Ask Me ANYTHING (Apologetics, Theology, Philosophy)

Q&A Introduction and Upcoming Topics

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and welcome to today's episode. Oh, let me see if I can fix that. That was crazy, sorry about that. Yeah, so today is going to be the Q &A sesh.

So if you have any questions, I already see some questions that have formulated in the comment section. I will try my best to go through them one by one. So this either will be super short or we'll have a really fun time and I can do my best to get through as many questions as I can.

So just real quick, I know if you guys have watched my previous video, I had Dan Buttafuco on who is a Christian apologist and trial lawyer. We had a cool discussion, I think it was just yesterday, and I made an announcement about Thursday.

I'm actually gonna be having Pastor Luke Pearson, who is one of the pastors at Apologia Church on. I'll be having him on this Thursday at 9 p .m. Eastern to talk about doing apologetics within the context of the local church.

So basically we're gonna be covering the issue of the importance of doing apologetics under the covering and accountability of the local church. That's gonna be a really, I think, interesting and I think important topic to cover as well.

So I'm looking forward to having Pastor Luke on with me. Well, without further ado, let's see here. I wanna wait until we get a little bit more of an audience here. Okay, and I already do see some questions here.

Now, some people have sent me questions through Facebook and they got tucked away in the comments and things like that. So if you happen to be following Revealed Apologetics on Facebook or you're just following me on Facebook, I have the two accounts, Revealed Apologetics and Eli Ayala.

If you're watching now, just you can reinsert your question in the comments here and I'll try to kind of go through them one by one. All right? Now, these are always very unpredictable. So far, let me see.

So far, Revealed Apologetics on YouTube has, let me see here. We have around 4 ,940 something subscribers. Okay? That's really good. Although in the ultimate scheme of things, there are obviously channels that are much bigger.

So having that many subscribers does not mean that many people are actually watching live streams like this at the moment I go live. So these kind of Q &A sessions can kind of be unpredictable because there'll be times where people won't have questions and so the comments are just really silent and it's just awkward.

So I have planned, I have planned a teaching, okay, for tonight if there aren't a lot of questions. But as I'm waiting here, I see people kind of trickling in. I don't think I'll have to go through that.

But even if I did, it's pretty interesting. So I've been reading the transcript of the debate between Greg Bonson and R .C. Sproul over the topic of apologetic methodology. And so I thought it would be useful for people to create an outline from Dr. Bonson's opening statement where he lays out the presuppositional argumentation in response to some of the objections to presuppositionalism from R .C. Sproul.

So I figured creating an outline for that and kind of teaching through that outline because Bonson does a great job laying out the presuppositional approach there. I thought that might be helpful. So if I don't get to that today, which looking at the questions, I think I probably will not get to that today.

And we'll probably just save that for another time. But it's there, I have it queued up. So, you know, just in case. All right, well, I have my coffee in hand so we can't do any of this without caffeine.

And yeah, so let's get started right away. I don't want to waste anyone's time here. All right, so our first question comes from Kayla Henderson. All right, Kayla asks, and thank you so much for your question, Kayla.

I appreciate it. Have you considered creating a resource to begin introducing middle school age students to presuppositionalism or even elementary students? I would happily pay for it. Well, you are the quintillionth person.

I don't even know if quintillion is a real number, but you are the quintillionth person to ask that question. This is kind of a great need. Is there any teaching resources to teach presuppositionalism to young children?

Well, here's the good news and here's the bad news, okay? Now, the good news is I have been intending to write something along those lines, to write a resource or a curriculum of sorts to do that. And so the good news is the intention of my heart is to create something just for this purpose.

Now, last year, I'm on summer break right now. I'm a full-time teacher. I teach at a Christian private school. And this past year, I taught 11th and 12th grade US history and European history. However, I've now been transferred from high school to teach middle school.

Now, I'll be teaching sixth grade and eighth grade. Now, check this out. This is super cool. I'll be teaching sixth grade Bible and eighth grade logic with an apologetic focus. So when we teach the kids logic, we teach them the basic laws of logic, how to identify fallacies, and the culmination of the school year for the middle school students is to equip them with the tools of logic so as to be able to argue and debate the topic of the resurrection.

So at the school I work at, they do that at eighth grade. So what I want to do is I want to be very intentional about this upcoming year, because as I'm going to be teaching middle school, when I create my lessons and I create activities and things like that, I want to simultaneously have one foot in what I'm doing as a teacher and another foot in using the material that I create so as to create a curriculum to teach apologetics to middle school, sixth grade, eighth grade aged students, to teach them apologetics.

And of course, with a presuppositional emphasis. So that is not impossible, right? However, the issue is time. Again, I'm a full-time teacher. My dream, I would love to do YouTube full-time. I would love to, but that requires financial support.

You know, if people support and I'm able to keep up with the website stuff and to just open up money in terms of money and helping with ministry, it opens up time and avenues for me where I could actually dedicate time to certain projects that I want to work on.

So if I can get the support over the next year, perhaps that will open me up for more time for writing and putting more time into creating curriculum and things like that. So that's definitely part of the plan, okay?

Now, for those who are saying, well, cool, maybe one day you're gonna make that. What can we do now to introduce people to presupp middle school students, high school students? I don't know a specific resource to point to, but as a general principle, okay?

I think one of the most helpful ways in teaching young children presuppositional apologetics apologetics is grounding your kids in a solid theology. Dr. Scott Oliphant at Westminster Theological Seminary in a very helpful way defined apologetics like this.

He says, apologetics is Christian theology applied to unbelief, okay? Apologetics is Christian theology applied to unbelief. And so when we teach our kids basic Christian doctrine and we teach them with an ear to the importance of the authority of God in our lives and the authority of his word and how that authority kind of reigns over every aspect of our lives.

When we teach our kids in such a way that helps them to acknowledge that authority and how it plays out in our lives, you are setting them up within a presuppositional framework because presuppositionalism is very much just grounded in the authority and lordship of Jesus Christ over every facet of life, even the life of the mind.

And so when you teach kids the importance of the authority of God's word in our lives, you are teaching them presuppositional principles. So if you wanna ground your young children in presuppositionalism, teach them theology rooted in the word of God, give them a sense of the nature of the authority of God and his word in our lives and teach them how to apply that in all areas, right?

So these are helpful principles, right? And teach your kids what it means to have a world and life view, how everything that we see is viewed through the lens of God's revelation, okay? So you don't necessarily need a textbook to do that, although there are resources like catechisms, things that teach basic theology and things like that, but you could also teach them through principles, principles of scripture, principles that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and ask our kids, what do you think that means?

How does that play out? And then it plays out in our social interactions. It plays out in how we do our schoolwork, that even the work we do in the classroom is in a sense a form of worship when we do it to the end of honoring and glorifying God and being determined within ourselves to use what we learn for the furtherance of the kingdom of God and the purposes and will of God.

So taking those principles I think is a good way to, when we instill that in the hearts of young people, that's a good way to kind of gear them towards kind of a more presuppositional way of looking at things, okay?

I hope that's helpful and that's a great question. Yes, we do need some curriculum of some sort with a presuppositional emphasis and hopefully I'll have an opportunity to do that. All right, hope that answers your question.

Presuppositionalism and Evidentialism

Okay, let's see here, we're gonna move along and Alyssa Scott has a question. She says, what do you think the confusion was between you and J. Warner Wallace when you were talking about apologetic methodology?

Okay, I don't know the specific confusion that you're referring to, but in reality, I mean, J. Warner Wallace is an evidentialist and so evidentialist and presuppositionalist were just on the opposite side of the apologetic spectrum.

There's definitely overlapping in which, I wouldn't have had J. Warner Wallace on if I didn't think that what he had to say would be useful. We obviously want to be able to be familiar with the evidences for the reliability of the New Testament.

We wanna be familiar with the evidences and arguments for the historical reality of the resurrection of Jesus, right, but the way we approach those topics are going to be different, okay? I often get this from a lot of people.

When I interviewed Dr. Hugh Ross from Reasons to Believe, and we kind of got into the topic of apologetic methodology, he said something very interesting that I think is prevalent in a lot of evidentialists and classicalists when they take a look at kind of the full spectrum of apologetic methodologies and kind of the arguments and debates between the different traditions.

He said something along the lines of, sometimes I use evidential apologetics and other times I use presuppositional apologetics because presuppositional apologetics is a useful tool to have in my tool belt, so to speak.

So folks like J. Warner Wallace, Hugh Ross, and others, they seem to give the impression that it's possible to kind of jump in and out of apologetic methodology. So on the one hand, I can be an evidentialist, but if the situation calls for it, I can be an evidentialist.

And I made a distinction in my discussion with J. Warner Wallace, I made the important distinction between evidentialism as a methodology and the use of evidence, okay? When a presuppositionalist uses evidence, the presuppositionalist does not cease to be a presuppositionalist, right?

I am a presuppositionalist while I am using evidences, and that is because when I use evidence, I do not assume neutrality and autonomy in the unbeliever. Right, you'll often hear me say that neutrality is impossible.

I think in evidentialism and classicalism, sometimes that's not the case, right? We will present evidences as though the unbeliever's worldview is as good as far as it goes, and so we can kind of find this neutral ground, this ground where we could agree and then work our way up to the conclusion that God exists.

So I think the nature of the confusion between myself and say someone like J. Warner Wallace really is that I don't believe presuppositionalism is a tool in the tool belt of the apologist. It is an all-encompassing methodology that you can't just pick up and put down as the occasion calls for it, okay?

So I hope that clarifies. I think that's a very big difference. That being said, I would also agree with a presuppositionalist like Greg Bonson and K. Scott Oliphant, especially Dr. Oliphant said this in a discussion with a classical apologist.

He said that presuppositionalists are eminently evidentialist in this sense, that we believe that literally everything is evidence for God, right? So the presuppositionalist is so confident in the fact that the Christian worldview is the only worldview that can ground intelligible experience and knowledge that we're willing to argue for the necessity of our God, the God of scripture, by A, appealing to supernatural facts like we can appeal to things like the reliability of the Bible and the resurrection of Jesus, right?

We could appeal to the miraculous because that's evidence for God, but the presuppositionalist can also appeal to the mundane. Okay, this is why in Greg Bonson's debate with Gordon Stein and his debate with Edward Tabash, the issue of what we call the uniformity of nature was brought into the debate.

This idea that we assume the future will be like the past based on our past experiences. So our past experiences of the regularities we observe in nature give us a justification for looking into the future, so to speak, and saying the future is gonna be like the past because we assume this principle of regularity and uniformity, right?

Now, all of science is based upon the assumption of the uniformity of nature. There's just no two ways about it. That's a basic fundamental presupposition of science. Yet when we appeal to the uniformity of nature, we're not appealing to anything supernatural per se, yet in the mundane nature of looking at regularities, I believe we can argue for God with respect to appealing to those mundane facts about the regularities of nature and things like that.

So we would say that everything is evidence for God. We would just make the distinction that evidence must be understood within a broader worldview context in which something like evidence even makes sense to begin with.

So I would say that that's really the heart of our disagreement. It's really this issue of whether or not we could approach facts, whether it's historical data or philosophical ideas from an autonomous and neutral perspective.

And I think at that point, we probably would disagree. I'm not sure what he would say, would J. Warner Wallace say, yeah, we need to approach the facts neutrally. I'm not sure. Even if he says we can't, I would argue that many evidentialists, even if they say we can't, they don't act that way when they actually present the arguments.

I remember listening to a debate between, pardon, between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens. And I remember in Dr. Craig's opening statement, and he says, this is my impression of William Lane Craig.

He says, now, if I know Biola students, I know that they checked their bias at the door and they're ready to hear the evidence and go where the evidence leads. Now, so this idea really reflects really what presuppositionalists reject, this idea that we could be neutral, that we can kind of leave our bias aside and kind of just approach the data as a tabula rasa, a blank slate.

As a presuppositionalist, I would reject that. So I think that evidentialists and classicalists tend to argue along those lines, or if they don't argue along those lines because they say, I agree with the presupper, there's no neutrality.

I would say that even when they say that with their mouths, sometimes the way they present their arguments can actually allow those elements to sneak into their methodology. Okay? All right, thank you so much for that question, Alyssa.

Excellent question. Alyssa's got another one. I'm just gonna go down in order here. So, yay, I'm so happy there are so many questions. I was nervous, I wasn't sure. Sometimes you get people asking questions, other times folks, they tend to be a little silent in the comment section there.

All right, let's see here. So Alyssa Scott says, what are some creative opening opportunities when starting a conversation with someone you don't know? Well, you could always hide in a dark alley and leap out in front of someone and start a conversation.

I suppose that's creative, right? No, I think I know what you're trying to ask. What are some ways we can kind of approach people we don't know? Well, first of all, what I've found, and I remember taking an evangelism class when I was in seminary, and we read this book called, Sharing Jesus Without Fear.

Actually, let me see if I can get this. I wanna get the link here, and maybe I can share a link to that book, Sharing Jesus Without Fear. Okay, I'm gonna get, here we go. And it's on Kindle too, and there's an audio book.

Okay, good. So I'm gonna copy this, and I'm going to share it in the comments here. All right, so there's a cool little book called Sharing Jesus Without Fear, and it basically just takes away the fear out of sharing your faith.

And I think one of the things that he teaches folks to begin with is asking someone, hey, do you have any religious belief? If you get into a conversation with someone, maybe you're just sitting down, waiting for a bus or whatever, and you happen to have a conversation, and you're like, you're asking things about a person, just take the deep dive and say, hey, do you have any religious belief?

Oh, no, not really. And then you're off, you're on the ground, you hit the ground running, right? So you can just flat out ask. I mean, in Greg Kokel's book, Tactics, which is an excellent resource to answer this question specifically, right?

He speaks of going into a store, and he walks up to the cash register, and there's this woman with a pentagram around her neck. And he asks the woman, hey, does that necklace have any religious significance?

And what happens? The girl answers the question, and they're off running talking about religion, right? So sometimes just the blunt asking, hey, do you have any religious beliefs? And let them talk. The important thing is when you ask those questions with people you don't know, you wanna navigate very carefully because people tend to be very personal about their religious belief, and they don't want to kind of jump into an argument.

We have to be very careful not to go in straight into like apologetics mode. You wanna be able to ask disarming questions, but kind of draw the person a little bit out so that you can kind of talk about some of these issues more explicitly.

So yeah, I would say we begin by asking questions. Tactics by Greg Koukl, I highly recommend that book. Every Christian should read it. It's an excellent, excellent resource to teach people how to engage in conversations.

And he comes up with a bunch of different ways, not only how to start conversation, but how to navigate conversation with certain kinds of people, okay? So for example, there is the carpet bomber, right?

The guy who, when you're arguing with, he kind of just throws out so much information that you just really can't respond to at all. Greg Koukl does a great job kind of teaching the reader how to interact with someone like that, how to stay in the driver's seat in a conversation so that you can kind of get your point across and navigate those conversations well.

So highly recommend that. Thank you so much, Alyssa, for your question. Hope that was helpful. All right, Arthur Bear asks, is there any chance we will see you in debate again, specifically against atheism?

Boy, I want to debate. The thing about debates is that they take time to prepare for, time that I just don't have, but I wish I had. I'm gonna let people in on a little secret, okay? Let me take my little sip of coffee here.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. If you notice in my show, I interview a lot of people, okay? Now here's the secret. The reason why I interview a lot of people is because it's easier, okay? It's easier than going solo like this.

Like when I want to present something just by myself, I have to prepare because it's just me the entire time. I got to talk about something specific and I want to prepare. Since I don't have a lot of time to prepare, but I have background in theology and apologetics and I've taught this stuff, right?

I am in, it is easy for me to get an expert on and ask the right questions and we could have a fruitful conversation that people who are listening will benefit from. So it's easier for me to do that. I wish I could debate.

This is one of the reasons why I've been looking for support. I'm in the process of getting, hopefully getting a sponsor, which will help financially and just loosen up my schedule. This takes a lot of time to do this sort of stuff.

And so the more help I get, the more time I have. The more time I have, the more I could write. The more time I have, the more I can debate and do these other things that I really wish I can do, that I can do.

So hopefully, hopefully I'd love to do debates again. They're fun. They can be kind of, you know, it doesn't matter how good you are. Everyone gets a little nervous when they debate. So I get a little nervous sometimes.

I feel like I need to make sure I prep really well. And if I don't have the time to prep, then it kind of throws me off and I get a little upset about it. So I did get some debate offers. I was invited to debate Matt Dillahunty and I turned it down for this very reason.

I just don't have time to prep. I was invited to debate Jim Majors, who is an atheist. He's appeared on the Modern Day Debate show a couple of times and debated various Christians. And so I've been asked to debate.

I'd love to do it again. It's just an issue of having the time to do it. So, so there you go. All right. Arthur Baer. Have you ever heard someone say, I don't need an objective standard of morality. Look at Moses who killed the Egyptian and fled knowing it was wrong before the law was given.

So he knew. Okay. Well, there are a couple of things wrong with this statement. So ready? I don't need an objective standard of morality, right? Objective standard of morality gives us what's right and wrong independent of people's subjective opinions.

So we use the example of look at Moses who killed the Egyptian and fled knowing it was wrong before the law was given. Really? Did he do that before the law was given? Now you must be talking about the 10 commandments, right?

But prior to the 10 commandments, it is not the case that we did not have an objective standard to judge right and wrong. You're forgetting the law of God that was written on the hearts of man, right?

And the book of Romans speaks of this. The law of God is written on our hearts, on the tablets of our hearts, so that we intuitively know, we can intuitively grasp when things are wrong and we are condemned by those things when we commit them.

So the issue is not that prior to the giving of the 10 commandments, nobody knew murder was wrong or lying was wrong or anything like that, right? The law of God is written in our hearts. And even though I learned that in the Bible, okay?

Prior to the writing of the Bible, it was still true that God's law was written in our hearts. Okay? And it is written in our hearts in light of the fact that we are imago Dei, we are image bearers of God.

And part of being an image bearer of God is having the law of God written in our hearts among other things, okay? So that's how I would respond to that. All right, let's see here. Do, do, do, do, do, okay.

All right, Alyssa asks another question. Hypothetical situation. I got three minutes to live. I'm scared. I wanna go to heaven. What do you tell me? Well, now that's difficult. If it's like a random person, I have no idea of the background information of this person, but assuming that someone has somewhat heard the basic outline of the gospel, I would give you the gospel.

It was like, you got three minutes. All right, if you have three minutes left to live and you're scared and you wanna go to heaven, God has created the world. He has created you in his image. God has given us his word.

He's declared in his word that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I'm a sinner, you're a sinner. And the problem with the world right now is that we need to be made right before our maker.

Now, if this is true, okay, the only way to be right with our maker is to approach him in the way that he has laid out for us in his word. And the Bible says that no man comes to the father but by his son.

If you cling to Jesus Christ, the son of God, who died on the cross and was raised from the dead, the Bible says, if we confess with our mouths, believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, we will be saved.

If you put your trust in Jesus, the perfect savior, you will be saved. That's less than three minutes, right? Now, of course, whether the person understands that's gonna depend on the person's background knowledge and things like that.

So it might be helpful to remember some scriptural principles and explain it very briefly. But in your hypothetical, that's very rare, although it can happen. Someone has just a few moments to live and they wanna know how to get to heaven, point them to Jesus, right?

You point them to Jesus. That's why it's important to know what the gospel is, right? Part of having an all-encompassing Christian worldview includes that when we do apologetics, we do evangelism, when we're living our lives, we are living a life that's always oriented around the truth of the gospel, which includes the fact that I'm a sinner and that every day I live day by day by God's grace, okay?

If that's the background music of my life, the background music of my mind, then I'm gonna be in a much better position to share with someone very quickly, right? Those truths. Now, of course, you can only go so far, right?

If you only have three minutes, you can't go super deep, but I think you can kind of lay out the basic outlines of the gospel. What is the gospel? First Corinthians chapter 15, verses one through four.

The central features of the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what that means for the world. Just lay that out there and explain, what does it mean for Jesus? Who is Jesus?

Why is it important that he died? Why is it important that he was buried? Why is it important that he was raised from the dead? And what does that mean for the world? And you just lay out the truth of the gospel, right?

Don't, you know, go traditional on them. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life, right? And then we present to them Jesus, the perfect savior who never fails to save those he intends and never turns away anyone who comes to him, all right?

All right, good, great question. And I'm kind of going in order here. So Alyssa has another question here. Eli doesn't have time to put sugar in his coffee. I doubt he'll be debating. Oh, it's not a question, yeah.

Oh yeah, yeah. I do have time to put sugar in my coffee. Without coffee, I'm lost. I always say, you know, the two things you need in life are coffee and Jesus, but of course not in that order because that would be heretical, right?

So all we need, Jesus and coffee, that's a little better. Okay, Arthur, wish you would debate him too. I know he had a conversation. I did have a conversation with Tom Jump. I think my conversation with Tom Jump was either my first or second debate discussion I ever did on YouTube.

I enjoyed it. Tom's an interesting guy. I don't know if I would go back on Tom's show again. I'd have to think about it, but I did enjoy my conversation and got great feedback. People thought it went well also.

So yeah. All right, so let's see here. Do, do, do, do, do, do. Okay, Samuel Barasa. Okay, wow, hold up, time out. Okay, I'm gonna need another sip of coffee for this one. I don't wanna mispronounce the name, hold up.

Samuel Barasa, Barasa? I mean, you can give me a thumbs up. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly. All right, well, Samuel says, hello, Eli, other than divine determinism, what do you think is the most plausible account of providence and omniscience?

Mullinism, simple foreknowledge, or open theism? Okay, open theism I think is a heresy, so it is not plausible to me at all. I am not even remotely sympathetic to open theism. Simple foreknowledge is just too simple of an account of how these things work.

Sorry for the play on words. I would agree with Guillaume Benyam, who is a fellow determinist as well. And we would say soft determinists, we're compatibilists, we're not hard determinists, and I'm not gonna get into that discussion, but I would agree with him that out of all the false views, okay, on this issue, mullinism is my favorite of the false views, okay?

So if I were to say which one was the most plausible account of providence and omniscience, I would probably go with mullinism. As I've said this before, I'm a committed Calvinist, but if I was not a Calvinist, I probably would be a mullinist, okay?

So yeah, there you go, all right? Mullinism is just a fascinating topic. I mean, even now as a Calvinist, I used to be a mullinist, but as a Calvinist, I just love to read about it. It's such a fascinating topic, and it touches so many different areas, not just the issue of free will, but the issue of the nature of God's knowledge.

It's just really fascinating. When you're discussing issues relating to God's providence and sovereignty and human freedom and responsibility, you're really kind of pressing in against some really deep issues that until just a few years ago, I didn't know there was such a vast array of literature on this very topic.

So I find it terribly fascinating. So I would say mullinism if I had to choose. All right, MG, wow, I haven't caught a live stream in ages. Congratulations, very good, I'm glad you're here. Okay, M says, good to see you on Clubhouse.

Yes, I am on Clubhouse. I do try to pop in on Clubhouse, and I try to pop in on some interesting conversations, and sometimes I'll give my two cents, but there you go. Let's see here, who's more gangster Puerto Rican, Eli or Ricky Rollnano?

Well, if you're gonna say, I mean, look at me, bro. Like I'm Puerto Rican, but I speak no Spanish, okay? I speak Spanglish, all right? You can speak to me in Spanish, and I'll respond to you in English.

So I know just enough Spanish that if you were to talk about me behind my back, I would know what you're saying, but I'd have to respond in English. So my Spanish isn't, so I'm not even like a legit Puerto Rican, right?

Okay, so I'm Puerto Rican, but I'm one of the lousy Puerto Ricans, right? I'm definitely not gangster. Look how I, look, I'd even say gangsta. I said gangster, right? I don't even sound gangster, okay?

I would be the most unintimidating mugger. If I were to mug someone and ask them for their money, I wouldn't even sound tough. So I would give you, Ricky, the props here. You are more of a gangster Puerto Rican than I could ever be.

If you were gonna mug me in a dark alley, I would be afraid of you because of the way you sound. You sound like you're from the streets. So, all right. Well, thank you for that, Ricky. Let's see here.

Daniel David Shevchuk, I apologize. If somebody were to ask you to share the gospel with them, how would that sound? Yeah, so explaining the gospel, I think if someone were to ask me, hey, why don't you explain to me the gospel?

I think a very important element of explaining the gospel is getting these two foundations down. Law, gospel, law, gospel. So we start with bad news and we go to the good news, okay? So law and gospel.

When I present the gospel, it always includes a discussion about the nature of sin and how all have, like the scripture says, all have fallen short of the glory of God. I think it's very important and a very powerful piece of the gospel to show how deeply separated we are from God so that we can demonstrate the need for the Savior, right?

So when I present the gospel to someone, it is all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right? The wages of sin is death. If the wages of sin is death and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, if those two statements are true, then it logically follows that all deserve death, right?

So I would emphasize the impossibility of being made right with God apart from the means that he's provided. And what is that means? It is his very son, the incarnate son of God, who came as a man, John 1, 14, the word became flesh.

He lived a perfect life. Jesus Christ was without sin, 1 Peter 2, 22. And because he was the blameless, spotless son of God, he was in a position to bear our sins in his body on the cross, 1 Peter 2, 24.

And in bearing our sins in his body on the cross, okay, we are granted through the mechanism of grace through faith, we are granted the right to be robed with the very righteousness of Christ so that the father sees us as he sees his son.

Jesus Christ literally is the filter through which the father views those that are positioned in him. That's why in the New Testament, in the letters of Paul, there's oftentimes this discussion of being in Christ or being in Adam.

When we are positioned in Christ, then we are seen by the father through the lens of Christ. And so we are seen by the father as being justified. We are declared righteous. We are not held responsible and accountable for the sins committed because those sins having been put in place in Christ, they were placed on Christ and the penalty for those sins have been paid for, right?

As the book of Colossians says, having nailed the certificate of debt on the cross, right? He nailed the certificate of debt. We have now peace with God. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Okay? So I think explaining the beautiful and great lens by which God has, the things that God has done for us so that we can be placed in Christ and be made in right standing with God. I think that message in itself is very powerful.

And of course, as we present the gospel message, we pray that God uses that presentation with the working of a spirit to cause spiritual birth, right? To cause the regenerative work in the heart of the person.

As the book of Acts says, with respect to Lydia, when Paul spoke with Lydia, that God opened her heart to believe what was being spoken to her. So I think important aspects of presenting the gospel is the law and the gospel, the bad news and the good news, the sickness and the cure, the problem and the solution.