Personal look into the Testimony of Andrew Rappaport

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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On this episode of The Wrap Report, I have something a little bit special for you and probably the most personal

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I've ever gotten on a podcast. I was recently on a podcast called Reboots Podcast and I was interviewed.

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The podcast is about people who have, well, they need to take a reboot in life.

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There's a lot of really good stories that are explained on that podcast.

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Mine was one of many that you can listen to and I wanted to share this with my listeners because I really don't typically get this personal with my podcasts and some things came out that really give you some insight into me and how

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I came to know Jesus Christ and what it was like afterwards and how my family got along with that.

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I get asked that a lot and so this may be something that is insightful and helpful for you.

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So, enjoy this episode that's from another podcast, The Reboots Podcast. You just have to understand, this is the

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Jewish way of thinking. I was raised to believe that Jesus Christ is Hitler's God.

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This is the way we're taught. I remember sitting in Hebrew school, they lined us up, all the kids, and I remember our teacher, she goes, she put a thing like a machine gun and went, boom.

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She goes, that's what Jesus Christ would do to you. Oh, wow. We were raised with a hatred for Christ.

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So, I was not someone looking to be a Christian. Reboots episode

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R -044 features Andrew Rappaport. He's a Christian apologist and a prolific podcaster.

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In this episode, Andrew gets real and personal. He tells the story about the death of his mother when

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Andrew was very young and what it was like to grow up in a wealthy Jewish family from New Jersey.

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Andrew explains how a fortune cookie and a shocking conversation with a bus driver who had a sixth grade education helped him unlock the key to complex calculations.

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In Andrew's mind, this conversation demonstrated that the Old Testament is divine scripture.

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Now, Andrew kept his faith, his conversion, a secret for a while.

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And once he finally admitted he was following Christ, Andrew also opens up about how family relationships deteriorated for a long, long time.

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There are twists and turns to Andrew Rappaport's life adventure, and it is my privilege to share this glimpse into the events that have shaped

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Andrew Rappaport. Andrew, thanks for inviting us into your life today.

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It's a pleasure to get to sit down and visit with you and let you share your testimony with us.

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Well, it's my privilege for being here to be with you and be part of your podcast. We've talked about offline, we've talked about your story a little bit, and it is a powerful faith reboot.

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And I want to save plenty of time to dive into that. But first, I want to give our guests an idea of what your life is like now.

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You've got a ministry, your daughter just got married in the last couple of months, and just kind of walk us through what your life is like today.

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Andrew Rappaport My life in one word, insanity. I'm a very busy man.

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I work for Striving for Eternity. I'm the founder and executive director, and it's a discipling ministry.

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We do conferences, we travel and do seminars. I do a Bible interpretation made easy seminar, do evangelism seminars, apologetics seminars.

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We have some other speakers that do creation science. We even have a guy who is one of Georgia's leading experts on sexual abuse, the thing everyone wants to be the expert in, not right.

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But he goes into churches and teaches them how to be safe in those areas. Nicole Krasinski Excellent. Andrew Rappaport Yeah, it's really needed.

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It's scary, people don't realize. He freaked me out when he told me this statistic, but 75 % of the people that get caught with sexual abuse, it's the first time they get caught.

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In other words, when you do background checks, it's catching the 25 % that have already been caught. But he said that people can have up to 100 abuses before they get caught.

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Nicole Krasinski Oh, my. Andrew Rappaport Yeah, so the background checks just aren't enough. You have to know what to look for. And so he goes into churches and does seminars on that and church history.

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So we have those, we have the Striving Fraternity Academy, where we teach systematic theology, harmonetics, which is how you interpret the

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Bible, intro to discipling. And we have a course on world religions, and we're adding more. And so those courses are actually free.

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That's how we make our money. We offer them on YouTube for free right now. Nicole Krasinski That's how you make your money. Andrew Rappaport Exactly.

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They're not even monetized, so it's not even that. But we do that because we're actually giving seminary level training to pastors overseas in countries where all they need is

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English and internet. And so what we do is we sell the syllabuses. That's how we actually make the money for the courses.

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And then recently, we've started the Christian Podcast Community, which is how you and I got kind of connected through podcasting.

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And it's a new realm of us discipling others. As podcasters come in, we're discipling them in the realm of podcasting, but we have a crazy, crazy idea.

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We think that Christians should be about the business of promoting others and serving others rather than ourselves.

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I know it's crazy, especially with Christians online, but we kind of think it's biblical. And so that's what we want to do.

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So much of what we see online is people trashing each other, and we want to make a change in that and help podcasters promote one another.

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Because the more you're promoting others, that's the best way to get your podcast out there is to be on other shows or to be promoted on other shows.

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And so if we have different podcasts promoting one another, it helps everybody. I don't think that it's got to be, oh, it's got to be my podcast.

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But I do several podcasts. Actually, I do the Wrap Report Daily, which is a two -minute Monday through Friday podcast.

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I do the Wrap Report, which is my weekly hour -long one where we get into more detail on things.

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Both of them deal with biblical interpretations and applications on all things

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Christian life and social media culture. Then I do Apologetics Live every

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Thursday night, and that turns into a podcast. That's a friend of mine, Matt Slick, and he's from karm .org,

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Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. And he and I just do it. We open it up to an open hangout. Anyone comes in.

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We used to get a lot of atheists. Now we're getting a lot of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. I don't know why that changed, but it's open.

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So anyone can ask any question or give a challenge. We get a lot of people that just ask, hey, I got stuck on this. I was asked this.

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I didn't know how to answer it. So we do that every Thursday night. We started up Colleen Sharp, who is from Theology Gals, but she's the administrator of the

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Christian podcast community. And she and I started up a new podcast about podcasting. It's called

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So You Want to Be A Podcaster. And so that's going to start, I think, the second week in February.

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We're going to be dropping the first couple episodes. And I'm trying to think I have another podcast, but I can't even think of it.

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Andrew, no wonder you're a busy guy. Well, I'm also working on a book.

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I have a book that I've written called What Do They Believe?, which is a systematic theology of major Western religions.

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So I look at Judaism, which we'll talk about later, Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah Witness, and Christianity.

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And from their source material, what I've tried to do is systematize them. So I look at what's their authority, their view of God, specifically

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Trinity, their view of Jesus Christ, specifically deity, view of man's sinfulness, salvation, and in times.

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And then to follow that up, I did a more detailed book of what do we believe, giving a description of the

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Christian faith. Something that's not super thick, like you usually see with a Wayne Grudem or anyone like that.

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So it's thin, easy to read, so that everyone can get started in studying theology.

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And I'm working on a book on the deity of Christ, just through the gospels. You made me tired just you going through the hats that you wear,

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Andrew. Wow. My wife and I were actually talking about this about an hour or two ago, and she was, because I have a board meeting coming up this weekend and my board does not like to keep with my schedule.

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They're like, we take breaks, have a meal. I just want to work straight through all weekend. And my wife goes, they only have to deal with you for a weekend once a year like this.

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I live with this for 24 years. So yeah, you told me a few weeks ago when we were visiting that your wife made you make a very interesting promise before she agreed to marry you, right?

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Yes. My wife made me promise that I would sleep every night and for the most part, kept it.

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Except for about maybe five, six times in 24 years. But yeah, when she and I met,

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I was sleeping every second to every third day, and I would only sleep about three hours.

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Oh, my. I thought my racing brain was bad. Yours must be, wow.

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Yeah. As my wife says, you don't want to live with me. Well, she clearly loves you and you're clearly doing something right, my brother.

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I say that I drugged her and it just hasn't worn off yet. I can't explain it any other way.

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Yeah, I'm not buying that. Well, let's kind of dive into your story.

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You've got a part of your testimony on your website, and I'll post a link to that in the show notes.

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Kind of walk me through this time in your life when life was good and now all of a sudden you're a child and life starts to get really confusing.

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Can we just pick up at the heaviest part of the whole thing? Sure. Yeah, I was about nine years old when

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I found out that my mother had... Well, I knew a couple of years prior she had MS, but when

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I was nine years old when I found out she had melanoma cancer. It was a hard time.

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My mom was in the hospital for the last six months of her life. I still remember, as a child, you don't think things through as well as you do as an adult.

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I think my dad meant well, but my dad kept telling my sister and I, because we fought like cats and dogs and he had so much other things going on that we couldn't comprehend at that time.

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He was always like, if you guys are just really good, I'll let you go see mom in the hospital. And so we both, the last day of school, we get called to the principal's office half an hour before school is let out.

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And we have now convinced ourselves that we've been so well -behaved that we're going to go see mom in the hospital.

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And that's our expectation. And we were told my dad's picking us up and so he picked us up and he gets in the car and he let us know that our mother had actually passed away that day.

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I'm so sorry. I wasn't good at handling it. My dad, at least, was smart enough to not say it until we were basically pulling in the driveway.

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And I literally opened the car door and jumped out of the moving car to run up to my room. And my cousin, who was just told that his aunt, my mother, had gone away on a long trip because he was much younger, he didn't understand.

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So he comes in my room just wanting to play and I launched a TV at him. And yes, my dad realized he's dealing with some anger issues.

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I became a little bit violent. So much so that actually for the next couple of years, if people, keep in mind,

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I'm in third grade, that's when all the mom jokes come out. And people would do mother jokes with me.

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And to this day, I cannot tell you what I actually did. I would black out. And I can only know, the only reason

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I trust that I actually did the things that were claimed was because there were so many witnesses.

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I supposedly, at summer camp, picked up the biggest kid in the bunk. I chased him out.

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He made a mother joke. I chased him out. And somehow me, I was a scrawny little kid, but five adult eyewitnesses said

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I picked him up, threw him in a garbage can and kicked him down a hill. Wow. The only thing that I remember is chasing him down, chasing him out of the bunk, and then walking up the stairs back up to the bunk.

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I remember nothing in between. And they were telling me I did this. And I was like, there's no way I did that to him. He's the biggest kid and I'm the smallest kid.

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That's not possible. And so, yeah, I became quite violent in a bad way.

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Didn't know how to deal with it. And my parents didn't know how to deal with me dealing with it. Right.

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I'm so sorry, Andrew. I was nearly 50 when my dad died and that was hard.

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I can't even imagine what it must have been like to be a third grader. Unfortunately, the only memories

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I really have of my mom are spankings because I got a lot of them. Well, if you've got a racing brain, that's probably pretty normal, right?

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Yeah. I wasn't a good student in school because I was just bored senseless.

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Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I get it. All right. So, you're dealing with this rage and you're beginning to grow up, and a spoiler alert, you grew up in a

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Jewish household, right? Yeah. So, what's that like? A melded family, at some point your dad gets remarried.

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How are you navigating this rage within the Jewish faith and in your family?

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My dad got remarried a year later to someone who had two children. Her husband passed away as well.

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And so, you had two families that were dealing with grief, getting together. And it was in some sense therapeutic because it was helpful to have someone else who's not dealing with the same person that they lost.

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In other words, I would talk with my stepsister who lost her father. That was a little bit helpful in some ways.

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But yeah, growing up in a Jewish home, I'm from a Levitical family, actually of the

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Korahites. If you study the Old Testament, the Korahites are those that are responsible for keeping of the temple.

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We went to Hebrew school. I was in Hebrew school from the time of four or five years old up until I was 15.

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So, I went to Hebrew school, was bar mitzvahed. And we just kind of dealt with things.

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I was in a lot of counseling because of someone actually became really clear in school pretty quick not to make mother jokes with me because I couldn't control myself.

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Yes, I would hope so. And you know what? That's appropriate. Yeah. And I feel bad for some of the things that I've been told

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I did during those years. But really, that all changed when

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I met Christ. Now, you have to understand being raised Jewish, a generation after the

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Holocaust, this sounds harsh for many Christians. But you just have to understand this is the

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Jewish way of thinking. I was raised to believe that Jesus Christ is Hitler's God.

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And that sounds harsh. Let me explain why we think that. Hitler was financially backed by the

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Catholic Church. He was trying to claim that what he did, in the name of Christ, Jewish people, we teach our children to have that long history.

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We'd remember and have stories about what happened in the inquisitions and in the crusades and then in the

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Holocaust, which was just a generation before me. So, it was fresh in the minds of those that were teaching me.

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So, we're always being taught to remember the Holocaust and the persecution that as Jewish people would suffer.

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And so, this is the way we're taught. I remember sitting in Hebrew school, they lined us up, all the kids.

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And I remember our teacher, she goes, she put a thing like a machine gun and went, boom. She goes, that's what Jesus Christ would do to you.

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Oh, wow. We were raised with a hatred for Christ. So, I was not someone looking to be a

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Christian. It really was a three and a half hour conversation. I was on what's called the teen tour.

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It's basically when, in my case, Jewish parents want to get rid of their child for the summer, and he's been kicked out of two summer camps.

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So, he can't do a sleepover camp because he keeps getting kicked out. So, I went on a teen tour and we traveled around.

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There were like 35 kids and some adults as counselors. And the bus driver was a

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Christian and he was evangelizing all the Jewish kids. And I remember we were in San Francisco, 1984.

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So, you could figure out how old I am now because I was 16 at the time. But basically, we sat there over a fortune cookie, he starts sharing the gospel and he's explaining the gospel.

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And I remember after about an hour, I just said, dude, that's nice. I literally, to my shame, this was my response to him.

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I said, Chuck, that's great for you, but I'm God's chosen people.

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I'm in like Flynn. Because I had been told that I'm the elect. I'm part of the elect.

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I'm going to heaven because I'm Jewish. We're God's people. And so, I wasn't looking for a savior.

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I knew I was a sinner. That wasn't a problem. I mean, I almost burnt my house down twice. Once we had put it out with an extinguisher, the second time the fire department was called.

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So, I at least improved on my practice.

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But I didn't think I needed a savior. And when I listened to Chuck, I just thought it was emotionalism.

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It was great for him. I wanted nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Well, that's understandable based on how you had been taught.

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Yeah. And if you want to know if God has a sense of humor, we don't see anywhere in the scriptures where Jesus laughed.

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We see him weeping. We don't see him laughing. But if you want to know if he has a sense of humor, yes, my salvation testimony proves it.

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He took a guy at my age when I was, I was super proud of my intellect. I have 168

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IQ. I've passed the test for Mensa. So, I was proud of that. So, he takes a guy who didn't even pass the sixth grade to give me the most important message of my entire life.

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That's irony. And so, Chuck sat down and he knew his

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Old Testament and his New Testament well. Well enough that he said,

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I said, if you want me to believe, I said, here's what he had in his saying. This is not good for, I'm an evangelist.

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And this is not anything I would tell other evangelists to do. When I told him I was God's chosen people,

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I was in like Flynn, he turned to me and said, and this isn't theologically sound.

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It's pretty offensive. If you think about it, you know my background that you've now heard. He said, what if your mother died?

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So, you'd be right here right now listening to this message and you walk away. She would have died in vain.

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I remember my back was to him. I clenched my fists. Now, typically in a previous time,

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I would black out. I wouldn't have recalled it. I remember clenching my fists. I turned around. I stuck my finger at him.

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I said, if you give me a logical reason to believe, I'll believe. And he said, okay. And so, we sat down on steps of a dairy queen in San Francisco and he opened up the

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Old Testament and then opened up the New Testament. I was looking at the fulfillment of scripture. And with my brain, my way of thinking,

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I'm running calculations in my head with every one of them. I'm calculating the chances, the probabilities of someone being born.

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Okay. You got to be born in Bethlehem. Okay. How many people could have been at Bethlehem at the time? And I'm doing all these calculations.

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And we got to a point where I stopped him. I said, Chuck, we are beyond statistical impossibility, which is 10 to the 48th power.

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It is impossible for these to happen by coincidence. I said, so what that tells me is that the

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New Testament had to have been written by God. I didn't believe in Christ. I just believe New Testament was written by God at that point.

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I said, tell me what the New Testament believes. What does it teach? And so, he starts talking about Christ, about him being

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God, coming to earth and dying in my place on the cross, and then raising from the dead.

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And I went, wait, dead people don't rise. And so, I don't know if you're familiar with Josh McDowell's book,

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Evidence Demands a Verdict or More Than a Carpenter. Yeah. It's been a long time since I've read it. I've read it probably in high school and I'm a little older than you, honestly.

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So, yeah. Well, I hadn't read that book at that time, but in those books, he goes through all the false views of the resurrection.

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Maybe they got the wrong tomb. Maybe he wasn't really dead. And I actually came up with every one of them.

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My last one, I think is original with me. My last attempt to explain away the resurrection, maybe they dug a hole underneath the tomb, came up through the center, took the body out.

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And Chuck goes, in three days, they didn't have heavy equipment. And sitting there on the steps,

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I just put my hands in my face, put my head down and was shaking my head. And he says, what's wrong?

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I said, if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then he must be God. If he is

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God, then I'm accountable to him for my sin. What do I have to do to get right with him? And so, there on the steps of the

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Dairy Queen at 16 years old, I repented, put my faith in Jesus Christ and became a

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Christian. So, in three and a half hours, I went from believing that Jesus Christ is Hitler's God to a follower of Jesus Christ.

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I thought all Christians could say like that way that I didn't realize that people hear the gospel over and over and over again.

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It was just one time for me. And I was so bold, so bold with my faith that I told absolutely no one for two years.

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I knew the cost that it would be. MARY BASSETT Sure. But before we move on to what it took for you to actually share your conversion,

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I want to unpack a couple of things. One, were you able to keep in touch with Chuck?

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Where's Chuck now? AUSTIN I have always wanted to keep in touch with Chuck. So, I kept in touch with Chuck up until the time that my parents had found out what happened.

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And Chuck felt God wanted to bring him to New York. And -

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MARY BASSETT And that's where you live. AUSTIN Well, I live in New Jersey. And so, he lived in Ohio.

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So, he was going to come from Ohio to New York at the same time my parents were moving to Florida.

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And so, we lost touch. I mean, so, here's a guy, he has no idea that some kid that he shared the gospel with, pastored a church, is an apologist, travels literally the world.

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I'll be in the Philippines in a few months to do conferences. He has no idea.

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He will one day. One day, I can't wait to see him in heaven. I can't wait just to thank him.

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MARY BASSETT Okay. Next question that I kind of want to back up and close the loop on. I've asked this question a lot, and it's sort of a random rabbit hole.

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So, what do you think made Jesus laugh? AUSTIN What do I think made Jesus laugh?

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MARY BASSETT Yeah, because you know, he had to laugh. Don't you think he laughed? Don't you think he had fun? AUSTIN I've often thought about that, because I'm curious to know what he laughed.

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Because in Proverbs, it says that humor is good medicine for the souls.

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So, obviously, he's not against humor. It might not be some of the sarcastic humor that we like.

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MARY BASSETT Yeah, probably not. AUSTIN Though, Christ is pretty sarcastic. People don't realize that.

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I mean, you read the gospels and... MARY BASSETT But that's more like sarcasm for reproof.

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I don't know that any of that sarcasm... AUSTIN Is for humor's sake. MARY BASSETT Yeah, it would be an uneasy.

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Oh, no. AUSTIN Yeah, I really don't know what it is that would have made him laugh.

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I would love to know what kind of jokes he would tell. I think that he uses irony in our lives a lot.

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I mean, I think there's a lot of things that we just tend to think that God is not involved in our lives.

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And yet, he is. I think we often kind of live our Christian life. And a lot of times, we forget from where we came.

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We forget what Christ has done in our lives through years of living and walking with him and being sanctified.

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I know that things like my humor have changed. I used to hang out with a bunch of guys that were called the

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Rudeness Brothers, so you could kind of tell what we thought was funny. Yeah, so I hope that my humor has changed, but I'd love to know what makes

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God laugh other than putting people... I think that he thinks it's funny that, oh, you think you're really smart?

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Let me bring someone into your life that you would... Because I did. I looked down at Chuck. Once I found out Chuck didn't finish the sixth grade,

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I did not have much respect for him, because who I was back then, I didn't respect people that I didn't think were intelligent.

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That's to my shame. But that's how God teaches us. Yeah, I get it.

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Me too. One more rabbit I want to chase, and really, it's more like a loose end, and I think it will propel us forward.

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One of the first things that you explained is that you come from a Levitical family, and I have about an inch worth of understanding about that, but I know enough,

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I think, to be fascinated that you are so heavy into Christian doctrine.

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I mean, it's almost like it's part of your DNA to have an intricate understanding of the doctrine of God on all different types of faiths, and that you understand the differences of the doctrines.

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Does that make sense to you? I mean, is that like, oh, I get it? I think the reason maybe

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I get it is I really try to work hard at not reading in my beliefs into what someone else believes, or to assume what someone's going to believe.

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I really try to be fair with what others believe, and it's one of the things

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I'm known for doing, is not taking people out of context to really take the time to understand what it is that they believe, or what they're thinking, and then not use straw man arguments.

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And so, it's one of the reasons that I think that people appreciate my counsel when

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I do counseling with them, because that's the feedback I've gotten, and I just always assumed everyone is like that.

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And I've come to realize, no, most people don't really sympathize well with others, because they are looking at how they would respond to the same situation, instead of trying to understand how the person they're talking to is responding, and why they respond the way they respond.

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So, I think it's because I'm empathetic in that way, that I try to understand what it is, and why people believe and think the way they do, that I can study the

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Quran, and really try. I mean, here's one of the things I did when I did my world religions book. After I was done with the chapters,

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I met with an imam, I met with a rabbi, I met with an elder in the Mormon church.

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And so, in each of the religions, I tried to meet with people that were authorities, and sometimes several of them.

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And I would ask them if what I'm teaching is right. And you know, one of the things I really appreciate, I was at a Mormon event, evangelizing to the

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Mormons, sorry, did I correct that? They're not called Mormons anymore, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints. So, I was at an event where, and we had this guy,

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Brian, who said to me that all Christians, he said, there's no Christian that describes

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Mormonism accurately. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, I'll give you a free copy of my book, if you'll review it and tell me where I'm wrong.

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He came up with six things, three of which are grammar, two of which he said are nonsense issues, like they're not even important.

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One that he said is such a minor issue, but it was something in their beliefs,

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Jesus and Lucifer are brothers and the birth order was the issue. It's a minor, minor issue.

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There's some questions on it. So, I just said, okay, well, I'll correct that one thing. And he said, that's the most

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I could find. I appreciate that because it means I'm not misrepresenting them. I mean, that's the thing about my book,

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What Do They Believe? I'm not trying to refute the religions. I want people to be able to read that and say, okay, I understand what a

30:50

Muslim believes. So, when I speak to a Muslim and I say, well, do you believe this? They're not going to reject me out of hand.

30:56

When I talk to a Muslim and they tell me I believe in three gods, I immediately know they don't understand anything about Christianity.

31:02

They understand Christianity from the lens of the Quran. And so, right off the bat, I have no respect for what they're going to challenge me with on Christianity.

31:11

I don't want Christians to do that. I want Christians to be accurate when they describe, well, you believe this, don't you?

31:18

You're like almost a theological journalist. And I'm probably scholar is a better word, but I relate to the journalism side in the old days when we worked to be objective, right?

31:32

And so, that's kind of how I - Real journalism, right? Yeah. I used to be a real journalist, not one of these fake news journalists.

31:39

Anyway, probably shouldn't have gone there. I'm totally on board with you. I've asked the question, what has happened to journalism for many years?

31:47

Because now they're just talking points for a political party. It's the 24 -hour news cycle, which is why

31:54

I don't watch television news. A great book to get, How the News Made Us Dumb.

32:01

It's phenomenal the work that's done that book. You as a journalist would read that and understand, yep, what you just said is the conclusion he came to.

32:10

Interesting. Okay. I feel like we're all caught up on questions that I had about your early development and your conversion.

32:20

So, you've already shared this with me that you're 16 years old, you accept

32:26

Christ, and you've caught us up that you kept it a secret. Tell us about how that secret became more public and then walk us through what happened.

32:38

Well, I would just sit and read my Bible. I didn't let anyone know.

32:43

My father actually caught me three times reading my Bible. And all three times is before school,

32:49

I'm sitting, I'd have the habit of reading my Bible and praying. First thing in the morning before I go to school, last thing before I go to bed,

32:57

I would do it as soon as I got home from school. So, I used to read once a day until I read that Daniel prayed three times a day, and then

33:03

I started to do that. My father came in my room. He just knocked on the door, opened the door.

33:09

And when I heard the knock, I quickly would shove the Bible underneath my covers. And my father would walk in seeing that.

33:16

And he's like, what was that? And I'm like, nothing. He's like, what did you just hide underneath your blanket?

33:23

I was like, a book. Oh, yeah. All right. Right. What book?

33:29

And I was like, I'm all afraid. I went, a Bible? And I'm sure he was thinking it was for a teenage boy.

33:37

I'm sure he was thinking it was something else there. And so, sure enough,

33:43

I pull out a Bible, a Gideon Bible that Chuck had given me. He took it from the hotel that he stayed in.

33:49

And so, that was my first Bible. I still have that Gideon Bible today. And I took that out.

33:55

Fortunately, I was always in the Old Testament when he caught me. But his reaction was just, well, you should really meet with the rabbi.

34:03

We were only required to do Hebrew school until we were bar mitzvahed. And then they would ask us to do an extra year. I went a year after that.

34:09

So, I went beyond what was required or requested. And so, my father thought that I just had an interest in religion.

34:16

He was like, well, you should talk to the rabbi. And left it at that. I'm 17.

34:22

I start driving. And I discovered Christian radio. I used to be in the car all the time because that was the only way

34:30

I could actually listen to anything about Christianity. And I would try to sneak watching on Sundays when no one was up.

34:37

I'd try to sneak watching TV and watching some of the preachers on TV. It's not a real great source of Christian education, but that's all.

34:45

I remember a Jehovah's Witness knocking on our door and I was upset that my father turned him away because I thought it might be a way I can learn about Christianity.

34:51

I had no one to teach me. It was me and a Bible for two years. That's my only source of learning about Christianity.

35:00

Terrill Thompson So, you didn't know. And see, that's kind of a strange thing because I live in Arkansas on the

35:07

Bible Belt. And the notion that I wouldn't know any Christians is, that's like, oh my.

35:15

And so, you didn't know any Christians. See, all my friends were Jewish. All my friends were, even at that time,

35:23

Jewish people kept to ourselves. You'll have that in Orthodox communities, but basically, all my friends were

35:31

Jewish for the most part. I had one friend that wasn't. And I ended up from Christian radio learning about Chick tracts.

35:37

I don't know if you remember those little comic book tracts. I ordered a whole pack. So, my father to this day doesn't know that he actually bought gospel tracts for me.

35:47

Okay, I lied about it. I told him that this is back, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons and Christians were coming out against Dungeons and Dragons.

35:54

So, I told him that I needed to get this to something for the Dungeons and Dragons because he didn't care.

36:01

He just signed the check. So, I got a sample tract. I read every single Chick tract.

36:06

That was the only Christian teaching I got at that time. And I used to take to my one Gentile friend who was my best friend,

36:13

I would slide tracts in his locker at school. And so, he didn't know who was doing it.

36:18

I was so bold. Now, I stand on the street corners proclaiming the gospel in New York City.

36:24

And here I am so timid, let me hide it in here. And so, I go off to college. College was not that far from me and you had to go home during the

36:34

Christmas break. And it's the only time in all four years of college they had a rule where you had to take all your stuff home.

36:41

Don't know why? Well, I do know why. It's called God's providence. I brought all my stuff home. When I got to college, I met other

36:46

Christians. And so, I started collecting Christian material. Well, I put it in a drawer at home and Christmas Eve, I went down back to school to a friend's church for a

36:59

Christmas Eve service. I stayed overnight at his house. Christmas day, I come back home. Well, while I was gone, my parents had gone through my room.

37:08

Actually, I think I stayed a couple of days beyond Christmas Day because it was after Christmas, I think. But when

37:13

I got home, they went through my stuff. And my mother saw the gospel tracts.

37:20

Now, remember, we don't make a distinction between Catholicism and Baptist, Lutheran.

37:25

I mean, it's all Catholic. And so, here was a Chick tract that was really condemning Catholicism, but they didn't take the time to read it.

37:34

They saw something about Catholicism with Nazism and they think that's what

37:39

I'm believing. And so, they think I've become Catholic. And what ends up happening is

37:46

I come in the house. My parents were the only ones home except we had a live -in housekeeper.

37:53

And so, she was downstairs. And so, it was just me and my parents. I walked in and it blew up.

37:59

They knew I became Christian. And we had an incident that happened in our family.

38:06

My father told me that he actually went casket shopping and I was going to be dead to them.

38:13

But because of this other incident that happened, he chose not to. And so, this is why

38:18

I say I counted the costs. I knew that when my parents found out that I was a

38:25

Christian, I would be dead to them. I fully expected that they would get a casket, bury an empty casket, and I would have no more communication with my family.

38:36

It's one of the reasons why as a freshman in college, I got into ROTC. My father told me, which is what

38:42

I did expect. If he didn't kick me out of the family, the second step I expected was college would be cut off.

38:49

And he told me he was not paying for college anymore. And I said, I understand. I planned on that.

38:54

And he says, what do you mean you planned on that? I said, well, that's why I'm in ROTC. And now you have to understand my father nearly died in the army.

39:02

The guy next to him got shot and killed. I think that was in boot camp. So, it wasn't even seeing action.

39:09

It was friendly fire that killed the guy next to him. So, he hasn't been a big fan of military.

39:15

He never wanted any of his boys to be in the military. And so, here I'm planning to go in the military because I already planned that he wasn't paying for my college.

39:25

I had that expectation. I knew that. So, he ended up paying for my college, but it was interesting because, so,

39:35

I have a martial arts background. And I remember when I was about 15, my stepmother, she just raises her kids different than my father raised us.

39:44

She's like a slapper. She would hit her kids in the face. I love her.

39:51

It's not that, it's just, this is how she dealt with when she would get frustrated. I remember once she slapped me and I reacted.

39:58

It was just a reaction. I pulled back with a block and the way if you block, you're also hitting the muscle in the arm because if you keep blocking that way, someone's arm has no more punch left in it.

40:12

And as soon as I did it, I realized I was dead because my father was going to kill me. And I ran to my room waiting for my dad to come home.

40:18

This was before I was a Christian. So, he realized

40:24

I knew what I did was wrong. And I'm like, dad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She slapped me and I just reacted.

40:31

I never had that happen before. And so, he realized, I say that to say this, when my mother, she asked me one question, have you been baptized?

40:43

Because that meant I converted. And I said, yes. And at that, she got so frustrated, she started slapping me.

40:49

And I at least now had this self -control where I realized just let it happen.

40:55

She actually, her hand caught, I still wear it today. I got my bar mitzvah, my chai.

41:01

It's Hebrew for life. I'm trying to show you, but it's not going to be good with the microphone in the way. People often see it.

41:06

It looks like a little dog if you've seen that, but she actually broke it.

41:12

She was slapping me, her finger caught in it and it snapped off. So, it was a tough couple of days being home.

41:20

And so, they took me first to a rabbi. And I sat down with the rabbi who, his conclusion was, all religions are good, state of your faith type of thing.

41:31

He's like, I study with the Southern Baptist just to learn. And he really gave up the conversation when

41:36

I basically asked him, I said, listen, in Daniel, we have a 490 -year period from a decree going out of Cyrus to Messiah.

41:49

So, that's 2 ,500 years ago. Where is the Messiah? And I think he realized he had no answer for that.

41:56

And that's where he just said, stick to your own religion. That was the best advice he could give me. So, my parents sent me to a

42:02

Jewish psychiatrist. And one of the things I thought about doing was studying psychiatry.

42:08

When I was a kid, I was choosing between psychiatry and computer science. And I ended up meeting with him.

42:14

So, I used to read psychology today and things like that. It was really funny because he goes through this whole thing of talking with me and my parents and goes, well,

42:24

I think that the issue is, is Andrew was having trouble dealing with the loss of his mother. And so, he turned to these

42:29

Christians and he gets the emotional relationship that he needs.

42:35

And that's why he's doing this. And I did something that psychiatrists probably don't want to have happen in their office when they come to a conclusion.

42:43

I laughed out loud. I just started laughing and he looked at me.

42:48

I said, that is great. And he's like, what? I said, so, you're saying that I became a

42:55

Christian because I want emotional relationship. Is that what you're saying? He says, yeah. I said, that's great because I was a Christian for two years before anybody else knew

43:03

I was a Christian. So, if it was an emotional relationship, you just admitted that I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

43:12

At which point he asked me to step out of the room. And he turned and said to my parents, look, this is a phase.

43:18

Kids go through this. They'll grow out of it. Just ignore it and it'll go away. And so, that's what they tried to do.

43:24

They tried to ignore it. And they did for the most part up until they found out I was going to seminary.

43:30

When they found out I was going to seminary, they realized it wasn't going to go away. And they asked me to go back to the same psychiatrist.

43:38

And I went back to him again. How old are you now? How old are you when this happened? At that point, I'm 23 years old.

43:45

I'm meeting with the psychiatrist. I had just lost my job. The company I worked for went bankrupt. I'm out of work. And this is just before I ended up being homeless, but I'm out of work.

43:55

And I'm explaining. So, he starts with, what are you doing? Look for a job. He's going through my whole life trying to find different things.

44:02

After about 40 minutes, I'm bored. He's got nothing on his paper. He's like, how about your social life? I go, yeah, well, now there's a problem.

44:09

And so, finally, he writes something on the board, social life. And he's like, well, tell me about your social life.

44:14

I'm like, my friends are always complaining I don't have enough time to spend with them. And he's like, scratches that out. And so, he's like,

44:20

I've never met a 23 -year -old kid who can lose his job. It doesn't affect him. You have major things happening in your life and it doesn't phase you.

44:29

He's like, can I share this with your parents? I said, well, they paid for this. I expect you to. Well, that's what he told my parents and a little more.

44:36

He actually told my dad he's willing to pay my way to his alma mater, Texas A &M, for me to get a degree in psychology to go into partnership with him.

44:45

Because that's how much he thought that I could be good as a counselor. I said to my dad, well, that's exactly why I'm in seminary.

44:50

Because much of pastoring, it's preaching the Bible and it's also counseling. And so, he, again, confirmed something that I had been looking to do.

45:00

And so, my parents at that point realized it wasn't going away. So, at 23,

45:07

I was still dealing with that. But then I went through a period where, and this is, again,

45:12

I have a lot of things to be shameful of in my background. To my shame, I ended up being homeless because I ran out of money.

45:19

And this will become important in a couple minutes, but that I didn't tell anybody. Now, here's the crazy thing.

45:24

I'm a deacon in the church. I have the responsibility of the deacon's fund where we have thousands of dollars in the deacon's fund to take care of people who are in need.

45:36

I'm living at, well, okay, a couple of times I'm in the car, but I end up living in a woman's, the person

45:42

I met, living on her couch and paying her 50 bucks. And don't ask me how

45:48

I'd keep finding $50 every week. I had friends that would just either give me money, give me food.

45:54

I had no money for food. And yet, God provided every, even though I was too prideful to let anybody know

46:00

I was struggling. And I had access to the church's deacon's fund and wouldn't let anyone else know that I needed it.

46:09

God still provided food. I'd have a friend that comes over and he's like, my mother cooked too much.

46:14

Do you think you could have this lasagna? Yeah. I rationed that for a whole week.

46:20

I'd eat every other day to ration it. And so here I'm at work. I finally get another job.

46:27

And this is a job that I end up, I go, I find out that they're going to, basically

46:34

I had $50, which would have been enough to get gas. So I chose not to eat. And at this job,

46:41

I meet this woman who has got, I found out she was a Christian from someone else because as soon as I got there, the first thing

46:47

I'm doing is I'm evangelizing everybody. I mean, I'm trying to go get together with them and outside of work to share the gospel.

46:53

One guy mentions that this woman is a Christian. And so I walk in and start a conversation with her.

46:59

She invites me to have lunch with her and her friend and I don't eat. And she's like, why don't you eat? I'm like, not wanting to tell her.

47:06

So after the second day of this, she's like, why are you not eating? And I'm like, because the first day I'm like, oh,

47:11

I'm just not in the mood. I don't feel like having anything. So finally she gets me to spill that I have no money for food.

47:18

The job is going to withhold the check now for two weeks. So now I'm struggling because I'm like, I only have money for gas.

47:26

So I just said, I don't know what I'm going to do. Well, she ends up coming in, leaving four groceries bags of stuff on my desk with a little note that just says

47:36

Acts 2, 44 to 45. And if you know that text, it says that they sold all their goods to give to those in need.

47:43

She ended up telling me afterwards that she gave that verse because she knew I was going to reject the gift.

47:48

And if she put that verse, I wouldn't be able to reject it. And she's a hundred percent right.

47:53

She knows me that well, because when I opened up my Bible and read that verse, I'm like, I got to take this.

47:59

And that was just enough food for me to go till I got a paycheck.

48:05

Now the money was going to run out for gas because they withheld the paycheck. Well, she goes to church and told the story.

48:11

Someone gave $50 to give to me, which was enough gas until I got my first paycheck. So God provided all the way through.

48:19

Now I kept discipling that young lady and very, very happy to say, 24 years ago, she became my wife.

48:27

So she knows me very well. I know exactly where I was when I decided

48:32

I was marrying this girl. She had no interest in an American. Again, to my shame, I told her,

48:38

I liked Italian food, not Chinese food. She's from Hong Kong. So I really didn't want to have Chinese food every night.

48:45

And she was asking me whether you can lose your salvation. I'm giving her answers from scripture. We're going back and forth.

48:51

I knew her church was not really strong doctrinally. And all of a sudden she goes, good, you answered correctly.

48:57

And I went, what? I was like, you were testing me? She said, yes, I was. And so right there,

49:03

I said, I am marrying this girl because as a pastor, I need to have a wife who's going to have a strong independent walk and be willing to challenge me if I'm doing wrong.

49:11

And she has no problems challenging me, trust me. If I'm wrong, she'll let me know.

49:17

And I love it about her. Wow. Okay. One loose end to tie up and I have to respect your time.

49:24

We've talked for a while and you've got places to go, people to see. When you brought up your martial arts background, do you think that helped you manage your rage once you learned the discipline of martial arts?

49:39

I think so. So part of the thing is, is I loved martial arts before I started training and my wouldn't let me do it when

49:45

I was in rage. And I think because they were afraid of that, they knew

49:51

I liked it and they knew I couldn't control myself. I started martial arts training when I was in college.

49:56

So at that point, I was actually already saved. But it does play in, where that did play in is helping me to stay calm more so when my mother started slapping me and more so at a later time in life that we could get to when

50:10

I was hit, which I think you and I talked about when I was 47. Yeah. You've got conflict in your family because of your faith.

50:18

They finally figured out that this isn't a phase, this is your calling plus your profession.

50:26

And things are still strained with your dad at this point, right? Yeah. So I was 47 years old.

50:33

My father asked me to not send emails that have my title, Pastor Andrew, and a scripture verse at the bottom.

50:41

And he's like, this offends me. And I decided I would talk to him in person about the fact that he would use Jesus Christ name as found language.

50:47

I wanted to share the gospel with him. And I was going to start by talking with that. And when I started that conversation, he stood up and squared off.

50:55

Now you have to understand, my father was a golden gloves boxer in the army. So he knew how to throw a punch.

51:02

And I discovered at 47, you're not too old to take a hit from dad. And so I stood up because I realized

51:08

I was sitting in a chair and had nowhere to go. I stood up and you and I talked about this previously is

51:13

I had that where everything seems to slow down. Really what it is, it's not that everything slows down.

51:19

It's your brain gets hyper aware and just thinks of so many things all at once. And I remember he squared off, he's throwing his fist and I'm actually thinking through like, okay,

51:28

I can block it. And then in the last second, he opens his fist and I'm thinking through like, okay, if I block this, this can escalate.

51:36

If I just take a slap, it won't be so bad. And he slaps me and then quickly turns around and gives me a right hug.

51:42

And it hurt. Even at his age, he was like 72, 73, maybe 74th time.

51:49

He still packed a punch. And so that made a major issue. That was at Thanksgiving at my brother's house, that next

51:56

Thanksgiving, kind of we didn't have really where the whole family got together.

52:01

And Thanksgiving, my family always gets together. We didn't that year. And it's probably mostly because of the incident.

52:09

So there were just some hard things that happened. And what ended up happening was we have this incident, things got even more tense between my father and I.

52:21

A couple of years later, we're again at my brother's house, Thanksgiving. My wife is telling my dad how we met and she's telling him how she bought me food.

52:32

And I'm just, again, God's providence, I'm walking past hearing this. I think nothing of it. I just turned to my wife and I said,

52:39

I don't think dad knows, ever knew that I was homeless. And she's like, oh, I wasn't going to tell him that. And I walk off.

52:46

I think nothing of it. My wife thinks nothing of it. My father was crushed at that statement.

52:51

My father couldn't sleep that entire night. The next day, he pulls my wife and I aside.

52:57

We go into my brother's movie theater. My brother has a movie theater in his house. And we're in the theater.

53:02

And the reason we went there is you can't hear a thing. If you're in there, no one's hearing the conversation outside of there. And so we're sitting there.

53:09

My father basically said that when he found out that I was homeless and here you have someone who is a multimillionaire, he could take care of things.

53:21

And I did not go to him for money when I had nothing.

53:26

When I had nowhere to live, I didn't even tell him. He realized how much of a strain on our relationship was brought because of me converting to Christianity.

53:38

So at that time, that was the closest we had ever been, actually probably ever, truthfully, but maybe since the time of shortly after my mother's death when he was trying to build a relationship with me because of my rage.

53:52

This is the first he was starting. And it was the first time I actually got to be able to share the gospel with my parents because he now wanted to try to understand.

54:01

And a lot of it before that was, it's hard to explain to folks, but there's such an issue within Judaism that to be a

54:08

Christian is to be a traitor. It's sort of like Islam is, they rather just not know of it.

54:16

And it really, because of just an offhanded comment, so I think it really got to providence,

54:22

I've been able to start restoring the relationship to the point that my father...

54:28

Now, my father, I once gave him as a birthday present, I gave him the works of Josephus, a

54:33

Jewish historian. I figured that might be safe. My father likes reading. He reads all the time, likes reading history.

54:40

He'll read the works of Buddha and Buddhism and things like that. But so I figured this is safe as on the

54:45

Jewish waters. He returns it to me unopened, still shrink -wrapped.

54:51

That's important because after this incident, I'm at his house. I asked him if I can give him a copy of my book,

54:58

What Do We Believe? And he took it. And it was interesting because here, just a couple of weeks ago, someone was talking to him about Buddhism and he actually said, let me check.

55:11

There's a book that I have on different world religions. He pulls it off and he's flipping through looking to see if I cover Buddhism.

55:17

And his friend goes, the guy on the back of that book looks an awful lot like your son. And he turned and said, that's because it is my son.

55:24

He wrote a book on other religions. To me, that is a huge thing. Sure.

55:29

You are not dead to him. Yeah, because not only was he willing to take the book, read the book, but he no longer was ashamed that his son is an evangelical pastor, apologist, evangelist that writes books on world religions.

55:45

It was a huge thing for me. And so we're starting, and here he is.

55:51

He's going to be 80 years old next year. I've prayed every day for him.

55:57

My dad and mom are the people I think could never, ever be saved. But I never, ever thought that I'd have an opportunity to share the gospel with them or even talk about Christ.

56:08

I was told to change t -shirts when I wore Moses and the 10 commandments. I thought that was safe. But me being a

56:14

Christian as a 20 -year -old, having Moses was no, you can't wear that. Go change your shirt.

56:20

Okay. So it's a huge step. And really,

56:26

I don't think it would have come about if it wasn't by God's providence in small things that I didn't think were big things.

56:33

I didn't think they were anything. Yet God used them in ways I never knew. Even used my pride that would come about years later to help because had

56:43

I not been proud about it, had I not been homeless, we would never have had that incident where I happen to walk by my wife and say, dad doesn't know that I was homeless.

56:53

That's the thing that made all the change in our relationship. Wow. So Andrew, what do you think is the message for someone who is struggling in their faith?

57:08

Well, I would say this. I mean, first off, we got to be faithful to God. I would not encourage people to be prideful like I was.

57:16

Okay. We should never do that. But we need to be faithful.

57:22

Look, we have family that we love. There's a time to share the gospel, but I've always told people there's a time not to.

57:29

If it's with your family who you share the gospel with, they know where you stand. They know the message. You don't have to make every single conversation the gospel.

57:37

Otherwise, they just don't want to be around you. And now you have no more opportunities. And so I say, just be faithful.

57:43

Look for the opportunities where they are. Pray to have opportunities. Don't try to avoid them.

57:49

Try to make them happen. But at the same time, we have to realize that God's in control. I believe that God is the one who saves everybody.

57:58

And therefore, I can't do it. It's not my wise words. It's not my apologetics. It's not my arguments that are going to convince a person.

58:07

It's going to be a work of God. And so I trust in that, and I just pray, pray, pray, and be faithful to what

58:14

God gives. Sometimes God is going to give you that thing that you might think is, in my case, just an offhanded comment, so I think.

58:21

And yet, that's the very thing that made all the difference with my relationship with my dad. Let me make sure

58:26

I understand this. Your dad's salvation is not up to you, right? Correct.

58:32

Yeah. That's powerful, and it's liberating because now you have the privilege of a relationship with him while God does the rest, right?

58:44

I'll tell you where I think it's even more liberating, for parents with wayward children, because they think, what did

58:50

I do wrong? What was wrong in the way I raised them that they walked away from the faith? Now part of it is because, let's get into hermeneutics, how do you interpret scripture?

58:59

Whenever you hear me preach, you're always going to see me teach how to interpret the Bible. Many people take a promise out of Proverbs that was never meant to be a promise.

59:10

Raise your children in the way of the Lord, and when they're old, they'll never depart from it. Now many people take that as a promise, and it's not.

59:17

It's actually a proverb. It's a general rule. The other problem is people don't know the Hebrew enough to know that it's actually the opposite of what's being said.

59:26

The Hebrew actually says, if you train a child in the way he will go, in other words, you train a child in his selfishness.

59:32

You train them to be selfish. When they get old, they will never depart from that. Therefore, the opposite is kind of true.

59:38

We should train our children against that selfishness. Otherwise, they're going to always be selfish. If you ever want them to walk in the way of the

59:45

Lord, you got to teach them against their prideful nature. A lot of people think, well, I raised my kids in the ways of the

59:51

Lord. They should return to the faith. They should be Christians. And we could beat ourselves up over, what did

59:58

I do wrong as a parent? Maybe nothing. Maybe you did everything right as a parent, but God didn't want to do a work in their life yet.

01:00:08

Maybe he will, but he didn't do it yet. And that's the thing. My mother, and this sounds so horrible to say,

01:00:15

I understand that, but I have no reason to believe that my mother will be in heaven. As sweet of a person as she was, when she died, there was literally, to get the police, there was a mile and a half car line to the cemetery.

01:00:30

That's the type of person she was, the impact she had. And yet there's no reason for me to believe she's in heaven because she was a sinner who disobeyed

01:00:38

God, who rejected Jesus Christ and the offer of forgiveness that he offered, as far as I know.

01:00:45

Could she be in heaven? Well, I believe God makes it clear to every single person of his existence.

01:00:50

They know him. They know something of his power. That's Romans chapter one. And therefore, every person, even my mother, who's raised

01:00:58

Jewish, understands Judaism, could have heard the gospel, maybe from a nurse, from who knows who, and received

01:01:05

Christ just before she died. It's possible. But you know what? If she didn't, when I get into heaven,

01:01:11

I'm going to understand how wicked sin really is when I'm standing with Christ. And I'm going to have a different view of things.

01:01:17

And I'm going to understand that if she's judged as guilty, she deserved it, as much as it sounds horrible.

01:01:23

But I also rest in the fact that in Revelation, it says that God will wipe away every tear and every sorrow.

01:01:30

And if she is punished as guilty, my father's punished as guilty, as much as I love them,

01:01:35

I know that I'll have a different perspective of things when I'm in a glorified body and those tears will be wiped away, those sorrows will be wiped away.

01:01:43

It's powerful stuff, Andrew. Before I let you go, you've got a gift for listeners, right?

01:01:52

Is it the book you talked about? The What Do We Believe book? How does that work? What Do We Believe? Yes. So, I want to give to you, for your listeners, and I'll let you figure out how best to promote your podcast with it, but I want to ship to you three copies of What Do We Believe for you to give out, whether you want to do a contest or just people that write reviews, but it's going to be our gift to you for the ministry you're doing with reboots.

01:02:19

Thank you. It really is helpful for people. Let me take a chance to give a plug for your podcast if I could, but it is helpful for people as someone who's a listener to hear people give their testimonies, hear people, whether it's the reboots at work and financially,

01:02:37

I hear those, but people that give the reboots, spiritual reboots, are the ones that I'm always like, wow, that's so great because it's encouraging to me as a

01:02:45

Christian because I'm such a failure in so many ways. Me too. Yeah. And I see these other people and it's like, oh,

01:02:52

I've done that. And then I see how God changes their life in great ways, even sometimes because we do something stupid, which

01:03:00

I'm great at. My mom said, if you're ever good at something, stick with it, being stupid. That's me.

01:03:05

I'm doing dumb things. I'm great at it. You can ask my wife. Your reboots is a great way for people to just get a spiritual encouragement with so many of the testimonies that could be heard there.

01:03:19

So we just want to be striving for strength. We want to be a blessing to others. And so we want to bless you and just give you some copies of What Do We Believe?

01:03:27

So that's the book about systematic theology, about Christianity. What is it that the Bible teaches about Christianity?

01:03:34

That's excellent. Thank you, my brother. We'll work up an idea for how to give that away.

01:03:39

So, yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Anything you want to wrap up with before I let you get on with the rest of your day?

01:03:46

Well, if I'm going to wrap up and my name's Rapaport, I should mention The Rap Report. That's actually how that name came about.

01:03:55

Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport. I'd encourage folks, if they would, subscribe to my podcast,

01:04:02

The Rap Report and The Rap Report Daily. If you like shorter ones, The Rap Report Daily is quick. I'm actually going to start on The Rap Report Daily next week.

01:04:11

From the time we're recording this, I am going to start going through every book of the

01:04:16

Bible in two minutes. And I'm going to try to give an overview of every book of the Bible in two minutes.

01:04:22

And so, in the course of 10 weeks, we'll go through the whole Bible. Actually, sorry, six weeks.

01:04:28

Well, seven because there's more days. But we're going to go through every book and give an overview. And I think that that'd be helpful.

01:04:35

But my longer one, we deal with a lot of different topics, but it's an hour long. I just got done today with an interview with Todd Friel of Wretched.

01:04:43

And great, great interview. We talk about discernment. And is there appropriate time to name names and a time that you shouldn't?

01:04:52

And just check out some of the other podcasts we have at the Christian Podcast Community. It's a lot of fun working with other podcasters, folks like yourself.

01:04:59

This is a great way to teach people. And we're a teaching ministry.

01:05:05

That's what I try to do. I'm always teaching. I'm always discipling. So if you check out

01:05:11

Striving Fraternity and stuff we have, we have courses, we have books, we have lots of things that hopefully would enrich your spiritual life.

01:05:17

So you could go to strivingfraternity .org and check all of that out. We'll have the links in the show notes.

01:05:23

And I know there is a time when you are not teaching and that is when you're sleeping because your wife said so.

01:05:31

My wife said I have to sleep. But maybe I talk in my sleep. Maybe she's listening.

01:05:38

You know, I should ask her, maybe then even. Andrew, it has been a pleasure.

01:05:45

And I could totally keep talking to you for another hour. But I just I've got to let you go. And I bet we'll do this again sometime.

01:05:53

Thank you, my brother. Well, it is it is a privilege having you on. And for folks who listen, you're going to be giving a little bit of coming on to our podcast.

01:06:01

So you want to be a podcaster because you and I recorded a bit that we're going to use for our show. And so I'm looking forward to that.

01:06:08

Awesome. Me too. For more of Andrew's work, check out strivingforeternity .org.

01:06:19

You can subscribe to the Rap Report podcast and or the Rap Report daily or check out his brand new podcast for podcasters with Colleen Sharp.

01:06:30

So you want to be a podcaster. And there are links to these resources plus some other stuff in the show notes and rebootspodcast .com

01:06:39

forward slash episode four four. Hey, I also want to let you know, in case you haven't heard, if you've got thoughts about anything we've discussed, you can visit rebootspodcast .com.

01:06:52

And there's a gray tab on the right hand side of the screen. And it says, talk to us.

01:06:59

If you click that button, you can send us a voicemail message. We would love to hear from you either via the voice message or just send us an email.

01:07:11

Email Tracy T -R -A -C -Y at rebootspodcast .com. I'm Tracy Wenschel and we'll see you next time.

01:07:18

Deo Valente. We hope this episode has helped you in some way.

01:07:31

If so, we'd love to hear from you. Maybe someone you care about might benefit from the Reboots Podcast.

01:07:37

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