Matt Slick Live: June 7, 2024

Idolatry, Moral Absolutes, and Atheist Debates

The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live! Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at karm .org.

When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers, taking your calls, and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick. Hey everybody, welcome to the show.

It's me, Matt Slick, your host of Matt Slick Live. Today's date is June 7th, 2024, for the podcasters and those who listen later on. All right, we have nobody waiting right now, but if you want to give me a call, it's easy, 877 -207 -2276.

If you want to email me, that's easy also. All you have to do is just direct an email to info at karm .org. I'm probably going to do some emails and stuff like that today, because usually Fridays.

Are slow.

We don't have much going on. That's often the case. Now, I'm doing something different here.

You can tell me what you think.

We can call up, whatever. Every now and then, we have really good discussions on the radio here, and so what I've decided to do, because these are public discussions, is to take the transcripts of them and turn them into articles.

We're going to start doing that, and we're going to get some details out, but that's one of the things we'll probably end up doing. Just a little bit of a heads up on that, and that's about it. Now, if you want to watch the show, if you want to participate with some good folks in the chat, then you can go to Rumble .com, and just forward slash Matt Slick Live, and.

You'll be able to participate.

We have 12 people in the room right now. It usually gets to 60, 70, and we just blab during the break. We have some funny people in there, too. Not only funny looking, but funny, and so if you want to participate, you can.

All right.

Now, let me get this on here, and there we go.

There we go. There we go.

All right.

Now, we've got nobody waiting. It's Friday. I'm going to get to some questions, and what I'm hoping for is hate mail, hate mail, and It kind of reminds me, because I don't have any hate mail left. I had a discussion.

I did.

I walked last night. There's a route I take, and it's one mile, my route, and I did four of them, so I did four miles walking last night. It's about all I could take. My feet started hurting. My calves were hurting.

I was sweating, and while I was doing that, I had my headset on with my phone, and I was in a discussion room. And this guy comes in, and I enjoyed tweaking him. Sorry, but I did. He comes in, and he says, I've been annihilating Matt for months.

He's always running from me. He runs, and he's such a coward. Dude, stop.

You know?

Stop disinsulting me.

Come in.

Disinsult. Talk to me like an adult, and he says, I don't want God. He said this, that atheists can't demonstrate or provide any proof for universal moral absolutes, and he said, you've got to prove that.

What's your argument? I want a yes or no. You've got to make a yes or no. Otherwise, you're defeated.

You know?

He's just really arrogant, and I would start to talk, and he'd interrupt, and he'd call me names, and I just, you know, I said, look.

I got upset with him. I said, look.

Just stop being a bully. Just start talking to me, and finally, people started telling him. Shut up. Let him talk. At any rate, so one of the things that kind of happened was I said, well, let me ask you to define your term.

What do you think a moral absolute is? And he got mad. No, you. You define it. Well, and it didn't work out, and then 10 minutes later, he came back, and I defined a moral absolute, and this is really, it was really something that seemed to get tweaked because I said, well, a moral, a universal moral absolute, you know, an objective moral, I said, an objective moral is an abstraction which is a set of moral obligations that are not dependent upon our subjective experiences or preferences but rest in the mind of the Christian Trinitarian God, and he didn't like that.

You can't define it that way. Why not? And I said, look, if it's wrong, tell me why the definition is wrong. Now, you know, at this point, it's on him to tell me why the definition is wrong. What's he going to do?

And he said, well, your definition is trivial, and triviality in logic and stuff like that means that it's kind of, like begging the question, just what it is, but the response is, well, if it's trivial, is it not true, or is it true?

Which is it? And this guy did, he could not, he couldn't deal with it, and it was kind of fun for me. He actually started minding just a little bit, just a little bit, and, you know, I don't like bullies.

When you act like a bully, I said, look, you're going to talk to me like that, I'm not going to talk to you and stuff like that. This is another atheist got on, and we got talking, and it was really interesting because this other atheist, he's really polite, and we had this discussion, and he presupposes the truth of evolution and materialism, and I said, okay, let me ask you a question.

I said, so is your brain operating under the laws of physics?

He says, yes.

And I said, okay, then how does one chemical state in the brain that leads to another chemical state, how does it produce proper logical inference? And he couldn't answer the question. He says, well, in evolution, you see, it just happens as you see things.

And after he's done with his two-minute explanation, I said, well, your brain chemicals may just say that, it doesn't mean it's true. And he could not get it. It was really interesting to me. A few people got it, but this guy could not.

This is what damage is done to your brain when you're an atheist, you know, is you just can't think straight, and the same kind of a thing goes with Roman Catholicism. I was listening to Roman Catholicism, I was at the gym today, and they were talking about the sacred heart of Jesus and the sacred heart of Mary, and I'm listening, okay.

I'm going to do some research on this, I'm like, well, what is the sacred heart of Jesus? Is it like the sacred lungs of Jesus, is it the sacred kidney, the sacred liver of Jesus? What is it? And this guy was saying, it's the actual literal heart.

I'm like, what? It doesn't make any sense. I must have misheard him. You know, I was in the gym, had my headset on, that can't be right. And he said, if I heard him right, that you actually adore the physical heart, the actual heart.

And I'm thinking, because he said, the heart of Jesus is what you're adoring. And there's all kinds of problems with that. The obvious one is you don't want to bow down before a liver and a femur, you know, the femur of Jesus, that's your foundational truth.

It makes no sense. So what they have to be meaning is something along the lines of the attitude. So they, but here's the problem, let's say it's the attitude, the sacrificial attitude of Jesus, that they bow down before the sacrificial attitude of him.

That means you're not bowing down before him, but a quality about him they're worshiping and adoring. The problem here is that they're separating a characteristic from Jesus and then adoring the characteristic as if it is worth itself some abstract entity.

It's a form of idolatry. So I like to talk to a Roman Catholic about this and see if I can get them to make any sense of it, because maybe I just didn't hear him right. It's like when they say, Mary's the mother of God.

And if I say, well, Joseph, the stepfather of God, is John the Baptist the cousin of God? You know, and then, you know, I forget their name, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph. Was he the stepbrother or the third cousin of God?

And they never say it like that. They look at the mother of God. They're such idolaters. Oh, it just, it bugs me.

Yes.

That's what I said. The Roman Catholic church is full of idolaters along with the East Orthodox church. They're full of idolaters. They, uh, they don't serve the true living God because they serve these idols and you can go on the web, you go on the web and look up statues of Mary and crowds carrying the statues and bowing before the statues.

We call that idolatry. That's what we call it. So much heresy. So little time. If you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276 Buskman, I'll come on here, man.

Hey, Matt. Um, I gotta add to your Catholic, uh, list there, uh, Simon of Cyrene was the neighbor of God.

Yes, that's right. That's right. And, uh, there's all, and then there's the, uh, the, and I guess the, the, the Roman soldier was the killer of God, you know? And so, yeah, it's just, they can't see it.

And I was listening to it to a lady. Actually, let's put this generically. I was listening to, I listen to a lot of Catholic stuff because I enjoy listening to heresy. I don't watch sports. I don't listen to sports.

It bores the crud out of me. Not interested. So I listened to heresy and yeah, I've got issues. That's for sure. And I'm listening for the past two days and how they misrepresent Protestantism in their attacks on it.

And I thought that was interesting because, you know, I don't want to misrepresent Catholicism and I try and study their doctrines and then represent what they say. Now they're idolatry.

They're idolatry.

Well, we are not idolaters. It's not true. Yes, you are because, you know, you worship and serve Mary. You pray to Mary. That's idolatry. And, um, but I, I was really intrigued by the misrepresentations that they have of Protestant church and how they bury basically are bearing false witness.

It's interesting. But at any rate, anyway, I, I'm just digressing all over the place. What do you got, Busman? What's up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I got to say this, man. I've got some dear friends that are some of the most devout Catholics and they're the most wonderful people that they're the most wonderful people. And it's heartbreaking for me.

Here's my question, sir. The biblical definition of discipleship, Matt, um, if I was to go and bring someone to Christ, wouldn't that be called a convert? And then isn't a second motion, if you will, is to disciple that man or woman into Christ likeness.

So if you could, could you define biblical discipleship, sir?

Yeah.

Biblical discipleship means that you take someone under your wing, so to speak, and you meet with them, pray with them, guide them, uh, you know, help in church, uh, in home life if necessary. And the goal is to move them towards Christ likeness with the, the work of the spirit going through the teaching of the word.

And it's sometimes it last years and sometimes it doesn't until the person says, you know, thank you very much. I'm, I'm, I'm okay. And now I want to disciple somebody else and that's fine. So that's basically what it is.

Okay.

That's fantastic. And I loved how you added that you, you sort of do life together. I, I have a friend who's like a father in the Lord to me, Matt, and he, he did life.

With me.

I met him at work at my old job and he and his wife invited me over for dinner one time and they live out in the country and, and miss Patty made an awesome meal. And then we sat down and we opened up that, that Bible that I was, you know, unsure of and what am I getting myself into?

And I just have to say that that dear man is still a part of my life today. And when he goes home to be with the Lord, it's really going to be a part of my heart that goes with it. So as I study discipleship, isn't that what the rabbis did in Jesus day that each student would, if I remember right, Matt, didn't they live with the rabbi?

Is that how that works? And how would that translate into our 21st century discipleship today?

Well, I don't know if they did or didn't live with them, but I wouldn't be surprised that if that were the case, but that would mean that they were moving into being a Pharisee. If they were, they wanted to be completely given to that as a career.

And so they would live the Pharisees and that would make sense at that point. But we don't do it like that. You know, some people do. Some people actually will say, come into my house and live and I'll disciple you for a.

Few months.

Some do. I wouldn't do that. But some do.

So it's OK.

All right.

There's a break. We've got to go, buddy.

All right.

I think that's awesome. Thanks, Matt.

God bless.

OK.

God bless.

All right.

Hey, we've got one guy waiting. And if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

Be right back.

Witnessing to Muslims and Speaking with Clarity

It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right.

And welcome back to the show. Let's get to Matt from Cary, North Carolina. Welcome.

You're on the air.

Hey, thank you, man. Thank you so much. So I probably heard, listened to your show off and on probably for the past two years and just finally had the courage to ask you a question because I had went to the soccer game last night.

It's called the soccer tournament. And I was talking to a Muslim, and it came across about with our faith. And my question I have that I need help with when witnessing is, when we were just listening to the question, someone was asking, is it, from your point, is it really, I'm trying to get, when I communicate to people, not use metaphors like sometimes Jesus did, versus literacy, like literal comments.

So when I told him, I'm just trying to share the gospel with you and not, and so you're not blind. He goes, what do you mean blind? So is it, is it idolatry as, should we use idolatry or blinded by Satan, blinded by the power of the air?

Well, I'm trying to encourage that. Okay.

Go ahead.

From your different experiences to know that how I could have done better, because it didn't become confrontational. It was just helpful that he knew that, hey, I was born again. He goes, what do you mean born again?

And so I explained it to him. And it was just helpful to know that, guess what? I'm actually like, he's actually, he's not closed off and I'm definitely not closed off because I have no benefit of sharing the gospel with him because I told him, I was like, it wouldn't give me a, let me just let you answer that first.

I have one other question on that. If you have time.

No, I'm not sure what the question. So what is your question?

Is it, is it, is it problematic if I use the word idolatry when witnessing to any person or is it better to say, hey, you know what? Once I was blind by Satan and now I'm not. People understand blindness.

They don't know the term.

Okay.

Okay.

So, okay. Gotcha. So there's your question. So should you say they're idolaters or not? It depends on the circumstance and the individual.

Okay.

So that helps. Some people, it might be appropriate and some people it might not be, and you never know what is the absolute best way to do something. It might be great to say at one time and another not.

It's just how it is.

It's subjective.

So you have to just do the best you can. And if you're talking to a Muslim and he's open to the discussion, you can very politely say, look, I'm not trying to be offensive, but from our perspective, you're serving a false God that makes you an idolater.

We're not trying to be mean. No, you know, that's not an offensive approach. But if you just say flippantly, look, you're Muslim idolater, go with me. That's derogatory. And so you can say the same word, but delivered differently can make a big difference.

So that's what I'm saying. You know, it depends.

Gotcha. So that was helpful last night. So my approach initially was it came across from his vantage point as accusatory that Mohammed was pretty much, I'm going to say false. I initially said false prophet.

Yeah, good for you.

And then he was like, well, he wasn't. And then I was like, he goes, well, what's your view? I was like, I don't have a view. I have Jesus's testimony. I don't have my view. I have my own.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He says, what's your view on what?

He goes, what's your view on Christianity? I was like, I don't have a view. I have Jesus's word.

OK, OK, OK, OK. You don't have a view on Christianity, so you don't believe in the Trinity or do you have a view on the Trinity or who Jesus is or what salvation is?

Oh, yeah. So what he was getting at is he thought I had an opinion of my faith. I don't have a thing. I have facts.

I don't have a hold on.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

You keep making these statements and you jump. You keep going. You got to stop.

OK.

Be slow.

OK.

To say you don't have an opinion is not true. You do have an opinion. Your opinion is it's what you believe. Can you prove that what you believe is true? Proof is for mathematics and logic. What you do is you say, from what I understand and what the scriptures teach me, what God's word says is Jesus is God in flesh.

And here's the verses for this. We go with what God says. If they want to say, what's your opinion? Generally, what happens? What's your personal opinion? They're just asking for your subjective idea.

And the reason they might do that is because it's just your opinion. It's not valid. So what I'll say is, well, yeah, I have an opinion about it. But it's resting in the evidence revealed in scripture.

OK.

Gotcha.

OK.

That is extremely helpful. Because what he wants. The reason why I was asking this is because I've never had to. I wouldn't say had to. I've never been opportunistic enough to have the opportunity to be able to witness to a Muslim.

And it was awesome. And then he was asking me questions and he goes. I was like, let me pull up the SV. He goes, what version is that? I was like, it's the English standard version. I let him know how he was open to even listening to William Tyndall, how he's burned out the stake for converting it, translating into English.

I spent an hour with him and it was so beautiful. But when I heard this, I was like, I need to know this because my parents are. I live with my parents and. My family members are the hardest to witness to.

You've got that right.

Beyond. And so thank you for that help. Because I didn't know. I was I was just trusting the spirit to lead me with questions. What he did.

It's good.

And it was.

I'm going to do that.

I think the fact of. Yeah.

So that slow down a little bit. Oh, yeah.

OK.

Yeah.

It was.

I think it was the fact of the eagerness of I don't care about. I let him know. I was like, I don't care about being right or wrong. I want to know if you want.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You don't care about being right or wrong. So it's OK to be either right or wrong because you don't care.

You see.

OK, that's a good question. OK, one more time.

See, look, you have to be careful of what it is you're saying. I've done this for a long, long time.

OK, so you have to be listening for two years. So I want to. I need to hear your helpful insight.

Yeah. You do care about what's right and wrong. So you don't say I don't care about right and wrong.

What?

You say I care about what's right and wrong. And what I base what's right and wrong on is God's word. The scriptures. That's what you you point back to the word. You point back to Christ. Whatever your opinions are, whatever your cares are.

You want to relate them back to the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately, that's what you got to do. So if they say, well, what's your opinion? Well, my opinion is this. It's based on the word of God that Jesus died, rose from the dead.

As the as the. The disciples wrote in their their eyewitness accounts. And that's why I believe that.

Gotcha. OK, so I think I think the hardest thing I've had with this in general is sharing the gospel. Whoever it is, is the fact of my opinion. Also happens to be absolute truth. And I think not. I think I know what other humans have.

What's that?

They believe that Mohammed is absolutely true and that the Quran is absolute.

Truth.

They believe it. So what's your opinion? Well, what I'll do with Muslims is we're having these kind of conversations. And I'll say, look, you believe Islam is true, right? Why? And I want them to give me reasons.

Well, because Mohammed, you know, got revelations from God. I'm going to say, look, I'm not trying to be just nitpicky. But how do you know? Just because he said it. How do you know that he said it? What miracles did he do?

Miracle of the Quran? Well, that's just saying it's a miracle.

He wrote it.

I mean, Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. Is that a miracle? The Bhagavad Gita. Is that a miracle? The Second Health Key to the Scriptures by Mary Beccaretti.

Is that a miracle?

So just because he wrote it. So you have anything besides he just wrote a book. And give me something more. Now, what they're going to have to do is start defending the validity of the prophet. And so, you know, how do you know he's true?

Because.

Because.

Tell me, how is he true? What I've done is asked a question. I have not told them he's wrong. I'm asking him to demonstrate why he's right. And that's very difficult for a Muslim because they don't have rationality.

They don't have facts. They have opinion based on what they've been brainwashed to believe. Hold on, we've got a break, OK? Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. And we'll be right back.

The Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Case for Christ

It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

All right.

Welcome back to the show. The bottom of the hour. Matt, are you still there, buddy?

Yes, sir.

OK.

So, as I was saying, you want to have the Muslim, if possible, defend their faith. Defend his faith.

OK.

How does he know it's true? Just because the Koran is there. And then, you know, I have stuff memorized. So I say, well, so the Koran's true? Well, in Surah 42, it says if there's any discrepancies in the Koran, then it's not from Allah.

Right?

And they'll say, yeah.

And I say, well, if you go to Surah 86, five through seven, it says that a man's seed, you know, a seed of his body, you know, is formed in his chest. And I'll show this to them.

I say, no.

So how do you know the Koran's true? That's one way of doing it. Another way I will approach Muslims is, are all of your sins forgiven right now? I've done this with Muslims many times.

OK.

And they'll say, well, we hope. And there's a phrase in Arabic, inshallah, that if God wills, if Allah wills. I say, OK, so do you know if all your sins are forgiven right this second, right now? If a meteor were to come out of the sky and kill us both, would you go to paradise?

Would you go to the garden? Would you go to heaven?

Or not?

They can't say yes. They say, well, look, I got something for you then. In my faith with Christ, who we believe is God in flesh, that he did everything necessary. Now I'm giving the gospel. See, he did everything necessary and that all I have to do is trust in what he said.

You get a lot of wind.

You got to trust in what he did. Doesn't mean we can be bad. We got to be good and stuff like that. And that all of my sins are forgiven by my trust in what he's done. Then I ask him this question. Why should I give up what I have for what you have?

I have absolute forgiveness of sins and you don't. Why should I give it up?

OK.

Yep. And that's what's kind of neat about that is the last five minutes. When he was getting ready to take his left, he was a soccer player. He goes, and I was like, you know, you're going if you were to die tonight, man.

I don't know. He goes, I hope heaven. I was like, you hope or you know. And I gave him a hug and I was like, man, this is a beautiful moment and a beautiful time. And I will pray for your soul.

Good.

Good for you.

Yeah.

So what you said was it came down to the fact that it's not the hope that you're going there. And what you just mentioned is one thing I did. However, it started confrontational. And that's when he had the assumptions about Christianity.

And I've had initial assumptions about Christianity, I mean, Islam. But actually, you know. But I let him know. I gave my testimony. And then once I gave my testimony, then he was all ears. Until then, it was like back and forth.

And I was like, this is awesome. But this what you just helped me with is knowing how to take a few deep breaths, be more calm and be more punctual with my words.

Yeah.

Like opinion and absolute truth. I think growing up, not I think I know growing up, there was like my dad would always say, I think it's hot. He would say, well, Matt, it's 90 degrees outside. Is it hot or is it cold?

Like, it feels hot or it is hot. And I was like, well, it feels hot. I was like, it doesn't necessarily mean it is hot. So I think that my growing up was like knowing and being other than being where I always have infected me.

And this conversation with you has helped me give me to slow down when I'm talking. It'd be more calculated with my words. Therefore, there's no miscommunication.

It takes practice.

Okay.

Heck, it was my first time ever. I was born again at 31. I'm almost 40. And that was the first interaction. I'm like, this is nine years I've been looking for that day. Just like my wife. She always can't wait because she's ex-Mormon.

When I first met her, she was ex-Joseph Smith's wife. And she laughs often now. She goes, I can't wait when they randomly show up. She goes, I missed them three times. Bring them on. So I'm like, thank you for that help again.

Sincerely. I've had no guidance.

You did fine. Good for you.

I appreciate it. I'll do my best. Thank you again.

Okay.

God bless. All right. Enjoyed that.

That was fun. That was good.

Debating Women Pastors and Elders from Scripture

Let's get to Ward from South Carolina. Ward, welcome.

You're on the air.

Hey, how you doing?

Let me check.

Hey, can you hear me?

I'm doing okay.

I had to check.

I'm trying to listen to my truck radio while I'm talking through my phone. It's a little weird to me. I don't know how to switch it over. Quick question. Meet a group of people.

I can't understand you. I couldn't understand you. Not very good there. Go ahead.

Try it again.

Quick question.

I can't understand you. You're breaking up.

I can't understand you.

You're breaking up so bad.

Okay.

Take off my radio so I can hear you better. I hope you can hear me better.

That's much better. Much better.

Okay.

I'm going to slow down now and start over. I'm nervous. First time caller.

That's all right.

My wife has got the truck.

It's okay.

Every Wednesday, we have a Bible study. At the end of it, we all hold hands.

Okay.

Last night's Bible study, I'm sorry, two nights ago's Bible study was about the Lord's Prayer. And the King James Version forgive us.

Yes.

The prayer we say talks about, is there a difference. Like, I mean, we're not saying it exactly like it says. Okay.

You're breaking up there, but I can still help. So trespass is the word paraptomata. And debts is from ofilema. And sin is the word hermartia. So the King James was translated with fifth, sixth century documents.

And that's why I don't recommend using the King James. Go to the newer translations, which have more ancient documents. Because there's a few variations in some of the copyists and some of them. And so it's better to go with the NASB, for example, or even the ESV.

And then you'll have less problems. So what it says in, as I'm looking, I can look at the Greek here. Go back to, let's see, Matthew 6, 12. It says, forgive us our debts. And the word there is from ofilema, which means a legal debt.

Okay.

That's what it means.

All right.