Participants: David Asscherick, James Rafferty, Jeffrey Rosario, Ty Gibson
Series Code: TT
Program Code: TT000028A
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00:20 So here we are back again in part 2 of a 13 part series
00:25 that is covering, 00:27 "Hard or Difficult Questions for God." 00:28 And we talked about the existence of God 00:30 in our first session together, gave a lot of powerful, 00:34 I think personal experience as well as intellectual, 00:37 in thoughts, insights 00:40 that I think were compelling to me. 00:42 Now there are listeners, I don't know. 00:44 And now we're going to be looking at our second segment. 00:47 We're going to be looking at the question, 00:50 "Is the Bible the Word of God?" 00:52 And we're going to be looking 00:53 at some of the reasons for that. 00:54 I jotted them down here, as Ty and I were taking 00:56 or I was taking some notes from him. 00:57 Historical prophetic, 00:59 there's a lot philosophical and experimental. 01:03 These are some of the aspects or the reasons 01:07 that we look at in relation to the Word of God, 01:09 and can we trust the Word of God, 01:10 is the word of God something that we can look to, 01:14 and believe in and accept, 01:16 and allow it to have a place in our lives. 01:18 We can begin by just asking the question, 01:20 "Does it even matter?" 01:22 Because increasingly, in the world we live in, 01:26 a lot of people don't care 01:29 whether or not the Bible is the Word of God, 01:32 whether or not it's an authoritative text. 01:35 I personally think that it is important, 01:38 but I think there's a reason or a lot of reasons. 01:41 But I think there's one prominent reason 01:43 why so many people in our culture 01:45 are pushing back from the Bible. 01:49 I think that the Bible has been misrepresented by us. 01:53 By us, I mean, 01:55 people who do believe that is the Word of God. 01:56 Oftentimes, we've used the Bible 01:59 or we have postured ourselves with Bible in hand, 02:04 in kind of a top down authoritarian approach. 02:07 The Bible says, therefore, you ought to believe, 02:10 rather than taking the scripture 02:13 for what it really is, 02:14 and it's an unfolding story that is true to reality, 02:19 as we experienced reality in life. 02:21 What I mean by that is this. 02:23 I was raised in a very secular environment, 02:26 there was no Christianity, there was no belief in God, 02:28 nothing like that. 02:31 And then when my mom began to believe in God, 02:36 and she became a Christian, 02:38 the first thing that she did was she put up 02:41 a Christian evangelist, put him up to converting me. 02:46 While my mom and I were from different generations, 02:50 for my mom, even though she was not a believer, 02:53 the Bible had kind of a sacred sense to her, 02:56 even though she had never read it. 02:58 She was raised in a generation, where if the evangelist said, 03:02 the Bible says, she'd say, "Oh, wow, the Bible says that?" 03:07 But then she put this evangelist up, 03:09 she was saying similar things to me. 03:11 And he said, you know, young man, 03:13 the Bible says, and my natural response, 03:15 I wasn't intentionally irreverent, 03:18 it was just that the Bible meant nothing to me. 03:22 Nothing. 03:23 So in my mind, the given wasn't 03:25 that the Bible is authoritative, 03:27 therefore, I should respond. 03:29 To me, it was on the level of other literature. 03:33 I associated it with Shakespeare 03:36 and the Greek myths. 03:37 And to me, it was a book. 03:39 So when the evangelist said, the Bible says, 03:42 and he was expecting a similar response 03:44 that he got from my mom, I was like, "And..." 03:47 And what follows from that. 03:48 What do you mean, the Bible says. 03:50 It was kind of the Bible says 03:51 that I believe in that settles it for me. 03:53 And my natural response would be, 03:55 "Well, it doesn't settle it for me?" 03:57 Because the Bible didn't already have a... 04:00 It didn't have any traction. 04:01 No, it didn't have any traction. 04:03 So I think increasingly, 04:05 we need to answer the question is the Bible the Word of God? 04:09 Not so much from the standpoint of... 04:11 For example, imagine somebody saying to you, 04:14 the Bible is the Word of God, to which they respond and say, 04:17 "How do you know that?" 04:19 To which you respond, "Because it says so." 04:22 That's called circular reasoning. 04:25 The Bible is the Word of God 04:26 because it says that it's the Word of God, 04:29 or is there if we open it are there good reasons, 04:34 in the text itself, 04:36 to persuade us 04:37 that it is what it claims to be, 04:39 and should we examine those reasons. 04:42 I love what you're saying there. 04:44 And I love the fact that you're saying 04:45 that in some significant way, 04:47 it's believers 04:48 that are to blame for the misapprehension, 04:51 a larger misapprehension in culture, not entirely. 04:54 It's not like we, you know, 04:55 they're not completely adjudicated 04:57 of their responsibility, 04:58 because God has a claim on everybody's life. 04:59 However, there is certainly a sense in which we, 05:03 to some degree as believers have misrepresented the text. 05:05 I look at my own preaching, 05:06 I've been a minister now for 17 years, 05:09 a pastor and I think of my early ministry, 05:11 it was very much as you would say, 05:14 as you were describing them. 05:15 The first, or I would say, 05:16 six or seven years of my ministry 05:18 was very factual. 05:20 The Bible says this, therefore, 05:21 you just expect it to elicit a response, 05:25 because you said that the Bible says that... 05:27 And does for some people. 05:28 And it does, and it does, 05:29 particularly as you said, the older generation, 05:31 because the Bible does hold 05:32 a sacred hallowed place in our culture. 05:35 You know, the president puts his hand on the Bible 05:38 or in a court of law. 05:39 So there is this sense in which it's regarded by many, 05:44 and particularly of the older generation 05:45 as possessing a sacred place and culture. 05:49 However, I think there's another sense 05:51 in which we've represented Scripture, 05:53 and that is that we come to Scripture, 05:58 treating it and this is similar to what you're saying, 05:59 but there's a slight variation, 06:01 we treat Scripture like 06:04 it contains the answers to a theology quiz. 06:07 Like it's a creed or something. 06:08 Well, just like, okay, so what happens when you die? 06:11 Let's find that answer. 06:12 And what you know, 06:14 what was the third king of whatever, Israel? 06:17 And then it's like that, 06:18 and certainly there are answers in there... 06:20 Encyclopedia, that's great, exactly. 06:22 What you said is so true 06:24 that the Scripture presents a narrative, 06:26 a revealing and an unfolding a story of who God is. 06:30 And what we're supposed to do is not find, 06:32 and I wouldn't want to be misunderstood on this. 06:35 We're not supposed to find the Bible so compelling 06:38 as we are supposed to find the character 06:40 that the Bible is telling us about compelling. 06:42 And those answers 06:44 to those questions that you're saying, 06:46 what happens when we die this or that, 06:47 you encountered those answers... 06:50 In the story. In the context of the story. 06:51 But too many people, 06:52 they just have the answers without the story. 06:54 Right. 06:55 That's why I like the way the Bible describes itself 07:00 as the Word. 07:01 I just want to say in this context 07:03 that the Bible describes itself as the Word 07:07 and that means that it is manifest 07:11 in not only in an intellectual outline of facts, 07:16 encyclopedia, you know, 07:17 we've got this, but it's manifest in, 07:20 according to John Chapter 1 in a person. 07:23 So we get all mixed up about all of this information, 07:26 a person actually becomes the Word. 07:29 I like this little building block. 07:30 A person actually becomes the Word, I guess. 07:32 And this person that becomes the Word, 07:34 he's manifest among us, and he clarifies now, 07:38 what this book is really all about. 07:41 This book is really all about a person, 07:43 it's all about the life journey, 07:45 it's all about a story, 07:46 it's all about this individual that we call God. 07:49 Yeah, I like the point you're making, 07:51 because that's really what I was trying to get at. 07:54 And you pointed us to John Chapter 1, 07:56 where it says, 07:57 "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, 07:59 and the Word was God." 08:01 And it goes on to say that, 08:03 "The same was in the beginning with God, 08:04 and then the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." 08:07 This is interesting. 08:09 The word, Word in the beginning was the Word 08:11 is the Greek word logos. 08:13 And there are various efforts to translate 08:16 what the sense of that was. 08:18 But in the local Greek culture 08:20 in which the gospel writer would have used 08:22 that particular language described Jesus, 08:26 he's essentially saying, 08:27 in the beginning was the logos 08:29 and the translation would be this, 08:31 in the beginning was 08:34 the logical reason for existence, 08:38 or in the beginning was the rational basis 08:41 for human experience, 08:42 or in the beginning is the meaning of life, 08:45 in the beginning was the logic 08:47 that logically makes sense out of. 08:50 So this is interesting, 08:51 because here John is approaching us 08:55 and not saying the Word is data on a page 09:00 that has authority over your intellect. 09:03 Okay, follow this. I got you. 09:05 He's saying the Word, as James is pointing out, 09:08 is a person who is communicating 09:11 to your intellect. 09:12 It's not bypassing with authority 09:14 and pouncing on you with you ought. 09:17 It's actually coming inside and saying, "Listen, 09:19 if you look at Jesus, 09:21 this personification of the word, 09:24 if you look at Jesus, 09:26 you're going to see the rational basis 09:29 for the things your heart longed for, 09:31 you're going to see the meaning of life in Him." 09:33 So it's approaching us, 09:35 not so much from the top down as from the inside out. 09:38 It's initiating, you know, in the Spanish, 09:40 it says, "In the beginning was the verb." 09:44 So there's action. The verb the voice? 09:46 It is a verb. Yeah, yeah. 09:47 So it just says, 09:49 "In the beginning was the verb," 09:50 that to me, that just sounds different than, 09:51 "In the beginning was the Word," right? 09:53 So it just goes to what you're saying, 09:55 it's initiating. 09:57 So the word is basically, God is initiating something 09:59 and inviting you on a journey that you encounter, 10:02 and then you discover all of life's questions 10:05 on that journey, so to speak. 10:06 Yeah, yeah. 10:07 The thing that you were saying there, 10:09 Ty, reminded me of a theologian I read several years ago. 10:12 And he said that, "You know, 10:14 it's not a hard and fast demarcation 10:16 between the Old and the New Testament." 10:18 But one thing he did bring out, 10:19 I thought was quite fascinating, 10:20 is that in the Old Testament picture, 10:22 the Bible is divided into two kind of parts 10:24 Old and New Testament. 10:26 And he was saying that in the Old Testament, 10:28 God is often there, He's over there. 10:31 He's at the top of the mountain, 10:32 in the clouds and in the smoke, 10:34 He's in the most holy place where only one person can go 10:37 one time a year in the sanctuaries. 10:39 There's this sense of the transcendence of God, 10:42 the otherness of God. 10:44 And he sort of says, "Okay, 10:45 so that's sort of Old Testament." 10:47 And then he says, "You come to the New Testament," 10:49 and he says, 10:50 "But here's this same God, Jehovah God, Yahweh God." 10:53 And Jesus sitting across the table, 10:56 He's sitting down with you, 10:58 there's kids playing on His lap, 11:00 there's women that are coming in, 11:02 you know, anointing Him, in preparation for His burial. 11:05 And he said, 11:06 "What we have in the Old Testament 11:07 is largely transcendence, it's up there. 11:09 What we have in the New Testament 11:10 is He's right there." 11:12 A woman is in the kitchen cooking up a meal, 11:13 and another woman is at His feet, 11:14 asking theological questions. 11:16 And so I love this idea here that John 1, 11:19 what you're saying is, is that, 11:20 in the beginning was the one, the logic, 11:23 the meaning of life, the verb. 11:25 He's coming down in a mutual not top down, 11:30 but thus saith 11:31 the Lord right here, right in this place. 11:32 He came to us and became flash, like that's this... 11:34 And this is really the key, 11:36 we're not going to jump into this right now. 11:37 But this is really key to understanding 11:38 pain and suffering, to understand 11:40 the whole dynamic, 11:41 because the answers don't always come with logic, 11:43 but they come with the fact that Jesus Christ 11:46 that God Himself has stepped into our experience. 11:48 He's with us. He's with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 11:49 Have any of you guys seen this book 11:51 "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris? 11:54 This is, you know, it has a cover on it, 11:56 so it's a book. 11:58 But really, it's a letter. 12:00 It's a letter, that Sam Harris, 12:02 a very prominent advocate in American culture, 12:05 and actually worldwide of atheism. 12:07 He's an unbeliever, 12:09 very staunch and militant, atheist. 12:12 And he just sat down, 12:14 and he wrote a letter to a Christian nation, 12:18 to the United States of America and its population. 12:20 And it's very fascinating that in this letter, 12:23 he begins to flesh out 12:25 why he doesn't find Christianity persuasive, 12:29 and why he doesn't believe. 12:32 I think it's interesting that as you read his letter 12:36 to a Christian nation, 12:38 you would expect from an atheist, 12:40 you expect him to say, "Okay, I don't believe in God, 12:42 and here are the scientific reasons, 12:44 the reasons from physics, 12:45 and the reasons from biology, and the reasons..." 12:48 But this is all pretty much. 12:50 I mean, he references some of that. 12:51 But really, he's saying, "I don't believe in God, 12:54 because the God that has been represented 13:00 isn't worth believing then." 13:01 That's essentially the core of it. 13:02 So he has this one section here in the letter 13:05 where he deals with the Bible. 13:06 This is interesting. 13:08 He says, you got to remember it's a letter. 13:09 So he's addressing Christians, he says, "You, you Christians, 13:12 you believe that the Bible is the Word of God. 13:16 You believe that Jesus is the Son of God. 13:19 And that only those who place their faith in Jesus 13:23 will find salvation after death." 13:27 He goes on and says, "You believe, of course, 13:31 that those who do not put their faith in Jesus 13:35 will burn in hell and be tormented forever. 13:39 So he's saying, okay, 13:42 you want me to believe in God, okay? 13:44 You want me to believe what you believe. 13:46 But the Bible has been represented to me as teaching, 13:51 that there's no way for anybody to be saved, 13:54 who doesn't immediately confess in the immediate sense 13:59 of a direct connection. 14:02 You can't be eternally saved 14:04 unless you have belief in Jesus, specifically, 14:08 and everybody else is going to burn eternally in hell. 14:11 Now, I find it interesting, 14:13 and we're going to have a conversation later on. 14:16 This guy actually asked the question, 14:19 "Can somebody actually be saved 14:20 who never even heard the name of Jesus?" 14:22 And that's going to be a pretty provocative conversation. 14:24 But right now, 14:26 I'm simply pointing out that a lot of unbelief 14:30 is based on misrepresentation... 14:31 Yeah, great point. 14:32 Of what the Bible... 14:34 So if the Bible says that God plays favorites, 14:38 that God is respecter of persons, so to speak, 14:42 that God's a racist 14:43 or God in some way that will save you 14:47 because you were born at the right time 14:48 and heard the right thing, 14:50 but nobody else has access to this knowledge. 14:52 But John Chapter 1 is telling us 14:56 that even before Jesus by the name, Jesus 14:58 came into the world, He was the logos, 15:01 He was the Word that was speaking 15:02 to all people's hearts 15:03 down through history and all cultures. 15:06 But Sam Harris doesn't know that, 15:08 because all he's heard is that nobody, 15:11 but Americans who believe in Jesus 15:15 can be eternally saved, so to speak. 15:17 And that's an exaggeration for effect, 15:19 and anyone who doesn't is going to burn forever in hell. 15:21 But we can sit here 15:23 and we could bring Sam to this table. 15:25 And we could say, "Sam, 15:26 you're now at a table with people who do believe 15:28 that the Bible's the Word of God, 15:30 who do believe that Jesus is the savior. 15:33 And we don't believe that God will torment people 15:36 forever in hell, 15:38 and we don't believe that God is so exclusive and narrow, 15:42 that anybody throughout history who's never had the opportunity 15:47 can no way be..." 15:49 We don't believe that, Sam. 15:50 And what would he say then? 15:52 Well, let me just add to that real quick. 15:53 And then we would say, 15:54 "And we don't believe these things 15:56 based on this book. 15:58 On the Bible! Yeah, that's right. 15:59 In other words, it's not just like, 16:01 because we would be accused in some circles of, 16:04 "Oh, well, you just can't deal 16:05 with the hard passages of Scripture." 16:07 So you've invented this, you know, airy-fairy, you know, 16:10 nice theology, but no, 16:12 we're saying that text doesn't teach that Sam. 16:14 It teaches the exact, yeah. 16:16 The text actually teaches the opposite, 16:18 the text teaches that, in the end, 16:20 God will honor everyone's choice. 16:22 In other words, 16:24 here's what I'm hearing, Sam, say, 16:25 and you actually went and saw him lecture, 16:27 didn't you, Jeffrey? 16:28 Yeah, yeah. 16:30 Here's the takeaway. 16:31 Many people are rejecting God, 16:33 and many people are rejecting the Bible 16:36 for very good reasons. 16:37 For reasons that we ourselves, 16:40 if that were true would reject the Bible. 16:41 Exactly. 16:42 We just don't think it's true. 16:44 And what's interesting about that is in reality, 16:46 they're not rejecting the Bible, 16:47 and not rejecting God. 16:49 Thank you, thank you. That's exactly what I'm... 16:50 But that's not what the Bible is teaching, 16:52 it's not the Bible they're rejecting, 16:53 there's some other idea... 16:54 They're rejecting or lowering God. 16:56 Which Ty bought up the text and it goes on to say, 16:58 "Jesus Christ is the light that lightens every man 16:59 that comes into the world." 17:00 Yeah. Yeah. 17:02 Now so this man has been enlightened by darkness. 17:04 While he's been enlightened by a reality in his brain 17:08 that does not jive, does not equal, 17:11 does not go along with what he hears Christian saying. 17:16 "Wait a minute. 17:17 I can't believe in that kind of a God, 17:18 because that doesn't make sense to me. 17:20 That is out of harmony with the principle of law." 17:25 And the word that I feel is teaching me 17:28 'cause God is teaching all men. 17:31 Something I want to say in that. 17:32 And it doesn't mean we don't want to insult 17:34 Sam's intelligence or anyone else's. 17:36 It doesn't mean that if you heard the truth 17:38 that you would have to believe it, 17:40 in a compulsory sense. 17:42 But at least what you say, 17:44 you would be rejecting the thing, 17:46 not a caricature of the thing. 17:48 You would be saying, "Oh, so that's what the Bible is, 17:50 well, I still don't want to have 17:51 anything to do with it." 17:53 And he says an intelligent rejection 17:54 and not a misrepresentation, not a misunderstanding. 17:56 So would you guys agree with this? 17:58 Is there a sense in which there are aspects 18:03 of or forms that atheism takes that you would actually affirm? 18:07 Yeah, absolute. 18:09 That you would say, if somebody says, 18:11 "I'm an atheist, I don't believe in God. 18:13 And these are my reasons." 18:14 And we could say to them, "We affirm your unbelief." 18:17 We agree with them. 18:18 We would say, "Amen." 18:20 "We affirm your unbelief 18:21 in that picture you just painted. 18:24 Because what you don't believe in is the same thing 18:25 we don't believe in. 18:27 Yeah, several years ago, I watched a debate between... 18:30 That's my alarm going off, waking me up in Australia. 18:33 Several years ago, 18:35 I watched the debate between a devout atheist 18:37 Christopher Hitchens who's passed away since 18:41 and the Christian apologists Dinesh D'Souza, 18:44 and watching this debate at King's College, 18:46 Christopher Hitchens' atheist, Dinesh D'Souza Christian. 18:48 And as the debate is going on, 18:50 I'm pulling for Christopher Hitchens. 18:52 For the atheists? 18:54 I'm pulling for the atheists. 18:55 I'm saying, "Oh, man, that's a great point." 18:56 And I found D'Souza's answers 18:58 to be completely unsatisfactory. 19:00 I literally was wishing I was in the debate, 19:02 not because I think I would be anything 19:04 like an intellectual match 19:05 for the Late Christopher Hitchens, 19:07 But if he had made his opening remarks, 19:08 his 10 minutes of opening remarks, 19:10 just as he had in that debate with D'Souza, 19:13 I literally could have stood up and said, 19:15 "I agree with everything you said," 19:17 and sat down. 19:18 Yeah, yeah, the reasons... 19:20 Because the reasons the objections that he raised 19:22 against the Bible, against religion, 19:24 and against God are all things that I resonate with. 19:27 I would have said, "I agree with that. 19:28 I agree with that. I agree with that. 19:30 Okay, next point." 19:32 So we have to take break. 19:34 But this is a fun discussion. 19:35 And we have the privilege of encouraging 19:40 other people to sit around the table, 19:42 in their local areas and have similar discussions, 19:44 it's very edifying. 19:46 So after the break, we'll just pursue this more. 20:01 Want a seat at the table? 20:02 Well, you're certainly invited. 20:04 Visit our website at lightbearers.org. 20:07 In fact, you may want to make it your homepage, 20:10 because we're always adding something new 20:12 to strengthen your relationship with Jesus. 20:15 At lightbearers.org you'll find thought provoking blogs, 20:19 and verse by verse Bible studies 20:21 on a variety of vital topics. 20:24 Our online resource center 20:26 has an excellent line up of books, CDs, and DVDs 20:30 that present God's Word with clarity and power. 20:35 Our presenters include Jeffrey Rosario, 20:38 James Rafferty, David Asscherick, 20:41 Ty Gibson, and more. 20:44 We also maintain an archive of audio and video messages 20:48 you can access free of charge. 20:50 Feel free to listen online, or download to your computer, 20:53 tablet or smartphone. 20:56 Under events, 20:57 you'll discover locations and dates 20:59 where ministry events will be held 21:00 throughout the year. 21:02 We'd love to see you. 21:03 If you felt a personal call to ministry, 21:06 our Arise School will help get you going. 21:10 We have training programs 21:11 that vary from 9 days to 13 weeks. 21:15 Click on the Learn More link 21:16 for more details about each program. 21:19 Stay up-to-date with the latest sermons, media, 21:22 news and events by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. 21:27 If you'd like to help us 21:28 continue producing gospel resources, 21:30 please donate using our convenient 21:32 and secure web page 21:34 and receive a tax deductible receipt. 21:37 We're here to serve and equip you 21:39 in sharing your passion for Christ 21:41 and the global advancement of His benevolent kingdom. 21:45 Lightbearers.org. 21:46 There's room at the Light Bearers table for you. 21:58 So the question we're tackling in this part of our discussion 22:02 is simply this, 22:04 "Is the Bible the Word of God?" 22:06 You've got to admit, that's a pretty heady claim. 22:08 Very heady. 22:09 To say, "Okay, here's the book, words on the pages, 22:14 and this is in some sense from God. 22:19 And some authoritative. 22:21 Yeah, that's right. And some authority. 22:22 So it's a pretty heavy claim that we're making. 22:24 I think we better say something that backs up 22:25 why we believe that. 22:26 So as James mentioned before, there's the historical, 22:31 there's the philosophical, 22:33 there's the prophetic and the experiential. 22:36 What do you want to tackle? 22:37 Is there something that appeals more to your mind 22:41 that is persuasive than another? 22:43 I mean, why do you believe the Bible is the Word of God? 22:46 I guess that's what I'm asking. 22:48 Can I ask this question? 22:49 Or can I throw this in that mix? 22:51 We say the Bible is the Word of God, 22:52 but I feel like even that requires clarification. 22:55 I know that, that required clarification 22:57 for me when I became a believer. 22:58 Okay, what does that mean to say, it's the Word of God? 23:01 There's many words in there. 23:02 Does that mean God dictated it? 23:03 Exactly. 23:05 I like to say it this way, 23:06 the Bible is God's revelation to the world, 23:11 and a story, and the man Jesus. 23:13 But that doesn't mean that the Bible is the words of God. 23:18 Now let me just clarify what I'm saying 23:20 that what I'm not saying there. 23:21 God didn't dictate, okay write that and write that, 23:25 and then write that and then write that. 23:27 In fact, in the whole of Scripture, 66 books, 23:30 thousands of chapters, tens of thousands of words, 23:33 there are precious few words 23:34 that God Himself wrote with His own finger. 23:36 And those were The Ten Commandments 23:38 on tablets of stone. 23:39 So when we're reading, for example, Isaiah, 23:41 if I just close my eyes, and somebody started reading, 23:44 you guys can do the same thing, 23:45 those that are familiar with Scripture would say, 23:47 "Ah, that sounds like Isaiah." 23:49 And then if you just start reading, 23:50 "Oh, man, that sounds like that's Paul." 23:51 All right. 23:53 But what's going on? 23:54 Or their stylistic concerns that... 23:56 They're stylistic individuals were actually writing. 23:59 God did not come into and start... 24:00 There's the human fingerprint, again. 24:02 That's why you could even identify. 24:03 Okay, so... 24:05 If it was dictated it would all sound the same. 24:06 Sound the same. 24:08 So then the question is, what do we mean when we say, 24:10 we're asking the question, "Is the Bible the Word of God?" 24:12 And we're about ready to provide 24:13 these reasons for it. 24:15 I like a quotation, 24:17 a statement that I read a number of years ago, 24:20 where Ellen White said, 24:25 "God as an author 24:27 is not represented in Scripture," 24:29 and then went on to say, 24:31 "Not only as God not represented as an author," 24:34 then went on to say, 24:36 "that the prophets were God's pen men, 24:39 not His pen." 24:41 Not His pen, yeah. Yeah, I've read that too. 24:42 So this idea is, 24:44 I like the way Abraham Joshua Heschel, 24:46 there's a statement I read by him just recently, 24:50 where he said, 24:52 "The prophets are people, 24:54 not a microphone." 24:56 And that was his way of saying... 24:58 Making the same point. 25:00 Yeah, there's a human element, 25:02 and that human element is expressed by Peter 25:05 when he says, "Holy men of old spoke 25:08 as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." 25:09 So the Holy Spirit is present, and active, 25:12 moving upon the human agent, 25:14 and the human agent is then writing 25:16 and that's why you see that 25:18 Paul's writing style is different 25:19 than Isaiah sort of... 25:21 But it makes perfect sense, right? 25:22 Because people are different. 25:24 I love that explanation. 25:26 People are different. 25:27 The reader is different. 25:29 We're not all the same. 25:30 So by having a revelation 25:33 that consists of different personalities 25:35 with different styles and different language, 25:38 it appeals to different people. 25:40 It wasn't uniformly. 25:41 Okay, I just want to put that on the table before we... 25:43 Okay, so in answer to your question, 25:45 you asked the question, 25:46 "Is there one that appeals to you? 25:48 And I would say, as much as I wish that in some sense, 25:51 I could say, "Well, I examined the evidences 25:55 for the historicity and believability of Scripture. 25:58 And I came to a reason to conclude." 25:59 Okay, that's not what happened in my life. 26:01 In my life, I was in a period of depression, 26:04 I was in a period of discouragement, 26:06 and you guys know me, I'm normally a happy, 26:08 upbeat, buoyant person. 26:10 This was a dark period of my life. 26:12 It was a difficult period of my life. 26:13 I was 23 years old, 26:15 sort of searching for direction, 26:16 haunted by aimlessness 26:17 and had been through a personal tragedy 26:21 difficult situation. 26:22 And I opened up a book that wasn't even the Bible, 26:25 it was a book about the Bible. 26:26 But the thing that I opened up 26:28 the, the whole opening page was the story of Luke's, 26:32 not the story, it was the passage of Luke 17. 26:35 And Jesus says the story, Jesus is there. 26:37 He's sitting on top of a mountain, 26:38 He's looking at a city, Jerusalem. 26:40 Now, I don't know much about the Bible, 26:41 hardly at all. 26:43 At that point, you mean? At that point. 26:44 He's looking at the city, and He's crying. 26:46 And He's saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 26:48 how often I wanted to gather you to get." 26:50 And I had a resonance with this guy, Jesus. 26:53 Who is this guy, Jesus? 26:54 He's crying, He feels rejected, He feels forlorn. 26:56 And that's exactly 26:58 how I was feeling at that moment. 26:59 That's amazing. 27:00 And so in a super, 27:02 but I can only describe as a supernatural synergy. 27:05 I felt a resonance with Jesus and a resonance with Luke 17 27:10 that came before any intellectual, historical, 27:14 philosophical reason before I ever got there. 27:16 I was like, "Man, this is speaking to my soul." 27:20 Something very similar happened to me, 27:22 but as we're all individuals from a totally different angle. 27:26 I grew up witnessing a lot of concrete evil, 27:29 a lot of suffering. 27:30 And as a child, 27:33 all I saw going on around me was horrible. 27:37 It was just bad. 27:38 And I didn't like it. 27:40 And there was a big problem in my mind. 27:43 And the problem was that 27:45 I couldn't accept the existence of God. 27:47 And I couldn't accept the Bible as the Word of God. 27:50 Because I couldn't understand 27:52 how a God with any kind of power 27:56 that is significant could exist, 27:59 and allow for the kind of stuff I grew up witnessing. 28:02 So you resonated with a book that was about the Bible, 28:07 similar for me. 28:09 And the thing that came to my mind, 28:11 I love what you said that you saw Jesus crying, 28:15 and sad about what was going on 28:19 in the city of Jerusalem. 28:21 I suddenly encountered this idea 28:24 that God is love. 28:27 I always thought of God in terms of power, 28:29 if there is a God, I wasn't sure there was a God. 28:31 But I thought, well, God, if God exists, 28:33 would have to equate to a lot of power. 28:36 So why isn't He doing anything? 28:37 You know, it was a very simplistic... 28:39 I think a lot of people have that similarly simplistic view. 28:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 28:42 But then all of a sudden, 28:43 this idea of love was thrown in picture. 28:46 And all of a sudden, I thought, "Wait a minute, 28:49 there's a different way to look at this." 28:50 And like your experience, my heart began to resonate. 28:54 And then, as I mentioned earlier, 28:56 the evangelist who was saying, 28:57 the Bible says, young man, therefore you ought to believe. 29:00 Well, I actually believed before the Bible had authority. 29:04 And then the Bible gains traction with me, 29:06 I began to see that it was authoritative, 29:08 because it was speaking to me 29:10 on the premise of the things that were making sense, 29:13 at that point in my life. 29:15 You're longing to understand God 29:17 is something more than just power force. 29:19 Yeah. 29:20 That the actual verse I said, Luke 17, earlier, it's Luke 19. 29:24 The actual verse I can still remember this. 29:26 I was in a dorm room in Laramie, Wyoming, 29:30 it was October, 29:31 I can't remember the details very well. 29:33 I could tell you the posters that were on my wall, 29:35 I could tell you what I'd had for dinner that night. 29:36 I mean, this was a moment for me. 29:39 I think when we look back over our lives, you know, 29:41 we remember those peaks... 29:42 So many things. Slow motion. 29:43 Everything's in slow motion. Exactly. 29:45 This is in the trailer of David's life. 29:46 This is like in the trailer, the movie trailer, 29:49 and it was this verse that I read. 29:51 "Now as he drew near, he saw the city 29:54 and wept over it." 29:56 And I don't know what it was. 29:57 I was raised in sort of a nominal Christian home. 29:59 But the picture that I had of Jesus in my mind 30:02 did not include Him in an emotional consternation, 30:08 frustration, rejection, weeping over a city. 30:12 And I tell you, the resonance there was like, 30:15 "Who is this guy? 30:18 And why is He crying? 30:20 And why is He acting like that?" 30:21 That's not the God that Jesus said. 30:24 It's really interesting because we all came in 30:29 through similar experiences, from similar backgrounds. 30:32 And I remember the verse that was my verse, 30:34 you know how it is, every once in a while, 30:36 maybe it's a year or a few months 30:37 but there's a verse you read, and it's your verse. 30:39 And it's because it really speaks 30:40 to where you are in your experience. 30:42 At that point. 30:43 And when I first became, 30:44 I'm going to say it in a different way, 30:46 when I first committed my life to the Lord, 30:49 because I was raised a Christian, so to speak. 30:51 I went to a Catholic school, I was an altar boy, 30:53 went to church every week as a kid. 30:56 But I was totally immersed in the world, 30:59 especially my teenage years. 31:00 So I gave my heart to Jesus 31:02 and actually started studying the Bible. 31:03 There's a verse that I read, 31:04 and it's one that's familiar with all of you, 31:06 it's 2 Peter 3:9. 31:08 And that verse basically says 31:11 that God is long suffering toward us. 31:14 He's not willing that one would perish, 31:16 but that all would come to repentance. 31:19 And that was it for me. 31:20 I mean, that verse spoke to me. 31:22 And it informed me about this God. 31:25 This wasn't a God that I just had to appease 31:27 and make sure I went to confession, 31:28 and make sure I said so many prayers, 31:30 and made sure I went to church, you know, so many times a year, 31:33 including Christmas and Easter. 31:35 This wasn't, that wasn't Him. 31:36 This was a God that was long suffering. 31:38 Patience. 31:39 Loved me so much. 31:41 He was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting 31:42 and He didn't want me to perish. 31:44 He did not want me to perish. 31:45 He was not wanting anyone to perish. 31:48 He wants everyone to come to repentance. 31:49 And that was it that all of a sudden, 31:51 the Bible meant something, 31:52 now the Word of God meant something to me, 31:54 rather than just this intellectual outline 31:56 of how you practice religion. 31:58 The common theme in yours and your story, 32:01 and your story and my story 32:02 is that the first thing that appealed to us 32:04 in Scripture that really began to give Scripture 32:06 traction or credibility 32:08 was a picture of God that was beautiful. 32:11 Yeah, that's right. 32:12 God is love. God is patient. 32:14 He wants to save even me. 32:15 Jesus is weeping. Yeah. 32:17 Was yours, anything like that, Jeffrey? Or was it... 32:19 I just take a completely different direction, 32:21 because I mentioned earlier that for sure, 32:24 there was this sense of purpose 32:27 and meaning that I was looking for. 32:29 But actually, the intellectual reasons 32:33 played a more prominent role for me earlier. 32:35 And I think it's important to address this now. 32:39 This idea that 32:41 God doesn't expect us to believe without giving us 32:45 sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith. 32:48 There is this concept that the Bible is not merely 32:51 a philosophical proposition. 32:53 So the biblical worldview, 32:55 Christianity is not a philosophical system. 33:00 It's actually a record of things 33:02 that took place in real time. 33:04 That's right. 33:05 Real events with real people, 33:07 God entering into time and space 33:10 and things happened. 33:11 And so, that to me was really powerful in the idea 33:15 that the Bible 33:16 is a historical document really, 33:18 of God's interaction with humanity. 33:20 And so to me, I began to think, "Okay, wait, 33:23 the claims of Scripture are different 33:26 than some of the other things I've been exposed to." 33:28 And so there's prophecies, 33:30 there's prophetic promises in the Bible, 33:32 where God promised 33:35 that certain things would take place. 33:37 And so I actually literally went to the library... 33:41 You love the library. 33:43 And I consulted different source material, 33:47 to try to figure out if the things 33:49 that were recorded here actually took place. 33:52 So to me, no question, the emotional need, 33:56 and the emotional hunger and thirst, 33:57 and searching for meaning was important. 33:59 But I was confronted with the fact 34:01 that the Bible is a historical document. 34:04 And the theological claims that it makes 34:08 are based on the historical reality 34:11 of that these things actually happened. 34:13 And then from those things, I, you know, 34:16 we jumped to the meaning and the theology behind it. 34:19 When you mentioned prophecies, Jeffrey... 34:20 Yeah. 34:22 Prophecy is a powerful 34:25 internal testimony to the supernatural origin 34:30 of the book that we call the Bible. 34:33 This is very interesting for me, 34:35 we all are familiar with the fact 34:37 that there are somewhere between 300 34:40 some even have counted 400 prophecies 34:43 in the Old Testament, 34:45 foretelling the coming Messiah, 34:48 Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world. 34:50 And that's hundreds of statements with details 34:54 that are saying, He'll be like this, 34:55 He'll do this, there are all kinds of details. 34:59 Just a few of them here, this is just eight of them. 35:02 The Prophet Micah foretold that the Messiah would be born 35:06 in a particular town, Bethlehem. 35:09 And Jesus was in fact, born in Bethlehem. 35:13 At that point, you're saying, "Oh, yeah, well, so what? 35:15 Lots of people were born in Bethlehem." 35:17 But watch where this goes. 35:19 Isaiah, the prophet foretold that the Messiah 35:22 would be heralded by a forerunner type figure 35:26 who would be a country boy, 35:28 who would be out in the wilderness crying out 35:30 and telling people, "Hey, He's coming. 35:31 He's coming. He's coming." 35:33 And as the story unfolds, in the New Testament, 35:35 Jesus was preceded by a forerunner, 35:37 John the Baptist, 35:39 who talked about the fact that He was coming. 35:41 So that's two now. 35:42 Then three, Zachariah foretold 35:46 that He would enter into the city of Jerusalem 35:49 riding on a donkey. 35:51 And then, in fact, 35:52 Jesus did at a certain point in His ministry, 35:57 fulfilled that exact prophecy. 35:59 Now we're up to three or four. 36:02 And then... 36:03 No, that was number three. 36:05 The number four is Zachariah also foretold 36:07 that Jesus would be betrayed 36:10 into the hands of His enemies by a friend. 36:13 And we think of the experience with Judas. 36:16 Number five, 36:17 Zachariah foretold that the Messiah would be betrayed 36:20 specifically for 30 pieces of silver, 36:22 and He was. 36:23 Number six, 36:25 that the money would be used by a potter's field, 36:27 and it was. 36:29 Number seven, 36:30 Isaiah foretold that Jesus would be remain silent 36:34 under excruciating suffering and abuse and He was. 36:37 And false accusations. In fact, false accusations. 36:40 And finally, number eight, 36:41 King David foretold that the Messiah would die 36:44 by having His hands and feet pierced, 36:46 and Jesus was crucified. 36:47 Now, where I'm going with this as you brought up prophecy, 36:51 there are 300, approximately 300 prophecies, 36:55 foretelling different details of Jesus' coming. 37:00 Now, the chances of even eight, I just gave eight, 37:04 the chances of even eight of them being fulfilled 37:08 go in the direction of impossibility 37:10 for all of those to converge in one figure, 37:13 and to be fulfilled. 37:14 We're familiar 37:16 with what's called probability math. 37:19 And Jeffrey and I were investigating this. 37:22 And Jeffrey, what are the numbers? 37:24 I mean, what are the chances 37:25 that eight things would be fulfilled by? 37:26 There's a professor actually, 37:28 Professor Stoner was the professor 37:30 who with his student group did a research project 37:34 to find out the mathematical probability. 37:36 And what they came up with was that with just eight, 37:39 as you've mentioned. 37:41 The chances of one man in one lifetime 37:44 fulfilling those say would be one in tenth to the 17th power. 37:49 That if one was 1700... 37:51 I don't even know, what do you call that number. 37:54 It's not Googleplex, but it's going there. 37:57 Yeah. 37:58 Who know where it's going. 37:59 But anyways, the analogy that they used was, 38:05 that would be the equivalent of taking 38:06 that amount of silver coins, 38:09 one in tenth to the 17th power, 38:11 and scattering them throughout the state of Texas... 38:14 By like two feet down. 38:16 That number would reach about two feet deep. 38:18 And if you were to take one of those coins 38:19 and put an X on it and hiding it, 38:21 take some subject and blindfold them 38:24 and have them walk up and down the state of Texas. 38:26 And at some point, 38:27 dip their hand in and pull out one of those coins... 38:30 That coin? 38:31 It have to be that coin. 38:32 To pull up that coin with the X 38:34 would be the probability 38:36 that will be one in tenth to the 17th power. 38:37 Wow, that's a good way of illustrating it. 38:39 So every time you add number nine, you read eight, 38:42 when you add nine, the probability goes wacky, 38:46 it gets wacky, and then you go all the way up. 38:48 And then they reached as far as I can remember, 38:51 48 of the 300 prophecies 38:55 would be one in tenth to the 157th power. 38:59 That's one with 157 zeros next to it. 39:02 So it's just 49. It just gets crazy. 39:04 Just to give another illustration. 39:06 That would be like somebody right now 39:10 foretelling that the 68th President 39:13 of the United States 39:15 will be born in Riverside, California. 39:17 Well, there's a... There's a chance. 39:20 There's a chance that can take place. 39:21 But then you add to that, 39:23 that person will be voted in 2030. 39:29 Now it's going, 39:30 that's not likely that you could foretell. 39:33 And then you say, 39:34 and that President will be a woman. 39:37 And then you say that President will be assassinated, 39:41 and that the assassination implement 39:43 will be a 22 caliber rifle. 39:46 You see where it's going. 39:47 For every and you every throw in, they just... 39:50 Yeah, yeah, 39:51 it goes into the realm of impossibility. 39:53 So what about 300 of those ands? 39:54 Yes, 300 of those ands, 39:56 and basically, you'd be saying that 39:59 you would have to have something that 40:01 could only be called foreknowledge, 40:04 to know that those things are going to all line up 40:08 and converge and boom! 40:09 In that person. Happen in one individual. 40:12 And that's what we're dealing with 40:13 when we're dealing with this book. 40:15 We're dealing with that kind of accuracy. 40:18 And that's Messianic prophecies regarding one individual. 40:21 But then there's the sweeping prophetic 40:24 chapters in Scripture, where it's essentially, 40:27 foretold the movement of kingdoms, 40:30 and nations, and empires and things like that, 40:33 like the breakup of the Roman Empire. 40:36 How does that work? 40:37 Yeah. 40:39 Alexander The Great's Empire, how it would dismantle. 40:41 Details of these things are given, 40:44 and you just can't look away. 40:45 That's kind of what got me. 40:46 I was 17 years old, 40:48 I just couldn't walk away from that, I had to... 40:50 Well, those claims are historical claims. 40:52 They're verifiable. 40:53 Because I go to the library, 40:54 and you look and you cross check 40:56 with the source material, and you just have to, 41:00 you know, face to face with that, 41:02 you have to deal with that somehow. 41:03 It is interesting. 41:04 And maybe we'll talk about this 41:06 when we come back after the break. 41:07 But one of the chief criticisms by people who reject the Bible 41:11 as the Word of God is that 41:14 some of these things are too accurate. 41:15 They must have been written later than the dates 41:18 that are traditionally assigned to them. 41:19 Yeah, especially with Daniel. 41:20 Yeah. So it ends up getting like... 41:22 I love that. 41:23 I love that as the Bible will make those... 41:24 That's a great problem to have. 41:26 Yeah, a great problem to have. 41:27 It's good. 41:28 You're too accurate. 41:30 It is. 41:31 That is accurate that we got to find a way 41:33 to reason around this 41:34 because it's just too perfect, so... 41:35 Another thing that's, I think we'll touch on to 41:38 is that there's too many inconsistencies in, 41:40 for example, the gospels, which I think is another 41:43 good argument for the authenticity of it. 41:45 Right. 41:46 You said inconsistency or consistency? 41:48 Yeah, yeah, inconsistency. 41:49 Inconsistency. That's right. 41:50 So let's take the break that we're obligated to take 41:52 and then we'll come back and continue. 42:02 A Light in Zambia is a moving video documentary 42:05 that traces the stories of five amazing 42:07 African men and women who encountered Christ 42:10 through the powerful medium of gospel literature. 42:13 To receive your free copy, call 877-585-1111 42:18 or write to Light Bearers, 37457, Jasper Lowell Road, 42:23 Jasper, Oregon 97438. 42:26 Simply ask for the Zambia DVD. 42:35 I really like this. 42:37 I think that one of the key for me, 42:40 proofs of the Word of God is prophecy. 42:43 I remember when I first started studying prophecy, this was, 42:47 you know, a little bit later, I'm moving in now 42:49 to really understanding the Bible, 42:51 and I'm studying prophecy. 42:52 And I'm coming to the conclusion 42:54 that God has this prophetic outline 42:56 that includes a history of the world 42:58 that is authenticated, 43:00 it's confirmed by world history. 43:02 But it ends with this idea 43:05 that the world is going to go in a direction 43:08 of religious control and enforcement of worship. 43:11 And I remember, this was 1984, I was brand new Christian. 43:15 And I remember thinking in those days, 43:17 we were living under the umbrella of communism. 43:20 I mean, it was huge. 43:21 USSR, they had more tanks, they had more missiles, 43:24 they had nuclear submarine. 43:25 I mean, this was huge. 43:27 And in my mind, I was challenged, 43:29 because I had seen 43:31 the prophetic delineation of truth 43:34 match up with history. 43:35 But this idea 43:37 that was being presented as a conclusion 43:39 didn't make sense to me. 43:41 There was no... 43:42 I just, "How is this going to happen?" 43:44 And five years later, and I set that up by faith, 43:46 I was like, "Okay, the Word of God so far, 43:48 so far, so far, yes, yes, yes." 43:50 What I guess I'm trying to say is that our viewers and we, 43:53 I think would agree that while the Word of God 43:57 proves itself and establishes itself, 43:59 there's still room for faith. 44:00 There's still room for questions 44:02 that haven't been answered, and I had those. 44:04 I separated by faith. 44:06 And then in 1989, 44:09 in December of 1989, specifically... 44:11 I remember it. 44:12 When that wall came down in all of those countries. 44:15 Boom! Boom! Boom! 44:16 I remember that. 44:18 When you're reborn? 44:19 I've seen it on TV. 44:20 When you're born, Jeffrey? 44:22 1982. 44:23 You can go to the library and check this out. 44:24 1982. 44:26 You can go the library. 44:27 But I'm telling you... 44:29 I beat you in archives. 44:30 You can actually come to my house 44:31 because I've got all the documentation 44:33 because it was so faith. 44:34 I mean, my faith soared, I went orbit, 44:35 I was out of the atmosphere. 44:37 When communism fell, 44:38 I said, "Wow, Bible prophecy is incredible, 44:41 the Word of God." 44:42 And since that time, I have a Bible 44:44 that was printed before 1985. 44:46 I bought it in 1985. 44:48 And people will say to me about what the Word of God? 44:49 I'm not sure, I'm not sure. 44:51 I'm saying, let me just share with you this prophecy. 44:52 This Bible is actually printed before 1985. 44:55 And here's a prophecy that was fulfilled in 1989. 44:57 And let me read you the prophecy from the Bible 44:59 that was printed before 1985. 45:00 Of course, you know, the Bible styles. 45:02 And now look at how this was fulfilled. 45:04 Look at how it matches up, isn't this incredible? 45:06 And they go, "Wow! Okay. Yes." 45:08 Powerful, make sense. 45:10 So that's more of what we're referring to 45:13 as the prophetic evidence that the Bible 45:17 is the Word of God, because remember, 45:18 our question here for this conversation 45:21 is simply, "Is the Bible the Word of God?" 45:23 Is it? 45:25 We've talked about the experiential aspect 45:27 of that question 45:29 and how each of us 45:30 have had an experience with the Word of God. 45:31 Yes. 45:33 But now the prophetic... 45:35 And it ties in with historical. 45:36 It does. Yeah. 45:37 And then what about the historical? 45:39 Jeffrey, you've spent a lot of time with this 45:42 at the library, no doubt. 45:44 Since you love the library... 45:45 These times online. 45:46 But seriously, man, 45:48 what are some historical evidences 45:52 for the Bible is the Word of God 45:54 that you've discovered? 45:55 I think one awesome thing 45:56 is the testimony of archaeology. 46:00 You know, the speed is unearthing 46:03 a lot of what has been recorded in Scripture 46:07 that is actually legitimate history. 46:09 Because one of the main things 46:12 that we hear is the Bible is a good moral book with good, 46:16 you know, moral counsel to life. 46:19 Yeah, do unto others, 46:20 turn the other cheek, and so forth. 46:22 But it's not actually literally historical. 46:26 You don't actually believe 46:27 that the things that are recorded in here 46:28 actually took place. 46:30 So one of the things for me that I find affirming, 46:33 in my confidence in Scripture 46:35 is the fact that there's so many 46:37 archaeological discoveries 46:38 that have corroborated the claims of the Bible. 46:41 For example, it was common throughout universities 46:46 to deny that David in Scripture, King David... 46:51 Basically the central figure 46:52 of the Scripture of the Old Testament... 46:53 Yeah. 46:55 That he even existed, and that's a big deal 46:56 for what you just said, 46:58 and we're talking about a central foundational figure. 47:00 And if he didn't exist, a whole lot of stuff 47:03 recorded in the Bible is... 47:04 New Testament, Son of David. 47:06 Right, even the identity of Jesus. 47:09 And then there's a discovery made 47:11 in Northern Israel, Tel Dan, 47:15 in the archaeological site called Tel Dan 47:17 where they discovered a piece of stone 47:22 that literally is recording 47:25 different ancient military conquest. 47:27 And it says, "From the house of David." 47:31 And for the first time, in modern times, 47:33 we have extra biblical evidence 47:38 that is evidence outside of the Bible 47:40 that confirms that the stories that you're reading 47:42 actually happened, right? 47:45 And there's this thing called the Sennacherib Prism, 47:49 where all of these conquests and wars in the Old Testament 47:51 between the Assyrians and the Edomites, 47:54 and the Hittites and the Amorites. 47:55 And now we have stones that are records 47:59 from different civilizations that were not even 48:02 the people of God, 48:03 that were not even Israelites 48:06 confirming what the biblical historians, 48:09 inspired historians have taught. 48:10 So I find that compelling. 48:12 It is compelling. 48:13 I find that important, 48:14 because I need to have confidence 48:16 that what I'm reading is actually legitimately 48:19 true and real, 48:21 in order for me to confidently 48:24 apply the theological implications to that, right? 48:26 Yeah. 48:27 So archaeology is huge. I think that's huge. 48:31 And we can go on and on and on. There's a lot of this. 48:33 I mean there's even a journal biblical archaeology review, 48:36 that's published regularly. 48:38 So I mean, there's stuff constantly 48:40 coming out from that and there's over... 48:42 One scholar said, there's over 25,000 48:47 archaeological discoveries, some major, some minor 48:51 that corroborate different details 48:53 of the biblical historical record, 48:55 I think that's... 48:56 Okay, that's the point I was going to bring out 48:57 is that it's not just the individual situations 49:01 that take place there in Tel Dan 49:02 or some discovery of this people 49:04 or the mentioning of this name. 49:06 I remember a number of years ago, 49:07 I read about 49:09 a particular piece of pottery or something that was found 49:11 that looked to be like a receipt 49:13 that had to do with Solomon's temple. 49:15 There you go. 49:16 And it's not just these individuals sort of... 49:18 It's indirect. Yeah. 49:19 Exactly. 49:20 So here's the thing that I find fascinating 49:22 is it the Bible presents a whole story 49:25 about a time and a culture and a people 49:28 in a certain place, in a location, 49:30 and those people are there, 49:31 and there's a river that flows like this. 49:33 And so there's a whole picture that's painted. 49:35 Well, we have had centuries now at least two good centuries 49:40 of biblical archaeology 49:42 or just archaeology, just drop the biblical, 49:44 of archaeology in the Middle East 49:46 to either corroborate and confirm 49:49 this basic template that's presented in Scripture 49:51 or to say, "What? 49:53 It's nothing like that. Not at all." 49:55 And yet, what continues to emerge is, as you say, 49:58 major and minor confirmations 50:01 of the basic picture that's presented in Scripture. 50:05 Now, does that mean that the Bible is the Word of God? 50:06 No, it could just be a very accurate 50:08 historical record of various times, 50:10 places, rivers, mountains... 50:12 Except for when you add the prophetic part. 50:14 Except and then you add the prophetic part. 50:16 And then for me, 50:17 I love the prophetic part, by the way. 50:19 It was hugely influential with me as well, James. 50:20 And I think the thing that we need to say is, 50:22 what makes the prophetic part so important 50:24 is that you have to have, as you said, 50:25 foreknowledge, there has to be somebody 50:28 who's saying in advance, 50:29 "Okay, this is what's going to happen." 50:31 But for me, and maybe this is a little too touchy feely, 50:34 I don't know but... 50:35 We'll tell you. I say it this way, you tell me. 50:38 No one could have invented Jesus. 50:42 Jesus defies invention. 50:44 If you were going to create a Messiah figure, 50:47 I'll tell you right now, 50:49 if a human was going to create a Messiah, 50:50 he doesn't look like this guy. 50:52 He's not saying that, he's not doing that, 50:54 he's not acting like that. 50:56 Who writes this? 50:58 Even Jewish people had a hard time 51:00 accepting Him as the Messiah. 51:02 And people, they would go to Him and they would say, 51:03 on one occasion, there's a story 51:05 where people are going to go arrest Jesus, 51:07 and they go to arrest Him. 51:08 And they're like, "Well, we couldn't arrest Him." 51:09 "Well, why couldn't you arrest Him?" 51:11 "Well, because nobody talks like that." 51:12 Over and over again, the point is made 51:15 that He didn't speak like the rabbis, 51:17 He didn't speak like the scribes, 51:18 He didn't speak like the Pharisees. 51:20 And it's not just His words, the way He carries Himself. 51:23 Many times He holds in, you know, 51:27 respect the very people that you would have thought, "Oh." 51:30 He's countercultural, He's revolutionary, 51:34 He's tender, yet firm, 51:36 I just really believe that 51:38 He defies the ability to have been written by Him. 51:43 That's a good point. 51:45 Ty, there's another really important point here, 51:46 I think that we should make. 51:48 And that is that the only way you can really 51:53 disregard this compelling evidence 51:58 that we're talking about prophetic 52:00 and historical accuracy is 52:01 by holding the Bible as a historical document, 52:06 to a different kind of... 52:09 Standard. 52:10 Standard that we do every other piece of history. 52:13 And there's a lot of research, 52:15 there's a lot of literature on this. 52:17 And if you were to take, for example, 52:19 the history of Greece, 52:20 everything we know about Alexander the Great, 52:22 and the Greek wars and so forth, 52:24 you got two main players is Thucydides and Herodotus, 52:27 these are Greek historians. 52:29 Everything we know significantly about Greeks... 52:32 Almost everything. Almost everything I should say. 52:33 These two guys, these two main players, 52:35 then you have Rome and you have Tacitus 52:37 the Roman historian. 52:40 The interesting thing is that 52:43 in terms of historical reliability, 52:46 the New Testament and again, there's a lot of literature, 52:49 I don't know how much we want to get into this. 52:50 The New Testament is far more significantly corroborated 52:53 than these other sources. 52:56 And if you look at just the manuscripts, 52:59 we obviously don't have any original doc, 53:01 we don't have the original scroll 53:02 with the ink that came 53:04 from the Apostle Paul or Moses himself. 53:06 We have copies of copies, right? 53:08 Manuscript copies. 53:09 And so too, with Greek and Roman history, 53:11 but if you were to take all of that, 53:13 and you were to compare it, 53:15 we have manuscripts of the New Testament 53:20 that are much closer to the original writing 53:23 than we do any event... 53:25 To event. 53:26 Yeah, any other piece of history. 53:28 And yet, nobody questions whether what was written 53:31 concerning Alexander the Great 53:33 is actually historically reliable, 53:34 nobody questions that. 53:36 Nobody questions the writings of the Roman historians. 53:39 And yet, when you crack open the New Testament 53:41 immediately 1000 questions come up. 53:43 So you wonder, obviously, 53:45 it's because of the implications 53:46 of what is written here. 53:48 There's precedence. 53:49 But it's not based on sheer history. 53:50 It's just, it's biased. 53:52 I want to just add one small point of clarification. 53:54 And that is to say that it's not the case 53:56 that in academic circles that people aren't evaluating 53:59 and being analytical about the things 54:01 that were written about Alexander or Rome, 54:04 whatever that is happening. 54:05 But under the assumption of a basic sense 54:08 of the overall reliability of the picture that we have. 54:12 In other words, like, yeah, they're saying, 54:13 "Okay, what about this?" 54:15 But when Scripture because of the implications, 54:18 if Jesus was... 54:19 Who He said He was... 54:21 Who He said he was, 54:22 because there's plenty of extra biblical confirmation 54:23 that this guy existed. 54:25 In fact, there's a guy, John Dixon. 54:26 John Dixon's a fairly well-known, 54:28 increasingly well-known historian, Christian historian, 54:32 and philosopher of history, 54:33 and he has said repeatedly 54:35 that if you can show one single credible historian 54:40 from a credible university 54:41 that denies on historical grounds 54:44 that Jesus existed, 54:45 he will eat several pages from his Bible. 54:49 In other words, he's issued this as a challenge 54:51 to secular thinking about Jesus. 54:54 He's saying, "Wait a minute." 54:56 Nobody in the great universities of the world 54:59 denies that a guy named Jesus lived at about this time, 55:03 lived under these circumstances was crucified, 55:05 you know, under these, in other words, 55:07 there's these extra biblical confirmations 55:09 of the basic biblical picture. 55:11 And so you start assembling and amassing this data, 55:15 the prophetic, the uniqueness of Jesus, 55:17 the experiential, 55:19 the historical, the manual scriptural data, 55:22 and what we can say, it's not proved mathematically, 55:25 it's not proved, 55:27 like you're compelled now to believe 55:30 and you cannot believe. 55:31 You know, there's still the element of faith 55:33 that you can say 55:34 that there is good reason to believe. 55:38 Yeah, beyond reasonable doubt. Yeah, yeah. 55:40 That's a good way of saying. Beyond reasonable doubt. 55:41 I like what Jeff was saying, too, 55:43 because the prejudice is there, 55:44 so much so that if I was to take and say, 55:46 "Okay, this is the Book of Matthew, 55:48 this is the Book of Mark, this is the Book of Luke, 55:49 this is the Book of John, okay?" 55:51 The critics want to tear these books apart, 55:53 for example, and say, "Well, they contradict each other." 55:55 One person says, there was two demoniacs 55:57 and other says, there's one demoniac. 55:59 There's contradiction between these and so we can't, 56:02 the Bible isn't reliable. 56:04 But really, that contradiction is actually confirmation 56:07 that these guys are all together. 56:08 They all belong together, 56:10 because they prove that there's no conspiracy 56:13 among the authors. 56:15 "Oh, you got to say the same thing, I said. 56:16 You need to say same thing we're saying 56:18 and you need to say the same thing." 56:19 Which would actually make them suspect. 56:20 Yeah. Yes. 56:22 Yeah, yeah. Collusion, it's called. 56:23 That's such a good point. That's it. 56:24 I love that point. 56:26 That there's just enough differentiation 56:27 to not smack of conspiracy or collusion, 56:29 but the story that's told is consistent enough 56:32 that they say, the Jesus of Matthew, 56:34 "Hey, that looks just like the Jesus of Mark, 56:36 that looks just like the Jesus of Luke, 56:37 that looks just like that Jesus of..." 56:38 It's maximum authentic report. It looks authentic. 56:40 It's authentic. Yeah. 56:42 And back to the point you were making earlier, David, 56:44 the fact is that there's a self-evident truth quality 56:50 to Scripture. 56:52 And Jesus is the pinnacle 56:54 of that self-evident truth quality. 56:56 You can't imagine human beings manufacturing a story 57:02 that completely turns on its head 57:05 and inside out 57:06 all the value systems of the world. 57:08 Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, 57:10 famous atheists who basically gave us 57:14 the God is dead idea. 57:17 He looked at Jesus and he was an unbeliever. 57:19 And he said that this Jesus person 57:22 represents the transvaluation of all systems of thought 57:28 in the world. 57:29 You have this idea 57:31 that the most powerful person in the universe, 57:34 God has come all the way down and is crucified. 57:38 If it's left to human beings to come up 57:40 with a story that's believable, 57:41 we're coming up with Zeus and Ishtar, 57:43 and powerful muscle bound gods 57:46 who are going to do some damage. 57:47 But all of sudden... 57:49 Who sounded lot like us? Yeah. 57:50 Yeah, but all of a sudden, you have an anti-king, 57:54 you have one who is exercising anti-power, 57:57 you have a demonstration 57:59 of an irresistible quality of love, 58:02 that we find resonant 58:04 with what we would like to see in a powerful person. 58:07 We would like to see the most powerful person 58:10 in the universe, 58:11 winning our respect 58:14 and our adoration by virtue of humbly serving 58:17 rather than dominating. 58:18 And that's what we see going on in Jesus. 58:20 It's absolutely self-evident 58:23 that there's something going on in this person, Jesus Christ 58:27 that we don't see anywhere else in history. 58:31 And so that brings us full circle, 58:33 back to the fact that beyond all the data, 58:36 the archaeology, 58:38 the facts that are pretty persuasive, 58:41 we believe because there's good reason to believe, 58:44 because in Jesus we see something that's believable. 58:48 Beautiful. Amen. |
Revised 2019-07-22