Mental Assent vs Saving Faith Pt 1

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. One of the greatest tragedies would be to die and find out that you missed heaven by fourteen inches. One of the greatest tragedies would be to die and find out that you missed heaven by fourteen inches. And now you are going to spend an eternity burning in the lake of fire. That would be a great tragedy. Right, you don't want to miss heaven by fourteen inches? Now what does that even mean? How do you miss heaven by fourteen inches?

0:51 We're going to be discussing all of that, but before we do, let's do this. Welcome everyone. It is Tuesday, October the eighth, twenty twenty four. It is currently ten forty one am Central time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. You have probably heard sermon after sermon after sermon that will say something along those lines. Don't miss heaven by fourteen inches. And why they say that is they say that's the distance or the average distance between your mind and your heart. So the idea is this, you literally can believe in God with your mind. You can believe in God. You can and a sense acknowledge that Jesus is the eternal son of God, that he died for your sins. Your mind can believe, acknowledge, accept in a sense in your mind, believe and trust. But you can still go to hell because you're not believing with your heart. The idea is that just mental assent is not good enough. You can still go to hell.

2:04 You can't just believe it with your mind. You got to believe with your heart. So then you have to spend a good portion of your Christian life going Wait a minute, do I believe with my mind or do I believe with my heart? Am I just giving mental assent? Or do I really really believe? And what does it feel like to believe with my heart versus just believing with my mind? How do I draw this distinction? But you'll hear sermon after sermon after sermon. Don't go to hell because you miss Heaven by fourteen inches. So you've got to not only believe. Now you have to determine where is the source of that belief. Is it from your mind or is it from your heart? Because if it's in the wrong location, you go to hell. So believing is not enough. You got to believe in the right part. And how do you know the difference between the mind and the heart? Is there a difference between the mind and the heart? Well, all of this, and the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because of an email I received. I believe it was yesterday, And here is the email. I don't know if you remember, given how busy you likely are, but I sent a topic request in the past right now, Sometimes I do miss emails. I try not to now. Sometimes people will send me a topic request, and depending on what I'm doing at the time, I may say, Okay, save that.

3:22 I will circle back to it. But then, well, then one episode turns into another episode, turns into another episode, and we get further and further and further away from the suggested topic. Well, so, in this particular case, I'm glad they emailed me back because I think I've completely forgotten this. In some ways, I feel like we've addressed this at least to some level. But here was the entire email. Are you ready? So here we go. I don't know if you remember, given how busy you likely are, but I sent a topic request in the past. I have just one more to send you, if I may. I hear many pre and teachers say either that faith is not mental assent or faith is not mere mental assent.

4:09 It's basically an axiom in conservative theological circles. But I've been skeptical lately about how biblical this characterization of faith is. Would you be interested in doing a program defining what mental assent actually is and diving into scripture to see whether mental assent is a biblical characterization of faith or not, because whatever theologians may say, it is what God himself says that matters. Now, I will say this before we even even approach this subject. I'm going to say a couple of things. Well, let me start with this. I do completely agree it doesn't matter what theologians say, it only matters what God himself says. Well, let's just be very very we have to be very honest here. I know this makes Christians very uncomfortable when we say it only matters what God says. The reality is, nobody ever agrees on what God actually says. Okay, we've got two thousand years of church history to prove that right. Everyone believes that their system of theology is what God says.

5:19 The Calvinist believes this is what God says. The non calvinist this is what believes God God says, well, the charismatic this is what God says. Everyone believes that what they think is what God says. And so many times when it comes to Christianity and believe it's more about what you think God says than it is what God says. In some ways, if we're really honest with ourselves, the authority is not the Scripture, it's our own belief system. We believe it. Therefore we say God said it, because we obviously wouldn't. I mean, everyone believes that what they believe is what God says, but obviously not what everyone believes can't be what God says because what everyone believes contradicts one another. So does anyone really know what God says?

6:01 I know I'm not supposed to ask that question, but I think after, you know, studying theology as long as I've had that, I think that's one of the very frustrating realities I have had to face. I can say this is what God says, and someone else will be like, no, this is what God says. And this person will say, no, this is what God says, and everyone thinks that they know what God says. Obviously it's not as easy as that. And people will say, well, if they would just read the Bible, and they would be saying, well, if you would just read the Bible. Now we're going to do our best to try to figure out what God says, because I think that's important. But I think we have to just acknowledge there's a little bit. There's a lot of us, not just a little bit. There's a lot of us involved in the entire process. There just is.

6:52 So whenever I started thinking about this email, okay, mental assent, mental assent, I immediately started having my my own feelings and my own thoughts because obviously I have my own beliefs. But I'm like, you know what I need to set aside, because this is what I try to teach all of you to do. Whenever you're dealing with the Bible, whenever you're dealing with theological issues, you've got to set aside everything you've been taught in the past. You've got to set aside anything you believe and try to just go back to the text. Now this one, it's not so easy just to go back to the text and say, well, what the scriptures say about mental assent. And here's the reason why it's going to be very difficult. The Bible never uses the phrase mental assent. The Bible never says, hey, if you believe, make sure it's not just mental assent.

7:43 So we're already starting with something that at least the phrase is not in the Bible. I'm not saying the concept isn't there. I'm just saying, so we're already starting with a little bit of a disadvantage. It's always easier when you can go directly to passages that use the phrase and then see how the phrase is being defined by its use in scripture. That's much easier to work on. In some cases, are the same thing with the Trinity, Right, okay, so the term is not there. But wait a minute. So we have the Father, we have the Son, we have the Holy Spirit. Are they given? Are they described as having the attributes of deity? Well? Yes, okay, Well then that would be three gods, but the Bible says there's only one God. Okay, so then you can start trying to break it down, right, But with the idea of mental assent. Hmmm, where do we even begin? How do we even try to approach this? So that's what we're going to be working on now. So I just want you to just make sure you understand that we have so we want to get to what the Bible says and not what theologians say. But you can throw out all the theologians, but every individual becomes, in a sense, their own theologian, their own pope, their own magisterial authority, because they're going to interpret the scripture and when they interpret it, they're going to believe that what they their interpretation is not only right, that it's dogmatic and it's binding on everyone else. So there's a lot of us in it. So let's just be honest with that, all right, Let's just go ahead and acknowledge that. Second. So that's the first main thing I want to get across. The second,

9:14 as we go through this, I'm going to follow a certain line of reasoning. And as I'm working through this to the original emailer, he can email me back whenever he would like, and he can ask follow up questions, and I will try to add that to this. This is not going to be able to be resolved, and I think one episode, this may go on multiple episodes. And this really really, really really connects with some of the things we've already been discussing. Right. We talked about taking a knife and metaphorically opening up a Christian and go, wait a minute, so is that the heart? Is that the mind is the heart and mind the same thing? Wait? Do we have a new heart but not a new mind?

9:55 Or do we have a new mind and not a new heart? And we started talking about how do we in a sense divide and separate all the supposed parts that make us up? And we immediately realize nobody in Christianity even really agrees on this, and it's very convoluted. So we're going to get into a little bit of this as well. I'm going to try to keep it simple, but we're going to have to go through this slowly, so you know, to the original email or they may start listening go, well, I wouldn't. I wasn't asking for a you know, fifteen parts series. I just wanted an answer. But if I just give you some kind of a simple answer, well you shouldn't be emailing me, right, because that's that's not the way I do things. Right. This podcast has never been about simple answers. So we're going to work through this and kind of a meticulous, slow, maybe tedious at times, but we're going to see what we can accomplish. So are you ready? Here's the ultimate question.

10:55 Can you miss heaven by fourteen inches? Now? That's the app distance, the average between the brain and the heart. Okay, it's not true of every single person, but it's a basic average. Okay. So so this therefore, it's been used as just an illustration, kind of a metaphor a little saying, and preachers love to say it. Hey, we're beginning tonight at First Baptist Church somewhere, Oklahoma, and this is our revival service, our fall revival, and the one thing we want to ensure is that no one goes to Hell because they missed heaven by fourteen inches. I know many of you claim to be Christians. I know you've been raised within Christianity, but you could only you could possibly be going to Hell because you've simply given mental assent, You've simply believed in your mind, but you've not believed in your heart, and you're going to split Hell wide open.

11:50 So tonight you need to come down, come to this altar and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, not with just your mind and with your heart, and then you will be saved. Do you have a lot of people going, wait? Could I be going to Hell? I don't want to go to Hell because of a distance of fourteen inches? And can you just imagine how I mean when you really think about that, here's God, you know, sitting in heaven going, Man, I don't want anyone to go to Hell. I mean, this is the way it's typically, you know, describe. I don't want anyone to go to Hell. And I know we could get into some great philosophical questions right there, but okay, I don't want anyone to go to Hell. And there's there's Tom. He's there in the third pew, and man, I feel so bad because Tom believes in his mind he acknowledges that I'm that, you know, the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ upon the Cross. He acknowledges and believes in his mind, the virgin birth, the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, the resurrection, the ascension into heaven, and Christ coming to judge the living and the dead.

12:48 But I'm sorry, he's going to go to hell because the belief is all in his mind. It never it never traveled to his heart. So here's all these people. You're like, Hey, here are people who never believed. Here's people who only believed with their mind, and all of those people go to hell. I mean that's just like okay, so you know what that should cause Everyone sitting in the pew would be like, wait a minute, do I really believe with my heart? Okay? What does it mean? And inevitably you know where it's going to go. If you believe with your mind, you know where this is going to turn into, well, then there won't be any transformation. If you believe in your heart, there'll be transformation. So this really comes down to not even an issue of mental assent. This really turns into an issue of how much have you supposedly been changed? Where now we're judging salvation not on the basis of the finished work of Christ, but on the basis of our supposed transformation. This becomes majorly problematic from a thiological standpoint. But are you ready to work through this? All? Right? Here's where I think we need to start. The basic premise of you can miss heaven by fourteen inches it is a very dogmatic assertion that there is a difference between the mind and the heart. This entire argument demands that you see a distinction,

14:20 that the mind is here, the heart is here, and the two are completely separate, so that you can believe in your mind and not in your heart, that the two are completely different. It draws a massive distinction between the two. Well, let's just start with a major issue here, at least in the Hebrew mind and in relation to the entirety of the Old Testament. This drawing a distinction between the mind and the heart would be foreign to the Hebrew mindset and to the Old Testament scriptures. They would have no clue what you are talking about, because the Hebrew mind and the Old Testament scriptures do not draw a distinction. For the most I don't think in any serious way between the mind and the heart. They are used almost as being synonymous. The idea of separating the mind and heart would be not just some sources would say somewhat foreign, I think, would be completely foreign to the Hebrew mindset, particularly in the context of the Old Testament. In ancient Hebrew, the terms often translated as heart and mind were seen as closely connected, if not synonymous.

15:46 So in ancient Hebrew thought, the terms that are often translated heart and mind were seen as closely connected, if not synonymous. In many contexts, the heart and the Hebrew worldview, was considered the center of a person's enter life. What would this, you know, involve? This would encompass the thought, the will, the emotion, and intellect. Well, if the heart encompasses the thoughts, the will, the emotion, and the intellect, then how do you come along and say, well, you can miss heaven by fourteen inches because the heart and mind would be used synonymous. So how would you even make this work? And not only that, you're drawing a measurement between the physical brain and the heart. Well, then well, now you're measuring between the distance of the physical heart. Well, the physical heart has nothing to do with this. It's just the muscle that pumps blood through the body. Everything takes place in the brain. So now if we get into a very medical discussion, this whole thing begins to fall apart. Everything would take place in the brain, right, okay, And then someone say, well the brain just receives. Okay, you can lose your mind if you get into all of this, but in the Hebrew mind, in the Hebrew mindset, and the Hebrew perspective. Let me make it again, the heart would encompass all of this that the thoughts, the will, the emotion, and the intellect. When the Old Testament speaks

17:19 of the heart, it is often referring to what a modern reader might call both mind and emotions. For instance, Proverbs twenty three seven, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he As a man thinks in his heart, so does the heart think. Well, if the heart thinks, that would be the mind. So how do you get mental assent versus heart belief that doesn't even know? It would be the same correct. In a similar way, when people are called to love God with all of their heart Deuteronomy six ' five, it doesn't mean love merely in an emotional sense, but rather with the whole of their being, including intellect, will, and affection. So it says love God with all of your heart. Now, especially in Deuteronomy sixty five, that would encompass everything, not just your emotional side. It would also involve your thoughts. The later The later theological distinction between believing with the mind, intellect and the heart emotion or will would not align neatly with the unified perspective of the Old Testament. The Hebrew understanding would view faith as an integrated act involving the whole person. Therefore, the notion that faith must involve both the mind and heart as if their separate entities might

18:52 indeed be completely foreign to the Old Testament and the Hebrew mindset. Starting with the Old Testament and the Hebrew mindset, we've already got a problem. This just doesn't work right, it just does not. I guess you could try to find scriptures and say, well, no, no, this is drawing a distinction. Well this one isn't drawing a distinction. Well, if it's going back and forth, then I think hermoneutically logically, you would have to be like, you know what, I think these are being used synonymously. I think that maybe that in some verses they may try to draw a distinction, but overall they're used interchangeably. Heart can refer to the mind, the mind can refer to the heart. It's all. It's a unified perspective that the Old Testament's not there trying to separate them. That comes later. So that would mean if that's the case, you take your Bible, and you're leaving out the entire Old Testament for this argument. Now, this is going to raise a major issue if we get to the New Testament, new Testament radically changes its approach.

20:04 Why would the New Testament radically change its approach? Right, I think so? Now, according to some the New Testament. So let's start with this mental assent, the idea that you can miss heaven by fourteen inches because you can believe with your mind but not with your heart. Therefore you go to Hell, separating the mind and the heart as completely distinct entities, and where both faith can occur in one and not the other, and if it doesn't occur in the heart, you go to Hell. All right. This concept, though, let's just make it clear, is foreign and does not seem to fit with the Hebrew mindset or the Old Testament scriptures that seems to see the heart and mind as unified as a unified whole, a holistic approach. Now, what about the New Testament. Many would argue that the New Testament to at least degree would recognize a distinction between the mind and the heart, at least to some degree. Now I know immediately here, but wait a minute. Why would the New Testament be different than the Old Testament. I know this is gonna get complicated, but just stay with me. But hang on, let's just not stop right there. We gotta we gotta hear, we gotta listen to a little bit more and hear how others describe this. However, this supposed distinction is nuanced. Uh. Oh.

21:35 Christians don't do well with nuance, do we. We like everything black and white. We don't like any gray. We like clear answers. And when it comes to theology and it comes to the Bible, I know we like certainty, but sometimes I think we sacrifice truth for certainty. We like it black and white, and sometimes it's not so simple. The Greek language and Hellenistic culture, which influenced much of the New Testament, often made sharp distinctions or sharper distinction that they think would be more accurate between various aspects of the human nature, such as mind, heart, soul, and body.

22:18 This influence brought more specific terms and concepts into the New Testament that weren't present in the same way in the Old Testament. Now this is where it's gonna get. It's gonna get very complicated. So now we get the New Testament, who seems to be more maybe influenced by a Hellenistic culture, which will draw this distinction, but the Old Testament would not. So now do we go with the Hellenistic cultural idea? Do we stay with the Hebrew idea? Do we have a conflict here? How do we recon How do we reconcile this? But even in the New Testament, I think this is important. The so called distinction between mind and heart is not as sharply divided as modern readers might think. In many cases, the heart is still used to refer to the seat of intellect, will, and emotions, much like in the Hebrew Bible. For example, in Hebrews four twelve, the heart is described as the place where the thoughts and intentions reside, suggesting that it involves both intellect and emotional aspects. Let's look at Hebrews four twelve.

23:37 Let's look at Hebrews four twelve. Hebrews four twelve. We may have to look at this in a number of translations. We may have to Hebrews chapter four, verse twelve. We'll see here, for the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword. Piercing even to the dividing a cunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, the thoughts and intents of the heart. This is putting the heart. This would put the thoughts and emotions would reside inside the heart. That the intellect and emotional aspects reside inside the heart. Let me read that part again, that it is a discerner of thought and intent of the heart. So the heart is the center of the intellect and of the emotions and of the motivations. Well, then, ladies and gentlemen, that's that's not drawing a clear distinction between the mind and the heart, because now the mind is the center of the thoughts. When it comes to faith, the New Testament often uses a holistic language similar to the Old Testament, encourage you being a complete, integrated response to God. For instance, in Romans ten to nine, Paul Rice said, have you confess with your mouth and believe

25:07 in your heart, you will be saved. But if the heart is the center of your thoughts and your emotions, well, then how do you draw the distinction between just believing in your mind? Our mental assent. Right. The emphasis on the heart here likely reflects a deeper Hebrew understanding of the heart as a center of the entire person, including thought, will, not just emotional belief. So we clearly have some of this in the New Testament. Where the heart is it's just like in the Hebrew thought. It's the center of everything. So how do you say you miss heaven by fourteen inches if it's the center of everything. It just seems like we're forcing something upon the text. Now, I will argue the reason this is forced upon the text is because Christians are obsessed. They are literally obsessed with having the ability of determining who's going to heaven, who's going to Hell? And how do we determine that? Well? Wait, wait, that Christian continues to sin but they say they believe in God, Well their belief is not real. Why Well, because they only believe with their mind and I don't believe on their heart. Because they believe in their heart, it would be different. We always want some kind of way of explaining why Christians continue to sin. But I've got news for you. Whether you believe in your mind or whether you believe in your heart, here's what's going to be true. Are you ready? You're in a perpetual state of sin. Because the Bible says, be holy as God is holy. You never will be holy as God is holy. So, no matter if your belief is in your mind or in your heart, and if you draw

26:37 this distinction, you're still in a perpetual state of sin. The Bible says, be he perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You've never been perfect as God is perfect. You never will, sir, You're in a perpetual state of sin. The Bible says to love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul. You've never done that, so you're in a perpetual state of sin. I can go on and on and on and on and on and on, do all things without murmuring and complaining. I can just rejoice ever more, pray without ceasing. I can't. I can just throw scripture after scripture after scripture. You're in disobedience too, in some way, shape or form. So I don't care where you believe. You're in a perpetual state of sin. But we want to create some system and say, well, whoa, whoa, You're you're gonna miss heaven by fourteen inches and you're gonna burn forever because you you just got to get that belief from the head to the heart. Because if you get it to the heart, the idea almost inevitably is dunt du da da. Now you're gonna be all different.

27:29 Well wait a minute, am I gonna be all different? Because I'm going to be in a perpetual state of sin no matter where I believe? So do we really need even try to make this distinction? That said, the influence of the Greek thought can be seen more explicitly in passages where Paul uses words like mind and understanding to describe intellect intellectual aspects of faith. Greek philosophy often emphasize the importance of the mind in understanding truth, and this influenced early christ theology, leading to a clearer distinction between the mental assent to truth and a deeper, whole person commitment of faith, sometimes described as involving the heart.

28:10 So they're like, what there, you do have some scriptures that seem to really emphasize the intellectual aspect, and that Greek philosophy greatly impacted this. Okay, well wait a minute now, all right, so we got the entire Old Testament that wouldn't understand this distinction. How much do we let Greek philosophy influence this? The apparent shift from the Old Testament to the New Testament and recognizing a distinction between mind and heart can be largely attributed to cultural and philosophical influence. Greek culture, especially its philosophical traditions, deeply influenced the early Christian world and Greek thought. The mind was often seen as distinct from emotions and the will. This had an impact on early Christian writers who wrote in Greek and were influenced by Hellenistic ways of thinking, even if their core theology remain rooted in Jewish traditions. So now guess what you have. You have a faith that originates from Jewish tradition and Jewish roots right and Hebrew thought. It enters into a Greek culture, and the Greek culture begins to influence, and now you have kind of a maybe almost a mixture or kind of a contradiction of how do these work together? So you have a cultural and philosophical influence that begins to influence early Christian thinking. So now this is what happens. No matter how much you want to believe this or not, your culture and all

29:45 and things around you influence the way you think. The way you're thinking is influenced impacts the way you read the scriptures. So if your mind begins to think a certain way about the distinction between mind and heart, well then you're going to read it in to the Bible. If you come from a more Hebrew perspective, you're going to see it as a holistic thing. Mind and heart is really synonymous. See, your thinking impacts the way you read scripture. Nobody wants to admit this. Everybody thinks they just open their Bible and they just can find the text and say, this is what the text says. We all come to the text with all of this baggage and we read it into the text. So we have a culture and philosophical influence that begins to impact Christian thinking.

30:36 You have philological development as Christians spread into the Greco Roman world and naturally engaged with the intellectual categories and languages of the time. This sometimes led to the introduction of new distinctions and explaining concepts like faith, particularly when responding to challenges from Greek philosophy or other religions. For example, early Christian thinkers like Augustine developed ideas about faith that included intellectual assent, believing with the mind, and trust or commitment involving the heart and will, drawing from both Greek and Biblical categories. So maybe where a lot of this comes from is not so much the Bible comes from Augustine, who was bringing Greek philosophy and Greek mindset to the Hebrew scriptures into the Bible. Now, I'm not saying Augustine was right. I'm not saying Augustine was wrong. I'm just trying to show you that a lot of our beliefs are much more influenced by things other than we always want to believe it just I believe that's because the Bible says that you believe it, because over two thousand years of Church history, this concept is so entered into the Church that you now think it's coming from the Bible, when really it's coming from Augustine, or it's coming from you know, Athanasius or whichever church father. Now it doesn't mean the church fathers were wrong. It just means you need to understand. In many cases, you're what you think is coming from the Bible taking it from something else.

32:01 It may actually be in line with the Bible, but you at least need to try to track down maybe where the origins of the thought started. So we have some possible cultural and philosophical influence, we have philological development over time, Augustine becomes major important in all of this, and then we have kind of a contextual emphasis. The early Christian mission was more explicitly philological and addressing the personal belief and transformation of individuals, requiring a deeper explanation of faith as involving both intellectual acceptance the mind and relational trust and commitment to God heart. This practical need to explain faith in a way that resonated with Greek speaking audiences could lead to an expanded understanding of what it meant to believe. So once Christianity began to speak move into a Greek speaking audience, in many cases they had to explain things in a way that the Greek mind could somehow comprehend, and so that became more obvious, more common to draw a distinction between the mind and the heart. Even though the Old Testament and even some of the New Testament would not even understand or recognize said distinction. The New Testament does recognize more of a distinction between mind and heart, influenced by Greek thought, but it still retains much of the holistic, integrated view of

33:31 the Old Testament. The change is more a reflection of Christianity's interaction with different culture and philosophical systems than a dramatic philological departure. So in some cases the language may have changed, but the philological concept of a holistic heart and mind are somehow connected seems to be. That still seems to be in place, at least to some level. Now this could raise questions, well, wait a minute, if the Bible is inspired by God, why would there be a change. We could get into a whole We can talk about progressive revelation. We could talk about accommodation of language.

34:18 We could talk about the unity of purpose despite different emphasis. We could talk about the role of inspiration and human authorship. We could talk about a consistent God in different context. We could go into a lot of that. But I don't I don't want to. I don't want to dive into Now you know forty five minute discussion about well inspiration works this way? So this is why you could get this different emphasis. Okay, we have they're speaking to a different culture, so they have to use different language. Okay, we could get into all of that. I don't think that that's really the focus here. I've got I've got like six points here on this, but I don't really I don't want to really go down that path because I think it will it will distract us from what we want to accomplish. What we're trying to figure out.

35:02 Is there such a thing as a distinction between mental assent versus heart belief? And if the heart is the center of the mind, the heart is the center of the intellect and of thought, is it not then synonymous with the mind? So then how are you drawing the distinction here? Right? How are you drawing this distinction? I am trying to make? This distinction becomes very problematic, especially when you look at some of the scriptures where it places within the heart, thought, intellect. Well, then it's going to be very difficult in how to figure this out, all right. So I think that my own personal belief is that the discussion about mental assent is not really so much about Wait does the Bible even mention mental assent?

35:59 What is man to assent? How do we even define it? How do we know when my belief is mental versus heart. I think when it comes down to it, none of that's really the issue. The issue always comes down to how do we determine if someone's faith is legitimate? It really comes down to that. How do I look at someone and go, your faith is real, your faith is fake? How do you look in the mirror and go, my faith is real or my faith is faith? How do you draw this conclusion? And I think that the debate about mental assent basically is more about this. In fact, at its core, this debate often shifts from a purely theological question to a practical concern about how to evaluate the authenticity or legitimacy of someone's faith. That's what it really kind of comes down to, right, It's not like, hey, well this verse seems to draw a distinction between the mind and the heart. Well, but this verse seems to make them synonymous. Well, I mean, you can make out a chart if you want, right, you could put like all the verses that seem to use the mind and heart as synonymous, and all the verses that seem to draw a distinction, and then you can look at the chart and then you can try to determine, well, which one is used. I guess you could go with some simplistic idea, well, this one is used more than the up.

37:18 If you want to do that, you can. I don't know really what you're going to accomplish by that. I think overall Old Testament, well, clearly the Old Testament. I think you can just eliminate the Old Testament even from your chart. You could go with the New Testament. But even within the New Testament, we've at least seen a couple of examples where they're put together, they're synonymous. So what we really need to do is look about, well, how do we look at the authenticity or legitimacy of someone's faith? And this, to me is the real problem here, right, So let's consider mental assent versus saving faith. Let's consider mental assent versus saving faith and philological discussions. Mental assent typically refers to an intellectual agreement with certain truths about God, Christ and salvation without necessarily involving trust, commitment, or transformation. So, in some philological circles, that's how they would define mental assent.

38:26 You're simply you're you're you're simply agreeing intellectually with certain truths about God, Christ, and salvation. However, you don't necessarily trust, or you don't necessarily have a commitment, or you're not necessarily transformed. Now, as soon as I see the word transformed, I get nervous because now I know where this is going to go. Right, this is gonna this is going to lead to a major theilological problem. And we'll get there now if I intellectually agree, and I just do want you to think about this, and it's very I think at the very and I probably need to do a little bit more work on this, but I think we can agree that at its very basic level, what we typically say is someone must repent and believe. Now, repent, this is just a fact, means a change of mind.

39:16 That's what it means. Everybody wants to say, well, it means a change here, a change here. Look you can if you want to say repentance is a turning away from sin, well, then okay, I don't know exactly how you're gonna measure this. Because the Bible says be holy as God is holy, You're never gonna be holy, So you're always in a perpetual state of sin. So when are you going to repent from that sin? And turn from it so that it's a change of mind. What does that mean, Well, it means in your mind, you now believe. You believe Jesus is the eternal son of God. You believe he died for your sins. You believe that God is holy, You believe sin is wrong. You believe there's a heaven, and believe there's a you now believe I believe in your mind. You're not to acknowledge it. There's that's some level of belief. You're now accepting it to be true true, You're believing it to be true intellectually.

40:03 So I think that there's and and and. If you're believing it and you're acknowledging it, how can you say that in your mind that there's not you're not trusting in it? Right When I when I right over here behind me, there's an electric electrical outlet when I plug in something there? Am I not not only with my mind? Am I not acknowledging that that's an electrical outlet and it's going to plug in or it's going to give power to whatever I wanted to give power to. Not my mind acknowledges that. But am I not trusting it's I am I trusting it with my heart and not my mind. You see how trying to draw this distinction becomes very how do you even measure that? Well, you see, in my mind, I believe, I acknowledge that Jesus is the eternal son of God. But wait a minute, is my mind believing or is it my heart believing? How do I draw? How do I draw this distinction? Is there is there a detector that's only coming from your mind.

41:04 You've got to get it down to your heart. You're gonna go to hell. You're missing it by fourteen inches. Now what this almost inevitably turns into, though, is the word transformation. Well, see, if you really believed you would be transformed. Well, wait a minute, now, how are we going to measure transformation since I'm already in a perpetual state of sin? Saving faith this is typically how they draw this distinction. Is so mental assent refers to intellectual agreement with certain truths about God, Christ, and salvation without necessarily involving trust, commitment, or transformation. Saving faith, on the other hand, of seene is a deeper, more relational kind of faith, which involves not only intellectual agreement but also trust in God. A change life and perseverance in that faith.

41:51 See the change life. Everything really comes down to the change life. See if you, if you, if you just believe with your mind, well then there won't be change. So if there's a lack of change, it's because, well you're missing heaven by fourteen inches. You're going to go to hell. How do you know you're not going to go to hell? There's been a change on. How are we measuring change? How do we measure change? We're going to find some subjective standard. This is where it becomes very complicated. However, this is very important. The distinction often becomes less about philological nuance and more about practical evaluation.

42:43 How can one tell whether a person's faith is genuine or just intellectual assent? The question has long been a concern for Christian communities, particularly when assessing someone's claim to be a believer. See it's really not about I want to make sure you hear that. It becomes less about philological nuance and it becomes about evaluation. The reason we have created this idea of mental assent versus heart believe is because we just want a way to be able to determine if someone is saved or not. It's not really determining whether the text draws this nuanced distinction. Now we may find verses that we think, oh, oh, this works, But then I can go to a verse that says, well, wait a minute, the heart is the center of the mind, or is the center of the intellect and thoughts as well?

43:29 So how are you drawing this? Well, this verse seems to draw a distinction. Well, this verse doesn't seem to draw a distinction. Now, at some point you've got to just be like, well, wait a minute, Am I just going to throw out the verses that don't go along with my distinction? Or am I just going to ignore the verses that go against the holistic approach? And I guess you can just play that little game. I don't think you're going to get anywhere. I think the whole concept of mental assent versus saving faith is an argument to be able to determine who we think is saved or not saved. And I think it's going to lead people going, wait a minute, Well, I, knowing my mind, I believe, Well, maybe I don't believe in my heart. How do I get it to my heart? So a desire to judge legitimacy. The underlying concern behind the debate often revolves around how to judge the authenticity of another person's faith. People want to know if faith can be assessed through outward evidence or inward transformation, and thus tends to manifest in two ways. So basically, a mental assent comes down to this, how can we judge if someone's faith is real or not? And it really comes down to a couple of concepts, external signs and behaviors. Many philological traditions emphasize that saving faith will result in visible changes in behavior, moral conduct, or commitment to Christian practices.

45:00 The desire to see fruit often drives the distinction between mental assent believing with the mind but not demonstrating an action, and saving faith belief that produces visible transformation. So this really comes down to how do I know you're saved? I look for external signs now immediately you know what just happens? Now you're looking for external signs instead of looking too perfect work of Christ already. I think this is where theologically this all goes off. You leave the train tracks, you leave the path, you go off road, you go over a cliff, and you destroy the gospel look, if you want proof of my salvation, I don't look to any external signs in my life that may or may not prove anything. I look to Jesus Christ. That's who I look to. I look to his work. I look to his fruit, his work, and his fruit, because it's his work, it's his obedience, it's his will. Use the term fruit that is imputed to my account by faith alone. That's the whole gospel. And just let's not let's make sure we very much remember this. Are you ready?

46:12 Let's remember this. Many will say to me in that day, Lord Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. They've got all the externals. They've got action, they've got they're doing things, they're casting out demons, they're doing miracles. They're doing all of these wonderful things. And I will profess under them. I never knew you depart from me, ye that work iniquity. They've got the external, but they're still not saved. So external actions don't necessarily prove genuine faith. So just looking at external science doesn't really prove anything. There'sn't a good example, right there. So wait, that's mental assent. Well, no, they don't have mental assent.

47:07 They believe with their heart because look at the outside. Look at the outside. The outside doesn't prove anything. How about inward experience and assurance. Others argue that faith is more of an internal matter, where personal assurance and a sense of inward transformation are key signs of saving faith. This view is sometimes harder to evaluate externally and relies on subjective measures of one's relationship with God, often assessed through emotional or spiritual experiences, and both cases there is a human desire to draw a distinction between what is perceived as true faith and false faith are merely intellectual agreement. The whole point is that that's mental assent. Comes down to how can I judge not only me, but everyone else. Look, if you want assurance of salvation, if you want to know someone is saved, are they trusting and alone? If they are, they're saved because of the imputed righteousness of Christ.

48:06 They're saved by his work. He said, Well, is that mental? Is that by faith alone? Well? Where does faith occur? Well it occurs in the heart, not in the mind. Well wait a minute, the mind is the is the heart is the center of the thought and the intellect. So is then it occurring in the How do you draw that distinction? How about the historical and philological context? Throughout Church history, the debate has often been fueled by a desire for a clear marker of genuine faith. During the Reformation, the reformers emphasize that faith alone sola fide, justifies, but there was still a debate about where whether faith had to be accompanied by certain works or signs of transformation to demonstrate that it was real. This tension was reflected in the debates between Martin Luther and those who insisted on a more visible connection between faith and works, like the Roman Catholic Church, or like later movements like Arminianism.

49:08 Puritans in the Great Awakening movement also struggled with this. There was a desire to distinguish between those who truly experienced conversion, often through emotional, intense, or transformative experiences, and those who simply profess faith without much of an internal change. So basically, this debate has been going on forever. Well you believe, No, you don't believe. I believe. I don't know if do I believe? Do I believe? Do I not believe? And people just keep complicating it. Why you could literally go to hell because of the difference of fourteen inches. Oh man, oh man, Okay, I gotta, I gotta make this work. I mean, I believe in my mind.

49:51 Well do you really believe in your mind? You gotta believe in your heart? You just in your mind? You just know it? Oh, how are you going to draw that distinction? It just become it just becomes maddening. How about? Some of this deals with control and assurance. A desire to determine the legitimacy of someone's faith often comes from two interconnected concerns control. Community. Communities and leaders often want a way to control or establish boundaries for membership in the faith community. If someone professes faith but doesn't exhibit outward signs, should they be considered a true believer? Can they be trusted with church leadership or participation in certain sacraments.

50:36 This concern leads to an attempt to establish criteria external and internal, which one can judge faith. So this is about control. Hey, we're going to control who can be a part of our group. Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, you don't do enough of this. You can't be a part You're not truly saved. This is about control. How about assurance? On a personal level, many Christians desire assurance of their own salvation. This distinction between mental assent and saving faith allows them to measure their own experience against perceived standards real faith providing comfort or prompting concern. However, this can also lead to anxiety, as people may wonder whether they're truly saved if they don't see enough proof or transformation in their lives. Yeah, you know what the problem is. You're looking to yourself and you're looking to change to see if you're saved. You should be pointed to Christ. Don't look to your imperfect life for assurance of salvation. Look to the perfect obedience and holiness of Christ.

51:34 Your assurance should come from Him, not from you. It comes from His finished work because we are saved by it. Trying to draw mental assent should be like, if you're going to get into this never ending debate, the issue should simply be are you believing and trusting in Christ alone? Now? And next, we have biblical complexity. The Bible self reflects a tension between these two ideas. All right, now, here we go the first you know what verse are going to quote first, Oh, you can go ahead and turn there James chapter two. You should know that that's where they were going to go. You had to know, right, Even so, faith, if not, if it hath not works, is dead being alone. Now how is that typically preached? Well, if you have faith but you don't have works, your faith is dead, meaning you're not saved, so you're going to go to hell. So meaning you have to have works in order to be safe. Listeny, No, if you have true faith, you will have works. You can play that little game. The bottom line is you're still saying the same thing. You have to have works, And I will argue, yes, I have to have works in order to be saved. It's the works of Jesus Christ imputed to my account. Then I have perfect works because if I'm going to look to my works to prove that I'm saved, even my good works are nothing but filthy rags because they're corrupted by my own internal sin. Right, I do them for wrong reasons, I do them for wrong motives, or they become a source of pride. Even

53:05 my good works can literally become sin. So they go on and they quote they quote Matthew seven, Which is bizarre that they would quote Matthew seven, because Matthew seven, to me, actually disproves looking to your external, because all of these people are like, Lord, Lord, we did all of these things. Is like depart from me, I never knew you. Okay, Well, then that means the external doesn't prove anything, all right. So when the debate becomes too focused on identifying legitimate faith through external markers, at risk oversimplifying what faith actually is. True faith, according to scripture, encompasses belief, trust, and a relationship with God that impacts one's whole life. However, people grow in faith at different rates, and spiritual transformation is not always linear or even immediately visible. Furthermore, Jesus and Paul both warned against making judgments on someone else's heart or faith, as God knows the heart. So it's much more complex than this very simple thing that we want to be able to judge. Oh, that's mental assent. No, that's faith. No. The debate over mental assent versus saving faith is often driven by a desire to have a method to judge or verify the legitimacy of someone's faith.

54:26 While some theological distinctions are made about the nature of faith. Much of the debate reflects the practical concern of how to determine who is truly in and who is truly out. However, Scripture suggests that while faith does involve more than intellectual belief, making, definitive judgments about the authenticity of someone's faith can be problematic, as faith is ultimately a matter of heart, known fully only by God. Now at this point, I was like, Okay, I'm glad that there's some acknowledgement here, but I started struggling with some of this, and I'm like, Okay, I'm going to have an argument with artificial intelligence here. I'm gonna argue with AI, right, because I was like this James two seventeen verse, don't I'm so sick of it that Matthew seven doesn't even make any sense to use.

55:17 Because here's are people. Here are people who have all the external signs of being saved, but yet they're not saved. Why because you have to believe in Jesus Christ. They can run around and do all of these things, but they've got to truly believe in Christ. And for some reason how they're able to do these things. But they clearly don't believe in Christ, because if they truly believe in Christ, he wouldn't say depart from me, for I never knew you. So Matthew seven just brings up a million other problems. So I would not quote matt James two. I'm just tired of hearing people quote James because people, I think people do a great disservice. So I started asking some questions about James two seven. All right, so it so, AI, after a lengthy back and forth, said this.

56:07 It doesn't necessarily mean James two seven, where says faith without works is dead, it doesn't necessarily mean that such faith isn't saving faith. And the term dead can indeed be interpreted in multiple ways. Let's explore some of the possible interpretations and nuances behind the idea of dead faith, because typically it's a preach. Hey, if you don't have works, your faith is dead. You're going to hell. So not only do you miss heaven by possibly fourteen inches, you could also miss heaven by the absence of I don't know a certain level of works, a certain amount of works. I don't know how you even measure it. Because in Matthew seven they had a lot of works but they even said they did marvelous works, and they went. They were said, depart from me. I never knew you. So I don't even know how you measure this. But what can how could we understand this? Well? We could understand dead here as ineffective or incomplete. One interpretation of dead is that it refers to a faith that is ineffective or incomplete, rather than an entirely nonexistent or non saving This understanding sees faith without works as still real but lacking its intended fruit or purpose. Faith without action might be genuine in the sense that it represents a belief in the truth about God, but it has not matured or produced the corresponding works that naturally flow from a living faith. The faith exists, but it is unproductive. This

57:38 use is supported by James context or he emphasizes that faith is meant to produce action. Faith without action is like a body without a spirit. It's still identifiable as faith, but not functioning as it should. Thus, a dead faith could still be saving faith in the sense that the person believes in trust in God, but it's stunted or underdeveloped faith. The lack of works doesn't negate the faith entirely, but shows that faith has not grown into its full expression. So the idea of dead here is just it's ineffective, it's incomplete, it's not doing anything. Doesn't mean you're not saved. It just means, hey, from a practical standpoint, it's dead because it's not doing anything. Your faith is not doing anything.

58:22 You believe, but it's not something is not happening here. Now see some people say, well, see that's mental assent. You believe, but you're not saved. But dead here doesn't necessarily have to mean not saved. A second, so the first possible idea is that dead is ineffective or incomplete. Second, dead is not or I'm sorry. Number two, dead is useless or lifeless. Another possible interpretation is that dead in this context means useless or lifeless, but not necessarily indicative of non saving faith. James maybe arguing that faith, if not accompanied by works, is ineffective and fulfilling the purpose God of God in a believer's life. It's not seeing the person lacks saving faith, but that their faith isn't accomplishing its intended goal, namely a life of obedience and love towards others. In this sense dead might refer to faith that is dormant or inactive. The person may still be justified in the sense of salvation Romans five to one, but they're not living out their faith in a way that bears fruit and good works, which is the goal.

59:27 Thus dead here means unproductive without implying the person salvation is in question, but rather their faith is failing to result in an outward action that should follow. And we've talked about this in great greater detail in other studies. So James two seven doesn't necessarily mean the person is not going to heaven. It just means there's the faith is dead in accomplishing this. It's dead from an earthly and earthly perspective, from a practical perspective, dead, And just think about that this does this not make sense? Positionally? What am I? Positionally I am perfect, I am holy, I'm a new creature. What am I practically a sinner who sins? There's always this dichotomy and this distinction within Christianity.

1:00:17 My faith before God, I believe in God, and I am saved. My faith from a practical standpoint may look ineffective, incomplete, and may appear to be dead because of the never ending presence of sin in my life and in your life. Now, Dad is a not a as non genuine faith. This is the third possible interpretation. A third, more critical interpretation is that James could be using dead faith to refer to a non genuine faith, suggesting that faith without works is an indication that the faith never existed in the first place. This would mean that a person who claims to have faith but has no works might be deceiving themselves, and this view dead faith would mean that the person's profession of faith is hollow, lacking and the transformative power that true faith entels. This would align with what James says in verse nineteen, where acknowledges that even the demons believe in God but do not have saving faith. However, this interpretation is often contested because it implies that works are necessary to validate faith in a Selvafic sense, which seems to conflict with Paul's teaching on justification by faith alone.

1:01:25 Some see this as a mere more severe judgment of faith than what James is necessarily communicating. All right, so now that's the typical evangelical thing. See, they have a dead faith, they're not saved. They're going to help because a true faith will transform. Well wait a minute, a true faith will transform. So let me get this right. Be holy as God is holy. Oh you never do that. Well I thought it said it was going to transform. Why are you still in sin? Because you're in a perpetual state. See, this just becomes it just never ends.

1:02:06 A fourth interpretation, and just please note two thousand years of church history, there's no not one unified, agreed upon interpretation of dead faith in the Book of James. Everyone just seems to think, well, if you should just read it, Well, people have been reading it for two thousand years and nobody agrees. So just make sure you understand that. One interpretation that aligns with James' overall argument could be that dead refers to faith that is not demonstrating love and care for others. The immediate context of James two fourteen through seventeen focuses on how faith should result in actions of mercy, care for the poor, and practical expressions of love. The lack of works, particularly in terms of helping others, indicates that faith is dead, and the terms of fulfilling the Christian command to love one's neighbor where Paul says that faith works through love, and this sense faith doesn't lead.

1:02:57 A faith that doesn't lead to love for others is dead because it's not fulfilling the relational and ethical responsibilities that comes with following Christ. However, this doesn't necessarily imply that it's not saving faith, but that it's faith, that it's faith that is failing to live up to its potential. Now, this really emphasizes love and caring for others. Well, a lot of people who are so, oh you got you got to do good works to prove that you're saving Some of them are the most unloving and lack of compassion people on the face of the earth. But they're like, well, I'm not a homosexual, or I don't look at pornography, or I don't listen to rock and roll, and you're still the most unloving and lack of compassionate person I've ever met. So you you've reduced now good works to this where James talks about feeding the poor and visiting the widow and all of these other things. Right, Oh, well, well that sounds like liberalism. So we've looked that all the different possible meanings of dead. We can look at the idea of complementary to Paul's theology. It's important to remember that james teaching on dead faith isn't necessarily contradiction to Paul's theology of justification by faith. Many scholars believe James and Paul are addressing different issues. Paul's addressing the idea that people could earn salvation through works, where James is addressing the opposite problem people claiming to have faith but showing no evidence of it in their lives. James

1:04:28 isn't saying that work saves a person, but rather that works naturally flow from genuine faith. That's what everyone always says, okay, But then that would say you still have to have works in order to be okay. The idea of dead faith could thus be seen as james way of saying that faith, when truly present, will bear fruit in the form of good works. A faith that doesn't lead to any transform transform transformation, or action is still faith, but it's not living up to its full purpose. Now, I got no problem saying that you can say you have faith, but if it doesn't do this and this and this, that faith is dead. At least from a human perspective. It's dead and accomplishing anything. It's dead from doing anything doesn't mean it's dead in a practical sense, doesn't mean it's dead in a positional sense. Positionally, I'm saved by faith alone, without doing anything. My faith that saves me doesn't have to do anything, because the faith that saves it's faith, it's not has anything to do with what I do. It's faith in what Christ did. Everything that needs to be done has been done for me by Christ. Therefore, my positional faith that saves is it has nothing to do with my practical works. And light of these interpretations saving faith, saying that faith is dead in James two seventeen doesn't necessarily mean it it isn't saving faith. It can mean that such faith is ineffective, incomplete, unproductive, or filling to demonstrate love. While some might interpret it as

1:05:58 indicating no genuine faith, this is not the only or even the most likely interpretation given the broader context of scripture. James point seems to be that saving faith naturally leads to works, but the absence of works doesn't automatically negate the existence of faith. Rather, it calls into question whether the faith, whether the faith is living and active as it should be So what does that all mean? Means? Then how do you determine if faith is simply mental assent? How do you determine that? Now some people say, well, but the demons believe and they're not saved. Yeah, okay, now, and so then we try to say, well that belief is well, simply do its simply intellectual assent? I guess you could try to use that, but it doesn't go along with the entire concept in fact. And let me see here, I'm gonna go do some I'm gonna see if I can find it here. See here is it two nineteen? Well, first, when it says they believe, it says they only believe that there is one God. That's

1:07:31 a that's the When it talks about the demons here, it just says that they just believe that there is one God. Does it say that they believe that Jesus was a substitutionary sacrifice? Does it say that they believe anything? There? So I'm gonna I'm gonna do some work here on James, hang on, I'm gonna do I'm gonna do here. See how I went? How would I want to do this? Well, here's what I'll do since we're already at sixty eight minutes. I'm going to stop here and maybe we'll come back to this because I think James two nineteen is where people typically try to go right, that they believe that there is one God that'll do us well. The devils also believe and tremble. I think we got to be very careful here, because first it only just says that they believe there's one God. It doesn't give anything else about what they actually believe. It doesn't, it doesn't, right, And so we'll have to do a little work here.

1:08:38 This may be the best verse. Well, you can't take this one verse and just ignore everything else. The Bible says. We're trying to take how demons operate and try to then extrapolate that into something and how we are made up. It's a completely different makeup. Right, We're not made up like a demon, is correct? I mean? Right? So I don't know if we can use that to draw a distinction between our mind and our heart. See what they want to say, Well, the demons believed with their mind but didn't believe with their heart. That's just ridiculous. I don't I don't think that that makes any sense. I think maybe we could get we could. I think there's more there that we have to look into. What we'll try to get, we'll try to we'll try to get into that more. But overall, when you talk about mental assent, trying to draw the distinction between the mind and the heart and saying someone's going to go to hell by fourteen inch because of fourteen inch difference, it doesn't It doesn't fit the way the Bible groups the mind and heart together. It does not fit that in any way, shape or form. And ultimately it doesn't even really matter the idea of mental assent. It's really not about trying to figure out what mental assent is. For most, it just turns into another way to try to argue about who's saved and who's not saved, And ultimately that destroys the Gospel because it turns salvation into what I do

1:10:11 or don't do, not into what Christ did. And even if you say, well, if I believe with my heart, it's gonna lead to this, you're you're still gonna be stuck with I don't care where you believe your mind or your heart. You're never gonna be holy as God is holy. You're never gonna be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. You're never gonna love God with all your heart, mind, body, a soul. You're never gonna love your neighbor as yourself. You're gonna constantly still do things with mumbling and complaining. I can You're gonna have idols. I can go. You're gonna be covetious, You're you're, you're. There's gonna be deceit in you. There's still gonna be sin. You're in a perpetual state of sin. So how are you going to measure this now? I don't know if that helped. I'm gonna say this whole mental ascent thing I think is more derived from Greek philosophy and Greek culture then it comes from scripture, because scripture doesn't. I don't think you can find some scriptures. But as soon as you find it, go look at all the other scriptures that seem to combine the two concepts into one.

1:11:18 They bring the two concepts together, heart and mind as being somewhat synonymous. If it's synonymous, then how are you going to draw? How are you going to tear it apart? Now you can try to tear it apart in some ways, but I don't know how well it really works. I don't know how it really works. And I know this, If repentance is a change of mind, then then well do you separate the mind from the heart? How do you I guess you could try to do that, But then how do you do with all the scriptures that seem to combine the two concepts. It becomes very convoluted and discombobulated. But we will stop there because we're at seventy one minutes. I'll wait and see if the email or has some follow up questions, and then we'll try to do at least a part two and then try to work in some of this and see, this really comes down to people wanting a way to determine who's saved and who's not saved. Here's what you want to know.

1:12:12 If someone is saved or not saved, are you trusting in Jesus Christ and his finished work alone for your salvation? I am okay. Then, so yourself saved because of an imputed righteousness. And I'm not going to sit there and judge your salvation based on what you do or don't do, because it's based on what Christ did on your behalf that's the whole point of imputed righteousness, and I wanted to get more into that, but we're out of time. All right, I'll stop there. I don't know. I mean we covered a lot. I mean we covered seventy two minutes of content, but when you get to the end of these kinds of programs, you feel like you didn't really get anywhere, because I think some of this is we're trying to draw it. We're trying to find some distinction where I didn't think of any cases, there's no distinction.

1:12:57 So all right, we'll stop right there. Thanks, so let'ten thing. Everyone have a great day. God bless