Debate: Is Christianity True?

It's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies and biases in another religion. I think that what's fascinating... You're razor sharp on your criticism of Islam here. Yeah, but what I find fascinating, Jeff, is that you recognize that with other religions, but you don't do it with your own.

Because I... That may be the case. And there's that confirmation bias coming up again.

Introduction to the Debate and the Plan for the Show

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

We are live, Apologetics Live, here to answer your most challenging questions about God and the Bible. I can answer any question that you have about God and the Bible. If you doubt that, just come and join us any Thursday night, 8 to 10 Eastern Time.

Come in, just go to ApologeticsLive .com. You go down to the duck icon. That's the StreamYard icon. And just join us and ask me your most challenging question. And if you ask me something that's really, really difficult, I am going to say, I don't know.

Just remember, I think that's a perfectly good answer. So we're going to do something tonight. We're live now. I will be sitting backstage probably with Drew. And we're going to look at comments and put some comments up throughout this.

But we're going to be playing a debate. And so let me bring Drew in real quick. So, Drew, welcome. So what we're going to do is this is going to be a 2-hour and 20, I think it's 2-hour, 22-minute debate that we have.

And we're going to play that. We're going to make some comments early. Next week, we're not going to have a show because, well, it's Thanksgiving, and you guys won't be here anyway. But the week after that, the gentleman I debated, Bill, is planning to come in because there were so many questions that the students asked that there was not enough time to answer them.

So Bill is going to come on here is the plan, at least for the first week of December, maybe for a couple weeks as we work through the questions. And Drew is going to act as moderator. And we're going to go through passing the questions back and forth.

And we're just going to continue the Q &A with him. That will also be a time that you guys will be able to join in and ask any questions. So I say that so that if you have questions as you're listening to the debate, write them down so you can bring them in two weeks and ask Bill yourself.

I'm really looking forward to that, just so I can say, Andrew, answer the question.

Well, OK, I'll give a little bit. There was one point. Now, just folks, just remember that as we do this debate, this is Bill's first time doing a debate. He's got decades having discussions with Christians.

Unfortunately, I will say up front, the video that we have is not the best. I'm getting similar video. And what we'll be looking to do is I'm going to kind of make another, do some more edits and be able to put that onto our YouTube channel.

And that way I'll link that to the podcast version of this. But you're going to see something happen with the cameras. So the guy that was doing the AV, we didn't have the introductions because his camera was black, just blank screen.

And so he took video from his phone. So we got that until the camera was back up. So you miss a little bit of the beginning. You miss the we're missing the introduction. We're missing the beginning of my opening.

But you get most of it. So it's where he the moderator will introduce both myself and Bill give our backgrounds. But Bill's part of an atheist and Christian book club. They've been having discussions on these topics for decades with a Christian author than a atheist author.

So they go back and forth. Really good discussion. He's a wonderful guy. Really like him. So you're going to see some of that. I do want to say that it was a great time out at Legacy Classical Christian Academy there in Fort Worth, Texas.

Had a great time with the students. Really blessed because I got to teach basically everything that was in my debate. My entire opening was one of the topics that I ended up teaching on Monday. So the students got to not only hear it, but hear it again, repeated, and then seen it put into practice in the debate.

So I hope that was helpful for them.

Confirmation Bias, the Debate Topic, and the Nature of Truth

When you were teaching, you're talking about one of the lessons you taught was part of the opening of your debate. In that lesson that you were teaching, were you kind of giving foreshadows of the debate by saying, this is usually the argument that an atheist does, and you're going to see that in this debate, and here's how you respond to that.

Actually, not as explicit, but I did say throughout on Monday, I was saying, you'll hear me talk about this on Wednesday. We're going to touch on this on Wednesday in the debate. I did answer things. It was interesting because we talked about confirmation bias, and you heard the opening clip here.

That's actually something that Bill brought up. It was something that I kept bringing up throughout the debate. So I was glad he brought it up first. It was great. So that was wonderful. First off, I see Mr. Chris Honholds is here.

So we should mention the retired because he's so tired that he's re-tired. And so the retired officer, Honholds, and so congratulations on making it 20 years.

So that is an accomplishment, especially with everything that's been going on the past four years.

Yeah, yeah.

So I want to read a text that I actually got early this morning. And this was greatly encouraging to me. But this was from the gentleman that organized the debate and having me out. We got a lot of good feedback from the students.

And I have his permission to read this. Chris is correcting me. He's saying 25 years, actually. I'm sorry. You know, I was listening to a podcaster talk about how to basically how to get interaction with people.

And he said, one thing, if you want interaction with your audience, just say something wrong. Because everyone is very quick to correct you. Kind of like the thing that goes around saying if you want a seminary education, you know.

Pick a fight with a Calvinist.

Yeah.

So, all right.

And it's a good way to see if your audience is sleeping as well. You know, making sure everyone's paying attention, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

I think the students realize that I don't really let them sleep when I'm teaching. So they never knew what to expect with me, which is what this audience is used to. So this was a text message I got. And I have permission to read it as is, even though it mentions one of the students' names.

He says, hey, I pray that you guys got home safely. I wanted to thank you again for joining us this week. Our students and staff loved it. I have heard nothing but positive feedback from everyone. You and your wife are a blessing to us.

We're a blessing to us this week, and I am thankful. I'm also thankful because of the influence you had on my son, Mitchell. I've been praying for the Lord to work on his heart for some time. And the last few days, he has been listening to your podcasts, asking questions, and demonstrating a hunger I haven't necessarily seen before.

He and I are even planning on going through what do they believe together. Time will tell if the Lord has done anything, but I'm incredibly thankful for your influence on him and me. Thank you again. I pray that we could do this again and our paths cross.

Please don't hesitate if you ever need anything, even if just prayer. Thank you again, sir. So that was a greatly encouraging text to receive. Great way to start the morning. And so we often, Drew, you know this.

You teach and you do shows like this and all. We sometimes never get to see the impact that it makes in other people's lives. And so this was really encouraging to me.

And that's like, it's a lot like evangelism, right? You give the gospel, you share, you teach, you answer questions, and you just trust that the Holy Spirit is going to do a work in that. But oftentimes, you as the teacher or as the evangelist, you're not going to be seeing the fruit of that.

You hope you hear about it, right? You hope you see it so that you can rejoice in those moments. But most of the time, you're not going to see it.

Correct.

Audience Interaction, Technical Notes, and Getting Ready to Play the Debate

Just getting back some comments here. We see Missionary Gamer says, when I said that I say things wrong, he says, and you give us so many opportunities. Yeah, well, you're welcome, Peter. And then we have Melissa saying to Chris, thank you for your service, brother.

And we do thank him. So let's get, I want to get into it because I know this is going to be two hours, 28 minutes. So we're going to do a little bit longer of a show, obviously. Like I said, I'll work on getting some, put together some editing and get a better video.

So with this, just so you know, you're going to see one camera angle that's going to be from a cell phone. The audio is good, so the audio won't change. But you're going to see the position change from someone's cell phone to switching over to the cameras that the church had.

After that, it seems fine. The thing is that there is a section between where his cell phone was off before the camera reboots. And at that point, you're going to see a black screen. So don't be alarmed.

You'll hear the audio on it. And we're going to try to see if we can do some editing and fix that. But Drew and I will probably be backstage looking at comments. I'll be putting comments up. So if there's things you want to put a comment, we'll put them up so that they can be seen by folks.

We're just not going to interact with them. And we're probably not going to have anyone come in this week because we're going to hit play and just let this play straight through. Because, well, we all know that if Drew and I chop this up on a two-hour and 22-minute video, we would be here until next year.

We wouldn't get out of the introduction. And there's probably so many errors in Andrew's introduction, we'd have to go through and correct them.

Yeah, yeah.

So, all right, what's this comment from Missionary Gamer? He says, when Andrew says, don't be alarmed, I'm instantly alarmed.

Wonder why.

Hold on, wait, wait.

Holds anyone?

Don't be alarmed. I'm just getting on this ATV.

Well, I think he's more concerned with the chokeholds is what his comment is more, you know. You know, I'm sorry. I just thought we were rolling and, you know, doing some jiu-jitsu. What can I say? All right.

Well, let's get started with it. And we're going to hit play. So here we go. Enjoy the debate. For you guys to learn, debates force us to have to be a little bit more precise in language and thinking, and so that comes out a lot in the cross-examination.

And so it's really for you. Typically, the people that are debating don't often convince each other, though I'm praying that I convince Bill to repent and convert to Christ today. That is my prayer. He knows that.

It's not a surprise to him. He prayed it last night. But our goal is for you guys to learn.

Christianity as a Person, Not a System, and the Case for Divine Truth

All right?

So let's start with the discussion. The topic is, is Christianity true? I like that. That makes it mean that I have to defend it. Okay, well, here's the thing. When we think about truth, because we're going to say that Christianity is true or not, we first have to understand what truth is.

So one of the things we're going to learn is that truth has three elements of it. First off, it's immaterial, it's absolute, and it's universal. It's immaterial, it's absolute, and it's universal. So first off, I'm going to argue that it has to come from an immaterial, absolute, universal source, being God.

So if we're going to have truth, we first off have to have God. So every time that Bill is going to appeal to truth, I'm going to say he's appealing to my worldview and not his atheist worldview. Now, maybe he's going to be able to explain truth from an atheist worldview, but I don't believe truth is a product of chemical reactions.

You have truth even if there's truth, even if no people agree with it, if no people believe it, there's still truth. And so when we look at what is true, we're saying, is Christianity true? I would say that I think I will argue that everybody knows God exists, that everybody is, that every single person either submits to God or suppresses that truth and unrighteousness.

But everybody knows God exists. His attributes, his power is clearly seen. This is Romans chapter one. And so what we end up seeing is the fact that when we're looking at Christianity amongst all the religions, how do we know Christianity is true?

There's so many religions in the world. And as many believe that, let's examine the religions. Is there an objective way we can examine all the world religions to see if one of them is actually true compared to the others being false?

What makes one true and one false? Well, what makes a true religion would be that which is from God, since God is the author of it. So the question then is, is there a divine religion versus manmade religions?

I will agree there's many manmade religions, but I will argue that there's only two religions in the entire world. There's either divine or manmade. So is there an objective way that we can examine every world religion to see which one is divine and which one's manmade?

Well, I think we can. First off, when we look at Christianity amongst every world religion, we see that only within Christianity do we have a religion based on a person rather than a system of teaching.

And it's a very specific person. It's the person of Jesus Christ. What makes him special? What makes him unique? That he can have Christianity where no one else can? If you think about every other religion, you can have Mormonism without Joseph Smith.

You can have Jehovah Witnesses without Russell. You could have the Seven-Day Adventist without Mary Baker Eddy. You can have Islam without Muhammad, because all of those are a teaching of morality. Do good, don't do bad.

There's nothing unique of those people that make those religions special, like where you need that person. But you see, Christianity is not like that, because Christianity is based on Jesus Christ being truly God and truly man.

That's essential to Christianity, because what you see is that he being truly man means that he could be a substitute for other human beings. And that's essential. The fact that he's a human being means that he can be a substitute for the things we do.

The problem is he has to have never broken God's law if he's going to be a substitute for us before God. Now, the problem is if he's just merely a human being, as every other founder of a religion is, there's still a problem, because he cannot pay a fine that takes forever to pay, because he can only pay it for one person.

But the fact that Jesus Christ is truly God, he can pay an eternal fine. He can pay a fine for more than one person. So what we end up seeing is that Jesus being truly God and truly man, his eternal nature, he can pay a fine for more than one person and pay it forever, because in time, because his nature, when he was on that cross, his nature is eternal, not just human.

Being a human, he could be a substitute. Being God, he could pay an eternal fine. That's what makes Jesus Christ unique from any other figure in history. And that's why Christianity is uniquely based upon him.

And the evidence that he said he would provide for this was that he would raise himself from the dead. Now, dead people rot. They don't raise from the dead. But he predicted that he would raise from the dead and that he would raise himself from the dead.

So the ultimate evidence that he is God is the fact that he said he would do this and his body is gone. So Christianity, one, is the only religion based on a person rather than a system of teaching. You say, well, OK, that doesn't necessarily make it divine.

That's true. But what does is the second thing. The second point is that Christianity is the only religion in the world that doesn't have human effort to get right with God. Every other religion in the world teaches that you do something.

Now, it might be if Roman Catholicism would say you have faith plus works, you have faith. But then after your faith, you have to have works. Mormonism kind of reverses it. They say that you get that God will save you by grace after all you can do.

So you do your works and anything left over, God will take care of. But you see in both, there's an element of us having some human effort. And so what we see is that every man-made religion will add human effort because the man-made religion is going to put it on human beings to praise themselves.

That's one of the things we know historically. Bill's a historian. If we study wars, I don't know a single man who loses a war that doesn't that writes about the loss. He will have the journals write about his battles that he won.

People don't usually want to tout their losses. What we end up seeing, though, is that every man-made religion is going to add human effort in some way. Islam will say you do one good deed to count for ten bad deeds.

Rabbinic Judaism, different than Old Testament Judaism, which is how I was raised, that would say you get right with God by doing Torah, obeying the law. Every single one of them, even Hinduism and Buddhism, would say that the things you do in this life get you into a better life in the next one because their belief in reincarnation.

So what we end up seeing, though, is the fact that only Christianity says that God himself did the work of getting right with him at the cross. When God became a man, he died on that cross. That punishment, because uniquely who Jesus is, that death on that cross in time counted for all of eternity.

And that is why we can have forgiveness of sin by what Jesus did. However, one other element, a third point that I don't know of any other religion that can resolve is how could God be just and merciful?

Now, every religion will say that God has the attributes of justice and mercy, but justice and mercy are mutually exclusive. You can't have justice and mercy in the same way. So if, as an example, if the law said that if I was to smack Bill, I wouldn't do that.

But if I was to do that and the law said that he must smack me back with equal force, he has a choice. He can smack me with equal force. That would be called justice. He could not smack me. I think that's probably what he would end up doing, having dinner with him last night.

But he would not smack me. That would be mercy. But you see, if he smacked me halfway, that's not justice, nor is that mercy. It's neither. So even though you might have an Islam where they would say Allah most merciful, but how is he just?

Because if he allows people who break his law to not suffer consequences, then what you end up seeing is that he is no longer just. He has to have the same standard for everybody to be just. But if he has the same standard for everybody, then all of us are guilty.

And if all of us are guilty, then none of us would be able to get right with God. So how do you resolve that? Well, the fact is it's resolved at the cross, because Jesus being God paid the full weight of our sin.

Because he's an eternal being, he could pay that full weight, being an eternal being, the full time period.

He paid it.

And so now that the full justice is paid, we can have the forgiveness of sin. Now we can have forgiveness because of what he has done. And so as we look at this, we end up seeing that out of every single religion in the world, there is only one where God does all of the work because of who he is.

And it's the only religion in the world where you have a God that is both just and merciful. Now, even though every religion will say he is, only one can rationalize and reconcile that. And so as we look at the different religions, I will argue that Christianity is true because it comes from God, because it is divine.

And remember, throughout the debate, every time that Mr. Bill refers to truth or says something is true, I will, in my head at least, if we don't say it out loud, maybe in the cross we'll be asking, how do you know that is true?

Remember, truth is something that has to be immaterial, absolute, universal. When he appeals to knowledge, when he appeals to laws of logic or morality, all of these things are in the same category. They're going to require God.

I would say that we know God exists. I already said that from Romans 1. But we also would know that just from the universe, from God's creation. How could the universe have come into existence? There's only three ways of explaining that.

We're either going to have that the universe always existed. You know, Albert Einstein proved that that wasn't the case. You could look at the first law of thermodynamics. But the other is would be maybe if the universe, since we know the universe had a beginning, mass and energy had a beginning, then maybe the universe created itself.

Well, that would be a violation of the law of logic. Second law of logic is a law of non-contradiction. The universe would have had to first exist for it to be able to create itself. So I will argue that we can look at the universe and know that someone or something had to have created it since it had a beginning.

Now, the argument would say is then, well, then who created God? Well, the philosophers would refer to the uncaused cause. There had to be someone or something that creates the first creation, that someone or something would have to be uncreated.

And so is Christianity true? Well, yes. First off, we know there is a God, though some suppress that in unrighteousness. We can look at all the different religions and realize that with only within Christianity, can you have a God that is just and merciful where he does all the work and it's based on God and not a system of morality or things we do?

And I will close a minute early. All right. All right. Thank you. I failed to mention the time. So each each debater will have a 15 minute opening statement followed by a 10 minute rebuttal.

And so now, Mr. Clark, we'll have his opening statement. Can you hear me? Am I on? Am I on now? Oh, come on. You know, last night we had dinner, Andrew and I and the wives and that we asked the waitress who said, who's the atheist and who's the Christian?

So she looked and she said, he's the atheist, Bill's the Christian. It was funny. And she was an atheist herself. And and Andrew goes, what did you say? How do you know?

Yeah. I asked her why she chose that one. Yeah. Why she thought. She said you talk too much. She said that she thought I was fun.

Yeah. Yeah. You're too fun to be. All right. So there are five main points that I think prove that Christianity is not true. Jesus wasn't a unique. Jesus was a failed apocalyptic prophet. The Gospels are historically unreliable.

Paul doesn't seem to know anything about Jesus. The Gospels contradict historical facts and historical implausibilities. And there's too many Christianities. First, before I get into this, I want to talk about confirmation bias.

The tendency to search for and interpret, favor, recall information in a way that confirms or supports prior beliefs or values. We all have this problems. We want to confirm what we already believe. We're good at confirming evidence about what we like.

But we're very bad at disconfirming evidence, things that go against our beliefs. We don't realize it, but we are surrounded by Christian biases and influence in America. We have television stations like TBN, Christian radio, Christian publishers like Zondervan and Christian academies like Legacy Christian Academy.

These are all biases that we're not even aware of. We are swimming in a Christian culture. And because we live in this culture, we're not aware of it because we're in it. One solution to the dilemma is called the outsider test of faith.

This is by John Loftus, and it says we this is for a majority of the great majority of people. We get our belief systems from two sources. One is the geography. If you're born in Saudi Arabia, 95 percent chance you're going to be a Muslim.

If you're in South America, you're going to probably be a Catholic. So how do we even smart people? These this outsider test of faith, these biases are very hard to overcome. So there are exceptions. Exhibit A, Andrew, to his credit, overcame his influence and bias and his culture and so forth.

And boy, real credit to you for doing that. My partner in the Atheist Christian Book Club, James Walker, was a Mormon, and he overcame his. And he goes throughout the country talking about the faults of Mormonism, which are many.

So and what's so cool about you guys being here and being exposed to this is when you hear about this, when you go to college, you go, oh, I heard about the like, for instance, Spartans. There's more variance in the New Testament than there are words in the New Testament.

You can say, well, most of those are minor, but they do some of them do impact theological points. But in other words, you'll be you won't be blindsided. Does that make sense? So anyway, we should be just as critical of faiths like Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, as we are of our own faith.

So let's be critical. Our first one, Jesus was not unique. Let me tell you a story. Before he was born, his mother had a visitor from heaven who told her that her son would not be a mere moral, but in fact would be divine.

His birth was accompanied by unusual divine signs of heaven as an adult. He left home to engage in itinerant preaching ministry. He gathered a number of followers around him who became convinced that he was no ordinary human, but he was the son of God.

And he did miracles to confirm them, their beliefs. He could heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead. At the end of the life, he aroused opposition among the ruling authorities of Rome and was put on trial, but they could not kill his soul.

He ascended to heaven and continues to live to this day. To prove that he lived on after death, he appears to at least one of the doubting followers who became convinced that, in fact, he remained with us even now.

Later, some of his followers wrote books about him, and we can still read them today. I'm sure you all know who I'm talking about, but maybe you don't. I'm not talking about Jesus. I'm talking about Apollonius of Tiena, a Greek philosopher from the Greek province of Cappadocia who lived in the first century about the time of Jesus.

There's 18, 16 temples are built in Apollonius' honor throughout the Mediterranean. He actually saved the city of Ephesus from the plague and raised a Roman soldier, senator, from the dead. We know of Apollonius through the works of the Neo-Pythagorean writer Philostratus.

So that's why you've got to be careful about confirmation buying and do try to look at things objectively. Okay, let's talk about Jesus, the failed apocalyptic prophet. But before I do, I want to talk about another failed apocalyptic prophet, Joseph Smith.

In 1832, Joseph Smith predicted the temple would be built in Independence, Missouri in 1832. It's been 40 years from 1832. In 1871, the Mormons were saying, Prophet Pratt, Orson Pratt, why hasn't the temple been built?

It's been 40 years. It's been the generation because he specifically said it would be built in that generation. And Pratt goes, wait a minute, not everybody's dead. We still got time. Well, guess what?

It's 150 years later. There's no temple. Joseph Smith is clearly a failed prophet. He did make some things that were true about the Civil War. He did predict the Civil War. So you got some things right.

All right, let's turn to Jesus. Ever since Albert Schweitzer published The Quest for the Historical Jesus in 1906, we have best understood Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet. The consensus of scholarship now is to view Jesus, over the past 100 years, is to view Jesus this way.

Dale Allison, who was at our book club and wrote the book Resurrecting Jesus, says in the epilogue, Jesus was wrong. So Jesus actually clearly predicted the Son of Man would come in the lifetime of the disciples.

It's been 2 ,000 years and he still has not returned. Jesus thought the Son of Man would bring forth God's kingdom. The Romans would be driven out. Israel would be restored to its former glory. His 12 disciples would sit on the thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

It didn't happen. The next point, why I believe Christianity might not be true, is the Gospels are historically unreliable. You read the genealogies. In Matthew, Joseph's father is Jacob. In Luke, Joseph's father is Heli.

Two different things. His grandfather is Nathan in Matthew, in my thought, close, but still not the same. And it's different for his great-grandfather and so forth. They have different points in the genealogies.

What's really interesting, a lot of people don't know this, but the genealogy, or don't see it, the genealogy of Matthew goes back to Abraham. Where does Luke's genealogy go?

To Adam!

Well, if that's true, the first Homo sapiens came on the scene 100 ,000 years ago, so obviously we're missing a lot of ancestry. And the Jews weren't any better at keeping, well, you might be able to answer this one, weren't any better at keeping ancestry.

Mormons do great with ancestry and genealogies, but that's 100 ,000 years. So obviously, and we asked Dale Allison, who's one of the top five scholars in the world, are these, is the birth narratives true?

And he said, no, they're obviously fiction. The birth narratives themselves, you have Matthew, the slaughter of the innocents, Joseph and Mary go to Egypt, totally different than Luke, where they go to Bethlehem, but then return to Nazareth, and there's a worldwide census where they have to go to Bethlehem, their ancestors' former residence, and pay taxes and so forth.

So the birth narratives are kind of misleading too. Also, we have, remember the story of Jairus, where Jairus comes to Jesus, or Jairus' dad, I think, comes to Jesus and says, my daughter is dying. And then Jesus says, that's okay, I'll get there.

And then he heals a woman with an issue of blood. And then someone goes and says, Jairus' daughter is dead. Now in Matthew's gospel, when Jairus comes to Jesus, his daughter is dead already. So we have a contradiction, both of which can't be true.

This is kind of a minor thing, but we're trying to figure out, did Jesus raise his daughter from the dead? So we want to get the details kind of straight before we can make an assessment. The other one that you've probably heard is, how did Judas die?

In Matthew, he hangs himself, okay? Totally different than Luke, where he slips and his guts fall out. So you have two contradictory accounts. So the great Dale Allison, we asked him, what do you think of that?

And he goes, there's a third option. He got ran over by a wheelbarrow, according to Papias. So it's just, when you have Dale Allison, who says there's three contradictory accounts, you've got to question some things.

And by the way, he is a Christian. He says that, you know, I don't see a lot of history in the birth narratives. The resurrection accounts, the post-resurrection accounts probably aren't true. And by the way, Mark does not have any post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.

We find those in Matthew and Luke. And by the way, in Matthew, we have Jesus telling his disciples, go to Galilee. This is after he's resurrected. In Luke, he says, stay in Jerusalem. Do not leave. And he appears in Acts, tells us for 40 days, doing all sorts of things.

And he ascends to heaven, but they never leave Jerusalem. And the other part, in Matthew, Jesus, the resurrected second person of the Trinity, is appearing to the disciples. And what does it say in Matthew 27?

Some doubt it. Well, if they're doubting right there, and they can see the resurrected Jesus, how are we supposed to believe 2 ,000 years later? So the other thing that is troubling is Paul doesn't seem to know anything about the historical Jesus.

Paul and his letters. There's seven authentic letters that Paul wrote, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, and so on. He doesn't mention his miracles, his parables. Jesus spoke in parables. Where is the mention of these in Paul's letters?

Or teachings where they could benefit his cause? In Romans, he talks about the Roman authorities and paying them and being a good citizen and obeying them. Why did he say, remember when Jesus said, oh, give unto Caesar what is Caesar's when they showed him the coin?

So we have things that we think. On divorce, he could have quoted Jesus' teaching. But he just doesn't seem to know. Now, he does mention the 12 and kind of the empty tomb and the Last Supper. So he does know some things about Jesus, but not what we would want.

And his view of salvation differs from Jesus. Jesus, what did he say? When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was in prison, you visited me.

Works, works, works.

In Matthew, Jesus says, not a jot or a tittle of the law will go away. And you should be familiar with that. So what does Paul say about how you're saved? It's through believing in Jesus Christ. If you're a Protestant, it's grace plus nothing.

Now, so we have different views of salvation and so forth. Now, the genius of Paul is that he said, look, guys, you Gentiles do not have to get circumcised. Big deal there. And you can eat shellfish and have a pork sandwich.

So Paul made it very amenable to the Gentiles. And it's just fascinating to think that if it wasn't for the Apostle Paul, the co-founder of Christianity, we might not be here today. We might not have a Christianity.

It probably would have been a small sect in Judaism that just died out. Because remember, the church in Jerusalem was believed in keeping the dietary laws, keeping the law of Moses and so forth. And remember, Paul and Peter had this open conflict where they were at odds with each other.