This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 659: How Important Is That Doctrine with Michael Hughes This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Audio file 659 Michael Hughes.mp3 Transcript 00:00 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan, and you are listening to Restitutio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:12 Sean Finnegan Are all your beliefs equally important? 00:14 Sean Finnegan If not, how do you rank them? 00:16 Sean Finnegan By what standard do you say this belief matters and this one is less important? 00:22 Sean Finnegan My guest today is Michael Hughes, who has been working on these very questions. 00:27 Sean Finnegan He's written a couple of papers addressing levels of evidence. 00:31 Sean Finnegan In his more recent work, he's enumerated a nine-level rating system by which you can judge a belief for yourself. 00:38 Sean Finnegan At the top of it is level 1, beliefs that are essential to salvation. 00:43 Sean Finnegan Then comes level 2, practices that are related to salvation. 00:47 Sean Finnegan Then level 3, beliefs that are undoubtedly true, and then those that are probably true, and then those that are possibly true, and then those that are constructed, and so on. 00:57 Sean Finnegan As we move down the levels, we move from more importance to less. 01:01 Sean Finnegan This is a fascinating and fresh approach to ranking beliefs and practices based on biblical confidence. 01:08 Sean Finnegan Are they explicit? 01:09 Sean Finnegan taught in scripture, or are they merely implied? 01:12 Sean Finnegan Are there many difficult texts, or only a few? 01:15 Sean Finnegan You get the picture. 01:16 Sean Finnegan After Hughes explains his rating system, I pepper him with questions, including how would he respond to Christians who say gay people can get married, or that they should be able to use marijuana, or that they need to keep the Torah, or that they should have wine or juice at communion. 01:34 Sean Finnegan For each, he explains how he would approach the belief or practice from a levels of evidence perspective. 01:40 Sean Finnegan Here now is episode 659, How Important is That Doctrine? 01:45 Sean Finnegan with Michael Hughes. 01:54 Sean Finnegan Welcome, Michael. 01:55 Sean Finnegan Thanks for joining me. 01:56 Michael Hughes Thanks for having me, Sean. 01:58 Sean Finnegan Well, to get started, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit and tell about your journey of faith and your story? 02:05 Michael Hughes I was born into a Christadelphian family in Sydney, Australia. 02:11 Michael Hughes Grew up in a congregation that included my parents, my grandparents on both sides of the family, auntie and uncle and cousins. 02:21 Michael Hughes Was part of a very good Sunday school and youth group. 02:27 Michael Hughes The congregation was very much focused on the Bible. 02:31 Michael Hughes Bible knowledge was very important. 02:33 Michael Hughes and that happened to suit my particular skill set. 02:39 Michael Hughes So I was baptized at 19 years old, but that was an intellectual decision. 02:47 Michael Hughes My journey of repentance came quite a bit later. 02:50 Sean Finnegan Oh. 02:51 Michael Hughes And around that time, I was doing an accounting degree and I've had a career in accounting for over 30 years until I retrained as a counselor. 03:02 Michael Hughes later in life. 03:03 Michael Hughes So in my early 20s, I married Cheryl, who was also a Christadelphian. 03:08 Michael Hughes She was from Wellington, New Zealand. 03:11 Michael Hughes And I've lived most of my adult life, pretty much all of it in New Zealand. 03:16 Michael Hughes And we've now got four kids and nine grandchildren. 03:20 Sean Finnegan Very good. 03:21 Sean Finnegan That's an unusual career change from accountant to counselor. 03:26 Sean Finnegan What in the world made you want to do that? 03:31 Michael Hughes The two families that my mother and father came from were very different. 03:36 Michael Hughes My mother's family were very analytical people. 03:41 Michael Hughes My uncle was an accountant and I was very mathematical in my bent. 03:47 Michael Hughes And so that seemed to be a logical choice. 03:51 Michael Hughes On the other hand, my father's family, three of his sisters have gone to various degrees down the counseling path. 03:59 Michael Hughes Yeah, we're just 04:00 Michael Hughes very, very different, two very different families. 04:03 Michael Hughes So my first career was on my mother's side and my second career was on the father's side of the family. 04:12 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 04:12 Sean Finnegan And how do you like being a counsellor? 04:14 Michael Hughes Oh, it's been life-changing. 04:19 Michael Hughes Yeah. 04:19 Michael Hughes I've just learned so much about myself, about people, about how things work, been tremendous. 04:26 Michael Hughes So what happened was I was working as an accountant 04:30 Michael Hughes And I experienced 7 months of redundancy of unemployment. 04:36 Michael Hughes And then I ended up with a temporary job. 04:38 Michael Hughes And when that job was coming to an end, I was sort of asking myself, so if I knew that I was going to be unemployed for an extended length of time, what would I wish I'd done? 04:50 Michael Hughes And at that time, three people independently said to me, you should train as a counsellor. 04:56 Michael Hughes So I did. 04:57 Sean Finnegan Okay. 04:57 Sean Finnegan Hearing people talk about their problems and offering some advice to help them or what sort of, what's it like as a counselor? 05:06 Michael Hughes Yeah, so. 05:08 Sean Finnegan And are you allowed to use, like bring your Christianity into it or is it secular only? 05:14 Michael Hughes Yeah, good question. 05:15 Michael Hughes So I'm working for an organization which means that anybody with any issue could walk in the door. 05:25 Michael Hughes So, it might be depression, anxiety, it might be addictions, it might be relationship issues, just the whole range. 05:35 Michael Hughes It might be issues of bullying in their employment. 05:39 Michael Hughes So a wide range of issues. 05:42 Michael Hughes And if the person declares themselves to be a Christian, then that gives me permission to 05:52 Michael Hughes to go down that track. 05:53 Michael Hughes The way that I view it is that if I don't use the resources available as a Christian, it's like doing the counseling with one hand tied behind my back. 06:03 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I would think so. 06:04 Michael Hughes Whereas if the person declares themselves to be Christian, then I've got the full range of resources to use. 06:12 Michael Hughes Yeah. 06:13 Sean Finnegan Very good. 06:14 Sean Finnegan we are talking today because you wrote a paper, and that paper was called An Evidence-Based Approach to Understanding Scripture and Fostering Unity. 06:25 Sean Finnegan Talk a little bit about what inspired you to write that paper and what your motives were. 06:32 Michael Hughes Yeah, So there's a sense in which it started around two or three years ago, where we had 06:40 Michael Hughes A couple of people from a particular church denomination came to our place on a number of evenings and they would show us a presentation, a video presentation one evening. 06:56 Michael Hughes And in the following evening, I would give my response to it. 07:00 Michael Hughes And on this particular evening, the presentation was on the mark of the beast. 07:06 Michael Hughes And they had a particular specific view as to what the mark of the beast was going to be. 07:14 Michael Hughes And so when it came time for me to respond, I could have done battle on that particular issue. 07:23 Michael Hughes But the thought came to me, actually, I think it might be more fruitful to stand back and look at this from a bigger picture point of view. 07:35 Michael Hughes And so that's what I did. 07:36 Michael Hughes I said, look, there's some Bible teachings which are mentioned so often and so clearly and so unambiguously that there's just no doubt about the truth of those teachings and beliefs. 07:52 Michael Hughes You know, what would be an example of that? 07:54 Michael Hughes And the answer was, you know, that God is the creator or that we should do what God says, you know, something like that. 08:03 Michael Hughes And then I said, so there are other beliefs that churches hold at the other end of the spectrum where there isn't a shred of biblical evidence for that particular belief. 08:14 Michael Hughes What would be an example of that? 08:17 Michael Hughes And the answer was praying to Mary. 08:22 Michael Hughes And so then I said, and so there's a whole spectrum of levels of evidence, you know, from one end to the other. 08:31 Michael Hughes Whereabouts does your belief on the mark of the beast fall? 08:36 Sean Finnegan Okay. 08:37 Michael Hughes In the end, you know, we had some backwards and forwards, but in the end, they had to acknowledge that there was not one single Bible verse that actually taught what they were teaching. 08:52 Michael Hughes Because what they had to do was string together a series of Bible verses in a particular way 09:00 Michael Hughes in order to come to their conclusion. 09:02 Sean Finnegan For clarity, what was the position they were taking on the Mark of the Beast? 09:08 Michael Hughes So this particular group believes that the Mark of the Beast is that at some stage in the future, the government is going to pass a law enforcing Sunday worship and banning Saturday Sabbath worship. 09:27 Sean Finnegan Okay. 09:28 Michael Hughes And as I say, there was a string of verses that they put together to come to that conclusion. 09:34 Michael Hughes But it was clear to me that there was no verse that said anything like that. 09:42 Michael Hughes It was a constructed belief. 09:44 Sean Finnegan Okay. 09:45 Sean Finnegan And how did it go in that conversation? 09:48 Michael Hughes They had to acknowledge that in terms of that spectrum of levels of evidence, 09:55 Michael Hughes that their belief belonged down the bottom end of the level of evidence. 10:03 Sean Finnegan Okay, all right. 10:04 Sean Finnegan You're also involved with Living Hope Christian Church in Cambridge, and you talk about how the team was putting together a statement of faith and how this subject played into that. 10:20 Sean Finnegan So maybe you could talk about that a little bit. 10:22 Michael Hughes When Living Hope first formed, which is nearly 18 months ago now, we put together a launch team of four couples that were working on, just how to set things up and how we were going to organize things, how often we were going to meet, where we were going to meet, all of that sort of thing. 10:45 Michael Hughes And as part of that process, we put together a statement of faith of the beliefs that are important to us. 10:54 Michael Hughes Running in the background was my experience with the Seventh Day Adventists and also my response to the talk that Will Barlow gave at the New Zealand conference back in November 2024. 11:10 Michael Hughes And at some stage, I must have voiced my sort of musings that I'm not sure that us deciding what the important teachings are is necessarily the best way to go about this. 11:25 Michael Hughes And so that then created the conversation and the project that we're now in the process of working through. 11:33 Sean Finnegan You're working on a method of priority. 11:37 Sean Finnegan Is that fair to say? 11:38 Sean Finnegan Like certain beliefs should have higher priority than other beliefs. 11:43 Sean Finnegan Talk a little bit about how you decide that. 11:46 Sean Finnegan How does one know if a belief is high priority or essential is your top level, right? 11:52 Sean Finnegan And then at the bottom, you would have speculative beliefs, you know, just like half-baked theories that it doesn't matter really if you hold or you don't hold. 12:04 Sean Finnegan So talk a little bit about that. 12:06 Michael Hughes Yes, so the spectrum started off with, basically the absolutely unambiguous teachings at one level and the totally speculative teachings at the other. 12:20 Michael Hughes And I guess over time that has developed. 12:25 Michael Hughes So the very top level now, the beliefs where the New Testament itself identifies beliefs or practices 12:36 Michael Hughes that are either absolutely essential or absolutely fatal to the Christian faith or living as a believer. 12:47 Michael Hughes So that's sort of now the book ends for the spectrum. 12:53 Sean Finnegan So what kind of language are you looking for in the New Testament for those two aspects of essential beliefs? 13:01 Michael Hughes So there are two kinds of phrases or words, some of them where the scripture describes who qualifies as being a believer in the present. 13:15 Michael Hughes So it might say, born of God or of God or, are disciples or, have been saved or forgiven or those kinds of wording that describes that somebody in this present time qualify as being believers or not, as the case may be. 13:39 Michael Hughes The other category are those that talk about ultimate destiny. 13:44 Michael Hughes So there might be verses that say, people who do these things will be accepted at the judgment seat, will receive eternal life, will enter the kingdom of God, or will be rejected, will be destroyed, will end up in the lake of fire. 14:03 Michael Hughes So it's kind of like there's the present criteria, and then there's the ultimate criteria. 14:11 Michael Hughes I've documented probably about 3 pages worth of different ways in which those criteria are expressed in the New Testament. 14:21 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 14:21 Sean Finnegan This kind of reminds me of the Church of Christ approach to doctrine where they say, where the Bible speaks, we speak. 14:30 Sean Finnegan Where the Bible is silent, we're silent. 14:32 Sean Finnegan In the United States, the Church of Christ 14:36 Sean Finnegan folks that I've interacted with are not necessarily holding to that original ideal from the 1800s. 14:43 Sean Finnegan Some of the Church of Christ folks are basically just evangelicals and they insist on believing in the standard evangelical doctrinal package, whereas others are a little more holding to this like very biblical language approach. 14:59 Sean Finnegan So what you're doing here is not brand new, 15:03 Sean Finnegan But it is something that I think is really worthwhile because most statements of faith, at least all the ones I know, don't differentiate the importance of the beliefs. 15:18 Sean Finnegan They're just like, this is what we believe. 15:20 Sean Finnegan And you're introducing a new element here where you have these different levels. 15:27 Sean Finnegan What do you call them? 15:27 Sean Finnegan Levels of confidence or levels of evidence, right? 15:32 Michael Hughes So 15:33 Michael Hughes There's different ways of describing it. 15:35 Michael Hughes I think ultimately it comes down to levels of importance. 15:40 Michael Hughes And one of the key determinants for the levels of importance is the levels of evidence. 15:46 Sean Finnegan All right, so you covered level one, which is beliefs that are essential. 15:52 Sean Finnegan I'm actually kind of pulling from your other paper, more recent, Christian Fundamentals and Unity. 15:59 Sean Finnegan you've got these laid out in Appendix 9. 16:01 Sean Finnegan This paper definitely gets the award for the most appendix-rich or dense paper I've ever come across. 16:09 Sean Finnegan What do you have, like 12 appendices there? 16:14 Michael Hughes I wanted to be able to say to people that read it, look, you really only need to read the 1st 2 pages. 16:21 Michael Hughes Don't be put off by the number of pages. 16:24 Michael Hughes So let's put everything else in appendices. 16:26 Michael Hughes And if people want to, you know, get into the weeds, then you can do that to your heart's content, but you don't have to. 16:34 Sean Finnegan Yeah, as it comes out in my word processor, it's 23 pages. 16:38 Sean Finnegan So maybe you were thinking, 16:41 Sean Finnegan I'll just, and that's how I use my appendices too, just full disclosure. 16:46 Sean Finnegan In my books that I write, it's like, okay, well, the appendices are, these are important subjects I want to talk about and I want to write about, but I don't want to require the reader to read them if the reader's not interested in the appendices. 17:02 Michael Hughes That's right. 17:03 Sean Finnegan At least that's my appendix philosophy. 17:05 Sean Finnegan It seems like you're pretty much on board. 17:07 Sean Finnegan So level one, you have in that paper beliefs that are essential to salvation, and then level 2, practices that are related to salvation. 17:17 Sean Finnegan Talk about that a little bit. 17:18 Michael Hughes So there are some passages that say you must believe or do these things. 17:26 Michael Hughes in order to be a believer or be accepted by God both now and eternally. 17:34 Michael Hughes And there are some passages that will say, if you believe or do these things, you will not be, you are not accepted by God now or eternally. 17:46 Michael Hughes But then there's a third category, and I'll use 17:50 Michael Hughes Mark 16 verses 15 and 16 as an example where Jesus says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 17:59 Michael Hughes He that believes and is baptized will be saved. 18:03 Michael Hughes And he that does not believe will be condemned. 18:06 Michael Hughes So clearly believing is an essential, because if we don't believe, we'll be condemned. 18:13 Michael Hughes But in terms of baptism, in that particular verse, 18:17 Michael Hughes It says that if we believe in a baptized, we'll be saved. 18:21 Michael Hughes So clearly baptism is related to salvation, but it doesn't say if you don't get baptized, you won't be saved. 18:31 Michael Hughes And so that's kind of like a separate category. 18:34 Michael Hughes It's not saying baptism is essential or that not being baptized is fatal, but it's saying that baptism is related to salvation. 18:43 Michael Hughes Okay. 18:44 Sean Finnegan So that's what you mean by related to salvation? 18:47 Michael Hughes It's a bit of a tricky distinction, but one that's still important. 18:52 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I mean, there's probably no verse that says unless you pray, you're not saved, right? 18:57 Sean Finnegan But like people who are saved pray. 19:01 Sean Finnegan Or take communion, for example, that's another one. 19:05 Michael Hughes Yeah, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. 19:08 Michael Hughes And maybe there isn't a passage that says if you don't call, you won't be. 19:11 Michael Hughes So there's not many things in that category, but there are a few. 19:16 Michael Hughes And it's just helpful to make that distinction. 19:19 Sean Finnegan All right, moving down to level 3, you have beliefs that are undoubtedly true. 19:24 Sean Finnegan What would fall into that category? 19:27 Michael Hughes So that would be beliefs that are neither essential nor fatal, nor directly associated with our present or future acceptance by God, but are mentioned repeatedly, particularly in the New Testament. 19:46 Michael Hughes And there are no verses that would give any shadow of a doubt about that particular teaching. 19:53 Sean Finnegan Okay. 19:54 Michael Hughes So it's unambiguous, it's unequivocal. 19:58 Michael Hughes There's no doubt about it. 19:59 Michael Hughes It's just that it's never specifically identified as being fundamental to the Christian faith. 20:06 Sean Finnegan Right. 20:06 Sean Finnegan So what would be an example of that? 20:09 Michael Hughes So for instance, a belief in angels might not ever be identified as being a fundamental. 20:18 Michael Hughes But there's no doubt, both in Old and New Testament, that angels are real and this is what they do. 20:23 Michael Hughes Yeah. 20:24 Sean Finnegan Okay. 20:25 Sean Finnegan Those would be beliefs that are explicitly taught in scripture, but are not anywhere attached to salvation in any kind of essential way. 20:37 Sean Finnegan So they 20:38 Sean Finnegan They have a lower rating. 20:40 Sean Finnegan They're still important, but they're not salvific. 20:44 Sean Finnegan I mean, based on what I know, if somebody didn't believe in angels, they could still be saved. 20:50 Sean Finnegan It would be weird, but like, sure. 20:54 Sean Finnegan Right? 20:54 Sean Finnegan And they might have a rude awakening one day when like the archangel comes and the trumpet sounds and they're like, oh, I guess I was wrong about that. 21:03 Sean Finnegan It kind of reminds me of the old joke about there were two preachers talking and they were talking about the pre-tribulation rapture. 21:12 Sean Finnegan And the one guy said to the other guy, you know, what are you going to do, Mr. 21:16 Sean Finnegan Post-tribulationist, when you see everybody flying off to heaven in the pre-tribulation rapture? 21:22 Sean Finnegan And he said, well, I'll be damned. 21:27 Sean Finnegan Sorry, that's just terrible. 21:28 Sean Finnegan But the fact is, I personally am post-tribulationist, and I think you probably are too. 21:36 Sean Finnegan But if I turn out to be wrong about that, and I get whisked off to heaven in some secret pre-coming, you know, Jesus comes before he actually comes to the earth, 21:47 Sean Finnegan I'm not going to argue with it. 21:48 Sean Finnegan It's just like, all right, let's go, man. 21:50 Sean Finnegan That's great. 21:51 Sean Finnegan People have to think about this because, you know, so many of us in church, we kind of take in this perception that everything is equally as important as everything else. 22:01 Michael Hughes Yeah. 22:01 Sean Finnegan And that's just not the way the Bible talks. 22:05 Sean Finnegan And what's crazy too about this, Michael, is that this is not a common topic. 22:09 Sean Finnegan This should be in, 22:11 Sean Finnegan hermeneutics 101 classes. 22:14 Sean Finnegan And, I don't hear anybody talking about it, which is why I was so interested to talk to you about it, because it's like, it's a really important, really, really important subject to get a grasp of. 22:25 Sean Finnegan And if the Bible really does grade or rate in some sense, how important beliefs are, then we shouldn't, we also do that? 22:38 Michael Hughes That's right, because when you're pastoring a church and we're part of a church here, some of the most important questions are, what are the fundamentals of Christianity? 22:50 Michael Hughes What is it that makes somebody a believer or not? 22:54 Michael Hughes If someone wants to be baptized, what do they need in order for that to work? 22:59 Michael Hughes Who should be able to join our church? 23:01 Michael Hughes Like these are quite fundamental issues. 23:04 Michael Hughes If we are making that simply based on the strength of 23:07 Michael Hughes our own opinion, then that's actually quite a serious position. 23:12 Michael Hughes And one of the kind of almost overarching ideas as part of this approach is that Jesus is the head of the church and the church is subject to Jesus, particularly on these, you know, fundamental questions. 23:29 Michael Hughes Jesus should be the one that's deciding these things, not us. 23:33 Michael Hughes And if he's revealed all of this to us in the New Testament, 23:37 Michael Hughes then we just need to understand what he said and put that into practice. 23:44 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 23:44 Sean Finnegan So levels 4 and five are beliefs that are probably true and beliefs that are possibly true. 23:52 Sean Finnegan Explain those a little bit so we get an understanding. 23:56 Michael Hughes Yeah, so before we go there, I think it would be important just to tease out the implications of those first three levels. 24:03 Sean Finnegan Oh, okay, sure. 24:04 Michael Hughes So that first level 24:07 Michael Hughes is saying these are the things that someone must believe and be prepared to do in order to become a believer, to be saved. 24:21 Michael Hughes You can't become a believer without those things. 24:25 Michael Hughes Now, the things that are in the second and third levels, those are things which shouldn't be rejected. 24:36 Michael Hughes Someone that's a new believer may not have come across those ideas yet. 24:41 Michael Hughes They might have believed the fundamentals, been baptized, become a member of the church, but may not have come across angels or any number of other unambiguously taught beliefs. 24:56 Michael Hughes But as they come across them and as the evidence for those is presented to them, 25:02 Michael Hughes They really shouldn't reject those because they're so clearly, repeatedly, unambiguously taught. 25:10 Sean Finnegan Practically speaking, where would you work these out? 25:12 Sean Finnegan Like just in a discipleship setting with somebody or more just like them attending on Sundays over time, they would pick these up. 25:20 Michael Hughes Yep. 25:21 Sean Finnegan Okay. 25:22 Michael Hughes Because they're not fundamental, they're not essential or fatal. 25:28 Michael Hughes and so this is part of the growth of the believer is becoming aware of more and more and more things that the Bible teaches and building up more and more of an understanding, a deeper and broader understanding. 25:45 Michael Hughes So the first level are things which must be believed. 25:51 Michael Hughes And maybe the best way to think about the second and third levels are things which should not be rejected. 25:58 Sean Finnegan Okay, so the first level, beliefs that are essential to salvation. 26:02 Sean Finnegan Levels 2 and level 3 are beliefs or behaviors that are related to salvation, and then those that are undoubtedly true, unambiguously taught in scripture. 26:11 Sean Finnegan These are the beliefs that the church should major on, should focus on in teaching, in the teaching ministry and in discipleship. 26:24 Sean Finnegan So as we move down to 26:27 Sean Finnegan level 4, level 5, beliefs that are probably true, beliefs that are possibly true. 26:32 Sean Finnegan What do you have in mind there? 26:34 Michael Hughes Okay, so there are some topics where there are verses that seem to be clearly saying one thing, but there also may be verses that seem to be clearly saying something different. 26:50 Michael Hughes So that the face of the page evidence is not totally 26:54 Michael Hughes absolutely, clearly, unambiguously, unequivocally true. 27:00 Sean Finnegan Okay. 27:02 Michael Hughes And these are often topics where different churches have different views. 27:07 Michael Hughes I mean, you've talked about the, you know, the rapture thing. 27:13 Michael Hughes I mean, that might be even further down the track. 27:15 Michael Hughes But, you know, let's say, for example, the issue of what happens when you die. 27:22 Michael Hughes There are verses that seem to clearly say, when you die, that's the end of your life, you are dead, you are no longer conscious, no longer capable of thought, and there is nothing until the resurrection when Jesus brings you back to life again. 27:40 Michael Hughes And then there are other verses that seem to talk about people being conscious after death. 27:47 Michael Hughes If I have a look at that topic and decide that the vast majority of the verses are saying, when you're dead, you're dead, and those verses that are talking about some sort of consciousness in death, you know, are a minority, and maybe they need to be understood in some different way, then we've got a category 4. 28:11 Sean Finnegan Okay. 28:12 Michael Hughes The majority of the verses seem to be saying this. 28:15 Sean Finnegan So that's probably true because you have the majority. 28:18 Michael Hughes Yep. 28:20 Michael Hughes And so for instance, you know, is Jesus God? 28:23 Michael Hughes You might have hundreds of verses that say God is somebody other than Jesus. 28:29 Michael Hughes But then you might have a couple of these verses that seem to say, Thomas says, my Lord and my God. 28:35 Michael Hughes So therefore, in some sense, Jesus, maybe Jesus is God. 28:39 Michael Hughes So if somebody believes Jesus is God, they're not complete idiots because there are verses that seem to give that impression. 28:50 Michael Hughes So 28:52 Michael Hughes at the worst, that belief is a level 5 belief because it might be in a minority of verses, but those verses are still there. 29:02 Michael Hughes So that's just an example of how that. 29:05 Sean Finnegan Works. 29:05 Sean Finnegan Yeah, thank you. 29:06 Sean Finnegan That really helps. 29:07 Sean Finnegan So level 4 is a belief that is not undoubted because there are some difficult texts, some scriptures that seem to challenge it, but the majority 29:21 Sean Finnegan are on the one side. 29:22 Sean Finnegan Whereas level 5 is, well, you only really have a minority on that position. 29:28 Sean Finnegan So it bumps it down a level of confidence and that's priority. 29:34 Sean Finnegan Level 6, beliefs that are constructed. 29:37 Sean Finnegan Talk about that. 29:39 Michael Hughes Well, but before we go to level 6, the level 3 in legal terms is beyond reasonable doubt. 29:47 Sean Finnegan Okay. 29:49 Michael Hughes So if something is just everywhere in scripture and there's no reason to doubt it, that is a belief that's established beyond reasonable doubt. 30:00 Michael Hughes The level 4 is what in legal terms they would call on balance of probabilities. 30:06 Michael Hughes So the evidence is weighted towards one view over the other. 30:13 Michael Hughes And level 5 would be 30:15 Michael Hughes those where the balance of probabilities is weighted against. 30:20 Michael Hughes So in terms of defining who is a Christian, people can believe the majority position, people can believe the minority position and still be Christian because they've got scriptural reasons for doing so. 30:36 Michael Hughes Even if it's a minority position, maybe they're placing far too much emphasis on those minority verses and not enough emphasis on the majority verses, these are forgivable things. 30:49 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 30:49 Michael Hughes But they don't define, you know, whether someone is a Christian or not. 30:53 Michael Hughes So I just thought I'd clarify that. 30:55 Sean Finnegan No, I appreciate that. 30:56 Sean Finnegan I think the end result of this method is to have a broader 31:02 Sean Finnegan more generous mindset towards doctrinal diversity in the local church. 31:07 Sean Finnegan Is that fair to say? 31:09 Michael Hughes And one of the outcomes of this is that we are much more likely to be able to achieve unity within local congregations 31:22 Michael Hughes across a single denomination and even between denominations, because we've got a transparent scriptural method for deciding which category these beliefs fall into. 31:36 Michael Hughes And so if we are saying, you can't join our church because you don't share this belief, 31:44 Michael Hughes We're doing this knowing that the person actually has some scriptural reason for believing it, but we're ignoring that. 31:52 Michael Hughes And that's a pretty serious thing to do. 31:54 Michael Hughes Yeah. 31:54 Michael Hughes All. 31:56 Sean Finnegan Right, let's do beliefs that are constructed, level 6. 32:00 Michael Hughes Yeah, so an example of that would be the Trinity. 32:04 Sean Finnegan Okay. 32:05 Michael Hughes So the idea that God is 1 being in three persons 32:12 Michael Hughes is never taught anywhere in a single passage in Scripture. 32:18 Michael Hughes You can only come to that conclusion by constructing, and in the case of the Trinity, a significant number of individual passages that are understood in a certain way in order to come to that conclusion. 32:34 Michael Hughes And again, probably some of the most divisive issues 32:38 Michael Hughes fall into that category. 32:39 Michael Hughes And that's probably where your rapture one falls, where it's a constructed view, where you've got to put together a whole lot of verses in a certain way to come to us. 32:50 Michael Hughes certain conclusion, I think the thing to say about that level 6 is nowhere does the Bible teach that belief. 33:00 Michael Hughes And actually stating it like that, I think is quite powerful. 33:05 Sean Finnegan Yeah, there are probably some theories of atonement, like penal substitution that might fit in there too. 33:12 Michael Hughes Yes. 33:12 Sean Finnegan Other doctrines like 33:15 Sean Finnegan what, open theism versus exhaustive foreknowledge versus exhaustive predestination? 33:23 Sean Finnegan I don't know. 33:24 Sean Finnegan I think people will argue, okay, well, this belief that I love and I cherish, it's really a higher level, you know, look at all these verses, right? 33:32 Sean Finnegan So maybe they could get it up to level 4 or level 5. 33:36 Sean Finnegan But even level 4 or level 5, as far as the local church goes, you're still arguing for freedom on those issues. 33:43 Michael Hughes Yes. 33:44 Michael Hughes there's that, and it might even be a Church of Christ saying about on fundamentals unity, on non-fundamentals liberty, in all things charity. 33:57 Michael Hughes And that's pretty close to the kind of the spirit of this approach. 34:03 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's interesting because you have a lot of Christians who are dogmatic and they're like, no, this is my doctrinal package. 34:08 Sean Finnegan You have to agree with all of it. 34:10 Sean Finnegan because it's so important to me. 34:11 Sean Finnegan And I just love my doctrinal system so much because it gives me a clear way to read the Bible. 34:17 Sean Finnegan And then on the other side, you have liberal-minded folks who say, well, truth doesn't really matter. 34:23 Sean Finnegan Just be nice to people. 34:24 Sean Finnegan And you kind of get a cultural Christianity and really know strong beliefs, right? 34:31 Sean Finnegan So those are kind of like the two main approaches to this subject. 34:35 Sean Finnegan And you're saying, well, hold on a second. 34:37 Sean Finnegan Let's try something different. 34:39 Sean Finnegan So I think this isn't really a fresh approach. 34:43 Michael Hughes And it was interesting when I was reading the literature, because there's been a bit of interest in this topic over the last 20 years. 34:52 Michael Hughes I think there was a guy, Albert Moller, who was chair of the Southern Baptist Convention or something. 34:58 Michael Hughes He wrote a seminal article about 25 years ago that sort of brought this topic to the fore. 35:04 Michael Hughes And there's been a number of people have made some pretty good 35:08 Michael Hughes contributions to the discussion. 35:11 Michael Hughes But I've kind of noticed that rather than just using the New Testament evidence, the clear, unequivocal New Testament evidence as the only criteria, a lot of these people will try and smuggle in the favorite views through adding various other more subjective criteria. 35:34 Michael Hughes And it's like, 35:35 Michael Hughes I think that's actually defeating the purpose. 35:40 Michael Hughes Because if we can simply use scripture as the criteria, we're on solid ground and we're much more likely to be able to come to a consensus. 35:50 Michael Hughes Whereas if we want to try and smuggle in these other things, we're just going to end up with the 50,000 denominations we've already got. 35:57 Michael Hughes And that's the problem. 35:58 Michael Hughes Jesus wants us to be united and this is the way to do it. 36:03 Michael Hughes And in one of the articles, 36:05 Michael Hughes a guy talked about there are ditches on both sides of the road. 36:10 Michael Hughes there's the fundamentalist ditch where everything is fundamental, and there's the liberal ditch where nothing is fundamental. 36:18 Michael Hughes Well, actually, the road is what does the New Testament say is fundamental? 36:24 Sean Finnegan Right, in between the ditches. 36:26 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I was at a UCA conference years ago 36:31 Sean Finnegan one of the early ones, first or second year. 36:33 Sean Finnegan here we are, we all have our own groups or denominations or networks or whatever we want to call them, independent churches, independent individuals, and we're all getting together for this conference. 36:45 Sean Finnegan And the guy was saying, we probably should figure out how to get along with each other because we agree on enough that we're all saved. 36:57 Sean Finnegan And if that's true, we're going to be together forever. 37:02 Sean Finnegan So maybe we should try to figure out how to get along. 37:04 Sean Finnegan And I remember hearing that I was like, yeah, I, like I didn't know everyone at the conference and all their distinctive beliefs, but I knew like the major groups and I was like, yeah, like we disagree on this or on this, on this, but like these are not salvation issues. 37:21 Sean Finnegan These are, these are kind of secondary or tertiary issues. 37:24 Sean Finnegan And it really got me thinking when he said that. 37:28 Sean Finnegan Let's talk about level 7 speculation. 37:31 Michael Hughes We've probably all got pet ideas about the centurion that was at the cross. 37:39 Michael Hughes I think that was Cornelius. 37:41 Michael Hughes Or whatever, you know, like we've probably read various things and thought, oh, 37:50 Michael Hughes I'll bet, so and so. 37:53 Sean Finnegan You're connecting dots together that are not connected in scripture. 37:57 Michael Hughes Yeah. 37:58 Michael Hughes So, and that's the category of things where there isn't a shred of scriptural evidence. 38:06 Michael Hughes It's just an idea, provided it's not completely going against a fundamental or an unambiguous teaching. 38:17 Michael Hughes You can have that. 38:19 Michael Hughes Just don't major on it, please. 38:21 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 38:23 Michael Hughes Put it, put it at level 7 and just let it, let it rest there. 38:29 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 38:29 Sean Finnegan It's kind of crazy, but sometimes these level 7 speculations become, do you know this word, shibboleth from the book of Judges? 38:40 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 38:41 Sean Finnegan They become a shibboleth. 38:42 Sean Finnegan And it's like, you know, if you don't hold this, then you're not really one of our people. 38:47 Sean Finnegan And it becomes a litmus test. 38:49 Sean Finnegan I've seen that happen plenty of times, which is crazy to take a level 7 and to make it a level 1 or a level 2 or a level 3. 39:00 Sean Finnegan But it happens all the time because nobody is trained to think this way that you're talking about here. 39:07 Michael Hughes And that's where I think this approach can be used in a diagnostic sense. 39:15 Michael Hughes and we can apply it to ourselves and we can apply it to other people. 39:19 Michael Hughes And that fundamental question, show me in the Bible one verse that directly states what you're saying. 39:28 Michael Hughes And if you can't, then the Bible doesn't teach it. 39:34 Michael Hughes So at best, it's a level 7. 39:36 Michael Hughes When we're talking to somebody else, you know, like those people that were talking to us, you know, two or three years ago about the mark of the beast, 39:44 Michael Hughes just ask that question and it diagnoses itself. 39:50 Michael Hughes If you have to go to more than one scripture, I'm sorry, the Bible doesn't directly teach you. 39:55 Michael Hughes If it's based on a passage where the manuscripts are widely varying, it's only some versions, you know, support your view, I'm sorry, you know, that's just, that doesn't cut it. 40:06 Michael Hughes Yeah. 40:07 Sean Finnegan It reminds me of the distinction between implicit and explicit. 40:12 Michael Hughes Yes. 40:13 Sean Finnegan Is a belief implicit in scripture, and that's kind of, to me, I think a lot of this level 6 stuff, where you're constructing A belief based on implications of this verse and that verse, whereas explicit is like, it just says it. 40:30 Michael Hughes One of the values of this, by, you know, particularly once we've, you know, identified which beliefs belong in which categories, 40:39 Michael Hughes it means we've now got a roadmap for what is it that we need to emphasize. 40:44 Michael Hughes clearly the things that are fundamental or fatal to salvation, they need to be the things that we're talking about more than anything else. 40:52 Michael Hughes And the things which are majority but have a minority, you know, balancing it, 40:59 Michael Hughes we shouldn't be majoring on those in nearly the same way. 41:02 Michael Hughes And the further we go down the level, if we find ourselves talking all the time about a level 5 or 6 or 7, it's like, hang on, we're getting this all out of proportion. 41:13 Michael Hughes We need to get back to the things that are really important, that really matter, that we need to focus on, that the people in our congregations need to really grapple with. 41:24 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 41:24 Sean Finnegan Very good. 41:25 Sean Finnegan Then you have level 8 and level 9, beliefs that are undoubtedly false and beliefs that are fatal or fatally opposed to Christian teachings. 41:35 Sean Finnegan What do you have in mind there? 41:37 Michael Hughes So that's basically the opposite. 41:40 Michael Hughes The level 9 is the opposite of level 1. 41:43 Sean Finnegan Right. 41:43 Sean Finnegan So this is kind of like a U-shaped scale or rubric. 41:47 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 41:49 Michael Hughes Very much so. 41:50 Michael Hughes Yeah. 41:50 Michael Hughes So if you have a belief, 41:52 Michael Hughes that directly contradicts a level 1 belief that's fundamental, then it's a level 9. 42:01 Michael Hughes It's fatal. 42:02 Michael Hughes And if you've got a belief that directly contradicts something which is so unambiguous and unequivocally taught in the New Testament, then you're directly contradicting a level 2 or 3, which again is not a great place to be. 42:22 Sean Finnegan I have some beliefs or practices that I'd like to run by you and see where you would put them. 42:32 Sean Finnegan Are you ready? 42:35 Michael Hughes Yes, I'm allowed to plead the Fifth Amendment. 42:39 Sean Finnegan Of course, of course, yeah. 42:41 Sean Finnegan There are some Christians that believe that you can marry someone of the same sex. 42:49 Sean Finnegan what would you say to same-sex marriage from a biblical point of view? 42:55 Sean Finnegan Like assuming the person agrees that the Bible is authoritative. 43:00 Michael Hughes So my understanding from Romans chapter 1 and 1 Corinthians chapter 6 is that homosexual activity is something which is fatal to the Christian faith. 43:18 Michael Hughes So that would be a level 1 slash 9 issue. 43:24 Sean Finnegan So it would actually be a top level situation because you have unambiguous verses that explicitly teach against it as being a sin. 43:34 Michael Hughes Not just a sin, but absolutely fatal. 43:39 Michael Hughes I think First Corinthians 6 probably says that you won't inherit the kingdom. 43:43 Sean Finnegan Yeah, First Corinthians 6, 9. 43:45 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I know the verse you're thinking of now, that you mention it. 43:48 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it has a list of sins and it says those who do these things or practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 43:54 Sean Finnegan So that's an explicit statement. 43:56 Sean Finnegan What about marijuana? 43:57 Sean Finnegan In my country, in my state, marijuana is now legalized. 44:04 Sean Finnegan What level would that be? 44:05 Sean Finnegan Christian wants to have a little recreational usage. 44:10 Michael Hughes So my understanding, I haven't come across 44:14 Michael Hughes a Bible verse that mentions marijuana. 44:16 Sean Finnegan Right, It's a tough one because it's not, it wasn't around at the time. 44:21 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 44:22 Michael Hughes That would be a starting point. 44:25 Michael Hughes Secondly, certainly in New Zealand and potentially around the world, there are people who use marijuana for medicinal, for pain relief. 44:37 Michael Hughes And so that wouldn't seem to me to qualify. 44:41 Michael Hughes The only way that you could process that issue would be to say that in some way that it's similar to say drunkenness and because you're losing your control over yourself. 44:57 Michael Hughes And so, and drunkenness is one of those things which is fatal to Christianity, but you can already see how long the chain is to get there. 45:09 Michael Hughes And it's being aware of the length of the chain and the strength of those links that would determine where you place it. 45:17 Sean Finnegan Okay, so what level would you put it at? 45:19 Sean Finnegan What do you think? 45:22 Sean Finnegan I'll be 6 constructed or? 45:25 Sean Finnegan I. 45:27 Michael Hughes Wouldn't be prepared to comment on that until I've given it a lot more thought, but I doubt that it could be a level 1 issue simply because there is no Bible verse that directly addresses that. 45:40 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 45:41 Sean Finnegan And then of course there's all kinds of other drugs that are, I think, a lot more obvious as far as how destructive they are. 45:49 Sean Finnegan But let's move on to the Sabbath. 45:51 Sean Finnegan A lot of folks want to keep the Sabbath and keep the law and don't want to eat bacon and want to meet on Saturday and they don't want to do Christmas or Easter. 46:05 Sean Finnegan And instead they want to do the Feast of Booths and the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. 46:11 Sean Finnegan And you know, they want to, you know, the typical way we would say is they want to be Torah observant. 46:16 Sean Finnegan Yes. 46:17 Sean Finnegan What would you say for that belief? 46:19 Sean Finnegan Where would that fit? 46:21 Michael Hughes In terms of the Sabbath, I haven't found a verse that says, you know, a New Testament verse that says you have to keep the Sabbath in order to be saved, to be a Christian, to enter the kingdom. 46:36 Michael Hughes So therefore it's not a level 1, 2, 3, probably not even a level 4 or 5. 46:44 Michael Hughes because any evidence would have to be indirect. 46:48 Michael Hughes And on the other side of the coin, you have the verses in Romans 14 that talk, Romans 14 talks generally about esteeming one day above another and someone else esteeming, you know, every day alike. 47:04 Michael Hughes But then you've got the specific one in Colossians chapter 2, which seems to indicate that keeping the feasts and the Sabbath 47:13 Michael Hughes is definitely not a defining issue. 47:17 Michael Hughes So you've got the absence of evidence on the one hand, and you've got evidence on the other hand. 47:24 Michael Hughes But having said that, Romans 14 is a really good example of in non-fundamentals liberty, because Paul doesn't say, you don't need to keep the Sabbath, don't keep the Sabbath. 47:40 Michael Hughes He says effectively, if you want to keep certain days or you want to not eat certain foods, go for it. 47:47 Michael Hughes Do it to the Lord. 47:48 Michael Hughes Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8 are really good passages as role models for how do we do this coping with people that have different beliefs or practices. 48:00 Michael Hughes Do we have to treat them as not being Christians? 48:03 Michael Hughes And the answer is no. 48:04 Michael Hughes We treat them as Christians 48:06 Michael Hughes and we respect the diversity. 48:08 Sean Finnegan Now, if some church would establish Torah observance as a requirement for membership, or something that is considered to be not necessary for salvation, but should be the standard way of life. 48:29 Michael Hughes Yes. 48:29 Sean Finnegan You know, what about that kind of situation? 48:33 Michael Hughes So what I would be inclined to do 48:36 Michael Hughes is to take them through the levels of evidence. 48:38 Sean Finnegan Okay. 48:39 Michael Hughes And then, like I did with the people that were talking about the mark of the beast, let's identify scripturally from the evidence, where does this land? 48:51 Michael Hughes And if there's no verse that says it's fundamental, then it's not a level one. 48:57 Michael Hughes If, you know, if it's not unequivocal, then it's not a level two or three. 49:03 Michael Hughes If it's a majority position, okay, let's look at the evidence on both sides. 49:09 Michael Hughes That would be the way that I would recommend dealing with that sort of issue. 49:15 Sean Finnegan Do you keep a Sabbath? 49:17 Sean Finnegan Like a weekly day off? 49:20 Sean Finnegan No. 49:20 Sean Finnegan you don't? 49:20 Sean Finnegan No. 49:22 Sean Finnegan What about, you have some people in your church that believe in eating kosher and your church offers pork products. 49:34 Sean Finnegan in the food after the service. 49:37 Sean Finnegan Would you say that the whole church should just keep kosher out of like a Romans 14 mindset to these people, even if it's just like one person out of like the whole group? 49:49 Sean Finnegan Or would you say that person just needs to not be so offended by other people keeping, not keeping kosher? 50:00 Michael Hughes Again, if we went through the levels of evidence process and the person was able to see that this was a personal conviction, but not something that can be demanded by scripture, then it would be really healthy if they could come to the place where they can accept the fact that other people have come to a different conclusion because the evidence is not conclusive. 50:28 Michael Hughes and be able to accept that some people are going to eat differently to what they do. 50:33 Michael Hughes But it would be really good if we could bring along food that they will be able to eat in all good conscience. 50:41 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 50:41 Sean Finnegan So like for gluten-free people, yeah, that kind of just making sure something's available for them out of just Christian love. 50:51 Sean Finnegan We had a communion service this morning in our church. 50:54 Sean Finnegan We didn't have a lot of gluten-free 50:57 Sean Finnegan options. 50:57 Sean Finnegan But we did have a few, and so we had four tables set, and then the two in the front had the gluten-free option, and so those people could be accommodated. 51:07 Sean Finnegan And then something else we do, which you might find hysterical, is that we offer wine and juice, and people choose which one they want. 51:18 Sean Finnegan Because there's just been so many people that get bent out of shape over the wine versus juice thing. 51:25 Michael Hughes The interesting thing is that the New Testament doesn't talk about wine. 51:29 Michael Hughes It talks about the cup and talks about the fruit of the vine. 51:33 Michael Hughes So scripturally, show me the verse that says it has to be wine. 51:37 Michael Hughes Oh, I've looked and there isn't one. 51:39 Michael Hughes Fantastic. 51:39 Michael Hughes So this is not an issue. 51:42 Sean Finnegan I see. 51:43 Michael Hughes So again, using that same approach. 51:46 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I'm just trying to think, why am I so sure it is wine? 51:50 Sean Finnegan I guess based on the Passover 51:53 Sean Finnegan custom of the Jewish people in general. 51:57 Michael Hughes It's Old Testament, but that isn't transported into the new. 52:01 Michael Hughes And I mean, First Corinthians 8 is a really good example of the leniency and the tolerance. 52:10 Michael Hughes somebody still thinks in terms of when he's eating that food, he's worshiping God. 52:15 Michael Hughes Well, I'm not going to even tempt him to do that, because that's going to corrupt his conscience. 52:21 Michael Hughes So even though he still needs to understand a bit more, I'm being patient, I'm being gracious, I'm being respectful. 52:29 Michael Hughes And I think that that's the lovely spirit that we want to encourage. 52:34 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 52:34 Sean Finnegan If you were just to imagine for a moment that this idea really took off and that there were 52:40 Sean Finnegan quite a few churches that were allowing a lot more doctrinal freedom than is typical. 52:47 Sean Finnegan Do you think those churches would be able to function well, or do you think that it would cause sort of like unforeseen problems? 52:54 Sean Finnegan How do you think it would work out in real life, I guess. 52:58 Michael Hughes I think it's actually an approach that requires and encourages honesty and humility. 53:07 Michael Hughes And if a church can operate based on even just those two attitudes, then it's going to be healthy. 53:18 Michael Hughes You kind of role modeled that approach in the talk that you gave at the Australian conference, where you were dealing with a topic 53:27 Michael Hughes You explained what the three positions were. 53:30 Michael Hughes You explained the fors and against of each of those positions, and then explained why you supported one of the three. 53:38 Michael Hughes Now, to me, that was a transparent. 53:41 Michael Hughes It was honest. 53:42 Michael Hughes You weren't telling anybody they were an idiot for believing a certain thing. 53:46 Michael Hughes You were recognizing that there was evidence, you know, but that the weight of evidence was in favor of this. 53:52 Michael Hughes I think that is just such a mature, respectful, balanced, honest, humble approach. 53:59 Michael Hughes And I really, really commend you on role modeling that for all of the people that were there and for all of the people that end up seeing it online. 54:09 Michael Hughes I think that's 54:11 Michael Hughes That's a really good practical illustration of how this can work. 54:15 Sean Finnegan Well, thank you. 54:16 Sean Finnegan I appreciate you saying that. 54:17 Sean Finnegan Well, just winding down here, is there anything else that you'd like to mention about this topic that we didn't get to cover before closing out? 54:26 Michael Hughes Yes, there's lots more. 54:30 Sean Finnegan How can people get the paper? 54:32 Sean Finnegan Do you have it on a website somewhere or can they e-mail you? 54:37 Michael Hughes Yeah, they can get in touch through the Living Hope website. 54:42 Sean Finnegan Okay. 54:43 Michael Hughes Livinghope.co.nz. 54:46 Michael Hughes Yeah, I love to converse and discuss. 54:49 Michael Hughes And because this is very much, this is the beginning of a journey. 54:52 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 54:53 Michael Hughes At our church in three weeks time, we're going to devote a Saturday to beginning the conversation with the whole of the congregation. 55:03 Michael Hughes if we can make it work and come up with something that we can all agree on, then maybe it's something that other congregations that are either already existing or are starting to form. 55:16 Michael Hughes Like in Australia, there's potentially just little groups of biblical Unitarians starting to get together. 55:24 Michael Hughes And 55:25 Michael Hughes Either we go down the track of dividing over every silly thing, so we end up with 50,000 biblical Unitarian congregations, or we take on board this approach and we come together and we can actually become united, cooperate so much more with each other and be so much more effective. 55:45 Sean Finnegan Yeah, I think because BU churches are in such a minority, there is much more of a tendency 55:55 Sean Finnegan to work together right now. 55:57 Sean Finnegan But if we win, and by winning, I mean succeed in spreading and multiplying and planting more churches or flipping existing churches, you're right. 56:07 Sean Finnegan This same, same old, same old is going to happen that we see in the major denominations if there's not a different method. 56:16 Sean Finnegan Really, it all comes down to method and approach, not the specifics. 56:22 Sean Finnegan And so I commend people to take a look at this paper and really, really consider it. 56:28 Sean Finnegan This is important. 56:29 Michael Hughes Well, in terms of that, we've got a little congregation of about a couple of dozen people, and we've got probably another couple of dozen people spread throughout the country that are kind of associated with us. 56:43 Michael Hughes And in that group, we've probably got about a dozen or 15 different theological backgrounds. 56:50 Michael Hughes a full range of people that have come together. 56:55 Michael Hughes And in order to stay together, we need to find a way that that's possible. 57:00 Michael Hughes And to me, this scriptural way is going to be by far the best way because it places Jesus at the head of the church and gives him the role of deciding rather than us basing it on the strength of our own opinions. 57:17 Sean Finnegan Yeah, Very good. 57:20 Sean Finnegan All right. 57:20 Sean Finnegan I know that you would have a lot more to say because there's another 8,000 words in this paper, but I'm just looking at the two. 57:31 Sean Finnegan I think the first one was 6,000. 57:33 Sean Finnegan The second, the shorter version was 8,867 words. 57:37 Sean Finnegan So well done in summarizing your thoughts there. 57:42 Sean Finnegan But I do appreciate your time, Michael. 57:44 Sean Finnegan And of course, I wish Living Hope NZ the best. 57:48 Sean Finnegan if any of you who are watching this or listening to this are anywhere drivable to Cambridge or Hamilton, New Zealand, please check them out at their website, livinghope.co.nz, or NZ, as you guys say it, and give them a visit. 58:05 Sean Finnegan I think you'll have a good time. 58:07 Sean Finnegan And they actually do meet in a traditional church, in a Seventh-day Adventist church. 58:13 Sean Finnegan But on Sunday, when the Seventh Day Adventists are not there. 58:16 Sean Finnegan So it's a great opportunity to get a nice access to a beautiful little church building. 58:23 Michael Hughes And I guess the other thing is for anybody near this part of the world, we do live stream Sunday services. 58:34 Michael Hughes They're at 10 o'clock on a Sunday, New Zealand time. 58:37 Michael Hughes And we also have a Bible discussion group that we run 58:42 Michael Hughes at 7.30 on a Tuesday night, based on these principles of, yes, there are some fundamentals that are very, very important to us, but anything from level 4 or down, let's talk about it. 58:57 Michael Hughes Let's share the scriptural evidence for it and let's be gracious and respect each other. 59:02 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 59:03 Sean Finnegan Awesome. 59:04 Sean Finnegan Well, thanks for talking with me today. 59:06 Michael Hughes Alrighty. 59:06 Michael Hughes Thanks, Sean. 59:11 Sean Finnegan This draws this interview to a close. 59:13 Sean Finnegan What did you think? 59:14 Sean Finnegan Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 659. 59:18 Sean Finnegan How important is that doctrine with Michael Hughes and leave your comments and questions and feedback there. 59:24 Sean Finnegan Also on the show notes for this episode, I have copied and pasted from his paper the nine levels of evidence in his own words. 59:32 Sean Finnegan So you can get those on the website as well. 59:35 Sean Finnegan Once again, restitudio.org, episode 659, how important is that doctrine? 59:40 Sean Finnegan And you can scroll to the bottom and see the nine levels of evidence briefly explained. 59:45 Sean Finnegan On episode 658, Explore What We Believe with Will Barlow, Justin wrote in on YouTube saying, when I see Pastor Will, I hit like. 59:54 Sean Finnegan Thanks for all you do, brother. 59:55 Sean Finnegan Thanks for writing in, Justin. 59:57 Sean Finnegan Also, Paul wrote in on that same episode saying, this was a great interview. 01:00:02 Sean Finnegan I especially appreciated your desire to maintain unity with people you disagree with. 01:00:07 Sean Finnegan That is very important, and I think it is one of the biggest things missing in many churches today. 01:00:13 Sean Finnegan I am sure you are familiar with the usual biblical arguments for open theism. 01:00:17 Sean Finnegan Passages such as Jeremiah 18, where God explains that His response to a nation can depend on how that nation responds to Him. 01:00:25 Sean Finnegan Jonah's reluctance to preach to Nineveh because he knew God was merciful and might spare them if they repented, and the many places where God speaks about the future in conditional terms. 01:00:37 Sean Finnegan All of that gives us good reason to believe that, at least to some degree, the future is open and unsettled. 01:00:43 Sean Finnegan But I also think any position we take on Scripture has to account for everything else Scripture says on the subject. 01:00:51 Sean Finnegan We should not embrace two ideas that contradict one another and simply say that the Bible teaches both. 01:00:56 Sean Finnegan Instead, we should seek a framework that harmonizes all the relevant biblical data. 01:01:02 Sean Finnegan There are certainly passages that speak of things God has determined to accomplish, that He declares the end from the beginning, that He works all things according to the purpose of His will, that there will be a resurrection and a judgment, and that He will have a people conform to the image of His Son. 01:01:20 Sean Finnegan Those things are real and important. 01:01:23 Sean Finnegan God will accomplish what He has decided to accomplish. 01:01:27 Sean Finnegan But we need to be careful not to infer more from those passages than what they actually say. 01:01:33 Sean Finnegan The fact that God has determined certain things does not mean that He has determined every detail of every human decision or every event in history. 01:01:42 Sean Finnegan Scripture tells us some things God will certainly bring about, but that set of things is smaller than everything. 01:01:49 Sean Finnegan At the same time, scripture also tells us that there are things God is willing to change in response to human repentance, prayer, rebellion, or faithfulness. 01:01:59 Sean Finnegan He is not presented as discovering something he did not know in the ordinary sense, but as genuinely relating to people and responding to what they do. 01:02:07 Sean Finnegan So as I see it, the biblical picture is neither that the entire future is fixed in exhaustive detail, nor that nothing at all has been settled by God in advance. 01:02:17 Sean Finnegan God has determined certain purposes 01:02:19 Sean Finnegan that he will accomplish, but there are also real contingencies within history, things that genuinely depend on what people do. 01:02:28 Sean Finnegan That is why I think a partially open future best accounts for the whole of Scripture. 01:02:32 Sean Finnegan Well, Paul, we don't all that commonly get such well-constructed thoughts in YouTube comments, but my friend, you have laid it out quite nicely there, and hopefully 01:02:44 Sean Finnegan This will be convincing to Pastor Will, who is apparently on the fence on whether or not God has some aspects, at least, of the future that remain open. 01:02:55 Sean Finnegan So hopefully this reasoning will work with him. 01:02:58 Sean Finnegan I think a lot of people struggle with prophecy. 01:03:01 Sean Finnegan They don't see how God could predict the future if he doesn't already see the future in some sort of mechanistic way or being outside of time, something like that. 01:03:12 Sean Finnegan But I think it's pretty easy to predict the future if you're someone who has the kind of data God has, at least in broad strokes, and at least with reference to anything He is planning to do. 01:03:24 Sean Finnegan The specifics may be somewhat in doubt, and those might be the contingencies, but God can also work through free will agents to cause specific things to occur that He could predict and then fulfill Himself through people or directly. 01:03:42 Sean Finnegan So I don't think prophecy is really a defeater here for the open view of God. 01:03:47 Sean Finnegan Furthermore, if God is outside of time, then God is not able to know what time it is now. 01:03:54 Sean Finnegan And I know maybe that sounds shocking to you to say God's not able to do something, but it just follows obviously from the fact that if God is outside of time, seeing all time at once, then he's not inside of time and he doesn't know what time it is right now. 01:04:06 Sean Finnegan His 01:04:07 Sean Finnegan present is not your present. 01:04:10 Sean Finnegan And so he is not able to interact with you in any kind of relationally meaningful way if he's outside of time. 01:04:18 Sean Finnegan Furthermore, the Bible never says he's outside of time. 01:04:20 Sean Finnegan That's just a common Christian construct that we impose upon scripture. 01:04:25 Sean Finnegan The God of scripture, I agree with Paul, is a God who is giving and taking, who is responding to people, who would destroy the children of Israel had not Moses intervened, it says in the Psalms. 01:04:37 Sean Finnegan Psalm 105 or 106, commenting back on the golden calf incident. 01:04:42 Sean Finnegan So this is really the God we see in scripture. 01:04:45 Sean Finnegan Yes, he's also able to predict the future because he is able to cause things to come about that he predicts in the past. 01:04:52 Sean Finnegan And he's also powerful and omnipresent and 01:04:58 Sean Finnegan omniscient, he knows everything that can be known. 01:05:01 Sean Finnegan So he has a very, very good sense of what's happening and what is about to happen, especially in the near future. 01:05:08 Sean Finnegan So anyhow, some good thoughts to consider there. 01:05:11 Sean Finnegan Thanks everybody for writing in. 01:05:13 Sean Finnegan If you'd like to write in, again, you can do it on restitudio.org or on YouTube, Spotify, whatever you use to listen to these podcasts or watch them online. 01:05:23 Sean Finnegan So that's going to bring our show to an end today. 01:05:25 Sean Finnegan If you'd like to support Restitudio, you can do that at our website. 01:05:28 Sean Finnegan I'll catch you next week, and remember, the truth has nothing to fear.