Biblicists Beware!

Biblicism might sound like a good thing...but it's not. Biblicism is a methodology that tends to introduce confusion and mystery into the Scriptures where there isn't any. It also tends to confuse doctrinal and theological categories such as law/gospel distinction and faith versus works. Jon and Justin consider these things and more in this episode.

Semper Reformanda: The guys discuss how biblicism is related to theonomy and unhelpful views on the nation of Israel. And, as a bonus, we get into a little bit of eschatology.

Resources:
Episode: Is the whole Bible about Jesus?
Episode: Is your theological system any good?
Series: Covenant Theology series
Book: "Living in God's Two Kingdoms" by David VanDrunnen

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Podcast Transcript

Jon Moffitt: Hi, this is Jon. Today on Theocast, we are going to be explaining what biblicism is. There's a lot of theological confusion and categories and systems and theologies that have been birthed out of biblicism. We're going to explain to you what it is, how to refrain from it, and how to spot it when you see it. Stay tuned.

Today is a podcast we probably have been needing to do for a long time and we reference it often.

Justin Perdue: We even promised to do a podcast on it multiple times.

Jon Moffitt: I know. The real estate on the podcast is very small so we have to be choosy on what we pick.

Biblicism is a word. I saw someone use it the other day, saying, "I'm a biblicist." Someone should tell him not to say that.

Justin Perdue: It's not a badge of honor.

Jon Moffitt: It's a negative thing and we're going to explain to you why. Someone may think, "Why would 'Bible' and '-ism' be a bad thing?" Typically, "-ism" isn't good. Not always the case; Calvinism isn't necessarily bad—it has gotten a bad rap—which I just did an introduction to that on Ask Theocast. Check that out.

But to stay focused: biblicism. Justin, give us a quick definition of what it is. Then we are going to work through about five or six examples of what happens when you don't use Scripture properly, or you're a biblicist, this is what it ends up producing.

So what's a good definition, a simple definition, of a biblicist for our listeners?

Justin Perdue: Let me define it in a simple way, and even use pop level accessible language in talking about this. You already alluded to it once when you said a person would describe themself as a Bible person. Another way that you hear this commonly presented is people will say, "no creed but Christ", or, "no confession but the Bible". People will say that the only thing that we need to use is Scripture and any kind of framework outside of the Bible, or any tools outside of the Bible are not useful; it's not faithful or it's not responsible to use such things to understand the Scripture. And so you end up getting this kind of a situation where people will say that if the text does not say it explicitly, then we cannot preach it and we cannot teach it.

Jon Moffitt: Or the reverse is true: "The text explicitly said it, therefore I'm going to preach it."

Justin Perdue: Sure. We're going to give illustrations of this, like you said, in broad categories and the like.

What ends up happening is you make the Bible sound very schizophrenic because you quote chapter and verse in isolation and you don't interpret that verse within its broader context, even maybe within the book that it's situated in, let alone within the epoch of redemptive history that it's situated in, or let alone the entire Bible. And so you end up introducing mystery and tension into the Scripture where it does not exist, and you end up introducing things that sound contradictory and really confusing your listener when the Bible—rightly understood on its own terms with appropriate theological systems in place—is not contradictory. It is not confusing. There is going to be mystery, but we want to put the mystery in the right place.

Biblicism is dangerous on a number of levels because as you're going to hear us talk about, there really are hardly any key areas of doctrine that would not be compromised or confused by a biblicism. If you're using biblicism and you're a biblicist, you're going to confuse almost every major doctrinal category.

Jon Moffitt: Can I give an example here? A simple one would be Colossians 1:15: he is the firstborn of all creation. You could conclude that Jesus is born, or even is a created being, and I would even dare say the Trinity, if you do not allow all of Scripture to inform you about the nature of who Christ is. Many biblicists in the past have become heretical. Arian would be a great example of this, where they isolate texts and they don't allow the analogy of faith or all of Scripture to speak into a theological position or a particular text. A good example of this is that there are many people, even in recent days, who do not understand the nature of Jesus because they read individual texts and say, "Well, that's what it says. I'm going to take it literally in English without even using biblical language. That's exactly what it means in the English. That's exactly what it means. Therefore, that's what I believe."

Justin Perdue: Proof texting is an example of biblicism where you cite chapter and verse in isolation to prove a point. That's a common mistake that people make. Maybe a humorous way to put this is when you get people really worked up about these things and they will say, as I alluded to earlier, "I have no confession but the Bible and no creed but Christ," as they wave their study Bible in your face. What do you think those study notes are other than an exercise in systematic theology and biblical theology and everything else that people seem allergic to?

We did an episode a while back, Jon, something along the lines of is your theological system any good? That would be a useful episode for people to go back and listen to because we are going to contend today that the Scriptures present to us certain frameworks and systems of theology that come up out of the text that we then can utilize to better understand the text. A couple of those are going to be the redemptive-historical framework, and for us as Reformed guys, a covenantal framework of the Bible. Those things are really helpful. And a biblicist is going to press really, really hard against both of those things. They're gonna say, "That's the system that you're imposing down on the Bible and you shouldn't do that. You're being irresponsible in the ways that you're understanding and interpreting the Scripture." Hopefully, we're going to demonstrate how, if anything, biblicism is the much more dangerous and irresponsible perspective today.

Jon Moffitt: I do a lot of internet research for things and recently I'm doing a series on Calvinism for Ask Theocast and just reading different arguments here and there. And the proof texting on either side, the Calvinist or free will...

Justin Perdue: Just to be very clear, there are people that could consider themselves to be Reformed who can be biblicists from time to time. We want to be fair. Anybody can be a biblicist. I'm sure you and I have been at certain points, not meaning to be.

Jon Moffitt: What we're arguing is that being able to identify biblicist tendencies or passages that we may have interpreted in the past where we have not allowed context and tried and true theological categories.

Let me give you this one illustration. It's the most simple one that I've always used. When you read any text of Scripture that has relation to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—if you are an evangelical who's been trained in a good church, you never read those without understanding that that is one in three. Another way of saying that is you're reading it by a theological system called Trinitarianism. It's important that you do so because it helps you fully understand that this isn't one God working in opposition or in isolation to the other gods, because we're not polytheists—we're monotheists; poly meaning multiple, mono meaning one. Where are monotheists who believe in a Trinity. It is a complicated system, but it's important to believe that because Jesus will say things like "I and my Father are one." These have to be read in a Trinitarian context.

I have met biblicists who will allow a Trinitarian context to be set on the text, but that's as far as they will go. They won't allow any other theological systems because "it's not biblical", yet they allow the Trinitarian system to guide them. It's not the only theological system in the Bible presented to us clearly in the text. We're going to argue for a couple others here in just a minute.

Justin Perdue: One of the categories that's most important that Jon and I are convinced of—and we're not alone amongst the Reformed in seeing this—is that biblicism really just botches the distinction between law and gospel. There are a number of places we could go. I'm mindful of several examples in the life and ministry of Jesus where people will cite Christ in terms of chapter and verse, in terms of what God requires out from the lips of Jesus himself and say, "See? There it is. There's the road to salvation. That's the way of salvation." When Jesus has in fact been actually speaking a message of law, like, "Here is how you inherit the kingdom of God. Here's what you need to do in order to be in a right relationship with God." People will say that's somehow a part and parcel of the good news.

One of the greatest examples of this is a large section of Scripture called The Sermon on the Mount, where people will say things like The Sermon on the Mount is gospel, to which we would say no. A much more careful reading of that text—a redemptive-historical reading of that text, and a reading of that text with an eye for law and gospel distinction—would actually lead you to conclude that that sermon is a sermon on the law, not the gospel, in terms of what God does require of us, not just at the level of outward conformity, but at the level of the heart, mind, desires, and everything else. That becomes quite clear as Jesus begins to discuss the law pointedly in Matthew 5:17 and following: here is what you've heard, but here is what it actually means for you. And he more or less damns everybody who hears him by saying, "You think you've done okay, but you haven't; you haven't kept the law. This is what the Lord requires of you. In fact, you need to be perfect like your heavenly Father is perfect." That confusion of law and gospel and the life of ministry of Jesus is a big deal.

Jon Moffitt: The gospel is the way in which the Bible presents its message or information, but it also is a theological category. The word "gospel" is a very closed tight knit bubble. There's only so much that can be in there, and if you add anything into it, you are now changing what the gospel is. This is why Paul gets very upset and even says, "If anybody comes to you and starts teaching you anything other than what you've already been taught, adding to the gospel," Paul is arguing for the clarity and he's saying, "this is encapsulated and cannot be changed. It's been set forth." You have to read every passage of the Bible with a clear understanding of gospel, because if you don't, then you will get "glawspel"—you get the law and the gospel together. So the gospel must be clarified.

A great example of this is the rich young ruler, which we use in the past as an example. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus gives him what he needs to do if he wants to inherit it, like if he wants to receive it by earning.

Justin Perdue: Jesus says, "If you would be perfect."

Jon Moffitt: That's not gospel, that's law. When you understand gospel, and you have the category of gospel and you're holding that lens in your mind, and then you read Jesus, you go, "Jesus didn't give him gospel, but what do we do?" The biblicist will say "No, Jesus answered the question; therefore, it's good news."

Justin Perdue: Jesus just told people what they need to do to inherit eternal life so we need to go about the business of doing it.

Jon Moffitt: That is, to forsake everything. We need to sell all our possessions.

Justin Perdue: That is the conclusion of the biblicist when law and gospel are confused.

Another great example from the Old Testament: the prophet Micah, chapter six. The context in Micah 6—the Lord begins that chapter by indicting his people. They're guilty. They stand condemned before Him and then the prophet goes on in verse six and following of Micah 6 to write these things. He's hypothetically speaking for the people here: "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?" And sense the sarcasm here: Lord, you're extreme; what do you require? "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" And then Micah says, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

Now, what people do with that passage is they read that and they say, "See? Here it is. The Lord is not satisfied with empty ritualistic religion. He is not interested in people's sacrifices. What he is interested in is the true religion of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly before it." And so now you need to be a true religion, an old time religion kind of person, who is characterized by the doing of justice, the loving of kindness and the walking humbly before your God, and the Lord will be pleased with you. Again, that's biblicism. The prophet there is not giving people a message of gospel either; he's telling folks that a better understanding of what the Lord requires actually is this heart level reality. It's not external conformity to a written code, but it's a heart level reality of doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly before your God. Nobody's ever done it well enough. That's the thing.

This is where you go to that verse. Micah 6:8 is often posited as an Old Testament presentation of the gospel. It's not. It's an Old Testament presentation of the law very similar to how Jesus presents it in the Sermon on the Mount and other places in his ministry. Learn what this means: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice."

Jon Moffitt: I believe with all my heart that God blesses righteousness. He does not lie. It reflects who He is. Paul tells us there is none righteous and our good works, according to Jeremiah, are compared to really disgusting, filthy rags. Those are important. They're not in opposition to each other.

Justin Perdue: You just beautifully segued to another category. Law and gospel are massive. This one is at least as important and it is the confusion between faith and works. Biblicism is notorious for muddling this up to the high heavens. How is it that we're justified? How is it that we're finally saved even? Is it by faith or is it by our works? The classic text for me is Romans 2. In this context, Romans 2-3 are really illustrative.

Paul has already indicted all the brilliant Gentiles at the end of Romans 1. Then he begins, at the beginning of Romans 2, to talk to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike, because we all pass judgment on other people for not meeting our own standards. If people don't meet our standards and we pass judgment on them, we need to realize that we don't meet our own standards and thereby we condemn ourselves with our judging. If we haven't even met our own standards, how much less so have we met God's standard? We misunderstand God's kindness, not understanding that it's meant to lead men toward repentance.

And then Paul goes in Romans 2:6 and following, and as the Reformed theologian Robert Haldane once said, you either leave Romans 2:6 and following a Protestant or a Romanist—and I think he's right. There's no middle ground here in terms of how you can interpret it. And let me say this kindly, but sincerely: if you pick up a Romans commentary, there are a lot of guys who otherwise are pretty reasonable who absolutely lose their minds when it comes to Romans 2:6-13.

Let's just read a few of these verses and talk about what biblicists do with it, and then talk about how we should understand it in the context of Romans. Romans 2:6; this is true about God: "He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified."

What you hear people say—again, otherwise pretty orthodox, like sound teachers, Protestants—they come to Romans 2:6-13 and they'll go, "We know that we are justified by faith, but somehow—you can see it right here it says in the text—somehow our works will factor into our final salvation, because it says so right here that God will render to each one according to his works. Those who do good, He's going to reward with eternal life. Those who do evil, He's going to punish with wrath and fury." No. That's not the way to interpret that passage, somehow mysteriously our works factor into our final salvation, because this question has to be asked in the broader context of Romans: what is Paul doing? There's a flow of his thought that's going to culminate in Romans 3:21. He's arguing that everybody has judged themselves and judged others. We don't need our own standard, let alone God's. God is an impartial righteous judge who rewards those who do good and punish those who do evil.

The problem though is that nobody's good. Because he's going to go there in Romans 3:9 and the following: "Nobody is good. There's not one righteous. No, not one." We should be thinking we are all damned. How can anyone be saved? Which is why he says in verse 21 and following: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." He concluded that whole section of his argument in verses 19 and 20, where he says that the law condemns everyone, Romans 3:19, and verse 24, by works of the law, no human being will be justified in His sight because the law only crushes people. But yet, in a biblicism kind of way, we go to Romans 2:6, and we go to Romans 2:13, and we quote it and say, "Ah, but guys, we've got to work for this. We got to do something. Even though we're saved by faith, somehow our works factor in." And that's just an irresponsible presentation. What does it do? It confuses the nature of the gospel itself and robs the saints of assurance.

Jon Moffitt: This is another way of saying this: understanding the nature of man and understanding the gospel are two categories we have to hold in both hands as we read every text. We know from scripture that we are in Adam, meaning that we have received the curse of Adam which is that our spiritual nature, the capacity to love and obey and please God, to trust in Him, has been cursed unto death. Paul describes it as being dead cause we've had to go from death to life. Obviously we are not physically dead; he is speaking about the cursed nature that we have. So you cannot demand a cursed dead nature to do that which it has no capacity to do, which is to obey God.

This is even in James: the classic quote, "faith without works is dead." We really needle down into that. And if I am looking at someone who says to me, "I'm a Christian," and yet they don't see the necessity of producing good fruit in keeping with repentance and obedience, all that... "I don't need to do that. I just need to say a prayer and I'm good." I would agree that they are confused. James is even getting it out in the context saying, "You're saying you're a follower of Jesus, but the way that you are acting is contrary to that. And if you're unwilling to repent of that, then the faith you were claiming is a dead faith." At that moment, you don't call someone to do something they can't do. Because at that moment, you go, "Okay, you don't understand the gospel. This isn't a works issue; this is a gospel issue." Because those who have saving faith are going to obey.

Justin Perdue: It's a gospel issue, it's a union with Christ issue, and it's a regeneration issue. If you have been born again and if you are not just giving some kind of mental assent to some truth about Jesus, but you are trusting him, and you're hoping in him, that only occurs via the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. You have now been united to Christ and you will bear fruit. That's what the Scriptures say. But to confuse that, to invert that, to proof text it and say, "Faith without works is dead; show me your faith by your works," to then conclude, "We need to go about telling people to do good work so that they know they're saved." Wrong. That's not the conclusion that we draw. We go about preaching Christ. We tell people to trust Christ. Through their union with him, fruit will be produced. You can't invert that relationship, but biblicism confuses that relationship to no end.

Jon Moffitt: I'll just reference this here for two reasons: one, we have a podcast on it and two, we have a podcast coming. On repentance and biblicism, we did a needle down, focus in on that a couple of weeks ago. You can go back and listen to What Is Repentance? We really unfold that from what biblicism is. I would also say lordship salvation falls into this, where a lot of the arguments that you will see again in the next coming weeks... we're going to give you some more examples on this, but I'll just say this now: I think lordship salvation is built upon a biblicism platform.

Justin Perdue: It completely is in that there's a collapsing of law and gospel. There's a confusion of faith and works and repentance. There's really a different definition of faith that is given in the lordship camp where obedience and repentance and a sincere desire to obey and all those kinds of things are woven into the definition of faith. And that is something that, historically, Protestants have been very careful to not do. And we'll talk about that in some subsequent episodes.

Jon Moffitt: One example that's like a precursor to that is as someone Reformed and even Calvinist, when you understand the depravity of man and the sovereign election of God as it relates to our salvation, the biblicism of lordship doesn't seem to work. I would agree with the fact that when Jesus saves me and brings me to new life, I am now owned by him—and I'm gladly thankful that he is my Lord. But I don't have the capacity to make that change within myself or determine that that is handed to me. It's not something that is given to me as if there's something I must do in order to be a child of God.

Justin Perdue: And the bottom line is that when you have been united to Christ by faith, you now—Romans 6:17—have become obedient from the heart. You actually do desire to obey God, but the desire to obey is not a piece of faith itself. The new birth that is worked by God produces faith and then the fruits of regeneration and faith are a desire to obey, amongst a whole host of other things. But you can't confuse that. We're going to talk more about that in the coming weeks and I'm excited for those conversations.

One of the last couple of big categories in the regular portion of the podcast is also a reference back to an episode. We did one on typology and types and shadows and all those kinds of things called Is the Whole Bible Really About Jesus? Just to briefly pick back up on this and to help explain how biblicism is unhelpful here: we talk regularly about how the whole Bible really is about Christ, that it's about the plan of redemption that God has had since before the foundation of the world, that centers on Christ, that's accomplished through him, that's then applied to us by the work of the Holy Spirit—all to the praise of God's glorious grace. And so we interpret every passage of Scripture in light of that main message, in light of that main point.

We realize that the way that God has revealed His plan of redemption by farther steps through history, and in the pages of Scripture, there are all of these things that serve as types of something greater to come, their shadows and the substance is going to come. There are pointers to things that are going to come later that are ultimate, that will fulfill them. And so when we preach anything in the Old Testament, for example—I could think of a number of examples, the obvious ones are the Passover, when we preach the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, when we preach the day of atonement or whatever it may be, we're talking about those in light of Christ and what he would come to do. He's the Passover Lamb. He is the one who has atoned for our sin and removed it from us. He is going to deliver us not out of bondage to Egypt, but from bondage to sin and death and Satan. But we would argue preaching the entire Old Testament this way.

Sometimes people get really worked up when we preach in a very Christocentric, a Christ-centered way, from the Old Testament, a biblicist will say, "Brother, you are not giving appropriate attention to the original author's intent. Did Moses fully understand everything that you're saying about Jesus? Did David fully understand everything that you're saying about Jesus from the Psalms? Did Micah understand everything that you're saying about Christ?" Fill in the blank. A biblicist will rail against a Christ-centered sermon sometimes from the Old Testament because we are not doing justice to the original author's intention—to which I want to say this humbly, but I would stake my ministry on this: is it legitimate, for example, to preach baptism from Noah and the Ark? Yes. Peter makes that connection for us in 1 Peter 3. But what should we preach when we preach a sermon on the Ark and the flood? We should preach salvation, we should preach baptism, and we should preach Christ as the emphasis of that passage.

What should we preach when it's the Passover or the day of atonement? We should preach Jesus. What about the temple? We were having this conversation before we hit record. There is an obsession in some circles with the temple and the rebuilding of the temple and all these kinds of things, and when we see the temple being built in the Old Testament—God's having a house built for Him where he's going to dwell with His people—when we see the tabernacle for that set up in the camp of Israel, we should be preaching Jesus from those passages. Why? Because Jesus shows up on the scene and says himself that he is the fulfillment of the temple. He is God's presence on earth. Then as he ascends and sends his Holy Spirit, the church is now the fulfillment of the temple. The Spirit of God Himself dwells in the church with His people and the like. Then in the new heavens and the new earth, there will be no temple because God will be there and the Lamb will dwell among us. There's no need for a temple anymore. This is how we should preach the temple. And there are going to be people who are going to be saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Should you preach the temple that way in the Old Testament?" Yes. If we're a Christian, we should.

Jon Moffitt: All of Scripture is Christian Scripture.

Justin Perdue: This is where I think I get really upset with biblicism, maybe as much as any place: Romans 2 and 3 get me worked up, but this stuff really works me up because people almost call into question whether we should preach Christ from the Old Testament from these things that prefigure him and point to him, as though it's, "Maybe you should, but that shouldn't be the emphasis of your sermon." The last time I checked, we are Christians and we preach Christian sermons, do we not? We want to read Genesis or Exodus or Micah or Esther as Christians, for crying out loud.

Jon Moffitt: I think there's a fear of allegorizing there. I remember when I was in Bible college and even in seminary, it's like, "Oh, we don't want to fall into that trap where we're allegorizing everything in the text and putting things in the text that aren't there." That's a legitimate argument: you can't force into the text things that aren't there. I would argue that if you got five points of how to be faithful like David...

Justin Perdue: Tell me where that is in the text.

Jon Moffitt: No, it's not in the text at all. Let me read you something real quick from Romans 15. I think it will make your point, Justin. Paul says this: "We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." And then Paul gives us the motivation—and it's interesting how he gives us motivation—pay attention to this in verse four: "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope." So he's referencing Christ, he's referencing our needs to bear with the weak, and our motivation is the Old Testament leads us to hope. There is no way you can conclude that Paul isn't meaning hope in Christ because he just got done arguing for it in chapter 14... well, I would say all of Romans. The point of it is that anytime you see these New Testament writers referencing the Old Testament, they are referencing it as these are designed for endurance and encouragement because the Old Testament gives us hope. Because what is the Old Testament about? It's about Jesus. This is one more example of a text of interpreting the Old Testament for us.

Justin Perdue: I know we said this last week; I'm gonna say it again: whenever we do what we're describing, where we interpret and read and preach the Old Testament in this Christ-centered way, we're doing what Jesus told us to do and we're doing what the apostles did. Full stop.

I understand there's a danger of allegorizing everything, and that is not at all what we are advocating for; all we're advocating for is to read the Old Testament the way the apostles read and understood it. There are countless examples that we could give from Paul, from Peter, from the writer of the Hebrews, from John, where it's obvious that they see things in the Old Testament. If they were in a hermeneutics class in most modern day seminaries, they would get a failing grade for saying what they're saying. "Oh, what about the original author's intent? Did the Psalmist really mean that in Psalm 68? Were they really talking about Jesus's ascension and the giving of gifts, Paul, like you say in Ephesians 4? Or the rock from 1 Corinthians 10:4 referencing Exodus 17?" All of these things are just example after example after example of how the apostles read the Old Testament. The writer of the Hebrews—what's the sacrificial system about? What's the priesthood about? It's about Christ. It all pointed to him. Why would we go back to something that's been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus? What was Abraham about ultimately? He was justified by faith as a pattern for everyone who had ever believed the promises of God realized in the Messiah, and we would be saved the same way. This is how we should read all of these things. Jesus himself in John 3, the snake that's lifted up on a pole in Numbers 21—it's about him and how he would be raised up, and when we look to him and what he's done, we're saved.

Jon Moffitt: We could go on and on and on, but we are running out of time. We did have one left. We're going to leave it for the other podcast we're about to do. We're going to talk a little bit about eschatology and biblicism.

For those of you that are new and listening, we have a ministry called Semper Reformanda, "always reforming", and we started this as a way to connect with our listeners, but also to go to a deeper level. There are many who love what we're saying on Theocast but have questions and want to go to that next level of conversation. Justin and I step into a different role in that way, where we interact with our listeners a little bit more and we take this conversation to a little bit deeper level. And you can join us.

Semper Reformanda is two things: one, it's a podcast that we do, but two, it's also a community. It's an online community, and believe it or not, a local community. By now, our app is out and you can go and sign up to get our private podcast feed, and also join a group. Download our app and see what groups are available. You can join an online discussion group, or you do it over zoom, or you can do it locally in your town. Those are growing. I think we're over 20 plus so far. People are getting signed up to start their own. So if you want to learn more about that, you can go to wordpress-1294806-4720887.cloudwaysapps.com.

Excited to continue this conversation. We'll see you next week.