Dead Men Walking Podcast: EC Holmes on Apologetics, defending your faith, & being a reformed rapper

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00:19

Hey, Jason, what's going on? That's sick, man. Oh, man. I don't want to talk.

00:24

Let's not talk. Let's just keep listening. Let's just keep listening. Oh, here we go with the theme of new intros.

00:31

Intros. This one's a little different, though, because I don't think we're going to keep that one, obviously. Yeah. That would be cool.

00:36

I mean, I don't know. I don't know if we could afford that one. Yeah, we try to make our own music so we don't have to pay royalties, but the reason why we opened up with that song is because we have the artist on today.

00:49

Nice. So, and we're going to get to him in one second, but first, Jason, how you doing, brother? Man, I am doing awesome.

00:55

You know, you had just that smooth, easy feeling. There's, you know, maybe

01:02

I shouldn't say this out loud, but it's okay. You know, we could be positive right now, right? Yeah, absolutely. We could say good stuff.

01:07

Life is just awesome. It's just going. I said on Facebook about six months ago,

01:13

I said, I don't know about the rest of you guys, and I'm not trying to be crass, but I've had the best year ever during COVID.

01:20

The Lord has provided, you know, first of all, you and I own our own business. I homeschool, so my kids don't go to school, you know, public school anyway, so it's like nothing changed for us.

01:31

We were like home, dad's home, always anyway. I don't even think my kids know that there's a coronavirus going on.

01:36

I know, I know. It is pretty amazing. So you're not talking them into wearing the new nose covering?

01:44

Did you see it? Actually, yeah, you liked my post. Yeah. Yeah, I laughed so hard. You said Mexico said, hold my beer.

01:50

We got double mask America, we got nose masks. Mexico just said to the scientific community, hey, hold my beer, and it's a new nose covering rather than the whole face covering, but I guess you put that nose covering underneath your three masks that you wear on your face.

02:08

Yeah, so, okay. But hey, let's get into it here. We have today on the podcast, he's an apologist, he's the host of That Deity Though podcast.

02:18

He's got a new EP out called Terrible Gods. We have Mr. E .C. Holmes on the podcast. How are you, sir?

02:24

Oh man, I'm good. I'm good. How are you guys doing? Awesome. Awesome. A little tired, but I'm here.

02:30

Right? So this is another one of those connections where you just get online, then you stumble across the podcast.

02:37

I've listened to a few of those episodes. He's a brother in the Lord. And then of course, one night

02:42

I listened to the entire EP while doing a, not Facebook, Instagram live.

02:49

You know, I had a little Malbec, Argentine and Malbec wine going. Listened to a little Vision, Terrible Gods EP.

02:56

Kind of a weird combo. Usually I'm a bourbon guy, but that night, I drank it a little while. It's all right. It's all right.

03:02

And I fell in love with it. I'm always looking for new, good quality music anyway, and also looking for good podcasts.

03:08

Some great production on that. Oh, it's great. Yeah, it is. Isn't it? I appreciate it. And E .C.

03:13

had both of those. So I said, man, we got to get you on the podcast and talk, because he also is really focused on, obviously in the podcast, titled

03:21

The Deity of Christ, Christ Preeminence, Apologetics. And I thought, wouldn't it be great to have him come on?

03:27

And I know we talked about this, Jason, and just talk a little bit about what apologetics is.

03:33

Why is it important to Christians? What are some foundational things that most Christians should be able to answer?

03:39

Because unfortunately, I know a lot of believers that have been in church for a long time, and you ask them some very simple doctrinal, theological, or apologetic kind of questions, and they don't have an answer.

03:52

And I said, look it, I'm coming to you in love as a brother in Christ. Let me tell you something. You get out in the world, and you're talking to a

03:57

Jehovah Witness, a Mormon, an atheist, a secularist, a humanist, anyone, they're going to be a little more forthcoming or pushy than I am.

04:08

So you better know the answer to these questions. You mean you can't just run away and say, Jesus loves you, and then you just run the other way?

04:15

Well, you know, I mean, I guess you could. God can use anything. I don't know how effective it would be.

04:23

What I found, unfortunately, is a lot of people would just say, well, the Bible, that's what the

04:28

Bible says. Right, right. And the minute you have a non -believer, atheist, whatever, that just goes, well,

04:34

I don't appeal to the authority of Scripture. Right. Give me an answer. Give me an answer why you would believe that.

04:39

They kind of clam up. So EC, for our listeners, can you just give us a little bit of background on who you are, maybe a little bit about how the podcast came about, and what you focus on as an apologist?

04:53

Sure. Well, I'm an anti -masker, for one. Yeah. Beneath this melanated skin, what actually matters is

05:04

I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, I'm a follower of Christ. Amen. I'm very grateful for what

05:09

God has done for me through the person and work of Jesus. And I love sharing that with others.

05:15

I'm a husband, one wife, beautiful wife named Virginia, we call her, she goes by Jeannie.

05:21

And together we have, the only kids we have, but together we have three beautiful daughters.

05:28

Awesome. I'm not sure if we're going to go for a boy or not, I'm not really into gambling, so, and obviously

05:33

I'm not good at gambling, but man, three beautiful, very smart little girls are all at different stages, they're still really young, eight months, four years old and eight years old.

05:47

But, you know, they're at different places and I'm just enjoying being a father and, you know, leaving my house as best as I can.

05:54

I also serve as a deacon at my church called The Gathering in Millersville, Pennsylvania.

06:00

And it's a little weird right now, you know, because of COVID, we've been meeting for a long time already, just a regular service on Sundays, but we haven't been doing

06:11

Sunday school and other things that we haven't kind of gotten back to the normal routine, 100%.

06:17

But every Sunday we're still gathering. But during that normal routine, I'm teaching one

06:23

Sunday school per month, which I'm actually not sure if I'll be able to get back to because I also play the guitar at church.

06:30

And since we had a third daughter in July, we haven't gotten to church on time since then.

06:38

Yeah, I know what that's about, man. Yeah, Sunday school starts 45 minutes before service, so I'm not sure how showing up 25 minutes late is going to work.

06:51

But man, around 2006, I kind of got into Christian hip hop. I listened to a bunch of gangsters, street,

07:00

East Coast hip hop. And after I kind of started thinking through that, like as a believer, should

07:06

I be listening to these things? I kind of shifted in what I was listening to and I was inspired to write myself.

07:12

And so since then, I've put out six albums, ranging, talking about tons of different things, all pertaining to the person and the work of Jesus and the gospel and how

07:23

Christians ought to live and engage the community and the world at large. But, you know, got married, we ended up having children and that kind of changed, man.

07:33

I used to be up here in my studio hours, at least an hour a day, and that kind of changed to an hour a week.

07:40

And my passion for music was just, you ever watch, man, what's the movie, Space Jam?

07:46

Oh, yeah. You remember? You remember when an alien sucked all the skill out of the basketball players?

07:53

Is that what the kids did to you? I won't say the skill was sucked out because, you know,

07:59

I just dropped a new album. But my desire and my passion to make music was kind of like stripped.

08:05

But through writing music, I've really grown a love and a passion for just writing.

08:11

And so I started to blog for a little bit, did a blog called Song of Reflection with this ministry called

08:17

Attachment Builders for Christ. And I would just take a random Christian song and I would just kind of write out my thoughts about that song, the theological things that are pointed out and how we can apply those things to our life and to kind of use that song kind of as a soundtrack as we live out our

08:33

Christian life. So I would do that with different things. And then up to this point now, I actually joined with Dwayne Atkinson of the

08:41

Bar Network. Yeah. And after I put out my first episode, he had hit me up and he's like, hey, what do you think about joining the network?

08:48

And so 22 episodes in now, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. And I've been enjoying it.

08:54

The podcast is called That Deity Though. I largely focus on mainly on the divinity of Christ and the trinity and answer what you have.

09:01

So that's really my focus. And then with the 40 hours I have remaining for the rest of the week,

09:07

I'm a senior electrical engineering technician in Baltimore. And so that's myself in a nutshell.

09:13

Jeez. What? Pretty busy. Crazy, man. That's awesome. Yeah, for you, man.

09:20

That's good. So let's get into a little bit of apologetics. So for a listener or someone who might stumble across this, what is the definition of apologetics to you?

09:32

Oh, man. Well, you guys know apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which means to give an answer, you know, plain and simple.

09:40

But I think from a biblical perspective, it's referring to an answer that you would give to specific questions that is surrounding the hope of the believer.

09:49

And I think it's important that we make that distinction as far as the type of questions that we're called to answer as far as under the scope of apologetics, because if we don't point out this distinction,

10:01

I think it can be very intimidating for the believer. And I think it's for the same reason why you have different people who won't subscribe to like any particular religion.

10:11

They might say I'm a spiritual person or I believe there's a higher power to something out there, but they don't feel comfortable enough to land on anything because they feel like I got to study every single religion first.

10:22

And so what I've noticed is a lot of Christians, they feel as though you have to know about every single, you know, ideology and philosophy, or at least if I'm going to engage in Jehovah's Witness, I've got to study it first before I respond.

10:39

And I don't think that's the proper way to view apologetics. Like I said, it makes it intimidating because, well, now

10:45

I can't engage anybody unless I know exhaustively what they believe. But obviously, we know the key verse is, what is it in 1

10:53

Peter 3, 15, but in your heart, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

11:04

And then we can't forget verse 16, right? Having a good conscience so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

11:12

And so what I passage is the believer is not required or expected even to answer every single question or claim that somebody has, right?

11:23

The believer is not required to know about every single argument that somebody might raise against the truth of the gospel, the truth concerning Christ or the scripture.

11:32

But the believer, at least in this passage, if this is what we're using as our description or definition of what apologetics is, the believer is charged to do one thing, and that's to make a defense in regard to the reason for the hope that is in you.

11:49

So believer, you ought to be able to share why, right? And so what

11:54

I believe is anyone who's a genuine believer, they should be able to do apologetics on day one, even if all you can muster or utter from your lips is

12:02

Jesus, right? Because he's the reason for our hope, right? Jesus is the ground, the source of our hope, and all of that obviously is grounded in his life, his death, the resurrection, us being reconciled to God.

12:15

What is the reason for your hope? Well, it's plain and simple. It's Jesus. And so I think that's apologetics in a nutshell.

12:23

Wow, that's good. Yeah, love it. Absolutely. So let me ask you this. Why is it important for Christians to be concerned with apologetics?

12:31

Why can't a Christian just say, look, I know why I believe. I treat other people well.

12:37

I feel like I'm living out the great commandment that Christ gave us. Why do I need to be with defending the faith or understanding or knowing it and defending it to someone who maybe either has questions or isn't a believer outside of obviously the scripture verse that commands us to?

12:56

I think that would be one reason. But why is it something that we should even maybe prioritize? Maybe they say, look,

13:02

I think going to the soup kitchen and being more socially driven is more important.

13:08

I think apologetics is way down on the list of things. Why should it be prioritized higher for Christians, do you think?

13:15

Man, I hope no Christian is asking that question for one. The reason why

13:21

I really got into apologetics, I know this isn't the question, but I'll get to it. But the reason why I really got into it,

13:27

I'm a huge Pakistan. You can't see my cheese head, but I have one right up there. I love the bulls.

13:33

And, you know, I have opinions about all of these different things that I enjoy. And, you know, if somebody would disagree,

13:40

I would argue, you know, and say, well, this is why you're wrong or this is why I believe. And I noticed that I wouldn't do that with my faith.

13:49

You know, when someone would say something about Christianity, I didn't defend what I believe or defend my hope in the same way.

13:56

And when I really begin to look at, well, hold on. Why is that? Well, it's because I wasn't really rooted to begin with.

14:02

And so I think someone who is a genuine believer, they're going to desire to do this for one.

14:09

But I think it's important for the Christian to care about these things is because we've been given something so amazing, right?

14:16

We've been given grace. We've been given faith. We've been granted and also gifted repentance.

14:23

And so we've experienced the love of the triune God, right? And we've been called to love our neighbors.

14:29

You know, we've been called out of darkness and we've become light, right? The light of the world. We've been pulled from the dirt, right?

14:36

And he's formed us into salt to preserve the world. And so, you know, I think the love of God that we have received, it's given us this new heart for us to properly love our neighbor.

14:48

And if we truly have God's love in us, we naturally want to share this hope and this joy and this peace with other people.

14:57

Right. And all we're simply doing is telling them why, why we have this. Right. And so it's obvious to say that they need to know

15:06

Jesus. And apologetics is just that, sharing with someone the reason why they can have hope as well.

15:12

And the only way that hope can be experienced is through what Christ has accomplished for us. Amen. Yeah. Okay, let me start over.

15:21

At work, when I used to work at Ford, right when I turned reformed, it seemed like I started getting a lot more questions challenging my faith, just from people out of nowhere, though.

15:38

This was like, you know, like... Like they didn't even know that you had had a shift in theology. Yeah, they didn't even know that my theology had shifted.

15:45

You know, I was much more into the N .A .R. or the

15:51

NAR situation for about six months, I guess you could say. But I mean, nobody was challenging me at that point, you know, and I think

16:01

I could have given them some kind of, you know, at that point, just about the supernatural and whatever.

16:08

And then as I turned reformed, I started getting more questions about like, okay, well, you know, like, who made

16:17

God? You know, I'd start getting more like theological questions, you know, and even like...

16:23

Well, it was God's providence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He knew where you were going. Right, exactly. You know, and then

16:29

I started getting questions about like, you know, science. And I'm just like, science? Like, I don't even think about that.

16:35

You know, all of a sudden, when you're trying to just have a conversation with somebody, you know, they're just like, oh, you're a Christian.

16:40

And then all of a sudden, it turns into they're a scientist. All of a sudden, they're like, how do you believe in God?

16:46

You know, because this is what science says. And it's like, you know, having that answer, just to come back to it, you know, just to have that defense, you know, to have those real -world conversations,

16:58

I think really started sharpening me more and made me, you know, want to get into apologetics a lot more, like even like the

17:06

Kalam cosmological argument stuff. And, you know, like, and even just like looking into induction.

17:13

I mean, like, there's so many different scientific topics. And I'm not talking about Scientology.

17:18

I'm not talking about, you know, Christian science. I'm not talking about any of that stuff. I'm just talking about knowing a little bit more, like deeper into the conversation, like you can find biblical answers for everything.

17:32

I mean, seriously, man, like God has already taught this. This is in the word of scripture, you know?

17:39

But yeah, I mean, like, and also just not being neutral about your defense, you know, like you can't just sit back and just, you know, just the same way you just said,

17:50

EC, with Chicago Bulls, you didn't like pull back and say, yeah, well, maybe the

17:56

Bulls, you know, they're going through this thing. No, like you were like, no, man, the Bulls is my team. Like, don't talk about them, you know?

18:02

So it's the same with, you know, I mean, hopefully on a deeper level with Christianity, with your faith, but yeah, like, so how would you apply some of that, like not being neutral into a situation where you are sharing the gospel,

18:19

EC? Like, how would you bring the apologetics into a conversation where somebody's just going all over the place, you know, what would your advice be, you know, for that situation?

18:32

Yeah. Well, one thing I wanted to ask you really quick, do you think that those questions just came up because you, you know, you became a reformer and all of a sudden you get all of these questions, or do you think it was because as you started to think through, which is a deeper level when you started to study scripture, do you think it actually gave you discernment and gave you more of an awareness of things that were theologically off?

19:02

And so it's like, man, I was just studying these things. Now, hold on, something's wrong with that. And then you start to see all these things that you were kind of blind to before.

19:08

EC, it's because I paid them. I paid people to go do that to him at work, to test him.

19:14

I mean, for sure. It was me getting sharpened and me, like, thinking even more into my

19:20

Christian walk. I mean, before I was such a passive, like, a passive Christian that barely read his

19:27

Bible, somebody would say something about, you know, whatever, and I would just be like, yeah,

19:33

I don't know. Could be. Who knows? Who knows? You know? And like, I would have no defense for that.

19:39

You know what I'm saying? So yeah. So definitely learning more about my faith, and at that time, like,

19:45

I was just like, you know, and I'm not trying to make this all about me at all, you're the person we're interviewing,

19:51

EC. Come on now. No, no, no. But man, but I'll tell you what, like, but check this out, though, like,

19:58

I think I was just going through, like, I want to know what I have said that I believe.

20:05

You know? Like, when I was growing up in church, I mean, I was just kind of like, you know, like, tagging along to all these different traditions, like, you know, just,

20:15

I mean, all these different things. I mean, I was just like, oh, the pastor says it, gotta be true, right? You know, but then

20:20

I would never dig into it. I was never able to actually have that conversation with anybody. So yeah,

20:26

I definitely think it was God's providence for sure, you know, in those situations. And really quick,

20:31

I'll interject here and then we'll let EC get back to it, but I think apologetics by definition is proactive. I think when you hear, you know, when we use that scripture and it says, make a defense, look at, could you imagine if you had a defense attorney and he was just kind of neutral about your guilt or innocence?

20:48

The judge would say, do you have anything to present? He could be guilty. Maybe he's not. Like defensive is proactive and taking a stand.

20:55

And I think it is proactive by nature. And I also want to say too, that like, there are going to be things that you just don't know, you know, like you're not going to be able to answer.

21:06

There's going to be a lot of things you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a ton, right? So like, so like if anybody's sitting out there like right now, just going, man,

21:13

I hope I never have a conversation with these guys. It's like, no, like all of us have that moment where it's like, you know what?

21:19

Like I, and this was some, this was some advice that I got at one point. Somebody just told me if you don't know the answer, just say it.

21:27

Oh yeah. You know what? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Let me get back to you about that.

21:33

Well, let me give you, let me give you a secret. Um, Omri, Omri Miles, he, he used to be on, um,

21:39

Raps and Grace, um, podcasts and they did this really dope episode on the glory of God.

21:45

I can't remember which episode it was, but man, your listeners should definitely look it up. But he was talking about when he used to be a teacher and whenever someone didn't know the answer, he was like, uh, you know, the glory of God is like almost always the right answer.

22:02

You don't know man. I mean, yeah.

22:07

God is going to get the glory. Yeah. That's awesome. So you were, so if I remember you were asking, um, how do you engage people without, and being forced to or without being neutral, without, yeah, without being neutral, without someone talking you into their worldview, if that makes sense.

22:26

Oh yeah. Oh, that's easy. Cause it's up to the believer to control the conversation.

22:31

Um, the ball has to be in your court if you are on the defense, um, now defending your faith isn't, um, it doesn't, it doesn't automatically mean that you're on the defense just because you hear defending your faith.

22:45

Um, you can defend your country by going out and actually taking the first shot.

22:51

Um, so that's not what it means, but you have to be in control of the conversation. You have to bring it back to what we know to be true and we can lay out the foundation of those things.

23:02

And if someone doesn't, um, accept the starting point that we have, um, don't expect them to end up where you are.

23:11

Right. You're called to be faithful to share the truth. And then you pray. Um, you pray beforehand.

23:17

Um, if you got skills, um, you know, like, like these guys here, you can pray while you're talking and you pray afterwards.

23:25

Like hopefully you left the stone in their shoes. So every time they walk, they feel that stone. Like, man, he said something that really challenged what

23:32

I believe. Um, and so just be faithful to proclaim the truth and then allow, not allow, but realize that it's

23:39

God who's going to do the work to begin with. But we can't claim neutrality because if we do, we're really tossing

23:46

God's truth in the garbage. It's like, if, I don't know, I'm not good at coming up with analogies on the spot, but if you were, if you were trying to complete a task and someone gave you this, so say you're trying to fix a car and someone gave you this snap on set that has a specific tool that can only be used to replace a particular part calipers.

24:08

Um, right. If somebody brings you their car and they're like, Hey, I need you to fix this car. And they're sitting back.

24:14

Right. And you got these tools that they don't like that they don't accept, but you know, those tools work, but to appease them, you're going to be like, you know what?

24:22

I'm not going to use those tools. I'm going to go about fixing it, using their ideology and their worldview.

24:29

Um, that would be stupid for one. Um, and then what does that say to the person who went out above and beyond out of their way to buy you this set that has a tool to complete this task?

24:40

Right. Right. Right. Um, I guess that was kind of a good analogy. I'm a traitor. Write that down.

24:46

Right. Where was that? Uh, where were we in? That was 24, 25 minutes.

24:54

Absolutely. No, that's great. That's great. But it's like we, we have, we have the foundation of God's word, right?

25:01

Um, I'm a pre I'm priest up. So I believe that we start with what God has, has said, um, all even down to things that aren't apologetics outside of the church, um, even when it comes to explaining biblical truth, um, like, okay, so how do we learn what love is, what we consider the fact that God is love.

25:20

And so what does that look like? You know, how do we know what mercy is or what grace is or which joy, peace, any thing that you want to put in there?

25:28

Well, first we need to go to the scripture and then we need to understand that. And then we look at that through that lens.

25:34

And then we see how we apply that in the, in this room, right. That we actually live in.

25:40

And so we have to be presuppositionalist where we have these priests. Everybody has presuppositions also.

25:46

So even if you accept their neutrality, um, they're not really neutral because they're sinners, right?

25:54

They're blinded. They have, um, desires to feed their flesh. They're suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness.

26:02

And so their presupposition, their presupposition is as enemies of God, they hate

26:09

God. And so they're not even neutral. And so how, why would you even put yourself in a position of being neutral, a place that they're not even in, um, you're, you're putting yourself at a greater disadvantage.

26:20

Um, and so, yeah, I think that's a horrible place to try to start, um, as a believer, you have to control the conversation, you have to control the narrative.

26:30

Um, it might not sound nice, but that's what they're doing. You know, every question is really often a setup for something else.

26:38

It's not often that you get a genuine question. Um, I shouldn't say it's not often, but oftentimes when someone, you know, when someone's asking, asking questions, they're actually doing it to get you to stumble.

26:50

They're trying to set you up. They're not coming from a neutral place. They're not genuinely wanting to know, um, you know, what, what do you think about God?

26:57

Do you really think he exists? And why do you believe Jesus is God? You know, they're not asking you because they, they want to gain an understanding.

27:05

They want to ask you so they can try to prove you wrong. And so they're not neutral. Right. Right. Yeah.

27:10

No, absolutely. So if someone is listening right now, or let's say you go, okay,

27:16

I want to really start to hone my defense of the faith. In your opinion, as someone who talks about this all the time, and I suspect

27:23

I might get an answer here because one of the subjects is in the title of your podcast. What are some good areas that every

27:31

Christian should just have a pretty firm and basic understanding of in apologetics? What are some subjects within the

27:37

Bible that we should be looking at and go, okay, we should be ready to give a firm defense of this theological view or doctrinal view?

27:47

Yeah. Um, it's actually more simple than someone might think. And it can sound like a lot because there's so many things in scripture that we ought to be interested in learning.

27:57

Obviously we want to be able to express these different truths to other people. But I actually put together this, it's a little questionnaire, it's called four questions.

28:09

And it's four questions that I believe every Christian should be able to answer. I think this is a good starting place.

28:16

How am I saved? How do I know I'm saved? What's essential to Christianity?

28:21

In other words, what sets the Christian faith apart from other belief systems? And question four is what is the gospel?

28:29

Every believer ought to be able to answer questions on some level.

28:36

Can you guys hear me still? Absolutely. I think I might've picked up a phone call.

28:44

He's a busy guy. Geez, in the middle of his speech, he's getting phone calls, doing deals.

28:51

I love it. Sorry. I wish it was like that when I was selling life insurance. Somebody called you back.

28:59

Yeah, but I think these questions are questions that every Christian ought to be able to answer. Not academically, but biblically and true to what the scripture has to say.

29:11

Now, if you don't mind, I can go through what I believe about these four. Yeah, let's do it.

29:18

And then you guys can engage that if you would like. So yeah, question number one is how am I saved?

29:23

Right. Obviously, if you're a believer, you ought to be able to answer that question. But Ephesians chapter two, right?

29:29

We all know the famous verse, verse eight and nine. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing.

29:35

Right. And so you're saved. How am I saved? Through faith. This is not of your own doing. It's a gift of God.

29:41

And so oftentimes we hear that grace is the gift. And then you exercise faith in that gift, which is true.

29:49

But by grace, you have been saved through faith. So what is not of your own doing?

29:56

It's both the gifts of grace and faith, which makes it not a result of works, which is the reason why we have no grounds for boasting.

30:05

We have not done this by our own merit. And so what the believer knows is that we're saved by the work of the triune

30:12

God. Right. He looked beyond our mess and for his good pleasure. He had mercy on us and he nailed our sin to the cross.

30:20

Right. And so this is how the believer is saved. It's through God's work in our heart.

30:28

How do we know this is a reality? How do we know that we are safe? The same faith that we are saved through is the same faith that's exercised to believe that.

30:41

Right. To continue to believe that as you progress in the Christian faith through sanctification. Right.

30:46

And so ultimately, we know that we're saved by faith. We're trusting in God's word. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

30:58

Right. If we call upon the name of the Lord, we shall be saved. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him, we know the verses.

31:07

Right. Will not perish, but have everlasting life. Do you believe that? And so how do

31:13

I know? Well, the Bible says that if I confess, he is faithful and just to forgive. So I trust in what

31:19

God has said. So how do I know I'm safe? It's because I believe God at his word. Right. I have faith.

31:25

And so which, again, is gifted to us by God. We've all been gifted a measure of these things.

31:32

And so I also can know that that I am saved because that I am saved because Jesus is alive.

31:39

Right. And he promised in John chapter six that he would raise us on the last day.

31:44

And so that's the end of salvation, which is to be glorified. Right. Glorification. Absolutely.

31:50

We receive new bodies where we're brought into the presence of God in heaven. Obviously, we're in his presence now.

31:56

And so and it's not a I do want to point out also that we keep using the word faith. It's not a blind faith.

32:03

Right. We're not stepping out on a blind hope, but we see the ground.

32:10

We're walking on the ground that that was laid for us. Right. And so we're looking to Christ and we're anchored by the fact that we can look to Christ and we can know a secondary way not to drag this on too long, but a secondary way that I think we can know that we're saved is by looking at our lives, by looking and seeing that, look,

32:31

God has done a work in our heart. This is how I used to be. Well, look, this is what I'm doing now.

32:37

I used to hate God. I love God. I used to hate my neighbors. Now I love my neighbors. And so we have to understand that genuine faith also produces works.

32:46

Now, going back to the other verse in Ephesians chapter two, these works were laid out for us beforehand.

32:53

So we can't boast in these works. And we have to remember that these works aren't saving us. But just like James says, faith without works is dead.

33:01

And so these works will also provide proof. And I say it's secondary because we often miss the work as believers.

33:08

And so if we ultimately look to our works or our changed lives as evidence of how we can know we're saved, when you miss the mark, you're going to really doubt your salvation.

33:21

You're not going to have an anchor. And it's simply because you're looking to yourself and you're not looking to Christ.

33:26

The third question is, what's essential to Christianity? To keep it simple, who is God and how are we made right with him?

33:35

Those are the two essential questions that I think even all the things that we would see as majors would kind of fit in that same category.

33:47

Right. Just like all the law is wrapped up in love for God and love for neighbor.

33:52

Right. All of the law. That's the foundation. I think this is the foundation for all of the major things.

33:58

Obviously, the minor things can become major. So we have conversations about those. But I think the essential things are who is

34:05

God, is Jesus God, is God triune, right? Is God perfect?

34:10

Is God all powerful? Does God learn? All of those things will fall under that category of understanding and knowing who

34:16

God is and then how I'm made right with him. Is it by works? Am I saved because I'm a good person?

34:22

Am I saved because what Christ has done for me? You know, do I got to jump through these hoops to attain something?

34:28

All of those things will fall under the funnel of what's essential to Christianity. And the final question is, what is the gospel?

34:36

Right. Yeah. And so the gospel is actually everything that I've been sharing in the first three questions.

34:45

Right. And this is the secret. I love giving out this. Now, let me read one of these for you.

34:50

I read the one that I got in my hand. Sure. This is why it's important. And if anyone

34:56

I can actually send this to you guys, if you guys if anyone wants this for their church or for people that they know and they want to kind of engage them on what they believe about these things.

35:05

This is a great way to have a conversation with someone and have an opportunity to share the truth with them.

35:13

Well, what do you believe about these things? And then engage them. And so I did.

35:18

This is a whole stack right here. He's got the flyers.

35:25

He got promo stuff. He's ready to go. I had to I had to get proof of concept.

35:30

Right. Because I'm like, I think a lot of believers can't answer these questions. Sure. So I was like, well, I don't want to just go based on that.

35:36

And so when I was doing more hip hop, doing more performances, I would actually take this along with me and have people answer these questions.

35:43

And then I would tell them the easy answer afterwards. So this one right here is from someone between the ages of 16 and 21.

35:52

I have some preliminary questions on there to kind of understand why the answers are the way they are.

35:58

They said they are Christian. How long have you been a Christian? They claim since birth. Obviously, that's a red flag.

36:04

But they also checked off that they're an active member. Right. Yeah. And so question number one, how am

36:10

I safe? Answer baptism. Question number two, how do

36:16

I know I'm right? How do I know I'm safe? I don't know. Question number three, what's essential to Christianity?

36:25

It's the youngest Abrahamic. Oh, we need some witnessing over here in aisle three.

36:35

Bro. And then what is the gospel? The first four books of the Bible. And I could kind of understand if that's a young believer.

36:44

And they're like, well, the gospel. Oh, man,

36:52

I think I pressed that and it frozen up. Are you still there, man?

36:58

I don't know. We're getting this weird thing. Look at where it's like. Yeah, we're going down to. It's just free.

37:03

First one was at nine. Oh, was it nine and thirty seven? Oh, the first four books of the

37:09

Bible. Right. But what is the gospel? OK, there you go. You guys hear me now? Yeah.

37:15

Yeah. You just froze up and all audio dropped out there. Kind of right after the sound drop.

37:21

That's cool. I'll just pick up from here. I think the gospel. Like the way the gospel answers these three questions is that the gospel tells me how

37:30

I'm safe. Yep. Right. The gospel tells me how I can know that I'm safe. The gospel is essential to Christianity.

37:39

And so how do I become good at apologetics, become good at communicating the gospel?

37:46

Yeah. All of that fits into there. The gospel is good news in light of the fact that I am a sinner and I'm in the need of a savior.

37:54

Right. And Jesus has come to rescue us from the wrath of God. And so my simple definition for the gospel is to be rescued from the wrath of God by God for eternal communion with God.

38:06

And so a proper understanding of the gospel, I think, provides a sure foundation of assurance. And for evangelism, that the gospel actually provides the answer for the first three questions, because the gospel tells me how

38:18

I'm safe. The gospel tells me how we can know that we're safe. Obviously, the gospel is also essential to the

38:26

Christian faith. Right. Right. It's what sets it apart from any other religion. And so the way that we become good at doing apologetics is by becoming good at communicating what the gospel is and knowing what it's not.

38:38

And so the gospel is good news in light of the fact that we're sinners and we need a savior. And through Christ.

38:44

Right. We've been provided that savior. And also for me, a good working,

38:50

I think, simple definition for the gospel. Obviously, you can build on it because there's distinct things within this definition.

38:57

But my simple definition is to be rescued from the wrath of God by God for eternal communion with God.

39:04

And so as long as we as long as we have a proper understanding of the gospel, it's a great foundation for us to have assurance, obviously, and for us to be able to do evangelism faithfully to what the scripture has laid out.

39:19

But, yeah, these are some basic questions that I think every believer should be able to know. And it will be helpful as you engage others using apologetics.

39:28

Awesome. So as we wrap up here on this episode, I did want to ask you, just because I'm always interested and I ask a lot of people this.

39:34

So as an apologist, how do you study the Bible? Are you there with just the Bible? Do you have concordances?

39:41

Do you have other reference books? And it doesn't have to be a long answer, but just what is your it just interests me for each person's a little bit different.

39:49

But how when you read the word or you're studying, what's that like? Yes. So depending on what

39:55

I'm studying for, the deepest I really get is when I'm studying to preach, which

40:00

I actually am scheduled for the 11th of April. But I can show you an example real quick.

40:07

What I like to do is print out the text. And I'm not sure if you can see that, but I print out the text and I mark it all up.

40:17

You know, I pray. I print it out. I read over it a bunch of times. I'll read the whole chapter.

40:24

If it's a short book, I'll read the whole book multiple times. And what I'll do is I'll come back to the main passage that I have.

40:30

We do verse by verse preaching at my church, expository preaching. And so I'll take a portion of scripture that I have, mark all of it up with the things that I kind of just see.

40:43

And then I'll be praying through it. And then I'll actually lay out. Now, I know I'm actually saying this is the answer to your question.

40:50

But what I'll do is I'll lay out the structure that I see, the main points that I see in the text, what this teaches us about God, what this teaches us about his love for us, and then how we ought to live in light of these things.

41:05

And so this is a number one step that I'll do. So this is what I got through prayer and through considering what the scripture has to say.

41:14

I also would step in and kind of use log off Bible software and kind of consider some other commentaries just to see,

41:23

OK, what have believers throughout the years understood about this passage? What's the historical context of something specific that might be in a text that I didn't understand?

41:34

And every once in a while, I might even listen to a podcast or sermon on something just to kind of see and make sure

41:41

I'm in line with, you know, what other people that I respect would believe about these different things.

41:48

But, yeah, I think a good way to study the scripture is just prayerfully reading the entire thought.

41:55

I have a reader's Bible and it takes out the chapter and verses. So it just reads like a normal book, which is the way that they would have received it.

42:03

Obviously. Well, maybe some chapter and verse separations aren't inspired. So it's good to actually read all of what's being said.

42:13

Absolutely. Lead into believing something that is not in context. So, yeah, you know, what

42:20

I'm hearing here is obviously I love those four points that you just brought up, what everyone should know.

42:25

And I think listeners are going to benefit from that. And Jason and I've talked about this.

42:31

I mean, it is really if you want to be an apologist, which every Christian I believe has been called to be an apologist, a theologian and a preacher.

42:38

Maybe not in those official titles as you think of them, but as definitional, we are called into that as believers.

42:46

And it really comes down to just immersing yourself in the word of God. I've never found any one of those three types of people who have been good at one of those three subjects who go, yeah,

42:57

I just kind of do a cursory read of the Bible and to have some ideas from there. It's like you need to immerse yourself in that.

43:04

It needs to be your bread, your daily bread. And I think that's a great takeaway as well.

43:10

Right. And we have so many ways to study scripture now. Yeah, it's awesome. I do love that about technology.

43:16

Oh, man. And you can find a preacher or a scholarly teacher.

43:24

Or a text. Text. A book. Whatever, man. There's so many ways, so many ways. No excuse. Yeah, yeah.

43:30

But I mean, it all comes back to the word of God. Not what a man says. Absolutely.

43:35

But absolutely comes back to what the word of God says. Yeah, you don't want to be a theologian or a pastor fanboy or junkie grouping.

43:45

For sure. I mean, the word of God is what we're rooted in. But just like EC said, there are times

43:51

I'll go out, I might pick up a certain podcast, I might go look at a certain sermon and go, okay, what are their thoughts on that?

43:57

Where are they at? And it's an add -on too. Just when I study and I have a Strong's Concordance and I'm looking at Matthew Henry, then

44:04

I'll go over if I'm feeling crazy and liberal and progressive and read Darby a little bit. What are you, nuts?

44:10

Just to get another view. Look it, man. We all need to check into MSNBC once in a while to see what the crazies are doing.

44:17

That's all I'm saying. I'm out of here, dude. Are you serious? Even in scholarly work, we should know what others are saying and doing.

44:25

I think that's another good point we didn't really talk about. But don't get in the vein of just what you believe.

44:30

Obviously, I have a defense for it. But like we said at the top of the show, look it, you're going to come across Jehovah Witness, Mormons, atheists, hedonists, deists, all these different types of people with world views.

44:41

And you need to be able to defend your faith against those. Now, you don't have to know everything about every single sect, like EC said, but you need to have a good knowledge of those four questions that he was talking about.

44:53

So even if you're not proactively arguing into their beliefs, you are proactively defending yours.

45:00

Right. Right. Right. So, EC, as we finish up here, just throw out where people can find you on social media, where they can listen to the podcast, if they love that reformed rap like I do, where they can pick up your

45:13

EP and share a little bit about that as we wrap up. Sure.

45:18

On the music side of things, you can just Google Vision On Duty. All my stuff will come up from there.

45:24

I have music on iTunes, Amazon, Tidal, Spotify, anywhere you like to listen to music.

45:30

My bandcamp is www .visiononduty .bandcamp .com.

45:36

And you can actually listen there for free. So there's no excuse. You can listen for free. You can buy it. You can stream it.

45:42

Go buy it, guys. Go buy it. And don't do none of that $2 stuff.

45:48

Right. Right. Give him $10, $20. He's a brother in the Lord. If you're going to pay, you can pay, too. That's right. No, absolutely.

45:54

And don't skip out. Look, we got to pay $7 for a mocha, frappa, chino, eggachino, whatever the heck it is.

46:02

Three times a week. But you got some solid theologically sound, doctrinally sound, awesome sounding, lyrically sound.

46:10

Did I say sound enough times? Yep. Music. Can you go throw him $20? Go throw him $20 for his art.

46:16

You know what I'm saying? Can we support artists? Can we support Christians? Can we support believers, man? I'm sick of this, where we will spend $50 on something stupid, and then we want to scrimp on godly art, and godly creative thought, and books, and things like that.

46:34

Go pay the man, is what I'm saying. Sorry, I got off. Go ahead. Get back to what you were saying, EC. I'm going to have to use that clip real quick.

46:40

I'm going to have to back that up. No, man, I would appreciate the support, for sure. As far as the podcast goes, it's also on my same

46:48

YouTube channel, which is Vision on Duty. There's a playlist called That Deity, though.

46:54

You can listen to the podcast on any platform. It's That Deity, T -H -O. Again, it's mostly talking about the divinity of Christ, the

47:04

Trinity, why we can believe those things. Sometimes, I'll use Logos, and I'll open it up, and show you the different things, and what

47:12

I'm actually looking at to make the claims that I'm saying. I do video audio.

47:17

If you just want to listen to audio, you can listen on any podcast catcher. Yeah, if you have questions surrounding the divinity of Christ and the

47:24

Trinity, you can email me at thatdeity, though, at gmail .com. I just started using the first segment of my podcast to respond to questions from audience members and listeners.

47:35

Oh, I love it. On this episode that just came out, someone asked the question of, is there any specific text in the

47:43

Old Testament that explicitly referred to the Messiah as Yahweh?

47:49

I went to three different verses, and I showed why there are verses that say that.

47:55

If you guys have questions, go ahead and write in. If you are interested, go ahead and check out the podcast and listen to the music.

48:03

Awesome, guys. If you're interested in listening to EC, whether on the podcast or through his music, we're going to link all that stuff up.

48:09

When this goes live, by the time you're hearing this, it will be live.

48:16

We'll make sure we link that up. Guys, for those listening, too, I know Jason and I were talking about this.

48:21

We absolutely love when you guys tell other people about the podcast. We had someone on our first ever

48:27

SoundCloud episode say, hey, someone told me about it, and her name, geez, the name's slipping my mind, but she said,

48:34

I love those shorts. Those just five minute definitional, this is what it means.

48:40

She goes, some of those words I've heard of, but I didn't know what they were. Demi. Demi. That's right.

48:45

And a little side promo for us, too. Every Tuesday at 9 p .m., we are on Clubhouse. We're doing a

48:51

Reformed and Rowdy Room, the only Reformed room on the Clubhouse platform. So if you are on Clubhouse, make sure you jump on Tuesdays, 9 p .m.

49:00

Eastern Standard Time. The first one, it was just me and Jason and two friends. The next one, it was about five people.

49:07

Last time, we had about eight or nine. We keep growing. Keeps going. And we're going to get other podcasters in there, other people in there.

49:13

It's brand new. It's the only Reformed room on Clubhouse. We'd like you to get in there. And what we're doing is we're recording that room on Clubhouse and then uploading it within our podcast stream.

49:23

So who knows? You jump into our Clubhouse, you contribute a little bit, you might be on the podcast.

49:29

Yeah. And we let everyone know up front that it is recording. But as usual, guys, tell a friend. That's how we support each other.

49:36

That's how we support guys like EC as well. Make sure you go listen to his podcast. It's absolutely wonderful.

49:42

We love that you guys also are commenting and liking and sharing the content on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

49:49

We appreciate that. That's how we give glory to God. And Jason, did you have anything else before we're out?

49:54

You said it all, man. Take a breath real quick. I'm joking. All right, guys. EC, thank you, brother.

50:01

That's right. You guys have a good one. God bless. Later. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at deadmenwalkingpodcast for full video podcast episodes and clips.