Christ Revealed FULL Episode 1: The Inspiring New Christian Docu-Series That’s Changing Lives

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to episode one of christ revealed i am filled with excitement right now why because i know the journey that we're getting ready to go on traveling across the united states talking to the christian apologetic community taking a film crew to israel and traveling throughout the entire country looking at the most important sites in the holy land i can't tell you the scope the breadth of this is beyond anything you can possibly imagine and i'm so excited to share it with you right now christ revealed the history the evidence the inspiration we're looking at all three of those dimensions throughout the series we were able to sit with people in locations that are unimaginable to bring information and inspiration in a way like you've never seen it before one thing i really want to encourage you to do is to share this we're going right now into our free viewing period have other people come check this out it is an experience that is life changing and i can say that with full confidence because in creating this project it changed my life and it changed the lives of other people who were involved in it also a lot of unexpected things happened a lot of revelations occurred i can't wait for you to see what it's all about so please do share with other people you know also know that if you want to own christ revealed that's available for you too but right now i just want to get into episode one with you so here we go episode one of our nine part docu-series christ revealed for you [Music] the world of christian apologetics is fascinating stimulating intellectually moving and it also touches you in your heart in this interview with sean mcdowell who's in the christian apologetic community son of most people would know in the christian community josh mcdowell we have a conversation that i found to be riveting logical and inspiring sean teaches christian students and takes them places like to atheist groups to muslim groups to discuss and interact and talk about their different views different values to sharpen their minds and hearts in the faith that they have sean mcdowell i believe is powerfully intellectually very compelling in his arguments and understanding of christianity and the christian faith and somebody i'm really excited to introduce you to so let's jump in and enjoy my interview with sean mcdowell sean thanks so much for spending time with us here today and i'm really excited to have this conversation with you oh happy to do it this is a great project can you give us a little bit of your background sure be happy to i'm a professor at biola university teaching a graduate program in apologetics which is just offering a defense for what we believe and why we believe it i also teach high school part-time i taught high school full-time for 10 years before pursuing a doctorate and i love working with students uh working with young people so i teach part-time at a christian high school and then i get to speak to students and write and i'm a father and husband wow so uh you have your phd in what subject i got a doctorate in apologetics and worldview studies wow so explain what that is when they say apologetics we'll go ahead and explain that but also what you mean by worldview studies sure yeah we had somebody call up to biola university and say why do you have classes on apologetics why are you apologizing for the faith well of course that's a misunderstanding what apologetics is first peter 3 15 says set apart christ as lord in your heart always be ready with an answer or a reason for the hope within give it with gentleness and with respect well the word translated into english answer or reason comes from the greek apologia so it's apologetics so apologetics especially in the greek context at that time meant given a defense or reason for what you believe so when plato wrote a defense of socrates he called it an apology right so apologetics we have classes on why does god allow evil classes on intelligent design classes i teach one on the resurrection or how we know the scriptures are true and then worldview studies was a little broader that would include cultural issues philosophy and just how to apply it to certain issues of the day that's great tell me what you think was meant by the hope within what i think peter meant is that as believers we don't grieve without hope we don't live in a purposeless just immaterial world there's a god who's created us and who's conquered death and evil through the resurrection and for those of us who believe in him regardless of the pain and the hurt we see around us we always have hope that a better day is coming and how critical hope is and this ties into because one of the things that i feel like through this process i'm discovering um is that faith i think is an additional human need you're just given the predicament of being a human being trying to be one without faith i think leaves a big void that can lead to all kinds of problems so do you think those two things are tied together well i do i mean jesus was asked what's the greatest commandment in the law and he said love god and he said love other people so we have been made to be in relationship with god and to be in relationship with other people now to be in a relationship with god that requires faith now that's not blind faith right that's not believing something without evidence in fact i think faith is trusting what we have reason to believe is true right but it goes beyond what we can see it involves a hope in future things such as heaven so we have good reason to believe in those things and we trust god and that's really what gives us hope in the present so when you are in classes teaching in the apologetics classes what are some of the responses you get from students who are coming in to learn in that environment are they um are they surprised by the the the level of uh you know intellectual prowess that's attached to all of this so we have a very unique program in that it's a graduate program it's a master's level so we have people from 25 years old to 75 years old who come in distinctly wanting to study and learn about the evidence right so by the time they get into my class they are sold on the fact that there is evidence there's facts they believe it really what i find is when i go speak at churches when i speak on college campuses there's people who the first time hear about evidence for the resurrection they hear about evidence from the origin of the universe pointing towards a beginner they hear about philosophical evidence from a moral law that we know to a moral law giver namely god so i think the church in the broader culture is pleasantly surprised and intrigued and interested when they're introduced to some of the evidence for god in general and christianity in particular so in the general framework of philosophy and its branches morality being one of them uh you know most people do not say that you know or would not consider that there's a christian view relative to this that's a you know that's a well reasoned view they almost think like well you know you have to separate yourself from philosophy in order to uh you know be a christian or to think like a christian but uh it seems like the opposite is true well i think that's the case we live in a world that says there's truth when it comes to science there's truth in history there's truth in mathematics but when it comes to religion it's all a matter of opinion it's a matter of feeling whatever you believe is true for you so without even realizing it even amongst many believers and non-believers there's kind of this divorce between facts and evidence and your religious beliefs what makes christian unique is in first corinthians 15 paul says if jesus is not risen our faith is in vain it's worthless we're still in our sins in fact we're to be pitied so our faith is tied to a single testable historical event so jesus did rise christianity is true if he didn't it's false so i think for people to start to make that connection and realize that facts matter evidence matters and we should use our minds when it comes to faith that's eye-opening and encouraging for many people challenging for others so over 2000 years later are we able to establish some facts that are that are rational i think so in fact what's interesting is we would tend to think the further we get away from the time of christ the less confidence we can have in the evidence that would kind of be the natural intuition i think it's the opposite i think with increased technology with increased discipline today we are actually able to able to get closer to the very words of jesus confidence in the scripture we're able to uncover certain archaeological finds we're not aware of in the past so i actually think the evidence is increasing the further we move away from the events from which jesus actually lived so and we we see that as you said there there is uh you know archaeological evidence that exists and you know we're really excited to be going to uh israel to start looking at some of this and interviewing these people it's gonna be great has there been any contradictory evidence that's come up so it depends on what you mean by contradictory evidence i think there's some evidence that's incomplete evidence that's ongoing so when you look at the issue take the topic of archaeology most places in the bible have not been found well that's not to prove they don't exist that's because most places have not even been excavated in israel it's like less than one percent right for a lot of political reasons and other reasons but then of the sites that have been excavated not a hundred percent of those sites of that individual site has been excavated it's a minority of that site but then of the small amount of sites that have been excavated very few those have been studied conclusions have been drawn and then released to the public so we kind of have this expectation that if anything happened we'd be able to find it very easily but there's political there's historical there's all these professional kind of just factors in the way so i would say as a whole what we found broadly supports the christian worldview but even like a court of law when you have a case there's always some facts you're just trying to figure out where they fit even though the broad case might be enough to convict somebody beyond a reasonable doubt right so uh and it's interesting i didn't realize that the less than one percent of it is you know has been uh you know the archaeological digs account for less than one percent and that there's much more they could be doing but you think there's barriers in the way of uh doing that work oh sure some of the barriers can be finances the money to do it some can be safety issues barriers can be legal issues political issues personal issues in israel if somebody has a home on top of a site they have vested interest in not losing their homes so there's just a lot of factors that come into play with our ability to excavate particular areas and sometimes there's uncertainty where exact exactly cities were exactly where mountains were and this is just because we're thousands of years removed from the events these are the kinds of things we would expect dealing with events from antiquity but in your lifetime there have been discoveries that have been you know cooperating uh you know in nature as far as what what the discovery was and what was said in the bible so uh are there any that stand out to you uh there's a number that have been found one was actually shortly before my lifetime but one of one of my favorites was years ago in the harvard theological review there was a professor who wrote and said there's astonishingly little evidence that the feet of a crucified person was ever pierced by nails so all of the crucified victims that we found had been crucified with ropes that seemed to contradict the biblical account especially in john when thomas says i want to see the nail marks in your hands and in your feet so does the bible contradict the archaeological record well 1967 about a decade before i was born a man who's been named yahoo hanan was found in the middle of the first century in palestine and he was crucified in the way that it's described happen to jesus now there's still some scholarly debate whether or not his his legs were actually broken as it describes in in john chapter 19 so that's unconfirmed but nails were used that shows john accurately described the way crucifixion took place in that place and at that time so to me as the archaeological record continues we we just kind of come across these findings that slowly corroborate the biblical story and with that an area of focus for you has been the fate of the apostles so uh why did you decide to write on that and why did that become an area of focus for you yeah that's a great question i i grew up hearing apologetics in the defense of the faith and one of them was that all the apostles except probably john died these grisly deaths because they refused to recant their belief that they'd seen the risen jesus therefore it's true and there's a power to that why would somebody intentionally die for something it was false well a few years ago i was taking a group of students up to berkeley where we invited in some skeptics to speak to our christian students and i teach my students how to ask good questions and just interact with people with very different belief systems so okay just that's fascinating so you basically say i'm going to take these students yeah who you know we're trying to they've come here with an agenda to learn and you know we want to shape them and one of your methodologies in doing that is to put them in front of some skeptics and let them so you're not afraid of uh of the other side of the of the argument no these are high school students in fact we've had students down to 12 and 13. oh wow wow okay we'll bring in leading atheists leading skeptics leading people from very different world views now we train our students very carefully and we go with them and we debrief afterwards but i'm not afraid to expose my students to contrary ideas i think they've just got to train them well yeah they usually walk away more confident once they've seen the pushback and then we make sense of it so we're on this trip and i had a friend of mine who was arguing he's what you might call a mythicist argues jesus didn't even exist and one of our students said well why would all the apostles die if jesus didn't exist and he pushed back he goes give me evidence that any of them actually died and this was about seven or eight years ago my students all look at me like i'm supposed to have the answer and i sat there i thought i don't really know i've just taken it second third hand from other people i've never looked into this myself and i was in a doctoral program looking for a doctoral thesis topic so it hit me that night i'm like this is perfect i have to know for myself if this is really a good argument and i imagine other people are gonna be pretty interested too so that night i pretty much decided i was gonna start writing on that if my committee would approve it so uh what was that journey like once you started making that your doctoral thesis well when you write a doctoral thesis i had to be careful not to start off and say i want to prove that they all died as martyrs to make this argument there's a temptation to that and i had to consistently fight back on that because that's the only way to be scholarly objective and be fair to the evidence and really ask is this a good argument what's the evidence they died as martyrs can we really believe they're eyewitnesses of jesus and if this is true what's the best way to make the argument so it began by just kind of mentally shifting rather than just making an apologetic really asking the question as fairly as i could and i told my wife i'm like i've got to be willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads is this a good argument so i just started i i mean i literally started by googling just to see what people were saying didn't get much out of that then i started doing journal researches i looked at books i called scholars i mean you just become a detective right and you trace every single you know footnote you can until you feel like you've exhausted the evidence that's out there and then you try to assess it as fairly as you can and where did it lead you or some of the highlights well some of the highlights i would say basically i decided to study the the 12 apostles with matthias instead of judas and then james the brother of jesus and paul because they're such significant figures in the early church and they're both eyewitnesses of jesus and both not believers in jesus during their lifetime and i think we can conclude with confidence that at least james the brother of jesus james the son of zebedee peter and paul we have good historical evidence that they died as martyrs i think a decent case can be made for thomas and for andrew i think the rest to be honest with you it's hard to know when history ends and when legend begins we just don't know for example the story is that bartholomew was skinned alive this is the tradition we often hear well the earliest record that i could find is about 500 a.d now that doesn't mean it's false but historically speaking we can't have much confidence and that being true not to mention when it comes to bartholomew there's a number of different traditions about where he went and how he died about five six seven different traditions so i'm looking at this saying i don't think historically speaking we can have a lot of confidence that bartholomew died that way right so when i ratcheted it back i said okay what really matters here i said well the first thing is we have good early consistent evidence that the apostles were eyewitnesses of jesus that's why they believed we see it in all four gospels we see this distinctly in paul's writings like first corinthians chapter 15. we see it in extra-biblical writings church fathers like clement of rome and ignatius talking about that so very early the consistent record is the apostle saw with their own eyes second we know at the heart of their faith was the resurrection there is no early christian faith apart from belief in the resurrection there's some critics who will say in the second century you know this resurrection begins to emerge but it wasn't at the heart well this just simply isn't true the earliest account we have in first corinthians 15 which is at least two decades after the death of jesus and i think he's passing on a creed that he received earlier probably within three to five years of the death of jesus paul says i pass on you what was most important that jesus died he was buried he rose on the third day the early consistent testimony is that to be a christian was to believe in the resurrection i mean read the book of acts when they start proclaiming and preaching the message of jesus it's about the resurrection so the gospels are eyewitnesses second we know that they were proclaiming the resurrection third we see persecution i decided to read through the new testament and pay attention to every single book when either somebody was persecuted or jesus taught that someone would be persecuted for their faith i was stunned and partly disappointed how much i had missed this before at the heart of jesus message is pick up your cross and follow me right now sometimes you say pick up your cross my neighbor listens to loud music my son is disobedient well that's not what he meant he meant pick up your cross and be ready to die it's over paul's right it's over james right it's in hebrew this consistent message you proclaim jesus persecution is coming but then we see this outside of the church in writings like tacitus and implanted the younger that when people proclaim the message of jesus publicly they were persecuted so if we take a step back what does this tell us you have a group of people who believe they had seen the risen jesus the first thing they proclaimed is the resurrection we have reason to believe that if people were proclaiming the resurrection persecution was very likely and then we look at the individual apostles what do we find we find some good evidence for peter first century evidence that he died as a martyr same for paul and i think same for both james so the key is not so much that we can show that all of the apostles died as martyrs the key is that they sincerely believe that jesus was risen from the grave and were willing to suffer and die and which is the key and it's compelling i mean it's not like um a leap of logic that if you can pretty much corroborate that you know that at least a handful of them you know you could see they were they did die as martyrs that's not unreasonable to suggest that the other ones could have also yeah i i think the key is to argue this you look in the book of acts chapter four and five the apostles start proclaiming the risen jesus they're threatened they're beaten they're thrown in prison we see stephen killed in the early chapters of acts we see james killed in acts 12 2 and they're told just stop proclaiming the risen jesus in acts 5 paul basically says we can't we fear god more than we fear men so the earliest record we have is this group of men proclaiming they'd seen the risen jesus willing to suffer and die and face persecution for that belief we have no record any of them recanted and we know with confidence that at least some of them died as martyrs right so this doesn't prove the resurrection is true but it tells us they didn't make it up they were sincere they didn't invent this false story to get themselves persecuted and to lose everything they really believed jesus had risen from the grave and appeared to them so with that now it's a great area of focus you have to say let's go deep here and see what does exist in a way of information around this and evidence what other things about the resurrection have you like do you feel like is very compelling as far as saying that the resurrection is validated i think we have to go step by step and look at the facts that we know so sometimes people start and say we've got to defend the entire bible being true and then you get the resurrection thrown in right i think we can make a case from archaeology from manuscripts etc that the bible and the new testament and the gospels are reliable documents but we can also say let's just look at this event the resurrection through the lens of how we would look at any event in history see what facts we know are true and ask what conclusion best explains it so there's a few things we know did jesus die well that's unmistakable we have medical evidence that blood and water came out that john reports which only happened we can medically show at the point of death we have it multiple attestation and all the gospels the writings of paul ryan's peter we even have josephus and tacitus extra biblical writers talking about jesus dying so jesus died on the cross then we have this amazing evidence for an empty tomb one piece of fact being that it was discovered by women i find this very fascinating if you're the apostles and you're making up in that culture a story based on a resurrection in which a woman's testimony was not valued as highly as a man's testimony in fact the more significant an event was the less likely they would rely upon a woman so you're the apostles and you're inventing a story based upon a historical event who's the least likely people you'd invent well it's obvious women right so why do they all report matthew mark luke and john that women found the tomb because that's what they really believed happened they weren't inventing this story then you have all these cases of appearances you have appearances to the 500 and first corinthians 15 you have appearances the apostles you have appearances again to the women you have appearances to skeptics like thomas james and paul and then you have this transformation of the apostles willing to suffer and die for this tells me they didn't make this up we have good consistent early evidence that jesus rose from the grave now other people might say okay here's other theories that can explain the resurrection and you just google this you'll find endless hypotheses but the question always has to be given certain facts that we know what theory best explains all of them right and has the least problems so probably the most common one is that that the apostle is hallucinated well one big problem with that is hallucinations are internal subjective feelings there's not an external object that matches up with them we have multiple accounts of group appearances of jesus i mean you can no more share hallucination than you can a dream right so hallucinations have a hard time accounting for the facts it also can't really account for the empty tomb another common one which really rocked me in high school i grew up in a christian home and i heard that the bible is true i always believed it and then i heard these skeptics who wrote these articles and said maybe jesus didn't exist maybe christianity is patterned after these dying and rising gods mithras and horus and adonis and isis from you know kind of the ancient world at that time and it's there's nothing unique about christianity i'd never heard that before and it rocked me intellectually and emotionally to think what if the story isn't true when i started to look into it i realized that there's a few huge problems with this number one the dating is all wrong so some of these stories existed before the time of christ but any of the parts of the stories that closely mirror christianity tend to come from the second third and fourth centuries so if there's any borrowing going on it's from them borrowing from christianity rather than the other way around second you'll see similar terms but what they mean by these terms are very different so last time i looked it's been a little while on wikipedia it said that osiris resurrected well that sounds like jesus resurrected osiris resurrected well if you read the story of osiris he's murdered thrown into a chest falls in the bottom of sea body is put back together and eventually becomes god of the underworld that's not a resurrection it's the same word but it doesn't have the same meaning besides these are fictional stories that are patterned after the dying and rising of the seasons not historical events like we have with the person of jesus there's many other naturalistic hypotheses that people put in but none of them can account for the facts that we know with as much consistency and power as the resurrection so what do you think right now for is the is the biggest or some of the bigger misconceptions about christianity that non-christians in a non-christian world has a certain view of christianity from the outside looking from the outside in as compared from the inside out what do you think is some of the mischaracterizations that uh that are erroneous i i think of a few i think number one people look and say look at all the bloodshed and the horror and atrocities done in the name of christ that's a common misconception now certainly some bad things have been done by people who say that they are believers and by the church i'm not denying that but that's the lens by which people see all of christianity they miss number one all the good that's been done in the name of christ hospitals universities orphanages women rights etc and people also failed to distinguish between when people do things that goes against what jesus taught clearly they're violating the way jesus told people to live so i think i do think a lot of people look at christianity through that lens which i don't think is the whole picture i think another one people look at christianity and just think as with any religion it's all a matter of faith it's just blind faith just believe it if it works for you and they don't realize that christianity is based upon a testable historical event i think the other one is a first question in many people's minds today is not so much is christianity true but is christianity good i think we live in a culture given certain moral norms that have been broadly accepted in particular related to the issue of sexuality christians are bigoted they're hateful they're intolerant so many people won't even consider the evidence because they look at christians or at least the perception of christians that's proclaimed to them and they think why would i want to be like that so they don't even entertain the evidence right those are three big pushbacks that i tend to see and do you feel like they many times are building straw men you know there's a bad apple who's proclaimed to be a christian but doesn't practice the the moral code of christianity if you will but then say you know they're held out as the poster child in the media as a straw man basically to discredit christianity i do think that happens a few years ago i i wrote this book answering some of the big objections that the new atheists at this time were raising against christianity so i called up one of the largest skeptical groups where i live in southern california and i said hey i'd be willing to come to your group i'll give you all a free book and just sit in the hot seat and you can ask me whatever questions you'd like to ask a christian i'm not going to pretend to have all the answers but maybe we could have a conversation so i went up there with my pastor and my wife in this home there are about 20 skeptics atheist agnostics that were there and we had a wonderful conversation and one thing that stood out to me was how many misconceptions they had about christians because of a tv show that they saw because of a comment they heard because of a classmate these isolated individual experiences shaped how they saw all of christians and one reason was a lot of them didn't know a christian now in fairness christians can do the same thing to other groups they maybe don't know a muslim they don't know an atheist so they have a misconception and see him entirely through that lens so that's why it's important whoever's watching this to say you know what let's ask is my perception of this group whoever it is accurate do i know people in this group do i take the time to listen to them and accurately understand what they believe and why they believe it so i think you're absolutely right a lot of people reject a straw man of christianity not what christianity really believes and what jesus really taught now this is fascinating to me because i think that is a misconception in and of itself you've now mentioned it twice with your students and now with yourself saying that there's a local group of atheists and i don't think most people would say well you know listen i'm a christian i teach in this arena let's have a conversation right most people say i don't want to know those people or they feel like there'd be some kind of a condescending judgment against you know these people who are non-christians and and maybe even are trying to uh discredit christianity but instead you want to show up and actually have the conversation what was their disposition towards you you know what when i sat down and it started the head of the group who has become a friend of mine he looked to me and he goes kudos to you and i said why he goes i can't believe you'd have the guts to just come and sit here in our group and be a part of this not many christians would do this now sadly he's right and i didn't i'm not saying that to give myself a pat on the back but most people are not willing to step outside of their comfort zone to meet people it's easier to label it's easier to throw bombs on social media from a distance i had a chance to preach in a mosque about four weeks ago and the mom and i had a conversation we disagreed but it was cordial he was so gracious they served the best food middle eastern food you could imagine and we accomplished we clarified i think most people today if you treat them with respect and you see them in person not just online are willing to have conversations about faith i really do so this is i'm startled here pleasantly startled so you go from having a interaction with a group of atheists to now preaching in a mosque can you can you give us a little more detail on that experience what that was like to walk in there and do this well this was a unique experience i was working with a group in the inner city in philadelphia and we were taking students out to have conversations with people in the city right just with very different beliefs and i knew i was taking a group of students into a mosque and in the morning when we were debriefing to get ready the fellow on our side who's leading he says and you'll be preaching for 15 minutes in a mosque sharing the christian view of salvation i said okay time out i didn't get that memo like i'm happy to do it that's awesome but i need to know like what are they expecting how long do i have what do you mean present the christian view of salvation so i prepared that day i went in and i was asked to give my there's probably 150 of our students maybe 150 muslims from the mosque in an open room and they had food in the back and i was allowed to present the christian view of salvation 15 minutes the imam presented the muslim view of salvation 15 minutes and we sat there and took questions back and forth and i'll tell you this imam was so gracious he was kind he was warm so hospitable we differed so he didn't pretend we didn't differ but i walked away i mean our students loved it i walked away going wow and i think a lot of people not everybody there's some people out there that wouldn't there's a lot of people if you just step outside your comfort zone treat them the way you'd want to be treated would be willing to have spiritual conversations the best part is i realized some of our students had faulty views about islam right and based on many of their questions i realized so many of them didn't even understand the gospel they didn't get it they had a straw man view of it now i haven't heard that any of them became christians but at least they understand more clearly who jesus claimed to be what it means to be a christian and i think they felt loved by christians if you watch the news and world political events you would think that that was what you just described is a impossibility and that there is no way for it to be conversation communication a shared spiritual experience um and uh and which creates understanding and again it doesn't necessarily mean alignment that suddenly you know people's minds are changed about their faith but it creates understanding which can only lead to a positive place it can't lead to a bad place oh my goodness only good came out of it our students were i mean they were beaming that night we went back and we debriefed for an hour an hour and a half and they when the whole trip was done that was their highlight i could see why and i'm sitting here almost giddy thinking about the prospect of that happening and and i think probably it dispels a certain maybe a somewhat unconscious uh view or maybe for some people it's it's a overt uh sense that with people who practice religion you know whether it be islam whether it be christianity that there's a certain arrogance that comes along with it that would um eliminate the possibility of a gathering such as what you just described but instead of arrogance it's it's just basically saying hey you know we uh we're so it shows confidence saying we we can walk into any scenario have a conversation let there be you know a level of connection human to human and if we don't agree on certain things that's okay at least now maybe you understand me and i understand you i think the word you said is very interesting a confidence yes why would somebody go into a mosque or any other religious faith present their view and have questions fired at them for an hour it's because they're confident that their position is true right one of the things i do in churches is i do this atheist role play i call an atheist encounter where they know i'm a christian right i put glasses on i go into atheist mode and i'll give an atheist viewpoint five or six minutes and then i take questions from the audience and then i just kind of shoot it down one by one and always the frustration brews about 25-30 minutes into it i've been called names i've been personally attacked and then i'll stop and i'll say before we answer some of these questions i want to know how did you treat me and i'm telling you it's like people go oh shoot right i didn't even realize that i was trying to win you an argument i was trying to show that you were wrong i was trying to show how smart i am i wasn't interested in learning and really treating you in love as a human being and then i'll ask the audience and i've thought about this i've done this i don't know if i'd say hundreds of times but dozens and dozens of times to youth pastors to parents to school teachers to junior high students stadiums of 6 000 to 12 students and consistently students get defensive people get christians get defensive angry and sometimes even hostile a little bit why you know why because we don't know what we believe and why we don't have the confidence that it's really true right so when someone starts pressing us and asking us tough questions how do you know the bible's true why does god allow evil can't all religions be true what about evolution if we haven't thought about it and someone presses us it's human instinct to get defensive right but jesus said love god with your heart and with your soul and with your mind peter said be ready with an answer when we take the time to know as christians what we believe and why we believe it it builds tremendous confidence and a willingness to engage people lovingly and thoughtfully with very different views than our own so non-believers are not the enemy yeah which is probably i think the mindset and it's interesting because you know when you really think about when i really think about what you're saying relative to uh the the confidence you know being the thing that allows you to lighten up and walk into a circumstance and and just feel i'm here and i have the confidence to be able to have this communication not worried that somehow it might rock my world or destabilize my my experience of life but rather that there's a way maybe to gain greater understanding here it's if it i would say that from people outside looking in i think the the if they were to be asked you know the non-christian world would christians um do they feel like non-believers are the enemy and that uh you know that they can't be interacted with it's it's really not that way i don't think it's just christians i think we live in a divisive argumentative culture it's us versus them but i think there's reasons for this one reason is i think there's a lot of brokenness and hurt in relationships we've seen suicide and depression rising rick warren famously said hurt people hurt people so whatever your faith is or no faith if there's emotional and relational brokenness then it's much easier to argue with someone and dehumanize them than to listen to him and treat him humanely i think we also just live in a culture that's so rushed we're so busy and we're so distracted and we also are so afraid of political correctness that what if i say the wrong thing i'm gonna get attacked and shamed so people are afraid in relationship publicly to say stuff so they go online under a pseudonym just start attacking people because they have no natural outlet for it so i found just learning to listen learning to know what we believe having conversations trying to have sympathy and thinking okay people with different belief systems aren't the enemy in fact they might be right and if they're right i should believe it i mean i grew up in a christian home and my father i mean he's been in ministry over 50 years and he's written over 150 books he's probably spoken to more young people live than anybody in history done 250 debates i only mentioned this because i went through a period of doubt in my life where i had a lot of questions and i started thinking i know my p my i know my parents mean well but what if i was raised in a different family if i was raised in a muslim family would i just be a muslim how do i really know the bible is true how do i really know jesus rose from the grave and it was kind of an existential mild crisis i don't want to overstate it for me and i remember sitting down with my dad not knowing how he's going to respond he spent his whole life defending and proclaiming the truth of christianity and his son's like yeah i don't know if i buy this so i sat down and said dad i want to tell you something i i want to know what's true but i don't know that i'm convinced christianity is true i felt like i had to be honest and he looks and he goes son i think that's great and i remember thinking dad did you hear anything that i just said he goes look i didn't raise you to just believe something because i told you i'd raise you to follow after truth and a seek after truth and wherever it leads you embrace it he said i'm convinced if you really seek after truth you'll end up or continue believing in jesus because jesus is the truth but follow truth even if you don't like it even if it's uncomfortable seek after truth that's not my dad is just hammered into me he always tells me even politics read both sides before you make up your mind and i think the only reason we look at people as enemies the only reason we don't listen more and we get so angry is because we hear one side of the argument we think everybody else is stupid well if you only look at one side then of course everyone else seems stupid but if you read both sides if you take the time to listen to people at least understand where they're coming from then it's much harder to be in this argumentative he's the enemy rather than just loving people in the way that jesus said we're supposed to love people well you know and there's so much you know as you're citing the level of acrimony in the world and polarization is unprecedented at least in my lifetime i think and i think everything you just said speaks to the root of that and why that exists so um it's uh you know i think the solution is uh you know basically creating understanding and i think sometimes it's the inward look right saying okay where am i and you having i mean i i think it's an amazing reflection given that you're born in a christian household your father you know is such a large figure in the christian community and that you would still ask the question and this is this is really i think a startling question what if i was born in a muslim household what might have happened and and all of a sudden you can start to say okay but and there are people who are and now how should i relate to them and i just think that that's an amazing lens to look through that would cause pause for anybody because maybe the muslim if they said what if i was born in a christian household you see it really i think everybody can ask that question i think that's one of the most amazing soul-searching questions i've heard so i i just wanted to point that out well at least minimally it can help us be sympathetic to people who see the world differently and be a little bit more self-critical about what we believe and why we believe it so now you know you're a father three children and you talked about your experience growing up as the sun now what's it like for you being the father that's a great question i love being a dad i have three kids and spending time with my kids is you know up there with my wife kind of my pride and joy some of the most fun things i do and you know we live in a world where there's a lot of different beliefs and obviously i want my kids to be christians i want to embrace the belief system that we have i'd be lying if i said differently but i also know that my kids need to grow up and make some decisions for themselves i can pray for them i can guide them i can hopefully model for them what it means to be a christian and at some point they're going to have to decide what they believe and go for it right but you know they know i'm going to love them no matter what so i just try to when we go on these trips i've been describing we take my my son with me my daughter was there when we were at the mosque i wanted to meet some people who are muslims and just have a cross-cultural experience and not just view them through the lens of which you know maybe we see on tv in a movie or the news or something like that so i try to guide my kids try to have conversation with them pray for them it's fun to be a dad but you know when it's all said and done they're going to have to make some decisions about their life spiritually and i i can't make those decisions for them so what's uh what's interesting i think in part is that okay you're born in a christian household and uh and you've committed your career and life and faith and spirit to this um what about the parents that are christian but you know their entire life and career is wrapped up in something very independent of christianity you know whatever their job might be in any type of a company maybe in a blue-collar world or maybe they're professionals or what have you and uh you know they haven't had the uh i guess they say the experience of getting deeply academic into being able to build their confidence based on a lot of of education and reasoning that's gone on yet they want to still live the christian life have a christian household etc what what are the resources or what what do what do you think are there challenges and solutions in that particular scenario yeah i'd say a few things i'd say parents don't have to be the experts on everything i'm not the expert on plenty of things in my life you know the other thing i would say is if you just take the time to read a couple books and make loving god with your mind a part of who you are you've already set yourself apart from most people in the culture who don't read thoughtful books so i would say those parents they'd say what does it look like in your life and in your family to make just loving god with your mind and thinking christianly one spiritual discipline what book can i read what conference can i go to who can i find in my church track them down have a conversation with that person and start to learn and grow in that aspect of my life the other thing though is part of being a protestant christian is i don't believe there's sacred and then secular vocations it's not like what i do is more spiritual than someone who's a doctor a teacher a plumber or a car mechanic as i look scripturally it was abraham kyber who said there's not a square inch of creation out of which god does not cry out it's mine so whatever profession you have what does it look like to love god and honor god and serve god through that profession that's a question that we need to be asking now sadly a lot of christians don't ask this question i met two mechanical engineers who had been in church their entire lives and they were in their 30s and i said what does it look like distinctly to be a christian mechanical engineer how do you apply your faith to your profession they looked at each other they looked to me and they said i don't know we haven't thought about that and i thought what a shame so their spiritual life is wednesday night bible study sunday morning at church but they're not actively thinking through what it means to be a christian to live out their profession in the workplace so it becomes compartmentalized it absolutely becomes compartmentalized and i guess this is a very interesting point because they're trying to mechanize their christianity or their faith as compared to it being a spiritual experience that's a part of every aspect of their life so uh so in a sense and i guess that can get frustrating right i mean if there's people who are living sort of this compartmentalized or mechanistic faith they're gonna probably be frustrated with what their experience is as compared to saying there's there's a you know i have one view that that applies to my all the important categories of my life my parenting my health and fitness my career my financial my finances i mean all you know everybody's got all these important categories of life but if you compartmentalize the spiritual side is what i'm hearing and extra and kind of separate it from everything else you're still not really having the experience i think that's right deuteronomy 6 4 which is arguably the central passage of the old testament when jesus asked what's the greatest commandment he cites the shema this passage love god your heart your soul your mind and with your strength and he says you know talk these to your kids this is deuteronomy 6 4 and the verses that are followed by moses he says talk to them when you wake up in the morning when you lie down at night when you walk along the road in other words what moses is saying is make god a natural part of the rhythm of your life refuse to compartmentalize spiritual things to sunday morning and wednesday night but our spiritual belief should shape the way we look at culture shape the way we compete in sports shape the way we have a relationship shape the kind of worker that we are this is what it means to be a christian to have a holistic worldview that shapes everything that we do and i think when we begin to think this way we avoid the frustration that you're talking about it's very liberating there's a peace of god in a sense that every single day how i live my life matters for eternity for the kingdom right that's when the christian worldview moves just out of church sunday morning and frankly it's the exception that i've seen of churches that really help carefully teach a world view and connect what is taught sunday morning to people's lives and their jobs and their career now of course churches are challenged at 45 minutes they have limited resources time i get that but that's one of the challenges today we live in a secular world so committed to compartmentalizing your faith and yet jesus says i created everything faith should affect every single choice that you make that's empowering to live that way as a christian have you seen people who have recognized their compartmentalized spirituality or their faith in christianity and then have made the switch and what did you see unfold when that happened uh i think i see people just realize that one instead of pointing at others to be the christian experts oh my youth pastor will do it oh my pastor will do that oh the missions pastor people began to take responsibility in their own life and realize oh i could lead a bible study i could learn how to have better spiritual conversations i could learn to just engage people around me more thoughtfully so it begins to transform the way people live so rather if you think about it this way i saw a study about happiness and it said that people who there were three levels of kind of of way you think about a job one is a job second is a career third is a vocation so job is something you get and you move on a career is long term a vocation is a sense of a calling right a higher deeper purpose in life there's actually people that had a vocation that were the most happy about life in sense of a contentment so when christians realize i'm just going to work to get a paycheck i'm honoring god through my work this is an opportunity god has given me and how can i represent christ and how i do my job and what would it look like to help other people come to christ through my profession they start to ask these questions and build a worldview it moves from just having a job or a career to a vocation which just gives life such a deeper sense of meaning to it well purpose right now suddenly their purpose is expanded regarding you know regardless of what their job is it just adds more more meaning to it i think that's right yeah so fascinating so how important is community in having um you know a christian faith as far as being a part of a community well i think we live out based on what we believe so studies have shown that people who describe themselves as christians live no differently than people who don't in america but people who describe themselves as christians and have a christian worldview who think like jesus or more likely to live like jesus but worldviews are always best learned in community in relationship with one another so it's not a coincidence that jesus would break bread with somebody and share stories talk with that person share their life so the only way we can pass on our values to the next generation is in relationship with parents with grandparents with uncles with coaches with teachers and this is something that's not accidental to christianity this is at the heart of it god himself is tri-personal right right when we're invited to become a christian we're in a sense invited into the community of the one god who eternally exists as three persons we're made in god's image to be in a relationship with each other to be in relationship with god and it's that community that gives us meanings community gives us purpose it's a community where we learn the certain truths that can set us free to go live out our faith in the world it's sort of a difference between saying this is an abstraction in my mind as compared to saying it's a living experience you know day to day and uh i'd imagine that you know when things are great that's one thing but when you know life gets tough or there's tragedy having that community is something that is essential i think it's community and i think it's our belief system it's both so sometimes people just say when the christian faith we just need community we got to show we have a great community invite the world into it now there's a lot of people say no we just need to preach and proclaim truth i think it's both in one of his letters to the thessalonians paul says i not only gave you the gospel but my very own life it's both yeah when people look in our broken world and see a loving genuine not perfect but a real community of people that is so appealing and powerful but non-christians can have community what's that's our community part is there's the holy spirit that's there we have a common brotherhood and we have truth so when people are suffering yes it's community that helps them but it's also their belief system i saw a study by dennis prager in his book happiness is a serious problem and he saw people that had suffered the loss married couples that had suffered the loss of a child prematurely most of them were either divorced or separated just the pain of that would rip relationships apart and he asked the question why would some couples be able to stay together and some couples couldn't and his conclusion was if they had a belief system in place that could make sense of such a tragedy they were far more likely to withstand the pain and the hurt that comes from the loss of a child so suffering and evil for somebody to withstand it has to have a framework has to have a worldview a belief system that doesn't make the pain go away but at least understand god is with me god can redeem this for good we live in a broken world and community together i think is the recipe to help people keep a lasting faith i think that's a profound thought um the idea of uh people having a similar worldview or sense of life um and i think also with what you're saying and it kind of ties back into our earlier conversation having the belief is one thing but having confidence in the belief is another thing and that's where because what happens is without the confidence you say well i have to believe but then tragedy happens and it since if it's weak then the belief probably isn't serving you like it should as compared to saying i have confidence in a belief so when adversity comes i have i have a foundation you know to be able to process it i think that's a great way to put it so think about it this way there's difference between knowing that something is true and knowing that you know that it is true there's a huge difference so i might have students who know a right answer on the test but they haven't studied so they know it but they don't know that they know it so they don't have the confidence so they'll second-guess themselves and sometimes get it wrong but if you've studied you not only know it you know that you know it so with confidence you put the right answer down our churches are filled with people who know the truth but it's exception to find someone who knows the truth but who also knows that he or she knows the truth brings confidence not only in suffering but are willing to share their faith a willing to live out this faith in the world and all the challenges that it brings that's why training in apologetics training in theology is so important because it helps us not only know truth but our minds we can know that what we know is true and that brings real conviction wow so you've uh obviously you're extraordinarily gifted communicator and thinker and you've chosen uh you know teaching as you know central part of of what you do what the next 10 years look like for you oh gosh that's a great question well i'm going to take three months off to coach my son's jv basketball team awesome you're a college basketball player yourself i was in the past not anymore that's for sure uh you know i'm busy i have a lot of great opportunities but one of the things that been has been in my mind is you know what you love by what you're willing to sacrifice for it right what we're willing to really sacrifice for shows what we love i have some neat writing speaking opportunities and i believe god has gifted me with that my wife's behind me saying go go use those things for the kingdom but i've got young kids and i don't want to miss out on that window that i have with them so i've got some book projects i want to work on i want to keep teaching biola's an amazing place god has wired me to teach i read a book and i come in and i'm like honey and my son i like to explain stuff they're like dad we're watching tv i just it's just the way god has wired me so i want to keep doing those things speaking teaching have a youtube channel and blogging i mean those things are all fun but also over the next 10 years i want to be a good dad and i want to be a good husband what's the biggest challenge christianity faces right now i would say probably the shift from people so let me take a step back my dad's spoken on 1200 university campuses and when he started in the 60s and 70s people would say well give me some evidence that's not true prove it people don't say that as much anymore although some people do they'll say what right do you have to say that that's hurtful because we've shifted from seeing even truth being something objectively out there that we can form our life to to being whatever i feel is true for me is true in fact now i think just in the past few years we have seen the first time we've seen a culture where even feelings trump science even feelings trump science so to me at the heart of our culture is if you you define for yourself as justice anthony kennedy said he said essentially you get to define your own meaning and concept of existence in life we live in such a radical individualistic and a relativistic culture that says as long as you believe something you feel it's right and live it out you're free and that's true go do it anybody who says differently is a bigot christian comes along and says actually true freedom is found and not based upon living just according to your feelings true freedom is found in living according to your design as god has made you to be true freedom is found in submitting yourself to god's desires true freedom is found in doing the right thing so there's this cultural move radically towards the individual that's defining freedom in the way that is contrary to way christianity describes it and i think deep in their hearts people know that this is actually mistaken but they don't reflect upon it so i wrote a blog recently on star wars if you notice in the star wars films there's this underlying theme that you're only free when you submit to an authority and you're obedient so luke can only be free when he submits to yoda rey can only be free in the more recent star wars when she stops resisting the force but aligns herself with an objective truth outside of herself i think saying objective truth because it's not a blind submission it's not there's an objective truth and now if you draw that conclusion you you submit to saying okay surrender to this because this is the truth yes it's not blind faith it's reasonable but it goes so contrary to this deep seated belief when i ask young people how do you define freedom they'll say doing whatever you want to do so in terms of challenges for people to understand christianity it's this individualistic feeling based culture where our world is moving towards rather than understanding no true freedom like david says in the psalms i delight in the law of the lord moses says in deuteronomy 10 here's the commandments god has given you for your own good so it's interesting because you know what you're describing basically is relativism right i mean you know basically oh your truth is your truth your truth is your truth and you know you just can be a whim worshiper based on that you feel this way today you feel that way tomorrow and you just you start to rather than worship uh something foundational it's about whims and how you feel in the range of a moment and and i think that's a challenge to humanity in general independent of a particular faith you know is the it's kind of a disintegration of any discipline around life uh that that can move it in in any kind of a positive direction so i think that that's a very uh you know a very profound observation and something that uh that i think needs to be corrected you know in our culture because uh it's got a lot of ripple effects that i think lead to bad places well i i think you're right about that i don't know how to fix it yeah gk chesterton said even at the turn of the last century he said look you can you can free camel from the zoo but don't free a camel from its hump don't free a tiger from its stripes we're only free when we act in accordance with the way we're designed to be right when we live our life in accordance with reality if god exists and he's made us in his image and he's designed this world then we are only free when we live the way god has designed him to live so for young people to see that truth is just so contrary to all the voices in our culture that are increasingly proclaiming a different message yeah it reminds me a quote from rand she said in order for nature to be commanded it must be obeyed and and i think it's just alignment right so that's uh that's a very i think powerful insight so you know for for people now that um are you know observing this um as kind of a final note for them uh what what what message do you want to send them off with from this conversation well i i guess i'd say to people that that god is good and even in our world today all the messages that we hear is that christianity's caused all these problems in the past and christians are bigoted well christian has caused some problems and some christians are bigoted i'm not going to deny that but if you understand who god is if you understand who jesus is it's only in relationship to him that we have true freedom we are made to love god and to love other people anything else we try to do in our life is going to end up leaving us empty it's only meaningful jesus said seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you but this isn't a blind faith this is actually a reasoned based faith and belief system that's what sets christianity apart that jesus died was buried on the third day rose again and we have consistent early testimony that this historical message is true and the first people who saw it were all willing to suffer and die for that belief that's powerful i should say you know our quest here is to look at the history the evidence and the inspiration i think you've attended to all three beautifully so thank you so much for your time you're too kind thanks for having me well wasn't that an incredible journey from the mind of sean mcdowell really compelling information there and delivered in a way that i just felt was open honest and powerful so thanks for joining me for this interview [Music] next up you're in for a real treat first we're going to start out with a tour of the garden tomb which is one of the two proposed sites where jesus was buried once we leave there we're going to sit down and have a conversation with tisha michelle and i have to tell you tisha was a godsend to us she was our tour guide throughout israel she is so well connected she tours dignitaries and celebrities and we were lucky to have her what's amazing about tisha is not only the way that she organizes the whole tour and how she got us into places that were very difficult to get into but she takes what's written in the bible and as she's touring she turns it into technicolor it really comes alive you're going to love tisha so check this out and then right after that we're going to the mount of beatitudes and this is the place where the famous sermon on the mount occurred and i have to i'm getting a little goosebumps right now just thinking about it because it was such an impactful experience to be there and understand what happened there so let's dive right in enjoy well right behind me is the garden tomb the tomb that many believe is where jesus was buried and from once he rose from the grave well the tomb itself was unearthed in 1867 and a couple decades later some began to suggest that it might be the tomb where jesus was buried from once he rose mostly because of its proximity to a place that many were already believing might be golgotha we're a couple hundred yards away and in the gospel according to john we're told that in the place where jesus was crucified there was a garden and in the garden there was a tomb so that implies a sense of nearness and therefore the same people that were believing that what we call skull hill today might indeed be the biblical golgotha began to say well maybe in that case this is the tomb in which christ was buried i mean it is important to bear in mind that the tomb behind me is not identical to what it looked like in the days of christ the interior of the tomb was somewhat modified by the byzantine christians and then the crusaders were using this area for quite irreligious purposes and they built a structure right in front of the tomb and that greatly changed the way it looks today it is very different from the church of the holy sepulchre i think both play a very important role in the city of jerusalem as witnesses as it were to the resurrection of jesus but there are many christians that simply do not connect to the mode of worship in the church of the holy sepulchre and to the church itself there is no space there where protestant christians or evangelical christians could for instance take communion together and so this site besides having some legitimate reasons why one might think that this is indeed the place where jesus was very from whence he rose it also fulfills a very important spiritual function it's a place of christian witness and christian worship where every christian no matter what background they're coming from can come and meditate on the crucifixion of christ celebrate his resurrection join with a group of people and take communion together here in this garden it's especially been important to evangelical christians as they come to jerusalem it really has become sort of the spiritual home for evangelical pilgrims here in jerusalem so the area that might be golgotha is just 200 yards away from damascus gates which is today's main northern gate of the city and today's damascus gate is located pretty much exactly in the same location where the main northern gate was also in the days of christ and indeed that proximity to the city was that proximity to the city gates and to the major road which used to come out of the masses gate and connect jerusalem to the cities of the north is one of the primary reasons why many began to point to skull hills a possible location for golgotha since we know that the romans always used to crucify on the sides of the major roads places that were accessible to the populace the purpose of the crucifixion was to instill fear in the hearts of the pastors by it was a way to project the power of the empire after all those who were crucified uh were usually those who were tried for some form of uh of rebellion uh whether it was a slave rebelling against his master or someone rebelling against the authority of the empire tisha i'm very excited to have this conversation as you are our mentor and tour guide for israel so tell me about what got you involved in uh in being here i mean obviously you're well hear the accident you're from the united states but you live here now how'd you end up in the position of introducing people to israel well it all started when i was nine months old my mother pioneered gospel uh first of all gospel music in the united states and uh banned the bands like the gaithers and uh larry gatlin and the oakridge boys and all kinds of the all of the gospel bands i grew up backstage with elvis presley and johnny cash and had a great childhood and we were filling coliseums back when i was just a little child and someone came to my mom in 1968 and asked her have you ever wanted to bring a tour to israel you're filling up these coliseums why don't you advertise a tour and my mom took her first tour in 1968 i was nine months old and fell in love with the country to walk where jesus walked and walked with the prophets walked it changed her life and she immediately went back to the israel government tourist office and worked with the israeli government to help them start a christian market she believed that every christian had to come to israel because it would change their lives to see where to see where jesus walked and the prophets walked it makes the bible no longer black and white that technicolor right so as i came to the land as a child on multiple tours i literally fell in love with the country there's nothing like it the scripture says that he'll comfort those that comfort israel the scripture says they'll bless those that bless israel and and the scripture even says that they're the apple of his eye and so even as a little child i used to weep when i would leave the country and i knew that that was my destiny i'd be back here and in 1993 i made aliyah which means i immigrated to israel and never ever ever regretted it for one moment wow so uh now you have the i guess maybe call it the privilege or uh the blessing to be able to uh take a lot of people through israel and you seem to be the guide to the stars who come here your reputation precedes you so uh you know are you allowed to talk about some of the people that you've introduced to israel sure to be honest with you i never take that for granted i always say it's it's god's favor he's opened so many doors for me here in the land and it's been amazing to wake work with some amazing people sarah palin i helped her with her first trip to israel and also governor huckabee i've worked with the governor for many years yes governor mike huckabee and many many gospel music and country music artists senator rand paul the president of south korea and many many many more so let's talk about some of the highlights in israel that are very noteworthy we could probably spend a very long time because there's so many right but let's start up north uh with the galilee so uh first you have the sea of galilee what can you tell us about that oh the sea of galilee is an amazing place first of all it's the second lowest point in the earth and part of the syrian african rift beautiful beautiful place but the sea of galilee is special because it saw most of the miracles of jesus in fact the northern shores of the sea of galilee saw three quarters of the gospel in small towns like capernaum and bethsaida and corazon those three villages saw most of the miracles of jesus so very very special he's where he walked on the water it's where he spent most of his ministry wow so um let's talk about capernaum so what can you tell us about capernaum capernaum is his own hometown scripture says that he was from nazareth and remember he grew up in nazareth and a prophet wasn't accepted in his own hometown and so the next thing we know the infuriated people of nazareth were ready to throw him off the brow of a hill and the next thing we know he reappears in capernaum which he calls his own hometown peter lived in capernaum and that became literally the center of his ministry and so many things we can't even imagine happened in capernaum john 21 says that not there's not enough books in the world to contain the miracles that took place in those three short years of his life and most of those miracles many of them happened at capernaum what are some of the places that are visited there is peter's house i believe is there right when you're visiting and touring through capernaum one of the one of the highlights obviously is the house of peter and so if you really think about it that could have been first of all we know that peter was from bethsaida right he was not from capernaum but his wife was from capernaum and so that became his own city too and so if you think about the house of peter that could have been where the paralytic was lowered through the roof right it could have been where jesus stayed it could have been where peter's mother-in-law was healed from uh fever and it could have been the first church so what an amazing find yeah uh bethsaida so the location of bethsaida is somewhat controversial but there's a new archaeological dig isn't there well it was very exciting to be able to sit down with professor aviyam and learn more about the new possible location of the uh bethsaida in el araj and up until then ital was the calculated location of bethsaida it was edward robinson in 1838 that believed that was the biblical best state also known as julius but things are changing and so we're excited to find out more and more but we've even found roman ruins there and possibly a byzantine church so we might have just found the new or the real accurate best sata which makes more sense because it's much closer to the sea of galilee and we know that that was a fisherman's town in fact the state it means house of the fishermen right and so we know it had to be near the sea of galilee and um also home to several the disciples and where jesus healed that blind man yes so the significance of bethsaida is the fact that it was home to several disciples and there was a miracle performed there that blind man healed there so that's very exciting and in that same area actually all these things are in pretty close proximity as you cited we also have a find of a synagogue that existed in the time of jesus what is that right well these are brand new excavations and so just over the past couple of years we've started to excavate the the city of magdala which is the traditional birthplace of mary of magdalen so in magda we actually found a synagogue from the time of jesus from the second temple period now you see in capernaum we have a synagogue but the base was from the time of jesus the actual synagogue you're looking at is third or fourth century synagogue but in magdala we found a synagogue from the time of jesus and we believe he was there and it's just amazing all of the things that they're finding but a very very significant sight now where that's located on the sea of galilee you know there's many references to uh crossing over uh and that so and that's where some boats and fishermen would be in uh magdala right so is it supposed that you know he would stop at that synagogue and and then catch a ride across the water to uh his hometown or you know what is speculated about that sure yeah i'm sure that he took one of the boats many many many times to capernaum and what scripture says to the other side which is the decapolis and so the southern golan heights on the eastern side of the sea of galilee is the decapolis there were 10 pagan hellenistic cities all on the other side of the sea and that's why if they were pagan and hellenistic that's the only reason there would be swine there and that's where the miracle of the swine took place right and you can actually see those areas right from capernaum and magdala and these other places right right so also in that same general vicinity is the amount of beatitudes what can you tell us about that well that's actually where jesus gave the sermon on the mount which is the longest sermon in the gospels and probably the most known sermon of jesus but what are beatitudes there are attitudes for kingdom people to be in so that's a very very important location i think in an understanding jesus you have to go back to the jewish roots of jesus and who he was and what he was trying to teach see jesus was a kingdom person and he was continually a kingdom person he was continually in kingdom attitude yeah and and uh the sermon on the mount of course very famous and it would make sense i guess from a proximity standpoint that you know he would have that sermon there it's still in that same general vicinity where it seemed his ministry was and it's very exciting to be able to hit all these spots and experience them uh you know without having to drive days in between i think that's the thing that shocks people is that that israel is really a small country i mean 95 of the bible took place in an area of 150 by 50 miles wow and three quarters of the gospel took place in a tiny little triangle that's just several miles big and that saw most of most of the miracles and most of the gospel another thing is in a small country the size i think landmass-wise i think you said the size of new jersey right where i'm from right and uh but there's five different climates yes five different climate zones and so i always say god gave us a little bit of everything and one day you can be in the snow and in the desert you can buy the beautiful mediterranean sea you can be in the forest and and everything else everything in between tell me about mount carmel so mount carmel is a beautiful location in fact from mount carmel we can literally have a panoramic view we can see so many biblical stories right in front of our eyes even the mediterraneans on one side you can see caesarea by the sea the other side you can see the valley of armageddon or the final uh battle is supposed to take place according to revelations and so for mount carmel that's where we hear about the story of elijah and the prophets of baal that's where elijah defeated the 450 prophets of baal on mount carmel and that was an area of the worship of of baal and ashrae the gods of fertility and obviously elijah's coming in at that point and saying how long are you going to falter between two gods you're going to choose baal or are you going to choose the god of abraham isaac and jacob and that's where he defeats the prophets of vale wow that's a pretty historic place it really is well of course one of the stars of the bible john the baptist had his ministry in the jordan river so tell us about the jordan river well the jordan river first of all is a very a very important river to us in israel modern day israel the name jordan in hebrew is yardin which actually means descending from the dan and the dan is the main water source of the jordan river that's in the north of the country where the biblical tribe of dan was and so uh there's three rivers that join together that form the jordan river in the north jordan river actually is the main water source for the sea of galilee pours into the sea of galilee in the north and pours out of the sea of galilee in the south and all the way down to the dead sea whereas the they say that the the river of life pours into the sea of death right and so that's where the jordan river is where obviously john the baptist would have spent a lot of his time especially down in the wilderness preparing the way for the lord in the wilderness right and uh obviously it's where christ was baptized that's right that's where he met jesus well now let's talk about the city of jerusalem and boy can that be a very long conversation the holy city the holy city so it's it's very spectacular uh in its scope historically and spectacular you know to to witness in present day so one of the great vistas to observe the actual holy city is from the mount of olives a lot of stuff happens there so let's go through the highlights well the mount of olives is special oh my goodness when you when you sit there and see the view of the temple mount you can actually see mount moriah where abraham almost sacrificed isaac where the first and the second holy temple were just an amazing spot but the man of olives is rich that's where first of all jesus entered the city over the mount of olives he looked out over the city from the mount of olives he wept over the city it's where he ascended to heaven and it's where he's gonna come back so it doesn't get better than that that's literally holy ground right and there now that exists on amanda olives are are many things to commemorate you know these things that you talked about so what are some of the sites that you might stop stop at well first of all you start off with the orientation over the city with that magnificent view and then you make your way down the palm sunday road the traditional palm sunday road one of the stops you might take is the church of dominus lewis or that area where the lord wept luke 19 tells us that he wept over the city he actually foretold the destruction of the temple and so the lord wept over the city he made his triumphal entry over the mount of olives into jerusalem and then another site that you might visit obviously is the garden of gethsemane to talk about the significance of that gethsemane actually means oil press and that's where they would take the olives and make the olive oil in fact gethsemane was a meeting place for jesus and the disciples and if you want to get technical about it i'm sure that jesus felt quite pressed his night in gethsemane as he was praying in fact if you want to get really technical about it that's where he shed his first drop of blood for us because sweating blood is is a an actual symptom of extreme stress that's where jesus prayed the disciples wouldn't stay awake they couldn't stay awake that's where he was betrayed and he spent his last night there in the garden we'd also noticed on the mount of olives a bunch of old or ancient graves what is all that well the mount of olives is uh the oldest and the largest jewish cemetery in existence and so you see um many many many graves there in fact uh if you're looking down on the mount of olives you can see three valleys and so one is the valley of jehoshaphat it's right down below also known as the kidron valley and that's where god is according to joel going to judge the nations on account of how they treated israel and in fact jehoshaphat means where god will judge and in the kidron valley we have the tomb of zechariah and absalom as well in the valley some of those ancient graves and the other two valleys then the other two valleys the other one is called the tyropian valley also known as the cheese makers valley and the third valley is called gehenna it means hell where child sacrifice was made to the god molek but it's it's really amazing if you look at those valleys you see scripture says that the lord has implanted his name on jerusalem and if you look from an aerial view it's as clear as day you can actually see those valleys form this which is the hebrew letter sheen which if you see every mezuzah or prayer box on every jewish door that stands for the word should die god he didn't just say it he literally implanted his name on the three valleys of jerusalem now those valleys in rap zion mount zion which scripture scripture says that the lord abides in zion he says this is my resting place forever and then on mount zion don't we have the city of david we do so tell us about that well the city of david is first of all was the jebusite city before david came into the area and david conquered the city from the jebusites he unites the 12 tribes and makes it his eternal capital jerusalem and so an amazing place and the archaeological excavations there daily we're finding new things proving the rival accurate all the time and so what that in the city of david we found what we believe to be the shaft that david used in order to conquer the city from the jebusites elat mazzara's done some excavations there and she thinks that they might have even found the palace of david and hezekiah's tunnel was uncovered there in the pool of siloam where jesus healed the blind man yeah exciting stuff now let's get into jerusalem proper the old city at least there's four quadrants what are they the old city are first of all the walls of the old city were built by suleiman the magnificent in 1536 around 1536 a.d ottoman turkish walls so today the walls of the city enclose four quarters which are the muslim christian jewish and armenian quarters inside the old city so some of the sites of historical significance especially to christians i guess we talk about the church of the holy sepulchre tell us about that well the church of the holy sepulchre that's first of all that's a church when constantine made christianity the official religion of the roman empire 324 a.d he's his mother helena was sent to the region and she travels the land with early church fathers and she's led to these locations and designates the holy sites so the church of the holy sepulchre was one of those sites that helena believed to have found a portion of the cross there and she believed that that was the location of golgotha and the tomb and so that is the final stations of what is called the via dolorosa the catholic via dolorosa are at the church of the holy sepulchre now that is the catholic and the orthodox location of the tomb and of golgotha but there's also protestant location which is the garden tomb both wore quarries outside the old city walls and so we're not sure which so there's some scholarly debate between the two but uh that's right at least yeah they're and they're not that far apart no they're not there's a tower of david um which david never built so tell us about the tower david right more accurately the tower of david museum encloses many different layers of archaeological excavations of the city of jerusalem but more significantly the tower the main tower is considered the el tower and that was one of the towers the base of it that is today and that was one of the towers that protected and guarded herod's palace herod the great and so we know that that would be jesus was brought to herod and judged there and there are some exciting new excavations that are going on there and we're very excited to see what else is uncovered there you have of course maybe the holiest site for the jewish faith the western wall what does that represent the western wall is actually the retaining wall of the holy temple mount plaza and so it was retaining wall now when herod when herod renovated the second temple he leveled a portion of mount moriah and he had to build a platform so he built a platform about 12 soccer fields big and enclosed it by retaining walls in order to hold this platform down and so the western wall is the retaining wall of the temple mount compound now you have to understand you can see that i am wearing a coin and you see it's got a palm branch on it now what did they wave when jesus came down over the mount of olives palm branches so palm branches represented freedom during the time of jesus or for the jewish people and this is a jewish revolt coin a 2 000 year old coin so you have to understand that when the evil emperor hadrian took control after the destruction of the temple he in 132 a.d that started what was called the second jewish revolt the revolt under a rabbi by the name of rabbi by parkour and so unfortunately the jewish people lost the barcode for revolt and they were banned from coming to jerusalem to jerusalem but this revolt was started when hadrian banned jews from coming to jerusalem he would not allow jerusalem jews to enter jerusalem only one time a year on and that is the day the first and the second temples were destroyed they were destroyed on the same day in fact even today that's a day that the jews mourn and lament and fast about the destruction of both of their holy temples so hadrian banned jews for coming he allowed them to come back one time a year and they obviously would come to the wailing wall and that's why it got the name the wailing wall because scripture says not a thing nothing would be left at the holy temple not one stone and so that is what the jewish people had to come back to in the desert near the dead sea there's the site of qumran why is that significant oh my goodness we found in qumran first of all we found in several cases but we found the oldest scriptures in existence in qumran in these caves these scriptures predated anything we've had by a thousand years wow unbelievable so this is where the famous dead sea scrolls have been on earth we found scriptures from every single book of the bible except for the book of esther and uh i mean what a wealth of knowledge in fact the book of isaiah we found in its entirety and it's a miracle that even existed so and they're still digging there aren't they we're still fight we found a cave not long ago what are some of the theories as to how all these scrolls ended up there well one of the theories obviously the mainstream theory would obviously be the story of the essenes who you have to understand the essenes were a group of jewish people they believed that they were the sons of light they believed the rest of the world were the sons of darkness they believed there was going to be a final battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness they believed they were in the wilderness preparing the way for the lord and fulfillment of scripture and so one of the theories would be that the essenes were the ones that copied these scriptures in the area of qumran and that was kind of the main school of thought back you know up until a couple of years ago now the interesting thing though is is that in a small place like that in the in the middle of the desert for a couple of hundred years how many scribes could there have been there were many different hands in the dead sea scrolls it doesn't even it doesn't quite make sense so one of the new theories is that perhaps that was a biblical library from jerusalem and in preparation for the destruction of the temple they brought all these scrolls down hid them in the caves all with the hopes that one day they'd be back to find them and unfortunately there was no one to come back they were just planted there waiting for us to be brought back to the land in fulfillment of ezekiel 37 for him to bring us back to our soil for a nation to be reborn and the oldest scriptures in existence to be found for us to get our biblical birth right back another fairly recent discovery is the pool of siloam tell us about that well uh we had the honor of touring with elyshukran who was one of the archaeologists that uncovered the new pool of cylon now up until a couple of years ago we believe everyone visited a different pool asylum which was actually pulled from the byzantine period but the pool of siloam was discovered when there was actually a leak in a pipe and they did some excavations and uncovered this the the pool of siloam the accurate pull of siloam which is we made an amazing find and what happened there that's where jesus healed the blind man and you might remember that miracle was a miracle where he used saliva and um this man had been blind from birth and that's not the only miracle that jesus used saliva i think it's interesting also with the man with the speech impediment and was deaf in the decapolis he used he had a miracle he used the saliva for his miracle and also for the man in bethsaida that was blind and you think if you go back to the jewish police of the time you have to understand that the jewish people believe that there were healing properties in the saliva of a first-born jewish male that's why he would have done the miracle and that took place at the pool of siloam tell me about masada masada is an amazing place it sits over the dead sea and that was a fortress that that herod built in order to protect himself in times of trouble and just an amazing amazing place but masada was the last stand of the jewish people in the land you see when masada fell the temple was destroyed in 70 a.d masada fell in 73 a.d if it wasn't for a miracle from god that we would be brought back into our land that would have been it and one of the miracles of masada is we actually found dead sea scrolls all the way down to masada wow that's the southernmost point that we found dead sea scrolls and when we excavated in the in the in the synagogue of masada we uncovered the book of ezekiel not just that ezekiel 37. so can you imagine being in the place of israel's last stand in the land when masada fell we lost our land for 2 000 years and here we are back prophecy is already fulfilled and we uncover ezekiel 37 prophesying that the lord's going to bring us back into our land breathe life into us and a nation would be born again and it was already a done deal amazing amazing tisha i want to thank you for bringing israel to light in such a spectacular way and as you said it becomes technicolor that's right and i think you're true to that word thank you so much what a blessing to be with you [Music] tisha where are we right now we're right here on the mount of beatitudes the man of beatitudes is actually where the sermon on the mount took place so the facility that we're standing in right now is is a catholic structure that was built here yes and it was built by orders of mussolini mussolini and they built it to commemorate where the sermon on the mount took place now they built the church like most byzantine churches in an octagonal structure and that was in this case to commemorate each of the beatitudes all starting with the word blessed right uh in hebrew the actual word is ashrae which is not a it's not blessed it's actually happiness better translated happiness but a contentment and a happiness that god alone can give us so this church was built in 1927 but most people and most scholars believe that the sermon on the mount actually took place just down below there's a natural amphitheater that the banana patch forms a natural amphitheater and the acoustics are phenomenal so very likely down below was the accurate location so the obviously the sermon of the mount is a very famous part of the bible and uh and a very uh foundational aspect of understanding you know christ's teachings and uh so we're on the north side of the the sea of uh galileo or right all these other terms that they use for that so basically uh when christ was uh giving the sermon he would have been doing it facing the sea well the scripture says that he went up on a mountain right and so we believe he was facing the sea and addressing the crowd uh down below right right and then so the crowd formed down below he was up on the mountain and so basically where we're standing now we're looking out so this is kind of the view he had while he was giving this inspired sermon right wow so this area is where most scholars feel like the actual sermon took place right so the area right here actually forms a natural amphitheater the acoustics are phenomenal and so although we do have the traditional church up here this is where most scholars feel that the sermon on the mount took place you can see it kind of rounds out and so he would jesus was stood here and the crowds would have been right down there right yeah it does make sense when you look at it visually you can imagine the trees were people and he'd be up here speaking to thousands down below wow quite a sight this area this general area that we're in uh i think you said something like 75 of the gospel happens right around here i mean in a very tight area so give me some background on the history of jesus as it relates to this this place i think it's really important because we're starting right now the the center of his ministry like we said three quarters of the gospel took place in a tiny little like five six mile triangle and we're right here right now let's go back to who jesus was now he wasn't from this area jesus actually grew up in nazareth uh and we remember his famous synagogue speech in nazareth right and that infuriated quoted from the book of isaiah and said this is fulfilled before you it infuriated the people of nazareth they actually led him to a brow of a hill and wanted to throw him off and scripture says that he disappeared from their midst and begins his public ministry right here now it's i think it's important to go back and realize who was jesus scripture tells us that he was jewish scripture tells us that he grew up in nazareth and scripture tells us that he was a rabbi so much so you know who called him rabbi not his followers his followers called him master or lord right it was the pharisees that called him rabbi so they weren't going to give him any credit that he didn't deserve and so uh also what's important is to realize that he would have been teaching like the rabbis of his time would have taught jesus is our messiah but how do we you know there's a lot of years we don't know where he was right if you think about it the last time we hear about him in the temple he was 12. and the next thing he reappears right here at the age of 30. that's a lot of years you don't know where he was right and from his hometown of nazareth which is you know behind you i think he knows i'm looking uh how far are we from nazareth we're about a 30 minute drive yeah so walking it yeah a couple days at least at least the day's walk probably yeah but we have to have a little bit of background on where he was and i can take you all the way back to the age of three okay you see because jewish jesus was a jewish boy growing up with the typical jewish religion and so we know from the early the early books in early jewish literature we know exactly what the jewish boys would have been doing and so at the age of three a jewish boy would have been memorizing the book of psalms as his father would have sang the book of songs to him right by the age of five he would have been committing to memory the book of leviticus as his father would have been teaching him that the age of 10 most jewish boys would even have the old of the first five books of the bible the torah committed to memory by the age of 13 a jewish boy comes into manhood and most jewish boys had the old testament committed to memory and we're already moving on to study the mishnah which was an oral law that was handed down from generation to generation from the time of moses until it was compiled in tiberias and the second century by the age of 18 a jewish boy would be pursuing his vocation and age of 20 the same thing jesus was a carpenter right or a stone mason right that's right and then at the age of 30 get this one the jewish people believe that a jewish male came into his full vigor and only then was he ready for his public ministry right so the age of 30 jesus comes into his public ministry remember in the first the first miracle when he's turning the water into wine right and his mother comes to him and says hey we're out of wine and he says woman my time has not yet come he wasn't 30 yet right but he did the miracle anyways but at the age of 30 he comes onto the scene in his public ministry and he has three years to change the world three years i think it's interesting because it's like approximately 65 000 thoughts go through our mind a day he didn't have a second a moment that wouldn't count for the kingdom he was a kingdom person at all times and that's the essence of the beatitudes attitudes for kingdom people to be in and that's what that means attitudes for kingdom people and so and basically this ministry happened mostly right here where we are and as you said nazareth was not that far from here half hour by car and then he appeared here and this is where so many of the stories unfold that's right this is where they unfold and then you have to understand that when jesus was teaching he taught in a way that was typical to rabbis called remis what is remez it means alluding to so if we've already established that jewish men during the time of jesus had scripture committed to memory all a rabbi would have to do is a word say a word a key a phrase and all of a sudden an entire passage would explode in the listener's mind and you would know exactly what he was pointing back to in scripture so mussolini had this place built when in 1927. now what gave him the land rights to be able to do this well different churches came in and purchased land and ordered the erection of churches on the original minier and the original sites where helena had designated in this particular case it wasn't and so they built it in 1927 and an architect by the name of antonio barlucci built it yeah this obviously is a very popular spot for people to show up and visit you can see a lot of activity around us people come from all over the world they have that one time where they want to make a pilgrimage and see where scripture took place yeah yeah amazing prophets walked and the miracles took place yeah well that was quite an experience right between the garden tomb tisha michelle and the mount of beatitudes a lot there the scope of what we cover in christ revealed is really breathtaking and i'm so excited that you're here with me and we can go on this journey together thanks for tuning in [Music] that completes episode one of christ revealed such a joy to be with you please remember help us in our mission to get this information out into the world god knows the world needs this type of inspiration right now so share this with everyone you know also of course you can own christ revealed if you want to investigate that there's information here for you to check that out i am so excited that we just got through the first episode and i look forward to being with you in episode 2 of christ revealed [Music] you

Channel: Christ Revealed

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Keywords: christ revealed documentary, christ revealed docuseries, christ revealed episode 1, christ revealed episode 2, christ revealed movie, documentary, christian documentary, #hangoutsonair, christian movies, faith based christian movies, faith based movies, faith based short films, hangouts on air, israel, religion, truth

Id: VmLn-B2CxEo

Length: 108min 10sec (6490 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021