Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're looking at uh our series in hot topics and particularly suffering.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you with Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. Over these past few weeks, we've been looking at hot topics, and uh particularly we're going to be looking at suffering. It's a common question that we often get uh asked what why would a god of love allow people to suffer so Yeah, it's the it's the number one question every single time.
SPEAKER_02Uh a few years ago we did a big survey. We had churches in Eastbourne um equipping their people to go out and uh ask their friends, ask their neighbours, ask family members. We went into schools, we went onto the streets, we asked loads of people, and uh and one in three uh answers were what about the question of suffering? Which you know, there there are at least sort of twenty different categories of questions that people asked, but one in three of them were about suffering. It was the runaway winner in terms of uh the big question that people wanted answered. Uh just this weekend I was in the Market Harbor uh doing uh a week of mission events with Christchurch Market Harbor. They put on uh an event on the Saturday nights, and again it was a survey. Uh, what are your big questions for God? And again, the runaway winner suffering every time, it's always suffering.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because there's a lot of it, I suppose. Yeah. You know, we all suffer in all sorts of different ways. Yeah. And uh, you know, we're faced with suffering. Yeah. For whichever angle.
SPEAKER_02So everyone is having to cope with that issue. You know, not everyone has come across hypocritical Christians. Not everyone is interested in the question of what about other religions, not ev but everyone suffers. Um so there's that reason, but I I think also it goes to show that so much uh atheism or so much unbelief is protest atheism or protest unbelief that actually we don't like God and and therefore suffering is the number one question in all these things because yeah, we we don't like anyone who would allow us to go through this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean sometimes we fear this question coming up in evangelism. Should we?
SPEAKER_02Uh I don't think we should fear it at all. It's very natural to fear it. Because we you know, we all, whether we're Christians or not, we feel the heat. Um and it's it's personal for all of us. So even as we talk about suffering, we're thinking through in our own life how unpleasant it is and how it's led uh uh us to ask questions about is God good and what's he up to in our lives? So we do tend to fear the question coming up, but I don't think we should fear it because every aspect of this question speaks of the gospel. Or or rather, every every answer that we would seek to make actually teaches some part of the gospel. Um so we are right at the heart of of of of speaking about the God of Scripture when we're talking about suffering. So actually we should rejoice when the question comes up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you know, as you say, we all know suffering from our own experience in in different ways. I suppose that's that's helpful that we have an understanding to be able to talk to others.
SPEAKER_02I think so. And I I think it should come across personally and as much as possible say, well, listen, when this happened in my life, I found it hard to pray. I found it, you know. I always you know say to people in in terms of answering questions, there are kind of four R's to use because you know I'm a preacher and so I've got to have I've gotta have four Alliteration.
SPEAKER_01Alliteration.
SPEAKER_02Um it should begin it should begin with P, obviously, but if it can't begin with P, R R is a pretty good uh substitute. But um the the four R's are you reframe the question. Uh-huh. So you take the questioner's issue and you don't take it on their own terms. You have to reframe the question around the Bible's definition of things. And that's especially important in suffering, because the God that they're talking about needs to be reframed. And we need to be making sure we're reframing that around the God of Jesus. So we reframe we also reflect the question back because the question has got to deal with suffering too. Um let me tell I I'll tell you how I deal with suffering. Now you tell me how you deal with suffering, because you need to you need to so we reflect the question back to people. Um but we also relate our own experiences with whatever question that's coming our way. I think we should find a way of relating it and not speaking as though for for the Christian suffering's not an a question anymore. And and actually all the questions that non-Christians ask of us, I think we should handle them, not as um questions that have been answered for us and put away forever so we never think about them again. But actually, yeah, I've done a lot of thinking about suffering, and I continue to have to do a lot of thinking about suffering because I continue to suffer. Um and so relating stories about how we personally have dealt with suffering is really important. And then the the fourth R is is reveal the gospel through your answer. And and with suffering, I mean, my goodness, every every part of your answer is revealing the gospel. In the beginning there wasn't suffering. And then through our disobedience, suffering came into the world, and then Jesus came into the world to suffer alongside us, and then Jesus rose again to offer us life without suffering. Every part of your answer is revealing the gospel. Okay, so those four are write them down. I've forgotten them now. Um the first one is reframe the question around the Bible's definitions, uh, reflect the question back to them. They've got to answer some version of that same question. We relate our own experience and then we uh reveal the gospel focused on Christ.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Now uh it could be easy to sort of ha have a simple answer to people. Yeah. Isn't it dangerous to rush in with an answer? You know, they might not be ready in a way to receive the answer.
SPEAKER_02Totally. And and people will be wanting different things. They might ask the exact same question, how can a good God allow evil in the world? But that question when it's asked in the philosophy department is a different question to when it's asked in the pub discussion. And both those questions are different to how someone is asking it when they're going through suffering personally. And you've got to be really careful and and and you've gotta you've gotta be inquisitive and ask questions, you know, is this a live issue for you? Is there particular suffering you've got in mind? And y you need to be thinking, are they asking it from the from the philosophy philosophy department, are they asking it in terms of the pub discussion, which is sort of an arm's length kind of a thing? Or are they going through it and the answers you'll give will be massively different. I think Jesus shows us that we shouldn't just give pat answers to questions. In uh in John chapter 11, I I always go to John chapter 11 when I'm when I'm thinking about the question of suffering. I think it it's got so much to teach us. You know, it's it's that amazing thing. Jesus hears that his friend is ill, Lazarus, um, and Jesus knows his two sisters, Martha and and and Mary. And and yet chapter 11, John 11, verse 5, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. And then verse 6, so when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. You think, well, that's that's posing the question of suffering really quite strongly, actually. Jesus, why are you allowing this suffering to happen? So it sets up the question quite nicely. And then when Jesus arrives, he's he's allowed Lazarus to die. He has let that happen. He could have prevented this suffering, he doesn't prevent it. He shows up, and then we get that the two sisters coming to Jesus. And this is a great example of people asking the same question, but from different uh kind of perspectives. So in verse 21 of John 11, uh Martha runs up to Jesus and says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And Jesus gives to her a kind of a Bible study, and sort of says, Well, he will rise on the last day, and and and then he proclaims truth to her. Verse 25, I am the resurrection and the life. And and that that's what satisfies Martha. That's what Martha needs in this, she needs truth at the at this point. But what's fascinating is just a few verses later, we get Martha running up to Jesus. Uh we we get Mary running up to Jesus. When Mary reached the pre place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. It is precisely the same question as Martha. Precisely the same. So obviously Jesus would give her precisely the same answer, would he? She comes, she's she's asked the same question. Does he reach into his filing cabinet and pull out the answer to suffering? No. Verse 33, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. And then he asks her a question, where have you laid him? he asked. Come and see, Lord, they replied. Jesus wept. And it's fascinating, the exact same question asked by Martha and by Mary, and Jesus does not give the exact same answer at all. Martha needs truth, Mary needs tears, and and Jesus wonderfully knows how to answer people where they're coming from. And I think we need to learn that that same wisdom. And sometimes I I say to people, look, maybe you're in a place where you need truth, maybe you're in a place where you just need tears, and you need me to cry with you, or you need to know that there is a Lord who sheds tears over this. Here here he is. His his name is Jesus, and he does shed tears over this. But I think this warns us off from just having a pat answer to suffering. We need to figure out where people are coming from and give them an answer that's appropriate.
SPEAKER_01Have you got a an sort of an example of someone you spoke to that was going through suffering and how you dealt with it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh uh there's a couple who uh have sort of joined the church very recently. The wife, I think, has been a Christian for some time. The husband, I think, is just or has very recently become a Christian if he has, but but very, very sort of new in the faith. And as I was speaking to them, they have two quite disabled children. Five five kids, uh they've got a five-month-old who's uh sort of disabled, they've got a a five oh, I think he's under five-year-old, uh, with Down syndrome. And what was amazing in speaking to them is just sort of hearing their story and as they ask the why question not to jump in with an answer, but I I guess I was sort of exploring the issue and saying to them, have you seen how good has come from this? Have have you personally seen how good is coming from from having two uh disabled kids, one quite profoundly? And actually teasing out from them, yeah, they they had actually seen a joy in their their little boy that that just had been absent from their other children, actually, that even in the midst of of the disability and and as the disability called out more of them as parents, they'd gotten in touch with with more of their parental responsibilities, but also the joy of being parents and that kind of thing, and and almost sort of thinking with them about how suffering in their life had been used by God. Um so I th I th that was an interesting example in in just not coming in with an answer, but sort of thinking together with them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um is suffering just a dead loss in your life? I I was speaking to another guy, um I was speaking to another guy fascinatingly. And he's just he's just come to the Lord too, very, very recently. And uh and and he was talking about how I don't understand how God can allow suffering in my life. I look back at a time when I really prayed that God would not allow me to be sent to prison. I won't go into why he'd be sent into prison, but but he was he uh started going to church for the first time in like ten years when uh he was uh awaiting sentencing for some crimes that he'd committed, and he was begging the Lord, begging the Lord, please don't let me go to prison, please don't get let me go to prison. And now, like having come to Christ very, very recently, he he sort of said to me, I I still don't know why God didn't answer my prayer with a yes. I still don't know. And within the same breath, he then told me, uh, of course, that was the only way I could get clean from my drug addiction. I think if if I had remained out on the outside, I probably would have killed myself um with my drug addiction. And and again, just helping him sort of reveal and he he came to the point of saying, Um, actually, it probably saved my life. God saying no to my prayer, and in one sense, bringing suffering into my life actually saved my life. Um so in yeah, sometimes sometimes it's it's about kind of just sitting with them and allowing them to see, you know, maybe there are purposes here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay, so when we're we're looking at this uh series, we're applying the uh the three, two, one presentation uh to it. So uh let's just look at uh how Jesus helps us answer this question of suffering.
SPEAKER_02That's right, yeah. So Jesus introduces us to God, the world, and ourselves. So so in thinking about Jesus three, two, and one, as we think about Jesus with suffering, uh this is really where we are reframing the question. You know, how can God allow suffering? Well, which God are we talking about? If we're talking about the God of Jesus, we're talking about the God who in Jesus has suffered. And so suffering and God just cannot be incompatible when we're talking about the Jesus God. And so I very happily admit that suffering is a problem for all kinds of gods out there. There are all kinds of gods who have never suffered, and for whom suffering is kind of anathema to their very being, and so obviously. And and quite often that's true with just the god that people have grown up with in religious studies classes, the omnibeing, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnivorous, ambidextrous, the double-jointed God, you know. You know, and and I I tend to make fun of the omnibeing as a philosophical idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because we don't meet a philosophical idea in the scriptures. We meet we meet Jesus who introduces us to his Father by the Spirit, and when we meet Jesus, we meet a God with scars. That doesn't solve all the problems, but it reframes the question in terms of, okay, this God suffers, so why on earth would we think we would escape? And you know, people might go, ooh, I'm not sure if I like this god or not, or well, okay, have a look at this god with scars. He's got these battle scars for you, and he's gone to battle for you. Um, maybe you can trust this God. Um that's the that's the first move, I think. Reframe the question around Jesus. Jesus shows us the God who who suffers and who can help us through our suffering.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Okay, so uh how does three help us answer the question? So three is the truth about God. The Trinity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, God is three persons united in love. How do how does that help? Well, I I think the trick with the problem of evil is to make sure it's a problem. And too easily, whether people are Christians or not Christians, we try to make the problem of evil not a problem. Um and that's a problem. It needs to be a problem. Evil and suffering, we need to be at the stage where we can do what Jesus does. Jesus in John chapter 11, he comes to the tomb of Lazarus, and in John 11, verse 38, Jesus once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. Um and and the deeply moved word, it's it's he's he's almost snorting with indignation at death. He's been weeping and he gets angry. And and we need that. Uh you're not really dealing with suffering unless you're weeping and you're angry. But there are ways of thinking about suffering, there are ways of of so-called solving the suffering question that actually robs you of your right to weep and robs you of your right to get angry.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting because at university I had a I sort of ran a little Bible study in my hall of residence, and um my non-Christian friends came and uh I said to him, uh, you know, if have you got any sort of questions that we you want to go through in the Bible? And I said, What about suffering? Because a lot of people ask about suffering. And he said, he said, Well, no, he says I don't I don't really have a problem with suffering. He says, uh we need suffering. Um, you know, for there to be any change, we don't do any change, so I'm fine with that. Yeah, yeah, it's just part of the mechanism that we're gonna do. Almost like an you know, an acceptance of it. Yes. No anger, no upset, no. Just an acceptance, yeah. Which I at the time is bizarre. Yeah. But it's what you're saying is that um it's not the right position to be happy and you shouldn't make your peace with suffering. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Jesus doesn't. Yeah. Wait, I mean, that's fascinating. In John 11, Jesus knows he's about to raise Lazarus from the dead. Like, there's only going to be a few more minutes of death here. Still Jesus cries, still Jesus is angry. Even a few minutes of death is too much for Jesus. And we need to make sure that suffering is a problem. The real problem would be if if suffering is not a problem. And I think that that always happens in the world. Our two natural knee-jerk responses to suffering are either karma or chaos. The world that doesn't know Christ, which is the third C, you can see how I'm alliteration. It's alliteration Wednesday today. Um so without Christ, you either go for karma, which I realise is spelt with a K, and chaos, which is a C A C H. Oh, you could do it with a K. Anyway, anyway, so so the the the karma one is uh is very popular in the world. Hinduism, Buddhism, um, and you know, Islam kind of goes for this as well, that what you put out comes back to you. And what is really just just uh ordinarily believes in in half the world today is is just that if I am suffering in this world, either I in this life or I in another life have done something to deserve it. And it all balances out in the end. We don't tend to go for that in the West. We don't like that idea. We don't like that idea because we actually we've grown up with the Christ story, and the Christ story has told us that, you know, in John chapter 9, the man who was born blind, it's not that he or his parents had sinned, but that God's glory would be revealed in his life. And so so the Christ story cuts against the karma story, and in the West we've been schooled in that enough to think we don't like the karma answer, but instead we tend to go for the chaos answer. And the chaos answer is it's just stuff that happens. Yes. It's a dog eat dog world out there, and and some people are gonna get lucky and some people aren't, and don't get surprised by it. There's nothing unnatural, there's nothing wrong about suffering, as Richard Dawkins says, at the bottom of all things is just blind, pitiless indifference. Okay, so and and and he actually says it the sentence before he says in the Blind Watchmaker, he says there's just blind pitiless indifference. He says there is no good or evil at the bottom of all things. There just isn't. It's just stuff that happens. Now that's one way of handling the suffering question. But at that point suffering is not really a problem. It's unpleasant. We wish it were not so, it is grotesque, it is ugly, it is not to be desired, but there's nothing wrong about it. There's nothing fundamentally wrong that we should get angry about suffering, it's just it just is. So naturally we either go for the karma thing, at which point suffering's not really a problem, it's right. Or we go for the chaos thing, at which point, again, suffering's not really wrong, stuff that happens. But Christ gives us this other answer, and the God of Jesus, who is the God of three, he is the God who stands above suffering, and is able to give us a view of the world that says suffering is wrong. C. S. Lewis said, if all you'd ever seen in life were crooked lines, all crooked lines, everything is a wavy line, you would never know that they were crooked. Because they're just lines. You've never seen a straight line, and therefore there's no such thing as a crooked line, actually. But if a world is full of crooked lines, none of them are crooked. They're all just lines. There's nothing to actually judge them against. And C. S. Lewis said, if all there is is just blind, pitiless indifference, and there's no evil or good, and everything's just a crooked line, get over it. Actually, none of the all the the the the the phrase crooked loses its meaning. Only if you've got a straight line can you say that there's a crooked line, and and C. S. Lewis says, Well, well, look, we all know that suffering is wrong. And as much as Richard Dawkins wants to tell you, it's just blind, pitiless indifference. Even him using those words shows you that he doesn't like there to be pitilessness. You know, he could have used other words to describe that, but he he realizes that that rather than there being blindness at the at the heart of all things, we want somebody to see. Rather than pitilessness being at the heart of all things, we want people to pity and have compassion. And and rather than there being indifference at the heart of all things, we want somebody to care. He he knows we want that. Our souls kind of cry out for that. And and C. S. Lewis would say, Well, that's the straight line. That's the straight line against which we're saying all th all other things are sort of crooked. And the God of three is a God who is a God of goodness and joy and peace and shalom. Such that against the against that standard we can call things suffering. And when you take this God out of out of the suffering question, um not only are you left alone in the suffering, the real tragedy is you're not even allowed to call it suffering anymore. You're not you're not allowed to call it wrong. You're not allowed to call it uh uh unnatural. You can't do what Jesus does, cry and get angry. So actually getting rid of God, getting rid of the three doesn't help you at all, it just multiplies your problems.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so uh three then helps us answer the uh the question, and what about two? Because two is talking about Adam and us, uh sorry, Adam and Christ, how there are two representatives uh when we're born, we're one with Adam, and we choose to be one with Christ when we become a Christian. So how does this part of the three to one presentation help us in suffering?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's the whole gospel really, isn't it? So as Adam has taken us down into this this world of chaos and death, you know, it's it's important to say with suffering that that my individual suffering is not because of my individual sin that I might have it might be, I mean possibly. I'm I'm you know, I I might have brain damage now because I've spent the first, you know, ten years of my adult life drinking, and that you know that that might be the case. But just in general, people suffer because of just general suffering in the world, and and we shouldn't always be looking for a sin that has caused a a particular suffering. The Adam story tells us that that actually we're caught up in a human family that just and we're caught up in a cosmos that's just sort of been knocked off its axis. And the Adam story says that actually, at the heart of all things is meant to be a good relationship with God, and because there there isn't this good relationship with God, even the natural order is cursed, and you know the Lord says to Adam, cursed is the ground because of you. You know, not just cursed are you, but cursed is the ground. There's you know, natural disasters are in the world and all this sort of stuff. But as Adam sort of drags us down, so Christ has entered into that suffering and death, and and we can we can look to a God who's got scars, we can look to a God who's entered into suffering, um, in order to take it all on himself on the cross and rise again beyond death to a new hope. Um and what I love about talking about the resurrection of Christ, the second Adam, is that Jesus didn't just you know dip his toe into death and come back, but he went through death and out the other side and kind of sort of you know Resurrection. Resurrection is you know, he smashed a cross-shaped hole into death and come out the other side and stands on the other side. And and what you see at the end of the Gospels is him, you know, inviting us into what it looks like beyond this suffering world, and it looks fantastic. You know, he still keeps his scars, doesn't he? In those resurrection appearances, yeah. Um, you know, badges of honour. But on the far side, there's you know, long walks with friends in the countryside, there's there's fishing with friends, there's barbecues on the beach, there's you know, that's the life. That's the life beyond suffering that he brings us into, and that's the hope that we have even in the in the midst of our suffering.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So what about one then? Who are we one with?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, born one with Adam. And and in the suffering thing, you know, so often people have said to me, Look, I just feel like I'm cursed. Um I feel like there's a curse on me, and uh and in Adam we kind of feel that. We f we feel that we're caught up in this suffering world and and can't get ourselves out. Um and yet here is Christ on the far side of death that comes to us and offers us oneness with himself. Not not that he then teleports us out of suffering, but that he walks with us through it and gives us a a hope beyond it. And really, I mean the thing about suffering is is not so much that we need an intellectual answer to it, but we need a God of all comfort who knows our sufferings, can walk with us through suffering and to and can give us a hope at the other uh at the other end. And so I think at this stage relating our own experience with suffering and how Christ has been um precious to us in the midst of suffering and how we couldn't have gotten through that period of life without Jesus.
SPEAKER_01And I suppose we've got the suffering that we struggle with and that we ask for God's help through it, and then sometimes you know we go through different or sometimes worse suffering after becoming a Christian or whatever, you know. And that can be you know, i in a sense this it's the same answer because Jesus goes with you, you know, yeah in the suffering. He doesn't lift you out of the suffering. No. Suffering may change, yeah. Might intensify. Might intensify, but uh He he's still there through it with us.
SPEAKER_02He goes through it with us. Yeah, and and if he calls us to the way of the cross, then yeah, we don't come to him to get zapped out of suffering at all. Um I mean I I've I think I've told this story on the podcast before about um uh a cab driver who was saying his friend used to be a Christian, then he got a a diagnosis of cancer, stage four Hodgkin's disease, and and he left the church and hit the bottle. And this non-Christian taxi driver said that was a really bad move. Um he was much, much better off like in church with a faith walking through that than abandoning it, and all he's got left is the bottle and and staring down the barrel of the grave. And and even this non-Christian could could figure out like ditching God in the midst of suffering is not the is not the clever move.
SPEAKER_01Um So how could if someone is listening that's uh that's going through suffering uh and it and it's a really difficult time they're struggling, what advice would you give to them?
SPEAKER_02I'd say there is a God who knows what you're going through. There is a God with scars, there is a God who will weep with you. There is a God who can get angry with you at the suffering that is confronting you, and there's a God who wants to walk with you through that into a into a future that will be. But you know, no more crying or mourning or tears or pain. The old order of things will have passed away, and and Revelation 21 and 22 is so precious to believers. And so we we need to know that God, we need to know a Christian community around us who can help us and and and and walk with us through that. Um there's no quick solution to it. And it's not as though if you get a Christian faith the suffering goes away. It's it's not that, but it it is that you will know a God in the midst of it. Um and and you know, sometimes people uh sort of say, Oh, okay, alright, there's a God who'll you know walk me through it, but just help me to understand why. Like why why suffering in the first place? Why w okay, even even even if you say God is the God who's got scars and and he gets glorified in in that, even then, well why why do we have to go on this journey, for goodness sakes? Why do we have to suffer before new creation glory? Why why all that? And and and quite often I um I I did this on Saturday night in uh in Starbucks in Market Harbour, and I said, let's let's all come up with a uh a story, a fairy story. And I sort of sort of group sourced the the fairy story. Where should we should we begin with a a a lovely kingdom? And um is in the beginning of the story, is should the kingdom be in a good state or a bad state in the beginning of the story? And everyone's like, oh yeah, a good state. Okay, okay. And um so once upon a time there was a wonderful kingdom and there was a handsome prince, and everything was lovely, the end. Is that how I should finish the story? No, no, there was lots of kids in in the Starbucks. No, no, that's not how the story goes. I said, Oh, okay, so what should happen next? Should something so it's everything's nice. Should something bad happen or something good happen? It was like, something bad. Okay, right, so something bad. So, okay, let's imagine a dragon flies across from the other side of the of the of the great sea and he kidnaps the beautiful princess and takes her away to the tower. Okay. Uh the end? And the kids are no, that's not the end. Oh, okay, okay. And then the princess dies in the tower. No, that's not the end. Okay, okay. Well okay, how about the prince? The handsome prince goes to the tower, and should he find it easy to release the princess, or should he find it hard to release the princess? And what do they answer? You know, it should be hard. Okay. So there's this big battle between the prince and the dragon, and oh, you know. And he almost dies, but somehow just at the end, he manages to win over the over the dragon, and he banishes the dragon forever, and he gets to be with the princess. And and and I just sort of say, we all know that that's what the stories that's how a meaningful story about suffering should go something like that. Happy, sad, struggle, redemption. That's how it should go. Um and we we all know that it's a very unsatisfying story when it's just there was a happy kingdom, the end. We all know that's not a satisfying story. Um And maybe we know that that's not a satisfying story because we live within God's story. And maybe God's story, maybe there's a wisdom to there being a wonderful kingdom, a terrible dragon, a fight to the death and struggle, and only then redemption. Uh maybe that maybe there's wisdom to that. And I, you know, I'd yeah, so that that's one way of of of thinking about, you know, actually all the most satisfying stories about suffering um go through struggle and death and come out the other side, and we're living in that kind of story.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, it's uh we're gonna have to leave it there for for this week. So what are we doing next time, then Glenn?
SPEAKER_02Next time we're gonna answer the question is it true? Is this Christianity thing actually true?
SPEAKER_01I think Some people do.
SPEAKER_02Some people Well, we need to we need to establish that, but I don't think we need to first establish that. I think sometimes when we're dealing with people's questions, we feel like we need to establish first the you know the truth of the Old Testament and then the truth of the New Testament, and we need to do all our archaeological digs first and make sure that all the manuscript evidence is like right there and and perfect. I actually like what Blaise Pascal said. He he he said what we should do is we should paint the picture of the Christian life and make people wish it were true, then show them that it is. And so so often what I'm what I try to do with 321, for instance, is paint uh an attractive picture of Christianity and and make people wish it were true, and then show them that it is. Um but let's let's try and do that as well and show them that it's not just a a fairy tale that helps us to sleep well at night, but that it's actually grounded in reality.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, thanks for listening to the Evangelist Podcast. If you like listening each week, we'd really appreciate a rating and review on iTunes. It helps us to get seen by more people. And also you can pick up a copy of our free daily prayer bulletin. It tells thirty-one stories of what God is doing around the world. So you can find links to those on the web address for this episode, which is revivalmedia.org slash tepfifty five. That's it for now. See you next time. See ya.