May 20, 2025 • 30 mins
"God has called parents to educate their children and he wouldn't call you to do something that you can't do." ~ Dr. Jason Lisle
How do you raise kids to think like Christ, especially when navigating challenging subjects like logic, science, and mathematics? Dr. Jason Lisle, renowned astrophysicist and founder of the Biblical Science Institute, joins Yvette Hampton on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast to share his insights. Learn how all knowledge begins with God, why belief in a literal Genesis is vital to the Gospel, and how homeschooling can shape an eternal perspective for your family. Packed with practical advice, encouragement for parents who don’t feel “expert,” and actionable resources for teaching your children a biblical worldview.
Recommended Resources:
Introduction to Logic, by Dr. Jason Lisle
Taking Back Astronomy: The Heavens DeclareCreation, by Dr. Jason Lisle
Fractals: The Secret Code of Creation, by Dr. Jason Lisle
More books from Dr. Jason Lisle John Gill’s Commentary on the whole Bible
John Gill’s Commentary (Online Version)
Recommended Podcasts:
Teaching Science from a Biblical Worldview – David Rives, Part 1
Teaching Science: Harmonizing Faith with Facts – David Rives, Part 2
Teaching Science: Exploring Creation Through Every Grade – David Rives, Part 3
Sponsors:
Apologia is a Christ-centered, award-winning homeschool curriculum provider. Our mission is to help homeschooling students and families learn, live, and defend the Christian faith through our print and digital curriculum and online classes.
BJU Press Homeschool is dedicated to providing homeschool families with academically strong curriculum rooted in a biblical worldview. They offer a complete curriculum from preschool through 12th grade, available in both traditional textbooks and video courses. By teaching through the lens of Christ’s power, they help students view the world through the transformative story of God’s creation
CTCMath specializes in providing online video tutorials that take a multi-sensory approach to learning. Creative graphics and animation, synchronized with the friendly voice of internationally acclaimed teacher, Pat Murray, make learning math easy and effective. Start your free trial today.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you've gone through a public education system like I did,
you've been trained to think that subjects are neutral, that
God is irrelevant to math and science and literature.
And so I've had to retrain my brain over the over the decades
to realize, now wait a minute, the fear of the Lord's, the
beginning of knowledge, that's what the Bible says.
And so every topic that I start with should start with God in
its relationship to God. Everyone, this is Yvette
(00:22):
Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse
Rock podcast. I am so excited that you are
back with me this week, and I'm excited to be back with you this
week. I miss being with you guys every
single week, but I am so excitedto be with you this week.
And I have an amazing guest withme.
We got to hear Doctor Jason Lylespeak last year at the Culture
Proof conference with Will and Mickey Addison.
(00:43):
And he was just incredible. And we we've wanted to have him
on the podcast. But I'm going to tell you guys a
little something. I'm going to give you a little
insight into the brain of YvetteHampton.
I am just an ordinary homeschoolmom.
You guys know that about me. If you've been listening to me
for any length of time, you know, I'm just just your average
mom. And so my friend Jenny White,
who works at Master Books, she she's been talking about Doctor
(01:07):
Jason Lyle. She said you've got to get him
on the podcast. You've got to get him on the
podcast. And was I was like, I don't
know. I don't know Jennifer, I don't
know if I can do this. She said, why?
I said, well, because he's crazysmart.
He's an astrophysicist. Like I can even barely say that
word. He's an astrophysicist.
He's he is a scientist. He, he studied astronomy and
physics and mathematics and all these crazy things that I know
(01:29):
almost nothing about. And so I said, I don't know if I
can carry on a conversation withhim.
He scares me. And she laughed at me and she
said, I promise you he is the most friendly, down to earth guy
and you will have a great conversation with him.
So I said, OK, I'm going to trust you.
So here he is. And if he talks over my head,
I'm just going to let him talk because I know that many of you
moms who listen are super crazy smart.
(01:50):
But like I said, Jennifer has assured me that this is going to
be an amazing conversation. And and he is an amazing author.
He's a writer. Many of you know that our family
has started using the Introduction to Logic curriculum
this year. This is by Master Books and he
is the author of this curriculumas well as many, many other
things. You've written lots and lots of
books, and so he has a lot to say on the topics of worldview
(02:15):
and pointing our kids to Jesus. And so over the next couple
weeks, we're going to talk abouthomeschooling with the focus on
eternity and how we can homeschool our kids and point
them to Christ. And you guys know this is my
favorite topic. I love talking about these
things on the podcast. And so I'm super excited to have
Doctor Lyle here with me. But before we get into our
conversation, I'd like to say thank you to our sponsor,
(02:36):
Apologia. If you guys are looking for
trusted homeschool resources to support your child's education
with a strong biblical worldview, find it through
Apologia. You can check them out at
apologia.com. And for decades, they've been
the go to resource for Christianhomeschool curriculum designed
to educate, inspire, and build alifelong love of learning.
They know that homeschooling is not a one-size-fits-all, which
(02:57):
is why they offer a growing catalog of resources to fit your
family's needs. Check themout@apologia.com and
they will partner with you and your family on your educational
journey. apologia.com. Well, Doctor Lyle, for those who
are not familiar with you and I just sort of introduced you, but
not really introduce yourself. Tell our audience who you are,
(03:18):
what you do, and, and, and. I'm excited to get into this
conversation with you. I'm Jason Lyle.
I'm the president and founder ofthe Biblical Science Institute
and what we do as a ministry as we show people how science
confirms what the Bible teaches.I specialize in astrophysics,
but I try to have the website populated with articles on other
(03:38):
topics, geology, biology, whatever, and showing how
biblical creation is true. So I'm a, I'm a fan of Genesis
and the literal history recordedthere and, and why that's
important to Christianity. So that's kind of my, my
specialty field is defending Genesis, especially in the realm
of astronomy. But I, again, I try to, I dabble
in other fields as well, mathematics and so on.
And I just try to encourage people that the Bible is true
(04:00):
and they can trust it. From the very beginning, I was
saved, the Lord Jesus saved me when I was very young.
And out of gratitude for that salvation, I try to live for him
and try to encourage other people to live for him and to
have confidence that the Bible really is the infallible word of
God. Love it.
Well, let's park there for a minute because I want to talk
about Genesis. Let's just jump off into talking
about why. Why does Genesis even matter?
(04:23):
And you know, often times people, you'll hear Christians
today saying, you know, the Old Testament doesn't really matter.
It's old, it's outdated. And as Christians, Bible
believing Christians, we know that that is absolutely not
true. But tell us why?
Why Genesis? Why do we even start there and
then talk really quickly about why?
Why does it matter that we believe in believe in a literal
(04:46):
6 day creation? Really, all of the major
Christian doctrines you can think of have their foundation
in Genesis. Those doctrines couldn't be
defended if Genesis were not real history.
You know, we, we teach that you shall not murder.
That's found in Exodus, but the basis for that is in Genesis.
It's because why is it that taking a human life would be
morally wrong? Because human beings are made in
(05:07):
God's image. And where do we learn that human
and beings are made in God's image?
Genesis chapter 1. It's the first chapter of the
Bible where we find that. And that would only be the case
if it's literally true that weremade in God's image after his
likeness, meaning we reflect hischaracter on a finite creaturely
level. Or why is it that we teach that
marriage is one man and one woman united by God for life?
Well, that goes back to Genesis one and two.
(05:28):
God describes the creation of Adam and Eve and and the Bible
specifically says for this reason, the man shall leave his
father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be 1
flesh. God created marriage and he did
that in in the literal history of Genesis.
And so if that history isn't true, then why should marriage
be one man and one woman for life?
And, and that's what we're facing in our culture as people
try to redefine marriage. Those are people who have
(05:49):
rejected the literal history in Genesis.
You can't defend the biblical marriage apart from the literal
history in Genesis. Now why 6 days of creation?
Well, one, it's what the Bible teaches and we're, we're not
allowed to sort of pick and choose which of the scriptures
we're going to believe. They're all inspired by God.
They're all true. They have to be properly
interpreted, of course. But there's no doubt that God
(06:10):
intended us to understand that he made in six days and rested.
One, that's a pattern for us. Exodus chapter 20 says that's
the basis for our work week. The reason we have a seven day
week is because that's how long God chose to create and rest and
he did it that way as a pattern for us.
But the, the real issue that I think most Christians overlook
is it's not the, the, the time scale itself, but if you believe
(06:33):
in the millions of years that evolutionists believe in,
because a lot of Christians get get duped into thinking that,
well, you know, I don't believe in evolution, but maybe they're
right about the billions of years.
Well, they're not. And I, I'm a scientist and I, I
can talk about radiometric dating and stuff like that.
Those are all based on assumptions and things of that
nature. But the reason it matters is
because if you believe fossils are hundreds of millions of
(06:53):
years old, a fossils, a dead thing.
And if that means you got death 100 million years ago.
But we all agree human beings don't go back 100 million years
ago. Human beings are recent.
And so if you believe in the millions of years and you reject
the six days, you automatically believe in death before sin.
But the Bible says that death's the penalty for sin.
It came into the world when Adamsinned as a result of his sin.
(07:16):
That's why Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for our sins,
because death's the penalty for sin.
So you see, if you reject the six days and you accept the
millions of years, you've undermined the gospel.
You've undermined the necessity of Jesus dying on the cross for
our sins because you don't believe that death really is the
penalty for sin. That's why it it matters.
Yeah, I love that. I love that answer.
(07:37):
I know that you talk a lot to homeschool families.
You talk to families all over the place, whether homeschool,
public school, private school, but you talk to families and
parents in general. And as a Christian parent and as
a Christian podcast and as a Christian ministry, our focus
always is to for us to point ourkids to Jesus, but also to help
other parents point their kids to Jesus as well.
(07:58):
There's nothing else that's moreimportant than that.
And so of course, it all starts with God's Word as you speak to
to parents nationwide, worldwidereally, because I know that you
travel all over the world as youspeak to people.
What are you seeing for parents as their most important thing?
Are you seeing that most parentsare really concerned about
(08:20):
leading their kids to Jesus? Or are you seeing something
different than that? Well, a Christian should be,
that should be the primary concern of a Christian parent is
to raise their their children in, in a way that's pleasing to
God, in a way that will promote them receiving Christ as Savior.
Now, only the Holy Spirit can change a person's heart.
We understand that. But nonetheless, there's a
tendency for if you raise your children to love and appreciate
(08:44):
Jesus, there's a tendency when they grow up, they will love and
appreciate Jesus. That's a biblical principle.
You train up the child the way that you should go, and when
he's older, you won't depart from it.
According to the Proverbs, that's a generalization.
Proverbs are generalizations. That doesn't mean you can, you
can't make anybody be saved, butyou certainly can make it more
likely that they will receive Christ as Savior by training
them to think properly and to love Jesus from their youth.
(09:06):
Jesus himself said when a student, when he is fully
trained, will be like his teacher.
And so if if you're the teacher and you're a godly person and
you're teaching your children, they will be come like you.
And if you're a Christian, that's a good thing because
they're going to be more likely to be a Christian if you send
them off to a public school where most of their teachers
will not be Christians. And I realize there are some
(09:27):
Christian teachers in public schools.
And God bless you. I'm glad you're there.
I think you can reduce the damage a little bit.
But nonetheless, it is a secularsystem.
The curriculum is secular. Most of the other students
they're going to be with are secular, and that's what they're
going to learn. Those are the teachers.
People think, well, the person at the front of the classroom
is, is the teacher. The person in the front of the
classroom is a teacher, but not the most important one in terms
(09:49):
of what the student's going to learn.
The curriculum determines primarily what they're going to
learn and then their fellow students really, or how they
learn social skills. And I, I think about that.
Wow. You know, and I say this as
someone who went through a public school system and I, I
survived, but I'm not recommending that for others.
People say, well, you made it up.
You know, you, you turned out OK.
(10:10):
I'm not OK. I'm not OK the the Lord has
saved me and I'm grateful for that.
But I think about it, man. I learned my social skills from
kids who was, who are as ignorant of social skills as I
was. That's not a good, that's not a
good system. The curriculum I was taught was
secular. And so I, I learned to think
about things in a secular way. People don't realize that they
(10:31):
think when they send their students to a public school,
they're going to get a neutral set of skills.
But you're not you're being trained to think as a
secularist. And so that's that's what I
would hope that that that parents would think through.
Now there are non Christians whohomeschool their children and
you know, that's great too, because that's really what the
Bible indicates we're supposed to do.
(10:51):
But ultimately Christian parentsought to have the salvation of
their children. Learning to think in a way
that's consistent with the character of Christ.
That ought to be your number onecriteria.
Learning skills like math and science, those are all good
things and those should be part of the your education system as
well. But the most important thing is
learning to think like Christ, because that's going to affect
(11:12):
where you spend eternity. Yes, absolutely.
So let's let's park there for a little bit and let's kind of
talk through how do we do that? You know, many Christian parents
know obviously that step one is to read the word of God.
But then comes all of the questions, Well, how do we
understand the word of God? How do we teach our kids to
respect the word of God? How do we teach them the things
(11:33):
that sometimes we don't know? Because, you know, I've been a
Christian a long time. I've read through my Bible.
I have I I read my Bible daily, but I don't understand a lot of
things about the Bible. So it would be easy maybe for me
to just say, you know what? I don't understand it all, so
I'm just not going to worry about teaching it to my kids or
I don't feel equipped enough to teach it to my kids.
(11:53):
And so if learning our kids to think like Christ is the most
important thing, how do we teachthem to do that?
Especially for the homeschool mom who does not feel equipped
to do so. First of all, I would I would
encourage any anyone who thinks I'm not up to the task you are.
God has equipped you to do that.These statistics bear that out.
(12:15):
The statistics bear out that homeschoolers have an advantage
over those who are in public school.
They're, I, I forget the exact numbers, but they're, they, they
do 15 to 30% better on standardized tests, particularly
in areas like mathematics and, and reading comprehension,
things like that. So now you might have to study
up a little bit. I, no one said it's going to be
(12:35):
easy. Nobody said you can just, you
know, show up without any, any class notes, any kind of
preparation. You're going to have to think
about it. Keep in mind you do have a
partner, right? I mean, if you're God, God
organized, God created the married the, the family unit, he
created marriage. So you do have your partner
there and you have other people too.
You have people within the church.
If you say, man, I'm really bad at math, but my, my friend at
(12:56):
church is really good at it. There are Co-op groups, things
like that. So you, the church can be part
and should be part. I think of the education
experience of your children. So you're not alone in this.
So #1 you are equipped. God has called you to do that.
God has called parents to educate their children and he
wouldn't call you to do something that you can't do that
you're I'll equipped to do. Secondly, you're not alone in
that. You have your, your husband,
(13:18):
your wife, and you have other members of the church that can
help you. And 3rd, there's a lot of
literature out today. I mean, back when I was a kid,
there was almost nothing. But today there are all kinds of
materials available. I've, I've partnered with my
publisher, a new leaf publishinggroup and Master Books.
They have all kinds of great resources.
(13:38):
The, the logic book that you held up earlier.
I, I specifically had homeschoolers in mind when I
wrote that book that, that wouldbe a great example.
And I actually want to do that with other, with other topics as
well. But I did that with logic to
show people how to think in a Christian way about logic.
It's not just about teaching themechanics of mathematics and
language and logic, but how these subjects relate to Christ.
(14:02):
And that's something that we allneed to think through because if
you've gone through a public education system like I did,
you've not been trained to thinkthat way.
You've been trained to think that subjects are neutral, that
God is irrelevant to math and science and literature.
And so I've had to retrain my brain over the, over the decades
to realize now wait a minute, the fear of the Lord's, the
beginning of knowledge. That's what the Bible says.
(14:22):
And so every topic that I start with should start with God in
its relationship to God. And I've done that, I've done
that with mathematics. I've written some articles in
that with mathematics. I've done that with science,
I've done that with logic. I want to do it with other
fields too, But it, it takes time to do these things.
For example, mathematics, I've written a book on fractals and I
show how mathematics is the way that God thinks about numbers.
(14:44):
And so when you study math, you're studying how God thinks.
And that's awesome to think about.
I mean, how many students today,especially if they've gone
through a public school system, hate math?
You know, it's just something I have to learn.
And it, why do I need to learn this anyway?
When am I ever going to use this?
What if they, what if they realized they were learning to
think like God? I mean, that might change their
(15:06):
perspective on things. If they, if, if you realize when
you're studying math, mathematics, you're actually
doing theology, you're learning,you're learning how God thinks.
And that's why it applies to this universe, because God's
mind upholds the universe. And similarly with logic.
When I wrote that book on logic,it's not just the mechanics of
logic. It's showing how logic
integrates into the Christian worldview, how only the
(15:27):
Christian worldview can make sense of logic.
Why are there laws of logic? Why are there standards of
correct reasoning? Because in the Christian
worldview, there's God. God is the standard of correct
reasoning. How can we learn how God thinks?
Because God has revealed himselfto us in His Word.
That's what the Bible is. That's God expressing some of
his thoughts to us. That's how we know what we know
about God. And so basically I'm trying to
(15:49):
do that in my own life in every subject.
And then I would encourage parents to do that in their own
lives and then in the lives of their children.
Yeah, it's, it's really funny thinking about math.
I am not a math person. I don't understand math very
well at all. I was so proud of myself the
other day. I was doing some division with
my daughter and I was like, I doactually remember how to do
division. Who knew?
(16:10):
I haven't done division on paperfor 35 years.
I don't know, really. Long time, 30 years maybe.
And, and so it's, it's funny thinking through that, but you
know, math is just not my thing.But looking at math from that
perspective of that, it shows uswho God is.
It shows us that God is a God oforder, not chaos, gives you a
whole different appreciation forthe subject of math.
(16:34):
You know, it doesn't mean we allhave to be mathematicians, but
understanding math, at least thebasics of math, really does help
us to see who God is and, and see his character.
And so he's incredible to give us that gift, even the gift of
math. I need to start thinking of it
that way. Math is a gift.
It's not a curse. So to all you homeschool moms
who do not enjoy teaching math to your kids, that is something
(16:56):
to keep in mind. Let's take a break.
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We are back with Doctor Jason Lyle.
I want to talk through, we, we talked of course about the
importance of studying God's Word and knowing God's Word.
(18:21):
But I want to talk about how to understand the Bible 'cause like
I said, you know, that's something that I think many,
many parents are just like, I just, it's so hard to
understand. Even I still read it.
Often times I'm like, I don't understand this.
And often times I'll go to my husband say, can we just talk
through this together? Because I don't understand this
particular part of Scripture. And I use a study Bible.
And so sometimes I'll read the study notes in it, but talk
(18:43):
through how we as parents can understand the Word of God and
then help our kids to understandthe Word of God.
OK, a couple of a couple of things to emphasize.
First of all, there, there is a,there's a science of
understanding Scripture that's called hermeneutics.
And I've actually written a bookon this topic and I didn't use
(19:04):
the fancy word because I don't want people to run away
screaming. But I wrote a book called
Understanding Genesis. And it's really more than
understanding Genesis. It's really about understanding
the Bible. But because I, I love Genesis
and I wanted to specialize in that and because it's the most
distorted book of the Bible. It's Genesis is one of the
easiest books of the Bible to understand.
It's one of the most rejected because people don't like what
(19:25):
it says. It's trade, what they've been
taught in school with the millions of years of evolution.
So I wrote a book basically, howdo we understand?
How do we know that Moses reallyintended us to, to understand
the six days, our six days and and so on.
And I wrote a book basically going through some of these
rules of hermeneutics, how to, how to get to the author's
intention. And you know what, for the most
(19:46):
part, it's not very hard. Now, I'll grant there are some
difficult sections in Scripture.Peter says as much.
He says that in Paul's writings there are some things that are
difficult to understand. So the Bible acknowledges that
there are sections of the Bible that are difficult.
But the main and plain doctrines, I think are very
clear. Salvation by grace through faith
in Christ, very, very clear. Ephesians 28 very, very clear.
(20:07):
I mean, there's, there's succinct statements in Scripture
that we can hang our hats on andsay there's no doubt about that.
So. Rules of hermeneutics, learning
those, learning how to read Scripture.
I believe in what's called the hermeneutical spiral, which
means when you read through the Bible the first time, because
you have an imperfect method of,of understanding the Bible,
there are some things you'll miss.
(20:28):
There'll, there'll be some things you don't understand.
But as you read the Bible, it will correct your theology, It
will correct your hermeneutics, your ability to understand
Scripture. The next time you read the
Bible, some of those things thatyou didn't understand the first
time, you'll say, oh, I get it now because of this other
information that I know. So the more you read the Bible,
the, the easier it is to understand the Bible.
(20:48):
That's a hermeneutical spiral. It gets clearer on each pass,
and that's by God's design. 3rd I I like to use things like
other translations. If there's a difficult passage,
I I like to read from the The New American Standard Version.
That's a fairly literal, fairly formal translation, word for
word. Sometimes if there's a difficult
(21:10):
passage, I'll read it in something like the NIV, which
which is more of a dynamic translation, more thought for
thought, a little easier to read, less word for word, but
more thought for thought. That gives us.
OK, I see at least where the NIVtranslators thought this verse
was going. And then all you sometimes use
commentaries, and I'm especiallyfond of John Gill's commentary
because he had it. He had a comment on every verse
(21:32):
in Scripture. I mean, the guy knew the Bible
well and I don't know a whole lot about it, but I know he knew
his Bible well. And a lot of times if there's a
difficult passage, I'll look at his commentary.
Sometimes I'll compare it with afew others.
I have some, I have actually have software that I can compare
them immediately and bring it up.
And that's, that's kind of a neat thing to do.
So I'll look at commentaries andthen cross references too.
(21:53):
And again, if you have the software, I can hit X on my
software and it'll bring up a list of verses that that are
similar to that, that use some of the same phrasing and I can
compare those. So those would be those would be
some principles I would use. Learn, learn about the rules of
hermeneutics. Remember the hermeneutical
spiral that don't get frustratedif you don't understand a verse
the first time you read it, readthe Bible through, come back,
(22:14):
read it again. Oh, OK, it makes more sense the
second time hermeneutical spiral.
And then other translations, if it's a difficult translation.
And then commentaries, I think are very helpful.
Now, commentaries are not infallible.
And you can, you know, sometimesthey'll disagree with each other
and you could say, OK, if the, and usually when they disagree
with each other, I'm thinking, OK, if these brilliant Bible
(22:35):
scholars have some disagreement about this verse, it's probably
a difficult verse, but that's OK.
The main and plain doctrines, I think are very clear.
So don't, don't be intimidated, don't be afraid to say, I, I'm
not real sure what this verse means.
I mean, when you're, when you'reteaching your, your children
about the Bible, you say, here'swhat I do know.
I know these verses and you say,come to this one.
(22:56):
I'm not real sure to be honest with you, what that means.
They, they respect that. Don't respect that.
Yeah, I was talking to my mom, this was a few months ago.
And I, one of her brothers who is close to 70, I'm not sure if
he's in his 70s yet, but he is just brand new to going to
church. His wife just passed away.
And he's at that point where he's like, man, I, you know, my
(23:17):
life is empty. And my mom's been witnessing to
him for years. I mean, 45 years probably.
And so finally he said, OK, I'm going to go to church.
And she, he lives in a differenttown than my mom lives in, but
he knows that my mom reads her Bible every day.
And so he, he's gone to church for the last few months and it's
been a really good thing. And he's really growing.
And he's trying to understand, he's never read the Bible in his
entire life. So he's trying to understand the
(23:40):
Bible. And he said to my mom recently,
he said, I have a question and Idon't want to offend you.
And she said, well, what's the question?
He said, well, I noticed that you read your Bible every day.
And he's, he has stayed with my mom in her home and he sees that
she reads it every day. And she said, yeah, I read it
every morning. And he said, well, why is it
taking you so long? Why, why have you not read
through it yet? And in his mind, it's like, it's
(24:01):
a book. You just read it through one
time. You know, you start at the
beginning, You read to the end. And why would you read a book
over and over and over again? And so she got a kick out of
that. And she said, well, it the Bible
works differently than any otherbook.
You have to keep reading it overand over because the more you
read it, the the more you learn.And she's like, I'm going to
read it till the day I die and I'm always going to learn more
(24:21):
and more. But it was such an innocent
question that he had as someone who's just discovering God's
word of why would you read it more than one time?
That doesn't even make sense. But I just thought, that's so
cool that he even asked the question.
You know, he was bold and you know, he, he thought he was
being bold to ask this question that he thought might be
offensive. And my mom just said, no,
(24:41):
that's, that's the Christian life.
You read over and over and over and over again.
So let's talk through respect for God's word because that's
something that I think often times as just in our generation
today, we don't have a respect for the word of God.
And as a matter of fact, when myhusband and I got married, one
(25:02):
of the things that he taught me,which I, I carry through to this
day, our whole family does is he.
He was in the military. He was in the Air Force when we
got married and he told me abouthow you never let the American
flag touch the ground. Like that's very disrespectful
to the American flag. You never let it touch the
ground. And so he said because of that
principle, he said I never allowmy Bible to touch the ground
(25:24):
because the word of God is so much more important and powerful
than the American flag. So if I respect the American
flag enough not to ever let it touch the ground, I'm going to
respect the word of God enough. And so as a family, we never,
ever put our Bibles down on the,on the ground.
And I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to shame anybody who
does. I'm, that's just something that
our family has, has done. And so even having a physical
(25:46):
respect for God's word, I think is important.
But how can we teach our kids totruly have a high regard for and
a high respect for the Word of God?
Yeah, I think that will, I thinkthat will come out in, in, in
when we read it, when, when our children see us reading God's
word, they'll, they'll realize it continually.
(26:07):
And, and, and it is different from other books because it has
a richness to it, because it's inspired by God.
And you know, you, you can read Lord of the Rings once and
you've pretty well got it. The Bible, you read it through
every time you're going to get new information from it because
it's just, it's just saturated with, with truth that is
contrary to our, our sinful inclinations.
(26:28):
And so it, it takes a while, it takes a while to, to purge that.
It's a process of sanctification.
But I think just, we, we, we most respect the Bible by
reading it and by applying it. One of the things I try to do, I
think one of the reasons the Bible's so disrespected is
because so many people in our culture think that it's been
disproved by science. And so that's why I founded the
Biblical Science Institute to combat that and show people that
(26:50):
actually, not only is science consistent with the Bible, the
Bible is the foundation for science.
The reason that science works isbecause God upholds his universe
in a consistent way with patterns to be discovered, as
the Bible teaches in places likeGenesis 822, where God promises
the basic cycles of nature, the day and night cycle, the seasons
will continue as long as the earth remains.
(27:12):
Secular humanists cannot answer that question of induction.
How do we know the sun will risetomorrow?
David Hume was stumped on that question.
He was a brilliant philosopher, but not a Christian.
And he couldn't answer how do weknow the sun will rise, I mean,
or even that it's likely that the sun will rise tomorrow.
He knew there wasn't certainty, but I can answer that because I
have a promise from God. Genesis 822, The sun will rise
(27:33):
tomorrow until Judgement Day, and then all bets are off.
We'll continue to have sunrise and sunset.
So the, the Bible provides the foundation for all these other
truths that we take for granted.That's, that's respectful.
And I mean, it's fine to, to symbolically respect the Bible
as, you know, as a book, but it's, it's the information
that's the word of God. So I can have, you know, I have,
(27:54):
I have the Bible on my, my smartphone, you know, and I have
several different translations and that's kind of a neat way
where I can access it. Although usually when I'm just
reading through it, I like to have a physical Bible.
It's just a little easier on theeyes.
But I think it's neat to have that.
I can have it on my smartphone and I have the Greek and Hebrew
there and I can check that out. And that's, that's kind of neat
as well. But I think we most respect the
Bible by reading it and applyingit.
(28:16):
And if your children see you do that, they'll tend to respect it
as well. But you can tell them too.
You can say, you know this, thisbook, and it's really a
collection of 66 books. These are unique because these
were not just a person's opinions, every other book, one
person's opinions or maybe a group of people.
The Bible written by inspirationof God the Holy Spirit, used the
personalities of these people and their life experiences to
(28:38):
have them write exactly one of them to write.
And so when the Bible says something, that's God speaking
and that's very different from any other book.
And so we need to treat it that way.
Well, we've got lots more to talk about, but we are out of
time. Doctor Lyle, can you tell people
one more time where they can find out about you and your
ministry? Yeah, the ministry is the
Biblical Science Institute and the website is Biblical
(28:58):
scienceinstitute.com. A lot of free articles on that
website. And we have a web store where
you can get resources like the Logic textbook and or the
Fractals book, which goes through math and shows how God
has built beauty into that. So a lot of great resources.
Biblical scienceinstitute.com. OK, great.
We'll put those links in the show notes for you guys to make
it easy. Thank you guys so much for
listening today. We will be back with you next
(29:19):
week with Doctor Lyle. If you guys have not seen the
movie Schoolhouse Rock to the Homeschool Revolution, you can
stream it for free through our website, schoolhouserock.com.
Stay tuned to the very end to hear what's coming up next and
we will see you here next week. Have a great week.
Bye. You're listening to the Biblical
Family Network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will and
(29:41):
we're the Co host of the CultureProof podcast.
We want to invite you to join usevery week as we discuss what's
happening in the world and then filter those happenings through
a decidedly biblical. Lens.
There are many questions, especially when we see what's
happening in our culture today, but the answers are found within
the Word of God, so that's wherewe want to look.
Amen. When we resist those cultural
(30:02):
trends that rival the truth. We remain culture proof.
Logic is really about how to useyour mind rightly, and I find it
very interesting because education is supposed to be
about how to use your mind rightly.
What is the one subject that is not taught in just about any
public school? Logic.
Logic is not just correct reasoning, it's thinking like
(30:25):
God. And how can that be?
Because all God's thinking is correct, so we have a limited
ability to think in a way that'safter his character.
Logic is a great way to do that,and it's something that is only
consistent with a Christian group.
If you've gone through a public education system like I did,
you've been trained to think that subjects are neutral, that
God is irrelevant to math and science and literature.
And so I've had to retrain my brain over the over the decades
to realize, now wait a minute, the fear of the Lord's, the
beginning of knowledge, that's what the Bible says.
And so every topic that I start with should start with God in
its relationship to God. Everyone, this is Yvette
(00:22):
Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse
Rock podcast. I am so excited that you are
back with me this week, and I'm excited to be back with you this
week. I miss being with you guys every
single week, but I am so excitedto be with you this week.
And I have an amazing guest withme.
We got to hear Doctor Jason Lylespeak last year at the Culture
Proof conference with Will and Mickey Addison.
(00:43):
And he was just incredible. And we we've wanted to have him
on the podcast. But I'm going to tell you guys a
little something. I'm going to give you a little
insight into the brain of YvetteHampton.
I am just an ordinary homeschoolmom.
You guys know that about me. If you've been listening to me
for any length of time, you know, I'm just just your average
mom. And so my friend Jenny White,
who works at Master Books, she she's been talking about Doctor
(01:07):
Jason Lyle. She said you've got to get him
on the podcast. You've got to get him on the
podcast. And was I was like, I don't
know. I don't know Jennifer, I don't
know if I can do this. She said, why?
I said, well, because he's crazysmart.
He's an astrophysicist. Like I can even barely say that
word. He's an astrophysicist.
He's he is a scientist. He, he studied astronomy and
physics and mathematics and all these crazy things that I know
(01:29):
almost nothing about. And so I said, I don't know if I
can carry on a conversation withhim.
He scares me. And she laughed at me and she
said, I promise you he is the most friendly, down to earth guy
and you will have a great conversation with him.
So I said, OK, I'm going to trust you.
So here he is. And if he talks over my head,
I'm just going to let him talk because I know that many of you
moms who listen are super crazy smart.
(01:50):
But like I said, Jennifer has assured me that this is going to
be an amazing conversation. And and he is an amazing author.
He's a writer. Many of you know that our family
has started using the Introduction to Logic curriculum
this year. This is by Master Books and he
is the author of this curriculumas well as many, many other
things. You've written lots and lots of
books, and so he has a lot to say on the topics of worldview
(02:15):
and pointing our kids to Jesus. And so over the next couple
weeks, we're going to talk abouthomeschooling with the focus on
eternity and how we can homeschool our kids and point
them to Christ. And you guys know this is my
favorite topic. I love talking about these
things on the podcast. And so I'm super excited to have
Doctor Lyle here with me. But before we get into our
conversation, I'd like to say thank you to our sponsor,
(02:36):
Apologia. If you guys are looking for
trusted homeschool resources to support your child's education
with a strong biblical worldview, find it through
Apologia. You can check them out at
apologia.com. And for decades, they've been
the go to resource for Christianhomeschool curriculum designed
to educate, inspire, and build alifelong love of learning.
They know that homeschooling is not a one-size-fits-all, which
(02:57):
is why they offer a growing catalog of resources to fit your
family's needs. Check themout@apologia.com and
they will partner with you and your family on your educational
journey. apologia.com. Well, Doctor Lyle, for those who
are not familiar with you and I just sort of introduced you, but
not really introduce yourself. Tell our audience who you are,
(03:18):
what you do, and, and, and. I'm excited to get into this
conversation with you. I'm Jason Lyle.
I'm the president and founder ofthe Biblical Science Institute
and what we do as a ministry as we show people how science
confirms what the Bible teaches.I specialize in astrophysics,
but I try to have the website populated with articles on other
(03:38):
topics, geology, biology, whatever, and showing how
biblical creation is true. So I'm a, I'm a fan of Genesis
and the literal history recordedthere and, and why that's
important to Christianity. So that's kind of my, my
specialty field is defending Genesis, especially in the realm
of astronomy. But I, again, I try to, I dabble
in other fields as well, mathematics and so on.
And I just try to encourage people that the Bible is true
(04:00):
and they can trust it. From the very beginning, I was
saved, the Lord Jesus saved me when I was very young.
And out of gratitude for that salvation, I try to live for him
and try to encourage other people to live for him and to
have confidence that the Bible really is the infallible word of
God. Love it.
Well, let's park there for a minute because I want to talk
about Genesis. Let's just jump off into talking
about why. Why does Genesis even matter?
(04:23):
And you know, often times people, you'll hear Christians
today saying, you know, the Old Testament doesn't really matter.
It's old, it's outdated. And as Christians, Bible
believing Christians, we know that that is absolutely not
true. But tell us why?
Why Genesis? Why do we even start there and
then talk really quickly about why?
Why does it matter that we believe in believe in a literal
(04:46):
6 day creation? Really, all of the major
Christian doctrines you can think of have their foundation
in Genesis. Those doctrines couldn't be
defended if Genesis were not real history.
You know, we, we teach that you shall not murder.
That's found in Exodus, but the basis for that is in Genesis.
It's because why is it that taking a human life would be
morally wrong? Because human beings are made in
(05:07):
God's image. And where do we learn that human
and beings are made in God's image?
Genesis chapter 1. It's the first chapter of the
Bible where we find that. And that would only be the case
if it's literally true that weremade in God's image after his
likeness, meaning we reflect hischaracter on a finite creaturely
level. Or why is it that we teach that
marriage is one man and one woman united by God for life?
Well, that goes back to Genesis one and two.
(05:28):
God describes the creation of Adam and Eve and and the Bible
specifically says for this reason, the man shall leave his
father and mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be 1
flesh. God created marriage and he did
that in in the literal history of Genesis.
And so if that history isn't true, then why should marriage
be one man and one woman for life?
And, and that's what we're facing in our culture as people
try to redefine marriage. Those are people who have
(05:49):
rejected the literal history in Genesis.
You can't defend the biblical marriage apart from the literal
history in Genesis. Now why 6 days of creation?
Well, one, it's what the Bible teaches and we're, we're not
allowed to sort of pick and choose which of the scriptures
we're going to believe. They're all inspired by God.
They're all true. They have to be properly
interpreted, of course. But there's no doubt that God
(06:10):
intended us to understand that he made in six days and rested.
One, that's a pattern for us. Exodus chapter 20 says that's
the basis for our work week. The reason we have a seven day
week is because that's how long God chose to create and rest and
he did it that way as a pattern for us.
But the, the real issue that I think most Christians overlook
is it's not the, the, the time scale itself, but if you believe
(06:33):
in the millions of years that evolutionists believe in,
because a lot of Christians get get duped into thinking that,
well, you know, I don't believe in evolution, but maybe they're
right about the billions of years.
Well, they're not. And I, I'm a scientist and I, I
can talk about radiometric dating and stuff like that.
Those are all based on assumptions and things of that
nature. But the reason it matters is
because if you believe fossils are hundreds of millions of
(06:53):
years old, a fossils, a dead thing.
And if that means you got death 100 million years ago.
But we all agree human beings don't go back 100 million years
ago. Human beings are recent.
And so if you believe in the millions of years and you reject
the six days, you automatically believe in death before sin.
But the Bible says that death's the penalty for sin.
It came into the world when Adamsinned as a result of his sin.
(07:16):
That's why Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for our sins,
because death's the penalty for sin.
So you see, if you reject the six days and you accept the
millions of years, you've undermined the gospel.
You've undermined the necessity of Jesus dying on the cross for
our sins because you don't believe that death really is the
penalty for sin. That's why it it matters.
Yeah, I love that. I love that answer.
(07:37):
I know that you talk a lot to homeschool families.
You talk to families all over the place, whether homeschool,
public school, private school, but you talk to families and
parents in general. And as a Christian parent and as
a Christian podcast and as a Christian ministry, our focus
always is to for us to point ourkids to Jesus, but also to help
other parents point their kids to Jesus as well.
(07:58):
There's nothing else that's moreimportant than that.
And so of course, it all starts with God's Word as you speak to
to parents nationwide, worldwidereally, because I know that you
travel all over the world as youspeak to people.
What are you seeing for parents as their most important thing?
Are you seeing that most parentsare really concerned about
(08:20):
leading their kids to Jesus? Or are you seeing something
different than that? Well, a Christian should be,
that should be the primary concern of a Christian parent is
to raise their their children in, in a way that's pleasing to
God, in a way that will promote them receiving Christ as Savior.
Now, only the Holy Spirit can change a person's heart.
We understand that. But nonetheless, there's a
tendency for if you raise your children to love and appreciate
(08:44):
Jesus, there's a tendency when they grow up, they will love and
appreciate Jesus. That's a biblical principle.
You train up the child the way that you should go, and when
he's older, you won't depart from it.
According to the Proverbs, that's a generalization.
Proverbs are generalizations. That doesn't mean you can, you
can't make anybody be saved, butyou certainly can make it more
likely that they will receive Christ as Savior by training
them to think properly and to love Jesus from their youth.
(09:06):
Jesus himself said when a student, when he is fully
trained, will be like his teacher.
And so if if you're the teacher and you're a godly person and
you're teaching your children, they will be come like you.
And if you're a Christian, that's a good thing because
they're going to be more likely to be a Christian if you send
them off to a public school where most of their teachers
will not be Christians. And I realize there are some
(09:27):
Christian teachers in public schools.
And God bless you. I'm glad you're there.
I think you can reduce the damage a little bit.
But nonetheless, it is a secularsystem.
The curriculum is secular. Most of the other students
they're going to be with are secular, and that's what they're
going to learn. Those are the teachers.
People think, well, the person at the front of the classroom
is, is the teacher. The person in the front of the
classroom is a teacher, but not the most important one in terms
(09:49):
of what the student's going to learn.
The curriculum determines primarily what they're going to
learn and then their fellow students really, or how they
learn social skills. And I, I think about that.
Wow. You know, and I say this as
someone who went through a public school system and I, I
survived, but I'm not recommending that for others.
People say, well, you made it up.
You know, you, you turned out OK.
(10:10):
I'm not OK. I'm not OK the the Lord has
saved me and I'm grateful for that.
But I think about it, man. I learned my social skills from
kids who was, who are as ignorant of social skills as I
was. That's not a good, that's not a
good system. The curriculum I was taught was
secular. And so I, I learned to think
about things in a secular way. People don't realize that they
(10:31):
think when they send their students to a public school,
they're going to get a neutral set of skills.
But you're not you're being trained to think as a
secularist. And so that's that's what I
would hope that that that parents would think through.
Now there are non Christians whohomeschool their children and
you know, that's great too, because that's really what the
Bible indicates we're supposed to do.
(10:51):
But ultimately Christian parentsought to have the salvation of
their children. Learning to think in a way
that's consistent with the character of Christ.
That ought to be your number onecriteria.
Learning skills like math and science, those are all good
things and those should be part of the your education system as
well. But the most important thing is
learning to think like Christ, because that's going to affect
(11:12):
where you spend eternity. Yes, absolutely.
So let's let's park there for a little bit and let's kind of
talk through how do we do that? You know, many Christian parents
know obviously that step one is to read the word of God.
But then comes all of the questions, Well, how do we
understand the word of God? How do we teach our kids to
respect the word of God? How do we teach them the things
(11:33):
that sometimes we don't know? Because, you know, I've been a
Christian a long time. I've read through my Bible.
I have I I read my Bible daily, but I don't understand a lot of
things about the Bible. So it would be easy maybe for me
to just say, you know what? I don't understand it all, so
I'm just not going to worry about teaching it to my kids or
I don't feel equipped enough to teach it to my kids.
(11:53):
And so if learning our kids to think like Christ is the most
important thing, how do we teachthem to do that?
Especially for the homeschool mom who does not feel equipped
to do so. First of all, I would I would
encourage any anyone who thinks I'm not up to the task you are.
God has equipped you to do that.These statistics bear that out.
(12:15):
The statistics bear out that homeschoolers have an advantage
over those who are in public school.
They're, I, I forget the exact numbers, but they're, they, they
do 15 to 30% better on standardized tests, particularly
in areas like mathematics and, and reading comprehension,
things like that. So now you might have to study
up a little bit. I, no one said it's going to be
(12:35):
easy. Nobody said you can just, you
know, show up without any, any class notes, any kind of
preparation. You're going to have to think
about it. Keep in mind you do have a
partner, right? I mean, if you're God, God
organized, God created the married the, the family unit, he
created marriage. So you do have your partner
there and you have other people too.
You have people within the church.
If you say, man, I'm really bad at math, but my, my friend at
(12:56):
church is really good at it. There are Co-op groups, things
like that. So you, the church can be part
and should be part. I think of the education
experience of your children. So you're not alone in this.
So #1 you are equipped. God has called you to do that.
God has called parents to educate their children and he
wouldn't call you to do something that you can't do that
you're I'll equipped to do. Secondly, you're not alone in
that. You have your, your husband,
(13:18):
your wife, and you have other members of the church that can
help you. And 3rd, there's a lot of
literature out today. I mean, back when I was a kid,
there was almost nothing. But today there are all kinds of
materials available. I've, I've partnered with my
publisher, a new leaf publishinggroup and Master Books.
They have all kinds of great resources.
(13:38):
The, the logic book that you held up earlier.
I, I specifically had homeschoolers in mind when I
wrote that book that, that wouldbe a great example.
And I actually want to do that with other, with other topics as
well. But I did that with logic to
show people how to think in a Christian way about logic.
It's not just about teaching themechanics of mathematics and
language and logic, but how these subjects relate to Christ.
(14:02):
And that's something that we allneed to think through because if
you've gone through a public education system like I did,
you've not been trained to thinkthat way.
You've been trained to think that subjects are neutral, that
God is irrelevant to math and science and literature.
And so I've had to retrain my brain over the, over the decades
to realize now wait a minute, the fear of the Lord's, the
beginning of knowledge. That's what the Bible says.
(14:22):
And so every topic that I start with should start with God in
its relationship to God. And I've done that, I've done
that with mathematics. I've written some articles in
that with mathematics. I've done that with science,
I've done that with logic. I want to do it with other
fields too, But it, it takes time to do these things.
For example, mathematics, I've written a book on fractals and I
show how mathematics is the way that God thinks about numbers.
(14:44):
And so when you study math, you're studying how God thinks.
And that's awesome to think about.
I mean, how many students today,especially if they've gone
through a public school system, hate math?
You know, it's just something I have to learn.
And it, why do I need to learn this anyway?
When am I ever going to use this?
What if they, what if they realized they were learning to
think like God? I mean, that might change their
(15:06):
perspective on things. If they, if, if you realize when
you're studying math, mathematics, you're actually
doing theology, you're learning,you're learning how God thinks.
And that's why it applies to this universe, because God's
mind upholds the universe. And similarly with logic.
When I wrote that book on logic,it's not just the mechanics of
logic. It's showing how logic
integrates into the Christian worldview, how only the
(15:27):
Christian worldview can make sense of logic.
Why are there laws of logic? Why are there standards of
correct reasoning? Because in the Christian
worldview, there's God. God is the standard of correct
reasoning. How can we learn how God thinks?
Because God has revealed himselfto us in His Word.
That's what the Bible is. That's God expressing some of
his thoughts to us. That's how we know what we know
about God. And so basically I'm trying to
(15:49):
do that in my own life in every subject.
And then I would encourage parents to do that in their own
lives and then in the lives of their children.
Yeah, it's, it's really funny thinking about math.
I am not a math person. I don't understand math very
well at all. I was so proud of myself the
other day. I was doing some division with
my daughter and I was like, I doactually remember how to do
division. Who knew?
(16:10):
I haven't done division on paperfor 35 years.
I don't know, really. Long time, 30 years maybe.
And, and so it's, it's funny thinking through that, but you
know, math is just not my thing.But looking at math from that
perspective of that, it shows uswho God is.
It shows us that God is a God oforder, not chaos, gives you a
whole different appreciation forthe subject of math.
(16:34):
You know, it doesn't mean we allhave to be mathematicians, but
understanding math, at least thebasics of math, really does help
us to see who God is and, and see his character.
And so he's incredible to give us that gift, even the gift of
math. I need to start thinking of it
that way. Math is a gift.
It's not a curse. So to all you homeschool moms
who do not enjoy teaching math to your kids, that is something
(16:56):
to keep in mind. Let's take a break.
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We are back with Doctor Jason Lyle.
I want to talk through, we, we talked of course about the
importance of studying God's Word and knowing God's Word.
(18:21):
But I want to talk about how to understand the Bible 'cause like
I said, you know, that's something that I think many,
many parents are just like, I just, it's so hard to
understand. Even I still read it.
Often times I'm like, I don't understand this.
And often times I'll go to my husband say, can we just talk
through this together? Because I don't understand this
particular part of Scripture. And I use a study Bible.
And so sometimes I'll read the study notes in it, but talk
(18:43):
through how we as parents can understand the Word of God and
then help our kids to understandthe Word of God.
OK, a couple of a couple of things to emphasize.
First of all, there, there is a,there's a science of
understanding Scripture that's called hermeneutics.
And I've actually written a bookon this topic and I didn't use
(19:04):
the fancy word because I don't want people to run away
screaming. But I wrote a book called
Understanding Genesis. And it's really more than
understanding Genesis. It's really about understanding
the Bible. But because I, I love Genesis
and I wanted to specialize in that and because it's the most
distorted book of the Bible. It's Genesis is one of the
easiest books of the Bible to understand.
It's one of the most rejected because people don't like what
(19:25):
it says. It's trade, what they've been
taught in school with the millions of years of evolution.
So I wrote a book basically, howdo we understand?
How do we know that Moses reallyintended us to, to understand
the six days, our six days and and so on.
And I wrote a book basically going through some of these
rules of hermeneutics, how to, how to get to the author's
intention. And you know what, for the most
(19:46):
part, it's not very hard. Now, I'll grant there are some
difficult sections in Scripture.Peter says as much.
He says that in Paul's writings there are some things that are
difficult to understand. So the Bible acknowledges that
there are sections of the Bible that are difficult.
But the main and plain doctrines, I think are very
clear. Salvation by grace through faith
in Christ, very, very clear. Ephesians 28 very, very clear.
(20:07):
I mean, there's, there's succinct statements in Scripture
that we can hang our hats on andsay there's no doubt about that.
So. Rules of hermeneutics, learning
those, learning how to read Scripture.
I believe in what's called the hermeneutical spiral, which
means when you read through the Bible the first time, because
you have an imperfect method of,of understanding the Bible,
there are some things you'll miss.
(20:28):
There'll, there'll be some things you don't understand.
But as you read the Bible, it will correct your theology, It
will correct your hermeneutics, your ability to understand
Scripture. The next time you read the
Bible, some of those things thatyou didn't understand the first
time, you'll say, oh, I get it now because of this other
information that I know. So the more you read the Bible,
the, the easier it is to understand the Bible.
(20:48):
That's a hermeneutical spiral. It gets clearer on each pass,
and that's by God's design. 3rd I I like to use things like
other translations. If there's a difficult passage,
I I like to read from the The New American Standard Version.
That's a fairly literal, fairly formal translation, word for
word. Sometimes if there's a difficult
(21:10):
passage, I'll read it in something like the NIV, which
which is more of a dynamic translation, more thought for
thought, a little easier to read, less word for word, but
more thought for thought. That gives us.
OK, I see at least where the NIVtranslators thought this verse
was going. And then all you sometimes use
commentaries, and I'm especiallyfond of John Gill's commentary
because he had it. He had a comment on every verse
(21:32):
in Scripture. I mean, the guy knew the Bible
well and I don't know a whole lot about it, but I know he knew
his Bible well. And a lot of times if there's a
difficult passage, I'll look at his commentary.
Sometimes I'll compare it with afew others.
I have some, I have actually have software that I can compare
them immediately and bring it up.
And that's, that's kind of a neat thing to do.
So I'll look at commentaries andthen cross references too.
(21:53):
And again, if you have the software, I can hit X on my
software and it'll bring up a list of verses that that are
similar to that, that use some of the same phrasing and I can
compare those. So those would be those would be
some principles I would use. Learn, learn about the rules of
hermeneutics. Remember the hermeneutical
spiral that don't get frustratedif you don't understand a verse
the first time you read it, readthe Bible through, come back,
(22:14):
read it again. Oh, OK, it makes more sense the
second time hermeneutical spiral.
And then other translations, if it's a difficult translation.
And then commentaries, I think are very helpful.
Now, commentaries are not infallible.
And you can, you know, sometimesthey'll disagree with each other
and you could say, OK, if the, and usually when they disagree
with each other, I'm thinking, OK, if these brilliant Bible
(22:35):
scholars have some disagreement about this verse, it's probably
a difficult verse, but that's OK.
The main and plain doctrines, I think are very clear.
So don't, don't be intimidated, don't be afraid to say, I, I'm
not real sure what this verse means.
I mean, when you're, when you'reteaching your, your children
about the Bible, you say, here'swhat I do know.
I know these verses and you say,come to this one.
(22:56):
I'm not real sure to be honest with you, what that means.
They, they respect that. Don't respect that.
Yeah, I was talking to my mom, this was a few months ago.
And I, one of her brothers who is close to 70, I'm not sure if
he's in his 70s yet, but he is just brand new to going to
church. His wife just passed away.
And he's at that point where he's like, man, I, you know, my
(23:17):
life is empty. And my mom's been witnessing to
him for years. I mean, 45 years probably.
And so finally he said, OK, I'm going to go to church.
And she, he lives in a differenttown than my mom lives in, but
he knows that my mom reads her Bible every day.
And so he, he's gone to church for the last few months and it's
been a really good thing. And he's really growing.
And he's trying to understand, he's never read the Bible in his
entire life. So he's trying to understand the
(23:40):
Bible. And he said to my mom recently,
he said, I have a question and Idon't want to offend you.
And she said, well, what's the question?
He said, well, I noticed that you read your Bible every day.
And he's, he has stayed with my mom in her home and he sees that
she reads it every day. And she said, yeah, I read it
every morning. And he said, well, why is it
taking you so long? Why, why have you not read
through it yet? And in his mind, it's like, it's
(24:01):
a book. You just read it through one
time. You know, you start at the
beginning, You read to the end. And why would you read a book
over and over and over again? And so she got a kick out of
that. And she said, well, it the Bible
works differently than any otherbook.
You have to keep reading it overand over because the more you
read it, the the more you learn.And she's like, I'm going to
read it till the day I die and I'm always going to learn more
(24:21):
and more. But it was such an innocent
question that he had as someone who's just discovering God's
word of why would you read it more than one time?
That doesn't even make sense. But I just thought, that's so
cool that he even asked the question.
You know, he was bold and you know, he, he thought he was
being bold to ask this question that he thought might be
offensive. And my mom just said, no,
(24:41):
that's, that's the Christian life.
You read over and over and over and over again.
So let's talk through respect for God's word because that's
something that I think often times as just in our generation
today, we don't have a respect for the word of God.
And as a matter of fact, when myhusband and I got married, one
(25:02):
of the things that he taught me,which I, I carry through to this
day, our whole family does is he.
He was in the military. He was in the Air Force when we
got married and he told me abouthow you never let the American
flag touch the ground. Like that's very disrespectful
to the American flag. You never let it touch the
ground. And so he said because of that
principle, he said I never allowmy Bible to touch the ground
(25:24):
because the word of God is so much more important and powerful
than the American flag. So if I respect the American
flag enough not to ever let it touch the ground, I'm going to
respect the word of God enough. And so as a family, we never,
ever put our Bibles down on the,on the ground.
And I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to shame anybody who
does. I'm, that's just something that
our family has, has done. And so even having a physical
(25:46):
respect for God's word, I think is important.
But how can we teach our kids totruly have a high regard for and
a high respect for the Word of God?
Yeah, I think that will, I thinkthat will come out in, in, in
when we read it, when, when our children see us reading God's
word, they'll, they'll realize it continually.
(26:07):
And, and, and it is different from other books because it has
a richness to it, because it's inspired by God.
And you know, you, you can read Lord of the Rings once and
you've pretty well got it. The Bible, you read it through
every time you're going to get new information from it because
it's just, it's just saturated with, with truth that is
contrary to our, our sinful inclinations.
(26:28):
And so it, it takes a while, it takes a while to, to purge that.
It's a process of sanctification.
But I think just, we, we, we most respect the Bible by
reading it and by applying it. One of the things I try to do, I
think one of the reasons the Bible's so disrespected is
because so many people in our culture think that it's been
disproved by science. And so that's why I founded the
Biblical Science Institute to combat that and show people that
(26:50):
actually, not only is science consistent with the Bible, the
Bible is the foundation for science.
The reason that science works isbecause God upholds his universe
in a consistent way with patterns to be discovered, as
the Bible teaches in places likeGenesis 822, where God promises
the basic cycles of nature, the day and night cycle, the seasons
will continue as long as the earth remains.
(27:12):
Secular humanists cannot answer that question of induction.
How do we know the sun will risetomorrow?
David Hume was stumped on that question.
He was a brilliant philosopher, but not a Christian.
And he couldn't answer how do weknow the sun will rise, I mean,
or even that it's likely that the sun will rise tomorrow.
He knew there wasn't certainty, but I can answer that because I
have a promise from God. Genesis 822, The sun will rise
(27:33):
tomorrow until Judgement Day, and then all bets are off.
We'll continue to have sunrise and sunset.
So the, the Bible provides the foundation for all these other
truths that we take for granted.That's, that's respectful.
And I mean, it's fine to, to symbolically respect the Bible
as, you know, as a book, but it's, it's the information
that's the word of God. So I can have, you know, I have,
(27:54):
I have the Bible on my, my smartphone, you know, and I have
several different translations and that's kind of a neat way
where I can access it. Although usually when I'm just
reading through it, I like to have a physical Bible.
It's just a little easier on theeyes.
But I think it's neat to have that.
I can have it on my smartphone and I have the Greek and Hebrew
there and I can check that out. And that's, that's kind of neat
as well. But I think we most respect the
Bible by reading it and applyingit.
(28:16):
And if your children see you do that, they'll tend to respect it
as well. But you can tell them too.
You can say, you know this, thisbook, and it's really a
collection of 66 books. These are unique because these
were not just a person's opinions, every other book, one
person's opinions or maybe a group of people.
The Bible written by inspirationof God the Holy Spirit, used the
personalities of these people and their life experiences to
(28:38):
have them write exactly one of them to write.
And so when the Bible says something, that's God speaking
and that's very different from any other book.
And so we need to treat it that way.
Well, we've got lots more to talk about, but we are out of
time. Doctor Lyle, can you tell people
one more time where they can find out about you and your
ministry? Yeah, the ministry is the
Biblical Science Institute and the website is Biblical
(28:58):
scienceinstitute.com. A lot of free articles on that
website. And we have a web store where
you can get resources like the Logic textbook and or the
Fractals book, which goes through math and shows how God
has built beauty into that. So a lot of great resources.
Biblical scienceinstitute.com. OK, great.
We'll put those links in the show notes for you guys to make
it easy. Thank you guys so much for
listening today. We will be back with you next
(29:19):
week with Doctor Lyle. If you guys have not seen the
movie Schoolhouse Rock to the Homeschool Revolution, you can
stream it for free through our website, schoolhouserock.com.
Stay tuned to the very end to hear what's coming up next and
we will see you here next week. Have a great week.
Bye. You're listening to the Biblical
Family Network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will and
(29:41):
we're the Co host of the CultureProof podcast.
We want to invite you to join usevery week as we discuss what's
happening in the world and then filter those happenings through
a decidedly biblical. Lens.
There are many questions, especially when we see what's
happening in our culture today, but the answers are found within
the Word of God, so that's wherewe want to look.
Amen. When we resist those cultural
(30:02):
trends that rival the truth. We remain culture proof.
Logic is really about how to useyour mind rightly, and I find it
very interesting because education is supposed to be
about how to use your mind rightly.
What is the one subject that is not taught in just about any
public school? Logic.
Logic is not just correct reasoning, it's thinking like
(30:25):
God. And how can that be?
Because all God's thinking is correct, so we have a limited
ability to think in a way that'safter his character.
Logic is a great way to do that,and it's something that is only
consistent with a Christian group.
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