Latest / True Comfort / Darkness Didn't Win: A Father's Faith Through Excruciating Pain with Dr. Clark Bates
Transcript
- Teasi Cannon (00:01) Hi, I'm TC and I want to welcome you to true comfort where it's our desire to live out 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 which assure us that we have a God who comforts us in all our afflictions and encourage us to share the comfort that we've received with others who need it. And I also want to welcome my guest Dr. Clark Bates. Clark, thank you so much for being here today. Clark Bates (00:25) Thank you TZ, it's good to be here. Teasi Cannon (00:27) Well, I have to say that I absolutely am personally impressed with Clark's bio because I love his field of study, which he's gonna explain to us in just a minute, but I'm gonna go ahead and read his bio and I'll be honest, we worked on some pronunciation right before this, so if I blow it again, I'm sure he'll help me. So Dr. Clark Bates is currently professor of New Testament at Forge Theological Seminary. and will be joining the Institute for Evangelical Formation and Documentation in Padua, Italy as Professor of New Testament and lead librarian in the fall of 2025. He obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham in the UK with the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing under renowned textual critic, Dr. Hugh Houghton and his dissertation, the Pseudo-Ecumenian Katina on Ephesians. Text translation and commentary is being published by the German publishing house, De Goiter, and will be released in August. He is a recipient of the Gorgias, am I saying that right? Gorgias Press Book Grant, Midland Forest City's doctoral training scholarship and was the first fellow of the Text and Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona, studying under doctors John Mead and Peter Gury. So. I am so excited, Clark, for where you've, I mean, we met about, was it 10 years ago or maybe more? Yeah, so we met at a cross-examined instructor academy, which is ⁓ a ministry of cross-examined, I guess, ministry. ⁓ But it was basically a weekend intensive, teaching up and coming apologists to learn how to articulate. Clark Bates (01:59) feels like it, it's gotta be at least. Yeah, I think so. Yep. Teasi Cannon (02:22) and share the good news and the hope of what we've learned, substantiating our faith. So I just remember back then that you were just hoping to do this journey and now look at you with your PhD and what I would love for you to do. So congratulations on your tenacity. That's not an easy road, ⁓ traveling, taking your family to England, all that you've done in order to get to this point. So I just wanna applaud you there personally. Clark Bates (02:43) You Teasi Cannon (02:51) and say how exciting it is to see. But also I would just love for you to explain to listeners what textual criticism is in general, just briefly. I know for me, I'll just briefly share this personal note and then I'm gonna be quiet and let you kind of explain what it is and what got you started, why that became your focus, your scholarship. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but in general, what I've studied in textual criticism, which is very, very surface compared to what you have, gives me the confidence that the Bible I'm holding in the morning has been transmitted, only like originally recorded, but then transmitted and translated in a solid way, in a way that I can trust that what I'm reading today has not been mangled. or transposed or changed dramatically like they would say, like you see in skeptical claims like the telephone game. That particular study is an intentional dive into why we can trust the Bible that we read today. And so to me, it's immensely meaningful because you can't trust the promises of God. You don't even know what the promises of God are. You don't know anything about Jesus really, if we can't trust the Bible hasn't been messed up multiple times over the last 2000 years or more. ⁓ So I like personally knowing that I have a connection to you personally if I ever have a question and knowing that you still love the Lord gives me confidence even because you're looking at this documentation. You're looking at the evidence and I just love it. So I'm going to be quiet, let you share more and what got you started Clark. Clark Bates (04:33) Yeah, as you said, when we met, ⁓ I was just starting an apologetics ministry, which lasted for several years. I ended up having to give it up right around the time of my ⁓ master's degree with Phoenix Seminary simply because that, going into a PhD, I was not going to have the time anymore. But ⁓ back then, you know that ⁓ one of the things that you get taught at the CIA, is ⁓ to know, have a lane, to kind of stay in your lane. So you're not trying to be an apologist that does everything or knows everything because you just can't have that kind of knowledge, but to identify what really interests you about the faith and what is your sort of your... what piques your interest and focus on that and just really give yourself 100 % of that and I did, I followed that and it was clear to me, I I appreciate a lot of the philosophy of it ⁓ and the science has always been interesting to me but I do not have a scientific background and so it just wasn't appealing but I knew scripture, I loved scripture, ⁓ at the time I was even starting to teach and actually... get a degree, bachelor's degree, then ultimately an MDiv in pastoral ministry. so scripture was a big part of my life. And so I felt like that's where I should major. And so I started diving into that. And that's sort of that beginning. Like most people get into apologetics, you start to learn about this idea of textual criticism. And it really fascinated me. I didn't have access to a lot of the materials, but I thought it was really interesting. ⁓ And as I progressed in my studies and learned Greek ⁓ and Hebrew and other things, even Latin and other languages, my ability to work with the resources grew. And I knew after I started seeing biblical manuscripts for the first time online that I really wanted to know more about them. I wanted to know more about the history of them and I wanted to be able to read them. I had this dream of being able to read directly from a manuscript rather than a translation or even rather than in a Greek Bible that was printed. And I'm trying to think of how long ago it was. It had to have been, I want to say eight or seven or eight years ago. I think it was around 2018-ish, maybe a little earlier. Teasi Cannon (06:34) Yeah, wow. Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (06:51) Maybe 16. Anyway, but it was quite a while ago. ⁓ I was getting my second master's, I was just starting to get a second master's degree and I was put in contact with ⁓ an organization that needed volunteers to transcribe Greek manuscripts. And I knew how to read Greek and I was allowed to go to a course in Oxford that taught me how to read Greek manuscripts. And so I did that and signed on to be a volunteer with this group. And I did that. I worked with this group and then other groups for, I've only just recently stopped because my time doesn't allow for that anymore. And so I have been able to read Greek manuscripts from every era that we have. Teasi Cannon (07:30) Wow. ⁓ Clark Bates (07:31) And I now and then as time has progressed and was in my PhD I became an independent contractor for a group that some of the viewers might know called CSNTM the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts with Dan Wallace, Dan and I and several others would go to Oxford on multiple occasions and into the Bodleian Library and we would examine the manuscripts they have prior to the digitization that they're going to do. And so I became a contractor. Yeah, so I got I've been able to work with them. Teasi Cannon (07:55) It's so cool. I'm nerding out. Clark Bates (08:00) It's funny to do it too because you think back so many years and it's this sort of out there dream and then you're doing it and... you become so comfortable, I become so comfortable with the material that I lost sight of like the dream aspect, but then I always remind myself, remember what you're doing, what you're holding, what you're looking at. And just to be in libraries like the Bodleian and some of the other libraries at Oxford is amazing in and of itself. And so yeah, so I spent quite a lot of my time in the UK, in Oxford, when I wasn't doing my PhD, doing that work. And so that really has given me the exposure to the manuscripts. Teasi Cannon (08:20) Yeah, yeah. Clark Bates (08:39) and seeing how they were transmitted. Text criticism, think the easiest way to explain it to anybody is when you have more than one copy of any book and there are differences in those copies, you have to identify which one has the original reading or the earlier reading and which one has the mistake. So anything that we have more than one copy, and you actually can find this in print texts too. You will have... two printed manuscripts that have two different readings because the errors still come into play. And so what we're doing with the Bible like we do with anything else is we have all these copies and they all have different readings. And so the science of textual criticism is the examination of these copies with the desire to find at least what we somewhat call the earliest recoverable text. Others would say the original. Teasi Cannon (09:10) Mm. Clark Bates (09:34) that kind of languages sort of ⁓ you're kind of saying the same thing but in different ways depending on who you ask but what we want to know what we really want to know is what did the apostles say what did the author say ⁓ and so we do that by looking at the differences the beauty of it is some would say because we have you know roughly five thousand greek manuscripts of new testament since they all had different readings you couldn't possibly know but it's because we have so many manuscripts with so many different readings Teasi Cannon (09:38) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (10:03) that we actually can work back and there are methods to do that. ⁓ And one of the things that we really look at is which reading of a text most likely explains other ones. And that can be sometimes grammar, sometimes it can be the way the word is written, sometimes it can be a theological change later on, maybe something that's a little uncomfortable. And so some people might have heard that we only look for the most difficult reading and that's not really true. Teasi Cannon (10:17) Hmm. Clark Bates (10:33) the more difficult, if we only look for the most difficult reading, we'd have a very confusing Bible. But we do look at what readings are difficult because it's more likely you would make it easier than more difficult, but only if that helps explain what has happened later. And so it's a very technical discipline. It's not the most exciting and riveting thing that you might find. The academic writing on it is very dense, but I loved it and I still love it because Teasi Cannon (10:37) Right. Clark Bates (11:03) I get to essentially I get to handle the history of the church physically I get to see what people before me have done how they've used the text ⁓ you I mean One of the more exciting things are enjoyable things with manuscripts is there are notes written into these texts that are just from the from the scribes and You know, I've often found, know describe the writing of a monk who has introduced himself into the text At the bottom it says he's done this and you know, it's just kind of nice to say well hello father Teasi Cannon (11:08) Yeah. Neat. Clark Bates (11:32) I know Bartholomew, how are you? ⁓ Teasi Cannon (11:33) Are they recorded anywhere? Those notes? Like it seems like it'd be such a neat book to just read what they wrote. Like, cause I write in everything I read. I'm always, wow, yes Lord. You know, like it'd be fun even to see what the scribe, if they had anything like that, you know, when they're... Clark Bates (11:39) Yeah. They do have different little things like that. in, well, on the CSNTM website, the manuscript images are there and you can see the notes in the margins. Of course, they're handwritten Greek, so yeah. There is an organization in Ghent ⁓ that is focused on, they call them epigrams, but it's focused on sort of side notes and things like that. And it's not the easiest website to navigate, but they do ⁓ print. Teasi Cannon (11:55) if you can read Greek or Latin or any of that. Yeah. Clark Bates (12:14) some of that. Some of them are translated, some of them are not, but it makes it easier because as, I mean, you could test in English handwriting can be very difficult to read even when you're reading your own language. So handwriting in Greek is also very difficult. So it's a very helpful place. Unfortunately, there's not sort of a, I would love it there was a database or just a collection of books that just, a book that had a lot of translations of that. Maybe that's a future project, but it is exciting to see. Teasi Cannon (12:22) Yeah, I'm just gonna say it sounds like something you could do. I think there's many of us that would love it. Yeah, no, well that is amazing and I think just for our listeners that might not know this whole science is so important because we don't have any original documents. There are no original autographs of the, you know, what Paul wrote or the any of the biblical authors and but it's not anything to worry about because we don't have any of the originals for any ancient ⁓ literature that we never question like Homer or any of that. You know we don't sit around worrying if reality can be trusted because we don't have but this is a particular field of study that takes a look at the many many like you said five thousand plus manuscript pieces of manuscript evidence for the New Testament alone in Greek in the original language and then when you add some of the earlier copies of other languages we have so much which what I love just to sum up because I know we could get into the weeds here is that even if you don't understand this study even if you feel a little troubled by the fact that there aren't any original manuscripts which I actually find a unique thing God did in order to keep to save the trustworthiness of scripture because if someone had an original they could easily change it and because we have all these beautiful copies but when you're talking to someone who does a deep dive intentionally into this whole field of study and walks away completely feeling confident that the Bible we're all reading is trustworthy to ⁓ you know a degree that we would not need to worry. How would you phrase that? Like when, I know you've said that to me before and I love the way you phrase it. Like what did the general consensus in a lay level way to say to you, hey, the Bible you're holding, even though there's no original, we can tell you this. What would scholars kind of say? Clark Bates (14:33) Yeah, I think the way I would simply put it is that... The reliability of the text of, let's just say the New Testament, is beyond question. And I have no problem saying that. And I think that what we can always be assured in is that while there might be variations in different verses, different passages, the providence of God is such that no single, no doctrine of Christianity Teasi Cannon (14:47) I love it. Clark Bates (15:08) teaching of Jesus that the faith relies on is associated with a single passage. So there might be a variation in something in Luke but not in Matthew where it says the same thing or you know vice versa and so we're not in a situation where if it doesn't say Jesus is the Son of God in Mark 1 that all of a sudden the doctrine of the deity of Christ is gone because that's throughout the New Testament. Teasi Cannon (15:16) Yeah. Mm-hmm. right. Yeah. Clark Bates (15:37) And so the variations shouldn't concern people because our faith does not hinge on one passage of scripture or one verse. It's the cumulative message. Teasi Cannon (15:52) That's wonderful. Thank you for that. And I will say too, just as a final note that ⁓ When you're reading a good translation and a good study Bible, you will see that the variations in manuscripts are noted. Like no one's trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Like you'll see in a good Bible that there'll be a little asterisks or some kind of a note at the bottom. Like some manuscripts don't say this or some manuscripts include this. So I love that that scholarship is just so out in the open. And even with those moments here or there when there are variations, we have such strong reason to trust. in the promises of God. And that brings me to the main point of our conversation. Thank you for sharing all that, Clark. I really appreciate that. And I will put something in the show notes too. I know I took a free class, free, like Dan Wallace has a free course out there and I'll put the notes to that in the show notes so anyone interested in kind of just jumping in can, but ⁓ you know. Each week I am inviting a Christian apologist to talk with me. And the reason is because I want people to find this beautiful gift that God has given us that, you know, the Christian, the study of apologetics, again, just to know what you believe and why you believe it and be able to articulate it in a way that we could hopefully share with others. But the reason, so that's why I'm inviting apologists because these are people who have in some way or another intentionally chosen to go find out why. why the Christian faith, why the biblical worldview is trustworthy and the most emotionally and intellectually satisfying framework by which to make sense of reality and also that they would come in and share honestly what it looks like to experience heartache and pain and real tragedy as a Christian because that is what the Christian life often includes. It isn't an easy path. And Jesus never promised that it would be easy, but God promised that he would never leave us or forsake us. And so we have the comfort that we receive from his word. And so my guests are gonna share heartache and comfort. And then also just share with us what line of evidence maybe they lean into when they're tempted to doubt. which Clark has already kind of shared, but when they're tempted to doubt the comfort that they receive from God's word, where does their brain come to the rescue of their heart? And so I do want to say this too, just these conversations are never pre-scripted. and the content is intentionally tender at times, but it can also be tragic. And so I guess by way of a blanket content warning for people listening that just these conversations are oftentimes digging into very painful situations in an honest way. And so I just wanna give that ⁓ little bit of a heads up before I just thank you once again, Clark, for being willing to do this, to share your heart with us and your wisdom and so I'm going to stop talking now and just let you take it from wherever you'd like to and then we'll just continue chatting as we go. Clark Bates (19:02) UTC again. I love that your verse for this podcast, I love what that is, and maybe unofficially my wife and I have always used that verse as our ethos for how we live our Christian life. We've gone through lots of ups and downs ⁓ since we've been following Christ. It's been Well, actually I'm only about 20 years, I suppose, really, even though was raised in a church. And in that time that we've seen lots of things happen, we've always been willing to be open and candid with what we've struggled with, what we've seen God do, because of that passage, because we believe that Christ builds his church through the suffering and the maturity of its members. we thrive on knowing others have gone through what we're going through in the past or even currently. And so I'm happy to do it. know that the advice of these can be uncomfortable conversations maybe for everybody involved, but they are important. I think the best way to start this is simply to say that, as you said, my family and I moved to the UK several years ago. We're not in the UK anymore. Well, we are transitioning to Italy soon. But we moved to the UK so I could do my PhD. We spent about four years there. And it was a big move, big change. ⁓ We had ⁓ four of our children with us. ⁓ And one was going to grow up in the UK. she... ⁓ you know, she was going to become ⁓ an adult there and others were going to grow into teenagers there. during that process, was actually, it was a very wonderful time. It was ⁓ enjoyable. I love England. I like being there. It's a very challenging time because you are an outsider. You feel it every day. ⁓ Even with some of the similarities, there's a lot of differences, but we grew in that and we matured in that. And my kids, they made some friends, they started getting involved. We homeschooled, but they got involved in some after school type of activities and groups and things. And about two and a half years, I suppose it was about three years in, I was very deep into my PhD. We were active in a local church, as active as we could be as outsiders. the stress of the PhD was very, very real and very heavy. schooling at home and was actually working, I believe, this point ⁓ part-time as well in the community. you know, we just we had had we had built up a community and a family around us. ⁓ But around this time we noticed some changes in one of my daughters. They had all been involved in a theater group ⁓ for young people. And they were thriving in that, at least as we felt. They were really enjoying it. They had gotten to know other kids in the UK there. And we started noticing that one of my daughters, she was normally very affectionate. ⁓ She was kind of a hugger. She was just very innocently kind. And we loved that But she stopped wanting to be hugged. she's kind of started her whole demeanor changed. Or started to change. And around the same time actually, I should probably add that she was gifted a iPad for Christmas from grandparents. we ⁓ don't like ⁓ using electronics with our children. We generally try to keep them away from it for almost as long as possible. And at her age, we were hesitant, but we didn't want to. ⁓ take a gift away so we allowed it ⁓ and you know and I will I will say from the outset we should have been more careful with it. But we started noticing these changes. She started withdrawing from us. We didn't see her downstairs much. She'd be in a room. said she wouldn't want to be hugged. Her whole demeanor became downcast. And we would want to know why. We weren't the kind of parents that just watched from afar. We were constantly asking what was going on and if she wanted to talk. And she just wouldn't talk. then we, well, I see my wife. noticed one day when she, I don't remember the circumstances, whether she was in her room or she was heading off to the bathroom for a shower, but she noticed that there were all, I would say dozens of cut marks on her. She would normally wear like longer dresses or pants so we wouldn't see that. And that's when we realized she'd been cutting herself. And so that was obviously as it should be was a red flag and we wanted to know immediately what was going on. And she would get emotional and upset and she wouldn't really want to talk to us about it. couldn't get any answers no matter how much we tried. Finally, we grabbed her iPad one evening and we started going through it and we found that she was being bullied by people in the theater group. had been watching videos on YouTube about self-harm, how-to videos. We thought that because we had blocked TikTok that that would keep her, she can still go to YouTube and find those things. ⁓ We found all sorts of very sad things. And so we were obviously very concerned. And we were trying to decide how do we, you know, we're praying through how do we approach this? How do we deal with this? Because we love our daughter. We don't want to see this happen. And you hear about these sort of things, but you don't. I mean, sometimes you just don't expect them to be you, I guess is the way to say it. we have very much a control. Teasi Cannon (25:18) Right, yeah. Clark Bates (25:24) on our children and not in an authoritarian way. love them. We encourage them to be who they are. We promote them and support them in everything that they want to do. But we school them at home so that they get the attention that they need to grow and to learn. We've done this from our children all the way to adulthood. And they've gone on to university and other things through it. we are actively involved parents. ⁓ And as we were trying to pray through what to do, because you don't want to just You want to kick in your kids doors, you know, like confront them, but you know, that's not the way. We were thinking through what to do. And then one morning when she went off to the youth theater, we went into her room. We thought we should probably look through room because we wanted to find out where she how she was cutting herself. I found out that she I had used I used to use a straight razor to shave my face. I found out that she'd been taking my razor and my razor blades. And so. Teasi Cannon (25:54) Right, yep. ⁓ Clark Bates (26:24) I got rid of that immediately and all the razor blades, we wanted to make sure that she hadn't hidden anything. And as we were going through her things, ⁓ we found suicide notes to all of us. She had... Teasi Cannon (26:39) you Clark Bates (26:44) She had planned it. She had the means. She knew the date and how she was going to do it. And she had written letters to all of us, blaming us, her parents, in some ways. and we had the date was within a few weeks. It's a very devastating thing to read when it is your child. Teasi Cannon (27:15) No, no, yes. Yes. Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (27:26) Of course, you know, we were shattered. But we collected those and when she came home, we had an intervention in our room. We even included our other daughter to make, because we knew they were very close and we wanted her not just to hear it from us. And we confronted her about the notes. We confronted her about the iPad. I began by apologizing to her that I hadn't been a better father in... looking into that iPad more and protecting her heart. And it was interesting. We could tell that through all the tears and the anger that came out, she really believed that no one cared about in spite of being in a home where everybody cared about her. And so when we relayed that, and when her sister relayed that, and what it would be, what it would do to us if she was gone, you could almost see a little bit of this shell crack. But it would quickly come back. And so we immediately laid down rules, ground rules, from the beginning. She couldn't have the iPad anymore. She would want to use it to listen to music. And I said, well, you can't have it until we decide how we can do that in a way that's going to protect you and we can trust you. We agreed, and she agreed too, actually, although not at first, that the theater was the wrong place for her. So we pulled her out of that because it's a cultural thing, but in the UK, young people, as a culture, they like to insult each other. That's sort of how they bond. But teenagers are very hard and very harsh. And for a young girl who is very emotional and very empathetic and very loving, she takes those things very seriously. She doesn't think they're funny. And so... Teasi Cannon (29:24) Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Clark Bates (29:41) Knowing that about her, knew this was not the environment she could be in. And so we pulled her out of that. And then we had to decide what to do about psychological things, like what should do, should we get counseling. And in the UK, there is no Christian counseling. That's not something that exists. So we couldn't go that route. Our pastor did not know of anything that she could do. At that time, Teasi Cannon (29:57) Right. Clark Bates (30:10) and those who are familiar with this might know this, but they can look it up, there was called the Tavistock Clinic, which was pretty much running the UK's sort of counseling medical services for the NHS. And the Tavistock Clinic is no longer doing that because it was found out that they were wholeheartedly encouraging children into gender transition to solve all problems. And we knew, I knew that that was something that was rumored already while we were there, and I didn't want her going to an NHS psychologist. But we also, when we did call them to find out what they had available, were really the only thing they would give us was a walk-in clinic where we could go with her. They were open from like nine to five. There was no guarantee you'd see anybody, but if you got within and you sat down for the entire day, you might get in to see some. Teasi Cannon (30:59) Wow. Wow. Clark Bates (31:01) And so the options were very slim. did find somebody through, I think it through the church, my wife kept following on that, and we found somebody who was trained as a counselor that she could talk to. And she did, but we came to find out from her, not the counselor, but from her that she just wouldn't share anything with her. And so there wasn't a lot of change. We prayed day and night. My... My wife ⁓ moved my daughter into our room. I willingly, ⁓ for a period I was gone actually. Shortly after this I was being sent to a conference and I couldn't get out of it. ⁓ So my daughter slept in our bed with my wife and through that period, my wife will tell you, was very hard because there was a lot of emotions unleashed on her over that period. all these things that my daughter had built up inside her that she hated. mother. I would quickly say none of which Teasi Cannon (32:11) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (32:13) She had built them up. you know, being in the PhD, I still had to do my work. I still had to, these things didn't, they wouldn't stop it because of this. And so, every morning, I would get up. I got up very early, I'd walk to the university and I'd get up and I'd walk by her door and I would pray because I was worried she was dead. and my wife was the same. We just, we continue to pray and pray and pray. And at one point... came downstairs and she gave my wife a hug. And that ⁓ was the first chance we saw that there might be hope. And we noticed over time, because she didn't have access to all of this outside influence, little things came back. She started to smile, or she would laugh. Sometimes she would laugh and she'd be embarrassed she laughed or she didn't want anybody to know she was happy. Sorry about that. Teasi Cannon (33:37) No, no apologies. Clark Bates (33:40) There were little things like that. And then as we continue going to church, everybody was in our home, it's not optional. So we all would go to church. And she was getting, they didn't really have a youth group. This was a very small church that met in a school. But she wanted to, there was a lot of college age people in this because it was close to the university. And she wanted to get involved with the youth, the young kids. And that was through the university age. students. And so we encouraged them, her to talk to them. We talked to the people in the church, the leadership about what she was going through, but we were encouraged that she wanted to do something with the church. Teasi Cannon (34:22) Yeah, yeah. Clark Bates (34:24) And we found a way forward with music on her iPad we we essentially locked everything down There was no access to anything other than a radio essentially a digital radio service and I think selected text messages for people she knew And we made the rule that she could only listen to it down with in our presence So we gave her that outlet because we knew music made a lot We didn't want to close her off to everything she loved. and she started working with the youth. And I knew that she was also starting to talk with the college-age people that ran things. sometimes you know as parents, you want to be the one that they come to for all the answers. And you maybe feel like you even have all the answers if they just ask you, you know? But they don't want to ask you, and they don't want to listen to you, and she obviously didn't trust us anymore. Teasi Cannon (35:12) Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Clark Bates (35:26) And so we kind of, it was difficult, but we kind of had a hands-off approach with those topics. And we prayed that the people she was talking to at this church were giving her good guidance. And I noticed within a short period of time of that, this was probably within the last year to eight months before we had to move, she was reading her Bible, which I thought was wonderful. You know, it's one of those things, especially as a Bible scholar, you want to talk about it, but you can't. You have to leave her be. ⁓ And then she came to us and she said she really thinks she should be baptized. Teasi Cannon (36:02) Right, right. Wow. Clark Bates (36:14) Now I baptized her when she was little. Not infant, mind you. But while she was young, she had made a profession of faith when we lived in Oregon. A profession of faith on her own. We've never pushed our children into that situation. We've always had a hands-off approach with that, that they must come to us. Teasi Cannon (36:16) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (36:35) They were learning to talk or come to somebody else to ask about salvation baptism those sort of things because I want them to be genuine I want them to not to have my faith but to have their own ⁓ And I baptized her but she was she was very little I think she was probably six or seven, you know, maybe younger and I understood that Having grown up in church where I was baptized young and then realizing I had never actually accepted Christ. I got baptized as an adult and so I understood that And so I asked her why, what she thought baptism was. And she would have to talk to the pastor. Of course, that was their rule. She had to speak to the pastor and get his approval. And some of the things that she shared with us was that up till now, she didn't really feel like she understood what it was to be a Christian. But she thinks she does. She feels like she knows what it is. Christ in her life and to know him and she wants to change and she thinks baptism is the way to forward and I wasn't going to disagree with any of those things and so within a few months of us leaving I baptized her again in a we had a they made a portable pool and we out in the playground of the school and both I and the pastor baptized her. We have it on video, actually. And it was a very hopeful time. It wasn't easy, it wasn't over. I want to say that. It wasn't as though she came out of that water and was the daughter we started with. but she was different. She was more, I think she understood herself a little more. You know, one of the things we tried to emphasize to her was she was young, going through puberty, through all these changes, and there's so much that goes through, what happens in your life at those stages that it's just chaos internally and externally, and everyone around you that's that age doesn't understand it either, and so everybody's acting out. Teasi Cannon (38:43) Yeah. Yep. Clark Bates (38:53) And that if she just has to trust that this will change, it will get better, will, you know, we essentially ride this out in some ways, but ⁓ as she's gotten older, know, some of those things have changed, and we move back, we move back to the States. We had to make sure people were aware. We had to make sure, you you're gonna see scars. Don't ask about those. You know? You're gonna see a difference. Teasi Cannon (39:15) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (39:24) You know, be gentle. Don't, ⁓ don't push her. You know, we're, you know, it's, it's, hate to use the phrase on walking on eggshells, but in some ways it's like you're holding a very fragile egg. Teasi Cannon (39:35) Yeah, I can... Clark Bates (39:41) And we got back to the States as we were making this transition to being missionaries in Italy. And we had to do the fundraise. We got back to our church. And we'd been gone from our home for a church for four years. And it had changed quite a bit. It was a lot bigger. When we had started this church, the youth group was my oldest two children and four other kids. And that was it. We had started it with this church when they had first been planted. really, and in that time, God had grown that church. had a very active and thriving youth group now, and so many new people. And so we kind of had to reacquaint ourselves with the church, and we got all of our children plugged into the youth group. And I'm so thankful for the leadership of that youth group, because they had a man in charge, about two people, there's a man and a in charge that leaded the both of them just love kids. And they have brought in children, unchurched kids from the schools and it's just a huge group of people. But they showed so much love to our children and to her, especially with a little bit of knowledge what she's been going through. And in the last year that we've been here. She reads her Bible every night. Occasionally she will come in and ask me questions about it, to our bedroom at night. She said, can I ask you about this? She read Revelation and we had lots of things to talk about there. And she read Leviticus and we had lots of things to talk about there. But she was reading on her own. And she was, she's more affectionate again. She hugs all the time. She smiles and she laughs and she's playful. Teasi Cannon (41:15) Wow. Wow. gosh, yeah, that's a big one. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Clark Bates (41:42) She still has very low days, very hard days. But now she comes to us and tells us, most of the time, sometimes not, we have to remind her, but she tells us when she's concerned. She feels like she's going back to a place like she was in so that we can be there and give her extra support. And I think that one of the biggest things for me, but it was for our family as well. might, some people might think, okay, so you just said you're going to be missionaries. One of the things that has always been a concern for me as stepping into the mission field as a father is our children. If it was just me or even just me and my wife and we had gotten the invitation that we'd gotten, I probably would have just said yes and we wouldn't have thought twice about it. Teasi Cannon (42:29) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (42:30) But we saw this going to the UK, moving children into a completely new environment, even one where they speak the same language to most degrees, is incredibly difficult. It grows them, but it's a challenge. And especially when they're at a formative age, like in the teenage years, where all of our children that are going to Italy are, you know, you're like, and now you're going to a place where they don't speak the same language. So that's something they have to And so we were very concerned, especially for her. And prayed a lot about that. We had prepared them, we told them that we were 100 % certain this is where God's leading us. We'd all gone to Italy to meet the people we'd be working with so they could see it. And it was emotionally up and down about where they were on this. Whether they were all for it or not. And I... I think how long ago was probably was close to we've been here about a year. I Want to say this was at least nine months ago But the church does this thing where they let the youth take over for a Sunday the sermon is still done by the pastor, but The worship the announcements the scripture reading all that is done by the youth Sometimes there's a skit, you know, whatever they put together and No one told me anything other than it was used on a my wife knew it was in on a little bit it but she didn't know everything my daughter got up in front of the congregation to give a testimony. Teasi Cannon (44:10) Wow. Clark Bates (44:12) And she shared about ⁓ some of her ups and downs with God. And then she talked about becoming a missionary. She actually shared about the need in Italy. and ⁓ about our family, my Italian descent, about our family's connection to Italy. And then she shared that she has always looked at this as something her parents are doing, that she has to do. But through her reading, Bible reading in the youth group, they reading in Jeremiah, and unfortunately for me, it escaped me where she was reading the first two verses, and I think it was like Jeremiah 12 or 21, which dealt with God speaking to Jeremiah about being young. It's kind of the do not despise your youth type of passage, but simply saying, just because you're young doesn't mean I haven't called you to this mission. And she said that through that and. prayer she felt that God was saying the same thing. that this is not your parents mission, but it's yours too. And like I am now, worse, I was just sort of a weepy mess. And I can tell you that in some ways I wish I had the daughter that I had five years ago. But I'm thankful that we have the daughter we have today because she is much stronger now. And she has a faith that is growing to her own. and she, I think, recognizes that we are there to help her. Though there are times, I mean, with every teenager, there are times where we do go back to those places. I like to, I don't want anybody hearing this to think that all of a sudden we've walked out into this marvelous light and everything's fine. It's not. It's a daily struggle some days. But we have hope, hope that we have lost. Teasi Cannon (46:13) Right. Right. Clark Bates (46:26) year in England. We never fathomed that we would have to deal with something like this in our household. And it's, I mean, it opened our eyes to a lot of things, you know, whether it be parental involvement with social media and things like that. I we already were, but we were, we let that slip and it didn't take more than a month for that to impact her eternally. Teasi Cannon (46:48) Yeah. Mm hmm. Clark Bates (46:57) And so knowing that, and I will say it's interesting. I'll share this and maybe we'll talk about this in various aspects of the way, but. As an academic that deals with the text, sometimes prayer is not my forte. I don't always go to prayer. I need to do it more, actually. My wife is more of a prayer. I'm more of a reader. But I have an active prayer life, but it does come up and down. And so during this time, I prayed constantly. And I don't know that I ever felt like I heard anything from God in those prayers. Teasi Cannon (47:13) Mm. Clark Bates (47:37) I know, I never got what I would consider an answer or anything like that. But at the same time, I was still trying to work through this PhD and all this research and everything. And some days, I couldn't do any of that. could sit at my desk and I couldn't do any of that. I just couldn't think of it. So I needed a distraction. And I had this article I had been playing with for years. I mean, it goes back. Yeah, it goes back to seven or eight years. I've just would go back and tweak it a little bit because I just wasn't sure what to do with it. And it was a survey through the Book of Ruth, but looking for Christ in it in every possible way I could find, whether it was in the language or imagery or anything else. And I would go to that. And as I continued, would read Ruth, and I would look at what I was looking at, and I would look at the different things I was looking at. And I saw Christ so much in this book that I was just reminded that it wasn't that he wasn't answering me. wasn't, I guess I wasn't looking for him where I should have been. And I found, when I couldn't find Christ in my prayers, I found him in the And of all places I've had them, the Book of Ruth. Teasi Cannon (49:10) Thank Clark Bates (49:12) But it was just that constant reminder that he is, he's not just there in Ruth, he's there with me. He's there with my wife, he's there with my daughter. And he's always there. So I think maybe if there was a lesson to be learned for me that I would share with people is sometimes you will pray and you won't find God. You won't find Christ for you. At least you feel you won't. But he's always in scripture. He's always in the text. So if you can't find him, turn to where you know he is. Teasi Cannon (49:50) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (49:52) And I know that for my wife it was prayer, but for me it was the Book of Proof. Teasi Cannon (49:58) Well, Clark, honestly like. First of all, thank you for sharing that like I just don't even know what to say. Honestly, I think. First of all, I'm so glad your daughter is in a good place or a better place, and I have no doubt this is a daily journey, but I want to praise God that she is still alive and that she is. I mean all the added gifts that you mentioned like wow you know she wanted to be baptized and she wanted you to be a part of that and she wants to go to Italy and on her own and those are huge when you said those I was like whoa I can imagine can't even imagine what a what a personal touch from God those moments have been for you and your wife ⁓ on top of for your daughter So I'm very thankful. I know as a parent, I have three kids. They're all grown now. ⁓ But they all went through very hard things too, you know, not necessarily like I don't want to veer off into my own story, but I can just say I think anyone listening that has kids, there is no greater pain than the pain our kids feel. There is no greater pain than watching our kids hurt and suffer and feeling powerless in the moment to be able to fix it for them immediately or even over time. I ⁓ just my heart just goes out to you and your wife and I I just want to say just that as a sister in Christ. don't know. mean it's like all that you've gone through and I'm very thankful to hear you. Like this is part of the main point for me in my life and you in yours and anyone listening is like. Clark Bates (51:31) I appreciate that. It does. It means a lot. Teasi Cannon (51:50) There are just really hard times. And when we pray, we might not feel or even understand how God is present or how he is faithful or how he is good. And there's a lot of that we might not understand this side of heaven, but we can we can trust. on the basis of some really solid things that God is faithful and that this gift, like the Bible is a gift. It is that he met you there in the book of Ruth, you know, in what would seem like the farthest, not the most logical or likely place to receive comfort, but ⁓ that we have not been left to walk through these seasons on our own. Clark Bates (52:28) I know. Teasi Cannon (52:41) and that you and your wife both have received comfort in various ways at different times is what we have that this world doesn't have. There isn't another ideology or worldview or religion out there that... offers comfort that we can really rely on and trust and I think what you have, my brain is going in a million directions because I'm so personally blessed, I'm so touched in a personal way, I'm so thankful that your daughter's doing well and that you guys are about to go to Italy on a family mission still, still loving God, still seeing his goodness. Why would you ever want to go to Italy to continue serving the Lord if he hadn't met you where you are, if he wasn't trustworthy, if he wasn't real? If his word wasn't filled with him and I what you said is such ⁓ I don't want people to miss this You didn't experience God in your prayer time you experienced him in his word I think we have become a culture in the church, not everyone, I don't want to use sweeping generalities, I'll just speak for myself, where we feel that if we haven't had some type of goosebumps or some type of subjective feels or hear some kind of almost audible voice or experienced an instant change in our circumstances that somehow God is not responding. And that just isn't the case. God is omnipresent. He's never gone. He's never away. And also we exist because he is keeping us alive. It's not that he gave us life. It's that we can't live without him. So he can't be any closer than the sustainer of our actual being. But what you've shared is so encouraging, Clark, because I don't know of much deeper pain to walk through. than what you've described. ⁓ It's easier as a parent, I think, to feel pain of my own than to watch it, which it becomes your own pain, watching your child walk through that. But ⁓ it's so much harder when we watch our kids walk through. Were there times when you were walking through that when you were tempted to doubt God's faithfulness? Clark Bates (55:21) you know, was definitely caught off guard is probably not even an adequate statement to make. ⁓ Looking back on it, I will say this started right around the same time we agreed to join them to do the missionary work. So maybe in spiritual hindsight, I can see the spiritual attack that came right upon our family through my daughter. You want to be angry at Satan. Come at me. Teasi Cannon (55:58) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (56:03) But I was so thrown off and caught off guard. I don't know if I would say it was doubt as much. Doubt might be the right word. I just didn't understand. What is going on? Why are we doing this? Why are we going through this? Why did you allow this? What are we to do here? Don't take my daughter. So yeah, I think it's those sort of things. It's almost like, maybe I didn't have the conscious more where was like, Christianity's not true now. But I couldn't. Teasi Cannon (56:46) Right. Clark Bates (56:50) was going on with the direction that I had God leading us. And so I was just completely bewildered. didn't. It's like your world stops. And all you can do is each day try to live that day. So I think that was. Teasi Cannon (57:11) What do you think if you could summarize? I'm sure there's as part of this process, but if there was one way to summarize what in that process of being bewildered and confused and probably angry and fearful, is there like, what do you think it was that kept you, made it to where you didn't walk away from the Lord, you know, in general? What would be the thing that kind of kept you? continually coming back to God in the midst of that. Clark Bates (57:45) would say two things, think maybe. One is that my wife and I have experienced God in so many ways. Doing things that can be explained only through His providence. That we knew God was there. We knew He was real. That sort of didn't go away. But that didn't mean we always understood. Teasi Cannon (58:11) Mm. Clark Bates (58:13) So I did have that, did have it, as much as I couldn't see it, I did know I would have to keep telling myself, well remember this time, remember when you did this, you know God brought you to the UK, you know that, you know that's where you're at, you know, you had to keep telling yourself that. But beyond that, say I mean just to go back to you know it's not it's probably not unusual that I I mean I work with the text so the text is the most important thing to me in many ways but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what's in that is reliable and you know I could put it this I mean I didn't it's not on my bio maybe it should be but you know if you hear about a year or two ago I edited a volume of apologetic chapters for Frank Turek called Faith Examined. ⁓ And I have a chapter in that. And it's about the reliability of the Bible, or reliability primarily of the New Testament. And we talk about that. what I kind of ask is, what do you mean by reliable? Because some people mean historically reliable. Some people mean, the text reliable? Ultimately what we're asking is, is it reliable to guide my life? Can I trust what it says? I think I call it like epistemically reliable for a big word. Can I trust it to tell me what to do with my life? Teasi Cannon (59:37) Yeah. Clark Bates (59:44) And of course that follows from how accurate it is. It follows from historical, it follows from textual. But because those things are there, I can say yes, you absolutely can. There's a British theologian named Daniel Strange that has what he has a book about, these called magnetic points. Everybody has them in their life. They're always looking for a way to explain reality. They're looking for a way to ⁓ live. in this world, they have a yearning to be delivered from oppression and suffering. They need a sense of destiny for their life and they struggle with the reality of higher power that is inside them. And something he points out, and I will affirm, is that Christianity is the only one that answers all five. Teasi Cannon (1:00:29) Wow. Clark Bates (1:00:31) And it's because we have the very words of Christ in Scripture and of those who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote what He would have them write. You know, we have the Creator and Sustainer of the world speaking to us. It connects us to reality. He sent His only Son to deliver us from suffering. He promises a life more abundantly in Him, our way to live. He gives us that sense of destiny that He will conform us to the image of His Son and that we will have this eternal life with Him. And the higher power Himself is the one communicating that to us, that loved us. God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. All five of those are in scripture and at every point in time we even Christians go up and down on where we are in understanding those needs and You know, maybe I'm getting off on a soapbox but In our experiences of suffering I have to go back to those points come up whether I'm consciously thinking about them or not You know, what is God doing? Why am I going through this and all I can do is all I can tell people is go back to the scriptures Teasi Cannon (1:01:57) Mm-hmm. Clark Bates (1:01:58) They might say, where do I go? I've heard other guests on here say the Psalms, and I agree, the Psalms are fantastic. I have prayed the Psalm 23 in tears. But honestly, I would tell you, you can go anywhere. I went to Ruth. God will speak to you there, because He's present there. And so for me, I think there is an experiential side of it. Teasi Cannon (1:02:11) Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Clark Bates (1:02:23) when I don't have that experience to draw on or just cannot get to it. I always have the word to open. Teasi Cannon (1:02:30) And it is a miracle gift. Just the prophecies and how it's consistent and the overall message. I mean even thinking about how many different authors over how many different years and different geographical locations and different vocations and all of these people speaking to this hope that you and I are clinging to today in Christ and I'd love that we have a God who isn't hiding, that we have a God who is with us and has made himself known in the words of scripture. And I also really love that you have reminded all of us about the providential peace. This is, yes, a collection of ancient literature documents. but it isn't just written by human hands. There is the act of God's guidance, His providence, Him making sure that we today can still trust Him and know Him in His word. And that is, it's a huge gift and I'm really thankful, Clark. I don't wanna keep you too much longer because I promised I wouldn't keep you very long. ⁓ And really what you've just said is kind of just a final word of encouragement, but I do wanna ask if there was was one more thing you would want to say to anyone who's hurting or going through something similar if you have any final words of encouragement that you would want to share. Clark Bates (1:04:03) I would say that when you go through things like this, especially with your children, you have two options in front of you. You can walk away from God, or you can draw closer to it. You are not going to find peace. You are not in walking. encourage you, as difficult as it may be, to use it to draw closer to him. Lean. I tell people, I think the image I give people is if you've ever taken a child on a roller coaster for the first time, they grab onto you like their life depended on it because they can't stop what's happening. But they somehow know that if they just grab onto dad, it'll be okay. that, even if they're, yeah, screaming tears, the whole thing, be that child. Be that child. Cling to the father. Teasi Cannon (1:04:54) even if they're screaming. Yep, even if they're scared and screaming. Yeah. Yeah. Clark Bates (1:05:06) That's where you're going to find hope. That's where you're going to find help. That's the only answer. Teasi Cannon (1:05:11) Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I am going to put some links in the show notes on just textual criticism. Do you have a website or anywhere where people can find you and what you're doing or? Clark Bates (1:05:27) These days I'm pretty much on Facebook. You can find me just by typing in my name, Clark Bates, think. But I don't have a website anymore. if you reach out to me on Facebook, if you want to talk about any of those things, I'm pretty open. I'm reachable. I don't ignore people. So you'd be happy to reach out to me there. Teasi Cannon (1:05:32) Okay. Okay, great. Well, I'll put your I'll put your social media information in the show notes as well. And also people can follow you to support your ministry. You are going on the mission field and you need support all the time. So if anyone's interested in supporting Clark and his precious family, then I'll put that, go find him on social media for sure. And then just, I wanna thank everyone who's listened. I know this has been a very tender and difficult topic, but what a glorious God we have to know that there's so much hope still. Clark Bates (1:05:50) Yes, thank you. Yeah. Teasi Cannon (1:06:13) and I will though in the show notes I do want to include just a suicide hotline when we talk about this topic. I think it's really important that people are very familiar with how to get help for anyone walking through this and ⁓ Also just information on how to start studying apologetics if you'd like to so that you have a substantiated faith that you know you're not alone, that God's promises aren't empty. And if this conversation has encouraged you at all or you know someone who might be encouraged by it, I would love it if you would share it with others. Consider subscribing as well so that you will not miss a single moment of true comfort. Thank you guys so much and thank you Clark.