of prophetic language. That
was not talking about a bodily advent. It was simply
talking about the destruction of that empire by another force,
another empire. On top of that, I think it's also
important to understand that the Orthodox view, as I would argue,
and I have, you know, plenty of Orthodox saints and
theologians and elders and bishops that can can back this up.
But we believe in a mirrored fulfillment. So if you
look at what the temple symbolized, the temple is a
little miniature of the universe. And you know, Paul makes
us very clear and Hebrews seven when he talks about
the you know, high priests going into the Holy of Holies,
that's signifies Jesus going up into in the ascension.
Speaker 2: Of the Holy of Holies, which is when he began
his reign right.
Speaker 3: So we have to understand that Psalmon ten, every time
it's quoted in New Testamus, sit in my right hand,
I'll make your enemies of footstool is a statement not
about the second Coming, but about the ascension. So the
reign of Christ begins when he ascend it. And in
that model of the way, Hebrews, in my view, talks
about the Temple in its ministry and it's being wiped away.
The Orthodox exegesis has typically said, whether it's Chrysostom or
any other say in the Church that talks about this
specific issue, that's a symbol of a sign of the
future rolling up of the heavens and the earth right,
which is like a scroll in the conflagration or in
the restoration.
Speaker 2: Right the Escaton.
Speaker 3: So the very destruction of the Temple in seventy eighty
itself points forward to the conflagration and the destruction of
the universe in order to restore it to its original
Edenic state.
Speaker 2: That's the Orthodox view.
Speaker 3: The other thing I would say is that this mirrored
view is also proven by the Maccabees and it's very
helpful for Orthodox because we have first, second, and third
Maccabees in our book.
Speaker 1: Jo quickly, do you consider it? Does the Orthodox consider
I know it's a part of the canon, but do
they consider it inspired Macabees? Yeah, they do consider it inspired. Okay? Cool?
And in many ways for me, I've always especially with Maccabees,
even in First Enock, how they refer to the Gost
New Testament writers refer to Enoch for the Enoch Maccabee's
shows so much interesting fulfillment, even from Daniel, and they
provide so much context. I mean, it really does make
sense why it's a part of the canon in many ways.
Speaker 3: And anyway, continue and it well, it helps with preterism,
is what I'm getting at here, right. And so if
you if you're an Orthodox, if you're an Eastern you know,
reader of the texts, and you have the Duro Canon,
which is pretty early on in the Eastern Church. You
can find i think it's Theditiki as a prederist text.
You can find a Hippolytus of Rome.
Speaker 1: Why do you say the Dedicay is a prederist text.
Speaker 3: There's a specific statement about seventy a d And it's
either a pistol, Barnabus or dedicate. One of them has
a reference to the destruction of the temple as.
Speaker 1: Interesting that might become a future real Thanks mate, I'll
give you credit.
Speaker 3: Apoliticis of Rome is one of the first to talk
about seventy eight being a fulfillment, and we can get
into the church Father's later. Of course, Christism has entire
sermons on Luke twenty one Matthew twenty four that the
cover preterism origin was a preterist I'm going from memory here.
Athanasius interprets Daniel nine about the First Advent, not about
you know, the end of the world, that you could
say is also adjacent to preterism anyway. But back to
this mirroring point about the mccabees. We know that when
Antiochus Sapafani's when he sacrifices the pig on the altar
in the Book of Maccabees, that's the defiling of the temple.
That's called the abomination of desolation. When Jesus talks about
what's coming, he calls it an abomination of the desolation
or of desolation.
Speaker 1: Just look to the Profet Daniel. Yeah, so that.
Speaker 3: We know that Daniel was prophesying the mccabees, but it
also applies to seventy eight, you see, So it's.
Speaker 2: A mirrored thing.
Speaker 3: And my argumentation there is that by extension, the same
principle applies that the removal of the Temple in seventy
a d also points forward to the removal of this
administration of the heavens and the earth. Right, Paul likens
the temple to add him to the Old Covenant, to
the mortality of the flesh, and we still have that
reality around today. Right Paul says that even though Christ reigns,
we do not yet see all things subjected to him,
even though they are so there's still aspects of even
the Old Covenant, you could say, where we still have mortality,
we still have death, we still have the adamic existence
which is embodied you could say, in the Temple in
its administration. So the Temple's been destroyed, that's all gone,
but the temple look forward to the rolling up of
the heavens and the earth, and that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 2: And I say that because I.
Speaker 3: Just had a debate with a full preterist the other
day on mind Channel, and we went into some of this,
and he admitted a future fulfillment, but the very thing
that the future fulfillment of the temple signifies, he says,
has already happened, so it wouldn't be a future for filming.
Speaker 1: Sorry. And there's demons still active today, so I don't
understand how they reconcile exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's at the same point it's does evil still operate? Yeah,
but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I made mind just going to watch
this as a full predice. Then I'm going to send
them that I'm going to I'm going to clip that
and send it to him. Here's here's something, So the
Abomination of Desolation, So Jesus is going through these signs
what's going to happen? In Matthew twenty four And just
so everyone understands, there's parts of Daniel ezekiel Revelation and
what we call the All of It Discourse Matthew twenty four,
Luke twenty one, Mark thirteen, which is about this same event.
I think Revelation goes deeper more than any other book
into the future. And and so Matthew and Mark specifically mentioned
Abomination Desolations spoke a by the prophet Daniels. So if
going back to this Greek king, he also from memory
he besieged Jerusalem, right, and he basically went to war
with with Jerusalem. Did he not banish?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, he's so besieged Jerusalem, and he sacrificed a
pig on the altar, which.
Speaker 2: Is not violent.
Speaker 1: And so this this abomination desolation, and I understand, but
the statue of Zeus, it also encompasses, you know, in
many ways that war is coming. What happened, what what
the Greek king did all those years ago, spoken by
the prophet Daniel, what was prophesied essentially is going to
happen again. And so people see this language and you
mentioned it before the sun and moon dark and you know,
the stars falling from the heavens. This is all Isaiah
Ezekiel imagery of destruction. Yeah. So so there's these there's
this lead up where it seems to be considered the
premial dispensation is considered a worldly event. But even Jesus says,
how do you avoid it? Flee to the mountains of
Judea pray that's not Sabbath.
Speaker 3: Sabbath which is a reference obviously to is immediate audience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and pray that it's not in winter. Flee to
the mountain. Jujita. Now listen, I'm in Townsville, North Queensland,
the Texas. Stude, dude, It's going to be very hard
for me to get to you know what I mean.
I feel like Jesus is making it hard for me.
So it seems to be localized, and there seems to
be a localized, consistent theme. So where does this idea
of a that Matthew twenty four this olive discourse is
a worldly event, you know, a global event. Where does
that come from that understanding interpretation? Well?
Speaker 3: I do think in the early Church, from the earliest days,
people did kind of immediately just assume and read it
as only referring to the Second Advent. And I don't
think that it's wrong necessarily to think that there is
no reference to the Second Advent.
Speaker 2: Again, if you.
Speaker 3: Believe in this sort of mirrored fulfillment, which is the
very point I think.
Speaker 1: Of time, dual fulfillment, well it would it be.
Speaker 2: Dual because it would be mirrored.
Speaker 3: Duel is just too and there's more than like like.
Speaker 1: For example, like a shadow fulfillment.
Speaker 3: And then like me get so the babyloning captivity is
the destruction of the First Temple, and a lot of
the prophecies and statements about the destruction of that temple
also applied to the future destruction of the Temple under
the Maccabees when it's defiled, and the seventy eight D
destruction of Harris Temple. So that's why I keep saying
the word mirrored, because I don't even know that I
would say it's dual, because again, the destruction of the
Temple and seventy eight D is a sign of the
configuration and the destruction of the entire.
Speaker 2: Universe to be restored. So when we say destruction of the.
Speaker 3: Universe is the Orthodox, we think that the universe gets
restored to an e den x state.
Speaker 2: It's not like wiped.
Speaker 1: Away, Heaven and Earth back together again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, And I guess that's why we see
in Ezekiel fourteen, you know, these same four judgments of Jerusalem,
John reiterates that, and with the Imagery of the Horseman,
exactly the same judgments and this mirror fulfillment, and even
with Paul, So, can can we just speak into something
now that the idea that it might have something to
do with the second Coming in terms of this mirror fulfillment,
which I think a lot of the critical scholarship at
the moment says, it's quite both when the apostles say
to Jesus that when will be when the temple falls down?
When's this going to happen? And when we will be
the coming the sign of the coming of the end
of the age. Right, So I think it does refer
to both, and I think it's fair to have that
and that mirror for filming that you as you describe it,
creates that link there that we can link it in
with seventy a d n with the future. In terms
of critical scholarships, say like your Dan McClellans and your
skeptics will say that their first century expectation with Paul
is that they believed, you know, sell everything, the end
is coming soon, and then you can see their views
somewhat evolve over time, even in the New Testament scriptures
like even that's why in Second Peter it's kind of like,
you know, one day's a thousand years and people are
crying out, when's this is going to happen? So what
is your thought in answering that that if the first
central expectation was that the Olivet discourse and that prophecy
had to do with the end of the world coming
soon and it didn't come about, you know, how do
we answer that that that critical take.
Speaker 3: Well, again, the fact that some people got it wrong
doesn't mean that it wasn't fulfilled. In the same way
that Jews, for example, got it wrong in terms of
interpreting the prophecies for Christ's First Advent, the fact that
the Jews got that wrong wouldn't mean that there wasn't
a first Advent. It would just simply mean that the
Jews got it wrong. So likewise, in the early Church,
the fact that people misunderstood Paul, I mean, Peter even
says that, you know, people misunderstand and misinterpret Paul's writings
because he writes about difficult things, right, So you know,
that's really I would say, people that think that as
a good argument is kind of a fallacious non sequitor.
And I would just say that even in the early Church,
the centuries that we mentioned, you know, you've got kind
of competing interpretations amongst the church fathers. But what's interesting
about and it's not totally the Western or the Eastern Fathers,
but preterism dominate partial predism dominates in the Eastern Church Fathers,
which is just interesting.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Exactly what the reason for that is, but maybe because
they had access to typically directly reading the Greek text,
and then the West you get tendency to you know,
read the Vulgate and the Jerome's translation. So maybe a
lot of the Greek didn't translate that well to them.
Speaker 2: I'm speculating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you do have a pretty consistent attestation to
preterism from you know, people that listed origin athanacious very clear.
In Saint John Christis without any doubt, I believe, even
Usebius refers to the seventy eight as a destructure.
Speaker 1: All the CBS writings that, like, you know the fact
that they went to the mountain city of Pella, the
Christians escaped, Yeah, you know, like he's seen it, he
must be.
Speaker 2: Seeing And on top of that, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: I when I wrote, I wrote a grad paper on
partial preudhism for one of my history classes, because I
did a double in history and I almost have a
double measure. But in my history class, I wrote on
orcue me as an undergrad paper I wrote on Josepha's
So I read Josepha's account of these events and sort
of lined it up with Luke twenty one in Matthew
twenty four, and it's pretty pretty clearly. I mean, Josepha
doesn't have any interest in vindicating the Bible, he doesn't
care about the New Testament text. But his eyewitness account
does line up with what Matthew twenty four and Luke
twenty one described. So that's another you know, sort of
extra conn I'm called attestation to these events.
Speaker 1: And it's frightening in terms of and this is what
got me in a lot of ways. When you see
things like Josephus mentioned the five months siege and in
Revelation you see that that took five months, they'll wish
they were dead and it won't have it. Then they'll
receive it, or even eating the babies and things like that,
pray that it's not pregnant when this happens. And even
this idea, but even the trees being cut around that
he describes around Jerusalem, and something really strange right now.
A lot of Josephus is used to try and disprove
the New Testament. A lot of the critics do that,
you know, with the dating of Luke or Querinius and
all those things. But then you see this odd thing
that Josephus mentions about chariots in the heavens coming out
of the sky. And he's like, and he says, this
sounds like a fable. He goes, yes, I'm just reporting.
I'm just reporting what they're saying. So they like to
ignore that part. This heavenly looks like a heavenly judgment
coming out of the skies from Josephus of all people.
What do you see about that?
Speaker 2: Now? I cited that in that paper.
Speaker 3: I cited that, I cited the other manifestations of things
that he talks about. I want to say, I mean,
I'm going for I haven't looked at this in fifteen years,
but I want to say that Josephas talks about even
like an earthquake. Yes, I want to say, he talks
about darkness or like a you know, eclipse or something
of that nature.
Speaker 2: I mean, again, this is fifteen.
Speaker 1: He even says that one hundred thousand Jewish people were
enslaved and sent back to Egypt. And that takes us
back to douterotomy that if you turn away from me.
I'll send you back to Egypt.
Speaker 2: The curses, Yeah, the Covenant curses exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's just sort of like, yeah, it's hard to
ignore the partial preterism or post millennial worldview when it
comes to end times. And now you've mentioned it's quite
a lot of church fathers and the other church held
a very similar view, which obviously strengthens the case for this.
So here's something I have for you. You mentioned something
one other thing too, Yeah, go for it. You go on.
Speaker 3: One other thing is also think that it's important that
a lot of times when we bring this up, I
think a lot of people just default.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why, but they default to Matthew twenty four.
Speaker 3: And Matthew's written for a Jewish audience, and so there's
expectations and assumptions, right, But if you read Luke twenty one,
I think it's even clearer because it's written for a
gentile audience, that this is definitely talking about something that
will happen contemporary with the people hearing Jesus speak at
that time. Because he says, you know you will you
in front of me, will see Jerusalem surrounded by enemies.
Speaker 1: He doesn't use here I mean, there's.
Speaker 3: So many things in Luke that kind of just make
it obvious that he's talking about within that you know,
near future span of time.
Speaker 1: It's it's funny how he doesn't mention all that Jewish imagery, right,
because Mak's very Jewish, Matthew's very Jewish. He doesn't mention abomination, desolation.
He says, when the armies are at the gates, it's good,
there isn't it. Do you think Luke was written? Mind?
You do? You? Do?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 1: You put it pre seventy a d.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I mean I tend to think
that we don't want to lose one of our best
evidences for inspiration. And that's the thing about the disservice
that dispensationalism and pre millennialism typically does, is that if
our position is correct, then Matthew twenty four, you know,
Mark thirteen, Luke twenty one become very powerful predictions of
what happens in seventy eight. So yeah, I believe that
Revelation was also written pre seventy eighty.
Speaker 1: I am one of the questions that I like to ask,
and because I know the scholars date Luke posts seventy
a d and Matthew is, especially when it comes to
Luke the idea that he documents the acts of the
Apostles and Stevens martyrdom but fails to mention Paul and
Peter they're martyrdom. Fails to mention the nine to eleven
of the first century, it's the fall of Jerusalem. So
these ideas that he failed to mention, if he wrote
it in the eighties, makes there doesn't seem to be
a literary consistency as to why he would do that
if he wants to give it actory historically, I think
it was after right, Yeah, So it's like the only
logical conclusion as to why that information is absent is
that it didn't happen yet. So that'd some other theories
which are interesting, But can I can.
Speaker 2: I add one one plug here?
Speaker 3: My godfather actually just spent the last three or four
years translating and not translating collating. There's a I guess
you'd call him Anglican an Anglican, a scholar that's still
I think it's still live, but he's kind of getting
nearer to passing away. Have you heard of James Jordan?
So Jordan is a kind of a well known American
kind of biblical symbologist. He's out of the Anglican reformed
and reformed into Englandish tradition. And he wrote a three
volume what amount to now a three volume series, and
my godfather just edited, collated and put this together, and
that it's written from a partial predters perspective. It's, for example,
if you heard of Peter Lightheart, so Lightheart's in the
same circles as Jordan. So Lightheart put out a two
volume commentary and revelation from a partial preader's view a
couple of years ago, and now Jordan's commentary is out,
and I would just recommend that people are interested, you
can go and get Dean Arnold's commentary.
Speaker 2: U excuse me, Dean Arnold's edited.
Speaker 3: Version of James Jordan's three volume commentary, which is saying
that's because it just came out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, awesome. We'll leave it in the description along
with the other Trinity book as well. I think the
advantage of doing these type of episodes here is I
know that the people watching it. It's obviously the views
on my channel was smaller than all the Instagram stuff,
but I know people he actually want to learn and
they will follow up these books.
Speaker 2: You'll like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really really good. Okay. So this is the
question I have for you before maybe we move on
to the Israel stuff. Is you mentioned something about before
about the idea of maybe so I wasn't sure if
you said certain New Testament writers got their interpretations wrong.
You mentioned Peter. That's difficult to understand him when I've
referenced to Paul. Are you okay with the idea of Paul.
Speaker 3: I don't mean the writers got it wrong, Okay, Okay,
I'm saying like a Christians who interpret Paul thinking that
it's the end of the world, okay, not the writers.
I don't think the Bible is errors.
Speaker 1: No worries understood. I just wanted to clarify that because
I assumed that was your position. But are you okay
with the idea that maybe Poor himself misinterpreted when the
end would happen. So, for instance, this idea that poor himself,
this is from a critical standpoint, the idea that Paul
himself believes at the end of the world will happen
within his life lifetime, and then maybe his position changes.
Have you heard about this critical take? I have not,
no yeah, okay, Well that's okay. Then I thought you
may have been aware of this idea that the first
central expectation with the New Testament writers such as Paul
and Peter, that it was going to happen in their lifetime,
and then the fact that they didn't. You can see
the positions, you know, almost change. So the idea of
even just if you talk about a hypothetical here, whether
true or not, an inspired writer potentially themselves misinterpreting the
idea of the perusia. When that would occur, do you
reckon that's a possibility that can occur from him? No?
Speaker 3: I mean I I would say that the Apostolic teaching
and their enlightenment from Christ. I would say that they're infalliable.
I don't think they made teaching or theological errors. Now
individually you could say, okay, Peter fell into this error,
but he got corrected by Paul. But I'm saying that
when it comes to their normative teaching, what's included in scripture,
I don't think they made errors.
Speaker 1: Okay, Because I think the thing is this, this is
going to be a good segue into Israel, the Kingdom
of God, and the first century misconception the Kingdom of
God with Jesus kept redefining, and you know, it's not
coming in ways that could be observed. It's in the
midst of you. It's a mustard seed and the leaven
and the bread. You know, everyone, even John, He's like,
I want to sit at your right hand when you
come into your glory, you know what I mean. He's
like Jesus, like, you have no idea what you're asking.
You don't know what that And you know what I
love about that part is that I feel like Jesus
granted him that request at the cross and he sees
and it's like John's like, I never knew this was
going to be the seed of glory, you know, like
that that was the seed of glory that was going
to change the world, the throne or in many figurative ways.
And so with this idea of the redefinition of the foot,
could you explain what was Why did Jesus have to
do that? Why did you have to redefine even the
apostles in acts? You know, it's like when is the
restoration of Israel going to happen? So what were they
expecting the Messiah to do when he arrived in the
first century.
Speaker 3: I think that throughout the Gospels and even into the
Book of Acts there it's pretty clear that the standard
Jewish expectation was that you would get another king David,
who would rule from Israel, subdue all the enemies. Israel
would be on the top of the nations. Everyone would
flow into Israel. The Gentiles went, in some way just
sort of default to, you know, submitting to the nation
state of Israel. And when the First Advent was not
that that was a letdown, I think to a lot
of what the Jews at that time expected, right, I
think it's pretty you know, the Zelots and others like
Simon the Zelot and others like this is kind of
well known that this is what people expected. And so
what Jesus taught instead was, you know, at that point
at that time, repentance and preparation for the coming of
the Kingdom of God. What she says is the basically
the presence of the Holy.
Speaker 2: Spirit in your heart. And so you know that's the kingdom.
Speaker 3: The Kingdom is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, journalists, you
know all the virtues that Paul lists.
Speaker 1: Just real quick, just real quick. When you said that
in the king is the Holy Spirit. I love that
because one of the translations is that the Kingdom of
God's comedy ways could be observed. It's in the midst
of you. One of the other translations in the Greek
it's in your midst you. Well, it's not just in you,
it's in front of you. And I feel like Jesus,
that's one of the translations. It depends how you take
it exactly, and what does he give his spirit, you know,
And the Kingdom of God is where the presence of
God is. That's why I'm like, it's it's huge, you know,
it goes beyond in many ways. If you look at
the Daniel prophecies and even Isaiah, it's an everlasting kingdom,
one that will never be destroyed. You can destroy a temple,
and when they destroyed the Temple, it wiped out Judaism,
for it was just for three four hundred years, just
their cultural, economic, socio economic, like everything. It's their hub.
Eat it is the hub for all of Judaism. The temple.
You wipe out the temple, you wipe out Judaism in
many ways. And then how do you destroy a billion, moving, breathing,
living temples. Do you know what I mean exactly, Like,
how do you destroy that kingdom? You can't. It's ingenious
now when you can bind.
Speaker 3: Right, And the more you try to stamp it out
like the Roman Empire did, the more you know, the
sea the blood of the martyrs is the seat of
the church.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I totally a great dude.
Speaker 1: There's this thing that I saw the other day about Barabbas, right,
And I never realized that Barabbas means son of the
Father bah Abah, right. And and so you know, you
hear these sermons that we are Barrabbas, we were set free,
that cross was meant for us. You know, Jesus took
penal subs I know that's not it's christ as Victus, right,
the Orthodox position on the tone. Yeah. So but this idea,
I think that's okay for me, the idea that Jesus
died for me and for my sins and that we
are Barabas. But then I thought to myself, hanging on
a tick. If Barabbas is that son of the Father,
it's almost like you've got a contrast between Heaven and
Earth in front of you at the trial. You've got
the son of Heaven and the son of Earth, the
political insurrectionist right, who's also trying to usurp Rome. And
you've got the earthly system and the fleshly system versus
the heavenly spirit system. Now which one did they choose?
The crowd? See where the crowd? We chose Barabas right
seemed given over to us. They did go ahead with
the military usurpation of Rome, and they got wiped out.
What happens three hundred years later the heavenly system. You
know that Rome bends the knee. So it's sort of like,
you look, get this idea of this promised kingdom. It's real,
It's very real now. It Actually what I try to
explain to people is that the Gospel is and the
kingom of God is so real. You just need to
go to a third world country and see where the
Gospel hasn't touched. I almost feel like we're rich kids,
like growing up with a lot of money, and you
just don't appreciate the light or the presence of God
in a Western country and you just need to go
to man Papua New Guinea. They're still eating people right
above Australia.
Speaker 3: Well, and speaking of that, that reminds me of Daniel two.
People overlook the fact that Daniel two towards the end
when he interprets the dream, it's around forty four to
forty seven.
Speaker 2: He explains that.
Speaker 3: The base of the statue, right, the dream that Nebuchinezer has,
the base is the Roman Empire, the legs of iron
and clay.
Speaker 2: That's Rome.
Speaker 3: That's under that's the empire under which the Messiah is
born and the kingdom is set up. It's another reason
why they're dispensation less than primalennialists, who will typically prolong
and delay that Daniel prophecy to the end of time.
It specifically says that in the days of these kings,
meaning under the last one, under the Roman Empire, that
God of the heavens will set up a kingdom which
will not be destroyed, and it will grow like a tree.
Speaker 2: And consume that kingdom. That's the Roman Empire.
Speaker 3: And as you put it out, Daniel's predicting that within
a few centuries, the Roman Empire bends the New to Christianity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to heed something really wild? You know,
there's ten kings of the Kingdom of Iron. Have you
counted from Julius Caesar Julius, Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius,
Neo Nero off that Galba Vitellus for Spatian and then
Titus the son of spas.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: It's super wild. I know from a critical standpoint they
attributed that to Greece and the ten Kings from Alexander
through to Antiochus Epiphanies, but knowing that the Messiah would
come in the time of the Fourth Kingdom, Jesus came
the time of Rome, the Christian lens. We see it
that way, which I think that's fine because we have
the resurrection. So that's super interesting. Okay.
Speaker 3: One thing I would add to that might be kind
of something to peak your audience's interest that you may
not be familiar with, is that we also believe that
as Orthodox that in Revelation five through nine, when John
sees into Heaven, we think, because John's an apostle, he's
also in the spirit on the Lord's Day, he's doing
the liturgy. In our view, so in the midst of
the liturgical prayer and service, John sees the liturgy of Heaven,
and part of that revelation to him is that the
church's worship on Earth is identical to the liturgical worship
in heaven. So whereas the Old Testament temple was a
type and a pattern a tupos, as Paul says about
what Moses received, he received a type of.
Speaker 2: The worship in heaven.
Speaker 3: We would say that when the veil was rent, the
temple was destroyed, that means that the reality is now here.
So there's a tendency and a lot of Protestant mindsets
and grooves and churches. I'm not trying to be fussy
or argumentative or anything, but just pointing out that if
from our perspective, the spiritual worship that came is not
antithetical to liturgy or physicality or materiality. In fact, when
John sees like what he's seeing, yeah, I think so.
But there's a good book on this called Living Orthodox Worship,
Living Continuity with the Synagogue of the Temple.
Speaker 2: In the Early Church, and we'll put that in Protestant
scholar who's an.
Speaker 3: Anglican liturgist, and Hugh Weiber, he wrote a really good
book called Orthodox Liturgy. It's a history of the Byzantine tradition.
And both of those I think kind of give a
new perspective or a fresh perspective. If you're a Protestant
on the idea that if preterism is true, and if
seventy eight is the you know, instantiation, so to speak,
or the finality of the arrival of the Kingdom, then
that also applies to the worship of the Church, which
is itself in our review. You know, when John starts
seeing like the angels being sent forth in Judgment, it's
in the midst of a liturgy, and so we kind
of believe that when the divine liturgy is happening like
this is like sending out spiritual warfare into the world
and into society. You know.
Speaker 1: It's actually just on a side topic, I've been listening
to more Orthodox worship. I'm not sure if you call
it worship music, but it's very militaristic warlike chance marching,
you know, and you can see that it's a cosmic battle.
To the Orthodox, it's something very enticely. I'm a very
passionate student of Mark, and you know, it's just cosmic
apocalyptic battle, you know, casting out demons, fighting with the spirit,
not with a man. You know, it's just it's great.
So yeah, no, very cool stuff. So this will be
I guess a great opportunity segue into this idea of Israel.
And one of the reasons I want to do this
today is that within American evangelicalism, this idea of the
supporting of political Israel influencing policy foreign policy because they
want to bring about end times prophecy. So let's just
get to the bottom of it. What is the orthodox
position of the political state of Israel and it's and
its position in terms of eschatological fulfillment eschatology in general,
what position does it actually play within the end times?
If any.
Speaker 3: I believe that many Church fathers, whether it's Saint Cyril
of Alexandria, Saint John Damasca, you know, some of our
most important theologians, they do interpret Romans eleven in a
future eschatological conversion sense, and so they say that one
of the signs of the last last days is the
mass conversion of the Jews.
Speaker 2: How exactly that will happen and to what degree.
Speaker 3: Is it eighty percent, one hundred percent, we don't know,
but we do interpret typical or you do see the
Church father typically interpreting Romans eleven in that way, and
even other passages like they will look upon him whom
they whom they appears from Zachariah. I think even Saint
Cyril Alexandria says this is even a rture either future
prophecy of the Jews converting to.
Speaker 2: So you know, that's kind of in our our mindset
going back, you know, way back, way back.
Speaker 3: But whether that necessarily pertains to the secular, atheistic Zionist
nation state, I don't think those two are necessarily connect.
They could be, and we just don't really know where
it's going. It could be, you know, Antichrist sets up
a new temple or something like that. We do have
many saints and church fathers that warn that when you
do see a new temple in the sense of the
animal sacrifices and all that, that would be a sign
of the final end times in anti country.
Speaker 1: That is there. Yeah, that idea is there, but that's
a historic that's a historical church position.
Speaker 2: That's pretty universal in the church fathers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting, that's why the premiumage discussed.
Speaker 2: Not every church mother does discuss it.
Speaker 1: But no, no, yeah, I understand that. But that's just
interesting that it is there, and that would be I mean,
if you look at what Jesus says, you will not
see me again until you say, bless us he comes
in the name of the Lord when you're speaking to Jerusalem,
Matthew twenty three, would you tie that in with that
as well?
Speaker 2: It's possible. I mean, I think you there's a possibility
of some of these passages.
Speaker 1: You know, like.
Speaker 3: If another comes in his own name him, you will
receive right, suggesting that the Jews would only believe in
a Antichrist who was Jewish, right, So there's there's possibility
of some of these texts suggesting aschatological fulfillment as well.
But just simply put, that's the theological perspective. However, the
reality of the situation right now, the Orthodox Church owns
it's like the third largest landowner I think in Israel.
So the present situation is very difficult, complex and nuanced
because you have the Jerusalem Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church, you
have you know, the Greeks have a section of the
Holy Sepulcure, and the you know, Coptics have a section,
the Romancaloics have a section, and so it's kind of
like there's difficulty there. And then you have Palestinian Orthodox
Christians as well that make up a minority of Palestine.
So the present state of Israel is nuance because the
church that exists in Jerusalem and in Israel has to
be very careful about how it goes.
Speaker 2: About, you know, not offending the Israeli government.
Speaker 1: Have you heard about the Radi government making it like
I'm not sure if they're doing they're taking back land
or releasing it back to the church.
Speaker 2: I heard I think one one church, one of the
big famous church properties. I forget which one it was, though,
but I did hear that recently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you been to the Old Time?
Speaker 2: I think they bomb like they bombed a couple of
the big the old you know, Orthodox churches too.
Speaker 1: Have you been to the Old City? No, would you
like to come to give me a quote?
Speaker 2: Douglas Murray actually been that. I have not actually been
the Can you talk about it been?
Speaker 1: The That's how arguments is just absolutely futile throughout. It's ridiculous, dude, man,
Like that is that mogument made no sense. You can't
talk about it. I mean, he's talked about heats a
place that he hasn't been to.
Speaker 3: It's ridiculous, all right, So we can't never talk about
anything in the past like we can't go to the past.
Speaker 1: I mean I would like to. I would like to
invite you to to Israel. I'd like to offer to
take you there been to Old City next year if
you ever want to come, would you like to?
Speaker 3: I think you know my priest has talked, my priest
has done pilgrimage.
Speaker 2: Is there.
Speaker 3: We did a pilgrimage last year in Italy. We did
an Orthodox Italy pilgrimage. We went to all the old
priest schism you know sites in Italy, and he's talked
about a Jerusalem as well.
Speaker 2: But of course we thought that, you know, now is
probably not the best time. But you know, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't coach on the spot. You're coming, yes or no?
Twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Again, if I went, I would probably go with my
priest doing progrimage. I appreciate the offer. But yeah, if
you ever do come to the US, we can definitely
hang out.
Speaker 1: Oh brother, Yeah, I'd let you know. I've got a
few friends there now, just with all the Instagram stuff
that everyone's asking to come over, me to come over,
But I'm trying to plan for next year. But Israel.
I went there in six weeks before the war. Dude,
there's something about the place. I have to tell you
something happened to me there that you mean you told
me last time that you know you believe in the
gifts of the spirit and the church's position. I don't
you know, I actually didn't know about that in terms
terms of miracles and things like that.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: I went to Capernaum and I went to the city
with my wife and the kids there and it was
a really really hot day. And as we're walking, I
said to my wife, I was like, it's way too
off for the kids. You know, kids life a by
that stage. They were like, what four and seven? And
so let's get back to the car. As we're walking
to the car, on the water about one hundred and
fifty meters out there, you know, when a fish swim
close to the water, it moves the water right like
it bubbles up the water. I saw this moving on
the water about one hundred and fifty meters out and
I saw a gold cloud, a gold mist moving the
water like this, back and forth, back and forth. And
I'm looking at it, going I'm severely dehydrated, right, I
need to get some water. I look up at the sky,
I think it's a trick of the light. My wife
ends up seeing it as well, and it just rushed
towards us and moved the water. And no, I mean,
I'm a skeptic, but like really, I came into this
faith as a skeptic. You know, I try to reason
my way there, and I realized the failings of doing
that as well. But I don't take things at face value.
We saw this crazy thing that happened to us, and
it was one of the most mystical, amazing experiences. This
myst and gold cloud just came right through us and
it was like a it was just like an unbelievable
moment in prayer. It was just beautiful. It was amazing.
Still trying to reconcile what exactly happened, but there is
something special about the place, and you know, it's funny
my sense going there. My support of Israel, I mean
the political Israel, and much of it would come to
the idea what I wouldn't want Israel to fall under
ISLAMI cans like, I just wouldn't want it to fall
under where I can see that. You know, I'm not
sure if we'll be able to visit all these places.
I'm not sure if that's a I haven't really reconciled
that idea in my head completely. But I don't look
at the support of the political state of Israel from
a I guess a biblical perspective per se, but the
idea of an archaeological perspective, just the area, the freedom
to go visit and all these places. I want to
protect that because there's something something amazing about that place.
And apparently now they've just got full access to Mount Hermon.
It's now full Israel's so you can actually go to
the top now and above cesarea PHILIPI and all that.
I reckon that's where the transfiguration happened. Well, it's interesting
to hear about that whole thing. Sorry, man, I digress
a little bit. It must be something with my with that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I agree with you that, you know, it's
a complex situation. I'm not necessarily.
Speaker 3: You know, there's not any easy answer to any of
the situations in the Middle East. I just diod a
big long lecture on the whole history of CIA operations
in the Middle East, with Lebanon and Syria and Jordan
and Egypt, and uh, you know, I've read a lot
on the modern geopolitical stuff. And uh, you know, a
lot of the Jews that are there today, you know,
they're there a few generations in it's not their fault
that the British Mandate moved Jews to Palestine.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's a very complex, nuanced situation. And uh no,
of course I would not prefer want an Islamic state
there or something like that.
Speaker 1: That'd be terrible at least. I mean, it's what, you know,
this whole what blew me away about the place. There's
like two million Muslims that live there, most of its secular,
huge LGBTQ population, especially in Tel Aviv. Then they're just
it's like the Las Vegas Man of the Middle East.
You know, in many they're not religious at all. I
mean in the North there are you got some of
the Orthodox, you know, Jews who aren't fan of Christians
in many ways. But anyway, it's a fascinating place. I mean,
I think it's definitely something that every Christian should go
and check out.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I'd love to go sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well We've gone through a bit here and
I think it's quite interesting to hear the Orthodox view
on eschatology so much information to digest here, and I'm
going to leave these all in the descriptions and links below.
But also the idea of what the Orthodox position is
on the I guess you could say the ethnic Jewish
position the future and a future revival, and the early
Church father's reference of that. That's super intriguing and super
interesting because the reason I brought it up was there
was this debate with doctor Michael Brown, Messianic jew scholar,
and he did this debate with this guy Gabriel Pinocchio
and Ruslan and in he really accused him of this
Jewel Covenant theology idea, and Michael Brown saying, I'm not
only through Jesus only salvation through Jews. I don't believe
that there's but he's just talking about this revolal election
right for the Jewish people, And that's what you're really
speaking into. Given clarity, I thought it was really slack
what he did, you know, smash him with this Jewell
Covenant idea. But it's good interesting here that's the historic
position as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that it's pretty clear universally in the
Church Fathers. Every time I've seen this reference, whether it's
Western or Eastern Church fathers say for the first thousand years,
they always continue to view Jews as Jews. Right, Jews
don't cease to exist or cease to be Jews. Even
when you get in the fourth and fifth century, the
rise of Rabbinic Judaism.
Speaker 2: It's still Jews. There's still there's still.
Speaker 3: Judaic proponents and believers, And for there to be a
future conversion of the.
Speaker 2: Jews, there would still have to be Jews. So yeah,
I think it's a kind of a silly posi.
Speaker 3: But I also believe too that God's providential preservation of
the Jewish people regardless of the secular nation state of Israel. Like,
the preservation of that people group is it's self a
testament to the reality of the Bible, you know what
I mean, Just aside from the issue of future conversion, Like,
the continued existence of that people group is a testament
to the reality of the Torah and the prophets.
Speaker 1: Right, that's a great point.
Speaker 3: And then at the end of you know, whenever that
conversion is or however that happens, I don't know. But yeah,
there's a little book that's that covers us from the
Orthodox you It's called Apostacy in Antichrist, and the book begins.
Speaker 2: It's a little like fifty page book.
Speaker 3: The book begins with preterism and it just basically goes
through citing all the church fathers and saints.
Speaker 1: I want to put that in the description as well.
And Antichrist, Apostasy and Antichrist and all this stuff is
on Amazon for people to purchase.
Speaker 2: All of them.
Speaker 3: The last one you might have to buy from the monastery.
It's put out by Jordanville Monastery. Okay, it may be
on Amazon. I haven't looked in a while, but it
is available.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, we've covered a lot today, man, and it's
been a thoroughly enjoyable episode, and I think a lot
for people to digest. What I really like about doing
these podcasts with you is you really eliminate a lot
of misconceptions in the historic position and what people's perception
of Orthodox he is. You're making it increasingly more difficult
for me to stay within the Protestant tradition. I must
tell you that I'm actually I.
Speaker 3: Don't you might have to buy that from Jordanville Monastery
directly because it looks like it's not presently for sale.
But I do think the last time I looked like
if you go to Jordan mil Monastery, it's still there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, cool, cool.
Speaker 2: But I'm listening to you. I appreciate it. I appreciate
your comments there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's good. I'm looking. I told you before.
I'm looking way to do my master's next and my
Greek Orthodox priest in Townsville. You've got the shits at
me for studying at a Protestant university. It's mathiew mathiea.
We have Greek Orthodox University in Brisbane, sant Andrews. What
are you doing?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. I'd love to talk to you about
this idea of you know, in another episode about if
the spirit of God is moving in the Protestant tradition
and what's happening in the culture. That's a total another episode.
Love to have your take on that, just to hear,
to see, you know, to explore a couple ideas there.
But regardless of that, thank you so much for coming
on providing a lot of clarity and insight. And I
a guys if you I mean in many ways, if
you follow me on YouTube, forget about me because I'm
small there you're obviously following Jay on YouTube but on Instagram. Guys,
if you're watching this, just give it a give it
a follow, give a click. You're going to find a
lot of interesting things, a lot of comedy, a lot
of interesting things about political, religious. It's a it's a
whole broad spectrum page for people to check out, and
it's worth giving it a follow. Anyway, brother, thank you
so much for for coming on today. Really appreciated.
Speaker 3: I got four books now. My fourth book is about
to come out in a couple of months, and you
can use the pre orders on my website so you
can get Est Hollywood one, two and three. I got
a philosophy book, and then I got a read book,
which is like all of my theological apologetic essays, so
you can get those at my website.
Speaker 1: You don't want to get that. I don't even know
that you had that. That's mad. We'll definitely put those in.
Speaker 2: It's a six hundred page book.
Speaker 1: So that's awesome. Okay, Yeah, because I'll tell you what.
I did a debate with that Gabriel Pinocchio the other
the other day, and and you came up into discussion
and the thing I was like, Yeah, that's the one
guy that like seems to have philosophy and theology such
a very well grasp where you debate with the transidental
argument and theology and history, you seem to merge that together,
which obviously I'd like to talk about that another time.
And all the time you've invested in study, which would
be really really cool.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Gabriel, who's he? What's he doing?
Speaker 1: Finocchio bro is a bit of a douche, to be
honest with you. And I know the position I was
arguing for in that debate you wouldn't agree with, But
I was coming from a perspective of which is about
females in ministry and trying to reconcole Paul's female co
workers and how to reconcile that with first timpathy to
mint Grinthian's fourteen and all these positions. And we did
a debate in the idea of women keeping silent in
the church, and he he basically agreed that they can
speak in the church, but then he became a debate
about submission, so he totally changed it, put it on
its head. So anyway, I mean, it was my first
public debate, is like a Kalamnist guy or what no, no, no,
he's well, he this is the other thing. He just
changed between Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism. He just picks and
identifies a word of a argument. It was so yeah,
it was a very good interesting learning curve for me.
But nonetheless it was it was an interesting, interesting topic
we did on Jake's channel, you know, Jake Rattlesnack TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
so yeah it was on there. But anyway, God bless
you brother, thank you so much for coming on. And
I'm going to make a couple of clips of this
and tag him into It'll be great.