Please Stop Saying Faith Is Belief Without Evidence

okay many many people they mistakenly say that faith is quote belief without evidence now I think this is a disastrous statement when it comes to the Christian faith and it's antithetical to true Christianity if you make this mistake of saying faith is belief without evidence then you have unintentionally agreed with skeptics that there is no reason to believe in Christ think about that you're saying there's no reason to believe in Jesus you've given up perhaps with a smile on your face thinking that your your perhaps you know representing Christ well here but in this case it's a mistake so what we're gonna do in today's a live stream where we deal with a you know apologetics and theology and all that kind of stuff is we're gonna deal with this issue of what is faith from a Christian perspective and what's wrong with saying faith is belief without evidence because there's a big error there all right so welcome just to get this couple quick things out of the way just make sure the livestreams work in I see you guys there in the chat thanks for joining me it's great to have you here pretty much every Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. there's a chance this date and time will be changing in the future I don't know but at the moment it's at Tuesday's and you can always check my YouTube page if you want to see when my weekly livestream is I'll update my banner if I ever change the livestream time so it'll be on there if you guys have questions if you want to interact with me live in the at the end of this livestream then what you can do is you can load those questions into the comment section and my friend AJ is gonna be there in the comments saving at least some of those questions I mean I can't answer every question that comes in it's just too many come in we're still trying to learn how to juggle this how to how to navigate this whole livestream thing on YouTube but you can put your questions there and if I can't answer them I will try I think it would be good for us and hopefully AJ you're there and you're hearing me now I think it'd be good for us to limit it to one question per person so if a person has a question you know let them have one and if you're putting a question and it's meant to be you know a question perhaps you could type like the word question in capital letters in your comment on the livestream chat so that it will stand out amongst all the comments and we can know that it's a question okay alright so that's that's kind of a few little things to pop out of the way get get get out of the way and we're gonna get into our details now okay there's something specific that skeptics say and I want to first establish this because I know that some people will fight me on every level it's like to kind of build my case and I actually I don't mind that I think that's fine as long as people are willing to hear me out I don't mind so much so this is gonna be a video clip I'm gonna play for you with a few different skeptics some who are well-known some lesser-known and a Christian in the mix a Christian is in the mix too and they're all saying the same thing that faith by definition is believing when there is no evidence or no reason to believe catch that no reason to believe so watch this clip just to just to justify that I really am fighting against something here that I think is actually out there it's a very popular thing a very popular misunderstanding so here we go religion is part of a complex of supernatural beliefs that are founded on lack of evidence and astrology homeopathy all sorts of things like that and it could be said that some of these are harmless I don't think it's harmless there is something insidious about training children to believe things for which there's no evidence and so an uncritical well you said in a speech famously that I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils comparable to the smallpox virus virus but harder to eradicate I do think that yes because what I'm talking about there is faith where faith means belief in something without evidence because if you believe something without evidence then that justifies anything not in the sense of faith has meaning belief in something for which there is no evidence so it's not the same as as religious faith which is which is based upon no evidence at all let's try some different definitions because if you're using one word to mean multiple things it can be very very confusing the best definition of faith that I've read is belief without evidence as an atheist I do not have faith faith is the belief in things without evidence if you had evidence you wouldn't need faith and that's what faith is maybe not something without the proof what a believing we are worth now catch this I'm gonna pause this video for a second the Christian who's calling in to this atheist program called the Atheist experience and by the way for those my viewers who don't know the gentleman with no hair is Matt Dillahunty and Matt Dillahunty is the guy that I'll be doing a debate with in April quick announcement I'll be debating him in April on the topic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ this will happen on a different You Tube channel I'll put all the links and everything for that as it gets closer but I appreciate your prayers as I'm getting ready for that debate on the resurrection on the week of the resurrection so it's kind of exciting now the caller for this program the atheist experience he calls in and he says and he thinks this is a defense of his Christian view when he says that faith is belief without evidence notice that the atheist literally guesses what he'll say next and says it with him that faith is belief without evidence okay so they're in agreement here now look at what the skeptic atheist is going to do with that definition to attack this person's faith and by the way for those who follow Pine Creek when I say attack I'm not talking about persecution I'm talking about challenging someone's belief anyhow look at what he does with this data saying that faith is belief without evidence where that being that that faith is believing without proof and that's why we call it gullibility boom that's hey Christian you lost you've already lost the battle as soon as you agree that faith is something that you're believing with no evidence you're not saying something about your faith you're saying something about the evidence for Christianity you are saying there is none so by defining your belief your you're falling into a trap of defining the support for your belief as being nil as being zero as being nothing so this is why it's a problem the conclusion that's built into this definition of faith is it turns us into fools if I say I have faith in that I am automatically I'm a fool now I'm a fool I'm believing something for no reason whatsoever and yet it's most important thing in my life my faith in God my faith in Christ what fools we must seem they went by definition this is why I've seen skeptics say that the term reasonable faith is an oxymoron or that the the the the slogan that I put up sometimes on my channel where it says Bible thinker that that Bible thinker is an oxymoron because they really think this definition of faith represents Christianity so I wanted to spell that and I want to equip Christians here with with some answers because this is there's good news this is just sloppy thinking this is just sloppy thinking about Christianity what we have to do is take this definition of faith test it with the Bible that's what we'll ask what does the Bible say then we'll look at the dictionary and we'll ask what is the dictionary say about this issue and then you'll see how how unique and robust the Christian view of faith actually is and how many objections to Christianity can actually just be cleared up just by getting an accurate view of what Christianity actually says oftentimes before defending the Christian faith you just need to properly explain it and many of the attacks disappear and that's what's gonna happen with this one so if you're a Christian who said hey I believe faith is belief without evidence I encourage you don't don't take this like I'm attacking you personally but what you said was um it was inaccurate it was untrue to the Christian faith and it was potentially harmful to the people around you even if you felt good about it so please hear me out okay the biblical case here's passages in the scripture that we will go to what will establish what faith is in the biblical sense let me first just resize this and I'll give us a little bit more font size that should be legible I'll go one a little one bigger that should be legible for everybody I think I'll bring it in okay all right so the first passage we're gonna be in is first Kings 18 first Kings 18 22 which says then Elisha said to the people I alone am left a prophet of the Lord by balls prophets are 450 men okay so let me paint the quick picture for you this is an event on a location called Mount Carmel this is actually a known location in Israel you can visit there everybody does when they do their Israeli tours so you go to Mount Carmel and it overlooks the valley of Megiddo it's really kind of neat to get to go there but this location what's happening is they've gathered the prophets of Baal and they've gathered Elijah the prophet of the Lord the true prophet of the true God and they're having something of a contest and and this is so interesting what they're doing is they're trying to figure out whose god is real right is the is the is the god of elijah yahweh the creator of all things is he the true god or is but all this this Canaanite deity is he the true god is he real and so here's what he does here's how he will solve the problem of figuring out who's real so you'll know where to put your faith and he says therefore give us two bowls and let them choose one bowl for themselves cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood but put no fire under it and I will prepare the other Bowl and lay it on the wood but put no fire under it so then the statement is hey we're going to make two sacrifices and then whichever God is able to strike the sacrifice with fire we won't light the fire he has to light it it'll be a confirmation of which God is real so verse 24 goes on then you call in the name of your gods and I will call on the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire he is God so all the people answered and said it is well spoken then here's what happens next now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal choose one Bowl for yourselves and prepare for it first so that they go on and they basically do what he asks and nothing answers no fire consumes their offering and then Elijah shows up and he says hey put water down on the on the offering buckets of water so that it makes it even harder to burn it up because it's not hard for God he's trying to create a situation where there is reasonable proof for belief in God okay so then you skip ahead to where this happens so it came to pass about the time of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the Prophet came near and said Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel let it be known this day to you that you are God in Israel and I am your servant and then I've done all these things at your word so what what is Elijah's experiment going to perform it or prove its gonna prove that that Yahweh is God and he is God's messenger his true servant so this is meant to be evidential proof for the existence of God Elie noticed this Elijah doesn't say hey guys take it on faith you know don't listen to them take it on faith no he says look here's the proof so then verse 38 the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water and then people respond in verse 39 when the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said the Lord Yahweh he is God Yahweh he is God so this is evidential stuff right this is not faith not belief triggered by lack of evidence but rather faith trust belief triggered by evidence that is a Old Testament example let me give you another Old Testament example this is Deuteronomy 18 22 Deuteronomy 18:20 to God now if the skeptics were right this is what we would have we would we would not have 18 22 what we would have instead was something like when God sends you a prophet you will believe in the Prophet because God wants you to believe in him without evidence and that's what faith is and you know God delights in you having no reasons for what you believe like that's not what it says though it says when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if the thing does not happen or come to pass that is the thing which the Lord has spoke has not spoken the through whatever the prophet said God didn't say it the prophet has spoken it presumptuously you shall not be afraid of him so even a prophet they go in they go I'm a prophet I'm speaking for God there needs to be some verification that this guy's legit you don't just believe any guy with with crazy hair that says he's a prophet you go how do I know this guy's really a prophet I believe God I will trust God but how do I know that you're his messenger so something they say will come to pass they'll have predictive prophecy and when it happens now you know he's a real prophet if it doesn't happen now you don't worry about it you don't fear him so this is why we use false prophecy as a way of showing that say Jehovah's Witness the watchtower organization is not a real organization from God because they get prophetic statements wrong and so then we go ok we do not fear them so we have evidence for that another example along these same lines prophecy which is one of my favorite examples of why we should believe the Bible is prophecy we still have this today we have verification through prophetic means so Isaiah 41 22 says present your case says the Lord bring forth your strong reasons says the king of Zhai let them bring forth and show us what will happen let them show the former things what they were that we may consider them and know the latter end of them or declare to us things to come what what is this well what we've done in Isaiah 40 when we entered into a debate God is in the middle of like a debate with the false idols and the false gods of the people around Israel and God says I'll prove myself by doing something they can't do I'll predict the future I will bring forth and show us what will happen I will tell you about what's going to happen so the the predictive element of prophecy is seen as proof that God has spoken and this is now now here we are 21st century one of my strong evidences I present for the Bible being God's inspired Word his prophecy is showing prophecies show that this text was written ahead of time that the event it predicted really happened and then we have verification that God has spoken there's a lot more you know detail there but that's the synopsis of it now let's go to some other issues that aren't related to prophecy so prophecy will be would be evidence would be reason to believe so acts 1827 this is an interesting experience it says and when he desired to cross to a kia-ora kaya the Brethren wrote exhorting the disciples to receive him and when he arrived he greatly helped those who believed through grace for he and this is Apollo's by the way that we're reading about in the book of Acts so we're going way past the time of Isaiah way past the time at Deuteronomy which was even before Isaiah right now we're coming here to after the death and resurrection of Christ this great member of the early church Apollo's he in verse 28 he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly showing from the scriptures that Jesus Jesus is the Christ so this is related to prophecy but it's more than just prophecy because the Messianic elements of the Old Testament go way beyond simple predictive prophecy it's that plus literary elements types and foreshadowing and a bunch of other just amazing stuff check out my series on Jesus in the Old Testament if you would like to get more information on that it's all online for free so he vigorously refutes them he argues with them and he's like look I can show it in the text that Jesus is the Christ why didn't Apollo show up and sage gosh you you you you Jewish rejecters of Jesus of the Messiah you should believe without reason that is what faith is like he never says that because that's not what faith is on a Christian of you then we get Jesus himself weighing in on this topic in John 5:35 it says speaking of of John the Baptist I should go to John 30 verse 36 here of John 5 but John the Baptist was the burning and shining lamp you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light so he's speaking how John the Baptist was a witness of him let me let me back up for a second make sure that you're with me on the same page in John 5 Jesus offers several specific evidences to prove who he is he starts by saying earlier in the chapter if all I did was claim to be the one like that's not good enough like catch this right go let me take you there if it's verse 31 here if I bear witness of myself my witness is not true Jesus says like it's not enough to sim simply say hey I'm the Messiah anybody who shows up and says I'm the Messiah I ignore them completely unless they have extra evidences to show who they are so Jesus thought the same thing even though he was trying to prove who he was he didn't think it was enough on a bear claim so he speaks of John the Baptist in the next section and John the Baptist hid was a forerunner he spoke of who Messiah was that doesn't mean as much to modern crowds but to the ancient crowd they believed John was a prophet he meant a lot that John the Baptist said that Christ was the one who was to come then verse 36 he goes on to other evidences two more two more evidences to make three total he says I have greater witness than that of John's for the works which the father has given me to finish the very works that I do bear witness of me that the father has sent me here in this passage Jesus is presenting miracles as evidence for who he is the works which he does the greatest of these is of course going to be his actual death and resurrection which we still have evidence for today great evidence for this is why Christians can go around and they can build a case for Christianity based on prophecy the forerunner before Christ based upon the evidence for the resurrection of Christ based upon the eyewitness testimony of the of the Apostles we can build these actual evidence-based cases for Christianity that's pretty powerful and that simply no other religion can do I've never seen another religion that has a comparative apologetic to Christianity I'd be really interested to see them try I looked high and low to find you know Muslim support for the Quran being from God and the stuff that you see in there it's just it's like a shadowy imitation of what Christianity is they look at Christian apologetics and they go we need something like that that's good stuff but when you when you really examine it it's just really weak like I won Muslim video said you know the Quran is from God because the Quran is the most beautiful book ever written wait that's really the reason like it's the most beautiful book like I don't think it is the most beautiful book but can you like show that somehow like would that make it from God if someone writes a more beautiful book somehow is that I it's just weird this reasoning is strange the prophecy that's that's pretty a pretty big deal miracles what Jesus did that's a pretty big deal him raising from the dead if he historically rose from the dead definitely puts the stamp of approval and evidence on the Christian faith then he gives another piece of evidence and in verse 37 and the father himself who sent me has testified of me you have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form but you do not have his word abiding in you because of whom he sent him you do not believe so how is it that the father testifies of Jesus and how does this testimony this witness represent evidence for Christ well he goes on to explain in the next verse he says you search the Scriptures for in them you think you will you have eternal life and these are they which testify of me so Jesus is saying the Old Testament speaking of of me is evidence of me my miracles are evidence of me my resurrection is evidence of me John the Baptist especially for that first century audience is evidence of me so yeah you know join us kitty there she is I have to take a cat moment for you all so this this is my cat this is me she's gotten a lot bigger in the since the last time I showed her upon the stream Katey all right so this is an evidence-based faith let me give you more scripture because it seems like there's always more to share Matthew 9 verses 5 through 7 so in Matthew 9 Jesus is dealing with this the situation where a paralytic is I've been talking about this recently a couple times now but this paralyzed man is brought to Jesus they tear up the roof and they lower him through the roof to get him to Jesus through the crowd and he looks at the man and instead of saying you know get up and walk he says to him your sins are forgiven and they challenged Jesus I'll back up he says to him to the paralytic here son be of good cheer your sins are forgiven you and immediately people are flipping out because they're like you can't do this they say in fact that Jesus is blaspheming but Jesus knowing their thoughts said why do you think evil in your hearts for which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say a rise and walk think about this it if you're speaking truth the easier thing would be to heal someone than to forgive their sins before God but but it's easier to fake forgiving people oh you're forgiven than it is to fake healing this paralyzed man so Jesus is gonna give evidence to prove who he is he says but that you may know the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins then he said to the paralytic arise take up your bed and go to your house and he arose and departed to his house so this this miracle whether you believe the miracle or not like maybe or that maybe your total skeptic you don't think the miracle happened you think this is somehow legendary development or whatever just just kind of let's say if that issue aside for a minute let's not argue about that let me just say this Jesus thought it was fine to present evidential proof for who he was and for his authority to forgive your sins he thought miraculous evidence of me saying okay I'll prove it to you get up and walk and he heals a guy that meant that was meant to be evidence to prove his claim to be able to forgive as real so this is not faith as in belief without evidence there were signs wonders miracles gifts in fact that's I'm giving you a list actually from our next scripture Hebrews 2 verse 3 Hebrews 2 verses 3 & 4 it says how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which of the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will so the message went out spoken by the Lord testified ultimately from from Christ originally but also really before that even from simply the Old Testament teachings but it was confirmed or evidenced by those who heard him the eyewitnesses who shared what Christ so they're handing us down these eyewitness testimony God bore witness with signs and wonders and miracles and then the gifts of the Holy Spirit which is another way of saying it's a mixture here of personal testimony but also the the lives that they lived as a result of the work of the Spirit in their lives so we're giving giving a list of evidences or confirmations of the Christian faith so the Christian faith is not against evidence to say that faith means evidence or means belief without evidence is to say you're not talking about Christianity and Christianity anymore but so often what do we hear from skeptics what do we hear from even well-meaning Christians ok I'm not blaming the skeptics here like you made this up and you're pushing it on us sadly in this situation many Christians it's it's your fault but it's not your fault like you're trying to destroy a Christianity you're just being sloppy I think and I'm hoping that I can help a little bit so let me now go to a few passages where people would go but what about these are the but what about passages um people are gonna are gonna definitely challenge me on this and they're gonna go to a few specific places in the scripture and the first one I'll go to is Hebrews 11 Hebrews 11 is the verse that people are gonna quote it seriously he's just staring at me sorry usually I feed him before the live stream now and then they leave me alone a little bit more and I didn't have time today cuz technical issues sorry about that okay so here's the verse and this is quoted by skeptics too to say see the biblical definition of faith definition of faith is belief without evidence so Hebrews 11:1 now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen I'll give it another translation as well faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen so the the idea here is they're saying translated faith is belief without evidence now there's a great article on stan two reasons website STR org written by amy hall called Hebrews doesn't say what atheists think it says about faith and I've put a link to that in the video description here so I'm gonna give like a brief overview of why that's not what Hebrews means but if you want more details just click that link you could read the article while you're pretending to listen to me if you want you know remember you can multitask I I'm not so good at it so the main issue here I'll say the main thing with Hebrews 11 is this oh there we go I don't know if I had that scripture up for you but there it is now the main issue is this Hebrews 11 has nothing to do with the the justification for why we believe in fact it's not a definition of what faith actually is it's a definition more of what faith looks like let me let me give you an example if you were to define what Mike is verses describing what Mike is like those are very different things so Hebrews is saying faith is like this but it's not just giving a dictionary definition of faith that's certainly not the case if it is and you take it to mean belief without evidence which it also wouldn't mean then it contradicts all those other scriptures so we have a contradiction issue but if you were to say I mean Mike is a human being Mike is a Christian Mike is a husband Mike is a pastor Mike is a guy on YouTube you could say all those things about me that's kind of like what I am but it would be different to say what is it like to have Mike as your youth pastor Oh having Mike as your youth pastor is what to learn the Bible verse by verse and have hopefully I have challenges to the Christian faith you know answers to those challenges built into you through the years of you whatever like that kind of stuff you could say that's not like you could say Mike having Mike is so this is like what having faith is like that's the definition if I can I hope that helps hope I was clear it's clear as mud so Hebrews 11 is not about the definition of faith or how we justify our faith it's about what faith looks like in the life of a believer how do I justify that well if you read on in Hebrews 11 you get a list of people and it tells you what they did by faith like Abel he offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain Enoch was taken up we read about like Noah Moses let me give you for example Noah by faith Noah being warned by God concerning events yet unseen in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household now this is this is interesting Noah what does he do with his faith what his faith looked like with Noah well you can see his faith right you don't see the flood yet but you're watching Noah and you seen building the ark and through his faith in building the ark it's like you see the flood coming that's the idea he's instructed concerning things yet unseen which is to say that the term unseen in in verse 1 is not referring to things that lack evidence it's referring to things that are not yet seen as in they're not happening now they're happening in the future so faith is the conviction of future events it's not the conviction of things that lack evidence so not seen as not lack of evidence it's just that it's not happening right now in verse 8 we read about Abraham and his faith let's see by faith Abraham he obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he was going so he didn't know the detail of where he was going he didn't know what it'd be like he just trusted God and he went out to that place so that's what they look like in his life it looked like having confidence about future realities that are not happening just yet that's what faith often looks like in a person's life I'm confident about future realities that haven't happened yet in verse 11 we read about Sarah by faith Sara herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised so God is gonna be trustworthy here I'm trusting in the person God who has revealed to me that I'll have a baby so she trusts him even though it seems like it wouldn't happen under natural circumstances it wouldn't happen normally now to show you that Hebrews 11 is not about why you believe but it's more about what you believe in how it affects your life it's not about how you come to that faith we'll see in in verse 7 we read about Noah Noah why did he believe he believed because God spoke to him then we read and you know in Hebrews 11 about Moses Moses believed because he had promises he heard about from Abraham and from their descendants so he had like the Word of God handed down to him he trusted in what God revealed to them and they testified that it was from the Lord then we have Sarah she had an angelic visitation and which proclaimed her that she was gonna have a child and so if faith is belief without evidence then these people don't have evidence I mean I've heard many skeptics say that they would believe if God would just come down and tell him hey I'm real like they would they would believe well that wouldn't be faith without evidence though would it they would be faith but not without reason not without evidence I mean a direct appearance of God in your life would be some pretty good evidence I think and I think most people would agree with that I think reasonable people would agree with that so unseen doesn't mean without evidence that's the Hebrews 11 passage another passage people will go to is Romans 1 and verses 19 and 20 and they'll say that belief in God is something that we have without evidence based upon Romans 1 so says for what can be known of God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so that they are without excuse they interested the interesting thing about Romans 1 is that while it does say that everyone should know God like should be aware of God's existence should be aware of who he has simply you know by what God has revealed it doesn't say that you get this through lack of evidence pure faith with no reason instead it says something so much better it says that the created world around you is telling you there's a God so you should believe right his invisible attributes his power and divine nature they've been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world because it's when you look around you're perceiving I mean I'm not seeing God when I see a tree when I see this guy but I'm perceiving that there's a creator of all things and I think one of my favorite arguments for God is common sense it is common sense and to so many it's common sense and it takes a lot of programming almost to overcome that common sense and come to a place where you can look around and not give God credit for those things so that's another video we could deal with that the point here is that Romans 1 is not saying you believe in God without evidence it's saying you believe because of the evidence and you should believe because of the evidence so the another verse that would be used against us is actually supporting this view of faith in john 2024 we have the next one where Jesus someone would say Mike you know what about when Jesus told Thomas blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed isn't that belief without evidence but again we're getting confused seeing verses evidence seeing is one kind of evidence right how do I know that my car can get me to the mall well I've been there I've done that I've driven I've experienced that and I've watched it happen right how do I know that my next paycheck will come in the mail well it they've come so reliably in the past that I'm trusting I've reasoned evidence to believe that it's gonna come next I don't see it but that doesn't mean I don't have evidence so in John 2024 we get the story of Thomas this is after the death of Christ his resurrection and now he's appearing to his disciples to show them that he's alive after death so in John 20 24 says now Thomas was one of the twelve called the twin he was not with them when Jesus came you see Jesus had already showed up showed his body to the disciples they were able to perhaps touch him eat with him talk with him they were able to confirm he had really risen from the dead you know giving them that strong faith they were willing to die for and then Thomas wasn't there so he hasn't had that experience he only has their testimony so we read on he says so the other disciples told him we've seen the Lord but he said to them unless I see his hands in his hands the mark of the nails and placed my finger into the mark of nails and place my hand into his side I will never believe this is side point here Jehovah's Witness teaching is that the body Jesus appears with is a different body than the one that died but Thomas demanded that he saw the mark of the nails the nails the ones that were used on the body of Jesus those that's the body he wanted to see and so Jesus actually does this for Thomas eight days later his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them although the doors were locked Jesus came and stood among them and said peace be to you then he said to Thomas put your finger here and see my hands and put your hand and place it in my side do not disbelieve but believe so he tells Thomas to trust him and he gives him the evidence for why now he now catch this Jesus's words he's like here's the proof now believe that's not faith without evidence is it no that's faith based on evidence so Jesus is consistent here we have an evidential faith as Christians we really do then in verse 28 Thomas said answered and said to him my Lord and my god and then now some would say well I want what Thomas had I want to see Jesus in fact I won't believe till I can see Jesus physically jesus answered to him and this is for you have you believed because you've seen me blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed let me keep us from mistranslating right reading into the text to miss translate this text would be to read it blessed to those who have no evidence and yet believe that's not what Jesus said he said blessed are those who haven't seen me yet have believed what did Thomas have before he saw Christ that would have been good reason to believe well he had the scriptures that Jesus mentioned the spoke of him speaking of the death resurrection of the Messiah he had the testimony of the Apostles saying we saw Christ alive from the dead Thomas you know us you can trust us we're sincere in our belief and he did not believe those things he discounted those things now we have the same evidence as Thomas had today we have those things right up until the moment where you saw Christ visibly physically we have the same evidence we have the Apostolic witness we have the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ it's no it's no coincidence that 2,000 years later we can present a strong historical evidentiary case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ which I will be presenting in that debate with Matt Dillahunty in April that we can do that we can say look here's reason to believe don't be unbelieving but believe blessed are you who have lots of evidence but you just haven't seen it with your own eyes the one thing you want to see perhaps but you have sufficient you know evidence to provoke belief and faith in Christ that's the idea so what was Thomas rebuked for was it was it for not having faith with no evidence no he was rebuked for ignoring the evidence he had and not responding to it and that would be the same rebuke we would get today in fact as I encounter a lot of skeptics and those who disbelieve Christianity I usually find that there are reasons in my opinion their reasons for disregarding Christianity are not good they're not sufficient reasons the reasons to support Christianity are strong the reasons to go against it seems so weak the evidence ODS all on one side and all that's on the other side so often is misunderstanding misrepresentation scoffing sarcasm and and sometimes bad scholarship but we as Christians can't fall into this mistake where we misrepresent christianity ourselves by saying things like faith is belief without evidence okay so let's go into the definition of faith what do we mean by faith and what is the actual like dictionary definition of faith well let's let's look at it here if you go onto google and you just type you know define faith this is what you're gonna find it says to two different definitions it says complete trust or confidence in someone or something and then the second definition is strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof now the way words work is that any usage of these terms can can can have either of these uses right so I could say I have faith in God I could mean definition one complete trust or confidence in someone or something I mean God is someone or something right I could refer to God by saying that I could use term two I have faith in God meaning I have strong belief in him based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof now I'll take one objection perhaps to the way it's defined in the second definition is that people may have they would say that spiritual apprehension means lack of evidence but spiritual apprehension you guys that's not lack of evidence because the very statement spiritual apprehension implies that there is a spiritual realm and you are apprehending something through that realm that is not lack of evidence that's a different kind of evidence than a scientific rigorous experiment it's a different kind of evidence than a historical verification it's spiritual apprehension this is like your personal testimony you know like I've experienced God so I know he's real I don't you wouldn't use the term spiritual apprehension and I would not say it's fair to limit the Christian definition of faith to that second one because even in the Bible we have non spiritual apprehension reasons for believing in Jesus believing in God for trusting in the Bible for confirming prophecy things like that these are evidence based so the first definition is the one that fits the Christianity that I know the first definition is the one that actually fits what we read about in the Bible here's another definition if you go to Webster and you look up their definition of faith they say that faith is allegiance to a person loyalty it can also be let me make this a little bigger so I can read it fidelity to one's promises sincerity of intentions okay that's one category of definitions and other is belief and Trust in and loyalty to God belief in the traditions traditional doctrines of a religion I've both of those absolutely third one here for to be firm belief in something for which there is no proof I definitely don't have that and that's countermanding what we've read in the scriptures that definition it does exist people use the word faith that way but when Christians use it we should know that biblically we're using other definitions of the word faith like ay-one and ay-two belief in trust in loyalty to God belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion that's the way we're using the term number three finally is just something that's believed especially strong conviction and so you could you could give that definition as well but what skeptics often want to do is they want to take of all the finishings of faith they want to grab the one that that's not about faith but it is about the evidence for faith they want to pull that out and staple that to Christianity and say Christians that's your definition you have faith without reason not according to the Bible not according to historical Christianity so this leads me to my next question why do so many Christians accept this bad definition of faith because this is what happens I'll say all this and they'll say Mike maybe you're right maybe it's not biblical maybe there's maybe the dictionary doesn't doesn't limit faith to that definition and it leaves open your definition as being a legitimate use of faith but you know a lot of Christians would agree they would say yeah faith is belief without evidence why do they say this Mike why do so many Christians fall into the same category I would say the answer is this sloppy thinking sloppy thinking and let me give you an illustration to explain why I think this happens as I drink some water okay so in school one time I think it was in school we did this there was some some gathering we had where we had everybody there in the group maybe the class they had to write out instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich maybe you've done this experiment and so they dried out the instructions and then you hand them in to the teacher and the teacher would read your instructions and follow them to the tee like to the letter follow the instructions so if the instructions read put peanut butter on the bread put jam on the bread eat your sandwich they would take peanut butter and they would have a whole loaf of bread still in the bag and they would just slap peanut butter on top of the loaf on top of the bag then they would take Jam and they would slap the jam right on top of the loaf right on top of the bag and they would try to eat it because they're trying to show you that your debt your description of how to make the sandwich was not careful and clear enough so you had to start by saying you know using the normal method open the bag and take out two slices of bread not one of the ends you know take one slice of bread and on one side gently spread some peanut but oh but what you didn't tell him to open the jar of peanut butter so what we're getting here is this this desire for specificity is not normal when christians say i believe faith faith is belief without evidence that's it's not what they mean right what they mean is something like I believe God and even though I haven't seen the fulfillment of all his promises I trust him that he will do what he says like that's maybe what they mean but what they say if you analyze it if you follow the instructions of that statement verbatim then it leads to this destruction of what Christianity and what faith really is so I think it's just sloppy thinking they're not dumb they're just assuming that certain people like certain things they say are not gonna be analyzed that carefully they're not analyzing it that carefully it's it's um it's just similar to them saying hey in spite of circumstances that test my faith I still trust God without some evidences I have other reasons and I will hold to those reasons even though I don't have every single and question answered I trust God you know that might be what they mean but what they're doing is they're offering maybe a sloppy definition of faith but what the skeptic does with this is they do something very different see the Christian they say here's my sloppy definition but the skeptic is like the teacher getting the peanut butter and slapping it on the thing and like I'm gonna take that as literally as possible to show you it's ludicrous so when the skeptic comes against the Christian faith using that definition they're often doing it from a different perspective and so we got to stop saying it as Christians and skeptics should know you're just taking advantage of sloppy Christians in order to make them look like fools but it's never what they meant at least that's what I hope so one of the goals of this online ministry of what I do here with my live streams and with my with my youtube and all that kind of stuff is to help Christians not be sloppy and they're thinking about Christianity it's at least do my best to do my part in explaining the scripture carefully verse by verse in answering hard questions that skeptics ask and I'm not the only one doing this there are so many organizations out there if you've been a sloppy Christian and you want to come out of it like check out my video content let it help you let it because it cause you to grow and go deeper into being a biblical Christian and if you're a skeptic that you you could never stomach the sloppiness of the Christians around you like I encourage you here's me and some other resources I'm going to share with you now that you can look to stand to reason is a fantastic ministry Greg Koch will his his podcasts especially I love his podcast answering tough questions with careful thoughtful Christianity we have clear thinking Christianity another podcast by a guy named Tim Barnett friend of mine what does he call it clear thinking Christianity I mean that would be an oxymoron if this definition of faith were true that people voiced upon us stands to reason would be something you're not allowed to do as a Christian William Lane Craig Smith streets called reasonable faith reasonable reasonable faith think about the terms we're using to describe our of ministries a wonderful ministry William Lane Craig capturing Christianity by camera Bertuzzi his tagline is exposing the intellectual side of Christianity why because he knows there's too many sloppy Christians out there we're presenting the world our Christianity like it's the bad description of how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and so then they go oh this is terrible you guys are fools the truth is you just didn't realize you were under such criticism as Christians well guess what you are and so we need to have a careful robust view of Christianity ratio Christi is another ministry I think thinking biblically I think that's name is podcast Shawn McDowell Ravi Zacharias Ministries cold-case Christianity by Jo Warner Wallace he not only the book but his his podcast is really interesting good stuff the list just goes on and on you've got all these ministries who are presenting this robust view of the Christian faith because there is a robust view of the Christian faith because there is a whole group of evidences that lead us to the Christian faith both in personal experience which is valid I mean anyone who that invalidates personal experience entirely is rather silly in my opinion because they live based on their personal experiences I just don't find my personal experiences as good ways of convincing other people but it certainly convinces me but not only that but we have we have the evidence from Scripture from philosophy from history from science from there's just all sorts of lines of argument to point towards Christianity there's nothing like it in other religions I would also go on record saying there's nothing like this in other religions as I've looked for it and having many to find it okay so we're gonna do right now is going to go to your guys questions and AJ's gonna send those over to me and I'm going to do my best I'm assuming AJ's in the chat someone sent me a message saying they don't think you're there I hope you're there AJ if not then I'll just take the live I'll just do live chat but what we're doing what I did recently that I want to let you guys know about there's a link in the description for it so as you kind of are signing off this video whenever you do what what I did just recently was an interview with SJ Thomason on her channel and it was a great time and I think a really valuable video she asked me a host of like challenging questions sort of tough questions of Christianity for the first hour and for the second hour it's a two-hour video I interacted with skeptics in the QA in the live chat and so it was just a bunch of questions okay so AJ says he fell asleep and he just joined the live chat so you got you got roasted okay um yeah so I recommend you guys check out s JS video it's in the link below in the video but I were right now I'm gonna take your guys questions if AJ if you start sending me ones I'll respond to those but otherwise type right now in the live chat right the word question in all caps and then I'll read that and I'll answer as many as I can please don't hold it against me if I can't get to him I will probably only give you one answer per person though rather than the same person answering asking a bunch of questions okay so cam 94 says how do we explain to non-believers that the Holy Ghost being with us is a large reason we have faith I think that okay I don't know how someone would argue against that view that okay I prayed and God changed my life entered into into my life and I have a real relationship with God now I don't see how he would talk you out of believing for that reason see that's that's one way you can know Christianity is true but but knowing Christianity is true is different than showing Christianity true see I can know it based on my experience but he doesn't have your experience he only has you telling him about your experience so it's good to point to other evidences as well for convincing others so I would say yeah I give it that's good evidence for you chem 94 but it's difficult to show your Christian faith true with that evidence that's why God's given us lots of reasons and I think we should use all of them and I'm always learning more reasons okay all right Ajay's back on board he says the the joy Chintan say if satan is a created being can he control or influence thoughts or put things in your head if he's not omnipotent thanks so much I really need this here's a phrase from Scripture that may answer your question it's it's when Christ was about to be betrayed by Judas in it and it says Satan had put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus so if that's the case Satan put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus then there was some sort of access to the thought life of Judas that he had this doesn't mean that Satan's necessarily reading our minds it means that there was at least a I'll put it this way when when it's audio when you're hearing me right now you have you have access to ideas I'm giving you I'm giving you ideas I'm giving you thoughts so to speak not literally but it but through the through the medium of sound and electricity it seems that Satan has the ability to do this to us through some other spiritual medium some medium that's not through sound he can send us a thought or an idea or something like that he seemed to at least done that with Judas does that mean that he can also read our minds and read our thoughts I don't think it answers that question for us and yeah and I don't know but but I also don't have I don't fear him in that sense either I think I need to be aware that he's gonna use my own sinful tendencies against me and that sort of thing but I hope that helps you a little bit Jacob Inglot says Mike please explain the connection between belief and obedience in John 3:36 and James 2:14 through 26 shouldn't we be looking to the text to define definitions like faith and belief well your your last question I would say yeah we we do look to the text to define things like faith and belief when we've got for example sorry I'm gonna pull up that scripture while I'm doing this here there we go okay we have for example the the word faith what we can do is you you use a word in any time studying language you use a word in its sentences so look at the word faith in this sentence how is it used how is it not used you don't just look at the etymology or the root meaning of the word you look at its usage in context that's how you find the meaning of a word but your question is explain the connection between belief and obedience in John 3:36 so sometimes these questions perhaps assume I have more scripture memorized than I do whoever believes in the son has eternal life whoever does not obey the son shall not see life but the wrath of God remains on him if I would say the relation between belief and Obie Obie D&C is that belief leads to obedience a lack of obedience implies a lack of faith a lack of belief people generally what they do shows you what they believe as far as the James question I will reference you to another video it's James 2:14 and that's about faith not being without works so Jacob what if God is actually of a video on that exact scripture where I spend like you know an hour unpacking the topic very carefully and I deal with the Catholic view versus the Protestant er or I think biblical view of this issue and it's it's so look up like the debate on James I would google that and it should come up look for my video on that topic Brian Stevens has a question have you seen the replication of the discredited Doctor Regnerus study done by doctor Rosenfeld on 2000 and 2015 which found the lurking variable of family instability so um off the top of my head Brian I don't know how to answer that question right now there's this streams not going to be about the doctor Regnerus study and I know there's a group literally three or four atheist channels that all made videos in the last week on this particular topic I haven't made time to go back like three years ago I studied and taught on this issue three years so some of the content that they've shared I thought oh I'm interested in that a lot of the content they share was just to be honest if I mean I think this is asking me to respond to those atheist videos so was sloppy to say the least it's I would say this they had such little respect for me or what I was saying that they didn't want to consider deeply what I had to say they just wanted to call me names and they did and they called me a lot of bad names and said a lot of cool things about me but they didn't seriously consider what I was saying and they even said so in their videos I don't care about this he probably got this statistic from that nobody looked them up my notes are available on my website if you are interested in that next question Brian Stephens question have you seen the replication of next question Eric cigar dia Mike how do you know that you have the proper interpretation of Scripture I mean you read it in context like how do I know I have the proper interpretation of your question right well I read it I thought about the words and what they meant and had a consistent view of those things like that's how like it it's not it's not about arrogance or egotism it's not like when I say I think the scripture means this it's because of my authority I'm observing I'm using hermeneutics I'm using you know basically just reading things in context that's that's the key thing here and I'm open to changing my interpretation of Scripture I often try to get multiple scriptures that all agree as I did today I have lots of scriptures across various passages that all are inconsistent agreement on a topic and that really strengthens my confidence that my interpretation is correct Martin Grad well says Mike would you would you agree that it's important to properly distinguish between evidence and proof and these are often erroneously used interchangeably I come at this oftentimes more from like the way normal people talk and I think normal people use the term evidence and proof interchangeably and sometimes suddenly people will be like nope now they have to have special terminological definitions where evidence and proof are so different that they can't be used interchangeably but when I say hey can you prove it I usually mean can you give me good reasons to believe that I don't mean can you prove it to a hundred percent level certainty of logical certainty where it would be impossible for to logically like that kind of stuff seems like game playing to me so um yeah I'm not I'm not sure I I don't think I would agree with that Martin but I'm open to change in my mind on that maybe I just am uninformed Bradley Wilcox says question how can anyone see the universe and not see evidence I found God by science and history yeah I don't know I mean I have a friend who my friend Travis who was a good friend of mine from from from high school he was into this like Nez Perce Native American beliefs and that sort of thing and I'd share with him and invite him to church and things like that but he never had come to Christ and he had experienced some pretty weird things they you know it did peyote and looked in the fire and he saw visions and things like that that kind of stuff those kinds of experiences but one day he he joined the Navy and one day he's out there on deck on this on this frigate the ship and he's on watch and he's sitting there in the middle of the ocean and he's just looking up at the sky and he says that's when he gave his life to God he looked up at the sky and he just he just knew it he just knew that God was true that Christianity was true and He gave His life to Christ and he's been following Christ ever since it's that was gosh that was probably nineteen years ago maybe more probably more he's been following Christ ever since and so I mean here's here's a situation where creation declared to him there was an affirmation in his own awareness about who God was and why doesn't everyone have that well the scripture says that we sometimes sometimes the cases we're making choices we respond to reality we choose to accept to reject that and and we live with those decisions so Kate says question we leaned on the Bible for evidence how do we address when non-belief when a non-believer says I don't believe the Bible is the Word of God thanks Kate well thank you for the question Kate I would say when I say I present the Bible as evidence I'm not meaning that I'm presenting it where the person has to affirm that it is God's Word before they can look at it so an example is like prophecy if I can show that the text of you know Isaiah 53 was written before Christ came that's a historical matter right this was written before Jesus came and I can show that we actually have copies from the Dead Sea Scrolls that go back to before the time of Christ we know for sure it was written ahead of time and I can show that it intricately relates to what Jesus did when he showed up on earth which I can actually show kind of fairly easily I think if you just read Isaiah 53 people are like yeah that's about Jesus like it seems to be clearly about him and if you study it carefully it's even more obvious so I've shown that it was written before and then it was really about Jesus and then I showed that historically I can trust that Jesus did at least some of the things we read about in the scripture is that he died that that they believed he rose again that he was under you know crucified under Pontius Pilate and there's certain things that you can like sort of get consensus on on those views so what I'm doing now is I'm using the Bible but I'm not using the Bible to say you have to before you can read this and think about it you have to accept it's God's Word rather I'm saying let's look at it and see if it passes the prophecy test I think that's a very different kind of way of using the Bible so um I hope that helps I I'm sure I missed some other questions that we're in there let me just look and see um Sean a asks me who my favorite atheist is my favorite atheist I don't I don't know how to answer that question I'm not sure that I have a favorite atheist I mean I don't despise him at all that's for sure no I care very much but I don't know how to have a favorite atheist sorry this would be good for a to get a snippet out of me but I wouldn't even know how to answer the question um anyway okay there's a lot more questions I don't think all the time to answer them today but thank you guys so much for joining me I hope this helps this issue is you've got to know as Christians how to clarify this topic right faith is simply trusting in God the word faith has nothing to do with why you believe you may have good reasons you may have bad reasons you may have no reasons or you might have every reason in the world faith is just trust that's what we mean as Christians when I say I trust God I have faith the reasons for my faith that's a separate matter a separate discussion and and I think that we need to treat those things as different things whereas the the skeptic wants to assume sometimes that when you say I have faith you already have lost the battle you have no evidence and then they go at us for that so if you are still interested in more if you're disappointed that the streams ending after only an hour then you can watch the two-hour video I did with SJ Thomas in the other day if you haven't seen it it's in the video description down below there's a link so lord bless you guys have a wonderful day and we'll see you next week

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 57,124

Rating: 4.8303952 out of 5

Keywords: definition of faith, belief without evidence, faith is not belief without evidence, biblical definition of faith, Christian definition of faith, what is the biblical definition of faith, what is the Christian definition of faith, what does the Bible say about faith, is faith without evidence, is faith without reason, mike winger faith, a biblical view of faith, faith involves evidence, belief without evidence definition

Id: SIJORjiOWeI

Length: 60min 23sec (3623 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 15 2019