Dangerous Faith

Do You Know What's Better Than a Bible Verse? #95: Dangerous Faith

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Nate Williams talks about the mistake of relying on individual Bible verses for your theology and offers a better way.

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Speaker 1:

If you've been a Christian for long enough, you know the feeling of searching for a specific Bible verse to cover a specific situation. And maybe you're frustrated because you can't find something. You're looking and you're looking and you're putting in keywords, you're googling, you're scrolling the rest of it, flipping pages, but you can't find a Bible verse that specifically covers a certain situation. And so you get frustrated. You say, oh man, well, I'll send a person, a friend, or maybe, if it's for you, I'll just find the closest verse that'll cover a situation. And you know, you find the verse and you kind of make do, you shrug, you're like ah, I guess this is the best I can do for now and you go about your merry way. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But let me tell you what's better than a Bible verse or what's better than Bible verses. This is Nate Williams with the Dangerous Faith Podcast. Before I get to what's better than a Bible verse or Bible verses, I'll kind of explain what led to the topic of this episode. I was watching a Mike Winger video and if you don't know who he is, he's a YouTuber creates high-quality content for Christians and he tries to help people to think biblically. He was responding to a progressive theologian a very leftist, liberal type person, online and I'm not going to tell you who it is because that's besides the point. But he was walking through some bad interpretations of the Bible and as an apologist, I have to say that progressive theology is very creative. They'll take certain passages of the Bible and they'll come up with the most novel interpretations. Now they're terribly wrong, but sometimes they're new. I've never heard of these things before. They're just completely made up ways of reading a Bible passage. And so in order to debunk the interpretation, in order to refute the lies, bad doctrine, heresy, all the rest of it, that takes a lot of work and apologists and theologians need to do that work. But for the layman, the laity, the everyday Christian, you might not have time for that. You might not have time to look up every false thing that's said. Find the perfect Bible verse to refute it all, or to string together Bible verses that'll give a good answer. That takes a lot of time, energy and effort. Not everyone has that. And then you can go, not just progressive theology, you can go to different topics.

Speaker 1:

I think of Bible contradictions. If you look online and search Bible contradictions, you'll find very long lists of just things that people think. Well, this is why you got to throw out the Bible. This is why you got to get rid of it. Look at this long list of the Bible contradicting itself, and so on and so forth. Debunking every contradiction takes a lot of time and takes a lot of effort Not everyone has that and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1:

So, as I was thinking about this that yes, we need people apologists, theologians, bible studies based upon debunking heresies and bad thinking. Yes, that's all important, but not everyone can necessarily take part in that endeavor and it got me thinking about the need for something greater than just a good Bible verse here and there for topics. It also leads me to I know this is a long-winded answer to get to what I'm ultimately getting to, but just bear with me. It also leads me to my frustrations with devotional books. You and I have seen them. You go in a Christian bookstore, get these devotional books. They'll take a verse or two and then have a paragraph explanation, a little prayer and you go about your day. You go about your day. On one hand, I'll take that over nothing. So read a couple verses, pray and start your day. That's fine, but oftentimes that by itself leads to a very disjointed way of viewing the Bible Just grabbing a couple verses and doing your own thing Instead.

Speaker 1:

All of this, everything I've just mentioned up until this point different scenarios, different areas um, the better way is to have a cohesive, overarching biblical worldview Instead of scrambling and trying to find just the perfect Bible verse in every situation or when answering bad theology. We need an overall, well-put-together biblical worldview. Now, it relies on the Bible. Please hear me, I'm not saying get rid of the Bible, but what it does is, whenever you hear something new, you're not scrambling, you're not like oh no, what do I do? You're able to respond with a foundational way of viewing reality and viewing the world that is based upon God's reveal truth in the Bible. And so now, because I have that, when I hear bad theology you know word of faith, name it, claim it progressive theology. Or when I'm confronted with other religions Islam and Buddhism and the rest of it when the Bible is attacked in some new and novel way, I'm not scrambling because my overall worldview is not affected. Scrambling because my overall worldview is not affected. It's based upon I'll walk through some tenets of a biblical worldview. It's based upon the fact that God exists. So overall there's theism.

Speaker 1:

This God created the world to function a certain way, just like if you invent something, let's say some new piece of technology, you design it to work in a certain way, and so that's how God made the world. It's based upon some foundational structures. You have the laws of logic, you have the laws of morality, you have the laws of logic, you have the laws of morality, you have the laws of science. You have different aspects of, I guess, reproduction. So one man and one woman is needed to produce a baby, and so there's that, and then you have just different aspects of it. But that's called natural law.

Speaker 1:

God made the world upon certain foundational principles. That if you transgress those principles, if you are, let's say, laws of logic, if you are illogical, laws of morality, if you are immoral, laws of science, if you just again do, from a scientific point of view, stupid things, well you're not going to flourish because that's not how God created the world to function. So in my cohesive biblical worldview, you start with God. Well, god made the world, that's the beginning of Genesis and then he made it upon certain foundations natural law, and then from there, that's helpful for, let's say, a flourishing society for us to function.

Speaker 1:

But also biblically. We know from Genesis that we're sinners, we've rebelled against God, and so all of this stuff I mentioned before is good, but not for salvation. That then you have the gospel message from the word of God, the Bible, that we're sinners in need of a savior. We can't save ourself. That addresses other religions Islam, buddhism, hinduism, new Age, the rest of it. You can't save yourself through some knowledge or some good practices or the eightfold, this, the four, noble that. The rest of it, that's part of some Eastern religions Islam following Allah. No matter what you do, you can't save yourself. And so that addresses the other religions. Well, you need Jesus fully God, fully man. Some people would rather it be truly God, truly man. You get what I'm trying to say. So Jesus came to earth and died on the cross for our sins, and so you believe and trust in him alone, through faith, and you're now saved. Romans, chapter 10. Okay, now that addresses salvation.

Speaker 1:

Now what about ethics? How should we then live In light of who God is, how he made the world and him saving us? How should we then live? That gets into the oughts and the shoulds and the shouldn'ts and the rest of it. Well, love God, love your neighbor.

Speaker 1:

In Matthew we read about being salt and light. So then you want to love others. Put others before yourself, the golden rule. Okay, now you have your ethics. That's how you should go about living. The Bible talks about defending the poor, the outcasts, the rejected, the widows, the orphans. All right, then there's that and so on and so forth, and so what happens is, as I take all these things together God, nature, bible, nature being God's general revelation, the Bible being God's divine revelation I now have an overall cohesive worldview that's based on the Bible. And Well, that's great.

Speaker 1:

If you don't have that, you struggle a little bit, and so the alternative to a cohesive worldview is, I guess, what I'll call shooting from the hip. Every time an issue comes up, you're scrambling to address it. So you try to find a Bible verse or some catchy, quick-witted answer, and then you struggle. And so my encouragement to you is build your worldview. Even within Christianity, there are different alternatives. You have the Reformed worldview. You have different tools and tidbits you can use. There's Molinism. There's, you know, even different branches of the faith. You have Greek, orthodox, catholic, protestant different theologies within them. You have Pentecostalism, cessationism, continuationism and the rest of it. I'm just throwing out terms. Now it gets more detailed and you can fill out things a little bit more than what I've talked about in this episode. But overall the goal is biblical faithfulness and that's how you then address the world.

Speaker 1:

And so I know a lot of people. They don't evangelize, they're not active in their faith, they don't get out in the world because they're scared. And they think what if I hear something that I don't know how to handle? What if I come across an objection from a Muslim, a progressive person? I'm not going to say progressive Christian, because I don't hold progressive Christian to be a form of Christianity, so I'm just going to say, maybe progressive liberalism or whatever, I'll use a different term. What if I just hear something from an atheist that I don't know how to answer? A couple things. One, you can always say I don't know, I'll get back to you. So that's a practical response. But two, you can fall back on your cohesive Christian biblical worldview and think, okay, well, I'm not shaken because the objection, the thing I came across online or with a friend, well, it didn't actually get at the foundation of my faith. So I'll give an example the Muslim will often attack the Trinity, will often attack the Trinity and they'll say the Trinity doesn't make sense, that's not who God is and the rest of it.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes, unless you're brushed up on your Trinitarian part of your theology, some of the objections you're kind of like oh wow, that makes sense. The Trinity is kind of difficult. But then I go back to my worldview. Yes, study up on the Trinity and have answers, do your research. But in the moment let's say, if you're not able to do so, I fall back on the basics. God exists. He made the world to function a certain way. I'm a sinner in need of a savior, the tomb is empty, jesus is risen and all those foundations of the Christian faith. So even if I can't answer, let's say, a Trinitarian objection, in the moment I can breathe.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I know Islam is a false religion because it's based upon works and there's nothing I can do to save myself. A Muslim works really hard to try to appear on Judgment Day and have enough going for him or her in order to reach paradise. I know fundamentally that doesn't work. So, whatever they attack about the Trinity, I know there's a flaw at the core of their religion and so, okay, I'm not going to be a Muslim. I need to brush up on my Trinitarian theology in order to find good answers, and so, if you want to do that, there's a YouTube channel called Capturing Christianity. They talk about some issues, I think recently about Islam and Trinity. There's William Lane Craig. He recently had a debate on the Trinity with a Muslim, and then you have other apologetics resources that you can say, okay, I'm all right, islam fails.

Speaker 1:

One of the basic things I know about the world, which is you can't earn your salvation. Okay, now let me do some research and give me some time. So that would be one example. Let's see what's another thing. Oh, let's take something about the Bible.

Speaker 1:

An atheist says, oh, the Bible was written by backwards shepherds, ignorant people that didn't know anything that we know now, yada, yada. You might think, all right, that seems like a strong objection. I don't have an answer in the moment. Okay, what do I do? What do I do? You fall back on your cohesive Christian biblical worldview and you say, okay, an atheist says this.

Speaker 1:

But atheism fails in a couple different ways. I know that God exists, I know that creation can't come from nothing. Something can't come from nothing. And so I know God had to create the world or something. Whether God or not, something had to create the world, because nothingness doesn't make sense if we're saying it led to everything we see today. All right, atheism. It is foundationally flawed.

Speaker 1:

And so now let me look into the authors of the Bible, let me look into divine revelation and the rest of it. I can brush up on that. But I know atheism as an answer. It's just very unsatisfying, lots of deep flaws. Let me brush up now on this specific topic.

Speaker 1:

So you see, what I'm doing is I'm not panicking when I hear objections from other worldviews. I'm not panicking when I come across something I haven't heard before. I go back to my Christian foundation and I look at these other ways of thinking and maybe they make a good point that I need to study. But in the moment I'm not shaken because I know there are some deep flaws with their worldview. And so I'm not panicking, I'm not thinking oh no, I gotta. What do I do now? I don't have a perfect bible verse or I don't have an answer on the spot. I fall back on my foundation, I brush myself off a little bit, I do some research and I say all right, here are some answers, but I really don't sweat it. You could go through different examples of it.

Speaker 1:

Whether Trinity, whether Bible authors, whether contradictions, I fall back on these different things that I know to be true, that I get from the Bible, and so, unless those things are fundamentally shaken, like, oh no, I just learned that nothing can create something. I just learned that nothing can lead to our universe. All right, well, that's a little bit different. Oh no, the tomb is not empty. They found the body of Jesus. Oh well, okay if that happens now all of a sudden. Okay, we got to think through some things. Oh no, I just learned, in a truthful kind of way, with lots of research and evidence, that the Bible was written yesterday. I say, oh, oh boy, our faith is based on the Bible. If it's written yesterday, we're in trouble, unless the core aspects of the biblical worldview are shown to be false. I'm not sweating these different things because I breathe, I know. Okay, let me do some research. My cohesive biblical worldview is still in place. Even if I don't have a Bible verse on the spot, even if I don't have a fancy answer right away, it's all going to be okay. Let me take my time with this. And so, because I've served in youth group ministry and I've served in young adult ministry, pastoral ministry, the rest of it Sometimes people panic when they hear something they don't know how to handle.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes people they say, oh no, this YouTuber said this, what do I do? I say, hold on, let's go back to these axioms of the faith. Let's just think through these things. It's all going to be okay. Your faith is not destroyed.

Speaker 1:

Christianity is not debunked by the latest claim from a YouTuber and the rest of it. So, anyways, what's better than a Bible verse? What's better than a couple Bible verses? It is a way of viewing reality. This is called a worldview that is biblically based and cohesive, start to bottom, from the existence of God all the way down to how we should live. It all makes sense.

Speaker 1:

And, yeah, there will be a hole here and there. There'll be some tough questions, sure, but overall, you're not shaken when you hear something new. Now I've addressed this more from an apologetic standpoint. I could have gone the pastoral route, and it's still true. When you lose your job, when you're ill, when you're injured, when you face death, when there are struggles and trials and tribulations, and you're like oh no, what do I do? You fall back on your worldview and it might be tough, it might be difficult, but ultimately you're secure in your faith.

Speaker 1:

The Bible does not change. You're not shaken because the Bible's not shaken. The Bible has seen it all, every sort of attack in every sort of way. And yet we're still here. The tomb is still empty. Jesus is risen. It's gonna be okay. No need to panic or worry. Breathe, do some research, ask me questions. Mike Winger on YouTube is a phenomenal resource, and the rest of it. There is just no need to freak out. But anyways, my thoughts, I'd love to hear yours. Am I wrong somewhere? Did I miss something? Let me know. You can follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, facebook, instagram. We also have a website, dangerousfaithnet, and if you found this comforting or if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to share with others. I would greatly appreciate it. Anyways, nate Williams, glad to talk with you today. Until next time. I guess I'll talk with you today, until next time. I guess I'll talk with you later, thank you.