February 28, 2024 • 55 mins
Join us in the Book of Acts as we unwrap the profound impact of Paul and Silas's imprisonment and the jailer's transformative conversion. Feel the warmth of fellowship and discover the potent truths hidden within biblical prophecies, from the book of Daniel to Genesis 49. As we unpack these scriptures, you'll find yourself fortified with a renewed understanding of Jesus as the Messiah and gain insights into our commitment to nurturing personal and communal faith at Ottawa Bible Church.
Our conversations don't stop at the church door; they extend into the bustling intersections of modern culture, where discernment and influence become the currency of youth ministry. Together, we tackle the tough questions of pop culture's sway over the hearts of our youth, while offering strategies grounded in scripture to shepherd them through the tumultuous seas of misinformation. Learn from our candid dialogues on leading by example in today's world, whether it's through sidewalk ministry or navigating the complex debates surrounding moral absolutes.
But the journey doesn't end there. We reach out to college students standing at the crossroads of faith and secular ideologies, sharing personal stories and practical advice to embolden them in their witness. Tune in as we suggest invaluable resources like Greg Koukl's "Tactics" to equip the next generation for the challenging but rewarding task of defending biblical truth amidst academia's skeptical landscape. By fostering Christ-centered connections and emphasizing the importance of scripture over social scrolling, this session is crafted to inspire and engage believers in all walks of life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Be Disciples podcast with your host
, kyle Morris, dakota Smith,david Glavin and Chance Holleran
.
Second episode Chance, youbetter perform better than the
last one.
Just kidding, I want to ask youall to just follow us on
Instagram, facebook.
You can either go at OttawaBible Church, follow us at our
church, or you can follow us atthe Be Disciples podcast on both
(00:32):
those platforms as well.
We're also on YouTube, wherenow we're posting videos instead
of just the audio part of ourpodcast, so you can go on there
and you can see us talk to eachother.
I don't know why that's moreimportant, but some people like
videos more, so that's why we'redoing this.
We love to just get together andstudy God's Word.
So, if you're new to ourpodcast, we have our Bibles open
(00:53):
because we're all about readingthe Word together so that we
can be examples and give that toour people, to see what it's
like just to discuss God's Wordtogether, and we want people to
replicate it in theirdiscipleship with one another.
So thank you so much forlistening to our podcast.
Welcome, guys.
I'm glad to be here today.
This is one of the most, for me, the most exciting parts of the
(01:16):
week Just sitting down with youguys reading the Bible.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, there's a lot to work through, as we've been
working through Acts, the lastepisode, we worked through Paul
and Silas they're in prison, howthe Lord got them out, the
jailers' conversion, and so it'sfun because I think not only is
it beneficial to us, but Ithink we know that people are
listening, people are watchingand that it's benefiting their
(01:42):
walk as well.
So, yeah, this is somethingthat we do on Mondays and we're
hoping that it benefits thecommunity of Ottawa, franklin
County, the surrounding areas,and that you're being equipped
to understand the Bible to afurther degree as well.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, and if you're in Ottawa, franklin County, we
are at Ottawa Bible Church.
Our services are at 9 and 11 onSunday mornings, so we want to
invite you out to come by andsay hello to us and just come
and have a conversation with us.
We're here every week and soit's just awesome to be able to
meet people who've listened in,who've learned, who've grown,
(02:17):
and so we're always encouragedby that.
So thank you all for listeningand bringing your words of
encouragement to us, becausethat's why we're doing this, so
that we can stay in the wordtogether as a church and
continue to educate ourcommunity.
So I'm glad to have you guysaround this table Chance.
It's been cool to get to knowyou more as you've come to
(02:38):
Ottawa Bible Church doingcollege ministry, discipling
young men, bringing them tochurch, seeing them come and
listen to the word so that'sbeen super fulfilling.
David, as you've just continuedto do youth ministry at our
church, leading young people.
We've got one in Africa rightnow living sent out there for
(02:58):
almost two months-ish, maybe alittle less, but she's out there
doing that.
You guys are planning coolstuff for the year and Dakota,
leading us in the word each andevery week, and so there's
exciting things going on atOttawa Bible.
We're excited to do ministrytogether and I love coming here
Monday mornings to do this job,because it's not a job to me, I
(03:19):
just love being in fellowshipwith you guys, and so that's
kind of the heartbeat of OttawaBible, of our friendship.
I've known Dakota forever, assome of you may know, since
we're 18, 19.
So this is so fulfilling, notjust because we're reading God's
Word, but we're doing ittogether and it's fellowship.
So I hope that's encouraging.
I hope you also have acommunity of believers that you
(03:40):
get to do that with and do itevery week.
Don't neglect it.
Don't neglect this gatheringtogether, because what that does
is it allows for the enemy toseep in and to destroy
relationships and to get us offthat path.
So that's why we're in Acts wewant to learn how to grow, equip
.
We want to learn how to betogether as a church.
We want to know where thechurch, where it started, what
(04:02):
Jesus has done.
So we're going to continue thatin Acts.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, chance, why don't you lead us in?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
prayer.
Yeah, father, we're just comingforward in the name of Jesus,
so we thank you for anothergreat day Just studying your
Word and the opportunities tosharpen one another and sit
around a table as a man and findout what you have written to us
and what the church looked like.
And, god, I just pray that thispodcast and this message will
reach Ottawa, and not justOttawa, but surrounding nation
(04:28):
and the people around it, lord,and it doesn't just stay here
and stay local, that we can goand reach the nations as we pray
for.
And, yeah, we'll just lead ourconversation, lead our time and
Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Amen and God take us into Acts, chapter 17.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, this is Acts 17,.
1 through 15.
And while I think the twoaccounts that we're going to
receive today of Paul going toThessalonica and Paul going to
Berea, well, they might seemshort and maybe inconsequential,
you know most people identifyActs, chapter 17, as when Paul
goes to Athens and he speaks onMars Hill.
(05:05):
These little paragraphs, theselittle passages, tell us more
about Paul's ministry, althoughthe responses between
Thessalonica and Berea arecompletely two polar opposites.
So let's read about the firstresponse of Paul preaching in
Thessalonica.
Now, when they had traveledthrough Amphipolis and Apollonia
(05:28):
, they came to Thessalonicawhere there was a synagogue of
the Jews.
Thessalonica was probably ahundred miles away from Philippi
, so that's about the distancePaul traveled.
Amphipolis and Apollonia areabout 30 miles each apart from
each other, so you know theseare smaller locations.
On his way to ThessalonicaVerse 2, and according to Paul's
(05:49):
custom, he went to them and forthree Sabbaths, reasoned with
them from the scriptures,explaining and giving evidence
that the Christ had to sufferand rise again from the dead and
saying this Jesus, whom I amproclaiming to you, is the
Christ Verse 4,.
(06:09):
And some of them were persuadedand joined, paul and Silas,
along with a large number of Godfearing Greeks and a number of
the leading women.
I think the first four versesactually gives us enough
principles to kind of converseabout for a moment.
Because what do you see,especially as it pertains to
verses two and three kind ofgives like a summary statement
(06:31):
of what he's doing there now inThessalonica.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, it tells us a little bit about his strategy.
Right, he goes into towns andhe goes to the synagogue of the
Jews.
We know that was his custom,that was that's what he did
everywhere he went, whereas thesynagogue that's where I'm going
to start and I'm going toproclaim the gospel there.
And, more specifically, ittells us how he does it.
(06:57):
It says he responds with themfrom the scriptures, so he
doesn't just again go in thereand just teach Paul's word.
He goes in there and he getsthe scriptures open and he
starts to walk them throughscripture to show Jesus
throughout the Old Testament.
You got to remember this is justbeing written.
(07:18):
Paul's living here.
There's no, there's no gospelbooks.
There isn't any letters.
This is all happening.
So he just has Genesis all theway through and through the,
through the minor prophets,major prophets.
He has all that.
He's.
He's working through thescriptures to prove to them, to
(07:38):
prove to them who Jesus is.
So what have you guys done inthat?
In that vein, when it comes tomaybe an apologetics type
question, or when you'restudying God's word, how do we
know that Jesus is the Messiah?
How do we know that he's theone that was to come?
What are some areas ofscripture that you go to?
What are things that just cometo your mind?
(07:59):
Here's where I'm going to go inthe Old Testament to show Jesus
.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, prophetically speaking, like in my mind it's
always constructed like this.
I've got Genesis, chapter 3,the proto-Evangelium, where the
snake crusher is promised andyet in crushing the head of the
serpent his heel would bebruised.
Genesis 49 is the prophecyabout the lion of Judah.
(08:27):
You also look at things likeLeviticus 16 and 17, the
Passover and the Passover Lamb,deuteronomy 18, the promise of
one coming and the likeness ofMoses, and then from there you
have like Psalm 2, a prophecyabout the Messiah, psalm 22,
(08:49):
isaiah 53, daniel 9, likeprophecies abound, which makes
sense why he would go to theJews first.
I was just looking up in Romanshere, romans 116.
Paul says I'm not ashamed of thegospel, for it's the power of
God for salvation to everyonewho believes, to the Jew first
(09:09):
and also to the Greek.
So we got to remember, like theJewish people, that was God's
covenantal people first.
The gospel was meant for themfirst.
This is that scene you see,where the Canaanite woman is
speaking to Jesus aboutreceiving the gospel and he says
don't you know like I've beensent to the house of Israel only
?
And she says yes, but even likethe dogs, we'll feast after the
(09:33):
crumbs of their master's table.
So it seems like, yes, thegospel is for the Jew first.
Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, butthat Jewish Messiah is for all
the nations.
If somebody should be receptiveof this message, it should be
the people in the synagogues.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, they should know more about God's Word,
because they have God's Word.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
They've been given the law, the promises, the
covenants.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, they have the history of God working through
the people of Israel.
So they should recognize theMessiah they should have when he
came.
And so Paul's going back tothat.
Let's go back through Scriptureand let's look at what Jesus
has done and what was saidbefore he came, incarnate as a
fully man, fully God came.
(10:21):
What happened before that toshow us this is the Messiah.
So he's making these arguments.
It's kind of like he goes inthe synagogue three, it says,
three Sabbath in a row and threeSabbath days.
He reasoned with them.
So they're literally there,scripture open, walking through,
showing them this is what Godsaid, who the Messiah would be
(10:42):
and what.
He'd look like this and pointout, just as you were going
through Scripture.
So what an amazing like scene.
What would be cool to be thefly on the wall in the synagogue
listening to Paul break downScripture to prove that Jesus is
God Like what a cool thing thatwould be.
So that's what he's doing.
He goes there, he's going toconvince him to reason with them
(11:03):
.
And what do you guys think?
What are Scriptures you guys goto when maybe a student,
college student, junior highschool how do I know that Jesus
is the actual Messiah?
How do I know?
Jesus is God and you're lookingat Old Testament for that
reference.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, Isaiah 53, like Dakota mentioned, is like my
bread and butter on that of, hey, here is something that was
written hundreds of years beforethe Messiah was said to have
come, and then it lays outperfectly exactly what's going
to happen to Jesus and likethere's no denying that what is
written in Isaiah 53 is exactlywhat happens and is speaking to
the Messiah of Jesus Christ.
(11:39):
And so, as students bring thatup, that's always a conversation
because there's that oh well,is it just the New Testament
that I should be reading?
Is Old Testament?
You know out of it and how dowe put those two together?
And that's kind of the draw of,well, the Old Testament is
pointing to Christ coming allthroughout it and that's what,
as we see Paul's life and justthis of him going into the
synagogues is.
He was going to the place wherehe learned and he was studying
(12:01):
the Old Testament and say, hey,we were missing a couple of
things, like we were reading itthe whole time, but what has is
prophesied to come is here andhas come and so we need to be
focusing on that.
So that's kind of as studentsbring up those questions and
stuff, that's where I always gofor kind of that specific
conversation.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, isaiah 53 is like the crown jewel of the Old
Testament, the 12 verses in thatchapter.
Even today in Israel, you know,students are literally taught
to like, go to the next chapterlike rabbis, and they don't
educate students anymore throughIsaiah 53, because they'd get
(12:41):
too many questions.
I find that incrediblyinteresting.
Yeah, because you can't havesome more liberal scholars on
the Jewish side would say well,no, the person who's being
wounded for our transgressionsis the nation of Israel.
But that doesn't work.
Like a nation can't receivepunishment to cover for the sins
of anybody else.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
You have to like a person can do that, but not a
nation, how are they going tocast lots for the nation's
clothes Right?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Right See playing out .
Yeah, very right, right, yeah,David, what about you?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
One of my main go tos is John.
One In the beginning was theword.
The word was with God.
The word was God, nothing wasmade.
And through him everything wasmade and without him nothing was
made.
Talking through the God as theunderstanding that Trinity is
(13:40):
not an easy thing for anyoneconceptually, but just
understanding the, that Jesuswas a part of creation didn't
just come at one point in time.
And then I also like to pointout the types of Christ, with
the serpent in the desert, withthe, with many of the ones that
(14:01):
you mentioned, but morespecifically, to use those
illustrations to, to bring thoseto life for young people
specifically, so that they cansee that, because we don't have
an understanding of Jewishtradition, you know, kids don't
have a strong understanding ofexactly what that is but to
appeal to the reason ofunderstanding that Jesus is, was
(14:24):
a part of the Trinitythroughout creation and the, the
logos being the, the wisdom,you know, the divine, the word
and everything is made andbrought together through the
wisdom of, of that and the.
So that that's what I like touse.
I like to use those, thosenarrative references, that kind
(14:46):
of bring that story to life forthem.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah.
So, Dakota, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna put you on the spot,because I sat in your Gospels
class and you were talking aboutprophecy in your Gospels class
and you talked about theexactness of some of the numbers
and of, in prophecy, thingsthat have come true days, the
exact days of when things wouldhappen.
(15:09):
Give us like a short breakdown,you don't have to go through
the whole thing.
But about prophecy, how doesthe Old Testament and prophecy
really show us that, Well, Godis exact.
He's not just close or in theballpark, but he's exact in the
things that are going to happenand that what he says is going
to come true.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah well, daniel nine, verses 24 to 27 speak
about the prophetic 70 weeks,and the 70th week to finalize
that prophecy is what we callthe day of Jacob's trouble.
So basically, these are 70weeks in a week, declared in
Jewish excuse me, jewishprophetic literature.
(15:47):
The word week actually justmeans unit of seven, so you
could translate it as 70 unitsof seven years, which means
Daniel, chapter nine is talkingabout a total of 490 literal
years of prophecy where theJewish people are going to
undergo some real tension.
(16:08):
And so the first part of thatprophecy is that there would be
a seven week unit, or a 49 yearunit, where there'd be a decree
given by a Persian king for thepeople to go back and rebuild
Jerusalem.
That happened when Arta Xerxestold them they could go and do
that.
You also have a 434 year periodbetween the rebuilding of
(16:30):
Jerusalem and then the time ofMessiah the prince.
That prophecy took place withexactness.
So, daniel I mean to a literalstandpoint, if you, if you
understand the numbers correctlyhe got the very coming of
Christ down correctly, all theway down to 483 years with
exactness, and the prophecystated that this, of course,
(16:55):
would be the time where Jesusmakes himself publicly known in
Jerusalem.
So that would have been when herode in on a donkey the week
before his passion.
If we have 483 years ofprophecy, that's already been
completed.
We know that that's 69 weekstotal, leaving us with one week
left.
By the way, the prophecy saidthe Messiah would be cut off,
(17:17):
meaning he'd be crucified, he'dbe killed, which that happened
as well.
So we are still waiting to thisday for that final 70th week,
this final seven year period,which we call the year of the
tribulation, and I imagine Paulpointing in the synagogue to
these kind of scriptures andsaying Daniel got it right.
(17:39):
You know, these things didhappen.
He has to be the Christ andwe're still waiting on that
seven year tribulation periodtoday.
And I would say, one moreexample that a lot of people
pass over, but I could probablygive this in two minutes, is, I
excuse me, genesis, chapter 49.
If you just look at verses likeeight through 10, look at what
(17:59):
it says Genesis 49, eightthrough 10.
This is Jacob prophesying overeach of his sons, the 12 sons of
Jacob who had become the 12tribes, and he's prophesying
about Judah's family line, whichwould be the tribe of Judah.
He says your brothers shallpraise you, meaning all other of
(18:20):
the tribes are going to look upto Judah.
Your hand shall be on the neckof your enemies, your father's
sons shall bow down to you.
So, basically, you're going tohave the greatest authority and
you're going to defeat yourenemies.
Hint, hint, somebody's going tocome from your line and defeat
all their enemies.
Verse nine Judah is a lion'swelp From the prey, my son, you
(18:41):
have gone up, he couches, helies down as a lion, and as a
lion who dares rouse him up.
So, judah, there's somebodycoming from your line that's
going to be lion-like in nature,even royal in nature.
Verse 10, the scepter, meaningthe instrument that a king holds
to show that he is holding hispower.
(19:02):
The scepter shall not departfrom Judah, nor the ruler staff
from between his feet, untilShia Lo comes, and to him shall
be the obedience of all thepeople.
So the expectation was hey,judah, once a king starts to
arise from your line, like David, then Solomon, then all the
other kings, that scepter willnever depart until Shia Lo comes
(19:25):
.
So the prophecy is saying Judah, the kingship in your family
line it's never going to end,especially because the final
king will continue to be kingforever.
We'll get this.
Around 4 BC, the Roman Empireofficially took over Judah
altogether, and they removed oneof their last legal rights to
(19:47):
conduct capital punishment, andso the people saw that as like
man.
All we have now is a puppetking.
We just have Herod the great,who's over us.
We have no more power, no moreauthority.
We can't conduct ourselves.
At that point, the rabbis in 4BC would have been walking the
(20:08):
streets and tearing their robesand shouting woe unto us.
We have a failed prophecy.
Woe unto us because Shia Loit's another term for the
Messiah Shia Lo has not come.
And so that would have been alike.
They would have thought man,the Word of God is broken.
But lo and behold, mostscholars actually believe that
(20:28):
Jesus was born around 4 BC.
So which means they didn't havea failed prophecy, which means
their king was there.
He was just there in infantform.
And so if I'm ministering to aJewish individual today, like
Paul is in the synagogue, I'mgoing right to Genesis 49,
because I'm saying look, you gottwo options.
(20:49):
Either Jesus, shia Lo, was herein 4 BC, which we know he was
there, or you have a failedprophecy from Genesis 49.
How do you deal with thosethings, and it's not to put them
like in a corner, to undercutthem, but it's to show them.
If Jesus is not the fulfillmentof that prophecy, then you have
(21:10):
no messianic prophecies left tolook at.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, and here in verse 3 of chapter 17,.
You know, yes and two, he'sreasoning, but verse 3,
explaining and proving that itwas necessary for Christ to
suffer and to rise from the dead.
So we know that many Jewishpeople thought the Messiah was
(21:33):
going to look a little differentthan Jesus.
A king, which Jesus is, but notthe king that Jesus appeared to
be.
A king that would come in,defeat Rome.
Israel's land would be takenback, just like King David, and
kind of come back to that glorywhere Paul is then now proving
to the synagogues, to thesepeople, that Jesus didn't come
(21:58):
this time for that reason, buthe came to suffer, to pay the
penalty for sin, so that allcould come to him, and then his
resurrection is him proving thathe is the Son of God and that
he has come for that purpose andhe will come again and we'll
see King Jesus, the way you guyshave kind of thought this whole
(22:19):
time, where he will come backand he will rule and reign in a
way in which you are allthinking.
So he's having to break thatdown.
So, from all of your guys'spoints, he's going through the
Old Testament, he's goingthrough prophecy, he's sharing
with them.
It must be Jesus because ofwhat you just said, and now we
have to talk about why did Jesusthen come to suffer first
(22:43):
before he would return again torule and reign?
So he's breaking down theargument as far as he can, and
it's taken him three Sabbathdays.
We're doing this in a littletruncated less than an hour but
Paul would have spent some timereally opening the Word, going
through it, having discussionand spending the time needed in
(23:06):
order that people would knowthat Jesus is the Son of God.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, I think it's important to also remember too.
The Old Testament doesn't justdepict that the Christ would
suffer, but that the Christwould rise again.
At the end of Isaiah 53,there's this little phrase where
it says you know, god would seehis suffering and he would
prolong his days, and the wordprolong there is in the Hebrew,
(23:31):
it's in the imperfect tense,which means he would give him
days without end after he'ssuffered, like his days will
never come to a completion,he'll just keep living and
living, and living.
So the Old Testament prophesiesabout a Christ that has to
suffer to be the substitutionaryatonor, the Lamb of God, for
the sin of the world.
Right the ultimate Leviticus,16 and 17 sacrifice.
(23:54):
And then he's got to defeat theconsequence of sin, which is
death, which is why he has torise again from the dead.
Paul will later say in 1Corinthians 15, if Christ didn't
rise, then we have most men areto be pitied as fools.
Right.
Our faith is in vain, he'd say.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So then Paul continues and we actually have
Paul's words and he says, afterdoing all this reasoning and
proving, he says this Jesus,whom I proclaim to you, is the
Christ.
So he's breaking down what theMessiah is going to do, as God
has said throughout prophecy,throughout the Old Testament,
(24:32):
what the Messiah is going tolook like, accomplish.
And then he connects theMessiah to Jesus.
This Jesus of Nazareth is theone that is the Christ, the
Messiah, the King.
And so Paul breaks it all theway down then to saying this is
the Messiah and you need tobelieve in him Verse 4,.
(24:53):
And some of them were persuadedand joined Paul and Silas, as
did a great many of the devoutGreeks and not a few of the
leading women.
And so we have Jews, greeks,women, all coming to Christ,
based upon Paul's work in theWord, showing them God's Word
coming true and that Jesus isthe Christ.
(25:15):
So Paul's taking his workseriously.
He's dedicated to the Word,he's dedicated to proving these
things.
He's not just getting up andpreaching, but he's opening
God's Word, sitting down,spending time proving.
That's an example of the wholepurpose of what we're doing
today, the reason why wedisciple people and sit in
coffee shops and invite themover for dinner and open God's
(25:35):
Word and say I want to show youwhat God's Word says about
Christ.
That's what Paul's doing,that's the example he's giving
us and that's what he's going tokeep doing.
We're just seeing one example.
We're going to see anotherexample of the same thing.
What a cool thing that we seePaul doing.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Yeah, I see that in a discipleship example of how do
we go to the Word, how do weproclaim that it's not us trying
to convince people of ourthoughts to be their thoughts.
It's like, no, this is what theWord says.
And if this is true of what theWord says, then it should be
true of our lives, and very muchso.
Paul is pointing to that wherehe's like the Jesus that I'm
explaining, like he is a Messiahbecause of the Word, not
(26:13):
because I think so, not becausethat's what I believe, not that
he's saying, it's the Word, iswhat the Word says.
And so that's that's theexample I see, and we're going
to see that too later on in thechapter when he goes to the
Bereans.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And so, yeah, and I, and I really do think today we
live in a very dangerous timewhen it comes to communicating,
when it comes to talking, whenit comes to proving, because,
just like we're doing right nowon a video posted on the
internet, we get a lot of videosout there posted on the
internet that proclaiming aJesus or a gospel or whatever
(26:47):
that may be.
The problem that I see in a lotof those videos is the Bible's
not open.
It's just not open.
They're trying to prove it theway they feel or the way they
think it should be proven.
You don't need to do that.
Just open God's Word, just aswe are doing here.
Went to Genesis, Talked aboutwhere these are in Scripture.
(27:08):
Read it yourself.
Go to Isaiah 53.
Go to Daniel 9.
Read it yourself.
Don't just allow some talkinghead on the internet to tell you
Read it.
That's why we're going throughActs.
We're reading it word for word.
So we have to be very careful,because I see so many people
come up to me and say, oh, Iheard a pastor say this Is this
true?
Well, what does the Bible say?
(27:28):
Well, the Bible says this.
Okay, so it's not true?
Yeah, well, then that would bea false teacher Right.
So that's how we can check ourcheck.
Truth is God's Word, so don'tget away from the Word.
Don't just listen to somerandom internet preacher.
Open your Bibles and that'ssuch caution that Paul gives us.
He's using Scripture, so youuse Scripture as well.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And to point out that Paul doesn't just get his
boldness and his confidence fromsome arbitrary example in his
old life, like it's truly from.
No, this is the Word.
And so I think that, asbelievers, as wanting to be
disciple makers and sharing thegospel because some people think
how do I share?
Where do I go?
What do I do?
It's like you don't have to goanywhere outside of what does
Scripture actually say, andthat's very much it.
(28:12):
As I talk to college studentsas we go out and do evangelism
and speak to people who don'tknow Christ, I'm not bringing up
lofty, cool ideas that I'vecome up with.
It's just this is what the Wordsays, and so I think Paul does
a great example of that here forus.
Where we may be wondering howdo I disciple someone or how do
I share the gospel?
It's not really that tricky atthe end of the day, it's what
(28:33):
does Jesus say and sharing thatwith others.
And if questions come up fromthat going back to, well, let's
see what the Bible actually saysabout that.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah, david.
What do you see in youthministry from an influence of
just outside people that don'teven live in our community, just
what you're seeing studentsthink about, say about things
that they owe.
The Bible says this when itreally doesn't, or whatever that
may be.
What are you seeing in youthministry?
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Some of the things I mean just the same things that
you guys mentioned, where Ithink even the concept of the,
of online personalities andpeople who are online influencer
just that word influencer thatthey create content to influence
people in a particular way, andthe youth of today are being
(29:26):
influenced by such a broad,immense content that really
can't be controlled by any.
I mean, we we're doing thispodcast and we are sticking to
the scripture.
We as pastors, youth pastor,executive pastor whatever your
(29:47):
title is, whatever- it is youknow guy who sits here campus
master the we're.
I think that's why we provideyouth with an with, with a place
where we can fellowship in theword together, to not just to
(30:08):
read the word together, but alsoto offer them the tools to
answer those questions forthemselves, to be able to filter
the influence of culture, theinfluence of what we know to be
ultimately Satan, the deceiverusing using our culture and the
world to influence us away fromthe Lord.
Distractions, amusements we seeall these things, but but I
(30:34):
primarily focus on, especiallyin speaking with kids, that that
are lost and that don't knowthe Lord, as I'm ministering to
them, inviting them to youthgroup and inviting them to be a
part to, to just share howimportant it is to balance what
we hear and what we learn on theinternet or wherever it may be,
(30:56):
with what the, what the wordsays, just like you said,
because we can follow.
I think even in the lastepisode, chance said something
about how important it is not toblindly follow leadership, not
to blindly follow the mob or thegroup, that, just because this,
this smacks of something Ibelieve in and then you just
follow it blindly until it'swhatever conclusion it is that
(31:20):
we need to be checking ourselvesalong the way.
I mean the youth in our churchhave had opportunity to join
Paula Payne and myself in thesidewalk ministry and one of the
things that even within thatthat we value life.
We know that God is the God oflife and God desires that and we
(31:40):
are called to defend thedefenseless, you know.
So we're going up to the.
We've been going up periodicallyon Fridays to the Planned
Parenthood to minister to peopleon the sidewalk women who are
considering abortions, some whohave had abortions and as we
were driving up, paula said to acouple of the girls that
(32:03):
sometimes it feels like we'refighting against ourselves and
each other, that there's evendisagreements within the
pro-life movement on how we dealwith legislation and how we
vote and things like that.
And it was interesting Iactually was on the other side
of the building but Paula, Icame back to meet Paula and one
(32:23):
of the other girls that that waswith us and Paula said that she
had a disagreement with a manwho had a who's there all the
time with a megaphone and theygotten a disagreement over
incremental or abolitionistabolition as far as voting for
legislature and changes in thelaw, and she got pretty heated
(32:45):
and I'm really sorry that.
I missed that because PaulaPayne is my mother-in-law and I
like seeing her get fired up.
But there are evendisagreements within what we
believe in and how we act andwhat we do, and I think we
measure that.
And so Paula and I had a longconversation because Paula said
well, where do you see inScripture where it says that we
(33:08):
shouldn't take smaller steps toget to a larger goal?
Are we compromising?
Are the integrity of God's callto protect life if we vote for
smaller legislation, smallerlaws that lead to our goal of
abolishing abortion, or do wenot take any smaller steps
(33:29):
because that would be compromise?
Like, do I vote for a law thatsays you can only abort up to
this period?
Am I, you know?
Am I compromising my faith andwhat God's call me to do to do
that?
But anyways, even within thosegreater topics in our culture
today, I think it's good forChristian youth to be able to
and we went through theScripture with them not to drag
(33:51):
this out any longer, but to lookfor examples in Scripture where
God has led people throughincremental steps.
Or was it no all or nothingmorally for what's right or
wrong?
But I think to giving the kidsof the tools to understand how
(34:13):
to study Scripture and balanceculture, because we can't
protect them from that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
One thing that makes this conversation really
relevant right now and we talkedabout this in last week's
podcast.
Well, two episodes ago just thecommercial the Super Bowl
commercial that made all theseclaims about what Christianity
is and who Jesus you know.
Would he wash everybody's feetand that sort of thing.
(34:39):
I was watching a I guess youcould say that like a little
clip from Charlie Kirk the otherday regarding one of the videos
that should have been placed.
I'm struggling to find my wordsfor this one, but basically
it's like, rather than showing abunch of pictures of Jesus
(35:01):
washing anybody and everybody'sfeet, why not show pictures of
people who have come to Jesusand had their life transformed?
So, rather than saying Jesusgets us, it's rather Jesus gets
us and he changes us.
And there's a picture there of aformer gang member.
I was a gang member, but Jesuschanged me.
There's a picture there of youknow, somebody who considered
(35:22):
themselves transgender.
I used to be transgender, butJesus changed me.
A former prostitute I used tobe into prostitution, but Jesus
changed me.
A former abortioner, but Jesuschanged me.
A former drug addict, but Jesuschanged me.
That's what Jesus does.
He doesn't wash your feet toapprove of your life.
If anything, he's calling youto repentance because he knows
(35:43):
in and of himself he can changeyou.
And that commercial alonedespite the fact I'm fumbling
over my words is a great exampleof why we have to reason from
the scriptures.
Just because something is on aSuper Bowl ad, it doesn't make
it legitimate.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
You know, it looks good and it feels good.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Right?
Yeah, I think one of thequestions that we should discuss
is this how do we make adifference?
How do we actually go forth, dosomething with God's word, to
go battle against what'shappening?
Because the reality is, paulwas going to the synagogues to
ensure that the Jewish peopleheard about the one and true
(36:24):
Messiah, who's Jesus.
I got to get to these people.
This is the ministry to theIsraelites.
I got to get to them.
I have to share the gospel withthem and do this work.
That's Paul's work, and thenalso we see Gentiles and other
people coming to know Jesusthrough that work.
Well, we've got a lot ofbattlegrounds in today's society
(36:46):
that we, as Christians, need toenter into to ensure that truth
is being taught.
We talked about it a little bitlast episode, about voting
right and some of the ways toget involved.
From a an American standpoint,what are our rights and what are
our abilities?
Free speech, all those sort ofthings where we can get involved
and really be in thatbattleground.
(37:07):
You know, one is this whatwe're doing right now entering
the space in which people arenow gaining their knowledge from
.
It isn't necessarily thesynagogue, where the people are
gathering to hear God's word.
The internet, social media allof those things are now the
battleground of information andknowledge and all of that sort
(37:29):
of stuff.
So how do we enter that otherthan the means in which we're
doing right now, podcast videos?
How could people just get inthe game, get in the battlefield
and start bringing truth andjust start teaching God's word
and and moving forward withoutbeing afraid or being scared of
the consequences?
What?
What can we do, guys?
(37:50):
What are things that you wouldencourage youth, college
students, anybody, throughout,any generation today?
What are things we can do.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Guys.
Let's start with chance.
You're on the campuses.
How are you engaging with thestudents?
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, I think one of the big kind of overlooked steps
and and things to first gettinginto my why, like, why are you
doing it?
What is your purpose?
Is our purpose to go out and toargue and to be someone who's
going to combat somethingaggressively for the purpose of
argument's sake, or are we, aswe pray about it, as we are led
(38:22):
by the spirit, are we walkinginto a situation saying this is
what God is calling me to do?
And I think we see that veryclearly in scripture as Jesus,
when he does miracles, moved bycompassion.
We talked about last episode,paul, in this moment of the
Philippian jailer, like whydidn't he run?
He saw that that man was facingsomething in that moment.
And so that's my, my first as I,as I talk with college students
(38:44):
, as I encourage other believersof going into ministry, doing
ministry where you're at it's,do you see the why of what
you're doing?
Do you understand the lives ofthe people that you're trying to
reach and do you recognize thatthere's a lost and broken world
out there and if we don't saysomething, then it's just going
to keep going down that path andthen from there, that's where,
once you get that compassion andstart to recognize that this is
(39:06):
what God's really called me todo, you start to take the little
steps and start to say, okay,how am I going to do it?
You know, how am I going toactually start meeting with kids
?
Does that look like taking sometime to go and do that as well?
As am I equipping myself to besomeone that has those answers?
Just like Paul in this, he wouldhave never walked into the
synagogue and done this had henot spent the years and the time
training and growing andlearning.
(39:27):
So also with that it's it's notthe sprint, it is the marathon.
But that's not to say weshouldn't still train hard and
still spend the time in the wordto grow and become someone that
is versed in apologetics, thatis versed in the word, that does
know how to do that.
But I think it all starts withbecause you can have all the
knowledge you want and and wesee that in Paul's life had all
(39:47):
the knowledge that all thethings fall to law, persecute
the church, and so you can be soadamant and so devoted to the
wrong thing and run down thewrong path your whole life
without having the heart ofChrist and the compassion of
Christ, and the truth is, likeyou talked about other podcasts
or different groups of peoplethat do that stuff, there's a
lot of people out there that canbe so right but yet so wrong.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, so staying on the college campus?
Let's stay on there, and thatfor a minute, because the
college campus, today university, is now the place in which
children are becoming youngadults, in which they are
learning all sorts of trash, asI'm just going to call it A lot
of.
It's just German right, nottrue theory, yeah, critical
(40:30):
theory, all of those differentthings that really get you
nowhere in life.
That's what they're beingbrought up in.
So if you're discipling aChristian student and they're
sitting in these classeslearning this junk, what are you
helping them in?
As it comes to responding,because I think we've got a
couple different type ofChristians sitting in classes
(40:52):
just doing the work to get by,maybe not really engaging in the
argument.
Which university is supposed tobe where you engage in these
arguments, these discussions?
It doesn't need to bethreatening.
Paul didn't come in here gunsblazing, like it seems, like he
sat down with them.
Let's have a discussion.
Let's go through scripture.
There seem to be an approachPaul had here.
(41:13):
How can students come into theclassroom in disagreement to
their professors or thecurriculum, like Paul's doing
here, and do it well enough towhere there's discussion.
We're actually asking questions.
We're debating back and forthin a way that doesn't.
We're not trying to hurtpeople's minds.
We're not trying to hurtpeople's feelings.
We're not trying to go straightto I'm right, you're wrong.
(41:33):
We're actually going to talkthrough it.
How can a college student dothat?
How can they approach aprofessor or a class and do this
?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Yeah.
So, two little things.
Quick testimony on it is Istruggled with that in college.
I faced some very big momentsof I know I should be saying
something but I'm a littleafraid I don't know if I should
or not.
And actually, as my buddy Tythat one day I was talking to
him about this and he reallyopened my eyes to it's a melting
(42:00):
pot of ideas like why can yoursnot be in there too, except for
yours is based in the word, andso I think that was was like my
first encouragement and kind ofgateway into realizing if
everyone wants to just believewhatever they want to believe,
then why can't I share my idea?
If they're going to comethrough, you know, the
transgender arguments at me andthey're going to throw critical
race theory and all these thingsat me and think that I should
(42:23):
just accept that, then why can'tI share, like why can't I be a
voice of reason in that?
And so that's where then Istarted to really understand.
Okay, so ideas are just that,their ideas, and if I believe
the word of God is true, a wordof God is true, and that's where
I'm going to set my faith andmy foundation, then why don't I
bring that into the conversationand it started with the prayer
(42:45):
for boldness.
It started with the prayer forLord, lead me in this
conversation, please help me tobring your word and bring your
truth.
And time and time again I sawthat get answered in my college
classroom and there's also anaspect of like you're saying
that the whole argument and doyou just go in guns blazing
ready to fire at anybody whoopposes you know.
(43:06):
At the same time we see howwhen there's a harsh sin or a
harsh offense in scripturethere's a harsh rebuke.
And I want to encouragebelievers in that aspect of
don't just see something and say, oh man, that's really tough
what they're saying.
Let me kind of try and justchip away at it.
There is a time to stand up andsay no, that's not true.
(43:27):
And specifically I'll share aquick example.
For me was in college.
I had a professor who wasencouraging the use of
pornography in marriages forhealing and in like young men's
lies for the fact of finding joy.
And I remember sitting in mycollege classroom full of
probably 100 to 150 students andme coming out of a testimony of
(43:47):
pornography and coming out of abackground where he's
struggling with that for yearsand watching the detrimental
effects of that in my life,knowing that here's all these
students taking this in, saying,oh, that guy's a professor, he
must be smart, he knows whathe's talking about.
But then being armed with theword of the Lord and the
testimony that God has done inmy life, to say that's not true.
So in that crossroads, that wasone of the biggest moments for
(44:09):
me in college of saying, do Istand up in this moment and say
that's completely false, knowingthat there's going to be people
opposed to that in this room,or do I continue to let the
enemy infiltrate the minds of myfellow peers at that moment?
And so that's something where,in that moment, the hand was
raised and I said that's justnot okay, like there's no way
(44:29):
that you can sit there and proveto me this, and and got to
share my testimony, which wasalso nerve wracking in the midst
of all those students.
And and that's where, likepeople ask you have been through
all the spirits like, yes, thatwas a moment where, like
chances, flesh would not havedone that.
Like chances, flesh was not theperson to sit there and do that
.
That's my encouragement to isrecognizing where, if there's
going to be a harsh idea.
(44:50):
If there's going to be thatthat bold proclamation of this
is absolutely the way it has tobe and you guys all have to
believe it, then don't be afraidto say no and don't be afraid
to push back in that a littlebit.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
So yeah, I want to encourage all those listening
that when we talk about studentson the university campus, we're
not excluding anybody here willbe who's listening.
The fight is in the homediscipling your children up to
know the Lord.
Young parents, you need todisciple your children in God's
(45:22):
Word to be ready for universityif they go there.
And so, um, grandparents, youneed to ensure if that the your
kids are not training up yourgrandchildren.
When you get the opportunity,you do that as well.
In churches, we this is thisneeds to happen all around as
Christians.
This isn't just a battle on theuniversity campus, but we can
(45:44):
bring that battle by equippingyoung men and women to go to the
church and then have theseconversations.
We need to do this on allfronts.
That's why going to church isimportant.
Being equipped in the word isimportant, because we need more
young men and women in theseplaces to have these
conversations.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
So it's important that we do this all around with
our families because of that,yeah, and to hit on that again
too, with the equipping aspectof it is had I not spent time in
the word, had I not spent timewith the Lord, there would have
been no equipping.
Right, jesus has tempted and hedoesn't say well, I think this
and he could have, he's Jesus,but he says no, it is written,
it is written, it is written.
And so in those moments likethe equipping and as I encourage
(46:26):
students, I'm like hey, don'tjust take these good moral
arguments and say, oh, I believeit because of you know so and
so said this, or this goodspeaker said that.
It's like no, what does theword say?
And do you have the power of?
It is written and and are yougoing to your arguments in your
conversations, knowing the wordof God and being able to bring
that into the conversation?
So that's not a little hearsay?
(46:46):
I think this.
I say that it's what is theword actually say about that?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
I think, while we intended to work through Paul,
thessalonica and Berea, maybe asa natural good place to land
the plane.
But maybe just to add on onemore thing concerning, I guess
you could say, paul's tacticright, look at some of the words
in here verse to he reasonedwith them from the scriptures.
(47:12):
Verse three he was explaining,giving evidence.
Verse three at the end of it hewas proclaiming.
Verse four he was persuadingthem.
Right, and so here's what wefind in the university today.
There is a number of people whosay you know, truth doesn't
exist.
Well, if truth doesn'tultimately exist, if truth
(47:39):
doesn't exist, then why continueto study the various academic
disciplines?
The first scientists wereChristians who held the
presupposition that there was acreator.
They had a reason to go lookingfor things like organization
because there was an organizer.
So every academic disciplinerequires logic, and if you have
(48:01):
logic, you have a logic giver.
So all academic disciplines,like literally all pursuits of
truth outside of objective truth, is completely worthless.
You'll just continue to reallycircle the wagon with different
theories, never arriving at whatis true.
And I think that's actuallypart of the problem with today's
collegiate environment isnobody actually is pursuing
(48:26):
truth, they're just pursuing newtheories that debunk other
theories.
Make no mistake about itChristians absolutely believe
that the truth of God's Word inthe Bible is the truth for
everywhere, for all time, forall cultures, past, present,
future.
Like what we believe applies topeople on the Amazon who have
(48:46):
never heard of it, what webelieve applies to the person
down the street who's neverheard of it, we actually believe
this is true truth to such anextent that everybody will be
held accountable for this.
We are not going into theuniversity just simply saying no
, here, consider what I believeas another option of various
beliefs.
We are saying there is a Saviorwho's going to judge the entire
(49:10):
world one day and everyone willbe held accountable to God's
standard.
This is not my opinion.
As you said, thus saith theLord and Paul is reasoning with
them that Jesus is the Christ,that he is the way, the truth
and the life, and that nobodycomes to the Father but through
him.
So, in a very objective way, weare not saying consider this.
(49:32):
We're saying this is life ordeath, this is eternity.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Yeah, I want to encourage you.
No matter where you are in thecountry, no matter what church
you go to, the college campus isa great place to serve.
You don't have to be a youngguy like Chance to serve on the
college campuses you can.
We have a ministry that we doon a college campus here in
Ottawa where families withchildren come and disciple and
(49:58):
spend time with college students, open up their homes to come
have meals, to get to know them,to go to their sporting events,
to invest in their life, toshow them.
I'm not just here to give aquick word and leave.
I'm here to have compassion foryou, to be with you, to be in
relationship with you, so youcan be of any age to connect
(50:19):
with college students.
Don't let the lies of ourculture say, oh, I'm not that
generation, so I don't reallyknow them.
That's all things to keep youaway from reaching more people.
So go reach people, serve them,get the gospel out there, be in
those conversations.
College students are hungry forconversations like that because
a lot of them just haven't hadthem.
Some of their answers are likeyou've just never thought about
(50:42):
this, you've never been exposedto the Bible, you've never even
really thought about is there aGod?
You've never answered thesequestions.
You've just kind of assumedbecause whoever's influencing
you rejects those ideas.
And so you're like, yeah, theymust be dumb, because these
people are the people I identifywith, so I'm not going to
believe it either, even thoughyou've never logically gone
(51:03):
through it, you've never usedreason, you've never done any of
these things, you've nevertested it right.
So I would encourage you get inthe game.
Body of Christ, sunday morningis great to come together,
huddle to grow.
Let's get in the game.
Let's get in our community.
As we say at Ottawa Bible livescent.
That means you have to activelystep forward in your faith
through those open doors thatGod has for you in ministry in
(51:26):
your community.
So make sure you're doing that,dr Justin.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Marchegiani, maybe some helpful resources for you
if you're watching this specificepisode.
This kind of organically justbecame a conversation about
apologetics, which is fine, wejust followed the Spirit's lead.
But there's a book by GregCokal titled Tactics and it's
really like strategic ways thatyou can converse with other
(51:49):
practically over some of the hotbutton issues of the day.
There's another one that hejust came up with, dr Justin
Marchegiani, yeah, called StreetSmarts.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
It's kind of Tactics 2.0.
Goes through all.
What's helpful with this bookis that it's actually taking
today's issues and applyingtactics to those issues.
So you're like how do I haveconversations with people LGBT
community, how do I haveconversations with atheists?
How do I have these ideologiesthat I've been hearing?
Greg answers those questionsand he does it in such a
(52:19):
practical way and takes youthrough actual conversation.
So check out those two booksTactics and Street Smarts by
Greg Cokal and Greg will haveyou on here pretty soon.
Dr Justin Marchegiani.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yeah, and we have had him on here in the past.
Dr Justin Marchegiani.
Yeah, dr Justin Marchegiani.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
So that was a treat.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
There's another podcast called the Christian
World View.
Highly encourage you to listento that.
And there's a little websitethat I've used over the years.
It's called calmorg I thinkit's Christian Apologetics
Research Ministry.
But calmorg has like articleafter article after article that
you can read in short, summaryform on how to give responses to
(52:54):
you know some of the issues ofthe day.
I mean, if you just simply typein Christian apologetics,
there's a book by Norm Geislerliterally titled Christian
Apologetics and it is like the,the pristine book on apologetics
for our day.
So it's not hard to find theseresources.
Greg Cokal.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Another great one.
It's a curriculum we use forour kids ministry is answers and
genesis.
Answers and genesis also doesacademic journals, because
because they're they're doingthings from a Christian
perspective, creationiststhey're looking at how God made
the world and what's happenedsince he made the world.
So go to answers and genesis.
That has stuff for kids, it hasstuff for adults.
(53:32):
It's a great resource to learnabout what God has done, how he
has ordered things.
It's a.
It's a wonderful ministry.
Greg Cokal, anybody else?
Guys, you guys got resources,greg Cokal.
The Bible's a great one, gregCokal.
The Bible's a good one, gregCokal.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
The Bible is the final authority for life and God
life.
Greg Cokal, right, greg Cokal.
And it's breathed out by God.
Greg Cokal, right, greg Cokal.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
It is sufficient for the Christian life.
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Greg Cokal.
Yeah, there's a conversation Ioften have with the college
students of hey, are youspending more time in the word
than you are on TikTok andsocial media?
And so, even as believers andChristians, no matter what age,
I would say that's a hugeencouragement to read the word.
Read the word, make sure thatwe are coming back to getting
fed from the word of God and andnot just depending on the
(54:13):
podcast and little things.
Well, those are great resourcesas well, greg Cokal.
We have the word in front of us.
We get to touch it.
Flip through the pages, gregCokal Amen, greg Cokal, and take
it in for ourselves.
So I would encourage us all todo that, greg Cokal.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, honestly, all of the resources we just shared
are ornaments to the Bible.
They're just helping you tounderstand the Bible even better
.
But the authoritative breathedout word of God is the scripture
.
That's why Paul argued from itand nothing else.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
So, greg Cokal, yeah, so thank you all for listening
to the Be Disciples podcast.
We know that we didn't spendtoo many time, too many verses
here.
I think we went through fourverses.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Greg Cokal.
Next episode Greg Cokal.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
Sometimes, that happens.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
But I think we got.
Whenever anybody says you knowwhat the Bible, that's old news,
that's not relevant.
We just looked at what Paul didand said that's happening today
, and we have our own areas inwhich we need to get in and do
the same thing Paul's doing.
So this doesn't change theBible is always relevant and it
is for all time, as Dakota hassaid.
(55:12):
So make sure you're in it andyou're out doing the work.
Thank you again.
Please share this podcast withwhoever.
They don't have to be yourfriend, you can send it to
anybody, but make sure you shareit, because that's the only way
we're able to get the word outin this format.
And so thank you again forbeing a faithful listener and
we'll see you next week.
Welcome to the Be Disciples podcast with your host
, kyle Morris, dakota Smith,david Glavin and Chance Holleran
.
Second episode Chance, youbetter perform better than the
last one.
Just kidding, I want to ask youall to just follow us on
Instagram, facebook.
You can either go at OttawaBible Church, follow us at our
church, or you can follow us atthe Be Disciples podcast on both
(00:32):
those platforms as well.
We're also on YouTube, wherenow we're posting videos instead
of just the audio part of ourpodcast, so you can go on there
and you can see us talk to eachother.
I don't know why that's moreimportant, but some people like
videos more, so that's why we'redoing this.
We love to just get together andstudy God's Word.
So, if you're new to ourpodcast, we have our Bibles open
(00:53):
because we're all about readingthe Word together so that we
can be examples and give that toour people, to see what it's
like just to discuss God's Wordtogether, and we want people to
replicate it in theirdiscipleship with one another.
So thank you so much forlistening to our podcast.
Welcome, guys.
I'm glad to be here today.
This is one of the most, for me, the most exciting parts of the
(01:16):
week Just sitting down with youguys reading the Bible.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, there's a lot to work through, as we've been
working through Acts, the lastepisode, we worked through Paul
and Silas they're in prison, howthe Lord got them out, the
jailers' conversion, and so it'sfun because I think not only is
it beneficial to us, but Ithink we know that people are
listening, people are watchingand that it's benefiting their
(01:42):
walk as well.
So, yeah, this is somethingthat we do on Mondays and we're
hoping that it benefits thecommunity of Ottawa, franklin
County, the surrounding areas,and that you're being equipped
to understand the Bible to afurther degree as well.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, and if you're in Ottawa, franklin County, we
are at Ottawa Bible Church.
Our services are at 9 and 11 onSunday mornings, so we want to
invite you out to come by andsay hello to us and just come
and have a conversation with us.
We're here every week and soit's just awesome to be able to
meet people who've listened in,who've learned, who've grown,
(02:17):
and so we're always encouragedby that.
So thank you all for listeningand bringing your words of
encouragement to us, becausethat's why we're doing this, so
that we can stay in the wordtogether as a church and
continue to educate ourcommunity.
So I'm glad to have you guysaround this table Chance.
It's been cool to get to knowyou more as you've come to
(02:38):
Ottawa Bible Church doingcollege ministry, discipling
young men, bringing them tochurch, seeing them come and
listen to the word so that'sbeen super fulfilling.
David, as you've just continuedto do youth ministry at our
church, leading young people.
We've got one in Africa rightnow living sent out there for
(02:58):
almost two months-ish, maybe alittle less, but she's out there
doing that.
You guys are planning coolstuff for the year and Dakota,
leading us in the word each andevery week, and so there's
exciting things going on atOttawa Bible.
We're excited to do ministrytogether and I love coming here
Monday mornings to do this job,because it's not a job to me, I
(03:19):
just love being in fellowshipwith you guys, and so that's
kind of the heartbeat of OttawaBible, of our friendship.
I've known Dakota forever, assome of you may know, since
we're 18, 19.
So this is so fulfilling, notjust because we're reading God's
Word, but we're doing ittogether and it's fellowship.
So I hope that's encouraging.
I hope you also have acommunity of believers that you
(03:40):
get to do that with and do itevery week.
Don't neglect it.
Don't neglect this gatheringtogether, because what that does
is it allows for the enemy toseep in and to destroy
relationships and to get us offthat path.
So that's why we're in Acts wewant to learn how to grow, equip
.
We want to learn how to betogether as a church.
We want to know where thechurch, where it started, what
(04:02):
Jesus has done.
So we're going to continue thatin Acts.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, chance, why don't you lead us in?
Speaker 3 (04:08):
prayer.
Yeah, father, we're just comingforward in the name of Jesus,
so we thank you for anothergreat day Just studying your
Word and the opportunities tosharpen one another and sit
around a table as a man and findout what you have written to us
and what the church looked like.
And, god, I just pray that thispodcast and this message will
reach Ottawa, and not justOttawa, but surrounding nation
(04:28):
and the people around it, lord,and it doesn't just stay here
and stay local, that we can goand reach the nations as we pray
for.
And, yeah, we'll just lead ourconversation, lead our time and
Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Amen and God take us into Acts, chapter 17.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, this is Acts 17,.
1 through 15.
And while I think the twoaccounts that we're going to
receive today of Paul going toThessalonica and Paul going to
Berea, well, they might seemshort and maybe inconsequential,
you know most people identifyActs, chapter 17, as when Paul
goes to Athens and he speaks onMars Hill.
(05:05):
These little paragraphs, theselittle passages, tell us more
about Paul's ministry, althoughthe responses between
Thessalonica and Berea arecompletely two polar opposites.
So let's read about the firstresponse of Paul preaching in
Thessalonica.
Now, when they had traveledthrough Amphipolis and Apollonia
(05:28):
, they came to Thessalonicawhere there was a synagogue of
the Jews.
Thessalonica was probably ahundred miles away from Philippi
, so that's about the distancePaul traveled.
Amphipolis and Apollonia areabout 30 miles each apart from
each other, so you know theseare smaller locations.
On his way to ThessalonicaVerse 2, and according to Paul's
(05:49):
custom, he went to them and forthree Sabbaths, reasoned with
them from the scriptures,explaining and giving evidence
that the Christ had to sufferand rise again from the dead and
saying this Jesus, whom I amproclaiming to you, is the
Christ Verse 4,.
(06:09):
And some of them were persuadedand joined, paul and Silas,
along with a large number of Godfearing Greeks and a number of
the leading women.
I think the first four versesactually gives us enough
principles to kind of converseabout for a moment.
Because what do you see,especially as it pertains to
verses two and three kind ofgives like a summary statement
(06:31):
of what he's doing there now inThessalonica.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, it tells us a little bit about his strategy.
Right, he goes into towns andhe goes to the synagogue of the
Jews.
We know that was his custom,that was that's what he did
everywhere he went, whereas thesynagogue that's where I'm going
to start and I'm going toproclaim the gospel there.
And, more specifically, ittells us how he does it.
(06:57):
It says he responds with themfrom the scriptures, so he
doesn't just again go in thereand just teach Paul's word.
He goes in there and he getsthe scriptures open and he
starts to walk them throughscripture to show Jesus
throughout the Old Testament.
You got to remember this is justbeing written.
(07:18):
Paul's living here.
There's no, there's no gospelbooks.
There isn't any letters.
This is all happening.
So he just has Genesis all theway through and through the,
through the minor prophets,major prophets.
He has all that.
He's.
He's working through thescriptures to prove to them, to
(07:38):
prove to them who Jesus is.
So what have you guys done inthat?
In that vein, when it comes tomaybe an apologetics type
question, or when you'restudying God's word, how do we
know that Jesus is the Messiah?
How do we know that he's theone that was to come?
What are some areas ofscripture that you go to?
What are things that just cometo your mind?
(07:59):
Here's where I'm going to go inthe Old Testament to show Jesus
.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yeah, prophetically speaking, like in my mind it's
always constructed like this.
I've got Genesis, chapter 3,the proto-Evangelium, where the
snake crusher is promised andyet in crushing the head of the
serpent his heel would bebruised.
Genesis 49 is the prophecyabout the lion of Judah.
(08:27):
You also look at things likeLeviticus 16 and 17, the
Passover and the Passover Lamb,deuteronomy 18, the promise of
one coming and the likeness ofMoses, and then from there you
have like Psalm 2, a prophecyabout the Messiah, psalm 22,
(08:49):
isaiah 53, daniel 9, likeprophecies abound, which makes
sense why he would go to theJews first.
I was just looking up in Romanshere, romans 116.
Paul says I'm not ashamed of thegospel, for it's the power of
God for salvation to everyonewho believes, to the Jew first
(09:09):
and also to the Greek.
So we got to remember, like theJewish people, that was God's
covenantal people first.
The gospel was meant for themfirst.
This is that scene you see,where the Canaanite woman is
speaking to Jesus aboutreceiving the gospel and he says
don't you know like I've beensent to the house of Israel only
?
And she says yes, but even likethe dogs, we'll feast after the
(09:33):
crumbs of their master's table.
So it seems like, yes, thegospel is for the Jew first.
Jesus is a Jewish Messiah, butthat Jewish Messiah is for all
the nations.
If somebody should be receptiveof this message, it should be
the people in the synagogues.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, they should know more about God's Word,
because they have God's Word.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
They've been given the law, the promises, the
covenants.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah, they have the history of God working through
the people of Israel.
So they should recognize theMessiah they should have when he
came.
And so Paul's going back tothat.
Let's go back through Scriptureand let's look at what Jesus
has done and what was saidbefore he came, incarnate as a
fully man, fully God came.
(10:21):
What happened before that toshow us this is the Messiah.
So he's making these arguments.
It's kind of like he goes inthe synagogue three, it says,
three Sabbath in a row and threeSabbath days.
He reasoned with them.
So they're literally there,scripture open, walking through,
showing them this is what Godsaid, who the Messiah would be
(10:42):
and what.
He'd look like this and pointout, just as you were going
through Scripture.
So what an amazing like scene.
What would be cool to be thefly on the wall in the synagogue
listening to Paul break downScripture to prove that Jesus is
God Like what a cool thing thatwould be.
So that's what he's doing.
He goes there, he's going toconvince him to reason with them
(11:03):
.
And what do you guys think?
What are Scriptures you guys goto when maybe a student,
college student, junior highschool how do I know that Jesus
is the actual Messiah?
How do I know?
Jesus is God and you're lookingat Old Testament for that
reference.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, Isaiah 53, like Dakota mentioned, is like my
bread and butter on that of, hey, here is something that was
written hundreds of years beforethe Messiah was said to have
come, and then it lays outperfectly exactly what's going
to happen to Jesus and likethere's no denying that what is
written in Isaiah 53 is exactlywhat happens and is speaking to
the Messiah of Jesus Christ.
(11:39):
And so, as students bring thatup, that's always a conversation
because there's that oh well,is it just the New Testament
that I should be reading?
Is Old Testament?
You know out of it and how dowe put those two together?
And that's kind of the draw of,well, the Old Testament is
pointing to Christ coming allthroughout it and that's what,
as we see Paul's life and justthis of him going into the
synagogues is.
He was going to the place wherehe learned and he was studying
(12:01):
the Old Testament and say, hey,we were missing a couple of
things, like we were reading itthe whole time, but what has is
prophesied to come is here andhas come and so we need to be
focusing on that.
So that's kind of as studentsbring up those questions and
stuff, that's where I always gofor kind of that specific
conversation.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, isaiah 53 is like the crown jewel of the Old
Testament, the 12 verses in thatchapter.
Even today in Israel, you know,students are literally taught
to like, go to the next chapterlike rabbis, and they don't
educate students anymore throughIsaiah 53, because they'd get
(12:41):
too many questions.
I find that incrediblyinteresting.
Yeah, because you can't havesome more liberal scholars on
the Jewish side would say well,no, the person who's being
wounded for our transgressionsis the nation of Israel.
But that doesn't work.
Like a nation can't receivepunishment to cover for the sins
of anybody else.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
You have to like a person can do that, but not a
nation, how are they going tocast lots for the nation's
clothes Right?
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Right See playing out .
Yeah, very right, right, yeah,David, what about you?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
One of my main go tos is John.
One In the beginning was theword.
The word was with God.
The word was God, nothing wasmade.
And through him everything wasmade and without him nothing was
made.
Talking through the God as theunderstanding that Trinity is
(13:40):
not an easy thing for anyoneconceptually, but just
understanding the, that Jesuswas a part of creation didn't
just come at one point in time.
And then I also like to pointout the types of Christ, with
the serpent in the desert, withthe, with many of the ones that
(14:01):
you mentioned, but morespecifically, to use those
illustrations to, to bring thoseto life for young people
specifically, so that they cansee that, because we don't have
an understanding of Jewishtradition, you know, kids don't
have a strong understanding ofexactly what that is but to
appeal to the reason ofunderstanding that Jesus is, was
(14:24):
a part of the Trinitythroughout creation and the, the
logos being the, the wisdom,you know, the divine, the word
and everything is made andbrought together through the
wisdom of, of that and the.
So that that's what I like touse.
I like to use those, thosenarrative references, that kind
(14:46):
of bring that story to life forthem.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah.
So, Dakota, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna put you on the spot,because I sat in your Gospels
class and you were talking aboutprophecy in your Gospels class
and you talked about theexactness of some of the numbers
and of, in prophecy, thingsthat have come true days, the
exact days of when things wouldhappen.
(15:09):
Give us like a short breakdown,you don't have to go through
the whole thing.
But about prophecy, how doesthe Old Testament and prophecy
really show us that, Well, Godis exact.
He's not just close or in theballpark, but he's exact in the
things that are going to happenand that what he says is going
to come true.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah well, daniel nine, verses 24 to 27 speak
about the prophetic 70 weeks,and the 70th week to finalize
that prophecy is what we callthe day of Jacob's trouble.
So basically, these are 70weeks in a week, declared in
Jewish excuse me, jewishprophetic literature.
(15:47):
The word week actually justmeans unit of seven, so you
could translate it as 70 unitsof seven years, which means
Daniel, chapter nine is talkingabout a total of 490 literal
years of prophecy where theJewish people are going to
undergo some real tension.
(16:08):
And so the first part of thatprophecy is that there would be
a seven week unit, or a 49 yearunit, where there'd be a decree
given by a Persian king for thepeople to go back and rebuild
Jerusalem.
That happened when Arta Xerxestold them they could go and do
that.
You also have a 434 year periodbetween the rebuilding of
(16:30):
Jerusalem and then the time ofMessiah the prince.
That prophecy took place withexactness.
So, daniel I mean to a literalstandpoint, if you, if you
understand the numbers correctlyhe got the very coming of
Christ down correctly, all theway down to 483 years with
exactness, and the prophecystated that this, of course,
(16:55):
would be the time where Jesusmakes himself publicly known in
Jerusalem.
So that would have been when herode in on a donkey the week
before his passion.
If we have 483 years ofprophecy, that's already been
completed.
We know that that's 69 weekstotal, leaving us with one week
left.
By the way, the prophecy saidthe Messiah would be cut off,
(17:17):
meaning he'd be crucified, he'dbe killed, which that happened
as well.
So we are still waiting to thisday for that final 70th week,
this final seven year period,which we call the year of the
tribulation, and I imagine Paulpointing in the synagogue to
these kind of scriptures andsaying Daniel got it right.
(17:39):
You know, these things didhappen.
He has to be the Christ andwe're still waiting on that
seven year tribulation periodtoday.
And I would say, one moreexample that a lot of people
pass over, but I could probablygive this in two minutes, is, I
excuse me, genesis, chapter 49.
If you just look at verses likeeight through 10, look at what
(17:59):
it says Genesis 49, eightthrough 10.
This is Jacob prophesying overeach of his sons, the 12 sons of
Jacob who had become the 12tribes, and he's prophesying
about Judah's family line, whichwould be the tribe of Judah.
He says your brothers shallpraise you, meaning all other of
(18:20):
the tribes are going to look upto Judah.
Your hand shall be on the neckof your enemies, your father's
sons shall bow down to you.
So, basically, you're going tohave the greatest authority and
you're going to defeat yourenemies.
Hint, hint, somebody's going tocome from your line and defeat
all their enemies.
Verse nine Judah is a lion'swelp From the prey, my son, you
(18:41):
have gone up, he couches, helies down as a lion, and as a
lion who dares rouse him up.
So, judah, there's somebodycoming from your line that's
going to be lion-like in nature,even royal in nature.
Verse 10, the scepter, meaningthe instrument that a king holds
to show that he is holding hispower.
(19:02):
The scepter shall not departfrom Judah, nor the ruler staff
from between his feet, untilShia Lo comes, and to him shall
be the obedience of all thepeople.
So the expectation was hey,judah, once a king starts to
arise from your line, like David, then Solomon, then all the
other kings, that scepter willnever depart until Shia Lo comes
(19:25):
.
So the prophecy is saying Judah, the kingship in your family
line it's never going to end,especially because the final
king will continue to be kingforever.
We'll get this.
Around 4 BC, the Roman Empireofficially took over Judah
altogether, and they removed oneof their last legal rights to
(19:47):
conduct capital punishment, andso the people saw that as like
man.
All we have now is a puppetking.
We just have Herod the great,who's over us.
We have no more power, no moreauthority.
We can't conduct ourselves.
At that point, the rabbis in 4BC would have been walking the
(20:08):
streets and tearing their robesand shouting woe unto us.
We have a failed prophecy.
Woe unto us because Shia Loit's another term for the
Messiah Shia Lo has not come.
And so that would have been alike.
They would have thought man,the Word of God is broken.
But lo and behold, mostscholars actually believe that
(20:28):
Jesus was born around 4 BC.
So which means they didn't havea failed prophecy, which means
their king was there.
He was just there in infantform.
And so if I'm ministering to aJewish individual today, like
Paul is in the synagogue, I'mgoing right to Genesis 49,
because I'm saying look, you gottwo options.
(20:49):
Either Jesus, shia Lo, was herein 4 BC, which we know he was
there, or you have a failedprophecy from Genesis 49.
How do you deal with thosethings, and it's not to put them
like in a corner, to undercutthem, but it's to show them.
If Jesus is not the fulfillmentof that prophecy, then you have
(21:10):
no messianic prophecies left tolook at.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, and here in verse 3 of chapter 17,.
You know, yes and two, he'sreasoning, but verse 3,
explaining and proving that itwas necessary for Christ to
suffer and to rise from the dead.
So we know that many Jewishpeople thought the Messiah was
(21:33):
going to look a little differentthan Jesus.
A king, which Jesus is, but notthe king that Jesus appeared to
be.
A king that would come in,defeat Rome.
Israel's land would be takenback, just like King David, and
kind of come back to that glorywhere Paul is then now proving
to the synagogues, to thesepeople, that Jesus didn't come
(21:58):
this time for that reason, buthe came to suffer, to pay the
penalty for sin, so that allcould come to him, and then his
resurrection is him proving thathe is the Son of God and that
he has come for that purpose andhe will come again and we'll
see King Jesus, the way you guyshave kind of thought this whole
(22:19):
time, where he will come backand he will rule and reign in a
way in which you are allthinking.
So he's having to break thatdown.
So, from all of your guys'spoints, he's going through the
Old Testament, he's goingthrough prophecy, he's sharing
with them.
It must be Jesus because ofwhat you just said, and now we
have to talk about why did Jesusthen come to suffer first
(22:43):
before he would return again torule and reign?
So he's breaking down theargument as far as he can, and
it's taken him three Sabbathdays.
We're doing this in a littletruncated less than an hour but
Paul would have spent some timereally opening the Word, going
through it, having discussionand spending the time needed in
(23:06):
order that people would knowthat Jesus is the Son of God.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, I think it's important to also remember too.
The Old Testament doesn't justdepict that the Christ would
suffer, but that the Christwould rise again.
At the end of Isaiah 53,there's this little phrase where
it says you know, god would seehis suffering and he would
prolong his days, and the wordprolong there is in the Hebrew,
(23:31):
it's in the imperfect tense,which means he would give him
days without end after he'ssuffered, like his days will
never come to a completion,he'll just keep living and
living, and living.
So the Old Testament prophesiesabout a Christ that has to
suffer to be the substitutionaryatonor, the Lamb of God, for
the sin of the world.
Right the ultimate Leviticus,16 and 17 sacrifice.
(23:54):
And then he's got to defeat theconsequence of sin, which is
death, which is why he has torise again from the dead.
Paul will later say in 1Corinthians 15, if Christ didn't
rise, then we have most men areto be pitied as fools.
Right.
Our faith is in vain, he'd say.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So then Paul continues and we actually have
Paul's words and he says, afterdoing all this reasoning and
proving, he says this Jesus,whom I proclaim to you, is the
Christ.
So he's breaking down what theMessiah is going to do, as God
has said throughout prophecy,throughout the Old Testament,
(24:32):
what the Messiah is going tolook like, accomplish.
And then he connects theMessiah to Jesus.
This Jesus of Nazareth is theone that is the Christ, the
Messiah, the King.
And so Paul breaks it all theway down then to saying this is
the Messiah and you need tobelieve in him Verse 4,.
(24:53):
And some of them were persuadedand joined Paul and Silas, as
did a great many of the devoutGreeks and not a few of the
leading women.
And so we have Jews, greeks,women, all coming to Christ,
based upon Paul's work in theWord, showing them God's Word
coming true and that Jesus isthe Christ.
(25:15):
So Paul's taking his workseriously.
He's dedicated to the Word,he's dedicated to proving these
things.
He's not just getting up andpreaching, but he's opening
God's Word, sitting down,spending time proving.
That's an example of the wholepurpose of what we're doing
today, the reason why wedisciple people and sit in
coffee shops and invite themover for dinner and open God's
(25:35):
Word and say I want to show youwhat God's Word says about
Christ.
That's what Paul's doing,that's the example he's giving
us and that's what he's going tokeep doing.
We're just seeing one example.
We're going to see anotherexample of the same thing.
What a cool thing that we seePaul doing.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Yeah, I see that in a discipleship example of how do
we go to the Word, how do weproclaim that it's not us trying
to convince people of ourthoughts to be their thoughts.
It's like, no, this is what theWord says.
And if this is true of what theWord says, then it should be
true of our lives, and very muchso.
Paul is pointing to that wherehe's like the Jesus that I'm
explaining, like he is a Messiahbecause of the Word, not
(26:13):
because I think so, not becausethat's what I believe, not that
he's saying, it's the Word, iswhat the Word says.
And so that's that's theexample I see, and we're going
to see that too later on in thechapter when he goes to the
Bereans.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
And so, yeah, and I, and I really do think today we
live in a very dangerous timewhen it comes to communicating,
when it comes to talking, whenit comes to proving, because,
just like we're doing right nowon a video posted on the
internet, we get a lot of videosout there posted on the
internet that proclaiming aJesus or a gospel or whatever
(26:47):
that may be.
The problem that I see in a lotof those videos is the Bible's
not open.
It's just not open.
They're trying to prove it theway they feel or the way they
think it should be proven.
You don't need to do that.
Just open God's Word, just aswe are doing here.
Went to Genesis, Talked aboutwhere these are in Scripture.
(27:08):
Read it yourself.
Go to Isaiah 53.
Go to Daniel 9.
Read it yourself.
Don't just allow some talkinghead on the internet to tell you
Read it.
That's why we're going throughActs.
We're reading it word for word.
So we have to be very careful,because I see so many people
come up to me and say, oh, Iheard a pastor say this Is this
true?
Well, what does the Bible say?
(27:28):
Well, the Bible says this.
Okay, so it's not true?
Yeah, well, then that would bea false teacher Right.
So that's how we can check ourcheck.
Truth is God's Word, so don'tget away from the Word.
Don't just listen to somerandom internet preacher.
Open your Bibles and that'ssuch caution that Paul gives us.
He's using Scripture, so youuse Scripture as well.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
And to point out that Paul doesn't just get his
boldness and his confidence fromsome arbitrary example in his
old life, like it's truly from.
No, this is the Word.
And so I think that, asbelievers, as wanting to be
disciple makers and sharing thegospel because some people think
how do I share?
Where do I go?
What do I do?
It's like you don't have to goanywhere outside of what does
Scripture actually say, andthat's very much it.
(28:12):
As I talk to college studentsas we go out and do evangelism
and speak to people who don'tknow Christ, I'm not bringing up
lofty, cool ideas that I'vecome up with.
It's just this is what the Wordsays, and so I think Paul does
a great example of that here forus.
Where we may be wondering howdo I disciple someone or how do
I share the gospel?
It's not really that tricky atthe end of the day, it's what
(28:33):
does Jesus say and sharing thatwith others.
And if questions come up fromthat going back to, well, let's
see what the Bible actually saysabout that.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah, david.
What do you see in youthministry from an influence of
just outside people that don'teven live in our community, just
what you're seeing studentsthink about, say about things
that they owe.
The Bible says this when itreally doesn't, or whatever that
may be.
What are you seeing in youthministry?
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Some of the things I mean just the same things that
you guys mentioned, where Ithink even the concept of the,
of online personalities andpeople who are online influencer
just that word influencer thatthey create content to influence
people in a particular way, andthe youth of today are being
(29:26):
influenced by such a broad,immense content that really
can't be controlled by any.
I mean, we we're doing thispodcast and we are sticking to
the scripture.
We as pastors, youth pastor,executive pastor whatever your
(29:47):
title is, whatever- it is youknow guy who sits here campus
master the we're.
I think that's why we provideyouth with an with, with a place
where we can fellowship in theword together, to not just to
(30:08):
read the word together, but alsoto offer them the tools to
answer those questions forthemselves, to be able to filter
the influence of culture, theinfluence of what we know to be
ultimately Satan, the deceiverusing using our culture and the
world to influence us away fromthe Lord.
Distractions, amusements we seeall these things, but but I
(30:34):
primarily focus on, especiallyin speaking with kids, that that
are lost and that don't knowthe Lord, as I'm ministering to
them, inviting them to youthgroup and inviting them to be a
part to, to just share howimportant it is to balance what
we hear and what we learn on theinternet or wherever it may be,
(30:56):
with what the, what the wordsays, just like you said,
because we can follow.
I think even in the lastepisode, chance said something
about how important it is not toblindly follow leadership, not
to blindly follow the mob or thegroup, that, just because this,
this smacks of something Ibelieve in and then you just
follow it blindly until it'swhatever conclusion it is that
(31:20):
we need to be checking ourselvesalong the way.
I mean the youth in our churchhave had opportunity to join
Paula Payne and myself in thesidewalk ministry and one of the
things that even within thatthat we value life.
We know that God is the God oflife and God desires that and we
(31:40):
are called to defend thedefenseless, you know.
So we're going up to the.
We've been going up periodicallyon Fridays to the Planned
Parenthood to minister to peopleon the sidewalk women who are
considering abortions, some whohave had abortions and as we
were driving up, paula said to acouple of the girls that
(32:03):
sometimes it feels like we'refighting against ourselves and
each other, that there's evendisagreements within the
pro-life movement on how we dealwith legislation and how we
vote and things like that.
And it was interesting Iactually was on the other side
of the building but Paula, Icame back to meet Paula and one
(32:23):
of the other girls that that waswith us and Paula said that she
had a disagreement with a manwho had a who's there all the
time with a megaphone and theygotten a disagreement over
incremental or abolitionistabolition as far as voting for
legislature and changes in thelaw, and she got pretty heated
(32:45):
and I'm really sorry that.
I missed that because PaulaPayne is my mother-in-law and I
like seeing her get fired up.
But there are evendisagreements within what we
believe in and how we act andwhat we do, and I think we
measure that.
And so Paula and I had a longconversation because Paula said
well, where do you see inScripture where it says that we
(33:08):
shouldn't take smaller steps toget to a larger goal?
Are we compromising?
Are the integrity of God's callto protect life if we vote for
smaller legislation, smallerlaws that lead to our goal of
abolishing abortion, or do wenot take any smaller steps
(33:29):
because that would be compromise?
Like, do I vote for a law thatsays you can only abort up to
this period?
Am I, you know?
Am I compromising my faith andwhat God's call me to do to do
that?
But anyways, even within thosegreater topics in our culture
today, I think it's good forChristian youth to be able to
and we went through theScripture with them not to drag
(33:51):
this out any longer, but to lookfor examples in Scripture where
God has led people throughincremental steps.
Or was it no all or nothingmorally for what's right or
wrong?
But I think to giving the kidsof the tools to understand how
(34:13):
to study Scripture and balanceculture, because we can't
protect them from that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
One thing that makes this conversation really
relevant right now and we talkedabout this in last week's
podcast.
Well, two episodes ago just thecommercial the Super Bowl
commercial that made all theseclaims about what Christianity
is and who Jesus you know.
Would he wash everybody's feetand that sort of thing.
(34:39):
I was watching a I guess youcould say that like a little
clip from Charlie Kirk the otherday regarding one of the videos
that should have been placed.
I'm struggling to find my wordsfor this one, but basically
it's like, rather than showing abunch of pictures of Jesus
(35:01):
washing anybody and everybody'sfeet, why not show pictures of
people who have come to Jesusand had their life transformed?
So, rather than saying Jesusgets us, it's rather Jesus gets
us and he changes us.
And there's a picture there of aformer gang member.
I was a gang member, but Jesuschanged me.
There's a picture there of youknow, somebody who considered
(35:22):
themselves transgender.
I used to be transgender, butJesus changed me.
A former prostitute I used tobe into prostitution, but Jesus
changed me.
A former abortioner, but Jesuschanged me.
A former drug addict, but Jesuschanged me.
That's what Jesus does.
He doesn't wash your feet toapprove of your life.
If anything, he's calling youto repentance because he knows
(35:43):
in and of himself he can changeyou.
And that commercial alonedespite the fact I'm fumbling
over my words is a great exampleof why we have to reason from
the scriptures.
Just because something is on aSuper Bowl ad, it doesn't make
it legitimate.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
You know, it looks good and it feels good.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Right?
Yeah, I think one of thequestions that we should discuss
is this how do we make adifference?
How do we actually go forth, dosomething with God's word, to
go battle against what'shappening?
Because the reality is, paulwas going to the synagogues to
ensure that the Jewish peopleheard about the one and true
(36:24):
Messiah, who's Jesus.
I got to get to these people.
This is the ministry to theIsraelites.
I got to get to them.
I have to share the gospel withthem and do this work.
That's Paul's work, and thenalso we see Gentiles and other
people coming to know Jesusthrough that work.
Well, we've got a lot ofbattlegrounds in today's society
(36:46):
that we, as Christians, need toenter into to ensure that truth
is being taught.
We talked about it a little bitlast episode, about voting
right and some of the ways toget involved.
From a an American standpoint,what are our rights and what are
our abilities?
Free speech, all those sort ofthings where we can get involved
and really be in thatbattleground.
(37:07):
You know, one is this whatwe're doing right now entering
the space in which people arenow gaining their knowledge from
.
It isn't necessarily thesynagogue, where the people are
gathering to hear God's word.
The internet, social media allof those things are now the
battleground of information andknowledge and all of that sort
(37:29):
of stuff.
So how do we enter that otherthan the means in which we're
doing right now, podcast videos?
How could people just get inthe game, get in the battlefield
and start bringing truth andjust start teaching God's word
and and moving forward withoutbeing afraid or being scared of
the consequences?
What?
What can we do, guys?
(37:50):
What are things that you wouldencourage youth, college
students, anybody, throughout,any generation today?
What are things we can do.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Guys.
Let's start with chance.
You're on the campuses.
How are you engaging with thestudents?
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, I think one of the big kind of overlooked steps
and and things to first gettinginto my why, like, why are you
doing it?
What is your purpose?
Is our purpose to go out and toargue and to be someone who's
going to combat somethingaggressively for the purpose of
argument's sake, or are we, aswe pray about it, as we are led
(38:22):
by the spirit, are we walkinginto a situation saying this is
what God is calling me to do?
And I think we see that veryclearly in scripture as Jesus,
when he does miracles, moved bycompassion.
We talked about last episode,paul, in this moment of the
Philippian jailer, like whydidn't he run?
He saw that that man was facingsomething in that moment.
And so that's my, my first as I,as I talk with college students
(38:44):
, as I encourage other believersof going into ministry, doing
ministry where you're at it's,do you see the why of what
you're doing?
Do you understand the lives ofthe people that you're trying to
reach and do you recognize thatthere's a lost and broken world
out there and if we don't saysomething, then it's just going
to keep going down that path andthen from there, that's where,
once you get that compassion andstart to recognize that this is
(39:06):
what God's really called me todo, you start to take the little
steps and start to say, okay,how am I going to do it?
You know, how am I going toactually start meeting with kids
?
Does that look like taking sometime to go and do that as well?
As am I equipping myself to besomeone that has those answers?
Just like Paul in this, he wouldhave never walked into the
synagogue and done this had henot spent the years and the time
training and growing andlearning.
(39:27):
So also with that it's it's notthe sprint, it is the marathon.
But that's not to say weshouldn't still train hard and
still spend the time in the wordto grow and become someone that
is versed in apologetics, thatis versed in the word, that does
know how to do that.
But I think it all starts withbecause you can have all the
knowledge you want and and wesee that in Paul's life had all
(39:47):
the knowledge that all thethings fall to law, persecute
the church, and so you can be soadamant and so devoted to the
wrong thing and run down thewrong path your whole life
without having the heart ofChrist and the compassion of
Christ, and the truth is, likeyou talked about other podcasts
or different groups of peoplethat do that stuff, there's a
lot of people out there that canbe so right but yet so wrong.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, so staying on the college campus?
Let's stay on there, and thatfor a minute, because the
college campus, today university, is now the place in which
children are becoming youngadults, in which they are
learning all sorts of trash, asI'm just going to call it A lot
of.
It's just German right, nottrue theory, yeah, critical
(40:30):
theory, all of those differentthings that really get you
nowhere in life.
That's what they're beingbrought up in.
So if you're discipling aChristian student and they're
sitting in these classeslearning this junk, what are you
helping them in?
As it comes to responding,because I think we've got a
couple different type ofChristians sitting in classes
(40:52):
just doing the work to get by,maybe not really engaging in the
argument.
Which university is supposed tobe where you engage in these
arguments, these discussions?
It doesn't need to bethreatening.
Paul didn't come in here gunsblazing, like it seems, like he
sat down with them.
Let's have a discussion.
Let's go through scripture.
There seem to be an approachPaul had here.
(41:13):
How can students come into theclassroom in disagreement to
their professors or thecurriculum, like Paul's doing
here, and do it well enough towhere there's discussion.
We're actually asking questions.
We're debating back and forthin a way that doesn't.
We're not trying to hurtpeople's minds.
We're not trying to hurtpeople's feelings.
We're not trying to go straightto I'm right, you're wrong.
(41:33):
We're actually going to talkthrough it.
How can a college student dothat?
How can they approach aprofessor or a class and do this
?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Yeah.
So, two little things.
Quick testimony on it is Istruggled with that in college.
I faced some very big momentsof I know I should be saying
something but I'm a littleafraid I don't know if I should
or not.
And actually, as my buddy Tythat one day I was talking to
him about this and he reallyopened my eyes to it's a melting
(42:00):
pot of ideas like why can yoursnot be in there too, except for
yours is based in the word, andso I think that was was like my
first encouragement and kind ofgateway into realizing if
everyone wants to just believewhatever they want to believe,
then why can't I share my idea?
If they're going to comethrough, you know, the
transgender arguments at me andthey're going to throw critical
race theory and all these thingsat me and think that I should
(42:23):
just accept that, then why can'tI share, like why can't I be a
voice of reason in that?
And so that's where then Istarted to really understand.
Okay, so ideas are just that,their ideas, and if I believe
the word of God is true, a wordof God is true, and that's where
I'm going to set my faith andmy foundation, then why don't I
bring that into the conversationand it started with the prayer
(42:45):
for boldness.
It started with the prayer forLord, lead me in this
conversation, please help me tobring your word and bring your
truth.
And time and time again I sawthat get answered in my college
classroom and there's also anaspect of like you're saying
that the whole argument and doyou just go in guns blazing
ready to fire at anybody whoopposes you know.
(43:06):
At the same time we see howwhen there's a harsh sin or a
harsh offense in scripturethere's a harsh rebuke.
And I want to encouragebelievers in that aspect of
don't just see something and say, oh man, that's really tough
what they're saying.
Let me kind of try and justchip away at it.
There is a time to stand up andsay no, that's not true.
(43:27):
And specifically I'll share aquick example.
For me was in college.
I had a professor who wasencouraging the use of
pornography in marriages forhealing and in like young men's
lies for the fact of finding joy.
And I remember sitting in mycollege classroom full of
probably 100 to 150 students andme coming out of a testimony of
(43:47):
pornography and coming out of abackground where he's
struggling with that for yearsand watching the detrimental
effects of that in my life,knowing that here's all these
students taking this in, saying,oh, that guy's a professor, he
must be smart, he knows whathe's talking about.
But then being armed with theword of the Lord and the
testimony that God has done inmy life, to say that's not true.
So in that crossroads, that wasone of the biggest moments for
(44:09):
me in college of saying, do Istand up in this moment and say
that's completely false, knowingthat there's going to be people
opposed to that in this room,or do I continue to let the
enemy infiltrate the minds of myfellow peers at that moment?
And so that's something where,in that moment, the hand was
raised and I said that's justnot okay, like there's no way
(44:29):
that you can sit there and proveto me this, and and got to
share my testimony, which wasalso nerve wracking in the midst
of all those students.
And and that's where, likepeople ask you have been through
all the spirits like, yes, thatwas a moment where, like
chances, flesh would not havedone that.
Like chances, flesh was not theperson to sit there and do that
.
That's my encouragement to isrecognizing where, if there's
going to be a harsh idea.
(44:50):
If there's going to be thatthat bold proclamation of this
is absolutely the way it has tobe and you guys all have to
believe it, then don't be afraidto say no and don't be afraid
to push back in that a littlebit.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
So yeah, I want to encourage all those listening
that when we talk about studentson the university campus, we're
not excluding anybody here willbe who's listening.
The fight is in the homediscipling your children up to
know the Lord.
Young parents, you need todisciple your children in God's
(45:22):
Word to be ready for universityif they go there.
And so, um, grandparents, youneed to ensure if that the your
kids are not training up yourgrandchildren.
When you get the opportunity,you do that as well.
In churches, we this is thisneeds to happen all around as
Christians.
This isn't just a battle on theuniversity campus, but we can
(45:44):
bring that battle by equippingyoung men and women to go to the
church and then have theseconversations.
We need to do this on allfronts.
That's why going to church isimportant.
Being equipped in the word isimportant, because we need more
young men and women in theseplaces to have these
conversations.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
So it's important that we do this all around with
our families because of that,yeah, and to hit on that again
too, with the equipping aspectof it is had I not spent time in
the word, had I not spent timewith the Lord, there would have
been no equipping.
Right, jesus has tempted and hedoesn't say well, I think this
and he could have, he's Jesus,but he says no, it is written,
it is written, it is written.
And so in those moments likethe equipping and as I encourage
(46:26):
students, I'm like hey, don'tjust take these good moral
arguments and say, oh, I believeit because of you know so and
so said this, or this goodspeaker said that.
It's like no, what does theword say?
And do you have the power of?
It is written and and are yougoing to your arguments in your
conversations, knowing the wordof God and being able to bring
that into the conversation?
So that's not a little hearsay?
(46:46):
I think this.
I say that it's what is theword actually say about that?
Speaker 2 (46:50):
I think, while we intended to work through Paul,
thessalonica and Berea, maybe asa natural good place to land
the plane.
But maybe just to add on onemore thing concerning, I guess
you could say, paul's tacticright, look at some of the words
in here verse to he reasonedwith them from the scriptures.
(47:12):
Verse three he was explaining,giving evidence.
Verse three at the end of it hewas proclaiming.
Verse four he was persuadingthem.
Right, and so here's what wefind in the university today.
There is a number of people whosay you know, truth doesn't
exist.
Well, if truth doesn'tultimately exist, if truth
(47:39):
doesn't exist, then why continueto study the various academic
disciplines?
The first scientists wereChristians who held the
presupposition that there was acreator.
They had a reason to go lookingfor things like organization
because there was an organizer.
So every academic disciplinerequires logic, and if you have
(48:01):
logic, you have a logic giver.
So all academic disciplines,like literally all pursuits of
truth outside of objective truth, is completely worthless.
You'll just continue to reallycircle the wagon with different
theories, never arriving at whatis true.
And I think that's actuallypart of the problem with today's
collegiate environment isnobody actually is pursuing
(48:26):
truth, they're just pursuing newtheories that debunk other
theories.
Make no mistake about itChristians absolutely believe
that the truth of God's Word inthe Bible is the truth for
everywhere, for all time, forall cultures, past, present,
future.
Like what we believe applies topeople on the Amazon who have
(48:46):
never heard of it, what webelieve applies to the person
down the street who's neverheard of it, we actually believe
this is true truth to such anextent that everybody will be
held accountable for this.
We are not going into theuniversity just simply saying no
, here, consider what I believeas another option of various
beliefs.
We are saying there is a Saviorwho's going to judge the entire
(49:10):
world one day and everyone willbe held accountable to God's
standard.
This is not my opinion.
As you said, thus saith theLord and Paul is reasoning with
them that Jesus is the Christ,that he is the way, the truth
and the life, and that nobodycomes to the Father but through
him.
So, in a very objective way, weare not saying consider this.
(49:32):
We're saying this is life ordeath, this is eternity.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Yeah, I want to encourage you.
No matter where you are in thecountry, no matter what church
you go to, the college campus isa great place to serve.
You don't have to be a youngguy like Chance to serve on the
college campuses you can.
We have a ministry that we doon a college campus here in
Ottawa where families withchildren come and disciple and
(49:58):
spend time with college students, open up their homes to come
have meals, to get to know them,to go to their sporting events,
to invest in their life, toshow them.
I'm not just here to give aquick word and leave.
I'm here to have compassion foryou, to be with you, to be in
relationship with you, so youcan be of any age to connect
(50:19):
with college students.
Don't let the lies of ourculture say, oh, I'm not that
generation, so I don't reallyknow them.
That's all things to keep youaway from reaching more people.
So go reach people, serve them,get the gospel out there, be in
those conversations.
College students are hungry forconversations like that because
a lot of them just haven't hadthem.
Some of their answers are likeyou've just never thought about
(50:42):
this, you've never been exposedto the Bible, you've never even
really thought about is there aGod?
You've never answered thesequestions.
You've just kind of assumedbecause whoever's influencing
you rejects those ideas.
And so you're like, yeah, theymust be dumb, because these
people are the people I identifywith, so I'm not going to
believe it either, even thoughyou've never logically gone
(51:03):
through it, you've never usedreason, you've never done any of
these things, you've nevertested it right.
So I would encourage you get inthe game.
Body of Christ, sunday morningis great to come together,
huddle to grow.
Let's get in the game.
Let's get in our community.
As we say at Ottawa Bible livescent.
That means you have to activelystep forward in your faith
through those open doors thatGod has for you in ministry in
(51:26):
your community.
So make sure you're doing that,dr Justin.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Marchegiani, maybe some helpful resources for you
if you're watching this specificepisode.
This kind of organically justbecame a conversation about
apologetics, which is fine, wejust followed the Spirit's lead.
But there's a book by GregCokal titled Tactics and it's
really like strategic ways thatyou can converse with other
(51:49):
practically over some of the hotbutton issues of the day.
There's another one that hejust came up with, dr Justin
Marchegiani, yeah, called StreetSmarts.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
It's kind of Tactics 2.0.
Goes through all.
What's helpful with this bookis that it's actually taking
today's issues and applyingtactics to those issues.
So you're like how do I haveconversations with people LGBT
community, how do I haveconversations with atheists?
How do I have these ideologiesthat I've been hearing?
Greg answers those questionsand he does it in such a
(52:19):
practical way and takes youthrough actual conversation.
So check out those two booksTactics and Street Smarts by
Greg Cokal and Greg will haveyou on here pretty soon.
Dr Justin Marchegiani.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yeah, and we have had him on here in the past.
Dr Justin Marchegiani.
Yeah, dr Justin Marchegiani.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
So that was a treat.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
There's another podcast called the Christian
World View.
Highly encourage you to listento that.
And there's a little websitethat I've used over the years.
It's called calmorg I thinkit's Christian Apologetics
Research Ministry.
But calmorg has like articleafter article after article that
you can read in short, summaryform on how to give responses to
(52:54):
you know some of the issues ofthe day.
I mean, if you just simply typein Christian apologetics,
there's a book by Norm Geislerliterally titled Christian
Apologetics and it is like the,the pristine book on apologetics
for our day.
So it's not hard to find theseresources.
Greg Cokal.
Speaker 1 (53:10):
Another great one.
It's a curriculum we use forour kids ministry is answers and
genesis.
Answers and genesis also doesacademic journals, because
because they're they're doingthings from a Christian
perspective, creationiststhey're looking at how God made
the world and what's happenedsince he made the world.
So go to answers and genesis.
That has stuff for kids, it hasstuff for adults.
(53:32):
It's a great resource to learnabout what God has done, how he
has ordered things.
It's a.
It's a wonderful ministry.
Greg Cokal, anybody else?
Guys, you guys got resources,greg Cokal.
The Bible's a great one, gregCokal.
The Bible's a good one, gregCokal.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
The Bible is the final authority for life and God
life.
Greg Cokal, right, greg Cokal.
And it's breathed out by God.
Greg Cokal, right, greg Cokal.
Speaker 1 (53:50):
It is sufficient for the Christian life.
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Greg Cokal.
Yeah, there's a conversation Ioften have with the college
students of hey, are youspending more time in the word
than you are on TikTok andsocial media?
And so, even as believers andChristians, no matter what age,
I would say that's a hugeencouragement to read the word.
Read the word, make sure thatwe are coming back to getting
fed from the word of God and andnot just depending on the
(54:13):
podcast and little things.
Well, those are great resourcesas well, greg Cokal.
We have the word in front of us.
We get to touch it.
Flip through the pages, gregCokal Amen, greg Cokal, and take
it in for ourselves.
So I would encourage us all todo that, greg Cokal.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, honestly, all of the resources we just shared
are ornaments to the Bible.
They're just helping you tounderstand the Bible even better
.
But the authoritative breathedout word of God is the scripture
.
That's why Paul argued from itand nothing else.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
So, greg Cokal, yeah, so thank you all for listening
to the Be Disciples podcast.
We know that we didn't spendtoo many time, too many verses
here.
I think we went through fourverses.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Greg Cokal.
Next episode Greg Cokal.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
Sometimes, that happens.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
But I think we got.
Whenever anybody says you knowwhat the Bible, that's old news,
that's not relevant.
We just looked at what Paul didand said that's happening today
, and we have our own areas inwhich we need to get in and do
the same thing Paul's doing.
So this doesn't change theBible is always relevant and it
is for all time, as Dakota hassaid.
(55:12):
So make sure you're in it andyou're out doing the work.
Thank you again.
Please share this podcast withwhoever.
They don't have to be yourfriend, you can send it to
anybody, but make sure you shareit, because that's the only way
we're able to get the word outin this format.
And so thank you again forbeing a faithful listener and
we'll see you next week.
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