Women, Slaves, and The Unforgivable Sin - Cliffe and Stuart Knechtle

cliff and Stuart connly thanks for coming on the show thank you Alex how did I do was was did I get it right awesome nailed it first time okay good good good um we're going to dive right into the deep end here what is if you had to summarize the ultimate two sentence blur summary of what Christianity is all about what's its main message that God created us to love him with our heart soul mind and strength and to love our neighbors ourself at times we've done it at times we haven't when we don't that's

called sin and it leads to a consequence separation from God death and hell but God loves us so much that he sent his only son Jesus to bleed and die on a cross to forgive us to offer us a free gift Grace forgiveness and eternal life and now as we put our faith in him he gives us that gift and we begin life with him now and for eternity and that gift has a lot to do with forgiveness for the sorry state that we find ourselves in now what I really want to begin by digging

in into is firstly why we're in such a a sorry State whether it's our fault and then also what it means for this Jesus figure to be coming along and forgiving us of our sins so the way that you just described the fact that we were created for some purpose which is to to love God but we so routinely don't do that what's your analysis of like why that's the case why people are in need of this Jesus figure to come along and save us well we see it across the country right now with what

I I would call Revival we might Define Revival differently probably would all three of us but there's a god-shaped hole that every single college student I've seen truly has and there's all of a sudden randomly this pervasive desire to fill that hole and whether it was the wakeup call from covid with a lot of suffering that came from there whether it's where our culture is at right now and just the Suffocation that's going on with busyness with technology you name it they are getting rattled to the point of saying wow I need something that call

really calls me to a higher standard but I'm also in a high level of pain that's why you see divorce rates 54% anxiety rates on college campuses 60% 90% of people say that they have immense amounts of anxiety depression skyrocketing obviously suicide I've had to deal with a few suicide cases recently and then also on college campuses I have people come up to me all the time sobbing saying I was considering taking my life or have a family member or a friend who just did and so there's some pain there and they're trying to figure

out what to fill it with I there's definitely something going on people often talk about the meaning crisis existentialism and I wonder how confidently you can attribute that to something like secularism or atheism as opposed to say the unimaginable shift in our communication with things like social media like if I sort of analyze my daily life and think well if if I'm feeling anxious or depressed why is that is it because I haven't been to church today because I don't believe in God or is it because I've just scrolled through a news feed that tells

me that you know some countries just been bombed and has told me that my favorite celebrity has you know said something they shouldn't and now they're getting canceled and I have to decide whether to cancel my subscription to their and I I sort of have a hundred messages to respond to and emails and this kind of thing I I feel like the meaning crisis and the anxiety and the sort of the strange emptiness and shallowness of Modern Life is often just trivially attributed to the decline of religion whereas I I wonder if we can really

be as confident about that well according to the latest Harvard studies we can be now we're talking and now we're talking is right and so one was titled uh spiritual if spirituality could be put into a pill it would save andless amounts of lives so Harvard has done three different studies over the last few decades on religion and mental physical health and so longevity and so the latest one was those who go to church doesn't work with social clubs or anything of the like church weekly have the women have a 60% higher chance of not

remaining hooked on drugs emotional well-being skyrockets longevity skyrockets and those who bring their kids to church on a regular basis those kidss in their 20s have a much much higher percentage of well-being happiness and flourishing and the studies are longer than that like obviously altruism skyrockets for those who go to church and that sort of thing so this is a very secular slightly academic study that that has shown this numerous times so I think the meaning crisis yes it has a lot to do with church I think you probably know Andrew debano who wrote um

The American Dream he was a secularist and he charted the history of the US and showed how it wasn't too long ago when the nation really elevated God and church and then it kind of shifted to patriotism and focusing on country and fighting for your country so still something outside of yourself but now secularism has poisoned our nation because it brings a high level of individualism and a focus on the self rather than something higher and by doing so that's why there's a meaning crisis according to this secularist yeah there's there's a lot to say

about ISM in the United States in particular it's interesting hearing it framed in those in those terms I mean because one of my other thoughts on this is that something that Americans might have lost is that national identity um I've previously talked about how I watched sort of political debates from not even that long ago maybe the 70s or 80s and and people are quoting the founding fathers like they're quoting hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad as it as if it like settles debates you know and there seemed to be this this this Mythos around the

founding of of America and all of these stories and the almost religious art you know that that you see as a declaration of independence or Washington Crossing the Delaware and I thought to myself well maybe Americans are missing that as well like maybe it's it's not so much the god stuff that's been tying them together this long but that they have this kind of national story to identify with but you would say that that's not the case I heard a commentator recently again non-Christian say that Christian nationalism is basically being spawned out of those who

are not going to church regularly so if you increase religion you will do away with Christian nationalism but a far far far right Fringe would be considered Christian nationalists and they have assumed a political identity that they've deified and so that has formed what we would call Christian nationalism and that's why the term Evangelical has been poisoned as well poor Billy Graham and others would be rolling over in their graves right now because that's not what they meant it to be so that's what happens when you put Nation ahead of everything else my point is

God is the only thing that can ultimately sustain the weight of your greatest desires and your meaning you said secularism has poisoned our nation your nation um is it secularism or is it atheism these are two different things you could have a nation of atheists living in some kind of theocracy right but you could also have a nation of Christian Believers living in a secular State you think that would be as much of a problem is is it the fact that they don't believe or is it the fact that this is not sort of built

into the institutions of government well I like Charles Taylor in a secular age he talks about the buffer itself yes yeah and when you look at the buffer itself you are going to have to grab on to something here and deify it and Infinite Jest as well David Foster Wallace talked about if you worship everybody worships he says and obviously a strong atheist everybody worships if you worship something finite it will eat you alive if you worship something infinite it will sustain you no matter what and give you joy and happiness so I think secularism

for me there's many ways to Define it you'd probably know more than me but one is now ISM it's like what's happening now there's no future now and for me Charles Taylor would step in and say the buffer itself so there's nothing above you and so you're going to have to find something and it's typically yourself to fall into to find ultimately you're meaning and purpose but if there's again with the buffer self if there is no Eternal perspective if there is nothing above of just death in the finite then any meaning purpose and happiness

that you gain here now ISM secular is ultimately going to fail you if suffering comes along but for a Christian suffering comes along and your meaning only grows from that Eternal perspective Point VI there are a few things to say I mean first is to ask and maybe you don't know this but this correlation between wellness and religious practice uh is this about religion or is it about Christianity I mean do Muslims experience the same kind of thing I mean as far as I know that's also the case right it's something not necessarily we haven't

got there yet about Christianity or Christ but something about the Transcendent something about religious communities coming together something like that or is it something about Christianity that gives people this well-being yeah that study was not done on mosques MH and other faiths so I don't know exactly but I do believe based out of Dartmouth is near us and Dartmouth did a bunch of studies showing that those who are able to look upward first and have God and then so like it's basically like love the word your God with all your heart soul mind and strength

and love your neighbor as yourself those who are able to get outside of themselves like that rather than fall in on themselves which is the mass majority of of Americans right now they have that type of mental health so I believe B basically it's conjecture my theory would be identity I think those who go to church frequently have more durable identity because it's not the kind of more the traditional type where it's your parents determine or your culture determines your identity and it's not the more modern type which is I determine my own identity so

I get that through achievement for example I get that through looking at my own inward desires or I get that through it's just because it's postmodern it's kind of just true for me so I think identity and then something Beyond something like the secular version of Hope which is just blind optimism all right maybe not blind but some level of optimism Christianity gives you an eternal form of Hope that gets you through things so those would be I think there's many categories but those would be two that the church gives how suspicious are you of

something like Christianity in so far as it does seem to answer something like existential dread in the way that you say look if you don't believe in God then it ends at death and when you suffer your suffering is meaningless whereas if you become a Christian it it fills you with meaning it fills you with purpose it it sort of [Music] brings you sort of self assurance that life is still worth living and I think to myself okay like is the problem of evil a response to Christianity or is Christianity a response to the problem

of evil are there a bunch of people suffering unsure of their existence they don't know why they're here they don't know why they suffer they don't know why good people suffer and bad people don't and so here's a story we can tell ourselves which will help us overcome that and there are two thesis here one is that that's because it's true and this is how the world is supposed to be and one is that well it's because of all of the suffering and the meaninglessness that people have created the story of Christianity to overcome it

I mean I'm always my my suspicion of a position almost exactly correlates with how convenient it is either spiritually politically and in this case it seems like Christianity is like the ultimate spiritual convenience given the world we find ourselves in I mean does that trouble you at all one of the reasons I respects at Arthur gatama Buddha is because he struggled through the problem of suffering and I respect that highly but his conclusion I find to be totally inadequate suffering is an illusion are you kidding me no suffering is not an illusion suffering is something

that every single one of us is going to experience and that is why I'm so grateful for the biblical worldview that says God created and he did a good job in Genesis chapter 1 but then the world was cursed the world got unhinged and suffering and chaos and evil and Injustice entered the experience of humankind as a result of human Rebellion against God and then it's fascinating to watch different parts of the Bible address the issue of suffering and one of my favorites is the Book of Job and I think one of the main points

of job is life is unfair God is fair don't get the two mixed up life is unfair God is fair don't wave your fist in God's face when you suffer cuz it's not God's fault it's the unfairness of life that is smacking The Living Daylights out of you and then when you get to Christ you see that God is a suffering God who becomes a human being and life kicked his teeth in no question about it and he suffered and then he bled and died on a cross and I think right at that point you're

confronted by one of the most amazing things of God's character which is his humility he humbles himself becomes a human being suffers in order to provide the ultimate solution for suffering forgiveness and eternal life and then when you get to the Book of Revelation at the end of the Bible you've got in Revelation 21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes and there'll be no more death or Mourning or crying or pain for the old order has been wiped away behold all things have become new and that is the hope that we have as

followers of Christ that Jesus will return one day there'll be a day of judgment to heaven and hell we will receive new Resurrection bodies to live for eternity with God in heaven which means if my secular atheist friend and I are standing on either sides of the bed where the little baby or young child is lying whose body is being shredded by some weird grotesque disease the question is is there a solution and if my atheist secular friend is going to be honest there is no solution hunk of primordial slime evolved to a higher order

is falling apart tough lug kid that's just fate Destiny chance but a follower of Christ will walk to the other side of the bed and will hold that child's hand and seek to comfort that child but in Jesus Christ we have a suffering God who provides the ultimate solution for suffering and death eternal life in heaven but so I feel like in so many words you're you're saying the same thing as me but concluding something different that is like the atheist also wants to comfort that child they also want to take but but they find

themselves unable to do so because they know that it is all meaningless that it is all just molecules and motion that suffering has no Redemption um or justification and so then you say well well hold on if you're a believer in Christ that problem goes away and I go H that sounds pretty good it almost sounds too good to be true you you see what I'm saying like it's so convenient it's so brilliant at overcoming the most fundamental deepest exential problems of humanity that it sort of Garners some suspicion I mean what is the message

of the Book of Job like well who the hell are you to ask questions you know don't don't don't even go there who is this that darkeneth counsil by words without knowledge you know but that doesn't come to a later no like it he allows it's okay to ask but then he gets shamed because he's asking too much it seems yeah well I'm interested well perhaps we can do a sort of job ex aesus but but but you see what I'm saying about the convenience thing right because everything you've just said where You' said look

we live in a world and suffering is real yes I agree and like as an atheist you're going to look at that and you're going to go this is all meaningless yes I agree and Christianity allows you to say it's not yes I agree but you know like so would a great many beliefs that I could probably invent they wouldn't be as comprehensive or impressive as the Christian world you for sure but the very fact that it serves that purpose makes me suspicious as to its um you know psychological origin you know you bet but

when you love and when you are loved it's almost too good to be true yeah when you experience Joy real Joy that's not based on the circumstances of life but that goes far deeper than that it's almost too good to be true you're right and hope hope for a future that doesn't end in the grave where there there's more to us than just becoming fertilizer you instead we're human beings created to enjoy God for eternity and God has put eternity in our hearts and that's why we have this longing for eternal life yeah maybe it

is too good to be true and that's why a careful study of the gospels I think is so important to find out did Jesus really rise from the dead or not is this just a pipe dream or is there some substance to this well perhaps perhaps we can do that um I mean there there are so many angles to take here I I don't know if there's anything more you want to say on job before we do the resurrection stuff because I I read the book job I'm fascinated by job and um I guess my

only question was your point that job wasn't allowed to doubt want to doubt or what was exactly your point he's allowed to doubt yeah but of course you who knows what what job is really about there's there's a kind of irony in job my my old tutor Dr Katherine Southwood actually thinks that job should be read as a comedy it's it's it's so many different interpretations there's there's an irony underlying The Book of Job which is that job never knows and never finds out why he's suffering but we do the reader does we we we're

in the knowledge we we know what's going on we know that this is essentially God's counsel including the accuser this one of the earliest uh inclusions of this character of Satan who is essentially challenging God and saying like you know he only worships you because you're good to him and Satan says okay give give me some some authority over his his life let let me do some things to him and go and God allows him and so he suffer and we know this as the reader and job is left with his friends to spend most

of the book just like what went wrong what have I done could it be this well you must have done a sin no that that's not right this isn't right until finally God speaks back and doesn't reveal the answer but says like you know who the hell are you to ask these questions who who do you think you are you don't you know you know nothing about like how the world works or how it was put together or anything like that and then job immediately upon seeing this repents in dust and Ashes right and then

he sort of gets a house back and he gets a new wife and kids right um but wait a second I think the solution there that God gives job is not just shut up and don't ask questions I think the real solution is the presence of God God gives job an overwhelming sense I am with you and I think that is where real Comfort comes in this life when we begin to grasp the fact that God is with me no he doesn't you're right he does not answer any of job's intellectual questions m but he

gives him a profound sense job I am with you and I think that is a crucial ingredient in a follower of Christ dealing with suffering no I ultimately don't know why my little niece died at the age of seven in a horrible car wreck but as I'm with my brother and we who's a transplant surgeon he's far more intelligent than I'll ever be no I can't answer those questions why didn't the babysitter see the stop sign why did the babysitter go right through the stop sign and a pickup truck just at 55 M hour goes

crashing into the car sending my seven-year-old niece to an early grave we don't know why but we do know that God is with us and to know that God is with us that he Grieves with us and that he's not just sitting on his hands but he's going to provide the ultimate solution I think that helps us tremendously when it comes to comfort and dealing with this incredibly difficult problem of suffering but do you think that is the message of job I mean if God had spoken from the Whirlwind yes and said job I hear

you you you can't understand what's happening to you but know that I'm here know that I love you you know then then then maybe but he doesn't he seems almost angry he seems like there's this one translation is sort of I found this poetic translation I I wish I could remember who it was but sort of tries to keep some of the the the verse of job and and he has God say um instead of you know G up thy loins I will question you and you'll give me an answer he says you know um

stand up like a man I'm I'm going to ask you some questions please instruct me that's what he says yeah please instruct me it's it's almost sarcastic right because because the feeling that you get from God here is is like this this terrifying rant right it's it it doesn't scream love to me it doesn't scream hey I'm with you I'm holding your hand it screams you should like almost be like terrified into submission you know like job repent in dust and Ashes he sort of falls to the floor like yeah the image in your head

is a dramatic one you know it's not like Jesus healing paralytic or something it's not this nice Renaissance happy smiley image it's this thunderstorm this Whirlwind and so like the message I get is is one of God almost feeling that that you have no right to answer and that's why I do make that criticism that it's not that he's not allowed to ask questions but it's almost like he has no right to do so it's like when when bad things happen to you it's not just you won't be able to understand this but you have

no right to to ask questions that you couldn't hope to understand the answer of but within it he's giving evidence of his Beauty through the lightning through the Thunder through talking about the foundations of this world who who set the foundations in place so within yes the command the imperative the angry voice perhaps I've always looked at the story and thought wow that's exactly right because I'm a doubter I've always unfortunately been the one out of me and my brothers to to doubt and my eldest daughter right now just the other day was just asking

these penetrating questions about how do you actually believe God exists and she's 5 years old yeah and so I've got to doubt her too but so for me I've always looked at that as yes he gets angry but he has a right to get angry there and he's giving evidence as well who are you to question me in this sense wake up job I created everything everything and then you have doubting Thomas I think it's very similar with Jesus because first Jesus talks about you have the disciples who already gave you the evidence there and

now you come and you get physical evidence from me in terms of putting your hand in the spear wound looking at the actual nail prints in my hands here's physical evidence now stop doubting and believe so he SCS him there as well but I see those stories as very similar in a way where the evidence first and then pause Waits but now here comes the scold we'll go back to the conversation in just a moment but first do you trust the news I don't and a lot of That's Got to Do with the bias that

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out for yourself at ground. news/ alexo use my link to get 50% off their unlimited access Vantage plan just for the holiday season season and with that said back to Cliff and Stewart do you think Thomas touches the wounds of Christ in in the in in John's gospel Thomas is with the disciples and he says until I touch his wounds and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe and then later Jesus appears to him and says you know here I am Thomas come and touch me at which point Thomas says my Lord

and my God yeah well we're never actually told that he touches the wounds and so I'm interested in your interpretation of the story because there's a reading of this text which is that like Thomas is saying like I need evidence you know show me show me the evidence as soon as Jesus is there in front of him and says well if that's what you really want go ahead it's almost like he immediately realizes that it's a ridiculous request or it wasn't need wasn't needed anyway it's almost a message of like the realization that it's not

about the empirical evidence because otherwise I I struggle to really get to grips with what the message of doubting Thomas could be because you're right to sort of it's an astute comparison to this job thing here's somebody saying like hey like I want an answer here and God like gives him something at which point he sort of brought to his knees like what do you think is the message there he says you have believed because you've seen me bear in mind seen not touched blessed are those who believe without seeing how are we supposed to

read that as anything other than a message that like you should believe without evidence oh I don't think I could ever conclude that that is you should believe without evidence Thomas had asked and said unless I can see I'm not going to believe and Jesus didn't reprimand him and say you idiot you dumb nitwit no Jesus stands there and says right here Thomas my man take your hands and put them in the nail prints in my hands take your hand and thrust it in your spear spear in my side and you're right the text is

silent about whether he actually physically put his hands in the nail prints in Christ's hands but obviously Thomas hits the ground and says my Lord and my God and he worships him and Jesus accepts that worship as an appropriate response to him so I think it's real clear that Jesus honored that man and I think part of the reason he honored that man is because when Jesus said to his disciples let's go to Bethany Thomas says yeah let's go with him to die so Thomas was not playing this silly silly game of let's play the

doubting game no Thomas was incredibly devoted to Christ incredibly devoted to thinking through is Jesus who he claims to be and he was willing to die so he was not some ridiculously naive game player but then when he hits a wall of Doubt Christ honors him and says okay here I am and when Christ says yeah you believe because you've seen But blessed are those who will believe even though they've not seen I don't think Christ is saying evidence is unimportant I think clearly he has honored Thomas's request for evidence and said but not everyone's

going to be able to see my wounds Thomas and blessed are those who will believe even though they've not seen yeah have you always taken that to mean blind gal ability he's calling you to blindness no no I I I think that there's it's it's difficult to get the tone of Jesus there I mean is he saying like it's it's almost a weird thing to say right like when when Thomas finally believes why is Jesus making this comment why is he saying you believe because you've seen blessed are those who believe without seeing it's almost

like saying look I've given you this I've I've given you this as a gift you know and and a lot of the time when Jesus does these extraordinary things are individuals like healing people he's overcome with with emotion it's almost like he's not doing it because that's what God's supposed to do but because he's like go on then you know the word like when um when he comes across somebody who needs healing and and the gospel says you know he was overcome with passion the the word the Greek word I wish I could remember it's

this beautiful word but it literally means like your your gut like it comes from the gut you know there's something and and maybe there's something like that going on here you know Thomas is like I need to see and Jesus says okay and then he says to Thomas you believe because you've seen blessed are those who believe without seeing it's almost like a moral message it's like I'm giving you this but really you should have believed without the evidence you know at the very least Jesus is saying that there's something good and worthwhile in believing

despite the fact that you don't get to see you know and so I I especially there are thousands of exes that you could give here right but as a as a skeptic coming to this text reading this it seems like a Perfectly Natural reading to say that Jesus is there saying yeah like like the best sort of approach to this is to believe without the empirical evidence wait think about how many people who saw saw him truly like all the proofs he gave once the resurrection occurred to the Ascension MH text clearly states he G

gave many many proofs evidence of who he was and what he did sure physically he was with them MH and the end of Matthew 28 it talks about how some doubted and the text even seems there to be implying that some fell away so that shows the human heart clearly that there's some type of emotional bias or it's volitional where whether it's I want to live for myself or this is too good to be true whatever it might be and so secondly blae Pascal picks up on this you know I love his quote when he

talks about how God has given enough evidence for those who are truly going to believe and are open to it and not enough for those who are closed off but he also goes on to say that if you had a God who just came to you just to show you himself so just look at me just look at me you would come to him out of fear because he's so powerful and he's this demigod I better worship Him versus the one who comes with that type of power but also is a lowly servant saying I'm

going to connect with you but it's going to be in such a way where I'm building a relationship and it's not going to be out this power play of here's proof now you better worship me and I'm fearful and I better worship so I like that blae Pascal gets after that in the sense of it's not all about seeing and if God just were to come and prove himself to you right now you would feel compelled to believe in him just because he's so powerful and oh my gosh he exists rather than if there's a

mix of belief evidence some physical proof when he when Jesus was here now all of a sudden you're looking at it at it differently do do you think Thomas sinned by not believing the disciples on their testimony I think he was getting very close to sinning any example we get of doubting in scripture where it's consistent eventually that's a sin but I like that dipso Greek word in James because it kind of picks up on this because James it sounds like it's an encouragement to doubt almost but then all of a sudden dipso is living

in two minds and so the man who doubts is like one who is blown and tossed by the wind that man should not expect anything from God and so I think what hits there with James is it seems like it's intellectual doubt but then all of a sudden dipso is volitionally I'm living in a different kind of way so I think that's what God starts to see whether it's honest doubt that's going to lead to real truth seeking and perhaps belief or if it's no I'm not really doubting this is this is something else we're

told you know where Jesus says blessed are those who believe without seeing a lot of people tell me that the reading of this is supposed to be that he's chastising Thomas here essentially but in the sense of saying look you had what you needed you had the testimony you know it's not it's not an argument that you should believe without any evidence but that the testimony should have been enough right but again it just it seems like not the most natural reading of the text to me you know it's it seems like it's it's a

strange thing for for Jesus to say I mean and there are lots of reasons why that that that could be the case I like to think that there are like um historical reasons why Thomas might have been embarrassed there you know the early thomasites who started revering Thomas around the time of the writing of John's gospel and this story only appearing in John's gospel as like a deliberate attempt to embarrass their favorite disciple he's the most maligned disciple given that earlier in the gospels when Jesus wants to go and raise someone from the dead and

the disciples say what's the point she's dead who's the one who has faith and says no let's go Jesus said let's go let's go it's Thomas it should be you know faithful Thomas not doubting Thomas right it's just it's a weird story I mean it also seems to sort of slot right in there at the end of John's gospel it's kind of I don't know it's a little bit suspicious I mean what do you think of the historicity of a story like doubting Thomas it appears in One Source uh it seems to serve a pretty

significant theological purpose do you think that this is something that actually happened and if so is that because of your general reliability scripture that that you believe in anyway or do you think there's some way that we could have good reason to think that this episode actually happened it's because the evidence is the gospels are historically reliable know there there errors their manuscript variants but the gospels are overall historically reliable and that's why yes I I accept the account of Thomas coming to Christ at that moment of doubt and Christ treating him with a great

deal of understanding a great deal of gentleness so I don't think I don't see it as a very harsh thing I love also what James writes when he writes that uh you believe there's one God good even the demons believe that and shudder so obviously I think faith is more than just an intellectual thing where I say okay the evidence is God exists so I think God exists no I think that it got has to go much further than that to the point of Job saying I know his character is good though he slay me

yet will I trust in him where the author of Hebrews writes it in Hebrews 11:6 without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him in other words God is good he wants to reward us he wants to shower us with blessings with joy with delight in fact God is the most joyful being in the universe that's part of what drives me to get to know him better so faith is not just an intellectual gymnastic faith is a

personal commitment and a trust in Christ a response to his love to his warming our hearts with his love I must say that's not the picture I get of God from the Old Testament H I want to talk about gospel reliability but perhaps we should do this in order um even even Christians today will speak as if the god of the Old Testament is like a different character there's the god of the Old Testament and there's Jesus and they're kind of the same but the god of the Old Testament is Yahweh and Jesus is Yahweh

but like they talk about them differently and I suppose the first question is can you understand why at least people are doing that if you read the Old Testament and you you you see a much more military jealous apparently vindictive um one who regrets things one who seems to physically sort of War amongst sort of the Garden of Eden but is also sort of really far away but is also kind of localized in a temple and then you have this Jesus figure the meek and Mild the endlessly loving impossible to picture as anything other than

just like love and softness and beautiful can you understand why people see these as sure as incompatible sure but I hope God is jealous I hope you're jealous sure if you have children and they're starting to entertain the Friendship of a drug dealer I hope that you're going to be jealous for your child's attention and loyalty and when you see a drug dealer begin to weasel his way into their lives and suck them into drug addiction I hope that you will have a selfless jealousy where you will seek to win your child back I hope

you'll be angry at times with a righteous indignation I mean if I beat you up and steal your wallet the police come in because these guys call the police Stuart calls the police and the police say Cliff you beat up Alex you stole his wallet now let's go to Starbucks mhm well that's ridiculous moral outrage is appropriate why because Injustice is horrendous well the same people who object to that will say oh well God's just loving and forgiving oh no no no God in both the Old Testament and the New Testament is angry about evil

good gracious Jesus Took a whip of cords and drove the religious Hypocrites out of the temple and the bloodiest book in the Bible is not in the Old Testament it's in the New Testament the last book of the New Testament book of Revelation the blood flows like no other place in the Bible so the Bible's very consistent God has a righteous jealousy a righteous anger but he Lo he's a god of mercy and Grace and yes he will judge and Jesus said I'm going to be the one to judge you let's talk about that righteous

anger because I think righteous is the operative word there um you know if you were to if you were to beat me uph you would start attacking me and these fighting people called the police and the police showed up yep and said what are you doing uh but then it actually transpired that I was your slave and the Book of Exodus clearly states that if you beat up your slave as long as they get up after a few days you're not to be punished and they say oh well sorry to disturb you gentlemen and they

go to Starbucks MH right you see what I'm saying the righteous part is important here right the the commands that God is giving the things that he's angry about the things that he demands of the nation of Israel seem to run contrary to a lot of our moral intuitions now perhaps we can start by talking about the slavery thing right yes I understand that the word slavery is a promiscuous term that can mean lots of different things when you say slavery people immediately think of antibellum American South slavery right the kind of slavery that appears

in the Hebrew Bible is going to be very different and it's going to vary depending on what kind of slaves you're talking about there will be indentured servants there will be and also it's a different kind of society right where where people literally cannot survive acceptance of farus and being a servant of a house and there are rules about what you can do and what you can't do but it does seem at the very least that the Hebrew Bible we can perhaps begin with this as a premise uh does not condemn in principle the ownership

of other human beings as private property would you disagree with that yes so where the Hebrew Bible says things like you know if he gets up after a day or two he you're not to be the the slave owner is not to be punished because the slave is his property mhm and where he says um your male and female slaves may come from the Nations around you from them you may buy and sell slaves you may also purchase some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their Clan but you must not rule

over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly clearly here we're dealing with the ownership of other human beings of private property clearly God is legislating in such a way sometimes seeming is not to condemn it there and then and sometimes saying you may do this and I wonder if he's not at least implicit L condoning that what is he doing in those verses mm he's giving instruction not approval he's giving regulation not affirmation of it and the key to this is what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 19 when he's asked what about divorce right and Jesus points out

yeah divorce is wrong well then why did Moses say give your wife a certificate of divorce and send her on her way and Jesus says something fascinating he says Moses permitted this because your hearts were hard gets right back to the Book of Job we live in an unfair cursed messed up world and unfortunately if there's been adultery divorce is permissible before God but that is not the way it was from the beginning from Genesis 2:24 for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother be United to his wife and the two shall

become one flesh so remember those laws in the Old Testament are are instructions not approval regulations not endorsement I I have heard this response before right the idea is that there are two ways to look at this one is to say well actually God was perfectly okay with it but it just wasn't as bad as you think and one way is to say actually it is pretty bad but go not okay with it right for example in the book of Exodus where the the law of God says if you have a Hebrew slave he's to

go free after seven years um if he has a wife when he comes to you then the wife goes free too but if while he is your slave he takes a wife and has children the wife and children stay with you they don't get to go with him if however it says the man decides that he loves his wife and he loves his children and he loves his master you as if as if those three have to come together maybe maybe he just loves his wife and kids well he can stay with them but in

doing so he's taken somewhere he has his ear pierced like cattle and then he remains a slave for life in order that he can be with his wife and children now I understand the idea that maybe God for some reason couldn't abolish slavery maybe the society just couldn't do do without it whatever the reason may be it seems to me that it wouldn't have been too much to ask for God to say if he has a wife and children then when he goes free his wife and kids should go with him because I'm a God

who believes in the family I believe in marriage I believe in in sort of the proper upraising of children and so if you're going to let that man go it's a real priority that his wife and kids go with him but no instead for some reason that's that's not allowed so so in other words if it were just the case that we had a list of commands where God said listen if you're going to beat your slave then this is going to happen if that then then fine maybe he's trying to sort of ready us

for an abolitionist world but there are a lot of cases where he seems not to do that mhm so once again must read in context all right so you've got Genesis 1 God creates Us in His image male and female we all have equal dignity second greatest miracle in the Old Testament God frees the Hebrew slaves from Egypt Luke 4 first par first sermon of Jesus he almost loses his life because he communicates to Jews God loves Gentiles just as much as he does you Jews best known Parable Luke chap 10 parable of the Good

Samaritan Jesus makes a direct frontal attack on racism as he tells how a Samaritan gets down on his hands and knees and cleans out the cuts and bandages of the wounds of a Jew Galatians 3:28 in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free very clearly the first century Church of Jesus Christ was committed to slavery is unacceptable ah well that's interesting because well Cliff I I wonder if you know what you've just committed yourself to I didn't know that you were also a a woke gender abolitionist because I I often hear people

quote this this particular verse they say look I know that that God seemed to suggest that he was sort of maybe pro slavery but look we have it in the scripture there is neither slave nor free for we we're all one in Christ well it also says there's no male or female there's no male no female no slave no free no Jew no Gentile for we're all one in Jesus if we're supposed to interpret that as God condemning the Earthly practice of of slavery because there is no no slave and there is no master well

he also says there is no male and there is no female so is God also a gender abolitionist I would I would say I mean I don't want to guess your position I don't think you'd believe that if that's the case then the fact that God is saying that there's no male and although there's male and female on Earth of course in Christ we're all one even though there's male and female on Earth in Christ we're all one and so if we're going to interpret that that way I think we also have to say even

though of course on Earth there's you know slave and master of course but we're all one in Christ in other words I think this might be a reaffirmation of the Earthly practice of slavery well I would take it totally differently I would take it that uh Steven Carter who teaches at Yale law school black intellectual is absolutely correct when he points out the demographic that has the highest percentage of followers of Christ in the world is women of color MH and the demographic in the United States that has the highest percentage of followers Christ is

black women yeah women get it there is nobody who has elevated the position of women as much as Jesus Christ has and then when you keep on reading Paul you get to the letter of philimon and he's asking a slaveholder phiman to accept his runaway slave onesimus back no longer as a slave but as a brother in Christ so I think it's abundantly clear that God is totally against slavery and it's abundantly clear that God is against chauvinism and sexism and women being degraded by men ah and over 60% of atheists worldwide are white male

and just about every single humanist conference your round is all represented now that by white Western that's fun I've seen I've seen this before there was a great debate with uh with Tom Holland and AC gring where they're talking about whether you know Western Valley is are ultimately Christian and and there's this kind of slight might drop moment where I think Tom Holland points out that all of these humanist conferences all crop up in like Western Christian nations but then In fairness there is something to be said for the fact that that is where like

this response to Christianity is of course the response to Christianity that is humanism is going to crop up where Christianity is dominant right and so in so far sorry because the fumes it rides the fumes of Christianity Tom Holland would say sure so so Tom Holland would say that but but there's also a DE okay sure you know humanism crops up in Christian culture is that because humanism is ultimately Christian in nature secretly or is it just because it is a response to Christianity and so of course that's where it's going to crop up you

know um but like in particular that verse right where people say that this is God condemning slavery this is God condemning slavery there is neither male uh there is neither you know slave SL nor free when he then says there's neither male nor female how can we not interpret that in the same way that he's sort of like you know somehow condemning gender categories if that's what he's doing to slavery in that verse why is that not what he's doing to to gender in the in the same verse we'll just study the first century church

and the first century Society just watch the movie yentel Barbara strian plays a young lady who has to disguise herself as a man in order to get an education I I I completely agree which is that that's obviously not what God's doing but if that's not what God's doing in the gender case then I don't think it's what God's doing in the slavery case either so if it is the case well look at the early church obviously God is not you know condemning gender categories here well if he's saying there's neither male nor female and

yet in doing so not actually condemning this Earthly distinction then when he says there's neither slave nor free then he's not condemning that either I don't think Christ is I don't think Paul is writing there that there's no literal distinction between a male and a female in terms of gender I think he's attacking the sexism the chauvinism the minimalizing of women that was so ramp in that culture I mean women weren't allowed to get in education they weren't allowed to testify in court I mean they were viewed as scum of the earth and it was

tragic W allowed to speak in church yeah but then wait a second they also can't speak in church if they have their heads covered if they're prophesying right and Aquilla and Priscilla taught the great preacher Apollos so Priscilla who's obviously not a guy is teaching a man yeah and Paul is going Bravo Priscilla keep going yeah I was being a little cheeky there it's all right you know what I'm getting at right so so I mean let's let's talk about the position of women here um and like it's it it is interesting it's an interesting

fact that the the demographics of Faith here right but it is possible that that like a lot of Christian Believers might be actually quite surprised at what they learn when they read the New Testament even the New Testament especially when it comes to women I mean the the slavery stuff the genocide stuff that's all kind of the Old Testament God there he is again um but the women stuff crops up in the New Testament too so I was wondering if perhaps we could go through some of the most problematic verses as pertains to gender relations

in the New Testament and see what you have to think about them you're running it go for it let's do it yeah I guess this is my show this is my show but it's but it's your B it gets a bit complicated and it's an honor to be here yes it is with you it's a it's it's a it's a it's a privilege and I'm very grateful for your time and for for hosting us here as well it's um it's a pleasure um I think we should start perhaps with what I think is maybe the

most problematic because it's problematic on on various levels which is 1 Corinthians chapter 14 veres 34 to35 if you're following along at home women should be silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate as the law also says if there is something they want to learn let them ask their husbands at home for it is shameful for a woman to speak in church thoughts context worship Services have denigrated into shouting matches into total chaos why women are abusing the New Freedom that they have and Paul says stop it

also women are trying to teach and they've not gotten an education which is tragic because they weren't allowed to go to school but women who have an education are to teach that's why Priscilla talk the great teacher preacher Apollos so it's fascinating that Paul also writes there right there in 1 Corinthians when women pray and prophesy they're to have their heads covered well matter with you Paul are you schizophrenic don't you remember what you just said are you contradicting yourself no he's not he's addressing two different situations I believe there chaos and worship and as

a pastor I have to be careful that our worship Services don't deteriorate into chaos because we have some very emotionally charged people who uh can just rip the shreds out of a worship service with chaos and disorder and so no you're not going to speak at this time because of order but then women were allowed to pray and prophesy but before raising objections I don't know Stuart if you agree with that analysis if you have anything to add no that's where M mind goes not directly related to this passage but we have at minimum one

maybe two fascinating discourse between two ancient Roman emperors talking about a Christian disciple who's a female and mathus in the Greek is teacher and so they are scoffing over this this discourse of theirs that we have this ancient manuscript saying can you believe that Christians actually have females teaching and so whether that is discordant and contradictory to what's going on here I don't think so I I would add another interpretation of women should remain silent as you probably know contextually speaking even with other civilizations if you were to remain silent in a service like that

it meant you already knew what was being taught and those who were speeding up didn't quite know yet so I would agree with this if we were talking about first Timothy if we're talking about 1 Timothy 2:12 I think that this interpretation works very well it's all about context in fact just to just to read that verse because it's actually very similar um 1 Timothy 2:12 I suffer not a woman to teach nor to Asser authority over a man rather she should remain silent for Adam was formed first then Eve um and it was not

Adam who was just you know and so on and so forth so women shouldn't speak in churches this kind of thing now there's so much about that verse which I think you can apply this kind of um critical scholarship to you know the the the word for Authority I I suffer not a woman to teach nor to Asser authority over a man it's almost like the the the authority and the teaching sort of go together it's almost like by teaching assume Authority and particularly Authority that they don't have in fact the the words that Paul

uses there in the Greek I think it's authen I don't know how to pronounce it authen is this word for Authority which in other context tends to mean seizing Authority that you don't have that you shouldn't have and in fact Paul uses a different word to say Authority elsewhere so there's something very particular going on here you know women shouldn't speak or assume authority over men rather they should remain silent that is women shouldn't like take authority that they don't have and speak with that kind of thing right something a bit like what you're saying

there and also there's this idea that there were sort of these these these Cults of of feminine Divinity that were the C ofus had you know these these these women preachers and it may that Paul is writing to Ephesus here he's writing to a specific church and he's saying okay these women are taking Authority that they don't have to speak with knowledge that they that they that they don't have that they think they have and they shouldn't do that they should be quiet right fine that's Timothy the problem with the quote from First Corinthians is

that women should be silent in churches firstly we don't have this same thing with like the authority and what it just says women should be silent in churches they're not permitted to speak but should be subordinate as the law also says it's now a reference to their subordination under law which doesn't arise in Timothy also if there is something they want to learn let them ask their husbands at home if this was just a case of these incredibly knowledgeable women who were sort of speaking too much or maybe they had to remain silent because they

already knew what they were talking about why would Paul say if they have a question they should go and ask their husbands at home like it it seems like a much more Troublesome verse for it is shameful for women to speak in church like my solution to this MH I don't think Paul wrote these words especially given that like you say just a moment ago Paul has said that women should cover their hair when they prophesy firstly it's not necessarily the I I suppose you could prophesy outside of a church right like it does it's

not necessarily a contradiction you could say like somebody's prophesying out on the street and if you're going to do that cover your hair right that that it doesn't say to I don't think Paul would be contradicting himself just to say that women shouldn't speak in church because when he says that women should cover their head it's specifically when they prophesy it's not when they speak in church it's when they prophesy right but it does seem like maybe he's being a bit contradictory here also he's referencing the law they should be in submission as the law

also says which is a very like unpooling thing to do and Paul is all about like Christ and Grace and and the law is is is something and yet here this appeal is being made to the law um so he seems to contradict himself and he also seems to make a very unpo line you know assertion but also this is the only verse in any of Paul's letters which in our earliest manuscripts moves around in the manuscripts sometimes it's up here sometimes it's down here in in the earliest manuscripts and so this this weird thing

where and also if you read the text Paul is talking about like Paul is is speaking to the Corinthians about Corinthian matters and he's talking about other stuff and then suddenly out of nowhere is this verse women should be silent in the churches you know if they've got anything to ask they should go and ask it at home and then it's right back to talking about to the Corinthians on a completely different subject matter so it seems to me that Paul didn't write these words these words found their way into Paul's letter even though he

never actually wrote them and there's some interesting scholarship to suggest that that might be the case what seems to have possibly happened here is that a scribe who copying out Paul's letter sees him talking about like women prophesying and all of this kind of stuff and so he writes in the margin his own note like yeah but but women should remain silent it's a disgrace you know they should go home and ask their husbands and as these manuscripts get copied it finds its way into the text which is not a a an uncommon thing in

the ancient world for for that kind of thing to happen for something to find its way into the text like that that would also explain why it moves around it would also explain why it contradicts something he said a moment ago it also explain why it's not very pool line and the funny thing is he's probably saying because he's read it in Timothy even though arguably Paul didn't write the entire letter of Timothy right and so in other words my solution to this my my salvation of Paul here is just to say well he didn't

write those words and interestingly that allows me to absolve Paul I'm say no Paul is this this radical feminist he's he's he goes we're more rights than anyone else in the world but at the cost of undermining our belief in the in the scriptural legitimacy I mean given the fact that this first moves around and it's the only one that does so given the fact that it seems to contradict what he's just said given the fact that it's a very unpo line assertion don't you think there's you know some reason to think that maybe Paul

actually didn't write these words it's a very difficult question you raising and I appreciate it but I like what Mark Twain said Mark Twain said it's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that disturb me it's the parts of the Bible that I do understand that disturb me and to be honest with you I am I have a harder time with 1 Timothy 2 that you said did not present as big a problem to you but when you read that kind of literature you begin to understand some things are going on here that

I'm not sure I understand for instance at the end of 1 Timothy 2 he says women will be saved through childbearing yeah right oh my goodness what are you telling me Paul that women are going be saved by having babies no but obviously gnosticism taught the physical child brain children of the world is dirty and inferior and I think the Bible clearly teaches no the body is a beautiful gift from God so don't trivialize childbearing and think it's wrong also when he says Adam was formed first yes who gives a rip unless you're dealing with

pantheism which says mother earth that's what's really significant and if you're battling in Ephesus pantheism that says we worship planet Earth we worship nature and you're saying oh no no no no no no no no we don't worship nature we worship The God Who created nature that's very similar to the first commandment I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery out of the land of Egypt you're to have no other gods before me well why is he so fascinated about no other gods before me because of polytheism and I think Moses

is pointing out to the Jewish people we are not polytheists we don't believe in many gods dancing on the clouds we believe in one creator of Heaven and Earth so I think understanding the culture that is being addressed by these authors is very important be it Paul in 1 Corinthians Paul in 1 Timothy 2 or a lot of the Old Testament or or indeed whoever it was that actually wrote the book of Timothy um I I I I'm interested Christians have different views on how reliable the text should be in terms of like some Christians

are more comfortable with saying oh maybe Paul didn't write Ephesians maybe Paul probably definitely didn't write Timothy but he definitely wrote first Corinthians this kind of stuff but I do you think that Paul is the author of all of the Pauline texts that we have in the New Testament Canon I mean Paul in the canonical literature Paul warns against other letters being written in his name so we know that there are fraudulent pooline letters circulating how do you have a confidence that that Paul is the author of these letters especially given that sort of secular

biblical scholarship is highly suspicious to the extent that there are like the set agreed upon pooline and the more dubious suspicious ones I mean what is your confidence level in other words about the the pooline authorship of these letters my I mean my confidence in authorship is always just Li in the gospels because of what papus said and because there's no real reason why Matthew Mark Luke and John would have been picked I mean other than Luke I guess he was a doctor but why would they have been imp pict papus mentions it so it

makes a lot of sense it fits but Pauline I've just always accepted it because of church history and I've seen consistency down the line I have rarely very rarely been asked about the authorship behind his Epistles I mean Hebrews is the one book that a lot of Wonder was it Paul or a woman who wrote it and so so for me it's it's more so a matter of Paul gets charged for inventing a new type of Christianity yeah it's not so much the authorship that really matters have you heard theory on that no I haven't

yeah but I'm uh I'm very confident that those 27 New Testament books are the accurate Canon why because the tests that were used to determine canonicity or basically was it written by an eyewitness of Christ or someone who knew an eyewitness was it sticking to the Orthodox Christian faith and was it accepted by the worldwide Church you know from Rome Italy down around the Mediterranean to Alexandria Egypt and there was some debate about Shepherd of Hermes and other documents right but the Pauling Epistles and the gospels and eventually Hebrews James second thirr John even were

and 1 and second Peter and Jude and Revelation were accepted and it was a worldwide thing it was not some Council that had a little decision off in some cranny and some Catholic pope made an arbitrary decision no it was the worldwide Christian Community that used those three tests written by an eyewitness or by someone who knew an eyewitness stuck with the Orthodox Christian faith with obviously Gnostic Gospels did not and then uh was it accepted by that worldwide church was it Orthodox was it written by an eyewitness of course as Christians as well you

have the added benefit of this sort of guidance of the Holy Spirit right you're sort of able to say that God wouldn't allow uh non-canonical text to find their way into into the New Testament in this way but I think a lot a lot of people will be interested in that process I mean at the time of the formation of the New Testament Canon it already been hundreds of years since the authorship of these texts and so it's at least plausible that even the people debating And discussing you might have got something wrong especially given

that we're talking about 27 books here like in other words what I'm asking you is like your Credence level are are you willing to say I am certain I am certain that the books in the new test were written by who they claim to be written by are inspired by the Holy Spirit or would you say you know like I'm pretty sure 80% you know chances are maybe one of them is wrong I don't know which like where's your confidence level at I always come right up to the line of heresy on this one because

I I go right back to the evidence and you know bman himself said there's 15 you know non canonical extra biblical sources for the resurrection even which I was blown away by when I first heard that from bar in it was 15 and way more for the the gospels for example and and so for for me looking at something like that from a skeptic and atheist perspective means a ton for something like the resurrection and then you have at least seven sources within the Bible as sources for the resurrection itself now more pointedly to your

the reliability of the Bible and whether it's the Holy Spirit and what is inspiration look like what does inherency look like does it have to be infallible all these big terms I think we need to be really careful with them because even before a word of the Bible was penned standing in Rome in the Coliseum I'm standing there hearing from this tour guide who's a Christian explaining how 360,000 Christians were butchered to death in less than 100 years in this one single Coliseum for what they claimed to have seen or had a very close friend

who was an eyewitness of what occurred okay no no text had been written then and so yes do i do I take the Bible seriously as the word of God absolutely right but I I go I push back to before it now secondly we think of oral tradition and so telephone whistling down the hall you have Legends growing after 200 years so you look at the apocryph example Apocrypha definitely there there's some Legend going on there even though we can mine some wisdom from the Apocrypha so you have clearly different sources footnotes within scripture and

it was when the eyewitnesses were dying off getting older that's why Paul can say in 1 Corinthians 15 3-8 consult those who have not fallen asleep those who have not died and so he's saying go check them out go talk to them and we have all these sources throughout the New Testament why are they named it's written like CS Lewis your boy talks about it's written as non-fiction not fiction so you can discount it but don't discount it as fiction like everybody likes to do oh sure sure discount it as nonfiction yeah the genre of

like an epistle it's an epistle it's a letter like the only way that something like a letter of Paul could be untrue would be either like in the sense of it's moral message or something or in the sense that it's fraudulently you know attributed to Paul and Paul didn't actually write it um you know I'm not a Biblical scholar I don't really know what what the latest literature says but I I think it's from my understanding when I speak to people it's very sort of widely accepted that at least for example it's more likely that

Paul didn't WR Timothy than that he wrote first Corinthians like no one disputes First Corinthians for example like is there any room um I I don't think you like biblical fundamentalists in the sense of taking everything literally and not thinking there can be poetry and this kind of stuff we handle snakes occasionally sure but but I until one bit I imagine um scientists were really close to that yeah yeah know it was like um although although if you were being biblical literalist about snakes you'd have to believe that I suppose that they once had feet

or Wings right because God punishes the serpent by like saying on his belly then what does this being look like before the fool got this sort of like monstrous looking thing um but yeah I I wouldn't you know if we were talking about Genesis if I was talking about that story and I said well look you know do you really believe that there was a talking snake you could say look Alex it's the wrong genre I'm not going to say that that's wrong or that it was like falsely included you're you're just like misunderstanding what

it's about with something like Paul's Epistles I don't think you can do that in the same way and so is there any room for for you to say like maybe like these texts are wrong some some of them aren actually part of the New Testament Cannon like or or or would that like would that shake your faith to the extent that if I could if I could prove that you know Jesus never rose from the dead you can no longer be a Christian but if I proved to you that say all of Paul's letters were

were forged were were fraudulent um you know would that be like a big problem to you because it seems like the only thing that can really affect is your trust in the biblical Cannon which is not the word of God because the word of God is not the Bible the word of God is Jesus and so like how how how much wiggle room is there for somebody for secular biblical scholar to come in and say hey man you know Ephesians not if someone were to come along and show me that Paul wrote none of the

paulan Epistles yeah that would be a big hit to my faith but I can promise you Alex just because Greek manuscripts we got over 5,800 of the New Testament have certain lines of Paul in different areas in a chapter I feel that is very small not a real problem not a real problem at all see I like to be a skeptic but I don't respect hypers skepticism sure I want to be a skeptic regarding you regarding him regarding everybody I don't want to blindly gullibly believe but hypers skepticism isolates me because it prevents me from

ever trusting you well the same thing with God the same thing with Christ yes I'm skeptical but to be a hypers skeptic means I'm going to get stuck in always questioning the motive always questioning did this really happen because I can't prove anything the question for me as a thinking person is what is most reasonable in light of the evidence what is most plausible in the light of the evidence now one of my heroes is a woman who teaches at MIT her name is rosin Picard she was a very intelligent little girl she felt she

was too smart for God so she was an atheist but in high school she had a friend who was highly intelligent very athletic and he was a follower of Christ and so she began to begin to wonder wow what's happening here then she went to college and she built a friendship with a family that went to church and she didn't want to go to church but they encouraged her to read the Bible for herself she didn't want to but eventually she got around to reading Proverbs and the gospels and all of a sudden she realized

this makes a ton of sense this is real wisdom in Proverbs and wow the attractiveness of Jesus Christ is overwhelming and eventually after reading for a while she came to the spot where she said Lord I hand my life over to you I want you to be the Lord of my life and it's like a whole new dimension is the way she puts it opened up for her and she began to see a beauty in life and experience a joy in life that she had never known before and now she continues as a very talented

professor at MIT as a woman of deep profound Faith so I think that there is real power in the scriptures that God speaks through the scriptures and I think as you and I had just talked about Alex it's important that we read them for ourselves and not read a little verse and then dismiss it as ridiculous but really read the scriptures read them in context and then make our own decision does the evidence of way he lived taught died and rose from the dead point to the reliability of Christ or does it not and this

is where I really see a lot of embarrassment I I am genuinely embarrassed for some of these big atheists we've debated over the past year they will talk about all the terrible atrocities the moral monster of the Old Testament and then I will push them and they will totally tune out or just roll their eyes and and just like almost get offset when I bring up Genesis chapter 12 where you have Abraham and God and they strike this big Covenant and if you were to break the Covenant God says then you are to be like

the pieces of these shredded animals and so you're thinking Abraham is going to walk down he's the human right obviously he would be the one to break it so he's going to walk down and basically it's saying you're going to be cursed if you break the Covenant and you're going to be like these animals but instead it's God who walks down okay that's that's the cross right there because obviously it's going to be Abraham as well as mankind who breaks the promise and yet it's God walking down between these cut animals just shredded animals saying

I will take the blood for you I will take this great hit for you then you go to habach and another doubter who says God I I thought you were from Eternal to Eternal he's just bashing God and God allows it I read the Psalms every single night and I just hear David saying how long oh Lord Death is my only friend and God you are completely silent bash the baby's heads on rocks all of this crazy language that God allows and understands from a man who's speaking so desperately whose son is trying to get

him whose boss is trying to kill him who Maybe huge mistakes of adultery and murder and yet God calls him the man after my own heart or rewind a little bit to Hagar the slave girl who is the outcast she's sent out after Sarah is so jealous of her and she's the first to name God F very first one Hagar says the God who sees and so you have endless amounts of examples of Grace and love throughout the Old Testament but all these celebrity atheist types never want to acknowledge not even one and so it

gets back to exactly what you're just saying right now it's biblical illiteracy is so extremely high it's scary especially amongst more secular but also Christians and when that occurs and the biblical narrative is not actually fleshed out say like a Robert alter fleshes it out but you don't even need a alter is the top Jewish commentator you can just read it yourself yeah when that's not done then it's just the microbytes yeah and that's what we formed here this Narrative of a moral monster or the Bible is a joke and it's just the Bible tells

me so and that's the only reason why you guys actually believe it what how do you do you see grace in the Old Testament does this you asked us the question I'm just wondering oh yeah well well look I mean for clarity I'm way less familiar with the Old Testament than I am with the new and and unfortunately as a product of what I do for a living most of my familiarity with the Old Testament comes in the form of these difficult verses which you you read on a website somewhere and you go oh God

support slavery and then you hear a Christian saying actually did you know that's not the case it's the and then you go and so suddenly I'm like I know everything about all of the all of the the Contemporary laws of the time of all the surrounding cultures and I know exactly what's happening in this narrative and that narrative but but that's for some reason where the focus went so I'm I'm going to be biased for that reason but I mean um I don't know about Grace the thing is the Bible being a a library there

are so many different genres of texts and so many different sort of impressions of this character of God that you get I mean what is God in the Psalms it's kind of like a an object of devotion and and a person of somebody to sort of shout cry out to or to sing praises to or something is he's he's not really a character in the book so much as he's like he's like Shakespeare's lover you know he's the person that's being written about but in a kind of sort of celebratory way um there are others

where where he's really a character in the text there others he doesn't really seem to sort of exist as a character at all like in Ecclesiastes he's not really a character in that book he sort of mentioned but he's not like in he's not in there doing stuff you know and so I don't know so it's much more difficult to get a grasp of of God's character in a lot of these texts but when it comes to those instances where God is actually intervening he is saying here I am here's what I say here are

my laws I must say that the the impression I get of God is is not one of of love and charity in Grace but one of anger and wrath and maybe that's rightful anger and wrath but the problem is that when I look at what he's angry about what it is that he's commanding I find it difficult to square that and that's the same thing that happened to marcian we mentioned nosism earlier my listeners will know that I'm fascinated by the history of nosism and a lot of Christians get very upset when I even bring

it up they they they think I'm getting like obsessed with narcissism for some reason it's really it's really interesting actually like how people um I've I've been talking about it so much that I watch people reacting to my content and being like ah he's talking about narcissism again but it's fascinating is a historical project when marthan develops what is the first New Testament Cannon ever the first attemp MH he reads the Old Testament he reads the New Testament he writes a book which we now don't have anymore the antitheses we don't have the text anymore

but we know what he talks about where he lists comparisons between the Old Testament God and Jesus and their behaviors and the way that they uh respond to certain circumstances and his conclusion is that this is not the same God this is not the the god of Jesus and so the Old Testament gets excluded from the cannon the earliest it's not sorry the New Testament Canon it's the earliest biblical Cannon the earliest Christian biblical Cannon excludes the Old Testament entirely like and I think he was pretty literate in the text like I don't think that

this trouble with the Old Testament character of God can just be a problem of biblical illiteracy of course it can sometimes be but I think that there are many people who read the Bible cover to cover and think who is this guy who is this man who is this God I me what kind of God could could behave in this way you know and so I don't think it's just that in other words um and I don't like I don't come away from the Old Testament with that as my overriding picture of who this God

is I mean what when you read the New Testament and you read Jesus you're doing word association you know Jesus what word comes to mind probably love maybe you would say forgiveness Grace something like that but it' be one of these kinds of words right I would get through a whole lot more words if you ask me about Yahweh I mean even even like if if if you're being honest with me if I say Yahweh and I use the term Yahweh what comes to mind for me it's something more pointed and sharp and angry and

serious and stormy than Jesus which is much more sort of soft and loving and what not I wonder if you even if you sort of would end up sort of talking yourself out of it do you have that same initial gut reaction when you hear the name Yahweh is it one that inspires fear more than love I understand totally what you're saying Alex I mean it's it's it's very reasonable but what is also interesting is that Jesus had John the Baptist come first mhm whoa you talk about a Hellfire Brimstone guy that dude was intense

why on Earth do we have John the Baptist with his Hellfire preceding Jesus you know is it is it an accurate revelation of God that God is Holy and just and angry about evil and God is also loving and merciful and forgiving and gracious and I think that's what both the Old and New Testaments insist and I think as Stuart was pointing out there's a tremendous amount of Grace in the New Testament I mean gosh Alex there could not be a clearer revelation of God's love than the book of Hosea from my perspective I mean

the dude is married to a woman Goomer she plays The Prostitute he's holding his first kid and all of a sudden he realizes I ain't the daddy second kid I'm not the daddy third kid I'm not the daddy and then her lovers bring her down to the slave market to sell her to the highest bidder and Hosea goes down to the slave market and barters against other men to buy back his wife and then on the way home he's saying okay you're no longer going to play play The Prostitute you're going to be my faithful

wife and God is saying to Hosea do you know the pain that you've experienced over your wife's sexual unfaithfulness well that's similar to the pain that I experienced because human beings have created to live in relationship with me have turned their backs on me and gone their own way I mean I don't know how you could get more desperately caught up in the Amazing Love and commitment and forgiveness of God than the book of hoseah in the Old Testament of all places sure and and our culture today wants to talk about God in a way

where it's whoever you created God to be typically in your own image so for me a redheaded 6'2 white male who likes to play basketball similar to you and so so there's something called moral therapeutic deism have you heard of this terminology before therapeutic deism no I don't think so so moral therapeutic deism is basically I won't flush the whole thing out just the therapeutic side is what Americans love which is God is my therapist and so even if I do bad things it's that whole unconditional positive regard where you want to divorce your wife

Alex you go right ahead no fault divorce whatever it might be go right ahead I'm just it's about your freedom your pleasure and so that's what God is now it's a higher power and it's whoever you make God to be I would agree in the sense of yes God in human form in the New Testament makes a lot more sense we can connect to him more but remember Jesus talks more about hell than all the other writers combined and also back to the Old Testament though you do have his attributes there you know you talked

about how he came in an earthquake so earthquake wind fire with Elijah but then he came in a still Small Voice to connect with him because he was depressed and really disillusioned about a lot of things and he kind of played a cognitive behavioral therapist saying know there are many many 4,000 prophets Still Alive Now suck it up and get up Elijah after he gave him some food through an angel so you have different depictions but the Psalms every single night I'm Blown Away by the comprehensive characteristics that you have of God because I can

forget them he can forget them we're pastors and we do this thing on University campuses we can still forget it is so easy to forget characteristics so in the Psalms talks about he is a judge he's all loving he's omniscient omnipotent unconditionally gracious with us and so it brings all these different pieces of the puzzle into this beautiful puzzle in terms of understanding and knowing who God is and yes to your point still my mind connects with Jesus Christ as a historical figure who actually was a human being that had flesh but I still in

the Old Testament there though you still especially compared to any culture that I know of you have such a clear depiction of who Yahweh is Adonai is and and that's who we can really Conn connect with if we if we have a healthy prayer life and and scripture reading and yes the Holy Spirit actually even connects with us and the Holy Spirit is something that so many people in the US talk about all the time but they just call it Spirit everybody says they're spiritual in some kind of way but then you say holy spirit

holy now you're again you're calling me to something higher something where I can't just decide what to do on my own any old time and I don't like that do you think that this Grace this omnipotence this love and charity of the Old Testament God is expressed in the instances where he commands the complete obliteration of entire nations of people including the women and the children and even the animals uh in multiple at multiple points throughout the history of the uh Israelites trying to conquer their Holy Land which is promised them by God such that

if anybody is already living there they're driven out and if they refused to leave they're chased out and they're killed and then they come back and they kill the women and the children um do you think that this is the same graceful loving God that's issuing these commands no instead I think we've got to read very carefully first point do I allow God to to judge in my culture that's unacceptable and yet the Bible insists God does have the right to judge second point is exaggeration being used is hyperbole being used in a lot of

those passages yes it is because clearly obviously many of those people who were supposedly all wiped out appear in the next book so you know that they weren't all wiped out thirdly you look at the archaeological evidence for Jericho and I and you begin to realize those were probably smaller fortresses yes Rahab was in there as a prostitute but those were not just families and and women and children those were fortresses that were protecting the families that lived out in the countryside around them next point is I think that there is not the emphasis on

individualism in the Old Testament that we have in our culture Y and yet the more we struggle with through children of Alcoholics and realize that there are real consequences that stretch down through the generations and I think the Old Testament does present a picture that we are more interconnected than we as American individualists would like to admit and when God judges a people group yes some innocent people are swept along in the judgment and that bugs me I don't like that and yet that is part of I think what the Bible is talking about when

it says we're created in the image of God meaning that we do have free will which means there are consequences to my decisions that affect my children that that affect my grandchildren we're more interconnected than we would like to admit so no those children are not being punished for anything they did wrong but yes they're born into a cursed messed up world and there are consequences to that I mean I benefited from going to Davidson College and a lot of people sacrificed to put Davidson together you benefited from going to Oxford University and there are

a lot of people who have over many years given sacrificially to build that so there are real consequences that stretch down through the generations of our decision ISS and also the Bible never says that those children and all those people go to Eternity separate from God I'm convinced that we will see those children in heaven if they were killed before an age of accountability so the justice of God will ultimately Triumph yeah but do I have problems with the text yes of course I have problems with the text I don't understand it exactly I don't

understand what God is doing exactly there why he says that kind of thing but I'm also convinced that hyperbole is being used and I think that's a very important thing for instance when I was in high school we used to say we're going to kill yeah the opposing team that we're going to play that weekend not meaning we're literally going to kill him and and the whole idea of in the Hebrew herum Hem of clearing out these people from the promised land the whole idea that God had given them 400 over 400 years to repent

and they had chosen not to and now God clears them out you know I I think it's a complex issue more complex than and the person would allow it to be who just says I just can't believe that God would do something like that like what what kind of instruction had these people been given you know like the people of I the people of Jericho the Canaanites I mean did they have you Jewish prophets coming to them and saying you should repent of your way or were they just sort of expected to work it out

on their own fascinating question I'm not sure I do not know obviously they have consciences we all have consciences yeah and when you study uh ethics from around the world it's amazing that the same are all like reading off the same sheet music and there's there's more and more research coming out too on just how bad these people groups sure right right I'm seeing more of this child sacrifice can exactly it just gets worse every year like how bad is it gonna get and so but the second one have you wrestled with this being a

really culturally conditioned question oh absolutely viers the Chinese don't don't struggle with this one yeah I've talked to people of other cultures and I brought it up and been like that's totally fine that God judges in that kind of way it's so much worse CU it's it's not just like culturally relative like I'm I'm a moral anti-realist I don't believe in moral values right so like you know what could I possibly be be meaning here but I don't wrestle with it because my my job here isn't to say that this is wrong my job is

to say something like what Lincoln said of slavery if if uh if this isn't wrong then nothing is wrong you know if there is such a thing as objective morality I find it very I mean look we just condemned the Canaanites in part for you know they were killing children well that's exactly what God ordered the Israelites to do when they came into their nation and and we say okay well these people were sinful idolatrous and they should have repented well the same is true of the Israelites they were sinful they were idolatrous and yet

they had the benefit of having the prophet of God come to them with literal stone tablets telling them what to do and even then it took them a few tries to get right the Canaanites didn't have that mhm And yet when the Israelites are sinful they get a prophet who comes and sets them straight when the Canaanites are sinful they get obliterated they get exterminated they get chased out just the same way the Israelites were at first the hands of the Assyrians and then the Babylonians true but it was wrong for the Assyrians to do

that it was wrong for the Babylonians to do that yeah but the Old Testament insists that that was part of God's judgment on the Israelites for them doing the child sacrifice Temple prostitution idolatry God you know so it's not it's God it gets often it gets back to does God have the right to judge yes he judged the can but then remember a few hundred years later he judged the Jews first at the hands of the Assyrians and then the Babylonians so I I wanted to talk about the hyperbole thing right because maybe we're not

talking about killing everybody maybe or obviously not because they in the next book to to but okay so for example uh in the destruction of I um 12,000 people fell that day all the people of I that's what's said uh in the Book of Joshua now maybe all the people of eye is like an exaggeration but 12,000 people it's pretty specific it'd be a weird thing to be doing as hyperboy right we have a number of people 12,000 people we know it's men we know it's women we know it's children are slaughtered we know that

that's not hyperbole we know that thousands of men were killed we know that it I should I should qu I don't want to get this wrong perhaps we should um look at the text yeah so in um in Joshua chapter 8 when Israel had finished killing all of the men of eye in the fields and in the wilderness where they had chased them and when every one of them had been put to the sword all of the Israelites returned to I and killed those who were in it 12,000 people fell that day 12,000 men and

women fell that day all the people of I so we know that women are being killed non-combatants being killed we know that there are thousands of them we also know that there were people who had left they'd run into the Wilderness they were out of the promised land but the Israelites chased after them and then killed them in the Wilderness and it says all of them were put to the sword maybe that's an exaggeration maybe that some of them ran away maybe all of the ones that they captured were put to the sword but some

of them managed to actually run away and those are the people who show up in the next chapter but it's only because you know for want of trying that they managed to survive but maybe it is just hyperbole but we know that 12,000 people were killed we know that the Israelites then turned around after killing the fleeing combatants came back into the City and killed who left well who's left the women the children the disabled so even if there's some some hyperbole being involved here in terms of the the complete destruction maybe it's not a

genocide but it certainly still seems to be the kind of military practice which if done today would see you know condemnation and and a lot more from you the United Nations um in 1 Samuel um there's this again I I should read the text to to be sure and I do have it have it written down um this is the destruction of the amalekites god issues the command now go attack the amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them do not spare them put to the death men and women children and infants cattle and

sheep camels and donkeys of course this can't be literal because it's not just the camels and sheeps and the donkeys oh but you can leave the you know you can leave the pigs or whatever true Sur this is sort of like slightly rhetorical language but it's very clear like leave alive nothing that breathe kill the men kill the women kill the kill the animals kill the cattle and in fact when Saul decides at the end of the battle to keep alive the king take him as a hostage and also keeps alive some of the animals

to sacrifice to to to slaughter as a sacrifice to God what happens he's condemned and and and God says well the scripture says that God regretted that he made Saul King he regretted that he made Soul King because he didn't follow his command what command didn't he he follow that after wiping out the amalekites he refused to also kill all of the animals and he kept the king alive as a hostage and that was enough for God to say I regret that I ever made Soul King because he didn't follow my commands and so I

understand that there may be some hyperbole involved here but in the case where Saul is punished specifically not for killing all of the animals it's hard for me to imagine like how much scope there is for hyperbole here in terms of um you undermining the criticism that we are talking about the slaughter of innocent people here mhm it shows the importance and just how clear God wants to make it that Israelites are to be set apart and a holy people and so whether it's an ant or a soldier all the way down we see with

sinful human beings just how easy it is for them to slip into prostitution but more so getting a herum more so whatever this might be and slip into assimilation of some sort with other civilizations and so God has to act in this kind of way however extreme it seems to show them whether it's Ain later on in Acts chapter 5 for example the Temptation and how quick this happens it's such a slippery slope where God is saying here's the line and we have to do away with any level of Temptation you talked about Temptation earlier

we know how easy is it to fall pry Temptation This is another thing with University students and old people all they want to talk about is Temptation and how easy it is to fall typically into like porn addiction and these kinds of things M very similar to what's going on there in terms of you have to kill off any and everything that's going to cause Temptation because you are God's holy chosen people okay well whoa isn't that really ethnocentric does isn't that a big issue still I don't see that in my mind because I believe

what's going on in the Old Testament with the Israelite people is probably the most exclusive inclusivity you could ever imagine which is God is this God of the Israelites who holy people who are not supposed to mix at all even with an animal with people of another civilization so that's how exclusive they are but how inclusive in the sense of they're a light to all the nations and eventually it's going to come through the Son of God Jesus Christ who is literally Samaritan child woman all the oppressed people groups and zakus like we talked about

earlier Luke chapter 19 and secondar tree who ATT tax are prob very wealthy so it's a light to All Nations and that separateness that word holy and righteousness he takes so seriously and so extreme I wish it wasn't that extreme but it Stacks up to me it also Mak sense seeing how powerful human Temptation really is and how hard it is to restrain yourself do do you believe that to be clear do do you believe that innocent children were killed by Israelites on the command of God it's a historical fact I I believe that innocent

children were killed by Israeli bombs and they happen to be Palestinians part of Hamas maybe or Hezbollah I believe that there are consequences to human decisions that stretch down through the generations and then impact a lot of innocent people and I think we're a little naive if we think that we can go into Iraq or fight a desert storm and no innocent people are going to be killed um it's it's one of the tragedies of War which is a result of the sinful human heart but suppose you know the Israeli government said leave alive nothing

that breathes kill kill the soldiers but then once you've done that turn around go back kill the women kill the children kill their animals because this land is yours mm I think that people would would would wouldn't be satisfied yep on falling back on the defense hey this is the consequence of War this is what happens I think people would say okay but the fundamental rule of just War which I'm told is sort of stems out of the Christian tradition is you know proportionate response and and yes and I agree with you okay but here

but here's another problem God told Abraham to take Isaac up on Mount Mariah and sacrifice his son now if someone interprets that as being God's laying down wise principles for good parenting they're an idiot sure yeah that is not what Genesis chapter 2 is communicating God gave Abraham a very specific command and it was not to give an example of wise parenting it was Abraham who's number one in your heart is it going to be God or is it going to be your son who you going to build your future on your son or me

similarly what Israel does there in the Old Testament is not examples of just War Theory no it is unique example of God using a theocracy and we don't live in a theocracy have a theocracy in Israel now we're definitely not a theocracy in the United States or in UK God using a theocracy to carve out a land that he brings then Messiah into that's a one-time deed because you're absolutely right it is not an example of just war no way MH I recoil at that as you do I'm sure yeah because of course the difference

in this case is that you have the orders from the top the top man it's sort of if there is some extraordinary circumstance in which this kind of otherwise morally condemn Behavior can be justified you better have the authority to know that you're making the right decision and in this case you know the Christian will be able to say that they did have that Authority but I mean it's it's a struggle you know yes it is we're talking about the intentional killing of non-combatant children here we're talk and and I read this text as a

land dispute I read in Deuteronomy where God gives in instructions when you march uh up onto a city to attack it like in in in the in the broad sense um when you march up to attack a city make its people an offer of peace if they accept and open their Gates all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you some peace if they refuse to make peace and engage you in battle which you know isn't entirely unreasonable given what the terms of Peace are lay waste lay siege

that City when the Lord your God delivers it into your hand put to the the sword all the men in it as for the women the children and the livestock and everything else in the city you may take these as plunder for yourselves and you may use the plunder the Lord gives you from your enemies this is how you are to treat the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the Nations nearby women and children being described as plunder plunder that can be used because God has given them to

you as plunder but of course those are the people who you're attacking not because they're in the promised land and it's just well it's look we gave them a chance to leave what are we supposed to do this is God's chosen no these are these are other cities because it goes on however in the cities of the Nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance do not leave alive anything that breathes completely destroy them the Hittites amorites the Canaanites and list you know the jbit as the Lord your God has commanded you

otherwise they will teach you to follow all detestable things that they do in worshiping their gods and you will sin against the Lord your God so clearly what you're saying about them being these detestable characters and God is issuing his judgment must be true here because it's saying that otherwise if you don't destroy them completely you know they will they will teach you their ways you will fall into sin but this idea of you know marching up to a city and even if they accept you they're going to become you know your your indentured servants

and if they don't then you may take the women and children as plunder and you may use the plunder the Lord gives you but of course if you're marching into a city of one of the Nations that you've been promised by God oh then don't leave Al anything that breathes kill all of the children kill all of the women I mean I the difference there in other words about like the the people in the inherited lands and the people outside of it tells me that the the explanation for why these people need to be completely

and utterly destroyed is because this is our land you know we want this land seems to be and when I when I read about somebody intentionally driving out or killing nations of people so that they can sort of essentially ethnically cleanse a land I don't know what else to call that other than a genocide but it's still eventually the point is to welcome them in it's not like they're going to sit in the land flowing of milk and honey forever and again be God's chosen people and that's it so that's one secondly we're reading this

again from our 21st century judeo-christian lens so your outrage and indignation over this is entirely Christian that's why the Bible is self- critiquing which I love about it thirdly putting to the sword even women and children as messed up as that sounds many would say that that was actually more gracious in that time period than other civilizations who rape they're get raped the rest of their lives right and just horrific things that are unimaginable to us so that's another really important thing to remember and then I lastly the one you got to wrestle with is

okay so in an ancient near Eastern culture you're looking for God to act in a very Humane kind of way all right to what extent and what extent does free will come into play as well not just not just the evil heart of humankind but how exactly do you want to play God because I want to play God too in those passages but what does that look like what specifically does that look like I'm interested in in whether you think that the Bible is self-critical specifically on on this point that is like the Israelite treatment

of the of the Canaanites but before I just I'll ask you a question that I asked William Lane Craig I'm interested in your response which is suppose you woke up tomorrow and you were a Canaanite you you just sort of had woke up in someone else's body you traveled back in time you're a Canaanite now you live in that Community you're surrounded by Temptations and you're a sinful man you give in some of them then the Israelites come marching in and start attacking you they start trying to kill you and your family would you fight

back yes I'd probably fight back I would try to defend myself and defend my family would you be wrong to do that suppose probably not suppose that you go back now and you retain the knowledge you have you think it's very strange that I just woken up in the body of a Canaanite but I remember I remember where I was I remember doing that podcast with Alex and No One Believes you they don't even know what a podcast is what a glorious time to be alive um and and you know where you are you recognize

it you're like I've been put here this is a test God is testing me somehow I don't know what's what's going on but I'm I'm a Canaanite now and the the armies of of Moses are coming towards you and you know that they're the Israelites you know that they've got God on their side do you still fight back well I think the problem with your use of the word genocide or ethnic cleansing is that a few hundred years later the god used first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians to punish the Jews for their immorality

so this is not just a land squabble that we're reading about the Old Testament we're reading about a God who is a judge judges the Canaanites the Hittites the amorites and then a few hundred years later he judges the Jews and they're swept into captivity and that was the Judgment of God according to the Hebrew prophets that was the Judgment of God would you accept that judgment I mean and especially if you were transported back with your family and you know you know for a fact that okay I'm now Canaanite I'm a sinful man you

know maybe maybe I have the strength to say Okay God is issuing his judgment on me I'll repent in my last moments I'll let that Soldier put me to the sword as God has commanded and hopefully I'll be showing the grace of God but would you be willing to say oh yeah my my my child my 2-year-old child yeah sure yeah no this is what God wants this is what's going to happen you know like it seems to me an absurd request to make of somebody of course they couldn't do that and yet we're painting

these these Canaanites as these terrible immoral people maybe they were but like I I struggle to think that even if that were the case that the right thing to do is to just sort of accept the Judgment of God and say okay yeah that's my child mhm there's in fact I'll I'll Point them out to you you know they're hiding in the room upstairs because I know that it's the will of God that for some reason you know they all be killed I know that for some reason even the children even the innocent children of

God for some reason that I'll never understand wants them to be put to the sword and so I tell you what Mr M kite don't kill me yet because I'm first going to betray my family and tell you where they all are CU I know that's the will of God you know I think it would it would be an insane Prospect to even that that would be insane it's also kind of difficult to think about Jesus Christ bleeding and dying on a cross to make atonement for human sin that's kind of repugnant in one sense

MH so there are a lot of things when it comes to dealing with a problem of sin and the Judgment of God that are very difficult my God my God why have you forsaken me I mean is is that really necessary why can't just God wave a wand and say you're all forgiven why is the cross so necessary is that not morally repugnant in some ways well in some ways I think it is morally repugnant and yet that is how God brings Justice and mercy together there at the cross and so yes God is a

God who judges and I have a problem with his judgment often I don't like it and I struggle with the Old Testament Wars I struggle with the cross in terms of Jesus absorbing the hit from my sin and at times I'm like Jesus in the guard of Gethsemane father if it's possible take this cup from me and why shouldn't it be possible so there you know there are a lot of deep questions that I don't have easy answers for but I think that job who we started off with is quite an example though he slay

me yet will I trusted him I don't understand why he judges the way he does why he allows certain things to happen exactly the way they happen I don't understand exactly why Christ had to sacrifice his life on a cross that was an incredibly painful experience obviously and yet I am committed to Justice being a real value that flows from the character of God and the way God dispenses Justice is really often outside my understanding at this point um and why when it comes to valuing these children and these women if you were back in

that day and age you wouldn't be asking that question you wouldn't be struggling with that you would say oh women children have no no value that's fine if they get put to the sword or if they get plundered in any kind of way you if there is no God and if if thank heaven during the Roman empire being created in the image of God like Luke F The Atheist talked about swept across the known world and changed the value of every single human being which was totally foreign to every other civilization but if you look

at those children if you look at those women at that time period of course put them to the sword they no ultimate value it's I mean I'm not a historian but my my understanding is that you know the traditional idea of men going to war and women saying at home it's like men go to protect their Homeland to protect their wives to protect their children that's that that's what it is that they're protecting it's the men who are the you know Expendable ones because they're the ones that the state says okay we must protect our

nation so we're going to take all of our men and we're going to send them out and they they they could all die but we're going to do that to implying that the thing that needs protecting the thing valuable are the women and the children that stay at home and you know the buildings and the culture whatever and it's the men who are expendable yeah send send them out you know Canon fodder and and they'll get killed and so you know I struggle to believe that even as an ancient person I I I think in

other words if somebody bursts into my home almost any point in history the expectation of the culture that I found myself in at random would be that I throw myself in front of my wife and children you know because I'm the man at the house I wouldn't say oh goodness some of us is some someone's going to die here let me grab my wife and my child and use them as Shields because they have no value but you wouldn't do it for somebody of a different kind well I probably wouldn't I mean maybe I would

jump in front of a stranger I'd be why during that time period would you do that well I'd be as likely to do that I think as as I think somebody would today because people people did do that um but but particularly with women I mean but from your position when it comes to the value of a human being from your worldview sure why why would you do that oh I I I I mean I don't know like why would I do that so my point was larger than your good point it was it's just

a value question because this this is another reason why it gets back to your very initial question to us before we started yeah meaning value what is this hole that so many people in the US are all of a sudden feeling it seems and a big part of it is value I ascribe value to you if I so desire if you're going to help me climb the lad in some kind of way I'll ascribe more value to you otherwise you're just in my way yeah and we see this time and time again yeah and so

from a Christian lens and world view we're looking back on the Old Testament yet again and we're saying value value value but during that time period if you're telling us to become Canaanites during that time period well we're not we're not looking ultimately at women and children as valuable even if the man perhaps yes lays down the life for the children yet again we have to figure out we have to get to the point of saying okay where did this value for human beings come from where did the value for animals come from why do

they have value objectively and I've never heard a fulfilling response to that one from a secularist oh sure or an atheist perhaps or yeah you could be you could be a religious secularist right yeah yeah right and then they might they might think that everyone's made in the image of God but we shouldn't you know embody that Spirit into the you know institution of government here's an analogy that helps me mhm airplane goes down M five people swimming in the water life raft that can only fit four M how do you make the decision mhm

which one you're going to allow to drown and which four you're going to put in the life raft and so a professor stands in front of his class and says come on guys give me an answer yeah all right and everybody squirms well are we going to let the cheerleader go in because she's really pretty we're going to let this very intelligent one number one of the class go in because he's very intelligent we can let the Superstar athlete go in there and and then I guess the little no body just drowns and so you

see the professor says see it's it's it's all just relative no it's not all just relative Professor the reason that we're having a real problem right now the reason we're confronted by an ethical dilemma right now Professor is because we really understand human value if humans were not valuable it really wouldn't matter which for you put in the rif raft and which one you let drown it's all just chance and they're all we're all just glorified Apes so how would you make that decision suppose it's the other way around suppose that there five people in

the boat and it's sinking yeah all five are going to die someone's got to get thrown out because no one's volunteering you know in a way you might say well I just wouldn't be willing to do that so I'll just let the boat sink but then you're self-sacrificing so you may as well just jump out the boat yourself oh maybe maybe that would be your answer maybe it' be like well I'll jump out of the boat then but you know how would you go about trying to make that decision suppose you're not in the decision

you've got to dictate the terms of the decision making I mean have like anything to say for a situation like that I sure would not saying that I would do it right but I hope that I would sacrifice my life and jump out and let the other four live that's what Christ calls me to do okay suppose your but no guarantees obviously I'm not claiming to be some super sacrificial guy suppose you're like super glue to the boat right you you can't jump out it's not possible right but you you know you're you're Cliff you're

the you're the you're the intellectual guy with the YouTube channel like people listen to you you you get to make the decision and it's going down and no one's volunteering I mean you're going to die anyway you're super GL to the thing right so but you don't you don't want to save yourself you just you just know that everyone's going to die if you don't throw someone out or do you say all right everybody I think we should all take one for the team here right is that probably what you'd say I I would try

and exercise leadership but but remember now the whole reason we're facing an ethical dilemma is because we believe that there is a God who created people in His image who loves them people are valuable therefore we just can't discard in person but if there is no God it's all a cosmic crap Sho so would that mean then in that situation you would be forced into one of those sort of counterintuitive but but ultimately maybe sensible scenarios where you say look if no one's volunteering then the boat goes down and all five of us die because

we're not utilitarians here we're not like oh there are many situations where you've let reason yeah is that how you would approach a situation like that you would say that because it's wrong to for someone over the side of the boat all five of us are going to die now would that be probably your response to that might be I can promise you Alex in that situation I really don't know what I would do sure I'm fascinated by these kinds of cases I mean we test our intuitions it's like you know the ticking Time Bomb

case for torture people who think that torture is totally immoral say well what if a bomb was about to go off in Manhattan I like to I like to um adapt this for my Catholic friends when it comes to the institution of confession you this is this is really interesting idea because the the Catholic confessional is sacred it's not like when you go to therapy and they say this is confidential unless of course you say anything that's going to put someone in danger it's like no this is confidential like there's no I'm not allowed to

say anything and so someone comes in and says father um I've just I've just poisoned The Chalice with which you know Father David out there is about to serve Mass do you say something and I think for the Catholic they they are committed to the view of saying actually no the priest would have to let that happen because otherwise it would require breaking the Seal of the confessional mhm I mean even if you sort of burst out of the room and you run over there and you knock over say no one drink it right you've

given away information that you've obviously just learned in confessional which is also not allowed I mean maybe there'd be a way of doing it and I I've talked to my Catholic friends about this especially priests and people who are training to be priest you know what would you do here and and they're like well maybe I would find a way to sort of go and take the wine and swap it out and make it look like I'm doing something else and well what if they asked you I said why are you doing that you going

to lie you not allowed to lie either like what are you what are you going to do you know but there's there's a similar circumstance there of like you know what if what if the person says father I've just planted a bomb in Manhattan and it's about to go off and of course the Catholic priest will probably say well as part of your Penance um 10 hell Maries two our fathers and a call to the NPD with the exact location and how to how to disarm the bomb but suppose the person halfway through the confession

sort of goes and I regret this I regret this and they sort of run away you know I think a Catholic is committed to this counterintuitive position saying as weird as it seems the right thing to do here because we have our principle and a principal's only principle when it's tested is that yeah we let that bomb go off now we can take umage with that because we could say that maybe the Catholic confessional is is is wrong for that reason um and but in this case maybe that's a more reasonable example maybe maybe that

is just what you do you let them sink um but I don't know what a hundred people a thousand people well 100 what if it's five people in a boat and there are two children or two babies in the boat you know and someone's got to go overboard otherwise everyone drowns including the babies is it is it still just like well okay you know we'll just we'll just let it sink or is it like actually you know Eeny Meeny money off your pop you know and I'm not necessarily asking what you would do here because

of course moral strength is different thing but what should you do here is there not a scenario where you would say look you know someone's got to go overboard it let's just do a raffle let's make it as Fair as possibly can be but whatever comes up you're off the boat okay maybe a ra but if you start choosing that is that is such a slippery slope it's scary yeah but that's the problem right is that but then but then the other scary alternative is that you let those five babies in the boat just drown

right but yet again you know this was this type of worldview that you're espousing in the indignation you have here was not set by the Greeks was not set by the Romans was not set by AC gring it was not set by any of these guys this this came directly out of the Christian world view where all of a sudden you're having such a you're such you're so focused in such a razor sharp kind of way on the value of each and every individual in there when so clearly the Greeks would have said oh get

the women out first oh obviously get the babies out first let them all drown and the menal stay in here totally noral as the Christian would have said just uh well God's obviously judging us somehow putting us in this butt in first place why don't we just exterminate them all incling oh what about your pet dog at home well somebody better stay alive we better save somebody so they can go back and kill everyone else who's left he left at home I don't know um I don't know look I I think I I I I

almost want to sort of end here because this is very full circle I think we've covered a lot of grounds but I did want to ask about one more thing which is something that's been mentioned a couple of times we mentioned at the beginning which is this concept of forgiveness this concept of Jesus it's a bit of a it's a bit of a uh well it's not a segue um but I really wanted to ask you this while you're here the concept of forgiveness in Christianity is I think so beautiful right I I know so

many people who think well this is a disgusting idea how could you forgive somebody for for doing this or doing that you know but I think gosh like if if Jeffrey Dharma at the end of his life is genuine in his repentance and request for forgiveness it's there something amazingly real assuring about the fact that if he can be forgiven then so can I and also people I think people don't consider the seriousness with which it would um hit you to repent of Jeffrey dharma's sins right there's that Meme of uh that Family Guy meme

of Osama bin Laden they sort of burst into the compound hold him at gunpoint and he goes uh uh I accept my Jesus as my Lord and Savior and then he gets shot and he gets into heaven he's it's like as long as you just sort of oh you can just do whatever you want as long as you say sorry you know it's not as long as you say sorry it's as long as you are sorry imagine waking up tomorrow and finding yourself responsible for Jeffrey dharma's crimes imagine you just somehow it was like a

drunken night out or something you you don't know but you wake up tomorrow and you find yourself responsible for murder and dismemberment all kinds of horrible crimes that you know are too revolting to to specify how would you feel it wouldn't be like a oh sorry I guess I'm fine now like to be actually sorry for that would be like an unfathomable you know uh feeling right which which is a kind of punishment that I can't even imagine of course the legal system still needs to exist because you you can never be sure if somebody

actually thinks that or if they're just feeling that but of course God knows and the fact that everybody has that chance to to be forgiven There's Something Beautiful about it but there is also something really troubling about it that you can sort of you can sort of get away with that you know you you can do that and the fact that you're a Jeffrey Dharma figure and and if his repentance was sincere at the end of his life he's in heaven right now but like I don't know name name any sort of good I don't

know like Steve irn you know like say this guy I don't know if he was a maybe he was a Christian I actually don't know but suppose he's not right he's just like a nice guy he loves animals he does his thing he lives his life he's a happy guy treats his wife and kids really well and then he gets killed by Stingray but oh well he didn't repent of his sins and so he's in hell is that a problem for you rewind the tape on Jeffrey dmer for a second he was interviewed while he

was in his jail cell right after he did all those crimes and he said oh the reason why I did this is because I live in a Godless Society where there is no moral obligation and so I could live out my desires any old way I want to and so I killed an eight killed an eight okay I don't he didn't need to plead for Insanity that that was too beautifully logically put so if there is no God Jeffrey dmer understood I can do whatever I want he live that out y so starting there is

that the better alternative because I think he's being very consistent in his worldview and then yes if I woke up as a mental health counselor I I do believe there was probably some mental health issues going on if I woke up and all of a sudden I I had done this but that's the freakish thing about Grace when Jesus calls us to forgive 70 * 7 an endless number first hated that when I heard that I was a little kid because I didn't want to forgive my brothers for everything now I love it because I

want somebody to forgive me that often well that's the thing is that probably at that age you hadn't been in need of much forgiveness yourself oh yes I had wellbe I got all the spankings behind the garage you know that was me yeah no no so so I so the freakish thing is you know it goes black since we started with slavery it goes right back to the black church the black church and the Amish have understood it better than anybody I've seen in the last 10 years and that was when the Amish Church got

shot up and it was all those little kids who were homeschooled and the guy who shot him up shot him up because his wife couldn't get pregnant I believe or he lost a daughter in in still birth and they said that week we're going to take care of your wife because you're going to jail obviously for life we're going to have her into our Bible study and we're going to feed her and give her a roof over her head that it was a knee-jerk Act of forgiveness and then you go to the black church the

A&E church if you remember in South Carolina got get shot up by that racist white boy executioner style in church on a Wednesday night their response and if you see interviews of even the kids kids there most of them were College age immediately sobbing but saying of course I forgive knee-jerk like out of the heart it wasn't like I'm going to kill this kid and for they also stated we want him to come to our next Bible study that week and then you have another example of a black guy who was wrongfully shot by a

racist white cop Botham Jean I don't know if you remember that story where his brother gives his testimony after he is shot and she is being tried in the courtroom he asks the judge can I give her a hug he's just completely sobbing walks across the courtroom gives her a hug she completely breaks down and states in his testimony I forgive you because of what Jesus has done for me how he's forgiven me yes how much he loves me the god of the universe loves me so my natural instinct is to love you and the

change that you saw that white racist officer I don't know if she put her faith in Christ I'm not sure but it's the historic black church who who've been completely shredded to Pieces by Injustice their entire antibellum throughout and how they're trying to figure out early on do I forgive my white racist slave owner who is saying slaves obey your masters Through the Bible are they getting this wrong or right down to I'm still being treated in a racist kind of way even now no matter how woke the culture might sound there is racism still

out there and yet that shows the historicity of this freakish nature of forgiveness that comes only through the Cross of Christ and how it is the biggest apologetic in my mind for Christians in this day and age because everybody just wants Justice everybody just wants you offend me once I'm done with you everybody just wants oh you're part of that tribe over there well you wronged my ancestors I'm done with you there's something attractive about Grace where I want a second I want a third chance and I actually potentially want to be reconciled with you

but how do I do this outside of the Cross of Christ mat Dante said to me um on one of our debates he said Stuart forgiveness is an interesting thing but shouldn't you just do it for yourself kind of that's my atheistic worldview do it for your own kind of emotional well-being and I said Matt that's a great Point yes that's one of one of the reasons why you forgive but no I believe Christ calls us to forgive in such a way where we pour out love to people who are completely different from us whether

that be religion politically an alienated family member who really Did You Wrong whatever it might be because that pulls together family society and the world so forgive is not just a selfish thing but it goes way beyond that reaches beyond that so everybody wants it I don't think Jeffrey dmer when Kira nightly for example says oh it's so easy to be a Christian all you have to do is say I'm sorry after you did something wrong and then you just go live like hell obviously that's taking part in cheap Grace which Bon Hofer called out

so many of the churches for during Nazi Germany called him out said no what genuine faith is you come to know Christ you're going to keep messing up but you genuinely respond asking for his grace and forgiveness and that changes yeah you don't say sorry you are sorry those are two very different things CS Lewis said I forgive the unforgivable in others because God has forgiven the unforgivable in me and well he has a way with words um of course we're talking here about forgiveness of humans by humans we're talking about and I think these

stories are beautiful I've seen I on social media recently some kind of convict I don't know what he he'd done um but victim family members sort of getting up on the stand and one of them says you're going to rod in hell and that's where you belong and the hurt you've caused blah blah blah all this kind of stuff right understandably of course just and there's this one man who gets up afterwards and he says something like you've made it very difficult for me to act in accordance with what I believe is true you made

it incredibly difficult but I know what my God tells me to do and I forgive you and it's the only thing that anybody said that seems to make the convict actually emotionally respond you know it's almost as if in that moment he kind of gets what he's done wrong it's it's very easy to I don't know if um if I if I've done something wrong if I sort of upset a friend or done something a bit sort of dodgy and they sort of say like hey man you you shouldn't have done that I'm like oh

I mean I I didn't oh it's kind it's kind of fine oh I did it for this reason you sort of having a bit of a spat whatever whereas if if they just sort of say like you know it's all right like I don't mind then you're like oh man I shouldn't have done that man like I'm so sorry and it sort of brings something out of you so you know to be um crude and reductionistic that might be part of the reason why our desire for this kind of this kind of situation evolutionarily evolves

a lot of people have a problem with saying that like okay fine well if you want to forgive that man man you go ahead if somebody like kills your wife and you forgive them in court fine but God does not have the right to do that on my behalf if somebody wrongs me I'm the one who gets to forgive them not even just for my sake but because I'm the one that's wronged here God doesn't get to do that for me you know there are some people who say I don't want to forgive the person

who has wronged to me and maybe they should whatever but they they don't right and that's their prerogative right if you're in a secular context especially if someone says well I I don't forgive them you say well that's your choice to make you have the freedom to forgive them or not but if you say to them but it doesn't matter because God's forgiven them anyway and say well hold on I'm the one who was wronged here this is me right and especially give I okay well maybe we should start there I I know God is

the creator of the universe Etc but does that sort of automatically give him the right to forgive people for the sins that they've committed in part against other people I mean you might want to say well every sin is a sin against God right d says yeah it's a sin against two people you know it's it's a it's a it's an a front to two people it's an a front to God and it's an a front to the person so maybe God can sort of half forgive them but surely for that full forgiveness there needs

to be some you know free uh deliverance from the from the person who's actually wronged there right so I think forgiveness is crazy and stupid I have never heard of a purpose for giving a shark for for eating up a porpose friend we live in a dog eat dog world we don't live in a dog forgive dog world right but if there is a God at the center of the cosmos who is just and also forgiving then all of a sudden forgiveness makes sense especially when you think about how important relationships are and although I've

been a very nice guy so far with you Alex and I think I have been I just think I've been totally awesome with you you don't won't have to stick around me too long before I will hurt you be mean to you be self-absorbed offend you and the relationship will take a hit and in order for a relationship to grow and deepen in order for marriage to grow and deepen in order for a family to grow and deepen in order for real friendship to grow and deepen friendship forgiveness is going to have to take place

because we're not perfect and we hurt each other now if there's a God at the center of the be at the center of the universe who really does forgive and if God has really forgiven us then we have no option but to forgive others and to say but wait a second you have no right God to forgive that person for hurting my son what I'm doing is I'm being trapped in arrogance what do I mean God you have no right it's not me who gives God rights God is God I'm not God in the same

way when I look back and say you know if I was God I would have create a better world where there wasn't so much evil and suffering well excuse me you're not God you don't have that power you don't you're not in that position so I think we go down a path of Pride hubris arrogance when we start saying well God doesn't have that right to forgive someone when they hurt me God's going to hold everybody responsible and there are punishments for all of us and all of us are going to be judged but God's

grace is very real and very operative when Jesus was dying on the cross two thieves were hunging to the side and the first Thief turned to Jesus and said come on boy from Nazareth save our backsides and then we'll believe in you second criminal looks at the first criminal and says you idiot we bleed and die here CU we deserve it but this Jesus he's the innocent holy pure Son of God and that second criminal looks into Jesus's face and says Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom and right there it's right on

the table Jesus could have said whoa whoa time out get off the cross 12 hell mares work in a soup kitchen and if you do a good enough job maybe you'll make it no Jesus didn't say that instead he said I tell you the truth today you'll be with me in Paradise that is Grace undeserved generosity that is forgiveness and that is what is at the heart of the universe and the challenge for me as a follower of Christ is not to overcome evil with evil but to overcome evil with good and part of the

big battle of overcoming evil with good is to forgive does it trouble you that Jeffrey Dharma might be in heaven Steve Irwin might not be because it's it's beautiful it's beautiful the fact that that that like you say it's I crazy and stupid and and generous I mean I mean this this this forgiveness this fact despite what you've done like you don't need to go and do your hell Maries I I I forgive you but then when you place it in this context right it becomes sort of difficult to swallow right yeah I don't think

it's beautiful and you know why I don't think it's beautiful because I'm no Jeffrey dmer I a great guy I mean Alex I tried to convince you that I don't think I've done one thing against you since we met 5 hours ago mhm I've been morally morally perfect the problem is Alex I'm not this morally perfect person that I wish you would believe that I am I've got a real Sin problem and I need forgiveness I would need it from you and our if our relationship would grow and I definitely need it from Jesus Christ

Christianity says Jesus says it doesn't matter what you've done it doesn't matter who you are doesn't matter how bad it was if you repent of your sin I'll forgive you but Lord I killed my own child so okay repent and I'll forgive you but Lord I did this but Lord I did that you know but Lord I li to my partner it's okay repent and I will forgive you and it doesn't matter how long ago it was all you have to do is repent and you'll be welcomed into the kingdom of God until you die

it's like oh but Lord I died yesterday oh well you're dead oh well then the game's up tough luck right you you you'll be forgiven of anything you like but if you die unrepentant you're not making it into the kingdom of God this this unconditional forgiveness on grounds of repentance seems to sort of time out at the point of death now death is quite significant but why would it be that someone who died yesterday confronted with you know whatever it might be eternal torment Eternal separation from God and decides actually I don't know about this

at least in a lot of traditional Christian teachings it's too late for them why why doesn't this sort of un this um unadulterated willingness to forgive extend beyond the grave which means whoever tells you that it doesn't matter how you live he smoking something I don't want to smoke because what Jesus points out is it matters desperately how you live it matters desperately what decisions you make in life because the decisions that you make in this life have eternal ramifications but why does that generosity end at death but I mean as Christians you believe that

that you you you're not really a body you have a body right you are you're a soul there's an immaterial component to you you are you and when you die and your body decomposes there will still still be a you that will exist it will get a new body whatever your eschatology is fine and so it's it's it's like you're still there you're still a sinner and maybe you're still you decide that you're repentant but something about the fact that you've gone through this transition from Material life to you know immaterial existence suddenly forgiveness is

just no longer on offer it's like the door just slams this this generosity this beauty this Grace it just vanishes and espe when you consider the fact I mean suppose that I next week am going to have a religious conversion I'm going to have some kind of conversation or perhaps this conversation maybe you're going to say something at the end of this conversation I'm going to going to go home I'm going to think you know what they were right and I'm going to convert to Christianity and I'm going to repent of my sins and I'm

going to be entered into the kingdom of God but you presumably also believe that humans have libertarian Free Will that's one of the reasons why evil exists in the first place is that people are free to do what they like and God cannot control them which means that any one of crew here could walk over right now take a big blunt object whack me over the head and murder me if they were to do that right now I would not go to the kingdom of heaven and yet if they hadn't done that and an hour

later somebody had done it instead then I get into heaven and that's just because of somebody else's decision to do it now rather than later right in other words the person who dictates there whether I get to go to heaven or I have to go to hell it's not God it's not me but seemingly is the person who decides whether or not to whack me over the head with a blunt object it seems almost arbitrary I mean death is very significant for an atheist but for a Christian death is just one thing that happens to

you it seems very arbitrary that this beautiful story of forgiveness and Grace and charity and Beauty just stops when you die especially when you consider that your death is out of your hands you don't get to choose when that happens and somebody else can bring that on prematurely for you and it doesn't matter what you would have done in the future now you're condemned to an eternity in hell if the universe was religiously ambiguous I think you'd have a point because God has made his EV his existence so clear because Jesus has communicated his love

so clearly and so deeply we don't have an ex a good excuse for rejecting him right now and yet it's still the case I mean maybe well okay maybe yeah I I deserve to go to hell because I've rejected Christ but the message of Christianity is that everybody deserves to go to hell even those who've accepted Jesus they just repent and they accept the grace right mhm but does does it does it seem a bit arbitrary that like if I accept that Grace 5 minutes from now I get to go to heaven and let's say

that that is set inide like that's what I'm going to do in five minutes I'm going to repent I just literally haven't had the time to think about it because I'm I'm too busy thinking about the words that are coming out my mouth in this particular sentence but the very next bit of mental energy will be spent on repenting and yet just before I get there someone comes and kills me well now I go to hell may maybe I deserve to go to hell but I deserve to go to hell 5 minutes later and 10

minutes later anyway it's just that because I didn't get killed by that random person just as chance would have it I've managed to get to a point of repentance and now I get to go to heaven but aren aren't you seeing here what you're setting up you're setting up Hinduism secularism atheism all the other religions here on one side because I'm hearing deserved language I'm hearing if I don't repent language so it's all about up to me if I do this that and the other then don't I deserve to go to heaven and if I

don't do it don't I deserve to go to hell versus the Christian faith is the only faith that says it actually has nothing to do with you deserving anything because you cannot deserve it on your you God owes us nothing and we cannot create ourselves and we cannot give ourselves eternal life it has to be something from the outside that we are saying there's nothing like AA talks about there's nothing in and of myself that I can do to save myself from this alcoholism it has to be God and so my whole point would be

I don't think with a Jeffrey dmer first off I think he's probably seared his conscience the exposure I've had with inmates usually that type has totally seared their conscience it takes a while for them to get to know Christ and have radical change which is why I think part of the death penalty is so sad because some who have changed after 15 years who are genuine lifechangers now they're going to get put to death for me though it gets at the character of Christ and that this whole Christian thing is just a matter of the

heart and I think you know that you have a self that you have a heart and I think you know you are attracted to beauty and I think you know that the narrative that you are most attracted to and so are all Europeans and Americans and how the Christian faith is spread all over the world how it's not remained in just one spot says something about how worldwide we find the beauty in good triumphing over evil out of their being a protagonist and antagonist and how ultimately the leader of the entire story is the best

most beautiful person imaginable who actually sacrif Aces for us even Harry Potter who Christians hate Harry Potter but even Harry Potter is fully Christian in every kind of way and so for me that's the whole piece I think you need to look at doeski and I'm sure you have Do's life when he became a Christian I I believe that the longest road like everybody says is from the head to the heart and that was the longest road definitely for doski he's probably the best author ever and he walked in randomly to a church one day

and he looked at a cross for hours straight and all of a sudden this understanding of love and forgiveness and it wasn't up to whether I converted repentant was repentant one minute before I died or anything like that it was fully God dying on the cross for me and he could not resist that beauty and that's why he became a a Christian DOI went on to write to a friend if I discovered that all of the facts lay outside of Christ I would sooner throw myself in with Christ and reject the facts and throw myself

in with the facts and reject Christ and I suppose depending on who you're talking to that can either be a cardinal virtue or a cardinal Vice um I understand what you're saying of course I'm imagining okay now I'm the killer right and suppose that I know so suppose there's like a friend of mine who's very impressionable and I know that he's going to go to church next week he's been invited and I just know that he's going to be talked into it I know that he's he's going to think this makes sense he's right on

the brink that's all he needs and he's going to convert to Christianity so I decide to kill him because I'm a malicious person you know and I decide to kill him now specifically because I know that if I kill him now he's going to go to hell whereas if I kill him next week he's going to go to heaven so I kill him today knowing that he hasn't repented yet so that I can send him to hell can I really believe that I live in a theological Universe where I have that power I have the

ability to dictate that he goes to hell instead of Heaven because I've made that decision to kill him and I've done it on purpose I find it difficult to believe that a good God would oversee that kind of possibility at all and some people say to me well that's because God knows that he was going to repent and that's what is is is of course yeah you're killing him primat but God knows that he would have repented next week and therefore you know he still gets to go to heaven because God knows what would have

happened you know in that case what's the point in this veil of Tears in the first place if God knows what you're going to do anyway what's the point in the life what's the point in the test what's the point in the freedom right but like framed in those terms I I'm not even sure exactly what the problem is that I'm putting forward I I couldn't quite put it into like a a but you understand the the criticism I'm making here of this picture that it seems like I have this power to send somebody to

Hell MH right now mhm instead of heaven and I get to make that decision on their behalf that seems crazy you bet it is cuz you don't you don't have the ability to send anybody to Heaven you don't have the ability to send anybody to hell because look at the scenario you're setting up you're setting up I know that if he goes to church he's going to accept Christ so I'm going to him before he goes to church you don't know that mhm you don't know who's going to accept Christ and who's not going to

accept Christ that's a decision between them and Christ secondly God is all knowing god is fair God is good and I think that's really what this issue gets down to is God fair is God going to judge justly or is God going to rip somebody off because they got killed before murdered before they went to church and the answer to that is no nobody's going to hell because they got murdered before they went to church nobody cuz God is all knowing he's fair and he's just even if I went back in time in a time

machine I know I know that this person has repented you can't go back in a time machine yeah I think that's also probably true um okay final thing on forgiveness here Jesus says that every sin will be forgiven or can be forgiven except one M blasphemy of the holy spirit that is the sin which will never be forgiven now Jesus says this I mean our earlier Source will be Mark chapter 3 speaking to the Pharisees M and the Pharisees accuse Jesus of being demonic they say that the reason he's able to cast out demons of

people is because he is a demon himself he is Satan whatever it is and Jesus says how can this be the case A House Divided cannot stand you know if if I'm a demon I can't be casting out demons then then he goes on to say that all sins can be forgiven but blasphemy of the holy spirit will not and cannot be forgiven MH I provide the context there because I'm told that it's quite important this is enough to send a shiver down your spine Jesus saying if you do this thing you will not be

forgiven I've heard stories of Christians who sort of are up at night in cold sweat thinking have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit when I made that joke at Christmas about bringing in The Holy Spirits was that oh my God you know M what is blaspheming the Holy Spirit and why is it Unforgivable mhm blaspheming the Holy Spirit I would relate to Romans chapter 1 when Paul talks about how eventually God gave them over to their own desires so blasphemy of the holy spirit is not I'm driving down the Merit and all of a sudden I

get into this incredible road rage and I curse at somebody or I curse at God and that those the last words on my lips and I die in this road rage so it's a sin I'm committing at the end of my life so obviously it's going to send me to hell no has nothing to do with that blasphemy of the holy spirit is deciding on my own my own valion it's like pharaoh to be honest that's another example of hardening my own heart and then eventually God hardens my heart so it's I'm going to live

any old way I want to Romans chapter 1 and then God gives me over to my own desires and so it's it's not a specific act it's instead it's grieving the Holy Spirit living in line with the flesh not the spirit because if you're living in line with the genuine Spirit you're growing out of the fruits of the spirit Galatians 5:22 love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentl self-control in a Botanical kind of way it's always shown as fruit so you're supposed to be growing in these areas so blasphemy against the holy spirit is

the only unforgivable sin is back to your original question can I just ask for forgiveness at the end of my life and God you'll just grant me my wish to go into heaven Kiran nightly live any old way you want and it's so easy for Christians because then at the end of their lives they can just say God forgive me no Kira I love Pirates of the Caribbean but no Kira that's completely wrong blasphemy of the holy spirit is God I'm playing a dirty trick with you I think you'll forgive me no matter what so

I'm going to live any old kind of way that I want and then eventually God gives you over to those desires now the the thing that really strikes me about this is unforgivable like forgive foress is something that is done retrospectively for something that's already been done and now regretted and apologized for so I understand the idea that like there are people who become so consumed with their own desires that their hearts are hardened MH that maybe for some reason God then like reinforces that by extra hardening their heart or whatever like locking it in

somehow as if to say that I mean what does it mean for it to be unforgivable it means that if that person does that they live that way I mean suppose I've been thinking to myself like well I'm not sure if I should really be living this way but I'm sure that one day I'll have a religious experience and I can know I'm sure God will forgive me and it'll be okay I'm starting to live like that right I'm starting to do that and then one day I what was I thinking this is this is

this is terrible I I I should never have done that I'm really sorry about it well tough luck you can't be forgiven you don't have to worry about that blasphemy against the holy spirit means I have played so many games with God that I've reached the point where my heart is so hard I never hear the voice of God I am not sorry for the wrong that I've done therefore the only people who blasphemed the Holy Spirit are those who could give a rip they're totally unconcerned because they're totally dead towards God in their Spirit

Pharaoh six times Harden his heart then we read the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart well you take the first six times out and you're thinking what the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart what does that mean no Pharaoh hardened his heart and I can do that we all can do that but if a person has any desire at all to say Lord forgive me of course the Lord forgives them it's only those who have no desire to ask for forgiveness who have possibly committed that sin so so why does God then Harden the Farah's Heart Right his heart

he's already hardening his heart why is it that God does this extra thing I'm now going to harden your heart as if like the imagery I'm getting that if this is indeed what something like blaspheming the holy spirit is and becomes the unforgivable sin it's almost like God himself is like locking that in it's like well Pharaoh's been hardening his heart he's been you know rejecting God's advances and so God says okay I'm going to grab you by a hold of the heart and I'm going to sort of switch off this possibility for you as

if God is like doing that to Pharaoh right no he's not doing that to Pharaoh it's it's more a statement that Pharaoh you have hardened your heart so much that you are now shutting yourself off from me no the offer of Christ the offer of God for forgiveness is always open to every single human being and there are countless illustrations of the grace of God working with some of the biggest wretches on Earth so we don't have to worry about that but is it impossible in principle for somebody to have once blasphemed the Holy Spirit

and then regret it yeah that's that's not going to happen because when you blashe the Holy Spirit you don't have the ability to repent you don't have the ability to be sensitive towards God cuz you are are so hardened so separated from God there's no hope for you that that sort of seems to make it worse to me it's like oh whatever I may have done because this the thing is that that you might say well well look you're you hardened your heart you did this you turned yourself away from and so so now you're

in a state where you can't even possibly come to repentance and I would say but that seems a little unfair you know so well it's your fault you did it but the whole point of Christianity is that like well yeah you did this yeah you did that you did that for years but I'm still going to forgive you as long as you regret it but telling me that there's something a person can do that makes it such that it is literally impossible for them even to want to repent you know let alone being forgiven for

it that that seems like really difficult to square with the with the sort of eternally forgiving God you know like we're talking about something that's unforgivable when you say well if somebody dies in a state where their where their heart is hardened to God that's true of any sin if you die in in sin without repentance you know you're not going to be entered into the you're not going to enter into the kingdom of heaven to say that this is unforgivable and you're you're telling me now something like well they've done something to the extent

that now it does not matter what they do they will never be able to repent it's a full lifestyle though just like in Matthew 25 when Jesus is talking about the sheep and the goats he's saying I never knew you depart from me uh I never knew you depart from me the Pharisees shiny on the outside with the cup yep but completely rotten on the inside their father's the devil okay that's blasphemy as the Holy Spirit where it's a hypocritical hypocritical lifestyle all lifelong but there's no way that those Pharisees could ever have snapped out

of it and been like I don't know what I was thinking I was wrong I regret it I'm sorry Lord no Jesus wouldn't forgive them we may disagree on this point but Pharaoh I think God judges Pharaoh I think it was Pharaoh's Free Will at first but then I think judgment came and thank heaven it came Pharaoh is a nasty brutish guy was he not so so Judgment Day I'm looking forward to because I think I think judgment needs to happen um at the same time I'm not looking forward to it because I realize I've

done wrong but so so for me it's yes God eventually judges but I I think you keep taking blaspheming as the holy spirit is like a one-time thing because you you started off this way you started off making it sound like you're at a Christmas party and all of a sudden you said the wrong thing against the Holy Spirit you're going to hell well that's radically different from what we're talking about we know it's not that right but but I think there are things that can do I mean all kinds of you could be in

a in an adulterous Affair for 10 years it's something you do over 10 years and then on you know the very next day you could suddenly realize it was wrong suddenly repent of it and if as long as you're genuine you're forgiven M but you're telling me that there's something people can do not asking for forgiveness but like that's I mean you don't if if I steal your wallet and you say Cliff I offer to forgive you and I say forgive me for what I I haven't done anything wrong oh no Cliff you stole my

wallet well so what yeah so so then I say that what you're doing there is unforgivable right I I'm not going to forgive you for what you're doing right now and so then tomorrow when you come to me and say you know yesterday when I was sort of like refusing to even acknowledge I I I'm I was wrong I'm sorry about that and say hey man I already told you I'm not forgiving you for that Christ will always forgive the person who is repentant blasphemy against the holy spirit is an unrepentant hardened heart there's no

need there there's no understanding of my need for for forgiveness and once you get into that state there's no possibility for Redemption correct so like I mean what are you imagining like how old is a person in this day like how long does it take what do they have to do you know we don't have the faintest idea because who those people are or what they've done we don't know that's between them and God I find that so so difficult like it it's sure it's difficult unforgivable cuz they're not asking for forgiveness correct you cannot

be forgiven unless you ask for forgiveness you humble yourself it's unforgivable to not ask for forgiveness the the problem is there's sort of two levels here right there's like there's not asking for forgiveness which of course you can't be forgiven if you don't ask for forgiveness but we're saying here now it's not you can't be forgiven if you don't ask for forgiveness it's you can't be forgiven for the state of not asking for forgiveness if not asking if blaspheming the holy spirit is something like not asking for forgiveness to say that blasphemy of the holy

spirit is unforgivable is not to say that when you blaspheme the Holy Spirit you know you like you you're not going like okay you're not being forgiven right now because you're not apologizing it's one thing to say you're not being forgiven for not apologizing it's another thing to say that you will not be forgiven like full stop ever for the fact that right now you're Unforgiven you see what I'm saying the only person who's committed that sin could care less God is irrelevant God is not part of the equation my sin is not part of

the equation I'm totally shut off it's a lifestyle not a one-time thing right cuz it sounds like you keep taking it back to a one-time thing but we're saying it's a full lifestyle sure age of accountability you bring in 12 years old so after 12 maybe but it's the sheep and the goats Matthew 25 I understand it's a terrifying passage we've had some students come to us crying I I get it we need safe spaces for them but I think for us it's a matter of what are your motives when I am sitting in an

Uber with an Hindu going to a temple with a Hindu and sitting in an Uber with a Muslim I hear very similar things when it comes to I have to do X Y and Z to get out of this cast in order to get out of a certain cycle I have to do X Y and Z for my heart to be lighter than a feather to get to Paradise it's all me me me I have to do these things versus I'm doing these things but what is my true motive motives don't matter here with these

two it's just you have to do good things here it's a heart motive in the sense of who am I doing it for why am I doing it God am I genuine in my relationship with you am I genuinely loving you am I genuinely loving others or is this simply just a a sick game or it's a hypocritical lifestyle and I think we all know let's be real I think we all know when we're living in a hypocritical kind of way and the answer is if you if you do that for long enough then you

just enter into a state where now for the rest of your life no matter what you do no not no matter what you do if you repent you'll be forgiven but these people can't repent right because they blasphemed the holy spirit it's impossible for them to repent they have so hardened their hearts that they have no interest in repenting if you have a slight interest in repenting Christ will forgive you do you think it's possible to be in a state where you have no interest in Repentance for 10 years and then in the 11th year

regain it somehow good sure that happens to many people yeah so they those people didn't blashe the holy spirit for 10 years and they were Sinners but they chose to repent and that's that's well that's a thief on the cross the thief on the cross just remember him yeah I mean I must admit it's one of the most theological theologically troubling things I mean there's there's troubling and then there's troubling right like I find the Old Testament passages troubling I could tell they kind of they kind of or gave it away can't be you know

I'm oh this seems immoral this seems wrong right uh but maybe it fits in maybe maybe that was just fine maybe whatever you know um the women verses I find those challenging yeah but maybe you know maybe women shouldn't speak in church maybe that's just true fine but with this the blasphemy of the holy spirit it's not just difficult because I think it's like oh that's really immoral or that's kind of evil I I just firstly I don't really understand what it means and secondly it seems just like so it's the reason it sends a

shiver down your spine is because it seems so out of character for Jesus you know it's like you know come to me child and forgive and go and in no more you will never be forgiven out of and you whoa you know what are you talking about and so I I must say that of all the things we've spoken about so far it's been the it's it's it's the most theologically challenging to me I I supposed to round out I'm interested of the things we've spoken about and the things that we haven't because there are

a lot more mhm what troubles you the most like what keeps you up at night the most when a student comes up to the mic friend says I want to ask about this and you go oh boy right here we go I don't I don't know about this for me it's some of the issues you've already raised um slavery and some of the wars in the Old Testament those are very difficult issues for me I don't understand them secondly the problem of suffering when I sit with parents who've lost a child due to a horrible

car accident you know why didn't God allow the babysitters to see the stop sign why did they go right through the stop sign and then hit by a pickup truck coming down at 5 5 miles an hour so the problem of suffering why does God intervene in certain situations and not in others that's a very difficult issue so there are there are a number of very difficult issues for me and um I am convinced to the root of my being that Jesus Christ is the truth but I can't prove that I struggle with doubt I

struggle with uncertainty so I don't mean to communicate to you Alex that I've got it all nailed down cuz I don't there's tremendous un certainty there's tremendous doubt that I experience on a regular basis but the overwhelming evidence in my experience of life in what Christ has done in my life when I was 10 years old I was separated from my family and really got lonely in Upstate New York and for the first time in my life I cried out from the depth of my being Jesus if you're really there I want to know you

because I'm lonely right now and I hate it and Christ gave me an overwhelming sense of his presence his withness with me so in spite of the doubts in spite of the uncertainties um the reality of Christ in my life as I observe others as I experience life convinces me that he is by far the best option let me give you one closing illustration I was doing open air Columbia and a professor invited me to come into his class he was a postdoc student from UK and the class was a discussion on the difference between

zwingley and Calvin's view of War and the guy was brilliant and the discussion was off the charts amazing so I'm walking out of the classroom with a guy and I turned to him and say Professor that was amazing thank you so much now let me ask you what do you living for and what's the evidence of whatever it is you're living for is true and This brilliant postdoc student from UK looks me in the face and says I'm not a good person to ask that question of that's scary and yet it's been my experience too

often that too many people have to answer the same way the don't ask me that question What Am I Living For and what's the evidence of what I am living for is true because they have not thought through what am I really living for what motivates me why do I get up in the morning why do I do what I do why do I work the way I work why do I treat people the way I treat people what's going to happen after death they just haven't thought about it and yet they're living for something

and the question is what's the evidence of what you are living for is true so in spite of my uncertainty in spite of the fact I can't prove God exists or prove that Christ rose from the dead the evidence is God does exist the evidence is he really does love me and the evidence is the resurrection took place and therefore I will follow the evidence to Christ not that it's perfect it's not not there not not that there are not problems in the Bible there are but gosh when you look at the way he loves

you and me when you look at the experiences of life that you get and the experiences of others it's real clear to me trust in him should my biggest one really hasn't changed since I was 5 years old which is my closest friend is somebody I can't connect with the five senses especially I can't see and my biggest piece of grief and sadness for people who don't believe in God gets back to one thing you said in the beginning they lack objective meaning and purpose in their life and I always thought was kind of something

like a god argument thought that was kind of theoretical but now I'm getting in the trenches with so many University students at Yale and Yukon this week and it's In Living Color and one of my best friends recently broke down who's an atheist and he said I'm so jealous and envious that you have objective meaning and purpose in life I can't find mine and it's falling apart and he's this incredible incredible athlete brilliant he has he has the world that his fingertips money everything and yet he he's breaking down crying and then I have another

woman who's one of the best artists probably on the east coast and she's in the psych unit because she tried to find her meaning and purpose in her art and so for my my biggest heartache for those who don't believe in God is where you going to find your objective meaning and purpose and it goes right back to infinite just I started David Foster Wallace it's probably the best he was going to be the best writer of Our Generation strong atheist but he said be careful if there is no God if there's nothing infinite you're

going to worship something here on this planet and it's going to eat you alive and you'll have no meaning and purpose and throughout my training Masters in Psychology I loved Man's Search for meaning by Victor franel and how even as a secular Jew he really teased this out with being in the prisoner of war camps those who believed in God or at least that they would see a loved one again one day outside of oshatz and others they were the ones who weren't nasty brutish they were the ones who didn't just die in the war

camp but they actually still had hope and and so I just see all this I I I wrestle with it but kind of like my dad said a lot of people say oh you know just the cumulative case for Christianity and that's why I believe in God so like the moral argument theological in these look I'm good with that but that's still the intellectual rational side I would say it's the cumulative case in the sense of intellectual rational emotional and cultural and does the Christian worldview play out in all these areas or does the secular

worldview make more sense and stack up in a cumulative way that's more satisfying so far I'll end with uh the strong agnostic over in the UK who uh wrote the book um the things that are a miss the things are missing think was the title haras and he talked about how as an agnostic there are so many things missing in the secular worldview that can't be accounted for and you can't see these things touch these things but as a materialists so many materialists are are searching for these meaning and Consciousness and understanding what is but

there's no love if you're a materialist and he said that's why the Christian world view makes the most sense and these are not theoretical things I see them played out in the counseling office them played out in the University campus in the church one-on-one conversations and so there's a god-shaped hole and we've got to find a way to fill it and I think any and everything will rattle around in that god-shaped hole other than God himself well I hope people listening um well I I I really appreciate the way you to conduct your Outreach and

your your I don't know what you'd call it apologetics prizing evangelizing whatever you want to call it uh I I think you know the videos have been getting really popular the past year or two and I think for good reason you guys do have a way of reaching people but I I hope this has been a a fairly penetrating discussion I hope that definely have who are listening have to Cliff sh thanks so much for coming on thanks for your time to get Early Access add free to videos at the same time as supporting my

channel as well as getting access to my writings subscribe to my substack at alexo connor.com watch more videos by clicking the link on your screen thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one