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Is there more to life than this? And other Alpha questions · Red Couch Theology

• 0:00
  Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
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  Theology podcast. Hey, this week we ask several
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  questions. If you remember, we're tracking
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  with the Alpha class during this season of our show.
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  And this week we asked some questions about faith in life.
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  The first one came from one of Alex's sermons.
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  What is the good life as defined by Christianity?
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  Is there any benefit to Christianity other than this
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  promised of some future eternity?
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  Or is there something more? Is there some benefits inside of
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  this current life? And then we ask questions about
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  is there evidence for the historical Jesus?
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  Is there as evidence for the resurrection and things like
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  that. Let's dive right in.
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  And. And we're live.
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  Welcome. Welcome to the Right Couch
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  Theology podcast where I changed the preset on our camera so I
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  don't have to stand up and fix it.
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  Brilliant. Welcome to the Red Couch
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  Theology podcast, where a minute ago neither of us were in the
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  room. Yeah, we have lots to talk
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  about. We do, We do.
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  That's great. Yeah, because we actually had a
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  great question coming from the sermon and it might have been
• 1:18
  meant for the previous week. I can't recall.
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  I think sometimes there's been a couple weeks where a question's
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  been submitted, like right before the show and I don't see
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  it until after the show and we have some questions from Alpha
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  class. Oh man.
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  Alpha Kickoff last night, it was a great time.
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  We had 45 people, wow, sign up for this class.
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  A couple people couldn't make it this week for various reasons.
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  Including my wife. Including your wife.
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  Birthday party for a teenager. You know, that's an interesting,
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  you know. Important.
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  Thing, right, Well, you know, 14's I think, an age where you
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  don't want your mother not to turn up to your birthday party
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  but. Yeah, I don't know, maybe, Yeah.
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  So lots of ground to cover. So here's a couple of things.
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  I'll give an overview up top so you all can sort of start to see
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  where we're going to go. And I can do some planning as
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  well in the. Alex on one of the Sundays,
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  here's the question from the sermon and then the rest will be
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  on Alpha stuff, the passage John 8.
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  So that's a while back. But then and Alex talked about
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  Jesus, Jesus speaking the words about freedom and John 8 and
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  then obtaining life and life to the full.
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  Alex said real life in his sermon.
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  So the top the question is around what does that even look
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  like? Is there any any scripture that
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  gives us what life is the what's the good life?
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  What is this fullness of life look like?
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  Other than the promise of some eternal thing?
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  Is there any actual promise? So let's not answer it quite
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  yet. But that's one of the questions
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  like, you know, and maybe there's a little bit of a let me
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  read the end of the question because it's so well put.
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  Or we have a hope in Christ and can rest in that.
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  But what other Scripture helps us lay out what that life in
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  Christ beyond salvation is? Yeah, So great, Great, great
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  question. Then from Alpha, we talked
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  about, we had sort of an introductory session.
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  We talked about like if, if there is a God, what we want to
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  ask him and some of the questions that came out were
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  things like this. Why does God make it so
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  difficult to, to like see evidence of him in the world?
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  In the, in the video we, they talked about there's a lot of
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  evidence that Christ was historical.
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  They didn't give that evidence in this week.
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  Spoiler alert, this coming Alpha will give a little bit more of
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  evidence of Jesus. But I think one of the questions
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  is like, yeah, OK, great. Telling me that's one thing.
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  But can you give us some of the historical evidence for the the
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  historical Jesus and maybe the resurrection?
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  Then we have so, yeah, evidence that Jesus existed as a
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  historical figure and that he claimed to be God.
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  A little bit of evidence for the resurrection.
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  And then this one actually came up a lot when there was like, I
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  think that there one of the questions that came up around
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  the tables, at least around some of the tables was do you think
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  there's more to this? And that somehow spurred into,
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  you know what? I actually think there's maybe
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  lots of different paths to God. And is that true?
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  And why does Christianity have such an exclusive claim on, you
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  know, can't there be multiple paths?
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  There you go. There's We're gonna Go on this
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  episode. Man, we are going.
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  Yeah, we're we're going. Where are we starting?
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  I know this is the introductory session.
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  Yeah, I think we start with the John 8 'cause that was a couple
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  weeks ago. And then we go into the big
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  hairy topic of all these other questions.
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  And I think that was only a fracture like we had, you know,
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  as if as if we're gonna run out of time or things to talk about
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  with those few questions. But one of the questions we
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  asked last night in in alpha was if you if there, if it turns out
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  there is a God, what, what would you want to ask?
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  Yeah. And some of the things that
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  popped up around my table was like am I doing this right?
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  Are we good? God.
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  Or things like, yeah, why, why can't there be multiple paths to
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  God? Things like this.
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  So fascinating. Great questions.
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  Let's dive in. So rewind to the sermon.
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  I know this is going to feel a little bit of herky jerky, but
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  hey, this is what we signed up for during alpha, so you guys
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  are going to deal with it. We're catering to multiple
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  audiences now. All right, it's not too late to
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  sign up for Alpha. By the way, if you want to sort
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  of track with us, it's a great place to invite friends.
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  We had such great conversations. We had people who've been in the
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  church for 30 years and people who literally are just exploring
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  for the very first time in the class.
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  And right up front, I said, let's just assume none of us
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  believe. And so we had great questions of
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  like I, I asked some of my scariest questions about the
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  scriptures and like. You know, anyway, no, What did
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  you do to these books? I know I ruined them.
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  So yeah. Sign up.
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  So yeah. And John 8 talks about this
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  fullness of life abundant. Life.
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  Well, John 10, it talks about that, right?
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  Yes, but I OK, so let me. Back up I'm trying to think.
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  Of why they referenced Johnny Oh.
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  Freedom, yeah. OK.
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  Yeah, Yeah. So.
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  Freedom and Johnny and then life in in in John 10.
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  And So what is that? Is that actually a promise for
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  anything inside of this life? Or is it a promise only for some
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  future disembodied in the clouds or playing harps?
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  Yeah, so, so I think it it. By the way, that's a joke.
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  That's not what the future is, so.
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  But some of it maybe I mean. Depends on how much you like
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  harps I guess. I I'm a big fan.
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  Really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Just closet closet harp like aficionado.
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  Harpist. Yeah, I've.
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  Seen you play cello so I'm doubtful.
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  So, so I, I think, I think one of the, the struggles we have
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  with this idea of freedom and whether Christianity or
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  following Jesus, let's use that term includes real freedom, is
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  they think that, that we have this suspicion of what freedom
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  really is. So like I think we have this
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  suspicion that like loosely defines freedom as I get to do
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  whatever I want. Yeah.
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  Now the problem with that is actually we, we just know
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  psychologically that that actually often leads to
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  imprisonment, not freedom. So I'm free in terms of like
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  just if I'm free to do whatever I want, I'm free to to do hard
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  drugs, I'm free to take heroin. Just statistically, I know that
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  a few times arbitrary number of times of taking heroin, I'm no
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  longer free to not take heroin. Like something about the way
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  that my Physiology works means that now I actually have to
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  continually chase that thing. You sound like you're speaking
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  from experience or something here now.
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  Well, I I am, because we also know now that certain things are
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  as addictive. As heroin.
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  Yeah, as heroin, or let's use the term crack, which is
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  generally considered to be the most addictive from what I've
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  heard, substances. So someone did a study like not
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  long ago where they said the Ding of getting messages and
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  emails had similar addictive properties to the the the taking
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  of hard drugs. There's a feeling we get where
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  something like comes up. Someone knows I exist?
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  Someone wants us. Like now.
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  That might be a spam e-mail, but the Ding is still just as good
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  until we find out that it wasn't actually offering anything real
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  at all. So.
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  So like, if our definition of freedom is do whatever you want
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  without any consequences, yeah, well, that's just not a reality
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  for anybody. Yeah.
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  And we had a whole sermon series kind of about that.
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  The anchored sermon series last summer was like maximum freedom,
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  do whatever I want. It's not freedom.
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  Yeah. Yeah, so, so like, so firstly,
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  like like a, a good premise to go into this is when Jesus talks
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  about real freedom, he's not talking about that working
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  definition that seems to, to, to be true for most of modern
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  America. But do whatever you want.
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  Like it's my body, my choices. Like, well, no, actually every
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  single choice you make effects you to a degree.
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  And another. Other and other people to agree
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  so, so like there's actually this part I don't know if you've
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  seen it, there's this popular thing where people interviewers
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  will go around to people and be like watch your body count, you
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  know, and it's, it's talking about sex but but in actual
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  fact, like it it even in the language nudges to the fact that
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  no, there's a cost to that as well.
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  So like even like because body count traditionally comes from
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  like from death, like people to be killed.
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  And so there's even that it's like nudging towards, Oh no,
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  there's some kind of cost there that's under the surface that's
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  unspoken. So, so when Jesus is talking
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  about freedom, he's clearly talking about that, not that
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  kind of freedom. So it seems in Jesus mind that
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  for for people, maybe across time, there's been this picture
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  of freedom and this picture of life that's connected to I do
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  what I want. That was actually my brother's
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  joke phrase when we were kids, like when we were all in our
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  teens, like, you know, mom would, my mom would say, you're
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  not allowed to do that. But I do what I want.
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  I do what I want. How'd that go for him?
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  It didn't go great. So, so Jesus.
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  And he found out very quickly that is incorrect.
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  Jesus. Is suggesting there is a way to
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  live that is a truer freedom than our picture of freedom and
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  a truer life than our picture of life now?
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  The question is, is that simply an eternal thing, like a payoff
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  thing of like, don't do what you want now and you'll get to
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  experience real life, which is actually in certain groups of
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  Islam and Islamic idea, like martyrs go to an eternity where
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  they're, you know, presented with 40 virgins or something
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  like that. It's like, don't do these things
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  now because you're going to get to do them on an eternal level
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  later. Yeah.
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  So it's really I think his question is could be some down
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  to, is that what Jesus is talking about by freedom, some
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  afterlife pay off. Yeah.
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  And I think sometimes the question also feels a little bit
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  like, I don't know, you know, if this is a follower of Jesus
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  who's been working with Jesus for a while.
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  They're sometimes it's like, is this, is this it?
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  I signed up for the like. Where are the benefits of this
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  faith tradition? Sure, sure, sure.
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  Yeah. Because I'm experiencing pretty
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  much the exact same life experience as someone who
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  doesn't believe yes. And so I'm clinging to maybe
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  there's some sort of pay. Off at the end of life.
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  Or when, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, as
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  Shakespeare would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
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  I love that you just quoted Shakespeare.
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  Thank you so much, that makes me feel so welcomed in this
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  country. Yeah.
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  So yeah, that's all I got. Sorry for Shakespeare.
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  Yeah, so, but is there a promise in this world?
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  And are there benefits in this world?
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  Yeah. And so and so and so that that.
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  And what are they? I think that depends.
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  So I think actually my, my feeling would be that the
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  Christian life has given me almost every good thing I
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  experience in life. Like my my relationship with my
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  wife is premised on a joint Christian faith that has led to
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  certain assumptions about how we live life together.
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  But there's a certainty in faithfulness that, you know, she
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  actually doesn't need to worry about me having an affair
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  because she will always look like she did when we met when we
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  were 19. She doesn't need to have to
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  worry about me having an affair because I am the most faithful
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  person in the world or because I will never meet anyone that
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  might compare to her in every attribute.
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  Yeah, yeah, she doesn't have to worry about that because.
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  You have a deep. Bind Christian faith means that
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  it's not just the two of us, but God my.
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  Wife doesn't have to worry for those reasons and because just
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  look at me. Like, oh, come on.
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  Yeah. So and so so that that that
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  sense of like, there, there is a beauty to that that actually
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  gets missed. Yeah.
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  Like we actually believe, I think, as a church that that
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  when Jesus lays out how to live, he actually does it because he's
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  like, this is the best way for a human being to live.
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  Yeah. And I think that starts to get
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  at what this question may be seen like, because actually they
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  asked, are there scriptures that tell us what that looks like?
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  And I think a great go to would be the sermon on the mount.
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  The sermon on the Mount is sort of Jesus magnum opus of what it
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  means to be human painting pictures of that experience.
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  And I, I wish I could tell you that there's passages where if
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  you do X, you will always get Y. And that's not how the the
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  equation of of life works, even in the Christian tradition, but
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  similar like the book of Proverbs, for example, is like
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  all these wisdom sayings, right? These are things that are
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  generally true. And the same thing is about has
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  to do with a lot of the teachings of Jesus, even in the
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  Sermon on the Mount. Like if you're really really
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  mean to people, you don't have great relationships.
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  Shocker. Like.
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  This just in be nice and you have better relationships and
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  therefore you have more life. That's the kind of things the
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  Scripture does all over the place, probably most clearly in
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  the in the Sermon on the Mount. So I think, I think Jesus has
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  this like unspoken confidence of living this way is the thing
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  that works best for your Physiology, how you made your
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  spiritual life, all of those different things combined.
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  Don't live this way because you impress God with your
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  performance, but live this way because it's how you were
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  designed at your course. So the the, the, the, the mantra
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  of like freedom and life from modern world says, well,
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  actually you just chase whatever pleasure is most, most available
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  to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Now, unfortunately, like psychologically, we also know
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  that most of those pleasures disappear really quickly.
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  Yeah, and the The funny thing is, even if you aren't a
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  follower of Jesus, you know that sure, totally.
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  Like, oh, I want to have a like, I want to be really strong and
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  look good. Then you can't eat cake every
• 17:14
  day. So we know that there's a
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  there's a like caving to every whim of your body urges is not a
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  recipe for an awesome life. Did you read the story recently
• 17:26
  of about Bill and Miranda Gates? Like they got divorced like a
• 17:30
  couple of years ago after like from this premise of like you
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  were in our 60s, we might live another 30 years and our
• 17:38
  relationship just isn't functioning where we want it to.
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  And so we're going to go and we're going to break up because,
• 17:44
  yeah, we want to find someone else to spend a couple.
• 17:47
  More years. Let's try this.
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  Try it. But not, not really, not a
• 17:50
  couple more years, no, from a premise of like we don't just
• 17:52
  have a couple of years, we expect to live much longer than
• 17:57
  the like. So, so we're now long no longer
• 17:59
  retiring, you know, with six months a year to live, which was
• 18:05
  a common view of retirement back 200 years ago, 100 years ago.
• 18:09
  You eke it out, and then you just kind of finally, you're
• 18:12
  given this brief retirement before you die.
• 18:14
  But, like, we expect to be rich and healthy for another 30
• 18:17
  years. And so our relationship is not
• 18:20
  one that we feel like we want to live for another 30 years.
• 18:24
  We're going to have maximal freedom in the next 30 years.
• 18:26
  And so we want to find someone we want to spend 30 years with.
• 18:29
  Yeah. And so they broke up.
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  And then someone asked Bill Gates about it not long ago.
• 18:34
  Like, was it a good thing? He's like, you know, my honest
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  answer is I really miss Miranda way more than I expected to.
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  And what I miss most is I miss the person I built a life with.
• 18:49
  So I have kids I'm silling relationship with.
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  And I miss the one person who was there when they were born
• 18:55
  with me, who like knew them from that early stage, that knew
• 18:59
  their common stories, that was part of that witness.
• 19:03
  And, and he actually says whether it's unspoken or not, I
• 19:05
  can't remember, but but like this idea of like, I think I
• 19:08
  gave that up too lightly. I think I underrated the gift of
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  a life with a person. Yeah.
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  And I, I think that one of the big barriers to Christianity for
• 19:19
  a lot of people is actually hidden in this question, because
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  I think most people who encounter the Christian
• 19:26
  tradition and the teachings of Christianity think these are the
• 19:30
  rules I have to follow. The Bible gives us rules that I
• 19:34
  have to follow so God won't be angry at me and I won't get
• 19:37
  zapped. No, actually, these are a good
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  God offering humanity the best way of being human and then and
• 19:51
  then coming to earth to deal with all of our shortcomings
• 19:55
  when we fail to live up to our own best standards and.
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  That's a way more Invitational space to live in.
• 20:03
  And then you start to get to experiment.
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  OK, I'm gonna try out the teachings of Jesus.
• 20:08
  Treat Jesus. Maybe if you're not a person of
• 20:11
  faith, maybe you could treat Jesus as like the best guru on
• 20:15
  being a human and start there and then experiment with the
• 20:20
  teachings of Jesus and like, is he right about being human?
• 20:24
  Which is what the early church did about about 100 AD wasn't
• 20:28
  early right at the beginning, but about 100 AD they start
• 20:31
  taking this posture of you know, you probably don't want to live
• 20:34
  the teachings of Jesus. They said, so like when you take
• 20:37
  a year and and live them out and then come back to us and if
• 20:42
  you've said yes to the teachings of Jesus, well, we'll baptize
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  you. On the surface, they look like
• 20:47
  the teachings of Jesus are demanding.
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  And yeah, when you start living in those guardrails, you start
• 20:53
  to find, Oh no, this is maybe how I'm supposed to live.
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  And what you very rarely hear. And and I'm going to kind of put
• 21:00
  this alongside another scenario. You very rarely hear someone
• 21:05
  say, man, like I wish I wasn't a Christian last night.
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  I like, I wish I wasn't following Jesus last night.
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  Like it just it just you don't you don't hear that language.
• 21:15
  Yeah, where? Where's the?
• 21:16
  Number Oh man, I wish I hadn't slept well so that I could get
• 21:18
  up and be kind to my family. Yeah, yeah, where, where, where,
• 21:22
  where is where is the number of conversations you have with
• 21:25
  people of like, oh, the pleasure scenario felt pretty good last
• 21:29
  night for about the first like, like half the night when my
• 21:35
  inhibitions kind of disappeared. I was maybe flirting with some
• 21:38
  people. I was maybe, you know, kind of
• 21:40
  planning what the rest of the night would look like.
• 21:42
  But this morning there's a whole ton of messy kind of like sense
• 21:48
  of like, well, what did that relationship mean?
• 21:51
  There's a whole sense of walk of, you know, the walk of shame
• 21:53
  language, all those types of things.
• 21:55
  Like it's never quite as good as it's positioned.
• 21:59
  Like I, I actually think I actually think this like maybe
• 22:02
  we'd say this way. I think like the world has
• 22:06
  better marketing than the church.
• 22:09
  Like the, the, the, the, the life of pleasure has a better
• 22:12
  marketing system where it says, Oh, this is what it's going to
• 22:13
  look like all the time. And then you realize like, oh,
• 22:15
  no, it doesn't. There's this really interesting
• 22:20
  interview, not interview, interesting scene in the, the TV
• 22:24
  show's succession. And there's a, there's two guys
• 22:28
  in there like late 40s, early 50s and the one of them is still
• 22:34
  trying to figure out his, his marriage.
• 22:37
  And, and then the other one is kind of like he split up from
• 22:40
  his wife and he's just dating every 30 year old, 25 year old
• 22:44
  that comes his way. And, and the one guy kind of
• 22:47
  says like, you know, oh, I, I kind of envy you a little bit.
• 22:51
  And the other guy's like, dude, I envy you because like he says,
• 22:56
  all of these girls like, fine, like there's a certain pleasure
• 23:00
  to what I'm doing, but none of them are a patch on the type of
• 23:05
  women we married. Like they just don't compare in
• 23:08
  terms of their character, their brilliance, their intellect, all
• 23:11
  of those different things. He said.
• 23:12
  I've sold out for something. They just can't last because
• 23:16
  soon I'm going to be 60 and then I'm going to be 70 and all of
• 23:20
  this is going to be gone. Says what I'm doing right now is
• 23:22
  I'm living as best as I can for the moment because I know that
• 23:26
  the long game is awful and that that that seems to be the
• 23:31
  reality that Jesus is very comfortable with.
• 23:33
  Like this is a life that can be well lived.
• 23:35
  Now you now now what we haven't even got to yet is the
• 23:39
  relational peace of like Jesus presents this idea that actually
• 23:43
  being able to have a continual conversational relationship with
• 23:47
  the God of the universe is the single best gift.
• 23:50
  And that's why across history, you read stories of guys that
• 23:54
  have been thrown in prison for their faith for 20 years who
• 23:58
  were like, wouldn't change it for the world.
• 24:00
  Sure, was it a horrible existence?
• 24:02
  But what I got from it, the gift of of who God was to me in that
• 24:06
  season, nothing like it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the
• 24:10
  deepest abiding satisfaction of my own Christian life is that
• 24:17
  Jesus has been there through all of it and promises to to abide
• 24:22
  like. And so much so that in the
• 24:25
  deepest, darkest seasons of my life, I've done this imagine
• 24:30
  that we've talked, joked about a little bit on the show.
• 24:32
  I've done this imaginative exercise of like, if every bad
• 24:36
  thing I could come up with could possibly happen to me, I lose my
• 24:39
  family, I lose my reputation, I lose any monetary value, any
• 24:44
  capacity to work. Everyone thinks I'm the biggest
• 24:48
  loser in the world. If I had Christ in that I think
• 24:55
  I'm good, I'm OK, I could be OK. It would stink and all those
• 24:58
  sorts of things. But because he's the steady
• 25:02
  foundation, I have this picture sometimes from time to time in
• 25:07
  life and especially like when I sing songs like from Foundation
• 25:13
  or or on Christ the Solid Rock, I stand where I picture an ocean
• 25:18
  that is just raging. And there's this.
• 25:22
  This like this jut of rock sticking out of the ocean.
• 25:28
  But the waves just vary and. I It might be a tiny jut of
• 25:32
  rock, but I'm perched on top of it and he is the He is that
• 25:37
  cornerstone that that rock that I stand upon and everything else
• 25:42
  around me rages. Literally everything.
• 25:43
  Even the best human relationships have moments where
• 25:47
  it feels like chaos and but he is never once moved.
• 25:53
  So, so there's this, there's this story that I drag out every
• 25:57
  now and again. It's not even my story, but it's
• 25:59
  so good. I'm unashamedly going to tell
• 26:01
  this story over and over again throughout my life.
• 26:04
  And it's one that my Old Testament professor in seminary
• 26:06
  told me in the middle of teaching.
• 26:09
  I think it was like Samuel or Kings.
• 26:12
  I'm trying. I think it must be early first
• 26:13
  Kings. And he's telling the the story
• 26:19
  alongside one of the Psalms that David writes when he's been
• 26:22
  chased by Saul and he's hiding in The Cave and talks about how
• 26:26
  God is my rock and all those different things.
• 26:28
  So let me tell you a story. So about 20 years ago, found out
• 26:33
  that my wife was having an affair with one of my best
• 26:35
  friends. She left me.
• 26:38
  She took my kids with her. She took company that we'd run
• 26:41
  together with her as well. She took everything from me and
• 26:45
  she said, he said, so one night in the middle of winter,
• 26:49
  stumbled down to a lake near my house and I was about to throw
• 26:54
  myself into the lake in the middle of like the ice and the
• 26:57
  cold and fully clothed. He said like I was just looking
• 27:01
  for a way out. And he said just as I'm about to
• 27:03
  do it, God speaks to me like an audible voice stood behind me
• 27:07
  like right there. And this voice says to me, if
• 27:11
  you have nothing else, am I enough for you?
• 27:15
  And he said in that moment, like I was torn between the sense of
• 27:19
  this is what feels like the easy way.
• 27:21
  And then this is what God is saying to me and offering me
• 27:24
  says in that middle of that, like that, that edge of that
• 27:27
  lake. So I got down on my knees and
• 27:29
  say, God, if I have nothing else, you're enough for me.
• 27:32
  I said he's telling this story having got remarried, found a
• 27:35
  woman he loves, teaching, you know, in a school he loves,
• 27:39
  subject he's brilliant at and loves.
• 27:42
  And now having started a business on the side with his
• 27:45
  wife that's bringing in extra income, everything has been
• 27:48
  returned to him. And, and.
• 27:51
  But he said it's in that moment there was nothing.
• 27:54
  And I'm always just amazed at that story because what's
• 27:59
  brilliant about it is that in that moment, God didn't say,
• 28:03
  well, his prayer life hasn't been that great recently.
• 28:07
  Yeah, like I'm actually a little bit disappointed.
• 28:10
  He's been a bit snarky about the woman that left him.
• 28:12
  Like he hasn't really shown the forgiving.
• 28:14
  Yeah. What kind of faith is he?
• 28:15
  Showing he's about to kill himself.
• 28:17
  Like he's actually a bit of disappoint, a bit of a
• 28:20
  disappointment to God turns up for him, as he does so often in
• 28:24
  the midst of suffering, suffering full of grace and in a
• 28:32
  in a life changing way. Yeah.
• 28:35
  So so somewhere like that piece works alongside that fact.
• 28:40
  The Christian life is just a great life to live.
• 28:44
  It's a beautiful gift of a Life, OK, But it also is is is the
• 28:50
  centerpiece of it is that God invites you into a personal
• 28:54
  relationship with Him. So all right, I think we should
• 28:58
  pivot to some of these other questions, but.
• 29:00
  And we've touched a little bit on them.
• 29:02
  Oh, we, I think we have, we absolutely have.
• 29:05
  But to pivot to Alpha, something we just were talking about with
• 29:09
  this idea of fullness of life and all this stuff, which
• 29:12
  actually was the topic, is this all there is to life kind of
• 29:18
  thing. Something that they said in the
• 29:23
  Alpha episode was that they they quoted the CS Lewis quote.
• 29:30
  If Christianity is real, it's of utmost importance.
• 29:34
  If it's if it's false, it's it's of no importance.
• 29:38
  The one thing it cannot be is moderate, moderately important,
• 29:43
  and so like. Who writes like that now?
• 29:46
  Just so good, right? So based upon what we've said so
• 29:52
  far, it could be moderately important.
• 29:56
  Like it could be, oh, some great advice.
• 30:00
  You know, it could be on par with a like a fitness coach on
• 30:05
  YouTube. Follow these tips.
• 30:08
  You'll get more fit or a a nutritionist eat this way.
• 30:12
  You'll feel a little bit better. I I would not agree with that
• 30:16
  personally. No, I'm not saying you are, but
• 30:19
  I'm saying that our audience might be hearing that.
• 30:22
  Right now, Sure, sure, sure. So.
• 30:23
  What Tell me how we get from this place of life like the
• 30:31
  Christian tradition? We essentially made a case that
• 30:34
  the Christian tradition is like an invitation to the best way of
• 30:38
  being. Yeah.
• 30:38
  Yeah. Great.
• 30:40
  Cool. That could be moderately
• 30:41
  important. I'll take it when I can and when
• 30:44
  I'm busy. I would may not be able to take
• 30:45
  that recipe or that that prescription, but I could kind
• 30:49
  of come in and out of that thing.
• 30:51
  Yeah. Just like I do my workout
• 30:52
  program. And I think I think that like
• 30:55
  that can feel like that's what we're saying because of the
• 30:58
  order with which we came into the question.
• 31:00
  So we came in from the sense of supposing there is this eternal
• 31:03
  invitation to a Kingdom that's beyond this world, that's a one
• 31:07
  day thing. Is there anything for now like,
• 31:12
  and if it is just the now moderately important, you're
• 31:15
  right, but but that's not how it's postured.
• 31:19
  It's postured as a as a greater than life question, a beyond
• 31:24
  this world question, a an eternal question.
• 31:28
  So how? How is the teachings of Jesus
• 31:31
  and the Christian tradition big enough to be of utmost
• 31:36
  importance now? What?
• 31:40
  Well, is there a difference between the utmost importance
• 31:43
  now versus utmost importance then?
• 31:48
  OK, that that feels like a pretty arbitrary designation,
• 31:50
  that designation. Well, well, I just I feel like
• 31:54
  some folks who might be listening would would say cool
• 31:58
  tips and tricks on being human. That sounds like moderately
• 32:01
  important like and they may try it out and be like they may even
• 32:04
  come to the conclusion best possible tips and tricks on
• 32:08
  being human. That still doesn't feel like
• 32:10
  utmost important kind of stuff. More like the Apostle Paul in
• 32:13
  First Corinthians 15 who says if this isn't true, it were fools
• 32:19
  and we're above. All men, most to be yeah, yeah,
• 32:21
  yeah, yeah. So.
• 32:22
  So help us get to the place where this is of utmost
• 32:25
  importance, kind of space. Well, because he posits as an
• 32:29
  eternal thing, that's what I'm saying.
• 32:31
  I mean, that's what I'm saying really.
• 32:32
  OK, He says it's not a just an earthly thing.
• 32:36
  So it's only a full life if it's coupled with that eternal.
• 32:41
  Eternal. Yeah, well then.
• 32:42
  And of course, the stories themselves never accept it's a
• 32:46
  possible they would say it's a certain.
• 32:49
  Yeah. So if I hear you correctly,
• 32:51
  you're saying the eternal component, for example, the
• 32:56
  story you just told about your professor, the eternal component
• 33:01
  makes that quote UN quote surrender and statement of yes,
• 33:05
  you are enough for me. The only reason that is makes
• 33:09
  any rational sense is if that decision carries with it the
• 33:12
  weight of eternity. Yes, because if he doesn't, then
• 33:18
  it's just a voice in his head. Yes, it's just a no one's with
• 33:21
  him. He is alone and and yeah, he has
• 33:25
  nothing, you know, he truly has not.
• 33:28
  He's done some sort of psychologic truth, but he's.
• 33:30
  Delayed so the, the what, what the voices told him is the, you
• 33:34
  know, is the, the phrase we've used a couple of times, which is
• 33:37
  ACS another CS Lewis quote that the man who has Jesus and
• 33:41
  nothing has as much as the man who has Jesus and everything
• 33:44
  else. Like so that's how it presents
• 33:46
  the story that the the the thing that you have is so large, it
• 33:50
  dwarfs every other possible thing that you could possibly
• 33:53
  have. So actually the the story would
• 33:55
  insist that while I feel like the Christian life has given me
• 33:58
  every good thing, had it given me nothing, it would be just as
• 34:02
  good. Yeah.
• 34:04
  Now, again, hard to see from a certain perspective, but that's
• 34:08
  what it insists on. It it does like and OK, And I
• 34:11
  think there's one other layer that can maybe get at answering
• 34:15
  my own question, which is occasionally the teachings of
• 34:20
  Jesus themselves are crazy demanding.
• 34:24
  Sure. Like obnoxiously so.
• 34:31
  Self destroyingly so. Let me give you a couple
• 34:35
  examples. For example, love your enemies.
• 34:38
  Sure, this is contrary to your Physiology.
• 34:42
  It's contrary to your biology. It's contrary to like someone
• 34:47
  attacks you, don't attack them back.
• 34:50
  Instead, find some way from this internal stability of your
• 34:56
  relationship with God to not only tolerate them, but to love.
• 35:00
  Them so, so and and I would I. Would the only way you get there
• 35:04
  is if you believe that there is that that Jesus is absolutely
• 35:13
  who he says he is? So I would nudge back a little
• 35:15
  bit on the idea that it's, it's contrary to your Physiology.
• 35:20
  I mean, I think that that there's enough research to say
• 35:24
  that forgiveness is the absolute best thing for you physically.
• 35:30
  Yeah. Like, like the, the, the
• 35:32
  unforgiveness will actually RIP you apart.
• 35:35
  You're actually playing with a thing that you can't control.
• 35:38
  Yeah, but your Physiology, I'm talking not psychology.
• 35:41
  So that's a little bit more of a psychological response which we
• 35:43
  can study. That's the Hindsight's 2020.
• 35:47
  But it also affects your Physiology is what I'm saying.
• 35:50
  It also effects who you are. Right.
• 35:52
  We're holistic creatures. But what I mean is like in the
• 35:55
  moment you have a fight or flight response.
• 35:58
  Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the.
• 35:59
  Way of Jesus says, you know that very, very, very natural
• 36:03
  biological response that I designed in you to protect
• 36:06
  yourself from danger? Yeah, Say no to it.
• 36:09
  Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 36:10
  And Jesus does and goes to the cross.
• 36:13
  He says no to his fight or flight response and goes to the
• 36:17
  cross and dies on behalf of humanity.
• 36:19
  That's what I mean by the physiological piece of it.
• 36:21
  And you're right, it pans out. It's actually really healthy,
• 36:25
  even physiologically. Yeah, and there's almost.
• 36:29
  No, there's almost no scenario where being in fight and flight
• 36:32
  permanently is a good thing for you.
• 36:34
  It almost always destroys you. Yeah, I mean.
• 36:37
  And and that's what happens in. Unforgiveness.
• 36:39
  You have an epidemic in our country with stomach issues.
• 36:42
  Sure. And a huge percentage of that
• 36:44
  epidemic is caused by living in fight or flight response, which
• 36:47
  you're literally your digestion shuts down when you're in fight
• 36:49
  or flight. Yeah.
• 36:51
  So irritable bowel syndrome. Maybe you need to forgive
• 36:54
  someone. Oh, I like it.
• 36:57
  Like I'm, I'm not even joking. Like this is how the teachings.
• 36:59
  Of Jesus work. All right, so I think we've
• 37:02
  already started to delve into a lot of the topics that Alpha
• 37:05
  addressed yesterday, but can we give offer some more concrete
• 37:12
  evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus?
• 37:15
  So they gave nothing. They just, they just said
• 37:20
  there's a ton of evidence and I was surprised that there's all
• 37:23
  this evidence. And I read some of the original
• 37:25
  things. And this coming week, just so
• 37:27
  you know, if we can't give you enough right now, we we are.
• 37:30
  I didn't prepare Alex for this. So we're going to draw from our
• 37:33
  historical studies on some of this stuff.
• 37:35
  But yeah. I mean, I mean, so the, the
• 37:37
  documents are surprisingly numerous, which is unusual for
• 37:42
  an older tradition, right? So you go back a couple of 1000
• 37:47
  years. I think if I remember the last
• 37:50
  time I looked at this, there's about four copies of manuscripts
• 37:54
  that say that Caesar existed. You know, that that just as a
• 37:59
  person, he was a thing. Now, like everyone in school
• 38:03
  knows that while Julius Caesar. Right.
• 38:05
  Founder of the Roman Empire. Yeah.
• 38:07
  Like greatest empire, biggest empire in history in terms of
• 38:10
  like the known world compared to the empire, like the at its
• 38:14
  height, the only civilized empire in the world.
• 38:18
  So. So I think that sense of like
• 38:22
  assumption that he's around and a person, Yeah, if you were to
• 38:29
  actually look at documentary evidence for it, you might say,
• 38:32
  oh, wait, hold on, we'll see even a thing.
• 38:36
  Now the the documentary evidence for who Jesus was for the New
• 38:41
  Testament manuscripts are. So.
• 38:44
  Big like 28,000, I think something like that.
• 38:47
  I don't know. And it goes back so early in
• 38:49
  comparison to when these manuscripts are written.
• 38:52
  We've got fragments of manuscripts from like the 60s
• 38:55
  AD, which is nuts considering that's when most of the
• 38:59
  manuscripts start to be formed. Like, so the fact that we can go
• 39:03
  back and say, oh, like this is like traceable history of the
• 39:07
  early church from the 1st century, like end of the 1st
• 39:11
  century, we got concrete writers that are writing about church
• 39:14
  history. I mean, it's just nuts to have
• 39:17
  almost like bird's eye view, people that talk to people that
• 39:21
  walked with Jesus and they're writing whole histories.
• 39:25
  I mean, taking a wave in the Gospels, which at least in a
• 39:29
  couple of instances would claim to be, yeah.
• 39:31
  OK, so then what about the person who says OK, all right,
• 39:34
  yeah, but they're all followers of Jesus, so, like, So what
• 39:37
  about? But but that that that and that
• 39:39
  in itself becomes a problem from the opposite side of the the
• 39:43
  argument, right? Like the idea that someone would
• 39:46
  risk a made-up story that opposes the message of the Roman
• 39:52
  Empire just for the fun of it. So that they get murdered in the
• 39:56
  Coliseum or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's just there.
• 39:59
  There's a great little quote from from I'm.
• 40:01
  Standing my ground on this fake story and then they're like,
• 40:03
  we're busting out lions right now and they're like, I'm
• 40:07
  standing my ground anywhere. Like, yeah.
• 40:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not likely.
• 40:10
  This story is too important. And, and that, that's
• 40:14
  essentially what I'm saying. I I there's a great little quote
• 40:16
  from Do you remember Chuck Colson?
• 40:19
  Yeah, Yeah. He was Richard Nixon's, like,
• 40:21
  henchman in Watergate and. And he became a Christian.
• 40:25
  And he said, like, part of my faith is built on the fact that,
• 40:29
  like, we cracked within days. Like we're trying to hold
• 40:33
  together this major story about Watergate.
• 40:36
  And we're like, we're all telling different stories, all
• 40:39
  giving each other up or betraying each other within
• 40:42
  seconds because we just didn't believe it to be true.
• 40:46
  Yeah. And so.
• 40:48
  So I think you have to accept that like at the very best, at
• 40:52
  the very worst, the first disciples absolutely believed
• 40:57
  that they had seen Jesus. Thousands of Christians died for
• 41:00
  their faith who had access to original source material.
• 41:04
  Sure, as in like other. Humans and hundreds of them that
• 41:07
  actually say we saw Jesus alive. Yeah, and and they stood their
• 41:11
  ground even under the the threat of death.
• 41:15
  So at the very there's. Not any examples of that kind of
• 41:19
  thing in other in human history. No.
• 41:23
  And and so at very worst, you're saying there was a mass event
• 41:26
  where some illusion convinced them that Jesus was alive to the
• 41:31
  point where they had no doubts about it, to the point where
• 41:35
  they could say like, I'm this means so much.
• 41:38
  This is the interesting thing, right?
• 41:39
  It's not that they just believed they'd seen him alive.
• 41:43
  Like that sort of thing doesn't mean that you say, well, I'll
• 41:46
  die for it. You don't die for factual
• 41:48
  information. You die for a story that says
• 41:52
  everything that I knew about the world is now different.
• 41:55
  So whatever they've seen is enough to convince them that
• 41:59
  Jesus has done something so groundbreaking that nothing that
• 42:04
  physically happens to them on earth is is is worth
• 42:08
  surrendering that story for. If you've just seen someone
• 42:12
  alive, you're like, well, like, yeah, I saw something happen,
• 42:15
  but I'll happily buy another 20 years of life by saying it
• 42:19
  didn't happen. But to actually get to a point
• 42:23
  of saying I don't care about what happens to me now, you
• 42:28
  know, like one of the groundbreaking things for me is
• 42:30
  like you think about Peter according to the stories, like
• 42:33
  Peter had to watch his wife crucified before he was
• 42:37
  crucified. You think what it takes to not
• 42:40
  crack and just say like, OK, fine.
• 42:43
  Like whatever. Just like please, just like,
• 42:47
  like let it go, end a misery. Any of those things.
• 42:50
  I'll say anything so long as you know, and this this story isn't
• 42:55
  limited to them. This story runs to current date.
• 43:00
  Like it's like, it's like 33 AD or 27 AD or whatever you think
• 43:05
  about the exact historicity to, to, to cover.
• 43:09
  It's like still today. This people, though, there's one
• 43:13
  amazing story of, of a family in, in, in in China of
• 43:19
  missionaries who are going to be executed by some group that are
• 43:24
  opposed to them. I think it's China, could be
• 43:26
  another our eastern country. And one of the and the dad like
• 43:32
  denies his faith and they let him go and his family are left
• 43:38
  about to be killed and they all call to him begging for him to
• 43:42
  come back and stand up for his faith and to join them in death.
• 43:46
  And so the dad walks back out of the forest that he's been able
• 43:50
  to walk into and they've let him go and says, no, I just made
• 43:53
  that up. I would never deny Jesus and and
• 43:56
  dies with his family. I mean like.
• 43:59
  Crazy. Like the these are the kind of
• 44:00
  stories that that are still present.
• 44:04
  Yeah, so that's that's one of the really strange evidences in
• 44:10
  history that we don't find in other historical accounts of of
• 44:16
  people and characters and teachings.
• 44:19
  The the growth of the early church is just a strange,
• 44:24
  strange, unusual reality in human history.
• 44:28
  There's also non follower of Jesus historical evidence like
• 44:33
  Tacitus, Josephus. Yeah, the Josephus one I always
• 44:39
  think is a bit weird. Like I'm like a little bit like
• 44:43
  it feels like a bit of an addition.
• 44:46
  It doesn't fit with how Josephus usually talks.
• 44:49
  It's not like it doesn't flow super well, but they are, they
• 44:53
  are like they're certainly mentions, they're certainly
• 44:55
  acknowledgments that this was a very significant figure.
• 44:58
  Like to to stretch it, to believe that Josephus actually
• 45:01
  says, oh, he was the Christ. I'm like, I don't know about
• 45:03
  that. There's nothing about the rest
• 45:05
  of his life that suggests he really believes that.
• 45:09
  Totally. But there.
• 45:10
  But there are like almost universal exceptions that Jesus
• 45:16
  was an incredible moral teacher. Yes, amongst the story.
• 45:22
  Of whom there are no negative stories like.
• 45:26
  The only negative stories that you might perceive to be like
• 45:28
  are in the Scriptures, like the conversation with a
• 45:31
  Pharosunisian woman, all those different things, like those
• 45:34
  kind of conversation we like that doesn't feel like the Jesus
• 45:36
  I expect, but even then. And there's a, there's negative
• 45:38
  stories about the early church, sure, like they, they drink
• 45:43
  blood and stuff for like what's their, their, their worship
• 45:47
  practices are kind of wonky. They're cannibals.
• 45:49
  They're cannibals, Yeah, so. There's some weird stuff like
• 45:52
  that, but not about the person of Christ.
• 45:54
  So we have plenty. The younger we have various
• 45:59
  different other other ancient documents outside of the
• 46:02
  Christian, what we would call the Bible, the scripture texts
• 46:07
  that reference the person of Jesus as a historical figure.
• 46:12
  You all you already started diving into evidence for the
• 46:15
  resurrection. So a huge evidence that Jesus
• 46:19
  existed period also is evidence of his resurrection.
• 46:23
  All the things we just talked about, you know, the, the early
• 46:30
  growth of the church just doesn't account for it doesn't
• 46:35
  make sense without the resurrection.
• 46:37
  And there's a ton of other little, little things that we
• 46:40
  could turn to. I don't know if there's any more
• 46:42
  off the top of your head that you can think of.
• 46:45
  No, I mean that, that that covers the broad sense of like
• 46:48
  cross history. I mean, it doesn't even tap into
• 46:51
  like the the, the miracle stories from today in multiple
• 46:54
  parts of the church across the world.
• 46:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the still like the stories
• 46:58
  of resurrections from the dead, still stories of supernatural
• 47:02
  healings, some of which I've like, I've seen healing for
• 47:05
  myself, seen it at work, you know, and, and so I, I think
• 47:12
  that there's a surprising amount.
• 47:15
  Now it seems that God, as the other question leads to, is
• 47:21
  never that interested in certainty, like, and, and the
• 47:25
  actually certainty, you know, we've talked maybe about this,
• 47:27
  my favorite writer, Frederick Beatner, like gives this, like
• 47:32
  he posits this idea that what if God just wrote I am here, God in
• 47:37
  stars across the sky. And like for like that
• 47:42
  generation, it would make sense. They'd be like, Oh yeah, like
• 47:46
  that's what it means. And then the next generation
• 47:50
  would be like, well, but that's always been there.
• 47:52
  Like we've never known the time that isn't there.
• 47:54
  And like, maybe people just took those letters and they used it
• 47:57
  to create words and they set those shapes and use them to
• 48:01
  create words. And so people actually just like
• 48:03
  they, they made-up a guard from something that was there and
• 48:08
  took their language from shapes they saw in the sky and stuff
• 48:11
  like that. And actually, like, very
• 48:12
  quickly, the story then asks God that God shows up in some other
• 48:17
  way. But that actually doesn't seem
• 48:22
  like how God is interested in working with humanity.
• 48:25
  And we have this weird assumption that like that there
• 48:28
  seems to be this weird idea located in different places that
• 48:33
  and if he was there, that's how he'd work.
• 48:36
  Well, that's a strange assumption on the surface.
• 48:39
  Like we make that assumption that, Oh yeah, I know exactly
• 48:42
  how God would work if God were there.
• 48:44
  Yeah, if God's goal was to be known as efficiently as
• 48:49
  possible, we could, we think we can come up with a whole bunch
• 48:51
  of ways he could have done that far better than the ways he has.
• 48:56
  But but, but like, if we believe what he says to Moses, if he did
• 49:00
  that, we'd all instantly die. Yeah, like, I mean, we, we'd,
• 49:03
  it'd be beyond us. And so this is where the some
• 49:06
  like, and I love again, it's a Frederick Beekner quote, which
• 49:08
  you start to see why I love him so much.
• 49:11
  Like he he starts to talk about this idea that humans, it's
• 49:14
  actually his definition of theology.
• 49:17
  And he and he says theology is human thoughts about God.
• 49:21
  And he says this is a a species trying to understand the
• 49:25
  workings and thinkings of a of a being so far beyond them.
• 49:30
  The only comparison I can conjure up is it's as if dung
• 49:34
  beetles decided to write a treatise on the life of human
• 49:39
  beings. If we found out that they were
• 49:41
  doing it, we'd probably think it was quite funny.
• 49:46
  We can only hope that God thinks the same about us.
• 49:49
  Like it's like this is just not like in their capacity to
• 49:53
  understand how we think, feel and act.
• 49:56
  Everything they do is out of instinct.
• 49:58
  Like there's no cognitive process.
• 50:01
  There's nothing going on beyond instinct.
• 50:04
  Like, and so, so like for them to, for dung beetles to write a
• 50:08
  life on human beings, it's beyond them.
• 50:12
  So like, like we're trying to do the same.
• 50:15
  And so when we say things like, well, God would do this if if he
• 50:19
  were real man like that, that that again, that's a strange
• 50:23
  assumption that you know that because I don't even know what
• 50:26
  my wife and kids are thinking most of the time.
• 50:30
  And like to imagine that I have some sense of how God would
• 50:33
  think and feel is a very strange thing.
• 50:36
  Yeah, for sure. It it's it's stranger to me.
• 50:40
  And again, this is I'm speaking as me as a pastor who has their
• 50:43
  own questions, doubts constantly.
• 50:46
  It's stranger to think to me that I have exactly in my mind
• 50:51
  or worked out how the universe just popped up as it is, even
• 50:56
  with all the theories around that, without some divine spark
• 51:01
  than it is to think. I can understand Garden if that
• 51:05
  makes sense. Yeah, so I, for those of you who
• 51:07
  might were at Alpha last night and were at my table, I shared
• 51:10
  this already. But for the rest of the tables
• 51:12
  who might be listening, I, I sort of sheepishly shared I
• 51:16
  should be a a pastor with like crazy faith.
• 51:22
  And here's why. I grew up in a in a, in a
• 51:24
  country where the supernatural happened way more regularly.
• 51:29
  My parents were missionaries and experienced like obvious
• 51:34
  supernatural demon possession and the casting out of those
• 51:37
  demons. My parent, my dad was in
• 51:42
  multiple occasions was protected supernaturally from being
• 51:45
  murdered by by stoning by a a crowd of angry college students
• 51:51
  stones from 20 feet away. Just story.
• 51:58
  After story After. Story of supernatural things,
• 52:01
  supernatural things, supernatural things.
• 52:02
  And then I also shared last night in Alpha several of the
• 52:07
  seasons in my life where I like, threw in the towel.
• 52:10
  I'm done with this faith thing. I don't know if I can buy it.
• 52:13
  One of those times while I was on staff at this church
• 52:16
  sheepishly, but I just had doubts because of these same
• 52:21
  kinds of things. And if supernatural science
• 52:25
  can't explain experiences were enough, then I have plenty
• 52:31
  compared to the average American.
• 52:34
  And yet I still. Run into these.
• 52:36
  Doubts. So I don't think the goal is
• 52:39
  100% certainty, I would agree, nor if we're intellectually.
• 52:43
  Honest. Could we get to 100% certainty?
• 52:46
  But I'm not the the older I get. I'm not 100% certain about
• 52:51
  almost anything anymore. Not like I have enough
• 52:56
  confidence to drive a car, to sit in this chair.
• 53:00
  My rational capacities, I just doubt a lot more than ever.
• 53:04
  I can't explain art. I can't explain music and why it
• 53:07
  moves me. I can't explain love.
• 53:09
  I can't explain so many things. But I have similar evidence that
• 53:14
  all those things exist and move me.
• 53:17
  That there's gotta be something bigger and more powerful than
• 53:22
  science can quantify. And I think the most
• 53:25
  intellectually honest scientists agree with me.
• 53:28
  Yeah, because talk to a quantum physicist, Totally.
• 53:30
  They don't understand it. Talk to a neurologist, they
• 53:33
  don't get it. There's.
• 53:34
  So many unknown, so there's. Suddenly this like shift where
• 53:37
  you had. I felt like in a brief period in
• 53:41
  the early 2000s, some sense of like, oh, we figured this stuff
• 53:45
  out. We know how the universe works.
• 53:47
  Yeah. You know, And it was all it was.
• 53:49
  Very brief. We're about.
• 53:51
  To crack the code. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:52
  And then suddenly quantum neuroscience like how these
• 53:56
  different things work, how neurology connects across
• 54:00
  incredible barriers, distances, how like the the brain works in
• 54:06
  ways we just don't quite understand.
• 54:08
  Yeah. And how, Yeah, quantum, like the
• 54:12
  classic definition of quantum, you know, Yeah, the God
• 54:15
  particle, once we figure this. Out.
• 54:17
  Yeah, yeah, sure. We're going to prove that he
• 54:19
  didn't exist. And then they're like.
• 54:20
  Ah, shoot the. Higgs boson and here's like, Oh
• 54:23
  my goodness, yeah, Yeah, but I I was actually talking about The
• 54:26
  Who was it that. Said like, the best way to tell
• 54:29
  me you don't understand quantum theory is to tell me you
• 54:31
  understand quantum. Yeah.
• 54:33
  Like, it's just like, you know, this is like the father of the
• 54:35
  art of the science. Yeah.
• 54:36
  I listen to probably the best lecture that speaks.
• 54:39
  English on the on the topic and he I mean in an interview he's
• 54:44
  like, I have no, I don't know yeah so so suddenly there's like
• 54:48
  he's like the math let me I'll. Tell you this, the math is.
• 54:50
  Beautiful. It doesn't make any sense.
• 54:53
  Yeah. Like, so suddenly there's like
• 54:54
  this sense of like, oh, we have. More questions than answers.
• 54:58
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 54:58
  Which is exactly what happened when suddenly people broke the
• 55:01
  firmament of the sky and started to look out into space.
• 55:05
  You know, like the the famous quote by Yuri Gagarin, the
• 55:09
  Russian astronaut was I don't see God anywhere.
• 55:12
  And you're like, what? What did you expect?
• 55:15
  Like, I mean it just again, it's like there's a naivety to some
• 55:19
  of the questions that assume certainty.
• 55:23
  OK, so with our last four minutes.
• 55:27
  We just talked about science like in a in a passing way and
• 55:31
  faith in a passing way, in various different ways.
• 55:34
  What's the relationship between science and faith then?
• 55:38
  Like what is science good at and what is faith good at?
• 55:44
  So so I think science is good at.
• 55:47
  Asking lots of questions, except for the why question like I
• 55:52
  think that's where it tends to. Struggle, right?
• 55:54
  Like it does. It's not its function.
• 55:56
  It tends to seem to like, look at when and how, what best it
• 56:00
  can. It's a.
• 56:01
  There it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:03
  But that's what it. Is yeah, but as soon.
• 56:06
  As it gets to, why is it there? That's not really it's field.
• 56:10
  And I think good scientists tend to acknowledge that that like
• 56:14
  we're not, we're not capable of doing that.
• 56:16
  So the best we can say is that it was there because it was
• 56:19
  there or there because something happened, but the why behind it
• 56:23
  becomes a real limitation. And so I, I think the best, the
• 56:27
  best theologians that I've I've met do not feel like they're at
• 56:30
  war with science. And the best scientists I've met
• 56:33
  do not think they're at war with theology.
• 56:36
  So like we're, we're trying to approach the thing that we see
• 56:39
  from different, there are two different fields. 1 like.
• 56:43
  And I think a lot of Christians, you know, and a lot of, and
• 56:47
  rightfully so, like Christianity has struggled in the scientific
• 56:51
  space for a lot of reasons, partially because we have tried
• 56:55
  to say Christianity's doing science.
• 56:57
  Yeah. And I, I would tend to disagree
• 57:01
  with that. But yeah, it's, it's not trying
• 57:06
  to do science, it's trying to ask the why.
• 57:09
  Yeah, meaning questions. And it often times is vetted out
• 57:13
  by science in different various different ways and really
• 57:15
  exciting ways. But its primary agenda isn't to
• 57:20
  explain what a thing is. It's explained why a thing is.
• 57:23
  Yeah, Yeah. And vice versa.
• 57:25
  Science. Science can try as hard as it
• 57:28
  can to define the molecular structure of being moved by a
• 57:34
  piece of beautiful music. And it can see, oh, oh, we see
• 57:38
  the brain in this section of the brain is firing.
• 57:43
  But. Why does that result in?
• 57:45
  Tears welling up in my eyes when I hear a vocalist hit that note.
• 57:50
  And why did it not work for another person?
• 57:52
  Yeah, like. Why, why did the person next to
• 57:55
  you not feel anything the same that you felt?
• 57:58
  Yeah. So it always pushes into these
• 57:59
  different. Yeah.
• 58:00
  If we've got time, I just want to drop a note that I think is
• 58:04
  helpful on the question around like that you mentioned of like,
• 58:07
  am I good enough? Are we good?
• 58:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I think this is.
• 58:11
  Something that I really. Value from my own life.
• 58:17
  I think that when we ask those questions like let's, let's
• 58:21
  phrase it specifically, like, am I good with you?
• 58:24
  Yeah, they're very much first. Person.
• 58:27
  Questions. OK, they start with me and I
• 58:31
  think the message. Of the of.
• 58:34
  Jesus is that it doesn't start with me, it starts with Him.
• 58:38
  You know, there's actually a really.
• 58:39
  Great, one of my one. Of my favorite clips from a
• 58:42
  sermon is from a guy who I disagree with on a ton of
• 58:45
  things. It's a guy called Alistair Begg
• 58:48
  and one of the things he talks about is like.
• 58:51
  The. Gospel's always third person.
• 58:54
  It always starts with God. If it starts with me, I've gone
• 58:57
  wrong at the beginning. So like, if I think like I'm
• 59:01
  going to stand before God one day and say like, and he's going
• 59:04
  to say, you know, why are you? Why do you think you should be
• 59:07
  here? And I start with because.
• 59:09
  I. That's actually not how.
• 59:12
  The Gospels. Ever.
• 59:13
  Presented, it's actually because you.
• 59:18
  And so the story actually like he tells is he imagines this guy
• 59:22
  who's brand new to faith, the thief on the cross going and
• 59:25
  standing, you know, at the gates of heaven.
• 59:27
  And the guy, the Angel who's laying him in says, you know,
• 59:30
  like, well, you know, on what basis are you here?
• 59:32
  You know, tell us about the doctrine of like justification.
• 59:35
  It's like you don't really know anything.
• 59:37
  And he's like, OK, well, how about like the doctrine of like
• 59:39
  scriptures, like not a clue what you're talking about.
• 59:42
  It's like, well, why are you here?
• 59:43
  And he says because the man on the middle cross said I could
• 59:45
  come ultimate Trump. Card, Yeah, yeah.
• 59:49
  Yeah, yeah, and and and. That.
• 59:51
  Question of like, are we good? Am I, am I good with you?
• 59:54
  Is actually like because you said I am, because you invited
• 59:59
  me. And you welcome me so so so that
• 1:00:02
  that like that has to be the ground level thing now.
• 1:00:06
  Now the question then becomes like am I living life as you
• 1:00:10
  attend intended it to be lived, or am I like continuing on this
• 1:00:16
  journey. However you might phrase that am
• 1:00:17
  I am I reaping the harvest of all the.
• 1:00:21
  Sure, sure, sure, sure. Sure.
• 1:00:22
  Yeah, yeah. Potential.
• 1:00:23
  But but if the if that question tries to recreate the foundation
• 1:00:28
  in Paul's language and doesn't start with but you invited me,
• 1:00:34
  you said I could come, you welcome me in like that's my
• 1:00:38
  foundation now. What else do you have for me?
• 1:00:41
  Is there something else you have for me is a better question, I
• 1:00:44
  think. Then am I good with you?
• 1:00:47
  Because if you've if you've. If you've chosen to accept Jesus
• 1:00:55
  invitation. That that.
• 1:00:58
  That is the only basis. Right, for being good.
• 1:01:03
  So, so I think that like I, I always think when I ask
• 1:01:07
  questions that way, I tend to have to catch myself and say,
• 1:01:10
  OK, this probably isn't the basis.
• 1:01:12
  So we can we can settle your mind at ease that that.
• 1:01:15
  The Christian tradition teaches that we can give you a more
• 1:01:23
  sure, a sure answer to the question, are you, are you doing
• 1:01:27
  this right? And are you good with God?
• 1:01:31
  And the answer to that question that the tradition offers is it
• 1:01:33
  doesn't actually matter what you're doing or whatever.
• 1:01:37
  What matters is whether you have said yes.
• 1:01:41
  I would like to receive the grace you have to offer, you
• 1:01:45
  know, in, in, in terms of like. Sometimes we think of ourselves
• 1:01:49
  as making a journey towards God, and the only way to see that is
• 1:01:53
  He's come almost all the way. Do you remember Hitch the movie?
• 1:01:57
  Yeah, Yeah. The kiss scene is like, you
• 1:01:59
  know, like he says, I say you go 90 and she comes ten.
• 1:02:02
  You never go the 400%. Yeah.
• 1:02:04
  Yeah. Well, well, in this, like, to
• 1:02:06
  take that analogy, like God has come 99% of the way and that
• 1:02:10
  made me even cover it. Like our response is miniscule
• 1:02:13
  compared to the distance he has come to find us.
• 1:02:16
  Yeah. You know, we're simply saying
• 1:02:19
  yes to the God who has come almost all the way and then all
• 1:02:22
  the rest of the teachings of Scripture and invitation.
• 1:02:24
  To life, sure. Yeah.
• 1:02:26
  Well, on that note, on that bombshell, on that bombshell,
• 1:02:28
  we're going to call it an. A day we.
• 1:02:30
  Did not get a chance to address the question Are there many ways
• 1:02:33
  to God? There's plenty of opportunities
• 1:02:36
  to address that question later in this alpha focused series
• 1:02:40
  that we'll do on the show. And so I put it down for next
• 1:02:43
  week. If that's a question you have.
• 1:02:45
  If you disagree with everything we just said, send us a note on
• 1:02:48
  Red Couch theology.com. Send us harder questions, easier
• 1:02:52
  questions, whatever you would like.
• 1:02:55
  If you want to, we'd love to hear from you.
• 1:02:58
  And yeah, I'm going to try and find the stop button as I do
• 1:03:02
  every single week. Goodbye.