Classic: Pradeep Tilak Interview (Part 2)

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Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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This isn't it. It's the antithesis of it, hopefully much more biblical. Today is part two.

In the studio today is my friend, fellow co -laborer. Fellow co -laborer, is that,

I mean, that's too many prefixes, I think. Pradeep Tilak is here. Pradeep has his PhD at Southern Seminary.

He's got his MDiv at Southern Seminary. He has his, where'd you get your bachelor's, at WPI? No, it was in Clarkson University.

Oh, Clarkson, wow, very impressive. I stand corrected. That was my master's.

My bachelor's is from India. So you have two masters. That's correct. All right. So Pradeep, if you have not listened to the interview with him last week, you can pull that up.

And I want to just catch up our listeners a little bit today and we'll talk about your salvation and your family and stuff like that.

But welcome back to the show. It's great to be here. Now, are you more nervous this particular episode or less nervous?

I'll find out at the end. One of the great joys of gospel ministry is to see how

God saves and then equips and then grows people into gospel maturity, as Paul would talk about in Ephesians 4.

And so Pradeep, for the record, on the record, I just want to say what a joy it is to watch your life, to see you as a young man who,

I think you were a Christian, but you just didn't really know why you were a Christian, and then to learn and to grow.

And I know you give all the praise to the Lord and he's the one that deserves it. But just to see you learn and grow, and I'll tell you, to stick around at a church for 18, 19 years, there are many benefits, but one is then the pastor gets to see how the

Lord will grow people. And so from a brand, not a brand new Christian, but from an immature

Christian to a maturing Christian to a mature Christian, and then an elder here at Bethlehem Bible Church, and then off around the world, you go to teach and to do conferences and all that stuff.

I'm just really, really happy that the Lord would let me see what he's done in your life.

Thank you. It's some things we don't think in life. I would have never imagined one day

I'll be sitting next to you doing a conference show. And can I maybe encourage the pastors who are listening in terms of Paul's exhortation to Timothy?

And I think that's one of the things, you know, in our church, you have done well and you've trained men to do well, that they would equip the saints and let the next generation of men to understand the word and to equip others also.

Well, and then there are just the wonderful benefits of then friendship. Then we have a camaraderie as we serve

God's people here at the church. One of the things pastors I can tell you is if you will invest in the lives of other people, especially men, then they will come and help hold your arms up as Moses' arms were held up.

Pradeep, for many years, worked full -time and then poured hours into the ministry here at the local church.

You are a software QA guy, and now you don't have a job in that industry. I do want to say that if you're a college president or a college provost, and you need someone to teach systematic theology, apologetics, or something like that,

Pradeep, you're looking for an opportunity right now in light of your education at Southern, correct?

That is correct, yes. And you can send all finder's fees to nocompromiseradio .com.

But seriously, if you have an opportunity and you're a school and you'd like to have someone teach systematic theology, apologetics, what else do you love teaching?

I love teaching everything in MDiv. Okay, well, we have a Institute for Biblical Studies here at the church, and Pradeep leads that program, and he leads it well.

All kinds of classes, from hermeneutics to systematic theology. Did you teach Greek or Hebrew?

Not yet. Okay, but others have. Yes, we have. Okay, would you be able to teach Greek and Hebrew? Definitely. Okay. See, that's why

Pradeep scares me, is it just like, okay. Pradeep, tell us a little bit about your conversion, right?

So theologically, conversion is from our perspective, this is what happened to us. And of course, you can talk about the

Lord's salvation and then your conversion, but how did God save you and when, and what were the particular circumstances?

As I said, I was born and raised in this Christian family, and I was a regular attender of the

Church of South India. And so when I used to go to these Sunday services, I assumed that I was a

Christian. But then when I was about 13, 14, I realized that my life was not conforming to everything that I was reading from the scripture.

But when I looked at the people in the church, I assumed, well, maybe this is how people live.

They read one thing, say one thing, and then they live another complete duplicitous life in their hearts.

And so as a 15 -year -old, I was a very conformist kid.

So everybody in the church said, oh, that's the nice Christian kid. And only I knew the depths of depravity in my own heart, as the

Spirit of God was already doing some work. He was exposing the faults in my life, as it were.

There were certain events in our life as our family was going through some difficulties. There were moral challenges that I was facing, and yet assuming that this is the way that I want to live, mainly because I took pleasure in my sin.

And so the remarkable way of how God brought about my conversion was, here

I was, it was a season of Lent. And as our churches are more organized, what we call a high church, there were services during this

Lenten period. And they actually invited a guest preacher to come one of these

Fridays when they were preaching about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so this preacher comes up, stands up on the podium, like right up on the top, I'm about 200 feet away.

And this man is preaching with his eyes closed. I don't recommend that for people, but this man was preaching with his eyes closed, head lowered, and he was just giving me the pure, simple gospel.

And as I was watching him, the Word of God was just so powerful. It was as if the

Lord from heaven was speaking down to this one individual that needed, that his sin could not be hidden.

And I was just standing there with my sin exposed and the greatness of the Savior. And as I heard the gospel,

I remember, there's just one of two choices for me. One, bow my knee and submit to the

Savior, or two, cease living, because I couldn't hide from this great and awesome

God who knows every single thing that I do. And as I was walking back,

I remember, I love my pleasure a lot. I really don't want to give this up.

And then the Spirit of God was working in my heart. And I remember the moment when it just became, yes,

God is more beautiful, more grand, more precious than anything else that I wanted.

And there was a, you know, mine was one of those instantaneous conversions. When that happened, it just became like the weight just fell off.

I just remember the first few weeks were like a honeymoon. I was just crying. I was just reading the

Word and the Word just became like the Lord speaking to me. And then that was the beginning of a journey that's now been many, many years since.

Pradeep, if people want to order your dissertation, it's published by Amazon, isn't it? Tell us how you'd get that book.

Yeah, so if you Google Worldview Apologetics and Pradeep Tilak, I'm sure it'll bring it up on Amazon.

And if somebody was going to just read a general apologetics intro, they might not, it's going to be harder because it's a dissertation level.

But what could a layman glean from the book, even though it's written at a high level? Yes, this book is not intended for public, popular reading.

Public, that's not the right term. But the first chapter actually brings out the broader sense of what apologetics is.

But then this book brings out various aspects of apologetics. But it also gives you an example toward a specific type of Hinduism.

So if you are considering doing apologetics with someone that you know that has a very fixed worldview, they don't want to listen to you.

I think this shows you how to do presuppositional apologetics in a step -by -step way.

I think chapters four, five, and six do that engagement of a Christian with a Hindu. And then it shows, here is how you would do it in a world that honors

Christ, that is gentle and respectful to the unbeliever that you're speaking with, and does not compromise the truth of the gospel.

Go ahead, what else did you want to say? And there are a few other aspects as well. If you are struggling in terms of understanding what method of apologetics you use, and how can it be more biblical, a few of the other chapters focus on why you want to rely heavily upon God and his word while you come to apologetics, rather than just trying to just fill yourself with data and logic.

Pradeep, as you look at the culture here in America, you've lived in India and then now here, how has

Hinduism affected the American culture and her thought processes?

I think over the past several decades, India's Hinduism has, well, not decades, it's over a century now, right from Vivekananda bringing it to the

Chicago World Religion Conference, Hinduism has made inroads either directly or indirectly.

Actually, right now I can see temples in Massachusetts as more Indians bring explicit worship of Hindu deities to this country.

But I think more implicitly, I think the form that most people will recognize right away is yoga.

Most people recognize the physical benefits of yoga, but most people also do not know the roots of yoga in Hindu religion.

And when you think of spirituality, most of the gurus that you hear about today who will not use the term

Hindu, really use, borrow the worldview of like Vedanta, which is the philosophical system that my book deals with.

And they borrow and import these understandings of the nature of reality.

What is, who is God, who is man? And with that broken, flawed understanding, they try to help

Americans in terms of how to be spiritually in a better place or even physically in a better place.

And I think this country, we wanna be more aware of the roots of this

Hinduism that is permeating our culture. Now, Pradeep, I know you're not really a big pop culture guy, but you get out once in a while and do certain things and you observe the new

Star Wars movie is out. Should Christians be concerned how much

Hinduism is in the Star Wars franchise? Do you think about it? What's your take on Star Wars?

I have a confession to make. This is gonna be a good one. I could almost tell you what he's gonna say, but this is gonna be good and it makes good radio.

Go ahead, please. Let's see if you guessed it right, Pastor Mike. I had not watched the

Star Wars movies until two weeks ago. Well, I was right except for the two weeks ago.

I thought you just hadn't watched them at all. What happens is I have a teenager in my home and she was curious about Star Wars.

So I said, well, this is PG -13 or PG and I will watch you as long as we have a conversation about it afterward.

And so we ended up watching the movie and then I didn't have to actually have a conversation because she comes to BBC and she could pick out all the flaws right off the bat.

And my wife was saying, well, do Christians actually think that this could have a, because I think she heard from somewhere that people look at Star Wars and say, hey, maybe this has got a

Christian theme to it. And she said, who would be saying such a thing?

That's right. How about, speaking of your family, tell us about your wife and how you met her.

Pradeep, especially interesting to me because now that I've gotten to know you and I've been to India several times, there's quite a large

Indian community in Worcester. And to me, when I think about arranged marriages and love marriages and what used to strike me as very odd and weird, it doesn't strike me that way at all.

Tell us about how you met your wife. And I love Sunita. I don't know if I would say to myself, do you know what, like with my wife,

I mean, the only reason half the people are here is because my wife is dear to them and she's so sweet and carries the load.

And if it wasn't for my wife, I'm a goner. And I know you think the same way. We have wives that are very similar in that regard, don't we?

Amen, amen. Honestly, if my wife hadn't prayerfully encouraged me over and over again,

I wouldn't have even started the MDiv program. And she's a godly woman. And let me begin with how we got introduced.

There was one factor and one factor alone that we were looking for in each other.

Is she a believer? Is he a believer? And that was it. When we were ready to get married, neither of us saw each other.

I was in this country, she was in India. Our parents knew each other. They knew that her parents knew me as a guy who trusted in the

Lord and likewise my parents of her. And so they proposed, and would you be interested in this girl?

I said, well, is she a believer? And the answer was yes. And then, sure. And I think in your book,

Pastor Mike, on sexual fidelity, I think you give some counseling for children in terms of getting married. And I think the last thing was relax.

And I think when you trust in the Lord, you're not breaking any biblical commands. You're not looking at an unbeliever.

You can trust the Lord for the things that he would accomplish. And at that time, I had no idea how much

God had prepared Sunita and he was preparing me for this marriage.

And we got married in 2000. And the one thing I can say about her is she was raised with a strong knowledge of the word and everything she does is driven by that understanding of truth.

You know, normally we look at women as being emotional. You know, they just want to do sometimes the things.

Men are these guys who are solid and we just go by the book. My wife is the, is reversed.

She is the solid one. And that's why when I was talking about Star Wars, she's like, well, here's the theology behind it.

You know, the force, come on. Well, Pradeep, thinking of the book as well,

I personally, let's say someone's interested in one of my daughters. Can I take your daughter out on a date?

And I basically say, no, but you can get to know me and I vet them and work through all those issues.

And I'm closer to what we would call an arranged marriage than probably most people because I want to be involved in helping my daughters.

And of course my son too, but not think emotionally and not think romantically without thinking biblically as well.

And I say to myself, how does God arrange the marriage for his son? It is with an arrangement and it doesn't strike me oddly at all.

Now you have two families, both born again and they see their children and they see some propensities of, this one would be matched well with this one.

What do you think? It's not forced upon you guys. You could say yes or no. And now it doesn't strike me oddly at all.

But what does strike me oddly on the flip side is two people without any parental supervision, see each other, think they're attractive, go spend some time together, begin sleeping together and then say, get married.

That's the odd one to me now. Sadly, I think the church today is imbibing this culture of independence as well as values that are coming from the world into the church.

And I think what you said is exactly right, Pastor Mike. I think we need to bring the parents and the next generation of men and women to look at the

Bible and say, how do I trust God in the process of marriage rather than presume to be the one who is in charge, doing things my way, which happens to be the way of the world?

How many times can we just look back? I know this is not the best evidence. Anecdotal evidence never is, but it does confirm.

Think about maybe listeners, how God protected you from marrying a certain person and then you married the one you did.

I think that's what happened with me and with Kim. And I think to myself, how could he plan it all?

I mean, what kind of ministry would I have without my wife? And the answer would be, I wouldn't have that at all.

Pradeep, I don't think I've ever asked you this question. You have two girls and they're growing up and when they want to get married, how's that going to work for you?

Because now you're basically an American now, right? Citizenship on the passport.

No, but seriously, what will you require of your girls? Love marriage, arrange marriage, you're just involved.

How would that work? One of the things that we are very careful in our home is to help our children understand and have a biblical view of marriage when they're young.

We make it clear that this puppy love and the idea of looking at the opposite sex in a worldly sense is displeasing to God and ought not to corrupt the thinking of the mind.

And so we begin with that and then they understand. The moment they need to be looking at marriage is when they're ready to get married.

And that's the point when they start to look at this great gift of marriage that God gives. But I think in our culture, it has just been brought down to kindergarten where kids are just talking about boyfriends and girlfriends.

And so when the time is appropriate, again, we trust that the Lord would direct our paths in terms of the men that the

Lord would bring our way. We would definitely want to be involved in the process of meeting with these men, with the man that the

Lord brings our way. Make it clear that this is truly a believer, someone who is potentially compatible with our daughters and then bring them to our girls and then have a courtship rather than the dating scene that we have.

If you'd like to listen to Pradeep preach or do some IBS classes, they're all online, bbcchurch .org.

If you're wondering how to spell Pradeep's name, P -R -A -D -E -E -P, last name

T -I -L -A -K. Pradeep, I do have to say, maybe it's schadenfreude, but when

I was in India and was meeting all these different folks over the three times that I was there, I have a hard time saying

Indian names because it's just different. And then they had a very hard time saying my last name, so I was happy for that.

So I thought I'm not the only weird one. Tell me a little bit about the culture in India.

When I meet an Indian and they say they're a Christian, I say to myself in general, probably

Armenian, probably a little legalistic and probably a little charismatic.

Is that a right assessment and why or why not? I think you hit upon the major trends that you would find in India.

Let me pick on legalistic first because the preaching that you typically get, and I wanna make sure when

I say typically, this is probably the majority. I have seen some good churches and godly pastors who preach biblically, but in general, what you normally see is an authoritarian idea of the pastor.

I don't know if this comes from the class system in where people look up to those who are above.

And I think sometimes it can tend to have preachers who take the text, draw the application and preach the applications as if that was the mandate of God.

And I think one of the things that we ought to be always careful is to let the word of God speak and then let the spirit of God draw those applications rather than set up a legalistic system of do's and don'ts that tend to characterize some many parts of the

Indian church. Now, when you talk about charismatics, just as in many parts here, charismatic churches are the fastest growing in India.

In one sense, I'm thankful for them because they are unashamedly evangelistic. They have the gospel, they preach the word, but unfortunately after people get saved, they do not have the founding and the grounding of the word of God.

Rather, there's a lot of emotionalism and there is a missing out of how you understand the nature of God and the call of the believer to worship him and to live out this life in light of God's word.

And you mentioned one more thing. Arminianism. Yes, and as I had said last week,

Arminianism is the default. Most churches are Arminian and not even aware of it. They are brought up to look at the scriptures from a man -centered, from a man's works perspective in terms of faith being something that I generate.

And so all the words on election, foreknowledge, predestination, all get reinterpreted in light of that.

Pradeep, I don't know if it's just the way the world works. We imported it to you guys or you guys imported it to us.

But if I meet a person here in the United States and they say they're a Christian, it's a valid profession,

I probably think to myself, there are many in charismatic and legalistic, right? And so it's just the immaturity of a person.

Well, Pradeep, the time goes by so fast. I'm thankful that you're on. And by the way, you're picking this up because you said, like I said last

Wednesday, even though that was only 20 minutes ago. So you're catching on to this radio. I'm thankful for you, your ministry, how your wife was brought to you, your children.

And I'm gonna try to talk you on, talk you into having one more show next week.

I mean, in five minutes. Okay, we're on. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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