← Stand to Reason Weekly Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript38 lines
- [00:00]
A
Sam.
- [00:29]
B
Hello, friends. Greg Koukl here. And last show, I gave you a sneak peek. I gave you a chance to get at the head of the line because tomorrow we start. Is that the first? Yeah, it is August. And August is our month for be one of the 100. That's when we invite 100 people to join our financial support team called the strategic partner team. You can be part of that community, and August is the time to do it. But you don't have to wait till tomorrow. The sneak peek is you can get in today. Just go to str.org partner and that's where you can register as a strategic partner. And by the way, you know, I know you've heard people call in and say, abe, I'm a strategic partner. Did you notice that? They seem kind of happy. That they are. They're just letting me know, by the way, we're enjoying it. And I'll talk more about this at another time. But I know that for me, it's really satisfying to be part of an organization that I believe in by financially supporting them. And that's what I take away from when people say this on the phone. They call into me and they say, hey, by the way, I'm a strategic partner. We want you to be part of that team as well. And you can do that today. You can jump the gun. You can get at the head of the line. You could beat the. Beat the mob and become a strategic partner. By the way, when you do, we're going to send you a gift for your pledge of $25 or more. We'll send you a copy of Steven Driscoll's book Made in Our Image. It's a book about AI, artificial intelligence. And boy, this is a biggie. I mean, I have to do a lot more study on this myself, but it's one of the big things for our culture, and it's one of the big things for the church. How do you navigate all of the ramifications of the three pronged elements of AI and so this is what the book is about. We'll send it to you as our way of saying thanks that you're part of the team. Very easy to join up. And the website is strat str.org partner that's all you have to do, str.org partner and go ahead and sign up and be part of the team and get in ahead of the crowd. All right, str.org partner a couple of things coming up that I just want to remind you of. I often forget about these things we have all these wonderful outposts, these groups of Christians of kindred spirit who are led by a qualified director who provides STR content on Christian apologetics, leads discussions on defending the faith. And we have look at 193 of these in 12 different countries and 43 different states. You know what I think of when I hear that? I'm really thrilled. And then I wonder, what about the other seven? Well, here's the list. And if you're in any of these states, you can be the first one to be an outpost leader in these states. Alaska, Hawaii. Well, there's a contrast, Alaska and Hawaii. Now, buddy, my buddy Pat Zukrin's there, apologist in Oahu. And if Pat, one of your disciples, they should start a group, then you'll be first in Hawaii, at least on Oahu. And then we got to get Maui. Then we got to get the Big Island. Massachusetts, here's a surprise. Mississippi, that's down in the south. I thought that would be taken quickly. North Dakota, Rhode island and Vermont. Those are the states that still do not have an STR outpost. You can be the first. And my goal by the end of the year is that every single state has an outpost. Okay. Just saying. Also, reality's coming up. Atlanta, September 11 and 12 and through August 28. That's another four weeks. You can save $10 per ticket by going to our website and signing up. So that is a fabulous enterprise. I can't say enough about it. Most of know about it. This year, not only would Jason Jimenez be returning with our team of speakers, but also we have two new breakout speakers. We got Nate Sala of Wise Disciple. Many of you listen to him. He's got a great podcast. Alicia Wood from Apologetics Inc. You can get all the details. Reserve your spot@realityapologetics.com that's Atlanta, September 11 and 12. Then Seattle, October 16 and 17. Then Minneapolis. That's the big one. Over 4,000 in the largest church in the state. November 13 and 14. We'll be in Dallas in February, on the 19th and the 20th. We'll be in Philly on March 12th and 13th. And finally Los Angeles, April 23rd and 24th. So that's all coming up soon. Well, September is pretty soon. It's coming up fast. You know, I answered a question last segment that had to do with the soul and an illustration that I gave, and I'd like to respond to a challenge. Is that Gary? Yeah. Yeah, let's have Gary. And we'll revisit what I just talked about. Last hour, Gary.
- [06:13]
A
Hello, Greg. This is Gary. I live near Lexington, Kentucky.
- [06:18]
B
Oh, good.
- [06:18]
A
I'm a longtime listener, and I'm what you would call a strategic partner.
- [06:24]
B
Fantastic.
- [06:25]
A
I have benefited from listening to your podcast, reading your material. So I'm just trying to do the right thing, use the money God's given me. Wisely. So contribute monthly.
- [06:38]
B
Good for you.
- [06:38]
A
My question is about a illustration, a. A thought experiment that you've used many times over the years. And you suggest that we imagine our mother in the kitchen and get that in your mind and change maybe the color of her dress, get the details. And then you say, where is that image? And this is supposed to, I think, be something to teach us about. There are immaterial things in the world.
- [07:14]
B
Right.
- [07:15]
A
But to a materialist, where the image is. Is clearly in the brain. And in fact, you and John were answering some objections to an atheist and used that illustration on him, and he, in writing, had responded, well, yeah, that's right. That image is in the brain. And your response to that was just. You dismissed it as saying, well, that's analogy, and it's not a good analogy. But to the materialist, and I think to the scientists, it's not an analogy. That is where the image is.
- [07:52]
B
Sure.
- [07:53]
A
And in fact, the first time you saw your mother, you could ask, where's the image? Well, the light is going in the eyeball. That eyeball lens takes that image, turns it upside down and reverses it. And then there's cells that transmit that information through nerves to your brain, and you know it's in your brain somewhere. That's where it is. I don't understand.
- [08:17]
B
Oh, that's right. This cuts out right at the end. Okay, we got it, though, Gary, thanks a lot for this. And that was the genetically modified skeptic who took vigorous exception to a number of things that I said in a critique of atheism, and this is one of them, as I'm making the case for mind, body dualism, that there's not just a body, but there's a soul. We are not just meat all the way down, but we're immaterial. Selves that inhabit, so to speak, are unified with a physical body. This is our body, but our soul is not in our body like a pea is in a pot. It's not a piece inside of us somewhere, because doesn't matter where you look in our physical body, you're not going to find this little piece called the soul, and you're not going to find it because it's immaterial. This is my point. And then I give an illustration, as you've characterized Gary, about to help people to realize that there is an immaterial world. And by the way, one doesn't need to just give the illustration. I've offered a number of times before, I couldn't do away with that illustration. And I could ask questions about all kinds of things that are common knowledge and experience to us that entail the notion of an immaterial realm. So I remember having a conversation when I was on KBRT many years ago. That was the flagship station for my own career as a broadcaster. And this back in the 90s, and I had somebody saying, you know, oh, this isn't, you know, that's just a thought. And I said, really? Okay, well, where is the thought? I said, how much does the thought weigh? How does it expand in space? Thoughts don't have any weight. They don't expand in space because they're not physical, is my point. But they're still real. And then he said, well, the thought is a concept, like he's trying to get out of it. I said, okay, what is a concept? How much does that weigh? Does it expand? Every single time that he tried to dismiss this and find a different way of characterizing it, he would always come up with something that was immaterial. And so there are many ways to make the point, to make the case. The immaterial world exists by appealing the common knowledge of things that are not physical. Oh, that's just an idea. Okay, well, is the idea real? Does the idea actually exist? No, that's just in my imagination. What is your imagination? Is that real? Do you see my point? All these references to these things are not references to anything physical. How about if I said to you what's really important in life? Or I asked that question? Well, if you took a moment, you could ask it to other people. You're going to get the same kind of answers. If you said, what is really important in life? They're going to say. They're not going to say, porsche, Lamborghini, big house, money. Now, some might say that, but anybody who says any of those things would be immediately viewed as shallow, because the things that are really important are things like friendship and love. And even when we say family, we're not referring just to the physical objects there, but the nature of the relationship of those people that are in our family. And if you write all these things out, there's going to be hardly anything that's on that list of most important that is physical or that, say Science has any access to whatsoever. I kind of joked in the past, I say, well, in light of this list, science doesn't tell us anything important. Now it is a joke, because I think it does, but it doesn't. Accurately describing physical things doesn't get to what is really important in life. And the things on that list are not going to be physical. There's just another way of toying with this idea of the immaterial realm that we are very familiar with and another way of kind of experimenting with the discovery of it. And in fact, we're not discovering it. We know it's there. We talk about it all the time. I'm just trying to draw attention to it. And so this illustration about your mom wearing a blouse, which I talked about last hour, that is an exercise. It's not a thought experiment. It's an exercise in connecting with the immaterial realm. Because once everybody sees it and describes details about it, I asked them, where was that? Now I know where you mentioned, Gary, that if I saw my mom in the kitchen, she's there with me. What am I seeing? I'm seeing my mom. There she is. I can reach out and touch her. Third person public. If you were there, you'd see her too. But what I'm talking about now is not the same as that. And it may be that there are functions of my eye that takes the images that conveys to me accurately what I'm seeing that's in my physical presence. But the mom that I'm seeing is not going into my head. What you described is a process of how your eyes work to process the image and convey the information somewhere. Now, I think it's conveying the information to our souls. It isn't conveying information to our brain. Our brain is involved. Our brain is not the recipient of the information. And in the case of the illustration, imagine your mom. There is no mother standing in front of you. And when you imagine your mom, that is a first person private enterprise. That is what you're imagining. No one else, even in principle, has access to. It's somewhere that is private to you. And that's true of everybody else's reflection in this exercise. First person private. And that's another characteristic that is odd because no physical thing is first person private. Think of any physical thing. Here's a bottle of water. Okay, I'm sitting down. See this? I'm showing this to you. Okay, there's my bearded beast. And he's nodding. Yep, I see your water. Because it's not first person private. It's a physical thing. Anybody in principle could have access to, even if no one was in the building. Nobody's seeing this. In principle, if somebody come in, they could see it. It's outside of me. But the bearded beast cannot see my thoughts. I'm the only one who has access to my thoughts. They're first person private, which intimates they're not physical because physical things are third person public person's thoughts or their imagining. Their mother wearing a colored blouse is first person private. Therefore it's not physical. That's just another line of thinking. Now what the genetically modified skeptic said was it's in your brain. And my answer is no, it's not. If you could crack my brain open right now, you would not see my mother there in a yellow blouse. It's not in my brain. My brain is being used by my. By something, my soul to, to allow my soul to see in scare quotes. Because I'm not seeing with my eyes, but I am seeing something. I have a visual characterization of this in such detail that I can give you all particulars about it. And this is true of all of our senses. You can feel fur, you can smell a rose, you can taste a strawberry. You can hear Beethoven's fifth. Did you just hear it? Dun dun dun dun. It's in your head. And nothing physical, no test at all is ever going to be able to perceive that because it's not physical. I mean, I don't know what else I could say about it. If you don't get that, then you don't get it. It's just obvious. Physical things have physical qualities. Non physical things do not have any physical qualities. We have physical things in our life that are third person public, that have physical qualities. Those exist. We have things in our life that are first person private, that do not have physical qualities, but they still exist. That means there is an immaterial world. And it's goofy to say my mom is in my brain. She's not. The only thing inside my skull is gray matter. My mom is not in there or anything else that I might think or imagine. It's not in there. And that's the point I'm making. But a materialist has no other choice. I don't know if I. I don't know about this. My comment, this being an analogy. I do remember that whole broadcast, John Noyes helped me with that. I don't remember that particular point about it being an analogy. I don't remember. It doesn't even make sense to me. But I'M not going to dispute what you remember, because you probably remember it better than I do. Actually, I have a long set of notes that I put together for that broadcast, and I still have it. In fact, I've taken sections of it. I've worked it into make it. What did I work it into? Street smarts, for example. But when I was talking about evolution and ethics. But never mind that, I might have said something about analogy. I don't know how to explain that. But what I am asking people to do is imagine and then see the picture and then ask where is it? Because it isn't in your brain. All right, fair enough. All right, let's take a break and I'll be back with more of your calls on Standard Reason do you want
- [19:00]
C
to become a more knowledgeable Christian ambassador without sitting through a formal course on apologetics? Well, we've made that possible for you through our STR Quick Reference App. Available for free on itunes and Google Play, the STR Quick Reference App holds a wealth of information summarizing what you need to know on a range of topics, learn how to defend the faith, see how other worldviews compare to Christianity, and master the biblical view of morality all through short, engaging videos. Before you know it, you'll be well versed on a number of important apologetics topics. In addition, the Quick Reference App also includes a Bible with text and audio, as well as some featured STR resources, all to enhance your learning experience. The STR Quick Reference app will equip you to engage in thoughtful conversation about the key issues of life from a classical Christian perspective. Visit itunes or the Google Play Store today and download the STR Quick Reference App. And if you enjoy the app, make sure you give it a five star review. Are you looking for a community where you can grow in your understanding of Christianity and learn how to defend your faith? Consider Joining an STR Outpost STR Outposts are groups of believers within a local church dedicated to exploring answers to the hard questions about Christianity. Each outpost is led by a trained director who uses STR's content and curriculum to equip members with the tools they need to think clearly and engage confidently with their faith. With around 160 outposts across 38 states and in eight other countries and growing, you're likely to find one near you. Joining an outpost is a great way to connect with others, deepen your knowledge, and be better equipped to make an impact in your community for Christ. To find an outpost in your area, learn more, or to consider becoming an outpost Director yourself. Visit str.org outposts or email me trippallman@postposttr.org Foreign.
- [21:01]
B
Back at you here and looking at my open mic calls. Let's see, let's, let's, let's hear from Chris here because this looks like it would be fun. It's, there's some complexity here. We'll work through that. But let's hear what Chris has to say. Hi, Greg, this is Chris from Greenwood, Indiana. Yeah, hi, Chris. I've been following your content for about 10 years now after a neighbor gave me your 10th anniversary book of tactics. Oh, good. And I want to thank you and your staff for all that you do. Welcome.
- [21:35]
A
And I was listening to your podcast
- [21:38]
B
on June 3rd regarding Young Earth versus Old Earth. And these are the questions that came to my mind that I'd like to share with you. Okay, and they are, when did a day become 24 hours?
- [21:51]
A
How long did it take Jesus to heal?
- [21:55]
B
Does age coincide with appearance?
- [21:59]
A
Does God need more or less time to create? Contrary to these questions and the answers
- [22:05]
B
to them, are we not diminishing God's omnipotence when we argue for an old Earth?
- [22:13]
A
Thank you, Greg.
- [22:14]
B
I appreciate it. All right, Chris, I appreciate you too. Thank you for the question. I'm going to take the last one first. What you would have to do, you can't do this because we're not having a conversation, but you're going to have to answer for me how arguing that the Earth is old from the evidence that we have of the earth somehow diminishes God's omnipotence. We are not saying that God couldn't make everything in an instant. We're not saying that. The question is, what did he choose to do? What's kind of curious about young Earthers is when they say something like this, and this might be relating to your question, they say, well, God doesn't need time. He doesn't need the time to make all of this. He can do it instantly is the point, which I agree with. He could do it. He doesn't need it. But if you say that God doesn't need time as somehow an argument against or evidence against an older Earth, my response is, then if he doesn't need time, why did he take seven days? Now, obviously, seven days is a lot less than 70 or 700 million years or whatever. But the point is that if you're arguing for a certain period of time, not an instant creation, then somehow this mitigates against God's omnipotence and God doesn't need that. Right? He doesn't need it. But the question is, what did he do? On the young earth's characterization, he took seven days. Why did he do that? Why didn't he do it instantly? That kind of question doesn't have any bearing on what it was that God actually did. And how do you know what he did? You look at the text and you look at the other evidence that we have. We look at both books, the book of nature, so to speak, and also the scripture. And look, if the scripture matches reality, that's the definition of truth, then there ought to be a fit. And if we have well justified evidence in the natural realm that seems to disagree with the scripture, then one of two things is the case. Either we are misreading the scripture or the scripture is wrong. Now, to say that maybe the scripture is wrong is anathema to a lot of people. But all I'm saying is that's the only other alternative. Because if you have well justified evidence about the way the worth is, the way the earth is, and you think scripture denies that, then it doesn't make any sense to me when somebody says that scripture tells the truth, because truth is when the claim matches the real world. And if when we compare the claim of scripture to the real world, there's not a matchup, well, then you see how that calls into question the truthfulness of scripture. So you might say, well, the Bible's not true. That's what a lot of people say. I think the Bible is true, and I think it matches the world. And therefore, when you have very justifiable evidence like the earth is spherical, it's not flat, or that the earth is the center of the solar system. I'm sorry, that the sun is the center of the solar system, not the earth. Well, then when we read the sun rises and the sun sets, well, that seems to disagree with the way science or the way the world actually is. I don't want to throw science in there like it's the arbiter of all truth. Sometimes it's mistaken, but this is pretty well justified. The sun is the center of our solar system. Well, why does it say sunrise and sunset? For the same reason you pull out your iPhone and you look at the weather and you see across the top of it the hours and the weather at different hours. And there it says sunset and sunrise. Not because the people who put the iPhone together are geocentrists with the sun moving around the earth, but rather it's the language of appearance. So notice how we're using something about the physical world that is well justified and we're using it to inform our hermeneutic and we want to have a union there. So the question is not whether God's able, whether he is powerful enough to do whatever. He could do it in an instant, he could do it seven solar days, he could do it in millions or billions of years. He can do it any way he wants. That's not the issue. The issue is what actually happened. And then reading the evidence, whether it's scriptural or geological or astronomical or whatever, reading it accurately, that's the key. So I'm going backwards a little bit with your questions. I don't think God's omnipotence is on the dock in any view of the age of the earth. I don't see how that even follows. But you do ask, when did today become 24 hours? I don't know the answer to that. The length of the day is the length of the day. Somebody decided for convenience sake, to divide it up into 24 hours. And so when we say, was it a 24 hour day? We are not kind of absolutizing the segments of the day into 24, as if from the very first day it was 24 hours. We use the phrase 24 hours to follow a convention, to describe a solar unit, One total revolution, I shouldn't say a solar unit. Strictly speaking, one total revolution of the earth relative to the sun. So there's lots of things you can describe it, but that thing is a fixed feature of the solar system. So when we say 24 hour day, we're not absolutizing that method. You could break what? The Jews and the Romans had different time frames too. Sometimes they differed significantly. And that's why you have what appears to be contradictions in the Gospels. But people can make up their own breakdown of the day. I don't see how that has any bearing on what we're talking about. A day is a day, a solar day is a day, if that's what we're talking about. It's a way of distinguishing two different views. Did God create in seven solar days, seven revolutions of the earth on its axis? And a revolution of the earth on its axis is currently in our culture, in our time, called a 24 hour, our day. But that's just a convention. Just we all know what we're talking about. All right. There's another part, though. How long did it take Jesus to heal? Well, from what I could tell, most of the healings were instantaneous, but not all. Do you remember there was A blind. And I don't really make sense of this, to be honest with you. So this is a mysterious thing. In my gospels, in my Bible, there's probably a pencil mark with a penciled question mark in the margin. But Jesus, he begins to heal this guy. I'm trying to think of the best way to characterize this. I almost said, attempts. I don't like that word. And then he says, can you see? And he said, well, men are like trees walking. Which is curious because I don't know how he'd have a sense of what men or trees are if he was born blind. I don't know if this individual was born blind. I have to look at the text some that Jesus healed were born blind. But this guy said, well, I can kind of see, but not too well. That was the point. And so then Jesus said, okay, let's give it another shot. And he added a dose. And then he could see clearly. So clearly that healing was not instantaneous. It took a little bit to happen. What? I can't make any sense out of that. But I'm not sure the point about that, because all of these seem to be roughly related to the issue of a young earth and an old earth and God's omnipotence. And I'm not sure if you're intimating that since Jesus healed immediately, instantly, I will say in most cases that's correct, that that somehow indicates that God created the universe and the earth in all of its form right now, immediately and instantly. But, see, younger Earthers don't believe that. So I don't know where to go with that. What if I just said, yeah, Jesus healed everybody, as Nabil Qureshi used to say this, you know, to have conversations about him. And brother in the lord died in 2018, a great fine apologist, et cetera. And I had known him for a number of years, but we were having a discussion. I remember very clearly everybody, that he was diagnosed with cancer and he was dying. So he's looking for healing, understandably. And he said everybody that came to Jesus for healing, he healed them. And so he was trying to base his faith and confidence in a healing that would come on the fact that Jesus healed everybody. But there was a detail he is missing. When Jesus healed, he healed instantly, for the most part, right? So therefore, if Nabeel or anyone else is counting on Jesus healing them, because he healed everybody, the text also indicated that he healed instantly. And that's not happening here now. That doesn't mean God would heal him. That didn't Happen he went to be with the Lord. But God could heal anytime he wants. But just because Jesus apparently healed everybody that came to him doesn't mean he will heal everybody that comes to him now. Because his mode of operandi, mo modus operandi, was just different then. And I don't think it's accurate or sound to extrapolate to now. Yes, pray. I pray for people's healing. I have two people on my prayer list I prayed for this morning on my way to work that have cancer or are recovering from cancer. So I believe in this kind of stuff, but I don't know if God will. Jesus did when he was here. Since then he has. But not everybody, and not instantly. Not everybody instantly. So let's see what else we got. Does age coincide with appearance? Sometimes? Maybe. Usually. But appearance isn't the age. You can have a Let's a some. Some thing house. That looks great. I have a 2014 Ford F150.
- [34:14]
A
All right.
- [34:15]
B
I sold it to my daughter this year. It's got 183,000 miles on it, and it looks like it just came off the showroom floor. So you can't tell it's old by looking at it. It looks fabulous. My daughter's very happy with that. Doesn't get the mileage she likes, but she's really happy to drive a red F150, which we are going to drive across the country in a couple of weeks to Minneapolis, where she's going to be going to school. We'll take a road trip together. You can't tell how old that vehicle is by looking at it. Sometimes age and appearance correlate, sometimes they don't. But even so, that doesn't mean you can't infer age from some physical thing. You cut a tree down and you count the rings, and from experience and whatever, they know how trees work and all that the rings have a bearing. The rings that you observe. The appearance of the rings, if you will have a bearing on the age of the tree. It doesn't age the tree. The tree's age is its age. But you can look at details of appearance that will help you to know that. So sometimes it is an indication. Not always. It just depends. Sometimes appearance is very. A significant and decisive indication of age, and sometimes not. So, as this relates to the issue of the age of the universe, the age of the Earth, is it legitimate to look at features of the earth that appear to be old? And the answer is, of course it is. And could we be wrong about the appearance? Yeah, sure. But Some things, it seems hard to think that we are wrong. And incidentally, if God just made things to appear old, old when they're not, then that's deceptive. Now, I need to make a distinction here. That there's a difference between the appearance of age and the appearance of maturity. So Adam and Eve were created as mature human beings. There wasn't really another choice. You can't create them as zygotes. That's not going to work. You get my point. They were created as adults. But some might say, well, that's the appearance of age. Well, if Adam had calluses on his hand from working in the soil, which he never worked, that would be the appearance of age. If he had his arteries clogged up from eating fatty foods, that would be the appearance of age. If he had memories from the childhood that he never had, that would be the appearance of age. That's different from being created mature. That's the distinction. So you can't, I think, dismiss genuine appearances of age as evidence for something being old. And if you want to argue that this looks old, it has all the characteristics of being old, not just mature, and God created it that way to look old, then I think you got a problem with deception. This is a problem with starlight. I wrote a piece about it many years ago, one of the first solid grounds. And the problem is that light takes a long time to travel from distant stars. 186,000 miles per second. Figure out, given that rate, how far away a star is now, what happens when we see a supernova? Well, that supernova that we see, that's an exploding star that actually took place, depending on the distance, maybe millions of years ago. And the light is just now reaching us. But if the universe is not millions of years old, that means God created the light in transit. But the light in transit is a record of events that never took place. There never was a supernova, never was a star that blew up like that. That's just a light show that God created to make us think that there was an exploding star when it wasn't at all. That's a problem. That's what I'm getting at. The last thing that you mentioned here. Does God need more or less time to create? The answer is no. I've already answered that. God doesn't need the time. That is not the right question. The right question is, what did God decide to do? And that's where we have to look at the record to determine that. And that's what we're doing. So these are not robust ways, I would say, of dismissing. Not that you're doing this. I realize you're asking questions here, Chris, but these are not robust ways to dismiss the view that some people have that the universe is ancient and it is not relatively young. Okay. All right. Thank you for that, Chris. I appreciate that. Do we have time for a break now? I think we do, and then we'll finish up with a couple more questions on Stand to Reason. Stay with us. Did you know Stand to reason has a YouTube channel? We release a new video each Monday on the topics you care about. Through short, engaging videos, our speakers train you on tactics, offer apologetics tips, answer common theology questions, and address big issues in the world today. Join tens of thousands of other subscribers so you can stay up to date. When we release a new video, just go to YouTube.com and search strvideos, all one word and hit the subscribe button. That's strvideos. Take advantage of this free resource to help you stay informed, encouraged and equipped as you share your worldview with others. Have you seen our brand new website? Stop by str.org and enjoy a fresh, clean layout with all the same great content. The new Standaresin website was designed with you in mind. It has an easier than ever navigation and a crisp, simple layout so you can find all the sound analysis and careful commentary that you've come to expect from us. Browse new features that make finding your favorite resources easier than ever. As always, it's our goal to equip you, our fellow Christians, with the confidence, clear thinking and courage you need for every encounter you have as a Christian ambassador. Our new website is just one way we're fulfilling that goal, allowing you to access the resources you need in a new and improved way. So visit str.org and keep coming back to discover new podcasts, articles and videos each and every day.
- [41:19]
A
All right.
- [41:20]
B
Something happened that it breaks my heart. We lost a caller. He was on board and he disappeared. I don't know if he got disconnected or what, but if you're out there in like the ether, the radio ether, or the podcast ether Currently listening, please call back. We'd love to hear from you. 562-424-8714 that's our new number. We had to change some things around because we have trouble with equipment. 562424, 8714 we got a couple more open mic calls to deal with and this one's from Ken about. Let's see which one. Yeah, about Galatians 120Ken.
- [42:05]
A
Good morning, Greg. This is Kenneth Coleman from Baltimore, Mississippi. I had a question about Galatians, chapter 1, verse 20. Paul says, I declare in the sight of God. I'm not lying in what I write to you. I just wonder what you think about that. I don't believe. I mean, I trust Paul and everything that he says, but I know in James it says, let your yes be yes, and you're no be no. And we always say, you know, if somebody keeps saying, I swear I'm not lying, maybe they are lying. But what do you think about him saying this? Yeah, I appreciate all y' all do, and have a great day.
- [42:52]
B
All right, Ken, thank you.
- [42:53]
A
Love y'. All. Bye.
- [42:54]
B
Yeah, thanks a lot. From. Where's Ken? From Mississippi or somewhere like that. Okay. It's good to hear from you. Thank you on this one. This is one of those cases where we have to take a broader, larger, more expansive view of what's going on. Okay. In Galatians, this is Paul's first letter. And Paul is very concerned about the Gospel being corrupted. And it's being corrupted because there are Jewish people in some way that even Peter was sympathetic to in a certain fashion. And Paul talks about that in Galatians, Jewish people that were believers on some level. When you read the Gospels, you see Jesus is talking to those who had believed in him. But then he gets in an argument. It is clear that they are not followers of his. And early on in the Gospel of John, the writer says that many were believing in him, but Jesus was not entrusting himself to anyone because he knew what was in him, the heart of man. Okay, that's the end of chapter one, I think, or maybe chapter two. But notice that these are references to believers who aren't really believers in the sense that we would talk about because of the conflict. Well, in Galatia, there were Jewish believers of sort who acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah. But when Gentiles became believers in the Jewish Messiah, they were told that they also were morally obligated and even in terms of salvation, obligated to keep the Mosaic Law, which included circumcision, which came before the law itself. But nevertheless, it was a sign of being observant to the legal aspects of Judaism. And so Paul is challenging that very aggressively in Galatians. And he says, look, if somebody's delivered to you a gospel other than what I deliver to you, let him be accursed. Even if I are an angel from heaven, let him be accursed. That's anathema. That's like Damned to hell. Very strong terms. So now you got Paul setting himself up against other Jewish leaders, and they have a different accounting of the Gospel. Who are you going to trust? This is part of the issue. Who's right here? And so what Paul does is he rolls out his pedigree a little bit there in the beginning, and he says, look, I didn't get this from man. I got it from Jesus. And then I went to the pillars in Jerusalem and I laid out what I understood the Gospel to be, and they gave me the right hand of fellowship. And therefore, Paul is establishing his own pedigree and his right to speak with authority as an apostle. Now, this isn't the first time Paul's apostleship was challenged. We see the same thing happening in 2 Corinthians, especially, where he's speaking to establish his authority regarding those Christians in Corinth, and he's being dissed by many. And he said, yeah, look, I know I write these great letters and you're really impressed. And then you see me and I'm not appealing and I can't talk well, and all this other stuff, and you say, who's that? He's acknowledging that. But I'm the guy. I'm the guy that God has ordained and signs and wonders followed what I have done. I have all the marks of a true apostle. So we see Paul arguing for his apostleship at different places, but here in Galatians is one of them. And this is why when he says in Galatians 1:20, I am not lying. I don't think it falls into the same category of just let your yes be yes and no be no. Because in this circumstance, he is being questioned as an authority. He said, look it. This is what happened. You think I'm telling a story? I'm not telling a story. This is the way it took place. And by the way, when Peter came down and all of the Judaizers, this crowd that he was speaking to, were hanging around with him, well, he separated himself from the Gentiles and he hung with the Judaizers. And this was hypocrisy. I had to oppose Peter, the first pope, right? I mean, he's the head of the, you know, the apostolic band. I had to oppose Peter to his face as a hypocrite. So now he's saying, you know, it came to the point where even Peter had to be rebuked. And who rebuked him? It was Paul. And Peter came to heal eventually, but after the rebuke. So all of this, Kenneth, all of this detail that I'm talking to you is just about Paul understanding that his authority is under attack. And he's given all of these reasons why he is speaking for God and therefore speaking truthfully, not making it up, not lying. He's got the authority of the apostles, which, by the way, that is the leaders, what he calls the pillars. And he says, but what their status is isn't important to me. It's important to other people that I have their approval, but it's not important to me because my status is established by Jesus. So all through this first section of Galatians, you have Galatians, you have this kind of language where he is seeking to defend his own authority. So there you go, Ken. I hope that's helpful. It's always good to hear from you. Let's see who's next. How do I share that? All right, let's go to Dean. How about that? Okay. This is a witnessing challenge concern.
- [49:13]
A
Greg, My name is Dean. I have a quick question regarding how to share the gospel with someone who's had loved ones who have died outside of Christ, had an opportunity to share the gospel with someone I know, and their main reason for rejecting it is that they had loved ones who had died outside of Christ, died as atheists or agnostics. And they said that was the main reason they were unable to. To accept Christianity because dying outside of Christ, their loved ones were in hell. And that's something they couldn't accept. Any advice on how to go about sharing the gospel in those situations?
- [49:59]
B
Yeah, you're welcome, Dean. Thanks for the question. This is a hard one because of the kind of objection it is now. I have talked in the past, I think I wrote a mentoring letter about this, that there are roughly four. What I've observed is four different rationales, if you will, reasons why people do not respond to the gospel or the rationales that they at least give. Sometimes it's a rational argument. They say, well, it doesn't make sense. I can't believe that Jesus is the only. Whatever it is, it doesn't make sense to them. And so now we have an avenue. Maybe we can help them see that it does make sense. But that's not what you're facing, Dean. The second category is emotional. That there are emotional elements that keep people from even considering the truthfulness of Christianity. And that's exactly what you're facing here. And because it's emotional, it becomes very difficult to deal with that. But in a sense, it has no sound basis. The analogy I think of, and this is maybe something you could ask. You have to be tender with these people because there is this concern. I can think of another case where a woman is this very strong atheist because her grandfather, who she loved and was very important to her as a young child, died and she can't believe in the God who would take her grandfather away from him. And so therefore there is no God. Now some of you might be wondering, wait a minute, how did therefore get in there? Because there doesn't seem to be a logical connection between a person who dies and the existence of God. Does a person expect their loved ones to live forever in the physical form? You know, and no. What's going on there? It's emotional. And emotional barriers can be huge. And this is one of those. How do I share the gospel with people who say they can't accept Christianity because they had loved ones who died outside of Christ? Yes. If the gospel is true, then all of those who died outside of Christ will face a judgment that will not be pretty. They will be judged according to their own deeds. And it isn't just like, oh, the circumstances such that they were geographically misplaced or, you know, they couldn't get. Didn't sound reasonable. This isn't the issue. The issue is how they live their lives. That's why in Revelations 20 it said they were judged according to their deeds. How is it that they live their lives now? Anybody judged according to the deans is not going to fare well. Those books are opened. I call them in the story of reality. I call them the books of death. The scripture doesn't call them that. But those books are contrasted at the great white throne judgment to the books of life. And anybody whose name is not found in the book of life is. Is held guilty based on what's in the book, as I call them the books of death, the record of their deeds. It's a rap sheet. And when I kind of, when I do an altar call, I do my version. And I don't like those altar calls that say, you know, with every head bowed and every eyes closed and stick your little finger up and I see that hand kind of thing. I just don't care for that. I just say, I just tell them the truth. There's a time, there will be a time when you will stand before Jesus and the books will be opened and your life will be laid bare. And as Jesus said, every casual thought you will give an account of in the day of judgment. Wow, that's scary. It's all written down. Okay, now what I tell him one of two things is going to happen. Either perfect justice or perfect mercy. Perfect justice is punishment for everything that you ever done wrong, and God misses nothing. And perfect mercy is forgiveness for everything you've ever done wrong and God misses nothing. So how are you going to fare? This is my altar call, right? Here's the simple calculus. Either Jesus pays or you pay. Either Jesus pays or you pay. So the people who have not heard about Jesus or those who heard he didn't find the claims plausible, that's not relevant, frankly, to the judgment because the judgment is based on how they live their lives. And nobody's going to fare well when all of their sins for all of their life is laid bare for all of the people, all creation, to see. That's not good news. Okay, then what about that person who just can't accept that for that reason? Well, maybe a question that could be asked here. Dean, you could ask them this because I think this is a tough one for the emotional reasons that underlie this concern. Do you go to the doctor when you fear that you might have some sickness, maybe you got a symptom and you're thinking this might be serious? I'm going to go to the doctor. Now, I suspect they'll say yes. Say what? If your friend told you that he had a serious symptom, but he was afraid to go to the doctor because if he went to the doctor, he might find out that he had cancer and he was dying of this disease. So he's not going to go to the doctor because he doesn't want to find out. Now, I think that you would think that that's foolish because he either has cancer or not. And if he has cancer, not going to the doctor is not going to make that go away. And here's the parallel with the Gospel. Either Jesus is the Messiah or he's not. If he is the Messiah, not believing in him is not going to make damnation go away. Not for your parents or your loved ones and not for you. Maybe your parents didn't take advantage of this, the loved ones, but that doesn't mean that by denying Christ that you're going to somehow escape doesn't have any bearing. Okay, now what? I don't know. That's the best I could do. That's what I would say. And hopefully they'll be thinking about it. I remember when my brother was sharing Christ with me, he said, greg, the things that I'm telling you are true. Sooner or later you're going to find this out. I just hope that when you do. It's not too late. That's the truth. I remember that because it had powerful influence on my thinking. Sometimes just telling the truth is good, does the job or helps even though you don't like it for some emotional reason.
- [57:22]
A
All right.
- [57:22]
B
There you go. Dean, thank you for that question. And friends, thanks for spending this hour with me. Greg kokel here for stand a reason. Don't forget, jump in on B1 of the 100str.org partner be the first in line. Okay. Tomorrow's the first.
- [57:38]
A
Thanks.
- [57:38]
B
Bye. It.