Confirmation Bias in the Bible (John 9)

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:19

Well, welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, the

01:25

Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a member.

01:33

And I am joined by my trusty co -host, Bud. Wait, you're not

01:39

Bud. What did you do with Bud? You're that character from that other podcast,

01:44

Voice of Reason Radio, aren't you? Well, you know, Bud and I had a bet and I lost, so I'm here.

01:52

Chris Honhols from Voice of Reason Radio has crashed the studios here and taken over for Bud.

02:00

I don't know. That's not a good thing. Someone call 9 -1 -1. Is Bud okay? Yeah, we better check on Bud.

02:08

He must be not doing well. No, Bud's computer was out of commission, but he will be back hopefully by the next recording.

02:15

And so Chris is filling in, and we're going to actually go through a chapter of Scripture, John 9.

02:24

So quickly, if you are not driving, open your Bibles. We're giving you time to do that. To John 9, we're going to go through that and do some hermeneutics.

02:33

Oh, wait, wait. We should play that clip. If you have not listened to my other podcast,

02:40

Apologetics Live, you're missing things. And one of the things you could be missing is, well, people that do say things like this.

02:51

This was a classic. Can you show me, because we're going to use some hermeneutics. Can you show me anywhere in the

02:57

Old Testament where that word perpetual is not perpetual? Because, again, I understand you're appealing.

03:02

Again, sure. No, no, no. Hold on. You're talking about God's laws, where any of God's laws have... Hold on, hold on. Wait a minute.

03:08

I thought I was going to get to have a talk here. You asked a question. Hang on a second, sir. Be quiet now. Hang on a second. Well, there you go.

03:13

I will mute you because it's not your show. You asked a question. I'm going to give you the answer. Genesis 6 -4, the word olam is used referring to those who were of old.

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Deuteronomy, I'll just rattle off all the ones where it's used, not referring to perpetual. Genesis 6 -4,

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Deuteronomy 32 -7, Joshua 24 -2, 1 Samuel 27 -8,

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Job 22 -15, Psalm 24 -7, 24 -9, 25 -6, 41 -13, 77 -9, 90 -2, 103 -17, 106 -48, 119 -52, 43 -3,

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Proverbs 8 -23, Proverbs 22 -28, Proverbs 23 -10, and Ecclesiastes 1 -10.

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Should I go on for more? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I love that clip.

04:15

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're going to do some hermeneutics. Well, yeah, we did some hermeneutics this year, and we realized that olam doesn't say what you try to make it say.

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But we're going to do some hermeneutics here today, and we're going to go through John 9 and look at some things.

04:35

We're going to actually look at a logical fallacy today, and we're going to get to that and what that is, and that we're going to see why we're going to do this.

04:45

Well, because you're going to find that this is extremely helpful in your dealing with people when you are talking with them, because what we're going to deal with you see all the time.

04:57

You see it on the news. You see it in your own life. It is that common, and we're going to take a look at that.

05:04

But before we do, Mr. Hanholds is here, and so let me give you a chance to give a plug for Voice of Reason Radio and your blog that you do.

05:18

Thanks, Andrew. I actually do appreciate being here. Andrew hit me up with this yesterday, and I was very grateful to be included.

05:25

Thank you for bringing me on. Voice of Reason Radio is basically myself and Richard's story. We've been doing it for about six and a half years, and the intent of the program is twofold.

05:34

We always want to seek to glorify God, number one, and number two, edify the saints in some way. So what we do is the reason it's called

05:41

Voice of Reason Radio is that there is only one voice of reason, and that's the word of God. That's what we have to filter everything through.

05:48

So everything in your walk, everything in your life should be drawn from the basis of scripture, what decisions you make, how you live, what you say, what you do, how you practice your faith, how you share your faith.

06:01

All of that needs to come from the scriptures, and our hope is that we can point people back to that. We talk about a variety of things.

06:08

We may talk about topics of the day, or we may, as we have the last couple episodes, taken time to just kind of go through scripture and talk about some theological issues.

06:17

Just this last episode, we talked about contending for the faith, going through the book of Jude, and talking about those that come in unaware to the rest of the body, bringing in divisive teachings, but they seem just Christian enough to maybe they're true, but they are very destructive.

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And so we spent some time doing that. And so that's our hope for the program, is that those who hear it and listen to it are built up in the faith and are encouraged to go back into the word and study and be equipped to do the work that God has given us to do.

06:50

So you can find that on pretty much any podcast app of your choice. Just look for Voice of Reason Radio, or as we have pointed out on our program, you can just go to Striving for Eternity's Christian Podcast Community podcast feed, plug that in, and get a whole bunch of other shows, including this one, on the podcast community feed, and you get to listen to a lot of great podcasts.

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Our website is slave2theking .com. We have pretty much our one -stop shop there. That's how you get in touch with us.

07:20

That's how you get your emails to us. That's how you follow us on social media.

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And occasionally we do add articles on there. I'm trying to be a little bit more disciplined in my writing and reading time.

07:32

A little bit more disciplined. Time discipline is an issue for me.

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I truly admit this. But that's where you'll find if we're putting out new content, that's where you're going to be able to find it.

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So we encourage you to go to the website and then sign up as a follower of the website because you'll get updated information as new podcasts come out, new articles come out, because we all know that even though Elon Musk said he was going to buy

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Twitter, that doesn't seem to be happening, and they're kicking people off again or shutting us down. So I really recommend get the email set up.

08:07

So that's our plug. And your co -host has brilliance. I mean, I can't let this go without playing one of the clips from him.

08:15

You can't do that when I'm about to take a drink of water. I know, I know. I know where this is going.

08:21

Take your sip because we don't know which one of these we're going to play. But this is my favorite from your co -host here on boxing.

08:29

Here we go. Well, I've said this before, and I still stick to it now. Over the last 10 years, off and on, when it comes to ministry versus boxing, boxing is far less violent.

08:42

You know, he is more right. I was with a pastor this past week, and he and I were chatting, and he, like myself, does a lot of counseling with other pastors, and we both were talking about the fact that right now,

09:00

I don't know what is going on, but ever since this whole thing with COVID and the elections and everything else,

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I have been counseling more pastors than ever before that are being abused by their congregants.

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I mean, slandered and just mistreated. We both had noticed it, and we're not 100 % sure.

09:26

It's like, don't know what's going on, but there's definitely something. So I would agree, ministry is far more violent, unfortunately, than boxing.

09:37

But then, you know, I haven't played this one in a while. I actually don't remember this, but I just see it as Voice of Reason Radio calls out

09:43

Andrew about buying Matt Slick, and I can't read the rest of it. So let's find out what this was that was said.

09:49

Andrew is a master manipulator, master planner, master whatever it is he's going to do, because he knows well in advance how he's going to twist you up in circles and then try to make it look like it was your fault.

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So just ask Matt Slick. Ask Matt Slick. That poor guy is getting no mercy from Andrew, since Andrew's been out there this week.

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In Idaho, they were ministering to the Mormon community out there, and poor

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Matt can't even buy dinner without Andrew mocking him, saying, I beat you to it, and putting him on video to do it.

10:25

Poor Matt, he got a meal, and by the way, he got me back. Okay, but that was well before that ever happened.

10:33

This was before Matt got you back on your own show, by the way. That was epic.

10:38

That was epic. I watched that happen. Apologetics Live, episode 100. We're trying to do a special with all these apologists.

10:47

Poor Dr. Jason Lyle is trying to explain why apologetics is important to him, and I'm rushing off because I'm finding that Matt had a meal delivered to me, and he can't help but to cut off poor

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Jason Lyle and gloat. That is true. Go back to episode 100 of Apologetics Live.

11:07

That was beautiful to watch, I'm just saying. That was poetry. He got you good on that one.

11:12

Well, I'm glad you enjoy it, because this weekend, I am going to be getting together with a friend of ours.

11:23

Oh no. Dr. James White. Oh no. You know, I don't know what he and I may plan for you, my friend.

11:31

Something, something. I'm sure we'll have something. Now, folks, to my audience, just know that I have just ruined

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Chris' week. All week long, he is now going to be thinking, what is going to happen come

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Sunday? Just be watching his Twitter. You're going to see a depression is going to set in.

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I'll just get quiet. I'll just shut it down again. Who knows what, with Dr.

12:01

White and I combined together, our combined forces, that would be like Batman and Superman getting together or something.

12:10

It's more like Wonder Twin Powers activate, but okay. Yeah, I don't get that one at all, but all right.

12:15

So let us dive into John chapter 9.

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So, folks, we gave you plenty of time to get your Bibles out. Obviously, not if you're driving.

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We gave you time to pull over to the side of the road because you're going to want to follow along.

12:33

And if you're on the freeway, get off the freeway before you pull over. Well, that might be good.

12:40

I've seen well, okay. I haven't actually seen the way people drive in Nevada with Mr.

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Chris, but okay. If you don't want to get killed here, it's Nevada.

12:52

I'm just warning you. We don't like Nevada. Don't call it Nevada. You come here and say that you will be written out on a rail.

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I'm warning. I'm just giving you fair warning. People like, you know, they get all picky about their state.

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You know, people in Oregon, they don't want Oregon. It's Oregon. Like that thing that you have in your body.

13:16

It's an organ, you know, a heart organ. But, you know, I come from Jersey.

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We're the armpit of New York. Okay. I mean, everyone thinks we go

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Jersey. No, that's how the New Yorkers talk. No one in Jersey says

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Jersey. It's the New Yorkers that come in invade our state and ruin everything about us.

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But that all aside, I do know that the drivers in your state are. Well, I know that you, you know, when you're talking to me and you're recording in your car and it's just you're always telling me someone's cutting you off.

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So, yeah, take take advice for Mr. Han holds and pull over. All right. Let's go.

14:02

So we're going to play. You know, I haven't played this clip in a long time, but this was this. We used to do this as a segment.

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And I'm going to play this clip so we could talk about a fallacy. So we're going to name a fallacy that we're going to see in Scripture called confirmation bias.

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And John, Chapter nine is probably one of the clearest examples of confirmation bias that I could think of.

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And there may be others. Maybe you'll find one that's better and you'll email us and let us know. And so and you can email us at info at striving for eternity dot o r g.

14:47

That's info at striving for eternity dot o r g. And so I should I should announce, though, with that is that we did get from the last episode to Eric Johnson.

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You know, I don't know about you, Chris, but you can always tell when someone on your show you or someone else says something wrong because that gets the email.

15:07

So some people didn't like that Eric, who was talking about Mormons, you gave what they seemed as more of an evidential argument.

15:18

And, you know, he he at one point, I guess, mentioned something about, you know, just granting that, you know,

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Mormons are like granting that. I think it was like atheism was true.

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I forget now. But he said something where they just are like, oh, he's an evidentialist. He actually really isn't.

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And they didn't like the fact that he edited the book that I worked on with him and many others by by Sean McDowell.

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And Sean's an evidential. OK, well, it doesn't mean everything Sean does is wrong. And I'm not exactly sure that Eric is an evidentialist.

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I actually haven't talked to him about that. So I should just clarify that since, you know, that got people's ires up.

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Yeah, man, people online, you know, and they let you know when they disagree with you.

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But you can also let let us know if you actually agree with us, too. Just saying that would be nice to read some of those.

16:15

But if you find a better pass, it'd be nice to read emails in general. But some of us don't get those. Hey, you if you want my hate mail,

16:24

I'll be happy to forward it over to you. That's OK. I don't need my email. It's a crash.

16:29

Thank you. So we're going to look through John chapter nine.

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I will read here in the New American Standard version.

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That's what I happen to have up here. And so I'm going to I'm going to just walk through this.

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And what I want to do is we want to go through what the text is saying and look at confirmation bias.

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And this is confirmation bias is when you start with a conclusion and you only accept information or evidence that supports the conclusion.

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So anytime you get something, it doesn't support the conclusion. You throw that out. Let me give you some examples, quick examples of confirmation bias before we get to text so that you can see this, how this is in everyday life.

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You start talking to someone and they're arguing for evolution. You deny evolution.

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You give them evidence that evolution is not true. And what they end up doing is ignoring the evidence.

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So you talk about the fact that, well, the salt levels in the ocean, there's maybe you don't know this, but the oceans get a little bit saltier every year.

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And if the earth really was millions of years old, well, the oceans would be so salty you could walk on it.

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In fact, you go to the Dead Sea where it's a heavy salt content and you can't drown. And that's a heavy salt content that would fill the oceans.

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There would be a Dead Sea everywhere in the oceans if the earth was millions of years old.

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The moon is actually pulling away from the earth a couple of inches every year. If the earth, and by the way, that kind of affects climate, just saying, we can't control the moon.

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But if the moon really was millions of years old on the earth, the moon wouldn't be so close to us.

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There's things like that that we could look at. And what do people do? They just ignore that and then look for things to give their conclusions.

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Now, you could see it in politics. Right now, you can really see it in politics. It's really simple.

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Here's the solution to everything you see on the news. Trump is wrong. I mean, right?

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Chris, am I wrong with this? It's like right now, it's Trump's fault for the immigration policies, which

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I'm like going, how is that Trump's fault? Yeah, no, that's absolutely correct.

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I mean, we do see it a lot. And it's even so much to go to the effect of actually reinterpreting what's been presented to you as not only is it not your evidence anymore.

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They've taken it, twisted it, and made it into something that's now their evidence. So when you point out, for example, inflation, and you say this is a result of current policies, what they'll do is then say, oh, look.

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In this month, there was the inflation. Well, it didn't drop, but it didn't grow either.

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So now inflation is zero percent. So it's not only just ignoring the evidence in front of you, but it's actually taking the existing evidence that you've just talked about.

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And it's reinterpreting it in a fallacious way so as to make it sound like it actually supports their positions.

19:47

And we see that going on with the government right now. You mean like redefining what a recession is, giving a new definition?

19:57

Oh, right. Or redefining what a vaccine is to fit something that's not really a vaccine.

20:02

Oh, no, that could never happen. Well, they would have to have defined recession to redefine it.

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They just rejected the recession definition and never gave one. Good point. Valid point.

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So here's something that I do on the streets. And you may find this helpful if you're talking with someone, especially that they say they're an atheist.

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And you want to set this up ahead of time. And this is what I do. I remember the first time I did this was at the Reason Rally. Reason Rally is a big atheist rally where they try to show that they're a political force to be dealt with.

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And I was talking to a gentleman and I told him that he wanted me to give him a reasonable argument for the

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Earth being only 6 ,000 years old. And I said, I'd be happy to do it. His name was

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Carl, I believe. And I said, but the problem is, Carl, that you have confirmation bias. And so no matter what

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I say, you're going to ignore all the evidence I give that doesn't support your conclusion.

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And you will only accept the evidence that supports your conclusion. He says, no, no, no,

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I would never do that. I said, yes, you will. And so what

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I did was I said, listen, before I give you the evidence, I want to show you what you are going to look like to me.

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And so I said, would you do a little thought experiment with me? He said, sure.

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I said, OK, I know for a fact. Actually, I first asked him his name.

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It was Carl. I asked where he was born. He said, Ohio, if I remember correctly. I asked how old he was.

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He was like in his 30s. I said, well, you say that, but I know for a fact that your actual name is

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Steve. You were born in Italy in 1915. You're being proved that I'm wrong.

21:55

And he laughed and he says, look at my wallet. I said, what am

22:02

I going to find there? He says, you'll find my driver's license. I said, yes. So he's well, it has my age on it.

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I said, I had a fake one of those when I was 18. I said,

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I asked you for evidence. He said, well, you can look at my birth certificate.

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I said birth certificate. And remember, this was back when Barack Obama was president. But I said, even

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Barack Obama has a fake one of those, which he actually laughed at. He said, well, talk to my parents.

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I said, Steve, because I was in role play here. I said, Steve, they've been lying to you your whole life.

22:40

Do you think they're going to tell you the truth now? And he goes, you're being ridiculous. And I said, good.

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I said, because I want you to see what you're going to look like to me when I start giving you evidence. Because when I give you evidence, what you're going to do is you're going to do exactly that.

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The first thing you're going to do is reject the evidence. Then when I give you more evidence, you're going to start to insult me.

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And then when that doesn't work, you're going to walk away. And so I start giving him evidence.

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He started rejecting it. I told him, and I called him Steve on purpose.

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I said, Steve, I told you you would reject this. He started to insult me. I started calling him

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Steve and said, Steve, I told you the second stage is you're going to insult me. He then walked away telling me

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I wasn't worth his time. And as he's walking away, I shouted, Steve, remember, I told you you would walk away.

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It's predictable. That is the same pattern we're going to see here in John chapter nine.

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And so, Chris, actually, would you mind reading John chapter nine for us? Yeah, I'll do my best

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Virgil and go with the standard version here. Okay, I can switch to that. John chapter nine.

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As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him,

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Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

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We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.

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As long as I am in the world. Oh, excuse me. I flipped my page wrong way. As long as I am in the world,

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I am the light of the world. Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva.

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Then he anointed the man's eyes with mud and said to him, go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means scent.

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So he went and washed and came back scene. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, is this not the man who used to sit and beg?

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Some said, it is he. Others said, no, but he is like him. He kept saying,

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I am the man. So they said to him, then how were your eyes opened? He answered, the man called

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Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed and received my sight.

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They said to him, where is he? He said, I do not know. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

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Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the

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Pharisees once again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, he put mud on my eyes and I washed and I see.

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Some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God for he does not keep the Sabbath. But others said, how can a man who is a sinner do such signs?

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And there was a division among them. So they said again to the blind man, what do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?

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He said, he is a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been born blind, had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of the man who received his sight.

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And asked them, is this your son who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?

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His parents answered, we know that this is our son and that he was born blind.

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But how he now sees, we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him, he is of age, he will speak for himself.

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His parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess

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Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore, his parents said, he is of age, ask him.

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So for the second time, they called the man who had been born blind and said to him, give glory to God.

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We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, whether he is a sinner, I do not know.

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One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. They said to him, what did he do to you?

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How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I have told you already and you would not listen.

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Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? And they reviled him saying, you are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

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We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.

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The man answered, why, this is an amazing thing. You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.

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We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.

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Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind.

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If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered him, you were born in utter sin, and you would teach us?

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And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said, do you believe in the

27:46

Son of Man? He answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.

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He said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. Jesus said, for judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

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Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and said to him, are we also blind? Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no guilt, but now that you say we see, your guilt remains.

28:19

Thank you for that. Now, this is something that when you read Scripture, we often make a mistake of, well, just doing that, reading

28:28

Scripture. What I mean is, that's all we do. We read it, well, it's our devotion, so let's open our

28:34

Bible, read our chapter or three chapters or whatever you have as your devotional time, and if you have a plan, and you read, and then you go about your day.

28:45

What we want to encourage you to do is interact with the Bible. Don't just read your

28:52

Bible, but think through it. Interact with it. That's what we're going to do in this show with you.

28:58

So, this is just after everything that Chris just read, and I did like the way he emphasized certain things.

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That was good. But this is right after Jesus says to the

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Jewish leaders, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

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And they pick up stones to stone him. He hid himself, went out from the temple. And right after this is chapter 10.

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And in chapter 10 is where he is going to say, the Father and I are one.

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And again, they're going to pick up stones to stone him. He's going to ask, for what good works do you stone me?

29:39

And they say, not for any good works, but you being a man, claim to be God. So, they're going to recognize what he actually says about himself.

29:48

But we're looking at chapter 9 with the idea of what is this confirmation bias?

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Now, this is something that we see in this text. The Pharisees clearly have a confirmation bias.

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Chris, what is their confirmation bias that we see? They've already determined in their own minds that there's no way

30:09

Jesus can be the Christ. That's right. And with confirmation bias, it doesn't matter what evidence they have.

30:18

If it doesn't support their conclusion, they ignore the evidence. As we look through this, and you see this, we see that Jesus heals a man born blind.

30:29

Why is it mentioned that he's born blind? Well, because the text says that no one has ever healed a person that's born blind.

30:38

So, the whole emphasis here is this is something only God can do. Right after John 8, where Jesus claims to be the

30:49

I Am, he's claiming that he's God. He now heals a blind man in a way that only

30:59

God can get the credit for it. And their conclusion is still he can't be

31:05

Messiah. Right? Sorry, that evidence doesn't fit our conclusion.

31:10

That's what confirmation bias is. So, Jesus heals this man, and one of the things that Jesus told him to go and wash himself, but being blind, what he should do is, you know, he's now known as being a guy who's begging.

31:28

Everyone sees this guy. He's no longer begging. He's presenting himself to the community where they see him, and people are going, that looks like the guy that was born blind.

31:39

No, he just looks like him. Right? No, no, not sure if it's actually him. Well, remember, as this text says,

31:47

Chris, what was the threat if anybody named Jesus as the Christ? They would be put out of the synagogue.

31:54

Yeah. Could that be a fear for people to be like, oh, maybe that just looks like the guy?

31:59

It's not really the guy. Well, and imagine at the same time, I mean, how often do you pay attention to the beggar on the street corner?

32:07

This is not somebody that they really probably spent most time being too concerned about.

32:13

So not only do they have the justifiable reason culturally, but also they were like, maybe?

32:24

I don't know. So you've got two things working against the number. They've barely ever paid attention to this guy.

32:29

Number two, man, if we say anything, yeah, I'm just going to go with my eh on this one.

32:36

Yeah, I mean, it's if you're going to be thrown out of the synagogue, maybe we'll just take the safe side.

32:42

I mean, because the synagogue within the Jewish culture, especially at that time, is everything.

32:47

I mean, that's the center of society. This is where you got all your education. This is where you got, you know, it was kind of like the town hall.

32:57

It's where everyone went. And so to be thrown out of the synagogue is basically be thrown out of the town.

33:05

So what we end up seeing in verse 13 is they brought this blind man to the

33:12

Pharisees. And this is the Pharisees would be the ones to identify that he is, you know, has been healed.

33:23

But what's the issue is that Jesus did this on the Sabbath. Now, did he break the

33:30

Sabbath? No, he broke their man -made laws that they added to the

33:36

Sabbath. But he didn't break God's law for the Sabbath. And that becomes a major difference.

33:42

So he ended up doing this on the Sabbath. And what do you do? He just he made clay. He ends up taking some clay and putting it on the guy's eyes.

33:50

Does that really work? Not so much because he wasn't like a bricklayer where that would be his work.

34:00

But the issue is he heals a man on the Sabbath. And so they talk to this person.

34:09

They gather his story that he applied the clay to the eyes and then he was he washed it off.

34:17

In verse 16, therefore, some of the Pharisees were saying, this man is not from God because he does not keep the

34:24

Sabbath. That is the confirmation bias, right? Jesus just did something that only

34:31

God can do. And their response is to find some way to ignore the evidence in front of them for the conclusion that they already hold to.

34:43

That's how this ends up working. And that's exactly what you see here. I mean, it starts off right away with the fact of saying that their conclusion is how they're going to interpret facts, evidence.

35:00

And in their case, they're going to ignore the evidence for their perceived ideas, perceived conclusion.

35:12

Okay? And like we said, you will see this all the time, folks.

35:17

But when you engage with Scripture, don't just read this, but think through what they're doing.

35:23

Think through what is going on here. These guys have their power structure in being the

35:31

Pharisees. If Jesus is the Christ and he's been condemning the

35:36

Pharisees' behavior, that upsets the apple cart. Then all of the authority goes to Jesus and not them.

35:46

And they don't quite like that. People in power like to stay in power.

35:52

You know, just saying. But what you end up seeing is that they would prefer their power structure.

36:02

And so, you know, some will recognize that no one's ever opened the eyes of the blind.

36:11

Right? Verse 17. So they said to the blind man, what do you say about him since he opened your eyes?

36:18

And so the man says he's a prophet. Well, that's the right response. But what are they doing?

36:24

They're putting it on him. Right? This is kind of like the, you know, he could plead the fifth, right?

36:30

We have a fifth amendment in America where you can't indict yourself. That's actually biblical.

36:36

It's a biblical principle that where America got that from. But that's the thing that this guy ends up saying, though.

36:45

He says, no, he's a prophet. Now saying that means that he could be thrown out of the temple.

36:51

He seemed to be okay with that. And so what do they do?

36:57

Well, they didn't get the answer they wanted. It says in verse 18, the

37:03

Jews did not believe it of him. That he had been blind and received his sight.

37:12

So what do they do? I mean, they just ignore the fact that he really wasn't blind. I mean,

37:22

Chris, we see this all the time. Yeah. It's like here they have clear evidence, but we're going to ignore that evidence because we don't like that.

37:31

So what do they do? Let's call his parents. Yeah. Call mommy and daddy over. Well, and it's funny.

37:40

I mean, this was a major issue for the Pharisees. When you look at all the times that Jesus healed, it's

37:47

Luke 13, 14. We're starting in verse 10, but he had gone in and says, now he's teaching in one of the synagogues on the

37:59

Sabbath. Behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten herself.

38:05

When Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, Woman, you are freed from your disability. And she's healed.

38:10

And the indignant ruler then later in verse 14 says, There are six days in which work ought to be done.

38:17

Come on those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. And Christ's response is, you hypocrites, do not each of you on the

38:26

Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it to walk. And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, who

38:32

Satan bound for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day.

38:38

And then there's another time where in Matthew he heals on the Sabbath. And in Matthew 3, 4, he's healing a man and he asks them, because they were looking to accuse him.

38:51

And he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to harm, or to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?

38:59

But they were silent. They were looking every time one of these opportunities to accuse him, they loved going after this issue.

39:09

And the sad truth about it is, is they would rather be able to accuse someone of sin by doing good on the

39:18

Sabbath than recognize the power of Christ to heal. And when you have a man born blind, a man whose his own disciples say, who sinned that he was born blind?

39:30

Because oftentimes they would attribute some sort of your disability to, you had some sort of sin in your life, but this man was born with it.

39:39

So they're like, well, this doesn't even compute. So how do we assign blame for his blindness?

39:47

Christ says this was done so that he himself could manifest the power of God and demonstrate who he was.

39:55

So over and over again they had done this. Over and over again they had sought to use this as a means to deny who he was.

40:04

They were so adamant, as you say, so determined to hold on to the power that they refused to see the very work of God being done in front of them.

40:15

And it was evident for all to see. So yeah, absolutely. We see this all the time in our daily lives, but never more prominent than right here in scripture where you have individuals who have the most powerful evidence that anybody can ask for.

40:33

Can't be him. That means we'd have to be submitting to someone we can't stand. Yeah, because we can't possibly be wrong.

40:42

Yeah, exactly. Said no politician ever. So what you end up seeing is they call his parents.

40:54

Now, I do find it interesting. His parents are a little bit afraid. They know this is their son.

40:59

The question is asked, is this your son? What do you say? Was he born blind? How then does he see?

41:06

I think what they're really questioning here is they're questioning the fact of, okay, you're saying he's really born blind because if he was born blind, that becomes a miracle.

41:18

And so it's almost like they're questioning him trying to get the parents to deny that he was born blind, to deny the thing that would make this a miracle.

41:30

Because they know that he was blind and he sees, so the attempt is to blame the parents to say, well, was he really born blind or are you making that up?

41:42

Right. And so the parents, not wanting to be thrown out of the synagogue, they kind of do a pass on this and just say, well, he's old enough.

41:52

He's an adult. Go ask him, basically, don't come to us with this because it's on him.

42:03

That's essentially what they're doing. And so we end up seeing that they go back to the son and asking him again about how this happened.

42:16

How did this blind man get to see? And again,

42:24

Chris, here's the thing. They don't look like, and you can correct me if you think

42:30

I'm wrong, I don't think they look like they're really looking for the answer. No, they're not.

42:37

What's interesting is you see this in interrogation sometimes. You'll ask the question over and over different ways, trying to see if the person will provide a different answer or slightly different answer that you can wiggle in on.

42:49

And that's what they're doing here. They don't believe he's telling the truth. They've looked for every angle they can get at.

42:56

So they're going back and they're reexamining him again. What they're trying to do is look for any difference in what he has said so that they can accuse him of lying.

43:07

As you say, they're not looking for an actual answer. They're looking for an in. Yeah. And so they're going to question him.

43:16

And this is where it gets interesting. This is where we see this confirmation bias really clear. Right?

43:22

Verse 24. So a second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him,

43:31

Give glory to God. We know this man is a sinner. The audacity of this, right?

43:40

You just saw him do a miracle. And your response is to tell this guy,

43:49

Give glory to God because we know God is a sinner. Whoopsie.

43:57

Yeah. But this is what confirmation bias is right here. This is what it looks like.

44:04

Their conclusion is that Jesus is a sinner. And they're telling this man.

44:12

They're putting it in a position where this man must give glory to God because they've determined he's a sinner.

44:19

So in other words, this is a form of kind of taking the higher ground.

44:26

We know that this is right. But what they're doing in it is trying to, this is almost a poisoning of the well fallacy in reverse.

44:37

And so poisoning the well fallacy is, if I was to say, Chris and I are going to have a discussion.

44:44

And I would say, well, Chris is always wrong. And then I try to give a reason he's wrong.

44:50

Well, I've just poisoned the well. I basically said something that says everything he says is wrong.

44:57

And therefore we don't listen to anything. This is kind of the reverse in the sense of they're saying, give glory to God.

45:05

It's a former in a sense of poisoning the well, because they're saying, if you say this man's a prophet, as the guy already said, then you're not giving glory to God.

45:19

Now, that could cause him some problems, because not only is he in jeopardy of being thrown out of the synagogue, but he could be in jeopardy of blasphemy.

45:28

I mean, that's where it's headed. And so as we look at this, you end up seeing they not only start with a conclusion, but they're going to fight to get the answer that they want.

45:42

I mean, should I mention this? OK, why not? I'll cause trouble.

45:50

Is this not what we see with the January 6 hearings? Yes. We start with the conclusion there was an insurrection, a very strange insurrection, where nobody brought any weapons like guns to take over.

46:05

They brought cell phones to take selfies while staying within the red velvet barriers.

46:14

They were sightseeing. Not everyone, but there were 800 ,000 people there that day, of which 700 have been arrested, and not a single person has yet to be tried with insurrection.

46:30

Not one. They forgot to bring their weapons to take over the government because,

46:35

I mean, if they were planning an insurrection and they knew the police were there, you'd need something to take on the police.

46:42

I mean, it would have to look something like a Black Lives Matter rally if they were going to do an insurrection.

46:50

You know, lots of guns and violence and burning cities. That's what it should look like.

46:57

But what do you have? You have conclusions that everyone wants, they want to force this narrative, and what you see in this case is narrative matters.

47:11

Truth doesn't matter. Theology doesn't matter. Narrative matters, and that's the case that we see here with the

47:19

Pharisees. It doesn't matter what evidence is in front of them. It only matters what their narrative is, and their narrative is that Jesus is a sinner.

47:31

He is not God. And you see how far they'll push that when you go back to, like, what you said with the give glory to God.

47:40

You're putting this person in an unwinnable situation. You're literally making him take, essentially putting him under an oath of sentence.

47:50

It's like when the high priest says to Christ, Jesus, I adjure you.

47:57

In other words, I demand you speak. He puts that kind of pressure on him. In the same way, it's like they're telling this man, give glory to God.

48:07

In other words, anything you say other than what we have predetermined is the truth, as you said, you're not giving glory to God.

48:15

For someone whose whole life was bound up in the religious system, being told that any other answer other than what we've predetermined is you are not only not giving glory to God, you're sinning against God.

48:30

You're blaspheming God. You're rejecting him. That is an intense amount of pressure.

48:36

That's like going back to the January 6th example. If you today say,

48:41

I think what happened on January 6th was bad. There were some people who were foolish and did things they shouldn't do.

48:48

There were some people that I think were there for subterfuge regions. I think

48:53

I made up a word there. And there was a clash of just a perfect storm of situations that allowed for this to happen.

49:04

But when you watch what the end result was, it was not an insurrection. What are we told today? You're a domestic terrorist.

49:11

You are a threat to democracy. If you say anything other than the accepted narrative, you are a threat to the

49:18

United States' way of life. And that's kind of a similar situation. You are putting someone in an unwinnable position.

49:26

You either have to tell the truth and be considered the worst enemy of the state, or you have to lie in order to be perceived as giving glory to God.

49:35

That is an immense amount of manipulation to put someone under, as you say, to make sure that narrative stays in place.

49:44

Yeah, I mean we saw this with the whole vaccines and things like that.

49:50

It's the same behavior. So why are we pointing this out? Because we want you to see that when you study

49:57

Scripture, these men in Scripture were people just like us.

50:06

It's not anything different. So when you're reading Scripture, engage with it.

50:11

Think through what these guys are doing, because the behavior is the same. Verse 26, they said to him, what did he do to you?

50:23

How did he open your eyes? This is where I like this blind man, because I think he gets a little snarky.

50:29

He'd fit in well on Voice of Reason radio. I'm just saying. Maybe just a little.

50:35

He's like, I already told you, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?

50:41

Do you want to be his disciples too? Do you? It's almost as if he was daring them to do something.

50:50

It's like at this point you can tell he's had enough. He's been questioned 100 times.

50:57

He's given the same exact answers over and over. His parents have been questioned. His parents have gone, hey, dude, you're on your own.

51:05

At this point he's like, okay, if this is the game we're going to play, I'm not going to play anymore.

51:10

I'm just going to say what's on my mind. And what's amazing is this man with very little knowledge gave a stronger theology lesson than the smartest people in the

51:27

Jewish leadership. I mean, wait a minute. It's never been recorded in history that a man's ever been healed of blindness from birth.

51:36

We know God doesn't listen to sinners, and yet this man did it. He just totally destroys them.

51:43

Yeah, I mean, the right response should be, as the blind man said, he's a prophet, be his disciple.

51:50

That's the right response. The blind man has the right response. Here's the

51:55

Jewish leaders, and they don't have the right response. Right? And so what do they end up doing?

52:03

They're like, you know, they revile him. Now, remember my scenario at the reason rally, right?

52:11

You first, you get the evidence, you throw the evidence out. When the evidence can't be rejected anymore, what do you do?

52:21

Insult the person. And so how do they insult him? You are his disciple, but we're disciples of Moses.

52:31

We know that God has spoken through Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he's from.

52:40

Okay. Moses has, God has spoken to Moses?

52:47

Yeah. This is God. Amen. This guy that healed the blind man is the one who spoke to Moses, right?

52:57

It's like the whole context of this, right after John 8, is to point out that Jesus is

53:06

God. And they're actually rejecting God to argue for saying that, well, we listen to Moses, we're the ones in the right.

53:24

So what you end up seeing there is that this whole narrative that we have going back and forth, they start to insult him, declare their own righteousness.

53:38

And trust me, if you evangelize atheists, you see this all the time. They start to insult you and then basically belittle what you're believing.

53:47

You're his disciple, but we're Moses' disciple. Guess what? And this would have been probably the snarky answer that he could have given back.

53:56

But Moses was Jesus' disciple. Here's what

54:04

I think is really, really, really funny. So you're talking about this is following Jesus' statement, before Abraham was,

54:11

I am. So go back just a few verses, verse 41 of chapter 8, where Jesus is saying, you are doing your work, you're doing the works your father did.

54:24

They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even

54:30

God. Wait a minute. How is it just five minutes ago you know

54:36

Jesus' life history? Because we know what everybody thought of Jesus.

54:42

Mary was found to be with child before being married to Joseph. So obviously they knew a fair amount about his history.

54:50

So they've made an accusation that he was conceived out of wedlock, that he was not

54:59

Joseph's son. And yet, we don't know where this guy came from. So they perjure themselves in their own hearing, and then say, but we follow

55:11

Moses. Well, just five minutes ago this same Jesus told you you follow

55:17

Satan. So they knew what they were saying, and they were willing to not only besmirch this man, but willing to lie to cover their own place in society, to tell a lie which they already said they knew where he came from in the previous passage.

55:40

And now they're going to say they don't know where he came from. Well, because the narrative matters.

55:46

It's almost like Joe Biden saying he has done more to secure the border than Donald Trump.

55:55

I mean, but how dare you send 50? We could send thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of immigrants all over to red states, but how dare you send 50, 50, you know, into Martha's Vineyard.

56:11

Oh, the audacity. But what you end up seeing here is these guys, you know, after reviling them, and still this guy's a little bit snarky.

56:21

I like it. You know, verse 30, the man answered and said, well, here is an amazing thing that you do not know where he's from, and yet he opened my eyes.

56:32

So basically what the man is saying is, you know, you should know the fact that he opened the eyes of a blind man.

56:41

You should know he is of God. You should know that he's not some sinner, right?

56:50

And he said, we know that God does not hear sinners. If anybody is God -fearing and does the will, he hears him.

56:59

Since from the beginning of time, it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind.

57:06

If this man is not from God, he could do nothing, right? He's laying out the evidence there.

57:13

This should be the point where they say, okay, you know what? You're right. This has never happened before.

57:19

This is proof that Jesus is God. No, what did they answer? Verse 34, you were born entirely in sins, and you are teaching us, and they put him out, right?

57:33

That third stage that I told you about, right? After they revile and insult, the next is walk away.

57:41

Get rid of the guy. But how do they do it? They do it insulting him. You're a sinner.

57:47

We're not. We're righteous. You just called God a sinner, and you think you're righteous?

57:55

Wow! This is confirmation bias. They're not looking at what's in front of them. They're looking at what they want to be true.

58:03

You see this all the time with people when they read the Scriptures. They read the Scriptures with what they want it to say, not what it actually does say.

58:14

As we go through this, this is how we should engage with Scripture. Not just read it and move on with your day, but interact with it.

58:25

See that these Pharisees are no different than the politicians of today. The behavior is the same.

58:33

The logical fallacies are the same. And so what you do when you get to this is you want to be able to recognize that because it will help you in understanding

58:46

Scripture. It will help you to know the Scriptures better as you think through it, interact with it, meditate upon it, not just read it.

58:58

So Chris, let me just ask, anything else you want to add to John chapter 9? Not actually add to it.

59:05

I shouldn't put that. We don't want to add to Scripture. Yeah, we don't want to do that. Add to the commentary. I just think it's, as you say, the reason we do this, this interacting with Scripture, is not only are we understanding theology, not only are we understanding who

59:22

Christ is and seeing the miracles and these things, but rather we're also learning about ourselves, about human nature, about sinful nature, and to the extremes we will go.

59:33

Christ himself said that the reason the Jews refused to recognize that they were not of his sheep.

59:41

When we are outside of Christ, when we are dead in our trespasses and sins, apart from the miraculous work of God in our hearts, this is us.

59:51

We are these type of people. We will do this of our own accord on so many different issues.

59:59

So it's a cautionary for us not to be like this, but also a reminder of this is what the sinful human heart is.

01:00:09

And there will be some people, you will tell them everything. You will give them the best gospel presentation ever given.

01:00:15

And there are some people that will never respond to it because, like the Jews, they are not of Christ's sheep.

01:00:22

Don't be disheartened. Don't be broken down. Don't be dejected. This is a man who

01:00:28

Christ resurrected, was seen by 500 people.

01:00:36

Other people later rose from the grave and wandered around town, and they still said this man is a phony.

01:00:45

Don't be defeated. You're going to run into it. Give glory to God, be like this man, and still preach the truth.

01:00:54

You're going to see it. And Andrew, you've done a great job outlining exactly what this is.

01:01:00

So when people see it, and they see it played out, and they look at Scripture, they go, I now see what's going on. Now I see why

01:01:05

I run into these kind of conversations. But there's a greater spiritual argument, too, which is that these are people bound up in their sin, and they will do everything to reject the truth.

01:01:19

And so just, you know, as you're interacting with these texts, and you're seeing the things like what

01:01:25

Andrew's been pointing out here, let it teach you these very important truths.

01:01:30

Let it teach you what you're going to see in the world. Let it impact you about, you know, your own propensity for sin.

01:01:38

But then remember that the most, the clearest evidence ever given, indisputable, and yet these men threw a man out of the synagogue, and threw him out of the life and the culture of the

01:01:56

Jewish people, because they wanted to hold on to their power and deny the truth that was so clearly evident.

01:02:04

So don't let that, don't ever let that defeat you. That's true. And so, and this is the thing

01:02:12

I really want to press upon each of us, because it is very important, and I've said it like three times in this episode, not to read the

01:02:23

Scriptures, but interact with it. And we're going to give another example actually from Chris's devotions in just a moment, but before we do, we should mention a word from our sponsor,

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You have the slippers. I know that, Chris. Very nice gift, by the way.

01:03:28

Yeah, well, I'm wearing mine now. Even in the summer, I wore mine all summer long. And even though you were like,

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I'm not going to wear them in the summer because they have too much fuzz in them, too fluffy, they actually didn't overheat my feet.

01:03:44

So I don't know how, but yeah, I've been wearing them, and I like go through slippers because I work out of the house.

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I wear them all day, and I used to go through a pair a year. And I've had these for over a year now, and they're doing good.

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SFE. You don't have one of their pillows yet, do you, Chris? No, I don't.

01:04:32

Oh, okay. Well, let's talk about something. You and I, as we talked about going through John 9, you brought something up to me in your devotions today, and it was kind of funny because I actually thought, gee,

01:04:43

I wonder if Chris is doing the devotional readings with the Christian podcast community in our

01:04:50

Faithlife group, because it sounded like you were in the same passage that I was in in my readings.

01:04:58

Now, in the Christian podcast community, in our Faithlife group, we're going through a reading plan of the

01:05:04

McShaney Reading Plan, and so I have been in 2 Samuel. But that's not where you got this from, but we have the same account there.

01:05:15

And as we were discussing, you were talking about what you had read in your devotions, and a similar thing that we wanted to point out of not just reading the

01:05:26

Scripture but interacting with it. So why don't you share, if you wouldn't mind, what you had discovered.

01:05:34

So, I mean, we're all familiar with the account of David and his sin with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, starting in 2

01:05:44

Samuel Chapter 11. And, of course, much is made about it, especially these days, because there are certain segments of professing

01:05:53

Christians that want to insist that David's adulterous affair with Bathsheba was actually that he raped her.

01:06:00

And that's why the topic keeps coming up and around. There's something that, and I don't know if I just had read it and not made the connection before, or, as you said, one of those moments where I've read through, look, let's face it, 1

01:06:14

Chronicles, the first dozen chapters, there's a lot of names. So you go through a lot of genealogy and a lot of lists.

01:06:22

And so I don't know if I just missed it before or didn't make the connection. But in 1 Chronicles Chapter 11,

01:06:28

Chapter 41, or in Chapter 11, and we get to Verse 41, Chapter 11 is describing the mighty men of David.

01:06:37

These are men that fought alongside him before he ascended to power as king. These are the men that followed him when he was on the road run from Saul.

01:06:47

These are people that came to him because they knew he was God's anointed, they knew what

01:06:54

Saul was doing was unjust, and they fought alongside him. Verse 41 gives us a very interesting name of one of these mighty men,

01:07:03

Uriah the Hittite. When I read that, I realized there's a whole added layer of sin when you think about the account of David with Bathsheba.

01:07:18

Uriah the Hittite was a mighty man, one of David's mighty men, fought alongside him.

01:07:24

David knew this man. This was not somebody who came up in the ranks of David's army after he ascended to the position of king in Israel, and he was somewhat known to him.

01:07:38

This is not a mere coincidence that he looked on Bathsheba. He knew who

01:07:44

Bathsheba was. He knew who Uriah was. He knew he could trust

01:07:50

Uriah. When he looked on Bathsheba and then called her and seduced her into an adulterous relationship, he utterly betrayed a man who was his friend and one of his fiercest offenders.

01:08:10

When you read that and you make that connection, you realize how deep that sin was, that he had not only engaged in an adulterous affair with a man who was his friend and greatest offender, but then tried to trick him.

01:08:26

Now, he would have known, as somebody else pointed out when I made a comment about this on social media, when he sent him with his death warrant, he knew

01:08:34

Uriah wouldn't know him well, so he knew the honor of Uriah. When he brought him back and tried to get him to sleep with his wife, he should have known

01:08:45

Uriah's honor would not have allowed him to do that. Still tried, so there's the manipulation trying to get him to tweak and twist his own morals.

01:08:54

And then he sends him with his death warrant the very man who fought alongside him and defended him, and he has him murdered to protect his own name.

01:09:09

All these people that want to twist the account of David and Bathsheba into some sort of rape issue don't even begin to understand the depth of the sin of David, because they want to make it about power struggles.

01:09:23

And so they can argue for, well, we need to restructure power. It has nothing to do with power.

01:09:30

David's sin was so deep that he killed his own friend to hide the sin that he had committed.

01:09:38

That's how bad this was. When you interact with scripture and you pay attention to the details, you begin to see just how deep and dark the human heart can be, even of a man who

01:09:51

God says is a man after his own heart. And then you realize, yes,

01:09:57

David paid the price. He lost the child and for a time even lost his own kingdom to his own son.

01:10:04

Yet God restored him. God forgave him.

01:10:11

God redeemed him. Think about how twisted you have to be to have a man fight alongside you, to love you, to protect you.

01:10:25

You take his wife and you murder him, and then because God grants you repentance, he forgives you that.

01:10:33

How gracious is our God. Yeah, and that's the thing, is you pick that up because of the fact that you didn't just sit and read your scripture, but you started to say, oh wait, look at this.

01:10:49

I read this over here and I think about this other situation and realize, hey, there's something here to check out.

01:10:58

And so this is what we need to do when we deal with scripture. Don't just read it.

01:11:08

Engage with it. Interact with it. This is the word of God. And so we have to realize this is not just something we just, okay, we just pick up, this is our duty, we just pick it up and read it because this is what we do in the morning and we have our devotions and we feel better about the day and go about our day driving recklessly on the roads or whatever and being like, well,

01:11:32

I'm a sinner the rest of the day, but I got my devotions done. Look how good I am. Do you love

01:11:39

God? I mean, seriously. I know so many of you are saying, yes, I love

01:11:44

God. And you just kind of read his word in a casual way.

01:11:51

I mean, would you do that with your spouse before you got married? I have to say that because after people get married, they seem to forget that the dating doesn't end, but they seem to stop dating.

01:12:02

But think about it. Your spouse, before you get married, writes you a letter.

01:12:11

Do you just kind of read it? Okay, well, I read it. I'm done with that. Let me move on with my day. No. You read every word.

01:12:20

You think about it. You're thinking about what was said throughout the day. That's what we should be doing.

01:12:26

That's why we should read Scripture in the morning, so that we can think about it all day long. Because when we actually interact with Scripture, we can find a whole lot more out about things that we miss.

01:12:41

And that's really what we wanted to do in this episode, was to help you get a greater appreciation for the word of God, to study it, to know it, to love it.

01:12:52

And I hope that we've done a good job of doing that. I hope that you have a greater appreciation and love for God's word.

01:12:59

I hope that you are more desiring to dig into his word and study it out.

01:13:05

And I hope that you'll go and listen to Voice of Reason Radio to get some brilliance that they have over there.

01:13:12

So, I mean, obviously, it all comes from Rich. But, you know,

01:13:18

Chris throws in a couple of things, too. I'll take that. I'll take that. That's fair. But, Chris, I do appreciate you coming on, filling in for Bud in a last -minute jump in here while we get a recording out.

01:13:34

And I know Bud will be back. We will be recording back soon, getting back to our study of systematic theology, really going through the doctrinal statement at Striving for Eternity.

01:13:46

We're just getting into some good, fun stuff of the doctrine of salvation. No debates in that topic at all, ever.

01:13:54

No, there's not been trees killed over debating that issue. Not at all.

01:14:00

Nothing. Wars on social media. A little. Maybe a little pushback.

01:14:08

Yeah, maybe. But we're going to go through those. I hope you guys will share.

01:14:14

If you liked this episode, one of the best things you could do is share it with others. Subscribe, that means, or follow, because the more people that follow it, the more people that, well, the higher it gets in the rankings, actually.

01:14:28

We love reviews, by the way, and there's a link in the show notes on how to give a review. We appreciate reviews.

01:14:34

Haven't gotten any in a while, so that would be appreciated. If you want to email us, just info at strivingforeternity .org,

01:14:41

let us know what you think. If there's episodes you want us to deal with, things you want us to address, let us know.

01:14:49

Let us have that to put into the backlog so we can start dealing with some of the issues you want to hear.

01:14:56

Tell us what you think of the show. Do you like it? Do you not like it? One of the things I want to know specifically,

01:15:03

I would like to know what you guys are thinking of our episodes with the editing, because we have been paying a service to do editing, not on this episode, but some of the others, and when

01:15:16

Bud gets back, we're going to record, and I want to know what you guys think. Is it worth the editing?

01:15:22

Is it good to keep doing that? Those are some things that would help us out. If you could do that, that would be great for us.

01:15:34

With that, typically we would bust on Chris Honhold, but we're not going to do that.

01:15:43

We're not going to do that. He's a guest here. We're going to be nice to him. He's sometimes nice to us.

01:15:56

He's laughing at this. What do you have up your sleeve? I have nothing up my sleeve. I was just going to say that it's good to have him as a member of the

01:16:04

Christian Podcast community. And it would be fair to say, Chris, you went through easy, right?

01:16:10

Being a friend of mine. No? I'm still twitching from the grilling of that interview session.

01:16:20

I'm just saying. Even my co -host, he's my co -host, and when he did each of his shows, he had to go through the same grilling that we give to everybody.

01:16:33

So we don't just take anybody. Actually, we only accept. I haven't checked the numbers recently, but the last time that I checked,

01:16:42

I think we only accept somewhere around, I think it's like 30%, 40 % of the shows that apply.

01:16:55

We're not ones that just accept people willy -nilly. We want people that are going to add to the community that we think have something, good content, good shows.

01:17:08

It fits with what the community is trying to do. And so that's sort of what we're looking for.

01:17:14

And you'll get that at the Christian Podcast community. And so if you want, you can go to christianpodcastcommunity .org.

01:17:24

That's the place to go to get all of our, to get all the podcasts. You can see there's over 50 of them.

01:17:31

It's like growing. I was traveling, Chris, and I didn't have time to listen to all of the podcasts.

01:17:43

And so there's a lot out there. And so I just missed one week.

01:17:51

One week, I got backed up. It was like, I looked and it was like 40 hours of content in one week.

01:17:58

I was like, wow. Okay. And Voice of Reason Radio was like two hours of that.

01:18:04

You guys are trying to compete with Just Thinking, I think. That's...

01:18:10

No, no. There's no competing with Just Thinking. That's... Yeah. But let me give you something else that you could do for us.

01:18:18

And I believe this is in the show notes, but you could help us with doing a survey. So this would be an action item that I have for you.

01:18:25

If you go to surveys .blueberry .com, and I'm going to spell that because that's not spelled normal, but surveys .blueberry

01:18:34

.com slash rap report with two Ps. So it's surveys, S -U -R -V -E -Y -S dot blueberry, and blueberry is spelled

01:18:45

B -L -U -B -R -R -Y. So it's B -L -U -B -R -R -Y dot com slash rap report with two

01:18:54

Ps. That is how you can fill out our listener survey. That would be a help to us, because that lets us know a little bit about who's listening, why you're listening, what you like or maybe don't like of our show.

01:19:11

And so that is something that is helpful. So if you could do that for us, we would appreciate that.

01:19:19

And now, the moment I've been dreading, I have to thank Chris for coming on.

01:19:27

Is there anything nice I could say about Chris Honholz? Well, I guess so. Thanks, Chris.

01:19:32

Bye. No, Chris, it was fun having you on and recording with you.

01:19:42

I appreciate it. Absolutely. It was a lot of fun. I hope, folks, that you enjoyed it. I hope that this was helpful, educational, gave you some more to think about when it comes to scriptures, how to engage with scripture.

01:19:55

And with that, you know what, Chris? That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the

01:20:04

Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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