Yes, it's time for another one of those "confused Christians" items, and our subject by request is one "Stuart Dinenno " -- founder of a free website, possesser of no known credentials, and user of no actual academic source that wasn't written later than when Patrick Henry grew tobacco. Why this guy? We were asked, as is often the case, to have a look; and we took up the offer for one main reason, which we'll see soon; for now, how about an initial sample? You know the issue about wearing of veils? Dinenno thinks it means that women STILL need to wear headcoverings today, yes; but what he doesn't know is how indeed it does work out specifically with reference to the culture. But don't tell him to go looking into the background of the text, because this is the sort of thing you'll get from him in return. In reply to the idea that there is some cultural component to the wearing of veils, Dinenno says:

We won't waste much time on this one, as it is plain to anyone with the least bit of understanding that this excuse can be (and often is) used to dismiss anything and everything which the word of God teaches. Those who assert that a teaching which is contained in the New Testament Scriptures does not apply to the church today, must prove that to be so, rather than expect others to disprove their assertion. The hypocrisy of those who raise this objection should be made manifest in the fact that the same people would never say that the teachings which immediately follow this passage (regarding the Lord's Supper) were for that time and place only.

No sir -- don't waste one moment checking to see if indeed there is a cultural component; just brand it as an "excuse" of those without "the least bit of understanding" (!) and run. Though we do agree that both sides, in fact, have a burden of proof; ours is fulfilled with the link prior, and Dinenno had his own obligation which he never bothered to fulfill. As for the rest, about the Lord's Supper -- well, communal meals like the Supper were also standard for every religious group of the day. If Dinenno isn't doing it while wearing a toga, and isn't using the exact formula for bread of this day (it would include a substantial amount of dirt, because techniques to process flour were still kind of crude) -- he's worse off than anyone he accuses. This is the inevitable "logic" when you decontextualize as badly as Dinenno does -- in fact, you go so far as to claim that this teaches that women should wear a veil at all times -- and that is what happens indeed when you don't consider questions like, "When exactly and who did wear veils at this time and place?" Dinenno never does. It's just Dinenno and His Bible, and nothing else -- especially nothing that would define the meaning of the text in any way that wasn't in plain English. Asking questions like these means we still do the Lord's Supper, though we are allowed to skip the dirt, and we are also allowed to sub grape juice for fermented wine. It also means, we don't demand veils; but we do decree that women don't come to church in lingerie. (And sorry men -- that also means, don't come to communion in your Speedos, either.)

Nor may we expect Dinenno to care for more than this, as these comments tell us:

The Evangelicals also go beyond the Scriptures when they require college and/or seminary degrees in order for one to hold office in their congregations. The only educational requirement for pastors/teachers that is in accordance with the Bible is that they be “mighty in the Scriptures,” which is to be determined by examination of the elders who oversee the local congregation.

Well, I sure hate to tell Dinenno the news, but as far from the first century as we are, being "mighty in the Scriptures" is going to require a lot more than a few nonqualified elders slapping you on the back and saying you're good to go. In fact, "mightiness" of this sort is hard to come by these days, what with so many churches preferring Rick Warren to N. T. Wright. But in Dinenno's World, there won't ever be a Wright who's right, because he says, "there is no Scriptural basis" for "the modern career ministry consisting of men who are trained in distant schools and then emigrate to be employed in congregations they know little or nothing about, and who make a career of traveling from congregation to congregation as professional dispensers of religion." Oh no? Let's see -- Paul was trained as a rabbi, where? In Jerusalem. And he preached where? Hmm. Ephesus, Corinth -- for years at a time. Jesus did his teaching, how? As an itinerant -- and in that, he was no different than many travelling teachers of the day, who made their careers having learned at the feet of some master, and then went all over the Empire, sometimes staying in one place for a while, sometimes never staying put. So much for that idea. In fact, if we don't see more of this in the New Testament, it's mainly because 95%-99% of the people of that day were illiterate. So if Dinenno wants to hearken back to this greater and purer mode of being, he needs to go to all the elementary schools and tell them to burn all their books for the sake of service to the Almighty. If it were up to him, you'd never be able to get someone a quality education, because, he says, it is "the responsibility of the local church to educate its congregants and to raise up officers from within its midst." So you have one of three options: 1) Stay at your home church and be no more informed than any set of local elders you happen to have, and pray that they happen to be well-informed; 2) move somewhere where you can find a church where all the elders are seminary professors; 3) every fellowship needs to have a set of professors on staff, a fully-stocked library, and classrooms. Or you can take the fourth choice, 4) hide under your bed.

Dinenno goes to such an extent that he considers it unbiblical for pastors to lead congregations in prayer, because Jesus is our sole mediator; before much longer, we will be at the level of Darwin Fish telling us we're bound for hell because we use the wrong size cups for the communion. I hate to tell Dinenno this, but for Jesus to be "mediator" means that he is broker in a patronage relationship between God and man. And in patronage relationships, there were indeed hierarchies possible -- overseers, for example, who oversaw other slaves; and in this context, a single slave could come forth on behalf of others with the same request or gripe. So there's not a thing "unbiblical" about group prayer led by a single person; and it's no answer to say that there is no "biblical justification" for this or that just because we don't have a passage that says:

1 Confusions 4:5 And thou, brethren, may perform group prayer led by one person; this is not an abomination at all.

In fact, following Dinenno's "logic" means that it is absolutely forbidden for ANY person to pray on behalf of or for the sake of another, because you are acting as a "mediator" for their needs. No praying at the dinner table for the whole family. No praying for your Aunt Nettie to be cured of cancer; she has to do it herself. Paul deserves hell, because he never ceased to "pray FOR" the Colossians (Col. 1:9) and also asked the Thessalonians to pray FOR him (1 Thess. 5:25; 2 Thess. 3:1), twice, in fact, and said that he prayed on behalf of the Philippians (Phil. 1:9). So likewise Luke in Hebrews 13:18. Worst of all, James tells us to pray for one another (5:13), and even says that elders are to pray over others, obviously for their illness, though maybe Dinenno thinks they prayed about the weather instead. No, sorry -- there's no beef here against corporate prayer. You can complain about it becoming trite and all (Zeus knows it has, in many instances) but the act itself is 100% A-OK.

If you need more to show that Darwin Fish is in the building, consider a few more plain and precious things offered. For example, Dinenno tells us:

The Choir - If we were living in the biblical nation of Israel before the resurrection of Christ, and if we were worshipping in the Temple at Jerusalem, and if the choir were composed of the descendants of Levi, then having a choir would be biblical. But we live in modern America, the Temple was destroyed many centuries ago, and the local choir does not consist of Levites. Singing, under the New Testament, is to be performed for the church by the church; not for the church by a select group on a stage wearing robes.

Hmm, well, Jesus didn't go around publishing his thoughts on the Internet either, so it's high time Dinenno took his pages down and went walking around the street in sandals. And it gets worse even:

The Children's Church - The practice of separating children from their parents and whisking them off to a dumbed-down version of the congregational meeting (which is really little more than a day care center), is also an anti-scriptural abomination.

Hmm, Dinenno is definitely one of those, "no one is saved except me and thee, and I'm not too sure about thee" sorts. Now as is usual for this sort of decontextualizing, there's enough truth mixed in for there to be danger: One can hardly disagree with a general sentiment that maybe some churches do too much in the way of dramatic performances; but to throw the baby out with the bathwater as Dinenno does is just plain without a scrip of Biblical basis.

We could spend some serious time devolving Dinenno from his ultra-legalistic decontextualization -- one particular article on "church officers" is amusing, because Dinenno is obviously unaware that church offices are based on offices found in the Jewish synagogue, and in secular organizations of the first century -- but we want to get to the main thing that made us stand up, and that's his item titled, "The Folly and Futility of Biblical Apologetics." Now as we have written elsewhere, functionally and practically, ancient NT evangelism WAS apologetics -- appeals to evidence. So clearly Peter and Co. had no conception of engaging in "futile" pursuits. But let's look in more detail at Dinneno's rambunctious report:

Biblical apologetics is the so-called science of both establishing the existence of the God of the Bible and defending the validity of the Christian faith, neither of which practices have any foundation in the Holy Scriptures. The existence of God is presupposed in the Bible as being an obvious fact, and those who deny this fact are said to be fools (Psa. 14:1, 53:1). The truth of the Scriptures being the word of God is also presupposed, and no attempt is made anywhere in the Bible to defend it as such.

The chain or forced logic here isn't hard to spot:

• The Bible presupposes certain things (the existence of God, for example)
• Anything "presupposed" in the Bible should never be defended with arguments.
• Therefore, defending certain things presupposed is unbiblical.

The clear problem is with item 2, which is merely assumed, not proved; in other words, silence is hammered into a positive affirmation. Never mind that Ps. 14:1 and 53:1 are part of poems written in praise of God -- not argumentation handbooks addressed to atheists. Never mind that some particulars (like the existence of a God) were actually presupposed in the world of the Bible as a whole, so that we'd no more expect a defense in the Bible against atheists than we would expect it to offer an argument against the North American Free Trade Agreement. But in the end, Dinenno's main reason is that:

...[T]he word of God does not require proof, it requires obedience. We are to obey it because: “Thus saith the LORD.” And to those who ask, “How can people be expected to obey it as the word of God until it is proven to be the word of God?”, the answer is as follows: Those who, by the gracious and sovereign work of God, have been regenerated and thereby given “ears to hear” will recognize God's truth when they hear it, and they will obey it, regardless of any other evidence or lack of the same. And those whom God has chosen to leave in their natural unregenerate state will not know God's truth when they hear it (though they might be hypocrites who profess to know it), and they will not obey it, regardless of any other evidence or lack of the same.

Now isn't that convenient for putting Dinenno at the top of the spiritual heap. The problem is, how does one show that one has indeed been "regenerated" and that one indeed has open ears? This "test" opens the door to Mormons, JWs, and all and sundry to claim to be "regenerated," right on down to Bhagwan Magilla Boopadoo. It opens the door for every wildman to say that he "recognizes God's truth" in his claim that John 7:37-38 offers instructions to drink your own urine. No evidence needed! The rub is that Deut. 18 and similar passages presume that claims to BE regenerated are to be tested against relevant realities. In that particular, if Prophet X claims that Tonwsville is about to go up in smoke, then we don't just ask if Prophet X is or is not regenerate; we go to Townsville and see if it goes up in smoke (or else, see if they heed the warnings Prophet X offers, so that they do not have to go up in smoke after all). In all of this it is clear rather than the grace of regeneration is intended to work in partnership with proofs. The apostles did not simply wait for regeneration to occur; they preached the evidence of the empty tomb, of the miracles, and the fulfillment of OT prophecy. Regeneration, one might say, clears the mind for proofs to be fairly considered. In all of this, Dinenno of course never touches such matters of free will and decision as we do -- his own position would as stated inevitably lead to fatalism, and a conclusion that we are all robots and not free agents, and thus make God a mere puppetmaster. But don't expect Dinenno to explain it further. That's not in the Bible, so it's not available to follow blindly.

Further appeal is to this, and his explanation:

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:12-16)

“The natural man” -- that is, the man who has not been born of the Holy Spirit and is in his natural unregenerate state -- doesn't receive the things of God, is not able to know them, and they are, in fact, foolishness to him. These things are spiritually discerned and he has not the Spirit to discern them. It makes no difference how logical an apologetic argument is, and it makes no difference whether one bases his defense on extra-biblical evidence or on the testimony of the Scriptures alone. The ungodly man cannot believe because he is ungodly. “ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep” (John 10:26).

Once again, the same error is made, assuming a certain order and mode to the work of regeneration; but there's even more than that. Paul is speaking specifically of being able to judge spiritual matters. His context is not evidences or proofs, but a specific problem in Corinth, whereby speaking ability and rhetorical skill was believed to verify spiritual power. While the resurrection and empty tomb of Jesus affects our spiritual life, it is not, in and of itself, a spiritual event, but a historical one. Where the "spiritual" aspect comes in is with the non-evidential interpretation of these events, the meaning behind the act; for example, the general principles that God desires to act in the world, or that Jesus' death atones for sin. Apologetics cannot and would not touch these issues, because they are as beyond "proof" as, "Sally loves David." We can only argue based on the effects (we see Sally giving David flowers), but who can argue with certainty for the cause (she might be doing it to fool him)? It is these matters which Paul says are spiritually discerned: To wit, the foolishness of the world rejects the principle that God loved by subjecting his Son to a humiliating death by crucifixion. It takes no spiritual "discernment" to deal with questions like, "Did Jesus exist?" that are indeed the concern of apologetics. Thus:

On the other hand, the believer, being born of the Spirit, has “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). He knows the truth of the Holy Scriptures by the testimony of the Spirit of God within him. He has no need for apologetic arguments, he knows that the word of God is truth when he hears it “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

So say as well the Mormons; but where does the Word of God answer charges that Proverbs 6:6 contradicts the actual biology of ants? What is Dinenno going to do? Claim that the "unregenerate sinner" is seeing things when he looks at anthills, and that with our "spiritual eye" we can see that ants are really the other way? In purpose Dinenno is no better here than cultists who say they do not need medications, or the Mormon fundamentalists I read of who threw away their watches because they preferred to "keep time by the Spirit". The rub of this is that Dinenno admits that he's in a corner in the very next paragraph, and to solve it, carefully puts the whole matter beyond what he can prove:

This does not mean that an unregenerate man cannot come to an intellectual understanding of the Bible through logical reasoning, but that he cannot truly believe it -- much less obey it -- until he is converted. The means which God uses to convert men is the preaching of the gospel in concert with the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of the elect hearers, not carefully crafted intellectual arguments. Those who do craft such arguments make a vain attempt to appeal to the “wisdom of this world,” after the manner of the Greek philosophers, rather than through “the preaching of the cross” which “is to them that perish foolishness.”

Notice that Dinenno has put the matter into what people "believe" -- so that he can always claim that someone who claims to "believe" X is really lying; and his thesis, now unfalsifiable, becomes worthless. But the direction is still wrong anyway. Apologetics is often about Biblical interpretation, but not every interpretation involves a "spiritual" matter as described above. Furthermore, as we have again noted, the "preaching of the Gospel" clearly involved appeals to evidence, and use of evidence is an argument. In fact, even the most basic presentation Dinenno can come up with for the Gospel is an "argument" as properly defined: A fact or statement put forth as proof or evidence; a reason: The current low mortgage rates are an argument for buying a house now. (dictionary.com) What else then but "argument" would it be to say even, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand"? What is the entire screed against apologetics, but a "carefully-crafted" argument (however bad) using skewed readings of the Bible as "evidence" or a "reason"? The fact is that Dinenno cannot escape his open self-contradiction in this matter. He then is also vainly attempting to appeal to the "wisdom of the world," after the manner of the Greek philosophers." (By the way, that "foolishness" reference in Paul is precisely to one of the points I alluded to above: the principle that God loved by subjecting his Son to a humiliating death by crucifixion, a decided offense against the honor-shame dichotomy held by the people of that era. It has no application to questions like, "Did Jesus exist?" or "Does Prov. 6:6 contradict insect biology?" that apologetics is intended to answer. But maybe Dinenno would consider empicricial observations of ant biology to be part of the "wisdom of the world" too!)

In his next section, Dinenno offers the title, "No Scriptural Support for Biblical Apologetics," and here I will say that in a few cases he has found cites that are not clear mandates for what we call apologetics. We will discuss those in due course, but on the other hand, it is exceptionally shocking that he omits completely discussion of what I would say is in the fact THE most relevant verse of all -- Jude 3: Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. This is clearly an issue that is germane to what we call apologetics, for Jude describes the purpose of contention in the next verse: For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. The questions posed clearly turn on matters of defense of doctrine and truth (the Gospel has been abused and twisted to support libertine behavior, thus denying Christ), and we don't need Silly Putty to suggest that Jude would have requested "contention" for any other sort of problem that arose.

Beyond this, Dinenno claims that "apologists only impose an interpretation on certain passages of Scripture in order to justify their practices," and he starts with the most common passage, 1 Pet. 3:15:

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

Dinenno admits that yes, the Greek word used here means "defense" but he also claims that it means "answer" -- though he does not know or say that it means the sort of defense or answer one makes in court! Thus his first attempt to rob apologetics of this verse fails. His second attempt is the typical "isolates it from the entirety of the Scriptures" gig, by which he means, if we interpret the verses in 1 Cor. above as wrongly as he does, then we must twist and turn this verse as well to cooperate with him. His third attempt is to say that we are only "assuming that defense means constructing arguments in an attempt to prove the existence of God, or defending the validity of the Scriptures against those who deny it to be the word of God...." -- though he does not tell us why this "assumption" is wrong, other than appeal to his prior decontextualizings of 1 Cor.

This much can be granted -- as I have often said, 1 Peter 3:15 isn't really about the sort of apologetics that we do here. Contextually Peter is telling believers to defend themselves from charges of wrongdoing by pagans who believed in a "something is never done for nothing" social exchange, and who, perplexed by Christians who aided their pagan neighbors for seemingly no desire to be rewarded, accused them of having ulterior motives. Their "defense" here is, "we do this for Christ." Nevertheless, the Petrine principle of defense belies Stu's background claim, "argument is not allowed," for what Peter commands is nothing but an "answer" to a pagan argument against Christian motives! And evidently, Peter didn't agree with Dinenno that it would serve no purpose to tell these "unregenerate" pagans what the real scoop was. Tellingly, Dinenno has to make his way out of this verse somehow, and he does so by open contradiction and by fluffing the pillows, to wit:

So what does the verse mean? Nothing more than to be always ready to have an answer for those who come to us with sincere inquiries. It does not teach that we are to engage in debates with infidels who are hardened in unbelief, though modern apologists use this verse as a sanction to debate Bible-denying atheists. Obviously such opponents are not making sincere inquiries into the reasons behind a Christian's hope. The atheists who participate in these debates only have one goal: to subvert Christianity.

Well, I hate to give Dinenno the bad news, but Peter says nought about "sincere inquiries" anywhere! He doesn't say, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every sincere man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." Beyond that, Dinenno just condemned Jesus, Paul, and John the Baptist to hell with his rhetoric -- all of these "engaged in debates" with persons "hardened in unbelief" (can you say, "Pharisees and Sadducees"?) who were as a whole (with exceptions like Nicodemus) in no mood for "making sincere inquiries" (and in fact, plainly made some that were insincere) about the message Christ offered. They too wanted to subvert the Christian message, so what is it that Dinenno thinks Christ was doing? What Christ was doing in fact was publicly shaming his opponents and answering their arguments -- a function of apologetics in both cases; or as even Calvin put it, to "stop the mouths of the obstreperous." This is our main purpose in debate with the insincere, and it was also Peter's idea for his readers -- as if he had any notion of pagans accepting and believing what the Christian offered! Either way, Dinenno is in a bind of his own making, and he makes it worse on himself, with yet more open self-contradiction in his next treatment, of 2 Cor. 10:5:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

By itself, this verse is a fairly sound warrant for apologetics, even though the forms of "imaginations" have changed from worship of Zeus in Paul's day to worship of self today. Still, Dinenno insists there's "no reason to believe that Paul was referring to anything beyond the preaching of the gospel, along with the effectual working of the Spirit," though he doesn't give us any reason to limit Paul that way either, and it is only imagination that sets the limits. That, and maybe one other thing, from which emerges hypocrisy: Rather than use his "spiritual man" to discern the "spiritual matter" that this verse bespeaks, Dinenno resorted to the methods of the unregernate heathen who went to seminary 500 miles away, and actually picked up a commentary to help him understand this verse. Not that this improved his worth much in our eyes, since he resorted to the commentary of Matthew Henry, a rightful classic to be sure, but hardly expected to be up to date on knowledge of the era since it was published in 1706. Not that this even matters, because nothing Henry says supports the case:

We may here observe, (1) What opposition is made against the gospel by the powers of sin and Satan in the hearts of men. Ignorance, prejudices, beloved lusts, are Satan’s strong-holds in the souls of some; vain imaginations, carnal reasonings, and high thoughts, or proud conceits, in others, exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, that is, by these ways the devil endeavours to keep men from faith and obedience to the gospel, and secures his possession of the hearts of men, as his own house or property. But then observe, (2) The conquest which the word of God gains. These strong-holds are pulled down by the gospel as the means, through the grace and power of God accompanying it as the principal efficient cause. Note, The conversion of the soul is the conquest of Satan in that soul.

In all of this Henry says nothing for or against apologetics as part of the process of gospel and grace; but it gets worse. Henry made no resort to the matter of rhetoric in Greco-Roman letters, and it is this aspect which has some pull in Paul's words. As Witherington notes in his commentary on the Corinthian letters [438], the background of this is Paul addressing his opponents in Corinth, who have been conniving his converts with pneumatic displays and shows of speaking prowess. Thus Dinenno misses a salient point: This could not refer to the preaching of the Gospel, because the subject is people who are already Christians. It is not so clear whether Henry realized this or not. Nevertheless the pious Henry by no means extracts nor impacts the use of what we call apologetics.

We expect even so that Dinenno will say that this does not give warrant to apologetics to non-Christians (which is as well as saying that the Deuteronomic command against stealing an ox does not mean you can't go out and steal a duck). And indeed he does not fail us, as he next addresses Acts 17:17:

Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.

His reply on this one is twofold. The first is that Paul is "meeting with people who already acknowledged the authority of the Scriptures" so that they "would not have been opposing either Paul's belief in God or his belief that the Scriptures are the word of God...." The case here again is of Dinenno trying to fallaciously narrow the focus; it may as well be said that a) Paul debated with persons X; b) persons X wore red sandals; so c) the Bible only allows us to debate people with red sandals. Nevertheless the people Paul dealt with here (and in Acts 19:8, which Dinenno also notes) WOULD have opposed Paul's belief that Jesus was resurrected, was the Messiah, and that his death atoned for sin. They ALSO would not have regarded what would become the New Testament as "the word of God" and also would have essentially not believed in the same God Paul did -- they believed in the same God, up until a point; but they did not believe in Paul's version of God, who became incarnate in Christ. Thus the gerrymandering fails dismally. Dinenno must either limit all such disputation to absurd breaking points, or else admit that what Paul did is a model for a broader context as well.

Next Dinenno resorts to the standard atheist tactic of trying to force an argument out of mere English translations:

Furthermore, the Greek verb “dialegomai” which is translated as “disputed” in these verses, does not necessarily refer to an adversarial argument. It is also translated “reason,” “reason with,” “preach,” “preach unto,” and “speak” in the New Testament.

Humbug! Check any lexicon or Greek dictionary and you'll see that Dinenno is full of stew. Of course today, to "argue" may mean anything from a rational and calm exchange of ideas to a knock-down verbal rhubarb; but we still have "argument" and that is why we have the nuances of dialoegomai as well. Nevertheless, as Witheringon notes in his Acts commentary, the word does NOT mean "preach" -- that is a contextual assumption -- but means "the presenting of arguments using Scripture as a basis or the engaging of dialogue and debate over the meaning of Scriptural texts" [504]. Witherington refers here to Acts 17:2, which says specifically that Paul did this from the Scriptures; and thus 17:17 admits to argument over more than that. Nevertheless that meaning of the word is to converse, discourse with, argue, or discuss. So say the lexicons.

In fact, the same verb “dialegomai” and the same English translation “dispute” is used in another situation where only Christian disciples were present:

“But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing [dialegomai] daily in the school of one Tyrannus.” (Acts 19:9)

Paul certainly would not have been engaging in an oppositional debate with his own Christian disciples.

Don't be too sure, since engaging your students in "oppositional debate" was a typical form of education in the ancient world -- can you say, "Socratic Method"? Not that this is what this verse says anyway; Paul is not "disputing" with his disciples, but with the folks who come to see him at the lecture hall.

In the end Dinenno is compelled to play one of his "only people with red sandals" cards, trying to limit our disputations to being with Scripture only and only with those who accept the authority of Scripture already. But that game is over, with yet one more bullet to dodge, Acts 9:29:

And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians: but they went about to slay him.

Uh oh! It seems here that Paul violated the rules; but:

This verse refers to Paul's disputations at Jerusalem with “the Grecians,” who were not pagan Greeks, but Jews who spoke Greek rather than Hebrew, most likely because they had been born outside of Palestine and emigrated there. They probably had their own synagogues apart from the Hebrew speaking Jews and, it is assumed, this is where Paul disputed with them. Again, it is obvious that Paul was disputing with those who already acknowledged the authority of the Scriptures.

What! Based on wild speculations, it is "obvious" that he's right, never mind that he has to invent wholesale what these people believed, how they got there (a visit to a festival is more likely than "emigration" and a whole synagogue group is invented to make his interpretation work). The word here, in fact, is a unqiue one, found in no literature prior to Acts [Witherington, 240f], and the only usage the makes sense is, "one who speaks Greek" -- maybe a Jew, maybe a Gentile. Only context tells us what the person is, and Acts 9:29 could refer to either Jewish speakers of Greek in town for the festival (in which case, Dinenno gets his "shared authority" point, but loses nevertheless on the problems we have noted with this above) or else pagan merchants or travellers who spoke Greek (and could have been from anywhere, not just Greece).

There is one clear place where Paul interacts with people that can't be explained as anything but pagans -- the Areopagus (Acts 17). Dinenno observes that we do not find "Paul presenting evidences from physical science and archaeology" (which makes sense, because they didn't yet exist as disciplines, other than the first in a rather primitive way, and Paul would be expert or knowledgeable on neither!); then observes as well that we do not find "Paul trying to reason men into seeing the inconsistency and futility of their worldview, as the so-called presuppositional apologist does". We don't? Yes, we do -- Paul's speech in Acts 17 is clearly directed to the beliefs of the Stoics and Epicureans he primarily addresses [Witherington, 512ff], though Dinenno would hardly know this without a scorecard to tell one from the other. Tellingly, Dinenno point-blank dodges any sort of exegesis of the text, claiming that Paul's speech is nothing but "a simple gospel message and telling his audience to repent and believe." It is far more than that -- a direct strike, as Witherington shows in detail, to the truth claims his hearers held dear. But as Dinenno offers no details to back up his claim, that is all that can be said -- other than noting that it slides right be Dinenno that Acts 17:31 calls Jesus' resurrection forensic evidence for the truth of Paul's message (see here).

Finally, Dinenno closes by answering "objections" that he seems to have pulled out of his hat, and here is where we get to his bit about why it was OK for Jesus to whap the Pharisees and we can't follow the lead: