Latest / The Immutable Word / EP033 The Doctrinal Expression Model: Two Whys for Every What - Speak Your Faith with Clarity
Transcript
- 0:04And baptists shy away from that intellectualism because
- 0:08they see that they think it's an enemy but the
- 0:10truth of the matter is our shallowness is because we've
- 0:14reverted to emotional preaching christians were not taught how to articulate
- 0:19and they were not given good reasons they were just told to believe it our churches
- 0:25should be training grounds for apologetics our churches should be training grounds
- 0:30for Christian intellectualism.
- 0:32Our churches should be training grounds for that stuff, but they're not.
- 0:36The failures of teaching the next generation is that we don't establish and
- 0:40ground them in the faith.
- 0:42And one of the model they came up with was called the two whys for every what.
- 0:53Hey, we're back with another episode here at The Immutable Word.
- 0:56I have Robert with me today.
- 0:59Today we're going to be talking about a particular framework for articulating
- 1:03our beliefs and how to structure it and organize our thoughts.
- 1:07And I was thinking about this. A lot of people have problems with trying to
- 1:11convey something that they know. It could be anything.
- 1:15We're going to talk about our faith today and how we can break it down.
- 1:19But have you ever come across anybody that just had a really hard time communicating
- 1:24what they believed or just even just explaining something in general because
- 1:29they can't organize their thoughts.
- 1:31They have everything they need. They know what they know, but they just have
- 1:35a hard time conveying exactly what it like what I'm doing right now.
- 1:39I'm guilty of it. But have you run across people like that?
- 1:43Yeah, I mean, I've run across people on both sides of the fence, right?
- 1:46Either believers or unbelievers alike. Like, I experienced it several times,
- 1:52you know, over the course of my Christian walk in faith.
- 1:57And I don't know how many times I've been faced with a dilemma or a challenge to my faith.
- 2:03And I knew that a doctrine was right before.
- 2:08But I struggled with how to explain it to somebody.
- 2:11It's like you're trying to organize your thoughts in a cohesive way or a particular
- 2:16order. You just can't get it out.
- 2:18I mean, aside from the emotions, aside from the fallacy stuff that we've been
- 2:22talking about, it's just, I go through that too.
- 2:25It's just like, you know, you have the knowledge, but you're not able to spit
- 2:29it out with clarity. Well, Dennis Prager of PragerU, he said this quote.
- 2:37I love this quote. He said, I'd rather have clarity than agreement. That's what he said.
- 2:44And meaning that most arguments, most conversations, you're not even really
- 2:49clear about what you're discussing.
- 2:52And so you go down these multiple rabbit holes. And again, it's because somebody
- 2:57just does not know how to communicate clearly and effectively.
- 3:01There's another statement I heard a military leader. I can't remember.
- 3:06It was an officer of some sort, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Major.
- 3:09I can't remember. But he said this. He said that he said efficient communications is, how did he say it?
- 3:17He said it's like using an economy of words.
- 3:21So you're saying something that's profound in the least amount of words possible,
- 3:27which kind of comes down to the bluff thing that we've talked about before, bottom line up front.
- 3:32And I'll tell you really two reasons why people don't do it.
- 3:36Number one, I think is the most obvious, is they really don't know why they
- 3:41believe what they believe. So it's hard to explain to somebody.
- 3:44They just believe it by blind faith, right? The other one is,
- 3:49is they've never really sat down to comprehend it enough to communicate it to somebody else.
- 3:56Somebody once said that a great sign of a great teacher or, you know, a great,
- 4:03you know, a proof or attributes or characteristics of a great teacher is that
- 4:07they can take something complicated and then simplify it in their own words and teach others.
- 4:13I think it was C.S. Lewis that said something like that. He says, if you can't.
- 4:19Rephrase a complicated thought or principle in uneducated words,
- 4:25he said, you didn't really understand it in the first place.
- 4:29So that's what it boils down to. The reason why we have, we struggle with articulation
- 4:34is because we haven't actually sat down and thought through it.
- 4:39Yeah, that reminds me. We're both in tech and in our earlier days,
- 4:45you know, we were technicians and engineers, and we had to understand at a very technical level.
- 4:50And part of it was drawing things like networks and memorizing all the network
- 4:57components and how they talk to each other.
- 5:00And then a lot of times you were then tasked with training others,
- 5:04other techs, other engineers, to understand networks.
- 5:08But you had to break it down. Right.
- 5:12And I know that forced me to break it down into the most simplest terms.
- 5:16And I loved drawing on the whiteboard because that's like a perfect way to do
- 5:20it and show pictures of things. I like pictures.
- 5:24And if somebody's trying to explain something to me, I usually try to tell them
- 5:28like, look, tell me like I'm three years old because you want to grasp on as
- 5:32quickly as you can to the concept that they're trying to teach you. Right.
- 5:36So if somebody can break it down that way, that means they have a fundamental
- 5:38understanding of something that's complicated. So that is very true.
- 5:43Yeah, somebody once said that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it.
- 5:48And because if you, because in order to teach it, you got to put it in words
- 5:54that not only you understand, but to the point where your students or your audience understands it.
- 6:00There's a, and you know, this is, this gets a little bit deeper into comprehension,
- 6:06learning comprehension, but there's a taxonomy, which is just means structure,
- 6:11but it's called Bloom's taxonomy.
- 6:12And you learn from Bloom's taxonomy that the most basic, basic,
- 6:18basic level of understanding is repetition.
- 6:20You just repeat data and facts. That's it.
- 6:23And then as you get, as you move up that taxonomy, it's a pyramid that,
- 6:29you know, that you eventually get to repetition to where now you can kind of
- 6:34articulate it in your own words.
- 6:35And then you get to the point where now you can take complex ideas and principles
- 6:41as part of whatever that knowledge structure is, and you can simplify it.
- 6:45And then you get to the point where now you are contributing to that particular knowledge base.
- 6:50You're coming up with innovation and
- 6:53ideas new information right but it has to
- 6:56do it so he so he levels that in
- 7:00bloom's taxonomy he shows that that shows a mastery of comprehension that's
- 7:06how that's the levels of learning and unfortunately most people most americans
- 7:10because they're just entertained the only level to ever get to is repetition
- 7:16they know their phone number they know their birth dates.
- 7:20They know how to get to and from work through muscle memory,
- 7:22driving. You know what I mean? That's the level of comprehension they'll get to.
- 7:26They'll never get to the point where they get to the creative stage where they're
- 7:30literally innovating and creating and contributing to philosophies and ideas
- 7:36and deeper meaning of thought.
- 7:37That's just not the way we are, you know? And so there's, and you know,
- 7:42we've talked about it before when we are talking about fallacies,
- 7:45but one of the reasons for apologetics.
- 7:48You know, the ability to be able to defend your faith and contend for the faith,
- 7:51one of the reasons why we're so weak at it, especially Baptists.
- 7:57Baptists are terrible at this. I'm embarrassed to say that a lot of our Protestant
- 8:02brethren on the Reformed side, Calvinists and whatnot, tend to be more intellectual than Baptists.
- 8:08And Baptists shy away from that intellectualism because they see that,
- 8:13they think it's an enemy.
- 8:14But the truth of the matter is our shallowness is because we've reverted to
- 8:19emotional preaching instead of intellectual preaching.
- 8:23You know, you cannot love God with your mind if you don't think intellectually. Anyway.
- 8:28All that, to me, is the fruit of not being able to articulate what you believe.
- 8:33But there was a, you know, if you take Protestant catechisms,
- 8:37and catechism, you know, there's a negative connotation to it because the Catholics
- 8:41have used it, right? But Protestants also have their own catechism.
- 8:45And all catechism simply means is teaching.
- 8:48That's it. It's just teaching. It's a baptism. Yeah.
- 8:52And what they did in Protestant catechisms is they would establish when kids
- 8:59were young, I mean, you're talking about three, four, five years old on up.
- 9:04Stuff like the Baptist distinctives and things like that. Yeah,
- 9:07you would take, like, say, Statement of Fates.
- 9:09And so they would be like, for example, one of the catechisms is,
- 9:13what is the purpose of man? And the purpose of man is to worship and love his
- 9:18God. And they would memorize that and they would associate a verse with it.
- 9:23Romans 4.12, for example, for thy pleasure we were and are created,
- 9:29right? Or something like that.
- 9:30So they would memorize a statement. They would ask a question.
- 9:34That's what the catechism was. What is the purpose of man?
- 9:37Or what is the sole purpose of man? the sole purpose of, and they would rephrase
- 9:42the question and then answer it. What is the purpose of man?
- 9:45The sole purpose of man is to glorify and to worship his God.
- 9:50So it was just, they would drill that into the children.
- 9:53So immediately, anytime that child was ever questioned or challenged for their
- 9:58faith, they would immediately draw back on the catechisms they learned. That's a memory.
- 10:03Matter of fact, there was a missionary to the New Hebrides islands.
- 10:07He was a Scottish missionary.
- 10:09It's going to bug me that I don't...
- 10:13Oh, New Hebrides. It's like crying at the tip of my tongue. It's yeah.
- 10:17He's a Scottish missionary. He went to the New Hebrides Islands and his dad
- 10:23was a minister or he was, I think he was an elder or a deacon or something like that. John Patton.
- 10:30Patton. Patton. Okay. John Patton or Payton. Sometimes people say it,
- 10:33but John Patton, and this was in the 1800s and John Payton, he grew up in Scotland
- 10:39before he went to the New Hebrides.
- 10:40Now, the New Hebrides Islands was completely peopled by cannibals.
- 10:45Two missionaries attempted to try to reach the New Hebrides prior to John Payton
- 10:50landing on the island, and as soon as they hit the beaches, they were killed and eaten.
- 10:55He landed there and ended up spending over 40 years in the New Hebrides Islands
- 11:01and the chain of islands in that area, South Pacific Islands.
- 11:04He ended up converting nearly almost every cannibal to Christianity over 40 years.
- 11:10He buried most of his kids, his wife there.
- 11:14Matter of fact, he had to guard his wife's grave so that they wouldn't dig it up and eat her body. Wow.
- 11:19Well, anyway, somebody had asked John Payton one time, how did you make it?
- 11:24How did you survive 40 years in a cannibalistic society of heathens and pagans?
- 11:31How did you do it? And you know what he said?
- 11:33He says it's two things. Number one was the memory of my father,
- 11:36because his father had a great influence on his life.
- 11:39His father was phenomenal prayer warrior.
- 11:42He would hear his father. Matter of fact, he said that one time a harlot in
- 11:46their town, a famous harlot, very well-known harlot, ended up getting saved
- 11:51overhearing John Payton's father praying in his prayer closet.
- 11:56She was next to the window and she was hiding or trying to get shelter from
- 12:00the weather, and she overheard him praying.
- 12:03And just his prayers alone, she got under conviction and ended up getting saved.
- 12:06That was the kind of prayer life that his father had. Then secondly,
- 12:10he said, was the catechism I was taught.
- 12:13Every time I was challenged by the pagan, heathen worldview,
- 12:18I would immediately fall back on my catechism that structured my faith and reminded
- 12:25me why I believe what I believed.
- 12:27That's the importance. That's the practical aspect of it. And Baptists have missed that.
- 12:32You try to talk to the average Baptist and say, hey, why do you believe,
- 12:36why do you go to a Baptist church?
- 12:39Man, nine times out of ten, they have no clue. My parents, my grandma.
- 12:44I've just, I've always been, or these people are really nice or they have great
- 12:48singing here and people cannot articulate.
- 12:51Like if, if, if you had to sit and let's just say you were in front of a court
- 12:55and you're in front of a judge and you have a jury sit in the jury box and you're
- 12:59in front of this big audience in the court.
- 13:01And they said, okay, David, Sue, you're sitting in the box or you're a lawyer.
- 13:07You need to make a legal, logical argument for why you're a Baptist. What would you do?
- 13:16What would you fall back on? What would you rely on? What would you appeal to?
- 13:22Christian performance. But you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I know.
- 13:25I mean, it's easy to be sarcastic about it because it's a joke.
- 13:29Because I'll be honest with you, most Baptist, most Bible-believing Baptists
- 13:34do not know how to articulate why they believe.
- 13:37I listened to, and it was a short. It was a YouTube short. I heard it the other day.
- 13:44And it's a podcast. I'm not going to name the podcast because I actually like
- 13:48the podcast. It's actually a really good Bible-believing podcast.
- 13:51But it was, again, it was a snippet of a conversation. So it's hard.
- 13:54I'm not going to make a hasty generalization, you know, and take a small amount
- 13:57of data and make a judgment.
- 13:58But what he said in that snippet actually mirrors what a lot of believers say.
- 14:05So, and the title of it was, you know, why do you believe the King James Bible is the Word of God?
- 14:10And you know what he said in the little, whatever, minute and a half short?
- 14:15He goes, because the Holy Spirit told me in my heart that this was the Word of God.
- 14:21Now, I understand the conviction behind that, and there's nothing wrong with
- 14:26that conviction, but that short little, you know, spurt, because he started
- 14:31kind of almost preaching a little bit, right?
- 14:33He didn't provide any evidence. There was no logical premise.
- 14:38Appeal to feeling or appeal to emotion.
- 14:41Right. I mean, it was a circular argument begging the question because he really
- 14:44didn't provide any evidence for it. He just made a claim.
- 14:47And of course he was appealing to pity, which is, man, I just feel this in my
- 14:52heart, You know, and listen, there's no, we talked about it before about fact, feeling, faith, right?
- 14:59Or fact, faith, feeling.
- 15:02The feeling is always the last part.
- 15:05I have strong confidence and peace whenever I read my Bible and knowing that's
- 15:11the absolute Word of God. No problem.
- 15:13I have no issues with that. But it's based off of the right facts.
- 15:17So, anyway, kind of going back to the articulation thing.
- 15:21Before we get into the model here, which we'll go into a second,
- 15:25we've talked about how our Baptist brethren have often, or they don't understand,
- 15:31or they can't articulate why they are Baptist or believe what they believe. believe.
- 15:36Whether they understand it or not, they just don't know how to articulate it.
- 15:38You gave a good example of the missionary to the New Hebrides, right?
- 15:42And very quick to answer, he had catechisms and his father, being a Roman,
- 15:47had a strong prayer life.
- 15:49And does it seem like in the last 50 years that we've sort of veered off,
- 15:55our Baptist brethren have veered off from focusing on where they stand in their
- 16:01beliefs and really being able to articulate it to more of the feeling and performance Christianity?
- 16:06At what point in time do you think that's happened in the last 50 years or so? I don't, man.
- 16:10It's hard to say, because I want to say it's probably longer than that,
- 16:13because if you were to take 40 years ago, 30, 40 years ago, we had a huge rise in fundamentalists.
- 16:20And the fundamentalist movement focused on bus ministry, soul winning,
- 16:26building big churches, big Bible colleges, and things like that.
- 16:31So their thrust was numbers.
- 16:33Their thrust was performance. Their thrust was, you know, kind of a salesman
- 16:38type religion. Get as many people in.
- 16:41Get them saved. That's all it was. It was like, get them saved,
- 16:44do a short, quick discipleship, get them grounded.
- 16:47And the main focus is get them, you know, giving to missions,
- 16:52showing up for soul winning and getting involved in the church.
- 16:55I'd say like the 50s when all the revivals were happening.
- 16:58Yeah. Well, the fundamentalism itself...
- 17:01Gave rise actually in the 30s and 40s and
- 17:05it was supposed to be a counter to the destructive
- 17:08philosophies like marxism evolutionary you know
- 17:12that you know catholicism and and these modern versions
- 17:15and bibles that were coming out so they shifted strategies to get more people
- 17:18it was the other side of the ditch okay because what it is like oh well you
- 17:23know we just got to be you know what they did is they firmed up what they believed
- 17:26it was okkingay is his name harold I think it was kind of the leader of the
- 17:32fundamentalist movement.
- 17:33And what they did is they identified fundamentals that they all agreed on.
- 17:38We agree that Jesus was God. We believe that the Bible is the word of God.
- 17:44It's the final word of God, you know, so forth. So it's salvation by grace through faith.
- 17:47They would agree on certain fundamentals and emphasize that.
- 17:52Everything else was just artificial,
- 17:54it was artifacts because— Became less important or less emphasized.
- 17:58It wasn't important because the thing is, you know, you had to preach till you're
- 18:04blue in the face to convince people versus getting people to think through their faith.
- 18:10Critically think about why they believe what they believe. There was no critical thinking.
- 18:15There was no logical argumentation. So, in their minds, they wanted to remove
- 18:18the barriers of entry to Christianity.
- 18:22Yeah, yeah. Well, they saw intellectualism as the enemy of the faith.
- 18:26They saw it as a dichotomy. So it's like a, this was the separation of faith and reason.
- 18:32That's the dichotomy. Okay, that's when it happened. You cannot be a,
- 18:36you can't love God and be an intellectual.
- 18:40You see what I'm saying? So that movement, that's what really was born out of the 50s, 60s, 70s.
- 18:47And then, of course, in the 90s, they perfected it. And now we're at a point
- 18:51in the 2000s where those IFB movements, people hated them because it was all about performance.
- 18:59It was all about how you dress. Basically, you're right with God if you dress right.
- 19:03You give to missions. You tithe. You show up for soul winning.
- 19:07Now you're right with God. And this created what we have today,
- 19:11which is class Christianity or compartmentalized Christianity.
- 19:15You're either in or you're out.
- 19:18Well, and the point is this, when it comes to what we're talking about tonight,
- 19:22is the fact that Christians were not taught how to articulate,
- 19:26and they were not given good reasons.
- 19:29They were just told to believe it. If you don't believe that KJ's Bible is the
- 19:34word of God, then you're full of the devil. That's what it was.
- 19:38If you're a Baptist church, you ought to be in a good, soul-winning,
- 19:42fundamental, independent, Bible-believing Baptist church. Why?
- 19:45Because we're right and they're wrong. You know what I mean?
- 19:48That's it. There's no good reasons.
- 19:51There's no logical arguments. There's no premises that build towards a proposition
- 19:57or a conclusion or an affirmation of what we're trying to believe.
- 20:01Like when somebody says, hey,
- 20:02why do you believe the word of God is preserved in the King James Bible?
- 20:07Well, let me walk through my good reasons.
- 20:10And here's the thing, because people aren't trained that way,
- 20:15they're not going to articulate their faith that way. Number two,
- 20:18because they do not have good reasons for their faith, they're not going to articulate it that way.
- 20:24So that's the problem is they've never been trained that way.
- 20:27Our churches should be training grounds for apologetics.
- 20:31Our churches should be training grounds for Christian intellectualism.
- 20:35Our churches should be training grounds for that stuff, but they're not.
- 20:39So we've had a departure, let's say I said 50, it's really 100,
- 20:43because this is, I think this was repetitive.
- 20:46This was drilled into our children in the 1800s.
- 20:50And then that's when, late 1800s when evolution came along and the whole modern
- 20:55thinking, German rationalism and all that.
- 20:57You know what all people have to do today, honestly, pick up a book written
- 21:04by a Baptist in the 17-1800s.
- 21:07Read it.
- 21:08Read their arguments. Maybe we'll provide some resources as an example.
- 21:13So what we're really doing here today, this is a little bit of a history list
- 21:15of why we're even here talking about this, is because in the last hundred years,
- 21:20we've departed from where we came from, where we want to come back to again.
- 21:25And, and so this is, we're going to be talking.
- 21:28So let's, before, before we get into, and, and the model is simple.
- 21:32That's why, but I'm going to say this.
- 21:35Part of the reason for the model is that we want to make sure we are clear on
- 21:40why we believe what we believe.
- 21:42So when somebody hears it, there's no ambiguity, there's no confusion,
- 21:47there's no mischaracterization, right?
- 21:49They know exactly what we're arguing for. That way you know exactly what to
- 21:54defend and you would know exactly you know how to how to resolve their objections
- 21:59when you hear them You don't go off into irrelevance.
- 22:03You don't go off onto red herrings and rabbit trails the one of the one of the
- 22:07most important effective methods of debate or discussion or argumentation or
- 22:13dialogue is to make sure that you stick to the point.
- 22:16And if you don't know how to articulate your faith in the first place,
- 22:20you'll never make a point. You need to go back and study. Yep. Yeah.
- 22:24All right. So, today we're talking about the doctrinal expression model,
- 22:28the model that you've been alluding to.
- 22:30Yep. A great way to structure your beliefs, your thoughts, and be able to convey
- 22:36it in a clearer way. And there's three parts to it.
- 22:39I'll let you explain it. Yeah. What is it?
- 22:41Why is it true? It doesn't matter. Yeah. Let me get to this point.
- 22:45Number one is, I didn't make up this model originally.
- 22:49I've built upon it. So I read a book, you know, that I'd like for us to do an
- 22:55evaluation of at some point, but it's called So the Next Generation May Know by two apologists.
- 23:01One is Josh McDowell, and another one is Brother Wallace.
- 23:07Book here, I think. Yeah, Brother Wallace is the one that— Jay Warner Wallace.
- 23:12Paulus is, you know, he's an ex-cold case detective, and both of them are apologists.
- 23:17They train in apologetics, but they were youth ministers at one point.
- 23:22And they said one of the failures of teaching the next generation is that we
- 23:27don't establish and ground them in the faith.
- 23:29And one of the things that they would, the model they came up with was called
- 23:33the two whys for every what.
- 23:35And they said no matter what the topic is It can be, you know,
- 23:39it can be religion It can be the cult, paganism It can be doctrines like the
- 23:46deity of Christ The blood of Christ, eternal security,
- 23:48heaven or hell That you would always express those beliefs Using the what and
- 23:55the two whys And what it is simply is this Is for every what,
- 24:00that's the doctrine That's the claim, that's the assertion that's the conclusion
- 24:05that you're trying to prove, you have two whys.
- 24:07The first why is, why is it true?
- 24:11That's where you provide the evidence for the what.
- 24:14So if you say, I believe Jesus Christ is God, okay, why is that true?
- 24:19And then you show Jesus Christ received worship, Jesus Christ claimed to be
- 24:24equal with the Father, Jesus Christ exhibited divine.
- 24:29Immutable attributes, right, that are incommunicable, meaning that man can't
- 24:33just picked them up, right? He was eternal. He was omniscient.
- 24:37Jesus Christ raised himself from the dead, so forth and so on, right?
- 24:41Those are the things that show why it's true.
- 24:45Okay, then the second why is why does it matter? That's where you show what
- 24:50is the implication if I reject this?
- 24:53What is the consequence if I reject this what that Jesus Christ is God?
- 24:58Well, if you reject it, then what happens is salvation, the doctrine of salvation
- 25:04falls apart because if Jesus Christ wasn't God, he didn't have God's blood and
- 25:09his blood that was shed could not save you and I and we're on our way to hell.
- 25:12So what they did is they took the two whys for every what, and they basically
- 25:17said, look, if every Bible teacher, every preacher,
- 25:21every, you know, institute professor would adopt that model,
- 25:26two whys for every what, they would be able to give a fully balanced articulation
- 25:32of whatever doctrines we believe.
- 25:34And he said this, he said, and this is what they said, both Wallace and McDowell.
- 25:40They said, look, when you teach your kids the what that we believe, you're clarifying.
- 25:46You're giving them the bottom line up front. You're giving them the conclusion.
- 25:50This is what we believe, period.
- 25:52That's the 30-second response. okay?
- 25:56When you show them why it's true, you're grounding them in scriptural evidence why it's true.
- 26:03Then some kids will get that. Some kids say, yeah, you know what?
- 26:07I believe Jesus Christ is God.
- 26:09But the last part, the why it matters, is keeps them in the faith,
- 26:14keeps them in church, and keeps them motivated, and gives them a reason why
- 26:20they should defend the truths of the Word of God against the pagan religions
- 26:26and the false biblical worldviews.
- 26:28That's what they showed. It's a balanced way.
- 26:31So what I did is just built my doctrinal expression.
- 26:36I call it doctrinal expression. Same anatomy with the what's and the two why's.
- 26:40And for those who are familiar with bluff, I really like bluff because it's
- 26:44always kept me on track. It's the same thing.
- 26:47You're stating the thing bottom line right up front. It's an elevator pitch.
- 26:51Right. Hey, look, this is what I believe.
- 26:53This is why I believe it. This is why it's important.
- 26:56And the why it's true is if you have, let's just say, give me a scenario.
- 27:01You're in an elevator. Somebody says, oh, wow, you know, you go to a Baptist
- 27:05church. Why are you a Baptist?
- 27:07Okay. The assertion or the conclusion is, I would say my 30 second response
- 27:12is, well, because the Baptist church is the closest thing to the model of the
- 27:16New Testament church in the Bible.
- 27:18Okay, that's a big claim. I just gave him bottom line up front.
- 27:22But let's just say his next question is, why do you think that's true?
- 27:28That's the why it is true. That's the second part of that, the doctrinal expression
- 27:33model, right? The first why.
- 27:35That's where I provide the evidence for it.
- 27:37There's a longer conversation. Maybe we go sit down and have coffee and I'll go.
- 27:41Now, what I did is I divided the why it's true into two subparts, okay?
- 27:48And that is, what is the nature of biblical evidence?
- 27:52It's two subparts. Number one, it's explicit passages of Scripture, okay?
- 27:59There's explicit evidence in Scripture, meaning the Bible says,
- 28:02you know, let's just say Jesus Christ is God.
- 28:04That's what we're arguing for, okay? The Bible says in John 1,
- 28:081, in the beginning was the Word, Word was with God, and the Word was God.
- 28:12The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3.16, or 1 Timothy 3.16, and, you know,
- 28:18the great ministry, the mystery is God manifest in the flesh, and so forth and so on.
- 28:23The Bible says that Jesus Christ is God, 1 John 5.7.
- 28:27Those are explicit passages, okay?
- 28:30That's the first part. That's the first part of the evidence you show.
- 28:33Then the second part is implicit proof or evidence.
- 28:38Implicit just means there's patterns in the Bible.
- 28:41There's a preponderance of scriptures that lead us to a biblical conclusion.
- 28:47For example, Jesus received worship. He never stopped anybody from worshiping him.
- 28:52Jesus forgave sins when the Pharisees knew that only God could forgive sins.
- 28:57Jesus Christ claimed to be able to lay down his life and to take it back up again, right?
- 29:03Jesus said things like, before Abraham was, I am.
- 29:07Because this is the reason why the explicit and the implicit evidence is so
- 29:12important is because it's a holistic, balanced way to prove why something's true.
- 29:17Muslims will come to you and say, well, show me in the Bible where Jesus said, I am God.
- 29:22Right? And it's an argument from silence. Well, God, he never said it,
- 29:26therefore it must not be true. No, no.
- 29:28The word Trinity isn't the Bible, but it's taught implicitly through the Bible.
- 29:32The word rapture is not in the Bible, but it's implicit all through scripture. You see what I mean?
- 29:38Can you give us a secular example of this? What's that?
- 29:42About the implicitness of proving something that's true.
- 29:47You don't have to specifically say it, but maybe it's— That's what the patterns
- 29:51are in the Bible. We say pattern.
- 29:53Is there a pattern that you can find? Are there— Is it consistent?
- 29:58Right. Well, it's consistent. It'll never contradict itself.
- 30:01But implicit means implied.
- 30:04Right. Like if you told your, let me think, your wife tells you to go to the
- 30:09store and, you know, she says, man, I'd love to eat cereal, but you know there's no milk.
- 30:15So there's an implied ask, can you go get milk? Because you usually eat it.
- 30:19She didn't explicitly say it, right?
- 30:21But that's what implied means. It means, that's what implicit means.
- 30:25It's something is implied. It is not explicitly stated.
- 30:28But it's all part of the body of evidence. evidence yeah
- 30:31when we say evidence again there's two types of
- 30:34evidence it's the nature of evidence in the bible is either
- 30:37explicit or implicit it is either by
- 30:41precept a thou shalt not or
- 30:44it is a implication it is a principle which is principles we covered principles
- 30:50have a much broader application okay so that's why you know explicit and implicit
- 30:57evidence in your bible is a balanced way to prove something is true.
- 31:02Okay? So, the Bible is not, we don't believe in solo scriptura.
- 31:08We believe in sola scriptura. What's the difference?
- 31:12Solo means all truth is found in the Bible.
- 31:16Every single truth, the fact that all the ingredients of pizza is found in the Bible.
- 31:20No, that's not what we believe. We believe that the fundamental truths of the
- 31:26nature of the universe is in the
- 31:28Word of God, but they're not going to be explicitly stated all the time.
- 31:33You're going to find implicit principles found throughout the Bible, okay?
- 31:39So when we talk about the proof, it's always going to be explicit.
- 31:42Cite the verse, state the doctrine directly. What is the verse?
- 31:47Like the preservation of God, Psalm 12, 6, and 7 says, the words of the Lord
- 31:51are pure words as silver tried in first earth, you know, seven times so forth.
- 31:55And he says, thou shalt keep them, thou shalt preserve them from the,
- 31:59that's an explicit statement.
- 32:01Well, what are the implicit statements about preservation?
- 32:05Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words not pass away.
- 32:07He doesn't say that he's going to preserve them in that, but it's implied that
- 32:12the Bible is going to be around after the heaven and earth are gone.
- 32:16You see what I'm saying? So implication, Anyway, so when you when you're trying
- 32:20to prove something is true, you're proving it through explicit proof or implicit proof. OK, both.
- 32:27Yeah. So that's why that's a good way to articulate it.
- 32:31And, you know, I don't want to try to get, you know, we're moving away from
- 32:35this articulation model because it is a very simple model. But the point of it is this.
- 32:41Whenever you claim the what, it's your proposition. It's right up front what
- 32:45it is you believe. I believe Jesus Christ is God.
- 32:47Okay. Then the next step is the why is it true?
- 32:51I'm going to show you both explicit statements in scripture,
- 32:54and I'm going to show you implicit principles and proves in Scripture that Jesus is God.
- 33:01That's what it is. And then the implication of if you—and this is what we call
- 33:08the logical necessity, why it matters.
- 33:10Why does it matter that Jesus Christ is God?
- 33:14And this is why it's important, because if you don't express the why it matters,
- 33:20then somebody may not think it's important.
- 33:23Okay, great. You think Jesus is God, but not everybody, you know,
- 33:27I never saw Paul state Jesus Christ was God. So how do you know he saved?
- 33:32He never, because again, if Jesus Christ is not God, he did not have a,
- 33:39he didn't keep the law perfectly.
- 33:41He didn't satisfy the wrath of God and his blood, if it was human blood, couldn't save a flea.
- 33:47That's why it matters. So that's why you got to understand if you're going to
- 33:50tell somebody what you believe, number one, be able to tell them what you believe
- 33:55right at the top of your head.
- 33:56Number two, be able to prove it implicitly and explicitly.
- 33:59Then number three, explain to them why it matters. What happens if that doctrine is not true?
- 34:06That's it. That's as simple as it gets.
- 34:10Yeah. So three parts, the what, why is it true, why it matters. Remember that?
- 34:15Start with the bottom line up front that clarifies, and you're very specific
- 34:20in what it is that you're claiming.
- 34:22Right. And then you just back it up. You know your stuff. You're going to be
- 34:25able to cite your reasons behind it and why it matters, the impact.
- 34:31Yep. All right, so let's move into the primer on logical argument structure.
- 34:35I want to bring us into that one.
- 34:37Yeah, I mean, when it comes to logical argumentation, when you learn,
- 34:42this is important like in apologetics, is how to construct a logical argument.
- 34:47We're not talking about arguing like yelling at people.
- 34:50There's a difference. Logical arguments is a logical form or structure where
- 34:56you're presenting a case.
- 34:57You're presenting what's called your premises, which are your premises are your
- 35:02supporting evidence that leads to a conclusion, okay?
- 35:07So, you know, a real simple logical argument is this, all men are mortal.
- 35:12That's premise number one.
- 35:14Number two, Socrates is a man, okay?
- 35:17Then the conclusion is, therefore, Socrates is mortal.
- 35:21The reason, and that's called a syllogism, by the way, where you have a premise,
- 35:24premise, conclusion. So premise one, all men are mortal.
- 35:28You have to ask yourself, is that true? Well, yeah, that's true.
- 35:32That's deductively true, meaning that all men are mortal.
- 35:36Socrates is a man. He wasn't an angel. He wasn't a god. He was man.
- 35:41Therefore, he was mortal. Well, we know that to be true.
- 35:45So that's called a deductive argument, meaning that if the premise is true,
- 35:50then the conclusion will always be true. That's a deductive argument.
- 35:55So the argument is valid because the conclusion logically follows the premises.
- 36:03Meaning all men are mortal. Yes, all men are mortal.
- 36:06Socrates is a man. Yes, he was a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
- 36:10There's no disconjunction in that argument. It makes sense, and it makes sense
- 36:16that that conclusion works. That's what's called a valid argument.
- 36:20But it's sound because both of the premises are true.
- 36:25This is, you know, it gets deep into this part, but it's actually important
- 36:29to understand logical argumentation structure because most people don't give an argument.
- 36:34If you don't provide an argument, let's just say you just give a claim.
- 36:38Say the last part socrates is mortal and you
- 36:41just throw that out the problem is and a
- 36:44conclusion without a premise is literally
- 36:47an opinion you haven't provided any proof yeah anything with no evidence any
- 36:53any proof is that's all it is that's it and and if all you do is give a premise
- 36:58and you don't provide a conclusion then it's pointless it's just a set of facts okay all men are mortal,
- 37:06Socrates is a man, great, what's your point?
- 37:08You didn't make an argument. And the reason why that's important to understand
- 37:12is it is important for us as believers, and we never even went into this,
- 37:17but on the outset, there's two primary verses that we base this conversation on.
- 37:23Isaiah chapter 41 and verse 21, God said this, produce your cause,
- 37:28that's going to be your argument, produce it.
- 37:31Say it to the Lord, bring forth your strong reasons, say it to the king of Jacob.
- 37:37So he says, produce your conclusion, but you got to bring forth your premises,
- 37:41your supporting points.
- 37:43Don't just make a statement. Don't give me a cause without a reason for the cause.
- 37:49And then 1 Peter 3.15, which is the verse that we build the whole structure of apologetics on,
- 37:56it's the Bible says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer.
- 38:04That's an obligation. Be ready always.
- 38:07So whenever you feel like it, no, always.
- 38:10To every man. You mean to the people that want to hear?
- 38:14No, no, to every man that asks you a reason of the hope, not the hope,
- 38:20the reason behind the hope.
- 38:23Yes, I know you believe Jesus Christ is God, but why do you believe Jesus Christ is God?
- 38:27Yes, I know you go to, you believe it's right to go to a Baptist church,
- 38:31but why do you go to a Baptist church?
- 38:33Yes, I know you believe that it's just faith without works to get saved,
- 38:38but why do you believe that's true?
- 38:39I know you believe you can't lose your salvation, but why do you believe? You see the difference?
- 38:44Give a reason, you have to, they ask you the reason of the hope with meekness
- 38:50and fear, and that's the behavior and attitude we should have.
- 38:53So that's, this doctrinal expression model actually obeys those two verses.
- 39:01You are not obeying those two verses is that all you do is give a conclusion
- 39:06without a premise. Then it's just an opinion.
- 39:08You're not obeying those verses if all you're doing is giving a premise with
- 39:11no conclusion. You're not making a point.
- 39:13You're not giving a reason for the hope. You're just giving them the hope.
- 39:17So there's a problem. That's why the logical argument, you know,
- 39:20the logical argument model is so important.
- 39:23But if you stick with the two why's for every what, you're actually complimenting
- 39:29that because the what is your conclusion, okay?
- 39:33The why is it true is your primary premise. That's your main premise. Why is this true?
- 39:40Why does it matter is your secondary supporting premise because now what you're
- 39:46doing is showing there's an implication to this argument.
- 39:49Why does this argument even matter?
- 39:52Again, and let me give you a practical example. There was a video of an interaction
- 39:57between, you know, some transgenderists and this biology teacher.
- 40:02He was a fifth grade biology teacher, right?
- 40:04And they kept telling them that gender is fluid.
- 40:08That's what they kept saying. Well, gender is fluid. Gender is fluid.
- 40:12And his biology teacher, he says, you're not making an argument.
- 40:15You're just making a claim.
- 40:17He goes, what's your argument? You're not providing any proof.
- 40:20You just keep saying gender is fluid.
- 40:23We get caught up in those conversations. Like say, for example,
- 40:26you're knocking on a door and he says, hey, Jesus is the answer.
- 40:30Okay, great. I'll talk to you later. What's your point?
- 40:34You're not making an argument. You're just making a claim. Well,
- 40:36you know, it's just right to believe on Jesus. Okay, you're not providing any supporting evidence.
- 40:42Or you could say, look, Jesus received worship.
- 40:46And Jesus, you know, he fed the hungry and he clothed the naked.
- 40:52And he gave, you know, he gave places, the homeless places to rest.
- 40:57Okay, great. What's your point? You can make statements without a conclusion.
- 41:03Or you can give a conclusion without a premises and you're not providing a good
- 41:09logical reason for somebody to believe what you believe to be true.
- 41:15If you don't use the doctrinal expression model or you don't use a logical argument
- 41:20model in some form or fashion, then all you're doing is giving people your opinion
- 41:25or you're giving them a bunch of useless facts. That's it.
- 41:28That's why it's so important to learn how to explain these things.
- 41:33If you're a Bible teacher and you teach a bunch of kids, don't just,
- 41:38you know, show kids a bunch of little pictures and stuff like that.
- 41:41That's what the catechisms are so, that's the strength of the Protestant catechisms,
- 41:46is they would state up front what the belief is, right?
- 41:52But they would ask it in question form. They would answer the question and they
- 41:57would provide a verse of scripture as the supporting evidence.
- 42:00And that's what solidified the belief, their faith, that doctrinal belief in the child's mind.
- 42:07Let's look through some bad examples, because I think if you articulate some
- 42:11of these bad examples, you'll see why there's a problem with Christians today
- 42:16that don't know how to articulate their faith.
- 42:18Would you also say, too, that if they start training themselves to articulate
- 42:25their faith using this model, thinking logically, this will also keep them on
- 42:29track from committing fallacies, and we've been covering that. I hope so.
- 42:33That's the whole point of it. Here's an illogical argument.
- 42:37If your premises are not sound, what was the definition of a sound premises?
- 42:45It's because the premise is true, right?
- 42:48If your premise is not true, guess what? There's a fallacy.
- 42:52That's it. If your premises is not true, you've committed a fallacy.
- 42:56So if you're missing anything in this anatomy, you're committing some sort of
- 43:00fallacy for just throwing it. Yeah.
- 43:02So I want to be clear here because there's a friend of mine that likes to throw
- 43:06the word fallacy out almost every single time because something doesn't make sense to him.
- 43:11He says, and he'll send me a meme all the time and say, hey,
- 43:13is this fallacious thinking?
- 43:15I'm like, number one, it's just a statement. There's no argument here.
- 43:19Unless there's a practical application behind the statement,
- 43:22I can't tell you whether it's fallacious.
- 43:24So he's committing a fallacy. Fallacy, fallacy.
- 43:28But that's the point is, is, you know, I don't want to just throw the word fallacy
- 43:32out there just for the sake of throwing the word fallacy.
- 43:35When we say there is an error in the argument, either the premise is not sound
- 43:41or the conclusion is not valid. It does not follow.
- 43:45It's because it's possible you're committing a fallacy somewhere.
- 43:49Or you're at greater risk of creating a fallacy. Yeah, I mean,
- 43:52again, if it doesn't follow, it could be a formal fallacy.
- 43:58A formal fallacy is the structure of the argument is incorrect.
- 44:01There's post-ad hoc, there's a propter ergo hoc,
- 44:05there's different types of structures of arguments that are like,
- 44:10so for example, say that you're getting the conclusion ahead of the premise
- 44:14without arguing for the premise or providing evidence for the premise.
- 44:18That in itself could be a fallacy of
- 44:21structure anyway but that's why
- 44:24you know again we're not teaching apologetics here
- 44:26we're teaching a form of apologetics the doctrinal expression model is simply
- 44:31just to get you to articulate in a sound way a good reason for why you believe
- 44:37what you believe and yes it does prevent you from committing a logical fallacy
- 44:42because you're forced to think through your argument.
- 44:44You're not jumping to a conclusion or like, for example, if you don't provide
- 44:49a good argument for what you believe and all you do is provide a conclusion,
- 44:52then that's begging the question because that's circular reasoning.
- 44:56Remember what we said circular reasoning was? I believe this is true because
- 44:59it's true. Right. Well, why?
- 45:02Well, just because I think it's true. Well, look at these bad examples.
- 45:05I've written down a couple. Here's an argument from emotion, for example.
- 45:09I just feel in my heart that God wouldn't send people to hell.
- 45:12A loving God would never do that.
- 45:16Well, again, that's an argument from emotion. That's a fallacy.
- 45:20What's the point here? The point is, is they're providing a conclusion,
- 45:24but no premise, no evidence, nothing that will support that statement. It's just an opinion.
- 45:32So why is it flawed? The argument is based entirely on feelings and subjective
- 45:36ideas about love rather than biblical revelation. What is the biblical revelation
- 45:43supposed to be? Your biblical evidence.
- 45:45It makes human emotion the authority instead of scriptures. It's very subjective, right? Right.
- 45:51Ignores biblical texts and teaches, you know, right, that teach back,
- 45:55especially what the doctrine of hell is.
- 45:56Most people don't understand what the purpose of hell was, why somebody would go to hell.
- 46:02It's not because God is a bad God. It's because it is a necessary conclusion
- 46:08to a life that has rejected the revelation and truth of God.
- 46:13It basically tells you what you believe, but it doesn't offer a valid why.
- 46:18So that's the problem with that statement. It's just an opinion.
- 46:23You're not using the doctrinal expression why you don't believe a loving God
- 46:27would send people to hell.
- 46:28And here's the thing. If somebody were to respond to me to that,
- 46:31I just told my heart God wouldn't send people to hell.
- 46:34I might respond like, well, great, you're entitled to your opinion.
- 46:37But why do you think that's true?
- 46:39When you say, why do you think that's true? I'm forcing them to give me the
- 46:44evidence why they think it's true.
- 46:46And then I might ask to further challenge their paradigm and worldview.
- 46:52Why does that matter? What you're saying, why does it matter?
- 46:56If that's the case, that a loving God wouldn't send people to hell,
- 47:00who cares? Why does that matter?
- 47:01You know what I'm forcing them to do is I'm forcing them to justify their response.
- 47:06Another one is argument. So that's an argument from emotion that's very subjective,
- 47:10right? Well, here's an argument from tradition. This is what I'll hear.
- 47:13Both, matter of fact, all of these that I'm citing here, I've heard from Bible
- 47:17Believing Baptists in my own church.
- 47:20The argument from tradition. Our church is always taught that you get baptized to be saved.
- 47:25Now, I haven't heard this one in our church. Well, actually, I might have.
- 47:29But our church is always taught that you get baptized to be saved.
- 47:32My parents and grandparents believed it. So it must be true.
- 47:35Well, what's the flaw in this argument?
- 47:38It appeals to tradition as the authority, right?
- 47:42It's not, again, you're not substantiating that belief with scriptural evidence.
- 47:49The why it is true is completely ignored.
- 47:54And, of course, traditions, they can be valuable and they can be important,
- 47:59but they're not infallible.
- 48:02This gives you the real reasons behind a belief. I mean, it's the same thing
- 48:05about why you're a Baptist, why you believe the King James Bible is a word of
- 48:09God, because my grandma always used it.
- 48:13Again, yeah. It's all tradition. Yeah, it's appealed to faulty authority,
- 48:17which is tradition in this case, right?
- 48:19Yeah. And again, this approach, same thing as the other one,
- 48:22needs direct scriptural proof.
- 48:25You have to say, what is the reasons behind this?
- 48:30You can't just say that you need to be baptized to be saved.
- 48:33You need to provide the evidence.
- 48:36And again, you can't just say, well, it's true because it's always been true.
- 48:40Again, that's kind of a circular reasoning argument.
- 48:42Then you have the argument from personal preference. I don't believe the King
- 48:47James, I don't like the King James Bible because the language is too old and too hard to understand.
- 48:51I prefer versions easier to read, so that's one that's right for me.
- 48:54And of course, this is personal comfort becomes the preference in the final authority, right?
- 48:59The argument isn't evidenced, you know, of a translation's accuracy or even
- 49:04doctrinal faithfulness, right?
- 49:05It's the readability and the modern appeal, that's just an assumption,
- 49:09but it's not argued for. They haven't made an argument for this.
- 49:14It's just, you know, Again, it's a consumer-based choice rather than a theological
- 49:18conviction that's based off of Scripture.
- 49:22Principles, precept and principles, right? If you cannot back it up with Scripture,
- 49:26then I don't have a good reason to believe what you're saying is true.
- 49:29It's basically, again, just your opinion, right?
- 49:33Then, of course, you have the argument for an assertion, and this is circular reasoning.
- 49:38Here's the way it goes. Of course, there's a God. The world is just too complex
- 49:42to just have happened that way. It's just obvious.
- 49:45If you don't believe in God, you're an idiot.
- 49:48And some people even like to throw out Psalm, you know, 14, one or Psalm 50,
- 49:52you know, where they go, oh, well, you know, the fool said in his heart, there is no God.
- 49:57And that's all great and fine and dandy. And again, there's an old statement,
- 50:01maybe we'll do an episode on it, but the principle is never quote a verse.
- 50:05And because you don't, when you just quote a verse, you're leaving out the context.
- 50:10You're not providing any background behind the verse to justify,
- 50:14substantiate what you're trying to believe. But in this case,
- 50:17of course, there's a God.
- 50:18Okay? You didn't provide any evidence, right? Even if your conclusion is correct, right?
- 50:25Well, like I said, you've given a proposition, you've given the conclusion,
- 50:28but it's just a restated opinion without any supporting premises or evidence.
- 50:35Again, if you just give a conclusion with no premise, it's an opinion.
- 50:39If you give a premise but no conclusion, it's just a set of useless facts.
- 50:44That's it. If you can remember that.
- 50:48Hopefully, it'll try to force you to go, man, why do I believe the King James Bible is the Word of God?
- 50:53Why do I go to a Baptist church? Why do I believe in the pre-tribulation rapture?
- 50:59Why do I believe that the Jews, the state of Israel today under Netanyahu,
- 51:04is actually biblical Israel? Why do I believe that?
- 51:07Because if you cannot back it up with biblical evidence, then again,
- 51:13it's just an opinion. In this case, it's circular reasoning because they're
- 51:18just saying, well, why is that true?
- 51:19Of course there's a God. Well, because there is a God.
- 51:22That's what you're saying. Well, how do you know there's a God?
- 51:25Because he just is. I've heard that.
- 51:28Well, God said it. Therefore, I believe it. I mean, look at this world.
- 51:33It's beautiful, isn't it? Right. That's why.
- 51:37Again, this type of reasoning, it fails to engage logically,
- 51:41right? It's basically saying, look, it's true because it seems true to me.
- 51:46It's a personal opinion. It is an emotional thing or it's anecdotal because,
- 51:53you know, I believe it to be true because it's true for me.
- 51:56The problem with that, that leads to the philosophy is, well,
- 52:00your truth is just as valid as my truth is.
- 52:04And that's at the end of the day, what you're saying is there is no final scriptural
- 52:08authority to substantiate a belief.
- 52:11And so it kind of falls back.
- 52:14What is the whole point of this expression model? It's to train you to use a
- 52:19simple model to be able to give
- 52:22good reasons for why you believe what you believe. Here's the exercise.
- 52:26Somebody comes up to you. This is the way I would say every Christian listening to us.
- 52:31This is what you ought to do. Go through your statement of faith on your church website.
- 52:35Go to your church website. Look at your statement of faith. And it will say,
- 52:38we believe about the scriptures the following, and it'll list out whatever the statement is.
- 52:44It's going to say a conclusive statement, an assertion, a proposition.
- 52:48And then it may give supporting verses and evidence, right? It just may not
- 52:53be articulated that way.
- 52:55Use that as the basis of your articulation model. Now sit down and rewrite it this way.
- 53:00What is it I believe? What is it I believe about the scriptures?
- 53:04And then you can look at your statement of faith. Use that That's fine But see
- 53:09if you can reduce it Into a 30 second statement.
- 53:12What is it I believe about the scriptures? Well, I believe the scriptures are
- 53:15the inspired revelation of God. Okay.
- 53:19Now ask yourself the next question. Why do I think it's true?
- 53:22Why is it true that the scriptures are the inspired?
- 53:26Well, because it's self-evident and it's contained in scripture and it possesses
- 53:32the attributes of God himself.
- 53:35It's non-contradictory. It's immutable. It's consistent from Genesis to Revelation
- 53:40because it contains prophecy.
- 53:43It would have been impossible for me. You can come up with a thousand different
- 53:47premises to prove why it's true.
- 53:51And there's no limit to premises, by the way. You can have 20 premises if you want.
- 53:56But that's the truth. Then you have to answer the last why.
- 54:00Why does it matter? Why does it matter that the Bible is the inspired revelation
- 54:06of God? Why does it matter?
- 54:07Because if it's just another human book, why should I believe anything it says?
- 54:12Why should I believe what it says about heaven or hell? Why should I believe
- 54:16what it says about Jesus Christ being the way, the truth, and the life?
- 54:19Why should I believe anything it says about the resurrection?
- 54:22See the implications? That's why it's so healthy to go through your belief system.
- 54:28I believe every Christian listening to the sound of our voice ought to go through
- 54:33a list of everything they believe and try to prove it to themselves.
- 54:37Number one, why is it true? And then secondly, why does it matter?
- 54:42I think that's a really good exercise just in general.
- 54:46If you're trying to think of a way to reinforce this model, I was just thinking
- 54:50about it while you're saying, we should actually write our own statement of faith individually.
- 54:55Yeah, absolutely. Church is a good start, right? You can look at different churches'
- 54:59statement of faith or the church that you go to.
- 55:01But you, as an individual, should write your own statement of faith.
- 55:06I'm going to do one for myself. You know what I would encourage everybody to
- 55:09do? Here's a really good practical exercise.
- 55:13Open up the inner leaf of your Bible where it's blank and write down 10 of the
- 55:18most critical things you believe.
- 55:20What do you believe about heaven and hell? What do you believe about salvation?
- 55:23What do you believe about eternal security? What do you believe about the Bible?
- 55:26What do you believe about the Trinity?
- 55:28What do you believe about why you're a Baptist? What do you believe? I mean, all that stuff.
- 55:33And write it like using the what and the why it's true and the why it matters.
- 55:39Use that model for everything you believe and abbreviate it as best as you can
- 55:46in your inside the flap of your Bible.
- 55:48So when you're sitting down with your family and you're doing devotion and your
- 55:53kids say, Dad, why do we believe Jesus Christ is going to come first and we're
- 55:57not going to take the mark of the beast?
- 56:00And then go through and answer that question using the biblical expression model.
- 56:04Because you're going to tell them what it is we believe. Be clear.
- 56:08Define your terms. Make sure that the conclusion is absolutely fundamentally clear to your audience.
- 56:15Then the first why is it true is you're going to now prove why it is true.
- 56:20And you're going to use explicit and implicit proof as evidence.
- 56:25And then you want to make sure your kids understand, if you're doing a devotion, why this matters.
- 56:31If you can articulate your faith and your doctrinal beliefs using that simple
- 56:38model, trust me, not only is it going to reinforce and strengthen your faith,
- 56:42but it's going to reinforce and strengthen the faith of those that are listening to you.
- 56:45So if anybody has any questions, let us know, email us. I was just thinking
- 56:49that if anybody is interested, we can send you the show notes or share the show notes.
- 56:55I think it's a great reference to anybody who's getting familiar with this model,
- 56:59and you do a really great job of breaking it down. I actually have a – I can
- 57:03send you – I have a supplement that I gave to my students. Oh, a handout.
- 57:07Yeah, a handout for the expression model. Oh, beautiful.
- 57:10Okay. Yeah, so if there's anybody that's interested, let us know.
- 57:13Email us, drop us a message. If you want it, we'll send it to you.
- 57:16Can we put it in the podcast description?
- 57:22Yeah, we might be able to do that. Okay. Potentially.
- 57:24Yeah, we'll check it. If not, like you said, email us at theimmutableword at
- 57:29gmail.com or ping us on the podcast in the comment section or even in the YouTube
- 57:35section if you're interested in it.
- 57:37And we'll try to get back with you. Yeah, and eventually, when we do have the
- 57:40website up someday, we're going to start archiving these things there where
- 57:45it'll be available as resources to you as well.
- 57:47So, a couple takeaways. I thought those verses that we're mentioning here,
- 57:51everything here hinged on those, on the Word of God, right?
- 57:55So, Isaiah 41, 21, produce your cause, bring forth your strong reasons, right?
- 58:02Saith the king of Jacob, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always
- 58:06to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is
- 58:11in you with meekness and fear.
- 58:13That reason of the hope, I think, is so important because I remember reading
- 58:17over that passage a million times and just completely not paying attention to it.
- 58:22But it said, you know, because we always say, well, the answer is Jesus. Right.
- 58:26Because the answer is, you're right. You're absolutely right.
- 58:29The answer is, the conclusion is correct. But what are your premises?
- 58:32What's your supporting evidence to prove that's true? And then, why does it matter?
- 58:37So anyway, I just think that if you force yourself to ask those questions constantly.
- 58:42Trust me, you will start to challenge yourself.
- 58:46Ask yourself probing questions. And I'm going to say something to those of you
- 58:50that are afraid to witness.
- 58:51You're afraid to get you know engage in
- 58:54a conversation with your neighbor or you know
- 58:57person at the store or whoever you're trying to talk
- 59:00to about the faith the better you get at this biblical expression model the
- 59:07more confident and the more bold you'll be in your witnessing trust me because
- 59:12you will know why you believe what you believe so i mean think about this Here's
- 59:17a real super practical example.
- 59:19Some of you are huge sports fans and you can sit there and enumerate every sports
- 59:26fact about a team or a player or play or maybe even, you know,
- 59:32the procedural, you know,
- 59:34details of how to play a particular game.
- 59:37And you'll know that and you will argue till you are blue in the face with somebody.
- 59:42You're not afraid to get in somebody's face and argue your point and try to
- 59:48prove your point because you got the facts behind you.
- 59:51And when you have the facts behind you, it increases your boldness and your confidence.
- 59:55And I'm just telling you, if you learn how to express yourself and articulate
- 1:00:01your faith using this model, you will be able to have that same type of confidence.
- 1:00:07In telling others and contending for the faith and defending the faith.
- 1:00:11Yeah, again, not to be used against your spouse. I've tried.
- 1:00:16I was confident. I was bold. It didn't work. With all meekness in your heart,
- 1:00:20you know what I mean? Yeah, there you go. That's where you got to be humble.
- 1:00:24All right. All right, Robert, this was another good one. I think we'll wrap it up here.
- 1:00:28Again, reach out to us if there's any questions. We'll try to share out the
- 1:00:31show notes wherever or just ask us for it and we'll shoot it over to you.
- 1:00:36But I appreciate you tuning in. Hopefully this was helpful to you and we'll
- 1:00:40see you on the next one. Thank you.