Hello and welcome to a very special collaborative live stream. David Digger Hernandez here, and I'm so happy to be live streaming across multiple platforms here today. I know we're joined by the EncounterTV family as well as the Beat family. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Going to be an awesome time. We're gonna be discussing with my friend, Alan Parr, a very important topic, I believe, a topic of unity. This is a call to the body of Christ to come together as one. This is very, very important. This is very, very timely. And I wanna thank my friend for doing this, joining me. Come on in with me now, Alan, if you can. Alan Parr, welcome my friend. Good to have you. Hey, David, good to be here, brother. Man, absolutely. This is such a needed topic for us to discuss in the midst of so much division going on in the body of Christ. And I'm so excited to be able to model that unity with you today, brother. Well, you know, I'm gonna say a few things before we get started. I, as I was looking through your page, in fact, I've been watching you for several years. Now, we have several people on staff who love your ministry. I'm one of them. And I just wanna say this publicly before we begin. I wanna say that I love and honor what God is doing through your life. I said this to you on the phone a few days ago. There is such a love for the word in you and I see it, people see it. And I know we have our differences. We're gonna discuss those things. So for those of you who are wondering about those differences, we'll address those. If you're looking for a debate or an argument, you're not gonna get that here. We're mostly calling the church to unity and we wanna model that for you today. But again, before we get into all of that, just I really do wanna honor what God is doing with you.  All of those things are elements that are honor for the word and we see it in your ministry. I don't think you'll mind me saying this. We talked about a little bit through texts, you having to go to one of your daughter's recitals. And to me, when you were willing to move things around ministry-wise and when we were basically trying to reschedule and shift things because you said, there's this recital I'm going to with my daughter, I can't touch that. My respect for you, I saw you from a distance, I had respect for you.  So I just wanna honor you in that way for the people joining. For those who kind of have an understanding of who you are, at least for the encounter TV audience, can you just explain how God is using you, what's happening in the ministry? Yes, yes. So first of all, thank you for that, man. You are so gracious and kind and I've really had a great time getting to know you thus far and looking forward to doing that even more so. So yeah, so I started a Christian YouTube channel, The Beat, about seven years ago. It stands for biblical encouragement and truth, which is what I believe that God has called me to communicate something biblical, used to encourage people and it needs to be rooted in truth. And so we've been going strong for about seven years now. I've served on staff at a variety of different churches and a variety of different roles. Christian education pastor, worship pastor, youth, children, you name it, I've done it in the past, but now I believe God is really using me to speak to people in this digital space as well as still speaking at conferences and churches and things like that. I'm married to a wonderful woman, Jennifer, and we have two wonderful little kids. Well, can you also tell us about this? I think I logged on the other day just to kind of check the stream, make sure we were co-streaming. And I saw something really interesting that you were doing. It's in regards to this community platform that you're building. Yes, yes, we have a platform and it's an online Christian community. It's called the Let's Equip Community. And essentially the idea there is we want to, we understand that we're living in a digital space. And so it's hard for people to oftentimes feel connected with other believers. And so what we've done is we've created a space. It's not a Facebook group. It's an actual community that we built from the ground up where I do monthly Bible studies exclusive to that community. My wife literally just finished a women's Bible study about an hour ago that she does once a month. I do a monthly Q and A as well. We have monthly challenges specifically designed to challenge you in your faith every single month. We've got moderators inside there to foster good conversation and discussion. It's just a great place for people to hang out and get to know each other. Well, like I said, there are lots of great things I could say about your ministry. I love that you're addressing the message and spreading it far and wide using practical, modern means. I think it's a great example again of just how God can use some of the technology in our day to reach the generations. Now, as soon as I scheduled this stream and you probably had something similar on your end, I scheduled the stream. I say, okay, I'm gonna, it's called a call to unity on my channel. We call it a call to Christian unity with David D. Hernandez and Ellen Park. So I scheduled the stream and the moment I schedule, I start getting all these messages from people. Make sure you talk to him about this and make sure you, as if it was my place to do this with you. Make sure you correct him on this issue. Make sure you correct him on that issue. And I'm sure you saw similar things on your channel and I was watching some of these comments and I'm thinking, did they miss the title? And I understand, I think we're gonna touch on this a little more, but I'll say this right up at the top. I understand that there are points where we divide. There are times to call out heresy. There are certain things that if people start preaching them, I'm gonna call that out. You have to, because otherwise it starts to infect the church and truth begins to defeat those lies when you speak against those lies. So I think in that sense, we do speak out, but what we're talking about here, and I wanna make this clear, is unity among true believers. We'll define what that is. We're gonna talk about our points of disagreement, but I do wanna say this up at the top. This is not gonna be me trying to dig into Allen's theology and at every point you disagree with Allen. I'm not gonna go down a list and go, well, we disagree here. I want you to change your mind on this. We disagree here. I want you to change your mind on that. And really that is partly ego. It's this idea that I'm not gonna join with you.  I'm not gonna unite with you for souls and kingdom building because you don't agree with me on every little thing. And as we mature as believers, we begin to recognize that there are different perspectives on scripture. The scripture is inerrant, but our interpretation is not always inerrant. So for those of you who came on, you're expecting me to kinda just go down the line and say, here's why I disagree, and I want you to correct there. Here's why I disagree and here's why you're wrong. That's just not gonna be what we're doing here. We acknowledge that we disagree. In fact, there's some points here, Helen, that you and I were discussing, areas where there are some disagreement and we'll at least acknowledge those so that the people know we're not compromising our stances in any regards, but also recognize that there can be unity despite this thing. So first of all, I believe in the phenomenon known as the slain in the spirit and your general quick take is... Yeah, yeah. So first of all, let me piggyback off of what you just said before we talk about that. And guys, what we ultimately want you all to take away from this, if you don't get anything else out of this and if you wanna just scoot out of here right now or you're watching this on the replay, by the way, timestamps will be in the description of this video if you're watching it on the replay. But listen, what we wanna model for you all is how you can disagree without disrespecting and how you can still celebrate the things that you all have in common, which we will talk about a little bit later, the core tenets of the Christian faith and how you can respect one another and do it in a loving and godly way because I know I can speak for myself, I'm sure David can. By the way, guys, for some of you who may not be familiar with David, he has a YouTube channel called Encounter TV, has 560,000 subscribers or something like that. It's huge, okay? Huge, huge ministry, okay? So what we're trying to make sure you all understand because I see some of the comments and the way some people comment on my videos when they disagree, if I'm being honest, is very disrespectful, unloving and un-Christ-like.  There's a way to disagree with people, but it should not create division. It should not be that if your neighbor believes in tongues and you don't, then you guys can't have fellowship, right? And that's what we wanna show today. Now, with those same lines, yeah, the slain and the spirit, you know, we have different perspectives on that. And I respect those who have different perspectives, but yeah, my perspective is that I don't see a biblical precedent for people being slain and the spirit.  There's nothing in the Bible that would say, hey, you know what, you cannot fall down if somebody puts their hands on you, right? But I also don't see any precedent in the scriptures or in the early church of people practicing or experiencing this phenomena of being slain and the spirit. And the last thing I'll say there is the fact that in much of what we're gonna cover today is that there's a lot, even in the midst of some truth for some of this stuff, there's so much counterfeit that much of what we see is not necessarily what we think it is. So I would think it's safe to say on slain and the spirit, we disagree completely on that. Deliverance ministry, now I'm gonna kind of do some explaining for you because I think that sometimes when we try to explain ourselves, people just, it comes across as oh, he's being manipulative or he's, you know, what do they call it? Gaslighting is a new word people use. Now, you did a teaching on deliverance ministry and you said something that I think so many people misunderstood. And I got what you were saying. Now you and I don't agree on every point when it comes to deliverance ministry. Like for example, let's just take the big one. I believe that every believer has that vicarious authority coming from Christ through them to cast out demons. And you say that you don't see something like that in the scripture. If I'm misrepresenting your view, just jump in. I don't wanna create a caricature of what you believe. Then as far as deliverance ministry goes, you said something to the effect of that there's no command that were given in the New Testament to cast out devils. Now, I agree in the sense that there's no verse that says you have to do it. This is something that every believer should do. That's true. And you didn't mean that demon possession wasn't real. You didn't mean that some believers don't cast out demons. All you meant was that there's no specific command to do so. There's descriptions of believers who will do it, which I see in Mark 16. I know there's some issues you have with Mark 16, at least the last few verses. But just on this point of deliverance, I think it's safe to say you and I disagree on those main issues. I believe every believer has that authority through Christ. You believe not every believer's gonna function in that capacity or even encounter genuine demonic possession. Is that safe to say? Yeah, exactly. And I would say that some of the scriptures that people will kind of use, which would be maybe like Matthew 10, where Jesus sent them out to do these things. My position is that Jesus gave his apostles, the specific authority to do certain things, cast out demons, lay hands on the sick, raise the dead, things like that. And I see it as a package deal, particularly when we look at Mark 16, if we go there and we look at that, I see it as a package deal where it's like, and these signs will accompany those who will follow. And as I've said in previous videos, I think the issue that I have with a lot of people who point to that is they'll say, okay, every single Christian must speak in tongues because it says these signs will accompany those who will follow. They will speak in other tongues. But then there's like four other areas. They will pick up snakes and not get bit.  They'll lay hands on the sick and they'll get well. And I think there's one more that I can't remember right now. But the point is I see it as if these things are truly something that every believer must do or can do, should I say, then every believer should be able to do all of those things in the same way as Jesus gave the apostles the authority to do that. And that's the way I land on that. Right, and so we would definitely disagree on that. So that's again where you and I differ. Speaking in tongues, safe to say we're not in total alignment there. Gift of prophecy, we actually were discussing the gift of, and I'm kind of just brushing over these real briefly because I do wanna get to where we agree. Now again, the temptation here, viewer, the temptation here is to hear what he's saying and say, David, respond to that. David, give him a verse. David, give your argument. And look, this has been debated for hundreds of years here. People on one side or the other, we're not gonna solve that.  And the people who believe what he believes would say, ah, see, he got on. The people who believe what I believe would say, oh, David won that one. And really, everyone would just become further entrenched in their views. So yes, continue to study, explore these topics. There are responses to both sides. There are arguments to be made on both sides, but we're not gonna go into those right now. I want to skim through these and then get to the points of agreement just to kind of show you guys what is more important. You know, Alan, I don't know if I told you this, one of my best friends in the world. I mean, someone who's very, very close to me goes to John MacArthur's church. He doesn't believe in speaking in tongues, doesn't believe in the slain in the spirit, doesn't even believe in the spiritual gifts, even in the sense that you might believe in it, because people I think get confused, they think you're a cessationist. Oh, they think I'm a cessationist, even though I've never, they think I'm a Calvinist and a cessationist, and I'm neither. Yeah.  A Calvinist. They think I'm a Calvinist. Because I believe in eternal security. So therefore, because I believe that you can, you can't lose your salvation, they will label me, they want to pigeonhole me into a theological system or framework. They'll say he is a cessationist. He believes that all gifts have ceased. He doesn't believe in the supernatural, which is totally not true. I believe that God can do, does do, and will continue to do miracles and healing signs and wonders. I believe all those things. I just don't believe that, you know, in this, I don't believe it maybe in the same way that other people do, which is certain people now have this unique God-given ability to do it at will, just like Jesus and the apostles did. And I feel like if they did, then they need to be going to the hospitals where they know where all the sick people are. They need to be laying hands on those people in my, if they have that power to do that. So yeah, yeah, exactly. Again, that would be a point where you and I differ. But my point, what I think you said something interesting here, you said something about people wanting to pigeonhole. I think this is so true. And people will do it with you. Like if you say something that differentiates yourself from say a charismatic, I am not someone who likes labels, but I think they're necessary to kind of get a feel for what people believe. You could probably, in the category I fit best and it's probably charismatic because I do believe that people still have those spiritual gifts. I do believe that healing in that way is still for today. And you know, there's responses I could get into as far as the philosophical side of why not going into the hospitals and so forth. But in regards to this idea of people being pigeonholed, this is something I think believers have to be aware of. You see, so Alan says something along the lines of what he just said, right? And what ends up happening is people hear what he's not saying. They'll hear a subtle disagreement which I don't even know in practical application. Alan, if someone was sick in the hospital, would you not pray for them? Absolutely. And I would lay hands on them and I would pray in faith that God would heal them. Yeah. In practical application, he's doing the exact same thing. He just believes that maybe functions in the spirit realm slightly different. Right. And so in that sense, yes, there can be some agreement, but here's where it gets interesting. Is that people will label you because they hear maybe a nuanced way you word it. And you're very nuanced. This is something I appreciate about you is you can be very nuanced. And the problem is in being nuanced, you offend both sides. Because both sides are hearing things that they think they don't wanna hear when in fact they probably agree if we would just learn to listen. Yes. We would learn to hear what our fellow brothers and sisters are saying. See, even as we're talking, I see so many comments. David talked about this. David, do you have an argument on that? That's not what we're discussing here, as we said. I'm listening to him. I'm wanting to hear where he's coming from. I'm wanting to hear his stances. And in regards to this pigeonhole, I keep coming back to that point. But in regards to being pigeonholed, this is something we as believers do way too much to each other. So for example, we were talking about the prosperity gospel. Now I am not a proponent of what some would call the prosperity gospel.  That's not what I believe. But I do believe certain biblical doctrines in regards to God rewarding generosity. I do believe that if you apply certain key wisdom points that you're gonna walk in financial prosperity. I do believe that if someone has wealth that in many cases it did come from the Lord. So when I talk about those key points, what people hear is, oh, that sounds like the prosperity gospel. Yes. Therefore he is a prosperity gospel preacher. Right. So we have to be careful about doing this to each other. In talking with Alan, I found that there's a lot more we have in common than we have that's not. And so we have to do guys, we have to learn to say, okay, instead of coming to a conversation like this thing, I want my points to be made. I want to win this argument. I want to walk out the winner. No, no, no, no, no. We have to stop trying to win arguments and we have to start trying to win each other. Amen. Brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen. And so this whole idea of being pigeonholed is really on display when people call Alan a cessationist because he has a nuanced view of how the miraculous works. Gift of prophecy, we were talking about this. This is something that there were some differences on. I think we both share the concern that a lot of what's out there, you might say most of what's out there. I don't want to put words in your mouth. So jumping in correctly if I'm wrong, you might say most of what's out there is not true prophecy. I would say a lot of what's out there is not true prophecy. I believe in prophecy and I don't want to put words in your mouth. You do or you do not believe in the gift of prophecy functioning today. Yeah, so I want to be clear on this one because like I said, people have these opinions of me and they want to pigeonhole me. I don't see any clear scripture that says that the gift of prophecy has ceased. Now, if you're quickly going to 1 Corinthians 13, eight where it talks about where there are tongues, they will cease, where there's prophecies they will cease, where there is knowledge, it will fade away. You can't use that verse exegetically to suggest that the gift of tongues and the gift of prophecy has ceased because if you do, you must conclude exegetically from that verse that the gift of knowledge has ceased. So are we no longer called to acquire and learn and understand and communicate knowledge? Of course we are. So that verse I don't think can be used to prove that. And I think people who are cessationists have to pull quite a bit to try to prove that certain gifts have ceased. Now, with that being said, I believe that God is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. So if God used a prophet, see I can go down in a lot of details here, but if God used somebody in the Bible to prophesy, who am I to say that God cannot use that today? My issue, and I'll keep this very brief, my issue is this. When we look at prophets in the Old Testament particularly, their role was to call out sin, was to warn people of impending judgment if they did not repent, call them to repentance, and the prophets in the Old Testament were not wrong. They, as a matter of fact, it was such a strong penalty if they were wrong that they were stoned to death. They were killed, and that's how serious God took it when we say thus says the Lord. He says, and Deuteronomy 18, this is how you can tell a true prophet. If what he says doesn't come to pass, that person is not to be feared and there to be put to death. But nowadays you have a lot of people and there's no fear of being wrong. There's no penalty for having an off day or I missed that prophecy. Like all these people that said Donald Trump was gonna be reelected, right? He had a whole bunch of people. Now this is not a political thing, so don't go there. I'm not saying that. My point is, there's a lot of people that said that. I'm waiting for the comment section to light up now on that one there. Yeah, I'd be making the same point if people said that Joe Biden would be reelected and he misses it. I'm not getting into the politics, but the point is people can prophesy and say whatever they want now and there's no sort of penalty which means the fear of being wrong is not as imminent as it was in those days. So I could go on and on about it, but the idea here is I don't believe that much of what we see today happening is true God-given prophecy. A lot of it is very vague. It's not specific. I was joking with David earlier about having 2,000 people in a room and that prophet says, hey, somebody in this section right here, your marriage is gonna be restored in the next month. Well, of course, probably. There's 2,000 people in here. Of course, one of those people is gonna have that experience. So anyway, I don't wanna go down that rabbit show because I have a lot of thoughts about that, but I'm sure we might see differently and we probably see more eye to eye on it. So it sounds to me like you're saying, and again, jump in if I misunderstood this, what I'm hearing you say is that you believe in the gift of prophecy, you just think there's not enough accountability for when the prophecy is not genuine. Is that, would that be a safe summarization of what you said? Yes, and I also say that you and I agree with this that I believe that because there is so much prophylying going on and not enough prophesying going on, that I would consider prophecy as being one of the less reliable ways that we can discern God's perfect will for our lives. And you have a good order that you had told me about off camera that I would love for you to share with my viewers as well about that. Well, four ways that the Holy Spirit speaks. Number one is the word. The word is the primary and most reliable way that the Holy Spirit speaks. Number two, wisdom. This is the application of the word that you receive. Wisdom is another way that the Holy Spirit speaks and that is the second most reliable. The third is the whisper. This is that information for the very specific situations in our life for which there is no chapter and verse. And I would say a lot of this is actually confused sometimes for even wisdom. Where the Holy Spirit speaks to you. This can be conviction. This can be direction. Now that is a way the Holy Spirit speaks, but it's less reliable because it can be so intertwined in our emotions. And then number four, God speaks through wonders, but it's the least reliable way. Wonders being dreams, visions, prophetic words. Again, God does speak through those things, but they are not as reliable as the word. So the problem is most believers try to live on the inverse, the exterior experience. And they try to live from the wonder point and put the word as the least in the order. And because of that, they end up with confusion. When the word needs to go first, because it's the foundation. The foundation is laid. And once you have the word, you walk in wisdom. You walk in wisdom, you're not gonna need as much specific instruction unless you're operating in what I would call the word of knowledge. We might differ on that. And then from there, it's the wonders.  That's why we need to have all three of those in place. If you don't have those first three, then anybody can tell you they're hearing from God and you'll fall for it. So I believe in prophecy. Alan, I know you believe in prophecy. We may, I think we may disagree on what the percentage is of what is genuine and what is in. I probably say- I don't even know if I have a percentage. Yeah, who's done their research on that, right? So, okay, another point, word of faith.  But I see in your comment section, people saying, you know, oh, get him on his mentor, get him on his mentor, Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn. You know, I would say much in the same way that people attach things to your name, that you go, why are they attaching it? Imagine this. You have a media that has now been exposed as corrupt. No way of reaching people through social media platforms. This is during the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I can tell you for a fact that much of what people attribute to his teachings, he's actually never taught. And this is something that, again, it's a different conversation for a different time. Even if you don't accept that, there's a lot of things that have changed in recent years.  That's the pressure on them. So I didn't wanna leave that on you. I'll take that bullet if you will. I don't see it as a bullet. I see it as a wonderful man. I say it as a wonderful man of God that got placed in my life. Is everyone perfect? Is anyone perfect? No, nobody's perfect. But there are certainly points of disagreement there. I'm sure we all have with each other, but I see it in your comments section. So I thought I'd do you that favor of not, you know, so it doesn't look like you're trying to- Yeah, because that's what's gonna come back is Alan Parr, I can already see it. Alan Parr is endorsing a disciple of Benny Hinn and now giving him a platform. Guys, stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it. I love and honor Pastor Benny. And again, I think a lot of this, like for example, when we talk about prosperity gospel, that you would be amazed at what he's never taught on prosperity. You can go back 70s, 80s, 90s, and I could walk you through every clip that most people use, and I could show you the full context and you'll go, oh my goodness. And I think it's different when you're in media ministry because you can see how it's done to you. But the level that it was twisted against him, the level that the attack was on this man, you gotta remember it's a secular media. And the way it just came, anyway, I'm not the Benny Hinn defender and he doesn't like people speaking for him anyway. But I do wanna say I love and honor him, but you know, there are even some areas where I have differences of opinions with him. And again, there are some areas where people may say, he teaches this one, in fact, he does not. And this is why you have to look at what people are saying specifically. And again, we're gonna get to the core of the faith here in a moment so that people can at least have an idea of where we have these points of agreement. So just to recap, slain in the spirit, we disagree, deliverance ministry, we disagree on some points, speaking in tongues, we disagree, gift of, on some points or we disagree completely on gift of tongues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's probably why we didn't touch it too deeply today. Yeah, you start a holy war online. Yeah. And then there's the gift of prophecy. Sounds to me like we have a superficial differences fundamental agreement on that. Yeah. Prosperity, as long as it's described correctly, it sounds like we don't have any realness. I agree with what you said about prosperity. God gives us wisdom, God blesses us. You know, all prosperity comes from God. It's not a sin to be wealthy. I've done videos where I've combated this idea of poor Christianity as a badge of honor, like no, no.  So I think we're more aligned there. Yeah, and then word of faith, again, if you're talking about name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, speaking things into existence, that to me was kind of the, and I may get in trouble for saying this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. That whole name it, claim it, blab it, grab it is actually repackaged today as manifesting. Yes. It's the same thing. Yes. So word of faith, there are certain components of the word of faith movement that people kind of just attach to Charismatics. But I think here's the danger. I think many times we Charismatics use the terminology. We know what we mean by it, but we don't really always recognize the source of that terminology and what we're aligning with doctrinally, at least in the minds of others, when we use that terminology. So when we say things like, don't speak that into existence, we're not literally meaning, at least in the circle's eye-rending. We don't literally mean that the moment you speak it, it's gonna manifest and your words did that. We're just talking about the positivity of mind and words and not even that that positivity has much effect on anything, except maybe your attitude and your behavior. So in the very practical sense, our words can bring life or death because words in the practical sense are like programming for the mind. As I speak words, I learn to think according to what people say around me. So in that sense, maybe it might affect some outcomes, but I like to say God started the world, we steward the world. God created the earth, we cultivate the earth. God spoke things into existence, we speak things into order, not by our own authority, but by the authority of Christ that he's given us to speak things into order by declaring the word, because you cannot proclaim what the word has not promised. And that really is what devoting yourself to study has to do is what indeed are universally applied promises in the Old and New Testament that actually apply to the New Testament believer today. And that once you begin to study that starts to really solidify this biblical worldview and then you're praying according to the will of God. So on word of faith, if you mean by word of faith the whole name it, claim it, kind of that manifesting it but packaged in an older way, then of course I reject that and I think we're in agreement there, Alan. Hey, and I agree. David, just this is great. I love interacting along the live with a couple of questions because before we get into the guys, the focus of all of this is for David and I to focus on what we truly agree on and the core tenets of the faith which we're gonna get to. But as I'm looking at some of the comments and if you see me looking over here that's what I'm doing. But Zach Moore asked the question, aren't charismatic the ones that convulse? Now I'm gonna let David answer that for just a second but before he does, this is what we talked about about pigeonholing, right? So, and then also somebody else asked about what is a charismatic? And I'll let David kind of explain that but basically it comes from the Greek word charismatic which is for gift and essentially the bigger issue is that people who consider themselves charismatic or people who believe that the gifts of the spirit, the charismatic of the spirit is in full force and is operating exactly the same today as it was then those who are non-charismatic might see things a little bit differently, okay? But David probably can explain a little bit more but the point is guys, there is a range for all of this stuff. There are people who are hyper charismatic, there are people who are, as my friend Ruslan says charismatic with a seatbelt, right? So in other words, like, you know, yes, I believe these things but I'm not gonna just go all the way to the extreme. So aren't charismatic the ones that convulse? David, what would you say to that? Well, if you're looking for me to answer in the general sense, I would say most people who claim to be charismatic probably when they see someone convulsing says, oh, that's a move of the spirit. I again, like Alan have very nuanced views. My view of when someone is touched by the manifested power of God is quite simple. There will sometimes be a temporary physical reaction when experiencing the manifested presence of God. Now, do sometimes people exaggerate this? Yes, from what I've seen, there's this very holy trembling that comes on someone. I like to say the Holy Spirit is classy, he's elegant, there's a regal and honoring way that he moves when he touches the people. And I've seen people who come under that power and they begin to tremble with holy honor. They have trouble standing. Then I've seen people who are so overwhelmed by what they sense that they begin to convulse. And you can almost see the difference in between the way someone would tremble under this power and convulse. Oftentimes, and this is in every case, okay? This is not every case. So please don't take this as a general statement. But often when you see someone convulsing, they're being set free. Now you may talk about, well, how are they being set free from a demon if they're a Christian? I think Alan, you and I agree on this. That's how fundamental that is. Let's just pause for a moment and appreciate that. The idea that Christians can be demon-possessed is so wildly inaccurate that a non-charismatic and a charismatic are both emphatic on it. No, Christians cannot be demon-possessed. So I understand there's extremism on both sides, you know, all the way from cessationism and then down to the other side. So we gotta avoid at least the extremism, but that's how fundamentally true that is that Alan and I both agree on that. So not everyone who claims to be a believer is an actual believer. So sometimes when you see this convulsing, it's someone being delivered by the power of God. But I do believe that sometimes the power of God can become so overwhelming that people react to it in that way. Now, whether or not the sense of his presence was so physically strong that it did in fact force them to move in that way to where it was out of their control, that I would say it's a case by case scenario. I would say more often than not, some people might be overreacting to what is an actual genuine experience and otherwise adding on top of it. So are we the ones that convulse? Sometimes you can consider us like your crazy cousins who come to Thanksgiving once a year. Yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome. All right, yeah, go ahead. So let's move down the line now. So yes, if you're asking about the slain in the spirit phenomenon, yes. And some people react more strongly to it than others. I'll summarize like this. Some people react more strongly to it than others. Sometimes is that reaction exaggerated? I don't know a single charismatic. I don't know a single believer who would say that it's not sometimes exaggerated. Yes, some people exaggerate sometimes. Is it the case that it's always an exaggeration? No, sometimes it could also be a deliverance. And sometimes it could be the genuine power of God. And you can discern, I believe, you can discern, and Alan, maybe you might disagree with me on this. I believe you can discern between, in fact, I've had people come on the platform, they're convulsing, and I know that I know that I know, this person is just putting on a show. And I'll literally tell Patrick, or as I say, just take them off the platform and they'll discreetly remove them from the platform because some people come up, literally just to put on a show. Other people are genuinely coming up for prayer, and sometimes I've seen them shake, and I don't think they're being disingenuine. I think they're having a true encounter with God. So it's something that I think that we have to, again, look at it a case by case scenario. Let's have an interesting comment there. Yeah. Okay, so again, just real quick, I'll go down where we disagree, and this may not even be all the points of disagreement. You may go study some of Alan's stuff, study some of mine, find that there's even more points of disagreement, that's fine. Slaying of the spirit, deliverance ministry, some disagreements, speaking in tongues, major differences, gift of prophecy, fundamental agreement, superficial disagreement, prosperity, if you describe it correctly, there's a mostly agreement. Word of faith, if you describe it correctly, it's mostly disagreement. I'm sorry, mostly agreement. Mostly agreement, excuse me. If we want it to debate, we could have, but then we'd have to make this a four hour screen instead of a one or two. Okay, so Alan, having said all that, I think that just kind of sets the stage. So again, I know the temptation, guys, you're wanting me to say, David, but get him there, and Alan's viewer is going, oh, but you gotta get him on that. And I understand that need to have that satisfied in you. But please understand that there is something more important than winning an argument. Amen. And there has been, and this is what's troubling me, Alan. I told you this on the phone. There has been such a toxic culture developing, especially on the YouTube community. Yes. Among believers where, you know, I don't think a day goes by where I'm not seeing someone called out. Now, I don't know what you think, Alan, we didn't discuss this before, and I don't know what you think about the proper protocol for calling someone out, or whose authority it is to call out who we may disagree on that. But whatever you believe about the process, the protocols, the who has what authority to do what, I think we can agree that the way people are going about this is so toxic. Yes. And you know, God's in the multiplication, the devil's into division. Don't do his work for him. I think the issue is we so want to be right, and we so want to win arguments. And this is not just in between Charismatics and non-Charismatics. I'm seeing this in debates on Calvinism. I'm seeing this in debates on deliverance. I'm seeing this in debates on once saved, always saved. I'm seeing this in debates on what you believe about politics or eschatology and are you pre-mitted or post-trib? I like to say I'm pan-trib, but all pans out in the end, it doesn't really matter all that much. But I'm seeing this ugliness, and even as I'm saying this now, I promise you, I promise you, I'm not even looking at the comments right now, I promise you, there are people who write, yeah, but sometimes we have to call out truth, or yeah, but you can't unite, or someone will say, truth trumps unity. And they'll say things like this, not realizing, yeah, we understand that element. I do, I agree with you, I understand. There has to be a standard that we hold. And I agree that there are times to unite and there are times to divide and call out blatant heresy. But as I am troubled by the division, I want to read this portion of scripture here, John 13, 33 to 35, dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can't come where I'm going. So now I'm giving you a new commandment. Love each other just as I have loved you. You should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. And look, I understand healthy discussion is important. I understand that, again, me and Alan don't even agree on everything. And you're gonna go to his channel, you'll see, if you look up a topic and then each of our names, you'll see videos and they'll be in direct contradiction to one another. I know, I hope it doesn't mind me bringing him up, but one of my dear friends, one of my dearest friends in the world, Vlad Savchuk, who I was just hanging out with a few days ago, I told you a little bit about him, Alan. He and I have very clear disagreements on, for example, deliverance. But we're friends, we're pals. I can't even remember the last time we even discussed it. And so here's what happened, Alan, in some cases. People would look at his teachings, they would look at my teachings and they would look at how they didn't seem to quite align and then they would go, oh my goodness, they must be feuding. Right. And I remember, I'll never forget it because when our teachings came out at the same time, people started this little rumor, oh, they're fighting, they're fighting, they're fighting. Oh, I haven't seen a picture of them together in a while. And I'm texting them, did you know that we're fighting? Cause I had no idea. No, it was just that the topic of spiritual warfare was predominant at that time. So we both were covering it and in different ways. Not only that, I did a teaching, it was a live stream on how to identify true friends. And the thumbnail, you know, cause you want to catch people's attention was a guy with a half mask on and it said, exposing fake friends. Well, that was just the worst timing for that live stream cause everybody who saw that said, oh, this is getting out of hand. I can't believe David's going to attack Vlad. Like I said, it's not even about him. It was actually a birthday special for Steve and I was going to talk about true friendship but it was, it was, it's things like that. It's very toxic, man. Yeah. We imagine that, oh, they disagree with me. They must be attacking me. Take it so personal. And I think we got to stop doing that. So Alan, some of the, you, you brought up some, some great information here. My, maybe just walk us through because you and I talked about this beforehand and we're in total agreement on what Alan's about to teach here in regards to the fundamentals. So Alan, did you want to take it from here and just kind of go through and I'll just chime in a little by little. You have a really good presentation here on some of the fundamentals that we would, we would mark as these are core agreements. Yes, absolutely. Let me get back to this first page. You're giving him a preview right now. Yeah, yeah, let me get back to you. All right, guys. So, so once again, the idea behind it is that even though you might have a difference in opinion of certain things, right? What it comes down to is, you know, what are the core tenets of the Christian faith that you can celebrate with people who very well may see things differently. And also, what do you have to believe in order to be a Christian? And then what are some other secondary issues, auxiliary issues that there is room for discussion, there's room for debate, there's room for differences, right? But that doesn't make you a non-Christian. And I'm gonna go even further. Some of these secondary issues, look, I know I'm gonna get in trouble for this, but it doesn't make you a false teacher. Because see, everybody wants to label somebody as a false teacher. Just because somebody disagrees with you, or just because you disagree with somebody on a secondary issue of the faith, like tongues are not tongues or women pastors are no pastors, women pastors are not women pastors. That doesn't make them a false teacher, right? So be careful throwing that word around. Okay, so fundamentals of the faith, let's just go through them. This isn't gonna be a super long thing, but first and foremost, guys, David and I agree on the idea of salvation with regards to how does a person get saved? If you are a Christian, you must agree that number one, there is, look at the first scripture, Acts 4-12. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Couple more scriptures. First, Timothy 2-5, for there is one God, Yahweh, and there is one mediator between God and men. So there is no other being, right? There's no other person, no other God that can mediate or stand between sinful man and holy God.  And then the last one is probably the one that most people will point to, John 14-6. Jesus didn't say, I am a way, a truth and a life, and some people come to the Father except through me. No, he says, I am the way. The truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me. So if you say that you are a Christian and you have a neighbor that disagrees with you, if you guys agree on this, this is one point that you can agree on. Alan, real quick, I wanna interject. Someone might say, well, doesn't the Bible say can two walk together less, they agree? How would we respond to something like that? Yeah, well, first of all, that's a great question. And people would take that scripture out of context. I believe that's Amos 3-3, right? And this is a great example of how people take scriptures completely out of context. That scripture, original context, is talking about God and the nation of Israel. And he's saying, hey, I want to have a relationship with you, but how can we walk together? How can we work together as me being your God, divine authority and you being the person who's supposed to be, or not person, the nation is supposed to be under me, how can we work together? How can we walk together unless to agree, right? So that verse shouldn't necessarily be blatantly pulled out of context to apply to every earthly relationship. And I'll prove it to this reason. That would mean that we would have to marry somebody who is exactly like us. Because my wife and I don't agree on a lot of stuff, but do we still walk together? Yes. That's a great analogy, I love it. Absolutely, so the second point guys that we agree on is the deity of Christ. If you're going to be a Christian, a Christ follower, all right, so Dave, I'll let you take this one, man. So we're talking about the deity of Christ and I actually have here, John 11 and John 114. I don't know if it's on the screen or do you have those? Oh, there it is, right there. So yeah, so John 11 in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God. Verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is very important that we at least acknowledge at the very fundamental level, Jesus is God. Now this actually, Alan, might be where there's some confusion in the body of Christ too, because I've heard some try to teach on the humanity of Christ and talk about his reliance on certain powers of the Holy Spirit when he was carrying out his earthly ministry. And that's again, people get pigeonholed for talking about the humanity. And I noticed this also with the Trinity which we'll touch on. And you talk about his divinity to say, oh, but he was truly man as well. You talk about his humanity and people say, well, he was truly God too. And then the same thing goes for the Trinity. You talk about one God, yes, but he's three persons. And you talk about the three persons that say, wait a minute, I thought we only serve one God. And so this again has to do with making sure you're listening to what's actually being said. In short, Jesus was truly man and truly God. Absolutely. This was God himself, by the power of the Holy Ghost, Luke 1.35, that power of the most high coming upon Mary and creator stepping into creation. God himself, eternity himself, stepping onto the timeline. Amen. Life himself inhabiting a physical body. I get excited just talking about that. Amen. This is the miracle of the incarnation, Christ himself. This is his deity. And those two kind of go together, but this is his deity, his divinity, who he is. God himself, Emmanuel, God with us.  And I think, Alan, you'd totally 100%, 1,000% agree with me on that, correct? Absolutely, absolutely. Because I see people asking to in the comments, well then how do you identify a false teacher? We're telling you. Exactly. If they don't teach that Jesus is God, they're not a true believer. Exactly. Period. There's no if, ands, or buts about that. There you go. That's an example of false. You're gonna give me all stirred up, man. Exactly, right? So once again, guys, we could go into other scriptures about the deity of Christ. This isn't a full out teaching, but speaking of the incarnation, right? This is another core, fundamental belief of the Christian faith, right? That if you are a Christian, no ifs, no buts about it, you must adhere to these things. If you do not, you really cannot identify as a Christ follower, right? You can, but you're probably more than likely or not, because these are core beliefs. And the incarnation, for those of you who may not be familiar with that, that's just a fancy theological word that basically describes that God, Jesus Christ is God. He was in heaven, but he voluntarily chose to take on human flesh, right? To pay the price for our sins on the cross. And one of the central passages is in Philippians 2, 6-8, who though he was in the form of God, speaking of Jesus, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped. In other words, Jesus didn't say, well, God the Father, I'm God, just like you, so why do I have to go down? No, he was not holding onto his Godness so much that he wasn't willing to sacrifice, right? And this passage is a great example of how we should love, serve and sacrifice and ultimately suffer for those who we say that we love because it says in that verse before that that I don't have here, have this mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus. So it says Jesus emptied himself, right? This is the Canosis, the idea that Jesus chose to willingly divest himself while he was on the earth of certain divine abilities at certain times, right? Jesus, no, I gotta be careful because at no time did Jesus ever cease from being God, okay? Agreed. It's not like he was sometimes man and sometimes God, no, no, no, all right? He was fully 100% man, as David said and he was fully 100% God, but he did choose to limit himself at times during his earthly ministry, and that's the idea of the Canosis or the fact that he emptied himself, right? By taking on the form of a servant, for instance, he cried, for instance, he got hungry, for instance, he got tired. Well, we know God never sleeps in our stomach, we know God isn't hungry, so there are certain aspects of that and this is the idea of the incarnation. I think of Luke chapter two, verse 52. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man. That was his humanity, that was the aspect of his humanity. Yes, absolutely, absolutely, that's another one. All right, let's look at another one. Number four, oh, okay, this is continuing and being found in human form, he humbled himself, okay, that's all four. Okay, now the resurrection, guys, the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Yes, that's the key. He didn't rise from the dead in spirit form, right? He actually physically died and he physically rose from the dead. And we're just gonna throw one verse here and that's the idea of 1 Corinthians 15, 14 and David, I'll let you kind of take this one, brother. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. This is the central event for the Christian faith. This is it. If Christ has not risen from the dead in bodily form, and again, you touched on some of this, you know, this philosophical way of saying, well, he rose from the dead in the sense that his spirit lives on, or he rose from the dead in the sense that his teachings live on, no, no, no. We're talking about the bodily resurrection of the Lord. And in fact, this bodily incarnation, touching on that again, along with his bodily resurrection, is what was actually spoken of when in certain key points of the scripture, when they're talking about defending the faith or talking about holding to the true message, is talking about those who would come in and say he wasn't here in bodily form or he didn't rise in bodily form. That has always been a primary attack of the enemy. Now, if Christ has not risen, all of this is for naught. Think about the fact that you can always come back to the resurrection and Alan, even in my own life, when going through certain seasons of doubt or when wrestling with certain doctrinal points or when wrestling with certain ideas, sometimes it can become so overwhelming to where you start to become mentally exhausted to the point where you say, well, you know, I don't even know what I believe at this point and it can be disillusioning when you see something that perhaps is different than what you've been taught. But I always ask myself this question, and this is a good point for any believer. I always ask myself this question, no matter what I'm facing, no matter what I'm wrestling with doctrinally, did Jesus rise from the dead or not? Amen. Because if he did rise from the dead, all is well. And every other doctrinal point, every other truth is anchored upon the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And this truly is the message that we preach. Christ and him crucified and raised from the dead. So again, another, I'll call it a tenant for our foundational truth is the bodily resurrection. So we touched on the deity of Christ, the incarnation of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ. Did you touch on salvation only through him? Yes, that was the first one. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so salvation, I have it, I don't know why I have it listed as number four. Yeah, I didn't think I, I didn't use your order that you sent me, but yeah. Oh, I see, okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we talked about salvation by grace through faith alone. We've talked about the deity of Christ number two. We talked about the incarnation number three. We talked about the bodily resurrection of Jesus number four. And then the inspiration of the word of God. Yeah. And guys, once again. I have it written here and perhaps, I'm sure you'd agree, the inspiration, perfection and authority of scripture. Yes, yes. Those are the three primaries for me on the Bible. Yes. And the sufficiency, which is guys, a fancy theological word that basically says the word of God is sufficient or enough, right? For us to have everything we need for life and godliness, right? Now we understand that not every single decision that you're going to make in the, in the, in your life, there's a Bible verse that you can point to. But guys, just earlier, David hinted, he touched on something, right? Wisdom, right? The wisdom that the word of God gives you. So for instance, guys, is there a Bible verse, right? Let me just kind of just go back to this view. Is there a Bible verse that I can point to that will tell me exactly who to marry? No, right? But wouldn't you want to be with somebody who is exhibiting the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, meekness, self-control? See, the principle is that if I want to have a, a good marriage, I better marry somebody who is filled with the spirit of God, who is allowing the spirit of God to control them in every phase of life, right? So once again, that's the idea that the Bible is sufficient. Not, there's a Bible verse for every decision that you need to make, but the wisdom that we get from the Bible, from studying it is sufficient for everyone, okay? And so, and so that's the idea there. And once again, a couple of verses guys, I love this, all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for five things really. And we can do a whole teaching on this. Teaching, so what's right for reproof, what's wrong, for correction, how to get right, right? So it's profitable for teaching, what's right for reproof, what's not right, for correction for how to get right and training and righteousness, how to stay right, right? The Bible is sufficient for all those things, ultimately that the man or woman of God may be equipped, complete equipped for every good work, right? So we as Christians must adhere to the idea that the Bible is the final authority. No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Did you wanna add to that? You beautifully said my friend. Okay. And then I believe, did you, and now on your slides, do you have any more? Cause I know we actually added some that we didn't end up putting on slots. Yep, I've got two more. The Trinity, which we can just run through real quick guys. And this is the idea that we do not believe that in this idea of modalism, which is the idea that God was, God the Father in creation, and then God the Son in redemption, and then God the Holy Spirit in sanctification, and God cannot exist equally and eternally as three persons. We don't believe that, right? We believe that God exists. It co-equally exists in three persons, right? Co-equal. And each member is a distinct person of the Godhead, and they coexist eternally, right? So God the Father is not God the Son. He was not God the Spirit, but all of them are God, not God's, cause we're not polytheists, right? All of them are God. We call it the Godhead, all right? And once again, we have scriptures, Matthew 28, 19, refers to all three persons of the Trinity in the same verse baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Second Corinthians 13, 14, it once again names all three persons of the Trinity in one verse, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Now, obviously we could go into a whole more depth about the teaching on the Trinity. And I would say it succinctly, each individual being or person, both divine and distinct, and those two criteria really, you find the principles in scripture. So like if you were to, like you just showed, you know, Matthew 20 and 19, we also have Second Corinthians 13, 14, Matthew 3, 16, through 17, there are so many verses we can show this, but you know, one of the things that I see often is people go, chapter and verse, please, chapter and verse, please, chapter and verse, please. Okay, well, you know, do you have chapter and verse to summarize your eschatology, your satariology? Do you have chapter and verse to summarize why we believe in the canon of scripture being 66 books? I think this idea of chapter verse, chapter verse is often spouted by people who don't really want to understand but rather prove a point. And so I think the Trinity is a good basis to make this point as well because you have to look at the scripture as a whole to see this idea, this truth threaded throughout the Old and New Testament. And those two principles are founded upon the scripture that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each distinct from one another, but equally divine. And this is where we get three persons in one. So for the person who says, well, show us chapter and verse of that whole doctrine being summarized, and we could show you some that give us good chunks of it, but to see the entirety of it, you have to look at scripture as a whole, which is why this whole chapter verse, chapter verse demand doesn't typically play out with some of the more important doctrines. But we stuck to these incarnation to Christ, deity of Christ, bodily resurrection to Christ, salvation only through Christ, divine inspiration, perfection, and authority of scripture and sufficiency. I do believe the scripture is sufficient in what it accomplished. God is one God, three persons. And then we won't touch on these, but let's just mention them, I think, for the sake of mentioning, and then we can get into some other points of discussion here, a literal heaven and hell. Guys, universalism is a nasty demonic doctrine. The role of the Holy Spirit in sanctification, the second coming of Christ, these are fundamentals. Now, if someone teaches against these, that's a false teacher. A false teacher is not someone who says, well, I don't believe that gift of tongues is for today. I disagree with that person, but Alan Parr is not a false teacher for saying that the gift of tongues isn't for today. Yes. I am not a false teacher. If I disagree with you on some point, maybe you're a cessatious. Alan is not, maybe you are. And I say the gift of healing is for today. Does not make me a false teacher. This is why we have to be careful with the labeling. And I think there's that, and I'm gonna kind of get into the psychology of this, Alan. And tell me if I'm getting into the weeds, because sometimes I tend to do that. But you know, I've almost noticed this profile, a psychological profile of certain individuals who get stuck in this. And I'm not saying this to say us against them. My heart goes out to that individual who's stuck in this combative, angry, need to prove themselves safe. It's a culture. And really, we see it on both ends of the spectrum with extremism. There is the remnant of Christ, those who adhere to these doctrines and are led by the spirit, living holy lives, they look for unity. And then there are those on other ends who are just getting into extremes that we all could agree are pretty much off. And this is why we have to come back to the center. We have to come back to the truth of the word. We have to come back to the scripture as foundation. And when someone holds to these, that's your brother, that's your sister. Nevermind the superficial differences. Look for the fundamental foundational points of agreement. Now, can we have discussions? Yes, are there going to be debates? Probably. As long as you keep, I don't engage in them because I think personally for me, it never changes anyone's mind. And I got, I'm focused on soul winning. But if someone wants to engage in and debate fellow believers, they want to debate on pre, mid, or post-tribulation, that's fine. As long as it's friendly and educational, I think it's good experience. And I think it could be fruitful.  Now you can challenge people. And I think, Alan, we'll get on this in a moment. I think we might, I don't know what you think about who has the right to call out who. But I'll be honest with you, were I to respond to every, you know, internet theologian and Facebook apostle who said, I have the authority and I'm calling David out. I honestly got, I don't pay any attention to that because then I would have to answer thousands of people. I'd never have any time to do any ministry. And these most often are people who take things personally, where no one's even talking to them. So I like to say, if you want to argue with yourself, you can go ahead and do that. I'm just going to teach what I teach, do what I do. And that's the way I have to stay focused on ministry. But this is not to say that there's no place for debate. I think, especially in the scholarly sense, in the academic sense, I think debate in that regard is a good setting. Wouldn't you agree, Alan? Yeah, you know, and I think there's a way to do it. You know, and people who have disagreed with me online on YouTube videos who have done it in a graceful way, I can at least respect them. You know, for instance, if somebody says, hey guys, I just want to share with you today, I've watched, you know, hundreds of Alan's videos. And if I'm being honest, I would fully support and co-sign 80 to 90% of what he is saying. And so by making this video by no means, am I encouraging you to unsubscribe by no means? Am I encouraging you to not follow him? I believe that he is generally theologically sound and your life will be blessed by his ministry. However, this one particular video that Alan made where he talked about this here, this is where I have some disagreements. And let me show you using scripture, why I disagree, right? Not just my opinion, but why I disagree. And at the end of the video saying, hey, once again, guys, this is not something that should separate us. This isn't a salvation issue. This is not making him a false teacher, but it is something that I think you should be aware of because I disagree with him on that, but I still love him or call him a brother and I encourage you to still check him out. Like to me, that is a respectful way to make a response video to someone, right? When you disagree with them. Not this whole idea where you have people are like, you need to unsubscribe. He's a false teacher, this, that and the other. Like to me, that's creating way more division in the body of Christ that is necessary because now what you're doing is you're encouraging your 13,000, 50,000, 60,000 followers to actually potentially miss out on a huge blessing that they could have by listening to someone who can help them. And also I'll say this, and this is the reason why I have issues oftentimes with some YouTube channels where all they do is just exposed false teaching all day long. Like I just believe that if you focus more on teaching people truth to your audience, you will naturally train them to be able to discern this stuff without you having to tell them whether they should or should not listen to somebody. Focus on teaching them the truth of the word of God. Teach them sound biblical wisdom and theology. And if you do your job well there, over time they will develop a discerning ear to be able to discern truth from error. You know, this is something I think that so many more believers need to realize. When we attack fellow believers, where, you know, even sometimes I've seen it, you know, on not just YouTube, it's Facebook, it's online, it's on television, it's on radio, it permeates a lot of the theological world. You know, often I think they think they're harming someone else when they may be doing some harm, but they're mostly doing harm to them because they themselves get a reputation as just the guy who calls people out all the time. Now, I will agree, and I think the time to call people out is when they teach that Christ did not come in the physical body. It is when they teach that Jesus isn't God. It is when they teach that there's another way to salvation other than through Christ. So these fundamentals I think are a good guide. If somebody's teaching publicly against these, I think that's the time to be called out if they were considering themselves one of us.   They're gonna teach what they teach, and I don't need to go calling out every Imam by name. I don't need to go calling out every new age teacher by name. I don't need to go calling out every politician by name because they're just gonna be the world. I teach the truth. Maybe sometimes it's helpful if what they're teaching is starting to infiltrate the church. And I think that's one of the standards because Paul would address people whose teachings were starting to infiltrate churches where he had influence. And I think that if we really wanted to address every single problem, we'd never have time for anything else because now I gotta go address every false teacher who is in every church, in every movement, on every channel, on every platform, and there's never gonna be any time for anything else. So, you know, this is in regards to our responsibility. Now, me personally, you know how the White House has this policy that says we don't negotiate with terrorists? Right. I don't respond to critics. Because what happens is if you respond to them, not only are you legitimizing what they're saying, and giving them a little more of a platform, now they gotta respond to you. But what happens is now others see that and go, oh, so if I attack him, it's usually the guys with the smaller ones attack the bigger platform. Because if I can attack them, I can get some of that following from myself. Or I can start to engage, and I don't know. And this is why I just tell preachers, especially those of you beginning in ministry, just leave it alone. Leave it alone. Stay silent. Someone attacks you, let God deal with them. Yes. It's very difficult to stay silent. Yes. It's very difficult to do that when people are saying all sorts of things. I learned that from Pastor Benny. People say all sorts of things about that man. They just aren't true. And I know situations I've been there, teachings I know that he's taught. And they'll say it again and again. And I realize, like I'll hear what they say, like a caricature or a straw man of what he's taught. And he's taught me to just leave it. And everything in you wants to respond. Everything in you wants to literally respond back and be like, you totally misrepresented me. You totally misunderstood me. I never said those things. And that's the part where you just have to say, guys, I trust God, like David said, and just let God deal with them. And I think this is so key what we're doing here today. Because I mean, you know, we're very different now in you and I. Yeah. I think people know that. And I think that's why when we first scheduled this stream, I was looking, I did one day just a couple minutes to look at some of the comments on yours. And I'm just kind of see what the people were expecting from. Even now I'm reading comments saying, why are you guys arguing? I'm thinking they see two people on a screen. They're not even listening. They probably have it on mute.  We have not argued not one time. We're not even debating. So I find that kind of funny. But again, that just proves the point is people just don't really pay much attention to what they hear, what they want to hear. No, and I think this is so important because I don't want to see, Alan, I don't want to see this great move of the Holy Spirit.  You are. You're channeled to be, I mean, one of the biggest channels on the platform with sound biblical doctrine. I know of several of the ministries I could list, and I believe that this is a move of God, that there are great men. People are getting saved. People are learning the word. People are being equipped. I don't want to see that squander for the sake of ego. I don't want to see reputations ruined because I have a problem. You don't know how many times I've released a teaching and it differs from someone else's teaching and people messaged me. I'm going to unsubscribe from them. They tell me that I'm going to celebrate them and say, good job. And I say, no. I mean, I didn't even mention those people. Why would you do that? I mean, it's just us against them mentality. And I know I'm kind of now repeating myself, but I think it bears repeating. We have to learn to unite on the primaries. And if we do disagree, I think there's a way to go about it. And I think, Alan, ironically, I think you and I may disagree on the way to go about disagreeing because personally, I just would never publicly address anyone. But I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? No, I rarely, I rarely, rarely respond because there's a lot of videos that people will put out about Alan Parr says this, Alan Parr says that. And once again, guys, you have to understand where I am thinking about and where Dave is thinking about, we're on such a higher level in terms of the ministry that we want. Listen, guys, I'm trying to, if you, I can't even tell y'all, right now, our ministry has so many plans of expanding. There's so many things that we want to do that even seven years into this, we are excited about the next 10 years. And we've already started to plan for that, right? Things that we want to do, property that we want to buy, studios that we want to open, right? How we want to help people, equip people with the word of God, programs that we want to put out there, staff that we want to hire. Like that's, I'm thinking on that level. I'm not thinking about, whoa, let me respond to a YouTube video where, no, no, that's low level thinking, guys. That's totally low level. You don't see, you know, you don't see some of the, some of the people that you respect and looked up to the most, whether it's John MacArthur, Tony Evans, whoever it is that you look up to, right? Do you see them on YouTube making a little response video to a channel that, you know, called them out? No, you know why? Because they've gotten to a point of spiritual maturity where they rise above that stuff and they're not, they're not thinking down here. And that's the reason why, you know, people can continue to make videos about David or about me, but we're just, we're not gonna, we're not gonna respond to it because, you know, that, it's just not worth our time. Now real quick, Laura Weimer, I'll just, the only question I'll answer about tongues, she's got a question, does Pastor Parr think tongues are of the devil? No, I do not, okay? So let me make sure that's very clear. I do not think tongues is, I do not think the tongues is of the devil. I have a perspective about it, which will not go into detail here. I've got several videos on my channel where I talk about it, but in none of those videos, do I consider it to be of the devil? No, that is certainly not something that I would say. So, yeah. You and I would also agree that there is a time to debate. Personally, I do have discussions and debates. I mean, a lot of my Calvinist reform friends, I have very close friends who are, you would not believe that, that you won't find them ever at one of my services. You will not find them in my service, but you'll find them in my home, at my dinner table. And you'll find our kids playing together.  So we've learned to rise above these superficial disagreements. But I think it's healthy to have debate. And I think when people hear the word debate, they think arguing, but debate isn't an argument. A debate is an exchanging of an idea and you compare notes and you wrestle with it. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've debated someone and it changed my perspective. Yeah, you wrestle with it. And I do that, you know, I try to do that in private so people don't perceive it as an argument, but I think there's a place for it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So guys, you know, as we kind of wrap this up, once again, what we wanted to model for you all today is the importance of unity, celebrating the points of similarity that you have theologically with people. And also, here's the most important thing. When you take time to get to know someone and actually have an adult mature, healthy conversation with someone where you're exchanging ideas, as David said, you very well may come away and say, wow, I just assumed that this person believes this or I just pigeonholed this person because I thought that they'd, or my neighbor goes to this church, therefore they are this, right? We do it all the time, guys. Our neighbor, we ask them, well, where do you go to church? Oh, I go to this church down the street and automatically we have a mentality that this person must be A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Instead of taking the time to get to know them and actuality, you all might find that you should have many commonalities, but even on some of the things that you perceive to be differently, like David and I, we might realize, wow, you know what? Yes, we disagree on something, but some of the things that we thought we disagreed on, we actually see more closely than we actually probably had initially perceived. So we wanted to model that for you guys and we also wanted to, at the same time, present to you guys what the core tenets of the Christian faith are. And these are the things that you probably need to be debating upon if somebody says they're a Christian. If they say Jesus is not God, debate on that. Debate on that, right? But don't debate, you know, unless you want to, but don't get into these strong, these intense debates with people thinking that you're gonna change their mind. And if you do, do it in a respectful way. Well, my friend, let's do this. Why don't we pray? You go ahead and pray and I'll close us with the prayer. Let's just pray over the viewer live and on replay that God would just draw us closer, that there would be unity among the brethren. Amen. Yeah, Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for my brother, David. And thank you, Lord, that you have showed us how to model for people how there can be unity in the midst of diversity. And God, I pray that each of us would study to show ourselves approved unto God. I pray, Lord, that we would not take David's word or not take Allen's word or not take any of our favorite preachers or YouTubers word, but we would go to the scriptures ourselves and truly ask the Holy Spirit to teach us what is true. I pray over David, I pray that you would bless his efforts to win more people to Christ, to evangelize and to equip the saints, God. And Lord, I just thank you for this time. I also pray, Lord, for all those who are here and they know that they are being used by the enemy to be divisive, to create discord and division in the body of Christ. I pray, God, that your Holy Spirit who lives in them would convict them so that they can promote more unity or disagree without disrespecting. I ask this in Christ's name, we pray. So precious Holy Spirit, I pray, Lord, that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear. I pray for that one watching now, that you would cause them to see through the lens of your word. Holy Spirit, we honor the word. And I pray right now that there would be a softening of hearts as only you can do. Soften the hearts of those who are caught in division. Soften the hearts of those filled with pride and ego. And all of us, Lord, soften all our hearts. I thank you for your beautiful presence resting on each and every one of us. And I thank you, Lord, that you were drawing your church together. Let this be a day that is marked in heaven. Touch your people, I pray, in the matchless name of Jesus. Amen.


Now you'll probably want some popcorn for this next story. Our own Charelle Moore takes us into the sixth annual Headwaters Film Festival for this week's In Focus. Every year at the end of March, Bemidji State University Cinema Lovers are given a free ticket to check out the future of the industry. And this year proved the future looks promising. The thing I wanted to do was to get students involved in the film festival and so I was able to transform it into a class with students taking the lead. We viewed all the films that we show in class and then judge them. This year instead of doing a paper route, we decided to do something a little more sustainable and use Qualtrics, so that was fun. Not only is the class run by students, but all the films are created by students as well. This year some of the filmmakers even came from Minnesota State at Moorhead. The film festival is also open to international students. This year there are entries from Belgium, Australia and Germany. I did it last year and it was a lot of fun and it's just a really good experience and it's good to get your work out there and let people see what you can do. The students in the Headwaters Film Festival class had to watch seven hours worth of films, although they eventually narrowed that down to five. Those films displayed a variety of genres and topics and the filmmakers came from a variety of backgrounds. We had several different styles of animation and those were really, really interesting to watch and then we also had some very serious drama films and a couple of documentaries. Most of the time I tried to hide behind a false persona. I was quiet, never stuck my head out, never spoke unless absolutely necessary. Film has been really good at allowing me to express myself as an artist because sometimes there are things that you can't only emphasize with words. It's better if you can emphasize with emotion and seeing a person on a screen. At the end of the showing, the filmmakers participated in a Q&A. Many of the students said their projects were more of a matter of duty to class rather than a passion project, but a few said they'd be willing to dip their toes in the world of cinema again. Students have gone on to get internships and jobs because of their experience with the film festival, so it's very rewarding and fun. Reporting in Bemidji with This Week's End Focus, Shaw Moor, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here again with David Berceau, and today we're going to be talking a little bit about Justin Martyr. So first off, how do we even know he existed? Like, what texts or pieces of writing do we have about Justin Martyr? Okay, we have several writings of his. Some of his works have been lost, but we have his first apology. We have a second apology. There's another one I think is concerning the resurrection that's in existence. And then it's called Dialogue with Trifor the Jew. It's an apologetic work addressed to Jews and explaining how Jesus is the Messiah. In addition to that, Irenaeus talks about him, Hippolytus Eusebius. He's talked about quite a bit by other early Christians. So we have his writings, and then we have other people who talk about him. We know he was Orthodox, that he was respected by the the church in general, and those writings were preserved. It's too bad any of them got lost. You know, someone had to sit down and make a hand copy of a book in order for it to be preserved, or otherwise over time it just decays. And so after a while it's like, well let's copy Augustine. You know, he's more important than Justin Martin. And so a lot of writings disappeared that way because they thought the important people were people like Augustine. And here they had these treasures that they let literally go into dust. But thankfully, most of his writings, I believe it's the majority, have been preserved. We do have a list by Eusebius of the ones that were in existence in his day, and so we do know some of them got lost. Yeah. So can you just give us a kind of broad overview of his life as far as we know? We know a bit about his life because in his work in title dialogue with Trifo, he talks about how he became a Christian. Interesting. And so through it we know it's part of the dialogue, you know, so he goes through his whole conversion story, which is really interesting. He was a Samaritan, interesting enough. Probably had a pretty high class upbringing.  We don't know for sure what his parents were. When we first learned about him in his testimony, he's a philosopher, okay? He's on a search for truth to learn about God. Well, the Greek philosophers were the ones who had the answers in those days, or at least if you were a pagan, that's where you would go, you know, for answers. And so he had studied the Stoics, which was the main philosophy that the Romans had embraced. And then he felt like, well, there's something lacking there. So then he went on to study Pythagoras. We know him through the mathematical Pythagorean theory, but he was a philosopher. Mathematics was just part of it, but so he studied that. And then he went on to study Plato, and that's where he was. And he thought, yeah, I think I've really found it now. And he's, you know, contemplating all these deep things from Plato. He's out just taking a walk by the sea shore, and this elderly man's there who strikes up a conversation with him. Well, he was wanting to be left alone, so he could, you know, meditate and all of that. And this guy comes up, well, you know, he's not going to be unfriendly. So, you know, he answers the guy, and the man asks him, you know, a little bit about himself. And he said, well, I'm a philosopher and all that. Well, the man's a Christian, okay? So he starts then asking, you know, pointed questions about this or that. And by the end of it, Justin decides that he wants to look into the scriptures. Now, what was interesting from that exchange is that the man never went to the New Testament. He preached Christ from the Old Testament, which is something you and I almost never think about doing. Chuck Pike, for those of you listeners who listened to him, if they haven't ever discovered him, you can find him, you know, Google him. Chuck Pike is the name. He's done a lot on this from Justin Martyr, you know, and just that whole concept struck him and me both that, wow, you would preach Christ from the Old Testament. Hey, if you wanted to reach a Muslim, you know, they accept the Old Testament or a Jew either one. I mean, you know, and so this man was pointing out about Moses and the prophets and how they pointed to this other person, Jesus Christ, you know, and then all of this stuff, these people wrote back a long time ago before Plato existed, before Socrates, before any of these people, they're older than then, you know, these Greek philosophers.  So they got him excited. So he goes and starts reading the, you know, the Jewish writings and stuff and he becomes a Christian. And then he decides he's going to make that his life mission to spread the gospel.  He does a very nice job. He's very respectful or something like Tritulean earlier, who kind of grates you, just more is very kind and he presents things in a way to design to open your mind instead of kick you in the mouth. So he's very respectful in addressing the Jews and yet he's very frank, you know, as well. But he goes through his longest work and he goes through all of these prophecies and types in the Old Testament, things I would have never thought about. I didn't even know what's a prophecy or a prophetic type. For example, the one that stuck in my mind and comes to my mind right now was Moses when the Israelites were fighting the Amalekites and he was told to hold up his staff. And as long as he held it up, the Israelites prevailed. And then when his arms got tired and they dropped, then the Amalekites, I think it was the Amalekites, prevailed.  So and then Israel prevailed. Well, yeah, that was always just, you know, a neat account. But yeah, the early Christians, they see that that's a prophetic figure of the cross, Jesus being on the on the cross, you know, with Moses, with his arms out stressed. And it's why, why that's in there? Why, why does he prevail only when his arms are out?  You know, this was all there, you know, and both direct prophecies from the Psalms and you know, other Old Testament books and then all these prophetic figures that the Jews, you know, would recognize and stuff. So he's, you know, preaching to a Jew. But I'm reading this as like, man, I didn't know that, you know, they didn't have any commentaries. They had no concordances.  And it's like, wow, I need to increase. I thought I had a really good knowledge of the Bible, but I thought, man, I'm nothing like, like this, you know, and that made quite a, quite an impression that he's trying to, you know, impress anybody. Yeah, I liked his outlook. It's funny. He's often labeled in certain works. It's people who really don't know anything about the Oral Church, but they label Justin Martyr as one of the liberals, you know, from, from that period, you know, and it's like, he would be so conservative compared to you take the most conservative, you know, Baptist or Church of Christ or whatever. I mean, he would be so much more conservative than, than that Justin Martyr.  The only issue he would be liberal on was the value of philosophy. And the only reason he feels positive about it is because it's, that's how he came to Christianity was, you know, philosophy was his journey, you know, and Clement of Alexander had the exact same experience. He was searching for truth, started off with Greek philosophy and, and ended up with, with Christianity. So people who that was their journey to Christianity, yeah, they, they looked at philosophy as, okay, this was a stepping stone.  Because he has a more whatever generous view, you know, towards that, then he's labeled liberal. Now, in contrast, we were talking about Trichulian. Yeah, his famous quote is, what does Athens have in common with Jerusalem? Meaning, what, what does, what does Greek philosophy have in common with the scriptures? And then his first apology, he gives a description, a lengthy description of a baptism, which is just, just so valuable. I mean, to have man, this is how they do it. And the only reason he's doing, he's not, this is in, in, in his apology. So he's not saying now, this is how we should baptize to do it properly. He's explained to the Romans, okay, this is what we Christians do. So you know, you're, you're reading an objective sort of thing. And then he says, this is what our service is like, we meet on Sunday. And we, and it's like, wow, it's neat. He explains the whole thing. And it's like, wow, this is really, really neat. I remember reading that. It was so exciting. It's like, wow, just having a window suddenly in time, you know, and, and that's, I include that in that the book, we don't speak great things, we live them. That was, I chose that as one of the works and put in there just because of some of those things. I thought, wow, this is a really valuable writing and, and helps us to see, you know, 2000 years later, what, what the Christian life was like. And he's writing like 150. So this is like 50 years after the apostle John died. I mean, that's that close to the New Testament. Okay, so, so we have a bit of an overview of Justin Martyr, who he was and when he lived. What are some of the threads that that he emphasizes, like through his writing, some themes that come out? Or I guess you could say, what are, what is a hill he would die on?  And he literally did die.  It was actually the philosophers. He was, he was witnessing to them in Rome. And one of the philosophers didn't like that, you know, he was showing the errors of the philosophers. Yeah, some of the philosophers who didn't like that, they got a plot together and brought an accusation against him. And he lived in a time when it was against the law to be a Christian. So you didn't have to invent anything, you know, just if someone brought a charge, said you were a Christian, you either deny it or you get martyred. And we have his testimony, we have an account of it. That's pretty neat, because they asked him, you know, where do you all meet? And he says, well, yeah, you don't suppose we all meet in the same place. You know, he says, you know, I meet, he says where I'm assuming it's he probably got arrested there, because I don't think he would give it away. But he said, I meet over the store, us and a few other families, we meet over this, you know, so and so place of business. But yeah, we all meet different places, you know, and, and so it gives us a little bit idea of what, you know, the church was like in those, those days and how they, they met in things. I forget some of the other things, but yeah, he would not deny Christ. So he was taken out and, and be headed.  He, he was interested in Samaritans, you know, his own where he was from Samaria, but like say the Jews, one of the few apologetic works we have written to the, to the Jews, and then to the, you know, to the Romans, but like say he traveled all over whoever he could reach. And he tried to open doors, you know, to, to make the gospel believable to them and to bring it to like, say, if he's talking to a Jew, then he presents it. He takes a different tack than if he's talking to a pagan or if he's talking to a Greek philosopher and, and that sort of thing. So that's Justin Martyr, you know, there was no heretical issues that he necessarily, I mean, he, you know, upheld orthodoxy, but yeah, his passion was, was getting the, the gospel spreading it to everyone he could. He never married, just lived a simple life and traveled about preaching. Yeah. Never held an office in the church as far as we know. Yeah. What would be the ways he would have viewed the Bible, like viewed scripture, maybe the certain ways, I don't know, what kind of glasses was he looking at scripture through? Yeah, he's not, he is, is very generic as far as the early church. The, the same thing that I would say about Tritulian, except Justin Martyr writes in Greek and Tritulian in Latin. Okay. His thought pattern is more Greek than, than say Tritulian, but other than that, he has taken scripture very literally, very, very seriously, you know, obeying it. It's, it's not, you don't end up with a bunch of different schools of thinking in the early church. Like I say, origin sends out a little bit, but even he wasn't that different. It's just the degree that he took, the, the allegorical looking at things in the Old Testament.  They lived in that time. They spoke the same language, you know, they lived in the same world, you know, nothing had changed since the days of Jesus. It was still ruled by the Romans. It was still people, you know, plowed the same way and, and, you know, fished the same way and, you know, nothing had, had, had changed, which is the exciting thing. Now, on his view of scripture, now, again, he's no different than any other early Christian, but he's the one who made me aware of the Septuagint. The, I mean, I'd always heard of it from, boy, the time I was a young teen of the Greek translation made of the Old Testament, but I'd never realized that the Septuagint was made from a different Hebrew text than the Masoretic text that our Bibles are, are from. Not that it's a huge difference. You're gonna get most of the same prophecies and, and most, I mean, the same events and, and all of that. There are a number of Messianic prophecies in the Septuagint that are not in the Masoretic text. They're not in our Bibles. You know, he would, he would quote these prophecies and he's like, well, I never read that one before, you know, and, and I'd go look it up and, and, and then I became aware of that. Well, then he's talking to Jews in this, you know, dialogue with trifle of the Jew, and they're saying, it doesn't say that and, and he's saying, you all changed the Bible. You know, this is, you know, is, is, is what it said and, you know, your leaders, yeah, changed the scriptures because of these prophecies about Jesus, that they wanted to take these, these out, you know, and so it is really fascinating and it's like, wow, this is a whole new world to me. I'd never heard any of this before, you know, and it got me, in fact, as soon as I got through reading or maybe before I even got through, I ordered a Septuagint and got that, man, I gotta start reading this myself. This is really, really interesting. So in your opinion, why does Justin matter to us today? Like, what, what can we learn from him and, and how can he speak into, you know, maybe current events that we would be facing? Yeah, I think, for me, the biggest is how close he is to the apostles. Now that there are earlier writings, his is not the earliest, but 150, that's, like I say, that's not very long after John and, and his are, it's the, the lengthiest writings we have so close to the apostles. So like I say, you, you see all about the Septuagint, you see about church services, about baptisms, about the things the Romans were saying about Christians and, and things like that, you know, their understanding of the Trinity. He goes into a lot on, on explaining the father and the son and, and, and that sort of thing. And, and yes, it's exciting that, oh, this is just 50 years after the apostle John, you know, just like one generation and, and we get all this insight into what's going on. And then the neat thing is when you read Tritulian, who's not, you know, who's maybe 40 years later, that's the same thing. Nothing's different. Irenaeus, you know, another part of the world, he's, he's way over in France. He's 20 years later, same. Yeah. They still hold to the same teachings.  Then, like I say, his witness, his discussion of the Septuagint is, it's very valuable because he talks about the whole Jewish thing of rejecting it.  Yeah, this prophecy isn't in your Bible because your leaders didn't want it in there, you know, and it's pretty compelling because some of the, yeah, strongest ones, like, they pierced my hands and my feet, that's in the Septuagint, it's not in the Masoretic text. Now, it's in our Bibles because it's such a key prophecy, it's like, hmm, dare we take this out of the Bible so they, when they get to that, they go to the Septuagint and then they go back to the Masoretic text, you know, which to me is dishonest. Either don't translate it, you know, they pierced my hands and my feet, you know, go with the Masoretic text or if the Septuagint's right there, then why don't you accept it at other places?   Then he talks about then that even though the Septuagint was a Jewish translation, that then their leaders hired these other men to come and come up with new translations in Greek, you know, for the Jews who didn't read Hebrew.  I thought that's what I want to come away with both the zeal for Christ, the obedience for Christ, and yet a kindly generous spirit towards people instead of one that's always looking for condemnation or that thing and how do you build bridges with this culture, you know, instead of how to condemn this culture, okay, how do I reach them? What do they have that's good in their culture that I can build a bridge to help them come to Jesus Christ? So that's probably just influenced so much of my life's philosophy, you know, his approach to things. Yeah, so maybe this is hopefully an inspiration to our audience to maybe pick up some of Justin Martyr's works and read them. Yes, and like I say, to make that easy, if you can read it directly, you'll get a lot more from, you know, the Antionizing Fathers, but we did do, we don't speak great things, we live them. That's in modern English, I made that just as for somebody to get their feet wet. If they're not quite ready to handle the whole thing, get their feet wet there. If they like that, they can handle that, yeah, then plunge in and read the rest of what he has written, yeah. Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah, well thanks so much for taking the time to share and hopefully this is an inspiration to a lot of people. Regan, I've enjoyed being here. Thanks a lot. Yeah, absolutely.