Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faith Forward Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
I just finished watching the debate between
Jeff Riddle and James White and I wanted to give some thoughts on it while it's fresh in my mind.
The debate was about the so-called long ending of the book of Mark. Now, obviously,
I believe that the King James Bible is the Word of God without error in the English language.
I believe that the Textus Receptus Greek New Testament,
published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, is the Word of God without error.
And so, to me, there's no question about the fact that Mark 16, 9 through 20 is authentic and
virtually every Bible in this world
contains Mark 16, 9 through 20. But Dr. James White believes that this is not
scripture. In fact, in this debate, he even said that the author was probably not
Orthodox in his beliefs. That it was probably written by someone who believed wrong.
So, he rejects it as an unorthodox
corruption of Scripture. We're talking about the entire section, Mark 16, 9 through 20.
And I think that Jeff Riddle did a great job in this debate of
defending the position that says that it's authentic. A lot of the modern Bible versions,
ESV, NIV, and the like, will have a footnote or not even a footnote.
They put it right in the column saying that the oldest, most reliable
manuscripts do not contain Mark 16, 9 through 20. Of course, they're really just talking about
Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, which in my opinion are both garbage. So anyway, Jeff Riddle did an excellent job of
defending
Mark 16, 9 through 20. He made a lot of great points.
Let me just point out a few things that I noticed in the debate. First of all,
James White starts out right away bragging at the very beginning, as he always does, about how, you know,
he has defended Scripture in London and South Africa.
He always likes to go through this litany of how he has debated in mosques in these other countries and everything.
Whereas, I felt that Jeff Riddle came across as much more humble in the debate and didn't feel the need to
brag or praise himself in any way.
Another thing that jumped out at me was the part where James White says that we should never build a doctrine on a
disputed text. But the Bible says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
Now, of course, we as
Christians who believe that the traditional received text is the Word of God, the text that has been passed down and preached and used for centuries,
represented in the King James Bible, and
the Greek Textus Receptus published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, for example,
you know, these things aren't even disputed unto us.
So, we're gonna use all of them to build all of our doctrine, and we don't believe that one Scripture is any more
authoritative than another. You know, I pick up my King James Bible and everything in it is equally authoritative.
But to James White, there are all these disputed texts. It's not just Mark 16. It's,
you know, the first 11 verses of John chapter 8 that he would totally reject.
It's another 16 verses throughout the New Testament that he would reject, and then a bunch of others that are just
disputed. So, even if he says, yeah, I think this is probably authentic, if it's disputed,
he's not gonna use it to build a doctrine. So, it's kind of like a second tier of authority.
It's not of the same authority as the one that's so-called undisputed.
Well, again, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine.
And so, I believe we should build doctrine upon any and all Scriptures. And it says that the man of God may be perfect,
throughly furnished unto all good works.
You're not gonna be throughly furnished, completely furnished, if you don't have the whole Scripture, if you're leaving out chunks of Scripture.
And Mark 16, 9 through 20 is one of those.
Another thing that kind of jumped out at me was, at one point in the debate, he's talking about
Athanasius
defending the deity of Christ. And, you know, I don't know if I misunderstood this, but to me, it sounded like he said
that, you know, if X, Y, and Z would have happened differently,
we would have ended up with a semi-divine Jesus. We wouldn't even have Christianity today. The whole thing would have collapsed.
He's acting like, you know, without Athanasius stepping up and defending the deity of Christ,
that
Christianity could have just ceased to exist, or that, you know, everybody would just believe differently on the deity of Christ or something.
Folks, that is ridiculous. That's bizarre and ridiculous, as if the Holy Spirit of God,
working in believers,
isn't enough to ensure the preservation of a doctrine like the Trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ,
like that it's all just relying on this one guy
defending it. You know, so I guess the same guy who doesn't have the faith to believe that God
providentially kept his word pure in all ages is the same guy
who thinks that, I guess, you know, Christianity itself was just hanging by a thread if this one guy hadn't have stepped up. Folks,
that's ridiculous.
No matter what,
people will always believe in the Trinity. People will always believe in the deity of Christ.
People will always believe in all the key doctrines of Scripture because they're in the Bible, because they're clearly taught in Scripture, and
just because a bunch of bozos throughout history
couldn't read what was clearly stated in Scripture because they weren't saved, and because it's spiritually discerned,
they are not saved.
So they think that Christ is not divine, or they reject the Trinity, or they reject
other core doctrines of the Bible. Folks,
there was never any danger of any doctrine that's right
from ceasing to exist, because as long as you have the Holy Spirit and
and the Word of God,
you're gonna have all the right doctrines there. Now, let's say theoretically, you know, everybody forgot about a doctrine.
Okay, well then it's immediately gonna come back because you've got the Holy Spirit, you got millions of believers,
you got the Bible. That part was just weird
where he acted like there was ever any peril to Christianity itself or the doctrine of the deity of Christ,
just because you have a bunch of bozos
arguing about it.
That's ridiculous. And you know, you have all these Catholic councils throughout history, you know,
deciding which books are gonna be included and deciding, you know, what doctrine we're gonna believe. Folks,
what we believe today is not based on those things. It's based on the Holy Spirit.
It's based on the written Word of God. God has worked and moved through his people and
we don't need a bunch of Catholics to get together and decide what we believe.
We didn't need it back then and we don't need it now.
Trying to think of anything else that was especially interesting. Well, let me just say this, you know, and I'm gonna bring up one point
critical of Jeff Riddle now. And let me, before I do, let me just say this.
He did a great job and I'm sure that he did a much better job than I could have done.
So I'm just saying this with all due respect.
The one point that I did not agree with, that I felt like was a weak point for him,
was when he tried to claim that Mark chapter 16
verses 9 through 20 provides some powerful evidence for cessationism.
You know, I do feel that he was kind of stretching things a bit there and
that he was using that scripture in a way that
is not legitimate and that, you know,
James White said he'd never heard anybody
teach it that way or say it that way. And I agree,
I've never heard anybody say it that way either and I didn't agree with that particular point.
But like I said, I'm not saying that to throw any shade on him because he did a fantastic job.
I just want to point out that one point of disagreement that I had. But all in all, you know,
I think it was a worthwhile listen. It was definitely a lot more worthy of my time than the stupid
Trump-Biden debate that I sat through.
Anyway, just wanted to throw out a few thoughts that came to me while it's fresh in my mind.
And I have not yet watched the
debate on the Ephesians 3 scripture, but I'm planning on watching that sometime in the next few days. God bless you. Have a great day.