Because we're jumping forward to New Testament, which I'm excited to get there, but just to put a maybe a bow on the Old Testament, I think one of the biggest arguments for the authority of the Old Testament is the authority of Jesus himself. Yeah. Because he looks back to the Old Testament and he quotes it with authority. He looked back at the Old Testament collection that the Jewish people had at that time, and he did not say there's something wrong here. You got it wrong. Instead, he he quotes it, he affirms it, he says, not a diet or iota will be taken from it. And he says, I am the fulfillment of these things. And so Jesus and the apostles give us testimony to the authority and completion of the Old Testament in 30 AD.
SPEAKER_02Oscar would definitely be too young to remember this. Ray Comfort would be too mature, politically correct for old to remember this. Mark Spence and I just perfect. Well, inquiring minds wanna know. Do you wanna know? I wanna know. Do you remember that, Ray? No. Do you remember that, Oscar?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_02Is that how we I was right? No, it's just worldly guys. Oh, this was uh the commercial for Inquirer.
SPEAKER_05They do call your guys' the worst generation ever. When you said the greatest generation and the worst.
SPEAKER_02National Inquirer? Yeah, the National Inquir commercials. Seriously? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Inquiring minds want to know. I want to know. That was that that we'll probably get sued for this, but that whole thing was ridiculous. Wasn't it? National Enquirer? Yeah. It's just crazy.
SPEAKER_02Wait, you didn't. Natural.
SPEAKER_00Wife's varicus veins form map leading to hidden treasure.
SPEAKER_02That's it. I feel like that's like. Wait, did you is that what you did with that track?
SPEAKER_00No, no. It was called the Natural Inquirer, and it was all the weird things in the Bible as headlines laid out like the National Inquirer.
SPEAKER_02Was that in New Zealand, Ray? Or were you here when you did that?
SPEAKER_00I was here when I did that. I remember the first time I gave them out was at LAX, and I just put them on the seats and watch people pick them up and read them.
SPEAKER_02What blew my mind, because you'd always, I don't even know if they still have it or not, but remember you'd always see it uh on the stands at the checkout at supermarkets that include the bar. But the thing that blew my mind is people would actually buy it. Everybody would build a space.
SPEAKER_00Look at the headlines like three-headed dog bit by man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and graphics were so bad back then.
SPEAKER_01They're making me realize that three-headed dog bit by man.
So easy. You just heard that just hit me.
SPEAKER_05I think you guys are helping me realize, though, that the National Enquirer was replaced by YouTube.
SPEAKER_00You just explained every YouTube thumbnail for the video.
SPEAKER_02It was the process I was really venting to Rachel the other night of just how tired I am of not knowing what's real anymore. I just you don't. It's ruined everything.
SPEAKER_06Is that you talking? I saw an F1 vehicle uh go up against some uh supercars. Uh I don't know what they're called, like uh Bugattis and things like that. And so the light turned green and all the cars took off, and the F1 vehicle just started doing donuts, giving them a head start. No, and then it took off and it just absolutely destroyed it. And then in the comments, people were saying you could totally tell it's just AI because of the type of smoke coming from the tire of the F1 vehicle. And then there's people going in there, absolutely would look more like whatever. I'm like, I can do it. Did you think it was real? I fully thought it was legit. Was it legit or not? I according to the comments, it's AI, but I couldn't tell.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's it's getting crazy. All right, uh, back to Inquiring Minds. Uh now I um it wouldn't surprise me if you got uh what, right?
SPEAKER_00Other questions very seriously. Did you have coffee? Yes, yeah, I did. I had two cups this morning, but I got to tell you, I had Colombian coffee because I thought it was not as bitter as the other one. It didn't work for me. I was still tired after I ate it.
SPEAKER_02Wait, what?
SPEAKER_00And so I had I had the uh The Colombian made you tired? Yeah, yeah. No, it didn't make me tired, it just didn't help me. I noticed I was not getting anyway. So I had Paul Newman stuff, which is very like grease. It's like dirt. Paul Newman. But it's very coffee too. It's very strong. It's been in the long time. I mean he has coffee.
SPEAKER_02Well, he's got like the dressing. I don't know, the guy had coffee.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like coffee. Well, his face on something sells it, so he's put on everything, you know, buy your tires. Paul Naman. Paul Newman tires. Anyway, it it was it was great. So I just wondered is Starbucks coffee good or not? No. Not better, right?
SPEAKER_02Bake the beans too long, right, Oscar?
SPEAKER_00They bake the beans too long.
SPEAKER_02Oscar's tutored me on.
SPEAKER_00So they bake beans? They roast them.
SPEAKER_02My wife likes to be. Yeah. Um, anyways, it wouldn't surprise me if you guys were totally jobless as teenagers, but I'm sure our B Lovers watchers and listeners want to know, the inquiring minds want to know what jobs you guys had as kids, if any.
SPEAKER_05Taco Bell. Really? My first job ever was selling uh newspaper subscriptions. I was stop. Yeah, no joke.
SPEAKER_02Dude, me too.
SPEAKER_05Really? It was Orange County Register, it was the OC Register.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_05This other teenager would pick us up. This is like freshman year of high school, in his mom's van and drop us off at different cul-de-sac, and we would work the cul-de-sac. And then at the end of the cul-de-sac, he'd pick us up and move us to the city.
SPEAKER_00Why the cul-de-sac so people can get away?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, exactly. I want a TV. Remember, I don't know if you were doing it when we were doing scratch offs and people could win things. Yeah, I want a TV. No, but I don't remember how.
SPEAKER_05I did uh so the I can't remember this.
Is so I can't remember why, like how you got paid like a dollar every time you sold a thing, you know, it's whatever. But out of uh whenever you sold an annual subscription, you would give them this gift card that had like a hundred dollars worth of coupons on it, right? And so one day uh I realized, wait a minute, like I'm not selling any of these newspapers. So at the end of every pitch, I'd go, hey, by the way, if you don't want the newspaper, you can at least buy the gift card for 20 bucks. And they'd be like, Oh, okay, and I'd pocket the $20. So I was going home with like two, $300 a night as a freshman in high school. You better go turn your side down or I got caught for it. Oh, I did. And they they like it was a slap on the wrist, don't do that again. And then and then the next week I'm like, well, I don't want to, I'm not gonna work then, so I quit.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, they didn't even give us money. We'd get like points, and then we can buy stuff in the like in the little store they had.
SPEAKER_06I was self-employed. I had I had a newspaper job as well, but my first job after that, I was self-employed. It was uh in eighth grade. I would go down to the family fund center there in uh Fountain Valley near Tommy's. Yeah. And on Mondays, when you put in a dollar, you'd get four tokens. But the rest of the week, um, excuse me, on Monday, four tokens, you'd get eight tokens, but the rest of the week you'd get four tokens.
SPEAKER_01What?
SPEAKER_06So I'd go in and I'd put in a five-dollar bill and I'd get ten dollars worth of tokens, and then I'd go the rest of the week, and before someone had put money inside the uh little change machine, token machine, I would say, hey, I got some tokens. So then I was building up, and so I would do that all during the week, making money off that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and I loved it, I made so much money off that.
SPEAKER_02You guys are weasels. I was making slugs out of out of nickels and turning them into. Wait, did you call us weasels and now you proceeded to say how you and turning them into quarters and putting them in vending? Did that ever work? Getting sodas and then selling them to the house. It really worked. You know, on your belinda and valley view right there, uh, it's the um Jiffy Lube or something now. But there was a Chevron or something
gas station there, and yeah, that's all I do. And then I'd sell them at school for more cute. Ray, Ray Comfort. I stole apples from No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00I was a brickie's laborer for about six months. I got money from my surfboard, first surfboard. Then I worked at a hardware store, counting nails, putting them in bags with you or whatever, weighing them, got fired from that job. Then I got a job in a retail store, got fired from that also. And it was because the guy above me liked the same girl that liked me, so I was out. Tell us about the bank, right? Did you get fired from the bank? Oh, I went in the bank, yes. I didn't get fired from the bank. I just took some samples home and it was great. Just a few samples.
SPEAKER_05This is why Ray became an entrepreneur. Ray, did you ever steal from the bank?
SPEAKER_00No. No, as a bank, I as a bank teller. I never balanced. I was just useless at balancing.
SPEAKER_06Can't imagine you seriously working in the bank. I had a bank teller steal from me once and she went to jail. Stole for you? What do you mean stole for you? She took $4,500 out of my account. So what?
SPEAKER_00Oh, stole from you. I thought you said for you. Out of my account.
SPEAKER_06Seriously, Mark? That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Did you get it back?
SPEAKER_06I did. But you know, that you have to change your account and do all that stuff, and then things bounce.
SPEAKER_02Boy, we're such an inspiration for the youth of this world. If they can do stealing things. All right, Frank. It's time for a cool classy comment. This is from Teo Camarati. Hello. I wanted to write this email to thank you for your ministry, podcast, and all you do for God's kingdom and people. Recently I found a YouTube clip from one of your episodes, and I watched it together with everyone in our house. It was extremely convicting. And I can confidently say life changing, since I'll never see or approach the subject of diligence in the same way as I did before. You guys remember we did one on diligence.
SPEAKER_00Did we stay with it or not?
SPEAKER_02Did we what?
SPEAKER_00Do we stick with it?
SPEAKER_02No, we gave up halfway through. We did. Thank you for all you do and for your faithful service to the one who called you to do it. Teo Camarotti. Thank you, Teo. That encourages us. I mean, guys, seriously, when I read comments that say stuff like life-changing, um, I don't believe them. So, anyway, just kidding. I get encouraged. Yes. So thank you, Teo. And no, a radically revolutionary source.
SPEAKER_00This which ones make you cry? Which which they have to say to make you cry.
SPEAKER_02Not much. Seriously, man. Boy, when was I crying last? Oh, when Julia was here. Oh, man. Like a baby. I'm still not over there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was a wonderful podcast.
SPEAKER_02Something about watching your child. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00Like, oh. So what's her her book comes out? I get a copy today. I ordered one and it comes out. I was the first to put a comment.
SPEAKER_02Didn't you? Yeah, five stars. Wonderful book. I love it. Don't put your grandpa. Her grandpa. Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Why not? Everything, all things broken and beautiful. Amazing book. Anyway, today though, it's scientific facts in the Bible. We're going to be talking about the Bible, so it's fitting. Today. I still see that book in airports all over the world. I get texts like at least, you know, every times, a few times a year. People will send me like. Then I see them in the giveaway bin at the library.
SPEAKER_06At the giveaway bin. Yeah, they're just filled. Nobody wants to check it out. It's in the trash bin, isn't it? In the trash bin, though. Let's see.
SPEAKER_05The other day I saw boxes of them in our warehouse.
SPEAKER_02So check it out, friends. Lots of good facts in there. Scientific facts and the Bible. Ray, by the way, I know we made a video on that that did really well, too.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. I did it on my iPad about six years ago. Yeah. It's very difficult. It's got millions of views. Millions of views. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And the book. How long did it take you to write that book, Ray? I can't remember. Real fast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Do it right now, get it done. Don't forget the Living Waters mug, from which you can chug that one decided Bible. It's eyeball to bring about revival. Living Waters TV. All about livingwater.com. We gotta take that off the road. I'm impressed on the road, Oscar.
SPEAKER_00I wonder why no one goes to our website.
SPEAKER_02I don't know what our website is. And don't forget, friends, the podcast YouTube channel exploding with tens of thousands of subscribers. Alright. I like that. Actually, that was a nice. Never gets old, never gets funny. All right, friends. Today we're talking about the Bible's origin and nature. The Bible's origin citrus juice and nature. You know, we did a podcast recently on uh memorizing scripture, meditating on scripture. We didn't remember that. Remember that memorize, meditating. And uh, you know, I got to thinking, man, I see not working hot. Oh. Ray, that reminds me of my Ray.
SPEAKER_05Uh listener, for those of you who can't see, Ray tried to take off my jacket.
And uh Mark went to go help, but instead is tying and called the straight jacket in Europe. Oh, you get out of that? No, I couldn't get out of it. I used to have a nice jacket. Matt was in a straight jacket in Europe and he got a bigger.
SPEAKER_02Ray, you taking that jacket off reminds me. I help you. Oh my goodness. You guys are nuts. Um Ray, you taking that jacket off reminded me of a certain picture I sent you recently. A special picture I sent you of when you were in the in the packing room. But we won't get into that, right? Don't get into it. You can't do it. All right, Ray, I'll just say jokes are great. Thank you. Anyways, before the madness, I was saying, yeah, people kind of win. Uh remember us talking about uh memorizing and meditating on scripture, but I think uh it's good for people to know about the origins of the Bible. How did we get the Bible? What's the nature of scripture?
SPEAKER_00I got mine from a bookstore. Did you? Which one? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the evidence study Bible. Yes. Don't forget, we got the good one coming out.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes, it shouldn't be long.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, land.
SPEAKER_00It comes in a box too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So anyway, uh, it'd be good for us to jump into the skies and talk about the origins of the Bible, how we got the Bible. Uh look, the Bible is different in that, unlike the Quran as an example, unlike the Book of Mormon as an example, where uh we're told basically that it was sort of just given, right? God in his wisdom put the Bible together in such a way that when you examine its contents, it could only be supernatural in origin because of the diversity of authors, because of the time span, and because of ultimately the cohesion that we find in it. What was that? Earthquake earthquake or still working on the building. So, yeah, so that's uh that's what I wanted to kick it off with. And uh, I think what what I'd like to do is kind of trace the history of the Bible, starting with the Old Testament. Uh, when was the Old Testament recognized as as scripture by the Jews? Was it affirmed within the New Testament? Was it affirmed by Christ and
and the authors of the New Testament?
SPEAKER_06And then how do we get all those questions in advance?
SPEAKER_02The oranges of the New Testament. So, anyway, that's my bit. We'll jump into the details. Oscar, do you got anything?
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, I think one of uh a great story to help us understand the misunderstanding of of the scriptures, and then I love that we'll start with the Old Testament, but it's actually a story of Muhammad Ali.
SPEAKER_01Who oh, he's a Muslim?
SPEAKER_05Not the boxer. Uh Muhammad Ali, 1945, there was, I believe he was a farmer uh and uh in Africa, and he goes to dig out a tree and he hears a big clank, something breaks, and he thinks, you know, um and his buddy get together and they look down and they see all these basically these vessels, and they actually get into an argument. Uh, Muhammad wants to open the vessel, his friend says, no, no, there's probably a a wicked genie in there that's gonna curse us if you open it. Is this one who does it? That's a true story. No, absolutely not. And so they end up taking those vessels and they sell them, and it turns out that they came across the first examples of the Gnostic Gospels. That's the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter. The reason why I bring this story up from 1945 is because from that day forward, the idea of these Gnostic Gospels entered into mainstream media. And because of this false narrative, we now believe that God's word, our Bibles, is somehow a collection of books that was authorized by man as canon and authoritative. And so let me just distinguish two things here, and then I'd love to get into the beginning of it, which is the Old Testament, like you said, easy. Could you define canon? Uh yeah, it's just big weapon. No, uh that's a great so great point. Canon is with rule or standard. So a canon of something is the standard, the rule, the the the the uh the yeah, the the criterion of a thing. And so in this case, we talk about the canon, the standard, the rule of scripture. Uh and and I think a thing that distinguishes here is the difference between an authoritized collection and a collection of authoritative writings. So many people try to argue that the scripture is an authoritized collection, that a bunch of Romans got together 350 to 400 years after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, and they uh they ruled in an authoritative way over the books and decided what was in and what was out. That's an authorized collection. That is not the canon of scripture. The canon of scripture is a collection of authoritative writings. These writings have authority, which has been recognized and then holds itself up as the canon itself. In other words, the difference is that uh one
set of authoritative figures recognizes a thing versus internal authority, external authority versus internal authority. The ultimate authority of scripture is inerrant within the scripture itself. And our fathers of the faith saw that and elevated them uh to become what they are today, which is the canon of scripture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's a really important distinction to make because a lot of people, when they're speaking of the canon, they'll refer to it in terms of when it was authorized or when when it was um established versus when it was recognized. Right. So in other words, we don't say this is scripture, we we acknowledge, we recognize the reality of what's there.
SPEAKER_05And I think real quick, if I can add to that, because I I was thinking about this on the drive here. If you think about like when the Queen Elizabeth died, uh the king, whatever his name is, Bobby Two Tones, uh the king immediately became the king Charles, thank you. King Charles became King Charles the second Queen Elizabeth died. And yet they had an inauguration, whatever it was months later on, which is everyone came and officially recognized it. In that same way, the authority of God's word, the canon of scripture was immediate, and in some way, shape, or form, 300 years later, a collection of people came together and recognized the inerrancy of scripture that was already there.
SPEAKER_00Just to further that thought about the queen dying, the second the queen died, they said the queen is dead, long live the king. There was not a second between it. There you go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, amazing. Exactly. No, that's
that's a good point to make, Oscar. I think before we dive dive into that, um, Mark, the the the significance of having a recognized authority. Like we can't we can't overstate how that is the foundation for our faith as believers. You you remove that authority, we're in big trouble.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you know, we we often talk about the Bible being inerrant inspired and fallible, but if we begin to really break that down, you know, inerrant, that it's not even possible for it to have errors, right? We talk about how if you were to take a spelling test and get 100% on the spelling test, it's without errors, but it was possible for you to have an error. It was possible for you to make a mistake. Well, the Bible is not just without errors, but it's not even possible for it to have mistakes. And any sort of contradiction may be a paradox, anything that may not make sense to you when put into its original language and understanding with culture, customs, tradition, what do the author write to the original audience? When we begin to understand these sort of things, then it comes alive and it begins to make sense. So, yeah, when we examine the Bible, we understand that the Bible tells us everything we need to know about God and to live a life that is godly. Without it, then every man is left to do that which is right in their own eyes. That's Judges 17, 6. So we need to have a transcendent word from a transcendent being that can stand the test of time, and therefore the message never changes, right? Science continually changes because it's learning new things. Well, the Bible never needs to change. So I got into an argument today, a debate today with uh Grok, and I was trying to demonstrate and prove that the Bible is supernatural in origin, and it was not giving in, no matter what angle that I attempted to discuss with it. It did agree that there's no such thing as object objective morality, and that there is everybody just deciding to do what they want to do because we've evolved into where we're at and we understand what's not best for a society. Did you did you give it perimeters? Um I I did not give it the perimeters that uh our our brother gave on that uh that one of those last episodes that we were on. But um, I thought that
I could do it by just trying to be reasonable with it. It's it's unreasonable. Really? Yeah, I can't do it. So it's a carnal mind. It has a carnal mind. AI has a carnal mind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a carnal synthetic mind.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so to answer your question directly, right? Yeah, so we need the word of God to understand anything with a moral basis. Without it, then it's absolute chaos.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Which is what we have today.
SPEAKER_05And my uh former atheist thought process is not coming back to me, but I'm just remembering. I do think that it's helpful for people to understand the difference between an argument over canon and an argument over inerrancy. Because often what happens is that we we don't distinguish those two things clearly, and then what we're unable to answer the authentic real questions that people have over God's word. And those are two different things that stand the test of time, both of them separately. The inerrancy of scripture and the canon of scripture are two very distinct things that both I think present an argument that we look at the canonologi, the the canon of scripture and we recognize throughout history it is incredible the way it came together, and it's often not brought together the way people think it is. And then in addition to that is the inerrancy of scripture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, you know, Ray, you always remind people when you're uh open-air preaching or even witnessing, and and people bring up the you know perception that the Bible is not God's word. And even when the element of doubt comes into play, do you doubt God? But you always talk about the insult of not believing God. Can you expound on that? Of denying God's word.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I often do it with people that say I just doubt some of the things in the Bible. I say, What's your name? They say, Fred, and I say, Where do you live? Down such and such the street. I say, I don't believe that. Did it with a guy the other day, and I says, I said, How's that make you feel? He says, It makes me feel weird. I said, It's insulting, isn't it? Because I'm saying that you can't be trusted. You're a liar, you're not worth trusting. And then if you're a mere man or insulted by my lack of faith in your word, how much more do you think you insult a holy God by a lack of faith in his word? The Bible says, He that believes not God has made him a liar. And it was, I think, Luther who said, What greater insult, wait, what greater impiety can there be than not to believe the promises of God? I was uh um witnessing to three Moslems day before yesterday. I didn't know they were Muslims until we started talking, and they said they they were Moslems,
and then we got into a sword fight about the Bible. They had swords? Yeah, they did. And nothing. They were machetes. Yeah, we were uh verbal sword fight, and they had all these pet questions. Do you believe in three gods? Do you believe in the Trinity? There was the Bible says Jesus said he wasn't God. He told his disciples he wasn't God. I said, give me a chapter in verse. Couldn't do it. And just went on and on, me arguing with them about the canon of scripture, and I decided enough enough. Excuse me. I was building up to something beautiful. Uh was something beautiful, and you just ruined it. I'll have to repeat it. So there we were back and forth arguing about the canon of scripture, and I thought this is not going anywhere. I'm bringing out the ten canons. And so that's what we did. See what just about ruined Spence. And because that's what we've got to do. You you can argue all you want with Muslims about the Trinity and about Jesus saying it wasn't God, and the Bible's got mistakes here, and it can't be trusted all that. You just got to come back and say, you know, Jesus is a prophet, isn't he? And they say, yes. He said, if you look at a woman in lust for and they were going on about all you need is repentance. God is merciful, and they're taking away from God his justice and truth and righteousness, which is idolatry. And uh they didn't get angry, they both two of them, uh, out of the three of them, took scientific facts in the Bible books. And there's a reason the third guy didn't take one. Only had two. But they did take it, so I was really thrilled. And I was able to uh keep the whole thing loving and show them kindness. They wouldn't take in and out cards because they're Muslim, so I don't know. Don't they eat meat? Yeah, yeah, they eat meat. I said, like, totally, dude. This is Southern California. They must think there's pork in it. Was this at Huntington or no? Was it the college? I was so surprised to find three Muslims in a row at a college.
SPEAKER_02Wow, that's rare. Yeah, so good
stuff. All right, so let's get to the Old Testament then. Um, the Old Testament, it was evident was recognized. I mean, it was recognized before this, but where we where we see glimpses of this in terms of it being officially at least noted, uh, we find it in the prologue to Syriac, and this is 132 BC. In the what prologue to Syriac, and we find that they they affirmed the three main divisions. You'll always hear about the law, the prophets, and the writings. Sometimes, you know, they'll be referred in the general sense as the Psalms. But but we see that. Uh so and when you think about it, that's what the word is made up of the law, which is a Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Abusonomy. And then you've got the the prophets from there, and then you've got the writings, uh, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom. Yeah, wisdom literature. So we see that Josephus, that of course we all know about, he speaks of 22 sacred books. And here's what's important to note the divisions were different than we have them today. So those 22, when you add them all together or separate them, would account for the 39 books that we find in the Bible. Oh, the Apocryphile. We should talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_05Josephus, by the way, recognized the closing of Old Testament by the time of Artaxerxes, which dates back to 40, 430 BC, which is exactly when Malachi is being written. So he's recognizing that the Old Testament is closed right at the time that we get the last writings of the Old Testament, which is important for where you're about to head in regards to Apocrypha. You're talking about the minor Maccabees. Malachi would be part of the minor prophets.
SPEAKER_00Do you think they mind being called the minor prophets?
SPEAKER_02Slightly offended. You're not that important, bro. It's called Well, uh 80170. Uh, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_06Want me to help you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Matt, what do you help me put my shit again?
SPEAKER_02Here we go again. So one of the one of the earliest lists we have uh affirming the Old Testament from Christianity uh would be a list from Jerome in 170 AD, uh, or refers back to 170 AD, but that's 391 to 94, and that distinguishes the Hebrew canon from the Apocrypha. And so it's important, I think, going back, that we find a distinguishing marker between what we see as scripture and what the Apocrypha is, because the Catholic Church did add the Apocrypha to Scripture. And it's interesting because that didn't happen until the Counter-Reformation. So it was after the Reformation that then they officially said, Well, no, these are part of Scripture so that they could validate some of the teachings they had, which were not biblical, right? You're gonna say purgatory? Purgatory, yeah, absolutely, purgatory and other things like that.
SPEAKER_00Why is it called purgatory?
SPEAKER_02Perg. Per with purgatory.
SPEAKER_06No, it's worthy to note that we do not have any of the original books, right? None of the autographs. And how do you address that? How do you address what do you say when somebody says, wait a minute, how do you know what we have today is what was written some thousands of years ago when we don't have anything to look back upon? How do we answer that?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, go ahead, Oscar.
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, jumping forward from the Old Testament. Um yeah, that's a great question.
No, even the old even the old testament.
SPEAKER_05We don't have it's it's important to recognize one, what you'll often hear that follows after that is it, you know, the only thing that we have is copies of copies of copies of copies. Yeah, that part is false. We have we now know that we have pieces of a copy of the original full stop. In other words, we have a copy. We don't have copies of copies and copies, we have a copy. Let's call it second edition. That's the first thing we need to recognize. The second thing that we recognize is that we have so many copies of the original text. That together they draw what they do is they give us a full picture of the original text. In other words, it doesn't matter. Truly, it doesn't matter. It's like this. We talked about, you know, um the book. What was the title of the book that we promoted in the Scientific Facts? Scientific Facts of the Bible. You can read the first edition, second edition, third edition, but for you somebody to go, I've never actually read Scientific Facts of the Bible because I don't have the Word document of the one that Ray actually wrote on back then he's probably using a typewriter. I don't have the pages of the typewriter of the manuscript that he submitted, and so therefore we cannot affirm that Ray even wrote this book.
SPEAKER_00That would be I chipped it out and stunned.
SPEAKER_05Okay, sorry about that. That would be a foolish argument. We don't need the original copy to know what Ray wrote. And in that same way, we don't need the original copy, though it would be really valuable, and it's important to recognize a whole different conversation that even the Chicago statement of inerrancy states that inerrancy of the original writings. And so we recognize universally that we don't have original writings. We're not shy about it. When you read the Bible, uh scholars will cite the places in which we have copied discrepancy. But again, it's never, one of the big arguments here is against that is that it's never a discrepancy that taps into the core theology of God's word. There's simple discrepancies, not complex discrepancies.
SPEAKER_06And there's good reasons why we don't have the originals as well, right? I mean, you have to expect that original documents are going to be worn down. You know, you're gonna have to expect that those original documents are gonna be worshipped, you know, and there's only a place for one to be worshipped. And so the question now is really just simply what Oscar is bringing up here is what we have today, what was originally written. And if you look at the meticulous writing procedures that the scribes would
go through, and I have a list of things here that they would go through. I'll go through a couple of them, right? Every letter was sacred, right? If even one letter touched another or was smudged, the whole sheet could be invalidated no matter how long it took to write. Easy would be at home and then fire.
SPEAKER_02No kidding.
SPEAKER_06Uh they would count the letters and they would find the center, right? So the words would have to be perfectly placed in in the midst of it. There's no memory copying. A scribe could not write a single word from memory. He had to keep his eyes fixed on the exemplar and say each word out loud before writing. How about this? They would wash before writing God's name. Before writing the divine name YHWH, they would wash, and then they would wash after they wrote the name. And it's just demonstrating how they would elevate uh the word of God, right? There were time limits on checking, right? A completed manuscript had to be reviewed within 30 days. If not, it was to be automatically considered invalid. Why? I don't know. I'm not a scribe.
SPEAKER_02Want to know what scribologists inquiring minds want to know.
SPEAKER_06Um the earlier manuscript was scrapped. It wasn't uh it wasn't buried, it wasn't put over, it wasn't sold at an auction, it was burned. They got rid of it so that nobody could put their hands on it, right? So there were there was multiple different things. Uh that absolutely amazing what a scribe would have to go through. Uh you'd have to dip the pen in newly dipped ink with the start of each line. You couldn't carry over even if there was ink left on uh the quill. This does sound like that.
SPEAKER_00They put you to death off you wrote a sentence.
SPEAKER_05I was gonna say it does sound like your dream come true. Oh, easy oversaw the early manuscript writings.
SPEAKER_02That was me. Yeah. Look, and then we have the the Death Sea scrolls, you know, found in Coomran. Mark, were you gonna comment on those?
SPEAKER_06Oh no, go I I can, but but I love it. That that's the idea of telephone. The the question and the argument that comes along where people say, Well, how do we know? You've ever played telephone, right? And you play telephone, you're in a long line of people, and you whisper something in somebody's ear, as simple as it may be, a simple sentence. Add two sentences, it's getting out of hand. And then
by the time it gets to that tenth person, it is not what the first person started off with. Well, the Dead Sea Scrolls came along and absolutely destroyed that idea because the earliest manuscript we had was now a thousand years later than the Dead Sea Scrolls. And when you compare the Dead Sea Scrolls and the earliest document that we thought was in existence, there's very few discrepancies and none that applied to doctrine in any way, shape, or form found in the Qumran Caves, which we were there, you know, in the Qumran uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00IPads stopped working, it was so hot.
SPEAKER_06Seriously. Yeah. So written between 250 BC to 70 AD, and they have the life of the Essenes and everything that was happening in that place. And it just happened to also have uh the Dead Sea scrolls.
SPEAKER_02And it was so cool to visit Qumran when we went to Israel. Oh so cool. I was. Yeah, well, you weren't there, Oscar. Go ahead, you're gonna say.
SPEAKER_05Uh I just to put because we're jumping forward to New Testament, which I'm excited to get there, but just to put a maybe a bow on the Old Testament, I think one of the biggest arguments for the authority of the Old Testament is the authority of Jesus himself. Yeah. Because he looks back to the Old Testament and he quotes it with authority. He looked back at the Old Testament collection that the Jewish people had at that time, uh, and he did not say there's something wrong here, you got it wrong. Instead, he he quotes it, he affirms it, he says, not a diet dot or iota will be taken from it, and he says, I am the fulfillment of these things. And so Jesus and the apostles um give us testimony to the authority and completion of the Old Testament in 30 AD.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. That's where I was going next. Matthew 5, 17 to 18, uh, where it talks about he came not to abolish, but to fulfill the law or the prophets. Luke 24, 44, Jesus affirms the law, the prophets, the Psalms, again, the three-part division. Um, Matthew 22, 35, Jesus talked about from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, and those were the bookends of the Hebrew order at that time. It started with Genesis, ended with Chronicles. Uh the scriptures cannot be broken, John 10, 35. So that's hugely significant. So we we acknowledge Christ, the Messiah, who was what? Prophesied in the Old Testament. So you have Jesus being validated by the Old Testament scriptures prophetically, and then you have the prophesied Messiah now validating the scriptures. And what did he say in the volume of the book it's written of me? So tracing back to that.
SPEAKER_05And yeah, so so that's putting a bow on the Old Testament and then moving forward to the New Testament before we even get to the very important reality of the Dead Sea scrolls and the arguments over the telephone game, which you're touching on, Mark. Before even that, we have to take the first step, which is to answer the question:
did the apostles know that they were writing God's word? Because many people would argue, no, they didn't know, and for that reason it's not authoritative, but they did know Peter himself calls Paul's writing scripture in 2 Peter 3.15. In other words, the apostles themselves understood that they were writing something. And you might want to ask, like, well, how did they know? It's important to recognize, going back throughout the Old Testament, that God always interacted with his people in the form of covenants. This is hugely important. You think about Moses coming down Mount Sinai. We often see the depiction of him having two tablets with him. I think for whatever reason, maybe because of movies or whatever, we think, well, the first tablet only had five, and the other tablet only had five, there was no room for ten. No, that's not the reason why he had two tablets. He had two tablets, one covenant. In other words, they were, they both said the same exact thing. Why? Because a covenant was being made, and when you make a covenant, one person gets a copy and another person gets the other copy, right? And so when Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, he brings down two copies of the Ten Commandments, recognizing this is a covenant. Now, moving forward, all through all throughout the Old Testament, we see covenants being formed and writings come alongside them. What does Jesus say that he is doing in the New Testament? He is forming a new covenant. The apostles heard this and understood their role when they're writing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Uh, they understand their role when they're writing the epistles, that these writings are issuing in or recognizing this new covenant that's happening between God and his people, the new covenant that Jesus brings on the death, burial, resurrection, ascension of Jesus Christ. In other words, the New Testament wasn't recognized 350 years later. The New Testament was expected because Jesus told us that he was bringing about a new covenant, and with a new covenant comes new writings.
SPEAKER_00So all you have to do is seriously think when you're reading the Sermon on the Mount. Think about what you're hearing and think about the fact that you can meditate on one verse, blessed are the poor in spirit, and what comes after that. And think who recorded this? I mean, think of how many words there he and think of how quick Jesus spoke. Did any disciples say, hang on, have a night, could you say that again? I missed it. It's just word perfect all the way through and making sense down through the ages. And there's no way anyone could have recorded in those days unless they've been inspired by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02Amen. Yeah, and look, that's another thing I think that's important to point out is that Jesus affirmed that the Spirit would bring back to remembrance what he had taught them. And so I I like that point you made, Ray, because it's true when you when you see the fluidity uh of the words of Christ, especially like when you look at the Sermon on the Mount, you know, it's there's there are the fingerprints of divine authority all over them. And and it also shows uh how Christ, who was the Word, was valued in terms of the words he spoke, that they that they treasured these things, but of course with the help of the Holy Spirit bringing them back to memory.
SPEAKER_00Also in the book of Acts, there are intimate, confidential conversations going on that we're
partial to. You can sit and listen to when the little boy comes to the centurion and says such and such. And it's it's recorded there. And look, how did he know all that stuff? What what they said in those instances. And there's actually long discourses where where they came aside and said this and that. How did he know?
SPEAKER_05On that note, Ray, it's also important to recognize the reason why the New Testament is so specific with names is so that people can validate the things that they were saying. And so when you see that the New Testament uses names of who carried the cross alongside of Jesus, the name of, you know, uh a carpenter, the name of this person and where they're from is because back then you'd get a letter and you'd walk over to that town and said, Hey, I I just heard that Josephus saw this and did that. Is that true? Oh, yeah, he's right over there. Go ask him. And so it was a way in which people would validate the validity of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00And at the beginning of the birth of Jesus, there's a whole list of who was ruling at that time and who was the son of who and who's what their names were, and it just goes on and on, like three verses, so you know the date and time. You can go back and see when it actually happened and verify it. That's right.
SPEAKER_06And archaeology even authenticates that to this day, where there's different engravings and coins and uh things of that nature that have been uh unearthed. You think if you go to Masada where it's like 20% uh excavated, you're you're gonna come across uh different things that uh are authenticating what scriptures already told us is in existence.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a ball that says Pontius Pilate was here.
SPEAKER_02Graffiti, ancient graffiti, it's his hand in cement. Yeah. Um you know, Mark, I was I was reading uh first and second Samuel or listening to the other day, and I was just thinking, too, this is another element that's important to highlight, too, that maybe you could touch on, and that is that I think one of the hallmarks of authenticity is that the Bible isn't afraid to unveil the errors of its heroes. Because I was listening to about David. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_06I was listening to uh uh an excerpt of Bill Maher because uh Ben Shapiro was on his show. Boy, I'd love to sit down with each one of them individually. Um but uh Bill Maher was going.
SPEAKER_00Did you ever ask them to come on a podcast?
SPEAKER_06Yes, I bet to do it.
SPEAKER_00I wonder if they would.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I bet I bet uh I I could see Bill Maher definitely doing it because he he knows who you are. Remember in Religious Religious or whatever it was. Religiousity. That movie he did. I think they he talked about Way the Master or something on that anyway.
SPEAKER_06But Bill Maher was going on and on about how evil you know the Bible is until finally Ben Shapiro had interrupted him and said, Look, we have 85.7% agreement on morality. Where do you think that comes from there, uh, Bill? I'm just curious. You know, we grew up probably two miles away from the same suburban area. You know, you had a different worldview than I did. I grew up Jewish, but where do you think your morals came from? There's a a biblical, a Judeo-Christian worldview by which we draw our morals from. You just kind of take it for granted. And that also begs the question, right? How can you call anything evil if you don't know without a shadow of doubt that which is virtuous? Remember that C.S. Lewis quote I can't call a line crooked unless I know that which is straight. So if we have this whole thing in mind, yeah, the Bible is filled with a lot of atrocities. But says who? Somebody says that murder is wrong, another person says that it's a beautiful thing. Who's right? Because our our uh society has come to a collective agreement on such a thing? No, I mean that all that means is that there's consensus and then there's an appeal to consensus and populace, and that's a logical fallacy. We can't even go down that route. Truth is truth,
even if everyone adheres to a lie. So, yeah, the Bible has all kinds of crazy things which attest to the fact that God doesn't try to hide anything. Yeah, right? I mean, how easy would it be for God to allow a pastor who's been hiding in some sort of secret, promiscuous sin, sweep that underneath the rug, have him go home or go on, and he says, unveil it. Yeah. It won't affect me. Even the blasphemy that's coming up against me, I still will rule and reign and accomplish my will. He uses fallible men to accomplish an infallible word because God himself knows what he's doing to glorify himself. And that just blows my mind. Yeah. Blows my mind that he's able to do that. But yeah, the Bible pulls no punches.
SPEAKER_00I think Bill Maher would like my latest book, which is coming out soon, Idiotic Things People Did in the Bible.
SPEAKER_06Is that really the name of a book? That's the name.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's an idiotic book. I've got idiotic publishers, and it's come and they're sending me as soon as they come off the press, so we can take and give one to Pen Gillette.
SPEAKER_02Ray, wasn't that birthed through just a conversation you and I were having off the book?
SPEAKER_00You and I were talking. That's right. And I mumbled the phrase.
SPEAKER_02Hey, what if a book they like started writing it as we're talking? I loved it.
SPEAKER_00Loved it because it's all over the place, right from Adam right through, except for for Jesus, people did idiotic things for our instruction and our learning, so we don't have to do it.
SPEAKER_02No. No, it's good. All right, let's get into apostolicity. And um excuse me. Did you have to practice that? Apostolicity? They make medicine for that now. And um propheticity as well. We like that. So what were what were the standards uh that were involved in recognizing that that these New Testament writings were scripture? And so there were a few things. First of all, uh there was, like I said, uh the apostolicity and the propheticity. Were these written by an apostle? Were they written by a prophet, or were they written by someone who was at least in proximity to them, someone that was close to them? Next proximity to the apostolicity?
SPEAKER_06But an example of that would be like Mark with Peter, right? The Gospel of Mark, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. Absolutely. Or like Luke, right? Um, you know, asked. Or like John. Matthew.
SPEAKER_00Would you slap him when he does that? Just a quick slip.
SPEAKER_02You've been given your orders the comment to uh quick slap. Was it uh what do they call that? Apostolicity. Um anyway, uh yeah. So next was orthodoxy. So is it consistent with the rule of faith? Does it does it align with uh the the doctrines that we know were passed on by the apostles and that the church held to? Right, comfort. Yes. Then um uh Catholicity. Catholicity Catholicity. Um and that is widespread continuous use in the churches. So was this something that had been accepted far and wide within the church, or you know, was it something that just popped up?
SPEAKER_00I'd like to talk about Los Angeles City.
SPEAKER_06And what was it accepted by uh the early church, right? Just
very common. They accepted it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Uh and then um was it spiritual, was it transformative? Uh, did it have edifying value and character? So those were uh the main things. That's right.
SPEAKER_05I think this is this is where the organic nature of how the New Testament was written, copied, and spread. We just we need to paint a picture of how this worked because it really helps us understand why we have it, why we have certain things that are rejected, like Gospel Thomas or Gospel of Peter. And so keep in mind that as you mentioned before, like both of you guys have already alluded to, is that when the New Testament writings were being spread out, they were really respected. And what would end up happening, they didn't have the internet, they didn't have printing press. And so what happened is you're in this little small town and you just got your first copy of Romans. Someone brought it to you, and you would write it down, you make a copy of it in the way that you brought up, Mark. Like, not word of mouthy. I mean, you would take it very serious. Word of mouthy? Word of mouthy, yeah. Word word of mouth ostety.
SPEAKER_01I was about to say that.
SPEAKER_05And you might, you know, someone might go to the village next to you, and that village might have first Peter, and now you exchange copies in that very thorough way, and on and on it went. And what would happen eventually is that maybe the further away from Jerusalem you would go, you'd come across a town and they'd say, Hey, we have the book of Thomas. And you might make a couple of copies of that. And so moving forward, what you ended up happening is all of these copies that were authoritative were being written and spread out. And as they were being written, spread out, they were beginning to get bumped against other copies of scripture, uh, I shouldn't say of scripture, other copies that were alleged scripture. But the self-authentication would kick in here. They would come to realize wait a minute, I came from Jerusalem. I knew Peter, there was no gospel of Peter, and that would then diffuse that letter. That doesn't mean there weren't copies of that letter, that doesn't mean for a short period of time certain people thought it was scripture, but over the natural process of those early Christians and their faithfulness to God's word, those things would be diffused and removed over time, right? And so this is important because as someone might say, well, why not the Gospel of Thomas? One, it self-refutes itself in that narrative that I just gave you. But secondly, here's the reason why. If imagine we're writing biographies of Ray Comfort. Mark's gonna
write his perspective, I'm gonna write mine, and let's say Rachel writes one as his daughter, as his daughter. And those things get printed. And let's say that Ray passes away, and 70, 80 years later, somebody in New England, or no, further than that, let's say someone in the Philippines writes their biography of Ray. They've never met him, they've only heard about him, and that one biography in the Philippines is radically different than the ones, the three or four people who lived with him, who worked with him, who knew him well. What would naturally happen is you would look at that and you would go, well, there's no authority here. There's nothing for us to take and affirm because clearly this person wrote it from their own wild imagination, and it goes in contradiction with the authors who actually knew him, worked with him, lived with him, et cetera, et cetera. That's essentially what happens with the gospel of Thomas, the Gnostic Gospels in general, right? And so for people to try to argue that, well, they're just removed from the Bible, no, they were never a part of it. They were re they they were never recognized, and they should never be recognized. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Perhaps we should change the term Gnostic gospel to not gospel. Not gospel. Not gospel. That clears it up.
SPEAKER_02Oscar, that's such a hugely important point you made because I think there is in people's minds this misnomer that antiquity equals validity. Yeah, that's good. And so, like, I I'm glad you modernized that because that that's exactly right. We would immediately be able to point at something that we're all familiar with that is false because we know. So you have the church, you have the the the body of Christ, you have those that were familiar with the apostles, or maybe some of them were around when when some of these false gospels were spreading, because there were more than just those, right? But they're able to kick them out. No, yeah, nice try, but this this is totally not just not just biographical things or even um you know accounts, but even doctrinal issues. This doesn't align with the doctrine that we know Christ taught us. So yeah, that's uh that's really important. All right, so so I think we we touched on this a little bit when we talked about memorization and meditation, but the nature of scripture. So these are this is the origin of the Bible, this is how it came together. We we started with the Old Testament, we we talked about the validity of it and how it was uh authenticated. We talked about Christ validating that, we talked about the New Testament, but the nature of Scripture, so Ray, 2 Timothy 3 16 to 17. I say I'm working on something. I'm writing a book. What are you doing, Ray?
SPEAKER_00Getting ready to say something important.
SPEAKER_02Oh, say it. So you finish what saying what Okay, I'll have Mark uh hit this in. Uh 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, breathed out. Yeah. It's it's it's breathed. It doesn't sound like that right exhalation, right? That was not God breathing. No. Yeah, it's uh it's breathed out, is is is really it's the picture, right? As Ray often says, that when you when you write a book, who writes the book? You or the pen. Right? Well, the the author is God. It's it's not John, it's not Mark, it's not the Apostle Paul, it's God. God has moved people as he sees fit, and that's the absolute beauty of this, that he was able to move people. And we we also have, when you look at the word of God, we also have preferences in the midst of it, right? That isn't necessarily God's will. We see that with the Apostle Paul, I think in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, where he says that he wishes that all men were single like him. But but God says it's not good for man to be alone, you know. But you want to enter into ministry, yeah, obviously being single is good. So there's a preference, and he allows that, he leaves room for people to be able to share uh their sort of desires and their sort of experiences. But we, in that case, we don't get a lot of theology uh when it comes to uh venting, especially in the old testament, right? We we're able to just get that historical narrative. Otherwise, when Judas went and hung himself, we should do the same thing. So, yeah, all scripture, it's it's breathed out by God and it's profitable. We can use it to reprove and to rebuke and to correct and to know that everything we will ever need to live a life godly in Christ Jesus is found in Scripture. And that's not to say that the Bible tells us everything
we want to know, but it tells us everything we need to know. And when you come across something you don't understand, you fall back on that which you do understand, and the revelation that God has given us inside of his word is enough. And most people, they're looking for some uh new esoteric word to fall from heaven when they're not obeying the current word that's found inside scripture. Well, it's good, Mark.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, real quick, I I did want to kind of go back just a little bit and highlight, you know, when you look at 1 Thessalonians 2.13, Paul's talking about how they received the their the word of God. He says, But you receive it not as though it were the word of man, but as it is in truth the word of God. That's good. And so he's speaking of their words as apostles coming from the Lord. Uh 1 Corinthians 14, 37, uh Paul said, The things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. Again, drawing back on that authority. It's very, very important. Ray, you had something to say, ready?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes. I I think it's really important um to realize that we don't have to be experts. You you guys have got great expertise on the subject. Um most of us don't even know what antiquity equals validity, esoteric, Gnostic Gospels, Council, and ICEA, content of the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. We just it's beyond us. So I've got a scenario for us just to remind us what this is all about. We've got a a man who's who's grabbed by um Russia, United, what was it called? Soviet Soviet Union, USSR. I've read books on this, and it was horrific what they did to Christians. They throw him in jail, Alexander Soldier Nitson. Sounds like a disease. Anyway, Soldier Nitson. Um he was thrown in jail for years. Imagine this guy, he's a political prisoner, not a Christian, thrown in prison, just a little dungeon. The prisoner next door whispers the gospel to him and he repents on the spot. Soundly saved, made a new creature in Christ. He's not given a Bible for twenty years. But he's still saved. Why? He who has the Son has life. God is able to keep him from falling and present him faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. He worships God every day, sings praises to him, understands the cross, understands forgiveness, etc. And so we should defend the Bible, but sometimes we get to a point like I came to with my three Moslem friends. You just can't defend it because they they won't take it. Everything you say, they they rip down. So what we've got to remember is that it's the gospel that saved that guy in Russia that's the power of God's salvation, and that's what we're commanded to preach. And when someone becomes a Christian and they live in a place where they can get hold of the scriptures, God opens their eyes, the eyes of their understanding, and the scriptures come alive. And we're just so blessed to have that word, but we don't have to defend it in the sense that Spurgeon said the word of God is like a lion. You don't have to defend a lion, unchain it, and it will defend itself. Amen.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Yeah. And and I I love that point, Ray, because the simplicity, right, of what you just shared in terms of that guy in the prison, someone whispers the gospel to him, right? The gospel which comes from where? The word of God. That is the word of God unleashing its power. Yeah. That word of God that's that's sharper than any two-edged sword, right? And so I think that's that's really key and important uh to remember.
SPEAKER_00And that's why if I'm ever thrown into prison, I want to be in a cell next to you so you can whisper the psalms to me, whisper the proverbs in Leviticus.
SPEAKER_02If we're chained up and I can't brush my teeth, you'd probably die from my breath. For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Hebrews 4 12. That's important to remember. Psalm 19, 70, 11, the law of the Lord is perfect, condemning the soul. Uh Psalm 12, 6, the words of the Lord are pure words. Proverbs 35, every word of God is pure. Uh, Isaiah 48, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God endures forever.
SPEAKER_00Amen.
SPEAKER_05Uh I'm you guys just reminded me, because you when you quoted that verse, that the word of the Lord is God breathed. And I just want to say to anybody out there who maybe is a new believer, um, or you're not yet a believer and you're exploring Christianity, I'm just recalling a time, because I think we're speaking from a place of privilege, the privilege of submitting our lives to the word of God. That is a privilege, it's a gift to us given through through through the gospel in which we submit our lives to God. And so to the new believer or the non-believer that's exploring Christianity, I I remember a time uh, you know, coming from atheism in which I wanted to say yes to Jesus. I was I I I was pursuing this idea, but I was really struggling with um with Christians, and I was also very much struggling with the Bible. And and I read that verse, or someone read that verse to me. The word of the Lord is uh breathed out by God. It is God breathed. Think about this. There are a few times in which the scriptures tell us that God breathes something out, He sings creation into being. Um, but Imago Day, God leans in and breathes his image into human beings. That's where we get equality and justice. That's why killing a pig is not a sin, but taking the life of a human being is because you're marring the image of God. God's image is in us. And in that same way, God's image, his presence, his spirit, his knowledge, his truth, his power is breathed in. In to the scriptures. And so my plea for you if you're exploring Christianity or you're new to the faith, um, I get the struggle. My my encouragement to you is to eat out his word, as Eugene Peterson puts it. Read it, saturate yourself in it. You don't have to have all the answers. It's okay if it's confusing. Commit yourself to spend time in his word. Because when you do, here's what happens You will become you will come face to face with the living God. It is sharper than two a two-edged sword. It will do its work, and you, the the questions will be answered, and you will come to know it in the way that we know it, as God's word over our lives. Amen. Yes, right.
SPEAKER_00Oscar, should you do what your boss tells you to do?
SPEAKER_02Depends on my boss.
SPEAKER_00Should you?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. Oscar, seriously, you I would love you to write a book called The Mind of an Atheist and tell us how an atheist atheist thinks. And what you thought, it's just, I find your whole testimony is so fascinating, so wonderful, and you shouldn't hide your light. Let it shine before men.
SPEAKER_02Ray, you know, technically, as Oscar's bosses, we we can we can we can make him write a book. We can assign that to him. We'll talk later. We've all written we've all written books except you, Oscar. All right. Uh 101 uh School of Biblical Evangelism book. Oh, that's off. Yeah, um, yeah, and and this is a powerful quote by B.B. Warfield as I wrap up. Inspiration. Inspiration. It's a lousy man. Inspiration is a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the Spirit of God by virtue of which their writings are given. Divine trustworthiness. And friends, that sums it up. Trustworthiness. The Bible is trustworthy. Why? Because it's divinely inspired. It is the living word of God. We are lost without it, as I've said before, like someone who is lost at sea in a ship with no uh oars, no sails, no motor, no compass. And so let it be your guiding light and love it.
SPEAKER_00Sounds like Ken Ham's bug to me.
SPEAKER_02His dinky little boat. All right, friends. We hope you've been encouraged. We hope you've been inspired today. Don't forget scientific facts in the Bible and all the other good stuff. Guys, podcast at LivingWaters.com. We want to hear from you. Comments, encouragement while Ray and Mark fight while they go at it. Ray's taking off Mark's jacket. Mark is trying to sit down. Ray's happy in the What's happening in the ladies and gentlemen, what's coming on? Thank you for joining us, friends. We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast where Ray and Mark definitely have no idea what they're doing.