Scripture Memory & Apologetics with Matt Slick

Opening Banter and Introductions

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I am your host, Eli Ayala, and today I am very excited to have a guest with us, a good friend of mine, Matt Slick from karm .org. That is karm .org, the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry.

That website has been available since the time of the dinosaurs. It has been on there way back in the early days of the internet. Many people who began in apologetics searching material online would be very familiar with karm .org because it's been around for a while and has provided lots of resources for all sorts of people, not just here locally where I live, but of course, all around the world.

So very, very excited to have Matt Slick with us tonight. Now, before I invite him on, I just wanna make a couple of quick announcements. Those of you guys have seen on Facebook, perhaps you visited my website, revealedapologetics .com, that I've been advertising the online courses that I've been teaching pre-sup U.

We are currently undergoing classes now and I'm meeting with our premium students once a week. We just had our first meeting. It was a great time of fellowship and just interacting with the material. But those of you who missed this signup, you can sign up now on the website.

If you go to revealedapologetics .com and click the menu pre-sup U and you can sign up from now till February 15th and there will be the premium option there as well if you're interested in that and we'll begin meeting weekly from that point on.

So definitely check that out. I'm very happy with the content that I was able to make and I think it will be very useful for folks who wanna learn presuppositional apologetics. Also I have, and finally, I have an in-person speaking event this Friday at a church in my local area.

And so it's been a while since I've been invited to speak in person given everything that's going on, but totally excited about that. You can book me if you want me to come to your church and maybe do a workshop or a talk or speak at your event.

That can be set up on my website. If that interests you, you can check that out. And that is it. I would like to introduce a good friend, Matt Slick, and we'll bring him on right now. How's it going, Matt?

It's going fine, buddy. How are you doing? I'm doing good, staying busy, but it's all good busy. Good, glad to hear it. Yeah. Every time I call Matt and I say, what's up, he's like, hey, what's going on?

He's like, it's going. And he always sounds busy. So if you guys are following Matt, you know, he's doing all sorts of things. So While you were talking, doing the intro, I'm looking at Gematria charts.

Yeah, I mean. That's right. You're always multitasking. By the way, I'm thankful that I, it's funny. We were just, he was, Matt was just joking about this a few moments ago, but the topic for today is scripture memory and apologetics.

And so I reached out to Matt to say, hey, you know, you want to get on early and maybe we'll do like a quick audio visual check. And he's like, for what? And I was like, what do you mean for what? You're coming on my show today.

So he forgot. No, I didn't. That he was coming on to talk about the topic of scripture memory. So I was giving you a hard time. It was about memorization.

I said, what are we talking about? I don't know. I don't know. It's like the guy who told me this is true story. He's a guy who's like doing college. And I found out after a couple of years of knowing him, oh, what's your major?

He said, communication. And I went, what? And he goes, communication. I said, wait a second. Wait, what?

And he goes, communicate. He goes, you're an idiot. You are very good at trolling people sometimes. I wasn't sure you did sound genuinely like, what are you talking about? So I can't show you, but I have like my lights.

I have like my studio lights in here. I got everything set up and I'm all like ready to go. And Matt's probably sitting down watching a movie, eating Doritos, like, hey, what's going on? I thought it was my night off.

So No, I even told my wife. I said, yeah, when Eli has me on today, I'm going to give him a hard time. Like memorization, what are we talking about? You know? And so it's all pre-planned. It was ordained by God.

Okay. Okay. All right. Yes, it was ordained by God. So I'm super happy to have you on today because specifically because of the topic, which is scripture memory and apologetics. One of the things that struck me about you when I first started listening to your podcast years ago was that like periods at the end of a sentence, everything you said ended with a scripture reference.

And I always thought, I'm like, my goodness, like I wish I could memorize scripture like that. And he would say, he would go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Galatians 4 .4. You know?

So I'm just like, wow, like it's so effective to be able to recall scripture that quickly. And especially when it's within the context where that specific scripture is needed, whether it's within the context of apologetics or just being encouraging to someone.

So I'm very happy to have you on to talk about that topic. So let's jump right in then. How long have you been a Christian? Let's start there. And then let's move into your introduction to apologetics.

And then I'm gonna ask you a question related to scripture, which I think you're gonna resonate very much with. So how long have you been a Christian? 47 years. Okay. All right. And so how long have you been, or how long from when you were a Christian, when you first became a Christian,.

Did you start doing apologetics? Oh, we're not exactly sure, but we think it was 1979 or 1980. So I just used 1980. And each time it becomes January 1st, I just add one year. So 41 years. Okay. I've been doing this longer than you've been alive.

That's right. That's right. I'm 38. So yes, that's right. That's an immature young, but back in the good old days when I was 38. And it dooms.

Yeah, no, it's all good, man. But I remember when, I've heard your testimony a thousand times and I love to hear it. We won't get into it now because we, you can unpack those things and I'm sure folks have heard it before.

But what was the time span from when you were a Christian to when you started taking apologetics very seriously? Or was it right there together? You were a Christian.

No, no. God saved me in his incredible grace. It's something I muse about frequently is he saved me in an incredibly dramatic fashion. And then yet I actually slid, back slid for a while and sinned, but there was always him there.

And why he didn't kill me, I don't know. And then one day, I don't know how to describe it. I don't talk about this part of it very often, but I was being convicted by the Lord and I actually yelled at him.

I yelled at God one night. I was with my wife, but she wasn't my wife then. I shook my fist up at God and yelled at him to leave me alone. I still remember that because I knew it was stupid and dangerous, but I was just immature and wanted some aspects of my sin, but I wanted to serve, it's just a confusion.

And one month after that, and I remember back early, back on, I was remembering on it. I don't remember that following month, it was completely gone. There was no recollection of it, but after I was insatiably on fire for the word of God, insatiably, reading the Bible four, six hours a day, going to Bible studies five, six nights a week.

I mean, just, it was an incredible thing. And when I reflect about all of this stuff, knowing I was involved in the occult and pornography, foul language, fornication, and he saved me. And then I still had those old habits that were slowly being honed and I rebelled, but yet I wanted him, it's hard to explain.

And then he just showered his grace upon me. And here I am, four decades later. So all I can say is, God, it is an incredible mercy. I should have been killed. I should have been dead. And yet he saved me and is using me in spite of this filthy, foul individual that I still am.

The only thing good in me is Jesus. That's it, that's a fact. So he's merciful, he's gracious. He gets all, all the glory.

Amen, yeah, and I could very much resonate with that. I think this is very important too, because when we're dealing with apologetics, I think a lot of people can be captivated with the intellectual aspect of it.

It's kind of cool to be able to address people's answers and to do debates and things like that. But not a lot of times do people get an opportunity to hear someone who is good at doing that, has kind of a public appearance, but then also see that vulnerable side, which reminds us of the fact that we're all just broken people being used by God.

And I think that's a very important aspect to discuss as apologists. Now, you did say something that I want you to expand upon. One of my question was, and you're gonna understand this right away, explain your initial obsession with the scriptures and how that laid the foundation for your further and deeper study.

Now, what I mean by that is when you became a Christian, you said you had an insatiable desire to read the word of God. Why don't you unpack that? Because that was something that I experienced, which actually laid the groundwork for what I'm able to do now when I don't have as much time to jump into the scriptures.

So do you resonate with that?

Yeah, yeah, it was after that month that was a blank, still is a blank, it's always been a blank. Curious about it. But just afterwards, I just could not stop reading the word. I remember laying on the couch and just reading for four hours.

And where can I go to Bible study? And I had a job and of all, how many times you ever remember what day you started a job? But November 16th, 1981, I started a job in Fullerton, California at Kimberly Clark.

And I was gonna be a mechanical draftsman. And the engineer was training me that day and he had to go out on the floor, out in the factory to do something. And she said, just wait here. And I reached up and grabbed a dictionary and I started reading, look at the word Jesus, God, Bible, salvation, hell, heaven, any word I could find in there, just because I needed it.

It was like I was a drug addict coming out of something and I needed it. And that's all I can tell you. It makes no sense, but I would read so much. It's the voice of Christ. It's his word. And I just knew, I don't know how I knew.

I just knew it's his word. All of it is his, all of it's from him. All of it is true. And I just knew it. It wasn't deduction. It wasn't anything. It was something he gave me, something he put on my heart.

And it's always been that way from then on. It's his word. And you know me, I mean, I joke around a lot, but hey, I'll say it. This is what the word says. If you don't like it, it's not my problem. It's yours.

You take it up with God. That's what he says. And that's how it is with me. I remember you had a really cool intro segment in your podcast a long time ago. And you did this guy, I don't know what his name was, but you were like B .R. Tickler.

There we go. That's right. You can rip it out.

Here, listen to this. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is B .R. Tickler coming at you from the Feelings Tabernacle. Today's message is out of Deuterectomy 13, 13.

I've been listening to you for so long. Hearing you do that voice was actually nostalgic to me. It reminded me when I first started listening. Those were so much fun. You had such a fun intro. Yeah, so the reason why I asked that question is because I know a lot of people who do apologetics and are strong believers, they've had that moment where they just couldn't get enough of God's word.

I've told people that I grew up in a Spanish-speaking church and I never really picked up the Spanish. And so throughout the course of my years growing up in church, I would just sit in my little bench.

We had little wooden benches. And I would read my Bible for all the times we had service. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. And the services were two and a half hours each. And then on Sunday morning, we'd have a two and a half hour service.

And then in the nighttime, we'd have a two and a half hour service. And I would just be absorbed in the word. And that really, a lot of the things that I know about the Bible now is actually rooted in that foundation that was laid during that time where I felt like I just couldn't get enough.

It is like a drug addiction. It's almost like, my wife will say, can you go upstairs? And can you get, can you bring down the hamper? And then I'll go upstairs. And of course I'm missing. And my wife will sneak up and she'll look in the room and the hamper's right next to me.

And there I am standing reading something on my phone. She goes, I told you to bring that. I was like, I'm sorry. It's almost like you had to get your quick fix for like a millisecond. You feel like you just needed it.

That's right. Por que no aprendiste espanol? Oh my goodness, man.

Don't even, it's embarrassing. Now I got the white guy teaching the Spanish guy. Listen, man, I'm New Yurican, all right?

I Wait a minute, wait a minute, what did you say? I am New Yurican. Oh, I thought you said Nuderican, I'm like what?

I'm Puerto Rican and I live in New York. So it's really bad when I would go somewhere with my dad and someone would speak Spanish to me, you'd see my dad in the background like, tu no sabe nada. And they go like, oh, what do you know?

I feel like such an idiot.

I lost my train of thought, but that's okay. Something about memorization. Yeah, well, at any rate. You go up the stairs, a hamper, you're addicted.

Yes, that's right. So I know a lot of people could resonate with that. And I think this is a work of the spirit in our lives. Don't you think? Yes, yes. Why don't you explain, why don't you explain what is it about the work of the spirit and the desire of the believer to be in his word?

What's the connection there? I don't know.

Oh, stop, come on. Yeah, the Holy Spirit bears witness of Jesus, John 14, 26, John 15, 26. And Jesus is the word. I remember you go to John 1, I mean, yeah, John 1, 1 in the beginning was the word, the word was with us, the word became flesh, verse 14.

We go to Genesis chapter one, verses one through three. It says, you know, in the beginning, God created two genealogies, so to speak, in the beginning and in the beginning. And in Genesis, it was, and God said, let there be light.

And so the word, speaking light, if you go to John 1, 1, in the beginning was the word, and he says he was the light of man, et cetera, is drawing that connection. The Holy Spirit bears witness of Jesus, and Jesus is the word, and the written word represents Christ, because Jesus says in John 5, 39, he says, you search the scriptures, because in them you think you have eternal life, but it is either bear witness of me.

And in Luke 24, 44, he says that he gave them a Bible study about all that was about him in the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. So that's his word, the Holy Spirit bears witness of Christ, that's his word, so the Holy Spirit confirms in our heart what the word of truth is, and Jesus says, John 10, 27, he says, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.

It gives eternal life to them. It's the voice of Christ, it's his word. So if you're a true Christian, you wanna hear his word. If you're not a true Christian, you don't care, you wanna hear something like Joel Osteen, your best life now.

The Desire to Read Scripture and the Work of the Spirit

Okay, so here's a question, and I think some people might resonate with this. You're a Christian, but you hate to read. You love Jesus, but you struggle with opening up the Bible and really just focusing.

And then someone could interpret that as, well, am I a Christian then? Do I really love the Lord? I mean, I think I love the Lord, but I can't bring myself to just sit down and focus. What's going on there, do you think?

Maybe you can give some insight into that. Is that just someone needing to develop discipline, or is there something wrong with the person that they confess the Lord Jesus Christ, but they don't feel this desire to really dive into his word?

It just means that they're just not wired that way, that's all. They love the Lord, they confess the truth, but they're not audible or readable. There's different kind of learners. Some are auditory, some are visual, some have to read, some have to be tactile.

It's okay. They don't deny the word, they wanna read it, they recognize they do. They have trouble reading it though, because maybe they're dyslexic, maybe whatever. That's okay. God calls us various broken vessels.

He calls us in different ways. As I tell people, I have Asperger's, which is an autism spectrum disorder, and I've been diagnosed professionally, and so I have Asperger's. Okay, well, someone has another issue.

Okay, you don't like reading that much? All right, well, put an audio book on, go hear a sermon, and that's it. And God can certainly overcome stuff like that if he wants that person to be involved in something where you had to read the word a lot, he'd give him that desire.

He did it to us, he can do it, not a big deal.

Absolutely, yeah, and I don't know about you, but when I was younger, other than reading my Bible when I was growing up in church, I didn't like reading at all. I actually used to be in remedial reading, and I used to have to be like, go to like special help to help me read, and then that stayed with me for my entire, my elementary school, middle school, high school, and then it was only when I started getting into apologetics, and I really started thinking about like the truth of it and how to defend it where I became obsessed with getting books, and you know, I mean, I have a little ministry fund now, but back in the day, when I first got married, it was scary because my wife would be like, did you order another book?

I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I felt like I needed to, you know,.

I needed to be reading something. Well, let me tell you this, that because I run Karm, I just charge every book I get on Kindle to Karm. I can get whatever I want, whenever I want, no problems, nobody asks me any questions, I can get whatever I want, not just rubbing it in, you know, I get that.

I have hundreds now on Kindle, hundreds. Yeah, oh yeah. Kindle's the way to go, man. That's right, there's my library.

Ooh, you got the fancy Oasis, I didn't know you rolled like that, Matt. Oh, hey. Look at this, I got the poor man's paper white.

It works, it works, and I have my Galaxy 20 that I use because it has a pen, you know, a stylus so I can highlight, and this is bad, but I want the new foldable, when that folds out, when it comes out with a new stylus, I don't know how I'm gonna justify that, I gotta find some rationalization.

Hey, you know, we're cross-pollinating here, we're doing apologetics, but I think this video might start streaming on one of those tech review. Yeah. Hey, they get a lot of views, they get a lot of views, so that's actually pretty good.

Oh yeah, I love this, I'm a tech guy. I like to take my phone and rub it in my chest a couple of times a day, just because it feels good. All right, let's move. We'll move right along. Let's move along.

Oh, you see what I do with a motherboard, ho-ho.

Well, before we move on, I wanna let folks know, if you're listening in, Matt will be taking questions towards the end, so if you have any questions, just preface your question with question, so that we can sift through the comments and things like that, yeah.

I'm sorry? Yeah, you're sifting through questions because you said questions. Yeah, well, sorry, I'm sorry, sometimes people have conversations in the comments and I don't know what's the conversation.

That's why you want the word question. That's right, that's right, it helps. No one ever does it, but it's good to try anyway. Well, what's that say about your audience? I don't know, man, they're just doing what they're doing.

No, they're great. They don't care. They're great, they're great, I appreciate them. All right, so now I wanna hit home the fact that memorizing scripture is very important, and then as we move down the list of my questions, we'll make some apologetic application, but why don't we hit kind of, how can I say this?

Why don't we hit on the topic of what the Bible has to say about the importance of memorizing scripture? Because I think people might think just in abstract terms, like, hey, I'm not good at memorization, and so they'll kind of just keep it on the back burner.

But just as we make a big deal, Matt, about how scripture commands us to defend the faith, 1 Peter 3 .15, Jude 1 .3, the Bible also tells us to memorize God's word. Why don't you go through some scriptures that kind of talk a little bit about that, maybe unpack that for us?

Well, this is gonna sound funny because I don't have any verses memorized about memorizing scriptures. I don't. Okay, so But the Bible says, you know, I've hidden your word in my heart, that's out of the Psalms.

Psalm 119. Okay, but also Jesus quoted scripture, and he obviously did a lot of memory. And so what I do when I memorize stuff is I memorized stuff that is like grease for the squeaky wheel. So if I'm talking about Mormonism and I'm repeating it, I'm gonna be memorizing that.

In fact, I'm talking a lot with Muslims, and so I'm starting to memorize Quran surahs, which are chapters, and some ayats, which are verses. So I'm memorizing the ayats and the addresses, which I'll tell you about a technique for memorization that I use.

And so I memorize different things, you know, and then Jesus and Matthew 4, he quoted scripture against Satan. That's what we should be doing, always be memorizing the word of God.

And so, yeah. So what does that mean in Psalm 119? May I hide your word in my heart that I might not sin against God. Well, obviously, David's not speaking of the organ in one's chest, right? What's going on there, and how does that relate to memorizing?

Well, if it's the word of God, and Isaiah 55, 11 says the word of God will not come back empty without accomplishing what God desires. In Romans 1, 16, it says the gospel is the power of God to salvation.

So, you know, the gospel message, which is out of Romans, excuse me, out of 1 Corinthians 15, one through five, the death, veil, resurrection of Christ. We've got to know these things to be able to speak them.

Well, the thing is about the word that when it's in your heart, when you have it memorized, it's part of you. It's not just here, but it's here. It's a faith thing. Well, then it becomes very useful, and it's self-instructional.

It rebukes you when you know scripture. But then when you're talking, and a lot of people don't know this, this happens a lot, you'll just start quoting things you didn't even know you knew. Yeah, it happens a lot.

And so the more you study the word, even though you may not have an exact address, you know what the word of God says, and it's usually that way first. You have the idea, and then you get the address later.

But I reverse that when I do something. I memorize, I reverse it. But that's what we do. And so we should always memorize it. There's lots of reasons why, but we'll get to that. I don't wanna rush you.

Why Scripture Memory Matters for Apologetics

Okay, very good. And when you study scripture yourself, what are your methods of memorization? So what do you do for a memorization? Well. I know you have an article on it. I remember reading it a while back.

I don't know if that's a method you use or you're simply suggesting to people. No, that's what I do.

Yeah, I memorize, I suggest people memorize the address first, not the verse. I say John 3 .16, you know, God's love the world and gave his only begotten son, et cetera, everybody knows that verse. Well, use that as a representative verse.

Just remember John 3 .16, John 3 .16, John 3 .16, John 3 .16, John 3 .16. Because if you can remember the address, but you forget what it's about, you can go find it. But if you remember the gist, God loved the world, well, where is it?

I don't know where it is. It just doesn't have that credibility. So I always memorize the address first. And if I can share my screen, I'll show you something. This is what

I don't know if it's gonna ask you for permission or whatever, but let me see. We'll find it.

Okay. And let's see, that should be the right one.

Okay, while you're doing that, and I'll share it up on the screen. I just wanna let people know, if you have questions, keep sending them in. I see a couple being sent in now. We'll get to them in a bit, but let me see if I can share the screen here.

There we go. I don't know if it can be seen, but So this is my Excel spreadsheet.

Okay. And I have a system where I'll put in verses. And this is how I One of the things I will review in order to memorize. So you can see, I've got a lot. And I got down to 564. Doesn't mean that's how many I have memorized, but so when I have a verse that I wanna memorize, like, you know, go to Galatians 4 .4.

Well, I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna find Galatians. You know, because you mentioned Galatians 4 .4 that Jesus created, you know, made under the law. So I'll just go down and find, you know, Galatians 4.

Hey, look at that. I don't have it in there. Watch this. So what I'll do is add this. I used to teach Excel. Oh, that's Ephesians. Galatians. There it is. Doofus. And so I can sort by this little system I've got here, put the full verse here, and I have the address here and this, and I can do some other stuff with it.

So, and I started doing this. How many have I got memorized? I just haven't gone through them all yet to see, so I can start working on stuff. In fact, hold on one more time. I'm gonna grab something else.

Sure. So, here we go. Just happen to have these, this out, and I'll stop sharing my screen.

Memorization cards. Oh, the good old index card technique. Yes.

Oh, wow. Yes, these are, I've had to use three rubber bands cause it'll break. And so, you know, go through and memorize them, you know, and so what I like, I'd say to people is memorize the address and the gist of what it is, not the entire verse.

You know, like 1 Peter 2, 24, he himself bore our sin in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to live and live for by his stripes we are healed. Well, what's the gist of the verse? He bore our sin in his body on the cross.

And I can tell you how a technique is, but that's what you do first. Memorize the address and the gist. That's it. And I recommend people take a piece of paper and write it, hand write it out, or do if you're like me or, you know, you know Excel and you can print all this stuff up and all those things.

Well, then just carry it with you, print it up, carry it with you. You're in a line and you're waiting for something, you get out and you reveal. And there's some other stuff I can tell you too, but that's just, you know, some of the ideas.

Well, okay. So you obviously were a Christian when you had your kids. How did you teach your kids how to memorize scripture? Is it the same thing? How did you incorporate that in raising your children?

Yeah, I did it by what's called inculcation. To inculcate means to teach by repetition. So one of the things I would do is we had a dining room table, rectangular table, and I would sit at the head. My wife would sit at the other end and then we'd have dinner and have three daughters.

And so I would take a Bible. I usually would take a low level translation, nothing too technically accurate.

Not the NASB? I thought you only use the NASB. That's the translation Paul used.

That's how you should use, yep. And so I would use a living Bible because it was so casual. We're talking two years old, three year old, four year old, things like that, five, six, seven, eight. And developed into a procedure.

What I would do is, as things evolve, when you do it every night, you know, almost every night for dinner, we'd do a little devotion. And the daughters would sit next to me and I would read, like I would, so I'd go to the book of Ruth, for example.

And you wanna go to a story and what I would do, cause you asked. And they lifted up her voices and wept again and Orpha kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. So that's a verse, right? It could be reading.

They lifted up their voices and they were crying again. And Orpha kissed her mother and went to McDonald's. And got a hamburger. But Ruth, and they'll go, dad. And I'd say, what? And cause they're listening for me to add something ridiculous into it.

So that was one of the ways I'd get them to remember. And then what I would do, and there's other particulars I would do with them, but what I would do is before the study, I would say, okay, ready for the questions.

What's the hypostatic union? And I'd point. What's the communicative idiomatum? And I would point. What's gentrification, imputation? And they would answer the questions. And I'd say, what versus this?

What versus that? And so I raised them to learn doctrine, to learn scripture. And we talked about salvation and the whole bit. And this is what we did. And there you go.

It's stuff you can do. Very good. That's helpful. Because I think in your mind, you're kind of like, hey, these are just the things that I used. But in a lot of people's minds, they wonder, well, what does that look like for me?

I think that's a good way of kind of giving them a context to do it within their own houses. Raising your children to know scripture is so important. This is something that I've dropped the ball on a lot.

My wife is so good with the kids. I feel like a lot of people look at me as, like within the realm of apologetics and apologetic methodology, I'm considered by many, the nice presuppositionalist. But nobody sees me lose my patience when I'm at home and my kids are screaming.

I'm not as nice sometimes. And so my wife works better with the kids. She enforces those things much more consistently than I do. Unfortunately, I need to up my game in that area. But I think it's good for people to hear how you did that and kind of gives them some insight into some helpful ways to do that with their own children.

All right, very good. I want to ask a question with regards to the power of scripture. Now we do know that the scripture is the word of God. Why don't you unpack your understanding of the power of scripture?

What is the power of scripture? Now, the reason why I asked that question is because I know it's not the sort of like mystical power. There's no mystical thing in quoting words. But why don't you explain the relationship between the word of God spoken and the working of the spirit?

And how, when we say that verse, the word of God does not come back void, how does that all work out and why is that important?

Well, because God's a sovereign king who does all things after the counsel of his will, Ephesians 1 .11. And so we have to understand that as we speak his word, what we're actually doing is communicating inspiration.

Inspiration means it's God-breathed. So 2 Timothy 3 .16, all scripture's inspired of God, theopneustos, it's breathed out of God. And so what we have the privilege of doing is speaking it. Now, the New Testament was written in Greek, but we don't speak Greek, we speak in English.

So the question is, when we translate it to English, does it have that inspired nature? Yes, it does. Even though it was not the English writings that were inspired, it was the original Greek writings.

And we have copies of the original Greek writings. Then we have translations of those original copies of the Greek writings. So some people, when they talk about this, say the inspiration of scripture occurs when you hear it.