Live Q&A | What Is the Most Biblical Method of Evangelism?

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Welcome welcome. Thanks very much for watching this video. It's Friday. It's time to party. I'm your excellent host

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Nate Sala Okay, all right I'm the president of wise disciple and I highly encourage you to avail yourself of the materials and resources through my

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Alrighty, come on in everyone. I can see you what your pastor didn't tell you Kevin Deepane I like that name.

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I want to change my name to deep pain moving forward church hymns and psalms. Thank you everybody Welcome.

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Come on in just checking in with the community. Here is the deal I said at the end of last year in celebration of hitting 3k subs that we should do a live

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Q &A where I answer your questions now, it looks like we're gonna hit 4k subs in like five minutes

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So again, thank you so much for subscribing and continuing to come back to the channel Without further ado.

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I shall belly flop right into these questions. If you're wondering if this is live, this is totally live

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Let's do it Warts and all let's let's go ahead. And here's the first question and that is from Kevin.

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Oh, thanks for you're with me here Kevin good. So the question is is there a debate curriculum that you would recommend for homeschool families?

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alternatively What components and structure would you advise if not able to say this is top -notch curriculum

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Yeah, thanks for the question Kevin Boy this is not the first time somebody has asked me this question.

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I Should be totally upfront with you Kevin my focus in ministry and my heart's desire is in the area of evangelism and discipleship.

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I Do not consider myself to be an apologist. I'm not sure anybody does but but I'm I'm definitely a teacher and a pastor years ago my team and I made a

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YouTube channel and We never did anything substantial with it until like I don't know end of 2019 beginning of 2020, you know

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Or thereabouts. So when I started putting thoughts into the YouTube channel,

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I Thought up a gimmick just to get more folks aware of our ministry and it really felt like I pulled it out of thin air

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Okay, but the thought came to me, you know, what if I just kind of like smooshed together

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Like regular apologetics debates, which are much more informal. They much more like town hall discussions

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A lot of them are what if I smoosh that together with the formal rules of debate that really belong more with like public forum

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Lincoln Douglas, you know policy style debates I mean, you know, we're talking about topics that sound a lot more like Increased sanctions to China would improve

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America's global foreign policy. You know, I mean like not Is it reasonable to believe in the resurrection?

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So what I'm getting at is I never thought that this debate series would be as popular as it is

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And it's not right like it's still small potatoes. We're not hitting millions of views. I'm just saying so to answer your question

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When I taught debate it was years and years ago I Would have to go back into my old files and really search through my old lesson plans but even then like knowing me

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I'd probably have to like Systematize the information in order to create something that is useful for somebody else to use, you know

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There are no great books in my opinion in the area of debate Well, no,

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I take that back If Kevin if you mean debate in the area of like public form, you know, there is actually a book that's helpful

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I think I have it on Kindle. It's it's called beyond resolved Alright, I think it's written by a former debater she's a coach now and What I like about the book is that there is a bit of strategy throughout the entire thing okay, and the strategy that that she provides could be translated into other contexts like even

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Apologetics or theological debates. All right, if that's more along the lines of what you were thinking

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That's about all I got for you Kevin I Will say generally speaking

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There are a few principles to to keep in mind You know like in my opinion, it's important to get your kids writing a lot

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Processing their thoughts on paper a lot, you know There there's way more into debate than just getting up and arguing with folks in crossfire

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Students should be practicing writing monologues. They should be practicing writing speeches. They should be writing a lot of essays why because well they need to be able to articulate themselves clearly when they get up to Communicate their opening statements, you know when they when they try to write their rebuttals, you know

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I don't think that a lot of people realize that those who write well speak well

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You know, I mean those who? Read a lot speak better than those who don't read as much

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Now there's always exceptions to the rule But generally speaking this is true And so the way you start your kids off to greatness in terms of debate is just getting them to practice and hone their writing abilities

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And Then it's important that your students have a strong foundation in in like basic logic in logical fallacies

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So, you know in in that kind of category of of teaching. I mean, there's a lot of books for that There's a lot of great books

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I Think I still have One of my books here.

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This is totally professional. Hold on one second. I'm a just trust me Right on my bookshelf here, it's a you know

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Shomes textbook on logic Okay, this is something that I actually did use. Can you see that?

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This is something that I actually did use and I relied on This book for exercises and drills with my students in the classroom, you know

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I still have it on my bookshelf over here, you know, so you Know your students they should be able to pinpoint errors that their opponents have made like in their own opening statements or rebuttals

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It's also important that students take exemplars of debate transcripts so you got to find like the best of the best examples of Debates out there and annotate the debates, you know, like have your students identify where the claims are

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You know where the evidence is that supports the claims where the warrant is all that stuff And you know kind of break them down and analyze them and perhaps along those lines

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You take debates that are not great. You know that that Maybe need a lot of improvement and ask your students to critique those debates maybe improve upon Those debates if at all possible, so, you know, these are all things just to increase their skills

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Students need to learn how to develop their contentions, you know in clear language and be able to support themselves and and like I said provide good warrant in the

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You know The the warrant is the the explanation for how the data supports the claim and this all just begins with writing out arguments first Before your students can get up and verbalize these things more on the fly, you know

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I keep saying warrant by the way warrants I'm referring to a term that goes along with the

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Tolman model of argumentation Tolman t -o -u -l -m -i -n Model of argumentation, which is what

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I used in the classroom It's a lot of debate teachers use in the classroom And then of course, there's you know at the end of the day, it's just practice practice practice lots of drills

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Lots of mock debates, you know if you're up for the stress level mock tournaments, you know

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How's that we good we back on Okay, we'll have to tweak some of these things later, but hopefully you can see the camera and I will move on it's a little dark.

09:40

There we go. All right, so question number two also from Kevin What denominations in your view currently hold to the highest standard of?

09:51

theology boy Yeah that is That's tough

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Kevin, I don't know I Don't know if I know all denominations well enough to be able to speak knowledgeably about that, you know

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This is where you know, all the Catholics in the room heard the word denomination and they take a quick bathroom break

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You know what? I mean? I will say this Kevin and and I Think this is all I got for this question.

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I can't imagine that the answer is There is only one denomination that is handling theology to the highest standard

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That there is only one denomination that is the most sound and All the others are deficient, you know,

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I think what this comes down to is Whichever church is handling the scriptures in the way that it should be properly understood that church is doing what they're supposed to be doing

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You know that church is probably the most sound right The reason

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I say that is because it seems to me that even within denominations. You've got some churches Handling the

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Word of God really well And then you got others that are out there doing some weird wild wacky stuff.

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You know, I'm thinking of the Presbyterians right now You know, so I mean in my own lifetime.

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I'm 43. I remember when there became two distinct designations there was the

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Yeah, how does this go? I always screw this up. There was the PCA and then there's the PC USA You remember this you guys with me and the

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PCA stayed more traditional Arguably, they were like handling the Word of God as it should be properly understood and the

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PC USA went more liberal went more

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Well, I was gonna say woke I don't know if I can get away with the word woke because it seems like that would be like in anachronism for what?

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happened to the Presbyterians all those decades ago, but you get my my meaning right? The bottom line is with the split everyone was

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Presbyterian everyone's in this denomination, but there's this split So I'm not sure that the answer can be discovered so easily if we pay attention to denominations

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Exactly, but maybe I'm wrong about that. I haven't given it a whole lot of thought But anyway, thanks again for the question question number three

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Am I still the video still going good question number three, do you plan to feature any political debates?

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Particularly those political debates that address our culture That's a great question.

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Yeah. Yeah I mean, how could I not in this era of politics?

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Am I right? I mean, have you seen what the offerings are lately out there on the political front, you know, come on now

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You Know what Jason I reacted to the last presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

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I don't know if you know that You can go back. It's in the series Like if you I guess break down my channel with playlists, you'll see on the debate teacher react side

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If you go back far enough, it's there You can find that reaction video. I thought that was kind of fun and interesting to do

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I will say it's a tad harder for me to do videos like that not because You know political debates are all that different.

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It's because I need to be careful since my organization is a 501c3 So, you know,

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I mean like I can't be seen endorsing certain candidates, right? So to say that this candidate one

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And the other one lost I just it's not impossible. I just have to be very careful about doing something like that You know what?

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I mean? But I'm certainly open to doing more Political debates I would count the video that I did

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On all the abortion arguments with like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder as political debates, you know

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I'm very open to Doing more Shapiro debates if that's what you're asking.

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So yeah, thanks for the question Jason Let's go to question number four. There's a lot of questions.

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By the way, it was like 17 questions Okay, so you forgive me if I'm kind of moving along here

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Question number four from Delacue I Like it. I like it.

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Do you hold to a specific theological framework? Delacue Is that your given name?

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Delacue I I I do Hold to a specific theological framework

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Okay, I feel like Nacho Libre ages now. I bet you think I don't know a buttload about the gospel, but I do you know

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No, no, I'm sorry, here's the thing Delacue I like saying your name This question is kind of vague so, you know,

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I mean like I hold to a biblical framework when it comes to God the gospel sin heaven hell

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Evangelism discipleship. In other words, I let the Bible define these things for me I guess my question is which specific area did you want me to discuss?

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You know is Delacue here Delacue are you in the chat there?

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No So, you know, I mean like I'm a Protestant with Orthodox views on biblical doctrine

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I Could say more if I knew what you wanted me to talk about specifically. I will say this

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Because of what I do particularly with like the debates and stuff I don't think it's appropriate for me to be very specific about some of my views

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Especially like those related to soteriology perhaps eschatology You know

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But you know what if I ever stop doing debate reaction videos like I'll be way more upfront about all of those things.

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I Can tell you this like my theological framework is a lot more apparent if you watch my sermons So shameless plug, right?

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If you're down to do some homework and you're not tired of the sound of my voice after this video You can check out my sermons over at Life Baptist Church's YouTube channel.

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So Delacue. Thank you for the question. Let's move on question number five Where we at here question number five from Alyssa Scott Alyssa or Elisa hmm

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I'll say Alyssa. What are your three simple steps to? formulating leading questions, this is a great question

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Alyssa and You know what the timing of it couldn't be any better Okay, because I have plans hopefully very soon to continue the first state evangelism series that I started where I will you know break down the three steps to leading questions and Provide examples and other supporting pieces.

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So if you can just be a little bit more patient with the video, hopefully it'll be coming out Very very soon.

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But here's what I'll do for you right now though, Alyssa. Okay, I'm not sure if you're with me now But here's what

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I'll do I'll give you an overview of the three steps right now, and then I'll briefly explain how it works and That'll have to suffice until I make the video so for those of you that are not familiar

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I have a a signature method of communicating the Christian faith It's called first state evangelism and it trades on the teaching methodology of Jesus in the

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Gospels Okay, it also trades on some of the principles of debate the bottom line is the method

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Entails putting the focus on the person that you're talking to Letting them do a lot of the talking and asking them the right kinds of questions so that you can communicate your

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Christian faith The reason why I advocate for this is because there is a proper order of persuasion

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All right, and the proper order if followed Overcomes the barriers and emotional obstacles that people typically have in regular conversations

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So if you can overcome these things when you finally say what it is that you want to say from your

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Christian convictions, your message will be well received and You know,

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I'm sort of derived to this originally when I was very frustrated After my first year of teaching in the classroom because I had lessons that I wanted my students to engage with But they didn't care, you know a lot of kids walk in on the first day of school, especially with like literature

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You know what? I mean? And they're like well, I got to study English, right? so I had to figure out a way to get my students to want to learn what

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I wanted them to learn and Let's face it. Like we have Christians Excuse me.

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We as Christians have the same struggle You know, I mean like we want to share the gospel a lot of people don't want to hear the gospel, right?

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So I had to figure this out and now that's all expressed through first aid evangelism

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So now the great thing is there's already an awesome book out there called tactics where Greg Coco the author gives you specific questions to ask folks to share your

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Christian convictions, and I was telling Greg this when I was chatting with him on his radio show a couple years ago, but If Greg had run the football down to the 50 -yard line

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Let's say all I'm trying to do is I'm trying to take the ball and run it even further down the field

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You know what? I mean? so in other words I'm trying to give more information that Totally is in line with Greg's framework and give you more of a window into why it's effective to ask the right questions

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And I'm giving you principles to formulate your own questions so that you can have effective conversations with basically anyone anywhere at any time

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All right. So again, if you haven't seen those videos on first aid evangelism, I have like three of them so far You need to check those out.

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But let's talk about leading questions. All right, I have three steps that are very very simple and You'll hear this for the first time and you'll go wow, this is so elementary, right?

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But what these steps will do is they're gonna set you up to cross -examine the person that you're talking to But with a lot of care and respect for them.

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Okay, here's the three steps. You ready? number one the point number two the big idea and number three the question

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All right. I'm gonna say that one more time because I don't have any graphics. I got nothing right number one step one the point number two the big idea and Number three the question.

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Okay. So here's how it works. All right Let's say you're you're following the first aid evangelism method and you're putting the focus on the person you're talking to and you're building trust and You're building an emotional connection by letting them talk about themselves, right?

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But you're really listening. Okay, you're not trying to Sharpshoot anybody and and win a conversation you care about the person who's speaking, okay but as they open up they start to share a belief that they have with you and You hear that belief and it's like a bell goes off right you realize in your mind ding ding ding ding ding

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Wait a sec. That's not true Okay, that's your point All right, that's step number one identify the point that you want to make to the person that you're talking to and Often the point is what

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I just described you you see something that the other person doesn't they've made an error

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And you realize it but they don't know it You have to identify what that is and hold that point clearly in your mind.

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So for example Let's say you're talking to somebody and they say to you, you know what

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Alyssa? I don't need God to be moral Right, you heard this one before now

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Well, arguably the first thing you should do is ask some clarification questions, right? Like like what do you mean by that?

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You know, and very often what they mean is well I can help a little old lady across the street and I don't need

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God to do that You know, like I can be moral I can do moral things without God.

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Okay fair enough but there's something that this person is missing and you need to Identify that particular thing that point that you want to make right?

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So you have to ask yourself like what is the thing that you want to communicate back to them right then now a lot of Christians along these lines will say something like this

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No, no, no. No, you don't understand God is the source of objective morality

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Okay, or or something along those lines. All right but let's say that's the point that you want to make

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God is the ground or the source of objective morality

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Once you have that point in your mind And now, you know, I suggest for folks who are new to this kind of thing to like write these things down You know write these things down get the practice of writing them down so that later on You can do it on the fly.

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You don't need to write it down. You know what I mean? It's kind of like an art, right? But once you have that point down then you zoom in on some of the big ideas within that point

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Okay, this is gonna be way better when I create the video and the graphics are up, okay It pains me to kind of just say this verbally

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So again, the point is God is the source of objective morality Well, there are a couple of big ideas there right number one objective morality okay, and number two the source

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Right the the concept of a source for morality, right? So again, all

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I did was I just I took that statement And I zoomed in on some big ideas.

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There are some key concepts within that greater statement. All right now Let's just say you zoom in on objective morality and the source in your point now step number three

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You're gonna want to take each big idea and turn them into a question okay, so There's the the first potential question about objective morality and it's very very basic question and it goes something like this

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Do you think morality is objective? Okay, and you have to you have to wait and listen to what they have to say

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All right, if you're just waiting for your turn to speak, this is not gonna go Well, you really do have to care about what the other person is saying to you, right?

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Because you want to know what they think, you know, and and maybe at this point you have to define objective.

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Okay Do you think that morality is a standard that transcends humanity or is morality derived from Human beings, okay

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Now, maybe they'll say well, you know what Alyssa morality is not objective It is subjective in which case now you can have a conversation about the potential pitfalls and problems with Subjective morality sort of like what follows logically from subjective morality which is one of the things is

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Actions are not good or evil in and of themselves if subjective morality is true Okay, that's just what follows from this the most evil of actions things that people consider to be evil

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Now are amoral in and of themselves if morality is subjective Is the person you're talking to cool was swallowing that pill so to speak right but But maybe though, you know, they'll come back and say well,

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I think that morality is objective Okay, in which case you can ask about the second big idea, you know the source, right?

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And so Along those lines. Here's the potential question for that. And again, it's a very very basic question.

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All right, it's not too complicated if Morality is Objective, right? In other words, it transcends people it sort of stands above all of them and applies to everybody

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Where does it come from? Right. What is the source of that? Okay, you see how this works now

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You already are doing this right Alyssa? Okay, and I'm assuming everybody else right like a lot of you are tremendously smart

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That's why you're here. Okay, and so you already know how this functions and how this works

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All I'm do is I'm showing you the formula of how it works so that when you get to a more complicated subject matter

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Because what I just used was a very basic example You can do the same thing You can use the three steps and it can guide you to ask the right leading questions under lots of different kinds of conversations

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You know just have to have those steps in the old noggin and you got to practice practice practice So you can be ready and do it real quick on the fly

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All right. But anyway, thanks for the question Alyssa and stay tuned for the actual video on that It's gonna be a lot better than what

26:42

I just did All right question number six Believe it or not. We're not even halfway through.

26:48

All right, whatever. It's Friday. Let's party question number six from Roberto Have you done any debates that have been recorded on video?

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If so, would you be willing to share? Where we could watch? No, Roberto, there are no videos.

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There are no debates. I'm so sorry I have mentioned that should my schedule change and By the way, it would have to radically change at this point.

27:18

But I am opening to Considering participating in debates in the future

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But right now that is just not a reality at all. So anyway, thanks

27:29

Roberto question number seven moving right along From Wilson Wilson asks what literature

27:38

Both theological and otherwise has been most influential on you. Wow that yeah, that is a great question, you know and You know, you have to understand

27:50

Wilson I'm a pastor. Okay. I'm a pastor at my local church and I'm exploring more and more of what that means for my life as time goes on, you know

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Which goes back to what I just said to Roberto like my time is really largely spent along those lines so what

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I'm getting at is Lately I've been reading a lot of commentaries. Okay. I read a lot of books on counseling on management on church planting

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And developing intimacy with God, okay So, um, you know along those lines

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There are some books that really stand out to me. One of them is preachers and preaching by D. Martin Lloyd -jones

28:32

Okay, probably the best book I've ever read on preaching ever Lots of pearls of wisdom very insightful

28:41

The preaching pastor needs to read this book one of the concepts that kind of sticks out from the book, you know to me and This is for all you pastors out there, which is let's face it probably not a huge part of my demographic right now but uh

28:57

Something that really stuck out with me when I heard it was our job in preaching is not to make the truth clear

29:03

It's to make the truth real Okay 100 % amen could not agree more.

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All right, so preachers and preaching is a great book Related to that is teaching to change lives by Howard Hendricks Okay, teaching to change lives was a lifesaver for me at a time

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When I felt like I I wasn't learning a single thing in grad school And I was about to be launched out to a classroom for the very first time.

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So That's one of those books that I returned to and I reread every couple of years

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Another book along these lines I don't agree with every single thing in this book But definitely like the vast majority of what it says, but the book is the green letters by Miles Stanford All right

29:50

The book is a collection of like biblical passages that reveal a concept that is

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Underdeveloped and not very well Communicated at all in church, which is the Christians union with Christ Okay The reality of Galatians 2 20 for example, it is no longer

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I who live but Christ who lives in me You know, what does that mean? Christ is in me, you know,

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I think a lot of Christians they don't They don't dwell on this concept and They do that to the detriment of their own spiritual walk.

30:27

Okay Speaking of Jesus. I'm a huge fan of reading up on the historical Jesus, you know to better understand who he was

30:35

Situated in his historical context and what he said and what it really means, you know And so sitting at the feet of rabbi.

30:41

Jesus is an excellent book that I usually recommend to other Christians to read The forgotten

30:48

Jesus by Robbie Galati is a great book along those lines Both are by no means like seminary level texts.

30:56

So Written at the popular level very readable in the area of apologetics

31:03

The sort of seminal books that really shaped me immensely Were well Francis Schaeffer.

31:09

So the Francis Schaeffer trilogy, you know, what is it the God who is there? Escaped from reason and he is there and he is not silent.

31:18

That is a phenomenal trilogy. You know, a Schaeffer was a brilliant brilliant man Tactics by Greg Kokel.

31:25

It's an awesome book. I mentioned that already Something that I came across a little bit later on, you know, not in my formative

31:32

Years as a Christian, but I read it thoroughly valued. What it said was I Think it's called return to reason

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And I think the author's last name is Kelly But that's a really great book along the lines of epistemology, you know

31:49

I mean this could go on and on, you know in the area of politics and sociology I like Jonathan Haidt quite a bit.

31:56

He's a great read I remember reading in college the closing of the

32:01

American mind anybody read that book anybody out there That book has got to be one of the one of my all -time like most important books like Tremendous classic of the 20th century.

32:16

It was way ahead of its time, you know, great great book. That's for sure Those are some of the books that have been very influential.

32:23

Thanks for the question Wilson Let's go to the next one question number eight Hopefully so it looks like we're having some issues here with Internet.

32:39

Hopefully this is going through Wow Question number eight. Let's keep going. How should one deal with soundbite?

32:47

ie Reductionistic criticisms of a position in situations where it would be impractical to fully explain why the criticism is wrong

32:57

Yeah, great question. You know, we do live in a in a soundbite society these days, don't we?

33:05

And so the problem is if the answer is that we give is longer than a soundbite

33:10

How do we get people to listen to us? right, I would say that Well We have to get rid of the typical paradigm of communication.

33:21

All right, we just have to throw it away You know, we have to we have to put it in the dumpster and then set the dumpster on fire

33:28

I think it's in our DNA to want to correct people With well thought out speeches and just hope that they sit back shut their mouth and listen to what we have to say right, you know and But that's the problem

33:42

Because the problem is people are not listening in this paradigm, okay, so what

33:47

I'm getting at is instead of responding to the criticism and And now

33:54

I'm talking about like in person right you're in conversation with someone you're looking at them face -to -face Instead of responding by making some kind of elaborate speech

34:02

Just cross -examine their criticism You know, I mean like ask them questions to expose their flaws and their misconceptions

34:12

Okay. Now there there's a downside to this and I think I think it's worse for us

34:19

Guys, okay. So let's just talk as men here for a split second And actually it's especially worse for us guys on social media.

34:27

That is that we can be very cold Very clinical we can text dry if you know what that means, you know

34:36

We can be very choppy in our response Like if we were doctors our bedside manner

34:43

Kind of sucks, you know with a lot of us, right? Like we need a lot of work in our bedside manner. Why because well being cold and and like emotionally cold and overly concise

34:56

It's just not as persuasive or winsome as being more verbal and saying a few more words as you ask questions, right?

35:03

So let me give you an example You could say Well, you know what? That's an interesting criticism.

35:09

I'm not sure I've heard that before. Do you mind if I ask you this? Do you have any sources that I could take a look at?

35:16

Right. You see all those words that I threw out there It provides a better bridge

35:23

Emotionally speaking right? That's a lot better than simply saying got sources

35:30

Right, right You see what I'm you see what I'm saying? You you you're communicating the same message either way

35:36

It's just very stylistically different. You say more words You build a better bridge, right?

35:44

You have to remember Ryan like Why are you responding in the first place? You know, what's your goal and you have to ask this question, you know in the area of intentionality as a

35:54

Christian You have to ask this question. Are you responding to speak your mind? Right. You just need to get something off your chest and feel better about yourself.

36:02

Or are you responding to? Try to persuade the person and right in front of you to change their mind

36:10

You know If it's the latter then definitely do what

36:15

I'm suggesting, you know ask questions gently cross -examine their criticism and Remember you always try to respect and affirm the person you're talking to that goes a really long way

36:29

In having productive conversations, you know Nobody likes disingenuous people.

36:35

Well the majority of people that's the number one thing. They don't like is disingenuousness and it's also the number one thing that people can identify is

36:44

Being disingenuous being fake, you know Which by the way, God doesn't like fake people either

36:51

So anyway, thanks for the question Ryan. Let's move on question number nine Let's hurry up before the internet completely drops on me

36:59

Question number nine from from Christine Oftentimes psychotropic medications

37:07

Okay Oftentimes psychotropic medications dictate the behavior of an individual.

37:13

How does this mesh with free will? Half the people I know are on something

37:25

Christine I am NOT an expert in this area at all so I'm afraid

37:32

I I won't be much help here. I Mean, I would imagine that the general answer is

37:40

If something like substance dualism were true Then the immaterial mind interacting with the physical the the physical impaired brain it would be akin to like a a

37:53

Functional driver attempting to maneuver a vehicle with four flat tires. You know, I mean Because like from the outside person's perspective

38:04

The functionality of the vehicle would seem off right like it's not doing great

38:09

It would look like there's something obviously wrong with the car, even though there's nothing wrong with the driver in the car

38:15

You know, I mean so Beyond that I really couldn't say sorry

38:21

Christine. That's just that's not my area. Anyway, let's move on question number ten

38:28

Seventeen questions total. Here we go from zealy zealy zealy. I'm bad with names.

38:33

I apologize. How do you evangelize? people who are very passive And are they avoid conversations relating to big questions, especially in high school.

38:44

How do you go about that? Yeah Wow Well, if if they're passive and they avoid conversations relating to questions

38:59

I mean that does seem to take the air out of the balloon altogether, doesn't it? Right? I Mean given everything that you just said boy

39:12

Probably the only thing left to do is love these kids. Well, you know Well, it depends right like if you're the teacher if you're a teacher asking this question zealy

39:24

And you're more on the newbie side. No offense, you know You're more of a rookie and you haven't figured out there's tips and tricks for this.

39:31

Well, then maybe the reason The students are passive is because you're not providing the best environment for students to explore answering questions

39:39

You know, so for example, if you're if you're calling on students out loud and and you're not getting any responses

39:46

Well, maybe the answer is not that they're passive Maybe they just have a lot of opinions, but they don't feel comfortable expressing them in front of everyone, you know, and so You Have these emotional barriers that you need to overcome first if you're if you're just a classmate

40:04

I Mean shoot, you know, maybe the only thing you can do for these folks is fulfill the greatest commandment, right?

40:11

Love them. Well serve them well and pray for them I'm convinced that everyone has something to say especially about Spiritual things because just about everyone is spiritual like even if someone has never let themselves confront the big questions

40:28

If they were allowed to engage these things in a very safe encouraging and Relationally meaningful space.

40:35

I'm convinced that they would actually open up but maybe they're just not you know

40:41

Comfortable with you yet to say anything in which case you have to spend some time and it's some requisite time building relationships, you know

40:50

But if at the end of the day nothing works, well, then that's easy, you know, because the rest is up to the Lord, right?

40:57

so Keep praying for them keep praying that one day their disposition will change and Start becoming more curious about the big questions, you know

41:08

Thanks for the questions a zealy. Let's go to question number 11 moving right along Yeah, yeah question number 11 from Aaron if you had to choose

41:18

If you had to choose between becoming Orthodox or becoming Catholic, which would you choose

41:27

Dang man Boy, I don't think

41:34

I know enough about the Orthodox Church to answer this question. I probably know more about The Catholic Church than I do the

41:41

Orthodox Church I mean this is to me this is like asking me like which planet would you rather live on Mars or Pluto?

41:47

Well, I know more about Mars than I do Pluto, you know, I mean, so I'm sorry,

41:53

Aaron. I don't I don't think I can answer this one. I'm very sorry. Let's move on question number 12 From Mitchell Mitchell asked this.

42:02

Are you familiar with the differences between classical evidentialist or Presuppositional apologetics.

42:09

Do you think one is substantially better or worse than the others? Why or why not?

42:14

Yeah. Yeah Yeah, thanks for the question Mitchell I'm familiar with I'm familiar with these methods of apologetics.

42:24

Okay, I'm by no means an expert So, you know take what I say with a grain of salt But my answer is no,

42:32

I don't think any one method is substantially better than the other Okay, I will say that the presuppositional approach that is to To not give too much ground to the non -believer.

42:48

I'm a fan of that Okay, you know, I mean like to challenge someone with the transcendental argument for God Really calls into question every tool that non -believer tries to use to argue against the existence of God, okay, because You know before they can make some kind of logical argument

43:08

They have to first give an account for logic in the first place. All right. I'm a fan of that Having said that my experience has taught me that People come from different backgrounds.

43:22

They have different experiences they're in different stages of life, you know and praise

43:28

God, I've been a part of seeing a number of people come to faith by the power of the Holy Spirit and I Have definitely noticed that in my participation with those people's journey to Christ I've utilized all methods of apologetics in my conversations classical evidential presuppositional

43:50

You know, I wonder if I if I tend to use one method more than all the others

43:57

I'm not sure. I have to think about that But I've definitely used all of them now.

44:03

Let me so something that comes to mind Let me say this and I'll acknowledge this out loud There's something that I've heard in the past and and I'm just not convinced that it's as big a liability as is claimed

44:15

Who knows I might change my mind later on this right, but it kind of goes something like this The presuppositional method of apologetics is the true valid method to use with non -believers and all other methods are ineffectual because they assume a

44:32

Neutral common ground that concedes too much to the non -believer Okay So for example, if you were to focus on in discussion with a non -believer if you were to talk about the cosmological argument

44:44

Right the various versions of it You're setting yourself up for failure because the argument doesn't take you all the way to the

44:52

God of the Bible my response to that is Technically, that's true, but I don't have a problem

45:01

Seeking to play a longer game so to speak and make a more cumulative case

45:07

If that's where these people are okay, I think what's more important is not going to a person and trying to It's almost like just open up their brains and just load them up with all my information, you know um, no, i'm going to um

45:26

I'm going to go to people and i'm going to communicate them in a way that it's really not about me

45:32

Um, not initially not in the beginning, okay I'm seeing where everyone else is at and i'm trying to get a good sense

45:40

Of their own intellectual and emotional interactions with God Okay, see

45:46

Again, i'm just going to fall back on my own experience Um, i've seen people compelled to bend their knee to christ after hearing classical and evidential arguments

45:56

Because I would argue It's not so much the power of the argument itself. It's the holy spirit that's doing a work in them at that particular point in time

46:05

Which I want to identify as I think the forgotten wild card in the the mix here

46:10

So to speak, you know in these kinds of conversations which method is best like well the method that the holy spirit uses

46:17

I mean, that's basically my answer um The the the argument that that there is only one method that is valid It seems to me it just leaves the holy spirit out of the equation.

46:29

That's what i'm trying to get at But the reality is it is the holy spirit who does the lion's share of the job.

46:34

It is the holy spirit that convicts of sin It is the holy spirit that removes a heart of stone

46:42

And replaces it with a heart of flesh and causes people to walk in god's statues, right?

46:49

Um, so I mean this is what I was trying to say a moment ago People are at different stages when we meet them

46:55

And we have no idea what the spirit is doing in a person very very specifically in their life when we encounter them especially initially

47:05

But you know how we find this out Get them talking about themselves. Okay, here it is again, right you can hear me hit the same

47:13

Note on the guitar string figuratively speaking over and over and over again, right? Get the person that is in front of you to talk about themselves

47:21

Get them to open up and start talking about where they're at because the more you hear the more you'll discover where they're at All right

47:29

So the bottom line is if someone asks me a question or I ask them a question and the conversation centers on the universe

47:37

Um or morality or whatever, right? I'm not gonna divert the conversation away from that so that I can

47:45

Challenge the non -believers use of logic in the first place. You know what I mean? Or so I can critique their flawed epistemology from my estimation

47:53

You know i'm talking about like i'm going to trust that god arranged the conversation in this particular way for a reason

48:01

And i'm gonna follow where that leads And i'm gonna i'm gonna do my best to Reveal god and give him glory

48:09

And completely trust The lord that he's going to use me as I try to um have a a way more organic

48:20

Conversation a way more authentic conversation And just respond to the person that i'm talking to like in the moment.

48:27

All right So it just comes down to trusting the lord trusting that the holy spirit is going to do A work and that he's going to use whatever

48:34

You throw at him this is so insane And somehow it's related and don't hear what i'm not saying.

48:41

Okay, but I know somebody who got saved watching joel austin What It it really does it's just a great great reminder

48:54

That what we do for the lord is like filthy rags at the end of the day. So you know what

48:59

I mean? Thanks for the question. Michael i'm moving on question number 13 We're almost there guys 17 questions.

49:06

We're almost there Um, I said mitchell michael. I meant mitchell. I'm, so sorry. This is also a question from mitchell

49:13

Um, could you review a debate? uh by the late dr Greg bonson pointing out the differences between presuppositional

49:21

The presuppositional approach and compare it to the classical approach by william lane craig um

49:28

Yeah, I can do that. I mean You know, that's not on my immediate radar in terms of like a video to do in the next several weeks

49:36

Um, but yeah, i'm open to doing something like that. You know, it might be cool to invite my new friend eli ayala

49:43

Although I wonder if he's still my friend after he heard my presuppositional answer a moment ago, but uh, but um

49:49

I wonder if maybe I can invite him to help me, you know, do something like that That might be a cool exercise, you know, but yeah, i'm definitely open mitchell.

49:57

Thanks for the question Uh question number 14 almost there from matt bell, here's the question should reasonable doubt

50:06

Uh be used for the argument and outcome of a debate um

50:14

No Well, okay, so let me back up When I hear reasonable doubt

50:23

I think of a court case as i'm sure you are right and You know just sort of acknowledging everything on and putting it on the table, right?

50:32

Obviously there are elements of debate in court cases, right? You need to cross -examine folks on the witness stand you need to rebut the other side

50:40

You need to provide opening statements, etc, etc, right? And on the regular debate side, you know more policy public forum stuff like that Like your job is to provide your contentions

50:52

To support your claims with good data and then provide warrants for why your data supports the claim and all that You need to challenge the claims made by your interlocutor in cross -examination and rebuttals

51:02

Okay um, I mean, you know, there's other stuff that goes into this, but those are some of the the bigger pieces but the winner of a regular debate um

51:15

Does not Uh rely on or it does not trade on overcoming reasonable doubt

51:22

Okay, that that is not smuggled in as a uh a precursor to opening statements or something, you know

51:29

The winner of a debate is the one who did their job better than the other guy And you know that just comes down to better contentions

51:37

Um better framework better clash in crossfire and rebuttal all of that. That's the bottom line

51:44

Okay I hope I understood that question correctly matt. Maybe there was something more Uh, you were getting at is matt in the uh chat there

51:52

Are we still having internet issues? No, we're not. Okay good I'm concerned we might have internet issues.

51:57

So i'm just going to keep going Did I say 17 questions? This is the last question Okay, listen to me.

52:03

I didn't teach math. All right, come on now 17 questions. Sorry about that.

52:08

Okay. Here's the final question. You're ready for this And this was what was on the jpeg on the thumbnail

52:14

What is and this is from d pain my man d pain? What is the most biblical method of evangelism?

52:20

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for asking um D pain when

52:27

I um Yeah, let me say this When I look at new testament examples of evangelism,

52:34

I see different things happening Okay. So for example in john chapter three and four

52:41

You have two scenarios where jesus evangelizes And he does it by talking completely differently

52:49

Okay, so for nicodemus, um in john chapter three jesus recalls arguably recalls, um, ezekiel 36

53:00

Where in ezekiel 36 god promises to sprinkle men clean With water and then put his spirit in them

53:08

And so what jesus does is he describes this as being born again, right? You know being born of water born of the spirit

53:15

Okay So in other words Jesus connects with nicodemus's understanding of the prophets.

53:22

Now, why does he do that? Well, it's because nicodemus was a teacher of the jews Okay, so he should have known better, right?

53:29

Well, if you fast forward to john chapter four Jesus is now communicating to the samaritan woman and he gets her attention by not

53:38

Quoting the prophets but by identifying the sin in her life Okay, and we know that that's significant because later on she goes

53:48

Down the way into the town and her testimony is basically something like this. This guy told me all that I ever did

53:55

Right. That's what was compelling for the woman okay, then you go to uh acts chapter two, right and peter stands before the jews of the diaspora at pentecost

54:09

And he recalls a prophecy from from joel Okay, he tells them that the prophecy has just been fulfilled

54:18

By all the miracles of tongues, you know, these guys aren't drunk. This is a fulfilled prophecy of joel, right?

54:25

um, and then he reminds them of Something that david said in a psalm, you know that that that talks about christ's resurrection.

54:33

So What i'm getting at is already we're seeing a bit of a pattern Okay depayne on the one hand uh with jews

54:43

Christians recall the old testament and they point out how it is fulfilled with non -jews christians.

54:49

Don't do that Okay, instead jesus points out Um the samaritan sin in order to establish his bona fides

54:58

All right. Let's keep going. Um couple more examples you go to acts chapter 8 right and we see

55:05

Uh philip interacting with an ethiopian eunuch Okay, in other words not a jew, right?

55:12

Philip goes up to um the eunuch and he sees that he's reading the bible and he asks him a question

55:18

Do you understand what you're reading? right Uh, the ethiopian invites philip

55:24

Well, he says no right and the ethiopian invites philip to help him understand the bible and then philip shares the gospel

55:31

And he does so based on the passage that the ethiopian was reading right? so in other words

55:38

Philip's approach was not to recall the old testament But to ask a question based on what the ethiopian was doing in that very moment.

55:47

All right. Are you seeing the pattern yet? Okay, let me give you one more example because I think this is a really good example um

55:56

Uh, uh paul in acts chapter 17, right? Paul makes it to the areopagus. He's invited, you know to come speak and he evangelizes to the greeks greeks

56:06

Okay, not jews And how does he do it? All right I actually did a whole sermon on this if you want to go check it out again at life baptist church on our youtube channel, but the point is

56:16

Paul didn't quote scripture at all to these people Instead he did something different.

56:21

He acknowledged their identity and their purpose as religious folks who worship gods right false gods in our estimation, um gods to them right and he found a a

56:34

Connection piece to share the gospel. He he said, you know this statue over here to the unknown god

56:41

The the god that you don't know about let me tell you about him right as a matter of fact, um

56:48

You could argue that paul stopped short of giving a proper gospel presentation In acts chapter 17 at least you know

56:57

In the way that we do it today, right? But nevertheless some came to him after he spoke and believed that's what

57:03

That's what the end of the story tells us, right? So what am I getting at? I'm this is what i'm getting at the

57:10

The details of evangelism change across the new testament person to person, but there is a commonality

57:16

There is a a shared feature underlying everything And that is the connecting point for people right for jesus and nicodemus the connecting point was the prophets

57:29

Right for peter and the jews the connecting point was the prophets, you know, why because they were familiar with that They could connect with that right?

57:39

Um for the samaritan woman, it was her sin For the for the ethiopian eunuch it was helping him understand what he had already purposed to read you know

57:51

Uh for the greeks it was their desire to honor a god that they didn't know anything about So again, what am

57:59

I getting at with all this? Here's the reality There is no such thing as the most biblical method of evangelism in my opinion

58:06

Okay, as you can see from my vantage point Uh, the biblical figures displayed multiple methods of communication with folks that appear to switch it up With different people in order to find their connecting point um so I will say this

58:27

Of all the examples that I gave my personal favorites are more in line with jesus and the samaritan woman at the well

58:35

And they're more in line with philip and the ethiopian eunuch Okay, I think there's a wonderful thing

58:40

That happens when you appeal to someone by seeking to to to know them personally

58:47

And ask them questions to help them understand reality You know, but to do these things in very inviting and gracious ways

58:53

I am not a fan of following pre -rehearsed gospel scripts in evangelism Okay, i'm not saying that they're ineffectual that they never work.

59:02

I'm just not a fan of them because I think that Pre -rehearsed scripts follows the typical paradigm of communication and in the typical paradigm of communication

59:12

Uh people aren't listening to you Or they're listening, but they don't understand what you're saying because most people now who are unchurched don't understand christian language

59:20

You know so I think that asking the right questions

59:27

That trade on those connecting points with people is the proverbial way to go

59:32

Okay, there's always exceptions to every rule right but that's largely the way to go moving forward, okay

59:40

Um, all right Wow, we did an hour. We did a little over an hour.

59:45

I had all the video connection issues And everything and you guys stuck through so thank you very much for uh sticking in there

59:53

Um, I am about to lose my voice So one one of the last things I said Or one of the last things that happened to me when

01:00:00

I got coveted And it was really strange and I had to look this up was I got really bad dry mouth

01:00:06

Um, I lost my smell and taste and they all came back But now I have this after effect of just being like somebody who constantly needs to drink

01:00:14

And so my voice is about to crack here and go so i'm gonna go.

01:00:20

Um, but listen guys Thank you so much. We made it friends. Thank you so much for joining me on the live stream

01:00:26

Thank you for all the questions. Um a huge. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed I think we're gonna have a fun year this year.

01:00:34

So stick with me. Okay Um, I will return again soon with more videos. Make sure to check my community tab for updates

01:00:43

Mitchell john James cool kid william billy craig all y 'all in the chat.

01:00:49

Thank you so much for joining me. Um I really do appreciate everything that you guys do so Uh in the meantime