Taking Your Toughest Questions! Live Q&A, episode #1

all right friends i am so glad that you are joining me today this is our first live q a if you follow this channel you know that i do an interview about once a week we've had some pretty amazing guests on last week i talked with colby martin who's a progressive christian pastor and we talked about the differences between evangelical christianity and between progressive christianity and the clarity of that conversation was super helpful about a month ago had a 12 year old on name nahoa to talk about his faith journey which was unbelievable just posted on instagram that he was reading darwin's doubt by stephen meyer one of the sharpest kids i've met in a long time so on this channel i'll do interviews to help you apologetics world view and religion but also want to uh come on at times and just hang out get to know you thank you for following uh this channel when covet hit i had about 8 000 followers it's about 41 000 now which is just a blessing that people are are benefiting from this ministry so let's jump in with some of the questions i'm going to do my best i see some of the questions coming through here uh uh let's just start i'll tackle these uh james brittenham says i listen to you all the time thanks james you had dr ray on her youtube channel and said not taking the vaccine was a sin i would love to hear your thoughts if you agree or disagree with dr ray i ended up taking that one actually down for a few reasons we edit it a little bit and put it on the think biblically podcast so if you want to hear most of that if you go to the think biblically podcast you will hear that that's one area where i disagree a little bit with dr ray and to be honest with you he's one of my professors good friends he's a mentor to me so he's the kind of person anytime i disagree with him i start to think it's probably more me than it is him i i do think we should have very serious reasons for not taking a vaccine and some people have health concerns about the vaccine about it not having been tested enough and if you have done your research and you really feel that way before you're the lord and that's your conscience i'm not quite willing to say that it's a sin so that's just an area where he and i differ i understand his position that he's saying we have a responsibility to one another as you look at vaccines in the past clearly you know measles and mumps and different conditions they have helped us care for each other minimized harm so i see where he's coming from i'm just not sure that i quite agree and am willing to call it a sin to not get the vaccine so yes that's an area of disagreement between us thanks for asking that let me let me weigh in uh another one it says uh hi sean this is from you know i'm gonna pull these over this would be way cooler if we do that sorry i'm kind of new to this hi sean question what to do if private christian school is applying crt training to teach your staff what should i do as a parent love this question so not only do i teach full-time at talbot school of theology grad students i have one undergrad class for 10 years i taught at a private christian school and i still three mornings a week teach at a private christian school with high school students because i love it so i get this dynamic well and my wife teaches one my three kids go there we live in southern california san juan capistrano here's the first thing that i would do i would make sure that the school is actually teaching crt why do i say this there has been a lot of people who've raised concerns about biola of instances of rumors of embracing crt and what's happened is people get information second third fourth hand and start pushing narratives that are not necessarily true so because i will hold a position that maybe is in common with people who hold crt i've had people say you're embracing critical race theory you embrace the standpoint theory and honestly hear that i think that's ridiculous i don't embrace crt but i've read original sources if you want to know what i think about crt do a quick search i forget the exact title but i wrote a blog four six eight weeks ago that was like three steps to approaching crt i think we should read original sources carefully critically and charitably so the first thing to do instead of freak out instead of spread rumors is go right to the source and find out if they're actually teaching this so as a teacher as somebody who backs up our administration one of the things my parents taught me is if you hear rumors go to the source and find out first that's step number one step number two if you find out they really are pushing crt then i think it would become an issue that you need to address so the first thing i would go to is i would go right to the head of schools or the person making this decision this is biblical this is matthew 18 go to the source don't be angry don't be defensive it's possible that the head of schools doesn't fully realize this and understand it that's possible give the benefit of the doubt and then just say hey here's my concern make sure you have real evidence that you bring and say here's why this concerns me are you willing to make some changes so we're not pushing critical race theory go right to the source now if you don't have confidence that it is being backed up and you've gone to the individual then you might go talk to other concerned parents and don't post stuff publicly don't make a huge deal about it yet get a number of parents together and maybe write a letter where you're very clear about your concerns and you sign it together and then you send it to the head of school and maybe you send it to the board and then if you don't feel like they address it significantly enough to me that's where i would pull my kids out so that's the step i think it's a very biblical step of walking through kind of a matthew 18. make sure you have the facts be charitable and then if it really gets down to it and they're really teaching crt that's where i would pull my kids out especially if it's private school and i'm paying for it love that question um let me go here there's a couple of these uh honestly i am not the bible answer man some of these i just know better than others so i'm going to focus on them a little bit more sorry if i skip it it's more me than it is you all right let me bring this question over hey sean uh i richie r says the question i have is how does someone actually do apologetics i think i may be able to memorize good answers to questions but i don't know how to do apologetics i absolutely love this question thank you for caring enough to put this into practice so let me say first thing to do apologetics it starts with a little bit of training you gotta read some books gotta listen to some podcasts you gotta know certain things to be an apologist then the second question is how do you do it and there's a number of ways to do apologetics it can be on the relational level with people that you know people at work people in your family neighbors when i travel sometimes i'm just looking for people to have conversations with so one level could just be conversationally do apologetics now the main way i do apologetics is actually i just ask a lot of questions believe it or not i had lee strobel on maybe a month ago or so kind of for a behind-the-scenes interview and he said one way he shifted doing apologetics recently is he used to when somebody said problem of evil he's like here's five responses now at least trouble would ask the question he'd simply say hey of all the questions you can ask god why that one he would listen and he would show concern and grace and love and then downstream get to the answer so the first way you can do apologetics is just gain skills to engage people interpersonally the books i'd recommend on this would be tactics by greg cockle excellent book you might also check out my book a new kind of apologist there's a chapter in there by tim muelhoff who's a communication professor at biola university friend of mine and in there it's real one of the chapters worth the whole book it's the first or second chapter and it's all about practical questions you can have for spiritual conversations so one level is interpersonally the other level of doing apologetics is like how do you do it on a more public platform and in the past it used to be if you want to do apologetics you speak and you write books or maybe teach in a christian school or do it in a church now there's endless options so i do apologetics through twitter i actually do apologize through tick tock some of you might be laughing at me right now but my son who's 17 now he said to me about a year ago he says dad if you want to reach my generation you got to get on tick tock so three four five times a week i post a quick video i do apologetics on tick tock i noticed there's mormons on there there's muslims on there there's atheists on there i want a christian voice so you could do that on tick tock and if you want to do it well on tick tock look at justin brierly is one of the best you could do a youtube channel you could do what other media am i missing i guess you could do snapchat i'm not on snapchat so i can't comment on that one i do apologetics on instagram so partly what you want to do is think about it interpersonally but also ask are there bigger platforms for which i could do apologetics don't try to do all of it just find one lane where you can make a difference and start that's it and if you don't know how to start in a certain lane find the people who are good in that lane and basically copy them so i don't know six or seven years ago i sat down with jay warner wallace and he goes you need to start a blog i was like okay i don't really know how to blog so i started looking at how he blogged and was like oh i see the length i see the way he titles him and i just frankly to be honest with you i kind of copied the way he was doing it with my own message and then i personalized it and over time i got better so now i blog once a week so the question is ricky where do you think you can do apologetics and just start in one area find people doing it well and go for it and be consistent i hope that helps that's just such a great great question um hi everyone i'm excited for this thanks tiffany super nice uh the night 2 am in nairobi that's i i can't tell you how honored i am you would you would join us um guy there's questions about masks some of you want my opinions i'm probably gonna get myself in trouble here do you think masks should be mandatory how can i trust that the cdc is telling me the truth about coven 19. look here's one thing that i know in places that have made masks mandatory we have not seen the reduction significantly more than places that don't so some of you could show me that i'm wrong you could send me an article i'm not against wearing masks i think we should and i think certain kind of masks are helpful in certain settings but mask mandates i have not seen the data that they are effective overall in actually reducing it so let's just say i'm skeptical of that but most of the time when i'm in public or near somebody i've been vaccinated i didn't do a big public release of it didn't feel the need of that but i've been vaccinated and as far as i understand the chances of spreading it are very minimal once you have been so i will still wear a mask out of respect for people found on a plane if i'm in most public places how can you trust the cdc all i can say is on this i try to read a lot of different sources i read conservative publications like the federalists i read things like the atlantic and i try to get both sides and just weed through the data as best that i can so probably not the answer you're looking for but that's that's my best take on it let's jump to this one uh great question by k.d king hi sean uh hi katie as a newly saved christian i have trouble watching certain movies that have nothing to do with the gospel of christ or give mention to god how can we christians decide a movie we should watch i love this believe it or not in my high school class just uh this past week i started a movie analysis unit so i have spoken on this i love teaching through film now one thing i would say is this if you're a newly saved christian and you have trouble watching movies you need to know where your heart is you need to know where your maturity is and you need to pick movies that will not discourage your faith that will not make you stumble and will edify your faith but that's not necessarily the same as somebody else who has been a christian for a while and maybe affects them differently so some people for example say they've been in war watching certain movies might trigger them in a way that for me watching a movie doesn't so there's a level of wisdom that individuals have to apply to watching film uh that can be true with language that can be true with sexuality for me here's something i did this morning i actually showed my high school students a clip from the lobby scene in the matrix where keanu reeve walks in they have black trench coats this is a 1999 film and they blow away all these guards and it he has dark glasses on there's music like a video game and it's rated r for violence but it makes you feel like you want to be neo when it's done even though he's blowing people away that's kind of what the scene does and then i stopped and i showed my students the opening scene from saving private ryan which is of d-day it's also r for violence but the point of saving private ryan is the opposite of the matrix and i actually love the movie the matrix by the way it's the only movie i've seen four times in theater which was pre-kids but also i love the philosophical questions in it saving private ryan is basically trying to say amongst other things if you have a romantic view of war you don't understand war so my point to the students was we have to judge movies not just by the number of curse words not by the amount of violence but the way curse words are used the way violence is used the way sexuality is portrayed for example is nudity okay in a film well what about schindler's list i'll be honest with you when i saw that movie in the holocaust and you see the way the nazi guards handle certain people and they strip them down completely naked shave their head that is a way of dehumanizing them there's nothing sexual about that for somebody of a certain age with a certain level of maturity i think they need to see that my dad took me to see that when i was a senior in high school and those images are etched in my mind understanding the horror of the holocaust so my point being i don't think we need to assess a movie just based on whether it explicitly describes christ whether it has nudity or not whether it has violence or not my question is how is the nudity portrayed is it just is it excessive is it drawing attention to the sexual component is it pornographic again that's very different than the way it is in schindler's list so for example take foul language sometimes christians will look at a film and we'll judge a film purely by the number of f words well if i'm watching a movie from war and there's some f words in it it doesn't bother me as much because if people are in war you're going to hear f words but if it's a comedy or if it's a movie and it's unnecessary and they're using it for shock value i'm out don't manipulate me that way so bottom line kd is if you have a hard time watching certain films then don't watch them give yourself a break you're not obligated to but all of us have to look at movies and ask ourselves are we having wisdom are we having discernment what's our level of maturity and be thoughtful and discerning how we watch film one last thing i'll say is i think movies can make a biblical point without actually talking about god so there's a movie called there will be blood and it's with daniel day lewis and i love this movie and basically at the end of the movie sorry to ruin it for you somebody is murdered and there's blood part of the point of the movie is what you see in the book of james where it says you're tempted and that gives birth to sin and sin gives birth to death you see the transformation in the character at the beginning from being a businessman being lured by oil destroying his enemies and becoming a murderer so that movie doesn't explicitly advance the gospel in fact there's a hypocritical character in it who's this preacher but underline it there's certain biblical themes so that's one way i approach film love the question hope that helps some in this regard uh jamie hammock here we go do you affirm evolution why or why not now of course to affirm or not affirm evolution we have to know what's meant by evolution so if we mean change over time uh i have no problem with change over time i don't know anybody who does if you mean uh change within a kind what some call micro evolution maybe horizontal change like the finch beak i have no problem with that the debate comes in when you talk about what's called macro evolution or common descent that's where i'm not fully convinced by common assent i've looked at some of the genetic evidence and i go could admit if i were to believe in that kind of evolution it would be because some of the genetic evolution i think is interesting and some christians find it compelling i'm not quite compelled by it and i think there's certain things like the cambrian explosion that raise challenges to common descent so overall i'm not i don't believe in common descent but another kind of evolution is the idea that not only there's common descent but that there's a naturalistic mechanism driving this process that would be probably neo-darwinism natural selection operating on random mutation and then today there's other different mechanisms that are added to this i don't believe that because i don't think the data is there to support it i'm not convinced by it and by the way you can't probably see if you look on my shelf on that top there on down there's a ton of christian books there's a ton of books written by atheists there's books written by christians who say they affirm evolution so i wouldn't in principle have a problem embracing evolution depending on how we define it if i thought it were actually true but i'm certainly not persuaded by the neo-darwinian naturalistic uh story that says everything can be explained through an unguided purposeless material process that's hard for me to wed with any christian worldview i'm also not convinced by common descent although i realize that many intelligent design proponents do and they have ways of trying to make sense of the historical atom ways of making sense of genesis etc so for me the primary question is the data there or is it not and i'm just not convinced by common descent but my skepticism is even greater that there's a purely naturalistic mechanism that can drive the process probably about a year ago i had on doug axe and josh swamidas who are both christians who i know and i love i teach with doug x josh suamados is a brilliant scientist medical doctor friend of mine he affirms the modern synthesis of evolution and has found ways very creatively and brilliantly to say there's this historical adam and eve there's a historical fall and it's not inconsistent with a broadly christian world view i'm not fully in his camp but i appreciate the work that he's trying to do but doug axe's push back in that conversation was he just didn't buy the mechanism for the change through natural process and i'm with doug on that one so jamie hope that helps some i appreciate that question uh all right let me keep going here uh oh boy all right i'm gonna get myself in trouble but i will take these questions uh you take first corinthians 5 13. uh your take on first corinthians 5 13. my daughter believes in christ raised in the church but is part of the progressive group the language in 513 is strong would you go to your gay son's wedding why or why not so let me answer the latter part rather than specifically first corinthians 5 13. i think there are some issues that are black and white out for bible-believing christians marrying somebody of the same sex i think is in direct violation of what scripture teaches from genesis through the old testament through matthew revelation first corinthians 6 all the romans first corinthians 6 all the way to revelation that marriage is meant to be one man and one woman who become one flesh for one lifetime so i can't answer the question whether somebody who gets into a same-sex marriage is necessarily saved or not that is not for me to judge god is the one who judges the heart but i do know that that is in direct disobedience of what scripture teaches about marriage so my point being there are certain things that are black and white i would say for a pastor to officiate a wedding that directly gives affirmation of the unity the union itself to me i have a hard time saying that's morally okay for a bible-believing christian now going to a gay wedding is where it gets a little sticky and i gotta tell you here is where i have heard good cases on both sides i think you need to be in prayer i think you need to get counsel i think you need to assess your uh conscience before the lord i was actually in a public conversation with a man and a woman in me at a church i don't know maybe a decade ago and it was on lgbtq questions the man had formally been in a gay relationship and left it the woman had formally been in a lesbian relationship and left it and they married each other and i was on stage with them this question came up and she said when she was marrying a woman she was not a christian her mother came to the wedding sat in the front and cried the entire time she knew exactly where her mom stood and did not support the marriage but she knew her mom loved her and wanted to be present in her life and eventually she came out of that relationship am i going to condemn that mom for doing that i'm not that's between her and the lord on the flip side i was another event with a man who's in a gay relationship and his parents refused to come to the wedding and he knew how deeply that they loved him and he said it was their loving opposition that eventually brought him out of it so bottom line is i've seen people go to wedding and people minister to not going to a wedding so i've seen god use both for me i would have a really difficult time going to a same-sex wedding because i think the nature of a wedding is to affirm a certain relationship i'd be concerned for the message you would send to other christians i'd be concerned for the message to my kids if it was my son i work so hard to be in relationship with my kids i sacrifice all the time my son's a basketball player i go in the morning and play with them we're in the jacuzzi talking last night we i spent a ton of time with my kids and they know i love them so i can say that if they came to me and they were in getting into a wedding that was same sex they would know that i love them and i'm doing what i think is right i could not go the only thing if i'm gonna be totally honest that would make it hard for me is if my wife was like honey i need you to go i would truly be torn between loving my wife and standing on the principle of same-sex relationships i haven't been there but that's the one thing that gives me pause so hopefully that at least helps you with my thinking process on this but sean i can tell you i know if this is your story there is going to be some heartbreak here and some agony and i just pray that god gives you peace about this i pray that it gives you wisdom and just no matter what decision you make that god will allow you to have that relationship with uh a gay son if this is something you're referring to or someone else you know just to speak truth and love into their life so thank you for that um let's keep going here i'm going to skip some more vaccine once i'm sorry guys it's not totally my my lane there's some questions here about very particular verses that i would have to look at to give you a thoughtful response to i'm i'm sorry thoughts about the unpardonable sin love this question so this is in mark chapter three if you go to mark chapter three in fact i'm gonna turn there right now if you have your bibles and turn there to mark chapter three uh if you can't find it or is it mark chapter four uh oh here it is mark chapter three just like i thought uh so whenever you hear about the impartial sin always go to the context and i think you'll find that helpful so here's the context uh jesus is it says jesus entered a house and the crowd gathered there was not even any room and a man they set out to restrain him because they said uh the crowd gathered let me see this some people said he's out of his mind the scribes who had come down from jerusalem said he is possessed by bill's able he drives out demons by the ruler of demons that's what they're saying about jesus he says so he summoned them and spoke to them in parables how can satan drive out satan if kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand if a house is divided against itself that house cannot stand and if satan opposes himself and is divided he cannot stand but is finished but no one can enter strongman's house and plunder his possessions unless he first ties up the strong and thus then he can plunder herself what's jesus saying he's saying okay wait a minute um why would uh man for some reason i'm getting lost in the context here he's saying oh they're saying to jesus he's lost his mind and the direct quote is he's possessed by bealsabol and jesus is like wait a minute if i'm fighting satan and satan is the one who is possessing me this makes no sense okay so it's a house divided satan's house would be divided i think that's right and then in 28 is the unpardonable sin it says truly tell you people who be forgiven for all sins whatever blasphemes they are but whoever blast seems against the holy spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin so what's the eternal sin i think if you look in the context the eternal sin is saying that jesus in the flesh is not filled with the spirit of god but is filled with the power of satan if you just look in the context that's exactly what's going on so we can't pull that phrase about the unpardonal sin out of the conversation that jesus is having and out of his teachings and out of the claim that jesus in human flesh who's doing miracles who's teaching the kingdom of god people who are seeing this in the flesh are saying you are possessed by a demon that's my best understanding of the unpardonable sin so if that is true then people today cannot commit the unpardonable sin because jesus is here in the flesh now if somebody is asking this because you feel like sometimes christians think having an abortion is the unpardonable sin or i've heard people say who are just grieved with their same-sex attraction they feel like or sometimes maybe an addiction to pornography or whatever we come up with those are not the unpardonable sins if you feel that way please know god loves you and god forgives you i think the only unpardonable sin today is to die physically while you're in a state of spiritual death that leads to eternal death that's my best sense of the unpardonable sin eldon thanks for a thoughtful question um okay here's a good one i'll throw this up here andrew green does bio offer scholarships for their graduate programs yes it does by the way this channel is brought to you by biola apologetics and talbot school of theology tonight we actually have at 6 p.m which is an hour and a half i'm going to read it here because i've got the message it says specifically uh if you have questions about our m.a in christian apologetics or science and religion there's a zoom call you're invited on to at six pm it's at apologeticsevents.com if someone write that in the notes it's at apologeticsevents.com so if you come to that again 6 p.m pacific standard time apologetics events.com you can just register they'll send you a link they will be able to tell you about different scholarships so we do have those scholarships how many how to acquire them i don't know i just teach but if you're asking about scholarships my guess is you are interested in the program andrew and we would love to have you we are the top rated apologetics program uh in the world now by the way we have a certificate program and i believe i put it in the description below where there's a significant discount for those people who join our channel so if you're like i'm not you think i'm not quite ready for a master's program but you want to do a certificate program uh there that's just a simple way to start and get some formal training with people that will help you so come on tonight andrew at apologetics events dot com and you can find out more about scholarships uh gosh i don't know some of these i have would have to give a little bit more thought to oh this is interesting let me grab this one here you know what i might do in the future is take some of these questions ahead of time because some of them are really good questions i haven't thought about default do false teachers realize that they're false teachers or they like a fish in water they don't realize they're wet i'm not sure it's always one or the other my suspicion is that when someone is a false teacher they don't think they're teaching what's false they think they're teaching what's true matthew 7 says beware of wolves who come like sheep in other words they seem harmless they seem nice but inward they devour people i don't know that i've ever met a wolf who knows they're pushing false stuff and intentionally goes in to devour they probably think that they're teaching what is true there might be some exceptions to this but my suspicion is that the vast majority of false teachers would actually think they're teaching what's true but for whatever reason it doesn't align with scripture that's my hunch but that's a that's a really good question my man nahola nice to have you those of you who don't recognize naha it might have been four to six weeks ago came on here he's a 12 year old musician i follow him on instagram amazing came on we did an interview and just got to ask him about apologetics books he's reading and i was blown away thoughtful gracious young man if you have not seen that interview search what's called the next apologist and it was so much fun in your experience what are some of the most common reasons for unbelief i think when it's all said and done naho and i love that you asked this i know you're reading a book by clay jones why does god allow evil i think the biggest reason for unbelief is the problem of evil when it's all said and done now this can manifest itself in different ways it can be personal suffering it could be hypocrisy when people see hypocrisy by christians it can be injustice done by christians say on the issue of race where some christians have been hypocritical sadly and try to justify things like race didn't fight against it it could be things like people look at the crusades and think gosh there's some hypocrisy that's here or the witch-burning things in history so the problem of evil and suffering i think is the biggest reason for unbelief that's why i actually teach the class at biola in our talent apologetics program on the problem of evil and i'm starting in the fall and one of my first slides is to point out that the problem of evil is everywhere when you look at environmental problems at the heart of it is why are people destroying the world the world shouldn't be destroying this way racism lgbtq conversations so much of this is that people have been hurt now the problem of evil has an intellectual side but it also has an emotional side and i'm convinced that the vast majority of people for unbelief is not primarily intellectual it's either moral or it's emotional and many times it's volitional but more often than not the biggest reason for unbelief overall is the problem of evil and suffering in the world so great question keep asking good thoughtful questions love it i can't even read that uh we're lucky to hear him live now uh i'm gonna skip more covert ones i'm sorry um uh okay here's a good one all right john christopher says and i'm sorry if you've written comments and i haven't got it to it i'm doing my best to just roll through here and get as many as we can john christopher says how to approach discussion with teenagers and young adults with the biblical roles of male and females well broadly speaking for me because i have three teenagers in my home and i've been teaching high school full-time and part-time for 18 years and i speak to a ton of teenagers i do two things when i'm talking to students i share a lot of stories and i ask a lot of questions my kids know this i ask some questions we have conversations all the time so given that the role of males and females presuming you mean in the family or the church is not an essential issue i would invite conversation with students so i used to take my students and i would split them into two sides regardless of what they believed i explained to them what complementarianism is i'd explain to them what egalitarianism is i would give them the key passages and i'd say i don't remember you have 8 10 12 minutes read these passages separately come up with the best reasons why it supports the position i gave you and then i'm going to moderate a conversation back and forth now the reason they like that is there's a little bit of drama they have to figure stuff out they don't want to be embarrassed there's a little bit of tension and they know that their idea is they're going to have to apply them very quickly so i would ask a lot of questions and how i would teach this and find a way to create discussion with students rather than just talk with them and give them information so in a classroom that's one of the ways that i would do it so by the way even if you hold egalitarianism or complementarianism you don't want kids to believe that just because you believe it you want them to believe it if it's true so don't set up a straw man of the other side if you set up a straw man of another position and a kid gets older and grows up and is like wait a minute you made complementarianism look dumb there's some smart scholars here you're gonna they're you're gonna undermine your trust in their eyes because you didn't represent it fairly i had a student go to berkeley a few years ago and when i was there we got to have lunch and another professors there and i said hey what could we have done differently at our christian school to help you be prepared and she said you know in like my english class and others post-modernism was kind of dismissed and marxism as not being very thoughtful i get here i don't believe it but there's some really smart post-modernist there's some really smart marxists so when you're talking about biblical roles of male and females or any issue do your best to not set up a straw man of the other side and help young people with the tools to come to the conclusion of what is true that's my approach good stuff all right um oh gosh i don't know the answer to that one you know what i'm gonna do this just for fun uh sean can you tell us about your basketball career well to say basketball career is very generous i grew up in a small town in the mountains called julian and if you know julian it's famous for apple pies i graduated if i remember with 63 students so we're at about the lowest level of basketball you can find so me telling you that i was all conference doesn't mean that much but with that said i fell in love with the game of basketball in eighth grade i used to get up early in the morning i jump rope i'd run i'd shoot enjoying it with snow and sometimes i didn't have anywhere else to play i'd be out there in the snow kind of shooting i spent hours playing by myself because there was nobody to play with and i would just watch games and compete went to biola university which is now ncaa division two and side note my coach just about a month ago became the 11th all-time coach on any level in college basketball with a thousand wins very impressive uh coaching got to play with his name is dave holmquist so it was very good basketball i was probably 145 5'9 and i was not ready to play on that level guys were taller they were bigger and they were stronger and i was out of my depth so to be honest with you i sat the bench for three years i busted my butt i got in the weight room i got bigger and i set the bench three years my junior year i told coach i was done i just wasn't playing i wasn't enjoying it and realized maybe this isn't gonna happen to me i tried hard be done and the assistant coach gave me a pump up speech you go sean i think you might play your team needs you don't quit now you'll regret it ended up playing didn't play much my junior year senior year i had a chance to be a captain i probably played 12 or 15 minutes a game i was a role player but i loved it i was on a good team we went 30 and seven still to stay in touch with some of my teammates that was the end of my career there was nobody asking me to play professional it wasn't going to happen but uh for fun that's a little about my basketball career but those are jordans behind me a couple pair of jordans there's a story i'll tell you sometime but uh that's that's it um okay let's jump on this one uh gosh you know what i'll take this one from you jared it says what are the most common topics of conversation you have as a father with your growing kids what are they interested in knowing about in regard to your work well i gotta tell you my kids are not super interested in terms of what i do for work my son thinks it's interesting that i'm on i have a youtube channel that's growing he thinks he's interested i'm on tick tock like that's a little bit interesting to them but to them i'm just dad so the vast majority of conversations i have with my kids are about the next superhero movie it's about basketball it's about my daughter's volleyball it's about my eight-year-old son sports most of the conversations are just about life but what i do is i am regularly looking for opportunities as best i can just to have spiritual meaningful conversations with them so maybe it's over the dinner table maybe it's when we're driving somewhere and a lot of that is just me asking them questions but the all the time we spend watching movies talking about it talking about sports and just building relationships you might say say gives me the capital to talk with my kids about other issues that are deeper especially with my eight-year-old uh we've been reading a book at night called the bully buster it's a fun book for kids i endorsed it if you have a kid who's seven eight nine years old he enjoys reading we should read a chapter we just kind of talk about it so most of my time is just talking about life stuff that's important to them but what i try to do is i'll share stories with them that happens related to my work students if something happens and there's ministry i'll share it with them so just trying to teach them certain truths but i'd be lying if i said my kids are just fascinated by my work i'm just dad to them that's the reality thanks for asking that jared uh let me keep going here uh boom boom boom okay let me jump on here amy love this by the way what are some biblical ways to handle false teachers and fellow christians with non-biblical views i've been having a hard time with being respectful and straightforward so the first thing to do i think is to go to this person like in matthew 18. i think when it says when there's a sin or a false teaching you go directly to that person now i don't know what false teaching you're talking about so i would need a little bit of definition but many times christians think somebody's teaching something false and they're the one who's actually wrong or maybe being legalistic so make sure you've thought about this before you confront somebody and you're being wise in your own teaching but if that's the case if somebody's teaching something false in your church so to speak i would go to that person directly that's what we're called to do now if the person doesn't respond and they're having a bigger influence on the church as a whole that's where you then take either a couple people to talk to them or in a church i would go to some of the leadership and express some of your concerns and why not in a gospeling fashion don't tell anybody else about it give specific examples and try to make sure they're aware of it especially if it's affecting the church and it's on an issue that's essential to the faith that's one issue now another layer to this is i just you may have seen this i had a conversation earlier i think it was one week ago last thursday with a colby martin who calls himself a progressive christian now some people are pushing back saying he shouldn't use the label christian because he said he didn't always believe in the resurrection had a different view of scriptures deity of christ god being personal there were very substantive differences there but my goal in that conversation was to try to be to model for people what a civil conversation looks like and just bring clarity to people who are watching of the differences and i think they're vast between um evangelical christianity and between progressive christianity so hopefully that helps a little bit that's a great question i understand the hard time being respectful and straightforward make sure it's just do so do a heart check first to make sure you're treating this person kindly and it's not about you being right not about having power but really about loving this person and protecting the church so maybe do a little heart check first i've had to do that a lot thanks for the question amy um all right i'm gonna keep going here uh okay great question this one's pretty simple uh oh no again man you're asking good good questions i did not realize that was you at first what are some resources you would recommend on the topic of consciousness free will dualism etc well i would say two things i had on jp moreland i don't remember four six months ago on the evidence for the soul jp moreland is one of the top 25 living philosophers according to i believe is bestschools.org so he is recognized not just as a christian philosopher but worldwide one of the top most influential philosophers and his specialty has been in consciousness interviewed him for about an hour so that would be a great place to start to understand some of the basic arguments and then the book that he has i think is just called the soul and that's where he lays out the argument in more depth and that's his beginning level which for the rest of us is more intermediate but read his book the soul and then if you get it and want to go deeper just do a search on jpmoral and he has a bunch of other academic books like i think body and soul with scott ray he has an academic book defending consciousness maybe with rutledge i don't remember the publisher but read that even in more depth and then what you also do is if you want to read further people look at the people he cites in the footnotes no look at the people that he interacts with because jp morgan is a scholar he's not going to react to joe blow youtube channel or blog over here he's going to react with other thinkers then you can start to see who the key players are in the world of these questions and read them directly yourself but start with jp he's a dear brother colleague of mine at biola and he's pretty funny too and he's wicked smart so great great question uh let me keep going here i'm doing it how does the story of the bible tie into spider-man spider-man is my favorite here i did a whole blog on this for two reasons number one spider-man is relatable i don't relate to superman i don't relate to batman this rich person who has anger lucy in his family i don't relate to hulk i have anger issues my kids will tell me i have to apologize to them sometimes but i'm not angry like the hulk i don't relate to thor not a god but there's something about spider-man who fights you know the bad guys in venom but can't deliver the pizza on time and get the girl i've always loved spider-man because he just is a relatable character but second what's the core ethic for spider-man well in spider-man the original spider-man with tobey maguire what does ben parker say he says with power comes great responsibility that's a biblical idea jesus said he who's given much much is required so different characters tend to have different ethics in marvel so the ethic of wolverine is different than the ethic of say doctor strange different than iron man this was the brilliance of stan lee different than the ethic of captain america at the heart of spider-man is this idea that he fights for the little guy those who are vulnerable those who are marginalized because he understands what it's like to have power used against him and feels whoa and feels a burden to care for those in a sense who have been hurt and that's a very christian idea so that's kind of why i like spider-man and he's on the thing behind me over there if you like that give me a thumbs up i'm talking spider-man here uh let me keep going on here uh oh gosh this is a tough one um justin let me just jump in and take this because this is a real question hey sean how's your family going my family's doing great thank you for asking we're blessed we are healthy and we're happy and that's my extended family my dad i 82 he's healthy as motivated as ever my kids are doing well i have a question about hell on an emotional level why should the wicked be in a lake of fire forever without any mercy so it's interesting that you ask you say a question about hell on an emotional level but then you ask an intellectual question which helps us realize that there's an overlap between the intellectual question and between the emotional question i can just tell you how i deal with this i don't like hell at all it bothers me and it troubles me if you sit down and think about eternity that's a long long time the times that i've suffered the thing that gets me through is that this is going to end hell on the traditional view has no ending so i don't like hell at all doesn't fully make sense to me now i could sit here and i could give to you certain defenses and i'm do it fast this is not the justification it requires maybe i this is an encouragement maybe i'll do an entire program on this we talk about some of cs lewis's idea that god doesn't send people to hell people choose it that sounds counterintuitive but read c.s lewis's book um oh my goodness my mind just went blank somebody put it in the comments uh c.s lewis's book he says there's two kinds of people in the end those who say to god thy will be done those to whom god says thy will be done all who are in hell choose it we could talk about how hell is an infinite punishment because it's rejecting an infinite god we could talk about these logical things but for me when it's all said and done i believe in hell because i think scripture teaches it and because jesus believed in hell now there are some annihilationists and friends of mine who say he didn't and say i'm wrong about this fine if i'm wrong about it then i'm wrong about it but i embrace the traditional historic view of hell and emotionally how i cope with this is paul says we see through a glass darkly i don't fully understand jesus had clarity on this in a way that we don't so if i told all of you i said hey you know what when we're done with this join me at another live stream because i'm going to talk about how to be an nfl quarterback uh don't waste your time joining me i don't have a clue but if philip rivers tom brady showed up they have the authority to speak on it who has the most authority in the history of the world to speak on moral issues in the afterlife the answer jesus he lived a sinless life he's gone human flesh and he conquered the grave if jesus believed in hell as much as i may not emotionally like it that's where i find rest in trusting jesus a ton more could be said to that but that's my basic way of addressing hell on an emotional level hope that helps some although i fully admit it should require much more nuance and depth than this does justin we got time for a couple more before we take our last couple just a reminder if you thought about coming to the biola apologetics program 6 p.m tonight in an hour there's gonna be a zoom call and some of our staff will be on there just answering questions about scholarships about the units about the program itself if you've ever just thought you know what maybe this is something i'm interested in doing you can register oh i gotta make sure i got this right it's apologeticsevents.com apologeticsevents.com and they'll send you the zoom link uh if you're watching this you're already a candidate for getting an m.a degree and by the way it was this spring we went fully online fully online so oh i just got my first thumbs down probably about hell is my guess uh well what the hell um all right what do you think is the best apologetic book uh i don't the best apologetics book so my answer's not gonna be as simple as you want it depends upon what you want the apologetics book for and what level so popular level books i don't think there's i think case for christ is phenomenal i think more than a carpenter i mean my dad's book more than a carpenter that we updated everywhere i go around the world people tell me that that book helped him solidify their faith or led him to christ from asia in africa latin america somehow god has used that book so apologetics book for evangelistic purposes i love case for christ i think the reason for god by timothy keller is really really good and more than a carpenter would be three of them uh as you move to an intermediate level unapologetics book it's going to depend on the level of interest so if you're interested in sexuality i think nancy pierce's book love thy body is an absolute must that book is fantastic i've taken high schoolers through that books i had her on the show a few weeks ago by the way if you didn't see that interview with nancy piercy where she shares some things behind the scenes and she actually opens up about some real pain and hurting her past that stunned me please take a look at her book love thy body on a popular level is one of my favorites i just finished the book and actually this morning on twitter i do this thing called game changing book of the week so if you want to know what apologetics books i enjoy each week i pick a book on apologetics world view cultural engagement and i put a picture of that book and i say here's one i strongly recommend i put a quote from the book and one line from me so last week i had the book by carl truman of the making of the modern self he's coming on in june for an interview that book is fantastic it's not really an apologetic book but it's great this morning i put up the book by steven c meyer the most recent book i can see it over there the return of the god hypothesis that book is flat out fantastic i love it and what's good about it is he's very generous he concedes a point and i don't think he overstates the scientific evidence as far as i could tell and what follows from it so in an intermediate level love thy body and the return of the god hypothesis would be other books that i just i love i also really enjoyed the privileged planet by the way which they're updating in a few years so hope that helps some if you're looking for student books on apologetics and resources if you google my name and just put student apologetics resources i regularly update what i think are the best uh study bibles the best conferences the best curricula and the best books for students those would come up if you want something more specific phoenix potato uh thanks for joining let's do one more uh boom boom let's see here the grease try to share the bottle with friends that are wiccan i don't know um gosh let me just take this one this is a really thoughtful question grace says hey sean my question is how do i deny myself and live for god and not the world i'm a few months old as a christian after being a fake christian first thing i would say gray is praise the lord for you i am so thrilled that you are a christian that you're born again that you're following jesus um second the fact that you're asking this question is uh you're on the right step we should all be asking this question i ask myself this question all the time i regularly ask myself i say am i i have a house that's fine i live in orange county i seriously ask myself i'm like am i just adopting certain things from the world or am i really denying myself and committed to find the lord am i suffering and committed in the way god wants me to be i think that's a question we should ask throughout life my biggest suggestion for you gray is get in number one would be getting into the scriptures truly for yourself and try to understand it through a new lens yesterday i had a chance to interview a great theologian michael byrd from australia for our podcast and he said we need to de-familiarize ourselves with scripture we read scripture with a certain eyes and assumptions we need to read it with fresh eyes so i wish i had time to sit down with you and hear what you mean by being a fake christian but my guess is part of being a fake christian is either it was just hypocrisy wearing a mask or maybe you adopted certain kind of fundamentalist views about being a christian go back to scripture with fresh eyes read the gospel of john and right now i'm studying the book of galatians in fact in my quiet time i've been studying the book and reading this commentary by craig keener each morning so try to go back to the scriptures with fresh eyes and read it new second you need someone to mentor you someone at your church somebody who's older somebody who's wiser somebody who you feel like just gets it understands scripture somebody you look at and says that's a person who seems to be living out their faith in a genuine way and ask that person could we zoom once a week or if you're comfortable being in person could we meet in person and could you mentor me could we read scriptures together could i ask you questions because jesus passed on discipleship different than the greeks the greeks it was like debating ideas almost like a classroom jesus had disciples with him they ate with them they traveled to them they talked to them they lived with him that's how we mature in our faith so get rid i get rid might be strong but don't be close to other people who are fake christians and i'm not saying be judgmental i'm saying find people in your life who you really feel like love the lord and who are living the kind of life that you want to live follow them spend time with them ask them questions and learn by osmosis by spending that time with them so read the scripture with fresh eyes get into it for yourself and ask probing questions and second find a christian who can mentor you there are so many questions here oh my goodness i apologize this goes on and on and on i'm so honored that quite a few of you join me and i wish i could have taken more of these i want to do this as best i can regularly would love to hang out i don't mind personal questions theological questions if this is helpful we had at one point almost a couple hundred that's great i'll try to do this more and hang out if you have not subscribed to the channel please hit the little subscribe button we have some interviews coming up behind the scenes with people like stephen myers going to come just talk about stories in his life in the last chapter in his book when he is he said at 14 years old he falls into this existential funk at 14 he was a thoughtful person i'm going to ask about his spiritual journey next week craig keener one of the leading new testament scholars in the world is coming on and i'm going to ask him how he writes a commentary every like six months or so i don't have a clue how he produces it i want to ask him about his marriage he's white he's married to a woman who's black i want to ask him how his family dealt with the pain of multiple miscarriages that he's publicly shared i want to get behind the scenes with craig keener we have carl truman coming on in his book which i think is one of the best books i've read in the past year uh we have a number of interviews coming up that i think you're going to love so make sure you hit subscribe so you can track with us and not miss out again if you're interested in just learning more about the biola apologetics program 6 p.m pacific standard time there'll be a zoom tonight and if you go to apologeticsevents.com apologeticsevents.com you can sign up they'll send you zoom link and i would love to have you in class i teach a class on defense of the resurrection he's class the problem of evil taught a class on christian sexual ethics taught a full class on the fate of the apostles this fall i have a full class on gen z that jay warner wallace and i are teaching together on our books so the next generation will know so it is not too late to join us thanks for joining me now i hope you'll jump on the zoom tonight uh thanks for hanging out you

Channel: Dr. Sean McDowell

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Rating: 4.9307089 out of 5

Keywords: questions, apologetics, relationships, truth, Bible, youth, students, theology, bible, objections, answers, help

Id: bW8d8MqHqS8

Length: 63min 45sec (3825 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021