Engaging Atheism, Judaism, and Other Worldviews w/Andrew Rappaport

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today I have another wonderful guest. His name is Andrew Rappaport, and I'm gonna explain a little bit about Andrew before I introduce him and bring him on the screen with me.

And I just wanna let you know that I'm really excited about this guest. Andrew's a great guy. He's got lots of experience in doing apologetics and evangelism, and so I'm really looking forward to picking his brain, so to speak, on some of these issues, especially with respect to atheism and Judaism.

We haven't really covered anything on Judaism very much. How do we engage in evangelism to Jews? How do we do apologetics in that context? And so hopefully this conversation will be very useful for folks who are interested in those sorts of things.

But before we do that, I want to remind folks the Epic Online Calvinism Conference is January 21st. Once again, we have Dr. James White, myself, Dr. Guillaume Bignon, Scott Christensen, and Saiten Bruggenkate.

We're gonna be covering various aspects of Calvinism, not your traditional tulip five points conference where someone talks about each of the points there. We're gonna be covering some different issues that I think folks are going to find very, very useful if that's your cup of tea.

So that's January 21st. You can go and sign up RSVP for that on revealedapologetics .com. Click the Pre-Sup You drop-down menu, and you could sign up there. And it's an awesome way also to financially support Revealed Apologetics if you feel so inclined to do so.

So again, that's January 21st. Now, real quick, oops, I invited you on there early, but I'll keep you on, I'll keep you with me.

There you go.

Andrew is the author of, well, he's author of multiple books, but Andrew Rappaport is the executive director of Striving for Eternity Ministries and the Christian Podcast Community. He's the host of several podcasts, Andrew Rappaport's Rap Report, Andrew Rappaport's Daily Rap Report, and Apologetics Live.

And so you definitely wanna check those out on iTunes and other platforms, I'm sure. Andrew is also the author of various books, What Do They Believe?, which is a systematic theology of the major Western religions.

And What Do We Believe?, which is a systematic theology of the Christian faith. He's also contributed to other books like the book called On the Origins of Kinds and Sharing the Good News with Mormons.

Andrew established Equip Conferences, formerly Spread the Fire Evangelism Training and Outreach Events. Actually, the first time I met Andrew was in New Jersey. I think it was a conference called Jersey Fire and I had the privilege of meeting him there and we went out to dinner afterwards, him, myself, and Matt Slick and some others as well.

I'm not sure if he remembers that. Andrew grew up in a Jewish home and was saved at the age of 16. He holds a master's degree in theological studies, a Magnum Cum Laude from Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary and a BS degree from Monmouth University in computer science.

He and his bride live in Pennsylvania and have two adult children. So a lot of cool stuff, a lot of cool information there. Have I got it all right there, Andrew?

Mostly, but it actually wasn't Equip Jersey we met at. No, Matt and I were keynote speakers at the, I think it was the South Jersey Apologetics Conference. And we went out for dinner afterwards. Of course, you do know who bought dinner for Matt, right?

I think Matt eventually was able to pay for you at some point, but I was there to witness the struggle.

Yeah, and I will admit, this is like a reverse. Now, for folks who don't know some of our history, when Matt and I started Apologetics Live together and then Matt had issues with his wife and needed to bail out, you were coming in weekly and co-hosting with me Apologetics Live on Thursday nights.

So I was the host, you were coming in with me and we've switched roles this time. And now I'm the guest in StreamYard.

It's very weird, I know, that's awesome.

I was joking, I was pointing out to the product placement behind me as you're doing things, but I guess good product placement. We got my shofars right above my head there, since we're gonna talk about Judaism.

And right above my head right there is a nice manuscript from Deuteronomy.

Oh, wow, Deuteronomy what?

I'd actually have to double check, cause I forgot, it is, cause I have two of them. And so I don't know if that's, it's probably either that one is the 10 commandments or it might be Deuteronomy six, one of the two, cause those are the two fragments that I have.

Okay, awesome. Well, I'm excited to have you on. There's some folks already listening in. John Rizos says, hello, greetings from Greece. That's awesome. I got some Canadians here as well. So thank you so much guys for listening in.

I hope you guys find this conversation useful and edifying to you. So I wanna jump right in. I know the thumbnail says engaging atheism and Judaism, but I actually wanna start with Judaism before we start with it, cause atheists, I mean, when you do apologetics, atheism content on how to respond to atheism is all over the place.

That's kind of what most people think of when they think of apologetics. It's not normal for the average Christian to encounter a Jew and really go into the weeds of some of the important issues. So I want to have you for a moment explain to us what was it like growing up as a Jew and then converting to Christianity?

And then maybe we can kind of unpack how you use what you've learned to engage with others who are from the Jewish faith.

Sure, yeah.

And so I grew up in a home, my family actually went all from Orthodox. By the time I started going to Hebrew school, we were conservative. Conservative is actually more liberal in Judaism. By the time I was bar mitzvahed, we were reformed.

Reformed in Christianity is a good thing. Reformed in Judaism is a bad thing.

They're not like Calvinist Jews? No, no, no, no, no.

It's the most liberal. And now my dad's basically a practicing atheist. So we've gone the whole gamut. But it is, it's somewhere, I mean, I've had 10, 12 years of Hebrew school where you're learning about the Jewish faith.

Growing up a generation after the Holocaust, I always have to preface this, Eli, when I say this to Christians because they just do not understand. So I'm gonna say something that's gonna shock people and then let me explain it.

Growing up the way that I did, Jewish people are raised to believe that Jesus Christ is Hitler's God. And that seems shocking, I get it. But to someone who's Jewish, we really don't make the distinguishing characteristics between Christians.

You're just all Catholics. I mean, that basically was the way that I was raised. Everyone's just a different branch of Catholic. You don't really think of it in different, much like people think Judaism is just one group.

And yet I've just named three major divisions. And even within Orthodox, there's tons of divisions within there. You have the Hasidic, I mean, there's a ton of different groups that could all be living near each other even.

So just like everyone thinks all Jewish people are the same, that's the same. And so, you have to understand that Hitler was supported by the Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church funded him for political reasons, but to Jewish people, it's just another, the Holocaust, the Inquisitions, the Crusades, it was just Christians wanting to kill off Jewish people, that's the view.

And so, it seems horrific for people to hear me say it, but that's just the way that I was raised and that we would see things, that it's, this is who Christ is. So what you have to understand, when you speak to someone that's Jewish, whether they're religious or not, and typically the very religious in the Orthodox community usually stick to themselves anyway, so you're not speaking to them, you're speaking to someone who, if they're even religious, they're probably conservative or reformed or just go on the High Holy Days.

It'd be kind of like in Christianity, you have the Christmas and Easter Christians. We have them in Judaism too. Your temple dues are paid or synagogue dues are paid on the High Holy Days. So I grew up, I was born in Mitzvahed.

When I, I know that you think I'm this bold Christian now that stands on the street corners in New York, but I wasn't then for sure. And I knew what would happen when my parents found out. And so I got saved at 16, still living in their house, two years in high school still, did not say a word.

When I went to college, they discovered I was a Christian and they went casket shopping. They were gonna bury an empty casket and that's what I fully expected. And something had happened in our family.

My dad said they went casket shopping. They chose not to do that, but they weren't gonna, he wasn't gonna pay for my college if I continued with this, which I expected. And I said, well, I understand that dad, that's why I'm in ROTC.

And my dad, the thing is, is my dad was almost killed in the army. So he never wanted his boys to be in the army. And so when he heard that, he decided to continue paying. So when it came time for me to make the decision, army or not, like I had to sign the contract and I realized, I thought it'd be dishonoring to my father, having him pay for the education and then go in anyway.

So still kind of regret that to a degree, but I feel like I was honoring my father.

Sure, sure.

Oh, now you say you converted to Christianity. What were the specific things as a Jew, like what did you encounter about Christianity that started making you doubt? Judaism, a Christ-less Judaism, so to speak.

Yeah, and just a footnote for you, Jewish, not Jew, if you could.

Okay.

Most people don't know that, but part of the Holocaust, Jew or Jude was a derogatory term.

Okay.

So some people like myself who grew up hearing that as a derogatory term, still it's hard for me to hear it. And not, I know you don't.

That's really helpful, Andrew, because there's a lot of background stuff that we don't know. And when we engage people from different perspectives, if we don't know that background, we can come off as offensive without even knowing.

Without knowing it at all.

Helpful information.

And it's still like, I know you mean absolutely nothing by it.

Sure.

And yet, it's a weird thing when you grow up with that. It's like ingrained.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to overcome. But yeah, no, I never really, it's not that I questioned Judaism as much as it was. So my mother died when I was young.

Okay.

And I went, I got thrown out of every summer camp that my parents sent me to because I just was not a good kid. Too smart for my own good and too dangerous in other ways. And so I went, my parents sent me away on a teen tour, basically get rid of all the kids.

We took a bus ride, go around the country with adult counselors that watch over you. But the bus driver was a Christian. He made it his mission. He was gonna talk to all 48 of us, adults and kids. He was gonna share the gospel with everybody.

And this is almost, almost everybody there is Jewish. And so we're sitting there, he's, you know, and everyone had been warned not to, I mean, you couldn't, at me at that age, you couldn't even make a mother joke, which, you know, is a popular thing.

You know, your mom wears combat boots. I would actually black out. I, to this day, cannot tell you that, I can only tell you what multiple adults told me I would do. But I became, I would be very violent.

Well, this guy's telling you, he's sharing the gospel. And I literally, to my shame, this was, I said to him, I'm like, hey, Chuck, that's great for you, but I'm God's chosen people. I'm in like Flynn.

And that's what I thought. I thought, you know, I was the elect. We're God's people. We're going to heaven. No matter what we do. And that's what I was taught. And so he said a really stupid thing. Whenever I do our evangelism trainings, I always say like,.

People get worried.

Well, what if I say the wrong thing? Chuck said something that was really, really stupid knowing my background. As I was walking away from him, he turns and says, what if your mother died? So you'd be right here, right now listening to his message.

And you walk away. She would have died in vain. And I remember, I remember clenching my fists and then I just, I turned around and I relaxed my hands and I don't know why, but I just said to him,.

I'm like, Chuck,.

You give me a logical reason to believe, I'll believe. And if you ever wondered if God has a sense of humor, God takes a kid who at that time, I was very arrogant about my intelligence. Okay, 168 IQ. I've passed the test for Mensa, but I was proud of that.

I looked down on a guy like Chuck who didn't even finish the sixth grade. And yet that's what God is going to, God's gonna use Chuck to make the most important decision in my life, right? And so Chuck just in a course of three and a half hours, I went from believing Jesus Christ is Hitler's God to being a follower of Christ.

And it was all because of mathematics. Chuck went through, though he never finished high school, he knew his Bible. He didn't have, he wasn't well-educated, but he knew his Bible. And so he could sit there with prophecies.

And in my head, I'm running calculations going, okay, how many people could have been born in Nazareth at that time? Now, is that one self-fulfilling? No, Jesus had no control over that. There's certain prophecies Jesus has control over.

I put that in a category of self-fulfilling. I'm gonna ignore that. I'm looking at prophecies that I'm putting in the category of coincidence. And just one after another, Old Testament to New Testament, we're going back and forth for three hours.

And I stopped him and I said, okay, Chuck, we're beyond statistical impossibility, 10 to the 48th power. And he's like, what do you mean? I said, that means that it is statistically impossible for one man, Jesus, to fulfill all this by chance.

It's impossible. I said, so the New Testament, the only explanation I could have is that the New Testament was written by God, like the Old Testament. So tell me what the New Testament teaches. And so he walks me through Christ's death and burial resurrection.

I mean, he explained that I'm a sinner. There was no problem there. I almost burned my house down twice. Once it was put out with fire extinguishers, second time, fire department, okay? But what ended up happening was he talks about the resurrection and I'm sitting there going, well, maybe they got the wrong tomb.

Maybe he didn't really die. All the arguments that we have for the resurrection that Peale tried to explain in a way, one that I think is still original with me. Maybe my last argument is, Chuck, maybe the disciples, they dug a hole underneath the tomb, came up through the center and stole the body away.

And he's like, Andrew, in three days? I mean, through rock? They didn't have heavy equipment back then. I was like, oh, I just put my hands in my head. And he goes, he's like, what's wrong? I said, well, look, if Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then that means that he is God.

And Chuck goes, yeah. I said, well, if he's God, I'm accountable to him. He's like, yeah. I said, well, then I need to know how to get right with him. So I thought every Christian gets saved the same way I do.

Just here's the logical facts. Just here's the information, here's the evidence and you're good to go, right? But that really wasn't the issue because what I thought was just an evidence issue, what I really had was a spiritual issue, right?

As you well know, when we look at the issues, I had the same sin problem that everyone else had and I had the same spiritual problem that everyone else had and I needed the same regeneration that every believer gets, right?

And that comes solely from what God does in us. So, you know, I thought everyone, like it really was puzzling to me when I first started sharing the gospel. Like, I'm explaining this. Why aren't you understanding this?

Like, why aren't you just repenting? Because I didn't quite realize that young in my faith that repentance is a work of God, not a work we do.

That's right.

Now, that's interesting. So you're the bus driver, went through some biblical prophecies. In my experience, I think apologetics via biblical prophecy is kind of a lost art. It is the primary way in which the apostles defended the faith, given their context.

Yet when someone jumps into apologetics today, they're buying books on how to refute atheism, how to talk about evolution. And I think Christians have over philosophized Christianity that they become completely useless when talking to someone who has the background and context of a Jew.

So what, can you help us think of this in the proper context? How can Christians put to better use biblical prophecy when engaging Jews? Like, what are we, in your opinion, what are Christians lacking today that make that difficult?

And how can we kind of overcome some of those hurdles?

Well, I think, I really think part of the problem we're lacking, and you and I are both guilty of this, we read a lot of books, right?

Yes.

And the thing is, I mean, what did Chuck have? I mean, Chuck was, and the guy who led me to Christ, Chuck,.

Intellectually outnumbered.

Now, I'm not boasting on that. I'm just, where we were at.

However, he knew his Bible.

That's all he needed to know. He didn't need to know all of the arguments and how to explain this, where the, he did anything I tried to argue, and I did, I gave him arguments for things, and he just would go right back to scripture, right back to scripture.

And I'll admit, I could not argue against scripture. I could argue against him all day, but he never let that happen because all he did was give scripture. But if you're going to speak to someone who's Jewish, let me give a warning, if you haven't picked up on it already, don't mention Christ, not right away, at least.

Because to a Jewish person, at least in my generation, the name of Christ is completely offensive unless you're using it as foul language, because Jewish people do that all the time. That's the only time you hear Jesus' name mentioned by Jewish people is in foul language.

But it is something where it becomes an immediate offense. You want to be careful with that. You don't want to just jump into that until they see the need. And so the issue is, you first have to try to identify what type of person you're speaking to, right?

If you see someone who's wearing a kippah, that's the little yarmulke that people would call it on the head. Okay, you're dealing with someone who's religious. They're gonna, you can assume they know the Bible, but chances are they probably don't know the Bible.

They know the Bible stories the way many Christians in Sunday school learn Bible stories, but they don't know the Bible because they usually study the Talmud, okay? And I can explain what that is in a moment.

But if you're dealing with someone who doesn't wear a kippah, they're not as religious, they may not know the Bible stories at all. Or maybe they have an overview. They may be, like my family, religiously atheist, but culturally Jewish, right?

I just was at my nephew's bar mitzvah this past weekend. Not a single one in my family really believes any of that, but to be bar mitzvahed was a major deal.

Now, if I could interject real quick. So I know there are certain hurdles for people, kind of like psychological hurdles, depending on who you're talking with. So for example, some Christians will be afraid of, say, like a proponent of Satanism.

Like, oh my goodness, it's a Satanist. Like, I don't wanna talk to that person. Now we have kind of preconceived notions of like what a Satanist is like, or someone who practices Wicca, or a Muslim, you know?

Like, I don't wanna talk to the Muslim because we already have some preconceived notions that will make us kind of scared to talk to the Muslim. And I know that's the same with speaking to Jews, is that we automatically assume Jew knows the Old Testament inside and out.

And so us New Testament Christians who have a passing acquaintance, or maybe a pretty good grasp in the Old Testament, we still feel inside, surely I don't know enough to go head to head with this Jewish person.

What's wrong with that perception? Is that kind of like a false, I mean, obviously there are exceptions, but is that kind of a false notion that the average Jew that we may encounter is gonna have all this knowledge of the Old Testament such that really, you know, who am I to kind of engage with them, with their book, their book, right?

Well, no, you're exactly right. Most Christians seem to think that if someone's Jewish, they have a really good handle of the Old Testament.

Right.

And most of them don't. Okay, so let me do this. There's four authorities within Judaism, okay? You have what would be referred to as, you'll see this in the scriptures, where it'll say the law, the prophets, or the law, the prophets, and the writings, okay?

That is what we would call the Old Testament. In Hebrew, it would be the Tanakh, okay? Because it takes the consonants from law, the Torah, the prophets, the writings. So Tanakh, that's what we would call the Old Testament.

But then they believe that there was, at the time of Moses, up on the, when he was given the plates, that he was given an oral law that was passed down verbally, memorized without error, and eventually written down.

And they would say that's equal in authority to the Old Testament. But there's also, both of those have a commentary. So the Tanakh has its commentary, and so does the oral law have a commentary. And the oral law, the commentary on the oral law is called the Talmud.

The Talmud was written over about 1 ,100 years, eight to 1 ,100 years, and it's a redacted work. So Eli, if you're Rabbi Eli, and you're writing maybe three pages of commentary, I come along, and I think that what you wrote is really good so I take your three pages and I summarize it down to one, and I write four more pages.

Rabbi Matt Slick comes along and thinks that we're kind of useless, so he takes what you have, that now became a paragraph, what I have became a sentence, and he wrote 10 pages afterwards because he thinks he's wonderful in everything he writes, right?

Sounds like the real Matt Slick.

Yeah.

I'm just kidding.

I had to make it realistic.

That's right.

But that's what you end up having. So you have, with the Talmud, you really don't have what was the earlier writings, and some of that stuff start being written down prior to Christ, but that is what most, when you look at what the Jewish rabbis study, that's what they study.

When we talk about rabbinic law or we talk about the rabbinic temple, see, when we talk about Judaism, there's what we call biblical Judaism and rabbinic Judaism. When you had the rise of the synagogues and the rabbis, Judaism changed into a workspace system, and that's the Judaism we have today, and it hasn't changed much in 2 ,000 plus years.

That is based from the Talmud, and that's what they study today. They study that, yes, they'll sit in synagogue and read a Torah reading, read a Haftorah reading. If you're like at the Bar Mitzvah I was at, you're freaking out because the rabbi can't even get the meaning of the text right.

But it drives me crazy.

Well, let me just jump in real quick. I know folks who listen to my channel, we place a great emphasis on presuppositional apologetics with various applications, and I remember Greg Bonson bringing up this point about Judaism is that we often think of Jews as people of the Old Testament when in fact it's really Talmudic.

It's very Talmudic. It's very much emphasized on the commentary of the text, not so much the Old Testament. He actually referred to the idea of the Old Testament as being window dressing for the Jews.

It gives the appearance that it's all about that when in fact it's more about the tradition. Dr. Bob says here in the comments, he says, Andrew is bringing up a big point. Most of my Jewish colleagues in grad school were virtually ignorant of the Old Testament text.

They knew traditions associated with the text, but not the text itself. And Dr. Bob makes mention here, he says, Shalom, gentlemen, as a fellow Christian of Jewish descent. So he has kind of some background there to give some context.

I think that's interesting what you just said kind of confirmed what I've always heard about various Jewish perspectives, where they're not really engaged in the text per se, but kind of like the tradition surrounding the text.

So my question for you is, could we liken the Jewish oral tradition to say like the tradition in Roman Catholicism? Is there kind of like a counterpart there, like a correspondence there?

Oh, it's a huge similarity that you have. And you have this really with any man-made religion, right? Because it becomes about the traditions. In Judaism, what you have, the whole idea of the traditions, why do we have a Passover Seder?

The whole idea of it is to remind the next generation what happened in the past. But what do people that don't want the truth of God's word do? They focus on the tradition. They focus on the Seder and not the meaning of the Seder.

So it becomes about the nostalgic thing of the Seder. I mean, let me, I'll throw this out for your audience. I became a Christian and did not have a Christmas tree in my home during Christmas time. Now, folks, think about this.

Think of yourself, put yourself in that position. How many of you would feel that I needed a Christmas tree in my home? Okay, now you're thinking that's you. Okay, good. Now, here's the question. Why do I need a Christmas tree in my home other than the fact that you grew up with one?

You see, even within Christianity, we have certain traditions that end up being the main thing for many people because that's the nostalgic thing. That's the thing they remember of childhood growing. I remember singing in Hebrew and lighting a candle for eight days.

So there's no nostalgia associated.

Correct.

Christmas tree.

Yeah.

Do you have a Christmas tree now?

Do you have a Christmas tree?

My wife ended up buying one after Christmas one year because it was on sale because the kids wanted it, like fine, whatever. It's not, there's not one. We had no decorations up. We got no tree up. The kids aren't here.

Oh, well. I could care less. If it makes her happy, I put one up. She didn't grow up with a Christmas tree either. So, you know. But you see, the thing though is that for some people, that tradition becomes everything.

And really, it's kind of like Dr. Bob had said there. Because so many focus on the tradition, they know the traditions. They don't know what's really behind it. You'll see this with other religions. Go to Mormons.

People think Mormons really know their Bible. I have yet to meet a Mormon that really understands the Bible and studies the Bible. They know the Book of Mormon. And I don't know, I haven't run into any Muslims.

They say that, okay, they believe the Bible is the book.

Right? Sure.

But they don't know it. They don't study it. I debated an imam at Montclair State University. He had never read the New Testament. I actually gave him one when we left and he admitted he was going to read it.

But the thing is that we often think that someone just because they're religious, that they have a love for the religion and the God that's in the Bible. And yet that's not the case. What they love typically is the man-made system that makes them feel good about their sin and tells them if they keep working hard, they can be right with God.

And as long as they keep practicing these traditions, they're on a good path. That's the very thing you see in every man-made religion because it's the thing that man wants to create to avoid the God that does exist that they know.

And yes, everyone knows they're accountable to him.

Okay.

So let's shift. Those are great points. Let's shift to some, maybe if you can give for us, if you could summarize three areas or three things that you can help my listeners be equipped with to engage the Jewish people.

What is the best way to approach a Jew within the context of like evangelism and apologetics?

Well, I really, and this won't be a surprise to you, Eli, but I'm gonna use really the way the master outlined style because I think it's very fitting. I always ask questions. My style, as you know, is to ask questions.

I don't, I'm gonna just, you know, it avoids me being, getting defensive if I'm asking questions. And so I'm gonna really try to get to the heart of the issue of their sin nature. Because if they're Jewish the way I was Jewish, they think they're going to heaven just because they're Jewish.

They're not looking for a savior. I didn't, my issue was not looking to get saved. My issue was I didn't think I was lost. And so helping them understand the weight of sin and to go through and try to argue, well, what about the blood sacrifices?

Most Jewish people don't even think about that. We haven't practiced in 2000 years. It's not something that's being discussed. And so, but our sin, that's something every human being understands. So I really don't change the style of how I evangelize.

What I do change is the information I have about whatever religious background they are. But even with that, my thing that I always tell people, and this is good for anyone evangelizing anyone, you do not have to know anything about Judaism to evangelize someone who's Jewish.

Because you can ask the person you're talking to.

About what they believe.

And it's amazing. I had a Muslim, we were in New York City once, and a Muslim who got upset with me because he said I had an agenda. And I said, all I've been doing is asking you what you believe. And he's like, but you gave me this gospel track thing.

I said, yes, but I haven't told you anything about what I believe yet, have I?

That's right.

And he's like, but you plan to. I said, you don't know that yet. I said

Bro, you know I could just walk away right now.

I might just walk, exactly. The funny thing is, I did. Because Mike Stockall got done, it was my turn to jump up on the box. So I didn't finish with him. And it was kind of funny, because afterwards the guy came up to me, he goes, he realized, he was like, I was watching you with these people, you really just care for people.

I said, yeah. And so, but with Jewish people, I do give the warning, I wouldn't, you want to sit there, ask questions, talk about what sin is. But don't jump right into, you got to believe in Jesus. You know, Ray does a thing, Ray Comfort does a thing where he says, he's got his three minutes to live thing.

Okay, if I got three minutes to live, tell me how to go to heaven. I think how he words it. But I just say, okay, if I had three minutes to live, and you know, I want you to tell me, how do I get right with God?

And oh, by the way, I'm Jewish, and I think Jesus Christ is Hitler's God, go. And you get people like, believe in Jesus. I go, that's Hitler's God, I want nothing to do with him. And do you know, I see so many professing believers that cannot explain the gospel other than believe in Jesus.

That's all they know. But if Jesus is the offense, how are you going to explain the gospel? And trying to go into the Old Testament and thinking that they know the Old Testament and respect the Old Testament, that may not be true.

So I would say, start with the law, go through what sin actually is, help them see they need a savior. And when they get to that point, that's when you mention Christ, because now they see the need.

Sure, and that's interesting, that route that you just explained there. Some people are wondering, well, wait a minute. If I'm a presuppositionalist in my approach, isn't that anti-presuppositional? Actually, as I'm hearing him, as I'm hearing Andrew explain, it's not actually.

It's not disrespectful to Jesus by not mentioning Jesus at the first part of your discussion, right? We wanna be gentle as doves, but wise as serpents, right? We wanna use strategy. Strategy does matter.

We wanna be able to speak in a way that our conversation will last longer than two minutes so that we can get to these important issues. So setting the issue up, talking about the law is not anti-presuppositional because you are still presupposing the authority of Christ.

You are just approaching this person and getting to that later in the discussion when it's appropriate. So I just wanted to throw that out there just in case folks might be wondering, folks who watch my channel, they always are thinking presuppositional.