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#57 - Why the Bible Is Central to Evangelism · Gospel Talks Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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  My name is George Benoka and I'm your co-host and back with me is Jeff Musgrave.
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  He's the author, editor, and the founder of the Exchange Ministry and his co-founder is Anna Musgrave, his precious wife, and they've traveled all over the United States training
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  uh hundreds of churches on how to do relational evangelism and discipleship.
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  And so
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  We're glad to have him back in studio today.
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  How are you doing?
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  Give us a little life update about yourself.
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  It's good to see you, George.
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  It's exciting to be able to be back.
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  It's been a long summer.
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  um I have done all of my traveling this summer by myself.
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  has uh been having some health issues and so she's been home.
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  I've been in and out of uh Mexico several times with different kind of area wide uh training.
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  events that we did there and I did a training event in Chicago for some missionaries.
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  So it's been a busy time, uh tiring time.
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  So I've actually the last couple of weeks been recuperating a little bit and doing great.
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  I'm really excited to be able to get back into the saddle.
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  Man, I'm glad to hear that.
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  And I hope when I get up to your point in life that I could be as active as you are.
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  Yeah, you're actually trying to find the most polite way to say that.
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  When I get to your age, I really do hope I could be as active as you um and are just incredible the amount of ministry you guys are still doing.
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  m And so lots more to do.
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  This episode of the podcast, we really wanna talk about what role does the Bible play?
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  um
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  Jeff and I have talked about this times past and so this is something we feel like we can just talk through You guys are getting more of a raw conversation here, but but let me
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  just start with this I guess the place where we have to start is truth and what is truth?
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  How would you answer that if an unbeliever asked you?
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  It's an interesting question because that is the question that Pilate asked Jesus when Jesus said I came for this purpose that I could literally it's almost like he was saying
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  I'm bringing truth down to the world and Pilate says what is truth and Jesus was sitting right in front of him.
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  I am the way the truth and life and and he didn't recognize it.
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  And I think that that's one of the things that we have to recognize with the Word of God is that it spells out for us, it provides for us, it gives to us truth and access to
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  truth, which is God himself.
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  And sometimes we don't really, we see it as a book that gives us knowledge that kind of spells things out for us.
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  And we've got to take our theology and our doctrine from it.
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  but it is the source of truth for humans in the world today.
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  if I were to answer the question, what is truth?
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  I would say truth is found in the word of God.
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  Your word is truth.
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  Yeah, well, it's what Jesus says when he says in John chapter one, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
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  And so um Jesus himself is a, his life was truth, but that's been encapsulated in the inspired scriptures.
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  think that's why um Peter says, sorry, in Timothy, Paul says to Timothy, this is God breathed.
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  I mean, you can...
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  you could still smell his breath on the pages, know, that kind of thing.
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  So much so the truth that it's the exact words God would have chosen to express the truths of heaven as if he had took and pen himself.
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  if yeah, go ahead.
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  that that picture that you just said you can smell his you can still smell his breath.
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  And it's like, that's that's what gets me up every morning to spend my time in the Word of God is literally to feel the breath of God in my soul.
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  And to and to feel him breathing that life into me through the time spent with him and the word that that's
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  That's such a beautiful thought that you can still smell his breath in these words.
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  Yeah, yeah, I was just teaching a class called, you know, how to understand the Bible to our church in the summertime.
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  And um the way we help them understand that verse, what does it mean that God's word is God breathe is you put your hand right in front of your mouth and you say something, say
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  anything, and you feel your breath on your hand.
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  That's exactly what happened as these men were God used them, their personalities, their hands to write these books in their language and their time.
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  but it was God breathing.
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  I his breath came through, you know.
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  now, yeah, well, it changes how you look at the word of God.
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  All of a sudden, it's not just like any other resource sitting on my shelf.
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  It's a sword that can pierce to divide the soul.
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  I mean, it's alive.
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  It's not a dead document.
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  The Holy Spirit actively uses it.
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  I guess a bigger question than just what is truth is, why did God reveal himself at all to us?
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  You know, people ask that question.
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  It's a question you get sometimes in seminary as a pastor, but I think even any Christian has thought about this, know, why did God reveal himself to me?
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  How do we know that God revealed himself to us, that this is how God revealed himself to us?
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  How would you answer a question like that?
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  Well, number one, he told us he did.
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  I mean, how do I know he did it?
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  He said so.
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  So if the Bible is a good book and I really think that apart from some really out of the box kind of people, everybody recognizes the Bible as a historically good book.
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  And if the Bible is a good book, then we have to look at it and say, what does it say about itself?
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  And the Bible does tell us that God gave us this book that this is how he revealed himself to us.
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  And I think if I were going to give a definition of the Bible, it would be the Bible is the self, the progressive self revelation of God so that we could know him.
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  I mean, that's really the essence of why God revealed himself because he wants to have a relationship with us.
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  And so, I mean, not only do you still
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  smell his breath on this book.
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  But in addition to that, uh you recognize a reaching out to you and pulling to you because he longs to have a close relationship with you.
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  I do believe it's His Word He uses to draw you.
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  It's truth He uses to draw you.
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  It's who Jesus is.
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  To play devil's advocate though, there are some people that would look at that point in the conversation and say, that's a bit of circular reasoning.
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  What if somebody who's listening to this podcast, somebody who's a laborer in the harvest is dealing with somebody that says they don't believe the Bible, they don't believe it's
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  true.
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  How do you help somebody like that?
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  How do you take them?
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  Because it's 150 Bible verses, the Exchange Bible study.
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  So what do you do with that?
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  Can I back up to something you said and kind of grab onto, you gave that passing complaint that it's circular reasoning, that the Bible claims truth, therefore it is truth.
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  And I think that that picture of reasoning is really, really interesting.
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  I was just reading this
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  I'm preparing a message that I'm going to preach this Sunday on false prophets and teachers from 2 Peter chapter 2, the first three verses.
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  But backing up to that, I haven't preached the messages prior to this, so I'm kind of having to get in and run with it.
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  Peter is telling the...
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  people that's listening to him.
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  Now I was on the mountain and I saw Jesus in his deified, glorified
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  shining forth and then he says this phrase he says we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed and then he says uh knowing this first he said i'm going to give you some
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  reasons why you should pay attention to the word of god because that's the next phrases he says we have this prophetic word more fully confirmed to which
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  you will do well to pay attention.
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  And so he's telling us that you're going to need to listen to this word.
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  And then he gives us some reasons.
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  And he says, the first reason knowing this, first of all, that no prophecy comes from someone's own interpretation.
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  And I think that that's, that's really, it didn't come about from, it didn't arise from, it didn't get created from reasoning.
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  And so that whole circular reasoning concept uh starts with the premise that I have to figure it out.
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  And I think that what we have to recognize is no, we have to listen to the one who created.
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  He figured it out.
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  He's telling us he's revealing to us.
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  And so this is not a matter of if I can get it right, I'll understand it.
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  This is a matter of
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  God revealed himself.
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  My job in looking at the word of God is to uh genuinely see this is God revealing himself to me and I get to see him in this book.
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  And that's really the definition of life.
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  God is the definition of life.
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  He's the creator of life.
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  Therefore it's, not circular reasoning.
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  It's just recognizing this is the truth.
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  This is the revelation of God.
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  and letting him speak to me.
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  Now back to the other question you asked, what if a guy looks at this book and says, that's ridiculous, that's stupid.
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  Why would I, the Bible says faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.
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  He says the preaching of the cross, which is the one message that speaks into an unbeliever's heart, the message of the cross that is the one thing that speaks
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  past the logic and the reasoning to the person's heart is foolishness to those who are perishing.
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  And it is life.
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  It is the power of God to those who are being saved.
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  And so the fact is the Word of God is going to produce life in the people that God is calling to himself.
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  And I don't have to
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  make that happen.
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  I don't have to figure out a way to convince people.
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  All I have to do is take the message of the cross and put it into a person's life through a clear proclamation and a caring proclamation, a compelling proclamation, and God will do
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  the work of helping that person understand.
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  Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God.
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  The Word of God is self-authenticating.
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  It does its own work.
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  We just have to use it.
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  My favorite text for that concept too is when Jesus goes to his disciples and Matthew 16 asks the most important question that can be asked of anybody, who do people say that I
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  am?
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  And I mean, they present, know, here's kind of we polled the crowd and here's the poll results.
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  And then, you know, Jesus, excuse me, sorry, I'll edit this out.
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  Could I call, I'm on a call, could I call you
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  power of editing.
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  One of my favorite texts is Matthew chapter 16.
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  Jesus asks the most important question.
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  The disciples have pulled the crowd.
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  He says, who do people say they am?
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  And they go, oh, well, some people say you're Elijah.
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  Some people say you're John the Baptist reincarnates.
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  Some people say you're this, that.
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  And he says, OK, who do you say that I am?
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  And this is where Peter pipes up and says, you are the Christ, Son of the living God.
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  he says, very important, right after Peter says that, says,
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  flesh and blood has not shown this to you, but my Father who's in heaven." I really think the only one that can cure spiritual blindness is God.
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  And like you said, the best thing, the most powerful tool in our arsenal we have is actually the Bible.
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  And sometimes what we need to do, this is what I love about, you show people a verse and you put it in front of them.
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  You have them read it themselves and you get out of the way a little bit because...
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  You're right.
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  It is self convincing.
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  The scriptures will speak for themselves.
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  uh The Holy Spirit will speak for himself.
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  now if that person rejects what the Holy Spirit has done, if they decide to attribute it to somebody else, that's between them and God.
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  But I don't think our job is to convince, uh which is why we don't have to feel like, it's circular reasoning.
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  It's like, well, sometimes instead of describing the product or arguing for the product, why don't you just let them try the product?
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  um and see what it's all about.
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  um So here's another one that I struggle with.
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  Having said all that, how powerful God's Word is, there are times that I see people don't really use God's Word.
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  They will paraphrase aspects of but they don't actually bring it out, know, open it up, or reference it specifically.
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  um Should somebody use the Bible when they evangelize?
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  Do they have to?
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  Is there...
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  Is there, you know, would it be foolish not to?
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  Is there dangers in not using it?
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  What are your thoughts on that?
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  Especially where on the street kind of evangelism is concerned where it's like you're running to somebody, you start to have a conversation.
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  It's just like, you didn't bring your Bible with you.
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  Maybe you have your phone with you, but you know, how do you handle that?
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  Yeah.
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  So.
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  question, what is the Bible?
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  Is the Bible a leather book?
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  Is the Bible paper and ink?
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  um mean, uh the Bible is God's Word.
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  So when we say a phrase that is God's Word, that's the Bible, that's God working.
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  The reason I say something about that is because
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  Sometimes people will ask me about the exchange Bible study.
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  Well, shouldn't I use my Bible?
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  And I'm thinking there's 150 Bible verses in there.
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  Yeah.
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  Use the Bible by reading it right there in the Bible study.
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  Um, you know, it's, it's like, we've got this, um, idea that if I hold this leather thing, uh, it's, it's more powerful.
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  And the so should I use the Bible?
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  Well, you can't really tell people about God without the Bible.
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  You really can't.
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  You can tell people about an imagination that you came up with in your own brain.
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  But God revealed himself to us in the word of God.
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  So there's no way to talk about God without using the Bible.
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  I actually do believe that memorizing, quoting, reading God's word is more powerful than
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  paraphrasing it.
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  So if I insert myself into it by saying, here's what the Bible says.
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  I do believe that putting me between that person and the Bible is just going to weaken its effect.
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  And so I love the exchange Bible study.
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  You were talking about witnessing on the street and I would just say most of the time in a
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  confrontational moment like that.
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  I'm going to want to invite that person to sit down and look at it with me sometime, somewhere, because it's hard for me to expect someone to make such a critical life
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  changing decision without having genuinely investigated it.
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  And how can you investigate it without looking at the Word of God?
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  So I love the Bible study, the exchange Bible study.
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  because we're going to be studying the Word.
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  We're going to be asking questions of the Word.
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  We're going to be answering those questions from the Word.
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  And that's why I think it is so powerful.
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  I am you know that the thing I was going to ask you next which which is kind of you just answered is so I mean what does the Bible actually do in the conversation you know like
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  what what are the benefits and I think we've pretty well listed as I don't if there's anything else you would add but but I I think to this because I've been answering a lot of
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  questions recently a lot of hard questions and I something the Lord
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  allowed to come into my mind when I was answering a lot of hard questions was, you can't go wrong quoting me.
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  You can't go wrong saying it exactly as I said it.
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  You just can't go wrong.
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  Where I go wrong, me personally, where George goes wrong, is when he adds his words and mixes them in with God's words.
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  That's the danger of systematic theology is that you're
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  there are inferences on top of, and there's a place for systematic theology, definitely we need it, but honestly to the audience of laborers in the harvest, mean the best thing we
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  can do is just quote God exactly as he said it.
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  think that's, there are lots of benefits to that besides that it's the Holy Spirit's sword through which he pierces the soul.
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  um It has the authority, it's the words of Jesus Christ, it's
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  It's from heaven.
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  It's able to peel back blindness.
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  able to, you know, the Holy Spirit can use it to convict.
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  I don't know if there's anything else you'd add to that.
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  Well, just a thought process.
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  Systems are important.
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  um if you think about the exchange gospel presentation, the exchange Bible study, that's actually a system.
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  What we've done is we've said, here are some truths about God that if you study in a logical sequence, you're going to understand why I don't have relationship with God.
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  He's holy and my sin separates me.
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  oh The consequences of that
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  being that there's death as a result of sin always causes death, that's what sin does, but that Jesus died and took that death on himself.
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  You see there's a systematic approach to being able to proclaim the truth.
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  So systems are important.
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  The issue is the Bible must inform our systems, not that our systems inform the Bible.
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  uh
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  we get our truth from the Word of God and organizing it so that we can communicate it well is imperative.
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  I mean, that's what good instruction, good teaching from the Bible is all about.
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  um so I think the real problem with systems is when our system becomes a logic that we overlay on top of the Bible rather than
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  our Bible is something we're going to overlay on top of our logic.
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  Right, right.
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  Do you bend the Bible to fit your system or do you bend your system to fit the Bible?
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  And that's, we have to have the humility as believers to just submit ourselves to what scripture says.
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  And the question is it doesn't answer, it doesn't answer.
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  And if it answers a question in a way we can't understand, then we can't understand it right now.
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  That doesn't mean it's illogical, it just means God wrote the book.
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  So there's definitely gonna be things you don't understand when you read it, you know?
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  knows everything and we're not going to know.
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  I don't think we're going to know everything when we get to heaven.
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  I mean, we're going to keep learning.
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  Yep, yep, I'm with you on that.
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  um Another one that I see commonly and it's, can you know Jesus without the Bible?
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  Because there's some folks that are like, know, Jesus is, you whatever he is to you, you know, it's like, whenever you believe about Jesus, great, big thumbs up.
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  um But I mean, the Bible is where we, it defines our understanding of Jesus.
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  uh
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  Well, here's the way I hear it.
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  Sometimes people say, my God wouldn't do that.
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  And, my answer to that is, well, then, then your God is not the God because the God said about himself that he does this and whatever that this is.
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  Uh, because yes, there are other Jesus, the Bible talks about that, that they're, they're preaching another Jesus and, uh,
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  I do think you can talk about Jesus without looking at the Bible, but you're not talking about Jesus Christ, Messiah, who saves uh the God of the Bible revealed himself.
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  And so you can't really talk about him without studying and talking about what he said about himself from the Bible.
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  I think you're exactly right.
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  The flip side of that coin then would be, is the Bible enough?
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  Especially for people who know of other Christian tools out there, good tools, that feel like, maybe I need this plus the Bible.
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  Is the Bible enough?
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  I think the verse that comes to mind is uh from 1 Peter or 2 Peter again.
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  And in 2 Peter chapter 1, the very beginning of the book, he tells us that uh he has given us all things that pertained to life and godliness through the knowledge of him.
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  uh
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  So is the Bible enough?
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  Well, it gave us everything we need for life and godliness.
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  There are probably some things on earth that you're not going to learn from the Bible, but everything that pertains to life, real life and godliness, it's all right here in the Word
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  of God.
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  So everything we need for genuine oh fulfillment and
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  connection with God, which is life.
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  It's in the Word of God.
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  Yep, it is everything we need for our soul is there.
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  Well, I think we've pretty much covered what role does the Bible play in relational evangelism and discipleship.
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  Thank you guys so much for listening and to the laborers in the harvest, we ask you to pray with us to the Lord of Harvest that he'd send forth more of you guys, that uh he'd
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  help us be effective in the harvest.
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  It's white, it's ready.
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  There are opportunities all around us.
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  and we just need to beckon and call to God to help us in this endeavor.
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  We love you guys.
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  Thank you so much for listening.
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  Share this podcast with somebody that you know it'll encourage and we'll see you guys next week.