WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:18.000 Jesus, most about first century followers never owned a Bible, never read a Bible. They couldn't have read the Bible if there was a Bible because most of them couldn't read and there was no Bible to read. Why is it that you are so quickly and perhaps have been persuaded so easily to walk away from faith because of a book that didn't exist? If the foundation of your faith is an absolutely true book, good luck with that. 2 00:00:18.000 --> 00:01:14.000 In attempting to save people's faith, he's shaving away everything he doesn't think he can save. And he is stripping down Christianity in a way that is very unhealthy. This is a video I've been thinking about making for like five years. And uh, today I'm going to set aside some time and go ahead and do it. Andy Stanley is a very influential pastor. He is on speaking tours. He gathers other pastors around him to be like the coach, like the pastor's coach and teach them how to be a pastor. Not to mention like 23,000 or more people weekly hearing him in attendance to North Point Church, his church, as well as its satellite churches. There's one particular message that he has taugh. This was. It actually kind of flew more under the radar than I would have expected. This was like six years ago. And it was part of a series called Aftermath. In the same series, he got, uh, a lot of attention for the third part in the series where he talked about unhitching from the Old Testament. 3 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:25.000 Peter, James, Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures. And my friends, we must as well. 4 00:01:25.000 --> 00:02:28.000 But the groundwork for that very questionable teaching which I will be addressing in a video which I'll link below. Um, the groundwork for that teaching comes from this teaching we're going to address today. And this is about the Bible. What does Andy Stanley teach his congregants about the Bible? There's been some confusion over this, understandably, because I think some people don't understand how to process like the things that he's saying. We're going to do that today. We're going to listen to Andy Stanley sermon process and understand what he's teaching people about scripture and try to ask if it's something that we should agree with or not. It's definitely a teaching that will strike a lot of people as odd. I'm going to offer some pushback to, uh, Andy Stanley for the sake of individuals, everybody watching. Right. This is not something Andy Stanley privately believes. This is what he's pumping out to tens of thousands of congregant members as well as to the world, as well as at pastors, retreats and conferences and things where he's training others. Here we go. The aftermath sermon from Andy Stanley. Let's see what he says. 5 00:02:28.000 --> 00:03:13.000 I'm really, really, really excited about, uh, these next three weeks. The name of the series is Aftermath. And before we jump into the content, I just want to say one thing. If you gave up on Christianity because of something in the Bible or something about the Bible, something that was actually in the Bible or something you heard or read about the Bible, um, you may have given up on Christianity unnecessarily. In fact, if you're somebody who's saying, you know what? I'm still in because my wife makes me come to church or my girlfriend makes me come to church, my boyfriend drags me to church. But honestly, I'm kind of leaning for the door. I've got. I'm, um, about to put my hand on the handle to say, hey, I'm out of here. And it's because of something in the Bible or something about the Bible. Something you've heard, somebody told you, something you read. I want you to know that you don't have to leave. And so he's very glad they're there. 6 00:03:13.000 --> 00:04:39.000 He kind of is a little repetitive here in this part, but you get the idea. Hey, if you've been doubting the Bible, you heard what he said, right? Now, you might think the reason why he says you don't have to leave is going to be because he'll defend the Bible. Oh, uh, don't worry. You can believe the Bible. The Bible is believable. It is trustworthy. It is God's word. That is not Andy Stanley's message. No, but if he's not going to affirm the truth of scripture, but he still will tell people, don't worry, you don't have to leave. If you don't believe the Bible, why will that be? Because it's. Because Andy's going to be preaching a version of Christianity that doesn't require or necessitate belief in scripture. At least that's my impression of it. We're going to listen to his actual teaching. There's a whole bunch of stuff, uh, in this, and he's a really great speaker. He's a fantastic leader in that sense. He really is. He's got a lot of skills there. That's not an insult. That's. That's a compliment. But he's using those skills here to say things in ways that I think. I think a lot of people don't realize what they're hearing. So let's just, uh, you know, pull the COVID off and expose exactly what is the teaching going on here. What is Andy Stanley saying about the Bible? He wants to say, you don't need to believe the Bible, Just set it aside, stop struggling over that issue and be part of this thing anyways. He then will try to tie that to the early church and to the apostles and to Jesus. Dig in and get the details. 7 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Something to keep in mind as we begin the series. Jesus most devout followers. Jesus Most devout 1st century followers never owned a Bible, Never read a Bible. They couldn't have read the Bible if there was a Bible because most of them couldn't read and there was no Bible to read. 8 00:04:53.000 --> 00:07:53.000 Think about these words for a second. You might be like, well, in a sense he's right, Mike. Jesus followers didn't have a Bible because like revelation wasn't written when Jesus was walking the earth. Or his first followers, let's say whoever Paul preached to and John and Peter and James and those guys, whoever they preached to that just got saved, those people didn't have a Bible because Hebrews wasn't written yet, right? That was one of a later, A, uh, later book in the New Testament. And you're right, they didn't have a revelation, they didn't have a Hebrews. That doesn't mean they didn't have a Bible. That's where it's not true. That phrase, they didn't have a Bible. Simply factually wrong. The people who were walking in the wilderness with Moses, he was writing the scriptures down and he hands them Genesis and he hands them later Exodus, you know, numbers, Deuteronomy, especially towards the end, right? As Joshua kind of probably finished off some of that. You've got the giving of the Bible to the people of Israel. They don't have a full Bible yet, but they certainly have scriptures. And those scriptures are supposed to guide them. So even when they had just the five books of Moses, they have a Bible. It's just not a complete Bible. Later on, as they add the prophets, as they get the historical writings and stuff, they have a larger Bible, but they certainly have a Bible. And you actually see this in scripture. We have records of Josiah cleaning out the temple, and they find the book of the Law and they read it. And they have been neglecting it for a long time. And it causes this great revival. I mean, this revival would not have happened without a Bible. And you might be like, but wait, Mike, no, no, that's the Scriptures, not the Bible. That's what the Bible calls the scriptures. They're the same thing, right? When we say the Bible, we're saying the book, the ultimate book. When you say the Scriptures, you're saying the writings as in the ultimate writings or what God has given us in the text. That's the idea. So yes, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, even while they were still writing those books, they still had a Bible. It was the entire Old Testament, the same one that I have right now. And then they had of course the experiences with Jesus as they wrote these things. They became disseminated to the church. To say that they had no Bible is wrong. That's a, uh, simplistic, uh, childish way to put things. And this is something I've seen in Andy Stanley over and over and over again. It's almost as though he's had bad experiences with sort of simple minded church people. Now I'm not saying church people are simple minded, right? There are simple minded worldly people. There are thoughtful, intelligent worldly people. There are simple minded church people. There are thoughtful, intelligent church people. It sounds to me like Andy always couches his criticisms as though they're coming at simple minded church people who are sort of like haven't really thought deeply about these things, but they do feel passionate about them. But he rarely interacts with any sort of robust view from somebody who might actually be like critiquing him or disagreeing with him, like I'm going to do in this video. So let's keep that in mind. Now notice what he's going to tell us next is when the Bible came into existence. And see, after what I've shared so far, if you think he's saying something. 9 00:07:53.000 --> 00:08:05.000 True, yet these men and women turned the world upside down. They're the reason that we're here today worshiping Jesus. And they never held a Bible because there was no tabiblia the Bible until the first, I mean, excuse me, until the fourth century. So what happened? 10 00:08:05.000 --> 00:13:12.000 Okay, so if you're like me, all those red flags go off when you hear this. And it's not because I'm a mindless religious drone. It's because I care about truth and I certainly care very much about the Bible. Let's talk about it. Did, um, claim number one, did the apostles turn the world upside down without a Bible because it didn't exist at the time? Do you know that when Jesus himself walks into the synagogue in Luke chapter four, I believe, and he opens the scroll, he's reading what the Bible he's reading Isaiah, he's reading the Scriptures, the writings, the inspired word. And he reads it, and there he says, this is being fulfilled in your hearing. And so he uses Scripture to validate his own person. That is, he's not doing his ministry or proving his ministry or preaching his ministry apart from the Scriptures. He quotes the Old Testament. He appeals to the Old Testament all the time. The early apostles, when they went from church to church, or, excuse me, synagogue to synagogue, in the Book of Acts, we see Paul, we see Apollos, we see Peter. They debate with Jews in the synagogue about the Bible. That is, they open the scrolls and they go, it says right here, the Messiah will do this. That's what Jesus did. So the Bible very much was the reason for them to believe in Jesus. Now, the resurrection of Jesus was as well. There were like two prongs to the apologetic outreach of the. Of the Book of Acts. Read it for yourself. There is maybe three prongs. There's the Bible, right? Fulfilled prophecy, the statements that God has sent before. And that was usually more focused on a Jewish audience because they were people who were more exposed to the Bible. They would use the Bible more. Then there was the resurrection of Jesus, and they would talk about the resurrection and eyewitnesses of Jesus. That was another prong in their outreach. It wasn't one or the other, it was both. And then there was the miracles and the things that God was doing in the early church that just, like, said so loudly, this is an act of God. And that's something God still uses today, all three of those. Um, and he wants to get rid of one of those. He wants to remove one, and he wants to act like the apostles didn't have that one. Right? They didn't have a complete Bible. I agree, but they absolutely had a Bible. And you know what? They also had the teachings of Jesus, the work of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, the teachings of the apostles. And they had that in their presence in the first century, and it became enshrined in the text of Scripture, so we could still have it, too. So they had much of the content of the New Testament, even when it had not yet been fully written. But he instead. Now let's go to claim number two from Andy. That. And it's weird because you can say a big claim like this and then just move on. And people are like, okay, I guess so. But to respond to it and unpack it takes time. And so it's going to take some time. He says the Bible didn't Come to existence, come about, didn't, wasn't around. Nobody had one until the fourth century. As if you have textless churches who are just living out with messages. They tell each other things. Um, they heard about Jesus, but there's no Bibles that they've got. And then in the 4th century, people gather together some documents and they go, here's your Bible. Now. Now, it could be he's talking about the Council of Nicaea or perhaps a different council. Um, at any rate, 4th century councils did not give us our Bible. That's like, historically not true. I would think Andy knows this. He's obviously a very intelligent man, and at least in some senses, he's well read because he'll sometimes quote. And you're like, hey, okay, you know what you're talking about on that? Yeah. I don't know why he thinks the Bible came about in the 4th century. That's like a common myth. It's an Internet myth, right? They think the Council of Nicaea, uh, Emperor Constantine of Rome gathered the church together and was like, let's figure out which Bibles we want to keep. And they arbitrarily chucked some and they kept other ones. And it was, of course, in the Internet memes, it's always a bunch of old white guys, right? So forget the African bishops and stuff. It's just a bunch of old white guys. Um, and this, of course, is not historically true. It was really more of like a trickle thing. Here's what happened. In the first century, we have the four Gospels as well as the writings of Paul, the letters of Paul, very, very early on, these are being bound together, gathered together, copied, and handed from church to church to church. First century, you're getting these things passed around. As time goes by, that collection gets bigger, and you have more and more churches where you could go to. And you could see the letters of John, and you can see the letters of Peter, and you could see other stuff as well. But, uh, some stuff there was more debates on. They had discussions about revelation, and in a sense, it's understandable. Revelation is like a wild book. People were like, this is wild. Um, are we sure it came from John? Can we confirm? I'm glad that they cared about these things. Hebrews. They had discussions about Hebrews, who wrote it. Is it really apostolic in its nature? And of course, the church said, look, we really feel that the Holy Spirit has given us this text. We really believe that this is part of our Bible. So there was, for some churches, you might go to one church and maybe they had Hebrews and another church didn't yet. But to say that they had no Bible because maybe one church didn't have Hebrews yet or Revelation yet in that location is misleading to the point of, um, childishness. Childishness. That's the word I'm trying to use. All right, so let's listen on and just see where else we go. 11 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:21.000 What did they believe? What did they know that we don't know? Why is it that you are so quickly and perhaps have been persuaded so easily to walk away from faith because of a book that didn't exist when. 12 00:13:21.000 --> 00:14:28.000 Christianity, again, it did exist. So if you were to say, andy, I don't believe Genesis, and he goes, don't worry, Genesis didn't exist. Like, uh, obviously he doesn't even believe that. He'd have to change his terminology here. He's making a really bold, extreme statement that I don't think he would. If you pushed on him, he would immediately change a statement. He'd have to be like, well, Genesis existed. I'm saying it wasn't enshrined as scripture. You can't even say that because it was. Absolutely. Jesus himself refers to Genesis and appeals to it as the word of God. He refers to the Old Testament as scripture in general. And he says, the Scripture cannot be broken. He talks about the law, the prophets, and the writings. This is a lot I'm giving you. I know. But these three distinctions, law, prophets and writings, this, uh, is what the Jews would use as a way of saying basically what we mean when we say the Bible of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. Jesus affirms these things and that they're Scripture. So it's not true that you can say, let's just sweep that concern away. Because that, uh, thing didn't exist in the time of Jesus or his apostles or the early church. It's not true. You need to find a better apologetic than ignore the Bible. 13 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:55.000 22 years ago, a group of us got together and started this church that eventually became these churches. And the thing that drove us is that we wanted to be known for resisting things that make the church unnecessarily resistible. And so 22 years ago, we embraced new styles of worship, new styles of teaching, new styles of communication, new styles of children's ministry, different kind of architecture. We just said we decided if there's anything that's unnecessarily in the way of people coming to faith or understanding faith or even exploring faith, we want to get rid of it. We want to make the setting more appealing we want to make it easier for people to listen. 14 00:14:55.000 --> 00:18:17.000 We want to make the church make it irresistible. Got it. Um, this is, uh, to say, uh, it's good for us to at least understand Andy's heart here and the goal and agenda that's there. At least part of it, I think a lot of us can very much agree with. I want evangelism. When someone comes to you and they say, hey, um, uh, I'm struggling with the age of the earth in Genesis, I personally would rather say, look, this is an in house discussion. Christians have. There are old earth Christians, there are young earth Christians, there are a variety of views here. It's complicated, it's understandably challenging. And for, uh, that reason, I would say, can we not make this an obstacle for you? And we can focus on Jesus and his death and resurrection, because you could maybe say this, if Jesus is legit, I'll accept Genesis and maybe not fully understand it yet. That would be a better position to try to not discount the scripture, set it aside, but simply say, my understanding is not complete on this yet, but I do know that Jesus lives. I do know that Christ is prophesied in scripture. I understand wanting to remove this obstacle because it's very challenging to try to talk to people or even know for yourself sometimes. Plenty of times, uh, questions about this historic event when you have no idea how to really study history. Most people don't. This, um, scientific idea and this interpreting this Hebrew phrase, these things are challenging. And I understand the idea of don't make an unnecessary obstacle for people in making them come to hard conclusions on these issues when they haven't even known Christ yet. I actually agree with that much. But that's of course not what Andy's saying. What Andy's done is he said, look, anything that is an obstacle starts to become an enemy to him. Anything that people say, this is keeping me from Christ starts to become, uh, something to get rid of in his own church. That's how it seems. And so this has to nowadays has gotten even further in more recent years. Annie's church is being much more embracing of LGBTQ ideology. You catch that ideology now? I didn't say fully embracing. I said more embracing. He seems to be trying to hold his conservatives and his liberal theological views together. And at the same time, which is going to come to a head eventually, it's going to be a disaster and neither side will be happy, I think is what's going to happen to the church. But maybe I'm wrong. That's just what it looks like. To me. Um, but there's definitely more affirmation going on. And he talks about, uh, people. There's people doing things involved. You guys could look this stuff up, the LGBT stuff that's going on, um, related to the church. Look it up with a sober mind and careful, so that you understand what it really is and what it's not. But also that you can't be talked out of thinking clearly about it either, to be honest, by, um, Pastor Annie Stanley. I think that some of that's going on here, but I understand the apologetic concern and agree with it. Deep apologetic concern for people who are abandoning faith in God, abandoning church, abandoning Christ, um, because of, uh, challenging issues. I want to have less issues to deal with, but I don't get to pick and choose what Christianity is. I have inherited this thing from Christ. It's his. I am a steward. I am not crafting a new version of Christianity to suit the people of my time. Jesus himself sometimes would offer teachings and words that would drive people away. And if the apostles could have crafted their own version of Christianity, that would have kept that from happening. They may have been tempted to do so, but they knew better than to do that. 15 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:50.000 It's a little bit less detached from the real world. And so we worked very hard to do that. And some of you have been with us on this journey all along the way. And then about nine or 10 years ago, about 10 years ago, actually, I saw something that, um, I felt like we should start resisting, um, in order to remain irresistible, in order to keep the doors wide open and to, you know, make the first steps on the ladder, keep the low rungs on the ladder visible and easy for people. I, um, noticed something that I thought we needed to address, and it had nothing to do with how we did church. It had everything to do with how we talk about the Bible. And specifically, along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith. 16 00:18:50.000 --> 00:19:51.000 Okay, so what's the foundation of our faith? Uh, and he's going to say, you know, is it the Bible? Is the Bible the foundation of your faith? And can we change the way we talk about the Bible so that it won't be seen as the foundation for our faith? I think this is going to boil down to. And we'll get there soon enough. He'll say it in his own words, is, don't say I believe X, because the Bible says so. That's something that's going to be challenging for a lot of believers, um, maybe comforting for some people, um, who find themselves maybe very much they don't like this, but having a lot of challenging internal debates about whether they actually believe the Bible or not. I'll put my video evidence for the Bible series below. As well as Jesus in the Old Testament. I think it shows the interconnectedness of Scripture in a way that should really strengthen your faith and help you with this. But, yeah, I'm gonna let him talk some more and then we'll get into, like. In what sense is the Bible the foundation of our faith? In what sense is it not? At least some of my thoughts on this. I think the issue is kind of complicated. Um, yeah, we'll get into it. 17 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:56.000 Faith, which for most Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible. So about. 18 00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:05.000 Unfortunately, he's like, it's unfortunate that for most Christians, the foundation of their faith is the Bible. That's. Andy sees this as a major problem in the church he's trying to fix. 19 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:34.000 Years ago, because of something I saw that I'll describe in just a minute. I changed the way I talked about the Bible in my messages and my sermons. And, um, I didn't change what I believe and I didn't get up and announce it. I didn't get up and say, from now on, I'm not going to say this. I'm not going to say that. I'm going begin using this terminology. I just made the change. I didn't tell anybody. And year after year after year, I've been doing this. In fact, I don't think anybody's really noticed, but I think it's helped me remove some of the obstacles to faith. For people who are outside the faith looking in, and for those who have left and perhaps would like to try to get back in. I think that it's helped us, as a group of churches, become a little. 20 00:20:34.000 --> 00:22:58.000 A little more irresistible, maybe. I don't know. Let's see what he says. But the idea here is something I want us to really drill down. Andy has made a change in his teaching that he didn't let his church know about. This change was meant to remove the Bible as a foundation for what people believe. For years he's been doing it and he hasn't told his church. Is that a concern for you, like, as a pastor? Um, I understand some pastors do this. Some pastors become Calvinists, and they don't just tell their churches that they're Calvinist. They slowly work the teaching in and nobody knows that they're doing it. This feels a bit dishonest. It feels more than a little bit dishonest. This feels manipulative. To be honest, and I get that you might go, yeah, but that's how I can bring the church alongside my beliefs. But treating people like adults is telling them what's going on. And I think that's the same should be done for other churches as well. If you've changed your theology as a pastor and you're trying to slowly sneak that theology into your church, I think that there is an integrity move of, uh, simply pulling aside, uh, leaders and letting them know we have a difference on this. I am not just trying to preserve my job and preserve myself and then get everybody on my team so that by the time they realize what I have done, I have enough people supporting me that you cannot stop me. This doesn't seem like an integris move to me. Um, but Andy does this. He tries to change, and he has talked about this before in one of his pastor things. He. His, like, his coaching things, where he's telling all the pastors how to be. He, um, he talks about changing the theology of your church in a stealthy fashion so that you don't lose the conservative people and you can still appeal to the more liberal ones. I say all that to let you know, in his own words, it seems that he has been doing this for years, and I don't think it's a healthy practice. Um, I don't have any secret theology. All my teaching is out there in the open. And I tell you guys, here's something I think, I believe that many of you do not believe with. Let me make my case for it and see how you respond. I think that that's a more respectful way to approach people. And as a pastor, uh, you are called to teach with authority. Okay, I'm teaching a little different online, but as a pastor, you're called to teach with authority the truths of God's word. But if you disagree with the elders, the other elders in your church, with the people who have supported you and asked you to minister to them, you should be open about that. That doesn't seem like it should be. 21 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:15.000 A secret little bit less resistible. So now I want to talk about it. The reason I want to talk about it is because I would like Christians everywhere, and I would like communicators everywhere and pastors and teachers everywhere to at least consider what we've done as a group of churches as we continue to try to make it easier and easier and easier for people to embrace faith. 22 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:58.000 So he says what we've done. But earlier, just a moment ago, he was like, I did this. This is What I did, I did it. Uh, like, I didn't tell people what I was doing. I just did it. And now I want you all to copy me. This is weird. But keep in mind, Andy, there's one reason why I did this video. Andy is not just teaching his people. That would be enough of a reason to do it there because there's so many people being affected. But he's promoting it online, and he's also telling pastors everywhere to copy his pattern. Andy is trying to create a new idea of what church looks like that caters very much to his concerns for apologetics and outreach. And he wants everyone to copy him. So we should evaluate it. We're smart to evaluate it. We should be thinking about these things. 23 00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:29.000 What is it that I saw that caused me to be a little bit concerned? What is it that I saw that caused me to change my approach to how I talk about the Bible and specifically foundation of faith? And here's what I saw. I think it was in 2009, maybe, uh, 2010, I saw a YouTube video of one of the new atheists. And that may not be a phrase that's familiar to you. There are four men that wrote several books, a whole bunch of books, actually, but four kind of outstanding books, right after 9, 11. And all four of these gentlemen, um, came out saying, hey, the problem isn't Islam. The problem is religion. That religion is what's wrong. The root of all, root of most evil is actually religion. 24 00:24:29.000 --> 00:26:24.000 Yeah, uh, that's. So they were nicknamed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And I was obviously following these guys myself. I've made videos on some of their content in the past. Uh, Daniel Dennett, who kind of faded. He was maybe the smallest, you know, reach of them. Sam, um, Harris, still active today. Christopher, uh, Hitchens, who passed away, sadly of cancer, and Richard Dawkins, um, who seems to be now regretting the stuff that they did in the past, because they have paved the way for, uh, Islam. In saying, it's not Islam, it's all religion. They tore down religion in their own spheres, which was Christianity. They specifically targeted 100% Christianity. As much as they might say all religion. They targeted Christianity. All of them did. And then, um, maybe, maybe Hitchens talked about Islam some, but they targeted Christianity a lot more. And, um, most of them wouldn't even talk about Islam. And now they're regretting it because, um, of the disasters that are taking place, especially in England, these guys, most of them are British. Sorry, half of them were British. Um, and that's where they Had a lot of their biggest impact was in England. At any rate, he sees this stuff and he has apologetic concerns and worries related to the impact that these atheists, these popular atheists are having. And nowadays, not too many people follow the new atheists. There's plenty of individuals, but it's not really a movement so much anymore. Um, a lot of them look, ah, kind of cringe in hindsight. And it's kind of like when you were wearing these clothes that were trendy when you were a kid, and then you get older and anybody who's still wearing them, they look cringe to you. That's how new atheism looks to a lot of people nowadays. They go, uh, oh, that looked kind of cool like 10 years ago, but now it's like it's kind of cringe. It was always cringe. It's just that they've started to realize it and the glamour of it wore off and now they look and they go, ah, yeah, you guys are just kind of like, mean. You're not really thinking carefully about these things, although plenty of people thought they were. 25 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:40.000 And, uh, these books sold millions and millions of copies. They became, you know, standard lecturers all over in academia, especially on college campuses. And so I'm watching a, uh, YouTube video of one of these new atheists, um, basically dismantle traditional Christianity, dismantle the Old Testament, you know, undermine everything that basically would be considered a major tenet of Christianity. 26 00:26:40.000 --> 00:28:29.000 And although it sounds like he thinks he was, the guy was successful. That's how it sounds. I'm watching this guy dismantle. He says religion, okay, but then he's specific. The Old Testament and things people think are major tenets of Christianity. And it seems like Andy saw this and thought, what if they weren't major tenets of Christianity? Then I'm bulletproof. Because what's happened is everything you're shooting at, I'm not wearing anymore. That's not my Christianity. So he seems to think they were successful in dismantling the Old Testament. Success. I wonder how much Andy believes in the Old Testament. He believes that it's incorrect or wrong or immoral or bad in some sense. He says he believes the Bible. Maybe he'll say it's all good. But, uh, the way he talks sometimes I wonder how much of a New atheist there is inside of his own mind. Um, at any rate, I don't think they were successful. Um, and maybe that's a big difference between my ministry and his, is I don't think these guys were successful. I think they successfully convinced plenty of people but that they were not successful in reality. When they talk about genocide it's like, oh, you're using the wrong words to describe things. And you say the Bible supports slavery and you're like, well no it doesn't. And is it a complicated interaction with slavery? Yes, because it was a challenging issue that was pervasive in the culture at the time. But to be like, well slavery is all, Slavery is the same slavery. No, it doesn't know. There's nothing, there's all, it's only black and white issue here, completely clear cut and Bible supports it, end of story. That um, is to ignore so much of what the scripture says and teaches and the ideals and the principles in scripture, the specific verses in the Bible that talk about how to handle the topic that I uh, don't think you've dismantled the Bible. I think you've just, you've just fought a straw man. And that's what new atheists did all the time, they fought straw men. So I don't know why Andy Stanley says they actually dismantled. 27 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:51.000 The message wasn't new. I mean people have been doing this forever. Although the message wasn't new. But combined with the events following 9 11, combined with the sort of anti Christian and specifically anti religious sentiment that was growing in our country and then combined with the Internet, it struck me that the Achilles heel of our modern version of faith was about to be exploited in a way that threatened the faith of the next generation. Now there have been, let's pause on. 28 00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:32.000 That thought for a second. There's an Achilles heel, the Bible. And now uh, that Achilles heel is not an Achilles heel of our actual faith, but of our modern version of faith. So from Andy's perspective, the thing that he's talking about is a tradition of man. It's a modernized thing. This whole, the original apostles, remember he said, didn't even have a Bible. The fourth century, this thing was popped into existence out of thin air and everybody was like, wait, there's things that we were supposed to read and then later on we made this really important. And um, it's as though there was no Genesis that um, they could have discussed in Jesus time or that he would have affirmed that it was true. Um, interesting the way he talks about it. 29 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:54.000 Atheists around forever and there's been smart people writing intelligent books and asking m really good questions about the Bible for a long, long time. But these things came together and in my mind it was like the perfect storm. And it was the perfect storm because for a long Time, For a long time, our modern version of Christianity has had an Achilles heel, but it hasn't been exploited because for the most part, people had respect for the Bible. And even if you didn't have respect for the Bible, nobody was really talking about it in disrespectful ways. 30 00:29:54.000 --> 00:31:18.000 But that, so the Bible's the Achilles heel. And he's like, hey, you know, people didn't want to talk bad about it. This is, this might, it might feel that this is true to like current day Americans. It might feel that that's the case. Um, but if you go outside of America, or if you go outside of like rural America, the Bible's been disrespected for a very long time. Look at the 1700 German theologians. Friedrich um Schleiermacher, like the father of modern theology. Talk about modern theology. Here's the guy. These guys were very modern guys who were very much undercutting the Bible and saying it's full of myths and things that aren't true. This is nothing new at all. Maybe it is to Andy Stanley, who grew up in Charles Stanley's church and then started engaging in like more, uh, diverse. I live in California, right? Like the first people to try to talk me out of my faith were family members. When I went to college, it was me debating with professors about whether or not there could be a God or whatever biblical view it was that I might have held. This, this is not new to me. I, um, didn't grow up in the people are too polite to talk bad about the Bible environment. So that's not real, really relevant for me. Um, and I don't know for you, it might be relevant Globally it's not. Okay? Globally it's not. Or at least as far as Western English speaking culture goes, this is not. 31 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:39.000 The case has changed. So consequently, what has been true for a long time has been about to be exposed. And my real concern, to be honest, isn't those of you who are sitting in churches, often over our city and all over our country or all over the world, you know, you're in, you know, you're pretty good, you're pretty solid. If you're past 40 and you've maintained your Christianity or past 30 and you've maintained your faith, you know, you're probably in for good. My biggest concern is this group right here. 32 00:31:39.000 --> 00:32:14.000 Okay? So he's gonna, he, he only's really. When he's talking about making a church that is accepting to everybody, he only wants to really make it accepting for a specific group of People, there's people who are disillusioned about the Bible. They're the ones that he wants to, you know, focus his church on. And the whole. And not only that, the way everybody does church should be focused upon this group because you've got those old people who already believe and they've believed forever. They've weathered some storms. You don't need to do anything for them. They're easy. They're not going anywhere. Let's focus on bringing in these people by changing the way we do church so that they don't feel that the Bible is so important because we send. 33 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:21.000 Them out into the world with a Sunday school faith that is not going to stand up against the onslaught that is becoming more and more prevalent in our country. And the good news is, well, that's true. 34 00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:53.000 Uh, Christians who have a childlike under childish understanding. Childlike faith is good. Childish understanding is bad. Right. If you have a childish understanding of scripture, you will be easily swayed by the new atheist if you haven't read and wrestled through what the scripture says about slavery. When the new atheist makes up a bunch of stuff about the Bible and slavery, he quotes a few select verses out of context. You're going to be destroyed because you haven't really worked through it thoughtfully and intelligently as an adult. You only have this sort of simplistic, childish understanding that's 100% true. 35 00:32:53.000 --> 00:33:15.000 There is a good answer to this because the Achilles heel, the Achilles heel that again hasn't been exploited, I don't think until now is a misapplication of a very important Reformation concept. Now, we're not going to get lost in Reformation history, but I just want to make one real quick comment and that the concept that's been distorted is the idea of sola scriptura. Real quick little history. In the 16th century there was a Reformation. 36 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:33.000 Curious how he's going to describe sola scriptura. Lots of people don't understand this thing, sola scriptura. They think like, I can't read this book on how to fix my car because I've sola scriptura. Only the scripture, only the Bible. And that's not what it means. Let's see how Andy describes it and then maybe I'll just agree. 37 00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:51.000 And the Reformation leaders basically rescue the reformers, rescued Christianity from a tradition driven, um, word of the Church version of Christianity. And they said, no, the Pope isn't the final authority. Tradition isn't the final authority. Scripture is the final authority. Scripture alone, Scripture will be the final authority for the church. And some great Things happen as a result. 38 00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:51.000 But that's accurate. So it's not. Scripture alone is the only authority in the Church. Scripture is the final authority. It's the only infallible authority. That's a word he's avoiding. I think here is the word infallible. But that was the idea that there's an authority that will not fail. Um, so Vatican 2, sorry, Vatican 1 declared. We're talking, like, way after the Reformation, um, 1800s, Vatican 1 declared that the Pope is also infallible. Whenever he speaks from the chair of Peter and does these special things, then he can speak infallibly, too. So he can be right on par with Scripture. Um, and there's other. It gets complicated. There's a lot of other stuff there too, but to a Protestant or to someone like myself and I believe to the apostles and to the New Testament, M. And I have a video on Sola Scriptura. I'll link below if you want more on that. The Bible is the only infallible authority that's there. Um, if the apostles had been with us in our presence, we could have appealed to them as well, Jesus. But they're not with us, and they. 39 00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:10.000 Have left us the scripture over time, the idea of Sola scriptura, which is, you know, Scripture alone is the authority, has been taken to mean that the Scripture, or in our case, we would say the Bible is actually the foundation of our faith. There is a difference between something that is seen as an authority for you to live by and something that is considered the foundation of your faith or your faith system. 40 00:35:10.000 --> 00:36:23.000 An authority? Did it just get demoted? Sola Scriptura is not the Bible's an authority. Catholics believe that. Everybody believes. Everybody who's ever called themselves Christian, or at least who could at least remotely claim the name, would say the Bible's an authority. So he seems to have said something less. Okay, the Bible being our soul, infallible, final, uh, authority, like the way this is written, even in Galatians, Paul's like, even if actually, even if I came, even if me, the apostle, showed up. But if I preach something different than the message you already received, I'm accursed. And you're not to believe me. You're to weigh everything else that comes after this in light of the message that you have there. And now where do we have it in our New Testament? And so it's actually, it is pretty solidly at the core of Christianity. Um, when you say it is the foundation, what does he mean by foundation? Um, does he mean the reason you believe? I will Tell you about this in a minute. Let's see if it fits better with the later part of what he is saying. But Christians can have the Bible at their foundation, and some Christians at the beginning of their belief, and others have it after the beginning of their belief. But every Christian should have it at the core of their beliefs. 41 00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:39.000 But over time, these two ideas have merged. It's nobody's fault. It's just the way the world is. It's just the way that church leaders began talking about the Bible. And so many of you, I'm in this group, we were raised to believe that the foundation of our faith is the Bible. That as the Bible goes, so goes our faith. 42 00:36:39.000 --> 00:41:03.000 And if, okay, so that's what he means. Um, he means that if you were to show there's something wrong with the Bible, then you should legitimately stop being a Christian. Um, and here I want to have like a nuanced or thoughtful perspective and say, um, if Christianity is true, the Bible is true. That is a lot that logically follows. It logically follows that if Christianity is true, the Bible is true, Jesus affirmed it. Look at Jesus attitude towards Scripture, which did exist in Jesus time. And the way they talk about Scripture in the New Testament is a truth that is true about all Scripture. It's a truth about the category of writings called Scripture. And as more books are added, it's true of those writings too. Because it's like, this is the nature of what Scripture is. It's breathed out by God. It's written, um, as people are moving, moved by the Holy Spirit. It's reliable. It is, um, for the equipping of the saints and all this other stuff. So you get like 2 Timothy 3, 16 and stuff like that. Um, the thing is, some people will come to a passage in the Old Testament, a passage in the Bible and they go, I don't understand that, or I don't even think that that's accurate. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's true. And there are some Christians who love the Lord who will come across a passage like that. And then maybe they're thinking, if I find one verse in the Bible, any spot in the Bible where I go, I don't believe that now I have a justification for abandoning all of Christianity. And that would seem foolish for a different reason, I think, than Andy is going to say. He's going to say, because you don't need to have the Bible at the foundation. So don't worry about it. You can just disbelieve the Bible all you want. At least that's my impression. Okay, we'll listen to his words and see what you think. I think it's a more wise thing for a person to say, look, I have found a thing here that I don't understand, or maybe basically, I can't see how it's true. But I do know that categorically, the Bible is God's word. I know because I know. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And of course, if Jesus, the risen Lord, gives the affirmation of the inspiration of Scripture, which he does, then I certainly should believe that it's inspired from God. I don't know how to reconcile these things. This small stone of stumbling that I'm finding here in the text versus the overwhelming reasons I have to support and believe in Scripture and Jesus. And so I will wrestle with this. I will sit with this. I will let it be there. Those who convince you that if you find one, um, issue you can't reconcile in Scripture, one thing, you think, oh, is that a contradiction? And then you should throw out all your Christian faith. It's not reasonable when you're examining such a large breadth of work, the scripture, to think that you're not going to find anything you can't understand or anything that you can't reconcile. It's just so much writing that's there. So don't quickly give up your faith because of that. Just live with the consternation of going, I don't really know what I'm going to do with this verse. There's been plenty of verses where for a time I said, I can't reconcile this. I don't understand this. And time goes by, and then I go, boom. There is a reasonable, rational, uh, reconciliation or understanding that I go, I am down with that. I fully get it. I'm down. Um, there are those. For instance, who would think the Bible says man's days shall be 120 years. It says this in Genesis. And then they meet someone who's 123 and they go, the Bible's wrong. I will abandon my faith in Jesus because there's 123 rule. But the Bible says man's days will be 120 years. There's a limit. Oh, man. I guess the Bible is not true. There is no God. Jesus never died for me. You're overreacting. Maybe you just didn't understand that one little passage and you realize that this idea of how old people can live is tertiary in your faith. It's not a primary doctrine by any means. Catch that. Here's where I go. Yeah, don't stumble over that now. Later on you come back and you go, hey, it turns out when the Bible said a man's days shall be 120 years, it was talking about how long it was between that moment and the flood when God would flood the world in 120 years, he'd flood the world. He was giving people grace and time to repent and reform. And then the flood would come. It's not about how old people can get. Oh, I just misinterpreted it. And then I almost threw out the whole Bible and my whole Christian faith because I just misinterpreted a passage. Let me keep that in mind next time. There's an Old Testament thing. I don't really understand that well, or think. I can't reconcile that. I think would be more wise. Um, and he's going to go for something more extreme. 43 00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:32.000 All of it's not true. Then none of it can be trusted. It's a house of cards. And so you have grown up perhaps not looking over there and not listen to that and don't read that book. A little bit of fear that you might learn something that pulls out the bottom card and your whole faith tower comes tumbling down. Well, you're going to be fine. Probably. But I don't think the next generation is unless we help them step back on a more solid foundation as it relates to faith. Because, uh, you know, if Genesis isn't true, well, then the Bible isn't true. If all of this isn't true, then you can't say the Bible's true. And if the Bible is not true, then why would I depend on it? Why would I look to it? 44 00:41:32.000 --> 00:42:18.000 Okay, so again, it comes back to Genesis. Um, I thought he must have had this in the back of his mind. Remember, he said that the Jesus didn't have a Bible, the apostles didn't have a Bible, the early church didn't have a Bible, the Bible didn't exist till the 4th century. And yet he's appealing to Genesis, which we're talking about, like, as long as anybody's had anything from the Bible, they've had Genesis. You catch that? This is a misleading, uh, way of speaking. It's weird. Uh, it makes me sad when people fall for this stuff, because these are the lines I'd hear them repeat from his message. There was no Bible before the 4th century. Mike, why are you even defending it? The apostles didn't defend it. They didn't even have one. And they're like, therefore you don't have to believe Genesis. You think they didn't have Genesis? These are weird little mind games as. 45 00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:28.000 A source of faith or really as a source of anything. And the new atheists, these four extraordinarily intelligent men, and they're not evil. I don't think they're bad. They just have a different worldview. And they're really good writers. And two of them are. 46 00:42:28.000 --> 00:43:20.000 They are evil. Like, that's, that's a, this is, it's a bridge building to say they're not evil. Um, they're opponents of God. They're preaching against the, against the existence of God, against Jesus, against all religion, specifically Christianity, calling it evil, calling it wicked, calling scripture, um, to be sick, uh, and perverted. And obviously that's evil. Now, God loves people who are evil and wants to redeem them and restore them, but we don't. Anyway, it's just theologically not sound. You know, apart from Christ, I'm evil too. That's a reality. But especially someone who's going around just with the express purpose of destroying the faith, the saving faith of Christ in the world. And that's their agenda. And it's like, they're definitely not evil. The, uh, Bible calls them evil workers. Like, that's not, that's. But you know, but then the Bible's not the foundation, so. 47 00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:38.000 Extraordinary communicators. Actually, they're all really good communicators. I, uh, read their books. Um, Sam Harris, I quote Sam Harris all the time. One of my favorite quotes, he said on, um, his podcast, he said that we should pay attention to the frontiers of our ignorance. Pay attention to the frontiers of your ignorance. I think that's a great statement for all of us. But he's an atheist. He has a different worldview. So I don't think these are bad or evil people. They just see the world differently. 48 00:43:38.000 --> 00:45:18.000 And, and Romans 1 says that the reason for people rejecting God is because they don't want. They choose not to retain the knowledge of God and they suppress in unrighteousness the truth of God. That's what Romans 1 says. Um, and so I know that that's offensive. This is another one of those things where it's like, yeah, that's a stumbling block. You go to an atheist and tell them, yeah, you know, they say, it's not like I open the door, hey, atheist. Oh, you're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. You're evil. Did you know that? I don't do that. But if they were to ask me, especially Mike, what do you think explains my atheism? And I would give a list of things. I'd be like, well, deception. You've heard arguments that you believe that aren't true, that aren't logically reasonable, but you feel that they are. And also you're suppressing truth. You're pushing back the reality of God's existence that's just screaming at you from all of creation in every corner of the world and internally from conscience as well. And they might be mad at me for this, um, but it is true. And I can't change reality. I can try to put my best foot forward and my best evangelical foot forward, but I'm not going to pander to them and pretend that what's happening is different than what's actually happening. Um, anyway, this is how you get a bigger following in some cases at least. Um, is you can say these things, um, and everybody likes you. They're like, I don't agree with him, but I like him. I like that Andy guy. I think he's nice. He's complimenting these atheists. They're a nice guy. Uh, he's right that they're brilliant. They're well spoken, they're good writers and good speakers and good debaters. I just don't think that that important. I think that the fact that they're suppressing the knowledge of God is a bigger issue. 49 00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:42.000 They have attacked persuasively and effectively the credibility and the morality of our Bibles. They've attacked the credibility. You can't believe it. There's all these problems and the morality. I mean, the message that sweeping college campuses is it's not just that religion is wrong, religion is bad, that the God of the Old Testament is a moral monster. And all it takes is a little bit of that and faith, the house of cards comes tumbling down. 50 00:45:42.000 --> 00:47:41.000 So, uh, that's a legit issue. That's absolutely legit issue. And I do think the answer to the solutions to it are not so simple as just keep telling people the Bible's true and move on. You, uh, would need good answers to these challenges and objections. Someone says the God of the Bible is a moral monster. You need to respond to that. Um, what about babies that died in the flood? People? The first time they've ever thought of this, it disturbs them emotionally and you need to take time and work through it with them and explain to them things like, well, you know, let's take the Christian worldview and I'll put a video down below that's uh, just me explaining why babies who die even in a time of God's judgment like that are given eternal life. And so that God is then demonstrating his righteousness, he's then punishing wickedness, but he's also bringing forgiveness and grace to the collateral damage of those who experience those things. And you may think, well, that doesn't make me happy about it, Mike. I said, yeah, but you know what it is. It's a way different picture than that atheist painted, isn't it? This Christian worldview is different than what they said. And what they attacked was not the reality of Christianity, but their straw man of Christianity. Um, anyway, we could go on, but there's just one after another misrepresentations of the Christian faith amongst the new atheists. I think we need to fix the misrepresentation and then we can talk about wrestling with the challenging remaining issues. But we can't just give up on scripture and walk away. I also think it's fine to say, let's couch that Genesis discussion, let's couch that other thing because I want to talk about something more central to my faith than that piece of the scripture. That that's true, there's some verses that are more central to my faith. But the. But I can still affirm the overall trustworthiness and inspiration of scripture and just struggle with that issue, but realize it's more on the periphery and that can be good counsel for people to have. Um, there's a balance that's here. It's not that. It's not that Andy doesn't have a point. It's that his solution is too extreme. 51 00:47:41.000 --> 00:48:05.000 For the next three weeks, we are going to look at what served as a foundation of faith for the first century church, and we're going to look at their view and how they began to understand the Old Testament as well. Because I'm convinced, and I hope I can convince you that we should take our cues about the foundation of faith. We should take our cues about how to approach the Old Testament from the men and the women who were closest to the action, the first century first followers of Jesus. And when we. 52 00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:41.000 I deal with the Old Testament stuff specifically in another video, I will put a link to, in my Hebrews video going, uh, through the book of Hebrews. But I, I encounter this exact teaching, part three in this series. And Andy Stanley talks about unhitching from the Old Testament and he gives examples and he makes a bunch of claims that are demonstrably false. Um, I will share them down below. There's a reason why so many Christians punch the ceiling when they heard Hannah Stanley's message. And he might think that we don't understand his heart for evangelism that's there. I get that his solution is just too extreme. It's too much. Um, and his information is often incorrect. The stuff he's telling people is true. 53 00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:55.000 We take our cue from them, and if we can help the next generation take their cue from them, if we can help our kids and our grandkids take their cue from this group, you end up with the endurable, defensible, unassailable version of faith, which was the original version. 54 00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:28.000 So, remember, he thinks it's the original version because he thinks the apostles didn't have a Bible. He thinks that the Bible didn't exist till the 4th century, or at least that's what he's saying. And so the original version doesn't include any commitment to the Scriptures yet there is no version of Christianity in the first century that doesn't include a commitment to the Scriptures. The closest thing to it is a later thing, uh, the Marcionites. This guy Marcion, who's a heretic, who says that he wants to get rid of the Old Testament and chop out portions of the New Testament that refer to it and endorse it. And he's considered a heretic early on and, uh, rightly so. 55 00:49:28.000 --> 00:50:15.000 Here we go. We're going to pick up the story where we left off. Jesus was raised from the dead. He ascended to be with the Father, and his disciples are in Jerusalem figuring out what's next. And the interesting thing is the very first thing, or just about the very first thing that the disciples did after Jesus rose from the dead is they got together and they decided they needed to replace Judas. Luke says, here's how the conversation went. They got together and they said, it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time. And so they say we need to find somebody who has been here the whole time, beginning all the way back as far as John's baptism, when Jesus first stepped on the pages of history as an adult, to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. In other words, we need an eyewitness to this entire adventure. We need one who has can become a witness with us of his resurrection. They weren't looking for gifted speakers. They were looking for someone who had been an eyewitness to a resurrected Jesus. 56 00:50:15.000 --> 00:52:10.000 Okay, I'll give you guys a spoiler. Um, Andy Stanley's going to suggest that rather than promoting the Bible as here's why you should believe Christianity because you believe the Bible. He wants to promote the resurrection of Christ. Here's why you should believe because of the resurrection and not bridge that to the Bible. You don't go from belief in Jesus to therefore, I should believe the Bible is true. But, um, rather he just wants to make that like it's important. It's there, but it's not necessary. Right. Um, so that if you find any problems with it, it won't in any way affect your faith, because your faith actually is not there. It's not in the Bible. It's just in Jesus. And that doesn't transfer over to Scripture. The early church did both. So there are those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, and that causes them to be Christian. That's entirely fair, entirely appropriate. And there are those who believe in the Bible and that causes them to believe in the resurrection. And that is fair, and that is totally appropriate. In fact, that is one of the reasons why people in the New Testament believed. There are those who believe because they heard the case for the resurrection and the witnesses, good evidence for Christ. They believed, and boom, they became Christians. And then they immediately started trusting the Scriptures, which is what we should do. There are others who heard about the prophecies and the fulfillment of Scripture. The things in the Bible that they believed were already true for other reasons. They then saw Jesus in those pages and then believed in Jesus. It went both ways in Scripture. It was not one or the other. In particular, when it was an audience who had more familiarity with the Old Testament, they would lean more on the Scriptures. When they had less familiarity with the Old Testament, they would lean more on the eyewitness accounts of the resurrection. I don't mind leaning one way or the other. When I'm witnessing to someone who's ignorant of Scripture, I tend to lean on maybe more the resurrection of Christ or some fulfilled prophecy stuff that's simple, that I can explain easily, um, evidence for God's existence. Right. But that doesn't mean I can divorce my Christianity from faith in Scripture. And that, I think, is what Andy's getting at. 57 00:52:10.000 --> 00:54:39.000 So they elect a guy named Matthias, and then things shift into high gear. About seven weeks after the resurrection, the city of Jerusalem is once again filled with guests and visitors from all around this part of the world. Because there was another festival. A huge wind came rushing through the city. The disciples were all gathered together. Now it's not just the 12, but we're up to over 100 people who are kind of the core group of the Christian Faith. And this wind comes and makes all this disturbance in the middle of the city. And they are filled with the spirit of God in some unusual way. And they go out into the city and begin proclaiming the message of Jesus. And Luke tells us this is what happened when they heard this sound. A crowd came together. So the city is full of people. A crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked, wait a minute. Aren't all these people talking to us Galileans? Wait a minute. Wait. You're clearly a, ah, Galilean. And yet I can understand you. And not only that, you're using my dialect. Then how is it that each of us hears this in our native language? So Peter gets up and he preaches the sermon. He. Here's what he says. He says, fellow Jews. Peter stood up. Um, he said, fellow Jews. And all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain what's going on to you. Listen carefully to what I have to say. In other words, come on in here. A little bit closer then. I think this next part was funny. I think the crowd laughed. These people are not drunk as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning. Ah, everybody laughed. You know, Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you. Now, here's what you need to understand. This is so important. He's not talking to a group of people who are going like Jesus now. No, he is in the city of Jerusalem where all the events took place. We're credited to you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did among you. In other words, this isn't a group of people who heard about it. This is a group of people, many of whom were in the crowds and saw some of those things through him, as you yourselves know. In other words, Peter's like, okay, I don't have to convince you this stuff happened, right? I mean, all of you here, you were either here or you know somebody who was here and witnessed these things, okay? This is years later. This is weeks later. He goes on. This man talking about Jesus was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge. And you, with the help of wicked men, you put him to death. Because some of you, he would say, were in that crowd that turned on Jesus at the last minute. And you had him nailed to a cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. And then he references one of David's psalms as if to say, look, us Jewish people, we should have seen this coming. This was predicted long ago. Our prophets foretold of a time that God would do something unusual. And then he says to this crowd, God has raised this Jesus to life. And we talking about his Christian. 58 00:54:39.000 --> 00:55:41.000 The part that he kind of skipped over really quickly here in Acts 2 is where Peter verifies and validates what is the experiences that are happening as true because they're in accordance with the Bible, with the scriptures. Peter is using the Scriptures to prove that what has just happened is from God. And that's something I think that Andy Stanley is going to ignore. He just kind of talked vaguely about it. But Peter says in verse 23, it was that Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. And then he says according to the Scriptures, he just gives it. David says concerning him, and there's this big long quote. Then he's going to quote again from another psalm, and then he's going to quote again. Ultimately, he's quoting scripture here to validate and verify that the things that are happening here are from God. Weird to use this in a message that's saying that the Bible is not our foundation. Um, because at least to the Jew, it was certainly right there at the foundation. 59 00:55:41.000 --> 00:56:10.000 Disciples. Jesus following friends. And we are witnesses of this. And when the people heard this, when the people heard this, they were so convicted. And they said to Peter and the other apostles, ugh, uh, what shall we do? And Peter replied, repentance and be baptized. Repent means change your mind. These weren't people who needed to turn away from sin. It wasn't that kind of repentance. It was. You need to change your mind about who Jesus is and who Jesus was. And once you've changed your mind, you need to publicly identify with Jesus by being baptized. And the text. 60 00:56:10.000 --> 00:58:25.000 Okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I just wanna pause him for a second and show you guys. So here's Acts, chapter two. There's the whole experience that happens. They're gathered. I'm just gonna skim through, like, two. You read. And then all of a sudden, uh, they're like, hey, they're filled with new wine, so they're drunk. And then Peter gives a sermon. This is where he starts to preach. And here he says some things that I don't want us to miss. Right? The first thing he does is he goes, yeah, you guys think they're drunk. But look, this is what's prophesied in Joel. You didn't hear this read by Andy Stanley. He skipped this part. And there's this whole section, this is all a quote of Joel where Peter's using the Bible, the Old Testament here, to prove that what has happened is in fact from God. Then he goes, and this is the part that was read by Andy Stanley. But then he just kind of passed over this, that it was according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God that Jesus was crucified indeed. Then he goes on and talks about what David King David said in the definite foreknowledge and plan of God in the Old Testament. And there's another big quote of scripture. Then he just says, hey, guys, this stuff that we just, uh, read, I just read to you. That's in fact exactly what has happened. God is fulfilling scripture because he was a prophet. David said this stuff, and he said it ultimately about Jesus. And then he quotes more scripture. We get this here. In verses 34 and 35, there's more scripture being quoted. Um, the Bible is at the foundation of Peter's evangelism to the Jewish people here. That's really important to know. And it's also contrary to the message, I think, that Andy's trying to communicate with this passage as he reads it. I'm struggling to understand why he's using it, except that they do use the resurrection of Jesus and the fact that they're eyewitnesses as part of their evangelism. But this is coupled with prophecy and fulfillment in Jesus. So that there are two prongs to the evangelism of the early church. The resurrection of Jesus and prophecy, Scripture, the Bible being something that God has revealed. Um, and, uh, I get that this can be complicated when you approach people who have. Are ignorant of the Bible. They're unaware of what Scripture says, which more and more people today are like this in the Western world. And so I'm going to build a more careful bridge to that. But I'm not going to pretend that the disciples just set aside the Bible and preach Jesus resurrection without it. 61 00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:38.000 The point being, the very first Christian sermon preached was not about what Jesus taught. The very first sermon Christian sermon ever preached after the resurrection was about the resurrection of Jesus. Next big event, Peter and John. Now, it's so interesting. Okay, Peter and John. 62 00:58:38.000 --> 00:59:03.000 It was. Well, it was obviously, it was also about what Jesus taught. It was about the nature of the Messiah. He is the Christ. He was predicted in scripture to die and rise again. Those are things Jesus taught. The disciples didn't even get it in Mark. He Says it over and over again. Nobody gets it. Those are things Jesus taught. Um, it's not just the fact of his resurrection. It's the nature of who he is and the meaning of his resurrection and the response of belief in him so that you can be saved. That's all theology stuff. That's not just the event. It's the meaning of it as well. 63 00:59:03.000 --> 00:59:26.000 So what was the foundation of Peter's faith? Where did Peter get his hope? My goodness, where did Peter get his boldness? Where did he get his confidence? How is it he's now walking around in the open, whereas before he was afraid and ran for his life? The foundation of their faith was not something they read or had read. To them. The foundation of their faith was what they had seen. So here's the question for you, and here's the question for all. 64 00:59:26.000 --> 01:01:00.000 Okay, so I think I catch the point here. The foundation of Peter's faith was not the Bible. It was the resurrection of Jesus. This is an either or fallacy here. He's putting you into a choose one or the other situation where Peter would certainly have affirmed both the belief in the Bible and the belief in the resurrection of Jesus. And part of what was the preaching that Peter himself used was that the Bible had prophesied the death and resurrection of the Messiah and that they had misunderstood many of the things in the Bible. And in fact, it was foretold ahead of time that Jesus would die and rise again. So that it's. Peter believes that Jesus rose from the dead and that this is in accord with the Scripture. These things are both believed by Peter. It's not either or. This dilemma that Andy has about helping people to not feel that they have to believe the Bible is not a dilemma that they were facing. In the early church, the apostles weren't even thinking about something like that, at least for the most part. There was one group called the Sadducees. The Sadducees were a group that Jesus encountered who did have less belief in the Bible and less belief in supernatural things. And, um, it's complicated, but they definitely had less belief in the Bible, significantly less. And Jesus affirms, rebukes them for not believing the Scriptures and not knowing the Scriptures well. And so Jesus then goes, he's the opposite of Andy here. He's like going back to the Bible. He doesn't just go, don't worry about that. Don't let, hey, Sadducees. Don't let that be an obstacle to you. Instead, he reaffirms the authority and truthfulness of scripture. 65 01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:14.000 If you're a Christian, what should be the foundation of your faith? What should be the epicenter of our confidence? Peter would say, it's easy. The resurrection. The resurrection. 66 01:01:14.000 --> 01:04:22.000 Oh, yeah. 2 Peter 1. He says both in verse 16 of 2 Peter chapter 1, Peter says the following. We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. That's prong number one of the evangelism and foundation here in the New Testament. It's we were eyewitnesses. Now here, Andy would agree. See, they're eyewitnesses. It's not the Bible. It's the eyewitnessing of the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is the thing, not the Bible. But let's keep reading. For when he received honor and glory from the God the Father, and the voice was born to him by his majestic, majestic glory. This is my beloved Son. Then he goes on and he gives an example of one of the things they eyewitness, which was the transfiguration of Jesus. So a miracle involving Jesus. Um, but then he says in verse 19, and we have the more prophetic. The prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you do well to pay attention to as a lamp shining in a dark place. This idea of a prophetic word that you should pay attention to that was confirmed in Jesus. That's scripture. So scripture predicts the Messiah. Jesus shows up. He does the stuff that was predicted. They were eyewitnesses of it. But he sees these as, uh, two prongs that when you go down, they're joined together to the same thing. They're like one fork that joined together. And Jesus resurrection in and of itself, by itself doesn't have meaning apart from the teachings of the apostles we have in the New Testament and of course the Old Testament itself, which are the interpretive grid for understanding what it means that Jesus resurrected, right? He rose from the dead. Okay, what do I do with that? The Bible that tells you what you do with that. So the Bible becomes a rule, a guiding rule for interpreting and understanding. And it is at the foundation of our faith. It's very important. It's key. It's super, super important. You can't set it aside because some people say they don't believe it. You instead need to defend it or at least ask them. Hold off on that for a moment. Can we at least say this piece of this issue is more important than that piece is for now, and then help them prioritize I think that can be healthy too. Um, he goes on and says, no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. That's where scripture comes from. Peter doesn't divorce his faith in scripture from his faith in the resurrection. They're not two different things. And you pick one. That's Andy Stanley's approach. It's not Peter's. Okay, so now this is, uh, it's taken him a while to get there, so I'll probably just summarize it for you guys. Um, hey, Peter and John, they are going and sharing the gospel. And there's this guy who gets healed, and it causes a big commotion. They're brought before the leaders, basically the Supreme Court of the Jewish people. And they're standing before Caiaphas, the high priest, and now they can defend themselves. And now he's getting into, like, how does Peter defend himself? Is that a model for how we should be doing church today? Does Peter tie things to the Bible or not? Um, let's hear what Andy has to say about it. 67 01:04:22.000 --> 01:04:33.000 And there's the Supreme Court and all the Congress, and they shove you in there and they say, okay, what do you have to say for yourself? Not only that you're the least educated person in the room. You can't even read what's written around the halls and written on the walls. 68 01:04:33.000 --> 01:05:09.000 Um, so saying that Peter couldn't read is probably. Is likely not to be. Not true. It's likely not true. I don't know how well he could read, but there's good reasons I think he could have read. He was a businessman. He was conducting a business. He could have been interacting with Greek, uh, speakers and Hebrew or Aramaic speakers along the Sea of Galilee as well. He'd been traveling with Jesus for quite a while, uh, for three years. He interacted with different people. And, um, uh, anyway, I don't want to presume too much ignorance on the part of individuals. The amount of formal education Peter had was minimal, probably. But he had three years with Jesus. That's not nothing. 69 01:05:09.000 --> 01:06:19.000 And they pull Peter and John, and Peter speaks up. He's never been this close to these people. This is unbelievable. Rulers. This is his moment. Rulers and elders of the people. Wow, look who's here. Rulers and elders of the people. If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who is lame, you know, Frank, come on up here. Come on up here. Let him see you. Yeah. If we're being called to an account for an act of kindness shown to this guy and we're being asked about how he was healed, then, no, this. You and all the people of Israel, because you're the representative. So you can help get the word out. It is by the name of, uh, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified. Uh, wow. But whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you. And when they saw the courage of Peter and John, um, when they saw. What do you mean, see? The courage. Because Peter and John, like Jesus, when he had been arrested, should have been on their knees begging for mercy. When they saw the courage. When they saw these men who had, you know, they don't know power. They're from Galilee. They're not even from this region. They're fishermen. When they saw. 70 01:06:19.000 --> 01:07:35.000 I think he just skipped a really important verse. So they stand before Caiaphas. They're being asked to give an account for basically disturbing the peace, is what they're accusing them of here. They don't really have a good accusation against them. And so they go, yeah, this guy was raised by, uh, ultimately by Jesus. And then he skips from verse 10. Right. Um, whom God raised from the dead by him. This man is standing before you. Well, he skips to verse 12 or, uh, verse 13, rather. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John. So what were the two verses that were skipped there? Since we're talking about the relevance of Scripture in the preaching of Peter, he says, this is Jesus, the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Which is a nonsense phrase unless you understand. Let me show you that this is coming from the text of Scripture. Uh, where's the footnote for this? Psalm 118. And this stone that was rejected is this famous story that's in Psalm 118 and talked about by the Jews. He's saying, Jesus has fulfilled this psalm prophetically. And then in verse 12, there's salvation and no one else. For there's no other name given among, uh, men by which we must be saved. He ties this to prophecy. He ties this to Scripture. He doesn't just say, I have a miracle, and I was a witness of. 71 01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:54.000 It all the courage. Because everybody in that room knew what happened to their master. Everybody in that room knew what happened to Jesus of Nazareth. And now they are speaking on behalf of Jesus of Nazareth, and they are unafraid. And they realized this is so powerful that they were unschooled, ordinary. Yeah. 72 01:07:54.000 --> 01:08:01.000 Uh, he definitely just skipped those two verses that are very relevant to his point about how central was scripture in the preaching of Peter. 73 01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:15.000 Should have been intimidated by power and their confidence and their courage. It's extraordinary. Why? Here's why. Because when you lose your fear of death, all fear is gone. And they. 74 01:08:15.000 --> 01:08:34.000 And this is a great preaching point. Okay? He's actually had several great preaching points throughout this. There's just several that are also distortions, I think, and not. Not accurate, not true. And so acknowledge this. Yeah. When you realize that God has overcome death and this really hits your heart, and it needs to hit your heart a lot every day as a Christian, Um, it's really empowering in a good way. 75 01:08:34.000 --> 01:09:14.000 Seen him die, and they had breakfast with him on the beach, and they saw him ascend to the Father. What should we fear? The text says. And these men were astonished. And they took note that these were in fact the men who had been with Jesus. And then they tell these guys, okay, they can't punish them because there's been a miracle, a verifiable miracle. The guy's there. They can't punish him. So they say, look, don't do this anymore, okay? Stop it. No more teaching and speaking in the name of Jesus. And they reply, as for us, I mean, we realize, like, you're the lawmakers and you're the law keepers, and the law is just right over there on the other side of that wall. And you're the guys, okay? As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we were taught as children. No, we can't help speaking about what we read about that happened not too long ago. 76 01:09:14.000 --> 01:09:51.000 No, wait, no, don't say that, Andy, because you skipped the two verses where he talked about what they were taught as children and what they read about long ago. You skipped verse. Uh, I think, was it 11 or 12, where specifically Peter's like, saying, this is fulfillment of what God has said in Scripture. Um, you're skipping that. You're skipping that. He did this in Acts 2. He does it in Acts 4. It's very consistent in the preaching of Peter. He goes to the synagogues. He preaches from the scripture. Jesus preached from the scripture. He talks about fulfilling the word of God all the time. Um, so this is Andy. What Andy wants Peter to say, it's not what Peter said. 77 01:09:51.000 --> 01:09:55.000 We can't help stop speaking about what we've seen and what we've heard. 78 01:09:55.000 --> 01:10:04.000 And what they saw and heard was the fulfillment of Scripture. Yes, it was the resurrection of Christ, but that was the fulfillment of Scripture. These were not separated things. 79 01:10:04.000 --> 01:10:10.000 See, the foundation of our faith is not a story. The foundation of our faith is an event, in fact. 80 01:10:10.000 --> 01:10:25.000 Okay, obviously, the Old Testament is full of stories that are events that these are not. This is just weird rhetoric. Uh, it's not a story, it's an event. I mean, if the Old Testament is not stories, they're events, right? As well. So I don't see how this is relevant. 81 01:10:25.000 --> 01:11:28.000 They called the apostles in and they had them flogged. And these men would bear these scars forever. Now, understand, in the first century, second century, all of ancient times, nobody could go on a computer and look up your record. Ah, I see you have a felony. No, they didn't do background checks. They did a different kind of background check. Let me see your back. Oh, uh, you've been arrested. Oh, uh, you're a troublemaker. Oh, you've had a run in with the law. They would bear these scars forever. They were meant to be a symbol of shame. It meant they had a prison record. Their response? The apostles left rejoicing because they have been counted worthy of suffering disgrace. Disgrace. Not just punishment. This is disgrace for the same. Luke's writing all this down. He says, I gotta speed up the story day after day after day after day in the, uh, temple. Okay, could you just go back to Galilee in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is Messiah. 82 01:11:28.000 --> 01:13:11.000 It's worth pointing out how they would teach that Jesus is the Messiah. So the Messiah is not some vague term meaning important one. Jesus, the important one. Jesus, the one who rose. That's not what Messiah means. Messiah is a term that ties Jesus to the Old Testament and the prophecies and the predictions about the coming one. From the Old Testament to the work of God in Israel, to Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and all of the Old Testament books. Messiah ties all that stuff together. And when they went out around not ceasing to teach and preach that Christ is Jesus or Jesus is the Messiah, they were not just teaching. Jesus rose from the dead. They were teaching a whole lot about the Old Testament and its connection to Jesus. That is something that was central to their teaching. That is something I think Andy Stanley, at least he seems to be paving the way for it to be disregarded. Now, it might be that at the end he'll just go, oh, I just. I want what you want, Mike. I just want people to set aside these, like, secondary complaints about the Bible and realize that they could focus on the nature of Jesus. First, uh, that certainly is what the scripture is doing here. They're not entering into all kinds of debates about the nature of the teaching in Genesis and everything else. They're focusing on Jesus and resurrection and death and salvation and faith. And that's good for us to focus on those things. But they never divorced belief in the Bible from their preaching that it just was something that was assumed or was sort of there at the core. Um, I'm okay if somebody says, I don't believe the Bible, and I'll go, well, maybe I'll try to get you to believe in Jesus, but I'm not going to do that. Like, in opposition to believing in the Bible, there's even a tandem nature of believing in Jesus and the Bible together. Where you're going to end up believing in both is the bottom line. If you believe in one, you're going to end up believing in both. 83 01:13:11.000 --> 01:13:29.000 Now, uh, here's what. I don't want you to miss these. If you're a Christian, these are our people. Okay? This is why we are here. This is how Christianity survived the first and second and the beginning of the third century. This is. This is actually all the way to the beginning of the 4th century. This is why. This is how the message of Jesus survived the temple. 84 01:13:29.000 --> 01:13:37.000 That's the. That to him, that's the timeline. While they had no Bible. That's how it's. Christianity survived without a Bible because of this. It's just, of course, just a distortion. 85 01:13:37.000 --> 01:13:52.000 Of reality because the first persecution of the Christians was not Rome. The first persecution of Christians was the Temple. And the Christianity survived both the temple and the empire. And there was no book, there was no the Bible. There was. 86 01:13:52.000 --> 01:14:37.000 Kid. Well, I want to hear what he says next. There was. What. What is he going to say there was. Because he should say that there were scriptures and that there were all these authoritative documents that were held to be true. Then there was the teaching of the apostles that was later enshrined in the Scriptures. And these are the two things that everybody believed in the New Testament times. And, uh, is he going to say that? Um, let's find out. Because Peter, who he just used as his example, when he says there was no Bible, he goes, jesus is the Messiah. Messiah? Who's that? Well, he knew that all the Jewish people would look right to the Old Testament to recognize who the Messiah was. This is him tying Jesus to the scriptures in a way that requires the Bible to understand who Jesus is. 87 01:14:37.000 --> 01:14:50.000 Something else. There was fearlessness, there was boldness, and there was courage. Because God had raised a man from the dead. And when God raises a man from the dead, you take everything he had to say seriously. And when. 88 01:14:50.000 --> 01:15:25.000 Which was what? Didn't Jesus affirm that the scriptures were in fact from God? That David spoke by the Holy Spirit. I'm quoting Jesus here. He says David spoke by the Holy Spirit. That, um, the scripture cannot be broken. I'm quoting Jesus here. The scripture. There is a category called the scripture with the same word we use for the Bible effectively. Right? We mean the same thing, and it cannot be broken. I think Andy's trying to play like a little game here almost where the skeptic won't know that they're being sort of brought to a place where they're going to believe the Bible in the end. I don't know what he's doing here. It's confusing because there's just too much untruth mixed into what he's saying. 89 01:15:25.000 --> 01:15:39.000 You have met that man. You're fearless. That the first century believers, they weren't even called Christians yet. That would come later. They embrace what I want you to embrace and what our children must embrace and what our grandchildren must embrace. They embrace. 90 01:15:39.000 --> 01:15:48.000 They were, uh, so in Antioch the first time they were called Christians, probably a derogatory term. Later, they owned it. Um, but that happened, you know, that was in the first century where they were first called that. 91 01:15:48.000 --> 01:15:56.000 But, um, anyway, it's the first century version of faith. They embrace the standalone version. I don't need a book to prop up my faith. 92 01:15:56.000 --> 01:17:32.000 I don't see you do. You do. Like, I don't get to make up the rules for Christianity. Um, it's possible to believe that the Bible's not inerrant and still have a Christian faith. I don't think it's healthy. Right. It's not something I'm going to teach people to search and go after. Like, hey, everybody, start teaching. The Bible's errant. But you can believe that the Bible is inspired, that God wrote it, that God gave it to us effectively. Obviously didn't write it physically, but, um, he inspired people to write it, that it's from him and that it has authority for the believer, um, and still believe. But I think it has a few things wrong. Because God didn't care about that. God didn't care about the number of people leaving in the Exodus. Okay? He just didn't care. I think your belief here is inconsistent, but it will not invalidate your Christian faith. It will not mean, uh, you don't believe in Jesus or you don't have a Christian faith, but you can't have a Christian faith without the Old Testament and without the New Testament, which tell you what Christian faith even is. Christian faith is not just. I believe there's a guy that rose again. Right. There's more to it than that. It's not believing that somebody rose. It's that he is Jesus, the Messiah who is prophesied in the Old Testament, who fulfills the sacrifices, who becomes my Passover lamb. This has been the preaching from the beginning. Interpreting who Jesus is requires the Bible. Believing in the historical fact of his resurrection is at the core of Christianity and may be, in fact be your door in. You came to believe in the resurrection and then you open the door and we're like, and who is this Jesus that I've just believed in? The Bible comes right in immediately after. 93 01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:39.000 Need you to explain creation to me to prop up my faith. The, uh, whole Noah thing, it's fascinating. I don't know. But that's not what props up my faith. 94 01:17:39.000 --> 01:18:01.000 Okay. I don't know. Meaning maybe he's not sure. I suspect Andy went through his own sort of crisis of faith and this is the solution he's presenting to the church is a solution he found for himself. That's I suspect. Do I know that that's the case? I could be wrong. Um, but I've been through my own struggles as well, and I sort of can recognize the way people talk about stuff after they've been through it. And, um, I think that's how he's talking about it. 95 01:18:01.000 --> 01:18:06.000 Christianity can stand on its own. 2 nailed, scarred, resurrection feet. The foundation of your. 96 01:18:06.000 --> 01:18:43.000 Okay, yeah. What does the cross mean? We need the Passover. We need the day of atonement. We need Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is a more thorough interpretation of the meaning of the cross than any passage in the New Testament. Did you know that? We need the Bible. When Jesus talks about him sacrifice himself sacrificing in the book of Mark, he relies on Isaiah to interpret what that means. When the New Testament appeals to Isaiah to explain and interpret and teach the theology behind the cross, it relies on the Scripture, the Old Testament and New being joined together there. So, uh, we do need the Bible. 97 01:18:43.000 --> 01:18:50.000 Your faith in mind is not a book. It is an event that the Bible did not create. Christianity, Christian. 98 01:18:50.000 --> 01:20:38.000 Let's pause for a second. Again. The faith, our faith is not based on a book. It's based on an event. Let me find this scripture that I'm thinking of. In Acts, chapter 24, uh, Paul goes, uh, to the governor and he's going to defend himself before Felix. Basically he's in trouble for preaching the gospel and a bunch of other stuff, um, that he hasn't actually done wrong. And he says, inasmuch as I know that you've been for many years a judge of this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer myself. So he's talking to the big, the head dog, right? Like Rome has entrusted Felix with significant power. And now he's going to judge Paul. And he says, you may ascertain that it is no more than 12 days since I went to Jerusalem to worship. Um, he goes on, he explains the situation which we haven't gotten into today. So I won't get into it. Look at what he believes. I confess to you that according to the way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets. Paul's attitude towards the Bible is that when he's believing in Jesus, he is actually in addition, in tandem, he's believing everything that is written in the scriptures. He believes his whole Bible, which is up, at least through Malachi at that point. And then there will be more because he's believing in of course the preaching of Jesus and the other apostles and things that they say. And so he's going to be believing all of it as it becomes revealed. But here he believes all things which are what written in the law and in the prophets. That was law and prophets was another way of summarizing, uh, the Old Testament, all of it. This is different than Andy Stanley's stuff. And the thing isn't just that Andy has his own ideas here. The thing is that Andy is telling you that those are God's ideas and that those are the apostles ideas. But it's not Peter, Paul, neither of them had the view that Andy's trying to promote here. 99 01:20:38.000 --> 01:21:05.000 Eventually created the Bible. And this is where we must stand in our new generation, in our generation. This is where we must stand in the misinformation age. This is where we must stand. And it is not new. It is just perhaps new to you and uh, new to us. But if we were to say, Peter, what's the foundation? Where do you find your hope? Where do you find your courage? He wouldn't quote a verse from the Old Testament. He wouldn't quote a verse at all. 100 01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:55.000 You think that's true? You think that's true? The apostles, the same guys who said things like believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets or that Jesus, who said he had to fulfill the scriptures, the scriptures must be fulfilled. That's why he had to go to the cross. Literally, why he had to go, because the scripture had to be fulfilled. I understand tactical. I understand saying to somebody, um, can I talk about the resurrection for now and get off of this pet project you have on, um, Ezekiel or something else. I get that. And that can be wisdom to do that. But to divorce belief in, uh, scripture from the foundation and core of Christianity, it's not consistent with the apostles that he is appealing to. 101 01:21:55.000 --> 01:22:06.000 Say, are you kidding? God raised his servant Jesus from the dead, and he has promised salvation for the whole world. 102 01:22:06.000 --> 01:25:33.000 Right. He knows he's promised salvation to the whole world. Right. But a lot of that's because it's in the Old Testament. It's not just something new. Jesus himself says this in John 5. Like, can we make Jesus a standalone savior? Um, look at John 5. Let me see if I can find the actual verse where Jesus says this. Yeah, this is, this is a challenging section. Let me try to explain it as quickly as I can. But Jesus in John, chapter five talks about how he proves who he is. And there's various ways he proves who he is. Earlier in the chapter, he talks about the resurrection. He's like raising from the dead. And that this is, this is going to be, uh, something that is used as evidence for Christ. But it's not the only thing that's evidence for Christ. Jesus goes on and he says this in verse 31, John 5, 31. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. This is not to say Jesus can't go, I'm the Messiah. Oh, now it's not true because he said it himself. That's not what it means. He means if I'm alone, if I'm the only witness, then, ah, my witness is not true. There needs to be two or three witnesses. Why? Well, that's an Old Testament principle, isn't it? He goes on, there is another who bears witness of me. And I know that the witness of which he witnesses of me is true. You have sent to John, and he's born witness to the truth. So John the Baptist bore witness of him. It was important for Jesus to have a prophetic forerunner, this guy John the Baptist, somebody other than just him. Because this proves that it's the working of God in reality and not just one person making claims. Yeah, I do not receive the testimony from man. See, Jesus doesn't need John's witness. I say these things so that you may be saved. He wants you to believe. So he gives you more than one reason. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. Then he gives more witnesses. He's like, it's not just me claiming, then I have other things greater than John's for the works the Father has given me to finish. Those are a witness as well. So his resurrection is one of those things. It's a great witness. It's even better than John the Baptist showing up, especially to us moderns. John the Baptists, we weren't there for John. We all heard it all after the fact. He doesn't feel like as strong of a, uh, piece in the evidence pile as maybe it did to those who knew John's preaching before Christ showed up. And then Jesus shows up. They had that prophetic situation that helped them, but there's more. And the Father himself, he's testified of me, and the Father actually has witnessed of Jesus. Now, how has the Father done this? How does the Father witness of Jesus? Well, you might see. Well, the resurrection, I mean, the resurrection is like the Father's affirmation of the, uh, goodness and truthfulness of Christ. There is a truth in that. But that's not what Jesus was saying in John 5. He says, you do not have his word abiding in you because whom you sent him, you do not believe his Word. You didn't believe in Jesus because you weren't really trusting in the Scriptures. He goes on, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me, one of the major witnesses to prove who Jesus was according to Jesus is the Scriptures. Andy Stanley doesn't say this. Jesus does. He doesn't say this. Peter does. He doesn't say this. Paul does. The Scriptures. John 5 is a neglected section of the text, of the text of scripture. And it's a very long chapter. And Jesus gives, like, multiple witnesses to prove who he is. The Scripture is one of them, a very, very important one. And that is neglected by Andy's message. More than that, it's denied by Andy Stanley's message. This is a wrong teaching. This is not true. 103 01:25:33.000 --> 01:25:48.000 I want to take one more pass at, uh, helping you understand just how important this is. I would like for you to use your imagination. This is going to take a lot of imagination. I want to imagine a conversation between Richard Dawkins, who wrote the God Delusion. I've read the book. Some of you have read it, some of you have heard of it, some of you have never heard of it. And Sam Harris, it's so bad. 104 01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:55.000 It was so terribly written. Like, the logic of it. The Right. Anyway, I'll link a video down below where I talk a little bit about the God delusion. 105 01:25:55.000 --> 01:26:08.000 I've read several of his books. I listen to his podcast. You know, I like to imagine a conversation between Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Again, not bad guys, not evil guys, just different worldview. But they just think religion is the problem. I'd like to imagine a conversation between those two gentlemen. 106 01:26:08.000 --> 01:26:20.000 They hate the idea of God. They don't want anybody to believe in God. They, uh, hate the Bible. They think the resurrection of Jesus is also ridiculous and foolish, and they have heard evidence for it. So it's not like this is a trump card for them either. 107 01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:48.000 And Peter, I mean, how would that go? I mean, they would begin by delivering their normal blistering critique of all things Old Testament. They would highlight God's genocidal directives to the ancient Jews to go into a land and destroy everybody and everything in the land. Then they would rail persuasively. They're very persuasive, rail persuasively about the dangers of religion. And they would cite all the atrocities carried out in the name of religion throughout the centuries, and especially Christian atrocities. If I hear, here's a few quotes maybe they would use in their conversation or their debate. 108 01:26:48.000 --> 01:27:26.000 So the tactic as a teacher that Andy's doing now is to cause anxiety in his, in his people. I'm not saying this like he's being a meanie here, but let's just understand what's happening as a teacher. Uh, create anxiety in them so that they'll feel the problem the way Andy feels it. It's an unsolvable dilemma. It's an insurmountable, uh, issue to overcome the kind of preaching that you get from the, from the atheists. And so the solution is to just move off of those topics entirely and focus on the resurrection. And he's saying Peter would do that. Right? That's what he seems to be getting at here. Let's just understand the flow. Um, and maybe I'll respond to some of the quotes that are here with Peter. 109 01:27:26.000 --> 01:27:35.000 Richard Dawkins, one of his most famous. The God of the Old Testament, is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. That's a great line. I mean, I don't believe it, but it's just kind of a great line, isn't it? 110 01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:42.000 It's interesting because Richard Dawkins said it was A great line. It's funny. He's quoting Richard Dawkins about Richard Dawkins. 111 01:27:42.000 --> 01:27:48.000 Jealous and proud of it. A petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak. A vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleansing. 112 01:27:48.000 --> 01:29:32.000 All right, Was God an ethnic cleanser? Nope. Uh, because he wasn't targeting ethnicity. He was removing cultures that were wicked. Driving, um, them out was the focus. That's the reality of the situation. Um, it wasn't about getting rid of ethnicities. Um, is he a control freak? Um, no. Uh, that's a stupid statement to make about God. Almighty, sovereign God. The fact that he allows us any freedom at all demonstrates he's not. He wouldn't be a freak if he did control everything, because it'd be like me writing a computer program and then you complaining that I'm controlling it. I'm not a control freak. I'm the author. Is, um, he bloodthirsty? Uh, he says he takes no delight in the death of the wicked. Scripture tells us that. Right. That's Old Testament. He doesn't rejoice in those things. He pleads with people. He gives people time to repent and stuff like that. So we don't actually see that, do we see God jealous? Yep, he is jealous. But that jealousy is not bad. If my wife cheats on me, I'm jealous. Why? Because her affection is due me. If I cheat on her, she's jealous. Why? Because I belong to her. Right. We belong to each other. That jealousy is good. It's a healthy jealousy. God's jealousy is appropriate entirely. Right. He's the creator of all things, and we owe him our allegiance and our love and our obedience. Um, what else was there? He's unforgiving. He's unforgiving in the Old Testament. Have you read the Old Testament? You've only read the parts you highlighted at that point. Richard Dawkins, like you haven't actually looked at the grace that God gives the forgiveness for Cain. He protects the first murderer, the, um, sins of Abraham. God still is over him and protects him. He gives prophets. Every time a prophet goes threatening judgment, it's God offering a chance for people to repent so that they can be forgiven. Look at the story of Jonah. Jonah didn't even want the Ninevites to be saved. And God's like, I care about these people. So, yeah, that's not true. 113 01:29:32.000 --> 01:29:48.000 And he goes on and on and on and on. It's quite fascinating. Sam Harris. It's time he would say to all of us who are religious people of all religions everywhere, it's time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail. 114 01:29:48.000 --> 01:30:26.000 Now, uh, Andy's not going to offer a solution to any of these things, I guarantee you. He wants you to feel that you don't have an okay solution. I admit most people who quote Sam Harris aren't going to listen to my answers, but that's a hard issue that they have. That's not because they don't have answers. Faith according to scripture is not independent of evidence. And I have a video I'll link down below where I go through scripture after scripture to show that definitionally, the concept of faith is not what these skeptics often say it is. It's belief without evidence. Um, that is not the case. That is absolutely not the case in scripture over and over and over again. So I'll link a video down below where it deals with that. For those who want to address Sam Harris's ridiculous claim here. 115 01:30:26.000 --> 01:30:49.000 Yeah, Richard Dawkins, to be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil. It's just plain weird, as you would expect. And here it is, as you would expect, a chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents composed, revised, translated, distorted, and then improved by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. 116 01:30:49.000 --> 01:31:57.000 I mean, so he's trying to suggest that we've got this, like, radically changed documents and stuff like that. Uh, all you would say to someone like Richard Dawkins is, can you, can you explain what you mean by that? Can you offer some support for that? Can you prove that it's in the proving of these vague claims that it becomes difficult. And I will link a video down below. Yep. I've been doing this for a long time on, um, three video series on all the supposed changes in our Bible and all this other stuff. And needless to say, that content will all be there. If you want to go deep on that topic for like an hour, over two hours of content I've got on, that's one issue. Um, you're welcome to check it out, but the bottom line is like, yeah, no, it's not just. It's just not those things. Like, you're just stringing mean words together. Like, this is not proof of anything. Um, the cohesion, the connection between the Old and New Testament is something that is not only true, it's depended on by the apostles themselves when they appeal to Jesus as the Messiah. This is something they rely on and depend on. You can't just abandon it because a mean atheist said a mean thing and used big words and put them together in a really clever, snarky way. 117 01:31:57.000 --> 01:32:09.000 Of course the Bible's a mess, he says. I mean look at the background. Sam Harris, the fact that my continuous and public rejection of Christianity does not worry me in the least should suggest to you just how inadequate I think your reasons for being a Christian are. 118 01:32:09.000 --> 01:32:50.000 Yeah, offering arrogance and self confidence is not, um, it's not an argument for anything. Um, keep in mind that all these guys, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, who he hasn't quoted, they all heard the argument for the resurrection of Christ. They all rejected it and they didn't care. His solution is, are you for just the resurrection of Jesus? Okay, that's going to be his solution. It seems this is not something that they cared about. Your plan, Andy, doesn't work on the guys that you're talking about. That's really important for you to recognize because they aren't just pure hearted individuals. They're caught up in the web of Satan. They're deceived by the enemy and they're also suppressing the truth. 119 01:32:50.000 --> 01:32:57.000 So before we hear from Peter, what do you do with that? What does your 19 year old daughter do with that? Your 21 year old? 120 01:32:57.000 --> 01:33:15.000 Uh, sometimes you don't answer a fool according to their folly. Sometimes you do. It takes wisdom in the moment to do it. You tackle one issue at a time. You try to find the most important issue that they brought up and you address it. Just that one, hopefully, uh, in a conversation or you do a whole video where you unpack each individual topic. There's a number of ways to address it. Sometimes you just walk away. 121 01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:41.000 What does son do with that? No wonder people are reaching for the door. No wonder people are walking away. Not because they've read these books, but because this kind of thinking permeates our culture. Thanks to the Internet, it's all one click away. And my friends, you don't have to believe me. Think about it later. If the foundation of your faith is an absolutely true book, good luck with that. Against this kind of. 122 01:33:41.000 --> 01:34:40.000 What we're seeing is, um, there's gonna be plenty of people who agree with Andy Hergo. That's right. I abandoned my faith because I found a problem in the Bible and I think you've made a mistake. I think you should have just said, I have something I can't resolve here, but I have plenty of reasons to believe in Jesus that I'm gonna Lean on, um, and prophecy and things like that. But that's not what Andy's talking about. He is bringing accusations that say that the Bible is sweepingly bad. It is broad strokes, all a bunch of hokum and lameness. This is not. I found a problem with the Bible. I abandoned my faith. I had this weak sort of. All my faith rests on every single thing I believe. Teach me one thing that's not true and it all falls apart. That's. That brittle kind of faith is not what he's actually addressing here. That's something I'm worried about, of course, that people don't have that view. He's like sort of addressing like, just make sure you don't believe. You don't actually rely on the Bible. Like, you should be able to hear Sam Harris and go, yeah, maybe you're right, but I still believe in Jesus. Is that. That seems to be what Andy's getting at, which is not what the apostles preached. Don't hang that on Jesus. Don't hang it on the apostles onslaught. 123 01:34:40.000 --> 01:35:01.000 And it may be enough for you because you believe that. You've always believed that. And you're not going to read this stuff anyway. But good luck with your kids and your grandkids. But I have some great news. The foundation of our faith is not a cleverly cobbled together group of manuscripts. The foundation of our faith. Well, I think this is perhaps how Peter might respond. 124 01:35:01.000 --> 01:35:53.000 I can't wait to hear what he thinks. Peter thinks the foundation of our faith is even though he calls it like the more sure word of prophecy and how he's. He's like this confirmation of prophecy and the eyewitness accounts that together compromises the things that he's preaching and the things that he knows to be true. Instead, he. He just wants to separate the two. Um, but Andy seems to be echoing back the things that these atheists are saying as if they're actually true. That's the most disturbing thing. If my pastor did that, if I was sitting under Andy, Andy would be doing more to harm my faith than those atheists would. Because he'd be the guy I'd be looking at to help me answer some of those challenges, even just some of them. Even answer something that you brought up and give a response to something instead of just affirming it, apparently and calling the Bible haste. Uh, chaotically cobbled together. Is that what he said? Manuscripts that are just cobbled together, meaning there wasn't intentionality on the part of God behind it. 125 01:35:53.000 --> 01:36:07.000 That's the implication fallacy would say, um, I certainly am familiar with my own people's history, and I'm sure that the reason I've never questioned it is how I was raised. But, gentlemen, none of that. 126 01:36:07.000 --> 01:36:12.000 So these words are in Peter's mouth. Peter's like, I guess I've never questioned it. 127 01:36:12.000 --> 01:36:18.000 Nothing you've stated has anything to do with my decision to follow Jesus. 128 01:36:18.000 --> 01:36:31.000 But what about the more sure word of prophecy? Doesn't that have something to do with his decision to follow Jesus? What about the witness that is in the scriptures, that affirms, uh, and proves and defines what it means that Jesus is the Messiah? 129 01:36:31.000 --> 01:38:21.000 You reference the inadequacy of my reasoning, so let me explain my reasoning. Actually, I only have one. I only have one reason. That is, when my teacher was arrested, I ran. And when asked if I knew him, I lied. And when the Romans crucified him, he died. And in that moment, I was like the two of you. I had no faith, and I did not know what to believe. To use your word. I had no reason to believe because I had no idea what to believe. Now, when the women burst into the room early that morning to tell us the tomb was empty, I didn't assume a miracle. I'm no fool. Have you ever seen a crucifixion? No. Well, of course you haven't. But no one survives crucifixion. I assumed, like all of us did, that somebody had simply taken the body, or perhaps the women had gotten confused and they went to the wrong place. But I was curious, so I went to see for myself. And before I knew it, I'll admit it, I was running and I was hopeful. But, guys, as John and I stared into that empty cave, we didn't know what to think. Later, Mary Magdalene found us and said she had seen the Master alive. You know, But I wouldn't allow myself to believe it. You have to understand, I just spent three years of my life chasing a wannabe messiah. A false prophet. I wasn't going to spend another season chasing ghosts. Besides, I had a price on my head. If I wasn't careful, I would end up being a ghost myself. So that night, as was our habit, the boys and me, we found a safe house outside of town. The doors were locked. We were huddled together, whispering about everything that had happened in the day. And that's when he came. Nobody saw him walk in, and I swear to you, the doors were locked, but there he was. Very much alive. Fellas, I, uh, really can't argue with anything you've said, but I would like, to clarify one thing, would Peter really. 130 01:38:21.000 --> 01:39:32.000 Say, because he's putting his. Ultimately, this is Andy Stanley speaking here, except he hasn't actually personally witnessed Christ. Right? But he's speaking and calling it Peter, and he says that Peter would say, I can't argue against anything that was just said. I just gave several responses to some of the things that were said. Um, you call God evil for punishing, but actually God is punishing evil. You just think that evil is not evil. So you see evil where good is right? You've reversed good for evil, as Isaiah says people do. He won't do any of that. Peter's like, I can't argue. I give up the defense of Scripture. I give up the response of accusations about bad, about religion being evil. I won't be like, say, Michael Jones, inspiring philosophy, who digs into the research and goes, let me show you religion is actually good for culture and society, and I can prove it. And historians will agree with this. No, instead, I give up. I won't even defend it. Whatever you say that's bad about the Bible, I will just say, that's fine. I affirm it. I'm just going to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. And you can chip away at every other aspect of my faith all you want because that's going to be such a strong faith. Really, you shoot a bunch of holes into my faith. It's not stronger after that. It's just not. 131 01:39:32.000 --> 01:39:58.000 My reason for believing isn't something I've heard or read or had read to me. I believe what I believe because of what I saw. I watched him die. I know exactly where he was buried. But God raised him. And I saw him. And I saw him more than once. That's the reason. That's the only reason for my hope. 132 01:39:58.000 --> 01:41:53.000 Only reason. Andy Stanley's version of Peter is what he wants the church to be. For the church to say, I will not defend the Bible. I will not defend any other aspects of my faith. I only have the resurrection of Jesus. Everything else is negotiable. I'm not even going to fight you on it. If you're snarky, you win. That's it. The only reason we believe is because of what Peter, James, you know, John, what they saw, the resurrection of Jesus. That's the only. Only not a reason. The only reason. That's not what the New Testament says. It's not what the apostles did, as I've exampled her already. But let me share to you this. First Corinthians 15, Paul says, for I delivered to you first of all, that which I also received. This is a, uh, way of them saying in, um, in more of a. It's like a formula, Jewish formula for saying. This is like official doctrine. We believe, and he says that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. It's important that at the core of Christianity is according to the scriptures. Or else you come up with a resurrection of Jesus story and then a whole bunch of empty space where there should be a lot of theology about what that means. A lot of theology, I guess, is not showing up on your screen. Oh, I'm sorry, guys. There it is. I put on your screen now. And this is right here, according to the Scriptures. And then in verse four, again, according to the scriptures. This is important. It is definitely not what Andy Stanley does here. Andy Stanley, um, he's giving you a fake version of the Apostle Peter to be a mouthpiece for what Andy Stanley wants to create in his stripped down, minimalized version of Christianity that only believes in the resurrection. 133 01:41:53.000 --> 01:42:01.000 And ladies and gentlemen, that is the reason for your hope as well. And we will pick the story up there. 134 01:42:01.000 --> 01:43:25.000 Right? The resurrection is the reason for my hope. It's not the only reason for my hope, nor is it the only thing I hope in and have hope related to. Where do you go forward from here? You recognize that Andy Stanley represents a minimal Christianity that is reducing Christianity down to the resurrection of Jesus with very, very few other commitments. The other commitments he get, he'll probably. He'll probably get many of them from Scripture. He just won't necessarily acknowledge that fully. He wants to do this for evangelical reasons. He wants to outreach to people. He doesn't want them falling away from Christ. He sees what he sees as a crisis in the world, and he has a solution for that problem. Um, my solution has been different. I will either prioritize the resurrection of Jesus as maybe the first thing to talk about in the case of someone who has a bunch of tertiary questions and doubts, um, or I will go to go through them one at a time, find the biggest issues and defend them. I'll defend the scripture wherever I can to the best of my ability, because it's true and it is part of my Christian faith. I think that that's a better approach. It takes more work, but it results in healthy Christians. Um, Andy Stanley's church has now been sliding further and further downhill since six years ago when he delivered this message. And I know that, um, I'm just being honest with you guys. If my pastor at my church was teaching this, I would have tried to bring correction within the church. And if I wasn't able to, I would absolutely be looking for a new fellowship. This is bad stuff.