← What Are You Made Of?
What Are You Made Of?
Think Well, Live Well: Ryan Pauly on Faith, Truth, and Engaging Different Beliefs
00:37:14
Loading summary
Transcript73 lines
- [00:02]
A
Artlist IO every single day.
- [00:05]
B
I feel the pressure.
- [00:15]
A
Every single day. Let's go. Hey, hey, it's your boy C Rock and that one studio on the Woody Made of show. We're back with another great guest to find out what they're made of so we can inspire you and remind you that you're unstoppable to living the life of your dreams. And I have Ryan Pauly here. I'm excited about this because I, I've seen Ryan Pauly around. I don't know if he knows this or not, but, you know, when you're out there pushing stuff out on social media and content, it just pops up places in front of you sometimes. And I told my team to go out, reach out for impact driven podcast hosts that are doing amazing things and bring them on the show. And when I saw Ryan on the, the schedule, I got excited, man. Ryan, welcome to the show.
- [00:53]
B
Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. I'm, I'm excited for this.
- [00:56]
A
Yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure, man. And into it right from the start. I like this question to be right off the top of your head. What are you made of?
- [01:04]
B
Yeah, it is a good question. You know, I think same thing as everybody. I made a body and soul created in the image of God. But when I got asked to join this podcast, I was excited about it because I think the question you ask is a profound and important question because, you know, through most of human history, people have, have looked at that kind of origin story as being the story that really drives and informs our identity and our purpose. And really we can't understand who we are or really what we're made of until we understand where we come from. You know, are we the. The result of a purposeful creator who made us in his image? Are we the result of a mindless, unguided process of evolution? Am I body and soul or am I just a physical body? I mean, these sort of questions of what goes into making me and why am I here has profound impacts on, on ethics, on. On human value and dignity, on purpose and meaning of life and these sort of big questions. So I spend my career, my podcast, defending and explaining what I think is the, the true reality, which is Christianity, that we're made in the image of God, body and soul, and how that impacts us, drives us, and really causes us to live differently.
- [02:09]
A
Freaking love it, man. Yeah, I love that. And you're a podcaster, public speaker, writer, teacher. You're the president of Think well and the director of Immersive Experiences by the Way.
- [02:22]
B
Sorry, you cut out just a little bit there.
- [02:25]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us about Maven.
- [02:27]
B
Yeah, Maven is an organization, a worldview organization that really focuses on helping students know what is no truth, pursue goodness and create beauty, all for the cause of Christ. And so my role specifically is that I take high school students, train them in philosophy, theology, worldview and apologetics, and then we take them to places around the country, college campuses in Los Angeles City, Santa Cruz, Boulder, Colorado. We also take them out to Utah where they engage with atheist professors, philosophers, Unitarian Universalists, Mormons, and really put their faith into practice, where they have to have conversations with people that have radical, different, radically different views and be able to sit down and explain what they believe, why, and, and do so in a respectful and engaging way.
- [03:10]
A
Man, that is, that is tough. That's tough to do. And it really puts you, puts the onus on your study and research yourself to be, to prepare yourself. I mean, God talks about putting the armor of God on to go out into the world. I mean, you gotta, you gotta be able to do that. Now I have a thing in my head sometimes. I'm thinking about should I preach or should I be a living demonstration and introduce through my living demonstration? And as a Christian, I, I basically, from what I've read and understood, is that I should go out and be a living demonstration and introduce people through the Lord and to Jesus and, and not as much preaching. And what are your thoughts on that and that approach? Because I think there's a lot of people that do a lot of preaching, a lot of talk, but then they don't necessarily, they're not living demonstrations.
- [03:57]
B
Yeah, well, I think it should be a. Both end. Right. I think that Christians sometimes don't do a great job being a living demonstration. We're out preaching, but the way in which we're acting doesn't line up with the things that we say. And we're often called. You know, one of the big key terms that people use to describe Christians is that we are. That we're not living true to what we say, that we are, that we're of. Have this false image, this false impression. At the same time, Scripture does call us to be ready to prepare, to give a defense. First Peter 3:15 says, Always be ready to share the hope that is within you, yet do so with gentleness and respect. The great commission of Matthew says to go out, make disciples, and baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Second Corinthians 5:20 says that we are Christ's ambassadors that God is making his appeal through us. And as we all know what ambassador is, an ambassador has to talk. An ambassador has to have wisdom. They have to know what they know, but they also have to know the place that they're going. Ambassador has to be wise because they're not military. You don't go in with force. Right. It's not about just beating people over the head with arguments or the Bible. But an ambassador has to be winsome and wise in how they engage in a more table over the cup of a coffee conversation than a strategic military operation. But ambassadors also have to have character. Right. If I'm an American ambassador and I show up in some country just acting like a fool, that's going to reflect badly and poorly back on America and what we stand for. And so I think as ambassadors of Jesus Christ, that Scripture calls all Christians to. There's a living component that you're talking about, but I think there's also a declaration, proclamation component as well, where our right beliefs should lead into right practice.
- [05:28]
A
Yeah, I love that. Well said. And you know, the other thing, a lot of Christians. You can hear me. There's another thing with Christians that they get so worried about converting people. And it's not really our job to convert people. God does the work. You just have to make that introduction and let him in, Let them hear about him.
- [05:51]
B
Right.
- [05:51]
A
And I think that there's a lot of business lessons in the Bible and in Christianity as well. But it's God's got to do the work, like he will do the work. And we just get so hung up on sometimes, like, you know, whether it's a parent, they're concerned with their children accepting Jesus, whether it's a child and they're worried about their parents or brothers or sisters or friends. You can't let the worry go in for that. You just got to do what you're taught to do and then let God handle the rest.
- [06:17]
B
Right.
- [06:18]
A
And I think that's a big thing I've been hearing lately. And just in observation.
- [06:22]
B
Yeah. And I think, you know, I learned this from a great apologist, Greg Kokel, where he talks about his goal being he just wants to put a stone in somebody's shoe, that if we have this goal that I have to win someone to Christ, and if I don't, I'm an utter failure. It's like going into a baseball game saying, okay, if you step up to the plate, you have to hit a home run, or else you're an utter failure. And it's like, well, a lot of people are going to sit on the bench and never get involved if they think that is what they have to do, or else it's a fail. Instead, we recognize in sports and any other sort of thing, there's a lot of ways to succeed. You don't even have to get on base, just move over the run, or just do something simple. And you are a piece of this bigger plan, of this bigger puzzle. And so I think as Christians, yeah, ultimately, we love to see people come to Christ. And I am presenting the gospel, that people will be persuaded. But my goal in a specific conversation is not that I have to give to the gospel, that I have to win them to Christ or else I fail. Because you sometimes pick that fruit before it's ready. But as scripture says, the harvest is plentiful. When the harvest is ready, the fruit almost comes off easily. And so my goal in conversations is I want to give someone something to think about. I want to stick a pebble in their shoe where when they walk away from a conversation with me, they're just left with that nagging question of like, man, why do I think that? Or, where do I get this idea from? Or, man, that point Ryan made was really good. And they're just bothered by it because if we can bother people to think about Jesus, I think that's a good thing. Now, that might be weird when they say it, but that's my goal is not just converting, but I want to give someone something to think about.
- [07:42]
A
That might be a good T shirt. Bother people to think about Jesus. Hey, I. I'll. I'll cut in, you know, the, the proceeds with you, and then we can.
- [07:50]
B
There you go.
- [07:51]
A
So where's your story start, man? Like, did you grow up in a. In a spiritual household, religion, or.
- [07:58]
B
Yeah, I grew up in a Christian family. My. My parents were raised Christian. They raised me as a Christian. I often say, you know, I. I have the typical kind of raised in a Christian family story. I accepted Jesus Christ like, 8 years old. I don't even remember that time. I was baptized when I was 12. For me, my story has a few different kind of key moments. Number one was when I graduated high school, I go off to college and I start studying theology. At first I went to college. I was an athlete. I played three sports in high school. Golf, basketball, baseball. I went off and actually played college baseball for four years. I was a pitcher. I'm only 5, 10, throwing 87 miles an hour. So I was good enough to play college, but that was it. I mainly sat the bench, had no MLB dreams really. But so I went into college doing pre physical therapy, thinking, I'm going to be the sports trainer, I want to work with athletes. And really God got a hold of my life and changed my trajectory where I started studying theology. And it was in those classes that I realized, man, Mike, I don't know why I know these sort of things. And I had such a surface level understanding of Christianity. My professor started talking and I went, I don't know anything. So that was kind of the first awakening moment for me where I was like, man, I don't really know my faith, I don't know my Bible, I don't know God well. It's like my Christianity to me was like, I'm a Coloradoan because I was born there, I was born in a Christian family, I'm a Christian, but it doesn't go much deeper. So I start taking scripture seriously, theology seriously. And then for me was really what drives. What I'm doing now is after I got out of college, I started working with high schoolers and just seeing a large number of high schoolers walking away from the faith. And I started realizing they're walking away because they don't actually know why. They believe what they believe. They've only been given the what. They never been given a why. And so this introduced me to a world of apologetics, which is not about apologizing, but apologetics is defense of the faith, given reasons for why Christianity identity is true. And my world was just open, my eyes were open. I was like, this is amazing. This is what I've been looking for. And so that was really the start of about 2011 or so is when I got into that. And then that has just driven my work, my hobbies for a while. As I was a teacher, I was doing podcasting and speaking on the side. Now that has become my full time job. Being able to make a defense for the Christianity and answer the difficult questions that people have and help people make sense of the really pressing cultural issues they have to deal with.
- [10:12]
A
I've never heard of apologetics. I keep getting a glitch, man. You know, I gotta say, today's been a rough day with technology. So if I blank out for a minute, it keeps coming back in about three seconds. So hang with us. And folks, if you're having a little glitch when you're listening, I apologize for the experience. We'll get it, hopefully edit it all out. But I'd never heard of apologetics before. That's the first time I've heard of that and I'm 47 years old. It's crazy. And I'm a little disappointed that I haven't heard of that before. So it is a study of, again, say that what it is.
- [10:44]
B
So, yeah, well, I would agree with you. I got a degree in theology, bachelor's in theology, and I still had not heard of apologetics until after the fact. So apologetics is a branch of theology that goes into giving a defense for the Christian faith. And this happens in two different ways. There's what's called offensive apologetics, where we provide arguments and evidence for the truth of scripture, for the truth of Christianity. So here's the evidence for the death and resurrection of Jesus. Here's the evidence and the reasons that we believe that God exists, why the Bible is reliable, and giving reasons to believe in the truth of Christianity. And this is not just I believe it, therefore it's true. This is actually pointing to science and history and philosophy and archeology, and it uses all the different psychology and the different disciplines to make a positive case for why Christianity is true. The other side of apologetics is what's called defensive apologetics. And this is then defending against challenges and objections and questions. So why does God allow evil? Why do these bad things happen to good people? How do we make sense of evolution? How do we make sense of these sort of other questions? And so part of my podcast is I have about a 30 minute teaching where I present something and then I have an hour of open call in Q and A where the vast majority of callers I get are atheists that are calling in, presenting arguments and evidence and critiques and criticisms of the Bible that I'm then responding to and answering.
- [12:02]
A
Gotcha. So you hang out with a lot of atheists?
- [12:05]
B
Yeah, we have good atheist friends and all different people that think differently.
- [12:09]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you're approaching an atheist, what is the like? I guess is it best to just let them ask questions or how. How is the conversation supposed to go as an apologetic apologist? Apologies.
- [12:22]
B
Apologies.
- [12:23]
A
Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't almost don't like that, because why would we want to like. It's.
- [12:27]
B
Well, it comes from, it actually comes from 1st Peter 3:15. It's a Greek word, apologia, which means to give a defense. So there's, there's Muslim apologists and Mormon apologists, and there's apologists for different faiths and different religions as well. And so that's kind of where it comes from, is that Greek. I mean, the conversation can look very differently. I think it's helpful to begin with questions because, you know, often atheists will come at me and they think, okay, you're a Christian, so you must believe X, Y, and Z. And they just assume all Christians agree on these sort of things more often than not. The 10 things they think I believe, I believe about two of them. And the other eight are a certain branch of Christianity or, you know, fundamentalist Christianity or whatever that may be. The same thing is true with atheists. Not all atheists are the same. And so I think it's important to start with questions to say, okay, well, what do you believe? Why do you believe that? How did you come to that conclusion? Okay, how do you make sense of this? And it's really trying to come to a mutual place of understanding, making sure we understand what we're talking about and why the person actually thinks what they think. And then we can engage in a more direct, personal manner talking about things that the other person actually holds to, rather than these kind of false views or what, you know, in philosophy called straw men, where we create a false, weak version of their argument and then just knock it over and think that we won. We actually haven't dealt with what they actually believe.
- [13:40]
A
Yeah. So you get. Do you get a lot of trolls calling in, though, too, or are they mostly serious?
- [13:44]
B
You know, I don't get a lot of trolls calling.
- [13:47]
A
I get.
- [13:47]
B
I think I get them in the comment section. A lot of times they show up in the comment section. I think when I first started the Call in portion of my show, I did get a few trolls that would just show up and yell, and then I just have to mute them or block them or, you know, exit them out. But recently, in the last six months, I think I've gotten really thoughtful atheists that. I mean, that repeat callers. The guy that called into my show yesterday is probably called in 15 times over the last last four months, and we always have a really good discussion where he's asking good questions and challenging me. And. And that's why I love doing it, too, is that I don't want my. I think a lot of times in podcasting and online world and shorts, on Instagram and YouTube, it's people just presenting that a little bubble in a vacuum, their idea in a vacuum, and not allowing for feedback or pushback or critique. And so to be able to say, hey, I want you to push back if you think I'm crazy or saying something ridiculous like, hey, come on, join the show. Let's talk about it. And I think that's where everyone gets better, is when we actually allow our ideas to be challeng and have to maybe alter them or learn how to defend them better.
- [14:43]
A
Yeah, yeah. So do you have a story of, do you have a story of an atheist that, that you've had a conversation with and maybe multiple. Maybe it was a single conversation and you had success. The full, the full realm of success, meaning they, they accepted Jesus as their savior. Like, can. Do you have a story you could tell in regards to that?
- [15:05]
B
Yeah. When I first got into apologetics, a crazy story. So I was a missionary in the Dominican Republic for four and this mission team shows up and they're going to be. It's kind of a band and they're going to be playing shows around the area. And so we set up some opportunities for them to play shows. So I have some of the guys in the band stay at my house and the first night this guy opens up, he goes, it's kind of crazy. I'm here on a church mission trip because I'm an atheist. And I was like, really? And he goes, yeah, I don't really believe this, but they needed a guitar player and so here I am. I was like, well, that's really cool. And I'm like, I'm just getting into apologetics. Like this is my beginning of my journey. I'm like, if you want to talk, like I would love to talk and just have that conversation. So we probably stayed up till 2 or 3am every night and he just peppered me with questions from how do we understand, you know, these, what are called Gnostic Gospels? You know, we see this in the Da Vinci Code of how do the books of the Bible get chosen? What about the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Peter and all these other books that were left out? How do we make sense of God? Are there reasons to believe in God outside the Bible says so I mean, we talked about everything. The final night that his group was in the Dominican Republic, like they're playing a show. At the end of the show, the pastor gives an altar call to the audience. And I'm watching and this guitarist raises his hand to accept Christ. And I go up to him afterwards and I said, hey man, I just saw that. Did I? Did I see what I think I just saw? And he goes, yeah. He goes, honestly, he goes, after talking with you, I had no more excuses. And so that was one of the first things that really started me on this journey. And I realized, and that's kind of what apologetics does, is, I think, a proper, a good approach to apologetics. Removes barriers and fills in the potholes so that people can see Jesus clearly. They see the Gospel clearly. That their challenges and their issues have been made sense of to where they go, okay, that is a clear picture of Jesus, that they can make an accurate and informed decision. Because I think one of the big challenges of our culture in our day is that people have a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about what the Bible is and who Jesus is and even what the gospel is. And so that's what it kind of does. And so that's a cool story. And I mean, I could share a ton of stories, too, of the students that I trained through Maven going out. 11 High school students go into a coffee shop and a guy's sitting there doing tarot cards in a coffee shop, and they sit down with them, share the gospel. He accepts Jesus Christ, throws his tarot cards into the trash, and they. And gets a Bible and, like, becomes a Christian. I had another student sit down at a table with a bunch of LGBTQ individuals talking with them, and they left the restaurant, came back a little bit later, one of the individuals came back in and said, can I talk to your students again? And this individual sat down, talked to my students for another 30 minutes and then put her. Put his faith and trust in Jesus Christ. They met up the next day, gave him a Bible, had further conversations. And so it's amazing when we see a clear understanding of the gospel presented, the barriers and the issues and the potholes filled in, and really God comes through and saves people in that way. And so it's not me saving people, it's not my arguments, but it is clearing those away, those barriers, giving people no more excuse to where they really see Jesus clearly.
- [18:02]
A
Yeah, yeah. What's the best book to, like, study apologetics? Is it, like, first place to go? If I wanted to look more into that, yeah.
- [18:09]
B
So it kind of. I often say it kind of depends on what you want to look at. So kind of a big picture apologetic. I mean, a book by, like, Frank Turk, I Don't have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, kind of covers everything from A to Z. It's going to go into all the major arguments. Reasonable Faith by William Lane Craig is another good one that kind of shows how our faith is reasonable. And if you want to look specifically like evidence for Christianity, Josh and Sean McDowell have evidence that demands a verdict. And then there's, I Often say you kind of start big picture, but then there are. Because apologetics deals with everything from philosophy, history, archeology, and all the big questions. And so then it's like, okay, well, what are you interested. Are you interested in science and faith? Are you trying to make sense of creation, evolution? Are you trying to make sense of arguments for God's existence? Are you trying to make sense of the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? Are you trying to make sense of the. The reliability New Testament, whatever it may be? There are then good books that hit specifically on each one of those. Another one, like J. Warner Wallace, he's a LAPD cold case homicide detective that was an atheist, became a Christian and wrote a book on his story, approaching it from the procession of a cold case homicide detective. He wrote it in the book Cold Case Christianity, where he makes the case that the Gospels are reliable eyewitness testimony, and therefore Christianity is true. So there's a few ways to kind of go about it.
- [19:24]
A
Okay, got it. Thank you.
- [19:26]
B
So.
- [19:29]
A
People out in the podcast world talking about manifestation and law of attraction and all this, there's definitely some links to that process and neuroscience. And also, if you look at the teachings of Jesus, it's not the same language, but he's describing this, so it seems to me like there's some links there. However, there are two. The problem as a Christian I have with it is they're not attributing it to Jesus and to God. It's. It's that you're doing it. Does that make sense? Yes, and I think.
- [20:01]
B
Yeah, you cut out the very first part. What is it that's connected back to Christianity?
- [20:06]
A
Well, I was talking about, like, the manifestation and law of attraction versus Christianity or how do they interact? Because to me, when I read, when I read the Bible, I can see Jesus talking about how things work, but it's. It's how science would describe as neuroscience or so. So there is. Seems like there's a link there, but there's also a problem that I have, is that they don't attribute their accomplishments. When people are saying, I manifested this, they're not, they're not giving glory to God and they're not using it to glorify God. Yeah. So what, what are your thoughts on all that? And then because podcast world is filled with manifestors and, and law of attraction people. Yeah.
- [20:44]
B
Well, you know, when I, when I used to teach this to my high school students when I was a high school teacher, you know, I would often look at the comment sections and see exactly how do People claim to be manifesting things. And, you know, the videos they're watching is often just name it and claim it. Say, money is falling from the sky, and money will fall from the sky. And you watch it. And I remember one comment specifically was, someone said, this manifestation happened in my life. I desired my dream house. And then five years later, I got it. And it's like, well, I think what that really is attributed to is that you have a goal, you set your mind to that goal, you work hard in achieving that goal, and you get that goal. And so I think there's a reality too. When you have positive thinking, when you have an end goal in mind that you really go after, it does change your work ethic. It changes your attitude, it changes your mindset to where you go to achieve it. And then we can often achieve things. The question is, did you get it simply because you manifested it, or is it a true fact of reality that it. Hard work pays off. And so I think there's definitely a connection there. I think what the false claims are is that whatever you believe, whatever you think becomes reality. And there's an entire group of thinkers out there that kind of have this worldview, this approach to the world that says all the problems in life is just because you have negative thinking, you have bad thoughts. And if you just kind of turn that frown upside down and you have positive thoughts, and then the world is your oyster and you can have whatever you want. But we recognize, well, that's just not true. You know, try to apply that to the real world. Talk to a Holocaust survivor and said, well, nothing bad really happened. Just turn that frown upside down and just think positive thoughts and all your problems go away. I remember reading a book once where someone said, you just have to think positive and the only reason you're sick is because you have negative thinking. You know, it just doesn't work that way. But there is a true reality in which we do have a God that can intervene, that can do the miraculous, but that God has also entrusted us and given us a free will, given us desires, given us talents and abilities, that God uses amazing things in nature to allow us or to be what people call his common grace. That God is showing his grace to us. And that is a grace that is applied to everyone, where everyone gives what they don't or gets what they don't necessarily deserve because of the grace of God. And as you're saying, we often think, oh, I got lucky, or I did this all myself. In reality, it's from everything outside of Us. Now, if I can share one quick story is I would start every one of my high school years kind of with a story, because I worked with a lot of students that would just say, I don't need anyone's help for anything. I can do it all myself. And so I just would start the year and say, did you design the car that you drove to school in? Did you construct the roads that you drove on? Did you build the house that you slept in? Did you make the bed you slept in? Did you cook the food that you ate? If you cooked it, did you grow it? And in reality, when we stop and think about it, we need other people for almost every single thing that we do in life other than, like, digesting food. And, you know, we need other people for everything, and we rely on other people for everything. And we're doing it all within a world in which God created that we didn't create. We're not the creators, we're not the makers. We are created. And so rather than. And I think this is the huge worldview shift and why that question, what are you made of? Is so important, is that when I recognize rather that I am the creator, I am the maker, and therefore I am in control, and I can manifest whatever I want into existence, when instead it switches and says, I am made, I am created. Therefore, we recognize, rather than me just being in control, I turn to a posture of receptivity where now I am a steward, where I am receiving the gifts that God has given me, the talents, the abilities, the money, everything I have is from God and belongs to God. And now how do I receive that and then steward it? Well, in the world that God has made, recognizing everything comes back to him as the ultimate cause of all things. And so I think that we often receive God's common grace, think we did it ourselves, when reality, it's all done within a world that God has made.
- [24:41]
A
In the world of God is made for sure, for sure. I mean, it is. It's. That's the way it is, man. I mean, I'm convinced just from the experiences that I've had. I didn't even ask. I never challenged God. Like, you know, you see stories in the Bible or you hear stories out in the world now, where I had this moment, I was like, God, if you're real, do this. I. I've never, I've never had that. I don't know. I just never had that, like, situation. I've been through some tough times in my life, a lot of brokenness growing up, but I've never, I never asked God why is he doing this to me?
- [25:11]
B
Yeah.
- [25:12]
A
And I don't know why that is. I just never got to that point. But I read these stories and I'm like, man, I don't, I don't know what that's like. But one thing, you know, I'm reminded of, and it's coming up recently a lot, James one over the last month and how it talks about the fact that you should have. Find pure joy in trials. Yeah, right. Because we're basically being polished.
- [25:33]
B
Right.
- [25:34]
A
And, and we should like. So, so I've, I've had this thing prior to like studying and really going into James 1. Recently I had this thing where I was like, what if I was to be kind of like freaky with this and be like, enjoy trials and challenges and Paul's a man and, and tough times, like, what if I was able to be like, wow, get excited right now? What could possibly happen at that point? Could I possibly be open to more information to learn from and take the information further to do something amazing with it? And then I read James 1 and I'm like, wow, this matches. So then what happens to me, Ryan, is when I read the Bible, it helps me go back to say, oh, this is why I had troubles and this is why I had success in relationships, in business, in all these things. And I relate it to things that I've from the past and then I carry it forward to the future. And this is one of the verses, because you just mentioned something about like, you know, once you figure this out and get your faith right, you're not going to have any. Some people think you're not going to have any challenges and troubles.
- [26:41]
B
Right.
- [26:42]
A
No, no, no, you, you're gonna have more and you should take joy in that.
- [26:46]
B
Yep.
- [26:46]
A
You know, so I love that man. Have you ever heard of Neville Goddard before? I've had the arguments anybody comes up. So Neville Goddard takes a different approach and looks at the Bible and interprets it a little different. And basically I'll let you take a look at it because I don't want to bring it up and talk about it here because I'd rather you go and take a look at it because it'll come up eventually from someone I know and yeah, I don't wanna, I don't wanna get into it now if you haven't. All right, so I wanna, as we wind down here, I want to talk about your journey. Because some people go, Amish people have rum spring and when they're 16, they send their kids off out into the world. Right. And then you think a lot of them go partying and, and hopefully they come back. So did you have a moment in your time, in your journey, in your spiritual journey with, with God, where you left and came back?
- [27:35]
B
I didn't. There are definitely times where I was not as close, not as active in my faith, but I always took it seriously, recognized it being important, and wanted to follow him. Yeah.
- [27:48]
A
And then how has the relationship developed over the years?
- [27:51]
B
I mean, it's crazy how much it's grown and kind of, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show of when I kind of discovered this world of apologetics and deeper understanding of who God is. When I recognize God is involved in everything, it just read this excitement, this passion that I just can't explain where really my, my job is my hobby. It's what I do for fun. I love studying this. I love studying scripture, I love explaining who God is to people. When I see the light bulb moments in people's minds and when I make sense of difficult issues, when people are struggling with cultural pressures and we walk alongside and see a biblical perspective and you see that aha moment. I mean, it's just, it's so rewarding, so fulfilling, and it just makes me so excited. Just dig deeper to know that. Because, you know, again, why are we made, why are we here? Well, we're made to know God and make him known. We're made to love him and love our neighbors ourselves. That's what Jesus says, the two greatest commandments. And so to, to love God with a mind. And I think that's what kind of apologetics does in a deeper theology. And, and a true Christianity, in a sense, is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. And so often it's not just this heart relationship where I just have this strong feeling, but to study God intellectually. It's like in my marriage, right, the more I marry, the more I know my wife. It's not just that I know these surface level things. You go deeper. It's not just doing stuff with her, but it's knowing stuff about her. There's a relationship component and there's a knowledge component. And so as I've seen these things grow in my relationship with God, it has become more fulfilling, more joyful, more loving, more exciting. And I'm just, I'm having a joy in life.
- [29:23]
A
Yeah, I can tell, man. It comes through the whole screen here. I love it. So have, do you stay up on trends, on news and things that are happening. And we hear things about UAPs and UFOs and now Congress talks about other life forms and all this other stuff. And do you stay up on that? And then what is your. What are your thoughts on all that?
- [29:39]
B
So with basic.
- [29:40]
A
And based on your studies too.
- [29:41]
B
Yeah, so different trends. So, I mean, so my doctoral work is in practical theology. So practical theology really is. What does scripture say about the most pressing practical issues of our day? And how does it inform how we live practically? Right. It's right. Beliefs become into right practice. So now we're. My studies have been more into technology, artificial intelligence, gender and sexuality and those sort of topics. UFOs is an interesting thing, so I haven't dove in deeply into it, but I remember there's a time when I had to give a lecture to a bunch of high school kids and they had heard me lecture before, and it's like, what do I talk about? That is something that would intrigue them and interest them. And I thought, hey, why not talk about aliens? So I did a whole ton of research on aliens. And what I think a Christian perspective of aliens is, and what I found research wise, was that, you know, the vast majority, something like 95% plus or something like that of UFOs, unidentified flying objects, become what are called IFOs, identified flying objects. We do a little bit of research and we figured them out. But there's this. What's called R UFOs or residual unidentified Flying Objects, where even after looking into them and researching them, we can't figure it out. And what was interesting. And now Hugh Ross from Reasons to Believe, an organization of science and religion, has done a lot of work on this, where he looks at all of these stories and testimonies that people share of their UFO experiences that we've never been able to figure out what. And he has this kind of common connection where a lot of the stories are connected. Where it is late at night, it is, you know, during some sort of kind of satanic ritual, often where the. The manifestation that happens is often destructive. It hurts someone, it harms something. And then also what people see really defies the laws of physics. And so he has come to the conclusion that what these people are actually experiencing, being a Christian and believing that there's an angel and demon world, that these are demon sightings, that the demons are showing up and there's this kind of spiritual world that they're experiencing. Rather than aliens out there, real aliens, could they be out there? Yes, absolutely. The issue for me, though, scientifically is that we have looked very, very, very, very, very far away. And no planet that we have ever discovered has the properties of being a habitable, life sustaining planet. And if that aliens existed outside of that space in which we've looked, there's really no way that we would ever come into contact with them. Because no spaceship, understanding the laws of physics as we know today could actually make it to us. I mean it's so many billions or trillions of, you know, of light years away. Aliens will never be able to traverse that amount of space and stay alive during that time. And so if they do exist, I think they're way out there. But I don't think that simply because our universe is big means that they have to exist. I think that we can look at scientific evidences that show actually the vastness and size of our universe is necessary to have a habitable life supporting planet of Earth that we have today. And so if God is creating everything for the purpose of human beings to be in relationship with him, the size of our universe is actually necessary for that to take place.
- [32:35]
A
Do you ever sit that, this is the last question. Do you ever sit back sometimes and think about how big the actual universe is? And like, you know, you see, I don't know if you've ever seen that, that one video where it takes from Earth and it just goes out and it keeps going and going and going and going and like, and how far a light year is and, and it just, you have to stop thinking at some point because it starts to hurt.
- [32:56]
B
It does. Yeah. I, I, I sat in astronomy class where that, I mean it's, we, we don't even know how big our universe is. All we have is what they call the horizon. That's just as far as that we can see. But we know there's universe beyond what we can see. And again, I think that is where you can look at it from two very different perspectives. Where you have Carl Sagan, a famous atheist, that says, you know, we just live on this pale blue dot. You know, look at Earth. This insignificant, tiny, microscopic thing in the V are purposeless, pointless and valueless. And instead, or you can look at it from a Christian perspective and say, wow, how amazing is it that a God of this universe created this insanely massive, vast universe so that there could be this place called Earth where human beings could be created in his image, that he would then come down in the person of Jesus Christ to redeem and restore us, that he cares that much about us, that he wants to put us into right relationship. Back with him to where the choices that we make are no longer against our creation, against why we're made and what we're made of, but we would instead live in harmony with how we are created and designed. How amazing and beautiful is it that a God loves us that much that he would do all of this for us and for us to be in a relationship with him only for our benefit, not for His. That's amazing. And so that's what I think when I think of this. And that's where I say, like, my faith has taken off when I start studying science and all this. And it all points back to just like if you study someone's artwork or you study someone's poetry, or you study someone's work, it's an act of love and it reveals more about that person by looking at the things that they have made. And so by looking at the vastness of the universe, it reveals more about our Creator. And it's just, it's mind blowing. It's amazing.
- [34:29]
A
Amazing. Yeah. Now. And by the way, who are we to think that we should know all of God's plans and all of God's knowing? You know, like there's stuff I'm sure that there's. That we don't know, we'll never know. And just because we have the Bible doesn't mean we have the whole story anyway. And, and we don't. Like somebody comes to you sometimes like, well, you don't have all the answers. You don't have the whole story. Well, who am I to have. Have the whole story of God? That's not. Just because I'm a Christian and a believer doesn't mean I'm supposed to have that, you know.
- [34:55]
B
So, yeah, there's a common, there's a common phrase that says, well, we can't know God fully. We can know him truly and so we can know true things about him while we can't know everything. And so often when people ask me, well, why did God do this? Or why didn't God do this? My answer is, well, I don't know. We can't know what God did and why he did it or why he didn't do it unless he told us, here's why I did it and here's why I didn't do it. Then we can know, but otherwise we can't know. We can speculate, but that doesn't mean just because I can't know everything or can't know him fully doesn't mean I cannot know him truly and know what his Plan is for us in the future.
- [35:25]
A
I love it, man. All right, Ryan, do you mind sending us off in prayer?
- [35:28]
B
Absolutely.
- [35:30]
A
All right.
- [35:30]
B
God, thank you for this time. Thank you for this opportunity that Mike and I have been able to come together and have this conversation. God, I just pray that you would just work in us through this show, through anybody hearing this. God, I pray that they would see you for who you truly are. A loving God who created them, who designed them, who made them for a specific purpose, for a reason, and that is to be in a relationship with you. Yet we have turned from you. We are acting in a way that is contrary to our design, contrary to our purpose and the plans that you have for us. God, you did not leave us in that. You did not leave us in that space and remain distant. But you have come down in the person of Jesus Christ to save us, to set us right, to restore our brokenness, to reorder our disordered desires and for us to be back in a right relationship with you, doing the things that we have been created to do, which leads to true human flourishing. God, I pray that for everyone listening that are out there wanting to flourish, I pray that they would find true flourishing and being the people they've been created to be and doing what they were created to do and living out in the way in which they were made and what they were made of and what they're made for. And so, God, I thank you for this opportunity to discuss who you are and what you've done in our lives. And I pray that this would just be a blessing to anyone who hears. And God, we thank you for this opportunity. Community in Jesus name. Amen.
- [36:46]
A
Amen. Thank you, brother. Ryan, Paulie, everybody. Ryan, where can they go deeper with you?
- [36:51]
B
YouTube. Just search Ryan Pauley P A U L Y All the social media is Ryan Pauly3. My website is think-well.org we can get more information.
- [37:01]
A
Awesome. Thank you so much for being here in your time. I appreciate it, brother.
- [37:04]
B
Thanks for having me folks.
- [37:05]
A
Thank you so much for being here, listening, watching. However, you can see this content of Troy C Rock and Ryan Poland signing off for now from that one studio.