Truth Unites - Response to Horn and Akin on Icons

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

In this video I respond to Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn on the veneration of icons.    See their original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0I33o_GA1M  See Tim Keller's book on idolatry here: https://www.amazon.com/Counterfeit-Gods-Empty-Promises-Matters/dp/1594485496/truthunites-20  See Greg Beale's book on idolatry here: https://www.amazon.com/We-Become-What-Worship-Biblical/dp/083082877X/truthunites-20 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Hey everybody. This video is going to be a few quick thoughts about the rebuttal video that Trent Horn and Jimmy Aiken put out on the icon stuff. Of course, the icon stuff. This has become a big conversation, which is so cool. I'm honored that people are giving it attention. But I do want to make a few points of pushback and or clarification, particularly regarding some of Jimmy's comments. I'm filming from home, as you can tell. Lighting is different, not as good, probably. Kind of, yeah. But I'm also, the reason is I'm on dad duty. my wife is out of town with our youngest. So I've got the four oldest for the next two days. Pray for Gavin. We have so much fun. But we're always happy when she gets back too. So this is my living room. So hopefully this will work out. But I just wanted to knock this out real quick because then tomorrow I want to hit the books and do a few other things. Six questions that I want to address. Number one, what is truth unites? Number two, is icon veneration a tertiary issue? Number three, what's an anathema? Number four, am I making a Sola scriptura argument? Number five, what is a valid doctrinal development? That is the

key issue in this conversation going forward, I think, because I've already made my response to Craig. That's a response to those who don't allow for development. Some of Eastern Orthodox Christians who really do want to try to say icon veneration is apostolic. So now the conversation probably pushing in another direction to the other side, the Roman Catholics, and a few to an extent Eastern Orthodox who allow for a development here. Number six, what is idolatry? So number one, what is truth unites? Toward the end of the video, Jimmy was sort of chiding me for putting out too many videos defending Protestantism. He was saying this is at odds with the name Truth Unites, kind of criticizing my channel. And I found the comments

here just condescending, you know, throughout the video, insults and overcorrections for rhetorical effect are interlaced with everything. So that was unfortunate. And then even to the point of objecting to the thumbnail. By the way, the thumbnails are a joke. Most people caught that, you know, you just read the pinned comment or if you didn't pick up from the thumbnail itself. See, I had made a challenge to Trent to do more ridiculous thumbnails. Anyway, I'd be glad I didn't go with my second choice, which was this. And even Esther, who has a good sense of humor, like, we laugh a lot together. We laugh a lot. But even she was like too far. But the thing is, you try to make it preposterous so that nobody takes it seriously because it's just fun. But anyway,

I changed it just so it won't even be a possible distraction. But I'll try to avoid any, you know, responding and it kind of, you know, getting into things at that level where he was insulting. But I do want to, it does give me the occasion to explain the approach of truth unites, which I'm happy to do. And I've spoken to this in the past. So I talk about taking an ironic approach that means aiming for peace. I just want to explain this very carefully. To me, it's not complicated, but I understand that it is hard to do. It's less. Your channel grows not as quickly when you're not in the extremes. But basically it just means two things. Number one, and it corresponds to the two words of the channel title, Truth Unites. It means number one, you're trying to

aim, you're trying to listen, you're trying to be kind, you're trying to be respectful, you're trying to seek friendship with other people who don't see things the way you see things. Theologically, it means you're looking for common ground. And we have a lot of common ground. So I talk about how I can learn from Catholics, I can learn from Eastern Orthodox Christians, other traditions. They're fellow Christians. And I know some, I have some close friends who are Roman Catholic and who have meant so much to me. But here's the thing.

That's not at odds with defending the truth. There is nothing inconsistent with affirming, A, truth unconstitutional. A, truth unites, and B, contend for the truth. Actually, those two things require each other. It's the truth that unites. So there's nothing at odds with me defending my beliefs. And I do that for Protestantism and then for other beliefs within that, like my view on baptism. I've done dialogues on that kind of stuff.

So this is just a, you know, here's what, and I've talked about this elsewhere. You know, John 1711 is a key verse for me. I've talked about why, in the spirit of the times right now, I think an ironic approach is needed, frankly, our culture is polarizing and fragmenting in scary ways. But so there's no contradiction with trying to advocate for the truth and trying to be kind in the process. That's what I'm trying to do. I don't do it perfectly, of course. But so, you know, here's the thing that is so outrageous is the double standard of this.

I mean, just think about this. I need to speak to this to try to help the dynamics on YouTube and kind of defend Protestants out there. and hope more Protestants will enter the fray of these conversations. I can kind of make the irony come across like this. It's like Catholic apologists are saying on the one hand, you're doing too much stuff defending Protestantism. If your channel is called Truth Unites, you should just focus mainly on what we have in common.

And then at the same time, they're saying, here's a three-hour rebuttal video that two of us are going to do. William Albrecht's firing one up. He's going to have his rebuttal. Swan Sonah already put out his rebuttal. Swans was good. He had a really good video. Check it out.

The Eastern Orthodox are going berserk on Twitter about things. It's like, so, so like I'm going to have like seven response videos, but I'm the one who's defending my tradition too much. I'm not allowed to defend myself from that, to advocate for my views. It comes across like, well, Catholics are allowed to defend Catholicism, but Protestants aren't, Protestants should be chided when they defend Protestantism. I don't understand that. Here's the dynamic.

There's a lot of Roman Catholic apologetics on YouTube. Some people have it as their full-time job. There are whole ministries devoted to defending Roman Catholicism. God bless them. I don't fault them for that. They should advocate for their view of the truth. There are very few defending classical Protestantism. There are a few.

But we're underrepresented. Okay? That's how I got into this. This is not my main job. I'm trying to pastor a church. My day today was pastoring, parenting, and now you see where I'm traveling a lot over the next month. Don't expect too many videos. I'm writing a book right now. I'm just trying to squeeze this in. So, and then I put out videos and they get all these long responses. So the idea that I'm defending

Protestantism too much is so hard for me to understand how people don't catch onto the irony and the double standard of that. It's like 10 tanks are on the battlefield sitting there and then one little foot soldier comes out here and they're complaining. But anyway, for people watching along, here's what you can expect for my channel. It's pretty simple. I don't think this is too, it may be unusual, but I don't think it's, to me, it's just what my conscience dictates. Number one, I will always advocate for truth. I will always follow my conscience and advocate for what I believe is right and helpful to people in honoring to Christ. That will include Protestantism. That's always been that way. Number two, I will try to do that in an ironic way. That means you listen. You try to be gracious.

You try to open up your ears and really hear because it's hard. These conversations are hard across our different differences. So now and then the percentage of topics. So the percentage of videos on any given topic will change upon the circumstances. I have a different research project planned for the fall, so I imagine things will change in the fall a little bit. But right now it makes a lot of sense for me to defend Protestantism. A, I'm writing a book on it. B, I get emails and Facebook messages every day.

from people who have anxiety about these issues, they're not getting enough on the Protestant side, and they're looking for answers and saying, would you do this, would you do that? And I'm trying to help people. I'm trying to meet needs. C, I'm responding to people criticizing me. And D, these issues are really significant.

I'll stop defending Protestantism when the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, acknowledge that my church is a valid church with a valid Eucharist. Until then, the stakes are too high. Okay, second. question, is icon veneration a tertiary issue? Jimmy, early on in the video, this is one of his

early comments. He proposed that the theology of icon veneration isn't higher up on the, he said, it's way down on the hierarchy of truths, and so that this is not a good reason to be Protestant, and he was kind of chiding me, suggesting I should know this because I wrote a book on it. Icon veneration, that's what makes you Protestant rather than Catholic or Orthodox. I mean, in the hierarchy of truths, icon veneration is a tertiary document. writ at best. And Gavin ought to know that since he's the author of the book, Finding the Right Hill to Die On, about how to recognize the weight of different issues. And objectively, icon veneration is way down on the list. It's not a hill to die on. I don't know what other

things are holding you back, Gavin, but if what you say is true, then, dude, you're actually really close to becoming Catholic or Orthodox. Now, the way I can capture the irony of how this comes across is when somebody says to you, icon veneration is a tertiary doctrine. This shouldn't make you Protestant. You're making too much of this. By the way, anathema upon you if you don't kiss icons, which is what Nicaea II says. It's like, okay, if you want this to be a less significant issue, maybe lay off the anathemas, you know, I think with this, what Jimmy's rebuke there misses, and this relates to some of the later comments in the video too, is that Nicaea Nicae 2 is held to be an infallible counsel by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

No matter how much you whittle down, even if you take a minimalistic approach to what is infallible at Nicaea 2, the essential theology being maintained, including an affirmation of icon veneration, that is infallible. So the logical and theological relationship of icon veneration on the hierarchy of truths to other doctrines is not the same thing as its practical significance for ecumenical decisions. The fact is, when a church proclaims something infallibly and with colorful and repeated and numerous and vivid anathemas, that makes it an issue. So I would just state my disagreement. This issue is definitely enough to make you a Protestant. And the reason why is, if you don't believe something's true, you can't submit to a system that requires you to affirm it.

Because then you're lying and you're violating your conscience. And I think that's pretty simple. And I don't think that warranted a correction. Third question I want to address is, what are anathemas? You know, I'll put up some of the quotes I had mentioned from how the bishops at Nicaea too themselves explain the term, meaning cast out into the outer darkness, condemned on the day of the Lord, nothing other than separation from God. and basically, you know, in Jimmy's response to this, he got into a lot of issues about whether

anathema goes into your soul and rips away grace or something like that. I never said that. My position doesn't require that. I just think this is basically kind of simple. At this time in history, separation from the church was separation from God. That's the thinking. That's the theology. And so later distinctions of how anathema's work and stuff, that's all fine, but the language of the bishops is clear and it speaks for itself. And I think it's just, you know, at a certain point, these explanations just are going around and around and around the language. The language is plain. Nothing other than separation from God means nothing other than separation from God. And I would just encourage people to look at the language there and make up their

own minds about that. The fourth thing I want to address is Soliscriptura. Early on, Jimmy said, basically, what's wrong with the Cretions? And he was saying, the argument of my video is a bad one because it's circular because it assumes Sola Scriptura. What's wrong with Accretians? Who said accretions are something bad? The answer is that Protestantism says this. Based on its Sola Scriptura, sufficiency of scripture principle, Protestantism holds that we need to have a pristine faith free of accretions and stick to

just what's taught in scripture. Now, anybody who watches my video will see the proposal I'm making, namely that a veneration of icons is a sixth or seventh century innovation. That is problematic from a Roman Catholic perspective. That kind of development is not within the parameters of a valid doctrinal development. I'll come back to that in a moment. Accretions like that are a problem. But the first thing I just want to point out is this just,

this does not depend on Soliscriptura in any way. It's so far from a Soliscriptura argument. It's not an argument from the scripture at all. I'm not so far from assuming Soliscriptura, I don't even have it on my mind. You know, I really find this charge incomprehensible. I made a primarily historical argument. I went through three phases of history and showed the development. That's the bulk of my video.

The scripture came in at the end in response to various claims that are made. So it's not a Soliscriptura argument. I really don't even understand that criticism. Fifth question, what is a valid doctrinal development? Later on, Jimmy offered another insult saying that I have a surprisingly simplistic understanding of doctrinal development. And he was proposing various kinds of doctrinal development, purification, extension, etc. He says doctrinal development can be a U-turn. And then as an example, he offers the cessation of various Jewish laws in the New Testament.

So he's saying we have a U-turn right here in the New Testament. Now, I think this parallel is way off. In the New Testament, you have the incarnation of God. You have the arrival of the Messiah who fulfills all that was pointing toward him in the Old Testament. That's not a U-turn. That's just a fulfillment. And this is happening during the era of public revelation. Newman's hypothesis of doctrinal development is for church history.

Okay. It's not remotely comparable to talk about like the inauguration of the new covenant as somehow parallel to, and this is why you can have a U-turn in the late patristic era of suddenly having icon veneration. Think about like this. The Old Testament laws were designed with Christ in mind. They pointed ahead to him. Think of Jesus and John 5. He's saying, Moses wrote about me.

The early church and iconists did not point ahead to Nicaea 2. There's a difference between a fulfillment relationship and a U-turn. And the reason it's worth pointing this out is that, you know, here's the interesting thing. The only way to defend Nicaea II is by a theory of church history that itself is fundamentally condemned at Nicaa 2. It's fundamentally, it's at loggerheads with the theology of Nicaa 2. So this is where this discussion gets interesting with the issue of doctrinal development. Interestingly, according to my memory from having at various points slogged through their video, Trent and Jimmy do not deny that icon veneration is a development.

They do dispute that my claims of the evidence of the condemnation of the cultic use of images in the early church. And they're saying, oh, no, those were just a condemnation of pagan idols, for example, or of thinking that the idols contained the deities. I don't think that works at all. I think you have to twist the text to make that work and read so much into them. The language itself is clear. its cultic use of images itself as such is condemned. But leaving that aside for the moment,

let's assume that that was right. And it was just not really addressed one way or the other, and so it's just coming in later. So this is where the discussion is interesting and how it's different with Eastern Orthodox versus Roman Catholic. And, you know, but here's the prop. So I think I understand why someone like Craig Druglia's going the route he's going to go. Because if you say it's a development,

Icon veneration didn't exist in the third century or the fourth century, because I think, I recall Trent saying that he accepts the scholarly consensus about this. Then you're at a fundamental opposition to Nicaea to itself. Let me just read the climactic conclusion of the council in the seventh session, which this is the whole, this is the very section that introduces the anathemas that follow this that I quoted in my last video. They say, this is the faith of the apostles. This is the faith of the fathers. This is the faith of the Orthodox. This is the faith that has sustained the world. Believing in one God to be praised in Trinity, we kiss the honorable images. May those who do not hold accordingly be anathema. May those who do not believe accordingly be driven far away from the church. We follow the ancient legislation of the Catholic Church. We observe the decrees of the fathers. We anathematize, those who either add or remove anything from the church.

We anathematize the intrusive innovation of the accusers of Christians. We accept the sacred images. We subject those who do not believe accordingly to anathema. Then, right then come the other anathema as I cited in my first video. So just think about this. You hear their logic. You hear their thinking. It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

This is the faith. This is the faith of the apostles. This is the faith of the fathers. We don't add or subtract anything to it. We anathematize those who bring in intrusive innovations. You know, we follow the, ancient legislation of the church. Okay, that's the whole appeal. And so the way, the view by which Jimmy and Trent are defending Nicaea II is the very thing that the bishops at Nicaea

two are condemning with anathema. Isn't that amazing? So I just, I would encourage people to try to think about that. Do you see how problematic this is? Wouldn't it be nice to just have the freedom to just admit sometimes counsels got it wrong, because these counsels were brutal. And, you know, if you're going to try to defend Nicaea 2 by a criterion that itself is emphatically rejected at Nicaa 2, if you're going to try to say basically we're smarter than those bishops, we're able to do better than they did, then leave off the claim forever that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant, that we follow the consensus of the fathers. because honestly, what you have at that point is a simple claim.

The only thing that matters is our Magisterium. Scripture, don't need it. Church history, tradition, don't need it. We can have infallible dogmas just based upon the Magisterium and without scripture or tradition to back it. That is what this method is, just to be completely blunt. I know they won't like that, but that's the truth. That's the truth, because we're talking hundreds and hundreds of years before it shows up.

Beyond that, this more elastic view of doctrinal development, what it comes to be is a magic wand. You just wave over any problem, doctrinal development. That understanding of doctrinal development is not only at odds with the 8th century, with the bishops of Nicia 2 and how they're thinking, it's at odds with the modern Roman Catholic Church. It's at odds with Newman. Newman gave seven criteria for what constitutes a doctrinal development. Number six is conservative action. It has some pretty strong qualifications on what constitutes a valid doctrinal development and how you distinguish that from what is a corruption.

I like using the term accretion because it helps ward off misunderstandings that it's a sudden change like the life just suddenly went out. It's just the idea of a slow buildup. But he's making this distinction. Here's how he puts it. As developments which are preceded by definite indications have a fair presumption in their favor, so those which do but contradict and reverse the course of doctrine, which has been developed before them, and out of which they sprung, are certainly corrupt. Note those verbs, contradict and reverse. That sounds like a U-turn. This is a more conservative approach that Newman is advocating for doctrinal development. Here's how he puts it later. A true development, then, may be described as one which is

conservative of the course of antecedent developments, being really those antecedents and something besides them. It is an addition which illustrates, not obscures, corroborates, not corrects, the body of thought from which it proceeds. And this is its characteristic as contrasted with a corruption. This idea that doctrinal development can be a U-turn, I mean, that's, I would have to say, I think that's kind of outside of the mainstream. It's certainly historically. It's a totally new concept.

But it's outside of the mainstream, even how most Catholics I should think would have thought of doctrinal development in the modern era. U-turn? I don't think that's what Newman had in mind at all. Vatican 1, it was said, the meaning which our Holy Mother Church has once declared sacred dogmas to have must always be retained, and there must never be a deviation from that meaning

on the specious ground and title of a more profound understanding. This is just a more general caveat for doctrinal development. The idea is that the understanding of the church grows in a doctrine, but it's got to be there in the apostolic deposit. And the doctrine itself and its fundamental, meaning is not changing. It's just we're going to understand it more. So if you want to try to get doctrinal development to get, you know, icon veneration and you're willing to call it a U-turn, I think that's really problematic. As the conversation goes forward, I think this issue of

doctrinal development, and I'll have to do another response to Swan at some point, but this is where the conversation will get interesting. Last thing is I wanted to speak to the nature of idolatry. This is another key issue in this. Fascinating question in this. What is idolatry? Jimmy had more strong critiques here saying I'm being a fundamentalist. He said at one point, I don't understand what idolatry is. At times he did not represent my position accurately, such as when he said, I'm simply wrong that the biblical text does not recognize the distinction between veneration and worship. I had a whole section of my video on precisely that. But let me just hit the main point here. I have a concern.

about an under-sensitivity of the subtlety and pervasive reality of the sin of idolatry. And I would like to respectfully put this forward and ask for people who don't think like this to consider it. It's possible to define idolatry so that it's so whittled down. Like the only way you're committing idolatry is if you're consciously choosing to go bow down before another deity. Well, obviously, that is idolatry, but that's not, but there are so many reverberations of the sin.

I would even say. So my definition of idolatry is anytime you put something in the place of God. Anytime you're looking to something other than God for what you should be getting from God himself, when there's that disorder in the heart. I used to counsel someone, and I always say, are the planets in their proper orbit? Because the whole metaphor is the sun has to be in the center of the solar system. When that happens, the planets take care of themselves. The metaphor, meaning when God is in the center of your life, when he's the uppermost thing in your life,

things tend to fall into place. forget that if that's not helpful. But anyway, Luther's great insight is helpful about this. What Luther basically said is, in the First Commandment, all the other nine are contained implicitly. Basically, idolatry is the sin underneath every other sin. He said, to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that makes both God and an idol.

Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, That is really your God. It's fascinating to see the way the word idolatry is used throughout the scripture. For example, in the New Testament, in Ephesians 5, 5, and Colossians 3, 5, covetousness is idolatry. That's interesting. Covetousness is the last commandment, the 10th commandment. Another interesting passage is 1 John, the final verse in the epistle of 1st John.

It just suddenly introduces idolatry as it's interesting. I'm going to put a link into, or in the video. I always say that. I always say it. I'm going to put a... Oh, I said it right. I'm going to put a link in the video description, woohoo, of a Tim Keller book that is very insightful about idolatry. It's very, in case people want to study this more, it's very insightful about how in a secular age, idolatry does not go away. What he's basically saying is, you are looking for justification. If you're an atheist, you're cleaving to something for your identity. It's very profound. It's relevant for pastoral ministry.

I'm also going to link to a fascinating book on biblical theology, or a fascinating book of biblical theology on idolatry from Greg Beale, who's a fantastic scholar, talks about the motif of idolatry all throughout the scripture. Here's what I want to say. That's kind of setting my defense. Jimmy criticizes me for being a fundamentalist and not thinking about the purpose of the Second Commandment. My respectful protest is, that's all I'm thinking about, is the purpose. when it comes to a regular liturgical act involving prayer in connection to non-living objects associated with bodily postures such as prostration and kneeling, I think there is a purpose given to commandments against such a practice. And I'm very concerned about this idea that we can kind of abstract the commandment from the principles and pull them apart and rearrange how that

will apply in a different context today. If you don't have biblical or early church historical precedent for that, that is really dangerous. This can become very subjective. Who says which are the principles and which ones can be separated? And this way of thinking can be used to nullify or even change God's commandments. And I would just say I'm kind of surprised there's not more sensitivity to how a regular practice of prayer involving bowing, the way bowing to something shapes your heart, shapes your spirituality. It's not hard at all to imagine how such a practice can encourage us to look to direct things to others that we should be directing to God, feelings of loyalty and love that should be given to God alone. Now, in saying that, I am not judging people's heart. It's not

judgmentalism or fundamentalism or Phariseeism to simply obey God's commandments and not change them. I was very clear to say, I don't know when exactly this is happening in any individual person, but I have a concern the general concern of the practice is just obeying what God says. When God says, don't do this. And historically, it's undeniable, I think, that this happens a lot. At one point, at the two hour and 26 and about 35 second marker, Jimmy was saying that, well, Catholics shouldn't ask Mary for forgiveness. They're just asking her to intercede with God for forgiveness.

But this would be an example where I have a concern about a naivety in how frequently the technicalities are lost in actual practice in terms of what's going on in people's hearts. Martin Keminetz lists a number of hymns, breviaries, and prayer books that were accepted by the Roman Catholic Church and circulated in medieval times. Not infallible teaching, but this wasn't just some random person doing this on their own either. And he includes examples like prayers like this. O noble Mary, excellent above all, procure for us forgiveness. O Mary, full of grace, sweet, mild and beautiful, grant us peace. O glorious Mary, delicate in delights, prepare glory for us. Here's a later one.

Oh, you who are more beautiful than the stars and blessed above all women, placate your son, cleanse all the faults of the faithful. There are so many like this. I just chose the two that I already quoted in my video on prayers to the saints. I'm not choosing the worst two examples. There's so many. If you want to read all these, go to Volume 3 of Keminitz's example. and start at page 379 and just read for about 20 pages. It's, I mean, here's why I think it's idolatry is that it's not just idolatry if you

like say, I worship you. If you're assigning a role to someone that is the role of God. So like if you're saying Mary propitiate Jesus, if the overall flavor of the spirituality is God is a little more distant and so Mary is more warm and approachable and so she's placating Jesus, then the very role that she's being put into, is a problem. And just saying, oh, well, we're just sign on the dotted line that, yeah, yeah, ultimately at the end of the day, God's at the back.

He's the ultimate one who grants forgiveness. I think this is naive, and it's just throwing technicalities at real-life experience for where someone's heart lies, or at least what these prayers will encourage and what they reflect. And because the function or role we assign to something is very important. important. In the prayer that I offered, for example, from pseudo-Bazil, the idea is that through the prayers or intercessions of the saints, a ransom is made for sin. Now, my concern with this is, like, for example, if a parishioner came to me and said, Gavin, would you pray for me that through your intercessions, a ransom would be made for my sin? I wouldn't say, oh, terrific. Yeah, let me, you know, I would want to

give some pastoral guidance to say, I want to pray for you and I want to pray that you'd experience the ransom that Christ has paid on the cross for your sin. And I want to just give a little instruction and shepherding about the nature of the gospel and how we appropriate that by faith and so forth. Because I want them to understand that in Christ, they already possess that. So if I'm playing a role in that, I am not the mediator of the ransom. They have that directly through Christ, and I want them to understand their union with Christ. I want them to understand that they're already seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

His resurrection is their justification. They currently possess all things. By simple faith, they're united with Christ. And so the ransom doesn't come through me. I could pray that they experience it more fully, but there's a clear line there where the role assigned to someone can cross a boundary. And so, again, I have a concern of naivety

about how easy it is to slip into idolatry. And gosh, am I concerned that bowing down to icons and praying two figures in heaven through the icon as a window into heaven leads our hearts and encourages our hearts away from where they should be cleaving unto God? Yeah, I'm really concerned about that. So I guess I could say for, you know, here's the good news is whenever we're facing a sin of idolatry like this, whatever we're looking for in something like that, we already have that in Christ. and whatever need in the heart is there that we're looking to meet,

that is met far more abundantly by Christ himself. Every believer, the weakest believer, can go directly to the throne of grace and get whatever they need, because through Christ they possess all things. They have Christ, and in Christ they have all things. And so the prohibition of idolatry is the good news of, No, set your heart fully on the infinite storehouse of riches you already have by simple faith in Christ. So anyway, I hope these thoughts will be helpful on some of these points. For other points, we'll keep talking as well.

I hope to interact with Swan. I'm not going to interact with William Albrecht's video, and then I've heard some others are coming out too, so it'll be interesting. The challenge is I'm traveling. I'm traveling. The next five weeks are the five busiest weeks of my life. up to the debate on March 2nd. And I got to start studying, well, not start. I've studied a little.

I got to focus on Sola Scriptura. So I'm going to try to pull myself away from this a little bit and just do little bits where it's helpful. But I'm traveling four times over the next five weeks leading up to that debate. And then other things that going on. I do have, though, so videos will be light, but I do have a video, fantastic interview with Sam Storms about spiritual warfare and spiritual gifts coming out. That'll probably come out later this week or early next week. So you can look for that. All right, God bless everybody.

Hope this is helpful. See you next time.