Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome to that's a Good Question, a podcast where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language.
If you or someone you know has questions, please submit them at peacechurch cc. Questions.
So last week we got to hear some live question and answer from the class that we did called Faith Under Fire.
We talked about four different topics, biggest, toughest objections to the Christian faith. And then here on the podcast we got to hear the live question and answer session after the class. And then today we're going to pick up where we left off and answer more questions from people.
And we're excited to do that, which.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: We have a lot.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: We do have a lot. There are plenty more questions to go, so we won't get through all of them. But we're going to take one shot here and try to answer more of the questions that came in. Just a great chance to talk about how we can defend the Christian faith, how we can answer tough questions from people. So these are kind of all over the board. Some of them are science related, some of them are like B hard questions in the Bible.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Theology and then.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, some are theology, some about culture and the existence of evil. Culture. Yeah, all over the place. So should be fun.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: And we're going to fully answer every single one of them.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Is going to fully answer.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Precise, efficient manner. Yeah, no, we'll open up all the cans of worms and leave them out on the table for everyone to deal with and do our best to try to answer what we can.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: A wormy table. Yes, that's the goal. All right, here it is. Question number one says, I run into people that have been hurt by the church or have been mistreated by people claiming to be Christians. They have completely lost trust and there's no guarantee that it won't happen again to them in the future. So how do you recommend responding and taking the risk to engage with them?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the story I think of is, I think his name was Templeton, but he was the kind of partner in crime or ministry partner of Billy Graham.
And he famously walked away from the faith and was interviewed towards the end of his life. And one thing he said, do you know where I'm going?
He famously said, I miss Jesus when talking about, like, do you miss being involved in ministry and being involved in the church? And he said, I think very pointedly, I miss Jesus. And really that's what we are concerned about people losing when they stop getting involved in church because of church hurt and things. And so we do want to always push for the importance that it's vital for us to be involved in community, and not just community, but faith community, like, we're built for that, and all the fellowship is involved in that.
And yet what we need to be preaching most of all, inviting people to. Most of all is to a relationship with Jesus. Yeah.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Wow. Amen. I haven't heard that story before. That's. That's. That's awesome. That's powerful. Yeah.
What I would add to that is that I think people have to remember. What I would encourage other people to think of somebody who's been hurt by the church before, been hurt by Christians, is to think that there is a difference between Jesus and the followers of Jesus.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: And so rejecting Jesus, the perfect Jesus, because of the imperfect followers he has, you know, is not the best solution. I understand how people get there, but if you think about it, you know, if you can. If you can get them to try to separate the emotion a little bit and just think about it and realize that that actually doesn't make sense to. To reject Jesus because his followers are.
Make some poor decisions. Now, obviously, for us as Christians, that should be a lesson and say that it really matters how we treat people, that we ought to be great examples of Jesus instead of poor examples of Jesus because it affects if people receive him as Savior. So what we do matters. That's really important.
It should be a lesson for us. But also, I think just challenging them with that, you know, and. And adding to that, that, you know, one of the unique things about Christianity is that we are open and honest. That we are hypocrites.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: That we proclaim a perfect Savior, and yet we know that we are imperfect and broken.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: And we talk about wanting to live into this ideal of being like Jesus.
And yet, no, we're quick to say that we aren't.
A Christian is one who repents. We do that. We do that. Right. If you're a Christian. We repent. We pray for each other. We repent. Two things that we're uncomfortable with doing sometimes, but we're called to, and we should love it. I remember the first time that I got stopped by a school bus. I was behind the school bus. I didn't know what to do. I was in high school. I was really nervous, and I just decided mentally.
I mentally said, I'm going to follow the car in front of me, whatever he does. Well, he went. And so I went. And I remember passing the stop sign of the school bus as it was being popped out and think. I think I remember screaming like, no, because I had a bumper sticker that said, God loves you, bro.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: And I'm like this, you know, on fire.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Maybe this question's about you.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: High school student. And I. That's like a very tangible moment where I realized, like, I have the name of Christ on my car and I'm doing something sinful that I regret even in the moment. But just thinking of, we walk around and represent Christ and how we live and we want to be Christlike and that's always a good thing to strive for, but knowing that we fall short. I remember hearing a pastor once say I was inviting someone to church and he said, ah, there's too many hypocrites.
And he said, we have room for you too.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we have room for one more.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: And I don't even know if it's not a hypocriticalness of I don't see my flaws. It's actually an eagerness to confess our own sin that is a marker of the Christian community.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Right. All Christians, we can be knuckleheads sometimes. And some can be more knuckleheads than others. But that doesn't disprove our perfect Savior. Yeah.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Good.
That's great. Awesome. All right, next question. How do we interpret the seven day creation timeline in the book of Genesis? Do we see it as seven 24 hour days? Do we think that could be longer periods of time? And the clincher, how do dinosaurs fit into all of it?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Didn't we do a. That's a good question.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: We actually did do an episode. No, it was, it was actually like a year ago. So it's been a little while.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: That was just master class. I thought because we got into the weeds, man, it really answered so much.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: We had Stephanie on to talk about dinosaurs.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I texted her and said she didn't. I thought she did an incredible job. I really thought.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: It's nice of you. Yeah. Stephanie loves talking about dinosaurs. Yes, she's all about it.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: And my son loves them and he's.
I have a 2 year old.
I would, I would say what we need to care most about when we go to this kind of question is we need to care most about what the Bible cares most about. There's plenty of things to care about and to talk about, but we need to care most about what the Bible cares most about. And the Bible is, is in Genesis. Well, the entire Bible. But Genesis cares a lot about dinosaurs.
It cares a lot about God as the sovereign creator, creating a good creation and creating man in his image, like giving humankind purpose. And those are the things that are being emphasized in Scripture and there is order there. And so then we can get into the details about what is the order that is being portrayed. But just on like a meta level, he's a God of order and we see that order in the Genesis account.
So there are disagreements in the weeds of what all those things mean. And even right now there's people on all sides of it that are like, is he going to disagree with my point of view? And it's like, I think that's healthy. Good debate. But just like it is important just to lay that groundwork of we do want to care most about what the Bible cares most about.
Yeah.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: And you're not going to tell me what I'll say? Oh, I think the best interpretation is the 24 hour literal day interpretation. I try to be gentle with that. Yeah, I shared in the class and you can find the class online. You don't have to have had to watch the class to understand the, the Q and A we're going through right now. But I shared, you know, in the class. So there are some, there are some clear lines. You know, like theistic evolution is outside of the, you know, the, the Bible doesn't leave the door open for that.
But I try to be gentle to those who think, you know, like the day age theory. Yeah, I tried. You know, I understand what they're saying. I don't think it's the best understanding of the text, but I understand what they're saying.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: And everything you just said is where I'm at too.
The one thing that I think is important to highlight is you said theistic evolution. What is that? And there's actually some questions that are asked that we could get to. But theistic evolution is saying that God orchestrates the evolutionary process of he creates almost like he creates life in a single cell organism and allows that to evolve into many different things. Kind of like the theory of evolution teaches and eventually you get this humanoid thing and then that's when he slaps on the image of God. That when I say we need to care about what the Bible cares most about. The Bible is emphasizing that God created mankind as is from nothing. He took dust and made it. And he didn't like oversee this process. And so when you say like theistic evolution as articulated that way isn't congruent with biblical inerrancy. Like that's what we're trying to say is that seems outside the bounds of, of what the Bible is saying.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah. You're giving up on a historical Adam.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Which is A huge problem obviously for Genesis and even Romans 5, the gospel. And you know, where did sin come from? And how is the problem of sin solved?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: And can you take the image of God out of what it means to be human and those things? Yeah, so those things matter. I'd say that that's a hard line. I appreciate the grace on day age thing because historically speaking, there's a lot of varied beliefs on it and it doesn't revolve around evolution. So when we come to the conversation, we assume there's one side that teaches evolution atheism and one side that teaches Bible young earth creationism. And I think there's debate in that sphere. But historically speaking, before evolutionary theory existed and was thought of, people like Augustine pushed back on the idea of do we need to believe that the seven days were all 24 hours? No, that's what Augustine said. And the guy that wrote the book on Christianity and liberalism, Jay Gresham Manchin, also pushed back on the idea saying do we need to believe this is seven literal days, 24 hours? No. And he wrote the book against liberalism and Christianity.
Some of the most ardent supporters of inerrancy, back when that was a bigger debate in our society, like the 20th century.
They weren't all on the same page on the question of specifically seven literal 24 hour days.
And yeah, I agree with you that I think it's the best articulation and yet I don't want to draw a hard dividing line like we do for theistic evolution.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're saying like that the difference in those days was between how old the earth is. It wasn't a question of how human beings came about 1,000% conversation.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Yes, that I would want people to go back and listen to the sentence you just said.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Cause.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's an important.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. And I would say that clearly the Lord can make an earth that appears old. He does that with human beings.
Right.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Adam, like Adam and Eve weren't babies.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And yet if a scientist just dropped on the field right there and was like, let me study how old these people are, or if he made a tree, well, how old is that tree? Well, it has 40 rings on it. Well, God made it 10 seconds ago, so how old is it?
[00:11:23] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: That's the kind of question we have.
If he makes things that appear old, how old is it? I think that applies in geology as well.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and I would add in the flood, of course. The flood just radically, you know, has a huge impact on the fossil record and you know, formation of rocks and everything. So along these same lines, can Christians believe that organisms, they use the quotes, quote unquote, evolve or adapt over time? For example, humans who live in a sunnier climate have darker skin versus humans who live in a less hot climate have lighter skin.
Or they bring up animals as well. So I would say they're, they're asking about micro evolution versus macro evolution, as it's often been called.
Can we believe in that?
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Or evolution versus adaptation.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Ah, there you go.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you can believe that things adapt because they do.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: This is the difference between what can we observe versus what do we assume happened based on what we observe.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Right. The phrase I used a lot in the class was the unobservable past is what we're trying to, is what a lot of people are trying to talk about. Whereas, yeah, this is something we can observe. I mean, some examples, you know, like dog breeding. Right. I have like, in my house I have two puppies that are some very strange breeds of dogs because they've been mutts. They're mutts. But we, we say that they're like designer mutts because they're mutts that came from a bunch of different, very fancy lines. It's, they're, they're very interesting. They're, they're wonderful dogs. I love them. But yeah, you know, I mean, dog breeding is a great example or even, you know, we talk about some of the struggles of antibiotics and how we create these bacteria resistant antibiotics. Or you think about bugs that are resistant to pesticides. Like all of those things are, are adaptations.
Yeah. You know, I like that you push back on micro evolution as a word because.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Oh, I didn't push back on it. It's a.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Well, I think, I think it, I think it's worth pushing back.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Because, you know, micro evolution, you're using that word and you're sort of, it sort of assumes this like continued process of growth and increase in a direction, whereas this is like, we have evidence of like one, like an adaptation that helps in one way but doesn't necessarily lead to a trajectory of continue.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, adapting.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: So I think it's, I think you're talking about something different.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: There's. I wish I knew the names to point out, but there's pushback in the scientific atheist community on evolutionary theory.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: It's not just coming from Christians that have an alternative viewpoint than what seems to be the majority. Like there are, there's, there is pushback on it because there's, there's Huge plot holes.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Or like, you know, gaps for sure. And that's where people like will then come and be like, you just put God in the gap and explain it away. It's like, no, we're not shutting reason down. Like we want to reasonably engage in the scientific method and figure things out.
But the gaps of evolutionary theory as an origin, they come into where, where did life begin? Because you have stuff. But where did. When did that stuff start breathing? Not breathing, but like, you know, I'm trying to say like have life in it, have actual like life to it. Um, because most things the trajectory is death, not life.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Uh, so where did that come in? And there's no answer for that. Or.
Yeah, where did stuff come. You're making it all material things that.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Order came out of chaos when that doesn't make any sense.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So where did life come into play? Where did the stuff come from to begin with that. Right. You know, material stuff. Right. Um, and then there's. There's just more to it that I'm blanking on. But there's pushback within the scientific community that's like from an atheist perspective on the theory of.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean if you believe in entropy, the law of thermodynamics, everything tend towards decay. If we believe that's true now, then how in the world do we believe that things evolved, went in a positive direction over so much time?
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Well, in the classic illustration that I've heard John Lennox talk about it, he's done debates on things with it too, but he famously. I've heard him say, if you look at writing on the wall, you're not going to think that that was random. You're going to think that came from a mind.
I guess a lot of apologists have said that. Frank Turek I've listened to recently and he made a joke about if you saw on the beach the writing like Joey Loves Lucy or something, you would be the lunatic thinking that that came randomly.
That comes from a mind. Right.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: We don't assume. Yeah. When you see. Yeah, you don't assume order comes out of chaos.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Without a designer, without somebody doing something.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: And so that like those are logical things that non theistic back like people are pushing on.
I think that's like a. If you wanted to look into it more, you could look into some of that stuff. I think Stephen Meyer has been like a bigger player in that sphere. He is a theist, but he's.
And a Christian, but he's been a source for a lot of more scientific Logical minded people not from a theistic background that have picked up his books and been like, oh man, maybe evolution doesn't make total sense and maybe there is like a theistic reason here that I should believe in, which is a good, I think a good thing happening in the world. Again, back to the first answer. What we want people is to believe in Jesus.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: And I think that does, you know, it all touches on our worldview and having that be consistent, but that is our more ultimate hope. And sadly different scientific beliefs can erode people's faith. And on the flip side, certain, like atheistic strongholds being torn down and leaving a hole for theism to enter is also a good thing. And yeah, again, we need to care most about Jesus being preached in that.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, well, but that's going to be found along the path of seeking truth.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: So you're saying we can appreciate good science that seeks truth. Yes, we want to make the best sense of the data. And so, yeah, part of our argument is that evolution doesn't make the best sense of the data.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: It's not just a Christian argument, it's actually.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Let's pray that even those non Christians making arguments like that can help lead people closer to Jesus ultimately. Yeah, right.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: All right. Along the same question, question about the age of the earth, they say it seems a apparent that the continents of the earth were at one time together.
Do you think the continents were parted during the flood?
My answer is I think that makes sense. I think this is one of those things that we just don't, we don't know, we don't know whether it was all one at one time or not.
But I think that, that it's certainly possible. There's no reason, I don't think as a Christian there's any reason to say that we, we don't believe that all the continents were together at one point and then they could have separated during the flood.
I think that makes sense.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: I don't have any evidence to say one way or the other, but I agree with you.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: I mean we're all thinking of the evidence that we heard about in ninth grade physical science, so sure, yeah. Different fossil records or random things that make that seem like a plausible reality.
[00:18:30] Speaker A: And we're like, yeah, yeah, makes sense.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I don't want to keep harping on it, but I mean the, you know, the flood, just the incredible impact of the flood on the earth would have just been so dramatic, so much change so fast.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So that it all just Kind of seems plausible.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense to me.
We'll close up our science questions one with this question. Do you have any resources I can share or read with my kids about science and Christianity? I'll start first one my go to is an organization called Answers in Genesis. Ken Ham is the main teacher there. They just do some, some great stuff. I think they've got a great website, they've got some great books that. So they're the ones who do the Creation Museum, the Ark, that kind of stuff. I think those are excellent experiences. You know, wait till your kids are old enough to do some reading. Because it is a lot of reading. You know, it's a museum basically that you're walking through.
But yeah, I think that's great stuff.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know of any institution bigger and better than them that are working in that space.
And probably they probably have age appropriate content that they've focus on and try to get out there. So I can't offer something a one for one, but I can encourage. Just get the apologetics conversation going in age appropriate ways throughout as parents. And then for anyone listening that hasn't been doing any of that, I would just encourage that. Listen to Christian apologists, engage in the conversation, engage in the debates, listen to the conversation going on on universities. And Christian apologists will go and do talks. I know like Frank Turek just did one. He had one schedule. He mentored Charlie Crook in apologetics and I think he had one scheduled like three days after the assassination and he still went and did it.
And that was a powerful talk to listen to. But like men like him, they go to college campuses or they go to do conferences or things to talk about. So those are great, these giant conversations going on.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So those are great names you could find on YouTube if you wanted to watch videos, you know, and they have.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Books and things too.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah. John Lennox, you mentioned earlier, Frank Turek, Wesley Huff.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he's. He's great.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: He's great. He's. He's not gonna talk so much about science as he's.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Well, that's why I have. Yeah. Have an assortment. Have an assortment of people you read and listen to. Because there's so many questions. Yeah, there's so many questions that we haven't even brought up here. We brought up some pretty big ones. Yeah.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Speaking of which, now we've got some Bible related questions.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Oh, goody. Yeah, I feel much more comfortable doing that.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right, next question.
I've heard several people say that in the Original text of the Bible, they only had one word for men and boys. So that when we talk about homosexuality, they're actually talking about pedophilia.
The person says, I don't know anything about the original languages. How do I respond to this?
[00:21:18] Speaker B: No, I really appreciate the question. I think there's a lot of stuff out there that is very misleading and leads people away. It's not true that there's not different words for different ages of boys or men or there's even a word for young men. There is variation in the Hebrew language.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: A great book for this or a great author is Robert Gagnon. Is that how you say it? Robert Gagnon, he wrote a very large book called Homosexuality in the Bible.
He goes through every passage that people reference, every argument that people make, and he tackles it. And he's an incredibly intelligent guy, is able to work with the Greek and the Hebrew ancient texts, the whole thing. So both of us here have studied Hebrew and Greek. You know, we wouldn't claim to be experts or anything like that, but we have studied the languages. And, yeah, that's just not a. That's just not a compelling argument. It's just not the case.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Yep. So, yeah, no, my heart is broken for men and women out there that they really are curious about Christianity and yet they can't get over the fact that the Bible has a standard, a sexual ethic different than what they feel is right.
And so there are books out there that are tailored for them of like, hey, but you can be a Christian and yet still believe that these things that have historically been deemed sin, sinful as you can view them as not sinful.
And one of my favorite testimonies is Christopher Yuan. He was in jail at the lowest of lows. His dad had given him a Bible, but he threw it in the trash.
And he wanted nothing to do with God. And so he found himself at his lowest point in life. And he found a Bible on top of a trash can.
And so he picked it up and read it and became a Christian simply by reading the Gospels.
And he realized that he's going to go all in.
And there was a chaplain there that said, like, oh, I know your. I know your lifestyle and what you believe. And so here's a book on homosexuality in the Bible, and it wasn't the book you mentioned. It was one of the books I mentioned, which is like, hey, you can believe you can be a Christian but disagree on the historic stances on sexual ethic, on things. And he said, I know it's bad that I didn't finish the book, but I just couldn't because I knew that it wasn't true. I knew that it wasn't.
And he became a scholar in his own right and a teacher of the Bible, and his story is just beautiful. He wrote a book called Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, where he, I think, just masterfully lays out the Christian sexual ethic. And he comes from this world of being on the other side of the issue.
So I love his testimony because it points out that, yes, there are books out there and teachers out there that will tell you, you can disagree with the.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Tell you what you want to hear.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I love that there's men like Chris Ruan who has the testimony of man that he said, that is what I want to hear, but I know it's not true. Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: That's pretty amazing.
To correct what I said earlier, the title of his book, Robert Gagnon's book, is the Bible and Homosexual Practice. That's what it's called.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: There's this image I've had in my head for a while of the.
Again, my heart breaks for these people, family and friends that are in this camp, but the image I have in my head is of. Imagine it is the Exodus. You're a family. In the Exodus, you have a house. And Moses comes and says, hey, you need to wipe the blood on the doorpost, the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, and the wrath of God will pass over you, and you'll be saved, redeemed, delivered from this wrath to come.
And you look at your doorpost, and there's a pride flag in the way of the doorpost, and you say, am I okay? Is it okay? Do I have to move that, or can I keep it there?
You have to move it. You can't have an idol in the way. We need to submit fully to Christ and the Gospel and the truth of his word. And so my heart breaks for people that have these idols, and there's tons of idols that you can have in the way, and yet I know that's just a big one for a lot of people. Yeah.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: All right, couple more quick ones here.
Here's one. What would you say to somebody who says that only the Jews are going to heaven?
[00:25:33] Speaker B: What?
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting question. I wonder. I sort of wonder where. If they're. If they mean they're talking to somebody who is Jewish, or if they're saying that there's a Christian who is saying that you have to be Jewish and a Christian in order to go to heaven. I wonder. I wonder which side of this we're. We're talking about. So here. Yeah, yeah. You know, if you're. If you're a Christian who's talking to somebody who's. Who's a Jew, an Orthodox Jew, and they're saying that, you know, they. They embrace the Old Testament, they embrace Judaism, but they reject Jesus as the Messiah. So then the conversation you're having is you're explaining to them how Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. So that's one conversation. If you're talking instead about somebody who's saying that they embrace the New Testament, they're a Christian, they're a follower of Jesus, and in order to be saved, you have to. You have to be a Christian and embrace aspects of Judaism like the feasts and things like that. Then we're actually just going back to arguments that were had back in the Book of Acts, back in the, you know, in the New Testament. And this has already been hashed out in church history that, that, no, you don't have to become a Jew in order to be a Jesus follower.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, hashed out a lot.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah, that was like one of the. That was like the primary controversy of the early church is them working this out.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I've known people that have gotten married to someone who comes from a Jewish background ethnically. And so she, you know, went ahead and followed some family traditions that more like in the Messianic Jew. Is it Messianic Christian or Messianic Jew?
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Messianic Jew.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah, Messianic Jew. Where, like, you're a Jew who believes Jesus was the Messiah. Yeah, Jesus Christ.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Gentiles is one of those, basically.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Oh, really? So she was willing to follow her husband in those family traditions. And I know people that are Jewish. You know, I've heard of people that are Jewish and become Christian and they decide to be a Messianic Jew. So follow some Jewish traditions, but follow Jesus. And there's probably debate there of, like, well, are there certain Jewish traditions that would go against the Gospel, which the New Testament actually talks a lot about, and why you do something matters in those cases. And yet what I don't understand is the person that would be from a gentile background thinking, I won't be saved if I stay a gentile Christian, I must therefore become ethnically Jewish, or, you know, I. Yeah.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: Or celebrate the traditions in order to.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think you can celebrate certain traditions. Jesus did. Right. But I don't think you have to to be saved. And again, The New Testament handles that the best, right?
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Totally. Uhhuh. Huh? Definitely. All right, last question.
I think this is a pretty interesting one that came in.
Why don't more people, including people who call themselves Christians, fully submit to the full authority of script?
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Say it one more time.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Why don't people, including people who call themselves Christians, fully submit to the full authority of Scripture?
It's hard.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: It's hard. It's hard because it's. It's exhausting. It's. It's hard to think about as someone that knows many people in that boat and they don't even know.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: Right. And it goes back to the idols of our culture that people fall prey to. It's like, hurt your heart.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. In many ways, the. The question is kind of as old as sin, right? That's. This. Is this going back to the beginning?
Why don't we do what God says?
Well, yeah, the answer post Adam and Eve is that all of us have a sinful nature in us. We give into temptation. We turn away from God's word. We want to do our. We think our way is better than God's way.
Why do people who call themselves Christians not embrace everything the Bible says? Well, I think it's the same thing. Right. We want to hear what we want to hear. We want to be able to do what we want to do.
You know, there's. It's no. It's no coincidence that the disagreements that we have about the Bible are around moral issues, especially sexuality.
Right. The. The height of desire in a human being. It's because we want to do what we want to do. I don't want the Bible. I don't want God to tell me who I can and can't sleep with. Right. I want to just be able to do what I want to do. So. So why don't we fully submit to Scripture? Because.
Because we have sinful hearts. Because we want to just go our own way.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So I guess an encouragement then for us would be to continue to preach Jesus above all else. And that gospel preaching includes this idea of, we want the gospel to shape every inch of our lives. Like, there is no corner or crevice or whatever that we can allow to not, you know, be influenced by the gospel in our lives.
And so that include, you know, a lot of people are thinking right now, how can I, you know, be involved in politics? More like just cultural conversations, you know, and that. That's a, you know, that's a part of this. There's also, like, what about those sensitive topics That I disagree with with my friends and family, like that we should bring the gospel into those conversations. We should want the gospel to influence all of our life. What about that secret sin that I haven't told anyone about? Like, well, the gospel should influence every part of your life. So that includes that. So we should continue to extend that all encompassing gospel to people and make sure that that's the gospel that we're preaching to ourselves and hearing in our churches. Right. Because part of the problem with this question is not only are there people out there trying to hear what they want to hear, but there's pastors that are willing to tell them.
And so are you hearing, are you hearing a gospel that is that all encompassing gospel that is consistent and coherent with the, the Bible?
And so are be thinking then mindfully, am I leaving anything left un submitted to Christ?
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: And that's something that we continually need to do.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Totally. That's, you know, we have to ask ourselves that introspective question. Am I trying to make the Bible say what I want it to say or am I submitting to it?
[00:31:38] Speaker B: It.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: You know, we live under the authority of the Bible, not over the Bible. We don't get to tell it what to say. We submit to what it says. And so we have to ask ourselves, am I bending this to do what I want it to do, or am I actually living underneath it?
[00:31:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: And just last night we got to do a pastor's panel for students in high school and middle school youth group. I was down with the middle schoolers and they asked this question. They asked a question roughly, like, how do we know? How do you know as a pastor? How do you make sure that you're preaching what the Bible says and not just what you want to say? And that was part of my answer, was just that I continually am asking that question.
Here's the text. Am I, am I submitting to it or am I trying to tell it what to say?
[00:32:16] Speaker B: Yeah. In honor of Vodi Bakam, who passed away recently. But he said if you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch. He said that a lot. And just encouragement of if we are reading the Bible, there are times where it will encourage us and times where it'll challenge us. You know, it'll affirm what we think and then challenge how we think. You know, so if you have all that going on, then it's a good sign that you're reading the Bible.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: Well, that's right.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for the questions, everyone. Great questions. Always excited to answer them. Keep them coming. Have an awesome week. Everybody.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Sat.
