Interview with Sean McDowell | Rapp Report Weekly 0010 | Striving for Eternity

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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May 20, 2018

00:00: I'm not really into team sports. I, you're stalling. You're stalling.
00:05: I see what you're doing. Rap report with Andrew where we provide biblical interpretations and applications, this is the ministry of striving for eternity and the
00:22: Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker from your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
00:33: Well, welcome to the rap report weekly edition, and we are recording with a special guest is becoming a pattern.
00:43: We're saying each week we have a special guest, but, uh, this week's special guest is someone many people would know the name and before I get that,
00:53: I'm going to give a little bit of me, my, my background, which may help with our guests to get a little bit more knowing how me and his father have some similarities.
01:02: His father had come from a background. Um, that was not a believer and was challenging and looking at seeing what the scriptures say.
01:12: It took him several months. I think even, even, even years to come to a, to come to faith. Uh, but through a lot of the same view for folks who know me, uh, by looking at scripture, looking at prophecies, looking at the evidence in the scriptures and coming to a conclusion, the new
01:28: Testament was true, but not exactly believing right away in Christ.
01:34: And then, uh, coming to realize a new Testament taught about Christ being God. Then I accept it because new
01:40: Testament must be from God. The book that I'm referring to, actually the first book that I ever got in apologetics, uh, was the book more than a carpenter by Josh McDowell.
01:53: And I got that book and I ate it up and didn't know of anything else in apologetics now for folks who don't know my background being raised
02:03: Jewish. I really didn't have a lot of books on Christian apologetics. So when
02:09: I got to college and had gotten that book, and that was probably about five or six years after becoming a
02:15: Christian, that book was so fundamental to me in, in reassuring my faith and helping me to understand a lot more about the reliability of the scriptures.
02:27: And I wanted more. I got two volumes called evidence demands a verdict volume one and volume two.
02:35: And I devoured those. And if you know those original ones, they were just notes. There was just like an outline.
02:40: It wasn't a book you read, but I read it and I highlighted everything in it.
02:46: And, and then the most recent one, and we'll talk about this later is it's updated and with our, if you look, if you see in the, if those who are watching on YouTube, you see that it is written by both
02:57: Josh and Sean McDowell. And we have Sean McDowell with us here. We're going to talk about a different book later on that he was an editor on that I had an opportunity to work with, but Sean, welcome to the wrap report.
03:11: Oh, Andrew, thanks for having me on. And by the way, I love hearing your story of how my father's book influenced you.
03:17: And to be honest, it's amazing how many people have told me that this was the first book they got. I think
03:23: Michael Kona, the great resurrection expert said this is the first apologetics book he ever got.
03:28: William Lane Craig said it was part of what spurred him to study the resurrection. So these stories are just inspiring.
03:35: So thank you for sharing that. And for having me on. Well, I'll tell you, I was last week, we had
03:41: Jim Wallace, Jay Warner Wallace's and I was telling them this really before evidence demands a verdict.
03:49: There weren't a lot of books being written for apologetics to the layman.
03:55: I mean, the original evidence of man's work was really just notes, but, but. The book more than a carpenter really was an entry level for many people.
04:05: And I think that that really spurred a flurry of apologetics books that we now have out today.
04:13: Well, I think you're probably right about that. I mean, my dad's often told me when he started doing this in the fifties and sixties and then really publishing evidence, early seventies, more than a carpenter, late seventies,
04:24: I mean, it was like C .S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer and almost nobody else doing it on a popular level.
04:33: And then about a decade later, you see people like William Lane Craig and J .P. Morrill and all these other scholars jumping out there.
04:40: So in many ways, he was really a trendsetter when he was writing this. And I've heard so many people, like you said, even though evidence was notes, there's so many people that have read it through because they're just inspired and encouraged by the amount of evidence.
04:55: Yeah. And you know, you have grown up, I can't imagine what, like, you probably always hear this because you're, oh, you're
05:03: Josh McDowell's son, but you are an author in your own right. You write a little bit more, some technical stuff.
05:11: And I know you, I heard you in an interview on Greg Koukl talking about a book you had out that I'm trying to remember the price of it, but it's way out of my price range.
05:21: I think it was your doctoral work. That's right. And I was dying to get that book because you were, you were, you were talking with Greg about some things about the traditions of Peter and what was accepted of, of, uh, with Peter and his death.
05:39: And you, you had a different view of it. And I was like, it got me wanting to read it, but I'm not able to afford it.
05:46: You know what? I did not know they were going to price it that high.
05:51: It's over a hundred dollars. It's a leading academic press and sometimes academic books cost that.
05:59: But actually in the evidence book you're referencing, one of the new updates we did is we added a chapter on the fate of the apostles.
06:06: And I summed up all of the evidence that's there in about, I can't remember, 10 or 15 pages with the sources.
06:14: So that's a much cheaper, easier place to start. Striving for Eternity is a
06:19: Christ -centered ministry focused on equipping people for eternity, and they provide speakers and seminars that come to your church with expertise in theology, hermeneutics, world religions, creation science, evangelism, presuppositional apologetics, church history, and expertise in sexual abuse in the church.
06:37: For details on their seminars and to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
06:44: Striving to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. Yeah, because I mean, so, so maybe just mentioned at least the one with Peter, what your, your, what you had uncovered.
06:55: And because that was something that was, I was the first time hearing it. I love when someone teaches me something new and I think, you know, others should be aware, this may be a reason if people have gotten
07:05: Evidence Demands a Verdict in the past, they have the older copies that here's a reason to get the completely updated and expanded version.
07:13: Sure. So my dissertation, which became an academic book in 2015 with Rutledge Press, is based upon an analysis of the evidence the apostles died as martyrs.
07:26: And what that means for the resurrection argument. So I went through all 12 of the apostles,
07:31: Matthias instead of Judas, and then added James, the brother of Jesus, and added Paul, who weren't part of the 12, but were eyewitnesses of the risen
07:39: Jesus and influential in the early church. Well, Peter is referenced more than any other apostle and in all the lists of the apostles, the gospels, he's always at the top.
07:48: So I probably spent 40 or 50 pages studying the traditions around the fate of Peter.
07:53: And if you ask anybody kind of in the pews, they'll say, well, Peter was crucified upside down because he didn't want to be crucified in the manner of Jesus, didn't consider himself worthy.
08:04: Well, I decided to look at the sources and see how compelling this is. Well, I think there's 10 sources within the first and second century indicating that Peter died as a martyr.
08:14: So we are on solid ground for that. But the first source that shows up about him being turned upside down is in this apocryphal work called the
08:22: Acts of Peter, and it's dated about 180 to 190. Well, that and by the way, it's full.
08:29: It has a historical core to it, but it's full of all these bizarre, legendary, clearly imaginative stories that are added that we know didn't take place.
08:40: And it's in this book that Peter's described as being crucified upside down. Now, the question is why?
08:45: And even in that earliest source, it had nothing to do with Peter not considering himself worthy to die in the manner of Jesus.
08:52: And I always ask people, I'll say, just think about the story. Do you really think the Romans took suggestions from people who are going to be crucified about how they wanted to be crucified?
09:03: I mean, honestly, it's crazy if you really start thinking about it. I don't think that's the way that they would do it.
09:11: So the reason he's crucified upside down in this story was because the world was turned upside down by sin and Peter being turned upside down in his death so he can see the world as it is.
09:21: And his death when he's crucified will help turn the world upside right, like the death of Jesus. So it has a theological meaning.
09:29: Now, later church historians pick up on this and add to it. So I think at best there is precedent for people being crucified upside down.
09:38: Martin Hengel writes this in his book Crucifixion. But I don't think the sources are early and compelling enough for me to conclude that that's the most reasonable app, reasonable inference from the data that we have.
09:50: So it's possible, but I'm not even sure I would say it's probable or likely. And, you know, this is a thing that I always try to challenge people on is to not just accept what they hear over and over again or what tradition says, but to try to dig in.
10:03: I try to always do original source research myself. And when you end up finding when you do that, you find, as you're saying, yes, some of the stuff that everyone just accepts isn't always a reasonable approach.
10:16: It's just this is the commonly accepted view. Well, look, I think that's right. When I updated
10:22: More Than a Carpenter in 2009, that was before my dissertation. So there's a little section there about the fate of the apostles.
10:28: And we actually have a footnote that says see church history for how we know that they died. And I remember thinking that might be the biggest, broadest footnote in the history of footnotes.
10:40: See church history. Like, come on. So I started to probe a little further and go, well, the argument we make in More Than a
10:46: Carpenter is sound, but it has to be nuanced and it has to be cared for in ways that maybe we as a church and pastors and apologists just haven't been as careful as we could be.
10:57: Yeah. Ding dong, Jehovah's Witnesses, ding dong, Mormons, Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?
11:09: Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get Andrew Rappaport's book,
11:15: What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth. But it is very wise to know what they believe.
11:23: And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at WhatDoTheyBelieve .com. Well, let's talk about evidence demands of earth.
11:30: That is, we've already said, this really was, I think, a pinnacle work. And you've come out with a new edition.
11:39: And actually, I think in the intro, you even got, you guys had laid each of the additions and what changed in them.
11:45: But this has been, and I have a different, I don't know if you remember this book that your dad had done,
11:52: Evidence for Christianity. This is just one of the others with this is probably, I mean, this is just as thick, has a lot of similar information.
12:02: And it's like you guys keep updating, updating. And the thing I find amazing is that a lot of the material stays the same, yet you guys keep adding as we keep researching, keep discovering new stuff.
12:15: You're able to expand it, be more specific in areas. With a new generation of Christians who have now have a plethora, really, of apologetics books, why do you think,
12:31: I mean, I know my reasons, but why do you think that Evidence Demands a Verdict is still the classic and being expanded, the best volume to have on a shelf for every
12:42: Christian? Well, I think there's two answers to that question, maybe more. Number one, the format of Evidence is just unique.
12:50: There's a ton of new apologetics books. I mean, he wrote it before Strobel was writing his material and J.
12:55: Warner Wallace. And I mean, so many amazing people are adding stories and examples and illustrations. But there's something about having a book that just documents long quotes so people can see it in context, have the original sources for research paper, for blogs, for conversations.
13:12: I think the format of Evidence is somewhat timeless, and there's no other book that does it the way
13:17: Evidence does. I think there's actually a second, even more powerful reason. We live in an age where there's endless information just one click away.
13:26: So people ask me when I first started working on this, they said, Wait a minute, there's tons of extra books. Now, why would anybody buy
13:31: Evidence? And I said, in an age where there's endless information and endless voices, trust is one of the most important commodities that you can have.
13:41: Why should I listen to this person as opposed to somebody else? My father's been doing this for 50,
13:48: I almost said 50 decades, 50 years, much older than he is.
13:54: You wouldn't believe his makeup artist, five decades plus, and he's been consistent, same message.
14:02: He stayed morally pure. He's just lived a life that's commendable, that I think adds so much to the ministry and research that he's done.
14:11: So I think one of the reasons Evidence is so popular, and it's blown away the expectations of the publisher, by the way.
14:17: In fact, you'll find this interesting, Andrew, my father wrote an article in Fox News maybe two or three weeks ago, and he titled it,
14:24: There's a Tsunami of Evidence for Christianity. And he was describing how much more evidence there is now versus there was 50 years ago when he started this research.
14:34: It went viral and it launched Evidence into number 16 on all books on Amazon.
14:43: The number two book of all Christian books. Now it's an 800 page document filled book that's $20, which is actually a pretty good deal, all things considered.
14:55: But that's number 16. That shows me there's a hunger for truth. But there's also recognition that says, wait a minute.
15:02: I know the McDowell name. I know who Josh is. I'm familiar with this work. There's continued value in our so -called post -truth culture.
15:11: Well, and I think you mentioned the way this book is laid out with long quotes and also that if you want to use this as a reference type research book, you can go to specific areas, read a few pages and get really everything you need to know almost on a subject.
15:29: I've actually mimicked that in my books, in both of my books, What Do They Believe?, which is on world religions.
15:35: One of the things that keeps coming back that I get from people is the fact that I give these long quotes from the
15:40: Quran and Book of Mormon and these other. So people that don't have those books can read in context. But I've tried to mimic the same style of being very concise, very specific.
15:52: So if you just read one section, you don't have to flip back and forth to different sections. Read the one section.
15:57: You have what you need to know. I've actually tried to model my books in that way after your father's, what
16:04: I saw when read from his books. So he's influenced me more than I always know, but it was one of the things when
16:12: I did my book, I actually had that in mind was what I had read in his books.
16:17: And this is the thing I love about the book is that if you need an answer, you can open the table of contents, jump in there and get the answer that you need.
16:30: I think that's right. And I think that's why people have appreciated it. But that's also what created a ton of work on this update, because the last version, which
16:40: I think you held up a minute ago, was called the new evidence as well. And hardback that came out in 1999.
16:45: That was really when blogs were just, you know, five years in.
16:52: And since that time, there's been so many responses in academic journal articles and blogs and YouTube videos.
16:59: So part of what we did in this update is we went through and we had just dozens of researchers finding all of the most popular and even somewhat legitimate objections to the evidence.
17:11: And then in this update, including responses to them. So I can tell you, which is really cool, if you had the original evidence, you go online, you find responses to all this stuff.
17:20: Now we have responses back to the new evidence. And of course, they're going to respond. This goes on and on.
17:26: But there are certain core objections that we included that weren't there in the past that I think really helps strengthen the case for Christianity, that people know, all right, there's an answer if I want to do the research and find it.
17:39: Yeah, I should mention, folks, when you say evidence, you're referring to the book Evidence Demands a Verdict, because I'm just realizing the way you're using the word evidence, it may not pick up.
17:47: Good point. But but yeah, I mean, I think that it is, you know, we live in a world right now, culture that is attacking
17:57: Christianity on every front. And this is a book that I think every
18:03: Christian not should have, but must have and read.
18:09: I mean, this is a book you have to be prepared because I think that. And folks who are regular listeners of The Wrap Report, you know that I bring up the
18:20: Holocaust a lot because of my background, because I grew up a generation after the Holocaust and we were trained never to forget.
18:26: We had to keep having it drilled in what happened. And so much of that training, so much of that hearing it over and over again, really made me realize that there's patterns that go on.
18:39: And we're in America, I think, living in a part where we're we're looking at a next
18:44: Holocaust coming, but it's not going to be the Jewish people. It will be Christians in America. And I think that partially the reason is, is because too many
18:54: Christians don't have the answers. I think this is what makes this book so important, because we need to be able to have an answer.
19:07: We have to be able to provide to folks, you know, and, you know, Sean, where you and I would would differ, right?
19:15: I'm going to be more of a presuppositionalist. And so I'm going to speak to presuppositionalists who there's some, and I'm sure you've run into some presuppositionalists that feel like you should never use any evidence.
19:26: And it's like a bad word. Wrong. That can't be more wrong.
19:34: Evidence is extremely important. And here I'm speaking of evidence in apologetics, not just evidence demands a verdict, but evidence is really important to strengthen the
19:45: Christian faith, to help us provide answers, because there are unbelievers who have questions.
19:52: I had questions about the New Testament. I wasn't looking for salvation. And I think that, you know, we have to be ready with that.
20:01: Now, we aren't going to be able to sit here and say, look, most of us don't have the mind of a
20:07: Josh or a Sean McDowell. We would like to. It would be nice. But if you could let me borrow it for some time, be neat.
20:16: But we can't do that. I can't borrow your brain. But having one volume where if I get stuck with something,
20:24: I know I can turn to and look up there first. And that's the importance,
20:31: I think, of this work. What other, you mentioned some of the updates that you added from your
20:36: PhD work, but what other chapters for folks who are familiar with evidence demands a verdict and it's 2009 update.
20:45: What other stuff have you expanded and included into the most recent update?
20:50: Yeah, I'm glad you asked this. I went through chapter by chapter, and my best estimate is that this new book is actually about 70 percent new material, 70 percent.
21:03: And there's a few reasons for that. Number one, there's just a lot of new evidence. There's new manuscript evidence.
21:09: There's new arguments that people have made. There's new archaeological findings, but there's also new issues that we need to address.
21:20: For example, like the claim that Jesus didn't exist. That's been there, as Bart Ehrman says, since the 18th century.
21:26: But it's kind of exploded in the past decade or two because of the Internet. So I thought we got to have two chapters.
21:32: Number one, the single best user friendly chapter showing all the evidence for the historical existence of Jesus.
21:41: So we have one chapter I can just say, this is a wonderful place to start. I think sufficient to make the evidence
21:47: Jesus existed. Second, I added a chapter and I did most of the work myself in this chapter, along with another friend of mine, called
21:56: Is Christianity Just a Copycat Religion? Because if Jesus didn't exist, then you had this claim that Christianity is based on these pagan mythologies and mystery religions like Osiris and Adonis and Horus, et cetera.
22:09: And so I thought we got to have one chapter. And I've done a lot of research and speaking on this as it is. So I came up with a single chapter that responds,
22:16: I think just honestly destroys that argument because it's a popular but such a bad argument.
22:23: So we added that chapter in. We added a chapter in the appendix responding to some of the popular claims of Bart Ehrman because I hear him so frequently from skeptics.
22:32: I've heard him from Mormons, heard him from Muslims. So we put an appendix in the back. The Old Testament section is virtually entirely new.
22:41: Because in the 70s through 90s, so to speak, what was called the J .E .P .D. theory, the documentary hypothesis, was very popular.
22:49: That's almost died off. We actually went through the Old Testament. This is one of my favorite parts of the book is we started with the historical
22:57: Adam. We went through the patriarchs. We went through the exodus, went through the conquest, the monarchy, went through all the major people and events and said, what's the historical evidence we have that these people lived and that the events the
23:13: Bible described really happened all the way through the Old Testament? So I'm not aware of another book that does that in itself.
23:20: So that section in the Old Testament is entirely new. And then some of the existing chapters just had to be updated.
23:27: I mean, there's better arguments now for the resurrection. There's a ton of new manuscripts that we found. We've kept the classical trilemma,
23:34: Lord, liar, lunatic, but we've tweaked it and update and add new quotes. So it's just on a slander.
23:40: It was a massive amount of work. I get tired just thinking and talking about it. It was probably as much or more than my dissertation.
23:48: I wish I had clocked the hours. Three dozen students with leading scholars like Michael Kona, Craig Blomberg, Craig Evans, other people helping us out just to be sure that we got it right.
24:01: It was a ton of work, but I can tell you, anyone who has the old version, a lot of the issues are just out of date.
24:08: Not that the evidence is wrong, but the issues have changed and there's new evidence. You owe it to yourself to at least check out some of the new evidence and be ready with an answer.
24:19: Well, I mean, I recently got this one and I've been excited to start it, but now you got me really excited to start this.
24:28: Actually, I had started just on to the first chapter, but even the introduction was like 50 pages.
24:35: It is. It is. And you know what? By the way, I'll tell you, you made a statement earlier. I have a big amount of presuppositional approach within me.
24:44: And that's one of the things I added to this book is the introductory chapter. We called it a theistic universe.
24:50: And instead of just jumping into the historical evidence for Christianity, I laid out some of the arguments for the existence of God, some of them being the moral argument, the argument from free will, the cosmological argument.
25:04: And we made the point that if you assume God doesn't exist and you come to the historical evidence, you're going to find a way to write it off.
25:11: But if you realize there's good reason to think God exists, then miracles are not only possible, they're actually even probable.
25:19: So my philosophical training, that's why that introductory chapter is so long. We wanted people to think, we want people to realize and connect the dots that how you even approach the
25:28: God question is going to shape powerfully on a presuppositional level how you even interpret the data for miracles, the
25:35: New Testament, the resurrection, etc. Can you answer the following questions for your children or for the person to whom you are witnessing?
25:43: Number one, is the New Testament reliable? Two, can you explain the Trinity to me?
25:49: Three, how is Jesus both God and man? And a slew of other questions you will be able to answer if you get
25:56: Andrew Rappaport's new book, What Do We Believe? It will help you a ton.
26:02: Get your copy at WhatDoWeBelieveBook .com. WhatDoWeBelieveBook .com.
26:08: Yeah, I mean, there is like a raging debate with presuppositionalists and evidentialists, the classics, that it's almost as if it's only one option.
26:20: Right, right. I just don't see it that way. I've never seen it that way because I think there is, look, and I'm known for being an open air evangelist, and you know my chapter, we'll get that a bit.
26:34: But one of the things that with that, though, is that people sit there and think, oh, you shouldn't use evidence.
26:41: Well, I'm using evidence all the time to address their worldview and why it's so faulty.
26:47: I'm not using the evidence to prove, oh, God exists. I just take that as an axiom.
26:53: But there is plenty of evidence for God's existence. I mean, if God exists, there's things we should see in the world, like morality, for example.
27:03: So, but I do think, and this will be a thing that as we look at the next book
27:09: I want to talk about with you, is the fact that there is this notion that many people have that there's only one way to evangelize or one way to do apologetics.
27:19: And you've recently edited a book with Eric Johnson from Mormon Research Ministry. And in doing so, really present about 20 some different ways to share the gospel specifically with Latter -day
27:35: Saints. And I know I was kind of involved with this before you had come in.
27:43: Basically, this was a thing where Eric had contacted me and said, hey, I want to do this self -published book and different tactics to, and I think that was originally his title was
27:54: Tactics to Reaching Mormons or something like that. That was, you know, the goal was to get these different ideas.
28:00: And I suggested some people that I knew, like Jim Wallace, who it turned out Eric knew very well too.
28:05: And I said, let's get some others. I said, this really needs to be published and get a broader, you know, audience.
28:14: He was very much against it at first. And then, you know, he had contacted you and you came aboard. And it really, it really blew up into there's 20,
28:22: I think, 24 different authors, 24 chapters. A couple of you have written a couple more and you have one in there as well.
28:30: You took on the difficult job with Eric of being the general editor of this.
28:37: And the book here is Sharing the Good News with Mormons, edited by both
28:42: Eric and yourself. So let's talk about this book. How do you come in? So I give you my side of how
28:48: I came into it, but how did you come into this and know about it? So I've been friends with Eric for probably a decade and a half.
28:55: He was teaching at Christian High and I was teaching in San Juan Capistrano, about an hour north in Southern California at a
29:02: Christian school. So we'd meet, speak, share notes and just kind of were friends for about 15 years.
29:09: And we stayed in touch, moved to Biola, obviously moved to Salt Lake City. And I've endorsed his books in the past, helping with it.
29:17: And he came to me with this idea and, you know, he's trying to find a publisher. And I came back to him.
29:22: I said, look, I think I can help you with a publisher. And I think I can also help maybe give this a broader feel where more people will be interested, not just those who live in Salt Lake City.
29:35: So I've got to give Eric full credit. He did much more work putting this together than I did.
29:42: I mean, he he's the one who had the first idea. We both edited it, but he's just he put in a ton of work to make this happen.
29:50: Really, what I just try to do is I said, look, I publish some books, maybe a little bit of name recognition outside of the
29:57: Salt Lake City, you know, ministry to Mormons that will help this broader and get a publisher, maybe bring some other people on that haven't been or wouldn't have been involved and just help you make this thing as great as it can be.
30:10: So I was honored. Harvest House, we partnered with them, said, hey, would the two of you edit it together? And I just said,
30:16: Eric, it's up to you. You had this idea. How do you feel about this? And he goes, man, if this gets the message out to more people, let's do it together.
30:23: So we jumped on and I just see it as a teamwork. And as a result, I really do think the book has broader appeal just in those who live in Salt Lake City.
30:34: It's bigger than that. I think it's really for anybody who wants to reach out to Mormons. We'll find some really practical things in here.
30:42: And the endorsements we got are awesome. I mean, we got my father right the forward, pulled some strings there.
30:49: You know, J .P. Moreland, I really tried to get some people know much more broadly in the
30:55: Christian community to just say, this is a valuable resource and you need to pay attention to it. You know, you bring up the broader
31:02: Latter -day Saints because there is a difference. When I go to Manti with Eric and first off,
31:08: I guess I should say you're saying you kept in touch with Eric. It is hard not to keep a good relationship with Eric.
31:15: Anyone who knows Eric Johnson, he's a great guy, but he's just so great to be around to get along with and very easy to stay in touch with because you want to.
31:29: Yes. But, you know, when I went out to Manti the first time, I noticed there was a big difference.
31:36: And I've written a book on world religions. I have a chapter on Mormonism in there. And the Mormons that I run into here in New Jersey, very different than when
31:44: I got to Utah. Utah, I suddenly felt like, you know what, I said this to Eric Johnson, Bill McKeever, who work at Mormon Research Ministry.
31:53: I was like, I thought I understood a lot of Mormonism at a doctrinal level because that's how
31:58: I studied it was different. Their understanding of it goes so much deeper because they're going into the general councils and all of that type of stuff.
32:07: And I realized the Mormons in Utah are, I mean, they just know a whole lot more of the
32:14: Mormon history than the Mormons I run into here. And it was like, oh, in Utah, you got to up your game.
32:21: And it could seem like so much, but so many of the chapters in this book sharing the good news with Mormons.
32:28: And I know you've probably read every single chapter several times. I edited, man, multiple times.
32:34: You took so many edits. No, I'm just kidding. I saw all the edits on mine. You know, the original was edited so much.
32:44: Actually, there was a pretty good amount of edited. But but, you know, it was hard. I'll be honest.
32:50: It was a hard work to take as we were limited to like six pages of of material.
32:57: And it is hard to be that, you know, that articulate when you have so much on a topic.
33:03: And yet in each one of these topics. I have found in each of the chapters I've read so far is that,
33:10: I mean, every one of them provides practical ways of taking these different tactics that they have.
33:17: I mean, whether it be, you know, Bill McKeever, who goes out with these gold plates.
33:22: Right, right. And I've gotten to see that live. And it's a neat thing to see it live because you see how he does it.
33:29: But he explains how to do that. Or here's a survey you could do. And I got to remember who that I'm trying to remember whose chapter that was on the survey, because I forget now.
33:40: But there was a survey of here's and on the website, it's like, here's a survey you can use. I mean, each one of these had very practical tips.
33:49: And yet each one of them were very different from one another. Yeah, I think
33:54: I think for any book to be successful in quality, there has to be a golden thread that ties together.
34:00: So evidence like we were talking about are long quotes in context, strict evidence on the reliability of the
34:07: Bible, the deity Christ and the resurrection that ties it together. And that goes through it consistently.
34:13: People know what they're getting. This book also has a golden thread that goes through it. It's not a book on theology.
34:19: It's not a book on apologetics. It's a book on methodology, more like Greg Cockell's book,
34:26: Tactics. But instead of one person's tactics, partly what we wanted to do is bring some people together, some who maybe have a podcast and have a blog and have a platform, but other people who are just doing ministry to Mormons.
34:40: And some people don't even know that they exist, but they could glean such insights and practical wisdom from them.
34:47: So some people turned in like 10 to 12 pages. And Eric, you know, we went back and forth. Finally, I said there has to be continuity through this.
34:54: They've got to be as close as possible on tone, but also on length.
35:00: So anybody can pick this up and they can find something that works in their context.
35:06: You mentioned how like Mormons in New York would be different than Mormons in Salt Lake City in terms of theology.
35:11: That's also true in terms of the culture, as you know. I mean, Mormons in Salt Lake City are a majority.
35:18: So you can have a certain attitude and a certain approach to people when you're in the majority.
35:23: This is true for all of us. In New York, they're not. In California, they're not. So socially, we even talk about some of these differences where somebody will pick up the book and say, you know what,
35:33: I don't know if I'm comfortable doing outdoor preaching. Pastor Andrew, you go for it.
35:39: Now, some people might, God bless them, but others can go, you know what, a survey. And here's actually a survey
35:46: I can take and give. Here's questions I can ask. Here's a very simple methodology.
35:53: I mean, essentially, Andrew, we are removing every potential barrier from somebody who says,
35:59: I want to reach Mormons, but I don't know how. That excuse is gone. Now they're going to have to give some other excuse and we'll write a book on that one later.
36:08: But no one's going to do all 24 of these. But if people do one, if they do two, if they do a handful.
36:16: And frankly, if you look at Jesus, he didn't just have one methodology he always followed.
36:22: The way he talked with the woman at the well was very different than the rich young ruler. He told stories.
36:29: He asked people questions. He built relationships. He, because he was God in human flesh, which obviously helps, but he tailored his evangelistic approach to the context and the people he was interacting with.
36:43: So in a sense, we're trying to do the same thing. Here's a bunch of approaches. Just give it a shot.
36:48: If it doesn't work, try it again. Try another approach. And frankly, there's no book that's out there that approaches it like this.
36:56: And I think the last thing I'll say, and I'll let you jump in here, is I think people will walk away because immediately the pushback
37:02: I get, I'm taking a group of students who are actually going to stay with Eric next spring and go to ministry in Salt Lake City.
37:08: It's people push back and say, why are you beating up on those Mormons and why are you telling them that they're wrong? I think you'll find in this book a very gentle and gracious and as kind of approach as we can take while admitting that there is an unbridgeable gap between Mormonism and Christianity and eternity is at stake.
37:30: So no compromised truth. There's a sense of urgency, but there's a real attempt to be as gracious and kind as we can be.
37:37: And that's the thing that, I mean, I see it when Eric sent the email saying, hey, you know, to let all the authors know we're going to an editor, then it means your chapter could be cut.
37:46: I went, oh, no. I said to my wife, I'm the one on the open air of evangelism. I mean, come on. You want to talk about a chapter that's going to be cut.
37:54: I thought for sure I was going to be cut because it's an unpopular type topic.
37:59: But the thing is that there's so many different styles that you see in this book.
38:06: I like if I, having now gone, I went with Eric to a temple opening. Oh, cool.
38:12: If I had, if I could add another chapter, it would be, I had a very different approach.
38:18: Like you're mentioning the Mormons in Utah. When we were in Idaho, which has a large
38:24: Mormon, you know, congregation, not congregation, but, you know, group of areas where it's almost like Utah.
38:31: But they're a heavy Mormon area. And I ended up realizing that in that area, there's so few
38:40: Jewish people. When I was in Utah, I went through the beehive, which in Utah, and Bill had told me, and he's done, he's taken people through there plenty of times.
38:53: This is Brigham Young's house. And plenty of times he's gone through tours with people visiting. He said that mine was the fastest that they ever did.
39:02: They actually never went upstairs. They exit. It was like, they didn't like my question, exit door left. And the reason he said was they didn't know what to do with me as someone who is
39:12: Jewish, who is a Levite, who understands the temple. And they're describing the temple with marriages and all this stuff.
39:20: And I had the same thing when I went to a temple opening. They did not know what to do with me because I'm talking about the temple described in the scriptures, and it's very different than their temple.
39:31: And I mean, they kept getting more and more missionaries. We had at one point, like I think eight people surrounding me trying to answer the questions of what the difference is with the biblical temple.
39:42: And it's just, there's all these different ways that people have found to be effective ways to try to reach
39:50: Mormons and share the good news with them. So let me ask you this, you've read 24 chapters, 24 different tactics in this, other than yours, which is obviously the best chapter,
40:00: I understand. But what did you learn from this, from the different authors, different people?
40:08: Some of the people in here have never written a professional or published work before, and it was a new experience for them.
40:15: I saw some of them posting online, but what do you think you learned the most out of this? Yeah, let me say something back to a comment you made earlier that you said, if you were adding another approach, it would be this.
40:27: We have a website, sharingwithmormons .org, and we're asking people to add a chapter, and we're adding, when people come up and submit new methods like this, now you're a busy guy, but if you want to write a chapter,
40:37: Eric and I will edit, look at it, throw it on the site, but... I already have the assignment Eric gave me,
40:43: Homosexuality and Mormonism, and I'm behind on the schedule, so... Good luck with that one,
40:48: I've written on that topic. But partly what we're trying to do is motivate other people to start weighing in and just create a little bit of a movement, like, hey, did you guys hear this, what about this approach, and that it'll grow.
40:58: So if you do that chapter, that would be so welcome and wonderful and help a ton of people.
41:04: I might do a chapter like called the Read the Book of Mormon Approach, because as you know, if you talk to a
41:11: Mormon and you say, why should I become a Mormon, how do you know it's true? They'll say, they'll cite Moroni 10 .4,
41:17: read the Book of Mormon, pray about it, and they always say it to me, and I say, you know what, I read it, all of it, and I prayed about it, and I felt more uneasy when
41:27: I was done. If anything, God convicted me that it's false, and it's raised some questions for me.
41:34: Could you help me understand these questions that I have? And they don't know what to do with me when
41:40: I say that, because it's a huge book and it took me days on end, I read it. But that's a powerful approach that just gets people to be like, okay, wait a minute, hadn't thought about it that way.
41:50: Now, as far as what I learned in this book, I honestly, I just didn't know there were so many people in different realms approaching
42:00: Mormons through coffeehouses, through mission trips, through asking the right questions, through relationships.
42:09: I mean, you can just open up here and see the approaches that people take. Even Mark Middleburg's one, like, how do you just help somebody evaluate truth?
42:17: That's helpful for Mormons, that's helpful for anybody. Dr. Corey Miller, the head of Rosh Yochristi, we actually went to school together at Talbot, he used to be a
42:27: Mormon. And he has a chapter in here talking about how do you undermine confidence in somebody's personal testimony?
42:34: Well, that's powerful. You spend five minutes talking with a Mormon and they're going to share their personal testimony.
42:41: How do you respectfully and yet graciously challenge this epistemology that they have to the way that they approach truth?
42:49: So I just, I mean, editing this alone was just a kind of eye -opening and thrilling,
42:54: I feel like I learned so much about Mormonism, about Mormon people, about ministries that are out there.
43:00: That was a huge takeaway for me. Well, yeah, I mean, you're mentioning just the fact that they always mention their testimony.
43:07: And I have had them, oh, here's the Book of Mormon, read it in press. I have read it. And, you know, did you get a burning in the bosom?
43:15: No. You know, and they're like, well, you didn't really read it. As if I, well, no, I did,
43:20: I did. You know, in my younger years, I wasn't so tactful. I remember one of the first Mormons that was sharing with me, he said, well, just read this and pray for a burning in the bosom.
43:32: And I responded, how do you know it's not heartburn? Okay, so I've gained wisdom since then.
43:39: That's good. But, you know, it is a thing where, you know, I, being a, my background is computer science.
43:45: I remember in the, in the 90s, I actually wrote a program, a computer program to calculate the birth rates necessary for the death rate in the
43:58: Book of Mormon. I, yeah, it was one of the things I ended up using because I had,
44:04: I had a Mormon who worked for me. I was her supervisor. And we'd get into this like every day.
44:10: And so I ended up writing a program, having gone through the Book of Mormon. And I think I, I think I calculated that the, the birth rate required was like 12 times the actual birth rate that we have today.
44:24: And it was just, it's unbelievable to be able to, to get that many people giving birth.
44:31: And so it was like one of the ways I tried to appeal to her. But, and that's the thing that there's not one way to share the gospel.
44:37: There's not one way to approach apologetics because we're all different. And I think we're all going to gravitate toward different, different tactics or different styles of sharing the gospel and, and defending the gospel.
44:52: You agree? I agree a hundred percent. That was kind of the joy of, of working on this is just seeing people, like you said, some have never written anything professionally, but they love
45:03: Jesus and they love the Mormon people and they've learned by trial and error and they've made mistakes.
45:09: And they're, you know, they're not in this to make money, obviously, or fame or any of the things that people are motivated by.
45:15: They're just motivated by loving their family and their friends and their community. And they have some real wisdom how to do this.
45:22: And connecting with some of the people, reading their work, helping put this thing together. And you have, there's a number of PhDs in this that are really smart, that have been doing this on a scholarly level.
45:32: You have people all the way down to doing it on the relational level and everywhere in between. So I think this book is kind of just a recognition in a sense of a broader movement that's out there that maybe hasn't been as connected as it could be.
45:46: Although there's some pretty remarkable networks that people reach out, like at Manti to Mormons.
45:52: But bringing these people together saying we stand behind you, we're excited about what you're doing. And we pray to God that people take this and just take one or two strategy, put it into play.
46:01: And it's amazing how God would and will use it in the lives of Mormons. And, you know,
46:08: I will put the, in the show notes, the links to where, to the website where you can get the book. It'll also be available at Striving for Eternity.
46:15: We have it on our store, which I, it will be, if it's not up there now, I think it's up there on the day we're recording this, but this won't drop until I think
46:24: Sunday. But you can get the book, Sharing the Good News with Mormons.
46:29: It's also available on Amazon. But I encourage you to get it from one of the websites that we'll link because that way you're helping support a
46:37: Mormon research ministry or some of the other ministries that are reselling it instead of Amazon, because they don't quite have the same view, worldview that we do.
46:47: I'm just saying. So I'm going to trust that, uh, that, uh,
46:53: Dr. McDowell is a good sport and willing to play a game with me and folks who know this podcast, know the game.
46:59: And he know that he has nothing to worry about because all the pressure is on me, but let's start with a quick game.
47:09: It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.
47:15: Okay. So I'm going to explain to you how this works. This is, this is part of our training, training to share the gospel.
47:22: The goal of this is to learn how to transition from the natural to spiritual.
47:28: Anytime that we want to get into a conversation, try to get it to the gospel. We do this each week.
47:34: It also gives us an opportunity to on every podcast, share the gospel. What I'm going to do is take anything that you give me, and I have no idea what this is, and I don't even know you well enough to guess what you make, but give me anything that comes to mind.
47:49: And this part's not edited in any way. Um, and I have to actually transition from whatever you give me to the gospel.
47:58: Hopefully it will be quick, but sometimes it takes me a long time. All right.
48:03: You got it. Uh, NBA playoffs. It seems that sports are a recent thing.
48:10: We have, this is like the third transition to sports. And so, and so you, you probably haven't heard it.
48:17: So the, the, the, here's the interesting thing with me that I had to figure out is I'm not really into team sports.
48:25: You're stalling. You're stalling. I see what you're doing. Let's hear the transition. So the thing is, and I, the part of the thing is
48:32: I can't, I don't want to transition the same way I did the last sports thing either. So I have to come up with a new way of sharing, but you know, there are those who they will, when it comes to playoffs and championships, they are going to be glued to the
48:48: TV. I'm that way. When it comes to tennis, when it comes to the U S open French, open Australian, open
48:54: Roland Garris, I am glued to the TV as much as I have time allows because I don't want to miss it.
49:01: I don't want to catch a replay of it. I want to watch it live. And the reality is we have this way of almost vicariously trying to live through sports players as if that's our life.
49:14: And we want to try to, you hear people talk about my team, whatever team it may be, you know, the, the
49:20: Yankees, the Mets, the Knicks. Okay. I only know the New York teams that draw most play in New Jersey.
49:25: Some of them, but they're still called New York teams that pep keep aside. But the thing is you see people that might try to live vicariously through others.
49:34: You know, I do in a sense, live vicariously through someone else. See, I was someone who broke the law, had been guilty and deserving of the worst punishment possible.
49:47: But actually in a, in a sense, vicariously, I lived through someone else because when I stand before the judge, they are going to see me.
49:54: The judge will see me as if I had never broken those laws because someone else paid that fine for me.
50:01: Even though I deserve the worst punishment ever, someone else actually took that in my place and vicariously
50:08: I have his righteousness. That person, that man is Jesus Christ.
50:13: God himself who became in flesh as a man died on a cross as a punishment for my sin, that I could be set free.
50:21: So though I deserve death and eternal punishment, I vicariously get righteousness of Jesus Christ.
50:30: Boom, man, I'm repenting right now. Just so you know. I did have to drive.
50:37: Like I can't go the same route I did before. So Sean, we got a couple of minutes left.
50:43: I want to give opportunity for you to talk about, uh, you've got a couple of different ministries going on. We, we've talked about your, some of the books you've done, but you have a lot more than that, um, that you're doing.
50:53: And so let folks know about what you're doing and how they can get ahold of more materials from you and more what you're doing.
51:01: Sure. Well, one of the first important things to me is try to be a good husband and try to be a good father.
51:07: So I'm pretty busy writing, speaking, traveling. And when it's all said and done, that's much more important to me than the next book or speaking opportunity and balancing that is sometimes easier said than done, but that's, that's where my heart is at.
51:24: And I hope listeners will, uh, will have that heart and motivation as well. Cause, cause kids need it.
51:29: And frankly, the outside world looking in wants to know if we're really practicing what we're preaching, loving our spouses, loving our friends, loving our church, living in relationship is one of the most important things.
51:40: I think for apologists and evangelists today to have credibility and trust. Uh, with that said,
51:46: I teach full time at Biola, uh, technically in Talbot Theological School, their graduate, uh, seminary.
51:54: And we actually, if people are listening, have ever thought about studying apologetics, Google Biola apologetics, or actually email me personally through my site and I'll connect you with our staff.
52:04: We have a distance program. It's 37 units and we have classes sometimes on Mormonism, on the resurrection, problem of evil, science, et cetera.
52:13: And you just have any undergrad degree. You can come study with me. So I would love to have any of your listeners who are obviously already motivated to learn apologetics to come study with me at Biola.
52:22: So my website is seanmcdowell .org and you can email me directly through that and go to my assistant.
52:29: He'll forward it to me and I will connect you to some of our programs, just to see if it's a fit, no hard sell.
52:34: But that's what I do a lot of my time is just training people, pastors, uh, teachers, parents, people of every profession you can think of to learn apologetics.
52:45: And then at my site, seanmcdowell .org, I blog probably two or three times a week. In fact, just last week, I had one of the most powerful or not powerful, one of the most widely read blogs
52:54: I've ever written. It was just simply called, uh, the moral question behind Avengers infinity war.
53:03: And it went like over 1300, almost 1400 reposts on Facebook. I mean, people just love that stuff.
53:10: And I blog two or three times a week on cultural student apologetic worldview issues and just try to equip people.
53:18: I'm also on Twitter, but I don't try to waste people's time with Twitter. I put articles, quotes, resources, hopefully helpful stuff.
53:25: And we even actually have a podcast that's 25 minutes weekly that we do through Talbot and we just have guests on to talk theology and culture and apologetics and worldview.
53:34: So lots of stuff going on. I guess the one place to check would be seanmcdowell .org if people are interested further.
53:41: Um, but that's, that's a little bit of what I do. Stay busy. So what's the name of the podcast that you have? It's just called think biblically.
53:48: Think biblically. And you were, you were struggling with a very creative name for your website.
53:54: And uh, you, the most creative you came up with was seanmcdowell .org. You know what?
53:59: There was a lot of thought to the website and I had a ton of other ones. I'm actually really glad I went with that name because interestingly enough, even today people tend to remember people.
54:11: They just do rather than some, you know, whatever other side
54:16: I had, I won't even mention worldview ministries and stuff like that. People hear you speak, they see your book. My dad mastered this years ago when he started calling his site, just josh .org.
54:27: And honestly, it's not about him. He's just told me, he said, Hey, if people remember me and the way
54:33: I talk and my points, that just gives me a platform to share the gospel.
54:39: So that's, that's why I chose your seanmcdowell .org and it's worked pretty well. Well, you haven't had to worry about, you know, remembering the website name.
54:50: I joke, a friend of mine, Justin Peters, and it's justinpeters .org. Same thing. He's like, yeah, I just couldn't come up with a creative name.
54:57: So in this way I never forget what my website is. Unless you think it's .com or .edu or something like that.
55:03: But, but you can easily get seanmcdowell .com and have it forward to .org. I think some sportscaster owns it or something.
55:11: I haven't checked in a while, but there's someone who, there's someone who owns andrewrapport .com.
55:17: And it's been the same exact website since 95. It's just a picture of a little baby.
55:23: I don't know who that Andrew Rapport is waiting for him to grow up so I could see more. Someone must have bought that when their son was born and they've been holding onto it for, for years now.
55:36: I mean, it's over 20 years that they've been holding that site and it hasn't changed, but someone keeps paying for it.
55:45: So, Hey, I appreciate you coming on. And I really appreciate the value you added to sharing the good news with Mormons.
55:54: Your editing with Eric and is, is just been very helpful. It really was,
56:01: I think, a very valuable work. The two, the two works that we talked about today, evidence demands a verdict and sharing the good news with Mormons, I think are two essential books for Christians to have on their bookshelf.
56:12: I can't recommend them enough. And it's, it's something that you've been able to partake in when both of them.
56:20: And I think that's probably a real privilege for you and years to come. I think a lot of people are going to be still looking to evidence demands a verdict.
56:28: And, and even after your dad is gone, you're, you're now going to, you realize you now have the responsibility to keep updating this on your own without his help.
56:36: You realize this, right? Yeah. My son said the other day, he goes, dad, are we going to do a version? I was like, slow down, man.
56:41: You're 14. That's decades away. Hey, but it's good that he's got big goals.
56:47: Yeah. Why not? Don't tell him how many hours you spent on it. All right.
56:54: Well, folks, we do, I will give a quick, a quick plug or announcement for folks who have heard the news that Striving for Journey has put out the
57:05: Christian podcast community. That is a community of podcasters who are looking to actually work together, cross promote one another, encourage others to be learning about other
57:16: Christian ministries, not just their own. And it is a place where if you want to get some good
57:22: Christian podcasting, you can go to christianpodcasting .org or .com.
57:27: Either one will get you there. But a lot of podcasts, we're just starting up. So right now there's a few, but we have a lot in the works that you're going to start seeing.
57:36: And you're going to start to see us starting to promote one another. You're going to start seeing each of the podcasters.
57:41: We're going to have some monthly podcasts where just pastors get on and we talk about ministry issues. We're going to have ones where we have our theological throw downs, where we take a controversial issue and show that we can discuss theology in love and charity, a strange idea.
57:58: So if you want to check that out, go to christianpodcastcommunity .org.
58:04: Sean, I want to thank you again for coming on. I want to thank you for your help in producing not only the sharing the good news with Mormons, but really being able to, to further the evidence demands of verdict and updating that for that was a tremendous work.
58:18: So thank you. Thanks for having me on. And thank you for your chapter. There's no chance we were going to cut it, even though it's controversial, by the way,
58:25: I love it. It's fresh, makes people think. So it's an important piece of the book. Thanks for being a part of it.
58:31: Yeah. Actually what the Eric says, you know, so much of your chapter is explaining how not to do it. Exactly.
58:38: Because if anyone goes and searches open air preaching, they're going to see so much of the wrong way to do it.
58:44: I could not deal with that chapter without explaining how to do it, you know, without the problems that we have.
58:51: So, all right, folks, we'll be back to a regular podcast meeting next week where we're not doing interviews.
58:58: But I want to thank you guys for listening and remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.
59:04: This podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministry for more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church.