The First Council of Nicaea: What Actually Happened & Why Does It Matter for Us Today?

[00:00:02] We know who God is, we know the work and testimony of Christ and who He is.

[00:00:07] We know the work and testimony of the Spirit, and we know our lives in the Church and the

[00:00:10] hope of resurrection. And so the youthiest four components of Nicaea give us the building blocks

[00:00:17] from which all faithful Christianity comes from. When we talk about the early church, many people's

[00:00:25] minds immediately go to the first generation of Christianity, record it in the book of Acts,

[00:00:30] and address in the New Testament. But what happened after that? And why does it matter for

[00:00:35] us as Christians living today? My guest today is Matt Persley. Matt is the Executive Pastor at

[00:00:41] Park Hill Church in San Diego, California, and he has a Master's degree in Christian history.

[00:00:47] In this episode, Matt and I discussed the Council of Nicaea, what led to it and what it produced.

[00:00:53] We addressed many of the common misconceptions about Nicaea and about what did or did not happen

[00:00:58] We also discussed the early heresies called Marcianism, Nosticism, and Arianism,

[00:01:05] and why it's important to understand these heresies as Christians today.

[00:01:09] Along the way we talk about Jordan Peterson, who Matt says is a modern Marcianite

[00:01:14] and how the errors of both liberalism and fundamentalism have a similar origin.

[00:01:20] It's a great discussion. I hope you'll enjoy it and I'll be back at the end with some final words.

[00:01:27] Matt, thanks for being a guest today on Theology for the people.

[00:01:31] Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks, Nate. Maybe just tell our listeners a little bit about

[00:01:35] yourself, kind of your background, some of your studies and what you do.

[00:01:39] Very happy to. Yeah, my background is in the Church world as in Calvary Chapel. I grew up

[00:01:45] in a Calvary Chapel in the Northwest. I went to Calvary Chapel Bible College where I met my wife

[00:01:51] as one does. So I got my money as a wealth of that. And more, she's amazing.

[00:01:56] About a college was an amazing experience. We ended up getting pregnant with our first

[00:02:01] and deciding we needed to make a little more money and kind of take care of Sam with first. So

[00:02:07] we moved back to the Portland Organ Area, we were a little further north. And yeah, I just kind

[00:02:11] of built a life where in a Calvary Chapel there is well enjoying it and it's called to

[00:02:19] play Church in San Diego and that calling lasted about seven or eight years. In that time,

[00:02:24] another pastor, Jose Ziya's out of 26 West in Portland is connected with the Jesus Church

[00:02:31] of Bridgetown network of churches introduced me to a musician that had just taken her worship

[00:02:36] pastor job. I wanted their churches Evan Whitam if you're in Calvary, World, you know,

[00:02:41] the Wickham name. Evan and I are now great friends but without knowing each other too well at the

[00:02:46] time in 2017, with a few other people we all moved from the Portland area to San Diego to Plant

[00:02:53] the South Park Hill Church where I'm privileged to serve as the executive pastor since it's

[00:02:58] founding which has been a huge blessing. My wife also gets to work with me, she does an amazing

[00:03:03] job of organizing community life and yeah she does that so we get to work together which is a huge

[00:03:07] blessing. God really was faithful and that call and it's pretty powerful ways. Another thing that

[00:03:13] was going on at the same time to get into some education is before we had our first born. So this

[00:03:21] had been 2011 or so. I still really called, felt called to go back to seminary kind of. I didn't

[00:03:27] really want to take the seminary classes that felt like I'd taken in my undergrad because I

[00:03:31] transferred to another Christian university to actually because Calvary is not accredited so I went

[00:03:36] to a different university got my BA in the religion. I felt like I studied a lot of the course work

[00:03:41] and I'm just a little bit... And so after research I thought hey you know something that's super

[00:03:44] interesting to me that I don't think I'm going to be able to be trained on properly by myself just

[00:03:49] reading books which I love to do is church history and historical theology. And so I saw the program

[00:03:55] on the west coast I applied, I was admitted and it was not a real pregnant and it was like hey this

[00:04:01] is just not a hot timing. So we put that on pause but when I moved out here to plant the church

[00:04:06] that door opened up against Ireland ended up going to Westminster, the logical seminary in California

[00:04:12] which is a totally different camp for me. It's not covered chapel. It's like Dutch reform

[00:04:17] it's not even Presbyterian a lot. I mean there are Presbyterians there but it's you know like old school

[00:04:23] European reform and I was introduced to confessional Protestantism which is something I had

[00:04:30] really no concept of. I met a lot of really brilliant people who are well published,

[00:04:35] rigorous academics and so they just opened up a different world of theology to me which I was

[00:04:40] always really interested in but I was like an armchair, theologian, slashes to hand. You know I loved

[00:04:45] into you right and your soft Pelican and these guys but I didn't really have any guidance as to how

[00:04:50] to do that. With it with more like integrity and character in your studies and so they really helped

[00:04:55] me I think I started at the bottom of the pack as far as those those guys that go there

[00:05:00] are coming from some pretty cool schools and I ended up maybe somewhere in the middle so I

[00:05:05] think progress is progressing on that. I wasn't getting any scholarships for PhDs by the end of

[00:05:10] it but I was just thankful to learn and grow and be networked with people that are doing

[00:05:14] really cool stuff and the theological realm and so I finished that program out of year and a half

[00:05:20] ago I turned in my my thesis I wrote on German liberalism and how to affect America which is

[00:05:25] fun it was came in around 135 pages or something so it was a lot of late nights and early mornings

[00:05:31] but yeah that's probably me in it three minutes. Yeah that's awesome I don't know if you know

[00:05:36] this but Evan played Evan and Sandy played at my wedding oh did they? Yeah back in the day because

[00:05:41] if I were so lucky my wife is from Calvary Vista so we're connected. Oh amazing guys. Oh cool

[00:05:48] so yeah that's amazing. Well cool. Well what I wanted to talk to you about today I'm also really

[00:05:54] into historical theology that wasn't what I did my primary studies in but I've thought about

[00:05:59] if I do a doctorate to do it on historical theology and I've looked into it a bit so I love the topic

[00:06:05] and I hope that my listeners will as well just before we jump in I want to talk about the

[00:06:12] tell me briefly why do you believe that church history is important for Christians to study today?

[00:06:19] Oh my gosh there's so many so many answers to that one thing that church history gives us

[00:06:24] is it really relativizes the present and just shine some light on our our history and our family

[00:06:30] and who we are so I guess it has this great quote where he talks about the only thing we know

[00:06:37] we know because of our memory right everything we are and know is in our memory and

[00:06:42] and we understand that like we have a family member go through something also like dementia

[00:06:46] we say things like well they're starting to lose them or losing themselves

[00:06:50] out of family member whose worst nightmare was to get dementia and so we have this kind of

[00:06:56] family history and I think especially in in America it's really more serious than an even

[00:07:04] European West we don't know our family history we have we have theological and ecclesiological

[00:07:10] or church dementia we don't know who we are or where we've come from and so a lot of times

[00:07:17] we can take even really good ideas ideas that hold us together as Protestants like

[00:07:22] soloscriptura but because we don't understand what that means in its context we can take

[00:07:27] something like soloscriptura and say hey I can reap the Bible for myself and turn that into

[00:07:32] making the Bible mean whatever I feel like it means and so church history I think

[00:07:38] the most important thing church history does is it brings us back to the authority of scripture

[00:07:43] and it introduces us to our family of the you know the mothers and fathers of the

[00:07:49] church that have come before us that have really paved the road we're on where in the last 100 years

[00:07:54] we've really decided hey it's a critical item out of my dress and it's not been helpful and I

[00:08:02] right now but you can see that in the church too you know you know what X van Jellin call is a thing

[00:08:08] but so you know are the I can't remember their name you know for the Baptist who pick it military

[00:08:14] you know so you know I mean it's on both sides it really is and which is this is something

[00:08:19] that the Bible talked to it all the time due to autonomy and Joshua and Leviticus talks about you

[00:08:24] don't go to the right and go last but stay faithful and I think it's Josiah in second Kings

[00:08:29] you know this one King out of all these kings that is a good king the he's marked with and

[00:08:34] celebrated by that says he did not go to the left of the right which is that warning where there's

[00:08:39] idols on both sides and scripture really helps us to stay on the straight narrow that narrow path

[00:08:45] that God's called as you yeah I'm gonna introduce a statement that I heard you say and then

[00:08:50] we'll revisit it later on and kind of like so so here's the statement and I don't want you to

[00:08:55] comment on it just yet but I just kind of a throat out there and then people who listen we'll see

[00:09:00] what I why this is important okay so okay the statement was between Marcyon the Nostics and

[00:09:07] areas you will find every mistake in some version okay so just sit with that thought and then let's

[00:09:14] talk about NICIA so could you give us a brief overview of the Council of NICIA

[00:09:19] and the specific theological debates that it addressed in its time yeah absolutely yeah I mean

[00:09:25] really simply I see it gives us just four confessions or belief statins yes God is one yes Jesus is God

[00:09:35] within the Father in the Spirit yes the Holy Spirit is keeping God's promise to preserve the church

[00:09:41] and yes we will be raised with Christ bodily so that really really made six simple theological

[00:09:48] statements that all Christians should be able to confess and you know your show is all about

[00:09:53] bringing people into theology in an accessible way and so it makes sense that the first

[00:09:57] ecumenical council I mean those are basic Christian beliefs that's what that's what they're trying to say

[00:10:03] and that you know that didn't come come out of nowhere you know it's three and I see it happens

[00:10:09] in three 18 to three 25 is when it's called and it's right on the back end of one of the most

[00:10:15] painful persecutions the Christians endure and it's first year in a year so the Diocletian

[00:10:19] persecution which is comes out that's under Emperor Diocletian there is three other

[00:10:24] emperors there are tetraarchy at that time we know of Constantine he comes in and the emperors are

[00:10:31] are sharing power at this point and so some are moving in and moving out well in three 11

[00:10:37] Galarius gives us the Edict of toleration and the Edict of toleration is basically a decriminalized

[00:10:45] Christianity it's not a legal religion to be practiced but you're not going to go to prison for

[00:10:49] it anymore that's a huge win Christians are pumped and then two years later in M3 13

[00:10:57] like sinus actually issues the Edict of Milan and now he is a co-region with Constantine

[00:11:02] and so Constantine delivers this Edict that they they give it together but Constantine isn't the

[00:11:07] one who writes the Edict of Milan it's co-written and mostly by listening to listening delivered by

[00:11:12] Constantine and this is the one that actually gives Christians their freedom to legally be a religion

[00:11:19] they start to give some of their property back which was a stolen Christians are now coming out

[00:11:24] of the desert where they're hiding or they're coming out of the catechomes or the home churches

[00:11:29] and they're like oh my gosh we can finally like make our church beautiful and in public and

[00:11:34] and so Christianity is entering into culture and illegal beautiful way well between three 13

[00:11:40] and three 18 Christianity has never made the religion of the state Constantine it's pretty common

[00:11:47] misconception of Constantine Christianized realm it doesn't happen till 380 I'm a 3-ader deodosis

[00:11:52] but Constantine is is a Christian he converts in 312 just before the Edict of Milan

[00:11:58] and so he starting to get involved and saying hey these Christians we need to learn to work with them

[00:12:03] and understand that he's growing theologically as well you see the s his mentor is training him up

[00:12:09] his mother is a devout Christian and he starts to learn about this controversy that's going

[00:12:13] around the empire and really like causing trouble among Christians who are now allowed and proud

[00:12:19] about their faith and that controversy is the area in controversy areas was a priest in

[00:12:27] and he comes on this stage basically for criticizing his bishop and if you listen to don't know

[00:12:34] in the early church the order of authority and the church was you have decends who served the church

[00:12:39] elders who kind of synonymous with your word pastor that's with the word present

[00:12:43] butroid means presbyterian elder besiez all an old word for priests and then you had this kind of

[00:12:50] senior pastor role who that senior pastor was called a bishop and they were in charge of really

[00:12:55] regions of churches or house churches and they were the clue that kept maybe all the churches in

[00:13:00] or all the churches and anti-occupied united them together and keeping communication and so

[00:13:07] areas wants to criticize his bishop for a good reason I mean he was wrong he thought his bishop

[00:13:12] was what's called a motelist which means there is one god they're not free persons one god

[00:13:16] shows himself on the father he shows himself in the sun and now needed the church he showed himself

[00:13:21] in the spirit but it's really just one person areas rightly wants to criticize that now unfortunately

[00:13:27] for him he got a little like headed and he improperly criticized his bishop was not a motelist but

[00:13:35] it started this controversy that previously then settled it kind of reignited this controversy

[00:13:41] a motelism you know is god one and three persons or he is he three unique persons or is he one

[00:13:47] person in three forms and so he starts his controversy up again and he rightly identifies a problem

[00:13:54] and this is what you know a lot of modern scholars are saying actually we shouldn't identify

[00:13:58] areas as some kind of far less liberal he's actually pretty conservative even to the point of

[00:14:05] what they would call a kind of a fundamentalist in our day and age he he's so committed to the Hebrew

[00:14:11] concept of yawre and god being one but he has no room then in his solution to his criticism of

[00:14:18] motelism or Christ to be three persons and one and that is what creates his Aryan controversy

[00:14:24] that is spreading rapidly over the land in fact there's one account that somebody visited the

[00:14:30] city and was walking through the city and he was saying even among the poor you couldn't go to like a

[00:14:35] cafe without hearing people debate this issue is god one and three or is god only one with at

[00:14:46] anarianism which kicks off and which spurs constant teen to solve this problem he wants

[00:14:53] peace and the land and he calls what is we know today as the council of niceia which is our first

[00:15:00] ecumenical council which means pretty much every Christian what it would accept this council

[00:15:05] and its teachings has true Christian interpretations yeah and so the council I think that's another

[00:15:12] well let me ask you this what are some galman misnomer or misconceptions that people have about

[00:15:18] the council of niceia yeah okay a really good one and you know a dementia code fans

[00:15:23] actually like those movies but they're terrible history but they are fun fiction is fun so

[00:15:29] we need to do the fiction side of it if you want but yeah they do not say anything about what

[00:15:35] books go in the Bible council of niceia so you'll hear people all time say they added

[00:15:39] all the books out of the Bible and just handpicked these ones that gave us Orthodox Christian

[00:15:45] in niceia there is zero evidence for that like we have so much evidence around the council of

[00:15:49] niceia that's to make that claim as laughable but you still hear people make it and I don't

[00:15:54] think they mean it they need to be lying to you I think they just heard heard somebody say it and repeat

[00:16:00] it no and so that's a big one no the council of niceia really only deals with a few things it deals

[00:16:05] with church government issues like who has authority in which regions and how is that

[00:16:11] if they accountability around the authority structured that issue of of erinism and they

[00:16:17] wanted to figure out what the database to us I mean it's it's if you want to make it more than that

[00:16:22] here unfortunately mistaken yeah I think another misconception people have is that like

[00:16:28] constant teen was like was really involved like overseeing like manipulating how things went

[00:16:34] making sure who was there and the decisions that they came to etc yeah that's a good point now

[00:16:41] he wasn't involved one of our you know homo usha it's a very classic kind of technical turn

[00:16:47] for the nature of god and he he does present that term so he is he is involved and he does call

[00:16:53] the council but it's true actually to your point though which I think is a good point to make

[00:16:59] constant teen is more closely aligned with the arrogance from the start has mothers connected to an

[00:17:04] erin you see this is sympathetic to erinism his son is an erin you know when he goes into this council

[00:17:10] you would think if power plays were involved that the deal the deck was stacked against what we

[00:17:16] now call orthodoxy but in fact when you know 318 bishops get together between 1,500 and 2,000

[00:17:23] attendees are at this council from all over the empire these guys don't have email they're not

[00:17:28] talking to each other offline they don't have cars to go visit each other and have like a pre-game

[00:17:33] meeting they're meeting here for the first time having never met one another usually and

[00:17:39] and they're getting together and makes say this is what the the apostles have always taught

[00:17:44] it's been handed down to us to your point. Constantine says okay yeah yeah that's good so how much

[00:17:51] evidence you think there is that saint Nicholas of mirror as aka Santa Claus actually

[00:17:57] punched punched areas in the face oh man I mean I want that to be true. I wanted to be true too yeah

[00:18:03] yeah I don't know. I always tell my kids you know I remember this story happened I had told my kids

[00:18:09] you know because we were like to we tell them about Santa Claus what should we do so we decided

[00:18:14] we're gonna tell them like the reason why people celebrate saint Nicholas because Nicholas was a

[00:18:19] man he was a pastor in the theologian you know attended the council in ICA and he punched out

[00:18:24] areas which are areas which you know it's kind of like Jerome is witnesses so that's kind of like

[00:18:30] my kind of Santa Claus. Yeah so you know if I could come up with like maybe an argument

[00:18:36] so this maybe we could get creative I would say you know we know saint Nick had a hard time with

[00:18:41] personal boundaries he would like break into people's houses true and leave them gifts so maybe

[00:18:46] wouldn't have a hard time passing personal boundaries physically we can't hit an area as well.

[00:18:52] Yeah and so my son we were at the mall once and you know there's like you know it's a good explanation

[00:18:57] because it helps the kids understand like why the Santa Claus at the mall looks different

[00:19:01] than the Santa Claus downtown or something you know and so my son says to the kid like in line next

[00:19:07] to him he goes hey did you know that the real Santa is dead? This guy's not the real Santa. I was like oh yeah

[00:19:14] I'm sure not sure that four-year-old was was quite ready for that it seems he used a bit

[00:19:19] shocked so okay I like your kid. Is he out right? So okay now what do you think are ways in which

[00:19:27] the area and controversy still applies to us as Christians today like are the things

[00:19:31] that we should consider or the things we should learn from him? Yeah yeah um you know I

[00:19:37] do think we would start from the beginning you know Christ said they'll know us by our love

[00:19:42] and I don't think Christians need to be at each other's throat to the level that a

[00:19:49] king needs to call a council you know I don't think that areas needed to slander is bishop

[00:19:56] wrongly to start this. I think I just said the very forephone of this Christians were coming out

[00:20:01] of conflict and reintroducing conflict and so you know obviously nobody was being murdered which

[00:20:06] could have persecuted but you know on one hand we can say you know we need to be charitable and

[00:20:13] kind gentle and lowly. On the other hand you know we can take the opposite of that coin and say

[00:20:18] it's important to fight for you believing it's important to hold to orthodoxy and in our day

[00:20:26] and age you know if you if you look at you know the history of you and Joe court of them

[00:20:30] from the founding of our country it's now and one since there is an avenue you can look at it and

[00:20:36] say it's a really a liberalizing story of making compromises for getting our confessions for

[00:20:44] getting the doctrines the apostles handed down to us and losing you know our family history

[00:20:50] and even the meaning of the gospel. And so I think there's two two lessons here one is that we're

[00:20:56] supposed to be kind and we are supposed to invite people back to communion always and to write

[00:21:06] and then our life and doctor should be aligned. And the second thing I would say is we can also

[00:21:13] fight vigilantly boldly for the truth of the gospel that's been handed down to us and those two

[00:21:20] don't have to be in contradiction and it's often when we pick one of the other I'm going to be kind

[00:21:26] but not honest that we veer off to the left and the other one where I'm going to be

[00:21:32] still focused on the answers and the right answers that I'm actually stalling out

[00:21:38] hyposfocused on them when I don't even remember what the question was. And so you have that today

[00:21:43] you have people who will you know demand you know that people only read the two James Bible or

[00:21:49] demand turneteries or things that I'm Santa. Santa King James Bible, Santa the Texas receptives,

[00:21:55] Santa the Trinity but they don't actually remember the questions that that led to

[00:22:01] why those are good answers. And so you're stalling out let's say you're stalling out the

[00:22:06] gospel or the angelism and so you have issues on both sides one give up the gospel and go to the

[00:22:11] left to you create an idle out of being right and you fall off all right Martin Luther has this

[00:22:17] great well nobody ever falls down in the middle of the middle of the horse you know and it's really

[00:22:22] true yeah okay so one question do you think that Jehovah's Witnesses are modern day

[00:22:28] and if I heard that a lot if I could be really honest is you I don't know a lot about Jehovah's Witnesses

[00:22:36] a nice man named Max visited me twice and then I think I burned them out so I don't know what

[00:22:41] ton of about Jehovah's Witnesses I'm sorry I wish I'd more I grew around more Mormons I

[00:22:47] think Mormonism and Nostis is not a lot in common but yeah it's not a group of people I've been

[00:22:52] around or spend a lot of time listening. Yes you know what do you think well for my understanding I

[00:22:57] think that's accurate because essentially what they're saying is that Jesus is not the same as Yahweh

[00:23:05] like they're separating Jesus from the logos and so or I don't know if they would say that

[00:23:13] specifically but they say that Jesus is not God in the same way the Father is God. Yeah that's there

[00:23:20] so okay you have mentioned a few times like fundamentalism liberalism could you define those terms

[00:23:26] for us like what is your understanding of fundamentalism and what's your understanding of liberalism?

[00:23:31] Yeah liberalism is a lot easier to describe so I'll start there liberalism also sometimes known

[00:23:36] as modernism is any in the Christian sphere comes out of the Enlightenment and is an idea that

[00:23:44] basically we don't we aren't bound to interpret scripture through councils and creeds and that is

[00:23:50] really most basic sense. It basically says I can come to the scriptures and I can interpret it how

[00:23:56] feel like basically conviction is the highest form of conscious my conscience and so a liberal

[00:24:03] is a very broad turn actually and you can you can have a modernist with conservative ideas who

[00:24:10] it technically fall into that category but in the Christian sense it's kind of like a hyper hyper

[00:24:16] Protestantism you're not just like saying well the Pope isn't the invalidural thing which we agree with

[00:24:22] it's saying well there's nothing in the Christian church or history that time like it has any

[00:24:27] bearing on how I interpret scripture and so I can interpret it how I want to but I can also

[00:24:32] critically edit it how I want to so I can take portions out I disagree with I can say that's not

[00:24:36] for my time and so liberalism is the easier one to deal with because we can call kind of any

[00:24:43] Christianity divorce from the church a kind of liberalism in a very broad specific sense and then you

[00:24:52] could change over time because one of that features means you know when the morality of the

[00:24:56] 1850 ships a little bit that's going to look very liberal in the 1850s and you're going to have

[00:25:01] conservative people saying liberalism liberalism liberalism now in 2024 you would look back at

[00:25:07] those liberals and say well that's pretty conservative so liberalism is a spectrum but anything

[00:25:11] kind of divorce in Christian history and how I talk with the Bible way and the power of the strong

[00:25:18] self and all these enlightenment rationality is as you're like feeding Christian or bulls

[00:25:22] Christian fundamentalism actually kind of is similar but what it's going to say is I've attached

[00:25:30] myself to a specific reading or I've attached myself to a specific tradition and now I can't be

[00:25:35] proven wrong so I am in a place where you could show me evidence through scripture that my view

[00:25:43] is wrong and I cannot change my view or you can you can show me evidence that you know

[00:25:50] Jesus is God then the New Testament believed it and the apostles believed it and the

[00:25:55] disciples have possibly lived but in an area in this case he's going to say no when I read

[00:25:59] the Old Testament Yahweh is one God there's only one I cannot accept now New Testament teachings

[00:26:06] that's a kind of fundamentalism I could put some color on it and you see that today you know

[00:26:14] fundamentalists who who will do things or house ideas and and some of them brave ones will go

[00:26:21] into a debate stage and say ridiculous things that everybody audience thinks are crazy and they just

[00:26:26] cannot change their mind and it's a really similar problem with liberalism because it still comes

[00:26:30] back to that strong self I am the final Decider of what's true. Yeah I think actually you know it's

[00:26:38] really interesting how much similarity there is between the two when it comes to the process of

[00:26:44] what we call theological method because in both cases they are dismissing church tradition,

[00:26:50] community and history which I think is you know why why this is so important to consider

[00:26:55] and I've heard people like very conservative people say like you know I don't think that we should

[00:27:00] care about church history because everybody in the past got it wrong and we have the Bible so we can just

[00:27:06] it's like every Bible for itself and you know when we say I mean we're just kind of bagging on

[00:27:12] Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons but I'll tell you like actually there's a reason why Jehovah's

[00:27:16] Witnesses and Mormonism it came about at the exact same time in American history which is also

[00:27:22] the same time when you get other religious movements even that are more orthodox like for

[00:27:28] example the restoration movement in the United States out of Kentucky these all came about in the

[00:27:34] other part of the 19th century which in the United States we are very much influenced by this

[00:27:40] philosophy called Scottish Common Sense Realism so like whenever you hear people use these terms like

[00:27:46] oh you know it's just common sense I find that to be kind of an annoying thing to say because

[00:27:51] common sense is very culturally defined and has a lot of assumptions built underneath it like what

[00:27:58] you think is common sense isn't necessarily common sense to anyone else and and I could give you

[00:28:03] examples of that I won't go on about it but my point is that like Abraham Lincoln is a prime

[00:28:08] example and of course he's living at that time when this is really very popular in the United States

[00:28:14] which is basically he never went to church he'd never read church history or cared actually

[00:28:21] totally dismissed you know stuff like the council of NYC uh and what they would do is they just read the

[00:28:32] rationalization behind it right like even the joe of his witnesses they'll say well you know there

[00:28:38] these verses that where Jesus seems to be talking about the father as someone other than himself

[00:28:44] and and maybe even referring to God as someone other than himself and so then they they follow

[00:28:51] this logic but there's a dismissal of all Christians who've come before them or anyone else

[00:28:56] it's not done in conversation so it's like you're saying the strong self but in a different way

[00:29:01] than the strong self that leads to liberalism yeah yeah absolutely you know one one of my

[00:29:09] responses to that and because I'm you know I'm in American as America runs through my blood as much

[00:29:17] as anyone else says and I understand the impulse to reject the past and to build a new future I get

[00:29:22] that a lot of a lot of my understanding of history was a process of shedding some of that myself you

[00:29:30] know my dad's a die hard libertarian so I get it I understand it but I would say to those people

[00:29:36] I say this you know well what what do the scriptures say the scriptures say you know

[00:29:42] Christ will send us someone greater the spirit and that as he establishes the builds

[00:29:47] his church the gates of hell will not prevail against it and so what you're saying when you're saying

[00:29:52] you don't need history is your actually saying you don't need the testimony of the Holy Spirit

[00:29:56] which is a pretty incredible thing to say even to the point and I don't want to get you know

[00:30:04] too extreme but to the point where right what what is the one unforgivable sentence the

[00:30:09] blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and we have a lot of people feeling very confident to say well I

[00:30:15] don't need the testimony of the Holy Spirit in my walk with Jesus as far as there have been

[00:30:21] thousands of millions of Christians faithful brothers and sisters for the Holy Spirit

[00:30:25] Holy Spirit is guiding and leading them they have given you the church the hospitals the Bible

[00:30:30] and he enjoys I mean all these things you're standing on top of and you're kicking it out

[00:30:34] some under you and saying I mean what what what what are what are we saying about the Holy Spirit

[00:30:39] and what are we saying about the bride of Christ so I think the the weight of what people are saying

[00:30:44] I don't know they really understanding and are taking it seriously as Bible believing Christian

[00:30:49] but if we were to strongman their argument let's say yeah in that case so

[00:30:54] they would probably come back and say well there are plenty of examples of times in which

[00:31:01] the church as an institution got stuff wrong or certain you know the most powerful group

[00:31:08] and they say well there are also plenty of examples in the Bible of democracy winning the day

[00:31:13] but going completely opposite direction of where God wanted us to go or the right thing to do like

[00:31:19] you know like the building of the golden calf so yeah how can we be sure that these Christians

[00:31:25] in the past actually did get it right and that we should just kind of build upon what they've

[00:31:31] already done what if that foundation is messed up to begin with right yeah there's a whole

[00:31:38] way of saying that's a great question right there's a couple ways to answer that maybe I'll

[00:31:41] give you a dislike of personal anecdote of something that encourages me I actually really

[00:31:48] appreciate the way that ancient church used to canonize people and make them saints because

[00:31:55] it's this process we do it today so we have to be careful I know we want to criticize a lot

[00:32:00] it seems about campus but we we give people say it all the time right we did it to mark

[00:32:04] dress school in early 2000s and you know we we've done it to hitle song pastors and we've done

[00:32:09] to all these process we put all of our faith and we say we're going to follow their example

[00:32:14] and they haven't been proven well the classic way of doing this actually was to have people

[00:32:20] live their whole lives once they die then there's like this investigation into their life the

[00:32:26] sin that's there comes out it's known but the history of of grace through their sin forgiveness

[00:32:33] through their mistakes they fullness to the end at the end of their life when we say you know

[00:32:39] the quote the winner trip with canonize and we make them a saying what they're saying is this is

[00:32:43] somebody's life you can follow this isn't an example you can follow and these are the parts

[00:32:47] of their life they got wrong yes but but this is a piece of their life that shows Christ and a Holy Spirit

[00:32:55] moving through them and actually think that's a much better way of doing it waiting till their

[00:33:01] race is ruined to say this is your hero in your example then to look at people still like today

[00:33:06] it's so very valuable you know likely being having with us pray for their repentance forgiveness

[00:33:12] when these big big leaders that we canonize you know fall and crush us you know but in the past

[00:33:18] we actually would look to the past which is something scripture to monitor us to do do not forget

[00:33:22] and so that's a really kind of like narrowed in scope there's no one or two people

[00:33:28] that we love the history of somebody maybe it's whickler for you or a Joan of Archer or you know

[00:33:35] say George or something the dragon slayer my kids like that one but we have these stories of

[00:33:40] people living facely frantic you know saying I'm not going to be bought by the idols of riches

[00:33:46] that my father is giving me I'm going to go and follow jesus did he make mistakes absolutely there

[00:33:51] we all do but it tells us and warned us about those mistakes but we have to testimony of the church

[00:33:57] the testimony obviously have works but the Bible tells us that we in the territory of

[00:34:01] together and so to separate them at the harvest and I think you know the harvest of these people's

[00:34:06] lives for 2000 years it has been ready for a long time when we can separate the good from the bad

[00:34:12] and not be so cynical and skeptical that we have to throw a baby out of the bathwater yeah and

[00:34:17] I think there's part of it too where you mentioned so the scripture I think a lot of people misunderstand

[00:34:21] what that means it's I think the angle can church did a good correction on it when they said

[00:34:26] it should actually be more accurately referred to as pre-muscriptura because yeah we're not saying

[00:34:32] take the Bible alone and dismiss a community dismiss history, dismiss tradition but rather that

[00:34:40] all of those things in a theological frame method again is that scripture gets a pride of place

[00:34:47] and and we see if traditionally here's how people have understood this the majority of Christians

[00:34:53] but we're always going back to scripture to see okay did they get it right and

[00:34:58] and you know it creates that what we call a hermanutical spiral which if anyone

[00:35:03] you know that'll trigger somebody's memory but maybe not everybody's but the point being

[00:35:07] that I think that that's also a really important way to do this is to say okay we've got scripture

[00:35:14] that gets prior place we don't ignore the other ones but we also interpret tradition like

[00:35:21] or I guess we we judge tradition based on scripture and how it has been read by the church

[00:35:29] in majority throughout history and I mean that was a big thing for Luther right it was that he's

[00:35:34] he's saying we're not getting rid of history in tradition but we are instead putting scripture

[00:35:42] back in its rightful place in place of judgment on those things rather than the other way around

[00:35:48] yeah so okay so you had to know go ahead sorry oh I was in the you that I mean that's

[00:35:55] what nice of you is doing this with a fish to my sear doing I mean we forget you know it's

[00:36:00] it's not like the 1950s at the RSV is so well widespread that we all have on our nightstand

[00:36:06] Christians typically didn't have a Bible it's the most of Christian history you couldn't do

[00:36:09] morning devotions with a cup of coffee and the Bible over and yeah and your NAS has this great line

[00:36:15] where he's he's talking about the conversion of the Gauls which is a group that you know

[00:36:20] that Emperor is like I'm getting what's the wall in England hey Drian's wall hey Drian's wall yes

[00:36:26] Hadrian gave up trying to domesticate the Gauls and so he built a wall and said civilization

[00:36:32] in here you're not civil enough to join the Roman Empire just a funny way of thinking about

[00:36:37] colonizing people but Eronace has actually lead gone into those places and even though we don't have

[00:36:41] the text of scriptures they can fast-crisp faithfully and fully which is like a job that the

[00:36:48] arching the kingdom heaven is greater than hatred in the Emperor of Rome because he can

[00:36:52] go into these undemesticated places convert them they're dropping the sword they're living

[00:36:57] faithfully the whole thing they don't have the scriptures and what you're saying is how all

[00:37:02] kind of culminates in this first council of NYC where the preached word not just the written word

[00:37:08] preached word faithfully preached and handed down finally comes together out of persecution

[00:37:14] and everyone says yes we confess and believe you know God the Father uses Christ and Holy Spirit

[00:37:22] and in the resurrection of the dead yeah that's really good yeah I mean essentially NYC

[00:37:28] is like looking at how should we understand the Apostolic tradition which we call the Holy

[00:37:35] like how should they be best interpreted in regard to these four questions that you mentioned

[00:37:42] yeah okay so you mentioned I mentioned that quote at the beginning between Marcy and the

[00:37:48] Nostics and Ares you'll find every estate in some version now we've talked about Ares a little bit

[00:37:54] but tell us a little bit about Marcy and Azum and the Nostics yes okay so Nosticism so

[00:38:03] during the time of Christ so this was really immediate to the writing of the scriptures

[00:38:08] pagan philosophy yeah as a topbeds and Athens and Alexandria which is Northern Egypt

[00:38:14] and all over the empire and what these you you guys know these stories and you've seen a marvel movie

[00:38:20] you know the philosophy of paganism you know you have you have little G gods which are like half breeds

[00:38:26] you have these dimmy urges and these titans which are like you know Thanos or some

[00:38:35] ruler of the universe is that is untouchable that they're above you know the super heroes and

[00:38:41] that takes a whole post of them to defeat them and take a Titan down this is all from Roman

[00:38:46] and pagan philosophy well above them they had that another being called the Newst or the Logos

[00:38:52] which is just like it's being that's completely other it is outside of creation it's the

[00:38:56] creation and so you have all of these philosophy arguing about well how did they create the world

[00:39:02] and they're looking at nature and trying to kind of create correlations into what might be and

[00:39:08] what they figure out is that God there is a being outside of creation and that being is what we

[00:39:15] would today call God God is a Greek or it's a German word it's not in the Bible we have to

[00:39:26] roots in paganism but it also has very similar roots in Judaism so when we talk about Yahweh

[00:39:33] we're saying something very similar and early Christians would actually say that the pagan

[00:39:37] stole their idea of this Logos news from Moses which is totally possible but hard to prove and so

[00:39:43] we have these kind of two gods this two ideas of God this pagan new surlogo send this Jewish Yahweh

[00:39:49] and what we know about this God is he's other than creation but he is involved somehow in creation

[00:39:56] and he's interested in humans so then you have the pagan philosophy you have this being

[00:40:02] that's God that's outside of creation it's other than creation but it's interested in humans

[00:40:06] and so what they start to do when a stochism starts to basically mix these concepts

[00:40:11] Judaism and pagan philosophy and they're saying well there's multiple gods because God's

[00:40:16] aren't really logos and and there's good gods good demi urges and bad demi urges there's

[00:40:21] name arms d a e m l n which we get our demons from some of the good or bad or neutral and it's just

[00:40:28] this mix of ideas and that's happening in Egypt and Athens and all over the place so that's

[00:40:34] happening in two Judaism before Christ when Christianity spreads these Nostics that's what they

[00:40:39] need to be called no since their true knowledge start to like attach themselves parasitically

[00:40:45] to Christianity and they start to say things like it was going to sound very familiar

[00:40:49] the logos God is not or the or y'all a is not the same thing as Jesus and so Nosticism

[00:40:58] is these these competing ideas that create the first discussions which help us articulate

[00:41:06] what the apostles taught which eventually becomes something like a systematic or a dogmatic

[00:41:11] theology where we're saying no what you're trying to say we were glad to interested in this topic

[00:41:16] but what you're trying to say you're getting all wrong you're putting your own ideas and right

[00:41:20] you're doing that fundamentalist liberal mistake of the strong self I'm going to insert my

[00:41:25] own presuppositions in the scripture and so one of the people who does that more nuanced and

[00:41:31] sophisticated than any others is this guy Marston Marston's very early we know he's in Syria

[00:41:37] we know his father was a bishop and and he comes up with these ideas that there's a bad evil

[00:41:42] who created everything and this is not the y'all this is not logos this is just like a lesser god

[00:41:50] and he's bad easy evil he's wrathful and so the logo siowa has to come in and and brain

[00:41:56] Jesus has to overcome the bad God so that we can actually like live in the gospels as what he would say

[00:42:04] and so Marston gives kicked out of his church in Syria was to roam you know it gives things

[00:42:11] 30,000 sister sees or something like that as his huge so money you like it is a merchant

[00:42:16] he goes there and you can kick out again and because his ideas are like he brings them there

[00:42:22] they're engaging they're very kind at this time it's it's really set up he got a lame pegals who's not

[00:42:27] by any means a conservative historian would say hey the early questions at this point are always trying to

[00:42:32] bring the nonsense back to them they're saying repent change a mind can fast come back to the table

[00:42:36] and they're just not interested in doing that so really the word heretic comes off of this it

[00:42:41] means another school and it's these people that are leaving that the community have Christ the Orthodox

[00:42:48] apostolic group and the creating their own separate groups and so these groups are called no sticks or

[00:42:52] Marstonites are Seth Ike's valentinians there's all these different groups of these people

[00:42:58] Marston's one of them there's a ton of information I feel like it was a word salad for your

[00:43:02] scenario sorry I just don't know how to get all that context in in less time but it

[00:43:08] seems that one of the common themes between Marstonism and narcissism is that like they're

[00:43:15] taking ideas which come from paganism and essentially like trying to view Christianity and the

[00:43:22] Bible through these lenses and kind of like synchronize some aspects of paganism with Christianity

[00:43:31] and the Bible definitely yeah I'm on an example I use of this is Jordan Peterson you know Jordan Peterson

[00:43:38] is always trying to take union archetypes and translate the Old Testament view them it's a very

[00:43:43] very nasty way of looking at the Bible yeah it's interesting that I've talked to now couple

[00:43:50] young men I mean that's his target demographic and they in the recent times where they've gotten

[00:43:57] turned on to reading the Bible because of their interest in Jordan Peterson I'm always like a

[00:44:04] little bit glad to hear that of course well I'm very glad to hear that but I'm always a little bit

[00:44:09] cautious because yeah I read Jordan Peterson's his two latest books right 12 rules for life

[00:44:15] and there's like 12 more rules and as I'm reading this there are some things he says about

[00:44:20] Old Testament textual criticism which have literally been debunked like he's talking

[00:44:26] for anybody who's familiar with this well-house in the realm of the documentary hypothesis which

[00:44:32] basically says there were four different texts which came from different sources and these were

[00:44:40] taken in the time of Josiah and mesh together and that's how we got the Old Testament

[00:44:47] and that some of these had differing views even of who God is. Anyway that that theory has basically

[00:44:54] been debunked that's you know part of German liberalism like you're talking about earlier

[00:44:58] and and yet he's still talking about it. It's kind of like yeah stay in your lane a little bit

[00:45:04] bro like you know leave the theology to the theologians and where he's me a little bit because

[00:45:12] he sounds very confident and of course he sounds like an expert and he isn't expert in some things

[00:45:19] but not in this so yeah but it took us more about Jordan Peterson yeah yeah I've let up on

[00:45:27] my criticism and I've been over the years and they're all from me all comes down to trajectory

[00:45:31] you know if what I looked at the the liberal German liberals in the 19th century they're moving

[00:45:37] from face to disbelief when I look back at Augustine he's moving from a kind of nostic position

[00:45:44] and a lot of ways he's coming from mannequinism into the leaf and I do think in some ways that

[00:45:50] we've seen Jordan Peterson move from mannequinism into belief and so I've been I've kind of

[00:45:56] let up on my my like hey watch out Jordan Peterson it's not a Christian which he still doesn't claim

[00:46:01] to be a Christian everybody so he should be careful who you're getting your typical interpretations from

[00:46:06] but but I think it doesn't matter you know if somebody's moving away from safe we should be like

[00:46:10] all red signs you know red lights this is this is something to be concerned about but

[00:46:15] something like him you know I think most of his families converted at this point so yeah

[00:46:19] you know I think that that is that doesn't make him I think made me a little more

[00:46:23] like less like critical of him and hopefully a lot of prayerful which is for the out of two

[00:46:28] that should have towards somebody moving away from safe too I should be more helpful to the

[00:46:32] cause we're doing in their life but but yeah his his work his psychological work we're going to mix

[00:46:36] ecology with scripture it is this kind of still a softful interpretation of scripture

[00:46:41] that Marseine's doing that the Nostics are doing and that the German liberals in the 19th century

[00:46:46] are admittedly saying we're trying to go back to Marseine and the Hustics we're trying we think

[00:46:52] Marseine and the Nostics this this mediation between natural philosophy natural mythology and the

[00:46:58] scriptures we think that's the real heart of the gospel and Jesus' message because well they

[00:47:03] have to believe that they don't believe he was God they don't believe God even exists and so

[00:47:07] this has to be like a natural historical development there and it's taken go back and say there's

[00:47:11] more freedom of the strong self and Marseine and I don't have to be balanced by the Orthodoxy

[00:47:17] and the teachings of the apostles well then that's of course what they're going to pick to so they

[00:47:21] they dig Marseine or dig Nostics is an up for the dead and post them up like their new pope and

[00:47:29] they were following and somebody who tells me I can read the Bible alone and mediate it into

[00:47:36] the world as I said yeah so okay so we have talked a little bit about erianism and like

[00:47:44] Jehovah's Witnesses now you made a comment earlier that you think Mormons are like a good

[00:47:49] example of Nosticism maybe just explain that for listeners yeah that a big a big concept in

[00:47:58] narcissism that they take from paganism is this idea that the body is bad which is why

[00:48:03] it accounts a nice yeah it concludes by saying you will be resurrected in Christendus physical

[00:48:07] body wants to say embodiedness is good your body is good and then with the Nostics wanted to say

[00:48:16] was actually the a scent of the soul if you know something like Plato's latter you know the

[00:48:22] the scent of the mind the scent of the soul consciousness is pure but the body is bad

[00:48:30] which could lead you to one of two conclusions either like a really harsh asceticism like I

[00:48:35] don't I don't procreate I don't get married I don't eat food I fast all the time because the

[00:48:40] body's bad I need to resist the desires of the body start with myself so that my soul can be free

[00:48:46] or you get this other Antinomi and kind of solution which Marseine himself there were people connected

[00:48:51] to Marseine that chose both of these Marseine was pretty aesthetic you actually would have

[00:48:55] to pretty chase life but some of his followers like Marseina they lived so this isn't complete

[00:49:01] debauchery I mean you can't read these stories out loud they're really they're really uncomfortable

[00:49:07] but but what they would do with they would say the body's bad body doesn't matter so I can do

[00:49:11] whatever I want with it and in fact if I use my body to stimulate my mind and my consciousness then

[00:49:18] can incentivize things and so you'll have drug use and whole sorts of sexual and so you get one

[00:49:25] of these two kind of disembodied responses of either harsh asceticism or harsh into nomism

[00:49:32] and so yeah narcissism does that and I think you can see in Mormonism that's your original question

[00:49:39] you can kind of see this ascetic idea you know we can't drink soda at one point and we don't

[00:49:45] all and they have this kind of ascetic view but their ultimate aim right is that they would be brought up

[00:49:52] to these different layers of heaven and be given celestial bodies and you do these rituals

[00:49:59] which they would have the seffy rituals and you go through these different levels in in your

[00:50:06] religious and spiritual experiences in order to create this ascent of the soul they also believe

[00:50:12] Jesus was a God in the way we become gods but not in the way God the originator is God the creator is God

[00:50:20] and so you do have quite a bit of these kind of ceremonial moral disciplined

[00:50:29] that rational spiritual focuses and Mormonism as I've understood Mormonism another

[00:50:35] expert just these are mostly from the end I grew up with quite a few Mormons that you know we

[00:50:41] we would say or not Orthodox they these are more like the inner light the inner knowledge

[00:50:47] the inner nocis needs to be imparted to me somebody has to be treated into my life and then I go

[00:50:52] through these rituals and I come out some kind of divine being yeah and some of it too right there's

[00:50:57] an aspect of like hidden knowledge which is kind of the idea of what's an aspect of some forms

[00:51:03] of narcissism and even that idea of like the burning in the bosom as you're talking

[00:51:08] like the inner experience okay not to go off too much on those guys but let me just

[00:51:14] ask you this okay let's go back to that original statement between Marcin the Nostics

[00:51:17] and Erie as you'll find every mistake in some versions so now tell us why you said that and

[00:51:23] whatever yeah well I think I believe that is it's a simple it's a way to say something

[00:51:31] maybe a little overly simplistic but I do think it does get to the heart of the matter which is that

[00:51:36] the gospel is a specific thing and that is that Jesus Christ is you know what is

[00:51:42] nice to you teach us that there's one God Jesus is God sent by the father since us the Holy Spirit

[00:51:47] the Holy Spirit keeping the church woman to rise from the dead now those four things it's kind

[00:51:52] of funny you you have to confess pretty much all of those when you get baptized you know you

[00:51:58] have to confess those things when you give your life to Jesus you have to confess those things

[00:52:02] as you walk in sanctification towards the hope of resurrection so the whole Christian life can be

[00:52:08] summarized in these kind of four statements we know who God is we know the work contestant

[00:52:12] money of Christ and who he is we know the work contestant money of the spirit we know our

[00:52:17] lives in the church and the hope of resurrection and so the these kind of four components of

[00:52:22] Isaiah give us the the building blocks from which all faithful Christianity comes from and so

[00:52:30] anything kind of before and I see a what they're looking back to they're looking back at Marseign

[00:52:35] and saying well can we have to believe there's only one God and it's not an internal russianist

[00:52:40] union God it's a real God outside of me with authority who created the world okay well I also

[00:52:45] have to believe that Jesus is the regular of God not only is he the logo but he is the revelation

[00:52:50] of the word he and his testimony in his life and thinking of the interrevaluation here

[00:52:55] right his life contestant money those things of of both being divine and and man

[00:53:02] and dying for our sins rising again that we may have resurrection you know now he's thinking

[00:53:08] of areas right he's thinking of is God really God because your an ace as a great quote whatever

[00:53:13] Christ has assumed to you could heal you know and so everything about our humanity Christ

[00:53:18] had assumed he now is able to heal for us well if you have an area an area in Jesus

[00:53:24] could he really have been fully God even if he was fully human no but you have to have both of

[00:53:29] those for full healing so then anything about area that issue and the Holy Spirit is that

[00:53:35] working the church right so you can think of narcissism again you can think of these ideas of like

[00:53:39] is the Holy Spirit just the vides I get when the band's really tight this weekend no he is God

[00:53:45] fully God you know inseparable attributes is a great term to learn if you're getting into

[00:53:51] theology and that everything is spirit does he's doing in concert with the father and son

[00:53:55] simultaneous simultaneously and vice versa with the three persons are one being doing one work

[00:54:01] and so we can say hey there's not these this a scent of the soul that's going on there's not

[00:54:06] this these initiation no ceremonies and rituals that free my soul for my body no the soul is

[00:54:14] brought into rebirth and new life through the power of the spirit and our bodies are

[00:54:18] are still honored and made holy and righteous and so I think the father son spirit, the Trinity,

[00:54:25] those theology is the crime theology the new mythology the theology all of that comes together

[00:54:31] because they're looking at narcissism, Marcy and host of others, motorloser, adoptions and

[00:54:37] come in as well and in areas but these in these 200 years between 100 and 300 I mean all of the

[00:54:44] mistakes have been made and now we just see them continually repeating themselves and that's all

[00:54:49] all we're seeing today as well you know in the west is we're seeing versions of hyperstructialism being

[00:54:55] mixed with Christianity or hyperrationalism being mixed with Christianity or or super hyper political

[00:55:00] fundamentalism being mixed in with Christianity and in all of these it's people grasp be

[00:55:06] yeah I think a little bit Mark Sair says right they want the kingdom without the keen and it

[00:55:10] really only took 200 years to make all of the mistakes and now we're just doing them in different

[00:55:14] versions for our own culture yeah I know I think that and there you go that's a great reason why

[00:55:20] studying church history is really important because you realize that a lot of this stuff has already been

[00:55:27] we've already done this before we've been through this and we sorted it out and and what many

[00:55:33] of the things we see now are very similar much more similar than we might even assume yeah I think

[00:55:40] you're right yeah there's nothing new under the sun hey Matt thanks so much for your time and for

[00:55:45] sharing this stuff and any final final words or thoughts no thanks for inviting me on I hope

[00:55:52] this is helpful and useful and now it's six I'm always so excited to talk with fellow history nerds

[00:55:57] I mean there's only a handful of us but I feel like we're doing the words work together

[00:56:01] there you go and hopefully you can get a few other people interested through the podcast

[00:56:06] yeah absolutely yep it's my prayer it's my prayer that eating jellicles are re-reunited

[00:56:13] with their history and learn about the deep riches that you know that cloud of witnesses

[00:56:18] that we come from thanks for this thing to this episode of Theology for the People

[00:56:25] this fall I will be posting some bonus episodes so stay tuned to the podcast feed so you'll

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[00:56:50] until next time thanks for listening and God bless you