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The Bible Breakdown
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The Bible Breakdown
BBXtra: Chapter 10 of 12 Points that Prove Christianity is True
Unearth the profound truths of Christianity with us as we explore the questions and objections surrounding our faith. Join our special Bible Breakdown Extra episode, where we promise you'll gain a deeper understanding of how to defend your beliefs with confidence. We'll delve into Norman Geisler's compelling book, "12 Points that Show Christianity Is True," beginning with foundational concepts such as the knowability of reality, the impossibility of contradictory truths, and the existence of a theistic God. These insights are vital for not only strengthening your Christian worldview but also equipping you to share it effectively in today's ever-evolving cultural landscape.
In a world where the reliability of the Bible and the historical existence of Jesus are often questioned, we emphasize the importance of returning to God's word for clarity and truth. With evidence of Jesus' existence surpassing that of figures like Alexander the Great, our discussion encourages you to align your personal beliefs with biblical teachings. Whether you're a devoted Christian facing doubts or someone new to exploring Christianity, this podcast episode serves as an invaluable resource. By recommending Norman Geisler's work, we aim to empower you with the knowledge needed to confidently address any questions or challenges about your faith.
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The More You Dig. The More You Find.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the Bible Breakdown podcast, and today is one of those once-a-month times when we do a Bible Breakdown Extra. Now, the goal of the Bible Breakdown Extras is to stop working in it and kind of work on it just a little bit. And what I mean by that is is every other time we're reading a chapter day by day, pulling something out of it from what God's Word says and applying it to our life. But every once in a while we need to pull back and go okay, how do I apply this not just to my daily life but my overall life, making sure my overall biblical worldview is solid, also dealing with objections, with questions that we have. Because I can love God and read my Bible every day and still have questions because I need to know how to apply it to my everyday life. And I can't think of a better thing to do than to really study the idea of how to know that Christianity is true, like I think, for a thinking person that—I've not met one yet, okay, there's probably one out there, but I haven't met one yet that someone who loves Jesus hasn't at least some point in their relationship with God wondered about the claims of Christianity. Like I believe them, but are they true? Let me make sure they're true. You know this kind of stuff, and I've even known people who love God but just say, listen, there's so much I don't understand. Can I tell you that I'm one of those?
Speaker 1:One of the reasons why I'm so intrigued by the Bible is there's so much I still don't know. That's why I love talking to you in the chats, on our Facebook stuff, on all of our YouTube stuff, all that. I love learning about all these different things, and I also love to be able to then share my faith with others. But one of the things I've found when it comes to talking to other people about God is other people have objections. When it comes to talking to other people about God is, other people have objections, or sometimes, as Christians, we don't know how to share our faith with people who are not always going to be ready to believe right. And so one of the great things to learn is number one how to be able to systematically prove that God's Word is true, for our own benefit, but then also for the benefit of others, which is why, over the past several months, we've been taking one chapter at a time out of one of my favorite apologetics books which, by the way, apologetics means the defense of the gospel apologetics books by a guy named Norman Geisler, one of my dead heroes. You know what I mean. He's the one I read a lot of his stuff and it is called the 12 Points that Show Christianity Is True. 12 Points that Show Christianity Is True. 12 Points that Show Christianity Is True.
Speaker 1:It's a handbook for defending the Christian faith and one of the things I love about Dr Norman Geisler is that what he would do is he never assumed that somebody automatically believed, and he has this testimony. He said that he was going out to a place that was kind of an equivalent to Skid Row back years and years ago. And he was going out to a place that was kind of an equivalent to Skid Row back years and years ago and he was just witnessing telling the story of the gospel to people. And there was somebody who had said he said yeah, back when I was younger I went to Bible college. He took out a verse out of the Bible and he said the Bible verse said God, told this guy Jesus. Told this guy who had healed. He said go and tell no man. He said see, told this guy. Jesus told this guy who had healed he said go and tell no man. He said see, the Bible says right there, you shouldn't be talking to me. And Dr Geisler said I knew that was wrong, but I didn't know how to refute that. He said no one had ever told me how to defend the scripture. So I had to go home and learn about things like context, because in the context Jesus had healed someone and he had told them to go and do something else first. But Dr Geiser didn't know that yet, and so it got him on this journey of learning how to know what he believed and how to share what he believed with others. And one of the many things he came up with was 12 points that just philosophically prove that God is not only real, but Jesus is the Son of God making Christianity true. So I want to walk through this, and today's chapter is actually one of the shortest chapters in the entire book. As a matter of fact, the last three chapters today's 10, 11, and 12, are very short because once we have made these other points, these are the natural conclusions. So let's read these and then we'll read chapter 10 today. Here we go, number one of the 12 points that prove Christianity is true is truth about reality is knowable. That's the first one. Truth about reality is knowable.
Speaker 1:If we can't agree that there is objective truth, a truth that we can observe, there are a few brute facts in the world. We can't have a conversation. As an example, mathematics is a brute fact. In other words, if none of us existed but the universe did, mathematical certainty would still be a thing. We may use a different number, a different way to express the number two, but if you put that thing and that thing together, it would always equal the equivalent of four. That's just a thing. Gravity is a certainty in our universe. That is an objective truth that is there. So we have to agree on that. Number two opposites cannot both be true. In other words that first, principles are a thing, the law of non-contradiction Something can't be one thing and another thing at the same time, in the same instance, right, in the same way. So number one truth about reality is knowable. Number two opposites cannot both be true. Number three it is true that a theistic God exists, which, by the way, that's one of my favorite chapters.
Speaker 1:Can I go ahead and tell you that, if somebody ever comes up to you and says well, you know, I don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. We had a comment on one of our YouTube videos not long ago where this person was saying that you know, I believe in God, but I don't believe in Jesus. Okay, well, that lets you know where on this list he is. He would not be on list number or number three, but many people are. I don't believe in Jesus, okay, great. Do you believe in God? No, okay, can you prove that?
Speaker 1:And you go into all the different. You go back and listen to that past episode where you have the cosmological argument, you have the moral argument, you have all these different arguments that say you may not believe in Jesus yet. Like, we'll get there, but first you can't deny that there's got to be a God. There's got to be a God in heaven, because how else did all this get here? Like you know what I'm saying. It just doesn't make logical sense that all this just existed forever, right?
Speaker 1:So number one truth about reality is knowable. Number two opposites cannot both be true. Number three it is true that a theistic God exists, then four miracles are possible. God exists, then four miracles are possible. So if a theistic God exists, then that would mean that he would then be able because, remember, theistic God is a God who is personally interested in what goes on in his creation he would be able to then interrupt the natural law that he created whenever he chooses to, which is a miracle? A miracle is when God interrupts the natural law he set up to do something supernatural. It's a miracle. And if that's the case, then number five miracles performed in connection with a truth claim confirm the truth of God through a messenger of God. In other words, when someone comes along and says they're from God, we should say prove it. And if they can prove it by doing a miracle, something that only God could do it, and if they can prove it by doing a miracle, something that only God could do, then we should listen to them. Number six the New Testament documents are reliable. That was another one of my favorite chapters, because we just talked all about how they're very, very reliable.
Speaker 1:Number seven as witnessed in the New Testament, jesus claimed to be God. So, therefore, jesus claimed to be God, and we can believe that because we believe the New Testament documents. Number eight so, therefore, jesus claimed to be God, and we can believe that because we believe the New Testament documents. Number eight Jesus claimed to be God was proved by the unique convergence of miracles. In other words, jesus said I'm God, let me show you, and he did all of these miracles. Then, number nine we covered last time. Therefore, jesus was God in human flesh. We talked about what that looked like. Today's is this one, because once we've made all of that, once we can prove there's a God, jesus claimed to be God and then did miracles to prove it, and then Jesus was God in human flesh. Then, number 10, whatever Jesus, who is God, affirmed to be true is true. Whatever Jesus who affirmed to, as let me say that again who affirmed, let me say that again whatever Jesus, who is God, said was true must be true.
Speaker 1:Think about it like this there's only been one person in history who has ever got up from the dead by themself. Jesus raised other people from the dead, but there's never been a person that there is at least some objective evidence. There's more evidence. You can research this and anyone who don't just go read some random blog somewhere, but a peer-reviewed academic person who is a true historian, will have to tell you there is more truth claims about the resurrection than almost any other event in history. Go do your research. Don't listen to some random. There's a guy, there's one guy named Bart Ehrman who is a famous skeptic of Christianity. He is one dude who actually did go to college. Other than that, everybody you hear here's the first thing I teach my girls this I want to teach everyone as part of Real Life Church and anyone who listens to this.
Speaker 1:Every time somebody makes a truth claim, say uh-uh, that's not true. You know what you say is can you prove that to me? Now? I don't need you to prove it beyond any doubt, but can you prove it within a certain realm of certainty, beyond a reasonable doubt? Can you prove it? And you can't say I read a site, I read a source somewhere. No, no, if you're going to tell me that something that I build my life on isn't true, you got to come at me with more than uh-uh. You need to give me something. So one of the things I ask my girls always because I have two daughters who are still in school and they go into environments where they have people who are hostile to Christianity. If you didn't know that, if you live in the United States. You go into most schools and colleges not all of them, but some of them hostile to Christianity, no-transcript and say Christianity isn't true, then one of the first things that you do is you raise your hand and say I'm sorry, can you prove that? And watch them slowly fall apart, because no, they're a mile wide and an inch deep on a lot of that kind of stuff. They haven't read books like this, right.
Speaker 1:But what God's word says, or what the truth claim is, rather, is, once you prove all of that, whatever Jesus, who is God, affirmed as true is true, and we've proven how it is. This is the chapter summary. It says if Jesus, who is God, and whatever Jesus affirmed as true, as is actually true, then whatever Jesus taught, whether as God or as man, must be absolutely true. This being the case, we can now ask that Jesus taught about the Bible. Like what did he teach about the Bible Four? Up to this point, we have only used the New Testament as a historically reliable source based on good evidence of what Jesus said and did, and as such, it informs us that he was confirmed to be God in human flesh.
Speaker 1:Any thought of the limitation of his knowledge or the accommodations of his teachings so that Jesus could have been wrong. In other words, he wasn't wrong. He will be shown to be contrary to both his character and the facts of the case. Let me read that sentence again. That was a long sentence. Here we go. Any thought of the limitation of his knowledge or the accommodations of his teachings so that Jesus could have been wrong will be shown to be contrary to both his character and the facts of the case. In other words, the facts prove that Jesus is God and what he said is true. It was not a matter of accommodation, but divine affirmation is true. It was not a matter of accommodation, but divine affirmation. Now that we know who he is and his words do not err, we can ask what he taught about the Bible.
Speaker 1:Now, this is one of the shortest chapters in this entire book, because the case has already been made. If all of this stuff is true, if Jesus claimed to be God and then he said let me show you by doing these miracles and we can prove that he did walk on this earth and that everything he said has come true to this point, then we can say with objective, within a margin of error, certainty, that Jesus is God. Well then, what we're going to cover on the next and final two chapters is then becomes extremely important. What he said, if you think about it.
Speaker 1:I was reading one of the comments not long ago and they said I just simply can't believe, I simply don't. It was more of a I'll put it my own words. I don't remember the exact quote, but it was basically I just don't really care what the Bible has to say. Well, you should, because if all those things are true and you're welcome to try to prove them wrong, but you can't just say I don't believe that You've got to bring receipts with you. But if all those things are true, and if God came in human flesh, he dwelt among us and he said some stuff, we should really pay attention to what he said. Well, I don't believe the Bible is true. Well then, go back and look at whatever it was chapter 6, and there's ample evidence to show that there's more truth and reliability in God's Word than there is almost anything else. We have more evidence to confirm what Jesus said was true than we have that Alexander the Great ever existed. And no one says I don't believe Alexander the Great existed, but we believe that because we have evidence. We have even so, much more about Jesus, and so, therefore, we need to pay attention to what he has to say.
Speaker 1:In the final two chapters, we're going to learn about what that is, and here's the reason why it's important, because and I know we have people who listen to this all over the world, so I don't know how this is going to communicate to some nations. But let me talk about the United States for a moment. The United States is in a situation where we are no longer considered a Christian nation. Now, just because you have more than 50% of the people in the United States who claim to have a Christian background doesn't mean that they are following Jesus, and there are so many different people who've tried to reinterpret who Jesus is and what he thinks about stuff that Christianity doesn't even really mean what it used to mean, which is why we have got to be so very careful to come back to God's word, to know how to interpret it and then to be able to defend what it says, so that we can, number one, make sure what we're believing is true and then, number two, make sure that we're teaching other people.
Speaker 1:One of the callings of my life is to be able to help people to know God's word, so you can know the God of his word, but we got to know what it says first, and then we can share it with others. That's why this is so very important. So I encourage you to get this book for yourself. All this is intended to do is just to be me kind of gushing about it for a little while. It's not intended to replace you reading this. You can also go to YouTube and search up Dr Norman Geisler 12 Points to Show Christianity is True, and he actually does a lecture on each one of the 12 steps. I highly encourage you to do this, because it really does help in helping you know what you believe and then also being able to share it with others. Okay, all right, I love you.
