Good afternoon and welcome to this uh special episode of Great Question, and we're doing Great Question Live. Glen runs uh organization called Speak Life. Hi Glenn. Well, hello to Great Question Live. Now, lots of people have already asked questions, so we've got lots of questions to get through in this hour. Uh so I'm gonna get right down to it. Um and as as I ask questions, I'm gonna intersperse with a few Australia questions as as well, just to warn you of that. And the rules of this game are uh you have to answer the question. You can't uh answer a different question. You you're not a politician. Okay, you're um okay, so first question. Uh how many Tim Tams have you eaten in one sitting?
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. Truthfully, uh it's it's hard not to eat the entire packet. So I don't know how many are in a packet. Would there be like 10, 12, something like that? But yeah, once you once you start with you fall down the Tim Tam hole very, very rapidly.
SPEAKER_01Right. And can you explain to people who've never had a Tim Tam, what is a Tim Tem?
SPEAKER_00The first thing I'll tell you is a Tim Tam is not a penguin. Okay? This is what English people will say. They'll say a Tim Tam, it's just like a penguin. It's not just like a penguin. The chocolate is far superior. And uh and there are ways of eating a Tim Tam as well. You you you knit it's basically a a a dry chocolate biscuit with a with a milk chocolate uh covering, and you you nibble off both ends and you dunk it in your hot chocolate and you suck your your hot chocolate through the tin tam and it explodes in your mouth and it's called the Tim Tam bomb, and it's it's glorious.
SPEAKER_01Right. Great. Well I'm glad we got that uh sorted out. Yeah, me too. Thank thank you. When you say penguin, you're not talking about the animal penguin. You're talking anyway. No, I I've never tasted this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01First question that we've been um posted, uh oh uh Tim Chadic saying Tim Tams are overrated. That's that's pretty um. That's fighting talk. That's fighting talk. Okay, as Jesus was a Jew, a descendant from Abraham, is the God that Jews and Muslims believe in the same as the Christian God?
SPEAKER_00Uh really good question. Um I think Jesus kind of addresses that in uh in John chapter 8. He's speaking to uh some people who are devout Jews, they would have memorized the Old Testament, they would have memorized at least the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, the the law of Moses. And Jesus makes this this profound claim. He says, um, before Abraham was, I am. And what he's saying is um he he existed you know far before the time of Abraham, who you know lived about 2000 BC. And uh Jesus is not just claiming to be descended from Abraham, he's claiming to be Abraham's God, and he claims to be Abraham's God by claiming to be the great I am, which um people might know is the name that God gives for himself in Exodus chapter 3 from the burning bush. So the God of the burning bush, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the great I Am, and Jesus claims to be that great I am, and of course, that that leads to a real parting of the ways between the three Abrahamic faiths. What do we do with this claim from Jesus Christ? And of course, those Jews who accepted Christ's claim to be the great I Am remain true to their Jewish heritage. And Jesus says, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he saw it and was glad. So Jesus is saying Abraham was a Jesus kind of a guy. Abraham believed in the Messiah, he believed in me. And therefore, Jews who trust in Jesus do not need to jettison their Jewish history or their heritage. Um, they are in continuity, total continuity with the Old Testament, and they we might call them messianic Jews. Um, and obviously the the movement that grew up out of the teachings of Christ was a messianic Jewish sect that kept on insisting that they were the way, the way of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And this is known today as the church, Israel gone global. So that sort of is, you know, the Jews and the Christians. Islam comes along much later, much later, and claims to have a revelation that is in continuity with the Old and New Testaments. But I think some careful study of the Quran and the Old Testament and the New Testament shows that the Quran is out of step with uh the teaching of the Old and New Testaments. Uh, and their doctrine of God develops in a very different direction. And uh and therefore, within the Quran it says things very starkly, like, say not three. Um, and they're referring to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, that there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Um in the in the Quran it says in sort of Surah 112, Allah does not beget, nor is he begotten. And that's saying, Allah is not a father and he is not a son. And it sets itself really quite starkly against uh the Christian doctrine of God. So I think to give Muslims their due and to be respectful of what it is they're saying about Allah, I think Allah is quite clearly demarcating himself from uh the God of Christians. So I think Islam is is a is a different kind of a thing. Um but when we go back to Jesus, he claims to be the God of Abraham, and to the degree that we follow Jesus is the degree to which we are following the God of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01So if people say to you, well, um, these are all different perspectives on the same thing, you know, the typical elephant and the blind uh men sort of parable, right? Uh, how do you respond to that? Because in in our culture, the the consensus view is basically all gods are the same. Right. So how how do you answer that in a sort of clipped way?
SPEAKER_00It's great. I think I think that analogy is very helpful, and people, it's it's it's a very old analogy that became sort of famous through a poem in the in the 19th century where you've got lots of different blind people, they're all feeling different aspects of the elephant, and you know, if you if you grab hold of the legs, you think that the elephant is basically like a tree, and if you grab hold of the tail, you think he's basically like a snake. Um, but there's only one elephant. The question you've got to ask about that analogy is um who is the one who can see that there's just one elephant? And the question and the answer is the poet. Apparently, the poet themselves, the the the author, um, is able to see that all these different accounts of the elephant, they're just blind. And they just, you know, bless them. Um, they've got their imperfect knowledge of this greater reality. But the poet is the one who can see that it's just one elephant. Um, and I think when you bring that analogy into a discussion of the various faiths, the person who says that each faith is just an incomplete account of this greater divine spiritual reality, it sounds humble, it's actually arrogant. It's arrogant because you're claiming to be the one person who can see ultimate reality, and those poor benighted fools, the religionists, um, they they are getting things wrong, they have such impartial knowledge. It sounds really, it sounds really humble. In fact, it's a very arrogant truth claim. Um and and isn't that what Jesus claimed? I mean, couldn't couldn't he, isn't he the poet? Right, yeah. You've got you've got to figure out who do we trust, exactly. Who do we trust to give us an account of ultimate reality? Um, and what if the elephant speaks? It's a funny idea, but the Christian claim is that God is not inert and mute and inactive. Um God reveals himself and comes into this world and in the person of Jesus. Um, Jesus is the word of God. God speaks to us in the person of Jesus. And so the elephant is not passive, waiting to be discovered by intrepid religionists like ourselves. God is the one who reveals himself and reveals himself in the person of Jesus. And if we trust him, then we have an account of ultimate reality that I think is ultimately beautiful and true and good and attractive.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Okay, um, which is the best Australian export? Uh Vegemite, Ug Boots, or Jason Donovan? Or Jason Donovan.
SPEAKER_00Um, well, I mean Vegemite is is wonderful, and I I don't go very many days without my Vegemite. There are inferior alternatives, such as Marmite. There are inferior alternatives to Ugboots, um, but there's only one Jason Donovan. So let's go with Jason Donovan. Let's let's prize people over things, Andrew.
SPEAKER_01Right. Is it possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution?
SPEAKER_00Uh it is not only possible to be a Christian and believe in evolution, but um millions seem to. And so you've you you know you've got to reckon with the fact that um there are many people who um are perfectly comfortable with Darwin's origin of the species and the book of Genesis. Um I think where where there are um certain flare-ups and certain clashes between Darwin and the book of Genesis, I guess I would say um the age of the earth is not um is not really that controversial when you actually go back and and and look at the book of Genesis. But I I think maybe the goodness of creation um might be threatened by a wholesale embrace of evolution, a wholesale embrace of macro evolution. From bacteria to baboons to us, um, there is this unbroken, unguided chain that is driven by the struggle for survival. I think if if that is the only element that's going on in your view of the world, um that's not a particularly Christian view. Because in Genesis chapter 1, I think a far more controversial word than the word day in Genesis chapter 1, a far more controversial word is the word good. You know, God, after all the days of creation, and we can we can argue about you know whether they are to be taken literally or figuratively, um, after every day of creation, God looks at what he's made and he says, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good. And on the on the um day that he makes humanity, he says it's very good. So really um the where where the clash might come is I think the Christian story is, the Genesis story is a good God makes a good world and then it falls. If you just go with Darwin, then there's a lot of death and pain and struggle, and then you get humanity, and then if you try to fit that together with the Bible, then you've got humanity, and then all things go wrong, and then God blames humanity for death and pain and struggle. So you've you've got you've got some work ahead of you. Um if if you want to fit together the macroevolution picture and the Genesis picture, lots of Christians do that, but that's that's where the tensions lie.
SPEAKER_01So if you were sitting down, if you can go on your time machine and sit down with Darwin as he was um thinking about writing his book, and uh he was struggling, wasn't he, uh, with this whole tooth and claw world that he saw and the death of his uh daughter. Yes. Um and he he saw this pain. How would you, as a Christian minister, have spoken to him?
SPEAKER_00What he observes is true. In the realm of the flesh, to use a biblical kind of uh terminology, in the realm of the flesh, in the realm of biological reality, it is nature read in tooth and claw. It is. It does seem like death is Lord in the realm of the flesh. At that stage, um, he hasn't said anything that is against what the Bible teaches. Um, apart from the realm of the spirit, apart from the realm in which Jesus enters in to reverse the way of Adam and the way of the flesh, apart from that, it is absolutely true that this is a world of death and pain and struggle, and death always wins. And what he's observing about biological reality is absolutely true. But then the next question is: what do you make of Jesus? Jesus comes into the realm of the flesh, and whereas Darwin observed that it's it's the survival of the fittest, and therefore the sacrifice of the weakest, Jesus is actually noting that, well, what Jesus embodies is that he, the fittest, is sacrificed for the survival of we the weakest. So in Jesus, you have someone who actually overturns the way of Darwin and actually, as the fittest, takes on sacrifice in order to make the the weakest survive. And and in Jesus, I think you have a beautiful answer to nature read in tooth and claw, and a beautiful hope for Darwin's daughter, that that um even through death and out the other side, there is someone who's pioneered a way of hope, and it's not just the flesh, it's not just nature read in tooth and claw, but there is a realm of the spirit. There is a Prince of Heaven who's who's taken on our weakness, sacrificed himself to give us his fitness, to give us his survival. So that that's the sort of thing I'd start to talk to Darwin about.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Um, next question. Is the whole of Scripture relevant today? How can we trust that the entire Bible was breathed out by God?
SPEAKER_00I think all of the Bible is relevant today when we understand how to read it. Um when the Bible says, when you know, when God says to Noah in Genesis, make an ark out of gopher wood. I don't immediately go to B and Q and you know, likewise, go and do likewise. Go and buy a whole bunch of gopher wood and build your own ark. You need to figure out. But they stock gopherwood, do they? I don't know. We should they they probably don't stock very much right now. There's all sorts of supply chain issues, but you know, give it a go. Give it a go, people. See if you can get some gopher wood and make an ark. But that would be to mistake um who you are as you read the text. I think so so often we want to go to the the Bible as though it's just a DIY manual for life. And here's the instruction manual, and as long as I you know follow the steps, I'll live the blessed life. That's not what the Bible is. The Bible is a biography. First, in the Old Testament, it's the biography of the people of God, Israel, and then it's a biography of the Son of God in the New Testament. And um, what do you notice about both those things? You know, it's not about me primarily. I'm overhearing a conversation between God and his people. I'm I'm I'm reading a biography of God the Son walking around like he owns the place. Um, and my first instinct should not be, oh gosh, um, you know, how do how do I apply this to my life right in the here and now? It is to understand the kind of text that you're reading. And if you're reading Leviticus and a whole bunch of you know recipes for sacrifices to make and what to do about leprosy and what to do about the tabernacle and the temple and things like this, these are clearly not written to me. They are written for me, and once I understand how the Bible fits together as a whole, then I can I can understand uh what God is up to in the world. But it's it's not, I don't go to the Bible as a pick pick a mix spirituality and take a verse out of context here and a verse out of context there because it looks a little bit tasty. Um the Bible is a much richer document than that.
SPEAKER_01So if I'm just exploring uh Christian faith and uh looking at the Bible for for the first time, what does it mean to my reading of it that it's it's God's God's word, God, God breathes? What how how do I uh interact with that statement?
SPEAKER_00Well, I guess there's there's all sorts of arguments you could make for why the Bible is God's words. Um you could you could look towards its internal consistency. Um it's pretty extraordinary that we've got 66 books written over 1500 years by 40 different authors from three different continents, and yet it's telling this one unified story. That is remarkable, and maybe that points to a divine origin. So you could look to its internal consistency, you could look to its consistency with things that happened in the world, you could you could think to yourself, okay, this is telling me that there was a penniless preacher called Jesus who claimed to be God who died and rose again, and his movement has indeed taken over the world, and somehow out of nowhere has exploded this phenomenon called the church. Maybe the blast that has exploded onto the world stage has come from the truth of what this is talking about. Maybe Jesus really was God, maybe he really did rise from the dead. So you can look for the consistency between the Bible and the world. But really, if this is God's word, the way God will tell me this is his word is by speaking to me through it. So the first thing I would I would recommend people do is to shoot up a prayer and say, um, God, alright, you say this is your word, speak to me. You say this is your word, address me personally and powerfully in the depths of my being. That's a scary prayer. Um, because we all we all think that we love the truth, but um, everyone loves the truth. No one wants to be honest, right? We all say, I just want God to show up. Um, do you realize how inconvenient that would be for God to actually show up, for him to actually have an opinion on your life and on the world? It's a scary prayer, but it's a prayer that God promises he'll answer. So if you genuinely want to hear from God, shoot up a prayer, say, God, reveal yourself. Open up, maybe open up to John's gospel, just get right into this biography of Jesus. And if God indeed addresses you personally and powerfully through this book, I guess this is God's word then.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Next question. Uh, would you rather watch England beat Australia at cricket, rugby, or football?
SPEAKER_00Well, who cares about football? So, you know, football. But but I do believe the last time we played, Australia won two-one. I I think that is correct. People people can correct me on the football one. But um and we and we have the ashes, so just just putting that out there. Only just what do you mean only just? You either have them or you don't, and you don't.
SPEAKER_01I think they're actually at Lords. Um, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's true. Yes, you you you've got the Elgin marbles and the ashes, and yes. Well done, colonialism. Uh why would God allow the coronavirus? Ooh, okay. Yeah, big question. Um The way I've been answering this question, obviously people are asking this question a lot at the moment, but I notice that people are asking this question from a different um from a different position, from a different mindset. I I don't sense that there are a lot of people shaking their fist at the heavens, saying, why God, and what kind of good God would allow this level of suffering. I think even for those who don't believe in God, they are speaking about this and they are writing about this as though there's a lesson to be learnt. As though somebody is teaching us something, as though there is a correction that is coming to our lives. You know, if even people who are not in the slightest bit religious, they will talk about um the correction that COVID-19 is bringing to this world, and you know, we're having to slow down, we're having to adjust, uh, we're having to learn from this pandemic. Which is which is interesting because I think that a pandemic is an intensification of life. It's an intensification of what we ought to be experiencing all the time. We ought to realize that our lives are finite, we have only a certain number of heartbeats, and when that number runs out, that's us. But we don't. And especially in the West, we don't recognize our own mortality. We think we'll live forever. And it comes as a shock to us that there is this thing that is coming and you can't really do anything about it. You can take shelter for a little while, but even as we emerge from our shelters, we we recognize that this thing is going to work its way through the population. It's like death itself. It cannot be bargained with. And, you know, we're we're trusting in our technology, and we're we're trusting that there's gonna be a vaccine and there are gonna be treatments and all that kind of stuff. But I think at the end of the day, if if the infection doesn't get you, then something else will. Um, you know, the the survival rates for planet. Earth are crazy bad, really crazy bad. It's like one in one people die. And I think in the West we we tend to put that out of our thoughts. One thing that the pandemic is doing is making us aware of care homes, making us aware of the elderly because it strikes the elderly so disproportionately. But it does make us answer the question: why are the elderly all in care homes? And there's lots of reasons, that there could be good reasons why grandma and granddad are in care homes and those sorts of things. But so often the rest of the world looks on at us and thinks, how do you treat your elderly? Um you're an advanced society, are you? Um and I think that that issue of um our mortality, the reason why we think we'll live forever is that we we so often put the elderly out of sight, out of minds, and that is where they die. And they die out of sight, out of minds, and we don't bring our children to the funerals, and um, you know, people can grow up in this world and not see death and not not reckon with their own mortality until you know, just last year a guy came to me and he and he said, Um, both my mother and father died last year. What is God up to? I don't uh how can I believe in a good God when both my mother and father died last year? And one thing you need to know about this guy is that he was in his 60s, and he'd never considered that his parents might die, even even in his 60s, and this was news to him. What is God what is God doing through the pandemic? I think he's waking us up to our to our mortality and to the finitude of our lives, and and we really need to pay attention and we really need to think to ourselves, okay, maybe I've escaped COVID-19. Um, but the doors are locked in this in this world and no one gets out alive. And will I finally think about my mortality? Will I will I finally think about my fragility in this world? Maybe one of the things God is doing is waking us up to that.
SPEAKER_01And in in our culture, part of our response is to think we can beat this. Um there's a lot of talk about we will beat the virus. Um the virus and it's talk about the virus being intelligent when actually it's a virus, isn't it? Um but uh how how do you respond it from a Christian viewpoint in terms of this this whole attitude that science can basically we can conquer anything?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, and and the first thing about you know, can we beat the virus, beat the disease? And you know, we there's all that kind of language about beating cancer as well, isn't there? You know, and someone lost their battle with cancer. Well, you like we always lose a battle with death. We always do. Um, and to frame it in that way is really cruel. Um, because you know, Boris did not win in his battle against COVID-19, and the person in the bed next to him who might have died did not lose that battle, and they were not a lesser human being, and he is not a greater human being. They are not weaker and he is not stronger. This is not this is not the language we should be using, but it's the language we're tempted to use because we have this uh belief in the omnipotence of of science and technology, and that that somehow, if we throw enough money at a problem, we'll be able to solve it. Now, you know, we I mean we don't have a vaccine for all sorts of influenza strains. Um, we don't have a cure for the common cold. We we what makes us think that we're going to you know be able to beat this, and if we beat COVID-19, um, you know, more people will die of malaria probably this year. You know, who knows? But there are all sorts of other diseases that are out there that we we have no solution to. And I think it is foolish to imagine that just because technology has solved many of our problems, that it can actually address our deepest needs, death is still the great enemy. The Bible calls it the great enemy in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. And apart from Jesus, there's no one who's even making the claim that they can defeat that enemy. So I would I would just I would just ask the people who um have a confidence that um through science and technology we're gonna we're gonna defeat this foe. Um it would uh it would only take uh a kind of a strain of a virus that's a little bit more uh transmittable, a little bit more fatal, and um our civilization is toast. Um we we understand.
SPEAKER_01So imagine um you're invited on to the Downing Street briefing this afternoon at 5 p.m. or whatever, um, and you go to one of those podiums and you're there to talk about how we can beat death. What would you say?
SPEAKER_00I would say it's not that's not the right language. Um we need to be able to uh handle death, we need to be able to talk about death. Um you know, why are we not talking about it? Why why is it all about let's stay safe and stay alert? Why are we not saying, hey guys, have you got a will? Have you sorted out your your your wishes for beyond death? Have you have you considered your own mortality? Um obviously this is not a great vote winner.
SPEAKER_01Um but uh I mean I you say it's not a good question, but um I mean Jesus says you believe in me and you'll never die. So is he not saying that we can beat death? Beat death in terms of it being a we can beat the enemy of death. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So John 11, where that comes from, um, is a place that I'm always going to when when all these questions about death and suffering and God come together. Uh John chapter 11, halfway through this biography of Jesus, the fourth biography of Jesus, and it's a fantastic story to figure out how God and suffering and death fit together. Because here comes Jesus, and and John's gospel presents him as he is the word of God, he is the revelation of God. This is what God looks like. So God shows up at a funeral and he's late because the sisters of the dead man had asked Jesus to come sooner and to heal the sick man. Jesus does not come and heal the sick man. In fact, he delays, and in the delay, the catastrophe happens. So Jesus does not come to heal the sick man, he comes to raise the dead man. And in that context, he says, I am the resurrection and the life. He doesn't come and say, I am the healer of your illnesses. You see, we we think that if there is a God, he should allow us, he maybe could allow us to suffer just this little bit, and then he would come and heal us. Um what Jesus shows through John chapter 11 and this incident with Lazarus is that he would actually he will actually allow us to go down into the valley of the shadow of death. That's where he will meet us in our death and then raise us back up. So we we just want the story to shallowly go down a little bit and then be, you know, raised up. Jesus allows us to die and then rise up again. This is his answer to death. It's not that he will extend our life into our 90s, into our 100s, into our 110s. Because if he kept on healing us, age 90, age 100, age 110, if he kept on healing us, well, at what point does he allow us to die and then bring about the real answer to death, which is resurrection? And this is what our hearts crave. It's not just an extension of this life. Jesus says he's like a seed and he goes down into the ground and comes up like a plant. And he is the pioneer of resurrection life. If we trust in him, then we like seeds go down into the ground and we come back up. And and the afterlife is not less real or less physical. What Jesus pioneers is something that is more glorious, more real, more physical. It is it is like the oak tree is to the acorn, as our resurrection lives are to our us today. If we really want to do business with death, then we need to look at the one person who actually claims to have an answer to it. And his hope beyond death is something that blows every other promise out of the water.
SPEAKER_01And why do you think we don't talk about that uh uh very much? I mean, so the old classic hymns, uh, a lot of those hymns end with a verse about new creation. Yes. Um have do you think we've lost that?
SPEAKER_00We have, because yeah, because we just want to extend this little bit of life a little bit longer. And we've gotten so we've gotten so used to that. We've gotten so used to money solving our problems, we've gotten so used to medicine solving our problems, that we haven't been facing the real problems, and therefore we we haven't been attuned to the real offer of Christ. So often people just want a little bit of prosperity in this world, and sometimes people just baptize that lightly in a Christian sense, and they've got this prosperity gospel where Jesus just comes and he offers you the new Mercedes-Benz and He offers you the uh the mansion and the and the second house in the in the country. And this is a prosperity gospel which is totally bought into a modern Western mindset that says we just want to extend this little life a little bit further. And Christians have just lost that eternal perspective. Globally, the church is much better at a realism that looks at our real enemy death and therefore our real need, which is resurrection. So we we maybe, maybe one of the things that coronavirus will teach us is to look at that eternal perspective and and invest a lot more in that resurrection feast and that future, that future hope.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Uh would you rather watch Australia beat England at swimming, cycling, or badminton? Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_00Um swimming, incredibly dull. Um cycling, same. Bad badminton? Let's say badminton. Just because I I wouldn't want to sit through the other other two contests.
SPEAKER_01Right. Uh why are there so many denominations of Christianity? Which is the right one and what are the wrong ones?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01And what about Catholic Catholics? Right. Yeah, so all denominations.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think it's it's often said of Christianity that um it is just so divided that it couldn't possibly be true. I mean, many people think that this is a defeater for the truth of Christianity, that there are, you know, it depends how you count them, but some people will say there are there are 40,000 denominations in the world, but it it very much depends how you count those, because um that you know they could be just thousands of Presbyterian denominations within a single country. Um it really depends on uh on how you count things. And and I do think that the headline truth about the church is its incredible unity. Um in terms of the basics of the creed. So, you know, you you go back 1800 years to Christians setting out, I believe in God the Father, I believe in God the Son, I believe in God the Spirit, I believe in the church, I believe in the forgiveness of sins and the future, resurrection hope. Um, in terms of Christians around the world saying amen to the creed, let's say the Apostles' Creed, um, you're in the realm of two billion plus people who ticked that box. And and therefore I think you can you can overplay the denominational issues. And and partly it's a technological feature. Obviously, um there well there was a there was a split back in the 11th century where the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Church went in different um directions, but uh, in so many ways technology was the the um the instigator of the next big um split, the Protestant Reformation. When you've got the printing press and you've got uh the dissemination of of uh of literature uh being fast-tracked by new technologies, um there's this feature of of humanity um that we're going to bifurcate and and go off into our little groups, and then you know the invention of the motor car means that I can drive past ten different churches that aren't quite to my taste, and then I can go to the one church that sings the kind of songs that I really like and serves the kind of coffee that it that um really floats my boat, and and actually the existence of all those other um churches is is basically a function of our modern technology where we we can be more consumers in that sort of thing. But that doesn't mean that all those ten churches are at each other's throats, not at all. Um and so often churches come together um and and display their their unity. So I I think we can kind of overplay the division point. I think the high the what should be the headline in everyone's thinking is my goodness, this is the largest sociological phenomena the world has ever seen. And it has managed to include within it such diversity. It's the most diverse social uh f phenomena the world has ever seen. People from every continent, every language, every culture. Um so I I think I think when viewed from that perspective, that's a that's a great strength. Um which are the denominations to avoid? Let's just go back to the creed and let's, you know, can you can you believe in God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting. Um, you know, I I think for two millennia we've basically agreed that that that's kind of the boundary. Uh what about Catholics? Um even during the height of the Protestant Reformation, um, the Protestants would call the Catholics Christians. They think they thought they were profoundly, profoundly in error about different things, and uh, if we had longer, we could talk about what those um disagreements were, but even Lutheran Calvin and people would think of the Catholics as Christians. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Uh Jesus teaches us to pray by starting our Father in Heaven. Why do some people then pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Is there a hierarchy to the Trinity? Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um so I think I think normal Christian prayer is in the name of the Son and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, you call out Father. I think that's normal Christian prayer. So you you go to uh Luke chapter 11, I love this bit where Jesus is praying in front of his disciples. And so what you've got is God the Son is praying to God the Father in the fellowship of God the Holy Spirit, and the disciples are watching that and they like the look of it. And they basically ask Jesus, can we come in on this? Will you teach us to pray? Because it looks amazing. The Son has communion with the Father in the joy of the Spirit. That is the prayer, that's the prayer meeting that's been going on before the foundation of the world. You know, it's why I always say you're always late to prayers. You're always late to prayers because there's been a prayer meeting that's been going on for a very long time. The son communing with his father in the joy of the spirit. The disciples say, Can we come in? And Jesus then teaches them the Lord's Prayer, which is beautiful. He's basically saying, Put your hand in my hand, and now you can call the Most High God what I have been calling him for all eternity. He is my Father, and then Jesus says, Now you pray our Father. It's beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And so I think normal Christian prayer is by the power of the Spirit, and in the name of Jesus we pray our Father in heaven. I think that's normal Christian prayer, but within the Bible, there are a number of times when people pray to Jesus. So Stephen in Acts chapter 7, he prays directly to Jesus, and uh and it is right and it's appropriate to pray to the Holy Spirit. Um, he is a person in the Godhead. Um, he can be grieved and he rejoices with us and we walk by him and with him, and it is perfectly um uh uh right to have communion with the spirit and the son and the father. But there is a shape to the normal way that we have communion with God, and the shape is in the joy of the spirit, in union with Jesus, we pray to the Father.
SPEAKER_01And what's your just to be personal for a moment and what's your experience of prayer? I mean, as as you pray each day, what what are you thinking, feeling, um, what are you encountering?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think like like many people, I'm uh a scatterbrained, distracted fool um so much of the time. And the real wrestle with prayer is to find the space and to find the time to, you know, the way I start praying is very often with Psalm 46 uh verse 10 be still and know that I am God. And then I I kind of knock off the last word of that. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be. Be still. Be still and know. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know that I am God. And I and I'll I'll sort of do that, contracting it and expanding it a number of times until I am still in the presence of God. And then, you know, I like to use an old um prayer. Um, it's probably one of the oldest prayers that the church has come up with. It's called the Jesus Prayer. Um, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. And again, I'll I'll I'll say that slowly, and sometimes I'll breathe in by saying, Lord Jesus Christ, uh, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, and then breathe out, have mercy on me a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. And then I'm ready to pray the Lord's Prayer, having centered myself a little bit like that, and I just I just do what C.S. Lewis said about the Lord's Prayer, which is um you use the lines of the Lord's Prayer like the boughs of a Christmas tree, and you you hang the ornaments on it. So you you start with our Father in heaven, and you meditate on that truth, and you talk to God around that truth, um, and then you you add various requests as you go on. What am I feeling as I do that? Um I'm feeling like I'm coming home, I'm feeling like uh I'm feeling like having been distracted and scattered, I am being unified and given life again. Um and therefore, you know, in the middle of praying, I'm kind of like, oh, why didn't I why didn't I do this like an hour ago? Why why why was I distracted by watering the plants and you know? Yeah, so that's that's how I pray.
SPEAKER_01It reminds me of uh when we worked together and did some drama videos and big hug. And uh remember that?
SPEAKER_00That was a great that was a great video. Yeah, yeah. So we we did a little parable where the kid the king, uh it was for the kids, and the the king made a decree to the whole kingdom and said, uh, come into my presence. And I was the king, because I I must have written it, so I I made myself the king. And Emma was um one of my subjects, and she came into my presence, but she was clutching this this massive box full of uh of produce, of fruit that she had grown in her garden. And she was like, King, look at look at my produce. And the king's like, yeah, that's that's that's great, but can you put it down because I can't hug you? And she was like, Hug you? What why would you want to hug me? I said, Well that that's why I want you in my presence. Um I'm not here to reward you for what a great, you know, what a great productive citizen you've been. I I want to, you know, I want to hug you. And uh Emma's got this great line where she absolutely will not let go of all that she's produced. And uh and then she she leaves, having not hugged the king, and uh over her shoulder just says, Stupid king, and and out she goes. And still, like 17 years later, I still remember her saying stupid king to me.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Which Australian actor would you most like to sing a duet with? Russell Crowe, Hugh Japan, or Kylie Minogue?
SPEAKER_00Oh, Kylie, me and Kylie, wouldn't that be amazing?
SPEAKER_01A kind of a I I could be just as as we close, we had a number of questions about uh dealing with relationships within um lockdown. And um I think lockdown high heightens tension um both in marriage but also uh abusive relationships that we we might be experiencing in in lockdown. Uh what what's your um how how would you advise people in in that that situation?
SPEAKER_00Oh man, it's it's like w we're we are hedgehogs. Huddling together in a small confined space, and we are prickly. And um yeah, and so lockdown is is a test of marriage and it is a test of all your relationships. Whoever you're lockdown with, um pity them, pity them because they've got to deal with you, don't they? And and and so we need to give each other a lot of a lot of grace. And I think Christian relationships are not founded on perfect behavior. It would be nice if the person you're living with was perfect all the time, but given that you're not, you certainly shouldn't expect them to be perfect all the time. But our relationships are not founded on perfect behavior, they are founded on forgiveness. They are founded on the expectation that just as you can be a jerk, so the other person can be a jerk. And you should expect that to happen. And when they are a jerk, that should that should first of all remind you of how flawed and fallible you are, and you need the resources therefore to forgive. What are the resources therefore to forgive? I think in Matthew 18, Jesus tells that that great story about the uh the servants that was unmerciful. He was a servant who'd run up a huge bill with his master, billions of pounds, and he couldn't pay, and he was about to get thrown off into debtor's jail, and he begs for mercy, and the king has mercy on him, and he cancels the debt and he lets him go. He's forgiven billions of pounds. And then as he's leaving the king's presence, he sees some guy who owes him like three grand. Now, three grand is not nothing. If somebody owes me three grand, that hurts, that smarts. I want that money back. But what happens in the parable is that this this guy, you know, is owed three grand and he throttles the man and has him, you know, sent off to debtor's prison because he's not come uh come good on the on the debt. And Jesus, you know, says, This is what we are like when we don't forgive. We've been forgiven billions of pounds. The other person has cost us, let's say, three grand. And I I find actually putting a monetary figure on it really helps. Um, you know, my wife has just cost me 3,000 pounds. That that's smart. That that is a loss that I'm not going to recover from quickly. Oh, but I have been forgiven like let's say 10 billion. Right, does that put it into perspective? Um I am always the greatest sinner in my marriage. Always. And when I when I get into my when I when I conduct relationships on that setting, there's hope. Jesus says, don't always look for um the speck in the other person's eye. Recognize that you've got a plank in your own eye. Um very famous teaching by him. And what he's teaching is is we should if there's if there's friction between me and the other person, the first person I should think who has the problem is me. And if we if we put that into practice in all our relationships, but if we put that into practice in in marriage in particular, um, I think we'd be we'd be much healthier. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Um to ask uh a final question in terms of uh people if they want to continue to uh to look at their questions and look at Christian faith, what resources would you recommend?
SPEAKER_00Um well you can go to speak life speaklife.org.uk um where you'll find some of our resources. We we pitch a lot of our stuff at um those who are just asking questions. You can go to our YouTube channel, uh which is Speak Life Media. If you search for Speak Life Media there, youtube.com slash speaklifemedia. Um in particular, there's a thorny questions playlist that you might want to check out. There's 25 questions, very similar to the ones that uh you've just asked, Andrew. Uh, and there's uh some 3-2-1 material. So um one of the ways I explain uh the Christian message is in terms of the threeness of God, the two-ness of the world, and the oneness of you. And uh the videos will explain the numbers and more. Um, so those might be some ways that you could uh investigate Christian faith a little bit further.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. And there's also uh theschoolofith.org, which is uh material that we've put together to together. Um and uh you feature on that in terms of looking at the parable of the prodigal sons. Uh so that's good material. Yeah, that's theschoolofith.org is the website.
SPEAKER_00Yes, do check that out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But thank you for answering questions.
SPEAKER_00Pleasure. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks.
SPEAKER_00Bye.
unknownBye bye.