The Old Testament & the Philosophy of Evidence

Revealed Apologetics

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I kind of go off people's schedule and when I'm free as well, so thank you for hanging in there.

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Hope folks who listen to this episode will find the topic edifying and interesting. I sure find it interesting.

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I'm looking forward to actually learning what my guest means by the topic he suggested.

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So to get a little bit of context, I invited my guest, Jimmy Lee, and he'll tell a little bit about himself and what he does in just a moment.

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But I had initially invited him on to talk about R .C.

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Sproul's criticisms of presuppositionalism, and I am hoping that we can still get him on to talk about that.

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But he actually suggested the specific topic that we're going to be discussing today, and that's the topic of the

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Old Testament and the philosophy of evidence. And I was like, hmm, that sounds interesting.

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I don't know where you want to go with that, but I think I might, and that actually might be super interesting and fascinating to people.

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And so I think my guest here, Jimmy, is going to have a lot of interesting things to say on a topic that I think is not really addressed as much.

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And so hopefully this conversation will be edifying and informative and educational for those who are listening.

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And again, if you are listening in and you have a question, I'm sure Jimmy will, and myself as well, will be more than happy to take questions from the live chat like we normally do, probably towards the back end, but we'll see how things go.

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All right. Well, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my guest, Jimmy Lee, and he will share a little bit more about himself in just a moment.

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All right. How's it going, brother? Going good. Going good. It is a joy, Eli, to be a guest on your show, consider it a humble opportunity, and hopefully this conversation would, even what

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I'm hoping is the conversation would also help evidentialists to see how much, even when people talk about Jesus in the

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New Testament, his resurrection or his miracles, how presuppositionalists may contribute by being aware, conscious of the

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Old Testament foundation or worldview that shapes how we interpret things.

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Yeah, I think that's so important because, I mean, when we look, for example, as presuppositionalists at the biblical model of apologetics as we see it right in the

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New Testament, they had the Old Testament. And so if we're going to claim that presuppositionalism is based on biblical principles, that's going to have to be rooted not just in New Testament examples, but the

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Old Testament backdrop. So when you suggested this topic, I was like, huh, that actually might be a very interesting topic to explore.

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But before we go there, why don't you tell folks a little bit about who you are, what you do, maybe a little bit about your website, which by the way,

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I highly recommend people check it out if you like presuppositional apologetics, but you don't like the super heady stuff.

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This guy right here is, and the people who contribute, they write very clear, very well, and they do very good in bringing really important topics right there for the average person really looking to dig deep.

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So why don't you tell folks a little bit about yourself there, Jimmy? Yeah, I'm a pastor out in, really near the

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East LA area. I'm an English pastor for the English congregation for a Chinese church.

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I've been doing that for probably 11 years full time, and a little bit more, probably 13 years maybe, or 14 years part -time too.

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So my interest with apologetics began really when I first got saved. I think maybe a lot of us presuppositionalists, we started the evidential route with Josh McDow and just someone that really loves history.

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Became presuppositional when I was in college, just discovering world views and seeing

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Bonson's apologetics and reading Evanto, just seeing that applied. And my passion is just to really just teach theology, so it's more than just about apologetics, and even theology, specifically in the area of systematic theology.

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That was where my THM was focused upon, and then also as well with biblical theology.

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And here, I hope today, even just talking about how that all comes together. I think that's one of the things

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I see with the Vantill project, is just the unity and the diversity of all these various theological disciplines and method and adjacent fields, and how we can incorporate together and sync, maybe a lot through influence of John Frame with what he called perspectivalism,

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I actually think probably it's better called dimensionalism, so that people don't think it's relativism. And the blog

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I ran is Veritas Domain. Originally, it was began by my pastor.

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He basically is doing missions in sensitive areas, and some of the other guys are also doing missions, things related to other places.

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So over time, I just am the one that usually updated the most from there. And yeah, just the love of theology, the word, and apologetics.

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And one of the things I just want to begin first by saying, Eli, is even with the blog and stuff like that,

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I'm not the guy that knows it most. I feel the other admin in the presuppositional group that I'm an admin with, other guys know so much more in philosophy, in theology, in the word, in covenant theology, whatever else it is.

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And I'm just humbled, just wanted to be part of the community, just that we advance the and hopefully disciple guys that know more than us and move forward presuppositional projects.

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Excellent. So that is right there on the bottom of the screen. Thanks, Abihu Hill. The veritasdomain .wordpress

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.com. One thing that I really do like about that, it's not just a regular old blog that has articles that cover various topics related to presuppositional apologetics.

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The last time I checked, there are some teaching resources, like outlines, that have been shared on that website.

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So if you're interested in teaching some element of apologetics, you search that blog, and there is some outlines there that you can use and teach within your own churches, your own small groups, things like that.

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I think that's doing a very good job in bridging again of consuming, right, reading an article and actually using what you're consuming.

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So kudos for you guys for doing that. And so I highly recommend people check that out.

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All right. Well, without further ado, Jimmy, your topic, as I said, that you suggested, which

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I definitely want to have you back on and we'll tackle, R .C. Sproul, a dear brother and a hero.

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I think a hero of the faith, a hero of the Reformed community, and I highly recommend his resources and even his apologetic resources, even though there is some disagreement in terms of methodology.

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But hopefully I can have you on where we can kind of address specifically some of his objections against presuppositionalism.

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And hopefully that'll give folks a better understanding as to how we might answer some of the popular objections. So hopefully we could have you on for that.

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But today we have the topic of the Old Testament and the philosophy of evidence.

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That sounds weird. Before you kind of go and unpack that, why don't you take a few moments and explain to people why presuppositionalists are not allergic to evidence?

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This is a very common misconception. Why don't you unpack that for us? Yeah, I just want to begin first by saying, and even

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I know I call it a philosophy of evidence. Van Til talks a lot and even Greg Bonson a lot about that when we look at evidence, it's not so much sometimes the evidence, but it's evidence is never seen in the vacuum, but it's in the context of other previous pre -commitments, including what we often call presuppositions.

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That is what you believe is the ultimate area or views of reality.

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So it is not, and if I could just even pull one real quick, is I actually think for presuppositional apologetics is we actually, and I know

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Eli, you've talked about this in your show and others too, about how presupposition, we actually are evidence, if we could call it another way, is maximalists with our evidential apologetics.

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We see everything, even the word of God, we acknowledge its self -evidencing status. Even also in general revelation also as well.

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If I could just pull real quick a quote just from, this is from Greg Bonson himself, and this is actually from an article he called

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Evidential Apologetics the Right Way by Dr. Greg L. Bonson, and it was originally from a publication that he used to run called

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Penpoint, November 1995, volume six, number 11.

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You could probably look at it. I think the Bonson Covenant Media Foundation currently has this article down.

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Or it's not functional, but you can still search for it. I found it on reform .org. He talks about how in popular, and I'm reading now, in popular misconception today, the choice of an apologetic goal method facing a

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Bible -believing Christian is between arguing presuppositionally or appealing to evidence from history and nature in support of Christianity, but that is entirely wrong.

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So again, we're quoting from someone that often others, especially evidentialists sometimes say, hey, look at Bonson.

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He's this hardcore guy. Maybe other presupp guy are more open to classical method, but here himself, he's saying that that's actually wrongheaded to see this bifurcation with that.

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And he goes on and says, presuppositional apologetics endorse and encourages the use of evidence, but not evidence offered in traditional manner as an appeal to authority of unbelievers' autonomous reasoning.

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And he goes on, and maybe I'll quote more later on when we talk about this method, like how do we actually ground it? It's actually,

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I think we need to see all our evidence in light of our worldview and also seeing the fact that Scripture says there's revelation all around us, both general and special.

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And even as we talk about evidential, and I do appreciate a lot of guys that talk about the historical aspect of Christianity, but I also think presupposition, we could actually contribute to the table, but actually stressing, bringing in biblical theology, stressing that's the background of the

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Old Testament that interpret what Jesus was doing. These miracles Jesus were doing, it's not just a prosperity gospel thing, because some people will have a prosperity gospel worldview could look at it and think, oh, this is saying health and wealth and blab it and grab it.

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But rather, if you read it in the Old Testament, with all this description of the Messiah, there's certain things that need to be fulfilled.

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I think when you see specific things why Jesus does, and even not just only his evidence and his value thing, but even where he's at, the timing, everything else,

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I think it's in light of the Old Testament interpretation that we see, oh, Jesus Christ definitely is the

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Messiah. So it's the Old Testament worldview that we bring to the table to look at.

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Excellent. That's excellent. Now, it's interesting. It's very important that you made mention of the fact that evidences for or against a position is not independent of a worldview context that we bring to the interpretation of the evidence.

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As Cornelius Van Til was famous for saying, there are no brute facts. Brute facts are mute facts.

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Facts do not speak. They require interpretation. But you made a very important point that we think everything is evidence for God.

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So that's kind of actually contrary to what we typically hear from other apologetic camps. I mean, I remember,

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I don't know if you remember, I think it was a discussion with Dr. Scott Oliphant from Westminster. He had a discussion with,

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I think it was Kurt Jaros a long time ago on the Unbelievable podcast with Justin Brierley.

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And he said that we as presuppositionalists are eminently evidentialist in the sense that we literally think everything is evidence for God, both from the miraculous to the mundane.

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And I think that's very, very important. And that flows from our theology, which is rooted in the scripture.

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So let's jump into the main specific topic that you wanted to address. What do you mean by the

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Old Testament and the philosophy of evidence? Why don't you unpack that for us? Yeah, with that is, so I'm borrowing a little bit and I'm tinkering a little bit with Van Till and Greg Bonson on how they often talk about philosophy of facts.

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I narrowed it down to say philosophy of evidence, just to say specifically focusing on Jesus and all the historical events that happen in the gospel and how all of it shows when the gospel, it shows that he is the

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Messiah. So that's what I use with that. Of course, even when we talk about things you can't even do,

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I don't think you could really do history in every worldview. For instance, if you believe in certain

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Eastern religion, that everything is an illusion, that history itself, the pursuit and the endeavor of study that is unintelligible and not meaningful.

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If you believe in the worldview that everything is not able to make a distinction, I'm not so much going heading towards that direction on the traditional, maybe a bit of irony with the typical direction.

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Do I believe in that? But my direction is more that when we actually read the gospels, I actually think there's something really missing if we actually don't know the

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Old Testament and specifically, not just only Old Testament in terms of, for instance, we kind of assume, for instance, when you read the

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New Testament, we already know there's already one God. In fact, actually, if you look at the New Testament, there's actually less verse that mentioned about there's only one

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God or monotheism because the Old Testament already laid the foundation. So if you ever do a systematic theology in the attribute of God that there's a monotheism, more of your verses will be in the

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Old Testament. So we kind of have that idea, that idea of how the Old Testament is, but actually think sometimes we might not be as consciously fully developed or apologetics, especially of those engaged with messianic prophecy or evidential apologetics that Jesus Christ is the

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Messiah. And towards the end, hopefully we'll get into an acronym that I developed and also is on the blog of what

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I call evidences of various ways, not just direct prophecies, but various ways of how the

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Old Testament with types and shadows and timings and everything else shows you Jesus Christ is the

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Messiah. And maybe the example I would like to give is an analogy. Maybe this part of me as a preacher, always think of an analogy.

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Every piece, every pastor has got three points. We'll be out of here before you know it. Tony, go get the offering.

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Yeah, exactly. And also with each point, there's a proof, right? And then there's also even a picture with an analogy.

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Well, before you get into your example, speaking of offering, if you want to support Revealed Apologetics by sending a super chat, you can do that in the comment section, be greatly appreciated.

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See, we did, we fit an offering. So we'll have church right now, but go ahead. Yeah. You got to hit the application when it's hot, right?

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Yeah. So with that, I think there was a while back when my best friend got married.

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And so if you guys know me, I know some of the brothers that are watching the precept group.

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I rarely watch any movies. I think in my church, I watch the least amount of movies in order to have my reading diet of reading a lot.

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But there's a few movies I watch. I feel like I think about it for a long time. I talk to guys to the point where some of the guys are like, hey, so a week later, we got to move on.

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There's other movies I've watched since then. And I remember watching, and this is going to be, some people probably think it's pathetic.

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So with the Marvel series, with the Avengers, I watched it out of order because it was just during the bachelor party.

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Like the guy was just, you know, we're fellowshipping and the movie was playing. And it was, I think the age of Ultron, or I don't remember which one, but it was out of order.

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And I totally missed everything until I finally watched the first movie. And then there was a, oh, wow. The first movie set the context and explain everything else.

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And for most of us, I think we're New Testament Christianity. We're the guys that kind of enter into the second movie of a trilogy without the first, without seeing the echoes and illusions that's made.

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So I think for us, if there's an application is to read the Old Testament. And what I'm actually specifically doing for those that know presuppositional apologetics, and I'm assuming a lot of the people in the audience does, and also including you,

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Eli. I think Van Til's revolution apologetics was he pointed out that even our systematic theology, the doctrines of our systematic theology is itself an apologetics.

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And I'm actually going the other same direction, same trajectory, but I'm even going further to say our biblical theology, that is how we read the

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Old Testament and to the New Testament and the relations of New Testament to Old Testament itself is something we need to be conscious of when we talk about apologetics.

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And our biblical theology is an apologetics. And if I could even go before we, I know there'll be probably breaks.

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I'll just give one more analogy. I think apologetics is almost like a story of three little pigs.

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How we do our apologetics, when we defend the core Christianity, for instance, that Christ is the Messiah. We also have, it's not alone, but it's within the vacuum of a worldview of where you put your house.

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It's either made out of straws or made out of bricks or some solid material. And even like Greg Bonds in a notice that pointed out, if we say

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Jesus Christ has resurrected, but if there's other, your worldview is everything's a chance driven worldview, then you might say, for instance, atheistic chance driven worldview is like, yeah,

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Jesus Christ might have resurrected, but it's just one freak accident in nature because of your randomness, chaotic worldview.

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But if we have a biblical Old Testament worldview, you would say, no, this actually, the interpretation is, is the fulfillment of everything of messianic expectation.

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So we could, when we finally read them in the New Testament, if you know your Old Testament, you would say, we've been expecting you Jesus all along.

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Right, right. Now that's funny. You said, you know, in a chance universe, you know, evidence for the resurrection can be explained the way by, you know, weird things happen.

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And people think, well, that's ridiculous. You know, if we show the resurrection, that shows a high probability that the

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God of the Bible raised Jesus from the dead. Listen, I had a, I had a debate slash discussion with an atheist, a noted atheist on YouTube, Tom Jump.

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And in our interaction, he even said, I can grant that Jesus was raised from the dead.

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He's like, but that doesn't mean Christianity is true. And he suggested even that there may have been a

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God who created the God of the Bible. So there could be a God higher than, than the

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God we were putting forth. Now, of course, that's, that's fallacious because if there is a

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God higher than the God we're talking about, then we're not talking about the God of the Bible or critiquing a worldview. That's not, that's not our own.

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But yeah, if your worldview is based on chance, then anything's possible. A bare resurrection proves nothing.

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And so I think that's why it's important to do apologetics from a worldview context.

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And of course, understanding what you said, understanding the backdrop of the Old Testament, which gives meaning to the historical event of the resurrection.

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So they're, they're definitely hand in hand. I want to ask you a question before you kind of continue. I remember James White said something to the effect that if Christians don't read the

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Old Testament, then the New Testament really is a closed book. What do you think he means by that? I think it's a kind of,

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I don't know if you've heard him say this before, but why is, why is that such an important statement to unpack for, for our listeners here?

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Yeah, I think there is, so backing up,

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I do think the most, if someone pointed a gun to me right now and say, why do you believe in Christ? I would say the transcendental argument,

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I would say, but part of that is also there is a self -evidencing nature of Christianity. It's not just only a philosophical move when we're talking about the nature of the status of even what is a transcendental argument.

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For me, I actually think we're missing that in the sense that a lot of things in the New Testament happen.

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It's, I think it is an organic book in the sense that it begins growing just like a plant begins as a seed form in its simpian form in the

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Old Testament, but it fully blossoms in the New. And part of that is just a lot of assumptions. And it's, it's really assuming you already know the

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Old Testament in some ways. And I also think there's a sense where I think we lose even the power of the

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Old Testament or even New Testament and its evidential value of the Bible itself. When we say the

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Bible is self -evidencing, I think there's a sense you read the Bible, you should know the Bible is the word of God just by reading it. There's a direct way, but I think it's just, it's not just the simplistic cartoon version.

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I think it's also self -evident in the sense that when you read the Old and New, the prophecies is just so amazing, so stunning, so many illusions, so many things we're missing out.

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And I think we're closing the evidences and also even the meaning and interpretation of what the

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New Testament is trying to say. Sure. Yeah. Excellent. Well, let's, let's jump right in, continue.

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In what way does the Old Testament set the context for a philosophy of, of evidence?

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Yeah, I'm going to try to do this one briefly first. I think one of the things, even before I want to go over the, those acronym of evidences, the various ways,

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I actually think that when you read the Old Testament very carefully, and this is where I do think when we read the

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Bible very carefully, attention to details in every industry, every field, always pay dividend, right?

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Whether whatever you do will work or, you know, if you're an aircraft mechanic, but I also think when you read the

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Bible very carefully, I actually think if you read the Old Testament very carefully and especially noticing its structure in the literary level, there's a sense

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I think the Old Testament actually anticipate and predicts the New Testament. There's something when you read it. There is, for instance,

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I don't know if you ever feel this. Did you ever get this before, Eli? When you first read the New Testament with the book of Matthew, Matthew one and two, or Matthew one is the genealogy.

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Did you kind of feel there was something missing? I'm just curious. I'm just wondering. What do you mean by something missing in the genealogy?

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I guess maybe the way I always take a step, yeah, maybe not missing, but there's something, the question

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I always had was if we ever had English literature class, the teacher always says, whenever you write an introduction, you want to have something that's a hook that makes it where you bring someone in.

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And then you have a bunch of lists. And I remember when I was 15, when I was an atheist and eventually reading through the Bible when

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I got expelled from school over a period of three months, that's how eventually I saw the Bible was self -witnessing to me that he's real.

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And I remember thinking, this is really strange. Why would there be a grocery listing of names? I actually think when you read the

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Old Testament, there's something missing because when you read it, you'll be like, this is a phone book with names. And I don't know.

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But in the Jewish canon of scripture, when you look at even if you open up your table content, the last book, because in our

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English Bible, it's shaped by the Greek translation, correction, the Greek translation of the

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Old Testament called the Septuagint, where the order is that. And there's nothing wrong with that. But in the Jewish order of things, they actually have threefold division.

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So there's scripture called Tanakh is actually the Torah first, the Nevi 'im, which is the prophet, and the

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Ketevim, which is the writings. And in there, in the way they set things up, if you ever look at a

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Jewish canon, you can Google it. The last book of their scripture, they actually consider the historical book of First Second Chronicles is history.

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And remember, First Chronicles, you ever read that in the beginning, it lists all these genealogy all the way from Adam. So when you read it, there's a sense when you read the first and the ending of that, there's no temple being built.

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In fact, I actually think every way of the last few books, it's in such a way that it's so anticlimactic that it's asking for something more of God.

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So when you see a whole bunch of genealogy in First Chronicles, and then it ends, you're thinking still, where's the

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Messiah that we've been waiting for? So the structure of the Old Testament itself begs for the introduction of the

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New Testament. And if you're interested, I could talk more about this, but that's not going to be my main point. But I just want to at least show that a few days ago, even

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David Polman, he's no fan of apologetics. He tweeted something or put something on Facebook that was meaningful.

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He mentioned about how this might not be his area, but he wished there was more Old Testament apologetics.

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And I think so many times we see Old Testament apologetics is defending maybe the killing, the so -called genocide, all these kind of things.

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But I actually think there's a sense where the Old Testament itself is a robust apologetics. When you see that it's begging and asking for the continuity, for the anticipation of the

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New Testament. So I think that's where to begin first, just so that we're not saying we're crazy, that why is it we read

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Old and New? First, the Old does assume there will be a New Testament. Even the last book of Malachi, and this is my last point, and then

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I'll hand it back to you again. Malachi, the last book, which is the way our order of the books is for Protestant Bibles, Malachi ends with a prophecy about there will be a prophet that will come prepare the way for the

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Messiah. And I think that fits in where there's a sense where it just ends with that. We're waiting for somebody to come.

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And if God has often revealed himself and also then make people write things down, like with the story of Exodus, then how much more with the greatest revelation of all of the

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Savior for all our salvation with the New Testament. So with that as background, go ahead. Yeah, well,

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I know what you mean when you read some of the Old Testament, you kind of feel like something's missing, not because it's insufficient, but because what it is promising doesn't seem to come until later on.

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You know, the genealogies is kind of a funny thing. We kind of make a joke. If you want, if you're having trouble sleeping, you get a warm cup of milk, maybe some three, you know, three chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven, and then listen to an audio version of the genealogies.

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You fall right asleep. But actually, you've actually given a good context that a good introduction has a hook, but the hook must be relevant to the context of the audience so that it would be a hook for them.

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So that the modern Old Testament ignorant believer genealogies isn't a hook.

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It's the part we skip over. But to a Jew that is immersed in the context of the

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Old Testament, a New Testament genealogy at the beginning of the gospels is a hook because unlike us today, they were very much connected with family lines and the importance of that line, especially with respect to issues of the

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Messiah and fulfilled prophecy and things like that. So I think that's an excellent way to look at it. Understanding the genealogy as a hook, but a lot of us don't see it as a hook because that's not our context.

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And that's why we need both the Old and the New Testament to understand why it's a hook. Yeah, so there's a sense in that way.

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I think we see the thesis of even with that genealogies, to example, why it's beneficial. Number one, you'll never understand why it's important unless you have the old.

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And number two, you miss the evidential value. Because for the Jews, I think the genealogy seems so boring unless you understand this is a big game of words,

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Waldo. You're funneling down of all the Jewish, all the various tribes, who's going to be the Messiah? You're funneling down to eventually say, this is the one

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Jesus Christ. So that brings again of how if we're missing the Old Testament, if we're inserting some other worldview, a

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Greco Roman worldview or whatever else worldview or stoic worldview, if we don't have an Old Testament worldview, we miss why it's significant and also the evidential power within just the first chapter of Matthew of the

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New Testament alone. Right. And I think it's appropriate to kind of, I like that idea of funneling because you have kind of the culmination of that funnel in the person of Jesus Christ.

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And I think at this point, it's appropriate to read Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one is the perfect embodiment of that funneling, finding its kind of center in the person of Jesus Christ.

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Hebrews chapter one verses one and two says the following, long ago at many times and in many ways,

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God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom we appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.

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And of course, he goes on to talk about issues relating to the deity of Christ that he has the, is the exact imprint of his nature.

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So Jesus is the final revelation of God. He is the embodiment of all that the

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Old Testament was pointing to. And that notion of that funnel you mentioned is found not just here, but even throughout the gospels where Jesus himself says that you search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, but it's they that speak of me.

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So we need to be able to see or kind of notice what the

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Old Testament is moving us to so that we could greatly appreciate that climax when it comes.

28:19

And unfortunately the Jews in the first century did not recognize it. And instead they crucified the Lord of glory.

28:25

So excellent, excellent point with that funnel. I think that gives us a good vision, a good visual there.

28:31

But go ahead if you wanted to expand on what you were going, what you were saying. Yeah, I think right now at this time that we have,

28:37

I want to go over just the acronyms of evidences of each one of just showing various ways of the

28:43

Old Testament is related. So the acronym is the word evidence. So each letter will represent some point you want to bring out.

28:53

Is that what you're saying? Yes, of how the Old Testament help interpret Jesus is the Messiah.

28:58

Okay, all right, go for it. Yeah. So the first one, again, let me say this again, the word is evidences with an

29:04

S in the end. The first one is event. I actually think there's various events.

29:09

We don't know our Old Testament. We can almost miss that Jesus is like the New Testament is trying to say

29:15

Jesus is the Messiah. Let's actually open up maybe to Mark chapter six, verse 34.

29:21

First, Mark chapter six. So this is probably a little bit more of a Bible study, but I don't think it's just a

29:26

Bible study. It's really how we see the marvel. And hopefully this will be in the doxological apologetics that we marvel that Jesus Christ must be the

29:35

Messiah at the end of our session here. By the way, lest anyone get confused and say, well, wait a minute, this is the

29:40

Bible study. Wait a minute. The primary apologetic of the

29:46

New Testament was a demonstration from the scriptures that Jesus had to come and suffer.

29:51

He was the Messiah, fulfilled the prophecy, these sorts of things. So this is apologetics. Not every apologetic encounters with an atheist or something like that.

30:00

Our story here that God has given us both the Old and New Testament is a story that God is telling that culminates in the coming of his son.

30:06

So I think this is very relevant, not simply a generic Bible study, but go for it. Yeah, if I could even add to that point, this is not just only dealing with the atheism and stuff like that.

30:17

I remember a few years ago when I was in college, I set up a table at UCLA with our campus ministry where basically all these people of all these isms came over.

30:26

And there was sometimes when the worldview is not just atheists. People could gang up on you, multiple people. And I remember this one time we had someone that was

30:32

Jewish and there was someone that was and he brought his scripture because he was a regular person that was like trying to and there was an atheist.

30:41

So in those moments, you don't want to be ganged up. So I actually thought the better thing is to be wise, just like Paul with his apologetics tactics.

30:47

He split the Pharisees and the Sadducees against each other talking to resurrection. So that moment, I actually thought like,

30:52

OK, I asked the atheist, could you read Isaiah 53 out loud and hand him the Bible? And I asked him, who is that man?

30:59

And the atheist said, oh, this guy is is the one that I'm reading about, of course, is Jesus.

31:04

And of course, the Jewish guy was like, wait, wait, wait a minute. That is not Jesus. So I was in the end, I was like, OK, instead of everyone getting up on you rather than you split, right, the two.

31:14

Divide and conquer. Are you in the military? Do you have military background? Yes, military background.

31:21

That's right. Well, thank you for your service, man. Marine Corps, go. That's awesome. So look at that. Even apologetics.

31:26

How can I how can I alleviate the pressure here? It's going to set everyone against each other. That's very, very good.

31:32

Yeah. So so I think in the end, it's very powerful. And even for the nonbeliever to read the scripture and everything else with that.

31:38

So so going back on with the word, the first one of the evidence is events. Mark chapter six, verse thirty four.

31:45

I prefer the NASB version. I'll just read this real quick. It says when Jesus went ashore, he saw a large crowd and he felt compassionate because they were like a sheep without a shepherd and began to teach him many things.

31:56

So verse thirty four, Jesus obviously is compared to even alluding to these people are like sheeps and he's like the shepherd.

32:03

And in verse thirty nine, there's this interesting details. And again, we miss all these things that we don't know.

32:09

The Old Testament, verse thirty nine says, and he does. Jesus command all of them to sit down the group sit down by groups on the green grass.

32:16

I want to pay attention to what's going on here in context. I'll just fill this in real quick is Jesus going to basically feed thousands of people and the attention to detail of green grass and also that he looked at them like sheep without shepherd.

32:29

We would miss that if we don't know the scripture, because I actually think the word what is going on here is this is alluding to Psalms twenty three.

32:36

This is alluding to Psalms twenty three, because in Psalms twenty three, if you remember one of the prophecy is that he leads me besides green grass and the

32:43

Greek Septuagint translation for Psalms twenty three, Psalms twenty three is Hebrew, Old Testament is Hebrew, but there's

32:48

Greek translation of that. Just like today, I'm ethnically Chinese, but I cannot read Chinese.

32:53

So I have to be like English, American translation for like Chinese classical military attacks and stuff like that.

32:59

But going back on with that example, I think when you see this, if you don't see that, then you'll miss the echoing.

33:06

It's almost like sometimes you see rappers when they're battle rapping, they're dropping lines of each other. But if you don't know anything about rap, then you're wondering, why is everyone go?

33:14

Oh, whoa. Did you see what happened there? Right. The power of the rebuke in the disc or even the power of the apologetics here is missed.

33:23

So even with the Old Testament, Psalms twenty three interpret this event, what's going on that Jesus is the

33:29

Messiah with that such subtle detail of this event being green grass being mentioned.

33:36

And I like how you mentioned that because it's so important. Second Timothy three sixteen, all scriptures inspired of God, and that includes both the major points of a text and what seems like a minor points.

33:47

God put those things there for us to notice and for us to consider. So I think that's very observant of you to mention the green grass and drawing that analogy.

33:56

Well, why don't you continue? So we have events. And do you have more to expand on that? Yeah, the second one would be

34:04

V would be for versus just even the times where there's certain times where the

34:10

New Testament authors or Jesus cites passages in scripture. And we might be scratching our head thinking, why did he cite that?

34:18

Unless we understand the verse in context and also as well, even in some instance, even what the rabbinic traditions and how did the

34:26

Jews interpret this? And again, for V, I'm not going to go through a specific verse, but one of the most quoted.

34:34

This is more of a data just to make the point because I'm rushing through this. Just the most quoted

34:39

Old Testament verse in the New Testament is actually Psalms 110. Psalms 10 verse one, where it says the

34:46

Lord said to my Lord, sit in my right hand. And I think if we don't understand the background or even the

34:52

Psalm in context, I think we could easily miss what it is that's going on also as well.

34:58

Maybe I could give one just real quick. Sure. Yeah. But by the way, it's going to give you a heads up. There is no rush.

35:04

We're at 35 mark. We're shooting for an hour. So you can expand on some points if you wish. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

35:09

So this is an example. I'm just thinking off the top of my head is if you guys could turn with me to Luke 20.

35:16

Luke 20 is the subject of my dissertation for when

35:21

I was doing my THM on Jesus apologetics methodology. I felt he was dealing with a lot of unbelief, and there was a lot of argumentation going on.

35:30

But in Psalms 20, the correction when I'm saying Luke 20 verse 17, Jesus actually cites this verse that the stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone.

35:41

It's actually a quotation from Psalms 118. And the term we would miss the significance.

35:47

And we would say, how is this a Messianic prophecy that the stone will be rejected? Like, why do we think the stone is

35:53

Messiah? Unless you know your Old Testament, I actually think the stone is the title for the Messiah. By the way, the

35:59

Hebrew word there is Ebon. So we ever have any friends named Ebon, it means precious stone. You know, it's not just any rocks.

36:05

It's just precious stone. And that first time that word appears in the Bible is actually Genesis 49, where different titles of the

36:12

Messiah is also mentioned about the mighty one of Israel and the shepherd and the stones of Israel.

36:20

So I'm bringing this up as to say, we so easily miss. Why would Jesus use those verse unless we understand the

36:26

Old Testament? So that's the old verses. The Old Testament helps us understand the background of the actual verses.

36:34

Excellent. Excellent. All right. So we have events. We have verses.

36:39

And what do we got next? So the letter I, what do you got there? The word I is for individuals. For individuals.

36:46

What I mean by that is, I mean, we could turn just real quick. I didn't write down the specific verse, but like,

36:54

Deuteronomy 18 predicts that there's a prophet that will come. I'm just going to turn there.

37:00

Deuteronomy 18 talks about, let me look at the verse. In verses, this is not good to do things on the fly, right?

37:13

Don't worry. You have that particular passage, which is referring, I have the outline here is referring to the idea that the

37:19

Messiah will be like a prophet like Moses. Yeah. So you're focusing on an individual here,

37:26

Moses, as kind of an analogy or foreshadow of. Christ. Okay. Yeah.

37:31

And specifically Deuteronomy 18, 15 mentioned about the Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet and notice a singular like me among you from your countrymen.

37:43

You shall listen to him. So when we look at Matthew, I think Matthew is actually trying to tell us he is.

37:49

Jesus is like Moses because he was born. He had to escape from an evil king.

37:55

You know, one was Pharaoh and one was King Harold. People were killed. Jesus, there was a time period where he was in Egypt, living in Egypt.

38:04

There was a time period where even Jesus was like Moses. He preached the law. I think that's what

38:09

Matthew five with the Beatitudes. He was explaining and expounding the law. I mean, there's so many parallel with that, right?

38:17

Jesus having 12 disciples. There's 12 tribes that Moses was trying to lead.

38:25

There's a theme of 40 days and 40 nights, right? There's the theme in the wilderness. All those things, I think, contribute that Jesus was like Moses.

38:34

So I think when we look at this individual, when it talks about even Deuteronomy 18, you might miss the whole part of Matthew one and two.

38:43

Why is it focused on this individual Jesus? Unless you understand Deuteronomy 18, verse 15, that there will be one who will be a prophet.

38:50

That's exactly like that. So that when you get to Matthew chapter four, when he started doing the Beatitudes, Matthew five correction, then you would see, oh, whoa, he's a prophet after being in the mountain area, just like Moses.

39:02

And then the parallel of all his life before, even beyond his control when he was little, was very similar. There was a great killing of many kids that would have been his lifetime.

39:13

The king wanted to kill him and he had to flee an evil king and all these other things. Right. And that's not to say that there were not other prophets that came after Moses.

39:23

Obviously there was. But you have kind of these snake head crushers from Genesis 3, 15.

39:33

You have the snake head crusher wannabes, people who God raised up, but they weren't quite the fulfillment of who would crush the head of the serpent.

39:43

So what you're saying here is not at all inconsistent with the idea that in context, there are other people who came after Moses, but there is one who will be raised up like Moses, who will be greater than Moses.

39:54

And this is the beauty of Hebrews chapter one, where it talks about how

39:59

Jesus is more superior than the angels. And of course, he's more superior than Moses himself.

40:04

So again, you have these types and shadows all throughout scripture that we find in some fashion fulfilled in individuals, but in a greater fashion in the person of Jesus Christ.

40:16

So excellent, excellent points there. All right, so we have events, E, letter

40:23

V. We got verses, and then we have individuals. And you just used Moses, but I'm sure we can use other individuals as well if you wanted to, because there's so many individuals who foreshadow the more perfect work and person of Jesus Christ.

40:37

Pardon. So let's move on to D. We have date. And I see the reference here of Daniel chapter nine, verse 26 through 27.

40:45

You have a potential opening up of the can of the prophetic and eschatological worms. We're not gonna get into that necessarily, but why don't you unpack how

40:54

Daniel nine, 26 to 27 relates to your D in your acronym there? Yeah, I don't wanna get into this so much because there's whole discussions of that, the 69 weeks and 70.

41:06

But I think the part that is very clear is in Daniel chapter nine, with all the discussion about eschatology with the second advent, the first advent,

41:15

I think is pretty clear. No matter what spectrum, whether dispensational or postmill, onmill, pre -mill, historic pre -mill, all of those camps.

41:25

It's predicting here, and the 70 here is referring to the weeks. The weeks,

41:30

I think, is seven years. I think the timing of this, again, this is way beyond our time that we could have.

41:36

But I do think it predicts when Christ would die down to the year. If I could just give you a quick two short books or two books,

41:46

I kind of mentioned this a little bit, is J. Warner Wallace. So this is where, in our graciousness, I'm gonna recommend an evidentialist.

41:53

His latest book, Person of Interest, kind of talks about a little bit of this, about the dating, the time, and all that.

41:58

And also, there's another one, the name escapes me. So, I mean,

42:05

I forgot the name. But if you type in Daniel chapter nine on the blog, there's a review I've done of a free booklet you can have.

42:14

There's no need to reinvent the wheel. I'm not the smartest guy in the room. But it's always great to also point out to other free resources out there also as well.

42:21

Excellent. And by the way, I highly recommend J. Warner Wallace. I had J. Warner Wallace on the show. We had a great conversation, a little back and forth on apologetics, but it was fine, nothing too serious, right?

42:32

But he writes very clearly. He's a very pragmatic and efficient writer. So you can learn a lot of the details of some specific evidences.

42:40

And I always encourage people when you read evidential literature, if you seek to be consistently presuppositional, benefit from the resources that other methodologies have, and make sure you contextualize that in a way where we can use it in a way that is consistent with our presuppositional commitment.

42:54

So there's still lots to be found that is very useful in the writings of J. Warner Wallace and others.

42:59

But go ahead. Okay. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I do recommend. Of all the guys that write evidential apologetics for a popular level,

43:07

I actually think he's most conscious of methodology, just with using his police analogy. He's actually really inspired me to actually think more of it.

43:15

How do we use even military analogies to communicate and to teach and train people tactically and practically with apologetics?

43:23

Yeah, go J. Warner Wallace. He's an awesome guy. All right, so that's

43:30

Daniel 9, 26 and 27. You would say that the 70 weeks of years, that prophecy kind of alludes to when

43:36

Messiah would come and has some important time indicators that if the Messiah was to come, he most likely or most definitely should have come by that specific time.

43:45

And of course, we won't get into the details, but if you calculate the 70 weeks of years and what the weeks are and all these sorts of things, it is right around Jesus's ministry from the time of Daniel, which you get in some really interesting things at the end of Daniel.

43:59

The angel, he's told that to seal up the words of this prophecy for the time is not near.

44:04

And yet when you get to the book of Revelation, do not seal the words of this prophecy up for the time is near. So you do have a sense of urgency in the

44:12

New Testament, while in the book of Daniel, you have a sense of not yet, but you have the timetable that's working its way and culminating in the ministry of Jesus.

44:22

So excellent there, Daniel. Definitely controversial, but super interesting. All right, so we have environments.

44:28

So let's go again, so people are following. We have events, we have verses, we have individuals, we have dates, and then we have environments.

44:39

So why don't you unpack that for us? Yeah, with environment, I'm referring specifically to geography.

44:47

We can just go to Isaiah chapter nine, verse one. I think most of us know Isaiah nine, specifically with verse six.

44:54

That's a verse around Christmas time unto us, that God has given a child, right?

45:01

Called all these things, mighty God and all of that, prince of peace, eternal father. But right before this, so I do think in light of Isaiah nine, six,

45:10

Isaiah nine, there is a messianic expectation in light of Isaiah nine, six.

45:18

And then Isaiah nine, one, notice the geographical reference of where the Messiah would be. It says, there will be no more gloom for her who is in anguish.

45:26

In earlier times, he's treated the land of Zebalon and the land of Nephali with contempt. But later on, he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea, on the way of Jordan, Galilee of the

45:37

Gentiles. In verse two, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

45:44

And of course, there's one of the beauty of the gospel of John is to say

45:49

Jesus has the seven titles, right? He's all these things. I am the way, the truth, the life.

45:54

I am the good shepherd, all these things. But one of them is also he's the light. Why is that? We would not appreciate those titles, which we'll get to in a little bit.

46:01

But with Jesus being the light, if that's a messianic title, then it's actually telling us where specifically he'll be operating.

46:07

So when you read the gospel, Jesus always, especially in the Galilee area, he's going back and forth between the sea of Galilee, Gentile side and back and forth.

46:16

And if you don't know your Isaiah chapter nine, you would just think, oh, Jesus might've just been tired, which he was.

46:21

He just went to the Gentile side. But he's doing busy ministry and fulfilling this prophecy that's very specific.

46:29

And Galilee was really the backwater of the Roman Empire for the Messiah to come over.

46:34

This is very specific. This is almost like maybe people for entertainment industry would want to go to LA and Hollywood where I'm at, right?

46:41

Or people with country music would go to Nashville. This is almost like a guy that's saying, and this is in no way disrespectful to these states, going to the

46:48

Messiah will come from Montana or Iowa. Why is that specifically? It's just so specific.

46:53

And also saying, going back and forth, ministering to even the Gentiles. I think we will miss those significance of Jesus' geographical movements.

47:00

Can anything good come out of Montana? Yeah. So blessing those brothers that are there, but that's just an example in our social elites, cultural elites, how they think of geography.

47:14

Yeah. And you see that theme all throughout scripture. When God does things, it's very unconventional. I mean, you have

47:20

Esau and Jacob. Esau had the right to the blessing as being the older, but God blessed Jacob. He tends to use that which people think is small and insignificant.

47:33

And yet those are the things that God chooses to do. And this is, I don't remember who coined the phrase, but it's very much related to what some theologians and scholars refer to the upside down kingdom principle, where the kingdom of God turns things upside down and does it very opposite the way we would expect.

47:51

And so, yeah, if Jesus came to the United States, most likely probably wouldn't be hailing from some place that everyone would expect someone important to come from, because that's just the way he rolls.

48:01

He doesn't follow our patterns and our expectations. So, and I think it makes the story all the more interesting because the prideful and arrogant religious leaders of the day who knew their scriptures would say, a prophet doesn't come from Galilee, but little did they know, he didn't just come from Galilee.

48:26

He came from the place where the prophet said he would come from. It's just that they didn't know it. The way his ministry functioned, you know, born in Bethlehem and then hailing from Nazareth and Galilee.

48:37

It's easy for someone to really miss that unless they kind of sat and listened carefully and said, hey, you know, the

48:43

Messiah hasn't come yet. Is the Messiah gonna do greater things than this, but this man is doing? Well, surely not.

48:49

So, excellent, very good. All right, so we have environments, letter N. We have names, names, titles that Jesus uses.

48:58

Why don't you unpack that for us? Yeah, so Jesus, even using the titles indicate that he's a Messiah.

49:05

Evan, can you just give one example real quick? In Daniel chapter seven, verses 13 to 14, it actually mentioned about this figure that is not ordinary because this is a scene in heaven who's called one that's like the son of man.

49:23

And actually, if you pay attention very carefully, this son of man cannot be an ordinary human being at all because in Daniel chapter seven, verse 14, he's supposed to be ruling forever where it says that God is giving him dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the people, nations, and every man might serve him.

49:44

And his dominion is an everlasting dominion. And yet at the same time, verse 13, he's called the son of man.

49:50

So read the son of man. I still remember as a young Christian, seeing the son of man, it was just like every one of us is a son of man, right?

49:57

We're all been born to a man. And I miss that. Like in places where in Luke chapter five in verse 24, when

50:03

Jesus said, so you know that I am the son of man with authority to forgive sin, he goes in and heal the paralyzed man.

50:10

And even by the way, that's a great example of how when Jesus gives evidence, I think we need to pay attention to sometimes

50:16

God records, there's conversation going on here. There is not done in total vacuum.

50:21

It's done within an Old Testament worldview that no one could forgive sin except for God alone, right?

50:28

If you have that worldview, that shows that this is the Messiah, this is God becoming fully man. So that's an example where when we see the son of man, we could easily read our 21st century meaning into it.

50:38

But we need to actually go back to the Old Testament. And I know I've even seen a Jehovah witness before when

50:44

I was younger, say, hey, see, he's not God because he's the son of man. And when I look at Daniel 13 to 14 in its original context, yes, the title is the son of man, but it's so even more divine to me, it's evidential value of the divinity of Christ than even the son of God at a superficial reading of that.

51:02

Yeah, excellent. So the son of God could be understood as referring to a man and the son of man is a specific title that can only be attributed to the one who's equated with God, given its

51:10

Old Testament context. That's very fascinating. And it has some apologetic value. I've seen some of those points being brought up in debates and discussions between Muslims who are trying to challenge the deity of Christ by appealing to the title son of man.

51:26

So he is the son of man, he's not the son of God. So, all right, excellent. All right, so we have names and titles.

51:32

Now we're down to the letter C, conversation that we can miss how powerful

51:40

Jesus is as Messiah. So why don't you unpack letter C for us?

51:45

Yeah, so the word, I know it was long -winded, but the way you remember it is just conversation. Just looking at Luke 20, and I made allusions to this earlier, when

51:55

Jesus cites Psalm 118, when Jesus cites that verse that shows, again, some of these things are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they could be overlapping.

52:06

But when Jesus was debating with, so to set this up, Luke 20, verses one to eight, he's talking about the authority of Jesus.

52:16

So if there's ever an opportunity in the show, I would actually like to talk about even Jesus, how he dealt with ultimate authority and perhaps even possibility of incipient form, transcendent argumentation, verses one to eight.

52:26

But that's another sermon another time now. But in verses nine, notice Jesus goes on the offense. And I actually think when he goes on the offense,

52:32

Jesus sets up this parable, right, about the vine grower. And actually, this is actually borrowing from Isaiah of how

52:40

Israel is kind of like the vine and the various, you know, this analogy. And of course, in verses 17,

52:47

Jesus, you know, the story is basically, they're gonna kill the owner's son. And a Jewish religious leader is like, no, it may never be, this cannot happen.

52:55

How could it happen? And that's when Jesus drops a bomb and said, this is in your own scripture, says verses 17, the stone which the builders rejected.

53:03

So I think there's all these things where we can miss the stories. And Jesus specifically, to make my argument, even for evidential apologetics, evidences in a presuppositional framework with an

53:15

Old Testament background, is when Jesus gives this parable, they know a wider way to pick up that this parable is talking about the nation rejecting

53:24

Messiah with the motif from Isaiah, et cetera. So I think when we see here, we could miss the conversation if we don't know our

53:31

Old Testament. It's like the two rappers, battle rappers rapping, and you know nothing about rap and you're hearing these lines, everyone's laughing.

53:36

And like, ooh, wow. But you're just like standing there like, oh, okay, I don't know anything about the urban scene. So this is where we need to know the

53:43

Old Testament to flourish the incredible amount of prophecies filled with Jesus.

53:50

Excellent, very good. All right, so letter, I think we're on letter

53:56

E. We're moving along good. This is good stuff. So we have the acronym evidences and we are now on the letter

54:02

E and we're going to be ending with S and then we'll take a few questions and wrap things up.

54:08

You're doing an excellent job and this is super interesting and I'm sure people will benefit from this conversation. So why don't you unpack

54:14

E, which stands for exclusion of Jesus? Yeah, so I think

54:19

Jesus is so powerful. If I could borrow presuppositional motif, even the rejection of Jesus proves

54:24

Jesus because we know from Isaiah 53, He's gonna be killed. Psalm 118, what we've just seen earlier to use that verse without going for the economy of time right now, even shows even the rejection of Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy that when

54:38

He's excluded. So I think there's a sense where the case for Jesus is so powerful geographically, everything else, but some would say, well, what about the rejection of Jesus?

54:47

And we say that even the proof is so powerful, even the rejection and exclusion of Jesus proves the

54:53

Old Testament prophecies. The place like Psalm 22, where He's rejected, where He's suffering in Isaiah 53 and Psalms 118 verse 24, all of this shows that He is the

55:03

Messiah. We do expect Him to be excluded. Yeah, excellent, very good. And the letter S, signs, interpret these things in light of the

55:11

Old Testament. So signs, are you referring to what the New Testament often refers to as miracles?

55:18

So signs, that's interesting, with miracles, we tend to think of miracles as a kind of a supernatural intervention, but in the gospel of John specifically, miracles aren't called miracles, are they?

55:26

They're called signs, which means that they're pointing to something, right? They're pointing to something that kind of is preceded by that broader context, that funnel, the funnel of the

55:39

Old Testament, which culminates in this person who is engaging in the miraculous, which should point back to everything that preceded.

55:47

These miracles are pointing to the backdrop of the Old Testament. So why don't you unpack that a little bit for us?

55:54

Yeah, yeah, so if we go to Luke chapter four, this is Jesus when He was just,

56:00

He just has survived the temptation in the wilderness from Satan. He goes to the synagogue and He reads in verses 18,

56:08

Luke chapter four, when He was filled with the Spirit, verses 18 and 19, He actually reads Isaiah 61 about how the

56:14

Spirit of the Lord is upon me, He's anointed me to preach to the poor, He's proclaimed to release the captives,

56:19

He's gonna free the press and everything else. I actually think this is what He's saying is, I fulfilled this and He's gonna be, that's a controlling theme of His miracles.

56:28

These are not just miracles out of nowhere. These are not just a bunch of ad hoc evidences of science, but there's a robust systematic program of what

56:36

He's trying to do is to show that all these miracles is to say that He really is the Messiah.

56:41

So even the signs are not divorced from a worldview of the Old Testament, but the Old Testament, He's saying,

56:46

I'm fulfilling this to the T. Right. Yeah, that's excellent. I teach a middle school

56:52

Bible class and we talked about the signs and miracles in the Bible. Miracles are not arbitrary.

56:58

God didn't just do random miracles. They always pointed to something. Even the miracles of the plagues in Egypt were

57:04

Yahweh mocking the gods of Egypt to show His people, right?

57:09

Who the true God was. So they're never done randomly and they always point to the broader context, the truth of the message, right?

57:17

Miracles confirm the truth of the messages, the message that the apostles were bringing and things like that.

57:23

So they always were done in a particular context that has as its backdrop, the Old Testament.

57:28

So excellent, excellent. So that's summarized. So we have the evidences acronym that kind of give us a glimpse into the importance of the

57:39

Old Testament with respect to how that should create the context for the person and work of Christ and how

57:45

His very person and work is evidence and confirmation of what the

57:51

Bible was getting at all the way from the beginning. So that is excellent. You did a great job there and hopefully that was clear enough for everyone to follow.

57:58

I think it should be. Let's kind of round things off then and kind of see what is going on in the comments.

58:04

Let's see if there are a couple of questions here. We'll take just a few and then we'll wrap things up. How's that sound?

58:10

That's good. All right. So let's see. We're gonna skip that one.

58:17

That guy's always popping up in the comments. Sorry, I usually... Okay, let's see.

58:24

Oh, Slam RN. Howdy, how are you doing? Slam RN is always in the chat and I always appreciate

58:29

Slam. She's everywhere, I think. In every YouTube channel, you see Slam RN in the comments there.

58:36

So good for you. All right, let's see here. Got, I did see a question here.

58:44

Okay, so Jeremy McMillan asks, where in the

58:50

Old Testament does it say that the Messiah will be resurrected? Yeah, you wanna speak to that?

58:56

Obviously, we're not saying that there's a specific verse that says it in all in that specificity, but there are definitely illusions that we would call messianic prophecies alluding to that.

59:06

I don't know if you wanna address that. Yeah, so I do think in terms of the Old Testament, to back up a little bit about where's the doctrine of the resurrection in general,

59:14

I think how the Bible works is that it's almost like building a Russian spaceship or not question, the

59:20

International Space Station. If you guys remember when we were kids in the 90s for some of us, they took a while. Like they could only bring a shuttle a little bit at a time.

59:26

So that's a doctrine of progressive revelation. It takes time. And of course, the most fully fleshed out with the resurrection in general, general resurrection is

59:33

Daniel chapter 12. So with this, I also think while it does not use the word resurrection,

59:39

I think if you read, paying attention to the literary form of, or even the structure, the

59:47

New Testament often would cite Psalm 16 verses nine, the last verse, to make this argument about how is it that this is not talking about David verse.

59:57

Let me read this real quick verse, Psalms 19, Psalm 16 verse 10. It says, for you not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you allow your holy one to undergo decay.

01:00:08

So in places like in Acts 2, in Acts 7, other places they'll say, hey, this is not talking about David as a reference because his body's still with us.

01:00:17

His burial place, we know he's dead. So this must be the Messiah. I actually think the one that's most clear is actually

01:00:22

Psalms 22. If you read some progressive Bible commentary, they actually think

01:00:28

Psalms 22 should be two different Psalms because one is so, the beginning of Psalms 20, Psalms 22 is the famous one, my

01:00:34

God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Verse one, because in the beginning, in verses one to 18, it's really dark.

01:00:45

It's really dark. This is like a very depressing scene where this guy is dying, like he could count all his bones, but suddenly in verses 20 onwards, there's a sense where there's a lot of joy.

01:00:55

In verses 22, even saying, what I've done, everyone will know about it and people will basically, all the world and the nations will celebrate and he would, this person speaking,

01:01:06

I mean, the first person I think is the Messiah, all the eyes and knees and that. And then yet he goes on and he's somehow alive.

01:01:13

He's able to pay vows in verse 25 and all this. So I think the structure of Psalms 22 shows not only the suffering savior, but a savior that would even be raised also as well.

01:01:24

Excellent, very good. I think Jeremy has some more questions and I think we'll wrap it up with his.

01:01:32

I don't know if there are, there's some really positive comments. So people have been enjoying this. Jesus, not

01:01:39

Jesus Christ. Jesus says, Jimmy, this has been very helpful. That's awesome.

01:01:45

Yes, it has been. And hopefully people can kind of go back and listen to this and maybe check out the Bible verses that were mentioned here.

01:01:51

So definitely excellent. So Jeremy continues here. He says, was the person that was brought up after Moses, Joshua.

01:01:57

So he made an allusion to that prophecy that there would be a prophet raised up like Moses. And so Jeremy here is suggesting, well, wasn't that Joshua?

01:02:07

How would you interact with that? Yeah, this is where I think what I would set up is probably when

01:02:14

Psalms, when Deuteronomy 18 says one like Moses, one like Moses, I actually think when you compare everybody, including

01:02:22

Joshua, there's some people, some of the prophets, there is an overlap. There is some parallels, but there's nobody that has the amount of parallel that Jesus has.

01:02:31

Even to the point of there's a king that tries to kill him. All his people of his generation, that's his age got wiped out.

01:02:38

There's a woman that's trying to escape or protect the baby, going to Egypt, fleeing

01:02:44

Egypt. There's even the illusion of going to the mountain for 40 days. So I think all of this altogether,

01:02:51

I think there's no one that fulfills it, not even with Joshua to that extent. If you want more, in Veritas Domain, if you type in Deuteronomy 18,

01:03:00

I think I devote three to four posts or two or three posts documenting the parallels that is unparalleled with all pun intended that only

01:03:09

Jesus could have fulfilled. Excellent. And so Jeremy continues here. He's got most of the questions here.

01:03:14

I think he's got all of them, but it's all good. So we mentioned Daniel 9, the 70 weeks of years.

01:03:21

So he's asking, wasn't Daniel 9 a prophecy of the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE? Why don't you respond to that?

01:03:29

Yeah, so this is where the postmill interpretation would be that. So right now, this is probably one of the answers

01:03:36

I'll say I don't know fully. So there's pre -mill, postmill, on -mill.

01:03:41

Sometimes people are treadmill. They're still working on it. I never heard that. I've heard pan, pan mill and all that.

01:03:49

Treadmill. Yeah, I just made that up. That's good. That's well played. Very good.

01:03:56

Yeah, I think it is predicting the destruction of the temple.

01:04:03

However, his question wasn't Daniel, as though it's not also talking about what you were mentioning.

01:04:10

It is talking about what you were mentioning and it is talking about the destruction of the temple. So I think it's not an either or.

01:04:17

I think it's a both. Yeah, in Daniel chapter 9 specifically says there's only amount of allotted time to make the end of sin and that also.

01:04:28

So I think it's not about sacrifice. There is a soteriological dimension to that, even when there is judgment of the second temple.

01:04:36

Excellent. All right. Just a few comments here. Let's see here. Matt Bell says,

01:04:42

Hi, Eli. Hello. Truth Defenders. Shalom. Shalom right back at you.

01:04:49

I still remember you, Truth Defender. That's awesome. And Jeremy, you answered his questions.

01:04:57

He said, thank you for the interaction, guys. Well, it's our pleasure. I'm learning here. I love this stuff.

01:05:02

I love kind of looking at the Old Testament. It's definitely an area that I need to beef up on.

01:05:07

You know, it's very easy to read the New Testament because there's so much. And I want to say this carefully.

01:05:13

There's so much practical application. Not that that's not the case in the Old Testament, but oftentimes the practical application in the

01:05:20

Old Testament is tucked away in these stories and events and the Psalms and the

01:05:26

Proverbs. So sometimes, you know, when you're like, I want to read the Bible. I want to make the most of my time.

01:05:31

Let me jump in the New Testament. When in fact, we really need to also jump in the Old Testament there because that gives us a more fuller and richer understanding of the entire

01:05:40

Bible in its context. So, Jimmy, I think you did an excellent job here.

01:05:47

I definitely want to have you back on to cover a bunch of other topics. We could have you on a bunch of times.

01:05:53

I think you have a heart for the Lord. You're a good teacher and you explain things in ways that is easy to understand, which is obviously very important from a perspective of a teacher.

01:06:04

So are there any last things you'd like to say before we wrap this live stream up? Yeah, I just want to just say thank you for this opportunity.

01:06:11

I just want to say we went through a lot. We've kind of done shotgun, but I also want to encourage if anyone listening to this, why don't you even study more of the

01:06:20

Old Testament? I usually have a Tuesday Bible study over on Webex and Jesus earlier, Jesus A joins in too, but not to the detriment of you serving your local church.

01:06:31

And also there's the blog. We also answer Bible contradiction. It's a slow project I'm doing, refuting the skeptic annotated

01:06:37

Bible one at a time. I go slow because I'm looking at the Greek and Hebrew and I want to be careful and accurate and devastating hopefully.

01:06:46

But I just want to encourage no matter who you are, whatever, I hope we all continue to serve the Lord together. And do apologetics in community.

01:06:52

So with that, I'm thankful, Eli, you've given this platform. I'm thankful for all the brothers in the Reform Apologetics group that has also encouraged me.

01:06:59

And I've also learned from also as well, especially the admins. Thank you. Excellent. Yeah, same here. I've learned so much from that Facebook page as well.

01:07:06

Guys, just a real quick on September 22nd, I'll be having Lane Tipton of Westminster Theological Seminary to come on and talk about his new book on Cornelius Van Til and his

01:07:15

Trinitarian theology. And very much looking forward to that. I don't have a specific date yet, but I will also be having

01:07:22

Eddie Dalcor, who is a Christian apologist, very sharp guy.

01:07:28

He's going to come on and we're going to be covering the question, is the Roman Catholic Church the true church?

01:07:33

So kind of an apologetic against Roman Catholicism. Obviously, I love

01:07:40

Roman Catholics, but I'm obviously not a Roman Catholic. I mean, I've got even my tattoos. I got the five solas of the

01:07:48

Reformation, these little five hours. I'm a hardcore, you know, Protestant, but I love my

01:07:53

Catholic friends and I do encourage a good, fruitful interaction with one another as we're called to do,

01:08:00

First Peter 315, doing it all with gentleness and respect. So looking forward to having Edward Dalcor at an unannounced date, but I'll definitely share it once I have the opportunity.

01:08:11

I think that's it off the top of my head. I probably got some more stuff going on. Somewhere in December, we're having

01:08:16

Jeff Durbin on. I think it's December 6th, but don't quote me on that. And I'm sure we'll have things spread throughout.

01:08:24

Hopefully it is going to be informative, educational, and edifying. So appreciate you guys listening in.

01:08:30

Appreciate you Slim Jim. I like your screen name there. That's awesome. And until next time, guys, take care and God bless.