Christian Apologetics Q&A

All right, we're gonna go ahead and begin, And you guys had a lot, a lot, a lot of questions tonight, so we're gonna start and get right into it. First one was arm bar or neck choke. That was the first question that came across. Yeah, the situation always choke if you can, Yeah, I always yeah, I always choke if you can. Yeah. For those of you that do not know, he also enjoys jiu jitsu, uh wherever he travels to, and very proficient at it. All right, So, uh so write that down if you're taking notes tonight, right through your Bible. Right, neck choke choke? All right, body will be the only speaker that you ever write that in your notes. Neck choke, naked choke? All right? Here is ah, here's a here's a more serious one. How is God just if he predestined some to hell and he elects others if all are slaves to sin? You know what I love about questions like that? Is it? And I talk about those in expository apologetics. It is amazing how often you talk to people and they ask you, almost verbatim, the questions that Paul poses in Romans when he's doing expository apologetics. Listen to this in Romans chapter nine, verse nineteen. You will say to me, then, oh, no, no, no, verse fourteen, what I went up to? For what shall we say? Then? Is there injustice on God's part by no means? For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I've raised you up that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whom ever he wills. You will say, then, why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? But who are you, o man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded? Say to the molder, why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump, one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use. What if God desired to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience, vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory, for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand, for glory even us, whom he is called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. Isn't that amazing? I'm telling you, people ask that quote, now, just that one, but this whole section here in Romans. People ask these questions almost verbatim, over and over and over again. And for that reason, I argue that these are not just rhetorical questions. I believe that what Paul is doing here is he's dealing with questions that he got over and over and over again from people, because these are the normal questions that we would ask. But one thing I don't when you miss in his response is this, if I can put a finer point on it, there's an assumption in the question. The assumption is that we determine what justice is, then we look to God and measure him against our determination. Really, as Paul would say, who do you think you are? How can God be just? If no God is just and he defines justice, there is no, how can God be just? Or is God just? Or there is no? If by definition God is just and everything he does is just, we start there, everything he does is just. I don't understand everything that God does, but I don't have to understand everything God does in order to know that God is just and whatever he does is right, because he's not running for God, he's God. So apparently you would use the authority of scripture. Absolutely, that's good, Absolutely, all right. It kind of leads into this next one. How have you become so proficient in using God's word to abolish societal issues? I just I hope it's because I don't assume that I'm smart enough or righteous enough to do it. Another way, I would hope that it's because I'm not arrogant enough, you know, to believe that. I don't want to trust in chariots or horses. You know, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ and so and also back to where we started, I've really come to believe what God's word says. Man's problem is not that he doesn't know is God doesn't believe in atheists. Everybody knows there's a God. They just they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. If I believe that, then I've got to be about pursuing the antidote for unrighteousness, which is the Gospel. Right, So I would hope that that that that that's that that's why. Uh, let's see, there is a there's a need for the return of the Word of God to local churches. Can you expound on that and your experience? Yeah, I mean, you know, in the pastoral epistles, you know, Paul tells Stemathy to give attention to the public reading of the scriptures, and yeah, the Word of God is our our source, our only standard for faith and practice. And and uh, I think there has been you know, there are trends that come and go and things that wax and Wayne, and I think there has been a tendency and a trend away from the Bible. But I think that's also because in general, in our culture, there's a trend and tendency away from literature. Kids don't read as much in school as they used to. Right, the written word has just fallen out of favor. So I think that what we're seeing in the church and so much less scripture being used and emphasized in church is part of an overall trend of us being less literate in general and us being less focused on the written word in general. So I think I think that's more than just churches sort of just deciding to not be as word focused. I think it's bigger than that. Is apologetics as critical inside the church as much as it is outside the church. Absolutely absolutely. I you know, even the title expository apologetics. I dedicate this book to a dear friend and brother of mine, and David Shiflett, and he was part of our pastor Eldership training program at GFBC, and he's the one who really sort of pressed me on this issue and this question of why and how I do what I do. I have a tendency to preach apologetically right and to think about the scriptures in that way, and he just really pressed me on, you know, how do you do that? Why do you do that? Why do I didn't even know what it was, And so we came up with that concept of expository apologetics, and it goes back to what we talked about earlier. We behave in accordance with what we believe, and I just when I'm looking at a passage of scripture and when I'm thinking about preparing sermons. I think about, Okay, what are we believing wrongly about this? And what are the consequences of us believing wrongly about this? And how do I call people to believe rightly about this? Whatever that text, whatever that passage is, And so in a sense, and there's one section in the book where I talk about, you know, how do we turn all of our teaching and all of our preaching into apologetics? So, yeah, I think it's as important inside it outside. Or historically have Baptists adhered to the doctrines of grace? And is there an abandonment as of late? Yeah, there's a really easy answer to that question. You just look at the oldest Baptist confessions in existence, and it's obvious that the answer to that is yes, right in the First London Baptist Confession of sixteen forty four, the Second London Baptist Confession of sixteen tventy seven slash eighty nine. Yeah, there's absolutely, there's no I mean, there's just that's there is no question, there is no debate on that. That that's you know. And then the Seconds Confession comes over to America and the Philadelphia Confession and the New Hampshire Confession, which are just you know, updates and modifications of the Second London Baps Confession, which is yeah, absolutely committed to doctors of grace. So yes, historically definitely committed. Can you expound on maybe why there's so much variety now within the Baptist because there's so many, Because there's just so many. Just in the Southern apt Convention there's what forty some thousand churches. That's just that's that's ginormous. And when you have that many, you're just gonna find a bunch of variety. There's also a real sense of anti confessionalism, you know among Baptists, among all people really, but especially among Baptists. Anti creedalism, anti confessionalism. And you know, I love how Carl Truman puts it in his book The Cretial Imperative. He said, it's not that we have creedle churches, churches that use creeds versus non credle churches churches that don't use creeds. He said, the differences between churches that are open and honest about their creeds and churches that pretend that they don't have them, but they all do. They all do and when you run a foul of them, they let you know. Right. So, all right, looking for a local church to be involved in? Can you give us a few tips to look at the various local church just to find a church home for us? Can you be more broad? Wow, I don't even know where to start. Even today today at lunch you're talking about kind of your search down in the spring, and yeah, but yeah, I think I think we start with with what we are looking for, right, what what are we looking for? And I think one of the problems that we have is that people go, well, I'm just looking for a biblical church. The Bible's kind of big, just, I mean, it's it's really big, right, So what again? It goes back to the whole credle confessional versus not cretle or confessional right, and people are basically just kind of saying, no, no, I just I just want the Bible, right, okay, And then you start going through some biblical thing, well, no I believe this, but not that. Well no, no, no, I believe this, but not that. So what's happening is people aren't being honest and thorough about what their confession is, right, and so they are trying to find a church while trying to convince themselves that they don't have a confession, but they do. They have all these checklists right, and for them is I'm just stoking for Churst's biblical, which means I'm right about everything biblical. I'm just looking for chursts that agrees with me on everything. But I'm not gonna line it out. I'm just gonna go sit somewhere and wait until they don't take one of my boxes, and then I am going to leave there and proclaim that they're not biblical. Never mind that I have seventeen things on my list and I'm condemning them because they only hit fifteen out of the seventeen, right, that's just that. Part of that is just we have an embarrassment of riches, okay. And part of that is we're not being honest about our own credle confessional convictions and just assuming that we're just obviously biblical, right, And what we need to do is sit down and be honest about what it is that we actually believe, where it is that we actually come down theologically, and then determining from that what we're actually looking for. And then the other thing is to stop treating the church like like Walmart, right or Sam's. You just we do. We treat it like, Okay, I'm going shopping, and if I come here and I find what I'm looking for, then that's fine. But if I don't, then you know, I'll go to the next corner and the next corner, and the next corner and the next corner, and of course what I'm looking for will change from time to time. That sort of consumeristic view of the church and what the church is all about, that's another huge roadblock for us. So it's not that there aren't good, sound, biblical churches. It's that we aren't clear about what it is that we're looking for, and then we aren't gracious about what it is that we can realistically expect. It's good, all right, change the subject a little bit here. What method of apologetics do you recommend? The most evidential, presuppositional or classical presuppositional Expository apologetics is written from a presuppositional perspective, and if you don't know what those things are, don't you worry? All and along that line, has your apologetic approach changed over the years. Yes, I was trained like most people are today as an evidentialist. There. I don't know of a place where you can go get a degree in apologetics that would be presuppositional. And just you know, the evidentialist just think about most of the big names and apologetics that you know, okay. And if it's not me or James White, probably an evidentialist, okay. And their approach to apologetics is, you know, you have to argue from evidence to get to scripture, right, you make arguments for God, arguments for his existence, arguments for theism, arguments for this and then the other before you, you know, move to scriptures. And what I'm doing in the expository apologetics is basically saying, oh you don't. You don't do that. You start with scripture and you argue from scripture. You have presuppositions, they have presuppositions. You're exposing presuppositions on both sides of the equation. And the illustration that I like to use is, you know, there's two knights who are riding down a road from opposing kingdoms, and they run into each other on the road and they draw their swords and one night says to the other night, I do not believe in nine sword, and you can either put your sword away and start making arguments about physics and metallurgy and so on, so or you can just cut him right, and if you just start hacking away, he'll either believe or shortly it won't matter. Right. And so my argument is, here's my problem with evidentialism. What they do is they concede the argument. Somebody stands there and says, I don't believe in the Bible or its relevance, and then you go, okay, fine, I'll put down my Bible, essentially agreeing with you that it's not relevant and that I can make an argument not using the Bible, which means you win before we start. Do you follow right? The Bible is not relevant? Well, yes it is, therefore I'm not going to put it down right. So anyway, along those lines, this one seems right in line with that during a witnessing encounter, can you give an example of how you might help an unbeliever see the absurdity of their worldview? Yeah, So what I talk about in the book is this. I call it the expository apologetic waltz. There's this three step process, right, It's like a waltz one two three, one two, three, right, and you have to repeat it too, just like in the waltz, you just go into the music stops right. And so step number one is learned how to listen to people. And it sounds simple, but it's really not that because usually, you know, we have something that we want to present, some things that we want to say, and we don't really listen to people. Or they'll say one thing and we'll assume that we understand where they're going and we try to head them off the past. No, listen to people and listen for their presuppositions, right, Listen to what it is that they're arguing for, all right, you know, ask clarifying questions. You know, are you is this what I hear you saying? Right? And make sure you understand them rightly. You don't want to give a caricature of what they believe. You want to actually hear them and make sure that you hear them. That's step number one. Step number two identify the essential worldview elements that they're arguing for or from. Okay, somebody's you know saying like like in the question and you know earlier about God and and being just and this and the other. Right, what is the what is the essential presupposition in that question that justice begins with us? Right? This is what would be just for me. God doesn't do that. Therefore God is not just right, So that you identify, you identify that right and let them know expose the absurdity of that right. That's the second step. This kind of doesn't work because in this you're you're not letting God be God. Okay, and then the third step is you go to and ultimately in that second step, what you're showing them is they're arguing for something that is actually biblical. They're arguing for justice and consistency. Right, and that's awesome. You want justice and consistency me too. Right. Unfortunately, in your worldview, we don't get justice and consistency because men are neither just nor consistent, and you're starting with men. But in my worldview, from which you stole the concepts of justice and consistency, there is justice and consistency because you start with God, who by definition is just and consistent. Do you see that step one listening to you, step two identifying whatever that presupposition is that you're arguing for, or from step three demonstrating that you stole what is good about it from biblical truth, because that's the only way you get good, right, And then show you how biblical truth is the only way that you can really get what it is that you think you want but you really don't. Well, does that end it? No, it's a waltz. You keep going to the music stops. You have to do it several times. Right, But this is kind of a process of having a communication that is always moving toward the truth of the scriptures and the truth of the Gospel. And notice what I'm doing in that, I'm exposing the fact that you have presuppositions as well. Right, You're arguing from your presuppositions. I'm arguing from mine. I'm showing how your presuppositions are inconsistent and how mine are not. I'm showing how your presuppositions start with you and mind start outside of me. Right. So, all right, Since an unregenerate person has neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor heart to believe, how important is it to get to the gospel when engaged in an apologetic debate or discussion. It's of the utmost importance, you know, because I can't give them eyes to see, I can't give them ears to hear, right, I can't. The only one who can does that is the spirit of God. But guess what faith comes by hearing and hearing word of Christ? Right? So are they gonna Are they gonna get there through something other than the Word of Christ? No? So what am I gonna give? What am I gonna give them? I'm gonna give them the Word? Yeah, it's good. Uh. Here's one one regarding a text of Ephesians, Chapter four says God gave gifts to men to equip the saints. One of those gifts are evangelists. Should local churches have evangelist equipping the saints? And what might this look like? So in the Ephesian chapter four, you have apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, And I would argue that those first three offices, the office of apostles, prophets, evangelists, are New Testament Apostolic age gifts, and that what we're left with is the pastor teacher slash. That we don't have apostles anymore, we don't have profits anymore. And in terms of an office, right, we have the prophetic preaching and we don't have evangelists anymore in terms of office. And my main argument for that is when you get to the pastoral epistles, right, the pastoral epistles tell us how to organize the church. There's only two offices, elder and deacon. We don't have the requirements for the evangelist. We don't have the requirements for the apostle. We have the requirements for elders and the requirements for deacons because those are the only offices that we're left with in the post Apostolic church. So there is no office of evangelists anymore. Oh good? Or what is the best way to respond to the social justice advocates in the church today? How do we balance boldness and compassion? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think here's what we have to do. We have to be very clear about what we believe in, why we believe it, and we have to be very clear about the language that we choose to use and the language that we choose not to use, and we have to be both bold and gracious. I think some people in this discussion are absolutely out to lunch. They've left the reservation. They are cultural Marxists, and they need to be called out. Other people are compassionate and the higher, the absolute best. They just happened to use the same language as the people who've left the reservation. And I think we need to learn how to tell the difference and be bold and courageous with the people who've left the reservation, and patient and gentle with the people who speak like them but don't necessarily believe like them, and help them to rein that in very similar similar But as far as a little bit of history on the statement on social justice and the Gospel, could you give a quick narrative or explanation? So I guess it was what a year ago? Was it a year ago? This summer? Year ago? This summer? There were fifteen of us who got together in Dallas at Herb's house coffee place and spent the day together. And the meeting was called by John MacArthur. Who's that John MacArthur. He's just pastor in California. He got another and really it was around all this stuff. It was basically a bunch of guys who were just saying, Okay, there's craziness here, there's absolute craziness here, and there has to be clarity because there are some people who've left the reservation, and there are other people who haven't left the reservation, but they love and respect some folks who have left the reservation, and they're using some language that is language from off the reservation, and so there needs to be clarity. There has to be clarity. So we got together and we're really spent the day together and it was I think it was John MacArthur's seventy ninth birthday that day, so I mean it was just a real sort of historic, momentous occasion, and we just got together and talked about that, the need for that, how we would approach that, what that needed to look like, the best ways to be wise and to be gracious and to be clear about that, and sort of made some assignments and some goals, but it was really all about trying to be clear. And one of the goals in trying to be clear was trying to help people to see right, especially people who hadn't left the reservation. But you know, but another goal was to expose the wolves. That was another goal, to expose the wolves and to say here's the statement, do you agree with it or not? And if you don't, why, And most of the people who were saying, well, we don't agree with it. They would say things like, we agree with it because we don't like that person. We don't agree with it because because we don't like that person, you know, or we don't agree with it because you say this, but we think what you mean is that? How you answer that, I don't you know what I mean? And it just it really, it really did end up exposing a lot of things. But we felt like that as as as far and fast as things were moving, that there were there was going to be carnage, and that somehow we need to do something to uh, to stem the tide and to at least have a ground from which we could speak, because the other side wasn't doing that. The people who were using the language of social justice weren't defining their terms. They were using language of cultural Marxism and not defining the terms. And then the people who were questioning them were just being called racist, right, And people are going, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're using that term to find that term, or you're just a racist. You just don't want to have this conversation, you mean, the conversation that we haven't stopped having for the last two generations, that conversation, you know. But we felt like if the terms were going to be defined, we we had to define them. It wasn't going to come from the other side that there were going to be some people who, no matter what we wrote, weren't going to be satisfied. Because when you're writing a statement like that, at some point you got to stop, right at some point it's like, Okay, this is what we said. There's a lot of other stuff that we can say, but this can't go on forever. But we just we just hope that it would it would lead to some open and honest Yeah, some open and honest give and take. I have to asked, were you were you surprised about the the side taking. Did there's many that you thought or many states? I wasn't surprised by the side. No, No, I don't think. I don't think any of us were. I don't think. Yeah, no, I don't think any of us. I don't think any of us work. And just quickly, could you kind of state the two different sides for those that don't know, like not calling names, but as far as this is why the statement was written and this is what the other side is saying. Yeah, basically that the statement was written because there are people arguing for social justice and using the term social justice and arguing that social justice is compatible and consistent with the Gospel, and those of us who are saying no. Social justice is a terminology that has roots and origins and an idea that has consequences. It's rooted in cultural Marxism. It comes along with other ideas and some of these ideas were being espoused as well, intersectionality for example, and some of these other ideas and the social Gospel that the social justice movement. I think one of the best illustrations I've heard is like it's a train with three cars, three main cars, and on the front car is the idea of uh, so called racial justice. Right, that's the front car, and that's how it gets in, you know, Bible calls the racial reconciliation. But the other car, the second car, uh, is this car of sexual justice, for lack of a better word. And when I say sexual i'm i'm or or I would say I would say gender justice because gender and sex to two very different things. And on that it's the lgbt U right, social justice, Yeah, they it's social justice. LGBTQ rights, that's social justice. And then the third one is the sexual or feminist agenda. Right, those are the three trains that make up the three cars that make up the social justice train, the three main cars. And there were a lot of people who were trying to talk about it as though number one, biblical racial reconciliation is the same thing as the racial justice that's defined and discussed in the social justice movement, and it's not. And number two that you can disconnect that car from the other two cars, and you cannot, especially not if you choose their terminology right, You just can't do that. So for us, it was about it was about identifying that and the other side were for the most parts, well meaning brothers and sisters for whom there was an absolute need to address what they saw as inequities and discriminatory practices that had led to inequities and discrepancies among people. And none of us would disagree with, you know, the fact that there's real injustice and that real injustice has to be responded to, and you know, all of us have addressed and responded to real injustice. But there's a way to do it, and we felt like we had to be clear about the way to do it versus the way not to do it right, And if you're unfamiliar with that, you can look it up. Statement on social Justice and the Gospel. Lots of great points there. And did you lose any friends over it or not? No? I didn't. I didn't really, I didn't lose any friends over it, And none of us really lost any friends over it, because the fact of the matter is that had that ship had already sailed, right Any yeah, any, Yeah, we're just pointing out any any of us who were in that room, but that But but one of the things for me, one of the reasons that I was so passionate about it, is because this, this this movement and this process has been destructive in that regard because now, all of a sudden, there are people who have had relationships with people of other ethnicities and so on and so forth, and all of a sudden, it's like, if you don't see this issue this way, then you're a racist, right, And there was room for genuine disagreement, right, And all of a sudden, this this this unity that we had been talking about for so long was exposed as not being a real unity because on both sides of the issue there were people who were disqualifying one another because of you know, terminology of particular issues. And if you don't see this issue as you know, a justice issue, then you know you're wrong. There were people even being being kicked out of the kingdom, I mean Jonathan Edwards all of a sudden, you know, because yeah, yeah, Jonathan Edwards all of a sudden just wasn't even a brother anymore. So all right, well that is that wraps up our time. We actually went over our time and appreciate you vo. Let's give him a big rabat pause. Thank you so much for joining us this week in Denton, Texas. And uh let's end in a word of prayer, and we'll give a Vody a chance to make it back to the product table in the time and make sure you buy every book, every T shirt that is back there as well support their ministry. Let's pray, Dearly Father, we thank you so much for letting us together together to hear your word, to study your word, to learn more about apologetics and Christian worldview. Pray God that we have been strengthened, that we have been enriched, and that we will go forth from this place better equipped to engage our culture and to present apologetics and even to look at our own churches where you have placed us, and how we can help and how we can equip even in those situations. We pray for voting ministry. We pray for the university as well. We pray for all that he is doing and all the ministry that he has ahead of him here in the United States and back in Zambia as well. Continue to bless him and continue to increase his reach. In Jesus name, we pray Amen