Conducting Debate to the Glory of God

The Meaning of Debate for the Glory of God

Okay, now it's the event that we've been waiting for. I read his biography last night, and I think I'll do it again because it has been 24 hours and there might be another book on here. Dr. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona.

He is a professor, having taught Greek, systematic theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics. He has authored or contributed to more than 20 books, including The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Potter's Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.

He is an accomplished debater, having engaged in more than 100 moderated debates with leading proponents of Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism, as well as critics such as Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and John Shelby Swann.

He is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church and has been married to Kelly for more than 28 years and has two children, Joshua and Summer. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, Dr. James White.

Well, it is an honor to be with you again this evening. I do not have a digital presentation, hence no lasers tonight to worry any of you, but we are going to be talking about an important subject to me, one that at least I can speak to you from a rather personal perspective in regards to debate for the glory of God.

We certainly live in a day where that term has come to mean things that, well, it didn't mean only about 100 years ago. The things that we call debates today that take place every two years or so, and especially every four years, the presidential elections, have little to do with what real debate actually is.

Political debate is very often marked by showmanship, and I'm sure that there are a number of people today who have their doctorates in having written dissertations on the analysis of what happened when Kennedy and Nixon debated back in the 1960s, as I recall, and the fact that people who were listening by radio had one interpretation, and people who watched it on television had another interpretation.

And one thing is for certain, I never follow the advice that those folks come up with as to what color ties to wear during debates. If you've ever seen any of the debates that I've done, I break all of those rules.

I don't really concern myself too much on that level. In fact, I've taken to wearing bow ties, which most definitely breaks all of those rules. But the type of debate we're talking about this evening isn't that kind of debate, even though there might be some people who think that, well, the reason you would engage in debate would be to convince the largest number of people.

That's not why I debate. That might surprise postmodernists, that might surprise some modern evangelicals, that my purpose in debating is not to get the majority of the people sitting in front of me to agree with me.

Because if I wanted to elicit a particular emotional response from the audience, I would not debate the way that I do. And it's not, for example, as you would have in many, unfortunately, legal situations where you have a jury.

There's an entire realm of study of how to influence a jury and how to present things in such a way that a jury will hear it in a particular way. I have one member of the jury of any debate that I'm in that is first and foremost important to me.

As a Christian, my first and foremost priority is to honor God. My concern is what God thinks of what I have said about him and his truth at the end of the evening. And that's my first and foremost priority.

And I would suggest that for any Christian, that has to be your first and foremost priority, whether you are in a debate formally, as I have the opportunity of doing them, or whether that debate is you and one other person, you always need to remember you really have an audience of one.

I have a friend by the name of Steve Camp, and his ministry is called Audience One Ministries. Because when he sings, he has an audience of one. He wants to please God. When I debate, I have an audience of one.

I want to please God. Now I want to see God use the debate to the benefit of his people and the salvation of his people. All of those things are true. But first and foremost, what would separate Christian debate from any other style of debate is that we want to glorify God.

We want to see his truth proclaimed. And sometimes, my friends, the proclamation of God's truth is extremely unpopular in certain venues. I have walked into situations where I knew I was in the small minority.

I had the very excellent news given to me. I debated a young man by the name of Bassam Zawadi, an Islamic apologist in London just a few weeks ago in January. Was that January or February? February now.

Whenever it was. It was just a few weeks ago. And I mentioned during the course of the debate, I said, you know, we've been doing these debates here in London now. We've done a number of them. But the one thing we haven't been able to work out is we keep having these debates in Christian churches.

I want to have a debate in a mosque. And I think it's time for the Muslims to step up and let's schedule the next time we debate here in London, let's do it in a mosque. And by that evening, we had a number of people who came up to us and said, you're exactly right.

We're planning April of 2012, as long as Harold Camping's wrong, which I really think he is. I have debated him as well. If you've not heard that one, it wasn't a formal debate in the sense of in a location, but we did it on my webcast and it was a debate, equal times and things like that.

And so if you're worried about May of this year, I would go listen to that and you'll feel a little bit better. But anyway, we had a number of Muslims who came up to me afterwards and they said, we will pretty much guarantee that in April of 2012, when you come back, we will have the next debate at the East London Mosque.

Now, if any of you know what the East London Mosque is, that is the largest mosque in London at this time. They're trying to build a larger one, but right now it's the largest mosque in London. I've gone into situations and will go into situations where I know that I am in the small minority as far as the people in that audience are concerned.

And when I walk in there, I have to ask myself the question, what do I want to do this evening? What is my purpose in being here? Is my purpose to pump myself up and to have a new debate to show people and oh, this will be really cool and this will be really neat?

Is my purpose to make the folks there like me? What is my reason for being there? I have to think these things through and I'm jumping right into that and I really want to put that off for a little bit later application.

But we as Christians should have different reasons for why we engage in debate, especially in our day where debate is considered to be, well, it's possibly offensive and the last thing we want to do is offend anybody.

That is what our culture says. And there are a lot of people who would say to me, I just don't think we should debate at all. I see no evidence that Christians should engage in debate. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that every single Christian should be running around engaging in debate.

There are great scholars who have a calling of scholarship in their lives who should never debate. The reason for that is there are certain skills you have to have. Some of them you can learn, some of them are natural.

You have to be a multitasker. And there are some people who cannot multitask. I mean, I have friends and sometimes they try to multitask and it is a disaster. They're just not designed to work that way.

Fine, then they probably shouldn't be involved in debate either. It's something I grew up doing. I grew up something like this, even though, you know, Lane keeps, you know, hi, I'm Lane. These things are second nature to me.

I grew up doing radio. From the time I was 16 onwards, I was live on the air. This was back in the days when I actually had something called, for those of you who are young, let me explain this. It was called a turntable.

And we had these big discs of something called vinyl. My daughter, when she first saw that word, thought it was vinyl. And you would put them on there and you'd put a needle on it and it would play music.

That's how old I am. It's really, really interesting how these would work. And literally, starting in my junior year of high school, I would spend hours on the air playing big band music and doing the weather and the news and all the rest of that stuff.

So I was always having to multitask. I always had microphones in front of me. I don't get nervous when I speak in front of audiences of whether it's 10 people or 3 ,000 people. And that means that when we engage in debate, then that's, I'm sort of in my element.

There are other folks so much smarter than I am, so far beyond me in their fields, and they get up in front of a microphone and they have to try to keep track of notes and try to, you know, responses over here, and they have to be listening to the other person and thinking about what they're going to say, and they are left utterly lost.

And that's fine. I'm not saying every person is supposed to be engaged in this type of thing. But I do believe that there is a place, biblically, for the public presentation and disputation in regards to the issue of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Debate in the Apostolic Pattern

Now clearly, historically, this took place in the history of the church. And I don't have time to go through the history of the church, but just simply to remind you, as most of you probably would know, in the history of the Reformation, debates were extremely important in the promulgation, the propagation of the Reformed faith.

You may be well aware of the fact that Ulrich Zwingli, in bringing the Reformation to the Swiss cantons, especially to Zurich, engaged in debate with his opponents, and it was via the means of debate based upon the Word of God.

Zwingli would stand there and he would have three podiums in front of him. And on one he would have the Greek, and on one he would have the Hebrew, and on one he would have the Latin. And he would debate from the original language text, demonstrating what the gospel of Jesus Christ really was over against the traditions of men.

And this was greatly used in spreading the Reformation at that time. The first written debate of the Reformation was that tremendous written debate between Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther on the nature of the will.

And here you had written form of debate and much more in-depth form of debate in that type of context that was taking place. These things have been used by God in the past to the blessing of his people.

Now obviously there are people who engage in debates who shouldn't, and as a result I have listened to many debates where Christians got creamed, where it was embarrassing to be a Christian in that audience that day.

And I recognize that that takes place. At the same time, I recognize that there have been situations where the Christian side was incredibly victorious in a certain debate, and there were still people there that night who were influenced toward error.

Any presentation of God's truth will have a response. It will have a reaction. And there are times when there are hypocrites, there are people who hold to a false faith, they do not truly believe in the Christian faith, but they claim to, and there are going to be times when the truth is spoken clearly and forcefully, where people are going to move away from the truth because of the clarity with which it has been proclaimed.

I realize that's going to happen. And so obviously I need to have a biblical foundation for doing what I do. What I want to do briefly is look at just a few texts and try to establish the fact that we need to be able to engage in these things, that God has used this as a means of the promulgation of his truth, not the only means, but a valuable means, and then make application to how we can do this to God's glory, even in a westernized culture where today the greatest sin is offense, and hence anyone who would say, well, I'm offended by what you said.

Well, then you shouldn't ever say anything ever again. That's where our society is going. We need to be able to see through that kind of thinking and to give a meaningful response. So turn with me, please, in the New Testament to Acts chapter 17.

I want to just look at a few incidents in the life of the early church to establish the fact that it has been the apostolic example, the apostolic model to be open in the proclamation of the truth of God, even when that involves opposition speaking out against us, resulting in dialogue, in give and take.

That's what debate is, specifically the types of debates that I do. You have to have equal time. You need to have a structure. You need to have a subject so that you can be focused. These are all things that I insist upon, and they're not just simply rules.

It's not like the... Some of you may have seen some of the collegiate debates where people stand up there and they just talk as fast as they can. They're trying to get as many things... That's not what I'm talking about in any way, shape, or form.

What I am talking about is a structured discussion that has a specific subject that allows the people in the audience, and today, the amazing thing about this today is that very frequently, it's not just the people sitting in the pews.

For the first time, when we were in London, we managed to hook up with a server system over there, and even though it was a little bit sketchy, it's getting better and better, we had people watching this from all over the world while it was taking place.

And of course, through the medium of YouTube, now, I do a debate and you're going to have people... Well, in fact, the thing that really excites me is that once I started using YouTube, we started watching the hits on our website, and all of a sudden, Indonesia exploded.

Now, why would that be relevant? Well, Indonesia is the largest majority Muslim nation in the world. I hope you realize that only about 19%, between 16 and 20 of the world's Muslims are Arabic. The large majority are in the Southeastern Asia area.

And we started putting this stuff up on YouTube, and all of a sudden, people where I could never get to them in any other way are accessing this information. And so, it's the audience. The whole reason you have rules and debate and you have a format and you have it organized is for the benefit of the audience.

And when you see someone in a debate trying to drag the subject away from where it should be and introducing all sorts of extraneous things and not following the rules of debate, they are showing disrespect for the audience.

I'm very... I'm really focused upon that, as you might be able to tell. But anyways, Acts chapter 17, now, when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews, and according to Paul's custom, he went to them and for three Sabbaths, reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.

And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas. So what is Paul doing? Paul is wise. He recognizes that he needs to start his work in any new area where there is already a foundation upon which he can build.

And so he goes into the synagogue. But Paul is being followed around by Jews that are opposing his work. He already knows by this point in time, he's already... We've already had the experiences in Acts chapter 13, where Paul has gone into the synagogue and he's used that as the base of his operations, and he's proclaimed the gospel, and he's proclaimed who Jesus is, and he knows what is eventually going to happen.

He knows there is going to be opposition. And you'll notice it says that on these three Sabbaths, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead.

So he is actually engaging in dialogue. And there is give and take, and he's answering questions. Now this wouldn't be a formal debate situation, but it is a situation where he is setting forth the claims of Christ, not just in a lecture-type thing and saying, now if you have any questions, please go to our website and fill out the question form, and we might get around to it eventually, a type of situation like that.

No, the questions would have been right there at that time. There would have been give and take. There would have been an appeal to a common source of information, the Scriptures. And he was going to the Scriptures, demonstrating the key elements of the Christian faith, specifically that the Messiah, sometimes we get so used to the word Christ as a name, in essence, that we don't realize that what's actually being said here was the evidence that the Messiah had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying, this Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is, not was, but is the Messiah.

So he is proclaiming the Messiahship of Jesus Christ to the Jews in the synagogue from the Scriptures, and he is seeking to persuade. Some of them were persuaded. Notice not all of them were. Not all of them were.

I never go into a debate thinking that I am going to convince everybody in the room that I'm right. Anybody who thinks they're going to do that, I think, is just downright arrogant. Now, do I believe that God could do something miraculous in a situation like that?

Of course, I would pray that he would. But you see, when I go into the room, I already recognize that the audience is divided up along certain lines. For those of you who don't know me, I've done about 108 moderated public debates so far starting in 1990, not far from here.

How far are we from Long Beach? Not too far? A few miles? Okay. At a Roman Catholic church in Long Beach in August of 1990 was where I did my first formal moderated public debate with Jerry Matiticks, who was then with Catholic Answers out of San Diego, and we debated Sola Scriptura.

Well, I debated Sola Scriptura, Jerry told his story and did other things, but that was the first of 13 debates that I've done with Jerry Matiticks over the years since that period in time. And in the course of those debates, I've learned to figure out my audiences.

And the numbers, the percentages will change, but I always have this in mind. There are certain people in the audience who are on my side and they are not going to hear anything the other guy has to say.

They have come there to hear me, they have come there, they are not open-minded on the subject, and it really doesn't matter what he says, they're not going to listen to what he says. And of course I realize there is a group on the other side, that it would not matter what I say, I could sit down with them and try to reason with them for hours, I could look right at them in the front pew, you right there, I could do whatever, they're not going to listen to me.

Now if I were to be upset about that, then I would never do a debate again because I'd be upset after every single debate. I just recognize there are people on both ends of the spectrum that are not going to hear anything that the other side has to say that night.

Okay, that's a given. Then we have a group of people that are very strongly biased one way or the other. They might hear what the other guy has to say, but they have a very, very strong bias. They might be influenced if it's an extremely one-sided debate.

And I've engaged in extremely one-sided debate, I've had some debates where the poor guy was debating should never have gotten out of bed that morning. It was just that bad. And I've heard debates that went the other way.

Thankfully, I don't think that's ever been my experience, but there has been times when I've heard debates where, I remember one debate from Denver in 1993 where it was so bad, it was a Catholic fundamentalist Baptist debate and the Baptists were so badly beaten that the Catholics had an altar call in the parking lot after the debate for people who were former Catholics to come back to the Catholic faith.

Almost split the church. It was that bad. So, I've seen both of them. And when you have a complete smackdown, there might be some people in the heavily biased area that might be influenced by that. But I realize still we're only looking at a small sliver in the middle where you have people on both sides that are really going to listen and weigh what the other side is saying.

From my perspective, that's always going to be the work of the Spirit of God. And that means there are going to be Christians in the audience who need to be edified that night. Can you imagine what it was like to be Barnabas and listen to Paul explaining the Messiahship of Jesus?

Don't you think that would build you up in your faith just a little bit? I think it would. Can you imagine what it would be like to be one of these traveling companions? To be Timothy, young Timothy, when he first meets Paul?

And to hear those long presentations he gave where he opened up the Scriptures? Oh, would I love to hear those presentations. How I would be encouraged in those things. And there's always those people in the debate that maybe they're wavering.

Maybe they've been looking into these things. I've been contacted by many people over the years that said, I came to your debate and I was that close to joining whatever that religious group was, or I was that close to losing my faith.

And I was edified. I was strengthened. I was reaffirmed in the faith by what took place in that debate. At the same time, there's that all-important group on the other side where the Spirit of God has been active in that person's life, and they need to hear a clear and forceful presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And one thing I always try to do, I will not dishonor the person I'm debating or the audience by artificially doing this, but if I can do so in an appropriate fashion, I will always bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to bear, especially in my closing statements.

And so there are those in that sliver on this side, they might be a little bit biased against me, but they're there to hear. And they're there because the Holy Spirit of God has them there, and this is part of the means that He uses to bring the Gospel to bear.

They need to hear both sides. That is what is so special about debate, is that anybody can make a good presentation for even the silliest belief. I mean, doesn't the internet and YouTube and cable television prove that to you?

How many of you have seen some of those amazing presentations about these amazing products that you just can't live without, and oh, the people are excited, and look what this can do? How many of you have a ShamWow, hmm?

How many of you will admit, it sounded so good, but you know what? It's like every other cloth you've ever had, okay? But it sounded so good when there was just one side being presented, and anybody can do that.

I mean, sometimes, you know, let me use an example, Mormonism. The Mormon doctrine of God. God is an exalted man named Elohim. He lives on a planet that circles a star named Kolob, and His first begotten spirit child, one of His many wives, was Jehovah, who's a separate God from Elohim, and Satan's His spirit brother, and they took a vote as to how the earth would be organized and whether you'd have free will or not free will, and the Calvinist was Satan, and the Arminian was Jesus, and, you know, I mean, when you put the whole thing together, it's just this weirdest, wildest theology you'd ever come up with, but you know what?

There are Mormons who can make it sound downright believable, as long as you only have one side being presented, and that's why I learned a long, long time ago, cross-examination is the heart of debate.

When I first started debating, I had no idea what in the world I was doing. I really didn't. I mean, I had never taken a class in debate. I had never been trained in debate. I had never read a book on debate.

The closest I had come, and the dean might find this interesting, I, in fact, I have the video of this. Lane, I'm going to have to get you the video of this. We'll have to put this on YouTube sometime.

I have the video from 1981. 1981, I was the prosecuting attorney in the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Independence High School in Glendale, Arizona. There you go. Thank you. Thank you very much. I've never gotten applause for that, but thank you very much.

We did a senior project in government class, and remember government, do you have, is government required out here in California, too? You had to take a government class, you had to pass it in high school.

That meant that it really had to be dumbed down because the teachers didn't want some of the people there the next year. It was a really boring class. I was, I know, I was class valedictorian. I was the guy you love to hate.

It was the way it was, but I didn't even need to, I didn't need extra credit. I had 106 of the points possible, and so I didn't really care, but some people wanted to do the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.

And so one day I was sitting around, I was reading a book or doing something, and I realized the next nine people on the honor roll, two through 10, were all on the defense of Lee Harvey Oswald. And I thought, this is going to be boring.

And all of a sudden an idea hit me. I've got senioritis. I'm bored. This would be fun. And so I signed up for the prosecution, and I lived the Kennedy assassination for the rest of my senior year. I went out to ASU, and I got the Warren Commission report, and I got all my witnesses lined up.

The dean would love this. If you, you drew, you got a mock trial coming up, Lane? We had a mock trial. We had a judge. We had the jury. The jury, unfortunately, turned out to be drawn from our fellow classmates and included, for example, the girlfriend of one of the defense attorneys, which is why it was 11 to 1 for conviction, but it wasn't exactly how you wanted to pick your jury pool.

But I mean, I even, every one of my witnesses, I had a binder with their Warren Commission report witness, their testimony for each one. And we got together, and I drilled them on their, I mean, I went nuts on this.

I loved doing that particular event. And I, believe it or not, thick, full hair, huge 1981 glasses, remember glasses? Why did we wear windshields in the 1980s? I'm not really sure why that is. We had these big, huge glasses and bell-bottom pants, and oh, it was great.

I've got to show you that video. It's pretty awesome. But that was the only thing I had done before I walked into a debate. And so my thought was, I need to get as much stuff out as I can. And so I had these opening statements, and I read them, and I read them real fast, and I was getting all this information out.

And then it came time for the cross-examination, and I just sort of stumbled into it. You know, it's sort of like, well, you said this, and what about this? It took me a year or two of doing this to realize, you know what?

There's this excellent text in Proverbs chapter 18, and it says, the first one to present his argument seems right until his neighbor comes along and examines him. And I started realizing, anybody can get up and give a presentation.

Anybody can get up and make statements. It's when you have to answer the other guy's questions and demonstrate the consistency of your position, that is what debate allows, that our society desperately needs.

How many people are running around, and they're, you know, today, they go to YouTube. The first coverage I saw of the Japan quake was on YouTube. And that's where people go now. And people will come up to me and say, well, I saw this guy on YouTube, and he said this.

And I saw this girl on YouTube, and she said that. And now I'm confused. It's when you see those positions brought together, and examination takes place. That is the absolutely invaluable element of debate that you just can't get anywhere else.

And in fact, that's why we have a hard time getting certain people to debate, because they know their position could never stand up to cross-examination. They know that their position is completely dependent upon a monologue, not a dialogue.

And so there are a number of people, and I could name names, big names, that have long-standing challenges to engage in public debate on key and important issues. They will never do it, because they know what would happen if they did.

They know that they have to bank upon having an audience that only hears one side at a time, because they know if you come and you listen to this guy, and then you go and you listen to that guy, and then you go back and listen to this guy, well, he might be able to answer some of the things that that guy says in a certain way, but then you go back to this guy.

You see, there's always that ambiguity, oh, if I could just hear them debate, hear them have to answer each other's questions directly. That's the value. And this is not something that's new. Folks, I didn't bring it with me, but I remember years ago I was reading a book that Soledale Gloria put out, and it was about the education of ministers.

Well, it wasn't about that, but it was mentioning the education of ministers in the 17th century in England. And in the high end of education back then, a person who'd just be being trained to be a pastor at a place like Oxford or Cambridge or things like that, to go out and pastor in a small church in a rural area, which most of England still is a rural area, by the time they were a junior in their studies, and of course it's not quite directly related to our years of education today, but by the time they were a junior in their study, you know what they had to be able to do?

You might say, well, I bet you they had to be able to read stuff in Greek. Yeah, they did, but that wasn't all. By the time they were a junior, they had to be able to debate in Greek. Now, I've taught Greek for years.

I cannot debate in Greek. But by the time they were a junior, they had to debate in Greek, in the original languages. That was what was expected of people. You wonder why people, you pick up books like by John Owen and go, wow, that's deep.

Is it really that that's so deep, or should we hold up a mirror to ourselves and go, wow, that's so shallow? I mean, seriously, they were not nearly as distracted from the deep things of theology as we are.

They were able to do that kind of thing. Hearing both sides presented allows you to weigh the real evidence and search for the most important thing, and that is one word, consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

You cannot define the word truth without using the word consistency. And debate allows you to demonstrate that your opponent is inconsistent. Some of you have heard a phrase that I invented. I think I invented it.

I've never heard anybody else, well, I've heard other people using it now. But I used it, I don't know, three or four times in a debate that took place not far from here in May of 2006 at Biola University.

And that was a debate with Islamic apologist Shabbir Ali. Now how many of you were, I asked last night, how many of you were at that debate in 2006? Okay. Really? Bo, you were there? Oh, that's right.

You were right down front. You had security on your back. Yeah, okay, I remember. How many of you have been blessed by the debate with Shabbir Ali from 2006? Well, the man right back there, Bo, you need to say thanks to him.

He's the one that arranged all of it. So anyway, in that debate, I used a line that I have used many times since then. And that is, inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument. Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument.

Shabbir Ali is a great speaker, and he's a very intelligent man. But he uses one standard for Christianity, and he uses another standard for Islam. Inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument. And we have, as Christians, to learn, we have to learn to recognize inconsistencies.

And the only way to bring them out is via cross-examination. I know that's where the debate takes place now. And because Paul allowed for that conversation to take place. We know that the Jews mightily opposed him, but according to his custom, he still did this.

Now, continue on down to the end of the chapter. You know what happens at Berea, and you know that those at Berea were more noble-minded. They checked out the things that Paul was saying by the Scriptures.

Paul goes to the Areopagus, and you remember what happens there, and they start mocking him. And yet, even after Paul's presentation of the resurrection, notice in verse 33, so Paul went out of their midst, but some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

And so, Paul is still going out, and he's even going to the unbelievers there, and he's presenting to people a message he knew, he knew, he knew would cause them to mock. But he would not compromise. He still presented the resurrection, even though he knew that they would laugh at this.

And then in chapter 18, we encounter Priscilla and Aquila, Aquila and his wife Priscilla. And you'll notice that verse 4 says he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

Once again, there was this effort on his part. But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, Your blood be on your heads. I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles. Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God whose house was next to the synagogue.

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing, were baptized, and he now begins this ministry there, where he is devoting himself to the ministry of the Word and now explaining these things to the Gentiles.

There does come a time when you have to shake out your clothes, in essence. I do not believe in doing debate simply for the sake of debate. I do debate because I see an opportunity for a meaningful dialogue.

There are some people I won't debate anymore. I've debated some people, and once was enough. It was just plain, obvious, and clear to me. Not only are they not listening, but they are not capable of presenting their side with sufficient clarity or insight or even engaging the subject well enough for it to be useful to the audience.