Hard Questions About Christianity (Part 2) | Ep 37

This week I get blunt about why online arguments about Christianity go nowhere when people keep swapping the topic instead of answering the actual claim. We talk credibility, evidence, hypocrisy, and why accountability matters if we want faith to look real in public. 
• people derailing hard questions with unrelated objections 
• why “too many gods” does not mean “unknowable” 
• credibility as a framework even if you think all religions are false 
• logical fallacies versus evidence and case building 
• Occam’s razor as a common-sense tool for reasoning 
• the “born in the wrong country” objection and what free will implies 
• nominal Christians versus practising Christians and why fruit matters 
• why corrupt leaders must be exposed rather than protected 
• quick responses to common low-effort gotchas 
• end-of-show wrap and a Red Rising reading update 

Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and He's coming back soon!

Transcript

Part Two And A Quick Rant

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to episode thirty seven of the Ministry of Man pod. Come on now. And we're kicking it off with a part two. Now y now last week we do I make a pod. I make a I make a pod app for hard questions about Christianity, right? And I clipped it up and I posted it. And I gotta I gotta invent this because the amount of people that just don't know how to respond to something and they try and change the argument to something completely different. And it's like so they'll go, yeah, okay, well, what about this? And it'll just be something different. And it's like so yeah, that's a different question. Yeah. Like you answer a question about slavery, and I'll go, oh yeah, well, what about this other thing? And you're like, well, what yeah, that's another question for another video. Like, comment that on a video about that. Like, I'll answer a question, it'll be like, you know, what about you know that there's a thousand different gods and whatever? And they go, Oh yeah, well, how do you explain the pain and suffering in the world? You're like, dude, that's like what has that got to do with what we're talking about? Like, if you're gonna comment on the video, comment about what the video is about. Otherwise, go away. Like, it's not relevant. Like, I'm not gonna go on to it's it's literally the same. It's just like it's just like people hear the word Christianity or God, and then they go, huh, I've heard I know what to say in those situations. This thing that I've heard, and it's like bro, that's just it's just not related to the particular subject that's being addressed. So save it, save it for when it is being spoken about, and then we'll then we'll talk about it then. We might even talk about it right now on this podcast. But it's just crazy, like people that just can't contend with an argument, they just like okay, well, let's argue about something else then, and then you have to contend with that. It's like, no, you can't change the rules. Either contend with what I've said and rebut that, and we can talk about that, or go away. Go away from me. Because I'm not going to just change the topic. One of the things was like people just did not understand the concept of there's too many gods, you could never know which one is true. So, like I posted a clip on that attacking that argument, like the the framework of the argument is there's too many to know, and people just could not wrap their heads around that what I was trying to talk about, what I was addressing, and they'll just say, Yeah, well, the Christian god's fake too, though.

Why Topic Switching Kills Debate

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And you're like, Well, okay, so that's an opinion, you just don't believe it. I'm talking about a framework. It's like if someone goes, There's a thousand different people that claim to be the king of England. So who can ever really know? We can never know. There's a thousand different people that claim to be the king of England. It's like, no, we can know. Like, we can there are ways to find out. Like, there's historical documents, and there's, you know, we can assess each person that claims it. If I was to claim it, there's enough evidence out there to to debunk it pretty quickly, right? So not every cla just because it's a bunch of different claims doesn't mean anything. And people just weren't able to understand it. They were like, nope, because you you could never say, like I said to someone or someone tried to go, they're all claims for every religion, everyone just believes it to be true, so no one can ever know. Just because like a bunch of people believe one thing and a bunch of people believe other things. It's like, yeah, you assess it, you assess which like you look at it, and they weren't able to understand the concept of credibility, even if both were false. It's like what okay, which one has the more credibility, even if both were to be false, you can still determine, okay, well, this one was made up by a crackhead, and this other one, it looks like you know, 60 different people. Like, for example, you you look at the Bible, it had the 66 different books written by 40 plus different authors over the span of about 1,500 years across three different continents in multiple different languages. So there's a little bit more credibility that would be put to that. Even if you didn't believe it, or even if it was false, even if it wasn't Christianity we were talking about, and this was something else, then you can go, yeah, okay, well, I think I probably it's probably the crackhead that's that one's probably not true, right? Like if if if one was going to be true, I would, I would think it's probably the one that has a little bit more historical backing and it's got a few more ancient documents, and you know, it's been around for a long time and it's really stood stood the test of time. And you know, there's all these different things where you can go, yeah, okay. That's something that seems like the more likely. And people just could not wrap their head around the idea that it's that because they just believe that they're all false, that they're they're equally as as valid. Like they didn't understand the concept of potential credibility. One person tried to say that it's like saying what's more real, Goku or Superman. And it's like, no, that's that's actually a false equivalency because you're talking about things that don't claim to be real. So immediately that's off the table, it's not the same. Just because you think it's fiction, you think religion is fiction, doesn't mean that they are, because first of all, one's claiming to be true and the other one's not claiming to be true. So so first of all, you can't even use that as an analogy. But second of all, if someone, if someone comes to you, let's take religion out of it. Someone comes to you and there's two different claims claim A and claim B. And uh and claim A says, my theory is false. Claim B says, my theory is true. Well, the one that's claiming to be true has already got more credibility to be true than the one that's claiming to be false. Like even if it's just marginally and there's no other, there's no other information to go on, you would say, okay, well, we know we definitely know the one that's claiming to be false is false. We we aren't sure yet, like because that we are all we have is a claim that it's true, but that's all we have. So, but either way, if that's all the information that we're able to get, well, then you would still lean towards that side, even if it wasn't true. So, yeah, people just could not grasp the idea of credibility, and they they think that it has to be true or something, that if something has any merit or any measurement of credibility, that it must be true in some sense. It's like something can have more credibility than something. It's like saying, Um, you know, who's better or who who is more good, uh, a mass murderer or a murderer? And you're like, well, they're probably both not good, but you can say, Oh, probably just the the person that killed only one person instead of a million people is probably more good. Like, that's probably you know, but neither are good, right? So it's kind of like that, man. I don't know if people like purposely try and misunderstand because like when you talk about religion and Christianity, people just hate it so much that they just want to argue. So it might it might be a little bit of that.

Credibility Even If Both Are False

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I think a lot of it is like motion emotionally driven, and on top of that, like one of the worst things that's happened in recent times online is the there's kind of been a bit of a a wave of philosophy bros kind of learning about logical fallacies and how to structure an argument, and in some ways it's good because you're able to kind of have debate a little bit easier, have people understand not to use certain logical fallacies, but they think that that if everything needs to be put into a syllogism in order to understand, a syllogism is like let's say so they might say if A equals B and B equals C, that means A equals C. It's like that kind of structure, I guess. So, yeah, but people think that like if you if you have to like people were were trying to call logical fallacies on me for saying that Scientology is is probably unreliable because the author wrote fiction, it was only one person that made it up, and it was only it was created in the 1950s, so it's like quite recent. And so someone points out they go, that's just a logical fallacy because you're saying just because he wrote fiction doesn't equal that that is fiction, and that's true, that's definitely true, like because he also wrote a lot of non-fiction as well. So just because he wrote fiction doesn't mean that the non-fiction he wrote was untrue. So, but like, so what? It's like it's like they haven't heard of case building, it's it's literally like saying you walk into a court of law and they're debating, you know, who killed this person, and you know, someone is like, Well, he was on the scene of the crime, and you know, he he expressed online hatred for this person, and he also uh wasn't supposed to be there, like there's he broke into the house or whatever, all these different things. There was no one else there, and you go, Well, that's actually a logical fallacy. Just because he was at someone's house doesn't mean that he killed the person. Like, that's not like that that's a logical leap. Like being at someone's house and not liking someone doesn't equal you being definitely the killer. It's like, yeah, it's ev it's evidence, it's case building. It's like, yeah, I saw an apple uh under this tree, and uh and it probably fell from the tree. And then someone goes, Well, you don't know that, there's a house over there, and you know, someone could have been picking apples from another tree down the road and was bringing their basket across, and then the apple fell fell out of the basket and landed on the tree. So just because there's an apple under the tree doesn't mean that it, you know, it's a logical fallacy. It's like like, do you know how how stupid you have to be to just like to not it's literally just Occam's razor. Occam's razor is like whatever the is the the most the simplest explanation, it's most likely going to be that. So usually that's what people would do and be like, yeah, instead of this made-up scenario that could definitely have happened though, it's possible that someone did have that basket of apples and one fell out and landed under the the tree, or it's probably just that it's a it's an apple tree and the and the tree just the the apple just fell out of that tree. That's what usually would be the smartest conclusion to something like that. So yeah, it's just frustrating when people just don't understand like when to when logical fallacies are actually valid to to present because in a court of law you would just never be able to convict anyone if it if you had to avoid logical fallacies, then you would just you would never be able to build a case that supports your theory. Because you're like, it's not necessarily everything's not necessarily when it's like up for debate. It's like you present the case. Jeez, I mean, and again, with that, it wasn't just that he wrote fiction, it's that he wrote fiction, it was one person, so it wasn't like verified by multiple people, he made up by himself, and that it was recent in the 1950s, so it's like for thousands of years no one's ever heard of it. So, anyway, that that's that.

Logical Fallacies Versus Case Building

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Um, the other thing that I'll just quickly touch on because this annoyed me so much. I spoke about Ricky Gervais's idea of you don't believe in 999 gods or 2999 gods, I just don't believe in one more. Like, what's the difference? And the example that I tried to use was uh that of a bachelor and a married person, and for the life of me, I could not say it right. All I had to say was the bachelor goes up to the married person and says, You're not married to 999 other girls, I'm just not married to one more. And I couldn't say that properly. That was the the correct way to say that. I don't even know what I tried to say, but it didn't come out right. But Alex O'Connor actually has probably a better example for that question, which is like a group of 10 people are all sitting around and one they're all trying to figure out who their dad is, they're all brothers. And one of them goes, I think we had an Irish dad. And the other one's like, No, I think we had a French dad. Another one's like, No, I don't know, I think we had a German dad. And then the another guy says, You know what, I don't think we had a dad. And then they're like, What are you what are you talking about? That's it's stupid. It's like what? Well, you don't believe in the the French dad, you don't believe in the the German dad. Like, I just don't believe in one less dad than you. So it's like it just doesn't obviously make sense. So that's probably a better example for it. So anyway, I'm gonna continue on. Thanks for listening to my little rant that went for way longer than I expected, but here we are.

Why “Born In The Wrong Country” Matters

SPEAKER_00 14:03

So I'm not gonna do the problem of evil. I thought about this. The problem of evil is something that's been answered and talked about for so long. There's so many other people that have spoken about that better than I ever could. The answers are already there. I kind of want to look at things that maybe it's spoken about a little bit less, and also like the problem of evil and the problem of suffering gets spoken about so much that it it's memed. I was listening to Joe Folly talk about this. He's from um Unsolicited Advice, a great YouTube channel, talking about how it's been memed and it has. It's like, if God real, then why bad thing? And it's like, yeah, it's just kind of like a silly line of argument, I think, anyway. But people can look at that in their own time. I want to focus on some other things. So I want to talk about being born in the wrong country. This is something that a friend of mine actually has brought up to me a number of times. It is kind of an interesting one because it is actually true. Like, you are more likely to believe in a certain framework or worldview or have a certain religious belief if you were brought up in a particular country. Like, there's percentages of like if you're if you're born in this country, there's like a 90% chance that you're going to be of this religion, whatever it is, like a Buddhist or Hindu, or if if you're Christian, there you know, it's likely that you were born in either Europe or America or Australia, you know, somewhere more of the Christian nations. So it's a valid kind of uh line of reasoning, I guess. The only issue is that's also what you would expect in in any case, like whether God is real or not, you're still going to expect to see that. So uh I guess people would boil it down to being, is it fair? Like if you because you if you have to know, you know, it has to be Jesus. If you have to be Christian to be saved, and it's like, well, boo-hoo for those that were born in a Muslim country, they didn't get the chance. So it's like so there's a few things that we can that I want to go into it. So the first thing to note is Christianity, it started in the Middle East, for one. So, like in these places that are more Muslim or have these other religions, Christianity that that's where it was birthed. It started there, so it was in it was in Africa long before it was adopted in Europe, and so that's important to know because first of all, there's obviously a lot of Christian heritage there, there's a lot of Christian um believers there still, there's still churches over there, they're getting persecuted extremely hard in those countries, though. And so the concern is okay, yeah, there's some people that were born that might not have had the same opportunity, even though you don't necessarily know that. Like they might have they they might have still had experiences and and things, but the fact that the heritage and the inception of Christianity was in those countries that are more Muslim now, is it's not really like our fault. Like we're we're trying to preach the word, we're trying to preach the gospel, we're trying to go out into these places, and and that is exactly what Jesus says as well, is that there's a call to go out into these nations and to go out and to to preach the gospel, to reach these people and to to show them the love and the power of God. I've been accused of only being a Christian because I was raised to believe it. And there might be some merit there, but the issue is like my best friend growing up, like my best like childhood friend, was also raised to be Christian, and now he's an atheist. And so it's like it's not even necessarily that you're going to maintain your faith just because you were brought up in a country doesn't mean you're going to maintain that for the rest of your life. 70% of Christians in the US that go through the college or university system abandon their faith. So that's like the majority. It's a it's a heavy majority of people that walk away from it. Everyone gets to a point in their life where they start to question their beliefs. So it's not, it's not a super convincing argument to be like, well, just because you were born there, that's the only reason you believe it. It's like, well, everyone questions it. A lot of people find uh themselves in a place where they do have the autonomy to start questioning their beliefs. A lot of people that claim a belief as well just don't practice it. So they'll say, Yeah, I was baptized Catholic as a kid, but I just don't practice it. There's so many Muslims that do that too. They're like, Yeah, I was raised Muslim, and they the only practice they do is like just not eating bacon, but they'll literally get drunk and sleep around and do other things. So it's like they're not really practicing their faith. And so obviously, yeah, the the Bible does command its followers to go out and preach the gospel in Romans 10. It says, How can can he believe which he has not heard? And how can he hear unless he's been told? So that it that's the reason why Christians have missionaries. So like Christians are commanded in the Bible to go out and do that. We have a mandate to go and spread the gospel and to go into to the world. And um, there's a lot of online ministries now that are that are being created to try and reach more people, and even though I don't think that's exactly what Jesus had in mind when he gave that command in terms of actually going out into the world to preach the gospel, it's still uh it's still a way that people are trying to utilize at least. But ultimately, the reason that we see it in the world is because of free will. So, like if a Muslim person has a child, like they're going to raise the Muslim, and that that doesn't mean that they're incapable of ever finding Christianity, but that is also what you would expect. Like that that's kind of par for the course, like there's no real way to give someone free will while also preventing them from ever raising their children to believe to believe what they believe. So it's kind of it's just what you would expect to see. In addition to that, now this is I'll just say this the Bible says that we're we're judged by the fruit of our lives, right? So I'm not going to go as far as to claim that everyone, if you're just a good person, then you get to go to heaven, like you know, there's a lot of people that think that. But I will say this there's a scripture that says, and the king, and it's talking about Jesus, says, and the king answered them, Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. So there's this idea in Christianity that it's like, however, you treat the least person, you're doing that directly to Jesus, right? That's kind of a a way of understanding, like you can't just treat if it's like it's easy if Jesus knocks on your door to like give him the best reception and to treat him like with all your grace and all your love to to throw it at the feet of Jesus. But he's like, he's saying, No, like you, if you're not doing that to the lowly, then you're you're forsaking me too, kind of thing. So you have to do that to everyone. Not to mention Jesus came as a servant, like the whole idea of Christianity is is not to be served, but to serve. Jesus said, I have not come to be served, but to serve. And so it also says this in John 17, 3, it says, And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Eternal life is that they know you, the only one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent, right? So that's that's what eternal life is knowing him, right? Jeremiah 22, 15 to 16, listen to this. Do you think you are a king because you compete in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He just Judged the cause of the poor and the needy, then it was well. Is not this to know me, declares the Lord. Is not this to know me? The NLT said, Isn't that what it means to know me? So to know Jesus, to know God is to do righteousness, is to is to do justice and righteousness. And he judged the cause of the poor and the needy. So I think that there's elements. Like there's a the the Bible will often speak about being judged on your conscience, what you do on behalf of your conscience, where if you are if you're doing something that is against your own conscience, then that is sin. And so there's elements where it's like even the people that haven't heard, if they're living in accordance with like it's the whole idea of Jesus being the word and Jesus being good. Yeah, I guess like being judged, you like everyone's going to be judged according to the fruit of their life, whatever that looks like. So there's obviously going to be different judgments placed on the person that still stayed true to their conscience and did like the Bible says the word is written on our hearts. So that there is kind of like this inbuilt idea. I mean, it's also very clear, it's not just whatever you feel like as well. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that everyone just if everyone just listens to their heart, then they're fine. It's like it's not, I wouldn't go that far. But there's definitely like degrees of honesty. Like someone can do the wrong thing in in an honest way, and someone can do do the same thing, but they were dishonest about it. And I don't know. So the heart, the Lord looks at the heart. That's what I'm trying to say, basically. So maybe there'll be different judgments anyway in in the last day. So, but again, like I'm not saying that anyone is saved, but yeah, I probably didn't give a great answer to that question. Honestly, when I was like thinking about this, it sounded so much better than what I said. I was like, yeah, nailed that. Oh well, look, take it or leave it. Next one, next one. Whatever,

Hypocrites And Nominal Christianity

SPEAKER_00 24:17

dude. I'm gonna talk about hypocrites. So this is less of um this is less of an apologetic, but like I just want to talk about hypocrites for a moment because this is not only a real problem, but it it is like it is probably one of the most genuine critiques that you hear about Christianity, because it's not it's not necessarily like a good reason to not believe in a particular religion. It's not a good reason to think that the religion is false, but it's definitely a good reason to believe that it doesn't work because the people that are espousing a certain belief, if they're not, if their lives don't look like how they uh are claiming that it should look, or if they're not practicing what they preach, then people just think they're a phony and they're a fraud. And people are gonna draw away from that, obviously. Obviously. For men who don't already go to church, the number one reason why they don't, they say, is that there's too many hypocrites. And so it's a it's a valid critique. So the the two things that people would normally look at, I suppose, in terms of addressing hypocrites, is like either the people they know that are claiming to be Christian, or the leaders that they hear about. So I'll go through each one of those and kind of unpack a little bit. So regarding people that they know, there's so many people that are exactly how I used to be, where they would be professing Christianity while just living completely, like looking exactly like the world. When I used to have like conversation, I used to have conversations about God all the time and how I believed in God because I was raised Christian and kind of just fell away. The most that I would ever talk about it was when I was blind drunk and I was out at a bar, and there was just nothing, there was not a single thing about me that looked Christian at all. And the truth is because there wasn't a single thing about me that was Christian at all, besides the fact that I'd have said, Yeah, he's real. And it's like anyone could have looked at me and go, Well, I don't actually know if you believe that he is real, because we like you definitely don't love him. Like you definitely don't like take it seriously for sure, because look at what you're doing. It's out it looks like you love your flesh, it looks like you love pleasure more than God. Jesus says himself, those that love me obey my commands. Well, it was very clear that I wasn't obeying his commands, and so it was also very clear that I didn't love him. And so what I was actually doing was using the Lord's name in vain. That's what that is. When you're saying, Yeah, I'm a Christian, and it's like, well, why are you living for the world and living for yourself? It's like I that's using the Lord's name in vain. So it's it's interesting. Nominal Christians, which are people that are Christian by just confession alone, actually score higher in a lot of domestic abuse issues than non-believers, than just like secular worldly people. Active Christians score the the least, they have the the least uh incidents of anything like that. But it just goes to so to show that there's a huge difference between nominal Christians and practicing Christians and people that are actually active in their faith. And by practicing, it's like they're either, I think it's like reading their Bible four times a week, attending church like two to three times a week uh a month. So there's there's some forms or signs that they go, you know, okay, this person's actually doing some of the thing, or like attempting to live the life of a Christian. And they're significantly different to those that go, yeah, I'm a Christian, and like I don't go to church, and I don't have read my Bible, I don't pray, you know, don't do any of the actual Christian practices, but they're still claiming to be Christian. So there's a huge difference. So if you're like that person, we just you just first of all, you just need to stop like claiming that you are, you need to call a spade a spade. If you if you're calling going around calling yourself a Christian and you don't go to church, you don't pray, you don't read your Bible, and you don't actually live for Jesus, you're not following Jesus. Like following Jesus means that you're you're accepting to live the way that he lived. So you're at least aiming that direction. If you're not doing that, why are you calling yourself a Christian? Like you gotta honestly be honest with yourself. A lot of people are just wearing the Christian name badge, but just don't practice the faith at all. And it's just not not what a Christian is, I suppose. Someone tried to tell me that I couldn't judge an OnlyFans creator because I don't know her heart. Well, yes, I actually do. I do know her heart actually. She's in open rebellion against God. Like that's what you can see that it's it's open rebellion against God. God is good, first of all, and the only thing that is good is God. Anything that you're committed to that isn't good is rebellion. How can it not be? The the way of God is that of righteous way, is is that of righteousness. And so you can't live unrighteously and still be in communion with God. It isn't, you're not wrestling with your sin. You're you're not at war with your sin. What you've done is you've made peace with your sin, and then you're just living in it unrepentantly. So, yeah, I actually do. You can see someone's heart sometimes. I mean, you know them by the fruit, right? I mean, that's from the Bible. So you can't just be like, oh yeah, I'm just on my journey, I'm just on my like God knows my heart. It's like, yeah, everyone does. We can see it. You love sin. That's what that is. You can't just be like going to orgies every week and be like, well, you just don't know where they're at with the Lord. Yeah, we do though. We're told to to judge. Like, that's the people we're told to judge. By the way, if they're not a Christian, you don't judge them according to Christian law because they're not professing to follow Christ. This is what Paul talks about in Corinthians. We're actually called to judge. So you can't be a Christian thief, for example. Like the two things are completely incompatible. It's like saying you're a you're a square circle, that it's like there's two different things. Like, you can't just be like, yeah, I just like I like stealing and God knows where I'm at. And I'm just like, yeah, I just don't think that he really cares about that sort of thing. Like, you think he cares about other things? It's like, okay, you you don't love Jesus though. Like, when Jesus says, like, to to love Jesus is the same as obeying his commands, it's the same thing. You can't separate the two things to like not love the way of Jesus and love Jesus, like that that is that is the that Jesus is the way, he's the way, the truth, and the life. When Jesus is described as the logos, what do you think it means when when it's a in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God, and they're talking about Jesus, that he is the word, right? And the word they're using is logos. This isn't the logos, by the way. If anyone, whoever tries to tell you that this is the logos is wrong. This is the rhema. This is the rhema word of God, the Bible, and so is when God speaks to people. The logos isn't a written word, the logos is Jesus. Jesus is not the written word, Jesus is Jesus, right? It's it's two completely different things. So get that theology out of your head. The logos is what the Greeks would use, and this was it was written in Greek. That was understood to mean reason. It's like it's basically like the it's reason in terms of the the structure of everything. He is the way, he is the right living way, he is the good way, he is the truth. That's what reason is. It's it's the thing that makes sense of absolutely everything else, it's the thing that holds everything together. And in in the case of Jesus, he is both Jesus the man, it's it's Jesus the son of man, the son of God, it is Jesus God, it is also Jesus the the idea of how to live, the right way to live, and the good way to live. So, in a sense, good and God are almost the same thing, or like the good way of living and God in maybe that's maybe not the the best way to frame it, but the thing, the way that Jesus lived, so he came to fulfill the law and just and basically to show you who he is. He came to show you who he is, and he is the the way that he does things, the way that he lives, is also synonymous with his nature and his being. So when you are living outside of that, you're deciding that you're you're not wanting to be a part of his way of doing things, and that means you're not wanting to be a part of him, you're not abiding in him. If you're not abiding in Christ, you're you're living for yourself. You're outside, you're doing it the wrong way. You're you're away. Following Jesus is actually the same thing as as loving Jesus is the same thing as like I I love your ways. I love your, I delight in your law, as David writes in the Psalms. To to love Jesus is to is to love his ways. So I guess I'm just trying to say, like, you can't do things that are not his way and still say you love him because they're there you it's a contradiction. It's a contradiction, and you just gotta be honest with yourself and just say, like, do you actually love his way and his nature? Anyway, hope I explained that well. I'm probably gonna listen so many times I'll listen to something back and I'm like, oh, I forgot to say this, or I'll listen to it back and it'll sound like, oh man, it sounds like he's preaching. Like, I'm not preaching a works-based salvation, by the way. Anytime you talk about obedience and doing things, people get really weird about it and think that you're talking about like I'm I don't believe that the works that you do is what saves you. The well, I I maybe I agree with the Orthodox on this one thing I I kind of like. The Orthodox, they kind of say like the works that you do is is like tied into it's it is the salvation. It's like because you love you you'll you're loving Jesus and you you've chosen his way, and so that includes the way that you see the world and how you think the right way to live is. It's like it's kind of all tied up into one thing, I guess. It's not like there's an idea of like, oh no, like once you say, once you accept Jesus' love, then you're going to want to do stuff out of that love. And it's like, I'm not sure that's actually true. Um, I know for sure I don't believe that anything you do gets you saved. That it's like, if I do this, then I earn heaven. Like, I definitely don't believe that. I think it's kind of I think it is the same thing. I think I think Jesus' way, when you choose Jesus and say yes to Jesus, you're also saying that his way of like his methods of living is what you're also choosing. And so you you can tell if someone has chosen Jesus because of the way that they've decided to live. Like that's when it's like we're known by our fruit, and faith without works is dead because it's like you how do you really have faith in Jesus if you're like you're saying you've chosen his way, but you're not living his way, so you now I can see that you haven't chosen his way. I guess that's maybe a better

Leaders Falling And Why Exposure Matters

SPEAKER_00 36:21

way to put it. Okay, I'm gonna be frank with you guys. This is not flowing as as well as I thought it was going to. I thought I was uh my notes for this episode were so clear, and I've rambled so much, man. Let me let me fly through this. I just want to talk about the leaders for a second because, like, regarding leaders, they've already started to fall, as some people may have seen if you're Christian. There are a lot of people getting called out, there's a lot of people falling, and it's a valid reason as well for people to not want to go to church or listen to a pastor when there's so many corrupt pastors and there's so many hypocrites that don't practice what they preach. So, why should anyone listen to them? I wouldn't listen to them. And to that, I just say they they all need to be exposed. Like the best thing that Christians can do is um to try and expose anything, and the worst things Christians can do is try and cover up people's sin because they think it might look bad. I can tell you right now, it looks a thousand times worse if cover-up is involved, a thousand times worse. Not only is it really, really bad, like the the people covering things up need to be exposed as well. That's also what needs to happen. If someone does the wrong thing and the Christians expose it, first of all, like you're not gonna lose anywhere near half as much credibility because you're like, oh, look, at least they're holding themselves accountable. They're like trying to cut off the bad fruit and they're not afraid to actually pursue justice and seek justice. If we try to subvert justice in order to maintain a good look or a good image, well, then yeah, everyone deserves to fall for that. Like, I have no sympathy for that. And I and I think that they should all lose their positions and then they should all just be go back to just sitting in the congregation. I don't care if you have a church of a thousand people, if you're covering up people's sin and you think, oh, we don't want this to look bad on the movement, yeah. I think you need to sit sit back down. I think you need to be demoted, and I don't think that you're responsible enough to lead a flock of Christians, and I think yeah, yeah, you're doing a lot more harm than good. And what I don't like is the idea of people, oh, but there's so much fruit. And it's like like people think that if a good thing happens, it justifies all the bad things, and and I just have that that is just so opposite to like Christianity, or at least Christian ethics. So Bill Johnson would say, you know, he got exposed at Bethel for you know all this stuff for promoting people that were really bad people, evil people, actually. And he didn't say anything, he kept promoting these people, even after finding out of the bad things, so didn't say anything, let them on staff, was selling their books, was promoting their books, wrote the foreword for their books, and then in an in when when it all got exposed, afterwards, someone asks him in a meeting, and I don't know the full context, but that but the question was asked, what do you think in light of all that's happened? What do you think? And he and his response was, Well, I think it was worth it because of all the fruit that's come from it. And what he's talking about is all the people that have moved their lives over to Bethel Church, and how you know, so there's been so many salvations and so many miracles and all this stuff happened. It's like, who's to say that God never wanted any of those people to move over to Bethel? Like, you're you you are saying that it's good fruit based on your judgment and merit of what you're seeing, but you don't know what the alternative would have been, could have been a thousand fold better. A thousandfold. So that this idea of like, oh, but there's so much good fruit and there's so many salvations. Yeah, well, you don't know if they're like, first of all, you don't know how deep their salvations are. A lot of those people probably turn, like, or I won't say probably, but uh, it's possible that a bunch of those people walked away from their faith after hearing about all that's been exposed and be like, oh whoa, I got saved then and I had miracles happen then then, but maybe that was all false too. Maybe I just doubt the whole thing and I'll just turn away, and that was gonna be on on your hands. So oh man, not into that at all.

Quick-Fire Gotchas That Miss

SPEAKER_00 40:24

I'm gonna um just end this with speed fire, a few like easy ones that annoy me. People go, people go, they see a photo of Adam and Eve, and they go, Oh, they got belly buttons. Um, hey Christian, how come um Adam and Eve got belly buttons? And you're like, yeah, they they probably didn't actually have belly buttons, and that person just painted them with belly buttons. It's like well yeah. Like that's not that's not a critique. It's like, yeah, they they yeah, they probably didn't have belly buttons, man. And the uh the artist just painted it wrong. What do you what what do you want me to say to that? It's stupid, it's a stupid one. People go, hey, you know you know Jesus wasn't white, and you're like, Yeah. Yep, he was born in the Middle East, and I guess there was some later, you know, some earlier centuries that painted him white. And uh he wasn't white. That's not a gotcha. That's not a gotcha. Yeah, he was born in the Middle East. Yeah, yeah, I don't think he was white. Like what do what do you what do you want the response to be? Like, you want me to argue? Yeah, he wasn't white, man. We know that's not a gotcha. Someone goes to me as if their names were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're the whitest names ever. And you're like, yeah, they weren't that. Like first of all, those were all written in Greek. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is English. It's English words. Obviously, their names weren't that. They were they were well, they were Israelites, and so they would have had like Hebrew names. They would have been like Akhrak or Meshmach. I don't know what their names are. But obviously, like there's a different name for all of them in all the different languages. In Aramaic, what they spoke, in Greek when it was written, in Latin when it was translated in Latin, and now in English it's translated in other languages too. It's like no one thinks that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was legitimately what they were going around calling each other at the at the time. I don't know why people say that one. And the last one I've mentioned before, it was like, but people still keep saying it's like Jesus is actually Zeus. And when you're saying Jesus, like Jesus is actually Jesus, and uh uh and Jesus is is actually Hail Zeus. So whenever you're saying Jesus, you're actually saying Hail Zeus. It's like that is the dumbest thing imaginable. First of all, Zeus is Dios in Greek, by the way, and it and and it would be in Greek, because Zeus is part of Greek mythology, it's Dios, not Zeus, if you're speaking that. And Jesus is Spanish. So like why you why are you using the English word Zeus and the Spanish word for Jesus is Jesus for one? Like use the same, you can't use two different languages and dialects for to try and link it together, and it's not linked to Hail Zeus in any way, shape, or form. It never has been, never has been, never will be. So again, it's just it's a stupid argument. Uh anyway, I'm gonna wrap it up because uh not even joking. Like I was like, I was preparing for this. I'm like, bro, this is I'm gonna nail this one. This is so good. And uh look, if you got something out of it, awesome. I uh I'm just gonna roll with roll with it, okay? There might have been some good stuff in that. Barely any of it came out as I was anticipating, but she's all gravy, baby. It's all gravy, baby. So we're not gonna worry about it. You know what?

Wrapping Up And A Book Tangent

SPEAKER_00 44:39

I've been reading a book, Red Rising lately. I'm I'm obsessed, bro. I can't put it down. It's it's it's so entertaining. Or as far when I got into reading, I started with the classics, and they're quite difficult to read. And they're obviously like I've spoken about before, they're all like you know, philosophical ideas, and they're exploring different characters. I'm reading this book, man, and it's just like this incredible story, like adventure story. It's like a dystopian future, and there's like so much action, and there's uh there's awesome characters, and the like the world building's really cool, and I've just never read a book like it. And I'm like the trajectory of my reading is nuts, but I'm already like I need to read the whole franchise of this, and after that, I'm gonna read all of Maze Runner, and after that, I'm probably gonna read all of the maybe Hunger Games books. I don't know, but I'm going on these book adventures, bro. Okay, I'm going on these adventures. So I'm gonna wrap up this pod. I'm gonna do a little bit of reading because I'm invested. And I'll get back to you and I'll give you a little book review after I'm I'm finished. I'm only halfway through, but man, I'm loving it. So thanks for uh thanks for tuning in. If you're uh if you're a long-term listener or a frequent listener, you're you're a minister at this point too. So that's the thing. This is the ministry of man. If you listen to the ministry of man, you become you become minister as well. You become a mini bro. You become a ministry, bro. And uh or bro, for the ladies, ladies, okay. Now I'm just being silly. Alright, as you all know, Christ is King. Jesus loves you, and he's coming back soon. I love you all. You're amazing. God bless you. Have a blessed week. I pray favor and blessing over your life. May the Lord lead you, guide you, and protect you. In Jesus' name. Amen.