Am I going to hell? Are you going to hell? Stephen Bartlett. Is Stephen Bartlett going to hell? Do non-Christians go to hell? And it's like, okay, the right answer is yes. But if they hear Wes is a Christian, he's not going to hell. I'm not a Christian, I'm going to hell. Well, Wes thinks it's because he's done something. West, Wes did the right thing, I'm not doing the right thing. Wes is, you know, he's more spiritually open. He's got all the right facts. He was in the right time, the right place for the right scenario. And that's not true. And I don't want them to hear that. What does the scripture say hell is? Well, it's it's separation. It's separation from God. On the Uber ride over to these things, I'm just like in fear trepidation praying. Long form podcast with Joe Rogan. What do you think of the historical person of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00Well, it certainly seems like there's a lot of people that believe that there was this very exceptional human being that existed.
SPEAKER_02Is his change on Christianity significant? I can't see how it's not. He is the mainstream media. Are the CNNs and the MSNBCs and the Fox News, are they getting 50 million downloads a month? I doubt it. When you refer to the Sinai Bible, would you be referring to Codex Sinaticus? The kind of viral moment of turning around and pulling it off the shelf. That wasn't planned. What was interesting in the fallout from the Billy Carson thing, I had people say, I'd already put money up front to go on a tour in Egypt with Billy Carson. There's no way I'm going to get on a plane now.
SPEAKER_03So, Wes Huff, it's November 2024. I come off the plane at Toronto. You pick me up in the car and I say, uh, what's new with you, Wes? And you say, uh, have you heard of a guy called Billy Carson? And I had not heard of this guy called Billy Carson. And you say something to the effect of, yeah, I did this debate. I don't think it's going to see the light of day. And I think I I gave you some uh some wisdom, something like, oh, I'm sure it's nothing. Um it it won't be important anyway. Who cares if it comes out or not? Um turns out I was I was wrong, right? We were both wrong. Yeah. Yeah. It did come out and it was important. It was really quite important in that why. What what what was the important thing about the Billy Carson debate surfacing?
SPEAKER_02Um, well, I think it was mostly that Billy tried to make it not surface, and that that's what called this caused the spiral. But I legitimately didn't think it would turn out into anything. I all most of the things I wanted to talk to Billy about, we didn't actually get to talk about it. Like what?
SPEAKER_03What did you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_02Well, he I mean, he makes so many wild claims.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And the the wild claims are were kind of endless. But even things just like saying, well, Jesus in Greek is Jesus, and Jesus really means Hail Zeus. And so every time you pray in the name of Jesus, you're praying to Zeus. Right. Like just demonstrably false and kind of silly things that I really wanted to get in. That Elohim means gods, plural 100% of the time, and that we're really veiled polytheists that are worshiping this ancient Near Eastern pantheon, and we're just silly and we don't know it. And just those kinds of things. Um, I mean, conveniently, he he kind of had a script and he fell right into the script.
SPEAKER_03And so it wasn't Did you have the Sinai Bible as as he would call it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Codex Sinatic. I mean, for a reason.
SPEAKER_02I wasn't planning on doing that. No, okay. It was it was spur of the moment in that I'm I kind of thought he might bring this up, but the kind of viral moment of turning around and pulling it off the shelf, and that wasn't planned. No.
SPEAKER_03It's interesting. I the scriptures that come to mind most when I think about debates, dialogues, um, apologetics more generally is um the opponents of the Lord's people, they dig a pit and then fall into it. It's a massive theme in in Psalms and Proverbs. It's kind of what Pharaoh does, right? It's it's Pharaoh desires the death of the Israelites, so he charges into the Red Sea with his army and you know, he kind of falls into his own folly. He he is defeated, you know, or you could think of Goliath, you know, he's defeated with his own sword and that kind of thing. Yeah. Um, how have you seen that take place in debates and dialogues and conversations? They dig a pit and then they fall into it.
SPEAKER_02Well, I'm I mean, first and foremost, I'm not a debater. Right. I mean, I think I think people after that particular interaction thought, oh, well, Weshoffy's this debate guy, and now I'm gonna challenge him to a debate on this topic. But I I mean, first and foremost, I was an evangelist. So if you feel like I'm trying to convert you, it's because I am. Right. And um, I was just genuinely interested in apologetics related to the history of the Bible. Like that's what I'd been doing for years. Uh and but I think you know, it's an interesting conversation when you when you do engage in these conversations. I think my interaction with Billy Carson, whether you want to call that a debate or not, was a key example of these people dig their own holes and jump into them. In all I really had to do, my my moment that I thought would come out of that if it did see the light of day, wasn't actually the Sinai Bible turning around pulling a you know, Codex Anaticus off the shelf, as much as it was when he brought up the Babylonian creation story, the Enuma Leash, and said that it was copied verbatim from like the the the Genesis account of creation was copied from the Enuma Leash. And I asked him to summarize the Enuma Leash, and he went off on a tirade that sounded nothing like Genesis 1, 2, 3, you know, anything in Genesis. And and I let him talk.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02And I encouraged him to talk. I did have to cut him off at a certain point. But it was that, like it was a clear example to me of simply digging your own hole. Like you don't even realize that what you're saying is contradicting the other stuff you're saying.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah, yeah. And yeah. So what what are some of the differences then? I I I I'm like you, I'm an evangelist first and foremost, a debater only when people kind of toss me to, you know, the the next skeptic who's who's wanting to sort of uh converse about the faith. And I I I I was saying to you just before the the recording started, I think there are things that you do in evangelism that are quite different to what you do in in debate. The the number one thing I think you do differently is if you're in an evangelistic conversation, you let 90% of everything they say go past you. You know, to use a cricketing analogy, you sort of you you let the ball go through to the keeper. You know, if you're if you're a baseballer, you don't swing at at everything, only only if it's in the strike zone. That's an analogy that went right over the heads of most of the Americans listening in the audience. That's fine. It's the second biggest viewed sport in the world, cricket. So deal with it. Catch up with the rest of the world. Now I'm thinking, how can I relate this to hockey? Okay. Like ice hockey is what you think. Ice hockey. Yeah. There's no other kind of hockey. Well, the yeah, well, the keeper does not let uh the puck go through. The goalie, the goalie. The goalie, right. The goalie does not do that. But I think in evangelism, you let a lot of stuff pass, right? And and then you latch onto the one thing that you think might get you to Jesus. Yeah. In a debate, it's quite different, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're you're there's it's it's strategically different in the way that you're trying to kind of get to the roots of the issue of what your opponent is laying down. Uh and there's much more of a a kind of gotcha-esque aspect to debate than there is in evangelistic conversations. Um, that's not to say that like there isn't crossover in the Venn diagram about those things. There can be and there is often, but in a debate, you're trying to win an argument more than you're trying to win a soul. And in an evangelistic circumstance, you really are letting things go for the sake of, well, how do I get? How do I get to Jesus? How do I get to the foot of the cross? What where is the opportunity to really there's opp I mean, there's gonna be instances where you're gonna poke holes in their worldview, where you're gonna make sure that they know that maybe what they're saying doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things, that there's contradictions, that it's not maybe as logically tight as they might think it is. But ultimately, you're trying to get to Jesus.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. But I think the one debate I think of as as being so fruitful evangelistically is well, you versus Billy, so he has an audience that is following him into folly. You expose that folly, and I mean in the comment section, you were seeing people kind of saying, I'm sorry, Lord, I'm coming back home, and that and that sort of thing. So sometimes it's it's really worth pointing out the sinking sands that's there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I think a lot of people are just confused.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Like in, and I'm sure you can attest to this too, Glenn, in the vast majority of conversations that I'm having, those people are not wolves in sheep's clothing, they're sheep and they're lost and they're misled, and they're they don't know what they don't know more often than not. And I think what was interesting in kind of the the fallout from the Billy Carson thing, when it eventually did come out, when people were able to see it, and I had people say, I I'd I'd already put money up front to go on a tour in Egypt with Billy Carson, and there's no way I'm doing I'm I'm gonna get on a plane now. Um, because the the kind of emperor was shown to have no clothes, and a lot of people I think were willing to buy that he was wearing a robe. And when it was just so obviously shown and even that was the whole thing with the the podcast host who arranged that, uh, Mark Minard, he too had no idea. Um, and just you know, he'd he he was very new to the faith in in many ways. I mean, I think he he would have considered himself a Christian for years, but just coming into what that really meant in his own profession and he was physical neighbors to Billy, they'd had lots of conversations and expected Billy to respond because Billy was Mr. Confident, and when he didn't, Mark himself was caught off guard. Yes, yeah. Hey, I'm Wes Huff, I love 321. It's a phenomenal way to know what the gospel is. If you're a seeker, it's gonna provide lots of answers. If you're a believer, it's gonna help you navigate through helping others see what that is. Go to 321course.com. The three invite you in, the two determine the world, be one with the Son of God.
SPEAKER_03Therefore, there there is great evangelistic gain to exposing idols, I guess, to exposing false objects of hope that people have trusted in. And I get I guess you kind of you see that in the early church, and you you see that in Acts, you know, the that's the the going forth of the gospel actually means that people will start burning their books of magic and and you know, stop worshipping Diana and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I guess I guess there is like evangelistic gain to being combative and to like to destroying, right? But not destroying the person. But there there is an ideology that sits behind that sort of thing that is holding people in thrall, therefore, but I guess I guess the the danger at that point is that in instead of identifying the ideology that needs to fall, you try to destroy the person. Um how important is it to humanize the other person on the other side of the conversation? Oh, I think it's vitally important.
SPEAKER_02I I think we need to make sure that we're not attacking the person and and their character or their identity, or because you know, they're an image bearer of God. And so they may need to be taken down a few pegs, but that doesn't mean personally that I, you know, the whole flagship apologetics verse, 1 Peter 3, 15 and 16, is often misquoted when I go and I, you know, speak at an apologetics conference and you see it emblazoned in big letters, always be prepared to give a defense. And you actually read what's going on in 1 Peter, and he's writing to the dispersed church in the ancient world, and it's in the context of persecution with people who are actively misunderstanding, mischaracterizing, uh seeking harm of believers. And Peter says, But in your heart severe Christ as Lord. That's like the book end. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who you are going to defend the faith with arguments and reasons and logic. No, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. That's asking for the reason for the hope that you have, it kind of implies that there's a hope already there.
SPEAKER_03An evident hope in the midst of suffering.
SPEAKER_02That is meriting that people ask the questions about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and they're starting it. Yeah. It's the is it's the other person who's starting this evangelistic encounter. So, in a very practical way, it's not what I do a lot of the time, most of the time, in going out, giving a presentation, here are the reasons why you can trust the Bible. There's a historical veracity to it. It's it's more organic than that. And the other book ends, so the first book end is but in your heart survere Christ as Lord, and the other one is, but do so with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ will be ashamed of their slander. I had to take a nice. That's not always an easy thing to do, especially when you're engaging hostility.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where have you seen that kind of work though? So in in terms of I I I love 1 Peter 3 in that the the whole context is people clinging on by their fingernails to Christ in the midst of suffering. And I pretty much I I think a good approximation of what the question is that's coming at the believer, it's something like, how are you still standing after the year that you've just had? How are you still standing in the midst of all the the trial? And I think a pretty good apologetic at that point is basically, I don't know, somehow Jesus. Jesus has got me through. Yep, totally like he is the apologetic, right?
SPEAKER_02Yep. And the number one piece of feedback that I've gotten since then is not necessarily I loved when you pulled the Codex Anaticus off the shelf, or I love when you, you know, caught Billy on this thing or that thing. It is you were so gracious with him. And I actually felt a little bit silly afterwards in that coming out of it, I thought, I probably should have, you know, to use another sports analogy, gone harder in the paint. I you know, I that that maybe I was a little bit more kind with him than actually he deserved, given how many people he's misleading. But you know, in retrospect, that is the number one thing that people say to me is it was the demeanor. It was the way that you went about it that yes, there was an aspect of pointing out that Billy really had no foundation to stand on, but it didn't require me pulling the sword off my wall and you know, stabbing him to death spiritually. Um it was much more subtle than that. And and I think if you look at Jesus and you look at some of the ways that he exposes the lies, he's doing that in a very, you know, he is flipping tables every once in a while. But also when he he's talking to the woman at the well, and he says, Go get your husband. And she says, You know, I don't have a husband. It's like, oh, that's that's right. You actually have five. You know, there's there is, you know, he's revealing something, but I think he's also pointing out in a way where he could have been, you know, of course you don't have a husband, because you're a whoremonger, you know, and he didn't do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Well, think about Matthew 23, he's just blistering against the Pharisees, and and he's able to turn on a dime at the end of the chapter and say, Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you just known the prophets, how long I've you know, longed to gather you like a hen gathers her chicks, yeah, but you were not willing. So even at his most blistering, he's still like a mother hen.
SPEAKER_02Definitely extraordinary, yeah. Definitely. And I'm always looking at those and astonished at those instances. You know, my one of my favorite ones is when he's in the temple and they're trying to trap him with the question about taxes. We know that because in the text it says, and they went to trap him. That's something that you know you go to seminary and you spend a lot of money, but you know, he was a freebie. Thanks. Read the text. Um but you see what's going on there in that he completely subverts the conversation and he knows that it's a trap. And I sometimes say the right answer to the wrong question is still the wrong answer. And sometimes, you know, what is the right answer to a question that maybe is framed in the wrong way? Is abortion wrong? Are you against choice? Well, it's framed in a way that makes nobody's anti-choice, right? I'm I'm against the anti-murder of defenseless children in the womb. But sometimes if you just the right answer in saying are you against abortion, and you say yes, and that is the right answer. But in certain circumstances, the person doesn't hear that you're against the murder of the defenseless child in the womb, they hear, you don't think I should have freedom. And that's where you want to trample down the rights of women. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I mean I've had this a few times. Um, you know, when I was on flagrant and they said, you know, do non-Christians go to hell? And it's like, okay, the right answer is yes. But if they hear Wes is a Christian, he's not going to hell, I'm not a Christian, I'm going to hell. Well, Wes thinks it's because he's done something.
SPEAKER_03West Wes did the right thing, I'm not doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_02Wes is, you know, he's more spiritually open, he's got all the right facts, he's he was in the right time, the right place for the right scenario. And that's not true. And I don't want them to hear that. I don't want that, even though the right answer is yes, if you are not a Christian, you're not going to be able to do it. Study on how the question is framed, though. Definitely.
SPEAKER_03Which is why Jesus is constantly saying, like, like, why do you ask? And why do you call me good? But like, like he's he's wanting to get behind the question, which seems that that seems absolutely crucial.
SPEAKER_02Well, and he knows that that question in the context of being in the temple court and being asked a question about taxation is not about taxation. It's about moral compromise. And so if he says, No, don't pay your taxes, you know, fight, fight the man, well, the text says that the Herodians are sent with the Pharisees' disciples, which notice the Pharisees don't even go and ask the question themselves because they're scared of how politically charged the question is. Yeah, that's I mean, that's an assumption in the text, but it's it literally says that they send their disciples and they send them with the Herodians who we're pretty sure are the cops, right? So so if he says, no, don't pay your taxes, well, the Herodians, they grab him, throw him in the paddy wagon, take him down to the you know, the clink. Um, but if he says, yes, pay your taxes, do your civic duty, there's a number of very religious Jews in his immediate context who are going to see Jesus is willing to morally compromise as an Israelite in funding the oppression of God's people. And he knows that's a trap. But in asking for a coin, which by the way, an interesting fact, because I was reading some kind of leading up to the time of Jesus Pharisaical literature, where the Pharisees themselves describe having a coin with Caesar's image being idolatry. Ah, yeah, right. So for their disciples to hand them a coin with Caesar's image on it, in and of itself kind of reveals that he's, you know, oh, that's interesting. I wonder, I wonder, you guys talk a lot about that, don't you? Um there's already kind of a revelation of hypocrisy there. But then for him to say, well, whose face is this? Oh, Caesar's? Give it back to him. Send it back. Also, whose whose image is on you?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, there's a revelation there that that kind of and they realize, like, oh, he's trapped us. Yeah. Even though we've tried to trap him. We dug a pit and we've fallen into it. And you know, uh Peter J. Williams talks about the genius of Jesus. Yes. And and that there truly is a genius of Jesus in in those particular instances.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. And what is the genius there? The the genius on so many levels, yes, he's revealing the hypocrisy by getting them to you know, reveal that they've also got a coin. It's the it's the genius of of having uh a worked example in front of them. You're like, he's he's got an object to kind of to wave around. You know, I I tried to do a much less wise and much less genius version of this with Stephen Woodford uh the other day. You know, he was sort of throwing out verses about the Old Testament, and I decided, you know, I'm gonna bring in a copy of the Bible and bring in a copy of Sapiens. So here's a non-Christian telling of our of our prehistory, and here's a Christian telling of the Old Testament, and you're gonna raise these kind of verses. Okay, you have problems with this prehistory, which you you know consider to be outrageous and brutal. There's all sorts of examples of that to the max in this book as well. And just just the the idea of picking up this like which book are you gonna have? Because actually, my book's got a New Testament, my book's got a Jesus, my book's got a decisive turn against this thing. Your book doesn't have that, does it? And and I was actually inspired to kind of bring that by Jesus because you know he he disrupts in those sorts of ways. Or or you could think about, you know, the the teacher of the law who says, um, you know, what good thing must I do to inherit eternal life? And then instantly Jesus is pushing back on, you know, why do you call me good? And and then he asks him a question, and then he tells a story. And the last thing he does is answer the question as asked. You know, so it might be the least Christ-like thing to do, to simply answer the question as asked, I think.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's the fault that most people fall into, is that they think that they need to be the Christian encyclopedia, or the Bible answer man, the Bible answer woman, and go into defense mode. And I mean, that was me for years on university campus when I was doing my undergraduate work, having what were genuinely good conversations, but then Falling into the trap of someone says, You can't trust the Bible, and me going, Here are all the reasons you can trust the Bible. And not really slowing down to ask, What do you mean by Bible? And finding out they had no idea what they were even saying that I couldn't trust in. They and and so, in one sense, there were certain instances where afterwards I would find out, especially when people would say things about God, that the God that they thought I believed in wasn't actually the God I believed in. And so I ended up defending something that I don't actually believe to begin with, because the God they don't believe in is the God I don't believe in. And so that I mean, it's it's just trial and error, a lot of it, in having those conversations over and over and stumbling through them and realizing, oh, okay, maybe I should just go back and look at how Peter, Paul, Jesus, how they're having these conversations. And though I am not the son of God, um, I do not know what are in men's hearts. Yeah. Um, use flash. I hope that's it's not a news flash. Um, that there's genuine patterns that we can see there. You know, be wise in the way you act towards outsiders, make the most of every opportunity, let your words always be seasoned with salt, so you may know how to answer everyone. Not every objection, everyone. And so when Paul writes The Church in Colossae, there's like there's a lot of wisdom in there. Am I making the most of every opportunity? Are my words seasoned with salt? You know, salt salt can preserve, salt can season. I'm Canadian, we put salt on our ice because it melts it. It has the chemical properties to change its environment. And salt also irritates. People aren't gonna like that being told bites to it. Yeah, that they're dead in their sins and trespasses. Now, if all I'm doing is being irritating, I'm being salty in the wrong way. But there's, you know, looking at how scripture actually communicates the way we should have conversations, um, rather than unfortunately taking cues from the world where I need to dunk on my opponent, yeah, you know, Wes Huff destroys like um, yeah.
SPEAKER_03How do you how does Weshuff himself got against that? Because I I think back to like the flagrant podcast, and I think you were put there in the middle of a whole bunch of people, and and even like the videographer, you know, is asking questions of you, right? And you are Bible answer guy in that moment.
SPEAKER_01I'm really interested in this John the Baptist guy. I've heard a lot of people say that game gay marriage and gay relations are just mistranslations.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. Did Jesus make it out to India?
SPEAKER_01What do you think about Martin Luther's removal of the Apocrypha from that original canon? What does the scripture say how is it? The murder of the Canaanites.
SPEAKER_03And you do fantastically at answering everybody's questions, but how do how do you navigate that? Because people want you to be Bible answer guy. So how do you how do you sort of posture yourself and position yourself in that way so that you're, in a sense, more than you have a richer vision of what you're doing than just somebody uh uh asks you know question A and you give them answer 17.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think when these scenarios happen where I am given the opportunity to actually extrapolate on some of these things, i afterwards I know it was a work of the Holy Spirit because I end up sounding smarter than I know I am. Um that's when you know the spirit is working in particular situations. But I think, you know, I've I've been very God has been very gracious to me to allow me to be in certain scenarios where I have the ability to do that. And it it goes in a way that I can only chalk up to the spirit. But what was your original question?
SPEAKER_03So yeah, how do you how do you post yourself yourself such that because you're Wes Huff, so people are going to treat you like Bible answer guy.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03So how are you going to communicate? I mean, I mean, interviews like this are really helpful for you to communicate, you know, there's so much else that's going on. Yeah, we'll get to the part where you expose me eventually. That's right. What Wes should have said. Yeah. No, I I thought you did brilliantly on flagrant. It's just you are you are sought after as the guy with the the silver bullet answer. But what everything you said here is is helping us to get a much richer vision for what an actually fruitful evangelistic encounter looks like. And I'm I'm just grateful for that.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I don't know what the preparation process of going into a three-hour plus long conversation is. Um, all it took was about a decade of reading manuscripts for in in the seclusion of ambiguity. But I mean, what was interesting, what was genuinely interesting about that particular opportunity with the flagrant podcast is that the questions that were being asked were the pretty standard locker room questions that I had been asked for years. And it was a testament to me, there were a few wild cards, but ultimately it was like, no, these are the questions that humanity's been asking for a long, long time. Okay, Jesus is the only way. I hear you saying that, but what about these people who haven't heard? I mean, how many times is have I read about addressing that question in fill-in-the-blank, apologetic textbook, but never had, you know, never actually heard it being asked on the street. And now here's the opportunity to be able to do that in a way that maybe speaks directly. I'm always on the Uber ride over to these things, I'm just like in fear repetition praying because I don't know like what other way is there to prepare, other than saying, like, you know, the Daniel going to the king of Babylon andor Persia, and his prayer is just help me. Yeah. Right, right, right. And and that's how I genuinely have felt in these instances is that like I can't do this. I genuinely can't. I know my my failings and my insecurities, and I've been privileged to be able to study a lot of the stuff under people smarter than me, but I apart from leaning on the work of the spirit in my life, none of this stuff is gonna go well.
SPEAKER_03What fits you to take these opportunities then? Just like personality-wise, character-wise, temperament-wise, because it's it's it's a high wire act. There's not much of a there's not much of a net beneath you. Very few people would want to do the sort of thing that you do. Are you just a glutton for punishment? Like what probably. Yeah, it's okay. Like a moth to a flame, you just off you go.
SPEAKER_02You make manuscript Monday posts for 12 years, and then Joe Rogan invites you on his podcast. That's the secret sauce.
SPEAKER_03But making manuscript Monday posts is low stakes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Looking foolish on a podcast with millions of viewers is high stakes. Yeah. Like what what makes you say yes to those opportunities?
SPEAKER_02I'm very cautious and selective to what I actually do say yes to. And I think prayerfully going into them thinking, okay, is this a genuine opportunity where maybe I can inject a little bit of gospel? Or, I mean, that wasn't even necessarily my strategy going into Joe Rogan. It was I've been listening to this guy for years, and I know he has all of these, this baggage and these misconceptions, and the so if I can just, to the best of my ability, lay some foundation in encouraging him that the Christian worldview is intellectually robust, then that's what I want to do. I'm gonna ask him at the very end, what do you think of Jesus? What do you think of the historical person of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00Well, it certainly seems like there's a lot of people that believe that there was this very exceptional human being that existed. So the question is, what does that mean? Does does it mean he was the son of God? Does it mean he was just some completely unique human being that had this vision of humanity and this way of uh educating people and spreading this ideology that would ultimately change the way human beings interact with each other forever.
SPEAKER_02My point wasn't necessarily to come up front and try to convict him of his sin and go in for the gospel presentation, because I don't think that's what Joe needed. And I I'd actually heard people try to do that with him and it kind of fall flat because he had he had these ideas about who Jesus was, what the Bible was, that were just false. And what Christians are like, and yeah, and what Christians are like, and so that was a very different one than, say, the flagrant podcast, where I actually was more open to, you know, let's talk about the gospel, let's let's go in there, let me articulate what grace means and what what mercy means and what justice means and how that maybe interplays with what you may have heard or not heard um in your different interactions.
SPEAKER_03Is his is his change on Christianity significant? He he does seem to be a bit of a cultural bellwether. He's the he's the sort of guy who, you know, he voted for Bernie in 2016 and he voted for Trump in 2024, and he he seems to be the archetypal dude of the zeitgeist, as Paul Vanderclay would would put it. I are you seeing that not only his greater openness to Christianity, um, are you seeing that as significance of a broader trend that's going on right now?
SPEAKER_02I can't see how it's not significant. I mean, he is the voice, he is the mainstream media. I don't know. I are the CNNs and the MSNBCs and the Fox News, are they getting 50 million downloads a month? I doubt it. I don't know the statistics, but I highly doubt that as many people are listening to that, or the BBC, the ABC, the CBC, um than they are tuning into a long-form podcast with Joe Rogan. So I think he he really does have kind of the monopoly on the the pulse of the culture to a certain degree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so are you seeing that more broadly? So apologetics Canada, um you've having a greater reach into North America more generally and that sort of thing. So you've got opportunities all over America, but all over the world now. Are you seeing a greater openness to faith at the moment? Oh, 100%.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it was really interesting to see, you know, try I've in the last couple of years been able to go to places like New Zealand, Australia, Europe, the UK, and hear similar stories of what I'm seeing happen in Canada and what I'm seeing happen in North America. I think we are seeing a genuine shift in a way that I found interesting that when the seeker-sensitive movement was very popular, all those endeavors to try to move the needle are not what are the motivations for why people are opening up the Bible now. It's 100% organic, grassroots. People, for whatever reasons, that I don't know if I can pinpoint apart from the spirit of God going out in the world and softening hearts, are saying, I I want to read the Bible. Yeah, I I want to go to church. I'm I'm I'm curious about this Jesus guy. Like, and for no with all the endeavors that all of us evangelists have tried to do over the last number of decades, it seems like God just kind of says, you know, that that's great. I'm I'm really appreciative of all the hard work you guys have done.
SPEAKER_03Maybe you're saying that, but yeah, yeah. Or I mean, when when I trained at seminary to become a a pastor, it was like mission-shaped church was this massive document that was rolled out in in you know the national church of of the UK, the church of England. And it was all about cafe-style church, and let's let's uh you know have have chairs in circles and let's have you know less monologue, more dialogue, and and all that kind of you know, softly, softly, bridge building, little stepping stones, and maybe you know, church on a Sunday. And now it's just like like church is the number one thing. Like that's step one, or ordering a Bible on Amazon is step one, and then maybe going to church on a Sunday to figure out what this thing is all about, and then and you know, buying a Bible and reading the Bible used to be step seven, you know, and now it's step one, yeah. And it's like I I think the playbook has been trashed, but I I I don't think the playbook was ever ever ought to have been the playbook.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I mean, you've been doing this longer than I have. I'm old. So in in terms of uh I wasn't saying that. Um you are old, but uh the uh now it's being outed. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Westhof slams Glenn Scribner for his octogenarian.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Um but like because that's what the strategy was, wasn't it? Before it was like, you know, introduce these certain things, and then maybe eventually you can get them a Bible. But are you seeing people starting with the Bible?
SPEAKER_03100%. That's that's where just just in church a couple of a couple of Sundays ago, that was that was step one for this couple, they're in their twenties, they they got to know another member of our church through jujitsu, and like they just show up and having bought a Bible, and now they've got all sorts of questions. And thankfully, these these guys they that their Bible was in a modern translation. You know, we we've had other other people whose first step was buy a Bible, and it was you know, King James, which is a great translation for the 17th century. Sure. And then they just come to church, and and I sort of say, you know, and where did you start reading?
SPEAKER_02And they were like, the beginning and giving up your super fluidity of naughtiness.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I don't you love that. That's a good verse. Uh and unrighteous mammon and all that. Yeah, yeah. And um and so they've got all sorts of questions about Genesis and all sorts of questions about King James English. Right. And that's where you begin, and they have messy lives, and they've tried everything else, and they're now they're trying Jesus. And and so that has left issues in its wake that mean that discipleship and evangelism is now happening together all at once. Which I think is tricky, but it's kind of the way it's meant to be. Because that's that's you know, the same gospel disciples as well as evangelizers. And so we're just on this long journey with people who now want something that is old and deep and rich and biblical and weird and embodied, and maybe sacramental and you know, connected to history and all these sorts of things that we tr we used to try and clear those things away in the interest of evangelism. And now these are the most evangelistic bridges to to faith that we can we can actually find. So I'm definitely finding that finding that definitely in England, it's starting to happen in in Australia. Um I don't know about North America.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm seeing it in Canada. Yeah, um, I can't speak for the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'm not here that often. But um I I th I think I'm certainly seeing that in Canada where our church is bursting at the seams with people who are just walking through the door and saying, you know, I've never read the Bible before, but I'm I'm genuinely curious. And and I think that that's it's it's a factor that no one really saw coming. Maybe we should have, right? With like post-COVID and like disenfranchisement and you know, moral crises and job losses and certain things like that. Maybe we should have been more anticipatory for those particular things to take place, but it's certainly a different scenario. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So what does it call for from evangelists and apologists? What you know, I I trained for a different era, and now I'm finding myself in this moment of of opportunity. So what what does it call for from us in terms of not only what we say but how we say it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm I mean, it's something that I'm continually navigating through. I I think there's probably more of there's more of an accountability factor for Christians who have been in the faith for a while to really know what they believe and why they believe it, because they're going to be confronted with more questions than they ever have before. I sometimes tell this story where when uh uh I was a missionary kid, but when my parents came back from overseas in Canada, my dad pastored in a small town in central Ontario. And then for a couple of years, we moved out to the opposite end of the country. And my grandfather, my father, and I packed up a van and a U-Haul trailer, and we drove across the country. And I, if you ever drive across the prairies in Canada, they're very, very flat. You can watch a dog run away for a week. It's a very exciting activity. But I remember want seeing this giant tree in the middle of a field and completely exposed to all the elements and everything that the winds and the, you know, storms and could have thrown at it, and and genuinely going, huh, I wonder why that survived. And years later, thinking, you know, it wasn't about what I could see, it was about what I couldn't see. And the reason why that tree had survived for so long was probably because it had a good root system. It had a foundation that not only literally rooted it to the ground, but was able to pull in nutrients and things that allowed it to grow. And we live in an era where there's a lot of misunderstanding. There are still the Billy Carsons of the world and people who are going to cause confusion. And it's far too late for the tree to start thinking about growing its roots in the middle of the storm.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_02And I think for Christians, that should both encourage us and convict us. With people walking through the doors of our churches and saying, I just read Genesis, I don't know what is going on here. To challenge us who have been immersed in the literature of the Bible, in the narrative of scripture, in the redemption arc of creation, fall, restoration, to look at that and and be able to speak into that in a way that is actually both understandable but is robust.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02And that doesn't just communicate facts. Because one of the things that I've always been convicted of is I don't want more well-educated people who are going to hell. That's not the goal. I want people, I want hearts of stone to become hearts of flesh. And so Jesus is no less than a historical character, but he's also so much more. And if I can communicate that to you, if I can get you encouraged that Jesus is a historical character, but not a historical character like Xenophon and Plato and Nebuchadnezzar, but one who predicted his own death and resurrection and then pulled it off. And I don't know about you, but people who rise from the dead have more credibility and authority than people who don't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. So but at that point it's not a raw authority that Jesus has. So that it's not, oh, you've got my arm up behind my back. You've Okay, yeah, Jesus is Lord, fine. Like, like if you've done your job as an evangelist up until that point, it should be the best news in the world that you hear, oh, you mean this guy is in charge of the whole show? If this guy is Lord, that's good news. Yeah. Right? As opposed to this freaky thing happened one Sunday. Right. Oh, I guess the freaky things happened. Now I'm a supernaturalist. Well, right. Like I'm not sure that makes you a Christian. Yeah. You know. But the good the good news is it's it's this the same one who predicted his own, you know, resurrection is the one who also came here to die for you, you know. Yeah. Which is why Thomas wants to see the wounds, you know, not just any old freaky kind of occurrence that he can now, you know, latch some faith to, but it's the one who went to hell and back for me, who has passed those wounds through the furnace of affliction for me and come out the other side for me to give peace to me, and he is Lord. At that stage, it's good news that I'm you know assenting to, not just ah, supernatural events happen, I guess. I I I need to stop being a materialist.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, it's the bleaks, Pascal. Show them that that religion is not contrary to reason, and then make make good men wish it were true and then show them that it is. And I I think I think that's that's what we should be doing, right? That that as Pascal says, you know, there's a lot of people out there who are scared who that it might be true. And so you show them that it's beautiful, show them, make them want it to be true, and then show them that it is, and then show them that it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Final question, um, Wes, I think um you're under a heck of a lot of pressure. Certainly, there are different kinds of pressures on you in the last 18 months than there were prior to this. This has been a wild and crazy ride. We are in season seven of Weshuff the Rock.
SPEAKER_02I just want to go back to Glenn Scrivener and Wes Huff at Niagara Falls when the Billy Carson debate was a a thing that wouldn't come out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was that was fun. That was fun. The opportunities uh are there. A whirlwind of um fame, a whirlwind of critique, a whirlwind of choices that you now have to make that you never thought were even options for you. Um, how does West Huff stay grounded in the midst of that? How does Weshuff stay loving Jesus, being the sort of person who can overflow with Christ on a podcast or overflow with Christ to your Uber driver?
SPEAKER_02I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know if I have a good answer to that. I I feel like I'm stumbling through all of this just as much as I was, you know, 17 months ago as I am today. I'm very fortunate that I have a good, I have a good community around me. And I've always had someone years ago told me, Wes, if you're wanting to get involved in apologetics ministry, that's going to live or die in the local church. And so you need to get as plugged into the local church as you possibly can. You need that accountability. You need to be under the authority of local elders. You need to be involved. You need to be having a small group at your house and hosting and doing all those things. And that's always been a grounding point for me. And I've been very, very lucky to have godly men be able to speak into my life. And my life, other than this craziness, is very normal. And so when I go home and, you know, I need to rock my baby to sleep or um, you know, change nappies or whatever, that is it's there's something grounding about that. That I don't think I remember reading um a passage that Augustine wrote about the king inviting him out to and him thinking, well, the king wants to talk to me. You know, I must be somebody. And then feeling convicted about the king asking him and then going, well, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe because I think that I shouldn't go out and talk to the king. But you know, the king is probably gonna ask someone else, and I don't know if I want them communicating to the king. I know what I would say, and I it's it's unpredictable what you know random person outside of my purview would say. And reading that and thinking, I don't know if I relate to that. Because I that even the thinking, oh, the king wants to talk to me, I must be somebody. I have always felt daunted. I've never thought, oh, the king wants to talk to me, I must be somebody. I've thought the king shouldn't be talking to me. Yeah, yeah. Who am I? Yeah. I'm I'm I'm not anybody really special. And especially knowing people who are I know Glenn Scribner. He's far more capable and competent than I am. You know, have you heard of my friend? He has a nicer accent than I have. Um the so that's in and of itself felt very grounding, is just the pressure of being kind of overwhelmed. And having mature, godly people who can speak into my life who continue to tell me, you know, stay in the word, be prayerful, don't don't not host your small group on Wednesday evening. Just continue doing what you were doing before. Um, don't feel the the pull of needing to do this or uh you have to go do that, and just seek the Lord's guidance and and be as accountable to that as I possibly can.
SPEAKER_03I love that. I think I think that local church thing is so so important. I think members of my local church, I've been at the same church for 18 years now, and I think if any of them saw, for instance, you know, there was a conversation, somebody before we, you know, hit record saying, Oh, thank you so much for your book, they would they would think that's hilarious. Like, like people at all sells these sports would just be like, why why is anyone shaking Glenn Scribbs? He's Glenn. A prophet has no honor in his hometown. Yeah, and so belong there, right? Like what a what a cool center from which to do the other stuff, the other stuff is great. And and God is blessing that. Yeah, yeah. From there. Yeah, love it. Weshuff, I'm very grateful for you, and I'm very grateful for the way that you are representing Jesus beautifully to those looking on. I think you're also representing what an evangelist looks like for other believers. And and I think I think I'm equally as excited by that because uh I want to see a whole bunch more Wes Huffs um doing what you do in the way that you do it. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02Well, I appreciate that. Um I'm I'm continually just feeling like I'm stumbling through this stuff and uh I'm listening to Glenn Strivener and Andy Bannister and all the other people who have influenced me over the years to be able to say and articulate what I think actually a lot of other people are saying much better. But I'm I'm I'm you know, God has orchestrated all these things clearly. They they couldn't possibly have come together in the ways that they have without that. I truly believe that. So I'm I'm trying to be a good steward of that. And if I uh disappear into obscurity in five years and I'm just preaching at my local church, I'm okay with that too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. Preach the gospel, die and uh be forgotten. Yeah, Count Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf, which we remember him for, ironically. I know. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. What's up? Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been great.