September 30, 2024 • 22 mins
Nate Williams talks about the mistake of relying on individual Bible verses for your theology and offers a better way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
If you've been a Christian for long enough, you
know the feeling of searchingfor a specific Bible verse to
cover a specific situation.
And maybe you're frustratedbecause you can't find something
.
You're looking and you'relooking and you're putting in
keywords, you're googling,you're scrolling the rest of it,
(00:21):
flipping pages, but you can'tfind a Bible verse that
specifically covers a certainsituation.
And so you get frustrated.
You say, oh man, well, I'llsend a person, a friend, or
maybe, if it's for you, I'lljust find the closest verse
(00:41):
that'll cover a situation.
And you know, you find theverse and you kind of make do,
you shrug, you're like ah, Iguess this is the best I can do
for now and you go about yourmerry way.
Not that there's anything wrongwith that.
But let me tell you what'sbetter than a Bible verse or
what's better than Bible verses.
(01:03):
This is Nate Williams with theDangerous Faith Podcast.
Before I get to what's betterthan a Bible verse or Bible
(01:23):
verses, I'll kind of explainwhat led to the topic of this
episode.
I was watching a Mike Wingervideo and if you don't know who
he is, he's a YouTuber createshigh-quality content for
Christians and he tries to helppeople to think biblically.
He was responding to aprogressive theologian a very
(01:46):
leftist, liberal type person,online and I'm not going to tell
you who it is because that'sbesides the point.
But he was walking through somebad interpretations of the
Bible and as an apologist, Ihave to say that progressive
theology is very creative.
(02:06):
They'll take certain passagesof the Bible and they'll come up
with the most novelinterpretations.
Now they're terribly wrong, butsometimes they're new.
I've never heard of thesethings before.
They're just completely made upways of reading a Bible passage
.
And so in order to debunk theinterpretation, in order to
(02:31):
refute the lies, bad doctrine,heresy, all the rest of it, that
takes a lot of work andapologists and theologians need
to do that work.
But for the layman, the laity,the everyday Christian, you
might not have time for that.
(02:52):
You might not have time to lookup every false thing that's
said.
Find the perfect Bible verse torefute it all, or to string
together Bible verses that'llgive a good answer.
That takes a lot of time,energy and effort.
Not everyone has that.
And then you can go, not justprogressive theology, you can go
(03:14):
to different topics.
I think of Bible contradictions.
If you look online and searchBible contradictions, you'll
find very long lists of justthings that people think.
Well, this is why you got tothrow out the Bible.
This is why you got to get ridof it.
Look at this long list of theBible contradicting itself, and
(03:36):
so on and so forth.
Debunking every contradictiontakes a lot of time and takes a
lot of effort Not everyone hasthat and so on and so forth.
So, as I was thinking about thisthat yes, we need people
apologists, theologians, biblestudies based upon debunking
(03:59):
heresies and bad thinking.
Yes, that's all important, butnot everyone can necessarily
take part in that endeavor andit got me thinking about the
need for something greater thanjust a good Bible verse here and
there for topics.
It also leads me to I know thisis a long-winded answer to get
(04:21):
to what I'm ultimately gettingto, but just bear with me.
It also leads me to myfrustrations with devotional
books.
You and I have seen them.
You go in a Christian bookstore, get these devotional books.
They'll take a verse or two andthen have a paragraph
explanation, a little prayer andyou go about your day.
You go about your day.
(04:42):
On one hand, I'll take thatover nothing.
So read a couple verses, prayand start your day.
That's fine, but oftentimesthat by itself leads to a very
disjointed way of viewing theBible Just grabbing a couple
verses and doing your own thingInstead.
(05:05):
All of this, everything I'vejust mentioned up until this
point different scenarios,different areas um, the better
way is to have a cohesive,overarching biblical worldview
Instead of scrambling and tryingto find just the perfect Bible
(05:27):
verse in every situation or whenanswering bad theology.
We need an overall,well-put-together biblical
worldview.
Now, it relies on the Bible.
Please hear me, I'm not sayingget rid of the Bible, but what
it does is, whenever you hearsomething new, you're not
(05:50):
scrambling, you're not like ohno, what do I do?
You're able to respond with afoundational way of viewing
reality and viewing the worldthat is based upon God's reveal
truth in the Bible.
And so now, because I have that, when I hear bad theology you
(06:14):
know word of faith, name it,claim it progressive theology.
Or when I'm confronted withother religions Islam and
Buddhism and the rest of it whenthe Bible is attacked in some
new and novel way, I'm notscrambling because my overall
worldview is not affected.
(06:36):
Scrambling because my overallworldview is not affected.
It's based upon I'll walkthrough some tenets of a
biblical worldview.
It's based upon the fact thatGod exists.
So overall there's theism.
This God created the world tofunction a certain way, just
like if you invent something,let's say some new piece of
(07:01):
technology, you design it towork in a certain way, and so
that's how God made the world.
It's based upon somefoundational structures.
You have the laws of logic, youhave the laws of morality, you
have the laws of logic, you havethe laws of morality, you have
the laws of science.
You have different aspects of,I guess, reproduction.
(07:25):
So one man and one woman isneeded to produce a baby, and so
there's that, and then you havejust different aspects of it.
But that's called natural law.
God made the world upon certainfoundational principles.
That if you transgress thoseprinciples, if you are, let's
(07:47):
say, laws of logic, if you areillogical, laws of morality, if
you are immoral, laws of science, if you just again do, from a
scientific point of view, stupidthings, well you're not going
to flourish because that's nothow God created the world to
function.
So in my cohesive biblicalworldview, you start with God.
(08:13):
Well, god made the world,that's the beginning of Genesis
and then he made it upon certainfoundations natural law, and
then from there, that's helpfulfor, let's say, a flourishing
society for us to function.
But also biblically.
We know from Genesis that we'resinners, we've rebelled against
(08:36):
God, and so all of this stuff Imentioned before is good, but
not for salvation.
That then you have the gospelmessage from the word of God,
the Bible, that we're sinners inneed of a savior.
We can't save ourself.
That addresses other religionsIslam, buddhism, hinduism, new
(08:56):
Age, the rest of it.
You can't save yourself throughsome knowledge or some good
practices or the eightfold, this, the four, noble that.
The rest of it, that's part ofsome Eastern religions Islam
following Allah.
No matter what you do, youcan't save yourself.
And so that addresses the otherreligions.
(09:16):
Well, you need Jesus fully God,fully man.
Some people would rather it betruly God, truly man.
You get what I'm trying to say.
So Jesus came to earth and diedon the cross for our sins, and
so you believe and trust in himalone, through faith, and you're
now saved.
Romans, chapter 10.
(09:37):
Okay, now that addressessalvation.
Now what about ethics?
How should we then live Inlight of who God is, how he made
the world and him saving us?
How should we then live?
That gets into the oughts andthe shoulds and the shouldn'ts
and the rest of it.
Well, love God, love yourneighbor.
(09:59):
In Matthew we read about beingsalt and light.
So then you want to love others.
Put others before yourself, thegolden rule.
Okay, now you have your ethics.
That's how you should go aboutliving.
The Bible talks about defendingthe poor, the outcasts, the
rejected, the widows, theorphans.
All right, then there's thatand so on and so forth, and so
(10:23):
what happens is, as I take allthese things together God,
nature, bible, nature beingGod's general revelation, the
Bible being God's divinerevelation I now have an overall
cohesive worldview that's basedon the Bible.
And Well, that's great.
(10:46):
If you don't have that, youstruggle a little bit, and so
the alternative to a cohesiveworldview is, I guess, what I'll
call shooting from the hip.
Every time an issue comes up,you're scrambling to address it.
So you try to find a Bibleverse or some catchy,
quick-witted answer, and thenyou struggle.
(11:09):
And so my encouragement to youis build your worldview.
Even within Christianity, thereare different alternatives.
You have the Reformed worldview.
You have different tools andtidbits you can use.
There's Molinism.
There's, you know, evendifferent branches of the faith.
(11:31):
You have Greek, orthodox,catholic, protestant different
theologies within them.
You have Pentecostalism,cessationism, continuationism
and the rest of it.
I'm just throwing out terms.
Now it gets more detailed andyou can fill out things a little
bit more than what I've talkedabout in this episode.
But overall the goal isbiblical faithfulness and that's
(11:54):
how you then address the world.
And so I know a lot of people.
They don't evangelize, they'renot active in their faith, they
don't get out in the worldbecause they're scared.
And they think what if I hearsomething that I don't know how
to handle?
What if I come across anobjection from a Muslim, a
(12:15):
progressive person?
I'm not going to sayprogressive Christian, because I
don't hold progressiveChristian to be a form of
Christianity, so I'm just goingto say, maybe progressive
liberalism or whatever, I'll usea different term.
What if I just hear somethingfrom an atheist that I don't
know how to answer?
A couple things.
One, you can always say I don'tknow, I'll get back to you.
(12:38):
So that's a practical response.
But two, you can fall back onyour cohesive Christian biblical
worldview and think, okay, well, I'm not shaken because the
objection, the thing I cameacross online or with a friend,
well, it didn't actually get atthe foundation of my faith.
(12:58):
So I'll give an example theMuslim will often attack the
Trinity, will often attack theTrinity and they'll say the
Trinity doesn't make sense,that's not who God is and the
rest of it.
And sometimes, unless you'rebrushed up on your Trinitarian
part of your theology, some ofthe objections you're kind of
(13:22):
like oh wow, that makes sense.
The Trinity is kind ofdifficult.
But then I go back to myworldview.
Yes, study up on the Trinityand have answers, do your
research.
But in the moment let's say, ifyou're not able to do so, I
fall back on the basics.
God exists.
(13:43):
He made the world to function acertain way.
I'm a sinner in need of asavior, the tomb is empty, jesus
is risen and all thosefoundations of the Christian
faith.
So even if I can't answer,let's say, a Trinitarian
objection, in the moment I canbreathe.
(14:04):
Okay, I know Islam is a falsereligion because it's based upon
works and there's nothing I cando to save myself.
A Muslim works really hard totry to appear on Judgment Day
and have enough going for him orher in order to reach paradise.
I know fundamentally thatdoesn't work.
(14:28):
So, whatever they attack aboutthe Trinity, I know there's a
flaw at the core of theirreligion and so, okay, I'm not
going to be a Muslim.
I need to brush up on myTrinitarian theology in order to
find good answers, and so, ifyou want to do that, there's a
YouTube channel called CapturingChristianity.
(14:49):
They talk about some issues, Ithink recently about Islam and
Trinity.
There's William Lane Craig.
He recently had a debate on theTrinity with a Muslim, and then
you have other apologeticsresources that you can say, okay
, I'm all right, islam fails.
One of the basic things I knowabout the world, which is you
(15:10):
can't earn your salvation.
Okay, now let me do someresearch and give me some time.
So that would be one example.
Let's see what's another thing.
Oh, let's take something aboutthe Bible.
An atheist says, oh, the Biblewas written by backwards
shepherds, ignorant people thatdidn't know anything that we
(15:31):
know now, yada, yada.
You might think, all right,that seems like a strong
objection.
I don't have an answer in themoment.
Okay, what do I do?
What do I do?
You fall back on your cohesiveChristian biblical worldview and
you say, okay, an atheist saysthis.
(15:52):
But atheism fails in a coupledifferent ways.
I know that God exists, I knowthat creation can't come from
nothing.
Something can't come fromnothing.
And so I know God had to createthe world or something.
Whether God or not, somethinghad to create the world, because
(16:13):
nothingness doesn't make senseif we're saying it led to
everything we see today.
All right, atheism.
It is foundationally flawed.
And so now let me look into theauthors of the Bible, let me
look into divine revelation andthe rest of it.
I can brush up on that.
(16:33):
But I know atheism as an answer.
It's just very unsatisfying,lots of deep flaws.
Let me brush up now on thisspecific topic.
So you see, what I'm doing isI'm not panicking when I hear
objections from other worldviews.
I'm not panicking when I comeacross something I haven't heard
(16:54):
before.
I go back to my Christianfoundation and I look at these
other ways of thinking and maybethey make a good point that I
need to study.
But in the moment I'm notshaken because I know there are
some deep flaws with theirworldview.
And so I'm not panicking, I'mnot thinking oh no, I gotta.
(17:15):
What do I do now?
I don't have a perfect bibleverse or I don't have an answer
on the spot.
I fall back on my foundation, Ibrush myself off a little bit,
I do some research and I say allright, here are some answers,
but I really don't sweat it.
You could go through differentexamples of it.
(17:36):
Whether Trinity, whether Bibleauthors, whether contradictions,
I fall back on these differentthings that I know to be true,
that I get from the Bible, andso, unless those things are
fundamentally shaken, like, ohno, I just learned that nothing
can create something.
(17:56):
I just learned that nothing canlead to our universe.
All right, well, that's alittle bit different.
Oh no, the tomb is not empty.
They found the body of Jesus.
Oh well, okay if that happensnow all of a sudden.
Okay, we got to think throughsome things.
Oh no, I just learned, in atruthful kind of way, with lots
(18:22):
of research and evidence, thatthe Bible was written yesterday.
I say, oh, oh boy, our faith isbased on the Bible.
If it's written yesterday,we're in trouble, unless the
core aspects of the biblicalworldview are shown to be false.
I'm not sweating thesedifferent things because I
(18:44):
breathe, I know.
Okay, let me do some research.
My cohesive biblical worldviewis still in place.
Even if I don't have a Bibleverse on the spot, even if I
don't have a fancy answer rightaway, it's all going to be okay.
Let me take my time with this.
And so, because I've served inyouth group ministry and I've
(19:09):
served in young adult ministry,pastoral ministry, the rest of
it Sometimes people panic whenthey hear something they don't
know how to handle.
Sometimes people they say, oh no, this YouTuber said this, what
do I do?
I say, hold on, let's go backto these axioms of the faith.
Let's just think through thesethings.
(19:33):
It's all going to be okay.
Your faith is not destroyed.
Christianity is not debunked bythe latest claim from a YouTuber
and the rest of it.
So, anyways, what's better thana Bible verse?
What's better than a coupleBible verses?
It is a way of viewing reality.
(19:55):
This is called a worldview thatis biblically based and
cohesive, start to bottom, fromthe existence of God all the way
down to how we should live.
It all makes sense.
And, yeah, there will be a holehere and there.
There'll be some toughquestions, sure, but overall,
(20:15):
you're not shaken when you hearsomething new.
Now I've addressed this morefrom an apologetic standpoint.
I could have gone the pastoralroute, and it's still true.
When you lose your job, whenyou're ill, when you're injured,
when you face death, when thereare struggles and trials and
tribulations, and you're like ohno, what do I do?
(20:38):
You fall back on your worldviewand it might be tough, it might
be difficult, but ultimatelyyou're secure in your faith.
The Bible does not change.
You're not shaken because theBible's not shaken.
The Bible has seen it all,every sort of attack in every
sort of way.
(20:59):
And yet we're still here.
The tomb is still empty.
Jesus is risen.
It's gonna be okay.
No need to panic or worry.
Breathe, do some research, askme questions.
Mike Winger on YouTube is aphenomenal resource, and the
rest of it.
There is just no need to freakout.
(21:21):
But anyways, my thoughts, I'dlove to hear yours.
Am I wrong somewhere?
Did I miss something?
Let me know.
You can follow us on socialmedia.
We're on Twitter, facebook,instagram.
We also have a website,dangerousfaithnet, and if you
found this comforting or if youenjoyed the episode, feel free
(21:43):
to share with others.
I would greatly appreciate it.
Anyways, nate Williams, glad totalk with you today.
Until next time.
I guess I'll talk with youtoday, until next time.
(22:04):
I guess I'll talk with youlater, thank you.
If you've been a Christian for long enough, you
know the feeling of searchingfor a specific Bible verse to
cover a specific situation.
And maybe you're frustratedbecause you can't find something
.
You're looking and you'relooking and you're putting in
keywords, you're googling,you're scrolling the rest of it,
(00:21):
flipping pages, but you can'tfind a Bible verse that
specifically covers a certainsituation.
And so you get frustrated.
You say, oh man, well, I'llsend a person, a friend, or
maybe, if it's for you, I'lljust find the closest verse
(00:41):
that'll cover a situation.
And you know, you find theverse and you kind of make do,
you shrug, you're like ah, Iguess this is the best I can do
for now and you go about yourmerry way.
Not that there's anything wrongwith that.
But let me tell you what'sbetter than a Bible verse or
what's better than Bible verses.
(01:03):
This is Nate Williams with theDangerous Faith Podcast.
Before I get to what's betterthan a Bible verse or Bible
(01:23):
verses, I'll kind of explainwhat led to the topic of this
episode.
I was watching a Mike Wingervideo and if you don't know who
he is, he's a YouTuber createshigh-quality content for
Christians and he tries to helppeople to think biblically.
He was responding to aprogressive theologian a very
(01:46):
leftist, liberal type person,online and I'm not going to tell
you who it is because that'sbesides the point.
But he was walking through somebad interpretations of the
Bible and as an apologist, Ihave to say that progressive
theology is very creative.
(02:06):
They'll take certain passagesof the Bible and they'll come up
with the most novelinterpretations.
Now they're terribly wrong, butsometimes they're new.
I've never heard of thesethings before.
They're just completely made upways of reading a Bible passage
.
And so in order to debunk theinterpretation, in order to
(02:31):
refute the lies, bad doctrine,heresy, all the rest of it, that
takes a lot of work andapologists and theologians need
to do that work.
But for the layman, the laity,the everyday Christian, you
might not have time for that.
(02:52):
You might not have time to lookup every false thing that's
said.
Find the perfect Bible verse torefute it all, or to string
together Bible verses that'llgive a good answer.
That takes a lot of time,energy and effort.
Not everyone has that.
And then you can go, not justprogressive theology, you can go
(03:14):
to different topics.
I think of Bible contradictions.
If you look online and searchBible contradictions, you'll
find very long lists of justthings that people think.
Well, this is why you got tothrow out the Bible.
This is why you got to get ridof it.
Look at this long list of theBible contradicting itself, and
(03:36):
so on and so forth.
Debunking every contradictiontakes a lot of time and takes a
lot of effort Not everyone hasthat and so on and so forth.
So, as I was thinking about thisthat yes, we need people
apologists, theologians, biblestudies based upon debunking
(03:59):
heresies and bad thinking.
Yes, that's all important, butnot everyone can necessarily
take part in that endeavor andit got me thinking about the
need for something greater thanjust a good Bible verse here and
there for topics.
It also leads me to I know thisis a long-winded answer to get
(04:21):
to what I'm ultimately gettingto, but just bear with me.
It also leads me to myfrustrations with devotional
books.
You and I have seen them.
You go in a Christian bookstore, get these devotional books.
They'll take a verse or two andthen have a paragraph
explanation, a little prayer andyou go about your day.
You go about your day.
(04:42):
On one hand, I'll take thatover nothing.
So read a couple verses, prayand start your day.
That's fine, but oftentimesthat by itself leads to a very
disjointed way of viewing theBible Just grabbing a couple
verses and doing your own thingInstead.
(05:05):
All of this, everything I'vejust mentioned up until this
point different scenarios,different areas um, the better
way is to have a cohesive,overarching biblical worldview
Instead of scrambling and tryingto find just the perfect Bible
(05:27):
verse in every situation or whenanswering bad theology.
We need an overall,well-put-together biblical
worldview.
Now, it relies on the Bible.
Please hear me, I'm not sayingget rid of the Bible, but what
it does is, whenever you hearsomething new, you're not
(05:50):
scrambling, you're not like ohno, what do I do?
You're able to respond with afoundational way of viewing
reality and viewing the worldthat is based upon God's reveal
truth in the Bible.
And so now, because I have that, when I hear bad theology you
(06:14):
know word of faith, name it,claim it progressive theology.
Or when I'm confronted withother religions Islam and
Buddhism and the rest of it whenthe Bible is attacked in some
new and novel way, I'm notscrambling because my overall
worldview is not affected.
(06:36):
Scrambling because my overallworldview is not affected.
It's based upon I'll walkthrough some tenets of a
biblical worldview.
It's based upon the fact thatGod exists.
So overall there's theism.
This God created the world tofunction a certain way, just
like if you invent something,let's say some new piece of
(07:01):
technology, you design it towork in a certain way, and so
that's how God made the world.
It's based upon somefoundational structures.
You have the laws of logic, youhave the laws of morality, you
have the laws of logic, you havethe laws of morality, you have
the laws of science.
You have different aspects of,I guess, reproduction.
(07:25):
So one man and one woman isneeded to produce a baby, and so
there's that, and then you havejust different aspects of it.
But that's called natural law.
God made the world upon certainfoundational principles.
That if you transgress thoseprinciples, if you are, let's
(07:47):
say, laws of logic, if you areillogical, laws of morality, if
you are immoral, laws of science, if you just again do, from a
scientific point of view, stupidthings, well you're not going
to flourish because that's nothow God created the world to
function.
So in my cohesive biblicalworldview, you start with God.
(08:13):
Well, god made the world,that's the beginning of Genesis
and then he made it upon certainfoundations natural law, and
then from there, that's helpfulfor, let's say, a flourishing
society for us to function.
But also biblically.
We know from Genesis that we'resinners, we've rebelled against
(08:36):
God, and so all of this stuff Imentioned before is good, but
not for salvation.
That then you have the gospelmessage from the word of God,
the Bible, that we're sinners inneed of a savior.
We can't save ourself.
That addresses other religionsIslam, buddhism, hinduism, new
(08:56):
Age, the rest of it.
You can't save yourself throughsome knowledge or some good
practices or the eightfold, this, the four, noble that.
The rest of it, that's part ofsome Eastern religions Islam
following Allah.
No matter what you do, youcan't save yourself.
And so that addresses the otherreligions.
(09:16):
Well, you need Jesus fully God,fully man.
Some people would rather it betruly God, truly man.
You get what I'm trying to say.
So Jesus came to earth and diedon the cross for our sins, and
so you believe and trust in himalone, through faith, and you're
now saved.
Romans, chapter 10.
(09:37):
Okay, now that addressessalvation.
Now what about ethics?
How should we then live Inlight of who God is, how he made
the world and him saving us?
How should we then live?
That gets into the oughts andthe shoulds and the shouldn'ts
and the rest of it.
Well, love God, love yourneighbor.
(09:59):
In Matthew we read about beingsalt and light.
So then you want to love others.
Put others before yourself, thegolden rule.
Okay, now you have your ethics.
That's how you should go aboutliving.
The Bible talks about defendingthe poor, the outcasts, the
rejected, the widows, theorphans.
All right, then there's thatand so on and so forth, and so
(10:23):
what happens is, as I take allthese things together God,
nature, bible, nature beingGod's general revelation, the
Bible being God's divinerevelation I now have an overall
cohesive worldview that's basedon the Bible.
And Well, that's great.
(10:46):
If you don't have that, youstruggle a little bit, and so
the alternative to a cohesiveworldview is, I guess, what I'll
call shooting from the hip.
Every time an issue comes up,you're scrambling to address it.
So you try to find a Bibleverse or some catchy,
quick-witted answer, and thenyou struggle.
(11:09):
And so my encouragement to youis build your worldview.
Even within Christianity, thereare different alternatives.
You have the Reformed worldview.
You have different tools andtidbits you can use.
There's Molinism.
There's, you know, evendifferent branches of the faith.
(11:31):
You have Greek, orthodox,catholic, protestant different
theologies within them.
You have Pentecostalism,cessationism, continuationism
and the rest of it.
I'm just throwing out terms.
Now it gets more detailed andyou can fill out things a little
bit more than what I've talkedabout in this episode.
But overall the goal isbiblical faithfulness and that's
(11:54):
how you then address the world.
And so I know a lot of people.
They don't evangelize, they'renot active in their faith, they
don't get out in the worldbecause they're scared.
And they think what if I hearsomething that I don't know how
to handle?
What if I come across anobjection from a Muslim, a
(12:15):
progressive person?
I'm not going to sayprogressive Christian, because I
don't hold progressiveChristian to be a form of
Christianity, so I'm just goingto say, maybe progressive
liberalism or whatever, I'll usea different term.
What if I just hear somethingfrom an atheist that I don't
know how to answer?
A couple things.
One, you can always say I don'tknow, I'll get back to you.
(12:38):
So that's a practical response.
But two, you can fall back onyour cohesive Christian biblical
worldview and think, okay, well, I'm not shaken because the
objection, the thing I cameacross online or with a friend,
well, it didn't actually get atthe foundation of my faith.
(12:58):
So I'll give an example theMuslim will often attack the
Trinity, will often attack theTrinity and they'll say the
Trinity doesn't make sense,that's not who God is and the
rest of it.
And sometimes, unless you'rebrushed up on your Trinitarian
part of your theology, some ofthe objections you're kind of
(13:22):
like oh wow, that makes sense.
The Trinity is kind ofdifficult.
But then I go back to myworldview.
Yes, study up on the Trinityand have answers, do your
research.
But in the moment let's say, ifyou're not able to do so, I
fall back on the basics.
God exists.
(13:43):
He made the world to function acertain way.
I'm a sinner in need of asavior, the tomb is empty, jesus
is risen and all thosefoundations of the Christian
faith.
So even if I can't answer,let's say, a Trinitarian
objection, in the moment I canbreathe.
(14:04):
Okay, I know Islam is a falsereligion because it's based upon
works and there's nothing I cando to save myself.
A Muslim works really hard totry to appear on Judgment Day
and have enough going for him orher in order to reach paradise.
I know fundamentally thatdoesn't work.
(14:28):
So, whatever they attack aboutthe Trinity, I know there's a
flaw at the core of theirreligion and so, okay, I'm not
going to be a Muslim.
I need to brush up on myTrinitarian theology in order to
find good answers, and so, ifyou want to do that, there's a
YouTube channel called CapturingChristianity.
(14:49):
They talk about some issues, Ithink recently about Islam and
Trinity.
There's William Lane Craig.
He recently had a debate on theTrinity with a Muslim, and then
you have other apologeticsresources that you can say, okay
, I'm all right, islam fails.
One of the basic things I knowabout the world, which is you
(15:10):
can't earn your salvation.
Okay, now let me do someresearch and give me some time.
So that would be one example.
Let's see what's another thing.
Oh, let's take something aboutthe Bible.
An atheist says, oh, the Biblewas written by backwards
shepherds, ignorant people thatdidn't know anything that we
(15:31):
know now, yada, yada.
You might think, all right,that seems like a strong
objection.
I don't have an answer in themoment.
Okay, what do I do?
What do I do?
You fall back on your cohesiveChristian biblical worldview and
you say, okay, an atheist saysthis.
(15:52):
But atheism fails in a coupledifferent ways.
I know that God exists, I knowthat creation can't come from
nothing.
Something can't come fromnothing.
And so I know God had to createthe world or something.
Whether God or not, somethinghad to create the world, because
(16:13):
nothingness doesn't make senseif we're saying it led to
everything we see today.
All right, atheism.
It is foundationally flawed.
And so now let me look into theauthors of the Bible, let me
look into divine revelation andthe rest of it.
I can brush up on that.
(16:33):
But I know atheism as an answer.
It's just very unsatisfying,lots of deep flaws.
Let me brush up now on thisspecific topic.
So you see, what I'm doing isI'm not panicking when I hear
objections from other worldviews.
I'm not panicking when I comeacross something I haven't heard
(16:54):
before.
I go back to my Christianfoundation and I look at these
other ways of thinking and maybethey make a good point that I
need to study.
But in the moment I'm notshaken because I know there are
some deep flaws with theirworldview.
And so I'm not panicking, I'mnot thinking oh no, I gotta.
(17:15):
What do I do now?
I don't have a perfect bibleverse or I don't have an answer
on the spot.
I fall back on my foundation, Ibrush myself off a little bit,
I do some research and I say allright, here are some answers,
but I really don't sweat it.
You could go through differentexamples of it.
(17:36):
Whether Trinity, whether Bibleauthors, whether contradictions,
I fall back on these differentthings that I know to be true,
that I get from the Bible, andso, unless those things are
fundamentally shaken, like, ohno, I just learned that nothing
can create something.
(17:56):
I just learned that nothing canlead to our universe.
All right, well, that's alittle bit different.
Oh no, the tomb is not empty.
They found the body of Jesus.
Oh well, okay if that happensnow all of a sudden.
Okay, we got to think throughsome things.
Oh no, I just learned, in atruthful kind of way, with lots
(18:22):
of research and evidence, thatthe Bible was written yesterday.
I say, oh, oh boy, our faith isbased on the Bible.
If it's written yesterday,we're in trouble, unless the
core aspects of the biblicalworldview are shown to be false.
I'm not sweating thesedifferent things because I
(18:44):
breathe, I know.
Okay, let me do some research.
My cohesive biblical worldviewis still in place.
Even if I don't have a Bibleverse on the spot, even if I
don't have a fancy answer rightaway, it's all going to be okay.
Let me take my time with this.
And so, because I've served inyouth group ministry and I've
(19:09):
served in young adult ministry,pastoral ministry, the rest of
it Sometimes people panic whenthey hear something they don't
know how to handle.
Sometimes people they say, oh no, this YouTuber said this, what
do I do?
I say, hold on, let's go backto these axioms of the faith.
Let's just think through thesethings.
(19:33):
It's all going to be okay.
Your faith is not destroyed.
Christianity is not debunked bythe latest claim from a YouTuber
and the rest of it.
So, anyways, what's better thana Bible verse?
What's better than a coupleBible verses?
It is a way of viewing reality.
(19:55):
This is called a worldview thatis biblically based and
cohesive, start to bottom, fromthe existence of God all the way
down to how we should live.
It all makes sense.
And, yeah, there will be a holehere and there.
There'll be some toughquestions, sure, but overall,
(20:15):
you're not shaken when you hearsomething new.
Now I've addressed this morefrom an apologetic standpoint.
I could have gone the pastoralroute, and it's still true.
When you lose your job, whenyou're ill, when you're injured,
when you face death, when thereare struggles and trials and
tribulations, and you're like ohno, what do I do?
(20:38):
You fall back on your worldviewand it might be tough, it might
be difficult, but ultimatelyyou're secure in your faith.
The Bible does not change.
You're not shaken because theBible's not shaken.
The Bible has seen it all,every sort of attack in every
sort of way.
(20:59):
And yet we're still here.
The tomb is still empty.
Jesus is risen.
It's gonna be okay.
No need to panic or worry.
Breathe, do some research, askme questions.
Mike Winger on YouTube is aphenomenal resource, and the
rest of it.
There is just no need to freakout.
(21:21):
But anyways, my thoughts, I'dlove to hear yours.
Am I wrong somewhere?
Did I miss something?
Let me know.
You can follow us on socialmedia.
We're on Twitter, facebook,instagram.
We also have a website,dangerousfaithnet, and if you
found this comforting or if youenjoyed the episode, feel free
(21:43):
to share with others.
I would greatly appreciate it.
Anyways, nate Williams, glad totalk with you today.
Until next time.
I guess I'll talk with youtoday, until next time.
(22:04):
I guess I'll talk with youlater, thank you.
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