Sing the Nicene Creed in Greek

Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, A. D. 325/381 

(with Filioque) on the holy Trinity

(sung to the tune of “Of the Father’s Heart Begotten”)

Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα Θεὸν

Πατέρα παντοκράτορα, ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ

καὶ γῆς, ὁρατῶν τε πάντων καὶ ἀοράτων.        

Καὶ εἰς ἕνα κύριον Ιησοῦν Χριστόν,

τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ,

τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα

πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων,

θεὸν ἐκ θεοῦ, φῶς ἐκ φωτός,

θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ,

γεννηθέντα, οὐ ποιηθέντα,

ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί·

δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο·

τὸν δι’ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους

καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν

σωτηρίαν κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν

καὶ σαρκωθέντα

ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἅγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου

καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα, σταυρωθέντα

τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ

Ποντίου Πιλάτου,

καὶ παθόντα

καὶ ταφέντα, καὶ ἀναστάντα

τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ κατὰ τὰς γραφάς,

καὶ ἀνελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς,

καὶ καθεζόμενον

ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ πατρός,

καὶ πάλιν ἐρχόμενον μετὰ δόξης

κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς·

οὗ τῆς βασιλείας οὐκ ἔσται τέλος. 

[repeat] οὐκ ἔσται τέλος.

Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον,

τὸ κύριον, καὶ τὸ ζωοποιόν,

τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τὸν Υἱὸν

ἐκπορευόμενον,

τὸ σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ

προσκυνούμενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον

τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν· . . . .

Ἀμήν.

I believe in one God

the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven

and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only-begotten Son of God,

begotten of the Father before all worlds,

God of God, Light of Light,

true God of true God,

begotten, not made,

being of one substance with the Father;

by whom all things were made;

who, for us men

and for our

salvation, came down from heaven,

and was incarnate

by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,

and was made man; and was crucified

also for us under

Pontius Pilate;

he suffered

and was buried; and he rose again

the third day according to the Scriptures,

and ascended into heaven,

and sits

on the right hand of the Father;         

and he shall come again, with glory,

to judge the living and the dead;

whose kingdom shall have no end,

[repeat] whose kingdom shall have no end.

And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost,

the Lord and Giver of Life;

who . . . from the Father and the Son

proceeds,

who with the Father and the Son

is worshipped and together glorified;

who spake by the Prophets. . . .

Amen.

The text above, while commonly called the Nicene Creed (A. D. 325), is actually the text of the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed of A. D. 381, where a more detailed statement about the Deity of the Holy Spirit was added to the original formulation. Furthermore, the song above only includes the portion of the Creed on the holy Trinity, not the portion of the Creed on ecclesiology and eschatology, which briefly followed.  Also, the Filioque is included in the text above, because the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son as from one principle is the teaching of Scripture.

In addition to the verses of Scripture in Greek I posted about before that we are singing in my first year New Testament or Koine Greek class, we are also singing the glorious Biblical truth contained in this creed in Greek.  I would encourage you, if you are a student or a teacher of the Greek language, to praise the Triune God in the words of this great classic creed as well as praising the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with the New Testament Greek Scripture-songs I posted earlier.  You should be able to see the class singing these verses and this creed in Greek at the beginning or the end of the class lectures on YouTube (as of the time this post was composed, there are still quite a few lectures left to post) or at the appropriate section of the college courses section on my website.

As I pointed out in my class on Trinitarianism, not only the early proto-Catholics but also the ancient Anabaptists held to the same Trinitarianism.  When the Catholics were in power, they used the power of the State to persecute the Arians because they were anti-Trinitarian and also persecuted the Anabaptists because they rejected Catholicism's many false doctrines.  When the Arians were in power, the used the sword of the Roman government against both the Catholics and Anabaptists because they both shared the same Trinitarianism.  Thus, the fact that Biblical ecclesiology is Baptist or Anabaptist, and the type of church Christ founded is Baptist and not Roman Catholic or Protestant is no reason for members of historic Baptist churches to fail to rejoice in the glorious Biblical truths about the Trinity taught in the creeds of the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople.

-TDR

---

[1]           The portion of the creed on ecclesiology and eschatology is omitted in this song.

Tolkien and Lewis: Preference for Masculine Clothing in Rejection of Dandyism

Speaking of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, Humphrey Carpenter writes in J. R. R. Tolkien:  A Biography (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1977):

[H]is [Tolkien's] choice of clothes in middle age was also the sign of a dislike of dandyism.  This he shared with C. S. Lewis.  Neither could abide any manner of affectation in dress, which seemed to them to smack of the unmasculine and hence of the objectionable. . . .  [F]undamentally both men had the same attitude to their appearance, an attitude that was shared by many of their contemporaries.  This preference for plain masculine clothing was in part perhaps a reaction to the excessive dandyism and implied homosexuality of the 'aesthetes', who had first made their mark on Oxford in the age of Wilde and whose successors lingered on in the nineteen-twenties and early thirties, affecting delicate shades of garment and ambiguous nuances of manner.  Theirs was a way of life of which Tolkien and the majority of his friends would have none; hence their almost exaggerated  preference for tweed jackets, flannel trousers, nondescript ties, solid brown shoes that were built for country walks, dull-coloured raincoats and hats, and short hair.

As I read that, I thought, "This couldn't be written today."  No one would even say it, let alone in such a matter of fact manner and that was in 1977, which was my sophomore year in high school.  What else does the quotation say?

There is masculine dress.  There is effeminate dress.  People can know and know what masculine and effeminate dress are.

Regarding "dandyism," read the Wikipedia article on "dandy," but in that article, Albert Camus said in L'Homme révolté (1951) that:

The dandy creates his own unity by aesthetic means. But it is an aesthetic of negation. "To live and die before a mirror": that according to Baudelaire, was the dandy's slogan. It is indeed a coherent slogan. The dandy is, by occupation, always in opposition. He can only exist by defiance. Up to now, man derived his coherence from the Creator. But from the moment that he consecrates his rupture from Him, he finds himself delivered over to the fleeting moment, to the passing days, and to wasted sensibility. Therefore he must take himself in hand. The dandy rallies his forces and creates a unity for himself by the very violence of his refusal. Profligate, like all people without a rule of life, he is only coherent as an actor. But an actor implies a public; the dandy can only play a part by setting himself up in opposition. He can only be sure of his own existence by finding it in the expression of others' faces. Other people are his mirror. A mirror that quickly becomes clouded, it's true, since human capacity for attention is limited. It must be ceaselessly stimulated, spurred on by provocation. The dandy, therefore, is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live it.

More "men" (of actual biological gender, but perhaps only to varying degrees in practice) than ever are dandies.  No Christian should be a dandy and this at one time was the normal way for a Christian to think, because the opposition to dandyism matches with what scripture teaches about manhood.

When I think the word "dandy," I also remember, Yankee Doodle Dandy, the revolutionary war song.  So what's that all about?  It's not good, which is why it was a popular American song, singing about the British in a derogatory way.  It was a song of defiance from the Americans.  Here are two paragraphs from Wikipedia, that seem to be accurate:

The term Doodle first appeared in English in the early seventeenth century and is thought to be derived from the Low German dudel, meaning "playing music badly", or Dödel, meaning "fool" or "simpleton". The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became slang for being a fop.  Dandies were men who placed particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisure hobbies. A self-made dandy was a British middle-class man who impersonated an aristocratic lifestyle. They notably wore silk strip cloth, stuck feathers in their hats, and carried two pocket watches with chains—"one to tell what time it was and the other to tell what time it was not". 

The macaroni wig was an example of such Rococo dandy fashion, popular in elite circles in Western Europe and much mocked in the London press. The term macaroni was used to describe a fashionable man who dressed and spoke in an outlandishly affected and effeminate manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who "exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion" in terms of clothes, fastidious eating, and gambling.

Some men, professing again to be men without showing the quality, it seems, would rather be a dandy than be a daddy.  They are still playing around with clothes like little girls did with paper dolls when I was a child.  I'm reminded of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11:  "when I became a man, I put away childish things."  It's worse than just childish to be a dandy.

Join Tolkien and Lewis.  Reject dandyism.

2 Peter 2 and John 13: The Relationship Between Lust, Authority, Heresy, and Apostasy

Apostates deny the Lord who bought them (2 Peter 2:1).  Their problem with Jesus is His sovereign lordship, that is, they don't want Him in charge.  Why?  Their lust.  They want what they want, and only what He wants when it's what they want.  On earth in real time, however, they don't clash with Jesus.  Their conflict is with human authorities.

Since Jesus' ascension, Jesus rules on earth through human authorities over all His ordained institutions:  church, home, work, and government.  The apostate may say he doesn't have a problem with Jesus, just the leaders of these human institutions.  Their problem with these leaders most often is their problem with Jesus.  Their Jesus is a rorschach ink blot in which they see whatever Jesus they want to see.  The human leaders are much more concrete and less malleable to their imagination.

2 Peter 2 is a tale of dueling leaders.  On one hand, you see the false teachers making merchandise of the potential or actual apostates, using covetous and feigned words (2 Peter 2:3).  They pander to their victims, offering them what they want in the name of a Jesus.  On the other, you see who are referred to as "government" and "dignities."  "Government" (kuriotes) and "dignities" (doxa, "glory") represent God ordained authorities, those whom God has placed in charge, so representing Him.  2 Peter 2:10 reads:

But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

These are both the false teachers and those who seek or follow them.  Government and dignities conflict with their flesh, their lust, their presumption, and their self-will, characterized as uncleanness.  As a result, they are not afraid to oppose these human authorities through whom the Lord Jesus is ruling.

The authorities Jesus uses could be governmental authorities and the boss at work.  If they get in the way of lust, what these potential or actual apostates want, they will despise them and speak evil of them.  Primarily they are going to clash with parents, especially the father, a husband leading in godliness and sometimes correcting his family, or church leaders who conflict with their lust and confront them over it.  They might not clash with their church leaders anymore if they find new ones who pander to their lust.  Then it might only be the parents that are a problem for them.

I often hear that the new leaders or teachers, akin to those in 2 Peter 2:3, not discouraging the lust of the potential or actual apostates, understand the love of Jesus.  Their new leaders get "relationship."  At the end of John 13 (v. 34), Jesus taught His disciples:

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

Jesus taught them to "love one another," and this sounds like relationship, doesn't it?   But Jesus though taught them to love one another, "as I have loved you," that is, love like Jesus loved.  Jesus is that sovereign ruler of 2 Peter 2:1.  His rule is love and His love is rule.  How did Jesus love?  What did Jesus do (WDJD)?  Even in John 13, where Jesus told them to love as He did, the love would clash with the flesh, lust, and self-will.  It provides a microcosm or sample of the Jesus' love about which He speaks at the end of John 13.

In John 13, Jesus conflicted with the disciples again and again, and that's a major component of "as I have loved you" (13:34).  Here's a list from chapter 13 leading up to verse 34, specifics of what Jesus meant by "as I loved you."

• Jesus washed the disciples feet in John 13 as a repudiation of their disputing over who would be the greatest in His kingdom (parallel passage in Luke 22).
• Jesus strongly rebukes Peter in John 13:8, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me."
• Jesus corrects again Peter's error in John 13:10, " He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all" -- Jesus didn't just "let it go."
• Jesus reminded the disciples that He was greater than them in authority, He their Master and they His servant, so that they should be servants (13:13-16).
• Jesus announces that one of them would betray Him (13:21).
• Jesus sent out or removed one of them, Judas (13:27).
• Jesus refutes Peter by saying that he will deny Jesus three times (13:37).

This was typical behavior of Jesus.  He let no error go by.  He didn't fail at telling the truth.  He expected His followers to do what He said, He was their Master and they were His servant.

This Master to servant relationship with Jesus, I've found over my 32 years of pastoring and speaking to thousands of people, to be the most offensive aspect of the gospel.  This is how Jesus loved.  This love, the actual relationship of Jesus with His followers, conflicts with the lust of pseudo followers, who choose their imaginary rorschach Jesus, the one also pushed on them by false teachers described in 2 Peter 2.

2 Peter 3 says those "walking after their own lusts" are "scoffers."  They scoff at authority, what Jude calls, "despise dominion" (Jude 1:8), which is the same Greek word translated "government" in 2 Peter 2:10.  It is essentially lordship.  Apostates don't want a boss, because it conflicts with their lust, their desires.

In my title, I included the word, "heresy."  "Hereticks" are factious, and their problem is with authority, either the human authority challenging them with the Word of God or with the Word of God itself.  It is why the authority of scripture is attacked by apostates (2 Peter 1:16).  Their diversion from orthodox doctrine very often coordinates with their lust.  They very often don't like what they might call "organized religion," and what they mean is the authority there.  They don't want to fit in, submit.  They prefer the loose relationship of self-defined "community" with so-called love that isn't "as Jesus loved," but according to their own lusts, their self-will.  Heresy arises from self-will against the will and Word of God.

By "relationship," the potential or actual apostate often means "acceptance" and "toleration," not service to the Master.  On the ground, the problem is with a husband, father, or pastor, but the real problem is with Jesus, because this is how Jesus rules on the earth today.  For instance, Jesus is the Head of the church, but He uses the pastor to head the church.  Submission to Jesus is submission to the godly leadership of a pastor of one of His churches.  Using the correction of a godly pastor, husband, or father is how Jesus is loving, and those rebelling against that correction are rebelling against His love.  They are not loving like Jesus loved, even while their lips are saying, "love."  This is akin to Isaiah 29:13, "with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me."

As I've written in my recent series on "lust" (3 parts, and on relationship, 13 parts), the Word of God is depreciated in consideration of lust.  The purposeful unwillingness, feigned as inability, to apply scripture proceeds from the service to one's own desires.  This is the rejection of God's authority, which is self-will and then resultant uncleanness.  Scripture says love, but a counterfeit love is the deceit.  It is acceptance, toleration, and sentimentalism again to accommodate lust.  Correction, reproof, and telling the truth are labeled unloving and the enemy of community or relationship, even though they are loving as Jesus loved.  This is a rejection of Jesus Christ for a counterfeit Jesus compatible with lust.

(HT to Bobby Mitchell, interaction through talk and preaching at recent conference at Mid-Coast Baptist Church, Brunswick, Maine)

Jessie Penn-Lewis: Keswick Faith Healer (part 4 of 22)

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

 

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

Maybe the Worst Thing about Social Media

Wikipedia lists what social media is, and I looked, because getting that accurate might be important to someone with a strong support for social media, so I don't mind representing it with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.  I know it's more, but those suit the discussion.

Anymore, I don't look at Facebook at all.  In the top five of anything I've ever written is my post on February 13, 2009, Why to Delete a Facebook Account.  I had an account a long time ago to test drive it before I could decide about what my children might do, and it didn't turn out well for me, but I gave it a definite go.  I've never done Twitter, but I look at one Twitter feed about every day, because I like to check the articles it links to.

I have a few Instagram accounts.  One is an anti-Instagram account with about 9 posts and never changes.  That is my main account.  I have two other accounts that serve as locations for photos.  One I used only for the Europe trip.  I answered zero comments and have not added anything since the trip.  It is a memorial to the trip, always there to look at.  Now I have what I call my day trip account, which is where I put pictures I take when I travel here in the United States, mainly in California.  I've opened another account that I might put church photos, but I'm not sure, because I need to talk to the church about that.  People may not want to show up online.  I'd like to have a place where people can go back to events and look at the pictures, but I haven't decided yet.

I watch on YouTube.  We have channels on YouTube, but we don't use it for social media.  I know it's social media too.  This occurred to me in recent days when I posted a comment on a video posting and the owner deleted my comment.  Other comments appeared, but mine was deleted.  I've noticed hundreds of comments on certain channels, and I think the owners encourage it.  It means more traffic, more clicks, and probably more money.  Even the controversy will bring in more audience.  They don't mind if there is a fight in the comment section, as long as it receives moderation.

From my use of Instagram, I like it for the usage I am giving it.  I don't like Facebook, but it might be able to be used just for our church to make announcements and account for events.  Since I look at Twitter, I like it for looking at what other men do, such as they do. I like it for that, but I write a blog, which is a long form Twitter anyway.  I can link to posts on my blog, just like these men do with their Twitter accounts.

What I don't like about having any social media accounts is encouraging social media.  Like many people have said and written, I think it is very dangerous.  If I were to put that in shorthand, social media seems like a modern Tower of Babel with similar or worse results.  God didn't like the Tower of Babel.  With that in mind, I want to return here for a moment to express what might be the worst thing about social media.  I know I hate this the most.

Conventional thinking on social media, what is appropriate, perhaps even why people use social media, is what I think is the worst about it.  I know people express themselves with negative comments.  It happens.  I read those.  Celebrities get thousands of comments and many of those are mean. They can be crude and harsh.  I'm not at Facebook, so I don't know how much of that is there, but it is on Instagram and Twitter.  People use foul language and ridicule other people in their comments, especially celebrities.  This is called bullying today.

People have become experts at ridicule, using a new instrument, the meme.  A particular successful form of mockery could go viral if it puts somebody down in harsh enough fashion.  The meme could become famous almost on par with the celebrity, at least for a moment.  I'm not going to give analysis to the psychology of the meme, either the maker or the origin of its popularity.  Overall, I think it isn't good.  It is rampant though on a level of a cultural phenomenon.

Related to bullying and including the meme, but not the same, is what I don't like.  Here it is.  Actual biblical correction and reproof of false doctrine and sin is not allowed on social media.  I remember one in particular saying that he was doing his social media for the purpose of dialogue.  When I heard dialogue proceed from his lips, I thought it meant, well, "dialogue."  Actual dialogue.  But he didn't mean dialogue.  He meant only praise.  No negative criticism at all.  Maybe dialogue is all positive on the internet, unless it is mockery and ridicule, which are not helpful.  Anyway, I offered one moderate note of admonition under an expression of sinfulness and it was deleted and I was blocked.

My experience hearkened back to my short Facebook days over a decade ago.  There I knew I would not be at home, because the requirement of acceptance and toleration.  People joined a social media to receive "likes" and "hearts" and "thumbs up."  There is no room for dislike, unless, again, it is in the form of extreme ridicule and personal attack.  Actual edification through biblical exposition is unacceptable. Nothing is hated more than exposing something with the Bible even in a sensitive manner.  What the Apostle Paul calls "warning the unruly" is absolutely not tolerated on social media.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22:

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.  Abstain from all appearance of evil.

Social media is off limits to the obedience of that command.  No one is either allowed to obey Paul's command in Ephesians 5:11:

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

Over and over again in Proverbs, Solomon says that the fool despises reproof.  Based on that, almost everyone on Facebook and Instagram would be a fool.

Social media can't be a "safe space," because the worst kind of ridicule and mockery occurs there, especially of the truth.  Actual biblical exposition of the truth is subject to the worst treatment.  I find this on my blog here most often from anonymous sources.  On social media, it comes very often from people who use a fake identity.  They don't want anyone to know who is the source of the ridicule.  However, I've found that people on social media expect to be safe from actual reasonable challenges from scripture.  They don't want it.  They are not there to get it.  That is what is maybe the worst thing about social media.

When a place becomes designated for protection against the confrontation of doctrinal and practical error, that is a hotbed of apostasy.  That is not light.  That is not love.  It is not of God.

The Deliberate, Convenient Ineptitude of Professing Christians at Applying the Lust Passages of Scripture, pt. 3

Part One   Part Two

Since Peter commands "abstain from fleshly lust" in 1 Peter 2:11, a believer can know what "fleshly lust" is.  Someone can't abstain from something he can't ascertain.  God doesn't have a word that is indecipherable.  God wants us to know it and do it.

In the first two parts, we have established that "fleshly lust" isn't synonymous with a particular sin, but it is in itself sin.  It also leads to further other sins.  Someone should abstain from fleshly lust itself as sin, but also abstain for the sake of other sins.

"Fleshly lust," however, must be identified.  The command to abstain from fleshly lust must be applied.  What I'm writing here is that people are not applying it because they can't, but because they won't -- it is deliberate, convenient ineptitude at applying the lust passages of scripture.

The lust passages need to be applied in a number of different areas, but I'm applying it especially where I am not seeing it applied.  The convenience is that people, who very often call themselves Christians, want to keep their pet lusts.  They want to be a Christian, but they also want their lust.  Are they saved people?  Maybe not, and they should be concerned about that.  Peter deals with this in 2 Peter, himself concerned about false professions related to lust, to help give assurance to true Christians and not false ones.  The chief differentiating factor is lust, the false ones operating on lust and not true faith.

Lust Passages Applied to Music

Lust for professing Christians surfaces in their music and entertainment with the infatuation with pop culture.   A better adjective to use to describe either the music or entertainment, when it is characterized by lust, is carnal.  Carnal music violates the lust passages of scripture.  It is not abstaining from fleshly lust and what is it?

It is the seductive soft rock rhythm, the sensual scooping and sliding voice technique, and the non-resolving chord cadence.  It has a sensuous effect, stylistic intimacy with such techniques as sliding, flipping, crooning, scooping, delayed vibrato, and intimate use of the microphone.  It has the rock beat, achieved by beat syncopation, a rock feel with a highly syncopated rhythmic pattern, which promotes sensual body movements.  It brings a compulsion to move the body.   It is the boogie and the blues rhythm, jazzy, dance rhythm.

What I'm describing is popular music, the music of which the world approves.  It is worldly.  It is carnal.  It is fleshly.  It is profane.  It is rock, rap, blues, jazz, hip-hop, and country western.  It isn't for a Christian, because Christians are to abstain from fleshly lust.  It is sin of itself and it will lead to sin, essentially dialing a Christian into functioning on a fleshly plane.

I'm not saying the previous paragraph is the best representation of what I'm talking about, but I think it is enough to understand what I'm talking about.  Someone can just hear it.  This does not represent God.  It violates the lust passages.  It is fleshly lust.

Sure, the Bible doesn't say "no" to rock, country, hip-hop, over syncopation, sliding, scooping, and everything else I used and described that is like that.  The lust passages must be applied.  What I'm writing is applying them.  I don't think it is difficult to do.  People who keep lusting and don't want to stop won't like the application, but that doesn't mean the application isn't true.  Churches and church leaders that apply those passages need to keep doing it, despite the opposition.  God is the judge, not the pandering churches and the people to whom they pander.

Lust Passages Applied to Entertainment

I don't think it is as hard to apply lust passages to entertainment.  Christians will violate most lust passages by participation with almost all modern or popular entertainment in the world today.  A lot of carnal music is used in entertainment just to start.  That already prohibits the entertainment.  However, it is more than that.

Immodesty, nudity, sex, and foul language disobey lust passages.  That makes up most entertainment.  Today I read professing Christians who advertise all the foul entertainment they are watching, including something like Game of Thrones.  Someone is not watching Game of Thrones or anything like it or even much better than it and obeying what scripture prohibits in lust for a Christian.

Almost all television commercials violate lust passages.  Some of what appears on the sidelines of NFL football in the way of cheerleaders is prohibited by the lust passages.  Those passages do not give the application.  They don't list specifics.  That is for Christians to do.  When they don't, they are disobeying those passages.

Disobedience to the lust passages of scripture characterizes most of evangelicalism today and a growing, if not majority, part of fundamentalism.  Violation of the lust passages differentiates fake Chrsitianity from true Christianity.  Not conforming to what scripture teaches on lust results in churches reshaping their doctrine and practice to fit the lust.  It corrupts their worship.  In short time, they have a different God.  God doesn't conform to lust.

Evangelicals don't care that they disobey the lust passages of scripture.  Fundamentalists say that they aren't sure what to do.  The passages don't mention specifics, so they wonder how to enforce the passages.  They are intended to be applied, like most of the rest of scripture.  Not applying those passages isn't acceptable, it is disobedience to scripture.

Andy Stanley Exposed and Crushed in Debate with Jeff Durbin

Anyone who reads here would know I don't endorse or associate with someone such as Jeff Durbin, pastor and found of Apologia Church in Arizona, the Phoenix area.  James White has joined him as pastor there.  I would characterize Durbin as one of the new Calvinists, new not chronological as much as it is a different kind of Calvinism, which relates mainly to the practice or application of scripture.

Andy Stanley is one of the most influential church leaders in the world, even as his church in Georgia is the largest in the United States.  His dad is the very well known, Charles Stanley, long time also pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Georgia.  In the last year Stanley wrote a book, Irresistible, that caused a furor within evangelicalism, because of some of the major teachings of the book.  I'm not going to go into the problem here.  I've just read reviews.  I've never read the book itself, and that's not point for this post.  My point with this paragraph was to introduce a debate between Stanley and Durbin.

There is a radio station in the UK, called Premier Christian Radio, and a program on that station in the UK called, Unbelievable.  Unbelievable is hosted by Justin Brierley, and he moderated the debate between Stanley and Durbin.  The premise of the debate on May 31, 2019 was something that Stanley had said in a sermon and then in his book, which is the title of the podcast:  Unhitching Christianity from the Old Testament?  At the time of this writing (Thursday), it had been viewed 47,128 times.  Watching the debate could be very helpful, but I want to add another disclaimer.

What Stanley asserts is wrong.  As you watch the debate, you can see Durbin undo Stanley and put to rest his position.  Stanley hardly debates.  This is a somewhat complicated issue, partly because of the false teaching that is out there.  I would not fellowship with Durbin and he uses a modern version to argue.  However, I agree with everything that Durbin says.  As far as a doctrinal position, I didn't hear anything from Durbin that I thought was wrong, and Stanley is very, very wrong, and it would take awhile to break down all the damage that believing Stanley would do.  Durbin, however, eviscerates Stanley, using scripture to do it.  It is a helpful subject to understand, first, to understand a biblical position on apologetics, what is referred to as presuppositionalism, which was defended, and, second, to elaborate on the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.

I don't know Durbin enough to explain how he goes off the rails with the practice of scripture.  I'm guessing, he fails at biblical application, and isn't consistent on how his own doctrine should affect how his church grows.  He and his church are worldly.  I hadn't heard of Durbin until I saw him with James White in the last year.  This debate showed up when I clicked on my youtube app, because it knows what kind of thing I might want to watch.  Durbin is not consistent in this application and practice of scripture, even according to what he espouses in this debate, but what he says is good, right on, and confronts Stanley very well.

Stanley and Durbin don't discuss their view of grace, but antinomianism proceeds from Stanley's view.  The detachment from the law leads to cheap grace, the so-called "scandalous" grace that I've written on a few times in recent months.  The grace of God serves like a garbage can to sin.  This itself is not saving grace.

One more thing.  What Durbin says about scripture contradicts the Durbin and White position on the preservation of scripture, and, therefore, their apologetics with Moslems, something I wrote about here in the last month in a posting of an interview of Pooyan Mehrshahi.  Presuppositional apologetics starts with what scripture says about itself to come to a conclusion on the text of scripture, what and how it was preserved.  Durbin and White, against their own defended apologetic, do not start with the authority of scripture about itself.  Like Stanley says that events are a basis of faith, Durbin and White say the same in their defense of a critical text.