Ep. 327 - Wesley Huff, His Joe Rogan Experience, and the Power of God’s Word

Wesley Huff, the Central Canada Director for Apologetics Canada, joins Ray, E.Z., Mark, and Oscar on the podcast to discuss his experience on the Joe Rogan Podcast and the power of God’s word. Born in Pakistan, Wes spent time on the mission field when he was a child. At 12, he was diagnosed with a condition that doctors claimed would leave him unable to walk, yet God worked and he miraculously regained mobility a month later.

Wes shares how his debate with Billy Carson gained unexpected traction. Having responded to Billy’s claims on social media, he was invited to an impromptu debate. Wes remained kind and clear in presenting the truth, while Billy seemed unprepared. After the debate, Billy reacted poorly, bringing more attention to the conversation. On Christmas Eve, Wes received a direct message from Joe Rogan, inviting him on to his podcast. A week later, he found himself sitting across from Rogan in a natural, free-flowing conversation. Joe seemed genuinely interested in what Wes had to say, and Wes noted that Rogan appeared to be more receptive to Christianity than in the past. He asked Joe what he thought about Jesus, and Joe acknowledged Jesus as a real person and saw value in Christianity.

The discussion shifts to the validity of scripture. Wes explains internal and external evidence, such as name qualifiers in the Bible that align with historical records and the accuracy of geography in the texts. He recommends Scribes and Scripture for those wanting to explore the reliability of the Bible. Oscar points out a shift from outright atheism to a view that sees Christianity as useful, exemplified by Jordan Peterson. While Peterson articulates biblical principles well, he stops short of accepting Jesus as Savior. Wes believes God may be working through Peterson and hopes he will eventually embrace the full truth of the gospel.

Regarding apologetics, Wes emphasizes the importance of faith over intellectual arguments. While evidence is valuable, salvation comes through faith in Christ, not winning debates. Even those who witnessed Jesus’ miracles—like the Pharisees and Roman soldiers—remained unconvinced. Evangelism requires boldness to proclaim Christ, even at the risk of looking foolish. Finally, Wes discusses the canon of scripture, explaining how early Christians discerned which books were inspired. The gospels and Paul’s letters were widely accepted early on, while debates centered on other writings. Over centuries, the early church ensured the canon contained only texts tied to Jesus or His apostles, preserving the integrity of God’s word.

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Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, I hope what people don't hear when they
listen to Living Waters orlisten to the Apologetics Canada
podcast or listen to any of thestuff that I put out on my
YouTube is that you need to bethe Christian encyclopedia, you
need to be the Bible answerwoman, and that's a perspective
that I took on when I was in myundergraduate studies at

(00:21):
university, where I felt like Ineeded to know all the answers
and I needed to.
Every time someone raised anobjection, I needed to be there
with the answer and ultimately,what that did was it put all of
the onus on me to be able toargue this person into the
kingdom and that wasn't workingand it made me very tired, um,
spiritually and physically.

(00:41):
And so it's.
It's less about hitting a homerun and it's more about just
stepping up to the plate.
It's just going out there andtalking to people.
And if you look at what I didwith Billy Carson, most of what
I did was ask questions.
Honestly, I didn't sure I hadthe follow-ups and I think that
should be both encouraging andconvicting for us to have

(01:02):
follow-ups.
But ultimately, when someonesays it's illogical to believe
in God, the first thing we needto do as Christians is not
launch into the calm,cosmological argument for the
existence of God.
It's ask what do you mean byGod, what do you mean by
illogical?
And get that person to reallythink themselves about what
they're saying, because far moreoften than not, I personally

(01:24):
have found they have no ideawhat they mean by God and they
have no idea what they meanbiological, and actually the God
that they might not believe inis the same God that I don't
believe in.
And then we can proceed intalking about the God that I
actually do believe in, becauseboth of us can agree that the
God that they think they'redisagreeing about with me is not
a God that either of us thinkexists, and so it's mostly about

(01:46):
just having the boldness, likePaul, to go out and preach the
gospel and sometimes even lookfoolish for the sake of Christ,
because it is what we should bedoing.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, friends, the band is back together again and
I have a sense you guys enjoyednot having me.
Oh, very much so.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
We got so much done.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
It was very evident, but I was watching.
I watched the live stream.
Yes, we knew you were watching.
I saw the mockery andretribution is coming,
especially.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
That was my form of paying respect to you.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh, okay, I hate to see the disrespect.
Well, friends, today we'redoing something different.
No cool, classy comment, noradically revolutionary resource
.
Well, except, don't forget tosend in your shorts.
No, not your shorts, oh boy.
Please clarify on that LivingWater shorts.

(02:48):
Clarify it, Oscar, please.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yes, please do not send us your shorts.
Ray produced a video recentlyencouraging individuals to take
videos of ours and to cut themup and repost them on YouTube
using YouTube shorts.
Please do that.
What's the website called?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Livingwaterscom forward slash shorts.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Great comfort, great job.
Wow, I like that right.
Thank you and friends.
Hey, did you guys, by the way,mentioned the podcast YouTube
channel or no?
On the last, I don't think wedid.
I don't think we did.
Yeah, so check it out, friends.
Yeah, we've got a new YouTubechannel and this is for just
snippets from the podcast, whereyou'll see us and hear us.

(03:31):
So, yeah, it's building, it'sgrowing.
Yeah, it's new.
Help you sleep.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
And that's called the Living Waters Podcast YouTube
channel.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Great for insomnia.
Check it out.
Yeah, I can't get an insomnia.
All right, friends, the reasonwhy we're doing things
differently today is because wehave a special guest with us all
the way from Canada.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
How about that A Great Ends up with A Canada.
He appreciates that.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Our brother Wesley Huff is here and we have a
studio audience.
Welcome, wesley, everybody.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
If this is the band, am I the featured artist?
You are, bro.
What am I the featured artist?
You are, bro.
You're our guest singer today.
Backup guitarist yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Man, it's so good to have you, and I know that those
listening now, many of thoselistening now, will be familiar
with you and all that hashappened with your life Like
this is insanity has somethinghappened.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yes.
Just something little If youthink things got wild after Joe
Rogan.
Just wait until you're in theliving waters.
That's what I've been told.
That's what I've been told.
The onslaught's really going tocome.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Oh yeah.
Well, you know what's cool is?
You know, a lot of our audienceis just hearing about you as of
late because of, like I said,everything that's happened.
We'll get into that.
But it was interesting when Itold my wife you're coming and
this all became public.
She was already following youand the reason for that is
because she had friends thatwere recommending you, and so

(04:51):
she checked out some of yourstuff and saw that it was legit
and there's not many legits outthere.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Well, I was gonna say , is she following easy?

Speaker 2 (04:58):
No, she actually blocks me bro, I told you the
beard.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, that's the deal .

Speaker 2 (05:07):
So, brother, we are so blessed to have you.
And for those of you that don'tknow Wes, I'm sure again many
of you do Wes.
You were born in Pakistan, broyeah.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Why you might be able to tell I was born at a very
young age.
Why did you do that?
Why did I do that?
You know what?
I just thought it was a greatcountry, nice weather, kind
people.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
Trying to fulfill prophecy, that's right.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
No, my parents were missionaries, so they were
missionaries over in Pakistan.
They moved there in 1989 andwere working with Muslims, so we
were there for a few years, wasthat fun working with Muslims.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, it's great working with Muslims, so you
lived in a few differentcountries in the Middle East
right.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, we left.
My parents were accused of theheinous crime of giving Bibles
to Muslims and so we had toleave the country just after the
Gulf War broke out, becausePakistan sided with Saddam
Hussein.
And my dad says they werechanting "'Kill the Americans.
Americans from the minarets andthe mosques.
And we're not Americans.
But the Pakistanis don't knowthe difference between Canadians

(06:11):
and Americans.
We're the kind, nice ones, butthey couldn't figure it out.
We say please don't kill us notjust don't kill us.
And so we came back to Canada,which is where my dad is from,
and then eventually went backout to the missions field, to
Jordan, where my dad was workingin Amman.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Wow, so more Muslims.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
More Muslims.
Yeah, couldn't get enough, justwent right back.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Did you have a caricature booth?
Yeah, that's right Familiar toyou.

Speaker 5 (06:37):
No caricature booth set up to draw pictures of.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Well, not that I was doing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can put ina recommendation.

Speaker 5 (06:45):
Well, Easy was wondering if he could do that.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, sure, here it works out well for people.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, yeah.
So then you get this crazycondition right when you're 12.
Tell us about that.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, just before my 12th birthday, on January 8th, I
woke up.
I had the flu and my body'simmune system attacked the nerve
endings at the base of myspinal cord, which caused
swelling on the myelin sheathwhich is right at the base of
your spine, and it cut offconnection between my brain and
my legs, and so it's a conditioncalled acute transverse
myelitis, which Ray can saythree times fast.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Well, my leg is like no, that's about it.
There you go go.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
We'll leave it at that, and um.
So the diagnosis was basicallythat I would be a paraplegic,
most likely for the rest of mylife that's what they told me
yeah, and then the short storyis that one month exactly from
the day I woke up, on a saturdaymorning on february 8th, got
out of bed and walked over to mywheelchair and sat down.
Wow, really yeah and so thatwas after a month of being

(07:43):
immobile.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
So, it was the.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Did you realize what you're doing?
No, so I, from what I canremember, I sat in the chair and
knew that I'd done somethingdifferent.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
And so started the wall, tried to figure out what
it was, and I don't know howlong it was Could have been five
minutes, could have been 15minutes but I eventually looked
down at my foot and wiggled mytoe, and so that's when I knew
that something happened and ranup the stairs.
My mom cried and ran up anddown the stairs a whole bunch of
times.

Speaker 5 (08:12):
If it was April 1st it would have been a great joke
it would have been great yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Just kidding, mom, I can't walk.
Were you thanking God, walkingand leaping and praising God?

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, definitely yeah , and it was the doctors who
first used the word miracle.
Wow, they the the, thepediatric, pediatric
neurologists, that's the rightword.
And they were the ones who saidwe have no medical explanation.
This is miraculous, becausethere was not, not was there

(08:41):
only no evidence of the, theswelling on my spinal cord?
But there there was no muscleatrophy at all, so I was
completely fine.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Wow, Easy.
Are you jealous Cause you spentyour whole life not using your
legs?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Very jealous At least one, I know, easy is paralyzed
from the neck up.
Yeah, I had polio.
Watch it guys.
Yes, you did, I had polio.
Yes, I did.
So Wes okay.
So now you're Central CanadaDirector for Apologetics Canada,
and this is kind of what led toone of the things we want to
start off with today, and thatis what happened with the whole

(09:13):
debate that you did with BillyCarson that led to you going on
Joe Rogan.
That basically blew your wholelife up.
So take us there, man.
So this guy, mark, reaches outto you and asks you to be a part
of his podcast.
He had a podcast or somethinghe wanted you to do, this

(09:34):
interview with Billy or thissort of dialogue, I guess.
So take us there and kind offill us in what happened.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, I was successfully doing ministry in
obscurity for years.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
And then all of a sudden there'd be no more.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, and then I was just out with a friend for lunch
who was working at our church.
So I'm on leadership at mychurch and so my office is at
the church building and we had astaff member who was on
maternity leave and so we hadthis kind of person who was
doing her job for a little bit.
So he was at the office.
So I took him out for lunch oneday and I just happened to.

(10:10):
I don't usually check mynotifications on Instagram, but
I just saw a direct message, aDM, from this guy, Mark Menard,
and um, I don't think I wouldhave looked at it otherwise, but
I saw the name Billy Carson inthe kind of synopsis of the
message and I've been making Ihad at that point, been making a
few response videos, just shortlittle Instagram reels to this

(10:31):
guy, Billy Carson.
Yeah, tell everyone who BillyCarson is.
Yeah, so Billy Carson is big inthe new thought, new age,
ancient aliens community.
So he's kind of this unusualguy in that he marries a whole
bunch of what are essentiallynew age conspiracy theories
together and speaks verypublicly and confidently about
them.
But part of this and I wouldn'thave even commented on I don't

(10:53):
care who built the pyramids,whether it was the Egyptians or
the aliens, but he was makingcomments on the Bible, and not
even just false comments, butdemonstrably silly comments.
So I just made a couple ofclips where I would pair some
interviews he'd done withindividuals like Joe Rogan and
Andrew Schultz on the PBDpodcast, and I would just

(11:16):
correct the record.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Could you tell what sort of things was he saying?

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, so he would make statements.
They kind of ranged.
I mean, I left alone the Jesusis an alien one, but he made a
lot of statements about Hebrewand Greek, which is in my area
of research in ancientmanuscripts, and they were just
silly.
They were about assophisticated as the word Jesus

(11:44):
sounds in Greek is Jesus, andJesus sounds like Hail Zeus.
So every time a Christian ispraying to Jesus, he's actually
praying to Zeus.
I get it yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
I'll be using that one so as kind of simply silly
as that to even making claimsabout certain ancient
manuscripts that he said didn'thave the crucifixion in them,
which were easily provable to befalse, because a lot of these
manuscripts are digitized online.
So you could go on CodexSinaticusorg, which is the one

(12:15):
he was claiming calling it theSinai Bible, didn't have the
crucifixion and it's just afourth century Greek Bible.
So I was just, you know,clearing up the record on some
of these things.
And because of that, this guy,mark, who was friends with Billy
, had been friends with Billyfor a few years.
He had been working out to havea conversation with Billy about
some of their differencesBilly's statements about

(12:37):
Christianity and Mark's beliefin Christianity, and his media
manager, a guy named Anton, wasputting together this document
with a bunch of sources that hewas preparing him to have this
conversation and at a certainpoint, mark said I still feel
inadequate to have thisconversation.
There's a lot of Wes Huff inthis document.

(12:57):
What if I just message him andask him to do it?
And that's what he did.
So 24 hours before Billy wassupposed to step into his studio
in Florida, he messaged me andsaid Billy's going to be here.
Do you want to debate him?
And so I said yes.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
And we did that the very next day, so literally a
day before going in, you werenotified and decided to do it.

Speaker 5 (13:18):
Yeah, wow, reaching back for that facsimile of the
Sinaiticus.
Yeah, I noticed you don't haveone.
Yeah, I don't, I should havegotten you one.
We could put it on the shelf.
I wanted to take it from theBritish Library.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (13:30):
But that was such a turn, if you would, where it was
just a jaw-dropping,mic-dropping moment, and you
know we're not trying tobelittle anyone like this.
But it's obvious at that momentthat he was not studied in any
way, shape or form.
Ill-prepared.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was a combination of saying
fantastical things and thingsthat you know, throwing out
words that I think a lot ofpeople just wouldn't be familiar
with.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
You know what I loved about that whole thing, Wes is,
as you go online right nowthere are so many clips of Wes
destroys, Wes fooled, butactually, if you watch it in its
context, you were so gentle, sorespectful and so kind.
Even when he was wrong, youwere walking him down the line

(14:23):
in a kind and gentle way, and soI think that's the biggest
testimony of that conversationis the gentleness you had for
somebody that you clearlydisagreed with, even the
humility, right when thefilibustering was kind of going
on.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
You're thinking at what point do I actually bring a
response to a thing that iswrong after wrong after wrong.
Demonstrating your patience inthe midst of that was really a
master class on how todemonstrate interaction with
somebody who doesn't agree withyou.
Right, I mean.
But by the grace of God, thereyou go.
All of us right.
But the demonstration of thathumility was such a master class

(14:56):
and that's what I appreciated,I think, more than anything, in
the midst of that.
Oh, I appreciate that, you knowthe whole.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
I've been to a lot of apologetic conferences where up
on the screen it says always beprepared to give an answer.
And I always think you knowthat's not the verse.
Right, the verse is, but inyour hearts you're a Christ's
Lord.
Always be prepared to give ananswer to everyone who asks you,
to give the reason for the hopethat you have.
But do so with gentleness andrespect, keeping a clear
conscience, so that those whospeak maliciously against your
good behavior in Christ will beashamed of their slander.

(15:23):
And it's great to give answers,it's great to give defenses,
and sometimes we maybe even needto do that a little bit more
pointedly.
But I would argue that thesandwiched part of that you know
.
Be prepared to give an answer.
That's the meat, that's themustard, that's the pickles and
lettuce, but the bread is.

(15:44):
But in your hearts, revereChrist as Lord and do so with
gentleness.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah Well, you know what?
What blew my mind was what thenhappened.
Right, because then Billy givesa cease and desist order.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
He is thrilled, wasn't he?

Speaker 2 (15:57):
You know, starts to kind of come after everybody.
But when I watched the wholething, and as the guy said, you
know I was blown away by twothings.
First, your uncompromising,direct approach to truth.
Look, this is truth and this iswhat it is.
You called them on things, youhighlighted things.
You did it with gentleness andrespect and with humility as

(16:20):
well, and so what I thought whenI watched that was man, how
cool it is to walk away fromsomething like that as a
believer with a clear conscience.
There isn't like.
I mean, it was so clear andthat's were you shocked that he
did that Because, I mean,they're friends, they're
neighbors.
Yeah, you know what it wasfunny because we had a meeting.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
So the organization I work for, apologetics Canada we
apologize for being Canadian,finally, I know someone's got it
we had a team meeting on thefollowing Wednesday and I kind
of told my coworkers when I gotthe message this guy I've been
making response videos to Ithink I'm going to talk to him
tomorrow.
Can you just pray that thingsgo well.

(17:01):
And I came out of thatinteraction thinking it was a
bit of a nothing burger becauseI really felt like we really
didn't get to a lot of thethings I would have liked to get
to.
He had to leave pretty soonwithin the meeting, which he
said he did.
In fact, I think he stayed at20, 30 minutes over the time
limit he said he would actuallystay for and so I kind of

(17:23):
thought the thing would peterout and his response to it is
really what made it turn intowhat it was.
So he's written a lawsuit.
Yeah Well, at first he just saidyou can't put this out.
So I got a call from Mark whosaid that Billy's people had

(17:43):
contacted him and that he's beentold not to put it out.
Was he lying?
Was who lying, Billy?
Was he just humiliated?
I think he felt genuinelyembarrassed.
I think Billy had orchestratedit so that he was never really
put on the spot in any kind ofway.
I mean, it's come out, sinceone of the reasons he said this

(18:03):
can't go out is because he has.
He didn't realize totally thatit was what it was with being a
debate which is not entirelycorrect.
We'd laid that out.
But his manager said it costs$50,000 to have a debate with
Billy Carson, which I told him.
Well, it costs $50,000 to havea debate with Wes Huff.
So, exchanging the exact sameamount.
Why don't we just call?

Speaker 5 (18:24):
it even and put this thing out in the world.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
But that was one of the kind of excuses, if you want
to call them that.
But I think he genuinelyrealized he'd been put into a
compromising situation where thethings that he's been spouting
on some of the biggest platformsin the world were proven to be
inaccurate, fallacious and justreally just made up, and there

(18:47):
was embarrassment that camealong with that.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
So Wes, when you got the call from Rogan's people, is
that when you realized, likeokay, this has turned into
something?

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Well, it was interesting because, after the
debate, so there was the wholekind of we don't want to put out
, and then there were a fewthings that did go out debate,
so there was the whole kind ofwe don't want to put out, and
then there were a few thingsthat that did go out, and then
there was a cease and desistletters that he sent to all of
us, which we all promptlyignored.
And then, um, you can't suesomeone for losing a debate.
And then he, uh, and then I putout the debate.

(19:20):
So I had.
Actually, when Mark told me it'snot going to go out, I said I'm
going to do two things.
One is something I'm going totell you I'm going to do, and
the other thing is I'm going toask you for a favor.
I'm going to put out a videosaying this happened and I would
like you to, in good faith,send me a copy of the debate
that I will not release withoutyour permission.
So he did that.
He sent it to me.

(19:41):
So Mark and Billy live in thesame neighborhood.
So they were, up until thispoint, friends.
I think I can confidently saythey are no longer friends.
Yeah, I think he went to hiswedding.
Mark went to Billy's wedding.
I think there were 15 people athis wedding and Mark was one of
them and their kids playbasketball together.
Their wives would go out forbrunch kind of thing.
It's messy.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's messy for them.
Well, and Mark went on.
I mean at the end of the youknow your time with him, because
Billy left, he went on praisinghim and talking about what an
amazing guy he was.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yeah, I think.
I think, if nothing else,mark's eyes have been opened to
something that he just did notperceive before this, but things
were actually starting to gointo a little bit of a tidal
wave following all of this.
I released the debate December8th, and it just because it had
been put out into the world thatBilly did not want this out

(20:32):
there.
It caught the traction that itdid, and so it gained a lot of
views in a very short amount oftime.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
We don't want this interview with you put out.
Don't you dare put it out WesDecent desist.
We don't want this interviewwith you put out.
Don't you dare put it out WesDecent assist.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, we've got the letter ready.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Your lawyers will be in touch.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
The video's available in 4K, just in case you do want
to read it.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do two things.
I'm going to tell people thishappened.
There you go and I'm going to.
These are our lawyers, that'sright.
Yeah, witnesses.
So by the time that and I wasjoking with friends at church,
you know they were saying, hey,wes 2025, joe Rogan right?
I was like, yeah, okay, and Iwas telling people I'm probably

(21:19):
more likely to get in contactwith Donald.
Trump than I am Joe Rogan.
But on Christmas Eve I gotanother Instagram DM and it was
from Joe Rogan, From him.
You're going to be checking allthose I know.
Right Before this I was barelylooking and now I'm seeing who
else I noticed.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
my DM went unnoticed and then responded to you.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
So Joe himself actually DM'd you.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, and I knew it wasn't fake, because only so
many people have 19 millionfollowers on Instagram.
That's a good clue, yeah, soyeah, it was Joe Rogan.
Did he cast on his DM?

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
But it was funny because my wife and I we'd lost
a stocking.
We were looking for stockingsto fill for the kids.
And we were looking all overthe house and I pick up my phone
and I see I say, honey, I thinkJoe Rogan just messaged me and
it was very informal, Like hey,dude, saw the debate, love your

(22:18):
stuff, would like to get you onthe podcast, and that was
basically it.
And I said sounds good.
And he said I know, this soundslike a short amount of time,
but what are you doing December30th?
So I figured you don't raincheck with Joe Rogan.
Yeah right, and his peoplereached out to me within hours.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
Wow, Sorry for the listeners out there.
Who's Joe Rogan?

Speaker 1 (22:40):
Let me hold on I got to Google that one.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
So, bro, were you?
I mean, was it nerve wrackingor were you like whatever?
I mean, how was it thatexperience On the podcast?

Speaker 1 (22:50):
itself.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was acombination of just like
nervousness and excitement.
It didn't even afterwards andto a certain degree like.
I've watched my conversationwith Rogan a number of times and
it still doesn't entirely feelreal because I've watched a
number of his podcastsselectively, but it's such a
recognizable platform.

(23:11):
Yeah, you know, he's got peoplemimic Joe Rogan's podcast with
the red curtain in thebackground.
Yeah, to make it look like theywere on joe rogan's podcast when
they were, and so to seeyourself sitting across from him
, yeah, it's just very strange.
Yeah, did he set you at ease atthe beginning, was he?
Oh, he was.
He was very, very kind.
Yeah, very, very gracious.

(23:31):
Yeah, no complaints uh about,I've complaints about this, but
Joe Rogan, so we Just before theinterview did he set you at
ease.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
This is not going to be contentious.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
No, we just talked casually.
No, it was very natural, freeflowing.
I mean, you came off as thoughyou were really comfortable and
at ease.
Good, I fooled you.
Yeah, you tricked us all.
Good, I fooled you.
Yeah, you tricked us allbrother, I was impressed.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
I will be honest.
Your episode is the first timeI've ever watched or listened to
a Joe Rogan podcast and I wasreally impressed by the way you
handled yourself, but also byJoe Rogan.
He seems like a very curiousperson.
He wants to have a genuineconversation.
So, yeah, I was reallyimpressed with that.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, I loved how inquisitive he was and he seemed
genuinely interested and alsokind of awed by some of the
things you were sharing.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, I think Jorogin collects people.
No, I'm just kidding, I likethat he's the collector, like he
just has these guests.
And even after we closed outthe podcast, I looked at his
media guy, Jamie, and I justsaid how long was that?
He said it was a little overthree hours.
Crazy, that didn't feel likethree hours.
And Joe specifically said well,I don't have conversations with
people I don't think I can talkto for three hours.

(24:45):
Wow.
So I mean, he's right, right,like he chooses his guests and
he's very purposeful andselective and there have been
episodes of his that haven'tgone three hours and you can
tell why they kind of don't.
It's embarrassing.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Do you count the wows that he said when you're
talking to him?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Well, it was funny because a friend of mine, glenn
Scrivener, first put out thatvideo where he amalgamated all
the wow, and then another personwho I'm in contact with online
added the wow counter at thebottom.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Oh, funny yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
But no, in the moment , I mean, the conversation is
just kind of free flowing, sohis wows were genuine, you think
.
I think so.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's very inthe moment.
Yeah, so he's very, so he'svery.
Whatever he's doing I got theindication is what he's doing,
and I think that's why he's beenso successful, whether it's the
martial arts or the media stuffhe's done, or his companies, or

(25:43):
his podcast, his ballet, hisballet.
Yeah, he's been taking cuesfrom you on that.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
You know, I just get the sense from Rogan that he's a
genuinely curious person and sowhen he's interviewing people
it just comes off as authenticas it is.
You know, and and yeah, I getthe sense like he's the kind of
guy that just does his.
I mean, he listens to stuffbecause he was talking, I was, I
was at the gym and the sauna.
I'm listening to your stufflike kind of that day.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, that morning.
Yeah, but you know but yeah, no, and I believed him.
The conversations we had before, during and after gave me every
indication that he had actuallywatched 20 hours of my content,
which, by the way, I havecritique videos of Joe Rogan on

(26:27):
my YouTube channel with his facein the thumbnails.
But once again, I mean I thinkhe's okay with that in that,
like my videos responding toBilly Carson, I was never
attacking Billy Carson.
No, absolutely.
I was always addressing thethings he said.
So, and speaking ideally frommy own area of expertise, there

(26:55):
were definitely things that I,over the past number of years,
have made in regards to comments, joe has said that worried me
going in.
Yeah, right.
But it was it was great.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Yeah, it's cool, yeah , did.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
Billy ever respond with you, gave out an open
invitation.
He had loved to just be able tomeet with you to help correct
you, help guide you, lead you inthe midst of these different
things yeah, Crickets, I wouldimagine.
Or is he to meet with you tohelp correct you, help guide you
, lead you in the midst of thesedifferent things Crickets.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
I would imagine there was a three-hour live stream
that Billy did do.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Oh is that where he talked about poor people and
stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, he accused me of being in a national crime
syndicate.
How long?
Have you been in that syndicate, you know what.

Speaker 5 (27:30):
I'm not at liberty to disclose any of that
information at this point intime, without my lawyer present.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
I'm apparently a part of the Illuminati.
You know what was funny.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
It was a little bit sad in the sense that he was
clearly trying to put out aparticular narrative, but it was
so fallaciously silly, notunlike the things he says about
the Bible where he does thisthree hour live stream.
I don't think he Googled me tofind any information about me

(28:02):
when we went into ourconversation and when he
eventually did put out this kindof response video live stream.
I still don't think he Googledme, because he was saying that
they'd been in contact with theVancouver police Department,
which is on the other side ofthe country.
It's the equivalent of sayinghe'd been in contact with New
York yeah, new York, the NewYork Police Department to

(28:24):
investigate Ray Comfort.
Like, okay, that's great,they'll have a hard time finding
Ray, but you can talk to themif you want.
So there were just things.
That was like, I think,indicative of his level of
actual research, in that it'snot overly comprehensive and
it's usually to try tocommunicate a narrative that
Billy wants to put out into theworld but is not actually
representative of what's true.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, well, look, we don't have three hours, like
Rogan and I know all these guyshave good questions for you.
I want to kick it off with kindof as we shift gears to talk
about the Word of God, becausethat's really what this all
ended up being about.
Obviously, I noticed you guyshave one.
Oh yeah, we're not promoting it, you don't open it.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
That one's written by Rick.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Did you dust it today ?

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, but you know, one of the things that I love
that you discussed with Roganand I'd love you from this to
segue kind of into again thevalidity of Scripture being the
Word of God.
You were talking about how youcan kind of know if something is
authentic or not, and you weretalking about the Gospel of

(29:30):
Peter and you talked about how,like, you can go back and you
can find names and you can findthe qualifiers with the names, I
think it was or something, andso from that you can kind of
know that this came from thatera and this is inauthentic and
stuff.
So Wes give us kind of.
For those that are listeningnow and saying what do I say to
my friend who says how do youknow that the Bible is God's

(29:53):
word?
How can we know the Bible istrustworthy?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Yeah, I think what I would say is simply that there
are all sorts of things you canlook at internally in the
contents of scripture andexternally that verify what we
read about.
When we look at something likethe four biographies of Jesus's
life that we call Matthew, mark,luke and John and it's not just
the claims that they make aboutthemselves but it's the details

(30:19):
that they provide that we mightskip over.
So something like the nameswhich the formal kind of study
that goes into, that is calledonomastic congruence which is a
word you can say as soon as youhear it.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Can you say that right Onomastic congruence,
that's good Kind of slurredtogether, but we'll let it go
Anthromorphic.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, that's right, and what that is is it's just
looking at.
So when I was in high school,there were a lot of Michaels and
a lot of Sarahs, and so you hadto figure out.
Okay, when I yell Michael outinto, say that the Michael I
want to get in contact with isthe Michael that actually turns
around and looks at me.
So you have qualifiers ordisambiguators, right Michael

(30:58):
with the big nose, tall Michael,short Michael or, you know,
michael M, use their last nameBig nose.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Mike.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
I remember him Big nose, Mike, great guy, yeah,
short guy, big nose.
And so there's a.
So we, even today, understandthat there's this level of kind
of disambiguation that we dowithin groups and that changes
based on the place, time andarea.
And so when we look atsomething like first century

(31:26):
Roman, occupied Galilee andJudea more generally, there are
names that are popular and thesenames are things like Peter and
Mary and Judas.
And so when we look atsomething like the Gospels and
we look at these names listed,what do you find with the most
popular names?
Well, you find that they'redisambiguated.
So you have Mary, the sister ofMartha, and Mary the mother of

(31:49):
Jesus, and Mary from Magdala,and that just makes sense for
the time.
So there have been a number ofstudies done by a number of
scholars.
There was a Jewish scholarnamed Tal Ilan back decades ago,
and then Richard Baucom, who'sa famous historian, kind of did
some updated research.
And then, even in the last fewyears, there's a guy named Luke
Vanderway who has updated thathe did his PhD dissertation, I

(32:13):
think only in the last fiveyears, kind of updating this
research, and what it shows isthat when you look at something
like the Gospels that areclaiming to be written about
this period of time when Jesuslived first century, the
beginning of the first centuryin Judea we find the correlation
with the names that aredisambiguated with the most

(32:35):
popular names in those areas.
But when you look at somethinglike so, in the video that I
showed Rogan, which was from ourCan I Trust the Bible series
that we at Apologetics Canadaproduced and are continuing to
produce we compared it to theGospel of Judas, and the Gospel
of Judas has names that are notpopular in first century Judea
but are popular in second andthird century Egypt.

(32:56):
Well, why is that?
Well, it's because it's beingwritten in second and third
century Egypt.
So you can look at some ofthese internal details.
You can look at how the gospelauthors use geography.
Talk about going up to Jerusalem.
Well, it's actually a sea levelelevation when you go up to
Jerusalem.
Or talk about the plant lifewhere fig trees are located or

(33:18):
where Zacchaeus climbs thesycamore tree.
Well, sycamore trees grow inthat particular area that Luke
talks about, and so these areinternal evidences that shows
that these are people who arewriting, either who were there
or who are talking to people whoare there, which is what Luke
says, right?
Don't confuse me with aneyewitness.
I'm writing up an orderlyaccount for you, Theophilus, and

(33:39):
I'm interviewing eyewitnesseswho are there from the beginning
so we can take them at theirword when they say these things,
because they're showing,they're going over and above to
actually validate.
We're talking about real peoplein real times, in real places,
of events that actually happen.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Well.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
I'm doing a wow.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Someone will get the counter going on.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Instagram Wes.
Earlier you mentioned GlennSchravener.
He wrote the book the EveryBreathe.
I absolutely love it.
I remember you talking aboutTom Holland Dominion great book.
Tony Stark, tony StarkChristianity.

(34:22):
Anyway, what book do yourecommend for somebody who wants
to learn more about how we gotthe?

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Bible.
Yeah, there's a great book bytwo of my friends, john Mead and
Peter Gurry.
They're currently at PhoenixSeminary, although I think they
announced this morning thatthey're going to a Midwestern
seminary.
Anyway, both of them togetherthey teach Old and New Testament
, but they're both textualcritics and they wrote a book
called Scribes in Scripture,which is a really great synopsis
and is probably the best oneapart from the book that I'm
going to write on the topic ofhow did we go from ancient

(34:48):
papyrus to modern-day print?
What was the chain of custodythat got us from ancient papyrus
and vellum to the evidencestudy Bible with Ray Comfort's
name at the bottom?
How do we go into the 21stcentury from when the last book
of the Bible was written?
I'm glad you came.

(35:09):
Hey, I'm expecting my check inthe mail for all these
promotions.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, wow, that's so good, Because you know we do
apologetics here at the ministryObviously the Evidence, Study
Bible, and you know the trainingcourses we do and the street
apologetics.
But for us it always comes downat the end of the day to the
gospel Yep, and that's thereason why you're here with us

(35:37):
today.
I mean, again, like we said, somany people debate others and
you've got apologetics happeningall over the place and
apologists that are dime a dozen.
But your graciousness, yourlove, your accuracy, but also
what I sensed was your heart forsomeone like Rogan, because you
did something that a lot ofChristians who go on with Rogan
don't do, and you directlylooked at him and you said what

(35:58):
do you think about Jesus?
Who do you think Jesus was, inso many words, right?
So what was that moment like?
As you're sitting there waitingto hear from him, I mean, you
knew a little bit of what hethinks, but take us there.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
I mean, you knew a little bit of what he thinks,
but take us there.
Yeah, I was genuinely curiousbecause I have seen a genuine
drift with Rogan from, say, likeseven to ten years ago.
He was very critical aboutChristianity, very crass about
what Christians believe and whathe thought about that.
And yet in the last, probablylike three to five years, he

(36:34):
seems to have done some sort of180.
He's not there quite yet, buthe's at minimum very, very
receptive to the Christianworldview being something that
people should take note of.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I've heard him say Christians are the only ones
that know what's going on.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, and he wouldn't have said that in years past,
right, yeah, and so I had seen agenuine drift in perspective
and I'd heard him say a numberof different things about Jesus.
Everything from Jesus wasprobably not a historical
character to Jesus.
You know, jesus is this reallyinteresting person who we need

(37:18):
to take note of, and so when Iasked him that question, it
wasn't because I was trying toset the garden path for some
sort of gotcha, it's because Iwas genuinely interested, and
what I was very pleased to findout was it reminded me very much
of Jesus when he asked hisdisciples in Mark, chapter 8,
who do you say that I am?
Because he gave a very similarresponse Some people say Jesus

(37:41):
is this, and other people sayJesus is that and there's
something going on.
That's almost what thedisciples said, right, and what
was his response?
I don't remember.
Well, he said a number ofthings, but part of that was he
kind of highlighted.
Well, jesus is clearly this veryimportant moral example who has
made this big footprint onhistory, and it works for

(38:05):
Christians.
So therefore, in some way, it'strue.
Now, in retrospect, what Ishould have said was does it
work because it's true or is ittrue because it works.
But I definitely got the vibethat he was mulling over the
question about Jesus in a verythoughtful way.
He's not thinking about thatquestion glibly and I don't

(38:27):
think he expected me to ask thatquestion because he didn't
necessarily seem prepared forthat type of question, but in
the kind of a non-linear waythat he went about.
Well, some people say he's thisand some people say he's the
son of God.
But aren't we all sons of God?
And I could tell he was kind ofleaning towards whoever Jesus

(38:52):
is.
He left his mark on history ina way that we should take note
and follow after that.

Speaker 5 (38:59):
Is that kind of like the Jordan Peterson approach?

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, and that's why I said what I said afterwards,
in kind of taking off the heat.
I didn't want to say whatyou're saying is wrong.
So I said what Jordan Petersonsays is wrong, which is
essentially what he says.
And when I said I would like totalk to Jordan Peterson about
this, I Peterson says it's wrong, yeah, so, which is essentially
what he says now.
And when I said I would like totalk to Jordan Peterson about
this, I genuinely mean it,because I think Jordan Peterson
is also on a very similarjourney, where he very well may

(39:23):
cross over that line inrecognizing that Jesus was a
tangible human being, who wasthe second person of the Trinity
, stepping out of eternity intothe humanity, didn't he?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
recently.
Just say that Jesus is God.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
He did but I'm still not sure what he means by Jesus
and what he means by God.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
I actually think this is so important because there
is I've been saying for a whilenow there's a new form of
atheism which, after 2001, 9-11,the form of atheism was the
Richard Dawkins, the SamHarris's, and it was very clear
distinguishing differencebecause they were attacking
Christianity.
And the new form of atheism isthe Jordan Peterson's, where

(40:01):
they find Christianity pragmaticand useful and for a lot of
people when they hear them talk,there's like a blend.
They're not sure, they feellike they're close or whatever
the case, and in some waysthat's really exciting that
there's a new intellectual,honest approach to the impact
Christianity has had on theworld around us.

(40:22):
But in another way, I thinkit's really important to
distinguish what it means tocall ourselves Christian and to
know, sort of like, look atJordan Peterson and what he
teaches and go well, that's notChristianity.
And I really appreciate the wayyou approach that.
Sort of like look at JordanPeterson and what he teaches and
go well, that's notChristianity.
And I really appreciate the wayyou approach that because
there's something about what'sgoing on in the conversation

(40:43):
that in one sense is drawingpeople closer to Jesus, but
there's also still a huge gapbetween recognizing him as the
Trinitarian God who saves us,and somebody who's just
pragmatically useful to both ourpersonal lives and culture in
general.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Jordan Peterson eloquently mangles scripture.
I listened to him on Saturdaytalk about Jonah and I thought
how did he get over there?

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, you know, what's really interesting about
Jordan Peterson is I feel likehe says everything right but at
the end of it misses the pointoften, and I genuinely
appreciate a lot of whatPeterson says because I think he
has opened, for me personally,up a new perspective and
understanding, an allegoricalsignificance of the gospels.
I just think that that is.
It's not that, that's not true.

(41:30):
It's no less than that, butit's far, much more.
That's almost secondary to thefact of I read Peterson's book
on Exodus and it's the only bookon the Bible that I've read
that forgets that God is themain character, and I kind of
feel that way about how he talksabout Jesus too.
Is that and that's what I saidto Rogan is is if Jesus is
simply a moral example, then youjust need a someone to pattern

(41:56):
yourself after.
You don't actually need someoneto save you, because in that
sense you can save yourself.
And I honestly think that theJesus of history, the Jesus we
read about in Matthew, mark,luke and John, does not give you
that option.
In fact, he gives you theopposite.
He says you cannot do it, youwill strive and you will strive

(42:16):
and you will end up working yourway to hell.
And just because your bed ismade and your house is in order
does not get you into thekingdom of God.
That's not good teacher.
What must I do to inheriteternal life?
It's not make your bed and sayplease and thank you and be
polite.
No, jordan Peterson.
Good teacher, what must I do toinherit eternal life?
It's not make your bed and sayplease and thank you and be
polite.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
You know, jordan Peterson, I think, is one of the
most articulate people on theplanet.
He blows my mind with the wayhe articulates.
I mean, he'll start a sentenceand it keeps going.
I'm like there's no way he'sgoing to close that.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
He comes back around and he closes it.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
I'm like he's brilliant.
But man, I'm so glad, Wes, thatyou're hitting on that, because
he almost seems more interestedin the symbolisms that are
behind Christianity or Christ orthe Old Testament, but he's
missing the substance, likeyou're saying, of what it's all
about.
But what do you think ishappening with Jordan?

(43:13):
I mean, do you think there arevoices in his life that are
having an impact?
Do you think, as he's doingthese lectures on the Bible,
he's starting to realize, like,wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
I can't see how he wouldn't see that.
I think God is largely usingJordan Peterson in spite of
Jordan Peterson, in the same waythat God draws all sorts of
straight lines with crookedsticks.
But I would not be surprised if, in the very near future,
jordan realizes that what he'sbeen saying is true and beyond

(43:46):
that.
And so I'm hopeful, I'moptimistic, that you have the
Douglas Murrays and the JordanPetersons and the Tom Hollands
out there who are saying so muchgood, and I personally know
people who have startedattending church because of
Jordan Peterson, and I thinkthat's great.
And reading the Bible, I'm sureDefinitely.
And I think the problem is that.

(44:06):
So I study these documents thatwe've been talking about, these
Gospel of Judas, gospel of Peter, gospel of Mary and Thomas, and
they fall into a group ofancient heretics called the
Gnostics, who are it's kind ofan umbrella term.
There were all sorts of Gnosticsand they disagreed and
contradicted each other all overthe place, but at the end of
the day, one of the essentialteachings of Gnosticism was that

(44:29):
Jesus did not have a physicalbody, because the spiritual is
good and the physical is bad.
And so today we have, you know,we need to convince people Jesus
is God, but in the ancientworld there was less of a hangup
about Jesus being God.
There's more of a hangup withif he was God, how can he have a
physical body?
But so the denial of Jesus'sphysicality, that he actually

(44:52):
was a human being who ate fishwith his disciples after his
resurrection, is, in one way, apatterning and an ancient
version of a lot of the things Isee these people today saying,
in that it's not that they'redenying that Jesus has some sort
of divine significance.
It's that they're denying thathe was a virgin born human being

(45:14):
who lived a perfect life,predicted his own death and
resurrection and then pulled itoff, and that people who rise
from the dead have morecredibility and authority than
people who don't rise from thedead.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
That's the ultimate, wow.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Right, and so that makes a difference.
Right that he's sitting at theright hand of the father as the
eternal God man and intercedingon our behalf.
And so I think it's thatstepping over that line in a
sort of neo-gnostic ideology,which has components of it that
are true, but ultimately missesthe whole point.

Speaker 5 (45:49):
You know, with the amount of facts and evidence and
stuff your experience of juststudies.
At what point do weevidentially just answer
everything or maybe switch overto a presuppositional attachment
, to pulling out the rug fromunderneath them and then maybe
just getting to the gospel Withyour experience and what you're
doing?
Where is the balance?

(46:10):
And maybe juggling those three,if those three were in play,
like to be attached to that.
If you had just a few momentsleft with Jordan Peterson, he'd
say, hey, I'll meet with you,I'll hang out with you.
You know, where do you attack aconversation?
Lack of better words?
Where do you proceed in theconversation with him?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, I think you'd need to really get down to the
nitty gritty.
I don't think giving anevidential argument for the
historical reliability of thegospels is what Peterson needs.
I think a lot of people needthat Joe Rogan needed that but I
don't think Peterson needs that.
I think he actually alreadybelieves a lot of those things
and we're not going to arguepeople into the kingdom.
It's not an intellectual ascentand I work with all sorts of
people at the University ofToronto in my academic work who

(46:53):
know far more about the Biblethan I do currently and maybe
ever will know, and yet thelight bulb's just not on.
And it's always been a very keyexample to me that the faith is
a gift.
It's not an intellectualendeavor, because I know people.
I've had conversations withpeople a professor who was doing

(47:14):
some supervisory work with myacademic study, who's an expert
on the Synoptic Gospels, and Iwould mention a passage in St
Mark and he would turn around onthe chalkboard and write the
equivalent passages in the otherSynoptic Gels from.
You know chapter and verse frommemory, just where they
paralleled.
I can't do that.
What am I going to teach himabout the contents of the

(47:35):
gospels?
Nothing that he doesn't alreadyknow right, and yet the switch
is not toggled, and so there'san aspect of, with people who
have a lot of knowledge aboutthis stuff and Jordan Peterson
definitely does there's gettingdown to the fact that if he does
not come to terms with his Lordand Savior, that he will be one

(48:01):
of the most intelligent peoplein the wrong side of eternity,
and there's a danger in that.
I don't want more intelligent,well-informed people.
I want people who havesubmitted their life to our Lord
, jesus Christ, and even if thatmeans at the expense of them
being intelligent andwell-informed.

(48:21):
If they're submitting theirlife to Christ, that's all that
matters, and so I think weshould be prepared to give an
answer.
We should be striving to lovethe Lord, our God, with all of
our mind, but that's a secondary, tertiary, quaternary go down
the list thing from actuallyjust realizing I'm a sinner.

(48:43):
I need a Savior, and I cannotdo that without the finished
work of Christ on the cross.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
I wonder what would happen to Jordan Peterson's
following if he preached Christcrucified in sin, righteousness
and judgment.
Would he have such a bigfollowing?
That's a good question.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
I love what you just said, wes, and I hope that our
listeners don't miss it, becauseI think so many people can
watch.
Listen to somebody like you,your average Christian go man,
like there's so much.
I don't know.
I am not equipped to preach thegospel, but the reality is is
that there's not, that we don'tsave people by what we know, and

(49:22):
we don't save people by what weteach them, and they are not
saved by what they know.
Ultimately, the power of thegospel comes through the Holy
Spirit saving us, and so one of,I think, the two things that
every single person needs isprayer and faithfulness to
proclaim the gospel and all theother stuff.
While it's important and it'svaluable and it's praiseworthy

(49:44):
that ultimately, the thingthat's gonna save your neighbor,
your sister, your brother, yourfamily member, the one that you
love, is your faithfulness inprayer and your faithfulness in
proclaiming the gospel.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Yeah, I hope what people don't hear when they
listen to Living Waters orlisten to the Apologetics Canada
podcast or listen to any of thestuff that I put out on my
YouTube, is that you need to bethe Christian encyclopedia, you
need to be the Bible answerwoman, and that's a perspective
that I took on when I was in,you know, my undergraduate
studies at university, where Ifelt like I needed to know all

(50:17):
the answers and I needed to.
Every time someone raised anobjection, I needed to be there
with the answer and ultimately,what that did was it put all of
the onus on me to be able toargue this person into the
kingdom, and that wasn't workingand it made me very tired
spiritually and physically, andso it's.
It's less about hitting a homerun and it's more about just

(50:39):
stepping up to the plate.
It's just going out there andtalking to people, and if you
look at what I did with BillyCarson, most of what I did was
ask questions.
Honestly, I didn't Sure.
I had the follow-ups and Ithink that should be both
encouraging and convicting forus to have follow-ups.
But ultimately, when someonesays it's illogical to believe

(51:01):
in God, the first thing we needto do as Christians is not
launch into the calm,cosmological argument for the
existence of God.
It's ask what do you mean byGod, what do you mean by
illogical?
And get that person to reallythink themselves about what
they're saying, because far moreoften than not, I personally
have found they have no ideawhat they mean by God and they

(51:21):
have no idea what they mean byillogical, and actually the God
that they might not believe inis the same God that I don't
believe in.
And then we can proceed intalking about the God that I
actually do believe in, becauseboth of us can agree that the
God that they think they'redisagreeing about with me is not
a God that either of us thinkexists, and so it's mostly about
just having the boldness, likePaul, to go out and preach the

(51:45):
gospel and sometimes even lookfoolish for the sake of Christ,
because it is what we should bedoing.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Amen, love it.
I love that.
I love that, wes, you know justthe whole understanding for
believers that look, first ofall, you don't need to and you
never will have every answer.
And I love that when you'rewith Rogan, I mean there were a
few times where he said I don'tknow, I have no idea.
And I think a guy like Rogan,or even the average person, is
refreshed by that because theycan see that you're not just
trying to put up and act likeyou know everything and you know

(52:16):
.
It's really good.
And I just want to say aboutJordan I think the thing that
gives me some sense of hope isthat he is a contemplative,
introspective person, becauseyou have sometimes these
intellectuals, but they're justkind of, they don't go there, he
seems to.
But also in light of what wewere talking about regarding

(52:36):
evidence, I mean, look, thoseRoman soldiers knew that Jesus
rose from the dead and they werebought off.
I mean you could look throughScripture.
The Pharisees would see heraised Lazarus from the dead.
They knew it and they wanted tokill him.
Yeah, exactly, so we have torecognize that.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Well, even at the end of Matthew's gospel, jesus has
been teaching them he's going upto be with the father and it
says that they worshiped him.
But some still doubted.
And you think, wait, hold on.
The guy that you saw die isstanding before you alive.
He's telling you he's going togo up to the Father and you're
like I don't know.

Speaker 5 (53:12):
I don't know if I believe that.
Yeah, and you think Judas heardmost of Jesus' sermons?
Wow, so it's not a lack ofevidence and trying to change
somebody's mind in the midst ofthat?
Yeah, Still doubt her, that'sgood.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
So Wes, we have a little bit of time left.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe canon of Scripture, okay?
So I mean, I know some of ourlisteners hear that canon what
are you talking about?
What are you going to blow up,you Arab?
right, yeah yeah, I didn't sayit.
Yeah, you didn't say it, but weall thought it.
Yeah, but you know the canon ofScripture.
It's so important because youknow there are people that

(53:43):
question it.
I mean, you were talking aboutsome of the different purported
gospels that should be inScripture, whether it's, and
then you have the apocryphalbooks, pseudepigraphal books.
You've got all these differentsupposed books that should be in
Scripture.
How can we have confidence inthe canon we have and how did it

(54:04):
come together?

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Yeah, I think the question of canon and that's
canon with one N, two N's goesboom.
One N is a ruler-less is just aquestion of answering.
You know, who has the inspiredunderstanding of the canon of
Scripture?
Well, it's God.
Right, god knows that he hasinspired some books and not all
books, and so what we see withinthe early church conversation

(54:25):
is really a.
It's a carry on from theconversations that the Jews were
having about what theyrecognized as God's inspired
word, and a big part of thatconversation was that in Jesus's
day, the story of God was astory in search of a conclusion,
and we see this all throughoutthe gospels.

(54:46):
John, chapter one, verses 41, itsays that they were expecting
the Messiah.
And we see all throughout theGospels where Zachariah sees the
birth of his son as an usheringin of what the promises that
God had made.
The woman at the well says theMessiah is gonna come, he's
gonna teach us all things.
There's this expectation inJesus's day that something was

(55:07):
gonna happen.
God was gonna to teach us allthings.
There's this expectation inJesus's day that something was
going to happen.
God was going to break in anddo something, and in the Jewish
mindset, god's promisedrevelations, through his
covenants, his promises with hispeople, was always followed up
by written texts.
And we see this when God makesa covenant with Noah, he
literally inscribes it on atablet.
And then, throughout all of theprophets, god makes these

(55:29):
commands to Israel.
And you see these commands.
Write this on a scroll,inscribe this on a tablet.
And so then Jesus comes on thescene and he fulfills these
prophecies and he establishesthe covenant of Jeremiah 31, 31,
that the law would be writtenon the people's hearts, and he
establishes the Lord's Supper asthe covenantal meal.

(55:49):
And so I think the naturalquestion for the earliest
Christians, who were mostly Jews, who believed in Jesus as the
Messiah, the question they askedwas where are the books?
You know, here's the covenant,where's the writings?
And so in that process they hada direct chain of custody
because they knew the apostles,they had individuals, not just

(56:12):
who knew Jesus, but who knewsomeone who knew Jesus.
And so when we see these earlyconversations, there's really no
disagreement about the gospels.
They're pretty straightforwardAnybody who mentions the gospels
in the early church Irenaeus orTheophilus, these people,
they're very clear, there's onlyfour.
It's Matthew, mark, luke andJohn.
And anybody who's writing anyother than those.

(56:35):
Well, that's nonsense becausewe know who Matthew, mark, luke
and John were and they have thisdirect line of succession to
Jesus so early on.
The questions about which booksare scripture are less of the
Gospels and even Paul's lettersare pretty much agreed upon
within, you know, 100 years.
It's some of these other booksthat the early Christians are

(57:01):
trying to do their due diligenceto say can we actually tie
James to James the brother ofJesus, or Jude to Jude the
brother of Jesus?
Or Revelation had a very earlyreception because Jews had a
framework for apocalypticliterature and then, when more
Gentiles became Christians andthey're looking at this form of
genre that they don't have aframe of reference for, they're

(57:21):
like we don't really know whatto do with that.
So it's recognized almostunanimously early on and there's
kind of a falling out andthere's some more discussions
about it.
But this is a conversation thathappens over the course of
about 250 to 300 years and Ithink that's a good thing
Because what it means is thatthe early Christians are doing
their due diligence to make surethat they're recognizing the

(57:43):
books that have the authority,that do actually tie back to
Jesus when he breathes on hisdisciples in the upper room and
gives them the Holy Spirit.
He's giving them that authority.
And then they use thatauthority to either write a
gospel themselves or communicatethat to other people who then
write gospels and letters.
And so the canon question.

(58:04):
We look at the Bible like thatand we think, okay, that is
scripture, but early Christianswould have.
We think, okay, that isscripture, but early Christians
would have looked at that andsaid that contains scripture in
the sense of we put it in a nice, tidy, single bound volume.
But for the first 300 years ofChristianity those writings are.
They're floating aroundindependently as single book
scrolls, codices and it's onlyreally in the fourth century

(58:28):
that they start to bind them allin one unit, which is
exorbitantly expensive, which isone of the main reasons why it
didn't happen for a while.
But by that time theconversation was pretty much
closed.
Everybody had an understandingthat we can trace back these
books to either someone who knewJesus or someone who knew
someone who knew Jesus.
And they looked at otherdocuments, like the Gospel of

(58:50):
Peter, the Gospel of Judas, theGospel of Thomas or even some
other writings that weren't evennecessarily what we would call
heretical, like the Epistle ofBarnabas 1 Clement, the Didache,
writings that actually theearly church used for
edification and for teaching butdidn't have that what's called

(59:10):
apostolicity, does it?
Can it be tied to someone whoknew Jesus or someone who knew
someone who knew Jesus?
And even if it wasn't heretical, they in this conversation said
you know the epistle ofBarnabas?
Well, sure, it has the nameBarnabas on it, but we can't tie
it to the Barnabas who's thetraveling companion of Paul.
So, even though it's actually apretty good letter, has a lot

(59:31):
of true things in it, it's notinspired scripture because it
doesn't have that authority.
So we cannot recognize it assuch, whereas some of the other
books, the Gnostic literature,they took one glance at it and
said well, there's red flags allover the place.
So it's a long conversation, butit's a conversation that
ultimately shows that the earlyChristians were very concerned

(59:55):
with recognizing what God hadactually given them for teaching
, reproof and edification, thatit can be tied to something.
There's a guy named Theophilusof Antioch in the second century
, and he has this great linewhere he says that the same
spirit of God that inspired theprophets inspired the gospel

(01:00:18):
authors, that they all spoke ofone spirit of God.
And so, just as you haveJeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel
making a thus sayeth the Lordstatement, even though you don't
have Luke making a thus saiththe Lord statement, even though
you don't have Luke making athus saith the Lord statement,
the early church is recognizingthat as a thus saith the Lord
statement because it has thatring of truth to it.

(01:00:41):
Right, you know, some Bibleshave Jesus's words in red.
You know, all Bibles I don'tknow if you guys know this they
print the Holy Spirit's words inblack.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
I love that.
That's great.
Wes Well man, seriously, wecould go another few hours for
sure, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
You shouldn't.
I'll fall asleep and I'll stopit there.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
But, brother, that was great, so encouraging.
Again, like I said a little bitago, there's a reason why
you're here.
We sense that kindred spiritwith you.
We sense your heart for people,for the lost, for the glory of
God, and you're doing awonderful job and we just pray
the Lord keeps opening more andmore doors on this crazy
adventure.
You got more to come, moreinterviews lined up,

(01:01:20):
unfortunately.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
With a young family.
Anything from Trump?
Not yet, but my phone's onstandby.
Yeah, it'll be mad.
Keep checking.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
Yeah, well, tell everybody about your ministry.
We want our people to be ableto connect with you and find you
on social media or your websiteor whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Yeah so if you want to know what I'm up to, the
easiest place to find that isWesleyHuffcom, which is my name,
with com at the end, orApologeticsCanadacom.
So I work, as you mentioned, asthe Central Canada Director for
Apologetics Canada.
Central Canada is just thedesignation for Ontario and
Quebec.
It's central in terms ofpopulation.

(01:01:56):
It's not actually.
The prairies are centralgeographically, but I don't live
there and we have people acrossthe country.
We run conferences and produceresources.
The current series that I'mgoing to be developing more
episodes for this year is theCan I Trust the Bible series,
which we played on the Roganpodcast.
We have two out right now thatyou can find at
apologeticscanadacom on thecanon of scripture, the right

(01:02:18):
books and the text of scripture,giving us confidence that we
know that what we have now iswhat the original authors wrote
back then.
We're going to be continuingthat conversation with some
travel overseas again this yearto produce more episodes.
And so apologeticscanadacom, ifthere are any Canadian
listeners.
We run conferences in BC inMarch, in Ontario in the fall
and do a couple of other thingsthroughout the country.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
Nothing in Pakistan, not for now.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Apologetics Pakistan has not reached out.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Yeah, Got to make that happen.
Well, brother, this has beenjust phenomenal.
We'll be on the lookout for allthat's to come from you, and I
know our people will as well.
So thanks for being with ustoday.
It was a blessing, yeah, it wasa pleasure.
And yeah, friends, and again,don't forget to check out those
few things I told you about.
I'm not gonna repeat it.
Thank you for of us, except for.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Wes have no idea what we're doing.