 Chris has our next question and he would like to know who Dr. Heiser thinks is the closest to being correct? Western Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Dispensationalist, whether Acts 2, Mid-Ax or Acts 28, Baptist, Presbyterian Methodist, etc. etc. etc. If there were hundreds of churches in my town, one from every single tradition, if I could choose any one of them, which would he say gets closest to getting it right? Yeah, none at all. You know, there's nobody that that's going to be closest to getting right. I mean the question sort of assumes that we can, with a high degree of precision, know what is right for all sorts of things. I mean, you know, is this general doctrine? Well, a lot of these things, a lot of these groups that are in this question really are where they are because of hermeneutics. So, you know, we're not omniscient, so we can't say, well, there's this one inspired hermeneutical method and this is it and this is where it's going to lead you. It's just it's not that simple and scripture's not that clear as well, you know, in terms of how to approach certain passages. You know, when I discuss doctrine, listeners are probably familiar with me saying things like, hey, you know, what you believe on X, Y or Z is ultimately a result of decisions you make about how to approach a passage, how to approach the Bible, how to approach a whole book. You know, what you decide beforehand, before you even look at the text, is going to ultimately dictate where you end up on a certain doctrinal issue. So the Bible doesn't give us specific instructions on what approach is to take. Example, the book of Revelation, which naturally is going to deal with eschatology. There's no like footnote in the book or something at the back of the book or at the front of the book or anywhere in the book that says, oh, you should interpret the book of Revelation as a linear chronology or oh, you should interpret the book of Revelation as a cycle of recapitulations or, hey, interpret the book of Revelation by both of those things. You know, and then you ask, well, which passage is this? Well, you know, we don't get a grocery list for that. And so all of those things are going to, you know, whatever decisions you make are going to lead you to different doctrinal conclusions. So there is no answer to which one is best because we don't know, you know, really, you know, lacking omniscience. We don't really know what the absolutely correct way to approach any given passage might be. Now, there are some things that are closer to others, and this is how I or easier than others. There are some things that are closer to say, well, there's really no ambiguity on these certain things. And so that's how I tend to approach things. You know, I would ask someone in all of these camps, you know, about the gospel to me, the gospel is primary. You know, what is the message of the gospel? And does your group, does your denomination teach things that muddies the clarity of the gospel? And I can look at this list and say, all of them do that. OK, and so we need to exercise, you know, some care because all of them will sort of, you know, accrue things that may or may not make the gospel get lost in the system, within the system. You know, just pick out a few. You know, you've got Eastern Orthodox or Reformed denominations, what they say about and Catholicism, what they say about baptism, for example, that may or may not, you know, muddy the clarity of the gospel for someone. I'm not one who believes that if you're a Catholic, it's impossible for you to hear a clear presentation of the gospel. Yeah, I know Catholics that can articulate the gospel very, very well. The problem is, is how many people in the pew and you could ask this of any denomination? How many people in the pew are really thinking theologically? If you get a real, you know, someone who's in a Catholic church, they might be there for one of 10 different reasons, whatever that is. But they know the gospel, they understand it, they know, you know, how to distinguish the faith and works issue. But I've actually had Catholics tell me this, that basically the Catholic Church has just screwed up on evangelism because certain things it says do muddy the clarity of the gospel. And people can go away from a homily or, you know, some Catholic writer and be totally confused that they have to somehow merit in and of themselves salvation when they really don't, you know, merit to a careful, you know, thinking Catholic theologian refers to something else over here. Well, well, that's nice, you know, did you have to get a PhD in theology and your own system to be able to distinguish that and how many people in the pew aren't going to get that? And therefore, they're not going to get the real gospel. And I've actually had Catholics say that is a real problem, you know, within the church that the gospel gets lost very easily to the average person in the pew. Well, that's a problem. I mean, that to me is a significant problem that, I mean, I wouldn't want to, you know, be in a context where that happens. But, you know, they're not the villain. I mean, I've been in many Baptist churches, Bible churches where you got to wonder, has anybody really thought about the gospel lately? And I'll give you an indication of this. Now, in at work here, and I posted something about this on the blog. We, you know, my employer, this is months ago, six months ago, maybe longer. You know, we experimented with a podcast called Questions Allowed, A-L-O-U-D, and it's now up on Faith Life TV. In one of those episodes, the episode was supposed to be about sort of what do missional church planters actually do? The show is really Mike griping about something. And then my partner, Johnny, talking me in off the ledge, you know, like, what am I overlooking? What am I misunderstanding? I mean, just tell me, Johnny, because I have this thought. And we try to isolate on questions that we know lots of people are thinking, but are afraid to ask because Christians are supposed to be, you know, ultra polite or something and not supposed to ask pointed questions. Well, we throw that to the wind in this particular show. And this one, again, was like, what do missional church planters do? What is that? Because my exposure to them is basically they sit in coffee shops and their community organizers. They don't do any evangelism at all. And I know that's an overstatement because I do know other church planters that would call themselves missional and they're real. They're for real. You know, they go out and they try to win people to the Lord. But there are other ones that it's a it's they're not missionaries. They're vacationaries that that's what they do. And so we had somebody, you know, again, who has had a lot of personal exposure to this, you know, that this is part of what they do. And it was unbelievably difficult. And this is an evangelical, large and evangelical community type church. This is not Catholicism, any kind of high churchism. It was unbelievably difficult to get this guy to articulate the gospel. I softballed him through the whole interview. And just couldn't get it out of him. I had no idea that that was going to be the case. And again, it exposed my own ignorance that of what really goes on in evangelical churches. So when I answer this question about, you know, who's right? Look, the gospel has to be primary. Do not put yourself and your family, your kids, whatever in a situation where the gospel is going to get lost, altered or forgotten. OK, that is the main thing. Other doctrines, you know, you're just going to have to pick your poison. If you're looking at church, if you're making a church decision based on a positive answer to a question like, will I agree with everything that this church teaches or is in? You're going to be looking for a long time. I mean, you cannot, especially nowadays, if you're a thinking person, you know, you can't assume that anywhere you go is going to be just totally in line with what you think. What you're really looking for is a place where the leadership is secure enough to let you have a different opinion that you don't get run out of the place or marginalized or put on the shelf when it comes to service. Just because you don't see eye to eye with the pastor or the elders or whoever on this particular issue. If you find somebody who's secure enough to let you think and let you disagree and you've got 70, 80, 90 percent agreement on everything else, that's actually a good situation. Assuming, of course, again, that the gospel doesn't get lost or altered or muddied and, you know, that you're actually in a context where hopefully you're learning something on a Sunday morning. Now, there are a lot of people. Again, one of the reasons why, you know, we've tried to, we're in the process now of trying to connect listeners to the podcast to each other is I get people all the time that tell me how isolated they feel because they are thinking Christians. They want to know scripture. The issue isn't do you agree with Mike is do you learn something? Okay. And they like that disagree or agree with me or not. It doesn't matter. And that's what I'm hoping to foster here that you're learning something. And they feel like this podcast or my website or something is like the only place they have to go to get fed. Okay, that there are people in that situation. And what I recommend to people like that is, look, if you have a church. And all you get out of that church is good relationships, good friendships, maybe a good program for your kids. It's not a bad decision to stay there and then just take the responsibility on yourself to feed yourself. Again, I'm trying to help people do that so that they don't just, you know, jump ship and, you know, just throw the throw the baby out with the bad bath water, that kind of thing. So, you know, please, you know, don't anyone, you know, the questioner Chris and anybody else who's listening here. You are never going to find a church that you can look at and say, I know that they are 100% right on everything because it just isn't that simple. Many doctrinal positions and disagreements are based on hermeneutics. Okay, that's just the way it is. And there are ambiguities in scripture. That's just the way it is. So you need to focus on the core doctrines. Are they taught with clarity? Okay. Do they get lost? Do they get redefined? You know, if they get lost, redefined, I would say get out of there. But beyond that, you're just going to have to pick what really helps you and your family as a believer and as a group of believers, the most in whatever way it does and then, you know, sort of go from there. And I would just add, I don't know if church is necessarily about getting it right as much as it is celebration too. I mean, you're there to worship God. You're there to worship, yeah, and be with like-minded people and, you know, connect and have your kids meet like-minded people. You know, there's a lot of reasons, you know, why being attached to a church is a good thing. But it can be difficult, again, if the leadership is so intimidated by a thinking person, a person that has questions. And they're honest questions, you know, that, I mean, you can tell when you talk to people, is this person just, you know, picking a scab or, you know, trying to be a troublemaker? Or is this a real question? Okay, that's a good thing. You know, asking genuine questions is a good thing. But if your leadership just cannot handle that, like, oh, I don't know. And I can't say I don't know because that would be a chink in my armor and people won't think I'm omniscient. You know, I mean, I don't want to caricature pastors like they sit there and think of ways to be that guy because the congregations in many places help create that unfortunate situation because they just hold the pastor out as this person. And then the pastor sorts of, you know, can fall victim to believing that, believing that dead caricature, believing, you know, that I have to be this person, that this, that all these people think I am and I can't ever say I'm wrong. I can't ever say I don't know. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. You know, you just be honest with people, you make it a focus of a study, you know, go find out. But there are a lot of people who just can't do that. It's a threat to them. And that can be a really difficult situation. So again, this isn't a one size fits all kind of answer because it's not a one size fits all question either. But I would agree with Trey and there's just, there's lots of reasons, you know, other than level of content and quality of content to be in a church. But if you don't want to be in a situation where you're just not getting the gospel and the core doctrines.