October 21, 2025 • 33 mins
In a world full of questions, God’s truth remains unshaken. In this episode, host Jon Delger, the Executive Pastor of the Peace Family of Churches, and Logan Bailey, the Family Pastor at Peace Church, take a deeper look at some of the most significant objections to Christianity —questions surrounding the Bible’s morality, the relationship between science and Scripture, and the inerrancy of God’s Word. These aren’t just theoretical discussions; they’re conversations that shape how people see faith today. Join us as we continue the conversation and explore how the gospel offers clarity and confidence when our faith is under fire.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them topeace Church dot CC slash
questions. So last week we got to hear some
(00:29):
live question and answer from the class that we did called
Faith Under Fire. We talked about four different
topics, biggest, toughest objections to the Christian
faith. And then here on the podcast, we
got to hear the live question and answer session after the
class. And then today, we're going to
pick up where we left off and answer more questions from
people, and we're excited to do that.
(00:50):
Which we have a lot. We do have a lot.
There are plenty more questions to go, so we won't get through
all of them, but we're going to take one shot here and try to
answer more of the questions that came in.
Just a great chance to talk about how we can defend the
Christian faith, how we can answer tough questions from
people. So these are kind of all over
the board. Some of them are science
related, some of them are like by hard questions in the Bible.
(01:10):
And theology. And then yeah, some are
theology, some about. Culture and the Existence of.
Evil culture? Yeah, all over the place.
So should be. Fun.
And we're going to fully answer every single one of them.
And Pastor Logan is going to fully answer every single one
manner. No, we'll open up all the cans
of worms and leave them on the table for everyone to deal with
and do our best to try to answerwhat we can.
(01:31):
A wormy table? Yes, that's the goal.
All right, here it is. Question #1 says I run into
people that have been hurt by the church or have been
mistreated by people claiming tobe Christians.
They have completely lost trust and there's no guarantee that it
won't happen against them in thefuture.
So how do you recommend responding and taking the risk
to engage with them? Yeah, the the story I think of
(01:54):
is I think his name was Templeton, but he was the kind
of partner in crime or you know,ministry partner of Billy
Graham. And he famously walked away from
the faith and was interviewed towards the end of his life.
And one thing he said, do do youknow what?
I'm going? He famously said, I miss Jesus
(02:17):
when talking about like, do you miss being involved in ministry
and being involved in the church?
And he said, I think very pointedly, I miss Jesus.
And really that's what we are concerned about people losing
when they stop getting involved in church as a church hurting
things. And so we do want to always push
for the importance that that it's vital for us to be involved
(02:38):
in community and not as community, but faith community,
like we're built for that and all that the fellowship involved
that is involved in that. And yet what what we need to be
preaching most of all, inviting people to most of all, is to a
relationship with Jesus. Yeah.
Wow. Amen.
I've heard that story before. That's that's that's awesome.
That's powerful. Yeah.
(02:58):
What I would add to that is thatI think people have to remember
what I would encourage other people to think of somebody
who's been hurt by the church before, been hurt by Christians
is to think that there is a difference between Jesus and the
followers of Jesus. And so rejecting Jesus, the
perfect Jesus, because of the imperfect followers he has, you
know, is not the best solution. I understand how people get
(03:19):
there, but if you think about it, you know, if you can, if you
can get them to try to separate the emotional bit and just think
about it and realize that that actually doesn't make sense to
to reject Jesus because his followers are make some poor
decisions. Now, obviously for us as
Christians, that should be a lesson and say that it really
matters how we treat people thatwe ought to be great examples of
(03:39):
Jesus instead of poor examples of Jesus because it affects if
people receive him as savior. So what we do matters.
That's really important. So it should be a lesson for us,
But also I think just challenging them with that, you
know, and, and adding to that, that, you know, one of the
unique things about Christianityis that we are open and honest,
that we are hypocrites, that we proclaim a perfect savior, and
(04:03):
yet we know that we are imperfect and broken.
And we talk about wanting to live into this ideal of being
like Jesus, and yet, no, we're quick to say that we aren't.
Yeah. A Christian is one who repents.
We do that. We do that, right?
If you're a Christian, we repent.
We pray for each other. We repent. 2 things that we're
uncomfortable with doing sometimes, but we're called to
(04:23):
and we should love it. I remember the first time that I
got stopped by a school bus. I was behind the school bus and
I didn't know what to do. I was in high school.
I was really nervous and I just decided mentally I'm going to
follow. I'm.
I mentally said I'm going to follow the car in front of me.
Whatever he does. Well, he went and so I went and
I remember passing the stop signof the school bus as it was
being popped out and think I, I think I remember screaming like
(04:46):
no, because I had a bumper sticker that said God loves you
bro. Oh no.
And I'm like this, you know, on fire.
Maybe this question is about youhigh.
School student and I, that's like a very tangible moment
where I realized like I have thename of Christ on my car and I'm
doing something sinful that I regret even in the moment.
But just thinking of we, we, we,we walk around and represent
(05:08):
Christ and how we live and we want to be Christ like and
that's always a good thing to strive for.
But knowing that we fall short. I remember hearing a pastor once
say I was inviting someone to church and he said there's too
many hypocrites and he said we have room for you too.
Yeah, we have room for one more.Yeah, and I don't even know if
it we're it's not a hypocriticalness of I don't see
(05:33):
my flaws. It's actually an eagerness to
confess our own sin that is a marker of the Christian
community, right? All Christians.
We can be knuckleheads sometimesand some can be more
knuckleheads than others, but that doesn't disprove our
perfect savior. Yeah, Yeah.
Good. That's great.
Awesome. All right, next question, How do
we interpret the seven day creation timeline in the book of
(05:56):
Genesis? Do we see it as 724 hour days?
Do we think that could be longerperiods of time?
And the clincher How do dinosaurs?
Fit into all of it. Didn't we do a a?
That's a good question. We actually didn't do an
episode. No, it was it was actually like
a year ago. OK, so it's been a little.
While that was just master class, I thought because it got
into the weeds man, like it really answered.
(06:17):
So I think we had Stephanie on to.
Talk about dinosaurs. Yeah, I texted her and said she
didn't. I thought she did an incredibly,
I really thought. That was nice of you.
Yeah. Stephanie loves talking about
dinosaurs. Yes.
She's all about and my son lovesthem and he's I have a 2 year
old. I would, I would say what we
need to care most about when we go to this kind of question is
we need to care most about what the Bible cares most about.
(06:38):
There's plenty of things to careabout and to talk about, but we
need to care most about what theBible cares most about.
And the Bible is is in Genesis. Well, the entire Bible, but
Genesis is a. Lot about dynasties.
It cares a lot about God as the sovereign Creator creating a
good creation and creating man in His image, like giving
(06:59):
humankind purpose and, and, and that like those are the things
that are being emphasized in Scripture and there is order
there. And so then we can get into the
details about what is the order that is being portrayed.
But just unlike a meta level, he, he's a God of order.
And we see that order in the Genesis account.
So there are disagreements in the weeds of what all those
(07:21):
things mean. And even right now, those people
on all sides of it that are like, is he going to disagree
with my point of view? And it's like, I think that's
healthy, good debate. But just like a it is important
just to lay that groundwork of we do want to care most about
what the Bible cares most about.Yeah.
And you're not going to tell me?What?
I'll tell, I'll say it. I think, I think the best
(07:42):
interpretation is the 24 hour literal day interpretation.
I try to be gentle with that. Yeah, I shared in the class and
you can find the class online. You don't have to have had to
watch the class to understand the, the Q&A we're going through
right now. But I shared, you know, in the
class of there are some, there are some clear lines, you know,
like theistic evolution is outside of the, you know, the
(08:03):
the Bible doesn't leave the dooropen for that.
But I try to be gentle to those who think, you know, like the
day age theory. I tried, you know, I understand
what they're saying. I don't think it's the best
understanding of the text, but II understand what they're.
Saying and everything you just said is where I'm at to I the,
the one thing that I think is important to highlight is you
said theistic evolution. What is that?
And there's actually some questions that are asked that we
(08:24):
could get to. But theistic evolution is saying
that God orchestrates the evolutionary process of he
creates almost like he creates life in a single cell Organism
and allows that to evolve into many different things, kind of
like the theory of evolution teaches.
And eventually you get this humanoid thing.
And then that's when he slaps onthe image of God that when I say
(08:46):
we need to care about, the Biblecares most about the Bible is
emphasizing that God created mankind as is from nothing.
He took dust and made it and he didn't like oversee this
process. And so when you say like
theistic evolution as articulated that way isn't
congruent with like biblical inerancy, like that's what we're
trying to say is that seems outside the bounds of of what
(09:10):
the Bible is saying. Yeah, you're.
Giving up on a historical Adam, which is a huge problem
obviously for Genesis and even Romans 5, the gospel and you
know, where did sin come from and how is the problem of sin
solved and. Can you take the image of God
out of what it means to be humanand and those things?
Yeah. So those things matter.
I'd say that that's a hard line.I appreciate the grace on day
(09:31):
age thing because historically speaking, there's a lot of
varied beliefs on it and doesn'tit doesn't revolve around
evolution. So when we come to the
conversation, we assume there's one side that teaches evolution,
atheism, and one side that teaches Bible, young earth
creationism. And like, I think there's debate
in that sphere. But historically speaking,
(09:51):
before evolutionary theory existed and was thought of,
people like Agustin, like push back on the idea of do we need
to believe that the seven days were all 24 hours?
No, that's what Agustin said. Like and the guy that wrote the
book on Christianity and liberalism, J Gresham Mansion,
also push back on the idea saying do we need to believe
(10:11):
this is 7 literal days, 24 hours?
No, and he's not. He's he wrote the book against
liberalism and Christianity, some of the most ardent
supporters of inerrancy back when that was a bigger debate in
our society, like the 20th century.
They weren't all on the same page on the question of
specifically 7 literal 24 hour days.
(10:35):
And yeah, I agree with you that I think it's the best
articulation. And yeah, I don't want to draw a
hard dividing line like we do for theistic evolution.
Yeah. So you're saying like that the
difference in those days was between how old the Earth is?
It wasn't a question of how human beings came about. 1000%
conversation, yes, that I'd wantpeople to go back and listen to
the sentence you just said because.
(10:57):
Right. Well, yeah, it's an important.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I, I and I would say that
clearly the Lord can make an earth that appears old.
He does that with human beings, right?
Adam Babies. Yeah.
And yet if a scientist just dropped on the field right there
and was like, let me study how old these people are.
Or if he made a tree, well, how old is that tree?
(11:18):
Well, has forty rings on it. Well, God made it 10 seconds
ago. So how old is it?
That's the kind of question we have.
If he, if he makes things that appear old, how old is it?
I think that applies in geology as well.
One I would add in the flood, ofcourse, the flood just
radically, you know, has a huge impact on the fossil record and
you know, the formation of rocksand everything.
(11:39):
So along these same lines, can Christians believe that
organisms, they use the quotes, quote UN quote, evolve or adapt
over time? For example, humans who live in
a sunnier climate have darker skin versus humans who live in a
less hot climate have lighter skin.
Or they bring up animals as well.
(12:01):
So I would say they're they're asking about microevolution
versus macroevolution as it's often been called.
Can we believe in that or evolution versus adaptation?
There you go. Yeah, yeah.
You can believe the things that they have because they do,
right? This is the difference between
what can we observe versus what do we assume happened based on
(12:23):
what we observe. Right, The phrase I used a lot
in the class was the unobservable past is, is what
we're trying to, is what a lot of people are trying to talk
about. Whereas, yeah, this is something
we can observe. I mean, some examples, you know,
like dog breeding, right. I have like in my house I have
two puppies that are some very strange breeds of dogs because
they've. Been they're mutts.
They're mutts, but we we say that they're like designer mutts
(12:44):
because they're mutts that came from a bunch of different very
fancy lines. It's it, they're, they're very
interesting. They're, they're wonderful dogs.
I love them. But yeah, you know, I mean, dog
breeding is a great example. Or even, you know, we talked
about some of the struggles of antibiotics and how we create
these bacteria resistant antibiotics.
Or you think about bugs that areresistant to pesticides.
Like all of those things are areadaptations.
(13:06):
Yeah. You know, I like that you push
back on microevolution as a wordbecause.
Oh, I. Didn't push back on it.
It's a. Well, I think, I think it, I
think it's worth pushing back onbecause, you know,
microevolution, you're using that word and you're sort of, it
sort of assumes this like continued process of growth and
increase in a direction. Whereas this is like we have
(13:28):
evidence of like 1, like an, an adaptation that helps in one
way, but doesn't necessarily lead to a trajectory of
continued adapting. So I think it's, I think you're
talking about something different.
There's I wish I knew the names to point out, but there's push
back in the scientific atheist community on evolutionary
(13:50):
theory. It's not just coming from
Christians that have an alternative viewpoint than what
seems to be the majority. Like there are, there's, there
is pushback on it because there's, there's huge plot
holes. Yeah, for like, you know, gaps
for sure. And that's where people like,
well, then come and be like, youjust put God in the gap and
explain it away. It's like, no, we're not
shutting reason down. Like we want to reasonably
engage in the scientific method and figure things out.
(14:13):
But the gaps of evolutionary theory as an origin, they come
into where where did life begin?Because you have stuff.
But where did, when did that stuff start?
Breathing, Not breathing, but like, you know what I'm trying
to say? Like have life in it.
Have actual, like life to it. Because most things to the
trajectory is death, not life, Right.
(14:35):
So where did that come in? And there's no answer for that.
Or yeah, where did stuff come? Yeah.
You're making it all immaterial.Things that order came out of
chaos when that doesn't make anysense.
Yeah. So where did life come into
play? Where did the stuff come from to
begin with that right, You know,material stuff, right.
And then there's there's just more to it that I'm blanking on,
(14:56):
but there's push back within thescientific community that's like
from an atheist perspective on the theory of.
Yeah. I mean, if you believe in
entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, you know,
everything tends towards decay. If we believe that's true now,
then how in the world do we believe that things evolved, you
know, went in a positive direction right over so much
time? Well, in the classic
illustration that I've, I've heard John Lennox talk about it.
(15:17):
He he's done debates on things on it with it with it too.
But he famously, I've heard him say, like, if you look at
writing on the wall, you're not going to think that that was
like random. You're going to think that came
from your mind. Well, I guess a lot of
apologists said that. Frank Turek I've listened to
recently and you made a joke about if you saw On the Beach
(15:41):
the writing, like Joey Loves Lucy or something, you would be
the lunatic thinking that that came randomly.
That comes from a mind. Right.
We don't assume. Yeah, when you see yeah, you
don't assume. Order comes out of chaos without
a designer, without somebody doing something.
(16:01):
And so that like those are logical things that non theistic
back people are pushing on. I think that's like a it's if
you wanted to look into it more,you can look into some of that
stuff. I think Steven Meyer has been
like a bigger player in that sphere.
He is a theist, but he's in a Christian, but he's been and and
(16:24):
a source from a for a lot of more scientific, logical minded
people, not from atheistic background that I've list picked
up his books and been like, Oh man, maybe evolution doesn't
make total sense. And maybe there is like a
atheistic reason here that I should believe in, which is a
good, I think a good thing happening in the in the world.
Again, back to the first answer.What we want people is to
(16:46):
believe in Jesus. And I think that does, you know,
it all touches on the our world view and having that be
consistent, but that is our moreultimate hope.
And sadly, different scientific beliefs can erode people's
faith. And and on the flip side,
certain like atheistic strongholds being torn down and
(17:07):
leaving the hole for theism to enter is also a good thing.
And yet again, we need to care most about Jesus being preached.
And that. Yeah, Yeah, Well, but that's
going to be found along the pathof seeking truth, right.
So I, so you're saying we can appreciate good science that
seeks truth? We want to make the best sense
of the data. And so part of our argument is
that evolution doesn't make the best sense of the data.
(17:30):
It's not just a Christian argument.
It's actually. Actually, yeah, let's pray that
even those non Christians makingarguments like that can help
lead people closer to Jesus ultimately.
Yeah, right. All right along the same
question, but question about theage of the earth.
They say it seems apparent that the continents of the earth were
at one time together. Do you think the continents were
parted during the flood? My answer is, I think that makes
(17:54):
sense. I, I think this is one of those
things that we just don't, we don't know.
We don't know whether it was allone at one time or not, but I
think that that it's certainly possible.
There's no reason, I don't thinkas a Christian, there's any
reason to say that we, we don't believe that all the continents
were together at one point and then they could have separated
during the flood. I I think that makes sense.
(18:14):
I don't have any evidence to sayone way or the other, but.
I agree with you. I mean, we're all thinking of
the evidence that we heard aboutin, you know, 9th grade physical
science. So.
Sure. Yeah.
Different. Also records or random things
that make that seem like a plausible yeah reality.
And we're like, yeah. Yeah, makes sense.
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, just yeah.
(18:35):
I don't want to keep harping out, but I mean, the, you know,
the flood, just the the incredible impact of the flood
on the Earth would've just been so dramatic, so much change so
fast. Yeah, so.
That it all just kind of seems plausible, yeah.
Yeah, makes sense to me. We'll close up our science
questions one with this question.
Do you have any resources I can share or read with my kids about
(18:58):
science and Christianity? I'll start first one that my my
go to is an organization called Answers in Genesis.
Ken Ham is the main teacher there.
They just do some some great stuff.
I think they've got a great website.
They've got some great books that so they're the ones who do
the Creation Museum, the Ark, that kind of stuff.
I think those are excellent experiences.
You know, wait till your kids are old enough to do some
reading because it is a lot of reading.
(19:19):
You know, it's a museum basically that you're walking
through. But yeah, I think that's great
stuff. I don't know of any institution
bigger and better than them. They're working in that space
and probably they'd probably have age appropriate content
that they focus on directing outthere.
So I can't offer something A1 for one, but I, I can encourage
just get in, get the apologeticsconversation going in age
(19:41):
appropriate ways throughout, youknow, as as parents.
And then for anyone listening that hasn't been doing any of
that, I would just encourage that, like listen to Christian
apologists, engage in the conversation, engage in the
debates, listen to the conversation going on like on
universities, and just the Christian apologists will go and
do. Talks, I know like Frank Turek
(20:02):
just did 1. He had one schedule.
He he mentored Charlie Kirk in apologetics.
And I think he had, he had one scheduled like 3 days after the
assassination and he still went and did it.
Yeah. And that was a powerful talk to
listen to. But like, men like him, they go
to college campuses or they go to do, you know, conferences or
(20:23):
things to talk about all of these giant conversations going
on. Yeah.
Yeah, so those are great names you can find on YouTube if you
wanted to watch videos, you know, I.
Mean they have books and things too.
Yeah, John Lennox, you mentionedearlier, Frank Turek, Wesley
Huff. He's he's great.
He's great. He's he's not going to talk so
much about science as he's goingwell.
That's why I have, yeah, have anassortment, have an assortment
(20:44):
of people you read and listen tobecause there's so many
questions. Yeah.
There's so many questions that we haven't even brought up here.
And we brought up some pretty big ones, yeah.
Speaking of which, now we've gotsome Bible related.
Questions. Oh goody.
Yeah, I feel much more comfortable doing that.
Fair enough. All right, next question.
I've heard several people say that in the original text of the
Bible, they only had one word for men and boys, so that when
(21:08):
we talk about homosexuality, they're actually talking about
pedophilia. The person says, I don't know
anything about the original languages.
How do I respond to this? No, I really appreciate the
question. I think there's a lot of stuff
out there that is just very misleading and leads people
away. It's not true that there's not
different words for different ages of of boys or men or
(21:31):
there's even a word for young men like there's, there is
variation in the Hebrew language, right So.
A great book for this is or a great author is Robert Gagnon.
Gagnon is how you say Robert Gagnon, he wrote a very large
book called Homosexuality in theBible.
It he goes through every passagethat people reference, every
argument that people make and hetackles it.
(21:51):
And he's a incredibly intelligent guy, is able to work
with the Greek and the Hebrew ancient texts, the whole thing.
So both of us here have studied Hebrew and Greek.
You know, we wouldn't claim to be experts or anything like
that, but we have studied the languages and I yeah, that's
just not a, that's just not a compelling argument.
It's just not the case, so. Yeah, no, my heart is broken for
(22:14):
men and women out there that they, they really are curious
about Christianity and yet they,they can't get over the fact
that the the Bible has a standard, a sexual ethic
different than what they feel isright.
And so there are books out therethat are, you know, tailored for
them of like, but hey, but you can be a Christian and yet still
(22:34):
believe that these things that have historically been deemed
sin sinful as you can view them as not sinful.
And one of my favorite testimonies is Christopher Yuan.
He was in jail at the lowest of Lowe's.
His dad had given him a Bible, but he threw it in the trash.
And he's like wanted nothing to do with God.
And so he found himself at his lowest point in life and he
(22:57):
found a Bible on top of a trash can.
And so he picked it up and read it and became a Christian simply
by reading the Gospels. And he realized that he needs,
he's going to go all in. And there was a chaplain there
that said, like, Oh, I know yourAI know your lifestyle and, and
what you believe. And so here's, here's a, a book
on homosexuality in the Bible. And it wasn't the book you
(23:19):
mentioned. It was one of the books I
mentioned, which is like, Hey, you can believe you can be a
Christian, but disagree on the historic stances on sexual ethic
on things. And he, he said, I know it's bad
that I didn't finish the book, but I just couldn't because I,
I, I knew that it wasn't true. I knew that it wasn't.
And he's he, he became a a, you know, a scholar in his own right
and a teacher of the Bible. And his story is just beautiful.
(23:43):
He wrote a book called Holy sexuality in the Gospel where
he, I think, just masterfully, masterfully lays out the
Christian sexual ethic. And he, you know, comes from
this world of, of being on the other side of the issue.
So I love his testimony because it points out that like, yes,
there are books out there that will and teachers out there that
will tell you, you can disagree with, tell you what you want to
(24:06):
hear. Yeah, yeah.
And I love that there's men likeChris Riuan who have has the
testimony of man that he he he said that is what I want to
hear, but I know it's not true. Yeah, yeah.
That's pretty amazing. To correct what I said earlier,
the the title of his book of Robert Gagnon's book is The
(24:26):
Bible and Homosexual Practice. That's what it's called.
There's this image I've had in my head for a while of the
again, my heart breaks for thesepeople, family and friends that
are in this camp. But the image I have in my head
is of imagine it is the Exodus. You're a family in the Exodus.
You have a house and Moses comesand says, hey, you need to wipe
(24:49):
the blood on the doorpost, the blood of the lamb on the
doorpost and the wrath of God will pass over you and you'll be
saved, redeemed, delivered from this wrath to come.
And you, you look at your doorpost and there's a pride
flag in the way of the doorpost and you say, am I OK?
Is it OK if do I have to move that or can I keep it there?
You have to move it. You, you can't have an idol in
(25:10):
the way. We need to submit fully to
Christ and the gospel and the truth of his word and that.
So my heart breaks for people that have these idols and
there's tons of idols that you can have in the way.
And yet I know that's just a bigone for a lot of people.
Yeah. All right.
Couple more quick ones here. Here's one.
What would you say to somebody who says that only the Jews are
(25:31):
going to heaven? What?
Yeah, it's an interesting question.
I wonder, I will sort of wonder where if they're, if they mean
they're talking to somebody who is Jewish or if they're saying
that there's a Christian who is saying that you have to be
Jewish and a Christian in order to go to heaven.
(25:51):
I wonder, I wonder which side ofthis we're we're talking.
About so if you're. Yeah, You know, if you're, if
you're a Christian who's talkingto somebody who's, who's a Jew,
an Orthodox Jew, and they're saying that, you know, they,
they embrace the Old Testament, they embrace Judaism, but they'd
reject Jesus as the Messiah. So then the conversation you're
having is you're explaining to them how Jesus is the Messiah
promised in the Old Testament. So that's one conversation.
(26:12):
If you're talking instead about somebody who is saying that they
embrace the New Testament, they're a Christian, they're a
follower of Jesus. And in order to be saved, you
have to, you have to be a Christian and embrace aspects of
Judaism like the feasts and things like that.
Then we're actually just going back to arguments that were had
back in the book of Acts, back in the, you know, in the New
(26:34):
Testament, and this is already been hashed out in church
history that that no, you don't have to become a Jew in order to
be a Jesus follower. Yeah, it hashed out a lot.
Yeah, it's a yeah. That was like one of the that
was like the primary controversyof the early church is them
working this out. Yeah, I've known people that
(26:56):
have gotten married to someone who comes comes from a Jewish
background ethnically. And so she, you know, went ahead
and followed some family traditions that were like in the
Messianic. Sure.
Jew. Jew.
Is it Messianic Christian or Messianic Jew?
(27:17):
Messianic. Yeah.
Messianic Jew. Where like you're a Jew who
believes Jesus was the Messiah. Yeah.
Jesus Christianity. Yeah.
Oh, really? So, So she, she was willing to
follow her husband in those family traditions.
And, and I know people that are Jewish, you know, I've heard of
people that are Jewish to becomeChristian, then, then they
decide to be a Messianic Jew. So follow some Jewish
traditions, but follow Jesus. And there's probably debate
(27:39):
there of like, well, are there certain Jewish traditions that
would go against the gospel, which the New Testament actually
talks a lot about and why you dosomething matters in those
cases? And yet what I don't understand
is the person that would be a from a gentile background
thinking I won't be saved if I stay a gentile Christian and I
must therefore become ethnicallyJewish and or, you know, I,
(28:02):
yeah. Or celebrate the traditions in
order to Yeah, yeah. I think you can celebrate
certain traditions Jesus did right, but I don't think you
have to be saved. And again, the exact New
Testament handles that the best,right?
Totally, definitely. All right.
Last question, I think this is apretty interesting one that came
in. Why don't more people, including
(28:23):
people who call themselves Christians, fully submit to the
full authority of Scripture? Say it one more time.
Why don't people, including people who call themselves
Christians, fully submit to the full authority of Scripture?
It's hard. It's.
It's hard. It's hard because it's it's
(28:44):
exhausting. It's it's hard to think about as
someone that knows many people in that boat and they don't even
know. Sure right now it goes back to
the idols of our culture that people fall prey to.
It's like hurt your heart. Yeah, yeah, In many ways,
though, the question is kind of as old as sin, right?
(29:05):
That's this is this is going back to the beginning.
Why don't we do what God says? Well, the answer post Adam and
Eve is that all of us have a sinful nature in us.
We give into temptation, we turnaway from God's word.
We want to do our, we think our way is better than God's way.
Why do people who call themselves Christians not
embrace everything the Bible says?
(29:27):
Well, I think it's the the same thing, right?
We want to hear what we want to hear.
We want to be able to do what wewant to do.
You know, there's, it's no, it'sno coincidence that the
disagreements that we have aboutthe Bible are around moral
issues, especially sexuality, right?
The, the height of desire in a human being.
(29:48):
It's because we want to do what we want to do.
I don't want the Bible. I don't want God to tell me who
I can and can't sleep with, right?
I want to just be able to do what I want to do.
So, so why don't we fully submitto Scripture?
Because because we have sinful hearts.
Because we want to just go our own way.
So I guess encouragement then for us would be to continue to
preach Jesus above all else. And that gospel preaching
(30:11):
includes this idea of we want the gospel to shape every inch
of our lives. Like there is no corner or
crevice or whatever that we can allow to not, you know, be
influenced by the gospel in our lives.
And so that include, you know, it's a lot of people are
thinking right now, how can I, you know, be involved in
politics more like just culturalconversations, you know, and
(30:31):
that that's a, you know, that's a part of this.
There's also like, what about those sensitive topics that I
disagree with with my friends and family, like that we should
bring the gospel into those conversations.
We should want the gospel to influence all of our life.
What about that secret sin that I haven't told anyone about?
Like, well, the gospel should influence every part of your
life. So that includes that.
So we should continue to extend to that all-encompassing gospel
(30:55):
to people and make sure that that's the gospel that we're
preaching our to ourselves and hearing in our churches, right?
Because part of the problem withthis question is not only are
there people out there trying tohear what they want to hear, but
there's pastors that are willingto tell them.
And so are you hearing, are you hearing a gospel that is that
all-encompassing gospel that is consistent and coherent with the
(31:18):
the Bible and so are be thinkingthen mindfully or am I leaving
anything left unsubmitted to Christ, right.
And that's something that we continually need to do.
Totally. That's, you know, we have to ask
ourselves that introspective question.
Am I trying to make the Bible, the Bible say what I wanted to
say or am I submitting to it? You know, we live under the
(31:39):
authority of the Bible, not overthe Bible.
We don't get to tell it what to say.
We submit to what it says. And so we have to ask ourselves,
am I bending this to do what I wanted to do or am I actually
living underneath it? And just last night, we have to
do a pastor's panel for studentsin high school and middle
school, youth down with the middle schoolers.
And they asked this question. They, they asked a question
(32:00):
roughly like, how do we know? How do you know as a pastor, how
do you make sure that you're preaching what the Bible says,
not just what you want to say? And that's part of my answer was
just that I continually am asking that question.
Here's the text. Am I?
Am I submitting to it or am I trying to tell it what to say?
Yeah, in honor of Vodi Bakkam, who passed away recently.
But he said if you can't say Amen, you ought to say Ouch.
(32:23):
He said that a lot. And just encouragement of if we
are reading the Bible, there aretimes where we'll encourage us
and times where it'll challenge us.
It'll affirm what we think and then challenge how we think.
If you have all that going on, then it's a good sign that you
read the Bible. Yeah.
Well, that's. Right.
Yeah, Awesome. Well, thanks so much for the
questions, everyone. Great questions.
Always excited to answer them. Keep them coming.
(32:44):
Have an awesome week, everybody.
Welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast where we
answer questions about the Christian faith in plain
language. If you or someone you know has
questions, please submit them topeace Church dot CC slash
questions. So last week we got to hear some
(00:29):
live question and answer from the class that we did called
Faith Under Fire. We talked about four different
topics, biggest, toughest objections to the Christian
faith. And then here on the podcast, we
got to hear the live question and answer session after the
class. And then today, we're going to
pick up where we left off and answer more questions from
people, and we're excited to do that.
(00:50):
Which we have a lot. We do have a lot.
There are plenty more questions to go, so we won't get through
all of them, but we're going to take one shot here and try to
answer more of the questions that came in.
Just a great chance to talk about how we can defend the
Christian faith, how we can answer tough questions from
people. So these are kind of all over
the board. Some of them are science
related, some of them are like by hard questions in the Bible.
(01:10):
And theology. And then yeah, some are
theology, some about. Culture and the Existence of.
Evil culture? Yeah, all over the place.
So should be. Fun.
And we're going to fully answer every single one of them.
And Pastor Logan is going to fully answer every single one
manner. No, we'll open up all the cans
of worms and leave them on the table for everyone to deal with
and do our best to try to answerwhat we can.
(01:31):
A wormy table? Yes, that's the goal.
All right, here it is. Question #1 says I run into
people that have been hurt by the church or have been
mistreated by people claiming tobe Christians.
They have completely lost trust and there's no guarantee that it
won't happen against them in thefuture.
So how do you recommend responding and taking the risk
to engage with them? Yeah, the the story I think of
(01:54):
is I think his name was Templeton, but he was the kind
of partner in crime or you know,ministry partner of Billy
Graham. And he famously walked away from
the faith and was interviewed towards the end of his life.
And one thing he said, do do youknow what?
I'm going? He famously said, I miss Jesus
(02:17):
when talking about like, do you miss being involved in ministry
and being involved in the church?
And he said, I think very pointedly, I miss Jesus.
And really that's what we are concerned about people losing
when they stop getting involved in church as a church hurting
things. And so we do want to always push
for the importance that that it's vital for us to be involved
(02:38):
in community and not as community, but faith community,
like we're built for that and all that the fellowship involved
that is involved in that. And yet what what we need to be
preaching most of all, inviting people to most of all, is to a
relationship with Jesus. Yeah.
Wow. Amen.
I've heard that story before. That's that's that's awesome.
That's powerful. Yeah.
(02:58):
What I would add to that is thatI think people have to remember
what I would encourage other people to think of somebody
who's been hurt by the church before, been hurt by Christians
is to think that there is a difference between Jesus and the
followers of Jesus. And so rejecting Jesus, the
perfect Jesus, because of the imperfect followers he has, you
know, is not the best solution. I understand how people get
(03:19):
there, but if you think about it, you know, if you can, if you
can get them to try to separate the emotional bit and just think
about it and realize that that actually doesn't make sense to
to reject Jesus because his followers are make some poor
decisions. Now, obviously for us as
Christians, that should be a lesson and say that it really
matters how we treat people thatwe ought to be great examples of
(03:39):
Jesus instead of poor examples of Jesus because it affects if
people receive him as savior. So what we do matters.
That's really important. So it should be a lesson for us,
But also I think just challenging them with that, you
know, and, and adding to that, that, you know, one of the
unique things about Christianityis that we are open and honest,
that we are hypocrites, that we proclaim a perfect savior, and
(04:03):
yet we know that we are imperfect and broken.
And we talk about wanting to live into this ideal of being
like Jesus, and yet, no, we're quick to say that we aren't.
Yeah. A Christian is one who repents.
We do that. We do that, right?
If you're a Christian, we repent.
We pray for each other. We repent. 2 things that we're
uncomfortable with doing sometimes, but we're called to
(04:23):
and we should love it. I remember the first time that I
got stopped by a school bus. I was behind the school bus and
I didn't know what to do. I was in high school.
I was really nervous and I just decided mentally I'm going to
follow. I'm.
I mentally said I'm going to follow the car in front of me.
Whatever he does. Well, he went and so I went and
I remember passing the stop signof the school bus as it was
being popped out and think I, I think I remember screaming like
(04:46):
no, because I had a bumper sticker that said God loves you
bro. Oh no.
And I'm like this, you know, on fire.
Maybe this question is about youhigh.
School student and I, that's like a very tangible moment
where I realized like I have thename of Christ on my car and I'm
doing something sinful that I regret even in the moment.
But just thinking of we, we, we,we walk around and represent
(05:08):
Christ and how we live and we want to be Christ like and
that's always a good thing to strive for.
But knowing that we fall short. I remember hearing a pastor once
say I was inviting someone to church and he said there's too
many hypocrites and he said we have room for you too.
Yeah, we have room for one more.Yeah, and I don't even know if
it we're it's not a hypocriticalness of I don't see
(05:33):
my flaws. It's actually an eagerness to
confess our own sin that is a marker of the Christian
community, right? All Christians.
We can be knuckleheads sometimesand some can be more
knuckleheads than others, but that doesn't disprove our
perfect savior. Yeah, Yeah.
Good. That's great.
Awesome. All right, next question, How do
we interpret the seven day creation timeline in the book of
(05:56):
Genesis? Do we see it as 724 hour days?
Do we think that could be longerperiods of time?
And the clincher How do dinosaurs?
Fit into all of it. Didn't we do a a?
That's a good question. We actually didn't do an
episode. No, it was it was actually like
a year ago. OK, so it's been a little.
While that was just master class, I thought because it got
into the weeds man, like it really answered.
(06:17):
So I think we had Stephanie on to.
Talk about dinosaurs. Yeah, I texted her and said she
didn't. I thought she did an incredibly,
I really thought. That was nice of you.
Yeah. Stephanie loves talking about
dinosaurs. Yes.
She's all about and my son lovesthem and he's I have a 2 year
old. I would, I would say what we
need to care most about when we go to this kind of question is
we need to care most about what the Bible cares most about.
(06:38):
There's plenty of things to careabout and to talk about, but we
need to care most about what theBible cares most about.
And the Bible is is in Genesis. Well, the entire Bible, but
Genesis is a. Lot about dynasties.
It cares a lot about God as the sovereign Creator creating a
good creation and creating man in His image, like giving
(06:59):
humankind purpose and, and, and that like those are the things
that are being emphasized in Scripture and there is order
there. And so then we can get into the
details about what is the order that is being portrayed.
But just unlike a meta level, he, he's a God of order.
And we see that order in the Genesis account.
So there are disagreements in the weeds of what all those
(07:21):
things mean. And even right now, those people
on all sides of it that are like, is he going to disagree
with my point of view? And it's like, I think that's
healthy, good debate. But just like a it is important
just to lay that groundwork of we do want to care most about
what the Bible cares most about.Yeah.
And you're not going to tell me?What?
I'll tell, I'll say it. I think, I think the best
(07:42):
interpretation is the 24 hour literal day interpretation.
I try to be gentle with that. Yeah, I shared in the class and
you can find the class online. You don't have to have had to
watch the class to understand the, the Q&A we're going through
right now. But I shared, you know, in the
class of there are some, there are some clear lines, you know,
like theistic evolution is outside of the, you know, the
(08:03):
the Bible doesn't leave the dooropen for that.
But I try to be gentle to those who think, you know, like the
day age theory. I tried, you know, I understand
what they're saying. I don't think it's the best
understanding of the text, but II understand what they're.
Saying and everything you just said is where I'm at to I the,
the one thing that I think is important to highlight is you
said theistic evolution. What is that?
And there's actually some questions that are asked that we
(08:24):
could get to. But theistic evolution is saying
that God orchestrates the evolutionary process of he
creates almost like he creates life in a single cell Organism
and allows that to evolve into many different things, kind of
like the theory of evolution teaches.
And eventually you get this humanoid thing.
And then that's when he slaps onthe image of God that when I say
(08:46):
we need to care about, the Biblecares most about the Bible is
emphasizing that God created mankind as is from nothing.
He took dust and made it and he didn't like oversee this
process. And so when you say like
theistic evolution as articulated that way isn't
congruent with like biblical inerancy, like that's what we're
trying to say is that seems outside the bounds of of what
(09:10):
the Bible is saying. Yeah, you're.
Giving up on a historical Adam, which is a huge problem
obviously for Genesis and even Romans 5, the gospel and you
know, where did sin come from and how is the problem of sin
solved and. Can you take the image of God
out of what it means to be humanand and those things?
Yeah. So those things matter.
I'd say that that's a hard line.I appreciate the grace on day
(09:31):
age thing because historically speaking, there's a lot of
varied beliefs on it and doesn'tit doesn't revolve around
evolution. So when we come to the
conversation, we assume there's one side that teaches evolution,
atheism, and one side that teaches Bible, young earth
creationism. And like, I think there's debate
in that sphere. But historically speaking,
(09:51):
before evolutionary theory existed and was thought of,
people like Agustin, like push back on the idea of do we need
to believe that the seven days were all 24 hours?
No, that's what Agustin said. Like and the guy that wrote the
book on Christianity and liberalism, J Gresham Mansion,
also push back on the idea saying do we need to believe
(10:11):
this is 7 literal days, 24 hours?
No, and he's not. He's he wrote the book against
liberalism and Christianity, some of the most ardent
supporters of inerrancy back when that was a bigger debate in
our society, like the 20th century.
They weren't all on the same page on the question of
specifically 7 literal 24 hour days.
(10:35):
And yeah, I agree with you that I think it's the best
articulation. And yeah, I don't want to draw a
hard dividing line like we do for theistic evolution.
Yeah. So you're saying like that the
difference in those days was between how old the Earth is?
It wasn't a question of how human beings came about. 1000%
conversation, yes, that I'd wantpeople to go back and listen to
the sentence you just said because.
(10:57):
Right. Well, yeah, it's an important.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I, I and I would say that
clearly the Lord can make an earth that appears old.
He does that with human beings, right?
Adam Babies. Yeah.
And yet if a scientist just dropped on the field right there
and was like, let me study how old these people are.
Or if he made a tree, well, how old is that tree?
(11:18):
Well, has forty rings on it. Well, God made it 10 seconds
ago. So how old is it?
That's the kind of question we have.
If he, if he makes things that appear old, how old is it?
I think that applies in geology as well.
One I would add in the flood, ofcourse, the flood just
radically, you know, has a huge impact on the fossil record and
you know, the formation of rocksand everything.
(11:39):
So along these same lines, can Christians believe that
organisms, they use the quotes, quote UN quote, evolve or adapt
over time? For example, humans who live in
a sunnier climate have darker skin versus humans who live in a
less hot climate have lighter skin.
Or they bring up animals as well.
(12:01):
So I would say they're they're asking about microevolution
versus macroevolution as it's often been called.
Can we believe in that or evolution versus adaptation?
There you go. Yeah, yeah.
You can believe the things that they have because they do,
right? This is the difference between
what can we observe versus what do we assume happened based on
(12:23):
what we observe. Right, The phrase I used a lot
in the class was the unobservable past is, is what
we're trying to, is what a lot of people are trying to talk
about. Whereas, yeah, this is something
we can observe. I mean, some examples, you know,
like dog breeding, right. I have like in my house I have
two puppies that are some very strange breeds of dogs because
they've. Been they're mutts.
They're mutts, but we we say that they're like designer mutts
(12:44):
because they're mutts that came from a bunch of different very
fancy lines. It's it, they're, they're very
interesting. They're, they're wonderful dogs.
I love them. But yeah, you know, I mean, dog
breeding is a great example. Or even, you know, we talked
about some of the struggles of antibiotics and how we create
these bacteria resistant antibiotics.
Or you think about bugs that areresistant to pesticides.
Like all of those things are areadaptations.
(13:06):
Yeah. You know, I like that you push
back on microevolution as a wordbecause.
Oh, I. Didn't push back on it.
It's a. Well, I think, I think it, I
think it's worth pushing back onbecause, you know,
microevolution, you're using that word and you're sort of, it
sort of assumes this like continued process of growth and
increase in a direction. Whereas this is like we have
(13:28):
evidence of like 1, like an, an adaptation that helps in one
way, but doesn't necessarily lead to a trajectory of
continued adapting. So I think it's, I think you're
talking about something different.
There's I wish I knew the names to point out, but there's push
back in the scientific atheist community on evolutionary
(13:50):
theory. It's not just coming from
Christians that have an alternative viewpoint than what
seems to be the majority. Like there are, there's, there
is pushback on it because there's, there's huge plot
holes. Yeah, for like, you know, gaps
for sure. And that's where people like,
well, then come and be like, youjust put God in the gap and
explain it away. It's like, no, we're not
shutting reason down. Like we want to reasonably
engage in the scientific method and figure things out.
(14:13):
But the gaps of evolutionary theory as an origin, they come
into where where did life begin?Because you have stuff.
But where did, when did that stuff start?
Breathing, Not breathing, but like, you know what I'm trying
to say? Like have life in it.
Have actual, like life to it. Because most things to the
trajectory is death, not life, Right.
(14:35):
So where did that come in? And there's no answer for that.
Or yeah, where did stuff come? Yeah.
You're making it all immaterial.Things that order came out of
chaos when that doesn't make anysense.
Yeah. So where did life come into
play? Where did the stuff come from to
begin with that right, You know,material stuff, right.
And then there's there's just more to it that I'm blanking on,
(14:56):
but there's push back within thescientific community that's like
from an atheist perspective on the theory of.
Yeah. I mean, if you believe in
entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, you know,
everything tends towards decay. If we believe that's true now,
then how in the world do we believe that things evolved, you
know, went in a positive direction right over so much
time? Well, in the classic
illustration that I've, I've heard John Lennox talk about it.
(15:17):
He he's done debates on things on it with it with it too.
But he famously, I've heard him say, like, if you look at
writing on the wall, you're not going to think that that was
like random. You're going to think that came
from your mind. Well, I guess a lot of
apologists said that. Frank Turek I've listened to
recently and you made a joke about if you saw On the Beach
(15:41):
the writing, like Joey Loves Lucy or something, you would be
the lunatic thinking that that came randomly.
That comes from a mind. Right.
We don't assume. Yeah, when you see yeah, you
don't assume. Order comes out of chaos without
a designer, without somebody doing something.
(16:01):
And so that like those are logical things that non theistic
back people are pushing on. I think that's like a it's if
you wanted to look into it more,you can look into some of that
stuff. I think Steven Meyer has been
like a bigger player in that sphere.
He is a theist, but he's in a Christian, but he's been and and
(16:24):
a source from a for a lot of more scientific, logical minded
people, not from atheistic background that I've list picked
up his books and been like, Oh man, maybe evolution doesn't
make total sense. And maybe there is like a
atheistic reason here that I should believe in, which is a
good, I think a good thing happening in the in the world.
Again, back to the first answer.What we want people is to
(16:46):
believe in Jesus. And I think that does, you know,
it all touches on the our world view and having that be
consistent, but that is our moreultimate hope.
And sadly, different scientific beliefs can erode people's
faith. And and on the flip side,
certain like atheistic strongholds being torn down and
(17:07):
leaving the hole for theism to enter is also a good thing.
And yet again, we need to care most about Jesus being preached.
And that. Yeah, Yeah, Well, but that's
going to be found along the pathof seeking truth, right.
So I, so you're saying we can appreciate good science that
seeks truth? We want to make the best sense
of the data. And so part of our argument is
that evolution doesn't make the best sense of the data.
(17:30):
It's not just a Christian argument.
It's actually. Actually, yeah, let's pray that
even those non Christians makingarguments like that can help
lead people closer to Jesus ultimately.
Yeah, right. All right along the same
question, but question about theage of the earth.
They say it seems apparent that the continents of the earth were
at one time together. Do you think the continents were
parted during the flood? My answer is, I think that makes
(17:54):
sense. I, I think this is one of those
things that we just don't, we don't know.
We don't know whether it was allone at one time or not, but I
think that that it's certainly possible.
There's no reason, I don't thinkas a Christian, there's any
reason to say that we, we don't believe that all the continents
were together at one point and then they could have separated
during the flood. I I think that makes sense.
(18:14):
I don't have any evidence to sayone way or the other, but.
I agree with you. I mean, we're all thinking of
the evidence that we heard aboutin, you know, 9th grade physical
science. So.
Sure. Yeah.
Different. Also records or random things
that make that seem like a plausible yeah reality.
And we're like, yeah. Yeah, makes sense.
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, just yeah.
(18:35):
I don't want to keep harping out, but I mean, the, you know,
the flood, just the the incredible impact of the flood
on the Earth would've just been so dramatic, so much change so
fast. Yeah, so.
That it all just kind of seems plausible, yeah.
Yeah, makes sense to me. We'll close up our science
questions one with this question.
Do you have any resources I can share or read with my kids about
(18:58):
science and Christianity? I'll start first one that my my
go to is an organization called Answers in Genesis.
Ken Ham is the main teacher there.
They just do some some great stuff.
I think they've got a great website.
They've got some great books that so they're the ones who do
the Creation Museum, the Ark, that kind of stuff.
I think those are excellent experiences.
You know, wait till your kids are old enough to do some
reading because it is a lot of reading.
(19:19):
You know, it's a museum basically that you're walking
through. But yeah, I think that's great
stuff. I don't know of any institution
bigger and better than them. They're working in that space
and probably they'd probably have age appropriate content
that they focus on directing outthere.
So I can't offer something A1 for one, but I, I can encourage
just get in, get the apologeticsconversation going in age
(19:41):
appropriate ways throughout, youknow, as as parents.
And then for anyone listening that hasn't been doing any of
that, I would just encourage that, like listen to Christian
apologists, engage in the conversation, engage in the
debates, listen to the conversation going on like on
universities, and just the Christian apologists will go and
do. Talks, I know like Frank Turek
(20:02):
just did 1. He had one schedule.
He he mentored Charlie Kirk in apologetics.
And I think he had, he had one scheduled like 3 days after the
assassination and he still went and did it.
Yeah. And that was a powerful talk to
listen to. But like, men like him, they go
to college campuses or they go to do, you know, conferences or
(20:23):
things to talk about all of these giant conversations going
on. Yeah.
Yeah, so those are great names you can find on YouTube if you
wanted to watch videos, you know, I.
Mean they have books and things too.
Yeah, John Lennox, you mentionedearlier, Frank Turek, Wesley
Huff. He's he's great.
He's great. He's he's not going to talk so
much about science as he's goingwell.
That's why I have, yeah, have anassortment, have an assortment
(20:44):
of people you read and listen tobecause there's so many
questions. Yeah.
There's so many questions that we haven't even brought up here.
And we brought up some pretty big ones, yeah.
Speaking of which, now we've gotsome Bible related.
Questions. Oh goody.
Yeah, I feel much more comfortable doing that.
Fair enough. All right, next question.
I've heard several people say that in the original text of the
Bible, they only had one word for men and boys, so that when
(21:08):
we talk about homosexuality, they're actually talking about
pedophilia. The person says, I don't know
anything about the original languages.
How do I respond to this? No, I really appreciate the
question. I think there's a lot of stuff
out there that is just very misleading and leads people
away. It's not true that there's not
different words for different ages of of boys or men or
(21:31):
there's even a word for young men like there's, there is
variation in the Hebrew language, right So.
A great book for this is or a great author is Robert Gagnon.
Gagnon is how you say Robert Gagnon, he wrote a very large
book called Homosexuality in theBible.
It he goes through every passagethat people reference, every
argument that people make and hetackles it.
(21:51):
And he's a incredibly intelligent guy, is able to work
with the Greek and the Hebrew ancient texts, the whole thing.
So both of us here have studied Hebrew and Greek.
You know, we wouldn't claim to be experts or anything like
that, but we have studied the languages and I yeah, that's
just not a, that's just not a compelling argument.
It's just not the case, so. Yeah, no, my heart is broken for
(22:14):
men and women out there that they, they really are curious
about Christianity and yet they,they can't get over the fact
that the the Bible has a standard, a sexual ethic
different than what they feel isright.
And so there are books out therethat are, you know, tailored for
them of like, but hey, but you can be a Christian and yet still
(22:34):
believe that these things that have historically been deemed
sin sinful as you can view them as not sinful.
And one of my favorite testimonies is Christopher Yuan.
He was in jail at the lowest of Lowe's.
His dad had given him a Bible, but he threw it in the trash.
And he's like wanted nothing to do with God.
And so he found himself at his lowest point in life and he
(22:57):
found a Bible on top of a trash can.
And so he picked it up and read it and became a Christian simply
by reading the Gospels. And he realized that he needs,
he's going to go all in. And there was a chaplain there
that said, like, Oh, I know yourAI know your lifestyle and, and
what you believe. And so here's, here's a, a book
on homosexuality in the Bible. And it wasn't the book you
(23:19):
mentioned. It was one of the books I
mentioned, which is like, Hey, you can believe you can be a
Christian, but disagree on the historic stances on sexual ethic
on things. And he, he said, I know it's bad
that I didn't finish the book, but I just couldn't because I,
I, I knew that it wasn't true. I knew that it wasn't.
And he's he, he became a a, you know, a scholar in his own right
and a teacher of the Bible. And his story is just beautiful.
(23:43):
He wrote a book called Holy sexuality in the Gospel where
he, I think, just masterfully, masterfully lays out the
Christian sexual ethic. And he, you know, comes from
this world of, of being on the other side of the issue.
So I love his testimony because it points out that like, yes,
there are books out there that will and teachers out there that
will tell you, you can disagree with, tell you what you want to
(24:06):
hear. Yeah, yeah.
And I love that there's men likeChris Riuan who have has the
testimony of man that he he he said that is what I want to
hear, but I know it's not true. Yeah, yeah.
That's pretty amazing. To correct what I said earlier,
the the title of his book of Robert Gagnon's book is The
(24:26):
Bible and Homosexual Practice. That's what it's called.
There's this image I've had in my head for a while of the
again, my heart breaks for thesepeople, family and friends that
are in this camp. But the image I have in my head
is of imagine it is the Exodus. You're a family in the Exodus.
You have a house and Moses comesand says, hey, you need to wipe
(24:49):
the blood on the doorpost, the blood of the lamb on the
doorpost and the wrath of God will pass over you and you'll be
saved, redeemed, delivered from this wrath to come.
And you, you look at your doorpost and there's a pride
flag in the way of the doorpost and you say, am I OK?
Is it OK if do I have to move that or can I keep it there?
You have to move it. You, you can't have an idol in
(25:10):
the way. We need to submit fully to
Christ and the gospel and the truth of his word and that.
So my heart breaks for people that have these idols and
there's tons of idols that you can have in the way.
And yet I know that's just a bigone for a lot of people.
Yeah. All right.
Couple more quick ones here. Here's one.
What would you say to somebody who says that only the Jews are
(25:31):
going to heaven? What?
Yeah, it's an interesting question.
I wonder, I will sort of wonder where if they're, if they mean
they're talking to somebody who is Jewish or if they're saying
that there's a Christian who is saying that you have to be
Jewish and a Christian in order to go to heaven.
(25:51):
I wonder, I wonder which side ofthis we're we're talking.
About so if you're. Yeah, You know, if you're, if
you're a Christian who's talkingto somebody who's, who's a Jew,
an Orthodox Jew, and they're saying that, you know, they,
they embrace the Old Testament, they embrace Judaism, but they'd
reject Jesus as the Messiah. So then the conversation you're
having is you're explaining to them how Jesus is the Messiah
promised in the Old Testament. So that's one conversation.
(26:12):
If you're talking instead about somebody who is saying that they
embrace the New Testament, they're a Christian, they're a
follower of Jesus. And in order to be saved, you
have to, you have to be a Christian and embrace aspects of
Judaism like the feasts and things like that.
Then we're actually just going back to arguments that were had
back in the book of Acts, back in the, you know, in the New
(26:34):
Testament, and this is already been hashed out in church
history that that no, you don't have to become a Jew in order to
be a Jesus follower. Yeah, it hashed out a lot.
Yeah, it's a yeah. That was like one of the that
was like the primary controversyof the early church is them
working this out. Yeah, I've known people that
(26:56):
have gotten married to someone who comes comes from a Jewish
background ethnically. And so she, you know, went ahead
and followed some family traditions that were like in the
Messianic. Sure.
Jew. Jew.
Is it Messianic Christian or Messianic Jew?
(27:17):
Messianic. Yeah.
Messianic Jew. Where like you're a Jew who
believes Jesus was the Messiah. Yeah.
Jesus Christianity. Yeah.
Oh, really? So, So she, she was willing to
follow her husband in those family traditions.
And, and I know people that are Jewish, you know, I've heard of
people that are Jewish to becomeChristian, then, then they
decide to be a Messianic Jew. So follow some Jewish
traditions, but follow Jesus. And there's probably debate
(27:39):
there of like, well, are there certain Jewish traditions that
would go against the gospel, which the New Testament actually
talks a lot about and why you dosomething matters in those
cases? And yet what I don't understand
is the person that would be a from a gentile background
thinking I won't be saved if I stay a gentile Christian and I
must therefore become ethnicallyJewish and or, you know, I,
(28:02):
yeah. Or celebrate the traditions in
order to Yeah, yeah. I think you can celebrate
certain traditions Jesus did right, but I don't think you
have to be saved. And again, the exact New
Testament handles that the best,right?
Totally, definitely. All right.
Last question, I think this is apretty interesting one that came
in. Why don't more people, including
(28:23):
people who call themselves Christians, fully submit to the
full authority of Scripture? Say it one more time.
Why don't people, including people who call themselves
Christians, fully submit to the full authority of Scripture?
It's hard. It's.
It's hard. It's hard because it's it's
(28:44):
exhausting. It's it's hard to think about as
someone that knows many people in that boat and they don't even
know. Sure right now it goes back to
the idols of our culture that people fall prey to.
It's like hurt your heart. Yeah, yeah, In many ways,
though, the question is kind of as old as sin, right?
(29:05):
That's this is this is going back to the beginning.
Why don't we do what God says? Well, the answer post Adam and
Eve is that all of us have a sinful nature in us.
We give into temptation, we turnaway from God's word.
We want to do our, we think our way is better than God's way.
Why do people who call themselves Christians not
embrace everything the Bible says?
(29:27):
Well, I think it's the the same thing, right?
We want to hear what we want to hear.
We want to be able to do what wewant to do.
You know, there's, it's no, it'sno coincidence that the
disagreements that we have aboutthe Bible are around moral
issues, especially sexuality, right?
The, the height of desire in a human being.
(29:48):
It's because we want to do what we want to do.
I don't want the Bible. I don't want God to tell me who
I can and can't sleep with, right?
I want to just be able to do what I want to do.
So, so why don't we fully submitto Scripture?
Because because we have sinful hearts.
Because we want to just go our own way.
So I guess encouragement then for us would be to continue to
preach Jesus above all else. And that gospel preaching
(30:11):
includes this idea of we want the gospel to shape every inch
of our lives. Like there is no corner or
crevice or whatever that we can allow to not, you know, be
influenced by the gospel in our lives.
And so that include, you know, it's a lot of people are
thinking right now, how can I, you know, be involved in
politics more like just culturalconversations, you know, and
(30:31):
that that's a, you know, that's a part of this.
There's also like, what about those sensitive topics that I
disagree with with my friends and family, like that we should
bring the gospel into those conversations.
We should want the gospel to influence all of our life.
What about that secret sin that I haven't told anyone about?
Like, well, the gospel should influence every part of your
life. So that includes that.
So we should continue to extend to that all-encompassing gospel
(30:55):
to people and make sure that that's the gospel that we're
preaching our to ourselves and hearing in our churches, right?
Because part of the problem withthis question is not only are
there people out there trying tohear what they want to hear, but
there's pastors that are willingto tell them.
And so are you hearing, are you hearing a gospel that is that
all-encompassing gospel that is consistent and coherent with the
(31:18):
the Bible and so are be thinkingthen mindfully or am I leaving
anything left unsubmitted to Christ, right.
And that's something that we continually need to do.
Totally. That's, you know, we have to ask
ourselves that introspective question.
Am I trying to make the Bible, the Bible say what I wanted to
say or am I submitting to it? You know, we live under the
(31:39):
authority of the Bible, not overthe Bible.
We don't get to tell it what to say.
We submit to what it says. And so we have to ask ourselves,
am I bending this to do what I wanted to do or am I actually
living underneath it? And just last night, we have to
do a pastor's panel for studentsin high school and middle
school, youth down with the middle schoolers.
And they asked this question. They, they asked a question
(32:00):
roughly like, how do we know? How do you know as a pastor, how
do you make sure that you're preaching what the Bible says,
not just what you want to say? And that's part of my answer was
just that I continually am asking that question.
Here's the text. Am I?
Am I submitting to it or am I trying to tell it what to say?
Yeah, in honor of Vodi Bakkam, who passed away recently.
But he said if you can't say Amen, you ought to say Ouch.
(32:23):
He said that a lot. And just encouragement of if we
are reading the Bible, there aretimes where we'll encourage us
and times where it'll challenge us.
It'll affirm what we think and then challenge how we think.
If you have all that going on, then it's a good sign that you
read the Bible. Yeah.
Well, that's. Right.
Yeah, Awesome. Well, thanks so much for the
questions, everyone. Great questions.
Always excited to answer them. Keep them coming.
(32:44):
Have an awesome week, everybody.
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