WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:01:43.000 Um, I may have bit off more than I could chew today. I think I did, actually. Um, so we'll see how it goes. There's a chance. I'm just warning you, there's a chance I won't even get through all 20 questions today. If. If that's the case, we'll save the ones I don't get and we'll do them later. But I wanted to respond to this satan's guide to the bible thing. Um, this is a viral video that's going around the Internet, and I'll show you clips of it today. I'll answer some of the objections that are there, and I'll try to provide at least what I think is some discernment on why this is a propaganda piece and it's not the sober, objective scholarship that it pretends to be. Um, yeah, this is not, um, objectivity in action here. So here's the question that came in, and I decided to do it as a first question today, which may have been a mistake. Probably was a mistake. Definitely was a mistake. All right, but let me read it to you guys. Uh, there is a dangerous video gaining popularity called satan's guide to the bible that illustrates a pretend children's Sunday school class learning from satan as their substitute teacher. He claims that pastors keep secrets from their congregants, but that he will reveal those secrets and tell them the truth. Can you please analyze this video and refute its false claims about the bible? I can't analyze the whole thing, obviously. It's an hour and a half long, and I'm not going to. Whenever you do something like that, it would take two or 3 hours to analyze it, um, in full. But I will definitely give you some stuff that I think you guys can use. Let's start by just explaining how this thing works. Here you go. Here are some clips that I will play. Um, I should have planned this part out a little bit better. Here we go. Let me show you guys. It starts off like this. Satan talking to the little kids. 2 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:48.000 I'm here to reveal peacefully hidden bible secrets. 3 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.000 Bible secret. 4 00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:00.000 Confirm for me that you guys can hear that, because for some reason, I cannot, oddly. 5 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.000 I'm here to reveal. 6 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:57.000 It. Looks like you can. Okay, I'll wait for confirmation there, but confirm that you guys can hear it. And, uh, thank you guys for joining me. Sorry if I'm being a little bit clumsy with this moment right here. Satan's just staring at you there. That's not cool. So Satan is, um, doing a thing where he is basically, um. Man, why can't I hear it? That's freaking me out. I'm going to wait until I know otherwise. I'm going to make a new plan. No, nobody's confirming yet. You can hear it. Okay, great. All right, there's a delay. There's like a 2030 2nd delay. That's why I had to wait. All right, so Satan says, hey, kids, I'm going to show you these secrets. I'm going to tell you these things that nobody ever tells you. Then he goes on to explain that the pastors in your church, they know these secrets, and they're keeping them from you. So this creates a bit of anxiety in the average listener. 7 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:00.000 I think Pastor Mark knows these bible secrets, too. 8 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:01.000 He does. 9 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:06.000 Like lots of pastors, he learned a bunch of bible secrets at, uh, seminary. 10 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.000 And he won't share them with us. 11 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:30.000 He's keeping secrets, so they're keeping them from you. But guess what? Don't worry. Scholars. Scholars, these objective, really smart people who are only ever interested in truth, unlike every other human being who has a bunch of mixed motives. And everything they do, um, they're going to tell you the real truth. So here's what he says about that. 12 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:32.000 They'll tell us what Pastor mark learned in seminary. 13 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:41.000 They will. The biblical scholars will tell you the bible secrets. 14 00:03:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 The scholars then form the basis of the video. So in the video, Satan makes a claim. Then he has, like, a little Jesus cartoon character who will make a claim. And then, like, a scholar, or the kids will. And then the scholar will show up and play a video of a scholar where they refute that claim, and they basically show that the Bible is bunk. Um, and it's bad. It's bad history. It's bad. Its authorship isn't legitimate in places. It's got moral issues. And then Jesus was errant. Jesus himself was seriously and severely flawed and falsely predicted, um, the end times. And so all this sort of thing, um, surprisingly, none of this is new to me. That's true there, that this is known stuff. This is not new, but this is very much a storytelling type of thing that's happening in the video. They're going to tell you that it's pious Protestants who are believers, who know about these things, and they refuse to tell them to the congregants. And that is the term they use, pious Protestants. Except their scholars they're using are not pious Protestants. They're using, like, Hector Avalos and Bart Ehrman, who are basically atheists and agnostics, effectively atheists in their beliefs about God and others. Who would not be considered christians by Christianity, by orthodox christian values, about believing in the death and resurrection of Christ. Um, about believing basically in God. Um, yeah. Thank you, sir. Um, so she texted me to confirm, at any rate, this is going on consistently in this video, is present it like this is sort of. Everybody knows this. There's no argument on it. That's the implication. There's no argument on these facts. And so it's standard stuff. And really, we're just hiding it from the congregants, pastors, people like myself. We're hiding it from you guys. And, um, that is storytelling. This is storytelling and propaganda. This is not reality. Here's an example of this where they try to present it as though everybody knows this stuff. It's standard stuff that is, um, not being acknowledged to you. So here we go. Let me, uh, play the clip on that. 15 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:54.000 The kinds of critical scholarship that I promote in my books, those are things that seminarians learn when they're training for ministry. If they go to a mainline protestant. 16 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Seminary, they're teaching Bart's stuff to everyone. Anyone who has gone at least through, I would say, a master's level would be well aware of every argument that Bart Ehrman has ever presented. It's standard stuff. 17 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:26.000 This is standard stuff that people are taught in all the mainline christian theological seminaries across the country and in Europe. And yet most pastors who have gone through that training don't tell their congregations what it is that they've learned. 18 00:06:26.000 --> 00:08:13.000 So you get the idea it's standard stuff. Now, what's interesting is if you actually got, say, James White, who they quote as their source for its standard stuff in seminary, then he would have then told you, and so are the arguments against it. You see, these arguments aren't standard stuff. That is uncontroversial amongst all scholars. Right? Some of it is fairly uncontroversial. Some of it's very controversial. It's all presented with a single tone in this video, Satan's guide to the Bible. The arguments against these things should also be standard stuff. If you're doing a robust educational environment in your seminary, then you're going to say, yeah, here's an argument against the book of Daniel. Here's one for it. Here's the two sides of the coin. But Satan, in his introduction to the Bible, his guide to the Bible, is not interested in scholarship in a robust sense. He's interested in using the name and the label of scholarship to try to beat down christian faith. That is a propagandistic and very biased stance that's what that is. And that should be known. Um, the standard stuff. Let's give you an example. Um, because let me give you one that's difficult. Okay. This is not just me taking, like, the easiest example in the video. The book of Daniel. The authorship of the book of Daniel is very much, uh, an issue in question amongst scholars. There's a lot of scholars right now, currently, scholarly trends right now, that think the book of Daniel was written after much of the prophecies that it says will be our future, that it was written, like, second century ad BC. Uh, excuse me. Uh, not back in the fifth. 6th century or 6th, 7th. Sorry, my numbers are a little bit confused here. So the book of Daniel, then. Yes, that is absolutely brought up in the video. Um, they'll talk about this. Let me share a clip with you where they bring it. 19 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:22.000 Hmm. I m wonder how Daniel did it. By pretending to be someone living in the distant past, an author could predict the. 20 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:23.000 Huh. Huh. 21 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:25.000 Pretending, like doing impersonations. 22 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:42.000 Excellent, Betty. You are right on target. The book of Daniel, allegedly written by the great wise man of the 6th century BCE bc me was actually written, in the judgment of almost all critical scholars, some 400 years later. 23 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:43.000 What the fuck? 24 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:44.000 Liar. 25 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:52.000 If the book of Daniel was written 400 years later, then that would mean Daniel did not author the book of Daniel. 26 00:08:52.000 --> 00:14:48.000 The irreverence that's there. Look, it's just. It's throughout the video, the sarcasm. M the mockery of Christianity, of christian values, of christian people, um, and of christian scholarship. The mockery of all of those things. It's all there. It's extremely propagandistic work. 100%. Um, the chinese government would approve. So, yeah, that's what's going on. I think with this video, this does need nuance. Um, I actually have my own video on the book of Daniel and the dating of Daniel, where I don't just say, um, all the scholars know this. Dummies. You're all dummies because you don't know this. Duh. Scholars, uh, know this. Pastors are hiding it. It's obviously a massive christian conspiracy. Instead of that, we tackled in this video where I have on the dating of Daniel. Link is in the description down below. I go through specific reasons why scholars say they think the book of Daniel may have been written later and reasons why we can think it may have been written earlier. And I think we have good reasons, good evidence to say it was written earlier. Oddly enough, even if you take the later date, you still have prophecies of Jesus, of the messiah, that you have to reconcile with the fact of his death and apparent resurrection in the first century and how that coincides with a number of prophecies in the Old Testament that would still be confronting you. So a, uh, christian would have a conundrum about, like, wow, how do I reconcile this, the dating of Daniel, but it would still have this sort of inspirational content about the Messiah coming, dying for us. Daniel, chapter nine. Some amazing, amazing stuff. At any rate, it's more nuanced is what I'm saying. And here's what I think. Uh, christians that I'm aware of that do know about these things, they recognize often that it's more nuanced than that. It's not just, oh, everyone knows. Every scholar in every institution, uh, totally is a Christian and totally believes the Bible. Like, they don't think this, but they also don't think everyone in the institutions knows the Bible's totally bunk and we're just hiding it from our congregants because we want our paychecks. That's ridiculous. This is obnoxious. There's lots of evangelical scholars out there who will defend things like the early dating of Daniel or the evidence for the exodus and things like that. This video presents it to you as though those people don't exist. So it's offering you a lie, a distortion of reality to defeat your faith in scripture. It's propaganda. That's the nature of Satan's guide to the Bible here. So they select Bart Ehrman, who is well known, at least amongst certain circles that I'm in, uh, well known for being somebody who tends to, when in doing popular writings and in popular settings like this interview, he tends to say things in much stronger and exaggerated ways to make his claims seem more strong and even more scholarly, solid than, uh, we would think they really are. So that does happen. No wonder why he's quoting them and not the supposed protestant pious believers that are sourced, that are the sources that this video talks about. All right, let's read on. Um, when they, uh, read on in my notes, I'm just reading to you when they do quote evangelical scholars in this video, satan's guide to the Bible, it's not a fair or equal treatment in any way, shape, or form. Um, and the evangelical scholars, the ones who would be defending against the claims of satan's guide to the Bible here, their case is never presented. Sometimes claims from them are presented where they just say something, but their evidence or their case or their reasons for those claims are not presented. So it looks as though they're making sort of faith proclamations instead of actually providing their scholarship on an issue. But when you go to the skeptic, when the skeptics are quoted, the airmens and the Avalos and these other guys, they get claims and evidence. They're going to unpack their reasons and their evidence. And more often than not, in fact, in almost every case, they don't give any scholarly response against those claims. There's no pushback whatsoever. Even when those claims are in the minority of scholarship, even though the video pretends they're in the majority. Yeah, it's just propaganda. You can't do much with a video like this because it's so much propaganda. Um, I'll give you more examples as we move on. But compare this to, say, like my women in ministry series, I did this extensive series on women in ministry. I'm just preparing the final video about application, and it's very difficult, challenging to pull all that together. Um, but in that video series, I quote extensively from egalitarians, the people I think are wrong. Extensively. I quote, I look at their footnotes, I give their arguments for their cases. I build strong cases in response to their arguments. I often share the pushback they'd have to that as well. That is when you're trying to give somebody both sides of the coin. Like, I want to introduce you guys to the world of scholarship on the egalitarian complementarian women in ministry debate. I want that. So that video series does that. This is completely the opposite of that. Um, it's propaganda. Um, so you're not learning to think, reason, and decide the way that probably the maker of the video thinks. They think. They're teaching you how to think. They're not teaching you how to think. They're indoctrinating you. Um, they're not educating you. There's a big difference. It's fitting that Satan has children in this video that he's educating, because effectively, the people in the audience of this viral video, which will influence a lot of people, but people are gullible, okay? That's the way we are. Like, me too. You have to guard your own heart against your own gullibility, slow down and think things through as much as possible. But it's fitting that Satan's educating children in this video because that's effectively what they're doing to their audience, is treating them as children who just have to be told facts and not any details. Ah, just trust me. Trust me. Don't listen to the pastors. Listen to my conspiracy theory about your pastors. Instead let me share with you guys about the moral problems of the Bible that this video talks about. They have a clip where they talk about Jephthah, and they suggest that the Bible is totally cool with sacrificing human beings, uh, for God's favor. Yeah. Those of you who read the Bible, you don't need to be a scholar to know this is weird. 27 00:14:48.000 --> 00:15:04.000 Cool with killing innocent children for divine. Can I favors in battle. That, uh, may be for divine favors in battle. For divine favors in baloney. My God is not cool with killing innocent children for divine favors in battle. 28 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.000 That may be, but the God of the Bible is. 29 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:18.000 Victory in battle is related in an integral way to your offering these things to the deity. 30 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:32.000 In the 11th chapter of the book of judges, Jephthah, the leader of the Israelites, who are at war with the Ammonites, more it from Canaan, wanting to secure victory for the Israelites, Jephthah makes a promise to God. 31 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:43.000 If you give the ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the ammonites will be the Lord's, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. 32 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:52.000 The leader of the Israelites promises God he will set fire to whoever greets him first. When he returns home from battle, he. 33 00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:59.000 Will, uh, devote to the Lord first thing he sees. But, of course, it turns out to. 34 00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:03.000 Be his daughter, his only child. 35 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:05.000 And I'm back. 36 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:11.000 And I won. Who's behind door number one? 37 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:16.000 Welcome Home, daddy. 38 00:16:16.000 --> 00:22:09.000 Is that really what happened? Now, someone expect me here to offer. There's two theories on Jephthah. Uh, it's not 100% clear in the text. I think everybody should agree on this. It's not 100% clear in the text whether the daughter actually died or whether she just was celibate for the rest of her life. She goes off into the mountains to, uh, mourn her not having children, and then it says he fulfilled his vow. Uh, I'm inclined to think that he did actually go through with it, but that's not really the question, is it? The question is, is this a moral flaw in the Bible? As in, is the Bible the way that these amazing, totally objective, totally objective scholars who totally represent things your pastors all know? Sorry, it's ridiculous. Um, they present it as though God is cool with killing innocent children for divine favors in battle. Quoting from m the propaganda here, is that true? The God of the Bible is cool with that? Uh, no, because Jephthah blew it. That's the thing. They show no text in scripture, anywhere that suggests that God was favorable towards this, wanted Jephthah to do this, that it was okay in any way. Let me give you guys a number of reasons for this, because I know there's probably people watching right now who just think I'm the one offering propaganda. Um, and that's fine. I want you to think this through. Here's some evidence. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering. Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens and then goes on and on and on. That's deuteronomy 810. Let's look at ezekiel 13. Three. Sorry. Exodus 13 313 13. There we go. All. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. Or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. This is talking about, uh, offerings because the firstborn belongs to God. So God doesn't want the donkeys. He wants the lambs instead. He doesn't want the donkeys to be offered for different reasons about the cleanliness and all that sort of interesting stuff. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem, meaning you cannot actually offer them. So God claims rights to the firstborn, just like with Abraham and Isaac, but he will not allow them to actually sacrifice their kids, just like Abraham and Isaac. It's interesting when people suggest that the Abraham and Isaac story is proof that God likes human sacrifice, when God refuses to let it go through and says, no, here's a replacement instead. And then he tells all the Israelites, instead of having your son or your first born, you're going to offer an animal, I don't want human sacrifices. Then explicitly says in scripture, no, you're not allowed to do that. I hate that sort of thing. Um, in two kings we have, uh, 21. Six we have kings. And this happens in multiple cases who are rebuked because leaders of Israel offered their children as sacrifices. They were copying the pagans around them, and God totally rebukes them. In Jeremiah 731, we have the following. Did you get any of this from the Satan's guide to the Bible? No, you don't get none of this. He was interested in propaganda, not reality. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire. How does God feel about that, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. It's not something God desires or has told them. To do. That's the point. Yeah. There's more we could go on. Uh, how about Ezekiel? Ezekiel, chapter 16. And are there other responses to this? Yeah. Oh, yeah. They'll build all these cases on why these verses didn't apply, or they weren't made written yet. Or they'll have, like, reconstruct the history in a way that says, nah. Uh, in Jeff, this case, this was a season when there was human sacrifice. And, um, we would have to walk through all that thoughtfully and carefully. But I have to respond to the propaganda they put out. And here, God rebuking them. You took your sons and your daughters whom you had born to me, and these, you sacrificed them to be devoured. Is God okay with that? No. This is why he's judging them. He's not complimenting them. Hey, good job. He hates this, right? This is a horrible thing he says, where you're whoring so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by, uh, fire to them. This is something God is hateful of and something that he judges other nations for doing. Let's give a little more context to this. The book of judges, where Jeff, the story is judges, chapter eleven. The stories of the book of judges are frequently a leader rises up, they do something amazing, and then they fail. Right. Gideon. Amazing story of Gideon. You don't like the last half of his story because he totally blows it. It's embarrassing and it's horrible and it's ungodly. You don't like the story of Samson that much because he blows it so much. Even though he helps deliver Israel, he just totally blows it. Is he even a good know, like, you're wrestling. Jeff does the same thing. He raises up, uh, he delivers Israel through God's strength. And then he does this horrible thing in ignorance of God's word, in ignorance of God's commands, in rebellion to God's intentions. He does this to his daughter. Is this then, the Bible being totally cool with killing innocent children for divine favors in battle? No. And if scholars think it is, scholars are wrong. It's okay to say that. Um, am I the propagandist now? Because scholars are like the holier than thou group of people, and if they agree on something, no one's allowed to disagree, because otherwise, then they're wrong. Um, no. Scholarship changes over time. In the 17 hundreds, there was all kinds of skeptical, ungodly scholarship against the Bible that has just disappeared because of the discovery of ancient manuscripts and archaeology that has proven so many things wrong that scholars all believed not too long ago, and that does happen occasionally. And so we need to be aware of this, um, and look at the actual reasons for a claim, not just who's making the claim. Let's talk more about the, um, morality in the bible stuff. Let's see. Here you go. 39 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:13.000 Witness this. Satan. Discipline. 40 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:14.000 Morals. 41 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:17.000 That's why parents send their kids here. 42 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:34.000 Okay, I'm pausing just for a second to tell you guys, look at how they present it, that they're going to say that morality equals the Bible, which is a very dumb view that christians should not have. And, um, no thoughtful, scholarly christians I've ever heard of say that, but they're setting up a straw man on purpose so they could try to defeat it. 43 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:41.000 Not because of any nerd history lesson. Parents send their children to church to learn good morals. 44 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:48.000 Is that what they're learning? Students, I got seminary secrets about biblical morals. 45 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.000 Your math is slightly off there, Satan. 46 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:51.000 What math? 47 00:22:51.000 --> 00:23:25.000 Math is hard. Jesus will help you. Without my book, there are no morals. Is it going to be the word or is it going to be the world? Uh, you just watch. I might pull my book back, take it away from all you animals. Then where will you be 24 hours? Rape and anarchy is where you'll be. There are no morals, no comprehension. Zeus of right and wrong. Without the Bible. The Bible is the ruler by which goodness is measured. Without the Bible, there is no right or wrong. 48 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:26.000 Beat it. 49 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:38.000 Satan has no authority to judge the Bible. The Bible is the authority. What God says is moral is moral. What God says immoral is not immoral. 50 00:23:38.000 --> 00:27:04.000 Um, there's a lot of dumb going on in this clip. Do you guys catch it? A lot of you already? You catch it. You're just waiting for me to say it out loud. Um, there's a couple of different issues here. Uh, one of them is the christian position is presented as morality equals the Bible, which is a silly and nonsensical statement. Um, the two different issues that are more real that christians do bring up and should bring up and are right to bring up, is that without God, number one, without, not the Bible, but without God, there is no objective, real moral values and duties. I think that's 100% true. I know that there are scholars who are going to offer like this platonic explanation of abstract objects and their impact on the morality and stuff like that. And I don't think that makes any sense. I think that's grasping for straws. And I'm not afraid to say it. I'm not trying to be insulting, but we do have to evaluate views and ideas, right. I think that God is the best explanation for moral values and duties. And many, many atheists, even philosopher atheists, right? Even scholars, the scholars that probably some of the scholars that the person who made this video would look up to would agree that if there is no God, there simply is no objective moral values and duties, especially if it's just materialism. We're just sort of meat puppets. And there's nothing right or wrong about torturing a baby for fun. It's just something that we sort of have evolved to despise because it helps propagate our species. So there's just a cause and effect reality there about propagating the species. It's not even a good and bad thing. Now, there's plenty of people who would say no. Even without God, I still believe in morals. Yeah, of course you do, and I'm glad you do. And almost nobody lives that way because morals are sort of ingrained in us. I believe by God. But that doesn't mean that your worldview can justify those morals. And that's the objection, and that's where the discussion should happen if we're going to talk about morality and God. Um, another issue is, though, that the Bible has impacted our culture. Here's a claim a Christian could make with a good degree of confidence. It has impacted our culture and western civilization in a way that it's become the undergirding force for the moral values that we hold, not the fact that they exist, but the ones that we hold. Right. So there's morals that exist. What's really right and wrong in reality? Then there's my opinion about what's right and wrong. That's my objective sense. But it's based on an actual subjective sense, based on an objective reality. But without the Bible, we wouldn't have our current culture carrying the same moral values and duties. And some call this stealing from God, where they say, well, skeptic is stealing from God when they're going to use their moral values to judge, say, the Bible or something else, when really their moral values arose from scripture. And there's a truth in that, in that their societal awareness, their cultural sense of right and wrong, is impacted hugely by scripture. An interesting book, uh, on this is a book called dominion by the historian Tom Holland, who talks about this, about how the Bible and Christianity has impacted and shaped western values and culture and become a foundation for much of modern civilization. And so that's a book you guys can check out written by, like, guess what? An actual scholar. Because they don't all believe what the Satan's guide to the Bible says. Let's talk about where they say that Jesus is wrong. Where they say that Jesus is actually wrong. Jesus himself was actually wrong. Um, just 1 second, okay? It was more than 1 second. Here you go. 51 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:10.000 And you too, j man. Your book has you saying the end would happen in the first century. 52 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:11.000 Bull. 53 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:19.000 Um, pucky. The Bible says no such thing. You said you had bible verses. Satan. Show us the Bible versus Satan. I bet the seminary guy from Princeton has them. 54 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.000 He just might. Dr. Allison, could you show us Bible verses. Where Jesus makes failed apocalyptic prophecies? 55 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:32.000 Well, one is mark nine one, which says there are some standing here. 56 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:33.000 Who will not, uh, taste death. 57 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:36.000 Until they see the kingdom of God has come with power. 58 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:39.000 There be some of them that stand here. 59 00:27:39.000 --> 00:27:40.000 Standing where? 60 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.000 Standing here. Zip it, Satan. 61 00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:43.000 Keep it down. Okay. 62 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:51.000 What about us? Some of you shall not taste of death. Till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. 63 00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.000 Uh. Ooh. 64 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:55.000 And what happened next, as would become. 65 00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:03.000 Something of a pattern for christian people going forward. Nothing happened. 66 00:28:03.000 --> 00:33:53.000 Nothing happened. That's how it ends. So this idea, though, that Jesus, uh, guess what? This is not new. This is, again, standard argument. They're right about that. But standard argument doesn't mean uncontroversial. Um, totally agreed on by everybody. And christians who are even scholars s have no pushback against it. I have my own video where I talk about this. I, uh, have a video on is Jesus a failed apocalyptic prophet? I'll link that below as well. Give you guys lots of homework you can check out. So that video is down there below. But I won't leave you hanging. Let's look at the verse that they quoted. Mark nine one. Here it is right in front of you. Let's look at it. More detail without cartoon images. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here. Some not all. Some who will not taste death. Until they see the kingdom of God. After it has come with power. Interestingly, the idea is they're still going to die. Whereas in the final kingdom, nobody's dying. So what is this talking about? I don't know what happened next. They said. They said nothing happened. The scholar that they had says nothing happened. Well, verse two. Next thing that happened. After six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John. And led them. So some of those standing there. And led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. And his clothes became radiant. Intensely white. As no one on earth could bleach them. So there's something supernatural about his appearance. And there appeared to them, Elijah, with Moses. And they were talking with Jesus. What is this? Is this, like, maybe, I don't know, the kingdom of God coming with power, with Elijah and Moses talking to Jesus in a glorified state. And Peter said to Jesus, rabbi, it's good that we are here. Let us make three tents. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah, for he didn't know what to say. For they were terrified, and a cloud overshadowed them. And a voice came out of the cloud. This is my beloved son. Listen to him. And suddenly, looking around, uh, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only. So they go up to the mountain, and it's the transfiguration. Is it possible that that's what's being talked about? Well, it should at least be considered, right? It's the very next thing that happens in the text of scripture. And it's not just here. In Matthew 16, in three gospels we have the transfiguration. So in Matthew 16, we have, um, at the end of the chapter, we've got the same teaching. There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. And then what happens right after that? After six days, he goes up, and it's the mount of transfiguration, and his face and clothes shown. And Moses and Elijah appears. And all this stuff happens. Well, in Luke nine, we have it again. He says, there's some standing here who will not. Oh, I meant to have that on your screen. I'm sorry. Uh, who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. And the very next verse. Then they go up to the mount of transfiguration, and Jesus has changed before them, and they see Moses and Elijah, and then God speaks from a cloud. So you've got all these same events happening. It's not common in the synoptic gospels to have the same events happening, bookend like that over and over and over again, consistently in all three, it does happen, but it's not very common. And you might ask, maybe there's a reason for it. Maybe it's because it's commentary on how that statement from Jesus was fulfilled. But I have another piece of evidence for you since I'm doing the short version here. Two. Peter 116 through. And I've highlighted some stuff on your screen. Please check this out. For we did not follow Peter talking, uh, cleverly devised Miz, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the kingdom of power coming. And the son of man coming in power. What's he talking about? We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Right there, that highlighted portion. When were they eyewitnesses? When did they see the kingdom of Christ coming in power? When he received honor and glory from God the father. And the voice was born to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. Then he uses this in verse 19. You see, he's using this. Hey, we saw the sample of the coming of the kingdom, and that's a confirmation of the later coming of the kingdom. Um, so it should help you go through suffering to know it's coming. The final thing is still coming. What we saw was a sample, and what's coming fully is later on. So there's a very short case. Not getting into all the details. They could have included this in the video, but it wouldn't work because then it wouldn't be Satan's mocking guide to the Bible, where you're disproving everything in Christianity because they want it to look one sided. They want it to look like there's only one argument for their cause. All scholars agree. All the pastors secretly know it. And then you're just the children going, I guess I've been a dummy, dumb dumb, and now I'm going to become a skeptic like you, and we can take over the Internet with our atheism or something like that. And that's the vibe you get. This is that sort of thing. Um, again, I've got more details on that in my video down below about Jesus. Was he a failed apocalyptic prophet? Now let's talk about the empty tomb. This is super interesting because this is where the video goes off the rails, in a sense. Satan's guide to the bible purports to be what all scholars know and pastors all know it, and then they do this empty tombs nonsense. The majority of scholars would disagree with the implication of this video, that the empty tomb is not historical. Now, Bart Ehrman thinks it's not historical, a view he took on at some point in his career later on. Not earlier on, um, after he was doing debates. And it seems to me that the empty tomb was a powerful debate point, that his enemies would bring his enemies in the debate, right. His opponents in the debate would bring saying, hey, evidence for the resurrection. The empty tomb is an important one. And then he later said, I don't believe that anymore. Well, most scholars do believe it nowadays, so, um, that's right, most scholars do. You wouldn't know it from this video, though. Here you go. 67 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:56.000 Jesus tomb is empty. His body vanished. 68 00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:01.000 The earliest discussion we have of the resurrection is provided by Paul in one corinthians 15. 69 00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:05.000 His argument is striking since he makes no mention of an empty tomb. 70 00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:11.000 Paul never mentions, not once, the empty tomb. 71 00:34:11.000 --> 01:14:30.000 Um, okay, this is the last clip I'll show you. But you guys get the idea here. Clearly, first thing you're thinking, critical thinkers, you're going, Paul never mentions the empty tomb. Next thought, should I expect Paul to mention it? To think that he believed in it. Next thought, if Paul believed in the empty tomb or didn't believe in the empty tomb, is that weighing into the historicity of the empty tomb? Um, these are important questions to ask. We're not going to ask those in this video. It's just implications. But the majority of scholars go back like 40 years. The majority of scholars were totally against the empty tomb. It was laughable if you tried to make a case for the empty tomb. Scholarship has moved in a very different direction nowadays, where the majority of scholars, even non believers and skeptics and atheists and things like that, do believe the empty tomb is a reality. Jesus did rise, and then the tomb was later found empty by women. There's things like tell Elan and her work, um, uh, in Israel, the discoveries of, um, I'm sorry, I think I got the scholar's name wrong. Not tell Elan, she did the names, palestinian names. Who was the tomb stuff? She's over at, um, Bart Ehrman's university too, same school. Anyway, I have this in my empty tomb video. It's linked down below, you can check it all out. But basically they found tombs that match the description of the tombs from the Bible. And they're just in the Jerusalem area, they're not farther away. You don't have these tombs in, say, rome, where some people will suggest some of the gospels were written. Um, you've got lots of good evidence for the empty tomb, the sanhedrin and their role in burying and taking care of those, uh, who had died in Jerusalem around Passover time. The desire to get them buried and taken care of, the function of the tomb. Um, Joseph Verimathea, his, uh, role in the Sanhedrin, there's a bunch of interconnecting pieces that speak of the historicity of it. At any rate, one corinthians 15. This is the passage that they're like, hey, Paul didn't. Didn't seem to even know about the empty tomb, right? He never wrote about it. Well, this is what he did, right? Let's just read it. I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas Peter, end of the twelve, and appeared to more than 500 brothers at once. And da da da. It's silly to think that this is evidence. Paul didn't know about the tomb. He died, he was buried, he rose. Does burial require a tomb? Nope. Could require just a hole in the ground. But is it consistent with the tomb? Yes. Do we also have very early accounts of the tomb? Yes. Do we have any conflicting accounts? No. Normal is history. You would just assume Paul's talking about the empty tomb here, but skeptical propaganda, you're going to be. No, I'm going to make it so hard for you to prove any element of your christian faith that I will fight you tooth and nail every step of the way. Um, that, I think, is what's happening here in the end. Satan's guide to the Bible is 100% a propaganda piece. It's a propaganda piece. It's a propaganda piece. It presents itself like scholarship, but the parody part of it, where it's like Satan taking, uh, children and leading them away from truth, that's just the reality of it. It really is. Yeah. It's not new. If you want to dig into any of those issues that you see in the video, keep digging. Be patient. Apologetics can be a challenging thing. It's very rewarding. Too many of the things that I've studied have just really strengthened my faith. I still have some questions. There's some areas where I look and I go, yeah, I don't know the answers to that, but part of it's because I'm asking questions about ancient history, and even ancient history. Scholars, historians are going to tell you, yeah, we don't know the answers about some of this stuff. Right. Because there's a sparse historical record, there's challenges, there's difficulties, but the Bible has been proven true many, many times. The prophetic statements in the scripture and their fulfillment, um, later on in history are a very powerful piece of evidence. The unity of the scripture is a very powerful piece of evidence. And hopefully your own relationship and experiences with God are also a very powerful piece of evidence, at least for you. Even if it's hard to communicate that to somebody else. All right. There's more I could talk about, but that's Satan's guide to the Bible. Um, that's my shortest way I can answer that, and it was much longer than I wanted it to be. Let's see how many questions I get through today. I don't know if I'll get through 20 if I don't. Like I said, what I will do is do, like, ten today and ten, like, at another time where I'll just answer the ten questions. I won't leave you hanging, okay? Not permanently. All right, let's go to question two. Isaac Junkin says Genesis 124 sounds like God created animals through evolution. At God's command. Uh, the earth brings forth. Verse eleven is also used as the same language, interestingly, for, um, it's not used with water, birds, animals, and man. Thoughts on why this may be? Am I reading too much into it? So, Isaac, uh, I'm glad that you're digging into Genesis and thinking through these questions. I'm with you in the sense of still have questions I'm digging into, and I weigh some options, and I just haven't set aside the time of life that I would need to do my own really thorough study of this. And when I say really thorough, I think some of you guys know what I mean. I mean, like, really thorough. Like, this is, like, I'm going to obsess about this for months straight. Um, but, uh, I'd love to, maybe one day. So the idea that the earth brings forth. Let the earth bring forth. We can look at the text. Here's let, uh, the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. It is an interesting phrase. Let the earth bring forth. Um, when God made Adam, the closest parallel I have, where there's maybe more detail, is Adam. Right? So Adam is formed of the dust of the ground. So you could say the earth brought forth Adam. But is it possible that that phrase, earth brought forth, is, like a flexible phrase that could at least have more variety to it? I think part of the question here depends, um, on whether you're willing to say, hey, that's a broad phrase. It could be applied in a number of ways. And I'm just talking about the phrase here, not the whole passage. Not harmonizing all of genesis with evolution or something. I'm not talking about that. Um, this one phrase, because you got to take things one at a time, I think, with this stuff. Uh, the problem with that is that you have a vague, vague phrase that could probably be referring to a number of different things. It's just the earth brings forth at the command of God. Then you would have to move on to other things to ask questions like, how long did that take? Is that evolution? Right. Is the day, the yom in Genesis one a reference to a time period in general, a 24 hours day, night, day cycle or something typological or, like, um, where it's in reference to sort of. This is more of what some scholars call. And I hate the term because it's going to turn you off. Mytho. Ah, history. Which you're like, it's not myth. It really happened. They're not saying it didn't happen. They're not saying it didn't happen. Myth and Mytho history are very different things, especially in modern English. Okay, so, at any rate, the genre analysis of Genesis one, where you're asking, what was the writer trying to indicate here, allows you to answer a question of how exact is this terminology being used? Is the earth brought forth a very, very broad statement that could have played out in real life in a variety of ways? Or is it, like, a very narrow statement? And one of the things that narrows it is, say, taking a 24 hours day period? Well, it couldn't be evolution if it's 24 hours. So then you back up and you go, okay, we have to have that discussion about Yom. What is yom? And, um, how long were the days in Genesis? So I don't have all the answers. I'm just talking with you about that stuff. So there you go. Isaac? Um, there's areas I've spent more time on. There's areas I have stronger confidence. And when it comes to Genesis, where I stand right now is open to a variety of interpretations, as long as those interpretations are holding up the authority and the reliability of scripture. Okay. It's not an interpretation to say genesis is wrong. That's not an interpretation. That's, um, a different thing. But I'm open to a variety of christian, what I call in house christian interpretations of Genesis. Don't know the right one. If I ever figure out what I believe to be the right one, I'll happily share it with you guys. Until then, I'm inevitably, by being open, I'm open to the right one, but I'm also open to the wrong ones. So I hesitate to teach on it because I don't want to create openness to wrong views. So I'm just open with you guys about my openness. I can be open about how strange that is to say all that. All right, question number three. This is from Lance Rhodes, who says, what is the explanation for God referring to Israel as male, Hosea 14, and as female? Is the context related, or is there another explanation? Well, let's just look at this together. Hosea 14, verses five and six. I will be like the dew to Israel. He shall blossom like the lily. He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon. His shoots shall spread out. His beauty shall be like the olive, his fragrance like Lebanon. Um, I'm just scanning a little bit of the context here. Interesting that verse seven moves to they. They shall return and dwell beneath my shadow. They shall flourish like a grain. They shall blossom like the vine. I don't, um, just. I would guess that the singular he they. Maybe that Israel here is being referenced as a nation, but maybe. Perhaps what's being alluded to is the father of the nation. Right. At least their namesake, which is Jacob Israel. Um, and it's obviously talking about the nation, not him. But there may be an allusion to him through the he they language that's going on right there. That's, um, possible. Then you've got, uh, Jeremiah 36. The Lord said to me, in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and every green tree and there played the whore? So Israel is being pictured here as the way that a cheating wife. A wife who's cheating on her husband. And so Israel belongs to God. Israel is supposed to be loyal to God. Um, and so I get that terminology, too. I think generally, Israel is referred to more often as feminine, but also as masculine. And there's probably different reasons for that. If Israel is being compared to a, uh, cheating wife, it's going to be feminine. If Israel is being sort of having allusion to Israel the man, then there may be a more of a masculine term. I think that when it comes to nations, more typically we talk about nations as feminine, as female, but that's not always the case. And because nations aren't actually masculine or feminine, in reality, what you're doing is you're pulling out different qualities, different aspects to talk about that nation. And it's okay to pick a gendered language that, uh, reflects those aspects. Unlike with humans, who actually have a real, actual, solid, unchangeable gender, then we use language that reflects that. Otherwise we're being deceptive about reality. Uh, question number four. Melissa Dickinson. Did people not know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem? I feel like they would have cleared up some of their issues with him being the messiah. Let's look at that. John seven, you reference verses 41 to 43. Others said, this is the Christ, but some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? Um, so there's division among the people over him. So, yeah, obviously I think the implication you're picking up on here is correct. They did not pick up on the idea that Jesus was from Bethlehem. Now, part of the reason know he was born in Bethlehem is that controlling information about public figures is difficult. And just telling other people, hey, he's from Bethlehem isn't always that easy, nor is it necessarily going to be believed by everybody who hears it. He's from Bethlehem. Oh, he was born in Bethlehem. Well, they may or may not believe when they hear this sort of thing. And so this is discussions about some of the things that were being said about Jesus. Um, did they try to clear it up? Did anybody? You know, here's an explanation for that. Um, we don't really know. Uh, we don't know if that's the whole story. We're getting a little snippet of the conversations that were going on among the people and would have helped them to know that he was from Bethlehem. Uh, possibly, but there was still time for them to find that out. Right? We're in the middle of their stories here. These people, they don't just die at the end of this verse. They continued living and experiencing things, and many of them did eventually come to Christ. So let me make sure I answered your question. There would have cleared up some of their issues with him being the messiah. Potentially, yeah. Um, but hopefully it did over time as they learn more. So let's go to the next question. Number five, Rachel Ray. Ah, probably not the one who does all the cooking. Um, Rachel Ray says, does deuteronomy 1230 prohibit current christians from learning about other worldviews, religions, cults, in order to evangelize them and utilize appropriate apologetics techniques? What an interesting question. Does this prevent us from doing? Well, to be honest, many of the things I've done online take care that you be not ensnared to follow after them. These are the false gods, um, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods saying, how did these nations serve their gods? That I may also do the same. Um, this is God in deuteronomy twelve, preventing his people, Israel, uh, offering a rule that's to prevent them from going back to the pagan practices and the ungodly things that were done in the past. If you look at the actual prohibition, it's two part. It's not one part. If it was one part, it would say, don't inquire saying, how did they serve their gods? But rather the rest of the part. The second part is that I may also do the same. Uh, put it on your screen again. Don't inquire of them saying, how do they serve their gods? Can I do the same? That's the issue. So I think that this is a good rule for apologetics and for people studying other religions and false religions. If you think that your studying of, say, new age practices to reach out to people who are believing those things is going to draw you in. If you're like, man, I'm just kind of wired that way. Like, as I read these things, I start praying that way and I start thinking that way, and it starts messing you up, don't do it. It's not for you. We're not all wired that, like, I'm strange, right? I'm a nerd in specific ways. I wear this shirt for David Wood, by the way. You guys can let him know. David Wood, this shirt's for you. Um, but, uh, um, the test of am I being drawn away by studying these things? Am I having my faith diluted? Am I having the purity of my beliefs and of my practices of Christianity before God diluted by this stuff I'm studying? And if the answer is yes, if it's messing you up, then stop, because you're falling into the same trap that they fell into there. I think that would be the application that I would bring, is make sure there's two parts to the story that I may follow, that I may do the same. If you're not doing the same, if you're not doing it to do the same or causing you to do the same, follow those things, then it's okay for you to study those things for evangelism. Question number six. Don Miguelio says, why did God choose bad kings if he knows every heart? Saul, Solomon, Jeroboam, hazael, and Jehu all turned away but were directly chosen by him, why not choose kings he knew would stay faithful? Um, that's an interesting question. Whenever these questions come up, I just want to have a little caveat and say, when we're asking, why didn't God do this instead of that? Because this other plan that I have, it seems like it would make so much more sense, like it would work better. I just want to recognize that even if I don't have the answer to this question, I'm okay with that. And hopefully you are, too. You go, God, I don't know why he did this and not that, but yet, if I don't ever figure that out, if I just sit here with not knowing why God did x and not y, why God did a and not b, if I never figure that out, I still know that God does what's good and I trust his judgment. So I guess you want to ask yourself first, am I asking this question? Because I'm like, and I don't think you, uh, you, uh, know, Don Miguelio, I think you're probably asking with the right intention. I'm saying this for everybody listening whenever you ask these kinds of questions, why didn't God do this? Instead of that, double check in your own heart that you're not putting your faith on the line based on the answer. Because here's what happens. You've already made a mistake before you ask the question. And the mistake was God. I don't trust you. If I don't approve of your actions, I will stop believing in you. Now, why did you do that? That's a super scary place to be. It's also very irrational when you think about it straightforwardly, to say to God, I know better than you, my judgments are better than yours. My plans are better than yours. And if you don't approve of my judgments and my plans, and you do it some other way, I reject you. This is like the height of fall. Like, I've got to have enough self awareness to go, you know, when I was three, I thought I was smart. When I was seven, I thought my three year old self was dumb. When I was ten, I thought I was smart, and my seven year old self was dumb. And when I was 20, I thought my ten year old self was just total numb skull. And now I'm, like, really smart. Now I get it. Now I know I'm an adult. When I hit 30, I was like, man, when I was 20, boy, oh, boy, was I just. When I hit 40, I was like, man, when I was 30, I was still a lot to learn. And boy, do you get. The point is, we're always at our smartest in life, and we rarely recognize how ignorant we are until much later. How ignorant am I now? How ignorant are you now compared to God? Um, so that being said, for just seeking to understand things, why does God choose bad kings? Uh, well, there's probably a number of reasons I imagine that are going into this. One of them is, biblically speaking, people are just messed up, right? Even David, who was like, of all the kings Israel ever had, David was like, probably the best. But David had some total flaws and some major missteps, including like, murder and adultery. So David totally blew it. And if that's the case, maybe what we're seeing amongst the kings is that this is how peoples just are. Like, people are messed up. And when you give hm them a lot of power, the old saying, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This would not be true with God. Obviously, this is not true of God, who is innately holy. The reason why power corrupts isn't because anything's wrong with power, but because something is wrong with us. And when you get power, you get dangerous. You become more of a problem. You are capable of great things, but you're also more capable of terrible things that you might have desired to do, but never would have been able to do before. So I think it's a commentary on humanity, the failures of humans. Plus, by showing us all these kings that all have failures, it provides a contrast to the king, Jesus, who is perfect without failure. And it shows that men are fallen, and we need Jesus to be our king. We need him to save us. We see this throughout the judges of Israel, the leaders of Israel, they all fail in significant ways. Even Moses doesn't enter the promised land. Joshua doesn't successfully fulfill his mandate, not fully. Um, even the heroes often are shown, most often are shown falling short, in contrast to Jesus, who never falls. Uh, I mean, those are a couple of reasons. Other things, in my understanding, God is orchestrating the events of the universe and the events of history in such a way that by having this king in place, though bad things happen, at times, it starts domino effects that cause other things in history and other things in history. And ultimately, it all is playing out just according to God's plan. And so when you zoom out and you go, well, that was a moment that was really weird, but it also affected other moments, and some of those moments were really great. And so God is orchestrating it according to his will. Let's, uh, go to the next question. Number seven. Jason Craig says, mike, I heard you once say you didn't agree with Michael Heiser's views on the divine council. What is it that you don't agree with? Um, Jason, it's super hard for me to give a great, detailed answer on that because, um, what it requires is an examination of deuteronomy of psalm like 82, the end of deuteronomy. These passages that are sort of like the pillars of his divine counsel, worldview. Um, and an examination of like, what does he mean by Elohim and what are Ender's confusions about some of Heiser's work? And some people go places he doesn't with it. And I say Heiser and they're thinking these weird things. So all that to say, I haven't done all that work. Um, what I can say is on my own, right. When I've looked at his deuteronomy stuff and the psalm 82 stuff, I don't think that the sons of God here refers to, uh, the divine council. I actually have a video. I'll link it below. I'll find it. Um, I think I was talking to Melissa Dougherty. She interviewed me once and I think we brought up psalm 82. And I shared a couple of different views on that. And there's at least something I actually had prepared and shared there that's maybe a bit more careful. Plenty of you can be believer and disagree with me on this. Michael, um, Heiser's divine council view is that, um, for those who don't know, is. Can I summarize it fairly? Um, God, uh, has like a tiered structure and not angels. But there's another group of beings who are like powerful, spiritual beings, um, which some would call, well, he called them divine beings. Divine council. They're a divine beings, but they're not like God. Yahweh. It's complicated, and even when Heiser explains it, he has to be really careful what words he uses. So, Yahweh. There's only one Yahweh. He's species unique is the term Heiser likes to use. There's only one of him. There's only one true God who's eternal, who's, um, omnipotent and all those things uncreated. But there are these other beings principalities and powers of the air. I'm trying to channel my glider here in my head. Um, and then sort of the top of the tier list, but infinitely below God, but above all the others are this divine council. And they are sort of in charge of humanity and in charge of the nations. And they really kind of blew it and failed. And so God sort of dethroned them. And he's lifting up humans into those roles eventually. Um, there's more to it, and I hope I didn't mess it up. But you get the idea that now you're looking around scripture going, oh, where else do I see these beings and how do they relate to the false gods of, like, say, baal? How is baal a divine being that is there? I am not on board with this, um, for a number of reasons. I'll link the video below. Psalm 82, where I talk about it, um, as well as the deuteronomy, uh, chapter. I've looked at it, done my cursory examination of it, and thought, yeah, I don't think it says that, um, and you may be like, mike, you didn't prove it wrong. Well, that's okay. I haven't made the effort to sit down and analyze all of his stuff and try to prove it wrong. I haven't done that with lots of things. You're free to hold your own view there. You just ask me where I'm at on, um. Yeah, I think that one area of disagreement that I think might help in a broad way is saying, um. Heiser looks at intertestamental literature, the stuff that was written after the close of the canon of the Old Testament and before the New Testament. Right. That stuff that happened before Jesus, but after Malachi. Right. Um, and he looks at those writings, these intertestamental writings, and uses them often to create an understanding of the Old Testament or of the context of the New Testament. Um, while I, in principle, agree that that is a potential that you can do that, in my view, Heiser will look at some of those writings and he'll read them as the proper interpretation of the Old Testament or the proper background of the new, such as that the New Testament authors would have agreed with that in cases where I think that's not the case, so that there's, like, an actual disconnect in, like, I. I don't think we've established that that's actually the right interpretation or that the New Testament authors would have agreed with that interpretation just because it was present at the time. Among some people, Jesus had a nuanced view. He agreed and disagreed with certain things. And the New Testament authors can too. Forgive me for anybody who's like, I don't even know what you guys are talking about. I'll move on. Tabitha Litman has a question. When did speaking in tongues change from being real human languages that the speaker did naturally. They naturally knew to being a non human spirit language. Okay, historically, Tabitha. Ah. When did that happen? I don't know. Um. I'd imagine it's connected to modern Pentecostalism. Um, I'd imagine. I don't know if. I guess I'm wondering if in church history, there were some interesting things that happened in church history in the east. Um, there was a particular group that was very into spiritual gifts. Ah. And a lot of prophecy and stuff. But in a weird way, I don't know if they did that. Did they do tongues? I read something about that one time, and I don't remember now. Don't recall off the top of my head, but I think that when you answer different, ask a different question, it's interesting, too, which is, um, biblically, where do people ground this idea that their tongues are what to the rest of us sound like? Just blather or gibberish? Um, and I think there's two passages in scripture that stand out. One is, uh, in one corinthians, where Paul talks about, though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I'm a sounding clang, a sounding symbol. I'm basically pointless noise. So then this idea of, like, well, can we extrapolate from that to the idea that, uh, tongues is. Maybe there's a third passage, too. I'll bring up. Tongues is like, potentially any language, including an angelic language, or was Paul just speaking hypothetically? I mean. Well, I think he is speaking hypothetically, but it seems sensical that he's affirming that tongues, that angels have tongues or languages they have languages they speak. Could a person speaking in tongues speak in a way that is a non human language? That's a language, but it's just not human? That certainly is possible. Okay. That's definitely possible. Now, can you add to this that there are tongues that are never interpreted in scripture? Yeah. Right. Because Paul says if a person is speaking in tongues and there's no interpretation, let them keep it between themselves and God. They can still speak in tongues. Just don't do it for the public, okay? People are going to think you're crazy. Note to self, right? Note to the church, people will think you're crazy. You do it in public like that. Um, and there's rules for these things. So that being said, okay, I can understand in principle how someone goes, yeah, you just go ahead and speak. And even if nobody ever interprets and you don't recognize what human language that is, that doesn't mean it's nothing. But understandably, there's skeptics who are like, yeah, but it really sounds like gibberish. That doesn't sound like a language I've never heard. It sounds like you're repeating the same group of noises over and over again. Sort of intuitively, you're just making noises. Um, so another defense of this might be, I'm just talking out loud with you guys thinking biblically. So we're trying to pull scripture into the conversation in, um, acts chapter two, where some people say, look, when they were speaking in tongues, and the Holy Spirit really just came in power, right? And they're all speaking in tongues. There are some in the crowd who are like, hey, we hear him speaking our own tongues. Barbarian, scythian and all this stuff. They didn't say barbarian, but anyway, Scythian was one of the languages. Um, and they're hearing it in their own languages. Um, at that time, others accused them of being drunk. And so some would say, so to some people, when you're speaking in tongues, it just sounds like you're being drunk. I think they're reading too much into the text when they do that. I wouldn't go down that road. I think that scripture is used by hypercharismatics. The whole drunkenness thing is really, really used. Uh, beyond, like, the idea of being drunk in the spirit based on acts two is, um, offensive to me, uh, to my reading of the text of scripture and my understanding of what's actually happening there and the fact that scripture says, like, be filled with the spirit. Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. These are contrasting ideas, not comparative ideas. Not be so filled with the spirit. People can't tell whether you're drunk. Um, this was just them giving a bad explanation for why something weird was happening. They just, oh, they're just drunk. These are people being dismissive. They're not actually explaining something they're seeing. So I don't think the drunkenness thing works. Um, then there's Romans chapter eight, which says that when we don't know how to pray as we ought, the spirit intercedes for us with groans, which words cannot express. I don't think that that's probably tongues. While I did, when I was much younger, uh, in teaching through Romans, before I was even doing online ministry, I read that, and I realized in teaching through it, you teach carefully and slowly, and you go, I don't know if this is actually tongues, guys. Um, it just says groans, which words cannot express. Words aren't expressing these things. So I do think the Holy Spirit meets us in our times of prayer, where we're just emoting to God. And even if somebody's speaking gibberish while they're doing that, they yet may be emoting to God in a way that the Holy Spirit is interceding. Is carrying their thoughts, their cares, their concerns before the Lord. Um, but, yeah, those are some things to think about. Let me reread your question and see if I can summarize my answer. When did speaking in tongues change from being real human languages that the speaker didn't naturally know to being a non human spirit language? There's a case that I think is good that there are languages that humans don't know that can be involved in tongues so that God may allow you to supernaturally speak in tongues through angelic language or something like that. So it can be a non human language, but in that case, it would be a real language, but it wouldn't just be blather gibberish, nonsense sounds. It would be sounds that would be a foreign language you don't understand. But even when somebody is falling into gibberish yet, they may still be fellowshipping with the Lord and actually communicating to God, just not with words that make sense in any sense, but with their emotions, their desires. They're just sort of groaning to the Lord, in a sense, and it's coupled with a distorted understanding of tongues. So I am saying don't demonize them. Just recognize there's some level of ignorance there. Um, and now I've made everybody mad. All right, let's go to question number nine. Uh, Philippians four eight. Is there a biblical definition for the term neighbor? I've always thought it was a term used to describe a non believer who shows love to a christian or means them no harm. So that's so interesting. Uh, Philippians four eight is the verse you use. We'll answer this the way Jesus does. Um, finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is anything excellent, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Oh, I'm reading it going. I don't see how this relates to your question. That's your YouTube name, philippians four eight. Okay, so my bad. Um, yeah, the biblical definition of neighbor was provided by Jesus. Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. And they say to him, okay, well, then who's my neighbor? Wanting to justify themselves because they had people they didn't want to love. And so he tells the story of the good Samaritan. And the good Samaritan, the story is that there's this priest. Uh, what was he? Basically, he's a jew. How do I don't remember this right now? It's because I didn't get enough sleep again. Um, later on, I'll kick myself. Um, at any rate, there's a pious jew, a very serious jew, and he gets robbed and beat up. And he's on the side of the road. A priest walks by. He's one of the guys who doesn't help him out. Then the samaritan comes by. Now, the Jews and the Samaritans were like this, okay? The Samaritans were viewed as apostate, right? Apostate from the jewish people with a false religion, trying to mimic Judaism. And there was a ton of tension between them. There's a time when Jesus is going through, uh, to Jerusalem, um, and he's going to pass through Samaria, and they find out, wait, you're heading to Jerusalem? No, you got to go around. You can't even go through our place because they were so offended. There's so much tension between the two people, right? This is like serious rivalry between these groups. Jesus uses the Samaritan in the story as the one who helps this jew out, and then he asks them the question, which one of the people who passed him by passed by the hurt man? Which one was his neighbor? And they go, oh, well, the samaritan, I think that maybe if I could give a summary of the point. Neighbor is not someone in your people group. Neighbor is not someone who lives right next to you. Neighbor is whoever you come across in life. They're your neighbor. And when you treat them as a neighbor, it's because you treat them with compassion and care and love. So neighbor are not fictitious people who live far away who I never meet, but if I ever do meet them, no matter where they live, they're my neighbor. When I'm just driving down the street, the people around my car, those are my neighbors. When I'm going to the store, the people in front of me in line, that's my neighbor. The people who live next door to you, they're also your neighbors. So neighbor should reflect anybody in humanity, but in particular the ones you come in contact with, because those are the people you can do something to help. Those are the people who you have the opportunity to express love to. I think that's how Jesus showed us how to answer that question. Question number ten. Justin Robinson says, how do we interpret acts? Is it a reasonable interpretation that it's merely a transitional period and that we have to be careful how much doctrine we can take from it? Um, it is. Okay. I don't think that's a reasonable, well, let me read it again. Is it reasonable to interpret the book of acts this way? Acts is merely a transitional period, and we have to be careful how much doctrine we can take from it. I think that that's accurate and inaccurate. It's accurate that it's a transitional period. Totally accurate. But we definitely need to take doctrine from the Book of Acts because the transition is teaching us theology. So in the book of acts, if you read through acts and you study, and this was one of the coolest studies that I think I've done, even though YouTube views wouldn't suggest that that's the case. Um, one of the coolest studies I've done, though, is through the Book of Acts. I was dealing with the hebrew roots movement, who are suggesting that we have to obey the law of the Old Testament as christians today, and that we're effectively still under the law. I say effectively because they'll say, we're not under the law, but you still have to do everything it says, but we're effectively end up still being under it. Um, that's my interpretation of their views. So I went through the Book of Acts, and I looked at the Jew and Gentile dynamic throughout the book, and it really affected how I understand the Book of Acts. Seeing it as a transition impacted it. But what that did was that didn't diminish the theology of the book. It brought it out more clearly. What we're being told about what it means to be in Christ and what's required and not required of believers in Jesus, this transitionary stuff is not less theological, it's just that it has to be read in the context of the transition, and then it becomes very theological. So the first part of the agreement, you got to read it as a transition. True. But you can't therefore diminish the theology. Rather, you go, ooh, this is teaching us something super important about what it means to be in the new covenant, what it means to be in Christ. Now, it's really cool stuff. So I think you should read acts that way. Also realize that there are clear doctrinal statements in acts, but more often they're not clear doctrinal statements. They're examples and stories where a problem arises and a solution is given, and then that is teaching you something. So anytime you're reading theology that's coming from, uh, example and not direct didactic type teaching, you have to be careful. But that's always true, right? Uh, that's true of every place where you're reading, like, story theology, storied theology. I shouldn't use that phrase. I know some liberal somewhere is going to use that to mean something like, I can make up what I want about the Bible. I don't mean that. You guys know I don't mean that. So, uh, with acts. Yeah, I'll link that video below too, if I can remember to link all these videos about the book of acts and how the transition in the book of acts teaches us about christians being. Not being under the law and, um, how that interacts with the jewish aspect of things as well, if you're jewish and you're in Christ. So I'll link that theoretically later on. Okay. Actually, here's what I'm going to do. Listen, I've been wanting to do something for a while. I hate to drop it on you guys like this for a while now, I've been thinking, what if I did ten questions instead of 20 on a Friday and maybe I could do them more frequently and it wouldn't, um, be quite as long of a video. Well, this is a long video, but it's going to be super duper long if I keep going. Um, I think what I'm going to do is I'll try this today. Just consider an experiment. If you don't like it, please let me know. Right, I've gone all ears. Okay. And then, uh, the next live stream I do, I will just answer the ten questions I didn't answer today, starting with, um, question number eleven, which is going to be, uh, is being in a long term dating relationship wise, how should you wait for someone to make the decision to marry you or not? How long should you wait? Ooh, that's a tough question. Maybe I'll make that question, too. I'll pick one of these ten questions to be the first one, though, that's for sure. Um, and then I'll answer all those, uh, to the best of my ability. And we'll try ten questions with Pastor Mike. That'll be this week. And then the next video live stream, which, I don't know, maybe it'll be next Friday. Maybe I'll do it more frequently. This is what I've been toying with in my head. Maybe I could do it a little bit more often if I just did ten. Um, there's a few reasons why that might help me. Don't know if it would work for you guys, but maybe we can find out. So I'm going to call it right now. We're going to call it. This is the end of the stream. Let me know if this was a terrible idea or not. Otherwise, thank, uh, you guys for being here. And I will possibly see you next Friday if that works out for my mods. Mods. You have to let me know if that works for you since I'm springing this all on. You live in front of a bunch of people, and otherwise, I will, uh, continue working behind the scenes on the final video in the women in ministry series. I know it's taking me a long time. I can't wait to be done with this project. I hope this last video will be something that really helps people with the tough question of, how do you apply this into all the areas of life now that, you know, egalitarianism doesn't work? All right, so let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the clarity and the truth that's in your word, even though we still often have questions, even after we've asked them. But yet we have some direction from scripture, even on the things we don't know the answers to. We at least can bring in the text of scripture and say, here's some direction. Here's something to keep us from error, man. We pray for more and more of that. We ask that you'd help us to see the goodness of scripture, help us to see the nuance that there is in the Bible, so that when we look at, say, the book of acts, we don't just think, don't use theology there, but rather we see how powerful the theology really is. Um, and yet we have the wisdom not to pull things out of context. Lord, we pray that we would be people who are aware of how often even well meaning christians have misunderstood the scripture, misapplied it to their own hurt, or to the hurt of others or the hurt of the reputation of the gospel, and that you would help us to apply it well, and to see when we've misinterpreted something so that we can just really follow you in your word, in Jesus name.