Eli Ayala & Jonathan Pritchett Talk Weight Loss, Theology, and Apologetics (Excellent Discussion)

All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Elias Ayala and today

I say this all the time when I have a guest I have a very special guest and I like to call them special guests because I don't want them to feel as though I Don't think they are special.

So they are special. I don't get some generic phone heads on here. We got some good quality Here and so I want to let people know that That it is great to have our guests when we have them and today it is a pleasure for me to introduce folks to dr

Jonathan Pritchett from Trinity Radio and what's the seminary that you work at Trinity College of the

Bible and Theological Seminary? Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

Yeah, it's a mouthful It is a mouthful. It kind of comes awkward off off the tongue now um some who might be listening to this episode might be familiar with you already and People would probably wonder what is a good old

Calvinist like Eli Allah having a grimy Jonathan Pritchett anti -calvinist

That's not messing around Here's the thing. I I am completely convinced and I'm sure that you would agree that it is quite possible for Calvinist and non -calvinist to get along and actually benefit from one another go figure

Well, that was my life experience until I discovered social media to be honest with you.

Yeah Yeah, I was a member of a Baptist Church that was London Baptist Confession 1689 the pastor was a was the son of my pastor for a while and then he became a pastor and got his own church down the road went with him and was a member there for about seven years and It was never he knew that I had moved away from Calvinism.

He didn't he asked me to preach I was the outreach coordinator is remount Baptist Church North Little Rock, you know

I mean we grew up in the same church with his dad as our pastor, but it was this was never a thing about like The contentiousness until I discovered the

Internet and then I started reading Older literature and it's pretty contentious in the literature as well.

But you know, it's just It was never a part of my experience in the local church

Where of course it was a Southern Baptist Church and you know Southern Baptists You get all kinds of different views in the same church.

So But yeah, it's never been a thing until I discovered the Internet, but I I do not consider myself to be anti right

Calvinism I will say that there are Calvinists that I am anti Calvinist But I could say that about these are and you know certain

Armenians out there or he's trad from whatever Originalists that they're

Southern Baptist folks late and flowers crowds calling themselves these days Some of those people are just outright the worst people on the planet

So and he knows I I say that well his forums gotten cleaned up. I got to give

Some props to them for trying to clean up that but you would think that you hear all this stuff about cage -stage

Calvinism, but if you go to certain forums on the internet where this just well if you're a Calvinist You're a heretic can find the flames for all eternity.

I'm like Wait a minute No, there's only like the most extreme

Calvinists out there say that about everybody But right, why are you saying this? You're as bad as some of those guys

And I've heard you say in in certain context and I think this is important is that in regards to apologetic methodology?

You're not anti presuppositional ism, but you are Anti presuppositional list in regards to specific boneheads who are jerks when presenting the method, right?

Yes But I will say there are a lot of good ones. Like I mean,

I love John frame How can you not like John frame? I mean you have to hate Santa Claus to not like John frame

You know one of the greatest people on the planet, you know, it has a heart for evangelism, which

I appreciate and you know Scott Oliphant's a great guy and You and JD Martin out there a lot of the younger presuppositional is are out there doing it in a very cordial way

But there are a few and I don't need to name names people could probably imagine who I think they are that I I think do a disservice to presuppositional ism because while Methodologically you and I might disagree that presuppositional ism is necessarily connected to reform theology

Sure, I think that I don't think that that's necessarily the case, but we can differ on that but still as a method in action when you're talking to people and you use transcendental arguments and you're exposing the borrowed capital for the affirmations that they want to make that it's dependent actually upon our worldview and Various things like that are very useful.

So I know that a lot of non Calvinists, especially the apologist crowd they get heartburn and just You know seethe about presuppositional and I was like don't cut yourself.

Well, first off I Tell people if you've not even read a book by presuppositionalists, don't say a word about it

But yeah, I enjoy Seeing it in action a really good debate.

I Think he's really I think Jeff Durbin is really good at it and there was a debate that he teamed up with James White against a couple of scientists guys

Yes, see I thought that my debate with Leighton against the Sonny Hernandez and Theodore Zachariadis Or I thought that was the

Zachariadis. Yeah, I thought that was the biggest Wow Debate like that really happened, but I think that their debate trumped ours

Well the battery acid you don't usually you don't usually have people bring battery acid on a platform

Academic setting that's yeah, they took the crown. So now we don't have the most entertaining

It's still it's still up there though. Yeah It's pretty wild. But yeah, I love the with the indoors

Wow with the echoed Wow All right, and it's one of my favorite parts of of the opening of the

Trinity radio podcast Yeah, that's an interesting debate because I was actually

Layton flowers second choice And so I got roped in as I've done one debate against Calvinism and now everyone thinks ah he and I'm like, well, no,

I like Calvin's writings and I like reading it. You can see behind me I've got tons of reformed theology on my shelf.

I don't I Anything under the umbrella of orthodoxy is cool with me there's so many there's there's real heresy to deal with and then there's a secular culture and an

Unbelieving culture to deal with and that's that's what our focus is That's right.

And and that's what I appreciate about you. And I think I think sometimes When when you're sitting next to someone like Braxton, you guys have a very interesting and dynamic

Chemistry with one another where he kind of is the the soft cuddly sort of guy and and you can come off Sometimes a little more rough around the edges

But a lot of people don't realize that and I can say this because I've listened to you guys for a long time

You are quite a reasonable and nice guy It's just that you you do not tolerate man babies, and I appreciate that.

Yeah That's the thing. But but I but here's the downside of that Sometimes if you go too far you can become the thing that you don't like that's right and so if that's kind of just one of those things that I pray about that I don't ever

Cross those lines because I I really am a try to try to be friends with everybody

But I don't stomach nonsense and sometimes I hear just nonsense, especially from some of these atheists who are attacking the faith

But sometimes I hear from theological opponents with whom I disagree and sometimes I hear it from theological

Allies with whom I do agree. I'm just like you can't That's the terrible right, you know, it's always so is everybody

It's one of the things that I learned from Braxton actually he said, okay This is not really my manner, but always arrived arrives to the vitriol of your opponent, but never go past it

You know, sometimes it's called for you got to smack somebody around. So But yeah there's a lot of things that get ended up on the cutting room floor of a

Trinity radio episode that maybe we should release to patrons as You know just little prime isms or whatever

But but yeah, I but I don't I don't have it out for anybody But except for a very

I have a very short list and you know You can go join our Facebook forum to see who have it out for But other than that, it's it has and a lot of it has to do with their public behavior

Very little of it has to do with the all right right now Now let last point so we don't spend so much time just being nice to one another in terms of like yay

Let's hold hands and and you know be on the same team. I think Especially my

Calvinist audience who are very very very Hardcore reform theology is the way to go and I'm and I'm that way too.

I believe I'm I'm reformed Oh, you're kidding get a surprise surprise however, building bridges between differing perspectives and perspectives is not the same thing as Compromising on your convictions

I could hold strong to my positions and still build bridges of communication and benefit

From learning from people who don't agree with me. We don't want to become an echo chamber just talking about you know

Talking to people that agree with us It's good to see something from a different perspective and and have this kind of iron sharpens iron relationship

So well, yeah, and that that goes beyond is I mean I think that should in principle extend to worship as well because I have worshipped in and and Now I that doesn't work for every church

But sure, but but if you're at a if you're at a ministry event for example Or a church that's really more ecumenical as far as like within Orthodoxy or whatever it's fine, but like at a ministry like I'm going to together for the gospel conference and I'm gonna sing the songs and listen to the the the

Presentations right along with my reformed brothers and sisters and it's no big deal. Yeah Hopefully I'll benefit and maybe so, you know, so say hey, there's that one guy and they want to come talk to me about it

Well, you know we could have a conversation if they want to be civil which most people in person really are right, you know

Yeah, well great great points well, well, let's move on to our main our main topic and we really wanted to talk about this issue of physical and spiritual health and For those who listen to my podcast and and my youtube channel say well we want to hear some apologetic stuff well, we can make some apologetic application as well because I think this issue of physical and spiritual health has kind of Tentacles that reaches into those other categories there's there is something to being physically healthy and Spiritually healthy and how that plays out in the manner in which we live our lives defend the faith and whatever

So I think these are kind of Holistically related so hopefully we'll get to there. So let's start actually with physical health now

I have again as I said before I've listened to your stuff for a while now and I'm kind of joking around here

I don't mean to insult you but back in the day He used to be fat. I remember Okay, you know

And then all of a sudden I see you know as as your videos are coming out he's slimming down I'm checking to see if my computer settings are correct

You know, is he using a filter or something like that? And as you were getting skinnier Braxton was filling in.

I don't know if you guys are doing kind of this. Yeah Yes, it's happy I'm totally

I was fat, but he's merely filling in I get it. That's right. That's right So on a serious note though why don't you tell people a little bit about your weight loss journey and include in there some of the

The issues of just really disciplining yourself to reach that goal. What were some of the things that you did to reach that goal?

And maybe you can lay that out for us. Okay? Well it for the Up until last year this it all started probably

I had just you pack on weight and you don't really notice it. See I've set in it. I sit in this room 10

Sometimes 12 hours a day on bad days sometimes less but you know when you're in a room like this and At a job that's pretty stationary and you do a lot of reading it's easy to grab

Potato chips and stuff your face with it, right? it's It's obvious looking at me right now that I I can't tell people that.

Oh, yeah, I'm big -boned or whatever You know, I just steadily increased weight over the years and it got to the point where?

You know, I'm only 5 8, but I weigh 220 pounds and so and I'm not I have a small frame so it's not

I you know, it wasn't a matter of Anything other than gluttony and sloth

To be honest being lazy doesn't mean you don't get up and go to work and do a good job at your profession and all

Of that stuff. There's other ways to be lazy in life You know But if you sit it if you if you have a job where you're not very active or you even if you do but you go home and you overeat and you

Just lay around on the couch play video games all day or play games with your kids or whatever And you don't even set an example for them or whatever your life is like over the years you just pack on a ton of weight and there's

And I want I want to be absolutely clear about this up front I do not think that it is sinful to be fat or even obese like I was

I don't think it's sinful to be obese However, I Think it is there are several factors of your lifestyle that led to you becoming obese that are simple and It usually comes down to laziness and gluttony and it's amazing that I started having health problems

And I was actually going to the emergency room and seeing a doctor and had heart issues everything else because I and it was all

Preventable, you know, but I my health started failing and it wasn't until actually

Braxton hunters father who called me out on it He said Jonathan you have been here for a few years and you've gotten fat

She's like the way like you said you've gotten fat. You need to do something about this And you know, he wasn't trying to be rude.

Sure. I mean, you know, but he is direct, you know and And he did call me out on it

But what was interesting to me about that other than the fact that I knew he was right and I've got a great wife who?

Yes, she loved me the way that I was but I mean she prefers this trust me But but she she loved me the way that I was and oh,

I thought you were handsome when you were heavier Blah blah blah blah blah. So she's too nice to call me out on it But yeah, so even if my own wife wouldn't call me out of it

He called me out on it and he's the only Christian I know that ever did And that got me to thinking

And that was really the most I I think I needed to be called out for it is What actually motivated me to start thinking about doing something about my health and so?

Back in April. I weighed about 220 pounds of April of last year and and so I decided

I having health problems My best friend's father's calling me fatty

Bullied in the office So that's what began it for me and I decided that well

Check it to do it. It's hard work to readjust your life

Doing the things that it takes to do to lose weight is not hard But changing your life to do it is what's hard, right?

So it's not hard for me to grab a carrot stick instead of a potato chip and stick it in my mouth

It's the same range of motion. It's not hard for me to get in my car and go to the gym I get in my car and go to lots of places like McDonald's or whatever, you know

I mean doing these kinds of things is not hard, but the getting yourself to make a lifestyle change

That's the hard thing But everything else is not as now in the gym when you're lifting heavy weights and you're out of shape

Yeah, it's it's difficult but in a different sense you can still do it, you know You don't have to kill yourself to do it

It's not like you're trying to train for a competition or anything, right but that for me was the hardest thing to do was to realize that I need to change my life and So that takes you know for Christians that takes prayer that takes self -discipline that takes grace

What all of these things need to you got to change your thinking about something almost, you know

Do a 180 from where you're going no, let me let me stop you right there is is how

This is not everything you just said is kind of like it's kind of like when someone says How do I become a stronger

Christian? Well pray and read the Bible that's gonna help, you know But then not a lot of people know exactly the mechanics of how that works

So well, how do I read the Bible? Is there a special way I should read it? How do I pray? How do I develop these patterns and schedule and all what did that look like for you when you said

I needed I need to Change my life and you began to think about things that led to the actual changing

Why don't you unpack the process itself for us? So the process for me was I needed to look at my schedule

It starts with my schedule and then it went from schedule to eating habits So I I thought about my schedule that I'm waking up with just enough time to shower and go to work

Okay, and then after work you've had a full day of work. You're tired But you you do whatever you do with your family like our family will have dinner together and we'll do a devotional

And then it's kind of free -range or whatever and I found myself We don't have a

TV in our living room, but we do have it in our bedroom. So I've found myself, you know, I Watching binge watching, you know for me.

That's what I did. I just watched TV every night and I realized that yeah, that's got to change because if you're just sitting around being sedentary all day at work and then you're going home and being sedentary and You're you know not doing anything well, of course, you're gonna put the pack away then you look at your eating habits and you're like That's where the gluttony comes in.

I looked at my eating habits and I would eat all day long constantly at my desk

You know and then I would eat big meals and big portions and then I would eat stuff that I knew is not good for Me, you know, it's like oh

I just ate a candy bar after I ate, you know 2 ,500 calories for dinner worth of six seven slices of pizza this fully load.

Oh, no wonder I look like, you know So it's like changing all of those habits But it started with my schedule and I realized

I think this is true whether you go to the gym in the mornings or not You get up at five and go to bed between nine and ten o 'clock

You get a lot more done in a day than if you get up at seven Get to work at eight and then stay up until midnight

I don't know why that is but at least unless you're a second or third shift kind of person But for first shifters,

I I don't know how these people get anything done because I didn't accomplish much But I accomplished much more in a day getting up earlier and going to bed earlier than and I feel more rested but that was for me the start of it was looking at my schedule and how much time

I'm wasting doing nothing and Then moving to checking out my diet and saying that and then from that it moved to the math

See losing weight is all about math. It's all about 3 ,500 calories equals roughly a pound of weight, right?

Okay, and There's these calculators that are they're not overly specific, but they're general that whatever your sex male age for me 42 weight to 20 lifestyle

You input that information and then it spits you out. This is how many calories you burn in a day Well, if you know you want to lose weight and you set a target goal for me

I wanted to get down to 155 I Ended up getting down to 150 and that's where I'm maintaining but my goal at the time was 155

So I figured in okay, I need to eat. So after I did the math and said, okay I'm gonna work out for an hour.

I'm gonna do six to eight miles of walking a day You know, how many calories were

I burn on that routine? in a week and so I did that and every week when

I'd lose weight, I would reconfigure that because The less you weigh the less calories you were burning doing the same amount of activity.

It just works that way Okay, and so I kept inputting that data and I was able to map out

That by the first week of October Starting in April that I was gonna hit my target weight

I beat it by a week, but it was almost to the you know but a week is you know being earlier rather than later is is better, but I It was just basically following the math

Do this much exercise in a day taking only this much calories and do that That's why I I tell people you can try whatever diet you want and they probably all work for me the most simple thing was, you know calories in exertion out and just I stuck to that and I have pictures of me from April all the way to the present day where you can just see and in the first few months

It doesn't look much different It's like but you know Braxton pointed out and I think it's probably true

So one day you showed up and you look like you do now, you know is like oh, but it wasn't overnight It just seemed that way to everybody and six months is not a lot of time when

I when people tell me that oh You're inspiring me to go lose weight or whatever, you know That's great.

But I tell people Look six to eight months from now. However long it may take you to get your goal weight

Sometimes it may take people a year or longer I don't depend on where you start how much you can do in the time period to burn the amount of calories you need to Burn sure, but I tell people let's say in a year a year from now

You're gonna you know, Lord willing you continue to live a year from now. You're gonna be a year older That's an amazing fact that you're gonna have to come to grips with but a year from now you can either be

Weighing what you weigh way more or way less What do you want to do because a year is gonna go by and if you continue to live

It's gonna happen one way or the other you're gonna be a year older in a year What do you want to do you want to weigh the same you want to weigh more you want to weigh less?

It's that simple. Hmm. You just got to figure it out Now now what now when people want to lose weight they they tend to for me

I'm an extremist like I'm not a heavyset guy, but I do got a gut and I and I I feel like I'm at a counselor

Listen, I have to have a gut and I'm tired all the time. But you know what? I'm gonna

I'm gonna lay it all out here I do have a little bit of a gut. I do feel Fatigued a lot.

So I'll wake up early in the morning and I've got to do what I got to do And when I come home from work, I'm just I need a nap

And then when I think about okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna do this, you know I do like those intense, you know beach body things like the insanity and this and I tend to go off on to the extreme

And I'll do it good for a week and it's amazing and I'm actually you could actually feel the difference and then

I kind of fall Back and then I feel like a complete failure because I started at this extreme level and then fell off Is that is that the case when people want to lose weight?

Do you have to do these drastic intense things? I mean, what were some of the exercises you started with?

Obviously you changed your eating What are some of the exercises you started doing and and kind of continued throughout the time that led you to your weight loss?

okay, so I started my diet and exercise In April didn't join a gym until June.

Okay, because I started I Get that. I'm the same that might just be a personality type

I've tried that before to go gusto and then crash, you know And I think that there's some people who can go gusto and get it done, too

But I think more people are probably like us than not right because they get into it and they're just like, uh -huh

But you feel good But then you you know, you you didn't make a lifestyle change you you you got excited.

That's about it You know, it's not a lifestyle change But what I did was as I knew that I was gonna eventually go to the gym and change my life

But I decided to start by just walking Okay. So for the month of April, I was just gonna walk and then in May I Got out the old

Dumbbells that are chipped away and have you know spiderwebs on them and everything else from the garage

And decided to incorporate some dumbbell exercises And that's what I did till May until the second week of June And that's when

I decided that I'm going to instead of just doing this at home. I'm gonna go to the gym every day But but my goal was six to eight miles a day

When I walk or of walking so when you started like you look, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk I'm changing my life.

You tried to walk six How was him again? It was between six and eight miles a day.

Now. Yeah, that seems like a lot but It's I didn't do just set out and start walking for six miles

What I do like a forest gump and you just ran right? No, I just it came out to I don't know 16 ,000 17 ,000 steps or whatever.

Okay So my iPhone had a little heart app, you know, and I think Smartphones have these in general, right?

And it's basically a pedometer and so I would go until it said either six or you know

Seven sometimes a little bit over and it would start by walking a little bit in the morning Walk at my lunch break and take a walk with the wife and kids at night you know and then

You just keep going even if they quit until you see that six or even past that do you walk fast

Do you know? Just casual walk with the family except well

I probably walk a little bit faster when I was by myself or my lunch break in the parking garage or whatever but I just tried to make sure that I did not go to bed until I had that six miles at least on my little

What is a little phone app, okay, you know, I don't even have a Fitbit, you know It's just a little

Apple my phone that tracks your steps and mileage And so I started with that and then I started while I was watching television hadn't changed that yet In May I got out my dumbbell exercises and would do that for about 45 minutes or 42

However long a television show is without commercials on Netflix, you know I was like, well, you're gonna do hand weights with it, you know the dumbbell weights with it

You can do all kinds of Different dumbbell exercises that and that kind of helped a little bit and that's when

I really started getting better at the diet and counting the calories and all of that and I became we have a little game at the office that they can now shout out something like an

Arby's French as you dip sandwich and I'll be like 740 calories because I know exactly Because you you get in the habit of looking at right at the foods and a lot of restaurants will have the calorie thing and so I started counting the calories and I limited myself to 1 ,500 a day and then one cheat day a week where I do like 2 ,500 or something, you know a little bit more but I gave myself a cheat day.

Sorry. Hang on. That's all right. I Got the same thing in my office. I got a clapping Yeah, no,

I have a hutch here and the motion sensors behind it so okay You know, I record a lot of lectures in my desk and every lecture has the lights go out

Or waving my hands around. I don't know why that is, but But yeah, so the count counting calories and dieting that I looked at all the different ways to diet all the different exercise routines

But I I found that the basic Calorie and exercise diet and exercise count your calories and I still count my calories

I'm eating between twenty eight hundred and three thousand calories a day now But I'm I still count them and I still make sure that they're healthy, you know

How many calories should a person have a day? I know it differs, but is there a general?

Amount of calories we should be having a day and trying not to go over I I'm sure that medical experts will have a different answer than me

But me no because some people are trying to lose weight Which means I need to take in fewer calories and you burn and you need to figure out

You know, and I know that they're rough guesstimates on these calculators that you find online but how many calories on average do you burn on the treadmill or burn on a

You know lifting weights at a light effort or a vigorous effort How much so you plug in all those numbers and they tell you how many calories you're gonna burn if you do that you say

Well, so I got it to where I mean when I was 220, I was burning 36 37 hundred calories with the amount of Exercise and walking and all that that I was doing and so I could just take in 1 ,500 calories and lose a pound every two days, you know

So it all depends but if you're like me right now, I weigh 150 pounds and I burned because of my daily activity levels higher.

I burned 3 ,000 calories So I try to make sure I get between 28 and because I don't want to lose any more weight or I'll start looking like a

Cancer patient so, you know, so I'm happy where I'm at So I want to maintain so I have to do the things that is required to maintain now

Were you ever in a place where I didn't meet I'm thinking in terms of myself And I'm sure the people can relate to this in terms of fatigue.

I I drink so much coffee. I to be honest I'm not exaggerating. I think

I drink more coffee than I drink water. Oh, man. No, it's terrible Uh, so so what role does does water play in this entire process staying hydrated and things like that?

Yeah, I I'm forced myself to drink six bottles of water a day minimum Okay, minimum and people tell me well bet they always point to something practice is it's the walking not the weight lifting that the weight

Lifting made you get a little bit tone, but the walking is what caused you lose weight. Dr Elliott says no, it's drinking all that water flushes you out.

That's why you lost weight. I'm like, no I just did all of that and that's what you know Find the one thing the one thing that they don't want to do like I don't want to drink all that water

So that's what did it for you, but I'm not gonna You know, I don't want to do all that walking but no, it's

I make sure I drank six and I everyone knows that this Diet citrus drop is my beverage of choice.

I talk about it and I don't get But I drink I drink probably I probably a two liter a day a diet soda

So I'm not one to pick on you for your coffee, right? coffee is just dirt water anyway, but I I Don't drink coffee.

I can take you insulted a family member. I Trust me everyone in this office is

Fraction drinks cold coffee and ice. Okay. Yeah, so it's fancy that way.

All right. No, it's nasty that way But yeah, no, so I'm not one to talk about pee. I don't

I'm not Whatever you eat, that's fine. What did you drink if you like coffee fine?

I like my caffeine too. I just Not coffee, but I do recommend whatever it is drink a lot of water, okay

You go to the bathroom more but you probably go if you drink as much coffee as you say, yeah

But yeah, but Yeah, I I think everyone said drink a lot of water.

So I drink a lot of water I'm not an expert, you know, but I just do when I looked at everything

I could think of counting calories and Exercise and drinking a lot of water all that kind of helped me now people

People whine to me and say oh, I don't want to do what you did because counting calories is that's a hassle

Like taking this and scooping your food onto a plate all that one more did how hard is that?

Read the back of the thing and it's use measuring cup I think people think it's just hard.

It's not hard. It's not some incredible feat that I did, you know Nothing. I saw it's a life.

Yeah, it's a lifestyle and and making the commitment to do that Yeah, not not to lose weight

But to change your life That's you know, and that's where but I'll tell you, you know physical

Health has led to increased spiritual health. It really has. Yeah So I Want to get

I want to get there. Yeah, I have one more question on the physical side Okay, and what will two more so so the majority of the exercises that you did with that Would you say that consisted of just walking a lot just being active not necessarily these intense push -ups and weight lifting

I mean you tried to mix a little bit in there But was a majority of it just getting out moving and when I start

I started Okay, like I said I started with the walking then walking and dumbbells and then

I've joined the gym and when I joined the gym, I go to the gym five days a week and I do a different muscle group

Monday's leg day and I don't skip leg day But it looks like I skip leg day because I have chicken legs You know

Tuesday chest Wednesday back Thursday shoulders Friday's arms Hmm, and so I would do a different and I put in our

Facebook group. I put my workout routine in there You know, it's it's six exercises per muscle group and then

I would do ab Workout after that and I do that every day and then

I did that and that usually takes about 45 minutes a day But then as I got healthier probably

Probably somewhere around September when I was almost to my goal

I actually After I did my daily Exercise 45 minutes of muscle group plus abs.

I started doing some total body stuff just because I felt better You know and so now my

I added about another 30 minutes to my morning routine As I but my body was able to do more, you know

So so now I work out for about an hour and 15 minutes at the gym every morning

Because I'll do the same muscle group a day and then I'll do a total some total body stuff it

I go to Planet Fitness and I know people call it plant fatness and all that's but hey

Okay, you know And they have other little neat things like medicine balls and they have

They call it PF 360 was basically a jungle gym stuff, you know Sure, and so I you know when

I was able to start doing chest dips and chin ups and pull -ups I was like, well, it's pretty neat.

I'm not you know Getting off the couch used to make me tired now Yeah, do you find yourself right do you run at all?

No, I like my knees Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's why walking is probably a good 42.

You're a young guy, aren't you? I'm 37, but I had a long life of non -stop basketball.

So I developed an itis in my knees So yeah, I got to be careful. Yeah, you don't have to run. That's the good news

You don't have to run to lose weight It just takes it just takes more time walking to get the same amount of you know

But man, you know what? It's like getting older once I hit my mid 30s. Everything started hurting for no reasons, right?

All right, but okay So now here's my last question in regards to just the physical aspect and it's not more

I guess this is more of just a part of a scheduling As you know people who want to lose weight

Are very very good at making up excuses why they can't do what they know They should do in order to get there.

I'm all of a sudden, you know, I become allergic to rain. It's raining outside I can't go outside. What's going on?

Yeah, I Have a family. I know people who want to lose weight have a family.

They have kids Yes, how many kids do you have? How old are they and how has the challenge of family made?

Difficult and more challenging to maintain a consistent schedule in all the things you need to do waking up early going out for your runs

Going to the gym. How does that all work in light of the fact that you're a family man? Yeah, so I I have three children, but only two still at the house and 17 and 14

Now I I could imagine it'd be more difficult for single parents but for you know, two parent home

It was going to bed earlier and getting up earlier to work that gym time in You know, so You know, my wife is still at home for when they get up if they they're not gonna get up before I get back from the

Gym, so it's their teenagers now But younger kids they get up a little bit earlier

But so for me, I mean, you know, I've got a pretty demanding job People don't know this but we're probably the third largest seminary in the world

You know So I've got a demanding job I've got Families very important to me, you know, we're still a sit -down at the dinner table and eat together family.

We don't eat out much We still do family devotionals, you know as you know

And I'm not saying we're sit there and we're in the word for an hour every night after now I mean, you know 15 20 minutes and is that you know

And then you've got church and you've got activities and everything else But for me the basic thing was

You don't need to stay up till midnight watching the next roll around thing on television or if you're even like me

You don't need to stand stay up where your wife's snoring next to you If you're white, I didn't say my wife snores.

I meant sleeping and You've got your little phone light and you're still reading a book or you're reading a book on your phone

Cuz I'll you know or whatever you don't need to get that next page in you don't have any Students maybe but but go to bed and get up early because most people are not up at that hour, you know, and so for me

I can get up and Our kids are old enough where they could stay at home by themselves, you know

I mean 14 and 17, but you know my wife's there but so sometimes she'll come with me but she likes to go later in the day, but So sometimes you'll go but most days not there by myself, which

I don't like I actually wish that I had like a workout partner I hear that makes it easier

But I don't have that luxury because my buddy who probably needs to avail himself of the gym membership that he has

Won't get up But yeah for me get up early now that's gonna look different for second and third shift people

And I've been there. Trust me. I've worked second shift at jobs. I've worked third shift at jobs and I still say you do everything you do

You need to do probably better to do it before work because now I look at work until my lunch break where I do some exercises just Because I'm so scared of sitting at this desk and eating

I have a mini fridge here and even though it's now got celery and cucumbers instead of chocolate still

You know, you just think so. I always try to stay a little bit active during the day, too, right? but you know for those who have active jobs, you know getting your pedometer up to to to 15 -20 ,000 steps by taking a walk after works gonna gonna be no problem for them as well

But I always tell people I I know that everyone's you're gonna Google and get a ton of different advice But for me what worked best was getting that done before work and before the kids got it.

Yeah What time do you go to sleep? Between 9 and 10 and I'm of at 5 That's a fair time.

And when and when you When you're walking and exercising, what are you listening to? Depends sometimes

I'll listen to I'll give the scholarly answer for sometimes I listen to my Logos or Kindle books with the voiceover app at high -speed little trick that we learned from James White who you interviewed earlier, you know

Okay, I heard him talking about that when he does that on his bike rides and I was like Yeah, you mean the voiceover like when you

The accessibility. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes, and you haven't read you so I've got the Logos app and a

Kindle app on my phone So that's that's what I'm supposed to say, but I've got different playlists so sometimes

I like to listen to music so sometimes it's gonna be Things like 80s retro music or 80s pop.

Sometimes it's gonna be Yeah survivor, yeah, that's that gets you hype for the gym though, you know, yeah, yeah well, and You're nothing like Stallone's montages, but you know, you're right

Make you feel a little good, but I like some of that music. I like to listen to hip -hop music. I like to listen to I like to listen to Big band, uh one of my

I liked all the the rat pack stuff, but I I was a big fan of harry connick jr So I listen to some of the big band and swing music.

I listen to all kinds of music. I don't have a preference I I have to say that no, I don't listen to contemporary

Christian music No, but I do people do make fun of me because I do have in my retro playlist

I do have Cindy Loppers time after time They're teasing me on the forums.

Hey, you're not gonna get big muscles No, no, that's not gonna work lifting through the tears, you know

But no, I like that old Duran Duran lock of seagulls

Tears for fears stuff, you know stuff that I remembered on top 40 radio when I was young in so That that's awesome.

So so now that people I'm gonna I'm gonna mark this timestamp 42 minutes and 45 seconds now.

We're making the transition into some more of the theological and apologetic transition, um, so here

Mike my question then is how does physical health relate to an intellectual healthy life and a a

Spiritual life if we could apply the intellectual aspect in regards to studying theology studying apologetics

How does the physical health relate to you know, those aspects of our lives?

Okay Well first I have to give an apologetic a defense to all of the first Timothy 4 8 is

The ha ha joke. Oh my life versus physical exercise profit if little you always get the

King James Version, right? And so there's like yeah, I don't I don't need to mess with all that or whatever

Well, Paul, I'm really fat. That's why he wrote it, right? No, but usually the

Baptist preacher quoting that to me is fat Not too many people were fat in the ancient world man, that's true, but if you look at that verse

The first thing you notice is that the Bible says physical exercise profits. Yes, right?

Yes, don't you want something that the Bible says probably secondly it says next to godliness Which is glorious to the promise of the present life in the life to come, right?

There's there's a Comparison of something that's only pertaining to this life and then godliness which pertains to both now and to come and so It's not saying that physical exercise is garbage

Which is what some people want to hear and like godliness is all that matters because that's not what that verse says, right?

You know Paul's also using in that same passage metaphors of being nourished on the word and things like that you know, he's using all kinds of metaphors if he had said eating a

Triple cheeseburger profited little you know, but physical exercise is great, you know

Did you yeah, it's it's a matter of context. What is he talking about? He's comparison is comparing physical exercise, which he acknowledges is profitable just says profits little by comparison to godliness

But I think that that's still interesting. So anyone who tries to use that verse to get out of it No, that's the

Bible is not poo -pooing physical exercise by any means. In fact, Bible says it profits Maybe a little little comparison to godliness

But that's still profit and you should take what the Bible prop says for profitable now

As far as helping with godliness You understand that? Probably a lot of people's not gonna make sense, but you know this

Research and study is a form of worship if you love the Lord Right and study and encountering the more brilliant minds of the faith you know that that have lived through that and they've they've walked with God and wrestled with Scripture and they've

They've had life experiences of being spirit filled believers, right and reading Scholarship reading devotional material put together by people

Reading, you know the spiritual classics all those kinds of thing more study Reading the word itself

We none of us believe that you should just read the Bible and nothing else so when you but when you read all this this material as Part of your vocation or your your ministry or whatever.

You're reading more than just the Bible Sure, but you do believe that To want to come to know more about the

Lord you serve and want to understand his word better You've got to read scholars to understand Hermeneutics and and you know exegetical methods and things like that.

So all of this stuff that we that we read informs our spiritual life and that leads us to inspires us to engage in spiritual disciplines such as Bible study right such as Praying disciplines like memorizing scripture and all of these different things that we could do some people are you know

Weird about the word meditation, but if that were bothers you reflecting upon, you know meditating on the

Psalms You know meditating on the law like David did day and night, you know Filling your thought because there is a principle of what you put in your mind is what's going to come out of your mouth you know, um, and so when you when you

When you feel better like I feel better I don't feel fatigued and sick all sick all the time.

Like I used to sick to my stomach from overeating Sick from my heart feeling sagging because I'm not being heart healthy, whatever.

Sure Winded from doing incredible feats like standing up, you know But I don't have those issues anymore.

I noticed that when you when you feel better about yourself You're you're more

Mentally, you're not focused on your hurts You're you know and aches and your lack of self -confidence and just everything, you know we think about what we look like more than Anyone in any time of history because mirrors are so prevalent people don't realize that not everyone had a mirror, you know sometimes they had

Bronze that they tried to you know, have you ever tried to look at bronze to see yourself, you know Doesn't look good, right?

We have more mirrors and You know a lot of people in the church are probably miserable just from looking at themselves

And but that weighs on us, right? It really does people think that it's it's it's it's oh

I don't have these kind of clothes or I don't have the same car. No, it's deeper than that It's you live with yourself and you'll have to see yourself reflected everywhere and a lot of people don't like the way that they look but when you're not thinking about yourself in negative ways and you're not thinking about your aches and pains in negative ways when you're physically help your mind is

Attentive and more alert to everything that you want it to be alert towards. So I'm not

I'm not fatigued When I'm reading anymore, you know how you can just read and if you're full -bellied and you're laying up on the sofa

He's not off a little bit. You're not getting as much done and you I've noticed that my acuteness has

Dramatically increased. Mm -hmm. I have more time now Because of the lifestyle change where you just decide, you know

If it takes me a little bit longer to get through season 8 of whatever show I was watching so be it

You know you start to relax about those kind of things or if I don't read this 1 ,600 page reference book, you know if it takes a little bit of time, that's okay, right?

So, you know, I I have seen a dramatic improvement in my ability to read study comprehend be sharp

I spend more time and pray and that's one thing that I will say about exercise if you are a believing

Christian and you are out Of shape you will cry out to God more than Yeah, and and if you take your faith seriously

Which I do I pray before every workout I'm not saying

I pray before every rap I'm not trying to be sanctimonious but I think that the Lord is a part of These kinds of lifestyle changes and when you do all things to the glory of God like Paul tells us to in Colossians you just incorporate all of that more and you're more aware of Especially when you go through a life change like I went through a life change and everyone can see it as far as my outward appearance

But also if when you've been a longtime viewer of Trinity Radio I've also gotten nicer as I've lost weight and Braxton's gotten more snorky

He's just not happy with himself Like I said, it has a lot to do with You think about yourself more often than you realize sure sure, you know

Yeah, I'm sorry. And and that's Part of our sinfulness is that we're not

Christ oriented and we're more self -oriented But but one day we'll be rid of that.

But I do see myself having feeling better I My prayer is more meaningful because I know that God took me through this and I know that our atheist friends will say well

I know people who lose weight all the time and they're not crazy, you know And I know people who make drastic lifestyle improvements and they don't they don't believe in this stuff

Yeah, but see number one they're just wrong but number two When you bake when you put

God as forefront of your life everything you become, you know Spending more time with your wife will bring you closer to your wife

Spending more time with anybody will bring you closer to them as a friend, you know Spending more time with God brings you closer to God and you find so many ways when you unglue from the lifestyle of being sedentary

Being Mindlessly in front of a screen on whether it's on social and my social media time has been cut in half, too

I realize I waste so much time on social media engaging in conversations that If four people are still reading 120 comments deep then they're as fat as I am

What we're saying to each other that no one in the world cares about is not that important and so You know that I've gotten away from all of that meaningless social media interaction

I've gotten away from your your voice is not changing the world. Don't don't think it is Stop it, you know chances are if you're that far into it

You're just trying to save face at some point and keep from saying something too ugly.

So just stop it what I think what I think Healthy living

Kind of plays itself out in the same way and I'm using like a loose example as Fasting does when you avoid food and rely on the

Lord There is a creation of conflict within yourself in that whole testing of fasting that that I'm sorry that Causes you to call out to God and when you're working out and it's difficult

You're almost training yourself if you're a Christian and you're thinking about this intentionally You're in you're training yourself by putting yourself in an uncomfortable position to all the more rely on the

Lord so there's almost like a spiritual aspect to the physical aspect that for Godly minded people who want to think biblically and grow in their relationship with God they make these connections and they use these difficult

You know challenges like getting healthy and things like that as just another opportunity to train yourself to rely on God Right and well and and like I said a lifestyle change is not just about my diet and exercise

Sure, I grew up in a wonderful Christian home. My dad was probably the godliest man.

I've ever known He was a Sunday school teacher. He was an interested lay person, you know I I still have his

John MacArthur commentaries and and stuff that after he passed his Wayne Grudem systematically I mean, you know the things that that interested lay persons would get into, you know

That's not something that I would use on a regular basis but I keep it because it reminded me of my dad, you know, they were his books and and the great books of the

Western world said that that You know, he bought and he was interested in in in reading and all that so by that was it

But you know what? We never did we never had consistent Bible studies as a family Right, and I'm not knocking him for having not done that just wasn't part of our life

And I noticed that my wife and I we wanted to have daily devotions

But we've done it so inconsistently over the years, you know, we get excited we're gonna do it

We do it for two weeks and then it becomes easy. Yeah, I'm just tired of long day at work, you know We'll do it, you know

But I will say that we've gotten more consistent and and all of those things as a family of eating together of Doing that nightly devotional doing the weekly game night, you know with with your kids, you know

Doing those types of things. I become more consistent in my own personal devotional studies and devotional times

Yes, if you're no matter if you work at a seminary, you shouldn't just read heady academic stuff You know a good daily devotional goes a long way, you know, you need that real love real world practical stuff sure, especially scholars because they're they're obnoxious people, but but yeah,

I've noticed that just Everything that I needed to get in order happened along the way of disciplining myself

Disciplining my body like a boxer like Paul says, you know all these other things fell into place as far as being consistent and disciplined and I don't think that I would have that discipline had

I Not been disciplined about my eating habits and my exercise and activity level I I don't think because it all is like a perfect storm of everything because in my life becoming more ordered and disciplined and I think

Started with the weight loss, but it Carries over into the feeling better Being more disciplined being more consistent on a day -to -day basis of doing the same things you get more consistent in everything you get more consistent in your

Daily Bible readings you get more consistent in your family life your family devotional You get more consistent at showing up at church every

Sunday all these kinds of things become more and more consistent in your life and I can't say that for I'm sure that there are tons of people out there who have

Weight problems that read their Bible every day and all that stuff I'm not saying that that's gonna you know, but if you are a person that are not consistent

In your studies in your spiritual disciplines and all of that getting physically Disciplined will help you get spiritually and mentally disciplined and and no question.

I'm able to retain to be more aware Because of my physical health I'm not constantly reflecting on aches and pains and stuff and fatigue too tired to read too tired to keep going

Whatever. I'm aware that my mind is a lot sharper, too. There's something about fit mind with a fit body

Mm -hmm. Yeah, I can say this as a former fatty Okay, so let's shift let's shift over to this whole issue of the life of the mind and I'm sure as a

Professor people would be interested in what your study life looks like not not necessarily.

I mean you have the benefit I suppose That because you're a professor part of your job is that you're reading that you're studying and things like that But what does your personal study look like?

You know, is it is it a mixture of listening and reading, you know Do you learn through preparing lessons you kind of like take what you're gonna learn?

It's like how would I teach this and you go through that process? What does your process look like in terms of your own personal study and doing it efficiently?

Okay, so I break my study down well, it will start with first First we'll just talk about the

Bible. Okay, and I I try to stay consistent with two methods

Broad reading and Targeted book go through a book and passage by passage and I do a lot of that Because I spend most of my time doing research in the

New Testament stuff I try to do my daily Bible studies in the Old Testament and you know But whatever whatever you want to get into so I I think that it's good to do both and so I try to read long sections of Scripture And I think that you can either do that by Audiobook remember most people for most of human history did not own a

Bible. Most Christians did not have a Bible in their house They had to go to public readings of it.

So listening to it on your you version Bible app audio version Same thing you're just joining the the brothers and sisters who've gone on before us, you know and in hearing

God's Word Pick and I think they got every translation Available as audio now, but that's a good way to get saturated in the bigger

Chunks of the Scripture I got for Christmas My wife got me one of those readers Bibles without the chapters and verses and that's real nice, too

Which which they don't read those off when you're listening to it So I always tell you know, that's always good when you don't have those like when you're listening to an audio

Bible They'll they'll tell you when they introduce a new chapter, but they won't you know You're not distracted by verse numbers or subject headings or anything like that.

That would be really annoying. Wouldn't it be like verse 3? Yeah but That is a

I think people Can get too lost in the trees and miss the forest or they can get too caught up in the forest mysteries

That's why I do both So I tell people you know There's I don't set a time like if I'm in the office and I have time to read

I'll read for my readers Bible But you know if I'm in the car commuting That's when I try to listen to the body of Bible and that's a great way to get large chunks

Follow the arguments like if you're in a piss pistol or something without without Zeroing in on you that proof text that you've solved two people on the internet haggling over get out of that Now that's how

I try to get broad chunks in and I try to do that daily now I will be going through a book of the

Bible and So I'll probably be starting Nahum pretty soon and what

I will do is I will try to I'll probably listen to it first and try to find and follow along as I listen to find the natural breaks

In the passage whether the subject headers get it right or wrong, and then what I'll do is I'll start studying those sections

I don't study verse by verse, but I do study You know a pericope by pericope and I try to have at least three commentaries with me

And I know that people just aren't overflowing with funds for that But you know if you have three blu -ray discs you can afford three commentaries right if you can if you can dodge a wrench

So so and the commentaries be more useful I try to get commentaries from a variety of traditions now

I have log -off software so I have a gazillion commentaries, but I don't always use them for my daily study. I try to find a

A patristic source I try to find a reformed source, and I try to find just a standard evangelical source

And that way because I always want to read outside of my tradition And I always interested in the early church fathers and see how they engage with Scripture Because even the

Antiochus school, that's not the same thing as grammatical historical hermeneutics like we talked about today I mean they were they were doing something a little bit different with the text, too

It's not just those crazy Alexandrians because you know what they were there were fewer Alexandrian heretics, and there were

Antiochian heretics You know what like Marciano guys a lot of heresies from the

Antiochus school, which is the precursor to radical historical So don't knock those crazy Neoplatonists in their

Bibles because you believe in the Trinity and everything else they both came up with So I always like to look at what they were up to But I try to I try to take section by section.

I try to read Several commentaries and then I'm not sure if you're familiar with the socio rhetorical method of interpretation

But you start with the inner texture Which is just the text itself in the world that's created by the text that you're encountering and then the next layer you go through the inter texture, which is you're looking for Texts that are embedded in a text the obvious case being

Old Testament references in the New Testament, but there are also but echoes of all kinds of Texts whether written or oral traditions from the ancient world that somehow fit into those texts.

So you you find any sort of connections of Intertextuality And then the third level is you look at the socio -cultural dimensions of the text and and what were the thought categories?

What were the the? Structures of the families. What were the structures of the city? What were the politics like what was what was the ideological?

I mean the socio -cultural Setting not just historical setting but deeper not not what happened at this time in the world when this text was written

But how did they think how did they engage? What were their social structures? Like what was their cultural male you like?

And so you look at those kind of dimensions and then you look at the ideology the ideological texture

And that's the texture of what is what is the author? What is the intended audience? What are their ideologies?

What are they trying to communicate through these texts? And then you take that best you can reconstruct it and you think about your own ideological views

So I'm a non -reformed kind of Just basic Orthodox Protestant, you know

What does this have to say that's in common with my ideology what is my political, you know How does this challenge that if it needs to be challenged?

so you explore that ideological texture between the author audience and you as the interpreter and Then the next texture would be the sacred texture, which is what most people think of when they read a comment

What does this say about God? What does this say about God's relationship to creation? What does this say about God's relationship to believers?

What does this say about? Your duties as a believer in Yahweh as a believer in Christ, you know, what does this say to me?

Theologically the sacred texture was just otherwise saying your theological reading of the text What does this have to do with theology doctrine things like that?

Yeah, and then the final texture in the model that we use at Trinity which I use in my daily study would be the

Homiletical texture. Okay. What is the exhortation from this passage? If I had to go even if you're not a pastor if I had to go teach or preach this to others

What is the exhortation from this passage, you know? And that's where you kind of cross those what they would be called a hermeneutical bridge or whatever from from text to application today

And so what's the exhortation of this text to me to go and do or to teach or how am

I supposed to think or? What am I supposed to believe properly from this text? and so those six layers is how I go through and break each pericope of our pericope and Theoretically, I'm a

I'm not a systematic theologian, but I love systematic theology and I think that the Bible is internally consistent you know, it's an errant and So it's not gonna conflict.

So as you go through that you can find if you take notes like I do if you're a note -taker and you and you in in you weighed in what the

Commentators have to say, you know, you've taken all that in account. You should have a consistent reading

But you can check your own notes and see how well my I think I spun that because of my tradition or whatever

So maybe I need to rethink this passage or maybe I got this passage wrong because you want your stuff to harmonize like all of our

Traditions whether we agree with your report, you know Calvinism or not or whatever I think it

I think most all of them are More internally consistent than their opponents will give them credit for.

I'll just say that I know that a lot of your non -Calvinist friends think that well the logical conclusion of this is

X and you're not consistent with this passage and this You're reading here doesn't match what this first plainly says and right

John 316. How can you be a Calvin, you know, whatever? But I think most systems are as internally consistent more than other people give them credit for sure, but it's finding be that as it may broad traditions are always nuanced and Reform tradition is broad, right?

Reform Baptist is nothing like Presbyterian in very important ways when it comes to sacramental life, you know

So there's nuances everywhere So what you got to do is you got to accept the fact that okay, if you're in the reform tradition, for example

We still have our own spectrums and you can find At least if you if you work on it

Through your own studies you can find inconsistencies in your own thought that maybe somebody else Doesn't you know has a better take on it?

That's why I'm a believer in commentaries to check yourself against other people who know more than you do sure, you know

But you can but or you can find Inconsistencies in your own thought because if you're comparing your notes from one passage to another you you think that the

Bible's internally consistent So why am I not being consistent in the things that I wrote down? because if you're always thinking systematically while you're doing

Bible study and And you're and you're making notes, then you're gonna fudge your notes But it's going back and looking at your notes and say oh

I think I misunderstood this because these aren't magic now if you don't believe in inerrancy and you don't believe the internal consistency

Of Scripture, that's not gonna matter, but we're all Bible believers here. So right, you know, even if Yes, I know you do

But for Bible believing Christians who take the Bible seriously Even if your theology turns out you get to heaven you find out you're wrong, whatever

Okay but the best thing that this method does of unpacking texts at six different layers and taking notes without You know and you're never gonna get rid of all of your blinders.

You're never gonna get rid of all of your presuppositions You're never gonna get rid of your theological commitments But what you can find is that you're not perfect and what you will find is you will find at least your own

Inconsistencies say sure now if I said the Bible was teaching this back in Chapter 2 how am

I coming to this conclusion when that seems at odds with what I thought this day? So it's not checking, you know,

I don't do this to check myself against Calvinism or Arminian ism or whatever? I do this to check am

I internally consistent and that's how you grow and When you find out that you need to go get some more help, you know

Your own inadequacy and so that's when I get into the deep prick of people are pretty being it and Really that takes probably me 30 minutes a day.

Okay to do my own Bible study. That's that's a good way to kind of Come at the text to get really the most out of the text as possible

You can't go through those layers and I think that's that's a good way of going about it Now my last question is we want to make this somewhat manageable for people because we don't want to get it too long

By the way, I'm enjoying this conversation very much I think it's very helpful for myself as well as I'm sure listeners will find it helpful as well

But you you mentioned taking notes. How do you take notes? Is there a special way you do it?

Is there a way that you do it that you might think would be helpful for someone who might not know how to take notes?

I mean, how does that process work for you? I'm spoiled I work at a desk and so I can do mine here at work

Maybe on my lunch break or wherever I didn't get it in. So I take notes on the computer on Microsoft Word I can't read my own handwriting though.

It's that bad. So so I don't but my note -taking is Sometimes I I do it on I'll take my notes and make

PowerPoints out of them So, okay, maybe I should just do it as PowerPoint, but I'm a note -taker.

So I'll I'll make I'll Come up with the past now. I learned this This method of note -taking from Clay Jones, who's a he was one of my professors at Biola because whatever what he would do is he would go to like a

Bible gateway or whatever and he'd pick his translation and they have a bunch of translations but they have a little gear where you can unclick like headings and footnotes and verse numbers and all that if you click that and he would

Unclick everything to read just had the text any copy and text the stuff to a word document

And then he would make his notes under that text Now, I don't put the text on my word document.

I did when I first learned his thing, but now that I do my own exegetical method, you know the socio -rhetorical approach

I'll do the subject headers of the six different textures of the text and I'll make my notes in each one of them So I do all of that on Microsoft Word documents and then like I tell my students so I have students and so it's say in a class

I'm teaching a class on the general epistles and I'm going through like the opening of Jude or I'm going through James I'll tell people for those who are in ministry

And seminary You don't know what? Well, you're taking a class on the general epistle.

So this should be your Your sermon series Book of James go for it, you know, and that way you can turn your seminary work into Sermon prep as well and get to one.

So yeah What you just said because I remember

Someone was interviewing. Dr. William Lane Craig and they were asking, you know Hey, how do you how do you kind of turn out all these different books?

You know seems like you're always writing and publishing something and he mentioned just that it's kind of you double -dip, you know

Yeah, take he takes a scholarly work and then he from from working within that framework He'll pull out something and turn it into a popular level book.

There's no need and I think this is helpful for people There's no need to reinvent the wheel every time

Right, you know just building off what you've already done Or even using someone else's outline as kind of a framework to kind of go off on your own and draw from that I think that's very very helpful

And it's important to remember that your favorite Scott like one of my favorite biblical scholars is

Craig Keener Okay, okay, and people say well, it seems like him and Ben Witherington and Nt, right?

Come out with a book every week, you know And if you look at in the reformed tradition Vern Poythress and John frame have tons of co -authored books like how do they do that?

I'm like, well number one They spent a whole lot of time in their younger years studying and number two

They're older now and they are us paying dividends of all that knowledge that they built up I can remember 25 years ago.

These guys had very few books, but as they've gotten older and as they've Digested so much information now their output of books is a lot more than it was 25 years ago

So it's okay. You don't have to be 32 and have seven scholarly books out there for all you seminarians and and budding scholars

That's not it's okay to allow God to let you live as long as you live and to take your time with things

You know, that's right. You don't you're not competing with those. Trust me. You're not John frame. You're not gonna be

John Frank Quit trying to be John Frank Stop setting your so high.

Come on Now if you're 63 and you haven't written your book yet, then yeah Get on the ball, but yeah

Well, there was another interview that that wall back that NT right someone's interviewing into you, right and someone asked him that very question

How do you put out so many books? He goes? Well, I've done so much reading in my younger years I figured by now I might just write a good bit of it down Basically, that's basically how

I you know, well, that's how they all do it. We don't see what happens behind the closed doors We just see hey, there's a guy he's got an article now

He's published a book and it's really awesome we don't see all of the though the years and sweat and blood and tears that goes into Really gathering your thoughts the information really processing and then just kind of spitting it out in a way that's helpful for other people

We don't see those behind the scenes sort of things, right? And that's one of the things that as far as apologetics goes

Three things that I think for apologetics as far as apologetic fitness and in addition to your own personal study habits stuff

Apologists Need to study the Bible. They don't need to study every single popular apologist book that comes out

I mean because you talk about William Lane Craig's reasonable faith how many different apologists have their reasonable faith signature book that has the same

Evidential arguments that his does, you know uses and I see these guys who are interested in apologetics

They will go from one Apologetic book to the next to the next to the next that are all covering basically the same information, right?

Get out of that. I don't care. What kind of apologies you are precept. What don't just read apologetics books.

That's a train wreck Because now because now you visually just become a parrot.

Yes. Well, I think that's a that's very relevant to a Lot of presuppositional list that I know is that a lot of presuppositional is like to talk about the worldview stuff

Because they usually have access they usually gain access to That their point of contact is say someone like Vonson or a debate or something and they'll talk a lot about this worldview stuff

But they've never actually studied the specific Evidences and specific intricacies when you actually dip your head into the details of that worldview and so that's why you have a lot of Presuppositionalists who not only do they not want to talk about the evidence because of the framework that sometimes are operating in They lack the capacity to do so and they've never read

Kant So there needs to be a balance of that broader kind of study and that more specific, you know knowing what the overall story of scripture is but but knowing how to respond to someone who

Brings an objection to your faith out of the Levitical law or something like that Yeah to be able to to get to have that in in the details in the weeds

Perspective as well as that broader kind of right big picture where people are gonna ask any apologists of any kind of method about the

Canaanite Genocide that's all and slavery in the

Bible Then they are going to argue over objective foundations for morality or you know, the the person on the street that's a non -believer, maybe someone antagonistic you're gonna get questions like As basic as why is it just for someone else to be punished for my sins?

I mean we're talking about substitutionary atonement, that's basic theology but apologists

Not very biblically literate, you know Right Braxton even made a video where he said that one of his biggest convictions was that he'd been doing it all wrong

Because he just read apologetics and didn't really study doctrine and Scripture much in his early days and that happens to a lot of people that get into apologetics because they want to debate and they were

Which is the worst reason to get into apologetics you get into apologetics to evangelize But you know people want to debate and they want to you know with all this stuff and so you see people kind of like what you were talking about like the

Getting down in the nitty -gritty. You see a lot of people in classical apologetics They'll say well the

Guth -Flinked model in physics blows out the the idea of a infinite big, you know unit regression of time

Have you ever read their paper? No, you heard William Lane Craig say that yes

And all the other guys you've repeated William Lane Craig, that's right Now if you've read the paper like that's all the more power to you but the average popularizer

They don't go into those details and we know as you said before we become parrots, yeah, I want to say yeah

If you've read the paper, you're talking about less than 20 people in the entire YouTube That is where have you understood the paper?

That's a different thing. Yeah, I I don't understand that paper Yeah, and apparently they've moved on from it anyway, so, you know,

I'm just saying I don't Understand physics. I don't pretend to So I'm not saying stuff like that personal, right?

But most people don't care people think that people think that atheism is the big thing in apologetics like that's less than 4 % of if you're interested in evangelism what

I call just a Chaotic paganism or spirituality. That's most lost people.

Mm -hmm. They're not atheists Yeah, you know one thing that apologists, you know If you want to be a fit apologist and you read evangelism books and go learn how to do that Then do it and realize that arguments against atheism

That's you're not you're gonna be lucky if you one in a hundred people you witness to is gonna be an atheist

Yeah, yeah, you know nominal nominal Christians and I'm spiritual not religious people is who you're going to talk to That's a whole different animal that yeah, sometimes more difficult to talk to someone like that then talking to an atheist

Yes, because it's irrational you want to talk about no foundations or consistencies? Yeah, and they don't care

There is that when you just said because it's irrational. That's very it's very Funny because I I spoke with someone who who knew dr.

Gordon Clark you know, if those of you who know who Gordon Clark is he's a specific brand of presuppositional ism, but many people know him as a

Brilliant logician. I mean this guy was an iron -trap mind I'm in a lot in a lot of regards and he used to invite his students over his house to play chess and of course playing chess against dr.

Clark was nearly and you're gonna get crushed because he's Such a logician and so one of the students lasted the longest with dr.

Clark and And he was surprised. Dr. Clark was surprised and and and everyone asked the guy eventually lost but Everyone asked him.

How did you last so long against? Dr. Clark and he goes. Well, I was just making random irrational moves

And and and and when I would make a move, dr. Clark would think why would you make that move?

But there was no reason it was the irrationality of yes that threw off his rational mind and I think the same thing when we're speaking with nominal

Christians the Irrationality of it makes it very difficult to reason with those sorts of people and so that's a whole nother

Apologetical task that I think is underdeveloped in a lot of the books out there and the way we do apologize Yes, so when you ask someone who doesn't believe in a monotheist

God Why there are souls and spells work? And you tell them but don't you see your worldview can't account for that.

There's no foundation of a Omnipotent being that can bring those kinds of things.

I don't care. Yeah, this is what I believe. This is my belief You have your way, but how does your apologetic stand to that?

What do you say at that? So, you know No, this is this is that that's actually an

I that's probably worthy of a different podcast episode how to talk to people like that That would be a very interesting.

Yes, and that's just We'll see the reason why people people don't know how to respond to this because they don't do evangelism

That's right. And that's the average person. You'll see all the old That's the average person you'll talk to and you're if you're not encountering them

You're probably not sharing your faith on a normal basis, right? And for me you like like I we discussed at the opening.

I don't have a I use presuppositional Methodology when it's useful you have given evidences when it's useful

You know, I've seen you give evidences for the resurrection and for the beginning of the universe and all of that Good apologists will use the best that they can use out of all of these

Methodologies, right and so that's why I don't get apologists who debate methods.

I'm like Is it a fake because Braxton makes this argument? That I think is right.

So even if you're a Calvinist and you you think that now Calvinist will have their own debates whether Presuppositional or classical is the proper reform method, right?

I've seen those debates Presbyterians and Baptists argue about that. Sure Okay, but even if your report for your reformat if you believe that God uses means as Well as the ends and that God can use means to convert the sinner, you know regeneration preceding faith on in that tradition

Evidences can be the means that God uses so you you don't have to be against evidences. So More is better in my opinion when it comes to apologetics methods when it comes to evangelistic methods more is better There's no one -size -fits -all for anybody but I think apologists need to become the evangelists of The 21st century number one because no one else is doing it.

So we have to give an apologetic to the church about why they should do evangelism because Just the pastor who says we need more evangelism, but even he himself isn't doing it

You know One thing to say anymore evangelist start doing evangelism and do it number one by setting the example by actually doing it

That's the apologetic task, right? Right and when you do that, you're gonna figure out really quickly that different person especially in personal evangelism different conversations with different lost people are gonna require a wider set of tools and so apologetic fitness, it's one thing to have in I have internal critiques of Various methods some things are good about cumulative case.

I'm not some things are good about precepts I'm not some are good about classical some not or whatever but there's good in all of it and You're going to talk to someone where you're gonna wish that you had a bigger toolkit

And so if I can encourage Paul just have a bigger toolkit. Don't be so Method Minded that you're you're you're evangelistically weak is you know see now now as a presuppositionalist

And we don't have to get into our disagreements here But I think the presuppositional method is a big enough toolkit

What I disagree with is the way that people Limit the toolkit.

They think the toolkit is not allowed to use certain tools And so they'll only use one tool in the toolbox and so in that sense,

I think And I had a great discussion with Chris bolt who is a presuppositionalist in the previous episode on on my podcast and and he was talking about the presuppositional use of natural theology the presuppositional use of a

Cosmological. Sure. It's the same way says I'm an evidentialist in one respect.

Yeah. Yeah, but but Well make that famous because I don't think a lot of presuppositionalist know that No, that's true.

That's what I'm saying I I think we we limit ourselves when we're just relegating ourselves to one way of arguing you could be

Presuppositionalist and argue in different ways Greg Bonson did this in his debate with Gordon Stein?

What did he focus on? He focused on the issue of logic as as An aspect of human experience that can only be held up by the

Christian worldview in his debate with Edward Tabas He shifted the focus on to the issue of induction.

Those are two different Emphasis within a presuppositional framework a lot of popularizers just have one argument

They have only their certain catchphrases that they learn and that's it And if you veer from that, you're you're you know, you're letting man be the judge and all this garbage of yeah

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I like to say Braxton always says why don't you just call yourself a presuppositionalist because he says

That's ultimately what I am. I said well number one the reform guys will throw fit if I do Yeah, but number two is well as because I think there's a lot more crossover than then people give credit for it

That's why they need to read but And people if they want to have those that people can debate whatever they want to debate, you know as long as it's friendly

But I think for the evangelistic tag task You should never limit your toolkit

Like you said no matter what your primary method is and as for discipleship, which

I think apologetics plays a role in discipleship Even if you're an adamant pre supper who does not like evidence or reformed epistemology, you know, you go that route

Well, I mean they have war without Evidence, you know, okay, whatever. Did you know again back to the means thing?

Did you know that in discipleship those who are in the church those evidences go a long way to help?

Anchor their faith. Sure, you know, so the kalam and the arguments the defense of the resurrection and all that stuff

Church folks like that kind of thing because it makes them more confident in the reasonableness of Christianity Sure, so You you still need to know it for discipleship purposes, you know, all of its useful in some way

So I think one way to be apologetically fit is to be number one Well read be well read and grounded in Scripture and well read in the best of all the traditions

So even if you're going to debate it, you at least know what you're talking about. That's right. Yep There's a

I'm just gonna close with this comment here. There's a really cool little book called And I made my

Calvinist friends would would would appreciate this there's a book out there a small book called killing

Calvinism and one of the ten it's written by a Calvinist and one of the chapters

Talks about how many Calvin especially like the cage stage or sorts can only find themselves reading reformed literature and they actually

Kill the strength of their own position when they do not avail themselves of the strength of other positions and I think that's very very important in not closing ourselves in within our tradition and not actually

Seeing the value and other things presupposition list sometimes are guilty of doing this Calvinist are guilty of doing this, you know

I'm sorry, they're traditionalist to do this where they kind of keep themselves We need to get out of that We need to get out of that mindset

You can read people that you disagree with and still learn and it's not the same as compromising.

That's the key I was before you finish your thought I want to add this and still learn it is it is the mark of a clown

Who reads first to criticize if they bother to read outside of their tradition at all?

It's to tear it apart say that again Can you say that more clearly because what you what you said is very important I said it is the mark of a clown somebody that you should not take seriously if If they bother to read out of their side of their tradition at all don't care

What tradition traditionalists who never read a Calvin? I don't care who if they if they only bother to read outside of their tradition just to criticize.

That's right They're a clown you need to read to learn first and I read to learn

Atheists first so that because like you said even if you're in the debate you want to steal man not straw man

You want to take them on at their their strongest but beyond that you gain information of Psychology why did they come to that conclusion?

Sure, and you could test your own blind spots as well. That's why I go back to the Bible So why do I pick something from the reformed tradition?

Because I know I'm not that and I need to check against what they're saying And oh by the way They say a ton of things that I think are better said in that book than in my own guys book sure and my own guys commentary because I mean it's not like everything's just opposites so There's wisdom and knowledge to be gained outside of your tradition

But I think the best thing to do is read Widely read outside of your own tradition and first to read to learn

Yes, you can engage it and engage in critical readings of the text and stuff But that should not be your focus when you're reading you should be reading to learn and then once you understand

Critically engage it at that level, but if you're just reading something to rip apart You're wasting your time because that's right

You go against the guy who wrote that book and he'll tear you to pieces because you did not closely read his book

You just wanted to argue with it. That's right, or you could pull a Dan Barker and say don't quote my book Well, listen, dr.

Pritchett This has been an excellent discussion and I think a lot of people are gonna find this helpful on a whole

Host of levels since we covered so many different Different things. I want to personally. Thank you.

It had been it This is our first time actually meeting face to face and it has been a it has been a true pleasure

Thank you so much for yes, and I love what you're doing, man Carry that torch for priests up. Keep keep talking theology.

I love it that you're interested in theology you're interested in the ideas in the Conversation more than you are tearing somebody down and there are a lot of people and especially the soteriology debate that need to learn from Your example on every side then so I appreciate what you've been there and I appreciate your heart for Witnessing and evangelism and doing it all for the glory of God, man.

That's why I'm a fan been a fan Like to tease you but I'm a fan Well, just stay on with me.

I'm just gonna stop the recording here and then I'll will formally say our goodbyes. Okay. All right All right.

That's all for this episode guys. I hope you enjoyed if you have any questions You could email me at revealed apologetics at gmail .com