From Uncertainty to Understanding: A Guide to Life's Toughest Questions w/ Pastor J.D. Greear

Ever grappled with the shadow of doubt in your faith or wrestled with questions that seem to have no answers? Pastor J.D. Greear joins us on Coffee and Bible Time to shed light on the transformative power of such uncertainties. With wisdom and empathy, he reveals how these periods of questioning are not a departure from faith but a journey toward a more profound understanding. Our candid discussion with Pastor Greear promises to equip and inspire you, whether you're navigating the complexities of salvation, confronting the problem of evil, or seeking to understand why prayers might go unanswered. This episode is an open invitation to embrace the challenges of spiritual growth, offering encouragement and a renewed perspective on the role of doubt in deepening your relationship with the divine.

Prepare for a nuanced exploration of modern believers' dilemmas, as we confront the pressing issues that shape our faith and daily Christian living such as:

• The intellectual battlegrounds of college campuses
• The struggles within our congregations,
• The intricacies of maintaining unity despite political divides
• The intricacies of sexuality and gender within the church

Engaging with Pastor Greear's profound insights, this episode is an essential guide for anyone seeking clarity and direction amidst the complexities of faith, culture, and Scripture. Join us for a conversation that not only acknowledges the challenges of Christian living but also provides a beacon of hope for the journey ahead.

Book: 12 Truths & A Lie
Bible: ESV
Website: jdgreear.com
App/Website: The Summit Church App
App/Website: Evernote App

Transcript

Mentor Mama: 0:07

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. For those that may be listening for the first time, our podcast is an offshoot from our main platform, youtube. Our channel is called Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. We also have a website and storefront with Bible studies, prayer journals, courses and more. I'm Mentor M ama, and today we are going to dispel any fears that Christians may have regarding doubts about their faith or grappling with questions surrounding their faith, such as why isn't God answering my prayers? Or, if God is in control, why is there so much evil and suffering? Well, our guest today, Pastor J. D. Greear, author of the book, " 12 Truths and a Lie Answers to Life's Biggest Questions, will be diving into this issue and will give us hope as we seek answers rooted in Scripture and practical wisdom.

Mentor Mama: 1:14

. D. Greear is the pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh Durham, North Carolina. Under Pastor J. D.'s leadership, the summit has grown from a plateaued church of 300 to one of over 12,000. Pastor J. D. has led the Summit in a bold vision to plant 1,000 new churches by the year 2050. Pastor Greear has authored several books, including Essential Christianity. What Are you Going to Do with your Life? Searching for Christmas and many more? Summit Life with J. D. Greear is a daily half-hour radio broadcast featuring the teaching of Pastor J. D. and co-hosts multiple podcasts. Pastor J. D. completed his PhD in theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as the 62nd President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Pastor J. D. and his wife Veronica are currently raising four awesome kids. Please welcome Pastor Greear.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 2:23

Thank you, Ellen, for having me.

Mentor Mama: 2:26

I'm so excited to have you. In fact, I have actually been an avid listener of your Summit Life broadcast when it was on Moody Radio some years ago, and it was always on the radio every time I drove to my Tuesday night Bible study. So, it was just like a regular, you know.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 2:49

That was your companion. That's good.

Mentor Mama: 2:51

Yes, but I found it so encouraging and I just love your passion for God's Word and I really love the illustrations that you use to help explain things. So you're an incredible pastor and your topic here is just so fascinating, I think, for so many people. But I want to just start out with, like on a personal level how have you experienced doubt and what questions did that raise for you?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 3:24

Yeah, you know, I felt like several of my big spiritual transition moments good transition was really were kind of attenuated by a season of doubt. My first one was really just doubting my salvation. Wasn't questions about God or Jesus, it was whether or not I could know for sure that I, you know, knew God and how I can know for sure I would go to heaven when I died. And that's actually the first chapter of this book, because I found that a lot of Christians also struggle with that. In college I went through all kind of your series of questions that sometimes leads people to what they call deconstruction. Now, but just, you know, like, if God is real, then why is the world and the place that it is? Are there better answers? What I believe is not true, simply because my parents taught it to me.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 4:06

You know what are the reasons for this and doubts, seasons of doubt are very difficult. They feel dark. You feel very alone. You know Pilgrims progress John Bunyan talks about. You know the these like caves and dark. You feel like you're in prison, with with down. That's how I felt.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 4:26

What I've come to see since then is that God doubt is often when careful how I say this, Ellen it's often divinely instigated as an invitation for you to go deeper in your faith. Doubt happens when the superficialities of our faith, what we've been spoon-fed, comes into in the Conflict with the realities of the world, and it's an invitation for us to go deeper in our faith. Charles Spurgeon always said that doubt is like a foot that's poised to go forwards or backwards means it is like you Pick up your foot. You can step forward and go backward. It's true that doubt can drive you backwards into unbelief, but it's also true that you'll never actually go forward until you pick up your foot. And so I Realize that some of the greatest transition, spiritual transition points, were because God put me into a time where I had this ants, asked some deeper questions and pressed deeper into the heart of God than I I'd ever been before.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 5:23

Most of our Bibles, Ellen, was written by people in a time of doubt. Just go back and read the Psalms, read the Gospels. People saying why, God? I don't get it. Well, you know, if you really is good and loving as you say you are, why, why this?

Mentor Mama: 5:36

so the Bible is written for doubters, by doubters, who found reasons to believe in spite of their doubts and Would you say, even if you, if you doubt but don't ask, you kind of couldn't get stuck Right, but but if you actually do ask right, that leads you into this process of seeking wisdom and yeah, a lot of Christians are.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 6:00

They're they're embarrassed about it, like you know. So the format of the book 12 truths and a lie. The lie is Is that the presence of doubts makes you a bad Christian. And I found that so many believers sit there and they have the same questions and when I started to verbalize them, people came out of the woodwork like, oh, I've had that same question for years. I thought I wouldn't allow to ask that and you know what I, what I've tried to lead our congregation in and others in, is Like these are questions that are familiar and God actually wants you to ask them because they are Invitations to know him in a better and a deeper way, and that's his invitation. He's like I can handle the question, I can handle the doubt. Come on. What you shouldn't do is don't ask the question and sit there and unbelief.

Mentor Mama: 6:46

Yeah, yeah. Why do you think people are so afraid to kind of voice their fears or and ask good questions?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 6:56

Yeah, well, I think a lot of it for me. I don't know about other people, but goes back to the fear of man. I want everybody to think that I'm, you know, just got it together and everything Jesus said. One of the reasons that people couldn't come to believe in him was they regarded the opinions of others Higher than they do God's opinion. And to admit that she struggled with doubt. You know, you feel like all people gonna look at me and say, oh, I didn't know, is that about him? I mean, you know, should he be a pastor if he has those questions? And you just have to say you know what? I don't really care what other people believe, I'm gonna be real and I won't care what God believes. And when you're real, that's when you really start to be able to relate to people. You can impress people, you know, when you act like you have it all together, but you can relate to them. When you admit that you got the same questions, they do?

Mentor Mama: 7:38

Yes, absolutely. That kind of ties into something else that I wanted to ask, which was you know, you say in the book that you used to get nervous About people asking you questions that you don't know the answer to. As a Bible study leader, I feel the same way. Kind of got some coaching over the years, but how did you work through that?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 8:06

So I determined that I I could not guarantee that I would never be asked a question I could not answer, but I could guarantee that I would never be asked a question. I couldn't come up with some kind of answer to twice, like I was gonna think I was gonna find out. You like what? What is the answer? Now, let me say there's a lot of things I still feel like I don't. I can't thoroughly understand, but I at least know here's what the Bible does tell us about that part of this this project started with.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 8:34

I have a podcast called ask me anything, and that actually goes back to something I used to do with college students where I would go to their campus and they would a lot of the students. They pass out flyers and give out free pizza or whatever, and it would just be a Q&A time and I literally be down there with a mic and 600 students and they just come on the mic. They'd ask a question and people would always be like, oh my goodness, like how do you do that? Like you know, all these smart college students and I'm like you know they only ever ask a variation of five different questions. So you just got to learn the answer to those five questions and and because the same questions that people ask in 21st century America they were asking in first century there's very little new under the sun. I'm not saying they haven't gotten more sophisticated, with more historical data, but but but it's a lot of the same things.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 9:22

And so I want to be a, I want to be a Witness and I want to be an effective guide to this generation, and that means acknowledging where there are mysteries and acknowledging where there's revelation. I'll show this, Ellen, whenever I sign a copy of the book, always in the front cover, always write the verse Deuteronomy 29 29. That was John Calvin's favorite verse, and what it says is the secret things belong to the Lord, our God, and the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever. And what that means is that there are some secret things out there, and for type A people who like to be able to answer everything, that drives them crazy. But there are secret things, but there are also things that are revealed, and the things that are revealed help you Get your mind around the things that are still secret. Sometimes what we want is a full explanation of everything and what we get instead is a revelation Of who God is, and a God that we can trust in the midst of even you know uncertainty.

Mentor Mama: 10:22

Mm-hmm. I know for me at times when I can't fully understand. I often think I'm just so glad that my God is so much greater and bigger and powerful that he knows all of these things. What would be an example that you could give our listeners on an area where it things are a mystery or God's kind of silent on the topic?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 10:49

Yeah well, um, you know, I mean probably the. The biggest one that we wrestle with is why do bad things happen? Why do I pray for things that seem perfectly Reasonable in the will of God and why would God let them happen anyway? And you say, God, if there were ever a time where I was trying to discern your heart and pray your will into existence, you know, this was it, and Sometimes you get answers. You know, sometimes God will reveal a reason, but a lot of times you just don't ever get a reason. That's kind of the point of the book of Job. I talk about him a little bit.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 12:17

In the book is Job, you know, basically for 39 chapters peppers God with questions why, why, why, why. And when God finally shows up in chapter 40, he doesn't really answer. Any of what he does is he reveals how big he is and he reveals how wise he is and how loving he is and he's like in light of that, do you really, do you really have a lot of questions? You feel like you're, you really want to put me in the dock, you want to take me to court? And he says you know, Job, what you want is an explanation. That's not what I'm gonna give you. What I'm gonna give you is revelation. Can you trust it?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 12:53

My favorite definition of my favorite definition of faith my favorite definition of faith is my favorite definition of faith is accepting what you cannot understand based on what you can understand, what I can and Sometimes I imagine myself in the midst of one of the worst questions I have. I'll just under. I'll picture Jesus walking into the room and say, okay, there's an answer to this. I'm not gonna tell you what it is right now I'll get. I'll reveal it in eternity. But here are the wounds in my hands and my feet. You see me die for you see me resurrect. Will you trust me? With unanswered questions and and and I say, okay, I will, because of who you are, I don't always get explanation. What I get is revelation.

Mentor Mama: 13:39

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, in our culture today. Tell us why it's More important than ever to be seeking the truth for God's word. I know we're just in environments where Truth can sometimes it feels like it's the truth or my truth. But how do we navigate to what the truth is in God's word?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 14:08

Yeah, part of it is learning where you have conflated your personal opinions or the traditions of your culture, unrecognized biases and assumptions. You learn, but separating that and what God's word actually says. You know Some of your listeners you may have heard of deconstruction, which is something the younger generation you know they're Whatever they call this generation now, gen Z and Millennials that they will be they're questioning Truth and they're deconstructing it, and we tend to think of that as a terrible process, and a lot of times it is. But for a lot of people that's trying to untangle American culture from what the gospel actually is, and so we've got to be humble enough to do that and to always go back to the Scripture and say what is what?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 14:59

What is, what is the faith that that exists in every generation, in every culture? What are the unchanging parts of that faith versus the whether it's stylistic, you know, things we've associated with, cultural trends or you just secondary, good, political Implications of our Christian worldview when, what, where are those things and where's the truth? So anything that drives you back to the scriptures is ultimately a good thing. The reformers used to say that that the ideal for the church. They use a Latin phrase simple referenda, always reforming. That's an. That's something the church aspires to. We always want to be questioning Whether or not what we think we believe is really based in the Bible.

Mentor Mama: 15:45

For people who have a lot of these questions, which so many of us do. Do you see any type of correlation between the better you know, the more time you've spent in the Word, and that helps you learn how to discern these answers yourselves?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 16:09

Yeah, I mean, of course, the more you know the Word, the more that the Holy Spirit can bring it to mind. I mean it's. I will say that God puts different people in the church with different gifts. We're a body. Nobody's supposed to be an island. Part of our American ideal is that everybody's this lone ranger Christian and I don't need church and I don't need others. It's just me and Jesus. That's just. That's not biblical. Me and my Bible are not enough. Me and the body of Christ in the Bible, that's what I should do. And so God puts people like you into the Christian. You know ministry, and he puts people like me and he puts people like our pastors and our people at our church and we should take advantage of those. And we should be humble enough to realize that God has not put all the gifts of the body of Christ into us. He's put them into many other people and we should. We should be humble enough to listen to them.

Mentor Mama: 16:59

Yeah, so true. Well, you started to tell us a little bit about how you came up with these 12 different truths. Lend us a little bit more insight as to you know what made you decide which questions that you included in the book.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 17:19

Yeah, it's a little bit of a compilation of just the ones that were kind of burning in my heart, you know, but also which ones I feel like I get asked the most. And then, honestly, a poll with our Ask Me Anything audience of what are the most you know, what are the most frequently asked questions that we find the most helpful, and we just put those in a book. So it's going to range everything from you already mentioned one how do you know for sure that you will go to heaven to why the good things happen to, or bad things happen to, good people. What about unanswered prayer? There's going to be questions like what?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 17:53

How does a Christian navigate politics, especially when you know within your own family or people who see things differently? What's, what's a way that there can be unity in that? Why do Christians struggle with sin, even after they've been filled with the Spirit and saved? Why? Why is that an ongoing problem? I know a lot of Christians who really struggle with that.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 18:11

Questions like why would God care so much about my sex life? You know, why is that such a? Why do Christians treat that like such a thing? Is that an overreaction by Christians, or is that biblical wisdom? What does the Bible teach about gender and and how do we navigate those things? Those are, that's a handful of them. That's obviously not all of them, but but those are, are, are, are are the ones that I find myself answering most as a pastor, first and foremost, and that's what I am. I'm a pastor and I write as a pastor and I speak as a pastor because I'm not really trying to answer philosophical questions in, you know, the ivory towers of Harvard as much as I am ordinary people who are asking these things.

Mentor Mama: 18:52

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I imagine I would love to see the the poll of all of the original questions. I know it in the book you mentioned some funny ones also that that didn't make the cut.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 19:06

Yeah, that's right, there's God's here for UNC, Chapel Hill or Duke, you know?

Mentor Mama: 19:10

like I don't know if I've got an opinion on that one I love that I'm just curious about as you do your own, you know, sermon preparation and things like that I know for me using like Logos, like there's so many times. Like you know, the more you look into things, the more questions that you have, which is which is a wonderful thing. But I'm just curious about your experience in asking questions even as you're working in the text.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 19:44

Yeah, I'm always trying. Yeah, they always say your sermon sounds like whoever you talk to that week, which is why which is why you preach your worst sermons when you're in seminary, because you're arguing with a bunch of seminary students, you know, up in the pool. But so you know, I try to have a good amount of my own ministries with just ordinary people, you know, hearing the questions they're asking, and so that's, that is influencing what I speak about. I'm also trying to, you know, just have the discipline of projecting, like what kinds of people are in that audience.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 20:17

How does the soccer mom, who is, you know, a single parents, who is just feels like she's, you know, not doing a great job as mother and feels like she's just barely keeping her head above water? How does she? What does she struggle with? She's not thinking, necessarily, you know, the same things that a college student. How does she struggle with faith? I try to always take these messages and I send them out to. It's probably about a dozen people on our staff and I'm like, you know, where are the people that you're interacting with, what are the questions they're going to have, and weaving those into the explanation of the text, because if we're not answering questions that people are asking, then you know we're. We're talking to people who aren't listening, and the best way to have somebody listen is to ask a question. They say yes, that's what I want to know.

Mentor Mama: 21:09

Yes, yes, ooh, I love that. Well, I imagine this book like I'm envisioning this book like I wish I really would have had it when I was a small group leader, because, you're right, all those questions even come up in that context as well. But who did you write the book for, and what are you hoping that your readers are going to take away?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 21:33

Yeah, that's good. Well, you know, Ellen, you could start teaching a small group again. You know, maybe this is your motivation to start doing that.

Mentor Mama: 21:41

So I've got all the answers right here.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 21:48

Lightning is going to strike if I leave too much in on that one. But so, yeah, you know I wrote it honestly. First and foremost is always for our church. Martin Luther the reformer said this years ago. He said, you know, he said never aspire to teach the church at large. God doesn't call anyone to do that. Aspire to teach your church.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 22:07

So these questions came out of the context of a local church. But that church is filled with people, probably like the ones in your audience you know from, from whether it's a single mom or whether it's, you know, a married couple, a newly married couple to somebody, that's retired, college students. You know there are questions that are reflected in all of them. So, first for our church, but then, secondarily, for that audience. God has given our church real ministry with college students and young professionals and it's not like that's not 100% of our church, but it's a significant part of it. So, yeah, there's going to be some influence there. I'm looking at the people in their late teens, 20s and 30s. What kind of questions are they asking and how do we make Christianity understandable for them?

Mentor Mama: 22:52

That's yeah, that's so important and I love that it started in the local church and but you're right, it really can definitely expands all across the board. Well, as we kind of wrap things up here, my last question is why do you think this book will be especially helpful? Or you know people really absorbing these questions. Hopefully it makes them even want to dig a little deeper on their own. But why do you think it's so important for the current climate that we're living in?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 23:27

Yeah, because we really aren't a crisis of faith. You know a lot of questions that we've only had superficial answers for them, not because they weren't out there. I'm not the first person to answer these questions, but they're just not as accessible, and so I wanted to be able to. You know, to use the little cliche, I want to put the cookies on the bottom shelf. How are these things? Easy.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 23:47

It's not a perfect book, and I'm sure there are other questions that listeners have that won't be reflected in this book. It'd be impossible to have one book with all of them, but it will. I've yet to have somebody who picked up this book that didn't say oh, there's several things in here that I've wondered, and maybe I didn't. Maybe it's somebody in my life that's asking these questions and I want to know how to answer them A child, a college student and it'll give you the basics of an answer, but it'll also teach you how to go about answers. You know, it's like teaching you how to like. Maybe it's not your exact question, but oh, here's a way that you learn to think and learn to process things, and it'll help you with some of the questions that may be unique to your experience or your family.

Mentor Mama: 24:31

Yes, absolutely. That's really what I loved about it as well. So I I definitely agree with you there and I know, for me personally, yes, and you know, just like you said, even like witnessing to your own family, like if these are questions even they other nonbelievers have. So if we can help, you know, provide some, at least our, the Christian faith perspective, I think that that has an opportunity really to to hopefully penetrate hearts where Holy Spirit's at work, right, well, where can people find a copy of the book and connect with you as well?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 25:14

Well, I'm supposed to say, wherever books are sold, you know they should have this, but if you, my website is probably the easiest way to have access to all things, not just this book but other books on you know whether we're talking the assurance of salvation, what it means to fill with the Holy Spirit. You know lots of books that hopefully will serve the church. So jdgreear. com. That's the easiest place.

Mentor Mama: 25:42

Okay, good, I'm glad you spelled that, because the first time I put it in I know I did it wrong, but it still came up.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 25:49

So well, good, good.

Mentor Mama: 25:52

Before we go, I just want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions that we ask on guests. What Bible is your go to Bible? I know you probably have hundreds of Bibles, but what's your go to Bible? What translation is it?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 26:06

I use the ESV study Bible is probably what I go to most.

Mentor Mama: 26:11

Okay, that's, that's an excellent one. Okay, do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible study experience?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 26:21

Yeah, so I use. Well, it's just it's not really a Bible study tool per se, but it's Evernote and I've filled up, you know, with because I like to take things I'm learning in the scripture and pray them. So I have, you know, kind of been my Evernote, daily prayer cards and I'm, you know, putting stuff in that, praying for my family, for my kids, for others, and so, again, not a spiritual tool, but it's really helpful for me.

Mentor Mama: 26:44

So yeah, that's a great suggestion. Okay, last one what is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 26:52

Hmm, well, esv study Bible app is marvelous because you know the ESV study Bible. The only problem with it is is, like you know, 48 pounds.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 27:02

But now I'm just carrying around my iPad and I know some people like to actually have a physical Bible in their hand and I understand that, but at least for when I'm I don't have the ability to have that. It's just everything. They've integrated it where it's got Bible reading plans, it's got, you know, all these commentaries that can be built on. It's a little bit like you mentioned Logos. I love Logos, but it's ESV is sort of like a more accessible version of that, you know, because it's all built around the Bible and I've been using one recently called Lectio 365.

Mentor Mama: 27:30

Oh, yes, yeah, and I love it.

Pastor J.D. Greear: 27:32

It's a good yeah, it's a good primer to get me started on my Bible study. And then I have to mention I'm sorry Ellen, our churches app Summit Church because we build into it. It's sort of a unified daily, like we call it, daily revival and it's trying to get all the people in the church reading this. You know read the same passages, we pray for the same missionaries, same unreached people, groups, church per request. You know it's it's been good to kind of develop. So I know not everybody goes to our church, but maybe it can inspire your church to do something similar.

Mentor Mama: 28:02

Absolutely Additional insight. You're studying the book of James now, correct?

Pastor J.D. Greear: 28:06

Well, we just finished it. So, yes, we had to say James, yeah, Okay, all right, very good.

Mentor Mama: 28:13

Well, Pastor Greear, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today. I hope our listeners feel a little bit more confidence that it's okay to have doubts, to ask good questions and seek answers. So we appreciate you listening and have a blessed day.