How Christians Should Argue (with Christopher Watkin)

I first read the title as if it had no parentheses.

Wow. Excellent words to the Body of Christ. So grateful for this ministry

Why should Christians argue in the first place? Doesn't that go against Christ's prayer to our Father in John 17?

Praise God

As a former Baptist now Catholic I appreciate Gavin's content. Always excellent food for thought.

They should argue with respect and cordiality. In case that doesn't work, they can respond with a punch in the face of their interlocutor

The problem with all this bunk seems to center on the title AMBASSADOR. How are actual ambassadors trained? What does an ambassador actually do?
The problem shouldn't be too difficult to solve.
Let me ask a question, can you be an ambassador if you don't speak the language of the nation you represent and know it's history, language, customs, laws, ideals and goals?
Obviously not, and that is why ambassadors are trained.
What King do we represent? Yeshua ha Mashiach.
What nation do we represent? The Israel of God. That's why the primary ambassadorial declaration is HERE I ISRAEL THE YHVH OUR ADONAI IS ONE. If you are saying that you probably are not an ambassador.
What was the language of Israel that our King and his Apostle used? Hebrew, BECAUSE that is the original language of their Bible (yes, they used the Septuagint when speaking to Greeks, but the language from which the Septuagint was translated was the OFFICIAL legal language Hebrew).
NOW, the Plymouth colony recognized this, William Bradford studied Hebrew and the original intent of those founding fathers was to actually meet all the requirements for ambassadors.
Although it was never completed this was also the intent of a large segment of early America, Harvard was first established as THE SCHOOL OF THE PROPHETS and learning to speak Hebrew was a requirement. Furthermore, bills were put forward in Congress to establish Hebrew as the official language of the united states'instead of English (it was a melting pot of immigration anyway so it was reasonable that everyone could just be taught Hebrew in the public schools, it doesn't take that long to learn, and everyone would speak it after the first generation).
Then everyone could read their Bibles in Hebrew and that would eliminate much of the squabbling from which denominations are built.
If that goal had been achieved and missionaries sent out speaking Hebrew probably a significant portion of the world would today, and that is a function of ambassadors.
THE CONCLUSION is that protestants are actually ambassadors for the system of Roman Catholicism, which at it's inception at Nicea overtly and without remorse began the campaign to remove all messianic Jewish Christianity, to which Christ committed us as ambassadors.
Gavin Ortlund's knowledge of history and absolute silence on this matter paints him with a distinctly catholic antisemitic brush, and that is clearly NOT the mark of a genuine ambassador of Christ no matter how polite he is while stabbing the jew Jesus in the back.

My main annoyance when debating with Christians is the assumptions about why I or others don't believe in god, like we hate god or just want to sin or are possessed by satan, etc, when my and most atheist positions are we just don't have the required evidence to believe in god.
Really the three things that I think, from the other side, that harm the Christian position is firstly the point I just made, which was also touched on a bit in this video was the judgemental attitudes, secondly some of the hate towards different groups of people and some of the bibles teachings (mainly things like the sexism, homophobia, genocide, eternal torture for reasons that really don't make sense, etc), I'm not really sure about how christianity is to get around that issue as it's what's in the bible (I struggled with it for many years and the moment I became an atheist was when one day I made one to many excuses and it was the metaphorical straw that broke the camels back) but people tend to shut down when you tell the that they're evil or going to burn in hell for things like how you're born, or just in general telling them that. And thirdly the perceived hypocrisy, especially on certain topics, this comes more with recent issues, like the sex abuse scandals (Christians have that whole baggage and then tell others that they're sexually wrong or that teaching about that the lgbt exists is child abuse) and preaching love while also attacking women and lgbt and forcing religion in schools, really it's more of an image problem that Christians seem to not address as the ones who don't do it just don't get involved (honestly this was something that annoyed me when I was a Christian and I called out my church on it). A fourth problem could be agenda, cause I've seen a lot of Christians use predatory behaviour, in the sense that they'll do a community project or become friends with someone solely to convert, which is kind of a gross attitude to take, when I was a Christian I tried to avoid that and took the attitude of charity first and showing god through that and in discussions and debates it was more to understand the other sides of the arguement.
Not attacking you or anything, just thought that an outside perspective would be an interesting contribution. Really it boils down to don't judge, sort out your own house first/do as you preach and don't tell people that they deserve and will be tortured forever (people don't really react well to threats, especially ones they don't believe).

Those that believe in resurrections, demons, devils and eternal torture should be feared. Their opinions and delusions should never be forced upon society like we have seen with the Trump-Republican-Jesus Taliban. Their fear mongering is laughable...priests and preachers have always been a far greater danger to children than drag queens. 15 states are currently racing to force raped women and children to give birth without exception for rape or incest! From climate change, to common sense gun laws, to allowing billionaires to dictate our lives and freedoms, to worshipping lying traitorous whoremongers...they will always be on the wrong side of anything that is good. Please pray for the torment, suffering, poverty, and abandonment that is coming for all women in America forced to give birth.

Man, I needed to hear this...I'm working with a Catholic who has some serious theological drift (questioning God's plurality expressed in the OT, not certain of why Jesus was crucified, etc.) and I'm so tempted to pound him with this scripture or that.

These are the same questions I had growing up in that church; my conversation needs to be seasoned and guided by His love for us, and not my desire to beat on him for his obvious (to me) errors in doctrine and out-of-context quotes of scripture. I want to take out all the angst of my youth, my anger at the RCC for their gaslighting and deceptions, on him, but it won't push the conversation in a helpful direction and, eventually, will only serve my purposes and not the will and purpose of God.

Pray for me as I continue to work with my Catholic friend, and thanks for posting these thoughts, Dr. Ortland...regards to Christopher for his excellent (and challenging) book.

Stay trad and do it like the revered St. Nicholas obv

You are making this video in the English language. In England the main Protestant Church has just voted in a regime where homosexuals cannot be married in church, but their unions undertaken elsewhere can be blessed in church, except not in Canterbury Cathedral. Maybe that is just as well, because that Cathedral has been desecrated by a secret meeting of the Freemasons at the invitation of the Archbishop.

I simply cannot make much sense of what Protestant beliefs are supposed to consist of. Dr Ortlund has gone on the rampage concerning the veneration of icons. Any chance of a video on these other topics?

Having to be wise and discerning about when to be hard and when to be soft comparing and contrasting Jesus's response to the adulterous woman and the Pharisees reminds me of a part from the The Missionary Discourse, Matthew 10:16: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." that seems to call us, or at least Jesus's disciples when he was first sending them out, to thread a similar needle of discernment.

That was so good! I have had similar thoughts - that Christ did exactly what was needed when it was needed. When something needed a rebuke, that is what Jesus would do; when something needed deep compassion, that is what Jesus would do. The central string that I can see in all of this is how important Christ is. If Christ based his attitude based on Himself being "the guy" then we also need to always keep Christ in mind when dialoging with others.

TBH, this was convicting to me. There's an individual who I had a harsh rebuke toward because he was so critical of the Asbury revival. And then he blocked me so now I can't even apologize.

I find smugness to be the least attractive quality among some apologists.

Awsome

Very good thoughts!

God Bless your ministry Gavin.

I wish all Calvinists were as nice as Gavin Ortlund 💙

The only thing I dislike about this is that the bookshelves are just sliiiigggghhhtly off from meeting in the middle of the screen.

This is one of my favorite channels because of precisely this.