August 27, 2025 • 57 mins
Greg Koukl is a Christian apologist, radio host, and author best known for equipping believers with practical tools to share and defend their faith with clarity and grace. He is the founder and president of Stand to Reason, a ministry dedicated to training Christians to think clearly, make a gracious defense, and engage culture with confidence.
With advanced degrees in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot School of Theology, Greg has taught on more than 80 university campuses and debated leading atheists and skeptics in the U.S. and abroad. His warm yet strategic style has made him a trusted voice in Christian apologetics for over 30 years.
Greg is the author of several influential books, including Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important That Happens in Between, and Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air (with Francis Beckwith). His “Columbo tactic” for asking questions has become a hallmark tool for Christians seeking to engage with skeptics respectfully and effectively.
Connect with Greg Koukl and his work here:
- Website: Stand to Reason
- Books: Greg Koukl on Amazon
- Podcast: Stand to Reason Podcast
- Twitter/X: @gregkoukl
- YouTube: Stand to Reason
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What if the most effective way to share your faith isn't through forceful arguments, but through thoughtful questions? Greg Koukl, founder of Stand to Reason, brings decades of apologetics experience to this transformative conversation about defending Christianity in an increasingly skeptical world.
Koukl's journey from skepticism to faith during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s shaped his understanding of how people genuinely come to belief. After witnessing countless shallow and shrill exchanges between Christians and non-believers, he founded Stand to Reason with a mission to equip believers to defend their faith with knowledge, wisdom, and an attractive manner.
The conversation explores Koukl's renowned "Columbo tactic," which uses strategic questions to navigate challenging spiritual discussions. Rather than immediately countering objections with statements, Koukl demonstrates how questions like "What do you mean by that?" create space for deeper dialogue while forcing others to clarify their own positions. This approach proves particularly effective when addressing common statements like "I'm spiritual but not religious."
Particularly fascinating is Koukl's perspective on biblical reliability. He challenges the notion that Christians must convince skeptics of biblical inerrancy before sharing the gospel. Instead, he suggests approaching the New Testament as reliable historical documents that provide compelling evidence for Jesus's life, teachings, and resurrection. The conversation delves into archaeological findings supporting early Christian beliefs and dismantles the claim that Jesus's divinity was a later theological development.
Perhaps most revolutionary is Koukl's distinction between "harvesting" and "gardening" in evangelism. While many Chris
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Boundless Bible.
My name is David Shapiro, hey,I'm Javi Marquez and I'm Jason
Holloway.
Yes, Welcome back to theBoundless Bible.
I am really excited about today.
I know I keep saying that, buttoday is one of those unique
guests that I'm just reallyexcited about.
When I think about apologeticsand a name that I've heard
(00:23):
quoted by so many otherapologists, this man is the name
that keeps coming up.
He's the one who's being quotedover and over again.
He's the expert in askingquestions.
To answer a question, this isGreg Kokel and we welcome you,
Greg, to the show.
Thank you so much for showingup and being part of the show
Well.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Gentlemen, Thanks so much forthe invitation and that was a
very sweet introduction.
I've never had anybodyintroduce me like that before,
so I hope all the referencesthat you heard were creditable
ones, good ones but not alwaysthe case, I know.
But thanks for having me onboard.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Our pleasure Pleasure is always Just before we start.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about yourself and your
organization and who you are,and all of that?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
All right.
Well, I was not raised aChristian.
I had to qualify that I wasraised in a Christian
denomination as a young man oras growing up.
And then, when I became ateenager, I realized, well, this
is not for me, and all the kidsin our family left.
And then it was during theJesus movement, about six years
later, in the early 70s, thatthe Lord got a hold of me, and
(01:30):
he's had me ever since.
Or I've had him or we've hadeach other, however you want to
put it, and it's been quite aride.
It's not always been easy, butit's been real.
So, very early on, I wascommitted to the idea that not
only that Christianity was trueand when I say true, I mean true
in the way that gravity is true.
And sometimes now, when youtalk about religious truth, you
(01:52):
have to qualify it that way,because people are thinking of
your truth, my truth, andeverybody's got their own truth.
And I said, no, that's not theway I'm thinking about it so
that it was that Jesus was real,that God was real and that the
characterization of the worldand reality that we find in
Scripture is actually accurate.
And so I, very early on, notonly saw it that way, but I
(02:16):
wanted to communicate it thatway to other people, and so this
is Jesus' movement time.
In the 70s I was in SouthernCalifornia.
The first church I crossed thethreshold of was Calvary Chapel,
costa Mesa, so that was theepicenter of the entire Jesus
Movement.
It wasn't the church I went toon a regular basis, but that was
the first one I went into for aconference Not a conference
(02:38):
they didn't have conferences andthey had concerts and it was
amazing and that period of timewas great and I began walking
with the Lord very aggressivelyand learning from others who
discipled me aggressively andhad all kinds of adventures.
But about 20 years into my ownwalk with the Lord and doing all
(03:01):
kinds of things workingoverseas and working behind the
Iron Curtain with Christiansthere and living in Thailand,
working with Cambodian refugeesand blah, blah, blah as I was
thinking about the way theconversation seemed to be
trending between Christians andnon-Christians in a crazy
culture and getting crazier, Irealized that the conversations
(03:22):
were first of all too shrill,crazy.
Or I realized that theconversations were first of all
too shrill.
Secondly, pretty shallow onboth sides, even on the
Christian side, the Christianshad the truth, but they didn't
explain it well, it seemed to meand we have the best things to
talk about and to think aboutand to explain about that we
could do better, and so I had amaster's degree in apologetics.
(03:44):
I was just beginning to work ona second master's in philosophy
under JP Moreland, who you mightknow of and a bunch of his
colleagues over at Talbot, andthat particular tool really
began opening my eyes about howI can think more carefully and
communicate more carefully aboutthe truth of the Christian view
(04:04):
of reality.
And so I started anorganization with some help with
some others, right in themid-90s Actually it was 1993.
So now we're 32 years old, withthe goal of providing more
depth and less shrillness.
You know, I think of itactually as it's either Shrell
or it's shallow and or shallowor silent People were just
(04:27):
silent.
They just didn't know how tocome up against the challenges
of the culture more carefullyabout their convictions and to
be able to defend classicalChristianity and classical
(04:50):
Christianity and Christianethics sorry, in the public
square, you know as you engagepeople, but in a winsome and
attractive way.
So that was really the heart ofit and over the years, like I
said, I've had lots ofadventures, you know, and God
has prospered our efforts.
We have 20 people on our teamnow and four or five speakers
traveling and communicating andbuilding up what we call
(05:13):
ambassadors for Christ, who haveknowledge, which is an
accurately informed mind, andwisdom, which is an artful
method.
That's the tactical questionsthat you're talking about, david
and also an attractive manner,which is the character element.
So that's really the heart ofit for me, and it's I mean,
that's a thumbnail sketch ofwhat we're about.
(05:35):
If people want to know Stand toReason, the acronym is STR,
obviously, but that's ourwebsite, strorg, and there's
tons of stuff there that peoplecan find and read and watch and
listen to that will help themdevelop an ability to be an
attractive, thoughtful Christianambassador.
(05:58):
That's what we're after.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Perfect.
Let me throw a question yourway that somebody might ask if
they are in the field andthey're starting to learn about
how to defend their faith.
If somebody says to them, hey,I'm spiritual but I'm not
religious, what would yourimmediate response be to that?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
that said that Now I wasn't in a position to get into
a long conversation because shewas sticking a needle in my arm
and I was on the way to surgeryright.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I had just offered some thoughts just to
get the conversation going, andshe said well, I'm spiritual but
not religious.
And I just said to her well, ofcourse you are.
God made you that way so thatyou could know him.
Now, that's a statement.
And, david, you know and maybe,fellas, you're familiar too
that I usually like to lead witha question, but I didn't have
(06:52):
time to listen to the answerbecause I was going to be going
down shortly and under the knife.
But in any event, I might haveasked tell me what you mean by
that?
I've heard lots of people saythat before.
They're spiritual but notreligious.
I mean, some people only thinkreligion is kind of a
spirituality and spirituality isreligion.
How could you be one and notthe other?
(07:12):
That would be my question.
Okay, now this is the some whoare listening might be familiar
with the book Tactics, where Idescribe a game plan that'll
help people to navigateotherwise tricky conversations
with a tremendous amount ofsafety, and one of the reasons
they're safety is because we'reusing questions to navigate, and
(07:33):
here's an example of that.
I think a lot of Christiansmight be scratching their head,
thinking I don't know how Iwould prosecute that.
Really.
Now I'm stuck.
Now there's dead silence and Idon't know what to say, which is
kind of the way you offered it,david.
What about people who encounterthat?
But if we toss the questionback to the other person, the
(07:53):
ball's in their court and nowthey can give us more
information about what they justsaid and, at the same time, not
only are we learning moredetail, which would be helpful
to know where to go next, butwe're forcing that other person
to think about their statementmore carefully.
Because this statement I'mspiritual, not religious.
(08:15):
This is a slogan in the cultureand in a way, it's a good sign,
because people are fed up withraw, bare materialism molecules
in motion.
God, there's more to life thanthat.
This is obvious to everybodywho thinks about it, which is
why, by the way, they even askthe question.
What's the meaning to life?
The fact that we even ask thequestion is an intimation that,
(08:38):
deep down, we know that life ismade for a meaning.
We need to discover it.
Now some people conclude thereis no meaning, but they're
moving now into this otherdimension spiritual but not
religious.
Now, that's very convenient.
I think CS Lewis calls thisview kind of all the benefits
and none of the price, you know,but at least it's a move in the
(09:02):
right direction, and so myfirst comment, which I actually
made to the woman, was meant toencourage her a little bit, but
if I had more time I think Iwould offer that question.
Tell me more, and now they haveto think more carefully about
exactly what they do mean bythat particular sentence, and so
that's going to be helpful tome to know where to go next.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I won't take up time here just because I want to let
them ask questions.
It's just interesting.
You said the first response wasyou're spiritual.
That's great that you were madethat way by God.
Offline, I'm going to send yousomething offline.
It's my epistemology that I hadwritten a little while ago and
it's almost that exact.
I'm going to send you offline.
I'll let them ask you somequestions, but it's amazing that
(09:45):
that was your first response.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Huh, interesting.
So we think alike it's a Vulcanmind meld there, david.
There it is.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, you know, I think it's really interesting.
I love it.
You call it the Columbo method.
I think the the the askingquestions.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Columbo tactic.
Columbo tactic, yeah, and Ithink that's really fascinating,
because a lot of times peopledon't know what they believe or
why they believe it, they justdo.
They never take a moment toactually consider why, like one
of the things.
When I first came back to thechurch, I found it interesting
that all of a sudden I startedrealizing you know, I used to
say, oh, I have such a problemwith the supernatural aspects of
the Bible and yet I have noproblem saying, oh, the universe
(10:31):
is out to get me today.
Or you know, oh, karma is goingto come back to me on that one.
Or oh, you really jinxed that.
Like you know, those are threesuper common statements that
literally anybody that I knowwould make with all seriousness
and faith in the truth of them,and yet not realize that they
are supernatural statements.
And so taking a moment to makepeople identify their own belief
system or their own workingmechanics of life system makes
(10:52):
them kind of realize that thethings that they've been butting
up against in Christianity arethe same things they should be
butting up against in their ownlives, and I think that's a big
paradigm shift.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, that's a great observation.
I actually have a.
You mentioned Columbo, andthat's after the actor or not
the actor, but the character onTV, lieutenant Columbo, who
asked a lot of questions tosolve the murder mystery.
Many of your viewers may not befamiliar with him, but he's a
great foil for this particularpoint, using questions.
But you know, in the book oftactics there's a chapter called
(11:24):
Inside Out, and that tactic iswhen we take advantage of the
fact that God has built allkinds of things inside of human
beings that are made in hisimage.
Right, there's a whole bunch ofthings they already know, and
their language betrays that, butthe things they know is
(11:45):
favorable to our view, notnecessarily to their view,
especially if they're an atheistor materialist.
And so the way this works isthat what God has built into the
inside comes out From theinside to the out.
That's the inside-out tactic,and all we have to do is listen
for it and you've given somecharacterizations and then ask
(12:07):
some questions about it.
Now, do you really think karmais real?
There is a sense, by the way,in which we could acknowledge
not the religious system inwhich karma fits, but the cause
and effect elements, because wesee that in the book of Proverbs
.
It's a different picture ofreality, but they're onto
something you know, and one ofthe things that could be
(12:31):
characterized as that cause andeffect is our error and the
guilt associated with it and thejudgment that's going to befall
us for the error.
Now, of course, that's judgment, but there's an answer to that
and that is mercy.
Okay, and so we have adifferent answer than the karmic
answer.
But that kind of commentprovides a foundation where
(12:55):
we're both kind of thinking thesame in one sense about
something, but in another sensewe're not.
That could be an opportunityfor conversation, asking
questions of clarification.
But people are in touch withthis transcendent element, jason
, and you're right.
They talk about it all the timeand when they do, this is an
opportunity for us to askfurther questions about those
(13:18):
things.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I would even go farther and say that one of the
things that I had the epiphanyor the revelation, if you will
when I came back was that youknow karma.
There's a better answer inChristianity than there is in
any of those.
Karma works for a reason.
Okay, we all know that to betrue, because we were built in
the image that we were.
And to be true, there's no.
(13:47):
Who's the judge meting out thejudgment?
Who is the?
You know what is the absoluteby which that judgment is even
being held as a standard.
So you know, if you go, well,karma is going to get me because
I did something bad, what'syour standard for bad?
And also, who's meeting out thejudgment for the bad thing that
(14:08):
you did.
And you realize really quicklythere's this like nebulous
answer there that anybody whobelieves in karma just doesn't
physically have.
And then you just transfer thatreality, that truth that we do
know that there is some suchthing as cause and effect and
truth and falsehood, and whenyou transfer it over, you go
wait a second.
That fits right in with theChristian doctrine and this was
(14:30):
a huge opening awakening for mewhen I realized yeah, when all
these universal things that Iwould have believed earlier, I
realized that there was a causeand effect to them.
There was a creator-createdrelationship, there was a
judgment, just all of it.
(14:50):
I could go on for hours, but Iwant to hear you talk more than
me.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, well, the karma thing, the way people
understand it, at least itsfundamental operation, is very
mechanical Good goes in, goodcomes out, bad goes in, bad goes
out, or some kind ofcombination.
But how does the karma machineeven know good from evil?
I mean, that's a distinctionthat's important because that's
a distinction of minds.
(15:14):
And also there's thisconsequence, the idea that you
get punished for the bad or youmaybe get rewarded for the good.
Okay, well, that's the kind ofrelationship that's
characteristically held betweenpersons and not between machines
, like the karma machine, as itwere.
And so I think this is aninadequacy of, say, those views
(15:38):
where karma plays a role, likeHinduism or Buddhism or whatever
.
But we can acknowledge peopleare onto something, but they're
understanding it improperly.
Jesus explained it better, youknow, and here now we have a
person that's involved thatwe're accountable to.
And, by the way, jesus was veryjudgmental by today's standards
(16:01):
if you read him carefully.
Actually you don't even have toread him that carefully, just
read him.
Most people don't, you know.
And I mean this guy got himselfkilled and he didn't get
himself killed because he wasjust all flowing with love and
accepting of everybody, or asocial justice warrior or
whatever, but we can show howthis fits together in a way that
(16:24):
I think resonates moreaccurately with our deepest
intuitions about the world.
By the way, I have a littlethought about karma, and this is
something that people can bringup.
I was in Madras, india, a numberof years ago and they have
their local guru or whatever,their Hindu guy, that follow me
kind of deal, and I, and heclaimed it was on the poster, on
(16:48):
the big, big, you know poster,whatever you know, the big thing
by the side of the road.
His face was everywhere.
I don't remember who he was,but he claimed to be the
reincarnation of Jesus.
Oh, okay, so he thought thatthat, that that added up
something good for him, andother people have made this
claim too, in his broader field,you know, and it seems like he
(17:12):
could only have onereincarnation of Jesus at a time
that's contemporaneous witheach other, right, all right,
but he thought this is going tomake me look good to people.
I'm the reincarnation of Jesusof Nazareth.
I think it devastates theirview Because Jesus, by all
accounts that we have that seemto be reliable about how he
lived, he was pretty good, hewas like unmatchable Right, and
(17:33):
so what this guy is saying isJesus is still in the system
after 2000 years and I'm goingto think, man, if Jesus could
get out, how am I going to get?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
out.
What are my chances?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Right, that's good, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
That is funny, that's kind of a crazy thought.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
But I do think that we're back to that same point,
that people who believe in karma, they're on to something, but
there's a distortion there andone of the problems with karma
is that it's works-based.
Is that it's works-based, sohow do you know how much karma
good stuff, whatever that is, bythe way, and this is nebulous
(18:13):
good stuff that you do in orderto gain the good stuff, to
cancel out the bad stuff?
I mean, it's very, verynebulous.
And you don't want to come backas a cow.
You want to come back assomebody a.
Brahmin or something like that.
So very nebulous.
And you don't want to come backas a cow, you know.
You want to come back as likesomebody a Brahmin or something
like that, so that's nebulous.
Now I lived in Thailand.
Thailand's a Buddhist countryand there's a concept of karma
(18:34):
that's part of their religion,and you could actually buy a
cage of birds, a cage that hadbirds in there.
They were encaged and you couldbuy them for the purpose of
opening the door and lettingthem go out.
Yes, okay, and this wasallegedly decrease the karmic
(18:54):
debt.
All right, what about the guywho caught the birds and stuck
them in the cage?
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
well he had.
You know he had a lot of goodkarma in the first place.
It it was okay.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, well, whatever you know, Maybe he could say
that's good, because he put himin to be like go again, I don't
know.
But there just seems to beanomalies, obviously, with some
of those things, yeah, exactly.
Now we can be sympathetic,because there are things that
are not only anomalies regardingChristianity from the
perspective of non-Christians,they look in and they go man,
(19:29):
that's a little crazy.
I think there's a lot of thosethings that could be resolved
with a closer look and carefulthinking about it.
That's part of what we do asapologists.
But even so, at the end of theday, there's still loose ends.
It's not tidy because life isnot tidy.
And, david, you talked aboutepistemology.
Epistemology, that's how weknow.
What we know is not tidy, sowe're prone to error and so we
(19:49):
do the best that we can.
What I like about the Christianview of reality is properly
understood.
It fits so well with reality,not just what we see, our
perceptions with our five senses, but what we perceive with our
deepest intuitions about thenature of reality.
(20:09):
You know we mentioned onealready that there is purpose.
We got to figure out what thatis, but this doesn't seem like a
purposeless existence.
You know, it's a dark momentwhen people conclude that there
are no answers to their deepestquestions.
That's nihilism, that'snothingism.
That's the dark moment.
(20:30):
And it's dark because it seemslike there should be, for us at
least, not for Fido, not forFifi, dogs and cats or anything
else, but for humans at least,and so that's part of what's
built in, and I think these arethe kinds of things that
Christianity deeply resonates.
(20:51):
Problem of evil you know,people say well how does the
Bible explain this?
It doesn't explain it, itpredicts it.
I mean, it does explain it butalso predicts it, and our whole
story is about the problem ofevil, starts in the third
chapter, doesn't end for 66books.
It's part of our story and ourstory is not over yet.
So these are all things that,to me, are so profound.
(21:12):
When you have an opportunityeither to think about yourself
or have it pointed out to you bya Christian, a thoughtful
Christian, that gets peoplethinking about the legitimacy of
the world, the way Jesus saw itNow you mentioned.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
it's funny with my epistemology that there's no
shortage of people telling methat I have errors.
Definitely when you step intothe world of apologetics,
everybody will happily tell youthat you're in error.
But let's flip that right intothe reliability of the Bible and
errors and somebody outside ofthe religion saying I'm not
going to follow it becauseyou're just following a book and
it has errors and it waswritten by man.
(21:50):
And I want to just talk alittle bit about the reliability
of the Bible from yourperspective.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
All right, maybe some prolegomena, some foundational
work on that one.
And that is when, oh, it's onlywritten by man.
Well, do you have books in yourlibrary?
So I'm role-playing right now.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah, exactly, do you ?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
have any books.
You read books right.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Do you have books in your library?
Sure, do they tell you anythings that are true about the
world?
Yeah, of course.
Were they written by men or byGod?
God, well, they're at my bend,you idiot.
I don't believe in bookswritten by God.
So, in other words, what you'resaying maybe I'm mistaken, you
can tell me.
Here it sounds like what you'resaying that human beings can
write books that are reliable totell you truth about the nature
(22:32):
of the world, right?
Well, the answer to that is, ofcourse, right.
And so just because it'swritten by man doesn't mean that
it can't tell us the truthabout the world.
Now I'm giving a talk thisweekend in Huntington Beach,
other California.
It's called has God Spoken, andI'm giving six reasons why it
(22:52):
is reasonable to think that theBible is a book not merely
written by man, but its primarysource is God to man.
So you got two choices eitherGod to man or man.
About God, it's eithersupernatural or natural.
So I'm making the point sixreasons why it has the hallmarks
(23:13):
of being supernatural theauthorship.
However, what's interesting whenyou think about it is the early
church wasn't founded on that.
The early church was notfounded on the authority of the
New Testament.
You know why?
Because there was no NewTestament.
You know.
This developed over time, youknow, and in a way that I think
is reliable.
(23:34):
We can look back on it and say,yeah, the church got it right
for very particular reasons, butwhat they had was a testimony
about a man, jesus, who livedand died and then rose again
from the dead and this changedeverything.
Paul starts Romans there.
What is Romans, you know?
Maybe 50 AD, and he saysdeclared with power to be the
(23:57):
Son of God through theresurrection.
Now, that's the fourth verse ofthe book.
You know, by our reckoning it'sright there at the opening kind
of thing.
Galatians was his first letterand Galatians starts with Jesus
being the Son of God and raisedfrom the dead stuff that was
(24:24):
later used by people whocouldn't talk to the
eyewitnesses.
You had the very same testimonyof the people who witnessed it
and others who were deeplyinfluenced by Jesus by putting
their faith in him, theirconfidence, their trust in him
so early on.
We have the account ashistorically reliable that
changed the lives.
People understood this event tohappen in history.
So what that does for me now inpart is that it gives me an
(24:47):
option when I talk with peopleabout the truth of Christianity,
the truth of Jesus, of Nazareth, I don't have to say the Bible
says it, I believe it.
That settles it here.
It is jot and tittle.
Everything's God-inspired.
Because I don't have toconvince them of the inerrancy
of Scripture in order tocommunicate the message that
(25:09):
saves.
I just have to give them goodreason to believe that the
message is a good message, asound message, an accurate
message.
And I have two allies.
I have the allies of thewitnesses that wrote down what
they said and gave what they sawand put their lives on the line
for their testimony.
(25:30):
And the other witness is notexternal, it's something that's
going on inside of them and thatis the Holy Spirit that plays a
role.
All right Now, when I became abeliever September 28th 1973, I
was not into apologetics, Ican't tell you like I can.
With a lot of my colleagues theysaid, oh, I heard this, then I
(25:52):
heard this.
Then I realized, oh, mygoodness, the evidence is so
powerful.
Christianity is true.
You know, and you might know,people like Frank Turk or J
Warner Wallace or other, youknow Lee Strobel, and these guys
were all converted based on theinformation, not me, I just had
an increasing sense as I wasexposed to the truth.
My brother was the one who wasdoing most of that work in my
(26:16):
life the gardening, what I callit in my life before the harvest
.
I just had an increasing sense.
This is really true.
This is it Now.
I didn't get that from readingthe harvest.
I just had an increasing sense.
This is really true.
This is it Now.
I didn't get that from readingthe Bible.
Mark was communicating the truth, the word, but it wasn't
chapter and verse, it was thetruth of that, communicated in
(26:36):
the language I could understand.
It's conversational stuff, allright.
By the way, that's whathappened in the book of Acts too
, when it says the word, we'regoing to preach the word.
You know, we're not going towait on tables, we're going to
preach the word.
Well, they weren't quoting OldTestament passages, unless
they're talking to Jews.
They were taking what they knewand they were communicating in
language people could understand.
You see this time and timeagain, as the gospel begins to
(26:58):
move into the Gentile world andthe apostles, whoever's involved
is communicating the Word,which is the substance of the
gospel, in the language peoplecould understand.
We can do that even if a personis not convinced that the Bible
is the inspired Word of God.
That, I think, is a hurdle thatwe sometimes put in front of
ourselves.
(27:18):
That just creates complicationfor us.
So, in fact, I just wrote apiece with one of my colleagues
at Stand to Reason and we havematerial that we send out at no
charge because we have peoplethat help us financially so we
can give this stuff awaybasically every month, send it
out to whoever signs up for it.
And as we're talking aboutinerrancy, which we believe in,
(27:38):
we just make a point.
By the way, don't take thisissue on with a non-Christian.
We just make a point.
By the way, don't take thisissue on with a non-Christian.
This is an in-house discussionwith people who already have a
high view of Jesus and God andeverything.
Then you could put the piecestogether.
All right, you talk with anon-Christian and if you're
trying to argue inerrancy, thisis going to invite a tsunami of
apparent contradictions thatyou're not going to be able to
(28:00):
deal with.
So just sidestep that.
But we do have something we canappeal to and that is this
gospel that goes out indifferent forms.
As we explain, it has power.
It's the power of God to saveand to rescue, as Paul says in
Romans 1.
So that would be.
I mean, I said prologomena,that's the way I'd establish the
foundation.
(28:20):
Okay, in terms of these thingsare what I believe.
My convictions are based on,things that happened in history.
Now these things are recordedin okay, I'm going to use this
term now because, for astrategic reason, they're
recorded in the primary sourcehistorical documents of the life
of Jesus of Nazareth.
(28:40):
Okay, oh well, that's Matthew,mark, luke and John.
Oh, that's the Bible.
Yeah, but I don't use the termthe Bible because actually the
Bible is not a book, it's alibrary of books and it didn't
come together as a book untilabout the third or fourth
century.
The other pieces werecirculating around, but they
didn't bind it together in bookform.
I don't want people to just say,oh, bible, all right.
I don't believe in thatnonsense.
(29:01):
I want to say look at thehistorical material that the
historians use to assess whattook place there in the first
century in ancient Palestinearea.
Okay, ancient Israel.
Matthew, mark, luke and John iswhat we call them.
There's some other sources andstuff, and even Paul and Peter
and their writings that makereferences, but this is really
the substance okay these thingsare.
(29:22):
They bear the hallmarks offabulous history, really good
history, okay.
And so if they're good history,then we can rely on what they
say, which historians do, evenBart Ehrman, for goodness sake,
who's a critic of the NewTestament.
He wrote a book about Jesusfrom the historical material he
(29:45):
had available to him fromMatthew, mark, luke and John.
Now he doesn't believe Jesuswas God.
He doesn't believe all of themiracles and stuff like that.
But my question is if you cantrust the history on other
issues, why not trust it on theones that touch on Jesus, the
miracle worker or the incarnateSon of God or the one who rose
from the dead?
The same kind of test can beapplied.
(30:07):
So notice what I'm doing.
I'm in the process ofconversing with somebody.
If I were having thisconversation, I'm lowering the
bar a little bit.
You don't have to believe thisis all from God, that's not the
point.
But at the same time I'mraising the credibility of the
texts that are relevant inevangelism, that tell us the
(30:29):
important things about Jesus'life for evangelism.
Now, once you become a Christianand you're into discipleship,
the details matter, as you guysknow, and also the authority
matters, because we've seen,when people abandon the
authority of Scripture, a highview of Scripture, they start
abandoning a whole bunch ofthings Scripture says that they
don't like.
(30:49):
Okay, so then it's not God'sWord anymore.
Their views are not God's views, they're their own views that
they pick and choose.
Oh, when God agrees with me,then I'm going to agree with
then, that's fine.
But if he doesn't agree with me, then you know I'm out of here.
So then I'm going to agree withthen, that's fine.
But if he doesn't agree with me, then I'm out of here.
So I don't know.
David, there's a couple ofthoughts regarding your question
.
Obviously, more can be said,and if you want to ask more
(31:10):
questions, I'm happy to respond.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well, what's interesting is, I end up in this
debate quite a bit and one ofthe things you said was the
reliability of the gospels andhow early they were written, and
that gets a lot of people.
They don't understand that, butagain, they still use the
defense of the Bible.
So then they want to know extrabiblical sources for that.
We could talk about Josephusand Tacitus and Pliny and all of
that which people do.
I'm the archaeologist, I'm thebiblical archaeologist and I go
(31:38):
to there were ossuaries, foundJewish ossuaries, bone boxes
dated around 50 AD, praying toJesus for loved ones to go to
heaven with him.
These are people that at thattime it's outside of the Bible.
These are Jews who believe thathe had the power to bring
people with him to heaven.
So obviously it's more proofthat these stories were not just
(32:00):
written multiple times later oryou know that we have some sort
of gap of.
You know what somebody said,what they meant, that this
wasn't something.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
His divinity was given to him 300 years later,
which we hear oh, yeah, david,I've had a long conversation
with my team about that just theother day, because we do run
into this a lot, and I thinkthis is one of the favorites of
Bart Ehrman.
This is called a highChristology Jesus being God,
jesus being the miracle worker,the one who will come again, who
(32:30):
determines where you will spendeternity, and that's an
accretion of myth.
We're trying to get back to theJesus of history Now.
This was a theme that developedin the late 19th century, as
you know, and has beencompletely discredited as a
pursuit.
Yet some people are stillpursuing that Nowadays, though,
they have much more credibilityabout the Gospels themselves,
(32:51):
and now they've got to deal withthe content.
So, okay, well, john was.
Oh, that's the high Christology.
Jesus is the Son of God, beforeAbraham was.
I am blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, that couldn't have beenwritten early.
That must have been way, way,way late.
But the synoptics Matthew, mark,luke oh, those guys just have.
You know, this itinerantpreacher said a couple of
controversial things.
(33:11):
You know, maybe we don't agreewith everything.
Holy cow, you open up thegospel of Mark.
I did it just the other dayjust to verify this point.
Mark, by everybody's assessment, was the first gospel.
All right.
And Mark was look, you've gotLuke writing in the book of Acts
about Paul still alive at theend of his writing and Paul died
around 64, 65.
(33:32):
So the book of Acts is, youknow, early 60s Before.
That was the gospel of Luke andMatthew came before that.
So what does Matthew say?
Matthew says he starts out the.
What is it?
The beginning of the account ofJesus, the Son of God.
That's the first line, and thenokay, yeah, that's a low
(33:53):
Christology, right, and I meanthat's what Jesus said in other
occasions, that the Jews wantedto kill him for saying because
of his blasphemy.
That's the first line of thefirst gospel.
All right.
The next line is a citationfrom the prophets about John the
Baptist, about a voice cryingin the wilderness Make straight,
(34:15):
prepare a way for Guess who.
The Lord Right.
The only Lord that they weretalking about was Yahweh.
Yet John points to Jesus.
So you've got in the very firstgospel, the very first lines,
two statements of very highChristology.
(34:37):
So how is it that these guys aresaying this is an accretion of
myth over time that you only seein the gospel of John, which
must have been late dated.
You've got it right thereeverywhere.
Actually, it's all through.
You know Mark 2, you know yoursins are forgiven you, the
paralytic that's lowered throughthe ceiling.
Who can forgive sins?
But God alone?
Okay, in order that you mightknow that the Son of man, which
(35:01):
is also a divine title from thebook of Daniel, has the
authority to forgive sins, I sayto you arise, take up your
pallet and go home.
And so that's a low Christology, please.
I don't know where they'regetting this, to be honest, but
every single gospel, even theearliest, has high Christology.
Now, if you don't want tobelieve that, okay, fine.
But what justifies you saying,well, every other verse is sound
(35:25):
, historically kind of thing.
What justifies cherry picking,you know, maybe these things?
This is exactly what Jesus said, which is why he was so popular
.
On one hand, and workingmiracles.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
That helped a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And why he got killed .
Because even in Mark, when youlook at the trial, yeah, and it
identifies the claim that hemade, or it should be the high
priest says are you the Christ,the son of God?
He says you've said it yourself.
And he said, okay, I'm tearingmy robes, we don't need
testimony.
Now it's not a capital crime toclaim to be the Messiah, it's a
(36:05):
capital crime to say you're Godin human form.
And so now he's committed.
And then Jesus says oh, by theway, let me double down, and you
will not see me again until yousee me coming with power in the
clouds, with great glory.
Now, that's from Daniel, andthey knew what he was referring
to.
So Jesus was not executed forwhat he did, he was executed for
(36:30):
who he said he was.
That's what the record showsand that's a high Christology,
from the beginning to the end inthe gospel of Mark, which is
the very first testimony ofJesus' life.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
That's fascinating.
I think the other thing, too is, you know, there's a lot of
people out there who still doubtthe historicity of a lot of
these things, and one of thethings that I recently read was
that there's more writtenrecords in history of Jesus than
Alexander the Great of Plato,of things like that.
(37:05):
So even our listeners, who arelistening, who are, you know,
not deep archaeologists or deep,you know no-transcript.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
He was a man of humble origins and humble means
and humble life.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I'm not speaking just to his character, but to his
circumstances, but thismagnifies the point that then
why is this guy so famous, howdid he have such an impact and
why it was more than 15 minutesof fame even back then?
And that's because of who hewas, what he did, what he said
(38:17):
and what he did.
And so he says these incrediblethings that just blow people's
minds.
And then he works works ofwonder to verify it.
So he says I am the bread oflife, having just fed
miraculously 4,000 people.
He actually did it twice, oneto four and one to five, and
they were only counting the men.
(38:37):
Okay, I'm the bread of life, Iam the resurrection and the life
.
He who believes will live evenif he dies.
Then he walks out and he raisesLazarus from the dead, who
stinks because he's been inthere for four days, right, and
then he walks out, unbind him.
So he doesn't just talk, heacts.
(38:57):
And he acts in a way thatverifies, in a powerful way, the
claim that he made.
So this is what puts Jesus, andthis is why I think you have a
man now who has impacted historymore than any individual by a
long shot.
Just think of it here.
I got this.
I'm going to grab this little.
I got this little cross righthere.
(39:18):
Okay, somebody gave me this forspeaking at their church.
They actually paid me too, butthis is a little gift, you know,
and I get a lot of these things, but for some reason I saved
this one, you know, and I loveit, because what this represents
is it represents an event thatsplit world history into.
Yes, all world history is datedfrom this event.
(39:42):
Now, some people don't likethat, so they don't like before
Chrysler and on Domini BCAD.
So now they say before thecommon era or after the common
era, but still this is the eventheralded by this cross that
split world history.
Well, this fictitiouscharacters don't do that, right?
Yeah, they don't impact historylike that to.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
That is that it wasn't somebody who did
something violent, so a personwho changed this much of history
by being good, by by by beingperfect, by being a an example,
by being an aspiration to all ofhumanity, I mean that's that
again.
That's unheard of.
There's no other human in thehistory of the universe who has
created the impact that he hasat all period, but even less so
(40:34):
by not being violent.
You know, you have your GenghisKhans, you have your things
like that, but this isn't that?
Speaker 3 (40:40):
This is a great observation, jason, and I have a
friend who's now with the Lord,tom Gilson, who wrote a book
titled Too Good to be False.
Too Good to be False is stillavailable, but this is his point
how do you create a where,anywhere in literature or
history, do you find a characterthat has such power, at least
(41:01):
characterized as having thepower?
So we're reading this accountWow, he's got this.
And then how does he use it?
He doesn't use it for his ownbenefit or to rescue himself
when he could have.
He doesn't abuse it in his ownbenefit or to rescue himself
when he could have.
He doesn't abuse it in otherways, but then, when his own
life is in danger, he says look,I can call down a legion of
angels.
Pilot, you're not in charge.
I'm in charge, but I'm going tosubmit to this because this is
(41:25):
what the father wants.
So that's your point.
So people are interested inTom's book.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Too good to Be False, and that's now we're looking at
the historicity of him.
There were multiple people whomade that claim but, like you
mentioned, greg, they didn't dothe action to fit that.
They were just saying this iswho I am.
And once the action fit, thenwe're focused on Jesus going.
Okay, listen, he not onlyraised the dead, but he raised
himself out of the dead.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think I'm going to believe him.
Yeah, he didn't.
These other guys had their 15minutes of fame, you know,
famously, and then they're gone,and that's why nobody, except
for historians, archaeologistsand people are into it.
You can name them, but they'reall gone, not Jesus.
Now my buddy J Warner Wallaceyou might know, jim.
He used to work for us and he'sbeen a great friend to Stand to
Reason for so many years.
But he wrote a book called ColdCase Christianity.
(42:33):
But he wrote another bookcalled I think it's called the
Person of Interest, and whathe's describing in that book is
the unbelievable impact thatJesus of Nazareth has had in
every single aspect of Westernlife.
You know all the songs, everypopular.
He looks at the top 100performing artists of all time
(42:57):
in Western.
You know civilization and they,like 98 out of 100, wrote songs
about Jesus and that's just oneexample he looks at.
You can get the whole gospel,the basic grittiness of the
gospel, just by walking around,looking at buildings on campuses
and seeing what's written there.
If all the manuscripts weregone, so they're.
So what kind of man has thiskind of impact?
(43:18):
Then he makes anotherobservation, because I mentioned
western civilization.
Yeah, but what about all theother eastern religions and all
that?
They all want jesus.
They're all trying to get Jesuson their team.
Okay, so they're pulling him in.
Oh, he's one of our gods, youknow kind of thing, and it's
just, he's everywhere, he'severywhere.
(43:38):
So how does a person who didn'texist or a person who is not of
the magnitude of the individualthat we find in the primary
source, historical documentsthat we know as Matthew, mark,
luke and John, how does anyoneless than that person have the
impact that we see in the entireworld after 2,000 years?
(44:00):
The answer is no one.
No one comes close, not evenreal people.
Not here, javi people Not here.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
Harvey, no, I love just hearing you and I love your
passion for just the faith andChristianity.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Obviously, you're just a deep well of knowledge.
I love Stand to Reason and itspassion for equipping believers
to think clearly about theirfaith and engage in others
effectively.
One of the questions I wantedto ask, and just really maybe
something to leave our listenerswith, is what is maybe
(44:37):
something a misconceptionsomeone has about sharing their
faith?
I know you, stan, for reasonsit has to do with a lot about
evangelizing and just kind ofapologetics.
So what is?
Something, you see, that isvery common, a misconception
that Christians have.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
All right.
Well, this is going to be alittle bit controversial with
some people and it usuallyrequires some explanation to
make it more convincing.
But I do go into detail in acompanion book to the tactics
book called Street Smarts, whichsubtitle is using questions to
answer Christianity's toughestchallenges.
(45:18):
So David kind of made referencein paraphrase to that, and that
is that the most important partof evangelism is not harvesting
, it's gardening.
And the reason is is becausethere's not going to be a
harvest unless you have a seasonof gardening in anybody's life,
and so most of our evangelismtechniques are harvesting
(45:39):
techniques.
We have books or bookletshere's how to get people to pray
to receive Christ.
Okay, I'm not dissing that,there's nothing wrong with it.
I've used them in the past andI can think of a particular
track that had an impact on meas I was considering
Christianity.
And some people make up.
You know their whole ministry isfocused on Ray Comfort.
I have a tremendous amount ofrespect for it.
(46:00):
I've known Ray for many years.
You know he can use that togreat effect.
He also uses a lot of questions.
If you've ever watched hisvideos, you know when he's on
the street challenging peoplewith just tons of questions.
So he's very adept at thetactical approach, the Columbo
tactic, but when you look in theNew Testament, there are no
altar calls, nobody's encouragedto receive Christ as Lord and
(46:22):
Savior.
Ask Jesus into your heart.
Those are modern ways ofcharacterizing the harvest, but
it isn't the way most peoplebecome Christians.
And I can say this withauthority because when I teach
on the tactics material, I talkabout this a lot because use the
tactical game plan as agardening tool.
(46:43):
We're not given gardening tools.
This is for gardening.
But I take a poll and I justdid it like three days ago with
a group that I spoke to whole,and I just did it like three
days ago with a group that Ispoke to and I want to know how
many people here are Christians.
And you did not become aChristian by coming forward at
an altar call or having someonepray with you and receive Jesus
as Lord and Savior.
That's kind of the motif wethink of, how evangelism cashes
(47:06):
out, and my average for anychurch audience is 75% of the
people raise their hand.
That means I mean most people.
Even now, even with ouremphasis on harvesting tools,
that isn't how most peoplebecome Christian.
It's totally different.
Even when I became a Christian,september 28th 1973, when my
(47:30):
brother was telling me.
He came to my apartment thatnight, I was a student at UCLA
and he started telling me moreabout Jesus God bless him.
And I told him Mark, you don'tneed to tell me any more about
Jesus.
Now here's what I remembersaying I've already decided I
want to become a Christian.
That's what I remember sayinghe tells me.
What he remembers is I said Ialready am a Christian.
(47:52):
Oh, wow.
So here's the question.
In either case, did my brotherMark harvest me?
No, no, I harvested myself.
Of course, we know the HolySpirit did that, but there was
no need to pressure me.
I did pray a prayer and heguided me in that, but I didn't
need a prayer.
I had already committed myselfand my heart to Christ.
(48:14):
Some people don't remember neverprayed a prayer, don't remember
when they became Christians,but what matters is what their
heart conviction is about Jesusand not when they prayed the
prayer.
Praying the prayer is notnecessary is the point I'm
making.
Is not necessary is the pointI'm making.
And so back to Javi, yourparticular question.
(48:38):
I would say the biggest mistakepeople make today is they feel
like they're not doingevangelism effectively unless
they're pressing for a decision,all right, and my point is,
even in the early church theydidn't press for decisions.
They communicated the wordgardening, gardening, gardening,
and watch this.
When the fruit was ripe, itfell into the basket Right.
When the fruit is ripe, itfalls into the basket.
(48:59):
Now there are people whodisagree with me, and I got a
tongue lashing from a dearbrother whose name you would
recognize on this particularissue, but he's a harvester and
so this is.
He didn't like my approach,chastised me for it.
But I'm telling you, when Ilook at audiences and I tell
them this and I give them somegardening tools, man, their
whole countenance changes,because I think most of the
(49:21):
people in the audience are notharvesters, they're gardeners
like me.
I'm a gardener, I get it.
And just to put a little moresharper point on it, because I
tell them I haven't prayed withsomebody who received Christ in
30 years, which sometimes theygasp, and I know what they're
thinking.
Oh what a loser, you know, kindof thing, because that's the way
(49:42):
they think about themselves.
No-transcript.
(50:11):
Best-selling Christian author.
The best, I'm telling you, if Ihave a choice to listen to any
Christian apologist, jay Warneris the one I want to listen to.
Okay, just saying.
But here's what you don't knowJim was in my garden when he was
an atheist.
Oh wow, he was listening to ourradio show and that was a
significant factor in him movingtowards Christianity.
(50:32):
And then I got to know Jim.
I mean, I've known him for manyyears because he started
working as a volunteer with ourorganization, because he
respected what we were doing.
And I don't even know if he hasa spiritual birthday.
I should ask him.
But there are a number of otherpeople that have told me the
same thing and other people infull-time Christian ministry
right now have their ownorganizations.
Abdu Murray, the former Muslim,is now Christian.
(50:54):
You know he was in my gardenwhen he was a Muslim.
This isn't to wave my flag, itis just to make the point that
gardening is where the action isat Garden, garden, garden, and
a little here, a little there.
Sometimes you have five minutes, sometimes you have 50 minutes,
depends what's available, butwe're all on the same team, so
that the one who reaps and theone who sows, rather, and the
(51:16):
one who reaps, can rejoicetogether.
Now, that's a citation fromJesus, from John, chapter 4.
And that's the way I see it.
I think that's the best advice,javier, I can give to anyone
doing evangelism Don't worryabout the harvest, do good
gardening and the harvest takescare of itself.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Before we sign off, I'll just, I'll let you just
know.
We just interviewed, actually,abdu Murray and he quoted you.
He's one of the ones.
No, yes, he's one of the onesthat quoted you while we were
interviewing him.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, Just so you're aware you were probably lucky to
get him on the camera becausehe is a huge.
Abdu is a huge man.
He's got to be 6'7" and he'sreally big.
Well, that's very flattering.
I'm glad that you had a chance.
I didn't even know if you knewAbdu.
So some people do, some peopledon't.
But I met Abdu at anEvangelical Theological Society
(52:08):
big, massive conference, ets,because he wanted to have dinner
to tell me the role that SDRhad played in his conversion,
and so we've been friends eversince, and every year when we
meet at ETS we go to acheesecake factory and have
dinner again to commemorate thatfirst one with members of my
staff.
So it's a good roundup.
(52:28):
But that's just to make thepoint that gardening is, I think
, the way to spend your time,and if I've lowered the bar a
little bit for people and givethem some gardening tools,
tactics or street smarts, forexample, then they're going to
get off the bench where they'resitting because they're scared
and get into the garden and do alittle spade work, and when
(52:52):
they do that, that's going tocontribute to the harvest down
the line.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
What a great answer.
You know that's actuallysomething we talk about a lot
here too is and maybe this is agood way to kind of like wrap it
up is we talk a lot on thispodcast about.
There's so many sides to thiswhole thing.
There is the academic for thosewho need the academia.
There is the apologetics andthe archaeology for those who
(53:19):
need that.
There's the kindness and careof listening to those in need as
well, which actually has verylittle to do with Scripture and
has everything to do with livingout, being more like Jesus and
having people see the changethat it makes in your life and
there's.
It is still fascinating to me,after coming back semi-recently,
(53:40):
that that there's, that there'sall of these things available
to anybody who's open to them,and the spectrum is so wide.
It's a big garden with a lot ofdifferent kinds of plants.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
Exactly, it's a humongous garden, lot of
different kinds of plants,exactly.
It's a humongous garden.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
There's so many different ways to garden and I
love that.
You said that you don't need tobe the altar call.
We don't have to call peopleout and say, are you ready to
pray yet we need to live it out.
We need to be who we say thatwe are.
We need to calmly and fullytrust in the truth of it and
(54:14):
express that to those who needthose questions.
And and now I think we've alllearned ask more questions than
we have things to say, because,because there's so much more
value that's sitting inside thatperson who's about to ask the
question than they even realize.
Speaker 4 (54:27):
Yeah, so yeah, that's well put.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
I got it from you.
Well, ray Comfort told me oncethat he'll go to church and
people say, can you get usdecisions?
And he said well, I can getdecisions, that's easy.
I don't want decisions, I wantconversions.
Speaker 4 (54:44):
Yeah, right, and that's different.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
And conversions take time and sometimes if we're
pressing for the decision which,by the way, is historically new
the second great awakening iswhen that really became mid-19th
century became a big deal inWestern civilization, and before
that they didn't have that kindof emphasis.
But he said when you thinkabout it, when people are
considering a change of view onthese kinds, this is huge.
(55:10):
This is huge, and so we want tomake sure that they are
properly informed.
You know the price that'sinvolved.
You know to become a followerof Jesus, not just to get your
fire insurance by saying, make adecision, so to speak, and
walking down the aisle.
And again, I'm not against thatper se, because a lot of people
(55:31):
have genuine conversions as aresult of that.
But sometimes it produces falseconversions too, you know.
And then you got to deal withthe fallout.
Oh, ben there, done that.
And that kind of person isreally hard to reach, a person
who thought he was a Christianbut wasn't, and now walked away
because it doesn't work right.
So I think, taking our time andgardening, gardening as we're
(55:55):
able to, I call it putting astone in someone's shoe, giving
them just something to thinkabout, lowering the bar a bit,
we as a team, as a body ofChrist now, are involved in that
tilling, planting the seeds,watering, weeding, as the case
(56:17):
may be.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
And that all adds up, greg.
This has been outstanding.
I know I have learned a lot.
I know that we have enjoyedthis conversation.
I hope our listeners have aswell.
I have no doubt they have, infact.
So I just wanted to personallysay thank you for meeting with
us.
We have very much appreciatedyour time, your consideration
and all of your knowledge.
We will be sending people toStand to Reason.
(56:41):
We want them to see what youhave to offer.
Listen to all that you have.
I know there's so many videosonline as well, which is a
phenomenal resource, so we justwant to say thank you for that
and thank you to our listenersfor having some time to come
listen to the great Greg.
It's been a wonderful pleasureand we'll see you all next week.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Thank you Later.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Thank you, there we go.
All right, I think we're done.
Welcome to the Boundless Bible.
My name is David Shapiro, hey,I'm Javi Marquez and I'm Jason
Holloway.
Yes, Welcome back to theBoundless Bible.
I am really excited about today.
I know I keep saying that, buttoday is one of those unique
guests that I'm just reallyexcited about.
When I think about apologeticsand a name that I've heard
(00:23):
quoted by so many otherapologists, this man is the name
that keeps coming up.
He's the one who's being quotedover and over again.
He's the expert in askingquestions.
To answer a question, this isGreg Kokel and we welcome you,
Greg, to the show.
Thank you so much for showingup and being part of the show
Well.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Gentlemen, Thanks so much forthe invitation and that was a
very sweet introduction.
I've never had anybodyintroduce me like that before,
so I hope all the referencesthat you heard were creditable
ones, good ones but not alwaysthe case, I know.
But thanks for having me onboard.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Our pleasure Pleasure is always Just before we start.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about yourself and your
organization and who you are,and all of that?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
All right.
Well, I was not raised aChristian.
I had to qualify that I wasraised in a Christian
denomination as a young man oras growing up.
And then, when I became ateenager, I realized, well, this
is not for me, and all the kidsin our family left.
And then it was during theJesus movement, about six years
later, in the early 70s, thatthe Lord got a hold of me, and
(01:30):
he's had me ever since.
Or I've had him or we've hadeach other, however you want to
put it, and it's been quite aride.
It's not always been easy, butit's been real.
So, very early on, I wascommitted to the idea that not
only that Christianity was trueand when I say true, I mean true
in the way that gravity is true.
And sometimes now, when youtalk about religious truth, you
(01:52):
have to qualify it that way,because people are thinking of
your truth, my truth, andeverybody's got their own truth.
And I said, no, that's not theway I'm thinking about it so
that it was that Jesus was real,that God was real and that the
characterization of the worldand reality that we find in
Scripture is actually accurate.
And so I, very early on, notonly saw it that way, but I
(02:16):
wanted to communicate it thatway to other people, and so this
is Jesus' movement time.
In the 70s I was in SouthernCalifornia.
The first church I crossed thethreshold of was Calvary Chapel,
costa Mesa, so that was theepicenter of the entire Jesus
Movement.
It wasn't the church I went toon a regular basis, but that was
the first one I went into for aconference Not a conference
(02:38):
they didn't have conferences andthey had concerts and it was
amazing and that period of timewas great and I began walking
with the Lord very aggressivelyand learning from others who
discipled me aggressively andhad all kinds of adventures.
But about 20 years into my ownwalk with the Lord and doing all
(03:01):
kinds of things workingoverseas and working behind the
Iron Curtain with Christiansthere and living in Thailand,
working with Cambodian refugeesand blah, blah, blah as I was
thinking about the way theconversation seemed to be
trending between Christians andnon-Christians in a crazy
culture and getting crazier, Irealized that the conversations
(03:22):
were first of all too shrill,crazy.
Or I realized that theconversations were first of all
too shrill.
Secondly, pretty shallow onboth sides, even on the
Christian side, the Christianshad the truth, but they didn't
explain it well, it seemed to meand we have the best things to
talk about and to think aboutand to explain about that we
could do better, and so I had amaster's degree in apologetics.
(03:44):
I was just beginning to work ona second master's in philosophy
under JP Moreland, who you mightknow of and a bunch of his
colleagues over at Talbot, andthat particular tool really
began opening my eyes about howI can think more carefully and
communicate more carefully aboutthe truth of the Christian view
(04:04):
of reality.
And so I started anorganization with some help with
some others, right in themid-90s Actually it was 1993.
So now we're 32 years old, withthe goal of providing more
depth and less shrillness.
You know, I think of itactually as it's either Shrell
or it's shallow and or shallowor silent People were just
(04:27):
silent.
They just didn't know how tocome up against the challenges
of the culture more carefullyabout their convictions and to
be able to defend classicalChristianity and classical
(04:50):
Christianity and Christianethics sorry, in the public
square, you know as you engagepeople, but in a winsome and
attractive way.
So that was really the heart ofit and over the years, like I
said, I've had lots ofadventures, you know, and God
has prospered our efforts.
We have 20 people on our teamnow and four or five speakers
traveling and communicating andbuilding up what we call
(05:13):
ambassadors for Christ, who haveknowledge, which is an
accurately informed mind, andwisdom, which is an artful
method.
That's the tactical questionsthat you're talking about, david
and also an attractive manner,which is the character element.
So that's really the heart ofit for me, and it's I mean,
that's a thumbnail sketch ofwhat we're about.
(05:35):
If people want to know Stand toReason, the acronym is STR,
obviously, but that's ourwebsite, strorg, and there's
tons of stuff there that peoplecan find and read and watch and
listen to that will help themdevelop an ability to be an
attractive, thoughtful Christianambassador.
(05:58):
That's what we're after.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Perfect.
Let me throw a question yourway that somebody might ask if
they are in the field andthey're starting to learn about
how to defend their faith.
If somebody says to them, hey,I'm spiritual but I'm not
religious, what would yourimmediate response be to that?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
that said that Now I wasn't in a position to get into
a long conversation because shewas sticking a needle in my arm
and I was on the way to surgeryright.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I had just offered some thoughts just to
get the conversation going, andshe said well, I'm spiritual but
not religious.
And I just said to her well, ofcourse you are.
God made you that way so thatyou could know him.
Now, that's a statement.
And, david, you know and maybe,fellas, you're familiar too
that I usually like to lead witha question, but I didn't have
(06:52):
time to listen to the answerbecause I was going to be going
down shortly and under the knife.
But in any event, I might haveasked tell me what you mean by
that?
I've heard lots of people saythat before.
They're spiritual but notreligious.
I mean, some people only thinkreligion is kind of a
spirituality and spirituality isreligion.
How could you be one and notthe other?
(07:12):
That would be my question.
Okay, now this is the some whoare listening might be familiar
with the book Tactics, where Idescribe a game plan that'll
help people to navigateotherwise tricky conversations
with a tremendous amount ofsafety, and one of the reasons
they're safety is because we'reusing questions to navigate, and
(07:33):
here's an example of that.
I think a lot of Christiansmight be scratching their head,
thinking I don't know how Iwould prosecute that.
Really.
Now I'm stuck.
Now there's dead silence and Idon't know what to say, which is
kind of the way you offered it,david.
What about people who encounterthat?
But if we toss the questionback to the other person, the
(07:53):
ball's in their court and nowthey can give us more
information about what they justsaid and, at the same time, not
only are we learning moredetail, which would be helpful
to know where to go next, butwe're forcing that other person
to think about their statementmore carefully.
Because this statement I'mspiritual, not religious.
(08:15):
This is a slogan in the cultureand in a way, it's a good sign,
because people are fed up withraw, bare materialism molecules
in motion.
God, there's more to life thanthat.
This is obvious to everybodywho thinks about it, which is
why, by the way, they even askthe question.
What's the meaning to life?
The fact that we even ask thequestion is an intimation that,
(08:38):
deep down, we know that life ismade for a meaning.
We need to discover it.
Now some people conclude thereis no meaning, but they're
moving now into this otherdimension spiritual but not
religious.
Now, that's very convenient.
I think CS Lewis calls thisview kind of all the benefits
and none of the price, you know,but at least it's a move in the
(09:02):
right direction, and so myfirst comment, which I actually
made to the woman, was meant toencourage her a little bit, but
if I had more time I think Iwould offer that question.
Tell me more, and now they haveto think more carefully about
exactly what they do mean bythat particular sentence, and so
that's going to be helpful tome to know where to go next.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
I won't take up time here just because I want to let
them ask questions.
It's just interesting.
You said the first response wasyou're spiritual.
That's great that you were madethat way by God.
Offline, I'm going to send yousomething offline.
It's my epistemology that I hadwritten a little while ago and
it's almost that exact.
I'm going to send you offline.
I'll let them ask you somequestions, but it's amazing that
(09:45):
that was your first response.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Huh, interesting.
So we think alike it's a Vulcanmind meld there, david.
There it is.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, you know, I think it's really interesting.
I love it.
You call it the Columbo method.
I think the the the askingquestions.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Columbo tactic.
Columbo tactic, yeah, and Ithink that's really fascinating,
because a lot of times peopledon't know what they believe or
why they believe it, they justdo.
They never take a moment toactually consider why, like one
of the things.
When I first came back to thechurch, I found it interesting
that all of a sudden I startedrealizing you know, I used to
say, oh, I have such a problemwith the supernatural aspects of
the Bible and yet I have noproblem saying, oh, the universe
(10:31):
is out to get me today.
Or you know, oh, karma is goingto come back to me on that one.
Or oh, you really jinxed that.
Like you know, those are threesuper common statements that
literally anybody that I knowwould make with all seriousness
and faith in the truth of them,and yet not realize that they
are supernatural statements.
And so taking a moment to makepeople identify their own belief
system or their own workingmechanics of life system makes
(10:52):
them kind of realize that thethings that they've been butting
up against in Christianity arethe same things they should be
butting up against in their ownlives, and I think that's a big
paradigm shift.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Yeah, that's a great observation.
I actually have a.
You mentioned Columbo, andthat's after the actor or not
the actor, but the character onTV, lieutenant Columbo, who
asked a lot of questions tosolve the murder mystery.
Many of your viewers may not befamiliar with him, but he's a
great foil for this particularpoint, using questions.
But you know, in the book oftactics there's a chapter called
(11:24):
Inside Out, and that tactic iswhen we take advantage of the
fact that God has built allkinds of things inside of human
beings that are made in hisimage.
Right, there's a whole bunch ofthings they already know, and
their language betrays that, butthe things they know is
(11:45):
favorable to our view, notnecessarily to their view,
especially if they're an atheistor materialist.
And so the way this works isthat what God has built into the
inside comes out From theinside to the out.
That's the inside-out tactic,and all we have to do is listen
for it and you've given somecharacterizations and then ask
(12:07):
some questions about it.
Now, do you really think karmais real?
There is a sense, by the way,in which we could acknowledge
not the religious system inwhich karma fits, but the cause
and effect elements, because wesee that in the book of Proverbs
.
It's a different picture ofreality, but they're onto
something you know, and one ofthe things that could be
(12:31):
characterized as that cause andeffect is our error and the
guilt associated with it and thejudgment that's going to befall
us for the error.
Now, of course, that's judgment, but there's an answer to that
and that is mercy.
Okay, and so we have adifferent answer than the karmic
answer.
But that kind of commentprovides a foundation where
(12:55):
we're both kind of thinking thesame in one sense about
something, but in another sensewe're not.
That could be an opportunityfor conversation, asking
questions of clarification.
But people are in touch withthis transcendent element, jason
, and you're right.
They talk about it all the timeand when they do, this is an
opportunity for us to askfurther questions about those
(13:18):
things.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I would even go farther and say that one of the
things that I had the epiphanyor the revelation, if you will
when I came back was that youknow karma.
There's a better answer inChristianity than there is in
any of those.
Karma works for a reason.
Okay, we all know that to betrue, because we were built in
the image that we were.
And to be true, there's no.
(13:47):
Who's the judge meting out thejudgment?
Who is the?
You know what is the absoluteby which that judgment is even
being held as a standard.
So you know, if you go, well,karma is going to get me because
I did something bad, what'syour standard for bad?
And also, who's meeting out thejudgment for the bad thing that
(14:08):
you did.
And you realize really quicklythere's this like nebulous
answer there that anybody whobelieves in karma just doesn't
physically have.
And then you just transfer thatreality, that truth that we do
know that there is some suchthing as cause and effect and
truth and falsehood, and whenyou transfer it over, you go
wait a second.
That fits right in with theChristian doctrine and this was
(14:30):
a huge opening awakening for mewhen I realized yeah, when all
these universal things that Iwould have believed earlier, I
realized that there was a causeand effect to them.
There was a creator-createdrelationship, there was a
judgment, just all of it.
(14:50):
I could go on for hours, but Iwant to hear you talk more than
me.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, well, the karma thing, the way people
understand it, at least itsfundamental operation, is very
mechanical Good goes in, goodcomes out, bad goes in, bad goes
out, or some kind ofcombination.
But how does the karma machineeven know good from evil?
I mean, that's a distinctionthat's important because that's
a distinction of minds.
(15:14):
And also there's thisconsequence, the idea that you
get punished for the bad or youmaybe get rewarded for the good.
Okay, well, that's the kind ofrelationship that's
characteristically held betweenpersons and not between machines
, like the karma machine, as itwere.
And so I think this is aninadequacy of, say, those views
(15:38):
where karma plays a role, likeHinduism or Buddhism or whatever
.
But we can acknowledge peopleare onto something, but they're
understanding it improperly.
Jesus explained it better, youknow, and here now we have a
person that's involved thatwe're accountable to.
And, by the way, jesus was veryjudgmental by today's standards
(16:01):
if you read him carefully.
Actually you don't even have toread him that carefully, just
read him.
Most people don't, you know.
And I mean this guy got himselfkilled and he didn't get
himself killed because he wasjust all flowing with love and
accepting of everybody, or asocial justice warrior or
whatever, but we can show howthis fits together in a way that
(16:24):
I think resonates moreaccurately with our deepest
intuitions about the world.
By the way, I have a littlethought about karma, and this is
something that people can bringup.
I was in Madras, india, a numberof years ago and they have
their local guru or whatever,their Hindu guy, that follow me
kind of deal, and I, and heclaimed it was on the poster, on
(16:48):
the big, big, you know poster,whatever you know, the big thing
by the side of the road.
His face was everywhere.
I don't remember who he was,but he claimed to be the
reincarnation of Jesus.
Oh, okay, so he thought thatthat, that that added up
something good for him, andother people have made this
claim too, in his broader field,you know, and it seems like he
(17:12):
could only have onereincarnation of Jesus at a time
that's contemporaneous witheach other, right, all right,
but he thought this is going tomake me look good to people.
I'm the reincarnation of Jesusof Nazareth.
I think it devastates theirview Because Jesus, by all
accounts that we have that seemto be reliable about how he
lived, he was pretty good, hewas like unmatchable Right, and
(17:33):
so what this guy is saying isJesus is still in the system
after 2000 years and I'm goingto think, man, if Jesus could
get out, how am I going to get?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
out.
What are my chances?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Right, that's good, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
That is funny, that's kind of a crazy thought.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
But I do think that we're back to that same point,
that people who believe in karma, they're on to something, but
there's a distortion there andone of the problems with karma
is that it's works-based.
Is that it's works-based, sohow do you know how much karma
good stuff, whatever that is, bythe way, and this is nebulous
(18:13):
good stuff that you do in orderto gain the good stuff, to
cancel out the bad stuff?
I mean, it's very, verynebulous.
And you don't want to come backas a cow.
You want to come back assomebody a.
Brahmin or something like that.
So very nebulous.
And you don't want to come backas a cow, you know.
You want to come back as likesomebody a Brahmin or something
like that, so that's nebulous.
Now I lived in Thailand.
Thailand's a Buddhist countryand there's a concept of karma
(18:34):
that's part of their religion,and you could actually buy a
cage of birds, a cage that hadbirds in there.
They were encaged and you couldbuy them for the purpose of
opening the door and lettingthem go out.
Yes, okay, and this wasallegedly decrease the karmic
(18:54):
debt.
All right, what about the guywho caught the birds and stuck
them in the cage?
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
well he had.
You know he had a lot of goodkarma in the first place.
It it was okay.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, well, whatever you know, Maybe he could say
that's good, because he put himin to be like go again, I don't
know.
But there just seems to beanomalies, obviously, with some
of those things, yeah, exactly.
Now we can be sympathetic,because there are things that
are not only anomalies regardingChristianity from the
perspective of non-Christians,they look in and they go man,
(19:29):
that's a little crazy.
I think there's a lot of thosethings that could be resolved
with a closer look and carefulthinking about it.
That's part of what we do asapologists.
But even so, at the end of theday, there's still loose ends.
It's not tidy because life isnot tidy.
And, david, you talked aboutepistemology.
Epistemology, that's how weknow.
What we know is not tidy, sowe're prone to error and so we
(19:49):
do the best that we can.
What I like about the Christianview of reality is properly
understood.
It fits so well with reality,not just what we see, our
perceptions with our five senses, but what we perceive with our
deepest intuitions about thenature of reality.
(20:09):
You know we mentioned onealready that there is purpose.
We got to figure out what thatis, but this doesn't seem like a
purposeless existence.
You know, it's a dark momentwhen people conclude that there
are no answers to their deepestquestions.
That's nihilism, that'snothingism.
That's the dark moment.
(20:30):
And it's dark because it seemslike there should be, for us at
least, not for Fido, not forFifi, dogs and cats or anything
else, but for humans at least,and so that's part of what's
built in, and I think these arethe kinds of things that
Christianity deeply resonates.
(20:51):
Problem of evil you know,people say well how does the
Bible explain this?
It doesn't explain it, itpredicts it.
I mean, it does explain it butalso predicts it, and our whole
story is about the problem ofevil, starts in the third
chapter, doesn't end for 66books.
It's part of our story and ourstory is not over yet.
So these are all things that,to me, are so profound.
(21:12):
When you have an opportunityeither to think about yourself
or have it pointed out to you bya Christian, a thoughtful
Christian, that gets peoplethinking about the legitimacy of
the world, the way Jesus saw itNow you mentioned.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
it's funny with my epistemology that there's no
shortage of people telling methat I have errors.
Definitely when you step intothe world of apologetics,
everybody will happily tell youthat you're in error.
But let's flip that right intothe reliability of the Bible and
errors and somebody outside ofthe religion saying I'm not
going to follow it becauseyou're just following a book and
it has errors and it waswritten by man.
(21:50):
And I want to just talk alittle bit about the reliability
of the Bible from yourperspective.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
All right, maybe some prolegomena, some foundational
work on that one.
And that is when, oh, it's onlywritten by man.
Well, do you have books in yourlibrary?
So I'm role-playing right now.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Yeah, exactly, do you ?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
have any books.
You read books right.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Do you have books in your library?
Sure, do they tell you anythings that are true about the
world?
Yeah, of course.
Were they written by men or byGod?
God, well, they're at my bend,you idiot.
I don't believe in bookswritten by God.
So, in other words, what you'resaying maybe I'm mistaken, you
can tell me.
Here it sounds like what you'resaying that human beings can
write books that are reliable totell you truth about the nature
(22:32):
of the world, right?
Well, the answer to that is, ofcourse, right.
And so just because it'swritten by man doesn't mean that
it can't tell us the truthabout the world.
Now I'm giving a talk thisweekend in Huntington Beach,
other California.
It's called has God Spoken, andI'm giving six reasons why it
(22:52):
is reasonable to think that theBible is a book not merely
written by man, but its primarysource is God to man.
So you got two choices eitherGod to man or man.
About God, it's eithersupernatural or natural.
So I'm making the point sixreasons why it has the hallmarks
(23:13):
of being supernatural theauthorship.
However, what's interesting whenyou think about it is the early
church wasn't founded on that.
The early church was notfounded on the authority of the
New Testament.
You know why?
Because there was no NewTestament.
You know.
This developed over time, youknow, and in a way that I think
is reliable.
(23:34):
We can look back on it and say,yeah, the church got it right
for very particular reasons, butwhat they had was a testimony
about a man, jesus, who livedand died and then rose again
from the dead and this changedeverything.
Paul starts Romans there.
What is Romans, you know?
Maybe 50 AD, and he saysdeclared with power to be the
(23:57):
Son of God through theresurrection.
Now, that's the fourth verse ofthe book.
You know, by our reckoning it'sright there at the opening kind
of thing.
Galatians was his first letterand Galatians starts with Jesus
being the Son of God and raisedfrom the dead stuff that was
(24:24):
later used by people whocouldn't talk to the
eyewitnesses.
You had the very same testimonyof the people who witnessed it
and others who were deeplyinfluenced by Jesus by putting
their faith in him, theirconfidence, their trust in him
so early on.
We have the account ashistorically reliable that
changed the lives.
People understood this event tohappen in history.
So what that does for me now inpart is that it gives me an
(24:47):
option when I talk with peopleabout the truth of Christianity,
the truth of Jesus, of Nazareth, I don't have to say the Bible
says it, I believe it.
That settles it here.
It is jot and tittle.
Everything's God-inspired.
Because I don't have toconvince them of the inerrancy
of Scripture in order tocommunicate the message that
(25:09):
saves.
I just have to give them goodreason to believe that the
message is a good message, asound message, an accurate
message.
And I have two allies.
I have the allies of thewitnesses that wrote down what
they said and gave what they sawand put their lives on the line
for their testimony.
(25:30):
And the other witness is notexternal, it's something that's
going on inside of them and thatis the Holy Spirit that plays a
role.
All right Now, when I became abeliever September 28th 1973, I
was not into apologetics, Ican't tell you like I can.
With a lot of my colleagues theysaid, oh, I heard this, then I
(25:52):
heard this.
Then I realized, oh, mygoodness, the evidence is so
powerful.
Christianity is true.
You know, and you might know,people like Frank Turk or J
Warner Wallace or other, youknow Lee Strobel, and these guys
were all converted based on theinformation, not me, I just had
an increasing sense as I wasexposed to the truth.
My brother was the one who wasdoing most of that work in my
(26:16):
life the gardening, what I callit in my life before the harvest
.
I just had an increasing sense.
This is really true.
This is it Now.
I didn't get that from readingthe harvest.
I just had an increasing sense.
This is really true.
This is it Now.
I didn't get that from readingthe Bible.
Mark was communicating the truth, the word, but it wasn't
chapter and verse, it was thetruth of that, communicated in
(26:36):
the language I could understand.
It's conversational stuff, allright.
By the way, that's whathappened in the book of Acts too
, when it says the word, we'regoing to preach the word.
You know, we're not going towait on tables, we're going to
preach the word.
Well, they weren't quoting OldTestament passages, unless
they're talking to Jews.
They were taking what they knewand they were communicating in
language people could understand.
You see this time and timeagain, as the gospel begins to
(26:58):
move into the Gentile world andthe apostles, whoever's involved
is communicating the Word,which is the substance of the
gospel, in the language peoplecould understand.
We can do that even if a personis not convinced that the Bible
is the inspired Word of God.
That, I think, is a hurdle thatwe sometimes put in front of
ourselves.
(27:18):
That just creates complicationfor us.
So, in fact, I just wrote apiece with one of my colleagues
at Stand to Reason and we havematerial that we send out at no
charge because we have peoplethat help us financially so we
can give this stuff awaybasically every month, send it
out to whoever signs up for it.
And as we're talking aboutinerrancy, which we believe in,
(27:38):
we just make a point.
By the way, don't take thisissue on with a non-Christian.
We just make a point.
By the way, don't take thisissue on with a non-Christian.
This is an in-house discussionwith people who already have a
high view of Jesus and God andeverything.
Then you could put the piecestogether.
All right, you talk with anon-Christian and if you're
trying to argue inerrancy, thisis going to invite a tsunami of
apparent contradictions thatyou're not going to be able to
(28:00):
deal with.
So just sidestep that.
But we do have something we canappeal to and that is this
gospel that goes out indifferent forms.
As we explain, it has power.
It's the power of God to saveand to rescue, as Paul says in
Romans 1.
So that would be.
I mean, I said prologomena,that's the way I'd establish the
foundation.
(28:20):
Okay, in terms of these thingsare what I believe.
My convictions are based on,things that happened in history.
Now these things are recordedin okay, I'm going to use this
term now because, for astrategic reason, they're
recorded in the primary sourcehistorical documents of the life
of Jesus of Nazareth.
(28:40):
Okay, oh well, that's Matthew,mark, luke and John.
Oh, that's the Bible.
Yeah, but I don't use the termthe Bible because actually the
Bible is not a book, it's alibrary of books and it didn't
come together as a book untilabout the third or fourth
century.
The other pieces werecirculating around, but they
didn't bind it together in bookform.
I don't want people to just say,oh, bible, all right.
I don't believe in thatnonsense.
(29:01):
I want to say look at thehistorical material that the
historians use to assess whattook place there in the first
century in ancient Palestinearea.
Okay, ancient Israel.
Matthew, mark, luke and John iswhat we call them.
There's some other sources andstuff, and even Paul and Peter
and their writings that makereferences, but this is really
the substance okay these thingsare.
(29:22):
They bear the hallmarks offabulous history, really good
history, okay.
And so if they're good history,then we can rely on what they
say, which historians do, evenBart Ehrman, for goodness sake,
who's a critic of the NewTestament.
He wrote a book about Jesusfrom the historical material he
(29:45):
had available to him fromMatthew, mark, luke and John.
Now he doesn't believe Jesuswas God.
He doesn't believe all of themiracles and stuff like that.
But my question is if you cantrust the history on other
issues, why not trust it on theones that touch on Jesus, the
miracle worker or the incarnateSon of God or the one who rose
from the dead?
The same kind of test can beapplied.
(30:07):
So notice what I'm doing.
I'm in the process ofconversing with somebody.
If I were having thisconversation, I'm lowering the
bar a little bit.
You don't have to believe thisis all from God, that's not the
point.
But at the same time I'mraising the credibility of the
texts that are relevant inevangelism, that tell us the
(30:29):
important things about Jesus'life for evangelism.
Now, once you become a Christianand you're into discipleship,
the details matter, as you guysknow, and also the authority
matters, because we've seen,when people abandon the
authority of Scripture, a highview of Scripture, they start
abandoning a whole bunch ofthings Scripture says that they
don't like.
(30:49):
Okay, so then it's not God'sWord anymore.
Their views are not God's views, they're their own views that
they pick and choose.
Oh, when God agrees with me,then I'm going to agree with
then, that's fine.
But if he doesn't agree with me, then you know I'm out of here.
So then I'm going to agree withthen, that's fine.
But if he doesn't agree with me, then I'm out of here.
So I don't know.
David, there's a couple ofthoughts regarding your question
.
Obviously, more can be said,and if you want to ask more
(31:10):
questions, I'm happy to respond.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well, what's interesting is, I end up in this
debate quite a bit and one ofthe things you said was the
reliability of the gospels andhow early they were written, and
that gets a lot of people.
They don't understand that, butagain, they still use the
defense of the Bible.
So then they want to know extrabiblical sources for that.
We could talk about Josephusand Tacitus and Pliny and all of
that which people do.
I'm the archaeologist, I'm thebiblical archaeologist and I go
(31:38):
to there were ossuaries, foundJewish ossuaries, bone boxes
dated around 50 AD, praying toJesus for loved ones to go to
heaven with him.
These are people that at thattime it's outside of the Bible.
These are Jews who believe thathe had the power to bring
people with him to heaven.
So obviously it's more proofthat these stories were not just
(32:00):
written multiple times later oryou know that we have some sort
of gap of.
You know what somebody said,what they meant, that this
wasn't something.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
His divinity was given to him 300 years later,
which we hear oh, yeah, david,I've had a long conversation
with my team about that just theother day, because we do run
into this a lot, and I thinkthis is one of the favorites of
Bart Ehrman.
This is called a highChristology Jesus being God,
jesus being the miracle worker,the one who will come again, who
(32:30):
determines where you will spendeternity, and that's an
accretion of myth.
We're trying to get back to theJesus of history Now.
This was a theme that developedin the late 19th century, as
you know, and has beencompletely discredited as a
pursuit.
Yet some people are stillpursuing that Nowadays, though,
they have much more credibilityabout the Gospels themselves,
(32:51):
and now they've got to deal withthe content.
So, okay, well, john was.
Oh, that's the high Christology.
Jesus is the Son of God, beforeAbraham was.
I am blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, that couldn't have beenwritten early.
That must have been way, way,way late.
But the synoptics Matthew, mark,luke oh, those guys just have.
You know, this itinerantpreacher said a couple of
controversial things.
(33:11):
You know, maybe we don't agreewith everything.
Holy cow, you open up thegospel of Mark.
I did it just the other dayjust to verify this point.
Mark, by everybody's assessment, was the first gospel.
All right.
And Mark was look, you've gotLuke writing in the book of Acts
about Paul still alive at theend of his writing and Paul died
around 64, 65.
(33:32):
So the book of Acts is, youknow, early 60s Before.
That was the gospel of Luke andMatthew came before that.
So what does Matthew say?
Matthew says he starts out the.
What is it?
The beginning of the account ofJesus, the Son of God.
That's the first line, and thenokay, yeah, that's a low
(33:53):
Christology, right, and I meanthat's what Jesus said in other
occasions, that the Jews wantedto kill him for saying because
of his blasphemy.
That's the first line of thefirst gospel.
All right.
The next line is a citationfrom the prophets about John the
Baptist, about a voice cryingin the wilderness Make straight,
(34:15):
prepare a way for Guess who.
The Lord Right.
The only Lord that they weretalking about was Yahweh.
Yet John points to Jesus.
So you've got in the very firstgospel, the very first lines,
two statements of very highChristology.
(34:37):
So how is it that these guys aresaying this is an accretion of
myth over time that you only seein the gospel of John, which
must have been late dated.
You've got it right thereeverywhere.
Actually, it's all through.
You know Mark 2, you know yoursins are forgiven you, the
paralytic that's lowered throughthe ceiling.
Who can forgive sins?
But God alone?
Okay, in order that you mightknow that the Son of man, which
(35:01):
is also a divine title from thebook of Daniel, has the
authority to forgive sins, I sayto you arise, take up your
pallet and go home.
And so that's a low Christology, please.
I don't know where they'regetting this, to be honest, but
every single gospel, even theearliest, has high Christology.
Now, if you don't want tobelieve that, okay, fine.
But what justifies you saying,well, every other verse is sound
(35:25):
, historically kind of thing.
What justifies cherry picking,you know, maybe these things?
This is exactly what Jesus said, which is why he was so popular
.
On one hand, and workingmiracles.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
That helped a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And why he got killed .
Because even in Mark, when youlook at the trial, yeah, and it
identifies the claim that hemade, or it should be the high
priest says are you the Christ,the son of God?
He says you've said it yourself.
And he said, okay, I'm tearingmy robes, we don't need
testimony.
Now it's not a capital crime toclaim to be the Messiah, it's a
(36:05):
capital crime to say you're Godin human form.
And so now he's committed.
And then Jesus says oh, by theway, let me double down, and you
will not see me again until yousee me coming with power in the
clouds, with great glory.
Now, that's from Daniel, andthey knew what he was referring
to.
So Jesus was not executed forwhat he did, he was executed for
(36:30):
who he said he was.
That's what the record showsand that's a high Christology,
from the beginning to the end inthe gospel of Mark, which is
the very first testimony ofJesus' life.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
That's fascinating.
I think the other thing, too is, you know, there's a lot of
people out there who still doubtthe historicity of a lot of
these things, and one of thethings that I recently read was
that there's more writtenrecords in history of Jesus than
Alexander the Great of Plato,of things like that.
(37:05):
So even our listeners, who arelistening, who are, you know,
not deep archaeologists or deep,you know no-transcript.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
He was a man of humble origins and humble means
and humble life.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I'm not speaking just to his character, but to his
circumstances, but thismagnifies the point that then
why is this guy so famous, howdid he have such an impact and
why it was more than 15 minutesof fame even back then?
And that's because of who hewas, what he did, what he said
(38:17):
and what he did.
And so he says these incrediblethings that just blow people's
minds.
And then he works works ofwonder to verify it.
So he says I am the bread oflife, having just fed
miraculously 4,000 people.
He actually did it twice, oneto four and one to five, and
they were only counting the men.
(38:37):
Okay, I'm the bread of life, Iam the resurrection and the life
.
He who believes will live evenif he dies.
Then he walks out and he raisesLazarus from the dead, who
stinks because he's been inthere for four days, right, and
then he walks out, unbind him.
So he doesn't just talk, heacts.
(38:57):
And he acts in a way thatverifies, in a powerful way, the
claim that he made.
So this is what puts Jesus, andthis is why I think you have a
man now who has impacted historymore than any individual by a
long shot.
Just think of it here.
I got this.
I'm going to grab this little.
I got this little cross righthere.
(39:18):
Okay, somebody gave me this forspeaking at their church.
They actually paid me too, butthis is a little gift, you know,
and I get a lot of these things, but for some reason I saved
this one, you know, and I loveit, because what this represents
is it represents an event thatsplit world history into.
Yes, all world history is datedfrom this event.
(39:42):
Now, some people don't likethat, so they don't like before
Chrysler and on Domini BCAD.
So now they say before thecommon era or after the common
era, but still this is the eventheralded by this cross that
split world history.
Well, this fictitiouscharacters don't do that, right?
Yeah, they don't impact historylike that to.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
That is that it wasn't somebody who did
something violent, so a personwho changed this much of history
by being good, by by by beingperfect, by being a an example,
by being an aspiration to all ofhumanity, I mean that's that
again.
That's unheard of.
There's no other human in thehistory of the universe who has
created the impact that he hasat all period, but even less so
(40:34):
by not being violent.
You know, you have your GenghisKhans, you have your things
like that, but this isn't that?
Speaker 3 (40:40):
This is a great observation, jason, and I have a
friend who's now with the Lord,tom Gilson, who wrote a book
titled Too Good to be False.
Too Good to be False is stillavailable, but this is his point
how do you create a where,anywhere in literature or
history, do you find a characterthat has such power, at least
(41:01):
characterized as having thepower?
So we're reading this accountWow, he's got this.
And then how does he use it?
He doesn't use it for his ownbenefit or to rescue himself
when he could have.
He doesn't abuse it in his ownbenefit or to rescue himself
when he could have.
He doesn't abuse it in otherways, but then, when his own
life is in danger, he says look,I can call down a legion of
angels.
Pilot, you're not in charge.
I'm in charge, but I'm going tosubmit to this because this is
(41:25):
what the father wants.
So that's your point.
So people are interested inTom's book.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Too good to Be False, and that's now we're looking at
the historicity of him.
There were multiple people whomade that claim but, like you
mentioned, greg, they didn't dothe action to fit that.
They were just saying this iswho I am.
And once the action fit, thenwe're focused on Jesus going.
Okay, listen, he not onlyraised the dead, but he raised
himself out of the dead.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
I think I'm going to believe him.
Yeah, he didn't.
These other guys had their 15minutes of fame, you know,
famously, and then they're gone,and that's why nobody, except
for historians, archaeologistsand people are into it.
You can name them, but they'reall gone, not Jesus.
Now my buddy J Warner Wallaceyou might know, jim.
He used to work for us and he'sbeen a great friend to Stand to
Reason for so many years.
But he wrote a book called ColdCase Christianity.
(42:33):
But he wrote another bookcalled I think it's called the
Person of Interest, and whathe's describing in that book is
the unbelievable impact thatJesus of Nazareth has had in
every single aspect of Westernlife.
You know all the songs, everypopular.
He looks at the top 100performing artists of all time
(42:57):
in Western.
You know civilization and they,like 98 out of 100, wrote songs
about Jesus and that's just oneexample he looks at.
You can get the whole gospel,the basic grittiness of the
gospel, just by walking around,looking at buildings on campuses
and seeing what's written there.
If all the manuscripts weregone, so they're.
So what kind of man has thiskind of impact?
(43:18):
Then he makes anotherobservation, because I mentioned
western civilization.
Yeah, but what about all theother eastern religions and all
that?
They all want jesus.
They're all trying to get Jesuson their team.
Okay, so they're pulling him in.
Oh, he's one of our gods, youknow kind of thing, and it's
just, he's everywhere, he'severywhere.
(43:38):
So how does a person who didn'texist or a person who is not of
the magnitude of the individualthat we find in the primary
source, historical documentsthat we know as Matthew, mark,
luke and John, how does anyoneless than that person have the
impact that we see in the entireworld after 2,000 years?
(44:00):
The answer is no one.
No one comes close, not evenreal people.
Not here, javi people Not here.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
Harvey, no, I love just hearing you and I love your
passion for just the faith andChristianity.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Obviously, you're just a deep well of knowledge.
I love Stand to Reason and itspassion for equipping believers
to think clearly about theirfaith and engage in others
effectively.
One of the questions I wantedto ask, and just really maybe
something to leave our listenerswith, is what is maybe
(44:37):
something a misconceptionsomeone has about sharing their
faith?
I know you, stan, for reasonsit has to do with a lot about
evangelizing and just kind ofapologetics.
So what is?
Something, you see, that isvery common, a misconception
that Christians have.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
All right.
Well, this is going to be alittle bit controversial with
some people and it usuallyrequires some explanation to
make it more convincing.
But I do go into detail in acompanion book to the tactics
book called Street Smarts, whichsubtitle is using questions to
answer Christianity's toughestchallenges.
(45:18):
So David kind of made referencein paraphrase to that, and that
is that the most important partof evangelism is not harvesting
, it's gardening.
And the reason is is becausethere's not going to be a
harvest unless you have a seasonof gardening in anybody's life,
and so most of our evangelismtechniques are harvesting
(45:39):
techniques.
We have books or bookletshere's how to get people to pray
to receive Christ.
Okay, I'm not dissing that,there's nothing wrong with it.
I've used them in the past andI can think of a particular
track that had an impact on meas I was considering
Christianity.
And some people make up.
You know their whole ministry isfocused on Ray Comfort.
I have a tremendous amount ofrespect for it.
(46:00):
I've known Ray for many years.
You know he can use that togreat effect.
He also uses a lot of questions.
If you've ever watched hisvideos, you know when he's on
the street challenging peoplewith just tons of questions.
So he's very adept at thetactical approach, the Columbo
tactic, but when you look in theNew Testament, there are no
altar calls, nobody's encouragedto receive Christ as Lord and
(46:22):
Savior.
Ask Jesus into your heart.
Those are modern ways ofcharacterizing the harvest, but
it isn't the way most peoplebecome Christians.
And I can say this withauthority because when I teach
on the tactics material, I talkabout this a lot because use the
tactical game plan as agardening tool.
(46:43):
We're not given gardening tools.
This is for gardening.
But I take a poll and I justdid it like three days ago with
a group that I spoke to whole,and I just did it like three
days ago with a group that Ispoke to and I want to know how
many people here are Christians.
And you did not become aChristian by coming forward at
an altar call or having someonepray with you and receive Jesus
as Lord and Savior.
That's kind of the motif wethink of, how evangelism cashes
(47:06):
out, and my average for anychurch audience is 75% of the
people raise their hand.
That means I mean most people.
Even now, even with ouremphasis on harvesting tools,
that isn't how most peoplebecome Christian.
It's totally different.
Even when I became a Christian,september 28th 1973, when my
(47:30):
brother was telling me.
He came to my apartment thatnight, I was a student at UCLA
and he started telling me moreabout Jesus God bless him.
And I told him Mark, you don'tneed to tell me any more about
Jesus.
Now here's what I remembersaying I've already decided I
want to become a Christian.
That's what I remember sayinghe tells me.
What he remembers is I said Ialready am a Christian.
(47:52):
Oh, wow.
So here's the question.
In either case, did my brotherMark harvest me?
No, no, I harvested myself.
Of course, we know the HolySpirit did that, but there was
no need to pressure me.
I did pray a prayer and heguided me in that, but I didn't
need a prayer.
I had already committed myselfand my heart to Christ.
(48:14):
Some people don't remember neverprayed a prayer, don't remember
when they became Christians,but what matters is what their
heart conviction is about Jesusand not when they prayed the
prayer.
Praying the prayer is notnecessary is the point I'm
making.
Is not necessary is the pointI'm making.
And so back to Javi, yourparticular question.
(48:38):
I would say the biggest mistakepeople make today is they feel
like they're not doingevangelism effectively unless
they're pressing for a decision,all right, and my point is,
even in the early church theydidn't press for decisions.
They communicated the wordgardening, gardening, gardening,
and watch this.
When the fruit was ripe, itfell into the basket Right.
When the fruit is ripe, itfalls into the basket.
(48:59):
Now there are people whodisagree with me, and I got a
tongue lashing from a dearbrother whose name you would
recognize on this particularissue, but he's a harvester and
so this is.
He didn't like my approach,chastised me for it.
But I'm telling you, when Ilook at audiences and I tell
them this and I give them somegardening tools, man, their
whole countenance changes,because I think most of the
(49:21):
people in the audience are notharvesters, they're gardeners
like me.
I'm a gardener, I get it.
And just to put a little moresharper point on it, because I
tell them I haven't prayed withsomebody who received Christ in
30 years, which sometimes theygasp, and I know what they're
thinking.
Oh what a loser, you know, kindof thing, because that's the way
(49:42):
they think about themselves.
No-transcript.
(50:11):
Best-selling Christian author.
The best, I'm telling you, if Ihave a choice to listen to any
Christian apologist, jay Warneris the one I want to listen to.
Okay, just saying.
But here's what you don't knowJim was in my garden when he was
an atheist.
Oh wow, he was listening to ourradio show and that was a
significant factor in him movingtowards Christianity.
(50:32):
And then I got to know Jim.
I mean, I've known him for manyyears because he started
working as a volunteer with ourorganization, because he
respected what we were doing.
And I don't even know if he hasa spiritual birthday.
I should ask him.
But there are a number of otherpeople that have told me the
same thing and other people infull-time Christian ministry
right now have their ownorganizations.
Abdu Murray, the former Muslim,is now Christian.
(50:54):
You know he was in my gardenwhen he was a Muslim.
This isn't to wave my flag, itis just to make the point that
gardening is where the action isat Garden, garden, garden, and
a little here, a little there.
Sometimes you have five minutes, sometimes you have 50 minutes,
depends what's available, butwe're all on the same team, so
that the one who reaps and theone who sows, rather, and the
(51:16):
one who reaps, can rejoicetogether.
Now, that's a citation fromJesus, from John, chapter 4.
And that's the way I see it.
I think that's the best advice,javier, I can give to anyone
doing evangelism Don't worryabout the harvest, do good
gardening and the harvest takescare of itself.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Before we sign off, I'll just, I'll let you just
know.
We just interviewed, actually,abdu Murray and he quoted you.
He's one of the ones.
No, yes, he's one of the onesthat quoted you while we were
interviewing him.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, Just so you're aware you were probably lucky to
get him on the camera becausehe is a huge.
Abdu is a huge man.
He's got to be 6'7" and he'sreally big.
Well, that's very flattering.
I'm glad that you had a chance.
I didn't even know if you knewAbdu.
So some people do, some peopledon't.
But I met Abdu at anEvangelical Theological Society
(52:08):
big, massive conference, ets,because he wanted to have dinner
to tell me the role that SDRhad played in his conversion,
and so we've been friends eversince, and every year when we
meet at ETS we go to acheesecake factory and have
dinner again to commemorate thatfirst one with members of my
staff.
So it's a good roundup.
(52:28):
But that's just to make thepoint that gardening is, I think
, the way to spend your time,and if I've lowered the bar a
little bit for people and givethem some gardening tools,
tactics or street smarts, forexample, then they're going to
get off the bench where they'resitting because they're scared
and get into the garden and do alittle spade work, and when
(52:52):
they do that, that's going tocontribute to the harvest down
the line.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
What a great answer.
You know that's actuallysomething we talk about a lot
here too is and maybe this is agood way to kind of like wrap it
up is we talk a lot on thispodcast about.
There's so many sides to thiswhole thing.
There is the academic for thosewho need the academia.
There is the apologetics andthe archaeology for those who
(53:19):
need that.
There's the kindness and careof listening to those in need as
well, which actually has verylittle to do with Scripture and
has everything to do with livingout, being more like Jesus and
having people see the changethat it makes in your life and
there's.
It is still fascinating to me,after coming back semi-recently,
(53:40):
that that there's, that there'sall of these things available
to anybody who's open to them,and the spectrum is so wide.
It's a big garden with a lot ofdifferent kinds of plants.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
Exactly, it's a humongous garden, lot of
different kinds of plants,exactly.
It's a humongous garden.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
There's so many different ways to garden and I
love that.
You said that you don't need tobe the altar call.
We don't have to call peopleout and say, are you ready to
pray yet we need to live it out.
We need to be who we say thatwe are.
We need to calmly and fullytrust in the truth of it and
(54:14):
express that to those who needthose questions.
And and now I think we've alllearned ask more questions than
we have things to say, because,because there's so much more
value that's sitting inside thatperson who's about to ask the
question than they even realize.
Speaker 4 (54:27):
Yeah, so yeah, that's well put.
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, thank you.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
I got it from you.
Well, ray Comfort told me oncethat he'll go to church and
people say, can you get usdecisions?
And he said well, I can getdecisions, that's easy.
I don't want decisions, I wantconversions.
Speaker 4 (54:44):
Yeah, right, and that's different.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
And conversions take time and sometimes if we're
pressing for the decision which,by the way, is historically new
the second great awakening iswhen that really became mid-19th
century became a big deal inWestern civilization, and before
that they didn't have that kindof emphasis.
But he said when you thinkabout it, when people are
considering a change of view onthese kinds, this is huge.
(55:10):
This is huge, and so we want tomake sure that they are
properly informed.
You know the price that'sinvolved.
You know to become a followerof Jesus, not just to get your
fire insurance by saying, make adecision, so to speak, and
walking down the aisle.
And again, I'm not against thatper se, because a lot of people
(55:31):
have genuine conversions as aresult of that.
But sometimes it produces falseconversions too, you know.
And then you got to deal withthe fallout.
Oh, ben there, done that.
And that kind of person isreally hard to reach, a person
who thought he was a Christianbut wasn't, and now walked away
because it doesn't work right.
So I think, taking our time andgardening, gardening as we're
(55:55):
able to, I call it putting astone in someone's shoe, giving
them just something to thinkabout, lowering the bar a bit,
we as a team, as a body ofChrist now, are involved in that
tilling, planting the seeds,watering, weeding, as the case
(56:17):
may be.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
And that all adds up, greg.
This has been outstanding.
I know I have learned a lot.
I know that we have enjoyedthis conversation.
I hope our listeners have aswell.
I have no doubt they have, infact.
So I just wanted to personallysay thank you for meeting with
us.
We have very much appreciatedyour time, your consideration
and all of your knowledge.
We will be sending people toStand to Reason.
(56:41):
We want them to see what youhave to offer.
Listen to all that you have.
I know there's so many videosonline as well, which is a
phenomenal resource, so we justwant to say thank you for that
and thank you to our listenersfor having some time to come
listen to the great Greg.
It's been a wonderful pleasureand we'll see you all next week.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Thank you Later.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
Thank you, there we go.
All right, I think we're done.
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